English25/01/2019 PIC TO DISCUSS SDA INITIATIVE ON TUESDAY SARAJEVO, January 25 /SRNA/ - A meeting of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council /PIC/ at a level of ambassadors in BiH, where the SDA initiative to launch a legal procedure to dispute the name of Republika Srpska before the BiH Constitutional Court will be discussed, is scheduled for Tuesday, January 29, the Embassy of the Russian Federation has told SRNA. The meeting of the PIC at the level of ambassadors will be held at 14:00 in Sarajevo. The Russian Embassy announced yesterday that it proposed to its partners from the Steering Board of the PIC that an extraordinary meeting be called because of the intention of the SDA to call into the question the Dayton name of Republika Srpska. The Russian Embassy expressed concern over the intention of the SDA to call into the question the Dayton name of one of the Entities and warned that such initiatives jeopardize the process of ethnic reconciliation with hardly foreseeable consequences. We consider such statements dangerous attempts to revise the Dayton Agreement which undermine the stability of the country and complicate government formation at all levels, the Russian Embassy told SRNA. The SDA announced that its representatives will launch a legal procedure to dispute the name of Republika Srpska before the BiH Constitutional Court. /end/sg English25/01/2019 CVIJANOVIC: STRENGTHEN COOPERATION BETWEEN THE SERBIAN PEOPLE IN THE DIASPORA AND HOMELAND BANJALUKA, January 25 /SRNA/ - Republika Srpska President Zeljka Cvijanovic said in Vienna at a St. Sava Ball that Republika Srpska institutions are committed to strengthening and developing economic and cultural cooperation between the Diaspora and the Serbian people in the homeland. Cvijanovic stressed the importance of events which nurture traditions and spirit of the Serbian people in Austria and welcomed the need of the Serbian people to gather around the Serbian community, says a press release from the office of the Republika Srpska president. The St. Sava Ball has been held every year for 22 years. It is being organized by the Serbian Center and the Alliance of Serbian Clubs in Vienna and is included in the calendar of balls in the Austrian capital. The ceremony was attended, like every year, by representatives of the diplomatic corps, the Austrian political, cultural and public life and guests from other countries. The event dates back to 1864, and the tradition of the Serbian ball in the Austrian capital was revived 22 years ago by the Serbian Center in Vienna. /end/sg There is a right-wing coup attempt underway in Venezuela orchestrated by the Trump White House and the CIA along with its junior partners the so-called Lima Group. The democratically-elected government of Nicolas Maduro has broken relations with the U.S. government and ordered the U.S. embassy in Caracas closed and all its agents to leave the country within 72 hours. We are witnessing once again a classic example of U.S. imperialism and its proxies attempting to carry out an illegal regime change operation against a progressive government. People all over the world need to stand in solidarity with Venezuela in this critical moment. The declaration by Juan Guaido that he is assuming the presidency of the country is an outrage, and represents an attempt by the Venezuelan capitalist elite and their masters in Washington to overturn the countrys Bolivarian Revolution, which has empowered Venezuelas poor and laid the foundations for the construction of socialism. Guaido, a member of the far-right Popular Will party, was virtually unknown in the country until a few weeks ago he has no popular support and is simply a vessel for the conspiracy underway directed by the Trump administration. In a statement, Trump claimed that In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly [which Guaido leads] invoked the countrys constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant. This is a ridiculous distortion of the truth. President Maduro was re-elected last year with 67 percent of the vote in an election that was judged to be free and fair by independent observers. In fact, it is the National Assembly that is illegitimate. The National Assembly was declared to be in contempt by the Venezuelan Supreme Court after it defied the National Electoral Council and seated legislators whose elections were nullified on the basis of vote buying. All decisions made by the National Assembly, including the selection of Guaido as its leader, are unconstitutional and null and void. This is far from the first time that the United States has sponsored a coup against a democratically-elected government. The overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, and Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 are just some of the more well-known examples. On a press briefing call today, a senior State Department official pointedly refused to rule out the possibility of the United States taking military action against Venezuela. The Trump administrations rhetoric about human rights and democracy is completely hollow. Venezuela is in fact being targeted because it has a socialist government that challenges the dominance of western corporations and refuses to obey the dictates of Washington. We call on all progressive people and opponents of U.S. wars to rally in defense of Venezuelas sovereignty and the Bolivarian Revolution. Actions are taking place outside the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D.C. today at 6:30 p.m., in Los Angeles on Thursday at CNN headquarters at 6:00 pm, in Washington, D.C. on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. in front of the White House, and in San Francisco on Friday at 5:00 p.m. at 24th and Mission Sts. Now more than ever, we need to take to the streets and demand: U.S. hands off Venezuela! A book by a former intelligence official reveals graphic details of a calibrated and phased secret operation to bring the erstwhile Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim into the Indian Union by Subir Bhaumik The merger of the erstwhile Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim into India in May 1975 was the result of a top secret operation by Indias external intelligence agency, Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), says a book by a retired senior official who was involved in it. Sikkim Dawn of Democracy: The Truth behind the Merger with India authored by G B S Sidhu and published by Penguins, provided graphic details about how the operation was initiated in February 1973 by the R&AWs founder chief Rameshwar Nath Kao after then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him to work for bringing Sikkim within the Indian fold. From left to right: Manikam Principal Director DGS, R N Kao Secretary (R), G.C (Garry) Saxena Joint Secretary (later Secretary (R) and Governor J&K) and author G B S Sidhu after the investiture ceremony at 1, Akbar Road , New Delhi on August 6, 1976. After its decisive military intervention to liberate Bangladesh in 1971, India had to reckon with considerable Chinese hostility and US opposition and so keeping the Sikkim operation a closely guarded secret held the key to its success, Sidhu told the Diplomat in an interview. Indias former foreign secretary and National Security Adviser Shiv Shanker Menon describes Sidhus book as a rarity because it is an account by an intelligence insider who participated in and shaped the events that he recounts. Describing Sikkims merger with India as a momentous event in the annals of modern Indian statecraft, Menon commends Sidhus book for setting the record straight. The merger of Sikkim has been under-analysed or misinterpreted in previous accounts that drew upon partial or one-sided sources, says Menon. This book makes clear the reality and truth often outstrips imagination and analysis. Kazi Lhendup Dorji who devoted his life to free Sikkim from Chogyals autocratic rule. He became the Chief Minister of Sikkim after its merger with India. Signed photograph given by Kazi to the author of the book. Until its merger with India, Sikkim, an Indian protectorate, was a kingdom ruled by the Chogyal (God King) Palden Thondhup Namgyal, whose assertion for greater independence, ostensibly under the influence of his American second wife Hope Cooke, had rattled Indira Gandhi. Books on Sikkims merger with India have either accused India of outright annexation or treated it as the inevitable fallout of the pro-democracy movement in the kingdom. But Sidhu, a former special secretary of R&AW and its station chief in Sikkim capital Gangtok in the months leading to the merger, provides details about the neatly phased and calibrated operations run by a three member special operations team functioning under guidance of R&AWs then chief R.N Kao and its eastern regional director P.N. Banerjee. The operation was so secret that its ultimate objective of merging Sikkim with India was known only to three officials Kao, Banerjee and myself, claims Sidhu. The two other R&AW officers in the special team Padam Bahadur Pradhan and Myngma Tshering were only briefed about the next phase of the operation when one phase was over, he says. Sidhu told Northeast Now that Sikkims merger stabilised Indias control over its disputed Himalayan borders with China as its weakest point, much as Indias military intervention in 1971 had created a friendly neighbour. The geopolitical significance of both the liberation of Bangladesh and the merger of Sikkim with India is enormous, as it made India the undisputed prima donna in South Asia, says political scientist Sabyasachi Basu Raychowdhuri. Independent India had overlooked the pro-democracy movement in Sikkim since Independence and let the monarchy function until late in 1972. Long queue of voters outside a polling booth in West District of Sikkim on April 15, 1974. Election held on one-man-one-vote system under the aegis of Election Commission of India. But that changed in late 1972 when the Chogyal refused the Indian offer of Permanent Association unless Sikkim was accorded full sovereign rights, says Sidhu. Due to Indias strategic interests in Sikkim, it could not have agreed to Sikkim entering the arrangement with full sovereign rights Prime Minister Indira Gandhi called Kao and her Principal Secretary P N Haksar to her office sometime in December 1972 and asked Kao if something could be done about Sikkim, says the book. Kao promised to get back within a fortnight and the Chogyals insistence on full sovereign rights led to a 180-degree turnaround in Indias policy towards Sikkim. Sidhu provide details about how the pro-democracy political parties, specially the Sikkim National Congress (SNC), were funded and micro-managed to intensify their agitation for abolition of monarchy without disclosure of Indias ultimate objective. Only SNC chief Kazi Lhendhup Dorji was taken into confidence because we trusted he would not spill the beans, says Sidhu . The other politicians, many of whom were manipulated by the Chogyal, were slowly won over to the cause. Sidhu says that once the message that India would no longer back the palace became clear, the political parties intensified their movement and India used it to push the Chogyal to give greater powers to the state assembly and the administration of the kingdom was effectively taken over by Indian officials. The empowered assembly then resolved to join India and a referendum put the seal of popular approval for the merger. It was a brilliantly phased and calibrated operation that unfolded behind the cover of the pro-democracy agitation and was so different from the Chinese military takeover of Tibet or the recent Russian takeover of Crimea, says former R&AW official Rana Banerjee ,who recently headed a committee on intelligence reforms. He says that the Sikkim operation was marked by an absence of force which usually accompanies such takeovers of smaller nations by bigger ones. So it will be unfair to call it annexation, as we just used popular feelings to achieve our objective through a political operation in which the military option was hardly exercised, Sidhu told Northeast Now. The only time the Indian army was used was to disarm the pro-monarch Sikkim Guards in April 1975 just before the state assembly was to move the final resolution for merger with India and that because we were told they would intervene to block the resolution and could even assassinate some pro-democracy leaders on orders from the Chogyal, said Sidhu. This account is based on a diary the author meticulously maintained and some archival sources of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Prime Ministers office, says former R&AW chief Vikram Sood . The result is an excellent book that should now be essential reading for all those interested in the history of post-Independence India. About Author: G.B.S. Sidhu is a retired special secretary, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW). He was one of the key Indian officers involved in the merger of the princely state of Sikkim with the Indian republic in 1975. Overview: It was in 1973 that G.B.S. Sidhu, a young official with the newly set-up Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), took charge of the field office in Gangtok in 1973. With an insider's view of the events that led to the Chogyal's ouster, he presents a first-hand account of the fledgling democracy movement and the struggle for reforms led by Kazi Lhendup Dorji in a society that was struggling to come to terms with the modern world. In his fast-paced, clear-sighted narrative, Sidhu tracks the reasons behind New Delhi's shift from a long-standing pro-Chogyal stand to a pro-democracy position and maps the political alignments on the ground in Sikkim. He outlines the interplay of personalities-Indira Gandhi, the Chogyal, the Kazi, and the Indian officials and intelligence agencies involved-to reveal the chain of events that led to the merger of the Himalayan kingdom with India. The review first appeared in nenow.in by Zheng Yefu Now its time to lay it bare: You cant fool the Party into starting this journey, nor can you allow the calls for political reform that lack a clear final goal to numb the minds of the people. I. Why Hasnt Political Reform Happened? In the late 1970s, China undertook a reform; the main elements were the restoration of the household production system in rural China [that allowed individual families to take control of their farming], opening up the private economy, and allowing farmers to go into the cities to find work. In the early 1990s, seeing that it was likely that this reform would run aground, Deng Xiaoping once again pushed a reform agenda, which was known as reform of the economic system. As for corresponding political reform, Deng Xiaoping and the leaders that came after him all mentioned it in succession, and even said: Without successful reform of the political system, reform of the economic system will be impossible to carry through to the end. Subsequent history proved this argument. It is precisely because political reform did not happen in China that reform and opening up fell far short of meeting peoples expectations, and the developments up to the present have led to a fear of further regression. Why did political reform always remain in the realm of words, with not even one step taken towards action? The truth is actually quite obvious, but unfortunately, it seems that it was never clearly pointed out. When referring to political reform in speeches, the above-mentioned leaders meant the following: first, the separation of Party and government and the separation of government and enterprise; second, decentralization of power, avoiding excessive concentration of power; third, improving the legal system; fourth, initiating social and political consultations. Why did these leaders propose political reform? Because they realized that if rule of law is lacking and power is abused, then social and economic life cannot get on the right track. But why, ultimately has political reform not been implemented? Because intuition has also told the Communist Party leaders that every component of political reform weakens the Party. First, the separation of Party and government, and the separation of government and enterprise, means that the Party is losing power to others, and that the Party will lose control of the administration of the state and the society and economy. Second, the soundness of the rule of law will, on the one hand, guarantee citizens rights and freedoms such as speech, association, assembly, and demonstration, and on the other hand, limit the sphere of action of the Party. The society will not be completely controlled by the ruling group as in the past. Third, once genuine political consultations are initiated, its possible the Communist Partys views will fall into a disfavored position. In order to avoid such a situation, the Party leaders eventually created political consultations in form only, in which they had the final say. Fourth, in the competition with the Partys internal and external opponents, the rulers are increasingly firmly convinced of this: in order to suppress and respond to the trend of social diversification, democratization, and liberalization, even internally the Party cannot practice democracy and must concentrate power. Before the reform of the economic system, and afterwards too, its difficult to say that most of the Communist Partys guiding principles and policies have been in the fundamental interests of the vast public. But ahead of us there is something that is in the common interest of both the broad Chinese public and the Party, and that is, the Communist Party should fade into history peacefully, avoiding violence and minimizing social unrest. I think that the one great thing the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party can do that would enter the annals of history is to honorably and with dignity lead the Party off the historical stage. During its 70-year rule, the Party has brought too many disasters to the Chinese people. And as the Party has evolved up until now, its power structure as well as its ecology have predetermined that it can no longer deliver excellent leaders for Chinese society at all levels; it has almost completely lost its self-correcting mechanism. Its nature has already completely degenerated: for a long time its been a group that lacks belief; people join the Party to become officials, and they defend the Party to protect vested interests. The mindset of preserving power at all costs ruined the souls of those involved: hatred of different political views grows ever stronger, and the fear of a crisis has led to their own dysfunction. The path to escape the shackles on their souls is to strive to melt the Party into the larger society. However, to make the Party that has ruled Chinese society for 70 years end the one-party dictatorship by itself, there will be a long period of transition. During the transition period, the Party will necessarily be the one to guard social order. This transition period will allow other political forces to emerge, preparing to launch real and meaningful political consultations. Every school of thought and political faction can have its own ideas, but Chinas blueprint for the future, and the path it will forge, can only be produced through negotiations involving many political groups. Dont we already have the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)? It is difficult in this world to find a business like the CPPCC that squanders taxpayers money and is so hypocritical, contrived, pointless and boring, and deceptive. Im speechless as how to describe it. If the rulers had courage and confidence, they should either disband the CPPCC and engage in a real one-party dictatorship; or give different political factions a platform for dialogue and engage in real political consultations. Ending autocracy is in the interest of the Chinese people, but bloodshed and turmoil are not. A peaceful transition is in the interest of the Communist Party, because it is the only dignified path of retreat. In sum, pursuing prosperity while fearing for its political security has resulted in the Party professing interest in something it fears for more than 30 years, and swaying to and fro, left and right, in the economic and ideological fields. However, in the past few years, the seesawing has come to a halt at the left side because the Party leaders realized that the private economy and the liberalization of thought bears a threatening and close relationship to the survival of the Party. In contrast to the increasingly stereotypical conduct of the power oligarchy, the call for political reform has not declined at all in society. Unfortunately, the latter has been weak at best. Its been weak because everyone is scared; its been weak because those few in the know have stopped short of telling the whole truth. Chen Ziming () said: We should promote democracy together with the Communist Party. Zhou Duo () advocated Party-led constitutional government. Just exactly what will the position of the Communist Party be when democracy and constitutional government are realized in China? Now its time to lay it bare: You cant fool the Party into starting this journey, nor can you allow the calls for political reform that lack a clear final goal to numb the minds of the people. II. Rarely Seen Common Interest of the Party and the People The core of the theory is the Communist Party of China must always represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people. Unfortunately, during most of its rule, the Partys principles and policies have not represented the interests of the vast majority of the Chinese people. Property rights are the greatest manifestation of interests. In the rural areas, through the chain of land reform, mutual aid groups, cooperatives, and peoples communes, the land has changed from privately owned to state-owned. In the cities, private economy vanished following the public-private partnership movement. The benefits of the economic reforms of the 1980s proved that the above-mentioned two revolutions seriously violated the fundamental interests of the Chinese people, and suppressed their zeal for production. Otherwise, why would there have been a need for reform to begin with? So after the reform, did the policies represent the interests of the vast majority of the people? When land was nationalized, what did the government do? Creating revenue by selling land. It sold lots at high prices to real estate developers. This is the first cause of excessive housing prices in China and a great portion of the population became slaves to their mortgages. Isnt it too tyrannical to say that a policy that enriches the state and impoverishes the people is in the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people? For 60 years, from 1949 to today, only once did I see a time when most of the people in the ruling class had reform aspirations, and that was in 1978. Just once. Has there ever been a policy of the Communist Party that has been in the fundamental interests of the Chinese people? Yes, but it really is rare; that was the reform of the economic system in the late 1980s. I stated the following view at a seminar in 2008: top-down reform is not common; it is a rare thing because the reform aspirations at the higher level and motivation to reform exist only in rare moments. For 60 years, from 1949 to today, only once did I see a time when most of the people in the ruling class had reform aspirations, and that was in 1978. Just once. What was the motivation for the reforms in 1978? Because they were at a point at which they could either choose to reform, or see the Party demise. If the Party falls, so does the nation is the axiom so often repeated by the state propaganda machine. But there is no such thing as the demise of the country. The age of colonialism is all but in the past; China and its people no longer face the same threat of extermination. Its the Party that is going down. Thanks to its dismal management of the country, there are so many people who cant make ends meet. What happens if the Party falls? The Party will fade into history. Of course, they want to avoid that scenario, so reform was implemented. We can credit Mao Zedong for creating this consensus among them: Mao, in his dogmatic ways since 1956, had drawn himself ever further apart from his colleagues. No one except for the bootlickers and careerists were inclined to support him. By the time of his death, he had driven upwards of 95 percent of the people within the Party into the ranks of a hidden opposition. The end of Mao led the other senior officials to jointly discuss how they should move away from Maos political line. I have yet to find a second dictator in history whose subordinates stood together in such unity after his death. It is extraordinary and rare: the Party elders were of one mind, working in concert to turn things around. Reform is not a novel concept: going back to 1956, and even earlier. In the Ming and Qing dynasties (13681911), and all the way back in the Qin Dynasty (221206 B.C.), household production system had been the model for agricultural production. Throughout history, there had been a private economy that existed to varying degrees in urban areas. Reform isnt some sort of groundbreaking thing, its actually conservatism: look at what the ancients did and follow the path they took. Its just that Mao Zedong introduced his utopian thinking that repudiated common sense. This thinking led to constant disagreement during the reform period despite the broad consensus; as a result, the general secretary [of the CCP] was replaced time and again. Today, that rare moment of consensus that once permeated the leadership is gone; they will not come to this kind of understanding again. What reason do we have to hope that any new top-down reforms can be sustainable? III. Successful Transition Requires the Cooperation of Two Forces No discussion regarding the end of the one-party dictatorship in Taiwan can do to omit Chiang Ching-kuo (). At the same time, the Taiwanese themselves firmly deny the notion that the course of their history was shaped by one individual. They think that Chiang would not have made that choice if not for the perseverance of Taiwans democratic activism as well as the massive pressure that arose from the social diversity at the time. I am of the same opinion. The ruler is created by the ruled, and vice versa. Ruler and ruled sculpt one another, together creating a vicious circle. The ruler bears most of the responsibility, but his wantonness is also induced by the meekness and submissiveness of the Chinese themselves. They have spoiled the CCP too much. Only when we the vulnerable speak up can China escape this vicious cycle. If there is no pressure from outside [the political system], no demand for the independence of the press or tolerance of opposition parties, there can be no change: Even supposing the Party leader himself is willing to reform, he would encounter opposition from his colleagues they would think that he has gone insane. It needs not be said that without external impetus, the idea of reform will never occur to them. If we dont voice our opinions and exert pressure, we dont deserve to see the dictatorship come to its end. On the other hand, a wise leader is needed to bring a peaceful end to dictatorial Party rule. Otherwise, violence will be inevitable. It is hard to say if this sort of positive development has much probability of occurring, but at least theres the possibility, since those in the upper echelons of power know the truth, better than anyone on the outside, that the Party can hardly change its ingrained habits. For the Party to voluntarily give up its power in a way that saves face would be a win-win outcome. Theres a third win involved: I have always believed that politicians must possess ambition. For ones name to be honored by history should be enough to satisfy the ambition of any politician. This is the best way out for the Chinese people, the Party, and the Party leader. Being the Party leader though, its really no easy task to take the Party on this path. The challenge comes not necessarily in the form of opposition from the outsiders, but the lack thereof, which is also a consequence brought about by the Party itself. As it doesnt face any credible opposition, it has little reason to choose the path of ending its rule. This is also the reason why I have decided to poke through the paper window and point at the truth hidden within. Let us gather and pool our efforts to take the single path that will lead to an amicable resolution. This opportunity will not last long. IV. Blame Not He Who Speaks But the Wise Men Who Remain Silent It is written in the Chinese constitution that the socialist system is the basic system of the Peoples Republic of China. and that the leadership of the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Given that the central theme of this article goes against the words above, should I be considered a criminal for writing it? No, because it is an expression of opinion and not an action. There should be no such thing as a thought criminal in a civilized country. The Thirteenth Peoples Congress convened in 2018 is instructive. There used to be a rule in the constitution limiting the number of presidential terms, and a motion to remove the term limit was proposed prior to the conference. Is it a crime to suggest a constitutional amendment to the presidential term limit? No. I am in favor of terms being limited, but I dont think its wrong to suggest any amendment to the constitution. The characteristic of the law is that it is authoritative and inviolable under a specific setting, but it also progresses along with the course of history and as such is subject to revision. The process of revision is dependent on the ability of citizens to freely discuss and criticize the laws, so long as their criticism remains in the realm of speech and not action as this would be illegal. Over the years I have scribbled millions of words. How could I forgive myself if I fail to write a few words on the one question that has been on my mind for so long, the question that concerns the future of our country? While I write this primarily in my own self-defense, I also write them for the people who came before, or will come after, me. For a peaceful transition to become reality, China needs citizens who abide by the law. I am such a citizen. Everyone shares a collective responsibility for the welfare of the nation, as its said, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to write this article. A humbler reason is to allow myself some semblance of self-respect. Over the years I have scribbled millions of words. How could I forgive myself if I fail to write a few words on the one question that has been on my mind for so long, the question that concerns the future of our country? In January 1948, three months after the CCP published the Outline Land Law of China (), late Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong () wrote an article titled Standards for a Moderately Prosperous Society Free of Hunger and Cold () to argue against violent land reform. He wrote: History is not always reasonable, but in any historical setting there has always been a reasonable solution available. Whether history can develop along a reasonable course is dependent upon whether people can make rational choices. Those in the position of scholars have the responsibility to point out rational solutions, while it is up to the politician to bring it into history. I dont believe weve reached the point where we can hold the politicians responsible for everything. This is because at present, the intellectuals have yet to fulfill their duty. Had they stayed true to their conscience and mustered the courage to speak their minds, China would not be in the state it is in today. Drafted August 2018; finalized December 2018. Zheng Yefu () was born in 1950 in Beijing. He was one of the 17 million educated youths sent down to the countryside, and served in the Heilongjiang Construction Corps. He is now a retired sociology professor from Peking University. The Chinese version of the article can be found here. Lanzarote (Spain), January 26, 2019 (SPS) - The Saharawi Community in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, organized a demonstration in front of the Sub-Commission of the Spanish government to protest the repatriation of Sahrawi young activist Hussein Ould Bashir upon his arrival on the island and handing him over by the Spanish authorities to the Moroccan police, which was pursuing him to arrest him on the background of his position in support of self-determination and independence of the Saharawi people. The Saharawi community, the Sahrawi people's friends and civil society organizations in Lanzarote denounced the action, expressing their deep disapproval of the Spanish government's complicity with the Moroccan occupier and its unlimited support in international forums at the expense of an unarmed people fighting for the right to exist on their homeland. The demonstrators held the Spanish government responsible for what may be inflicted on the young Sahrawi of assault and ill-treatment and for his physical and moral integrity, as long as the Spanish state remains responsible, both morally and legally, for violations and injustices committed by the Moroccan occupation authorities against the Saharawi people in Western Sahara. (SPS) 062/SPS/TRA Shaheed Alhafed, January 26, 2019 (SPS) - The Ministry of occupied territories and Communities has condemned in the strongest terms the violations carried out by Morocco against the rights of the Sahrawis in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, southern Morocco and Sahrawi political detainees in Moroccan prisons. In a communique, it also condemned the Spanish government's complicity with the Moroccan occupation, the last of which was the handover of militant Hussein Ould Bashir Ould Brahim to the Moroccan authorities. The Ministry called on international organisations and associations, especially the Spanish and French to expose the complicity of their governments and their continued support for the Moroccan occupation regime. It also called on all militant men and women of the Polisario Front in the camps of dignity and honour and communities to support and sympathise with besieged Sahrawi people in the occupied territories and southern Morocco. Below is the full text of the communique issued by the Ministry of Occupied Territories and Communities: Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic January 22, 2019 Communique It is expected that the king of Spain will visit Morocco soon, the visit that was postponed more than once because of Moroccan blackmail against Spain on issues related to secret immigration, drugs and terrorism, a Spanish policy based on swapping economic interests and commercial position for law and ethics, its obvious interpretation can be seen today in the close connection between the postponement of the visit of the Spanish King to Morocco, many times, and the latter's desire to actuate pressure papers and exploit them, so as to ensure the continuity of its complicity, silence, and deny its historical responsibility towards its former colony of Western Sahara. Spain, which colonized Saguia el Hamra and Rio de Oro for more than 100 years, subsequently ceded it to the Moroccan occupation and supported it in all international forums and decision-making positions, even worse while its officials, starting from the king and ending with the government, declare that they support the peaceful process to decolonise their former colony and that they are for the determination of the Sahrawi people, Spain excels in preparation and drawing of malicious plans with its twin of Moroccan colonial regime in order to place obstacles in the way of the struggle of the Sahrawi people, to infiltrate international decision-making positions to thwart any attempt to move the Sahrawi issue towards a just and lasting solution, just as what happened in the signing of the Fishing Agreement between Morocco and the European Union, or rather common theft, which showed the false slogans of democracy and respect for the will of the peoples. Spain, France and Portugal were the major players in all moves of the European Commission, may be the visits of members of the European Parliament as well as the visit of Federica Mogherini to Morocco and praises of new Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to owner of miracles and bribes King VI of Morocco for the Socialist elites, gave a full picture of how the Spanish Governments continue to sell and resell the Sahrawis, land, humans and riches to the Kingdom of Morocco, home to corruption and bribery, and double standards the extreme of political hypocrisy. Spain not only colonized, looted and denied its historical responsibility towards our just cause, but also in a dangerous precedent, it has handed over a peaceful Sahrawi resistant and a human rights defender to the Moroccan authorities, it concerned Hussein Ould Bashir Ould Brahim who was born on 03/01/1991, he arrived on 11/01/2019 in Spain seeking political asylum in the Canary Islands where he was handed over by the Spanish authorities to Morocco in the city of Nador on 17 January 2019, in complete and serious violation of the laws of asylum seekers, which confirms the Spanish-Moroccan shameful complicity, not only it did shameful silence, but it has gone beyond it to place all obstacles in the major historical turning points of our national cause, at the United Nations, the Security Council and the European Union in an attempt to override the legitimacy of our right to freedom and dignity. Further confirmation of the European support, especially Spain and France for the Moroccan occupation is the protection offered by these colonial powers for the regime of invasion and the freedom it enjoys in continuing violations and the confiscation of the rights of Sahrawis, as was the case with the recent delegation of human rights whose members were surrounded from every direction, they were prevented from moving between Sahrawi cities and even towards southern Morocco, they were also trapped inside their homes and not allow to exit or enter them, in the same logic of disregard and spirit of oppression journalists and human rights activists were prevented from travelling, as was the case with two journalists Haddi Embarak Bakna and Sidati Hymad, who were intending to move from occupied Boujadour towards occupied El-Aaiun, the arrest yesterday of journalist Mohammed-Ali Haddi in occupied El-Aaiun, and the summoning for trial sent by the Moroccan authorities to former political prisoner Sidi Babeit to appear before the Court of Appeal, in an attempt may not be the first, to summon the remaining Sahrawi men and women who exceeded 160 detainees on the background of the barbaric dismantling of the Gdeim Izik camp on 08/11/2010. Not to forget the trial tomorrow of human rights activist and journalist Brahim Dehani. In this context, and in light of all these developments, which do not imply the occupier's resort to sit at the table for a serious and fruitful dialogue and a sincere search for a peaceful and just solution that will end the suffering of the Sahrawi people, we in the Ministry of the Occupied Territories and Communities declare the following: -We strongly condemn and denounce the Spanish government's complicity with the Moroccan occupation, the last of which was the handover of militant Hussein Ould Bashir Ould Brahim to the Moroccan authorities on 17/01/2019. -We strongly condemn the violations carried out these days by the Moroccan authorities of repression, torture and siege against our people in the occupied territories and southern Morocco and Sahrawi political detainees in Moroccan prisons. -We call on all international organisations and associations, especially the Spanish and French to expose the complicity of their governments and their continued support for the Moroccan occupation regime. -We call on all militant men and women of the Polisario Front in the camps of dignity and honour and communities to support and sympathise with besieged Sahrawi people in the occupied territories and southern Morocco. Strength, Determination and Will for Imposing Independence and Sovereignty. Ministry of the Occupied Territories and Communities" (SPS) 062/SPS Coalition strikes kill 42 in IS Syria holdout: monitor Beirut, Jan 26 (AFP) Jan 26, 2019 Coalition missile strikes have killed 42 people including 13 civilians in what remains of the Islamic State group's last holdout in eastern Syria, a war monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces, with backing from a US-led coalition, are battling to expel the last jihadists from hamlets in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said short-range missiles late Friday hit homes on farmland near the village of Baghouz, killing 42 people. Among them were 13 civilians, the Britain-based monitor said. They included seven Syrians linked to IS including three children from the same family, as well as six Iraqi non-combatants, it said. The coalition was not immediately available for comment, but has in the past said it does everything to avoid targeting civilians. "The area is a launchpad for jihadist counterattacks," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. The SDF have since September been battling to expel IS from their last pocket of territory on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in Deir Ezzor. The SDF has advanced swiftly in recent weeks, taking control of a series of key villages, with IS scrambling to retaliate. On Thursday, IS failed to retake Baghouz from the SDF in one counterattack that left a total of 50 fighters dead on both sides, the Observatory said. Thousands of people, mostly women and children, have fled into SDF-held territory in recent days, according to the Britain based Observatory, which relies on a network of contacts inside Syria for its information. IS overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a "caliphate", but it has since lost almost all of its territory to various offensives. But it maintains a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert. Syria's civil war has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Turkey renews flights to Iraqi Kurd city after 16-month ban Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, Jan 26 (AFP) Jan 26, 2019 Flights between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah resumed Saturday, according to aviation authorities, after a 16-month air blockade imposed by Ankara over an independence referendum. Kurds in the administratively autonomous northern region overwhelmingly voted for independence in a non-binding referendum in September 2017 that infuriated Baghdad as well as Iraq's neighbours, Turkey and Iran. In retaliation, Baghdad and Ankara blocked international flights from the two main Iraqi Kurdish cities of Arbil and Sulaimaniyah. Almost all those restrictions were lifted last year but Turkey -- which fears its own Kurdish minority could be inspired to push for independence -- had maintained its blockade on Sulaimaniyah until Saturday. "Implementing the Turkish government's decision to lift the air blockade on international fights from Sulaimaniyah, the first Turkish Airlines flight landed early this morning and returned to Turkey," said Sulaimaniyah airport chief Taher Abdallah. He said the blockade cost the airport more than $5 million in 2018. Iraqi Airways would resume flights between Sulaimaniyah and Istanbul in the coming days, civil air authorities said. That brings air traffic to and from the Iraqi Kurdish region back to its status before the 2017 referendum. At the time, the federal government rejected the poll as "illegal," imposed economic penalties and seized the disputed Kirkuk oil fields, halting exports. But ties have improved markedly in recent months. Authorities announced the resumption of oil exports from Kirkuk in November and last week, parliamentarians passed a 2019 budget guaranteeing Baghdad would pay the salaries of the Kurdish region's public workers and peshmerga armed forces. Jeffrey Jackson is the managing editor of the Owatonna People's Press. He can be reached at 507-444-2371 or via email at jjackson@owatonna.com System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. 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The MF debt exposure is reportedly entirely at Zee promoter level. Exposure to Birla MF was Rs. 2,900 crore while it was Rs. 1,000 crore in the case of HDFC. The exposure to ICICI Pru was Rs.750 crore. On the NBFC front, it is believed that HDFC Ltd and L and T Finance may be impacted. M.S. Azmi, the PMLA court judge, gave the nod in view of application filed by the ED seeking approval to confiscate the bank balance of the firm which was earlier attached by the agency. The ED had attached the Rs 89.56 crore in current account of Seamless Outsourcing LLP in March 2015. Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday got an approval from a Prevention of Money Laundering Court Act (PMLA) court here to confiscate Rs 89.56 crore bank balance of city-based firm Seamless Outsourcing LLP in connection with Speak Asia Online Pvt Ltd case. The ED said this was the first case where it would be able to confiscate the liquid cash of such magnitude to the Central government. The agency had made its appeal to confiscate the bank balance of Seamless Outsourching LLP as its partner Mansoor Nizam Patel failed to appear before the PMLA special court in spite of non-bailable warrant issued against them. In September 2011, the ED registered a case based on FIR lodged by police in the case against Speak Asia Online Pvt Ltd, Singapore and its directors, other related persons. The ED investigation has revealed that Speak Asia Online in connivance with its foreign associate Haren Venture Pvt Ltd (HVPL), Singapore and its three representatives in India -- Tulsiyat Tek Pvt Ltd, Mumbai; Kritanj Management and Allied Services, Mumbai; and Seamless Outsourcing LLP -- floated a web based online money circulation scheme through its website www.speakasiaonline.com. "Money collected from gullible investors in the guise of subscription fee for online survey was sent out to Singapore in the bank account of HPVL," said the ED. After investigation, the ED had filed the prosecution complaint against Seamless Outsourcing and seven others. Press Release January 26, 2019 Villanueva seeks to increase service incentive leave pay of private employees Senator Joel Villanueva has appealed to his colleagues to immediately pass a measure seeking to increase the service incentive leave of employees from five days to 10. Villanueva, chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources, said studies have already shown that taking leaves increases the productivity of workers while it costs very little to employers. The senator had submitted to the floor for plenary debate last month Senate Bill No. 1614, under Committee Report No. 441, or "An Act increasing the Service Incentive Leave Pay of Employees." Under the measure, every employee who has rendered at least one year of service shall be entitled to an annual service incentive leave of 10 days. Presently, Labor Code of the Philippines (Article 95 of Presidential Decree No. 442) mandates that every employee is entitled to a yearly service incentive leave of five days with pay. The bill seeks to add additional 5 days but the additional days shall not be commutable or no cash equivalent. Moreover, the provision shall not apply to those who are already enjoying such benefit, those enjoying a vacation leave of at least 10 days with pay, and those in establishments regularly employing less than 10 people. Villanueva said that the increase of mandatory paid service incentive leave of employees "will benefit the economy, as it benefits both employees and employers." "Recent studies have shown that taking leaves increases the productivity of workers, improves employee morale, fosters stronger employee retention and gives significant health benefits," Villanueva said. "Some research also suggests that the cost of paid leaves to employers is very little, in terms of temporary employee replacement costs or overtime paid to existing employees and has few, if any, costs - and potentially gains - in terms of employee morale and productivity," he said. "Employees with healthy work-life balance can better focus on their job because they will have less personal problems as they can spend more time to attend to their personal and family matters. It will affect their positive outlook in life and positive attitude at work," the senator added. The said measure is still pending at the Senate, which was approved on second reading. The House of Representatives approved its version of the bill in August of last year. Press Release January 26, 2019 De Lima hits relentless smear campaign vs her Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has lashed out at the Duterte administration over its persistent demonization and character assassination leveled against her. De Lima, the first prominent political prisoner under the Duterte regime, chided Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo for incessantly spreading the fake drug narrative about her designed to besmirch her good name and reputation. "Panelo was recently quoted referring to me as 'criminal in nature.' He also insists that I remain incarcerated because the evidence against me is 'strong,'" she said in her recent Dispatch from Crame No. 452. "No! I remain in jail because that is what Panelo's master, Duterte, wants. Never mind my innocence. Never mind the fake evidence fabricated against me. Never mind the manufactured testimonies of criminal convicts," she added. The former justice secretary, who has been incessantly victimized by disinformation peddled by the state and some sinister quarters, maintained that Panelo and his boss only care about "power, flexed through lies, deceptions, and oppression." In a recent statement which obviously meant to divert public attention from an unpleasant report about the present administration, Panelo called De Lima a "criminal in nature" who is allegedly "unqualified for bail." Panelo made the remark in reaction to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project's (ACLED) Year in Review: 2018 Report which called the Philippines a "war zone in disguise." He, however, dismissed the ACLED report as "based on allegations made by groups that are hopelessly and blindly critical of the Duterte administration." The lady Senator from Bicol maintained that no amount of denials and propaganda from Panelo and other Duterte apologists can hide the fact that the President is the real "criminal in nature." "In fact, it is Duterte who is 'criminal in nature.' What can be more criminal than the murder of thousands of human beings using the state apparatus as an instrument to enforce his policy of summary execution of targeted civilians?" she asked. "This is what the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED) pointed out in its report about the Philippines being fifth among countries with the most number of civilian fatalities, thus making it 'one of the deadliest places in the world to be a civilian,' she added. De Lima said she believes that there are still individuals who are not blinded by the lies of Duterte administration and continue to fight on the side of truth, justice and democracy. "Unfortunately for Panelo, the world is not populated by Duterte sycophants like him. The world sees the truth as it is. It would take more than a clown like Panelo to convince it otherwise," she said. De Lima has become a favorite target of vengeance by Mr. Duterte, his allies, and other powerful and influential people she previously investigated and filed charges against, as chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights and as Justice Secretary. Press Release January 26, 2019 ANGARA URGES HOUSE TO EXPEDITE STUDENT FARE DISCOUNT BILL Senator Sonny Angara has urged the House of Representatives to immediately pass its version of the bill institutionalizing the grant of 20-percent fare discount to students to ensure they will continue to enjoy reduced transportation expenses in the future. The Senate has approved its own version of the measure as early as October last year, while the counterpart bill in the House remains at the committee level. Although the bill has already been approved by the House transportation and ways and means committees, it has yet to be sponsored on the floor. "We are urging our honorable congressmen to pass the House version so that we can come up with the final bill that will be sent to Malacanang for President Duterte's signature," Angara said. "Ito po ang pagkakataon natin para masigurong tuloy-tuloy ang diswento sa pamasahe ng mga mag-aaral na talaga namang malaking kabawasan sa mga gastusin sa kanilang pag-aaral," he added. Last October, the Senate plenary approved on third and final reading Angara's Senate Bill 1597 which seeks to institutionalize the grant of fare discount currently being enforced by the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) even during weekends and holidays and which covers all means of transportation all-year round. The LTFRB, in October 2017, issued a memorandum circular stating that "students can avail of the 20-percent discount from Monday to Sunday, including summer breaks, legal and special holidays." Failure to provide the fare discount is a franchise violation that carries a penalty of a fine of P5,000 for the first offense, P10,000 and their vehicles impounded for one month for the second offense, and P15,000 and cancellation of franchise for the third offense. According to Angara, there is always a possibility that the student fare discount may not be enforced effectively since it is just based on a mere circular issued by the LTFRB. "Ang kailangan natin ay batas para masiguro natin na ang 20-percent discount para sa mga mag-aaral ay mananatili kahit sino pa ang mga nakaupo sa LTFRB," Angara pointed out. Once Angara's bill is enacted into law, all Filipino students--from elementary to college, as well as those enrolled in technical-vocational schools--would be entitled to a 20-percent discount in buses, jeepneys, taxis, tricycle, transport network vehicle services or TNVS, MRT, LRT, as well as airline and passenger ships. Students may avail of the 20-percent discount on regular fares not only during school days and summer classes, but also on Saturday and Sunday, Christmas break, Lenten break, semestral break and school summer vacation. Angara said the measure would somehow lessen the hardship of parents in sending their children to school as it would cut down their transportation expenses. "A few pesos or centavos saved from the fare discount can be used for other school requirements," the lawmaker pointed out. He added: "We always say that the youth is the future of the country. Let's make this come true by investing adequately on our students." Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/25/2019 -- Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Market: Overview Incinerator is the machinery used for generation of energy from combustion of waste. During the incineration process, several harmful waste materials are converted into gases, heat energy, and particles. These are later used for generation of energy in the form of electricity. The method also helps in the removal of dissolved gases such as carbon dioxide. This method is utilized in the activated sludge process in solid waste treatment facilities across the globe due to its reliability. Increase in significance of the incineration method is estimated to drive the demand. However, regional differences are expected to remain largely unchanged due to the varied expenditure on municipal infrastructure development in individual countries. Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Market: Key Segments The municipal solid waste incineration market can be segmented based on product, application, and region. Based on product, the municipal solid waste incineration market can be divided into moving grate, rotary-kiln, and fluidized bed. Moving grate is the commonly used combustion system. Rotary-kiln incineration is a two stage process consisting of a kiln and separate secondary combustion chamber. Fluidized bed incineration involves pre-sorting of the solid waste to remove heavy and inert objects, such as metals, prior to processing in the furnace. Based on application, the municipal solid waste incineration market can be segregated into municipal sewage treatment plants, residential complex, and others. Implementation of strict environmental regulations by municipal councils of various governments is one of the factors boosting the municipal solid waste incineration market. The municipal solid waste incineration market is estimated to expand significantly, as its penetration is increasing in most of the developing countries. Municipal incinerators also produce large amount of harmful gases such as furans, dioxins, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and gaseous hydrochloric acid. This is one of the restraints of the market. Incineration is an energy-intensive technology. This could prove to be a restraint, especially considering the rising energy prices across the globe. Thus, the municipal solid waste incineration market is exposed to risks from alternative sustainable technologies. Companies are carrying out technological advancements in order to lower the costs of incinerators. Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Market: Regional Outlook Europe and North America are the major regions of the global municipal solid waste incineration market due to rapid growth in construction and increase in urbanization. In North America, incineration is widely preferred in countries such as U.S and Canada. This has necessitated the use of advanced technology solid waste treatment systems, thereby driving the municipal solid waste incineration market. The Urban Solid Waste Treatment Directive in the European Union encourages countries in Europe to increase the usage of solid waste treatment facilities. Countries in Asia Pacific such as China, India, and Japan are rapidly emerging municipal solid waste incineration market. Rise in industrialization, decline in availability of clean water, high level of waste output by industries such as textile and pulp & paper, and low waste coverage are the key factors driving the global municipal solid waste incineration market. The municipal solid waste incineration market in Latin America and Middle East & Africa is anticipated to expand in the next few years due to the recovery from the economic slowdown. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar have invested significantly in development of the municipal solid waste incineration market. Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=53760 Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Market: Key Players Leading players operating in the municipal solid waste incineration market include Suez Environment S.A., Martin Gmbh, Covanta Energy Corporation, Wheelabrator Technologies Inc., and Brickner & Bratton Inc. About Transparency Market Research Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. TMR's data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. Contact 90 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/26/2019 -- Malaysia Medical Tourism Market: Snapshot The medical tourism market in Malaysia is forecast to grow at a robust pace between 2016 and 2024. Persistent government activities synergizing the medical tourism industry and lower cost of medical services compared to their counterparts in developed nations are boosting the medical tourism market in Malaysia. Over the course of the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, the market is poised to exhibit an impressive 30.05% CAGR. At this pace, its valuation is expected to increase from US$424.96 mn in 2016 to US$3.5 bn before 2024 ends. View Report- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/malaysia-medical-tourism-market.html Accelerated pace of gains is on cards due to the increasing influx of medical tourists from MENA and neighboring countries. Besides this, the market will gain from various macro-economic factors such as tax exemptions by government on revenue generated from foreign patients and excellent transport and recuperation facilities. While the regional players will continue exhibiting promising growth, the established players might emerge as major gainers rendering the vendor landscape of Malaysia medical tourism market consolidated. Other factors such as low language barrier and the presence of sophisticated healthcare infrastructure will continue fuelling opportunities in the medical tourism market of Malaysia. Medical Travelers from Indonesia Highest in Number Country-wise, the influx of medical tourists from the neighboring country Indonesia is recorded at the highest. In addition, the nation welcomes an increasing number of medical travelers from India, China, Nepal, Iran, Libya, Australia, the U.S., and the U.K. The healthcare industry in Malaysia has been identified as one of the 12 national key economic areas hence, the nation's government keep no stone unturned to attract an increasing number of foreign patients every year. For instance, it offers lucrative incentives and tax exemptions on revenue generated from medical travelers. Besides this, the government of Malaysia has developed the Malaysia healthcare travel council (MHTC) within its healthcare ministry to support foreign patients and their families visiting Malaysia in every way possible. Request A Sample- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=20159 In order to woo patients from the Middle-east the country maintains favorable stance on the Halal medical tourism. Hence several hospitals in the nation offer halal medical services to patients from the Middle East country. Under these services, the hospitals provide a full range of Muslim friendly services to their patients. Medical tourism assistance centers are also set up in places to help patients and their families traveling from the Middle East or other nations with Islam dominance. Demand for Dental Treatment Recorded the Highest Among the segments based on procedure type, the Malaysia medial tourism market was dominated by dental treatment in 2016. The aesthetics/cosmetic surgery segment trailed closely emerging as the second-leading market segment in the same year. According to TMR, approximately 36.6% of the medical tourists visiting Malaysia opt for dental treatment. Factors such as the low cost of services compared to those offered in the U.S. and favorable government activities are expected to aid growth witnessed in the aforementioned categories. Besides this, the market is forecast to witness rising demand for orthopedic treatment, cosmetic surgeries, and regular health screening. These segments, coupled with the field of dental treatment, occupied over 70% of the overall medical tourism market in Malaysia. Request Brochure- https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=20159 Some of the key enterprises operating in the Malaysia medical tourism market are Pantai Holdings Berhad, KPJ Healthcare Berhad, Dentalpro Group, Prince Court Medical Centre, Island Hospital, IJN Health Institute, Mahkota Medical Centre, Sunway Medical Centre, LohGuanLye Specialists Centre, and Tropicana Medical Centre. Edison, NJ -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/25/2019 -- HTF MI recently Announced Global Robo-advisory study with 100+ market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and easy to understand detailed TOC on "Robo-advisory. Global Robo-advisory research allows you to get different methods for maximizing your profit. The research study provides estimates for Global Robo-advisory Forecast till 2025*. Some of the Leading key Company's Covered for this Research are Wealthfront Inc. (United States) , Betterment Holdings Inc. (United States) , Charles Schwab & Co. (United States) , Bambu (Singapore) , Hedgeable, Inc. (United States) , WiseBanyan, Inc. (United States) , Ally Financial Inc. (United States) , AssetBuilder Inc. (United States) , SigFig Wealth Management (United States) and Blooom, Inc. (United States) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Players which are also part of the research are Dorsum (Hungary) , Objectway (Italy) , Finantix (Italy) and Temenos (Switzerland). Click to get Global Robo-advisory Market Research Sample PDF Copy Here @: https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1585294-global-robo-advisory-market-2 Scope of the Study A robo-advisor is a platform generally refers to an automated digital investment advisory program. With least effort from the investment managers, the software computes data to generate reports on the type and duration of asset or security to invest in. Moreover, it offers a variety of services which can be useful in providing to a large group of investors based on their budget, risk appetite, and the term of the investment. Market Drivers Compliance with strict industry regulations Digitalization and process automation optimizes wealth management process Market Trend Great solution for beginning investors Restraints Lack of direct contact or personalized support to the clients Inability to adapt to changing scenarios on the run-time Opportunities Rising innovations in the finance industry and Adoption of blockchain and AI in the wealth management platform Under the Advisers Act, robo-advisers should consider whether the organization and operation of their programs raise any issues under the other federal securities laws, including the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the "Investment Company Act"), and in particular Rule 3a-4 under that Act. Key Target Audience Service providers and distributors Wealth management platform software builders Independent Software Vendors Enterprises End-users Enquire for customization in Report @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1585294-global-robo-advisory-market-2 Important Features that are under offering & key highlights of the report: 1) Who are the Leading Key Company in Global Robo-advisory market space? Following are list of players that are currently profiled in the report " Wealthfront Inc. (United States) , Betterment Holdings Inc. (United States) , Charles Schwab & Co. (United States) , Bambu (Singapore) , Hedgeable, Inc. (United States) , WiseBanyan, Inc. (United States) , Ally Financial Inc. (United States) , AssetBuilder Inc. (United States) , SigFig Wealth Management (United States) and Blooom, Inc. (United States) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Players which are also part of the research are Dorsum (Hungary) , Objectway (Italy) , Finantix (Italy) and Temenos (Switzerland)" ** List of companies mentioned may vary in the final report subject to Name Change / Merger etc. 2) What will the market size be in 2025 and what will the growth rate be? In 2019, the Global Robo-advisory market size was xx million USD and it is expected to reach USD xx million by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2019-2025. 3) What are the Market Applications: Major applications/end-users industry are: Healthcare , Retail , Education and Others **The market is valued based on weighted average selling price (WASP) and includes any applicable taxes on manufacturers. All currency conversions used in the creation of this report have been calculated using constant annual average 2018 currency rates. To comprehend Global Robo-advisory market dynamics in the world mainly, the worldwide Robo-advisory market is analyzed across major regions. HTF MI also provides customized specific regional and country-level reports for the following areas. - North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico. - South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. - Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa. - Europe: UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia. - Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia. Competitive Analysis: The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Wealthfront Inc. (United States) , Betterment Holdings Inc. (United States) , Charles Schwab & Co. (United States) , Bambu (Singapore) , Hedgeable, Inc. (United States) , WiseBanyan, Inc. (United States) , Ally Financial Inc. (United States) , AssetBuilder Inc. (United States) , SigFig Wealth Management (United States) and Blooom, Inc. (United States) are some of the key players profiled in the study. Additionally, the Players which are also part of the research are Dorsum (Hungary) , Objectway (Italy) , Finantix (Italy) and Temenos (Switzerland) includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc. Buy Full Copy Global Robo-advisory Report 2018 @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1585294-global-robo-advisory-market-2 Research Parameter/ Research Methodology Primary Research: The primary sources involves the industry experts from the Global Robo-advisory industry including the management organizations, processing organizations, analytics service providers of the industry's value chain. All primary sources were interviewed to gather and authenticate qualitative & quantitative information and determine the future prospects. In the extensive primary research process undertaken for this study, the primary sources industry experts such as CEOs, vice presidents, marketing director, technology & innovation directors, founders and related key executives from various key companies and organizations in the Global Robo-advisory in the industry have been interviewed to obtain and verify both qualitative and quantitative aspects of this research study. Secondary Research: In the Secondary research crucial information about the industries value chain, total pool of key players, and application areas. It also assisted in market segmentation according to industry trends to the bottom-most level, geographical markets and key developments from both market and technology oriented perspectives. In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Global Robo-advisory are as follows: History Year: 2013-2018 Base Year: 2018 Estimated Year: 2019 Forecast Year 2019 to 2025 Key Stakeholders in Global Robo-advisory Market: Global Robo-advisory Manufacturers Global Robo-advisory Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Global Robo-advisory Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream Vendors **Actual Numbers & In-Depth Analysis, Business opportunities, Market Size Estimation Available in Full Report. Buy this research @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1585294 Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia. About HTF Market Report HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the "Accurate Forecast" in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their "Goals & Objectives". Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/26/2019 -- Globally, the growing awareness about the better and effective dental treatment has grown the demand for Dental Consumables Market. Moreover, growing dental tourism in countries like India, Hungary, and Turkey has also expand the growth opportunities in the dental consumables market. Services that are included in dental consumables are tooth restoration, related gingival tissues, and treatment for dental impairments. Furthermore, low cost of dental treatments because of less expensive oral healthcare services available in developing economies is also expected to drive the dental consumables market. Some of the other factors contributing in the growth of the dental consumables market is reducing government intervention in operating healthcare firms and accessibility of improved dental treatment with low labor cost has also benefitted the market growth. The global dental consumables market is prophesied to rise at 6.1%% of CAGR during the forecast period between 2016 and 2024. The valuation for the market is expected to reach US$33.4 bn by the end of 2020 progressing from US$19.6 bn as estimated in 2015. The report on the global dental consumables market classify on the basis of product that is further divided into dental crowns and bridges, dental implants, dental biomaterials, endodontics, orthodontics, periodontics, and retail dental care essentials. Out of these, the crown and bridges segment is leading the market and is likely to continue its dominance in the coming years. The demand for these devices is high as it provides a protective layer on the damaged part of the tooth. Moreover, technological advancements such as CAD and CAM are also driving the market growth. It is also assumed that rising awareness about cosmetic dentistry, large geriatric population, and improving life expectancy across the globe to benefit market growth. Furthermore, resemblance of getting a natural looking tooth by using crown and bridges is also expected to boost demand in the dental consumables market. Request to View Sample of Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=554 Geographically, the regions in which the dental consumables market is divided are Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and Middle East & Africa. Of these regions, Europe is leading the market due to large geriatric population present in the region. Growing awareness about the dental care and rising concerns related to oral healthcare are expected to keep the region on the forefront in the global dental consumables market. Countries in Asia Pacific are also expected to rise at a steady rate during the forecast period. This is due to the rising dental tourism in the various countries in Asia Pacific. In addition, rising spending by the middle class in oral healthcare is also expected to boost the demand for this market. The rising disposable income, growing awareness in region about the oral healthcare, and growing easy accessibility of oral healthcare in the region are considered some of the major driving the dental consumables market. The report has also analyzed some of the prominent players and their contribution to the global dental consumables market. To mention some of the prominent players are Institut Straumann AG, DENTSPLY International, Inc., Henry Schein, Inc., Patterson Companies, Ivoclar Vivadent AG, and 3M Health Care. The leading players in the market are expected to take part in mergers, takeovers, and joint ventures. Request to View Brochure of Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=554 Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/25/2019 -- Barite is a mineral that is rich in barium. Barite commonly occurs in the large number of depositional environment and it is found in the zinc-lead veins in limestone, in the hot spring deposits and in the hematite ore. Barite is also found alongside meteorites. Barite is relatively inert and also exhibits a physical property of high density. Barite is widely used as a weighting agent in the drilling muds. Barite also finds other applications in the electrical and electronics, rubber, ceramics, paints radiation shielding, medical and glass industry among others. China, India, Morocco and U.S. are expected to be the largest producers of barite. The total barite resources across the globe in all categories are around 2 billion tons, however, only 740 million tons is considered among the identified resources. Most of the barite manufactured is used as a weighting agent in the drilling fluids that are used in the oil and gas exploration. Barites are mainly used to suppress the high formation fluids and also to prevent blowouts. The quantity of barite used is mainly dependent on the depth of the hole that has to be bored. The deeper the hole, more the barite is required. Barite is non-magnetic in nature and hence, it does not interfere with the magnetic measurements that are taken during boring the hole making barite an ideal choice for the drilling fluids. Barite is widely used in the manufacturing of paints and coatings. Thus, the growing automobile industry is expected to boost the overall growth of the paints and coatings industry which in turn is expected to drive the growth of the overall barite market. The global barite market is expected to grow owing to its increasing demand in other applications such as textiles, paper and paints among others. Though, there are alternatives to barite such as ilmenite, celestite, iron ore and synthetic hematite, none of these substitutes had a major impact on the barite drilling mud industry. Request For Report Sample @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-150 Barites offer several benefits such as good stability, strong inertia, moderate rigidity, acid and alkali proof and high specific gravity. Due to such advantages, barite is widely used in applications including engineering plastic, middle and high-grade paint, medicine compounding, rubber, pottery, paper-making and cosmetics among others. The main types of barites are ground barite, finely ground barite and bleached barite. Ground barite is used as filler in the production of oil cloth, linoleum, paper, textile, plastics and rubber. Finely ground barite finds use in making thixotropic mud for sealing oil wells in drilling applications and bleached barite is used as a pigment in white paint. Considering the rapidly growing oil and gas drilling industry, the demand for barite is expected to record a strong growth in the coming years. India and China hold a dominant position in the barite supply and have increased prices significantly in the recent times. Owing to this, there is an increased focus on discovering and developing new barite resources across the world. While India and China are anticipated to dominate the barite production and export, mining projects in several stages of development are ongoing in countries such as Liberia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, and Zimbabwe. Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-150 Some of the key participants of the barite market include Desku Group Inc., SMIMTAF, Shijiazhuang Oushun Minerals Products Co. Ltd., Shanghai Titanos Industry Co., Ltd., CMS Industries and V&P Corporation among others. Congratulations to first-time winner Howard Bear for taking the top spot this week. He will receive Steve Breens signed original in the mail. Thanks to all those who participated. Next weeks cartoon is below. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. Good luck! Winner Ive always felt my motherboards disappointment in me. Howard Bear, Carmel Valley Finalists Doc, I think Im having a metal breakdown. Bill Seager, Coronado Advertisement I have this recurring nightmare that Im being replaced by a human being. Craig Leimkuehler, Encinitas I have these fears of being deported because I was born in Taiwan. Mike Casamento, Oceanside Roomba left and now Im in the dust. Debra Kresch, Encinitas Doc, can you just reboot me? Don Kakuda, La Jolla My mom was a refrigerator and always so cold to me. Ken Turek, San Diego Life hasnt been the same since Futurama was canceled. Dan Ostro, Imperial Beach I feel like a mechanical failure. Thomas Roycraft, San Diego Wouldnt you be depressed if everyone kept telling you that your intelligence was artificial? Steve Herrick, San Diego Advertisement K-12 Ever since Terminator. I feel like we are all just judged because of Skynet and stuff. A.J. Anderson, seventh grade, Coreia Middle School My wife just keeps pushing my buttons. Enzo Bernal, sixth grade, Dana Middle School I sometimes feel like Im a little rusty at whatever I do. Wyatt Fries, sixth grade, Dana Middle School Next weeks cartoon Advertisement (Steve Breen) To enter, email entries to cartooncontest@sduniontribune.com by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Please remember to limit your submissions to three and keep em brief. View last weeks winners. Lightly edited comments from our online coverage. Re Homeless are putting Downtowns tourism industry in jeopardy (Jan. 22): Most of us feel compassion for the homeless, but they dont have a right to camp out or sleep wherever they want. We need a common mandatory housing location, such as a large warehouse or very basic rooms with common food/health facilities, likely in the Otay Mesa area, to house and help these people. And stop passing laws that restrict organizations from helping and feeding the homeless. mikeevans5 Joined Nov. 6, 2018 Advertisement Bad news the homeless problem will be increasing as this country economically deteriorates. Downtown may revert back to its old roots a sleazy port town where the only tourists are visiting sailors looking for tattoos and a good time. psyflyjohn Joined July 19, 2016 We need a tent city for all homeless in Otay near the border, where all homeless will be required to stay. All of the local homeless services can set up shop there to help those that want it, but no more loitering on public streets. Steve from SD Joined April 17, 2016 Look at the bright side: at least, big Gov. Gavin Newsom and little county supervisor, Newsom-clone Nathan Fletcher are making us an expensive welcoming sanctuary for Honduran asylum-seeking migrants. bilwis Advertisement Joined April 19, 2016 Re Is California spending money it doesnt really have? (Jan. 20): Long-term debt and other obligations do not contradict the existence of substantial budget-year surpluses. hillcrester Joined April 16, 2016 Advertisement And of course government should spend whatever it has, legally, regardless of purpose, regardless of benefit, regardless of efficiency, as opposed to returning the money it took via taxation from those who earned it in the first place. Sure. Canyon63 Joined Jan. 23, 2017 Its true California has a honking big debt. But its also true that California has a honking big GDP. This ratio of these two factors shows ability to pay. See the chart here: usgovernmentdebt.us/state_debt_rank. Youll see California is even better off than that GOP paragon of virtues, Texas. If Gov. Newsom will continue Browns rainy day funding, there shouldnt be any problem. Advertisement FourthJohn Joined June 9, 2016 Re Brian Maienschein leaves Republican Party, joins Democrats in surprise move (Jan. 24): Is there an Opportunist Party? bob000569 Advertisement Joined April 9, 2018 Good for you Maienschein. Now remember we need more tax increases and more money poured into the pension system (after all you want to continue living the good life once you retire in a few years right?). And make sure you increase those benefits for the illegals in this country, because its important that when one of those aspiring Americans is freed from incarceration that they are not deported by that evil ICE organization. These are future voters after all. Oh, and make sure we continue blaming the remaining 19 Republicans in this state. After all we want them to continue having a role in our government. Lasertop Joined April 20, 2016 Advertisement What a turncoat. Hell get voted out of office next election cycle. tenhomas Joined April 21, 2016 Sure he will. Hahahaha. Another Republican bites the dust. Get used to it, as there will be many more to come. I know and like Brian, but just could not vote for a Republican with Donald Trump in the White House. Now he will likely get my vote, and the votes of many other sensible moderates. Advertisement Educated Thinker Joined August 21, 2017 Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. The 35-day partial government shutdown orchestrated by President and supposed artful dealmaker Donald Trump that came to a possibly temporary end Friday was one of the most senseless acts of his administration. Trumps announcement that he and congressional leaders had agreed to fund the government for three weeks was a relief. But it should also lead even the most loyal Trump follower to ask the obvious question: What good did it do? What was gained by grossly inconveniencing 800,000 federal workers and millions of other Americans affected by stopped or slowed government services? The answer is absolutely nothing. Trump is no closer to funding for a border wall than the day the shutdown began, and his State of the Union speech is in limbo. One point being made everywhere cant be made enough: The Republican president demanded something from a House newly controlled by Democrats that he couldnt get from the House for two years when it was controlled by Republicans. Trumps election in 2016 remains a landmark moment in U.S. history a confirmation of the disillusionment of millions of Americans. Most of these Americans may be satisfied with Trump because of the health of the economy and his successful nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices. But the presidents chaotic, impulsive management style has never been more self-evident. If there is another government shutdown in three weeks because Trump believes he can get House Democrats to cave on the border wall, heres another adjective to describe his management style: delusional. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Advertisement Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion Its unclear how effective, long-lasting or even legal the Trump administrations new border policy to return some asylum seekers to Mexico while their cases are pending in U.S. immigration courts will be. Whats clear is that an influx of asylum seekers lawfully in America awaiting court dates have left city and county politicians scrambling for months to find a place for them while also dealing with rising domestic homelessness and local budget priorities. Finally, theres a no-cost solution. The San Diego Rapid Response Network has offered asylum seekers shelter, food, transportation and medical care at a facility it must vacate by Feb. 15. On Tuesday, for stability, the county Board of Supervisors should approve a bipartisan proposal by Greg Cox and Nathan Fletcher to lease the downtown former family courthouse for this through 2019. Opening a temporary shelter for legal asylum seekers at a vacant, soon-to-be-demolished space at no cost to taxpayers and with no delays for the developer who plans to build affordable housing on the site is an easy call. Jewish Family Service of San Diego would cover upgrades, operations, maintenance and security costs. Supervisors could reject the idea in light of Trumps plans to house asylum seekers in Mexico, but the need is now and the White Houses record in court is spotty, at best. So soon after the countys unforgivable delays contributed to the regions deadly hepatitis A outbreak, this would limit the chance of another health crisis. It would also address public safety concerns about migrants on the streets, and ensure the regions homeless beds are being used by the regions homeless population. The cost of inaction is too high. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Advertisement Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion Californians are now in their second century of direct democracy. The state ballot initiative process that Gov. Hiram Johnson won approval for in 1911 remains highly popular with voters, many of whom relish the chance to second-guess or overrule the Legislature on major issues. But direct democracy in the Golden State has long been hurt by poorly drafted initiatives that fail to address key issues. The latest example is one of the highest-profile measures in recent years: Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative that legalized recreational use of marijuana by adults. Its main advocates led by then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom asserted that Proposition 64 was a carefully crafted, thoroughly vetted measure that addressed regulatory, taxation and marketing questions and that anticipated future headaches. Thats not the view of the League of California Cities and the California Police Chiefs Association. Theyre furious with the states approval earlier this month of regulations drafted by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control that held that marijuana-delivery companies with proper credentials could operate throughout the state including in the many cities and counties that have refused to allow the opening of recreational marijuana stores. Advertisement The cities and chiefs cite the provision in Proposition 64s full text that states it would allow local governments to ban nonmedical marijuana businesses. But the cannabis bureau cites a provision in Senate Bill 94, a measure fleshing out Proposition 64 that was approved with bipartisan support in the Legislature in 2017. It states, A local jurisdiction shall not prevent delivery of cannabis or cannabis products on public roads by a licensee acting in compliance with this division and local law. So is that really conclusive? The provision explicitly says delivery services must comply with local law. When the legal battles begin, judges are going to have to make a decision that should have been pinned down explicitly in the ballot measure. Alas, theres nothing new about that. The most famous of all California ballot initiatives, 1978s Proposition 13, was billed as requiring full property tax reassessments of properties that had changed owners. But because of vague language, a parcel isnt subject to reassessment after it is sold if no single individual, company or organization owns more than half the property. Another high-profile ballot measure 1994s Proposition 187 also lacked adequate vetting. It would have denied unauthorized immigrants access to non-emergency health care, public education and other services in the state. Within days of its controversial passage, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the proposition from taking effect on the grounds that the federal government has sole jurisdiction over immigration policy. The law was thrown out permanently in 1997. And Proposition 64 isnt the only flawed measure enacted in 2016. Proposition 57, which reclassified many nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, introduced the term nonviolent felony offense but left uncertainty about what was violent. The scope of the list has been the subject of a legal dispute, and NBC Los Angeles reported last year that prisoners with violent pasts had been released. There are many more headache-inducing examples of such sloppiness. Too often, direct democracy becomes debacle democracy even with the high-profile measures that in theory have been the most carefully polished. Californians deserve far better. Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion Californias treatment of juvenile offenders is far better than in the nightmarish days of the California Youth Authority, which was drastically reorganized and renamed in 2005 by the Schwarzenegger administration and the Legislature after years of scandals involving guards brutality toward and sexual abuse of wards at de facto youth prisons. Nevertheless, Gov. Gavin Newsom is right to call for what could be a profound new change: moving control of the Juvenile Justice Division away from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to the state Health and Human Services Agency. Most states have already made similar moves. Newsom says this will create an even greater push to help more than 660 of the states most troubled youths to get mental health care and to learn life and job skills while in custody, then go on to productive lives. The governor is particularly enthusiastic about the potential of pre-apprentice construction labor programs and computer coding classes to help some of these young offenders. But according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Newsoms proposal got a very wary reaction from activists and from probation officers and medical workers who deal with juvenile offenders. They note that changing the juvenile divisions home by itself accomplishes nothing and worry about a return to the bad old days, when far more offenders were locked up in state facilities instead of being put on probation or held in county juvenile halls that are near family members. This wariness makes sense. The state has made progress on juvenile justice and should worry about losing momentum. But in two interviews last year with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Newsom said he would be an active governor intent on overseeing a broad improvement in how state government works. His juvenile justice proposal reflects this spirit. If Newsom can adequately answer stakeholders concerns, it should be approved. Advertisement Twitter: @sdutIdeas Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion This weekend, Border Patrol agents have been ordered to force children and parents seeking asylum in the United States back across the border into Mexico. This is happening in San Ysidro and along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border. The Trump administration ordered this heartless measure affecting thousands of refugees from Central America just two days before the presidents surprise announcement on Friday to end the government shutdown for three weeks. If Congress doesnt bend to his will, he threatened to shut down the government again or declare a national emergency. Why is he lashing out at helpless mothers and children who are escaping from poverty, violence and gangs? For the past five years we have been following youth migrants and their parents and recording their stories for an upcoming book, Solito, Solita. We believe its incumbent on the American people to hear the voices of youth migrants who are living this story. Advertisement At age 5, Adrian* watched as his mother was shot to death in Guatemala City. He grew up in a gang-controlled barrio but refused to join. In revenge, gangsters stabbed him and left him for dead. Stitched up in the hospital, he bade farewell to his dying grandmother and fled to the U.S. for safety. I was solito, solito [alone, alone], he remembered. I decided to cross by myself. Adrian turned himself in at the border. As an unaccompanied minor, he was placed in a group home for youth in California while he applied for asylum. At a migrant shelter in southern Mexico, we met Danelia Silva, a young Salvadoran mother, and her three children, who were fleeing from Carlos, her violent ex-boyfriend. He had joined the MS-13 gang, was physically abusing her, and threatened her life. She tried to leave him, but he always tracked her down, climbing fire escapes and breaking into windows to capture her. She said, This is just a small piece of the terror Ive lived in for almost four years. After a perilous escape, she arrived at the U.S. border with her three children in 2016 seeking asylum, and they were reunited with her parents in Texas. Last November, we visited Tijuana with Soledad, a Honduran narrator in Solito, Solita who fled for the U.S. as a teenager in 2006, graduated from San Francisco State University and became a U.S. citizen. Speaking with members of the so-called caravan at a makeshift refugee shelter, we met a young Honduran mother named Claudia who had just arrived with her 10-year-old son from Copan, Honduras. Her husband had died of diabetes and she was struggling to support her son on her meager salary from a tobacco factory. The moment I heard that the caravan was passing through the town, she told us, I took my son and left. My dream is to work hard for my son. I have faith, she points to the sky, that I will be able to enter. To the American people, I plead that you give us opportunity. Soledad reflected, I crossed the border when I was 14 in Texas. Coming across the border from California into Tijuana years later now, I have the same feeling. It is really traumatic for me to see how the people here are so close to their dreams and cant make it. If Adrian and Soledad had arrived today, U.S. agents would push them back into Mexico. Danelia and her three children would face packed shelters and possibly be forced to live on the streets, along with thousands of others. This cruel measure is a blatant abuse of the asylum process. The federal courts must block it. As Congress and the president negotiate border reforms, may the multitude of small pieces of terror call a nation to compassion. Advertisement *All names have been changed. Mayers is an oral historian and professor at the City College of San Francisco. Freedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose editorials for The San Diego Tribune were influential in the passage of the 1986 U.S. immigration reforms. They are co-editors of Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America. Within living memory, political polarization had at least something to do with issues, but in the age of social media, its almost entirely about social type. Its about finding and spreading the viral soap operas that are supposed to reveal the dark hearts of those who are in the opposite social type from your own. Its about finding images that confirm your negative stereotypes about people you dont know. Its about reducing a complex human life into one viral moment and then banishing him to oblivion. You dont have to read social theory on this phenomenon; just look at the fracas surrounding the Covington Catholic High School boys. For those of you vacationing on Mars this past weekend, a video went viral showing a group of boys, many of them in MAGA hats, surrounding an older Native American man who was banging a drum. Advertisement The man, Nathan Phillips, told two different versions of what happened. He told The Washington Post that he was singing a traditional song when the teenagers swarmed around him, some chanting, Build that wall, build that wall. He decided the right thing to do was get away. Ive got to find myself an exit out of this situation. He told The Detroit Free Press that the incident started when the boys started attacking four African-Americans. So he decided to intervene. There was that moment when I realized Ive put myself between beast and prey. These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey. Many news organizations ran one of these accounts. Before you judge the reporters too harshly, its important to remember that these days the social media tail wags the mainstream media dog. If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you have to generate page views you have to incite social media. The way to do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers. In this one episode, you had a gentle, 64-year-old Native American man being swarmed by white (boo!), male (boo!), preppy (double boo!) Trump supporters (infinite boo!). If you are trying to rub the pleasure centers of a liberal audience, this is truly a story too good to check. Saturday was a day of liberal vindication. See! This is what those people do! This is who they really are. Reza Aslan, the religious scholar, tweeted a photo of the main Covington boy and asked, Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kids? The filmmaker Michael Green showed the same image and tweeted: A face like that never changes. This image will define his life. No one need ever forgive him. The institutions in charge of serving the boys did what institutions always do in the face of a social media mob. They cratered. The school and archdiocese apologized. The mayor of Covington denounced them. On Sunday, several longer videos emerged showing that most of what Phillips had told the media was inaccurate. The incident actually started when members of the hate cult the Black Hebrew Israelites started hurling racist and homophobic slurs at the boys. The Covington boys eventually asked their chaperone if they could do their school cheers. As they were doing that, Phillips walked into the middle of their circle and banged his drum in the face of one of the boys. Everybody was suddenly confused. Students shouted, What is going on? Then there was confusion and discomfort, smirking and verbal jousting. Advertisement Everybody involved in the incident was operating in an emotional and moral context that has been set by the viciousness of the Black Hebrew Israelites. Of the major players, the boys behavior is probably the least egregious. So Sunday was a day of conservative vindication. See? This is what those liberals do! They rush to judgment, dehumanize and seek to expunge us from national life. The main boy wrote a public letter that was consistent with the visual evidence and that was actually quite humane. In this case the facts happened to support the right-wing tribe. But thats not the point. The crucial thing is that the nations culture is now enmeshed in a new technology that we dont yet know how to control. In this technology, stereotype is more salient than persons. In this technology, a single moment is more important than a life story. In this technology, a main activity is proving to the world that your type is morally superior to the other type. Advertisement The Covington case was such a blatant rush to judgment it was powered by such crude prejudice and social stereotyping Im hoping it will be an important pivot point. Im hoping that at least a few people start thinking about norms of how decent people should behave on these platforms. Its hard to believe that people are going to continue forever on platforms where they are so cruel to one another. Its hard to believe that people are going to be content, year after year, to distort their own personalities in service to a platform, making themselves humorless, semi-blind, joyless and grim. For another take on this situation, read Farhad Manjoos column in Sundays opinion section. Bill Mitchell walked his way into politics as an anti-establishment outsider, twice winning seats on the San Diego City Council after logging 500 miles in door-to-door campaigning. Proud of his slow-growth, pro-police leanings, he also made an impact and more than a few headlines with rambling, offbeat musings that came to be known around City Hall as Mitchellisms. The San Diego native and longtime real estate agent died Jan. 20 after a three-year battle with leukemia, according to his daughter, Robin Mitchell Hee. He was 85. Bill was a wonderful character who cared deeply about his role as an elected official, said Larry Stirling, who served with Mitchell on the council from 1977 to 1985. Advertisement Born on Feb. 24, 1933, Mitchell grew up in a family with strong ties to San Diego. His father was a career city police officer. His grandfather helped put tiles in place on the California Tower in Balboa Park. Mitchell graduated from San Dieguito High School in 1951 and served in the Air Force during the Korean War. In 1958, he graduated from UCLA with a degree in business administration and settled back in San Diego, selling real estate and running an antique store. When he ran for City Council in 1977, it was as a maverick railing against the downtown business establishment and the elected lackeys who supported it. He told residents in the 1st District (La Jolla, Rancho Bernardo, University City, Rancho Penasquitos) that he would fight urban sprawl and protect their quality of life. He upset the incumbent, then won again four years later. Outspent by his opponents both times, he credited his victory to all those miles he walked while meeting the voters. On the council, he emerged as more of a moderate on land-use decisions, opposing some projects and supporting others. He walked a straighter line on law-enforcement issues, proposing an early version of Neighborhood Watch, pushing for more police officers, backing a horse patrol in Balboa Park, and forming a task force to combat drug abuse in schools. Sometimes his approach to public-safety was more hands-on. He tackled a burglary suspect and held him until officers arrived. He tailed a truck after he saw the driver taking lumber from a construction site and relayed the license plate number to officers. He hired a private detective when he felt the police department wasnt doing enough to solve a crime in his district. He had a very dynamic personality and he would do whatever he could to improve peoples lives, said Chuck Abdelnour, retired San Diego city clerk. Advertisement Mitchells accomplishments on the council were sometimes overshadowed by offbeat ideas and eccentric musings, news accounts at the time show. He once wondered out loud if the 911 system was even plausible because there is no 11 on a telephone dial. Later, he accused the media of misunderstanding him and perpetuating an image of him as an oddball. What I should have been given credit for is being humorous, he told the San Diego Union. Acting dumb is part of the humor. He was also outwardly religious he called himself a metaphysical Presbyterian at a time when that made some people uncomfortable, including council colleagues who objected playfully to him thinking he was closer to God than the rest of us. Advertisement Bill was a handsome, highly energetic member of the council, said Pete Wilson, who was mayor during most of Mitchells City Hall days. Both on the council and afterwards, Bill was an enthusiastic proponent of the power of positive thinking. This led to his being kidded occasionally by his colleagues, which he mostly took with good humor. Some days it required considerable positive thinking. Not a bad thing in politics. By the time Mitchell ran for a third term in 1985, he had rounded off some of his edges. He had toned down the anti-power broker rhetoric. He courted and received campaign donations from developers. He remained neutral on a major managed-growth ballot initiative. And he was defeated, by Abbe Wolfsheimer. I dont like to lose, but Im grateful for the outcome, he told the Union. I needed a good swift kick in the rear. Advertisement He twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress, and then turned to real estate and consulting. He remained interested in politics, his friends said, and often sent letters to the editor to local newspapers on various issues. American democracy calls for tolerance, he wrote in one, or we will never get along. Survivors include his wife, Mary Jane Mitchell of La Jolla; daughter Robin Mitchell Hee of San Luis Obispo; son William Mitchell of Idaho; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Services are planned at El Camino Memorial Park in Sorrento Valley: A viewing Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., a memorial service Wednesday at noon in Chapel Two, and burial Wednesday at 1 p.m. in the cemeterys veterans section. Advertisement john.wilkens@sduniontribune.com A lawsuit against the City of San Diego by an employee who alleges her supervisor grabbed her, harassed her and touched her breasts at work is scheduled for trial in April, according to court records. The case is significant, the workers lawyer said, because a city investigation found the allegations credible, but the supervisor remained her employer for more than a month after the harassment complaint. For the record: This story has been amended from its original posting to correct the spelling of Hilary Nemchik, a spokeswoman for the City Attorneys Office. The employee, Jazmin Garcia, 30, sued the city and Frank Cardenas, her former supervisor in the Park and Recreation Department, last January in San Diego Superior Court. Garcias lawsuit accuses both defendants of sexual harassment, Cardenas of wrongs including assault and sexual battery, and the city of failing to prevent sexual harassment and retaliating against her after she reported it. According to the lawsuit, the city investigated Cardenas but allowed him to remain her boss for weeks, a situation that worsened her emotional distress and slowed her professional advancement. Advertisement In April, the city responded in court filings denying all of Garcias allegations. The city declined to answer the Union-Tribunes questions about Cardenas, the lawsuit and the citys internal investigation. Cardenas has not filed a response to the lawsuit and did not respond to the San Diego Union-Tribunes phone calls and emails last week. Garcias lawyer, Josh Gruenberg, said the city confirmed to him that Cardenas no longer works for the city but not why or when he left. The city hired Garcia in 2014 as a recreation leader in the citys Park and Recreation Department, according to the lawsuit. Cardenas became her supervisor the following year, when she advanced to a position as assistant recreation center director for senior citizen services. The lawsuit says that shortly after he became Garcias supervisor, Cardenas began sexually harassing her, making inappropriate comments, touching her body and hugging her without consent. The lawsuit says Garcia told Cardenas his behavior made her uncomfortable, and she reported to his supervisors an incident in which he got angry and allegedly raised a hand to her face, as though to strike her. The sexual harassment continued, the lawsuit says. In February 2017, Cadenas asked to meet with Garcia in a cubicle out of coworkers view, where, the lawsuit says, he allegedly grabbed her, held her tight as she struggled and whispered, Oh, Jazzy, baby, in her ear. Then he moved his hands under her outer sweater and pressed them against her breasts. Shaken and feeling humiliated, ashamed and disgusted, she told a friend about the incident and filed a sexual harassment complaint with her union the following day, the lawsuit alleges. Advertisement Garcia chose to allow the city to conduct an internal investigation, and the three-person panel corroborated through witness testimony, texts and surveillance video footage Garcias allegations of unwelcome touching, according to the lawsuit. While the citys investigation found in June 2017 that Cardenas had violated city policies and sexually harassed Garcia, the city provided Garcia little information about the investigations outcome. One of the troubling facts in the case from Jazmins point of view is that for about seven weeks after she made her claim, (Cardenas) was listed as her supervisor on time sheets and other official forms, so it appeared to her that he still had power over her, Gruenberg said during an interview Wednesday. There was never an effort by the city to say he is no longer your supervisor. The alleged harassment led to deteriorating mental health, the lawsuit says, eventually forcing Garcia to take medical leave, which caused problems with a temporary promotion she received. Under pressure from an upper-level manager, Garcia reluctantly agreed to leave the position early and return to her old job, the lawsuit alleges. Advertisement Garcia continues to work for the city, but her anxiety and other mental health problems persist, Gruenberg said. The city filed a response to Garcias lawsuit in April, denying all the allegations. The city argued that it had taken appropriate measures to prevent and correct discrimination and harassment in the workplace, that it had responded promptly and appropriately to Garcias report of sexual harassment, and that it had unrelated, legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons for actions or omissions affecting Garcias employment. The citys defense included arguments that Garcias conduct has exacerbated her injuries or damages, if any, though it didnt detail what actions. Advertisement Gruenberg noted that the citys internal investigation in 2017 determined Garcia was an unwilling participant in Cardenas violation of city policies and had not deliberately done anything to encourage his advances. They found her to be credible, consistent in her testimony and genuinely impacted by the events and incidents that occurred in her meetings with Mr. Cardenas, Gruenberg said. They found that she is a good historian, provided details, explanations she remained consistent throughout her nine hours of testimony. The citys general answer to the complaint is a standard pleading that it files in nearly every case, Gruenberg said, but the city does have the ability to take responsibility for what happened to Ms. Garcia, and it has not done that. Hilary Nemchik, a spokeswoman for the City Attorneys Office, said in a statement Friday, Our office will seek direction from our client and respond through the courts. Advertisement The lawsuit is scheduled for trial April 19. morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com Lawyers for a woman who accused a sheriffs deputy of sexual misconduct years before he was arrested are backing away in the wake of records showing he was deployed to Afghanistan at the time of the alleged behavior. Attorneys Dan Gilleon and James Mitchell, who represent a former San Diego State University student identified in court papers as T.R., said their client was accosted by someone in uniform in 2012 -- but they are no longer sure it was Richard Fischer. Nobody will dispute that the alleged victim of Deputy Sheriff Richard Fischer, T.R., who was then 23, was sexually harassed by a law enforcement officer sometime in 2012, Mitchell told The San Diego Union-Tribune. We will try to identify that officer, if he is not Fischer. The acknowledgement came after the Union-Tribune reviewed court records and asked Gilleon and Mitchell about filings from lawyer Joseph Kutyla, who is defending Fischer in 20 civil lawsuits brought by women who have accused the former deputy of sexual misconduct. Advertisement Fischer, a 32-year-old former U.S. Marine and reservist hired by the Sheriffs Department in 2011, faces a total of 14 felonies and six misdemeanors, including allegations of assault and battery under the color of authority. If convicted he faces more than 25 years in state prison. He has pleaded not guilty. The criminal trial is scheduled to begin in April. T.R.s allegations are not part of the criminal case. In her civil lawsuit, T.R. said she was driving home about 3:30 a.m. in September, 2012, when Fischer pulled her over along Interstate 8, saying the tint on her car windows was too dark. She said he threatened to arrest her but let her drive home, then he hugged her inappropriately. T.R. said she later spoke to investigators two different times but nothing came of the interviews. Last spring, she saw a news report identifying Fischer as the suspect in a sexual-misconduct probe. I saw the photo of him and started freaking out, T.R. told the Union-Tribune last year. She filed her lawsuit four months after the arrest. Advertisement T.R.s claims were significant because, if true, they meant that the Sheriffs Department was aware of sexual-misconduct allegations against Fischer five years earlier than officials have acknowledged. The department has repeatedly said it knew nothing about allegations against Fischer prior to November 2017. Kutyla filed a series of documents in San Diego Superior Court late last year challenging T.R.s claims. One of the documents is a declaration from Fischer asserting that he was in Afghanistan when T.R. claimed he pulled her over. On January 9, 2012, I went on leave of absence from my position with the Sheriffs Department and started my active-duty assignment, Fischer wrote in a sworn declaration. I returned to my position as a detentions deputy in mid-November 2012. The lawyers for T.R. have yet to respond in court to Kutylas motions. Advertisement Kutyla said the new position put forward by T.R.s lawyers is not logical. That makes no sense; either it happened or didnt happen, he said. Why is it she identified a photograph of him? She said to the investigators that she was 100 percent sure it was Fischer, based on the photograph. Shes not going to get off that easy. In another court filing Kutyla seeks to deem specific facts as admitted: mainly that Fischer never pulled over T.R., followed her home, groped her, or traded text messages with her, nor was she contacted by sheriffs detectives, among other things. Admit that Richard Fischer never told you that he could smell liquor on your breath, the Dec. 31 filing requests. Admit that Richard Fischer never told you he could arrest you for driving under the influence of alcohol. Advertisement The new filing, which is still pending before Judge Katherine A. Bacal, seeks monetary sanctions against T.R. and her attorneys to pay for the time Kutyla spent trying to secure an explanation for the discrepancy. According to the motion, neither T.R. nor her lawyers have responded to the declaration. Instead, they sought additional time, then failed to comply with a court order to reply in writing by Dec. 28. Mitchell told the Union-Tribune he would respond to the Fischer declaration in court but declined to say why he missed the court-ordered deadline. As to the admissions that have not been responded to yet, that can be solved by submitting responses before the hearing date and the matters will not be deemed admitted, he wrote by email. Advertisement The District Attorneys Office declined to discuss the recent developments in the civil complaint against Fischer or their implications for the criminal case. But Manny Medrano, the Pasadena lawyer defending Fischer in the criminal case, said the change of heart by T.R.s attorneys indicates that other statements put forward by women who accused his client also are suspect. We are definitely going to trial because my client is 100 percent innocent, he said. The current alleged 16 victims are plagued by many problems -- changing stories, some have criminal records, some have cut deals with the D.A. prior to their testimony. The misconduct allegations leveled against Fischer in 2017 were reported by the Union-Tribune and other news outlets. More accusers came forward as publicity about the case increased. Advertisement Fischer was placed on administrative leave and later relieved of his duties. After months of complaints from alleged victims that Fischer was receiving special treatment because he was a law enforcement officer, he was arrested in February 2018. He was released on $750,000 bail and ordered to wear a GPS tracker. In total, Fischer was sued in civil court by 20 women. By May, the County of San Diego had agreed to settle four of those cases for more than $905,000 combined. Most of the remaining cases were put on hold pending the outcome of the criminal case. But two civil cases -- T.R.s and a similar claim filed by a woman identified as A.W. -- were allowed to proceed in civil court because those plaintiffs are not included in the criminal prosecution. Advertisement jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald In the first move of a promised battle between Gov. Gavin Newsom and local governments over Californias housing affordability crisis, the state sued the city of Huntington Beach on Friday and accused it of failing to allow enough new homebuilding to accommodate a growing population. At Newsoms urging, the state attorney generals office filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against the community over a state law that requires cities and counties to set aside sufficient land for new residential development. The governor said in a statement that the suit was needed because rising housing costs threaten the economy and deepen inequality. Newsom indicated that the case, the first filed under enhanced authority given last year to the governors office to investigate compliance with the housing law, could be just the beginning. Many cities are taking herculean efforts to meet this crisis head-on, Newsom said. But some cities are refusing to do their part to address this crisis and willfully stand in violation of California law. Those cities will be held to account. Advertisement Gov. Gavin Newsom threatens to cut state funding from cities that dont approve enough housing The legal action is part of a push by the governor to flex the states muscles over homebuilding, an issue that has long been the domain of local government. In his budget announcement this month, Newsom threatened to withhold state transportation dollars from cities and counties that reject development and proposed allocating $1.3 billion as incentive for local governments to accommodate growth and homeless services. Although cities and counties do not build homes, local restrictions on development, such as high fees or a lack of land zoned for residential use, can prevent construction that might otherwise occur. Higher-income coastal communities, including Huntington Beach, often maintain some of the tightest development rules in the state, even as housing costs have soared over the last decade. The median home value in the beach city of 200,000 people tops $834,000, according to real estate website Zillow. Over half of Huntington Beachs tenants are considered rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing, U.S. census data show. The failure of local governments to plan for the necessary housing supply has been a key factor contributing to this crisis, the lawsuit states. For more than three years, Huntington Beach has ignored the state law aimed at encouraging housing production. In 2015, its City Council reduced the amount of housing allowed under zoning codes along two major streets by more than 2,000 homes. Residents had complained that the city was growing too quickly and took aim at plans that allowed for apartment and condominium development. We want to reclaim our town, resident Lilli Wells said at the 2015 council meeting, according to the Orange County Register. We want to keep the culture and flavor of our community. Advertisement The decision meant the city no longer had enough land zoned to accommodate low-income residents under state requirements, prompting a lawsuit from affordable-housing activists. An appellate court ruled in Huntington Beachs favor because its one of a small number of California cities organized under rules that give it sweeping authority over its own practices, including land-use policies. The city has yet to pass a new plan to comply with the state zoning requirements. Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates contended the city was following the housing law and argued that officials havent been able to develop a new zoning proposal because of the prior litigation. Fridays lawsuit, Gates said, will further stall efforts to do so. Now instead of making progress in discussions and negotiations, good productive communications with [California Department of Housing and Community Development] representatives will be cut off because of this new state lawsuit, Gates said. Gates also noted that Huntington Beach is one of 52 local governments that dont have state-approved housing plans. Advertisement That raises questions about the motivation for this lawsuit filed only against Huntington Beach, he said. The city has long had a contentious relationship with state officials. Huntington Beach sued the state over Senate Bill 54, the 2017 legislation that greatly limited whom state and local law enforcement agencies can hold, question and transfer at the request of federal immigration authorities. Forty percent of voters in Huntington Beach are Republican in contrast to Newsom, a Democrat whose party also controls the state Legislature. Coverage of California politics State officials said Huntington Beach is one of just three cities along with Clovis and Selma in Fresno County that backtracked on housing plans they submitted, which were approved by the state. The cities each later decreased the amount of land set aside for housing and fell below the goals they reported to the state. Advertisement Newsom spokesman Nathan Click said the lawsuit should not be construed as retaliation against Huntington Beach officials. The city is egregiously and flagrantly in violation of state housing law, Click said. Affordable housing advocates said they were encouraged by renewed state efforts to sue. The last such case was filed in 2009, when former Gov. Jerry Brown was attorney general. The state intervened in a lawsuit against the Bay Area city of Pleasanton, where voters capped the amount of housing allowed. The case ended with Pleasanton eliminating its cap, zoning for more homes and owing about $4 million in attorneys fees. It is unprecedented, said Cesar Covarrubias, executive director of the Kennedy Commission, the Orange County affordable housing group that previously sued Huntington Beach. Were seeing that the state is using all its resources to address the housing crisis. We need all local governments to do the same. Advertisement Newsom also pledged to revamp the states housing supply goals, which would probably force communities to set aside more land for new homes. A 2017 Times investigation showed that although state law requires local governments to zone for housing, it does not hold them accountable for resulting homebuilding. Legislators have recently taken steps toward strengthening housing laws by forcing cities that are behind on their supply goals to approve specific projects and giving the state Department of Housing and Community Development greater authority to investigate compliance. Under a 2018 law by Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), a response to the prior Huntington Beach court decision, cities can no longer eliminate areas zoned for low-income housing if doing so conflicts with their state housing plan. Wieckowski was also pleased that the state filed suit, and he believes the case reveals Newsoms priorities in addressing housing problems. Advertisement Hes setting a tone in this administration, Wieckowski said of the governor. Hes sending a message to Huntington Beach and all the other cites, saying, I mean business. liam.dillon@latimes.com Twitter: @dillonliam With time running short, Trump administration lawyers urged the Supreme Court on Friday to intervene in a dispute over the 2020 census and uphold their plans to ask everyone about their citizenship. The move sets the stage for a high-stakes legal fight over the population count, one which could cost California billions in federal funds. The state filed suit in a federal court in San Francisco seeking to block the citizenship question and cited surveys suggesting that 12% to 18% of households in California may refuse to respond if they were asked about the citizenship of all the residents. The level of fear in minority communities has exploded, said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former voting rights lawyer at the Justice Department. People are afraid of the federal government. Advertisement He said immigrants feared the Trump administration might use the data to detain or deport those here unlawfully. Two weeks ago, a federal judge in New York ruled that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had violated federal procedural law by ignoring the advice of census experts who said adding a citizenship question would lead to an inaccurate count. It will materially reduce response rates among immigrant and Hispanic households, the experts said. Judge Jesse Furman wrote a 277-page opinion in which he accused Ross of giving a misleading account as to why he insisted on including the citizenship question. His were the acts of an official with something to hide, the judge wrote. The Constitution requires an actual enumeration of the population every 10 years, and it says representation in Congress will be apportioned among several states according to the respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state. Prior to 1960, the census had asked households about their citizenship and place of birth. Since then, citizenship data have been collected only through surveys of a small segment of the population. But last March, Ross said he had decided to add a citizenship question to next years census. On Friday, Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco asked the high court to take up the census issue without waiting for a ruling from an appeals court. This involves an issue of imperative public importance, he said. The census occurs only once a decade, with no possibility of a do-over. And the government needs to have a final census form ready for printing this summer, he said. The justices have already shown a keen interest in the case. They issued orders to limit the scope of the trial in New York, and they are likely to grant review when they meet again in mid-February. Advertisement The case is U.S. Department of Commerce vs. New York. The latest from Washington More stories from David G. Savage An 11-year-old student suffered a head injury after the child was struck by an SUV in a school parking lot shortly before classes started Friday morning, San Diego police said. The incident happened just after 8 a.m. at Ocean View Hills Elementary School, on Del Sol Boulevard in the Ocean Crest neighborhood near Otay Mesa. According to police, the child had run in front of a 2017 Cadillac Escalade driven by a 57-year-old woman. The incident happened on an access road in back of the school by a park, a district official said. Advertisement The child was taken to a hospital with a head injury that police said was not considered to be life-threatening. San Ysidro School District spokesman Francisco Mata said administrators sent parents a letter to notify them of the incident. The letter notes that school staffers immediately responded and called 911. teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com (760) 529-4945 Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT A police search for a potentially dangerous man put Southwestern Colleges National City campus on lockdown Friday afternoon, though only faculty members were on campus as the spring semester has not yet started, school officials said. A text message was sent to Southwestern students just before 3 p.m. with information about the lockdown at the National City Higher Education Center on National City Boulevard between East Eighth Street and East Plaza Boulevard. A text message alert was sent to Southwestern College students warning them that the National City Higher Education Center was locked down. (Union-Tribune) National City police officers are searching for a potentially dangerous male suspect, with orange shirt or no shirt, seen on or around the HEC campus, the text message said. This subject is considered dangerous. Lockdown protocols should be taken. SWC police officers are en route. Advertisement The suspect, considered potentially armed, apparently ran toward the campus while fleeing a traffic accident. It was unclear if the wanted man, whose name was not immediately available, was ever on the campus, as several witness reports indicated might have been the case. Southwestern College spokeswoman Lillian Leopold said the threat was not campus-specific, but because the search was happening so close to the campus, school officials locked down the college. Friday was opening day at the college for staff, but students were not yet on campus, Leopold said. All staff members were locked down and secure as of 3:20 p.m. A follow-up alert was sent to Southwestern College students Friday informing them that the National City Higher Education Center had been searched and secured by police. (Union-Tribune) By about 4 p.m., police had searched the school campus, and all employees had been escorted out of the facility, school officials said. Classes were expected to resume on a normal schedule Monday. National City police did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment. City News Service contributed to this report. Advertisement Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 Advertisement alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 4:55 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details. 4:40 p.m.: College officials said the campus was searched and secured, and all employees were evacuated. Advertisement This article was originally published at 3:35 p.m. A motorcyclist lost control of his Harley while popping a wheelie with a woman on the back, leaving his passenger injured in the roadway behind him as his motorcycle jumped a curb and struck two pedestrians Friday evening in alleged hit-and-run crash in downtowns Gaslamp Quarter, police said. The bizarre collision happened about 7:10 p.m. at Fourth Avenue and F Street near the east entrance to the Westfield Horton Plaza parking structure, San Diego police Officer Robert Heims said. The rider was doing a wheelie when he lost control of his 2014 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle, Heims said in a statement. A 32-year-old woman riding on the back of the motorcycle fell off into the street, while the motorcycle struck a 21-year-old man and 55-year-old woman standing on a corner in the intersection, Heims said. Advertisement The rider fell off the motorcycle and fled the scene leaving the motorcycle there, Heims said. Medics took both injured pedestrians to UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest for treatment of serious injuries, Heims said. The man sustained a fractured ankle and was cut on a knee, while the woman suffered a fractured right elbow. The passenger who fell off the motorcycle was also taken to a hospital after complaining of pain, Heims said. No description of the runaway motorcyclist was immediately available, but officers from the San Diego Police Departments traffic division were investigating the collision. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins Advertisement (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com San Diego police were investigating a suspected hit-and-run crash that hospitalized a 69-year-old pedestrian Friday evening in Linda Vista. The crash happened about 6:35 p.m. on Linda Vista Road near Ulric Street, where the victim was walking across the roadway when he was struck by the passengers side mirror of a Ford F-150 headed south, San Diego police Sgt. Michael Tansey said. The driver of the pickup initially pulled into the parking lot of a business off Linda Vista Road before fleeing in an unknown direction, Tansey said. Early Saturday morning, police officials said they located the pickup and its driver, whod been interviewed but was not immediately arrested. Advertisement The incident is still being investigated, a police watch commander said in a statement just before 1:45 a.m. Saturday. The victim suffered head injuries and a fractured left arm, and was taken by medics to a hospital for treatment of his wounds, which were not expected to be life-threatening, Tansey said. The mirror that struck the man broke off from the truck and was abandoned at the scene. San Diego Police Department detectives and traffic officers were investigating the alleged hit-and-run. Anyone with information about the crash was urged to call the Departments traffic division at (858) 495-7800, or San Diego County Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com Advertisement UPDATES: 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26: This story was updated to show police found the suspected driver, interviewed that driver and were continuing to investigate the crash. This article was originally published at 8:45 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 25. Employees at a pair of Little Caesars pizza restaurants in San Diego and La Mesa were robbed at gunpoint Friday night, and police believed the same masked gunman likely was responsible for both heists. The first robbery happened just after 9:30 p.m. at the carry-out pizza chains location on El Cajon Boulevard and College Avenue, about a mile south of San Diego States campus, San Diego police Officer Robert Heims said. Wearing a black mask over his face, the suspect walked into the pizzeria, pointed a gun at employees and demanded money, Heims said. He left with an unknown amount of cash walking north on College Avenue toward SDSU. About five miles away and within half an hour, just before the locations 10 p.m. closing time, a man with a nearly identical description held up the Little Caesars at Lake Murray Boulevard and El Paso Street, according to San Diego police dispatchers and La Mesa police. He was last seen running west on Lake Murray Boulevard. Advertisement In a tweet, La Mesa police described the suspect as a roughly 6-foot, 200-pound black man wearing a black hoodie and dark jeans. San Diego police dispatchers said he was armed with a black handgun. Police searching for robbery suspect 6100 Lake Murray Blvd. Suspect is a black male, 6'0 200lbs wearing black hoodie, dark jeans. La Mesa PD (@LaMesaPD) January 26, 2019 San Diego police said the man who held up the College Area restaurant was also a roughly 6-foot black man wearing all black, including a mask, coat, pants and shoes. San Diego robbery detectives were investigating the College Area heist, and police believed the robberies were most likely related. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins Advertisement (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com As the longest government shutdown in U.S. history came to an end Friday, experts say its immediate damage in San Diego was minimal, but another shutdown could prove far more damaging. On Friday the more than 800,000 government employees nationwide who missed their second paycheck since the partial government shutdown began received welcome news. President Donald Trump announced a deal that would temporarily reopen the government until at least Feb. 15. The president also promised back pay for the impacted workers. The news was met warily by local workers, who acknowledged their reprieve may just be temporary. Advertisement I think the president finally realized that this has such a big negative impact, said George McCubbin III, national vice president of the San Diego-based American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing government employees. This is a lot larger than 800,000 people. This shut down our country. McCubbin said he is grateful the president ended the shutdown, but workers wont likely feel comfortable with future uncertainty. Most folks are going to prepare for another shutdown just in case, he said. Some 380,000 workers were furloughed and another 420,000 were forced to work without pay during the shutdown. Greater San Diego has the fifth largest population of federal workers in the country, according to a 2018 report from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Lynn Reaser, chief economist at the Fermanian Business & Economic Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University, said San Diego was more insulated from the shutdown than other regions, because of the importance of the military to this local economy. The Department of Defense had already secured full funding for the fiscal year, thus protecting many of San Diegos military workers. Non-defense federal workers number about 25,000 in San Diego County, which is less than 2 percent of the regions total employment. Much of the damage inflicted on the economy by the shutdown will be reversed as government employees receive back pay, Reaser said. Resumption of another government shutdown that would last one to two months would have a more appreciable impact on San Diegos economy. Advertisement Reaser said airports and drug approval pipelines are especially vulnerable if another shutdown occurs and is prolonged. Drug approvals will be backlogged and private contractors may be unable to make up for lost business, she said. During the recent shutdown, cracks were visible in other sectors of San Diego. In San Diegos booming science and biomedical research industries, the shutdown imposed financial worries on researchers and stopped several key projects in their tracks, including a landmark study on Californias marine environment that was decades in the making. Meanwhile there was an ever-growing backlog in the immigration court system. And local corrections officers at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego expressed concerns about safety in their prisons. Advertisement McCubbin said he and AFGE will continue advocating to Congress and the president. The AFGE will hold its legislative conference in D.C. around Feb. 15. Theyre message to elected officials, he said, is This cant happen again. San Diego State officials say the universitys first hybrid dormitory, which the City Council approved last week, will help reduce the scarcity of student housing, boost academic achievement and possibly become a model for similar projects. Community leaders say it may also help restore some order and peace in neighborhoods near the university by reducing demand for mini-dorms, which are converted single-family homes known for wild parties. Kansas development firm Elsey Partners is building the hybrid dorm project. University officials didnt endorse the hybrid project or partner with Elsey on parking or funneling students into its 128 rooms, but thats not because of any opposition, said Eric Hansen, SDSUs vice president for business operations. Advertisement In no way would we consider this adversarial or a negative thing at all, he said. Its just the opposite. We see it as helping meet the need for student housing. The university has a blanket policy of not endorsing or partnering with projects not owned or operated by the school. In addition, university buildings are held to higher safety and earthquake standards than private student housing. Hansen said the school could have built a university-operated dorm on the site, which is an empty lot across Montezuma Road from campus, but the lot size is too small. University-operated dorms are typically 300 to 600 beds, staffed by resident counselors, and they have security provided by campus police, he said. That size has worked well in terms of our staffing model and everything else, he said. The five-story hybrid dorm, however, fits well with the universitys focus on encouraging students to live near campus in high-density housing filled with other students, he said. Higher density housing tends to support student success at a higher rate, Hansen said, adding that its especially true for freshmen and sophomores. They tend to do better when theyre living on campus than when they dont, he said. They have higher grade point averages, higher retention rates, higher graduation rates and typically faster times to graduation. The hybrid dorm will have small, single-occupancy rooms and shared kitchen areas on each of its five floors. Advertisement With the university not able to provide enough dorm rooms for all of its students, Hansen said more hybrid dorms could pop up in coming years. Chris Elsey, of Elsey Partners, said hes open to building additional hybrid dorms near campus if his first one is a success. He wont know that until construction is complete some time in 2021. Elsey has built similar projects near the University of Southern California, the University of Nebraska and the University of Oklahoma. He also began constructing a hybrid dorm next to Ohio State University last year. Elsey said his goal was to provide students with smaller, cheaper rooms with more privacy than the mini-dorms and the many four-bedroom apartments near campus. Advertisement Each room will be less than 200 square feet and include a bathroom but no other significant amenities. The complex will also include a rooftop terrace and courtyards in the front and rear. Based on a request from the College Area Community Planning Group, hours on the terrace will be restricted to 8 a.m. through 8 p.m., and no amplified music will be allowed there. Jose Reynoso, a member of the planning group, said the hybrid dorm is a way to combat mini-dorms in a financial way instead of a legislative way, which has proven unsuccessful. The city approved several ordinances in recent years to crack down on mini-dorms, but nearly all of them have been struck down by courts as unconstitutional. Of the 3,500 single family homes in the college area, an estimated 850 have been converted into mini-dorms. Advertisement Hansen, the university official, said one thing working against more hybrid dorms being constructed is the scarcity of available land near campus. The university has also added more student housing in recent years. That includes taking over four private buildings, renovating them and operating them as university dorms. In addition, voter approval last November of the SDSU West proposal for the citys Mission Valley stadium site will give the university an opportunity to build more student housing to meet demand. It may take many years or even decades, but Hansen said there could come a time when there is an oversupply of student housing, and university officials would begin to view hybrid dorms as unwelcome competition. Advertisement It happens at other institutions for sure, he said. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick Workers with Brazilian mining company Vale were eating lunch when a dam that held back waste collapsed, burying the restaurant and surrounding community in reddish-brown sludge, killing at least seven people and leaving up to 200 missing. The status of the workers and others in the city of Brumadinho was unknown late Friday, hours after what President Jair Bolsonaro and other officials were describing as a tragedy. Seven bodies had been recovered by late Friday, according to a statement from the governors office of Minas Gerais state. But the fear was that there would be many more as rescue and recovery teams dug through feet of mud. Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened. About 100 had been accounted for, and rescue efforts were underway to determine what had happened to the others. Advertisement The principal victims were our own workers, Schvartsman told a news conference Friday evening, adding that the restaurant where many ate was buried by the mud at lunchtime. After the dam collapsed in the afternoon, parts of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste. Photos showed rooftops poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and a Vale administrative office, where employees were present. Ive never seen anything like it, Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, president of Brumadinho residents association, told The Associated Press by phone Friday night. It was horrible...the amount of mud that took over. Silva Tomas said she was awaiting news of her cousin, and many she knew were trying to get news of loved ones. Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds from their homes. Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic meters of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Schvartsman said what happened Friday was a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less. Advertisement The state fire department told The Associated Press that about 200 people were missing. The Minas Gerais governors office said 150 were missing. Bolsonaro, who assumed office Jan. 1, said he lamented the accident and sent three cabinet ministers to the area. We will take all the possible steps to minimize the suffering of families and victims, Bolsonaro said in a speech, which he posted on Twitter. Bolsonaro planned to tour the area by helicopter on Saturday. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Advertisement Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underscored a lack of regulation. According to Vales website, the mine waste, often called tailings, is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster contained high levels of toxic heavy metals. Vale is Brazils largest mining company. Two hours after the accident, its stock fell 10% on the New York Stock Exchange. Just before midnight Saturday, firefighters put out a list of 187 people who had been rescued throughout the afternoon. Advertisement Of the 427 workers who were on hand when the dam collapsed, 279 had been accounted for, Vale said in a statement. More than 100 firefighters were on the scene and 200 more were expected to arrive Saturday. Mexicos government said Friday it would not impede U.S. plans to send asylum-seeking migrants back across the southern border while they await a hearing in U.S. courts. Mexican authorities made it clear they did not support the Trump administrations program, but they appeared reluctant to pick a new fight with the White House less than two months into the term of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The decision cleared the way for U.S. agents to begin the new protocols even as many migrants remained bottlenecked in Tijuana - just steps from the border - and officials in the teeming border city said resources were strained to the limit. The spokesman for Mexicos Foreign Relations Department, Roberto Velasco, told reporters in Mexico City that the United States was prepared to send back the first group: Up to 20 migrants across the footbridge at the San Ysidro border crossing to await asylum hearings. Velasco, however, outlined some ground rules. He said Mexico would not accept migrants appealing a denial of asylum, unaccompanied children or people with serious health problems. Unaccompanied minors would be exempt from the U.S. deportations. Advertisement The Mexican government does not agree with the unilateral measure implemented by the U.S. government, Velasco said. Nonetheless, and in line with our new migration policy, we reiterate our commitment to migrants and to human rights. Migration should be a choice, not a necessity. The deported migrants would be the first group of people to have been affected by the U.S. policy, called Remain in Mexico and first announced in December. Wait times for migrants who are currently in the United States can be months, or even years, as a result of a backlog of more than 800,000 cases. But a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said the asylum cases of those sent back to Mexico should be decided within a year, with an initial hearing within 45 days. The plan would mark a massive change to the system of detention through which asylum seekers are processed. On Friday, even municipal officials in Tijuana remained in the dark about the details. Cesar Palencia, chief of migrant affairs in Tijuana, said he did not believe the city would be capable of attending to all of the asylum seekers, and that no new space had been set up to receive them. We dont see a strategy to attend to them, he said. Its not in keeping with the law, and I consider it a violation of migrants rights. Palencia was also concerned that the strategy would cause more people to be forced to remain in Mexico for the long term, and further limit their options to reenter the United States. Advertisement What happens if someone from Honduras goes in front of a judge and say, My life is at risk, but Ive been living in Mexico for three years? he said. It seems like a method of denying them. Leopoldo Guerrero Diaz, the secretary general of Tijuana, said that it was the responsibility of the Mexican government to prepare spaces for the migrants. He said El Barretal - a shelter built for 6,000 migrants who arrived en mass in October - had the space for more migrants, but that other shelters in the city were already at capacity. Tijuana has traditionally received thousands of migrants, but not in the manner theyre arriving now. No city in the country has the capacity, Guerrero Diaz said. Advertisement Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, said it appears that the various parts of the Mexican government arent on the same page about cooperating with the United States. My sense is that this is still in negotiation, Selee said. You get the sense the Mexican government is making up its collective mind. Since theres nothing written down, theres no actual formal agreement, all of this is going to be in flux for a while, he said. On Mexicos southern border, meanwhile, the country has been dealing with a different immigration issue: 13,000 people who left in a new caravan from Honduras last week are in line to enter legally. Though authorities have promised them they can stay anywhere in the country for at least one year, it has encouraged them to seek jobs in the countrys southern states. Advertisement Yet many could attempt to make the trek north toward the U.S. border to request asylum. Muzaffar Chishti, the director of the Migration Policy Institutes Office at the New York University School of Law, said the U.S. policy change is intended to create a certain amount of order. But it could have the opposite result. You need the infrastructure in place to house and feed people, he said. If thats not provided, its going to be a humanitarian crisis, or its going to be an incentive for people to give up entering at ports of entry. Advertisement In Washington, neither Democrats nor Republicans on Capitol Hill appeared to have a grasp of when the Trump administration planned to roll out the program. Democrats complained that even senior lawmakers found it easier to get information from the Mexican Embassy than from DHS or the White House, according to aides. The Washington Posts Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City and Maria Sacchetti and Karoun Demirjian in Washington contributed to this report. The California Department of Education says the San Diego-based Thrive charter schools should not be renewed for another five years because of its poor academic performance, according to recently published department documents. Thrive Public Schools perform worse academically than the district schools its students would have otherwise attended, and its petition to remain open is not consistent with sound educational practice, according to a 45-page report by state education department staff. Since the first school site opened in 2014, Thrive has quickly grown to serve roughly 1,000 students on four campuses, including transitional kindergarten through 11th grade. The State Board of Education is its authorizer. Thrive opened a new school building in Linda Vista last fall. It advertises a personalized and project-based learning approach. Advertisement The state departments recommendation does not yet mean that Thrive will be forced to close. The State Board of Education will have the final vote on whether Thrive can stay open. However, the State Board has typically followed the departments recommendations. Since January of last year, the State Board has approved the establishment or renewal of 14 charter school petitions and denied five, according to meeting minutes. Only twice in the past year has the State Board approved a charter school for which the department recommended denial. Thrive is seeking a five-year renewal of its charter, which is its required license to remain open, from the State Board after the San Diego Unified School Board voted unanimously to deny Thrives renewal request in November. Getting approval from the State Board this spring is Thrives last chance to remain open for next school year. Thrives CEO and founder, Nicole Assisi, said in a statement that she expects the State Board will approve Thrives renewal despite the staff recommendation. Although we are disappointed with the California Department of Educations recommendation, we remain confident that the State Board of Education will see the tremendous strides the nearly 1,000 students who attend Thrive have made in a short time and renew our charter in March, Assisi said. We look forward to working with the state board as it takes up this process, and we will be continuing to serve all our students with the high-quality education they deserve. In their report, state department staff agreed with San Diego Unifieds analyses of Thrives academic data. Staff noted that Thrives students with disabilities, low-income students, black, Hispanic and white students were lower-performing than their peers in comparable district schools. Thrives overall test scores have declined every year since it opened. Last year, about 31 percent of Thrive students who took state tests met or exceeded state standards in English and 19 percent did so in math. Advertisement Thrive and the California Charter Schools Association have said those numbers represent the performance of only about 13 percent of Thrives students, since only students in grades 3-8 and 11 take state tests. State staff acknowledged in their report that Thrive did produce data showing students had some increases in academic achievement over time. But because that was Thrives data, the state department could not compare it to district schools or verify its reliability or fairness, according to the staff report. Thrives supporters and opponents have pointed to Thrives rapid enrollment growth as a reason for its low test scores. Assisi has said that many of Thrives incoming students come in below grade level, and therefore lower Thrives overall academic performance, because they were failed by other schools. Meanwhile critics, such as the San Diego teachers union and the Oakland-based organization In the Public Interest, have argued that Thrive has grown too quickly at the expense of students. Advertisement Thrive intends to grow to more than 1,200 students next school year and to more than 1,400 students in 2023, according to the staff report. Kristen Taketa Email: kristen.taketa@sduniontribune.com Advertisement Twitter: @Kristen_Taketa A Chula Vista man who rose to become the top law enforcement official in the Mexican state of Nayarit pleaded guilty this month to conspiring with drug traffickers to distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. Edgar Veytia, 48, used his position as the state attorney general to help traffickers in exchange for bribes, according to records filed in federal court in New York. In his official capacity, he would protect trafficking activities, obstruct investigations and release cartel associates and members who had been arrested by other Mexican law enforcement authorities, he admitted as part of his guilty plea on Jan. 4 Veytia, who goes by the nicknames Diablo, Eepp and Lic Veytia, was arrested on a warrant in March 2017 after he got off a plane in Tijuana and tried to enter San Diego through the Cross Border Xpress. He was then transferred to Brooklyn, where the drug charges were filed. It is the same courthouse where Mexicos Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman is currently on trial on unrelated charges. Advertisement Veytia, a dual U.S.-Mexico citizen, was born in Tijuana but lived off and on in San Diego and Chula Vista. He was drawn to Nayarit, on the Pacific coast, upon meeting his wife and her well-connected family there. He graduated from law school in the state capital of Tepic and held various law enforcement positions. In 2011 there was an attempt on his life when his car was sprayed with gunfire. He rose to attorney general in 2013. His campaign extolled law and order, once stating that Nayarit had no room for organized crime, according to news reports. Authorities say the conspiracy began the same year he took office. Veytia faces up to life in prison. Sentencing has been set for April 25. U.S. prosecutors could also seize up to $250 million in illegal proceeds. Mexican news organizations have reported that Veytia is connected to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which in recent years has made Nayarit its headquarters. Veytias arrest left a vacuum in the power structure in Nayarit, the current attorney general told the Associated Press last year, resulting in bloody feuds between drug gangs in the area. Evidence of that dispute was found in a mass grave last January in the town of Xalisco, the base of operations for a black-tar heroin ring. At least 33 bodies, some of which may have been hacked up, were found in three graves. Advertisement kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis The Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee sued the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department on Friday over the release of documents about misconduct or significant use of force by deputies, marking the latest maneuver in what has become a statewide legal battle over the disclosure of law enforcement personnel records. The lawsuit alleges that the department violated the states Public Records Act by denying requests from both newspapers. Disciplinary reports have long been secret in California, but a landmark law that took effect Jan. 1 requires the disclosure of records of shootings by officers, severe uses of force and confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying by officers. Law enforcement unions in Los Angeles and several other counties have obtained temporary restraining orders stopping agencies from releasing records, arguing that Senate Bill 1421 does not apply to records from incidents that took place before 2019. Advertisement In denying requests for the documents, the Sacramento Sheriffs Department said it was withholding records until there was clear legal authority to release such records because Senate Bill 1421...was not expressly made retroactive. There are no restraining orders preventing the Sheriffs Department from releasing the records. The newspapers lawsuit cited two deadly shootings by Sacramento police officers last year that set off protests. In one, Stephon Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old, was fatally shot in his grandmothers backyard as police looked for a vandal in the neighborhood. In the other, 19-year-old Darell Richards was shot after allegedly pointing a pellet gun at SWAT officers. Neither shooting was by Sacramento County sheriffs deputies. The lawsuit mentioned the incidents and the protests they sparked as an indication of public sentiment regarding police shootings in the area. The public interest in monitoring police conduct is especially strong in Sacramento County (as in the rest of California), where officer-involved shootings which claimed the lives of Stephon Clark and Darell Richards, have ignited public protests and criticism of police, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit notes that when SB 1421 was being developed last year, one of the bills opponents, the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Assn., acknowledged the measure would be retroactive. The group, which represents some Los Angeles County Sheriffs deputies, argued that some police records could become public even if an officers actions were justified. Moreover, our reading of Senate Bill 1421 is that making the records of an officers lawful and in-policy conduct is retroactive in its impact (an officers) records are available for public inspection irrespective of whether or not they occurred prior to the effective date of SB 1421, the association wrote. The comments were cited in a California senate public safety committee analysis of the bill. The Times also requested records under the new law from the Sacramento Police Department. The agency said it would provide some records by the end of next month. Advertisement Until last year, the states powerful law enforcement unions repeatedly blocked attempts to make any disciplinary records public. But lawmakers approved SB 1421 amid a heightened debate over how officers use force and interact with communities of color. Proponents of the measure say restricting its reach to records of incidents after Jan. 1 severely limits the laws impact and shields misconduct by some officers who remain on the job. Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), who wrote the law, said she intended for it to apply to any records in a departments possession. She added that if a court decided otherwise, she believed the law would still increase transparency surrounding police activities. In response to the lawsuit, the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department reiterated its position that it could not provide records of pre-2019 incidents due to ongoing litigation over whether SB 1421 is retroactive. The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating a top commander whose unmarked police car was involved in a collision Thursday night and found abandoned in Carson, officials said Friday. Three sources familiar with the investigation identified him as Cmdr. Jeff Nolte, who oversees a team that investigates officer-involved shootings. Los Angeles police officials did not identify the commander but said he been assigned to home and was the subject of an investigation. Nolte could not be reached for comment. An unmarked Los Angeles police car was discovered Friday morning in Carson, said Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida. Carson station deputies received two calls early Friday morning about an abandoned vehicle near Avalon Boulevard and 213th Street. Deputies found it and LAPD has the investigation, Nishida said. The unmarked vehicle has collision damage and a missing wheel, a source familiar with the investigation said. Advertisement LAPD spokesman Josh Rubenstein, in a statement, said the department has initiated an investigation regarding a traffic collision that occurred Thursday, January 24th involving one of our Command Staff officers. The department employee was not injured in the crash and we dont believe anyone else was involved in the incident. We are currently working with the California Highway Patrol to determine the nature of the crash. The employee has been assigned home pending the outcome of the investigation. Rubenstein could not provide a time or location for the collision. It was unclear whether the collision occurred at Avalon and 213th Street. Simeon Yarbrough, a California Highway Patrol spokesman for the area, said the car had been in a crash near the 110 and 405 freeways and that the LAPD informed his office it would handle the matter. The investigation is latest incident involving a high-ranking LAPD officer. Assistant Chief Jorge Villegas was the subject of an internal affairs investigation after sources said undercover officers witnessed him and a female subordinate in what appeared to be sexual activity inside his department-issued car outside a bar. Villegas announced his retirement in October and has declined to comment. Last month, an LAPD disciplinary board moved to fire Cmdr. Nicole Mehringer after she was charged with public intoxication following an altercation with Glendale police in April. Mehringer and a subordinate, Sgt. James Kelly, were arrested after the unmarked LAPD vehicle they were in was found resting against another vehicle at 1 a.m. Both have pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile, LAPD Officer Daniel Reedy is under investigation by police and prosecutors after he was accused by a fellow officer, Det. Ysabel Villegas, of assault and distributing explicit images of her without her permission. Earlier this month, Villegas, who has acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Reedy, was granted an extension of a restraining order against him. Villegas is married to Jorge Villegas, the former assistant chief. Advertisement Reedy is on administrative leave and could not be reached for comment. Times staff writers Joel Rubin, Maya Lau and Nicole Santa Cruz contributed to this article. richard.winton@latimes.com Twitter: @lacrimes Three people have applied for an appointment to fill the less than two years remaining in the term of Oceanside City Clerk Zack Beck, who left the part-time job Dec. 31 to become the full-time city clerk of Escondido. The names of Brandon Jones, Zeb Navarro and Thomas Schmiderer were released by Assistant City Clerk Vaida Pavolos after the 4 p.m. Wednesday deadline for applications. One of the applicants, Schmiderer, 34, already works in the city clerks office as the city records handler. A seven-year resident of Oceanside, he has the former city clerks endorsement for the job. More than anything, I want to continue the great work that Zack has done, Schmiderer said Thursday. I know how to provide the best possible service in a politically neutral and transparent manner. There would be no training or down time for me to learn any of this. Advertisement Schmiderer said he has filled in as city clerk during Becks absence in the past, so hes familiar with the duties. He would continue his present job if hes appointed, although as records manager he would be responsible to the city manager instead working under the city clerk. Navarro, 38, is a lifelong Oceanside resident who works as manager of the Palomar College radio station. He has masters degrees from San Diego State University and California State University Monterrey Bay, and is completing a doctorate in education. I have requested the appointment of city clerk because it is an extension of my community service, Navarro said. I have a desire to give back to the community which has given me several opportunities and also because Oceanside is my home. Jones, 23, moved to Oceanside as an infant with his family, graduated from Oceanside High School and has a bachelors degree in political science from San Diego State University. He worked as an intern for San Diego City Councilman Scott Sherman, and in 2018 was director of field operations for Congressional candidate Omar Qudrat and later was campaign manager for Congressional candidate Kimberlin Brown Pelzer. I want to give back and serve the community that I grew up in, Jones said. The City Council has scheduled public interviews with the applicants for a special meeting Feb. 20. Like the city treasurer position and the Oceanside City Council seats, the city clerk job is part time. The annual salary is $24,181. The position will be up for election again in 2020. Beck was first elected in 2012, when he was one of six candidates for the job, and was re-elected in 2016. Advertisement The previous city clerk was Barbara Riegel Wayne, who retired in 2012 after having held the post through eight full terms. Under Riegel Wayne, the position was considered full time, and her annual salary just under $123,000. The City Council voted to make the city clerk part time in 2012 after several years of deep budget cuts in numerous departments. Of 18 incorporated cities in San Diego County, only four -- Oceanside, Carlsbad, La Mesa and National City -- elect their city clerk and the rest appoint the position. Advertisement philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @phildiehl New legislation that requires local health officials to promptly share information about communicable disease outbreaks was announced Friday by Assemblyman Todd Gloria. The proposal, Assembly Bill 262, was among recommendations in a state audit requested by Gloria and released in December. The audit found that San Diego County should have responded more quickly to the 2017 hepatitis A outbreak that killed at least 20 people and sickened hundreds more. If passed by the state Legislature, the bill would require county health officers to pass along to cities relevant details such as the locations where cases are concentrated and the number of people affected. These are areas that we know city and county leaders could have done better, said Gloria, a former San Diego City Councilman who is running for mayor. We need to make sure that preventable outbreaks like this never happen again. Advertisement The bill also would empower county health officers to direct public entities within their jurisdiction to take actions to control the spread of a communicable disease. Gloria announced the legislation Friday at a news conference with the participation and support of state Sen. Toni Atkins, county Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, and San Diego City Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell. Fletcher called the legislation essential. Atkins said the hepatitis outbreak was a wake-up call and that this was bad, but it could have been much worse. Local control is very important, she said, and good communications between state, county and local health officials is vital. Campbell, a physician, said the proposed bill would require officials to sound the alarm when a communicable disease emerges. This is the kind of common sense solution that we need, Campbell said. This bill creates a safer, sounder San Diego. According to the 23-page state audit, the hepatitis A outbreak began in March 2017. Advertisement The medical director of the county Epidemiology and Immunization Branch sent an email April 28, 2017, to the countys public health officer, Dr. Wilma Wooten, expressing concerns that a more aggressive approach was necessary to stop the spread. Six months later, with cases steadily increasing, Wooten finally declared a public health emergency. As a result, the county began working with cities to regularly clean city streets and sidewalks with bleach, set up public hand-washing stations, and launched waves of public vaccination campaigns. By January 2018, the county had administered more than 135,000 doses of the hepatitis A vaccine. Wootens secretary said she was unavailable Friday to comment on the proposed legislation. Advertisement A spokesman for Wootens office, Mike Workman, said the county would support the bill. These measures bolster our ability to protect the publics health by increasing our capacity to compel action from other jurisdictions in regional efforts to prevent and/or contain communicable disease outbreaks, Workman said in an email. Hepatitis A is spread primarily by contact with fecal matter. Many of the people who contract the disease are homeless and living in unsanitary conditions on the streets, with poor access to restrooms. The average incubation period for hepatitis is 28 days after contact, but it can take as long as 50 days for someone who is infected to start experiencing symptoms. Advertisement County officials reported spending about $10 million on the prevention campaign, including vaccinations, hand-washing stations and portable toilets. The number of reported new cases peaked at 95 in August 2017, then dropped to 21 in November 2017, and reached zero in January 2018. Most of the cases were reported in downtown San Diego, but a handful were also reported in Oceanside, Escondido, Encinitas and elsewhere. Most years, the disease persists at a low level within the county. Public health records show the region averaged 28 acute hepatitis cases annually from 2012 through 2016. Advertisement California Department of Public Health officials praised the countys response to the outbreak and noted that the prevention campaign sent foot teams to jails, emergency departments and remote areas of the county, according to the audit. philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @phildiehl Shares of San Diego medical device and software firm ResMed plunged 19 percent Friday after its fiscal second quarter revenue missed Wall Street analysts forecasts. The sleep apnea machine and mask provider reported sales of $651 million and net income of $124.6 million, or 86 cents a share, under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Adjusted earnings, which exclude certain items, came in at $144.5 million, or $1 per share. While that was a significant improvement over the same quarter the prior year when ResMed posted sales of $601 million and GAAP earnings of 7 cents a share the results fell short of what Wall Street expected for revenue. Advertisement ResMed doesnt usually miss; it frequently beats, wrote BMO Capital Markets analyst Joanne Wuensch in a research note. This time, not so much. Analysts on average had expected sales of $674 million for the quarter and adjusted earnings of 94 cents. Rob Douglas, president and chief operating officer of ResMed, said the revenue shortfall stemmed from a recent upgrade cycle in France and Japan slowing down. Those countries last year boosted insurance reimbursement for connected sleep apnea equipment prompting many ResMed customers in those countries to upgrade to connected devices that increased sales. With most upgrades complete, the market demand has slowed. The core devices business was sluggish, growing just 3 percent on the prior corresponding period on a constant-currency basis, said Morningstar Analyst Johannes Faul in a research note. In U.S., Canada, and Latin America devices, sales growth of 7 percent was offset by revenue declining in the rest of world markets, with France and Japan particularly challenged following digital health upgrade systems in those countries. The company said its efforts to supply more software products to customers showed progress, with a 63 percent increase in sales. For its software expansion efforts, ResMed recently purchased MatrixCare, which provides software services to skilled nursing and senor living providers. It also announced the acquisition of Propeller Health, a company that provides connected health products for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma. ResMeds shares fell $22.74 on Friday to close at $94.56 on the New York Stock Exchange. Advertisement Business mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com; Twitter:@TechDiego 760-529-4973 RTHK: 'Significant progress' in Taliban talks: US envoy The United States and the Taliban said on Saturday they had made substantial headway in negotiations to end the 17-year US war in Afghanistan, although sticking points remained. Zalmay Khalilzad, who was named by President Donald Trump's administration to find a way out of the war, held an unusually long six days of talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar. "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," Khalilzad wrote on Twitter. Khalilzad - who headed to Qatar after talks in Afghanistan and its key neighbours - said he was returning to Kabul to discuss the negotiations. "We will build on the momentum and resume talks shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out," he tweeted. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and 'everything' must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire." While he has not given details, floated proposals include a withdrawal by the United States of its troops in return for Taliban guarantees not to shelter foreign extremists - the initial reason for the US intervention. Trump has been eager to end America's longest war, which was launched shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Trump has already said he will pull half of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that while there was "progress" at the meetings, reports of an agreement on a ceasefire and talks with Kabul "are not true." "Since issues are of critical nature and need comprehensive discussions, therefore it was decided that talks about unresolved matters will resume in similar future meetings," he said in a statement. But a senior Taliban commander sounded optimistic after the talks with the Afghan-born Khalilzad, who played key diplomatic roles in former president George W Bush's administration. "The US has accepted many of our demands and both sides are very much agreed on major points, but some points are still under discussion," the Taliban commander told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity by phone from Pakistan. "We are moving forward and a lot of progress has been made so far. "Efforts are underway to find some middle ground to solve the remaining disputed issues. The Afghan government is one of them," he added. The Taliban in the past have refused to deal with the internationally recognised government of President Ashraf Ghani. Abdullah Abdullah, the de facto prime minister of Afghanistan, recently voiced frustration that the Taliban was excluding the Kabul government, warning that a peace process "cannot take place by proxy." Afghan authorities have put a brave face on the negotiations, noting that Kabul has already taken charge of security. Ghani said on Thursday that 45,000 Afghan security forces have died since September 2014 - a stunning casualty rate of more than 28 dead per day that analysts say has contributed to low morale. Ghani is running for re-election in July, which could come at the height of the Taliban fighting season - unless a ceasefire is reached. The length and apparent breadth of the Taliban talks are unprecedented, signalling that both the United States and the Taliban see a path forward. In a sign of the seriousness, the Taliban appointed a co-founder of the hardline Islamic movement as its Qatar-based negotiator with the United States - Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2010 but released in October as the United States stepped up diplomacy. He was considered the number two to Taliban chief Mullah Omar, who died in 2013. Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a US foundation that promotes peace, said that Baradar's return showed the hubris of war, recalling that he had offered to surrender soon after September 11. "Bush administration refused. They wanted to defeat the Taliban, not negotiate. Now, he's back to make a deal, and he's going to get a lot more," Cirincione tweeted. Khalilzad last met with the insurgents last month in the United Arab Emirates, which has jockeyed with Qatar for influence in Afghan diplomatic circles. (AFP/AP) This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf has received a one-time, $6 million stock option award for shepherding the San Diego mobile technology provider through extraordinary events in 2018. The company revealed the option grant in its proxy statement, filed with U.S. securities regulators this week. The compensation committee of Qualcomms board of directors cited Mollenkopfs strong leadership and performance during recent turmoil as the reason for granting the options. In 2018, Qualcomm narrowly escaped a hostile takeover bid from chip rival Broadcom, which was derailed by the Trump administration on national security grounds. The company also saw its $43 billion proposed acquisition of NXP Semiconductors collapse amid U.S.-China trade tensions. Qualcomm continues to face ongoing antitrust, contract and patent infringement legal battles with Apple and others. The company has laid off workers to trim $1 billion in costs, including roughly 1,500 in San Diego. And it has completed the bulk of its $30 billion share repurchase program launched after the failed NXP deal. Advertisement Stock options give executives the right to buy shares. Mollenkopfs options carry financial performance targets that must be hit over the next two years or the options will be forfeited. They include a total shareholder return of 25 percent for more for 20 consecutive trading days from the date when the options were granted, which was Sept. 20. On that day, Qualcomms share price reached $74.60. Qualcomms shares ended trading Friday at $51.30. Total shareholder return is calculated based on increases or decreases in the stock price, plus dividends. Based on the proxy, Mollenkopfs total compensation last year was $19.9 million, up from $11.5 million in 2017. Most of that compensation -- $16 million stems from the estimated value of performance based restricted stock grants and the one-time $6 million option award all of which vest in stages over three or more years. This stock-based pay wont be earned in full unless financial milestones are achieved over time, including return on invested capital and total shareholder return targets. So Mollenkopfs compensation estimate in the proxy statement does not reflect his taxable take-home compensation for 2018. This year, Qualcomm also reported for the first time the ratio of CEO compensation to that median employee pay a metric that has been added to executive compensation disclosure requirements as part of the Dodd Frank financial reform law. For Qualcomm, the annual total compensation for its median employee was $85,592, resulting in a ratio of 233 to 1. Advertisement Business mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com; Twitter:@TechDiego 760-529-4973 Specialty grocer Jimbos Naturally is asking a San Diego Superior Court judge to block any efforts by developer Stockdale Capital Partners to turn Horton Plaza into a technology office campus. The locally owned business earlier this month amended its existing lawsuit against the downtown centers previous owner to incorporate Stockdale, arguing the real estate investment firm is also violating the terms of the grocers lease. In addition, the complaint now includes two charges specific to Stockdale and requests that the court prevent the property owner from doing anything further to hurt Jimbos business. Jimbos first sued previous mall operator Wesfield in May alleging a breach of contract that led to a multi-million dollar loss in sales. To the extent the proposed redevelopment of Horton Plaza would violate the new owners obligations under the lease and restrict access to Jimbos e.g. interfere with Jimbos parking or locate a crane directly in front of Jimbos door we intend to seek an injunction from the court to prevent such interference with Jimbos rights, said Jack Leer, an attorney for Jimbos Naturally. Advertisement Horton Plaza, which opened in 1985, is a 900,000 square-foot retail center that has devolved from a San Diego landmark to what is often referred to as a homeless encampment. The mall, visited by 25 million people in its first year, is currently home to just a handful of retail tenants, including Jimbos, 24 Hour Fitness and Macys. Last year, Stockdale Capital Partners purchased the property for $175 million with a plan to repurpose Horton Plazas post-modern buildings as an employment hub that would appeal to elite tech companies. That plan could be put on hold, or killed altogether, if Jimbos gets its way in court. Founded by Jim Jimbo Someck in 1984, the grocer operates five stores in San Diego County, and specializes in local and organic produce. It has been a Horton Plaza tenant since 2012, when it signed a 15-year lease agreement and pumped $5 million into the location to make it a flagship venue. That investment, Someck contends, was only made because Westfield promised to spend hundreds of millions on upgrades to the center. However, at some point after Jimbos had signed the lease and opened its store, Westfield apparently abandoned its plans to renovate Horton Plaza and decided to sell the mall instead, the lawsuit states. Rather than improve and operate Horton Plaza as a first-class regional shopping center, Westfield cut off any further investment in Horton Plaza while it sought a buyer. For its part, the new owner has continued to allow Horton Plaza to deteriorate . They have taken no steps to bring Horton Plaza back up to a first-class regional shopping center. To the contrary, given their plans to close the mall for at least two years, they have no interest in operating the mall in any manner, let alone a first-class manner, the complaint now reads. The phrase first-class regional shopping center appears often in the legal challenge and is key to the complaint. Jimbos believes that the terms of the lease that it signed guarantee it such a facility. Instead, the grocer is an anchor tenant in what the suit calls, at best a third-rate shopping mall that feels desolate and abandoned, where crime has flourished and shoppers and retailers alike are concerned for their personal safety. And Westfield isnt the only one to blame. When reached by phone Thursday, Someck said he was disturbed by the new owners disregard for the businesses still operating at the mall, which deal with frequent safety issues. Incidents have escalated in their frequency and severity since Stockdale took over, according to a letter and incident log, with pictures, that Jimbos attorney sent last week to firm director Dan Michaels. Youll see that the location of Jimbos mailbox and other common areas have turned into restrooms for the homeless that staff members are afraid to enter, the letter states. Advertisement Stockdale Capital Partners, through spokesman Chris Wahl, turned down inquiries to participate in this story. Westfield, for its part, has denied all allegations of wrongdoing in filings with the court. Both firms are, however, about to be named in another suit related to Horton Plazas condition. The franchise owner behind the former Burgerim location at Horton Plaza will soon file suit against Westfield and Stockdale for breach of contract, fraud and other claims. The company is seeking $2 million in damages, said Niv Davidovich, a lawyer for Burgerim franchise owner, Irwantio, Inc. The fast-casual burger chain opened at Horton Plaza in November 2017 in a 1,500 square-foot kiosk that was built as part of the citys $18 million investment in the centers park space. The location closed 13 months later. The tenant was told (by Westfield) when they signed the lease that Horton Plaza park would host 150 events every year, and none of that came about, Davidovich said in a phone interview on Thursday. From our perspective, when you buy a property, you step into the shoes of the prior landlord. It becomes your responsibility. Advertisement The legal challenges come as the city works with its downtown planning agency, Civic San Diego, in private negotiations to determine what to do about land entitlements. One restriction, as noted in the Horton Plaza Owner Participation Agreement, stipulates that a minimum of 600,000 square feet of the site be used for retail. Someck, however, is taking preemptive action to keep Jimbos lights on, despite claiming to lose money on operations on a daily basis. He fears even greater loses should Stockdale shutter the centers parking garage and place a construction crane in front of his store. Hence the legal plea to stop any development that interferes with his business. Hell also take his grievances to City Council, should he get the opportunity. If they go in front of the city, Im going to fight it, Someck said. Someone from the city should force them to do something irrespective of the future so that the present gets taken care of. Jimbos Natural Family Inc vs Horton Plaza LLC, case No. 37-2018-00025251-CU-BC-CTL, was filed May 22, 2018 with the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego. The amended complaint was filed Jan. 11, 2019. Advertisement Business jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin LAS GARZAS, Panama (AP) Pope Francis on Friday brought World Youth Day to Panama's juvenile delinquents, celebrating an emotional penitential liturgy inside the country's main youth prison since the inmates couldn't participate in the Catholic Church's big festival of faith outside. Fulfilling his belief that no one should be separated from God's mercy, Francis also heard the confessions of five inmates at the Las Garzas de Pacora detention center. At least one of them wept uncontrollably afterward. "There are no words to describe the freedom I feel in this moment," one of the inmates, Luis Oscar Martinez, told the pope at the start of the service inside barbed wire-ringed facility outside Panama City. It was an emotional highlight of Francis' four-day trip to Panama and a hands-on demonstration of his belief that prisoners deserve the same dignity as everyone else as well as hope. In his homily, Francis lamented that society tends to label people good and bad, the righteous and the sinners, when it should instead spend its time creating opportunities for them to change. "This attitude spoils everything, because it erects an invisible wall that makes people think that, if we marginalize, separate and isolate others, all our problems will magically be solved," he said. "When a society or community allows this, and does nothing more than complain and backbite, it enters into a vicious circle of division, blame and condemnation." Francis has made a tradition of visiting prisoners during his foreign visits, and has long made prison ministry part of his vocation to minister to the most marginal in society. Just last year, Francis changed church teaching on the death penalty, saying it was inadmissible in all cases. The change was in keeping with his belief that prisoners can always change and deserve chances for rehabilitation so they can re-enter society after serving their terms. In a sign of that need for inclusion, the Las Garzas inmates wore the same World Youth Day white T-shirts that tens of thousands of pilgrims are sporting around Panama City. "A society is fruitful when it is able to generate processes of inclusion and integration, of caring and trying to create opportunities and alternatives that can offer new possibilities to the young, to build a future through community, education and employment," Francis said. Las Garzas houses more than 150 inmates, some of whom are serving time for murder. The facility, considered a model, opened a year after five minors died in a fire at another prison in Panama City in 2011. Nine people including administrators and police were convicted of homicide or negligence in what was the worst tragedy for the country's youth prison system. At the start of the service, Martinez told Francis of his remorse in becoming estranged from part of his family after he committed an unspecified crime and was sentenced to serve his term at Las Garzas. "I caused a profound pain in a dear friend and in myself," Martinez, 21, told the pope. He said he wanted to become a refrigeration mechanic when he got out. "I hope to give this joy to my mother and be in communion with the part of my family that I lost." In a tangible sign of forgiveness, prison director Emma Alba announced that 11 young offenders nine from the Las Garzas facility and another two from Colon province, won conditional supervised freedom after Francis' visit. Martinez was one of them, she said. "In this moment, he should be with his family," Alba told reporters hours after the liturgy. The Vatican spokesman, Alessandro Gisotti, said the visit clearly touched Francis, who wanted to share in the suffering of those who have caused such harm and suffered the consequences. "I think Pope Francis gave witness to them, and to all of us, that no one is separated from God's mercy, from God's love," Gisotti told reporters. Francis continued the theme of the suffering church later Friday by presiding over the Way of the Cross procession a rite of all World Youth Days that re-enacts Christ's suffering and death on the cross. The prayers recited during the service reflected issues of particular concern for Central America, including the plight of indigenous peoples, women, the unborn and the church's martyrs, with reference to El Salvador's new saint, Oscar Romero. The prayers also touched on pressing political issues of migration and the upheaval in Venezuela, with a prayer to help those Venezuelans who have "lost their homeland." "We want to be a church that fosters a culture that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates, that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in the senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society," Francis told a crowd that organizers estimated had reached 400,000. WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump's confidant Roger Stone was charged with lying about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton's 2016 election bid, with prosecutors alleging that senior Trump campaign officials sought to leverage the publication of the stolen material into a White House victory. The self-proclaimed dirty trickster, arrested by the FBI in a raid before dawn Friday at his Florida home, blasted the prosecution as politically motivated. In a circus-like atmosphere outside the courthouse, as supporters cheered him on and spectators shouted "Lock Him Up," Stone proclaimed his innocence and predicted his vindication. "As I have said previously, there is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself," Stone said. The seven-count indictment , the first criminal case in months in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates in the summer of 2016 actively sought the disclosure of emails the U.S. says were hacked by Russia and then provided to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. It alleges that an unidentified senior Trump campaign official was "directed" to keep in contact with Stone about when stolen emails relating to Clinton might be disclosed. Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser charged by Mueller and the 34th person overall. The nearly two-year-old probe has exposed multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign and transition period and revealed efforts by several to conceal those communications. The 24-page indictment brings the investigation even further into the president's circle of advisers and suggests that Trump campaign officials were eager to exploit the stolen messages for political gain. But prosecutors did not accuse Trump of wrongdoing or charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks or with the Russian intelligence officers Mueller says hacked the emails. They also did not reveal whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia or had advance knowledge of the hacking. Instead the prosecution mirrors other Mueller cases in alleging cover-ups and deception, accusing Stone of lying to lawmakers about WikiLeaks, tampering with witnesses and obstructing a House intelligence committee probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the election. Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said the indictment "does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else." Trump himself on Friday called the investigation the "Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country!" CNN aired video of the raid at Stone's home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, showing agents in body armor using large weapons and night-vision equipment, running up to the home and banging on the door. "FBI open the door!" one shouts. "FBI, warrant!" Stone could then be seen in the doorway in his sleepwear before he was led away. Though not uncommon for the FBI to make early-morning arrests of targets under indictment, it's the first time Mueller has used that tactic. In court papers, prosecutors wrote they had concerns that if Stone was tipped off to the indictment, it would increase the risk he would flee or destroy evidence. Hours after his arrest, Stone appeared in court in a blue polo shirt and jeans. In releasing him on $250,000 bond, a magistrate judge restricted Stone's travel to South Florida, Washington and New York City and ordered him to avoid contact with witnesses. "This morning, at the crack of dawn, 29 FBI agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles, with their lights flashing, when they could simply have contacted my attorneys and I would have been more than willing to surrender voluntarily," Stone said outside court. Known for his political antics, conspiracy theories and hard-ball tactics, Stone has reveled in being a Washington wheeler-dealer dating back to the Nixon administration. On Friday, he mimicked Nixon's famous "V'' gesture as he left the courthouse. Stone, a longtime friend of the president's, briefly served on Trump's campaign, but was pushed out amid infighting with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Though sidelined, he continued to communicate with Trump and stayed plugged into his circle of advisers. The indictment says Stone repeatedly discussed WikiLeaks in 2016 with campaign associates and lays out in detail Stone's conversations about emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and posted in the weeks before Trump beat Clinton. The document says that by June and July 2016, Stone had told senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating that WikiLeaks had obtained damaging documents on Clinton. After WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, the indictment says, a senior Trump campaign official "was directed" to contact Stone about additional releases and "what other damaging information" WikiLeaks had "regarding the Clinton campaign." The indictment does not name the official or say who directed the outreach to Stone. Though no officials are identified by name, one Trump campaign aide cited in the case is Steve Bannon, who later became Trump's chief White House strategist. Bannon, referred to as a "high-ranking Trump Campaign official," exchanged emails with Stone in October 2016 about WikiLeaks' plans. The indictment quotes from those emails, which had previously been made public by news outlets. While the indictment provides some new insight into the Trump campaign, it deals largely with what prosecutors say were Stone's false statements about his conversations about WikiLeaks with New York radio host Randy Credico and with conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, who rejected a plea offer from Mueller last year. The indictment says Stone carried out a "prolonged effort" to keep Credico from contradicting his testimony before the House intelligence committee. During that effort, prosecutors note that Stone repeatedly told Credico to "do a 'Frank Pentangeli,'" a reference to a character in "The Godfather: Part II" who lies before Congress. Stone is accused of threatening Credico, including through messages in which he called him "rat" and "stoolie." Stone also threatened to "take that dog away from you," a reference to Credico's dog, Bianca. "I am so ready. Let's get it on. Prepare to die (expletive)," Stone also wrote to Credico. Stone has said for months he was prepared to be charged, while maintaining he had no inside information about the contents of the emails obtained by WikiLeaks or the timing of their release. Still, he has long attracted scrutiny because of his WikiLeaks-related comments, especially a 2016 tweet "It will soon (be) Podesta's time in the barrel" that appeared to presage knowledge that Podesta's emails would soon be released. In a tweet Friday, Podesta turned Stone's words against him, writing that it was now "Roger's time in the barrel." Think a minute In England during the 1700s, it was fairly common for boys to spend several months in boarding school before heading out to sea. And so it was for John. He was 11-years-old when his father, a master of a trade ship in the Mediterranean, took John on the journey with him. This prepared John for his service in the British Navy. Yet sadly, while John learned his skills of sailing from his father, he did not learn self-control and discipline. John was soon arrested, publicly whipped and demoted to just a common sailor for deserting his duty on ship. Later, while still a teenager, John sailed on a ship bound for Africa. By now young John was wilder than ever. He did not choose his friends wisely and continued to sink deeper into immoral living. In Africa John ended up in the service of a slave dealer. The slave trade attracted John as a profitable business and way to get rich; but before he knew it John was put to work on the dealers plantation laboring with the other slaves. Finally at age 21 John escaped on a ship called the Greyhound, where he continued his uncontrolled living. He again chose the wrong friends who made fun of the God-worshipping sailors on board, including the captain. One night Johns ship, the Greyhound, was caught in a violent storm. The boats side caved in and it began to sink as the water came flooding in. One of the sailors yelled, Were all going to die! At that moment, for the first time in Johns life, he prayed and cried out to God: Lord have mercy on us! Amazingly, the ship did not sink! John never forgot it. In fact, Gods mercy that night in the storm not only saved John, but so completely changed him for the rest of his life that he wrote a song about it which is sung by millions around the world today: Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now Im foundwas blind, but now I see! John Newtons song and story can become yours too, because God is offering His full and free grace to you today. Wont you ask Jesus to forgive you for your wrong heart and sinful living? If you give Him complete charge of your heart and life, He can start changing you into the man or woman He created you to be. Just think a minute In Parliament this week, two villages lodged petitions against the Governments Electoral Constituencies Bill 2018. Whereas the Alii ma Faipule of Saleaula and Salamumu are against the plan to divide the territorial constituency of Gagaemauga No. 2, which currently comprises of Saleaula in Savaii and Salamumu in Upolu, the Alii ma Faipule of Tafua, Savaii want to remain in the Palauli le Falefa electoral constituency. Saleaula and Tafua are only a handful of villagers affected by the bill. Amidst the hustle to discuss and pass the 2018/2019 Supplementary Budget, which was eventually approved yesterday, the tabling of the petitions created quite a stir. Which is understandable because its quite unusual if you ask people who follow Parliament proceedings closely. So much so the Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa, who is a very senior Member of Parliament, raised a question about Parliamentary procedures and its competing priorities. She had a legitimate point and good on her for speaking out. But the issue in question here, which is the subject of both petitions and possibly more down the line, is in our opinion bigger than Parliamentary proceedings, bigger than the Government or any individual. Ladies and gentlemen, the Electoral Constituencies Bill 2018 is a threat to Samoan cultural customs and tradition since it seeks to re-define electoral boundaries, based on geographical location. The problem from where we stand is it appears that the Government has embraced a foreign method in dealing with electoral boundaries which probably works well where it was created - without considering the disruptive and divisive ramifications of such a law in Samoa. Samoa is unique. Our Parliamentary system is unique. Our election system is unique. Our customs and traditions are also unique. We, as Samoans, are unique. We might be small but our way of life is grand and we are a lot more complicated than people think. It is why you cannot just print out a map and start drawing lines across and say these are the boundaries. It is also why this Government cannot just embrace a recommendation by a consultant from goodness knows where about how to divide electoral boundaries and then force it down the throats of people, expecting them to live with it. You can fool people sometimes but you cannot fool them all the time. Besides, all Samoans know that O Samoa o le atunuu ua uma ona tofi. That is, the boundaries and the demarcation of our villages; families, lands and everything about Samoa have already been decided. Now does that mean everything is set in stone? Absolutely not because the times are changing and sometimes changes are needed. But here is the thing, these changes must be measured, they must be considerate and they have to be done sensitively in accordance to our culture, traditions and customs. The changes being proposed by the Governments Electoral Constituencies Bill 2018 are anything but measured, sensitive and definitely not in accordance with our culture, customs and traditions. This is why it is morally wrong for the Government to just create these laws and say that the changes are merely electoral changes. They are not. Our Parliament, and the representation by way of Members, is a reflection of Samoa, our customs and traditions. It starts from when boys and girls are groomed within individual families, then they are blessed to hold chiefly titles after they render service. These chiefs continue to serve in the village, church and elsewhere and in return get the blessings from the Village Council. From there they get the endorsement from the electoral constituencies to speak on their behalf in Parliament. These ancient constituencies exist for a reason. They reflect the vision, wisdom and foresight of our forebears who set the foundation upon which Samoas political stability stands. Without them, Samoa and our electoral system would be like any other country. And if thats what Prime Minister Tuilaepa and his administration want, then maybe its time they need to think about revising the whole Parliamentary system? Why do we need to elect only matais to Parliament? Why dont we do what the rest of the world is doing and select our politicians based on tertiary qualifications, wealth and other factors? Who needs territorial constituencies anymore, let alone electoral constituencies? Think about it. Have a restful weekend Samoa, God bless! Valencia, Spain has been selected by World Sailing to host sea-trials for the selection of Equipment or the Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition Men's and Women's One Person Dinghy Events. Applicants must be available on the selected dates Weight range men: 75kg to 90kg Weight range women: 55kg to 70kg. Ages over 18 Top level One Person dinghy sailors, providing career highlights Funding is available to support MNA's who aren't able to cover these costs, please contact the technical team for more information. Real Club Nautico de Valencia will host sailors 11-15 March 2019 who will sail and test the four boats shortlisted during the Re-evaluation procedure. These include:D-Zero, presented by Devotti Sailing s.r.o.Laser Standard and Laser Radial sailboat, presented by ILCAMelges 14, presented by Melges Boat Works Inc., NELO and Mackay Boats Ltd.RS Aero, presented by RS Sailing.World Sailing's Member National Authorities are now invited to nominate their top three male and top three female One Person Dinghy Sailors from which the Evaluation Panel will select from.Criteria for selection includes:All nomination forms should be sent to technical@sailing.org no later than 11 February 2019.World Sailing launched the tender process in May 2018 which invited Class Associations and Manufacturers to tender for the Men's and Women's One Person Dinghy following World Sailing's Olympic Re-evaluation Policy, detailed in Regulation 23.6 and approved by World Sailing's Council at the 2017 Annual Conference in Mexico.Click here to view the tender document.World Sailing received eight compliant bids and the D-Zero, Laser Standard and Laser Radial, Melges 14 and RS Aero were shortlisted as being those who closely mirror the technical criteria for the event - easy to sail, shared hull dinghy monohull with different rig sizes for male, female and youth sailors.Following shortlisting, in Phase 2, World Sailing undertook site visits to the manufacturers to confirm the submitted information, after which an improved bid was requested from each of them to address the supply of equipment to major events, the accessibility to the market by new builders and the standardization of equipment amongst different builders.The Board's Re-evaluation Working Party reviewed the bids and recommended to World Sailing's Board of Directors that World Sailing should proceed to select new equipment with the additional recommendation that the existing equipment (Laser/ILCA) is included as a full option in the process. The recommendation was approved at World Sailing's 2018 Annual Conference. Click here to view the Re-Evaluation Board recommendation to Council.Following the Sea-trial phase, World Sailing's Council will select the Equipment in 2019. New saudi-led airstrike hits Saada [26/January/2019] SAADA, Jan. 26 (Saba) - The fighter jets of US-backed Saudi-led coalition on Saturday waged an air strike on Saada province, northern Yemen, a security official said. The air strike hit Dhaher district, causing damages in citizens properties, the official said. AA Saba "We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea. We never proposed that," he said. The bill funding the government through Feb. 15 does not include money for the construction of Trump's proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. The president said that a bipartisan committee would be formed in the meantime to evaluate border security, but, contrary to previous claims, he was not asking for a concrete wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. Shortly after Trump's announcement, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the legislation. It was then sent to the House, where it was expected to be approved, then sent to the president and signed into law. "After 36 days of spirited debate and dialogue, I see that Democrats and Republicans are willing to put partisanship aside, I think, and put the American people first," Trump said in a Rose Garden announcement. "This is an opportunity for all parties to work together for the benefit of this beautiful nation." U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed a three-week spending bill Friday, clearing the way for Congress to pass legislation ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. It also came shortly after incoming flights to New York's LaGuardia airport were delayed due to staffing issues, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA also said that departure delays at LaGuardia, as well as Philadelphia and Newark airports, are due to air traffic control staffing shortages. Speaking to reporters at the Capitol Friday after Trump's announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump agreed to Democratic demands to separate the discussion on reopening the government from border security. He said he hopes Trump has "learned his lesson." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, "I see every crisis as a challenge or an opportunity" and was careful not to characterize Trump's motives during the government shutdown. Trump's announcement reverses his position from Thursday, when he said he would accept a deal to at least temporarily reopen the federal government if it contained a "pro-rated downpayment" on the U.S.-Mexico border wall he has sought. "It's just common sense, walls work," Trump said Friday, arguing the barrier would keep out criminals, human traffickers and drugs. In an apparent reference to reports he was considering declaring a national emergency at the border, Trump said he had "a very powerful alternative" but chose not to use it. He said that option was still on the table if Congress could not come to an agreement within the three-week funding period. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hoped there would be "good-faith negotiations'' in the coming weeks to settle differences on border security. A growing number of lawmakers of both parties have said compromise is the only way to end the political stalemate and reopen the government. "It is long overdue for all sides to come together, to engage in constructive debate and compromise to end this standoff," Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said. "Shutdowns represent the ultimate failure to govern and should never be used as a weapon to achieve an outcome." The shutdown has furloughed 800,000 government employees, with at least 420,000 forced to continue working without pay, and the remainder sent home, some of whom have been forced to look for temporary work elsewhere to help pay their household bills. All are set to miss their second biweekly paycheck on Friday. Some government services have been curtailed, as about 10 percent of airport security agents ordered to work have instead called in sick, some food inspections have been cut back, and museums and parks are closed. Federal courts warned they could run out of money by the end of the month. Weather Alert This product covers Eastern North Carolina **TROPICAL STORM WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR COASTAL SECTIONS OF EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA** NEW INFORMATION --------------- * CHANGES TO WATCHES AND WARNINGS: - A Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for Beaufort, Coastal Onslow, East Carteret, Hatteras Island, Inland Onslow, Mainland Dare, Mainland Hyde, Northern Outer Banks, Ocracoke Island, Pamlico, Southern Craven, Tyrrell, Washington, and West Carteret * CURRENT WATCHES AND WARNINGS: - A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Beaufort, Coastal Onslow, East Carteret, Hatteras Island, Inland Onslow, Mainland Dare, Mainland Hyde, Northern Outer Banks, Ocracoke Island, Pamlico, Southern Craven, Tyrrell, Washington, and West Carteret * STORM INFORMATION: - About 870 miles west-southwest of Buxton NC or about 790 miles west-southwest of Morehead City NC - 31.0N 89.7W - Storm Intensity 40 mph - Movement North-northeast or 25 degrees at 14 mph SITUATION OVERVIEW ------------------ Tropical Storm Claudette will move across the Southeast through Sunday and track across eastern North Carolina late Sunday night into Monday. Periods of locally heavy rain are likely, especially along and south of the Highway 70 corridor, with the potential for localized minor flooding of low lying areas. Tropical storm force winds are expected across coastal sections of eastern North Carolina. This could lead to some downed trees and scattered power outages. A few tornadoes are possible beginning Sunday afternoon and continuing through Monday morning, which could lead to locally enhanced damage. Minor storm surge flooding of 1 to 3 feet above ground will be possible along sound-side locations of the Outer Banks, with overwash of dunes and flooding of properties and roadways possible for locations where dune structures are weak. The threat for stronger and more frequent rip currents will continue for area beaches through the middle of next week. Dangerous marine conditions are also expected, with strong winds and seas building to 7 to 10 feet creating treacherous conditions for mariners. POTENTIAL IMPACTS ----------------- * FLOODING RAIN: Prepare for dangerous rainfall flooding having possible significant impacts along and south of the Highway 70 corridor. Potential impacts include: - Moderate rainfall flooding may prompt several evacuations and rescues. - Rivers and tributaries may quickly become swollen with swifter currents and overspill their banks in a few places, especially in usually vulnerable spots. Small streams, creeks, canals, and ditches overflow. - Flood waters can enter some structures or weaken foundations. Several places may experience expanded areas of rapid inundation at underpasses, low-lying spots, and poor drainage areas. Some streets and parking lots take on moving water as storm drains and retention ponds overflow. Driving conditions become hazardous. Some road and bridge closures. Prepare for locally hazardous rainfall flooding having possible limited impacts across the rest of eastern North Carolina. * TORNADOES: Prepare for a tornado event having possible limited impacts across Eastern North Carolina. Potential impacts include: - The occurrence of isolated tornadoes can hinder the execution of emergency plans during tropical events. - A few places may experience tornado damage, along with power and communications disruptions. - Locations could realize roofs peeled off buildings, chimneys toppled, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, large tree tops and branches snapped off, shallow-rooted trees knocked over, moving vehicles blown off roads, and small boats pulled from moorings. * SURGE: Prepare for locally hazardous surge having possible limited impacts across the Outer Banks. Potential impacts in this area include: - Localized inundation with storm surge flooding mainly along immediate shorelines and in low-lying spots, or in areas farther inland near where higher surge waters move ashore. - Sections of near-shore roads and parking lots become overspread with surge water. Driving conditions dangerous in places where surge water covers the road. - Moderate beach erosion. Heavy surf also breaching dunes, mainly in usually vulnerable locations. Strong rip currents. - Minor to locally moderate damage to marinas, docks, boardwalks, and piers. A few small craft broken away from moorings. Elsewhere across Eastern North Carolina, little to no impact is anticipated. * WIND: Prepare for hazardous wind having possible limited impacts across Eastern North Carolina. Potential impacts include: - Damage to porches, awnings, carports, sheds, and unanchored mobile homes. Unsecured lightweight objects blown about. - Many large tree limbs broken off. A few trees snapped or uprooted, but with greater numbers in places where trees are shallow rooted. Some fences and roadway signs blown over. - A few roads impassable from debris, particularly within urban or heavily wooded places. Hazardous driving conditions on bridges and other elevated roadways. - Scattered power and communications outages. * OTHER COASTAL HAZARDS: Dangerous surf conditions and the high risk for rip currents will continue for area beaches through early next week. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS ---------------------------------- * EVACUATIONS: WATCH/WARNING PHASE - Listen to local official for recommended preparedness actions, including possible evacuation. If ordered to evacuate, do so immediately. * OTHER PREPAREDNESS INFORMATION: Now is the time to check your emergency plan and emergency supplies kit and take necessary actions to protect your family and secure your home or business. When making safety and preparedness decisions, do not focus on the exact forecast track since hazards such as flooding rain, damaging wind gusts, storm surge, and tornadoes extend well away from the center of the storm. If in a place that is vulnerable to high wind, such as near large trees, a manufactured home, upper floors of a high-rise building, or on a boat, plan to move to safe shelter. If you live in a place particularly vulnerable to flooding, such as near the ocean or a large inland lake, in a low-lying or poor drainage area, in a valley, or near an already swollen river, plan to move to safe shelter on higher ground. Always heed the advice of local officials and comply with orders that are issued. Do not needlessly jeopardize your life or the lives of others. When securing your property, outside preparations should be concluded as soon as possible before conditions deteriorate. The onset of strong gusty winds or flooding can cause certain preparedness activities to become unsafe. Check on those who may not be fully aware of the situation or who are unable to make personal preparations. If you are a visitor, know the name of the county in which you are located and where it is relative to current watches and warnings. If staying at a hotel, ask the management staff about their onsite disaster plan. Listen for evacuation orders, especially pertaining to area visitors. Closely monitor weather.gov, NOAA Weather Radio and local news outlets for official storm information. Listen for possible changes to the forecast. There is a threat from tornadoes with this storm. Have multiple ways to receive Tornado Warnings. Be ready to shelter quickly. * ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION: - For information on appropriate preparations see ready.gov - For information on creating an emergency plan see getagameplan.org - For additional disaster preparedness information see redcross.org NEXT UPDATE ----------- The next local statement will be issued by the National Weather Service in Newport/Morehead City NC around 6 PM EDT, or sooner if conditions warrant. New York City, NY (11385) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness with occasional rain showers. Low near 70F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. FortFS Announces Welcome Bonus 75 USD FortFS has announced another promo. This time, it's called Welcome Bonus 75 USD. The brokers has always been known for offering various bonuses and promos on a regular basis. Basically, this bonus can help traders to give it a try and put the broker's products and services into practice without investing a penny. If you are interested and want find out more information the bonus, please rid this short introductory article. The promo offer is effective from January 21, 2019 through February 1, 2019. The welcome bonus actually allows you to get $75 (or an equivalent in another currency). Once again, "Welcome Bonus 75 USD" gives traders an excellent opportunity to use all FortFS services, to test their trading strategies while enjoying riskless Forex trading with maximum comfort! Also, for Telegram users, FortFS has officially launched a Telegram chat where traders can share their views on the latest Forex news and events! If you join the Telegram chat, and stay active, ForFS will randomly pick 5 traders and award them with the bonus that does not require complying with the trading turnover condition! On top of that, ForFS invites you to join the company's official Telegram channel to get timely updates on the latest market news, analytics, as well as FortFS experts' forecasts. How to Qualify? 1. Log in to your personal Traders Area. 2. Go to the "Verification" section in the "Profile" tab. 3. Verify your mobile number. To do this, wait for an SMS with code and enter the code into the code verification field. 4. Upload the documents verifying your identity and registration address. 5. Click the "Get Bonus" button in the "Bonus" tab ("Welcome Bonus" subsection) when it gets active after being approved by one of the managers. For more details on the terms and conditions as well as the data verification procedure, go to FortFS's official YouTube channel. Welcome Bonus 75 USD. Terms and Conditions: The bonus called Welcome Bonus 75 USD is effective from Jan 21 through Feb 1, 2019. Welcome Bonus 75 USD can only be received once per each trading account. Welcome Bonus 75 USD is unavailable for the following accounts: Newbie, PRO, and S.T.A.R. The bonus cannot be invested in S.T.A.R. accounts before completing the trading turnover requirements. Relatives aren't eligible for the bonus. If this condition is violated, the bonus and the profit gained with it will be canceled on all related accounts. Welcome Bonus 75 USD as well as the profit earned can only be withdrawn after completing the required trading turnover requirement, which is 100 lots for standard accounts and 10000 lots for cent accounts. CFD group transactions, ETF group transactions, and futures transactions do not qualify for the bonus calculation. However, your own funds and the profit gained with your own funds can be withdrawn at any time without any restrictions. Example: You opened a real account and got Welcome Bonus 75 USD. You started trading and earned 15 USD. So, your account balance is now equal to $90. Still, you cannot withdraw the profit before generating the minimum trading volume of 100 lots. Now let's assume that you decided to deposit $10 to the same trading account. The total balance is now $100. Then you made another $50. which is 50% of your balance before gaining this profit. Still, if the 100-lot condition is not fulfiled yet, you will only be eligible for withdrawing $10 + $5 (50% of the profit gained on the mentioned $10). If the conditions is fulfiled, you will be able to withdraw the entire balance - $150, in this case. Affiliates get their commissions as a certain share of the client funds. If the clients personal funds account for 90% of the total account balance and the bonus is the remaining 10%, then the partner will be credited with the 90% of the standard commission. Example: The client you attracted gets the $75 bonus and deposits another $75. The client funds account for only 50% of the total balance. As a result, the affiliate will only get 50% of the standard commission. If your standard commission is 65% of the spread paid by the client, in this case the actual payment is this: 0.5*65%=32.5% of spread. This formula will take effect until the required trading turnover is reached (see p.5). As soon as the client complies with the requirement, your affiliate commission will be restored back to 100% of the standard commission. As for various fraudulent actions - for example, the bonus was claimed and received by the same person (or their relatives) multiple times, involving any kind of connection between any 2 accounts (IP address, used devices, etc.), as well as the use of any means that provide anonymity (proxy, VPN, networks such as Tor, etc.), FortFS reserves the right to investigate into the case and cancel the Welcome Bonus and the earned profit. Please, keep in mind that the maximum withdrawal amount (including both the bonus and the profit) is limited to $150 (or equivalent in another currency). To get the welcome bonus, the client is required to complete the entire verification process in accordance with the Companys requirements. You are free to discuss this article here: forum for traders and investors June is the true beginning of summer in Michigan. Its a chance for us all to get out on the water, enjoying our beautiful Great Lakes, spending time with friends and family that we may not have been able to see for some time. The challenges of the pandemic that held us all back from people, Just over a year after breaking ground, the Southeast 47th Terrace Streetscape project is set to have its grand opening. Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 4 p.m., a dedication ceremony will be held at the corner of Southeast 47th Terrance and Southeast 10th Place. The dedication will be a celebration of the re-opening and new Streetscape of SE 47th Terrace. We want everyone to know that the Streetscape project is complete and the street is open to the surrounding businesses in South Cape, said Cape Coral spokesperson, Marueen Buice. A plaque will be unveiled to commemorate the project at the event. City Manager John Szerlag and Cape Coral Mayor Joe Coviello are expected to be in attendance and address the completion of the project, according to officials. The Parks and Recreation Department will also be in attendance and representatives of all the businesses along Southeast 47th Terrace are invited to attend. The event is open to the public as well. The project began in January 2018 to improve conditions along the heavily business-populated street. Sidewalks have been extended to promote pedestrian use, along with reducing the width of the street to slow down traffic in the area. Thank you for reading the Philadelphia Tribune. You have exhausted your free article views for this month. Please press the "subscribe" button below and see our introductory price of $0.25 per week for 13 weeks. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next month. For years, State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown held on to her House seat despite corruption allegations. Now that she has finally resigned, city Democrats are facing another migraine. They cant seem to put up a durable candidate to replace her. For the second time in a week, the partys choice has had to bow out amid questions about whether that individual actually lives in the district. Darryl Thomas, a barbershop owner selected Jan. 19 to be the partys nominee, withdrew from the race Saturday after a Clout column on Friday in the Inquirer and Daily News noted he had been registered to vote for more than a decade in both Pennsylvania and Delaware. Records from those states suggest he voted in both during the 2010 general election, something Thomas denied. Now, the party is hoping its third try will get the job done. Movita Johnson-Harrell, who serves as supervisor of the Victim Services unit at the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office, is expected to be selected as a replacement by the Democratic leaders of the seven wards included in the district. They are set to meet Sunday afternoon to vote. Johnson-Harrell was cautious Saturday about what comes next. Were just going to see what happens at the meeting, she said. If I am offered the nomination I will accept it. State Sen. Sharif Street of Philadelphia, who serves as vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said he helped steer the candidate-replacement process, in consultation with Gov. Tom Wolf. He certainly made clear we have an interest in having the highest-quality representation for every legislative seat, Street said of the governor. Ben Waxman, a spokesperson for District Attorney Larry Krasner, said Saturday that Johnson-Harrell had resigned her post Friday. Thomas, who ran unsuccessfully for the 190th District in the 2016 Democratic primary election, as did Johnson-Harrell, announced his decision to withdraw from the special election in an early-morning Facebook post, complaining that vicious and false allegations against me in a recent news article have made it clear that my continuing to run would only distract from the issues I care about and the help that West Philadelphia so desperately needs. Thomas, who is registered to vote in Philadelphia from a two-story Powelton rowhouse, sold that property nearly four years ago to a woman described by his campaign as his girlfriend. He is also listed on the deed to a property in Bear, Del., which he said is his mothers home. Delaware records show him registered to vote at that address from 2001 to 2017 Tuesday is the state deadline for candidates to withdraw from the special-election ballot and be replaced. Thomas is the second would-be special-election candidate who ran into trouble for questions about residency. Sonte Reavis, an attorney and onetime staffer for former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, was initially seen as the front-runner for the partys nomination. A Clout column published the day before the Jan. 19 selection meeting noted that Water Revenue Bureau bills for the two-story rowhouse Reavis listed as his address in the district showed zero water usage for two years. Reavis then pulled out of the running. The 190th District seat is vacant because Brown resigned in December about two months after being convicted on bribery charges in October in a trial delayed by four years of legal skirmishing. The winner of the special election will be sworn in to complete her two-year term, which pays $88,610 per year. Any Democratic candidate is heavily favored to win the seat, since 87 percent of the districts registered voters belong to that party. Two Democrats who failed to win the partys nomination on Jan. 19, Amen Brown and Pastor Pam Williams, collected enough signatures on nomination petitions to be listed as independents on the ballot. The Republican nominee is Michael Harvey, a local party committeeman. Philadelphia was never in fact missing $33 million. Just $528,000 for now at least. After eight months of digging through years of backed-up accounting books, city-hired consultants say various errors payments made from incorrect accounts and duplicate entries made it look like the citys main cash bank account was short tens of million of dollars. But not so. According to the consultants' report, released Friday, almost all the money in question has been accounted for, and the half-million remainder is expected to be resolved by the Treasurers Office and the Reconciliation Task Force created to oversee the process. The Center City accounting firm of Horsey, Buckner & Heffler LLP was hired on a $500,000 contract to help the city resolve the discrepancy in balances in its main cash bank account and accounting system. In June 2017, the discrepancy was as high as $40.1 million. The Horsey team reviewed about 17,000 deposit transactions and 8,500 payment transactions, all of which were of more than $100,000 each, spanning three years starting in 2014. The Horsey report says there are eight unmatched deposits left and the discrepancy of $528,000. But city officials say the difference might be because of the timing of transactions. There will often be timing differences at the end of months that can result in small differences between the amount shown in the citys accounting system and the amounts shown in bank statements, city spokesperson Mike Dunn said. Nevertheless, Dunn said, the task force will work to resolve the variance. The issue of the citys books not matching its bank account came to light in April during City Council budget hearings. Councilman Allan Domb asked the citys finance director and treasurer why they didnt seem to have any urgency in finding out why there was a $33 million discrepancy in its accounts, per the citys Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). City Treasurer Rasheia Johnson, who was appointed by Mayor Jim Kenney in 2016, said she discovered soon after starting the job that some accounts had not been reconciled in years. She hired a new accountant to work on the backlog, and sometime after that, officials discovered the $40 million discrepancy between its books and the main account. By the time the CAFR was printed in February, the difference was down to $33 million. After a flabbergasted Domb brought up the issue in April, the administration hired Horsey Buckner to help resolve the problem faster. Two months later, the mayor created the task force, co-chaired by Johnson and former City Controller Jonathan Saidel, to oversee the process. Also, City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart released an audit in June that said Philadelphia had the worst accounting practices among the nations 10 largest cities, in which she noted the issue of reconciliation. The team of accountants had a breakthrough in November when they found that seven debt payments totaling $21 million had been paid from the wrong account, throwing off the books. Since then, the team has resolved $1.6 million more in discrepancies. Domb, who has been critical of the citys initial response to the problem, said it shouldnt have taken a task force and $500,000 for an auditing firm to reconcile accounts. I dont think a level of importance was placed on it, he said. Once light was on top of it, then it became an issue that became resolved. The Horsey report had several recommendations for the city, including better communication between the Treasurers Office and other departments that handle revenue; improving its document retention policy; and a review of the citys 300 bank accounts to determine whether they are truly necessary and/or required. In response to Horseys report, city Finance Director Rob Dubow said, The credit goes to the task force that the mayor put together and to the team that the city treasurer put together, which included Horsey. The project would not have been completed without everybodys contributions." Philadelphia officials say they have found a big chunk of the unreconciled $33 million that sent accountants on a yearlong hunt for the money. Last week, accountants figured out that seven debt payments totaling $21 million had been paid from the wrong account, throwing off the city's books. The $21 million is part of the $33.3 million in unaccounted-for funds reported earlier this year. It wasn't clear at the time whether the money was missing or misreported as the result of accounting mistakes. City Treasurer Rasheia Johnson said Tuesday that it was the latter. So far, no money has been found to be missing or owed in payments, Johnson said. The money was for the most part deposited or paid from accounts different from where the transactions should've occurred. The reconciliation team, which includes city accountants and outside help, say they have settled most of the accounts and have $2.1 million left to resolve. They expect to have that done before the end of the year. City officials, however, are not holding anyone responsible for the errors. "We're not immune to making mistakes. Mistakes happen, I wouldn't say often, but sometimes," Chief of Staff Jim Engler said Tuesday. "The key part about when we make mistakes is that we acknowledge it." Previous audits had pointed to the city's sloppy bookkeeping, and two years went by between 2014 and 2016 without monthly reconciliations of accounts, allowing mistakes involving millions of dollars to pile up. When Johnson came into office in 2016, she went to city Finance Director Rob Dubow about the unbalanced accounts, which soon after were discovered to have $40 million in discrepancies between what the bank accounts showed and what the city reported in its records. Johnson's staff worked to reconcile those accounts. During the spring budget hearings, Councilman Alan Domb brought up that the city's 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), released in February, noted that $33.3 million was unaccounted for (down from the initial $40 million). Then came a scathing audit from City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, who said Philadelphia has the worst accounting practices among the nation's 10 largest cities; she blamed the mistakes on the Finance Department's reduced staff and lack of technology. The Kenney administration hired Horsey, Buckner & Heffler (the firm is to be paid up to $500,000 for its work) and created a task force to help reconcile the $33 million. The city also started monthly reconciliations between the books and bank records to catch future accounting mistakes before they become a problem. "With the amount of transactions the city has in our accounts on a monthly basis, if you're not reconciling on a monthly basis, they accumulate like this has over time," Johnson said. Dubow, who also served as finance director during the Nutter administration when the reconciliations stopped, said Tuesday what he has said in the past: "They should've been done and they weren't, and we're doing them now." Aside from the $21 million in seven misplaced debt payments, accountants also found that a $4 million payment was mistakenly recorded twice due to an initial bounced check. In other unaccounted-for transactions, amounts had been entered incorrectly in the books or deposited into the wrong account. Johnson said she has hired two additional accountants to continue the reconciliations (plus a third to be hired soon) and is searching for a new deputy treasurer to oversee the process. She and Dubow expect a full reconciliation of the money by the end of the year, at which point a report will be released detailing the work done and the policies put in place to prevent such mistakes in the future. As to the question of whether anyone will be fired over the $40 million in accounting mistakes, Engler said: "No, that's not how we operate." Correction: A previous earlier version of this story inaccurately described a $4 million payment as not being received. As she sat in a Bucks County jail cell, Jennifer Morrisey seemed nervous, her former cellmates testified Friday at her trial in the slaying of her former lover. One said she asked her how to craft a self-defense plea and later told her she had accidentally shot her sugar daddy in the heat of an argument. Another fellow inmate testified that Morrisey said Michael McNew was drunk when she confronted and killed him at his house in Washington Crossing in August 2017. Afterward, the woman said, Morrisey told her she fled to her boyfriends trailer in Bensalem, seeking guidance on what to do next. The three women said Morrisey spun several versions of how McNew died. The details, one said, shifted every time she told the story. But what was consistent, they said, is that Morrisey, 34, told them she went to the home she once shared with the pharmaceutical executive, shot him once between the eyes, and left the house in a panic. Prosecutors spent the third day of Morriseys murder trial in Doylestown reinforcing their case against the former exotic dancer and motorcycle mechanic. They built their evidence on the accounts of the women Tracy Ward, Kimberly Wallace, and Ashley Connor who spent time with her in the county prison. At every turn, Morriseys attorney, S. Philip Steinberg, questioned their credibility and repeatedly asked whether prosecutors had promised them any favorable treatment in exchange for their testimony. In some instances, he noted, the inmates had received lesser sentences or had crucial paperwork expedited around the time they cooperated with the prosecution. One witness, Connor, contradicted large parts of previous testimony to a grand jury, and had to be corrected multiple times by prosecutors. All three women denied receiving special treatment, but none more vehemently than Ward, who acknowledged she is addicted to drugs and also admitted calling Morriseys boyfriend, Charles Ruthless Kulow, on Morriseys behalf in a violation of prison rules. Ward told Deputy District Attorney Christopher W. Rees that she called Kulow and provided him with updates on the investigation into McNews death. She later regretted it, Ward said, nearly in tears. Im not a perfect person. I thought I was helping someone out, she said. I made a phone call that I absolutely shouldnt have made. She felt so guilty, she said, that she later passed along information Morrisey had provided her to detectives. Wallace provided detectives with perhaps the most detailed account of McNews death. She said that Morrisey outlined the fatal encounter multiple times: Morrisey went to confront McNew after he had been threatening her through text messages, angered that she was spending too much time with Kulow, a member of the Breeds motorcycle gang. When Morrisey arrived, McNew brandished a gun and asked her, Where is your boyfriend?, according to Wallace. The two then struggled, wrestling to the floor. Morrisey, she said, told her she was able to grab the dropped gun and push McNew into a nearby recliner. He lunged at her, Wallace said, and the gun went off accidentally. Zhongxu Hua, the forensic pathologist who performed McNews autopsy, testified Friday that the barrel of the gun was very close to McNews face when the fatal shot was fired, at most an inch away. Wallace said she asked Morrisey why she didnt call the police if the shooting was accidental. Morrisey told her that there was nothing that could be done" for McNew and that she doubted the police would have believed her story. Morrisey, Wallace said, told her she returned to the scene of the shooting later with Kulow and a third man, and they initially decided to stage McNews death as a suicide. Later, according to Wallace, she said they changed course, trying to make it look like a bad robbery, by stealing McNews laptop and cell phone and rifling through his pockets. She was insistent, Wallace said, that she wouldnt let Ruthless go down for this. The biker ended up going down on his own: He was convicted of an unrelated murder in Philadelphia in October. The third man to whom Wallace alluded, Jerry Watson, also testified Friday. He said only he and Morrisey drove back to McNews house as a favor to Kulow, who wanted to see whether McNew had survived the shooting. Watson denied stealing anything from the home or otherwise disturbing the crime scene. I think it was a pretty poor decision, said Watson, who lives with Kulows mother. The dumbest thing Ive ever done. UNITED NATIONS (AP) The United States urged all nations Saturday to end Venezuela's "nightmare" and support opposition leader Juan Guaido while Russia accused the Trump administration of attempting "to engineer a coup d'etat" against President Nicolas Maduro a reflection of the world's deep divisions over the crisis in the South American country. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the U.N. Security Council at a meeting called by Washington that it's beyond time to back the Venezuelan people as they try to free themselves from what he called Maduro's "illegitimate mafia state" and support Guaido. The young opposition leader has declared himself the country's interim president, arguing that Maduro's re-election was fraudulent. But Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Venezuela doesn't threaten international peace and security and accused "extremist opponents" of Maduro's legitimate government of choosing "maximum confrontation," including the artificial creation of a parallel government. He urged Pompeo to say whether the U.S. will use military force. Pompeo later told reporters who asked for a response, "I am not going to speculate or hypothesize on what the U.S. will do next." What has played out in Venezuela and the world's media between supporters and opponents of the Maduro government played out face-to-face in the chamber of the U.N.'s most powerful body, which has failed to take action on the Venezuelan crisis because of deep divisions. The Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members could not unite behind a statement on Venezuela, presenting widely differing texts. The leaders of two of those council nations France and Britain joined Spain and Germany to turn up the pressure on Maduro Saturday, saying they would follow the U.S. and others in recognizing Guaido unless Venezuela calls new presidential elections within eight days. European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said if there is no announcement of new elections in the next days the 28-nation bloc "will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country's leadership." Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza dismissed the deadline. "Europe is giving us eight days?" he asked the council. "Where do you get that you have the power to establish a deadline or an ultimatum to a sovereign people. It's almost childlike." Arreaza said Venezuela "will not allow anyone to impose on us any decision or order" and demanded that someone show him where in the country's constitution it states that an individual can proclaim himself president. "The name of the president is president Maduro," he said. As for possible military action to oust Maduro, Arreaza said, "we will not allow any government or any country to violate our sovereignty, and to give a pretext for Donald Trump to start a war." The opposition to Guaido was also reflected in the initial procedural vote on whether the 15-member Security Council should even discuss the crisis in Venezuela, which is not on its official agenda. The United States barely survived the vote to go ahead with the meeting, receiving the minimum nine "yes" votes from the council's six Western nations along with Kuwait, Peru and the Dominican Republic. China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea joined Russia in voting "no" while Indonesia and Ivory Coast abstained. Pompeo went after Russia and China, accusing them of trying "to prop up Maduro while he is in dire straits ... in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years." But he saved his sharpest attack for Cuba, saying no country has done more to sustain "the nightmarish condition of the Venezuelan people." He said Cuba has sent "security and intelligence thugs" to sustain Maduro's "illegitimate rule." "Now is the time for every other national to pick a side," Pompeo said. "No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro and his mayhem." China's U.N. Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu said his government "firmly opposed" the U.S. accusations and doesn't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. "We hope the country that accuses others can do likewise itself," Ma told the council. Russia's Nebenzia also rejected Pompeo's claims. Cuba's U.N. Ambassador Anayansi Rodriguez went further, rejecting "the deliberate" and "fake news" cast on the country not only by Pompeo but by Elliot Abrams, the new chief of U.S. policy on Venezuela who sat in the council after the secretary of state left. Abrams called Venezuela "a satellite of Cuba and Russia" which the three countries vehemently denied and said Saturday's meeting "is not about foreign intervention in Venezuela" but "about the right of Venezuelans to direct their own internal affairs and choose the future of their own country democratically." The Security Council meeting came a day after Guaido vowed to remain on the streets until his country has a transitional government, while Maduro dug in and accused his opponents of orchestrating a coup. In rival press conferences, Guaido urged his followers to stage another mass protest next week, while Maduro pushed his call for dialogue. The standoff could set the scene for more violence and has plunged troubled Venezuela into a new chapter of political turmoil that rights groups say has already left more than two dozen dead as thousands take to the street demanding Maduro step down. Guaido took a symbolic oath of office Wednesday proclaiming himself the nation's constitutional leader on grounds that Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent an allegation supported by the U.S., the European Union and many other nations. The Trump administration announced it was recognizing the 35-year-old leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly quickly after his oath, leading Maduro to say that he was breaking all diplomatic ties with the United States and expelling U.S. diplomats. Guaido told the Americans to stay. Pompeo told the Security Council on Saturday: "Let me be 100 percent clear President Trump and I fully expect that our diplomats will continue to receive protections provided under the Vienna Convention. Do not test the United States on our resolve to protect our people." Recognition of Guaido by the U.S., Venezuela's biggest trade partner, already threatens to heap more misery on the country's crisis-stricken economy, and a similar move by European nations would complicate matters further. Directives sent Friday by the State Department to the Federal Reserve will make it harder for Maduro to gain access to the government's sizable overseas assets, including revenue from oil sales and profits by Houston-based Citgo, a unit of the state-owned oil giant PDVSA. Guaido's move is the most direct challenge to Maduro's rule despite years of protests at home and international efforts to isolate the regime amid a growing humanitarian crisis fueled by falling oil prices and government mismanagement. Maduro is accusing the opposition of working with the U.S. to overthrow him. Though over a dozen nations are recognizing Guaido as president, Maduro still has the support of the military and powerful, longtime allies like Russia and China. He said he is still willing to talk with the opposition. Both sides attempted dialogue last year, but it fell apart as Maduro pushed forward with an early election that Venezuela's most popular opposition leaders were barred from running in. Many in the international community condemned that vote and now consider the National Assembly, which Maduro has stripped of its power, the only legitimate institution. Russia's Nebenzia, who opposed Saturday's meeting, said it was useful because it showed Washington that a majority of countries favor Venezuela's sovereignty, territorial independence, and non-interference in its internal affairs. "Let's not escalate tensions around Venezuela," he said at the end of the nearly six hour council meeting. "Stop using threats and threaten the use of force against this country. Set aside these ridiculous ultimatums of eight days." ___ Scott Smith reported from Caracas, Venezuela. Less than a month after he took office, President Donald Trump issued a tough condemnation of the socialist government of Venezuela, startling both admirers and critics trying to get a bead on the new "America First" president's scattershot foreign policy. The statement followed an impromptu Oval Office meeting with the wife of a prominent imprisoned Venezuelan opposition leader. In one of his first foreign policy tweets, Trump denounced Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and demanded the prisoner's immediate release. The two years of escalating sanctions, rhetorical jousting and occasional military threats that followed helped drive Venezuela further toward collapse. While Maduro remains, the emergence of opposition leader Juan Guaido this week provided Trump with both a potential foreign policy victory and a desperately needed political win at home - particularly in Florida, a must-win state for his reelection campaign and home to an increasingly influential Venezuelan expatriate community. After Wednesday's U.S. recognition of Guaido as interim president, the administration moved Friday to begin securing Venezuelan assets, including international reserves and the U.S.-based Citgo oil company, for his government. A new special envoy, retired senior diplomat Elliott Abrams, was named to lead what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called "our efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela." The path to achieving that objective is unlikely to be smooth - with the possibility that Maduro could target U.S. diplomats on the ground there, or trap them without water or electricity in the embassy. But so far, for the president who promised to eschew foreign involvements and put America first, there is little apparent downside. With few exceptions, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are largely united in support of Trump's recognition of Guaido. The position is especially popular in South Florida, where the traditionally pro-Republican Cuban American community is closely attuned to the cause of ousting a regime that has aligned itself with communist Cuba. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., an influential voice on Latin American policy who requested Trump's early 2017 Oval Office meeting with the wife of opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, said he was "very proud" of Pompeo's diplomatic engagement with the Venezuelan opposition. The Trump administration, he said, "deserves lots of credit" for backing the anti-Maduro cause, especially because the president and his advisers had "been careful not to act without the consensus of our democratic partners" in the region. "What you're seeing now is democracy once again on the march. A big part of that is because of the leadership of the United States," said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., who has been huddling with White House officials, Rubio and others to hammer out Latin American policies. Political analysts say Venezuelan, Cuban and other Latin American voters in swing states like Florida are closely watching what happens in Caracas. Chris Miles, a Cuban American GOP political consultant in Miami, said middle-class Venezuelans settling in that city often come with assets and political know-how that make them a political force, like Cubans before them. "We've seen this movie before, we know how it works," he said. "We are just watching how it unfolds in a different way." "If I were Trump, I would be looking at my reelection path as certainly needing Florida," said a former congressional aide familiar with aspects of the administration's Venezuela strategy. Some Democrats do not see Trump's actions as more than a welcome blip on his record and are skeptical of the lawmakers cheering him. "This is not about credit. This is about policy," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., whose district has the largest concentration of Venezuelan Americans in the country. "I know that the Venezuelan community is glad to have his support . . . I would not take that to mean that somehow now Donald Trump gets credit for supporting every other dictator on planet Earth." But both Wasserman Schultz and Diaz-Balart agreed this week that for now, at least, Venezuela is not a political issue between them. "There isn't any daylight," Wasserman Schultz said in an interview, shortly after meeting with Venezuelan American leaders in her district. "Maduro needs to go - that's the overwhelming sentiment from the majority of members of Congress, from both parties." While the attention the administration paid to Venezuela since that initial Oval Office meeting was sporadic amid myriad other crises, it was consistently tough. Pressed by Rubio and others - as well as Vice President Mike Pence, a devout Christian whose own constituency saw an ideological and human rights imperative in Venezuela - Trump needed little encouragement. But there always seemed a point beyond which the president was unwilling to go. Even as he periodically warned that the U.S. military could take down Maduro if necessary, the Pentagon made clear that it was uninterested in opening a conflict in this hemisphere. Maduro's closest and strongest ally has been Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has been reluctant to confront. And the prospect of hitting Venezuela with sanctions where it would really hurt - in the oil industry that has kept the country alive, largely with exports to the United States - also risked economic damage in this country. Trump said little about Latin America during his election campaign, and as president he canceled three planned visits there before attending the Group of 20 economic meeting in Buenos Aires late last year. The headline of that visit was a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the U.S.-China trade war. Still, Trump repeatedly returned to the Venezuela issue, including during the midterm election season last year, when he accused Democrats of welcoming Maduro-style socialism. In Florida, Trump said that unless Republican Ron DeSantis became governor, "Florida will become another Venezuela, and that is not good." DeSantis, who credited his victory to Trump's endorsement, joined Rubio and new Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., at the White House on Tuesday, the day before Trump's diplomatic break with Maduro's government. DeSantis later said that he advised Trump to "seize the moment" by recognizing Guaido and that the two discussed the ties between Maduro and the Castro regime in Cuba. A Rubio aide said, however, that Trump's decision had already been made. "If Guaido said he was going to assert himself as provisional president," a move the opposition leader made the following day, "the administration was set to recognize him. The conversation was more along the lines of how do we make sure the United States is doing everything it possibly can to assist - recognizing him, ensuring the international community did the same, what sort of assistance could be necessary, what actions would be taken at the [Organization of American States] and the [United Nations] Security Council," said the aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the closed-door meeting. How the administration goes about making sure the changes in Venezuela stick is forefront in the minds of Venezuelans and other Latin Americans in Florida, even as both parties eye their votes. In the kitchen of Pepito's Plaza, a Venezuelan restaurant inside a gas station in Doral, a city with a large population of expats, four employees intently watched a CNN update on Venezuela on Thursday. "Even though our country has not had great relations with the U.S., the American government is showing it supports democracy and liberty, especially for Venezuelans," said Glorialba Reville, a 21-year-old food server. Reville left Venezuela last May, joining her three brothers who were already in Doral. Her parents came two months later, she said. In Venezuela, "there is no quality of life and no future," Reville said. "You can't walk down the street or roll down the windows of your car without being in fear that you might get kidnapped or killed." Ernesto Ackerman, founder of the Miami-based grass-roots organization Independent Venezuelan-American Citizens, said expatriates in South Florida, whether Republicans or Democrats, will remember the Trump administration's actions at the ballot box in 2020. "After nearly eight years of near-total silence from the Obama administration, Trump is taking a strong, definitive stand against Maduro." Ackerman believes that the president not only solidified support among Venezuelan Americans who voted for him in 2016 but also gained votes from those who disagree with his foreign policy. On the other hand, Carlos Pereira, a Venezuelan American Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for a Florida state House seat and for Doral City Council, said it is too early to gauge the impact Trump's aggressive posturing will have on his fellow expats a year from now. "From an emotional point of view, what Trump did is great, and we should thank him for it," Pereira said, but "it may well be a dog-and-pony show to solidify support among Republican Hispanic voters who want to make Venezuela great again." - - - Alvarado reported from Miami. The Washington Posts Karoun Demirjian in Washington, Anthony Faiola in Rio de Janeiro and Rachelle Krieger in Miami contributed to this report. SAO PAULO (AP) A dam that held back mining waste collapsed Friday in Brazil, inundating a nearby community in reddish-brown sludge, killing at least seven people and leaving scores of others missing. Parts of the city of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste. Photos showed rooftops poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and an administrative office for Brazilian mining company Vale SA, where employees were present. 'Ive never seen anything like it, Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, president of Brumadinho residents association, told the Associated Press by phone. It was horrible the amount of mud that took over. Silva Tomas said she was awaiting news of her cousin, and many people she knew were trying to get news of loved ones. Seven bodies had been recovered by late Friday, according to a statement from the governor's office of Minas Gerais state. Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened. About 100 had been accounted for, and rescue efforts were underway to determine what had happened to the others. The principal victims were our own workers, Schvartzman said at a news conference Friday evening. He said a restaurant was buried by the mud at lunchtime. Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds from their homes. Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic meters of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Schvartsman said what happened Friday was "a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less." President Jair Bolsonaro said he lamented the accident and sent three cabinet ministers to the area. "We will take all the possible steps to minimize the suffering of families and victims," Bolsonaro said in a speech, which he posted on Twitter. Bolsonaro, who assumed power Jan. 1, planned to tour the area by helicopter on Saturday. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underscored a lack of regulation. The latest spill "is a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies responsible for the tragedy with Samarco dam, in Mariana, also controlled by Vale," Greenpeace said in a statement. "History repeats itself," tweeted Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and three-time presidential candidate. "It's unacceptable that government and mining companies haven't learned anything." The rivers of mining waste raised fears of widespread contamination. According to Vales website, the mine waste, often called tailings, is composed mostly of sand and is nontoxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster contained high levels of toxic heavy metals. Vale is Brazils largest mining company. Two hours after the accident, its stock fell 10 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. Peter Prengaman contributed to this article. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) A long-simmering ethics investigation of former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum heated up Friday when a state ethics panel said there was probable cause that Gillum violated Florida's ethics law. The state's ethics commission voted in a closed-door meeting Friday that there is enough evidence to show that Gillum accepted gifts from lobbyists during his time as Tallahassee's mayor. Gillum narrowly lost the governors race to Republican Ron DeSantis last year. During the bitter contest, DeSantis pounded Gillum over the lengthy investigation that centered on trips he took to Costa Rica and New York City, including who paid for tickets to a Broadway showing of the popular musical Hamilton. Gillum denied the allegations during the campaign, saying at one point, I dont need anybody handing me anything for free. Barry Richard, who is representing Gillum in the investigation, said his client would contest the findings before an administrative judge. "I don't think there's any evidence he did anything wrong," said Richard, a well-known Tallahassee attorney who once represented George W. Bush in the legal battles over the 2000 presidential election. Richard maintained in a filing with the commission that the allegations against Gillum hang on a very slender thread because they rely primarily on a lobbyist and onetime friend of Gillums. Details about Gillum's 2016 trips to Costa Rica and New York City first came to light in the wake of an FBI investigation into corruption in Tallahassee city government that broke into the open in June 2017. News outlets reported that, during the Costa Rica trip, Gillum's lobbyist friend Adam Corey set up a meeting in Tallahassee between the mayor and undercover agents posing as developers, and that Gillum also met with the agents during his time in New York City. Gillum has said previously the FBI has told him he is not a target of its investigation. Last month Scott Maddox, a city commissioner who once ran the states Democratic Party, was indicted on 44 counts, including charges of bribery, extortion, bank fraud, racketeering, and other crimes. Maddox has pleaded not guilty and has been suspended from his position. Erwin Jackson, a Tallahassee businessman and long-standing critic of Gillum, filed an ethics complaint against Gillum. Under Florida law, local officials cannot accept gifts worth more than $100 from a lobbyist or a company that hires a lobbyist. The commission ultimately concluded there was probable cause for five violations, according to Richard. The commission cleared Gillum of one allegation that he had asked for the gifts. Gillum could eventually be forced to pay civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation. But the commission agreed with commission staff who concluded that Gillum did not pay all the costs for the Costa Rica trip that he took with his wife. Records show that Gillum used his credit card to pay for airfare and Gillum asserts he gave Corey cash to pay for four nights at a luxury villa. But Corey contends that he never received any payment. There also allegations that Gillum got a ticket to Hamilton for free as well and a private boat trip to the Statue of Liberty. Gillum said in a sworn declaration to ethics investigators that the Hamilton ticket was given to him by his brother and he assumed he had paid for it. Corey, however, said the tickets were paid by an FBI undercover agent. Marcus Gillum said he got the tickets from Corey and offered to pay for them at the time. He said he paid Corey back by giving him three tickets to a Jay-Z concert each worth $280. A 30-year-old man was killed in a morning hit-and-run in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia, police said Saturday. A passerby alerted authorities to the victim, who was found on the 5300 block of Saul Street around 6 a.m., police said. His name had not been released Saturday afternoon. Medics took the man to Hahnemann University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:36. Authorities said they had no information about the car that hit the victim. Like hundreds of other parents in the Haverford School District, Allyson Groff depends on the early-learning program run out of the Brookline School building, where her 3-year-old spends part of his day in a preschool while she and her husband go to work. Thats why Groff and other Haverford Township parents say theyre alarmed by news that the district plans to close the aging facility by July 1, and frustrated by the lack of any progress in finding a new home for the child-care program operator, Family Support Services. Were really scrambling. Theres not a lot of programs, actually, in Havertown," said Groff, who, like many parents in the Delaware County suburb, had also sent her older son to Brooklines K-Club, which fills the gap created by the districts half-day kindergarten. Just this week, the Haverford YMCA said it would offer a supplemental kindergarten program. Haverfords immediate dilemma shines a bright spotlight on the broader problems that many communities around the Philadelphia region and the country are experiencing, as demand for child care continues to skyrocket yet spaces remain limited. Program operators say they struggle to hire staff in a tight job market and to find adequate facilities. Even Laura Saccente, director of the Pennsylvania Statewide Afterschool/Youth Development Network that advocates for child-care programs, said its a struggle to get after-school care for her own children she and her neighbors in Camp Hill, near Harrisburg, have had to get up at 3 or 4 a.m. to stand in a line to guarantee a slot. Saccente cited a study called the America After 3 P.M. report last conducted in 2014 that found a huge unmet need for after-school child care in Pennsylvania. That survey found more than 800,000 children across the state would enroll in a program if one were available, and experts agree the crunch has grown worse in the five years since then. Its definitely a bit of a crisis, said Ann OBrien, CEO of Montgomery Early Learning Centers, referring to the workforce issues. Her firm operates child-care programs within the Colonial and -- until this year -- the Lower Merion Area School Districts. Colonial typically has long wait lists every fall, as do many other districts, she said. OBrien cited overlapping problems finding available space within communities that also have rising classroom enrollments, school hours that are like farm days and dont mesh with modern work hours, and hiring enough qualified staff in a time of near-record low joblessness. The unemployment rate is so low, you cant find the help, agreed Tracie Costello, CEO of A Childs Place, a large child-care company with 315 employees operating in five Chester County districts. She said 75 percent of the job right now is recruiting new employees. That jibes with national reports that child-care centers traditionally known for low-pay on a level with parking-lot attendants or dog walkers are now developing incentives to attract new workers, especially in urban areas where two-income parents and demand for high-quality enrichment programs are the norm. Some parents say the need for child care in the Haverford area is so great and the problems that would be caused if Family Support Services cant find a new location to operate are so dire theyre taking matters into their own hands, scouting out local churches and other potential sites. In addition to K-Club and preschool, the operator offers a summer camp. Pre- and after-school care are housed in elementary schools, though space limitations have created a shortage of slots. Rex Carney, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Elwyn, which operates Family Support Services, said in a statement: Elwyn has been operating these programs for years, and we understand their importance in the community. We are proud of the services we provide and value our working relationship with the families and school district. We are working diligently to find a solution to the situation. Haverford, as a prosperous suburb where public school enrollment has been on the rise, typifies many of the national trends. Officials and parents agree the districts crowded schools with modular classrooms at some elementary schools to handle the overflow simply dont have space to meet all of their families' child-care needs. School district officials have warned for some time that the Brookline facility, a former school built in 1913, had grown too expensive to maintain and was on its last legs. Nonetheless, a preliminary vote Monday by Haverford Township commissioners to purchase the building on Earlington Road from the district for $1 with plans to demolish it possibly to become a park or new library location sent shock waves among parents. In a Jan. 16 letter to parents, Family Support Services said that the Brookline facility would close on July 1 and that we are diligently searching for an appropriate, convenient and cost-effective building in Havertown. However, it warned that we may have to close the program if a suitable location cant be found. As a parent, whats frustrating right now, I am feeling there is a lack of urgency, said Lindsey Smith, mother of a kindergartner and a special-education teacher at Haverford Middle School. She has been actively pressing Family Support Services and Elwyn to locate a new site within Haverford to ensure the program stays open. Several parents said theyve been especially frustrated by the hands-off approach taken by the school district, especially since its Haverfords policy to provide only half-day kindergarten that makes the K-Club such an essential service. The maintenance and facilities needs of the building require a substantial investment of funds the district simply does not have, School Superintendent Maureen Reusche told a Jan. 17 board meeting after a number of parents raised their concerns. She said that the district hopes Family Support Services can find a new location but that it also has been in touch with another possible provider and will update a list of other options on its website. Indeed, the dilemma created by the imminent shutdown of the Brookline location shows how parents consider child care an essential service and yet no government entity is required to provide it. From the township perspective, this is an unfortunate situation for parents, and were very sympathetic and were willing to offer any assistance we can provide, said Haverford Commissioner Kevin McCloskey, who has met with parents. The father of three noted he faces his own issue when his youngest son enrolls in half-day kindergarten next year, but he said the township is only a peripheral player in the child-care issue. This isnt really our fight, or our decision, he said. As a result, there are ad hoc efforts by parents such as Smith to visit local churches or look at other potential spaces where the programs could relocate once Brookline is closed. She said shes also talked to Family Support Services about filming a short video about the programs, which she praised, so others can see how wonderful they are and they can show it to other potential leads and the school board. Its not just a day care, said Groff, citing the early-learning aspects of the program. For the families that use it, its much more than that. For the 800,000 federal employees who were forced to work without pay or furloughed, President Donald Trumps announcement Friday that he would temporarily end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history signaled a return to normality. Trump promised that those workers would receive back pay very quickly, or as soon as possible. But when will their checks arrive? When will shuttered national park buildings reopen? What awaits furloughed employees who havent worked since before Christmas? When will the nine affected agencies be able to resume full operation? Alex Jay Berman, a union leader who works in customer service at the IRS, said he didnt have any answers yet for his more than 3,300 members. We dont know when well be back to work, and perhaps most importantly, we dont know when paychecks will come out, he said. The Liberty Bell and Independence Hall opened Saturday at 10 a.m. while the Independence Visitor Center will return to its normal schedule Sunday, with hours from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m., spokesperson Nicole Woods said in an update Saturday morning. The government will reopen until at least Feb. 15 under the bill the president signed authorizing the temporary reopening. The 35-day shutdown began on Dec. 22. Katharine Young, an associate professor at Boston College Law School who studies comparative constitutional law and has written about government shutdowns, said the temporary nature of the reopening worries her, but like everyone else, she is waiting to see what will happen over the next three weeks. "I think its wonderful [the government] is reopening again and that the workers will be as effective as they can possibly be in getting things moving again, she said. While everyone waits on answers from Washington, heres a look back at two past shutdowns and what happened after they ended. 1995-96 under the Clinton administration In 1996, lawmakers approved a deal to temporarily end the 21-day shutdown the previous record on the first Friday of the year. The Independence Visitor Center opened that Saturday, while Valley Forge National Historical Park was slower to fully reopen because workers were busy clearing snow from the grounds. Federal employees resumed work that Monday except for those who were unable. There was a crippling East Coast blizzard that kept many employees out of the office for three days. 2013, under the Obama administration The 2013 government shutdown ended in 16 days about half the length of this one. The Senate voted the evening of Oct. 16 to end it, followed by the House a few hours later. Obama signed the bill in the early morning hours of Oct. 17. Independence Hall and Valley Forge Park reopened to tourists later that day. Furloughed workers in such federal agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Army Corps of Engineers also returned to work that day. If you began to forget what instrument Xavier Foley was playing Friday night at the American Philosophical Society, its understandable. Were just not used to hearing a double bass player so blissfully unaware that dazzling virtuosity is usually someone elses job. The double bass literature doesnt brim with well-known solo works, but that didnt trouble this spectacular player, who in his Philadelphia Chamber Music Society recital debut had a considerable assist from pianist Sejoon Park and violinist Eunice Kim. Foley remade the repertoire to suit his purposes. Mozarts Sonata for Violin and Piano in E Minor, K. 304, is hard to separate from the instrument for which it was written, but Foley 24 years old, a Curtis Institute graduate and member of the Astral Artists roster did an admirable job. The transcription works, even if there are moments that grate on your ear-memory when the immediacy and carrying power of the violin would have been better. Foley offers compensations. The second movement was perhaps too slow, but in the major-key middle section he showed what sweetness can come with quiet power. Parks smooth, untroubled phrase-shaping the pianist is an Astral artist, too had much to do with setting the mood. Schuberts Sonata in A Minor, D. 821, went down easier, and not necessarily because the instrument for which it was originally written, the obsolete six-string arpeggione, is almost never the one on which you hear it played. What was clear is that this music means a lot to Foley. There was still the question of carrying power; here it fell slightly short of what we are used to in this piece, which is now core to the cellists repertoire. But Foley is an expressive player. He took certain expressive freedoms in the first movement, beautifully rendered, and ended the movement with an emphatic stroke. He brought great meaning to the (relatively) high main melody of the second movement. He composes, too. The Spirit of the Ice Bear, for double bass and violin, was a winsome mix of Native American and bluesy material, giving both instruments stretches of improvisatory-sounding wanderings. It was high energy, and great fun. The fun was topped by the Bottesini Gran Duo Concertante for violin, double bass and piano. Yes, the piece spends some time clearing its throat and, yes, aspects of it are corny. But the virtuosity is a thrill. Double bass is not generally called upon for delicately patterned accompaniment, but Foley rolled out the etude-like arpeggios with great elegance. Kim was every bit as impressive. The piece is slightly comic and operatic, and in lesser hands it would be funny for tripping up its players. As it was, the smiles were unavoidable because the players shouldnt have been doing it all so easily, and yet here they were. The people of Sissala West, have been urged to honour their tax obligations to help the District Assembly generate more revenue to bring rapid progress to the area. The call comes at a time many of the assemblies in the Upper West Region are struggling to meet their revenue targets. Mr. Mohammed Bakor, the District Chief Executive (DCE), said the ability to successfully implement the development agenda of the assembly would be dependent on the strength of its finances. He was interacting with journalists at Gwollu and said they were collaborating with Save Ghana, an NGO, to design ways of using modern technology to aid revenue collection. He added that the lack of close supervision and effective monitoring of the revenue collectors was depriving the assemblies of huge sums of money. Mr. Bakor, said their biggest challenge is how to increase the assemblys revenue, something that has prompted them to introduce innovative ways and take advantage of the technology to boost revenue mobilization. He expressed discomfort with the situation where some people in the district, who ought to pay taxes were not doing that because the assembly has not been able to reach out to them. Many small businesses including food vendors were doing good business but had not been paying taxes. Save Ghana seeks to help in the transparent, convenient and efficient collection of the taxes due the assembly and looks to injecting trust and confidence into the system. Mr Bakor encouraged everybody to accept and support the new system that would be rolled out in the coming days. It would help track the amount of revenue collected from tax payers to prevent revenue losses. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video At Hedi Slimane's inaugural menswear Paris fashion week show for Celine, his vision for menswear transported us into 1970's England. He sampled from the aesthetics of the period's youth subcultures, spanning those of post-punk degenerates to dapper teddy boys. Bowl cuts, mullets, tweed bombers, skinny ties, leopard-print, single earrings and leather jackets abounded. White socks peeked out from under shortened trousers and skinny leather pants. A touch of preppy plaids and houndstooth rounded out the Brit spirit. Billy Elliot, David Bowie, Michael Jackson and Richard Hell all could have found something to like in the line. To heighten the mood, Slimane recruited Vancouver-based punk collective Crack Cloud to compose, record and produce the score, which was punctuated by an solo from 1970's legendary no wave saxophonist James Chance. As a band, Crack Cloud operates as a seven-piece, but as a collective they're a rehabilitation-focused community for a revolving troop of musicians, filmmakers and designers, who use music and visual art-making as therapy for addiction. They've gained an audience in punk and experimental circles their dense lyricism and strange, groovy sound which reflects new wave, post-punk and hip-hop, and draws on artists and writers like Gang of Four, Talking Heads, Fela Kuti, and Lydia Lunch and Malcolm X. It seems like an unusual pairing, given both couture's penchant for nostalgic hits or flavorless house as runway show's sonic component, and the Crack Cloud's counter-cultural ethic. Celine is a luxury brand, after all and in some ways the two creative entities seem fundamentally contradictory. But Slimane's narrative for this show, which pays homage to the ways that misfits and weirdos and visionaries have created identity out of fashion, somehow seemed to call for energy of an experimental multimedia punk collective from Canada. So how the hell did world-famous designer Hedi Slimane find out about such a left-field act? Coincidence, of course. "We met Lotte Selwood [former Saint Laurent accessories designer] this past November at the Moth Club in London. We kept a conversation going and it eventually developed into the prospect of scoring for the Men's showcase" explains the band. Something about the Crack Cloud's sound and ethic resonated with Slimane, though the band doesn't even fully understood the chemistry: "I'm not sure why they felt our aesthetic worked so well for their brand. We are punks but we are pragmatic; Hedi appears to have a similar focus." At the Slimane's request, Crack Cloud did a full-rework of their nervy, hypnotic new wave track "Philosopher's Calling" the staccato droning, tongue-in-cheek monologue and squiggly guitars more than a little reminiscent of Devo and The Talking Heads into runway-show length epic. It flooded the runway as the Brit boys scowled and strutted around, highlighting the biting cool and brazen impertinence of their looks. Members of the band also appeared in promotional campaign on Celine's Instagram account. As far as the creative process, the creation of the soundtrack was about as discordant as you'd imagine a collaboration between a DIY collective and a luxury brand, operating by the global fashion industry calendar and protocol, would be. "Communication was fast paced, revisions were plenty, and the deadlines abrupt. Having to forfeit creative control over our composition fostered resentment in us during the process" says Crack Cloud. But in the end, the unlikely collaborators found compromise, and maybe even synergy. "In retrospect it became a very fulfilling exercise. As a collective we are used to communicating with our own language of abstraction to see a concept through. Having to interpret and reconcile with Celine's own language proved creatively demanding in its own right, and we're better for it as artists." Watch the full Celine fall 2019 runway show here, and listen to Crack Cloud below. Things are beginning to heat up in the upcoming 2020 presidential race. This week alone has seen the addition of Senator Kamala Harris and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigeig to the growing field of Democratic contenders which isn't a surprise given that next year's election may be one of the most crucial races to happen in several decades with so much at stake for what little future America might have left. A moment of reckoning and redemption from the catastrophe of the 2016 election, everyone from Kirsten Gillibrand to potentially Joe Biden is looking to take a shot at toppling Trump but recent news of a possible new contender could prove to be a serious game changer. Word on the street is that Bernie Sanders is poised to announce his intention to run for president in 2020 soon. According to a new report from Yahoo News, sources close to the Vermont Senator indicate that he is down to give it another go. The motivation to run comes following a recent poll showing Sanders as being significantly more popular among Black and Latinx voters, two groups he struggled with in 2016, than he had initially expected. Quick to get out ahead of the news, a senior aide to Sanders took to Twitter to deny that an announcement was "imminent" but not ruling out one altogether: An independent and self-professed democratic socialist, Sanders rose to prominence during the 2016 elections where he managed to gain a devoted following among younger voters and ultimately managed to give Hillary Clinton a competitive run for the nomination much to the DNC's chagrin. Since then Sanders' ideas, like "Medicare for all," have only grown in popularity with a new wave of freshman representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vocally championing policies that would have been considered radical barely four years prior. Sanders arguably left the 2016 primaries with an incredible amount of momentum making him a serious force to be reckoned with if he does indeed intend to formally announce his candidacy. The question then remains; is America ready to feel the Bern once again? Photo via Getty Do you appreciate the work we do as the only independent media outlet dedicated to serving OU students, faculty, staff and alumni on campus and around the world for more than 100 years? Then consider helping fund our endeavors. Around the world, communities are grappling with what journalism is worth and how to fund the civic good that robust news organizations can generate. We believe The OU Daily and Crimson Quarterly magazine provide real value to this community both now by covering OU, and tomorrow by helping launch the careers of media professionals. If youre able, please SUPPORT US TODAY FOR AS LITTLE AS $1. You can make a one-time donation or a recurring pledge. Oswego, NY (13126) Today A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 76F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low around 60F. Winds light and variable. A Michigan couple and their 19-month-old daughter were removed from an American Airlines flight after the airline told them that other passengers and crew members had complained about their body odor. Yossi Adler said he and his wife, Jennie, were heading home from a vacation in Miami on Wednesday night when they were told there was an emergency and they needed to exit the plane. The couple, both 37, had eight other children at home in Southfield, Michigan, so Adler said that he and his wife were worried that there may have been an incident involving one of them. Later, he said, when he and his wife stepped off the plane and the airline told them that they had been removed because of a stench, they were "humiliated," "frustrated" and left wondering about the real reason. "Obviously, there was a reason," Adler, who is Jewish, said in a phone interview Friday with The Washington Post. "But I think it was an anti-Semitic reason." "Even if it wasn't," he added, "they were anti-Semitic afterward." American Airlines said in a statement that the Adlers were asked to deplane after "multiple passengers, along with our crew members, complained about Mr. Adler's body odor. Our Miami airport team members were concerned about the comfort of our other passengers due to the odor. Our team members took care of the family and provided hotel accommodations and meals, and rebooked them on a flight to Detroit Thursday morning." The airline said its employees did not know of Adler's religion. Adler said the vouchers that American Airlines gave him for food and lodging did not work, so he had to pay out of pocket. The airline said that should not have been the case but that it will look into the matter and ensure any such expenses are reimbursed. In any case, Adler said, had the airline been that concerned about his body odor, it should have given him clean clothes to wear. Instead, he said, he had to wear the same clothes on the flight the next morning because he did not have his belongings. Video showed the Adlers approach a ticket counter Wednesday evening, complaining that the airline had removed them from the plane and then sent their belongings ahead to Detroit. "I'm trying to stay calm here," Yossi Adler told an employee. "But there's two Jewish people on the plane, and now they're kicking us off because of odor. Seriously? Nobody here thinks I have odor. "I need to get on a plane tonight. I have eight children at home." At one point, after Adler asked airline workers for an explanation for the removal, one of them asked him, "You told me for religious reasons you don't shower?" "I shower every day!" Adler quickly responded. "I said you kicked me off because of religious reasons." But some people who said they were also passengers on the flight said that it was not about religion. A person who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity said that he and his girlfriend were also on the plane and that there was indeed a stench. Another woman who claims to have been on the flight took to Twitter to back up American Airline's claim. "The smell was so bad I don't think I could have made it through the 2.5 hr flight," she said. Asked about that claim, Adler said in a text message to The Post that "the 'BO' is a fairy tale and cover for the reprehensible discrimination exhibited to myself and the insensitive treatment I and my family received by AA staff. My attorneys will prove that the BO claim is absolute nonsense." Adler told The Post that he had showered Wednesday morning. Adler described the experience as a "horrible" ordeal, explaining that airline employees were walking around the airport holding their noses and fanning their faces. He said that had there been a legitimate body odor issue, the employees, who have a responsibly in the service industry "to go above and beyond," should have helped him. "Not once in my life has someone said I smell," he told The Post. There have been numerous incidents on airplanes in recent years, from issues with service and support animals to problems with passengers who claimed they were removed from flights over a birthday cake, breast-feeding and menstrual cramps, and a seat-kicking toddler. Last year, an African woman was booted from a United Airlines flight after a passenger complained that she had a "pungent" odor. The woman sued for racial discrimination. After Joliet EMTs were called, they were further delayed by security guards who chatted at the front desk before giving paramedics access to the facility, the suit claims; EMTs also had to walk through the mammoth facility rather than being given access to a rear loading dock adjacent to where Becker was in distress. This further delayed their response time another five to seven minutes, according to the lawsuit and reports from the Joliet Fire Department. Clovis Luis Madalozzo, 56, of Mims, was riding the motorcycle east on CR 426 when an SUV driven by Larry Lawson, 69, of Geneva, pulled out in front of him, troopers said. Chisari said there is no threat to the downtown area, but police will continue to patrol the area through the weekend. Wednesdays show welcomes former Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J. He has a book, too: Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics. Christie, who is a contributor to ABC News, will be a guest on Sundays This Week as well as Colberts Tuesday show. I will plead not guilty to these charges. I will defeat them in court, Stone said. There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself. I look forward to being fully and completely vindicated. RSS Pracharak and social worker Shri Nanaji Deshmukh will be conferred with the highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna posthumously. Former President of India Pranab Mukherjee was also conferred with the Bharat Ratna. As per press communique from the Rashtrapati Bhawan, Bhupen Hazarika will also be conferred with Bharat Ratna posthumously. The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi congratulated Bharat Ratna Awardees. The Prime Minister praised Nanaji Deshmukh for his contribution to the society and said Nanaji Deshmukhs stellar contribution towards rural development showed the way for a new paradigm of empowering those living in our villages. He personifies humility, compassion and service to the downtrodden. He is a Bharat Ratna in the truest sense. The songs and music of Bhupen Hazarika are admired by people across generations. From them radiates the message of Justice, harmony and brotherhood. He popularized India's music traditions globally. Happy that the Bharat Ratna has been conferred on Bhupen Da. the Prime Minister said. While speaking on Shri Pranab Mukherjee he said, Pranab an outstanding statesman of our times. He has served the nation selflessly and tirelessly for decades, leaving a strong imprint on the nation's growth trajectory. His wisdom and intellect have few parallels. Delighted that he has been conferred Bharat Ratna. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 716-372-3121 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. The 4-0 ruling backs the law as constitutional as its initial intention was to curtail confusion among society. But the court also acknowledged that it restricts freedom and may not be in keeping with sweeping social mores. Vale CEO Fabio Schartzman claimed to have not known what caused the break. About 300 employees were working when it happened. Nearly 100 workers have been accounted for, and rescue efforts were in effect to locate the other 200, reported The Associated Press. Taliban officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media said they have reached an understanding on the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops and that Afghan soil will not be used for attacks or threats against the U.S. or other countries. Stone maintained his innocence in a media blitz Friday he showed up on CNN himself on Friday night and sought to reassure the commander-in-chief that he will he cooperate with prosecutors as Trumps former personal attorney Michael Cohen and former national security adviser Michael Flynn have both done. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not mince words as she weighed in on the arrest of Roger Stone, saying Friday that the indictment of the longtime pal of President Trump makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election. By signing into law GENDA and a ban on the fraudulent practice of conversion therapy, we are taking another giant step forward in advancing equal justice for every New Yorker regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, Cuomo said. We are once again sending a clear and proud message that there is no place for hate in our state, and anyone who engages in bigotry and discrimination will be held accountable." Now, he has a decision to make. He can keep governing for an audience of one, to his own detriment, or he can do what he should have been doing since he took the job instead of tweeting, rallying and bullying: building coalitions in Congress, finding out where the pockets of support and areas of compromise are, laying out a clear agenda that Republican leadership can trust will be there if they back it, and listening to the American people instead of Fox News between the hours of 6 and 9a.m. and 8 and 11 p.m. Unfortunately, much of the students behavior was understood by me and those with me as a mockery of our cultures, countered Phillips in his statement. I have read the statement from Nick Sandmann, the student who stared at me for a long time. He did not apologize, and I believe there are intentional falsehoods in his testimony. But I have faith that human beings can use a moment like this to find a way to gain understanding from one another. We are sorry that this situation has caused such disruption in the lives of so many, Foys wrote. We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements, which were made with good will based on the information that we had. We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it. This little one was lost in the woods for days in the freezing temperatures, rain, dark nights and wind, the fundraising campaign reads. He told us that his best friend the bear was with him to keep him safe. Thanks to Gods mercy he came home to us alive and well. Shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday morning, Hendren emptied all of the bullets from a revolver and then put one back in, police said in a probable cause statement. He spun the cylinder, took aim and then pulled the trigger, but the gun did not go off. Agents from the (Alabama Department of Corrections) Investigations and Intelligence Division are at the prison investigating the circumstances that led to the escape, the department said in a statement. The details of how Davis escaped are pending. South Africa: Minister pays tribute to late ambassador Minister in the Presidency, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, has paid tribute to the late Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, describing him as larger than life. I have said he was larger than life, even in those cold corridors in the United Nations. His belting laughter could be heard across and beyond the walls, the Minister said. The Minister on Saturday delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Kumalo who passed away peacefully at his home on Sunday evening, 20 January 2019, at the age of 71. The Minister said Kumalo had inordinate interpersonal skills and the ability to befriend as well as unite either side of the negotiation table. Despite his vast knowledge on several subjects and issues, he was always ready to learn and listen. No time of day was too early or too late, Ambassador Kumalo was always the reassuring voice and counsellor on the other side of the line, Dlamini-Zuma said. A Special Official Funeral Category 2, for the late Ambassador Dumisani Khumalo was declared by acting President David Mabuza. The Special Official Funeral Category 2 entails elements of police ceremonial honours in line with the Presidencys State, Official and Provincial Official Funeral Policy, for distinguished persons specifically designated by the President of the Republic of South Africa. Ambassador Kumalo served as South Africas Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) in New York from 1999 to 2009, a period during which he represented South Africa during its first tenure on the UN Security Council from 2007-2008. He also served as co-chair for the establishment of the UN Human Rights Council; and was chair at the UN of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Group of 77 plus China. Ambassador Kumalo was a citizen of the world and yet he spent most of his time imparting knowledge and inspiring the youth of our nation, the Minister said. She said he was also a disciplined cadre who also made gender equality his business, even if it meant diverting from towing the line. The Minister said he was a strict and uncompromising task master who was a stickler for time and dress code. He was known to seek only high quality from everyone, and once all work and tasks were completed he served the best meals and wine, the Minister said. Kumalos son, Mandla, said his dad was always an activist and at times he was too generous. My father was very strict, he was always about processes and he encouraged me to do well at school, he said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. They have been trying to clear their names ever since, aided by witnesses who now say they were pressured by police and prosecutors to falsely identify Smokes and Warren as the killers out of fear they would be charged in the case, or because they were promised leniency in unrelated criminal cases. Cops say Siwiak left his Far Rockaway, Queens, apartment that night and took the A train to Brooklyn. He was supposed to meet a contact from the employment agency that helped him land the East Flatbush job, but Siwiak instead wound up nearly 4 miles away in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He exited at the Utica Ave. station and made his way to Albany Ave., where he turned right instead of left. The MTA has more than 5,700 buses. Most are stored in garages when not in use, but a fraction of them are temporarily left out on the street in comfort stations between shifts, the source said. His co-defendant and longtime friend, Domenic Aiello, pleaded guilty earlier this month to his role in the scheme. Aiello arranged wire transfers using the name of his dead father and stolen bank account information, prosecutors said. A source said Aiello was expected to testify against Bonanno if the case had gone to trial. None of what the officers claimed is supported by whats seen on the video, said Levy, who works for the firm Rubenstein and Rynecki. The jury saw those videos, and it didnt justify the detectives actions. The video backed up his version of events, and the jury found it compelling. His version of the facts was supported by witnesses, including a retired court officer. "It's really a peer award and it's very meaningful because to become a union member is one milestone and then to be nominated and awarded by your peers is another major milestone, I think, for actors," said SAG Awards Executive Producer Kathy Connell. "It's very personal. The room has fun. Our show is different because the room has fun. We consider it the actors' party at the actors' house." Rome, GA (30161) Today Cloudy with periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 77F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Rain likely. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch. La Fayette, GA (30728) Today Cloudy skies with periods of rain this afternoon. High 79F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Rain likely. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 67F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall possibly over one inch. Six Old Kingdom mastaba tombs, two Old Kingdom shaft tombs and one rock-cut tomb with multiple burials that were previously unknown were discovered last month by the Qubbet El-Hawa Research Project (QHRP) in Aswan. Mostafa Waziri, the general-secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that some of the tombs measure 190x285cm and some measure 352x635cm. One of the shaft tombs has an intact shaft. Martin Bommas, head of the mission and director of QHRP, said that although the tomb builders had blocked the entrance to the burial chamber of one of the tombs with a wall of carefully laid mud bricks, that particular tomb had been emptied in ancient times by looters who broke into the sepulchre through the rear wall, thus avoiding the security measures in place. He stressed the importance of the discovery of such a variety of high quality Late Period pottery, and its potential for scientific analysis. Abdel Moneim Saeed, director of the Aswan Antiquities department, said that the discovery changes the understanding of the area of Qubbet El-Hawa. He mentioned that these discoveries took place on the last day of 2018, the year which Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany announced as the year of archaeological discoveries. He said that all the discovered remains will transferred to Aswan Antiquities storage. Short link: Calhoun, GA (30701) Today Periods of rain. High around 80F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall may reach one inch. David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi state, has directed at least 2000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state to welcom... David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi state, has directed at least 2000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state to welcome President Muhammadu Buhari who will campaign in Ebonyi on Wednesday. Umahi, a PDP governor, has also allowed the All Progressives Congress (APC) to use the Pa Ngele Oruta stadium, Abakaliki, for the partys presidential rally. He said the president would be accorded all necessary courtesy. According to NAN, he disclosed this at the PDP governorship rally in Ugbodo, headquarters of Ebonyi local government area, on Friday. We would take our rallies on that day to our three senatorial zones while we allow them (APC) to use the stadium, the governor was quoted to have said. At least, 2, 000 PDP members would receive the president at the stadium while you go about your rallies in your various zones. I have identified those who will receive the president; so, when you see our people at the stadium, dont be angry, because it is my arrangement. We would even help them (opposition) with buses to get people from Enugu and Abia. He thanked the people for the support for his administration and pledged to do more if re-elected. I urge our party supporters not to destroy posters of the opposition party because we have the crowd and are on ground, Umahi said. The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay (SAN), on Friday said the suspension of the Ch... The Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Prof Itse Sagay (SAN), on Friday said the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Walter Onnoghen, is constitutional. The Federal Government announced the suspension of the Chief Justice on Friday, stating that the action followed an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal dated January 23, 2019. Speak on the constitutionality of the suspension, Sagay told the Punch that Buhari was legally empowered to suspend Onnoghen. It is constitutional. If you look at Section 292 of the constitution, paragraph one clearly makes provision for that where the Chief Justice is guilty of a code of conduct. The provision is very clear. It states that where the Chief Justice is guilty of a breach of the code of conduct, he can be removed by an address of two-thirds majority of the Senate. It is quite clear that the Senate itself cannot initiate that address; there is only one person who can do that and that is the President, he said. Section 292 (1) of the constitution reads in part, A judicial officer shall not be removed from his office or appointment before his age of retirement except in the following circumstances In the case of Chief Justice of Nigeria, President of the Court of Appeal, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Grand Kadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and President, Customary Court of Appeal of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, by the President acting on an address supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate. The military has called on traditional rulers and the entire people of troubled North East not to relent in offering assistance that wil... The military has called on traditional rulers and the entire people of troubled North East not to relent in offering assistance that will see an end to the Boko Haram crisis. The head of the counter-insurgency operation in the North East (Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole), Major General Benson Akinroluyo made the call on Friday while paying homage to the Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Garbai El-Kanemi. The spokesman of Operation Lafiya Dole, Col. Onyema Nwachukwu in a press release on Saturday said the visit to the Shehu of Borno was in continuation of the familiarization visit of the Theatre Commander. He said the Theatre Commander and his principal staff officers were received by the Shehu and members of the Emirate council at his palace in Maiduguri. Nwachukwu said General Akinroluyo, in his remark, stated that it was customary to pay a familiarization visit to the Shehu to formally announce his presence as the Theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole and to pay his respect to the Shehu, as a custodian of the traditional institution in Borno. He said, The Theatre Commander expressed appreciation to the monarch for the support accorded the troops in the fight against terrorism and insurgency since he assumed office and urged the royal father and members of the Emirate council not to relent in supporting the Theatre Command. He further noted that security is a collective responsibility which requires the participation of all citizens. He reassured the Shehu of the untiring effort of the Armed Forces towards ensuring enduring peace and stability in the North East. He said the monarch responded by expressing his gratitude to the Theatre Commander and his entourage. He also commended the military on its tireless commitment towards ending the lingering insurgency in the North East. The monarch further assured the Commander of the continuous support of the Emirate council, while praying for the speedy return of peace and stability in the North East and Borno state in particular. Nigerian lawyers under the aegis of Coalition Of Lawyers Against Corruption in Nigeria, COLAC, has given President Muhammadu Buhari seve... Nigerian lawyers under the aegis of Coalition Of Lawyers Against Corruption in Nigeria, COLAC, has given President Muhammadu Buhari seven days to reinstate the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Walter Onnoghen. The CJN was suspended yesterday by President Buhari who said that he acted on an order by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT. COLAC said by this singular act, President Buhari has demonstrated that he does not have any regard for the Supreme law of the land which is the constitution. In a statement by Barrister Olusegun Bamgbose, National Coordinator, COLAC, the lawyers said the President should be reminded that his lack of respect for the rule of law was capable of truncating our nascent democracy. The statement added, The purported suspension of Onnoghen as the Chief Justice of Nigeria by President Buhari, is undoubtedly unconstitutional and unacceptable. Its a complete show of shame. The reason given by the President that he was ordered by the CCT to wield the big stick is legally and morally watery. Its unreasonable and illogical. It has become very obvious that the President does not have any iota for the Supreme law of the land which is our Constitution. The President has resulted to self-help in dispensing justice. The President should, however, be reminded that his lack of respect for the rule of law is capable of truncating our nascent democracy. Judiciary is a noble institution and we will never for any reason permit anyone to desecrate and decimate it. The Constitution must be respected at all times. The President has really crossed his boundaries and must be brought to order. His action as President will certainly overheat the polity. We as Lawyers will not allow him to have his way this time around. We are giving him 7 days to rescind the decision or we shall do the needful. Other things being equal, Nigeria will be clocking 20 years of practising democracy in Nigeria and any attempt to subvert democracy will be totally resisted. Hundreds of Muslims and Christians supporters of the claimants and defendants in the case of violation of the right to use hijab in pub... Hundreds of Muslims and Christians supporters of the claimants and defendants in the case of violation of the right to use hijab in public schools in Ogun State were on Friday locked out of the Isabo High Court in Abeokuta at the resumed hearing of the case. The supporters arrived on the court premises in different religious attire as early as 7am to express their solidarity with the Christians and Muslims in the case but the security officials at the entrance of the court stopped them. The Presiding judge, Justice Bamgbose Alabi, said, I wonder why we have that large number of people. Im going to look at it (hijab case) and see what the law says. I am not moved by a large number of people. If they like, they should take over the court premises, my judgement will be according to the law. Meanwhile, the Chairman of Muslim Lawyers Association in the state, Semiu Akinbami, has described the refusal of public schools in the state to allow Muslim girls use hijab as a case of victimisation and intimidation. Akinbami, who doubles as the lead counsel for nine-year-old Aishat Abdulhaleem, who instituted the case against the state government, accused the defence counsel of frustrating the efforts being made to ensure that Aisha was admitted to one of the public schools in her area. Justice Bamgbose had earlier advised the parties to reach a consensus at the last hearing of the case for Aishat for admitted to one of the public schools in the state. However, the parties involved in the case had failed to reach a consensus on an alternative suitable public school to be attended by the girl before the determination of the case. Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, on Friday, said he has forgiven the Adams Oshiomhole-led All Progressives Congress (APC) Na... Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, on Friday, said he has forgiven the Adams Oshiomhole-led All Progressives Congress (APC) National Working Committee (NWC) over the unfair treatment it meted out to the state chapter of the party. Yari, who spoke after leading the Zamfara APC governorship candidate, Mukhtar Idris, to a private meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Friday, said the court had vindicated Zamfara APC. He said: Some other people are saying that the reign of Yerima and Abdulaziz for 20 years is over in Zamfara State but I believe Almighty God to give power to whomsoever he desires to give and he promised to sustain the power as long you uphold justice. I use this opportunity to call on the party; the crisis didnt die at the party level. I can say the party has not done justice to us, but we have forgiven it; in a democracy, there is a process. Section 87, 1 to 14 of the Electoral Act is very clear on what should be done; so, in our case, we were denied many things but as I said earlier, we have forgiven and we are going to continue. You remember, from October, 2018, we have been struggling on whether there is primary or no primary in Zamfara State by INEC and we believe we have undergone all the processes. Today, God did it once again for us by giving us victory. The court accepted that Zamfara State APC has conducted its primaries based on the evidence presented before that court. The Governor said that Zamfara people were happy with the judgment and would vote massively for APC in the forthcoming elections. He also commended INEC, in spite of what he described as conflicting statements from the commissions national office and its Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC). The state REC went around and supervised as allowed by the law. Unfortunately, the INEC headquarters did not wait to receive the report by the REC there and it went ahead with a pronouncement. Anyway, we secured the certified true copy and presented before the court and I think it is the document that supported the court in its process to pass the judgment in our favour, he said. Yari said that Zamfara State was 100 per cent APC and would deliver, adding that the opposition knew it stood no chance in the state. Recall that the Zamfara State High Court 3 sitting in Gusau on Friday upheld the primary election conducted by the state chapter of APC. The state APC chapter had on Oct. 11, 2018, filed a case before the court praying it to compel the APC national headquarters and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept the primary election it conducted on Oct. 7, 2018. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, says he is ready to clarify misunderstandings on the renewal of oil ... Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, says he is ready to clarify misunderstandings on the renewal of oil mining leases. In a statement issued by Idang Alibi, director of press in the ministry, on Friday, Kachikwu denied handing out illegal rebates and discounts that denied the government revenue. According to the statement, the early lease renewal programme introduced by Kachikwu is a way of earning revenue for the government. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources would like to affirm most definitely that there are no irregularities associated with any lease renewal undertaken by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and particular, the Department of Petroleum Resources, the statement read. It would be of essence to note that the early lease renewal programme is a process ingeniously developed to expand and speed up earning potential from the renewal programme for the Federal Government and to also create security of title to leaseholders so as to allow them continue the massive investments needed to improve production from their fields. The Minister of State and the DPR await the advertised invitation from the House of Representatives, and as always, would respond to clarify any misunderstandings the House may have on the renewed leases as part of the normal oversight functions of the Assembly. The renewal process is said to begin with an application from the leaseholder and end with a recommendation for approval by President Muhammadu Buhari who doubles as the minister of petroleum resources. The Federal Government says that the report and the recommendation of the Tripartite Committee on the new National Minimum Wage(TCNM... The Federal Government says that the report and the recommendation of the Tripartite Committee on the new National Minimum Wage(TCNMW) is not binding on what the new wage should be. Sen. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, said on Friday in Abuja in a statement signed by Mrs Rhoda Iliya, Assistant Director, Press in the ministry, that the report has no final say. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the tripartite committee had recommended N30,000 as a new minimum wage to the Federal Government, However, the Federal Government had on Thursday sent an executive bill of N27,000 minimum wage to the National Assembly after approval by the National Council of State. NAN also reports that the organised Labour had rejected the N27,000inimum Wage and pledged to engage the National Assembly members. Ngige said that various misrepresentations had been given to the Press Briefing on the New National Minimum Wage, held at Aso Villa on January 22, after the meeting of the National Council of State. He said that President Muhammadu Buhari constituted the Tripartite Committee on National Minimum wage at the expiration of the last national minimum wage Act, which was enacted in 2011. He said that the committees recommendation could be subjected to an upward review, saying that the government respected the International Labour Organisation convention on the issue. According to him, the output from the TCNMW was therefore never meant to be sacrosanct but to provide a guide for the Federal Government to take final decision. The ILO Conventions on Minimum Wage cited above succinctly stipulate that each member state shall be free to decide the nature and form of the minimum wage fixing machinery, and methods to be followed in its operation. The report of the committee asked Mr President to note the figure of N30, 000 recommended by the TCNMW by way of motion and not by consensus, and also to note the Federal Governments figure of N24, 000. Mr President considered the report in full and looked at the differing statistics and figures presented before he arrived at N27, 000 (as the new minimum wage). I must reiterate that the output by the TCNMW was a recommendation and is not cast in stone but advisory to Mr. President, he said. Ngige said that the new minimum wage was for all categories of workers in public and private sectors. According to him, those who are opposed to it should go to the National Assembly to argue their case during public hearing on the matter. The matter of a National Minimum Wage is in the Exclusive Legislative List as item No. 34 of the Second Schedule to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). It is therefore the executive arm of government that has the responsibility to prescribe a new National Minimum Wage and send to the National Assembly for legislative action. Following the examination of samples from Egypt, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture has imposed a temporary ban on Egyptian imports of onions because of unacceptable levels of pesticide residues. The ban was imposed to protect public health after it was shown that the onions contained pesticide residues at a rate exceeding the international limit, according to a statement issued by Sanad Al-Harbi, director of the Saudi Livestock Risk Assessment Department. The note was circulated among all Saudi quarantine departments. Following the issuance of the ban, the movement of onion trucks from Safaga to Al-Dabaha in Saudi Arabia was halted on 18 January, but as the government had not received an official notice from Saudi Arabia about the decision, truck drivers, exporters and officials were confused. Ahmed Al-Attar, head of the Central Department of Agricultural Quarantine at the Ministry of Agriculture, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Egypt would demand an explanation from Saudi Arabia over the decision. According to Al-Attar, the Egyptian ministry did not receive an official notice about contaminated onion shipments in spite of the fact that according to an agreement signed last year Saudi Arabia undertook to formally notify Egypt of any rejection of shipments. Mohamed Abdel-Maguid, head of the Pesticides Committee at the Agriculture Ministry, said the decision was not clear since onions by their nature can harbour few pesticides. Osama Al-Qodsi, owner of the Mansoura-based Al-Qodsi Company for Vegetable and Fruit Exports, said it is impossible that Egyptian onions were contaminated with pesticide residues at this time of year [the end of the onion cultivation season]. He said that his company had exported onions to Jordan, Greece and the US this season, and the shipments were accepted as they had met all the standard quality requirements. He added that shipments from other exporters had been rejected by Saudi Arabia during the last few weeks, causing major losses. It is unfair to ban all imports from Egypt if one shipment did not meet specifications. It would be better to impose a penalty, or halt the work of the company which owns the shipment, not to punish all exporters, Al-Qodsi said. Ashour Al-Assil, head of the Saury Company for Vegetable and Fruit Exports, agreed. Weak penalties encourage some exporters to violate regulations. Revoking the licence of an exporting company is not a real punishment as it will start working again after getting a new one, he said. The decision will not have a negative impact on our business because it is the end of the onion season, and the new harvest will come in March and April. I expect that the ban will be lifted by that time because the Saudi market will need Egyptian onions which enjoy a high reputation in the global market, Al-Assil said. However, he said the ban could sully the reputation of Egyptian exports in the international market, particularly as it is not the first time that Saudi Arabia has banned an Egyptian agricultural product. Saudi Arabia earlier banned imports of Egyptian strawberries, peppers and frozen guavas for the same reason. In April 2018, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority lifted the ban on imports of these after proof that the limits of pesticide residues on them were in accordance with global standards and European requirements. To avoid such bans in future, Al-Assil said the Ministry of Agriculture should control the quality as well quantities of pesticides used by farmers in order to increase vegetable and fruit exports. More attention should also be given to picking and packing procedures, he said, with a view to promoting quality control. He called for coordination between the exporters of the same commodity so as not to send too many shipments at the same time to a certain destination leading to over-supply and thus a drop in the price of exports. Local consumers might benefit from the ban, according to Al-Assil, as exporters will now have to sell their onions locally, which means more supplies and lower prices. Onions are Egypts third-largest exported crop following oranges and potatoes. They represent 20 per cent of Egypts total agricultural exports and are exported mainly to the European Union, the US, Russia and the Arab countries. Egyptian onions are in high demand since they are harvested in March and April, earlier than in other markets. The total land cultivated with onions represents eight per cent of Egypts total planted areas. Total onion production represents seven per cent of global production and 70 per cent of African production. Egypts agricultural exports stood at four million tons in 2017/2018, compared to 3.8 million tons the previous year. The total value of its agricultural exports amounted to $1.2 billion in 2017/2018. *A version of this article appears in print in the 24 January, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Banning onion exports Short link: A Federal High Court, Abuja has upheld the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission not to accept candidates of the ... A Federal High Court, Abuja has upheld the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission not to accept candidates of the All Progressives Congress in Zamfara State for the 2019 General Elections. The court said the decision to reject the list was within the powers vested in the commission by the Constitution. Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu in her judgement said the inability of the APC to conduct a valid primary within the stipulated time could not be blamed on INEC. The judge said INECs action was intended to curb impunity among political parties and politicians, and ensure that rule of law is adhered to. Some members of the APC, who claimed they emerged in a consensus arrangement adopted by the party in Zamfara State, had approached the court to compel INEC to accept their names as candidates. INEC had in September 2018 barred the APC from fielding candidates for the elections over failure to hold credible primary elections. In a letter addressed to the APC, INEC said, Based on the provision of Section 87 and 31 of the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended, the commission does not expect that your party will submit names of any candidate from Zamfara State. For clarity, our position, therefore, is that the APC will not be fielding candidates for the governorship, National Assembly and state Assembly elections. National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, thereafter, accused INEC of bias. A state High Court sitting in Gusau had in October issued an interim order restraining INEC from disqualifying the APC from fielding candidates for the 2019 elections. The senator representing Kogi West district in the National Assembly, Dino Melaye has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of destroying... The senator representing Kogi West district in the National Assembly, Dino Melaye has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of destroying democracy in Nigeria. Melaye in a post on his Twitter page titled, THE AUDACITY OF BAD LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA, urged Nigerians to stand up against the government and stop evil audacity in the country. Making reference to Buharis regime in 1983, Melaye said Buhari in 1983 destroyed Democracy in Khaki and today in 2019 is assaulting Nigerians in babariga. Man dies only once,Nigerians! we must all come out of our cocoons and stop this display of evil audacity. Government is not owned by those in Government but owned by the People. Nigerians must prove that the people are bigger than those in Government. The time to act is NOW!! The United States has reacted to the suspension of Walter Onnoghen as chief justice of Nigeria (CJN). President Muhammadu Buhari... The United States has reacted to the suspension of Walter Onnoghen as chief justice of Nigeria (CJN). President Muhammadu Buhari suspended Onnoghen on Friday, citing an order from the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). In a statement on Saturday, the US embassy in Nigeria said it had taken note of widespread criticisms that the suspension is illegal. The Embassy of the United States is deeply concerned by the impact of the executive branchs decision to suspend and replace the Chief Justice and head of the judicial branch without the support of the legislative branch on the eve of national and state elections, the statement read. We urge that the issues raised by this decision be resolved swiftly and peacefully in accordance with due process, full respect for the rule of law, and the spirit of the Constitution of Nigeria. Such action is needed urgently now to ensure that this decision does not cast a pall over the electoral process. We note widespread Nigerian criticism that this decision is unconstitutional and that it undermines the independence of the judicial branch. That undercuts the stated determination of government, candidates, and political party leaders to ensure that the elections proceed in a way that is free, fair, transparent, and peaceful leading to a credible result. United State of America President, Donald Trump on Friday announced a deal to reopen US government. Trump said a deal had been reached... United State of America President, Donald Trump on Friday announced a deal to reopen US government.Trump said a deal had been reached on legislation that would reopen the U.S. government through Feb. 15. Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has described the suspension of Walter Onnoghen, chief justi... Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has described the suspension of Walter Onnoghen, chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), as dictatorship taken too far. President Muhammadu Buhari suspended Onnoghen on Friday, appointing Tanko Mohammed from Bauchi state in acting capacity. The president based his action on an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). But Atiku attributed the presidents action to an attempt to undermine the judiciary ahead of the February 16 presidential poll. He wondered why Buhari removed Onnoghen just as he was preparing to swear in members of election petition tribunals. The fact that the unlawful suspension of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen was announced just as it became public knowledge that the CJN was constituting the election petition tribunals is not lost on discerning Nigerians and the international community, he said in a statement he personally signed. This act of desperation is geared towards affecting the outcome of the 2019 Presidential elections. The presidential candidate called on the judiciary to do all within its powers to resist the anti-democratic act. Describing the judiciary as the last hope of the common man, he called for the intervention of the international community. Below is the statement: The purported suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari, is an anti democratic act which I reject in its entirely and call on Justice Onnoghen and the judiciary to resist with every legal and constitutional means that they can muster. This brazen dictatorial act is the latest action in the ongoing rape of our nations hard earned democracy by those who dined with anti democratic forces, and is symptomatic of the increasing desperation that President Buhari and the cabal pulling the strings have as February 16, 2019 draws near. The fact that the unlawful suspension of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen was announced just as it became public knowledge that the CJN was constituting the election petition tribunals is not lost on discerning Nigerians and the international community. This act of desperation is geared towards affecting the outcome of the 2019 Presidential elections. The case involving the legality or otherwise of the charges against Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen is in court, as it should be. So far, the judiciary has ruled in Justice Onnoghens favour. So, why not allow the court to adjudicate on the matter? What is the pressing urgency? I want to seize this opportunity to call for unity amongst the judiciary. Do not let the Muhammadu Buhari administration divide you. Do not let this government turn you against yourselves. The judiciary is the last hope of the common man and the defender of our democracy. I also urge the international community to follow the commendable example of the United States and the United Kingdom by intervening to make those involved in this undemocratic act know that their actions will have consequences. Strong consequences. And to the Nigerian electorate, I call on you to save your beloved country from dictatorship by voting against President Muhammadu Buharis desperate war against the judiciary. Our country is falling apart under the leadership of President Buhari and it is time to stand up for democracy. A number of Arab and foreign TV channels have started to legalize their status to operate in the country now that a grace period for operating irregularly has expired, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) has said. In a statement released on Saturday, the SCMR said the channels which applied for legal status included Saudi Arabias Al-Arabiya, Sky News, and other Saudi channels, and non-Arab foreign TV channels including French state television and Iris Media. According to the statement, the channels have signed contracts with Egypts Media Production City (EMPC) to obtain studios on the media complex's premises. These channels have also requested licenses to broadcast from outside the media complex, and to acquire live broadcasting equipment rented from the media complex. The council said that studios are being prepared for the channels, and licensing applications finalized. A source at the SCMR said the council appreciates the rapid response by the channels, calling on the rest of the channels to finalise regularising their status in accordance with the law inorder to facilitate the work of those channels' reporters in the country. The council had recently called on all operating channels and news service providers in Egypt to regulate their operations in accordance with the countrys media regulation law, and in cooperation with the State Information Service and the foreign correspondents press office. Short link: Japanese manga creator Rumiko Takahashi has become only the second woman to win the top prize at France's biggest graphic novel festival. The 61-year-old, one of the stars of the Japanese form, took the grand prize at Angouleme Comics Festival -- which opens Thursday -- for her life's work. Two years ago she was one of a number of women French writer Riaad Sattouf said should have got the prize instead of him. The author of the bestselling "Arab of the Future" refused the prize, and lashed Angouleme's failure to honor enough female creators. Takahashi -- who was not in the western French city to receive the prize -- is only the second Japanese to win the accolade, despite the huge popularity of manga in France. Katushiro Otomo, the author of the "Akira" series, won in 2015. France is the biggest market in the world for the comics outside Japan, and this year the Angouleme festival is celebrating the form. Latest figures show that more than one in three graphic novels sold in the country are manga, with sales jumping 11 percent in 2018 to 16 million copies. The hugely prolific Takahashi is one of the most read authors in the world, with her 200 works selling more than 200 million copies. The First High Criminal Court has handed down three years sentence to a 35-year-old Bahraini lady convicted of attempting to smuggle drugs into the Kingdom from Iran. According to court details, she was having 3,000 psychotropic tablets in her possession when she was arrested at the Bahrain International Airport. The court also fined the Bahraini woman BD3,000. She was bringing drugs from Iran for selling it in the illegal Bahraini drugs market, said Prosecutors. The First High Criminal Court has handed down 15 years sentence to Bahraini twin brothers convicted of using and selling drugs. The court also fined them BD5,000 each. The 27-year-old twins were arrested by a special team of police after receiving a tipoff. According to court details, the team raided their house and found drugs in their possession. The Public Prosecution said that they were also possessing BD14,980. When interrogated about the source of money, the accused said that there were into shrimp trading and thus obtained the amount. The Public Prosecution had charged the accused with possessing hashish with an intention to use and sell. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Rain showers in the morning with thunderstorms developing for the afternoon. High 67F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to mostly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 52F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. (Newser) Authorities in Louisiana say separate but related shootings in two different parishes have left five people dead. A suspect was at large and was being sought, the AP reports. Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre told a news conference that deputies were called to a trailer in the city of Gonzales for a "domestic incident" on Saturday morning. Upon arrival, deputies found two people who had been shot but were still alive: Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 51. Webre said deputies were able to interview one of the victims before they were transported to a hospital in Baton Rouge, where they later died. From that interview, authorities identified the couple's 21-year-old son, Dakota, as "our prime suspect in this case." story continues below He is being sought on first-degree murder and other charges. Webre said Dakota had lived with his parents briefly but was asked to leave the residence and not return. He is considered armed and dangerous and was driving a stolen 2004 Dodge Ram pickup, gray and silver in color. The sheriff said three other shooting deaths occurred Saturday in neighboring Livingston parishes, about 70 miles west of New Orleans. Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard confirmed on Facebook that three deaths happened in his parish and identified the victims as Billy Ernest, 43; Tanner Ernest, 17; and Summer Ernest, 20. A sheriff's rep says authorities believe the shootings in the two parishes are connected. In a separate case, NBC News reports that Georgia authorities are seeking Daylon Delon Gamble, 27, for two double homicides committed Thursday in Polk County. Gamble is also considered armed and dangerous. (Read more shooting stories.) (Newser) Rescuers in helicopters on Saturday searched for survivors in a huge area in southeastern Brazil buried by mud from the collapse of a dam holding back mine waste, with at least nine people dead and up to 300 missing. Nearly a full day since the disaster happened, finding many more survivors was looking increasingly unlikely, per the AP. "Most likely, from now on we are mostly going to be recovering bodies," says Romeu Zema, the governor of the state of Minas Gerais. Workers with Brazilian mining company Vale were eating lunch Friday afternoon when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several structures of the company and surrounding areas. The status of the workers and others in Brumadinho was unknown Saturday, but the level of devastation quickly led President Jair Bolsonaro and other officials to describe it as a "tragedy." story continues below Nine bodies had been recovered by Saturday, per a statement from Zema's office. Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he didn't know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened; about 100 had been accounted for. After the dam collapsed in the afternoon, parts of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. The flow of waste reached a nearby community. "I've never seen anything like it," the president of a Brumadinho residents' association says. "It was horrible ... the amount of mud that took over." Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds from their homes.It was considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, leaving 250,000 people without drinking water and killing thousands of fish. (Read more Brazil stories.) (Newser) Flight attendants had a stressful month as the government shutdown dragged on, and now there's further sorrow within their ranks. USA Today and the New York Post report that Emile Griffith died during a Hawaiian Airlines flight Thursday from Honolulu to New York, causing the plane to be diverted to San Francisco. Medical professionals on board tried to assist the crew in resuscitating Griffith, but to no avail; he was pronounced dead upon arrival in California. NBC News reports that Griffith, said to be a 30-year veteran of the airline, apparently suffered a heart attack, per a San Francisco International Airport rep. story continues below One passenger live-tweeted the incident, noting "so many doctors came forward they had to make a second announcement" informing passengers they didn't need any more assistance. The tweeting passenger also noted how annoying it was that the airline kept playing ukulele music over the PA as the emergency was ongoing: "It's not making anyone calmer." The airline has made counseling services available to all passengers on Griffith's flight and will also be offering compensation. In a statement to USA Today, Hawaiian Airlines thanked those on board who tried to help Griffith and noted that "Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests. Our hearts are with Emile's family, friends, and all those fortunate to have known him." (Read more Hawaiian Airlines stories.) Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Saturday inspected the arts and culture city in the New Administrative Capital, which will include the Middle Easts biggest opera house. In an official statement, El-Sisis spokesman Bassam Rady said the president visited a number of construction sites in the new capital, where he was briefed on the work being carried out. The arts and culture city in the new capital will cover around 127 feddans of land and will include theatres, exhibition halls, libraries, museums, and art galleries for various forms of traditional and modern art. El-Sisi also inspected the new opera house, part of the culture city, which will include a main hall which can accommodate 2,000 visitors. Rady said El-Sisi praised the record time in which construction is being carried in the new administrative capital, and the harmony and coordinated efforts by different state institutions in that regard. Construction of the new capital began in 2015 at a site 45km east of Cairo, as part of the government's plan to reduce pressure on an overpopulated 20-million strong capital, expand urban areas and develop the nations infrastructure. The capital, which is being built over 714 square kilometres by tens of thousands of workers, will be home to a government housing district, 29 ministries and other state institutions including the cabinet and parliament buildings and 20 residential neighbourhoods that can accommodate 6.5 million people. Earlier this month El-Sisi inaugurated in the new capital the Nativity of Christ Cathedral, the largest in the region, and Al-Fattah Al-Alim Mosque, the biggest in the country. Around 50,000 state employees will be reassigned from their Cairo offices to their new offices in Egypt's New Administrative Capital in 2020. Short link: (Newser) One student was killed and two other individuals were injured after an East Texas school bus was hit by a train on Friday, authorities say. The Tyler Morning Telegraph reported the collision took place around 4pm, when the bus was at a train crossing in Athens, located about 70 miles southeast of Dallas. At a presser Friday evening, Athens Police Chief Buddy Hill says a 13-year-old male middle school student was killed, per the AP. A 9-year-old girl in elementary school was injured and flown to a Dallas hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition. No other students were on the bus, according to the school district. story continues below The bus driver was also injured and taken to a hospital, where he's in stable condition, Hill says. "My heart is broken for the families," says Athens school district Superintendent Blake Stiles. The names of the two students and the bus driver weren't immediately released. Authorities were still determining a cause of the collision. Hill says there were no wooden gate arms or warning lights at the train crossing where the collision took place. (Read more bus accident stories.) (Newser) Nearly two weeks after it began, a story overseas ends in heartbreak. Rescuers who'd been desperately trying to get to a toddler who'd fallen down a well in Spain had hoped that he might still be alive due to the cold weather, which could have slowed down his metabolism enough to help him survive. Early Saturday, however, the body of 2-year-old Julen Rosello was found, the BBC reports. "At 01:25, the rescue teams reached the area of the well where they were looking for Julen and they found the lifeless body of the little one," a government rep said. Even though their chances had seemed slim, Julen's parents, Jose Rosello and Victoria Garcia, held out hope their son would be found. "My wife is broken ... we are dead inside," Rosello told reporters Wednesday, per NBC News, adding they prayed for an "angel" to get Julen out of the well. story continues below The New York Times notes the search near the town of Totalan in Malaga province grew to involve more than 300 emergency workers, firefighters, and mining specialists, who remained at the well day and night as they continued to dig and use a robotic camera in the hopes of finding signs of life in the borehole. The well had been dug last month in an effort to get to groundwater, but it had either not been covered or was incorrectly secured AFP notes, via CNN. The BBC reports this is the second child lost by Julen's parents: Not even two years ago, their 3-year-old son Oliver died of a heart problem. "All of Spain feels the infinite sadness of Julen's family," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted after the boy's body was found. "We will always appreciate the tireless effort of those who searched for him during all these days." (Read more Spain stories.) 9 Went Tubing on the River. Only 4 Have Come Back ARTISTES have commended Government for granting Dr Oliver Tuku Mtukudzi the national hero status saying the legendary musician deserves the honour. President Mnangagwa said on Thursday that the Zanu-PF Politburo had unanimously agreed that Tuku be given the highest honour. Afro Jazz musician Jeys Marabini said the ruling party by declaring Tuku a national hero had not only honoured Tuku but the Zimbabwean music industry as well. I was very happy because Government has demonstrated that it appreciates our contributions as musicians. The message to Africa and the whole world is that Zimbabwe recognises the work done by its citizens including artistes such as the late Dr Mtukudzi, said Jeys. Rhumba musician Madlela Skhobokhobo said Tuku was the best musician from Zimbabwe and therefore deserved to be declared a national hero. Mtukudzi deserves the honour and we are happy that Government is not only recognising the contributions of politicians but other citizens such as Mtukudzi who have raised the Zimbabwean flag high through their works, said Madlela. Imbube songstress Nkwali said Tuku was a man of the people and was therefore not surprised when he was declared a national hero. What I noticed about Tuku is that he remained humble despite his fame, said Nkwali. South African based dancehall artiste Buffalo Souljah described Tuku as a Gamba (hero). IGamba redu (he is our hero) becuse he helped some of us to be where we are now. Thats why I call him father of Zimbabwean musicians, said Buffalo Souljah. Kwaito outfit Stiff front man Diliza said Tuku deserved the national hero status given his works which raised the Zimbabwean flag regionally and internationally. Artists in Kwekwe hailed President Mnangagwa and Government for declaring Tuku a national hero. Peter Moyo, son of the late Tongai Dhewa Moyo who was identified and nurtured by Tuku, said he was at a loss of words following Zanu-PFs decision to grant Samanyanga hero status. I am at a loss of words because for me to be where I am today it is because of him. My father was very popular but it was all because of the humble Mtukudzi who nurtured him. I commend the Government for according him national hero status, said the Young Igwe. Tawanda Jumbo alias Bantuman I, said he was happy because Government was recognising artists works in building the nation. Mtukudzi used to come to our studio, Bantuman Studios to give us notes on how to improve our music. He was a father figure to us. Government, I want to believe, now realises how much the art and culture industry is contributing to the growth of the economy, said Bantuman I. Terry Bliss, who also was Tukus apprentice after he left Bob Nyabinde, said Tukus death came as a shock. I am yet to come to terms with his death. I was actually planning to work on a collaboration with him but God did not allow that to happen. I am in the studio as we speak, working on a track dedicated to Mdhara Tuku. I say Rest in Peace to him, he said. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 574-583-5121 or email cgrace@thehj.com. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Partly cloudy early followed by scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. High 87F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 68F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. The new Sphinx International Airport (SPX) in western Cairo saw its first regular domestic flight as part of a trial operation of the airport, which is the part of the government's plan to stimulate tourism to the country. The Minister of Civil Aviation Younes El-Masry and thr Minister of Tourism Rania Al-Mashat attended the ceremony to launch the flight from Sphinx to the popular South Sinai resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. The airport aims to alleviate pressure on Cairo International Airport, which is located in eastern Cairo, and serve the Greater Cairo districts of 6 October and Sheikh Zayed, as well as the governorates of Fayoum and Beni Suef. It also aims to serve tourists coming to visit the pyramids and the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which is set to open in 2020, according to a statement issued by the ministry. Construction work on the new airport started in 2017 by the Egyptian Consultancy Company with a budget of EGP 300 million. Saturdays flight was one of 30 flights scheduled to run by state airliner EgyptAir from 25 January to 9 February from Sphinx to the domestic airports of Sharm El-Sheikh, Hurghada, Luxor, and Aswan During his tour of the new airport, El-Masry said that 2019 will witness a breakthrough in the civil aviation industry through the construction of new airports in the New Administrative Capital, which is located 45 kilometres east of Cairo, and the resort town of Berenice in Marsa Allams on the Red Sea in South in south Egypt. The SPX has been dubbed the 300 passenger airport per its accommodation capacity per hour. The airport has a 975 square metre departure hall and a 1,100 square metre arrival hall. It also has a VIP hall. The new airport is equipped with state-of-the-art technology in air traffic control and automatic landing systems and security systems such as x-ray explosive detectors and high end CCTV and thermal surveillance cameras. Short link: Pikeville, KY (41501) Today Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mostly cloudy. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. By AFP WASHINGTON: Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo has tapped Elliot Abrams, a central figure in Ronald Reagan's controversial anti-communist campaigns in Central America, as a new envoy to "restore democracy" in Venezuela. Pompeo announced the appointment of Abrams on Friday, two days after Washington declared head of state Nicolas Maduro to be illegitimate and recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of crisis-plagued Venezuela. Pompeo said Abrams "will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country". Abrams told reporters in brief remarks: "This crisis in Venezuela is deep and difficult and dangerous and I can't wait to get to work on it." The veteran Republican foreign policy hand took charge of Latin America policy under Reagan, clashing with human rights groups as he channelled generous US support to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In one notorious incident, he initially dismissed the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians by the Salvadoran army at El Mozote in 1981. Abrams later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, when the Reagan administration secretly funded the Contra rebels in Nicaragua through arms sales to revolutionary Iran. Abrams later returned as a senior adviser to president George W Bush in charge of human rights and the Middle East. But when Republicans returned to the White House with President Donald Trump's election, Abrams was initially passed over as the new administration shut out critics of the unorthodox new leader. Abrams during the 2016 election had written a piece in The Weekly Standard magazine entitled, "When You Can't Stand Your Candidate," in which he argued that Trump "cannot win and should not be president of the United States". Pompeo, one of Trump's favourite cabinet members, assured that Abrams was on board, saying the new envoy was "eager to advance President Trump's agenda and promote the ideals and interests of the American people". Pompeo said that Abrams would join him Saturday as the secretary of state heads to New York for a special UN Security Council session on Venezuela. By Associated Press COLUMBIA: Sen. Kamala Harris returned to South Carolina on Friday, using her first visit to this early-voting state as an official presidential contender to tap into a sorority network that could prove crucial as she develops her campaign. In a room festooned in pink and green the signature colors of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the country's oldest black sorority the newly minted presidential candidate spoke at the Pink Ice Gala, a scholarship fundraiser. "For we, the members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., we stand on the shoulders of women who were leaders, who 111 years ago said to us, we must honor sisterhood, and we must honor service," Harris said of AKA, a stronghold in the black community, which she pledged as an undergraduate student at Howard University. "That is truly part of the essence of our sorority, which is to stand together as sisters, with our heads up, challenging others to do like we do, knowing that we must serve others." Harris launched her campaign earlier this week on what would have been the 90th birthday of the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. She plans a formal campaign launch in Oakland on Jan. 27. ALSO READ: CNN anchor apologises for birther tweet on Kamala Harris This is Harris' first trip since the fall to South Carolina a crucial proving ground, particularly for Democratic presidential hopefuls testing out their messaging with a largely black electorate. Alpha Kappa Alpha, founded in 1908, is the oldest black sorority in the country. Harris, a first-term senator and former California attorney general known for her rigorous questioning of President Donald Trump's nominees, would be the first woman to hold the presidency and the second African-American. Harris, 54, who grew up in Oakland, California, is one of the earliest high-profile Democrats to join what is expected to be a crowded field, portraying herself as a fighter for justice, decency and equality in a video distributed by her campaign as she announced her bid earlier this week. "They're the values we as Americans cherish, and they're all on the line now," Harris says in the video. "The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values." ALSO READ: Kamala Harris raises over USD 1 million within 24 hours of her presidential bid announcement Skipping the formality of forming an exploratory committee, instead going all in on a presidential bid, Harris joins what is expected to be a wide-open race for the Democratic presidential nomination. There's no apparent front-runner at this early stage, and Harris will face off against several Senate colleagues. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York have both formed exploratory committees. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are also looking at the race. If Booker enters the race, he and Harris could face fierce competition for support from black voters. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Democratic nomination, is also considering a campaign. Several other Democrats have already declared their intentions, including former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and former Obama administration housing chief Julian Castro. On Friday night in Columbia, Harris stood arm-in-arm with hundreds of AKA members, holding hands and singing the sorority's song. "I just love her," longtime AKA member Genice Thompson said of Harris, noting that the senator has a built-in support system among sorority members across the country. "I don't know if she'll win, but I just love her." By PTI SINGAPORE: India's trade with the South East Asian nations is below potential, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore Jawad Ashraf said on Saturday, as he underlined the need to give priority to micro, small and medium enterprises to boost exports to these countries. The India High Commission here has organised a five-day long India Week, between January 24 and 27, during which a series of events covering culture, art, cinema, cuisine, philosophical discourses were organised. To support further growth in trade, the High Commission organised "India-Singapore Trade: Sustainability, Strengths and Strategies - Making it Work for Smaller Businesses" with a focus on promoting exports from micro, small and medium enterprises sector, handicrafts and cottage industry, including Khadi products, from India. Also, over 100 MSMEs from India, led by the High Commission, participated in the seminar. "India's trade with ASEAN Region is below potential. It is showing modest growth and constitutes about mere 2.5 percent of ASEAN's total trade," Ashraf during an event. The Indian High Commission is working on a wide range of trade and cultural promotions with the Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) region, the official said. He said the High Commission attaches priority to supporting the MSME sectors as "this sector accounts for over 45 per cent of India's exports". "They are a huge source of livelihood, employment and empowerment in India. The products are based on local ecology and biodiversity and are sustainable, and they bear the 'unmistakable stamp' of India's culture, traditions and skills," the High Commissioner said. "This was also linked to the celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi with year-long activities and events, given Mahatma Gandhi's strong advocacy and support for these sectors of our economy," Ashraf added. He said that the events provided consumers to contextualise the Indian products during the annual Singapore Indian International Expo. "We also have the presence of Indian artisans (this week), who demonstrate how their products are made," said Ashraf, who hoisted the Indian Flag and reception for 1,200 Indians in Singapore at the Republic Day Celebration on Saturday. The High Commission would like to help grow the Expo and India Week into a major platform for traditional Indian exports not just to Singapore, but also to ASEAN Region, he added. Ashraf said that the Indian Government has taken a number of steps to create an enabling environment for exports from MSMEs, including improved logistics, trade facilitation, ease of doing business, lower corporate taxes, major improvements in and relief under the GST regime, concessional finance, quality assurance and certification and market support. He also said noted that the India-Singapore trade lagged behind engagement in other areas, including political, defence, innovation and investment, besides people-to-people and cultural links. To boost trade, India and Singapore have launched a third review of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), the High Commissioner said, adding India is also set to be part of the negotiations of the 16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which should be concluded this year. This is in addition to India's Free Trade Agreement with the 10-nation ASEAN Group. Ashraf said he wants to see companies build on these enablers and expand the export-oriented companies' footprint the ASEAN markets, including Singapore as a regional gateway. Highlighting the advantages for India, he said Singapore is a regional gateway with excellent connectivity. It has a conducive business environment, a large and vibrant community, industry bodies like Singapore-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), the High Commissioner said. Ashraf also launched a book written by eminent Singapore-based journalists having strong experience and knowledge of India. Launching the book on Friday, Ashraf praised the topics covered in the 38 chapters of the "India's Next Leap Forward: Essays on its Socio-Economy". C Shivakumar By Express News Service CHENNAI: It has been five days, but Sahayaraj and Sagayam are still in a state of shock and yet, hopeful. Their son Sebastian Britto Breezlin Sahayaraj is one among six Indian crew who have gone missing in the Kerch Strait, after two fuel ships carrying Indian and Turkish crew members caught fire five days ago. Six Indian sailors have died in the incident. Crosslin, a relative of Britto, says the mother is in a state of shock and has stopped taking food. The father, a fisherman, is also struggling to come to terms with the development. The couple live at Puthenthurai village in Kanyakumari. Brittos younger brother died of cancer at a young age. Since then, the parents have been extremely fond of Britto, who was also the sole breadwinner of the family, says Crosslin. Sahayaraj gave up on fishing as his health was failing. Now all they want is the information about their son, says Crosslin. The lack of information which has put the relatives under undue stress. Aakash, brother of missing mariner Avinash Anandsekar, says they came to know about the incident only on Wednesday, that too through media, while the accident happened on Monday. As soon as we heard the news we contacted his office, and much to our shock we found out it was true, says Aakash. ALSO READ | Russia ship fire: Family waits for missing Tamil Nadu marine engineer with hope We are equally shocked that the entire world knew about the accident while we, the family members, were unaware and had to learn about it from the media, says Aakash, who has written a letter to Nimbus. We want to know how many ships and rescue aircraft have been pressed into service. We also want to know how the accident happened. Director General of Shipping Amitabh Kumar told Express that he would look into why the families of missing sailors were not informed by the shipping company. Nimbus official Sameer Dalvi could not be contacted despite several attempts. Manoj Joy, Community Development Manager of Sailors Society, says its parents who undergo lot of trauma. First they refuse to accept that their son is no more. Secondly, the case is not closed with parents hoping against hope that one day the son will return. It impacts the lives of the family and they need psychological support, says Joy. By Express News Service CHENNAI: Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami sent a strong message to protesting government teachers and employees on Friday. Citing the financial constraints being faced by the State because of the ongoing rehabilitation works in districts affected by Cyclone Gaja and the drought-like situation due to the failure of monsoon in some other parts, the Chief Minister said: The strike by government employees and teachers in this difficult situation is unfortunate and painful. I appeal to them to end the agitation and return to duty. Addressing a public meeting to mark the Language Martyrs Day, the Chief Minister alleged the employees had fallen prey to false propaganda of the opposition parties. In fact, they are being instigated by Opposition parties, which have been making a false claim that the State government is refusing to meet the demands despite having sufficient funds. In reality, the government is facing financial constraints due to a cyclone on one hand and drought on the other. READ | Despite show cause notice to 14,000 teachers in Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, protesters continue to spill on to roads He said the government had to do justice to these people by extending assistance. While pointing out that 75 per cent of the revenue earned by the government is spent on salaries and pensions, and only the rest is used for developmental and welfare schemes, Palaniswami said his government will not remain a mute spectator to the problems faced by the people. READ | TN teachers' strike: Detained Pudukottai teacher gives students lessons from behind gates The government, Palaniswami said, has fulfilled many demands made by employees and teachers. Teachers who are protesting must think about the quantum of salary being drawn by their counterparts in the private sector. I am not finding faults... I am just presenting the facts... I request the teachers to extend cooperation to the government, he added. They are engaged in strike despite receiving a good hike in salary. Hemant Kumar Rout By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that there was a tacit understanding between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Delivering a Town Hall talk hosted by Odia daily The Samaja here on Friday, Rahul said Modi has leverage over Naveen because of corruption cases and the latter tacitly supports the former on various issues including GST, demonetisation and different bills in the Parliament. Both leaders believe in bureaucratic dictatorship and centralisation of power but thats not the end of similarities between the two, he said. The BJDs model to develop Odisha is similar to that of BJPs Gujarat model. Naveen is a version of Modi. My target is to take Odisha out of the one-man bureaucratic regime and hand it over to people of the State, the Gandhi scion said. However, though Naveen is autocratic and centralises power, he is not filled with hate as Modi. Unlike the Congress which has a dynamic process and always listens to people, Modi thinks he knows everything, and hence, doesnt take anyones feedback. This is the basic difference between Congress and BJP. When we run a State, we listen to people. That is not how Modi or Naveen think, he said. Coming down heavily on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Rahul said the outfit, which is the mother ship of BJP, wants to control all the institutions in the country. But, Congress always respects institutions, be it the educational, judiciary or election commission, and their individuality. We are completely against the assault on institutions taking place today, he said. Rahul emphasised on job creation over growth of the economy. Modi has failed to deliver on his promises. What is the meaning of growth when youth struggle to get jobs? he asked. He termed demonetisation as a crime and said the move destroyed small and medium businesses. Small and medium enterprises generate jobs, but not big business houses, he said. Everybody is forgetting agriculture. A huge number of jobs can come from agriculture if there is a transformation in the system, Rahul said. The Congress chief said the best thing that happened to him as a politician and human being is the trolling at the hands of BJP and RSS. When Modi abuses me, I feel like giving him a hug. He is upset with the Congress party. But we have no animosity towards him. Thats our nature, we dont hate people. Indias culture is not to abuse someone, he said. On what made Priyanka Gandhi to take the plunge in politics, he said the decision was not instant, it was taken years back. She sought time as her children were very young. Though everybody thinks we come from an illustrious family and everything is easy for us, it is actually not. My grandmother and father were assassinated. We faced many hard situations and that brought us close together. Priyankas primary job will be to help the idea of Congress revive in UP, he said while describing the relationship he shares with his sister. Confident of an opposition win in the 2019 elections, Rahul said, Now we are at a point when the opposition is so united that it is practically impossible for BJP to win the election. BJP, BJD hit back at Congress president Bhubaneswar: The ruling BJD and BJP came down heavily on Congress president Rahul Gandhi after he criticised the Centre and State Government for neglecting farmers and not fulfilling promises. Alleging that misrule of Congress has kept Odisha backward, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Friday said Rahul should clarify on the summons from Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police to president of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) Niranjan Patnaik. Pradhan said Congress is the root cause behind growing unemployment and poverty in the State. Stating that Congress has done injustice to Odisha when it was in power at the Centre, he alleged that Rahul is now shedding crocodile tears for development of the State. The BJD also hit back at Gandhi for accusing Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for running an autocratic Government and ignoring farmers. People of Odisha have not forgotten the golden rule of Congress when the growth rate of Odisha was restricted to three per cent. From there on, the growth rate under BJD regime has reached 10 per cent which is higher than the national average, BJD spokesperson Sasmit Patra said. Stating that Odisha was earlier dependent on other States for its quota of rice, Patra said the State has not only reached self-sufficiency in rice production but also became rice surplus in 2011 and now the third highest contributor of rice to the PDS system. By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: A day after the Centre nominated eminent author Gita Mehta for Padma Shri, she declined the prestigious award citing the timing of the honour which she felt is not right. In a press statement issued from New York on Saturday, Mehta said she is deeply honoured that the Government of India considered her worthy of a Padma Shri. However, with elections around, she said, the timing of the award may be misconstrued. With great regret I feel I must decline as there is a general election looming and the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the Government and myself, which I would much regret, her statement said. Mehta, elder sister of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, is known for her books such as Karma Cola, River Sutra, Raj, Snakes and Ladders : Glimpses of Modern India, Eternal Ganesha : From Birth to Rebirth. On Friday, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had announced the conferment of the fourth highest civilian award on Mehta and mentioned her as a foreigner. Her family sources said she is a proud Indian as she was born to former Chief Minister of Odisha and freedom fighter late Biju Patnaik. She is married to Ajai Singh Sonny Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of the Alfred A Knopf publishing house, New York. By Express News Service BENGALURU/TUMAKURU: The overlooking of Shivakumara Swamiji by the Centre for Bharat Ratna award has created ripples in political circles in Karnataka with even state BJP leaders expressing their disappointment. A file photo of Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Mutt | KPN While social media was abuzz with groups fighting each other, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy felt that the prestige of the award would have been more enhanced if it was conferred on the late seer of the Siddaganga mutt. Apparently, the centenarian swamiji had not expected the award. He had not turned up to receive the Padma Bhushan award conferred on him in 2015. A household name in the state, Shivakumara Swamiji had served millions of people by providing them with free food, shelter and education. As the head of the mutt from 1941 to 2011, he had built over 125 educational institutions. Kumaraswamy had claimed that in 2007, he had proposed to the then president APJ Abdul Kalam to confer the award on the swamiji. Later, Siddaramaiah-led Congress government too claimed to have sent a similar proposal to the union government. The three recipients of the Bharat Ratna are deserving. But the award would have been more coveted if Sri Shivakumara Swamiji too was conferred it, the Chief Minister stated. Taking a dig at BJP leaders, former chief minister Siddaramaiah said state BJP leaders should have convinced the Centre to confer the award on the late seer.Earlier, Congress leaders had taunted the BJP as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not visited Tumakuru to pay last respects to the swamiji. READ HERE: How Shivakumara Swami scripted success at Siddaganga Mutt Senior BJP leader and former minister Suresh Kumars social media post criticising the union government received hundreds of reactions. Thousands of people on social networking sites were found debating the matter and some still hope that the award may be announced in the future. BJP leader Basanagouda Patil Yatnal said, Parliamentarians including 12 Rajya Sabha members should have exerted pressure on the Union cabinet and Modi to announce the award for the seer. The MPs must stage a protest until the government chooses him for the award. The Swamiji was conferred Padma Bhushan just four years ago and for any civilian award, five years of gap is required, posted a BJP supporter. But detractors cited the instance of noted singer Lata Mangeshkar being conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2001 three years after she was presented Padma Shri in 1999. The service of the swamiji is greater than even Mother Teresas. Was it his mistake to be born as a Hindu as successive governments have ignored his contribution to the humankind, former minister and senior BJP leader Sogadu Shivanna. Former Lok Sabha member and BJP leader G S Basavaraju too expressed his unhappiness over the swamiji being left out. The award should have been conferred on him when he was alive. We still hope that the government may consider him in April, he said. Incumbent Lok Sabha member S P Muddahanume Gowda of the Congress observed that though the swamiji deserved the countrys highest civilian award and millions of devotees expected it, the government failed to recognise it. The head of the Siddaganga Mutt clarified that as the centenarian never went after awards, the mutt never expected Bharat Ratna for him. French President Emmanuel Macrons visit to Cairo reflects the powerful strategic partnership and historical and renewed alliance between the two countries, Egypts envoy to Paris said in an article published on Saturday. In an article published by French daily Le Figaro, Egypts Ambassador to France Ehab Badawy said that Macrons visit is a prolongment of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisis visit to Paris in October 2017. The long-awaited visit by Macron, which begins on Sunday, comes as the two countries enjoy unprecedented development in bilateral relations, he wrote. Paris and Cairo cooperate closely and face [today] the same challenges, while leading fronts in combating terrorism, Badawy wrote, reminding readers that Daesh-affiliated terrorist organisations have executed deadly attacks in Egypt prior to intensive terrorism attacks in France in 2015. We are adamant on fighting together these organisations, he said. The Egyptian ambassador said that defending religious pluralism is a key pillar of dialogue between the two countries, fighting the role carried out by Al-Azhar in training imams and reforming religious discourse and Egypt's recently inaugurated Al-Fattah Al-Alim Mosque and the Nativity of Christ Cathedral in the new administrative capital. The visit by Macron will be his first to Egypt since assuming office in 2017. El-Sisi visited Paris in October 2017 where he met with Macron and discussed joint efforts to combat terrorism, the Middle East peace process, the situation in Libya, and issues related to bilateral cooperation. Short link: By Express News Service BENGALURU: Just when the dust over resort politics was settling down in Karnataka, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has made fresh allegations of MLA poaching. Reiterating that Operation Kamala was still alive and thriving, the CM alleged that a Congress MLA was approached as recently as Thursday evening with gifts. BJP state chief B S Yeddyurappa, who is heading a statewide tour to survey drought-relief measures taken by the Congress-JD(S) coalition government, has rubbished Kumaraswamys allegations insisting that they are mere diversion tactics to take the focus away from his governments failures. PM Modi should answer where his party getting money to poach Congress MLAs: Kumaraswamy Operation Kamala is still going on. Even last night (Thursday) they called a legislator asking him where the gift should be sent to, Kumaraswamy alleged, adding that the Congress MLA in question had turned down the saffron partys offer. It isnt a small gift ... it is expensive. I want to ask Yeddyurappa where are such expensive gifts coming from? he said. The CMs statement comes a day after coordination committee chief Siddaramaiah claimed that there was no ongoing Operation Kamala. Yeddyurappa, in turn, alleged that Kumaraswamy was luring BJP MLAs. It was the CM himself who approached our Aland MLA and tried to lure him. CMs frustration exposes that everything is not alright in the government, Yeddyurappa said in a statement. Yeddyurappa told reporters in Kolar that there was no need for Operation Kamala since the government will fall on its own. No threat to coalition government, says Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy Kumaraswamys allegations come at a time when Congress is dealing with the crisis of legislators beating each other up. You will be shell-shocked if someone told you how much it is, Kumaraswamy said when asked how much bribe was being offered by the BJP to the ruling government MLAs. Justice J Chelameswar By The Constitution of India is a politically sacred legal document that was meticulously and painstakingly drafted. It enshrines the ideals cherished by the founding fathers of the new Republic. But I am afraid it is progressively ceasing to be of any relevance in the orderly governance of the country. Within about 70 years, it has been reduced to a holy book worthy of veneration without following either its letter or spirit. In fact, it has become a source of powerfor misrule for each of the three great branches of the government established under the Constitution. Incumbents of various constitutional offices by and large seem to lack enthusiasm to either study the text of the Constitution or understand its scheme. It has become only a source of authority over the people of India without caring for its noble purpose. Its articles are mindlessly chanted as if they are the hymns of Vedas. The high priests of the Indian Constitution are the judges of Constitutional courts. Even they are happy with cliches, esoteric phrases and quotations from long deceased lawyers and judges from other countries. A case in point is the recent farce, occasioned by the creation of the new High Court for the (new) state of Andhra Pradesh. The existing state of Andhra Pradesh (as it existed from 1956 to 2014) was bifurcated by an Act of Parliament titled the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. It created two new states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The said Act contains various provisions required for the creation of the two new states. Since it is the mandate of Article 214 of the Constitution that there shall be a High Court for each state, Sections 30 and 31 of the Reorganisation Act declare that a separate High Court for the state of Andhra Pradesh is required to be constituted and the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad shall become the High Court for the state of Telangana. However, the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad is nothing but the erstwhile High Court for the then state of Andhra Pradesh whose territorial jurisdiction was the sum of the two new states. But the High Court of Telangana now has territorial jurisdiction over a part of the territory over which it had earlier exercised full jurisdiction. The Reorganisation Act is silent with regard to the date on which a separate High Court for the state of Andhra Pradesh is to be constituted. It is also silent about the process by which a separate High Court is to be constituted. To illustrate the point, we may refer to Section 28 of the Andhra State Act, 1953. It provided that either from the first day of January 1956 or from some other earlier date to be determined by the President by a notification, there shall be a separate High Court for the state of Andhra Pradesh. Section 28(3) declared that the principal seat of the High Court shall be at such place as the Governor of Andhra may decide. Similar provisions are to be found in the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, Bihar Reorganisation Act, MP Reorganisation Act and Bombay Reorganisation Act by which Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat were constituted. In each of the above mentioned enactments, provisions were made indicating the procedure for fixing the date on which the newly constituted High Court is to come into existence, where its seat is to be located and directing the competent authority to determine these issues. The basic authority of law for the constitution of a new High Court is unequivocally provided by Parliament. Unfortunately, we do not find such statutory provision in the 2014 Act with respect to the date on which the new High Court shall come into existence. Nor is the power to determine such a date delegated to any other authority, be it the President of India or someone else. However, a new High Court for the state of Andhra Pradesh is purported to have been constituted by a notification published in the Gazette of India on 26 December 2018 signed by the President of India. The notification refers to a judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Union of India vs B Dhanapal SLP 29890/2018 and states that by virtue of the said judgment, the competent authority could issue a notification bifurcating the High Court of Judicature of Hyderabad into the High Court of Telangana and the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, respectively. The question is who is the competent authority? Under the hallowed doctrine of the rule of law, competence for performing any public act in a country governed by a constitution flows either from the Constitution itself or by any law validly enacted under the Constitution. I have already mentioned that the Reorganisation Act of 2014 is absolutely silent with respect to the authority who is competent to determine the date. Yet the rulers of the country and the state believe it could be done by a notification issued in the name of the President. The most hilarious part of the episode is that those judges who continued at the High Court of Telangana, which is nothing but the original High Court of Andhra Pradesh, now with a truncated territorial jurisdiction, were also administered fresh oaths. No fresh warrants of appointments were issuedin my opinion, rightly. But at the same time, no fresh oath is required either on a proper analysis of the scheme of the Constitution or on the strength of precedent. When the Andhra High Court was created in 1953, carving out the territorial jurisdiction from the parent Madras High Court, those judges remaining at Madras did not take any fresh oath. Same is the case with judges of Bombay, Patna and Madhya Pradesh High Courts when the new High Courts of Gujarat, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh were created. Examples could be multiplied. However, the judges remaining at the High Court of the judicature at Hyderabad, now called the Telangana High Court, were administered fresh oaths. At both the events in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, some sitting and former judges of the Supreme Court graced the occasion. Following the death of the then President Zakir Husain in office in 1969, the Vice President who was officiating as President, resigned so as to contest the presidential elections. The situation demanded, under the Constitution, for the Chief Justice of India to officiate as the President of the country. M Hidayatullah became the officiating President. A Money Bill was sent to him by the government. Under Article 117(1) of the Constitution, a Money Bill can be introduced in Parliament only with the recommendation of the President. If the Bill is passed in both Houses of Parliament, it is once again sent to the President for his assent. There is a critical difference. Recommendation of the President is for the Bill being introduced in Parliament. The Presidential assent transforms the Bill into a formal law. The file put up before Chief Justice Hidayatullah mistakenly sought his assent prior to the introduction of the Bill in Parliament. Had Hidayatullah been as oblivious, or ignorant, or cavalier about the Constitution, his signature to the assent document would have bypassed Parliament entirely and the Money Bill would have become a valid law for India. Hidayatullah was a jurist serving the Constitution and dealing with it as an operating manual for the nation. He was not a high priest mindlessly performing rituals. Hidayatullah declined the premature assent, and his mandarins had to correct their mistake, averting a jurisprudential crisis. Hidayatullah is dead. The political class now is not unduly worried about the nuances of the Constitution. And the high priests do not care. I am only reminded of Robert Borks statement the question nowadays is not how to read the Constitution, but whether to read it. We live in an era of constitutional morality and sealed cover jurisprudence. God save Indian democracy. Justice J Chelameswar Former Supreme Court judge By PTI IMPHAL: Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Saturday came down heavily on organisations that boycotted Republic Day celebrations in the state to protest against the citizenship bill, saying they should instead contest elections to get people's mandate. Bandhs and blockades hit daily wage earners the most, Biren said, adding, he has appealed to the organisations multiple times not to resort to such kind of protests. ALSO READ | Mizoram Governor addresses empty ground amid Republic Day boycott call "We are duly elected legislators who have formed a government based on the mandate of the people. Leaders of those (protesting) bodies should contest elections and get people's mandate in order to participate in the decision-making meetings," Biren said at the Manipur Rifles Parade Ground. At least five organisations, including the United Committee Manipur (UCM), All Manipur United Clubs Organisation (AMUCO) and Committee of Civil Societies Kangleipak (CCSK) jointly boycotted the 70th Republic Day celebrations to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. "Let the teachers, students, and others carry out their respective duties," the chief minister said, warning that actions of these outfits would tantamount to running a "parallel administration", which is "unacceptable." In neighbouring Mizoram too, Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan addressed an almost-empty ground due to a statewide boycott call given by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies. On the controversial bill, Biren said the protesters should understand and analyse it first. The state government will not "remain silent if the bill harms the interest of the people," he asserted. Manipur will also urge the Centre to include a provision or a clause within the framework of the rules, so as to enable the consent of the state government before granting citizenship, the chief minister said. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed in Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several outfits in the Northeast have opposed it claiming that it would undermine the rights of the indigenous people of the region. By IANS NEW DELHI: Describing his countrys deep association with India, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday said that the two countries were divided by an ocean but were bound by history and culture, as he emphasised on strengthening trade and bilateral relations. "South Africa and India are two sister countries that are separated by an ocean by bound together by history, by the collective energies of our people and deep respect we hold for each other," Ramaphosa said while delivering the first Gandhi-Mandela Memorial lecture here. He said that that the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela have never been more important than they are today. "We need to focus on growing our trade, increasing investment in each others' countries. In our meeting this morning (with Prime Minister Narendra Modi), we committed ourselves to increasing cooperation between our two countries at all levels. We can be proud of the road our two countries have traversed," he added. He said that India and South Africa shared a commitment to freedom and democracy, to non-racilaism and tolerance to social equity and eradication of poverty. "Let us strengthen the bond that exists between our country and our people. We have great foundation, towering pillars that can continue to support our resolve to achieve our ideals," he said. He said that as his country takes up its non-permanent seat in UN Security Council, it was acutely aware of responsibility it has been entrusted with. "We are determined to ensure that Africa is not relegated to the periphery of world affairs. We want Africa to take its place. This century is Africa's century," Ramaphosa said. "We will do so with full respect, cooperation as well as collaboration with other countries around the world. And India is one of those that we count among the first that we seek cooperation and collaboration with," he said. He said that the two countries were sharing several forums such as BRICS, IPSA, Indian Ocean RIM Association, G-20, G-77-plus-China and NAM, and it would facilitate their working together "in pursuit of a world that is free of poverty". By PTI NEW DELHI: A Pakistani delegation will visit the Chenab river basin in Jammu and Kashmir for inspection from January 28 to 31, as mandated under the Indus Water Treaty, sources said. Pakistan's Indus Commissioner Syed Mohammad Mehar Ali Shah will arrive in India along with his two advisers, sources said. "This tour is an obligation imposed on both the countries by the Indus Waters Treaty 1960 between India and Pakistan. Under the Treaty, both the commissioners are mandated to inspect sites and works on both the sides of Indus basin in a block of five years," a senior official said. Since signing the treaty, a total of 118 such tours on both the sides have been undertaken by the commission. The last tours of the commission in Pakistan and India were held in July 2013 and September 2014 respectively. No tour could be held so far in the current five years block which ends in March 2020. This tour will be followed by a visit of Indian Indus Commissioner to Pakistan at a mutually convenient date decided between the two commissioners, the official added. This tour was originally scheduled in October 2018 but later postponed because of local bodies and panchayat polls in J&K. Under the Indus Water Treaty, waters flowing in three of Indus tributaries -- the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi -- have been allotted to India; while the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus waters have been allotted to Pakistan. By IANS JAMMU: On India's Republic Day, Pakistani troops fired at and shelled Indian Army positions on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district. Defence Ministry sources said the Pakistan Army resorted to unprovoked firing and shelling in Krishna Ghati sector in violation of the 2003 bilateral ceasefire pact. "Pakistan Army initiated ceasefire violation around 11 a.m. using small arms fire and mortar shells... Our troops retaliated strongly and effectively. Firing exchanges are still going on," an official said. Tension has gripped the civilian population living close to the LoC in Mankote and other places in Krishna Ghati sector. In the aftermath of ceasefire violation by Pakistan on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Saturday, the Indian Army canceled the traditional exchange of sweets between the two armies to mark India's Republic Day. A Defence Ministry source told IANS: "There will be no exchange of sweets between the two armies at Chakan Da Bagh crossing point on LoC in Poonch district." Traditionally, each year on January 26 and August 15, the two armies exchange greetings and sweets on the LoC in Poonch district. By IANS NEW DELHI: The operation to bring back "high-value" economic offenders from the West Indies is likely to be concluded by Tuesday (January 29), sources have confirmed. The mission involving a long-haul Air India jet, which has been pulled out of the fleet, will carry a team of investigating officers tasked to get hold of the fugitives. The number of "assets" being the target is not yet known though diamantaire Mehul Choksi and Winsome Diamonds promoter Jatin Mehta have taken citizenship in the Caribbeans. The officials are tight-lipped but are on stand-by. Elaborate security arrangements have been put in place. READ HERE; 27 economic offenders fled India in last 5 years Mehta became a citizen of St Kitts and Nevis some years ago while Choksi has taken Antigua and Barbuda citizenship recently. These islands provide visa-free travel to 132 countries. Both St. Kitts and Antigua have airfields that can accommodate wide-body aircraft. It is not clear if they will be picked from one location for multiple destinations. The lack of extradition treaties has made these islands a safe haven for India's uber rich. Other countries such as Grenada, St Lucia and Dominica also have similar citizenship by investment programmes. ALSO READ: Special court declares Vijay Mallya first 'fugitive economic offender' under new law Dominica and St Lucia give citizenship and a valid passport for just $100,000 (over Rs 70 lakh) which is chump change for ultra-rich Indians on the run. By PTI JAIPUR: India should be clear about its role in Afghanistan and do whatever it can to encourage that the Taliban shun violent extremism and become mainstream, former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon has said. India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and has committed aid worth USD 3 billion to the war-ravaged country. New Delhi sent two former diplomats in "non-official" capacity to a conference on the Afghan peace process in Moscow in November which was attended by a high-level Taliban delegation. ALSO READ | Not talking with Taliban will leave India out, says Army chief The conference organised by Russia was attended by representatives of Afghanistan as well as from several other countries, including the US, Pakistan and China. India has been maintaining a policy of not engaging with the Taliban and pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-torn country. "India should do whatever it can to encourage that the Taliban become mainstream, that they give up extremist ideas and stop treating women the way they do, but how it is done and how it will shape up, that is not for us to say. We should be clear in what our role is. About talking to the Taliban or to anyone, it is the job of intelligence agencies," Menon said at the Jaipur Literature Festival. The top diplomat, who served as India's ambassador to China, Foreign Secretary and the National Security Advisor, said the threat of extremism emanating from Afghanistan was exaggerated in India. "Indians tend to exaggerate this threat of extremism from Afghanistan. I have never known a terrorist from Afghanistan in the last forty years. This is actually Pakistani terrorism and let us not make any mistake about that," he said at a discussion here in which Pakistan's former envoy to the US, Husain Haqqani, and Nepali author Manjushree Thapa also participated. ALSO READ | India has 'no role' in arranging US-Taliban talks: Pakistan Foreign Office Haqqani said the people of Balochistan, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa deserved the support of democratic forces for their rights. "I re-imagine Pakistan in which the Sindhis, Balochs, Pashtuns, Punjabis and the people of Gilgit and Balochistan have rights according to the autonomic groundings of a federal State. Then, I think Pakistan can succeed. As far as the people of Balochistan and Sindh and Pakhtunkhwa are concerned, they do deserve the support of all the democratic forces from across the world for their democratic rights," he said. Haqqani said his role was to say what many Pakistanis have become afraid of saying. Terming the current bilateral relationship between India and Nepal as "emotional and touchy", Thapa said there was a "very strong anti-India sentiment" in Nepal because of New Delhi's "mishandling" of the Constitution-drafting process in the Himalayan nation. "It is confusing for Nepal when India which had been its model for how to become a democratic federalised secular nation starts saffronising and supporting majoritarian religion over other religions. Because of India's mishandling of the Constitution drafting process, there is a very strong anti-India sentiment in Nepal right now which is resisting the saffronising and the attempt to bring back monarchy and the Hindu state," she said. The ties between India and Nepal deteriorated in 2015 when Kathmandu put out its draft Constitution that seemed to give extensive political privileges to the ruling hill tribes than to the Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin. The Madhesis launched a violent agitation, blocked Indo-Nepal border demanding more representation in Parliament and redrawing of provincial boundaries. The economic blockade severely affected Nepal, its economy and its ties with India. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested lawyer Gautam Khaitan, accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, in connection with a fresh case of possession of black money and money laundering, officials said Saturday. They said Khaitan was placed under arrest Friday night by the agency sleuths under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). He will be produced before a court here on Saturday, they said. Sources said a fresh criminal case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. ALSO READ: VVIP chopper scam: To ascertain money trail, probe agencies looking to identify Christian Michel's local, overseas assets Khaitan has been alleged to have been operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stash assets, they said. It is understood that the investigative agencies have got fresh leads against Khaitan after the questioning of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the VVIP chopper deal with AgustaWestland, who was extradited by India from Dubai in December last. The Income Tax Department had last week carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. ALSO READ: VVIP chopper case: Court dismisses Tihar Jail's plea against alleged middleman Christian Michel Khaitan had been arrested by the ED and the CBI a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail, they said. By PTI INDORE: Taking a swipe at the Congress over Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's entry in politics, senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Saturday said it was fielding "chocolaty" faces in Lok Sabha polls as it has a dearth of strong leaders. "A Congress leader demands that Kareena Kapoor should be fielded from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat. Sometimes others talk about fielding Salman Khan from Indore. Likewise, Priyanka (Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) was also brought into active politics," Vijayvargiya told reporters here. "Agle Lok Sabha chunav ke maidan mein utaarne Congress ke pass mazboot neta nahi hai. Isliye woh aise chocolaty chehre ke madhyam se chunav ladna chahti hai (The Congress does not have strong leaders to field in the next Lok Sabha elections. For this reason, it wants to fight polls through these charming faces)," he said. ALSO READ: Bihar minister calls Priyanka Gandhi beautiful face without any skills; Congress, RJD call for his resignation He also said that "Priyanka would not have been brought into active politics if there was confidence within the Congress on (party chief) Rahul's leadership." Vijayvargiya's comments came amid a controversy over senior BJP leader and Bihar Minister Vinod Narain Jha's remark on Friday that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has no other quality except being "very beautiful" and the Congress should remember that beauty does not garner votes. The remark by Jha, who holds the Public Health and Engineering portfolio, was met with disapproval from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) even as the opposition Congress-RJD combine demanded his sacking, accusing him of having displayed a "perverse" attitude towards women. Meanwhile, Vijayvargiya on Saturday condemned those associating the Centre's decision to confer Bharat Ratna on former President Pranab Mukherjee with party politics. "I was watching a debate on a TV channel in which it was being said that the decision to confer Pranab da with Bharat Ratna was taken to strengthen BJP in West Bengal. Those involved in this kind of discussion are insulting Pranab da," he said. ALSO READ: Zero plus zero equals zero: Yogi Adityanath on Priyanka's entry in active politics Vijayvargiya is the BJP's in charge general secretary for West Bengal. "The decision to confer Pranab da with Bharat Ratna is the biggest proof of the fairness of this honour. It is wrong to link this decision with party politics. Such comments are condemnable," the BJP leader said. "During the (PM Narendra) Modi government, national honours are given to those who deserve them," he claimed. Vijayvargiya termed the Madhya Pradesh government's farm loan waiver scheme a political gimmick and asked if it had the Rs 40,000 crore needed for the scheme. Caroline, an American tourist, took the Ring Road to get to the Pyramids and thought the red brick buildings on both sides of the road were under construction. Her guide did not tell her they were passing through slum areas, informal developments illegally constructed on agricultural land, buildings that are raised without any specifications. The scene is common in Cairo, and in many other governorates. In an attempt to reduce the visual pollution, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has ordered that all red-brick buildings with unpainted exteriors be painted in a unified colour scheme. Egypts ubiquitous red brick buildings convey an uncivilised image of the country, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli said during a meeting with the Council of Governors held late last week. Madbouli added the process of painting would be monitored, and that legal action could be taken against those who do not abide by the decision. No details were given as to what kind of action might be taken, leaving many citizens with worryingly unanswered questions. To paint an unpainted building made from bricks you must first render it with cement, a huge cost for the inhabitants. We want officials to tell us who will pay the bills, the building owners or the tenants, said Abdel-Salam Abdallah, a resident of one of Gizas many informal areas. While there has been speculation that buildings as yet untenanted will not be connected to utilities unless they comply with the painting rule, what worries Abdallah is the fate of buildings that are already occupied. Others sounded happier about the presidential order. Red brick neighbourhoods are really ugly and depressing, says Mohamed Ahmed, an accountant living in Cairo. Consultant engineer Abbas Mahmoud believes randomly built redbrick buildings should be painted by an architectural expert with an eye for art. The expert should use colours that harmonise, he says, adding that costs could be kept down by using lime-wash. He points out that in traditional neighbourhoods people often decorated the exterior of their homes with Hajj paintings. There really is a sense of beauty in traditional neighbourhoods and the spontaneous art that exists there is witness to this, says Mahmoud. The situation could have been avoided altogether had municipalities been doing their job, he adds. Municipal authorities should ensure no illegal construction takes place. Those who violate building codes, and the officials who allow it to happen, should both be punished, believes Mahmoud. Mohamed Abu Seada, head of the National Organisation for Urban Harmony, has been quoted as saying that the starting point for the painting will be buildings alongside the Ring Road leading to the new Grand Egyptian Museum, scheduled to be inaugurated next year. According to Abu Seada, different governorates will use different colours. It has been proposed that facades in Cairo and Upper Egypt be painted earth colours, while those in coastal governorates be painted blue. * A version of this article appears in print in the 24 January, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Facelift with a brush Short link: Prasanta Mazumdar By Express News Service GUWAHATI: Assams family planning jihadi, who quotes from the holy texts, has finally got his dues, the Padma Shri. For the past many years, Dr. Ilias Ali has been on a holy mission. The retired surgeon of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital traverses like a nomad to advocate birth control, especially among Assams rural Muslim populace. The 63-year-old often adopts unusual but unique methods to motivate people to go for No Scalpel Vasectomy (NSV). He quotes verses from the Quran and the Hadith to encourage people to go for NSV. He mostly works in the states Bengali Muslim settlements where people view NSV and the use of contraceptive pills as un-Islamic. Resistance is common, yet he has been able to motivate over 55,000 people to go for NSV. The first few years of my mission were very challenging. Those days, my family would get scared when I embarked on a journey to conduct an NSV camp. It feared for my life, Dr. Ali, who is still a part of Assams NSV programme, told this correspondent. He is happy that the government has recognised his contribution to society. I am very happy that my contribution has been recognised. It is an honour to the entire medical team that I have been a part with for years, he said. Uddhab Bharali is the other person from Assam to be named for the award. The 57-year-old has to his kitty over 150 innovations. Three decades ago, Bharali had to drop out of his engineering studies as he could not afford to pay fees and was required to take care of his family. However, that was hardly an obstacle. Riding on his passion for creativity and innovation, he started developing machines, mostly from scrap, for everyday use. The turnaround was when he created a polythene-making machine for surrounding tea estates. Much of his inventions are today centred round agriculture. His machines for de-seeding of pomegranates, peeling areca nuts and cassava, cutting tobacco leaves to extracting passion fruit juice helped in speedy agricultural process and provided livelihood to many. Earlier, the BBC had done a documentary on the innovations of Bharali who is a recipient of several awards including three from abroad. He said he was very happy to be honoured. Im feeling very happy that I have got a national recognition. I will continue with my work, the innovator who works with students from various IITs, said. Bharali takes care of 25 families with poor financial backgrounds and is widely known for his philanthropic works. Two others from the Northeast to be named for Padma Shri are archer Bombayla Devi Laishram of Manipur and flutist Thanga Darlong of Tripura. The 99-year-old Darlong is the last tribal musician to play Rosem which is a bamboo-made flute-like musical instrument. Sumi Sukanya dutta By Express News Service NEW DELHI: A decade after the brutal murder of 19-year-old Aman Kachroo, in a medical college in Himachal Pradesh led to nationwide outrage against ragging, little seems to have changed in medical colleges. A report by Aman Movement, an NGO that has been working with regulatory bodies for higher education to curb ragging, shows that there has been a rise of over 80 per cent in ragging incidents in medical colleges in various states in 2017 and 2018, compared to 2016. The total number of ragging incidents reported from medical colleges in 2017 and 2018 were 171 and 163 respectively, compared to 2016 when this number was 86 marking a rise of 85 per cent in 2017 and 77 per cent in 2018. In 2014 and 2015, the total complaints of reported ragging cases in medical colleges were 74 and 69 respectively. There are about 460 medical colleges in India nearly 270 of which are government run and the situation is worse in government medical colleges in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Odisha. In 2009, after Amans death, the University Grants Commission had put a ban on all forms of ragging and had started a help line to allow students to register complaints. Rajendra Kachroo, Amans father who runs the helpline for UGC, said that while the menace of ragging has been under control in other institutes, the situation remains scary in medical colleges. There are various kinds of physical and emotional trauma students are subjected to in medical college hostels and the medical education regulator has never taken the issue seriously, he said. A 2nd year MBBS student in a medical college in Delhi said that the number in the report could be low as most cases are either not reported or college managements discourage students from placing it on record. By PTI JAIPUR: The Tamil translation of Andrei Makine's "La vie d'un homme inconnu" (The Life of an Unknown Man) was awarded the second Romain Rolland Prize for literary translation here at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival on Friday. Translated by S R Kichenamourty, former head of the French department of Pondicherry University, the book is published by Kalachuvadu, a publisher of Tamil modern classics and contemporary fiction writing. French ambassador Alexandre Ziegler, who presented the award, said the competition received "excellent translations", particularly from the south. "This is a cause for celebration, as the people-to-people and intellectual exchanges between our two countries is not restricted to one city or one language," the French ambassador said. Apart from the winning entry, the short list included Malayalam translations of "Revolution dans la Revolution" (Revolution in the Revolution) and "La Peste" (The Plague) by Regis Debray, and Albert Camus, respectively. The award consists of an invitation to the Paris Book Fair 2019 in March for the publisher of the work and an invitation for the translator to attend a one-month residency in France. The ambassador said that Paris Book Fair, to be organised in 2020 will be a "great opportunity to expand the number of translations and publications of Indian books by French publishers and build a dynamic network between the French and Indian publishing industries. India will attend the fair as the Guest of Honour." The winning title - "The Life of an Unknown Man" is the story of Shutov, a disenchanted writer, who revisits Saint Petersburg after twenty years of exile in Paris, hoping to recapture his youth. By PTI LONDON: Maisie Williams believes it does not matter who sits on the Iron Throne at the end of "Game of Thrones", fans will not feel satisfied the way the show closes. The eighth and final installment of what has gone on to become an important part of pop culture is slated to premiere on April 14. In the HBO show, Williams plays Arya Stark, the tenacious girl who suddenly grew up after her father's public execution to become a focused, revenge seeking warrior. ALSO READ: Sophie Turner told 'Game of Thrones' ending to friends The 21-year-old actor said it is the "right time" that the show was coming to an end and she was proud of it. "I don't know that anyone is going to be satisfied. No one wants it to end, you know, but I'm really proud of this final season. ALSO READ: Game of Thrones teaser shows the 'Stark siblings' unravelling more mysteries "I've always felt ashamed to say things like that, but I am. I'm really proud of all the work we've put it, for me it's the right time. I hope people like it," she told Sky News. Several theories surround the much-awaited climax of the epic fantasy series, that first aired in 2011. It was being said that the makers had decided to film multiple endings of the final season after suffering from major leaks in 2017 but Williams dismissed the reports. By Express News Service KOCHI: Ambassador of Lithuania Julius Pranevicius on Thursday assured assistance for the comprehensive development of Kochi city. The ambassador visited Kochi Corporation and held a discussion. As part of his visit, he held a meeting with Kochi Mayor Soumini Jain, Deputy Mayor T J Vinod, Tax Appeal Committee chairman K V P Krishnakumar, Works Committee chairman P M Haris and Opposition leader K J Antony. During the meeting, a discussion was held to enhance trade, commerce and cultural ties between Kochi and the Baltic nation. Both the groups decided to conduct exchange programmes involving schools in Kochi and Lithuania. Kochi and Lithuanias capital Vilnius had signed an agreement based on the International Urban Cooperation Programme under the European Union. Enhancing ties between the two cities as part of the programme was also discussed. A delegation from Vilnius will visit Kochi and identify sectors in which ties between two cities can be enhanced. Pranevicius told Express the meeting with the Mayor was really fruitful. Tourism was high on the agenda of the meeting. We said Lithuania could contribute to Kochis Smart City in its own way in terms of infrastructure and smart innovations, he said. The ambassador said the talks also discussed the possibility of cultural exchange, tapping the Ayurveda health tourism potential of Kerala by bringing in more visitors from Lithuania and encouraging Keralites to visit Lithuania. We also discussed the forthcoming visit of the Lithuanian delegation to Kochi in March, he said. Envoy holds talks with Kochi ICCI representatives Pranevicius held talks with the representatives of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) during his visit to Mattanchery on Thursday. He interacted with the traders and industrialists at the Indian Chamber Hall and discussed steps to improve trade relations between both countries. He also discussed the quantum of trade of Lithuania and its exports and imports and the possibilities of setting up trade avenues in the state. The ambassador also invited businessmen from the state to visit Lithuania. Chamber president Madhusudan Gupta, vice-president Sunny L Malayil, former president Sivakumar Agarwal and others took part. Ambassadors secretary Raza Nayyar and traders representatives Vikas Agarwal and Shabeer H Kapasi were present on the occasion. Manoj Sharma By Express News Service BENGALURU: There is something wrong in the local civic bodys approach to resurfacing and asphalting work taken up on city roads. This is not the opinion of the public, but of engineers from Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) itself. The oldest flyover in the city -- Sirsi Circle flyover (Balagangadhara Swamy flyover) -- is set to be resurfaced for the second time in its 19 years of existence. BBMP is taking up resurfacing work at a cost of Rs 4.3cr, over 50 days. The Palike had taken up similar work at a cost of Rs 2.8 crore, four years ago.A chief engineer from BBMP, on condition of anonymity, said that in his opinion, the ongoing work would last just four years, as no study was carried out on the flyover. The flyover served its purpose for 12 years, with no potholes or surface damage. The real problem started after 2012, when BBMP resurfaced the flyover. There was a defect in resurfacing work and regular bituminous concrete was used for the work. Asphalt mix is used on regular roads but not on such significant flyovers, he said. The Sirsi Circle flyover was constructed in 1999, and was then the longest flyover, running 2.91km, before the Electronics City tollway was constructed. On what went wrong in the ongoing work, the engineer said, Currently, BBMP is taking up laying of mastic sheet on the surface. But there is already a rigid surface on the flyover and BBMP wants to lay mastic sheet (ticky tar) to provide solid bondage between the surface and asphalted concrete. But this will eventually be damaged once it rains, and will later develop potholes. This is not advisable, according to Indian Road Congress guidelines, because it will not serve the purpose. Thus, the ticky tar technology that BBMP has claimed, is nothing but a waste of money, he said. K T Nagaraj, chief engineer, Project Central, BBMP, told TNIE, At the proposal stage itself, we had planned for bituminous concrete, and this is what we take up on all roads of the city. Also, I did not make provision for Stone Matrix Asphalt (SMA) which is much more costly for resurfacing. If a few engineers believe that SMA is ideal, then let them take it up for all asphalting work in the city, and I want to see those roads last more than 10 years. What we are currently taking up for Sirsi Circle Flyover is right, and will definitely serve its purpose, he said. While there has been an improvement in the overall atmosphere of the relationship between Egypt and Ethiopia, progress on the ground with regards to the Renaissance Dam is still at a standstill, says Rakha Hassan, a member of the Council for Foreign Affairs. Earlier this week Kifle Horo, project manager of the dam, was quoted in the Ethiopian media saying the filling of the dams reservoir would be by consensual agreement with Egypt and Sudan. Commenting on media reports that the construction process had run into trouble and that the dam is in an earthquake zone, Horo said, construction was started after many studies were undertaken, and the region has never experienced an earthquake before. Abbas Sharaki, a professor at Cairo Universitys Institute for African Research and Studies, said Horos statement was a diplomatic attempt to demonstrate there is some form of agreement between the parties. The Declaration of Principles stipulates the parties should cooperate over the filling of the reservoir and the dams operation though it does not identify any mechanism for that cooperation. It is something the tripartite negotiations need to work out, says Sharaki. Professor of political science Tarek Fahmi argues Horos words serve only to highlight the contradictions between official statements and the situation on the ground. A political message, he says, was being delivered by someone whose responsibility is really technical. Last month Horo said the dam is now scheduled to be completed in 2022, confirming statements made by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in August last year. Many commentators welcomed the delayed schedule, believing it allows more time to conduct studies on the impact of the dam on Egypt and Sudan. But so much time has already been wasted, says Sharaki, that it is essential all parties move as quickly as possible to make up for lost ground. We need to finish the studies on the dam, examine previous agreements and amend them if needed, or reach a new agreement on operating the dam and on the construction of any future dams, he says. Building work on the Renaissance Dam began in April 2011 and was expected to be over by 2017. Changes in the design to increase the dams generating capacity have already led to an estimated four-year delay. But the dam also faces administrative problems, and the military-affiliated engineering company originally responsible for the construction is mired in accusations of corruption and embezzlement. In August last year its contract was cancelled. Horo was appointed in October, replacing Simegnew Bekele as project manager after Bekele killed himself. Many observers linked Bekeles suicide to the ongoing allegations of corruption. In another development, the Ethiopian Ministry of Irrigation says work has started on building a much smaller dam that will be used to cultivate 13,000 hectares, benefiting 10,000 small farmers. The dam will cost $29 million and have a storage capacity of 62.5 million cubic metres. Such a small-scale dam, constructed outside the Nile Basin, will have no effect on Egypt, says Sharaki. Indeed, Ethiopia has tens of these dams, which suit the mountainous terrain. Upstream countries are in need of small dams in certain areas in order to store water during the flood season. Fahmi is less convinced. The problem, he says, is not the construction of a single small dam but the fact the dam is part of a strategy to build a number of dams up to 2025 regardless of their impact on downstream countries. Tripartite negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have so far failed to bridge the differences between the three countries with regards to the Renaissance Dam. Among the most difficult issues yet to be resolved, the timetable for filling the dams reservoir, and protocols for operating the dam, have proved the thorniest. The timetable for filling the reservoir is a critical issue for Egypt and has been the focus of recent negotiations. The quicker the fill, the less water will flow on to Sudan and Egypt. Ethiopia could theoretically fill the reservoir to full capacity within three years. Cairo wants a more extended timetable of up to 10 to 12 years. Following a meeting with Ahmed in Ethiopia in November, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli announced tripartite negotiations would begin in two weeks time. But the announcement, says Hassan, was simply an exercise in the kind of political pleasantries that are customarily released during official visits. It is clear that Ethiopia will not abandon its dream of building a mega project. Although Ahmed seemingly favours a diplomatic resolution of outstanding differences his government has yet to take any steps towards this end, says Hassan. The arrival of Ahmed as Ethiopian prime minister in April last year seemed to offer some grounds for optimism. In June, Ahmed visited Egypt and reassured President Al-Sisi that Ethiopia was seeking only to promote its own development without harming the Egyptian people. Egypts share of Nile water will be maintained... and even increased, Ahmed told a news conference in Cairo after talks with President Al-Sisi. In return, Al-Sisi underlined Egypts willingness to promote investment in Ethiopia. Other meetings were held throughout last year but there has been no change in the facts on the ground. Perhaps the most important was the second nine-party meeting held in May last year in Addis Ababa. While some commentators hailed the gathering as positive, Sharaki believes it resulted in procedural changes unlikely to resolve the most contentious issues surrounding the dam. The meeting agreed to establish a National Independent Scientific Research Study Group to discuss ways to enhance the level of cooperation between the three countries through in the words of the document released following the meeting addressing equitable and reasonable utilisation of shared water resources while taking all appropriate measures to prevent any significant harm from being caused. The group comprises 15 members, five from each county, and has already held several meetings but without any tangible results. Rakha says negotiations are not heading in the right direction, and he has little hope President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisis meeting with Ahmed on the sidelines of the AU summit due next month, or Egypt presidency of the AU, will lead to a breakthrough. A breakthrough requires a political decision by Addis Ababa. Can Ahmed take it, or is he fenced in by obstacles, he asks. Egypt insists it has a historic legal right to 55.5 billion cubic metres of Nile water per annum, fixed under the 1929 and 1959 agreements that also guaranteed Sudan a total of 18.5 billion cubic metres. The agreements also give Egypt a veto on any projects built upstream. In 2011 Ethiopia decided to build a dam on the Blue Nile, the tributary which supplies Egypt with the lions share of its annual quota of Nile water, without consulting Cairo. Cairo fears the dam will reduce Egypts share of Nile water. Addis Ababa says it will not. * A version of this article appears in print in the 24 January, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: At a standstill Short link: New Castle, PA (16103) Today Cloudy early, then thunderstorms developing this afternoon. A few storms may be severe. High near 75F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Regional Mizoram NGOs body to boycott Republic Day celebrations Aizawl, Jan 25 (IANS) | Publish Date: 1/25/2019 12:16:37 PM IST A Mizoram NGOs body announced on Friday that it would boycott the Republic Day celebrations in the state on Saturday in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The NGO Coordination Committee (NCC) would go ahead with its previous decision to boycott the Republic Day celebrations in Mizoram on Saturday to protest the passing of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha earlier this month, NCC Chairman Vanlalruata said. On Thursday, state Home Minister Lalchamliana urged the NCC to refrain from boycotting the celebrations. Vanlalruata said that NCC leaders met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and officials of the Joint Parliamentary Committee last year and demanded that the Bill not be passed. The boycott is to draw the Central governments attention to our demand, he added. While addressing an event on Thursday, Chief Minister Zoramthanga threatened to sever ties with the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) if the Centre does not withdraw the Bill. The states ruling Mizo National Front party is a constituent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led anti-Congress alliance North East Democratic Alliance. Besides MNF, the BJPs electoral partners in Meghalaya, Tripura, Assam and Manipur have also opposed the legislation that was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8. It seeks to grant citizenship to migrants from six non-Muslim minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. MERIDEN The states investigation of an officer-involved shooting in October is expected to be completed soon. New Haven states attorney Patrick J. Griffin said this week he is waiting for a final report from state police, including ballistics testing. Griffin added he has a fairly high degree of confidence we will wrap (the investigation) soon. The amount of time it takes to investigate officer-involved shootings depends on the complexity of the case, Griffin said. It can take investigators upwards of 12 to 18 months to complete an investigation in some cases, while other investigations can wrap up in a matter of weeks. It is standard procedure for state police and prosecutors to investigate when a municipal officer fires a gun. Its a balance because, on one hand, you want it done quickly so the community and everyone involved knows what happened, but on the other hand, you want it done right, Griffin said. An investigation by Fairfield States Attorney John Smriga into a December 2017 fatal officer-involved shooting was just released earlier this month, while an investigation by New Britain States Attorney Brian Preleski of a February 2018 shooting was released in December. The shooting in Meriden occurred Oct. 18 around 10:30 p.m. in the parking lot of CVS Pharmacy on East Main Street. Undercover officers in the citys Crime Suppression Unit shot and injured city resident Ryan Holley, who was armed at the time, after following Holleys 1999 Buick Century in an unmarked SUV for several miles. While following Holley, police observed a gun discharge inside his car. Holley, a registered gun owner with no criminal history, said he accidentally fired his gun while trying to steer his car. The round went through his front windshield, in the opposite direction of the unmarked police vehicle, which was trailing behind Holleys car on the drivers side at the time, according to Holley, who has not been charged in the case. The three officers who fired shots at Holley were Michael Fonda, Ben Pellegrini, and John-Paul Dorais, according to City Manager Tim Coon. The officers were placed on administrative duty following the incident, but Police Chief Jeffry Cossette later returned them to regular duty in December at the recommendation of the States Attorneys Office. Cossette didnt return a request for comment this week. Cossette has previously said the five officers in the unmarked SUV began following Holley as part of an observation or an investigation, but declined to elaborate because state police are investigating. Holley, who is black, alleged in a prior interview that police racially profiled him and a co-worker, who is also black. Cossette called the claim ridiculous and said the situation severely escalated when officers witnessed the gun discharge in Holleys car. Holley said he picked the co-worker up in front of St. Joseph Church on Goodwill Avenue on his way to work at LaserShips courier facility on Research Parkway. Police followed Holleys car for several miles beginning on West Main Street and onto Lewis Avenue, Interstate 691 and Route 15, where Holley exited onto East Main Street and pulled into the parking lot of the CVS Pharmacy. Holley said the officers did not identify themselves before arriving at the CVS parking lot. Holley said he pulled his gun out of his glove compartment because he feared for his life while being followed by the unmarked car. City officials have previously said they want to wait for the investigation to conclude before commenting and Holley couldnt be reached for comment this week. mzabierek@record-journal.com 203-317-2279 Twitter: @MatthewZabierek BERLIN Candidates have entered the race to fill the state Senate seat left vacant when Sen. Terry Gerratana, of New Britain, accepted an appointment as an advisor in the state Office of Health Strategy. Gennaro Bizzarro, a New Britain Republican and attorney, and state Rep. Rick Lopes, D-New Britain, have both been nominated to face off in the Feb. 26 special election for the 6th Senate District, which includes Berlin. I cant deny its going to be a very fast campaign, Lopes said, laughing. He added one of the biggest challenges will be ensuring that voters know theres an election happening at an unusual time of the year. A self-employed contractor running his own property management company, he intends to continue his work to pass legislation to protect small business owners and assist working class people. He has represented New Britains 24th House district since 2012 and said he became familiar with the larger Senate district when working as a legislative aide to former Sen. Don DeFronzo from 2003 to 2011. Theres been economic recovery for wealthy people, but working people have been absolutely stuck, he said. Thats who I am, thats who I represent. John McNamara, a member of the New Britain Democratic Town Committee, said Lopes received unanimous support from the districts 42 delegates and stood out for his success in bringing school funding to the city and opposing the sale of city watershed land to Tilcon to be used in a proposed quarry expansion. Hell be very effective in the state Senate we feel, McNamara said. Prior to holding elected office, Lopes worked as a community organizer for a neighborhood revitalization group in New Britain, as a housing coordinator for the Middletown Chapter of the American Red Cross and as a vocational counselor at the Chrysalis Center in Hartford. He currently serves on the legislatures Finance, Revenue & Bonding, Energy and Technology, and Transportation committees. Bizzarro, meanwhile, vows to bring a new direction to the office. As a first generation American whose parents emigrated from Italy, I was taught the values of hard work, honesty, determination, and the responsibility that we all have to give back to our communities and serve others, Bizzarro said in a statement announcing his intention to seek the nomination. These are the values that fuel my desire to become your next state senator and fight for the residents of the 6th District in Hartford. Bizzarro said he wants to focus on opioid addiction, inequalities in education and municipal aid. We cannot afford to continue down the road we have been on for the past eight years, and that means we cannot keep sending the same people to Hartford and expect a different result, he said. We desperately need an infusion of common sense at the Capitol, and that is exactly what I intend to bring. Gov. Ned Lamont announced that five special elections will be held across the state on Feb. 26 to determine replacements for lawmakers, including Gerratana, who resigned to accept executive branch appointments. Lopes and Bizzarro have faced off before. Lopes edged Bizzarro, 2,925 votes to 2,489, to keep his 24th House District seat in 2014. Lopes said his opponent worked hard in that race and they had kept their campaigning respectful, which they have agreed to do once again this year. New Britain Republican Town Chair Tony Cane said he has been impressed by Bizzarros diligence in cases where he has represented New Britain as the citys corporation counsel and saved the city money in lawsuits. Thats the kind of person we need in Hartford someone that does what's best for the city, Cane said. Anne Reilly, chair of the Berlin Republican Committee, said she endorses Bizzarro. I believe Gennaro has an understanding of how the state operates, and he has the the education, experience, and energy necessary to help our state and our governor tackle the critical issues our state of Connecticut faces today, she said. dleithyessian@record-journal.com 203-317-2317 Twitter: @leith_yessian Sayre, PA (18840) Today Partly cloudy with afternoon showers or thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 84F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 59F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. US and Taliban finalize details of draft peace deal reports US and Taliban finalize details of draft peace deal reports Both sides in the US-Taliban peace talks have made concessions to move closer to a draft agreement to end the 17-year Afghan war, Reuters says, reporting on the meeting in Qatar citing sources. According to the draft, foreign forces are expected to leave the country 18 months from the future signing of the deal. The Taliban offered assurances that Afghanistan would not be used by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State to attack the US and its allies. The group would also engage in talks with the Afghan government when the ceasefire is announced. There has been no official comment from the US. The fate of the current Afghan government, which the Taliban doesnt recognize, is unclear if the US withdraws, a former Pentagon official told RT.Source : RT - Daily news Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, introduces the firm's 5G modem Balong 5000 at a news conference in Beijing on Thursday. [Photo provided to China Daily] Move represents latest push in fueling consumers' interest to upgrade devices Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will unveil its first commercial 5G foldable smartphone in February, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to overtake Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to be the world's largest smartphone vendor. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, said the foldable handset will be equipped with its 5G modem Balong 5000, which the company described as the most powerful 5G modem in the world. Yu said Balong 5000 is the world's first 5G modem that fully supports both non-standalone and standalone 5G network architecture, which can greatly widen its use scenarios. Analysts said the modem is designed to compete with the US chip giant Qualcomm Inc's X50 modem in performance. Huawei underlined that it will not sell Balong 5000 as a standalone product, but just use it in its own smartphones. The 5G foldable smartphone, to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, Spain, is Huawei's latest push to fuel consumers' interest to upgrade their devices after the global smartphone market hits a saturation point. The move also came after Huawei's consumer business posted a record $52 billion in sales in 2018, driven by the strong demand for its premium smartphones. The company shipped more than 200 million units of smartphones worldwide last year and surpassed Apple Inc as the world's second largest smartphone vendor. On Thursday, Huawei, the world's largest telecom equipment maker, also unveiled its first chipset for 5G base stations. The chip, named as Tiangang, can support a bandwidth of 200 megabytes and reduce the weight of a 5G base station by half. Ding Yun, president of Huawei's telecom carrier business group, said the company has shipped over 25,000 5G base stations globally, up from the figure of 10,000 it disclosed in late December. "We have so far acquired 30 5G contracts, with 18 from Europe, nine from the Middle East and three from the Asia-Pacific region," Ding said. Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of the Mobile China Alliance, an industry association, said despite the difficulties Huawei is facing in overseas markets, including cyber security allegations, the company is steadily gaining clients, with more 5G base stations shipped. "The trust between Huawei and some telecom carriers can help the former better navigate the choppy waters. It also reflects Huawei's technological superiority," Wang said. The company's 5G foldable smartphone plan came after its rival Xiaomi Corp unveiled an engineering gadget on Wednesday, which can be bent and rolled to function both as a smartphone and a tablet. "This year will see the first batch of 5G smartphones and foldable handsets respectively. Those which can bring the two together will turn out to be highly competitive in the market," said Fu Liang, an independent telecom analyst. China Mobile, the country's largest telecom carrier, said in December that the first batch of 5G smartphones will be priced at above 8,000 yuan ($1,166), and more than 30 commercial 5G devices are likely to hit the market in 2019. Hong Kong: Govt scheme spurs job-seeking The objective of the Integrated Employment Assistance Programme for Self-reliance is to assist able-bodied Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients in joining the workforce, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said today. Speaking to reporters, Mr Cheung noted the programme will be operated by non-governmental organisations and social workers will assist CSSA recipients aged 60 to 64 in a compassionate manner, helping them to join the workforce, but not forcing them to find jobs. He made it clear the Government will continue to offer CSSA to these recipients and their payments will not be deducted even if they are unable to find work. On his meeting with members of the Legislative Councils pan-democratic camp, Mr Cheung said they had a candid dialogue to clarify misunderstandings on the eligible age for elderly CSSA being adjusted to 65. The lawmakers had requested a meeting with the Chief Executive, which he promised to relay to her. This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The United States are trying to organize a coup in Venezuela and the UN Security councils should look into the threat to Caracas, Russian envoy to the international organization said. The council gathered on Saturday to discuss the situation in the Latin America country where the opposition leader declared himself the head of Venezuela with the support of US and its allies. Russia and three other countries voted against the US putting the crisis in Venezuela on the agenda of the Security Council. Also on rt.com France, Germany & Spain issue identical threats to recognize Venezuelas self-appointed president DETAILS TO FOLLOW Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has told the media that the national oil company NIOC struck light sweet oil in a hitherto untapped oil region. This is the first time weve reached oil in the Abadan region, Zanganeh said, adding that the grade was very light and sweet, but giving no details regarding the amount of reserves contained in the reservoir. Iran has continued to pursue new oil production opportunities despite US sanctions that have reduced its crude oil exports significantly although probably not as significantly, to date, as planned. As of December, Iran was shipping some 1.3 million bpd abroad, the International Energy Agency said in its latest Oil Market Report. Whats more, Tehran still has partners willing to help with the exploration and production growth. Earlier this month, Chinas largest crude oil refiner, Sinopec, offered $3 billion to Irans state oil company, NIOC, to jointly expand the development of a major field in Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources in the know. The sources, who wished to remain unnamed, said the Chinese company considered the offer safe from the sanctions the United States reimposed on Iran last November because the initial deal for the development of the Yadavaran field was inked back in 2007. Sinopec has already invested $2 billion in the development of Yadavaran, with production there standing at 115,000 bpd, while North Azadegan, operated by NIOC and CNPC, started production at a rate of 75,000 bpd two years ago. Last year, a senior Iranian official said Russia, too, is prepared to invest a lot of money in Irans oil and gas industry. One oil company had already, in July, signed a deal to invest $4 billion on Iranian oil projects, with Rosneft and Gazprom also in talks with the Iranian energy ministry on potential deals that could be valued at up to $10 billion. This article was originally published on Oilprice.com Warnings from Germany, France and Spain to recognize the self-proclaimed president of Venezuela unless new elections are held came at the same time and were even similarly worded, Russias FM spokesperson noted. The statements are not simply identical but they are even made simultaneously, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, wrote on Facebook. Earlier on Saturday, Paris, Berlin and Madrid announced their readiness to recognize the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, unless the country holds snap presidential elections within eight days. Also on rt.com Guido? Pompeo mangles name of US-backed Venezuelan president DETAILS TO FOLLOW A mob of angry civilians has attacked a Turkish military camp near the Iraqi city of Dohuk, burning equipment and vehicles. The incident comes in response to the deaths of civilians during Turkish airstrikes, local media reports. Civilians storm & burn Turkish military base in northern Iraq (PHOTOS, VIDEO) Civilians storm & burn Turkish military base in northern Iraq (PHOTOS, VIDEO) Source : RT - Daily news The company that owns the ore mine where a dam broke killing 34 people has been ordered to pay a fine of $66 million, one of the biggest environmental penalties in Brazils history. Dozens of people are still missing. The Brazilian environmental agency Ibama has fined the Vale SA mining company 250 million reals ($66.32 million) for various violations that eventually led to the tailings dam burst at its facility in Brazils southern Minas Gerais region on Friday. The company is accused of causing pollution, making the area unfit for habitation, and other regulatory violations. Also on rt.com At least 7 dead, 150+ missing after dam burst in Brazil (PHOTOS, VIDEO) A state judge also ordered Vale to freeze 5 billion reals ($1.3 billion) on its accounts to pay for the damage caused by the dam rupture. The disaster sent torrents of mud and sludge into the forest and villages below the dam. Scores of people were trapped by the river of sludge that washed away roads and destroyed buildings in its path. The news came as the Brazilian rescue services were still looking for people listed as missing following the catastrophe. Out of 300 people, who were in the area when the dam broke, a third are accounted for. At least 34 people were found dead while the search for others is underway. The region that witnessed the dam burst was still recovering from another incident considered one of the worst disasters in Brazils history. In 2015, another dam in the state of Minas Gerais suffered a catastrophic failure, flooding the river below with toxic iron waste. At least 17 people were killed at that time and hundreds more were displaced. The fine that Vale has to pay following the incident is likely to be one of the biggest such penalties in Brazil, even without the compensation, which was separately ordered by the judge. Also on rt.com BP oil spill caused $17.2bn worth of damage to natural resources study In another high-profile case involving environmental damage, the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras had to pay 100 million reals ($26.49 million) for releasing wastewater from oil production into the ocean in February 2018. In 2011, American energy giant, Chevron, was slapped with a $28 million fine for causing an offshore oil spill. Following the 2015 dam disaster, the mining company that owned the facility, Samarco, was fined 250 million reals ($66.3 million) as well. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Britain rejected Venezuelas request to withdraw $1.2bn in gold stored in the UK, according to reports. It was enough for the self-declared and US-backed president, Juan Guaido, to support the alleged move. The Bank of England blocked Venezuelas attempts to retrieve $1.2 billion worth of gold stored as the nations foreign reserves in Britain, sources told Bloomberg on Friday. According to the media outlet, officials in Caracas have for weeks been trying to withdraw the gold, with Calixto Ortega, the head of Venezuelas central bank, traveling to London in mid-December to seek access to the nations assets. The talks were unsuccessful, as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the national security advisor to President Donald Trump, John Bolton, pressured their British counterparts to freeze the Venezuelan assets, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. By some estimates, Venezuela holds more than $8 billion in foreign reserves. According to earlier reports, the amount of Venezuelan gold kept in the Bank of England doubled in recent months, growing from 14 to 31 tons. The South American nation has reportedly experienced problems in extracting its own gold from the Bank of England in the past. Bankers in Britain were allegedly concerned that Venezuelan officials would sell the state-owned gold for personal gain. The Bank of England, along with press officials for Pompeo and Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, declined to comment. Despite the fact that the story was not confirmed, the alleged move of the British bank was swiftly praised by the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela. The process of protecting the assets of Venezuela has begun, Juan Guaido tweeted. We will not allow more abuse and theft of money intended for food, medicine and the future of our children. Guaido, the speaker of the national parliament, declared himself interim president of the state earlier with week in opposition to Maduro. He was subsequently recognized as the legitimate leader of Venezuela by the US, Canada, and the majority of South American nations. Maduro was backed by states like Mexico, Russia, China, and Turkey. He slammed the US for endorsing Guaido, ordering its diplomats to leave the county. Moscow said it will continue to recognize Maduro as the sole democratically-elected leader of the country and called on others to not allow destructive foreign interference in Venezuelan affairs. Also on rt.com France, Germany & Spain issue identical threats to recognize Venezuelas self-appointed president Venezuela has seen a series of large-scale anti-government protests in recent years. Some of them spiraled into riots and clashes with police. Nicolas Maduro blasted foreign interference as a source behind the unrest, while in particular accusing US officials of endorsing the rallies and Washington of planning to overthrow him. The anti-government protests were met with counter-demonstrations by Maduro supporters. Like this story? Share it with a friend! A patient gets an acupuncture treatment in the state of Ohio, United States. FILE PHOTO As the United States looks for ways to address the nation's opioid epidemic, acupuncturists in California see an opportunity to push their traditional Chinese healing technique into US mainstream medicine. "It opens a door for us," said Sam Huang, a San Francisco-based acupuncturist and activist. "Acupuncture has never been recognized by the US mainstream like now." A US House bill, HR 6, which became law in October, promotes opioid recovery and treatment. The law orders research into barriers to accessing nondrug alternatives to opioids within the Medicare program, a national health insurance program. It mentions acupuncture as one of the alternatives. "It represents the first time in US history that acupuncture has been incorporated into a federal document," said Huang. "It will push acupuncture into the federal insurance program and eventually the US mainstream." Each year, an estimated 42,249 individuals die from overdosing on opioids in the US, according to the Joint Commission, the largest healthcare accreditation body in the US. The organization includes acupuncture as an evidence-based, nonopioid treatment option for pain in its advisory for health providers issued in August. Practiced in China for thousands of years, acupuncture is one of the key components of traditional Chinese medicine to prevent or treat health problems. California became the first state in the US to regulate acupuncture in 1975. Now, 47 of the 50 states have similar regulations. The country has about 38,000 licensed acupuncturists, and one-third of them are of Chinese descent, according to the American Association of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, a San Francisco-based advocacy group. California has 18,000 licensed acupuncturists. Though acupuncture has gained increasing popularity in the US in the past 40 years, its scope of practice in the US is still limited, and most insurance programs don't cover it, said Jun Hu, president of the association. "The American public is still unaware of the real value of acupuncture. Aside from treating chronic pain, such as back pain and neck pain, acupuncture has proved effective treating many other problems, such as stroke, arthritis and depression," she said. Acupuncture stimulates the body to release endorphins, which block pain pathways in the brain, said Hu, who holds a doctorate from the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. While in China, she conducted research on more than 1,000 addiction patients and found acupuncture treatment effective, she said. "However, there's a long way ahead for acupuncture to get into the mainstream," Hu conceded. Acupuncturists in the US prefer to be paid in cash, partly because of insurance system complexities and partly because of low reimbursement rates, she said. Charges for acupuncture services can range from $65 to $150 per session, with a session usually lasting 45 minutes to an hour. Hu's group recently organized a workshop to familiarize acupuncturists with the insurance system. Some 180 acupuncturists in the Bay Area attended. Chunyan Su, who runs a clinic in Oakland, drove 64 kilometers to attend the workshop in Sunnyvale. "Most of my clients are car accident patients suffering from pain and numbness," she said. "They told us that accepting insurance can double our clients and revenues." Another big challenge for acupuncturists is "dry needling", said Hu. Dry needling is a technique in which physical therapists use needles to treat pain and impairment of movement due to knotted muscles. While acupuncture licensing in California requires 3,000 hours of classroom and clinical training, a physical therapist can practice dry needling after completing dozens of hours of training, according to Huang. "Dry needling not only hurt the interests of acupuncturists but also poses health risks for patients," said Huang, vice-chairman of American Alliance for Professional Acupuncture Safety, a multistate union of acupuncture associations and schools. China's top legislator Li Zhanshu held talks with Maya Fernandez Allende, president of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies, in Beijing Friday. Hailing the traditional friendship between the two countries, Li, chairman of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said the precious experience of bilateral friendship should be passed down and carried forward. "We are glad to see that China-Chile relations have been upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership and have yield cooperative results in various fields," said Li, adding that those achievements were derived from "sincere treatment, mutual respect and trust, complementary advantages, mutually beneficial and win-win results" between the two countries. China-Chile relations will embrace new opportunities in the next two years, said the top legislator, calling on the two sides to enhance friendly cooperation in various fields and promote comprehensive strategic partnership for continued development featuring exchanges of two heads of state and jointly building the Belt and Road. "China stands ready to work with Chile and countries around the world to build a community of a shared future featuring equality, mutual benefit and common development, but not targeting or excluding any third party," he said. On enhancing cooperation between the two legislative bodies, Li called on the NPC and the National Congress of Chile to continue to give full play to the political communication committee, expand experience exchanges on legislation, supervision and governance, guarantee the joint construction of the Belt and Road and expansion of economic and trade cooperation in compliance with rule of law, optimize the business environment, and promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between the two countries. Fernandez said the National Congress of Chile stands ready to work with the NPC of China to continue to give full play to communication mechanism and platform, explore cooperation potential, facilitate people-to-people exchanges, and constantly enrich the connotation of bilateral relations. She said Chile will, as always, adhere to the one-China policy. It has only grown worse. In 2017, nearly 50,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses. The number of opioid deaths in the United States has more than quadrupled since 2002. In New Castle County, more of our residents died from opioid use in the first nine months of 2018 than in all of 2016. With the scrutiny and controversy associated with officer-involved shootings, many district attorneys, including those in Lehigh and Northampton counties, have typically chosen to release an officers name at the end of an investigation, even if the shooting is ruled justified. Engler, who said the investigation included interviews with dozens of witnesses, both civilians and police, and a review of physical and forensic evidence, said concern for the officers safety did not factor into her decision. According to a 1997 Associated Press story of the trial, Samuel was angry with his mother after she stopped a bank withdrawal of $29,000 that Samuel persuaded his grandfather to make for him. Samuels grandparents had given him money before, the story noted, and bought him a sport utility vehicle. The Lehigh Valley business, known for its New York-style, hand-rolled and kettle-boiled bagels, is looking to open two eateries one next month on the lower level of Lehigh Valley Mall (near Boscovs) in Whitehall Township and another in late summer at 434 Cattell St. in Eastons College Hill neighborhood, according to John Zohir, who operates the business with his wife, Sarah Zohir. Russia is ready to act as a mediator in improving relations between the authorities and the opposition of Venezuela, a senior Russian diplomat said Friday. "If our efforts are needed, we are ready for these efforts, (and) we have no problems with that," RIA Novosti quoted Alexander Schetinin, director of the Latin American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, as saying. The news agency did not specify whether Russia had made an official offer. Schetinin said that right now Russian officials do not plan contacts with the speaker of the Venezuelan parliament, Juan Guaido, who has declared himself the new president of Venezuela and was recognized as such by the United States and several other countries. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone conversation with incumbent Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, "expressed support for the legitimate Venezuelan authorities amid the worsening of the internal political crisis provoked from outside the country," according to a Kremlin statement. Schetinin said that the crisis in Venezuela must be resolved by the Venezuelan people by peaceful means and in accordance with the country's constitutional procedures. "We believe that now the task is to avoid any external influence, especially military on the internal situation in Venezuela," Schetinin said. On Jan. 10, Maduro was sworn in before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to begin a new six-year term. Maduro on Wednesday announced he was severing "diplomatic and political" ties with the United States after the U.S. authorities recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nation's interim president. The announcement came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Guaido as interim president in a statement issued by the White House. In addition, Trump has not ruled out the military option. He told reporters later in the day that "all options are on the table." Ten cadres of the New Peoples Army waging war with government forces have surrendered, handing over high-powered firearms to military officials in Iligan City and Davao Occidental. The 10 NPA rebels were part of Guerilla Front 71 operating in the outskirts of Malita town, Davao Occidental and in the hinterlands of Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur. They decided to return to the folds of the law separately to army officials Wednesday and Sunday. In Iligan City, six NPA members voluntarily turned over an M4 carbine rifle, one Ingram sub-machine gun, a caliber .22 and caliber .45 pistols an acceptance rites presided by Lt. Col. Jasper Edward Obar, commander of the Armys 51st Infantry Battalion. Brig. Gen. Thomas Sedano, chief of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade which has jurisdiction over the 51st IB, said that the NPAs will be given appropriate economic benefits from the government. We will ensure for their enrollment to the Enhance Comprehensive Local Integration Program of the government for them to return into the mainstream society, Sedano said. In Sarangani province, four NPAs from Guerilla Front 71 yielded to the troops of the 73rd Infantry Battalion in Barangay Upper Suyan, Malapatan and Barangay Little Baguio, Malita, Davao Occicdental. Col. Marion Ancao, commander of the 73rd Infantry Battalion, identified the rebels a certain Klawag, and Rebred, both residents of Barangay Upper Suyan; Jason and Rusi of Barangay Kiham. The four NPAs handed over an M16 rifle, a .38 pistol, one carbine and caliber .357mm pistol. Ancao said the rebels decided to yield because they claimed that the NPA leadership failed to provide family support, coupled by the hardships they had experienced. was not there. All we experienced are hardship, hunger and fear, said Ancao, quoting the rebels. He said that the increasing number of NPA surrenderees brings hope that the NPA force will weaken soon. The continuous armed struggle will only bring death, misery, anger, and poverty. The people of Sarangani deserve to have a peaceful environment, said Maj. Gen. Jose Faustino Jr., commander of 10th Infantry Division. In other developments, the military, backed by police, has launched a manhunt against communist rebels who ambushed government forces in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat on Thursday morning. According to Major. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana, commander of the Armys 6th Infantry Division (6ID), two soldiers of the 2nd Marine Battalion Landing Team (MBLT-2), were slightly injured in the 8:30 a.m. ambush in Sitio Ugangawon, Barangay Datu Ito Andong of Kalamansig town. The ambush displayed the New Peoples Armys [NPA] insincerity in talking peace with the Duterte administration, Sobejana said. The Marines are working under the area of responsibility of the 6ID in Sultan Kudarat with the two injured soldiers being part of the Marine unit conducting a patrol in Barangay Datu Ito Andong. Sobejana, citing reports from MBLT-2 of the 1st Marine Brigade based in Kalamansig, said the Marines were on board a KM-450 military truck passing by Sitio Ugangawon, Barangay Datu Ito when an anti-personnel mine exploded. The blast was followed by a series of gun fire from communist rebels positioned at an elevated portion of the highway. As the Marines returned fire, the terrorists quickly fled deep into the forest. A follow-up operation led to the recovery of an anti-personnel mine at the blast site. Sobejana, also chief of the military-led Task Force Central, has directed troops to intensify operations against NPA rebels who repeatedly tried to harass government forces. Recently, the rebels torched several heavy equipment of a construction firm on road projects in Barangay Hinalaan, Kalamansig, for refusal to pay revolutionary taxes. Destruction of civilian-owned equipment has nothing to do with AFP operations.These terrorist acts must be stopped, the military will not allow this to continue, Sobejana said. The US and the EU have declared the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group. The Armed Forces of the Philippines, meanwhile, said that with the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) in full blast, it is now time for dissatisfied New Peoples Army (NPA) communist rebels to surrender. Our advice is for them to get out and surrender while they can and avail of the governments E-CLIP. They will be accorded the relocation and security for their safety. Its the best time to change the course of their lives. Abandon the armed struggle and take charge of your future, stressed by Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) public affairs office chief, Col. Noel Detoyato said. Commenting on reports that many rebel fighters want to surrender but are afraid to do so due to threats from their erstwhile comrades, Detoyato said the NPA is known to deal harshly with those thinking of surrendering to government forces. They are always being guarded and watched. They are also threatened. This was the same scenario when they conducted Oplan Ahos, which resulted in countless deaths, which was done to get rid of those who were suspected to be spies, he added. Oplan Ahos took place from 1985 to 1986 and resulted in the death of an estimated 600 rebels in Mindanao. The E-CLIP is the flagship program of the Duterte administration that seeks to effect social healing and national unity through a whole-of-nation approach towards the higher objective of having just and lasting peace. It provides social equity to former members of the Communist Party of the Philippines NPA National Democratic Front and the Militia ng Bayan by devising a different mode of providing benefits and services to the former rebels (FRs), to reintegrate them into mainstream society. These benefits do not serve as an end, but rather a means to aid the FRs in securing a foothold in restarting their lives. The NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) armed wing, is listed as a terrorist organization in the United States and the European Union. Govt can secure surrendering NPA rebels: Lorenzana By Priam Nepomuceno January 25, 2019, 12:41 pm Share As this developed, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that the government and the military are more than ready to secure members of the CPP-NPA who are ready to surrender and rejoin their loved ones and families in mainstream society. Lorenzana issued the statement when asked if the government and the military are capable of protecting NPA members who want to surrender but are afraid to go ahead with their plan due to threats from their comrades. Sure we can. We have people in all areas ready to help them: the local elected officials, police, military, DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development), in fact the whole government machinery. Earlier, the defense chief said the threat posed by the CPP-NPA is waning, due to the localized peace talks and Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program. These strategies are responsible for the surrender of NPA regular members and supporters last year. Lorenzana earlier said that the NPA is no longer a formidable force as its numbers have been greatly reduced. They are not that strong because their number is only about less than 6,000. About 1,000 armed rebels (have) already surrendered, so the remaining is 4,000. But their militia is big -- those who support them. If we reckon, we estimate that there are about 50,000 nationwide militia who support them. These militia are what we want to get, he added. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying [File Photo: fmprc.gov.cn] Chinese authorities are calling on the United States to abide by the one-China policy, while at the same time, carefully handle any Taiwan-related questions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying has issued the warning after two American naval vessels passed through the Taiwan Strait earlier this week. "China closely followed and had knowledge of the entire course of the U.S. warships passing through the Taiwan Strait. China has already expressed to the U.S. side that it is deeply concerned about what happened. The Taiwan issue is the most important and most sensitive issue for the China-U.S. relationship. We urge the U.S. side to abide by the One China Principle and the Three Communiques, and carefully and appropriately manage the Taiwan issue in order to avoid damaging the China-U.S. relationship and the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait," said Hua. A Guided-missile destroyer and its companion vessel sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday. US military officials have also released a statement, contending the manuever is "in accordance with international law." Support Local Journalism The Malibu community needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please help keep us in print by making a contribution. The public will have input on a proposed bypass connecting highways 67 and 51 south of Arkadelphia. Erica Michelle Shryock has been charged with aggravated assault on a family or household member. Mexican officials promised Friday to provide protection to asylum seekers who are sent back across the border from the United States under a new Trump administration policy, even though it could force the migrants to wait months or even years while their cases are considered by U.S. courts. The Mexican government does not agree with the unilateral measure implemented by the United States government, Roberto Velasco, a spokesman for Mexicos foreign ministry, said in a statement. However ... we reiterate our commitment to migrants and human rights. Velasco said the U.S. Embassy informed Mexican officials that 20 Central American asylum-seekers would be returned to Mexico on Friday afternoon at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the largest border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana. At the border on Friday, no official return appeared to be underway. But other migrants who were waiting on the Mexican side for their chance to lodge asylum claims with U.S. officials said they were deeply worried about the new policy. Advertisement It will be horrible, said a man from Cameroon who said he had been imprisoned and tortured by his government back home. He asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. The man said he wouldnt have a place to sleep if U.S. authorities turned him back to Tijuana to await the outcome of his case. He said he had slept under a bridge the night before. A group of asylum-seekers from Eritrea, an isolated African country that has been described as a dictatorship, were also worried about what would happen to them. We dont want to come back here, said one of the migrants, who also asked not to be named. Officials in Tijuana also expressed anger at the new policy, saying the city could be inundated by migrants returned from the border. Leopoldo Guerrero Diaz, secretary of the Tijuana government, called on the Mexican federal government to take responsibility for asylum seekers required to wait in Mexico. I hope that the federal government will assume its responsibility, especially with funding, which is the most important, he said. City officials have chafed since the arrival last year of several large caravans of migrants, most from Central America. After the U.S. dramatically slowed its intake of asylum requests last year, migrants have had to wait weeks or months for the opportunity to plead their cases with officials at the border. Advertisement In the past, migrants who were deemed by authorities as having a credible fear of returning to their home countries were detained for months or released into the U.S. while they waited for their hearing. But under the new U.S. plan, which the Trump administration says is designed to reduce abuse of the asylum system, those migrants would have to wait in Mexico. Migrant advocates on both sides of the border complain that the plan would put migrants at risk by pushing them into dangerous Mexican border cities that have some of the highest homicide rates in the world. Why and how are asylum seekers entering the U.S.? A record number of people were slain in Tijuana last year, more than in any other city in Mexico. In December, two Honduran teenagers who had traveled with a migrant caravan here were strangled, their bodies dumped. Advertisement Other Mexican border areas are under tight control of criminal groups. Migrants in the state of Tamaulipas have been killed, kidnapped, extorted from, and even forcibly recruited to work for cartels, authorities say. In 2010, 72 migrants were killed by members of a cartel about 100 miles south of the border city of Reynosa. On Friday, the leading Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees released a statement decrying the new plan. The Trump administration is on a mission to take apart the asylum system, which was developed after the horrors of World War II to ensure persecuted people have an opportunity to petition our government for safety, said the statement by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). The basic responsibility owed to those seeking asylum under U.S. and international law is that people fleeing for their lives cannot be turned away without a chance to make their case, they said. Advertisement U.S. and Mexican authorities met three times this month to plan the logistics of the returns, Velasco said. In those meetings, the U.S. said the return of migrants would begin at the San Ysidro port of entry and then be gradually expanded to other parts of the border, he said. Velasco stressed that Mexico has not made a Safe Third Country agreement with the United States. Under such an agreement, Central Americans would be barred from traveling across Mexico to apply for asylum in the U.S. Mexico, whose new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has called for more humane treatments of migrants, believes that the key to reducing migration is improving the conditions of migrants home countries, Velasco said. We maintain that the basic solution to migration will be achieved by promoting the development of communities of origin of migrants, migration should be a choice and not a necessity. Advertisement Morrissey, who writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune, reported from Tijuana and Times staff writer Linthicum from Mexico City. Union-Tribune staff writers Wendy Fry and Sandra Dibble in San Diego contributed to this report. kate.linthicum@latimes.com Twitter: @katelinthicum The United States on Saturday urged the United Nations Security Council to recognize a Venezuelan opposition leader as the countrys president to replace authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, but Russia quickly voiced stiff opposition to the move. Late in the day, an immediate clash between the U.S. and Venezuela was averted when Maduros government announced that it was stepping back from a Sunday deadline it had set for U.S. diplomats to leave the country. Instead, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said, it had negotiated a 30-day delay during which the two nations would seek to establish interests offices in each country. The U.S. had initially said it would defy the order issued Wednesday but then began moving out nonessential personnel. At the emergency U.N. session called by the U.S., Moscow and Washington clashed openly over what the Trump administration characterized as a return to democracy, and what Russia labeled an illegal coup that meddled in a sovereign nations domestic affairs. The time is now to support the Venezuelan people, recognize the new democratic government led by interim President [Juan] Guaido, and end this nightmare, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo told the Security Council in New York. No excuses. Advertisement Pompeo emphasized the humanitarian catastrophe that Venezuela is suffering, blaming Maduro and his looting of government coffers for plunging Venezuelans into abject poverty, starvation and death. He then segued into a core concern for the Trump administration: the financial, political and military support the Maduro government receives from Russia, China and, especially, Cuba. Its not a surprise that those who rule without democracy in their own countries are trying to prop up Maduro while he is in dire straits, Pompeo said. Saturdays session was not aimed at producing a resolution, as Russia would probably veto, but to air the issue and measure support for one side or the other. The Trump administration recognized the 35-year-old Guaido on Wednesday, when he proclaimed himself interim president because of his role as head of the National Assembly, and as tens of thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets of Caracas in protest of Maduro. The U.S. immediately granted the Guaido forces $20 million in humanitarian aid in an attempt to shore up its claim on power. Pompeo called for other members of the Security Council to back Guaido as interim president while Venezuela moves through a transition government to new, free elections. The most recent elections, last year, which gave Maduro a second six-year term, were regarded as a sham by most international observers. Now, it is time for every other nation to pick a side, Pompeo said. No more delays; no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or youre in league with Maduro and his mayhem. The U.S. position received support of varying degrees from about half a dozen of the councils 15 countries, including France and Germany, which said they would recognize Guaido unless Maduro calls new elections within eight days. In addition to Russia, at least three other countries were strongly opposed; several abstained. No formal resolution was drafted. Advertisement Venezuela, which is not a member of the Security Council, was represented in the session by Maduros foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, who condemned what he cited as Washingtons long history of arrogant interventionism. I cannot say the United States was behind this coup, Arreaza said. No. The United States was not behind but at the forefront of the coup! In the vanguard! Giving the orders! In the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, Guaido expressed thanks for the international support and promised not to abandon his effort to chase Maduro from office. Speaking at a rally of about 2,000 followers in the affluent Las Mercedes neighborhood, he paid special thanks to the United Kingdom, which he said has refused to turn over $1.2 billion in gold to the Maduro government. The decision of the Bank of England to not return gold to the usurpers is the beginning of the protection of Venezuelan assets, Guaido said. We are not going to permit more abuses and that they rob the money, food and medicines of Venezuelans. The [gold] does not belong to the government, it should be used to attend to the health and feeding of Venezuelans. Advertisement He also took an informal vote among those present on a proposed amnesty law that he has promoted in the National Assembly. The majority there expressed support for the proposal to exonerate members of the police and military who support the oppositions restitution of democracy while forcing the release of political prisoners. According to the civil society group Penal Forum in Caracas, Maduro is holding 281 political prisoners. The immediate effect of an amnesty law is questionable as a rival constitutional assembly Maduro formed in 2017 has taken over powers claimed by the freely elected National Assembly headed by Guaido. On Tuesday, Maduros constitutional assembly declared null and void all legislative acts by the National Assembly, including Guaidos designation as president. At the U.N., an effort by the U.S. to sponsor a joint presidential statement of support for Guaido was blocked by Russia and China, Pompeo said. Advertisement Russia then sought to stop Saturdays session before it started, saying Venezuelas internal politics were not a rightful topic for the Security Council to review. The Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vassily Nebenzia, said that doing so was a gross abuse of Security Council members power in support of the shameless and aggressive actions of the United States and its allies. Speaking later in the full Security Council session, Nebenzia invoked U.S. attempts to control politics in Latin America through the generations as proof of Washingtons true goals now: a change of government as a favorite game, he said. Pompeo stared icily at Nebenzia as he spoke. The administration sought to underscore the seriousness with which it regards the Venezuela crisis by dispatching Pompeo to Saturdays meeting. The secretary of State only rarely makes such an appearance, although the United States is without an ambassador to the U.N. after the resignation of Nikki Haley at the end of last year. Advertisement Pompeo was accompanied by his newly appointed special envoy for Venezuela, veteran U.S. diplomatic hawk Elliott Abrams. Abrams, who served in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, was an unusual choice. His efforts to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua in the 1980s ultimately failed and landed him in a criminal case as part of the notorious Iran-Contra scandal that exposed illicit U.S. activities. Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress. Abrams debuted his new role Saturday, speaking toward the end of the session after Pompeo had departed. He lashed out at Arreaza and the Russians for referring to countries that support the U.S. as satellites. The true satellite here, Abrams said, is Venezuela. A satellite of Cuba. , Advertisement Times staff writer Wilkinson reported from Washington and special correspondent Mogollon from Caracas. The Venezuelan lawmaker who declared himself acting president set about consolidating his tenuous hold on power and building support where he could find it amid the national chaos on Friday, as U.S. diplomats and their families began leaving the country. Juan Guaido vowed to convene street protests to force President Nicolas Maduro to resign, and told cheering crowds that if he were arrested they should continue without him. In his first public speech since Wednesday, when he proclaimed himself Venezuelas legitimate leader in a massive protest march in the capital, Caracas, the 35-year-old president of the National Assembly tried to capitalize on discontent with the Maduro government while making the case that a better future was within reach. On Jan. 23, all Venezuelans awoke from a nightmare and from thinking we were trapped, Guaido said. The regiment tries to plant doubts, but when hope is born, doubts dont matter. They are mistaken if they think this movement will collapse or that we will tire. We will recover not only the Venezuela we had but also the one we will have in the future. Advertisement But tensions between Guaido and Maduro, who won reelection in a vote widely criticized as a sham, deepened as Maduro showcased his backing from Venezuelas top military brass hours after President Trump and much of Latin America sided with Guaido. Maduro insisted he was not going anywhere. Reasons for discontent in the country are varied, with Venezuelans daily lives in disarray. The health system has virtually collapsed, public transport is almost nonexistent, and a crime wave has emptied streets in the capital after dark. Electricity and water services regularly break down, and food scarcities have forced thousands of Venezuelans to scavenge garbage dumps for sustenance. In his discourse, Guaido has mixed cool defiance while offering hope for a better future amid a polarized political scene. That and his fresh face have vaulted him to a leadership position among Venezuelans longing for a way out of the crisis that has sent more than 2 million people fleeing the country in search of better lives. On Friday, he repeated his demands that a transitional government be formed and that new, free elections be held. Banners that festooned Bolivar Plaza read President Guaido and Venezuela Liberty. More than liberator, I want to be a public servant for you to transform the country, Guaido said. He has urged nonviolent protest, though the Wednesday marches have led to some confrontations. At the start of his talk he called for a moment of silence for 26 people who have died since Wednesday in clashes with police and the national guard. According to civil society groups, 369 people have been arrested. The United States, which agreed with findings of a rigged election, began to evacuate its embassy of nonessential personnel Friday in response to Maduros expulsion order this week. The decision was an apparent reversal of the U.S. governments initial decision to defy Maduros order and retain the embassy staff. Guaido said he was encouraging U.S. diplomats to stay. In Washington, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo announced Friday he was naming Elliott Abrams to be point man for the Venezuela campaign. Abrams, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, was caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s that exposed illicit U.S. government support for rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. He pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress. Advertisement Guaido thanked the dozens of countries that have recognized him as Venezuelas legitimate president, including the United States, some members of the European Union and several Latin American nations. He said he would not permit the Maduro government to squander Venezuelan assets abroad, a possible reference to the Citgo refining operation in the United States that the Maduro government has loaded with increasing debt in recent years. Guaido spoke at an event billed as a news conference that became a political rally attended by about 3,000 supporters in Bolivar Plaza in the affluent Chacao area of Caracas. Before addressing the crowd, Guaido stopped in a church adjoining the plaza for a brief prayer. Despite having waited more than 2 hours past the scheduled start for Guaido to appear, the crowd greeted him enthusiastically. Maduro also held a news conference Friday in which he called on his base to remain firm, attributing Guaidos popularity to the international media that has made invisible the chavista power that supports me, in the face of what I consider a coup detat. Chavista is the general term for Venezuelan socialist policies named for Maduros late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who promoted the countrys Bolivarian revolution. I have broken relations with the government of Donald Trump, but not with the United States, Maduro said, adding that his government would continue to sell oil to U.S. refineries, its principal destination. Russia, China, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Turkey and Mexico have said they support Maduro. Advertisement Guaido promised to call for another nationwide march next week to keep the pressure on Maduro. He called for supporters to print versions of a new law guaranteeing amnesty to members of the armed forces who contribute a reestablishment of the democratic and constitutional order and deliver them to police stations and army bases on Sunday. The law was widely interpreted as a means of encouraging the armed forces to resist Maduro. We will return to the streets. Those who think the streets have cooled off will be disappointed, Guaido said. We will keep with the struggle until the usurpation ends. But the Maduro government has so far paid little attention to the oppositions demonstrations. Nationwide protests in 2017 were put down with violently repressive measures, leaving 156 dead, 15,000 injured and 4,000 arrested. Guaido said he was aware that he might be arrested to halt the movement for change, in which case he urged his supporters to continue with peaceful tactics. Advertisement In Miraflores [the presidential palace], they think this movement will collapse, but no one is tiring; here no one is giving up, Guaido said. They may be able to cut the flower, but never will they keep spring from coming. The Trump administration will make the case for recognizing Guaido at a special session of the United Nations Security Council in New York on Saturday. Russia and China are likely to veto any Security Council resolution. Mogollon is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington and another special correspondent in Caracas contributed to this report. In a last-minute solution to a crisis threatening the stability of the Gaza Strip, Muhammed Emadi, a Qatari diplomat, announced that $20 million in donated funds would be transferred to a Qatari charitable foundation in Gaza on Monday. The money is then expected to be distributed to humanitarian projects in coordination and full cooperation with the United Nations, he said. The funds were initially earmarked for delivery last week, but were delayed when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would stop the transfer after a sniper shooting from Gaza struck an Israel army officer stationed at the border. Netanyahu faces considerable pushback from right-wing coalition partners wary of being labeled accessories to terrorism, if the money, which is intended to be handed directly to workers who are owed salaries, ended up instead in the pockets of Hamas, the militant organization that rules the Gaza Strip. Advertisement Near midnight on Thursday, the Israeli Cabinet voted to authorize the transfer that Israeli military advisors said was vital to keep the volatile, blockaded enclaves 2 million inhabitants from economic desperation and violence. Hamas immediately rejected the Qatari funds, saying the tardy Israeli approval amounted to an attempt to extort the resistance. Netanyahu delayed the transfer of funds to grab more electoral votes, said Khalil Hayya, a Hamas leader. Emadi said Friday that the funds stalled by the standoff would instead be transferred to the Gaza office of the Qatar Charity. At a Friday news conference, Emadi echoed Hamas, accusing Israel of exploiting the humanitarian aid for the internal elections campaign. The aid will help improve Gazans quality of life, he said, by being used primarily for electricity, sewage stations and delivering aid to tens of thousands of poor families and other necessary humanitarian projects. Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade of Gaza since Hamas, an Islamist militia, seized power in 2007. Hamas initiated weekly protests last March, two months after President Trump announced the transfer of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which he recognized as the nations capital. Advertisement During the last year, the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized government based in Ramallah, in the West Bank, has enacted crippling sanctions intended to subdue or eliminate its adversary, Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by most Western countries. The measures have limited Gaza, already hobbled by mass unemployment, to three to four hours of electricity a day and unending shortages of electricity and water. Emadis plans to alleviate the crisis have been in effect since November. A previous transfer of Qatari funds took place Dec. 6. Advertisement Attending a Gaza demonstration against Israeli troops on Friday in which one Palestinian protester was killed, Anis Dohal, 54, a civil servant, noted that he had not been paid in 54 days. I support a large family of six, he said. We understand the pressure exerted on Hamas over the Qatari money, but we also want our salaries. Special correspondent Rushdi Abou Alouf contributed to this report from Gaza City and special correspondent Tarnopolsky reported from Jerusalem. Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message on the launch of the China-Laos Tourism Year 2019 in Vientiane on Friday, expressing his hope for deepening understanding and friendship between the two peoples. Noting that China and Laos enjoy mutual political support, comprehensive economic cooperation and constant deepening of traditional friendship, Xi said China views Laos as a good neighbor, friend, comrade and partner. He also said China is willing to work with the Laotian side to better dovetail development strategies, enhance cooperation on Belt and Road construction, and promote the China-Laos comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation to achieve new fruits. China and Laos both have brilliant cultures and beautiful sceneries, Xi said. People of both countries, drinking water from the same river, have the strong aspiration to deepen mutual understanding and friendship, the Chinese president added. Xi said he hopes the two countries will take the chance of holding the year of tourism to expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges, and to consolidate the public and social basis for the building of a China-Laos community of shared future. The agreement to hold the China-Laos Tourism Year was reached during the talks between Xi and visiting Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit in Beijing in May 2018. Both sides will jointly hold exhibitions, artistic performances, forums, training programs and other events, to promote mutual understanding and friendship, as well as to make contributions to building a China-Laos community of shared future. Abdul Alim spent less than a week working inside the 370-foot-deep coal mine before deciding hed had enough. The pit was too dangerous, the risk of flooding too great, the safety equipment nonexistent. When a boss brought him and other workers to a market one evening to buy supplies, Alim told him he wanted to look for a belt. He and another miner slipped into the crowd and fled, hitching a ride and traveling 12 hours back home to their villages in northeastern India. Three days later came news of what Alim had feared: The mine had collapsed and filled with water, trapping 15 workers. Six weeks after the Dec. 13 collapse, Indian navy divers and rescue workers have found the remains of two bodies deep in the mine shaft but are still searching for the others. Anguished family members presume all the men are dead. Advertisement The disaster in Meghalaya a rugged state rich in minerals, whose benefits have eluded the vast majority of its people has prompted a new reckoning over rat hole mines, named for the suffocatingly narrow tunnels that miners plow into the hillsides to extract coal. Indian National Disaster Response Force personnel gather around a crane during rescue operations to help 15 men trapped by flooding in an illegal coal mine in Ksan village in northeastern India. (AFP/Getty Images) The risky method has been used in Meghalaya for decades, even after an Indian environmental court in 2014 ordered a halt to all coal extraction in the state after the deaths of 15 men in another rat hole mine. Though it is illegal, mining in Meghalaya has continued under the sanction of influential politicians many of whom are mine owners and because of a nearly endless supply of laborers willing to brave the dark channels to dig out a material that remains Indias most important energy source. I thought something like this would happen, Alim, 28, said in the dirt courtyard of a neighbors house in Magurmari, a gray farming village along a river in western Meghalaya, where chickens and barefoot toddlers roam the sole dirt road. Nowhere has been hit as hard by the collapse as this hamlet of fewer than 1,500 people: Of the 15 missing miners, five hail from Magurmari. They had been recruited by a sardar, or manager, who promised handsome salaries for working in the rat holes. Alim had expected about $700 for a months work at the mine at Ksan in the Jaintia Hills, 40 miles southeast of the state capital, Shillong. The others were as scared as me, Alim said, but they didnt dare to leave because of pressure from the manager, and because they needed the money. Advertisement Abdul Alim, 28, fled an illegal coal mine in Ksan, in northeastern India, days before the mine collapsed Dec. 13, 2018, trapping 15 men inside. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) The lions share of the states mining wealth accrues to a small, politically connected elite what Indias National Green Tribunal in its 2014 ruling referred to as coal mafias. The Meghalaya government has said it stood to lose nearly $100 million in annual revenue because of the ban, and even after the latest mine collapse has argued for the moratorium to be lifted. This month, the states top official, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, said that while the environment and safety of miners must be given priority, he didnt see a mining ban as a solution right now. Even as India embarks on some of the largest solar energy projects in the world, coal still supplies 57% of the energy needs of its fast growing economy. Advertisement The fossil fuel found in northeastern India accounts for only about 1% of the countrys total coal production, and is too sulfurous and generates too much carbon to be burned in power plants. It is mainly used to power paper mills, cement factories and other small enterprises across a region that lacks major industries and has long been economically and politically distant from New Delhi. Coal is one of the only major business opportunities in Meghalaya, said Om Prakash Singh, an environmental studies professor at North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong. Its not going to make any difference in the economy of the country, but it is very lucrative for some local people. Along the rutted, two-lane highways surrounding Meghalayas mining regions, giant mounds of freshly dug coal are piled up in windswept fields and at weigh stations. In November, when Singh joined a panel of court-appointed experts to survey the states compliance with the mining ban, officials insisted against all logic that the coal visible from the roads had been mined before 2014, and was therefore legal to transport and sell. Two weeks ago, Indias Supreme Court ordered a one-month freeze on transporting coal in the state. Advertisement Freshly mined coal is seen out of the window of a car traveling in Indias Meghalaya state, where mining has continued despite a 2014 court order. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Unlike in other parts of India, where coal is extracted from large, open-cast mines that denude entire landscapes, the coal in Meghalaya lies in thin bands running beneath low, rocky hills. Miners must descend vertical shafts hundreds of feet deep with the aid of bamboo ladders or cranes, then use pickaxes to burrow horizontally into the earth to reach coal seams that often measure only a few feet across. They crawl into the rat holes barely wider than the distance between a mans shoulders in teams of two, the second miner loading the coal onto a small wooden cart. Cranes usually hoist the dark lumps to the surface in conical baskets; other times, the miners carry the coal out on their backs. To negotiate the tight passageways, local bosses recruited migrants and underage labor from as far away as Nepal. At the start of this decade, one advocacy group estimated that 70,000 children were working in the mines. Advertisement That practice has all but ended, activists said, but miners in Meghalaya still use little science and even less safety equipment. Alim, who has worked in several mines, said he had never been trained nor given so much as a flashlight to navigate the dank, slippery tunnels filled with stale, toxic air. When accidents happen, the mine owners dont bother much, Singh said. They can find laborers from anywhere. Abdul Karim Sheik said he was 17 when he started working in the mines a decade ago alongside his older brother. At age 21, he was picking his way through a rat hole when a chunk of rock loosened from above and crushed his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed and dependent on a wheelchair. Abdul Karim Sheik was paralyzed in an accident in a rat hole mine in northeastern Indias Meghalaya state. His younger brother, Abdul Kalam Sheik, is among 15 men missing in a flooded mine in the village of Ksan. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement In November, a recruiter arrived in the village and offered his brother, 32-year-old Abdul Kalam Sheik, a job at the mine in Ksan. His wife was pregnant with their second child, and with their father weakening because of age, there was no one else in the family to earn a living. Abdul Karim Sheik said he urged him not to go, but he insisted, saying he could support us. The older brother and Alim were among about 20 miners who arrived at Ksan in early December. Alim recalled his alarm when he noticed that abandoned mines nearby had filled with water an indication that earlier rat holes had collapsed. Activists say that because of unchecked mining and runoff, sulfur from the coal has seeped into rivers and streams. Last year, a report by Agnes Kharshiing, head of the Shillong-based Civil Society Womens Organization, found high levels of water pollution and deforestation in the Jaintia Hills, home to most of the states coal. Advertisement In November, Kharshiing and her colleague Anita Sangma who is no relation to the chief minister were photographing illegal mining in the hills when they came under attack from about two dozen mine owners and bosses. The mob struck Kharshiing with stones and sticks, leaving her unconscious and bleeding heavily from the scalp. Were going to finish her, Sangma recalled some of the assailants saying. The women recognized one of the men as Nidamon Chullet, a leader of the National Peoples Party, which governs the state in alliance with Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party. Kharshiing would spend a month in the hospital before being released. The attack was particularly shocking in Meghalaya, a predominantly matrilineal society that teaches respect for women. Activist Agnes Kharshiing was assaulted by a mob in November 2018 and badly injured for attempting to expose illegal mining activities in Indias Meghalaya state. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement It was not just an attack against me, but a signal to others, she said as she lay in bed recovering, her torso wrapped in a brace. She has not remained silent: Last week, she and fellow activists released another report that named several prominent politicians who allegedly owned or were otherwise connected to illegal mines, including four ministers in Sangmas government. Police arrested six people in the attack against her, including the mine owner. On Christmas Day, Chullet surrendered to authorities. The National Green Tribunal this month ordered the state to pay a $14-million fine for failing to curb illegal mining. State officials said they would challenge the ruling even as two men died in a separate mine tragedy in the first week of January. Advertisement The families of the men missing at Ksan blame state officials for what happened. After the collapse Dec. 13, it took nearly two weeks for high-powered pumps to arrive to speed up the removal of water from the chasm. According to Indian news reports, the delay was partly due to officials going on vacation over Christmas in the majority Christian state. The state has promised each miners family interim compensation of about $1,420, but no money has arrived in Magurmari. Clutching a photo of Abdul Kalam Sheik, his father, Bodiot Jamal, said he hoped his sons body would be brought home so he could be buried in the Muslim tradition. For a few days we hoped he had survived, he said. But now we dont have any faith. Advertisement shashank.bengali@latimes.com Shashank Bengali covers Southeast Asia for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @SBengali Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro have been a costly investment for Russia and China as they seek to expand their influence in Latin America. And they are determined now not to lose ground. Moscow and Beijing are warily eyeing the events in Venezuela this week, as opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself acting president and demanded Maduro resign. The United States, along with other nations, formally recognized Guaido as the rightful president. Maduro, a pariah in many world capitals, has been a frequent foreign dignitary guest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Each time, the Venezuelan walked away with new loans and fresh cash. Over the decade ending in 2016, China loaned Venezuela approximately $62 billion, much of which Caracas could repay with oil. Moscow in the last several years gave Venezuela $17 billion in loans and investment, and in December the two governments signed a new deal in which Russia will invest $6 billion in Venezuelas oil and gold sectors. Advertisement Juan Guaido has declared himself interim president of Venezuela and has called for Maduro to resign. (Edilzon Gamez / Getty Images) China and Russia are Venezuelas two main creditors, and they have been the principal economic force keeping the Maduro government afloat, making the difference between solvency and bankruptcy, financial experts say. But the two powerful nations have different attitudes toward their financial relationship with the crumbling socialist South American state. China is more pragmatic, Russia more ideological. For its investment, Beijing wants to receive raw materials, cheap oil and other returns. The Chinese were in fact angry with the Maduro government when its oil industry, despite the billions poured in by China, continued to decline in production and efficiency. We have been watching to see if China would continue to bail out Maduro as the economy went into free-fall, and the answer is not quite, said Ted Piccone, a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. It is not a blank check. And in that pragmatic vein, Chinese officials have met with the Venezuelan opposition, according to Geoff Ramsey, assistant director for Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research group in Washington. In 2017, he said, an opposition delegation to China offered certain guarantees to the Chinese government that some of the deals made with the Maduro government would be respected. I dont know whether that same accommodation has been reached with the Russians. Advertisement Russia, unlike China, is more interested in extending its military presence and setting up a beachhead in the Americas and within spitting distance of the United States. Late last year, two of Russias most modern, nuclear-capable bombers arrived in Caracas for a short visit. Talks about building a Russian military presence in Venezuela began in 2016, a move that alarmed the U.S. The arrival of the bombers drew sharp criticism from Washington. The Russian and Venezuelan people should see this for what it is: two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo tweeted. For Russia, investments and military saber-rattling about protecting Venezuela has always been about showing strength in Americas neighborhood. Venezuela owes Moscow $3 billion for arms purchases. Advertisement The Kremlin has tried to mimic what it sees as U.S. and NATO foreign policy of entering and meddling in Moscows perceived sphere of influence, such as Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, particularly Ukraine. Putins cozying up to leaders like Maduro and, before him, the late Hugo Chavez, was something of a mind meld of autocratic rulers who seem to speak the same language in terms of politics and diplomacy. It became a way for the Kremlin to show it wasnt as isolated as Washington would have the world believe. Russias interest and investment in Venezuela is primarily geopolitical as a regional nuisance to the U.S., said Vladimir Frolov, an independent analyst in Moscow who focuses on Russias foreign policy. Its an instrument for exacting certain costs on the U.S. in its home region, and a platform for distracting the U.S. from attacking Russias interests where it matters most in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But what is at stake now for the Kremlin, should democracy prevail in Caracas, is more than just the billions of dollars in loans, Frolov said. Advertisement What is more important in this crisis are the core issues at the heart of Moscows view of the world order and international law, he said. The loss of Venezuela is a geopolitical setback to the concept of Russia as a restored global power that needs to have client states in the U.S. backyard to prove Russias great power as bona fide. The Kremlin sees any U.S.-condoned power takeover driven by mass protests as another version of the color revolutions that erupted in Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet republics in the mid-2000s. Those mass street protests, which Moscow blamed on U.S. meddling, led to more Western-friendly policies and governments, threatening the Kremlins influence. And so Russia digs in behind Maduro and harshly criticizes the U.S. action as an unconscionable interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation a coup detat. Moscows condemnation was more forceful than that of China, who called for dialogue and a negotiated resolution to the crisis. As things go south for Maduro, Russia loses access to the largest oil reserves on the planet, and it also loses a convenient toehold in the Americas, with which they can counter U.S. interest in the region, Ramsey said. Advertisement China, already losing faith in Maduro, may remain more circumspect and may also see opportunity in Venezuelas crash. Known for its predatory lending practices and tendency to seize a countrys national assets as payment, China may be scouring for bargain-basement deals, from seaports to Venezuelas fields of coltan, a mineral used in the production of smartphones. When Maduro traveled to Beijing last fall, taking pains to honor Mao Tse-tung, alarm bells went off. What else might he be willing to give away? Special correspondent Ayres reported from Moscow and Times staff writer Wilkinson from Washington. sabra.ayres@latimes.com Advertisement Twitter: @sabraayres The Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce has named a past board president of the Boys & Girls Club of Laguna Beach as its new executive director. Paula Hornbuckle-Arnold also oversaw 15 Boys & Girls Clubs as president of the Orange County Area Council for the past two years, leading meetings, organizing events and getting to know county clubs. She spent two of her 10 years on the Laguna Boys & Girls Club board as president, coordinating several of the clubs annual Girls Night Out events and chairing the Christmas gift-giving and auxiliary committees. In May, she will chair her last fundraising gala for the organization. Hornbuckle-Arnold also owns a personal investment company, Sweet P. She said the chamber position will be her first full-time job in 28 years. I am new to chamber business! she said with a laugh. Her first official day on the job is Monday. Stefanee Freedman has been serving as interim director since Meredith Dowling resigned in November. New boutique opens at VUE Newport Legend Coastal, a boutique that carries coastal lifestyle clothing and accessories, has opened its first location in Newport Beach. The boutique is in the VUE Newport complex at 2240 Newport Blvd. It carries an assortment of brands, including Patagonia, Pendleton, Vuori and Stance. Mothers Market store in H.B. to aid Surfrider Costa Mesa-based Mothers Market & Kitchen will host an event at its Huntington Beach store to benefit a local Surfrider Foundation chapter. The store, at 19770 Beach Blvd., will donate 5% of its sales Wednesday. Investment advisory firm adds Newports Palo Capital Miracle Mile Advisors, an independent investment advisory firm, recently expanded by adding the principals of Newport Beach-based Palo Capital Inc. Palo Capital, founded in 2005 by Kevin OGrady, manages $300 million in assets for about 150 clients, according to a news release. With the addition of the Newport office, Miracle Mile Advisors now manages about $1.5 billion in assets. We are confident our clients will benefit from Miracle Miles more extensive capabilities and operational efficiencies while preserving the attributes that have made Palo Capital special, OGrady said in a statement. Media buyer expands with Costa Mesa office CMI/Compas, a media buyer and planner for healthcare companies, has expanded by opening an office in Costa Mesa. The office is in Pacific Arts Plaza at 3200 Park Center Drive. It is the companys eighth office nationwide, with most of the others on the East Coast. H.B. resident named to Pasadena hospital post Huntington Beach resident Steven Mohr has been named senior vice president and chief financial officer of Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. He begins the role Feb. 11. Mohr has more than 20 years experience in leadership for large integrated healthcare delivery systems, including his most recent job as chief financial officer for Providence St. Joseph Health Los Angeles, according to a news release. Mohr is a graduate of USC and Loma Linda University. Hoag Orthopedic partners with Costa Mesa company Hoag Orthopedic Institute, one of the nations largest providers of orthopedic care, has entered a partnership with Costa Mesa-based ProSport Physical Therapy & Performance, according to a news release. ProSport operates three physical therapy and performance centers in Orange County. Hoag Orthopedics offices include an ambulatory care surgery center in Newport Beach. Epsilon gets award for parental support Epsilon, a Costa Mesa-based global marketing company, was recently given the Champion for Babies and Families Award by a Santa Ana-based nonprofit. MOMS Orange County, which helps low-income pregnant women and young families, credited Epsilon for creating a working environment that is exceptionally supportive of expectant employees and new families, according to a news release. The company offers 12 weeks of leave for new parents, whether they have a child, adopt or have a foster child placed with them. It also has increased its medical insurance coverage to include fertility treatments and provides financial support to families wishing to adopt. Big Canyon Nature Park is closer to returning to its healthy natural state after the Newport Beach City Council approved a plan to clear out more overgrown invasive species. The nonprofit Newport Bay Conservancy, the citys partner on the project, can now pursue regulatory permits and the $1.2 million in grant funding it says it needs to restore about 11 acres in the city-owned park by replacing non-native Brazilian pepper trees with native species, such as sycamore, cottonwood and willow. Goals include stabilizing the creek and floodplain with flood control measures and improving trails. The project would extend on work the city and conservancy completed in 2017 to restore six acres and reduce selenium a naturally occurring element that is toxic to wildlife in high concentrations in the water. Like that work, much of the next phase is covered by a shadowy pepper tree forest with no under story or native animals, Bob Stein, an engineer with the city, told the City Council on Tuesday. He said the large pepper trees crowd out native species and conceal campfires and makeshift transient shelters, showing photos of campsites and small burn scars. Also, a pest known as the polyphagous shothole borer attacks the remaining willows. Affected trees will be pruned or removed. The earlier restoration appears to promptly be getting a strong foothold. Native regrowth had covered 75% of the area after about a year, Stein said. Randall English, president of the Newport Bay Conservancy board of directors, said the area will eventually become a riparian corridor flanked with coastal sage scrub, a safe usable space out of an uninviting mono-culture of Brazilian pepper trees that the only wildlife it seems to be supporting are teenage revelers and the homeless. Not exactly the wildlife were looking to promote, he added. English said the Back Bay-area park could become a key destination for childrens field trips and a place for educational recreation. If the grant funds come through, work could begin in September and end in June 2020. In David Starr Jordan Middle Schools auditorium on Wednesday, nearly 80 people debated the merits of whether the campus should change the name its held for 71 years. The majority of the attendees spoke of discrimination and racism when mentioning Jordan, who was the first president of Stanford University and a scientist who studied fish. He was also a proponent of eugenics, the system of controlled breeding aimed to improve the chances of so-called desirable heritable characteristics. From 1910 up until 1964, 20,000 people considered less-than-desirable, such as minorities and people with mental disabilities, were forcibly sterilized in California due, in part, to the philosophy of eugenics. The ideology was embraced by the Nazi party and notable people, such as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Jordans defenders countered that the man, who died in 1931, was quite accomplished and misunderstood. The debate was held during the second meeting of Burbank Unifieds facilities-naming committee. The 11-member panel of residents, educators, administrators, alumni and one current student listened to arguments as they considered what recommendation for or against a name change to make to the Burbank Unified school board. Committee chair Charlene Tabet, also a Burbank Unified board member, said at the conclusion of the 2-hour-50-minute meeting that a third gathering will be necessary, though no date was set. Those who participated Wednesday, however, spoke with urgency as 23 were in favor of a change, five were against, while three added comments or questions. Maybe no one spoke as passionately to do away with the Jordan name as Burbank City Council candidate Konstantine Anthony, who wore a shirt that read Ask an Autistic and who volunteered to tear down Jordans name from the school. The kids at my middle school used the R word to describe me because I am autistic, Anthony said before speaking about his son. Theres a little kid watching a YouTube video back there, and hes autistic, too, and if this man was alive today, I would have been sterilized when I was younger, and he wouldnt be here. Burbank resident and actress Farelle Walker said Jordan wasnt someone to be admired. We sit here with a mans name plastered in a position that means we should look to him for what is right, when, in fact, he stands for what is undeniable wrong, she said. Burbank resident Paula Morris, a Jordan alumna and former student body treasurer, was a strong Jordan defender as she spoke during the first and second public-comment sections. There is no reason or information that is well-documented to convict this man after more than 100 years, Morris said. And remember he died [in 1931] well in advance of Hitler ever becoming known as a leader. Hitler had been elected leader of the Nazi Party in 1921, but did not become German chancellor until 1933. Richard McMillan, a history instructor at Los Angeles Pierce College and another Jordan alumnus, was also against a name change. History should be looked at through a clear piece of glass, warts and all, but we should also celebrate the victories that we have had as well as recognizing the failures, McMillan said. He said that if Jordan name was dropped, then perhaps schools named after slave holders, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, should also be considered, as well as Abraham Lincoln, who, according to McMillan, was more concerned about preserving the union than slaves; William McKinley, an imperialist; and Thomas Edison, who McMillan said was possibly an anti-Semite. One issue raised by committee member Elena Hubbell was the price of a name change. John Paramo, the districts director of secondary education, estimated the cost would be between $75,000 and $100,000 to replace several items, including industrial floor mats, a stain glass window, front signage and marquee as well as murals, a bench, gym signage and the gym floor. While various names were given as a possible replacement from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Barbara Jordan this committees purpose was to first decide if a name change is warranted, according to Tabet. Should the committee make a recommendation at its next meeting, school board members could hold a public hearing and ultimately vote on the issue. andrew.campa@latimes.com Twitter @campadresports Agents from the FBI and U.S. Secret Service descended on homes in Burbank, La Crescenta and La Canada Flintridge on Wednesday where they conducted early-morning raids on the residences. Authorities simultaneously carried out the raids around 6 a.m. after receiving federal search warrants for homes at 512 S. Via Montana in Burbank, 3122 Pontiac St. in La Crescenta and 1435 El Vago St. in La Canada. Laura Eimiller, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, said the details and targets of the raids were unavailable because a judge sealed the contents of the warrants. Property records show that the homes in Burbank and La Canada are owned by Alen and Dina Gharehbagloo, while the home in La Crescenta is owned by Robert and Dana Khudaverdyan. Its unknown what connection, if any, the four had to the raids. Attempts to contact Alen Gharehbagloo were not returned as of press time. A number associated with Robert Khudaverdyan was answered by a woman who did not wish to identify herself and who said he was unavailable for comment. When the woman was informed about the raids, she responded, OK, thank you, bye-bye and promptly hung up the phone. Eimiller said the raids were conducted jointly by the FBI, Secret Service and Los Angeles Police Department. Requests for comment from the Secret Service were not returned by press time, and the LAPD directed all inquiries to the FBI. Officers from the Burbank Police Department and deputies from the Crescenta Valley Sheriffs Station were also present at raids in their respective jurisdictions. Burbank Lt. Mitch Ross said officers were at the raid to provide a uniform presence in the neighborhood and to provide any assistance, if needed. However, he said officers did not actively participate in serving the warrants. andy.nguyen@latimes.com Twitter: @Andy_Truc When the 35,000 instructors and staff represented by United Teachers of Los Angeles ended a six-day strike against the Los Angeles Unified School District on Wednesday, a collective sigh of relief could be heard in Burbank. The unpaid stoppage didnt just affect Los Angeles teachers and the more than 600,000 students attending nearly 1,000 district schools, but it also hit home for some local residents. Nearly 400 Burbank residents employed in the Los Angeles Unified School District also returned to work, according to a figure provided by Diana Abasta, president of the Burbank Teachers Assn. One person who is pleased the strike is over is Burbank resident and Edison Elementary School mom Allison Meadows, whose son Emmett, 7, is a second-grader. The Hollywood High School Title I and English Language Coordinator felt the love upon reentering her classroom. It definitely felt good to be back at work, and it felt good to be appreciated by our staff and students, Meadows said. There were a little mixed feelings with people upset with the contract, different employees and colleagues, but overall, it was good, and everyone is relieved to be back with our students [and] off the picket line. Meadows marched with those on strike for six days and also gathered with other educators at a few rallies in downtown Los Angeles. It might sound cliche, but it never was about pay, Meadows said. We really stood for the class sizes and about different services. The school district is going to lower sizes a bit and keep the benefits the same, which is what we want. Meadows wasnt the only Edison mom on strike. LAUSD early childhood specialist Trisha Padilla sympathized with Los Angeles parents and was thankful her daughter Grace, 7, and stepdaughter Isabella, 12, who attend Edison and Jordan Middle School, respectively, were not in the same predicament. For me, it was probably easier emotionally because my kids were taken care of, Padilla said. I was most worried about the kids in special education because those parents have a very hard time finding someone that could watch their kids. Padilla spends most of her day preparing individualized education programs and plans for special-education children, so she didnt have a specific class to which she returned. Thats why my strike experience is a little different from most teachers, she said. I didnt leave a classroom or classrooms of kids. I can imagine how difficult that must have been. Abasta, who helped organize a walk-in at Burroughs High on Jan. 11 in support of L.A. teachers, said Burbank loses many talented educators who head for greener pastures. There are many teachers who would love to work in Burbank who live here, but cant for salary reasons, benefits or another reason, Abasta said. Those differences were highlighted in the final agreement as LAUSD instructors received a 6% pay raise and the district committed to hiring more school nurses, librarians and counselors. Burbank Unified, on the other hand, gave its teachers only a 2% raise last fall and is proposing to cut programs and staff in the wake of a $3.5-million structural budget deficit. Former American Sign Language teacher ArbyJean Tacub, a Burbank Unified product, said in a video she left Burbank High last year for Los Angeles Unifieds Taft High School because of burnout. Burbank High teacher ArbyJean Tacub talks about leaving the school district. Tacub said she worked 14-hour days last school year and was employed part-time at Pasadena City College and Glendale Community College on top of a full-time position at Burbank High. The reason I did this was because of pay, Tacub said. I wasnt earning enough to cover everything that needs to be covered like rent, bills and student loans. Tacub now makes enough to quit both of her part-time positions and is a lot happier. andrew.campa@latimes.com Twitter @campadresports For Kamala Harris, the road to the White House began amid the sequins, satin gowns and crystal chandeliers of a ballroom in the capital city of South Carolina. The California senator made her debut on the presidential campaign trail Friday night before 3,700 partygoers at the citys annual Pink Ice Gala. It was no coincidence Harris chose this state to make her initial appearance. Nor was the locale an accident: the annual bash thrown by Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nations first sorority founded by African Americans, which Harris pledged as a student at Howard University. Few states are being as closely studied, sized up and sifted through by the senators campaign as South Carolina, which has a crucial early place on the 2020 calendar. Advertisement South Carolina played a vital role propelling Barack Obama to the White House in 2008, boosting him past Hillary Clinton. The state and its large African American population hold similar promise for Harris, whose parents were immigrants: her father from Jamaica, her mother from India. South Carolina may be a conservative stronghold. But the Democratic primary electorate is mostly black, serving as a political bellwether for much of the South, where Harris stature as the first viable black female presidential candidate could position her uniquely well. The party is looking for fresh faces, and the turnout of black women has historically been among the highest of any voter group. Harris strategy for winning the Democratic nomination depends heavily on a big win in South Carolina which is the fourth state to vote, after Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Victory in the states primary at the end of February 2020 could serve as a springboard into the coast-to-coast balloting that takes place three days later, including in California. Her remarks Friday night were brief and largely apolitical. (Harris plans a splashy kickoff rally Sunday in her hometown of Oakland.) When we look at where we are at this moment in the history of this country, I think our founders gave us the right charge, the senator said of the 111-year-old sororitys community service mission. We are all here because we stand on other peoples shoulders. My mother taught us long ago, she would say to me, Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you are not the last. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) speaks to the media Friday during a fundraiser for Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in Columbia, S.C. (Evan Halper / Los Angeles TImes) Harris, 54, spoke for just three minutes and exited the stage to a swarm of fans eager for selfies. Anybody who brings a different perspective to our world is worth being excited about, said Marchele Garrett, a 45-year-old diversity officer. She is female. She is biracial. She is a dynamic civic leader. But she is also an amazing community service advocate. All that into one, versus what we currently have right now, is amazing. Advertisement But for every admirer like Garrett, there were some in the crowd who said they want to hear more from Harris, signaling the challenge ahead. Voters here take pride in intensely scrutinizing candidates, and alliances can shift quickly. Sen. Harris has an advantage, but it would be a mistake for her campaign to assume that advantage will take her across the finish line, said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a member of the Democratic National Committee and a state representative from Orangeburg, where more than three-quarters of residents are black. She will need to work just like all the other candidates. African Americans are among the most motivated voters in the country when it comes to ejecting President Trump from office, and influential South Carolina Democrats said repeatedly in interviews that electability will eclipse identity politics when primary ballots are cast. Someones mama could be running and people wouldnt vote for her if they didnt think she could beat Donald Trump, said Todd Rutherford, a Columbia lawmaker who leads Democrats in the state House of Representatives. Advertisement Someones mama could be running and people wouldnt vote for her if they didnt think she could beat Donald Trump. Todd Rutherford, leader of the Democrats in the South Carolina House of Representatives It didnt take long for Harris to experience the brutal and often harshly personal nature of campaigns here in a state long known for intense, sometimes vicious, politics. Soon after she used a Martin Luther King Jr. Day appearance on ABCs Good Morning America to announce her candidacy, a former head of the states black legislative caucus issued a statement calling Harris disrespectful. Most people in South Carolina who take pride in that day found it offensive that she chose it to make her announcement, said the lawmaker, Rep. John King of Rock Hill. Harris allies said Kings characterization of voter reaction to the launch was off base. Despite his sharp criticism, King said he may ultimately endorse the California senator, but he argued she has a steeper hill to climb with African Americans than her campaign may realize. He pointed to his activist niece at historically black Spelman College in Atlanta, who vowed Harris wont get her vote because of the rate at which she incarcerated black men as chief prosecutor in San Francisco and as Californias attorney general. Advertisement King also brought up whispers he said hes heard about black voters in some Deep South communities being uncomfortable with Harris being married to a white man, Los Angeles attorney Douglas Emhoff. It doesnt bother me, and would not stop me from endorsing her, King said. But even if this is not an issue in some parts of the country, you are dealing with South Carolina. Harris strategists said they dont fret over the possibility voters here wont consider her liberal enough or black enough to support. Ian Sams, a spokesman, defended Harris criminal justice record and said she looked forward to discussing it with voters. Most South Carolina politicians and Democratic activists are officially neutral at this early stage, but many also have relationships with two other potential candidates expected to perform well here, should they run: Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is African American, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has long-standing relations with many of the states party leaders. Advertisement One early phone call many top-tier Democrats make when considering a presidential run is to Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, the most prominent Democrat in South Carolina. Clyburn said in an interview that he tells them all that the state, with its inexpensive media markets and cultural and economic diversity, is a great laboratory for testing ideas with different subsets of voters. Candidates might go upstate to Spartanburg to get a taste for campaigning in a manufacturing base, he tells them, or to Florence to see how their message might play in an agricultural community, or to Charleston to develop a pitch to urban voters. But where candidates often misstep, he said, is in assuming there is a formula to winning the black vote, which is too big and diverse to neatly categorize. My background and my experiences are different than even my own wifes, Clyburn said. You have to be yourself and get to know who these voters are. People sometimes try to do it the other way, and it ends up being a big downer for them. Advertisement Harris strategy here could be complicated if Biden enters the race. The former vice president has deep ties to the state, and conversations with activists suggest those bonds havent frayed. The question people will have is whether [Harris] can win Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin in a race with Trump, said Dick Harpootlian, a white state senator and former state Democratic Party chairman who is dubious and hopes Biden runs. Theres a sense of pragmatism I have not seen within the Democratic electorate in a long time, Harpootlian said. Their No. 1 goal is not to elect a black, not to elect a woman, not to elect a specific demographic. Theres this desperation to win. Such calculation initially drove voters away from Obama in 2008. His ascent, said Bruce Ransom, a professor of political science at Clemson University, did not come until he beat Clinton in Iowa and proved he could attract white votes. Ransom said he was among many black South Carolinians who came around to Obama once they were convinced that supporting him would not amount to a wasted vote. Advertisement Harris, he said, should heed that lesson. If she drops an egg in Iowa or New Hampshire, Ransom said, then there may be less enthusiasm, and the history-making nature of her candidacy will matter very little in a state she almost surely needs to win to take the nomination. Halper reported from Columbia and Barabak from San Francisco. More stories from Evan Halper Advertisement evan.halper@latimes.com | Twitter: @evanhalper To the editor: Our secretary of Commerce said in an on-air interview Thursday that a partial shutdown should really not be a problem for the government workers going without a paycheck. If they dont have money, he said, they should just go out and get a low-interest loan. Since the average civilian federal worker makes about $85,000 annually and many live paycheck to paycheck, I initially thought this was a ludicrous suggestion by a billionaire out of touch with average workers and their access to credit, not to mention their ability to pay the interest on even a low-interest loan. Then I came upon an easy solution: Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, a billionaire, alone or together with the other Cabinet billionaires and the president, could certainly join together to provide every furloughed government worker with no-interest loans. This will get the workers over the earnings gulf, and the president and his Cabinet would be heroes. It will also add some incentive for the president and his Cabinet to avoid future shutdowns. Gary A. Hirsch, Pacific Palisades Advertisement .. To the editor: I will never purchase Trumps book The Art of a Deal if I discover that in his book he advocated taking hostages (such as federal government employees) as a negotiating tactic to achieve an objective of his (such as obtaining congressional approval to fund a border wall between Mexico and the United States to appease some of his political supporters). Furthermore, if Trump were to write a sequel to the aforementioned book, he should entitle it The Art of No Deal, and in it discuss the government shutdown effects that he created by the taking of the hostages. To prevent the next government shutdown, new laws are needed to stop the House Speaker and the Senate majority leader from blocking a vote requested in a written petition by a majority of members in either house of Congress. Most Americans would benefit from such legislation, even when there is a dysfunctional Congress or a stubborn president. Marc Jacobson, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Ross asinine statement that he did not understand why federal workers were in food lines during the just-ended government shutdown is yet another low for the Trump administration. Advertisement Not only did he not understand why these employees were running out of money; he also did not understand why furloughed federal workers could not just walk into a bank and get a loan. For starters, some workers might not qualify for a loan, and even if they could, it can take weeks to get the money. He has no concept of real life in this country, and neither does Trump. Phil Kirk, Encinitas .. Advertisement To the editor: This shutdown was not resolved in a way that makes another such event less likely in the future. My suggestion: Enact legislation that would make future shutdowns apply to all departments of government and to all federal employees congressional staff, White House staff, Cabinet secretaries, everyone. The pressure inside the government would make the shutdown brief or prevent one from happening at all. We should be ashamed for our country that any leader can inflict this pain out of pure political animus. Kathy Kaufman, Mission Viejo Advertisement Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook To the editor: Its rather hard to believe that columnist Robin Abcarian still wonders why so many people hated Hillary Clinton. Abcarian admits that Clinton was a flawed candidate, but she writes that compared to our current president, Clinton towers over the man who beat her. Clintons loss cannot be attributed to the fact that she was a woman, but rather because she ran a poor campaign. It was Clinton who called millions of people in this country deplorables. It was Clinton who stated that under her administration, coal miners would be put out of work. Abcarian seems to forget these campaign missteps, among others. Clintons loss had little to do with her being a woman. She was the wrong woman. Advertisement The country will be ready for a woman president when she presents herself as someone with sound policy and a vision for the future of our country, not because its time to elect a woman as president. Janet Polak, Beverly Hills .. To the editor: While I agree with Abcarian on the obvious and painful bias against women and minorities, I suggest that 2020 is not the time to test how we might be able to reform the Democratic Partys thinking. There is too much at stake. The prime and only consideration in choosing the nominee must be to pick the person with the best chance of beating President Trump. The 2016 lineup of Republican hopefuls each degrading each other gave the worst of them an opportunity to win the nomination despite his lack of morals, truthfulness and fitness to fill the office. A lineup of Democrats acting in a similar way would provide Trump more fodder for his bigotry. Please keep the fight for genuine equality in the fore, but not at the expense of four more years of this dysfunctional and despicable administration. Paul Elder, Agoura Hills Advertisement Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Population of Chinese crested Tern, the rarest bird in the world, grows back to over 100 Chinese crested tern, the rarest bird in the world, is witnessing a gradual population increase thanks to the nations efforts to preserve the endangered species. Chinese crested tern, a bird of legend due to its rarity, has finally seen its population grow back to 102, according to an investigation done last year at two bases in east Chinas Zhejiang province, after 77 adult birds were observed and gave birth to 25 babies. According to Chen Shuihua, deputy director of Zhejiang Natural History Museum, the finding proves that the situation of the extremely endangered bird is improving. Chinese crested tern was first discovered in 1861 in Indonesia. It comes to the east coast of China in the summer and in the winter goes to Indonesia, the Philippines, and other places. As a critically endangered species, the bird was often estimated to have a population of below 50, according to Xinhua News Agency. The female Chinese crested tern only lays one egg at a time and can only produce one more for the year if the first egg fails. The reproduction process is often hindered by natural enemies, such as snakes, rats, and pelicans, as well as disturbances caused by typhoons and human activities, making successful reproduction difficult. In 2003, the Zhejiang Natural History Museum started to look for the bird of legend in the coastal regions of Zhejiang. Some 20 birds were found in July 2004 and until 2008, experts found a baby bird born in a natural reserve in Zhejiang, marking the first time for people to discover a successful breeding of the bird. In 2013, local authorities kicked off the first domestic experiment to artificially guide the birds to select breeding habitats in order to help the rare species. The experiment, using bird models and through methods such as bird singing and playing activities, have gradually attracted dozens of Chinese crested terns. According to Chen, the latest finding is inspiring, but the bird needs more protection efforts to fully prevent extinction in the future. Therefore, the experiment will be further carried out to preserve the rare species. The strike talk was mostly about new hiring, smaller class sizes and salary increases. But lurking just below the surface during the teacher walkout in the Los Angeles Unified School District was another issue: charter schools, which many teachers (and their union) fear and loathe, seeing them as an existential threat to traditional public schools. Indeed, one of the less-noticed provisions of the agreement to end the strike was that the school board would call for a statewide reexamination of the role and effect of charters, and that it would consider asking the state for a moratorium on any new ones. Board member Richard Vladovic said he will introduce a resolution on those subjects on Tuesday. The states law authorizing the creation of charter schools has been around since 1992 and legislators have made it easier during the ensuing years for such schools to open. In L.A. Unified, their growth has been explosive: The district now has 277 charters, most of them independently run, though they receive public funding. Most are non-union. They enroll close to 140,000 students about one in five in the district. Their growth is responsible for about half of the declining enrollment in traditional public schools that has sapped the districts finances over the last 15 years. Charter schools should operate on a level playing field, and they should supplement, not supplant or harm, the larger school system. Advertisement So yes, its time for a thorough state assessment of charter schools, including how successful theyve been and what their impact has been on traditional public schools. The state has been generally lackadaisical about regulating charter schools and has altogether ignored the ways in which the budgets of school districts may have been harmed. There has also been tension between charters and traditional schools when they have been required to co-locate on a single campus. Charter schools were originally intended to be laboratories of innovation, showing district-run schools new ways to provide more successful educational experiences, especially for low-income students of color. They provided an option for parents whose children were stuck in truly awful schools. No matter what you may have heard, L.A. schools were not doing fine before charter schools came on the scene. There were schools where some of the teachers read newspapers in the back of the classroom while showing their students Disney videos on a regular basis. Some high schools didnt even offer the courses required to apply to one of the states four-year colleges. There were math and science classes taught by a series of rotating substitutes who had no expertise in the subjects. Its not surprising that academic outcomes were shockingly bad. Parents who couldnt afford to move or pay for a private school were stuck. School administrators too often brushed off their concerns. Charter schools gave these families their first chance to have a voice in their childrens education. And in ways, the competition successfully prodded L.A. schools to improve. In response to the move of students to charters, for instance, the district started offering more high-achieving magnet schools to keep students within the district. As charter schools offered students a pathway to college, more district schools started doing the same. The district began listening to parents more. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Yet charter schools havent always lived up to their promise. Some manipulated the system to bring in students more likely to succeed. It took investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union to discover that dozens of charter schools were requiring parents to volunteer significant time to the school, a deterrent to low-income families that couldnt spare that kind of time. Extensive applications, sometimes provided only in English, discouraged all but the savviest applicants and those with a commitment to their childrens education. Requirements for documents would have forced families to reveal their immigration status, discouraging them from applying as well. For a long time, charter schools werent educating their fair share of special-needs students; other requirements tended to screen out lower-performing students. Many of these problems appear to have been fixed or at least improved, so that charter schools are closer to taking all comers, but the fixes came only after a backlash. Meanwhile, donations from generous charter-supporting benefactors created an unlevel playing field. Studies on charter schools have shown mixed results, but one of the best surveys, produced by Stanford University, found that Los Angeles charter schools in general provide better outcomes than its traditional public schools. Advertisement We will always need our traditional public schools; they are and should be the mainstay of the public school system. Charter schools can close at any time (for instance if their private funding from Eli Broad or Bill Gates dries up), but traditional public schools always have to be here for students. Charter schools should operate on a level playing field, and they should supplement, not supplant or harm, the larger school system. The state must find the right balance; it cannot afford to have the backbone of a free and public education become a wan, depleted version of its former self. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook. In 1983, in what came to be known as his Star Wars speech, President Ronald Reagan unveiled an ambitious vision for a missile defense system that would render the need for traditional nuclear deterrence unnecessary. Reagan asked: What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? The Star Wars label proved prophetic, because Reagans vision of an impermeable shield that would deflect incoming nuclear missiles proved to be the stuff of science fiction. Missile defense has achieved modest successes, but it also has been marked by embarrassing failures. It has not rendered obsolete traditional nuclear deterrence theory the notion that all-out war is avoidable only if both sides are convinced it will lead to their own destruction nor has it obviated the need for arms-control negotiations. Yet now President Trump is offering a similarly expansive vision of security through missile defense systems, including interceptors deployed in outer space. In a recent speech introducing the Defense Departments latest Missile Defense Review, Trump announced a new era in our missile defense program, explaining that our goal is simple: to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Trump is susceptible to simplistic thinking; witness the magic qualities he attributes to his proposed wall on the Mexican border. Advertisement Thats not a simple goal; experts doubt that it can be achieved no matter how much money is invested in the advanced technology and research Trump promised. Fortunately, the Pentagons Missile Defense Review is more realistic in its objectives than the president was in his speech. But there is a danger that his excessive confidence in the promise of missile defense will lead to wasteful expenditures by Congress and a continued failure by the administration to take arms-control negotiations seriously. Missile defense systems can be effective against shorter-range missiles, as Israel has demonstrated with the Iron Dome system it has used to deflect rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. The United States also has had success in tests of systems aimed at shorter-range missiles. Its not clear, however, that missile defense will ever be able to block most or all intercontinental ballistic missiles such as those possessed by Russia, China and probably North Korea. For example, the United States currently maintains 44 long-range, ground-based interceptor rockets at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a number that the Pentagon plans to increase to 64. But test results have been discouraging, and most of the interceptors are believed to have faulty circuit boards that could cause them to go astray. Even if accuracy is improved, there is no guarantee that this or any other missile defense system would hermetically seal off the United States from incoming long-range missiles. Even more dubious is Trumps suggestion that outer space should be turned into a new war-fighting domain through the deployment of a space-based missile defense system that would somehow involve his much-ridiculed Space Force. In a critique of Trumps speech, Kingston A. Reif of the Arms Control Assn. cited studies that he said demonstrated that space-based interceptors are unaffordable, unworkable, and massively destabilizing. Its somewhat reassuring that the actual Missile Defense Review published by the Pentagon is more modest in its discussion of space-based missile defense. It proposes a six-month study that will identify the most promising technologies, and estimated schedule, cost, and personnel requirements for a possible space-based defensive layer that achieves an early operational capability. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute Technological issues aside, an overemphasis on missile defense can threaten U.S. security by reducing incentives for arms control negotiations while creating a fear among other nuclear powers that the U.S. might take advantage of a missile defense breakthrough to launch a first strike. It was precisely because defensive systems can be perceived as offensive that the U.S. and the former Soviet Union in 1972 signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty an agreement from which the U.S. withdrew during the George W. Bush administration. The Trump administration, citing Russian violations, has indicated that it will withdraw from another important arms-control treaty, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. An exaggerated confidence in missile defense might also tempt the administration to abandon the New START treaty with Russia, which limits offensive nuclear weapons and is set to expire in 2021 unless it is renewed. Advertisement Trump is susceptible to simplistic thinking; witness the magic qualities he attributes to his proposed wall on the Mexican border. As the Pentagon studies missile defense options, we hope it and Congress wont be unduly influenced by the presidents similarly unsophisticated approach to a wall in space that would keep missiles out. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, Jan. 26. Heres what you dont want to miss this weekend: TOP STORIES California is facing a housing crisis, and there are growing signs Sacramento is beginning to treat it like a real crisis. The state sued the city of Huntington Beach on Friday and accused it of failing to allow enough new homebuilding to accommodate a growing population. The legal action is part of a push by new Gov. Gavin Newsom to flex the states muscles over homebuilding, an issue that has long been the domain of local government. Los Angeles Times Earlier: A Times investigation showed how easy it is for cities to ignore affordable-housing requirements. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Some pushback in O.C. Daily Pilot Gov. Newsom begins a housing war. CALmatters The citizenship question: Trump administration lawyers have urged the Supreme Court to intervene in a dispute over the 2020 census and uphold their plans to ask everyone about their citizenship. The move sets the stage for a high-stakes legal fight over the population count, one that could cost California billions in federal funds. Los Angeles Times From Park City, Utah: How Michael Jackson and horrible accusations of abuse roiled the Sundance Film Festival. Los Angeles Times The King of Pop and molestation allegations: A breakdown. Los Angeles Times In Sacramento: Did a cop in California give violent white supremacists a pass? The Guardian Sunshine suit: The Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee have sued the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department for documents about misconduct or significant force by deputies, marking the latest case in what has become a statewide legal battle over the disclosure of law enforcement personnel records. Los Angeles Times The partial government shutdown ends: Did Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi beat President Trump in the shutdown battle? Many in Washington think so. CNN Advertisement Put the phone down: Steve Jobs would not approve of our obsession with his iPhones. New York Times History lesson: A look at the early rise of female filmmakers. Los Angeles Times The past and future: The LGBTQ media were once a thriving part of the culture, and a source of important journalism. Theyre now struggling to survive. BuzzFeed On the right track: Picking San Franciscos best Muni lines. San Francisco Chronicle Advertisement Caveat emptor: Is Facebook getting kids into debt with games? Mercury News Shell game: A biologist yearns to discover the secrets of Watts Towers shells. Los Angeles Times Bruno Pernet, a marine biologist at Cal State Long Beach, has identified 34 species of shells among the decorations of the Watts Towers. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Get the Essential California newsletter Advertisement THIS WEEKS MOST POPULAR STORIES IN ESSENTIAL CALIFORNIA 1. Youre a true Californian only if youve eaten 20/28 of these foods. BuzzFeed 2. Five things to know about Sen. Kamala Harris. KQED 3. The drug that saved the people who overdosed in Chico. Los Angeles Times Advertisement 4. The most powerful person in Silicon Valley. Fast Company 5. Whats in the deal to end the LAUSD teachers strike? A look at the details. Los Angeles Times THE RETURN OF COLUMN ONE Since its debut in 1968, Column One was one of the Los Angeles Times most enduring features. In a sea of news, it was a different kind of story that celebrated the offbeat, the unusual and sometimes the painful. It did so in-depth, often with narrative writing. Column One quietly disappeared in 2014, but now its back. Here is a reintroduction. Los Angeles Times Advertisement The first story of the Column One revival follows a Bay Area doctor who travels to perform abortions in Texas, part of a new underground railroad. Los Angeles Times Read the Column One archive. Los Angeles Times And the series of Column Ones about the California drought that won the Pulitzer Prize. Los Angeles Times Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad. Constituents applauded Republican Rep. Steve King on Saturday at the Iowa congressmans first public event since being rebuked by his House colleagues over racist comments he had made to a newspaper earlier this month. King told the roughly 75 people who showed up for the first of 39 planned town hall meetings in his sprawling district that he doesnt adhere to a white supremacist ideology and he repeated his assertion that hes not racist. The nine-term House member caused an uproar after he was quoted in a New York Times story saying, White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive? King claimed his comments were taken out of context, but the House voted 424-1 to rebuke him, with King himself voting in favor of the resolution, and Republican leaders denied him any committee assignments. Addressing what he called the elephant in the room in his opening remarks at Saturdays event, King expressed frustration that his comments about white nationalism and white supremacy in the New York Times interview led to even his fellow Republicans disowning him. Advertisement It is stunning and astonishing to me that four words in a New York Times quote can outweigh 20-some years of public service, 20-some years of giving you my word every day, King said. And not one soul has stood up and said Ive ever lied to you or misrepresented anything. Not one soul has stood up and said Steve King has ever acted in a racist fashion, that he ever discriminated against anybody. King has long been known for making caustic comments, especially on issues related to race and immigration. Shortly before the November election, the Washington Post reported that King met in Austria with the far-right Freedom Party, which has Nazi ties. King said the meeting was with business leaders, including one person from the Freedom Party, but the Post stood by its story. Although Kings recent comments drew a relatively large media contingent to Saturdays meeting, none of the constituents who were on hand said anything critical about the controversy and a couple expressed their support, telling King they think hes doing a great job. In the few instances in which Kings history of insensitive comments and his most recent statements arose, the audience seemed supportive, and they stood twice during the gathering to applaud him. Pamela Harrman criticized what she called a progressive movement to change our country and said liberals can say anything while conservatives are demonized when they speak out. Harrman said she supported King and shook her head at other Republicans all bailing out on you. Lori Scroggin added, We support you and support your conservatism. People mostly wanted to talk about the issues of governing, asking King about efforts to allow more corn-based biofuels in gasoline, economic development and changes that would allow people to temporarily enter the country legally to work on cattle operations. King didnt take questions from reporters. Such town hall meetings have been unusual for King, who for years declined to hold them. He argued that he could meet with constituents more effectively by speaking with them privately rather than at public gatherings, which he claims would be dominated by opponents from outside the district. Advertisement However, after his narrow victory over Democrat J. D. Scholten, who for months traveled in a motor home throughout the district, King announced that he would hold town hall meetings in all of the districts 39 counties. Only two months after Kings narrow win, he drew a conservative and likely well-funded Republican primary challenger in state Sen. Randy Feenstra, an assistant Republican legislative leader known for pushing a large tax cut through the 2018 Legislature. Last week, Woodbury County supervisor Jeremy Taylor, a former state legislator, announced hed also seek the 4th District GOP nomination. At least two others have said they are considering running in the Republican primary. A man was electrocuted this week while tampering with a street light circuit in Koreatown, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials said. Police believe the man was killed while trying to remove copper wire and other items from the electrified equipment, DWP officials said. The Los Angeles County coroners office said the man, who was found dead Tuesday, was in his 30s and Latino but did not release his name because his next of kin had not yet been notified. His death, the result of electrocution and thermal burns, has been ruled an accident. DWP crews deenergized the conductor after the L.A. Police Department reported the death. Utility officials are working with law enforcement in their investigation, officials said. Advertisement The department said electrical equipment and wires often carry thousands of volts of electricity and warned the public not to touch anyone lying near, or in contact with, downed wires or electrical equipment. Live electrical wires can and will often result in death. Dont get near a downed power line, dont tamper with electrical equipment or utility boxes and if you see anyone doing so, dial 9-1-1, DWP General Manager David Wright said in a statement. javier.panzar@latimes.com Twitter: @jpanzar A man was shot to death and two others were wounded Friday when a fight broke out at a funeral service in Compton, authorities said. About 160 mourners were crowded into New Holy Trinity Baptist Church in the 1900 block of East Compton Boulevard about 1 p.m. when one of the men in attendance insulted a woman, said Los Angeles County Sheriffs Lt. Derrick Alfred. The ensuing argument spilled outside, Alfred said, where one man pulled a gun, shot three men and then ran away. Two of the victims were listed in stable condition Friday night, while a third identified by family members as Hakim Webster, 36, of Los Angeles was pronounced dead at the scene. Advertisement He was a good man, said his sister, Amira Webster, who added that her brother leaves behind a 4-year-old son. He always wanted to make sure his family was protected. She said the funeral Friday was for a cousin who had been killed in Louisiana. I dont know who brings hatred to a funeral, said Websters brother, Jeremiah Webster. Alfred said detectives are looking for the shooter and the gun. He said deputies arrived within minutes of the attack, but by then at least half the mourners had left, and many who remained were reluctant to say anything. There were a lot of witnesses that we havent been able to talk to yet that were hoping will come forward, Alfred said. Donald Trump easily won Tulare County in 2016, taking 53% of the vote to Hillary Clintons 41%, and Sheriff Mike Boudreaux proudly displays a photo of himself with the president on a shelf in his Visalia office. But dont jump to conclusions. I was escorted to the sheriffs office by a deputy who was born in Mexico, and whose family crossed the border illegally many years ago. Then I met Boudreauxs captain of investigations, whose family also came to the country illegally as a child. And on the way to Boudreauxs office we passed a portrait of Ronald Reagan, who signed a 1986 bill giving amnesty to about 3 million immigrants in the country illegally. Advertisement Is it possible that in the charged, polarized divide over immigration and Trumps border wall, there might be some middle ground in the middle of California? It seemed that way, judging by my colleague Brittny Mejias story in early January about two high-profile crimes committed by men in the country illegally. In December, Newman Police Officer Ronil Singh was shot and killed in Stanislaus County by a man named Gustavo Arriaga who had gang ties, prior arrests and had lived in the country illegally for years. Two days earlier, in Tulare County, a twice-deported man named Gustavo Garcia committed a spate of crimes, according to police, shooting a farm worker, robbing a mini-mart at gunpoint and firing at several people before he was thrown from his vehicle and killed while driving the wrong way on a highway. Garcias rampage began shortly after he was released from Tulare County Jail. Boudreaux said Garcia had been arrested for being under the influence, a misdemeanor, and that immigration authorities had asked that he be detained until they could pick him up. Under Californias sanctuary law, the sheriff could not honor that request without a federal warrant, which is why Garcia was released. Boudreaux and Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson both blasted Californias Senate Bill 54, enacted a year ago, the law that keeps them from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under most circumstances. But Boudreauxs criticism, while vehement, came with a few caveats. We have a large agricultural community, we have a large population of undocumented persons that every day dont violate the law, Boudreaux said at the time. He had no beef with those people, he said. But when it comes to someone who is a known criminal element, he sees no reason for mercy. Deputy Monserrat Meza and Capt. Gabriel Macias, each undocumented at one time, sat in when I interviewed the sheriff, and they agreed with the boss. Informed by their own experiences, they understand the desire to cross the border in the hope of building a better life. But the law-abiding undocumented community is the group most victimized by undocumented criminals, they said. Advertisement I worked in the fields until I was a teenager, said Macias. I didnt even know I wasnt born in the U.S. until I was like 7 or 8The people were focusing on arent the ones who are working and trying to better their kids lives. Its the criminals involved in human trafficking and murdering and raping people. Boudreaux said he has no problem with President Obamas DACA program, which offered protections for young immigrants brought to the country illegally by their parents. I was raised to have an open mind [with regard to] compassion and understanding, Boudreaux said. His father was a Tulare County deputy sheriff for 30 years, and his mother was a tech at a psychiatric facility. Boudreaux went to Porterville High School and said that when he was a youngster in the largely Latino community, it was common knowledge and not a big concern that some residents were undocumented. Advertisement Boudreaux thinks the national security threat is greater today than it was when he was a kid, and illegal immigration has to be cut off. But for those already here, hes not a hard-liner. There should be a system for all those here illegally to report themselves without fear of being deported, Boudreaux said. Lets create a document that allows for a pathway to citizenship if youre here say three, five, seven years, and you dont commit any crimes. Those are not words were likely to hear from Trump. When I asked Boudreaux about the photo on his shelf, he said it was taken when Trump visited the area during his campaign. Boudreaux said he thinks Trumps position then and now was that only violent criminals should be deported. Advertisement But Boudreaux draws a line here: I do not believe that local law enforcement should enforce immigration law, he said. I cant turn a blind eye to victims of crime whether theyre documented or undocumented, and they need to feel comfortable enough to report that theyre victims. The day I met with Boudreaux, Trump visited the border in Texas to stump for the funding of a wall. Cherry-picking isolated horrors like the crimes in Stanislaus and Tulare, he has huffed and puffed for months about a national emergency that can only be stopped with a wall. Never mind the sharp decline in illegal immigration since the turn of the century, evidence that crime rates among immigrants here illegally are lower than among citizens, the fact that many of the people here illegally didnt sneak across the border at all, but overstayed visas, or the fact that there are a dozen better ways to control illegal immigration than spending $25 billion adding to what is already a lot of fencing on the border. Advertisement I do believe theres a purpose for a wall, or call it a fence, said Boudreaux. But he added that technology, drones, aircraft surveillance, greater port security and border patrol manpower should be getting just as much attention. Vincent Salinas, a Republican who chairs the Latino Political Action Committee of Tulare County, is not a fan of Trump or the wall. If youre talking about securing the border, why doesnt Homeland Security provide ICE or the FBI the resources to track and arrest people here illegally? Salinas asked. Boudreaux doesnt disagree, and he is still deeply frustrated about having to release a guy who went and shot up our county. Advertisement Why cant I talk to ICE about this? he asked. When they send me a detainer, why cant I get on the phone and say, Hey, guys, tell me why you want him? And they can say: Hes been deported twice. Recognize the detainer for 48 hours and well get you a warrant. Californias sanctuary laws grew out of an understanding that most immigrants have fled poverty and violence and that they make cultural and economic contributions, so they deserve some basic rights. But Boudreauxs job, as he says, is public safety, and his take doesnt sound unreasonable to me. The narrative becomes distorted so far to the left and so far to the right, and I think what most people are looking for is common sense decision-making to the benefit of everyone, said Boudreaux, who told me he has put in a request to meet with Gov. Gavin Newsom and make his feelings known. We have people here wanting to make better lives for themselves, Boudreaux said. That pathway needs to be easier. But the pathway for criminals needs to be harder. Advertisement Get more of Steve Lopezs work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez Good morning. Im Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019. Lets look back at the week in Opinion. Take this as either a glimmer of hope from Washington or a sad reminder of how far our standards for success in politics have fallen: The United States now boasts a fully functioning federal government, something it could not do for more than a month before Friday. Although the 13th Amendment banned slavery or any other form of involuntarily servitude in this country, on Friday it looked as if hundreds of thousands of federal workers were going to miss their second paycheck despite being forced to perform their essential duties. But seemingly out of nowhere Friday, the president announced his acceptance of a deal that is remarkably similar to one he rejected just weeks prior a continuing resolution to fund the government for three more weeks that does not include money for a border wall and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended (at least for now). The futility of President Trumps obstinance on the border wall is made all the more depressing by the fact that this president has only worsened Americas broken immigration system, and a physical barrier on the U.S. border with Mexico will not fix that. As the L.A. Times editorial board wrote in its shutdown post-mortem: The president sought to present himself Friday as the soul of reasonableness, saying he was looking to build the wall only in predetermined high-risk locations that have been specifically identified by the Border Patrol to stop illicit flows of people and drugs. Yet he continued to portray the wall as a magical crime-fighting solution while painting a hyperbolic picture of criminals and terrorists pouring over the southern border. The debate cant be grounded in scare tactics. Walls and fences make sense in places, and the border already has nearly 700 miles of them. Does it need more? Do we need more electronic surveillance? More agents? Let's base those answers on sound professional assessments adapting to the changing situation along the border where illegal crossings are way below modern peaks despite the recent increase in Central American migrants not on the presidents reflexive resistance to immigration and his cynical fanning of passions among immigration hard-liners. The immigration system, on the other hand, has been undeniably broken for years, and Trump has remarkably managed to make it even worse. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the backlog in the immigration courts has more than doubled under Trump, if you include the more than 300,000 previously closed cases that this administration has reopened. But there are many interlocking and complex issues to be resolved, including whether to change the countrys priorities in determining who gets visas, how to accommodate the need for seasonal workers and what to do about the estimated 11 million people already living in the country illegally, including the Dreamers who arrived as minors and in many cases have been raised as Americans. Trump has sought to draw some of those issues into the negotiations over the wall, among them his contentious proposal to bar minors who come to the United States from seeking asylum. Its hard to see how lawmakers could reach agreement on all these issues in three weeks; whats needed is a comprehensive approach to the web of immigration issues, and Congress has yet to prove itself up to that job despite years of trying. Trump can and should hold lawmakers feet to the fire on the need for immigration reform. But thats a far bigger job than building a wall, and he must not take the government hostage to try to force the outcome he desires. >> Click here to read more Federal employees arguably ended this shutdown when flights at LaGuardia Airport in New York ground to halt Friday morning because of work stoppages, notes Jon Healey. Its insane that Americans tolerate a government system that only punishes taxpayers and federal workers when legislators fail to do their only real job, which is to fund essential services. Healey writes: Maybe the threat of chaos is what we need to get the president and Congress to do their jobs. L.A. Times Parts of the federal government shut down, but terrorism did not and neither did the U.S. foreign service workers who were recently affected by it, writes former diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford. On Jan. 15, an American was among the 21 people killed in a terrorist attack in Nairobi, Kenya, and embassy workers stayed on the job day and night to gather information and assist U.S. nationals. Their work deserves respect, praise and, most importantly, a dependable paycheck. L.A. Times Prepare to read a lot of positive coverage of a politician weve known in California for a while. In the New York Times, op-ed columnist David Leonhardt declares Sen. Kamala Harris as the early Democratic front-runner for 2020 because she has a fascinating personal story, and she has handled the national spotlight well in her first two years in the Senate (some of our readers would take issue with that latter judgment). Separately in The Times, Michelle Goldberg delights in the possibility that a woman will once again face off against Trump (and hopefully beat him). The Trump White House was caught lying about the presidents size. Big deal, you might think, because fibbing about ones weight is every Americans God-given right, and compared to other Trump untruths, this rates merely as personally embarrassing for the president. But you should think a little more, writes Scott Martelle, because that the administration lies about such a small matter evidences just what a petty regime this is. L.A. Times From the old-money mansions of Pasadenas Arroyo Seco to greasy-spoon diners in Burbank to landmark sites all over Black Dahlia-era Hollywood, Los Angeles and its lore play a starring role in TNTs gripping period drama, I Am the Night. Inspired by the true-crime memoir One Day Shell Darken: The Mysterious Beginnings of Fauna Hodel, the limited series is set in 1965, when mixed-race teen Fauna (India Eisley) discovers shes adopted. The journey to find her biological family brings her to Los Angeles, where she happens upon a much deeper mystery with deadly implications. For the record: This article incorrectly states the year of the Black Dahlia murder as 1949. The unsolved killing of Elizabeth Short occurred in Los Angeles in Jan. 1947. She learns that her grandfather Dr. George Hodel is a wealthy gynecologist and the top suspect in the still-unsolved Black Dahlia murder. Fauna gets caught in a coverup that touches just about every Los Angeles institution, from the L.A. Times to the LAPD, while secrets about her lineage and her grandfather unfurl at a dizzying pace. The six-part series, which starts Monday, has been the subject of much hype given that the executive producer and director of the first two episodes is the celebrated Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman) and it stars A-lister/Wonder Woman lead Chris Pine, a co-executive producer. But I Am the Night is the rare case where the series actually lives up to the publicity buildup, establishing itself as a must-see TV drama in a crowded field. Advertisement The suspenseful series is driven by two mysteries where does Fauna really come from, and is her grandfather the most infamous masked monster in the citys history? But it also takes enough unexpected twists and turns through retro L.A. to keep viewers on their toes. Think of it as a joyride along Mulholland Drive with leaky brakes and someone else at the wheel. Along the way, however, each hour-long episode manages to artfully unpack meaningful issues about race and identity, wealth and privilege, drug addiction and postwar PTSD, weaving this heavier subject matter into the larger narrative. Eisley and Pine (he plays down-on-his-luck journalist Jay Singletary) deliver inspired performances, infusing their characters with a depth and empathy thats often lacking in murder mysteries. Jenkins brings Los Angeles to life in rich detail, capturing the inherent complexity of a city whose culture and breadth often get lost on screen. Singletary is as multifaceted and run-down as DTLA. Hes an ex-L.A. Times reporter and Korean War vet whose writing career was all but ruined when he got too close to the truth reporting on the 1949 Dahlia murder. Hes now a stringer for the Examiner who specializes in paparazzi-like fare and copping drugs from his hooker friends. Faunas arrival in L.A. reignites his passion to get to the bottom of the unsolved homicide, and it also highlights corruption within the LAPD. And boy are they rotten, especially if their target happens to be anyone whos not wealthy and white. Fauna knows first-hand what policing in the black community looks like. She grew up in an African American community where her mother worked as a housekeeper, and in L.A. resides with her aunt Big Mama and cousins on the colored side of town. Its a region where law enforcement is the most dangerous element on the streets, and tensions are so high the city is ready to blow (the Watts Riots are just on the horizon). The locations throughout I Am the Night are real spots Angelenos might recognize: the 1920s-era John Sowden Jaws House on Franklin Avenue that was designed by architect Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright. The midcentury L.A. here is a mix of faded glamour and gritty realism, pulling the story through private art galleries in San Marino and tiny, dilapidated California bungalows on the south side. And of course, no period murder mystery in L.A. is complete without the faded glamour of Hollywood Boulevard, where fallen starlets and no-goods of all sorts congregate in the shadow of big picture studios. There are hints of L.A. Confidential, and every other noirish take on tinsel town, sprinkled throughout I Am the Night. These cigarette- and whiskey-saturated moments are animated reminders of a genre thats also an integral part of our Southland DNA. When Singletary is sober enough to make it to a meeting with his editor, he pitches the only story that keeps him going: solving the Black Dahlia murder. Some stories dont want to be told! yells his grizzled editor. Some stories will eat you alive! Advertisement I Am the Night Where: TBS and TNT Sneak peek: 7 p.m. Sunday Pilot: 9 p.m. Monday Advertisement Rated: TV-MA-LV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17 with advisories for coarse language and violence) lorraine.ali@latimes.com @lorraineali This week marked a grim chapter in the ongoing saga of American journalism, with sweeping layoffs at Gannett newspapers and heralded digital outlets HuffPost and BuzzFeed. A documentary arriving Monday on HBO, Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists revisits a bygone era when print journalism was thriving and Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill, two blustery Irish Catholics from New Yorks outer boroughs, became national celebrities by chronicling a city in turmoil. It was one of the golden ages of American journalism, I think, in which the virtues of the local were as important as the bigger picture of the universe, said Hamill by phone from his home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. As the sentences spill out of his mouth fully formed, its easy to see how Hamill was able, for decades, to churn out column after artful column on deadline for the New York Post, the New York Daily News and the Village Voice. Advertisement Through archival footage, passages from Breslin and Hamills most celebrated columns and interviews with both men as well as peers like Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and Gloria Steinem, Breslin and Hamill harks back to a more raucous period in journalism, when newsrooms were loud and so were the men it was mostly men who led them. There was a brawling quality to American journalism, a great sense of fun in those newspapers, that is gone, said Jonathan Alter, who directed the film with Steve McCarthy and John Block. Breslin and Hamill traces the arc of their careers via a half-century of major news events, from the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. There is an emphasis on Breslin and Hamills often provocative coverage of race and class throughout New Yorks gritty past, including the notorious Central Park jogger case yes, Donald Trump makes an appearance and the Crown Heights riots, during which Breslin was attacked. The documentary depicts a period before the news business was the elite, white-collar bastion it has, by some accounts, become. Breslin and Hamill were raised in working-class families in Queens and Brooklyn, respectively. Neither graduated from college; Hamill dropped out of high school at 16 to help support his six younger siblings. A well-regarded journalist and author who worked at Newsweek for decades, Alter first encountered Breslin in 1986 when he was profiling the bombastic columnist. I asked hard questions of a few stories he had written. And he said, Alter, you [mess] with me, Ill [mess] you good, Alter recalled by phone, using the saltier language Breslin was known for. Several years ago, Alter learned that Breslin was ailing and had the idea to sit down with him for in-depth conversations about his life, career and the newspaper business. The directors soon added Hamill to the project and interviewed them together for roughly 10 hours. While the two men differed in both tone and appearance Breslin was brash and disheveled with a thick Queens accent, Hamill handsome and honey-voiced with a lyrical prose style they both brought empathy for the poor and the marginalized, informed by their hard-scrabble roots, and a deep understanding of the immigrant experience to their writing. Advertisement We were explaining the newcomers to the people who were here already, and we were explaining New York to the newcomers, said Hamill. The immigrant mentality of this is America, its better than what we left was with us, and I think created a kind of a permanent optimism an optimism that the world is going to be better tomorrow, or least the day after tomorrow. We were explaining the newcomers to the people who were here already, and we were explaining New York to the newcomers. Pete Hamill Decades before major newspapers would send reporters to Rust Belt diners to interview Trump voters, they were attuned to the mood of the white working class. Any politician who leaves that white man out of the political equation, does so at very large risk, Hamill wrote in a prescient column for New York magazine in 1969. Their understanding of white working-class resentments is one of many things about their story that resonates powerfully in the present, Alter said. And while Breslin and Hamill are the focus of the film, they also function as stand-ins for a breed of local columnist that is going extinct. Every city used to have these columnists who really knew the streets of their city. Advertisement The columnists had a Forrest Gump-like tendency to be present at moments of huge historical import for being everywhere for a half-century, as Alter put it. They were both inches away from Bobby Kennedy when he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, and Breslin rode in the ambulance with the mortally wounded senator. But Breslin in particular also knew how to find the unexpected story, famously interviewing the African American worker who dug John F. Kennedys grave at Arlington Cemetery and palling around with colorful underworld figures at his local watering hole. Eschewing the title journalist as pretentious, he preferred to be known simply as a reporter and lived by the credo chase news. Just on the matter of craft, what Jimmy brought to the writing of columns were the tools of the sportswriter. You had to go to the losers dressing room where there was a better story than the winners dressing room, said Hamill, who was hired by the Post to write a column that, like Breslins, appealed to working-class readers and overlapped with him at the Daily News in the 1970s. It wasnt about reading whats on the AP wire and then riffing on it. It was about getting out of the city room and into the street and into the third floor left and talking to the widow of the slain gang leader. Jimmy established that. They also tended to become the news themselves, their prominence turning them into celebrities as well as targets. Breslin ran for mayor with Norman Mailer (it didnt go well) and appeared in beer commercials. Hamill was on Nixons enemies list, and he romanced Shirley MacLaine and Jackie Onassis. Advertisement Can you imagine a print journalist dating the most famous woman in the world now? These were giants roaming the earth, said Alter. But the filmmakers didnt set out to go on a simplistic nostalgia trip, Alter said. Instead the documentary explores the complexities of both men, especially Breslin, whose life was marked by profound loss. Though he wrote with deep empathy about AIDS victims at a time of rampant homophobia, a few years later he was suspended from New York Newsday after using a racist slur to disparage an Asian American female journalist whod criticized a column as sexist the result, said Alter, not of deep-seated bigotry but of Breslins temporary egotism and temper. Nowadays they definitely would have fired him. I think its worth pondering: He would not have done well with the human resources department in 2019, Alter added. Advertisement Though hes been slowed by two busted hips and cant go to a tenement and walk up the seven flights anymore, Hamill is writing a book about his move back to Brooklyn after 30 years in Tribeca in lower Manhattan. And while hes sad about the current state of the industry, Hamill, the author of novels including Forever and the memoirs Downtown: My Manhattan and A Drinking Life, said he remains grateful for the career he has had. Newspapers gave me my life. I didnt go to journalism school or anything. But I had a great number of very good people, men and women, who instructed me, took pity on me and said, This poor dope. And they gave me a life that was full and rich, with a minimum of regrets. And at 83 I can sit back and say I didnt add to the lousiness of the world and I helped people who got knocked down to get up and that was something worth doing in the only life Ill probably ever have. Advertisement See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists Where: HBO When: 8 p.m. Monday Advertisement Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under 17) meredith.blake@latimes.com Follow me @MeredithBlake * Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on January 24 he will close the country's embassy and consulates in the United States, a day after severing "diplomatic and political" ties with Washington. * Russian President Vladimir Putin told Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on January 24 that he supports the legitimate authorities of the country, the Kremlin said. * The US State Department on January 24 ordered non-emergency US government employees to leave Venezuela and said US citizens should "strongly consider" leaving the country, the US Embassy in Caracas said. * Canada will host a meeting of the Lima Group regional bloc to discuss next steps in Venezuela, where opposition leader Juan Guaido has sworn himself in as interim president, a source familiar with the matter said on January 24. * The German government has dropped its economic growth forecast for 2019 to 1.0 percent from 1.8 percent due to slower global economic growth and uncertainty about Britain's exit from the European Union, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported Thursday (January 24). * US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his British counterpart discussed here on January 24 bilateral ties and key global priorities, the State Department said in a statement. * The number of fatalities in Mexico's tragic pipeline explosion has climbed to 100, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) said on January 24. * Four people were killed and at least two others injured in a shooting in the US state of Georgia, police said Thursday evening. * The death toll in Sudan's popular protests rose to 29, announced Thursday a committee on investigating the protests. * Palestinian prisoners' representatives and Israeli prisons service agreed on January 24 evening to defuse tension which last for three days in the Israeli Ofer prison in the West Bank. * A Democrat-backed bill to temporarily open the US government without funding a border wall requested by the White House failed to pass the US Senate on January 24. The bill, which would fund government agencies until Feb. 8 and needs 60 yes-votes to process, was supported by 52 and opposed by 44. * Algeria and Russia on January 24 agreed to continue supporting a political solution in Syria. * The US Department of the Treasury announced Thursday that the United States had imposed sanctions against two Syria-based, Iran-backed militias and two aviation entities linked to Iranian airline Mahan Air. * Iran's army will start a large-scale military exercise in central of the country on January 25, Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force Kiomars Heidari announced on January 24. * The African union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is seeking to re-organize its troops and the Somali National Army (SNA) ahead of the drawdown of 1,000 troops from the Burundi contingent next month. * Earthquakes and tsunamis accounted for most of the 10,373 lives lost in disasters last year, while extreme weather events accounted for most of 61.7 million people affected by natural hazards, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) said Thursday. A few years ago, when Dan Reed first learned that two men had filed child sexual abuse lawsuits against Michael Jackson, he was stunned. Given the gravity of the allegations, he didnt understand why more people werent talking about Wade Robsons and James Safechucks stories. It was 2016, and Reed a U.K. native had been looking for his next nonfiction project. He was looking to do something big and investigative, an iconic American story that had the power to engage audiences on a global scale. So during lunch with an executive at Englands Channel 4, he suggested Michael Jackson: Was he or wasnt he guilty of sexual abuse? At the time, Reed wasnt aware that Robson and Safechuck had recently sued Jacksons two business entities, seeking damages for what they alleged were years of molestation at the hands of the musician. The documentarian was aware of the two public trials against Jackson the first in 1993 and the second in 2005 in which he was charged but never convicted of child sexual abuse. But until a researcher hed hired began looking into Jacksons legal history, Reed had no idea who Robson and Safechuck were. Upon learning of their complaints, Reed immediately reached out to the legal teams for the two men and expressed his interest in interviewing them for a documentary. Though the filmmaker felt it was a real long shot, the accusers agreed to participate. In February 2017, Reed flew to Hawaii to interview Robson, then talked to Safechuck in Ventura County. Advertisement On Friday, Reeds film, which will debut on Channel 4 and HBO this spring, was unveiled to a packed house at the Sundance Film Festival. In the 236-minute project, Robson, 36, and Safechuck, 40, reveal how they came to become close to Jackson as boys and subsequently suffered years of abuse that they hid from their families until they were grown men. An hour after the film came to its emotional conclusion Friday afternoon, Reed spoke to The Times about how the two men are coping with the release, his hopes for how the production will help abuse survivors and how Jackson fans should respond to the new allegations. Director Dan Reed says he is hopeful his film opens up a broader conversation about child sexual abuse. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) How did Robson and Safechuck react after the screening today? Theyd seen it about a month ago, but at the intermission, they were both overwhelmed and very, very emotional. The films crossed that line into the public sphere now, and I think that was an incredibly cathartic moment for Wade and James. They feel very good about the film; they love the film. But it shook them. Its disturbing as well as life-affirming and liberating. Theres a tremendous energy for them in getting this out there. We were talking about it, what an incredible moment it is. This thing happened to them, and theres nothing they can do about it and it [messed] up their lives for a good while. But now it has a purpose. Their experience can be transformed into something that can help other people and give permission to victims of child sexual abuse to speak out. Did either of the men lay out ground rules before you interviewed them? It was made clear to the lawyer from the outset that you have no editorial control. I just said, Speak in as plain terms as you can. I didnt interrupt very much. I asked a few questions, and [Robson] just went. Advertisement You interviewed Robson first, and youd never spoken with him before meeting him in Hawaii. What was that like? I flew to Hawaii and met Wade for lunch, and we immediately had a rapport. For three days, we just talked. When I started interviewing him, I couldnt take for granted that he was telling the truth. I wasnt skeptical, and sort of gave him the benefit of the doubt, but his story had to make sense, because there was no way I was going to risk my reputation on something that was flawed or not quite true. We agreed that the sexual abuse had to be described exactly as it happened. We had to go graphic, because theres no point making a film like this and just saying, Well, then the bedroom door closes, and we skip ahead. There were areas where I questioned him more because I needed to make sure that his account was entirely consistent. Thats the big thing if people are not telling you the truth, then they dont have a mental picture of what it is theyre actually talking about, because theyre lying. You can feel there isnt a mental object theyre describing. I straight away got a sense from Wade that he was telling the story effortlessly and it was very fluid. If I asked him questions, his mind was referencing a real thing and not a made-up thing. His account was extremely credible. Certainly by the end of the third day, I had no doubt he was telling the truth. And you got the same sense from Safechuck? Advertisement Equally with James. James was more tentative, because he has not spoken to the press. Wade was in show business, and hed been interviewed loads of times before. James is so much more raw. You could feel him processing that experience as he was speaking and trying to find words to express what had happened to him. His face is much more I dont want to say expressive but you can read the turmoil on his face. Although Wades very emotional, the conflict isnt there because I think hes had a lot more therapy and processed these things. I thought that as contrasting witnesses, they worked very well. I found James so authentic. His account drifted around a lot more, not in ways I found inconsistent, but he was suddenly talking about this enormous part of his life hed never discussed with anyone. His memories were a lot more attached to feelings, and they werent as crisply illuminated as Wades they were more impressionistic. He remembered details of the abuse and the feelings hed had, but he couldnt necessarily remember that it was exactly two days between Berlin and Paris. Both Robson and Safechuck previously testified in court that Jackson never abused them, and now they say they lied because they have since come to terms with what was done to them. Were you skeptical of their stories going into this? When Wade told me that he loved Michael, then everything suddenly crystallized and made sense. This is difficult to say, but he had a fulfilling sexual and emotional relationship at the age of 7 with a 30-year-old man who happened to be the King of Pop. And because he enjoyed it, he loved Michael, and the sex was pleasant. Im sorry, thats just the reality. Advertisement Most people imagine the kid kind of being forced thats not what happened, and Wade makes that very, very clear. If youre really going to understand what oftentimes child sexual abuse is like, you have to understand that the abuser creates an authentic relationship that if the person was aged 18 or older would be completely normal. The problem is that the child is 7, and a 7-year-old cant make those decisions. We have to face the fact that child sexual abuse isnt a guy grabbing you in the dark and you scream and he runs off and you tell your mom. If this film can make certain ideas about sexual abuse current if that can become part of the culture then weve done a good job, because then people will be able to recognize symptoms and understand why Mark or Joe or whoever started drinking heavily in his early 30s and it turned out he had been abused by his schoolteacher. Michael Jackson is shown in 1993, around the time when Robson and Safechuck say they were abused by him. (Rusty Kennedy / Associated Press) Did you reach out to other young men who spent time with Jackson, like Brett Barnes or Macaulay Culkin? What about the males who also filed suits against him, Jordan Chandler and Gavin Arvizo? Advertisement We looked into Brett and Macaulay and tried to find Jordy and Gavin. I wrote to Gavin, because I really thought that perhaps wed have a chance of getting Gavin in as well. I interviewed prosecutors and detectives and did a lot of research, both to validate what the guys had told me, but also to just steep myself in the story so I had a good perspective on it. But in the end, I realized that the really extraordinary thing was the two families and their stories. OK, but what would you have done if, say, Macaulay agreed to be interviewed? I dont know what you would have done. Of course I would have interviewed them, but I dont know how I would have structured the film. It would have been an eight-hour epic or something, because then I would had to have interviewed Macaulays mom and dad and brother and the whole thing. I think pedophiles often groom a family, they dont groom a child. [Editors note: Culkin has repeatedly denied he experienced anything inappropriate with Jackson.] Do you think more men will come forward with allegations against Jackson after seeing this? Advertisement There must be dozens of men out there who have been sexually abused by him. And I think in the same way that James saw Wade on TV and said me too, others will see this film and come out. Were you tempted to be more judgmental of Robsons and Safechucks mothers, who allowed their sons to sleep in bed with Jackson and didnt think anything of it? Thats not how I approach the kind of storytelling I do. I dont see any need to intervene or to comment. Its very clear that the way that they parented their sons was lacking, was wanting. They were dazzled, as they say, they were starstruck and having this incredible experience at the expense now they realize at the expense of their children. My approach as a storyteller is never to [judge], but always to try and create an understanding of what motivated that person. Its not about condemnation, its about trying to understand why they did it. In the film, Joy Robson says she doesnt want to know the details of her sons alleged sexual abuse because it would give her nightmares. How does she feel now that shes seen the film? Advertisement She saw the film, but she chose not to watch the explicit descriptions of sexual abuse. I fast-forwarded through them. I feel very conflicted about that. Obviously, I was going to respect her wish, and there was no way I was going to force her to watch it or really try and sway her to watch it. I think the reason she doesnt want to watch it is because it would undermine to some extent the deal shes struck with herself. I did this bad, but it wasnt all bad. She justifies herself a little bit more than Stephanie [Safechuck] does. Stephanie was so angry that she fantasized about murdering Jackson. Michael Jackson with a young Wade Robson, who says he was sexually molested by the musician between the ages of 7 and 14. (Sundance Film Festival) What role do those who worked for Jackson have in all this? Clearly, the people in the Jackson household would have seen the children coming in and out of the house and the regular movement of young boys and must have asked themselves some questions. He couldnt have operated without the cooperation of people around him. How much people know or whether they would feel bad when they watch the film, I dont know. Thats another film that I deliberately havent gotten into. Advertisement Why do you think abuse allegations have never really stuck to Jackson? He was very powerful and very wealthy and could hire lawyers who would intimidate. People are scared of Jackson, still. Theyre scared of his legal team. Theyre very aggressive. I got that feeling from approaching members of the household staff and detectives you dont [mess] with Jackson. Since it was announced Leaving Neverland would play here, Jackson fans have been trolling the Sundance page and leaving thousands of comments on Twitter. Why do you think theyre having such a strong reaction to the film? He has this army of fans who are vocal. Its a sort of cult, isnt it? Not as in [David] Koresh or anything like that, because Jackson obviously didnt physically enslave people. But theres a level of adoration. Because he projected this image of innocence and a connection with children and a purity, I think theres something in people that wants to worship that. And if you say that actually the opposite was true that instead of loving and cherishing children, he harmed them youre blasphemous. It feels like weve committed blasphemy, and the MJ fans have launched a fatwa against us. Advertisement How do you think his fans should react to these allegations? Should they stop listening to his music? The current reaction is revulsion when people hear his music, knowing now the truth about what he did with children. Whether that will last I never particularly was fond of Jacksons music. I acknowledge his genius, and he was amazing and incredibly successful. I personally was never a huge fan because I like different types of music, so I dont have that visceral feeling of someone playing a Michael Jackson track at my wedding. But he means an incredible amount to a huge number of people because they connect Michaels music to a time in their life. Were coming off Lifetimes R. Kelly docuseries, and now theres a campaign to #MuteRKelly. Do you think there should be a #MuteMJ campaign? I think Jacksons in a different category from R. Kelly. How many people play R. Kelly at their wedding or birthday? Not that many. But Michael Jackson tracks are embedded in our culture. And if youre going to rip them out, its going to cause a lot of pain. So maybe theres a way to say not the way Kanye West suggested but if you listen to his music and you also acknowledge the fact that he was very damaged and an abuser of children. Advertisement I dont know, Amy, its a good question, because personally I wouldnt enjoy listening to Michael Jackson tracks having watched that film. If theres a movement to reframe or reassess Michael Jacksons music and that is associated with, Lets wake up about child sexual abuse and lets believe people when they come out and not say theyre just after money; lets not shame the victims. If #MuteMJ if that ever happens is associated with that, then fine, so be it. I think the Jackson story has become such an arena for slugging matches that dont involve anything constructive at all. The tone of a lot of the debate is just appalling and negative. Brenda Jenkyns, who drove from Calgary, Canada, stands with a sign outside the premiere of the Leaving Neverland at Sundance. (Danny Moloshok / Invision/AP) How would you argue we do right by those who say theyve been abused by Jackson? Advertisement I think maybe thats part of the answer, because its a public acknowledgment that you believe Wade and James and what theyre saying. And therefore, the next time you listen to a Michael Jackson track, what youve seen in the film comes to mind and thats your association, which is not a nice association. Im not of the view that there should be a #MuteMJ movement. I dont think that politically in the wider world thats the answer. I think what were trying to achieve here using perhaps the biggest global star that ever lived is to how power and wealth can be misused. I think its a great film for parents to watch, because the next time you look at someone behaving a certain way with your child, you think, Wait a minute, let me take a closer interest. What I want the film to do is to make it OK to talk about child sexual abuse. Not necessarily in an organized, institutional way. I dont think the answer is to start a war about Jacksons music. Why make this a four-hour docuseries? Advertisement We all thought it would be a two-hour film. I remember when I sent the first rough cut to HBO and it was four hours and 50 minutes. You just dont do that. It was gonna be two hours. But I was just, like, Watch it. The story just kind of slows you down and embeds you in the relationships, and I think you just cant really get it without that. The storys so contradictory and confusing. You said there was no abuse, and now youre saying abuse. You say you lied then, so which one is it? You have to follow that thread of how this all happened step by step and the psychological beats of the story. The central thing you have to understand is that these children fell in love with Michael Jackson. Jackson wasnt a kind of grab-and-grope pedophile he was a romance, relationship pedophile. Wade started telling me how he had fallen in love with Jackson and how that love lasted for years decades and how that love motivated his loyalty to Jackson. And how that loyalty ended up requiring him to lie about what happened. And also because the sexual abuse happened in the context of a loving relationship, it didnt seem like abuse. It seemed like love. Did the #MeToo movement affect the film? Advertisement The #MeToo movement emerged as we were making it, and it did play into it. For a long time, Joy [Robson] was reluctant and had doubts about the interview. She basically wouldnt make a date for the interview. When the #MeToo movement happened, she felt the time had come to go on the record. I think its given this whole narrative in our society a real impetus. This is a case of #MeToo, because when James saw Wade on television, he went, me too. I think child abuse stories are the next step for the #MeToo movement. That doesnt mean that womens stories get superseded, because obviously no one wants that. I think this film is going to get people going #MeToo, and a lot of people will come out and will feel theyre able to talk because Wade and James broke the biggest taboo of all the biggest silence of all. People who have had the same experience but not with a very famous person will feel empowered to speak, and I hope that that can coalesce with the #MeToo movement. I know [#MeToo founder] Tarana Burke was in the audience [at the Sundance screening], and thats really thrilling. I cant tell you how happy I am about that. FULL COVERAGE: 2019 Sundance Film Festival Advertisement Its been a busy week. Gustavo Dudamel got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Isabella Rosellini is bringing her animal play to the Broad Stage. Im Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, with the weeks essential arts news: THOUGHTS OF VENEZUELA For the record: An earlier version of this article attributed an article about painter Robert Pruitt to reviewer David Pagel. It was written by Leah Ollman. Los Angeles Philharmonic director Gustavo Dudamel got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week. But his comments at the event showed that his mind was on the political situation in Venezuela in advance of the election there. Tomorrow is a crucial day in which the voice of the majority should be respected and heard, Dudamel said in his remarks. Times classical music critic Mark Swed chatted with Dudamel after the ceremony. Los Angeles Times Gustavo Dudamel, music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. (Richard Shotwell / Invision / AP) Advertisement Because too much Dudamel is never enough, Swed also caught the director leading a night of music by Star Wars composer John Williams. It takes a lot to make a John Williams tribute stand out, Swed writes. But there could be little question that Gustavo Dudamels Los Angeles Philharmonic celebration of Williams at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday was the greatest. Los Angeles Times CLASSICAL NOTES In Black Cat, early Viennese music specialist and organist Martin Haselbock created a work for tenor, two dancers and video that blends Baroque and contemporary music to re-imagine Edgar Allan Poes murderous tale. The production was hindered by the U.S. government shutdown (tenor Nicholas Mulroy didnt complete his visa paperwork in time). But the show, reports Mark Swed, went on. Los Angeles Times Jean-Guillaume Weis and Sylvia Camarda in Long Beach Operas The Black Cat. (Keith Ian Polakoff / Long Beach Opera) Messiaens Turangalila, writes Swed, is the sort of composition that can lean toward the vulgar, a 10-movement expose of lurid eroticism, devout religiosity, epic monumentalism and flower-power delicacy. But under the direction of Susanna Malkki in a recent show at Walt Disney Concert Hall, there was never the slightest hint of vulgarity. Los Angeles Times HELLO, BETTY! Ahead of Betty Buckleys Jan. 29 arrival at Hollywoods Pantages Theatre in the national touring production of Hello, Dolly! (at Costa Mesas Segerstrom Center for the Arts this weekend), Times theater critic Charles McNulty talks with the star about the recent stage and screen roles that bloomed after what she calls her shocking coming of age as an older actress. Writes McNulty, Shes a musical theater virtuoso who burrows deep into the psychology of whatever part she is playing. Los Angeles Times Betty Buckley is starring in the national tour of Hello, Dolly! (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) Advertisement ANIMAL CIRCUS Isabella Rossellini raises chickens, has done documentaries on animal procreation and is months away from getting a masters degree in animal behavior. Now shes in L.A. to perform her one-woman show Link Link Circus, about humans complex relationship to domesticated animals, at the Broad Stage. Evolution, she tells The Times Jessica Gelt, is not only the survival of the fittest but survival of the friendliest. Los Angeles Times Isabella Rossellini at the Huntington Library. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) LONDON CALLING Advertisement Stephen Daldrys heralded staging of J.B. Priestleys An Inspector Calls has landed in Los Angeles at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. If what was once so bracing now seems quaintly nostalgic, the work hasnt lost its popular charm, writes Times critic Charles McNulty. The theatrical effectiveness even in a somewhat faded touring copy, is undeniable. Los Angeles Times Stephen Daldrys touring production of J.B. Priestleys An Inspector Calls. (Mark Douet) BIG FRIEZE The Frieze Art Fair comes to Los Angeles next month for an onslaught of art, performance, gallery presentations and artist talks. The fair is a play for a toehold in the art world by Hollywood talent agency Endeavor, a majority owner of Frieze. The show, Endeavor president Mark Shapiro tells The Times Deborah Vankin, was very much a strategic play for us. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Frieze Los Angeles director Bettina Korek, center, with curators Ali Subotnick and Hamza Walker. (Ana Venegas / For The Times) TRIBUTE TO JOHN MASON John Mason, an artist who pushed the boundaries and dimensions of clay in bold, abstract works, died last weekend at the age of 91. Times contributor Suzanne Muchnic pays tribute: Although [Peter] Voulkos would always be revered as the catalyst of the revolution, she writes, Mason became known for transforming clay into expressive art on a grand scale. Los Angeles Times John Mason, at 69 in his studio, surrounded by his work. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement IN THE GALLERIES Times contributor David Pagel has been making the rounds, checking out a 1,000-square-foot painting by Sarah Cain in her sizzling exhibition at Honor Fraser, the quietly charged paintings of Cole Case at E.C. Lina, as well as the punchy, funny universe known as the Moundverse that painter and sculptor Trenton Doyle Hancock has imagined at Shulamit Nazarian. In the meantime, Leah Ollman popped in to the California African American Museum, where she reviews Robert Pruitts tremendous solo show, centered on a series of paintings of human figures: Although Pruitt draws each to be palpably human, he also endows them with the monumentality of deities. Los Angeles Times A detail from Robert Pruitts I Turned Myself Into Myself, 2018. (Robert Pruitt / Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Seattle) Advertisement Ollman also checks out a show of paintings by Paige Jiyoung Moon at Steve Turner. The artist, she writes, paints with the precision of a jeweler and a reverence for the real that has its roots in the Northern Renaissance. Los Angeles Times Paige Jiyoung Moons Kos Old Apartment, 2018. (Paige Jiyoung Moon / Steve Turner) ANNALS OF PERFORMANCE The Times Daryl H. Miller takes us back to a musical about the roots of the republic that is not Hamilton. The show 1776 landed on Broadway in 1969, and it is now being resuscitated in a rare production at the La Mirada Theatre that will then travel to the Soraya in Northridge. Los Angeles Times Advertisement The Second Continental Congress is in session in 1776. (Jason Niedle) Plus, we have a report by Catherine Womack on a performance protest by the Community Choir at the Los Angeles Womens March and Tim Greiving writes about the Four Larks opera that was shut down by the Woolsey Fire but is now back with a full premiere at the Getty Villa. READY FOR THE WEEKEND Matt Cooper has the week ahead in art, dance, music and theater, as well as his weekend picks. Advertisement Philip Brandes comes through with the 99-Seat Beat, which includes a staging of Martin McDonaghs early black comedy, Cripple of Inishmaan. Los Angeles Times Plus, Ive got your visual arts needs covered in my weekly Datebook, which includes Beatriz Cortezs imagined space utopia. Los Angeles Times IN OTHER NEWS Jonas Mekas, the influential experimental filmmaker known for founding the Anthology Film Archives in New York, has died at the age of 96. New York Times Advertisement Arts writer Paddy Johnson on why Mekas matters. Observer Text messages put into question whether artist Robert Indiana, known for his LOVE sign, truly had a hand in designing his final works. New York Times Rhinestones are a girls best friend: Dolly Partons costumes are coming to L.A.! Los Angeles The biologist who studied all the seashells on the Watts Towers. Los Angeles Times Advertisement Hauser & Wirth has donated $1 million to Cal State L.A.s TV, film and media studies department. Los Angeles Times Re-creating the musical Rent for live television. American Theatre To mark the 110th anniversary of the Bauhaus, Berlins Academy of Arts is resuscitating a Bauhaus ballet. Artnet Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon to play titular roles in Frankie and Johnny in Broadway revival. Los Angeles Times Advertisement The Related Co. wants to know what they should name Thomas Heatherwicks new architectural folly in New York City. Consider Brutalist Laundry Hamper of Doom my formal submission. Curbed Wanted: architect willing to contend with bureaucracy and government shutdowns. The U.S. Senate is looking for a new architect of the Capitol. The Architects Newspaper AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST Heres the design-conscious cat table you didnt know you needed. My Modern Met Advertisement Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter carolina.miranda@latimes.com | Twitter: @cmonstah As millions around the world prepare to usher in the Year of the Boar on Feb. 5, the U.S. Postal Service has issued the last stamp in its second series of Celebrating Lunar New Year postage. Chinese American artist Kam Mak created the new Forever stamp, which features bright pink peach blossoms. The peach is very auspicious and represents long life, says the illustrator. Its also the first tree that blossoms in the Lunar New Year, marking the beginning of spring in Chinese culture. The Year of the Boar (aka Year of the Pig) stamp also includes elements from the previous series of stamps a paper-cut design of a boar by the late Clarence Lee and the Chinese character for the animal drawn in calligraphy by the late Lau Bun. Lunar New Year stamp artist Kam Mak, in Honolulu in 2018. (Heidi Chang) Advertisement Mak says that designing the second Lunar New Year stamp series has been the highlight of his career so far. I appreciate that I was given the opportunity to tell a story of how we celebrate the Lunar New Year through my paintings. Also, being able to share the history of how the stamps came about means a lot to me. The idea for a Lunar New Year stamp began in the late 1980s, when Jean Chen was reading to children as a volunteer at a library in Georgia. She was shocked to come across a book about the history of the transcontinental railroad that showed a photo of only Caucasian workers celebrating the completion of the railroad in 1869. I was thinking, its not equal, no Chinese people, why not? Thats why I protested, recalled Chen, who died last year. Chen, who was a member of the Organization of Chinese Americans (now known as OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates), inspired the group to urge the Postal Service to issue a stamp honoring the contributions of Chinese Americans in the U.S. Hawaii graphic artist Clarence Lee designed the first stamp in 1992 to commemorate the Year of the Rooster. The stamp brought in more than $5 million in sales, not just in the U.S. but also in China, according to Lee. This was the first U.S. stamp with a Chinese character on it, Chinese paper-cut artwork. It was very colorful. They were buying up these stamps because it had a Chinese theme, recalled Lee before his 2015 death, noting that back then there were some 20 million stamp collectors in China. Because the stamp sold so well, the Postal Service commissioned Lee to complete a series of all 12 animals associated with the Chinese lunar calendar. His favorite stamp was the boar. Its just flying through the air and it seems happy and very active, Lee said. The stamps also gave him a chance to honor his parents. Lees mother was a Chinese American from Hawaii; his father emigrated from China. Im sure everybody has a story like that, ancestors that had braved coming across the ocean and making a life thats better for their children and their childrens children. Advertisement Lees father worked hard to support his family as a butcher in Honolulus Chinatown and sent his son to Yale University, where he studied design. I remember my father getting a pink, waxy butcher paper, and he would bring it home to me, sheets and sheets of it. And I would just sit on the floor and just start drawing, said Lee. After Lees popular series ended, the OCA fought again to get the series renewed. In 2008, the Postal Service selected Kam Mak to design the second series. Mak felt Lees images of the animals would help complement his own design concept, which celebrates some of the holiday customs and traditions that have endured throughout time. So Lees paper-cut designs appear in gold in the upper left corner of each stamp, above Lau Buns calligraphy. Advertisement Among the stamps Mak has designed, his favorite is the one for 2010, the Year of the Tiger. It features narcissus flowers. It was something that my grandmother would cultivate right before the Lunar New Year, and as a little boy Id help her. And the fragrance from the flower reminds me Lunar New Year is coming and always brings back really fond memories of being with my Grandma. Carrying on the legacy of the Lunar New Year stamps has been an extraordinary journey for the Hong Kong-born artist. Maks family immigrated to America in 1971, when he was 10 years old. His parents worked long hours in low-paying jobs to support their family of seven. His father washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant; his mother worked in a Chinatown sweatshop. Mak struggled to learn English, growing up during an era when Chinese gangs were rampant in New York Citys Chinatown and trying to recruit new members. Advertisement His friend joined a gang. It was a rough time, recalls Mak. One day I heard my friend got shot in the back of his head in a Chinese theater. The whole scenario really scared me straight. And I realized, Oh boy, I want to make sure that I dont end up being in that situation. From then on, I really started taking school very seriously. Because I think that was really my way out. Mak discovered his passion soon after he got involved with the City Art Workshop, which encouraged inner-city youths like him to explore the arts. Now 57, Mak is a professor at New Yorks Fashion Institute of Technology, where he teaches painting and lives in Brooklyn. Hes also illustrated numerous books including The Dragon Prince, by renowned author Laurence Yep. In 2001, Mak was surprised when Toni Markiet, an editor who had worked with famed author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, encouraged him to create his own picture book about how he grew up in Chinatown. And he did. The title of the book is My Chinatown: One Year in Poems. Advertisement Since 2006, Mak has been mentoring young people who all get a copy of his book through a literacy program called Behind the Book. Theyre mostly Latino and African American kids from the inner city. I lecture in Brooklyn and in Harlem. So besides reading them the book, I take them out to Chinatown and have them experience all the things that I experienced growing up. I think its fascinating for these kids, because everything they saw was all new to them. I just want to stir their imaginations and want them to learn about other cultures, besides what they only know in their own neighborhood. Mak wants people to be proud of who they are, and not feel ashamed if theyre different. He recalled what happened when he spoke at a public school in Chinatown. After my presentation, a group of immigrant Chinese kids came to me and emotionally said, Kam, Im so happy theres a book that is about me. I said, Yes, this book is about all our similar experiences. And at that moment, I felt really emotional because, wow, the book itself had moved other kids, and they would not feel that they are isolated, that theres actually a book that plays a very positive light about how they grew up. Advertisement Looking back, Mak reflects, Im very grateful I could come to this country, and for all the opportunities its given me. Im proud to be an immigrant. Because this is the last stamp in the series, its bittersweet, because I learned a lot and met so many wonderful people through this journey. Most of all, Mak adds, I feel fortunate I was given the chance to use my artistic skill to pay homage to the Chinese laborers who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad, and all those who paved the way before me. We helped build this country. calendar@latimes.com The young man walking back and forth from his seat to the packaged food section in the Starbucks store looked suspicious, recounted a store manager. In the past, she said, she might have asked him to leave. Instead of confronting him, or calling the police, the manager talked to the man who said he was hungry and homeless. She said she then gave him and a friend breakfast. The anonymous incident was recounted in a much-anticipated report released Wednesday as Starbucks Corp. seeks to mend its reputation after a highly publicized confrontation in Philadelphia last April, when a store manager called police on two black patrons who later said they were waiting for a business meeting to start before ordering. In response to the Philadelphia uproar, Starbucks now is training employees to treat anyone who walks in the door as a customer, whether they intend to make a purchase or not. The fresh take on Starbucks longtime goal of creating a third space a public place for interaction and leisure away from home and work offers a fresh set of challenges, employees said in the report prepared for the company by a law firm to measure progress on diversity and inclusion. Advertisement In each of my listening sessions, partners shared how difficult it is to achieve this goal in communities that are deeply affected by addiction, mental illness or homelessness, former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, who assisted with the study, wrote in a letter included in the 67-page report from Covington & Burling. These conversations highlighted a powerful tension between Starbucks efforts to create a welcoming third place on the one hand, and the realities of life in our most vulnerable communities on the other. Overall, the report found that Starbucks has improved already-robust diversity and inclusion policies since April. But it still has work to do to prevent an embarrassing repeat of what happened in Philadelphia mostly related to training and staffing in vulnerable areas where homelessness or mental illness may be more prevalent. With more than 14,000 Starbucks cafes in the U.S., there are lots of opportunities for incidents to arise with an open-door policy. One group of employees which Starbucks calls partners had to call for emergency medical aid after a woman gave birth in their stores bathroom, Holder said in his summary, calling some of the stories of in-store experiences stunning. Other partners shared equally disturbing, if less dramatic, examples of having to navigate highly charged, or potentially violent, interactions. For some, the local Starbucks may be one of the only places where they can go to feel safe and warm, much less welcomed, wrote Holder, a Covington partner. Many of the tough issues facing Starbucks stores are also front and center for public libraries, said Amy VanScoy, who teaches library science at the University of Buffalo. Some are training staff to use Narcan, which can revive a person who overdoses on heroin. She offers a graduate-level course that helps librarians develop better cultural competency and identify their own biases. Its not an easy situation for libraries, either; its definitely a challenge, said VanScoy, who was a librarian before becoming an associate professor. Customer service will only get you so far, and then its a matter of developing cultural competence. Were lucky, we have a masters-level education for people who are going to be librarians. Starbucks is putting together a task force to study the challenges and plans to work with community groups, advocacy organizations and other segments, including public libraries, with a similar need to accommodate a wide range of people, according to the report. Still, some of the training will just be common sense, says Paul Gionfriddo, chief executive officer of Mental Health America, the 110-year-old mental health advocacy group. One in five Starbucks customers probably has a mental illness of some kind, he estimates, though few will display obvious or disruptive behaviors. Advertisement People can change the comfort level simply by saying, Hello, treating them calmly, presuming that people are not going to be violent, said Gionfriddo, whose son has schizophrenia and has experienced homelessness. Still, the very idea of a third place reflects the reality that most of its customers already have a first and second place, their home and job, said Susan Harmeling, associate professor of entrepreneurship at the USC Marshall School of Business and an expert in business ethics. Starbucks cant afford to have people taking advantage of the free space, crowding out too many paying customers, she said. The 64-million-dollar question is, Are they going to swing the pendulum so far in the other direction that that comes back to bite them somehow? Harmeling said. In May, the coffee giant had to clarify that while anyone can sit in a Starbucks store or patio or use the bathroom without buying anything, certain behaviors such as smoking, drinking alcohol and sleeping still arent allowed. The chain said at the time that disruptive behavior includes unreasonable noise, improper use of restrooms and panhandling. Advertisement The coffee company has held six employee training sessions on how to treat people in its stores since May, Roz Brewer, Starbucks chief operating officer, said in an interview Thursday. The company also agreed to hire a new diversity and inclusion executive who will report back regularly to CEO Kevin Johnson and the board. New guidelines included in the Covington report are meant to make it easier for an employee to determine what appropriate action is in different situations and physical spaces. Were looking at this very holistically and then empowering the store managers to make great decisions around customers, she said. We feel like we face a lot of the same issues that other retailers face. Over the last few years, cities across America have experienced sudden downpours of shared electric scooters, piling up almost overnight on curbs, sidewalks and frontyards from Los Angeles to Atlanta. The phenomenon has quickly built billion-dollar startups, a new urban subculture and even a gray market for freelance scooter-chargers. But as with everything new, it also has triggered litigation. And in the case of a transportation mode that leaves riders exceptionally vulnerable to sudden injury, its reasonable to expect a lot of those lawsuits. Now, lawyers have their first trickle of data as they seek to make unlucky pedestrians and injured riders whole. A limited study, the first of its kind, reviewed scooter-related injuries of 249 patients at two Los Angeles-area emergency rooms Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood and UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica from September 2017 to August 2018. The report revealed the kinds of injuries one can expect in this brave new world. The vast majority of the injured were riders as opposed to pedestrians. They averaged about 34 years old, and 58% were male. The study revealed a general lack of operator adherence to traffic laws or warnings by the scooter companies themselves, according to an article published Friday in JAMA Network Open. The scooters can reach 15 mph, and less than 5% of riders were reported to have been wearing helmets. Advertisement About 40% of patients had head injuries, and almost 32% suffered broken bones. The study said a significant subset of the injuries occurred in patients younger than 18. The researchers dont try to compare your chances of getting killed on or by a scooter versus a car, but rather the physical damage being wrought. And how did these 249 California riders get hurt, exactly? More than 80% just fell off, according to the study, and 11% hit something. Paul Steely White, Birds director of safety policy and advocacy, criticized the JAMA study as very limited. The report fails to take into account the sheer number of e-scooter trips taken, he said. The scooter model is based on an app. Download it, enter your credit card, find a scooter, scan, ride and leave the two-wheeler at your destination. For obvious reasons, college campuses have been especially fertile ground for scooter companies, led by Bird and Lime. Some schools and municipalities have impounded swarms of scooters left strewn about, saying they create hazards and parking headaches. Fed-up locals are setting electric scooters on fire and burying them at sea Scooters have already prompted a handful of lawsuits, most notably a proposed class-action suit in California state court against Bird, Lime and other scooter companies alleging gross negligence. The complaint was filed in October on behalf of people injured by scooter users, but not on behalf of any riders. The plaintiffs alleged the scooter companies knew and/or should have known that their scooters are, would become and would continue to be an unsafe, dangerous and damaging public nuisance. Bird pointed the finger at automobiles rather than directly addressing the allegations in the complaint. At Bird, safety is our very top priority, and it drives our mission to get cars off the road to make cities safer and more livable, the company said. Shared e-scooters are already replacing millions of short car trips and the pollution that comes with them. Lime spokeswoman Mary Caroline Pruitt said the safety of riders and the community is its No. 1 priority. The company said it has distributed 250,000 free helmets across the globe and is improving the safety of the scooters themselves. Advertisement A recent law passed in California allows adults to operate scooters without helmets. To ride most scooters, users must waive liability, which presents a high bar for a subsequent lawsuit. But that doesnt mean there wont be lawyers who try. A lot of college kids dont have cars, so they love these things, said Catherine Lerer, whose law firm McGee, Lerer & Associates filed the class-action suit. People think it looks so easy. But suing scooter companies after liability has been waived is a difficult fight, said Tamara Kurtzman, a litigator based in Beverly Hills. Its an extremely uphill battle, which is more disappointing because real people are getting hurt, she said. Thats the tragedy in this story. Lerer said shes never met a rider who told her they read an e-scooter user agreement. Ive been practicing law for 25 years representing personal injury victims, she said. I have never seen these kind of devastating injuries before scooters arrived. Thats just whats shocking to me. Advertisement In addition to injured pedestrians hit by scooters, some of her clients were hurt simply tripping over scooters left on a sidewalk, she said. The new study aimed to more fully describe the kind of damage being done. The researchers took great pains to note its limitations. They said they hope that others will build on their work and that policymakers will find it useful as the scooter world expands. Lorin writes for Bloomberg. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Managing Editor Scott Kraft made the following announcement. We are delighted to announce the addition of three talented, enterprising reporters to our growing Washington bureau: Janet Hook, Anna Phillips and Molly OToole. They come on the strong recommendation of David Lauter, Washington Bureau Chief, to whom they will report. Janet Hook, who will take on the job of chief political writer in Washington, has established herself over nearly four decades as among Washingtons best-informed and wisest reporters. For the last eight years, she has been a Washington-based reporter for the Wall Street Journal. As a national political reporter for the Journal, her coverage of the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns set the standard for intelligent, fair and perceptive reporting on politics. Janets byline, of course, will be a familiar sight to many Los Angeles Times readers. She previously covered Congress and national politics during nearly 15 years in our Washington bureau, which included memorable news events from the Clinton impeachment through the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Iraq War, the election of Barack Obama, the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. As we get ready for coverage of a deeply divided electorate heading into a presidential campaign of keen interest to our readers, Janets insight, experience and depth will prove key to our coverage. Anna Phillips came to the Los Angeles Times in 2016 from the Tampa Bay (formerly St. Petersburg) Times and has quickly established herself as among the stars of our hard-working Metro staff. Her coverage of schools in Los Angeles has won praise from editors, colleagues and readers as she uncovered misconduct, scrutinized politics and analyzed bureaucracy in the nations second-largest school district and the charter schools that surround it. The investigation that she did last year of wild spending at one major charter-school operation drew national attention and led the state Board of Education to take the rare step of shutting down two schools. Her editors in Los Angeles have praised her intelligence, ability to dig into complex stories and skill at distilling those complexities into readable narratives. All that will serve her and our readers well as she takes up her new assignment covering environmental policy in Washington, a topic of great interest on which the Trump administration and California have repeatedly battled. Advertisement Molly OToole has spent the past eight years developing expertise and sources on U.S. immigration and national security policy and their implications for people seeking to flee some of the worlds most troubled spots. As a freelancer contributing to The Atlantic, the Washington Post and others, and as a staff writer and editor for Foreign Policy, Defense One and the Huffington Post, her energy and resourcefulness allowed her to find and break news often missed by much larger and more fully staffed competitors. Her writing from Latin America, the Middle East and Africa has given her valuable insight into the impact that abstract government policies have on the concrete circumstances of migrants, and her ability to tell their stories with empathy and sophistication has already created a distinguished body of work. As our Washington-based immigration writer, shell tackle a policy area at the center of the Trump administrations agenda, one that generates daily headlines which emphasize the topics importance to California and the nation as a whole. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Managing Editor Scott Kraft made the following announcement. We are delighted to announce the addition of three talented, experienced and deeply knowledgeable reporters to our growing Washington bureau Del Quentin Wilber, Jennifer Haberkorn and Eli Stokols. They come on the strong recommendation of David Lauter, Washington Bureau Chief, to whom they will report. Del Quentin Wilber will be a familiar byline to many Los Angeles Times readers. He previously worked in the Washington bureau as our Justice Department beat reporter before leaving to join the Wall St. Journal. Now, hell be returning in a new role, writing enterprise stories on criminal justice and national security. Throughout his career, including work at the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post and Bloomberg, Del has covered terrorist attacks, major trials, police corruption, the Clinton email probe and the current special counsel investigation. He is the author of two books Rawhide Down, in 2011, a best-selling account of the shooting of Ronald Reagan, and A Good Month for Murder, in 2016, the inside story of a homicide squad. His deep sourcing in law enforcement and national security have consistently put him at the forefront of reporters in Washington, and were delighted to have him back. Jennifer Haberkorn, in eight years at Politico, has won wide recognition for her mastery of the politics and policy of healthcare, covering health-related issues from abortion to Zika. Since the new administration took office, Jen has covered the repeated efforts by congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which has given her extensive insight into the workings of the House and Senate leadership and the congressional Republican caucuses. She will take that hard-won knowledge and put it to work for us on Capitol Hill, covering Congress. She will give us urgently needed reinforcement on a beat thats always hectic and could soon be even busier. And her expertise in healthcare will also add to one of the Bureaus existing strengths as we continue to stay abreast of one of the critical public policy issues of this decade. Advertisement Eli Stokols joined the Bureau a couple of weeks ago, and we are already benefiting from his sourcing and knowledge of the Trump White House. His first assignment after officially joining the staff was to cover Trumps trip to Europe, which ended with the presidents extraordinary meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Eli handled an extremely hectic and newsworthy series of events with flair and insight. Previously, Eli covered the White House for the Wall Street Journal and, prior to that, worked two years for Politico, where he was a lead reporter on the 2016 Republican campaign. A Southern California native and graduate of Berkeley, Eli had a dozen years of experience as a television reporter and anchor in Louisiana and Colorado before coming to D.C. as a reporter. That broadcast experience has served him well as an analyst for MSNBC, where he frequently appears. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Managing Editor Scott Kraft made the following announcement. Were pleased to announce that Judy Cramer, who retired as director of multiplatform editing last year, is returning to The Times as our Readers Representative. Judy joined The Times in 2001 as a copy editor in Business and, a year later, placed first in the national headline writing contest of the American Copy Editors Society. In 2004, she moved to the Features desk as an assistant copy chief for the Outdoors, Food, Home and Health sections, and became copy chief for Calendar five years later. She was promoted to head up the Times copy desks for news, business and op-ed and held that job until last summer. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina, in her home state. Before moving to California, Judy worked at newspapers throughout the South as a reporter, city editor, features editor, design/graphics editor and photo editor. Advertisement In her new role, she will address readers concerns and questions, and manage the Readers Representative Journal on latimes.com. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Assistant Managing Editor Len De Groot made the following announcement. We are excited to announce the arrival of Liyna Anwar and Paige Hymson, two podcasting producers who will help focus and elevate our audio efforts. Liyna joins us from StoryCorps, where she produced audio stories for the StoryCorps podcast and NPRs Morning Edition. She has deep Los Angeles roots and has worked for several local broadcast outlets, including American Public Medias Marketplace, KPCC and KCRW. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in anthropology. Paige joins us from the Washington Post, where she worked as a producer. Previously, she spent several years at CNN in multiple roles, including on shows such as The Lead with Jake Tapper, State of the Union and Inside Politics. Paige has a degree in broadcasting from the University of Maryland. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Managing Editor Scott Kraft made the following announcement. We are pleased to announce the promotion of Mitchell Landsberg, acting Foreign and National Editor, to the position of Foreign Editor of the Los Angeles Times. In his new role, Mitchell will oversee our global correspondents, guiding the work of the growing international staff as he has done so skillfully since taking on his interim duties in March. We plan to eventually divide Foreign and National into separate departments as we expand our coverage of the nation and the world, focusing especially on the issues of vital interest to California. But, as we search for a new National Editor, Mitchell will continue to oversee National as well as the Foreign/National editing desk in Los Angeles. Mitchell brings a wealth of experience to his new role. He has been an editor on the Foreign/National Desk since 2012, including the last three years as deputy department head. Before joining the desk, he was a staff writer for a dozen years, during which he covered religion, education and national politics. His work also included coverage of the Haiti earthquake, the Florida recount and the California gubernatorial recall, and he has long been a go-to writer for rewrite on major news. Advertisement Mitchell was also one of four reporters who uncovered deadly abuses at the inner-city hospital King/Drew Medical Center work that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2005. And he was the lead writer on a 70-plus-member team that won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for coverage of California wildfires. Before joining the Times, Mitchell spent 19 years at the Associated Press, where he was a national writer based in New York and, later, a foreign correspondent in the APs Moscow bureau. He got his start with AP in the Reno bureau and previously worked at the Ukiah Daily Journal and the Beverly Hills Independent. He has a bachelors degree in history from UCLA. He and his wife, Mary McVean, a former Times staffer who now runs an urban farming collective, have two grown children. Addressing the debate, Ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, Head of Vietnams Permanent Mission to the UN, shared other countries opinions that impacts from climate change-related disasters sow the seeds of instability and even conflicts in some places in the world. He said the world is suffering from increasingly serious impacts of climate change with various kinds of extreme weather, such as displacement of people and threats to food security, water resource, and even the existence of island countries. The diplomat shared the challenges faced by Vietnam as a country among the top 10 countries hardest hit by climate change in the past 20 years and the top six worst affected in the past four years. He noted that the sea level rise has influenced the livelihoods of tens of millions of people in the Mekong Delta, a major rice bowl of the country, thus threatening food security of not only Vietnam but also many foreign nations because 90 percent of Vietnamese rice export come from the delta. Quy stressed that it is necessary to set up mechanisms to share information and experience in the fields, and enhance discussions on the relations between climate change and security. The debate was attended by ministers, deputy ministers and ambassadors from 76 UN member states along with leaders of UN agencies. According to Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peace-building Affairs, to address climate-related security risks, it is a must to develop stronger risk analysis capacity, pool good risk management and prevention practice and reinforce partnerships to leverage existing capacities within and outside the UN system. Meanwhile, Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner said that the UNDP and the UNs Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Environment Programme are working to develop a climate-related security mechanism to raise public awareness of climate changes threat to global security, and a mechanism to evaluate climate change risks and improve existing capacities. Besides calling on the UN Security Council to take practical actions, participants at the debate laid stress on the necessity of technical support and mechanisms to manage risks and give early warning of natural calamities among countries and organisations. They said that relevant international commitments like Paris Agreement and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction must be strictly implemented. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Managing Editor Scott Kraft made the following announcement. We are pleased to announce these important additions to our Metro/California reporting staff, under the direction of Shelby Grad. Susanne Rust, currently director of the Energy and Environmental Reporting Project at Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Journalism and an award-winning writer and editor, is joining the Metro staff as an investigative reporter. She will focus on environmental stories, including the federal governments clashes with California. Advertisement For the past four years, Susanne has led a team of investigative reporters at Columbia, producing long-term investigative projects focused on global environmental and energy issues. That effort included a 2015 series of stories for The Times that examined ExxonMobils understanding of climate change in the 1980s and 1990s a series that sparked investigations by Attorneys General in New York, California and three other states. Earlier this year, the Times published an investigation from Susannes Columbia team that probed catastrophe bonds used by Mexico to financially hedge against natural disasters. Before going to Columbia, Susanne was senior environmental reporter at The Center for Investigative Reporting and a science and environment reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting (2009) and a winner of the Polk Award as well as the John S. Oakes award for environmental reporting. She also has been John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University. Susanne has a bachelors degree from Barnard College, a masters degree in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she completed coursework for her PhD in biological anthropology. She also attended the science communications program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Matt Stiles, who has spent the last two years as a special correspondent for us in Seoul, is joining Metro as a reporter covering Los Angeles County. Matt wrote more than 100 stories for us from South Korea, skillfully charting the evolution of the relationship between South and North Korea and following the fascinating twists and turns of South Korean politics. Before moving to Seoul, Matt was based in Washington, D.C., where he covered national economics for the Wall Street Journal and worked as data editor on NPRs news apps team. Earlier, he spent a decade in Texas, first as a criminal justice reporter for the Dallas Morning News and later as a government watchdog reporter for the Houston Chronicle and a data editor for The Texas Tribune in Austin. Matts experience will be vital in covering L.A. County government, a sprawling institution with a $30 billion annual budget that touches on so many essential services in the region. He will work with Nina Agrawal to dig into these institutions and examine how taxpayer money is spend. He also will cover the Board of Supervisors and work closely with both the data desk and the rest of the city-county team. He has a bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Arlington, and was named to New York magazines list of 21 New Media Innovators in 2011. Matt and his wife, Elise Hu of NPR, have three young daughters. Advertisement Taryn Luna, a standout reporter for the Sacramento Bee, is joining our Sacramento bureau, where she will work with the talented team led by bureau chief John Myers. At the Bee, Taryn wrote dozens of smart enterprise and investigative stories on the California Legislature and the states Third House of lobbyists. Along with our current bureau, she has been one of the Capitols leading writers on the serious allegations of sexual misconduct levied against multiple lawmakers. She was a fierce competitor for those stories, and filed the first story on accusations that led to the resignation of former state Sen. Tony Mendoza. Taryn is a native of Dixon, a Solano County town just outside of Sacramento. After completing her degree at Oregon State and internships at the Oregonian and the Dallas Morning News, she covered crime and city agencies for the Pittsburg Post-Gazette and then covered business beats at the Boston Globe. Her first day in the Sacramento bureau will be Oct. 1. BJ Terhune, a multiplatform editor for the past three years, has joined Metro as the morning editor. Advertisement BJ will be responsible for getting the California report off the ground each morning, assigning stories, coordinating breaking news and representing the section in the 7:30 a.m. meeting. She previously was a pioneer on the AM copy desk and played a key role in helping us attack breaking news quickly and accurately as well as developing our digital storytelling skills. In her new job, BJ will work with the other Metro editors to determine how stories are covered, take a leading role in breaking news and also serve as teacher for best digital news practices. She will also be part of the team rethinking how we present California news. Before joining the Times, BJ was City Editor of the Los Angeles Register and a copy editor at the Orange County Register. Her previous experience included stints at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Orlando Sentinel, the Gainesville (Fla.) Sun and the Palm Beach Post. She has a bachelors degree from the University of Florida. Hannah Fry, a reporter from Times Community News in Orange County, has joined Metro as a morning general assignment reporter. Advertisement During her five years at TCN, Hannah covering county law enforcement, and many of her stories appeared in The Times as well. Her original reporting on a bizarre killing in Newport Beach became the seeds of the Dirty John series and podcast. She also wrote a compelling series about the unsettling aftermath of a high-profile murder, one with multiple twists and moral complexities. Just before she joined us, she broke another big story: How the Sheriffs Department improperly recorded more than 1,000 privileged phone calls in the Orange County jails. Hannah grew up in Orange County and has a bachelors degree in English from Chapman University. As part of the rebuilding of the Los Angeles Times, Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine and Deputy Managing Editor Sewell Chan made the following announcement. We are delighted to announce that Casey Miller, a gifted computer programmer with a passion for the news, is joining our Data Desk next month. Building off past projects like our Quakebot, Casey will work to automate and analyze data tracking the disasters both natural and human-made that threaten the homes, health and well-being of Californians. She will collaborate with our reporters to deepen readers understanding of earthquakes, wildfires and the effects of climate change across California and the West. Since 2017, Casey has been a data visualization specialist in the Bay Area at Mapbox, a leading digital startup, where she has exploited the storytelling potential of technology and helped users to make their maps shine. One beneficiary of her work: Last months Los Angeles Times analysis, which found that 1 million California buildings are at severe risk from wildfires. Advertisement Before joining Mapbox, Casey was an engineer for Vox Media in New York. There, she helped develop innovative extensions to the companys content-management system, and worked with reporters to create data-driven stories for sites like Curbed and Vox. Casey received a degree in journalism of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. Upon graduation, she served as the Data Desks summer intern. Casey is the first of several new hires we are making to the Data Desk. Under Ben Welshs leadership, this team has been a training ground for a generation of journalists who use software and statistics to tell stories. Journalism is becoming more collaborative, more visual and more technologically sophisticated, and the Data Desks teamwork and open-source ethos are a model for our newsroom. 'Know you are not alone.' Capilouto addresses recent student deaths In this image provided by Hossein Hashemi, Marzieh Hashemi, poses for a photo. Abed Ayoub, an attorney with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the Iranian television anchorwoman was released from a U.S. jail, Wednesday, after being detained for more than a week in Washington. Hossein Hashemi via AP A prominent American-born anchorwoman on Iranian state television who was held in the U.S. as a material witness was released from jail Wednesday evening (local time). Marzieh Hashemi, 59, was released from jail in Washington after being detained for 10 days, according to Abed Ayoub, an attorney with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The anchorwoman was detained by federal agents Jan. 13 in St. Louis, Missouri, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area, her son Hossein Hashemi said. She was then transported to Washington and had remained behind bars since then. Marzieh Hashemi appeared at least twice before a U.S. District judge in Washington, and court papers said she would be released immediately after her testimony before a grand jury. Court documents did not include details on the criminal case in which she was named a witness. Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be detained if the government can prove that their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they give their testimony. A person familiar with the matter said Hashemi had fulfilled her obligation as a material witness and was released. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Hashemi is a U.S. citizen and was born Melanie Franklin. She lives in Tehran and visits the United States about once a year to see her family, usually scheduling documentary work at the same time, her son said. Press TV issued a statement saying, "Marzieh Hashemi and her family will not allow this to be swept under the carpet. They still have serious grievances and want answers as to how this was allowed to happen. They want assurances that this won't happen to any Muslim or any other person ever again." Hashemi's detention comes amid heightened tension between Iran and the U.S. after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal. Iran also faces increasing criticism for its arrests of citizens with dual nationality and people with Western ties. (AP) ABU DHABI: Hundreds of Indian expats from across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) celebrated their country`s 70th Republic Day at the Consulate General of India (CGI) in Dubai on Saturday. The tri-colour was hoisted by the Consul General of India to Dubai, Vipul, at the CGI as residents and visitors sang patriotic songs and took pictures alongside the Indian flag, the Khaleej Times reported. CG and other officers of the Consulate attended Republic Day celebrations at IHS. CG read out Hon'ble President of India's address to the nation. pic.twitter.com/8rMS7LJIms India in Dubai (@cgidubai) January 26, 2019 After the flag-hoisting ceremony, Vipul greeted people gathered at the Consulate and read out Indian President Ram Nath Kovind`s speech to the nation. The Consul General also honoured the two war heroes and parents of war martyrs who presided over the ceremony. "We are honoured to have the war heroes and parents of war martyrs in our midst," Vipul said. Children and adults decked in traditional wear were seen waving miniature Indian flags and celebrating the occasion. TIJUANA: The United States was expected to send a first group of 20 Central American asylum seekers back to Mexico through the border city of Tijuana on Friday as part of President Donald Trump`s hardening of longstanding US immigration policy. Under a policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols, announced on Dec. 20, the United States will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the US southern border back to Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in US immigration courts. Mexican Foreign Ministry spokesman Roberto Velasco said US authorities were expected to send the first group of 20 Central American asylum seekers back to Mexico`s territory on Friday through Tijuana, but as of about 7:00 p.m. local time there were no reports of the group crossing the border. Velasco told local broadcaster Radio Formula that Mexican officials had not yet been given the list of people in the first group, which he said was supposed to be provided Friday morning, adding that he still expected the first transfer in the "next few hours." He emphasized that the Mexican government would not be providing food or shelter for the returned asylum seekers. "What we`re proposing is that we provide these people with opportunities in the labor market," said Velasco, without going into further detail. Under the policy, US authorities will send as many as 20 people per day through Tijuana and gradually start sending people back through the other legal ports of entry along the Mexican border, Velasco said earlier in the day. Mexico will accept the return of certain individuals who have a date to appear in a US immigration court, but will reject those who are in danger in Mexican territory, suffering health problems, or are unaccompanied minors. Velasco previously said that Mexico does not have a "Safe Third Country Agreement" with the United States, which would "imply a binding commitment to process in our territory all US asylum requests of migrants that pass through our country and take full responsibility for their legal situation." Asylum seekers have traditionally been granted the right to stay in the United States while their cases were decided by a US immigration judge, but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases means the process can take years. Now, the US government says migrants will be turned away with a "notice to appear" in immigration court. They will be able to enter the United States for their hearings but will have to live in Mexico in the interim. If they lose their cases, they will be deported to their home countries. "Shelters are at capacity and we can`t receive migrants that are being deported or (Mexican) nationals that are passing through the city. Let`s hope this doesn`t happen," said Jose Maria Garcia, who runs the Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana. Leopoldo Guerrero, Tijuana`s secretary of government, said Mexico`s federal government should take responsibility for the migrants, stressing that the city did not have the resources to do so. The US policy is aimed at curbing the increasing number of families arriving mostly from Central America to request asylum who say they fear returning home due to threats of violence. The Trump administration says many of the claims are not valid. The program will apply to arriving migrants who ask for asylum at ports of entry or who are caught crossing illegally and say they are afraid to return home. Immigration advocates fear Mexico is not safe for migrants who are regularly kidnapped by criminal gangs and smugglers, and have raised concerns that applicants will not be able to access proper legal counsel in US courts. Twenty-four year-old Danis Lazaro, who left his native Guatemala five months ago with his two daughters, aged 6 and 7, said he was concerned about the new US policy. "It doesn`t seem fair to me. It`s safer for us on the other side (of the border)," he said. It is unclear how Mexico plans to house what could be thousands of asylum seekers during their immigration proceedings. Some Mexican border towns are more violent than the cities the Central Americans left behind. "For many of them, Mexico is not a safe place to stay," said Betsy Fisher, policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project. Trump`s administration, which has described Central American migrants as a danger, says it is relying on a US law that allows migrants attempting to enter the United States from a contiguous country to be removed to that country. But the policy will likely be challenged in court since claiming asylum is protected under both international and US law. Several of Trump`s signature immigration policies, including some attempting to reduce asylum applications, have been halted by US federal courts. Washington: The United States, on Friday, announced that foreign policy veteran, Elliott Abrams, will be leading US efforts on Venezuela in the wake of the political crisis in the South American nation.Abrams, who served as an assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs under US President Ronald Reagan, will be accompanying Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to the UN Security Council to attend the meeting "to urge other nations to support Venezuelas democratic transition," on Saturday. "Elliot Abrams will be responsible for all things related to all our efforts to restore democracy in Venezuela. It`s a global challenge. There are multiple dimensions to how we hope to assist the Venezuelans in achieving democracy there," Pompeo remarked at a press briefing here on Friday. "The road ahead will be driven by the demands of the Venezuelan people, how we can assist them in achieving the outcome America wants them to achieve," Pompeo further said."This crisis in Venezuela is deep, dangerous and difficult...," Abrams stated at the conference. The United States` comments come amid a raging political crisis in Venezuela, with the opposition leader, Juan Guaido swearing himself in as the President of the South American nation on January 23. The US was the first nation to recognise Guaido as the interim President, with elected President Nicolas Maduro holding on to his post despite the developments. Countries like Russia have shown support for Maduro, while slamming the US for its interference in Venezuela. While answering a question related to the US diplomats in Venezuela, who were given 72 hours by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to leave the nation, Pompeo said: "Weve made clear to everyone that it is our expectation that the US officials that are there, that have now been invited to be there by interim President Juan Guaido have a right, they have the privileges and immunities that accrue to having been invited to be there by the duly credentialed leader of Venezuela, and we have every expectation that those rights will continue to be protected."Amid the crisis, Maduro cut off Venezuela`s ties with the United States and ordered for the South American country`s embassy and consulates to be shut in the US. He further ordered American diplomats to leave the nation by Saturday. Following this, the United States has ordered all non-emergency government employees in Venezuela to return to the USA. PANAMA CITY: Pope Francis said on Friday it was "senseless and irresponsible" to stigmatize migrants and see all of them as threats to society, weighing in again on one of the most divisive issues in the United States. Francis, who has made migration a key theme of his trip to Panama, spoke to several hundred thousand young people at a religious service on the waterfront of the country`s capital, one of the key events of the Roman Catholic Church`s World Youth Day. "We want to be a church that fosters a culture that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates; that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in a senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society," he said. Hours earlier, President Donald Trump agreed under mounting pressure to end a 35-day-old partial US government shutdown but without getting the $5.7 billion he had demanded from Congress for a wall along the US-Mexico border. At Friday night`s event known as a "Via Crucis" (Way of the Cross), Francis spoke of learning "how to welcome and take in all those abandoned, and forced to leave or lose their land, their roots, their families and their work." "How are we to react to Jesus as he suffers, travels, emigrates in the faces of many our friends, or of all those strangers that we have learned to make invisible?" Francis said. It was the latest time the pope has waded into the standoff over funding for a US-Mexico border wall. He told reporters on the plane from Rome on Wednesday that hostility to immigrants was driven by irrational fear. He and Trump have sparred before on migration, particularly on the border wall. Since mid-October, thousands of Central Americans, mostly from Honduras, have traveled north to the United States through Mexico in caravans, some walking much of the way. Many are seeking asylum, saying they suffer from rampant crime and bleak opportunities in their native countries. On Friday morning, Francis visited a juvenile jail to comfort young people who could not leave to attend the global gathering of Catholic youth, and the pontiff urged society to give offenders everywhere a second chance. "A society grows sick when it is unable to celebrate change in its sons and daughters," he said at a prayer service with about 200 juvenile inmates in the town of Pacora, east of Panama City. Francis, a strong supporter of rehabilitation of inmates and an opponent of life imprisonment, has visited many prisons in Italy and on his overseas trips. He has called for a worldwide ban on the death penalty, and under his watch last year the Catholic Church formally changed its teaching to declare capital punishment inadmissible in any circumstance. One out of every three criminals in Latin America are repeat offenders and the majority commit crimes that are more serious than those for which they were first jailed, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank. Islamabad: Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif's lawyer on Saturday filed a petition in the high court here for suspension of his sentence and seeking bail on medical grounds for the incarcerated PML-N leader. Sharif has been incarcerated in the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore after he was sentenced to seven years in jail by an accountability court in the Al-Azizia steel mills case on December 24. Sharif's counsel Khawaja Haris filed the petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), where petitions for suspension of sentence and appeal against conviction have been already filed. The court had set a hearing for February 18 to hear the earlier petition and appeal, but Sharif's legal team wanted to persuade the court for early hearing. Sharif is a heart patent and his health has deteriorated as he needs urgent medical attention in a hospital, according to his daughter Maryam Nawaz. A panel of experts appointed by the government to examine the former premier also recommended that he should be given proper medical attention. Sharif was tried in three corruption case launched in September 2017. He was first convicted and sentenced for 10 years in July last year in a case related to Avenfield properties in London. The IHC granted him bail in the case in September. He was convicted in the Al-Azizia case but was acquitted in Flagship investment case in December. The cases were launched on the orders of the Supreme Court which had ousted Sharif as premier in July, 2017. TORONTO: The Canadian police said on Friday they had charged a minor with terror-related offences in connection with a pair of national security raids in Kingston, Ontario Thursday night. Two people were arrested late Thursday after the raids. One, a minor, has been charged with knowingly facilitating terrorism and counselling a person to place a bomb "or other lethal device" in public, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement. A bomb was never placed, police said. As a minor, the person cannot be named under Canadian law. The second person was identified by his older sister, who spoke with Reuters, as 20-year-old Hussam Eddin Alzahabi. He has since been released with no charges, police confirmed Friday afternoon. The investigation originated from a Federal Bureau of Investigation tip in December and involved multiple agencies, RCMP officers said during a press conference. "It was a substantial and credible attack plot, however there was no indication of where that attack was going to take place" and there was never any imminent danger to the public, RCMP officer Peter Lambertucci told reporters. He said officers conducting the Thursday night arrests detonated "an element ... believed to be an explosive substance." "We are confident that there is no risk to public safety and there are no trace elements remaining," Lambertucci said. Police burst into her family`s house Thursday night and placed guns to her parents` heads, 21-year-old Rose Alzahabi told Reuters. "They got into the house in a really violent way," she said, adding that they wouldn`t let her mother wear her hijab. She said a man not known to the family had recently met her brother and his friend, approaching them near their high school and inviting them to do some computer programming for him. The man started coming to her family`s home and asking "absurd" questions about how many rooms they had and whether he could see them, she said. In an interview with CBC following the arrests, Alzahabi`s father Amin Alzahabi protested his son`s innocence. The family, originally from Syria, came to Canada as privately sponsored refugees, according to a pastor at one of the churches who sponsored them. Bronek Korczynski, a church member who sponsored the Alzahabi family, said he worries about the way the arrests will shape perceptions of Muslims and refugees in Canada. "That is a fear, because thats the kind of ill-informed knee-jerk reaction that puts any group in potential harms way. ... This is hypothetically about two individuals who may or may not have made a bad decision. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the country`s official threat level would remain unchanged at "medium," where it has been since 2014. Goodale told reporters Friday afternoon it was too early to say whether the alleged plot was connected to others elsewhere in the world and cautioned against making assumptions. "Rather than leaping to conclusions, let the police do their job, let`s get the facts on the table," he told a news conference in Edmonton, Alberta. Kingston is a small city east of Toronto, home to a major university and several prisons. Rose Alzahabi was happy her brother was released, but she wasn`t surprised. "I was actually laughing the whole time because I know my brother did nothing: he would freak out if he saw someone playing with a knife," she said. "He has a baby face; he would never hurt anyone." New Delhi: In September 2018, veteran actor Rishi Kapoor had sent the internet into a flap when he announced that he is leaving to the US for some medical treatment and asked his fans not to spread any rumours on his health. Soon social media was rife with rumours that the veteran actor is suffering from cancer. Speculations mounted when Rishi was not seen at his mother Krishna Raj Kapoor's cremation ceremony. Almost four months after his tweet, the actor on Saturday finally opened up about his illness and said that he is recovering well. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama, Rishi stated, "My treatment is on, hopefully, I will recover soon and God willing I will return. The procedure is long and tedious and one needs immense patience which unfortunately is not one of my virtue." He also spoke about keeping his professional life on hold currently. Kapoor added, "Thankfully, I am not thinking about films anymore, just want to be blank and refresh myself with a more relaxed mind. This break shall be therapeutic for me." The website reported that if the treatment goes well, the actor will return back to Mumbai in the month of April this year. Earlier this month, Rishi's wife and veteran actress Neetu Kapoor, left everyone confused when she shared a cryptic post on her Instagram. Her post left some of her fans worried as she mentioned her wish that 'Cancer should only be a zodiac sign'. Her followers started to pick hints if she was talking about her ailing husband who has been undergoing a treatment for an undisclosed illness. Neetu and her children - Ranbir Kapoor and Riddhima Kapoor Sahani have been a pillar of support to Rishi in New York. So far, there has been no confirmation on the nature of Rishi's ailment from him or his family. BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday reiterated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to poach its legislators to topple the state government, a charge rubbished by former CM BS Yeddyurappa. "Operation Kamal is still on. Last night they (BJP) offered one of our MLAs huge amount of money. You'll be surprised to know the amount. Our MLA told them he doesn't need any gift and not to try these things with him. This is how they are still working on poaching," he claimed. Former state chief minister and CLP leader Siddaramaiah also accused BJP of attempting to poach legislators. "They have Benami money which they have earned through corruption. With that corruption money they tried and failed." But Yeddyurappa, in turn, pinned the blame on the Janata Dal Secular-Congress government in the state for not being able to keep its MLAs together. "We aren't indulging in any Operation Kamal. Their MLAs are trying to go away from them due to their internal fight. It's their duty to keep them intact. They should stop giving baseless statements against us," he said. Operation Lotus is a reference to an event in 2008 when the BJP allegedly tried to lure several opposition MLAs to resign their assembly membership and defect and win the election on the saffron party ticket later to ensure the stability of its then-government headed Yeddyurappa. The Chief Minister's allegation comes days after Yeddyurappa said the BJP would not destabilise the ruling coalition. There has been political unrest across the state for several days with the government trying to keep its numbers intact amid allegations of poaching by the BJP. Giving fuel to the allegations, two independent MLAs had withdrawn their support to the coalition government last week. Recently, all 104 BJP MLAs had stayed in a hotel in Gurugram for some days while the Congress too shifted its legislators to a resort. Subsequently, the MLAs returned to the city last week. Four Congress MLAs had skipped a crucial legislature party meeting on January 18, indicating all is not well within the party. KARNATAKA: Karnataka on Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with pomp and pageantry marking the patriotic fervour of the people across the state. In the state capital here Governor Vajubahia Vala unfurled the tricolour at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw parade ground amid tight security. An Army helicopter showered rose petals, welcoming the the dignitaries and the public at the venue before the Governor hoisted the national flag and inspected the guard of honour. About 5,000 people, including women and children, flocked to the ground to celebrate the event and witness the colourful march past and cultural programmes, including songs and dances on patriotic themes. After the military band rendered the National Anthem on a chilly day under a partly cloudy sky, Vala inspectedthe guard of honour by the men and women of the three services and the state police. About 20 contingents of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the state and central police forces, National Cadent Corps (NCC) and Bharat Scouts and Guides participated in the parade and received the salute from the Governor. The contingents were led by the parade commander, Major Prashanth Thapa, and the second-in-command, Major Amit Choudhary. The state`s anthem, penned by Padma Vibhusan poet Kuvempu was also played in Kannada on the occasion. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, cabinet ministers, legislators, officials and city Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun attended the event. In a 20-minute Republic Day address in Hindi, the Governor highlighted the vision and achievements of the southern state over the past four years since he assumed office in 2014. "Four years ago, when I delivered my first Republic day address from the very same dais, I expressed hope that Karnataka would overcome many challenges and be on the path of progress," said Vala. After the military and police bands played patriotic songs, the audience was treated to an hour-long cultural programme. About 2,000 boys and girls from state-run schools and junior colleges in the city enacted patriotic and cultural shows, including one on the 1999 Kargil War ("Kargil katha") and "Our India and Bright India" ("Namma Bharat, Bright Bharath"). Dog squads of the military and the state police were the star attraction, drawing special applause from the audience. The day marked the date when the Constitution was adopted by the then Constituent Assembly and the country became a republic two years and five months after India got its independence on August 15, 1947 from the British. The Constitution replaced the Government of India Act, 1935. According to reports from districts across the state, the day was celebrated with gaiety and patriotic fervour after the chief guests hoisted the national flag and impressive parades were held. By Michael Hurt Much ado has been made about K-POP. And these days, even more social attention has been placed on things such as gender and the politics of belonging, along with the changing nature of seemingly "simple" identities. Put simply, there's a lot of talk about shifting definitions of male and female, as well as the rights that are attendant to those identities and expressions of sexuality within them. As a researcher and visual sociologist, I am personally quite interested in looking at what is going on in the realm of clothing amongst young Koreans struggling with the burden of finding and asserting personal identity in an age when it's no longer handed to them, gift-wrapped and ready-to-wear as one-size-fits-all solutions, e.g. Korean, young, single woman, or whatever job one manages to find doctor, lawyer, schoolteacher. So I have been looking at street fashion in Korea for more than a straight decade now as a metric of social changes. In a hypermodern society in which you are what you buy, or at least you are judged by your consumptive choices and a visible display of purchased tastes and apparent refinement, identity has become fluid. But more than this, it has become more complex and hence more of a struggle to figure out. And what one displays to the outside worldclothing, hairstyles, gestures, and even general comportmentbecomes a part of one's embodied social capital. They are an important part of what Koreans call "spec"the "specifications" that determine your place in the social hierarchy. This visible realm where identity is defined has also become part of a new social battlefield where new identities are forged and defended, older ones seen as retrograde or in need of serious rethinking are reimagined or upgraded. The more I have studied and documented the consumer subcultures of Seoul as street fashion and more lately, the growing drag performance culture in the queer community here, the more I have been able to discern an ongoing movement of young people using their bodies and clothing to redefine gender roles and norms in the realm of where those things are definedthe literal "performance" of gender on the social stage. Seon-gyeong, a florist and paepi fashionista at Seoul Fashion Week: "I wanted to show off my tattoo and show that it's ok for everyday, normal women to have tattoos." Gender as Performance I recently attended a panel presentation at the Academy of Korean Studies conference given by the theoretically brilliant Joanna Elfving-Hwang, entitled "Gendering the Digital Gaze: On the Aesthetics of K-pop Idol Masculinity." It rocked my world and caused me to take a trip back to my Theory Toolshed to make some much-needed upgrades. Prof. Elfving-Hwang's brief presentation hipped me to feminist performance studies theorist Elaine Aston, who critically engages with the ur-theorist Judith Butler. Aston engages with Butlerian performance theory, which says that gender (and by extension, all identities) is performed. This is not to say gender is merely false, or a conscious ruse, but that it, like most things in a society, is a construct. Gender is not a static state that is reached-then-maintained, but rather one that is steadily maintained in its constant performance. Or, one might even say that gender isn't a noun; it's a verb. One does Girl (or Boy) with every flip of the hair, crossing of the legs, lilt of the voice. One wears it, walks it, sits it, smiles it, talks it in order to be a gender. Yes, the meat of our biological sex is there, but when have you ever seen your friend's sexy meats? Or your teacher's, co-worker's, or the bus driver's? How we perform gender through socially-coded individual actsthat's where gender lives. For many of us who have taken a film, Women's, or Ethnic Studies course, or any liberal arts class since the 1990s, this theory is pretty easy to get and quite familiar. Butlerian performance theory is taught everywhere from Gender and Ethnic and African-American Studies and is a key part of Queer Theory and a whole host of heavily theoretical fields. It's so ubiquitous that it's old hat to many. Korean female drag performer Rohep Moon (Instagram @rohepmoon) puts on quite the show for the camera as well as actual audiences nearly every week at drag shows in Haebangchon. The Karnataka Police on Saturday started an investigation into the incident where a woman died and several fell ill after consuming 'prasad' at a temple in Karnataka. On Friday night at least nine people, including two children, fell ill after consuming the 'prasad' at Gangamma Temple in Chintamani area of Chikkaballapura district. The district is about 100 km from Bengaluru. Those affected have been hospitalised. Three women have been detained in this connection, news agency PTI said quoting police officials. Kavita (22) died, while nine others, including four of her family, were admitted to a hospital Friday after eating the offering. Two unidentified women came to the Gangamma Devi temple in Chintamani Town where a grand celebration took place Friday night, and distributed Kesari Bhat (halwa) to the devotees. After consuming it, people started complaining of stomach pain, police said, adding they were rushed to a private hospital in the town. "The temple management is not involved as nobody had prepared any 'prasad' there. Two women had brought some 'prasad' and were distributing it," police said. Efforts are on to trace the women who distributed the offering outside the temple, they said. In December 2018, 17 people lost their lives and more than 100 were hospitalised in Chamarajnagar district of Karnataka after they consumed 'prasad' laced with poison at a temple. A seer of Salur Math Pattada Immadi Mahadevaswamy and three others were arrested on charges of murder and attempt to murder for reportedly poisoning the temple offering. Jammu: The Jammu-Srinagar highway remained closed on Saturday for the 6th consecutive day stranding scores of valley-bound passengers here. "Shooting stones continue at many places in the Ramban district. Landslides again hit the highway in Gagroo, Anokhi Fall and Battery Chashma area even as debris clearance operations were underway," a traffic department official said. Two policemen, including a junior officer were injured by shooting stones on Friday. For the safety of passengers it has been decided not to allow traffic on the highway, the official added. Over 2,000 trucks, most of them carrying essentials to the Kashmir Valley have been stranded at various places on the highway. Stranded passengers here in the Jammu and Kashmir capital have appealed to the government to arrange for airlifting them. SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik unfurled the national flag during Republic Day celebrations in Srinagar. As the nation celebrated the Republic Day, mobile internet services remained suspended across Kashmir as a precautionary measure. However, mobile phone services functioned as usual. Mobile internet services were snapped in the early hours as part of the security arrangements put in place for Republic Day celebrations. Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik unfurls the national flag on #republicdayindia, in Jammu pic.twitter.com/9X43kD3Ojf ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 Suspension of mobile phone and internet services have become a routine since 2005 after terrorists triggered a blast outside the Bakshi Stadium during the Independence Day parade that year. Meanwhile, amid R-Day celebrations in the state, two terrorists were killed in an encounter with security forces on Saturday in Khunmoh area on the outskirts of Srinagar city in Jammu and Kashmir. Security forces in Khunmoh had launched a cordon and search operation after they got the information about the presence of terrorists in the area. Officials said the search turned into a gun battle after terrorists opened fire on security forces. At the grand Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath in Delhi, President Ram Nath Kovind posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani who laid down his life fighting terrorists in South Kashmir's Shopian district. Once a terrorist himself, Wani surrendered before the Army and got involved in counter-insurgency operations to wipe out terrorism from the Kashmir Valley. He started his career in the Indian Army in 2004 with Territorial Armys 162 Battalion in 2004. He was since involved in counter-insurgency operations being carried out by the Army in parts of Kashmir before his death in November 2018. A resident of Kulgam, Wani also won the prestigious Sena Medal twice. Wani lost his life after he was seriously injured in an encounter in which six terrorists were also killed. SRINAGAR: Two terrorists, planning to attack during Republic Day celebrations in Jammu and Kashmir, have been neutralised by armed forces. An encounter, which is currently underway, broke out between terrorists and security forces in Khunmoh village in the outskirts of Srinagar district on Saturday morning. One more terrorist is reportedly trapped in the area. Three security personnel were also injured in the encounter. Police sources told Zee News that a major tragedy was averted as the terrorist trapped in the encounter were planning to attack security establishments during Republic Day celebrations. The terrorists were trapped inside a building in the area. The Pampore Police, Army's 50 Rashtriya Rifles and the Central Reserve Police Force are at the spot. Earlier this week, three Lashkar-e-Taiba militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, police said. The security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Binner area of the district on receiving information about the presence of militants in the area, a police official said. He said the search operation turned into a gunfight after the ultras opened fire at the security personnel. NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday remarked that the "patience" of people on the issue of Ram temple is "fast running out" and if the Supreme Court (SC) fails to resolve this matter, it should "hand it over to us" and the issue will be resolved within 24 hours. The Chief Minister expressed confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win more seats in Uttar Pradesh in the coming Lok Sabha elections than it did in 2014, IANS reported. When asked whether he would hold negotiations to resolve the Ayodhya issue or use force to settle this matter, Adityanath replied: "First let the court hand over the issue to us. I will still appeal to the court to dispose of the dispute soon," he said. "By adding the title dispute unnecessarily, the Ayodhya dispute is being prolonged. We appeal to the Supreme Court to give us justice at the earliest, to the satisfaction of millions of people, so that it can become a symbol of people`s faith. But if there is unnecessary delay, institutions may lose people`s trust," he was quoted as saying by IANS. The Chief Minister said "the unnecessary delay ... is causing a crisis so far as people`s patience and trust are concerned." "I want to say that the court should give its verdict soon, and if it is unable to do so, it should hand over the issue to us. We will resolve the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute within 24 hours. We won`t take 25 hours," he noted. When asked why the BJP-led government at the Centre had failed to bring an ordinance on this matter, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister said the matter was sub judice. (with agency inputs) NEW DELHI: As India celebrated its 70th Republic Day on Saturday, grand celebrations showcasing India's military might, valiant armed forces and cultural diversity was on show at Rajpath. In attendance were South African President Cyril Ramaphosa -the Chief guest of honour, President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers and leaders of Opposition parties. The parade officially kicked off with the President awarding the Ashok Chakra posthumously to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani's wife and mother. Wani lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund, in Shopian on November 25, 38-year-old. Parade commander was the first one to salute the President. Soon after, India's military muscle main battle tanks, K-9 Vajra and M777 howitzers took the centrestage. Next came the marching contingents of the Army which included the Madras Regiment, the Rajputana Rifles, the Sikh Regiment, the Gorkha Brigade, the Army Service Corps, and the 102 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Punjab. For the first time, an all women marching contingent of the Assam Rifles led by Major Khusboo Kanwar and veterans of Indian National Army (INA) participated in the parade. This was followed by tableaus and displays of the Indian Navy contingents which showcasing the scaled-down models of the aircraft, radar and missile system. The models displayed were Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Low-Level Light Weight Radar (LLLWR), Sukhoi-30MKI and Akash Missile System.Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) displayed its Medium range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) and the Arjun Armoured Recovery and Repair Vehicle (Arjun ARRV). A total of 22 tableaux 16 from different states and union territories and six Ministries, Departments and other institutions presented a colourful display on the life, times and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. This was followed by children's present dance shows. Twenty-six children including six girls and 20 boys, Awardees of Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 for their exceptional achievement, also participated in the parade. Corps of Signals Motor Cycle Team saluted the president with daredevil acts in the Parade under the dynamic leadership of Captain Manpreet Singh, who broke his own world record smartly from a 12.5 feet ladder. The previous record was from an eight-feet ladder. Finally, came the Fly Past led by Advanced Light Helicopters Weapon System Integrated (WSI) Rudra formation comprising three ALH Mk IV WSI helicopters in Vic formation. This was followed by the Hercules formation comprising three C-130J Super Hercules aircraft in Vic formation. Trailing them, was the Netra (Eye in the Sky) and Sutlej Formation by AN 32 aircraft. Then came Globe formation, comprising one C-17 Globemaster flanked by two Su-30 MKIs. Five Jaguar Deep penetration strike aircraft, in Arrowhead formation took the skies thereafter. Following them, were five MiG-29 Upgrade Air Superiority Fighters in Arrowhead formation. Three state-of-the-art, SU-30 MKIs of Indian Air Force executed the Trishul manoeuvre. The culmination of the parade was marked by a lone Su-30 MKI flying at a speed of 900 km/hr splitting the sky with a Vertical Charlie manoeuvre over the saluting dais. With agency inputs Shillong: A second miner's body was retrieved from a 370-foot deep coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district by Indian Navy on Saturday, more than 40 days after being trapped. The decomposed body was recovered from a spot 280-feet inside the mine, said rescue personnel. Identification of the body is yet to be done. Fifteen miners were trapped in the flooded rat hole at Ksan near Lytein River in the district since December 13, 2018. The first body was recovered on Thursday in a joint operation by the Indian Navy and the National Disaster Response Force, nine days after it was spotted. "The body retrieved yesterday from Ksan has been identified as Amir Hussain of Chirang district in Assam," East Jaintia Hills District Deputy Commissioner F M Dopth told PTI. Hussain's body was identified by his wife and mother who arrived in Khliehriat, the district headquarter. Dopth said the district authorities were trying to help the family in transporting Hussain's remains to their home for the last rites. The families of some miners have requested rescuers to retrieve their bodies so that last rites can be performed. A multi-agency operation has been de-watering of the main shaft where the miners are trapped and in the nearby mines. However, it did not yield much result. Teams of pump operators from Coal India Ltd, Odhisa Fire Service and Kirloskar Brothers Ltd have discharged over 71 lakh litres of water in the past 24 hours. The incident drew the nation's attention to illegal coal mining in the northeastern state at the cost of human lives despite a ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal. Operation spokesperson R Sungi said the Indian Navy continued the underwater search with the unmanned remotely controlled vehicle (ROV), but no other bodies had been found. Anxious family members of the trapped miners are camping in the district headquarters and visiting the site frequently for any news of their loved ones, Susngi said. The owner of the mine, Krip Chullet, was arrested from his home on December 14. His accomplices are on the run. The Meghalaya government has released Rs 1 lakh interim relief for the families of the trapped miners. The Supreme Court is monitoring the rescue mission and the matter will come up for hearing on Monday. With agency inputs India is celebrating the 70th Republic Day on 26 January 2019. The Republic Day Parade ceremony will begin with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the nation in paying homage to the martyrs by laying a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti under India Gate. President of the Republic of South Africa and Supreme Commander of the South African National Defence Force Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest of the grand parade at Rajpath this year. The Republic Day parade will kick off from Rajpath at 9.50 am. WATCH: Live coverage of Republic Day Parade and celebrations across the country on Zee News After the unfurling of the National Flag, the national anthem will be played with a 21 gun salute. The parade will then commence with President Ram Nath Kovind taking the salute. The parade will be commanded by Lieutenant General Asit Mistry, General Officer Commanding, Headquarters Delhi Area. Major General Rajpal Punia, Chief of Staff, Headquarters Delhi Area will be the parade Second-in-Command. The winners of the highest gallantry awards will be followed by him. This year veterans of Indian National Army (INA) who fought valiantly against the imperial forces will also take part in Republic Day Parade. The ceremony will culminate with the national anthem and release of balloons. Massive security arrangements are in place for the Republic Day celebrations across the country. Over 25,000 security personnel of the Delhi Police and central security forces have been deployed across the city and the border areas. CCTV cameras and face-recognition cameras have also been installed at Rajpath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma said. Mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have also been deployed to keep a watch on the eight-km-long parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort, besides the nearby localities. Metro services will be available for commuters at all stations on Republic Day, but there will be no boarding and de-boarding at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations from 5 am till 12 noon. Boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed between 8.45 am to 12 pm at Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk metro stations, they said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met the family of Ashoka Chakra (posthumous) awardee Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani at the "At Home" function in the national capital after the 70th Republic day celebrations. President Ram Nath Kovind and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman too had met the family. Wani was a terrorist-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district in November 2018. #WATCH: At President Ram Nath Kovind's "At Home" function, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman meets the family of Lance Naik #NazirAhmadWani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, and was awarded the Ashok Chakra today. pic.twitter.com/O7KOeSelzJ ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 He was conferred the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award. Wani's wife Mahajabeen and mother Raja Bano received the award from President Kovind. Wani, who has been posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, will also be honoured by his colleagues and officers at Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Headquarters at Rangreth in Budgam. Wani, the first Kashmiri to receive the honour, has been chosen for displaying exceptional courage when his unit engaged heavily-armed terrorists on November 25, 2018, in Hirapur village near Batgund in Kashmir. "We have also decided to honour Wani as he was one of the Kashmiri youths who gives us the message that we have to move forward for the country together with such courage. It is a proud moment for us," CO of 162 Infantry Battalion Territorial Army Rajiv Ranjan Singh told news agency ANI. Hailing from Cheki Ashmuji area of Kulgam district in Kashmir, Wani was once a terrorist but he gave up the terrorism and joined the Territorial Army in 2004 and was later a part of the Rashtriya Rifles. Apart from his wife, he is survived by two sons Athar (20) and Shaid (18). On a fateful day, under the intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the district commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit and one foreign terrorist in a very daring display of raw courage. In the gunfight, he was hit multiple times, including in his head but he carried on and injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous injuries. Wani was a hero right from the beginning and always served for the peace in his home state of Jammu and Kashmir, said an Army official. His extraordinarily fearless and courageous personage was reflected in getting the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. The 2018 Sena Medal was given to him for eliminating a terrorist from a very close distance. New Delhi: A Pakistani delegation will visit the Chenab river basin in Jammu and Kashmir for inspection from January 28 to 31, as mandated under the Indus Water Treaty, sources said. Pakistan's Indus Commissioner Syed Mohammad Mehar Ali Shah will arrive in India along with his two advisers, sources said. "This tour is an obligation imposed on both the countries by the Indus Waters Treaty 1960 between India and Pakistan. Under the Treaty, both the commissioners are mandated to inspect sites and works on both the sides of Indus basin in a block of five years," a senior official said. Since signing the treaty, a total of 118 such tours on both the sides have been undertaken by the commission. The last tours of the commission in Pakistan and India were held in July 2013 and September 2014 respectively. No tour could be held so far in the current five years block which ends in March 2020. This tour will be followed by a visit of Indian Indus Commissioner to Pakistan at a mutually convenient date decided between the two commissioners, the official added. This tour was originally scheduled in October 2018 but later postponed because of local bodies and panchayat polls in Jammu and Kashmir. Under the Indus Water Treaty, waters flowing in three of Indus tributaries -- the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi -- have been allotted to India; while the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus waters have been allotted to Pakistan. A nation without children has lost the best part of itself. From Unsplash By Amanda Price This will be the question on the lips of Koreans, and visitors to Korea, if the current birth rate does not change. Demographers are now projecting a new set of endgame figures that point to the possibility of a nation without children. Korean children, inarguably among the most delightful in the world, are statistically disappearing. This is without question a national crisis, but perhaps it is also a deeply personal one. Various articles quote young and not-so-young Korean women who feel that being free of familial constraints will enable them to enjoy a new-found freedom. Others reason that Korean society is no longer an environment in which to raise a family, or that the financial requirements of educating children are beyond the reach of families. I am aware that busyness, lack of finances, stress, competition, gender inequality, careers, familial burdens, missing grandparents, disenchantment and societal pressures all contribute to South Korea's abysmally low birth rate. To minimize the significance of these issues would be wrong. These are very real problems facing everyday Koreans and decisively affecting their present and future choices. There is, however, another influential factor that receives far less attention. It is the issue of space. Naturally, one might assume that I am referring to physical space; however, the space I'm referring to is emotional. Some will likely be familiar with this space. It is the room we make in ourselves for others to share. It is where the best of us is kept for those who mean the most. In this intangible space, life seems worth living and worth sharing with others, especially children. In this space no one feels alone and unwanted. Yet today, for many South Koreans, this space is missing and no one seems to be asking why. Instead, the questions at the centre of this crisis focus on fiscal consequences, expanding debt, vastly under-funded pensions, an aged society, the rapid decline of a workforce and the slow death of Korean culture. It is terrifying stuff, but its roots reach far back beyond this present generation. Few seem to discuss that, only decades ago, the governments of the time provided low-cost housing to parents who agreed to be sterilized (over a million Koreans underwent this process), or medical insurance was suspended to women with three or more children. Families with more than two children were refused claims for educational expenses. Free birth-control devices were distributed and government slogans such as "Even two children are too many for our crowded country" were plastered on office walls. Children were perceived as obstacles to economic growth. By 1991, Korea had won the ominous title of being the nation with the second-highest percentage off sterilized citizens. With tragic short-sightedness, past governments believed that fewer children would lead to industrial wealth and national prosperity. From South Korean Government archives Sadly, in the busyness of achieving economic success and industrial wealth, Korea forgot its greatest achievements, the Korean people and the Korean family. With tragic short-sightedness, governments meddled and manipulated people's lives to increase productivity. Assuming the role of parent, government programs not only led to population decline, they redefined social order. Despite what was being said, the family was no longer the apex of Korean society, the worker was. Core values were subtly being changed, but a vastly improved lifestyle made that hard to detect. The table has almost turned full circle and those who enjoyed the vastly improved lifestyle are now the parents of grown children, grown children who are struggling within themselves to find a life that is worth passing on to the next generation. Even though governmental decisions led to population decline, many assume that the problem lies with this younger generation of Koreans, who, according to some, do not care about Korea. The media is quick to draw attention to the minority who may feel this way and the minority are eager to be interviewed. Though they do not represent the majority, their voices are often louder. Far softer are the voices asking for advocacy. These are the men and women wanting families and children, who are faced with realities that make that impossible. There is limited space in their heart, because fears for the future, a sense of hopelessness and emotional fatigue occupy what space is there. Halfway between anger and sorrow, they grieve for a loss they cannot describe. What they do know is that theirs is a space that is not worth sharing. Oftentimes, these would-be parents are held under a microscope. They are scrutinized for their choices and then told they are wrong. They are verbally attacked by their elders for ruining the nation, bullied by their employers into prioritizing work over potential human beings and enticed by their government with money to produce more money in the shape of babies! And the space grows smaller. As this space dwindles, the birth rate falls synchronously. To reverse this equation, the generation of potential parents must feel that their lives are worth living and therefore worth sharing. This is about more than an improved lifestyle, this is about the need to feel valued as a person, not just a producer. There is no space to breathe, let alone to feel the compelling desire to have children. It is time to remember that South Koreans and South Korean children are the nation's greatest achievement. The focus must be on people and not percentages. From Unsplash Pakistani Army on Saturday resorted to ceasefire violation by targeting forward posts and villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. This resulted in strong and effective retaliation by the Indian Army. The unprovoked small arms firing and mortar shelling from across the border started in Mankote area of Mendhar sector around 11 am. The exchange of fire between the two sides continued till 12.30 pm but there was no report of any casualty on the Indian side in the Pakistani firing. Since the beginning of the New Year, Pakistani troops have been regularly violating the ceasefire, especially along the LoC in Jammu division. A few incidents of ceasefire violations were also witnessed along the International Border this year. On January 15, Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad of BSF was killed when he was hit by Pakistani sniper from across the IB, while an Army porter lost his life along the LoC in Rajouri district on January 11 ? the day when two army personnel including a major were killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack along the LoC in Naushera sector of Rajouri. The year 2018 had witnessed the highest number of 2936 ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. A Pakistani intruder was shot at on Saturday by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel while he was trying to cross over to the Indian side in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir. He was later admitted to a hospital. The intruder was noticed by the BSF personnel manning a border outpost at Check Faqira area around 1 pm and asked to surrender. They said the intruder was shot by the jawans near the fence after he ignored repeated warnings to surrender. Further details are awaited. A day after the Padma awards was announced, awardees on Saturday from across the nation and all segments of society expressed their happiness on the honour bestowed upon them. Reacting to the announcement, former ISRO Scientist, Nambi Narayanan said he was glad that his work in the Indian space arena was finally recognised. From being a celebrated ISRO scientist to being branded a 'spy' and finally awarded with the Padma Bhushan, Narayanan said, "My name became famous because of 'spying' charges. Now I am glad that my contribution has been recognised by the government". Narayanan (77) was awarded the prestigious Padma award this Republic Day. The former scientist had played a critical role in the development of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and in the initial phase of making cryogenic engines. He, however, was embroiled in an espionage case in 1994. The case pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women. Mountaineer Bachendri Pal said she was shocked and surprised at the news. She thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government and dedicated the award to her parents. "I was really shocked, it was a surprise for me as well. I want to thank Modi govt. I havent ever applied for any award. I would like to dedicate this award to my parents." Reacting to the award, Mithila painting artist Godawari Dutta said, "I am delighted. It is a proud moment for my state. This will encourage the younger generation." Social worker Rajani Kant said, "I'm grateful that the government nominated me for Padma Shri. It strengthens the belief that the system is transparent, as someone like me, who never even thought of the award is getting it." GWALIOR: In a major embarrassment for Congress leader and Madhya Pradesh Minister Imarti Devi, the minister on Saturday failed to read out her speech during a Republic Day celebration programme in Gwalior and asked the district collector to read the speech for the audience on her behalf. Imarti Devi fumbled badly while trying to read out her speech and then decided to seek district collector's help to wriggle out of the situation. "Collector sahab padhenge (Collector will read it for you), " Imarti Devi said after struggling for a few moments to read out her written address. She handed over the speech to district collector Bharat Yadav, who then read the speech for the audience. When the minister was asked about the incident, she said, "I was sick for the past two days, you can ask the doctor. But it is okay, the collector read it (the speech) properly." Madhya Pradesh Minister Imarti Devi: I was sick for the past two days, you can ask the doctor. But it is okay. the collector read it (the speech) properly. pic.twitter.com/JDQGI9WDuR ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 Imarti Devi won the recently held Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh from Dabra constituency of Gwalior and was given Cabinet berth by Chief Minister Kamal Nath. (with agency inputs) Union Minister Smriti Irani on Saturday lauded Ashoka Chakra (posthumous) awardee Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, who was awarded the Ashoka Chakra (posthumous) on the 70th Republic day. Wani was a terrorist-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district in November 2018. Interacting with students in Bangalore, Karnataka, Irani eulogised Wani saying that a man who raised arms against India, surrendered, for he believed in India. She added that Wani went on to fight for that very idea of India. Praising Wani's believe in India she said that it is very easy for people to talk about belief but absolutely different when a person lays down his life for that belief. She highlighted that the interesting thing about Wani's journey is that before he joined the Indian Army, he was a part of a terrorist group. "Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani joined Army in 2004, received Sena medal in 2007 and 2018. Today posthumously, the Ashok Chakra was bestowed upon him. The interesting thing about his journey is that before he joined the Indian Army, he was a part of a terrorist movement," she said. "A man who raised arms against India, surrendered, for he believed in India, and then went on to fight for that very idea of India. It's very easy for people like us to talk about belief, it's absolutely different when you're laying your life for that belief," she added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the family of Lance Naik Wani at the "At Home" function in the national capital after the Republic day celebrations. President Ram Nath Kovind and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman too met the family. He was conferred the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award. Wani's wife Mahajabeen and mother Raja Bano received the award from President Kovind. Wani, who has been posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra, will also be honoured by his colleagues and officers at Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Headquarters at Rangreth in Budgam. Wani, the first Kashmiri to receive the honour, has been chosen for displaying exceptional courage when his unit engaged heavily-armed terrorists on November 25, 2018, in Hirapur village near Batgund in Kashmir. "We have also decided to honour Wani as he was one of the Kashmiri youths who gives us the message that we have to move forward for the country together with such courage. It is a proud moment for us," CO of 162 Infantry Battalion Territorial Army Rajiv Ranjan Singh told news agency ANI. Hailing from Cheki Ashmuji area of Kulgam district in Kashmir, Wani was once a terrorist but he gave up the terrorism and joined the Territorial Army in 2004 and was later a part of the Rashtriya Rifles. Apart from his wife, he is survived by two sons Athar (20) and Shaid (18). On a fateful day, under the intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the district commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit and one foreign terrorist in a very daring display of raw courage. In the gunfight, he was hit multiple times, including in his head but he carried on and injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous injuries. Wani was a hero right from the beginning and always served for the peace in his home state of Jammu and Kashmir, said an Army official. His extraordinarily fearless and courageous personage was reflected in getting the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. The 2018 Sena Medal was given to him for eliminating a terrorist from a very close distance. MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Education Department on Saturday issued a circular directing schools in the state to air Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interaction 'Parikshe Pe Charcha 2.0' programme live on Tuesday. The programme will be aired on DD National, DD News and DD India. It will also be live-streamed on various websites. Talking to PTI, a Maharashtra State Council of Educational Research and Training department official said that it was mentioned in the circular that it was not mandatory on schools to air the interaction. "We have only informed the schools in accordance with the Centre's guidelines. They are free to either air it or choose not to. When the PM interacts with students, others who have similar queries will get a chance to have them answered," the official said. The circular, however, says that those schools that hold the screening will have to submit a report, including photos and videos from the event, the same day. The Opposition, however, said that the government was using schools as a medium for election campaigning. "The BJP knows they have lost ground and will soon no longer be in power. Their desperation is making them use schools as a tool for campaigning now," NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik claimed. "The Centre and the state government are working over time to campaign for PM Modi. The issuance of this circular is highly objectionable. I urge the state to not pressurise private or government schools. Let children be away from politics," Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam said. New Delhi: It was love at first sight for Mahajabeen, wife of Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, when the two met at a school in South Kashmir around 15 years back. Nearly one-and-half months after Wani's death in an anti-terror operation in Shopian, Mahajabeen, a teacher and mother of two, says his immense love for her and fearless persona are a source of motivation for her to encourage youngsters to become good citizens. "I did not cry when I was told he is no more. There was an inner resolve which did not allow me to cry," she said, on a day the government announced the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award, for Wani who hailed from Cheki Ashmuji in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir. Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who had joined the Army's 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2004, will be conferred the award posthumously on Saturday by President Ram Nath Kovind. "He loved me so much. For me, he was my guiding light. He always encouraged all of us to make people around us happy, to resolve people's problems. "As a teacher, I am dedicating myself to creating good citizens for my state. Leading the young minds in the right direction is my resolve and I am drawing inspiration for it from my beloved husband -- the best in the world," said Mahajabeen. Refusing to share much details about their school and college days, Mahajabeen said, "We met at school. It was love at the first sight. He was a great husband, always fiercely protecting us." Recalling the fateful day of November 25, Mahajabeen said she was at her parents' house when the shocking news came. "He had telephoned me the previous evening and enquired about our well-being. I had told him to take care of himself. But destiny had something else for him," said Mahajabeen in an interview to PTI. "He always wanted to make his 162/TA Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Batallion proud. For him, duty was supreme. He was a source of inspiration for people in our area and community," said Mahajabeen, who is in her late 30s. On November 25, 38-year-old Wani lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund, in Shopian. Under intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and one foreign terrorist in a daring display of raw courage, officials said. In the ensuing gunfight, he was hit multiple times including on his head. He also injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous wounds, they said. Apart from his wife, he is survived by two sons Athar (20) and Shaid (18). "He was a brave soldier and a hero right from the beginning. He always served for peace in his home state of Jammu and Kashmir," said a senior Army official. Wani was a recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. "He always had the interest of the nation in his heart. He operated with Rashtriya Rifles units in Kashmir. Throughout his active life he always willingly faced grave potential threats and was a source of inspiration for others," said one of his colleagues. NEW DELHI: Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday expressed gratitude after the country's highest honour - Bharat Ratna - was conferred on him. He said that he has always got more from the country than he has given. "It is with a deep sense of humility and gratitude to the people of India that I accept this great honour #BharatRatna bestowed upon me. I have always said and I repeat, that I have got more from the people of our great country than I have given to them," the 83-year-old tweeted on Friday. After the award was announced, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled the contributions of the former president. "Pranab Da is an outstanding statesman of our times. He has served the nation selflessly and tirelessly for decades, leaving a strong imprint on the nation's growth trajectory. His wisdom and intellect have few parallels. Delighted that he has been conferred the Bharat Ratna," he tweeted. Mukherjee served as the country's 13th President from 2012 to 2017 and is widely respected across the political spectrum for his political career spanning over five decades. He has held various key posts in the Congress as well as in the governments led by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. He served as a deputy minister and Minister of State for Finance in 1973-74 and became Finance Minister in 1982. He has served five times as a member of Rajya Sabha from 1969 and twice as a member of the Lok Sabha. He was earlier honoured with Padma Vibhusan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2008. He has also been given the Best Parliamentarian Award in 1997 and Best Administrator in India Award in 2011. Gurugram: The Crime Branch of Gurugram police has arrested four persons with Amazon`s stolen items worth Rs 50 lakh, the police said on Friday. Manager of a transport company, DGFC, had registered an FIR at Kherki Daula Police Station here that the driver attached with the company had been missing with the truck laden with valuable items of online store Amazon for the last a few days. The chief of Palam Vihar unit of the Crime Branch, Manoj Verma, and his team arrested the driver of the truck and three others involved in the crime from various places in Haryana. "Over 4,000 sealed merchandise packets of India`s one of the largest online stores, valued at Rs 50 lakh, has been recovered from the arrested," Assistant Commissioner of Police Shemsher Singh said. He said that arrested accused were identified as Hakim (the driver, a resident of Mathura in Uttar Pradesh), Zaffar and Wasim from Tauru (in Nuh district of Haryana), and Sajid, hailing from Haryana`s Palwal. He said the arrested accused have also admitted their involvement in five other similar cases. "We are interrogating the arrested accused on police remand," the officer added. NEW DELHI: The national capital turned into a fortress with 70th Republic Day celebrations underway on Saturday. Over 25,000 security personnel, from the Delhi Police and central security forces, were deployed across the city and the border areas. A day earlier, based on intelligence inputs, two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members Abdul Latif Ganaie (29) alias Umair alias Dilawar, and Hilal Ahmad Bhat (26) were arrested from Delhi. The duo was planning to carry out terror strikes during the Republic Day celebrations. The arrested terrorists had identified the Lajpat Nagar market, the Haj Manzil, the Turkman gate, Paharganj, India Gate and the IGL gas pipeline in east Delhi as potential targets, police added. 70th Republic Day: Women commandos, snipers and anti-aircraft guns guard Delhi As a part of multi-layered high-security measures to avoid any terror strike or untoward incident, barricades were put up at several locations in Delhi. Delhi: Security tightened in the national capital on the Republic Day; visuals from Rafi Marg (pic 1& 2), Man Singh road (pic 3), and Delhi-Noida (pic 4) border. pic.twitter.com/Tcaw0iVizU ANI (@ANI) January 25, 2019 CCTV cameras and face-recognition cameras have also been installed at Rajpath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma said. Mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have also been deployed to keep a watch on the eight-km-long parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort, besides the nearby localities. Thirty-six women commandos of the Delhi Police's Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, who were formally inducted in August last year, will also be part of the security arrangements. Parakram vans, that are manned by NSG-trained commandos, have been patrolling strategic locations to ensure that security is not jeopardised. Snipers have been stationed atop high-rise buildings while scores of CCTV cameras are keeping a tight vigil on people's movements on the parade route. Elaborate air defence measures, including deployment of anti-aircraft guns, have also been put in place to secure the airspace.The police are also using counter-drone technology to thwart any attack or identify any suspicious flying object, a senior police officer said. Strict traffic arrangements and restrictions have also been put in place across the city for smooth conduct of the Republic Day parade between Vijay Chowk and Red Fort Grounds, traffic police officials said Friday. Metro services will be available for commuters at all stations on Republic Day, but there will be no boarding and de-boarding at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations from 5 am till 12 noon. Boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed between 8.45 am to 12 pm at Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk metro stations, they said. With agency inputs By James M. Dorsey China is leading the charge to undermine accepted concepts of human rights accountability and justice. The Chinese effort backed by autocrats elsewhere has turned human rights into an underrated, yet crucial battleground in the shaping of a new world order. China is maneuvering against the backdrop of an unprecedented crackdown on Turkic Muslims in its northwestern province of Xinjiang, the accelerated rollout of restrictions elsewhere in the country, and the export of key elements of its model of a 21st century Orwellian surveillance state. The Chinese effort, highlighted in the Human Rights Watch's World Report 2019, is multipronged. It involves proposals to alter the principles on which the United Nations Human Rights Council operates in ways that would enable repressive, autocratic regimes. To achieve its goal, China is employing its financial muscle and infrastructure and energy-driven Belt and Road initiative to economically entice countries that are financially strapped, desperate for investment and/or on the defensive because of human rights abuses. China is also seeking a dominant role in various countries' digital infrastructure and media that would allow it to influence the flow of information and enable its allies to better control dissent. China is waging its campaign at a crucial juncture of history. It benefits from the rise of ethno- and religious nationalism, populism, intolerance and widespread anti-migration sentiment across the world's democracies. The campaign is enabled by the emergence of presidents like Donald J. Trump in the United States, the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hungary's Victor Orban and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro who have either de-emphasized human rights or gone as far as justifying abuses in addition to seeking to limit, if not undermine, independent media that hold them accountable. The timing of the Chinese effort is significant because it comes at a moment that predictions of the death of popular protest, symbolized by the defeat of the initially successful 2011 popular Arab revolts, are being called into question. Mass anti-government demonstrations in Sudan demand the resignation of President Omar al-Bashir. Anti-Chinese groups march in Kyrgyzstan while protests in Zimbabwe decry repression, poor public services, high unemployment, widespread corruption and delays in civil servants receiving their salaries. The past year has also seen widespread anti-government agitation in countries like Morocco and Jordan. The protests and what Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth describes in his foreword to the group's just published, 674-page World Report 2019 as "a resistance that keeps winning battles" suggests that China's campaign may have won battles but has yet to win the war. "Victory isn't assured but the successes of the past year suggest that the abuses of authoritarian rule are prompting a powerful human rights counterattack," Roth wrote. Nonetheless, Human Rights Watch's China director Sophie Richardson warned that "people outside China don't yet seem to realize that their human rights are increasingly under threat as Beijing becomes more powerful " She said, "In recent years, Beijing has sought to extend its influence into, and impose its standards and policies on, key international human rights institutions weakening some of the only means of accountability and justice available to people around the world," Ms. Richardson noted that China had last year successfully pushed a nonbinding resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) that advocated promotion of human rights on the basis of the People's Republic's principle of win-win, a principle that cynics assert means China wins twice. In a sign of the times, the resolution garnered significant support. The United States, in a twist of irony, was the only council member to vote against it with countries like Germany and Australia abstaining. China is not the only country that would like a globally accepted approach to be altered to the detriment of human rights. Muslim nations, with Saudi Arabia in the lead, have, for example, long sought to have blasphemy criminalized. The resolution "gutted the ideas of accountability for actual human rights violations, suggesting 'dialogue' instead. It failed to specify any course of action when rights violators refuse to cooperate with U.N. experts, retaliate against rights defenders or actively reject human rights principles. And it even failed to acknowledge any role for the HRC itself to address serious human rights violations when 'dialogue' and 'cooperation' don't produce results," Ms. Richardson said. "If these ideas become not just prevailing norms but also actual operating principles for the HRC, victims of state-sponsored abuses worldwide including in Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen will face almost impossible odds in holding abusive governments accountable," Ms. Richardson cautioned. In a separate interview, Ms. Richardson described the resolution as "the start of a process to wither away the U.N. human rights ecosystem." She said human rights groups were concerned "about what China will try to do next, whether it will more aggressively try to change the council's mandate or nibble away at language in treaties or roll back the role of civil society. China wants inter-governmental cooperation instead of accountability, government officials discussing among themselves with no discussion of accountability for abuses and no participation of independent groups." China's efforts are both an attempt to rewrite international norms and counter sharp Western criticism of its moves against Christians and Muslims and its crackdown in Xinjiang. Up to one million Turkic Muslims have reportedly been incarcerated in re-education camps that China projects as vocational training facilities. To maintain its crackdown, China depends on a fragile silence in the Muslim world that is fraying at the edges. In addition to attempting to change the operating principles of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, lobbying U.N. and foreign government officials to tone down criticism and invited foreign diplomats and journalists on choreographed visits to Xinjiang, China has at times successfully employed its economic and financial clout to buy either support or silence. Pakistan, the host of the Belt and Road's$45 billion crown jewel, has curbed its initial criticism of the crackdown in Xinjiang. Similarly, China is pressuring Myanmar to revive the suspended $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project, which if built as previously designed would flood 600 square kilometers of forestland in northern Kachin state and export 90 percent of the power produced to China. China has reportedly offered in return for the dam to support Myanmar that has been condemned by the United Nations, Western countries and some Muslim nations for its repressive campaign against the Rohingya, some 700,000 of which fled to Bangladesh last year. In a bid to pacify, criticism of its Xinjiang policy in Central Asia where anti-Chinese sentiment has been rising, China agreed this month to allow some 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs to renounce their Chinese citizenship and leave the country. The decision follows testimony in a Kazakh court of a former employee of a re-education camp detailing three facilities in which up to 7,500 Kazaks and Chinese nationals of Kazakh descent allegedly were being held. The testimony prompted sharp criticism in parliament and on social media. China and the West's diametrically opposed concepts of human rights are part of a larger contest for dominance over the future of technology and global influence. Freedom House, a Washington-based freedom watchdog, reported last year that China was exporting to at least 18 countries sophisticated surveillance systems capable of identifying threats to public order and has made it easier to repress free speech in 36 others. "They are passing on their norms for how technology should govern society," said Adrian Shahbaz, the author of the report. Added Nadege Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a Washington think tank, speaking to Bloomberg: "There's a 1984 component to it that's kind of scary." Dr. James M. Dorsey (jmdorsey@questfze.com) is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wurzburg's Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. He is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored volume, "Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa" as well as "Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa" and just published "China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom." INDORE: Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Saturday took a dig at Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's formal entry into politics, claiming that the Congress was fielding "chocolaty" faces in upcoming Lok Sabha polls as the party lacks strong leaders. "A Congress leader demands that Kareena Kapoor should be fielded from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat. Sometimes others talk about fielding Salman Khan from Indore. Likewise, Priyanka (Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) was also brought into active politics," Vijayvargiya was quoted as saying by PTI. "Agle Lok Sabha chunav ke maidan mein utaarne Congress ke pass mazboot neta nahi hai. Isliye woh aise chocolaty chehre ke madhyam se chunav ladna chahti hai (The Congress does not have strong leaders to field in the next Lok Sabha elections. For this reason, it wants to fight polls through these charming faces)," he said. He also said that "Priyanka would not have been brought into active politics if there was confidence within the Congress on (party chief) Rahul's leadership." Vijayvargiya made the controversial remark just a day after senior BJP leader and Bihar Minister Vinod Narain Jha said that Priyanka has just a "very beautiful" face and she lacks political acumen. Vijayvargiya also slammed those associating the Narendra Modi-led government's decision to confer Bharat Ratna on former President Pranab Mukherjee with party politics. "I was watching a debate on a TV channel in which it was being said that the decision to confer Pranab da with Bharat Ratna was taken to strengthen BJP in West Bengal. Those involved in this kind of discussion are insulting Pranab da," he said. It is to be noted that Vijayvargiya is the BJP's in charge general secretary for West Bengal. (with agency inputs) A clash broke out on Saturday between two groups of collegians during a Republic Day function in Khujner town in Madhya Pradesh's Rajgarh district, news agency PTI reported quoting the police. Students from both groups smashed chairs kept at the venue and also engaged in fisticuffs, Khujner police station in charge Ramkumar Raghuvanshi told PTI. A large contingent of police personnel was rushed to spot and the situation was brought under control, he informed. Rajgarh District Collector Nidhi Nivedita has imposed prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in the jurisdiction of Khujner police station, he added. Rajgarh SP said, "We have deployed heavy forces there, the situation has been brought under control. Section 144 has been imposed." Section 144 of the CrPC prohibits the assembly of more than four people at any public place in the limits in which it is imposed. The cause of the group clash was being ascertained, an official said. PATNA: Bihar Governor Lalji Tandon on Saturday asserted that the state government was committed to upholding the rule of law besides having zero tolerance for corruption. Addressing the Republic Day function at the historic Gandhi Maidan here, the governor said organized crime has been brought under control by impartial enforcement of law, and several steps have been taken for strengthening the police force so that it may fulfill its obligations efficiently. It is to the credit of the state government's resolve that an atmosphere of social and communal harmony prevails in Bihar, he said. "The government is also acting in accordance with its policy of zero tolerance for corruption. Action is being taken against corrupt public servants," he added. ".... 4.10 lakh complaints received under the Public Service Grievance Redressal Act of 2015 have been redressed," the governor stated. He also spoke of measures like the 'Lok Samvad' wherein the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues receive suggestions for improving governance from citizens, and the "saat nishchay" (seven resolves) which aim at providing basic amenities to the remotest corners of the state. The function was attended, among others, by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council Haroon Rashid. Before delivering his speech, the Governor inspected a Guard of Honour. Tableaux of various government departments were displayed during the Republic Day parade. AMRAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday claimed that there were 100% chances for hacking Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). He also remarked that hackers should not be allowed to take control of democracy. Naidu said that it was the duty of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take steps ensuring that VVPAT receipts were issued 100 percent or else the ECI should revert to the ballot paper system. Addressing a meeting of Telugu Desam Party MPs, Naidu said: "It's easy to misuse technology. It is particularly easy for the one who writes the (software) programme. The Election Commission is only a referee. It should not enforce a system on which there is no trust." "Political parties are only raising the people's demand. Many parties are opposed to the EVMs. Even developed countries have not been using EVMs and hence the EC should not exert pressure on using a system in which there is no faith," Chandrababu Naidu was quoted as saying by PTI. Naidu directed TDP MPs to raise the issue in Parliament and put pressure on the government to refrain from using the EVMs in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Commenting on the Centre's reported plan to introduce a full Budget for the 2019-20 financial year, Naidu said that he will ask his MPs to put pressure on the Centre to make it introduce only a vote-on-account budget. (with agency inputs) The all-women marching contingent of Assam Rifles on Saturday scripted history as they came down the Rajpath to take part in the Republic Day Parade in the National capital. The contingent was led by 30-year-old Major Khusboo Kanwar. The Sentinels of the North-East took an active part in all pre and post-Independence wars. The Friends of the Hill People are also custodians of law and order and guardians of our borders. They were effectively involved in counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir. Raised as the Cacher Levy, the force completes 183 years of glorious service to the Nation. Watch history in the making; an ALL WOMEN MARCHING CONTINGENT on Rajpath for the first time; Major Khushboo Kanwar leads contingent of ASSAM RIFLES pic.twitter.com/ejDUO66REs PIB India (@PIB_India) January 26, 2019 "Leading an all-women contingent of the Assam Rifles is a matter of great honour and pride for me. We have practiced very hard...I am a daughter of a bus conductor from Rajasthan and if I can accomplish this, then any girl can fulfil her dream," Major Khushboo Kanwar said as she brimmed with pride. Major General Rajpal Punia, Chief of Staff, HQ Delhi Area had earlier said that this year's Republic Day parade will be a dazzling display of 'Nari Shakti. "This Republic Day parade will be an amazing display of 'Nari Shakti' (women power), as many contingents will be led by women, besides an all-women contingent of the Assam Rifles," he said. Contingents of the Navy, India Army Service Corps and a unit of Corps of Signals (transportable satellite terminal) were all led by women officers. Punia, who is the Deputy Parade Commander in this year's parade, also said that this year's Republic Day parade has seen the largest participation ever of women. INA veterans will take part in a Republic Day parade for the first time. He added that besides 'Nari Shakti' and various thematic tableaux of the three services and different states and ministries, the theme of Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary was reflected in the parade. LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday finally broke his silence over Congress party's decision to appoint Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as the general secretary of the eastern region of the state, saying that he supports Priyanka's formal entry into politics. "Young people are being given a chance to prove themselves and the Samajwadi Party is really happy about it. I would like to congratulate Congress and its president [Rahul Gandhi]. They took a right decision [of appointing Priyanka as Uttar Pradesh (East) general secretary]," Akhilesh was quoted as saying by ANI. Akhilesh's remark is notable because he has already ditched Congress to stitch an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The SP chief had said a few days ago that the SP decided not to include the Congress in the alliance because he did not want to go into arithmetic of dividing seats. "I decided to correct my poll arithmetic and did it through this alliance," he told PTI. It may be recalled that the SP and Congress had forged an alliance in the 2017 Assembly Election in Uttar Pradesh but the alliance failed to get votes and both parties suffered huge defeats. "This defeat again was because of incorrect election arithmetic," Akhilesh said. Meanwhile, the Congress has announced that it would field its candidates from all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. Congress President made his intentions clear by appointing Priyanka as the general secretary of UP (East) and Jyotiraditya Scindia as general secretary of UP (West) respectively. Rahul's decision to bring Priyanka formally into politics is seen by many as a step which would strengthen Congress's position in UP. (With inputs from agencies) NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday arrested AgustaWestland scam accused Gautam Khaitan in a fresh case of holding black money and money laundering. He was arrested under the Black Money Act. He will be produced before Delhi's Patiala House Court later on Saturday. The arrest comes a week after the Income Tax Department raided Khaitan's offices and various other properties in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). It is learned that the ED has gathered evidence against the lawyer for allegedly receiving kickbacks in other defence deals, besides AgustaWestland, during the tenure of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. The ED in its earlier charge sheet in 2018 had accused 34 Indian and foreign individuals and companies, including lawyer Gautam Khaitan of laundering money to the tune of around 28 million Euro. The others named in the charge sheet were Italian middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke, and Finmeccanica, the parent company of AgustaWestland, and ex-IAF chief SP Tyagi. "Khaitan, the mastermind behind laundering the proceeds of crime in the present case, was known to the accused persons Gerosa, Haschke and Tyagi Brothers. He prepared a corporate structure of companies and got incorporated several legal entities across the globe. Thereafter, the proceeds of crime were laundered through various companies in Tunisia, Mauritius, India, BVI, Singapore, Switzerland, Dubai etc.," the charge sheet had said. It also claimed that Khaitan also received proceeds of crime in personal bank accounts opened in his name and the accounts of his companies in India and abroad. Khaitan was earlier arrested in September 2014 for his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland deal. He got bail in January 2015 and re-arrested along with Sanjeev Tyagi, another accused in the case, on December 9, 2016, by the CBI. He later secured bail. The CBI chargesheet has described Khaitan as the brain behind the AgustaWestland deal. (With agency inputs) JAIPUR: The 70th Republic Day was celebrated with patriotic zeal and fervour in Rajasthan on Saturday. Governor Kalyan Singh hoisted the national flag at a ceremonial event at the SMS stadium here after which he was given the guard of honour. In attendance was Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Cabinet Ministers and other high ranking officials. Earlier in the day, Singh and Gehlot went to the Amar Jawan Jyoti and offered floral tributes to those who sacrificed their lives for the country. Thirty-four servicemen were felicitated with the President`s Police Medal, police medals and certificates on the occasion. Speaker C.P. Joshi hoisted the flag at the Assembly premises. Speaking on the occasion, he said that each and every citizen of the country should be aware of their rights and duties. Rajasthan`s Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot hoisted the flag at the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee office. NEW DELHI: Top government officials have confirmed that the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre is moving ahead at a quick pace with its plan to bring back economic offenders from the West Indies. The officials told IANS that the government has commissioned a long-range Air India Boeing plane to carry out this important mission. Sources said that senior officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) will take off from India to the West Indies with an aim to bring these fugitives back to India. It is to be noted that fugitive billionaire businessman Mehul Choksi and promoter of Winsome Diamonds, Jatin Mehta, have made use of a paid citizenship programme provided by some Caribbean nations in order to escape facing law in India. Jatin Mehta acquired the citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis some years ago, while Mehul Choksi recently managed to get citizenship of Antigua and Barbuada. It is to be noted that these islands provide visa-free travel to 132 countries. According to investigators, Indian economic offenders are now easily acquiring the citizenship of Caribbean nations through investment. The investigators rued the fact that lack of extradition treaties with these island nations have made these places a safe haven for fugitive rich Indians. It is learnt that the main targets of this mission are Choksi and his fraud-accused nephew Nirav Modi. Indian agencies may pick up Choksi from the Caribbean and it is likley that Nirav Modi, who is currently hiding in Europe, would be sequestered on the return route from Europe. Dominica and St Lucia give citizenship and a valid passport for just $100,000, while the citizenship of Grenada comes at $200,000. (with agency inputs) New Delhi: India is celebrating its 70th Republic Day and there is patriotic fervour all around. The 26th day of January is marked as a historic one for India because our Constitution came into force in 1950 on this day. India attained freedom from the British rule on August 15, 1947, and these two days are of great significance to us. Here's looking at some of the best patriotic songs that will reignite your love for the country: Maa Tujhe Salaam Music maestro A R Rahman had released his album Vande Mataram on the Golden Jubilee anniversary of India's independence in 1997 and the song was a part of it. The song 'Maa Tujhe Salaam' has been instrumental in instilling a sense of patriotic pride and national unity amongst the people of India. Ye Jo Des Hai Tera 'Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera' from the 2004 film Swades starring Shah Rukh Khan is the perfect background music to set the tone for Republic Day. This song was also an AR Rehman's composition. Mera Rang De Basanti Chola 'Mera Rang De Basanti Chola' from the movie 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh' is perfect for the Republic Day playlist. The song was revamped from the old version with a fresh tone and stole millions of heart. Sung by Sonu Nigam and Manmohan Waris under AR Rehman's direction, the song is worth listening to on January 26. Ae Mere Pyare Watan Ae Mere Pyare Watan by maestro Manna De from 1961 released 'Kabuliwala' is an emotional number and truly epitomises the spirit of patriotism. Bharat Humko Jaan Se Pyaara Hai This soft and slow number from 'Roja', that showcases Kashmir during the early 90s, is a beautiful composition and will inspire a nationalistic fervour in you. Worth to be played on Republic Day. Apart from these, several other numbers like 'Zindagi Maut Na Banjaye' from 'Sarfarosh', the title song of 'Rang De Basanti', the title song of 'Chak De! India', Shankar Mahadevan's 'Hindustan Meri Jaan' and Fanna's 'Desh Rangeela' promote brotherhood and unity and will set you in the mood for Republic Day celebrations. So tune into these songs to evoke your nationalistic spirit. Happy Republic Day 2019 to all! Homeplus CEO Im Il-soon, left, poses with Philippe Gruyters, managing director of European Marketing Distribution, after joining the retailers' alliance in Europe at the Panorama Resort & Spa hotel in Pfaffikon, Switzerland, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Homeplus By Baek Byung-yeul Homeplus has joined the European Marketing Distribution (EMD), the largest retailers' alliance in Europe, a move to increase its volume of global sourcing, the retail outlet operator said Thursday. The country's leading outlet operator said this is the first time for an Asian supermarket chain to join the alliance. Established in 1989, the EMD is Europe's largest retail alliance. By cooperating with the member companies, Homeplus is planning to sell high-quality products from European countries at low prices here. "To offer more benefits to consumers and take the lead in global sourcing, we have pushed a plan to join the EMD, which is an unprecedented move for retail chains in Asia," Im Il-soon, CEO of Homeplus, said in a statement. "By expanding global sourcing, we are able to offer more benefits to our consumers and this could be a great opportunity for our local partners as they can expand their reach into European market via us." Homeplus said prominent supermarket chains from 20 countries both in and outside of Europe are members of the alliance. They include Markant of Germany, NorgesGruppen of Norway, Euromadi of Spain, ESD of Italy, Superunie of the Netherlands, Dagrofa of Denmark, Axfood of Sweden, Kaufland of Poland, Lenta of Russia and Woolworths of Australia. The annual sales of its members are at 258 trillion won ($229.4 billion) and this is the second-largest volume following the U.S. retail giant Walmart. With its immense buying power, those membership chains can buy quality products in bulk and distribute them at low prices. "It was not an easy decision for us to join hands with an Asian distributor for the first time, but we concluded that innovative movements Homeplus has shown will be helpful to European consumers," Philippe Gruyters, managing director of the EMD, said in a statement. As this is its first year as a member, Homeplus said it will try to build up a firm cooperative relationship with the membership companies and plan to bring grocery products such as cereal, beer, pasta, as well as other products like batteries, within 2019. "Cereal products will be the first item we will come up with for Korean consumers. They will be up to 40 percent cheaper than cereal products here," Homeplus said adding it will increase its volume of global sourcing to 1 trillion won by 2021. New Delhi: Master storyteller Ruskin Bond, a connoisseur of the literary genre of mystery, on Saturday said writing can only be timeless if the character resonates well with the readers and the style is simple. "I think a book lasts a very long time if it has a very strong central character which is repeated again and again in subsequent books," Bond said during a discussion on Agatha Christie at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet 2019. He argued that Christie`s creation Hercule Poirot was eccentric, larger than life and memorable. `Mrs Marple` is also very entertaining. The octogenarian author, who came out with his first book at the age of 17, grew up reading Agatha Christie and other detective stories. "She leads you on without creating the sort of suspense that you get in a horror film or a modern mystery. You would want to keep going on because it is like a maze," he said. Recalling Christie`s first novel, that he came across, Bond said he was introduced to "The Queen of Crime" at the age of 10 and the first book that he read was `One, Two, Buckle My Shoe`. Talking about the charm of Christie`s timeless books, the Indian author of British descent said, "Partly it is her skill in creating a plot. Her characters are also very strong and memorable and also her style which has not dated". The author of `Death under the Deodar` said that he likes to keep reading those books where he doesn`t remember the denouement`. Asked about the reason for Christie being read widely, Bond said: "She had a very simple, direct and lucid style of English writing". Talking about his ghost stories, Bond said that he doesn`t believe in them, but has encountered `voices and friendly ghosts` in his Mussoorie residence. Some of Bond`s works are being adapted as a series of online episodes by ZEE5 Original titled Parchhayee - Ghost stories by Ruskin Bond`. The series will be streaming from February 14. "My stories are very short. So it needs filling out and adaptation. I am sure it has been done very well," Bond said while confessing that he is not aware of these digital platforms. Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is planning to unify the underlying messaging infrastructure of the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger services and incorporate end-to-end encryption into these apps, the New York Times reported on Friday. The three services will, however, continue as stand-alone apps, the report said, citing four people involved in the effort. Facebook said it is working on adding end-to-end encryption, which protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in a conversation, to more of its messaging products, and considering ways to make it easier for users to connect across networks. "There is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work," a spokesperson said. After the changes, a Facebook user, for instance, will be able send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, according to the New York Times report. Integrating the messaging services could make it harder for antitrust regulators to break up Facebook by undoing its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, said Sam Weinstein, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. "If Facebook is worried about that then one way it can defend itself is to integrate those services," Weinstein said. But Weinstein said breaking up Facebook is viewed as an "extreme remedy" by regulators, particularly in the United States, so concerns over antitrust scrutiny may not have been a factor behind the integration. MAJOR TRADEOFFS Some former Facebook security engineers and an outside encryption expert said the plan could be good news for user privacy, in particular by extending end-to-end encryption. "I`m cautiously optimistic it`s a good thing," said former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, who now teaches at Stanford University. "My fear was that they were going to drop end-to-end encryption." However, the technology does not always conceal metadata - information about who is talking to whom - sparking concern among some researchers that the data might be shared. Any metadata integration likely will let Facebook learn more about users, linking identifiers such as phone numbers and email addresses for those using the services independently of each other. Facebook could use that data to charge more for advertising and targeted services, although it also would have to forgo ads based on message content in Messenger and Instagram. Other major tradeoffs will have to be made too, Stamos and others said. Messenger allows strangers to contact people without knowing their phone numbers, for example, increasing the risk of stalking and approaches to children. Systems based on phone numbers have additional privacy concerns, because governments and other entities can easily extract location information from them. Stamos said he hoped Facebook would get public input from terrorism experts, child safety officers, privacy advocates and others and be transparent in its reasoning when it makes decisions on the details. "It should be an open process, because you can`t have it all," Stamos said. New Delhi: Ace Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor is currently working on 'Kabir Singh' which happens to be the Hindi remake of 2017 superhit Telugu entertainer 'Arjun Reddy'. Kiara Advani is paired opposite the star and the fresh casting gives fans one more reason to watch this flick. Shahid and Kiara recently wrapped up shooting in the national capital after which they headed to Musoorie. On Saturday, Shahid took to his Instagram to post a picture with his co-star Kiara from inside a plane and teased her for being traumatised after shooting with him. Take a look at his post: Shahid and Kiara were today spotted at the Mumbai airport: Kabir Singh' is jointly produced by Cine1 Studios and T-Series. Shahid will reportedly be seen playing an alcoholic surgeon who goes on a self-destructive path after his ex-lover marries someone else. Earlier, actress Tara Sutaria who will make her Bollywood debut with 'Student of the Year 2' was to play the lead but she backed out of the project. To replace Tara, Kiara was roped in. The film is scheduled to hit the screens June 21, 2019. - A second suspect has been arrested with regard to the murder of the the public affairs manager of the GPHA, Josephine Tanor Asante - Amos Apreku, who was her personal driver, was picked up at Saki Central, near Michel Camp. - He is currently in police custody as investigations into the death continues Information available to YEN.com.gh shows that a second suspect in the case of the murder of Josephine Tanor Asante, a former official of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), has been arrested. Amos Apreku, the personal driver of the deceased was picked up at Saki Central, near Michel Camp. He was arrested on Wednesday, January 23, 2019, and has since been remanded into police custody to enable the police conduct further investigations into the matter. The suspects Amos Apreku and Christian Agyei Source: dailyguideafrica.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: Tema Port manager killed after attack in her bedroom Dailyguideafrica.com reports that Apreku drove the late Asante from a staff party to the Michel Camp Bus Stop, after which he handed over the car to her. According to police report, on January 13, 2018, at about 8:30 am, an attempt to open the bedroom door of Josephine Asante failed. Apreku was reportedly contacted by the deceaseds 12-year-old son who told him about the incident in the house. Upon entering the house, he found a bunch of keys allegedly used in opening the main gate of the house at the entrance. READ ALSO: 5 top journalists who have made strides without basic training One of the keys was then used to open the bedroom door of the deceased who was found in a supine position in a pool of blood on the floor. The driver lodged a complaint with police who arrived at the scene and later saw the houseboy burying a polythene bag, containing an amount of GH430 close to the boys quarters in the house. A wristwatch of the deceased was also found in the polythene bag. Meanwhile, one-week celebration of the murdered Josephine Asante would be held today at the Our Lady of Mercy Parish, Community 1. Funeral arrangement would be announced later. READ ALSO: Heartbreaking photos emerge as Kyeremanteng Agyarko is buried today Ghana News Today: Latest on Hussein-Suale's Murder / High Spate of Ponzi Schemes in Ghana| #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen The year 2019 is still in its early stages, yet a lot of things are happening that has shaken the confidence of Ghanaians. These events make one question whether the men of God who prophesy the death of celebrities and important personalities on the 31 watch night services are truly from God. YEN.com.gh has come up with a list of happenings that has shaken the cores of the nation. These should have at least been prophesied by these powerful men of God. READ ALSO: Eight people including a notorious illegal miner arrested in connection with Talensi mine explosion 1. Kidnapping: The increasing spate of kidnapping that has rocked the nation in 2019 is quite scary. It is quite unfortunate how these people got missing. There have been reports that three ladies were kidnapped in December 2018. In January 2018, there have been not less than four additional kidnap cases recorded, with one person reportedly dead at Takoradi in the Western Region. Source: Supplied Source: UGC 2. Recent explosion and fire out breaks: In January 2019, 16 people have been reported dead as a result of explosion at a mine at Talensi in the Upper East Region. Another explosion occurred at the Michel camp armoury. Recently there was a fire out break at the Odawna market at circle in Accra. It is quite unfortunate these this are happening at the early part of 2019. Our prophets could have prophesied to possibly avert it since God reveals to redeem. READ ALSO: Top journalist who have made strides without basic journalistic training 3. Recent killings: The recent killings that have rocked the nation in January 2019 alone is quite worrying, as most of them are known to be occupying government positions. The Public Affairs director of Ghana Ports and Habours Authority was murdered in cold blood in her house. On January 26, 2019, a staff of the forestry commission was shot dead at Agomanya. The Deputy Distribution Manager of Accra East Region of the Ghana water company limited was also shot dead on his way to his hometown in 2019. READ ALSO: Man left heartbroken after wife of 10 years reveals all 5 kids are not his Ghana News Today: Latest on Hussein-Suale's Murder / High Spate of Ponzi Schemes in Ghana| #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place Source: Yen - Two land guards have been arrested by the police in the Central Region - Their arrest comes after they attacked workers on a piece of land owned by MTN - They reportedly used various items to inflict wounds on the workers Police officials at the Awutu District Police Command have arrested two notorious land guards at Gomoa Nkwantanan in the Gomoa East district of the Central region. YEN.com.gh understands that the land guards have been unleashing terror on residents in the area for a considerable period of time. The district police commander, DSP John Hessey, revealed that his outfit received a hint that some suspected land guards had attacked people who were working on land purchased by MTN, a telecommunications company, on Thursday, January 24, 2019. Source: Supplied Source: UGC READ ALSO: Anas is incapable of investigating Ahmed's death - Security expert According to him, the land guards used various weapons to inflict wounds on their victims. The victims later reported the incident at the police station, after which two suspects, Anthony Kwoa and Ahmed Jibreal, were arrested. Adomonline.com reports that they are currently in police custody and would soon be arraigned before court. The Omankrado of Gomoa Fetteh Krakraba, Nana Yaw Kwadumewu Il, has meanwhile appealed to President Akufo-Addo to address the issue of land guards, in order to bring sanity and stability in the area and other parts of the country where land guards operate. READ ALSO: We don't drink blood; we don't kill people - Ghana Lodge Ghana News Today: Latest on Hussein-Suale's Murder / High Spate of Ponzi Schemes in Ghana| #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen Diminutive Kumawood actor Don Little has revealed that he gets so many proposals from ladies every day. Contrary to what people think that he will have difficulty getting a girlfriend because of his size, Don Little said he has too many women who are after him on a daily basis. In an excerpt from a yet-to-be aired interview on the Delay Show, Don Little said no day passes without ladies sending him messages through his social media pages. READ ALSO: Dag Heward-Mills drops fresh prophecy for Ghanaians and its about prayers According to him, since he became a star, many ladies send him proposals through social media, with other courageous ones taking his contacts and calling him personally. Ever since I became a star, I have had a lot of ladies come to me; some I get on Instagram, Facebook etc,. Others also get my contact and they come to me, he told the host, Delay, when he was asked how he is handling the ladies since he became a star. When Delay asked if he is able to have sex with the girls in his home, Don Little answered in the negative indicating that he doesnt want to make a bad name for himself in his area. READ ALSO: Actress Linda Osifo acquires multi-million naira mansion in Lekki, shares her survival story (photos) No I do not do that in my house. You know people talk, so I'm very careful with that, he stressed. "I prefer guest house, I mean there are lots of guest houses around, rates are even cheaper, with 30 cedis or 50 cedis, you will get a nice place, he added. Don Little, known in private life as Stephen Atanga, recently revealed in an earlier report by YEN.com.gh that his parents threw him away because of his size. My parents almost took my life because when I was born, I looked so small that they mistook me for a dwarf, it hurt me but everything is ok now," he said. READ ALSO: Man left heartbroken after wife of 10 years reveals all 5 kids are not his Ghana News Today: Latest on Hussein-Suale's Murder / High Spate of Ponzi Schemes in Ghana| #Yencomgh READ ALSO: 7 top politicians who slayed in smock at new Ya-Na's investiture (Photos) Have national and human interest issues to discuss? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen.com.gh - A security expert, Adib Saani, has called on the state agencies to investigate the death of Ahmed Hussein-Suale - According to him, Tiger Eye PI lacks the resources needed to launch investigations into the murder - Ahmed, an investigative journalist, was killed on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 The executive director of the Center for Human Security and Peace Building, Adib Saani, has argued that Tiger Eye PI does not have the capacity to investigate the murder of investigative journalist, Ahmed Hussein-Suale. Ghanaweb.com reports that he insisted the state agencies should take assume the responsibility of solving the murder. According to him, the murder was carefully orchestrated and for that reason, there is the need to bring in the experts who have the resources to get answers. Adib Saani Source: adibsaani.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: We don't drink blood; we don't kill people - Ghana Lodge He went on to say that, Tiger Eye PI is a private entity and for that reason, it would be wrong for them to partake in the investigations. It is a national issue. When you look at chapter 5 of the constitution, it is the responsibility of government to ensure that we are safe in the country. Looking at the circumstances surrounding the death of Ahmed Suale, I think we might have to bring all national resources to bear to get to the bottom of what happened, he stated. His comments are in reaction to remarks by a colleague security analyst, Bonah, that Anas and his team, given their record of accomplishment, could find Ahmeds killers. Ahmed, an investigative journalist, lost his life on Wednesday, January 16, 2019, when armed men reportedly shot him thrice. He was rushed to the hospital, but did not survive and has since been buried. READ ALSO: Kidnapped young girl rescued by the police Ghana News Today: Latest on Hussein-Suale's Murder / High Spate of Ponzi Schemes in Ghana| #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen The Grand Lodge of Ghana has rubbished claims and perceptions that Freemasonry has been engaging in human and other sacrifices for wealth and power. Per report sighted by YEN.com.gh on Graphic.com.gh, the group is not happy with respect to perception that their main objective is about human sacrifices. According to the mother body of Freemasons in Ghana, the group has unfortunately become synonymous with occultism and evil practices of idol worship because of the activities of unscrupulous persons who would do anything for fame and wealth. Freemasonry is not about human sacrifices - Ghana Lodge (Photo credit: Ghana Lodge) Source: UGC READ ALSO: Asiedu Nketia's smock he wore to Dagbon for new Ya-Na's outdooring causes stir However, the Grand Master of the group, Most Worshipful Bro Naval Captain Kwadjo Adunkwa Butan, insists that the primary purpose of being a Freemason is to serve and to make the world a better place for humanity. "We are humans just like everybody else. We do not possess special powers or have secret gods we worship; and being a Freemason does not give money, power or fame," he said on Thursday, January 24, 2019, at the launch of the groups 10th anniversary at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra. READ ALSO: 7 top politicians who slayed in smock at new Ya-Na's investiture (Photos) Another member of the group, the Chairman of the Grand Lodge Masonic Education Committee, Right Worshipful, Abraham Gyasi in an interview added that the group was rather into philanthropy. "The misconceptions you have been hearing, they are not true, we don't kill other people, we don't drink blood, we are not an occult organisation but an organisation of very decent and respectable men," Right Worshipful Gyasi told the GraphicOnline in an interview. The event brought together individuals from all walks of life, including teachers, public servants, traders, judges, traditional rulers, statesmen, clergymen and farmers. READ ALSO: President Akufo-Addo gifts new Ya-Naa customised Jaguar The ceremony was used to celebrate 10 years of dedication in helping to build a fairer, more kind and just society. The year-long anniversary celebration will also be used to dispel negative perceptions about society. The group has scheduled numerous charity events, seminars and a number of engagements with the media to improve public knowledge about their activities. The main Grand Lodge meeting will be held in Kumasi in May this year. He further cautioned the public against the operation of groups which posed as Freemasons, guaranteeing wealth and power in exchange for certain sacrifices. Recently, films and banners with false promises of strange imaginary powers and benefit of being a freemason have been published by unscrupulous people to deceive the general public. Being a Freemason will not give any member money, power, fame and fortune. Freemasonry is not involved in politics and religion, he stressed. He advised persons interested in joining the group to visit their appropriate offices to go through the proper procedures of registration. Ghana News Today: Latest on Hussein-Suale's Murder / High Spate of Ponzi Schemes in Ghana| #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen Being a prophet in Ghana is a big deal because they turn to have a lot of following. While some prophets tend to be quiet, some enjoy being in the media domain amid controversies. Here, YEN.com.gh brings to you prophets who were once popular and often in the news for one issue or the other but have now been quiet, making little or no news. 1. Prophet Ebenezer Adarkwa-Yiadom Popularly known as Opambour, Prophet Adarkwa Yiadom is the head pastor of Ebenezer Worship Center in Kumasi. Prophet Opambour was very popular in Ghana some few years ago. He was often seen on TV and heard sharing his opinion over several issues that made the headline. But lately, much is not heard about the controversial preacher. Even though he is still preaching and heads his church in Kumasi Prophet Ebenezer Opambour. Source: dailyguideafrica.com Source: UGC 2. Bishop Daniel Bonegas Bishop Bonegas is the founder and leader of Great Fire Pentecostal International Church in Ghana. A few years ago, Bishop Bonegas was popular and seen often when he used to broadcast his church service. But for about two years now, Bishop Bonegas has not been seen or heard. Even though his church is still running, the preacher seems to be underground lately. READ ALSO: 5 questions on the mind of Anas wife at the moment Bishop Bonegas. Source: Peacefmonline.com Source: UGC 3. Prophet Elisha Salifu Amoako Prophet Salifu Amoako is the founder and general overseer of Alive Chapel International. Over the years, the name Salifu Amoako was a household name but recently it seems the popular preacher is relaxed thus much is not heard of him. Prophet Elisha Salifu Amoako. Source: Adomonline.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: 5 ways to know your interview went well 4. Pastor Kelvin Kwesi Kobiri Pastor Kobiri is the founder and general overseer of the Zoe Outreach Embassy Church is an outspoken pastor. He used to be seen often and heard sharing his opinion on issues in the media. But recently, not much is heard about the preacher. Pastor Kelvin Kwesi Kobiri. Source: Adomonline.com Source: UGC 5. Prophet Kwaku Apraku Popularly called 'Apraku my daughter', Prophet Kwaku Apraku was one of the most popular preachers some few years back. He was all over radio stations preaching and commenting on national issues. But it seems the prophet has relaxed because not much has been heard about him lately. Prophet Kwaku Apraku. Source: Peacefmonline.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: 4 solid ways to have a successful "friends with benefits" relationship Joshua Story: I Was Born With a Technological Mind - Faces of Ghana | #Yencomgh Click here to get the latest exciting English Premier League news. Get match highlights, reports, photos & videos all in one place. Source: Yen.com.gh Presidential economic adviser Kim Hyun-chul, right, speaks during a press conference on the launch of the Business Federation for New Southern Policy at the Plaza Hotel in central Seoul, Thursday. On left is Korea International Trade Association Chairman Kim Young-ju, who was appointed as chairman of the federation. Yonhap By Nam Hyun-woo The government and private companies should make more concerted efforts to expand trade with India in order to facilitate President Moon Jae-in's New Southern Policy, presidential economic adviser Kim Hyun-chul said Thursday. Kim made the remark during the inauguration ceremony of the Business Federation for New Southern Policy, which is comprised of 21 private and government organizations and chaired by Korea International Trade Association (KITA). "India has a 1.3 billion population and an economic growth rate over 7 percent, which requires greater attention in the (Korean) government's policy and businesses' trade efforts," said Kim, who is also the chairman of the Presidential Committee on New Southern Policy. "With the launch of the federation, I hope the government and the private sector will combine efforts to expand markets available to domestic businesses to target countries with the New Southern Policy, and create new opportunities in not only the manufacturing industry but also the digital sector." The New Southern Policy refers to President Moon's initiative announced in 2017, aimed at strengthening Korea's relationship with ASEAN and India to the same level as the four main stakeholders in the Korean Peninsula the United States, China, Japan and Russia. The federation appointed KITA Chairman Kim Young-ju as its first chairman. "Korean trade is relying heavily on China and the U.S., accounting for 39 percent of Korea's total trade volume," Kim said. "Uncertainties stemming from the U.S.-China trade conflict and a no-deal Brexit are aggravating the trade environment. Thus, Korea has to diversify its trade destinations to the southern regions." The federation will focus on supporting domestic companies' entrance to the region. Also, the federation will hold a digital economy forum discussing ideas on e-commerce, mobile business and smart mobility, on the sidelines of the Korea-ASEAN Special Summit slated for later this year. "Korea is one of the countries showing the fastest economic growth and Southeast Asian countries are expected to prefer Korea's growth model," KITA Chairman Kim said. "The federation and the government will combine efforts to support companies to make the best use of the opportunity." Deputy PM Dung said that the people diplomacy and NGOs have become an important factor in boosting cooperation and trust among countries and nations, helping make relationships deeper, stable and sustainable. Vietnam has received precious support from the peace-loving community during the resistance wars as well as national re-construction and international integration, he noted, adding that in the current time, international friends and NGOs have still accompanied Vietnam during the poverty reduction and socio-economic development, as well as in implementing the Millennium Development Goals and the current Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We have seen your footprints in most remote areas, together with us, to bring stable life and livelihood to the needy, especially for the most vulnerable groups, ensuring that no one is left behind, he underscored. No single country is able to deal with traditional and non-traditional challenges such as climate change, poverty and epidemics, he said, stressing the need for multi-sectoral cooperation among public, private and non-state sectors, as well as closer coordination at the international level to deal with specific matters. With their experience, resources and partnership network, NGOs can join hands in tackling socio-economic problems in each locality and community in Vietnam, said the Deputy PM. He affirmed Vietnams wish to foster cooperation with international organizations, pledging to create optimal conditions for them to operate in Vietnam for inclusive and sustainable growth, heading to the completion of the SGDs. On the occasion of the upcoming traditional New Year of Vietnam, Deputy PM Dung extended wishes to ambassadors, charge daffaires and representatives from international organizations and NGOs in Vietnam. He also lauded the operational outcomes of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) in 2018, making important contributions to common development of the country. On behalf of diplomatic corps in Hanoi, Venezuelan Ambassador Jorge Rondon Uzcategui congratulated Vietnam for the countrys achievements in national construction and development. He expressed his wish that Vietnam will sustain its economic growth and gain more successes in its external relations. The diplomat said he hope that the upcoming Year of the Pig will be a year of happiness, harmony, dialogue and common interest. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Venice, FL (34285) Today Partly cloudy. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 79F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. A: York County Clerk Kelly Turner said it is estimated that this particular special election, by mail, will cost approximately $11,150. If it had been done in person (at a polling place, such as the auditorium), it would have cost an estimated/approximate $11,300. Q: Who decides if an election such as this should be done by all mail or in person? A: York County Clerk/Election Commissioner Kelly Turner said that decision is made by the county election commissioner. So that person would be me, Turner said. Q: What if the clerks office receives ballots in the mail the day after the election. Would those still be able to be counted? A: No. York County Clerk Kelly Turner said only the ballots in the possession of her office as of 5 p.m., on Tuesday, Feb. 12, will be counted. Any ballots returned to her office after that time will not be counted. Q: On the back of the return envelope for my ballot, there is a blank that we need to fill in right before the words special election. What word are we supposed to write in that blank? A: York County Clerk Kelly Turner said voters need to write the word recall in that blank. YORK Two felony charges against Alberto Valdez, 40,of Bellflower, Calif., have been bound over to District Court, in a case where he is accused of being in possession of methamphetamine and being in possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. According to court documents, a deputy with the York County Sheriffs Department was on regular patrol on Interstate 80 when he saw a 2018 Mercedes Benz weaving, slowing down and speeding up and unable to maintain consistent speed. A traffic stop was initiated and the female driver told the deputy her driving was a result of her and Valdez having a serious conversation. The deputy said there were multiple indicators of criminal activity and the driver gave him consent to search. The deputy said, according to court documents, that a search of the vehicle was conducted by himself, others with the sheriffs department and troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol. It is alleged they found a pipe with methamphetamine residue, a plastic container and bags of methamphetamine, all having a total weight of 1.68 grams. They said they also found a Smith and Wesson handgun, of which Valdez allegedly claimed ownership. And they said they found $1,760 in cash, with a strong odor of marijuana, in the drivers purse. Iran-backed Hezbollah has "for years" been able to enter Israel, the Lebanese group's leader said on Saturday, responding for the first time to Israel's discovery of tunnels dug into Israeli territory from Lebanon. Hassan Nasrallah indicated the tunnels had been dug long ago and that it was "a surprise" Israel took so long to locate them. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Israel's unveiling of what it called Hezbollah "attack tunnels" last month, and Lebanon's accusation that an Israeli border barrier crosses into its territory, have increased tensions. Israel regards Iran as its biggest foe and Hezbollah as the main threat on its borders. It has waged an increasingly open campaign of military strikes against them both in Syria, where they are fighting on the government side in the civil war. Hassan Nasrallah Speaking in an interview with al-Mayadeen TV, Nasrallah said Hezbollah did not want to draw Lebanon into a war with Israel. But he said there was a fear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might miscalculate before the Israeli elections in April and "do something rash". He warned that the "resistance axis", as the group refers to itself, Iran and Syria, might change their reaction to Israeli strikes in Syria, including with a bombardment of Tel Aviv. Both Israel and Hezbollah have already indicated that any new war between them would be greater in scope than the last one, fought in 2006 in Lebanese territory. "Part of our plan in the next war is to enter into Galilee, a part of our plan we are capable of, God willing. The important thing is that we have this capability and we have had it for years," Nasrallah said. Promo for the interview with Nasrallah He added that all of Israel would be the battlefield and reiterated that the group now had precision rockets that could strike deep into Israel. Nasrallah stopped short of explicitly saying the tunnels were Hezbollah's work, citing the heavily armed group's policy of "ambiguity" on military matters and a desire to deny Israel a pretext to attack. He said Israel was still looking for more tunnels, despite having said its operation to find them was over. He said Israel had only discovered some tunnels, adding "it is not known" if more exist. This week the UN Middle East envoy said that at least two of the tunnels found by Israel crossed the "blue line" between the countries, "and thereby constituted violations". Hezbollah tunnel exposed by IDF (Photo: EPA) UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war, said both sides must stick to their side of the blue line and that Hezbollah must leave the area around the frontier. The blue line is a decades-old demarcation line that both sides have agreed to abide by until they can agree on a formal delineation of the disputed border. The envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, told the United Nations that peacekeepers had not been granted access to the Lebanese entry point of one of the tunnels. "One of the tunnels discovered goes back 13 years," Nasrallah said, asserting it predated resolution 1701, but without discussing how old other tunnels were. IDF arrested on Saturday a Palestinian man armed with a knife after he breached the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip, said the IDF Spokespersons Unit. Iran-backed Hezbollah has "for years" been able to enter Israel, the Lebanese group's leader said on Saturday, responding for the first time to Israel's discovery of tunnels dug into Israeli territory from Lebanon. "Part of our plan in the next war is to enter into Galilee, a part of our plan we are capable of, God willing. The important thing is that we have this capability and we have had it for years," said Hassan Nasrallah in an interview with al-Mayadeen TV. Israel says it's sending a mission to Brazil to help in rescue operations and provide aid after the collapse of a dam holding back mining waste. A statement Saturday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says the mission will leave within 24 hours. Netanyahu made the help offer during a call with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been an enthusiastic ally of Israel. The "axis of resistance" of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah could respond to Israeli strikes on Iran and Hezbollah in Syria with their own attack on Tel Aviv, Hezbollah's leader said on Saturday. They were deliberating a response to escalating Israeli strikes and could change their approach "at any moment" Hassan Nasrallah said in an interview with al-Mayadeen TV. Israeli settlers shot and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian officials and the Israeli military said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that the man killed was a 38-years-old father of four. In addition, nine other people were wounded by gunfire. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The incident followed a confrontation between settlers and Palestinians near the city of Ramallah in which a settler was lightly injured, the military said. "Initial details suggest that shortly thereafter, a conflict erupted between Israeli civilians and Palestinians in the area, in which live rounds were fired by the civilians. One Palestinian died and several others are injured," the military said in a statement, adding that an investigation has begun. Palestinian who was killed in clashes The Palestinians said the settlers had entered the village of al-Mughayer and that its residents tried to fend them off. The Israeli military said its forces dispersed the crowds. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killing. "The Israeli Government is continuing its policy of escalation," Abbas said in a statement published by the official Wafa news agency. "This will lead to serious consequences, further tension and the creation of a dangerous and uncontrollable atmosphere." Footage of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers X Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014, and a bid by US President Donald Trump to restart negotiations has so far shown little progress. In the West Bank, the Palestinians have limited self-rule and most of the territory is controlled by Israel. Most countries view the settlements Israel has built there as illegala view that Israel disputes, citing biblical, historical and political ties to the land. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un receives reports on the result of the recent U.S. visit by North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Yong-chul, at an office in Pyongyang, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on Thursday. / Yonhap Possible 'big deal' should include actual verification of NK's nuclear capability By Lee Min-hyung With the highly-anticipated second meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a month away, attention is growing over whether they can sign a possible "big deal" for denuclearization. The pre-summit atmosphere does not look bad considering the series of positive signals from the two sides. By engaging in "letter" diplomacy this year, Trump and Kim exchanged their willingness for the meeting, raising hopes for fresh momentum in their denuclearization talks. Washington and Pyongyang also held working- and high-level talks this month ahead of the summit to fine-tune the agenda and their differences for the summit. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said "real progress" has been made between the two, while the regime's young leader said Thursday he got a great letter from Trump and will wait "with patience and good faith." Trump and Kim held their first historic meeting in June last year, but at that time, no specific agreements were made in their ongoing talks on denuclearization of the peninsula. For this reason, calls have grown for the two sides to sign a specific and big deal in a way to move the North's denuclearization forward in a verifiable way. Experts said the possible big deal can be realized only when both sides reach an agreement in a way to allow the U.S. to carry out "actual verification" on the North's nuclear capabilities. "The worst-case scenario is that the U.S. begins easing economic sanctions on the North without verifying its nuclear capability in detail," Shin Beom-chul, senior director of the research unit at Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said. "My view is that any deal, which includes agreements on verification, is a big deal," he said. In May last year, North Korea demolished its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the presence of outside observers, in a show of its willingness for denuclearization. But critics argued that the event was nothing more than a political show, as no actual verification was conducted. In an apparent move to reflect on the suspicions of international society, Kim pledged to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facility with verification by outside experts during the inter-Korean summit in September. But the promise has yet to be realized, as Kim urged Washington to take a corresponding step beforehand in exchange for a string of the regime's denuclearization steps, such as the dismantling of Punggye-ri. To speed up the deadlocked momentum for denuclearization, the U.S. and North Korea are engaging in secret talks before the second summit tentatively scheduled for late next month. "Both sides hold a set of bargaining chips to exchange during their upcoming summit to seek a breakthrough for the resumption of their denuclearization talks," Shin said. "The North is likely to offer to not just dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facility, but scrap its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)," Shin said. In recent weeks, the U.S. media has raised the possibility that Washington may sign the so-called "ICBM deal" with the North, as part of a short-term approach before complete denuclearization. This is because the U.S. has viewed the North's ICBMs as one of the most threatening weapons, as they are capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Yong-chol gives a letter from his regime's leader Kim Jong-un to U.S. President Donald Trump on a visit to the White House in Washington D.C. Jan. 18 (local time). / Yonhap Authorities in Argentina arrested on Saturday a son of one of the two Israeli nurses, who went missing over two weeks ago, on suspicion of double murder. A source involved in the investigation said that it is reasonable to assume that the arrest was carried out after DNA tests had been conducted. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit said a Palestinian man was killed and another seriously wounded on Saturday afternoon during violent clashes that erupted between Israeli settlers and a group of Palestinians near Ramallah. The preliminary investigation revealed that one Jewish settler fired a gun, which might have resulted in the death of the 38-year-old father of four. IDF and Border Police forces arrived at the scene shortly after to disperse the riots. A military base deep inside Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles, experts and satellite images suggest, evidence of the type of weapons program it has long criticized its archrival Iran for possessing. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Further raising the stakes for any such program are comments by Saudi Arabias powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said last year the kingdom wouldnt hesitate to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads to targets thousands of kilometers (miles) away. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the United States, have long criticized Irans ballistic missile program, viewing it as a regional threat. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Satellite images indicate Saudis are testing ballistic missiles (Photo: AP) Having such a program could further strain relations with the US, the kingdoms longtime security partner, at a time when ties already are being tested by the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said heavy investment in missiles often correlates with an interest in nuclear weapons. I would be a little worried that were underestimating the Saudis ambitions here, said Lewis, who has studied the satellite images. The images, first reported by The Washington Post, focus on a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, some 230 kilometers (145 miles) west of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Janes Defense Weekly first identified the base in 2013, suggesting its two launch pads appear oriented to target Israel and Iran with ballistic missiles the kingdom previously bought from China. The November satellite images show what appear to be structures big enough to build and fuel ballistic missiles. An apparent rocket-engine test stand can be seen in a corner of the basethe type on which a rocket is positioned on its side and test-fired in place. Such testing is key for countries attempting to manufacture working missiles, experts say. Michael Elleman, the senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, also reviewed the satellite photos and said they appear to show a ballistic missile program. Satellite images indicate Saudis are testing ballistic missiles (Photo: AP) The question remains where Saudi Arabia gained the technical know-how to build such a facility. Lewis said the Saudi stand closely resembles a design used by China, though it is smaller. Chinese military support to the kingdom would not come as a surprise. The Chinese have increasingly sold armed drones to Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations, even as the US blocks sales of its own to allies over proliferation concerns. Beijing also sold Riyadh variants of its Dongfeng ballistic missiles, the only ones the kingdom was previously believed to have in its arsenal. Asked by The Associated Press on Friday about the base, Chinas Defense Ministry declined immediately to comment. I have never heard of such a thing as China helping Saudi Arabia to build a missile base, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Neither Saudi Arabia nor China are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of rockets capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs. Iran, whose nuclear program for now remains limited by its 2015 deal with world powers, insists its atomic program is peaceful. But Western powers have long feared it was pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a civilian program, allegations denied by Tehran. Iran has relied on its ballistic missiles as its own air force is largely made up of pre-1979 fighter jets. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has a fleet of modern F-15s, Typhoons and Tornadoeswhich raises the question of why the Saudis would choose to develop the missiles. Elleman, the defense expert, said that while Saudi pilots are skilled, the kingdom still needs American help with logistics. Today, they rely heavily on direct American support. There is no absolute guarantee that US forces and supporting functions will aid a Saudi attack on Iranian targets, said Elleman. Ballistic missiles are a reasonable hedge against those concerns. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been targeted by ballistic missiles fired from neighboring Yemen by the Houthi rebels, some of which have reached Riyadh. Researchers, Western nations and UN experts say Iran supplied those missiles to the rebels, something Tehran and the rebels deny. Saudi Arabia is pursuing its own nuclear program, and Prince Mohammed, the 33-year-old son of King Salman who is next in line for the throne, said it would race for an atomic weapon if Iran were to develop one. Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible, Prince Mohammed told CBS 60 Minutes in an interview aired last March. Prince Mohammed (Photo: Reuters) A Saudi program would only complicate efforts by the US and its Western allies to limit Irans ballistic missile program, said STRATFOR, the Austin, Texas-based private intelligence firm. STRATFOR said that should Saudi Arabia move into a test-launch phase, the United States will be pressured to take action with sanctions, as it has done with Iran. Congress has grown increasingly critical of Saudi Arabia since the October 2 assassination of Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, allegedly carried out by members of Prince Mohammeds entourage. The kingdoms yearslong war in Yemen also has angered lawmakers. If the Saudis produce medium-range systems inherently capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the response will be much more robust, though likely out of public view, Elleman said. Congress, on the other hand, may lash out, as this will be seen as another affront to the US and regional stability. A military base deep inside Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles, experts and satellite images suggest, evidence of the type of weapons program it has long criticized its archrival Iran for possessing. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. A monument in honor of the victims of the Holocaust, located at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece had been vandalized on Saturday. The university administration condemned the act and called on the public to be alert when it comes to incidents of racial hatred, violence and destruction." This is the fourth time that the monument has been vandalized. Britain will recognise Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela if fresh elections are not announced within the next eight days, foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said. Fellow EU nations Germany, France and Spain made similar comments on Saturday. The Trump administration is considering maintaining a small military unit in a remote Syrian base along the countrys southwestern border, according to Foreign Policy report on Saturday. The move is intended to counter Iranian military activity in the region. Qatar on Friday said it will pay $20 million in humanitarian aid to boost the ailing economy of Gaza, a day after the coastal strips Palestinian rulers stopped the oil-rich Gulf state from paying money directly to impoverished government workers there. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The move was widely seen as a compromise between Qatar, which appears intent on increasing its regional influence, and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza. Qatars point-man for Gaza relief efforts, Mohammed Al-Emadi, said in Gaza: It was agreed to allocate the Qatari financial grant to pay for humanitarian projects with full cooperation and coordination with the United Nations. Qatars point-man for Gaza relief efforts, Mohammed Al-Emadi (Photo: AFP) He said the first agreement with the UN would be signed on Monday next week, setting up a $20 million job creation project. A Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, on Friday welcomed Qatars decision to give money to humanitarian projects. A day earlier Hamas had blocked direct Qatari payments to thousands of unpaid Palestinian civil servants in Gaza, claiming that Israel had broken agreements about how the arrangement would be carried out. The compromise follows a tortuous regional standoff that has left civil servants in Gaza caught up in a bitter power struggle between Hamas and the western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Friday's Gaza border riots (Photo: AFP) Hamas wants to pay the workers that it hired, but doesnt have enough money after years of blockades, wars and the failure of reconciliation efforts with Abbas. Wages have been cut in half for several years, and payments were often behind schedule. Abbas has refused to pay them, hoping that by slashing salaries, and thereby worsening economic conditions in Gaza, he can force Hamas back to the negotiating table. Israel regards Hamas as an implacable Islamist enemy, but fears that instability in Gaza will spill over into violence against Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government initially blocked the latest Qatari transfer, but relented on Thursday after the Israeli military recommended that it be allowed in. On Friday, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man during weekly protests along its border with Gaza, local health officials said. Friday's Gaza border riots (Photo: EPA) An Israeli military spokeswoman said that about 10,000 Palestinians had amassed along the Gaza border and that some of them hurled grenades and stones toward the soldiers across the way. IDF fighters responded by using riot dispersal means and in accordance with the rules of engagement, the spokeswoman said. Another Palestinian was killed on Friday by Israeli soldiers in a separate incident in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said its troops had opened fire at three Palestinian suspects who were throwing stones at Israeli vehicles driving along a West Bank highway and that after receiving medical treatment, one of the suspects died. A Palestinian was shot dead overnight Friday during a police chase in Jerusalem. The Palestinian, who was in Israel illegally, was driving a vehicle suspected of having been stolen. The police said that the vehicle endangered the lives of the police officers. THESSALONIKI, Greece -- A university in Greece's second-largest city says unknown vandals smashed a campus monument that marks the site of a former Jewish cemetery. The University of Thessaloniki issued a statement on Friday condemning the significant damage inflicted on the marble monument overnight. The centuries-old cemetery was razed during the German Nazi occupation, and the university was built on its site. Thessaloniki's large Jewish community was almost entirely wiped out by Nazi forces during World War II. Poland, 1941. While the Jews of Europe had already been forced into the ghettos, and before their transfer to the extermination camps, community leaders in the Lublin ghetto sought to maintain their Jewish character and way of life, and also dreamed of the Land of Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter A rare document has been found in the archives of the Shem Olam Holocaust Institute, which was sent out in October 1941 by the Jewish Council of the Lublin ghetto, detailing the curriculum they wished to impart to the children of the ghetto. According to the instructions of the Judenrat the Jewish administrative agencies in the ghettos who worked with the Nazis any activity the Jews wished to carry out in the ghetto, whether cultural or religious, required the approval of the German authorities. Document from Lublin ghetto (Photo: Courtesy of Shem Olam) The detailed outline of the plan contains numerous topics related to the Land of Israel, including aliyah, familiarity with the land, the Hebrew language and more. To this day, it is not known whether the plan was approved by the Germans and whether the children of the ghetto could learn about the Land of Israel, but the document offers a unique insight into the wishes of the Jews caught up in the Holocaust to adhere not only to the values and traditions of Judaism, but also to pass on to future generations the connection to the history and heritage of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), including the festival of Tu Bishvat, the holiday for the trees. A state in the making The curriculum details a study plan that covered the history of the Jewish people, the Land of Israel, and Jewish life during the First World War. The remains of the Majdenek death camp, on the outskirts of Lublin, taken in 1978 (Photo: AFP) With regards to the Land of Israel, the curriculum touches on aliyah, cities of the Yeshuv (the pre-state Jewish community), Jewish pioneers and natural resources and agriculture. In March 1942, the Nazis began the transfer of the Jews of the Lublin ghetto to the extermination camps, while some were murdered where they lived. Rabbi Avraham Krieger "Despite already experiencing horrors at the cruel hands of German murderers, the desire of the Jews to maintain a spiritual life and preserve their heritage did not die," says Shem Olam founder Rabbi Avraham Krieger. "Most of the stories from the time of the Holocaust deal with the dedication of the Jews to uphold their religion and to preserve their Judaism in an impossible reality," he says. "But this document offers us a rare insight into the strong desire to learn and pass on to the next generation an affinity and longing for the Land of Israel, its landscapes and the Hebrew language." Election season is heating up in Israel. With dozens of political parties and less than three months to go until Israelis head to the polls on April 9, contenders are jockeying for attention. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Campaign messages are being woven by a complex web of strategists, consultants and pollsters who have adopted new approaches. While posting billboards and signs remains a tactic employed by all parties, many have shifted the majority of their messaging to social media. Lior Horev has worked on election campaigns in Israel for the past 25 years, including with former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert; former foreign minister Tzipi Livni; and most recently Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Lior Horev Today, traditional media has taken a backseat to digital efforts. In fact, 80 percent of the content produced by Kahlons centrist Kulanu party goes online to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and WhatsApp. Horevs team produces between five and ten videos daily. If you film at 8:00, its edited by 9:00, its on air by 10:00 and its obsolete by noon, and then you need something new, says Horev, who is again managing Kahlons campaign. Political parties in Israel receive funding for their campaigns based on how many parliamentary seats they won in the previous elections. If you want private donations, theyre limited to about $1,300 and not more, Horev says. So our campaign is based on public financing and the budget is growing because you need to produce so much more content. Even the hot-button topics that historically have dominated Israeli election cycles are changing. The Palestinians will not be an issue; theyre out of this years election, Horev says. Youre going to see a lot about Iran and Hamas. But I would say its going to be based on personality. Who can replace (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu? And Netanyahu will of course say nobody can. Eyal Arad is one of Israels leading political strategists and was an adviser to Netanyahu for several years, as well as to Sharon, Olmert and Livni, among others. This campaign is going to be centered on the question of the prime ministers indictment: yes or no? Arad says in reference to the three ongoing corruption probes in which Netanyahu is embroiled. Its going to revolve around security and the personal issues of Mr. Netanyahu. Eyal Arad In his recently published book Killer Instinct, which he co-authored with fellow political strategists Moshe Gaon and Dr. Erez Yaakobi, Arad looks at the ins and outs of Israeli campaigns. One of his main theses is that with so many new parties to choose from, many voters remain on the fence until the very end. I think you could say that about 50% of the Israeli electorate at this stage is undecided, Arad says. Even if they have some inclination and are looking for answers I doubt they will get (them) this campaign season. As an example of a successful initiative, Arad highlighted the ruling Likud partys recent controversial billboard attacking top Israeli journalists which caused a media frenzy. The poster features prominent media personalities who have regularly reported on the prime ministers ongoing legal issues. It bears the slogan: They wont decide. You will decide. The fact that a debate was created around the Likuds advertisement means that they were able to set the agenda, Arad says. Are the media fair in their treatment of Netanyahu? Are they unfair? No matter what answer the viewer gives, the agenda was set up by Likud. Thats the real battle: whos reacting to whom? The guy who sets the agenda is usually the guy who wins. L-R: Moshe Kahlon, Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett Arad invokes as an example the 2016 US election. While Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton consistently polled higher than Donald Trump, the Republican candidate still managed to win. (Trump) was able to set the agenda about Making America Great Again and how Americans can Make America Great Again, he says. His message appealed to enough people that at the end of the day he won. Nevertheless, even if Netanyahu continues to move the political barometer, Horev believes that his fate may already be sealed and that the next round of voting is just around the corner. These elections are strategically not important, Horev says. Theyre an interval between now and the stage when Netanyahu will have to step down because of the accusations. So I think this is really just a pre-campaign for the real thing which is going to happen in a year or a year-and-a-half from now. Only Syrian President Bashar Assad remains silent in the midst of the drama that followed this week's skirmish between the Israel Defense Forces and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Israel launched a massive attack on Iranian targets in Syria in the early hours of Monday, the day after Iranian fighters fired a surface-to-surface rocket at the northern Golan Heights. The Israeli bombardment, which targeted an airport in Damascus, killed 12 pro-regime fighters, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring organization. Syrian President Bashar Assad (Photo: Reuters) This war is being waged on his soil, but without him. Assad has failed to issue official statements and refrains from interfering in the rounds of fighting between Israel and its archenemy Iran in his territory. It seems he has decided to let the big players make their moves, while he stands by and uses his time to deal with domestic issues. Truth be told, the Syrian president is rather busy with restoring and expanding his rule in Syria. He is on the verge of claiming victory over his enemies, he managed to fend off Turkey's intent to launch an offensive to break Kurdish control over the Syria-Turkey border, and he is working to restore his sovereignty over northern Syria. And so, all at once, those who called to remove the embattled president from power have fallen silent. Iran is giving him full freedom of action, Russia's Putin is considered his strongest ally, and even Israel has long since dropped the idea of taking him down since he has no replacement in sight. It appears Jerusalem is comfortable with Assad being around. Had it not been for the Iranian presence in Syria, Assad would never have dared to come out against the Jewish state. IAF attack overnight Monday near Damascus (: EPA) Nevertheless, the Syrian army hosting Iranian "consultants" is a big problem for Israel. The Quds Force, which is in charge of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' overseas operations, is dragging the Syrian troops into its ongoing battle against Israel, and Assad is giving Tehran an almost carte blanche in Syrian bases, putting arms depots at its disposal and allowing Iranian aircraft to freely enter Syrian skies. Two months ago, Assad was embroiled in a crisis that threatened to tear Syria apart. And look at him nowthe Arab world is courting him, and Egypt is quietly working to reinstate Syria into the Arab League, with the Persian Gulf states tending to back this move. Syria's main problem remains Saudi Arabia. The Riyadh royals have yet to make a definite decision on whether to welcome Syria back into the bosom of the divided Arab world and reopen the Arab embassies in Damascus, or to continue arming those opposing the Syrian regime in order to hurt Iran. It has been three weeks since Assad made a public appearance in Damascus, or had a "surprise" meeting with Syrian civilians in locations that underwent a thorough security inspection. Assad prefers to stay in his palace with his sick wife Asma and his children, until the fighting between Israel and Iran settles down. Asma, Bashar Assad Once the fighting is over, then it is safe to assume that Assad will reappear to flash his people the victory sign, proving to the world he believes in his own triumph as Syria's ruler. In the meantime, the president is holding meetings at his palace with senior military officials and public figures known for their policy of "sitting quietly." In fact, just three days ago, it was reported that several Syrian intellectuals had been invited to meet with the great leader who seems to have a lot of time on his hands. In between meetings, Assad reportedly received calls from Iranian officials and representatives of the Russian army updating him on what is happening on the frontier with Israel. It was said that during one of this call, Assad was informed about Syrian accomplices helping the "enemy," and in response send his special forces to deal with those accomplices. Nevertheless, the war in Syria has changed over the past two years. The Syrian army and the Iranian troops in the war-battered country have become more united. The decision whether to bolster this unity is not Assad's to make. As far as Assad is concerned, he has most to gain from this war. The stability of his rule is no longer in danger, at least for now. Fissures appear along roads in Iran while massive holes open up in the countryside, their gaping maws a visible sign from the air of something Iranian authorities now openly acknowledge: the area around Tehran is literally sinking. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Stressed by a 30-year drought and hollowed by excessive water pumping, the parched landscape around Iran's capital has begun to sink dramatically. Seen by satellite and on foot around the city, officials warn that what they call land subsidence poses a grave danger to a country where protests over water scarcity already have seen violence. Massive holes caused by drought and excessive water pumping in Iran, August 8, 2018 s"Land subsidence is a destructive phenomenon," said Siavash Arabi, a measurement expert at Iran's cartography department. "Its impact may not be immediately felt like an earthquake, but as you can see, it can gradually cause destructive changes over time." He said he can identify "destruction of farmland, the cracks of the earth's surface, damage to civilian areas in cities, wastewater lines, cracks in roads and damages to water and natural gas pipes." Tehran, which sits 1,200 meters (3,900 feet) above sea level against the Alborz Mountains on a plateau, has rapidly grown over the last 100 years to a sprawling city of 13 million people in its metropolitan area. All those people have put incredible pressure on water resources on a semi-arid plateau in a country that saw only 171 millimeters (6.7 inches) of rain last year. Over-reliance on ground aquifers has seen increasingly salty water pumped from below ground. "Surface soil contains water and air. When you pump water from under the ground surface, you cause some empty space to be formed in the soil," Arabi said. "Gradually, the pressure from above causes the soil particles to stick together and this leads to sinking of the ground and formation of cracks." Iranian authorities say they have measured up to 22 centimeters (8.6 inches) of annual subsidence near the capital, while the normal range would be only as high as 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) per year. Even higher numbers have been measured in other parts of the country. Some sinkholes formed in western Iran are as deep as 60 meters (196 feet). Those figures are close to those found in a study by scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam previously discussed by the journal Nature and accepted by the journal Remote Sensing of Environment. Using satellite images between 2003 and 2017, the scientists estimate the western Tehran plain is sinking by 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) a year. Either way, the numbers are alarming to experts. "In European countries, even 4 millimeters (0.15 inches) of yearly subsidence is considered a crisis," Iranian environmental activist Mohammad Darvish said. The sinking also threatens vital infrastructure, like Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. German scientists estimate that land under the airport is sinking by 5 centimeters (1.9 inches) a year. Tehran's oil refinery, a key highway, automobile manufacturing plants and railroads also all sit on sinking ground, said Ali Beitollahi, a Ministry of Roads and Transportation official. Some 2 million people live in the area, he said. Masoud Shafiee, head of Iran's cartography department, also acknowledged the danger. "Rates (for subsidence) are very high and in many instances it's happening in densely populated areas," said Shafiee. "It's happening near sensitive infrastructures like airports, which we consider a top priority." The problem, however, comes in inefficient water use on farms, which represents over 90 percent of the country's water usage, experts say. Already, the drought and water crisis has fed into the sporadic unrest Iran has faced over the last year. In July, protests around Khorramshahr, some 650 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Tehran, saw violence as residents of the predominantly Arab city near the border with Iraq complained of salty, muddy water coming out of their taps amid the years-long drought. The unrest there only compounds the wider unease felt across Iran as it faces an economic crisis sparked by US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. PM Netanyahu announces water plan to Iranian people, June 10, 2018 X Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who long has opposed Iran's theocratic government, even released an online video in June offering his country's water technology in a jab at Iran's leaders. "The Iranian regime shouts: 'Death to Israel,'" Netanyahu said. "In response, Israel shouts: 'Life to the Iranian people.'" Iranian officials shrugged off the offer. But solutions to the water crisis will be difficult to find. The crisis "stems from decades of sanctions and compounding political mismanagement that is likely to make it very difficult to alleviate the emerging crisis before it wreaks lasting damage upon the country," said Gabriel Collins, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. Iranian authorities have begun to crack down on illegal water wells. They also are exploring using desalinization plants along the Persian Gulf as well, though they require tremendous energy. Farming practices also need to change as well, experts say. "We need to shift our development model so that it relies less on water and soil," Darvish, the activist, said. "If we don't act quickly to stop the subsidence, it can spread to other areas." Yankton, SD (57078) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. High around 85F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. The United States and the Taliban said Saturday they had made substantial headway in negotiations to end the 17-year US war in Afghanistan, although sticking points remained. Zalmay Khalilzad, who was named by President Donald Trump's administration to find a way out of the war, held an unusually long six days of talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar. "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," Khalilzad wrote on Twitter. Khalilzad -- who headed to Qatar after talks in Afghanistan and its key neighbors -- said he was returning to Kabul to discuss the negotiations. "We will build on the momentum and resume talks shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out," he tweeted. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and 'everything' must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire." While he has not given details, floated proposals include a withdrawal by the United States of its troops in return for Taliban guarantees not to shelter foreign extremists -- the initial reason for the US intervention. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later tweeted he had heard "encouraging news" from Khalilzad. "The U.S. is serious about pursuing peace, preventing #Afghanistan from continuing to be a space for international terrorism & bringing forces home," he added. "Working with the Afghan govt & all interested parties, the U.S. seeks to strengthen Afghan sovereignty, independence & prosperity." Trump has been eager to end America's longest war, which was launched shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Trump has already said he will pull half of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan. - Dispute on Kabul's role - Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that while there was "progress" at the meetings, reports of an agreement on a ceasefire and talks with Kabul "are not true." Story continues "Since issues are of critical nature and need comprehensive discussions, therefore it was decided that talks about unresolved matters will resume in similar future meetings," he said in a statement. But a senior Taliban commander sounded optimistic after the talks with the Afghan-born Khalilzad, who played key diplomatic roles in former president George W. Bush's administration. "The US has accepted many of our demands and both sides are very much agreed on major points, but some points are still under discussion," the Taliban commander told AFP on condition of anonymity by phone from Pakistan. "We are moving forward and a lot of progress has been made so far. "Efforts are underway to find some middle ground to solve the remaining disputed issues. The Afghan government is one of them," he added. Qatar's Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani also hailed the dialogue, tweeting: "This progress marks a significant step in the history of peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan." The Taliban in the past have refused to deal with the internationally recognized government of President Ashraf Ghani. Abdullah Abdullah, the de facto prime minister of Afghanistan, recently voiced frustration that the Taliban was excluding the Kabul government, warning that a peace process "cannot take place by proxy." - Heavy toll by Taliban - Afghan authorities have put a brave face on the negotiations, noting that Kabul has already taken charge of security. Ghani said Thursday that 45,000 Afghan security forces have died since September 2014 -- a stunning casualty rate of more than 28 dead per day that analysts say has contributed to low morale. Ghani is running for reelection in July, which could come at the height of the Taliban fighting season -- unless a ceasefire is reached. The length and apparent breadth of the Taliban talks are unprecedented, signaling that both the United States and the Taliban see a path forward. In a sign of the seriousness, the Taliban appointed a co-founder of the hardline Islamic movement as its Qatar-based negotiator with the United States -- Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2010 but released in October as the United States stepped up diplomacy. He was considered the number two to Taliban chief Mullah Omar, who died in 2013. Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a US foundation that promotes peace, said that Baradar's return showed the hubris of war, recalling that he had offered to surrender soon after September 11. "Bush administration refused. They wanted to defeat the Taliban, not negotiate. Now, he's back to make a deal, and he's going to get a lot more," Cirincione tweeted. Khalilzad last met with the insurgents last month in the United Arab Emirates, which has jockeyed with Qatar for influence in Afghan diplomatic circles. WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - The House Intelligence Committee will release all transcripts of interviews in its probe of Russian election interference to the special counsel's office, its Democratic chairman said on Friday after Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, was charged with lying to Congress. "This is now the second witness who has been indicted for or plead guilty to making false statements in testimony before our Committee," Rep. Adam Schiff said in a statement. "The first order of business for the Committee will be to release all remaining transcripts to the Special Counsel's Office, and we will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead. RELATED: Trump's tweets about the Russia probe This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Schiff and Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House oversight committee, said on Wednesday they expect Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to testify before both panels, despite his decision to postpone his Feb. 7 appearance, citing threats against his family from Trump. The chairmen said they understood Cohen's security concerns, but added in a statement: This will not stop us from getting to the truth. We expect Mr. Cohen to appear before both committees, and we remain engaged with his counsel about his upcoming appearances. Cohen is scheduled to begin a three-year prison sentence in March after pleading guilty to charges including lying to Congress. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe) Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo leaves the ministry headquarters in Seoul on Wednesday. Yonhap South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo has instructed the Navy to sternly deal with the repeated low-altitude flybys by Japanese warplanes, describing them as "a serious provocation by an ally," his ministry said Saturday. He made the remarks during his unscheduled visit to the Fleet Command in the southern port city of Busan, the ministry said later in a release. The minister was briefed on the details regarding multiple close-range flights by Japanese maritime patrol planes toward South Korean destroyers in recent weeks. South Korean and Japan are embroiled in a military spat, initially sparked after Tokyo accused a Korean warship of locking its fire-control radar on its patrol aircraft on Dec. 20. Seoul has refuted the claim and said the warship was on a rescue mission to save a North Korean ship. Khartoum (AFP) - The group spearheading protests against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir called for night-time rallies across the country on Saturday and new demonstrations over the next few days. Deadly anti-government protests have rocked the east African country for more than a month. Rallies triggered by a government decision to triple the price of bread swiftly mushroomed into nationwide calls for an end to Bashir's three decades in power. Officials say 30 people have died as protests have turned into violent clashes, while rights groups say more than 40 people have been killed including medics and children. "We are calling on our people across the country to hold demonstrations on Saturday night near their residential areas," the Sudanese Professionals Association, which is leading the protest campaign, said in a statement. It said protesters were also called to hold sit-ins in every district square on Sunday, followed by daily demonstrations until Wednesday. Although the umbrella group of doctors, engineers and teachers remains unknown to many, its calls have brought thousands of protesters onto the streets, including in the capital Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman. Authorities led by the country's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) have cracked down on protesters, opposition leaders, activists and journalists in a bid to prevent the spread of demonstrations. Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, has remained steadfast in rejecting calls to resign. He has blamed the deadly violence on "infiltrators" among the protesters. While the spark for the first protests on December 19 was the rise of bread prices, anger has been mounting for years over worsening economic hardships and deteriorating living conditions. That ire has now spilt onto the streets as protesters chant their main slogan calling for "freedom, peace, justice". Bashir has blamed the economic woes on the United States. Washington lifted its trade embargo on Sudan in October 2017 after two decades of bruising economic punishment, but that failed to revive the country's financial situation. India's celebrated opening pair Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan produced yet another century stand Saturday to set up an overwhelming 90-run win in the second one-day international against New Zealand. Sharma put their match-winning effort at Mount Maunganui down to "a great camaraderie" after the pair put on 154 for the first wicket at better than a run-a-ball. The flying start laid the platform for India's 324 for four before Kuldeep Yadav weaved his magic with the ball to roll New Zealand for 234. Such a clinical demolition, following the equally dominant eight-wicket win in the first match, left New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson frustrated. "It's not so much the losing it's probably just the way we're losing," Williamson said. "It's two games in a row now where we haven't had control at any stage which is the part that is most frustrating." Sharma (87) and Dhawan (66) were rarely troubled in their stay at the crease which Sharma described as "a great partnership". It was their 14th century stand from 93 innings as openers together. Only the now-retired Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly (21 century stands), Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden (16) and Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes (15) have produced more hundred-plus opening partnerships. "We enjoy each other's company in the middle and we share a great camaraderie between us," Sharma said of their prolific run scoring. "When we bat together, we understand each other's game. That is more important and it's crucial for the team as well when you get that kind of start. I've always enjoyed batting with Shikhar." Although New Zealand were able to match the required run rate through the first half of their innings none of the top order batsmen was able to settle in. When Dhawan was dismissed for 66 and India were one for 154 in the 26th over, New Zealand at the same stage were 146 for five. Story continues Sharma offered a chance with an edge off the first ball of the innings which went to the boundary as New Zealand did not have a first slip. He faced 96 deliveries for his 87 and hit nine fours and three sixes while Dhawan's 66 came off 67 balls and included nine fours. Virat Kohli (43) and Ambati Rayudu (47) were unable to lift the run rate above run-a-ball pace with accurate bowling by New Zealand for most of the final 10 overs. It took lusty blows from MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav to get the score over 300 when they smacked 35 runs in the last two overs. While New Zealand scored freely in reply they lost wickets regularly. When Kane Williamson found himself in the middle after the fifth over he tried to dominate, lashing out at Mohammed Shami with two sixes and a four off successive deliveries. But Shami ended the over bowling Williamson for 20. After Ross Taylor was stumped for 33, Kuldeep Yadav began to work his magic. He removed Tom Latham for 34 and Colin De Grandhomme for three before claiming the wickets of Henry Nicholls (28) and Ish Sochi (nought) with successive balls to finish with four for 45 to go with his four for 39 in the first match of the series. All-rounder Doug Bracewell top scored for New Zealand with 57 off 46 deliveries. The third match in the series is at Mount Maunganui on Monday. THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) An environmental research institute said Friday that the Netherlands isn't doing enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions to levels ordered in a landmark court ruling. The Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency said in a report that the target, confirmed last year by an appeals court, of reducing emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 is "out of reach." The agency says that the reduction next year will likely amount to 21 percent compared with 1990, although it says it could be anywhere between 17 and 24 percent. Last month, Dutch lawmakers approved ambitious new climate legislation that targets a 95-percent reduction of emissions by 2050 compared with 1990 levels, and a 49-percent cut by 2030. However, a plan to achieve the goals hasn't been confirmed and environmental groups and labor unions walked out of talks aimed at hammering out a package of measures. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the findings showed that "new measures are necessary" and said the government would make more announcements in April. "The goal is to achieve this target," Rutte said. Rob Jetten, the parliamentary leader of D66, one of the parties in Rutte's four-party coalition, urged swift action. "There's no time to lose," he tweeted, "The Cabinet has to get to work." The Netherlands isn't the only Northern European country grappling with the issue. The five Nordic nations said Friday they will step up joint efforts to combat climate change. In a declaration signed following a meeting in Helsinki, the leaders of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland said they're committed to "working toward carbon neutrality" but gave no date for achieving that goal. Finland's environment minister, Kimmo Tiilikainen, said the five countries will set tougher emissions targets by 2020. He said they would also use an upcoming U.N. climate summit in New York this September to encourage other countries to set more ambitious emissions goals. Story continues Tiilikainen noted that the wealthy Nordic nations want to take the lead "because we can." The efforts will also include developing low-emissions technology and ways to remove carbon dioxide a major greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. ____ Associated Press reporter Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report. Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Qatar said Friday it would work with the UN to distribute aid to Gaza after the Palestinian enclave's rulers Hamas rejected a cash injection over alleged unacceptable Israeli conditions. Later in the day thousands of protesters again gathered along the Gaza-Israel border, where the territory's health ministry said one Palestinian was killed by Israeli army fire. The Qatari ambassador to the Gaza Strip, Mohammed al-Emadi, said that his country would now channel millions of dollars in humanitarian projects "in full coordination with the United Nations". A first package of agreements, worth $20 million (17.6 million euros), will be signed with the United Nations on Monday, he told reporters in Gaza City. Details of the scheme are so far unclear and there was no immediate comment from the UN. Under an informal agreement struck in November, $90 million in Qatari aid was set to be transferred in six monthly instalments to Gaza. The money paid salaries of Hamas employees and helped impoverished Gazans in exchange for relative calm along the border, where often violent protests have taken place since March 2018. On Friday a Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire in renewed border clashes, with a further 22 shot, the health ministry in Gaza said. The Israeli army said around 10,000 people "rioted in a number of locations along the fence," including throwing stones and grenades at soldiers, who responded with "riot dispersal means". Since protests broke out last March at least 245 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, the majority during border protests but also by tank fire and airstrikes. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in the same period. The renewed border clashes came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked the latest Qatari cash injection which was due this week. The Israeli leader took the decision after two shooting incidents along the Gaza-Israel border, including one in which a soldier was lightly injured by Palestinian fire. Story continues Israel's permission is required since the cash must be delivered via its territory. The authorities eventually relented and gave the go-ahead for the delayed transfer, which follows two $15 million payments delivered to Hamas since the November deal. But Hamas announced Thursday it would not accept it, charging Israel with adding conditions not covered by the agreement. The Islamist group did not give further details, while the future of payments to Hamas employees remains unclear. Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States, European Union and others, has ruled Gaza since seizing control from the internationally recognised Palestinian government in 2007. It has fought three wars with Israel since then. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Photo: Mark Reinstein/Shutterstock.com Gov. Andrew Cuomo is asking state lawmakers to make permanent an executive order he first signed more than three years ago that appointed the New York attorney general as special prosecutor in cases where a law enforcement officer causes the death of an unarmed civilian. The proposal, included in Cuomos executive budget legislation this month, would also task the attorney generals office with developing a statewide policy for those officers to follow when deciding whether to use force in an encounter, according to the legislation. Its the first time Cuomo has included the idea in his pitch for the states spending plan, which is typically used as a catchall for major pieces of legislation during the first half of the legislative session. Lawmakers typically negotiate a final budget with Cuomo and approve it before April. "We believe the Executive Order has been successful in addressing both real and perceived inequities in our justice system," said Cuomo Spokesman Jason Conwall. "For several years now, weve sought to codify it into law to ensure this progress cannot be undone by a stroke of the pen from a future governor. With new partners in the legislature, were hopeful that this and many other critical reforms will be addressed this year." The legislation, if enacted, would essentially codify and expand the attorney generals current role in cases where an unarmed civilian is killed by a member of law enforcement. The office would also continue to examine cases where it was unclear whether a civilian was armed before he or she was killed during an encounter with police. Those cases are currently handled by the Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit within the attorney generals office, which was created in response to Cuomos executive order. The office would be made permanent in state law by the legislation. Cuomo issued the executive order in 2015 over concerns that some local prosecutors may not be impartial while investigating alleged misconduct by police officers within their jurisdiction. The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York took issue with that opinion at the time and had other concerns about the order, according to Albany County District Attorney David Soares, the current president of DAASNY. When Executive Order 147 first went into effect, DAASNY took issue with the notion that prosecutors could not objectively investigate police-involved fatalities, Soares said. There were also practical concerns about shared jurisdiction and the roles of various investigative agencies, which have since largely been ironed out. Soares said DAASNY has not taken a collective position on Cuomos current proposal, but that it plans to review the legislation at its winter conference next week in Manhattan. "The governor is well within his rights to draft legislation that would designate the Office of the Attorney General as special prosecutor in police-involved fatalities of unarmed persons, Soares said. DAASNY has yet to review this proposed legislation and come to a consensus on support. Tisha James, a Democrat who took office as attorney general this month, has long-supported the reform. She called for a special prosecutor to be appointed in cases of police misconduct as early as 2014, the first year she held citywide office as New York City public advocate. "Recent national events have raised serious questions about the ability of local prosecutors to bring charges against police officers, James said at the time. It is unrealistic to expect district attorneys who regularly rely on local police to make cases to be absolutely impartial when investigating police misconduct. In order to remove conflict of interest or bias, it is imperative that a separate prosecutorwith no connection to the local police departmentpursue police misconduct cases. Her comments were in response to a grand jurys decision not to indict a police officer for the death of Eric Garner, a man killed by police on Staten Island earlier that year. Garner was put into a choke hold by Daniel Pantaleo, an officer with the New York City Police Department, despite being unarmed. Pantaleo and other officers initially approached Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Her views on allowing the attorney generals office to have sole jurisdiction over cases similar to Garners havent changed. She pushed during last years campaign for Cuomos executive order to be codified into state law. Delaney Kempner, a spokeswoman for James, said she still supports making that happen. The attorney generals role as special prosecutor in police-involved civilian fatalities is an important policy and Attorney General James was an early champion of this idea, Kempner said. It should be codified into law so that New Yorkers can be confident that this important measure will remain in place to advance accountability and transparency in our criminal justice system. Cuomos proposal doesnt go as far as what James pushed for during the campaign. She has also called for the attorney generals office to have permanent jurisdiction over cases where civilians are injured during an interaction with law enforcement or when an officer is accused of sexual assault or a hate crime. It would, however, give the attorney generals office tools to have more oversight of certain incidents of alleged police misconduct. The proposal would require law enforcement agencies to report to the state when an officer is accused of using an unnecessary amount of force in an encounter involving a firearm, whether it results in the death of another person or not. The superintendent of the state police, each local police department, and every county sheriff would be required to make those reports, according to the legislation. An account would have to be taken and sent each time an officer discharges a firearm in the direction of another person, or where his or her action results in the death or serious bodily injury of another person, the proposal reads. Those incidents would be measured against a model policy on the use of force by officers that would be established by the attorney generals office. Law enforcement agencies would have to adopt the policy, but could also add additional guidelines for their officers. The use of force policy shall include, but not be limited to, information on current law as it relates to use of force and acts or techniques a police officer or peace officer may not use in the course of acting in his or her official capacity, the legislation reads. Lawmakers began holding hearings on the state budget on Tuesday. A final spending plan is due to be passed by the Legislature and approved by Cuomo by the end of March. READ MORE: Stricter Discovery Deadlines Are Subject of Bill in NY Legislature NY Lawmakers Violated Stipulation in Creating Prosecutorial Watchdog, DAs Group Says Cuomo Details Marijuana Legalization, Criminal Justice Reform in NY Budget Speech BRUMADINHO, Brazil (AP) The Latest on the mining dam collapse in Brazil (all times local): 9:15 p.m. Authorities say at least 40 people have died from a dam collapse in Southeastern Brazil, and the death toll is expected to rise. Officials from the Minas Gerais fire department released the latest number on Saturday night after a full day of searching by rescuers digging through feet (meters) of mud in intermittent rains. Searches were suspended at nightfall and expected to begin again at 4 a.m. on Sunday. Estimates of those still missing ranged between 200 and 300. The collapse of the dam owned by Brazilian mining company Vale happened Friday in the early afternoon when many employees were eating lunch. The cafeteria was completely buried and rescuers have not yet been able to access it. ___ 6:35 p.m. Authorities say the death toll from a dam collapse in Southeastern Brazil has risen to 34 and searchers expect to find even more bodies. Officials from the Minas Gerais fire department released the latest number on Saturday after hours of searching by rescuers digging through feet (meters) of mud in intermittent rains. In addition to the dead, 23 people have been hospitalized. Employees of the Brazilian mining company Vale were eating lunch Friday afternoon when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several structures of the company and surrounding areas. ___ 4:25 p.m. Israel says it's sending a mission to Brazil to help in rescue operations and provide aid after the collapse of a dam holding back mining waste. A statement Saturday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says the mission will leave within 24 hours. Netanyahu made the help offer during a call with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been an enthusiastic ally of Israel. ___ 4 p.m. Rescuers in helicopters are searching for survivors in a huge area in southeastern Brazil buried by the collapse of dam holding back mine waste. At least nine people are dead and up to 300 missing. More than 24 hours since the disaster, finding many more survivors is looking increasingly unlikely. Minas Gerais state Gov. Romeu Zema says that "most likely, from now on we are mostly going to be recovering bodies." Still, there are some signs of hope. Authorities announced they had found 43 more people alive Saturday, though the number missing was still at 300. LONDON (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said soldiers might have to return to the border with Northern Ireland if Brexit went wrong, Bloomberg reported. In a worst-case scenario, a hard border could "involve people in uniform and it may involve the need, for example, for cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly a police presence, or an army presence to back it up," Varadkar told Bloomberg. "The problem with that in the context of Irish politics and history is those things become targets," he said. Ireland has said it would find it difficult to avoid imposing a hard border on Northern Ireland if the United Kingdom crashes out of the EU without a deal. An open border is a legacy of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which ended fighting between the north's pro-British unionists and nationalists who favor a united Ireland. (Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Kate Holton) By Anthony Boadle and Marta Nogueira BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian rescuers were searching for some 200 missing people after a tailings dam burst on Friday at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA, the second major dam disaster involving the company in just over three years. Seven bodies had been recovered by nightfall, said Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of the town of Brumadinho where the dam burst in the mining-heavy state of Minas Gerais. The toll was expected to rise sharply. Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said only one-third of the roughly 300 workers at the site had been accounted for. He said a torrent of sludge tore through the mine's offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime. Minas Gerais is still recovering from the collapse in November 2015 of a larger dam that killed 19 people in Brazil's worst environmental disaster. That dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton, buried a village and poured toxic waste into a major river. Schvartsman said the dam that burst on Friday at the Feijao iron mine was being decommissioned and had a capacity of 12 million cubic meters a fraction of the roughly 60 million cubic meters of toxic waste released by the Samarco dam break. "The environmental impact should be much less, but the human tragedy is horrible," he told journalists at Vale's offices in Rio de Janeiro. He said equipment had shown the dam was stable on Jan. 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed. Television footage showed a vast swathe of thick red mud scarring the verdant hills below the mine, cutting through farms and residential areas and leveling everything in its wake. Fire brigade spokesman Lieutenant Pedro Aihara said the torrent of mud stopped just short of the local Paraopeba river, a tributary of Brazil's longest river, the Sao Francisco. "Our main worry now is to quickly find out where the missing people are," Aihara said on GloboNews cable television channel. Scores of people were trapped in nearby areas flooded by the river of sludge released by the dam failure. Helicopters plucked people covered in mud from the disaster area, including a woman with a fractured hip who was among eight injured people taken to hospital, officials said. The Inhotim Institute, a world-famous outdoor contemporary art museum a few miles from downtown Brumadinho, evacuated visitors and closed its doors out of precaution. PARAOEBA COMPLEX The Feijao mine is one of four in Vale's Paraoeba complex, which includes two processing plants and produced 26 million tonnes of iron ore in 2017, or about 7 percent of Vale's total output, according to information on the company's website. Feijao alone produced 7.8 million tonnes of ore in 2017. Brazil's recently inaugurated President Jair Bolsonaro dispatched three ministers to survey the disaster area and will visit himself on Saturday, his chief spokesman said. Former environmental minister and presidential candidate Marina Silva said Brazilian authorities and private miners had not learned anything from the 2015 Samarco disaster near the city of Mariana and called it unacceptable. Operations at Samarco remain halted over new licensing, while the companies have worked to pay damages out of court, including an agreement that quashed a 20 billion reais ($5.31 billion) civil lawsuit last year. Federal prosecutors suspended but have still not closed an even larger lawsuit. "Three years after the serious environmental crime in Mariana, with investigations still ongoing and no one punished, history repeats itself as tragedy in Brumadinho," Silva said on Twitter. Iron ore prices are likely to rise in the wake of the disaster as there may be less supply on the market for the short term, said Chris LaFemina, a Jefferies mining industry analyst. That could boost the share price of rivals Rio Tinto Plc and Anglo American Plc, while weighing on Vale, he said. U.S.-listed shares of Vale closed 8 percent lower on Friday. "While we hope the reports of fatalities are inaccurate, we do believe this is a material negative for Vale," LaFemina said. "The full extent of the damage and the potential impact on iron ore markets are not clear." Schvartsman declined to comment on how output would be affected. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle in Brasilia and Marta Nogueira in Rio de Janeiro; Additional reporting by Ricardo Brito and Jake Spring in Brasilia, Ernest Scheyder in Houston; Writing by Brad Haynes; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Chris Reese and Sonya Hepinstall) A North Korean art troupe began its performance in China's capital city on Saturday, the first show in the neighboring country in three years and a demonstration of close ties between the two countries. A delegation of senior officials and a 280-strong art troupe, led by Ri Su-yong, vice chairman of the ruling party's Central Committee, arrived in Beijing on Thursday for the show. North Korea announced the performance plan early last week. The performance comes after its leader Kim Jong-un returned from his fourth visit to China and meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, an apparent show of stronger ties between the two allies ahead of a planned second summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump next month. The troupe is reportedly composed of members from the North Korean army's State Merited Chorus and Samjiyon Band. Early Saturday, Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts tightened security around the area and installed facial recognition tools at the front gate, indicating that the show was about to start soon. Hours later, an estimated 2,000 people passed through the gate to watch the performance. Each of them apparently carried a ticket that read "Performance by North Korean Art Troupe in China." The North Korean artists are expected to perform again on Monday, when Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, are widely predicted to show up to watch the performance. Saturday's performance is the first of its kind since the North's Moranbong Band called off a planned performance in Beijing at the last minute in 2015 after China reportedly took issue with aspects of the performance featuring the North's nuclear and missile development. (Yonhap) HONOLULU (AP) U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democrat known for bucking the party establishment and for criticizing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, formally launched her campaign for president with a video posted online Thursday. Gabbard joins a growing field of Democrats seeking their party's nomination. U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro recently announced a bid, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Sen. Kamala Harris of California say they are running. "We have people in positions of power who are not thinking about the well-being of the people and our planet," Gabbard said in the video . "Where is that conversation about the needs of our people?" Gabbard, 37, has represented Honolulu's suburbs and rural Hawaii in the U.S. House since 2013. She is a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Kuwait with the Hawaii National Guard. She was an early, vocal supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during the last presidential campaign, which has made her popular with progressive Democrats. Gabbard indicated in an interview with CNN earlier this month that she would be a candidate. She said she would follow it up with a formal launch, which occurred Thursday. Critics have focused on her past advocacy against same-sex marriage. In one example, she spoke at a news conference in 2004 when she was a state representative about federal judges "tearing apart our U.S. Constitution in order to force same-sex marriage down the throats of the people of Hawaii and America." She appeared on behalf of Alliance for Traditional Marriage and Values, an organization founded by her father to lobby against same-sex marriage. Lee Cataluna, a columnist for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, wrote last week, "the unedited truth is that she didn't just slip and say a bad word, she actively, passionately worked against the legalization of same-sex marriage. She belonged to a group of rabid advocates of 'traditional' marriage." Story continues To address such criticisms, Gabbard released a nearly four-minute-long video statement on YouTube last week explaining how she grew up in a socially conservative household but has since formed her own opinions shaped by her life experiences. She apologized for her past statements and the harm they caused. "I look forward to being able to share more of my story and experiences growing up not as an excuse, but in the hopes that it may inspire others to truly live aloha; to love and care for others," she said. Amid the blowback, Democratic state Sen. Kai Kahele announced last weekend he would run for her seat in Congress. Gabbard hasn't indicated whether she would run for re-election as she also seeks the presidency. Gabbard has said she's motivated by U.S. foreign policy that has led the country into military conflict in Iraq, Libya and Syria. She said the actions have in the Middle East have destabilized the region, made the U.S. less safe and cost thousands of American lives. At the same time, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group are stronger than before the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, she said. In her new video Thursday, she said all Americans have paid the price for what she called "interventionist, regime-change wars." "We have spent trillions of your taxpayer dollars to pay for these wars, taking those dollars away from our communities and our people who need them right here at home," she said. In 2017, she traveled to Syria to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad. She came under intense criticism for the trip, including from some Democrats, because of accusations Assad's government is guilty of war crimes and even genocide during the country's civil war. Gabbard also got heat from Democrats for meeting Donald Trump to talk about Syria when he was president-elect. Gabbard stands out from other candidates in many ways. She's the first Hindu to be elected to Congress and is the first born in American Samoa. She's also an avid surfer. She's among the youngest, along with Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, seeking the presidency. By David Shepardson and Ben Klayman (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Jim Hackett told employees late on Thursday the No. 2 U.S. automaker would not accept last year's "mediocre" results and said the company was aiming to nearly double its annual operating profit. Hackett made his comments in an email to employees that was seen by Reuters. Ford is restructuring its global operations, including recent plans to make cuts in Europe. It also has announced an alliance in commercial vehicles with Germany's Volkswagen, with plans to jointly develop electric and self-driving vehicles, in moves meant to save billions of dollars. Ford announced its fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, reporting a 2018 operating profit of $7 billion with a profit margin of 4.4 percent, down from 6.1 percent in 2017. Ford said last week that its target for operating margin was more than 8 percent. "2018 was mediocre by any standard," Hackett said in the email. "Yes, we made $7 billion last year. But think of it this way: this represents a 4.4 percent operating margin, about half what we believe is an appropriate margin. So we are aiming for much closer to $14 billion." Hackett did not give a timetable for hitting the $14 billion target. A Ford spokesman said Hackett was simply doing the math to show employees how the margin target translated to overall profit. Hackett, who has been on the job for 20 months, also said that it was "time to bury the year (2018) in a deep grave, grieve over what might have been and become super focused on meeting, and, in fact, exceeding this year's plan." Ford did not provide Wall Street with a specific financial forecast for 2019. It simply said it had the potential to improve earnings and revenue. That was in contrast to Ford's larger U.S. rival, General Motors Co, which on Jan. 11 forecast higher 2019 earnings that far surpassed analysts' estimates. Hackett also said in looking at Ford's 2018 results: "I become mad for a short time. Likely mad at myself, but also because I know we are better than that. ... I know that our competition hasnt been better than us by magic." He said Ford had been considering moving up its time frame to electrify its product portfolio since he took over and asked how the company could learn from the trends it missed in China, the world's largest auto market, where it is losing money. (Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Leslie Adler) Lagos (AFP) - International pressure was growing Saturday on Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari after the EU, the United States and Britain questioned his decision to suspend the country's top judge. All three statements expressed concern at the timing and manner of the action, coming just weeks before presidential and legislative elections set for February 16. Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen would have ruled on any dispute in the elections. But on Friday Buhari suspended him, pending the resolution of a corruption trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. He said he took the decision in compliance with a ruling by the tribunal -- a ruling that Onnoghen is challenging. "The decision to suspend the Chief Justice has led to many Nigerians, including lawyers and civil society observer groups, to question whether due process was followed," said a statement from the EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM). "The timing, just before the swearing in of justices for Electoral Tribunals and the hearing of election-related cases, has also raised concerns about the opportunity for electoral justice," it added. "The EU EOM calls on all parties to follow the legal processes provided for in the constitution and to respond calmly to any concerns they may have," it added. Buhari, who came to power in 2015 on a pledge to fight corruption, is seeking a second term. The US embassy also said it was "deeply concerned" at the decision to replace Onnoghen "without the support of the legislative branch on the eve of national and state elections". The British High Commission also expressed "serious concern over the suspension". It added that "the timing of this action, so close to national elections, gives cause for concern. "It risks affecting both domestic and international perceptions on the credibility of the forthcoming elections". Nigerian lawyers and opposition parties have already condemned the suspension. Story continues Onnoghen was charged on January 12 for false declaration of assets, after millions of cash in local and foreign currencies were allegedly traced to his accounts. Buhari also accused him of frustrating the war against corruption by freeing graft suspects before his court. He has replaced him with Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed, who was his second-in-command. Day three of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland featured speeches from United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Austrian Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. Guterres called for a multilateral response to the worlds greatest problems. He specifically addressed climate change, which he called the most important global systemic threat in relation to the global economy. Climate change is running faster than we are. And we have this paradox: The reality is proving to be worse than scientists had foreseen, and all the last indicators show that. We are moving dramatically into a runaway climate change if we are not able to stop it, and at the same time, I see the political will slowing down, Guterres said. Guterres comments echoed a landmark report the United Nations published last year, which said that human civilization is on track to severely harm the planet. Kurz, a conservative best known for fostering an alliance between his party and the countrys far right, discussed ways to make Europe more financially dynamic. Besides cutting bureaucracy and deregulating, Kurz said that Europe needs to curb migration, settle trade conflict with the United States, and avoid a hard Brexit. I will plead that we do everything to avoid a hard Brexit. This would not only damage the U.K. but be very damaging to Europe as well, Kurz said. Several prominent female leaders, including Freeland and Bachelet, spoke on a panel titled Female Leadership at a Tipping Point? about the importance of supporting women in positions of power. Freeland told an anecdote about the impact of additional women in the Canadian cabinet. One of my colleagues, who had been in a previous liberal cabinet, he was sitting beside me and he said, You know, its really interesting prime minister, but in the previous cabinets Ive been a minister in, it was incredibly confrontational, even people yelling at each other I dont know why its different that way,' Freeland recounted. Story continues All of the women in the room just laughed, and we said because its 50% women could be a reason. Bachelet said she believes she was not taken seriously as a political contender when she was Chiles Minister of Health because the position cast her in a more feminine role that emphasizes caring for others. But when I became prime minister of defense, this started changing things, Bachelet said. Michael Peck Security, Whether Poseidon adds much to Russias strategic nuclear forces is doubtful. No less is doubtful is Poseidon the Carrier-Killer. Could Russia's New "Nuclear Torpedo" Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier? Lets also leave aside the question of why, if Russia really is that advanced in reactor design, its regular nuclear submarines arent so blessed. The puzzle is why a giant robot submarine would be needed to detonate a nuclear warhead near a U.S. aircraft carrier (presumably Poseidon is too expensive to waste by arming it with a mere high-explosive warhead). (This first appeared last month.) Russia has begun underwater tests of its Poseidon thermonuclear torpedo. The Poseidon is an 80-foot-long nuclear-powered submersible robot that is essentially an underwater ICBM. It is designed to travel autonomously across thousands of miles, detonate outside an enemy coastal city, and destroy it by generating a tsunami. "In the sea area protected from a potential enemys reconnaissance means, the underwater trials of the nuclear propulsion unit of the Poseidon drone are underway," an unnamed Russian defense official told the TASS news agency. The source also said the the reactor is installed in the hull of the operating drone but the tests are being held as part of experimental design work rather than full-fledged sea trials at this stage. TASS also reports the Poseidon, -- the name was chosen in a Web contest held by Russias Ministry of Defense will be armed with a 2-megaton warhead. Thats more than enough to destroy a city. But that leaves the question of why Russia would choose to nuke an American city with an underwater drone even one that allegedly travels 100 miles an hour when an ICBM can do the job in 30 minutes. Russia suggests the Poseidon is a retaliatory weapon that would revenge a U.S. first strike even if American missile defenses were capable of stopping hundreds of Russian ICBMs. But even in the unlikely event that the U.S. could intercept 500 or more Russian ballistic missiles, a delivery system that could take days or weeks to reach its target seems hardly an efficient deterrent. Story continues More intriguing is the suggestion that Poseidon could be used against U.S. aircraft carriers. A very fast, nuclear-armed drone could prove difficult for American anti-submarine defenses to stop. In a March 2018 speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin described his nation as being able to move at great depths -- I would say extreme depths -- intercontinentally, at a speed multiple times higher than the speed of submarines, cutting-edge torpedoes and all kinds of surface vessels, including some of the fastest. It is really fantastic. They are quiet, highly maneuverable and have hardly any vulnerabilities for the enemy to exploit. There is simply nothing in the world capable of withstanding them. Putin added that Poseidons nuclear power unit is unique for its small size while offering an amazing power-weight ratio. It is a hundred times smaller than the units that power modern submarines, but is still more powerful and can switch into combat mode, that is to say, reach maximum capacity, 200 times faster. Lets also leave aside the question of why, if Russia really is that advanced in reactor design, its regular nuclear submarines arent so blessed. The puzzle is why a giant robot submarine would be needed to detonate a nuclear warhead near a U.S. aircraft carrier (presumably Poseidon is too expensive to waste by arming it with a mere high-explosive warhead). If the goal is to sink a U.S. carrier, couldnt Russia saturate a carriers defenses with a volley of conventionally-armed hypersonic missiles like the Mach 5-plus Khinzal? And if nukes are being used, Russia has no shortage of missiles, bombs and aircraft to target American ships. Whether Poseidon adds much to Russias strategic nuclear forces is doubtful. No less is doubtful is Poseidon the Carrier-Killer. Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Read full article Casey Hathaway, the 3-year-old boy who went missing earlier this week from his grandmothers yard in North Carolina, has been found alive. Hathaway was found on Thursday night by a professional search and rescue team in Craven County, Shelley Lynch, a spokesperson for the FBI Charlotte field office, said in a news release. The toddler was reportedly in good health but was being treated at Carolina East Medical Center, and has since reunited with his family, Lynch explained. Breanna Hathaway, who identified herself in a Facebook post as Hathaways aunt, also confirmed the discovery of her nephew on the social media site. Casey is healthy, smiling, and talking. He said he hung out with a bear for two days God sent him a friend to keep him safe, she wrote. God is good God. Miracles do happen At this time, there are no other details available regarding Hathaways disappearance. Casey Hathaway RELATED: 3-Year-Old North Carolina Boy Vanishes from His Familys Yard: I Feel So Helpless, Aunt Says On Tuesday, the little boy was playing outside the house in Craven County, North Carolina, with two other children, but he did not come back inside with them, Lynch told PEOPLE in a statement. A relative in the home searched for Casey and when they were unable to find him, called 911, Lynch continued. WTVD reported that Hathaway and the other children had been playing in his grandmothers backyard. The grandmother and others looked for Hathaway for 45 minutes before reporting him missing, according to WTVD. Despite strong winds and heavy rain, search teams and concerned community members were tirelessly combing the woods in the area since Hathaway disappeared, hoping to find the boy. RELATED VIDEO: Mayor of Barron, WI is Overwhelmed After Jayme Closs Found Alive Almost 3 Months After She Disappeared We went through the woods through the thicket and the briars, volunteer Donna Harris told WTVD. We did it for three-and-a-half, four hours and it was bad. It was really bad out there. If everybody could come and help look for him, it would help. As it got darker, it was scary out there. I just cant imagine a 3-year-old being out there. Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said during a Wednesday news conference that the situation was being treated as a missing persons case, though they have not ruled out the possibility of kidnapping. Hughes added that the little boy wasnt dressed properly for the weather and he was concerned about ditches and sinkholes in the area. He noted that divers are searching ponds in the area. The Daily Beast Comedy CentralUnlike Jimmy Kimmel, The Daily Shows Jordan Klepper couldnt get the MyPillow guy to come to him. So he did what he does best and went to the MyPillow guy.In his latest field piece from MAGA world, the long-serving correspondent traveled to Mike Lindells free speech Woodstock in Wisconsin with the hope of interviewing some of the election truthers who are still holding out hope that Donald Trump will return to the White House this summer. He likely never could have imagined tha By Ali Safavi Although Seoul is often seen as the central hub for culture in Korea, U.K. indie label Damnably has now signed two acts from outside the capital. Daegu-based skatepunk band , formed in 2012, signed recently to Damnably, which already counts Busan's Say Sue Me on its international roster. The label is set to re-release DBGC's debut album internationally, both digitally and on vinyl picture disc. Both Daegu and Busan have small music scenes that rarely get the national attention Seoul does. Damnably's director George Gargan said location was not even a concern when taking on these Korean acts. "There is always great culture going on everywhere...so you really don't need to be in London or Seoul to form a band or make music that's world class." Discovering DBGC was nothing more complex than a shared video on Instagram. "Someone that posted a live video of Say Sue Me on Instagram had a DBGC video next," he said. "They looked very good and funny so I asked Min-gyu at (Korean indie label) Electric Muse who they were and then listened to them on Bandcamp...it's always accidental." Even discovering Say Sue Me came about fortuitously. John Yingling, a documentarian from Chicago, recorded the band's live set in 2015 and shared it online where Gargan found it. "I was puzzled when I first received their email," bassist Bae Meena told The Korea Times, "but I knew they had already been in contact with some other Korean bands so we decided to trust them and sign with them." "Damnably as a label just releases bands and records we like and it doesn't matter where we find them," Gargan said. He admits finding Say Sue Me at the same time as the release of Korean zombie film "Train to Busan" was fateful. "That kind of convergence makes it seem like the gods are trying to tell you something." The band came together in 2012, although Bae and Kim first met in 2007. Two years later they started a band together called Chicken and Mayo ABC. To pursue the band they moved to Seoul, but finding life in the capital tough the band broke up and both eventually moved back to Daegu. In early 2012 Kim started playing in garage rock band The Plastic Kiz. Around this time the two decided to start a new band. Kim explains the unique band name is an amalgamation of a few ideas, including the young age of former guitarist Park So-yeon. "We all like drinking and all the members sing in our songs. We wanted to be inclusive of all the boys and girls. The name is a mix of all these things." True to its name, all three members share vocal as well as songwriting duties. "Mainly I write about the anger and emotions I feel in society. I get a lot of inspiration from the political situation in South Korea," Bae said. "I mainly take inspiration from movies or things I see in nature," Kim said. Guitarist Seo Bondu said, "I write about my experiences and moments of self-reflection in my daily life." On first listen it seems their songs come from black-and-white feelings of love and anger, but the two female members do not see it as that simple. "Some songs feel like love songs but at the same time express something else," Bae said. "The subject is more ambiguous." What is obviously important is the people around them, their friends and other young Koreans struggling to survive in a trying country. "In Korea, it's hard for young people to make a living," Seo explained. "The average worker has to work their whole life because housing prices are so expensive." DBGC's songs might rail against the police and former presidents, but they are also a call to youngsters to seek more in their lives than just studying and finding a job at the top companies. Societal pressures are nothing new to Korea, but a strong counterculture in something like punk music can provide an outlet for the stresses of modern life. DGBC's music as well as live shows are bright, exciting, and fun. The band wants to show young Koreans a better way to live. Last year was a busy one for the band, having finally released "Keep Drinking" and headlining the regional music festival Big Day South and playing internationally renowned Zandari Festa in Seoul. The band also did its first international tour, hitting Indonesia with local band Saturday Night Karaoke (SNK) in August. The future looks exciting for DBGC. As well as the worldwide release of "Keep Drinking" the band plans to tour the U.K. in April, stopping off at a few big festivals including the Great Escape in Brighton. The band will also be playing at prestigious Austin music festival SXSW in March. Much as Say Sue Me's success has resulted in a resurgence of the underground music scene in Busan, it is hopeful Daegu will feel similar knock-on effects as well. "There are advantages if you work in Seoul, but living in Daegu is clearly better," Bae said. "How about having pride in the local scene these days?" Kim added. "I want the local scene to be strong!" Visit fb.com/band.drinking for more information. ilana glazer Broad Citys Ilana Glazer had some unexpected new updates this week about her marriage to scientist David Rooklin, following their City Hall ceremony in February 2017. Hes good, hes still a hot scientist, the actress noted to Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest as a photo from their wedding was shared by producers. That is our wedding picture where he still had long hair. The following image showed Rooklin with a shaved head, which prompted Glazer to launch into a tale about his hairstyle change. We went to Australia and we were staying up to rest our sleep schedule and we were like, Lets shave your head, she recalled. Thats me with his hair. It was five in the morning. It was crazy. Rooklins hair continues to serve its purpose. I braided the hair and no joke, Im bringing it to a wig fitting on Friday to sew into a wig for a movie Im doing, she continued. It seriously adds to the creepiness of the role I used it put it over my head anyway. Like, what do I look like as a blonde? Ilana Glazer David Rooklin David Rooklin and Ilana Glazer attend Inside Amy Schumer Premiere Screening Party at Hudson Terrace on April 24, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central) Glazer and Rooklin married after a five-year relationship. I met him after FX passed [on Broad City] and before Comedy Central picked up the show. I was very humbled, said Glazer, who co-stars and writes the series with Abbi Jacobson, previously said on Live in 2017. Hes in science so he doesnt know comedy. We met in Washington Square Park and we just made eyes and it was like, Damn. After the wedding, the couple enjoyed a honeymoon in Iceland. Download Lasting, an app that helps build healthy and happy marriages. Related Articles Rep. Dan Crenshaw elaborated on a recent tweet during his appearance on Fox & Friends Thursday, where he criticized the media for what he calls anti-Christian coverage, including a claim that the March For Life was hardly publicized by the media. Aside from Fox News, March For Life doesnt get a whole lot of coverage even though theres hundreds of thousands of people coming out in a positive, optimistic way, Crenshaw said. I was there. This was really a great march. It was a great group of people. Didnt really get a lot of coverage. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Crenshaw, who is perhaps most well-known for being mocked and later apologized to by SNLs Pete Davidson, points to the incident over the weekend at the Lincoln Memorial involving Covington Catholic High School students as another example of a blunder committed by the media. That story has been thoroughly debunked. Yet the mainstream media resorted to complete outrage culture, in stride, all together, lets hate these kids. Lets demean these kids. It was so wrong. It was so painful to watch, Crenshaw said, adding: Right before that Karen Pence had been attacked for just teaching at a Christian school. Weve seen the last couple months. Democrat senators, tearing apart judicial nominees because of their Christian faith. This is an ongoing crisis and its not right. We should be speaking out against it. The recently sworn-in Republican from Texas stirred up a big a reaction on Twitter, as some found these talking points sad and disappointing. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. However, his supporters are glad hes getting into the mix. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Watch Sarah Sanders go after the media in the wake of canceled press briefings at the White House: Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or leave your comments below. Larry Blackburn of Cheyenne uses one of the cat pens to bond with a friendly feline during the Tour for Life event, hosted by Cheyenne Animal Shelter and put on by the North Shore Animal League, on Saturday, March 31, 2018, in Cheyenne. Jacob Byk/Wyoming Tribune Eagle Kokomo, IN (46901) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms this evening. Skies will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 67F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Clarksburg, WV (26301) Today Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely. Low 67F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Charleston, WV (25311) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 85F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Morgantown, WV (26505) Today Generally cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 80F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely. Low 68F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Aubrey King is now retired in Huntington after 40 years as a university lecturer and Washington, D.C., lobbyist. He was involved as a lobbyist in immigration legislative debates for nearly three decades, including the Gang of Eight episode. Hate crimes legislation, marijuana legalization and local issues like an innkeepers tax raise and the possibility of a new magistrate judge headlined the years first Third House forum. Held at the Kokomo Country Club, the forum included four Statehouse lawmakers who represent Howard and surrounding counties and the introduction of the areas newest federal lawmaker, each of whom touched on the earliest pressing issues of 2019. It was the first of three public events for the state legislators, who kicked off the years budget session in what they described as a fast-paced way, even if it has been overshadowed locally by the federal governments shutdown controversy and an already heated mayoral race. Attending the event were Indiana Rep. Mike Karichoff, R-Kokomo; Rep. Heath VanNatter, R-Kokomo; Rep. Tony Cook, R-Cicero; and Sen. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo. Introduced by a U.S. Chamber of Commerce was Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Baird, who took office on Jan. 3 in the states fourth congressional district. The event, hosted by the Greater Kokomo Chamber of Commerce, included a look at various local and statewide issues: Hate crimes legislation Indiana is one of five states without a hate crimes law. And although the states governor, Eric Holcomb, renewed his support for hate crimes legislation during his State of the State speech earlier this month, its unclear whether a bill will pass through the Statehouse. Holcomb told the Republican-dominated Legislature that Indiana needs to end its status as one of just five states without laws specifically targeting crimes fueled by biases regarding race, religion and sexual orientation. Repeated efforts for an Indiana law have failed amid fierce opposition from conservatives who maintain it would unfairly create specially protected classes of victims and wrongly restrict free speech. Others have pointed to judges ability to already provide enhanced sentences. Holcomb said the new law should follow the state's employee anti-harassment policy, which has a list that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Multiple bills have been introduced in an attempt to tackle the issue, but a consensus has not been reached. Theres a lot of disagreement among legislators on which route to go, said VanNatter, describing legislation that includes a list of protected groups, and some that doesnt. It's possible nothing happens at all. Il be honest. At this point, I couldnt guess what was going to happen. Its still pretty early in the process," he added. Karickhoff, meanwhile, said the issue isnt one discussed often by lawmakers. Quite frankly, theres not a lot of people talking about it down at the Statehouse, he remarked. I know you read about it a lot; theres interest among some people. But theres just not that same buzz that you hear about a lot of bills from time to time. Cook, who filed a bill that includes a list of protected traits based on FBI data, said he is frustrated by people who dont want to look at the issue. I think theres more folks who just want it to go away, to be quite honest. And it isnt going to go away, he said. I think it needs to be dealt with. Its just a matter of sitting down and, are we going to address it or not going to address it? Right now, I think theres more that just don't want to address it than there are that do. While most state lawmakers may want the issue to disappear, a bipartisan poll conducted in December by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce found that 74 percent of the 600 Hoosiers polled agree that hate crimes legislation is needed. For the Senate, though, one type of legislation is a non-starter, said Buck. We wont pass anything thats got a list. We learned that when we got into LGBT, then found out that there were more letters that we had excluded and we were going to get in trouble for that, said Buck. Buck later called hate crimes legislation a wordsmithing nightmare. Innkeepers tax For the third consecutive year, Karickhoff has introduced legislation that would allow Howard County to raise its innkeepers tax to 8 percent, from 5 percent. Karickhoff said his bill will be combined with other county-specific requests. It stood on its own in previous years. Howard County innkeeper's tax legislation unlikely to pass General Assembly KOKOMO Legislation that would have allowed Howard County officials to raise the county inn Were trying something different, he said, describing an attempt to get that out of Ways and Means sometime early in February. If passed, the increased innkeepers tax revenue could be used to help fund an incoming hotel and conference center in downtown Kokomo, which was the primary reason given when discussions began about the possible tax increase in 2016. Local officials have said the increase could bring in another $350,000 to $400,000 annually. Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight, however, has said the project is possible without a tax increase. I think were going to be fine. We really put together a business model that does not include any increase in the innkeepers tax, said Goodnight during an interview with Indiana Public Media, although he did advocate for an increase to at least 6 or 7 percent. Magistrate Karickhoff is also sponsoring legislation that would allow Howard County to appoint a magistrate judge. The bill has been passed by the Committee on Courts and Criminal Code and referred to the House Ways and Means committee. It seems to be going on a good path to finding its way over to the Senate, said Karickhoff. A magistrate, say local officials, could help reduce the Howard County Jails persistent overpopulation problem and more quickly get defendants the help they need, specifically through the countys varied problem-solving courts. It would also help ease the caseloads of county judges. State committee endorses Howard Co. request for magistrate judge Howard County took a crucial step this week toward implementing a magistrate judge into its A currently unused courtroom in the jail would likely become the magistrates home five days a week, allowing defendants to appear before a judge at a faster pace than is currently possible. Marijuana legalization Newly-minted Howard County Council President Jim Papacek addressed the topic of marijuana legalization and gave his opinion about why it shouldnt happen. Almost every Indiana county is dealing with an opioid crisis, yet theres bills before the Senate and the House to legalize marijuana, whether it's medical or recreational. Marijuana is a gateway drug, yet were looking at maybe legalizing that and adding to the opioid problem, he told the lawmakers. Buck said that while action is likely to be taken on hemp, its unlikely that marijuana will be legalized in any way in 2019. The bills have been around for a long time, Jim, and they dont go anywhere. I dont anticipate that going anywhere this year either, noted Buck. I dont foresee it moving in the House this year either, added VanNatter. Both Karickhoff and Cook referenced efforts made by the Statehouse and the medical industry to get cannabis removed from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, a change that would allow more research. But Holcomb, said Karcikhoff, has made it crystal clear: as long as its illegal at the federal government, hes not going to pass it. Its not going to go anywhere. The marijuana thing is a couple years away, if ever, until we really understand all the ramifications, he noted. VanNatter, however, added that legalization is bound to happen. Its probably a couple years awaybut its coming. Were not going to fight over 60 percent of Hoosiers are in favor of some form of legalization, whether it be medical or recreational, he said. So I dont know how you fight it. Look at all the states that have done it. Theyve done it through referendum process. We dont have that process in Indiana, or we may already have legalized marijuana. Susan Maslowski founded and operates the Mud River Pottery studio in Milton, where she has created utilitarian ware for nearly 40 years. She sells produce at the Putnam Farmers Market, serves on the board of the West Virginia Farmers Market Association and The Wild Ramp, and is an advocate for local foods and farmers. She also writes the Farmers Table cooking column for the Gazette-Mails Metro section. Susan can be reached by email at mudriverpottery@aol.com. Charleston, WV (25301) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 68F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Please purchase a subscription to continue reading. If you have a subscription, please Log In . Your current subscription does not provide access to this content. If you believe you've gotten this message in error, please Log In. JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) Attorneys for an Indiana man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and eating parts of her body plan to argue he was insane at the time. The (Louisville, Kentucky) Courier-Journal reports court documents show two psychiatrists will examine 37-year-old Joseph Oberhansley to determine whether he was legally insane. The same psychiatrists are required to testify at his trial, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 19. Prosecutors say Oberhansley broke into the Jeffersonville home of 46-year-old Tammy Jo Blanton in September 2014, raped her, fatally stabbed her and ate parts of her body. Hes charged with murder, burglary and rape. A judge ruled in November that Oberhansley was competent to stand trial following a 21-month stay at a state psychiatric hospital. ___ Information from: Courier Journal, http://www.courier-journal.com Amid a violent state crackdown on their movement, the yellow vests are seeking ways to rally broader support in the working class against Macron and the European Union (EU). They have overwhelmingly rejected the fraudulent great national debate offered by Macron. The decisive question now is: on which political perspective can the yellow vests, and more broadly workers across Europe, fight for their demands for social equality, increased wages, improved social conditions and against war? Attempts to divert the developing opposition in the working class from an orientation to an international struggle of the working class for power, against capitalism and for the building of socialism amount to nothing more than a trap. This is what Olivier Besancenot of the Pabloite New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) is doing when he proposes that the unions, who are viewed with deep distrust by most yellow vest protesters, take over the movement. Besancenot bases himself on a sign posted by yellow vest spokesman Eric Drouet on the France en colere Facebook page. Drouet proposes to make the symbolic, one-day strike proposed by the Stalinist General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union the occasion to launch a broader movement: Far from the governments siren calls on a great national fraud to silence our demands, call a general strike starting on February 5, 2019. Block everything, no more living as slaves! Invited on the BFM-TV news channel, Besancenot declared that Drouets call is a good idea. We have to get beyond the glass ceiling posed by the number of protesters. We need a clear mobilization against repression, for wages and the redistribution of wealth. This may be the moment we come together. He added that the yellow vests had taken a step forward that must provoke a reaction from the trade union organizations. It is essential to mobilize workers in France and internationally in struggle, but to do that requires a conscious political break with the CGT and petty-bourgeois parties like the NPA. The unions will not organize a political offensive against Macron. The CGT sold out and strangled the two great general strikes in France, in 1936 and 1968. Now, having lost their bases in the working class due to the austerity policies they have helped impose in the half century since 1968, the unions are empty shells which will not fight Macron. By calling for a convergence between the CGT and the yellow vests, Besancenot wants to help the union bureaucracies, that are now financed and controlled by the state and big business, to take over and strangle the movement. If the yellow vests allowed the NPA to do this, it would signify the self-destruction of the movement. The perspective of the unions is for a reactionary negotiation with Macron in the national context of social dialog with French capitalism. In fact, the yellow vest protest is part of a broad global upsurge of the working class in a rebellion against the old, nationally-based bureaucracies. Like the struggles of tea plantation workers or US, Canadian and Mexican autoworkers, their struggle is developing against the official unions and pseudo-left parties like the NPA. Besancenot, however, is doing everything he can to promote an entire layer of nationalist, pro-capitalist and anti-Trotskyist parties, linked to the state, that the yellow vests reject. Besancenot proposes to all the political leaders of the left to come together in a great unitary meeting Monday to back the general strike on February 5 and struggle together against repression. He invited Jean-Luc Melenchon, Francois Ruffin, Benoit Hamon, Fabien Roussel, Nathalie Arthaud, the Greens and the trade union left to join in. That is, Besancenot wants to build an alliance between the NPA, former ministers of the big business Socialist Party (PS) like Benoit Hamon and Jean-Luc Melenchon, the new top apparatchik of the French Communist Party (PCF) Fabien Roussel, Workers Struggle (LO) presidential candidate Nathalie Arthaud, and the unionsto take over the yellow vests and subordinate them to a pro-capitalist line. Such calls for a social front bringing together satellites of the PS that have for years supported imperialist wars in the Middle East and Africa are nothing but a political trap. These are not left-wing or working class organizations. They are hostile to the demands of the yellow vests. Speaking for petty-bourgeois interests in the union bureaucracy and academia, they aim to negotiate cuts to social rights with Macron in order to align wages with the diktat of the world market. Besancenot himself virtually admitted this, noting that the organizations that he proposes to rally together have organized defeats of strikes launched over a period of decades. Speaking of the yellow vests, he said that they are an unprecedented, historic mobilization that is not simply against something but that is for something It is the first time since May 1968 that we have a movement that is winning something. Apparently unintentionally, Besancenot was making a devastating statement on the role of the NPA and its political and trade union allies that have for decades isolated and shut down strikes and protests in France and across Europe. The reason the yellow vests have had such an impact is that they opposed with contempt the unions and parties that have for so long organized defeats of the working class. And these parties also reject the yellow vests, viewing them with anger and fear. The NPA opposed the initial outbreak of the yellow vest protests, declaring: We will make no mistake. Like the CGT and Solidarity trade unions, we will not mix our anger on Saturday, November 17, with the bosses maneuvers exploited by the far-right, which is not a temporary ally but a mortal enemy. Yes, everything is going up except wages, and the lower classes are right to have had enough with price rises for fuel and in general But we cannot say it on Saturday, November 17, in actions or supposedly citizens gatherings that look like far-right mobs, in which we would line up with the deadliest enemies of the workers movement. What is being prepared is a far larger explosion of the class struggle than what has already occurred. The objective course of developments of the strikes now under way tends towards the eruption of workers struggles on continental scales, surpassing even the great general strikes of the 20th century. Expecting the CGT or Besancenot to lead such struggles means ensuring their defeat. Developing the political offensive of the working class requires first a conscious rejection of the poisonous offers of support from pseudo-left groups like the NPA. To prepare for the crises that are erupting, workers need to take the struggles out of the hands of the unions. Across Europe they need committees of action, built independently of the unions, to coordinate and unify the struggle against capitalism. This underscores the need to build the Parti de legalite socialiste (PES) and the International Committee of the Fourth International as a whole as the political leadership in the working class. It is only through a political and theoretical struggle against petty-bourgeois, pseudo-left organizations that it will be possible to defeat the political establishments attempts to take over and strangle opposition in the working class and lead workers struggles towards a genuine fight for the socialist transformation of society. The US-orchestrated regime change operation continued to escalate tensions in Venezuela Friday, pushing the country closer to civil war or an outright US invasion. Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro and Juan Guaido, a leader of the right-wing Voluntad Popular party and president of the countrys National Assembly, who proclaimed himself the countrys interim president Wednesday with immediate backing from Washington, spoke simultaneously on Friday at different locations in Caracas . Maduro, speaking at a press conference in the Miraflores presidential palace, declared that his government was confronting an advancing coup detat promoted and financed by the United States of North America. He charged that Guaido was a puppet of Washington, who was incapable of taking any decisions without orders from the State Department. He revealed that on the eve of the right-wing politicians self-proclamation as the president, Guaido had met with two leading representatives of the government, including Diosdado Cabello, an ex-military officer and leader of the ruling PSUV party, who is widely seen as a rival of Maduros within the chavista camp, to discuss initiation of a dialogue. Guaido had denied that any such meeting had taken place, but the government Friday released a videotape showing him and Cabello entering the meeting site. Maduro reiterated the appeal for a dialogue, both with the United States and Guaido, while insisting that his announcement of a break in diplomatic relations with Washington would not stop Venezuela from selling oil to the US, which accounts for 75 percent of the cash Venezuela gets for crude shipments. US officials are reportedly discussing sanctions on the oil sector, which would have the effect of making the economy scream, the term used by the Nixon administration during the economic destabilization operations against Chile in advance of the fascist-military coup of 1973. For his part, Guaido spoke at a rally in eastern Caracas, ruling out any dialogue with the present government, vowing that anti-government demonstrations would be called next week and calling for the military to support him and overthrow Maduro. This is the main concern of the Venezuelan right and its US backers, but as yet, the military high command, which has been a pillar of the governments of Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, heading a large share of ministries as well as controlling the most lucrative state agencies, has shown no sign of deserting the government. Washington, meanwhile, has escalated its offensive against the Maduro government. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the US will divert all assets held by the Venezuelan government in the US to the so-called interim government of Guaido. This includes bank deposits as well as the properties held by Citgo, the US-based refining affiliate of the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA. The financial analysis firm S&P Global Platts cited sources close to the right-wing opposition in Venezuela as stating that Guaido was preparing to name a new board of directors for Citgo and to send his representatives to take over the companys headquarters in Houston. Goldman Sachs reported that the corporate coup would be carried out in conjunction with the proclamation of a new National Law on Hydrocarbons, which would open up Venezuelas oil reserves to more direct and comprehensive foreign exploitation. That this is to be one of the first actions of the US-backed interim president is hardly an accident. The restoration of domination by US-based energy conglomerates over Venezuelas oil reserves, the largest in the world, has been a strategic objective pursued by Washington under both Democratic and Republican administrations over the past two decades. Meanwhile, the Bank of England, acting in compliance with demands from Washington, has stymied an attempt by the Venezuelan government to withdraw $1.2 billion in gold reserves from its coffers. The other principal goal of the US-orchestrated coup is the rolling back of influence in Latin America by China and Russia, both of which have established close economic, political and military ties with Caracas. The regime change operation thus dovetails with the announced shift in US strategy toward great power conflict and carries with it the danger of a confrontation in the Americas between the worlds largest nuclear powers. While the various capitalist governments and the corporate media outlets that are supporting and lionizing Guaido all claim that his victory over Maduro would usher in a renaissance of Venezuelan democracy, the reality is that the right-wing opposition that he represents has never enjoyed broad popular support in Venezuela and has no commitment whatsoever to the democratic rights of the broad masses of working people. On the contrary, their rise to power would almost certainly be accompanied by a repressive bloodbath and the institution of dictatorial forms of rule required to impose the dictates of Washington and international finance capital. In an unmistakable signal of Washingtons real intentions in Venezuela, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Friday named Elliot Abrams as the administrations special envoy on Venezuela. Abrams, a right-wing veteran of the Reagan and Bush administrations, is the personification of the criminal, deceitful and thuggish character of US imperialisms policies globally and, above all, in Latin America. He was best known for defending the US-backed dictatorships in Central America in the 1980s and covering up for their bloody massacres, torture and assassinations. During the same period, he played a central role in creating a covert and illegal network for funding the terrorist Contra forces organized by the CIA to attack Nicaragua. He was convicted of lying to Congress about the illegal operation, but pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. Washington has set the stage for a bloody settling of accounts in Venezuela by defying the Venezuelan governments order to withdraw all of its diplomatic personnel from the country within 72 hours, a deadline that expires on Sunday. While the State Department has ordered the evacuation of all non-essential personnel from the country, it has left in place a skeleton crew of diplomats as bait for a potential military intervention. Bolton on Friday said that the Trump administration has developed plans to defend the embassy, but gave no details. Trump and his aides have repeatedly stated that all options are on the table in terms of military intervention in Venezuela. The Washington Post reported Friday that the Pentagon is refusing to comment on any operations regarding Venezuela or the position of any naval ships in the countrys vicinity, referring all questions to the National Security Council, which also has declined comment. The ongoing coup in Venezuela is by no means the first such attempt by Washington. In 2002, the CIA and the Pentagon backed an abortive military coup staged by sections of the military and the ruling financial circles, together with the AFL-CIO-connected union federation, which removed President Hugo Chavez from office for 48 hours while installing Pedro Carmona, the president of the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce, as interim president. There were no credible allegations then that Chavezs presidency was illegitimatehe had been re-elected two years earlier with a 60 percent majority. Yet the coup and the arrest of Venezuelas elected president were portrayed in Washington as a triumph for democracy. The New York Times saluted this democratic coup, writing in truly Orwellian fashion that with the military overthrow of an elected president, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. After masses took to the streets in opposition to the coup, Carmona and his military henchmen were forced to retreat and Chavez was restored to the presidential palace. The Times has weighed in once again in support of the ongoing Venezuelan coup with an editorial titled Between Mr. Maduro and a Hard Place. Reflecting the rightward shift of the erstwhile liberal political establishment for which the newspaper serves as a mouthpiece, the word democracy does not appear in the piece. Rather, it is concerned with more practical matters of executing a successful regime change operation. Its principal concern is how to pry Mr. Maduro out without a blood bath, while acknowledging that the recognition of a rival US-backed president raises terrifying prospects of carnage, especially should the military stand by Mr. Maduro, which it so far has. Nonetheless, the Times editorial board solidarizes itself with the imperialist intervention, writing, The Trump administration is right to support Mr. Guaido, while counseling that, given the long and bloody record of CIA coups and US-backed dictatorships in the region, Washington must be seen as participating in a broad coalition of South American and other democratic nations In other words, another coalition of the willing to mask the fact that in Venezuelas caseas in Iraqs 16 years agodemocracy is spelled OIL. The Washington Post published a similar editorial backing the anointment of the State Department stooge Guaido as president. It described the 35-year-old right-wing politician as a young and dynamic new leader, while the Times had hailed him as a fresh young leader. The Post lays out scenarios for direct US military intervention. Unless the lives of Americans are endangered and there is no other recourse, military intervention would be folly. Of course, the Trump administrations defiance of the Venezuelan governments order to close the US embassy in Caracas lays the groundwork for precisely such a claim that lives of Americans are endangered. It should be recalled that the last two US invasions in the AmericasPanama in December 1989 and Grenada in October 1983were carried out on the pretext of protecting American lives. The Post goes on to suggest, A multilateral operation to deliver humanitarian supplies to Venezuela or to its borders, in cooperation with the National Assembly, is one possibility for installing Guaido in power. It concludes that the main hope for regime change is for the military to defy its commanders and support Guaido, i.e., carry out a coup. These views largely dovetail with those of the Democratic Party leadership, which, having waged a bitter campaign against the Trump administration over alleged Russian meddling, has jumped to support the White House in its real and deadly meddling in the affairs of Venezuela. At a press conference Friday, Unifor President Jerry Dias called for consumer boycott of Mexican built vehicles, ratcheting up the unions reactionary nationalist campaign aimed at diverting workers anger over the closure of the Oshawa, Ontario, General Motors factory. General Motors has targeted the Oshawa assembly plant for closure in 2019 as part of a re-structuring program that will see 2,500 jobs lost in Oshawa and another 12,500 white collar and production jobs cut and four plants closed in the United States. Dias said that Unifor will ask Canadian consumers not to buy GM vehicles assembled in Mexico and suggested that Canadians write GM to support his boycott call. He further stated that Unifor would approach United Auto Workers (UAW) executives in the United States in early February to discuss whether union officials there would support his proposed boycott. In another diversion, Unifor, earlier this week, began a symbolic blockade of GM office headquarters in Oshawa. After assembly and feeder parts workers spontaneously organized several sit-down work stoppages, Unifor has now moved to channel seething discontent into channels that will not impact GM production. When asked by a reporter Friday whether Unifor was planning any strike action against GM, Dias was deliberately evasive. However, as Fridays press conference made clear, Unifor has no intention of waging a serious fight. Instead, Unifor is ratcheting up its filthy anti-Mexican campaign aimed at driving a wedge between Canadian auto workers and their brother and sister workers south of the Rio Grande who are currently waging a heroic battle against maquiladora sweatshops in Matamoros . Dias did not utter a word about the largest strike in North America in decades, as 70,000 workers, many of them in the auto parts industry, have been on a militant wildcat strike in Matamoros for over a week against both management and the corrupt unions that serve as cheap labor contractors. Parts shortages have already forced Fords Flat Rock, Michigan, plant to close for two weeks. In addition, Ford workers in Oakville, Ontario, have reported a looming parts crisis there. Indeed, the same day that Dias was preening his phoney fightback feathers, tens of thousands more Mexican workers were preparing to join the Matamoros strike wave. But rather than solidarize with the courageous fight of Mexican workers, Dias once again spewed his anti-Mexican nationalist poison, calling on consumers to hammer Mexican productionand therefore Mexican jobs. Such actions only serve to divide workers one against the other in a never-ending race to the bottom. It has been this nationalist perspective that has allowed the auto companies to whip-saw jobs and wages back and forth across borders for decades. Dias, fully aware that autoworkers are beginning to break from Unifors nationalism, felt it circumspect to begin his grab for Mexican jobs at the press conference with the claim that we are not attacking Mexican workers. That lie was quickly jettisoned. When Dias was asked specifically if his proposed boycott would harm Canadian auto parts workers, he asserted that it would only impact Mexican workers employed in companies like Canadian owned Magna and Martinrea and other multi-nationals that operate in the Mexican maquiladoras zone. The fact is that auto production is so integrated that it is virtually impossible to determine the nationality of any vehicle. For example, the GM St. Catharines powertrain plant sends its engines to Mexico for final assembly while the GM CAMI facility in Ingersoll, Ontario, assembles the Equinox with major components shipped from Mexico. As an Oshawa GM worker told the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, Dias is spreading Mexican hate and opposition. Its so obvious the dividing orders have been given so we wont support their cause. Its so plain to see now whats going on. The corporations, union and media are all revealing themselves for what they are. The more this Mexico thing spreads, the more it exposes their corrupt intentions. The appeal for the international unity of the working class is not a holiday phraseit is a strategic necessity and the basis for unleashing the immense social strength of the working class. This is objectively shown in the very production process itself. A vehicle that rolls off the assembly line in Mexico or the US or Canada is comprised of parts that have crossed national boundaries dozens of times. To take just one example previously cited by the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, to produce the seat control button on a car seat a capacitor manufactured by workers in Asia is shipped to the US and is shipped again to Ciudad Juarez and inserted by Mexican workers into a circuit board. Then, it is shipped back to the US, where warehouse workers in Texas move and store the circuit board until it is shipped back to Mexico, to Matamoros, where the circuit board is inserted into a seat activator button. Then, the activator is shipped to either Texas or Canada, where auto parts workers install the activator into the seat itself. Finally, the seat is sent to an assembly plant and installed into the body of the car. Unifors nationalist strategy has been a disaster for autoworkers. Broad sections of the US and Canadian heartland have been devastated by plant closures while Unifor and UAW executives enjoy six figure salaries and lavish perks. Now GM is planning to axe another 15,000 jobs. The anti-Mexican campaign by Unifor as well as its phony blockade are reruns of a movie workers have seen many times before. In 2008, only two weeks after promising the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) continued truck plant production under terms of a new contract, GM announced the imminent closure of the operation. Like now, the CAW leadership then worked might and main to try to channel the tremendous anger amongst auto workers and community members into protests that relied on nationalist demagogy and moral appeals to big business politicians and GM executives. The CAW bureaucracy squashed calls for wildcat strike action that had been brewing on the shop floors of the giant Oshawa complex. Instead, CAW officialdom organized a so-called blockade of GM office headquarters in Oshawa. The blockade, however, was a rather porous one. In court proceedings brought by the company to seek an injunction against the headquarters protest, CAW lawyers argued that the union had allowed GM to send all staff they deemed essential into the office building. In any case, with work-at-home technology now a standard feature for office employees, Unifors stunt is even less effective. Thirteen days after the inception of the blockade, it ended after the court ruled the action was illegal. Both company officials and union bureaucrats recognized the protest for what it wasan exercise by the CAW leadership to head off any potential militant response from the rank-and-file to the closure announcement by providing a high-profile, but nonetheless harmless, avenue for angry workers to blow off some steam. The earlier sit-down action taken in Oshawa demonstrates the determination of autoworkers to fight. However, if workers leave the conduct of their fight in the hands of Unifor, it will inevitably be betrayed. To be successful in their struggle, autoworkers must organize a rank-and-file factory committee elected from the most trusted militant workers to take charge of their struggle. The committee should issue an urgent appeal for a joint fightback to GM workers and other autoworkers in Canada, the United States, Mexico and internationally as part of a united fight to defend the 15,000 GM workers threatened with lay-offs and the tens of thousands of additional jobs in the parts, supplier, and other industries that will be affected by GMs job massacre. An important step in organizing such an international fight by autoworkers has already been taken. At a meeting organized by the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter in Detroit in December, autoworkers from Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler agreed to form a coordinating committee to plan actions to mobilize the working class as a whole beginning with a demonstration of workers from throughout the American mid-west and Canada scheduled for February 9 in Detroit outside GM headquarters. Canadian workers who wish to take this fight forward are encouraged to attend. Contact: auto@socialequality.com Former Trump political adviser and long-time crony Roger Stone was arrested Friday morning on an indictment brought by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller, who heads the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections. The arrest was carried out in an extraordinarily heavy-handed fashion, more befitting a drug kingpin or a serial killer than a 66-year-old political operative who regularly appears on Fox News and other networks to defend Trump and was hardly a risk either for flight or violent resistance. Unlike many others targeted by the Mueller investigation, Stone was not given notice of his indictment in advance or allowed to surrender himself to a court with his lawyer present. More than two dozen heavily armed, flak-jacketed FBI agents demanded entry to Stones Fort Lauderdale home before dawn, pushing their way in and arresting him in his bedclothes. The agents were accompanied by a CNN camera crew, effectively acting as embedded journalists in a military operation, to record the scene. Stone was charged with seven counts, all related to speechfive counts of making false statements to Congress, one of obstructing an official proceeding (through his testimony) and one for witness tampering (urging another witness not to testify). Despite media coverage which has portrayed him as a key link in the alleged Russian conspiracy to elect Trump, he was not charged with any actions, with any contact with a Russian government agent, or with handling emails stolen from the computers of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. In fact, the 24-page indictment barely refers to Russia at all, dealing almost entirely with Stones testimony in May and September 2017 before the House Intelligence Committee about his efforts to learn what material WikiLeaks had accumulated that could be detrimental to the Hillary Clinton campaign, and what the groups publishing plans were. WikiLeaks is not explicitly named in the indictment, which refers to it always as Organization 1, but there is no doubt of its being targeted by the Mueller investigation. The indictment refers at one point to the organizations leader living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, clearly meaning Julian Assange, who sought asylum in 2012 and has become a de facto prisoner there. New York comedian and radio host Randy Credico, who had interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy, was identified by Stone as an intermediary between himself and WikiLeaks. Press accounts identified Credico as the witness whom Stone allegedly sought to tamper with, although he is described only as Person 2 in the indictment. None of the actions allegedly taken by Stone are criminal. He made efforts, through intermediaries, to contact WikiLeaks and Assange, and to find out what material they had and what they intended to do with it. He told unnamed Trump campaign officials about these efforts, and they encouraged him to proceed. Nor is Stone charged with conspiracy, either with supposed Russian agents, or with WikiLeaks, which, according to the smear campaign mounted by the Democratic Party and the military-intelligence apparatus, was the recipient of documents hacked from the Democrats by Russian cyberwarfare operatives. Mueller has indicted several dozen alleged Russian operatives, but since they are in Russia and cannot be arrested or the allegations and evidence tested, the indictments serve mainly to provide political cover for the investigation. The crimes with which Stone is charged relate to his statements about his efforts in support of Trump, made to the House committee. The scale of the alleged lies is rather minimal, including claiming that he had communicated with Credico only in person and by phone, when he had actually exchanged numerous text messages and emails as well. Stone pled not guilty to all the charges and was released on surety bond, meaning that the court demanded no payment up front, because he was not deemed a flight risk. He spoke to the media outside the courtroom, proclaiming his innocence and declaring that he would not testify against Trump because neither he nor the president had done anything wrong. Stones lawyer Grant Smith called the charges ridiculous, adding, This is all about a minor charge about lying to Congress about something that was apparently found later. In a subsequent interview Friday night on Fox News, Stone said it was disconcerting that CNN was aware that I would be arrested before my lawyers were informed. He continued: I had no firearm in the house. I dont have a permit for a firearm. I dont own a firearm. Only my wife, my two dogs, my three cats were at home. Im not a flight risk, in fact I think my passport has expired or it will expire in a few days. I have no record of criminal past. And frankly, they just could have contacted my attorney and I would have voluntarily turned myself in. Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has been charged with 14 offences, including two of attempted rape, nine of sexual assault, two of indecent assault and one of breach of the peace. After a private hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Salmond, the most prominent public face and former leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), protested his innocence. He told the assembled press, The only thing I can say is I refute absolutely the allegation of criminality and I will defend myself to the utmost in court. Salmond explained that he was unable to make any further comment until proceedings are concluded. He would not answer questions, he said, because Im informed that court rules are that your questions and my answers might breach court rules. Salmond is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Under Scottish law, the media is prevented from going into detail about the background to the case, referring to evidence that might be heard or the possible outcome. Salmonds arrest comes amid escalating factional warfare now affecting every major British ruling class party, under the impact of the profound geopolitical instability provoked by the Brexit crisis and immense class tensions. Both the Conservative and Labour parties are hopelessly divided over Brexit. They are unable to fashion a common response, unable, thus far, to even find a mechanism to prevent a no deal Brexit despite all the threats of supply chain failures and food and medicine shortages such a departure from the European Union (EU) might well entail. The only certainty is that, regardless of which faction wins, the working class will be targeted for intensified exploitation and the destruction of vital social provisions to ensure that British capitalism can continue to challenge its major rivals for trade and investment. Relations between Salmond and his successor and former protegee Nicola Sturgeon are thoroughly poisonousmeaning that the latest legal turn of events could tear the SNP apart. Salmond resigned as SNP leader immediately following the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, which those seeking independence lost decisively by 55 to 45 percent. He was replaced by Sturgeon, whose initial approach differed little from Salmond. Despite losing the independence poll, the SNP ballooned in membership topping out at as much as 125,000. Sturgeon continued Salmonds technique of imposing austerity with regional tweaks, while placing blame for them on funding decisions imposed by Westminster. Salmond, for his part, won a Westminster electoral seat in 2015. Debate within the SNP and its periphery hinged on whether it was wise to begin a low-level campaign for a second independence referendum after the failure of their 2014 campaign or to keep the demand as a general principle while focusing on calls for greater autonomy. This debate became bitter and heated with the Brexit vote of 2016. The Scottish electorate voted to remain in the European Union (EU) by a large majority, 63 to 37 percent, against the narrower British decision to leave. Sturgeon immediately stated that a second independence referendum was back on the table as the only means to secure continued Scottish membership of the EU. However, this was largely for the record given that the large majority opposed to Brexit does not translate to a sudden shift towards support for Scottish independence. Moreover, all plans by the SNP to develop Scotland as a low-tax investment platform modelled on the Republic of Ireland depend upon access to the Single European Marketand the EU 27 did not look favourably on moves to break up the UK when they wanted Brexit reversed and feared any encouragement of separatist movements in Catalonia and elsewhere. Sturgeon therefore focused on securing anti-Brexit alliances at Westminster and leading opposition to the threat of a no-deal exit from the EUseeking the backing of dominant sections of business and finance, including those in Scotland, reliant on the EUs single market and customs union. The SNP has repeatedly offered Labours Jeremy Corbyn a coalition pact for a future Labour minority government, only to be rebuffed. Salmond, who retains a large base of support in the SNP, used his distance from office to position himself as the voice of grassroots nationalism. Following the loss of his parliamentary constituency in North East Scotland in 2017, he also took up a broadcasting role with RT, the Russian government-funded news channel, who offered him a weekly current affairs slot where he could pose as a political outsider. Salmond was vehemently attacked from across the political spectrum, including from within the pro-NATO SNP. Sturgeon commented that she would have advised against RT and suggested he [Salmond] seek a different channel to air what I am sure will be an entertaining show. She insisted, Neither myself nor the SNP will shy away from criticising Russian policy when we believe it is merited. An SNP spokesman said, The SNP has no connection to Alexs company or his media interests. The SNP has regularly expressed concern over actions by the Russian government. During the crisis last year over the alleged poisoning by nerve agent of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, the SNPs leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford. effectively urged a boycott of Salmonds show describing the partys former leader as a private individual. Salmond s programme, which continues on RT, had questioned the Conservative governments insistence that the Russian government was responsible for the attack. In August, Salmond resigned from the SNP to pursue a judicial review of the Scottish governments handling of a case against him involving allegations of sexual harassment. He issued a statement complaining of a procedure so unjust that even now I have not been allowed to see and therefore to properly challenge the case against me. Salmond won his judicial review earlier this month, having crowdfunded 100,000 [US$132,000] from supporters to pay for his challenge. At Edinburghs Court of Session, Lord Pentland ruled in early January that the Scottish governments actions were unlawful in respect that they were procedurally unfair and had been tainted with apparent bias. It emerged in court that the Scottish governments investigating officer had had substantial contact with one of the women accusing Salmond of impropriety, before taking on a role against Salmond. Among those attending the hearings in support of Salmond were former Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, and a former presiding officer of the Scottish parliament, Tricia Marwick. MacAskill, who held his position for seven years, told ITV Border, Im a friend of Alex ... and you stand by your friends. And I think that the actions of the government, as the courts decided, were cack-handed and indeed wrong. MacAskill took the opportunity to attack Sturgeon, suggesting that a puritanical inner circle were intent on driving out anyone seen as a threat to Sturgeon. MacAskill suggested Sturgeons husband Peter Murrell should resign as the SNPs chief executive. Days after winning his case, Salmond elaborated to the pro-independence Sunday National on his differences with Sturgeon: Nicola should be concentrating all her energies on the independence agenda when we will never have better circumstances. As far as I am concerned Westminsters Brexit difficulty should be Scotlands opportunity. Joyce McMillan, a Scotsman journalist and advocate for Sturgeon, replied, If Nicola Sturgeon is proceeding with great caution ... it is because she has good reason to she knows that Scotland remains almost evenly divided on the matter of independence. She concluded, Sometimes, amid the maelstrom of Brexit politics, it is wise to step back a little and look at the big picture of where we would like Scotland and the other countries of these islands to be in 25 years time we are unlikely to get there by seeking to snatch a second independence referendum out of the jaws of the Brexit crisis, and pushing a divided electorate to a knife-edge decision. The fifth anniversary this month of the founding of the Spanish pseudo-left party Podemos [We can] was marked by the most serious split in the organisations short existence. Five years to the day since the partys establishment, January 17, Podemos co-founder and number two in the party leadership Inigo Errejon called a press conference to announce he had allied with independent Madrid city mayor Manuela Carmena ahead of Mays local and regional elections. Last November, Carmena created More Madrid (Mas Madrid) to replace the Now Madrid (Ahora Madrid) citizen platform that Podemos helped create to run for re-election as mayor. Carmena defined More Madrid as innovative, independent, democratic and progressive and formed by individuals, not parties. At his press conference, Errejon declared that Podemos had failed as a political instrument because it had not generated hopes and confidence. The recent formation of a Popular Party (PP)Citizens coalition in Andalusia backed by the fascist Vox party, overturning 36 years of Socialist Party (PSOE) rule, had been a wake-up call, he said. Polls suggest that the PP, Citizens and Vox could win 31 seats in the Madrid city electiontwo more than needed to form a majority administration. The rise of Vox is a devastating indictment of Errejon and the left populism promoted by his mentor, Belgian academic Chantal Mouffe, with whom he co-wrote Podemos: In the Name of the People (2016). Shortly after the books publication, Errejon claimed that thanks to Podemos popular and patriotic discourse and because it occupied the same political space, the party would prevent the rise of a far-right movement in Spain. The pro-capitalist, anti-Marxist basis of left populism is revealed by Errejons demands that all talk of nostalgia for or defence of the left, i.e., of socialism, has to be abandoned and a broad democratic front built. He lamented, We cannot be the only left in the world that has no homeland, I am very proud of my country, and the country I am proud of, Spain, is a country that is a leader in freedom, in tolerance, in human rights, in democracy ... So democracy must be taken care of. The statement, The Strategy of International Class Struggle and the Political Fight Against Capitalist Reaction in 2019, posted January 3 on the WSWS, discussed contemporary left populism. It explained that this brand of politics is a debased version of the 1930s anti-socialist Popular Front politics of class collaboration, justified with democratic phraseology, but without the historical, let alone political, connection to the working class that enabled the Stalinist parties to subordinate the working class to the capitalist class and enabled Hitlers victory in Germany and Francos in Spain. The January 3 statement continued, In opposition to Marxism and socialism, the politics of Mouffe [and Errejon] and the pseudo-left advocates the formation of an amorphous, programmatically undefined, supra-class and nationalist movement. As Mouffe explicitly states, the left-populist movement neither identifies itself as socialist nor calls for a struggle against the capitalist state. It envisions the possibility of finding points of agreement and collaboration with the extreme right, as Syriza has done in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Opposing the fight to win the working class to a socialist program, left populism advocates the utilization of myths and other forms of irrationalist politics: Left populism is one expression of the politics of the pseudo-left, which has its theoretical origins in the demoralized denial of the revolutionary role of the working class by the theoreticians of the Frankfurt School and the postmodernist denial of objective truth and the Marxist and Trotskyist grand narrative of the revolutionary class struggle. Pseudo-left politics, based on the elevation of race, gender, sexual identity and the people, is the politics of a privileged layer of the middle class, the top 10 percent of the population, which is covered over with left phraseology and slogans like the Party of the 99 Percent. Following Errejons announcement, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias confirmed that the party had split. However, he made no political assessment of his former deputys departure because there is little of substance to differentiate them. Claims that their conflicts reflect differences of principle or of class orientation are politically fraudulent. Both are travelling on the same left populist dirt-track, with Errejon being the pre-eminent opportunist weathervane and pointing the way. Iglesias was left to complain, I could not imagine that today, when we should be celebrating the fifth birthday of Podemos, things would be like this I cant believe that Manuela [Carmena] and Inigo were concealing the fact that they were working on an electoral project of their own for the Madrid region, and that they made a surprise announcement. Our members deserve more respect than that. Iglesias nevertheless wished Errejon good luck building his new party, before confirming that Podemos will run candidates against him in May. The disintegration of Podemos has been viewed with concern by the ruling elite, which recognises its vital role in stabilizing the Spanish state amid growing economic crisis and social opposition. An editorial of the pro-PSOE El Pais warned, An irrelevant Podemos today would be bad news, not only for the PSOE, which has treated it as a potential partner and which sees a space to the left that it cannot absorb, but also because the movement was really able to detect a political need. Democratic systems need to formulate alternatives with utopian components, aspirational elements that do not reduce politics to mere management and that strive to open other ways to involve the citizenry. However, the claim by Podemos to represent a new progressive politics against the caste is already in tatters. Gone are the days when Podemos polled around 30 percent of the vote making it the countrys number one party. Polls, before this latest crisis, suggest that support for Podemos and the United Left (IU) combined has slumped to 16 percent and the Unidos-Podemos alliance has been relegated to fourth place. In power, Podemos has acted as an appendage of the PSOE and defender of the Spanish state. Podemos was key to the installation of a minority PSOE government in 2018 that has continued, in all essentials, the policies of austerity, militarism and repression in Catalonia of the previous PP government. Workers and youth have witnessed, first-hand, its record in office in numerous town halls and city halls. Promises that Podemos-led municipalities of change (Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Cadiz, etc.) would reverse austerity and use citizen debt audits to stop the payment of illegitimate debts came to nothing nowhere more so than in Madrid. In June 2015, Carmenas Podemos-led coalition Now Madrid gained power in the capital, ending 24 years of right-wing PP rule. The newly appointed head of finance at Madrid City Council, Carlos Sanchez Mato, a leader of the United Secretariats Anticapitalistas faction in Podemos, trumpeted, The way to fulfil our obligations is to cast aside the spending rule, battling until the last stand. Within months of this boasting, Carmena acceded to demands from the PP government not only to reverse the limited increase in social spending and investment implemented, but to drastically cut the budget. Iglesias leapt to Carmenas defence, saying she had no choice but to comply and insisted that she would be reselected as Now Madrids 2019 mayoral candidate. The whole filthy episode was covered up by the Pabloite Anticapitalistas, who have continually peddled the illusion that Podemos could be reinvigorated by social mobilisation to return to the partys founding document (largely written by the Anticapitalistas) promising debt cancellation, nationalisation and membership control. Following Errejons departure, Anticapitalistas leader and Viento Sur editor Brais Fernandez complained that the leadership of Podemos has failed miserably when it comes to setting up a project in Madrid, lacks a broad, dynamic and articulated militant base, and has behaved with a terrible arrogance towards the other sectors combined with political opportunism. He then turned to the IU Stalinist electoral front with an appeal to help the Anticapitalistas promote candidacies that are the embryo of a new space in Madrid, before offering the usual olive branch to Podemos saying they could join but not impose their rules. Lets make it possible for assemblies, militancies and transforming programs to return. It is the best guarantee to avoid decomposition in these dark times, Fernandez pleaded. Contracts for 30,000 oil workers, members of the United Steelworkers union in the US, will begin to expire on February 1. Talks between the USW and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the company leading the contract negotiations, began in Houston, Texas on January 16. Kim Nibarger, USW National Oil Bargaining Program Chair, and Tom Conway, International Vice President of the USW, are leading the unions negotiations with the oil corporations. In the past, both of these veteran union bureaucrats have played a major role in helping the oil corporations to push through concessions contracts that stripped away wages, benefits, and health and safety protections. Nibarger was a safety program coordinator for the former PACE union, which merged with the USW in 2005. Prior to that he was a member and co-chair of the Joint Health and Safety Committee at Tesoros Anacortes refinery in Puget Sound, Washington for eight years. Nibarger led the unions investigation team into the November 1998 explosion and fire that killed seven refinery workers at Anacortes, which resulted in a whitewash. When the Obama Justice Department dropped charges against Tesoro, whose criminal disregard for safety led to the explosion in Anacortes, the USW did nothing to mobilize workers against this attack on their basic right to a safe workplace. Conway led the negotiations last fall that resulted in sellout contracts signed in November for 31,000 steelworkers at ArcelorMittal and US Steel. The USW ignored a unanimous strike vote by workers and instead agreed to a pro-company contract imposing an inadequate 14 percent wage increase over four yearsafter three years of wage freezeswith no reduction in health care costs or increases to retirement benefits, and no guarantee of benefits for new hires, laying the groundwork to create new, low-paid tiers. As the 2019 contract deadline approaches, oil workers would do well to reflect on the lessons of the 2015 contract struggle. Of 65 USW-represented refineries and chemical plants across the US, only 15 were called to strike by the union. Two of the most critical in the Midwestthe joint BP-Husky refinery in Toledo, Ohio and BP in Whiting, Indianawere among the last to be called. The only reason USW called the strike was because the oil companies did not give anything the union could sell as concession. However, the USW had no intention of fighting for workers demands and did everything it could to smother their struggle. Despite this, the strike was significant in that it showed a growing willingness on the part of workers to fight after years in which the unions, in alliance with the Democratic Party, had suppressed the class struggle. Fearing that the oil workers strike would give expression to the mass anger in the US over falling wages and deteriorating working conditions, and encourage other workers to go on strike, the Obama White House called for the USW to end strike. Deputy press secretary Frank Benenati wrote, We are monitoring the situation and urge labor and management to resolve their differences using the time-tested process of collective bargaining. The International Socialist Organization came to the aid of the USW and the Democratic Party when it feared that the struggle would get out from under the yoke of the trade union, rushing to the support of the USW under conditions where it was widely discredited. The sellout deal between the USW and Shell included a meager 12 percent wage increase over 4 years, and discussions with the corporations over forced overtime, outsourcing and staff levels. The union now says it will propose an 8 percent increase for each year of the new contract. No workers should believe that this will be seriously fought for by the USW when Conway just negotiated a sellout deal at ArcelorMittal and US Steel containing a mere 14 percent raise over 4 years, a pathetic amount given the enormous profits the steelmakers have extracted from the labor of workers. CNBC reported on January 10, 2019 that Energy has soared into 2019 as the best-performing sector so far this year, a stark contrast to last year when it was the worst sector in the market. The gains have been led by the rebound in oil prices, which after a precipitous drop from highs have just posted their best win streak since July 2017. The Big Five oil companies in the USRoyal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillipsmade a combined gross profit of $198.1 billion in the first three quarters of 2018. The oil giants are set to far surpass their 2017 combined gross profits of $222.4 billion. For the USW to tell workers that the oil companies cannot afford more than the pitiful union proposals is an absurdity. The oil barons howl that they cannot afford to pay workers decent wages and reduce working hours while enriching investors through stock buyback schemes and showering perks and bonuses on executives. Shell CEO Ben van Beurden announced Shell was on track to purchase $25 billion of its shares by 2020 in a stock buyback scheme that began last July. The USW has not denounced this. Instead it is determined to aid and abet oligarchs like Beurden to fleece the workers. The USW itself is controlled by highly paid bureaucrats who, in addition to earning six-figure salaries, manage multi-billion dollar pensions funds. Many of its top officials are a part of the top 5 to 1 percent of income earners. After decades of betrayals and collusion with the corporations, these organizations no longer represent the interests of the working class, but a tiny layer of the upper-middle class and corporate elite. Oil workers will remember the way in which the USW downplayed the issue of wages over the course of the 2015 struggles, instead insisting the strike was about safety. Only the World Socialist Web Site insisted that a serious fight for higher wages as well as a safe workplace required that workers mobilize independently of the USW in a fight against the capitalist profit system. When the giant oil companies made nearly $90 billion in profits in 2015, there was more than enough money to guarantee significant raises, free health care, safe workplaces, retirement, and much more to every oil worker in the US. Now, these corporations have more than doubled their wealth, but the USW still opposes a serious fight. In 2015 the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party pointed the way forward, calling for steelworkers to form rank-and-file workplace committees to organize a fight independent of the USW and link up their fight with other sections of workers coming into struggle such as autoworkers, teachers and steelworkers. The SEP linked the fight of oil workers to a socialist program, asserting that the interests of the working class take priority over the profit drive of the corporations. The SEP called for workers to reject the nationalism used by the USW to pit them against their class brethren in Asia, Latin America and Europe, and join hands with workers internationally coming into struggle. The coming year will be one of significant growth in the class struggle, as militancy and opposition to austerity and war grows among the broadest sections of the working class and youth. The Democratic Party and the unions have failed to suppress the class struggle since the 2015 oil strikes. Over the past year, numerous struggles have erupted outside of the control of the unionsincluding the teachers wildcat strikes across the US in 2018, and most recently, plantation workers in Sri Lanka, the strikes of hundreds of thousands in the yellow vest protests in France and 70,000 maquiladora workers at the US-Mexico border, who have formed their own committees independently of and in opposition to the unions, which threatens to grind the auto industry to halt. For workers to win their most basic demands, the question is raised of which class in society has political powerwho controls the means of production? Who controls the energy industry? The working class, which toils and sacrifices life and limb for the profits of the oil oligarchs, must take control of the industry in the United Statesout of the hands of the corporate parasitesand transform the energy giants into national, publicly-owned enterprises. The logic of the class struggle is toward a general strike. A strike of all oil workers in the United States will deal a massive blow to one of the worlds most powerful and critical industries and provide a lead for millions of workers coming into struggle in the US and internationally. The factional infighting tearing apart the Liberal-National Coalition, a mainstay of capitalist rule in Australia for 70 years, worsened this week when Prime Minister Scott Morrison installed indigenous businessman Warren Mundine as the Liberal Partys candidate for an electorate south of Sydney, triggering a backlash by local party members. The anointment of Mundine, an associate of ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott, overrode the party branches previous election of a local real estate agent. It is another indicator of a concerted drive to refashion the Liberal Party along Trump-style right-wing populist lines as a means of diverting mounting social discontent. Morrison, who was himself installed as party leader last August via a factional operation to oust his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, is a leading figure in the partys most right-wing faction, led by Abbott and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. By parachuting Mundine in as the partys candidate for Gilmore, on the New South Wales (NSW) south coast, Morrison and his backers have sent a message of their determination to restructure the party, even if it means a disastrous result in the imminent federal election, which must be held by mid-May. Local Liberal Party parliamentarians and branch members reacted with outrage when the partys NSW state executive moved to overturn the preselection of Grant Schultz at Morrisons behest. Schultz announced he had quit the party and would contest the seat as an independent, personally denouncing Morrison and accusing the party of betraying democracy. Long-serving NSW south coast state MP Shelley Hancock, the speaker of the NSW lower house, said it was one of the darkest days of the Liberal Party and that the prime ministers actions had ensured Labor would win the seat. In response, Morrison only stoked the conflict. He sought to justify his intervention by accusing Schultz of gaining preselection last year by bullying and undermining the previous female local member of parliament, a claim that Schultz vehemently denied. In his praise for Mundine, Morrison pointed to the actual political calculations behind his nomination. Warren has demonstrated his leadership ability over many decades, including the role he has played in reforming our welfare system, Morrison said. He has strong values on the importance of family and working hard, on respecting each other, and has demonstrated a real no excuses policy when it comes to getting things done. He will play a very significant role within our team and the direction we take in the future. In other words, Mundine is regarded as a spearhead of a sharp political shift that will include further demonising unemployed workers and other welfare recipients, demanding hard work from employees and accepting no excuses for failing to sacrifice for the alleged good of the nation. His persona as an indigenous man who reportedly rose from a poor background is seen as a valuable asset in that drive. The imposition of Mundine is particularly provocative within the context of the factional warfare wracking the Liberal Party, however, because he was not even a member of the party. He was allowed to join on the day before his nomination and granted a waiver from a party rule requiring six months membership before selection for parliament. Until last week, in fact, Mundine was a member of the Liberal Democrats, the far-right libertarian party led by Senator David Leyonhjelm. He had been eyeing a Senate nomination from that group, which demands brutal cuts to social programs and the privatisation of all government services. Before linking up with Leyonhjelm, Mundine was a prominent member of the Labor Party, rising to national president in 200607. He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate in 2001 and was defeated in a bid to gain Labor Party pre-selection for a western Sydney seat in 2004. He only quit the Labor Party in 2012 after it failed to appoint him to a Senate vacancy that year. Moreover, Mundine may be ineligible to sit in federal parliament because one of his businesses received government contracts. Mundine told reporters he would sit down with lawyers and accountants on Thursday to transfer his business interests to ensure he is not in breach of the Australian Constitution. Throughout Mundines seemingly opportunist twists and turns, there has been a consistent political thread. For decades, he has ardently praised the Hawke and Keating Labor governments of 1983 to 1996 for imposing, in partnership with the trade unions, the global pro-market program of de-regulation and privatisation at the expense of working class jobs and conditions. As a natural progression from Labors wholesale assault on behalf of big business, Mundine has been an outspoken advocate of stripping welfare payments from recipients, particularly Aboriginal people, to give them no choice but to accept low-paid work on substandard conditions. In 2015, for example, he defended the Abbott governments imposition of draconian work-for-the-dole measures on remote Aboriginal communities, saying the greatest threat to indigenous Australians was chronic welfare dependence. Together with other members of the privileged indigenous elite, Mundine has called for the breaking up of communal indigenous land ownership in favour of individual titles, to further foster the rise of a wealthy layer that exploits the labour power of impoverished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. That was why both Abbott and his 19962007 prime ministerial predecessor John Howard appointed Mundine to their indigenous advisory councils. Under Abbott, he initiated programs to allocate government contracts to indigenous businesses, including ones in which he had interests. To further promote those programs, always in the name of economic empowerment and self-determination for indigenous people, Mundine became a host on the Murdoch empires Sky News, where he has a program titled Mundine Means Business. Morrison reportedly views Mundines Sky News platform as important for agitating the small but vocal right-wing base that it attracts. Mundine has long been an ally of major mining companies, helping them overcome Aboriginal objections to proposed projects on culturally and environmentally sensitive sites. He worked with iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest on the last Labor governments indigenous jobs strategy to help mining and pastoral companies employ Aboriginal workers as cheap labour. Mundine also champions the development of nuclear reactors and has been a keynote speaker at the Sydney Institute, a right-wing think tank headed by Gerard Henderson, whose daughter, Elizabeth, a corporate banker and consultant, Mundine married in 2013. Leading corporate media outlets welcomed Mundines anointment. An Australian Financial Review editorial described him as an asset to the Liberal Party. It hailed Mundine for concluding, as a member of the most hard-done-by group in Australia that dignity and independence could only come through economic strength, not the politics of the welfare system or a culture of grievance; through schooling, securing employment, home ownership, starting businesses and raising a family, like other Australians. Australian columnist Chris Kenny wrote: It is a fine thing for the Coalition, our national affairs and our Aboriginal communities that Mundine wants to take his brand of commercial activism, self-reliance and indigenous enterprise into parliament. Mundines elevation is another demonstration of the essential bipartisan unity between Labor and the Coalitionhe has been embraced and promoted by both for decades. It also is a further warning sign of preparations for savage austerity measures, aimed at imposing the burden of a deepening economic crisis on the working class, regardless of which party heads the next government. The author also recommends: Ministers resignation highlights unravelling of Australias ruling Coalition [23 January 2019] Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian inaugurate a commemoration for the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in Paris, France, Jan. 24, 2019. Wang Yi is in Paris for the 18th consultation of the coordinators for the China-France Strategic Dialogue. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong) PARIS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday praised as "brilliant" the development of China-France relations over the past 55 years. Brilliant years are the decades of the relations between China and France, Wang said during a ceremony to launch the celebrations of the 55th anniversary of bilateral ties, an event he attended together with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. The course of the development of bilateral ties is an embodiment of the spirit of independence, mutual understanding, visionary thinking and win-win cooperation as was stated by President Xi Jinping during his trip to Paris in 2014, said Wang, who is in Paris for the 18th consultation of the coordinators for the China-France Strategic Dialogue. It was a common pursuit of independent diplomatic policies that made the establishment of bilateral ties in 1964 a brave event of the time, and France the first major Western country having diplomatic ties with China, Wang said. Mutual understanding has enabled both countries to seek common ground amid differences and negotiate difficulties in their relations, Wang said, adding that "With sufficient mutual respect, nothing can block our steps in moving forward together." In Wang's eyes, visionary thinking from strategic perspectives on both sides has helped carry bilateral ties through misty scenarios and constantly forward. "France is the first major country in the West to forge a comprehensive strategic partnership with China, and the bilateral relations, by being strategic and groundbreaking, have made special, important contributions to global peace, stability and development," Wang noted. The Chinese foreign minister also stressed win-win cooperation as a right choice for both sides in developing their relations. Thanks to win-win cooperation, Wang said, China-France relations are able to power forward, bringing tangible benefits to the two countries and peoples. 2 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] South Africa: Voter registration in full swing The Electoral Commission has confirmed that approximately 99% of the 22 925 voting stations opened on time during the final voter registration weekend. Addressing a media briefing on Saturday, IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said a steady stream of eligible voters were visiting stations to register and update their registration details. As at 11am today, approximately 140 voting stations (0.6%) around the country were not yet open due to community protests, Mamabolo said. The Electoral Commission has expressed appreciation for the rights of South Africans to protest peacefully and raise issues of concern. It appealed to all communities to exercise this right in a way which does not deny the rights of other citizens to register to vote. He said there were extensive plans that were put in place to maintain law and order by the IEC with some state departments, which have a role in the electoral process and the security agencies. Mamabolo said those plans included state deployment in known flash points and the situation is under control. Those voting stations are expected to open during the course of Saturday or on Sunday. Among the challenges experienced by registration officials at the start of the final registration weekend included dealing with inclement weather conditions in a number of provinces which had affected access to voting stations especially due to flooding or impassable roads. In particular, voting stations located in tents were affected by strong winds and heavy rains in the eastern Free State, parts of Gauteng, the coastal regions of KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Limpopo, Mamabolo said. In most cases the affected voting stations were reported operational by 11am today, once tents had been re-pitched and access to voting stations restored with the help of disaster management teams and security agencies. The Electoral Commission has urged all South Africans to make use of the final opening of voting stations this weekend to register and update addresses for the upcoming national and provincial elections. Our contact centre is experiencing high call volumes which we are efficiently handling. So far, we received 2 700 calls, 300 social media queries and 200 electronic mail since 8am. We remind those voters already registered to make use of CLICK, CHECK and CONFIRM portal on our website to update addresses or furnish them if none in on record, Mamabolo said. The IEC said almost 6 000 people living abroad have registered to vote with London having the highest number of registrations followed by Dubai. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The Trump administration and the government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) implemented new rules Friday requiring that the majority of asylum seekers from Mexico and Central America remain in Mexico while their immigration cases are considered in the United States. The total numbers of migrants from the region currently seeking asylum at US ports of entry is estimated at six to seven thousand. Previously known as Remain in Mexico, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has formally announced the new policy as the Migrant Protection Protocol (MPP). Representatives for Trump and AMLO had been negotiating the deal since last year. US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) will begin initial implementation of the MPP at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in Tijuana, which borders San Diego, California, the busiest land border crossing in the world. Three hundred sixty-five days a year, 70,000 passenger vehicles, 20,000 pedestrians, and 4,000 commercial trucks cross back and forth. Until now, migrants seeking asylum who had passed a credible fear interview were released from detention into the United States with relatives, friends, or humanitarian agencies while awaiting their court hearing, a process that can take years because of a backlog of more than 800,000 cases. The new policy will prohibit the release of the asylum seekers to family or other support networks that might provide for them and compel them to languish homeless in the streets of Tijuana or rent short-term lodging, which the vast majority cannot afford. According to Syracuse Universitys Transactional Access Records Clearinghouse, the wait time for most asylum cases can be nearly two years. An anonymous DHS official told NBC News and the Washington Post on Thursday that under the MPP, asylum applicants will get a notice to appear that requires them to return to the San Ysidro entry on a specific date for US officials to take them to a hearing in downtown San Diego. In the meantime, border personnel would set up a telephone number for the asylum seekers to call for updates on their cases. The official further stated that the new policy would not apply to vulnerable groups, presumably children, unaccompanied minors, pregnant women, and the ill. In a weak attempt to portray the new policy as humanitarian, he added, If they express a fear of returning to Mexico, this doesnt apply. The MPP is in outright violation of international refugee and asylum law, which mandates that persons presenting themselves for asylum must be granted safe entry to the country where they are seeking refuge while they await proceedings. This is regardless of whether their case is accepted or denied in the end. Advocates and legal counselors have also denounced the number ledger system being used by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) as a violation of international asylum and refugee law, noting that it is illegal for the US to decide they are only going to process a certain number, currently between 200 and 300 per month. The MPP and related measures targeting asylum seekers are part of the Trump administrations efforts to whip up right-wing and fascistic support to scapegoat immigrants in the face of widespread teachers rebellions, anger by government workers on the verge of destitution, and the general movement of the international working class against austerity and for social equality. Trump claimed this past Wednesday in a White House press conference that Central American countries are directing people to leave, I actually think they encourage the caravans because they want to get rid of the people from their country ... We have a lot of very dangerous people that want to come into our country. And were not letting them in. Reiterating that claim, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement. For far too long, our immigration system has been exploited by smugglers, traffickers, and those who have no legal rights to remain in the United States. No doubt the calls by Matamoran auto parts workers for their counterparts in the US and internationally to join their strike and cast aside their unions is being considered in the escalation of the assault on the rights of immigrants. These baseless and continued attempts by the Trump administration to associate the migrant caravans with criminal elements are nothing but an effort to prepare the population for continued bloody crackdowns at the border. In December, US military and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) fired tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bang grenades at desperate workers and their families at the San Ysidro Port of entry. Recent revelations of Federal spending records show enormous arms and ammunition purchases by CBP to assault the caravan. One, for $108,464, is labeled: AMMUNITION FOR CARAVAN EFFORT. Another, for $16,906, reads: EMERGENCY PURCHASE OF RIOT GEAR IN RESPONSE TO CENTRAL AMERICA MIGRANT CARAVAN. Meanwhile, on Mexicos southern border with Guatemala, thousands of migrants have gathered and are awaiting humanitarian visas to enable them to continue their journey north. Mexico has received more than 12,000 petitions for humanitarian visas, which allow recipients to remain in Mexico for one year. However, AMLO has openly embraced the dirty work of the Trump administration to close the door to Central American immigrants at Mexicos southern border. Legal advocates warn that allowing Mexico to become what is known in asylum law as a safe third country could permit US immigration officials to argue in the future that asylum in the United States is no longer necessary if refugees have safety in Mexico. Such a designation is entirely at odds with the reality of life in Mexico, where nearly 28 million people live in extreme poverty, the majority of whom are concentrated in rural areas. A United Nations study found that 14 percent of children suffer from stunted growth as a result of malnutrition and over half of Mexican children live in poverty. Half of Mexicos 127 million residents do not earn enough to meet basic needs, and one in five suffers from hunger. The Center of Investigation and Documentation of Housing and the Federal Mortgage Society reports that around 34 million Mexicans reside in crowded and inadequate housing with more than two persons per room living in shack homes built from poor materials such as cardboard and reeds. According to the 2019 World Report on Human Rights abuses in Mexico, between December 2012 and January 2018 the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) received more than 4,600 complaints of abuses by the military. Additionally, 64 percent of the prison population reported having suffered physical violence at the hands of state officials. Of these, 19 percent reported receiving electrical shocks; 36 percent being choked, held underwater, or smothered; and 59 percent being hit or kicked. In addition, 28 percent reported that they were threatened that their family would be harmed, it noted. The country also faces a skyrocketing homicide rate. Mexicos Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection recorded 33,341 intentional homicides in 2018, a 15 percent increase over 2017, making 2018 the deadliest on record, with an average of 91 deaths a day. Notably absent from the coverage of the caravan is the fact that there are thousands of Mexicans, particularly from rural areas, who are seeking asylum in the United States, fleeing the same conditions as their Central American counterparts. They have also spent endless months and years languishing in Tijuana as they seek refuge in the US. The implementation of the MPP comes on the heels of multiple lawsuits filed against the Trump administrations punishing treatment of more than 10,000 immigrant children held in detention centers across the country. On Friday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a class action lawsuit that accuses the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) of targeting undocumented sponsors of unaccompanied children. The SPLC claims that the ORR worked with immigration officers to arrest the sponsor if they were determined to be undocumented. Lawyers claim that in the past year at least 170 willing sponsors have been arrested and put into deportation proceedings. The aspirations of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border are the same as those of the international working class, the only social force capable of defend the rights of the asylum seekers. They seek jobs, homes, health care, educational opportunities, stability, and a life free of state and gang violence. What is required is the unity of the American, Mexican, and Latin American working class fighting for a socialist program which would include a multi-trillion-dollar program to rebuild Central America, to be paid for by expropriating the wealth of the billionaires in the US and throughout the Americas. After two weeks of wildcat strikes, tens of thousands of maquiladora workers in the Mexican city of Matamoros, next to the border with the United States, continue to expand their struggle. At 2 p.m. on Friday, the official, legally-sanctioned strike began after the main trade union was compelled to file a legal strike announcement last week when workers refused to abide by the unions back-to-work orders. As soon as the 2 p.m. deadline struck, workers across the city placed red-and-black flags traditionally used to declare a strike on the main gates, cheering and recording social media videos as their fellow workers still inside walked out enthusiastically. In the last moment Thursday and Friday, four maquiladoras (Polytech, CTS, Core and AFX) agreed to the $1,700 raise and the 20 percent bonus that workers have demanded. However, the overwhelming majority of companies have refused, fearing that any concessions will encourage workers across Mexico and internationally to rebel against their bought-and-paid-for unions and unleash a mass working class movement for social equality. Instead, theyve sought to bait workers with pitiful bonuses, the removal of machinery and threats of plant closures, mass layoffs and criminal charges against militant workers. Workers are sharing new details on how they began building independent committees to conduct their strike. An auto parts worker at Autoliv, which was the first plant to go on the wildcat strike in Matamoros, told the WSWS that on January 12, as soon as workers realized that the union and management were conspiring to rob them of mandated bonuses and a raise, they elected five workers as a committee independent of the trade union to organize a strike and fight for our rights and what belongs to us. He continued: The function of these independent committees was that deals could not be made under the table anymore between the union and the companies, since there were workers there telling us what was being said and agreed to. I think that, indeed, the independent committees are much more useful than the union because we asked ourselves, This is the proposal, what do we do?something that the union never did. Another auto parts worker who is employed at Fisher Dynamics described how her maquiladora joined the strike on January 15: My co-workers began talking, Our situation is backbreaking, there are too many hours, too much pressure from the union, the union delegates are always on the side of the company and never in favor of workers and were also opposing the $1,700 bonus and 20 percent raise Then, two of them said, Well, we are tired of this, right? Look at what the other plants are doing, I think we can win. Lets do something about it! Fearful of the growing strength of these committees, the companies and the trade union requested a federal intervention in the days prior. At 1 PM on Friday, the sub-secretary of labor, Alfredo Dominguez Marrufo, and the federal representative for the state of Tamaulipas, Jose Ramon Gomez Leal, who was sent personally by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO) of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), held a press conference to request that workers accept a postponement of ten days or more for further negotiations to avoid a strike that could lead to unexpected consequences. Given that heavily-armed soldiers of the Navy and police have already been harassing workers at the picket lines, this warning needs to be taken as a serious and lethal threat by the AMLO government against workers. Workers have reportedly begun organizing self-defense networks to protect themselves as the strike enters its third week. On Thursday, one plant announced that it would close down and leave 1,700 workers and their families without their sustenance. Then, management and union leaders at about a dozen plants locked workers inside the plants on Friday, refusing to recognize the beginning of the official strike. Some presented workers illegal documents provided by the Matamoros labor conciliation council to keep them inside. Union officials claimed to have their hands tied and defended the action. At the same time, autoworkers in the United States and Canada have confirmed to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter that the strike is causing auto parts shortages across the industry. On Friday, the Commerce Chamber (Canaco) in Matamoros warned government authorities that the strike would cost slightly over $6 million in monthly losses to the entire economy of the city. After the first week of the strike, however, the Maquiladoras Association of Matamoros reported that the companies had lost more than $100 million. Commentators have pointed out that the payment of the bonus and wage increase would be less than $200 million for the entire year. Such figures reflect the enormous extraction of profits by the transnational corporations. Hundreds of millions are channeled into the pockets of their executives and to financial investors with the rubber stamp of the government in the form of enormous tax handouts and land, backed by police state repression. Bernardo, a worker on strike, told the WSWS, The companies are losing more than we are asking. That tells me they can pay and just want to keep all workers in misery. He warned his fellow workers, Its almost certain that the federal government is betraying us, and if they use federal force against us, things are going to get ugly and a federal intervention against us will be a problem meriting a revolution. He expressed support for fighting for a general strike across North America to face corporate and government threats, saying, it would be a major blow against the corporations. In the United States, amid a virtual blackout of the Matamoros strike in the international media, the Trump administration continues to cultivate its fascistic and dictatorial base through its anti-Mexican and racist demagogy. Using the same scapegoating tactics, Canadian and US trade unions are working overtime to undermine the growing solidarity between workers across North America. At a Friday morning press conference, the leader of the Canadian autoworkers union Unifor, Jerry Dias, announced a boycott of General Motors cars made in Mexico. This is an outright attack on Mexican autoworkers. It would produce job losses in Mexico and across North America as well, with GM indicating that there are more than 60 Ontario-based auto parts companies supporting Mexico production. Contrary to the nationalism of the unions, workers in the US and Canada are calling for advancing their own international solution to the crisis of the capitalist system. An autoworker in Oshawa, Canada denounced Dias to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter for spreading Mexican hate and opposition. Its so obvious the dividing orders have been given so we dont support their cause, he said. The corporations, unions and media are all revealing themselves for what they are. The more this Mexico thing spreads, the more it exposes their corrupt intentions. On January 16, the Mexican political establishment sent labor lawyer and Morena-tied activist Susana Prieto to intervene. She won the initial confidence of workers by expressing support for the strike and feigning sympathy for their hatred of the abusive trade unions and management. However, she has worked to suffocate and confuse the independent initiative of workers, from telling workers they cant free themselves from the union to creating illusions that a federal intervention will benefit workers and sidelining the work that rank-and-file committees have been doing in communicating democratically with their fellow workers and deciding on steps to take. On Friday morning, she insisted that workers not prevent companies from taking machinery away before the official strike and that they be ready to comply with a postponement of the strike if the union demanded one. Prieto desperately exhorted, This is not the time to fight with your union delegates, lying to skeptical workers that union delegates are nothing but workers like you with a license to represent. Workers must oppose the road being proposed by Prieto and reject the straitjacket of appealing to the corrupt trade union bureaucracy and the capitalist AMLO government, whose only response to any challenge to the capitalist interests it serves will be to violently suppress the strike. On the contrary, the Matamoros workers must continue developing their independent strength through the incipient strike committees. Workers have the initiative. They are shaking up the entire North American auto industry. They can build their strength by forming a citywide strike committee with rank-and-file representatives from each plant to take full control of the struggle and appeal to their class brothers and sisters in the United States, Canada and beyond. Workers who wish to form a common international strategy should contact us by email at autoworkers@wsws.org or via our Facebook page in order to take up these crucial steps. For more information on the February 9 rally in Detroit, visit wsws.org/auto wsws.org/auto. International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) supporters in India have been campaigning among university students in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal, for the forthcoming March 10 public meeting to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Fourth International. The Indian Trotskyists hosted a similar public meeting on November 18 in Chennai, which was addressed by Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) assistant national secretary Deepal Jayasekera. The Kolkata meeting will also be addressed by a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party, which is the Sri Lankan section of the ICFI, the world Trotskyist movement. I support all the things that this party is doing, Suman, a Jadavpur University student, told ICFI supporters. The struggle for socialism should be conducted on an international scale or else it will collapse like the Soviet Union. Suman, like several other students at Jadavpur University, agreed that there was an urgent need for the development of an international revolutionary party of the working class to fight the US-led preparations for war against China and the Modi governments austerity attacks on Indian workers and the rural poor. Suman was contemptuous of all other Indian political parties, including the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, which he said were completely indifferent to the plight of working people. He spoke strongly in favour of a revolutionary transformation of the capitalist system and said he was interested in joining the Trotskyist movement. ICFI campaigners explained to students the significance of resurgence of the international working class and the growing rebellion against the trade unions. They also distributed copies of the WSWS article on Indias recent two-day general strike which pointed out the duplicitous role played by the CPM and the other Stalinist parliamentary party, the Communist Party of India and their respective unions. Like their counterparts internationally, these unions function as an industrial police force for the corporations and capitalist governments. There was broad agreement among students that the CPM was part of the Indian capitalist establishment. The CPM-led Left Front government, which ruled West Bengal for more than 30 years until 2011, had ruthlessly imposed the free-market reforms demanded by Indian big business and global investors. The students also voiced their concerns about the increasing attacks on democratic rights by the current Trinamool Congress (TMC)-led government in West Bengal. Student protests have been ongoing on university campuses against the imposition of a council system, which would completely abolish the democratically-elected student unions. The ICFI supporters explained that political responsibility for the growth of the right-wing TMC and the coming to power of Prime Minister Modis Hindu communalist BJP rested with the CPM-led Left Front and its affiliated trade unions. The Stalinist CPM had isolated striking workers and politically subordinated the working class to Indian big business parties, such as Congress, and various caste-based regional parties. The suppression of any independent movement of the working class was exploited by the extreme right and communalist forces to divide the working class and intensify the government attacks. Gaurab, another student from Jadavpur University, was enthusiastic about the socialist program of the Trotskyist movement. I totally support the thought that a workers government should have the ultimate power so that the common people get the benefits, he said. Durpayan told ICFI campaigners that he was in support of the Socialist Equality Partys ideology and definitely with working-class struggles, while another student, Soumayjit, added: We need to raise the peoples consciousness. A student from Darjeeling said he agreed with workers taking democratic control of the major industries as part of the fight for socialism. Even the tea plantation workers are being laid off. I support them taking over all the big tea estates, such as Duncans [one of Indias largest tea producers]. An ex-member of the Student Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the CPM, said: Ive been with the SFI before and have seen how they collaborate with big shots and powerful people. The SFI follows the line dictated by the CPM and that is why I have left the SFI. Another student, Tanmoy, spoke about the rising danger of war. The threat of world war by the ruling classes is dangerous for all of us. This can only be prevented by uniting the working class. Workers in India lack a collective leadership to voice their opinions. ICFI campaigners explained how the ICFI and the WSWS were committed to providing that kind of leadership. Ritojit responded to an ICFI campaigners explanation of Stalins repudiation of world socialist revolution and his embrace of socialism in one country, an anti-Marxist and nationalist program. The Stalinist deviation of the world Marxist movement was responsible for one disaster after another, Ritojit said. Workers movements must be unified in order to deal with the deviation caused by Stalinist parties which continue to betray workers interests. Over the past two weeks, hundreds of detainees have launched hunger strikes against the inhumane conditions to which they are subjected in immigration centres across Australia. Around 200 detainees at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) centre initiated the wave of protests on January 9. Days later, on January 14, some 250 immigrants at the Yongah Hill detention centre in Western Australia also began a hunger strike. The MITA protest initially ended after a week when officials agreed to paltry improvements to the facility, including curtains for toilets and showers that were built without doors. The detainees, however, renewed the action last Monday morning. Hunger strikes were reported this week also at the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney and the Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation facility in Queensland. The striking detainees describe their living conditions as worse than a prison. They have small rations of food, which they say is awful, and are denied second portions. The inmates are locked inside their rooms between midnight and 7 a.m. They sleep on metal bunks and have only metal chairs. MITA, in the northwestern Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows, was built in 2008. It is Australias newest detention facility, staffed by private contractor Serco. The hunger strike began after a video shot at MITAs South compound showed a detainee being set upon by five guards and dragged out of the mess hall. His fellow detainees said he had asked for garlic with his food. Another prisoner who tried to intervene in defence of his friend was forcibly restrained by three guards and dragged from the room. In 2017, the governments own Australian Human Rights Commission reported that guards used excessive restraints at MITA. The commission also condemned the limited space and privacy at MITA. Despite a blackout of their struggle by the Australian corporate media, detainees have spoken out about the conditions they face. Issa Andrwas, a Jordanian detainee at Yongah Hill, told the New Zealand Newshub website: The hunger strike, we have been doing it since Monday, weve started losing weight because were having only water. Andrwas said the strikers feared reprisals. He said: Anyone whos protesting, theyre gonna ship to different centres, and were not getting visas, because were showing the world whats been happening in here. Yongah Hill detainee Lee Barber, originally from New Zealand but who has been living in Australia for 45 years, told Television New Zealand (TVNZ) that detainees want their freedom. He did not know how long he could continue the strike saying: Theres been no medical come around. Paula Maka Smith, another New Zealander at Yongah Hill, told Newshub: All races all together, you know. Were all here together. The system has failed us. The Department of Home Affairs blithely denies that any hunger strikes have occurred. An Australian Border Force spokesperson last week claimed there was no mass hunger strike. Rather, some detainees are refusing to attend regular meal times as part of a protest, but they continue to eat and drink in other parts of the facility. Many of the detainees are refugees who fled US-led and Australian-backed wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Others have escaped persecution by Australian-supported regimes in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Most spend years at the detention centres waiting for their visa applications to be approved, or for deportation after their visas have been cancelled. Some who have taken part in the hunger strikes have lived in Australia for decades. They are victims of a visa crackdown by the Liberal-National Coalition government with the full support of the Labor Party opposition. The Coalition and Labor passed changes to the Migration Act in 2014 allowing non-citizens, including permanent residents, to be deported if convicted of crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 12 months or more. A number of those targeted are New Zealand citizens who have lived in Australia for most of their lives. The 12-month figure is cumulative. People who have been convicted during their lifetime of minor offences potentially carrying a combined sentence of 12 months imprisonment can be deported. In some cases, visas have been cancelled for traffic offences. The Coalition government boasts that it has cancelled 4,150 visas since 2014, compared with 582 cancellations between 2009 and 2013. In a media release last year, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Immigration Minister David Coleman foreshadowed a further amendment to the Migration Act, expected to be passed in parliaments first sitting period of 2019. The release was laced with xenophobia, declaring: Foreign nationals who think they can flout our laws and harm Australian citizens should expect to have their visa cancelled. The deportation measures have been linked to the racist campaign against African youth, based on bogus claims of an African gangs crisis in Melbourne. Earlier this month, the Australian reported a marked increase in the number of Sudanese nationals having their visas cancelled in the past two years. All the official parliamentary parties promote anti-immigrant prejudice to divide the working class and divert attention from their own responsibility for the deepening social crisis confronting millions of people. Labor and the trade unions seek to blame foreign workers for the growth of unemployment and poverty that is the result of their decades-long imposition of pro-business policies. Labor has played a central role in the persecution of refugees. In 1992, the federal Labor government of Paul Keating introduced mandatory detention for all asylum-seekers who arrive by boat. In 2012, the Greens-backed Labor government of Julia Gillard reopened the concentration camps on Nauru and Manus Island and decreed that the refugees imprisoned there would never be allowed into Australia. The only alternative to the nationalist poison being promoted by the political and media establishment is the fight for the unity of all workers in a common struggle against the source of the deepening social crisis: the capitalist profit system. The author also recommends: Another suicide in Australian immigration prison camp [27 June 2018] Nauru expels another doctor amid growing protests over Australias refugee detention centres [20 October 2018] Government declares child refugees will not remain in Australia [8 November 2018] A shortage of air traffic controllers on Friday morning at airports on the East Coast of the United States, but particularly in Washington, D. C., and Florida, caused the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to substantially slow air traffic throughout the region, the most populous part of the US. According to media reports, Arriving flights from Newark International and Philadelphia International airports were being delayed by an average of 41 minutes at one point. Later, LaGuardia released a statement saying, Due to staffing shortages at FAA air traffic control centers along the East Coast, there are major delays at LGA. At about 9:00 a.m Eastern Standard Time on Friday, the FAA suspended air arrivals into LaGuardia altogether and issued a statement that read, in part: We have experienced a slight increase in sick leave at two facilities. We are mitigating the impact by augmenting staffing, rerouting traffic and increasing spacing between aircraft as needed. Air traffic controllers are among the 500,000 federal employees who have been obliged to work without pay for 35 days. Some 300,000 others were furloughed, also without pay. Many of these workers, who have now missed two paychecks, were unable to work because of the stress and fatigue of second and third jobs they have been forced to take to make ends meet. Flights were significantly delayed at Orlando, Florida and Newark, New Jersey, as well as Boston. While the traffic ban at LaGuardia, known as a ground stop, was lifted after 90 minutes, long delays remained for travelers at the airport, which was already overburdened by the general decay of transportation infrastructure in New York. Delays averaged an hour-and-a-half. The FAAs bland announcement concealed a rapidly developing crisis. Anger has reached a boiling point among hundreds of the thousands of federal workers unable to pay their bills, including airport workers such as passenger and baggage screeners employed by the Transportation Security Administration and air traffic controllers. Food pantries had to be stocked to supply the needs of many federal workers and their families. The indignation of these workers only increased after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a billionaire, in response to a question by a reporter who noted that federal workers were being forced into homeless shelters, said that there really is not a good excuse for workers not to have savings. Not only were federal workers under considerable pressureall the more so in the case of air traffic controllers, who are understaffed and normally work under stressful conditionsbut the health and safety of the public was being endangered by the partial government shutdown. The eruption of federal worker anger was foreseeable, especially given the example set by the rise in militancy by workers around the world in recent weeks, from the Los Angeles teachers to the Matamoros autoworkers along the US-Mexican border. In fact, the trade union executives who have oversight over employees in the airline industry warned the ruling class of the potential for working class action. On Wednesday, National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Paul Rinaldi, Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) President Joe DePete and Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) President Sara Nelson issued a joint statement about what was already an escalating situation facing federal air travel workers. It said, in part: Staffing in our air traffic control facilities is already at a 30-year low and controllers are only able to maintain the systems efficiency and capacity by working overtime, including 10-hour days and 6-day workweeks at many of our nations busiest facilities. Due to the shutdown, the FAA has frozen hiring and shuttered its training academy, so there is no plan in effect to fill the FAAs critical staffing need. Even if the FAA were hiring. While feigning concern over traveler safety, the union executives were acutely aware of the mounting anger of the memberships of their organizations and feared, above all, a revolt from below that could destabilize their political alliance with the Democratic Party. Calls for strike action were becoming increasingly popular on social media. On Friday, some air traffic controllers clearly felt they could take no more, although to what extent the sick calls were part of a conscious plan is not yet clear. But, as one air traffic controller in the New York area told the World Socialist Web Site: "Whatever ATC [air traffic controller] shortage there was, it was not from the union leadership." This should be contrasted to this statement from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE): "We took to the streets for days on end. And we won!" Yesterday was dubbed a "Day of Action" by AFGE. But, as another federal worker told the WSWS, So far as I could tellI scoured the web and signed up to be notified by them of any ralliestheir day of action consisted of inaction everywhere but a small rally in Philly. World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke to passengers and staff at LaGuardia Airport yesterday morning at the height of the delays and found, despite the inconvenience, widespread support for federal workers and contempt for the political establishment Natasha, a passenger from Canada traveling with a group of friends, waited while her flight to Miami was delayed. Commenting on a month without wages for federal workers, she said, "It's unfair to the workers. They have homes, car payments, education, they have families. This is not right." Despite her delay, Natasha supported the actions of air traffic controllers. "It shows what workers have to do," she said. "They have to not come to work, completely shut it down. If they're not getting paid, they have to walk out. "If they stick togetherit's like when Colin Kaepernick started the [NFL anthem] protest and everyone followed. They got rid of him, and he got a Nike deal anyway, but they can't get rid of everyone." A gate assistant at Terminal B in the airport, who did not want to be named, told the WSWS, "Not getting paid for a month, I would want to take action. It's up to them to determine what that is, but you need to do what you need to do. "If they were all to walk out it would be chaos," she said. "I'm not sure what our president would do because he's so stubborn, but I know it would be chaos. Portion of Franklin Road now dedicated to fallen Brentwood officer one year after his death CENTERVILLE, TN (WSMV) - We now know the identities of two tractor-trailer drivers who were killed on I-40 in Hickman County on Thursday. Tennessee Highway Patrol said a 2012 Kenworth tractor-trailer driven by 58-year-old Johnny F. Smith of Smyrna, TN was traveling westbound on I-40 around mile marker 152 when the truck went off the roadway and struck the concrete barrier, crossing over the median into the eastbound lane, and striking the front end of a 2000 Volvo tractor-trailer driven by 44-year-old Muriz Smajic of Desplaines, IL. Smith's tractor-trailer came to a final rest with it's cab facing northbound in the eastbound fast lane, and it's trailer facing westbound in the eastbound fast lane. The tractor-trailer driven by Smajic came to a final rest facing eastbound in the slow lane. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. The condition of a passenger in the crash is unknown, and additional details about that passenger including which vehicle the passenger was in was not given. A GoFundMe was set up to help the family of Smajic. Original story posted January 25, 2019: BUCKSNORT, TN (WSMV) - The eastbound lanes of Interstate 40 remain closed as officials investigate a collision that killed two drivers in Hickman County. Hickman county wreck The wreck happened just after 6:30 a.m. Thursday. According to the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the driver of a tractor-trailer crossed over the median from the westbound lanes and hit another tractor-trailer in the eastbound lanes. Both drivers were killed in the head-on collision. A passenger of one of the trucks remains in critical condition. The crash happened near Exit 152 for Bucksnort Road just after 6:30 a.m. I-40 is not expected to reopen until 2:30 p.m. Authorities have not released the names of the victims at this time. Stay with News4 for updates on this developing story. Wondering where to go on your next vacation? Here is a list of the most beautiful countries in the world to round out your travel bucket list with some breathtaking sights. Switzerland Gornergrat tourist train with waterfall, bridge and the Matterhorn. Zermatt, Switzerland. Image credit: emperorcosar/Shutterstock From awe-inspiring views of the Matterhorn to peaceful lakes and graceful waterfalls, Switzerland provides captivating scenes border to border. Visit the cosmopolitan cities of Zurich or alluring lakeside village of Morcote for picture-perfect imagery. Immerse yourself in Switzerlands natural beauty on a mountain train ride or hiking Eiger, Jungfrau, or Mnch Mountain ranges. And be sure to sample plenty of Swiss cheese and chocolate along the way. New Zealand Milford Sound, New Zealand. Image credit: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock This compact nation is full of towering mountains, epic rainforests, and flowing waterfalls. With an array of compelling color palates, Lake Tekapos purple and pink-hued lupins inspire the soul. Cruising the fjords of Milford Sound offers majestic waterfront views while the bustling cities of Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, bring inspiring architecture and renowned landmarks. Ireland Slieve League, Ireland. Image credit: MNStudio/Shutterstock Unmistakably one of the most picturesque countrysides in the world, Ireland offers some of the most memorable scenic drives. Cruise the Ring of Kerry to witness some of the nations best landscapes and charming villages. With historic castles in the distance and sheep grazing along the way, Irelands breathtaking vistas are truly remarkable. The capital city of Dublin offers cobblestone street and the freshest Guinness around. South Africa Cape Town, South Africa. Image credit: Dereje/Shutterstock Touted as one of the best African safari destinations, travellers flock to the region for its Big Five wild animals while taking its countrys natural beauty. From views atop the Drakensberg Mountain to the abundance of wildflowers in Namaqualand, its no wonder South Africa makes the list of beautiful counties. This diverse land also offers miles of pristine beaches and acres of vineyards, adding to the countrys appeal. China The Great Wall, China. Image credit: zhu difeng/Shutterstock As the worlds fourth-largest nation by area, China delivers some of the most diverse natural scenery on the planet. From sparkling lake regions and mystical mountain ranges to ancient Chinese villages, this countrys beauty is inspiring. The beauty of the Great Wall of China attracts over 10 million tourists a year. Brazil Botafogo Bay, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Image credit: marchello74/Shutterstock Massive waterfalls and blue lagoons, exotic rainforests and bustling cities, Brazil draws millions of tourists each year, and for good reason. Vibrant cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo offer iconic landmarks steeped in history, while its diverse ecosystem is experienced within its national parks. Italy Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, Italy. Image credit: givaga/Shutterstock Known for ancient landmarks, rolling hills, and cliffside vistas, Italy is a popular travel destination. With some of the most photographed locations in the world within its borders, Italys scenery is easily recognizable. From the canals of Venice to Roman ruins to the Amalfi coast and vineyards of Tuscany, Italy offers unforgettable imagery. Plus, Italy's culture of food means you will always eat well within its borders. India Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Image credit: Boris Stroujko/Shutterstock The beauty of India reaches far beyond the Taj Mahal. Home to some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the world, Indias natural beauty is something to experience. With snow-capped mountain ranges, and salt marshes, and miles of sand dunes, the county offers a diverse selection of natural beauty. The country includes several national parks with beautiful creatures like Bengal tigers and elephants. United States Joshua Tree National Park, California, United States. Image credit: Dennis Silvas/Shutterstock Dotted with national parks and iconic scenic landmarks, the United States exudes beauty from coast to coast. Whether hiking the Grand Canyon, watching the sunrise from Maines Acadia National Park, or gazing up at the giant sequoias, its picturesque landscape is known world-wide. Canada Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park, Canada. Image credit: i viewfinder/Shutterstock Canadian provinces and territories are bursting with some of the most breathtaking scenery found in the world. The nations parks and remote landscapes offer stunning views from its mountain tops vistas and lakeside shores. The alpine lake of Lake Louise, located in Banff National Park, is one of Canada's most photographed locations. Travelers flock to Niagara Falls and Prince Edward Island to experience their beauty and visit vibrant cities like Quebec City and Montreal for urban vibes and intriguing architecture. Kim Divan, 66 years old, of Woodward, OK passed away at his home on Saturday, June 12. He was born in Nebraska but spent his childhood and most of his adult life in Palmdale, CA until moving to Oklahoma in 2005. Kim liked to have a good time and enjoyed his motorcycles and fishing. He will b FORT EDWARD, N.Y. (AP) - A 16-year-old has admitted he killed his 15-year-old friend in an Adirondack home. Adrian Sawyer pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge Thursday at Washington County Court. The Post-Star of Glens Falls reports lawyers say despite the guilty plea, the motivation for the slaying of Maverick Bowman will likely never be known. Sawyer agreed to serve 20-years-to-life in state prison for the death. An arson charge that was filed in connection with a fire Sawyer allegedly set in the home after he killed Bowman will be dropped as part of the plea deal. The judge did not ask Sawyer to go into detail about how Bowman's death occurred. Both Sawyer's lawyer and the prosecution say it appears Sawyer was unable to say why he killed his friend. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) UTICA, N.Y. - The Grand Marshal for the 2019 Saint Patrick's Day Parade will be John Sullivan. The announcement was made Friday night at the annual HalfWay Hooley, held at the Saranac Brewery. "I'm absolutely thrilled," Sullivan said. "I feel it's a great honor, I'm just crazy about it." Sullivan is the first born of first generation in the United States, his parents are both from Ireland and being nominated as the Grand Marshal and being Irish, is not something Sullivan takes lightly. "Anytime you get an achievement or an honor like this, it's because of the people you're surrounded with," Sullivan said. "And I'm so happy to be Irish." Sullivan is the construction manager for the Irish Cultural Center that is being built in Utica, and he is very active in the Irish community. He also says he is excited for the Great American Irish Festival. The festival is in Frankfort, N.Y. and will be held on July 26 through July 28. "Anyone that's ever gone down to that festival has enjoyed themselves, it's great music, a lot of dancing," Sullivan said. The Saint Patrick's Day Parade is scheduled for March 16. AmerisourceBergen Corporation sources and distributes pharmaceutical products in the United States and internationally. Its Pharmaceutical Distribution segment distributes brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter healthcare products, home healthcare supplies and equipment, outsourced compounded sterile preparations, and related services to various healthcare providers, including acute care hospitals and health systems, independent and chain retail pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, medical clinics, long-term care and other alternate site pharmacies, and other customers. It also provides pharmacy management, staffing, and other consulting services; supply management software to retail and institutional healthcare providers; and packaging solutions to various institutional and retail healthcare providers. In addition, this segment distributes plasma and other blood products, injectable pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and other specialty products; provides other services primarily to physicians who specialize in various disease states, primarily oncology, as well as to other healthcare providers, including hospitals and dialysis clinics; and offers data analytics, outcomes research, and additional services for biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company's Other segment provides integrated manufacturer services, such as clinical trial support, product post-approval, and commercialization support; offers specialty transportation and logistics services for the biopharmaceutical industry; and sells pharmaceuticals, vaccines, parasiticides, diagnostics, micro feed ingredients, and various other products to customers in both the companion animal and production animal markets, as well as provides demand-creating sales force services to manufacturers. AmerisourceBergen Corporation was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. Read More SRC Energy Inc., an oil and natural gas company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids primarily in the Denver-Julesburg Basin of Colorado. As of December 31, 2018, it had net proved oil and natural gas reserves of 88 million barrels of oil and condensate, 771.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and 89.1 million barrels of natural gas liquids; and operated 985 net producing wells, as well as had 95,200 gross and 86,200 net acres under lease in the Wattenberg Field. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Sealed Air: AFP (Shanghai) Limited, AFP Inc. (Branch), AFPTOH LTD, Aconcagua Distribuciones SRL, Air Ride Pallets Hong Kong Limited, Austin Foam Plastics Inc., Auto-C LLC, Automated Packaging Systems, B+ Equipment, B+ Equipment SAS, Beacon Holdings LLC, Biosphere Industries, BluPack (New Zealand), Blue Dot Packaging Pty Ltd., CPI Packaging Inc., CPI Packaging Systems Inc., Cactus (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Cactus Shanghai Trading Co. Ltd., Ciras C.V., Ciras C.V. - Luxembourg Branch, Ciras C.V. Luxembourg Branch, Cleanwise Inc., Cryovac (Malaysia) SDN. BHD, Cryovac (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Cryovac Brasil Ltda., Cryovac Chile Holdings LLC, Cryovac Holdings II LLC, Cryovac Inc., Cryovac International Holdings Inc., Cryovac LLC, Cryovac Leasing Corporation, Cryovac Londrina Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal - Embalagens Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal Embalagens Ltda, Cryovac Sweden AB, Cryovac-Sealed Air de Costa Rica S.R.L., DELTAPLAM Embalagens Industria e Comercio, Deltaplam Embalagens Industria e Comercio Ltda, Diversey, Diversey Australia Pty. Ltd., Diversey Austria Trading GmbH, Diversey B.V., Diversey Belgium BVBA, Diversey Brasil Industria Quimica Ltda., Diversey Canada Inc., Diversey Centroamerica S.A., Diversey Danmark ApS, Diversey Hungary Acting Off-shore Capital Management Limited Liability Company, Diversey J Trustee Limited, Diversey Trustee Limited, Diversey Ceska republika s.r.o. clen koncernu Diversey, Entapack Pty. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packing Co. Ltd. (Chongqing Branch), Fagerdala (Chongqing) Packaging Co. Ltd. (Branch), Fagerdala (Huiyang) Packaging Co. Ltd, Fagerdala (Huiyang) Packaging Co. Ltd. (Branch), Fagerdala (Shanghai) Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shanghai) Polymer Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shenzhen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packing Co. Ltd. (Hefei Branch), Fagerdala (Thailand) Limited, Fagerdala (Xiamen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Leamchabung Limited, Fagerdala Leamchabung Ltd., Fagerdala Malaysia Sdn Bhd., Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V. (Chihuahua Branch), Fagerdala Mexico Supply Chain S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Packaging Inc. (Indiana), Fagerdala Shanghai Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd, Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd (Branch), Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Limited, Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Limited (Taiwan Branch), Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Ltd., Fagerdala Suzhou Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Suzhou Packaging Co. Ltd. (Hefei Branch), Fagerdala Thailand Ltd., GEIE VES, Getpacking.com GmbH, Indonesian Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Invertol S. de R.L. de C.V., JCS Sealed Air Kaustik, JSC Sealed Air Kaustik, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal Limited, Nelipak Holdings, Pack-Tiger GmbH, Packaging C.V., ProAseptic Technologies S.L., Producembal - Producao de Embalagens Ltda., Proxy Biomedical Ltd., Reflectix Inc., SLD Air Packaging Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Saddle Brook Insurance Company, Sealed Air (Asia) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (Barbados) S.R.L., Sealed Air (Canada) Co./CIE, Sealed Air (Canada) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Limited, Sealed Air (China) Ltd., Sealed Air (India) Limited, Sealed Air (Israel) Ltd., Sealed Air (Korea) Limited, Sealed Air (Latin America) Holdings II LLC, Sealed Air (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sealed Air (New Zealand), Sealed Air (Philippines) Inc., Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Sealed Air (Thailand) Limited, Sealed Air (Ukraine) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Pty.) Limited, Sealed Air Americas Manufacturing S. de R. L. de C. V., Sealed Air Argentina S.A., Sealed Air Australia (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Pty Ltd., Sealed Air Australia Pty. Limited, Sealed Air B.V., Sealed Air Belgium N.V., Sealed Air Central America S.A., Sealed Air Chile S.P.A., Sealed Air Colombia Ltda., Sealed Air Corporation (US), Sealed Air Denmark A/S, Sealed Air Embalagens Ltda., Sealed Air Europe Holdings C.V., Sealed Air Europe Holdings LP, Sealed Air Finance B.V., Sealed Air Finance II LLC, Sealed Air Finance II LLC (Sucursal Mexico), Sealed Air Finance Ireland Unlimited Company, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l. Luxembourg (L) Root Finance Branch, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l. US Finance Branch, Sealed Air Funding Corporation, Sealed Air Funding LLC, Sealed Air General Trading LLC, Sealed Air Global Holdings C.V., Sealed Air Global Holdings I C.V., Sealed Air Global Holdings I LLC, Sealed Air GmbH, Sealed Air Hellas S.A., Sealed Air Holding France S.A.S., Sealed Air Holding France SAS, Sealed Air HoldingS I LLC, Sealed Air Holdings (New Zealand) Pty. Ltd., Sealed Air Holdings I C.V., Sealed Air Holdings LLC, Sealed Air Holdings South Africa Proprietary Limited, Sealed Air Hong Kong (Jakarta Indonesia Branch), Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Sealed Air Hungary Ltd., Sealed Air International Holdings LLC, Sealed Air International Holdings LLC , Sealed Air Investment and Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Investment and Management Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Japan G.K., Sealed Air Korea Limited, Sealed Air LLC, Sealed Air Limited, Sealed Air Luxembourg (I) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg (II) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Management Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Sealed Air Multiflex GmbH, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) I B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V. - Deutsche Zweigniederlassung, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V. - Deutsche Zweigniederlassung, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) III B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) III B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands Holdings V B.V., Sealed Air Nevada Holdings Limited, Sealed Air Norge AS, Sealed Air OY, Sealed Air Packaging (India) Private Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Packaging LLC, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging S.L.U., Sealed Air Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Sealed Air Peru S.A.C., Sealed Air Polska Sp. Zoo, Sealed Air Pty Limited, Sealed Air S.A S., Sealed Air S.A.S., Sealed Air S.r.l., Sealed Air South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Sealed Air Svenska AB, Sealed Air Taiwan Limited, Sealed Air US Holdings (Thailand) LLC, Sealed Air Uruguay S.A., Sealed Air Venezuela Corporation, Sealed Air Verpackungen GmbH, Sealed Air de Mexico Operations S. de R.L. de C.V., Sealed Air de Venezuela S.A., Sealed Air s.r.o., Shanklin Corp, Shanklin Corporation, Soinpar Industrial Ltda., TART s.r.o., TART s.r.o. Joint Venture, TTS-Ciptec, TXAFP Asia Pacific Ltd., TXAFP GP LLC, TempTrip LLC, Trigon Industries, and Vietnamese Rep Office of Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited. Regal Beloit Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells electric motors, electrical motion controls, and power generation and transmission products worldwide. It operates through four segments: Commercial Systems, Industrial Systems, Climate Solutions, and Power Transmission Solutions. The Commercial Systems segment provides AC and DC motors, electronic variable speed controls, fans, blowers, and precision stator and rotor kits. The Industrial Systems segment offers AC motors for industrial applications; electric alternators for prime and standby power applications to data centers, distributed energy, microgrid, rental marine, agriculture, healthcare, mobile, and defense markets; and switchgear for healthcare, government, and waste water applications, as well as residential, commercial, and industrial applications. The Climate Solutions segment provides fractional motors, electronic variable speed controls, and blowers for use in a residential and light commercial air moving applications; and fractional horsepower motors and blowers for white goods, water heating equipment, small pumps, compressors, and fans. The Power Transmission Solutions segment offers bearings; conveyors; disc, diaphragms, gear and flexible couplings, transmission elements, gears, grids, jaws, elastomers, and disc couplings; mechanical power transmission drives and components; and worm gearing, shaft configuration, helical offset, concentric and right angle, bevel and miter gearing, and spur gearing products, as well as modular plastic belts, conveying chains, and hydraulic pump drives. This segment serves beverage, bulk handling, metal, special machinery, energy, and aerospace and general industrial markets. The company sells its products directly to original equipment manufacturers and end-users through a network of direct and independent sales representatives, and distributors. Regal Beloit Corporation was founded in 1955 and is based in Beloit, Wisconsin. Read More Juniper Networks, Inc. designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; and NorthStar controllers. It also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation, and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine, and top-of-rack data center switches; and juniper access points, which provide wireless access and performance. In addition, the company offers security products comprising SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated firewall and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP. Further, it offers Junos OS, a network operating system; Contrail networking and cloud platform, which provides an open-source and standards-based platform for SDN and NFV; Contrail Insights, an optimization and management software platform for public, private, and hybrid clouds; Mist AI-driven Wired, Wireless, and WAN assurance solutions to set and measure key metrics; Mist AI-driven Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, which identifies the root cause of issues; and Netrounds, a software-based active test and service assurance platform. Additionally, the company provides software-as-a-service, technical support, maintenance, and professional services, as well as education and training programs. It sells its products through direct sales, distributors, value-added resellers, and original equipment manufacturers to end-users in the cloud, service provider, and enterprise markets. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Read More The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., a financial institution, provides range of financial services for corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. It operates through four segments: Investment Banking, Global Markets, Asset Management, and Consumer & Wealth Management. The company's Investment Banking segment provides financial advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings, and spin-offs; and middle-market lending, relationship lending, and acquisition financing, as well as transaction banking services. This segment also offers underwriting services, such as equity underwriting for common and preferred stock and convertible and exchangeable securities; and debt underwriting for various types of debt instruments, including investment-grade and high-yield debt, bank and bridge loans, and emerging- and growth-market debt, as well as originates structured securities. Its Global Markets segment is involved in client execution activities for cash and derivative instruments; credit and interest rate products; and provision of equity intermediation and equity financing, clearing, settlement, and custody services, as well as mortgages, currencies, commodities, and equities related products. The company's Asset Management segment manages assets across various asset classes, including equity, fixed income, hedge funds, credit funds, private equity, real estate, currencies, and commodities; and provides customized investment advisory solutions, as well as invests in corporate, real estate, and infrastructure entities. Its Consumer & Wealth Management segment offers wealth advisory and banking services, including financial planning, investment management, deposit taking, and lending; private banking; and unsecured loans, as well as accepts saving and time deposits. The company was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of CVS Health: @Credentials Inc., ACS ACQCO CORP., ADMINCO Inc., AE Fourteen Incorporated, AHP Holdings Inc., AMC - Tennessee LLC, APS Acquisition LLC, ASCO HealthCare LLC, ASI Wings LLC, AUSHC Holdings Inc., Accendo Insurance Company, Accordant Health Services L.L.C., Active Health Management Inc., Administrative Enterprises Inc., AdvancePCS SpecialtyRx LLC, AdvanceRx.com L.L.C., Advanced Care Scripts Inc., Aetna, Aetna (Beijing) Enterprise Management Services Co. Ltd., Aetna (Shanghai) Enterprise Services Co. Ltd., Aetna ACO Holdings Inc., Aetna Asset Advisors LLC, Aetna Behavioral Health LLC, Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health of California Inc., Aetna Better Health of Florida Inc., Aetna Better Health of Kansas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Better Health of Missouri LLC, Aetna Better Health of Nevada Inc., Aetna Better Health of North Carolina Inc., Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma Inc., Aetna Better Health of Texas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Washington Inc., Aetna Capital Management LLC, Aetna Card Solutions LLC, Aetna Corporate Services LLC, Aetna Dental Inc., Aetna Dental of California Inc., Aetna Financial Holdings LLC, Aetna Florida Inc., Aetna Global Benefits (Asia Pacific) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bahamas) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bermuda) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Europe) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Middle East) LLC, Aetna Global Benefits (Singapore) PTE. LTD., Aetna Global Benefits (UK) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits Limited (DIFC UAE), Aetna Global Holdings Limited, Aetna Health Holdings LLC, Aetna Health Inc., Aetna Health Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Aetna Health Insurance Company, Aetna Health Insurance Company of Europe DAC, Aetna Health Management LLC, Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, Aetna Health of California Inc., Aetna Health of Iowa Inc., Aetna Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Health of Ohio Inc., Aetna Health of Utah Inc., Aetna HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Aetna Holdco (UK) Limited, Aetna Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Inc., Aetna Insurance (Hong Kong) Limite, Aetna Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Aetna Insurance Company Limited, Aetna Integrated Informatics Inc., Aetna International Inc., Aetna Ireland Inc., Aetna Korea Ltd., Aetna Life & Casualty (Bermuda) Ltd., Aetna Life Assignment Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company, Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC, Aetna Multi-Strategy 1099 Fund LLC, Aetna Network Services LLC, Aetna Partners Diversified Fund LLC, Aetna Pharmacy Management Services LLC, Aetna Resources LLC, Aetna Risk Assurance Company of Connecticut Inc., Aetna Rx Home Delivery LLC, Aetna Services (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Aetna Student Health Agency Inc., Aetna Ventures LLC, Aetna Workers Comp Access LLC, Alabama CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Alaska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, American Continental Insurance Company, American Drug Stores Delaware L.L.C., American Health Holding Inc., Arbor Drugs, Arizona CVS Stores L.L.C., Arkansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Badger Acquisition LLC, Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC, Badger Acquisition of Minnesota LLC, Badger Acquisition of Ohio LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Beauty Holdings L.L.C., Best Care LTC Acquisition Company LLC, Busse CVS L.L.C., CCI Foreign S.a R.L. (R.C.S. Luxembourg), CCRx Holdings LLC, CCRx of North Carolina LLC, CHP Acquisition LLC, CP Acquisition LLC, CVS 2948 Henderson L.L.C., CVS 3268 Gilbert L.L.C., CVS 3745 Peoria L.L.C., CVS AL Distribution L.L.C., CVS AOC Corporation, CVS AOC Services L.L.C., CVS Albany L.L.C., CVS Bellmore Avenue L.L.C., CVS Care Concierge LLC, CVS Caremark Advanced Technology Pharmacy L.L.C., CVS Caremark Indemnity Ltd., CVS Caremark Part D Services L.L.C., CVS Caremark TN SUTA LLC, CVS Foreign Inc., CVS Gilbert 3272 L.L.C., CVS Health Solutions LLC, CVS Indiana L.L.C., CVS International L.L.C., CVS Kidney Care Advanced Technologies LLC, CVS Kidney Care Health Services LLC, CVS Kidney Care Home Dialysis LLC, CVS Kidney Care LLC, CVS Manchester NH L.L.C., CVS Media Exchange LLC, CVS Michigan L.L.C., CVS Orlando FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS PA Distribution L.L.C., CVS PR Center Inc., CVS Pharmacy Inc., CVS RS Arizona L.L.C., CVS Rx Services Inc., CVS SC Distribution L.L.C., CVS State Capital L.L.C., CVS TN Distribution L.L.C., CVS Transportation L.L.C., CVS Vero FL Distribution L.L.C., Campos Medical Pharmacy LLC, Canal Place LLC, Care Pharmaceutical Services LP, CareCenter Pharmacy L.L.C., Carefree Insurance Services Inc., Caremark Arizona Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Arizona Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark California Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Florida Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Florida Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Hawaii Mail Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Hawaii Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark IPA L.L.C., Caremark Illinois Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Illinois Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Irving Resource Center LLC, Caremark Kansas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark L.L.C., Caremark Logistics LLC, Caremark Louisiana Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Maryland Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Massachusetts Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Michigan Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Minnesota Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark New Jersey Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark North Carolina Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ohio Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Pennsylvania Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark PhC L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Redlands Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Repack LLC, Caremark Rx L.L.C., Caremark Tennessee Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ulysses Holding Corp., Caremark Washington Specialty Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Alabama Mail Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Health L.L.C., CaremarkPCS L.L.C., Central Rx Services LLC, Claims Administration Corp., Cofinity Inc., Compscript LLC, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Continental Life Insurance Company of Brentwood Tennessee, Continuing Care Rx LLC, Coram Alternate Site Services Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Alabama, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater D.C., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater New York, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Indiana, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Massachusetts, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Mississippi, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Nevada, Coram Healthcare Corporation of North Texas, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Northern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Utah, Coram LLC, Coram Rx LLC, Coram Specialty Infusion, Coram Specialty Infusion Services L.L.C., Coventry Consumer Advantage Inc., Coventry Health Care National Accounts Inc., Coventry Health Care National Network Inc., Coventry Health Care Workers Compensation Inc., Coventry Health Care of Illinois Inc., Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc., Coventry Health Care of Missouri Inc., Coventry Health Care of Nebraska Inc., Coventry Health Care of Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Care of West Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Plan of Florida Inc., Coventry Health and Life Insurance Company, Coventry HealthCare Management Corporation, Coventry Prescription Management Services Inc., Coventry Rehabilitation Services Inc., Coventry Transplant Network Inc., D & R Pharmaceutical Services LLC, D.A.W. LLC, Delaware CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Delaware Physicians Care Incorporated, Digital eHealth LLC, District of Columbia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., E.T.B. INC., Echo Merger Sub Inc., Eckerd Corporation of Florida Inc., Employee Assistance Services LLC, Enloe Drugs LLC, Enterprise Patient Safety Organization LLC, EntrustRX, Evergreen Pharmaceutical LLC, Evergreen Pharmaceutical of California Inc., Express Pharmacy Services of PA L.L.C., FOCUS HealthCare Management Inc., First Health Group Corp., First Health Life & Health Insurance Company, First Script Network Services Inc., Florida Health Plan Administrators LLC, Garfield Beach CVS L.L.C., Generation Health L.L.C., Geneva Woods Health Services LLC, Geneva Woods LTC Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Management LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Alaska LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Washington LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Wyoming LLC, Geneva Woods Retail Pharmacy LLC, Georgia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., German Dobson CVS L.L.C., Goodhealth Worldwide (Asia) Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide (Global) Limited, Goodyear CVS L.L.C., Grand St. Paul CVS L.L.C., Grandview Pharmacy LLC, Group Dental Service Inc., Group Dental Service of Maryland Inc., Health Care Management Co. Ltd., Health Data & Management Solutions Inc., Health Re Inc., Health and Human Resource Center Inc., HealthAssuance Pennsylvania Inc., Healthagen LLC, Highland Park CVS L.L.C., Holiday CVS L.L.C., Home Care Pharmacy LLC, Home Pharmacy Services LLC, Hook-SupeRx L.L.C., Horizon Behavioral Services LLC, Idaho CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., IlliniCare Health, Indian Health Organisation Private Limited, Innovation Health Holdings LLC, Innovation Health Insurance Company, Innovation Health Plan Inc., Interlock Pharmacy Systems LLC, Iowa CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., JHC Acquisition LLC, Kansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Kentucky CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., LCPS Acquisition LLC, Langsam Health Services LLC, Lo-Med Prescription Services LLC, Lobos Acquisition LLC, Longs Drug Stores, Longs Drug Stores California L.L.C., Louisiana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., MHHP Acquisition Company LLC, MHNet Life and Health Insurance Company, MHNet Specialty Services LLC, MHNet of Florida Inc., Managed Care Coordinators Inc., Managed Healthcare LLC, Martin Health Services LLC, Maryland CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Med World Acquisition Corp., Medical Arts Health Care LLC, Medical Examinations of New York P.C., Melville Realty Company Inc., MemberHealth LLC, Mental Health Associates Inc., Mental Health Network of New York IPA Inc., Meritain Health Inc., Merwin Long Term Care LLC, MetraComp Inc., Minor Health Enterprise Co Ltd., MinuteClinic, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Alabama L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arizona LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Florida LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Georgia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Hawaii L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Illinois LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Kentucky L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Louisiana L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maine L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maryland LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Massachusetts LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Nebraska L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Hampshire L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Mexico L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Ohio LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oklahoma LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oregon LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Pennsylvania LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Rhode Island LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of South Carolina L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Texas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Utah L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Virginia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Washington LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Wisconsin L.L.C., MinuteClinic L.L.C., MinuteClinic Online Diagnostic Services LLC, MinuteClinic Physician Practice of Texas, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services LLC, Mississippi CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Missouri CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Montana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NCS Healthcare LLC, NCS Healthcare of Illinois LLC, NCS Healthcare of Iowa LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kansas LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kentucky Inc. (Oh, NCS Healthcare of Montana LLC, NCS Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, NCS Healthcare of Ohio LLC, NCS Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, NCS Healthcare of Tennessee LLC, NCS Healthcare of Wisconsin LLC, NIV Acquisition LLC, Navarro Discount Pharmacy, Nebraska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NeighborCare Holdings Inc., NeighborCare Inc., NeighborCare Pharmacy Services Inc., NeighborCare Services Corporation, NeighborCare of Indiana LLC, NeighborCare of Virginia LLC, New Jersey CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Niagara Re Inc., North Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., North Shore Pharmacy Services LLC, NovoLogix LLC, OCR Services LLC, Ocean Acquisition Sub L.L.C., Ohio CVS Stores L.L.C., Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Omnicare, Omnicare Holding Company, Omnicare Inc., Omnicare Indiana Partnership Holding Company LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania East LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania West LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of the Great Plains Holding LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy and Supply Services LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of Tennessee LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of the Midwest LLC, Omnicare Property Management LLC, Omnicare of Nebraska LLC, Omnicare of Nevada LLC, Omnicare of New York LLC, Oregon CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., PE Holdings LLC, PHPSNE Parent Corporation, PP Acquisition Company LLC, PRN Pharmaceutical Services LP, PT Aetna Management Consulting, Pamplona Saude e Beleza LTDA, Part D Holding Company L.L.C., PayFlex Holdings Inc., PayFlex Systems USA Inc., Pennsylvania CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Performax Inc., Pharmacy Associates of Glenn Falls LLC, Pharmacy Consultants LLC, Phoenix Data Solutions LLC, Precision Benefit Services Inc., Prime Net Inc., ProCare Pharmacy Direct L.L.C., ProCare Pharmacy L.L.C., Prodigy Health Group Inc., Professional Risk Management Inc., Pt. Aetna Global Benefits Indonesia, Puerto Rico CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Red Oak Sourcing LLC, Resources for Living LLC, Rhode Island CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Roeschens Healthcare LLC, RxAmerica, Schaller Anderson Medical Administrators Incorporated, Scrip World LLC, Sheffield Avenue CVS L.L.C., Shore Pharmaceutical Providers LLC, Silverscript Insurance Company, Soma Intimates, South Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., South Wabash CVS L.L.C., Specialized Pharmacy Services LLC, Spinnaker Bidco Limited, Spinnaker Topco Limited, Stadtlander Drug Company, Stadtlander Pharmacy, Sterling Healthcare Services LLC, Superior Care Pharmacy LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Administrative Services LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, T2 Medical Inc., TCPI Acquisition LLC, TargetPharmacy, Tennessee CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Company, Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Texas Health + Aetna Health Plan Inc., The Vasquez Group Inc., Thomas Phoenix CVS L.L.C., Three Forks Apothecary LLC, U.S Healthcare Holdings LLC, U.S. Healthcare Properties Inc., UAC Holding Inc., UC Acquisition LLC, UNI-Care Health Services of Maine LLC, Universal American - Medicare Part D Business, Utah CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., VAPS Acquisition Company LLC, Value Health Care Services LLC, Vermont CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virtual Home Healthcare L.L.C., Warm Springs Road CVS L.L.C., Washington CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Washington Lamb CVS L.L.C., Weber Medical Systems LLC, Wellpartner LLC, West Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Westhaven Services Co LLC, Williamson Drug Company LLC, Wisconsin CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Woodward Detroit CVS L.L.C., Work and Family Benefits Inc., ZS Acquisition Company LLC, Zinc Health Services LLC, Zinc Health Ventures LLC, bSwift LLC, and iTriage LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, AppliChem Inc., Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument, Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Cetram Pty Limited, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Densit Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Airport Ground Equipment (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components LLC, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments LLC, ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings LP, ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW International Intellectual Property LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Marking & Coding (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Medical Group de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., ITW haubold Paslode GmbH, Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft Argentina S.A., Krafft S.L., Lock Inspection Systemes France Sarl, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Luvex - Industria De Equipamentos De Protecao Ltda., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, Magna Industrial Co. Limited, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Odesign Inc., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Salter India Limited, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tape Group B.V., Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Tarutin Kester Co. Ltd., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode (Qingdao) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tregaskiss Welding Products, US Finance Gamma LLC, Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., W Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wujiang Advanced Cleaning Co. Ltd., Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V.. General Electric Company operates as a high-tech industrial company worldwide. The company's Power segment offers heavy-duty and aeroderivative gas turbines for utilities, independent power producers, and industrial applications; maintenance, service, and upgrade solutions to plant assets and their operational lifecycle; steam power technology for fossil and nuclear applications, including boilers, generators, steam turbines, and air quality control systems; and advanced reactor technologies solutions comprising reactors, fuels, and support services for boiling water reactors. This segment also applies the science and systems of power conversion to provide motors, generators, automation, and control equipment; and drives for energy intensive industries, such as marine, oil and gas, mining, rail, metals, test systems, and water. Its Renewable Energy segment provides various solutions for its customers through combining onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, solar, and grid solutions, as well as hybrid renewables and digital services offerings. The company's Aviation segment designs and produces commercial and military aircraft engines, integrated engine components, electric power, and mechanical aircraft systems; and provides aftermarket services. Its Healthcare segment develops, manufactures, markets, and services magnetic resonance, computed tomography, molecular imaging, x-ray and high-frequency soundwave systems, clinical monitoring and acute care systems, enterprise digital, artificial intelligence applications, consulting and command center, and complementary software and services; and researches, manufactures, and markets imaging agents. The company's Capital segment offers aviation leasing and financing, and working capital services; financial solutions and underwriting capabilities; and insurance and reinsurance for life and health risks, as well as annuity products. The company was founded in 1878 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Read More Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High 91F. Winds ENE at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening. Thunderstorms likely late. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. Low 69F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Ferguson plc distributes plumbing and heating products in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Central Europe. It offers plumbing and heating solutions to customers in the residential, municipal, civil and industrial markets, and commercial sectors for repair, maintenance, and improvement (RMI), as well as new construction markets. The company also distributes pipes, valves, fittings, hydrants, meters, and related water management products, as well as offers related services, such as water line tapping and pipe fusion services. In addition, it distributes heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration equipment, and parts and supplies to specialist contractors in the residential and commercial markets for repair and replacement; and PVF products to industrial customers. Further, the company fabricates and supplies fire protection systems and bespoke fabrication services to commercial contractors for new construction and renovation projects, as well as offers products, services, and solutions to enable maintenance of facilities across various RMI markets. Additionally, it offers supply chain management solutions for PVF; and industrial maintenance, repair, and operations specializing in delivering automation, instrumentation, engineered products, and turn-key solutions. The company also sells its home improvement products directly to consumers, as well as through a network of online stores. In addition, it operates its B2B business primarily under the Ferguson brand; and B2C business under the Build.com brand. Further, the company provides products and services for maintenance of multi-family properties, government agencies, hospitality, education, healthcare, and other facilities. It operates a network of 2,194 branches and 19 distribution centers. Ferguson plc was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in Wokingham, the United Kingdom. Read More 5 Ways to Win at Trading (Ad) More people are trading options... But most are doing it wrong... and LOSING money. Former Chicago Board Options Exchange trader reveals five secrets you MUST know before putting a penny in the market... Get the list of all five now. Duke Energy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Electric Utilities and Infrastructure, Gas Utilities and Infrastructure, and Commercial Renewables. The Electric Utilities and Infrastructure segment generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electricity in the Carolinas, Florida, and the Midwest; and uses coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, oil, renewable sources, and nuclear fuel to generate electricity. It also engages in the wholesale of electricity to municipalities, electric cooperative utilities, and load-serving entities. This segment serves approximately 7.9 million retail electric customers in 6 states in the Southeast and Midwest regions of the United States covering a service territory of approximately 91,000 square miles; and owns approximately 50,807 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity. The Gas Utilities and Infrastructure segment distributes natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and power generation natural gas customers; and owns, operates, and invests in pipeline transmission and natural gas storage facilities. It has approximately 1.6 million customers, including 1.1 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as 541,000 customers in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky. The Commercial Renewables segment acquires, owns, develops, builds, and operates wind and solar renewable generation projects, including nonregulated renewable energy and energy storage services to utilities, electric cooperatives, municipalities, and commercial and industrial customers. It has 21 wind, 150 solar, and 2 battery storage facilities, as well as 11 fuel cell locations with a capacity of 2,282 MW across 19 states. The company was formerly known as Duke Energy Holding Corp. and changed its name to Duke Energy Corporation in April 2005. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Vodafone Group: 360 Connect S.A., [email protected] Telecom, A-ccelerator B.V., A-ccelerator Holding B.V, AAA (Euro) Limited, AAA (MCR) Limited, AAA (UK) Limited, Acorn Communications Limited, Africonnect (Zambia) Limited, Ag Mercantile Company Private Limited, Al-Amin Investments Limited, Amsterdamse Beheer- en Consultingmaatschappij B.V., Apollo Submarine Cable System Limited, Array Holdings Limited, Asian Telecommunication Investments (Mauritius) Limited, Aspective Limited, Astec Communications Limited, Autoconnex Limited, Aztec Limited, BelCompany BV, Bluefish Apac Communications Pte. Ltd, Bluefish Communications, Bluefish Communications Limited, Business Serve Limited, C&W Worldwide Nigeria Limited, C.S.P. Solutions Limited, CCII (Mauritius) Inc., CGP India Investments Ltd., CGP Investments (Holdings) Limited, COOP Mobil s.r.o, CT Networks Limited, CWGNL S.A., CWW Operations Limited, Cable & Wireless Access Limited, Cable & Wireless Americas Systems Inc., Cable & Wireless Aspac Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Services Limited, Cable & Wireless CIS Svyaz LLC, Cable & Wireless Capital Limited , Cable & Wireless Communications Data Network Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Starclass Limited, Cable & Wireless Communications Technical Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd (Beijing Branch), Cable & Wireless Europe Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless GN Limited, Cable & Wireless Global (India) Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Business Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Holding Limited, Cable & Wireless Global Telecommunication Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Holdco Limited, Cable & Wireless Networks India Private Limited, Cable & Wireless Trade Mark Management Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless UK Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Waterside Holdings Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Pension Trustee Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Services Limited, Cable & Wireless Worldwide Voice Messaging Limited, Cable & Wireless a-Services Inc, Cable & Wireless a-Services Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited, Cable and Wireless (India) Limited Indian Branch Office, Cable and Wireless Nominee Limited, Cable and Wireless Worldwide South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cavalry Holdings Ltd, Celfocus Solucoes Informaticas Para Telecomunicacoes S.A, Cellops Limited, Cellular Operations Limited, Central Communications Group Limited, Central Telecom (Northern) Limited, Centurion GSM Limited, Chelys Limited, City Cable (Holdings) Limited, Cobra do Brasil Servicos de Telematica ltda., Commnet Cellular Inc., Complete Network Technology, Connect (India) Mobile Technologies Private Limited, Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Limited, Dataroam Limited , Device Insight, Digital Island (UK) Ltd, Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited, East Africa Investment (Mauritius) Limited, Emtel Europe Limited, Energis (Ireland) Limited, Energis Communications Limited, Energis Holdings Limited, Energis Local Access Limited, Energis Management Limited, Energis Squared Limited, Erudite Systems Limited, Esprit Telecom B.V., Eudokia Limited, Euro Pacific Securities Ltd., Eurocall Holdings Limited, Europolitan Holdings AB (now Europolitan Vodafone AB), FB Holdings Limited, FM Associates (UK) Limited, FinCo Partner 1 B.V., FireFly Networks Limited, Flexphone Limited, GS Telecom (Pty) Limited, Gateway Communications Africa (UK) Limited, Gateway Communications Tanzania Limited, General Mobile Corporation, Generation Telecom Limited, Ghana Telecommunications, Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited, Global Cellular Rental Limited, Globe Limited, GrandCentrix GmbH, Grupo Corporativo ONO S.A.U., H3ga Properties (No 3) Pty Limited, HBO Nederland Cooperatief U.A., HBO Netherlands Channels sro, HBO Netherlands Distribution B.V., Hellas Online, How2 Telecom Limited, Hutchison Essar Ltd, Indus Towers Limited, Intercell Communications Limited, Internet Network Services Limited, Invitation Digital Limited, Ipergy Communications NV, Isis Telecommunications Management Limited, Jaguar Communications Limited, Jaykay Finholding (India) Private Limited, Jupicol (Proprietary) Limited, KABELCOM Braunschweig Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, KABELCOM Wolfsburg Gesellschaft Fur BreitbandkabelKommunikation Mit Beschrankter Haftung, Kabel Deutschland, Kabel Deutschland Holding, Kabel Deutschland Holding Erste Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Holding Zweite Beteilgungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Neunte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabel Deutschland Siebte Beteiligungs GmbH, Kabelfernsehen Munchen Servicenter GmbH & Co. KG, LG Financing Partnership, LGE HoldCo V B.V., LGE HoldCo VI B.V., LGE HoldCo VIII B.V., LGE Holdco VII B.V., LLC Vodafone Enterprise Ukraine, Le Bunt Holdings Limited, Legend Communications Limited, Liberty Global, Liberty Global Content Netherlands B.V., London Hydraulic Power Company, M-PESA Foundation, M-PESA Holding Co. Limited, ML Integration Group Limited, ML Integration Limited, ML Integration Services Limited, MV Healthcare Services Private Limited, Mannesmann AG, MetroHoldings Limited, Mezzanine Ware Proprietary Limited (RF), Mirambo Limited, Misrfone Trading Company LLC, MobiFon S.A., Mobile Commerce Solutions Limited, Mobile Phone Centre Limited, Mobile Wallet VM1, Mobile Wallet VM2, Mobile by Sainsburys Limited, Mobiles 4 Business.com Limited, Mobileworld Communications Pty Limited, Mobileworld Operating Pty Ltd, Mobilvest, Motifpros 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Multi Risk Indemnity Company Limited, Multi Risk Limited, ND Callus Info Services Private Limited, Nadal Trading Company Private Limited, Nat Comm Air Limited, National Communications Backbone Company Limited, Navtrak Ltd, Netforce Group Limited, Netgrid Telecom SRL, Number Portability Company (Proprietary) Limited, ONO, Omega Telecom Holdings Private Limited, Oni Way Infocomunicacoes S.A, Oskar Mobil S.R.O., Oxygen Solutions Limited, P.C.P. (North West) Limited, PPL Pty Limited, PT Network Services Limited, PTI Telecom Limited, Peoples Phone Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Group Limited, Pinnacle Cellular Limited, Plex Limited, Plustech Mercantile Company Private Limited, Prime Metals Ltd., Project Telecom Holdings Limited, Quickcomm Software Solutions, Radio Opt GmbH, Rian Mobile Limited, SBC SMART CITY 1517 B.V., SMMS Investments Pvt Limited, Safaricom Limited, Safenet N.P A., Sarmady Communications, Scarlet Ibis Investments 23 (Pty) Limited, Scorpios Beverages Pvt. Ltd, Silver Stream Investments Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Limited, Singlepoint (4U) Ltd., Singlepoint Payment Services Limited, Siro Limited, Spar Aerospace (Nigeria) Limited, Sport TV Portugal S.A, Starnet, Stentor Communications Limited, Stentor Limited, Storage Technology Services (Pty) Limited, T.W. Telecom Limited, T3 Telecommunications Limited, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern Beteiligungs GmbH, TKS Telepost Kabel-Service Kaiserslautern GmbH & Co. KG, TNAS Limited, TSM NZ Limited, Talkland Airtime Services Limited, Talkland Australia Pty Limited, Talkland Communications Limited, Talkland International Limited, Talkland Midlands Limited, Talkmobile Limited, Tele2 Italia SPA, Tele2 Spain, Telecom Investments India Private Limited, Telecommunications Europe Limited, Ternhill Communications Limited, The Cobra Group, The Eastern Leasing Company Limited, The Old Telecom Sales Co. Limited, Thus Group Holdings Limited, Thus Group Limited, Thus Limited, Thus Profit Sharing Trustees Limited, TnT Expense Management LLC, Tomorrow Street GP S.a r.l., Tomorrow Street SCA, Torenspits II B.V., Townley Communications Limited, Trans Crystal Ltd., UMT Investments Limited, UPC Nederland Holding I B.V., UPC Nederland Holding II B.V., UPC Nederland Holding III B.V., Unified Communications, Uniqueair Limited, Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH & Co.KG, Usha Martin Telematics Limited, VAPL No. 2 Pty Limited, VBA (Mauritius) Limited, VBA Holdings Limited, VBA International (SL) Limited, VBA International Limited, VEI S.r.l., VM SA, VND S.p.A, VSSB Vodafone Shared Services Budapest Private Limited Company, Verwaltung Urbana Teleunion Rostock GmbH, Victus Networks S.A., Vizzavi Finance Limited, Vizzavi Limited, Voda Limited, Vodacall Limited, Vodacash s.p.r.l., Vodacom (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business (Angola) Limitada, Vodacom Business (Ghana) Limited, Vodacom Business (Kenya) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa (Nigeria) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Business Africa Group Services Limited, Vodacom Business Cameroon SA, Vodacom Business Cote Divoire S.A.R.L., Vodacom Congo (RDC) SA, Vodacom Financial Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Group Limited, Vodacom Insurance Administration Company (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Insurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom International Holdings (Pty) Limited, Vodacom International Limited, Vodacom Lesotho (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Life Assurance Company (RF) Limited, Vodacom Payment Services (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No 1 (Proprietary) Limited, Vodacom Properties No.2 (Pty) Limited, Vodacom Tanzania Limited Zanzibar, Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company, Vodacom UK Limited, Vodafone (NI) Limited, Vodafone (New Zealand) Hedging Limited, Vodafone (Scotland) Limited, Vodafone 2, Vodafone 4 UK, Vodafone 5 Limited, Vodafone 5 UK, Vodafone 6 UK, Vodafone Albania Sh.A, Vodafone Alternatif Telekom Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Americas 4, Vodafone Americas Virginia Inc., Vodafone And Qatar Foundation L.L.C, Vodafone Asset Management Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Automotive Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Automotive Electronic Systems S.r.L, Vodafone Automotive France S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Iberia S.L, Vodafone Automotive Italia S.p.A, Vodafone Automotive Japan K.K, Vodafone Automotive Korea Limited, Vodafone Automotive SpA, Vodafone Automotive Technologies (Beijing) Co Ltd, Vodafone Automotive Telematics Development S.A.S, Vodafone Automotive Telematics S.A, Vodafone Automotive UK Limited, Vodafone Belgium SA/NV, Vodafone Benelux Limited, Vodafone Bilgi Ve Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Vodafone Business Services Limited, Vodafone Business Solutions Limited, Vodafone Canada Inc, Vodafone Cellular Limited, Vodafone Central Services Limited, Vodafone China Limited (China), Vodafone China Limited (Hong Kong), Vodafone Connect 2 Limited, Vodafone Connect Limited, Vodafone Consolidated Holdings Limited, Vodafone Corporate Limited, Vodafone Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Czech Republic A.S., Vodafone DC Pension Trustee Company Limited, Vodafone Dagitim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Data, Vodafone Distribution Holdings Limited, Vodafone Egypt Telecommunications S.A.E., Vodafone Elektronik Para Ve Odeme Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Empresa Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda, Vodafone Empresa Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Vodafone Enabler Espana S.L., Vodafone Enterprise Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Austria GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Bahrain W.L.L., Vodafone Enterprise Bulgaria EOOD, Vodafone Enterprise Chile SA, Vodafone Enterprise Communications Technical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Corporate Secretaries Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Denmark A/S, Vodafone Enterprise Equipment Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited Czech Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Europe (UK) Limited DubaiI Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Finland OY, Vodafone Enterprise France SAS, Vodafone Enterprise Germany GmbH, Vodafone Enterprise Global Businesses S.a r.l., Vodafone Enterprise Global Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network HK Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Global Network Pte. Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Hong Kong Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Italy S.r.L, Vodafone Enterprise Korea Limited, Vodafone Enterprise Luxembourg S.A., Vodafone Enterprise Netherlands BV, Vodafone Enterprise Norway AS, Vodafone Enterprise Regional Business Singapore Pte.Ltd., Vodafone Enterprise Singapore Pte.Ltd, Vodafone Enterprise Spain S.L.U. Portugal Branch, Vodafone Enterprise Spain SLU, Vodafone Enterprise Sweden AB, Vodafone Enterprise Switzerland AG, Vodafone Erste Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Vodafone Espana S.A.U., Vodafone Euro Hedging Limited, Vodafone Euro Hedging Two, Vodafone Europe B.V., Vodafone Europe UK, Vodafone European Investments, Vodafone European Portal Limited, Vodafone Finance Limited, Vodafone Finance Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Finance Sweden, Vodafone Finance UK Limited, Vodafone Financial Operations, Vodafone Financial Services B.V., Vodafone Fixed Ltd, Vodafone Foundation, Vodafone Foundation Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Gestioni S.p.A, Vodafone Ghana Mobile Financial Services Limited, Vodafone Global Content Services Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Hong Kong) Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise (Italy) S.R.L., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Japan) K.K., Vodafone Global Enterprise (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Vodafone Global Enterprise Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Russia LLC, Vodafone Global Enterprise Taiwan Limited, Vodafone Global Enterprise Telecommunications (Hellas) A.E., Vodafone Global Network Limited, Vodafone Global Network Limited Slovakia Branch, Vodafone Global Services Private Limited, Vodafone GmbH, Vodafone Group (Directors) Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Pension Trustee Limited, Vodafone Group Services GmbH, Vodafone Group Services Ireland Limited, Vodafone Group Services Limited, Vodafone Group Services No.2 Limited, Vodafone Group Share Trustee Limited, Vodafone Hire Limited, Vodafone Holding A.S., Vodafone Holdings (Jersey) Limited, Vodafone Holdings (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Holdings Europe S.L.U., Vodafone Holdings Luxembourg Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Finance Pty Limited, Vodafone Hutchison Receivables Pty Limited, Vodafone IP Licensing Limited, Vodafone India Digital Limited, Vodafone India Limited, Vodafone India Services Private Limited, Vodafone India Ventures Limited, Vodafone Institut fur Gesellschaft und Kommunikation GmbH, Vodafone Intermediate Enterprises Limited, Vodafone International 1 S.a.r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone International 1 S.a r.l., Vodafone International 2 Limited, Vodafone International Holdings B.V., Vodafone International Holdings Limited, Vodafone International M S.a r.l., Vodafone International Operations Limited, Vodafone International Services LLC, Vodafone Investment UK, Vodafone Investments (SA) Proprietary Limited, Vodafone Investments Australia Limited, Vodafone Investments Limited, Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Ireland Distribution Limited, Vodafone Ireland Ltd., Vodafone Ireland Marketing Limited, Vodafone Ireland Property Holdings Limited, Vodafone Ireland Retail Limited, Vodafone Italia S.p.A., Vodafone Jersey Dollar Holdings Limited, Vodafone Jersey Finance, Vodafone Jersey Yen Holdings Unlimited, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Field Services GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland GmbH, Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Kundenbetreuung GmbH, Vodafone Kenya Limited, Vodafone Leasing Limited, Vodafone Libertel B.V., Vodafone Limited, Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg 5 S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l., Vodafone Luxembourg S.a r.l. Luxembourg Zweigniederlassung Bern, Vodafone M-PESA SH.P.K., Vodafone M-Pesa S.A, Vodafone M.C. Mobile Services Limited , Vodafone Magyarorszag Mobile Tavkozlesi Zartkoruen Mukodo Reszvenytarsasag, Vodafone Malta Limited, Vodafone Marketing UK , Vodafone Maroc SARL, Vodafone Mauritius Ltd., Vodafone Mobile Commerce Limited, Vodafone Mobile Communications Limited, Vodafone Mobile Enterprises Limited, Vodafone Mobile NZ Limited, Vodafone Mobile Network Limited, Vodafone Mobile Operations Limited, Vodafone Mobile Services Limited, Vodafone Multimedia Limited, Vodafone Nederland Holding I B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding II B.V., Vodafone Nederland Holding III B.V., Vodafone Net Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Network Pty Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Foundation Limited, Vodafone New Zealand Limited, Vodafone Next Generation Services Limited, Vodafone Nominees Limited1, Vodafone ONO S.A.U., Vodafone Oceania Limited, Vodafone Old Show Ground Site Management Limited, Vodafone Overseas Finance Limited, Vodafone Overseas Holdings Limited, Vodafone Panafon International Holdings B.V., Vodafone Panafon UK, Vodafone Partner Services Limited, Vodafone Payment Solutions S.a r.l., Vodafone Portugal Comunicacoes Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Procurement Company S.a r.l., Vodafone Property Investments Limited, Vodafone Pty Limited, Vodafone Qatar Q.S.C., Vodafone Retail (Holdings) Limited , Vodafone Retail Limited, Vodafone Roaming Services S.a r.l., Vodafone Romania S.A, Vodafone Romania M - Payments SRL, Vodafone Romania Technologies SRL, Vodafone Sales & Services Limited, Vodafone Satellite Services Limited, Vodafone Servicios SL.U, Vodafone Servizi E Tecnologie S.R.L, Vodafone Servicos Empresariais Brasil Ltda., Vodafone Shared Services Romania SRL, Vodafone Specialist Communications Limited, Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland Gemeinnutzige GmbH, Vodafone Technology Solutions Limited, Vodafone Teknoloji Hizmetleri A.S., Vodafone Tele-Services (India) Holdings Limited, Vodafone Telecel-Comunicates Pessoais S.A., Vodafone Telecommunications (India) Limited, Vodafone Telekomunikasyon A.S, Vodafone Towers Limited, Vodafone UK Content Services Limited, Vodafone UK Investments Limited , Vodafone UK Limited1 , Vodafone US Inc, Vodafone Ventures Limited1 , Vodafone Vierte Verwaltungs AG, Vodafone Worldwide Holdings Limited, Vodafone Yen Finance Limited , Vodafone m-pesa Limited, Vodafone-Central Limited Vodaphone Limited, Vodafone-Panafon Hellenic Telecommunications Company S.A., VodafoneZiggo Group Holding B.V, Vodata Limited , Vouchercloud SA (Pty) Ltd, Wataneya Telecommunications S.A.E, Waterberg Lodge (Proprietary) Limited, Wayfinder, Wheatfields Investments 276 (Proprietary) Limited, Wireless Interactions & NFC Accelerator 2013 B.V., Woodend Cellular Limited, Woodend Communications Limited, Woodend Group Limited, Woodend Holdings Limited, XB Facilities B.V, XLink Communications (Proprietary) Limited, Your Communications Group Limited, ZUM B.V., ZYB, Zelitron S.A., Zesko B.V., Ziggo B.V., Ziggo Bond Company B.V., Ziggo Deelnemingen B.V., Ziggo Finance 2 B.V., Ziggo Financing Partnership, Ziggo Holding B.V., Ziggo Netwerk B.V., Ziggo Netwerk II B.V., Ziggo Services B.V., Ziggo Services Employment B.V., Ziggo Services Netwerk 2 B.V., Ziggo Zakelijk Services B.V., and Zoranet Connectivity Services B.V.. If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But youve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead. First American Financial Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides financial services. It operates through Title Insurance and Services, and Specialty Insurance segments. The Title Insurance and Services segment issues title insurance policies on residential and commercial property, as well as offers related products and services. This segment also provides closing and/or escrow services; products, services, and solutions to mitigate risk or otherwise facilitate real estate transactions; and appraisals and other valuation-related products and services, lien release and document custodial services, warehouse lending services, default-related products and services, title insurance, closing services, and related products and services, as well as banking, trust, and wealth management services. In addition, it accommodates tax-deferred exchanges of real estate; and maintains, manages, and provides access to title plant data and records. This segment offers its products through a network of direct operations and agents in 49 states and in the District of Columbia, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, and internationally. The Specialty Insurance segment provides property and casualty insurance comprising coverage to residential homeowners and renters for liability losses and typical hazards, such as fire, theft, vandalism, and other types of property damage. It also offers residential service contracts that cover residential systems, such as heating and air conditioning systems, and appliances against failures that occur as the result of normal usage during the coverage period. First American Financial Corporation was founded in 1889 and is based in Santa Ana, California. Read More CACI International Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides information solutions and services in North America and internationally. The company offers business systems solutions for financial, human capital, asset and materials, and administrative management; develops, integrates, and operates command and control solutions; and develops and integrates solutions that deliver multi-level unified communications from the enterprise directly to and from the tactical edge. It also provides cyber security solutions and supports cyber support to federal customers and the intelligence community (IC), as well as support to the IC and the department of defense. In addition, the company offers enterprise-wide information solutions and services to design, develop, integrate, deploy, operate and manage, sustain, and security of its customers' IT solutions; and supports federal civilian and military health missions that improve healthcare delivery systems, integrates electronic health records, and enhances the speed and efficiency of emergency responsiveness. Further, it provides intelligence services, such as intelligence analysis, operations and planning, policy, doctrine, and security support, as well as ground truth and intelligence gathering services; and designs, develops, integrates, deploys, and prototypes hardware-and software-enabled tools and applications, as well as provides signals intelligence and radio systems. Additionally, the company offers investigation and litigation support services; logistics and material readiness solutions, and professional services; space operations and resiliency support; and data and software products, as well as develops and integrates surveillance and reconnaissance technologies into platforms. It primarily serves the U.S. government, state and local governments, commercial enterprises, and foreign government agencies. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Read More Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, and markets biopharmaceutical products worldwide. The company offers products in hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, and immunology therapeutic classes. Its products include Revlimid, an oral immunomodulatory drug for the treatment of multiple myeloma; Opdivo for anti-cancer indications; Eliquis, an oral inhibitor indicated for the reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in NVAF, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; and Orencia for adult patients with active RA and psoriatic arthritis, as well as reducing signs and symptoms in pediatric patients with active polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The company also provides Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia; Yervoy for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma; Abraxane, a solvent-free protein-bound chemotherapy product; mpliciti for the treatment of multiple myeloma; and Reblozyl for the treatment of anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia. In addition, it offers Onureg for the continued treatment of adult patients with AML; Zeposia to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; Vidaza for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome subtypes; Baraclude, an oral antiviral agent for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B; and Breyanzi, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T cell immunotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The company sells products to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, retailers, hospitals, clinics, and government agencies. It has collaboration agreements with Pfizer, Inc.; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Nektar Therapeutics; AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Huyabio; and DarwinHealth, Inc. The company was formerly known as Bristol-Myers Company. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company was founded in 1887 and is headquartered in New York, New York. Read More Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. Bank of Hawaii Corporation operates as the bank holding company for Bank of Hawaii that provides various financial products and services in Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific Islands. It operates in three segments: Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Treasury and Other. The Consumer Banking segment offers checking, savings, and time deposit accounts; residential mortgage loans, home equity lines of credit, automobile loans and leases, personal lines of credit, installment loans, small business loans and leases, and credit cards; private and international client banking, and trust services to individuals and families, and high-net-worth individuals; investment management and institutional investment advisory services to corporations, government entities, and foundations; and brokerage offering equities, mutual funds, life insurance, and annuity products. This segment operates 65 branch locations and 357 ATMs throughout Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, as well as through a customer service center, and online and mobile banking. The Commercial Banking segment provides corporate banking, commercial real estate loans, commercial lease financing, auto dealer financing, and deposit products. It offers commercial lending and deposit products to middle-market and large companies, and government entities; commercial real estate mortgages to investors, developers, and builders; and international banking and merchant services. The Treasury and Other segment offers corporate asset and liability management services, including interest rate risk management and foreign exchange services. Bank of Hawaii Corporation was founded in 1897 and is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Read More AGCO Corporation manufactures and distributes agricultural equipment and related replacement parts worldwide. It offers high horsepower tractors for row crop production, soil cultivation, planting, land leveling, seeding, and commercial hay operations; utility tractors for small- and medium-sized farms, as well as for dairy, livestock, orchards, and vineyards; and compact tractors for small farms, specialty agricultural industries, landscaping, equestrian, and residential uses. The company also provides grain storage bins and related drying and handling equipment systems; seed-processing systems; swine and poultry feed storage and delivery; ventilation and watering systems; and egg production systems and broiler production equipment. In addition, it offers round and rectangular balers, loader wagons, self-propelled windrowers, forage harvesters, disc mowers, spreaders, rakes, tedders, and mower conditioners for harvesting and packaging vegetative feeds used in the beef cattle, dairy, horse, and renewable fuel industries. Further, the company provides implements, including disc harrows leveling seed beds and mixing chemicals with the soils; heavy tillage to break up soil and mix crop residue into topsoil; field cultivators that prepare smooth seed bed and destroy weeds; drills for small grain seeding; planters and other planting equipment; and loaders. Additionally, it offers combines for harvesting grain crops, such as corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice; and application equipment, such as self-propelled, three- and four-wheeled vehicles, and related equipment for liquid and dry fertilizers and crop protection chemicals, and for after crops emerge from the ground, as well as produces diesel engines, gears, and generating sets. The company markets its products under the Challenger, Fendt, GSI, Massey Ferguson, and Valtra brands through a network of independent dealers and distributors. AGCO Corporation was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia. Read More Ad Resource Stock Digest 1,854 Interested This Week Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. A tourist watches a babirusa at the Singapore Zoo on Jan. 24, 2019. Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) on Thursday decorated enclosures of various pig species with Lunar New Year decorations to welcome the Year of the Pig. (Xinhua/Then Chih Wey) 6 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] AbbVie Inc. discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells pharmaceuticals in the worldwide. The company offers HUMIRA, a therapy administered as an injection for autoimmune and intestinal BehAet's diseases; SKYRIZI to treat moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adults; RINVOQ, a JAK inhibitor for the treatment of moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis in adult patients; IMBRUVICA to treat adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), mantle cell lymphoma, waldenstrAm's macroglobulinemia, marginal zone lymphoma, and chronic graft versus host disease; VENCLEXTA, a BCL-2 inhibitor used to treat adults with CLL or SLL; and MAVYRET to treat patients with chronic HCV genotype 1-6 infection. It also provides CREON, a pancreatic enzyme therapy for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency; Synthroid used in the treatment of hypothyroidism; AndroGel for males diagnosed with symptomatic low testosterone; Linzess/Constella to treat irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation; Lupron for the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer, endometriosis and central precocious puberty, and patients with anemia caused by uterine fibroids; and Botox therapeutic. In addition, the company offers ORILISSA, a nonpeptide small molecule gonadotropin-releasing hormone antagonist for women with moderate to severe endometriosis pain; Duopa and Duodopa, a levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel to treat Parkinson's disease; Lumigan/Ganfort, a bimatoprost ophthalmic solution for the reduction of elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with open angle glaucoma (OAG) or ocular hypertension; Ubrelvy to treat migraine with or without aura in adults; Alphagan/ Combigan, an alpha-adrenergic receptor agonist for the reduction of IOP in patients with OAG; and Restasis, a calcineurin inhibitor immunosuppressant to increase tear production. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is based in North Chicago, Illinois. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. 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KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. 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Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc., ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics. Located in Central Asia between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth-largest inland body of water during the first half of the 20th century. But what a difference fifty years can make. Today, the Aral Sea is almost completely gone; it has shrunk to less than 10% of the size it was in the 1960s. This environmental disaster was largely caused by Soviet irrigation projects that diverted the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers in order to irrigate crops, most notably cotton. What is left of the Aral Sea has become too salty for fish to survive in, triggering the collapse of the region's fishing industry. It is probably not much consolation to local residents that there has been an uptick in tourism, as people come to see the dried-up lakebed and the rusting boats. The tragedy of the Aral Sea: A surge of subzero temperatures is coming to where the north begins, and local officials have tips about how people can keep themselves, their neighbors and their animals safe. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is cautioning the public about a dramatic drop in temperatures this weekend and early next week. Forecasts predict subzero temperatures with wind chills as low as 25 to 40 below through the middle of next week. The department said 38 Wisconsin residents died in 2018 from exposure to extremely low temperatures. Portage Assistant Police Chief Keith Klafke said people should limit their exposure to the cold and plan ahead for the harsh conditions by bringing extra clothes, hats, gloves, scarves and jumper cables while driving, in case their car breaks down. He also recommended people drive on frequently traveled roads or highways in case of emergencies. A little common sense goes a long way, Klafke said. Just bring the coat and make sure that youre safe. Klafke urges residents to be aware of their neighbors and check in on them, especially the elderly. He suggested people retrieve the mail for elderly neighbors to help them remain safe and indoors. Whenever Donald Trump, the Republican Party, Trumps economic advisers and the right-wing media talk about the successes of this administration, they always point to the so-called tax reform act of November 2017 as one of the greatest pieces of legislation in American history. When former House Speaker Paul Ryan retired at the beginning of this month, he declared that the tax reform that lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent was his biggest accomplishment as speaker, while he expressed remorse for being unable to get Social Security and Medicare reformed as well. But the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan government agency that keeps track of how the federal budget is doing, isnt all that impressed. Amidst all the back-patting by Trump and his compatriots, the CBO wasnt as cheery. It had predicted when the tax cuts were passed in 2017 that unless some changes were made, the federal budget would be running a trillion-dollar-per-year deficit by fiscal year 2022. But the CBO was wrong by what looks like two full years, according to the Bloomberg News Service. They say the U.S. annual deficit will reach a trillion dollars by the end of fiscal year 2020. On another occasion, Throndson allegedly spotted the informant at a Baraboo gas station and began to scream at her, call her a snitch, and tell her she better watch her ass. An acquaintance of Throndsons allegedly approached the informant a week later and also told her to watch out. The informant told police she became so fearful that Throndson or one of her friends might harm her that she asked neighbors to watch out for her. Prosecutors have charged Throndson with felony witness intimidation which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence and bail jumping. The complaint against Throndson was filed Friday morning and a judge promptly signed a warrant for her arrest. However, she was not scheduled to appear during bond hearings that were held Friday afternoon, prompting her attorney to allege that she was being held unlawfully. In a writ of habeas corpus filed Friday, Throndsons attorney cited a state law that says a person arrested on a warrant is entitled to a determination on bond as soon as is practicable. The filing said Throndson should not be held without bond over the weekend when she could have been added to bond hearings that took place Friday afternoon. FORT HANCOCK, Texas Donald Trump didnt carry many parts of Texas heavily Democratic areas along the border with Mexico, but he won remote Hudspeth County thanks to people like Terry Rose. And the 71-year-old mechanic saw the longest shutdown in U.S. history as a campaign promise kept. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. FORT HANCOCK, Texas Donald Trump didnt carry many parts of Texas heavily Democratic areas along the border with Mexico, but he won remote Hudspeth County thanks to people like Terry Rose. And the 71-year-old mechanic saw the longest shutdown in U.S. history as a campaign promise kept. "I want less government. Thats what were getting," said Rose, who was having lunch with a group of friends in Fort Hancock, an enclave with fields of cotton, alfalfa and chili peppers just across the border from El Porvenir, Mexico. "Im understanding about federal employees, but if youre non-essential its hard to feel too badly for you." The shutdown -- which lasted 35 days and ended Friday with Trump agreeing to fund the government for three weeks -- did dramatically shrink the size of government at least temporarily. Funding was cut off for nine of the 15 Cabinet-level departments and about 800,000 employees went without pay, nearly half of whom were deemed non-essential and told not to report to work. Even as it eroded the presidents approval rating, the shutdown energized a segment of the Republican base that has for decades heard GOP presidential hopefuls vow to abolish the IRS and mothball the departments of Education, Energy or Interior or many other agencies, without actually accomplishing anything close. Its a reminder that should Trump choose a shutdown again, as he threatened Friday, he is likely to have some supporters cheering him on. 'I'm understanding about federal employees, but if you're 'nonessential' it's hard to feel too badly for you' Texan Terry Rose, an advocate for smaller government But the shutdown didnt repair a decades-long schism within the Republican Party between conservatives, who would like to see some parts of government contract but dont mind creating deficits for things like tax cuts and defence spending, and libertarians, whose main goal is to get government out of peoples lives almost entirely. Trump has backed increasing the size of the federal budget, whether to raise military spending or to spend billions walling off the entire U.S.-Mexico border, making him no true champion of small government. Libertarians and fiscal conservatives are also quick to point out that shuttering the government indiscriminately because of political squabbles did nothing to reduce long-term federal spending or have any lasting, meaningful impact on governments overall size and scope. Jeffrey Miron, director of economic studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, noted that the shutdown continuing for so long likely will end up costing taxpayers more to make up for lost time as things begin returning to normal. "This just makes small-government people, and conservatives who claim to be small-government people, look like theyre angry, aggressive, willing to cause people to go without their paychecks," Miron said. Rose considers himself a conservative and not a Republican, but concedes he almost always votes GOP. He said he feels for those who missed paychecks: "I dont want to be mean to them, but its really a system thats overburdened, out of control." Gene Henderson, a 69-year-old Vietnam veteran and retired Border Patrol agent, agreed that the shutdown was a positive example of small government and predicted it could cement Trumps 2020 re-election. Gene Henderson (left) and Brandon Henderson, reflected in a mirror in Angie's Cafe in Fort Hancock, Texas. Gene Henderson supports the shutdown despite how it has furloughed federal inspectors who can approve his cotton for sale. "People sent him up there to stop all this stuff and to drain the swamp," Henderson said of Washington. "And hell be sent up there again." But Joe Brettell, a Republican strategist in Houston, said the shutdown taught the Trump administration "how widespread and diverse the federal government is." "There isnt a single member of the House that doesnt have a federal agency in their district," Brettell said. "As a result, youve got members of all stripes taking calls from people facing really dire financial situations." Its hard to get farther away from Capitol Hill than Fort Hancock, a dusty desert town of about 1,800 that feels straight out of 1950s Hollywood Wild West central casting. Trump won the county that encompasses it, Hudspeth, by 179 votes out of fewer than 900 cast in 2016. But much of the rest of Texas heavily Hispanic border areas tend to favour Democrats. Possible 2020 presidential candidate Beto ORourke hails from neighbouring El Paso County, which went for Hillary Clinton by nearly 45 percentage points. Still, locals have an unusual view of the issue at the centre of the shutdown -- the border wall -- because they can see it literally from two sides. A barrier of towering steel runs through much of town, then stops, giving way to low barbed-wire or, eventually, nothing at all. That means some residents know life with a border wall and others know life without one. Many Trump supporters here dismiss the notion of building a wall the length of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, but believe Trump was right to hold out for expanding it as much as possible. Isela Duran, who was part of the construction crew that helped build the Fort Hancock wall about 10 years ago, said she feels for the federal workers who were furloughed so long. "But I think about us over here, too, and keeping ourselves safe." The shutdown damaged Trumps overall approval ratings, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which showed the number of Americans who approve of his performance dropping to 34 per cent from 42 per cent a month earlier. Among Republicans, however, Trumps approval rating remained close to 80 per cent. Sitting at Angies Restaurant, which specializes in "Mexican and American food," including burritos and cheeseburgers, Rose said he still pins his hopes on Trump. "If Trump gets another four years and a Congress that can work with him, we can save the country," he said. "If not, it will become like Europe. Out of control." The Associated Press BRUMADINHO, Brazil Rescuers in helicopters on Saturday searched for survivors while firefighters dug through mud in a huge area in southeastern Brazil buried by the collapse of dam holding back mine waste, with at least nine people dead and up to 300 missing. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. BRUMADINHO, Brazil Rescuers in helicopters on Saturday searched for survivors while firefighters dug through mud in a huge area in southeastern Brazil buried by the collapse of dam holding back mine waste, with at least nine people dead and up to 300 missing. More than 24 hours since the disaster happened, finding many more survivors was looking increasingly unlikely. "Most likely, from now on we are mostly going to be recovering bodies," said Romeu Zema, the governor of the state of Minas Gerais, adding that those responsible "would be punished." Daily Folha de S.Paulo reported Saturday that the dams mining complex was issued an expedited license to expand in December due to "decreased risk." Preservation groups in the area say the approval was unlawful. Lt. Pedro Aihara, a spokesman for state firefighters, told reporters that they had found a bus they believed could be filled with bodies. However, accessing the bus buried in yards (meters) of mud was proving difficult. "We need a special machine to access the structure and recover victims," Aihara said. "The number of dead is going to go up." Still, there were some signs of hope. Authorities announced they had found 43 more people alive Saturday, though the number missing was still at 300. Firefighters distributed to news outlets lists of people who had been rescued or accounted for. But there were still scores of families in the city desperately awaiting word on their loved ones. For many, hope was fading to anguish. Andre Penner / The Associated Press An aerial view shows a destroyed bridge after the dam in Brazil collapsed. "I dont think he is alive," said Joao Bosco, speaking of his cousin, Jorge Luis Ferreira, who worked for Brazilian mining company Vale. "Right now I can only hope for a miracle of God." Vale workers were eating lunch Friday afternoon when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several structures of the company and surrounding areas. The status of the workers and others in the city of Brumadinho was unknown Saturday, but the level of devastation quickly led President Jair Bolsonaro and other officials to describe it as a "tragedy." Ten bodies had been recovered by Saturday, according to a statement from the Minas Gerais governors office. But the fear was that there would be many more as rescue and recovery teams dug through feet of mud. The rivers of mining waste raised fears of widespread contamination. According to Vales website, the waste, often called tailings, is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster "contained high levels of toxic heavy metals." Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened. About 100 had been accounted for, and rescue efforts were underway to determine what had happened to the others. "The principal victims were our own workers," Schvartsman told a news conference Friday evening, adding that the restaurant where many ate "was buried by the mud at lunchtime." After the dam collapsed in the afternoon, parts of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Several helicopters flew over the area on Saturday while firefighters carefully traversed heavily inundated areas looking for survivors. Rooftops poked above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and a Vale administrative office, where employees were present. On Friday, Minas Gerais state court blocked $260 million from Vale for state emergency services and is requiring the company to present a report about how they will help victims. Leo Correa / The Associated Press People stand at a blocked road after a dam collapsed near Brumadinho, Brazil, Saturday. Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds from their homes. Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic meters of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Schvartsman said what happened Friday was "a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less." Bolsonaro, who assumed office Jan. 1, did a flyover of the area on Saturday. On Twitter, he said his government would do everything it could to "prevent more tragedies" like Mariana and now Brumadinho. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underscored a lack of regulation, and many promised to fight any further deregulation by Bolsonaro in Latin Americas largest nation. The latest spill "is a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies responsible for the tragedy with Samarco dam, in Mariana, also controlled by Vale," Greenpeace said in a statement. "History repeats itself," tweeted Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and three-time presidential candidate. "Its unacceptable that government and mining companies havent learned anything." Anna Jean Kaiser reported from Sao Paulo and Peter Prengaman reported from Arraial do Cabo, Brazil. The Associated Press With MLA Andrew Swans announcement that he is leaving the Manitoba legislature, the provincial New Democratic Party has officially entered the next phase in its long and painful rebuilding process. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. With MLA Andrew Swans announcement that he is leaving the Manitoba legislature, the provincial New Democratic Party has officially entered the next phase in its long and painful rebuilding process. A former attorney general and justice minister, Mr. Swan decided his future political fortunes may lie in Ottawa. This past week, he confirmed he will contest the NDP nomination in the federal riding of Winnipeg Centre. He joins educator and activist Leah Gazan, who is also seeking the nomination. However, while Mr. Swan seeks a federal seat, he leaves a provincial party that is continuing to demonstrate that it has not yet hit rock bottom. JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Minto MLA Andrew Swan is taking a run at federal politics. The past 33 months since the NDP was soundly defeated in the 2016 provincial election have been a nearly constant string of setbacks and humiliations. The NDP was forced to expel Maples MLA Mohinder Saran over allegations of sexual harassment. Then, the party had to explain why it took no action to curb former cabinet minister Stan Struthers after he, too, was accused of sexual misconduct. Finally, following the retirement of former leader and premier Greg Selinger, the NDP lost its long-held seat in St. Boniface to Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont in a byelection. Through all this turmoil, the NDPs performance in the legislature has been capable but inconsistent and of greater concern uninspiring. GRAEME BRUCE/BORIS MINKEVICH/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS LEFT AND LEAVING: At least six New Democrat MLAs elected in 2016 won't be around for the NDP's run in 2020. That group includes Rob Altemeyer, James Allum and Andrew Swan, who said they won't seek re-election; Kevin Chief and Greg Selinger who resigned this term; and Mohinder Saran who was booted from the NDP caucus after accusations of sexual harassment came to light in 2017. Its no wonder, then, that several veteran MLAs have decided to retire or seek political opportunities elsewhere. Joining Mr. Swan (Minto) in the ranks of the soon-to-be-departed are Rob Altemeyer (Wolseley) and James Allum (Fort Garry-Riverview). There is speculation that MLAs Flor Marcelino (Logan) and Ted Marcelino (Tyndall Park) might also leave. If all those sitting members of the Opposition caucus were to leave, it would mean the NDP will have lost half of the 14 MLAs it had following in the 2016 election. If there is any good news in this sad state of affairs, it is that losing veteran politicians, and political aides for that matter, is a natural stage in the rebuilding of any political party. After being rejected by voters, most parties with an appetite to one day return to power understand that they must shed the old personalities and strategies and chart a new course with new people. The task now for NDP Leader Wab Kinew is to ensure that he finds those people, and quickly, so his party does not retreat any further. Former premier Gary Doer managed to last 11 years as Opposition leader, chiefly by ensuring that in each election, he emerged with more seats than he had held going in. That slow and steady progress allowed him to build profile and support among voters so that, in 1999, he could finally seize the moment and return his party to government. If he is to have any future as leader, and more particularly as premier, Mr. Kinew must pull off a similar trick. He must find new candidates with haste in order to have a fighting chance to win at least as many seats in the 2020 election as he had following the 2016 election. Mr. Swans decision to leave provincial politics is, all things considered, quite understandable. But it has nonetheless made Mr. Kinews path back to power a little steeper, a little longer and decidedly more perilous. Vera McLean could bearly contain her enthusiasm for all things creative, so she shared it generously, widely and often. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Vera McLean could "bearly" contain her enthusiasm for all things creative, so she shared it generously, widely and often. McLean, who died at age 90 on Sept. 29, 2018, was known for her collection of 600 teddy bears, but was legendary because of her astonishing artistic abilities. Vera McLean had an amazing collection of teddy bears and astonishing artistic abilities. (Supplied) She was an expert in painting with oil, acrylic, watercolour, pastel and ink and in drawing. She was proficient in pottery, tole painting rosemaling, quilting, decoupage, weaving, knitting, crocheting, sewing, macrame, batik, stitchery and puppetry, her children say. The Teddy Bear Lady began her collection in 1969. It included her own creations and others from places she visited with Bill, her husband of 42 years, and on her own around the world: England, Ireland and other European spots, Mexico, the Caribbean and China. "She loved teddy bears right from when she was a child and she just followed her passion; she believed bears are love," says Sara Best, McLeans daughter. "It was really, really special having someone so unique and so talented in our lives." McLean's family held a huge celebration for her when she turned 90 in 2018. (Supplied) A vintage Schuco Yes No Teddy Bear, left to her in a friends will, became a treasured piece in her collection. McLean who, along with Sara had two sons, David and Jeff, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, exuded artistic talent and creative abilities. In Beausejour, where she and her husband retired, she would paint the town red... and other colours, too. "At Christmas, she would paint Christmas scenes and themes on windows for some of the businesses in town," Best says. "She was learning different genres all the way through her life and she was painting right up until about a year before she passed. All of us have significant artwork and quilts from her." Each home where the couple raised their family became something of an area attraction, says David, the eldest. "She would paint nativity scenes on the front windows of our home in all the communities that we lived in. We used to have all manner of people just driving by just to look at the windows," he says. "From the outside, it looked like a big stained-glass window." Vera donated many bears to the Brokenhead River Regional Library where they are displayed in the children's section. (Supplied) David and his wife Vickie got an abstract painting titled Two Nudes and a Dinosaur from his mother in 1976 as a wedding gift. "Its quite a large, amazing canvas; very cool," he says. "We took the title off of it because it got people so wired up about (the word nude). Its a beautiful picture." Best says his mother had a studio in an extension built onto her Beausejour home which she opened into a "boodle shop" in 1977 to showcase and sell her original arts and crafts. In 1980, she turned the space into a museum for her vast collection of teddy bears. Children visited the museum on school field trips; she gave them colouring books with her drawings inside. She performed puppet shows at the library and at local schools. Her children say she left a "strong legacy of a passion for fun in life" and was constantly giving away her art. When she downsized from her house to an apartment, McLean donated about 300 bears and display cases to the Brokenhead River Regional Library, where they are a popular attraction. Family members kept some special bears and others were donated to local hospitals after her death. Sometimes, McLean's bears enjoyed hanging out on the beach. (Supplied) As a teen, where McLean "lived and breathed" artistic talent, she submitted articles and drawings to the local newspaper in Kamsack, Sask., before her family moved to Winnipeg when she was 16. "There was no favourite type of art; she did everything," says Best. "She had a book from 1943 that was her home economics book when she was at Lord Wolseley Collegiate in East Kildonan. Its a book of fashion with her drawings and she wrote about them. "All of her creativity and her passion poured out in her work and it showed in all that she did." She met Bill when they were both working for the Royal Bank and they married in 1949. They lived in Brandon, Portage la Prairie, Rivers and Melita before settling in Beausejour. Her children recall her enduring joy in spending time with her eight grandchildren, having tea parties, staging puppet shows, dressing up bears, doing crafts and pottery, playing at her cottage in Matlock, going for bike rides, sailing on the lake and watching the sun rise and set. "It was everyday things but she made them special," Best says. "When I was little, I had to wear dresses to school and I hated dresses, so she would sew me and my dolls dresses that matched." David says his mother and his son Rogan shared their birthday, June 23. On Rogans third birthday in 1987, his grandma had a special surprise. "I remember Mom and Dad were coming out (to Brandon from Beausejour) and they arrived with this great big box. They put it up on our step and she got inside. My dad rang the doorbell and we all came out and there was this box," David says. "We said (to Rogan), open the box, open the box, and his grandmother popped out!" Her vivacious personality and sense of humour were evident in her love of quotations, which always produced a laugh. "When she lived in Concordia Village assisted living, she would always post downstairs a quote of the day, and it was always funny things," Best says. "She would post things like, I had a handle on life, but it got broken! or I tried to be normal once; worst two minutes of my life!" David says she made each of her grandchildren feel special. "She made a book for each of them. It was the story of that grandchilds life. She illustrated them and wrote them, and it was all about the adventures they had," he says. Best says her mother made quilts in 2007 for her and her brothers families with their handprints on them. "She put a little saying on the back of each of them: Ive lived, laughed, laboured and loved. That was her." ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca Thefts at Winnipeg Liquor Marts continue to spiral out of control, an employee said Friday, in the wake of a pepper-spray incident at a Keewatin Street location that sent one person to hospital. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Thefts at Winnipeg Liquor Marts continue to spiral out of control, an employee said Friday, in the wake of a pepper-spray incident at a Keewatin Street location that sent one person to hospital. "I've never seen anything like this, and where it's heading is total disaster," said the employee, who did not want to provide their name. "It's so out of control. We have people walking out with cases (of booze)." According to the source, around 3:45 p.m. Thursday, a male suspect was approaching the exit at the Tyndall Market Liquor Mart (850 Keewatin St.), carrying liquor bottles he had not paid for, when he crossed paths with a male customer who appeared to be in his 70s. When the customer raised his hand, motioning the man to stop, the man discharged a can of pepper spray in the customer's direction and fled. Such sprays are designed to irritates eyes, causing tears, pain, and even temporary blindness. Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service members treated six people at the scene, the city confirmed Friday. One of the six was taken to hospital. No suspects have been arrested in the incident, Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jay Murray said, declining to comment on reports on the number of thefts at Liquor Mart retail locations. PHIL HOSSACK/ WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Manitoba Liquor store at Keewatin and Burrows. On Jan. 14, police arrested three teen boys outside a Liquor Mart on Henderson Highway. Police were called after a report the suspects had smashed several bottles on the store floor before fleeing with $740 worth of liquor. One of the suspects reportedly threw a liquor bottle at police, while another threatened to kill two officers. "I'm not going to speak to historical trends, in regards to liquor thefts," Murray said at the time. "I do want to acknowledge that we have been working with the (Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp.) and, going forward, we continue to make these arrests and work with the liquor authority to stop this crime." The Liquor Mart employee said people are openly stealing products from the Keewatin Street store several times a day. "It's a lucky day if it's just once or twice," the employee said. MLL made headlines in September 2018, after it was revealed thieves had taken approximately $800,000 worth of liquor from its stores in the previous 12 months, while also confirming it had ordered security guards not to physically stop any suspects. The employee said Liquor Mart staff have since undergone a "non-violent" training course, "where they basically told us to do nothing Our job is to basically clear a path for (thieves)." A call to MLL for comment was not returned. dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca France has a rich history, an impressive infrastructure and a tourism industry trying valiantly to cope with its big crowds. Travelers who plan ahead enjoy big rewards. Paris most famous landmark, the Eiffel Tower, has a new look. A glass wall now rings its base for security reasons, with one access point at each side, meaning you can no longer wander freely under the tower. Visitors should allow an extra 30 minutes to go through screening. Also, summit tickets for the top are no longer available on the second level of the tower; its smart to buy them online in advance. Paris continues to upgrade its many marvelous exhibits. The Cluny Museum, with its famous The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, is undergoing a multiyear, room-by-room renovation. Expect some changes and room closures until at least 2020. The Parisian transportation system is also getting some improvements. After a century of paper tickets for the Metro and buses, smartcards are slowly taking over, including the Navigo Easy Pass, which is better for travelers, as it can be shared and topped up. Barack Obama is bringing his presidential star power and political perspective to Winnipeg. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (874 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Barack Obama is bringing his presidential star power and political perspective to Winnipeg. In what is being billed as "A Conversation with President Barack Obama," the groundbreaking former U.S. president will take centre stage at Bell MTS Place on March 4. Despite leaving the White House two years ago, Obama continues to generate headlines and is a major draw on the lucrative speaking tour circuit. Morry Gash / The Associated Press Files Then-Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is hugged by his wife Michelle after his speech at the primary night rally in St. Paul, Minn., June 3, 2008. Just last week, as current U.S. President Donald Trump was losing his battle to build a wall along the border with Mexico during the government shutdown, Obama was the one entertaining the NBA's defending champion Golden State Warriors during the team's visit to Washington. Trump had earlier rescinded the team's invitation to meet him at the White House. Obama's Winnipeg stop comes as Canada-U.S. relations are far cooler than when he occupied the Oval Office. However, his reception in the city will likely be as warm as the one that greeted the 44th U.S. president during his September 2017 appearance at a $10,000-per-table speech in Toronto, where he noted: "Me and Canada... we have this thing." Obama will follow his Winnipeg appearance with stops in Calgary and Vancouver on March 5. About five months after a report detailing allegations of sexual assault going back decades rocked Manitoba Hydro, the RCMP revealed they have investigated nine cases in the past four years at the Keeyask generating station construction site. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. About five months after a report detailing allegations of sexual assault going back decades rocked Manitoba Hydro, the RCMP revealed they have investigated nine cases in the past four years at the Keeyask generating station construction site. In an email Thursday, RCMP spokesman Robert Cyrenne listed the number of sexual-assault reports police received each year at Keeyask: one in 2015, two in 2016, three in 2017, and three in 2018. Four men were charged with sexual assault after four investigations. In three other cases, the victims didnt want to press charges. In the other two, a third party reported a possible sexual assault, but the alleged victim didnt want to take part in an investigation or didnt respond to officers questions. Four northern First Nations who have partnership stakes in Keeyask (725 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg) have repeatedly raised the issue of sexual violence at Manitoba Hydro camps. As recently as last week, York Factory First Nation, Tataskweyak Cree Nation, War Lake First Nation and Fox Lake Cree Nation put out a news release and supporters rallied on the steps of the Manitoba legislature demanding a provincial inquiry into Hydros environmental and social impacts in the North. Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee said Friday he believes the number of sexual-assault cases reported by the RCMP is "conservative," as not all assaults are reported to authorities. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Grand Chief Garrison Settee "From our estimation, I think that theres more; more incidents like this. Its just that they go unreported because of fear and the shame involved in it, and we understand that," Settee said. In an interview Jan. 18, Hydro president and chief executive officer Kelvin Shepherd estimated there were five or six sexual-assault investigations at Keeyask in recent years. He also said sexual assault was a societal ill Hydro couldnt curb on its own. "Im not going to defend that any one, any single incident, is acceptable because I dont agree that it is. But I would also tell you that youre dealing with a very large workforce," Shepherd said, referring to a group of Keeyask workers that has peaked around 2,400. "Its made up of people that represent the general population you could find in Winnipeg or Manitoba or Canada. We have very good policies, we have very good monitoring, we have lots of excellent things were doing. But these are incidents that do happen everywhere in our society. And so I dont accept that its something Hydro can just somehow prevent from happening." Settee took issue with Shepherds statement, noting Hydro shouldnt minimize the problem. "People are accountable -- should be accountable. We cannot blame society when something is happening within your domain. You are responsible," he said. However, Settee said the August 2018 release of a Manitoba Clean Environment Commission report, which contained historical allegations of abuse involving Hydro staff and RCMP, seemed to "open the door" for conversation. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES CEO of Manitoba Hydro Kelvin Shepherd "I think its been a long time coming. The situation and the gravity of these allegations has come to light. And I think for the healing to take place, those discussions need to be had," Settee said. "Before reconciliation, theres got to be some cold hard truth -- and I think thats whats happening." U of M prof, northern MP weigh in University of Manitoba Prof. Peter Kulchyski has studied Hydros impact in the North for years, and says he brought up the issue of preventing sexual violence at Keeyask during hearings held in 2013 before the start of construction. His concerns were met with indifference. I spoke at the (Manitoba) Clean Environment Commission hearings and said this is going to happen. We need to take some much stronger affirmative measures and try and do something about it. And, basically, there was a collective shrug. Nobody was interested," Kulchyski said. click to read more University of Manitoba Prof. Peter Kulchyski has studied Hydros impact in the North for years, and says he brought up the issue of preventing sexual violence at Keeyask during hearings held in 2013 before the start of construction. His concerns were met with indifference. I spoke at the (Manitoba) Clean Environment Commission hearings and said this is going to happen. We need to take some much stronger affirmative measures and try and do something about it. And, basically, there was a collective shrug. Nobody was interested," Kulchyski said. "Honestly, I think up until this recent wave of media coverage, they (Manitoba Hydro) havent been concerned." On Thursday, RCMP told the Free Press that nine sexual-assault investigations have been launched at Keeyask since 2015. Kulchyski said he's heard stories of sexual violence happening at "virtually every construction camp" dating to Grand Rapids in the 1960s. "There is a sense in which I feel (Hydro is) actively suppressing, rather than actually confronting the problem and trying to figure out ways of dealing with it," he said. "We would all acknowledge that its a difficult problem and there are no easy (solutions) Basically, what they want to do is keep awareness of the problem to a minimum, which is then not helping us confront it. The bottom line is the bottom line: they dont care." NDP MP Niki Ashton, whose sprawling northern riding includes the Keeyask generating station site, called the number of recent sexual-assault investigations at the plant "shocking." There needs to be some ownership, and immediate action needs to be taken by Hydro, Ashton said Friday. Women affected, and the First Nations impacted, deserve justice. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau caused an outcry last month, when he explained feminist policy analysis is needed for everything, including infrastructure projects. There are gender impacts when you bring construction workers into a rural area. There are social impacts, because theyre mostly male construction workers, Trudeau said at an event in Argentina. Some have linked his comments to last years revelation of historical sexual-assault allegations in a CEC report; far more have criticized Trudeau, saying he was disparaging construction workers. Trudeaus office has claimed he was instead calling for more women to enter trades. -- Jessica Botelho-Urbanski and Dylan Robertson Close Hydro has started working with members of Tracias Trust (Manitoba's anti-sexual exploitation strategy) and the Keeyask partner nations to develop on-site training, a spokesperson said. The Crown corporation also twice brought in members of the RCMP to host workshops on drugs, alcohol and sexual exploitation; sponsored performances by motivational musician Robb Nash; and invited members of Winnipegs Bear Clan Patrol to try and help find community-based solutions. "The number (of cases) appears to be on the rise because we talk about sexual assault -- and sexual exploitation -- more openly now, and we have been working very hard to actively encourage people to report it," Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said by email. "Second, there was a significant increase in population of workers at Keeyask in 2016-18, in comparison to 2015, as work on the project increased." Construction of the $8.7-billion Keeyask project is expected to be completed by late 2021 or early 2022. jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @_jessbu OTTAWA The federal government says it wont foot the entire bill in the effort to ensure rural Manitobans receive alerts about natural disasters. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA The federal government says it wont foot the entire bill in the effort to ensure rural Manitobans receive alerts about natural disasters. "This take a lot of collaboration," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Friday. "We all have our responsibilities to discharge, with regards to the public alerting system." Goodale was speaking in a teleconference from Edmonton, where provincial and territorial ministers responsible for emergency management crafted a national strategy on the issue. Last summer, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister called on Ottawa to help the province upgrade its cellphone coverage network. A category-EF4 tornado touched down last August in the town of Alonsa, 200 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, killing 77-year-old Jack Furrie. Local residents reported inconsistent warnings; some received emergency alerts on their cellphones and others lost connectivity. Like many rural communities, part of Alonsa was not hooked up to LTE cellular phone service, which necessary to receive a text message from a government emergency alert network. Days later, Pallister played down the idea of the province helping to underwrite the cost upgrading rural areas to LTE. Hed mulled the idea in 2016, but said it was "a premature suggestion," while his office added "the federal government is best positioned" to address the issue. Goodale said Friday different levels must "contribute" to keep improving the system. "This is not a federal system; it is a truly comprehensive system where all jurisdictions are involved: municipal, provincial, federal the private sector is involved," he said. Goodale noted even residents have to make sure their cellphones are new enough to receive such alerts. A spokesman for the Pallister government wrote Friday it does intend to help fund such networks, citing an unrelated $20-million commitment a year ago for rural broadband access. "We will continue to work with industry, the business community and other levels of government to improve wireless coverage in the province," wrote Kevin Engstrom. He added Bell MTS upgraded Alonsas local network after the tornado. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca In an extraordinary move, a large public-sector union called out another union Friday, accusing it of lying, fearmongering and needlessly frightening Manitoba health care workers. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In an extraordinary move, a large public-sector union called out another union Friday, accusing it of lying, fearmongering and needlessly frightening Manitoba health care workers. The Canadian Union of Public Employees condemned assertions made by the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union on Thursday, that the Pallister government's move to consolidate health bargaining units could lead to health care aides and home care workers being used interchangeably. "We believe that's a gross exaggeration of what that process would ever look like," said Liz Carlyle, a CUPE national representative. "We believe that this is really just fearmongering on MGEU's behalf because they don't want to answer for what's in their collective agreements." Carlyle accused the MGEU of bargaining inferior contracts for its workers and failing to keep them informed about the latest developments in the government's effort to reduce the number of health care bargaining units in Manitoba. She said health care workers have known for months that health care aides might be put in the same bargaining unit as home care workers. "Just being a member of the same bargaining unit does not mean that the employer can assign you to work someone else's job or to work on another site," Carlyle said. She said CUPE agreements guarantee such protection for their members. On Thursday, MGEU president Michelle Gawronsky said she's been told government wants the flexibility to use workers and aides interchangeably. "A good health-care system needs to support (its) health-care workforce, not stress them out and turn their lives upside down," Gawronsky said then. "Only a high-priced consultant who isn't working on the front lines would try to improve quality of care by shuffling health workers around the system." The rare public criticism of one union by another comes as the government is forcing health care unions to compete for members across the province. Where there are now 180 health bargaining units across the province, that will be reduced to about three dozen in the coming months. The most intense competition will occur in the areas of facility support staff, community support workers and professional/technical/ paramedical staff. Where currently, one union may represent health care aides in one hospital and another union may represent the same workers in a different hospital, soon run-off votes will be held to pick one union to represent all these workers across an entire health region. On Thursday, the government announced that health care aides and home care workers would be placed in the same 'community support' category. That drew the ire of the MGEU, which represents all home care workers and some health care aides. Sheila Gordon, the MGEU's director of negotiations, said while the government had expressed a desire last fall to combine health care aides with home care workers in the same bargaining classification, it lacked the legal authority to do it until this week when it passed a regulation allowing it. The MGEU had hoped that home care workers would remain in their own bargaining category. While CUPE accused the MGEU of frightening hospital and home care workers by raising the possibility they might be moved around and forced to do each other's jobs, Gordon said that remains a real possibility the way the government is directing the bargaining units to be established. Within the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, for instance, all home care workers and health care aides would be in the same bargaining unit, represented by one union. All unions that represent any of these workers would vie for the right to represent them. "The reality is that once workers are placed in the same bargaining unit, employers can and do reassign staff within that unit," said Gordon. Since bargaining units are now generally site-specific, that's not currently an issue, she said. Rather than fearmongering, Gordon said, the MGEU felt it had an obligation to alert health workers to what may transpire as bargaining units are rationalized. Health Minister Cameron Friesen said Thursday that the MGEU was incorrect in its assertion that creating larger bargaining units would lead to workers being shuffled around from facility to facility, or from a hospital or personal care home into providing home care. "Staff will continue to have choice about where they work and what role they play in the system," he said. However, Gordon pointed out that a consultant hired by the Pallister government has argued that merging bargaining units would enhance the effective use and mobility of health care workers. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca For decades, Indigenous children were physically and sexually abused after being forced from their home communities to attend residential schools across the country. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. For decades, Indigenous children were physically and sexually abused after being forced from their home communities to attend residential schools across the country. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, whose chairman, Murray Sinclair, is now a senator, heard from witnesses and received reports as it travelled across the country to examine the damage caused by the residential school system. Representatives from 20 charitable organizations that recently received $1.3 million from The Winnipeg Foundations reconciliation grants. (Supplied) After the truth became known, the commission wanted the country to work towards reconciliation. It issued 94 calls to action to the federal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous governments, hoping to spark the creation of programs and implement policies. The Winnipeg Foundation, the countrys oldest community foundation, accepted the call. Earlier this month, it issued $1.3 million in grants to 20 local organizations. To get the grants, each of the organizations had to propose projects that work towards reconciliation. Some of those programs will wrap up this year, others will continue over the next three years. Mentoring Artists for Womens Art is an organization that provides numerous programs for female artists, including visual arts education. Shawna Dempsey, the groups co-executive director, said the foundation gave it $79,600 for two projects. In the first, 500 packages of artworks, each on 22-by-28-centimetre cardstock, will be created by 50 Canadian Indigenous female artists. They were part of this past years Resilience exhibition, which was featured on billboards across the country. The packages will be distributed to every public school Winnipeg. "Right now in schools, when children learn about art, they learn about the Italian Renaissance and (American pop artist) Andy Warhol, but we have such a wealth of artists in Canada, particularly Indigenous women artists," Dempsey said. "We want to create educational tools to get them into schools, so teachers can use them to learn about the artists and learn about the meaning of the artwork in the artists own words." For the second project, Resilience curator Lee-Ann Martin has been commissioned to put together a textbook about the history of Indigenous women, which will be told through contemporary artwork. The books, with around 100 full-colour illustrations, would be geared towards high school and post-secondary students. Local artists involved in the project include Jaime Black, Lita Fontaine and KC Adams. Others whose work will be featured include Daphne Odjig, Annie Pootoogook, Christi Belcourt and Skawennati. Another grant recipient, the Immigrant and Refugee Committee Organization of Manitoba (IRCOM), received almost $100,000 to create a community-engagement project between new Canadians and Indigenous people. Dorota Blumczynska, executive director of IRCOM, said many refugees are surprised when they get to Canada to learn about the countrys treatment of its Indigenous people. "Newcomers are often deeply saddened, and they feel misled by Canadas grandiose stories of being a land of freedom and great opportunity and human rights, but then they learn about this dark reality," Blumczynska said. "We have an opportunity to change the narrative that is known even beyond our borders about Canada and Indigenous people." IRCOM plans to take several steps, including engaging a cultural adviser to help deliver workshops, sharing circles and cultural sharing creating opportunities for cultural exchange between newcomers and Indigenous community members and forming a community advisory committee made up, in part, with Indigenous community members. Winnipeg Foundation chief executive officer Rick Frost said the grants range from $800 so Westworth United Church can hold Interfaith workshops on the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions calls to action to a few that are worth $100,000. The average grant is $60,000. Frost said 82 organizations made $6 million in requests, but the amount available for grants was $1.3 million. "We, obviously, are interested in reconciliation, and this is a way we are reacting to it," he said. "Reconciliation is on our mind." Megan Tate, the foundations director of community grants, said "reconciliation isnt just an issue for the one community, it is an issue for all Winnipeggers. They all have a role in reconciliation." Other projects funded by the foundation include the Manitoba Craft Councils art exhibition, which focuses on contemporary Indigenous beading practices; the Rainbow Resource Centres culturally relevant programming for Indigenous LGBTTQ* people; and the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centres culturally oriented retreats for Indigenous parents who are working to reunite with their children. Patricia Mainville, who was chairwoman of the reconciliation grants advisory committee, admits it was tough to turn down so many organizations. "There were a lot of great projects," Mainville said. "There would have been more grants we would have loved to support." Dempsey thanked the foundation, not only for her organizations grant, but for the grant program itself. "Across the board, the Winnipeg Foundation makes Winnipeg a better place. So much happens because of their funding," Dempsey said. "I think the reconciliation grants are phenomenal... change is essential." Frost said the foundation wont know until after the projects are evaluated if there will be more reconciliation grants. "Reconciliation cant be led or accomplished by one organization," he said. "There has to be leadership in a lot of places, but hopefully this helps." kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca OTTAWA Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton is dismissing criticism after she denounced Canadas response to Venezuelas authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton is dismissing criticism after she denounced Canadas response to Venezuelas authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro. "The NDP has a history of speaking out against imperialist initiatives, and certainly calling out, against U.S.-backed military coups," the MP for northern Manitoba told the Free Press on Friday. FERNANDO LLANO / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Venezuelan lawmaker Juan Guaido takes the oath of office as president of the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela. In her only interview on the topic, Ashton would not say whether she considers Maduro a dictator. Venezeula has slid into economic chaos and violence under Maduro, and whose government has reportedly tortured dissidents. Another leader has emerged Wednesday saying hell take hold of the presidency if the military supports him, quickly earning the support of Western governments. In a tweet sent just before midnight on Wednesday night, Ashton slammed the Trudeau government for siding with President Donald "Trump's regime change agenda" through "support of someone calling for a military coup in Venezuela." PM Trudeau sides with Trump's regime change agenda and Brazil's fascist President in support of someone calling for a military coup in Venezuela. No! We cannot support an agenda of economic or military coups. #HandsOffVenezuela Niki Ashton (@nikiashton) January 24, 2019 Liberal MP Michael Levitt replied Thursday morning on Twitter that Ashton was "supporting the dictator of Venezuela." Alberta's conservative leader Jason Kenney accused Ashton of "ignoring" actions by "the thug Maduro regime." Ashton did not respond to the tweet or clarify her position, despite engaging with the platform at various points over two days. Speaking with the Free Press late Friday afternoon, Ashton accused her critics of "trolling," a term for disingenuous criticism online meant to sidetrack a debate. "My tweet was not in defence of Maduro; it was condemning support for someone who calls for a military coup," she said. "I think my tweet and my message were pretty self-explanatory." When asked if Maduro is a dictator, Ashton did not provide a yes-or-no answer. "Im not the foreign affairs critic. What was important to me was to make it clear that we can't be endorsing those who call for coups," she said. In her tweet, Ashton also referred to Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro as a "fascist" an assessment that is not uncommon among elected officials, but one they seldom voice publicly. Ashton also caused a stir in June 2016 when she joined her father Steve in campaigning for Bernie Sanders in North Dakota during his run for Democratic presidential nominee. While some took issue with Ashton intervening in a foreign vote, her volunteer work complied with American laws and was during a parliamentary break. Why are two men claiming to be Venezuelas president? OTTAWA Years of poverty, instability and violence in Venezuela culminated in a legitimacy crisis this week, through the use of a constitutional loophole. In 2013, Nicolas Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez, presiding over a troubled economy that still boasts the worlds largest oil reserves. Under Maduro, Venezuela slid into outright poverty, with millions fleeing hunger, untreated illness and political repression to neighboring countries. click to read more OTTAWA Years of poverty, instability and violence in Venezuela culminated in a legitimacy crisis this week, through the use of a constitutional loophole. In 2013, Nicolas Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez, presiding over a troubled economy that still boasts the worlds largest oil reserves. Under Maduro, Venezuela slid into outright poverty, with millions fleeing hunger, untreated illness and political repression to neighboring countries. In May 2018, Maduro was re-elected in a vote that is widely perceived as rigged and not recognized by numerous countries. But on Wednesday, the countrys congressional leader Juan Guaido declared himself president, through a constitutional clause that allows someone in that position to ascend to power in the case of an incapacitated president Within hours, Canada, the United States and countries across the region said they recognized Guaido as leader. Canadas Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told media shed spoken with Guaido in the days leading up to his Wednesday declaration. Analysts believe whichever leader has the support of the countrys military will emerge as president. Maduro has helped high-ranking officials get rich while most of the population struggles to eat. Yet Guaido has hinted at amnesty for military officers if he takes over the government, and has drawn crowds of supporters across the country. Regardless, the situation has caused consternation for many who identify with South Americas wide range of leftist parties, after decades of U.S. intervention that often saw military coups against governments that impeded American access to resources in the region. Venezuela has had some of the highest violence rates in the world in recent years, while treatable diseases have spread due to a lack of drugs and an inflating currency. Dylan Robertson Close On Thursday, Sanders tweeted similar pushback against "regime change or supporting coups," but had noted that Maduro "waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution" and made the economy "a disaster." The South American countrys prolonged political crisis hit a turn Wednesday when congressional leader Juan Guaido declared himself president through a constitutional loophole. Western governments including Canada recognized him as head of government within hours. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca The City of Winnipeg's integrity commissioner has cleared Coun. Matt Allard of allegedly breaking the municipal code of conduct, after two complaints were filed accusing him of orchestrating a takeover of the Old St. Boniface Residents Association in 2017. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The City of Winnipeg's integrity commissioner has cleared Coun. Matt Allard of allegedly breaking the municipal code of conduct, after two complaints were filed accusing him of orchestrating a takeover of the Old St. Boniface Residents Association in 2017. Sherri Walsh informed city council members of the outcome of her investigation in a letter Tuesday. The report was made public Friday. "As discussed in the report, my findings were made having regard to the 1994 code of conduct. I did not find that the member of council breached the provisions of that code," Walsh wrote. While Walsh wasnt required to make the outcome of the investigation public -- which she did by submitting a formal report to the agenda for the next council meeting Jan. 31 -- she said she did so due to past media attention on the case. "On Dec. 19, 2018... (I) advised that I would not be reporting on the matter to council except as part of my annual report," she wrote. "I have since determined, however, that because this matter was the subject of considerable discussion in the media when the complaints were first brought forward, the public interest would be best served by making my findings a matter of public record." Allard (St. Boniface) was accused of using his position as a city councillor, as well as the resources of his office, to stack the Old St. Boniface Residents Association annual general meeting in March 2017, in an effort to elect a slate of candidates to the board. Those candidates, the complainants alleged, favoured a controversial riverside condominium project Allard was supportive of. In her written report, Walsh noted Allard didnt deny the substance of the charges against him, but rather argued there was nothing untoward about his actions. "The councillor has not denied that he carried out the activities which form the subject of the complaints. Rather, his position is that such engagement was, in fact, consistent with his official duties of office and did not constitute a misuse of his influence or of the resources available to him as a councillor," Walsh wrote. Although she didnt side with the complainants, Walsh did compliment them for coming forward. "Both complainants were clear that this issue was not personal to them; rather their concern was for the democratic process. Such engagement and commitment by members of the public is to be commended," she wrote. Allard said hes satisfied with the findings of the investigation. "Im pleased to see the report is out and this investigation occurred. In particular, it confirms that city councilors can engage respectfully in political dialogue in their community and be actively involved," he said by phone Friday. "Its a good process, to have a third party to be able to decide whether there is an investigation and that a report can be made public." Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman is leaving for Ottawa on the weekend for the Big City Mayors Caucus meetings, and will be reviewing the documents prior to his return Monday, his office said in a statement. "It would be difficult to provide substantive comment on something hes not yet read." In addition to the Allard report, a report on an investigation into Coun. John Orlikow will also be tabled at the next council meeting. Local developer Andrew Marquess made a series of complaints against the River Heights-Fort Garry councillor over his conduct in regards to a proposed redevelopment of the Parker lands. Marquess alleged improper conduct by Orlikow on three occasions: when he attended a January 2018 public information session on the proposed Fulton Grove project; the actions he took on behalf of the protesters who illegally occupied some of the land in 2017; and his attempts to get Marquess to sell the property to the city. Walsh recused herself from the investigation, due to a conflict of interest. Toronto-based lawyer Gregory J. Levine conducted the probe instead. While he determined the councillor did not violate the citys 1994 code of conduct, he said Orlikows interactions with Marquess on two occasions were "inappropriate" and he should apologize. A spokesman for Orlikows office previously told the Free Press he would not comment on the report until the Jan. 31 council meeting. -- with files from Alexandra Paul ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @rk_thorpe KINGSTON, Ont. - The RCMP have charged a Kingston youth with terrorism, saying the person who cannot be identified allegedly tried to persuade someone to plant a bomb. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Police officers carry evidence after raiding a house in Kingston, Ontario, on Thursday Jan. 24, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg KINGSTON, Ont. - The RCMP have charged a Kingston youth with terrorism, saying the person who cannot be identified allegedly tried to persuade someone to plant a bomb. A second individual, who came to Canada as a refugee, was arrested but later released without charges in the same purported plot, which has stirred up the usually sedate city on the shores of Lake Ontario. The youth is charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and with counselling someone to use an explosive or other lethal device to cause death or serious bodily injury. The police say no actual device was ever planted. "There was no specific target identified," said RCMP Supt. Peter Lambertucci, who is in charge of a national-security enforcement team. But police felt they had enough information to swoop in and make the arrests Thursday. "There was an attack plan, which is what led to our disruption yesterday," Lambertucci said during a packed news conference in Kingston on Friday. The Youth Criminal Justice Act prevents the release of any additional information about the charged individual, who made a brief court appearance. Amin Alzahabi, the father of Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, 20, said late Friday his son was home sleeping after being released from custody. An RCMP official confirmed he had been set free. The elder Alzahabi spent much of the day simply trying to determine his son's whereabouts. "I want to know where he is," he said Friday morning at the door of the family's semi-detached Kingston home. The Mounties said they had been investigating the pair since December, following a tip from the FBI in the United States. Lambertucci said Hussam Eddin Alzahabi is friends with the youth who has been charged with terrorism. "The individual was reported to be involved in the manufacturing of homemade improvised explosive devices," Lambertucci said. A potentially explosive substance was found during a search, removed and blown up to neutralize it, police said, but they provided no details. Officers were seen Friday searching a Kingston bungalow linked to one of the arrests. Police cars and orange barricades barred traffic from the street. The Alzahabi family came to Canada about two years ago after fleeing war-torn Damascus for Kuwait. Their home in Syria has been destroyed. The father was once imprisoned for not joining the ruling political party in Syria and would be vulnerable to arrest and severe retaliation should he and the family return home, according to one of the churches that sponsored them as refugees. Bronek Korczynski, who co-chaired the sponsorship committee, said he and other members of the four churches that brought the family to Canada were shocked by news of the younger Alzahabi's arrest. "Even though our sponsorship ended last July, many of us in the group have maintained relationships with the family meaningful relationships and this is just a real body blow," he said. "We're just gobsmacked by this. It's so out of whack with the family we've come to know and care for." Korczynski said he'd been at a meeting with Kingston police and RCMP on Friday morning, alongside other community leaders. Officers wanted to ensure the leaders had the answers they needed, and were able to continue providing services to the family and the broader community. "It was very much an opportunity to say, 'What can the community do to make sure that this doesn't become an incident that unjustifiably targets any ethnic group, national group, religious group?'" he said. Agencies assisting the RCMP in the case include the U.S. FBI, Kingston police, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Canada Border Services Agency and the federal agency that tracks suspicious financial activities. Lambertucci said as many as 300 people have contributed to the investigation. The effort included a small RCMP surveillance plane, whose circling over Kingston has puzzled, and sometimes annoyed, residents for weeks. The aerial support helped police keep tabs on certain addresses, Lambertucci indicated. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said in a statement the government constantly monitors all potential threats and has robust measures in place to address them. The country's official threat level remains at "medium," where it has stood since the autumn of 2014, he added. In a joint statement, the Anglican and Roman Catholic dioceses for the Kingston area said they support the police in their investigation and pointed out that hundreds of people have been successfully settled in Canada as church-sponsored refugees after passing government screenings. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer praised the police work that led to the arrests and accused the Liberals of weakness on terrorism and running a lax refugee-screening system. "These kinds of incidents serve to underscore the critical importance of having strong anti-terrorism laws and appropriate penalties for those found guilty of breaking them," Scheer said in a statement. "It is also clear that Canada's refugee screening process needs to be seriously examined," he added. "We've recently learned of several examples of dangerous individuals entering the country due in part to lax screening procedures." Scheer cited a 2017 audit of the Canada Border Services Agency that found 39 cases in which Syrian refugee claimants admitted to Canada didn't receive proper screening. The agency acknowledged the error but said a review afterward found that none of the 39 people was inadmissible. With files from David Reevely and Nicole Thompson MONTREAL - Yellow Pages Ltd. says a year-long effort to restructure and modernize its relationship with unionized sales representatives across Canada has concluded with the ratification of a new collective agreement by employees in Toronto. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. MONTREAL - Yellow Pages Ltd. says a year-long effort to restructure and modernize its relationship with unionized sales representatives across Canada has concluded with the ratification of a new collective agreement by employees in Toronto. The Montreal-based publisher of digital and paper-based advertising says it now has the flexibility to reward its best sales representatives and make adjustments in response to the shifting needs of a competitive marketplace. The new logo of Yellow Media Inc. - formerly Yellow Pages, is shown on Monday, March 22, 2010 in Montreal. Yellow Pages Ltd. says a year-long effort to restructure and modernize its relationship with unionized sales representatives across Canada has concluded with the ratification of a new collective agreement by employees in Toronto. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz Chief executive David Eckert says Yellow Pages has now laid the groundwork necessary for achieving "real improvement in our revenue trends." Yellow Pages says with the Toronto deal ratified, the new agreements cover all but a dozen of its hundreds of unionized sales representatives. The company, which has faced financial difficulties, locked out about 130 sales representative in Quebec in mid-September after the two sides failed to reach a labour agreement. Yellow Pages earned a $27.1-million profit for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, due to cost-cutting including workforce reductions, asset sales and a $18.3-million reversal in income tax provisions. Revenue for the three months was down 26 per cent to $130.1 million. Companies in this story: (TSX:Y) Asselin said the ambulance driver swerved into another lane to avoid the oncoming vehicle. He just missed us by about 8 feet. After passing the ambulance, Asselin said, Larsen did a U-turn on the highway and pulled over. He was urinating on the side of the road when police arrived. Asselin said he was shocked to learn that the same driver was arrested for the troopers death. We have been on this big campaign of Slow down, pull over after a series of near-misses with drivers nearly hitting first responders at emergency scenes, he said. I guess hes one of the ones that just doesnt listen. Larsen was sentenced to 30 days in jail plus two years of probation for the 2016 conviction. During his probation, the court granted Larsens request to be able to travel internationally for family, domestic, charitable and missionary work. Larsen then petitioned for his probation to end early, and the court granted that request in December 2017. Owner of CPA firm An ambitious project to develop an aerospace parts manufacturing operation in a Northern First Nation has taken another step towards becoming a reality. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. An ambitious project to develop an aerospace parts manufacturing operation in a Northern First Nation has taken another step towards becoming a reality. The project, which will be owned by the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, received about $170,000 from federal and provincial governments to continue to develop the business plan, with the goal of being up and running in two years. OCN will also invest about $50,000 in the next phase of pre-planning and the Manitoba Aerospace Association will provide another $170,000 in in-kind support. The unlikely development of a greenfield manufacturing venture at a northern Manitoba First Nation with no experience in the sector, and one with the kind of stringent quality requirements the aerospace industry demands is unprecedented in the industry. But after almost two years of market investigation, broad support from the Manitoba Aerospace Association has not wavered. And with a passionate champion like Boeing Canadas former manager director, Kim Westenskow, the project is gaining momentum. At a press conference at Neeginan College of Applied Technology, where Indigenous students have been trained for employment in aerospace companies in Winnipeg for the past decade, federal and provincial politicians, industry leaders and OCN chief Christian Sinclair, all declared a calm belief that the project will become a reality. What is being planned is an enterprise that will make aerospace parts not currently available from other Manitoba suppliers with the potential to also supply the bus and agricultural equipment manufacturing industries in Manitoba. At this point, it is estimated that it will require $22.5 million in initial capital to set up the plant and acquire equipment. It will start out with about 20 employees and grow to 200 in 10 years. OCN chief Sinclair said when the band was first approached by Boeing to see if it was interested a couple of years ago, the region was in the midst of a wave of crushing economic news, including the temporary closure of the railway and paper mill in The Pas and downsizing in the mining industry. "It was very grim in the region," Sinclair said. "They were looking for a strategic partner and an Indigenous partner to pursue this opportunity. At OCN, we wanted to be part of something new and innovative. So we grabbed the bull by the horn." He said the fact they are going into the next phase with strong support from industry and government shows that it is possible. Westenskow, who was transferred from her posting in Winnipeg to a Boeing plant in St. Louis three months ago, could barely contain tears of joy at the announcement. She deflects credit for the project to Manitoba Aerospace and other industry players, but she was the one who initiated it and has convinced Boeing corporate to be supportive. She said her time in Manitoba made her want to come up with some ways for Boeing and the industry at large to do more to support the Indigenous communities in Manitoba. "I am heck-bent to make sure I stay engaged with the Manitoba efforts and what we are doing with OCN," she said. "This will be a success even if it means I have to keep flying up here to hound Manitoba Aerospace and OCN. But I wont have to." A production manager from Boeing has been seconded to work on helping to design the plant and Westenskow said Boeing engineers and technicians are providing input on how to run it. As well, she said Boeing is committed to buy the first parts produced. Wendell Wiebe, the CEO of Manitoba Aerospace, said both Boeing and Magellan have signed letters of intent with OCN. "Its not a purchase order, but when the president of these companies signs such a document, it means something," Wiebe said. martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca Canadas new minister of everything between the big cities has a big job ahead of her. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Canadas new minister of everything between the big cities has a big job ahead of her. In appointing Bernadette Jordan as rural economic development minister earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has corrected at least in theory a grievous error in judgment by the previous government. The Harper Conservatives axed the Rural Secretariat, the last manifestation of a federal focus on the specific needs of rural Canada, in 2013. In reality, however, governments have for a long time paid lip service to policy designed to help rural Canada thrive. Rural development was historically treated as an offshoot of agricultural policy, a flawed logic that hearkens back to the day when one in three Canadians lived on farms. It was assumed that a development good for agriculture is also good for the rural economy, which is not necessarily the case. The needs of rural Canada have decoupled from agriculture as that industry consolidated around fewer and larger farms that require fewer people to operate. That, in turn, reduced and consolidated the number of service centres needed, and the people they employ to support the industry in rural communities. So arguably, the growth of agriculture has been to the detriment of rural communities on the Prairies, a point underscored by the reality that most of the commodities produced are exported for processing elsewhere, usually closer to points of consumption. Even the under-resourced Rural Secretariat was housed within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, where it could do little more than bear witness to rural decline in the context of these macro forces. It could also be argued that, given the need for many farm families to have off-farm jobs to support their incomes, a strong rural economy is more important to agriculture than it is to rural economic health. These places between large centres are home to nearly one-third of this countrys population and the resource-based sectors they house produce 27 per cent of the national gross domestic product. Yet they struggle to maintain even basic infrastructure in the face of declining population and a shrinking tax base. Farmers protest when municipalities look to land taxes as a means to keep the roads maintained and the schools open. Attracting new economic activity is constrained by poor internet and sometimes even inadequate cellphone services. These deficits in communications infrastructure are also hampering the adoption of precision agriculture technology that can help the farm economy succeed in the global context. Ultimately, what all this adds up to is a shortage of people which are a fundamental requirement to having a healthy economy. Whereas many cities struggle to meet the infrastructure and service needs of their growing populations, many rural communities are increasingly challenged to provide services for their dwindling numbers. On top of that, these regions and the primary industries they support are on the front lines of climate change which puts its own pressures on infrastructure due to flooding and severe weather events. The new minister will reportedly work out of Infrastructure Canada and, according to a statement from Trudeau, "She will also take action to bring high-speed internet to more rural households and businesses, and work with municipalities, provinces, territories and Indigenous partners to meet the unique and diverse infrastructure needs of rural communities." In a report filed to the House of Commons in November, federal auditor general Michael Ferguson called out the federal government for not moving fast enough to deliver broadband connectivity to rural regions. Its costly: approximately $6.5 billion to achieve the target of 50-100 Mbps across the country, and upwards of $50 billion to provide unlimited upload and download speeds via fibre optics. But is it an expense or an investment? Just imagine what this country would look like today if the government led by Sir John A. Macdonald back in 1885 allowed cost to stand in the way of completing a national railroad. Would there even be a Canada? Jordans appointment and her marching orders send a hopeful signal to rural communities. We can only hope the new minister gets the resources she needs to meet the portfolios challenges head-on. Laura Rance is editorial director at Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com. Funny how things go. When I went to see Serenity, I walked past an auditorium screening Glass. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Funny how things go. When I went to see Serenity, I walked past an auditorium screening Glass. "No M. Night Shyamalan twist ending for me," I thought. "Im going to see Serenity, a sexy, noir-inflected thriller in which a femme fatale tries to convince a former flame to kill her abusive husband." I was thinking of the films trailer, which seemed to promise a 21st-century version of Body Heat. But no. It turns out writer-director Steven Knight has cooked up a twist ending so illogical, so ludicrous, so out-and-out loony it would make M. Night Shyamalan blush. Its the kind of silly conclusion that retroactively makes what came before even sillier. It also puts a movie reviewer in a pickle, since its a bad film but one cant say why without risking spoilers. Here are a few spoiler-free reasons to avoid Serenity. Writerdirector Steven Knight has cooked up a twist ending so illogical, so ludicrous, so outandout loony it would make M. Night Shyamalan blush. First, theres the setup, which trades in oddly stilted and self-conscious cliches. Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a debt-ridden, hard-drinking burnout who runs a fishing boat on a tropical island. Dill sometimes sleeps with Constance (Diane Lane). (On top of his usual shirtlessness, McConaughey also spends a lot of screen time here taking his pants off or pulling them back on.) He drinks liquor out of a Worlds Best Dad mug, calling up sad, rum-sozzled memories of a son who is somehow lost to him. Jason Clarke (centre) is a big meaty caricature of an ugly American as Frank Zariakas. (Graham Bartholomew/Aviron Pictures via AP) Dill is also fixated on catching a monstrous big fish hes named Justice. This existential obsession falls somewhere between Old Man and the Sea and Moby Dick levels, but in case we miss it, the grizzled bartender tells Dill: "You dont fish for tuna. You fish for one tuna, and that is a tuna that is only in your head." This quest gets derailed, sort of, by the arrival of Karen (Anne Hathaway), Dills former wife, whose entrance into his favourite bar is framed, unconvincingly, like a bolt of blond fate. Karen tells Dill that her current husband, Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke), is violent and dangerous. She offers Dill a cool US$10 million if hell take Frank out in the middle of the ocean and feed him to the sharks. The socalled McConaissance seems to be over, McConaugheys work heading into a bizarre baroque stage that edges towards selfparody. The performances are peculiar not authentic enough to be convincing, but not stylized enough to be fun. The so-called McConaissance seems to be over, McConaugheys work heading into a bizarre baroque stage that edges towards self-parody. Hathaway alternates abruptly between sultry heat and icy control, while Clarke is a big, meaty caricature of an ugly American. Knight drops hints about where hes ultimately heading, with details that are deliberately off. Theres a mysterious man (Jeremy Strong) who stands on a tropical beach in a dark suit and dress shoes with a briefcase, fretfully looking at his watch. Theres a morning radio show that seems a bit too attuned to the specifics of Dills situation. Theres an unhappy boy somewhere on the American mainland, who seems to have a connection to Dill. Karen (Anne Hathaway, right), Dills former wife, tells Dill that her current husband, Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke, left), is violent and dangerous. (Graham Bartholomew/Aviron Pictures via AP) Based in England, Knight is the gifted screenwriter of Dirty Pretty Things and Eastern Promises, the writer-director of Locke and the creator of the television series Peaky Blinders. There are Brits who do good British work and then come across the Atlantic and completely lose their perspective. Serenity is a messy mix of realism and whatthehellism, and it just doesnt work. But theres something more going on here. Knight is hanging a lot on a kooky premise. And while kooky premises sometimes pay off, there needs to be internal consistency. Serenity is a messy mix of realism and what-the-hell-ism, and it just doesnt work. Knights doozer of an ending does finally explain why everything thats come before feels so strange and stiff, why the dialogue is so hammy, why the sex scenes are so embarrassing. Theres a reason why Serenity feels, well, like a bad movie. But by the time we get to the reason, weve had to sit through 90 minutes of that bad movie, and those 90 minutes are not redeemed by Knights big reveal. alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca Viewed of Take Five - This is your final free article during this 30 day period.Stay in touch with all of the news from Winchester, Frederick and Clarke. Sign up today for complete digital access to The Winchester Star. Winchester, VA (22601) Today Thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 82F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 66F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 701-572-2165 Subscribe to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you get podcasts. Authorities investigating four recent Nevada killings say murder charges are "imminent" against Wilber Martinez-Guzman, seen in this undated photo provided by the Carson City Sheriff's Office. While a deal is in place to re-open the government for three weeks, one shoreline town is not slowing down when it comes to helping its neighbors in need. **Embargo: Boise, Idaho** The in Caldwell is asking for the public's help in finding who was responsible for leaving a dog in a backpack along the side of a rural road. A multi-media touring exhibition by the Elephant Collective which is raising awareness of issues surrounding maternal deaths in Ireland is continuing in the Print Room at Wexford Arts Centre, with people invited to take part in a free craft morning on Thursday, January 31. The collective comprises individuals and groups who have been campaigning since 2014 for legislative change to secure mandatory inquests for all maternal deaths in Ireland. The exhibition, called 'Picking up the Threads; Remaking the Fabric of Care' highlights the issue through the creative display of a beautiful hand-crafted quilt, eight painted portraits, a documentary, an art film and a book which have been created by artists working with the collective. The show, which seeks to highlight the issue and to commemmorate women who have died in Ireland's maternity service, was officially opened by Margaret Cullen, a development officer with Access 2000. An accompanying short film by Laura Fitzpatrick called 'Silent Killer' won first place in the short film category at the Wexford Documentary Film Festival in 2016. As it tours Ireland, the exhibition is attempting to gather the support of County Councils with Wexford County Council becoming the third local authority to unanimously pass a motion calling on the government to introduce legislation for mandatory inquests. In addition to a craft morning on January 31, a public talk on 'Art in Activism' will be held in Wexford Arts Centre on Thursday, February 7, at 2 p.m. with guest speakers Martina Hynan, an artist from the Elephant Collective, Cllr Tony Walsh of People Before Profit and Dr Orla Ryan from the Wexford Campus School of Art and Design at IT Carlow. All are welcome to attend. Admission is also free to the craft morning taking place in the Arts Centre from 10.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. at which the participants will create responses to the work of the exhibition. Winning Streak co-host Sinead Kennedy, Des Casey from Enniscorthy, National Lottery chief financial officer Mari Hurley, and Winning Streak co-host Marty Whelan. Dess ticket was bought at Greenville Stores in Enniscorthy There is great excitement around Wexford town as people wonder who is the latest person from the Model County to win big in the National Lottery. On Saturday one lucky punter in Wexford secured the top prize in the Lotto Plus 2 draw and netted a tidy 250,000. The Wexford winner matched the following numbers to those drawn out on Saturday night: 1, 4, 17, 21, 28, 37 and 13. The ticket was purchased in the Tesco store on Distillery Road and speaking to this newspaper the store's deputy manager, Barry Dempsey, said there is great excitement around as people wonder who it might be, however, he said it appears the winner doesn't work in the store: 'Nobody called in sick or said they were going on holidays.' 'We hope it's someone local and it would be great if it's one of our regular customers but at the moment no-one knows who it is,' he added. Claire Redmond, from the store's customer services department, also expressed hope it's someone local: 'We've no idea who won it and at the moment we're not even sure when the ticket was sold.' 'I wasn't here when the news came through and only heard about it yesterday from management,' she added. Communications Executive with the National Lottery Fran Whearty confirmed that the Wexford ticket was verified yesterday afternoon at about 1.40 p.m. 'We are making arrangements for them to collect their prize now,' he said. 'As with all wins of this nature we advise the winner to take a little bit of time and get some independent legal and financial advice before they collect their prize,' he added. He went on to comment: 'We expect to have them in before the week is out.' Co Wexford has been enjoying a good run of success in lotto draws in recent weeks with one lucky person scooping the overall top prize in Christmas millionaire raffle after buying a ticket in Clonroche. BoyleSports also revealed that a Wexford punter turned 3 into 11,403 on the same Lotto Plus 2 draw last weekend. The customer, who wishes to remain anonymous, placed a 3 accumulator bet on four numbers being drawn from the drum and was lucky enough to have all four included. The BoyleSports spokesperson said: 'As the bet included the bonus ball the customer received odds of 3,800/1, which they defied when all four numbers rolled out on Saturday evening, seeing them scoop an mouth-watering 11,403.' Aoife Heffron from BoyleSports congratulated the Wexford winner, who, she said, turned their 3 into an incredible 11,403 windfall as a result of getting behind their four lucky numbers.' Ms Heffron went on to comment: 'They are the third big numbers winners in 24-hours to have won a substantial amount for a stake under 5 which is just fantastic to see and shows you don't have to bet big to win big.' The Model County's winning streak also extended to the TV gameshow of the same name with Enniscorthy-based musician Des Casey taking home 32,000 from last weekend's show. Des said he will now purchase a new Fender Stratocaster guitar after winning the cash. Des is a man of many talents but his passion is music - having played guitar in a few bands in the 1970s around the showband era. Nowadays he just plays for himself for the fun of it. He works as a cleaning operative for Derrycourt and has had stints as a barber and other labour jobs after he finished working for An Post, where he worked as a postman in Glenageary for 28 years. When Des's wife Ann heard her husband's name called out after coming out of the Winning Streak drum a couple of weeks ago there was delight in the Casey sitting room. But Des kept calm and collected all last week ahead of his TV appearance. Originally from Sallynoggin in Dublin, the couple will be married 40 years this year. They moved to Enniscorthy almost 20 years ago. He has three children (Laura, Darren and Keith) who were all supporting him on the show in the audience. He also has one granddaughter, 16-month-old Kyra. Everton fan Des said that apart from the new guitar, he will address a few DIY jobs around the house. The wins aren't over yet. This coming weekend, another person from Wexford, Brenda Foley from Courthoyle, is due to appear on Winning Streak. At the presentation of a model Garda boat in Wexford Garda Station (from left) Supt Jim Doyle; Edward P Doyle, who made the boat; Chief Supt Patrick McMenamin; and Inspector Denis Whelan The Gardai in Wexford have been presented with an intricately detailed model Garda boat that was created by Edward P Doyle, from Piercestown. The model was presented to Superintendent Jim Doyle, Chief Superintendent Patrick McMenamin, and Inspector Denis Whelan at a ceremony in Wexford Garda Station - where the model will now go on display. Speaking to this newspaper Mr Doyle said the boat was originally built as a model British police boat and that when he bought it at a car boot sale it was in very poor condition. He set about restoring it as he has done with numerous other models. 'I restore all sorts of models,' said Mr Doyle, while highlighting that ones he constructed of the German battleship, Bismarck, and HMS Hood were among his personal favourites. 'I have an interest in restoring models and I just do it for myself, I don't sell them or anything,' said Mr Doyle. 'I buy them in car boot sales,' he added. 'I just restore them and keep them, usually.' The boat he presented to the Gardai was bought at a car boot sale in Clonard but Mr Doyle did a lot of work on it to turn it into a Garda boat. 'I rigged it up with a motor and also a remote control unit and as I was working on it I thought it would be good to do it as a Garda boat,' he said. He said he bought some tape in Waterford that coincidentally was the right colour for the Gardai and he used some of that on the boat. Mr Doyle acknowledged the work of John Murphy, from Adversign based in Ballycarney, who produced replica Garda stickers for him. 'John was very helpful and he just did them there-and-then which was great.' Mr Doyle also restores model helicopters and he constructed a helipad on the back of the boat - complete with helicopter. 'I rigged the helicopter up with a motor so that the blades rotate and I was lucky because the scale of it isn't too far off, relative to the boat,' he said. 'I put a little electric motor on it that drives the blades,' added Mr Doyle. He also put two blue lights on the model - above the cabin - and also a siren. Those parts came from a model truck company in Germany which was fitting as Mr Doyle, in addition to being an ex-army man, is also an ex-truck driver who has driven across 18 states in America, across Canada and Europe, and also in the Middle East. 'I was the first Irish [truck] driver to drive in Algeria and I brought CB radios into Ireland in 1979 and was on television highlighting them and how they worked,' he said. 'Times have changed though and with the development of mobile phones CB radios became obsolete,' he added. His interest in technology is of benefit to him when he is restoring models and he put his knowledge to good effect when adding a motor to the Garda boat. When asked why he decided to build a model specifically for the Gardai he said was it his way of acknowledging the important role they play and their contribution to the people of Wexford. 'I suppose it's my way of giving something back to them,' he said. 'They do a tremendous job and I wanted them to know that it's appreciated.' As Mr Doyle went about the task of restoring the boat he came across bits-and-pieces that related to the Gardai and utilised them in the project. It took him about a year-and-a-half to create the model with some sections - such as the roof of the cabin - being completely new. He had hoped to have the boat ready in time for the official opening of the new Garda Station but he is happy enough now that the model will go on display in the facility for the general public to enjoy when they are visiting. 'I hope other people enjoy it when they are visiting the station.' Mr Doyle, who is also a UN veteran, is a familiar face at local model fairs where he regularly displays some of his work. He also has an active interest in vintage machinery. Born in Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, he lived in Clonmel in his youth but has spent many years now living in Wexford. For the presentation ceremony he wore a cowboy hat and said that was just to reflect his love of country music. 'I like a lot of things but I really like country.' The Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Mohammed, has inaugurated 250 members of the election petitions tribunal for the 2019 general election at an event which held at the Supreme Court Complex, Abuja on today. The new CJN was only sworn in yesterday and has already set the stone rolling after less than 24 hours in service. His action today did not go without reactions from Nigerians. Their reactions: https://twitter.com/WantNigeria/status/1089203964355186688 https://twitter.com/Angelauyi/status/1089209348130263041 Don't think #OnnoghenSuspension is a joke if you're less informed, it's a coup. Acting CJN have already began working. Southeast is dead before Bubu, South south have had the taste. South West won't believe what will happen to them. They might wake up to see VP dismissed as well I Z U (@heisizumichaels) January 26, 2019 Bob Luckey Jr. / Hearst Connecticut Media GREENWICH A bus-full of Greenwich High School students was taken to Greenwich Hospital after their bus collided with another vehicle on East Putnam Avenue on Friday morning on the way to school, police said. It was minor contact, said police Lt. David Nemecek. As a precaution, they sent the kids over to the emergency room at Greenwich Hospital. No reported injuries. STAMFORD A city man convicted nine years ago of having sexual contact with at least one juvenile has been released from jail after serving six months for violating his probation. Franklin Hilario, 45, appeared at the Stamford courthouse and was given an eight-year suspended sentence and five more years of probation by Judge Richard Comerford. Stamford States Attorney Richard Colangelo said in July that Hilario admitted to violating his probation and he will be required to wear a GPS monitor for a year. In light of the potential jail exposure of my client in this case, the sentence he received of six months was equitable and just in light of the attendant circumstances, said Stephen DeLeo, Hilarios criminal defense attorney. He looks forward to moving on with his life and getting back to work and his family. Hilario could have to serve some or all of the eight-year suspended jail sentence if he continues to violate his probation. Hilario was convicted in 2010 of illegal sexual contact with a juvenile and received an eight-year suspended sentence and 12 years probation. During his probation, he was required to register as a sex offender for 10 years and participate in sex offender evaluation and treatment. He was also ordered by the Office of Adult Probation to abstain from the use of any alcoholic beverages or drugs, except as prescribed by a physician. But in 2012 and 2015, his urinalysis was positive for alcohol, according to the probation affidavit that detailed his violations. When his probation officer went to Adams Grocery, the bodega Hilario owned and managed, he was seen drinking a can of beer while at work. Hilario was placed on GPS monitoring and referred for substance abuse treatment. A few months later, empty beer cans were found strewn around his backyard during a home visit, the affidavit said. In January 2017, his probation officer found a laptop, iPhone, several Viagra pills, one bottle of rum and two bottles of beer during a field visit. On the phone, police said they found photographs of Hilario that appeared to have been taken out of state with minors in the presence of alcohol along with sexually explicit images, videos and text conversations, the affidavit said. Hilario was not allowed to possess a smartphone without the permission of adult probation and he was not allowed to be in possession of any sexually explicit or sexually stimulating material, the affidavit said. Correction: An earlier version of this story stated Franklin Hilario violated his parole. Hilario violated his probation. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com A Connecticut agency that includes the state police is racking up violations and fines due to a nearly two-year backlog in responding to public information requests. For the past few years, the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protections backlog has generated a steady stream of complaints to the Freedom of Information Commission, which investigates whether denials or delays of releasing information was reasonable. The approximately two-year wait is for simple requests, not even for those with exemptions that can be argued about, said Colleen Murphy, the executive director of the commission. Were ratcheting up our response with fines and finding the violation is without reasonable cause. The commission is hopeful that this will get some attention. In one recent case, the commission found DESPP in violation of state FOI laws, and threatened to issue a $100 fine if the requested documents werent turned over in two weeks. We understand the woes of that agency, we are all feeling the budget pinch, but from an FOI standpoint, when you havent even responded to some basic requests, the commission has been issuing some increasingly pointed decisions, Murphy said. How FOI works In most cases, the complaints lodged against the state police or DESPP have been filed by citizens, including prison inmates, who are seeking routine information that is considered public under the states Freedom of Information Act, Murphy said. In addition to the state police, DESPP encompasses five other agencies, including the Connecticut crime lab and the states 911 system. The public cites DESPP, its former Commissioner Dora Schriro, and state police in FOI complaints, documents show. The bulk of the FOI requests received by DESPP involve the state police, DESPP spokesman Scott Devico said. According to state FOI law, most documents, recordings, policies, emails and other information generated by state and local government agencies are considered public and anyone can view them upon request. There are exemptions, such as arrest records of juveniles, investigative techniques not generally known by the public, pending litigation, negotiations, blueprints or videos of sensitive buildings such as prisons, medical records of employees, and certain personnel documents if they contain records that would be considered embarrassing. When a member of the public seeks a record from a government agency in writing through the states FOI process, the agency is required to respond within four days of receiving the request, said Thomas Hennick, the commissions public education officer. He said the agency only needs to acknowledge it has received the request at that point. But the information or documents requested or a denial should be provided in a prompt fashion, according to the states FOI Act, Hennick said. What constitutes promptness is up for interpretation, he said. A complaint to the state FOI Commission must be filed within 30 days of a denied request. Government agencies cannot allow the 30 days to pass to avoid turning over the requested information, Hennick said. Every time you call and ask about your request, the 30 days starts all over again, he said. In 2018, the commission received 757 complaints, which was a slow year, according to Hennick. Weve been up over 800 a couple of times, he said. His office is unable to determine how many complaints are generated each year by the DESPP and state police backlog. But Murphy said the commission noticed a few years ago that complaints against the state police and DESPP were piling up. Its typical for us to get complaints against the DESPP due to the nature of the records they keep, Murphy said. It has definitely gotten the attention of the commission in the past two or three years. The backlog was even longer and the staff noticed. Weve begun fining them, and in one case, listed a series of similar cases (also related to the backlog) in the final decision. When a complaint is deemed valid, its assigned to a hearing officer, who is either a member of the commission or an FOI staff attorney. The hearing officer attempts to mediate the complaint before it goes to a hearing. If a hearing is held, the officer will write a recommendation on the appropriate course of action, which is later voted on by the full commission, Hennick said. The recommendations can range from upholding an agencys denial of records to finding the agency in violation of the FOI Act and ordering remedies, including turning over the requested materials. Hearing officers have recently started finding the state police and DESPP in violation of portions of the state FOI law and imposing a $100 fine, which is the most the commission can do, Murphy said. They not only have a two-year backlog, when they do finally address the request, its another 36 days with the time it takes for the requester to pay the fees, Murphy said. Scope of the problem Over the past few years, the DESPP Legal Affairs Unit had been slowly reduced through attrition, said Chris McClure, spokesman for the state Office of Policy and Management. For much of 2018, they were down to one paralegal, McClure said. The assistant legal director for the state police also left, he said. But three paralegal and the assistant legal director positions have since been filled and there are additional attorneys in the unit, McClure said. The Legal Affairs Unit receives the FOI requests and then seeks the information from the appropriate units within DESPP, including the state police Reports and Records Unit, another understaffed group that FOI hearing officers said has contributed to the backlog. The Legal Affairs Unit must review all information requested by the public for exemptions and redactions before the documents or recordings can be released. McClure attributed some of the backlog to the increasing use of body cameras worn by troopers and dash cameras in cruisers, which are time consuming to review. If there is an FOI request, someone has to review it in its entirety and make changes if there are redactions required, McClure said. State agencies must submit requests to fill vacancies to the OMP and the state Department of Administrative Services for approval, McClure said. At least four recent FOI decisions issued in favor of complainants refer to inadequate staffing within the Legal Affairs Unit and Reports and Records Unit as systemic problems causing the DESPP and state police to fail to comply promptly with records requests as required under the Freedom of Information Act, documents said. Trooper Tanya Compagnone, a spokeswoman for the state police, confirmed the agency has an 18-month backlog, which she said was created as people left or retired and were not replaced with the Reports and Records Unit. Two people were recently hired for the unit and another four are on the way, state officials said. However, bear in mind that all have to be trained thoroughly before we begin to see a meaningful impact on the backlog, she said. One mans complaint Dale Kukucka contended several times during Wednesdays FOI Commission meeting that he has been jailed for a wrongful conviction. Kukucka, a former Bloomfield teacher, was sentenced in 2016 after being convicted of sexually assaulting a woman at an East Haddam parade three years earlier. Kukucka filed two FOI requests to the DESPP on April 20, 2018 seeking the agencys policies on tracking cellphones in 2013, the records of calls made by the state police detective investigating his case, witness statements and information on the photo array used by state police Troop K to identify him, according to FOI documents. Kukucka filed a complaint with the FOI commission against DESPP and Schriro on May 18 when he still didnt receive the information. His case was heard in July by Lisa Fein Siegel, an FOI Commission staff attorney who was assigned as the hearing officer. FOI documents indicate the Legal Affairs Unit began gathering some of Kukuckas items in June, but didnt forward his request to the Research and Planning Unit, which had some of the information he was seeking, until the day before the FOI hearing in July. His other request was forwarded by Legal Affairs to the Research and Planning Unit a week before the hearing three months after Kukucka sought the information, Fein Siegel noted. She recommended the full commission order the DESPP to turn over the items to Kukucka in a timely manner for free. Although some of the items could not be produced because they didnt exist or were too time consuming to find, most of the information could be released, she determined. DESPP failed to prove it worked in a timely manner to provide the information to Kukucka, violating two sections of the FOI Act, she said. The full commission unanimously approved Fein Siegels recommendation on Wednesday. DESPP was notified of Fein Diegels recommendation on Dec. 17. As of Wednesday, Kukucka who called in to the meeting, said hes received some items similar to his request, but nothing else. My main concern is that I was promised I was going to get these materials, he said. What guarantee do I have that they will actually give them to me? Sam Norton contributed to this story. BRIDGEPORT A student of the New England Tractor Trailer Training School is in critical condition Saturday after being shot multiple times, including once in the head, police said. The shooting happened in broad daylight, around 11:30 a.m., at the NETTTS, 510 Barnum Ave. A 28-year-old New Haven resident was shot at the school, where he is a student, according to a statement from Lt. Christopher LaMaine. The evidence indicates that when he (the victim) went to his car during class, he was confronted by a lone gunman, who opened fire on him without provocation, LaMaine said. (He) was struck multiple times, including once in the head. LaMaine said he was taken to Bridgeport Hospital, where he immediately underwent surgery. He remains in critical condition. The motive for the attack remains unclear, LaMaine said. Perez said the shooting was captured by nearby cameras and shows the suspect walk up to the victim as he was walking to his car and fire a gun at least six times. It looks like hes going to survive, Perez said. Hes in serious but stable condition at Bridgeport Hospital. No suspect has been apprehended as of later Saturday, but the chief said detectives are actively investigating. This story has been updated to include additional information from Bridgeport police. The senator representing Bayelsa East constituency in the senate, Ben Murray Bruce, has weighed in on the ongoing crisis rocking the judiciary which saw the chief justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, suspended. The outspoken lawmaker who reacted by taking to his Twitter handle thanked the European Union for airing their opinion on the aforementioned subject matter before asking them to place a visa ban on all involved the crisis. What he said: (WGGB/WSHM) -- School officials with the Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools confirm that an eighth grader has died. A GoFundMe page for the students funeral expenses explained the child was found unresponsive after participating in the blackout challenge on social media. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has said it has decided to suspend its presidential campaign to protest the removal of Walter Onnoghen, former Chief justice of Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari had on Friday removed the CJN, on the order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, swearing in Ibrahim Tanko, as acting Chief justice A move that has earned the federal government a series of backlash from many Nigerians. The opposition in a statement entitled Removal of CJN on Saturday, said theres no need to contest in an election, whose basis has flagrantly undermined, and as decided to suspend its campaigns. See full statement below The PDP Presidential Campaign Council has suspended its presidential campaign in protest of President Muhammadu Buharis decision to suspend the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen. The PDP Campaign Council further predicated the suspension of its campaign activities in solidarity with Nigerians in our collective rejection of the assault against our democratic order. Describing Buhari action as a dangerous and brazen assault on the constitution, the PDP Campaign Council says in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday night that there is no point in campaigning to contest in an election, whose very basis has been so flagrantly undermined. The basis for this election is the democracy itself. When democracy comes under this kind of virulent attack, then the election itself becomes superfluous, the statement said. In the first instance, we are suspending our campaign for 72 hours. It is our hope that President Buhari will listen to the voice of all lovers of democracy the world over and restore democracy in Nigeria immediately and without qualifications. At the moment, President Buhari has effectively suspended the constitution under whose basis the elections are being contested. The action of President Buhari represents a constitutional breach and a direct attack on our democracy. This must never be allowed to stand, as there is no way by which democracy can survive under these autocratic tendencies. We call on all well meaning Nigerians and members of the international community to rise in defence of democracy and save our nation from this imminent slide into tyranny. Louisville, KY (40203) Today Best chance for storms early, a few possible alte. Tonight Scattered storms develop, some could be severe Wilmington, DE (19810) Today Scattered thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 89F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 68F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Vanguard Mr Donald Duke, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Presidential Candidate, says he is going ahead with his campaigns in spite of delays caused by litigation over his candidature. Thisday Constitutional lawyer and human rights activist, Mr. Mike Ozekhome has described the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen as the vilest and most despicable act since the creation of Nigeria. The Sun Sen. Buruji Kashamu has urged the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to respect the court judgment pronouncing him the partys governorship candidate in Ogun. Daily Times The presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) for the 2019 election, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, who Thursday stepped down her ambition to rather pursue a coalition among other candidates to oust the duo of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the leading opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has described the action of the leadership of the ACPN in adopting President Muhammadu Buhari same day she stepped down her ambition as a confirmation of her realization in the divergence of values and vision with the leadership of the party which made it impossible for her to continue with them. Leadership Sen. Buruji Kashamu (PDP-Ogun East) spoke with newsmen on Saturday in Lagos has he urged the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to respect the court judgment pronouncing him the partys governorship candidate in Ogun State The Nation The residents of Osun State have been advised to see business of governance as a joint responsibility for which they must be active participants. Daily Trust The Social Democratic Party (SDP) Presidential Candidate, Donald Duke, says he is going ahead with his campaigns in spite of delays caused by litigation over his candidature. Tribune The New Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed, has sworn in 250 members of the general elections tribunals in Abuja on Saturday. Staff members of a network technology company operate an e-commerce promotion platform in Yiwu, a city well-known for selling small goods in east China's Zhejiang Province, Oct. 31, 2018. Online retail sales of Zhejiang Province in 2018 reached 1,671.88 billion yuan (246.08 billion U.S. dollars), up 25.4 percent year on year, according to the latest figures released by the Zhejiang Commerce Department. (Xinhua/Tan Jin) 5 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] Senator Ben Murray Bruce has said that the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria ACPN, Oby Ezekwesili has no right to criticise President Muhammadu Buhari, having been a strong supporter of the president. The lawmaker representing Bayelsa East on Saturday via Twitter said Ezekwesili, was one of those who hailed Buhari, when he started a war against the judiciary in 2006, but now cries fowl now. This comes after the former minister totally condemned the removal of Walter Onnoghen by Buhari on Friday and replacing him with a new acting chief justice. Also speaking via Twitter, Ezekwesili, who had on Thursday pulled out of the presidential race, accused Buhari of being a grave danger to our fragile democracy. There are only but a few Nigerians today that are not shocked and embarrassed at the case made against the CJN but come on, Mr President, you have GROSSLY ABUSED the principle of Separation of Powers in our Democracy by FAILING TO FOLLOW DUE PROCESS. Reverse that ABUSE. You know whats worse, President Buhari , it is the fact that observers of your usual nepotistic instincts could already predict where you were headed with the Judiciary. You DIVIDE your people too much by your words and actions. WE have had enough of such poor Leadership. However,in his reaction to Ezekwesili, Bruce said the former world bank vice president only shares crocodile tears because she has always supported Buhari. Dear @obyezeks, you supported @MBuhari when he started his war against the judiciary in 2016. On this same Twitter, I warned you and others like you that if you praised him then, you are only encouraging him to do worse. You contributed to this Oby. You clapped in 2016 when the war against the judiciary began. Today, because you have fallen out with the tyrant you are shedding crocodile tears? Have some decency and save what is left of your tattered reputation. People like you brought us to this point with your gullibility. "I have never seen anything like the explosion that we're seeing right now in CBD," Bethany Gomez, an analyst at cannabis market research firm Brightfield Group, wrote in a report last year. Brightfield estimates that sales of CBD products surged from $US174 million ($A245 million) in 2016 to $US590 million ($A831 million) last year. The firm predicts the market will grow to a staggering $US22 billion by 2022. A bartender prepares a CBD infused Stoney Negroni at Adriaen Block, a bar and restaurant in Queens CBD can be found in moisturising creams, bath bombs, gourmet ice-cream and dog treats. Coca-Cola last year confirmed it was exploring creating a CBD-infused beverage. Cafes are increasingly adding it to their coffee, as they would a flavour shot. "It has proliferated like wildfire," says Aaron Cook, co-founder of Charley St, an Australian-owned cafe in Manhattan's Nolita district. Cook, originally from Perth, says Charley St recently began trialling CBD oil in its coffees. He expects it to become a permanent option for customers. Unlike its sister cannabis compound THC, CBD is not psychoactive and won't get you stoned. Fans describe it as having a calming sensation, similar to the feeling after you take a warm bath or practise meditation. "It doesn't pop off the tongue," Cook says. "While caffeine can give some people a real rush, this can soften it and mellow you out." Many customers have a CBD-infused coffee to calm their mind before heading into the office in the morning, he says. Studies have shown that pharmaceutical-grade CBD can help reduce seizures for people with epilepsy. But most people say they use it for other reasons, most commonly to relieve inflammation-related pain, to improve sleep and to reduce anxiety. It's easy to see why CBD has taken off in the Big Apple, where stereotypically high-strung and neurotic New Yorkers are not hard to find. It's also a city where many residents are distressed at the direction their country is taking under Donald Trump. Michelle Goldberg, a left-wing columnist at The New York Times, explained in a recent podcast how she started consuming CBD gummy bears as a way to cope with the disturbing news stories emanating from the White House. She said she found the gummies particularly useful to calm her nerves on the day of the November midterm elections, when it looked as if the Democrats may underperform expectations. (They ended up reclaiming the House of Representatives easily.) One of the most most remarkable things about CBD's rise is that it occurred despite its legally dubious status. In 1970, the US Congress designated hemp as a substance on par with marijuana, meaning it had "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse". This made CBD illegal at a federal level in almost all forms. That changed just before Christmas, when Trump signed into law a new Farm Bill legalising hemp as long as it contains less than 0.3 per cent THC. The bill was supported by many conservative Republicans, mostly because small-scale farmers, struggling to compete with China and Latin America, were desperate for a new crop to cultivate. The passage of the new law was applauded by Elixinol Global, an ASX-listed company headquartered in Sydney that makes CBD oil and similar products. "It was the biggest legislative change I have seen in my 23 years in the industry," says Elixinol chief executive Paul Benhaim. "We have already grown 120 per cent over the past year and are expecting to see a significantly faster growth in 2019." Paul Benhaim, chief executive of hemp company Elixinol Global, says Australia lags behind the US in acceptance of cannabis-derived products. Under the new laws, Benhaim says it will be easier for hemp companies to get credit from banks and to access crop insurance. Digital giants Facebook and Google had also been wary of CBD; now it will be easier for companies to market directly to consumers. The company is planning to double the production size at its plant in Colorado and hire extra staff. While CBD's spruikers are keen to distinguish it from pot, the product's surge in popularity has run in tandem with a growing acceptance of marijuana in US society. While the drug remains illegal at a federal level, recreational cannabis is now legal in 10 US states including California, Colorado, Michigan and Oregon. Medical marijuana is legal in 33 states. With Democratic candidates angling to appeal to young and non-white voters, marijuana legalisation is expected to feature prominently in the party's 2020 presidential primaries. Legalising cannabis is increasingly seen as a racial justice issue given African Americans disproportionately go to jail for possessing and distributing the drug. Benhaim says when it comes to both CBD and weed, the US and Australia could not be further apart. In Australia CBD products are classed as a form of medical marijuana, meaning only some of the 2000 patients approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration can access them legally. "Australia's restrictive legislation for non-psychoactive CBD products means there is really no market for them in Australia," Benhaim says. "We are growing in the US, Japan, Europe. Even though we are an Australian company, Australia is the only country not showing the growth we see elsewhere." As for the purported benefits of CBD, Benhaim stresses: "We make no claims on our products whatsoever." Indeed, there is currently little credible evidence to support many of the positive effects credited to CBD. "Future studies may show otherwise, but at present CBD looks more like an expensive placebo than a panacea," Richard Friedman, a professor of clinical psychiatry, wrote recently in The New York Times. Aaron Cook, from the Charley St cafe, suspects many of the benefits his customers attribute to CBD can be explained by the placebo effect. Terra nullius is the lie that haunts us. The legal fiction that two centuries ago, this was an empty land, claimed by Britain, is the myth that still unsettles our nation. Amid the barbecues, the beach and the thong-throwing competitions, few of us this Australia Day will likely turn our minds to how our modern nation was born. Its the thing unspoken. Australia Day ... beyond the sausage sizzle. Credit:Jim Rice But theres a feeling in our souls that we dont quite belong, "this whispering in the bottom of our hearts", to quote from Sydney barrister Richard Windeyer's public lecture in 1842. We live, squeezed into the cities, clinging to the coast. We love the outback, but we dont trust it, what the sociologist Elspeth Tilley calls the "disruptive, disturbing, chaotic, space": a place of "white vanishing". We are fixated with the darkness of this place; explorers perished; tourists murdered; children lost. They are written into our folklore. The artist Russell Drysdale once said that the Beaumont children, Harold Holt, Azaria Chamberlain all those somehow swallowed up by this place "inhabit this other space in the Australian memory", as though they strayed too far "off the cultural map and disappeared into thin air". Writing my forthcoming book Australia Day I have been drawn again and again to the land and our place in it. Our poets, our writers, our filmmakers all grapple with that question of belonging. The land is the central character in this national drama: Picnic at Hanging, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Wake in Fright, Sweet Country all films that emerge from the vanishing place. Washington, IN (47501) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Patrick Kennedy, the former U.S. undersecretary of state for management, said that the 95,000-square-foot embassy was built to withstand an assault by a mob or worse. While rioters could perhaps scale the walls and burn vehicles or some of the outer buildings, the main structures are built of solid concrete, and glass you can beat on, and doors you can beat on with sledgehammers, he said. They are not going to give. Adesua Etomi has come hard on a lady identify as Mirian who claimed that Banky W collected the sum of N57 Million from President Muhammadu Buhari to run a PR for him which he never did. The beautiful actress added that she and her husband, Banky W, were only in Abuja on the said date to participate in an awareness campaign they put together with the EU against Gender Based Violence. What she said: For those telling me to be quiet. PLEASE free my soul. I hardly ever respond to lies and the filth that I see every single day but I WILL NOT allow my name to be dragged through the mud. I'm not a chicken, nor am I a coward. I can be quiet but I am NO IDIOT. Adesua Etomi-Wellington (@AdesuaEtomiW) January 26, 2019 The incident comes a little more than three years after another dam operated by Vale burst, unleashing a surge that killed 19 people in what had been Brazils worst industrial environmental disaster. That catastrophe left hundreds of thousands of people without drinking water, and 300 families lost their homes. Many are still waiting for compensation. Allowing the opposition to name Citgos board and take effective control of the company could be one way for the Trump administration to force Venezuela to institute a self-imposed oil embargo. If Caracas knew that its oil sales would go straight into the coffers of the opposition, Maduro, assuming he is still in control of the oil fields and security services, could simply stop sending oil to this country. The United States has recognized the opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as president and is ignoring Maduros expulsion of all U.S. diplomats, though it has withdrawn unessential staff and families. The Treasury Department has said it will follow that policy in all commercial transactions involving Venezuela, suggesting it is preparing to divert to Guaido and his government oil revenue and frozen assets under sanction. U.S. officials now refer to Maduro as the former president. Those people who are willing to participate in the grand debat, who are willing to field candidates, theyre the ones that public opinion is going to like and support, she said, referring to Macrons initiative to hold a grand national debate on Frances future. The others, even if theyre not fascist nut cases, theyre going to be put in that basket, Hillarys basket of deplorables. Thats going to do them quite a bit of damage. The Trump administration has been eager to end the U.S. role in a war that has cost 2,400 American lives and billions of dollars, and the president has said he wants to send home half of the 14,000 troops now in the country. U.S. officials have asked the Taliban to guarantee that other militias, such as Islamic State militants, will not be allowed to use Afghanistan as a base for attacking Western interests. January 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo anounced on Friday that Elliott Abrams will be the State Departments special envoy for dealing with the crisis in Venezuela. Abrams was a senior Middle East adviser in George W. Bushs White House, and also worked for the Republican administrations of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Abrams is considered a foreign policy hawk, and one of the most prominent members of the neo-Conservative school of thought. During the 2016 Republican primary, he opposed the nomination of Donald Trump, and stated that Trump wasnt worthy of leading the party of Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. These statements led Trump to veto an attempt by the previous Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to appoint Abrams to a senior State Department position in 2017. Pompeo said on Friday that he was excited to have Abrams join the Department. Elliotts passion for the rights and liberties for all peoples makes him a perfect fit and a valuable and timely addition, Pompeo stated. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter In the 1980's, Abrams served in the State Department under the Reagan administration. During that period, as part of his responsibility regarding Latin America, Abrams was involved in the Iran-Contra affair, and eventually signed a plea agreement, pleading guilty to withholding information from Congress regarding the administration's attempts to support the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Abrams was sentenced to two years probation and was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, in 1992, after Bush lost the election of that year to Bill Clinton. Under the George W. Bush administration, Abrams was involved in crafting Middle East policy, including the 2002 Road Map for Peace and the U.S. support for Israels withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Abrams was the first American official to learn about Israel's intent to evacuate its settlements in Gaza, during a meeting he held with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Rome. In February 2016, during an appearance before the Jewish People's Policy Institution in Jerusalem, he said he might not vote at all in the U.S. election if the two nominees would be Trump and Hillary Clinton. He expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with Politico a month later. However, Abrams made sure not to become part of the "Never Trump" group of conservative figures, and didn't sign any pledges not to serve under a Trump Administration. This article was originally published by " Haaretz " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Official convicted over Iran-Contra scandal appointed to help 'restore democracy' in Venezuela Iran-Contra Felon : Top Facts About New US' Venezuela Envoy : Key things you need to know about Abrams and what his appointment could mean for Venezuela. Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy There was no way on earth that he was ever going to get in that chamber if the government was shut down, Boxer said. But she did it in the right way. . . . Another guy might have said in a macho battle with Trump, Forget it. Its not happening. Were canceling it. I think it took him off his track for a little while. It threw him back. This was everything Democrats tried to avoid last year. Over and over, Pelosi steered her charges away from engaging Trump, particularly on anything related to the highly charged immigration issue. Two weeks before the election, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned Trump for trying to inflame voters with unfounded accusations that an asylum-seeking caravan in Mexico was filled with criminals. A Rubio aide said, however, that Trumps decision had already been made. If Guaido said he was going to assert himself as provisional president, a move the opposition leader made the following day, the administration was set to recognize him. The conversation was more along the lines of how do we make sure the United States is doing everything it possibly can to assist recognizing him, ensuring the international community did the same, what sort of assistance could be necessary, what actions would be taken at the [Organization of American States] and the [United Nations] Security Council, said the aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the closed-door meeting. Instead May reacted as if it were just another bump in a road that has been one pothole after another. You dont like what I sent you, lets talk more, was her response, as if talking would produce something in a matter of days that seemingly endless talking had not produced in two years. When she came back with so-called Plan B early last week, it proved to be barely different from Plan A. Its fate will soon be decided. The lesson I hope that the Democrats learn here is that they cant just not negotiate. They cant offer nothing and expect something to get done, Gidley said, adding: They werent doing anything on behalf of the American people. They used federal workers as pawns. Regardless of what they try and say and the tears that stream down their cheeks, they did nothing to protect the American people. Nevertheless, Trump, whose philanthropic pursuits end where the casino parking lot begins, felt compelled to rich-splain the commerce secretary, saying that although he hadnt heard Rosss statement, I do understand that perhaps he should have said it differently. Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else. And I think what Wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work along. That was then. The throne speech temptation proved irresistible to skilled stage managers in the TV era. It was the Reagan White House, predictably, given its Hollywood roots, that took the speech even further from the printed word and the mere information of the State of the Union stipulated by the Constitution. The positioning in the balcony of Lenny Skutnik, an authentic hero of the 1982 Air Florida crash into the 14th Street bridge in Washington, set a trend that reached its ad absurdum status when President Barack Obama mentioned by name four of his more than 20 guests during his 2015 address. In that last arena, the contours of a way forward are no secret. If Mr. Trump continues to insist on funding for a piece of wall, which he says is a matter of no choice, he should offer serious concessions on immigration to the Democrats not the phony package peppered with poison pills that he rolled out a week ago, but a secure future for two groups whose protections from deportation he has tried to rescind: dreamers brought to this country as children by their parents, and migrants who have been living legally in the United States on temporary protected status, having fled unrest and natural disasters at home. For the dreamers, that would mean a path to legal status for 1.5 million or more of them who are eligible for the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Make Congress Vote on Syria and Afghanistan For those whining about Trump's foreign policy moves, it's time to put up or shut up. By George D. ONeill Jr January 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - President Donald Trump can easily turn the table on his critics and return the responsibility for the wars to Congress, which has the Constitutionally enumerated duty to authorize overseas military action. The president can correctly say that Syria was never authorized by Congress and that the 2001 AUMF never contemplated we would be in Afghanistan for 17 years (and counting!) with no end in sight. Also, the 2001 AUMF is not a mandate, but rather an authorization for the president to take action at his discretion. He is fully permitted to decide to not send troops. Simply put, even if one argues that the 2001 AUMF is elastic enough to authorize endless military engagements, permission to do something does not equate to a requirement to send troops. The president can put the responsibility for staying in Syria and Afghanistan in Congresss court by saying: these two wars were not properly authorized, and I [the president] plan to start bringing our troops home in 30 days, unless Congress specifically votes to authorize each of these engagements and our sending of troops to fight in Syria and Afghanistan. I am going to follow the Constitution, even when Congress prefers to ignore it. It is time for Congress to either vote for these wasteful wars or shut up when I stop them. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter It is perfectly clear that for the past decade every attempt to hold a vote on the wars, except one, has been quashed by the leadership, which knows well that the American people overwhelmingly do not support these wars. For this reason President Barack Obama chose to not seek congressional approval for his war in Syria in the summer of 2013. The British Parliament had just voted against military action in Syria. When faced by the onslaught from Washingtons chattering class whining that the president cannot withdraw the troops, Trumps answer should be that the Constitution is clear and those legal experts are only advocating for an imperial presidency, which the framers of our Constitution ardently sought to avoid. George D. ONeill, Jr., an artist, is the founder of The Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy and a board member of The American Ideas Institute, the parent of The American Conservative. He and his wife reside in Florida. This article was originally published by " The American Conservative " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy It is also possible that future searches of Stones New York City residence will turn up other inculpatory emails, such as the one in which Stone tells Credico todo a Frank Pentangeli i.e., lie and dissemble under oath like the mob underling in The Godfather Part II when Credico was testifying to Congress about what Stone may have done. The unsealed indictment also includes a subsequent email by Stone calling Credico a rat and a stoolie, for ignoring his suggestion and then threatening to take Credicos service dog away from him, and telling him to prepare to die. It was all obvious during the campaign and from President Trumps first full day in office, when he sent out the hapless Sean Spicer to lie to the media about the size of his inauguration audience, that the president would establish an administration in which lying and intimidation were the default way of doing business. When it comes to lying, Trump is in a league of his own. The Post reported this week that he has made 8,158 false or misleading claims in his first two years in office. Sadly, his culture of deceit was embraced by (or forced upon) the people around him and his apologists on Capitol Hill. Those links go to reporting subsidized somewhat by digital ads but mostly by print circulations and speculative investments from outside the industry. As the journalism business burns through the last of those subsidies, large swaths of the free Internet are going to be paywalled off, and readers and journalists alike will have to learn to think of news as their parents did: as something you pay for, or do without. In March 2013, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) broke with his Republican colleagues and penned an op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch supporting same-sex couples right to marry, a conclusion he reached shortly after his son came out as gay. In the article , he expressed his desire for each of his three children to have the same opportunities to pursue happiness and fulfillment in all aspects of their lives. So I was surprised to find out that Portman was supporting the nomination of Eric Murphy to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit even after Murphy argued against same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court. Mr. Christensen is due to give his closing statement on Monday before Judge Aleksei Rudnev, who is then to set a date for the verdict. This is an important test of religious freedom. To deny Mr. Christensen his liberty for another day would aggravate the already severe violation of his human rights. If the judge imposes additional time in jail, then he and the prosecutors should be subjected to sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, designed for just this purpose, to punish human rights violators. The whole spectacle also defies a core promise of the Russian Constitution, which says everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of conscience, the freedom of religion, including the right not to profess religion, and to freely choose, possess and disseminate religious and other views. It is appalling but telling that in President Vladimir Putins Russia, prosecutors trample their own nations constitutional guarantees. Mr. Christensens offense was, according to the charge sheet, unlocking a hall for worship. The Jan. 21 op-ed Let Vermont in on New Hampshires action by Jeff Danziger was utter nonsense to this Virginian. Of course, the primary system is broken and has been for decades. The idea that Iowa and New Hampshire should weed out unsuitable candidates is already absurd. These states, and Vermont for that matter, are not at all representative of the rest of the country. These very rural, very white states will always skew the results. New Hampshire is the most presumptuous, assuming it has some sort of God-given right to be first. The sheer arrogance is astonishing. Ive heard New Hampshirites say how they like the opportunity to meet all the candidates face-to-face. Well, news flash, so would the rest of us. The church building is still in good shape, and its Sunday service draws about 30 worshipers from around the region. But you dont have to look far to see what would happen without quick action. On back roads through Deal Island and around Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, similar Methodist churches are boarded up, abandoned, with pools of water hugging fractured headstones. Malones Church, the first of four African American parishes to be built after the Civil War, has fallen into disrepair. Two others, Christ Rock Methodist Episcopal Church and St. Pauls United Methodist Church, have closed their doors, too. Those congregations eventually combined to form New Revived, formerly Jefferson Methodist, which was built in 1876 and then rebuilt in 1925 on its current site after a fire. At the Jan. 8 meeting, state Department of Environmental Quality staff asserted that because local air concentrations of fine particulate matter are now, and will continue to be, much better than in the rest of the state in the top 10 percent of clean air, with only marginal changes caused by the compressor station there can be no disproportionate impact. Venezuela - Trump's Coup Plan Has Big Flaws By Moon Of Alabama January 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The U.S. led coup attempt against the government of Venezuela under President Maduro is based on a plan that is similar to this one (vid). While U.S. coup plotting against Venezuela goes back to at least 1998 when the deceased President Chavez won his first election, the actual planning for this coup attempt was only done during the last two month. There are many holes in the plan and it involves a lot of wishful thinking. That might give the Maduro government openings to deflect the attack. More likely though the insufficient planning, based on false perceptions of the situation on the ground, will lead to demands for escalation and mission creep. Venezuela must thus immediately prepare for the worst. Today U.S. media give some insight into the decision making before the coup attempt. The Wall Street Journal headline makes it clear that the U.S. is 100% responsible for it: Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Pence Pledged U.S. Backing Before Venezuela Opposition Leaders Move Trump administrations secret plan pledging support for opposition leader Juan Guaido was preconceived and tightly coordinated The night before Juan Guaido declared himself interim president of Venezuela, the opposition leader received a phone call from Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Pence pledged that the U.S. would back Mr. Guaido if he seized the reins of government from Nicolas Maduro by invoking a clause in the South American countrys constitution, a senior administration official said. That late-night call set in motion a plan that had been developed in secret over the preceding several weeks, accompanied by talks between U.S. officials, allies, lawmakers and key Venezuelan opposition figures, including Mr. Guaido himself. The leading figures were Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo and Senator Marco Rubio as well as hawks in in the National Security Council. A decisive moment came a week later in a White House meeting Jan. 22, the eve of protests in Venezuela, when Mr. Rubio along with Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans from Florida, were called to a White House meeting with Mr. Trump, Vice President Pence and others. ... Other officials who met that day at the White House included Messrs. Pompeo and Bolton, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who presented Mr. Trump with options for recognizing Mr. Guaido. Mr. Trump decided to do it. Mr. Pence, who wasnt at that meeting, placed his phone call to Mr. Guaido to tell him, If the National Assembly invoked Article 233 the following day, the president would back him, the senior administration official said. Trump himself is only interested in Venezuela's oil reserves, which are the largest of the world: While the developments this week surprised many onlookers, Mr. Trump had long viewed Venezuela as one of his top-three foreign policy priorities, including Iran and North Korea. ... Mr. Trump requested a briefing on Venezuela in his second day in office, often speaking to his team about the suffering of Venezuelan people and the countrys immense potential to become a rich nation through its oil reserves, ... Before the U.S. attack on Libya Trump said (vid) that the U.S. should demand 50% of the oil profits from the 'rebels' it hoped to put into place: "[They] should have said: We'll help you but we want 50% of your oil." I likely requested a similar deal from Guaido. It is interesting that neither the Pentagon nor the Justice Department were involved in the planing of the coup attempt. They could have pointed out the obvious flaws. Article 233 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (pdf) is not a valid legal basis for Guaido himself or for the Venezuelan National Assembly to declare him president. It regulates the procedures in the case that the elected or sitting president "becomes permanently unavailable" which Maduro is obviously not. To cite Article 233 for claiming the presidency is a scam that no court will accept. The White House planning also seem to go no further than the current stage. This for example is extremely wishful thinking: The U.S. believes the rank-and-file military are most likely with the opposition, the senior administration official said. The most significant development in the last 24 hours has been that the [Venezuelan] military has stayed in its barracks. And Maduro hasnt ordered them to squash the protests possibly because hes unsure they would follow his orders and doesnt want to test that. This is delusional. The opposition protests were so far smaller and less violent that those in 2016. Even during those riots the military stayed in the barracks not because Maduro is afraid of it but because it plays no role in the internal security of Venezuela. To confront rioting protestors is the job of the local police and the National Guard of Venezuela which "can serve as gendarmerie, perform civil defense roles, or serve as a reserve light infantry force." While the National Guard is formally a military service it has its own line of command. Since 2002 Chavez and then Maduro have cleaned up the military. It has also received a number of perks. Many nationalized companies are led by (former) military officers. To base a plan for a coup on an unfounded hope of military support is crazy. The White House seems at a loss at what to do next: Much remains to be sorted out, including the U.S. determination that Mr. Guaido represents the lawful government and is entitled to all revenues. If that legal determination is made, it will soon be tested in court. As the flawed quoting of article 233 as a basis for Guaido's self declaration as president is not legally valid, any such determination will be flawed. That the administration has not thought of this before it acted is quite curious. The Washington Post goes deeper into the obvious flaws of the plan: With risks ahead, Trump administration pins hopes on Venezuelas opposition I think that speaks for itself, national security adviser John Bolton said when asked Thursday what Trump meant by saying all options are available to him. The administration is betting that it will not need to spell it out further. But it was unclear whether it has fully mapped out a strategy in the event that President Nicolas Maduro refuses to budge, serious violence erupts or foreign supporters of Maduros government including Russia and Turkey decide to intervene on his behalf. For now, the hope is to use the newly declared interim government as a tool to deny Maduro the oil revenue from the United States that provides Venezuela virtually all of its incoming cash, current and former U.S. officials said. .. What were focusing on today is disconnecting the illegitimate Maduro regime from the source of its revenues. We think consistent with our recognition of Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela that those revenues should go to the legitimate government, Bolton said. Its very complicated. Were looking at a lot of different things we have to do, but thats in the process, he said. If the U.S. stops payment for oil to the Maduro government, Venezuela will obviously stop shipping oil to the States. Several large Gulf Coast refineries are geared specifically to that heavy type of oil. They will have to stop working and gas prices in the U.S. will increase. One wonders how Trump's voters will like that. The administration also wants to increase sanctions on Venezuela but the existing ones are already causing the people pain while they have little effect on the government. The plan is also based on the hope that the dude that came up in Venezuela can actually do something: The U.S. pressure campaign is aimed partly at convincing Maduro that he cannot continue to govern, and partly at building up Guaido. We have been engaged with the same strategy: to build international pressure, help organize the internal opposition and push for a peaceful restoration of democracy. But that internal piece was missing, the official said. He was the piece we needed for our strategy to be coherent and complete. But what does Guaido have? Does he have any office, any public building, any army? Does he controls the ports, the custom offices and the central bank? Even in Venezuela few knew him. How many really committed followers does he have? There are some 8-9 million followers of the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela. These are poor people. Many of them own what they have to the socialist government. They will fight against an illegitimate coup. What means does the U.S. supported guy have to suppress them? Notes the Post: The Trump administration hopes Venezuelas armed forces switch allegiances, but there is no clear road map for what Trump would do if that does not happen, or if blood is spilled. The Post also confirms that the U.S. military was not involved in the planning even as the logical consequence of the coup attempt is likely a war: Its kind of a giveaway, that [the Defense Department] or Southcom was not part of this process or wasnt given a heads-up, said one former senior administration official. One could argue that we are on, if not an inevitable path, certainly a path toward intervention because of the dramatic nature of what weve done, the former official said. Telling a sitting president he is no longer president and recognizing somebody else. Next question: Okay, what comes next? To what extent are we actually prepared to continue to march down this road? That's the $64,000 question. My impression is that Trump was scammed. It was long evident that he gives little attention to details and does not think things through. Most likely Bolton, Pompeo and Rubio presented him with a three step plan: Phase 1. Support the self declared president Guaido; Phase 2: ... (wishful thinking) ...; Phase 3: Take half of their oil! Trump accepted the plan without asking how phase 2 might really play out. I doubt that he knew that it will likely lead to higher gas prices. Nor do I think that he knew that it will likely require a military escalation up to a major war that will take years to finish. He would have known that both will cost him dearly during the next election. This is similar to Trump's other genius plan that now leads to the closing of U.S. airports. Phase 1 of that plan was to shutdown the U.S. government. Phase 2 foresaw that the Democrats give him money. Phase 3 was the Great Wall on the southern border that would help him to get reelected. That plan also failed because of wishful thinking. It also costs Trump at the polls. But Trump has now committed himself to both poorly laid out plans and it will be extremely difficult for him to pull back from them. While he may still wiggle out of the domestic embarrassment over his wall, it will be much more difficult to do that on the international stage where he asked many other nations for their support. He is now on the spot and has no decent moves to make. Higher gas prices and a military escalation go against his election promises. His voters will not like either. Bolton and Pompeo are both experienced politicians and bureaucrats. They likely knew that their plan was deeply flawed and would require much more than Trump would normally commit to. My hunch is that the soon coming mission creep was build into their plan, but that they did not reveal that. Trump just ruined his presidency by falling for their scheme. How long will it take him to understand that? This article was originally published by " Moon Of Alabama " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned - Seven Countries In Five Years Russia fails to stop U.N. Security Council meeting on Venezuela France, Germany & Spain issue identical threats to recognize Venezuelas self-appointed president Discriminatory Economic Measures Against Venezuela Should Be Avoided - Russian Envoy To UN: The current economic crisis, to large extent, was provoked by those countries who are the first to cry about suffering of the Venezuelan people," Nebenzia said at an emergency UN Security Council meeting. Pompeo Refuses To Speculate Whether US Would Use Military Force In Venezuela Official convicted over Iran-Contra scandal appointed to help 'restore democracy' in Venezuela Iran-Contra Felon : Top Facts About New US' Venezuela Envoy : Key things you need to know about Abrams and what his appointment could mean for Venezuela. Venezuelas Unelected Coup Leader Immediately Targets State Oil Company, Requests IMF Money Bank of England refused to return $1.2bn in gold to Venezuela reports Watch: Coup in Venezuela with Abby Martin, Greg Wilpert, Paul Jay Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The dry waterhole, 10 inches in diameter, was too narrow for an adult to get into, and hardened soil and rock blocked equipment from progressing to the place two-thirds of the way down where the toddler was trapped. Rescuers dug their tunnel with the help of small explosions. It took Ohio more than three years to establish its current three-drug lethal injection protocol, in part because of the difficulty finding drugs. The state carried out the first execution under the current system in 2017. Best known by murky metaphors (a glove, net or web), fascia in lay terms appears differently throughout the body. There is the fascia that almost mimics a muscle with thick tissues, such as the fascia that makes up the plantar fascia in the foot or the iliotibial band along the side of the leg; the IT band is a structure that is unique to humans, and the fascia probably developed as an adaptation to bipedal movement, said Neil Roach, a lecturer in the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. By Michelle Nichols January 26, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on countries at the United Nations on Saturday to pick a side on Venezuela, urging them to back Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido and calling for free and fair elections as soon as possible. Pompeo was addressing the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which met at his request after Washington and a string of countries in the region recognized Guaido as head of state and urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down. Now it is time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or youre in league with Maduro and his mayhem, Pompeo told the council. We call on all members of the Security Council to support Venezuelas democratic transition and interim President Guaidos role in it, he said. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Russia unsuccessfully tried to stop the meeting. Moscow opposes the U.S. efforts and has accused Washington of backing a coup attempt, placing Venezuela at the heart of a growing geopolitical duel. Venezuela does not represent a threat to peace and security, Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council. If anything does represent a threat to peace, it is the shameless and aggressive action of the United States and their allies aimed at the ouster of the legitimately elected President of Venezuela, he said. Russia, China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea blocked a U.S. push for a U.N. Security Council statement expressing full support for Venezuelas National Assembly as the countrys only democratically elected institution. The same four countries also voted against holding the Security Council meeting. Nine countries voted in favor of the meeting, while Ivory Coast and Indonesia abstained. Pompeo accused Russia and China of propping up a failed regime in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years. This article was originally published by " Reuters " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== But from the start, there were doubts over whether the prisoner designated Spandau No. 7 really was Hess. During the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the leading subscribers to the theory that the future Spandau prisoner was an impostor, an idea perpetuated by a British doctor who worked at Spandau, W. Hugh Thomas. The British government commissioned four investigations into the claims, but the doppelganger conspiracy has persisted for 70 years. Had the real Hess escaped justice and settled abroad? When the German government cremated Hesss remains in 2011, it was thought the last chance to pursue DNA analysis of the body had been lost. When we look at our current county government, the overall vision is to address the problems that are wrong now, he said. Thats all well and good, but we have to be looking out into the future to address the problems that are coming at us. I think it would be more effective if they just put it out in the open where people can see it because people respond to that, Mance said. If you see a port-a-potty, who slows down? The objective is to get people to slow down, to keep people safe, rather than as a moneymaker. She works in a nursing home, and the childrens father, who is a rapper and goes by the name Yen Euro, sells his music and merchandise with his own logo on the streets. As the couple tells it, when they moved to the District, they trusted the wrong people and ended up being robbed. Taken were cash, jewelry and other belongings, including a months worth of WIC checks used to buy food for the youngest of the familys six children, a 2-year-old girl. The theft couldnt be confirmed because the couple didnt file a police report. They said they figured it would be easier to just move on. I was hypothesizing that because of all the bad press, we might see people there who were more radical or more strongly tied to the Womens March organization, said Dana R. Fisher, a University of Maryland sociology professor who studies protests and social movements. But most of the people came without any organizational ties, and the people who never participated before were more likely to be political moderates. So what that means is, this whole discussion about all the controversies doesnt really matter so much to your average person participating. Mike Babcock, a railroad conductor in the Austin area who works with a firm that contracts with the federal government, usually works 12-hour shifts six days a week. But for the past month, he has been able to work only two shifts a week and has received none of his pay yet. He expects to get back pay for the little time he has worked, but it will be about 75 percent less than his normal monthly income. Under a deal reached Friday between the White House and Congress, the entire government will reopen for three weeks while talks continue on President Trumps demand for funding for a wall on the nations southern border. So even as local leaders expressed relief that the shutdown had ended, they worried that it might resume by mid-February. The report, released Friday, says fire commanders could not access up-to-date details about the shooting from their computers or understand radio transmissions. County police and fire officials failed to develop a unified command post, resulting in a communications breakdown between public safety agencies. And the incident commander in charge that night quickly became overwhelmed unable to determine immediately how many firefighters were injured, account for the responding crew members and keep up with the flood of incoming information, according to the findings. By Reuters January 25, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - Taliban negotiators and United States officials meeting in Qatar on Saturday finalised clauses to be included in a draft agreement to end the 17-year-old Afghan war, according to Taliban sources. Details provided by the sources include apparent concessions from both sides, with foreign forces to be withdrawn from the country in 18 months from the future signing of the deal. US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is heading to Afghan capital Kabul to brief President Ashraf Ghani after the end of the six-day talks, the sources and a diplomat said. It is unclear whether a joint statement will be issued, or whether the provisions have been fully accepted by the US side. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter According to sources, Taliban offered assurances that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used by al Qaeda and Islamic State militants to attack the United States and its allies a key early demand of Washington. The Taliban say that they will finalise a timeline for a ceasefire in Afghanistan but will only open talks with Afghan representatives once the ceasefire is implemented. Other clauses include a deal over the exchange and release of prisoners from the warring sides, the removal of an international travel ban on several Taliban leaders by the United States and the prospect of an interim Afghan government after the ceasefire is struck, the Taliban sources said. Last week, Pakistan and the United States agreed to push for the intra-Afghan dialogue to seek a political solution to the lingering war in Afghanistan, even as both sides struggled to convince the insurgents for direct talks with the Kabul administration. US envoy hails significant progress in Taliban talks Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues, Khalilzad tweeted after six days of talks with the Taliban in Qatar. 1/3 After six days in Doha, I'm headed to #Afghanistan for consultations. Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues. U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) January 26, 2019 2/3. Will build on the momentum and resume talks shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and everything must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire. U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) January 26, 2019 3/3. Thanks to the Government of #Qatar for their constructive engagement and their facilitation of this round of talks. Particularly the Deputy PM and FM @MBA_AlThani_ for his personal involvement. U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) January 26, 2019 This article was originally published by " Reuters " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here ==See Also== Foreign troops to quit Afghanistan in 18 months under draft deal: Taliban officials Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The U.S. government, in a court order unsealed Jan. 18, confirmed it was holding Hashemi, who also was referred to by her birth name of Melanie Franklin in the court filing, pending testimony in a sealed criminal matter, and that she was not accused of any crime. She was arrested under a material-witness warrant. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Hours after I spoke to her boss, Stacey emailed me the data. The next day, she came to my desk and said, You didnt have to go behind my back to my boss. How would you like it if I got you in trouble with your boss? I replied, How would you do that? I didnt do anything wrong. She said, If I told him you sexually harassed me, that would probably get you into some trouble. I was stunned. Decatur, IL (62521) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Isolated thunderstorms this evening, then skies turning partly cloudy after midnight. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Overview of the third meeting of the Vietnam-Thailand Joint Committee on Bilateral Cooperation (Photo: VNA) At the event in Thailand, the two sides discussed the current partnership between the two countries in all fields,ranging across the fields of politics, defence-security, economy, trade and investment, justice, transport, energy, agro-forestry-fishery, education-training, labour, science-technology, information technology, culture, sports, tourism, people-to-people exchange, as well as regional and international cooperation. They sought specific measures to promote the comprehensive affiliation between the two sides in the future. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (L) and Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai meet the media following the meeting (Photo: VNA) Sharing delight at the growth of the enhanced Vietnam-Thailand strategic partnership over the years, they lauded the effective collaboration between ministries, sectors, and localities of both sides in implementing the action programme realising the bilateral strategic partnership in the 2014-2018 period, and agreed to work closely to soon finalise and sign aprogramme for the next period. They noted that the bilateral ties in politics, external relations, defence, and security have become more trusting and practical. This has been shown through the regular visits and meetings among senior leaders of both sides; as well as via the efficiency of cooperation mechanisms such as the Joint Cabinet Meeting, the Joint Committee on Bilateral Cooperation, the Defence Policy Dialogue, the Joint Working Group in politics-security affiliation, and joint sea patrols. Both sides concurred to coordinate in organising the fourth meeting in Vietnam, which is to be co-chaired by the Vietnamese and Thai Prime Ministers, and will further strengthen mutual understanding and trust, as well as create motivation for the growth of bilateral ties. The two sides will create optimal conditions for businesses to strengthen their partnership, thus raising bilateral trade to USD20 billion in 2020 and orientating it towards being more balanced and sustainable. They committed to provide more favourable conditions for the import-export activities of agricultural products, especially fruit, between the two countries; while also increase the sharing of experience in rice research, production, and exporting. The two countries underlined the significance of cooperation for sub-regional connection, especially in road, waterway, and aviation transport connectivity between Vietnam and Thailand, as well as ASEAN countries. Vietnam lauded the Thai Governments agreement to expand the occupational areas for granting work permits to Vietnamese labourers in Thailand and the realisation of the scheme. Both sides vowed to further promote the cultural and education cooperation as well as the people-to-people exchange, including the strengthening of teaching Vietnamese and Thai languages in each country, while pledging to support activities of the Vietnam-Thailand and Thailand-Vietnam Friendship Associations. The two sides expressed pleasure at their bilateral coordination at regional and international forums, especially within the framework of the ASEAN, the UN, and sub-regional cooperation mechanisms. Thailand and Vietnam, as the respective ASEAN Chairs in 2019 and 2020, will work with other members of the association to promote ASEANs central role in regional common matters, including the East Sea issue. They highlighted the strategic importance of ensuring maritime and aviation security and safety in the East Sea, as well as the peaceful settlement of disputes and the practice of restraint. They stressed the need to not complicate the situation nor conduct militarization, respecting international law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, fully implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, and soon reaching the Code of Conduct in the East Sea in a practical and effective manner. Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (L) pays a courtesy call to Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha (Photo: VNA) Later on January 25th, Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh paid a courtesy call to Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha who underscored the significance of the enhanced Vietnam-Thailand strategic partnership and lauded the outcomes of the third meeting of the Vietnam-Thailand Joint Committee on bilateral cooperation. He described the committee as a mechanism of top importance for boosting bilateral ties. Minh thanked the Thai Government and people for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in the country to integrate into the local society, thus helping fostering bilateral friendship./. Ocasio-Cortez certainly has things to learn. And its true that she has an intuitive sense of theatricality and social media. But her political success is not, as her critics suggest, a result of her Twitter account. Its the result of her rejection of the Democratic culture of superficiality and deference to the powerful. But to understand why Ocasio-Cortez is inspiring attacks from her Democratic peers, its important to note that her political ideas are oriented around taking on plutocrats. Her most prominent proposals are raising marginal tax rates to 70 percent, which frightens the super-rich who go to Davos, and the Green New Deal, a crash course in carbon-emission reduction. (At the same time, its important not to overstate her break from the old model; economist Paul Krugman, no outsider, is talking up her approach to policy.) Some of her less-noticed policy arguments will cause even more discomfort to the Democratic establishment than what she has proposed so far, reflecting the work of someone who has paid attention to the details of policymaking. Take Puerto Rico. In 2016, Obama urged Congress to pass a bill called PROMESA to address the debt crisis on the island. It handed power over to a financier-dominated control board, whose neglect of infrastructure set the stage for the destruction of the electric grid by Hurricane Maria. While most members of Congress didnt bother to learn what was in the bill, Ocasio-Cortez attended PROMESA board meetings, called for debt cancellation, criticized the utilitys management, lambasted Crowley for supporting the bill and called for more public investment. She saw that good policy is not just about saying nice things about Puerto Rico while taking in a charity Hamilton show on the island, as Democrats did this month; its about recognizing that hedge funds are the obstacle to helping people. The middlemen could also restrict patients access to certain medications in an effort to steer people toward other, cheaper drugs. Such restrictions would make Medicare coverage significantly less generous. Right now, patients have unfettered access based on their condition and response to the medication to virtually all FDA-approved drugs that must be administered by physicians. Another major change would affect how Medicare pays physicians for participating in Part B. Right now, doctors receive a markup equal to 4.3 percent of a drugs average sales price. This markup helps cover storage and overhead costs. Under the new proposal, doctors would receive a flat fee for administering Part B medicines. This flat fee would be lower than the markup many doctors currently receive. By effectively cutting reimbursements, the HHS proposal could make participating in Part B a money-losing proposition for physicians. Many physicians already struggle to keep their doors open. In one survey, 80 percent of oncologists claimed that past reimbursement cuts affected their ability to practice. When the government cut reimbursements by just 2 percentage points in 2013, half of oncologists had to turn away patients and direct them to different facilities for treatment. The company now turns out 350,000 liters of product annually, according to a feature in Forbes magazine celebrating Balcones achievements. Magnolia CFO Michael Rodriguez, who hails from California but has spent time in Texas, has been hired as chief financial officer for all things Magnolia, including Magnolia Market; Magnolia Table; the Magnolia-affiliated warehouse and seller of product overruns on Bosque Boulevard; Magnolia publications, including periodicals and books authored by Chip and Joanna Gaines; and the many events Magnolia hosts and sponsors, Rodriguez said Thursday. He was among several business leaders who met at First National Bank of Central Texas to hear a report on the Greater Waco economy. Rodriguez, who had a family member attend Baylor University, received a bachelors degree in accounting from the University of Southern California and an MBA from Stanford University. He previously held executive positions at GenomeDX Biosciences, Crossover Health, Epic Sciences and Clarient Diagnostic Services, according to online biographical information. Heres doubting Silobration, shiplap or Magnolia souvenirs will stump him. I-35 land buys WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone will be arraigned in Washington, D.C., next week. He was arrested Friday at his home in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Stone has been charged with witness tampering, obstruction and lying to Congress in the special counsel's Russia investigation. Prosecutors say he lied about his pursuit of hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The U.S. says the emails were hacked by Russian intelligence officers. Stone appeared before a judge in Florida on Friday and was released on bond. His case will now be transferred to Washington. His arraignment is set for Tuesday morning. Stone has maintained his innocence and has said he'll plead not guilty. He's the sixth Trump associate charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign and possible coordination with Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election. Corey Aris Davis is back in custody after escaping from the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville on Wednesday. According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, U.S. Marshals helped capture the 30-year-old about 3:37 a.m. on Saturday in Kentucky. He surrendered without violence, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. At the time of Corey Aris Davis' arrest, Jessica Deneen Adams, 33, was also arrested and charged with First-Degree Wanton Endangerment and First-Degree Hindering Prosecution or Apprehension. At the time of Corey Aris Davis' arrest, Jessica Deneen Adams, 33, was also arrested and charged with First-Degree Wanton Endangerment and First-Degree Hindering Prosecution or Apprehension. The Bowling Green Police Department said in a statement that late Friday night, they "received information that Davis was in a home on Warren Way." Police said he tried to run from the home, but was stopped "without incident." Davis was serving a life sentence when he escaped from St. Clair Correctional Facility. He was serving time there after he pleaded guilty to second-degree human trafficking charges in Lauderdale County in 2017. On Friday while the manhunt was ongoing the Department of Corrections released information on how Davis escaped from prison. Bob Horton, department spokesman, said Davis hid inside a trailer used to transport furniture from the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville. Davis concealed himself inside the trailer sometime while he was working in facilitys furniture plant that is managed by the Alabama Correctional Industries, Horton said. About 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, the trailer left the facility and was taken directly to the ACI facility in Montgomery. Investigators found evidence Friday that confirms Davis had been inside the trailer and had used an item of furniture for concealment, Horton said. The evidence also shows that Davis exited the trailer sometime after it was parked at the ACI facility, according to investigators. The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has identified three inmate suspects at the prison who assisted Davis in his escape. Horton said their identities are not being released at this time. The department is working to identify how Davis was able to gain access to the trailer without being observed by prison officials, and why he was not reported missing until a security check at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Horton said. Bowling Green Police said Davis' recapture was done in coordination with their department, the U.S. Marshals Service, the F.B.I., and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. At the time of Davis' recapture, Jessica Deneen Adams, 33, was also arrested and booked into the Warren County Jail. She is being held on a $6,000 bond and is charged with First-Degree Wonton Endangerment and First-Degree Hindering Prosecution or Apprehension. Bowling Green Police told WAAY 31 News that the relationship between Davis and Adams is unknown at this time. Davis is being held without bond on two fugitive charges. Bowling Green Police said the investigation is ongoing and it has not been determined when Davis will be extradited back to Alabama. The Alabama Department of Corrections has released details on how an inmate with ties to Lauderdale County escaped from its custody. Bob Horton, department spokesman, said Corey Aris Davis, 30, hid inside a trailer used to transport furniture from the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville. Corey Aris Davis Corey Aris Davis Davis concealed himself inside the trailer sometime while he was working in facilitys furniture plant that is managed by the Alabama Correctional Industries, Horton said. About 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, the trailer left the facility and was taken directly to the ACI facility in Montgomery. Investigators found evidence Friday that confirms Davis had been inside the trailer and had used an item of furniture for concealment, Horton said. The evidence also shows that Davis exited the trailer sometime after it was parked at the ACI facility, according to investigators. The Department of Corrections has identified three inmate suspects at the prison who assisted Davis in his escape. Horton said their identities are not being released at this time. In addition to the recapture efforts and determining the details of the escape, the department is working to identify how Davis was able to gain access to the trailer without being observed by prison officials, and why he was not reported missing until a security check at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Horton said. The facility remains locked down while the investigation is ongoing. Horton said authorities believe Davis in no longer in the Montgomery area and are working closely with the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and other local and state agencies to bring Davis back into custody. Davis was sentenced to life in 2017 for a human trafficking conviction in Lauderdale County. Davis is 5-feet 6-inches tall, weighs approximately 150 pounds, and has blond hair and blue eyes. The public should not approach Davis but should contact their local law enforcement or the Alabama Department of Corrections Investigations and Intelligence Division at 334-353-8912, or 1-800-831-8825 with information that could lead to his recapture. Chekhov is one of my gods and this, his first play, is my favorite. Its a well-observed ensemble of the famous, the not-so-famous and their hangers-on at a country house they retreat to when the theatre is too much with them. But even there they are very good at playing games with one another. The genius of Chekhov is to transcend the small events that define us and reveal the universal truth behind the most ordinary situation. To me, he is the first modern writer. He writes on a human scale and by doing so with such detail, he rises to Olympian heights as surely as Oedipus or Hamlet. Roger Stone, a former campaign adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, was released on a $250,000 bond Friday, hours after being arrested on several criminal charges stemming from the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. national election. Leaving the courtroom Friday, Stone told reporters and protesters that he had been "falsely accused". "I will plead not guilty to these charges, I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically-motivated investigation," he said, affirming his commitment to President Trump. "I have made it clear that I will not testify against the president, because I would have to bear false witness against him," he said against a backdrop of protesters chanting "lock him up." After his remarks, Stone paused and turned back to the crowd with both arms in the air - a pose once made by President Richard Nixon as he left the White House in disgrace. Stone once worked for Nixon. Federal agents arrested Stone early Friday in the southeastern state of Florida after a federal grand jury indicted him for making false statements, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. Stone did not enter a plea in the Fort Lauderdale court Friday morning. Magistrate Judge Lurana Snow told Stone that he could not travel outside of South Florida, Washington, D.C., or New York, and was not to be in contact with witnesses. Stone has previously denied any wrongdoing. He is the sixth Trump associate to be charged in the Special Counsel's investigation. Hours after Stone's arrest, Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort appeared in court for the first time in months, challenging allegations that he breached his plea deal and lied to investigators. Special counsel prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said that he did not currently intend to charge Manafort with additional crimes related to the breach. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team is investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and the allegations against Manafort raise the possibility that information he provided helped Russia's efforts. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Russia worked to undermine the election with a clear preference for Trump to win. U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Friday that Stone was indicted "for covering up his engagements with Wikileaks", an organization that U.S. intelligence officials have designated as a hostile intelligence service, in relation to the public release of emails stolen by Russia. "It is clear from this indictment that those contacts happened at least with the full knowledge of, and appear to have been encouraged by, the highest levels of the Trump campaign," Warner said in a statement. The White House said early Friday that that Stone's indictment had nothing to do with Trump. "The charges brought against Mr. Stone have nothing to do with the president, has nothing to do with White House," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in an interview with CNN. "The president did nothing wrong." WATCH: Sanders responds to Stone indictment Stone faces scrutiny for implying during the election campaign he had inside knowledge of data obtained by hackers that could embarrass Democrats, including Trump's rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton. In the indictment, U.S. prosecutors allege Stone had sent and received numerous emails and text messages in which he discussed "Organization 1, its head, and its possession of hacked emails." Organization 1 was not revealed in court documents but matches the description of WikiLeaks, which is dedicated to publishing secret and classified information provided by anonymous sources. The indictment does not accuse Stone of coordinating with Russia in its interference in the election. But Special Counsel Robert Mueller has said those emails, belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were hacked by Russian intelligence officers. Two new reports came out this month highlighting the threat of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The White House continues with plans to hold another summit between U.S President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un. Experts say this summit must produce more substance than the first. No media source currently available The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. Shops in Zimbabwe have been hit hard by looting during violent economic protests. The country is suffering from a major fuel and cash shortage. Sam Holder reports. We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. STATE DEPARTMENT - Three European governments said Saturday they would recognize Venezuela's opposition leader as president if no election is called within eight days. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and French President Emmanuel Macron each said their countries are set to acknowledge Juan Guaido as the leader of Venezuela. German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz said on Twitter that Germany would also recognize Guaido if Venezuela fails to hold a new election. Elliott Abrams, left, listens to Secretary of Stat Elliott Abrams, left, listens to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talk about Venezuela at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 25, 2019. Elliott Abrams, left, listens to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talk about Venezuela at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 25, 2019. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed foreign policy veteran Elliott Abrams to be a special envoy overseeing U.S. policy on Venezuela, tasked with helping "restore democracy" to the South American nation. Pompeo made the announcement Friday afternoon in Washington, ahead of a special session of the United Nations Security Council Saturday. Pompeo said Abrams will travel with him to the meeting, which was initiated by the United States. Anti-Maduro Coalition Reportedly Grew from Secret Talks The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. Pompeo said the United States thinks "every country ought to recognize" National Assembly leader Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader, as the U.S. does. He called disputed President Nicolas Maduro a "cruel dictator" and said he had caused much devastation for the people of Venezuela. Pompeo said the U.S. hoped Venezuela would have free and fair elections to designate a new leader. He also vowed that U.S. diplomats in Venezuela, ordered out of the country by Maduro on Wednesday, would be protected while in Venezuela. He said the U.S. government was taking "all appropriate measures" to ensure their safety. He declined to give details on those plans. Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet poses i FILE - Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is now U.N. high commissioner for human rights, is pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 3, 2018. FILE - Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who is now U.N. high commissioner for human rights, is pictured in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 3, 2018. Earlier Friday, U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for talks to defuse the political tensions in Venezuela, saying that the situation "may rapidly spiral out of control with catastrophic consequences." In a statement, Bachelet called for an independent investigation into the violence that has killed 20 people and resulted in the detention of more than 350 in protests over the past week. "Any violent incident resulting in death or injury should be subject to an independent and impartial investigation to find out whether there was excessive use of force by the authorities, or if crimes have been committed by members of armed groups, whether pro-government or otherwise," she said. "More than 3 million Venezuelans have fled the country. Many millions of others are living in totally miserable conditions," she added. "This is, at heart, a crisis of governance, and it is the responsibility of the country's leaders to put an end to this disastrous situation." Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures duri FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a ceremony to mark the opening of the judicial year at the Supreme Court of Justice in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 24, 2019. FILE - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a ceremony to mark the opening of the judicial year at the Supreme Court of Justice in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 24, 2019. ?Diplomatic rift On Wednesday, Maduro said he was ending diplomatic relations with the United States in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. was officially recognizing Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader after Guaido swore himself into office. Trump bluntly warned Maduro on Thursday that "all options are on the table" if there was not a peaceful transition to democracy in the South American country. Also Thursday, 16 of the 34 nations in the Organization of American States recognized Guaido as interim president of Venezuela. WATCH: In Venezuela, Trump Breaks From Non-Interventionism Pompeo urged members to oppose the "illegitimate'' Maduro and pledged to make $20 million available for humanitarian assistance to Venezuela. "All OAS member states must align themselves with democracy and respect for the rule of law," the top U.S. diplomat said. Meanwhile, the State Department ordered nonemergency personnel to leave Venezuela, but it is not closing its embassy in Caracas. The department said it was ordering the evacuation for security reasons, and that U.S. citizens should "strongly consider" leaving the country. Anti-government protesters show a sign reading in FILE - Anti-government protesters show a sign reading in Spanish "Guaido, President of Venezuela" after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Jan. 23, 2019. FILE - Anti-government protesters show a sign reading in Spanish "Guaido, President of Venezuela" after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Jan. 23, 2019. ?More sanctions possible White House officials emphasized that Trump was not ruling out any response, such as a naval blockade or other military action, if Maduro unleashed violence against protesters or took action against Guaido. Several nations have joined the U.S. in recognizing Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, including Canada and 11 of the 14 members of the newly formed Lima Group of Latin nations, among them Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Peru. French President Emmanuel Macron called Venezuela's elections "illegitimate" in a tweet on Thursday, and saluted the bravery of Venezuelans demanding freedom. FILE - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spe FILE - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a meeting of the Security Council at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 20, 2017. FILE - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a meeting of the Security Council at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 20, 2017. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that the situation in Venezuela could descend into "disaster" if the country's main political rivals failed to reach an agreement. Warnings from Russia, China But officials in Russia, one of Venezuela's biggest allies, reacted with anger Thursday at the United States and other Western nations for backing Guaido, accusing them of interfering in its internal affairs. Russia's Foreign Ministry warned the United States against any military intervention, saying such a move would have "catastrophic" consequences. Turkey's Erdogan Stands Firm With Venezuela's Maduro Countries back Venezuelan presidential contendersTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is telling his embattled Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, to "stand tall" in the face of national and international calls to step down amid a political crisis.Maduro's opponents accuse him of undermining democracy. He has presided over skyrocketing inflation, a collapsing economy and widespread shortages of basic goods.Erdogan said Thursday he was shocked at U.S Countries back Venezuelan presidential contendersTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is telling his embattled Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, to "stand tall" in the face of national and international calls to step down amid a political crisis.Maduro's opponents accuse him of undermining democracy. He has presided over skyrocketing inflation, a collapsing economy and widespread shortages of basic goods.Erdogan said Thursday he was shocked at U.S China urged the United States to stay out of the crisis. Beijing and Moscow have extensive economic interests, having loaned Caracas billions of dollars. Bolivia, Cuba, Iran and Syria also issued statements throwing their support behind Maduro. Fern Robinson contributed to this report. ISLAMABAD - The United States and the Taliban may have agreed on a plan for American troops to leave Afghanistan, sources privy to the development told VOA Saturday. In return, the insurgent group has given assurances that no international terrorist groups would be allowed to use Afghan soil to threaten America or any other country in the future. The understanding is the outcome of nearly a week of intense, uninterrupted dialogue between U.S. and insurgent representatives in Doha, Qatar. Representatives of the host government and Pakistan also have been in attendance. The sources told VOA they expected the two negotiating sides to announce the withdrawal plan by Monday at the latest, if all goes as planned. The U.S. drawdown plan would require the Taliban to observe a cease-fire. Both the withdrawal and the cease-fire, however, will be "limited and conditional." Sources did not rule out the possibility that President Donald Trump might announce and give details of the final agreement with the Taliban at his State of the Union speech, whenever that is scheduled. The U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been leading the American side in what observers describe as an unprecedented engagement between the two adversaries in the 17-year-old war. Still work to do Khalilzad tweeted late Saturday that after six days in Doha, he was headed to Afghanistan for consultations. "We have a number of issues left to work out. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and 'everything' must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive cease-fire," he said. Khalilzad described his meetings in Doha as "more productive than they have been in the past" and added that the two sides had made "significant progress on vital issues." He did not elaborate and said the talks would resume shortly. FILE - U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, talks with local reporters at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 18, 2018. U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, talks with local reporters at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 18, 2018. Late Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a tweet, "Encouraging news from @US4AfghanPeace (Khalilzad). He reports significant progress in talks with the Taliban on #Afghanistan reconciliation." He added later, "The U.S. is serious about pursuing peace, preventing #Afghanistan from continuing to be a space for international terrorism & bringing forces home. Working with the Afghan gov't & all interested parties, the U.S. seeks to strengthen Afghan sovereignty, independence & prosperity." Shortly after Khalilzad's tweets, the Taliban issued their own statement, saying the negotiations "revolving around the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and other vital issues saw progress." "The policy of the Islamic Emirate [the Taliban] during talks was very clear until the issue of withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan is agreed upon, progress in other issues is impossible," the group noted. But the issues under consideration are of "critical nature and needed comprehensive discussions," the group said. The Taliban added that the two sides would share details of the Doha meetings and receive guidance from their "respective leaderships" before they reconvened to discuss "unsolved" matters to find an "appropriate and effective solution." The Taliban statement did not explain further. Sources told VOA they believed the agreement on a conditional and limited withdrawal and cease-fire would give both sides an opportunity to test the waters "without taking too huge a political risk." Who Is Taliban's New Chief Negotiator? As peace talks between the United States and Afghan Taliban enter a crucial stage, the Taliban leadership has announced a new chief negotiator, a man named Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.According to a statement issued Thursday night by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, the action is intended to "strengthen and properly handle" the ongoing dialogue.The change has signaled to many that the negotiations have progressed beyond any contact between the two sides in the past. As peace talks between the United States and Afghan Taliban enter a crucial stage, the Taliban leadership has announced a new chief negotiator, a man named Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.According to a statement issued Thursday night by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, the action is intended to "strengthen and properly handle" the ongoing dialogue.The change has signaled to many that the negotiations have progressed beyond any contact between the two sides in the past. Pakistan takes credit Officials in Pakistan took full credit for persuading the Taliban to engage in the dialogue at the U.S. request. "Pakistan's success is that it has sincerely and faithfully diverted the recent positive environment and energy in its relations with the U.S. to the complete benefit of the Afghan peace process, and Afghanistan as a whole," a senior official told VOA as the talks progressed in Doha. Islamabad insists a peaceful Afghanistan is key to Pakistan's future security and economic stability as well as those of the region in general. Pakistani officials believe any agreement at this stage will help bridge the trust gap between the U.S. and the Taliban and will "add much needed political capital" to Washington's account to achieve the ultimate goal of peace in Afghanistan. This agreement may prove an important asset in later, more serious stages of negotiations, they said. FILE - Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks FILE - Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during a press conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Nov. 21, 2018. FILE - Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during a press conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Nov. 21, 2018. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's nascent government, which has made resolution of the Afghan conflict its top foreign policy priority, sees continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan reconstruction as key to the future security and economic stability of the region. "This political reconciliation must succeed. ... We wish that the U.S. leaves Afghanistan as friend of the region, not as a failure," Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor stated prior to the Doha talks. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, listens during a pr Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, listens during a press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at the presidential palace, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 6, 2018. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, listens during a press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, at the presidential palace, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 6, 2018. Afghan president's outburst It is not clear whether the Taliban have agreed to talk directly with President Ashraf Ghani's national unity government in Afghanistan, an administration that critics say remains fragile, is marred with political controversies and suffers from "disunity." The Taliban have so far refused to engage with the Afghan government in a peace process, dismissing it as an illegitimate entity and an "American puppet." Ghani Concerned About Exclusion From US-Taliban Talks As U.S.-Taliban peace talks take place in Qatar, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said any eventual truce between the insurgents and Afghanistan must respect his country's constitution and legal framework.The president made the remarks in Davos during a public conversation, and his office released the transcript Friday to media. Ghani went on to suggest that only an Afghan-led dialogue should decide the fate of foreign troops present in the country.The special representative for Afghan reconciliation, As U.S.-Taliban peace talks take place in Qatar, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said any eventual truce between the insurgents and Afghanistan must respect his country's constitution and legal framework.The president made the remarks in Davos during a public conversation, and his office released the transcript Friday to media. Ghani went on to suggest that only an Afghan-led dialogue should decide the fate of foreign troops present in the country.The special representative for Afghan reconciliation, Speaking during the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, Ghani for the first time publicly criticized the Khalilzad-led peace effort and indicated the Afghan government might not accept any possible outcome of the Doha talks. Ghani warned that any truce the U.S. signs with the Taliban must pave the way for direct talks between his government and the insurgents to decide all issues, including foreign troop withdrawal. "There's discussion, but this discussion needs to be shared back. A discussion that does not involve the region, we will not trust," Ghani said when asked whether the talks in Qatar were nearing a breakthrough. "If we don't get all the pieces right, one piece alone doesn't suffice," he added. During his interaction, Ghani also revealed that since he took office in late 2014, Afghan security forces have lost more than 45,000 personnel while battling the Taliban. The United Nations continues to document record levels of civilian casualties in its annual reports. Millions of others have been made refugees within Afghanistan, and the warfare discourages many more from returning from refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran. Aside from the humanitarian consequences of the fighting, it has cost the United States nearly $1 trillion while its military has lost nearly 2,500 personnel. The presence of 14,000 American soldiers means Washington will continue to pay around $45 billion annually to sustain operations if peace talks fail to produce desired results. An American university research report released late last year noted that the Afghan war had killed about 150,000 people, including government forces, insurgents, U.S. and personnel of the NATO-led coalition. The U.S.-led military invasion stemmed from terrorist attacks on American cities in September 2001 that were plotted by al-Qaida, allegedly out of its bases in Afghanistan. The United Nations says two U.N. peacekeepers from Sri Lanka were killed when their convoy hit a land mine in the West African nation of Mali. A spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said six other Sri Lankan peacekeepers were injured in Fridays blast, which took place in Malis central Mopti region, near the town of Douentza. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said a peacekeeper from Burkina Faso was injured in a separate attack Thursday, also near Douentza. He said that attack involved an improvised explosive device. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Guterres condemned the attacks and said that targeting U.N. peacekeepers may constitute war crimes, according to his spokesman. The U.N. Security Council called the attacks acts of terrorism and urged Malis government to swiftly bring the perpetrators to justice. The attacks came several days after gunmen killed 10 Chadian peacekeepers and wounded 25 others in an attack on a U.N. camp in northern Mali. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack. Mali has struggled to regain stability after extremists linked to al-Qaida took control of the countrys north in 2012. That led France, Malis former colonial power, to intervene in the country militarily beginning in 2013 to help Malian government forces drive jihadists out of the north. After French and Malian forces pushed the militants back from their strongholds, U.N. peacekeepers deployed to the country to help counter jihadist activity, but extremists still operate in the country. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Rights groups say they are worried about deteriorating human rights in Zimbabwe, as a popular activist spends another weekend in jail after the High Court deferred his bail application ruling until Tuesday. High Court Justice Tapiwa Chitapi held a bail hearing Friday for activist pastor Evan Mawarire, who is facing subversion charges after leading anti-government protests against a fuel price increase of more than 150 percent. Mirirai Shumba, the state prosecutor, tried to convince Chitapi that Mawarire would flee if he was granted bail. My Lord, the state is opposing bail. It maybe asked: Is there evidence for the applicant to be convicted? Shumba said. My Lord, I will refer this honorable court to the transcript of the video upon all this the charges are premised causing this country be shut down. In the video Mawarire called for Zimbabweans to stay at home under the #ShowdownZim campaign. Shumba said if granted bail Mawarire could do that again, drawing Justice Chitapi to ask if the state did not have a default position that all people arrested should just be denied bail. Tonderai Bhatasara of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human R Tonderai Bhatasara of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said he was not surprised by what he called tactics by state prosecutions to make his client stay longer in prison, Jan. 25, 2019, in Harare. Tonderai Bhatasara of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said he was not surprised by what he called tactics by state prosecutions to make his client stay longer in prison, Jan. 25, 2019, in Harare. Tonderai Bhatasara of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said he was not surprised by what he called tactics to make his client stay longer in prison. But we are very hopeful that bail will be granted on Tuesday, Evan will be out by end of day Tuesday. We are hopeful because at the end of the address the state indicated that if the court is not with them, they will willing to make proposals of bail, he said. While he is hopeful for Mawarire, that is not the case for more than 700 other protesters arrested on violence charges who have been denied bail thus far. A group of NGOs called the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition wrote to Namibian President Hage Geingob, the current chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Tabani Moyo, the groups spokesman, told VOA that rights groups fear the government has instructed courts deny bail to last weeks protesters as part of a crackdown on dissenting voices. Our call to the SADC chairperson is: intervene now before this deterioration reaches alarming levels which has serious consequences on the stability of the region itself, as people will be migrating out of the country, destabilizing further neighboring countries. ... Hence the SADC chairperson needs to exert his force; weighing on the current crackdown of opposition and civic activists and the militarization of the state. So we are saying intervene now to prevent further calamities, Moyo said. Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International southern Af Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International southern Africa director, appealed, Jan. 25, 2019, to President Emmerson Mnangagwa for his government to halt menacing threats toward civil society leaders, activists, opposition leaders and suspected organizers of protests and to ensure that those who violated and continue to violate human rights face justice. Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International southern Africa director, appealed, Jan. 25, 2019, to President Emmerson Mnangagwa for his government to halt menacing threats toward civil society leaders, activists, opposition leaders and suspected organizers of protests and to ensure that those who violated and continue to violate human rights face justice. ?On Friday, Amnesty International called on President Emmerson Mnangagwa to ease pressure on civil society leaders, activists, opposition leaders and suspected organizers of the fuel hike protests, some who have gone into hiding, fearing for their lives. MADRID - Rescue crews in Spain appeared to be centimeters of rock away late Friday from the space where a 2-year-old boy is believed to be trapped underground after falling into a borehole 12 days ago. Julen Rosello fell down the narrow 110-meter-deep borehole (360 feet) on Jan. 13 while his family was preparing a countryside Sunday lunch. His parents had another young son who died in 2017, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported. The tragic accident in Malaga province gripped Spaniards from day one and the country has followed closely every turn of an extremely complex and frequently hampered search-and-rescue mission. The dry waterhole, only 25 centimeters in diameter (about 10 inches), is too narrow for an adult to get into and hardened soil and rock blocked equipment from progressing to the place two-thirds of the way down where Julen is thought to be. Officials have been trying to create alternative routes to the toddler. A series of small explosions set off since Thursday afternoon, including a fourth one late Friday, helped workers dig most of a 3.8-meter-long horizontal tunnel (about 12 feet) to the cavity. The tunnel is 70 meters (230 feet) underground, and a vertical shaft had to be drilled over the past few days to bring miners and rescue experts up and down during the painstaking engineering feat. Jorge Martin, a spokesman with the Malaga province Civil Guard, said the most recent controlled explosion was needed to complete the last 45 centimeters (about 18 inches). "This controlled micro-explosion needs to be extremely precise due to the proximity to the place where Julen supposedly is,'' Martin told reporters at the site. The only sign of the toddler found so far is hair that matched his DNA, but officials have refused to comment on whether he could have survived so long. In one of the few media interviews the child's parents have given, father Jose Rosello said the family was "heartbroken'' by the long wait but hoping for "a miracle.'' El Pais reported that the couple lost Julen's older brother, Oliver, when the 3-year-old suffered a heart attack during a walk on the beach two years ago. Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Saturday in the centuries-old colonial Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria la Antigua, telling Panama's priests and nuns to try to find joy in their work despite what he called "wounds of the church's own sin." He did not specify what he meant by that, but in his message, titled "The Weariness of Hope," he encouraged members of the clergy to remain faithful despite the frustrations and anxieties of serving the church in today's world. "The Lord knew what it was to be tired, and in his weariness so many struggles of our nations and peoples, our communities, and all who are weary and heavily burdened can find a place," he said. The pope noted that the cathedral in which he spoke had recently reopened its doors after a long renovation. "This restoration has sought to preserve the beauty of the past while making room for all the newness of the present," he said. "That is how the Lord works." The pope made his address as part of World Youth Day, the Catholic Church's international youth rally held every two to three years. Several hundred people were estimated to have turned out for the pope's Way of the Cross procession in Panama City on Friday evening, according to the Associated Press. Student priests On the fourth day of his visit to Panama, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church was also to meet with student priests at the seminary of San Jose. He was expected to talk with the young men about the dwindling number of men entering the priesthood and the reasons for the declining numbers. Francis has admitted in other locations that sex scandals and cover-ups have contributed to a drop in the number of men seeking religious vocations. On Friday, the pope went to a youth detention center, enabling the inmates to participate in World Youth Day. Francis also heard the confessions of five of the detainees. In an emotional homily at the detention center, Francis said he deplored society's tendency to label people as good or bad, the righteous or sinners. Instead, he said, society should focus on creating opportunities that enable people to change. In a veiled swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump and his insistence on a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the Argentina-born pope said of the tendency to label: "This attitude spoils everything, because it erects an invisible wall that makes people think that, if we marginalize, separate and isolate others, all our problems will magically be solved." Francis added, "When a society or community allows this, and does nothing more than complain and backbite, it enters into a vicious circle of division, blame and condemnation." UNITED NATIONS - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the international community to support the Venezuelan people and recognize the interim government of opposition leader Juan Guaido as he stands up to disputed President Nicolas Maduro. Now it is time for every other nation to pick a side, Pompeo told the U.N. Security Council during a rare Saturday morning session. No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom or youre in league with Maduro and his mayhem. Several European governments, including Britain, Spain, Germany and France, said Saturday they would recognize the 35-year-old Guaido as president if no election is called within eight days. Anti-Maduro Coalition Reportedly Grew from Secret Talks The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. The United States requested the Security Council meeting. Pompeo was accompanied by his newly appointed special envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams. Testy exchanges Pompeo called the Maduro regime an illegitimate mafia state and criticized countries including Russia, China, Iran and Cuba for supporting him. Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia shot back that regime change is a favorite geopolitical game of the United States, and he asked Pompeo directly whether the Trump administration plans to militarily intervene in Venezuela. Does that mean that the United States is ready to use military force against a sovereign state under a bogus pretext? Nebenzia asked. It is here in this room that we need to hear a clear answer: whether Washington intends once again to violate the U.N. Charter? Pompeo offered no response at the meeting and sidestepped a reporters question about it during a brief interaction with the press, saying he would not speculate on what the U.S. would do next. Venezuela held presidential elections May 20, 2018. Many voters boycotted, saying the polls were not free and fair. Several opposition members also were prevented from running. Incumbent President Maduro won with nearly 70 percent of the vote, but the results have been challenged both domestically and abroad. He was sworn in for a second six-year term Jan. 10. Supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaido and th Supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaido and the press gather around him as he leaves a public plaza where he spoke in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. Supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaido and the press gather around him as he leaves a public plaza where he spoke in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. On Jan. 23, the democratically elected National Assembly, which is controlled by the opposition, declared Maduros rule illegitimate. Invoking constitutional provisions, National Assembly leader Guaido declared himself interim president until there are new elections. Earlier this week, Maduro accused Washington of instigating a coup detat and told U.S. diplomats they had three days, until Saturday night, to leave the country. Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arre Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza speaks during the United Nations Security Council at the U.N., Jan. 26, 2019, in New York. During the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo encouraged the council to recognize Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim President of Venezuela. Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza speaks during the United Nations Security Council at the U.N., Jan. 26, 2019, in New York. During the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo encouraged the council to recognize Juan Guaido as the constitutional interim President of Venezuela. ?Security Council address Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza traveled to New York and addressed the Security Council. He said despite Washingtons intervention, and tweets from Secretary Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence that he said incited and supported the opposition and urged security forces to defect from Maduro, his government is still willing to talk to Washington. Late Saturday, however, the Venezuelas Foreign Ministry released a statement, saying it and the U.S. had agreed to a 30-day period to negotiate a U.S. interests office in Venezuela and a similar office for Venezuela in the United States. Arreaza also dismissed the eight-day deadline from the Europeans. Europe is giving us eight days? Arreaza asked with incredulity. Where do you get that you have the power to establish a deadline or ultimatum to a sovereign people? He also took a swipe at Washington for past interventions in Iraq and Libya and the Trump administrations recent announcement that it will pull its small military force from Syria. You recall what happened with Saddam Hussein or [Moammar] Gadhafi. Despite all assurances, they were killed, he noted. The United States is withdrawing forces from Syria, are they going to try to start a new war in Latin America? In Venezuela? We are not going to give them that satisfaction. FILE - Colombia's Foreign Minister Carlos Trujillo FILE - Colombia's Foreign Minister Carlos Trujillo briefs the media during a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin, Nov. 22, 2018. FILE - Colombia's Foreign Minister Carlos Trujillo briefs the media during a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin, Nov. 22, 2018. ?Latin America represented Several Latin American countries sent envoys to the meeting. Peru, a Security Council member, said it has been directly affected by the exodus of some 3 million Venezuelans fleeing the violence and humanitarian crisis. It has received 700,000 refugees. Colombia, which has taken in more than 1 million Venezuelans, sent its foreign minister. Carlos Trujillo asked the council to help his country address the refugee crisis and support the delivery of humanitarian aid to Venezuela. He also appealed to the council to protect opposition leader Guiado and members of the national assembly. He urged new free and fair elections. But other Latin American countries, including Bolivia and Cuba, came to express support for Maduro. The United Nations political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned council members that the situation is cause for serious concern. The protracted crisis in the country has had a grave impact on the population, with high levels of political polarization, growing humanitarian needs and serious human rights concerns, DiCarlo said. On Friday, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for talks to defuse the political tensions in Venezuela, saying that the situation may rapidly spiral out of control with catastrophic consequences. Fern Robinson contributed to this report. A mining dam has collapsed in Brazil, sending a torrent of mud over a nearby community, killing at least seven people and leaving an estimated 200 people missing. Officials say scores of people are trapped in areas flooded by the river of sludge released by the dam near the town of Brumadinho in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. Fire officials say among those missing are 200 employees who were having lunch in the dams administrative area when the collapse occurred. The dam is administered by Brazils giant mining company Vale, which confirmed the collapse Friday and said, the total priority is to protect the lives of employees and inhabitants. Rescue crew work in a tailings dam owned by Brazil Rescue crew work in a tailings dam owned by Brazilian miner Vale SA that burst, in Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 25, 2019. Rescue crew work in a tailings dam owned by Brazilian miner Vale SA that burst, in Brumadinho, Brazil, Jan. 25, 2019. Television images showed rescue workers in helicopters trying to help people trapped in thick mud. The images also showed damage to homes, vehicles and large areas of farmland. Authorities have ordered families to evacuate homes in low-lying areas. The accident recalls a similar disaster from 2015, when another mining dam broke in the same state of Minas Gerais, causing the deaths of 19 people. That dam was also administered by Vale, along with Australian mining company BHP Billiton. The accident from 2015 released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along hundreds of kilometers, causing what is considered Brazils worst environmental disaster. In other news, international media outlets have also begun their coverage of the Finnish general election campaigns. THIS WEEK FINLAND introduced wipe-sweeping proposals to its criminal justice system that would ensure that sex without consent and sex with underage minors will always be treated as rape. The ground-breaking proposals, similar to laws introduced in Sweden in 2018, have garnered widespread attention in the global press, particularly in the context of the burgeoning #MeToo womens movement. One publisher in particular has commented on the distinct lack of anti-immigrant rhetoric so far, at least in comparison to recent elections in other EU states. Meanwhile, the Irish Times leads with an op-ed on how Finnish children are given free meals, and what the Irish government can learn from Finnish policy. An Israeli national publication takes the time to commemorate Finlands contribution to fighting the Holocaust, while numerous papers have covered Finland being awarded the coveted title of Best Country at Davos. Finland to change law to recognise sex without consent as rape The Independent Finland is to tighten its laws to ensure sex without consent or with children is always punishable as rape. The government announced the proposed changes after 57,000 people signed a petition calling for sexual offence legislation to be revamped. The countrys Nordic neighour, Sweden, passed a similar law last year. Campaigners in Finland welcomed the move and said the #MeToo movement had prompted a big change in the conversation about consent. The changes will also ensure sex with minors is always classed as rape. It follows an outcry over a case in which a man who sexually abused a 10-year-old girl could not be charged with rape under Finnish law. Prosecutors appealed unsuccessfully last year for a higher sentence after the 21-year-old was jailed for three years for aggravated sexual abuse in 2016. But Finlands justice minister Antti Hakkanen stressed amendments to the law would be made under careful consideration, not by reading incendiary headlines on social media and making rapid changes. Original article was published by The Independent on 18/01/2019 and can be found here. Finland avoids polarization on immigration theme ahead of general election Xinhua With a general election less than three months away, immigration issues have rapidly become a main national topic in Finland. The political parties in parliament, however, have managed to find a common ground. The alarmist news about sixteen suspects under investigation in Oulu had been preceded by the publication of a poll reflecting an increase in the popularity of the anti-immigrant Finns Party. Markku Jokisipila, director of the parliamentary studies center at Turku University, said the fact was an example of what happens when a populist grouping attains a good enough position. Early during the week, political commentators said it was now possible that immigration becomes a key theme in the April election. But following the joint political reaction to the sex abuse news, the theme last lost much of its divisive impact. Jokisipila said the political turnaround was uniquely fast and could even be noticed from day to day. Original article was published by Xinhua on 20/01/2019 and can be found here. Free meals every day for the Finnish kids. A packet of noodles for the Irish kids The Irish Times Looking at the lives of two single parents one in Ireland and one in Finland, one in poverty and one not makes clear that poverty is not just about income. It is also about the resources, supports, services and structures, or lack of these things, that society puts around these families. Separated from her husband since 2015, Orla Corrigan works full-time as a nurse, has two daughters (aged six and eight) and relies on food parcels to get by. While she can just about make it month-to-month, she dreads her children being invited to birthday parties and having to provide a present or having to see a GP at 50 a visit. The 200-plus cost of going back to school each August, car-tax, car insurance, television licence, Christmas and birthdays are other dreaded milestones. In Finland, even before her children were born, Kukka Miikkulainen was accessing state supports for her children. While pregnant with each she signed up with Kela the Social Insurance Institution both to receive ante-natal care and to get a baby box halfway through pregnancy. Women were facilitated, indeed expected, to work outside the home. Fundamental to this would be freeing them from the domestic sphere here the state stepped in to ensure all children got a meal a day and a free, high-quality education no matter what their background. Original article was published by The Irish Times 19/01/2019 and can be found here. Holocaust rescues: countries and communities that prominently resisted Nazi efforts to deport their Jews Haaretz Between 1939 and 1945, Finland fought in three wars, the first two against Russia, the third against Germany. During the second war, the so-called Continuation War, Finland was actually allied with Germany. Nonetheless, Jewish citizens fought with the army in all three conflicts, and even operated their own field synagogue under the noses of the German allies. Finland did turn over eight Jewish refugees to the Nazis in 1942, out of approximately 500 that passed through the country; later in the war, Germanys ambassador in Helsinki wrote to Adolf Hitler that it was his impression that Finland would not deport any of its Jewish citizens. Original article was published by Haaretz on 24/01/2019 and can be found here. Finland Ranked Good-est Country in the World Diplomatic Courier Relative to its size, Finland contributes more to humanity and burdens the planet less than any other country. In the most recent index, Finland ranked best in a number of categories determined to benefit humanity, including in number of journal exports, patents, freedom of movement, press freedom, cyber security, refugees generated, environmental agreements compliance, open trading, FDI outflows, and food aid. From its sauna tradition that benefits physical and mental health, to its baby box that helps mitigate the financial burden of all new parents, Finland offers a number of initiatives that benefit its citizens, and the citizens of those countries which mimic them. Original article was published by Diplomatic Courier on 25/01/2019 and can be found here. Adam Oliver Smith HT Image Credit: Lehtikuva A Pakistani lawyer who fled to the Netherlands after defending a Christian against blasphemy charges is returning to Pakistan. Saiful Malook has announced he will return to attend the Jan. 29 Supreme Court hearing of his client, Asia Bibi. Tuesday's proceedings will decide an appeal against Bibi's acquittal, which was issued in October after she had spent years in prison under a death sentence. Malook left the country last year when violence broke out following Bibi's acquittal and he received death threats. FILE - Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi is seen FILE - Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi is seen after a meeting with the governor of Punjab province at a jail in Sheikhupura, Pakistan. FILE - Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi is seen after a meeting with the governor of Punjab province at a jail in Sheikhupura, Pakistan. Bibi, a Christian, was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 after a disagreement with her neighbors in which she was accused of insulting Islam. She was sentenced to death and spent more than seven years in prison before the Supreme Court acquitted her last year. In 2015, Vin Dyna, then 21 years old, was struggling with the combined study load of his high school curriculum and private Korean language classes. He turned to his mother, Horm Seang, for advice, and she recalled how she did not have to think long about her answer. He asked me whether to drop the Khmer or Korean classes I told him to go for Korean class and then he passed the test, Horm, 54, said, adding that she had encouraged her son to start Korean classes a few years earlier. I saw many people [in my neighborhood] going to work in South Korea. We were poor, so I decided to ask him to go to work there, the mother of five told VOA Khmer during an interview in Prek Achi Commune, an impoverished town in a rural region in central Cambodias Kampong Cham Province. Vin dropped out of high school at grade 11, but reached his goal of working in a car-parts factory in South Korea. And for almost three years now, hes been part of Cambodias small army of migrant workers who leave home to support their families. He sends home almost $1,000 per month, Horm said proudly, a large amount of money for a family living on a 3-acre farm in an area with few other jobs. Cambodian workers at Phnom Penh International Airp Cambodian workers at Phnom Penh International Airport waiting to board a plane to Seoul, South Korea. Cambodian workers in South Korea send an estimated $300 million home every year. (Poch Reasey/VOA Khmer) Cambodian workers at Phnom Penh International Airport waiting to board a plane to Seoul, South Korea. Cambodian workers in South Korea send an estimated $300 million home every year. (Poch Reasey/VOA Khmer) Nationwide, the per capita income in Cambodia is an estimated $4,000 annually, according to the CIA World Factbook. By comparison, the per capita income in South Korea is an estimated $39,500, according to the Factbook. Vins remittances have helped pay off $3,000 in loans that his mother took out to cover his Korean classes and his travel to South Korea, she said, adding that the family has been able to save about $10,000 and spend $7,000 on renovating their home. Dependent on South Korea Iv Lyhov, the commune chief of Prek Achi, said the migration to South Korea began several years ago after several local youths found jobs there and word of the good incomes spread. Then people started swapping advice on how to migrate, and one young worker followed another. Villagers see that other families who sent their children to South Korea have improved their living conditions, so they start doing the same, said Iv, adding that his daughter and several nephews and nieces have all worked there. Many [migrants] are youths and villagers who have one or two children. Some dropped out of school to learn Korean, he said. They are among the hundreds of thousands of rural Cambodians, often between 20 to 40 years old, who leave their villages for other countries or the capital Phnom Penh in search of a decent income for their families. Cambodian workers at Phnom Penh International Airp Cambodian workers at Phnom Penh International Airport traveling to Seoul, South Korea. South Korea is popular with Cambodian workers because it offers better working conditions, higher wages and human rights respect. (Poch Reasey/VOA Khmer) Cambodian workers at Phnom Penh International Airport traveling to Seoul, South Korea. South Korea is popular with Cambodian workers because it offers better working conditions, higher wages and human rights respect. (Poch Reasey/VOA Khmer) Internal and external economic migration have grown despite Cambodias robust economic expansion in recent years. Rural areas lag behind because of a lack of development and growing indebtedness, according to researchers. Often, labor migration is a struggle. There are the risks of being cheated out of wages or abused, as well as the emotional cost of separation. While Vins migration has been a financial success, it has been bittersweet for his family. His father blames me for him going there. If he hadnt, he could have become a teacher in Cambodia, Horm said. FILE - A farmer holds a sickle on a rice field in FILE - A farmer holds a sickle on a rice field in Gimje, south of Seoul, Sept. 22, 2009. When Cambodian workers some to South Korea for employment, they can earn $1,200-$1,300 a month in agricultural jobs. FILE - A farmer holds a sickle on a rice field in Gimje, south of Seoul, Sept. 22, 2009. When Cambodian workers some to South Korea for employment, they can earn $1,200-$1,300 a month in agricultural jobs. A popular option Among foreign destinations, South Korea is a popular option and there is considerable competition to gain a place among the 4,000 Cambodian workers that the country requests annually. Dy Thehoya, a program officer with Central, a Cambodian labor rights group, said South Korea offered better working condition, human rights respect and higher wages than jobs in Phnom Penh or in other countries. On average, Cambodian workers in South Korea earn about $1,200-$1,300 per month, if they work in the agriculture sector, and about $1,700-$1,800 in the industrial sector, according to the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training. By comparison, the garment industry in Phnom Penh pays its 740,000-strong, largely female workforce a monthly minimum wage of about $182, as of January 2019. Cambodian workers arriving in Seoul, South Korea. Cambodian workers arriving in Seoul, South Korea. (Poch Reasey/VOA Khmer) Cambodian workers arriving in Seoul, South Korea. (Poch Reasey/VOA Khmer) There are about 54,000 Cambodian workers in South Korea employed in construction, agriculture, and in small- and medium-size industries. They annually send an estimated $300 million in remittances to their families, according to government officials, who encourage the labor migration. Through a bilateral arrangement with Cambodia, the South Korean government handles the formal recruitment and process for temporary labor migration through its decade-old Employment Permit System (EPS), which sets an age limit of 40 years and includes a Korean-language skills test. According to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) assessment, South Korea is one of the few Asian countries that formally arranges low-skilled migrant labor without involvement of private agencies, while the EPS provides labor law protections to foreign workers at the same level as those accorded to national workers. Additionally, men living in the South Korean countryside who have struggled to find Korean partners and looked elsewhere in Asia have married about 8,000 Cambodian women, according to government figures. The Prek Achi Commune has met some of this Korean demand, too. Villager Chorn Nat, 65, said her two daughters married Korean men several years ago. They have the Korean nationality. They come to visit us and built our house. Now, they just send us $100 per month, she said. Informal migration dominates Most Cambodian migrants, however, go to other countries where they are more vulnerable because they enjoy fewer labor protections and rely on private brokers who may abuse or cheat them. A large number are unregistered and slip across the border illegally. Labor rights groups and the ILO have long called for improved protections for labor migrants in Southeast Asia. In recent years, Thailand and Cambodia have slowly begun to regulate the cross-border flow in order to reduce exploitation and human trafficking of migrants by brokers, employers and corrupt officials. About 1 million Cambodians work in Thailand, the main destination, and half of them are estimated to be unregistered. Malaysia is another important destination, while others go to Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. Kuwait has been in talks with Cambodia to obtain 5,000 workers. Migrants heading to South Korea are usually better educated and protected from abuse by their employers than in other countries. But they, too, face risks of labor abuses, especially if they are employed to work in the agriculture sector, according to Amnesty International. A 2017 report found many migrants had to take on large debts in their home countries in order to reach South Korea. And once there, the migrants were vulnerable to exploitation and abuse as the EPS is heavily loaded toward employers, who can influence a migrants legal permission to stay in the country, Amnesty found. Many migrant workers, including those in the agricultural sector, are forced to work in conditions to which they did not agree under the threat of some form of punishment, including dismissal, nonrenewal of their visa or threats of violence; they are effectively subjected to forced labor, the report said. Horm said she is in weekly contact with her son Vin through social messaging apps, but remains concerned over his health and safety. My son told me his working place is very hot, she said. A year ago, he cut his finger he stayed in the hospital for month, but he didnt dare to tell me. Pheap Sokha, 32, from Kampong Chhnang Province, who worked at a furniture factory in South Korea for the past 18 months as part of a three-year contract, said he experienced a heavy work load and pressure from his boss, but he had no complaints of abuse and enjoyed regular breaks and lunch time. The work over there is fine, but sometimes my boss is unhappy with me. ... He told me to work quickly, he said. In the construction sector in Cambodia, I had lower staff and they call me boss, but over there I am the lower staff, said Pheap, who migrated despite his bachelors degree in civil engineering and a job in Phnom Penh. He said the higher monthly wages in South Korea allowed him to save for his recent wedding, though shortly after the ceremony he had to leave his bride behind to finish the remainder of his three-year contract. I think I just work and save some money and will go back when the time comes, he said. I am not sure if the factory owner will extend my contract or not. If not, I will go back home. A rocky return Many of the thousands of migrants who return, however, face a challenge in finding appropriate jobs in Cambodia, said labor activist Dy, who said this hinders their return and is a lost opportunity for Cambodias economy. There is no [government] plan for workers from South Korea or other countries to have jobs to do in the country that matches their skills they have learned, he said. Heng Sour, spokesman for the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training, acknowledged this but said improved labor protections for migrants abroad were the priority. First, we ought to have a system of protections for our fellow migrant workers who are overseas illegally, he said. Second, if they are being repatriated, we should provide them with information so they can consider which jobs they can pursue and we also have to certify their overseas work skills and experience. PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron left a France roiled by ongoing yellow vest protests for another tumultuous region the Middle East and talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on regional politics and weapons sales, shadowed by the looming U.S. troop pullout from Syria. Macrons three-day Egypt visit, his first official trip there since taking office in 2017, underscores that countrys role as vital ally in the fight against terror and hub of stability in a restive region. Crucially, too, Cairo is a big-spending client for French weapons manufacturers, buying warships and fighter planes, with more potential sales in the pipeline. ?Human rights pressure But the French president is facing heavy pressure to speak out against allegations of widespread human rights violations in Egypt, including those reportedly using equipment purchased from France. Adding to the pressure is a letter written to Macron by the family of a French teacher killed in police custody in 2013, calling for the truth behind his death. I imagine that President Macron is going to attempt to walk a fine line, between raising rights concerns and prioritizing regional stability and security, said Dana Stroul, senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Macrons first task on his arrival Sunday was less controversial: visiting the temples of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt with his wife, Brigitte. Talks later with Sissi are expected to range from reinforcing economic cooperation, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to Libya and Syria. French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a press conference ahead of a G5 Sahel force meeting in Nouakchott, Mauritania, July 2, 2018. FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during a press conference ahead of a G5 Sahel force meeting in Nouakchott, Mauritania, July 2, 2018. ?Place on world stage Since taking office in 2017, the 41-year-old Macron has pushed for greater French clout on the world stage. He has hosted summits on climate change, peace, the Sahel and Libya. He criticized the Trump administrations decision to pull out of Syria, saying an ally must be dependable, and that France would remain militarily involved in the region. But Paris is no substitute for Washington, experts note, and French troops are already stretched in the Sahel. Still, Stroul believes France can partially help fill the U.S. withdrawal gap in other ways. What the French and the Europeans can do is play a much more robust diplomatic role in insisting the U.N. process be used for a political transition in Syria, and more robustly using sanctions and the potential to contribute to reconstruction as a leverage, Stroul said. Those measures, she added, will help ensure the U.S. withdrawal does not just leave a vacuum for Russia, Iran and other adversaries to fill. FILE - Three French made Rafale fighter jets fly i FILE - Three French made Rafale fighter jets fly in formation above Cairo, July 21, 2015. FILE - Three French made Rafale fighter jets fly in formation above Cairo, July 21, 2015. ?Weapons deals Potential weapons deals are also expected to headline Macrons Egypt talks. One of the worlds top arms exporters, France has supplied Egypt with warships and cruise missiles over the years, and Cairo was the first client to buy French Rafale fighter jets, says Paris-based defense expert Pierre Tran. Egypt is a very important arms client for France, Tran said. It effectively bailed out France by buying two Mistral helicopter ships that France had to buy back from Russia because of a canceled deal. Frances La Tribune newspaper speculated Egypt would agree to buy dozen more Rafale fighter jets during Macrons visit, but the French presidential palace has reportedly said there will be no announcements during this visit. Discussions over the Egyptian purchase of two more French corvette warships, on top of four already bought, are also at an advanced stage, Frances Le Monde newspaper reported. Activists detained, tortured More certain is pressure at home for the president to speak out about rights abuses, including those tangling French weapons sales. Human rights advocates blame Egypt for detaining and torturing scores of activists over the years since the 2013 coup, among other repressive measures. An October report by rights group Amnesty International claims French military and security equipment was used by Egyptian security forces in brutal repression. And a recent report by nongovernmental group Front Line Defenders described worker abuse at an Alexandria shipyard building corvettes in partnership with the French company Naval Group, a practice that reportedly flouts Frances laws requiring French firms to establish mechanisms to prevent right abuses. France has been nurturing the dictatorship by equipping it with weapons and surveillance equipment, which has allowed the regime to go after the population and human rights activists, said Antoine Madelin, international advocacy director at the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights, or FIDH. During talks with Sissi in Paris in 2017, Macon gave the Egyptian president a list of Egyptian prisoners of whom he demanded the release, and the government says rights remain a priority for the French president. France Egypt FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron, right, meets Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Oct. 24, 2017. FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron, right, meets Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Oct. 24, 2017. We engage in open and regular dialogue with Egypt on the issue of human rights, a French foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters ahead of Macrons trip, saying such talks would continue including on individual rights cases. But rights groups say Macrons government has not done enough. The French government is facing a moral failure for not putting human rights in front of its economic interests, Madelin of FIDH said. Adding to the pressure is a recent letter to Macron by the family of slain French teacher Eric Lang, who had been living in Cairo for 20 years. In 2013, he was allegedly beaten to death while being detained in an Egyptian prison. Six Egyptians were jailed for his killing, but the family has blamed Egyptian police. We dont understand why our country abandoned a French citizen and didn't put all its political weight to shed light on his death, wrote Langs sister and mother. Still Egypts role as a key stabilizer and regional, if waning powerhouse, is key for France and other western countries. Both countries are concerned by the turmoil in Libya, migration, and other sources of regional instability, including terrorism. On Libya, French efforts to increase its influence in the North African countrys politics has led to a power rivalry with Italy that some analysts believe undermines U.N. peace efforts. Both European countries hosted summits last year on Libyas future. December 2018 elections in Libya, agreed to during the French summit, have been postponed amid ongoing fighting by rival militias, among other roadblocks. GENEVA - The world of work is going through a major transformation. Technological advances are creating new jobs and at the same time leaving many people behind as their skills are no longer needed. A new study by the International Labor Organizations Global Commission on the Future of Work addresses the many uncertainties arising from this new reality. The International Labor Organization agrees artificial intelligence, automation and robotics will lead to job losses, as peoples skills become obsolete. But it says these same technological advances, along with the greening of economies also will create millions of new jobs. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Intern South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and International Labour Organization Director-General Guy Ryder launch the report of the Global Commission on the Future of Work at a news conference held at ILO headquarters in Geneva, Jan. 22, 2019. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and International Labour Organization Director-General Guy Ryder launch the report of the Global Commission on the Future of Work at a news conference held at ILO headquarters in Geneva, Jan. 22, 2019. Change is coming The co-chair of the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, says these advances offer many opportunities. But he warns people must harness the new technologies for the world of work and not be allowed to control the future shape of work. In the 20th century, we established that labor is not a commodity. In the 21st century, we must also ensure that labor is not a robot. We propose a human in command type of approach ensuring that technology frees workers and improves work rather than reducing their control, he said. Ramaphosa says change is inevitable and will happen whether people like it or not. We believe that we would rather be ahead of the curve rather than behind it and get the developments that are unfolding to shape us and to lead us. We need to be ahead so that we can shape the type of world of work that we want to see, he said. A robot waiter serves customers at a cafe in Budap A robot waiter serves customers at a cafe in Budapest, Hungary, Jan. 24, 2019. A robot waiter serves customers at a cafe in Budapest, Hungary, Jan. 24, 2019. Human-centered conversation In its study, the 27-member commission has adopted a human-centered approach. At this time of unprecedented change, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder says having people at the heart of this debate is critical for achieving a decent future of work. I think people, families, countries around the world are indeed grappling with the challenges and the opportunities of transformative change at work and the ambition of our commission is, in a very concise and a very clear, and I think above all an action oriented way to try to set out a road map of how we can indeed seize the opportunities and deal satisfactorily with those challenges, Ryder said. Ten recommendations After 15 months of work, the commission has come up with 10 recommendations for attaining decent and sustainable work. They include a call for a universal labor guarantee to protect workers rights, an adequate living wage and a safe workplace. The commission proposes social protection measures from birth to old age. It says technological change must be managed to boost decent work. It says the gender gap should be closed and equality achieved in the workplace. Ryder says the report puts a heavy emphasis on life-long learning and the renewal of skills throughout ones working life. With the rapidity of change being what it is at work today, he said, it is simply not realistic to believe that the skills that we acquire at the beginning of our lives in our education, what we tend to think of as a period of our education will serve us throughout a working life. I mean, the shelf life of skills acquired at the beginning is a lot shorter than working life is going to be. Ryder notes the future number of jobs or the future of employment will not be determined alone by the autonomous forward march of technology. He says that will depend on the choices of policymakers. The commission study indicates it is reasonable to assume that humans and robots will be able to live in harmony with one another if humans are put in control of the forward application of technology. TORONTO - Canadian police said Friday that they had charged a minor with terror-related offenses in connection with a pair of national security raids in Kingston, Ontario, Thursday night. Two people were arrested late Thursday after the raids. One, the minor, was charged with knowingly facilitating terrorism and counseling a person to place a bomb "or other lethal device" in public, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement. A bomb was never placed, police said. As a minor, the person cannot be named under Canadian law. The second person was identified by his older sister, who spoke with Reuters, as Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, 20. He was released with no charges, police confirmed Friday afternoon. The investigation originated from a Federal Bureau of Investigation tip in December and involved multiple agencies, RCMP officers said during a press conference. 'Substantial' plot "It was a substantial and credible attack plot. However, there was no indication of where that attack was going to take place" and there was never any imminent danger to the public, RCMP officer Peter Lambertucci told reporters. He said officers conducting the Thursday night arrests detonated "an element ... believed to be an explosive substance." "We are confident that there is no risk to public safety and there are no trace elements remaining," Lambertucci said. Rose Alzahabi, 21, told Reuters that police burst into her family's house Thursday night and placed guns to her parents' heads. "They got into the house in a really violent way," she said, adding that they wouldn't let her mother wear her hijab. She said a man not known to the family had recently met her brother and his friend, approaching them near their high school and inviting them to do some computer programming for him. The man started coming to her family's home and asking "absurd" questions about how many rooms they had and whether he could see them, she said. In an interview with CBC following the arrests, Alzahabi's father, Amin Alzahabi, protested his son's innocence. The family, originally from Syria, came to Canada as privately sponsored refugees, according to a pastor at one of the churches who sponsored them. Bronek Korczynski, a church member who sponsored the Alzahabi family, said he worries about the way the arrests will shape perceptions of Muslims and refugees in Canada. 'Knee-jerk reaction' "That is a fear, because that's the kind of ill-informed, knee-jerk reaction that puts any group in potential harm's way. ... This is hypothetically about two individuals who may or may not have made a bad decision," he said. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the country's official threat level would remain unchanged at "medium," where it has been since 2014. Goodale told reporters Friday afternoon that it was too early to say whether the alleged plot was connected to others elsewhere in the world and cautioned against making assumptions. "Rather than leaping to conclusions, let the police do their job. Let's get the facts on the table," he told a news conference in Edmonton, Alberta. Kingston is a small city east of Toronto, home to a major university and several prisons. Rose Alzahabi was happy her brother was released, but she wasn't surprised. "I was actually laughing the whole time because I know my brother did nothing. He would freak out if he saw someone playing with a knife," she said. "He has a baby face. He would never hurt anyone." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday fired his country's ambassador to China after a week of controversy over statements the ambassador made about extradition of a Chinese citizen to the United States. Trudeau announced in a statement that he had asked for and accepted the resignation of John McCallum, without specifying the reason for McCallum's exit. McCallum made headlines on Tuesday when he discussed the high-profile extradition case of Chinese citizen Meng Wanzhou, arrested in December in Vancouver, to the United States. He reportedly discussed several legal arguments Meng could use to fight extradition. Two days later, he apologized for the remarks, saying he "misspoke" when he discussed that case. But on Friday, he reportedly added that it would be "great for Canada" if the United States dropped the case. Meng is the chief financial officer of the Huawei telecom company and is accused of facilitating business deals that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. 2 Canadians arrested Soon after Meng's Dec. 1 arrest, China arrested two Canadian citizens on allegations they had endangered China's national security. Canada has called those arrests arbitrary. Trudeau said earlier in the week that firing McCallum would not help the two Canadians in Chinese custody. But by Saturday, he had reversed his position. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer tweeted criticism of the prime minister Saturday, saying Trudeau had waited too long and should have fired the ambassador "the moment he interfered in this case." When thinking about people with cancer, the images that first come to mind are usually dark, sad and depressing. But that's not what photographer Linda McCarthy sees. With her "Survivors" project, her goal was to put a face on breast cancer, photographing women who survived or are being treated for the disease. "I wanted to photograph them as whole women not the parts that they see of themselves, she explained. So, I didn't want scars, I didn't want anything like that. I wanted them to see how beautiful they are. They are survivors, they change their outlook on life and say, 'Yes, this is me, and I'm a survivor.' So, you see the transformation going on while I photograph them." Linda McCarthy's photo of Cheryl Listman, like the Linda McCarthy's photo of Cheryl Listman, like the other photographs in the Survivors project, includes a life-affirming phrase. Linda McCarthy's photo of Cheryl Listman, like the other photographs in the Survivors project, includes a life-affirming phrase. One of the survivors is Cheryl Listman. The single mother was diagnosed with stage 2-B breast cancer in 2013, and told she had a 40 percent chance of survival. Thinking about her two kids made her determined to not give up and to keep fighting the disease. The Survivors photography project fit nicely with her attitude. "I work with women, I help educate women who are going through the journey and just help them navigate through the medical side of it, Listman said. When she (Linda McCarthy) asked me, I thought, 'Well, maybe it's just another impact that I could have on women.' And then also I would be able to look back and see how far I came." Focusing on the whole woman The idea of featuring breast cancer survivors came to McCarthy when she was searching for a ballerina to photograph for her portfolio. "I was introduced to Maggie, who is known as the Bald Ballerina, she recalled. She was diagnosed at the age of 23 with stage-4 metastatic breast cancer. So, I met her and asked if I could photograph her, not as a ballerina, but as a beautiful girl who happens to have breast cancer." Maggie Kudirka, the "Bald Ballerina," who travels Maggie Kudirka, the "Bald Ballerina," who travels the country educating young dancers and adults about metastatic breast cancer, inspired Linda McCarthy's Survivors photography project. Maggie Kudirka, the "Bald Ballerina," who travels the country educating young dancers and adults about metastatic breast cancer, inspired Linda McCarthy's Survivors photography project. Through the lens of her camera, McCarthy says she has always sought to capture the spirit and essence of her subjects. To do that, McCarthy offered each of the participants a consultation session. During that time, they opened up and talked about themselves, giving her a chance to get to know them. The women were also given a makeover. By the end of the session with makeup artist Victoria Ronan, many were surprised and delighted. "In some cases, it's been a very long time since they had makeup on, it's been a very long time since they had done something for themselves, Ronan said. "I had a lot of women look in the mirror and just start tearing up. They couldn't believe how beautiful I've made them look." When fighting breast cancer, Listman said, it's helpful to feel beautiful. "It's very important because when you go through a horrific journey and treatment, you don't feel beautiful, Listman explained. There is a lot of things done to your body physically, there is a lot of things done to you emotionally, mentally, things that you will never forget that are not pretty. So, when you get to that point in your journey, you feel like a woman again, you feel beautiful, you feel like you've accomplished the mission." NEW YORK - The Associated Press has found that researchers who reported the role of Israeli spyware in the targeting of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle are in turn being targeted by international undercover operatives. Twice in the past two months men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance. Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert on Friday described the stunts as "a new low." Who these operatives are working for remains a riddle, but their tactics recall those of private investigators who assume elaborate false identities to gather intelligence or compromising material on critics of powerful figures in government or business. Full story The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found. Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded. Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as "a new low." "We condemn these sinister, underhanded activities in the strongest possible terms," he said in a statement Friday. "Such a deceitful attack on an academic group like the Citizen Lab is an attack on academic freedom everywhere." Who these operatives are working for remains a riddle, but their tactics recall those of private investigators who assume elaborate false identities to gather intelligence or compromising material on critics of powerful figures in government or business. A leading role Citizen Lab, based out of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, has for years played a leading role in exposing state-backed hackers operating in places as far afield as Tibet, Ethiopia and Syria. Lately the group has drawn attention for its repeated exposes of an Israeli surveillance software vendor called the NSO Group, a firm whose wares have been used by governments to target journalists in Mexico , opposition figures in Panama and human rights activists in the Middle East. In October, Citizen Lab reported that an iPhone belonging to one of Khashoggi's confidantes had been infected by the NSO's signature spy software only months before Khashoggi's grisly murder. The friend, Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, would later claim that the hacking had exposed Khashoggi's private criticisms of the Saudi royal family to the Arab kingdom's spies and thus "played a major role" in his death. In a statement, NSO denied having anything to do with the undercover operations targeting Citizen Lab, "either directly or indirectly" and said it had neither hired nor asked anyone to hire private investigators to pursue the Canadian organization. "Any suggestion to the contrary is factually incorrect and nothing more than baseless speculation," NSO said. NSO has long denied that its software was used to target Khashoggi, although it has refused to comment when asked whether it has sold its software to the Saudi government more generally. FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2016 file photo, Bahr Abdul FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2016 file photo, Bahr Abdul Razzak, left, and his wife Noura Al-Ameer, use their smartphones in Istanbul. FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2016 file photo, Bahr Abdul Razzak, left, and his wife Noura Al-Ameer, use their smartphones in Istanbul. The first message reached Bahr Abdul Razzak, a Syrian refugee who works as a Citizen Lab researcher, Dec. 6, when a man calling himself Gary Bowman got in touch via LinkedIn. The man described himself as a South African financial technology executive based in Madrid. "I came across your profile and think that the work you've done helping Syrian refugees and your extensive technical background could be a great fit for our new initiative," Bowman wrote. Abdul Razzak said he thought the proposal was a bit odd, but he eventually agreed to meet the man at Toronto's swanky Shangri-La Hotel on the morning of Dec. 18. The conversation got weird very quickly, Abdul Razzak said. Instead of talking about refugees, Abdul Razzak said, Bowman grilled him about his work for Citizen Lab and its investigations into the use of NSO's software. Abdul Razzak said Bowman appeared to be reading off cue cards, asking him if he was earning enough money and throwing out pointed questions about Israel, the war in Syria and Abdul Razzak's religiosity. "Do you pray?" Abdul Razzak recalled Bowman asking. "Why do you write only about NSO?" "Do you write about it because it's an Israeli company?" "Do you hate Israel?" Shaken after meeting Abdul Razzak said he emerged from the meeting feeling shaken. He alerted his Citizen Lab colleagues, who quickly determined that the breakfast get-together had been a ruse. Bowman's supposed Madrid-based company, FlameTech, had no web presence beyond a LinkedIn page, a handful of social media profiles and an entry in the business information platform Crunchbase. A reverse image search revealed that the profile picture of the man listed as FlameTech's chief executive, Mauricio Alonso, was a stock photograph. "My immediate gut feeling was: `This is a fake,"' said John Scott-Railton, one of Abdul Razzak's colleagues. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Cit John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group, holds his cell phone which has its camera blocked by an adhesive sticker, as he poses for a photograph, Jan. 17, 2019, in New York. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group, holds his cell phone which has its camera blocked by an adhesive sticker, as he poses for a photograph, Jan. 17, 2019, in New York. Scott-Railton flagged the incident to the AP, which confirmed that FlameTech was a digital facade. Searches of the Orbis database of corporate records, which has data on some 300 million global companies, turned up no evidence of a Spanish firm called FlameTech or Flame Tech or any company anywhere in the world matching its description. No records Similarly, the AP found no record of FlameTech in Madrid's official registry or of a Gary Bowman in the city's telephone listings. An Orbis search for Alonso, the supposed chief executive, also drew a blank. When an AP reporter visited Madrid's Crystal Tower high-rise, where FlameTech claimed to have 250 sq. meters (2,700 sq. feet) of office space, he could find no trace of the firm and calls to the number listed on its website went unanswered. This Jan. 16, 2019 photo shows the Crystal Tower s This Jan. 16, 2019 photo shows the Crystal Tower skyscraper in Madrid, Spain. The high-rise building supposedly hosted a company called FlameTech. This Jan. 16, 2019 photo shows the Crystal Tower skyscraper in Madrid, Spain. The high-rise building supposedly hosted a company called FlameTech. The AP was about to publish a story about the curious company when, on Jan. 9, Scott-Railton received an intriguing message of his own. This time the contact came not from Bowman of FlameTech but from someone who identified himself as Michel Lambert, a director at the Paris-based agricultural technology firm CPW-Consulting. Lambert had done his homework. In his introductory email , he referred to Scott-Railton's early doctoral research on kite aerial photography -- a mapping technique using kite-mounted cameras -- and said he was "quite impressed." "We have a few projects and clients coming up that could significantly benefit from implementing Kite Aerial Photography," he said. A woman walks past a building on Avenue Parmentier A woman walks past a building on Avenue Parmentier in Paris on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. The address was supposedly the home of CPW-Consulting. A woman walks past a building on Avenue Parmentier in Paris on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. The address was supposedly the home of CPW-Consulting. Like FlameTech, CPW-Consulting was a fiction. Searches of Orbis and the French commercial court registry Infogreffe turned up no trace of the supposedly Paris-based company or indeed of any Paris-based company bearing the acronym CPW. And when the AP visited CPW's alleged office there was no evidence of the company; the address was home to a mainly residential apartment building. Residents and the building's caretaker said they had never heard of the firm. Whoever dreamed up CPW had taken steps to ensure the illusion survived a casual web search, but even those efforts didn't bear much scrutiny. The company had issued a help wanted ad, for example, seeking a digital mapping specialist for their Paris office, but Scott-Railton discovered that the language had been lifted almost word-for-word from an ad from an unrelated company seeking a mapping specialist in London. A blog post touted CPW as a major player in Africa, but an examination of the author's profile suggests the article was the only one the blogger had ever written. When Lambert suggested an in-person meeting in New York during a Jan. 19 phone call , Scott-Railton felt certain that Lambert was trying to set him up. But Scott-Railton agreed to the meeting. He planned to lay a trap of his own. Anyone watching Scott-Railton and Lambert laughing over wagyu beef and lobster bisque at the Peninsula Hotel's upscale restaurant on Thursday afternoon might have mistaken the pair for friends. Spy vs. Spy In fact, the lunch was Spy vs. Spy. Scott-Railton had spent the night before trying to secret a homemade camera into his tie, he later told AP, eventually settling for a GoPro action camera and several recording devices hidden about his person. On the table, Lambert had placed a large pen in which Scott-Railton said he spotted a tiny camera lens peeking out from an opening in the top. Lambert didn't seem to be alone. At the beginning of the meal, a man sat behind him, holding up his phone as if to take pictures and then abruptly left the restaurant, having eaten nothing. Later, two or three men materialized at the bar and appeared to be monitoring proceedings. Scott-Railton wasn't alone either. A few tables away, two Associated Press journalists were making small talk as they waited for a signal from Scott-Railton, who had invited the reporters to observe the lunch from nearby and then interview Lambert near the end of the meal. The conversation began with a discussion of kites, gossip about African politicians, and a detour through Scott-Railton's family background. But Lambert, just like Bowman, eventually steered the talk to Citizen Lab and NSO. "Work drama? Tell me, I like drama!" Lambert said at one point, according to Scott-Railton's recording of the conversation. "Is there a big competition between the people inside Citizen Lab?" he asked later. Working off cue cards Like Bowman, Lambert appeared to be working off cue cards and occasionally made awkward conversational gambits. At one point he repeated a racist French expression, insisting it wasn't offensive. He also asked Scott-Railton questions about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and whether he grew up with any Jewish friends. At another point he asked whether there might not be a "racist element" to Citizen Lab's interest in Israeli spyware. After dessert arrived, the AP reporters approached Lambert at his table and asked him why his company didn't seem to exist. He seemed to stiffen. "I know what I'm doing," Lambert said, as he put his files and his pen into a bag. Then he stood up, bumped into a chair and walked off, saying "Ciao" and waving his hand, before returning because he had neglected to pay the bill. As he paced around the restaurant waiting for the check, Lambert refused to answer questions who he worked for or why no trace of his firm could be found. "I don't have to give you any explanation," he said. He eventually retreated to a back room and closed the door. Who Lambert and Bowman really are isn't clear. Neither men returned emails, LinkedIn messages or phone calls. And despite their keen focus on NSO the AP has found no evidence of any link to the Israeli spyware merchant, which is adamant that it wasn't involved. The kind of aggressive investigative tactics used by the mystery men who targeted Citizen Lab have come under fire in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. Black Cube, an Israeli private investigation firm apologized after The New Yorker and other media outlets revealed that the company's operatives had used subterfuge and dirty tricks to help the Hollywood mogul suppress allegations of rape and sexual assault. Steered toward controversial comments? Scott-Railton and Abdul Razzak said they didn't want to speculate about who was involved. But both said they believed they were being steered toward making controversial comments that could be used to blacken Citizen Lab's reputation. "It could be they wanted me to say, `Yes, I hate Israel,' or `Yes, Citizen Lab is against NSO because it's Israeli,"' said Abdul Razzak. Scott-Railton said the elaborate, multinational operation was gratifying, in a way. "People were paid to fly to a city to sit you down to an expensive meal and try to convince you to say bad things about your work, your colleagues and your employer," he said. "That means that your work is important." Pollution levels in South Korea sometimes spike as the prevailing winds blow PM2.5 particulates - referred to as "fine dust" in the South - across the sea from China. (AFP/Ed Jones) Air quality in South Korea is generally better than in its giant neighbour, the world's biggest polluter, which is periodically affected by choking bouts of filthy air and according to the International Energy Agency uses coal to generate around three quarters of its energy. Beijing has been seeking to tackle the scourge, which causes widespread public anger, and a recent study found urban levels of PM2.5 - the tiny airborne particles considered most harmful to health - had been cut by almost a third on average over four years. But they remain far above World Health Organization norms, and pollution levels in Korea sometimes spike as the prevailing winds blow PM2.5 particulates - referred to as "fine dust" in the South - across the sea between the two countries. Many South Koreans accused China when pollution surged for three days earlier this month, and on Friday the Korea Meterological Administration (KMA) sent an aircraft to disperse silver iodide, a compound believed to cause rain to fall, over the waters, known as the West Sea in Korea. "The experiment is to see whether the technology works and is effective in washing away fine dust," a spokeswoman told AFP, adding it was the first of 15 such tests planned for this year. She said Seoul had "no evidence that fine dust on the West Sea is entirely from China". Last year, South Korea shut down five ageing coal-fired power plants in a bid to improve its air quality. But ruling party lawmaker Shin Ching-hyun pointed out that when pollution levels rose two weeks ago, they were highest on Baengnyeongdo island, 200km west of Seoul and the closest South Korean land to China. "China's claim - that it is not entirely to blame for South Korea's air pollution problem - violates the rights of South Koreans to healthy environment," he said in a statement. Earlier this month, Thailand also deployed rain-making planes to try to combat its own air pollution. Sa Dec flower village in Dong Thap province on the last days of the year of the Dog welcomes a raft of visitors to admire flowers and buy the most vibrant ones to decorate their houses during Tet. Located some 150km southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, Sa Dec city, Dong Thap province, is the largest supplier of flowers to southern provinces Tourists often drop by the village by the lunar years last month to admire and buy flowers Visitors take photos of vivid blooms at Sa Dec flower village Locals and wholesalers bargain over the flowers and chat merrily while visitors are excited to take photos, turning the quiet village into a busy area. Tourists pose for photos amid vibrant flowers A 18-metre tower is built by a local farmer to serve tourists demand for contemplating flowers VNA Property firms face financial difficulties, Photo source: Zing An executive from the Cho Lon Real Estate Company urged the city to invest more money in the joint-venture projects with it, saying it is unable to raise funding for them. Vietcomreal called on city authorities not to review the legal aspects of old property projects already sold to customers since it would cause anxiety among the public. According to Nguyen Van Duc, chairman of Dia Oc Xanh, his companys 5,000sq.m project faces difficulties related to land-use fees for a 125sq.m area. He said this year developers would face challenges as land-use fees were set to increase. Tran Trong Tuan, director of the city Department of Construction, admitted there were challenges and difficulties related to land-use fees and identifying developers before a project gets under way. He said only 25 per cent of property projects licensed for construction now were on lands approved for construction, with the remaining being agricultural lands for which taxes have not been paid to convert their purpose. City authorities had twice asked the Government to resolve these issues and urged developers to go ahead with their projects, he said. Delays in these projects not only increased construction costs, but also had a negative impact on the real estate market and the citys Housing for Low Income Group programme, he added. Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the city, said the city would provide sufficient information about the real estate markets to the public. The city authorities must safeguard citizens legal benefits. Projects which had been approved and licensed by relevant agencies must be allowed to be completed, he said. The Peoples Committee promised that officials would meet with the leaders of Districts Nha Be, 2 and 5 next week to guide them on these issues. The city was also considering exemption of land-use fees for houses built under the Housing for Low Income Group programme, he added. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and President of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende in Davos, Switzerland on January 24, 2019. Asked about possible impacts of global economic slowdown on the Vietnamese economy and fresh growth driving forces, PM Phuc said Vietnam has increasingly integrated into the global economy as evidenced by the signing of several free trade agreements. He acknowledged that global trade fluctuations generate negative impacts on all countries. Though Vietnam backs free multilateral trading system, it needs to be aware of such fluctuations to ensure growth momentum and maintain fast, sustainable and inclusive growth. From that perspective, it is an imperative for Vietnam to secure socio-economic stability, especially macro-economy, considering it as key foundation to assure local and foreign investors confidence and strengthen resilience against global economic fluctuations. The country will continue transforming growth model on the basis of (i) innovations, development of a digital economy, (ii) restructuring of State-owned enterprises and sectors, (iii) and promoting strengths in agriculture, tourism and information technology sectors. Besides, Vietnam needs to improve the quality of institutions in accordance with international practices and standards and as well as its commitments enshrined in the signed trade deals, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Last but not least, Vietnam will continue intensive and extensive international integration to unleash potential and strengths while improving the competitiveness in the context of the 4th industrial revolution. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc and President of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende at the "Vietnam and the World" dialogue Regarding possible negative impacts of the trade wars, PM Phuc said Vietnam will continue unfolding five major driving forces to spur growth as follows: First, the per capita income has kept rising among the 100 million population and the middle class is currently making up 13.5pc. Second, the Government will encourage entrepreneurship and creativity of people and businesses through institutional reforms. Third, it is the development of private economy and the Government sets goal to raise the total number of enterprises to more than one million by 2020. Many of the Vietnamese private businesses have grown strongly in both domestic and foreign markets in such important domains like manufacturing, telecommunication, aviation, banking-finance, tourism among others. Vietnam will continue luring foreign direct investment effectively. Fourth, a new driving force may come from innovation. The Government stands ready to welcome new ideas and technologies, advance infrastructure, including Internet infrastructure. And the 5th driving force comes from intensive and extensive international integration. The calligraphy corner will be a fascinating place for those who want to discover the art of Vietnamese calligraphy. Exhibitions Quintessence from the earth: pottery and flower and Vietnamese folk paintings are billed as highlights of the festival. Pottery villages of Chu Dau (Hai Duong province), Bat Trang (Hanoi), Phu Lang (Bac Ninh) and Phu Dieu (Hai Phong) will be introduced together with their standout products. Particularly, a set of ceramic reliefs featuring Vietnams traditional patterns created by Venerable Thich Chanh Tinh will be displayed at the event. There will be an exhibiting space for Dong Ho, Hang Trong and Kim Hoang folk paintings, and various kinds of flowers made from paper, wood, bamboo and rattan. Meanwhile, the calligraphy corner will be a fascinating place for those who want to discover the art of Vietnamese calligraphy. Also, the festival offers its visitors an array of local staples, handicrafts, interior decor, ornamental trees and parallel sentences, among others in 70 booths. Traditional and contemporary art performances are scheduled at the festival. Britain's Union Jack national flag is pictured during a debate on Britains withdrawal from the EU during a plenary session at the European Parliament on Jan 16, 2018 in Strasbourg, eastern France. (Photo: AFP/Frederick Florin) In a 28-page advice booklet, the government said firms using British suppliers or sub-contractors should already be looking for alternatives. And companies in specialist sectors operating under EU rules, such as pharmaceutical firms, were told they should consider moving their British operations back onto the European continent. Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau told reporters that French companies should be operating under the British wartime adage to "keep calm and carry on". "Let's not panic, but let's prepare for different scenarios," she said. France, like other EU countries, is bracing for a potentially calamitous British exit on Mar 29 after the parliament in London resoundingly rejected a deal negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May. Junior Finance Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said France was "hoping for the best but planning for the worst". In the event of a so-called "no deal", Britain would be treated as a third-party country with no existing trade agreement with the EU. As one of Britain's closest neighbours, France has been taking such a prospect seriously, activating a "no deal" plan that unlocks up to 50 million (US$57 million) for bolstering security at ports and airports. It has begun recruiting an additional 740 customs officials and veterinary inspectors, while passing legislation that allows for emergency decrees in the event of a "no deal". With just 63 days to go until Britain's scheduled exit, Pannier-Runacher warned that a no deal would fling France "into an unprecedented situation with a major trading partner". FRANCE-BRITISH 'DOWNGRADE' The advice warns French companies with staff in Britain to work out how it will affect matters such as social security contributions, and to possibly revert to using temporary workers. Firms should consider transferring financial services contracts to EU countries, and withdrawing confidential data held within Britain. And French companies working alongside British partners on EU-funded projects should now be looking elsewhere, the advice says. Loiseau said that while France would seek a post-Brexit relationship with Britain that was "close and mutually beneficial", it would inevitably be a relationship that has been "downgraded". "There is no relationship more simple, more profitable, more complete - between businesses, between citizens - than being a member of the European Union," she said. French officials are planning to hold around 30 meetings around the country to help local businesses deal with the Brexit fallout. Some 30,000 French companies currently export to Britain - tariff-free as part of the EU's customs union. These exports make up around three percent of France's annual output. Sebastien Ogier powers his Citroen into a narrow lead on the Monte carlo Rally. (Photo: AFP/Jean-Pierre Clatot) Monte-Carlo is the first date on the 2019 calendar and features six-time world champion Ogier and veteran compatriot Sebastien Loeb, who has nine world titles. However, Loeb, in a Hyundai, was down in fifth place on Friday evening, one minute and 25sec off the pace as he sees Ogier target equalling his record of seven wins on the storied Monte-Carlo race. Andreas Mikkelsen, in another Hyundai, was third at 1min 17sec. Ogier said he had to be satisfied with a lead, even slender, after a difficult day. "I'll settle for that, you can't be too greedy given the circumstances," he said. "With all the different changes of speed and surface it was difficult to know which type of tyres were best," he added. "There's a long way to go and huge amounts of time can still be gained or lost on a single special." Estonia's Ott Tanak, behind the wheel of a Toyota, mastered the icy conditions on the opening day but slipped to seventh overall Friday at 2min 34sec off the lead. Having timed fastest during the fifth and sixth special, Ogier took the lead during the penultimate run as the race climbed into the low Alps on a fast, technically challenging course over narrow, hilly roads. Belgian ace Neuville slipped out of the lead, losing up to 20 seconds when overshooting the first corner and despite a powerful showing thereafter admitted later he had chosen the wrong tyres. "I turned, but the car didn't," Neuville said after starting on studded tyres to deal with a thin layer of packed snow. "But I'm feeling good and without my mistake I'd be in the lead now." Climbing Paradise Glacier in Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, ca. 1911-1920. (Photo by Curtis & Miller/National Photo Company) S.S. Paris, Ocean Liner, ca. 1890s. (Photo by John S. Johnston/Detroit Publishing Company Collection) View of Venice, Italy, ca. 1890s. (Photochrom/Library of Congress) One of the unrestored images: Railroad train at the Paris Exposition, 1889. (Tissandier Collection) Traveling by reindeer, Archangel, Russia, ca. 1890s. (Detroit Publishing Company Collection) The Rameseum of El-Kurneh, Thebes, 1857. (Photo by Francis Frith /The Metropolitan Museum of Art) From The Past in Focus: The ship Garthsnaid weathering a storm, 1920. (National Library of New Zealand) Berigo, San Remo, Riviera, ca. 1890s. (Library of Congress) A British tourist arriving in Sudan, Africa, 1936. (Matson Photo Service Collection) Helsinki, ca.1900. (Photo by Gustaf Sandberg/The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland) A View of New Zealand, ca. 1890-1910. (Photo by William Joseph Macpherson/State Library of New South Wales) Delta Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Chi Girls, 1905. (Frank Snyder Photograph Collection) Leigh Brintnell outside his Fokker Super-Universal airplane, 1935. (Provincial Archives of Alberta) Dancing Lesson - The Mazurka, ca. late 1800s. (Photo by Karl Karlovitz Bulla/The J. Paul Getty Museum) Lakeview of Detroit, Michigan, ca. 1910-1930. (Detroit Publishing Company Collection) Two-hundred obscure photographs that have been buried in archives around the world are being brought to new life by Diana Metzinger, a young woman from Cleveland, who is restoring the images for her crowdfunding project The Grand Tour which will be running until February 4th on Kickstarter.Last year, she chose to unearth 100 rarely-seen historic images for a restoration project entitled The Past in Focus . This campaign received so much positive feedback from backers that Diana decided to release a second edition, as well as create this new project focusing strictly on travel photography. The support I received from the Kickstarter community was tremendous and humbling, too. I never realized that so many people were interested in seeing these rare photos restored! Together, Diana and her sister Constance operate a small home-based business where they sell prints of historic photographs on Etsy. They often browse the digital collections of libraries from around the world and it was through one of these searches that Diana decided to launch The Past in Focus as a crowdfunding campaign for Kickstarterslast year.is a monthlong creative initiative focused on limited editions of 100.There were so many beautiful photographs buried deep in these archives and I wanted all of them to be seen and appreciated by others. Restoration work in time-consuming though, so I decided that if the project was to get funded I would put our business on hold until I could complete the work.The project was indeed funded in less than 48 hours and the limited edition digital collections of The Past in Focus were sold out in three days. The new collection, The Grand Tour , was also funded in less than 48 hours, but there are various reward levels so that everyone can enjoy these sets, not just the select few who pledged early.The beautiful images include scenes of exotic locales such as Bali, India, the Aconcagua Valley of Chile, Zanzibar, intrepid travelers climbing snow-covered mountain peaks, panorama landscapes, and rare color photochroms, most of them dating from 1870-1930, the golden age of travel.Diana digitally restores each of the photographs, removing scratches, dust and debris, repairing water damage, and making contrast and color adjustments before releasing them to the public. The 200 restored photographs are all in the public domain and are being offered as a collection of downloadable hi-res jpegs ($40) and also as individual 8x10 prints ($15).A few images from the second edition of The Past in Focus: El Dorado Cantina, an authentic Mexican restaurant and bar close to the Las Vegas Strip, raises a glass to romance, good food and drinks with a special prix-fixe menu, created by Executive Chef Paco Cortes in honor of Valentines Day. The menu will be available Wednesday, Feb. 13 through Sunday, Feb. 17. For $64.99 per person, guests will delight their taste buds with a three-course meal which includes: choice of Surf & Turf (steak and lobster) or Cedar Plank Salmon with grilled shrimp, side salad and a Red Velvet Cake, to finish off the culinary experience on a sweet note. For an additional $50, guests can enhance their meal with a bottle of champagne served with fresh strawberries (must be 21 years of age and older). Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling 702-722-2849. At the Welcoming Ceremony of the 34th World Youth Day, before thousands of young pilgrims, Pope Francis shares his vision of a Church that dreams, and loves. By Sean-Patrick Lovett The party began at dawn. As the sun rose over the Panama Canal, colourful groups of flag-waving, singing, swinging, World Youth Day pilgrims were already on the march. Their destination: the 2.5km-long Coastal Beltway, called the Cinta Costera, that flanks the Pacific Ocean on one side, and the Panama City skyline on the other. The Location The scenic beauty of the location, its easy accessibility and size, made it the perfect choice to host the Welcoming Ceremony and Official Opening of the 34th World Youth Day. Throughout the day, pilgrims were animated and entertained by music, song and dance. So by the time Pope Francis arrived, driven through the crowd in his white popemobile, everyone was, as they say in the trade, thoroughly warmed up and rearing to go. The programme Pope Francis looked in his element: affectionately holding hands with five young WYD representatives, gratefully accepting their gift of a locally woven papal stole, attentively watching the multicultural performances of the WYD anthems, actively listening to the multilinguistic presentations of the WYD patron saints (Oscar Romero, Martin de Porres, Rose of Lima, John Bosco, Juan Diego and, of course, John Paul II). The Popes words Then it was the young peoples turn to listen to the Pope. Peter and the Church walk with you, he began. We want to tell you not to be afraid, to go forward with the same fresh energy and restlessness that helps make us happier and more availablenot to create a parallel Church that would be more fun and cool thanks to a fancy youth event. Pope Francis acknowledged the sacrifices faced by many of the young people in getting here. But, he reminded them, a disciple is not merely someone who arrives at a certain place, but one who sets out decisively, who is not afraid to take risks and keeps walking. This is the great joy, the Pope insisted, to keep walking. A dream named Jesus As thousands of young people applauded with approval and shouted aloud in agreement, Pope Francis reminded them how the culture of encounter is a call inviting us to dare to keep alive a shared dream A dream that has a place for everyone A dream named Jesus. St Oscar Romero provided the inspiration for the Pope when he quoted from a homily of the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador: Christianity is not a collection of truths to be believed, of rules to be followed, or of prohibitionsChristianity means pursuing the dream for which Jesus gave His life: loving with the same love with which He loved us. A love that makes sense The final part of the Popes reflections with the youth people gathered in Panama City on Thursday evening, was dedicated to a definition of love: A love that does not overwhelm or oppress, cast aside or reduce to silence, humiliate or domineer. The love of the Lord, he said, is a daily, discreet and respectful love, one that is free and freeing, a love that heals and raises up. It is the quiet love of a hand outstretched to serve, a commitment that draws no attention to itself. This, said Pope Francis, is a love that makes sense. The first encounter between the Pope and the young people of World Youth Day in Panama concluded with them repeating, together with him: Lord, teach me to love you as you have loved us. A perfect prayer to end a perfect day. Pope Francis celebrates Holy Mass and consecrates an altar in the newly-restored Cathedral of Santa Maria La Antigua in Panama City, warning against the weariness of hope. By Sean-Patrick Lovett On the outside, the Cathedral of Santa Maria La Antigua, in Panama Citys Old Town, looks just like what it is: an 18th century Spanish colonial-style church. On the inside, a major restoration and restyling blends elements in wood with red, black and white marble, to produce something completely new and contemporary. In the words of Pope Francis: It no longer belongs only to the past, but it is a thing of beauty for the present. The Pope was at the Cathedral to celebrate Mass with priests, men and women religious, and members of lay movements, who had come from all over Central America, and beyond. He was also there to consecrate the new altar, complete with its relics of four of the WYD patron saints: Oscar Romero, Rosa of Lima, Martin de Porres and, naturally, John Paul II. For nearly 1,000 years, altars were built over the tombs of saints and martyrs, so the inclusion of relics in them nowadays, is another sign of continuity. Jesus beside the well The Popes homily was based on the Gospel reading that describes Jesus wearily sitting beside the well and asking the Samaritan woman to give Him a drink of water. Pope Francis focused on the theme of weariness in the lives of priests, consecrated men and women, and members of lay movements. The causes of this weariness, he said, range from long hours of work, to relationships that lead to exhaustion and disappointment, from simple daily commitments, to burdensome routines, from predictable little problems, to stressful periods of pressure. All these situations, said the Pope, demand a well from which we can set out once more. The weariness of hope Pope Francis developed this theme into what he called, the weariness of hope. This is the weariness that calls into question the energy, resources and viability of our mission in this changing and challenging world, he said. And it paralyzes us. What was meaningful and important in the past can now no longer seem valid. The weariness of hope comes from seeing a Church wounded by sin, he continued. And this, he warned, can open the door to the heresy of believing that the Lord and our communities have nothing to say to the new world now being born. Quenching our thirst Like Jesus at the well, said the Pope, we must have the courage to ask to quench our thirst. Asking our Lord to give us to drink, means finding the courage to recapture the most authentic part of our founding charisms and to see how they can find expression today. It means trusting that, as God did yesterday, He will still do tomorrow. Listen to our report One of the youngest pilgrims at WYD in Panama tells Vatican News why he and his companions flew 27 hours from Zimbabwe to be here. By Sean-Patrick Lovett and Francesca Merlo He is 15 years old and his name is Johnson. Before taking the 27-hour flight from Harare, he had never left his homeland of Zimbabwe, in Southern Africa. Now hes here in Panama, Johnson is thrilled and delighted. Mostly, because the World Youth Day experience means he can mix and mingle with so many different people from so many different countries. It also means he can exchange souvenirs to show some people back home. But, his absolute priority is, of course, to see the Pope!. Dear Pope The question is: What would Johnson say to the Pope, if he actually got to meet him, or had the chance to write him a note? Johnson hesitates only long enough to catch his breath: Dear Pope, he begins, my name is Johnson from Zimbabwe, and I came to Panama for the World Youth Day. This is my first time and I am so excited to see you, and I hope that I will see you again sometime. Pope Francis invariably asks everyone to pray for him. But Johnson doesnt wait to be asked. He ends his make-believe note with a promise: and I will keep on praying for you. Every day. An African invitation Come to Zimbabwe!. Johnsons fellow pilgrims quickly follow up with an invitation to visit their country. We will welcome you, they insist, we will show you the Third Wonder of the World. They are referring, of course, to the majestic Victoria Falls, the largest waterfall in the world. Meanwhile, they say, we thank the Lord for the opportunity to be in Panama. Together with people from so many parts of the world, we are praying for our country, they say. They have been impressed by the type of prayer they have experienced at World Youth Day in Panama, along with the welcome and the love. And this, the Zimbabwean pilgrims say, is what they will be taking back home. The synagogue of Panama City is hosting a group of WYD pilgrims. Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik of the synagogue spoke to Sean-Patrick Lovett of Vatican News about the warm relations between his community and Catholics. By Robin Gomes The Catholic Churchs World Youth Day is unfolding in Panama City around Pope Francis, with thousands of young people from around the world participating in various events. One of the numerous venues where young people are gathering is the Jewish synagogue of Panama City, which speaks volumes about the close friendship between Jews and Christians in the Central American nation. To find more about this strong and vibrant collaboration between the two communities, Sean-Patrick Lovett spoke to the Jewish Rabbi of Panama City, Gustavo Kraselnik, whose synagogue is hosting a group of 50 young participants in the WYD. Listen to the full interview Rabbi Kraselnik said that this friendship is not surprising as it comes to them naturally, not just with Catholics but with all religions. Panama being a small country, they know each other well. The rabbi pointed out that Jewish-Catholic relations have greatly improved since Vatican II. In the last 15 to 20 years, Jews and Catholics in Panama began to visit, meet and talk to each other more frequently, to build a relationship based on respect and joining hands in good works. Rabbi Kraselnik said that in their neighbourhood, Jews talked with the parish of St. Lucas Parish to host a group of WYD participants in their synagogue. The rabbi said that relations between religious communities depend on how much hope religious leaders bring in their ecumenical or inter-faith dialogue, especially in moments of crisis and tension such as the period of dictatorship in Panama. This, he said, benefits society. With Panama a mosaic of diversity, Rabbi Kraselnik said inter-religious friendship is only natural. The Supreme Court of Pakistan will decide on Jan. 29 whether or not to hear an appeal challenging its Oct. 31 acquittal of the Catholic mother, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2010. By Robin Gomes Pakistan's Supreme Court will hear a review petition next week challenging its own acquittal of Catholic death row inmate, Asia Bibi, on charges of blasphemy. The countrys apex court announced on Jan. 24 that it will hear the appeal on Jan. 29. The petition was filed last November after Bibi's death sentence was struck down by the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment which drew praise from minorities and human rights activists but drew the wrath of extremist Muslims with violent protests. The mother of four had been held in solitary confinement on death row since 2010 after being convicted of blasphemy. She was jailed after a row with her co-workers in June 2009 after accusations that she had made offensive remarks about the Prophet Muhammad, an offence punishable by death in Pakistan. Bibi's supporters say that she was punished for drinking water from a glass meant for Muslims. Acquittal and review A three-judge panel comprising Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel heard Bibi's appeal on October 31 and ordered her immediate release. The ensuing violent protests by Islamists paralyzed the nation. A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel will hear the review petition on Tuesday. The petition was filed by Muhammad Salam, a Lahore-based cleric. Salam had also sought the placement of Asia's name on the Exit Control List (ECL), putting her exit from Pakistan on hold until the review. The court will rule whether to admit the appeal for hearing or discard it. If the court rejects the appeal, there will be no further legal constraints on Bibi leaving Pakistan. Asia Bibi still unsafe After her release from prison on Nov. 7, Bibi was flown to Islamabad and taken to an undisclosed place amid tight security for her safety. Hyacinth Peter, executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Major Religious Superiors Leadership Conference, hopes the petition will be rejected by the Supreme Court. "Only the lower courts are pressurized by mobs and clerics during hearings in blasphemy cases. The supreme courts usually stand firm on their judgments; reviews do not change anything," Peter told ucanews.com. Father Abid Habib, former regional coordinator of the Justice and Peace Commission, fears for Bibi's safety. "The lives of blasphemy victims are always at stake. Even after acquittal, they are always vulnerable and never free to live happily in Pakistan," he told ucanews . "All of them have taken asylum in other countries, he said, adding the state must take serious steps to ensure their normal life once declared innocent." Legal experts said it is very unlikely the Supreme Court will overturn its own verdict on Asia Bibi. Chief Justice Khosa, considered the countrys top expert in criminal law had helped draft Bibis acquittal. (@FahadShabbir) WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2019) US Senators Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin and Chris Murphy on Friday introduced a resolution condemning the Hungary's government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "Resolution [c]ondemning efforts to undermine democracy in Hungary and urging President Trump to defend the universal human rights and democratic norms under attack by the Orban government," the document said. The Senate "rejects Hungary's efforts to undermine the independence of the judiciary, restrict civil society groups, infringe on the freedom of the press," according to the resolution. The three senators urged US President Donald Trump to push back against the "assault on universal freedoms and democratic norms" by the Orban government in Hungary. Orban, one of the European Union's staunchest opponents of mandatory migrant resettlement quotas and defender of traditional Christian values, has repeatedly said that Hungary wants to gain an anti-immigration majority in the EU institutions, including the European Parliament and the European Commission. The prime minister has also expressed support for the Italian-Polish initiative to form an EU-skeptic alliance for the EU parliamentary election scheduled in late May. Hungary is a member of the Visegrad Group along with the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia that has been critical of the European Union's migration policies. (@rukhshanmir) WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2019) US and North Korean positions on denuclearization of the peninsula seem to be drawing closer, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told reporters. "It seems to me their [US and North Korean] positions started getting closer," Morgulov said on Friday after talks with US diplomats in Washington. North Korea, Morgulov said, has signaled readiness to realize the Singapore declaration and denuclearize gradually and simultaneously with US steps. The United States initially demanded that North Korea denuclearize in a unilateral manner, however, now it seems the US colleagues are reconsidering the sequence of actions, he added. The upcoming UN-sponsored National Conference for Libya, which will seek to reconcile the Libyan nation, is bound to fail since its agenda is imposed by foreign actors, Aguila Saleh, the parliament speaker from the eastern Libyan government, told Sputnik on Friday BENGHAZI (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th January, 2019) The upcoming UN-sponsored National Conference for Libya , which will seek to reconcile the Libyan nation, is bound to fail since its agenda is imposed by foreign actors, Aguila Saleh, the parliament speaker from the eastern Libyan government , told Sputnik on Friday. The United Nations is planning to organize a national conference for Libyans in February where the country's political forces are expected to agree on a national agenda and the conduct of future elections in Libya. "I think the conference will fail due to one reason the leaks [of information] about this conference suggest that [this conference will constitute] a coup with regard to [the country's] legitimacy and constitution and the imposition of a constitution and agenda from abroad," Saleh stated. Saleh added that several regions and tribes in Libya were considering boycotting the conference since they feared that the event's agenda would not take into account the proposals of the Libyans. In addition, there are concerns that the event's organizers might insist on the dissolution of the country's existing government bodies and the creation of new ones, according to Saleh. "It is 100 percent Libya's business, and any [attempts] to impose [an agenda] from abroad is a direct interference in Libyan affairs, it is not acceptable for us and all the Libyans. This was discussed in the House of Representatives, and several lawmakers were not satisfied with the process described in the leaks. If what has leaked are the points of negotiations and dialogue, I assume that we can admit failure now," Saleh said. Libya has been torn apart by conflict since its long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011. The eastern part of the country is governed by the parliament, backed by the Libyan National Army (LNA) and located in Tobruk. The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, operates in the country's west and is headquartered in Tripoli. (@ChaudhryMAli88) Denmark's former intelligence chief Jakob Scharf was sentenced on Friday to four months in prison for having betrayed professional secrets in his memoir Copenhagen, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jan, 2019 ) :Denmark's former intelligence chief Jakob Scharf was sentenced on Friday to four months in prison for having betrayed professional secrets in his memoir. He revealed confidential information 24 times in the book, in particular regarding the operations of Danish General Intelligence (PET) and the agency's methods of working, a Copenhagen court said in its judgement seen by AFP. The judges noted that the revelations in "Seven Years at PET: the Era of Jakob Scharf" were done for commercial reasons. Scharf, 52, was the head of PET from 2007 to 2013 at a time when Denmark was the target of attacks following the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. The book was written with a journalist from Denmark's newspaper of record, Politiken, which in October 2016 published the memoir to protest against censorship, after authorities had banned the book from being sold. The paper's editor-in-chief in January was fined 50,000 kroner (6,700 Euros) forhaving defied the ban. (@rukhshanmir) The Central African Republic (CAR) armed opposition hopes that support from the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) will help return peace and "quietude" to the country following years of civil conflict, Debenis Diakotore, a member of the armed opposition delegation at the talks, told Sputnik on Friday, also praising cooperation between the parties to the conflict MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2019) The Central African Republic CAR ) armed opposition hopes that support from the United Nations UN ) and the African Union (AU) will help return peace and "quietude" to the country following years of civil conflict, Debenis Diakotore, a member of the armed opposition delegation at the talks, told Sputnik on Friday, also praising cooperation between the parties to the conflict. "When we sign an agreement, it's the implementation of this agreement that often creates problems in our country. But this time we are satisfied, we have confidence in our partners. We count on our partners, we count on the UN and the AU to accompany us in implementation of this agreement in short, in middle and in long-term so that our country could return to normalcy, find a durable peace, so that our citizens could live in quietude," Diakotore said. It is with an aim to restore peace in car that the opposition came to the peace talks, he emphasized. "Our country suffered enough in this crisis which has been lasting for many decades, and we came to Khartoum to negotiate a compromise so that we could have peace back in CAR . .. The decision to be here is made in order to try to put the national interest before other things, so that we could help our country advance, and bring peace to CAR," Diakotore said, stressing that the country could do "nothing" without peace. He voiced belief that the participants of the talks had made an effort to "put the national interest before other things" so that they could help the country "advance" and "find peace." According to Diakotore, participation in the talks is an opportunity to "really be heard." On Thursday, a new round of peace talks between the CAR government and militant leaders started in Khartoum. As a source in the Sudanese Embassy in Russia told Sputnik, the talks may last for up to 10 days. The landlocked CAR has been suffering from a drawn-out conflict since a coup in 2013. Much of the fighting in recent years has been between Muslim-majority Seleka and Christian Anti-Balaka militias. (@ChaudhryMAli88) RABAT, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 26th Jan, 2019) The UAE Embassy in Morocco has launched a humanitarian initiative as part of a series of aid programmes targeting the people of Morocco's mountain ranges. Ali Salem Al Kaabi, UAE Ambassador to Morocco, emphasised the keenness of the UAE to enhance relations with Morocco. He said that the embassy will distribute more assistance in various parts of the Kingdom to alleviate the suffering of the underprivileged in remote areas. He also extended thanks to Abdelhamid El Mazid, Governor of the Ifrane Province and local authorities, for supporting the growing and dynamic ties between the two countries. A number of officials attended the launch of the initiative. Director Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC) Women University, Dr Malika Rani here on Friday asked the government to establish research centre for the south Punjab students MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jan, 2019 ) :Director Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC) Women University, Dr Malika Rani here on Friday asked the government to establish research centre for the south Punjab students. Talking to APP, she said that no research centre was available in any of south Punjab university for synthesis and characterization of samples which was hampering research work. She said the students had to dispatch samples for synthesis and characterization to National Centre for Research (NCP) Islamabad or Peshawar for this purpose which takes months for the results. "Being a relatively new institution, the women university lacks equipment", she said. "We don't have X RD,TEM and SEM without which research was a vague idea," Dr Rani regretted.She said that if the centre was established at Women University it would be beneficial for south Punjab universities. She said the students of Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Physics and all kinds of Engineering will be beneficiaries of the research centre. It will save students' time and money specially females if the government sets up research centre in Multan, she added. A celebration of the life for John Robert "Bobby" Brown, 72, will be held at his residence on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, at 10 a.m. Bobby was born in Dublin, but his home was Baldwin County. He was predeceased by his parents, John Preston "Pete" Brown and Virginia Watson Brown. He was retired For full access, please log in, register your subscription or subscribe. Try for 99 a month for two months, cancel or pause anytime. Tuff Shed, a Denver, Colorado-based shed manufacturer, has submitted change of use paperwork with the Derry planning department to move into an industrial building on Kendall Pond Road, according to Derry Planning Director George Sioras. The situation in the area of the Joint Forces Operation remains under control of Ukrainian troops. Russia's hybrid military forces mounted two attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas on January 26. Read alsoRed Cross sends humanitarian aid to Donbas "No Ukrainian soldiers were killed or wounded from 00:00 to 18:00 Kyiv time," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook. The enemy opened fire from grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns and small arms at the Ukrainian positions near the villages of Krymske and Vodiane. The situation in the area of the Joint Forces Operation remains under control of Ukrainian troops. Over 800 guests are taking part in the gathering, including MPs, MEPs, civil society representatives and entrepreneurs alongside experts in fields such as politics, economy and culture. Ukraine's future after this year's presidential and parliamentary ballot is the focal point of the ongoing Europe-Ukraine Forum held in the hamlet of Jasionka in southeastern Poland. The representatives of the West said Ukraine was introducing reforms too slowly, website Business Insider reported. Ute Kochlowski-Kadjaia, General Director of the German Eastern Business Association, said at a panel: "Ukraine's economy is growing but the growth dynamic is definitely insufficient," Radio Poland reported. Read alsoPoland's foreign minister: Nord Stream 2 to deprive Ukraine of protection against Russian aggression She said: "Ukrainian citizens want reforms, but the domestic businesses don't." She added: "The country is forced to pursue policy changes by outside powers, such as the International Monetary Fund." Ukrainian attendees, meanwhile, said that Russian aggression was partly to blame for the slow pace of reforms, Business Insider said. Verkhovna Rada deputy speaker Oksana Syroyid said: "Russia annexed Crimea not only to hurt Ukraine but also to pose a risk to Europe in the Mediterranean basin." She added: "Now it wants to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to control the Baltic. Russian oligarchs are buying up land in the Balkans all this to surround Europe. The EU should do everything it can to welcome Kyiv as a member of the European bloc. Only this step can guarantee Europe's security." Deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament Ryszard Terlecki said at the event: "This year will be different: both for Ukrainians, who will vote for president in spring and parliament in autumn, and for the European Union, which will hold a ballot for the European Parliament." He added that after the EU vote Europe will "for months be focused on building institutions rather than foreign policy." Over 800 guests are taking part in the gathering, including MPs, MEPs, civil society representatives and entrepreneurs alongside experts in fields such as politics, economy and culture. Ukraine would have to double its armed forces. Expert of International Democracy Institute (IDI) Yevhen Dykyi has suggested a scenario for Ukraine in case of the Russian occupation of Belarus. By making Belarus part of the Union State of Russia and Belarus through the occupation, Russia will be able to split Ukraine into two parts by a large-scale military invasion, Dykyi said, the Ukrainian news outlet Obozrevatel reported. Read alsoUkraine, Putin, NATO: Journalists name reasons that could push Russia to grab Belarus In case of that scenario, Ukraine would have to double its armed forces. "We would have to create almost the same grouping of troops in size as the one stationed in the Donbas. And deploy it in Polissia. It is clear it would cost a lot of money and cause a lot of problems," Dykyi said. In his words, in the event of a successful Russian occupation of Belarus, the Russian Armed Forces will be able to cut off northern and central Ukraine from western Ukraine, reconstructing the 1919 scenario. "This Anschluss of Belarus is very undesirable for us. By the way, it was Russian political scientists who first mentioned the term of the Anschluss [in respect of Belarus] openly and blatantly," he said. Anschluss refers to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany on March 12, 1938, before World War II. Russia and Belarus have notionally been a "union" state (supranational union) since 1997 with the signing of the "Treaty on the Union between Belarus and Russia." Late in 2018, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow was ready to go further, including to "create a single emission center, a single customs agency, [unified] courts, and an Accounts Chamber." Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Tomas Petricek will make a working visit to Ukraine on January 27-29. "The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic will make a visit to intensify political contacts and discuss issues on the agenda of Ukrainian-Czech cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral levels. During the talks, great attention will be paid to the ways of consolidating efforts to strengthen peace and security, free all Ukrainian hostages and political prisoners, who are held on the territory of Russia, the problems of energy security in Europe, bilateral trade and economic cooperation," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reports. It is noted that Tomas Petricek will make a visit to Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. "On January 29, 2019, a joint working visit of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek and Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen to Mariupol will take place in order to obtain the relevant information about the security, humanitarian, social and economic situation in the area of conduct of the Joint Forces Operation, caused by the Russian military blockade of the Ukrainian seaports in the Sea of Azov and the ongoing military aggression of Russia against Ukraine. The program of the trip includes, among other things, a visit to the Hnutove entry-exit checkpoint and inspection of the Mariupol seaport waters," the statement reads. Cuong highly valued Okellos official visit to Vietnam, saying that this is the first governmental-level delegation exchange between the two countries since they set up their diplomatic ties in 1973. He thanked Uganda for supporting Vietnams candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for 2020-2021. The Ugandan official said he is delighted to visit Vietnam and have a chance to learn more about Vietnams history, including its heroic fight for national independence. He affirmed that the struggle was a great source of inspiration for African countries, including Uganda, to fight for their independence. He pledged Uganda will continue coordinating closely with Vietnam at international and regional organisations and multilateral forums, especially the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement and the South-South cooperation framework. At the talks, the two sides informed each other about their respective countries situation and discussed several international and regional issues. They looked into ways to enhance bilateral connections, focusing on some areas matching both sides strength and demand like politics-diplomacy, trade-investment, defence and agriculture. As bilateral cooperation remains modest, the officials agreed to increase delegation exchanges at all levels and encourage mutual visits by Vietnamese and Ugandan parliamentarians and people-to-people exchange. Deputy Minister Cuong said to help step up ties with Uganda, Vietnam assigned an honorary consul in the African nation in 2017. It hopes Uganda will also appoint an honorary consul or open a trade office in Vietnam so as to create more channels for connecting the two countries business circles. The Ugandan State Minister for Foreign Affairs is paying an official visit to Vietnam from January 24th to 27th. He is accompanied by State Minister for Defence Charles Okello Engola and Honorary Consul of Vietnam in the country King Ceasor. During his stay, the Ugandan guest will pay a courtesy call to Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and have working sessions with the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Industry and Trade./. The Central Election Commission of Ukraine has registered the first 16 international observers of the election of the President of Ukraine. The CEC approved the corresponding decisions at its meeting on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. In particular, the CEC registered seven official observers from the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and nine observers from Germany. In addition, the CEC permitted 25 more Ukrainian non-governmental organizations to send their official observers for the upcoming presidential election. Thus, as of January 25, 84 NGOs were granted the right to have observers at the presidential election on March 31. Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna Ihor Prokopchuk once again called on the Russian authorities to immediately release the illegally detained Ukrainian citizens. The Ukrainian diplomat made a corresponding appeal at the meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. In the Russian Federation, dozens of Ukrainian citizens continue to be illegally held in custody as hostages of the Kremlin regime. Among them are Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, journalist Roman Sushchenko, Oleksandr Kolchenko and many others, including Pavlo Hryb who is again taken today to a Russian show of court hearing. We urge the Russian authorities to immediately release the illegally detained Ukrainian citizens, he said. Prokopchuk added that the Russian occupation authorities continued to repress Ukrainian activists and Crimean Tatars. Tomorrow, another so called court session will take place in the case of Volodymyr Balukh who was sentenced last year for hoisting a Ukrainian flag near his private house. Crimean Tatar Edem Bekirov, a disabled person facing fabricated charges of storage and transfer of explosives and ammunition, has been denied a proper medical assistance, he noted. The Ukrainian diplomat also pointed out that Russia, despite the calls from the international community, had been holding in remand prisons for two months the prisoners of war, 24 Ukrainian sailors captured during the attack on the Ukrainian Navy ships on November 25, 2018 near the Kerch Strait. The actions of the Russian authorities do require that the international community steps up its pressure on Russia, including by strengthening the sanctions regime, to deter its aggressiveness and make it abide by its international commitments and obligations, Prokopchuk underscored. Ukraine and Switzerland have signed a protocol on the introduction of amendments to the convention on the avoidance of double taxation with respect to taxes on income and capital, and its protocol, concluded in Kyiv on October 30, 2000. Ukrainian Finance Minister Oksana Markarova and newly appointed Swiss President Ueli Maurer signed the document in the presence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko as part of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, January 24, the press service of the head of state reported. "The conclusion of this protocol is aimed at avoiding double taxation of income of individuals and legal entities in the territories of both countries. This will be achieved by the distribution of the right to tax certain types of income between Ukraine and Switzerland depending on their place of origin and by taking into account in tax obligations of the taxpayer of one state the amounts of taxes paid in the territory of another state," the statement said. It notes that the the provisions of the draft Protocol are in line with the requirements of the OECD Model Tax Convention and the latest OECD standards the Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko visited the servicemen of the 72nd separate mechanized brigade, who undergo treatment at the National Military Medical Clinical Center "Main Military Clinical Hospital", and presented them with state awards. In particular, the President said that he and Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak had visited to the hospital on their way to the town of Bila Tserkva to meet with the rest of the personnel of the 72nd brigade, who return from the Joint Forces Operation area today, the press service of the Head of State reports. We came here to thank each of you for the excellent performance of combat missions and to ask how we can help you, the President addressed the soldiers. The servicemen thanked Petro Poroshenko and noted that they had no complaints. The Head of State got acquainted with the conditions of treatment of the military personnel, asked about their health status and wished a speedy recovery. I, as the President and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, am proud of the Ukrainian army, the Armed Forces, the patriotic spirit and strong motivation of the personnel, Poroshenko stressed. The Head of State also awarded the servicemen for the selfless actions shown in defending the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, exemplary performance of military service. On January 16, the militants in Donbas used antitank guided missile launcher to fire on a truck that delivered food and water to the positions of the 72nd separate mechanized brigade stationed on the eastern outskirts of Troitske (69km west of Luhansk). Ten Ukrainian servicemen were wounded in shelling. Subsequently, they were transported for treatment to Kyiv. Militants violated ceasefire in the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) area in Donbas eight times over the past day. In the zone of action of tactical force East, militants used antitank guided missile launchers, automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns to fire on Ukrainian troops near Katerynivka (64km west of Luhansk); grenade launchers and heavy machine guns near Shyrokyne (20km east of Mariupol); small arms outside Opytne (12km north-west of Donetsk) and Nevelske (18km north-west of Donetsk); grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms near Marinka (23km south-west of Donetsk), the JFO Headquarters press center reports. In the zone of action of tactical force North, Ukrainian strongholds came under heavy machine gun fire in the area of Stanytsia Luhanska (16km north-east of Luhansk). Militants also shelled Ukrainian positions near Zhovte (17km north-west of Luhansk), using automatic grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. One Ukrainian serviceman was killed, another four were wounded in enemy shelling over the past day. One enemys BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed. According to the intelligence, four militants were killed and another five were wounded on January 25. Today, the enemy has not opened fire yet. As quickly as it started, it looks to be over. Friday, Public Utilities Minister -- Marvin Gonzales met with the management of WASA. The Fallin administrations final days pay raises especially those to state employees who were already at the top of the pay scale were legal but dont pass the smell test. The Oklahoman reports that at least 252 pay raises were OKd in Fallins last six months in office, despite her long-standing executive order freezing state employee pay increases, promotions and hiring without permission of elected officials or the governors Cabinet. Seventeen of the raises exceeded $10,000 a year. The pay hikes included a $19,261-a-year raise for the commissioner of agriculture. Commissioner Jim Reese, a member of Fallins Cabinet, said the raise in his last two months in office corrected an oversight in an earlier round of pay increases. Reese was not reappointed by incoming Gov. Kevin Stitt. Fallin also gave raises to four employees of the Governors Office. One employee received a $13,000 raise, and three others received $3,000 raises. A former spokesman for Fallin said the raises were justified because the workers had taken on more responsibilities. The Oklahoman reports that the raises add $836,431 to the states annual payroll. Cherokee County deputies have arrested a woman who allegedly killed a wheelchair-using man and burned his body this week. Denise Lynn Grass, 43, of Muskogee, was charged Friday in Cherokee County District Court with first-degree murder and desecration of a corpse in connection with the death of 61-year-old Elvis Dry. Authorities arrested Grass on a warrant in Muskogee later in the day and booked her into the Cherokee County jail. Deputies found Dry's burned body and his wheelchair in a burn pile in the backyard of his home in Park Hill while performing a welfare check Sunday and believe he was killed by Grass on Jan. 15, according to a news release. The state medical examiner's office identified Dry by the serial number of a medical device found with his remains. With 148 pedestrians killed by vehicles between 2008 and 2017, Tulsa is ranked the 29th most dangerous city in the country for people walking, according to a new national report released this week. The Dangerous by Design 2019 report by Smart Growth America also lists Oklahoma as the 14th most dangerous state for pedestrians, with 596 people struck and killed in the same time period. Nationwide, 49,340 people were struck and killed between 2008 and 2017, the report said. Thats more than 13 people per day, or one person every hour and 46 minutes. Its the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of people crashing with no survivors every single month. We can and must do more to reduce the number of people who die while walking every day on our roadways, the report said. Criminal justice reform, low salaries for prosecutors and how to fund the district attorneys offices were some of the topics discussed by prosecutors and lawmakers at a breakfast held Friday at a downtown Tulsa hotel. Six area district attorneys used the two-hour event to bend the ears of about 22 state lawmakers who attended what was being billed as the first-ever district attorneys legislative breakfast. The event was hosted by area district attorneys and the Tulsa County Sheriffs Foundation. District attorneys covered a wide range of issues during the meeting, including the cautioning of lawmakers on recent calls to make criminal justice reform sentencing measures retroactive. They also painted a stark picture of how funding issues affect their offices. On the latter topic, Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler commented on his reliance on court fees to fund about half of his offices $8.3 million annual budget. I think its immoral to require a district attorney to be a fee collector to keep my doors open, Kunzweiler said. The fact that I have to collect a fee from somebody Im prosecuting and putting on probation, I shouldnt have to be put in that spot. My job should be public safety and applying facts to law. Noting that a university president has a large audience, he said some people have been disappointed in what he hasnt done while others are supportive of what he has done as president. Gallogly said he has formed a committee to review the student code of conduct. He said the Snapchat video was made off campus and was not connected to a university event. Asked whether he thought the blackface incidents were an indication of widespread racism or were isolated incidents, Gallogly said: I think there is always room for improvement, and the fact that we have these incidents shows insensitivity. We should have a low tolerance. The university needs to recruit more students, staff and faculty of color and do more in the area of inclusion programs and training, he said. But Gallogly said the recent incidents didnt bring him to that realization. I did not just start this as a result of something that happened last week, he said. I was already trying to take action. Before taking office on July 1, he said, he and his wife spent time in the dormitories and ate with students in an effort to listen and learn. He was a very smart guy, Perkins remembered. Very intelligent. He probably thought about things too much. You know how sometimes you can overthink things? He would do that. Holder was also too nice sometimes, Perkins said. When he would manage to find an apartment, he would share it with other homeless men, who would often cause trouble and get Holder kicked out again. He got hit over the head once and needed 13 stitches, Perkins said. That wasnt while he was sleeping on the street. That was in his own apartment, Perkins said. I told him, You got to stop trying to help people. Arthur, I love people, Holder told his friend. I just love people. Perkins brought flowers Friday afternoon to a memorial service at The Merchant, a Christian ministry near Sixth Street and Peoria Avenue, where more than 60 people packed into a room that would have seemed full with half that many. They hadnt all known Holder but wanted to honor his military service. The Screen Actors Guild Awards will celebrate its silver anniversary Sunday, and there will be an Oklahoma connection to the proceedings, which will be broadcast at 7 p.m. on TNT and TBS. In addition to former Oklahoman Megan Mullally hosting the 25th annual SAG Awards, Tulsas Bill Hader is nominated for another award for the debut season of Barry. Hader has already won at the Emmy Awards in September and at the Critics Choice Awards earlier this month, and he is nominated for a SAG award in the category of outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series. This is the one awards show at which Hader is competing in the same category as his Barry co-star, Henry Winkler, who won a best supporting actor Emmy previously for the show. On the dark comedy on HBO, Haders Barry is a depressed hitman from the Midwest who, during a job in Los Angeles, joins an acting class taught by Winklers character. Barry is also SAG-nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series, which is the equivalent of an award for best TV comedy, competing against Atlanta, GLOW, The Kominsky Method and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Each location provides something of an overview of Bernsteins life and work, which encompassed composing the scores for such landmarks as the musical West Side Story and the film On the Waterfront, a globe-trotting career as a conductor that included long tenures with the New York Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, unlocking the secrets of orchestral music through his televised Young Peoples Concerts, and devoting his name and influence to forward a number of social and political causes. But one really needs to visit both locations to get as complete a picture of this complex, multifaceted person as can be contained in a collection of objects, manuscripts, photographs, video and audio excerpts, and explanatory text panels as possible. For example, the Sherwin Miller portion includes more about Bernsteins family life as the son of a man in the beauty products business (a fearsome permanent wave contraption is one of the objects on display), a business Bernsteins father expected him to pursue. But Lenny (as he was called his birth name was Louis, but he legally changed his name to Leonard at age 18) was obsessed by the music he heard on the family radio and which he would replicate on the familys upright piano, which is on display. With the recent death of former Tulsa World restaurant critic Suzanne Holloway at 104, it brings to mind the positive influence she had on so many lives, and especially so with one Vietnamese immigrant named Ri Le. Ri Le said he joined the South Vietnamese air force when he was 20 years old and was trained to be a helicopter pilot in San Antonio, Texas, in 1968. He returned to Vietnam in 1969 and fought there until the end of the war. It has been documented over the years how Ri Le (pronounced Ree Lay) managed a harrowing escape April 29, 1975, as the North Vietnamese overran Saigon. Ri Les wife, Thao, and first child had escaped the country a few months earlier. Now, Ri Le was desperate to find a way out. He randomly ran across a helicopter and loaded it with 13 fellow escapees, not knowing if it had gasoline or even if it would start. Luckily, it did start, and Ri Le headed east to the South China Sea. Ri Le said he had to ditch the helicopter next to a cargo ship just as he was running out of gas. All of his passengers survived. Ri Le was reunited with his wife and son, and they were assigned to Fort Chaffee outside Fort Smith, Arkansas. Eventually, his family was sponsored by Dick Freeman and Tom Elliff of Tulsas Eastwood Baptist Church. Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo arrived on time for a coronation ceremony of the Kingdom of Dagbon' new ruler in the north and made a notable impression. In a photo seen by TUKO.co.ke, Akufo-Addo went further to surprise those present with his special outfit for the special occasion as he rocked a traditional Dagomba with smock trousers that looks like a baby romper. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Game of musical chairs? Kenyans left in stitches as Raila sits on Rutos chair Ghana president Addo in traditional wear. Photo: Nana Addo Akufo-Addo/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: COTU boss Francis Atwoli breaks down after meeting Kisii boy who traveled to Mombasa school without fees The president went further to match the cream smock with brown leather (skin) shoes akin to that of a northern elder. While this may not be the first time the president has worn a 'batakari' as it is locally known, it is clearly the first time he has worn it top and down and even complemented it with footwear from the north. Moreover, the swagger with which he strode around in the Dagomba traditional dress was a spectacle to behold and Akufo himself was full of smiles. Ghana president in cream outfit arrives for the ceremony on Friday, January 25. Photo: Nana Addo Akufo-Addo/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: President Uhuru highly praises Nairobi tout who returned KSh 30k to passenger His photos literally traveled far and wide and Kenyans could not be left behind as each took to social media to express their amazement. Some Kenyans thought the west African president 'killed' the look while others said he needed to do some fashion adjustment as this wear was a flop. Whatever it is, we let Akufo-Addo continue to embrace African heritage and diversity. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Chased From School For Having Dreadlocks - On Tuko TV Source: Kenyan Breaking News At least 60 people in Kenya die of Tuberculosis (TB) everyday, an advocacy group has said. According to the Head of Stop TB Partnership in Kenya Everlyne Kibuchi, majority of deaths are of youths aged between 24 and 35 years. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Game of musical chairs? Kenyans left in stitches as Raila sits on Rutos chair 60 people die of TB in Kenya everyday state affirms Source: UGC READ ALSO: Siaya witch doctor on the run after failing to resurrect man he killed In an exclusive interview with TUKO.co.ke, Kabuchi said only 9% of the total deaths cases are children aged below 14 years. "We are losing 60 lives everyday to a disease that can be prevented. However, the most affected are youths aged between 24-35 years and women above 65 years," she said. Kabuchi said Nairobi and Kiambu are among the top 10 leading counties recording the highest number of deaths. READ ALSO: COTU boss Francis Atwoli breaks down after meeting Kisii boy who traveled to Mombasa school without fees "We have 10 counties mapped as hot spots for TB including Nairobi, Kiambu, Mombasa, Nakuru, Turkana, Meru, Kisumu and Kakamega," she said. Kibuchi, however, called on President Uhuru Kenyatta to show similar commitment he showed during the DusitD2 terror attack where 21 people lost their lives to save the lives of TB patients. "You can imagine Kenya recently lost 21 people and the president showed commitment beyond expectation by asking Kenyans to donate blood for the victims, " she said. READ ALSO: Kilifi leaders support expulsion of Aisha Jumwa, Suleiman Dori from ODM, ready for by-election "We want him to show such commitment to stop dozens of Kenyans dying on a daily basis due to TB," she added. In 2018, president Uhuru pledged to end TB deaths in Kenya during a special TB sessions in UK. "It's saddening that our president last year attended the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) where he pledged to reduce the number of deaths to zero but nothing has been done so far," she lamented. READ ALSO: Maraga tells off DCI boss, DPP over claims Judiciary is stalling war against corruption Kibuchi further urged government and other stakeholders to combine efforts to lower the cost of the new TB preventive drug. "There is currently a new TB preventive drug going for as high as US 45,000 (KSh 4.5 million) and the price has hindered the drug from entering the Kenyan market," she said. Kibuchi said diagnosis of minors remains a big challenge in fight against the communicable disease. Story by Enock Ndayala, TUKO Correspondent Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Chased From School For Having Dreadlocks - On Tuko TV Source: Tuko Breaking News Latest Sexual Minorities Uganda(SMU), a body that brings together homosexuals in the country has lauded Angolan legislatures for finally decriminalising same sex relationships. In a statement on Friday, January 25, and seen by TUKO.co.ke, SMU also acknowledged efforts of the gay community in Angola in fighting hard to see the banning of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Angola legalises homosexuality, prohibits discrimination against sexual orientation READ ALSO: Akothee's heartwarming message to ex-lover who attempted to take own life over breakup According to SMU, the move is a great leap in the right direction not only for for gays in Angola but also the entire continent. ''Sexual Minorities Uganda would like to extend the warmest, deepest and most heartfelt admiration to the Angolan people for their achievement in decriminalising same sex conduct. This amazing breakthrough simultaneously carries out the banning of discrimination based on sexual orientation and can be seen as the wonderful fruit of the immense efforts of our family at Iris Angola, and the wider civil society community.'' the statement read in part. Angola had legalised same sex unions. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: Violet Kemunto, wife of key terror suspect in DusitD2 attack was a video vixen The body also urged other African countries including Uganda to follow Angola's example. ''Additionally, we would like to recognise the presence and cooperation of the new Angolan administration in reaching this long-sought and historic landmark. Legislative recognition for sexual minorities in Angola is a vast leap in the right direction for the county and is to be a major inspiration for other countries on the African continent.'' the statement read. READ ALSO: Former Tahidi High actress Sarah Hassan reveals she met Nigerian hubby in a gym As reported by TUKO.co.ke earlier, lawmakers in Angola passed a bill to update their Penal Code to decriminalised gay sex on Wednesday, January 23. The news excited thousands of homosexuals in Angola who celebrated their country for being the first to recognise same sex and gay people in Africa in 2019. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. I Was Fired For Not Believing in God | Tuko TV Source: Tuko.co.ke News Dubai Crown Prince orders construction of 16-km cycling track alongside Jumeirah Beach "The construction of this cycling track is part of our efforts to realise the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to improve the quality of life of people and enhance their happiness. It is also a step to advance sustainable mobility," said Al Tayer. Todays Labour Day is the second to be observed under conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. This year, imposition of a 19-hour curfew as part of the current state of emergency makes for even greater stringency against public activity. There are various ideologies guiding the function of countries around the world. Countries in the western world, in general, enjoy large measures of freedom, originally based on a Judeo-Christian worldview. The foundational tenets in such societies derived from the Ten Commandments, and honouring parents, the elderly in society, was sacrosanct. Even if token, state pension provisions were indicative of that regard. Three Opposition MPs are calling on the Government and the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) to have a heart and stop disconnecting the water supply of errant customers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Barataria/San Juan MP Saddam Hosein yesterday wrote to WASAs executive director Lennox Sealey urging him to suspend the drive and display humanity as people are suffering and strapped for cash in the pandemic given the lockdowns. IT was a Christmas Eve-like atmosphere in supermarkets yesterday as people rushed out to stock up on supplies for the Labour Day and Fathers Day weekend during which curfew hours have been extended. During today which marks the Labour Day holiday and Fathers Day which is tomorrow, people are only permitted to be outdoors between the hours of 5.01 a.m. to 10.01 a.m. The curfew in effect on these days is 10.02 a.m. to 5 a.m. the following day. Even though there was a plea by Supermarket Association president Rajiv Diptee not to crowd the supermarkets yesterday, he said most of his member stores described the last-minute rush like Christmas Eve. (TNS) Colorado, and more specifically Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs, should fare better than most other parts of the country in preserving jobs as a wave of automation sweeps over the country in coming years, according to a new report from the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings Denver and Colorado cities and the state look very good and resilient on this measure in keeping with your high education levels , said Mark Muro, one of the reports authors, in an email.Some futurists paint a stark picture where robots and artificial intelligence take over most tasks, even complex ones, leaving the bulk of workers idle and dependent on government support . Only a small technological elite and the investors behind them will prosper.Brookings doesnt buy into that bleak vision, but it does warn disruption is coming. The think tank estimates that over the next two decades, a quarter of existing U.S. jobs will be highly vulnerable to automation, while 36 percent will have a medium amount of exposure and 39 percent will remain resistant.Risks, however, will vary by location, based on how educated the population is. Among states, Colorado faces the eighth lowest risk from automation, with 40.8 percent of jobs at low risk, 36.4 at medium risk and 22.8 percent at high risk.New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia, New Jersey and New Mexico are the states with lower exposure than Colorado, according to Brookings.Across Colorado metros, Boulder should fare the best in withstanding automation, followed by Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Pueblo and Grand Junction. Greeley was an exception. It was among the most vulnerable nationally, with 30.9 percent of jobs at high risk from automation. In Boulder, only 20.8 percent of jobs are at high risk, while in Denver its only 22.3 percent, according to Brookings.Denver ranked as the 13th least disrupted metro from automation among the 100 largest metros, according to Brookings. Colorado Springs wasnt far behind at 15th.About 4 percent of U.S. jobs will face displacement of 90 percent or greater because of automation, while only half of 1 percent will face total displacement, Brookings predicts. While small percentage wise, that represents about 740,000 jobs.A college diploma to a large degree will separate those who can find employment from those who cant, Muro said. Workers holding jobs that dont require a bachelors degree are 2.3 times more susceptible to automation, while only 6 percent of jobs that require a college degree are at a high-risk of displacement from automation.Among the large metros most vulnerable to job losses from automation are Toledo, Ohio; Greensboro, N.C.; Lakeland, Fla.; Stockton, Calif., and Las Vegas. Washington, D.C.; San Jose, Calif.; New York City; Durham, N.C., and Boston are the cities most immune, according to Brookings. Canton, GA (30114) Today Rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 74F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall may reach one inch. pardeepdhull@gmail.com United Nations, January 26 The United States is pushing for a United Nations Security Council statement expressing full support for Venezuelas National Assembly as the countrys only democratically elected institution, but Russia is expected to block the move, diplomats said on Friday. The council will meet on Saturday at the request of the United States after Washington and a string of countries in the region recognised Venezuelan Opposition leader Juan Guaido as head of state and urged President Nicolas Maduro to step down. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Venezuelas Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, along with several other ministers, are due to address the 15-member body. Ahead of the public meeting, the United States circulated a draft Security Council statement. The draft, seen by Reuters, said: As conditions in the Republic of Venezuela continue to deteriorate, the Security Council expresses its full support for the National Assembly as Venezuelas only democratically elected institution. If the council backed the statement, it would effectively recognize Guaido - who is head of the National Assembly - as Venezuelas head of state. Guaido declared himself the countrys interim president on Wednesday. However, Russias UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Friday that Moscow would oppose a US push for the Security Council to back Guaido as interim president. Council statements must be agreed by consensus. Before Washington circulated the draft statement to council members late on Friday, Nebenzia told Reuters: That will not pass ... For us nothing changes. The draft statement also calls for the immediate start of a political process that leads to free, fair and credible elections with international electoral observation in the shortest possible time. During Saturdays Security Council meeting, Pompeo will urge council members and other countries to recognise Guaido, the State Department said in a statement on Friday. Reuters shalender@tribune.com Washington, January 25 Roger Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump, was arrested on Friday in the special counsels Russia investigation and was charged with lying to Congress and obstructing the probe. The seven-count indictment against Stone, a self-proclaimed dirty trickster, is the first criminal case in months from special counsel Robert Mueller and provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates were aware in the summer of 2016 that emails had been stolen from the Hillary Clinton campaign and wanted them released. It alleges that unnamed senior Trump campaign officials contacted Stone to ask when the stolen emails might be disclosed. The indictment does not charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy website that published the emails, or with the Russian officers Mueller says hacked them. Instead, it accuses him of witness tampering, obstruction and false statements about his interactions related to WikiLeaks release. Some of those false statements were made to the House intelligence committee, according to the indictment. It lays out in detail Stones conversations about stolen Democratic emails posted by WikiLeaks in the weeks before Trump, a Republican, beat Clinton. Stone has said for months he was prepared to be charged, though he has denied any wrongdoing. AP pardeepdhull@gmail.com Fort Lauderdale, Fla., January 26 A long-time ally of US President Donald Trump was arrested on Friday for lying to Congress about the 2016 campaigns efforts to use stolen emails to undercut his Democratic rival in the latest arrest of the Special Counsel probe into possible election manipulation. Roger Stone, a 66-year-old self-proclaimed Republican dirty trickster, declared himself innocent hours after a large team of FBI agents raided his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is one of the closest Trump associates to be charged in Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into whether Trumps campaign colluded with Russia to help win the election. Mueller said in court papers that Stone shared with multiple members of the Trump campaign team advance knowledge he had of a plan by WikiLeaks to release senior Democrats emails. Some political analysts say the emails, which highlighted disputes among Democrats, contributed to Trumps stunning defeat of election rival Hillary Clinton. The charges mark the first time the Trump campaign has been publicly tied to WikiLeaks by Muellers team and add to pressure on the president as the newly installed Democratic majority in the House of Representatives plans to step up investigations of him. Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION!, Trump wrote on Twitter following Stones arrest, using his most common denunciation of the Mueller probe. Stone was charged with seven criminal counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering and making false statements. He is due to be arraigned in federal court in Washington on Tuesday. The charging documents included new details about Trump aides alleged activities, including an incident in which a senior campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information WikiLeaks had about the Clinton campaign. The construction of that sentence does not make clear who gave that order to a senior campaign official, but raises the possibility the order came from Trump himself. Mueller spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on who gave that order. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If Trump did give the direction, he would have engaged in a conspiracy to violate federal hacking statutes, said Paul Rosenzweig, a lawyer who worked on the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton. You are directing Stone to take possession of what he knows to be stolen materials, said Rosenzweig, now a fellow at the R Street Institute think tank. Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade said that if Trump gave the direction, it could be evidence the president participated in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by interfering with the fair administration of elections. Harry Sandick, another former federal prosecutor, said: We would need to know more facts to determine if a crime were committed, such as what the president knew, when he knew it and what his intent was if he gave the instruction. Legal scholars are divided about whether a sitting president can be indicted. Many believe the remedy for criminal activity would be impeachment. Stone blasts inquisition In a rowdy scene outside a courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Stone denounced his arrest as politically motivated and told reporters he had done no wrong. After a two-year inquisition, the charges today related in no way to Russian collusion, WikiLeaks coordination or any other illegal act in connection with the 2016 campaign, he said, flashing the twin V for Victory signs that the disgraced President Richard Nixon was famous for. I will not testify against the president because I would have to bear false witness against him. A crowd chanted Lock Him Up, riffing on the Lock Her Up chant that Trump and his surrogates led against Clinton at rallies in 2016. Someone played the Beatles song Back in the U.S.S.R. Others cheered in support of Stone. A magistrate judge released Stone on a $250,000 bond and ordered him to limit his travel to South Florida, New York City and Washington. Stones reputation as an aggressive political operative dates back to the Watergate scandal of the 1970s when he was working for Nixon. He has a back tattoo of the late presidents face. The indictment showed him using language evoking mob bosses - and even citing a Godfather movie - as he called an unnamed associate facing FBI inquiries a rat. A stoolie. WikiLeaks, referred to in the indictment as Organization 1, did not respond to a request for comment. More than 30 people have pleaded guilty, been indicted or otherwise swept up in the Russia inquiry, which has clouded Trumps two-year-old presidency. They include former close associates of Trump such as his one-time lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as well as 12 Russian intelligence officers. The indictment referred to an October 2016 email from a high-ranking Trump Campaign official asking Stone to inquire about future releases of emails by Organization 1. Stone responded that Organization 1 would release a load every week going forward. The high-ranking official is believed to be former Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bannon did not respond to a request for comment. Stump call to Russia The interactions with WikiLeaks covered in the indictment occurred days before Trump called out to Russia during a campaign stump speech for help finding missing emails from Clintons time as secretary of state, according to Democratic US Representative Adam Schiff. At the very time that then-candidate Trump was publicly encouraging Russias help in acquiring Clinton-related emails, his campaign was privately receiving information about the planned release of stolen Clinton emails, Schiff said in a statement. The Kremlin has denied interfering in the election. The DNC emails sowed division among Democratic voters by appearing to show party officials favored Clinton over the insurgent candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC chair in response. Stones ties to Trump go back four decades. Stone has urged Trump to run for president since 1988, was chairman of his 2000 presidential exploratory committee and was a consultant when Trump considered running in 2012. Stone briefly worked for the 2016 Trump campaign but left in August 2015. The campaign said it fired him after he tried to grab too much of the spotlight. Stone insisted that he quit. Thereafter, he still played a key promotional role for Trump and communicated with people in his camp. Reuters uttara@tribuneindia.com KABUL/PESHAWAR, January 26 Taliban officials said US negotiators on Saturday agreed a draft peace deal stipulating the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan within 18 months of the agreement being signed. The details were provided to Reuters by Taliban sources at the end of six days of talks with US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Qatar aimed at ending the United States' longest war. They have yet to be confirmed by US officials nor has either side released an official statement. Officials at the US embassy in Kabul were not immediately available for comment. Khalilzad is heading to the Afghan capital Kabul to brief President Ashraf Ghani after the longer-than expected talks, the sources and a diplomat said. According to the Taliban sources, the hardline Islamic group offered assurances that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used by al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants to attack the United States and its alliesa key early demand of Washington. It is not known if a draft is acceptable to both sides has been completed, or when it might take effect. The Taliban sources said a key provision to the deal included a ceasefire but they had yet to confirm a timeline and will only open talks with Afghan representatives once the ceasefire is implemented. "In 18 months if the foreign forces are withdrawn and ceasefire is implemented then other aspects of the peace process can be put into action," a Taliban source said, quoting from a portion of the draft. Almost daily attacks Other clauses include a deal over the exchange and release of prisoners from the warring sides, the removal of an international travel ban on several Taliban leaders by the United States and the prospect of an interim Afghan government after the ceasefire is struck, the Taliban sources said. The offer to appoint an interim government in Afghanistan comes at a time when top politicians including Ghani have filed their nominations for the presidential polls in July this year. Ghani has repeatedly rejected the offer to agree to the formation of an interim government. News of progress on a deal comes as the Taliban continue to stage nearly daily attacks against the Western-backed Afghan government and its security forces. Despite the presence of US-led foreign forces training, advising and assisting their Afghan counterparts 17 years after the US led an invasion to drive them from power, the Taliban controls nearly half of Afghanistan. The United States has some 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led mission, known as Resolute Support, as well as a US counter-terrorism mission directed at groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda. Despite reports in December last year that the United States was considering pulling out almost half of its forces, a White House spokesman said that US President Donald Trump had not issued orders to withdraw the troops. However, the administration has not denied the reports, which have also prompted fears of a fresh refugee crisis. Reuters pardeepdhull@gmail.com Madrid, January 26 Spain, France, Germany and Britain on Saturday gave embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum, saying they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days. The ultimatum comes as international pressure mounts on the Maduro regime to agree a new vote, with the United States, Canada and major South American players already recognising Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president of Venezuela during massive street rallies this week. After four years of economic pain that has left Venezuelans short of food and medicine and driven more than two million to flee, Guaido is trying to oust Maduro following controversial elections that saw the socialist leader sworn in for a second term. "If within eight days there are no fair, free and transparent elections called in Venezuela, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president" so that he himself can call such polls, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised announcement. French President Emmanuel Macron followed suit in a tweet, saying "the Venezuelan people must be able to freely decide on their future," as did German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz. Britains announcement came hours later, also in a tweet. "@jguaido is the right person to take Venezuela forward," foreign minister Jeremy Hunt tweeted. "If there are not fresh & fair elections announced within 8 days UK will recognise him as interim President to take forward the political process towards democracy." The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries as the 28-member bloc struggles to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the crisis in Venezuela. Spain had wanted the EU to take a tough line on Maduro by calling for immediate elections, failing which the bloc as a whole would recognise Guaido, the 35-year-old head of Venezuela's National Assembly. But countries like Austria, Greece and Portugal are much more reluctant. In fact Greece's ruling party Syriza has publicly backed Maduro, with party secretary Panos Skourletis voicing "full support and solidarity" to what to he called "the legal president". President Donald Trump's administration has spearheaded the international pressure on Maduro, who accuses Washington of being behind an attempted "coup," by declaring his regime "illegitimate". On Saturday at a UN Security Council meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will urge members to recognise Guaido as interim president, the State Department said. Opposition Russia, China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea blocked a US push for a UN Security Council statement expressing full support for Venezuela's National Assembly as the country's "only democratically elected institution. Russia opposes the US efforts and has accused Washington of backing a coup attempt, placing Venezuela at the heart of a growing geopolitical duel. Washington's support for Guaido led Maduro to close the US embassy and consulates and break diplomatic ties. US diplomats in Venezuela have until Saturday to leave the country, but Washington has refused to fully comply fully with the exit order. Guaido is instead urging the US diplomats to stay and keep the embassy's doors open. Maduro's reelection last year was contested by the opposition and criticised internationallybut he has until now retained the loyalty of the powerful military. Spain is closely linked to Venezuela, a former colony, as some 200,000 of its nationals live there. Sanchez insisted Saturday that Spain is "not looking to impose or remove governments in Venezuela, we want democracy and free elections in Venezuela". Agencies shalender@tribune.com Caracas, January 25 Backed by Venezuelas military, President Nicolas Maduro went on the offensive against an opposition leader who declared himself interim President and his US supporters, setting up a potentially explosive struggle for power in the crisis-plagued South American nation. Venezuelas top military brass pledged their unwavering support to Maduro, delivering vows of loyalty before rows of green-uniformed officers on state television. A half-dozen generals belonging largely to district commands and with direct control over thousands of troops joined Maduro in accusing Washington of meddling in Venezuelas affairs and said they would uphold the socialist leaders rule. Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, a key Maduro ally, dismissed efforts to install a de-facto parallel government as tantamount to a coup. Its not a war between Venezuelans that will solve our problems, he said. Its dialogue. Guaido has said he needs the backing of three critical groups: The people, the international community and the military. While yesterdays protest drew tens of thousands to the streets and over a dozen nations in the region are pledging support, the militarys backing is key. Though many rank-and-file troops suffer the same hardships as countless other Venezuelans when it comes to meeting basic needs like feeding their families, Maduro has worked to cement their support with bonuses and other special benefits. AFP World awaits Guaidos next move All eyes were on Guaido whose whereabouts have been a mystery since the 35-year-old was symbolically sworn in on Wednesday before supporters Speaking from an undisclosed place, he told Univision he would consider granting amnesty to Maduro and allies if they helped return Venezuela to democracy US seeks to cut off money for Maduro to aid oppn pardeepdhull@gmail.com Sydney, January 26 Thousands of Australians are expected to protest on Saturday as a national holiday intended to celebrate the birth of modern Australia divides the country. Australia Day on January 26 marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet to Sydney Cove, carrying mainly convicts and troops from Britain. For many indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years, it is Invasion Day, the start of Britains colonisation of aboriginal lands and their brutal subjugation. Celebrating Australia Day on January 26th is offensive, said Joe Williams, a mental health worker and former professional rugby league player. To celebrate an invasion which has seen our people dispossessed, displaced and oppressed for some 230 years, is plain offensive, he told Reuters Television. Australias 7,00,000 or so indigenous people track near the bottom of its 25 million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator. While opinion polls suggest up to half the country supports changing Australia Day, the conservative government is under pressure to legally entrench January 26 as a national holiday. We should keep the 26th of January as a special day in our calendar, said Nick Folkes, a painter from Sydney and founder of the Party for Freedom, an anti-immigration and anti-Muslim far-right group. It means respect and acknowledgement of the sacrifices made by explorers, settlers, our convicts, he added. Prime Minister Scott Morrisons government, which faces a general election due in May, opposes any change and has moved to shore up support for the holiday. This month it ordered local councils to hold induction ceremonies for new citizens on Australia Day and the Australian Citizenship Day holiday on September 17, or have their authorization revoked. Morrison has also pledged nearly A$7 million ($4.9 million)for a replica of explorer James Cooks HMS Endeavour, the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia in 1770. The replica ship will circumnavigate Australia next year to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cooks voyage. Opposition leader Bill Shorten has criticized Morrison for spending taxpayers money on a bizarre Captain Cook fetish, but the prime minister said it will unify Australians. I believe it will be a voyage of bringing Australians together, Morrison said in Cairns this month. Im keen for it to be done very much in that spirit. Reuters editorial@tribune.com GS Paul Tribune News Service Amritsar, January 25 Dedicated to the ensuing centenary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, a special tableau will feature on the 70th Republic Day at Rajpath, New Delhi. It is for the third time that a presentation from Punjab has found a place in the ceremony. An official said in 2017, it was jaago tradition, followed by sangat te pangat in 2018. Fortunately, this time among the 16 states and union territories participating in the highly patriotic parade at Rajpath, Punjab will be represented with the evocative presentation on the 100th year of Jallianwala Bagh massacre, he said. It is learnt that the trailer portion of the tableau will depict the scene when Gen Reginald Dyer had ordered firing on innocent people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh. Another portion will display a replica of the memorial built to commemorate the sacrifice of the martyrs. A separate section has been built to showcase the martyrs well. The grille-mesh-covered well stands as a proof to the brutal killings on April 13, 1919, when hundreds of innocents had jumped into it in panic during the firing. As per records, 120 bodies were recovered from the well. The Union government has also planned year-long celebrations to observe the massacres 100th year. Rajya Sabha MP Shwait Malik, who is also a trustee of the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Trust, said a special package had been spared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to spruce up the historic place. Malik said the development plan was on the tendering stage and the work would be started soon. It is probably for the first time that Jallianwala Bagh theme has been introduced in the parade. The Union government too has proposed to introduce coins and postal stamps to inculcate a feel of patriotism during the centenary celebrations. Another proposal is to introduce programmes like 7-D documentary depicting the massacre and its real-time feel through a light and sound show at the site. Kanwar complains of breach of protocol editorial@tribune.com Chandigarh, January 25 Minister of Local Department Navjot Singh Sidhu today honoured 13 firemen for their dedication and the way they dealt with fire incidents that took place at two places in Ludhiana in 2017. Sidhu said the 13 firemen had been recommended for the Presidents Fire Service Medal for Gallantry Award to be conferred this Republic Day. The Union government has accorded approval to all 13 recommendations. Punjab has 13 awards out of the total 15 in its kitty. The fires had broken out at Suffian Chowk in Ludhiana on November 20 and Malka Textiles on May 11. The minister first honoured the kin of those killed in the incidents. The bravehearts include sub-fire officer Rajinder Kumar, sub-fire officer Samaoun Gill, sub-fire officer Raj Kumar, leading fireman Manohar Lal, firemen Puran Singh, Rajan, Manpreet Singh, Sukhdev Singh and Vishal Kumar. Four firemen sub-fire officer Hajura Singh, firemen Naresh Kumar, Lovelesh Kumar and Saudagar Singh who had escaped unhurt, were honoured. Sidhu said the families of the deceased firemen had been given a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each. They would be given Rs 5,000 per month, apart from exemption from income tax, he added. TNS rchopra@tribunemail.com Chandigarh, January 26 Punjab, Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh on Saturday joined the nation in celebrating the 70th Republic Day, amid tight security arrangements. Police, home guards and NCC contingents were among other participants in the parades held in district headquarters in the two states and their joint capital Chandigarh. School students presented colourful programmes and tableaux exhibited development of the states at the parades at several places in the region. The Republic Day celebrations at most places in the two states were held under tight security arrangements. VP Singh Badnore, the Punjab Governor and Administrator of Chandigarh, unfurled the national flag in a state-level function in Hoshiarpur. Haryana Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya unfurled the national flag at Panchkula. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh unfurled the national flag in Patiala, while Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar unfurled the Tricolour in Bhiwani, officials said. Various events were held in district headquarters in Punjab and Haryana, including Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Moga, Bathinda, Panchkula, Karnal, Sonepat, Gurdaspur and Rupnagar. Ministers of Punjab and Haryana presided over the celebrations in district headquarters. Security had been stepped up across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh in view of the Republic Day programmes. PTI editorial@tribune.com Parvesh Sharma Tribune News Service Sangrur, January 25 The Amargarh police have procured four-day police remand of accused Malkiat Kaur and Surjit Singh Badesha in the Jassi murder case from an Illaqa magistrate court of Malerkotla. The Canadian government has allowed the extradition of Jassis mother Malkiat Kaur and maternal uncle Surjit Singh Badesha on some conditions. The SSP, Dr Sandeep Garg, said all conditions would be fulfilled. The police need to investigate the source of Rs 7 lakh given to contract killers and the travel history of both Malkiat Kaur and Badesha and their passports. The defence counsel wanted his presence during questioning, but the court has turned down the request, said Ashwani Chaudhary, counsel for complainant Sukhwinder Singh Mithu, while coming out of the Malerkotla court. A team of the Sangrur police, led by SP (Investigations) Gurmeet Singh, took the custody of both from the New Delhi airport on Thursday morning and reached the Amargarh police station last night. Both took tea and breakfast, which is served to arrested persons in police station. Their medical examination report shows that both are physically fit, said a senior police officer. We have got permission from court to meet both anytime. Both apprehend that they would be coerced to confess their involvement in the Jassi murder. But the court has directed the police to conduct their medical examination before and after questioning. I have told the court that Sukhwinder Mithu may be involved in the murder of Jassi, said Simrandeep Sandhu, counsel of both accused. Sandhu said the Canadian government had allowed the extradition on some conditions, including frequent access of both to their counsel and Canadian government officers could visit court anytime during their trial. Another condition is that the Punjab Police will not use any coercion method to obtain confession. Both will be produced in the court on January 29, he said. Sangrur SSP Dr Sandeep Garg said, Our officers have started questioning both accused and we are taking care of all conditions, said the SSP. editorial@tribune.com Saurabh Malik Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 25 In a major boost to the Congress government in Punjab just before the parliamentary polls, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today rejected the plea for CBI probe into the cases of violence and incidents of sacrilege in the state. It also upheld Vidhan Sabha resolution to withdraw consent for probe by the premier investigation agency and did not find fault with the constitution of Justice Ranjit Singh commission of inquiry for looking into the matter. Directing the SIT to conduct a fair, impartial and speedy investigation into the cases, the High Court put an end to the legal controversy over the setting up of Justice Ranjit Singh commission by holding that necessity to constitute the commission arose because the investigating agencies did not carry out the task entrusted to them promptly. Justice Rajan Gupta asserted prayer for CBI probe was not tenable at the behest of the accused in view of the law laid down in a judgment, wherein it had been held that this would amount to accused seeking investigation by agency of his choice. Justice Rajan Gupta asserted that the SIT would be undaunted by internal or external pressure. It would not be swayed by commissions observations meant only to instruct the mind of the government, perhaps to prevent such unfortunate incidents in future. Dismissing five petitions by Charanjit Singh and other police officers, Justice Gupta added the court had no doubt that the SIT would employ all investigative skills and forensic methods and conclude investigation expeditiously. The state was represented by former Union minister and senior advocate P Chidambaram, Advocate-General Atul Nanda and Additional AG Rameeza Hakim. rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 26 The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested lawyer Gautam Khaitan, accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, in connection with a fresh case of possession of black money and money laundering, officials said on Saturday. They said Khaitan was placed under arrest on Friday night by the agency sleuths under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A Delhi court later remanded him in ED's custody for two days. lSources said a fresh criminal case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. Khaitan had been allegedly operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stash assets, they said. It is understood that the investigative agencies have got fresh leads against Khaitan after the questioning of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the VVIP chopper deal with AgustaWestland, who was extradited by India from Dubai in December last. The Income Tax Department had last week carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. Khaitan had been arrested by the ED and the CBI a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail, they said. PTI shalender@tribune.com Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 25 Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat is among 19 senior Army officials who have been conferred the Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM), the highest military medal awarded in recognition of peacetime services not relating to gallantry. Fifteen Lieutenant Generals and three Major Generals have been awarded the PVSM. Two senior officers Lt Gen Surinder Singh, Western Army Commander, and Lt Gen MM Naravane, Eastern Army Commander, will be accorded the PVSM. Besides, President Ram Nath Kovind approved one Ashoka Chakra, which is the highest gallantry award in peacetime, two Kirti Chakra, the second highest peacetime gallantry award, nine Shaurya Chakras and 109 Sena medals for the Army personnel. The Navy personnel will be decorated with seven Nao Sena medals and the IAF with two Vayu Sena medals for gallantry. Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani will be posthumously conferred with the Ashok Chakra. The Kirti Chakra will be awarded for separate acts of bravery to Major Tushar Gauba from the Jat Regiment and Sowar Vijay Kumar, 22 Rashtriya Rifles, the latter posthumously. On May 24 last year, Major Gauba had eliminated three terrorists. Sowar Vijay Kumar was part of the operation. He got injured, but refused evacuation and killed two terrorists. The Shaurya Chakra awardees include Capt Abhay Sharma, 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment. He was the party commander tasked to undertake patrolling against enemy Border Action Team along LoC in Jammu district in April last. Besides shooting down the enemy, the team also destroyed three bunkers, recovered enemy weapon and ensured safe extrication. Lt Col Vikrant Prasher of 10 Parachute Regiment (Special Forces), Major Amit Kumar Dimri from 14 Rashtriya Rifles, Major Imliakum Keitzar from 4th Gorkha Rifles, Major Rohit Lingwal of 9th Battalion, Parachute Regiment, Capt Abhinav Kumar Choudhary from 21 Rashtriya Rifles, Lance Naik Ayyub Ali from 9th battalion of Rashtriya Rifles, Sepoy Ajay Kumar, 42nd battalion of Rashtriya Rifles, and Sapper Mahesh HN, 44th Battalion of the Rashtriya Rifles also won the Shaurya Chakra. In the IAF, both Vayu Sena medals for gallantry are for rescue efforts during floods. Wing Commander Bhuvanendran Nair Prasanth rescued 13 college girls stranded on a rooftop. Sergeant Amit Kumar Jha has been awarded for rescuing people during cyclonic storm Ockhi in Kerala. In the Navy, Commander Vijay Verma, a helicopter pilot, is on the list for Nao Sena medal for gallantry. He had rescued two pregnant women during the floods. Another naval copter pilot Commander T Anup Kumar has been awarded for another daring rescue. Another copter pilot Lt Commander Manu Mishra saved a merchant vessel from spilling its cargo of toxic chemicals into the Bay of Bengal. Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi and Lt Gen PM Hariz, whom Gen Rawat supereseded, were conferred the PVSM in 2017 rchopra@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 26 Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of militants in Shopian in Kashmir in November, was awarded the Ashoka Chakra by President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday. The awardIndias highest peacetime gallantry honour--was received by Wanis wife and mother at the Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath. Wani is the first Kashmiri to be conferred the Ashoka Chakra. On November 25, 38-year-old Wani, hailing from Cheki Ashmuji in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six militants at Hirapur village near Batgund in Shopian. Under intense hail of bullets from the militants, he eliminated the district commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and one foreign militant in a daring display of raw courage, Army officials said. In the ensuing gunfight, he was hit multiple times, including on his head. He also injured another militant before succumbing to his grievous wounds, they said. According to the citation, Wani single-handedly killed two militants during the Shopian operation and injured a third one despite receiving serious injuries. In an unparalleled saga of sacrifice, Lance Naik Wani prevented escape of the militants from the target house and made a huge contribution in neutralisation of six hardcore militants, in the process laying down his life upholding the highest tradition of the Indian Army, it said. One of his colleagues, who wished not to be named, said he always volunteered for challenging missions, displaying great courage under adverse conditions and exposing himself to grave danger on numerous occasions in the line of duty. Lance Naik Wani joined the Armys 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2004. Wani was a recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. Wani was from a humble background and used to work for the benefit of the underprivileged sections of society in his locality. Ashoka Chakra is the highest peacetime military decoration for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com Mumbai: Immigration officials at the Mumbai airport earlier this week stopped industrialist Braj Binani from leaving the country on the basis of a complaint by Punjab National Bank (PNB), sources said. They confirmed that Binani was to fly to London on Wednesday by a chartered flight. However, he was stopped from boarding the flight. He later left the city for a domestic destination, officials said. PNB had sought a lookout notice against Binani as one of his companies had defaulted on a Rs 300-crore bank loan. TNS pardeepdhull@gmail.com New Delhi, January 26 Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued with his tradition of donning colourful turbans at Republic Day celebrations on Saturday by sporting a yellowish orange headgear with a red tail. Wearing his traditional kurta-pajama and the trademark Nehru jacket, Modi paid tributes to the martyrs at the Amar Jawan Jyoti before heading for the Republic Day parade. Turbans have been a highlight of the PMs sartorial choices at Independence Day and Republic Day events. For his maiden Independence Day address as the Prime Minister in 2014, Modi had opted for a Jodhpuri bandhej turban in bright red colour with green at the tail. A yellow turban covered with criss-crossed lines in different shades of the same colour, along with a few in red and deep green, marked his 2015 look, and he chose a tie and dye turban in hues of pink and yellow for his appearance at the Red Fort in 2016. The Prime Ministers turban for 2017 was a mix of bright red and yellow with criss-crossed golden lines all over it followed by a saffron turban last year. From bright red bandhni turban from Kutch to mustard Rajasthani safa, the Prime Minister has sported varied turbans at his Republic Day appearances, too. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com Aizawl, January 26 Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty ground here on the 70th Republic Day, due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. No member from the general public attended the function, police said, adding that only ministers, legislators and top officials were present. The boycott call was given by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies. Six armed contingents participated in the Republic Day parade, officials said. Up to 30 contingents traditionally take part in the annual event. In other district headquarters, the deputy commissioners unfurled the tricolour in the absence of senior officials and public, as was the case in sub-divisional and block headquarters. However, the Republic Day celebrations passed off peacefully without any untoward incident, despite the presence of placard-carrying protesters near the venues, police said. In his address, Rajasekharan said stringent measures would be taken to protect state borders, and welfare schemes for the development of people residing in border areas would be given due importance. He said measures would be taken for execution of Mizoram Village-Level Citizen Registration, and emphasised that the state government is committed to preserve and promote the Mizo identity, tradition and values. "This government will endeavour to work for the unity and brotherhood of all Mizo people living within India and across the globe within our constitutional framework," he said. The governor said Mizoram would introduce the Socio-Economic Development Policy (SEDP), a "holistic inclusive development programme aimed at bringing in socio- economic transformation". The SEDP would accelerate growth in all key sectors where the state has tremendous potential, he said. Hinting that prohibition on liquor would be reimposed in the state, he said: "In keeping with our election manifesto, necessary measures will be taken to repeal the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) Act, 2014, implemented in the state since January 15, 2015". Rajasekharan added that his government would continue to work towards making Mizoram the "cleanest state in India". PTI amansharma@tribunemail.com Thiruvananthapuram, January 26 A day after the government announced Padma Bhushan for former ISRO scientist S. Nambi Narayanan, T.P. Senkumar, a former state police chief who was tipped to probe spy charges involving Narayanan, slammed the decision, saying the award came at a time when a Supreme Court committee was looking into the ISRO spy case. "If this is the yardstick for a Padma award, then people like Govinda Chami, Ameerul Islam (both accused in the killing of two women) and Mariam Rasheeda (an accused along with Narayanan in the ISRO spy case), would get a Padma award next year. The government should have waited," said Senkumar. "Narayanan is a below average scientist... ask any ISRO scientist who is still working there about his contributions," said Senkumar. The ISRO spy case surfaced in 1994 when Narayanan along with another top official of ISRO, two Maldivian women and a businessman was arrested on espionage charges. The CBI cleared Narayanan in 1995 and since then he has been fighting a legal battle against Siby Mathews, the then Inspector General of Police who had probed the case, and two other police officers. Last year, the Supreme Court directed the Kerala government to give him compensation of Rs 50 lakh for his travails. Senkumar was asked by the then E.K. Nayanar government (1996-2001) to relook into the ISRO spy case, but it failed to materialise as by then, the apex court had cleared Narayanan. Responding to Senkumar's, remarks, Narayanan said in his petition for compensation, Senkumar was named as one of the parties. "What Senkumar said today is immaterial and irrelevant and does not require to be answered. What he has said is probably because he wants to mislead the Supreme Court. I do not know if he has an agenda. He is speaking foolish things," said Narayanan. Senkumar was removed as the state police chief, the day current Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan assumed office in may 2016. After a long-drawn court battle, the Supreme Court directed that he be reinstated in May 2017. He retired from service in June 2017. Since then political grapevine has it that he might be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as a candidate of ABDJS, a BJP ally. Joining the issue, state Culture Minister A.K. Balan said Senkumar's remarks were unacceptable. "State BJP chief P.S. Sreedharan Pillai should respond to such statements by Senkumar," said Balan. IANS amansharma@tribunemail.com New Delhi, January 26 Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said people's "patience" on the issue of Ram temple is "fast running out" and if the Supreme Court is unable to give an early verdict on the dispute, it should "hand it over to us" and it will be resolved within 24 hours. The Chief Minister also claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win more seats in Uttar Pradesh in the coming Lok Sabha elections than it did in 2014. Asked by India TV whether he would resolve the Ayodhya issue through negotiations or by wielding the stick, Adityanath smiled and replied: "First let the court hand over the issue to us. "I will still appeal to the court to dispose of the dispute soon. On September 30, 2010, the Allahabad High Court division bench gave its verdict not on the issue of division of land but upheld the view that the Babri structure was built by demolishing a Hindu temple or memorial. The Archaeological Survey of India, on the High Court's orders, carried out excavations and in its report admitted that the Babri structure was built by demolishing a Hindu temple or a memorial," he said. "By adding the title dispute unnecessarily, the Ayodhya dispute is being prolonged. We appeal to the Supreme Court to give us justice at the earliest, to the satisfaction of millions of people, so that it can become a symbol of people's faith. But if there is unnecessary delay, institutions may lose people's trust," he added. The Chief Minister said "the unnecessary delay ... is causing a crisis so far as people's patience and trust are concerned." "I want to say that the court should give its verdict soon, and if it is unable to do so, it should hand over the issue to us. We will resolve the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute within 24 hours. We won't take 25 hours," he said. Asked why the Centre had not brought an ordinance, Adityanath said the matter was sub judice. "Parliament cannot discuss matters that are sub judice. We are leaving it to the court. Had the court given justice based on the 1994 affidavit filed by the then central government, a good message could have gone to the country. It would have been a nice example. But this unnecessary delay is causing a situation where people's patience is fast running out." He said the question was not of gain or loss in elections but the faith of countrymen. Adityanath said the Congress was at the root of this problem and it did not want it to be solved. "If Ayodhya dispute is resolved, triple talaq ban is implemented, politics of appeasement in India will end forever." On the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the Chief Minister said even if they take "the caste-based fight to the lowest levels, it will be a 70-30 fight. Seventy per cent voters are with BJP while the remaining 30 per cent are with the gathbandhan (alliance)". On Priyanka Gandhi's entry in politics, Adityanath said: "Congress has again proved that for them the family is the party. They cannot look beyond the family." On Rahul Gandhi visiting temples, Adityanath said: "This is a victory for our ideology. Rahul has now realised that if he has to live in Hindustan, he will have to show his 'janeu' and 'tilak' in public. To me, Rahul has proved that Nehru was wrong." IANS vinaymishra188@gmail.com Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 25 After the decision by Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj to drop out of the 2019 LS race, the party is now considering fielding strong veterans, many of whom may be above the cut-off limit of 75 years. A top BJP leader ruled out imposing any age bar for alloting ticket. He said any decision on veterans LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Shanta Kumar would be taken by the parliamentary board after consulting them. Advani and Joshi are part of the margdarshak mandal that has not met even once after it was constituted in 2014. The decision to sideline party stalwarts had invited criticism. Senior party leader Yashwant Sinha flayed the decision in strong terms. All those who are above the age of 75 were declared brain dead on May 26, 2014 (the day Modi was sworn as PM), he had said. Later, two ministers were dropped from the then Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in MP on the ground that they were over 75 years. But the top BJP leader claimed there was no such rule and the age bar was only for ministerial/party. On the decision by Swaraj not to contest the 2019 elections, he remarked, Voh ghoshna unhone ki hai, party ne nahi (that announcement was made by her, not the party) a statement which itself says a lot. shalender@tribune.com Today as we celebrate our Republic Day, its time to appreciate the real heroes - police officers, who dont choose what happens in the world, but defend us from it. Both Hollywood and Bollywood have made movies on these silent heroes in past and have a great line-up this year as well. Heres a list: Infamous encounter Batla House John Abraham-starrer Batla House will be out in theatres on August 15. John will be seen as a cop in this action-thriller, directed by Nikkhil Advani. It is based on the infamous encounter that took place in September 2008. The Batla House incident, popularly known as Operation Batla House, occurred in Delhis Jamia Nagar, in which two suspected terrorists were killed. Getting justice Domino Domino is an upcoming crime thriller film directed by Brian De Palma and starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Carice van Houten and Guy Pearce. The movie is based on a Copenhagen police officer who seeks justice for his partners murder by a mysterious man. Woman power Soni Recently released on Netflix, Soni is the story of a young policewoman in Delhi, and her superintendent, Kalpana. The two collectively take on a growing crisis of violent crimes against women. However, their alliance suffers a major setback when Soni is transferred out for alleged misconduct on duty. Waiting for Akshay Sooryavanshi Akshay Kumars entry towards the end in Simmba was a special announcement of Rohit Shettys next cop drama titled Sooryavanshi. With just a minute of a teaser, this one is already one of the most awaited movies. The film is expected to go on floors by middle of this year and will release by year end. Mission and obsession Romeo Akbar Walter RAW John Abrahams Romeo Akbar Walter aka RAW has a story based on true events. The man, who works with intelligence, is on a mission to protect the nation and how his mission becomes his obsession. Directed by Robby Grewal, the movie also stars Mouni Roy, Jackie Shroff and Sikandar Kher. Ground zero: Barcelona Gun City Gun City is a recently released Spanish thriller film on Netflix. The movie is based in Barcelona, 1921. It revolves around a double agent policeman who attempts to find out people who stole military weapons that could lead to civil war. editorial@tribune.com Majid Jahangir Tribune News Service Srinagar, January 25 A day ahead of Republic Day, militants carried out a series of attacks across Kashmir that left a policeman and a civilian injured. Security officials said at least six attacks were carried in south, central and north Kashmir in a span of a few hours. The first attack of the day was carried out in south Kashmirs Anantnag town that left two persons, including a policeman, injured. The attack on a police post took place at 4.30 pm. Almost two hours later militants fired a UBGL towards a CRPF camp at Tahab, Pulwama. The grenade exploded outside the camp, a CRPF spokesman said. The third grenade attack took place in north Kashmirs Sopore sub-district. Here also, the target was CRPF men guarding a SBI branch. The next target was a CRPF camp at Shopian. This time militants lobbed a grenade on a platoon post of 14 Battalion, CRPF, at Keegam which blasted outside the camp. At 8 pm, militants fired at a CRPF camp at Mindoora, Tral, in Pulwama. Militants fired upon the camp of the180th Battalion, CRPF, which was retaliated promptly, the CRPF spokesman said. Half an hour later, militants lobbed a grenade at Lal Mandi, Rajbagh, in Srinagar. Militants lobbed a grenade with some crackers at 8.30 pm upon a joint naka of the CRPF and J&K Police, he added. Inspector General, Operations, CRPF, Zulfiqar Hassan said there was no report of any loss or injury in the attacks. rchopra@tribunemail.com Srinagar, January 26 Normal life was affected in Kashmir on Saturday due to a strike called by separatist groups, which asked people to observe the Republic Day as a black day. Shops, offices, petrol pumps and business establishments in Srinagar remained closed while public transport services were suspended, officials said. The effect of the strike was visibly accentuated on Republic Day, when strict security arrangements were in place to maintain law and order. The officials said reports of shutdown were also received from major towns of the Valley. However, the Republic Day celebrations passed peacefully. The separatists had called for observance of black day on January 26 to press for early resolution of the Kashmir issue. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Jammu, January 25 Expressing concern over repeated ceasefire violations on the International Border and the Line of Control, Governor Satya Pal Malik on Friday said the neighbouring country continues to support terrorists to disrupt peace and harmony in the state. In his address on Republic Day eve, the Governor said, There have been repeated attempts to infiltrate terrorists across the IB and LoC. Repeated ceasefire violations have brought hardships to the people living in border villages. The state is taking measures to alleviate the sufferings of the border population. He expressed his gratitude towards the armed and security forces for maintaining strict vigil and alertness on the frontiers. Our armed and police forces have carried out effective operations to neutralise the largest-ever number of terrorists in a year, he said. Pointing towards successful conduct of urban local bodies and panchayat elections, the Governor said: The deepening of democratic process and improving the quality of governance have been the prime focus of the state. The huge turnout in the recently concluded panchayat and municipal elections in the state is an indicator of peoples yearning for peace and development. He said setting up of the Anti-Corruption Bureauis was an important step to provide good governance to the people. Maintaining that growing radicalisation is a matter of concern for society, he said, It is a matter of deep anguish that a number of our youth, some of whom were pursuing professional studies, were influenced by extremist ideologies to pick up gun and join militant groups, which perpetrate violence. This has added to the difficulties of the people. amansharma@tribunemail.com Arteev Sharma Tribune News Service Jammu, January 26 Days after he favoured a rehabilitation plan for local militants in Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik on Saturday asked gun-wielding Kashmiri youth that violence and confrontation could not be the solution to any problem. The Governor, while addressing a large audience of people after unfurling the national flag and taking salute at an impressive parade during the 70thRepublic Day celebrations at Jammu University ground here, said it was sad and unfortunate that some youth, particularly those who were highly qualified, got inspired by terror groups in Kashmir Valley and chose the path of violence by picking up gun. Their act (decision to pick up guns) increased the difficulties and hardships of people in Kashmir. It is our firm resolve that violence and confrontation cannot be a solution to any problem. Moreover, we have lost many innocent and precious lives due to the cowardly act of terror groups, Malik said. J&K is passing through a crucial time which is full of challenges as well as opportunities. Our youth are filled with aspirations and expectations. They are looking for a way that leads them to a better future which is full of success, satisfaction and prosperity, Malik said. The governor also expressed his sympathises with the families who have lost their loved ones in violence and said it was the collective responsibility of the people of the state to work for the restoration of peace in the state. We will have to identify the ways and means to get rid of these blots of violence and restoration of peace in the state. It is our collective responsibility and it is possible without the peoples cooperation and support, he added. Malik, in his address, also targeted the Pakistan for fomenting troubles in Jammu and Kashmir by supporting militants from across the border. Our neighbouring country continues to support terrorists to disrupt peace and harmony in the state. There have been repeated attempts by terrorists to infiltrate from across the border, the Governor said, adding repeated ceasefire violations have brought untold hardships to the people living in the villages along the borders. He expressed gratitude to the military and state police for working maintaining peace, unity and integrity in the state. Earlier, he visited Balidan Stambh here and paid floral tributes to martyrs. amansharma@tribunemail.com Shimla, January 26 Field epidemiologist Omesh Kumar Bharti from Himachal Pradesh will be conferred with the Padma Shri award for his path-breaking research to treat rabid dog bite patients, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended as one of the least expensive therapies in the world. Bharti, who is currently posted at the Institute of Health and Family Welfare, said his research had brought down the cost of dog bite treatment from Rs 35,000 to Rs 350. His cost, time and lifesaving treatment protocol for rabies prophylaxis was recommended by the WHO in 2018. The revised guidelines of the WHO on rabies prophylaxis referenced Bhartis research work that he had carried out at the Intra Dermal Anti-Rabies Clinic and Research Centre of the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital in Shimla. It is a pleasant surprise for me and a great recognition for research to make lifesaving treatment affordable, Bharti told IANS on Saturday. I am thankful to the government. The recognition will certainly encourage the researchers in medicine field to work on low cost lifesaving treatment in the interest of the poor patients. The doctor said he did all the research work with the support of the state health department and in collaboration with WHO-accredited rabies research centre and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru. As per earlier WHO guidelines, a dog or monkey bite victim was administered a vaccine intradermally along with rabies immunoglobulins that was injected both in the wound and muscle. The rabies immunoglobulins were calculated as per the patients body weight, which was a costly proposition. While the vaccine part almost remains the same, the WHOs new update, as per Bhartis research, involves injecting rabies immunoglobulins only in the wound. The rabies immunoglobulins neutralise the rabies virus in the wound within hours. The omission of rabies immunoglobulins administration intramuscularly would drastically reduce the cost of treatment and will have a huge impact globally by sparing the overall cost, medicine and thus saving lives, Bharti said. At present over $1.6 billion is annually spent on the rabies post-exposure prophylaxis across the globe, which is likely to decrease as over 90 per cent of this cost is attributed to rabies immunoglobulins to be given as per the earlier WHO protocol that came in 1992. Around 59,000 persons die of rabies globally every year, out of which 20,000 deaths are reported in India alone. Most of these deaths occur due to high costs and unavailability of the medicine. The WHO update is based on recommendations of its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts committee, which met in Geneva in October 2017 and quoted Bhartis research papers, co-authored by late S.N. Madhusudana, head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Rabies Research in NIMHANS, and Henry Wilde, a WHO consultant in Thailand. We started practical research on administering rabies immunoglobulins in wound only in 2014 amidst acute shortage of this lifesaving medicine, with technical support of WHO Collaborating Centre on Rabies Research in NIMHANS, Bharti said. We administered the anti-rabies vaccine intradermally as earlier along with local rabies immunoglobulins infiltration into wounds. We found that even the lab confirmed rabid dog bite victims survived without any adverse impact. It took 17 years for Bharti to conceptualise and implement the practical work in 2014, based on available literature review. Annually, the Intra-Dermal Anti-Rabies Clinic and Research Centre in Shimla gets more than 3,000 animal bite patients and 40 per cent of them involve monkeys. All the rabies prophylaxis is given free at the research centre, based on this new low cost protocol started in 2014, which has now been endorsed by the WHO. IANS editorial@tribune.com Sushil Manav Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 25 With the extended term of Director General of Police BS Sandhu ending on January 31, the Haryana Government has initiated a move to select the new DGP in accordance with the guidelines of the Supreme Court. SS Prasad, Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Jails, Criminal Investigation and Administration of Justice Department, confirmed that the state government has initiated the process and sent a list of officers to the UPSC. Prasad refused to divulge the names of the officers included on the list. The Tribune has, however, learnt that the state government has sent the names of 12 senior IPS officers to the UPSC for preparing a panel of three officers as per the SC guidelines. Sources said that the list of IPS officers sent by the state government includes the names of Parminder Rai (1982 batch), SS Deswal (1984), KP Singh and K Selvaraj (1985), BK Sinha, KK Sandhu and Prabhat Ranjan Deo (1986), KK Mishra (1987), Manoj Yadava and PK Agarwal (1988) and Muhammad Akil and RC Mishra (1989). Of these, Parminder Rai is also to retire on January 31. The present DGP, Sandhu, who was initially to retire on September 30, 2018, was given three-month extension till December 31, 2018, but was allowed to work till January 31 by the Supreme Court. Sources said that the UPSC is likely to hold a meeting for preparing the panel of officers on Tuesday or Wednesday (January 29 or 30) as it has already fixed a meeting for Punjab for Monday. Chief Secretary DS Dhesi will be part of the committee to prepare the panel for the Haryana DGP. The HPSC guidelines prescribe that the state governments should send their proposals for DGPs to the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) three months before the incumbent is due to retire, said the court. The officers should be not below the rank of ADGP and should have 30 years of service as IPS officer. The UPSC will prepare a panel of officers fit to be DGP in the state concerned and send it back. The state shall immediately appoint one of the persons shortlisted by the UPSC. In the winter session of the state Assembly, the Haryana Government had passed Haryana Police (Amendment) Bill 2018 with the aim to circumvent SC guidelines and to keep the power of appointing the DGP with it. However, the SC, on January 16, had rejected pleas filed by Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala and Bihar to appoint the DGP through their internal appointment committees rather than UPSC. On the list Sources said the list of IPS officers sent by the state government includes the names of Parminder Rai (1982 batch), SS Deswal (1984), KP Singh and K Selvaraj (1985), BK Sinha, KK Sandhu and Prabhat Ranjan Deo (1986), KK Mishra (1987), Manoj Yadava and PK Agarwal (1988) and Muhammad Akil and RC Mishra (1989). uttara@tribuneindia.com Jind, January 26 Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday over his government's crop insurance scheme alleging it has failed to benefit the farming community and charged the NDA with dividing the society on caste lines. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) is aimed at enabling farmers avail insurance cover against crop loss due to natural calamities. "Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Modi promised crop insurance scheme... Now, if a farmer's crop gets destroyed, the insurance firms refuse to give compensation to them saying that it is only applicable if over 70 per cent crop is damaged," Kejriwal said addressing rally for the Jind Assembly bypoll here. The bypoll for the Jind seat is scheduled to be held on January 28 and was necessitated by the death of INLD MLA Hari Chand Middha. Kejriwal claimed that Modi's promises to benefit farmers by way of crop insurance scheme have failed to yield the result and alleged that the prime minister also did not implement the Swaminathan Commission report as was assured by him before the general elections in 2014. "I urge the electorate that when Modi and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar come to seek votes for the BJP, ask them to get these from insurance firms," the AAP national convener said. "In Haryana, if farmers approach Khattar for compensation of damaged crops, they are told by the chief minister to go to insurance firms," he said. The Delhi chief minister said that his government had been giving a compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre to farmers for loss of crops due to natural calamities. He also accused the BJP of dividing the society on the lines of caste. "The BJP government at the centre and in Haryana has been dividing the society on the basis of caste," Kejriwal alleged, adding that he had never seen the kind of casteism which he being followed during the BJP rule. "Khattar has sought votes in the name of being a Punjabi during the recent mayoral polls in Haryana...now if he seeks votes in the name of caste, I request the other communities not to vote for the BJP as it will be their insult," he said. Kejriwal was addressing a rally in favour of Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) nominee Digvijay Singh Chautala. JJP was constituted after Ajay Singh Chautala, the elder son of INLD supremo and jailed leader Om Prakash Chautala, was expelled from the party for indiscipline. Ajay Singh Chautala's sons - Digvijay and Hisar MP Dushyant too were expelled from the INLD. The power struggle within the Chautala family led to differences between Chautala senior's younger son Abhay Singh and his elder brother Ajay. This is JJP's first election. Throwing his weight behind the JJP, Kejriwal said that people used to make mockery of the AAP when it was floated in Delhi. However, in the 2015 Assembly polls the party got 67 seats as against three by BJP and nil by the Congress, he said. Claiming that the AAP has brought "revolution" in education and health sectors in the national capital, the Delhi chief minister alleged that the Congress and the BJP looted the country in turns. "The entire country is looking at the result of the Jind bypoll. If the people of Delhi can change the politics by bringing the AAP to power, I am sure that the people of Haryana can bring revolution and change the government," Kejriwal said. Asserting that he has high hopes from the young leaders of the JJP, the AAP leader said his party decided to support the JJP as he found its young leaders "selfless". "The JJP came into existence following a family dispute... in today's time everyone is selfish. If a dispute takes place within a family, no one is ready to leave the party and its symbol," he said referring to Dushyant handing over the INLD to the party's "veterans" (Om Pakash Chautala). "Dushyant and Digvijay took no time in giving their right over the INLD and its symbol...the day they decided it I realised that they are selfless and respectable people," Kejriwal said. Dushyant and Digvijay, in their turn, heaped praises on Kejriwal and his work while projecting him the next prime minister. PTI vinaymishra188@gmail.com Bijendra Ahlawat Tribune News Service Faridabad, January 25 A private detective agency hired by the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) here has failed to yield any positive result. It has not been able to trace any defaulter mentioned in the department records. While power dues amounting to Rs 20 crore are reportedly pending, the contract of the agency expires on January 31. The agency Countrywide Detective Services was awarded the contract in December 2018. It was assigned the task of detecting defaulting consumers under the jurisdiction of the Faridabad operation circle. The agency was to be paid at Rs 350 per consumer (excluding applicable taxes) and the bills could be raised each fortnight. Officials of the power department had handed over the defaulters list to the agency that was told to start operations in the subdivision of Tilpat where the number of defaulters was 5,700. This subdivision is located in Old Faridabad and the majority of the colonies are unauthorised. The agency has not been able to locate consumers who have been identified as defaulters in the official records for the past several years, said an official. He said that these persons had either changed their place of residence or their earlier addresses had been replaced with new ones due to development of new colonies or merging of one colony with another. The inability of the department to keep track of this floating population over the past several years has led to a wide gap in consumer information and hence, a rise in defaulters. Though the power supply to the majority of defaulters has already been disconnected, the department officials had come up with the idea of taking help of the private agency to locate the defaulters. Admitting no progress on this front so far, PK Chauhan, SE, Faridabad, said that while the hiring of the detective agency was taken up on an experimental basis, the department was making all efforts to recover the pending bills. editorial@tribune.com Deepender Deswal Tribune News Service Jind, January 25 The leaders of the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress on Friday exchanged barbs on corruption and CBI raids at former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hoodas residence in Rohtak during their rallies on the penultimate day of campaigning for the the Jind byelection in the town. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Union Steel Minister Birender Singh and state BJP chief Subhash Barala lent might to the saffron partys show of strength at the new sabji mandi in the town, while Congress nominee Randeep Surjewala was supported by Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ashok Tanwar, CLP leader Kiran Choudhry and Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda at the party rally today. Addressing the gathering, Khattar claimed that the BJP had eradicated corruption from governance in Haryana. He said, The culture of lath tantra (high-handedness) and dalal tantra (middlemen) was prevailing in Haryana for the last 15 years. We have changed this system and ushered in a new political culture. Earlier, BBC, an acronym for badli (transfer), bharti (recruitment) and CLU (change of land use), had been prevailing in Haryana. The Chief Minister claimed that the recent recruitment in Class IV posts was an indication that the BJP had been able to put a curb on corruption. Union minister Birender Singh said the agencies like the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) were chasing the corrupt leaders who were in power earlier. They have looted the common people when they were in power, but their misdeeds will be brought in the open now, he said. Lambasting the government over the CBI raids, Tanwar alleged that the BJP was afraid of the rise of the Congress and feared that the Jind byelection result would go in its favour. The CBI raid on our leaders is an indication of a sense of insecurity in the BJP. In this hour of crisis when institutions are being misused, people would show the BJP the power of the vote, he said, adding that the Congress workers would take to the streets after the poll if the government targeted their leaders. Referring to the INLD and the JJP, Tanwar said the BJP and its B and C teams were trying to vitiate the atmosphere in the name of caste and religion for their political interests. Deepender Hooda stated that the raids by the CBI were a part of the BJPs vendetta politics. We have been raising the issues concerning the people of Haryana by highlighting the anti-people policies of the BJP. But the ruling clique is trying to intimidate us and silence our voice. I dare these forces from this stage that they will not be successful in their attempts. These people are misusing all resources at their disposal, they will not be able to break our courage, Deepender said. Dushyant, Digvijay can be likened to 2 Ds: CM Both Congress and BJP leaders targeted Jannayak Janata Party leaders Dushyant Chautala and Digvijay Chautala over its family feud. I will suggest to the two youngsters to take some more time to do some learning otherwise they could be compared to the two Ds Duryodhana and Dushashan of the Mahabharata, said Khattar. Congress candidate Randeep Surjewala also hit out at them: Dushyant and Digvijay are using the money earned by their grandfather. If they can send back to jail their octogenarian grandfather, just think what they can do to us, he said. harinder@tribunemail.com The reverence for Guru Nanak Dev and his teachings transcends faiths. This basic fact seems to have escaped the authorities in Pakistan. Even as work is proceeding on the planned passage to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur from Dera Baba Nanak in India, the Pakistani side has disingenuously proposed that the entry to the passage be restricted only to Sikhs. Prime Minister Imran Khan had showcased the grant of access to the gurdwara in the town where Guru Nanak Dev spent the last years of his life as a significant step forward in Indo-Pak ties, as well as a symbol of commitment of his country towards non-Islamic minorities. The promises seem to be falling short of obligations. Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has been consistent in asking that the pilgrims be allowed to visit the gurdwara in Pakistan without passports. He is also right in demanding that the passage through the corridor not be restricted to Sikhs alone, but be one that is open to all, just as all gurdwaras are. The move by Pakistan to limit access only to the Sikhs would deny a vast number of non-Sikhs the chance to pay obeisance at the historical gurdwara. Having taken the first step, it would be churlish on the part of the Pakistani authorities to propose anything less than access to pilgrims of all denominations. The Chief Minister is rightly being cautious about Pakistans divisive designs. Coordination between the state and the Centre on this issue must be accorded top priority, given the emotional importance of this corridor. The one chance to bridge the chasm created by Partition, due to which the historical gurdwara went to Pakistan, should not be frittered away. Infrastructural hurdles need to be surmounted, while vigilance must be maintained to ensure that sections of the Pakistani establishment do not play from the old divisive book, even as their Prime Minister publicly seeks a new beginning. Radhika Ramaseshan Radhika Ramaseshan Senior journalist IN appointing Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as Congress general secretary to mind east Uttar Pradesh, quite apart from the charisma she exudes, the association she kindles and the cachet she brings, Rahul Gandhi ostensibly had a hard-headed consideration that was determined solely by the need to put up a robust fight in UP in the Lok Sabha election. The swathe of land that the Congress denoted as east UP does not correspond strictly with the regions recognised geographical boundary. It is more expansive and embraces slices of the Rohilkhand and Bundelkhand regions that would fall within west-central UP or exist independently as well as the districts lying on the lower Doab, on the Yamuna-Ganga confluence. The territory assigned to Priyanka is where the Congress put up an impressive show against odds and expectations in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, winning 21 seats encompassing the terrain from Maharajganj and Kushi Nagar (formerly Padrauna) in the east to Dhaurahra and Kheri in west-central, adjoining Pilibhit and Rampur. The throwback to 2009 a milestone of sorts in the Congress political journey in UP where it failed to make a mark since it was voted out in 1989 is not meant to suggest that Rahul and Priyanka will not cast their nets wide and look to maximise the party's tally. The rationale to build on the residual strengths of the Congress in this area is natural. The 2009 winners, including Kunwar Jitin Prasada, Sanjay Sinh and PL Punia, remain with the Congress. Jagdambika Pal and Beni Prasad Verma quit later: Pal to join the BJP and Verma to return to the Samajwadi Party. Punia, Prasada and Annu Tandon are nursing their erstwhile constituencies, Barabanki, Dhaurahra and Unnao. The Congress performance was facilitated by the induction of Punia, a Dalit-Jatav and former associate of Mayawati, who knows UP through and through, having been a state cadre bureaucrat, and Rajaram Pal, from the backward caste of shepherds, who was also in the BSP. Together, they catalysed the movement of Dalits and OBCs towards the Congress. Elections in UP are increasingly less about radiating star quality and evoking historical remembrances and more about getting the right caste math and credibly amplifying issues. Doubtless, PM Narendra Modis persuasive oratory impacted voters, but people were sold more on the promises compressed in the achhe din slogan than the rhetoric. As the Congress hopes that Priyankas pizzazz and resemblance to Indira Gandhi will deliver the goods on the ground, a reality check is called for. Generations of voters have been raised since the passing away of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and their choices are markedly shaped by religion, caste, jingoism dressed up as "nationalism", and economics and rarely by sentiments, although the Ayodhya issue, featuring in the BJPs discourse, is an admixture of politics and emotion. The Congress is up against roadblocks aplenty: serial losses in UPs parliamentary and local elections, the SP-BSP-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance that is shored up by roping in caste and community-based outfits such as the Peace Party, NISHAD Party and Janwadi Party, formidable election-management by the BJP and, to an extent, the SP and BSP and most important, the solid caste/community votes that they command. The Congress is earnestly making a play to reclaim the upper-caste votes that were in thrall to the dominance and patronage bestowed by its illustrious Brahmin families that have long since gone into oblivion. Rahuls display of the janeu (sacred thread), signifying his Brahmin antecedent, and the stress on Priyanka as a Brahmin are a piece of the Congress tactic to try and cement the communitys votes. Unless the Congress constructs a vote plinth by getting Brahmins or Muslims or Dalits (that made up a rainbow coalition in its heyday), the add-ons will not come. Amassing a critical mass will be impossible. The BJP quickly anticipated the possibility of Brahmins going to the Congress. It tried to arrest their migration by bringing in a 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections, a longstanding demand. Its problem was that the Yogi Adityanath dispensation has been accused of overly pandering to the interests of the Rajputs because they are his staple voters. The reservation move is a gamble alright, but the ground reports from UP suggest that it has mollified the upper castes, more so the youths who complained of having to forfeit their seats in colleges and universities to the backward castes and Dalits. To be sure, there are issues such as lack of jobs, the hit that small business has taken by GST and demonetisation and agricultural distress that the Congress can take up to build a counter-narrative against the BJP. Priyanka has rarely, if ever, moved out of Rae Bareli and Amethi, Sonia and Rahuls constituencies. She is seriously debuting in UP this time. Therefore, the element of novelty and freshness she brings to a political landscape peopled with tried-and-tested but not necessarily trusted personas cannot be under-estimated. Unfortunately for her, the Congress is bereft of the organisational apparatuses that can tap these qualities and transmute them into support. The partys best bet lies in Priyanka challenging the BJP in the urban pockets that are not traditionally inclined towards the SP and BSP. However, as the 2014 results establish, even in UPs cities, the Congress came a cropper, often yielding the second place to the SP or BSP, barring Ghaziabad, Kanpur and Lucknow. Rahul indicated that Priyanka was in for a long haul in UP, until the next Assembly election. The Congress prefaces every state poll with a chorus to declare Priyanka as its chief-ministerial candidate. Will the cry become a self-fulfilling prophecy in 2022? amansharma@tribunemail.com Tribune News Service Panchkula, January 26 Haryana Governor Satyadev Narayan Arya hoisted the national flag at the state-level function organised in Parade Ground in Sector 5, on the occasion of the 70th Republic Day. The Governor inspected the parade and congratulated the people on the national festival of Ganatantra Divas. Paying tributes to the martyrs and freedom fighters he said, "We had got freedom due to the long struggle and as a result of this, we are breathing freely in the largest democracy of the country today." Earlier, he also paid tributes at martyrs' memorial in Sector 12. Arya said it was the need of the hour that the whole country should be united and work towards nation building, only then we could face challenges and give India the world class status again in the 21st Century. He said due to strong law and order situation Haryana was making progress continuously. "Durga Rapid Action Force" has been formed to protect the school, college girls and other women. "Citizen Portal" has been prepared by the Police Department, he said. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 25 The PGI Director, Prof Jagat Ram, was today chosen for the Padma Shri in Medicine (Ophthalmology) on the eve of Republic Day. It is a big honour for me, my family, Chandigarh and the PGI. My journey started from a village school. I have been serving in the PGI for over 39 years, he said Director. The Padma Shri is awarded for distinguished service in any field. The award is conferred by the President at a function which is held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan usually around March/April every year. Prof Jagat Ram, an eye surgeon, who was born at a small village in Himachal Pradesh, comes from a humble background. He became the Director of the PGI in 2017. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the MCI since October 2018. Prof Jagat Ram joined the PGI faculty in 1985 and rose to become a Professor of Ophthalmology. He received his MBBS degree from Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla, in 1978 followed by MS in Ophthalmology from the PGI in June 1982. He was subsequently awarded the WHO Fellowship in the field of advanced phacoemulsification at Storm Eye Institute, USA, in 1993-1994. He was awarded another Fellowship in Paediatric Cataract Surgery in 1998 by the same institute. Prof Jagat Ram was deputed by the Government of India as a Consultant Ophthalmologist with the Republic of Seychelles from 2003 to 2005, a period during which he eliminated backlog of cataract blindness in this island nation. Prof Jagat Ram introduced the technique of phacoemulsification at the PGI in 1994 replacing the older technique of extracapsular cataract surgery. Year after year, he operated upon blind patients and restored vision in them and in the past 39 years, nearly 90,000 such patients have been benefited by his surgical skills. In addition, he regularly offered free services as an eye surgeon in over 135 relief and screening camps organised for neglected and extremely poor individuals. He is a recipient of the Best of the Best Winner for a new surgical technique on management of double crystalline lens at the American Society Cataract and Refractive Society held at San Francisco, USA, in April 2013. At this televised award ceremony, the National Anthem of India was played. In a rare honour again on May 9, 2016, he received the Best of the Best Award at New Orleans, USA, at a conference of the American Society. Prof Jagat Ram also received one of the most prestigious awards, the Oscar of Paediatric Ophthalmology, at the World Congress of Paediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus held at Barcelona in 2015. A Big Honour It is a big honour for me, my family, Chandigarh and the PGI. My journey started from a village school. I have been serving in the PGI for over 39 years.Prof Jagat Ram, PGI Director ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Naina Mishra Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 25 The Income Tax Department on Friday issued show-cause notice to St Peters Senior Secondary School, Sector 37, and launched prosecution against Gillco International School, Kharar. Confirming the development, Income Tax Commissioner Ram Mohan Singh said, We have issued the notice of withdrawal of exemption to St Peters school under Section 12-A and a prosecution notice to Gillco school. The department has planned to withdraw tax exemption certificate given to the school under Section 12-A of the Income Tax Act. As per sources, the assets are being evaluated to estimate the direct tax liability to be imposed upon the institution. On Wednesday, a team of 15 IT sleuths, along with four police personnel each, conducted a survey at both schools. Sources claimed that trustees of St Peters bought luxury cars like Endeavour and Kodiaq from the profits they had earned from the school and were using them personally. Also, residential properties were being bought in Sectors 11 and 18 from the school profits, which is a violation of Section 13 of the Income Tax Act. There are speculations that the trust, running the school, could face a penalty of Rs 30 crore to Rs 40 crore for the past seven to eight years. When contacted, Principal Geeta Kaushik said, As a principal, I cannot comment on the matter. It is a matter of trustees and only they will deal with it. During the IT survey, it was also found that Gillco International School claimed for exemption certificate while filing income tax returns despite their application for a Section 12-A certificate was rejected. Gillco sends legal notice to I-T Dept Ranjit Gill, one of the trustees of Gillco International School, Kharar, said, Though we did not receive any prosecution notice by the department, we sent them a legal notice on Friday. The school is in losses as there are only 480 students. Last year, the school incurred a loss of Rs 1 crore and this year, a loss of approx Rs 50 lakh is suspected. The trust is neither registered u/s 12AA nor has approval u/s 10(23C)(vi). The trust is incurring losses in this institution. It has never claimed any exemption u/s 11, 12, 10(21) to 10(23C). The survey carried out u/s 133A of the Income Tax Act is out of the jurisdiction, the notice read. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 25 As many as 270 police personnel, including head constable, home guards and women constables, and 15 officers will be deployed at 43 centres for the Junior Basic Teachers (JBT) exam scheduled to be held on Sunday. The security has been beefed up keeping in mind the JBT paper leak in 2015. The paper was leaked from a Delhi-based printing press and as many as 48 teachers were involved in the scam. The written test will be held from 10 am to 1 pm and candidates are required to report 90 minutes before the scheduled time. As per the police sources, jammers will also be installed at the centres. Use of mobile phones, Bluetooth, pen camera, watch and calculator has been prohibited. Among 15 officers, there will be three IAS officers and 12 HCS and PCS officers. An official of the Education Department said that, A total of 15 officers will supervise the examination on Sunday. 2015 paper leak The security has been beefed up keeping in mind the JBT paper leak case in 2015. The paper was leaked from a Delhi-based printing press and as many as 48 teachers were involved in the scam. laxmi@tribune.com New Delhi, January 25 The Supreme Court today rejected petitions challenging the countrys bankruptcy laws, including a rule that bans owners of insolvent firms from bidding to buy back assets auctioned as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. The ruling upheld fledgling bankruptcy and insolvency rules and is expected to pave the way for banks to recover billions of dollars from bankrupt firms mired in litigation, lawyers said. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was introduced in May 2016, but there is a backlog of unresolved cases due to legal actions filed by the owners of bankrupt companies who are typically reluctant to give up control. The Supreme Courts upholding of IBC will add necessary certainty by way of long-term clarity for all stakeholders, said Cyril Shroff, managing partner at the law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. It should significantly boost investor confidence and effectively enhance participation, he added. Todays ruling by a two-judge Bench was seen as a setback for debt-laden companies like Essar Steel, which owes $7.15 billion to lenders. Essar Steels bankruptcy has dragged on for more than 500 days, and beyond the maximum 270 days set by the IBC for a resolution. The National Company Law Tribunal the bankruptcy tribunal is expected to give its decision by January 31 on Essar Steels insolvency resolution plan, lawyers said. The Essar Steel case sparked questions about the efficiency of the IBC code, as well as the extent to which banks can reduce the dead weight of bad loans on their balance sheets, which currently stand at $150 billion. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reviving the banking sector is crucial for stimulating the economy and creating more jobs ahead of an election due by May. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the experiment conducted in enacting the Code is proving to be largely successful. Agencies laxmi@tribune.com Vijay C Roy Tribune News Service Chandigarh, January 25 Having grown by double-digit in the first half of the current fiscal, pharmaceutical exports from the northern region, comprising Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, are expected to see 13% growth in the whole year. According to Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India (Pharmexcil), the exports would cross Rs 13,500 crore from the region as compared to Rs 12,000 crore in the last fiscal. Indian pharmaceutical exports grew by over 12% in the first half of the current fiscal, mainly because of generic drug launches, easing of pricing pressure in the key US market and improved regulatory compliance at Indian drug factories. We foresee the exports from the region to witness growth in accordance with anticipated national growth of 13%, Pharmexcil chairman Dr Dinesh Dua said. According to exporters, the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has sped up the approval process, thereby boosting the exports. It is also attributed to higher number of abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) approvals. If this growth momentum continues, exports from the country would be in the range of $19-$20 billion by the end of the current fiscal, he said. According to the industry, pharmaceutical exports are among top five export items from India. India pharmaceutical exports were around $17 billion in FY18. The exports are dominated by southern region, which contributes 50% of the total exports, followed by western region, which contributes 35%. Dua said the northern region contributes 10% to the total exports from the country, with Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana as major centres. We foresee exports from Himachal Pradesh witnessing the same trend, with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) joining the exports bandwagon. Many of the companies have already received approval, which will be reflected in the current and next years exports, said Himachal Drug Manufacturers Association president Dr Rajesh Gupta. India is one of the top pharmaceuticals producing nation, which exports to over 180 countries. The major export markets are US, Europe, Africa besides other countries. The US accounts for almost 35% of Indias exports, followed by Europe and Africa. More than 65% of the exports are to these top three markets. Cardiovascular, anti-diabetes and anti-cancer drugs are the dominant drugs that India exports to the world, according to the drug manufacturers. With around 75% of the overall exports basket, the pharmaceutical exports has a strong presence in the formulations space, followed by bulk drugs and intermediates accounting for 20% while others account for 5%. Johnstown, PA (15901) Today Thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 72F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely. Low 66F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Got something you want to get off your chest? To contribute to Back Talk, call Ed at 609-358-0861 or email him at EdNote@Trentonian.com. @IsaacAvilucea on Twitter Isaac Avilucea is The Trentonians main municipal scribe. A two-time prior restraint winner and testicular cancer survivor, he relishes his reputation as the "Mean Girls" reporter that followed his 18-day stay at the now-defunct North Adams Transcript. Back in the 1990s, the now-deceased Dr. Jack Kevorkian became well known for his advocacy of physician-assisted suicide. In fact, he came to be know as Dr. Death. He might be both pleased and surprised that the idea now called... St. Louis officers were playing Russian Roulette when off-duty officer was shot, prosecutors say ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) -- Charges have been filed against a St. Louis police officer accused in the shooting death of an off-duty officer. Nathaniel Hendren is charged with first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action. Katlyn Alix, 24, was off-duty when she was shot inside an apartment in south St. From the wrong side of the Show-Me State, this horrific story pulls up the curtain on gun among some 1st responders and reveals that a great deal of training didn't take for these law enforcement officials. Read more: Olathe man accused of killing his mother appears in court OLATHE, Kan. - The man accused of mistreating and killing an elderly woman, who neighbors said was his mother, made his first court appearance Friday, telling a judge he would hire his own attorney. Raymond McManness, 51, is charged with murder and mistreatment in the death of 75-year-old Sharon McManness at her Olathe home on South Cardinal Drive. The reality is that this one probably has to do with increased medical need and dwindling resources for the working class. Here's the latest: Teen charged with killing Blue Springs 17-year-old KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A teen is facing charges in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Blue Springs boy in November 2018. Aden J. Kaler, 17, is charged with first-degree attempted robbery, second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Suburban crime report update and another mugshot of this young dude facing adult charges and hard time. Take a look: Mark your calendars for the next big Google get-togher. Google I/O, the companys annual developers conference is set to run May 7 through May 9. Google teased the upcoming conference in a tweet from its I/O account back in January, with the puzzle almost immediately cracked by intrepid coders. Google CEO Sundar Pichai later confirmed the May 7 kickoff for the conference, which will again take place at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif. Itll be the fourth consecutive year Google has held its developers conference at that venue. I/O is where Google reveals changes to its software and services, occasionally tipping its hand about devices that are in the works. Now that we're less than a month away from the annual conference, it's time to take a closer look at what could be on the agenda for I/O. Android Q Even though Google has already released its Android Q beta, and you can get it on your Pixel phone if you're daring, I/O is where the company typically goes into more detail on the best new features. So expect a full discussion of Android Q during the kickoff keynote for I/O. Thanks to the current beta, we already know some of the features Google has planned for its next Android update. Current Android Q highlights include sharing shortcuts that developers can build into their apps, under-the-hood changes to Wi-Fi to improve connectivity and call screening. Android Q introduces a pair of photographic improvements that save greyscale images in RAW format and new depth information aimed at helping camera apps produce better effects and more effectively process images. Earlier builds of Android Q showed the OS could be gaining a system-wide Dark Theme for easy-on-the-eyes viewing and battery saving. That same leak also hinted at a Samsung DeX-like Desktop Mode for connecting your phone to a computer screen and mouse and revamped app permissions settings for improved security from rogue apps. Still, were not convinced weve seen everything yet. MORE: Android 9 Pie Review: Google's OS Gets Smarter One thing we probably wont learn about Android Q at I/O 2019 is its proper name. Google always announces its Android versions with a code letter before swapping it for a dessert item of the same starting letter sometime closer to its release in later summer. Since guessing Q-themed dessert items is proving to hard for us (Android Queen of Puddings?), it would be nice if Google decided to change things up and give us a clue about theofficial name at I/O this year. But were not counting on it. The Pixel 3a? Normally, Google I/O isn't a place for hardware announcements this is a developers conference, after all, so most of the focus is on the tools app makers and others will use down the road. But Google is reportedly working on lower cost versions of its Pixel 3 phones. And the Google Store is now suggesting a product release on May 7, which just happens to be the day of the Google I/O opening keynote. The Pixel 3a and 3a XL those are reportedly the names of the new phones seem like odd fits for a developer conference. But Google could use their launch to talk up opportunities to bring Android to wider audiences. Pixel Watch While we're on the subject of hardware, Google was quite clear in 2018 that it had no plans for a Made by Google smartwatch this year. But we're four months deep into a new year, and that means we could be close to seeing a Pixel Watch that runs on the Wear OS software Google provides to companies like Motorola, Sony and LG to use in their smart wrist-worn timepieces. Code watchers this week uncovered public Android development activity by some Google employees surrounding two new devices believed to be in-house watches, codenamed salmon and medeka. Mix that with the news this month that Google bought $40 million worth of smartwatch technology and researchers from Fossil, and it seems like the rumored Pixel watch is closer than ever. Again, maybe Google I/O isn't the time or place for this kind of announcement, especially if Google spends any time on new Pixel phones. Still, we could hear about Wear OS features that could find their way into Google-built hardware later in the year. More Google Assistant Look no further than this months CES in Las Vegas to see how highly Google values its voice-powered assistant, introducing a number of new Google Assistant features for both smartphones and smart speakers. Expect Google I/O to showcase even more Assistant powers and how developers can integrate them into their products. Theres also Duplex, the Google Assistant feature shown off last years edition of I/O that makes phone calls on your behalf. Google is in the process of rolling out Duplex in some markets, so wed expect a progress report on that and maybe a demo of other ways Google is putting machine learning to work in this area. Fuchsia At future Google I/Os, your Android and Chrome OS news might all be replaced with just updates on Fuchsia, the multi-device operating system that Google has been building from scratch for at least the last couple of years. And even though those who have tinkered around with its test version know that Fuchsia isnt near ready to power our phones or computers yet, rumors are that Fucsias further along than we think. Some kind of glitzy, on-stage semi-unveiling of the software at I/O 19 isnt the furthest thing from our expectations or at least our hopes. Stay tuned With Google I/O 2019 only weeks away, well keep you posted with further updates about Googles possible plans for the event. VALE INVESTOR ALERT: Rosen Law Firm Announces Investigation of Securities Claims Against Vale S.A. - VALE Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, announces it is investigating potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of Vale S.A. (NYSE: VALE) resulting from allegations that Vale may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public. On January 25, 2019, Reuters (News - Alert) reported that a tailings dam burst at Vale's Feijao iron ore mine in Brazil, leaving hundreds of people missing. According to the article, the mine was in the process of being decommissioned. On this news, Vale's stock fell $1.20 per share or over 8% on January 25, 2019. Then, on January 26, 2019, Reuters reported that Brazil's National Mining Agency had ordered Vale to suspend operations at its Feijao mine. Prosecutors have requested that over $1.3 billion in Vale's accounts be frozen to pay for damages, with the expectation that more funds would be frozen in the future. Rosen Law Firm is preparing a class action lawsuit to recover losses suffered by Vale investors. If you purchased shares of Vale please visit the firm's website at https://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-1495.html to join the class action. You may also contact Phillip Kim or Zachary Halper of Rosen Law Firm toll free at 866-767-3653 or via email at pkim@rosenlegal.com or zhalper@rosenlegal.com. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn (News - Alert) : https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter (News - Alert) : https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook (News - Alert) : https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 3 each year since 2013. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190126005017/en/ [January 25, 2019] WAYFAIR SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against Wayfair Inc. - W NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until March 11, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Wayfair Inc. (NYSE:W), if they purchased the Companys Class A shares between August 2, 2018 and October 31, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Get Help Wayfair investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-wayfair-inc-securities-litigation-1 or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit On November 1, 2018, pre-market, the Company disclosed shocking financial results for Q3 2018 including a staggering GAAP net loss of $151.7 million (compared to loss of $76.4 million in Q3 2017), and a 43% increase in advertising expenses of more than $202.5 million. On this news, the price of Wayfairs shares plummeted more than $14 per share, or nearly 13%, to close at $96.16 per share on November 1, 2018. The case is Goodstein v. Wayfair Inc., et al., No. 19-cv-10062. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com . [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 25, 2019] MAXAR SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against Maxar Technologies Inc. - MAXR NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until March 15, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Maxar Technologies Inc. (NYSE: MAXR), if they purchased the Companys securities between March 29, 2018 and January 7, 2019, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. Get Help Maxar investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-maxar-technologies-inc-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Maxar and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On January 7, 2019, the Company revealed that its WorldView-4 satellite, which generated revenue of roughly $85 million in FY 2018 and had a net book value of about $155 million, could no longer produce usable imagery due to a failure in its control moment gyroscopes causing loss of stability and that it would likely not be recoverable. On this news, the price of Maxars shares plummeted $5.69 per share, or 48.5%. The case is Durant v. Maxar Technologies, et al., 19-cv-00124. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com . [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 25, 2019] LOMA NEGRA SHAREHOLDER ALERT: CLAIMSFILER REMINDS INVESTORS WITH LOSSES IN EXCESS OF $100,000 of Lead Plaintiff Deadline in Class Action Lawsuit Against Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anonima - LOMA NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until February 4, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anonima (NYSE: LOMA), if they purchased the Companys American Depositary Shares (ADS) in connection with the Companys November 2017 initial public stock offering (the IPO). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Get Help Loma Negra investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-loma-negra-compania-industrial-argentina-sociedad-anonima-american-depositary-shares-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Loma Negra and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information in registration statements issued for its IPO, violating federal securities laws, specifically (i) the extent of exposure to a corruption scandal involving its majority owner; (ii) true demand for products and growth potential; (iii) risks forecasted had actually occurred by the time of the IPO; and (iv) as a result, Loma Negras financial statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. The case is Carmona v. Loma Negra Compania Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anonima et al, 18-cv-11323. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com . [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 25, 2019] /dev/color Welcomes Largest Cohort of Black Software Engineers to Date SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today /dev/color , a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower Black software engineers to help one another grow into industry leaders, inducted the largest cohort into its flagship A* Program . Entering its fourth year, /dev/color welcomes 370+ Black software engineers from across each of the organization's four chapters, located in New York, Seattle, Atlanta, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2015 by Makinde Adeagbo, a senior software engineer and Facebook, Dropbox, and Pinterest alum, /dev/color aims to address career challenges engineers face head-on through career development, networking opportunities, and a highly-structured peer exchange model. In 2018, Lajuanda M. Asemota was appointed as the organization's Interim Executive Director to advance this mission. The women-led organization remains committed to increasing representation for people of color in the tech sector. "It is no secret that software engineers, in particular, represent the 'movers and shakers' of the digital age. This means /dev/color's work extends beyond creating access and parity. In fact, the engineers' design and technological innovation has the potential to change the world as we know it. So it's important that people of color emerge as key stakeholders in these creative processes to ensure we are creating a world that works foreveryone," said Asemota. "This belief anchors /dev/color's commitment to Black software engineers and drives our expansion efforts." To help companies transform into environments where Black software engineers can thrive, /dev/color has assembled The Guild , a community of corporate partners that convene monthly to share best practices, exchange new ideas, and discuss challenges pertaining to diversifying the tech industry. The Guild brings together leaders within Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Recruitment, and Engineering from across various companies, including Airbnb, Asana, Bank of America, Capital One, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Ebay, Mailchimp, Quip, Reddit, Remix, Sequoia, Twitter, and returning Gold partners Facebook, Google, Netflix, Pinterest, Square and Uber. "I am so grateful to /dev/color, not only for our partnership, but for the work they're doing to elevate and advance the professional lives of Black software engineers across the country," said Sydney Brunson, Diversity Programs Manager at Pinterest. "It is integral, as a tech company that continuously promotes and fosters a diverse and inclusive workplace, to have partners like /dev/color to help us learn more, apply that knowledge, and relentlessly innovate." For more information about opportunities to partner with /dev/color, visit devcolor.org . About /dev/color /dev/color is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower Black software engineers to help one another grow into industry leaders. /dev/color executes this mission by offering career development and networking opportunities, using a highly structured peer exchange model called the A* Program, which equips each member with the tools necessary to excel in their career. As of 2019, /dev/color will have 350+ members across four cities: the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Atlanta, and Seattle. For more information about /dev/color, visit devcolor.org, follow @devcolororg on Twitter and Instagram , or connect on Facebook . View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/devcolor-welcomes-largest-cohort-of-black-software-engineers-to-date-300784627.html SOURCE /dev/color [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] GEICO Asks: Planning a Road Trip to Mexico or Canada? Make Sure You Have the Right Auto Insurance Coverage Plan to visit our neighbors to the North or South this year? GEICO reminds you that you may need special auto coverage. Canadian and Mexican laws require drivers to have auto insurance that is valid in their respective countries. In Mexico , U.S. auto insurance policies are not valid. According to the U.S. Department of State, you'll need Mexican auto insurance, which is required for all vehicles as of Jan. 1, 2019. Mexican liability insurance is required as well. You'll also need to apply for a temporary vehicle import permit with Mexican customs or at a Mexican Consulate in the U.S. If you are traveling to Mexico, contact GEICO Insurance Agency to obtain the coverage you need! , U.S. auto insurance policies are not valid. According to the U.S. Department of State, you'll need Mexican auto insurance, which is required for all vehicles as of Jan. 1, 2019. Mexican liability insurance is required as well. You'll also need to apply for a temporary vehicle import permit with Mexican customs or at a Mexican Consulate in the U.S. If you are traveling to Mexico, contact GEICO Insurance Agency to obtain the coverage you need! In Canada, auto insurance coverage in the U.S. does extend to policies and vehicles based in the U.S. and driven in Canada; however, before crossing the border, you will want to confirm that with your auto insurer. When going to either location, don't forget that you'll need to bring the following items: 1. Proof of U.S. citizenship 2. Proof of auto insurance 3. Current vehicle registration And another helpful tip: Distances and speeds are posted in kilometers per hour (KPM) in Canada and Mexico, not miles per hour (MPH) as in the U.S.! Learn more about car insurance coverage for Mexico, Canada, or any overseas destination, or contact a GEICO licensed agent for additional information. About GEICO GEICO (Government Employees Insurance Company), the second-largest auto insurer in the U.S., was founded in 1936 and insures more than 27 million vehicles. To make changes, report claims, print insurance cards and purchase additional products, policyholders can access their insurance policy here, connect via GEICO Mobile, phone or by visiting a GEICO local agent. Homeowners, renters, condo, flood, identity theft and term life coverages are written through non-affiliated insurance companies and are secured through the GEICO Insurance Agency, Inc. Commercial auto and personal umbrella coverages are also available. Visit www.geico.com for a quote or to learn more. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190126005003/en/ At a reception in Vientiane on January 24th for Chairman of Truong Hai Auto Corporation (THACO) Tran Ba Duong and Chairman of Hoang Anh-Gia Lai Group Doan Nguyen Duc, the Lao PM appreciated the two companies strategy on sustainable investment in agriculture in Laos. He urged Hoang Anh Gia Lai and THACO to transfer technology to local people, helping Lao people to access modern agricultural production methods. He also praised the companies commitment to complete and hand over the Nongkhang airport in Houaphanh province on the occasion of Laos National Day on December 2nd this year. The Hoang Anh-Gia Lai executive reported to the Lao PM that the groups investment in Laos had been affected by the steep fall in the prices of rubber latex in the world market, which made the group unable to fulfil its commitment in building the Nongkhang airport. He added that his group had signed a strategic deal with THACO in August last year, under which THACO provided financial support for Hoang Anh Gia Lai to restructure and pay debts. Thanks to the assistance, Hoang Anh Gia Lai has overcome the most difficult period, stabilized its finance, and continued to invest in agriculture. THACO Chairman Duong said his firm will supply agricultural machines and mechanization solutions for Hoang Anh Gia Lais farm in the southern Lao province of Attapeu. The company will also open a transportation route from Attapeu to the THACO agro-forestry-industry park and Chu Lai port in Quang Nam province through the Bo Y border gate in Kon Tum province. Duong affirmed that THACO and Hoang Anh Gia Lai will work for the common target of developing fruit tree cultivation in Laos. THACO will build a closed value chain in the field, expand the large-scale cultivation model and transfer technology to Lao farmers for the goal of developing sustainable and high-value agriculture in Laos. According to Duong, THACO will advance USD12 million to Hoang Anh Gia Lai to complete the remaining items at the Nongkhang airpor, Huaphan province in northern Laos. It will assign its subsidiary Dai Quang Minh to help with the management and supervision of construction, so that the airport will be completed on schedule as committed by the Hoang Anh Gia Lai group to the Lao PM./. A man charged with illegally hunting in Washington County this November has agreed to pay for the DNA testing police used to connect him to the dead deer, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said this week. Someone called Environmental Conservation Officer Steve Gonyeau in November to report a deer had been shot in a field at 1:30 a.m. in Fort Ann. Neighbors had heard the shot, then saw a vehicle drive through the field and load up the deer before speeding away, the DEC said. Gonyeau found blood near the tire tracks in the field and collected it as evidence. During the investigation, Gonyeau and EnCon Officer Marcia Goodrich identified a suspect and learned a 10-point buck had been delivered to a local venison processor with the suspect's mother's hunting tag. The officers then used trail cameras run by the property owner's caretaker to find a photo of the buck and compare it to the dead deer, which was seized as evidence. DNA samples were taken from the meat and hide, and tests confirmed the blood found in the field matched the carcass, the DEC said. When the officers interrogated the suspect, he admitted to killing the deer but said he did not shoot it at night contradicting his mother, who told the officers he shot the animal at night, the DEC said. The man also said his regular season buck tag was already full, so his mother went to a local Walmart and bought her own hunting license to tag the deer, the DEC said. His mother gave police a similar story, the agency said. The man was ticketed on charges of shooting after hours, hunting with the aid of a light, taking an illegal buck deer, discharging within 500 feet of a dwelling and illegal tagging. His mother was issued the same tickets as an accessory to the crime. Both appeared in Fort Ann Town Court on Jan. 16 and the man agreed to a civil settlement. He was ordered to pay $1,333 in penalties, which includes half of the cost for the DNA testing. His mother did not agree to the civil settlement and her case was adjourned to a later date, the DEC said. Two Capital Region residents charged with out-of-state crimes EnCon Officer Chris Valenty interviewed a Glenville resident on Jan. 6 after receiving a request for help from Ohio conservation officers. The Glenville resident allegedly confessed to killing a doe without a valid permit and that information was sent to the Ohio investigators for prosecution, the DEC said. Also this January, EnCon Officers lan Brassard and George LaPoint helped the Maine Warden Service investigate a deer shot from the road in Allagash. The Maine investigators had determined the deer was shot by a Glens Falls man, who returned to New York the same night, the DEC said. Brassard and LaPoint interviewed the Glens Falls man, who allegedly confessed after the officers presented evidence gathered against him in Maine, the DEC said. The man, who was not identified, is charged with unlawfully shooting from a public highway, unlawful possession of a wild animal, passing a tagging station without tagging a deer and unsworn falsification. Neither investigation uncovered violations of New York laws, the DEC said. Alleged deer poacher leaves trail of blood in Greene County An off-duty police officer called EnCon Officer Mike Arp on Jan. 10 to report someone had shot a deer from a home in Windham. Local police were at the scene and had secured evidence, including the gun involved. "A bloody drag mark was visible in the snow going up the driveway and into the garage," the DEC said. Arp interviewed the resident, who admitted he had shot the deer, the agency said. He was ticketed for taking big game during the closed season and hunting big game without a valid license. Both the firearm and the deer carcass were seized as evidence. Clifton Park State Police in Clifton Park arrested a 22-year-old man from Chelsea, Mass. Wednesday on allegations he stole debit cards from two people at a local fitness facility. Police at the Abany Stratton VA Medical Center first stopped the man, Roberto A. Dos Reis, on a traffic violation when they uncovered the stolen debit cards. State Police in Clifton Park arrested Don Reis on two counts of felony grand larceny and one count of identity theft, a misdemeanor. They did not say when or how the debit cards were stolen. Dos Reis had been in Clifton Park Court on the day of the alleged theft to make an appearance on a previous felony charge from last year. Dos Reis was arraigned in Halfmoon Court and was sent to Saratoga County Jail on $7,500 bail. Saratoga County sheriff's department MOREAU A Washington County man is accused of pushing a woman, who he was court-ordered not to see, out of a motel window, Saratoga County sheriff's deputies said Saturday. State troopers arrived at the Moreau motel on Dec. 13 to take Daniel Valastro, 28, of Granville into custody on a separate matter. He shoved the woman, his girlfriend, out of the window so the police wouldn't find her, deputies said. She suffered a chest injury. "The Kid Who Would Be King" is a mostly frustrating experience. The ingredients were there for a smart, entertaining movie, but writer-director Joe Cornish seemed to think he was making an epic, not a modest, pleasing children's film. So a story that should have been 80 minutes, tops, is stretched to 120 minutes, on the back of child actors who can barely hold the screen. Here's a case of a filmmaker betting the house on a good, not great, hand. The premise is that many, many years ago, during the reign of King Arthur, Arthur's evil sister, Morgana, was condemned to live as a prisoner in the underground netherworld. But before she left, she promised to return, once the British people became so morally bereft and self-indulgent that they would no longer have the ability to join together in a common effort against evil. Well, guess what? That time has come. And now the country's only hope is a bullied 12-year-old named Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), who finds a sword sticking out of a rock and pulls it out, with ease. He's the designated savior of Britain, but nobody knows it. He doesn't know it, either, and even once he figures it out, he doesn't know what to do about it. Meanwhile, demons start coming up from the ground to attack him. Everything about the set-up is fine the presentation of a challenging situation, the not-so-subtle social commentary, plus the introduction of Merlin, who arrives disguised as a goofy but supremely confident high school student (Angus Imrie). Unfortunately, it's right around that time that the movie gets a case of what Abraham Lincoln called "the slows." At first, it's a mild case. Then the movie overstays its welcome. And finally, when there's no longer even the memory of a welcome, it keeps on staying. Yes, there's some intermittent fun to be had, but it's mild fun and very intermittent. Patrick Stewart shows up as the real face of Merlin the idea is that whenever he needs to be taken seriously, Merlin drops the youthful incarnation and presents his true face. And Rebecca Ferguson, who can do anything, has a couple of ferocious scenes as the evil Morgana. Alas, most of the time Morgana takes the form, not of Ferguson, but of a dragon; thus, another good actor is lost to computerized nonsense. "The Kid Who Would Be King" has two essential flaws. The first is that, having told us that Alex and his friends would be attacked on three successive nights, the movie feels obligated to show all us three nights in exhaustive detail. But come on, hasn't anybody ever read "A Christmas Carol?" You threaten three nights, but you get it all done in one. The second flaw is even worse. The filmmaker assumes that we are as interested in Alex's relationships with his comrades as we are in the fate of Britain and of humanity. The result is that a lot of screen time is devoted to exploring the emerging dynamic between Alex and the school bullies, Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris), as they gradually, but ever so slowly, are won to his side. Meanwhile Lance, obviously, is Lancelot, so everyone watching knows where this is going. Why lavish a half hour of screen time on it? The young actors are adequate, but they're not intrinsically interesting, so their interior movements hold no fascination. With that in mind, "The Kid Who Would Be King" should have been an hour long, but an extra 20 minutes, just to stretch it to feature length, would have been forgivable. But a full 120 minutes for this was just borderline crazy. When Santina Muha appeared on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in 2007, the producers asked which chair she'd rather use: her own, or the studio's. "I asked if anyone else in a wheelchair had ever been on the show," said the actress, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident when she was 6 years old. "They said no, so I said, 'I'll stay in my wheelchair.' " Days after the two-part episode aired, a woman told Muha that her young son, who also uses a wheelchair, was so inspired by seeing the actress on television, she let him stay home from school the next day to watch the conclusion. "I was on TV for, like, 10 minutes, and I got fan mail from other countries," Muha said. "Disability needs to be normalized." As debates rage over what characters should appear on screen, and who should portray them, disabilities have largely remained undiscussed. Meanwhile, conversations concerning on-screen representations involving gender, race and sexual orientation have gained so much traction in recent years, A-listers have abandoned roles in response to online outrage. Scarlett Johansson, for example, exited the upcoming drama "Rub and Tug" last year, after being criticized for her plans to portray a transgender character. But more than a decade after Muha's game-show appearance, people with disabilities remain the most proportionally underrepresented group on screen. The disabled are, arguably, the largest minority in America, its 56.7 million members constituting nearly 20 percent of the population, according to the 2010 Census. But a study from the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that combed through 900 popular movies from 2007 to 2016 found that only 2.7 percent of characters with speaking roles were portrayed as disabled. Things are slowly changing: Last year, Dwayne Johnson played an amputee in the action flick "Skyscraper," and Joaquin Phoenix portrayed the late paralyzed Portland cartoonist John Callahan in "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot." But some advocates and actors with disabilities, such as Maysoon Zayid, an actress with cerebral palsy, have taken issue with this casting: They say only disabled actors should get these roles. The latest movie to find itself in the center of the debate is "The Upside," a remake of the beloved French film "The Intouchables," which hit theaters this month. It stars Bryan Cranston as a wealthy but depressed quadriplegic who hires a cocky former convict, now a caregiver (Kevin Hart), to assist with his daily needs. Cranston's character is paralyzed throughout the film, meaning there are no flashback or dream sequences. The role would have been perfect for a paralyzed actor, advocates say. Early in the movie, Hart places Cranston in a wheelchair but forgets to buckle him in. A helpless Cranston begins falling, but is caught at the last second - a scene played entirely for laughs. The film is filled with such scenes: Hart aggressively feeding Cranston, a cringe-worthy catheter changing scene, Cranston crashing into waiters with his wheelchair. Advocates have admonished the portrayal, saying it's "dehumanizing." "I was disappointed to see 'The Upside' come out, because we, as disability advocates, have been fighting against non-disabled actors playing visibly disabled character for decades now," Zayid said. "We don't feel like physical disability can be mimicked, can be played, can be mastered." Cranston defended his decision to take the role, telling the British Press Association: "As actors, we're asked to play other people. If I, as a straight, older person, and I'm wealthy, I'm very fortunate, does that mean I can't play a person who is not wealthy, does that mean I can't play a homosexual? I don't know, where does the restriction apply, where is the line for that?" (His publicist did not issue a response to The Washington Post's inquiries.) Studios often cite the need to cast famous actors to make a movie bankable, but there aren't many well-known disabled actors. Advocates say that's because disabled actors rarely get the chance to star in a movie (because they aren't famous). And, given the awards-bait nature of these roles - Eddie Redmayne, Colin Firth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx have all won Oscars in the past two decades by playing visibly disabled characters - such roles are highly competitive. When conversations about representation flare up and, just as quickly, die down, there are myriad reasons: Visible disabilities often make able-bodied people feel uncomfortable, something movie producers try to avoid. And the disabled community doesn't speak as one voice. As actress Christine Bruno told The Post last year, "We are fragmented as a community because there are all different kinds of disabilities." "We are the last civil rights movement of our time. Everything else has sort of been addressed," said Jenni Gold, a wheelchair-using director who made "CinemAbility," a documentary about disability in Hollywood. "In a crowd scene, there often isn't one person with a disability. If you don't exist in that world of the film, how do you exist in real life?" The conversation today feels louder than ever. The controversy surrounding "The Upside" even reached the ears of "The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah who addressed it in lengthy monologue this month. "My first instinct was ... we're going too far now. They're actors. Actors are gonna act," he said. But then a wheelchair-using actor, whose name Noah doesn't mention, "completely opened my eyes" with something the actor wrote: "I understand what an actor is. I too am an actor. But I'm an actor in a wheelchair, and I never see parts that are leading roles for a person in a wheelchair. So the one time I see a role where there's a person in a wheelchair, I think, 'This could be it.' ... Because when you think about it on the flip side, they never call people with wheelchairs in to play able-bodied people." That's what makes the casting of an actor such as Cranston in "The Upside" so frustrating to many advocates. As Gold said, "It was a perfect role to give someone a big break." Progress - however slight - is being made. Muha recently filmed an upcoming episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in which her wheelchair was never mentioned. Zayid has two shows in the works. Ryan O'Connell, who has cerebral palsy, created and stars in an upcoming show on Netflix titled "Special." The Yale School of Drama recently teamed up with the Ruderman Family Foundation to provide an annual scholarship for a disabled actor. Its inaugural recipient was Jessy Yates, an actor and comedian with cerebral palsy. "For years, I did not think there was a place for people with visibly disabled bodies as performers and creators, and I discounted myself from the profession," Yates said in a statement. "The training necessary for sustained careers in the arts is often not accessible to the disabled community." And days after the interview with Muha, "The Good Place" actress Jameela Jamil gave an interview with the Independent, in which she said she passed on a role to play a deaf woman, even though she was born partially deaf. "I said it wouldn't be appropriate for me to take that role, and they should find a brilliant deaf woman to play that role. I think you have to make those choices and not be too greedy and make space rather than take space," she told the tabloid. As Muha said, "I think it's very slowly getting better, because it's a conversation at all." Colonie Despite President Donald Trump's announcement Friday afternoon that he would temporarily re-open the government through Feb. 15, several local community organizations said they'll go through with a planned donation to local federal workers affected by the shutdown. United Way of the Greater Capital Region and the Golub Corporation will donate $10,000 each to support federal employees including 200 TSA and air traffic controller employees at the Albany International Airport. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have missed consecutive paychecks during the 35-day long government shutdown. The workers are "struggling to put gas in their tank, they're struggling to get a bag of groceries," said Peter Gannon, president and CEO of United Way of the Greater Capital Region. "The message to the workers here in this building, and throughout the region who are showing up, not being paid, we want to let you know the community has your back," Gannon said during a press conference at the airport. Even though the shutdown dispute between congressional Republicans and Democrats was temporarily resolved, it remained unclear when federal workers would receive back pay. President Trump said during his announcement Friday afternoon that employees would be reimbursed "quickly." But Gannon said he would be back at Albany International on Saturday to distribute cash gift cards to workers. Gannon said United Way is continuing to collect donations from the community. People can text "Shutdown" to 313131 or visit unitedwaygcr.org/shutdown to donate. "There's no telling if (payment) is coming Monday, or a week from now," Gannon said. "We'll be at the airport again (Saturday), encouraging donations until it's clear what the timetable is for back pay." The announcement was made at the airport Friday afternoon, hours after Eastern Contractors Association donated over 200 turkeys and other food items to the airport's federal workers. Todd Helfrich, president and CEO of Eastern Contractors Association, also pledged to donate $2,500 to the workers. Meanwhile, it remained unclear how federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would be affected by the end of the shutdown. SNAP benefits or food stamps for February were disbursed to recipients early this month because of the shutdown. New Yorkers received their benefits by Jan. 17, but there are concerns that, even with the shutdown ended, there could be an atypically long period before March benefits are disbursed. Nearly 81,000 people receive SNAP throughout the Capital Region's four main counties Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady and some could have to wait from 40 to 50 days between benefit disbursements, as opposed to the usual 28 to 31 day cycles, according to a report published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That could present problems, as households that receive SNAP on average have less than a quarter of their benefits left by the middle of the month, according to a 2011 study published by the USDA. As of Thursday, over 3,600 federal furloughed workers had applied for unemployment insurance since the shutdown began on Dec. 22, according to the New York State Department of Labor. Detroit The Canadian auto workers union is asking people in Canada and the U.S. to boycott General Motors vehicles made in Mexico. The Unifor union is asking people not to buy trucks or SUVs with vehicle identification numbers that start with the number three, which signify that they are made in Mexico. Unifor says it will publicize the boycott with television, newspaper and billboard advertising in both countries. In November GM announced plans to close its car factory in Oshawa, Ontario, near Toronto, costing the jobs of about 2,600 blue-collar workers. It also has plans to close four U.S. factories but will negotiate those with the union. The closures are part of a broader restructuring that will cut 14,000 factory and salaried positions as GM tries to slim down to focus capital spending on autonomous and electric vehicles. GM says it has too many plants that make cars as the market in both countries has shifted toward trucks and SUVs. It says the boycott could cause damage to the wider Ontario economy. Unifor National President Jerry Dias says that in 2016 contract talks, GM agreed to keep the Oshawa plant open until the contract ends in September of 2020. He wants the company to return to the bargaining table to talk about keeping Oshawa open permanently. Dias accused GM of closing Oshawa and the U.S. factories while at the same time ramping up production in Mexico, where he says workers are paid $2 per hour. He says the company now makes more than 600,000 vehicles per year in Mexico. "We are asking you to stand up to 'Greedy Motors,' " he said at a news conference Friday in Toronto. Dias said the company ultimately plans to pull all of its manufacturing out of Canada, where it has two other factories in Ontario. Asked if the union would strike GM's Canadian facilities, Dias said: "We are not ruling out anything and we are not going to talk today about future plans." GM said there are more than 60 Ontario-based auto parts companies that send components to Mexico, including a transmission plant in St. Catherines, Ontario, and stamping operations in Ingersoll, Ontario. "The threat of collateral damage for Ontario-based auto suppliers, auto dealers and workers is concerning, especially for an Ontario economy that is now open for business, with every opportunity to now benefit from increased trade with Mexico," GM Canada Vice President David Paterson said in a prepared statement. So far the United Auto Workers union in the U.S. is not joining the boycott effort, but Dias said the unions plan to talk in early February. Since the announcement, GM has faced withering criticism from President Donald Trump, U.S. legislators from affected states, and the UAW. Trump has focused on a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that's slated to stop making compact cars on March 1. He has promised to return factory jobs to the U.S. and Ohio, a key state in his 2020 re-election campaign. GM is cutting six car models as buyers have dramatically shifted their preferences to SUVs and trucks, which will account for about 70 percent of new-vehicle sales this year. The automaker also wants to close an assembly plant in Detroit and transmission plants in Warren, Mich., and near Baltimore. About 3,300 union jobs would be lost, but GM says many can transfer to 2,700 openings at other factories. GM now makes the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain small SUVs in Mexico, as well as full-size GMC and Chevrolet pickup trucks. It also makes the Blazer SUV there, as well as the hatchback version of the Chevrolet Cruze compact car. The Equinox also is made in Ingersoll, Ontario, and the Cruze sedan is made in Lordstown, Ohio. GM also builds full-size pickups at several U.S. factories. The company says production at the Ingersoll plant alone is about equal to the company's retail sales in Canada. Thomasville, GA (31792) Today Cloudy with occasional light rain throughout the day. High 86F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then mainly cloudy overnight with thunderstorms likely. Isolated tornadoes possible. Low 73F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. remaining of SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Barre, VT (05641) Today Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 80F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low 56F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Cresaptown, MD (21502) Today Thunderstorms likely. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 81F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 66F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. This subscription will allow current subscribers of The Tillamook Headlight Herald to access all of our online Subscriber-Only content, including the E Editions area. NOTE: To claim your access to the site, you will need to enter the Last Name and First Name that is tied to your subscription in this format: SMITH, JOHN If you need help with exactly how your specific name needs be entered, please call us at 1-(503) 842-7535 or email admin@countrymedia.net. Tifton, GA (31794) Today A mix of clouds and sun. High near 85F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Low 73F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Suncor Energy Inc. operates as an integrated energy company. The company primarily focuses on developing petroleum resource basins in Canada's Athabasca oil sands; explores, acquires, develops, produces, transports, refines, and markets crude oil in Canada and internationally; markets petroleum and petrochemical products under the Petro-Canada name primarily in Canada. It operates in Oil Sands; Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Corporate and Eliminations segments. The Oil Sands segment recovers bitumen from mining and in situ operations, and upgrades it into refinery feedstock and diesel fuel, or blends the bitumen with diluent for direct sale to market. The Exploration and Production segment is involved in offshore operations off the east coast of Canada and in the North Sea; and operating onshore assets in Libya and Syria. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil and intermediate feedstock into various petroleum and petrochemical products; and markets refined petroleum products to retail, commercial, and industrial customers through its other retail sellers. The Corporate and Eliminations segment operates four wind farm operations in Ontario and Western Canada. The company also markets and trades in crude oil, natural gas, byproducts, refined products, and power. The company was formerly known as Suncor Inc. and changed its name to Suncor Energy Inc. in April 1997. Suncor Energy Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More Ad Resource Stock Digest 1,851 Interested This Week Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? (Ad) See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Details Here. Jet2, the UK's third biggest airline and second largest tour operator, reached a new business milestone last week. The Leeds-based firm, which is listed as Dart Group, picked up the keys to its 100th aircraft, the final plane in a hefty order of 34 Boeing planes. At a celebratory ceremony in Seattle, USA, the airline's down-to-earth chief executive Steve Heapy speaks to This Is Money about how Jet2 hopes to navigate the multiple headwinds currently battering the airline space. Jet2 chief executive Steve Heapy from Oldham has helped steer the firm's rapid growth Over the last year, sentiment around airline stocks has eroded. Ryanair is down 32 per cent, EasyJet has shed 23 per cent and Wizz Air is also 17 per cent lower. Meanwhile, shares in Dart Group - while far off its highs of last summer - are up 22 per cent. After Ryanair's profit warning last week, drone sightings bringing Gatwick Airport to a standstill at Christmas, and the shadow a no-deal Brexit still threatening to create air space 'Armageddon', Jet2's chief executive from Oldham has plenty to talk about. Brexit With a messy divorce still on the cards, Heapy warns that a no-deal Brexit would be 'extremely damaging' to both UK and EU. Being vocal on the issue, and not for the first time, the airline boss says the worst case scenario would be a ban from flying planes into Europe. While this would clearly be a nightmare for Jet2, which specialises in short haul flights and holidays, Heapy points out the harm it would do to the EU too. Heapy holds the key to the firm's 100th plane 'If no carriers were allowed into Europe it would be a disaster on both sides. The amount of money UK leisure travellers spend in the UK is 34billion a year, while EU travellers in the UK spend 4billion. So in that sense they have a lot more to lose than we do.' But the boss of 12,000 employees is hopeful it won't come to that. 'I think the chance is extremely low, very low single percentages. 'We've spent a lot of time speaking to the Government and industry bodies and people in Europe and we're very hopeful that we'll get a resolution. 'I would hope common sense will trump politics and a sensible conclusion will be reached.' Heapy, who is also calling for a compromise to be reached on the free movement of people, thinks the most likely outcome of Brexit will be some 'minor' flight restrictions and cost increases in places. And despite the ongoing uncertainty, he encourages customers to go ahead and book their holidays. 'We just don't know what's going to happen,' he says. 'The deadline might be extended. It might be that we keep going through this for a long time and if people keep delaying their holiday they could end up not having one for the next one or two years.' The airline boss says bookings are 'pretty much in line with our plan' but admits that more customers have been calling to ask about Brexit. 'Some people are more nervous about implications than others,' he says. Jet2 celebrated the delivery of its 100th plane this week - a landmark moment for the firm The plane has been flown to Leeds, where it will be painted with the Jet2 logo as above Heapy emphasised Jet2's 'financial strength and stability', despite the industry being squeezed by rising fuel costs and the fallen value of the pound. 'We have a very healthy bank balance,' he thunders, 'and if it comes to a tough time where business perhaps is lower than normal, we have a lot of cash in the bank and we'll be able to continue operations for considerably longer than a number of our competitors.' Gatwick Drones The airline sector has been described by analysts as a 'Wild West' - a term that seemed particularly appropriate last month when drone sightings at Gatwick grounded thousands of flights and disrupted around 200,000 people trying to get home for Christmas. Easyjet admitted earlier this week that the saga cost it 15million, as 400 of its flights were cancelled. While Jet2 does not fly from Gatwick and was not directly impacted, Heapy condemns the 'slow' response by officials and is concerned about the threat of a repeat performance. 'I couldn't understand why an airport was completely disabled for the length of time it was. There seemed to be a huge hesitation in dealing with this,' he says. 'If a drone over an airport brings it to a standstill, there is a temptation for other people that want make a protest, or whatever, at other airports. 'I just thought the response was pretty inadequate and pretty slow really. I don't know why we didn't shoot the bloody thing down,' he says. The rivals Jet2, which operates in both the highly competitive airline space and in the troubled tour operator space, seems to have come out of a tough year relatively unscathed. 'Some airlines and tour operators said they had a weak summer or some issues, but our results were in line with City expectations and we had a decent year. We didn't really see a market like some other tour operators said they did,' Heapy said. Jet2 rival Thomas Cook, for example, blamed the summer heatwave in Europe for reduced demand in holidays abroad. Heapy adds: 'There's always a temptation, when you have problems in a business, to look for other causes, but the heatwave didn't have a massive impact on us.' The Jet2 boss does concede, however, that Easyjet's new holidays proposition could pose a threat. 'Easyjet holidays are a threat as they've got the potential to be a bit like us and provide holidays of all different lengths. If you fly daily you can offer a holiday for any number of nights, not just 7, 10 or 14 nights. That's a great strength of our model. 'But competition is good. Johan Lundgren [Easyjet CEO] is a good guy, a clever guy and competition is great because it improves quality and also reduces prices for the consumer. But, Heapy adds: 'Running a tour operator is a very complicated business. That's why I look so old! 'It's still not clear what Easyjet's plans are, but it's going to take a long time to set up. I think we've got a bit of time before they really get going. But they are dangerous.' Meanwhile, WizzAir is stealing market share from budget airlines. Irish carrier Ryanair was forced to slash its prices over the winter, blaming increased competition and therefore overcapacity in short haul. It expects lower full-year profits as a result. 'Wizz Air is a very good model and they are driving prices down,' Heapy acknowledges. 'There's a lot of competition in the market on a price basis rather than a quality basis and it's quite a difficult position to be in.' But Jet2 tries to set itself apart from its budget airline rivals. Jet2 boss Steve Heapy (pictured above) cut the ribbon at a celebratory event in Seattle, US 'Some are motivated by price alone, and if they can save 50 by going with a different airline they might do that and take the chance,' Heapy says. 'But we like to think we're different because of the industry leading customer service we give, and some people are prepared to pay a bit extra for that.' It has been a turbulent year for airlines, with a handful of firms like Primera Air, Air Berlin and Monarch collapsing into administration. While Heapy is unwilling to cast aspersions on rival airlines, he admits that 'a few players do look vulnerable' and advises investors and customers to tread carefully. 'If something goes wrong, people will get their money back, but it's just a hassle. Do you want to fill forms out? I don't want to fill forms out. I want to have a glass of wine and watch tele and have a bag of crisps,' he jokes. When asked if Virgin's Richard Branson is the man to turn Flybe around, Heapy says: 'Flybe has a difficult business model. It provides a great service but it's got high structural costs. Plus it's quite an expensive way of travelling. 'If we're heading for another period of austerity, which we may be, then people might start trading down and getting the train or driving instead of flying. He adds: 'I'm sure they are going to use it as a feeder for their Virgin aircraft, but will it work? I don't know. It would be nice to see Flybe stay around in a different format, but we'll see.' Although China's economy grew at its lowest rate for 28 years in 2018, fund manager Andrew Graham remains phlegmatic about its slowing down. Graham, manager of Martin Currie Asia Unconstrained Trust, believes there remain plenty of opportunities for an astute investor such as himself to make strong, long-term returns for shareholders. The key, he says, is to focus on the sectors of the economy that will continue to flourish. Martin Currie Asia Unconstrained Trust has 27 holdings, giving it geographic spread across most of Asia apart from Japan where it does not invest He says: 'China is in transition. It is no longer the low-cost manufacturer of the world. It is now an economy focused more on serving internal consumer demand and doing business with its Asian hinterland than being the world's economic engine.' These changes, he adds, will put more emphasis on both technology and environmental conservation, while fuelling growth in financial services industries to meet the money needs of the population. These are the areas, he says, that he will concentrate on as an investor. The trust is currently more than 40 per cent invested in Chinese businesses, either through shares listed in China or Hong Kong. The biggest holding is a 7.4 per cent stake in internet giant Tencent. Other key China positions include insurer AIA and clean energy distributor ENN Energy Holdings. He is also currently running the rule over financial services group Ping An Insurance. Graham says: 'We are looking for companies that can generate a strong return on capital that is big profits over a sustained period of time. The fund has been hit by market fallout from the trade war between China and the US 'There are some 400 companies on our radar, but we tend to invest in no more than 30 at any stage.' Currently, the trust has 27 holdings, giving it geographic spread across most of Asia apart from Japan where it does not invest. The trust's performance record is more than respectable. Over the past three years, it has generated overall returns of 69 per cent although like all Asia funds it has been hit by market fallout from the trade war simmering between China and the United States. Unlike many rival funds, the trust has a couple of unusual bents. First, part of its objective is to deliver a growing income, even if some of the dividend payments made half-yearly to shareholders are funded out of capital returns. Graham says: 'The trust has a dividend yield of 4.5 per cent but the portfolio's underlying yield is 2.6 per cent. 'The difference is funded out of capital. It is a policy that is proving popular with shareholders who like a regular income.' Secondly, the trust's board asks shareholders every three years to vote on whether it should continue or be wound up. This policy keeps Graham and his deputy Damian Taylor (ex- Goldman Sachs) firmly on their toes. The next vote is in July 2021. The trust is more than 40 per cent invested in Chinese businesses, either through shares listed in China or Hong Kong The trust's ongoing charge is 1.1 per cent and the shares currently stand at an 11 per cent discount to the value of the underlying assets attractive to those who believe the discount could narrow in the future in response to positive news such as China and the United States resolving their trade issues. Martin Currie is part of American fund manager Legg Mason, but is run out of Edinburgh as an independent investment operation. Given the trust's exposure to China, it should only be considered by those who are prepared to ride out any short- term stock market setbacks and invest for the long term. It should represent no more than 5 per cent of any well-balanced investment portfolio. EMILY ST. LAWRENCE, Chariho girls lacrosse, senior: St. Lawrence scored the 100th goal of her career in a 16-1 win against Lincoln. St. Lawrence finished her career with 104 goals, eight short of the school record. The team did not play last season due to the coronavirus pandemic. JOSH MOONEY, Stonington track & field, sophomore: Mooney scored in three events at the State Open meet. Mooney was second in the 110 hurdles, fourth in the javelin and fifth in the 300 hurdles. He scored all 17 of Stoningtons points. ALEX STOEHR, Westerly softball, freshman: Stoehr hit three triples and a double in a doubleheader sweep of Barrington. For the week, she was 7 for 13 with four doubles, two triples and three RBIs. Stoehr is hitting .333 for the season. Vote View Results Jaipur, Jan 26 (PTI) Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh on Saturday unfurled the tricolour at a state-level function at SMS stadium here amid tight security arrangements. Singh mounted on an open gypsy and inspected a parade and took salute of the march by policemen. IPS officer Dr Amrita led platoons of the Hadirani battalion, the 14 Rajasthan Armed Constabulary (RAC), the Jaipur Police Commissionerate, the Haryana Police etc in the parade. Children of various schools of the city gave cultural performance while the Rajasthan police jawans gave thrilling performance on motorcycles. Central police band, Army band and MGD girls school band also performed in the function which was attended by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and others. On the occasion, the governor presented awards and certificates to 34 people for meritorious services. Dalpat Singh Rajput, the head constable of 1st RAC battalion Jodhpur, was awarded with the President's police medal while SP Sriganganagar Hemant Kumar Sharma, SP Sawaimadhopur Sameer Kumar Singh, Additional SP Pali Jyoti Swaroop Sharma were among those who were given police medal. The governor also gave merit certificates to Joint Director (PR) PHQ Govind Pareek, Deputy Forest Conservator-Udaipur (north) Om Prakash Sharma, Deputy Secretary Yogesh Kumar and others. The Republic Day functions were held in schools and other educational institutions and offices while different groups of youths took out tricolour rallies in different parts of the city. PTI SDA DPB DPB Indore, Jan 26 (PTI) Taking a swipe at the Congress over Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's entry in politics, senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Saturday said it was fielding "chocolaty" faces in Lok Sabha polls as it has a dearth of strong leaders. "A Congress leader demands that Kareena Kapoor should be fielded from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat. Sometimes others talk about fielding Salman Khan from Indore. Likewise, Priyanka (Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) was also brought into active politics," Vijayvargiya told reporters here. "Agle Lok Sabha chunav ke maidan mein utaarne Congress ke pass mazboot neta nahi hai. Isliye woh aise chocolaty chehre ke madhyam se chunav ladna chahti hai (The Congress does not have strong leaders to field in the next Lok Sabha elections. For this reason, it wants to fight polls through these charming faces)," he said. He also said that "Priyanka would not have been brought into active politics if there was confidence within the Congress on (party chief) Rahul's leadership." Vijayvargiya's comments came amid a controversy over senior BJP leader and Bihar Minister Vinod Narain Jha's remark on Friday that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has no other quality except being "very beautiful" and the Congress should remember that beauty does not garner votes. The remark by Jha, who holds the Public Health and Engineering portfolio, was met with disapproval from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) even as the opposition Congress-RJD combine demanded his sacking, accusing him of having displayed a "perverse" attitude towards women. Meanwhile, Vijayvargiya on Saturday condemned those associating the Centre's decision to confer Bharat Ratna on former President Pranab Mukherjee with party politics. "I was watching a debate on a TV channel in which it was being said that the decision to confer Pranab da with Bharat Ratna was taken to strengthen BJP in West Bengal. Those involved in this kind of discussion are insulting Pranab da," he said. Vijayvargiya is the BJP's in charge general secretary for West Bengal. "The decision to confer Pranab da with Bharat Ratna is the biggest proof of the fairness of this honour. It is wrong to link this decision with party politics. Such comments are condemnable," the BJP leader said. "During the (PM Narendra) Modi government, national honours are given to those who deserve them," he claimed. Vijayvargiya termed the Madhya Pradesh government's farm loan waiver scheme a political gimmick, and asked if it had the Rs 40,000 crore needed for the scheme. PTI HWP ADU BNM RT Chennai, Jan 26 (PTI) The Madras High Court has issued notice to the Centre on a plea seeking to nominate directors to the Repco Bank according to the provisions of the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act. Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana gave the direction recently while disposing of a writ petition from P Dhanapal, a Sri Lankan repatriate and a member of the Repatriates Co-operative Finance and Development Bank Shareholders' Welfare Association. The judge directed the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and the Central Registrar of Co-operative Societies, New Delhi, to consider within four weeks a representation dated October 10, 2018 from the association to nominate directors to the Repco Bank according to the provisions of the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act. According to the petitioner, the bank was formed for the welfare of repatriates from various counties like Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka and Vietnam to provide rehabilitation and assistance for their development. It is spread over four southern states -- Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala -- and the Union territory of Puducherry. The management of the bank is run by the board of directors. According to section 48 of the Act, if the equity share capital held by the central or a state government is 51 per cent and above, three persons can be nominated to the board, provided that the number of such nominated persons shall not exceed one-third of the number of the board members. However, the bank had framed its own bye-laws, wherein Clause 30 provided for 15 directors under various categories. At present, there are only six nominated directors, including two from the petitioner association. Hence, the association or the repatriates were unable to participate in the administration, the petitioner submitted. The association had sent a representation in this connection on October 10 last year. As there was no response, it had moved the high court with the present petition. PTI CORR SS RC New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) The spirit of patriotism soared and roared as the national anthem was sung in the accompaniment of booming 21 gun salute at the Rajpath here during the Republic Day function. The well-coordinated gun salute by seven cannons of 2281 Field Regiment starts with the first note of the national anthem and ends with the last. The duration of the 21 gun salute coincides with the length of the national anthem. Each gun (25-pounder) is handled by a team of three personnel. Special clocks are used to measure time in smaller units for precision. Also, back up gun are there to the meet the situation where a gun does not go off. The battery fires 21 rounds in 52 seconds. Besides the Republic Day, the guns are used for firing salutes during the Independence Day (August 15), the Army Day (January 15), Martyrs' Day (January 30) and for welcoming head of states of other countries at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. PTI UZM SMN New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) A class XII student has been arrested from Nizamuddin area here for allegedly supplying arms, officials said Saturday. The accused identified as Kasif (19), alias Nisar, is a resident of Meerut, they added. On January 21, one Sagar alias Lampak (24), a member of Sunder Bhati gang, was arrested for shooting a transgender on January 19 near Barapulla Flyover, officials said. During interrogation, he had disclosed that he had purchased the weapon from one Kasif, a resident of Meerut, police said. When the police conducted raids at the village of the accused in Meerut, they could not find him. "Thereafter, we received information that Kashif had gone to Nizamuddin Bus Terminal in Delhi to supply arms," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal said. Police laid a trap near the bus terminal and at around 10.15 pm Kashif was apprehended, the DCP said. During interrogation, Kashif said one Sadan, a resident of Meerut, had "enticed" him into supply arms. He used to procure pistols for Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 each from Sadan and sell them for around Rs 40,000, officials said, adding one country-made pistol and 18 live cartridges were recovered from his possession. PTI NIT NIT IND IND Jaipur, Jan 26 (PTI) Former chief election commissioner of India Navin Chawla on Saturday posed several questions regarding the election processes in the country, ranging from conflict of interest to need for reforms. Speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival here, Chawla said, "Our Parliament consists of extremely rich people. Many of them are industrialists and businessmen. They find themselves on parliamentary committees, exactly those places where there is conflict of interest. Are those people in the parliament, representing the voice of the people?" Without taking any names, the former CEC said, "A current fugitive, now, was once put in the civil aviation ministry's parliamentary committee. The supposed rationale was that the man had domain expertise. We are on the way to becoming a rich and powerful Parliament, but one should ask if this is the voice of the people? he asked the audience. He expressed concern over the use of money and muscle power in elections. After his responsibility as CEC was over, one of the candidates had told him that he had spent Rs 50 crore for the Lok Sabha elections, while another had spent Rs 72 crore, Chawla said, pointing put that the expenditure limit for the Parliamentary election is Rs 70 lakh per candidate. Chawla, who became India's 16th Chief Election Commissioner in 2009, said the government's attitude in tackling unaccounted cash used in elections was critical. He stressed on the need for greater participation of women in elections and expressed disappointment over the number of women candidates being given tickets by political parties. Chawla said the chief election commissioner should be appointed with the consensus of the prime minister, the leader of opposition and the chief justice of India. He also spoke on electoral reforms and his worries about the system. Explaining the importance of every vote, he referred to the example of present Rajasthan assembly Speaker CP Joshi who had lost assembly election in 2008 by just one vote. "It is remarkable that candidates accept results irrespective of win or loss. That is the great strength (of our system)," he said. Later, Chawla spoke on the difficulty of conducting elections in Naxal and mountainous areas. On the issue of EVMs, he said the people should have faith in the system. PTI SDA IND IND New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) In the centenary year of Jallianwallah Bagh massacre, Punjab Saturday displayed a Republic Day tableau themed on it, which also depicted the monument in Amritsar built in memory of the victims. Also known as the Amritsar massacre, the horrific incident, still evokes memories of the watershed moment in the independence struggle. On April 13, 1919, the British forces led by Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered shooting a group of unarmed civilians, who had gathered at an enclosed place for meeting. Having blocked the exit point, the troop was told to shoot at them, killing a large number of people. Many had jumped into a well to escape shooting and lost their lives. The front portion of the tableau displays the memorial, commemorating the sacrifices of martyrs. The middle and rear portion bring to life the tragic happening at the Jallianwallh Bagh with depiction of people running helter-skelter seeking safety. At the ceremonial parade on Rajpath, the tableau was presented amid strains of a moving instrumental background. Jallianwala Bagh memorial was established in 1951 by the central government to mark the massacre of unarmed people on the Baisakhi day 100 years ago. PTI KND RCJ Sitapur, Jan 26 (PTI) At least three persons including a minor died when a motorcycle collided with a car here, the police said Saturday. Jaskaran, Vikas and a third person were on the bike when they collided head on with the car while trying to overtake a truck, Raisahab Dwivedi, Station House Officer of Imalia Sultanpur Police Station said. While Jaskaran, in his late 40s and Vikas, in his early 20s died on the spot, the third person received serious injuries, he added. Due to the impact of the crash, the car carrying Amit Awasthi, his wife and two children, who were on their way to to attend a marriage ceremony turned turtle. While, the four occupants were seriously injured, Awasthi's son Nitesh, aged around 12 years, succumbed to his injuries in the hospital The bodies of the deceased have been sent for post-mortem examination, the police officer said. PTI CORR NAV RHL Chandigarh, Jan 26 (PTI) Punjab, Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh Saturday joined the nation in celebrating the 70th Republic Day, amid tight security arrangements. Police, home guards and NCC contingents were among other participants in the parades held in district headquarters in the two states and their joint capital Chandigarh. School students presented colourful programmes and tableaux exhibited development of the states at the parades at several places in the region. The Republic Day celebrations at most places in the two states were held under tight security arrangements. V P Singh Badnore, the Punjab Governor and administrator of Chandigarh, unfurled the national flag in a state-level function in Hoshiarpur. Haryana Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya unfurled the national flag at Panchkula. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh unfurled the national flag in Patiala, while Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar unfurled the tricolour in Bhiwani, officials said. Various events were held in district headquarters in Punjab and Haryana, including Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Moga, Bathinda, Panchkula, Karnal, Sonepat, Gurdaspur and Rupnagar. Ministers of Punjab and Haryana presided over the celebrations in district headquarters. Security had been stepped up across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh in view of Republic Day programmes. PTI CHS VSD SMN SMN New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Shopian in Kashmir in November, was awarded the Ashoka Chakra by President Ram Nath Kovind Saturday. The award -- India's highest peacetime gallantry honour -- was received by Wani's wife and mother at the Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath. Wani is the first Kashmiri to be conferred the Ashoka Chakra. On November 25, 38-year-old Wani, hailing from Cheki Ashmuji in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund in Shopian. Under intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and one foreign terrorist in a daring display of raw courage, Army officials said. In the ensuing gunfight, he was hit multiple times including on his head. He also injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous wounds, they said. According to the citation, Wani single-handedly killed two terrorists during the Shopian operation and injured a third one despite receiving serious injuries. "In an unparalleled saga of sacrifice, Lance Naik Wani prevented escape of the terrorists from the target house and made a huge contribution in neutralisation of six hardcore terrorists, in the process laying down his life upholding the highest tradition of the Indian Army," it said. One of his colleagues, who wished not to be named, said he always volunteered for challenging missions, displaying great courage under adverse conditions and exposing himself to grave danger on numerous occasions in the line of duty. Lance Naik Wani joined the Army's 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2004. Wani was a recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. Wani was from a humble background and used to work for the benefit of the underprivileged sections of society in his locality. Ashoka Chakra is the highest peacetime military decoration for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield. PTI MPB SMN New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) Celebrations for the 70th Republic Day began Saturday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in attendance as the chief guest, amid heavy security deployment in the city. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to the martyrs by laying a wreath at Amar Jawan Jyoti in the presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the three service chiefs. Later Modi, wearing his traditional kurta pajama and trademark Nehru jacket, reached the Rajpath and received and greeted President Ram Nath Kovind and the chief guest. At the unfurling of the tricolour, the band played the national anthem with a 21-gun salute fired in the background. Most of the ministers of the Modi government, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Deve Gowda, Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad were among those present on the occasion. The overall theme for the Republic Day celebrations this year is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and tableaux of many states, themed on the iconic freedom fighter, are lined up for the occasion. PTI KND AMP VIT UZM SMN SMN New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) Following are the highlights at 1700 HRS: TOP STORIES DEL23 RDAY-LD CHIEFGUEST Ramaphosa becomes 2nd SA Prez to witnesses R-Day parade after Nelson Mandela New Delhi: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Saturday joined a select group of world leaders, including Nelson Mandela, to have graced India's Republic Day celebrations in the past few decades. DEL20 DAY-FIRSTS INA veterans, all-women Assam Rifles contingent among many firsts on 70th R-Day New Delhi: Four veterans of the Indian National Army (INA), an all-women contingent of the 183-year-old Assam Rifles marching down Rajpath and an IAF aircraft flying using a mix of traditional and biofuel on Saturday, were among the many firsts for a Republic Day. CAL4 RDAY-ASSAM People of Assam, not foreigners, have right on resources: Guv Guwahati: There is no place for illegal foreigners in Assam and only the indigenous people of the state have the right on its resources, Governor Jagdish Mukhi said Saturday. BOM1 GA-CONGRESS-GOVT Cong will form govt in Goa after state bypolls, claims Chodankar Panaji: Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar Saturday claimed his party was in touch with five MLAs of the ruling coalition and would form government in the state after the upcoming assembly bypolls in two seats -- Shiroda and Mandrem. FES9 RDAY-NEPAL-INDIA-GIFT India gifts 30 ambulances, 6 buses to Nepal on Republican Day Kathmandu: India on Saturday donated 30 ambulances and six buses to Nepal and extended its support to the country in achieving prosperity. By Shirish B Pradhan NATION DEL19 WATER-INDOPAK 'Pak team to visit Chenab basin in J-K next week under Indus Water Treaty' New Delhi: A Pakistani delegation will visit the Chenab river basin in Jammu and Kashmir for inspection from January 28 to 31, as mandated under the Indus Water Treaty, sources said. DEL15 RDAY-FLYPAST IAF flypast stuns crowd at Republic Day parade New Delhi: Thousands of restless people were stunned into a brief silence, their eyes rolled towards skies and ears buzzing to the humming sound as the Indian Air Force planes roared over the majestic Rajpath during the 70th Republic Day parade on Saturday. BES10 CG-RDAY-BAGHEL C'garh govt to waive Rs 207 crore irrigation tax of farmers Raipur: In a move that will benefit 15 lakh farmers in Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel Saturday announced to waive their outstanding irrigation taxes worth Rs 207 crore. DES17 PB-NAVJOT-CHANDIGARH SEAT Navjot Kaur Sidhu seeks Cong ticket from Chandigarh Chandigarh: Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's wife and former MLA Navjot Kaur Sidhu has staked claim to the Congress ticket from Chandigarh in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. DEL22 JK-INTRUDER 'Pak intruder shot dead along IB in JK's Samba ' Jammu: A Pakistani intruder was shot dead Saturday by Border Security Force personnel along the International Border in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. FOREIGN FGN9 US-2NDLD SHUTDOWN Trump accepts deal to temporarily end longest govt shutdown in US history Washington: Succumbing to political pressure, President Donald Trump has backed a deal to temporarily end the record-breaking government shutdown in America's history despite getting no funding for his controversial plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. By Lalit K Jha FES14 UNHR-ROHINGYA-ENVOY UN envoy: No prospect Rohingya refugees can go home soon Dhaka: A UN human rights envoy said that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees won't be able to return to Myanmar soon because of threats to their safety in the Buddhist-majority nation. FES10 PAK-BLASPHEMY Asia Bibis lawyer to return to Pakistan: Report Islamabad: The self-exiled lawyer of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian acquitted of blasphemy, has decided to return to the country as the Supreme Court is set to decide on January 29 whether to allow an appeal against her acquittal. By Sajjad Hussain FES12 LANKA-TNA Lanka Tamil leader questions Rajapaksa's statues as Opposition leader Colombo: The leader of Sri Lanka's main Tamil party has questioned the legitimacy of Mahinda Rajapaksa's position as the leader of the main Opposition in Parliament. FES7 UN-INDIA-CLIMATE India calls for cautionary approach to link climate change United Nations: India has called for adopting a cautionary approach on linking climate change to security and giving the UN Security Council the right to take action to address it, saying overly militarised solutions to problems which require non-military responses bring the "wrong actors" to the table. BUSINESS DCM1 BIZ-LUPIN-FDA Lupin gets 6 observations from USFDA for its Pithampur Unit-2 New Delhi: Drug firm Lupin Saturday said the US health regulator has issued six observations after the inspection of a unit of its Pithampur facility in Madhya Pradesh. SPORTS SPO-2ND LD IND Republic Day gift: India crush New Zealand by 90 runs to take 2-0 lead Mount Maunganui (New Zealand): India dished out a dominating performance to crush New Zealand by 90 runs as spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal yet again tormented the home batsmen after a superlative batting show by the visitors in the second ODI, here Saturday. PTI RHL RHL New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) SWAT women commandos, mobile hit teams, snipers are among the varied layers of security under which the national capital has been placed for the Republic Day celebrations. Elaborate measures, including deployment of anti-aircraft guns, were put in place to secure the airspace. Following the arrest of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members, who were planning to carry out terror strikes in the city during the 70th Republic Day celebrations, Delhi had been placed under high-security cover to avoid any terror strike or untoward incident. The arrested members of the JeM had identified Lajpat Nagar market, Haj Manzil, Turkman Gate, Paharganj, India Gate and the IGL gas pipeline in east Delhi as potential targets, police said. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade. He will be the second South African president to be invited to the event as the chief guest. Former South African president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 1995. Multi-layer security arrangements are in place. Around 25,000 police personnel, including traffic officials, have been deployed. CCTV cameras and face-recognition cameras have also been installed at Rajpath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma said. Mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have also been deployed to keep a watch on the eight-km-long parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort, besides the nearby localities. Thirty-six women commandos of the Delhi Police's Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, who were formally inducted in August last year, will also be part of the security arrangements. Parakram vans, that are manned by NSG-trained commandos, had been patrolling strategic locations to ensure that security is not jeopardised. Snipers have been stationed atop high-rise buildings while scores of CCTV cameras are keeping a tight vigil on people's movements on the parade route. Nearly 25,000 security personnel drawn from the Delhi Police and central security forces were deployed in Central Delhi. The police are also using counter-drone technology to thwart any attack or identify any suspicious flying object, a senior police officer said. The traffic police also deployed 3,000 personnel to manage route diversions and ensure a safe and secure passage for the visiting dignitaries. Elaborate traffic arrangements and restrictions were put in place in Delhi for smooth conduct of the Republic Day parade between Vijay Chowk and Red Fort Grounds, traffic police officials said Friday. Metro services will be available for commuters at all stations on Republic Day, but there will be no boarding and de-boarding at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations from 5 am till 12 noon. Boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed between 8.45am to 12 noon at Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk metro stations, they said. The parade will start at 9.50am from Vijay Chowk and pass through Rajpath, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar (BSZ) Marg, Netaji Subhash Marg and proceed for the Red Fort. A function will also be held at India Gate at 9 am, the traffic police said. According to a traffic advisory, no vehicle will be allowed on Rajpath, from Vijay Chowk to India Gate, from 6 pm on January 25 till the parade is over. No cross traffic will be allowed on Rajpath from 11.00 pm on January 25 at Rafi Marg, Janpath, Man Singh Road till the parade is over and C-Hexagon-India Gate will be closed for vehicular movement from 2 am on January 26 till the parade crosses Tilak Marg, it said. On Republic Day, no vehicular movement will be allowed on Tilak Marg, BSZ Marg and Subhash Marg in both directions from 10 am onwards, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Alok Kumar said. Flying of sub-conventional aerial platforms like para- gliders, para motors, hang gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot air balloons, small size powered aircraft, quadcopters or para jumping from aircraft are prohibited over the jurisdiction of National Capital Territory of Delhi from January 9 to February 9, the advisory said. Patrolling in public places has been intensified and checking and frisking at metro stations, railway stations and bus terminals tightened. PTI AMP/SLB VIT ABH ABH Name Goa's 2 bridges after Bandodkar, Sequeira: Cong urges PM Panaji, Jan 26 (PTI) The Goa Congress has demanded that the upcoming bridges on the Mandovi and Zuari rivers be named after the state's first Chief Minister Dayanand Bandodkar and iconic leader Dr Jack Sequeira. The party Friday sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to consider the demand of naming the bridges after the two late leaders from the state. The Goa government and the Centre are jointly constructing these two bridges. Union minister Nitin Gadkari is scheduled to inaugurate the third bridge over the Mandovi river on Sunday. "The third bridge over river Mandovi would be thrown open to traffic very soon. Another bridge over river Zuari may take a year or two to complete. The bridges over rivers and other water bodies signify joining of two separate entities," Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) chief Girish Chodankar said in the letter to Modi. "Naming them (these new bridges) after eminent Goans of yesteryears would be the perfect bridge for Goans connecting to their past and help future generations remember the history," he said. "As the clamour grows over naming the bridges after eminent Goans, who have during their lifetime contributed to the greatness of our state and our country, two such eminent Goans stand out...," he said. They are - late Dayanand Bandodkar, Goa's first Chief Minister and late Dr Jack de Sequeira, father of Goa's opinion poll that helped the state retain its identity, the letter reads. "We would like to assert that our urge reflects the popular sentiments of Goans...Naming bridges after them will also give these pioneers of Goa due recognition, which we owe to them. Your step would be well appreciated by every Goemkar (Goans)," Chodankar said in the letter. The party, however, refrained from specifying whose name should be given to which bridge. Bandodkar was the first CM of Goa after the Liberation from Portuguese rule, while Sequeira was the first Leader of Opposition who also spearheaded the movement to save Goa from being merged into Maharashtra during the historic 1967 opinion poll. PTI RPS NP NP Panama City, Jan 26 (AFP) Pope Francis railed Friday against the marginalisation of convicts and others who society has deemed "sinners," and staunchly defended migrants as he joined hundreds of thousands of young Catholics in Panama. In a swipe at US President Donald Trump's plans to build a border wall against Central American migrants, the pope told hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims that it was "senseless" to condemn every immigrant "as a threat to society." The Argentine pontiff was speaking at the end of a solemn ceremony commemorating Christ's Crucifixion, which drew the largest crowd of pilgrims of his five-day visit. The organisers said the Way of the Cross ceremony drew 400,000 pilgrims to hear the pope at a park in Panama City. The World Youth Day committee say 110,000 people had officially registered for the six-day event, which ends on Sunday. The Vatican faced questions Friday over why the pope, who addressed hundreds of Central American bishops the day before, had not taken the opportunity to speak out against the scourge of clergy sex abuse afflicting the Church. His spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said that it was never far from Francis' mind because the Church was under "incredible pressure." But it was "not necessary" the pope should raise the issue at every gathering of bishops or of young people, he said. Gisotti said next month's meeting of leading bishops in Rome would be a unique chance to provide them with "concrete measures" to tackle the "terrible plague." In his evening homily, Francis returned to his theme of defending migrants during this visit to Central America, the hub for migrant caravans heading north through Mexico to the US border. The Church wanted to foster a culture "that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates, that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in a senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society." The pope has previously spoken out against the "fears and suspicions" of migrants during his trip. In the crowd was 23-year-old Honduran student Wiston Medina. "Many of my friends have lost their jobs and gone to the United States. Everyone in Honduras has family in the US, they left looking for a better future." AFP NSA NSA Washington, Jan 26 (AFP) Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo has tapped Elliot Abrams, a central figure in Ronald Reagan's controversial anti-communist campaigns in Central America, as a new envoy to "restore democracy" in Venezuela. Pompeo announced the appointment of Abrams on Friday, two days after Washington declared head of state Nicolas Maduro to be illegitimate and recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of crisis-plagued Venezuela. Pompeo said Abrams "will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country". Abrams told reporters in brief remarks: "This crisis in Venezuela is deep and difficult and dangerous and I can't wait to get to work on it." The veteran Republican foreign policy hand took charge of Latin America policy under Reagan, clashing with human rights groups as he channeled generous US support to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In one notorious incident, he initially dismissed the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians by the Salvadoran army at El Mozote in 1981. Abrams later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, when the Reagan administration secretly funded the Contra rebels in Nicaragua through arms sales to revolutionary Iran. Abrams later returned as a senior adviser to president George W Bush in charge of human rights and the Middle East. But when Republicans returned to the White House with President Donald Trump's election, Abrams was initially passed over as the new administration shut out critics of the unorthodox new leader. Abrams during the 2016 election had written a piece in The Weekly Standard magazine entitled, "When You Can't Stand Your Candidate," in which he argued that Trump "cannot win and should not be president of the United States". Pompeo, one of Trump's favourite cabinet members, assured that Abrams was on board, saying the new envoy was "eager to advance President Trump's agenda and promote the ideals and interests of the American people". Pompeo said that Abrams would join him Saturday as the secretary of state heads to New York for a special UN Security Council session on Venezuela. (AFP) HMB \R Brumadinho (Brazil), Jan 26 (AFP) A collapse of a disused dam at an iron-ore mine complex in southeast Brazil killed at least seven people and left 150 missing, officials said, as they sought to evaluate the full scope of the disaster. The tailings dam, owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale, broke apart "very violently, very suddenly", sending a massive torrent of mud over the complex where 300 mine employees were working, Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman told a news conference in Rio de Janeiro. The deluge rumbled on to the nearby town of Brumadinho, located southwest of the city of Belo Horizonte, cutting a swath through vegetation, farmland and roads, and impeding access to the area. The death toll was expected to go higher, as rescue teams scoured through the big disaster zone overnight into Saturday. Brazil's new government led by President Jair Bolsonaro reacted to its first big emergency since taking office early this month by launching disaster coordination between the defense, mining and environment ministries and authorities in the affected state of Minas Gerais. Bolsonaro and his defense minister were to fly over the zone on Saturday. His environment minister raced to the area late Friday. An AFP photographer viewing the zone from the air described tractors, houses and a bridge submerged in mud, and emergency crews using earth-moving machinery to search for survivors. Television images earlier showed helicopters being used to rescue people stuck in mud. Schvartsman called the dam break "a human tragedy, because we're talking about probably a large number of victims -- we don't know how many but we know it will be a high number". He said more than 100 of the mine's employees had been located alive, but the rest were missing. Schvartsman, who had his two-year term renewed just last month by Vale's board, said the it had been an "inactive dam" that was in the process of being decommissioned that burst apart. Its contents -- tailings, or mining byproducts mixed with water -- cascaded into another dam, which overflowed, he said. The liquid, brown mass -- reportedly quantified at one million tons by Ibama, Brazil's environmental protection agency -- barrelled on towards Brumadinho, population 39,000, but did not deal it a direct hit. Shares in Vale plummeted eight per cent in New York trading Friday. The Sao Paulo stock market was closed for a holiday. Friday's disaster recalled trauma from a 2015 dam break in a different part of the same state of Minas Gerais, in Mariana, in which 19 people died. That accident three years ago released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along hundreds of kilometers (miles), causing what is considered the country's worst environmental disaster. Vale was joint operator of that dam, along with the Anglo-Australian group BHP. An AFP photographer said police had blocked access roads to Brumadinho on Friday after the disaster. Civil defense officials said people living in low-lying areas in the town had been evacuated. Vale issued a statement saying it had set up shelters for Brumadinho residents left homeless. Brumadinho's municipality issued an alert on social media warning residents to move away from the Paraopeba river that the dam had been holding back. The town is best known to tourists for Inhotim, an outdoor contemporary art museum, which was evacuated as a precaution. The venue receives 35,000 visitors a month. (AFP) HMB Moscow/Beijing, Jan 26 (PTI) The nation's 70th Republic Day was observed with patriotic fervour on Saturday at Indian missions in various nations with events that saw the participation of Indians living abroad. The Indian Embassy in Russian capital Moscow celebrated Republic Day 2019 at an event attended by over 500 Indian citizens, people of Indian origin and Russian nationals. The ceremony commenced with the unfurling of the national flag by Indian Ambassador to Russia Venkatesh Varma, followed by singing of the national anthem. The ambassador read out President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the nation. The event also included a cultural performance by the children from the Embassy of India School in Moscow. To mark the occasion, the 'Rossiskaya Gazeta' - a widely circulated newspaper in Russia - brought out a special supplement on India in cooperation with the Indian Embassy. The publication contained articles, providing insight into the special and privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia. In Chinese capital Beijing, a large Indian diaspora attended Republic Day celebrations at the Indian Embassy. India's new Ambassador to China, Vikram Misri, hoisted the tricolour and read out the president's address. Hundreds of Indian expats from across the UAE celebrated Republic Day at the Consulate General of India in Dubai. The tricolour was hoisted by the Consul General of India in Dubai, Vipul, at the consulate as residents and visitors sang patriotic songs and took pictures alongside the Indian flag, the Khaleej Times reported. After the flag-hoisting ceremony, the consul ceneral greeted people gathered at the event and read out the president's address to the nation. The consul general also honoured two war heroes and parents of martyrs at the ceremony. Children and adults decked in traditional wear were seen with miniature Indian flags on the occasion. A large number of eminent Indian Americans gathered at the Consulate General of India in the US city of Houston early on Saturday morning to mark Republic Day with fanfare and fervour. Consul General Anupam Ray hoisted the national flag amid a rendition of the national anthem. Ray paid rich tributes to Indian soldiers who guard the borders in extreme conditions as the consul general and his wife welcomed Indian-Americans, and others for the flag-hoisting ceremony. Member of the US House of Representatives, Pete Olson and Fort Bend County Judge, K P George were among those who attended the event. Republican Congressman Olson, clad in Indian attire, greeted everyone present on Republic Day, saying "the US is proud of a great friendship with India and today we celebrate India becoming a republic and it signifies the special bond between the world's oldest and largest democracies. This bond encompasses shared values, commercial trade and mutual security". "The US and India, the world's largest democracies, share much in common, and I look forward to working with members of both communities towards a prosperous future for all," Indian-American George said. PTI TEAM KUN Moscow/Beijing, Jan 26 (PTI) The nation's 70th Republic Day was observed with patriotic fervour on Saturday at Indian missions in various nations with events that saw the participation of Indians living abroad. The Indian Embassy in Russian capital Moscow celebrated Republic Day 2019 at an event attended by over 500 Indian citizens, people of Indian origin and Russian nationals. The ceremony commenced with the unfurling of the national flag by Indian Ambassador to Russia Venkatesh Varma, followed by singing of the national anthem. The ambassador read out President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the nation. The event also included a cultural performance by the children from the Embassy of India School in Moscow. To mark the occasion, the 'Rossiskaya Gazeta' - a widely circulated newspaper in Russia - brought out a special supplement on India in cooperation with the Indian Embassy. The publication contained articles, providing insight into the special and privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia. In Chinese capital Beijing, a large Indian diaspora attended Republic Day celebrations at the Indian Embassy. India's new Ambassador to China, Vikram Misri, hoisted the tricolour and read out the president's address. Hundreds of Indian expats from across the UAE celebrated Republic Day at the Consulate General of India in Dubai. The tricolour was hoisted by the Consul General of India in Dubai, Vipul, at the consulate as residents and visitors sang patriotic songs and took pictures alongside the Indian flag, the Khaleej Times reported. After the flag-hoisting ceremony, the consul ceneral greeted people gathered at the event and read out the president's address to the nation. The consul general also honoured two war heroes and parents of martyrs at the ceremony. Children and adults decked in traditional wear were seen with miniature Indian flags on the occasion. PTI KUN KUN New Delhi, Jan 26 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 2000 hours: FGN14 PAK-SHARIF Pak: Jailed ex-PM Sharif's lawyer files plea for suspension of sentence seeks bail on health grounds Islamabad: Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif's lawyer on Saturday filed a petition in the high court here for suspension of his sentence and seeking bail on medical grounds for the incarcerated PML-N leader. By Sajjad Hussain FGN12 BRAZIL-DAM-2NDLD TOLL Fears rise for 300 missing in Brazil dam disaster; 9 bodies recovered Brumadinho: Rescuers worked overnight into Saturday searching for around 300 people missing after a dam collapse at a mine in southeast Brazil killed at least nine, but the local governor said "odds are minimal" that they would be found alive. (AFP) FGN9 US-2NDLD SHUTDOWN Trump accepts deal to temporarily end longest govt shutdown in US history Washington: Succumbing to political pressure, President Donald Trump has backed a deal to temporarily end the record-breaking government shutdown in America's history despite getting no funding for his controversial plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. By Lalit K Jha FGN4 US-TRUMP-WALL No compromise on wall: Trump Washington: US President Donald Trump on Friday asserted he has not compromised on constructing a wall along the Mexico border even as he agreed to end the partial government shutdown for three weeks. By Lalit K Jha FGN8 US-TRUMP-MIGRATIONS Trump says he wants people to come to the US legally Washington: President Donald Trump has said he wants immigrants to come to the US legally and through a system based on merit so that they can enjoy safety and liberty, insisting that Americans cannot surrender operational control over the nation's borders to foreign cartels. By Lalit K Jha FGN16 VENEZUELA-ULTIMATUM Spain, France, Germany give Venezuela's Maduro ultimatum Madrid: Spain, France and Germany on Saturday gave embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum, saying they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days. (AFP) RUP RUP Dubai, Jan 26 (AP) A military base deep inside Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles, experts and satellite images suggest, evidence of the type of weapons program it has long criticized its archrival Iran for possessing. Further raising the stakes for any such program are comments by Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said last year the kingdom wouldn't hesitate to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads to targets thousands of kilometers away. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Having such a program could further strain relations with the U.S., the kingdom's longtime security partner, at a time when ties already are being tested by the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said heavy investment in missiles often correlates with an interest in nuclear weapons. "I would be a little worried that we're underestimating the Saudis' ambitions here," said Lewis, who has studied the satellite images. The images, first reported by The Washington Post, focus on a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, some 230 kilometers (145 miles) west of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Jane's Defence Weekly first identified the base in 2013, suggesting its two launch pads appear oriented to target Israel and Iran with ballistic missiles the kingdom previously bought from China. The November satellite images show what appear to be structures big enough to build and fuel ballistic missiles. An apparent rocket-engine test stand can be seen in a corner of the base the type on which a rocket is positioned on its side and test-fired in place. Such testing is key for countries attempting to manufacture working missiles, experts say. Michael Elleman, the senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, also reviewed the satellite photos and said they appear to show a ballistic missile program. The question remains where Saudi Arabia gained the technical know-how to build such a facility. Lewis said the Saudi stand closely resembles a design used by China, though it is smaller. Chinese military support to the kingdom would not come as a surprise. The Chinese have increasingly sold armed drones to Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations, even as the U.S. blocks sales of its own to allies over proliferation concerns. Beijing also sold Riyadh variants of its Dongfeng ballistic missiles, the only ones the kingdom was previously believed to have in its arsenal. Asked by The Associated Press on Friday about the base, China's Defense Ministry declined immediately to comment. "I have never heard of such a thing as China helping Saudi Arabia to build a missile base," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Neither Saudi Arabia nor China are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of rockets capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the United States, have long criticized Iran's ballistic missile program, viewing it as a regional threat. Iran, whose nuclear program for now remains limited by its 2015 deal with world powers, insists its atomic program is peaceful. But Western powers have long feared it was pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a civilian program, allegations denied by Tehran. Iran has relied on its ballistic missiles as its own air force is largely made up of pre-1979 fighter jets. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has a fleet of modern F-15s, Typhoons and Tornadoes which raises the question of why the Saudis would choose to develop the missiles. AP NSA NSA Karnal Singh | Arvind Jain THE ENFORCEMENT DIRECTORATE unearthed a maze of shell companies when Karnal Singh was the agencys chief. He was part of the special taskforce on shell companies set up by the Narendra Modi government after demonetisation. In an exclusive interview, Singh, who retired on October 27, 2018, explains how politicians and business tycoons use shell companies to hide ill-gotten wealth. Edited excerpts: Why has there been a sudden crackdown on shell companies? Shell companies have been used extensively in India and abroad for laundering the proceeds of crime. The ED has seen it in the Chhagan Bhujbal case, Bank of Baroda case and in almost all bank fraud cases, including the Vijay Mallya case. In the Sterling Biotech bank fraud case, involving the Sandesara brothers, the ED found they had used 279 shell companies. During demonetisation, the shell companies were extensively used by people to get their cash into the system. This resulted in the formation of the special taskforce on shell companies. What is the modus operandi of setting up shell companies? Shell companies as such are not illegal. Whenever a new business is started, some companies are opened, where there is no underlying business activity because no business has started yet. We will only find money coming into those accounts and going out for the purpose of creation of new business. But when these shell companies are used for laundering ill-gotten money, then they cross the boundary of legitimacy. Generally, people form shell companies using servants, employees and, in some cases, even jhuggi (slum) dwellers. In the Bank of Baroda case, 59 accounts were opened in the name of 59 companies, and most of the directors and shareholders of these companies were found to be residing in jhuggis. The perpetrators of the crime were using these people as directors and opened a company in some rented premises. They paid these directors and so-called owners around Rs10,000 per month. After the work was over, the premises were vacated, leaving no trace of the people who were using them. Thus, the investigation becomes very difficult. Another modus operandi that is used in shell companies is when cash has to be introduced into the banking system. There is a limit on cash deposit; otherwise it gets reported to the financial intelligence units. So the huge amount of cash is given to certain entry operators or people who handle shell companies. They split the amount and deposit the cash into a large number of shell companies. This amount travels through various accounts through the banking channel ultimately to the person who actually gave the cash. Shell companies are also used to manage companies that only issue cash memos or invoices for sale of products, without any underlying product existing. What is the reason for proliferation of shell companies? Shell companies have been there for a long period because people who violate laws have ill-gotten money from criminal activity or tax evasion. The origin of this money has to be concealed, so that law enforcement agencies will not be able to catch them. For concealing the origin, layering is done. The money is passed through various companies so that it becomes difficult to find out the ultimate source. You can compare layering to an onion; you remove a layer and you find another. For example, somebody deposits money in the bank and then takes a loan against it. Thereafter, he repays the loan from the same amount. If someone probes the source of the money, they will say it is a loan from the bank. Then we need to go to the next layer to find out how the bank gave the loan. And many such layers can be created one after the other. The old instruments to hide black money were buying gold, property and so on. Today, shell companies are in vogue. Investigation has indicated that in India mostly two instruments are used for money laundering. One is purchase of properties and the second is the use of shell companies, that is banking instruments. As far as land purchase is concerned, in recent past there has been a reduction in their use for money laundering because prices are not increasing. But both these methods are very important for the money launderer. But, ultimately, even if someone purchases and infuses cash through the land, it has to be put into the system. And, to put into the system you need financial instruments, and, therefore, banking channels become more important. There was a time Swiss bank accounts and offshore accounts in Cayman Islands were widely used to stash money. How big is this threat today? The money can be laundered within the country and also through various jurisdictions. It becomes easier to investigate if the money laundering is done within the country. Investigation becomes more difficult if foreign jurisdictions are involved. The foreign jurisdictions could be one, two or three depending on the number of countries used. For example, in the AgustaWestland case, the bribe money moved from Italy to Tunisia to Mauritius; a part went to Switzerland, Singapore and Dubai. Now, following the trail in all these countries becomes time consuming. The only instrument available is letters rogatory. You dont know when it will be executed. Will it be executed in one month, five months or two years? And once you have to move from one country to another, it may take years together. It is seen that shell companies are opened even in foreign jurisdictions. How do you detect a shell company? Shell companies are companies that have financial transactions without any underlying business. They per se are not illegal entities. They are like any other company. It is their operation which makes the difference. If shell companies are used for illegal purposes then they are wrong. There is no mechanism to identify shell companies unless you see them in operation. Whatever comes in our investigation, we inform the agencies concerned. Many a time, they are started by some chartered accountants with the help of bank employees. Sometimes they are opened by entry operators who are not very well educated. They are not chartered accountants, but they have been doing the operation of shell companies for generations. How difficult has it been investigating high-profile cases? The problem arises at the banking end when the databases are unconnected. In the Nirav Modi case, there was a Swift database, Punjab National Banks core banking system and the foreign exchange transactions database. All the three databases were not automatically connected. The information has to go from one system to another manually. What happened in the Nirav Modi-Mehul Choksi case was that the Swift messages were sent, but they were not entered into the core banking system and the fraud could not be detected. There is an urgent need to connect all the databases. Illustration: Binesh Sreedharan The century-old building is falling apart as if in pain and shame, having lost not only its glory but also its honour. Once home to families of freedom fighters, Nagindas Mansion on JSS Road in Mumbai, is now a symbol of the biggest corporate fraud in India. It is from here that fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi ran his flagship companiesFirestar Diamond Inc and Diamond R Uswhich are at the centre of the Rs11,400-crore Punjab National Bank scam. Income tax departments across states are facing a shortage of officers who can conduct raids and investigate cases. Same is the case with SFIO. GST has helped reduce unaccounted transactions, forcing manufacturers, traders and consumers to enter the legal loop. The Enforcement Directorate has a list of around 40 other companies of Modi that are registered at this address, such as Moon Valuers Pvt Ltd, Moola Consultants Pvt Ltd, Ghazalah Investments Pvt Ltd and Bentley Realty Pvt Ltd. The ED believes these are shell companies formed for routing unaccounted money. Some of them have been forced to shut shop after their names were struck off by the Registrar of Companies; some others have changed name and address. The proliferation of shell companies in cities big and small has become one of the biggest threats to the economic stability of India. There has been a practice of creating some non-compliant companies, commonly known as shell companies or proxy companies, to route the financial transactions and money from the main frontman companies, said P.P. Chaudhary, Union minister of state for corporate affairs. The government has struck off approximately 2.26 lakh companies in its first drive against non-compliant companies. We have written to the chief secretaries of states that the properties of these 2.26 lakh companies should not be allowed to be transferred or sold. In the second drive, the government issued notices to approximately 2.25 lakh non-compliant companies. The ministry is examining the responses of these companies. Till now we have struck off the names of around 1 lakh non-compliant companies of these 2.25 lakh. Nirav Modis Nagindas Mansion address can easily be overlooked. The lane bustles with nondescript hardware and auto parts shops, and there is no sign of Firestar or any diamond trader. But the panwala sitting in front of the mansion has a tale to tell. There used to be movement of heavy boxes up and down the stairs of this building in the presence of private security guards, till the place was sealed by the government, he said. But, we could not imagine there was a diamond industry being run from here. Now I presume there were diamonds in those boxes. Some local shopkeepers claim that they saw Nirav Modi once at the building, much before he hit the headlines. The creaky stairs take you to a closed door on the fourth floor of the mansion. There are some two dozen notices stuck on it, and there is an overflowing letterbox. Several agencies and government departments communicated with this addressthe ED, Income Tax Department, Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Registrar of Companies and even the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Lost glory: Nagindas Mansion in Mumbai, where many of Nirav Modis companies were operating from | Janak Bhat The sole resident of Nagindas Mansion is Siddharth B. Dave, who lives in an apartment on the second floor with his ailing parents. My family has been living here from 1941, he said. His grandmother was a freedom fighter. Flat number 8, 15 and 16 are in possession of Mr Modi, but he never lived here, said Dave. He ran his offices and diamond assorting and polishing units here; at least 200 people were working here every day. Flat number 15 on the fourth floor is above my flat, and illegal construction has been done there. Flats 15 and 16 have been joined and Mr Modi has covered the open terrace with concrete slabs without any permission from the municipal authorities. The balcony has been enclosed in the flat, and illegal lofts have been built. As a result, there is a lot of pressure on my house and the building. I have lodged complaints against Diamond R Us and Firestar to various authorities, but all the agencies have turned a blind eye. Nirav Modis lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal, said there was nothing illegal about various companies having the same address at the Registrar of Companies. It is a common business practice and has been adopted by almost all big groups for cost-effectiveness, convenience and centralisation, he said. Dubious distinction: The Mango Lane building in Kolkata is a hub of shell companies | Salil Bera Floating a company is perfectly legal. But when these companies are used for laundering the ill-gotten money, they cross the boundary of legitimacy, said former ED chief Karnal Singh. He oversaw the investigations of the big bank fraud cases in the past three years, including the ones involving Nirav Modi, liquor baron Vijay Mallya, politician Chhagan Bhujbal and the Sandesara brothers of Sterling Biotech. The EDs charge-sheet against Mallya says that around Rs1,300 crore was laundered through 13 shell companies in the US, France, Ireland and Mauritius. In the Rs8,100 crore bank fraud case against the Sandesara brothers, it is accused that 249 shell companies were created using employees names and used for money laundering. THE WEEK travelled through the maze of shell companies which crisscrosses the countryfrom Delhi to Mumbai and Kolkataand found that not just businessmen and corporate houses, but politicians, too, have time and again used the system to clean ill-gotten wealth. The ED arrested Bhujbal, former Maharashtra deputy chief minister, in 2016. The agency alleged that he laundered kickbacks to the tune of Rs870 crore, and that some of this money was parked abroad and the rest was routed into the country through 212 shell companies. Late vigil: Notices from various agencies stuck on Nirav Modis flat in Nagindas Mansion in Mumbai | Janak Bhat THE WEEK traced a few of the shell companies allegedly belonging to Bhujbal. About a dozen addresses were in the crowded Kalbadevi in Mumbai. They were all fake. An address was an office in Vyapar Bhavan on P. DMello Road. Another was a gymnasium in Andheri West, and another a fancy residential apartment in Santa Cruz. For each shell company named in the charge-sheet, the onus is on the investigating agency to prove they were shell companies and that the company is linked to Bhujbal, said Dr Sujay Kantawala, Bhujbals counsel in the Bombay High Court. But if the agency itself cannot connect the dots, the case will fall flat in court. Bhujbal and his nephew, Sameer, who is also accused in the case, got bail in April 2017, after spending more than a year in jail as undertrials. A month ago, Delhi minister Satyendar Jain was booked by the CBI in a disproportionate assets case involving Rs1.47 crore, after the Centre granted sanctions to prosecute him. The CBI said Jain, who holds health and power portfolios in the Arvind Kejriwal government, gained 217 per cent more than his known source of income from routing of ill-gotten money through shell companies. The Jain family allegedly controlled stakes or had shares in four Delhi-based companies. He had resigned as director of three companies before the 2013 assembly elections, but his family continued to hold shares in them. The CBI says these three companies received Rs1,53,61,167 as accommodation entries from Kolkata-based shell companies between 2015 and 2017. Jain was allegedly being assisted by two others to route money through these shell companies. The disproportionate assets case against the accused has been worked out to Rs1,47,60,497, said the CBI. Kejriwal defended his minister, saying the case was a conspiracy against his government. Jain said that he had had nothing to do with the companies since 2011, when he entered politics. When contacted Jain refused to comment on the matter. Interestingly, be it the Jain case in Delhi or the Bhujbal case in Mumbai, they all take you to Kolkata. Over the years, the city has earned the reputation of being the countrys biggest tax haven, where brokers and entry operators will help you launder money for the cheapest commission. The commission is high in cities like Delhi, Mumbai or Ahmedabad, said an investigator. But in Kolkata, entry operators charge just 3 per cent from their clients. They have been doing this business for generations. The most notorious of the money launderettes in Kolkata is at 3 Mango Lane. The narrow lane has been a hub of shell companies. Packed with tiny one-man shops, it boasts nothing but dilapidated British-era structures. The entry operators fancy themselves as chartered accountants, and work in dingy rooms with just a desk and a computer. For a fee, the operators do everything from preparing financial statements to signing balance sheets and routing money through a web of companies. They are masters in round-tripping to avoid service tax and local duties, and even generate fake bills of entry for transfer of funds from India to countries of their clients choice. The income tax department, SIFO and ED zeroed in on Mango Lane post demonetisation, to crack down on the underbelly of the corporate sector. The taxmen still conduct surprise raids. The moment an IT or ED officer sets foot in the lane, informers alert entry operators. It is difficult to go to these places without a reason. The crowd can turn hostile, said an investigator in Kolkata. Mango Lane lost some of its charm after the implementation of the goods and services tax. Notices of the Registrar of Companies are seen on the doors of most rooms. Many of them have broken locks, and some look abandoned. In the few rooms that are open, chartered accountants and tax consultants are mostly jobless. I used to have so many clients, but the numbers have gone down as people are shutting down companies, said Satbir Mahato, a tax consultant, sitting in his fourth-floor office in the Mango Lane. Earlier, companies could be registered in Kolkata, but now all paperwork has been shifted to the RoC in Delhi. Those running bogus companies want to shut shop as they cannot operate in the current environment. In this building itself, we have no idea how many companies were operating from each room. But after they came under watch, they shut shop. They did not want to live under the constant burden of notices being slapped on them by various authorities. These days most of Mahatos clients come for filing GST returns. GST has helped reduce unaccounted transactions, forcing manufacturers, traders and consumers to enter the legal loop. That, however, might not be enough to clean up the system. And, the de-registration of two lakh plus companies cannot be called a crackdown on shell companies, because some of those were corporates who did not file the annual returns which got struck off, said Satish Saraf, a Hyderabad-based chartered accountant. Shell companies make investigation into financial crimes a big challenge, as there is no specific definition of shell companies in India. Shell companies used for illegitimate purposes do not have any real business operations, said Amardeep Singh Bhatia, director, SFIO. These companies are used to hide ownership, evade tax, channel money for siphoning, bribery or other illegal activities. It could be detrimental for the government to stop people from setting up companies, but it can put safeguards after the time of inception of the company. This includes closely watching bank accounts, real time gross settlement transfers (electronic payment) and foreign remittances, said Shariq Nachan, a Mumbai-based corporate lawyer. This points to the need to strengthen the banking systems so that they are able to detect a fraud. In 2015, the CBI found that 59 current accounts had been opened in the name of 59 directors of companies in Bank of Barodas Ashok Vihar branch in Delhi. The Rs6,000-crore scam came to light in an internal audit, and the subsequent probe by the CBI found that two bank officials allegedly connived with some businessmen to route black money through shell companies. The investigation found that illegal remittances were made from the bank branch to more than 350 accounts in Hong Kong and Dubai in 2014 and 2015 in the guise of advance import remittances and remittances towards purported software imports. Nothing was imported, and to remit the money the operators submitted fake documents before the bank, said ED officials. Fake voter IDs and PAN cards were used to open the 59 accounts, with addresses in remote villages. Many of the directors of these companies were living in slums; some were autorickshaw drivers and some car drivers. These people were paid Rs10,000 to lend their names as directors of the companies. The amount remitted in each transaction would be kept below $1,00,000, as for transactions above this amount, banks need to submit a report to the Reserve Bank. The amount was remitted as advance for import, and in most cases the beneficiary was the same, said the CBI in its charge-sheet. Three years later, however, all those who were arrested are out on bail, and the CBI and ED are grappling with the investigations. While the CBI has not been able to marshal up enough evidence under the Prevention of Corruption Act, the ED is fighting the bail applications of the accused. The government has taken certain steps to prevent bank frauds, such as allowing foreign remittances only if the bank account is at least two years old, asking banks to file regular reports to the RBI and giving online access to the RBI into the electronic data process of the customs department, which has bills of entry of all the ports in the country. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has suggested to the corporate affairs ministry to amend the Companies Auditors Report Order (CARO) to require a statutory auditor to certify if the company concerned is a shell company. The ICAI is looking into the role of 26 chartered accountants whose reference came from the SFIO for their alleged links to shell companies, said Vinod Rawal, a Delhi-based chartered accountant. The parliamentary standing committee on corporate affairs, headed by former corporate affairs minister Veerappa Moily, has also asked the government to define shell companies. Moily has criticised the government for suggesting that the de-registration of companies from RoC is a crackdown on shell companies. The government surely cannot rest after striking off names of some companies, as hundreds of companies are created every day. Currently, there are 18,10,813 companies registered in India, and 11,16,362 of them were active as on October 31, 2018. And, scamsters are fast changing their modus operandithey have started using shelf companies, or dormant companies that have been created for the purpose of money laundering and routing funds when the need arises. After the implementation of GST, there has been a spike in bogus billings to evade tax. And, income tax departments across states are facing a shortage of officers who can conduct raids and investigate cases. Same is the case with SFIO. So, rather than focusing on defining shell or shelf companies, the government, the banking regulator and the law enforcement agencies need to sharpen the existing mechanisms and rules to weed out corruption, safeguard genuine business interests and ensure healthy growth of the corporate sector. Money can be stashed anywhere. Three chimpanzees in the Alipore zoo in KolkataBasanti, Chhotu and Mastanattract hundreds of people every day. They are also closely watched by ED sleuths. It took a while for investigators to figure out that these chimpanzees had links with shell companies. It all began when the customs department seized some exotic birds, marmosets and chimpanzees from the residence of a suspect in Baguiati near Salt Lake in 2014. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau was called to identify the birds and animals. The man was using a forged trade licence and permission to exhibit the animals. During the investigation, it was found that huge amounts of cash had been deposited into the accounts of the man and his wife, and shell companies were used to deposit the money. This was when the ED got involved in the case. The man claimed that his grandparents brought some chimpanzees from Africa and these chimps were born here. Each chimpanzees value is estimated to be around 06 lakh. The customs case did not stand the scrutiny in the court and the charges were dropped. But the ED took over the case and is almost done with the investigation of the money laundering angle and use of shell companies. But the agency now has a unique challenge before it. It will soon be moving court to attach the proceeds of crime, which, for a change, are not fancy apartments or shops at plum locations, but three playful chimps. Home to too many More than 18,000 companies are using Ugland House, a five storey building in the Cayman Islandsa British territory in the western Caribbean seaas their registered office. In 2009, former US president Barack Obama described Ugland House as the largest tax scam in the world. Finding the fraudsters A 2018 report from the corporate affairs ministry says that only 66 per cent of 18.1 lakh registered companies in India are active. The ministry struck off 2,26,166 inactive companies from official records during financial year 2017-2018 invoking Section 248 of the Companies Act, 2013. Hero behind the veil The Panama Papers in 2016 revealed details of more than 2.14 lakh offshore companies involved with Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The data was leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists by an anonymous informant. The Panama Papers featured the names of over 500 Indians. The toll in a dam collapse at a mine in southeast Brazil rose to nine dead and some 300 missing, local firefighters said early Saturday, doubling the number of missing people. The earlier toll after a torrent of mud broke through the disused dam Friday at the iron-ore mine owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale in Minas Gerias state was seven dead and 150 missing. The tailings dam, owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale, broke apart "very violently, very suddenly", sending a massive torrent of mud over the complex where 300 mine employees were working, Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman told a news conference in Rio de Janeiro. The deluge rumbled on to the nearby town of Brumadinho, located southwest of the city of Belo Horizonte, cutting a swath through vegetation, farmland and roads, and impeding access to the area. The death toll was expected to go higher, as rescue teams scoured through the big disaster zone overnight into Saturday. Brazil's new government led by President Jair Bolsonaro reacted to its first big emergency since taking office early this month by launching disaster coordination between the defense, mining and environment ministries and authorities in the affected state of Minas Gerais. Bolsonaro and his defense minister were to fly over the zone on Saturday. His environment minister raced to the area late Friday. Schvartsman called the dam break "a human tragedy, because we're talking about probably a large number of victimswe don't know how many but we know it will be a high number". He said more than 100 of the mine's employees had been located alive, but the rest were missing. Schvartsman, who had his two-year term renewed just last month by Vale's board, said the it had been an "inactive dam" that was in the process of being decommissioned that burst apart. Its contents tailings, or mining byproducts mixed with watercascaded into another dam, which overflowed, he said. The liquid, brown massreportedly quantified at one million tons by Ibama, Brazil's environmental protection agencybarrelled on towards Brumadinho, population 39,000, but did not deal it a direct hit. Shares in Vale plummeted eight per cent in New York trading Friday. The Sao Paulo stock market was closed for a holiday. Friday's disaster recalled trauma from a 2015 dam break in a different part of the same state of Minas Gerais, in Mariana, in which 19 people died. That accident three years ago released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along hundreds of kilometers (miles), causing what is considered the country's worst environmental disaster. Vale was joint operator of that dam, along with the Anglo-Australian group BHP. Police had blocked access roads to Brumadinho on Friday after the disaster. Civil defense officials said people living in low-lying areas in the town had been evacuated. Vale issued a statement saying it had set up shelters for Brumadinho residents left homeless. Brumadinho's municipality issued an alert on social media warning residents to move away from the Paraopeba river that the dam had been holding back. The town is best known to tourists for Inhotim, an outdoor contemporary art museum, which was evacuated as a precaution. The venue receives 35,000 visitors a month. India, the worlds largest democracy, walks into its 70th Republic Day today. On this day in 1950, the Constitution of India replaced the archaic Government of India Act. At that point in time, we had Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the nations prime minister. Since then, we had around 15 Indian prime ministers leading the country as the de facto head. It took us 70 years to get back our former glory, and every prime minister had something to offer in this journey. We decided to list out the leaders of our great nation and their achievements during their tenure in office. This Republic Day, dont just know the leaders of the nation. Also, know what they did for the nation. 1. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (August 15, 1947-May 27, 1964) The longest-serving prime minister, Chacha Nehru (as he is fondly remembered) held his office for 17 years. Some of his key achievements are: Set up premier institutions like IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, etc. Agricultural growthabolished giant landholdings, undertook irrigation projects Helped recover the economy by increasing the GDP and GNP by 4 per cent. World trade share decreased by 0.5 per cent. Helped in social changes by decriminalising caste-based discrimination, worked towards women rights, etc Made primary education available for every child Helped India build a good rapport in international politics and pacified domestic struggle The list can go on. Considering he was Indias first Prime Minister and served for 17 years, it is hardly a surprise. 2. Gulzarilal Nanda (May 27, 1964-June 9, 1964; January 11-January 24, 1966) Serving as the acting prime minister after the death of Nehru, Nanda served the office for two months. In his brief tenure, he did not sit quietly, bring about numerous changes. Later, he was again appointed as the acting prime minister after the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri for 13 days. His achievements include: He served as the PM during a very critical time, considering the political instability just after the major 1962 Indo-China War and the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War Brought Labour Reforms 3. Lal Bahadur Shastri (June 9, 1964-Jan 11, 1966) Considered to be a leader of the masses, Lal Bahadur Shastri also served as the railway minister and home minister. In his two-year tenure, before his tragic death, he brought in some key achievements. His famous slogan Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan to cheer the soldiers and farmers was extremely popular. His achievements include: Brought about the Green Revolution Helped the dairy industry produce more, which lead to the 1970 Operation Flood. Helped India harness nuclear power Maintained international relations, including the signing of the Tashkent Agreement 4. Indira Gandhi (January 24, 1966-March 24, 1977; January 14, 1980-October 31, 1984) Known as the Iron Lady of India, Indira Gandhi was and till date the only female prime minister of India. A central figure in Indian politics, Indira Gandhi brought in a lot of changes. Her key achievements are: Nationalized banks Reduced unemployment Introduced equal pay for genders Strengthened international and domestic policies Increased national security Integrated Sikkim as an Indian state in 1975 5. Morarji Desai (March 24, 1977- July 28, 1979) The first Indian PM who was not from a Congress party, Morarji Desai was (and still is) the oldest person to hold the Prime Ministers office. In his two years in the office, he brought about some major reforms. Banned currency notes worth Rs 1,000, Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 Supported peace activism and initiated peace talks with Pakistan 6. Charan Singh (July 28, 1979- January 14, 1980) Considered to be the champion of peasants, Chaudhary Charan Singh enjoyed a brief time in the office. Presented novel strategies to deal with Indias development Vocal about the upliftment of the backward classes 7. Rajiv Gandhi (October 31, 1984- December 2, 1989) Part of the Gandhi-Nehru family, Rajiv Gandhi was the son of Indira Gandhi. After his brother, Sanjay Gandhi, died in an aeroplane crash, Rajiv Gandhi decided to enter politics. He is often credited with contributing the most towards Indias IT revolution. Reduced license raj Reforms in economic policies Improved relation with both USA and USSR Helped contribute massively to the IT Revolution 8. Vishwanath Pratap Singh (December 2, 1989-November 10, 1990) Known for the implementation of the Mandal Commission, V.P Singhs short tenure of 11 months was full of interesting developments. Handled domestic controversies, including the kidnapping of his home ministers daughter Stopped Pakistans attempt to start a border war with India Apologised for Operation Blue Star and curbed the insurgency in Punjab 9. Chandra Shekhar Singh (November 10, 1990-June 21, 1991) The second shortest tenure after Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhars tenure lasted a little over seven months. Due to the political instability at that point, he couldnt contribute much. 10. P.V. Narasimha Rao (June 21, 1991-May 16, 1996) Referred to as the Father of Indian Economic Reforms, Narasimha Rao was instrumental to Indias growth and globalisation. Under his leadership, India experienced a shift in its economic model; going from a mixed economy to a market economy. Some of his key achievements were: Managed Indias economic crisis of 1991 Abolished License Raj Opened equity markets for foreign investments Boosted Indias nuclear programme 11. Atal Bihari Vajpayee (May 16, 1996- June 1, 1996; March 19, 1998- October 10, 1999; October 10, 1999- May 22, 2004) One of the most recognised politicians of India, Vajpayee was the first non-Congress prime minister to hold office for a full term. Under his tenure, India transitioned into a new era and saw a lot of changes. Some of his key achievements include: India carried out the Pokhran II nuclear tests Encouraged private sector and foreign investments Implemented National Highway Development Project Implemented Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan 12. H.D. Deve Gowda (June 1, 1996- April 21, 1997) Holding the post for 10 months, Gowda was also the head of the United Front Government. In this 10 months of tenure, he was also the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the United Front. This was the highest body which was in charge of all the constituents of the ruling front. 13. I.K. Gujral (April 21, 1997- March 19, 1998) Famous for implementing the Gujral Doctrine, Gujral was also in office for 10 months. Gujral also held important positions before handling the PM office. 14. Dr Manmohan Singh (May 22, 2004-May 26, 2014) Considered to be Indias best finance minister, Manmohan Singh is considered to be one of the best economists in the country. As the prime minister of the country, he was in charge of some of the biggest changes in the country. His wonderful achievements include: Highest GDP growth since independence Became the worlds 2nd fastest growing economy Launched the National Rural Healthcare Mission Passed the RTI Act Improved diplomatic relations 15. Narendra Modi (May 26, 2014-Present) After coming to power after riding the Modi wave, Modi went on to create history by becoming Indias most popular prime minister. Currently, the 14th Prime Minister of the country (Gulzarilal Nandas tenure was considered to be acting PM), Modi went on to introduce many schemes. He sits on a list of achievements, including: Started Make In India and Digital India Implemented Goods and Services Tax (GST) Implemented Pradhan Mantri Yojna Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan Beti Bachao Beti Padhao So, thats the countrys history. How well do you know the men who shaped our country? We wish you a Happy Republic Day this 2019 and hope you actively show interest in the countrys policies. How will this country prosper if the citizens are not active and show an educated opinion when it comes to the countrys welfare! Via GrabOn The second wave of Covid-19 is sweeping through India, and... By Dr Monali C. Rahalkar and Dr Rahul Bahulikar Timothy Seth Bryant Pennington was born on January 30, 1988 in Corbin, Ky. He departed this life on June 3, 2021 to be with his Lord and Savior, whom he accepted as a young boy at his church, West Corbin Baptist. Seth was assured of his salvation and knew where he would spend his eternity. S The governments partial shutdown has everyone on edge this year. Despite assurances from the powers that be, many taxpayers are concerned that their tax returns wont be processed on time. Should you be worried? One misconception many have is that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is closed. Not true, the IRS remains open, despite having no budget since Dec. 21, 2018. The agency is running under a contingency plan, which includes operating with only 12 percent of its staff. Usually, you can e-file your returns in late January, and that remains doable. The IRS announced it will be accepting 2018 tax returns starting Jan. 28, 2019. They also said they would be issuing refunds. To do so, they will be bringing back a large portion of their laid-off workers. Those workers, like the other 800,000 furloughed Federal workers, wont be getting a pay check until the shutdown is over. The question remains: how many of those workers are willing to return to their jobs without a paycheck? We are already seeing some departments (such as Homelands TSA workers) balk at working for free any longer. But the government shutdown is not all the IRS needs to worry about. Thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in a hurry by Congress last year, the IRS has been working overtime to deal with the mountain of new changes and adaptions necessary to reflect the new tax laws. To add insult to injury, it took months before the new rules were actually delivered to the IRS from the legislative branch. At the time, the Inspector General said that it would take massive resources to do what was necessary to fulfill taxpayer expectations, while making sure the IRS is compliant with the new laws. The new tax reform legislation contained nearly 120 provisions, affecting both domestic and international taxation of American individuals and corporations. As a result, nearly 450 new forms, sets of instructions, and publications would need to be published and disseminated. On the IT side, another 140 information technology systems would need to be modified so that tax returns could be processed, and compliance monitored. Conservatively, the IRS estimated that 4 million additional phone calls and other contacts would be required to deal with questions taxpayers and their accountants were going to have about how to file individual returns. And here we are beginning tax season and those calls have just begun! Remember, the IRS warned months ago that there might be delays due to the enormity of changes required of them. The tax reform is certainly making life difficult for us, says Barry Clairmont, a partner in Lombardi, Clairmont & Keegan, one of the leading accounting firms in the Berkshires. Tax preparation is taking longer, and, on the corporate side, there is more reporting required due to what we call QIB or qualified business income. Clairmonts advice is that corporations should begin the filing process now and not wait until the last minute. On the other side of the country, Terry Milrany, one of the most respected accountants in Fort Worth, Texas, echoes much of what Clairmont says. He, too, sees the general business deductions of the 20 percent pass through change in the tax law as something that is still evolving from within the IRS. Just in the last two days, he said, I received another (and hopefully final) update from the IRS on this rule, As for the shut downs impact on tax returns, Milrany, who has been doing tax returns for fifty years, says We just dont know how the shut-down or the tax changes are going to impact returns. We are not deep enough into the filing season yet. Bill Schmick is registered as an investment advisor representative and portfolio manager with Berkshire Money Management (BMM), managing over $400 million for investors in the Berkshires. Bills forecasts and opinions are purely his own and do not necessarily represent the views of BMM. None of his commentary is or should be considered investment advice. Anyone seeking individualized investment advice should contact a qualified investment adviser. None of the information presented in this article is intended to be and should not be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. The reader should not assume that any strategies, or specific investments discussed are employed, bought, sold or held by BMM. Direct your inquiries to Bill at 1-888-232-6072 (toll free) or e-mail him at wschmick@berkshiremm.com .Visit www.afewdollarsmore.com for more of Bills insights. Accident closes I-72 Friday afternoon Westbound Interstate 72 at mile marker 67 was closed for about an hour Friday afternoon after a vehicle rollover closed the road to traffic. The accident occurred just after 3:30 p.m. Friday. The Illinois State Police is investigating the crash and no information has been released at this time. Morgan County Jacksonville Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Emily R. Veach, 19, of Bunker Hill was booked into the Morgan County jail at 4:55 p.m. Friday on a charge of possession of a controlled substance. Michael A. Nickey, 33, of 1111 E. Morton Ave. was booked into the Morgan County jail at 7:19 p.m. Friday on a domestic battery charge. Calhoun County Sheriff ARRESTS, CITATIONS Humberto R. Rodriquez, 40, of Beardstown was booked into the Greene County Jail at 12:50 a.m. Sunday on a violation of an order of protection. Greene County Sheriff ARRESTS, CITATIONS William A. Friedel, 62, of Kampsville was booked into the Greene County Jail at 10:30 p.m. Jan. 18 on a Calhoun County arrest warrant accusing him of deceptive practice. Roodhouse Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Larry P. Counts Jr., 35, of Roodhouse was booked into the Greene County Jail at 12:55 p.m. Sunday on a Greene County petition to revoke probation. White Hall Police ARRESTS, CITATIONS Jeffery T. Taylor, 51, of White Hall was booked into the Greene County Jail at 8:55 p.m. Monday on a criminal trespass to property charge. Cody D. Taylor, 23, of Patterson was booked into the Greene County Jail at 4:10 p.m. Tuesday on a charge of driving while license is suspended. Compiled by David C.L. Bauer and Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree BLOOMINGTON (AP) Over the past 10 months, Matt Everlys faith in God has been tested and affirmed. His faith in the criminal justice system still needs some repair. Sitting in his living room in a comfortable ranch home on Bloomingtons east side with his wife, Emily, Everly struggles to make sense of his collision with the legal system that could have put him behind bars for life. An associate pastor of worship at Eastview Christian Church in Normal before charges accusing him of aggravated battery of his infant daughter, Olivia, were filed in May, Everly said he is focused on the future. Finding a job is task one, said Everly, noting that Eastview has not invited me back at this point to resume what he considered a dream job. The Everlys future was in jeopardy before a judges ruling Dec. 31 acquitting him of seven felony counts the most serious accusing him of breaking Olivias legs and her arm. In late March, Everly and Emily took their 2-week-old daughter to the pediatrician after noticing swelling in her left leg. The first-time parents were directed by the babys doctor to OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria. The couple met with Dr. Channing Petrak, medical director of the Pediatric Resource Center. The couple was unaware of Petraks specialty in child abuse detection until they returned home and read the packet of information given to them by center staff. They also didnt know they were suspected of harming their baby until the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took custody of the infant and sent her home with Matts parents. Looking back, Emily Everly thinks Petraks role was misrepresented to us. We didnt even know she was part of the investigation. While doctors examined Olivias injuries, the parents spoke with a DCFS investigator. Separate interviews of both parents followed at the hospital with Bloomington police detectives John Heinlen and Curt Maas. The 26-year-old father was interviewed a second time. Both parents denied harming their child. In his second interview, Matt Everly said he may have applied too much pressure to the babys legs during a nighttime diaper change. Everlys statement considered a confession by police set in motion eight months of the baby living without both parents and two court cases that racked up about $30,000 in legal fees and $25,000 in bond. In an interview last week with The Pantagraph, the Everlys recalled meeting with authorities at the hospital. The focus of the conversation was on finding an explanation for what doctors determined were multiple fractures in both of the babys legs. The couple viewed police and the doctor as partners in the search for answers. We were both raised, and still believe for the most part, that police are there to help. And we didnt see Dr. Petrak as being against us ever until later, said Matt Everly, who was a mandated reporter of child abuse during his five years in the ministry. During the trial, defense lawyer Scott Kording was critical of how BPD detectives handled the investigation, pointing to an assertion by Heinlen that follow-up interviews were unnecessary with other people who may have had contact with the baby. Kording called the interrogation of the father pathetic and shameful. McLean County States Attorney Don Knapp said his office stands behind the BPDs work on the case. While some have certainly done as much, few have done more to protect children and others in this community than the Bloomington Police Department and the lead detective in this case, said Knapp. After the trial, Kording said, Ultimately the system worked, but there were a lot of missteps along the way by those in authority. BPD Chief Clay Wheeler also defends the investigation, saying officers work with the states attorneys office to determine what follow-up may be needed on a case. The state was unaware of the names of those who visited the baby until a list of defense witnesses was disclosed shortly before the trial, said Wheeler. Matt Everly became a serious suspect after his statement about putting pressure on the childs legs, said Wheeler. The only person who said something accounting for the injuries was the person charged, he said. The trauma of a child abuse accusation was felt immediately by the parents. The ride home from Peoria without Olivia was horrible. We didnt know what to say to each other, said Emily, who was allowed to be with her daughter at her parents home during the day, but was forced to leave at night a challenging proposition for a breastfeeding mother. After a week, Matt was allowed supervised visits five hours a day, four days a week with his daughter. On April 2, the couple attended their first hearing in child abuse and neglect court. Emily sorted through the paperwork that spelled out the requirements for regaining custody of the baby. It was like drinking from a fire hose, she said. In the meantime, the Everlys learned during a check-up two weeks after Olivias release from the hospital that she also had suffered a broken arm. The orthopedic physicians comment that the fracture was healing nicely caught the parents off guard. We were shocked. We wondered when we would had ever learned about it from Olivias doctors in Peoria, said Emily. Doctors believe the arm fracture dated back to March, but was not visible in earlier X-rays, according to medical testimony at Everlys trial. In May, tests requested by the parents on Olivia ruled out genetic bone disease as a cause of the fractures. (Police had told the Everlys the tests had been done and no bone-related issues were detected.) After the test results were returned, the state filed charges. Although not completely unexpected, Everly said he found the allegations completely shocking in number and severity. Family and friends raised the $25,000 he needed to be released from jail. He was forced to resign from his ministry post. Everly found a job working the night shift at a cereal plant in Gridley, but has been unemployed since the business closed in December. Emily was allowed to move home with Olivia in July, but her husband had to stay elsewhere. The state dropped the civil case in November without finding Everly responsible for the injuries. The decision allowed him to return home, but he remains on a DCFS list of child abusers, a designation he plans to challenge. The experience of meeting the demands of the child welfare system left Emily feeling blessed for the support surrounding her family. She also became aware of the challenges other parents face when they lack such a network. We all have a lot of healing to do. Its been a really hard year. This is always going to be part of our story, said Emily. Fully recovered from her medical issues, Olivia maneuvers across the floor between her parents and the family dog. The Everlys still rely on their faith to lead them to the next step. I trusted my team and I trusted God. I knew he would get us to the other side of this. We had to take that leap of faith. We know Gods up to something, said Matt Everly. EDWARDSVILLE The third times a charm for Republican Sen. Jason Plummer. Plummer campaigned for lieutenant governor in 2010, but his running mate, Senate Republican Leader Bill Brady, lost to Democrat Pat Quinn, the incumbent governor at the time. Then, as candidate for Illinois 12th Congressional District in 2012, Plummer lost to Democrat Bill Enyart, who garnered 52 percent of the vote compared to Plummers 43 percent. But in November, Plummer was elected to represent the states 54th Senate District, defeating Democratic opponent Brian Stout by 40 percentage points. He was sworn in on Jan. 9. Representing all or parts of eight counties just east of St. Louis, Plummer said his main focus this session is to improve southern Illinois economy. Im a socially conservative guy, and I think Ill represent the values of southern Illinois well, Plummer said. But my overarching focus is an economic one bringing opportunity back to families of southern Illinois. Plummer was born in Staunton, where his family began a lumber business, R.P. Lumber, in 1977. The business now deals in many different fields, including real estate development, property management and hotels, with Plummer serving as vice president of corporate development. Previously, Plummer was an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves. Plummer discussed some of his legislative priorities with Capitol News Illinois as he heads into his first legislative session. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Capitol News Illinois: Which of your experiences will add the most value to your work as a lawmaker? Jason Plummer: I come from a business background, and weve created over a thousand jobs for families. I know what it takes to create quality jobs. And I think we need folks in Springfield that understand the consequences of what they do, and have lived in an environment where theyre dealing with those consequences. In the past, weve had some folks in Springfield who werent as connected in that regard. CNI: What are your first impressions of your new job as state lawmaker? JP: Ive met with a lot of folks Republicans and Democrats and Ive been really encouraged thus far with how many items were in agreement on. Now, thats talking in hallways and chit-chatting at the Capitol. We have to also make sure were in agreement when the rubber hits the road, and Im hopeful that through building good relationships and through being transparent and honest with people, well be able to get good things accomplished. CNI: What are your highest-priority economic issues? JP: We need real workers compensation reform to be more competitive with our neighboring states. My workers comp expenses are three times what they would be in Indiana and about 2.3 times what they would be in Missouri. And that line item in the budget is not a small line item its significant. Workers comp expenses can truly be the difference between whether or not a business can or cannot make money in Illinois. Historically, the manufacturing, construction and transportation industries have been really important industries for Illinois, and our outrageous workers comp situation puts us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to those jobs. Our overall tax burden is also a very significant issue. Im completely committed to property tax reform. We need to make sure that our families are not getting squeezed by out-of-control property taxes. Ive been involved in a million different campaigns. Usually in campaigns, there are five or six or eight different issues that you hear fairly regularly. I kid you not, 80-plus percent of the communications that we received [on my campaign] were about property taxes. People are fed up with out-of-control property taxes, and frankly what I think were doing to a lot of families in southern Illinois is immoral. We cannot continue to price people out of their houses. Its just not right. CNI: Given that property taxes are levied locally and not by the state, do you think a whole new system would be necessary to lower taxes? JP: Its a very important part of a broader conversation that has to be had about the tax burden in general. The overall tax burden in Illinois sales tax, gas tax, income tax, property tax were one of the highest taxed populations in the country. So I think its an important line item in a broader conversation. We have to slash the number of governmental units that exist. We have something around 7,000, which is dramatically higher than any other state, even those with significantly higher populations like Texas and California. All those little units are taking part of your property taxes. So if we could streamline government that would be a great thing, and interestingly enough, there are some bills being talked about right now that would do exactly that. CNI: If you could only accomplish one thing in the new legislative session, what would it be? JP: The most important thing that Im focused on is creating an environment of opportunity in southern Illinois. Back in the 80s and the 90s, Illinois was a growing state, businesses were coming here, people were coming here. Kids graduating immediately went into the workforce. There was optimism and opportunity. I feel like that has disappeared from a lot of parts of Illinois, and we need to turn that around. If you create an environment where people can have good jobs, I think a lot of your other societal problems disappear. Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit news service operated by the Illinois Press Foundation that provides coverage of state government to newspapers throughout Illinois. The mission of Capitol News Illinois is to provide credible and unbiased coverage of state government to the more than 400 daily and weekly newspapers that are members of the Illinois Press Association. Doubling down on his claim a federal carbon tax would drive Ontario into a recession, Premier Doug Ford has taken to Twitter to challenge doubters. Its hard to believe economists with theories that making everything more expensive is a good idea, Ford wrote Tuesday in the wake of news stories that raised questions about his recession warning in a luncheon speech a day earlier. The threat of a carbon tax recession is real. The cost of goods that are made, farmed + transported in Ontario will go up with a carbon tax. The price will be paid by Ontarians, the premier continued. Pushback came from economists who said Fords contention is wrong. Im one of the authors of the Conference Board study cited by Fords staff to back the premiers warning, economist Robyn Gibbard wrote on Twitter. At no point do we say that the carbon tax could cause a recession. We specifically describe the overall economic impact as small. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau admonished Ford for using the R-word, saying it is destabilizing and can actually imperil the very jobs that people have. You cant play around with those sorts of words that can cause real damage, Morneau said. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy. None of the major banks has predicted a recession in their latest forecasts. University of Western Ontario economist Mike Moffatt also weighed in, tweeting, Both the theoretical and experiential evidence is clear: there is no risk of a carbon tax recession. The Premier is making things up. Moffatt, who teaches at Westerns Ivey School of Business, said media fact-checking of Fords comments put people like him in a difficult spot. Im *really* not a fan of the framing of Politician vs. Economists, since that puts the onus on us, and makes us appear as a side in this, Moffatt tweeted. The issue here is Politician vs. The Truth. Ford made the controversial remarks Monday at the Economic Club of Canada, saying a federal carbon tax would be a disaster. "You can be for a carbon tax or you can be for manufacturing jobs, he said, but you cant be for both. Under the federal plan, the average Ontario household will pay $244 more annually on gasoline, natural gas and home heating oil, offset by $300 in rebates bankrolled by large industrial polluters. Ford has vowed a $30-million court fight to block the federal tax, which was imposed by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government after Ontarios Progressive Conservative government axed a cap-and-trade program implemented by former premier Kathleen Wynne. Critics have accused Ford of being a stalking horse for the federal Conservatives on the carbon tax issue with national election coming in October. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Former Liberal MP Bob Rae, once a New Democrat premier of Ontario, said on Twitter that a recession will eventually come and Ford is creating the context and narrative to be able to point fingers. This is what post truth politics is all about, he said. Read more about: OTTAWACanadian diplomats suffering health woes after time in Cuba have symptoms consistent with a brain injury, according to an Ottawa doctor who has assessed them, turning aside speculation that the problems are psychosomatic. Do I believe that these people have presentations consistent with someone who has had a concussion or brain injury? Yes, said Dr. Shawn Marshall, medical director for acquired brain injury rehabilitation at the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre. Canadians and American diplomats and dependants began reporting mysterious health problems in late 2016 and into 2017, setting off an international investigation. Marshall started seeing the Canadians in mid-2017 at the request of Global Affairs. Marshall, a specialist in brain injuries, said he assessed the patients using a protocol similar to one used to screen people who have suffered a concussion. Most of them present with difficulties with physical symptoms, Marshall told the Star in an interview. They are noticing problems with balance, theyre seeing problems with coordination. theyre noticing problems with fatigue, being tired. Theyre noticing problems with thinking flows, thinking more slowly, decreased ability to concentrate and focus, he said. Read more: Diplomats express concern over treatment for effects of mystery illness encountered in Cuba Ottawa reviews embassy operation in Cuba after another diplomat falls ill Ottawa defends response to mystery attacks on Canadian diplomats in Cuba Marshall said that at the outset, there was little known about the potential cause of the symptoms. While the symptoms were similar to those of a concussion, none of these patients had suffered a blunt force blow that might explain it. But Marshall said there can be a number of causes for such injuries in addition to an external force. But those forces or injury to the brain can be from physical forces that aren't necessarily traumatic strikes or blows. For example, we know that a blast ... can cause brain injury, Marshall said. There are different forms of energy that can cause it. Infection can definitely cause it ... I dont have any evidence of that at all or any suggestion of that. But Im just saying that there are multiple different causes. Even now after his assessments, Marshall said the cause remains a puzzle. The only connection I have is that these patients were associated with a government posting in Havana. Global Affairs officials also say that a multi-agency investigation has not yet been able to pinpoint a cause. An examination of potential environmental factors at Havana properties occupied by the Canadians ruled out air or water as the cause. Some of the diplomats and family members associated the onset of the symptoms with strange noises heard at the time, like grinding noises or the sound of warping metal. However experts arent convinced there is a link. In the absence of clear causes, theres been speculation the ailment might be mass hysteria or conversion disorder, where a person suffers symptoms that cant be explained by a physical cause, sometimes triggered by stress. It was a theory most recently advanced in a Vanity Fair feature, titled, The Real Story Behind the Havana Embassy Mystery. But Marshall disagrees. He has also treated patients with such disorders and thats not what he saw in the Canadians. Im less inclined to believe that. Having seen these patients, that was not my overall impression, he said. I have actually seen a number of patients with conversion disorder, factitious disorder over the years. These patients Im seeing dont seem to be like that, he said. For starters, Marshall said that some of the Canadians experienced symptoms before they became aware of a broader problem, discounting the possibility that they were influenced by reports of illness among their colleagues. Before they even knew something was going on, they were describing some pretty remarkable symptoms that would be hard to explain as it being due to other causes, like social influence or fear, anxiety, Marshall said. The union representing foreign service workers has also pushed back against suggestions that the mass hysteria is the cause. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO) wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland a year ago to flag serious concern about the governments handling of the case. In that letter, obtained by the Star, the association accused Global Affairs of downplaying the impact of the incidents on Canadian personnel, even going so far as to question whether or not the issues our members were psychosomatic in nature. PAFSO consider that the collective hysteria hypothesis is not rigorous and impossible, stated the letter, dated Jan. 22, 2018. It said that repeated suggestions that health issues are imagined or the symptoms of extreme stress were only adding to the duress felt by diplomats and family members already struggling with health ailments. In a statement to the Star earlier this month, Global Affairs said the cause of the health woes was still not known. We are investigating any and all possible causes, and we will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our diplomats and their families, the department said. Canada has an evidence-based approach to addressing this situation, and our response is guided by the advice of medical experts and treating physicians. At the current time, the cause of these health problems remains unknown. The U.S. State Department is sticking by its claim that its personnel were deliberately targeted. To date, 26 Americans have been identified with otherwise-unexplained medically confirmed symptoms and clinical findings and the department isnt ruling out that there may be more cases yet. Given the seeming exclusive focus on U.S. government personnel and their families in Havana, as well as the scope and duration of incidents, the department has categorized the events in Havana as attacks, the department said in an email to the Star. The investigation is ongoing to determine the source and cause of the health attacks. Marshall said that the Canadians affected by the health problems are improving, thanks to therapy and in some cases medication but cautioned that recovery from brain injuries can take time. Life is complicated and other factors affect your function. So if you ask too much of your brain, you may not recover as expected or if you're asking it to function at high level, you can have other complications, like your mood can change if you can't do what you need to do and symptoms can persist, he said. Meanwhile, Global Affairs refuses to comment on the fate of Canada's embassy in Havana after a high-level visit by officials last month. In December, the department revealed that medical testing had confirmed yet another diplomat who had served in Cuba was suffering health problems. That brought to 13 the number of confirmed cases, including dependants. The discovery of another case prompted the federal government to send a high-level team to Havana to evaluate diplomatic operations in the country to ensure the protection of embassy staff. But since that visit the department has been tight-lipped on the outcome of that visit or what, if any, changes were made to Canadas diplomatic footprint in Cuba, despite repeated questions from the Star. Meng arrest and politics are intertwined, Jan. 22 If the crime of which Meng Wanzhou is accused contravenes sanctions that were unilaterally imposed by the U.S., and which are not recognized in Canada, then what is our legal obligation to hold her in custody pending an extradition hearing? Surely an extradition treaty cannot be used to enforce laws in one country, which are not considered illegal in Canada, especially when the actions considered to have contravened those laws, were not committed in either the U.S. or in Canada? Evan Cameron, Midland, Ont. Canada is caught between two superpowers, and my definition of a superpower is a nation that can interfere in the affairs of another nation, at a distance, with minimal consequences. Prevention would have been the best way to avoid this geopolitical quandary, i.e. someone in the intelligence community should have tipped off Meng Wanzhou that she risked arrest by landing in Vancouver. The legal proceedings around her arrest must be expedited, and if the U.S. cant quickly produce extradition papers, than they are simply playing games. The Trump administration rather arbitrarily re-introduced sanctions against Iran, another internationally criminal regime, despite evidence that Iran was complying with the measures to cease their nuclear weapons program, in accordance with agreements made to the international community. But you cant make agreements with a mercurial know-nothing like Donald Trump any more than you can with a dictatorial know-everything type like the ruler-for-life, neo-imperial Xi Jinping. Canada must show more solidarity with the opposition Democrats in the U.S., especially since a heavily conservative U.S. Supreme Court will make all kinds of retrograde rulings that endanger the public safety and well-being of Americans and, by extension, Canadian tourists to the U.S. as well. We should co-operate only when and where we have to with either of these essentially rogue regimes. Ron Charach, Toronto Lets admit it, Canada created a huge faux pas when we arrested Haiwei CFO Meng Wanzhou, to be tried by the U.S. for (not illegal by UN) charges of dealing with Iran. Since that faux pas, the government has been thrashing around trying to find a face-saving way out of this mess, especially now with a Canadians life possibly hanging in the balance and our economy being threatened. Our government holds a bad actor perspective of China, which is wrong in the eyes of most of the world. Chinas field of influence reaches much of Africa, the Middle East, including Iran and Turkey, India and Russia. Most of the world. China is quickly emerging into the worlds biggest most dynamic economy. China has a population of 1.5 billion, while Canada is at about 33 million; a little like an elephant and a mouse. To think that we are going to pressure China into following our wishes is absurd. The Chinese people, understandably, feel China is right to demand the release of Meng. Imagine if the Chinese had arrested a Canadian woman to be sent to Russia to face untenable political charges because they had an extradition agreement. Canada should release Meng before this gets even worse. This might piss trump off a bit, but may actually improve our standing in the world. Canada has everything to gain and nothing to lose by being friends with China. Criticize China when they are wrong, but befriend them when they are right. We teach our kids to admit their mistakes when they are wrong. Would it not be an improvement if the world worked that way? Ron Brydges, St. Catharines Its hard to see why Canada would want to get involved in the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. America has arbitrarily imposed sanctions on Iran both to satisfy its allies and to further its strategic interests in the region and to their credit, Russia, China and the European Union have refused to abide by those sanctions. In fact, the EU has asked member states to not only disregard threats from Washington, but to increase business with and within Iran. Despite sharing extradition treaties with the United States, these nations have refused to be cowed by Trumps ultimatum: Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the U.S. Why does Canada lack the courage and good sense to do likewise? Canadians need to remind themselves that it is not in the best security interests of the Middle East nor of the world to isolate Iran, and that while America may have a right to sanction other nations, other nations have an equal right to refuse to comply. With a president as capricious and pugnacious as that of our southern neighbour, it has rarely been more important that Canada assert its sovereignty and chart an independent course. Mike Ward, Duncan, B.C. Read more about: Canada decries China death sentence, Jan. 16 I find it hard to stomach Canadas biased media on so many issues but I will not ignore the characterization of Abbotsfords Robert Lloyd Schellenberg as an innocent pawn in the diplomatic dust-up between Canada and China over the arrest of a Chinese billionaire in Vancouver. Is Schellenberg a pawn? Canadas media would have us think so.But I read, heard and viewed many news reports before learning that Schellenberg had served prison time for drug crimes in Canada before going to China. Our justice system, which we laud with noses raised, found him guilty and convicted him twice to serve one- and two-year sentences, which amounts to mollycoddling in countries that are serious about fighting drugs. How can our media describe the Chinese justice system as corrupt and declare it a puppet of Chinese politicians when our own media, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ilk, is so reluctant to reveal that Schellenberg was no angel before he went to China? When in China, do as the Chinese do. Greg J. Edwards, Delta, B.C. Read more about: GM firm on closure of Oshawa plant, Jan. 16 Consider this: General Motors committed last fall to an electric vehicle future. It has asked for federal electric and zero-emission vehicle policies. It has asked governments to provide incentives for electric vehicle purchases and infrastructure investments to accelerate accessible, convenient electric charging. It recognizes there is a world-wide shift to an all-electric future and wants to be a leader. What has the Ontario government done? The opposite. It has cancelled the electric and hydrogen vehicle incentive program and removed charging stations from GO station parking lots. Why would GM want to build electric cars in Ontario when Ontarios government is openly hostile to electric vehicles? I think the people of Oshawa can lay the blame of the plant closure directly on Premier Doug Ford. Andrew Wilson, New Hamburg, Ont. Read more about: WASHINGTONSubmitting to mounting pressure, U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a bill to reopen the government for three weeks, backing down from his demand that Congress give him money for his border wall before federal agencies go back to work. Standing alone in the Rose Garden Friday, Trump said he would sign legislation funding shuttered agencies until Feb. 15 and try again to persuade lawmakers to finance his long-sought wall. The deal he reached with congressional leaders contains no new money for the wall but ends the longest shutdown in U.S. history. First the Senate, then the House swiftly and unanimously approved the deal. Late Friday, Trump signed it into law. The administration asked federal department heads to reopen offices in a prompt and orderly manner and said furloughed employees can return to work. Trumps retreat came in the 35th day of the partial shutdown as intensifying delays at the nations airports and another missed payday for hundreds of thousands of federal workers brought new urgency to efforts to resolve the standoff. This was in no way a concession, Trump said in a tweet late Friday, fending off critics who wanted him to keep fighting. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, its off to the races! The shutdown ended as Democratic leaders had insisted it must reopen the government first, then talk border security. Read more: Trump caves on shutdown; adviser Roger Stone arrested in Mueller probe As U.S. air travel stalls, Trump agrees to halt shutdown temporarily Trumps shutdown hand weakens again after dreadful two days The president thought he could crack Democrats, and he didnt, and I hope its a lesson for him, said the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of her members: Our unity is our power. And that is what maybe the president underestimated. Trump still made the case for a border wall and maintained he might again shut down the government over it. Yet, as negotiations restart, Trump enters them from a weakened position. A strong majority of Americans blamed him for the standoff and rejected his arguments for a border wall, recent polls show. If we dont get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on Feb. 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency, Trump said. The president has said he could declare a national emergency to fund the border wall unilaterally if Congress doesnt provide the money. Such a move would almost certainly face legal hurdles. As part of the deal with congressional leaders, a bipartisan committee of House and Senate lawmakers was being formed to consider border spending as part of the legislative process in the weeks ahead. They are willing to put partisanship aside, I think, and put the security of the American people first, Trump said. He asserted that a barrier or walls will be an important part of the solution. The deal includes back pay for some 800,000 federal workers who have gone without paychecks. The Trump administration promises to pay them as soon as possible. Also expected is a new date for the president to deliver his State of the Union address, postponed during the shutdown. But it will not be Jan. 29 as once planned, according to a person familiar with the planning but unauthorized to discuss it. As border talks resume, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hopes there will be good-faith negotiations over the next three weeks to try to resolve our differences. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Schumer said that while Democrats oppose the wall money, they agree on other ways to secure the border and that bodes well for coming to an eventual agreement. In striking the accord, Trump risks backlash from conservatives who pushed him to keep fighting for the wall. Some lashed out Friday for his having yielded, for now, on his signature campaign promise. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter suggested on Twitter that she views Trump as the biggest wimp to serve as president. Money for the wall is not at all guaranteed, as Democrats have held united against building a structure as Trump once envisioned, preferring other types of border technology. Asked about Trumps wall, Pelosi, who has said repeatedly she wont approve money for it, said: Have I not been clear? No, I have been very clear. Within the White House, there was broad recognition among Trumps aides that the shutdown pressure was growing, and they couldnt keep the standoff going indefinitely. The presidents approval numbers had suffered during the impasse. Overnight and Friday, several Republicans were calling on him openly, and in private, to reopen the government. The breakthrough came as LaGuardia Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey both experienced at least 90-minute delays in takeoffs Friday because of the shutdown. And the worlds busiest airport Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was experiencing long security wait times, a warning sign the week before it expects 150,000 out-of-town visitors for the Super Bowl. The standoff became so severe that, as the Senate opened with prayer, Chaplain Barry Black called on high powers in the hour of national turmoil to help senators do what is right. Senators were talking with increased urgency after Thursdays defeat of competing proposals from Trump and the Democrats. Bipartisan talks provided a glimmer of hope Friday that some agreement could be reached. But several senators said they didnt know what to expect as they arrived to watch the presidents televised address from their lunchroom off the Senate floor. The Senate first rejected a Republican plan Thursday reopening the government through September and giving Trump the $5.7 (U.S.) billion hes demanded for building segments of that wall, a project that hed long promised Mexico would finance. The 50-47 vote for the measure fell 10 shy of the 60 votes needed to succeed. Minutes later, senators voted 52-44 for a Democratic alternative that sought to open padlocked agencies through Feb. 8 with no wall money. That was eight votes short. But it earned more support than Trumps plan, even though Republicans control the chamber 53-47. It was aimed at giving bargainers time to seek an accord while getting paychecks to government workers who are either working without pay or being forced to stay home. Contributing to the pressure on lawmakers to find a solution was the harsh reality confronting many of the federal workers, who on Friday faced a second two-week payday with no paychecks. Throughout, the two sides issued mutually exclusive demands that have blocked negotiations from even starting: Trump had refused to reopen government until Congress gave him the wall money, and congressional Democrats had rejected bargaining until he reopened government. Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey, Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor, Colleen Long, Matthew Daly, Laurie Kellman and Juliet Linderman contributed to this report. Read more about: WASHINGTON - The Latest on the partial government shutdown (all times local): 9:25 p.m. President Donald Trump has signed a bill that temporarily opens the federal government for three weeks, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history at 35 days. The White House says Trump signed the measure after the Senate and House each passed it Friday. Trump backed down from his demand that Congress provide more border wall money before federal agencies get back to work. But he warns that the government could shut down again if we dont get a fair deal from Congress. He is also holding out the possibility of taking executive action. The agreement to open the government came as about 800,000 federal employees missed their second consecutive paycheque. As part of the deal, a bipartisan committee of House and Senate lawmakers is being formed to review border security recommendations. ___ 7:55 p.m. President Donald Trump is pushing back against criticism of his agreement to reopen the federal government without winning a promise of new funding for a border wall. With even some conservatives casting the agreement as a retreat by the president, Trump is tweeting that it was in no way a concession on his part. Trump says the deal will take care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the shutdown. And hes emphasizing that it was only done with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, its off to the races! The shutdown was ending as Democratic leaders had insisted it must reopen the government first, then talk border security. As part of the deal, a bipartisan committee of lawmakers will consider additional border spending in the weeks ahead. ___ 7:50 p.m. President Donald Trump will not be delivering his State of the Union Address next Tuesday, even though the federal government is expected to be reopened by then. Trump had postponed the joint address to Congress amid the partial shutdown. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had suggested he do so and after some high-profile back-and-forth between the two the president ultimately agreed. With Trump and congressional leaders reaching a deal Friday to reopen the government, the speech is expected to be rescheduled. But it will not be next week as once planned, according to a person familiar with the planning but unauthorized to discuss it. By AP writer Laurie Kellman ___ 7 p.m. The House has unanimously passed a measure to reopen shuttered government agencies for three weeks, sending the bill to President Donald Trump for his signature. Trump is expected to sign the measure Friday, ending a five-week partial government shutdown sparked by his demands for billions of dollars to build a border wall with Mexico. The Senate passed the measure by voice vote Friday hours after Trump agreed to a deal to reopen the government through Feb. 15 while lawmakers negotiate on border security and the wall. The measure would recall to work more than 800,000 furloughed federal workers and provide them with back pay after two missed paychecks. Trump says he will declare a national emergency to build the wall if no deal is reached with Congress by mid-February. ___ 5:30 p.m. The Trump administration is promising to pay federal workers as soon as possible after the partial government shutdown ends. But a senior official says agencies are in charge of their own payroll issues and workers should check with their departments for details about when their paychecks will arrive. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have missed two paychecks since the shutdown began just before Christmas. Congress passed legislation requiring reimbursement for those employees who were furloughed and forced to work without pay. President Donald Trump on Friday is expected to sign a bill funding the government for three weeks while negotiations continue on his demand for money to build a border wall. ___ 5:25 p.m. The Senate has appointed its members of a conference committee that will negotiate a border security agreement between Congress and the White House over the next three weeks. President Donald Trump agreed Friday to reopen the government until Feb. 15 while Congress works to come to a deal on border security. The government has been shut down since December as Trump has insisted on money for his border wall, but Democrats have objected. Sitting on the committee are Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Hoeven of North Dakota and Democratic Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Jon Tester of Montana. Shelby is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. ___ 4:45 p.m. The Senate has unanimously passed a hard-fought measure to reopen shuttered government agencies for three weeks, ending a five-week partial shutdown sparked by President Donald Trumps demands for immediate money to build his long-sought border wall. The measure passed the Senate by voice vote Friday hours after Trump relented. It now goes to the House, which is expected to quickly pass the measure and send it to the White House for Trumps signature. The measure would recall to work hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers and provide them with back pay after two missed paychecks. Fridays developments awarded Democrats with a victory settled mostly on their terms and set up talks on a government-wide spending bill that will serve as a vehicle for negotiations on border security and the wall. ___ 4:25 p.m. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will discuss a date for President Donald Trumps State of the Union address once the government is open. Trumps annual address was originally scheduled for Jan. 29, but Pelosi cancelled it amid an impasse over the shutdown. Trump on Friday agreed to a deal to reopen the government for three weeks, backing down from his demand that Congress pay for a border wall first. Pelosi said she had agreed to talk to Trump about a mutually agreeable date once the government was open. She said she would look forward to doing that and welcoming the president to the House of Representatives. Trump is expected to sign legislation to end the shutdown on Friday once it passes Congress. ___ 4:10 p.m. Democratic congressional leaders say they hope President Donald Trump has learned a lesson that government shutdowns dont work. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer also said Trump learned another important lesson after repeatedly clashing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a 35-day partial government shutdown. Schumer says: No one should ever underestimate the speaker, as Donald Trump has learned. Schumer and Pelosi say Democrats stayed united throughout the five-week shutdown and eventually persuaded Trump to reopen the government temporarily. Trump agreed Friday to fund the government through Feb. 15 while negotiations continue on his demand for a border wall with Mexico. Schumer says Trump agreed to end the shutdown because he knew that it was a lost cause. Pelosi says Democrats unity is our power. And that is what maybe the president underestimated. ___ 4:05 p.m. President Donald Trump says he will declare a national emergency to build his U.S.-Mexico border wall if there is no deal with Congress by mid-February. Trump agreed Friday to end a partial government shutdown and reopen shuttered agencies for three weeks so both sides can continue negotiating over Trumps demand for billions of dollars to build his long-promised wall. Asked how confident he was of reaching a deal by the Feb. 15 deadline, Trump said, If we cant do that then ... obviously were going to do the emergency. Declaring a national emergency would allow Trump to bypass Congress and use existing money to start building the wall. Trump previously floated the idea of declaring a national emergency. But he held off, saying he wanted to pursue a deal with Congress. ___ 3:40 p.m. Economists believe the partial government shutdown will end up having only a minor impact on the overall economy as long as the government stays open. Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, says the impact should end up being barely significant with economic growth coming at a moderate 2 per cent. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, says he looks for first-quarter growth to be around 2.3 per cent, down slightly from the 2.5 per cent forecast if the shutdown had not happened. But Zandi says if the government shuts down again after the current stop-gap funding ends Feb. 15, then that could be very hard on the economy because it would shatter business and consumer confidence. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... President Donald Trump has agreed to fund the government for three weeks while negotiations continue on his demand for money to build a border wall with Mexico. ___ 3:10 p.m. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate will pass legislation on Friday thats intended to reopen the government after a record-long 35 day shutdown. McConnell says he knows the pain that this episode has caused across the country. The Kentucky Republican says federal workers who have gone without pay deserve this resolution. President Donald Trump has agreed to a fund the government for three weeks, through Feb. 15. Negotiations continue on his demand for money to build a border wall with Mexico. McConnell says he hopes there will be good-faith negotiations in the coming weeks to settle differences on border security. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says Democrats oppose the billions of dollars Trump wants to build the wall, but do agree on other ways to secure the border. He says that bodes well for coming to an eventual agreement. ___ 2:50 p.m. Congress is expected to quickly pass legislation that would temporarily reopen the government after President Donald Trump announced a deal to end the record 35-day partial federal shutdown. The Senate is set to act first, with the House following later Friday. Thats according to lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill. Trump has agreed to a deal that will fund the government for three weeks, through Feb. 15, while negotiations continue on his demand for billions of dollars to build a long-promised border wall with Mexico. The legislation set to be passed by Congress will include back pay for some 800,000 federal workers whove gone without their salaries during the shutdown. The shutdown has disrupted services and created hardship for many workers. ___ 2:45 p.m. Even as President Donald Trump backs down and agrees to a short-term deal that reopens the government, he isnt giving up on his push for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. And on top of that, hes threatening to shut down the government again or use his presidential powers to address the border issue if he doesnt get what hes calling a fair deal. Trump says the border barrier he wants built isnt medieval and shouldnt be controversial because it will keep drugs and criminals from crossing into the United States. Hes calling it smart and see-through walls. Trump has announced that the government after a record 35-day partial shutdown will temporarily reopen for a few weeks while he negotiates with Congress on his demand for billions of dollars to pay for a border wall. ___ 2:25 p.m. President Donald Trump says hell sign legislation shortly to reopen shuttered government departments for three weeks until Feb. 15. Trumps action would end what has become a record, 35-day partial shutdown. Some 800,000 federal workers have had to work without pay or have been kept from doing their jobs as Trump and congressional Democrats were locked in a stalemate over the billions of dollars that Trump has demanded to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Trump spoke at the White House on Friday as intensifying delays at some of the nations busiest airports and widespread disruptions brought new urgency to efforts to break the impasse. ___ 1:15 p.m. The FBI director says the partial government shutdown is mind-boggling, its short-sighted, and its unfair. In a video message to employees posted on the FBIs website, Director Christopher Wray says hes about as angry as Ive been in a long, long time. He says 100 per cent of FBI employees are feeling financial strains from the shutdown. Most agents in the field are working without pay and other employees are furloughed. He says he knows he can count on FBI agents to help people however they can, but he recognizes they have bills to pay. Wray says FBI leadership should not be getting involved in political fights. But he says senior FBI officials have been advocating for employees behind the scenes ___ 11:45 a.m. Fewer than half the furloughed IRS employees recalled during the shutdown to handle tax returns and taxpayers questions and send out refunds, without pay, reported for work as of Tuesday, according to congressional and government aides. About 30 per cent of the 26,000 recalled workers have sought permission under their union contract to be absent from work, IRS officials told House committee staff in a briefing Thursday. The IRS employees union contract allows them to be absent from work if they experience hardship during a shutdown. The official start of the tax filing season comes Monday. The Trump administration has promised that taxpayers owed refunds will be paid on time, and it reversed the policies of earlier presidents and made the money available to pay hundreds of hundreds of billions in refunds on time. The administration planned to eventually send about 46,000 furloughed IRS employees back to work. Thats nearly 60 per cent of the IRS workforce. Of the 26,000 employees recalled, about 12,000 have come to work, the IRS officials said. Around 5,000 have claimed the hardship exception under the union contract and another 9,000 couldnt be reached by IRS managers. Associated Press writer Marcy Gordon ___ 10:45 a.m. The Federal Aviation Administration is reporting delays in air travel because of a slight increase in sick leave at two East Coast air traffic control facilities. FAA spokesman Gregory Martin says the FAA has augmented staffing, rerouted traffic and increased spacing between planes as needed. The staffing problems were at air traffic centres in Jacksonville, Florida and a Washington D.C. centre that controls high-altitude air traffic over seven states. Martin says safety is being maintained during a period of minimal impacts on travel. LaGuardia Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey are both experiencing delays in takeoffs. WICHITA, KAN.Three militia members convicted of taking part in a foiled plot to massacre Muslims in southwest Kansas were sentenced Friday to decades in prison during an emotional court hearing in which one of the targeted victims pleaded: Please dont hate us. U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren sentenced Patrick Stein, the alleged ringleader, to 30 years in prison and Curtis Allen, who drafted a manifesto for the group, to 25 years. Gavin Wright, who authorities said helped make and test explosives at his mobile home business, received 26 years. The plot was foiled after another militia member alerted authorities. Melgren dismissed defence attorneys request that he take into the account the divisive political atmosphere in which the men formed their plot to blow up a mosque and apartments housing Somali immigrants in the meat packing town Garden City, about 355 kilometres west of Wichita, on the day after the 2016 election. We have extremely divisive elections because our system is to resolve those through elections and not violence, Melgren said. Steins attorneys have argued that he believed then-President Barack Obama would declare martial law and not recognize the validity of the election if Donald Trump won, forcing militias to step in. Steins attorneys noted that during the 2016 campaign, all three men read and shared Russian propaganda on their Facebook feed designed to sow discord in the U.S. political system. Attorney Jim Pratt told the judge that for years Stein had immersed himself in right-wing media and commentators, who normalized hate. But Melgren was openly skeptical, telling Pratt: Millions of people listen to this stuff whether it comes from the left or the right. Prosecutors presented video testimony from some Somali immigrants who were the targets of the bombing. In one clip, Ifrah Farah pleaded: Please dont kill us. Please dont hate us. We cant hurt you. Allen, 51, choked up as he addressed the judge, prompting his attorney to step in and finish reading a prepared statement in which Allen offered my sincere apologies to anyone who was frightened and asked for their forgiveness. But Stein, 49, apologized only to his family and friends, and the judge noted when sentencing him that, unlike Allen, he had shown no remorse. Wright, 53, apologized to the court, saying the plot is not who I am. He also apologized to the immigrants who lived at the apartment complex. The judge later said Wrights courtroom statement showed he was still in denial about what he did, adding and he did not buy that there was any remorse on Wrights part. Melgren sentenced Stein to 30 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. He sentenced Allen and Wright to 25 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and 10 years for conspiracy against civil rights. Those sentences will run concurrently. Wright also got an additional year to be served consecutively for lying to law enforcement, bringing his total sentence to 26 years. The judge told all three men that the planned attack was worse than the Oklahoma City bombing because the Garden City plot was motivated by hatreds of race, religion and national origin. The Kansas plot was thwarted when militia member Dan Day tipped off authorities to escalating threats of violence. He testified at the mens trial last year that Stein started recruiting others to kill Muslim immigrants after the June 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. Recordings that prosecutors played for jurors last April portrayed a damning picture of a splinter group of the militia Kansas Security Force that came to be known as the Crusaders. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker in a news release called the sentences a significant victory against hate crimes and domestic terrorism. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... These defendants planned to ruthlessly bomb an apartment complex and kill innocent people, simply because of who they are and how they worship, FBI Director Christopher Wray said. The sentencing hearings for the men came a day after two members of an Illinois militia known as the White Rabbits pleaded guilty in the 2017 bombing of a Minnesota mosque, admitting they hoped the attack would scare Muslims into leaving the U.S. No one was injured in that attack. FARMINGTON, Maine - A Maine university says it has received one of the largest donations in its history from a pair of anonymous donors. University of Maine at Farmington interim president Eric Brown says the $3.225 million gift is the second largest donation it has ever received. The university says the gift will be used to create the Catalyst Fund at UMF. The school says the fund will help implement and grow initiatives designed to boost financial aid, advance graduate education programs and help students succeed. One of the initiatives the Catalyst Fund will help support is a new scholarship program called the Persistence Scholarship Program. The school says it will provide students with a merit scholarship for being on track to successfully graduate in four years. DETROIT - The Canadian auto workers union is asking people in Canada and the U.S. to boycott General Motors vehicles made in Mexico. The Unifor union is asking people not to buy trucks or SUVs with vehicle identification numbers that start with the number three, which signify that they are made in Mexico. Unifor says it will publicize the boycott with television, newspaper and billboard advertising in both countries. In November GM announced plans to close its car factory in Oshawa, Ontario, near Toronto, costing the jobs of about 2,600 blue-collar workers. It also has plans to close four U.S. factories but will negotiate those with the union. The closures are part of a broader restructuring that will cut 14,000 factory and salaried positions as GM tries to slim down to focus capital spending on autonomous and electric vehicles. GM says it has too many plants that make cars as the market in both countries has shifted toward trucks and SUVs. It says the boycott could cause damage to the wider Ontario economy. Unifor National President Jerry Dias (DYE-Azz) says that in 2016 contract talks, GM agreed to keep the Oshawa plant open until the contract ends in September of 2020. He wants the company to return to the bargaining table to talk about keeping Oshawa open permanently. Dias accused GM of closing Oshawa and the U.S. factories while at the same time ramping up production in Mexico, where he says workers are paid $2 per hour. He says the company now makes over 600,000 vehicles per year in Mexico. We are asking you to stand up to Greedy Motors, he said at a news conference Friday in Toronto. Dias said the company ultimately plans to pull all of its manufacturing out of Canada, where it has two other factories in Ontario. Asked if the union would strike GMs Canadian facilities, Dias said: We are not ruling out anything and we are not going to talk today about future plans. GM said there are more than 60 Ontario-based auto parts companies that send components to Mexico, including a transmission plant in St. Catherines, Ontario, and stamping operations in Ingersoll, Ontario. The threat of collateral damage for Ontario-based auto suppliers, auto dealers and workers is concerning, especially for an Ontario economy that is now open for business, with every opportunity to now benefit from increased trade with Mexico, GM Canada Vice-President David Paterson said in a prepared statement. So far the United Auto Workers union in the U.S. is not joining the boycott effort, but Dias said the unions plan to talk in early February. Since the announcement, GM has faced withering criticism from President Donald Trump, U.S. legislators from affected states, and the UAW. Trump has focused on a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, thats slated to stop making compact cars on March 1. He has promised to return factory jobs to the U.S. and Ohio, a key state in his 2020 re-election campaign. GM is cutting six car models as buyers have dramatically shifted their preferences to SUVs and trucks, which will account for about 70 per cent of new-vehicle sales this year. The automaker also wants to close an assembly plant in Detroit and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan, and near Baltimore. About 3,300 union jobs would be lost, but GM says many can transfer to 2,700 openings at other factories. GM now makes the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain small SUVs in Mexico, as well as full-size GMC and Chevrolet pickup trucks. It also makes the Blazer SUV there, as well as the hatchback version of the Chevrolet Cruze compact car. The Equinox also is made in Ingersoll, Ontario, and the Cruze sedan is made in Lordstown, Ohio. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... GM also builds full-size pickups at several U.S. factories. The company says production at the Ingersoll plant alone is about equal to the companys retail sales in Canada. PHOENIX - An Arizona lawmaker who received national attention last year for his remarks on race and immigration was under fire once again Friday after a newspaper reported that he was charged with sex offences in 1983. The Republican House speaker suggested Rep. David Stringer should consider quitting, while Gov. Doug Ducey told reporters he stands by his earlier call for the Prescott Republican to quit. Republican Rep. Kelly Townsend said Stringer should quit, adding that she plans to file an ethics complaint against him on Monday. The Phoenix New Times reported the charges Friday based on a copy of the case history the newspaper obtained from the Circuit Court for Baltimore City in Maryland. Stringers record was expunged, and a court official told the New Times the records should not have been released. The official, Maryland Judiciary spokeswoman Nadine Maeser, did not respond to an email from The Associated Press. Stringer did not respond to several requests for comment from the AP. House Speaker Rusty Bowers said he was surprised and extremely disturbed to read the New Times report, adding that charges of this nature cast a shadow on the entire Legislature and his ability to be an effective legislator. He stopped short of demanding that Stringer step aside. I hope that Rep. Stringer will reflect on the impacts of these reports as he considers whether to continue in his office, Bowers said in a statement. The Arizona Democratic Party spokesman, Les Braswell, said the Legislature should immediately remove Stringer from his seat. The state cannot tolerate a man like that serving in elected office. He does not represent Arizona or its values, Braswell said. Details of the charges against Stringer are unclear. The case summary published by New Times, which blacked out information about victims and witnesses, lists unspecified sex charges but does not detail the allegations. One entry says charge is child pornography. The records indicate he was sentenced to probation, ordered to perform 208 hours of community service and to seek admission to Dr. Berlins program at Hopkins. Dr. Frederick Berlin founded the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University medical school. If Stringer resigns or is removed from office, Republicans would temporarily lose their majority in the 60-seat House, which is currently split 31-29 between Republicans and Democrats. Thirty-one votes are required to pass legislation. The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors would choose a replacement from three candidates submitted by the Republican precinct committee members in the county. His replacement must be a Republican under state law. The New Times report was published a day after Stringer issued a surprise apology on the House floor for his remarks last year that led to the loss of his chairmanship of a key committee. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Ducey and the state GOP chairman called for fellow Republican Stringer to resign last summer when video circulated on social media of him saying there arent enough white kids to go around when discussing integration in schools. He refused and was re-elected in November. A few weeks later, the New Times reported that Stringer told Arizona State University students that African Americans dont blend in. He also said Somali immigrants dont look like every other kid as previous European immigrants do. WASHINGTON - The Latest on President Donald Trump, Congress and the partial government shutdown (all times local): 5:55 p.m. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is rejecting the idea of providing some big down payment for President Donald Trumps border wall as part of a solution to the partial government shutdown. Pelosi on Thursday spoke after Trump suggested a reasonable installment on such a barrier might be a way to solve the impasse. She suggested the idea was not a serious one. She told reporters: I hope that doesnt mean some big down payment. She said, That is not a reasonable agreement between the senators. Asked whether she knows the size of a down payment that Trump might find reasonable, Pelosi replied, I dont know if he knows what hes talking about. The Senate earlier Thursday rejected dueling Republican and Democratic measures to end the 34-day partial government shutdown. ___ 5:20 p.m. President Donald Trump says hes just honoured that almost all Senate Republicans voted for his proposal to trade funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall for temporary protections for some immigrants, even though lawmakers rejected the bill. It was one of two measures designed to end the partial government shutdown that failed in the Senate on Thursday. Democrats sponsored the second bill. Fifty of 53 Senate Republicans voted for the Trump proposal. Speaking at the White House, Trump said, I just really want to thank the Republicans for holding. He added that he was just honoured that almost all of the Republicans voted for our bill. Trump also praised Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who was the only Democratic senator who voted for Trumps plan. ___ 4:45 p.m. The White House says President Donald Trump will not accept a short-term deal to reopen the government unless it includes a large down payment for his promised border wall. The statement from White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday came as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer were meeting to try to hash out a solution. Earlier Thursday, the Senate rejected competing Democratic and Republican proposals for ending the 34-day partial government shutdown, which is the longest in the nations history. Sanders says the Senate leaders are trying to see whether or not they can work out of the deadlock. But she says a three-week continuing resolution would only work if there is a large down payment on the wall. ___ 4:40 p.m. About two dozen House Democrats got a lesson in Senate etiquette and national politics as they trooped over to watch the Senate vote on dueling bills to reopen the government. Both bills went down in defeat. The group, many of them new House members, appeared in the chamber Thursday to provide solidarity with senators who voted to end the partial government shutdown. The vote came as 800,000 federal workers faced a second missed paycheque. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said the group had been prepared to chant, Do the right thing, but Senate officials warned them to remain quiet and behind a railing where staff usually sits. Senate Democrats lined up along the rail to give hugs and say hello. ___ 3:35 p.m. Republicans controlling the Senate have scuttled a Democratic attempt to temporarily reopen the shuttered portions of the federal government. The measure would have reopened agency doors through Feb. 8 to give bargainers time to seek a budget accord, an approach that GOP leaders tried last month only to be undercut by President Donald Trump. Trump is refusing to reopen the government until he gets a deal on funding for his long-sought border wall. The Democratic measure had already passed the House, but fell short Thursday of the 60 votes required in the Senate to defeat a GOP filibuster. Polls have shown that the public is blaming Trump for the shutdown and his approval numbers have sunk as the impasse drags on. The partial government shutdown is now in its 34th day. Federal workers are on the verge of missing another paycheque Friday. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... ___ 3:15 p.m. Senate Democrats have blocked President Donald Trumps request for $5.7 billion to construct his long-sought wall along the U.S-Mexico border, as a partial government shutdown continues for a 34th day. The partisan 50-47 tally fell well short of the 60 votes required to advance the measure over a Democratic filibuster. The $350 billion-plus government-wide funding bill represented the first attempt by Republicans controlling the Senate to reopen the government since the shutdown began. The demise of the measure and likely defeat of a Democratic alternative Thursday comes despite increasing urgency felt by lawmakers to end the shutdown. It leaves Washington with no obvious path out of the impasse despite mounting pressure. The measure would have also provided three years of continued protection against deportation for 700,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children. __ 12:45 p.m. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says shes willing to meet with President Donald Trump anytime to discuss ending the partial government shutdown. Pelosi told reporters shes still optimistic Senate Republicans will vote Thursday for the Democratic bill that would temporarily reopen government while talks are held over Trumps demand for $5.7 billion to build the border wall. The speaker said House Democrats are putting together a new border security package that could provide a step toward a compromise. It will include money for fencing, technology, personnel and other measures, but not Trumps proposed wall. Trump responded in real time on Twitter saying, very simply, without a Wall it all doesnt work.... We will not Cave! Some 800,000 federal workers are set to miss another paycheque Friday. The government is in its 34th day of a partial shutdown. __ 12:29 a.m. The Senates new approach to ending the partial government shutdown actually takes votes instead of just pointing fingers. But two competing bills appear likely to fail Thursday, caught in a poisonous Washington impasse. Either measure would reopen federal agencies and pay 800,000 federal workers who are days from missing yet another paycheque. Republicans would couple ending the 34-day shutdown with $5.7 billion for President Donald Trumps border wall and revamping immigration laws. Democrats would reopen agency doors for three weeks while bargainers continue to seek a budget deal. Twin defeats might spur the two sides into a more serious effort to reach an agreement. With the impact of the shutdown becoming increasingly painful, lawmakers say theyre willing to compromise on border security and immigration policy. __ For APs complete coverage of the U.S. government shutdown: https://apnews.com/GovernmentShutdown KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Leaders in Kansas City, Missouri, one of the nations largest cities without a public memorial to Martin Luther King Jr., settled a yearlong debate Thursday by voting to rename a 10-mile stretch of roadway after the civil rights leader. Nearly 51 years after King was assassinated, the Kansas City Council voted 8-4 to rename the Paseo as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The Paseo is a 10-mile boulevard the runs through Kansas Citys mostly black eastern sections. Supporters, including Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, fought since early last year to honour King, The Kansas City Star reported . Objections centred mostly on whether residents and businesses along The Paseo had been given sufficient notice or didnt want the street renamed. Others thought a better site could be found to honour King. We have overcome a borderline regressive electoral body that almost didnt do this, but we thank God for the progressive leaders on this council that rose up today and are a reflection of what one Kansas City can look like, said Vernon Howard Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City, one of the strongest proponents of the name change. The Board of Parks and Recreation, which oversees the citys boulevards, rejected the suggestion last year to rename The Paseo for King. Thats when ministers led by the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference began collecting signatures to put the question on the August or November 2018 ballot, but the organization didnt gather enough signatures. Mayor Sly James, who said he thought there were better ways to honour King than renaming the Paseo, formed a citizens commission to gather public input and recommend which sites could be renamed for King. That panel favoured naming a new terminal at the Kansas City International Airport after King, a suggestion that airport officials did not support. The second option was 63rd Street, an east-west thoroughfare that stretches from majority-white neighbourhoods through eastern Kansas City. The commissions third option was The Paseo. ___ Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com ATHENS, Greece - The Latest on ratification of an agreement to resolve the place name dispute between Greece and Macedonia (all times local): 10:00 p.m. The man who spent 20 years as the U.N.s mediator in a name dispute between Greece and Macedonia says the Greek parliaments ratification of a reconciliation agreement ushers in a new era for the consolidation of peace and security in the Balkans. Matthew Nimetz said in a statement that the Friday vote by lawmakers in Athens to endorse the deal also opens the door to a new relationship between the countries after the 27-year dispute over rights to the Macedonia name. Under the deal Nimetz helped negotiate, Macedonia will be renamed North Macedonia in return for Greece dropping objections to its membership in NATO and, eventually, the European Union. Macedonias parliament approved constitutional changes to rename the country North Macedonia on Jan. 11. Nimetz was U.S. President Clintons envoy in the mediation of the dispute for 1 1/2 years and has been the U.N. secretary-generals representative on the issue since 1999. He says he looks forward to the completion of the process outlined in the agreement. ___ 9:45 p.m. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is praising Greece for the ratification of a deal to end a 27-year naming dispute with neighbouring Macedonia, saying it will help promote reconciliation efforts beyond Europe. The Greek parliament approved an agreement on Friday to drop objections to Macedonias membership in NATO and the European Union if its young neighbour is renamed North Macedonia. Macedonias parliament approved constitutional changes to rename the country on Jan. 11. U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq says Guterres looks forward to completing the process outlined in the agreement, which was negotiated under U.N. auspices. Haq said: The secretary-general commends the leaderships of both countries for an agreement that will strengthen peace and security in the region and provide a fresh impetus to reconciliation efforts in Europe and beyond. ___ 8:55 p.m. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has welcomed the Greek parliaments ratification of a deal to end a 27-year dispute over neighbouring Macedonias name. In a statement Friday, Pompeo praised the Greek governments vision, courage and persistence in pushing ahead with the historic agreement. He says it will improve regional stability and allow Macedonia to take its rightful place in NATO with the new name of North Macedonia. Under the deal, Greece will lift its objections to its northern neighbour joining the alliance in return for the name change. Greece long argued that by taking the name Macedonia, the small country that had been part of the former Yugoslavia implied territorial claims to a northern Greek province of that name and usurped Greek culture and ancient history. ___ 8 p.m. Albania and Kosovo have hailed the vote of the Greek parliament ratifying the Macedonia name deal, saying its a great contribution to regional stability. A statement Friday from Albanias Foreign Ministry considered the vote a key contribution to stability, development and Euro-Atlantic integration of the whole region. Tirana considered it a victory of diplomacy coming also as an irreplaceable contribution of the Albanian factor in Macedonia. Ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of Macedonias 2.1-million population. Kosovo President Hashim Thaci tweeted congratulations to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for showing vision and courage. Thaci said it is welcoming news for the whole region and a strong push for efforts to close all open issues between the countries of the Balkans. ___ 6:35 p.m. Britains foreign secretary has congratulated Greek lawmakers for accepting a deal to resolve the protracted disagreement over the use of the name Macedonia. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt described the Greek parliaments ratification of the agreement on Friday as a historic moment bringing a decades-old dispute close to an end. The deal will see the young nation of Macedonia renamed North Macedonia in return for Greece dropping objections to its northern neighbours membership in NATO and, eventually, the European Union. Opposition to the country being called Macedonia has been fierce in Greece, where critics say it implies territorial claims on a Greek province named Macedonia. Hunt says the deal reached between the countries prime ministers last year brings the prospect of increased stability and prosperity to the wider region. ___ 4:20 p.m. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has congratulated Greece following Fridays vote in the Greek Parliament to ratify the deal normalizing relations between the two countries. In a message to the Greek prime minister, Zaev wrote in English on Twitter: Congratulations my friend, Alexis Tsipras. Together with our peoples we reached a historical victory. Long live the Prespa Agreement! For eternal peace and progress of the Balkans and in Europe! Both prime ministers faced fierce political opposition and struggled to ratify the deal reached last summer at Lake Prespa, which borders both countries and Albania. ___ 4:10 p.m. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is welcoming the Greek parliaments ratification of the Macedonia name agreement, which paves the way for Skopje to join the worlds biggest military alliance. Stoltenberg said in a tweet Friday that the vote is an important contribution to the stability and prosperity of the whole region. He added: I look forward to the future Republic of North Macedonia joining NATO. Efforts by the government in Skopje to join NATO have been blocked almost exclusively by the disagreement with ally Greece over the Balkan countrys name. ___ 3:55 p.m. Top European Union officials are hailing as a historic moment the Greek parliaments ratification of the Macedonia name agreement, paving the way for the Balkan country to join NATO. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the EUs top diplomat and the senior official supervising the blocs enlargement, said jointly Friday that they warmly welcome the vote in Athens, which has written a new page of our common EU future. They say that it took political courage, leadership and responsibility on all sides to resolve one of the most entrenched disputes in the region. Both countries have seized this unique opportunity, which sets an example of reconciliation for Europe as a whole and will give a further boost to the European perspective of the region. ___ 3:30 p.m. Greek lawmakers have ratified an agreement for the country to drop its objections to neighbouring Macedonia joining NATO if the small countrys name is changed to North Macedonia. The deal faced fierce opposition and had already cost Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras his parliamentary majority. It passed Friday with the support of independent lawmakers. The ratification vote came after three days of acrimonious debate on the deal, which aimed to end a nearly three decade-long dispute that has kept Macedonia from joining the western military alliance and the European Union. Greece has long argued use of the term Macedonia implied territorial claims on its own northern province of the same name, and usurped its culture and ancient Greek history. ___ 11:55 a.m. Greek lawmakers are to wrap up three days of acrimonious parliamentary debate with a vote on a deal normalizing relations with Macedonia, under which Greeces northern neighbour will rename itself North Macedonia and Athens will drop its objections to the country joining NATO. More protests were scheduled in Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki Friday. Opposition is particularly fierce in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, which borders the former Yugoslav republic that claimed the same name after declaring independence in 1991. Critics claim the deal signs away their identity and a cultural heritage dating back to Alexander the Great more than 2,300 years ago. The agreement has already cost Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras his parliamentary majority after the right-wing Independent Greeks quit the governing coalition in protest. BRUSSELS - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Friday that Russia shows no sign of respecting a major Cold War-era missile treaty and that the future of the pact is in danger as the United States readies to start pulling out of it next week. The treaty is now in jeopardy and unfortunately we have not seen any signs of (a) breakthrough, Stoltenberg told reporters after chairing NATO-Russia talks in Brussels. The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union bans production, testing and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometres (310-3,400 miles). The Pentagon has shared information with NATO allies asserting that Russias new 9M729 missile system falls within the treaty. It believes the ground-fired cruise missile could give Moscow the ability to launch a nuclear strike in Europe with little or no notice. Moscow insists the missile has a range of less than 500 kilometres. In October, President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. would abandon the treaty because of alleged Russian violations. If Moscow doesnt return to compliance, Washington is due to start the six-month process of leaving the pact from Feb. 2. The responsibility to preserve the treaty lies on Russia because Russia is now violating the treaty by developing and deploying new missiles, Stoltenberg said. These new missiles are hard to detect. They are mobile. They are nuclear capable. They can reach European cities and they reduce the warning time, and thereby also the threshold, for any potential use of nuclear weapons in a conflict, he warned. Asked what Moscows attitude had been during Fridays talks, Stoltenberg said: There was no real progress in the meeting because Russia did not indicate any willingness to change their position. Nevertheless, he urged Russia to return to compliance over the next week and failing that, during the six-month period it would take the U.S. to leave the INF treaty. Stoltenberg rejected Russian claims that U.S. Predator drones and ballistic missiles used for target practice violate the INF. Russia continues to raise this issue to deflect attention from the real issue, he said. There are no new U.S. missiles in Europe, but there are new Russian missiles in Europe. NEW DELHI - India and South Africa will boost ties in key areas such as defence, maritime security and trade under a three-year strategic exchange program. The plan was announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa after they met in New Delhi on Friday. Two-way trade is expected to rise to $10.65 billion in 2018-19 from $9.38 billion in 2017-18. Indias External Affairs Ministry said the South African defence industry is also looking at India, which is upgrading its military equipment. It didnt give details. Ramaphosa will be the chief guest on Saturday at Indias Republic Day parade, which celebrates the anniversary of its national constitution which was adopted in 1950. CARACAS, Venezuela - Even as Venezuelans fill the streets rallying behind opposition leader Juan Guaido and the list of foreign nations recognizing him as the countrys rightful president grows, the top members of the all-important military are sending a different message: Forget about it. In back-to-back proclamations Thursday, high-ranking generals standing in front of stern-faced troops pledged their unwavering support to embattled President Nicolas Maduro in an unsurprising display of loyalty. Since taking the helm of Venezuelas government in 2013, Maduro a protege of the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez but with no military experience himself has cemented the support of the nations troops by promoting loyalists, giving them control over key sectors of the economy and appointing them to ministerial positions. All that means that the militarys top brass remains beholden to Maduro and is likely too frightened of losing its standing or going to jail to betray him, according to experts on Venezuelas military. Rank-and-file troops struggling to put food on the table may not share their steadfast loyalty, but the odds of a significant faction defecting and recognizing Guaido are slim, several current and former military officers said. We have to wait and see what happens over the next 48 hours, said Jose Antonio Colina, a former army lieutenant. If the middle- and low-ranking troops dont express their disagreement within the next two days, we can assume theyre standing by their leadership. The armed forces have traditionally served as an arbiter of political disputes, though according to the constitution backed by Chavez they are not at the service of any person or political partisanship. Exactly 61 years before Guaido pledged before swarms of supporters to serve as Venezuelas interim president, the military ousted dictator Marco Perez Jimenez, who fled on a plane to the Dominican Republic amid mounting unrest. Chavez as a young army commander staged a botched coup in 1992 and a decade later was briefly forced from power himself. Guaido, a photogenic 35-year-old lawmaker who has re-invigorated the opposition, has argued that three public sectors are critical to establishing a new government: The people, the international community and the military. But the military hes asking for support from is far different than that of the past; Chavez and now Maduro have blurred once-clear lines of separation between troops, the government and the ruling political party. In that environment, it becomes highly unlikely that a fracture among the top leadership would occur, though there are signs of cracks amid rank-and-file troops. In recent years, hundreds have fled abroad seeking better economic prospects, and dozens have been jailed on suspicion of plotting against the government. On Monday, a few dozen national guardsmen seized a stockpile of assault rifles in a pre-dawn uprising that was quickly quashed. Perhaps curiously, the military has not activated the emergency protocol known as Plan Zamora that has been used during previous unrest and gives troops authority to repress and control mass demonstration. One former general who spoke on condition of anonymity said that might be acknowledgement that disillusioned underlings wouldnt follow those orders. Rocio San Miguel, a Caracas-based military expert, noted that while there were clashes Wednesday between protesters and state security forces, the mass protest where tens of thousands gathered to watch Guaido speak took place without confrontation. On Thursday, one 19-year-old member of the National Guard, still with braces on his teeth, said he wouldnt want to be in the position of having to beat protesters. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, he said hed be outraged to apprehend innocent people. Another young comrade patrolling a busy road leading to the Supreme Court with the teen said he hadnt seen the video images of military leaders proclaiming their support to Maduro because he doesnt own a cellphone but that he follows orders as instructed. Colina, the former army lieutenant, said even though many rank-and-file troops are going hungry like countless other Venezuelans, they dont have effective leadership to challenge superiors, meaning its likely theyll opt for the status quo. Its not enough, unfortunately, he said. Theyve stopped being the moral compass. Several former military leaders who remain in close contact with active troops said that for Guaido to even have a chance of winning over support from sectors of the military, hed have to continue to galvanize the public and prove to skeptical military officers with much to lose that his promise of granting amnesty to those who promote change is sincere. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Whats going on in Venezuela, San Miguel said, hasnt finished yet. ___ Christine Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia. PANAMA CITY - Like many others from his poor, indigenous region of Panama, Raul Tugri left for the capital years ago in search of opportunities. He found work at a supermarket, but alcohol abuse sent his life into a tailspin and four years ago he was diagnosed with HIV. My world came crashing down, Tugri said on a recent morning at the Good Samaritan home, a Roman Catholic-run shelter that has housed dozens of HIV and AIDS patients since it opened its doors outside Panama City in 2005. It destroys your dreams. You only think of death. The shelter is readying for a high-profile visit Sunday by Pope Francis, who is coming to offer spiritual succor to the 10 men and five women currently in its care. The first Latin American-born pontiff, who has made defending those on the margins of society a hallmark of his papacy, has called for people to be responsible to avoid the spread of HIV and lamented that many of the millions who live with the virus have no access to treatment. He has also sought to break the stigma that haunts HIV sufferers in many parts of the world Panama included. Francis visit to the Good Samaritan home is likely to do just that, just as it did when he washed the feet of HIV patients during a Holy Thursday ceremony nearly 20 years ago in his native Buenos Aires. Tugri is among those preparing to tell the pope his story and has been busy weaving bags with indigenous patterns for Francis, one in the colours of the Panamanian flag and another with those of Francis favoured soccer club, Argentinas San Lorenzo de Almagro. Im going to ask for his blessing, Tugri said. Panamanian health officials say that since the first case of AIDS was identified in 1984, there have been nearly 16,000 cases and 11,336 deaths in the country. Most of the cases registered each year affect people between the ages of 15 and 24 and are especially prevalent in indigenous communities. The western Ngabe-Bugle region, where Tugri was born, is among the hardest hit. Good Samaritan, which is run by Panamanian Rev. Domingo Escobar, took Tugri in two years ago when he was thin and weak. The shelter had started helping those who slept in a neighbouring park after being abandoned by their families. Set to launch an expansion, the facility is helped by an infectious disease specialist from a public hospital, the Catholic Church and private benefactors. This is physically a house and a home because it is like a family, Escobar said. Here we give them their medicine, feed them and provide encouragement. Many patients stay at Good Samaritan for months, leaving only when they have recovered a bit, found a place to live and are familiar with their medicine regimes. Some have also died there and received a Christian burial, according to Escobar. Tugri, who has been in a wheelchair since suffering a cerebral bacteria infection, said that he can now move his legs a little better. He wears his hair short and sports shiny metal necklaces. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... He doesnt want to talk about the past. His goal is to get well enough to return to his hometown to raise young peoples awareness about HIV. Because of culture or ignorance, theyre not careful having sex, said Tugri, who was abandoned by his mother as a child. I think you have to leave behind your fear and shame to talk about this. TIJUANA, Mexico - Eusebio Gomez thought his arduous journey to the U.S. and monthslong wait in the border town of Tijuana, Mexico, would end when he made it to American soil. But a shift in the Trump administrations immigration policy could mean more waiting. The Mexican government said Friday that the United States plans to return 20 migrants per day at the San Ysidro border crossing as they await an answer to their asylum requests. The practice could be one of the more significant changes to the immigration system in years. Gomez, who was one of 25 names called for processing Friday at San Ysidro, said he would feel far less safe waiting in Tijuana, with its sky-high homicide rate. The 18-year-old Honduran said he wanted to come to the U.S. to escape violence. Its not about the dollar, its about safety, Gomez said. The Mexican government doesnt agree with this unilateral move, but will accept the migrants under certain conditions, said Roberto Velasco, spokesman for Mexicos Foreign Relations Department. He said the U.S. government wants to extend the practice, known as remain in Mexico, to the rest of the border crossings. Juan Portillo, 38, who arrived in Tijuana two months ago from Venezuela with his wife and 7-year-old daughter, said he was fleeing political oppression after protesting President Nicolas Maduros government. We do not feel safe in Tijuana, Portillo said, shortly before Mexican authorities whisked him, his family and seven others away in a van to be turned over to U.S. authorities. Advocacy groups condemned the idea. The Southern Poverty Law Center warned it would create more chaos at the border. Astrid Dominguez, director of the ACLUs Border Rights Center, said in a statement that it endangers lives. A legal challenge is expected. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, both Democrats, released a statement warning that the changes would harm asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are easy prey for criminals and gangs in Mexico, but the Trump plan forces people to remain in harms way, even if there is a significant possibility they will be persecuted or tortured in Mexico, they said in a statement. Velasco said around midday Friday that the first 20 migrants would be returned at the San Ysidro crossing, across from Tijuana, in the next few hours. He said all are Central Americans and all apparently had temporary visas in Mexico. That suggests they may have been part of last years migrant caravans, many of whom had such visas. U.S. officials have said Mexican asylum seekers and children travelling alone are exempt from the new policy. Mexico will not accept migrants who have appealed a denial of asylum, unaccompanied children or people with health problems, Velasco said. He did not say how or where Mexico would house the migrants, who might have to wait months or years for their asylum claims to be resolved. Akbar Heybari of Iran, who has been paying for a Tijuana hotel with his wife and children, ages 15 and 12, said he would much prefer to stay with a niece who is studying medicine at the University of California, Irvine. Its good (in Tijuana), but we dont want to stay here more, said Heybari, a grape farmer who plans to seek asylum on grounds of government persecution for his political activities. There are about 2,400 names on the asylum processing list at San Ysidro. U.S. officials have been calling up to 100 names a day. U.S. authorities plan to bus asylum seekers back and forth to the border for court hearings in downtown San Diego, including an initial appearance within 45 days, according to a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not yet publicly announced. The Trump administration will make no arrangements for them to consult with attorneys, who may visit clients in Tijuana or speak with them by phone, the official said. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The U.S. has witnessed a surge in asylum claims, especially from Central American families. Due largely to a court-imposed 20-day limit on detaining children, families are typically released with a notice to appear in immigration court. With a backlog of more than 800,000 cases, it can take years to settle cases. ___ Verza reported from Mexico City. CARACAS, Venezuela - The Latest on the political crisis in Venezuela (all times local): 8:55 p.m. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido says he would consider granting amnesty to President Nicolas Maduro and his allies if they helped return Venezuela to democracy. Guaido gave his first public comments to Univision on Thursday since declaring himself interim president of Venezuela. Guaidos comments are part of a soon-to-be aired interview that was published on Univisions website. The National Assembly leader says that amnesty is on the table for anybody willing to help return Venezuela to constitutional order. The United States, Canada and more than a dozen Latin American countries have rallied around Guaido. However, Maduro shows no signs of giving up power, maintaining he was democratically elected. The socialist leader blames the United States for backing a coup attempt to oust him, and he cut diplomatic ties with Venezuelas largest trading partner. ___ 6:55 p.m. The State Department is ordering non-essential diplomats and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela to leave the country. The department says its taking the step for security reasons and that the embassy in Caracas will stay open. The move follows the Trump administrations rejection of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduros order to break relations with the U.S. and for American diplomats to depart by the weekend. The administration says Maduros order isnt legal because the U.S. no longer recognizes him as Venezuelas legitimate leader. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump recognized the opposition leader and head of Venezuelas parliament as the interim president. That prompted Maduro to sever relations with Washington. ___ 4:25 p.m. President Nicolas Maduro has ordered all Venezuelan diplomats home from the United States and is closing its embassy despite U.S. refusal to do the same in his country. Maduro said Thursday that if U.S. officials had any sense they would pull out their own diplomats from Caracas rather than defying his order to leave. The Trump administration says Maduro is not now legally president of Venezuela because of a fraudulent election. It recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaido, who assumed presidential authority and vowed to remove Maduro. The U.S. also had snubbed Maduros decision to cut diplomatic ties with the United States, saying he doesnt have the authority to expel U.S. diplomats. The two countries havent exchanged ambassadors in nearly a decade, but they have maintained diplomatic staff. ___ 2:40 p.m. The United States has officially requested an open meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. South Africas U.N. Ambassador Jerry Matjila said earlier that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had asked to discuss the political situation with the U.N.s most powerful body. He said the consultations would be behind closed doors not open. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations tweeted Thursday that it requested a meeting Saturday morning. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday recognized National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelas interim president, leading President Nicolas Maduro to demand that all U.S. diplomats leave the country in 72 hours. Pompeo told the diplomats to stay because the U.S. doesnt recognize Maduro. Venezuela is not on the Security Council agenda and the U.S. needs the support of at least nine of the 15 council nations to hold a meeting. Diplomats said the council has not yet discussed the U.S. request. Before Matjila spoke, Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters he didnt think a meeting is required. ___ ___ 2:30 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered his support to embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a phone call. The Kremlin says that Putin expressed support to the legitimate government of Venezuela amid the acute political crisis that has been provoked from the outside. The Russian leader emphasized that destructive foreign interference tramples on basic norms of the international law. The Kremlin statement Thursday said Putin called for overcoming differences in the Venezuelan society through peaceful dialogue. It added that the two leaders underlined a shared intention to continue the Russian-Venezuelan co-operation in various spheres. Russia had already denounced the U.S. decision to recognize an opposition leader at Venezuelas legitimate president, calling it an attempted coup. Russia has been a key sponsor and ally of Venezuela, and last month it deployed two Tu-160 nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela for several days. ___ 1:45 P.M. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States is ready to send Venezuela food and medicine in response to requests from the opposition-controlled congress. Pompeo on Thursday urged other countries to step up and help Venezuelans rebuild a country he says has been destroyed by President Nicolas Maduros illegitimate government. The United States and several other countries have recognized National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of Venezuela. Guaido declared presidential powers on Wednesday, vowing to restore democracy. Pompeo says the United States is ready to ship more than $20 million in humanitarian assistance to help Venezuelans suffering dire shortages in a deepening crisis. Maduros government for years has rejected most foreign assistance, saying it is a cover for foreign powers to launch an invasion. ___ 1:30 p.m. The Vatican says Pope Francis is closely following developments in Venezuela and supports all efforts that help save the population from further suffering. A statement from Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti on Thursday didnt say if the Holy See recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidos claim to the interim presidency. Francis is nearby on a visit to Panama for World Youth Day. The statement said the pope is praying for the victims and for all the people of Venezuela. It adds that the Holy See supports all efforts that help save the population from further suffering. The Vatican has a delicate line to balance in Venezuela. Local bishops vocally oppose the socialist regime of President Nicholas Maduro, but the Holy See has kept up diplomatic relations with the government, to the extent that it sent its interim charge daffaires to Maduros inauguration earlier this month. ___ 1 p.m. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says hes shocked by U.S. President Donald Trumps decision to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidos claim to the presidency. Speaking at a joint news conference with Maltas president on Thursday, Erdogan reiterated his support for embattled President Nicolas Maduro. Erdogan said he believed Maduro would overcome the crisis and would receive the peoples backing if he continues to stand strong in the path he believes in. Erdogan also said Maduro didnt delay in calling and visiting Turkey to offer his support soon after Turkey thwarted a coup attempt in 2016. ___ 12:45 p.m. South Africas U.N. ambassador says U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked to discuss the political situation in Venezuela with the U.N. Security Council in closed consultations on Saturday morning. Jerry Matjila told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York on Thursday that the council would discuss whether the situation in Venezuela poses a threat to international peace and security. Venezuela is not on the Security Council agenda and the U.S. needs the support of at least nine of the 15 council nations to hold a meeting. Before Matjila spoke, Russias U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters he didnt think such a meeting was required. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday recognized National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelas interim president, leading President Nicolas Maduro to demand that all U.S. diplomats leave the country in 72 hours. Pompeo told the diplomats to stay because the U.S. doesnt recognize Maduro. Matjila said South Africa still recognizes the Maduro government. He called the situation in Venezuela very delicate, and encouraged Venezuelans to sit together and discuss among themselves to see what they can do. ___ 12:30 p.m. Britains foreign secretary says Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido is the right person to take the troubled country forward. Jeremy Hunt said Thursday during a visit to Washington that the May 20 election in Venezuela was deeply flawed and said the regime led by President Nicholas Maduro has done untold damage to the people of Venezuela. Hunt said it is clear that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela. But the statement stops short of recognizing Guaido as president. Hunt says he plans to discuss the matter with Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. ___ 12:20 p.m. The chief of Venezuelas military has reaffirmed his support for President Nicolas Maduro, saying the armed forces will never accept a leader imposed on their country. The televised statement by Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez on Thursday is part of a show of military support for Maduro in the face of faltering international recognition of his government. Opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido has declared himself Venezuelas interim president, promising to restore democracy to Venezuela. Padrino Lopez said dark interests are working outside Venezuelas constitution, emboldening the oppositions rise. He says his soldiers would be unworthy of their uniform if they fail to defend the constitution. The United States, Canada and some Latin American and European countries have recognized Guaidos claim that the constitution gives him the authority to assume power. ___ 10:05 a.m. Military commanders across Venezuela are taking to the airwaves to vow loyalty to embattled President Nicolas Maduro. Major General Victor Palacio said Thursday he categorically rejected any acts threatening stability in Venezuela. Opposition leader Juan Guaido a day earlier spoke to masses of supporters crowding the streets of Caracas that hes assuming the presidency. He called for new elections to restore democracy and appealed to members of the military to reject what he called Maduros dictatorship. Palacio is one of several generals who have been appearing on state TV, standing before dozens of soldiers in a show of military support. Major General Manuel Gregorio Bernal also backed Maduro, saying the president represents an independent country in the face of imperialist aggression. ___ 9:25 a.m. Venezuelas closest ally says it backs socialist President Nicolas Maduro against what it calls a coup detat to impose a servile government under orders from the United States. Cubas foreign ministry says Cuba expresses its unwavering solidarity with the government of the constitutional president Nicolas Maduro Moros. Cuba has sent Venezuela tens of thousands of workers, from doctors to intelligence officials, to support former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Maduro, his successor. In return, the economically struggling island receives tens of thousands of barrels a day in heavily subsidized oil. Anti-Maduro National Assembly President Juan Guaido asserts that hes Venezuelas interim president under the constitution. ___ 9:00 a.m. A Venezuelan monitoring group says at least a dozen people have been killed by gunfire in a wave of anti-government unrest rocking Venezuela, where a young opposition leader and socialist President Nicolas Maduro both claim to be chief of state. . Co-ordinator Marco Ponce with the non-profit Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict gave the death toll and names of those reported slain to the Associated Press on Thursday. Seven deaths had been reported earlier. For a third consecutive night, there were reports of looting in poor neighbourhoods in Caracas and clashes between protesters and state security forces. Amnesty International is calling on Maduro to uphold demonstrators rights and immediately remove any military or police offers involved in repression. The troubled South American nation has plunged into a new chapter of uncertainty following Wednesdays mass protests and competing claims to the presidency. ___ 8:50 a.m. The German government is backing the opposition-led National Assembly in Venezuela, while calling for free and credible elections in the country. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Thursday on Twitter that the people of Venezuela are bravely working for a free future for their country. Seibert said this now requires a political process that results in free and credible elections. He added that the democratically elected National Assembly should have a special role here. ___ 8:20 a.m. The U.N. chief has called for dialogue and says violence or escalation should be avoided after the United States, many Latin American countries and others recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys president. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was asked to comment about Venezuela at the World Economic Forum after many of its closest neighbours issued the rebuff to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a day earlier. Guterres said simply: It is absolutely essential to have dialogue, to avoid violence and to avoid escalation. He did not elaborate. ___ 7:50 a.m. Spains Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is holding talks on Venezuela with Latin American leaders in the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Sanchezs office also said the leader has scheduled a phone call with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido. Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, a long-time socialist, says Nicolas Maduros government is illegitimate but declined to follow other world leaders in endorsing Guaido. We dont know how, but we are going to procure free and fair elections in Venezuela, Borrell has told reporters on Thursday. Spain was among European countries that until earlier this week was promoting an international mediation between Maduros administration and the opposition. But Borrell says now that the situation has changed radically. He also said the governments top priority was to ensure the safety of more than 200,000 Spaniards living in Venezuela. ___ 7:30 a.m. French President Emmanuel Macron says that the May 2018 election of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was illegitimate and saluted the bravery of Venezuelans who are demanding freedom. In a tweet on Thursday in French and Spanish, Macron added his own voice to the European Unions declared support for the restoration of democracy. Macron said that he salutes the courage of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marching for their liberty. The EU is calling for the launch of a political process in Venezuela that would lead to fresh elections after opposition leader Juan Guaido claimed the presidency amid anti-government protests. ___ 7:20 a.m. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey opposes coup attempts wherever they may occur. Erdogan, who did not directly reference Venezuela, made the comments at a military academy Thursday hours after he spoke with Venezuelas President Nicolas Maduro. Earlier, Erdogans spokesman said that the Turkish leader told Maduro in a phone call: My brother Maduro! Stay strong, we are by your side. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Erdogan said: As a country that believes in democracy, as a president who believes in democracy ... where ever in the world there is a coup attempt, we stand against them all without distinction. He added: Everyone has to respect the result of the ballot boxes. Erdogan, whom critics accuse of increasingly autocratic tendencies, survived a coup attempt in 2016. ___ 7:10 a.m. Ecuadors foreign minister says his country opposes possible military action in Venezuela against President Nicolas Maduros government, insisting it would have mostly negative impacts. Ecuador has joined many fellow Latin American countries, the United States and others that have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuelas president in the face of Venezuelas political and economic crisis under Maduro. Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Jose Valencia told a panel session at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Ecuador would disagree with the military option. Valencia was asked to comment Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said options are on the table a day earlier in response to a question whether the U.S. was contemplating military action in Venezuela. Valencia said: I wouldnt think that it would be a way out of the situation. You have to give the Venezuelan people the opportunity to decide by themselves. Ecuador said in October it has granted visas to 90,000 Venezuelans fleeing their country. ___ 7 a.m. Syria has condemned what it describes as flagrant intervention by the U.S. in Venezuelas internal affairs. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the American backing of the oppositions claim to the presidency in Venezuela constitutes a violation of international laws and norms. The ministry says Damascus renews its full solidarity with the leadership and people of the Venezuelan Republic in preserving the countrys sovereignty and foiling the American administrations hostile plans. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is a strong ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Maduro visited Syria as foreign minister in 2011, months after the Arab countrys conflict began. Assad visited Venezuela in 2010. A large Syrian community lives in Venezuela. ___ 6:50 a.m. The Kremlin has dismissed the political crisis in Venezuela as an attempted coup and expressed concern over suggestions of possible foreign military intervention. Russia is a key ally of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in for his second term in office earlier this month. Maduros rival Juan Gauido on Wednesday declared himself interim president before masses of demonstrators in Caracas. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday dismissed Gauidos announcement an attempt to usurp power which violates international law. He also said the Kremlin was concerned about statements from foreign nations which do not rule out foreign intervention. Asked if Russia would be willing to grant asylum to Maduro, Peskov said that Maduro is the legitimate leader. Russias Foreign Ministry in a statement issued earlier on Thursday said that the crisis in Venezuela has reached a dangerous point and called on the international community to mediate between the government and the opposition. ___ 6:45 a.m. Portugals foreign minister is calling for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to understand that his time has come to an end, after opposition leader Juan Guaido claimed the countrys presidency. Augusto Santos Silva told the Portuguese news agency LUSA, in comments published by daily Observador, that Maduro cannot ignore the will of the people. Portugal has previously taken a careful approach to events in Venezuela, wary of doing anything that might cause problems for the large Portuguese community there. Santos Silva appealed for a peaceful end to the standoff and called for free elections. ___ 6:30 a.m. The European Union is calling for the launch of a political process in Venezuela that would lead to fresh elections after opposition leader Juan Guaido claimed the presidency amid anti-government protests. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherni said in a statement Thursday that the voice of Venezuelans calling for democracy cannot be ignored. Mogherini says that the EU strongly calls for the start of an immediate political process leading to free and credible elections, in conformity with the constitutional order. She says the EU backs Venezuelas national assembly and that its powers should be restored and respected. Mogherini is calling for the safety and rights of lawmakers and Guaido to be protected, and says the 28-nation EU stands ready to help support a return to democracy and the rule of law. ___ 6:05 a.m. China is calling on the United States to stay out of Venezuelas current political crisis and says it opposes all outside intervention in the South American country. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday that all parties to the conflict should remain rational and level-headed and seek a political resolution on the Venezuelan issue through peaceful dialogue within the framework of the Venezuelan Constitution. Hua said China opposes external intervention in Venezuela. We hope that the international community will jointly create favourable conditions for this. She said: We hope that Venezuela and the United States can respect and treat each other on an equal footing, and deal with their relations based on non-interference in each others internal affairs. Over the last decade, China has given Venezuela $65 billion in loans, cash and investment. Venezuela owes more than $20 billion. Chinas only hope of being repaid appears to lie in Venezuela ramping up oil production, although low petroleum prices and the countrys crashing economy appear to bode poorly for such an outcome. ___ 5:35 a.m. Iran has denounced events in Venezuela, saying the oppositions claim there that it holds the presidency is a coup and an attempt to take over power unlawfully. In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told reporters on Thursday that the Islamic Republic of Iran supports the government and people of Venezuela against any sort of foreign intervention and any illegitimate and illegal action such as attempt to make a coup detat. His remarks were carried by the semi-official ISNA news agency. Ghasemi also condemned what he said is an open and illegal intervention in Venezuela by the U.S. and added hopes that the Venezuelan people will overcome their political rifts and problems through peaceful and legal means. Tehran has long been an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. ___ 5:10 a.m. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom says the peoples right to peacefully demonstrate and freely choose its leaders must be respected in Venezuela after sometimes violent rallies in the wake of opposition leader Juan Guaido claiming the presidency. Wallstrom has tweeted that all violence and the excessive use of force are unacceptable. Democracy must be restored. Her Danish counterpart Anders Samuelsen says Denmark will always support legitimate elected democratic institutions not least the parliamentary assembly including @jguaido Juan Guaido. The opposition leader had declared himself interim president before a mass of demonstrators in Caracas, saying the dictatorship of socialist President Nicolas Maduro should end. Violence flared again Wednesday across Venezuela, and at least seven deaths were reported in the escalating confrontation with Maduro, who has been increasingly criticized by many nations. Russia, Turkey and other nations support Maduro. ___ 4 a.m. Russian officials and senior lawmakers have reacted angrily to opposition protests in Venezuela that support opposition leader Juan Guaidos claim to the presidency. Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the information committee at the Federation Council, on Thursday called Guaidos declaration an attempted coup backed by the U.S. Russia has been propping up incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, who took office for a second term earlier this month, with arms deliveries and loans. Maduro visited Moscow in December, seeking Russias political support and financial support. Its impossible to imagine that this was spontaneous, Pushkov said on state-owned Rossiya 24 television station, referring to the opposition protests. That was a pre-planned action, and it was certainly co-ordinated by the United States. President Donald Trump has promised to use the full weight of U.S. economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuelas democracy. Pushkov warned that the showdown between Maduro and Guaido could lead to a civil conflict, even civil war. Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Councils foreign affairs committee, in a Facebook post on Thursday accused the U.S. of inciting protests in Venezuela. ___ 3:50 a.m. A senior official says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Venezuelas embattled president, Nicolas Maduro, to voice his support after the leader of a united opposition claimed to hold the interim presidency. Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted early Thursday that Erdogan told Maduro: My brother Maduro! Stay strong, we are by your side. Kalin added that Turkey, under Erdogans leadership, would maintain its principled stance against coup attempts. Juan Guaido declared himself interim president before a mass of demonstrators in Caracas on Wednesday. The U.S., Canada and another dozen mostly Latin American countries quickly announced that they supported Guaidos claim to the presidency. Turkey has cultivated close economic and political ties with Maduro. During a visit to Venezuela in December, Erdogan criticized U.S. sanctions on the crisis-ridden country. ___ 1 a.m. Australia is considering recognizing the rival claimant to Venezuelas presidency after the United States and many Latin American did so. Congress leader Juan Guaido has declared himself interim president and said it was the only way to end President Nicolas Maduros dictatorship. After the U.S. and others announced their support for Guaido, Maduro fired back late Wednesday by breaking relations with the U.S. and ordering its diplomats to leave. Washington says it will ignore the order. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Thursday that her government is considering recognizing Guaido as president. She told reporters in Sydney that Australia was concerned about what the clearly deteriorating political, economic and security and humanitarian situation in Venezuela and it is having significant effects across the Latin American region. ___ 12:15 a.m. Venezuelans are heading into uncharted political waters, with the young leader of a newly united and combative opposition claiming the presidency and socialist President Nicolas Maduro digging in for a fight with the Trump administration. Violence flared again Wednesday during big protests across Venezuela, and at least seven deaths were reported in the escalating confrontation with Maduro, who has been increasingly criticized by many nations. Congress leader Juan Guaido turned up the heat by declaring himself interim president before a mass of demonstrators in Caracas. He said it is the only way to end Maduros dictatorship. The U.S., Canada and many Latin American countries quickly announced support for Guaido. Maduro fired back by breaking relations with the U.S. and ordering its diplomats out. Washington says it will ignore the order. Toronto police are conducting a high-level search with the help of mounted police and the K-9 unit for a 59-year-old woman who went missing in Etobicoke Friday morning. Police are concerned for her safety as she disappeared shortly after the extreme cold warning was issued and temperatures were frigid overnight; with wind chill the temperature dropped to a low of -22 C. Alice Wolski was last seen Friday at around 8 a.m. near Martin Grove Rd. and Cowley Ave., close to Burnhamthorpe Rd. Police describe her as five-foot-seven with a slim build, long dark brown hair and green eyes. She was last seen wearing black leather boots. Investigators do not know what clothing she was wearing or if she was appropriately dressed for the weather. Officers have begun a Level 3 search, the highest search possible for a missing person, and have set up a command post in the parking lot of a Shoppers Drug Mart near Rathburn Rd. and The East Mall. Police say her family reported her missing once they discovered she disappeared. Her family said its not like her to just leave like this, Toronto police Const. Rob Reid said. He asked for the publics help in the search, advising people to keep an eye out for Wolski in backyards, garages and other secluded places. We need the help of the community to make this a success, he said. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-2200 or call Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477). Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... George Szabo has had some sleepless nights since Jan. 15, the morning when Hang Vo was struck and killed by a garbage truck driver in a downtown alleyway. He thinks he might have been the last person to speak to Vo before the tragic incident. And he cant quite shake off the idea that maybe he could have done more to save her life. Szabo, a retired photographer who has been manning the security desk at the building near Adelaide St. and University Ave. for more than 15 years, remembers the quiet woman. Prior to that fateful morning, she had been seen sleeping over a grate at the entrance of an alleyway for the past two weeks. Szabo, as well as building operator Daniel Gareau, had repeatedly tried to warn her of potential dangers. I said, do you hear me maam? recalled Szabo of their interaction that last evening. She nodded. Then I said, do you understand me? and she said, yes. That is the only word I ever heard from her. Several hours later, on a dark and chilly Tuesday morning, a truck driver from Green For Life (GFL) Environmental backed into the tight alleyway to collect garbage. He struck Vo, 58, who was pronounced dead at the scene a few minutes later. Szabo said he remembers Vo as a calm and composed individual, someone who didnt really look like she was homeless. She always covered her head in a way that made it difficult to see her full face, and carried around a matching light brown leather suitcase and purse, he said. Read more: Police release photograph of woman killed by garbage truck in downtown alley Police identify woman struck and killed by a garbage truck in downtown Toronto Woman dies after being hit by reversing garbage truck in downtown alleyway He doesnt see many homeless people on the corner, and certainly had never seen anyone sleeping either on the sidewalk or in the alleyway until Vo showed up which is why he kept trying to warn her. Still, Szabo says he was saddened by this senseless death and continues to wonder if he could have changed anything about what happened. The only way for me to save her would have been to physically drag her inside the building. But I cant do that, he said, recalling that he specifically told her she could get killed if she kept sleeping at that corner. How terribly ironic. Vo was the second woman to die on Torontos streets this year, and her death sparked more conversation about the issue of homelessness and how the city is responding to it. Much of her identity and the circumstances that may have led to her ending up on the streets of Toronto have remained mysterious. Advocates believe she may have a brother who lives in Toronto. Toronto police, who initially appealed to the public for any information about Vo, confirmed Thursday they had found and notified her next of kin. A spokesperson from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said they cannot share any details about specific cases due to privacy considerations. But some available information reveal Vo had a complicated past that includes the loss of her immigration status. According to documents tracked by various social workers and copies of which the Star has seen, Vo (full name Bich Hang Thi Vo) was born in Vietnam on Oct. 10, 1960. She immigrated to Canada and landed at Vancouver International Airport as a permanent resident on April 20, 1977. She was using a travel document issued in the Philippines, according to official documents. What happened after that is unclear. So unclear, in fact, theres a void of more than 30 years until Vos name surfaces again, this time in Hamilton, Ont. A document signed by Hamilton CBSA on Oct. 27, 2009, indicates that Vo, until then a permanent resident, was convicted of two counts of fraud. The convictions took place on June 4, 2009, and the sentence details included 208 days of pre-sentence custody plus one day in jail, with a free-standing restitution of $45,068.65, according to the document. Anna Pape, a spokesperson from the Immigration and Refugee Board, confirmed they have a record showing that Vo filed an appeal of a removal order issued against her on May 10, 2010. However, she failed to appear for her hearing and then again failed to attend at a date scheduled for her to explain why she did not appear for her hearing, wrote Pape in an email to the Star. Consequently, the Immigration Appeal Division determined that her appeal was abandoned. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Multiple fraud-related criminal convictions would have been enough for Vos permanent resident status to be stripped, said Macdonald Scott, a Toronto immigration consultant and advocate with No One Is Illegal a Toronto group advocating for the rights of migrants regardless of their status. Some countries, including Vietnam in the past, do not want to take back their deportees, he said, adding this includes particularly people who fled Vietnam in the 1970s or those who have criminal convictions and/or mental health issues. So she was caught between a rock and a hard place with that, he said. Scott said Vo wouldnt have been eligible to stay in subsidized housing after that, as the Ontario Housing Services Act requires an immigration status. He said sometimes people fall into bad and criminal behaviour, but he doesnt think that should mean we take away their rights and put their life in jeopardy. Longtime activist with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty Gaetan Heroux agreed that Vos loss of her permanent residency might have been a turning point. It would have caused her havoc, he said, noting he has come across many cases of people whose lives are turned upside down after going through such experiences. So she winds up in Toronto, he said, noting she may have been trying to apply for housing or welfare, and becoming frustrated. Theres a lot of pressure for someone who doesnt have papers. But Vo did receive some help. One document shows she stayed at the Salvation Armys Evangeline Residence in Torontos west end, starting Oct. 19, 2016. Theres no information as to when she left. No one at the Evangeline Residence responded to the Stars repeated requests for a comment. Nasrin Safary, an outreach worker with Neighbourhood Link Support Services, said she met with Vo in early 2017. Vo was looking for help filling out an application for status verification or replacement of an immigration document. She was really quiet, she said, describing Vo as someone who wanted to just talk about her case and nothing else. Her accent was heavy but I could understand her very well. She said Vo only had a copy of her landing document, and there was no record of working anywhere, even though original documents show she came to Canada on a work visa. She said Vo may have dealt with mental health issues during her time in Canada, and appeared confused about the loss of her immigration status. When a response for her application came back three months later, it indicated that Citizenship and Immigration Canada listed Vos status as a foreign national. Her permanent resident status had been relinquished on May 12, 2010, according to the document. She was in shock when she found out. She got very upset and very angry, said Safary, noting that people dealing with homelessness and/or mental health problems are often living on the streets or going from shelter to shelter without realizing their immigration status has changed. As a social worker often helping homeless people who sometimes dont have immigration status, Safary said Vos death has increased her worry about their fate. Its very sad. It makes you wonder when its going to happen to the next person, she said. Ryerson Universitys student union is facing allegations of misspending after credit card statements show thousands of dollars in questionable purchases at places such as restaurants, bars and the LCBO. Among the charges made with a Ryerson Students Union (RSU) credit card is $2,280.89 for the Toronto nightclub EFS, $2,507.18 for a Cineplex Rec Room in Toronto, $696.90 for Airbnb, and $1,375.21 at Nicks Sport Shop, according to documents obtained by a Ryerson student newspaper. Were really, really shocked, Daniyal Patricio, a student member on the unions board of directors that oversees the executive, said on Friday. It paints a bad picture of the student union, said Patricio. While it appears as though money was frivolously misspent, he noted the purchases could very well be justified. The RSU, which is run by a five-member elected executive comprised of students, operates various programs and services on campus, such as free legal aid, tax clinics, student groups and equity service centres for marginalized communities. The money it uses is collected from mandatory student fees an undergraduate student pays about $130 towards the union. It has an operating budget of $2.7 million. For months, the student newspaper, The Eyeopener, has been raising questions about expenses incurred since the executive took office in May. So too has board member Maklane deWever, who has expressed concerns about expenses because the executive had not submitted quarterly financial reports. Earlier this week, the unions accountant showed deWever expenses dating back to May, which he says amounted to about $250,000. All credit card bills have been paid, he says. DeWever told the Star many of the expenses were legitimate, but others have raised questions, adding What I saw was quite sad. The issue came to a head on Thursday evening at the unions board meeting, where the executive was questioned, in particular about credit card statements addressed to the unions president Ram Ganesh. He explained that the unions credit cards can be used by any part-time or full-time union staff member, according to The Eyeopener. The executive said it needed time to reconcile these credit card statements. Ganesh said he could not provide explanations for the purchases until receipts were checked to confirm that all the transactions are accurate. He said high turnover at the union was one of the reasons for the delay, according to The Eyeopener. In a statement late Thursday night to The Eyeopener, Ganesh said he was disappointed the credit card statements were made public without any context or explanation. The Star reached out to Ganesh for comment Friday, but he did not respond before deadline, nor did other members of the executive. The executive now has until Feb. 1 to provide proper receipts for its expenses. The board did not have quorum so it could not vote on matters, but a discussion was held on the issue. Patricio told the Star he thinks some charges cannot be reconciled. An example, he says, is a $786.75 purchase at the LCBO, adding its unclear what the alcohol was for because the union cant sell it without a liquor licence and cant give it away for free without board approval, which it didnt have. On Thursday night, photos of the credit card statements were published on a Facebook group of a student political group called the Rhino Party, as well as The Eyeopener. The statements have not been provided to the Star. Johanna VanderMaas, a spokesperson for Ryerson University, said Friday the school takes allegations of financial mismanagement involving the union very seriously. But, she added, the union is a separate corporate entity from Ryerson and has its own corporate governance structure and board of directors. Ryerson has no ability to conduct an independent investigation into RSU finances, said VanderMaas. Protecting the interests of Ryerson students is of primary concern to the university. Given the seriousness of these allegations, President (Mohamed) Lachemi has written to the RSU executive to request a meeting to discuss this matter. The story comes on the heels of a recent government announcement that beginning in September students at colleges and universities will have the choice of opting out of non-tuition fees for non-essential services. That means that under the new fee structure students will have the choice to support student unions, such as the RSU, and student newspapers, such as The Eyeopener. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... This (story) is a really good example of why student media is important because were the only ones really watching these institutions that at the end of the day control a lot of money, said Jacob Dube, the editor-in-chief of The Eyeopener. He says some students use the alleged mismanagement of funds as an example of why they should be allowed to opt out of student fees for groups such as the union. But he cautions against this, saying the purpose of the union, and the various groups, initiatives and policies it supports are vital for student life. Read more about: After days of transient living, Hima Rayabaram will soon be able to return to the warmth of her St. James Town apartment. Rayabaram and her 8-year-old son have been bunking with friends and finding other temporary abodes since she was displaced Tuesday from her 21-floor unit. Its like chaos, she said. We changed two places in four days. It is really hard. Rayabaram attended a press conference Friday outside the 260 Wellesley St. E. building that tenants were forced to leave earlier this week. Toronto Hydro had shut off power to the 33-storey tower after a burst pipe flooded the electrical room of the building west of Parliament St. leaving it without heat, lights or water. On Friday, residents were told power was reconnected and heat was restored, but officials cautioned that water, heat and electricity will not be restored to full capacity for at least another day or two. This is really good to know, said Rayabaram, adding that, at the same time the management should take care of the building, so that this type of mishaps does not happen again. Read more: Opinion | Tales of humanity from our darkened towers Its emotionally distressing. First a fire, now a burst pipe is making these tenants homeless again Roughly 1,000 residents left without power and water after pipe burst at 260 Wellesley St. E. Deputy Chief Jim Jessop said the Electrical Safety Authority and contractors will now commence suite-by-suite checks before services are fully restored in each unit. The objective is to gradually restore the power so it can be sustained permanently. Resident at the highrise were cautioned by Jessop not to start maxing out all of your electrical outlets or your hot water usages because you may have an unintended consequence of setting us back in the progress that were making. Crews will ensure there are no taps, electronics or appliances left on that could trigger further outages, fires and flooding. I anticipate that we will be here until at least Monday, just to make sure that there are no issues, Jessop said. Shelter will continue to be provided at the Wellesley Community Centre, which will accommodate displaced residents until at least Monday, Jessop said. Steve Smith, general manager of the Electrical Safety Authority, which authorized the restoration of power Friday morning, said they were sure the system is safe and ready to function as intended. Water and electricity dont mix and so thats why its taking so long, Smith said. As we move forward you may find some sporadic outages. We may have to bring the system down, as issues arise, so we can deal with them. The building was serving as temporary shelter for 26 of the tenants who were displaced from the nearby 650 Parliament St. building, following a six-alarm fire last August. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... It was a nightmare all over again, said Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam of the ordeal faced by those tenants. Wong-Tam said the incident highlights the deteriorating state of an aging stock of buildings across the city about 3,400 older towers are in need of constant upkeep, according to her count. Were going to have to do a better job of making sure that the maintenance and ongoing upkeep are there, she said, adding that property owners must also be held to account for repairs and communicating issues to tenants. Wong-Tam will be meeting next week with the city manager and the mayor, to find a way to make sure that buildings of this particular vintage and period are going to be better maintained, so we can prevent these kind of incidents from happening again. Police have released the identity of a woman who died after a stabbing in a west-end Toronto home on Thursday morning. They also identified the suspect. Hanh Hana Nguyen, 41, was found suffering from serious stab wounds at her home on Mould Ave., near Jane St. and St. Clair Ave. W. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers also found Austin Le, 40, with stab wounds. He was taken to hospital and is expected to recover, police said. Le has been charged with second degree murder in Nguyens death. Nguyen and Le did know each other, Const. Caroline de Kloet said in a phone interview. Police would not disclose further information about the suspect and victims relationship. Police are asking anyone with information to contact investigators at 416-808-7400 or anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477). The provincial agency that operates GO Transit has adopted a policy that would prohibit workers from using marijuana, even when theyre not on the job. According to a memo sent to Metrolinx employees Friday and obtained by the Star, the agency has updated its fitness for duty policy to include a blanket ban on workers, who are in safety sensitive positions, consuming cannabis. Recreational use of the drug has been legal across Canada since October 17, 2018. In the memo, Metrolinx president and chief executive officer Phil Verster states that it is my expectation that as of February 1, (a)ll employees who work in a safety sensitive position know that they are prohibited from using recreational cannabis and/or cannabis products whether they are on or off duty. The fitness-for-duty policy was first introduced last year and spells out Metrolinxs requirements around issues such as drug and alcohol use and fatigue. Any violation can result in discipline up to and including termination of employment, the policy states. Its not clear how many Metrolinx employees will be prohibited from using pot under the new rules. Metrolinx has about 3,700 employees and hundreds of contractors, including Bombardier employees who operate GO trains, but not all of them are in safety sensitive positions. Read more: Opinion | Should police have to abstain from cannabis consumption for 28 days? No Employers scrambling to find a way to manage weed in the workplace Marijuana brings on the munchies. What about CBD in food? The agency provided a list Friday of 137 positions it considers safety sensitive and to which the ban would apply. They include supervisors, bus drivers, maintenance workers, fare inspectors, and some employees in the corporate records and information management department. The agencys chief executive officer isnt listed. Metrolinx spokesperson Amanda Ferguson said the list isnt exhaustive and more positions could be added at any time. A spokesperson for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1587, the union representing GO bus drivers, declined to comment Friday. But when told about the new policy by a reporter Friday, John Di Nino, the national president the Amalgamated Transit Union, immediately vowed to challenge it. This is infringement on an individuals human rights, he said. Di Nino said the union has no tolerance for workers being impaired on the job, but it is hugely problematic and concerning when they are trying to control what we do on our personal time off property. Justin W. Anisman, an associate at Torontos Brauti Thorning LLP and an expert in employment law, questioned whether Metrolinxs policy would stand up to legal scrutiny. Employers cannot interfere with their employees rights to engage in recreational activities outside the workplace, he said. In the same way you cant ban people from drinking alcohol outside the workplace, you cant ban them from smoking cannabis. Nadia Halum Arauz, an associate at the MacLeod Law Firm, which specializes in labour law, said its reasonable for an agency whose operations affect public safety to have strong drug and alcohol policies. But she described the ban on using pot at home as definitely an overreach. There are probably better ways of balancing your obligations as an employer, your obligations as a service provider, vis-a-vis respecting your employees rights to do whatever they want on their own time, she said. Asked whether the agency believes its new rules would withstand a legal challenge Ferguson, the Metrolinx spokesperson, said its lawyers have carefully reviewed the policy. Metrolinx is committed to preserving the health and safety of all employees, the communities we serve, and members of the public who may use Metrolinx services or otherwise be affected by our services, Verster said in a statement. To this end, Metrolinx is committed to ensuring that all employees and contractors are fit for duty. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Metrolinxs introduction of the cannabis prohibition comes almost two years after the TTC introduced a controversial policy to subject its employees in safety-sensitive positions to random drug and alcohol testing. However, TTC management has stressed its only concerned about impairment at work, and hasnt moved to stop drug or alcohol use when transit workers are off the clock. Metrolinx also performs drug and alcohol tests, but only when the agency says there is reasonable cause to believe an employee is impaired on the job, or after a workplace incident that threatened safety. Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr Read more about: A judge was so concerned about the safety of a child involved in both a vicious custody battle and a high-profile domestic violence case that she ordered police to seize the girl from her fathers home hours before granting custody to her mother. The five-year-old girl was taken by police from the Safdar familys house on Scarlettwood St. in Hamilton, Ont. shortly after noon Friday during a break in custody proceedings at Unified Family Court. This was just hours before Justice Mary Jo McLaren was to hand down her decision on whether the child (who The Spectator has chosen not to name) would continue to reside with her father, Adeel Safdar, and his extended family or live with her mother, Sara Salim, who is a medical doctor in Rochester, N.Y. They didnt even give me a chance to have a hug or a last goodbye, Adeel said angrily to the court after he learned of what happened. My heart has been ripped away from my body. McLaren told the court she had never before made such an order ahead of delivering a decision, but she had also never before seen anyone in family court lose as much as Adeel. And there had been so many threats involving the child. I became worried, not knowing what would happen, she said. Mr. Safdar could well think of himself as the man who has lost everything, and now his child So I didnt want to take any chances. Michael P. Clarke, Saras lawyer, said outside court that he has never seen an apprehension prior to the release of a decision in the 30 years he has been practising. McLaren then used nearly every legal option available to her to keep Adeel away from Sara and their child. She awarded custody to Sara, allowing Adeel one supervised visit each month, in Rochester, for two to three hours. His mother and brother also implicated in the domestic violence allegations cannot see the child at all. Adeel is to pay child support and has a restraining order to stay away from Sara and only have contact with the child during those specific court-ordered visits. McLaren said she made all these decisions for one simple reason: she believed Sara. After a 51-day trial, she believed Sara had been tortured, confined and abused by Adeel, his mother, Shaheen, and his brother, Aatif, at the former Safdar family home in Binbrook. The biggest thing I had to determine was what happened in that house, the judge said. I accept the evidence of Sara Salim. The abuse was significant, it was extreme. And I understand when she said she wondered if she would ever get out of there alive. Ive come to the conclusion, given the extreme violence in the house, I cant make any other order than custody in favour of (Sara Salim.) The Safdars, all of whom live in the Scarlettwood home, spent 14 months on trial in criminal court on charges involving allegations of torture, confinement and abuse. Last month, on the day the judge was scheduled to hand down his verdict, the case was tossed because it had violated the rights of the accused by taking too long. It was the longest trial in Hamilton history. That day all three accused walked free. The Crown has filed an appeal. Adeel, 36, was charged with assault, assault with a weapon, assault bodily harm, threatening death and aggravated assault upon Sara. Shaheen, 63, faced the same charges, while Aatif, 36, was charged with assault bodily harm, assault with a weapon, assault and threatening death. The Safdars argued that Sara was mentally ill and did all the harm to herself. They said she made up stories about abuse to win her custody case. McLaren also pointed to the acquiescence of the other two family members who lived there. Adeels father and Aatifs wife lived at the Binbrook house but did nothing to stop the abuse of Sara, the judge said. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Since the Safdars were arrested and, particularly since The Spectator began covering the case, Adeel has lost nearly everything in his life, McLaren told the court. Adeel, once a renowned scientist who had done research at McMaster University and Harvard, became unemployed. His McMaster research is now under investigation for academic fraud. Adeel currently works at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. Adeel wanted Sara to pay him spousal support, but McLaren shot that down: It was a very brief marriage and at the end of the marriage, he was the one with a good job and she was the one leaving in an ambulance. The Safdars lost their house in Binbrook and Adeel is $900,000 in debt. As well as paying child support, he must pay Sara the $25,000 mehr he has never honoured. A mehr is a traditional Islamic mandatory payment by the grooms family to the bride at the wedding. Although the criminal charges were stayed, there is the possibility of the stay being overturned by the Court of Appeal for Ontario. Adeel could one day still be found guilty. Now he has lost his daughter. Friday morning, when McLaren first addressed Adeel in the courtroom, she asked him where the child was. He informed her she had been kept home from school for the day and was at home. Later, the judge said that heightened her concern. I wasnt surprised the child wasnt at school today, he told the court. I think (Adeel) anticipated he would lose custody. The implication was that Adeel might try to flee with the child, something that had been threatened in the past. Four police officers were in the courtroom for the decision one of whom was the lead detective on the criminal case and they escorted Sara at all times. Clarke, Saras lawyer, said McLarens decision will be considered significant by Canadas legal community because of the degree of the abuse and the fathers extremely limited access to the child. OTTAWAThe politician Canada and its allies recognize as Venezuelas real leader stood in a Caracas plaza Friday and exhorted his supporters to stay the course if he winds up behind bars. Juan Guaidos defiant pronouncement against President Nicolas Maduro whom Canada has branded a dictator who stole an election marked the latest dramatic development in Venezuelas political crisis. It followed Guaidos decision two days earlier to declare himself his countrys interim leader, two weeks after Maduros contested inauguration. But emboldening Venezuelas opposition has been a labour of months, The Canadian Press has learned. Canadian diplomats in Caracas, with their Latin American counterparts, worked to get the countrys opposition parties to coalesce behind the one person who emerged strong enough to stand against Maduro: 35-year-old Guaido. The turning point came Jan. 4 when the Lima Group the bloc that includes Canada and more than a dozen Latin American countries rejected the legitimacy of Maduros May 2018 election victory and his looming Jan. 10 inauguration, while recognizing the legitimately elected National Assembly, sources say. They were really looking for international support of some kind, to be able to hold onto a reason as to why they should unite, and push out somebody like Juan Guaido, said one source. Read more: Canada an unlikely ally of U.S. in backing Venezuela coup Cocaine, payolahow Maduro keeps top military brass in line Canada plans to convene international meeting on Venezuelas future, sources say The Canadian Press interviewed senior Canadian government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the crisis in Venezuela. They detailed Canadas role in aiding democratic forces to rescue the once oil-rich country from the economic and political spiral that has forced three million Venezuelans from their homes. Canada anticipated this weeks developments because its diplomats have been keeping in close contact with Guaido and other opposition figures in Venezuela. We listen to them. We listen to the diaspora in Canada and elsewhere in the world, and we do what we can, said one source. The quiet Canadian diplomacy was conducted in tandem with Lima Group allies such as Chile, Peru, Colombia and Brazil. It was part of a Canadian diplomatic tradition that included efforts in the 1980s to shield Chilean dissidents fighting the Pinochet dictatorship. And in 2000, foreign-affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy led a multilateral mission to Peru that ousted strongman Alberto Fujimori, said Canadas former ambassador to Venezuela Ben Rowswell. The tradition here is that Canada believes in the principles of human rights and democracy and takes pragmatic measures on the ground to unblock political situations, said Rowswell. Rowswell said he drew on that tradition while he was in Venezuela, hosting a high-profile award party at the Canadian Embassy to honour a local civil-society leader. The annual gathering sent a message that the world was watching pro-democracy efforts in the face of Maduros growing authoritarianism. After Rowswells 2017 departure, the Lima Group was born and Canada began working within that coalition which does not include the United States to further human rights and democracy in the hemisphere. Maduros May 20, 2018 election victory galvanized the Lima Groups efforts. The group denounced the vote as illegitimate and downgraded diplomatic relations. The diplomats who remained focused on building bridges with a fractured opposition that was as much at odds with itself as it was with Maduro. In a November report, the International Crisis Group documented the divisions and urged the groups to set aside their personal and political rivalries. The top contenders to lead the opposition were long-time leaders Leopold Lopez and Julio Borges, but there were problems with both. Lopez has been under house arrest since 2014, while Borges is living in exile. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Borges put forth Guaido as a contender, said one source. Guaido made a clandestine trip to Washington in mid-December to brief U.S. officials on his strategy for dealing with Maduros Jan. 10 inauguration. He secretly crossed his countrys border with Colombia so Venezuelan immigration officials wouldnt know hed left and prevent his return. As talks among Venezuelan opposition factions progressed, one source said, they began to set aside their differences. A key realization set in: This is not about us. This is about the country. The source said the opposition groups deserve full credit for getting to that point. But it helped that Canadian diplomats could facilitate conversations with people that were out of the country and inside the country with other foreign diplomats. On Jan. 5, Guaido assumed the presidency of the National Assembly, which the Lima Group regards as the only remaining democratically elected institution in the country. Four days later, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland telephoned Guaido to congratulate him on becoming president of the National Assembly and his work on uniting the opposition, said another source. The next day, Maduro was sworn in as president with support of countries such as Cuba, Russia and China; Freeland said the Maduro regime is now fully entrenched as a dictatorship. On Wednesday, after Guaido declared himself to be the interim president, Venezuelans took to the streets in protests across the country. Its an important day for Venezuela, Freeland said in Davos, Switzerland. On Friday, Maduro told a news conference hed be willing to talk to the opposition to settle the question of who leads the country, but he defended his presidency. He also called Guaidos declaration a desperate act backed by the U.S. Canadian officials said that while U.S. leaders such as President Donald Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have also denounced Maduro, there has been no direct co-ordination between the Lima Group and Washington. The Prime Ministers Office said Trudeau spoke Saturday with Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez about the situation. The pair reaffirmed their support of Guaido and committed to continuing to promote democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in Venezuela in part through their work with the Lima Group, according to the PMO. As for this weeks rallies, the Venezuelans have full ownership of those. It was completely done by the opposition and their people on the ground in Venezuela, said one official. We couldnt have helped them get to this point if they werent willing and really putting their necks out. Read more about: KINGSTONInside the Islamic Centre of Kingston people are clustered around a foosball table after getting out of prayer, while others keep up the steady rhythm of paddles hitting the ball in ping pong. Light streams in from wide windows facing a snowy parking lot as a little girl in a bright pink hijab clutching a Hello Kitty drawing scurries by. A small sign next to the kitchen reminds everyone that cleanliness is part of Islam. Mohamed Bayoumi, a professor emeritus in the Queens Universitys department of electric and computer engineering, has been asked to act as spokesperson for the centre, he says with a smile. With news of the arrest of a Kingston minor Thursday who has been charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity; and counselling a person to deliver, place, discharge or detonate an explosive with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury the citys Muslim community is bracing themselves for a potential backlash. The minor cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. On Friday the RCMP said the investigation was started after a tip from the FBI on Dec. 21, and that one individual was believed to be building an explosive device for an attack plan. They have not identified a target for the alleged attack. Asked if hes worried about a possible backlash he responded, to say that I am not worried I think its too much. But there is a level of concern, says Bayoumi, sitting inside the centres library and office Saturday afternoon. Hes proud of the relations the centre has built with the community, including with churches and other faith-based groups who theyve worked with in common projects, and hopes it will not hurt all theyve done to cultivate that. Its been a treasure to work with them, he says. Nothing has happened yet, he adds, except for negative comments online and on social media. He says he knows its the minority of people to be worried about. But, he says, there is always the odd person and thats where they are concerned. A meeting was held Friday, he added, with members of the centre, Kingston Police, the RCMP and other community groups. They just wanted to tell us were here to support you, and its possible there will be some fallout. The meeting also included representatives from the board of education, which he appreciated as, he noted, young people are often hit the hardest by generalizations and stereotypes. Their environment can be less understanding,he says. Kingston police Sgt. Geoff Dempster confirmed the meeting took place Friday but could not offer more details as the staff in charge of it were off for the weekend. Bayoumi said he does not know anything about the minor who was charged. The RCMP said Friday a potentially explosive device was removed from the teenagers home during a search and blown up by the Kingston bomb squad Friday morning. Hussam Alzahabi, 20, was also arrested Thursday but released without being charged Friday afternoon. Bayoumi said he recognized Alzahabis face as one of many who attended prayers at the centre, but doesnt know any more about him or his family. Alzahabi told the Star Friday during an interview at his family home that he was friends with the other young man who was charged but hasnt done anything wrong. He said it was just accusations and a misunderstanding that caused him to spend the night in police custody. Neighbour Diane Smith-Merrill, who lives across the street from one of two homes raided in the investigation Thursday, also hopes news of the arrests wont feed the haters. I always have such a fear of a backlash, she told the Star Friday. Its just sad. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Bayoumi, who has watched as the Muslim community in Kingston has grown from about 300 to 3,000 over the last 25 years, hopes people will not make sweeping generalizations about members of his faith. The hope is that the outcome of this incident is not negative, he says. There is a lot in common between Muslim values and non-Muslim values. A wine just hit shelves at the LCBO you need to know about. Its a $7.95 wonder called Toro Bravo from Spain that delivers incredible value for moneynot just because it tastes good (it does)but because it drinks well. And Ive awarded it 96 pointsthe highest score Ive given a wine under $10. Its the kind of wine you put on the table and want to keep refilling your glass with all night long. Its not the fruit bomb you usually get at this price point. It took the agent two years of steady work to bring it to Ontario, but its a testament to the idea that yes, good wine produced inexpensively abroad can arrive in this market without an extravagant mark-up. Heres how it happened. A friend of a friend in the wine business put me in touch with Melanie Nathou, an established broker in Spain who owns Wines & Company S.L.U. She had access to some excellent wine she could sell at a very reasonable price, said Alex Patinios, president and owner of Dionysus Wines & Spirits. She just needed to get it to market. Patinios, like many agents in Ontario, is an intermediary between wine producers and the LCBO. Its his business to find great wines for this market. The two met in Spain, Patinios was impressed with the wine, and they began working together to develop a brilliant blend for less than the $8 price point. It also needed to be available in sufficient quantity for the large Ontario market, with minimal vintage variation. Tell us! Melanie sent us four Tempranillo samples and four Merlot samples, and we did some blending, says Patinios. She and her wine team had the same set of lots and did their own blending. Funny thing is, when we compared notes, we had come up with an almost identical blend. It tasted amazing. The samples were from the 2016 vintage. But the blend created a taste profile that the winemaker could then replicate with subsequent vintages. As well as tasting good, Patinios and Nathou needed the wine to look and sound good, so they gave it a name and a label. We wanted the brand to be elegant, Spanish, and easy to say in Canada. And we wanted the label to be premium looking, so we added touches of gold foil on the bulls nose ring and the lettering, says Patinios. Toro Bravo is what we came up with. The brand was born. From there, Patinios began trying to convince the LCBO to buy it, which he says took about a year. The result is a blend of 60 per cent Tempranillo and 40 per cent Merlot with D.O. Valencia designation. And its on shelves now. TempranilloSpains flagship red varietylends the firm frame to Toro Bravo while Merlot adds flesh and juiciness. Toro Bravo calls to mind Black Forest cake on the nose, followed by a flood of flavourcherries dipped in dark chocolate, tobacco, earth, and coffeewith a dusting of dark cocoa powder that lingers. Its medium-bodied with a bright seam of mouthwatering acidity and a slightly chalky finish. But more than its constituent parts, this affable Spanish red is harmonious and easy to enjoy. As a wine critic, this is what I like to see. And theres a lot of it around, so it wont quickly sell out and disappoint consumers. Many of us remember the story of Fuzion, which was also brought in by Patinios. The LCBO launched the 2007 Fuzion Shiraz Malbec in July 2008. It got a rave review by a major Ontario wine critic, and it quickly rose in popularity. The 5,000 cases of it released in July sold out within six weeks. By November the LCBO was selling 1,000 cases a day. And the 2007 vintage was sold out by the end of 2008. By 2009, about 250,000 cases of Fuzion Shiraz Malbec were sold in Ontario alone. When critics tasted the initial wine, it was no doubt stellar. But demand outstripped supply and sadly, quality couldnt be maintained. Weve taken steps to ensure that, if we start selling 250,000 cases of this wine, we will be able to maintain both the price and quality levels, says Patinios. As of Jan. 15, 3,400 cases of Toro Bravo were at the LCBO. When I filed this story, more than 230 stores carried itand Patinios assures me 400 more stores will stock it by Feb. 25. Meanwhile, 9,000 cases are on standby in Spain ready to be shipped. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... As a firm believer you should not have to spend a lot of money to drink well, Im thrilled by this new discovery. 2017 Toro Bravo, Tempranillo / Merlot, D.O. Valencia, Spain (LCBO 635755 $7.95 in stores and online) Toro Bravo calls to mind Black Forest cake on the nose, followed by a flood of flavourcherries dipped in dark chocolate, tobacco, earth, and coffeewith a dusting of dark cocoa powder that lingers. Medium-bodied with a bright seam of mouthwatering acidity and a slightly chalky finish, this affable Spanish red offers outstanding value. Score: 96 HOW TO FIND YOUR NEAREST LCBO WITH STOCK OF TORO BRAVO 1. To find where Toro Bravo is stocked, go lcbo.com. 2. Hit the search icon. 3. Type Toro Bravo in the search bar. 4. A list of wines will appear. Click on the Toro Bravo name, which will take you to the wines product page. 5. Scroll down and hit the tab, Check all stores. 6. A page will appear that shows where the wine is currently stockedand how many bottles are there. Read more about: EDMONTONPolice are investigating after members of a local Islamophobic group entered the Al Rashid Mosque in north Edmonton on Friday. Noor Al-Henedy, a spokesperson for the mosque, said members of the Wolves of Odin group asked pointed questions in a clear attempt to provoke worshippers. She said two men entered the mosque on Friday, the day Muslims gather to worship in public. The men were wearing toques that said Kafir in Arabic, which translates to infidel or non-believer. Other members of the group are pictured in a Facebook video standing directly outside the mosque and asking members questions about Islam. Al-Henedy said it looked like the two men who entered the mosque were surveilling the building. Right away we reported it to the police and looked at the (camera) footage we had. You dont come inside the mosque with a toque that says infidel on it. We cant just assume everything is fine Our No. 1 priority was to ensure our people here feel safe, Al-Henedy said. Bridget Stirling, co-founder of an Edmonton-based group called Hate Free Yeg, posted her concerns about the video circulating on Facebook on Twitter. This group continues to try to terrorize immigrant and Muslim communities in our city and engages in homophobic harassment. Every decent Edmontonian should be concerned when hate groups begin to march openly in our streets, she said. Edmonton police confirmed theyre investigating the incident after receiving a trouble with persons call at the Al Rashid Mosque. Tyson Hunt, one of the people who entered the mosque and who posted the video of Wolves of Odin members debating worshippers outside, told StarMetro his group was just there to ask questions and learn more about the religion. This is a free country, and I can question what I want, he said. The Wolves of Odin is an Edmonton-based splinter group of the Soldiers of Odin, an anti-immigrant group based in Finland. They rebranded as Wolves of Odin after attracting controversy by posing with United Conservative Party members, and most recently presented themselves as Canadian Infidels. Thats after the Finland-based group distanced themselves from the Canadian chapter following the UCP controversy. On Tuesday, a member of the Facebook group Tys Canadian Infidels, which Hunt said he manages, posted a Google Maps screenshot pinpointing various mosques in Edmonton, accompanied by the caption, Something to chew on. Edmonton Police Service spokesperson Cheryl Voordenhout said their hate crimes and violent extremism unit is investigating the mosque incident and is aware of the recent online activity. The unit is aware of the recent activities of these groups and is monitoring them, Voordenhout said. Hunt insists he is not anti-Islam but against all religions in general. He said he posted the Google Maps screenshot because he was surprised by how many mosques are in town. He said hes not sure why that would make community members concerned, or why the mosque would be concerned with their presence. We all had cameras, we all made sure everything was recorded for police reasons, he said. Hunt said he and his group went to the mosque to ask questions about the faith. There was no provocation. It was questions, he said. A video posted by Tys Canadian Infidels shows them asking a Muslim community member, What are they supposed to do to blasphemers? A man in the nine-minute video accuses the Wolves of Odin members of being disingenuous about their desire to gain knowledge because theyre wearing a hat that says infidels. Im going to continue this conversation if you can show me you have one bit of knowledge, the man, who identifies himself as Warren Wheeler in the video, says. But what are they supposed to do to non-believers? the Wolves of Odin member responds. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Al-Henedy said she does see the incident as an attempt to provoke, and while theyre always happy to discuss religion with members of other faiths, this was not the right approach. Were Edmontonians, weve been here for 80 years and were proud to be part of the community, she said of the mosque, which is the oldest in Canada. What we care about the most is the security of the people who do come through our doors. Thats what were focused on not creating fear in our community. Read more about: At a time when they were already suffering from Targets failed Canadian expansion and the seemingly unstoppable growth of online shopping, the loss of the once-mighty Sears chain felt like yet another body blow for shopping malls in this country. After all, the departure of an iconic brand and its large stores in prime spots would surely mean fewer customers wandering the malls and less money being spent. But a year after the last Sears stores in Canada were finally shuttered, the picture is a lot less grim than anyone expected and the futures looking comparatively sparkly. The apocalypse hasnt happened, said Diane Brisebois, president of the Retail Council of Canada (RCC), which recently released a study of the 30 biggest malls in the country. While the loss of Sears hit the bottom line of mall owners, the countrys biggest malls are still a hive of activity, with all but a handful seeing sales rise in 2018, compared to 2017. Experts point to a variety of reasons, including that Sears had already been drifting away for a few years anyway selling leases back to mall owners a handful at a time and simply not renewing others. At Yorkdale, which topped the RCCs rankings with sales of $1,905 per square foot in 2018 (a 15 per cent rise from $1,653 in 2017), Sears left in 2014, after being bought out of its lease by mall owner Oxford Properties. Read More: Sears survives a near-death experience, but for how long? Its Judgment Day for Eddie Lamperts last-ditch Sears rescue plan The last days of Jean Machine the outrageous store that was an influencer decades before Instagram Other reasons the departure didnt hit particularly hard? The mall business model has been evolving, and, well, Sears really hadnt been a big draw in years anyway. The Sears store could have been in a parking lot by itself somewhere, and it would have drawn as much foot traffic for the mall, said Queens University real estate professor John Andrew. Especially over the last few years, the type of customers they were attracting werent people whod be spending the day shopping. Youd be at home and say Oh geez, my washing machine just died. Then youd pull up outside Sears at the mall, pick it up, and walk back out again. The nature of malls is also changing, said Andrew, whether its the size of the stores, or even what people come to the mall to do. The whole model of a big anchor store at one end of the mall attracting people is breaking down, said Andrew. At Torontos Eaton Centre, Sears left in 2014. Its lease had been bought out, at least partly because big-box leases arent particularly lucrative anyway, said Sal Iacono, executive vice-president of operations for mall owner Cadillac Fairview. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Im not going to say Sears not being around is a good thing. But the kind of rents they were paying were not as large as youd expect, said Iacono. Anchor leases by their nature are volume discounts. At the Eaton Centre, the gigantic Sears space was renovated into a few different spaces, with the biggest one occupied by high-end U.S. department store Nordstroms. Smaller spaces typically means higher rents per square foot. It also means more flexibility in the types and size of tenants who can be brought in, often including high-end boutiques, said Andrew. As malls reconfigure their spaces, theyre also trying to find entirely new revenue streams. Think hotels, think fancy restaurants and more interesting food courts. And think homes. Have your say Theres a tremendous potential for office space, for condo space, for apartments, said Andrew. The sky, quite literally, is the limit. Shopping centres realized they had a lot of airspace they werent using, said the retail councils Brisebois. Cadillac Fairview already has approval to add 2,000 residential units as part of a 27-acre development centred around its mall in Richmond, B.C., said Iacono. Just as in the retail world, a large part of living beside (or above) a mall in Richmond or other potential spots is location, location, location. If you think about where malls are, particularly urban ones, they tend to be located centrally, close to transit and closer to where people work, Iacono noted. The biggest challenges in building upwards, Iacono said, tend to be engineering ones, rather than philosophical or legal. In a retail space, you want as few pillars as possible, to maximize space. So you cant just drop 50 storeys on top of a retail area. Youd need to add more support, and that means cutting down on retail space, which means less retail revenue. You do a cost-benefit analysis and figure out if its viable, said Iacono. Everything is possible at a certain cost. With those types of developments running tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars and taking years to plan, its no coincidence that the companies with the two biggest collections of malls in the country Cadillac Fairview and Oxford are controlled by pension companies (the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System respectively), said Andrew. Theyve got a much longer term perspective, added Andrew. If reconfiguring the space means retail suffers a bit for five years, but it means a better long-term future, they can do it. And theyve got a lot of capital. Read more about: Gettysburg, PA (17325) Today Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon. High 86F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Thunderstorms. Low 67F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Staff reports Watertown Public Opinion The spirit of Crazy Horse, a legendary, stealthy Oglala Lakota chief whose vision quest revealed he would be impervious to enemy attack, will run deep in the oceans along with all who previously served on the USS South Dakota. The latest ship bearing our states name will be commissioned Feb. 2 in Groton, Conn. The 17th Virginia Class nuclear submarine, The USS South Dakota (SSN 790) will head to sea with our countrys best technology. Featured at the commissioning ceremony will be South Dakota poet Brian D. Hagg, a Rapid City attorney, who will read his poem commissioned by former Gov. Dennis Daugaard. I am humbled to be able to share my poem, he said. I thought about what message we can give from the state of South Dakota. This poem is a prayerful declaration without giving a prayer, he said. By the time I got done with this poem, it resonated in a lot of different ways in what we believe a submarine should stand for. Ironically, Hagg is a retired U.S. Army Captain who served in an armored division. I am also an in-lander, he said. When I was asked to deliver a poem for the commissioning of this submarine, it sounded like mission impossible. He soon discovered South Dakota has many former submariners eager to share their stories. They have a rich culture and fellowship and they have many rituals and they speak of Neptune, he said. But it all goes back to serving our country in the depths of the sea. As he began the poem, he researched the USS South Dakota battleship, which fought in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans during World War II. More than 150 men died serving on the ship which saw action at the wars major battles. It had an incredible service of distinction during that war, he said. They called it Battleship X because they did not want the enemy to know where it was at any time. Haggs research into that great ship was key to writing his poem. The words and phrases Godspeed, warship of the deep, and while children sleep became a reoccurring theme as he wrote each stanza. The word Godspeed seemed very appropriate to a warship, he said. When I think about a warship of the deep, I thought about the 137 crewmembers who will serve on this ship. They are required to know every single station on a ship that is capable of being undersea without surfacing for many months. Those thoughts inspired these opening poetic words. God speed, great warship of the deep, entrusted by our Motherland to protect its shores while our children sleep, for the odyssey ahead will demand much from commander and crew, gallant sailors chosen from the special few. Hagg, who says he has a writers cabin gazing on Mount Rushmore, found himself on an October morning looking at George Washington. It was a beautiful morning, and I am staring at this iconic symbol of liberty etched in stone, he said. He wrote the last stanza that day. I feel like it was inspired by a greater energy source. Pondering the innovative technology needed to create a top of the line ship with the ability to move with great stealth, I started thinking about Crazy Horse. He wrote these poetic words. From the Great State of South Dakota, home of Mt. Rushmore with its iconic symbols of liberty chiseled in stone, accept this prayerful declaration. If in the service of our country, perils of war put you in harms way, may you be inspired by Crazy Horse, who fought bravely, impervious to enemy fire. He said it was appropriate to include the spirit of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota holy man, as Harney Peak recently was renamed Black Elk Peak. His poem says the crew should be guided by the spirit of Black Elk, forget not that for which you stand, rock solid in the service of our nation, knowing you are in the thoughts and prayers of a free homeland. Brad Johnson is a Watertown businessman and journalist who is active in state and local affairs. Dan Crisler Public Opinion Staff Writer A glitch in the Watertown School Districts notification system caused many parents and guardians to not receive automated phone calls earlier this week informing them of late starts. Apologizing to those affected, Supt. Dr. Jeff Danielsen said Friday afternoon that the district worked with the provider, School Messenger, to address the glitch after it first occurred Monday morning. We began working on that with the company to figure out what was missing, Danielsen said. Nonetheless, another glitch cropped again Wednesday night when affected parents didnt receive calls stating that a late start was called for Thursday. We thought we had the problem solved. It turns out on Thursday, we had another glitch where folks were not called, Danielsen said. Following Thursdays glitch, Danielsen said the district continues to work with School Messenger to fix the problem. Unfortunately, he said the district wont know if the problem has been fixed until another late start or cancellation has cropped up. Weve been assured that this has been resolved. Our intent is to keep working with the company to put us in the best position to get those calls made, Danielsen said. Adding to the frustration is that district officials dont know why the glitches occurred. Were not sure why it happened in the first place and what needed to be done in particular, Danielsen said. We counted on the vendors that we use to assure us that we had the right message in place so that everybody got calls. Until the district knows for sure whether the glitches have been worked out, Danielsen advises parents and guardians to watch for information pertaining to either cancellations or late starts on the districts website at watertown.k12.sd.us, local radio stations and/or local network television affiliates. Danielsen said many of Watertowns schools use reminder mobile apps to also inform parents and guardians. We try to cover as many bases as we can to make sure people get the word out, Danielsen said. If there are dangerous weather conditions and we call a late start, we certainly dont want people coming to school earlier than they need to. If problems persist with School Messenger, Danielsen said the district may look at alternative measures. It might mean we have to look at other options if this particular product does not do what we want it to do, which is work when its supposed to work, he said. Danielsen sent a letter Friday apologizing to Watertown parents and guardians. He relayed that apology in a phone call with the Public Opinion. Our apologies to the families that were not called. Our stance is we want people to know about this for the safety of the children, he said. Dana Hess For The S.D. Newspaper Association PIERRE The House majority leader defended the actions of the Speaker of the House who has banned a lobbyist from the House floor over an article she wrote that was critical of lawmakers. Rep. Lee Qualm, R-Platte, made his remarks to about 40 editors and publishers gathered in Pierre for Newspaper Day at the Legislature sponsored by the S.D. Newspaper Association. At issue were the actions of House Speaker Steven Haugaard, R-Sioux Falls, who has banned lobbyist Yvonne Taylor from the House floor. Haugaard took issue with an article Taylor wrote in May saying that the Legislature is made up of 80 percent normals and 20 percent wackies. She urged readers to elect more normals to the Legislature. Taylor, the executive director of the S.D. Municipal League, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging that Haugaard has violated her First Amendment rights and she seeks to be restored to access to the House floor. The floor is open to the public, lobbyists and the media except just prior to the House session and just after it ends. Most lawmakers dont have offices in the Capitol and meet constituents and lobbyists at their desks on the House floor. Qualm defended the actions of Haugaard. Im supportive of what he did, Qualm said. We have the ability to say who comes on the floor and who cant. Qualm said the House Speaker took the action to build up the Legislature. It seems like the Legislature gets demeaned a lot, Qualm said. I think thats unfortunate. Asked if there was a chance that a journalist would face the same treatment after an unflattering article or critical editorial, Qualm said that wasnt likely to happen. I know Im going to get criticized, Qualm said, adding, We want to have a culture of respect for everybody. Other majority leaders at the press conference included House Assistant Majority Leader Arch Beal of Sioux Falls, Senate Majority Leader Kris Langer of Dell Rapids and Senate Assistant Majority Leader Jim Bolin of Canton. The legislators predicted that the most lobbied bill of the session would be SB66 which limits the ability of municipal electric systems to expand. Bolin called it the biggest legislation of this session, characterizing it as a struggle between REAs that believe they are losing territory and municipal electric departments that dont want to lose their ability to expand. Its going to be one of the highly contested bills of the session, Langer predicted. Most of the Republican leaders expressed support for HB1074 which creates a reporter shield law in South Dakota. Shield laws protect reporters from having to turn over their notes to law enforcement or compelling them to testify in court. Langer said she had done no research on the subject, but Beal and Qualm said they have signed on as sponsors of the bill and Bolin said he supports the principle. When asked about the role state government should play in cleaning up South Dakotas rivers and stream, Bolin pointed to the difficulty in getting various state, federal and regional entities to cooperate. Youve got to deal with the entire drainage area, Bolin said. These groups are very jealous of their authority. Dan Crisler Public Opinion News Editor On the surface, it appears to be deja vu for the City of Watertown and its regional airport. For the second time in three and a half years, the city will be looking for a new commercial airline to service the city through the federal Essential Air Service program. This comes after the dissolution of the Watertown-Pierre-Denver route operated by California Pacific Airlines (CPAir) this past week due to the airlines financial troubles and inconsistent service. It is a process the city went through beginning in October 2015. At that time, the EAS contract with Great Lakes Airlines was canceled due to inconsistent service. It took nearly 11 months before another commercial airline in Aerodynamics, Inc., which was bought by CPAir last spring, began flights from Watertown Regional Airport. Despite that recent history, Watertown Mayor Sarah Caron expressed optimism Wednesday that the city will have little to no problem finding a new commercial airline. Airlines have until 5 p.m. on Jan. 30 to submit EAS bids to the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) providing commercial service to the city. I have been contacted by a couple of airlines who have told me they plan to submit bids. Im very hopeful, but realize its not a guarantee, Caron said. One of them said they thought we were going to get numerous bids. Caron said she doesnt know which airlines intend to submit bids. She did say that SkyWest Airlines, which serves Aberdeen, of St. George, Utah, has sniffed around asking questions and checking out the airport. In contrast with the last search, Caron said city officials should be able to find a new airline relatively quickly due to what has so far been a proactive approach. Noting that Watertown or Pierre hadnt received fee payments from CPAir for more than six months, Caron said the cities recognized that writing on the wall that eventually led to unreliable air service. It was not a good sign, she said. That led to her and Pierre Mayor Steve Harding to begin conversations with the USDOT, which included formal letters. Caron said the mayors had hoped initially to rectify the problem before switching gears earlier this month to successfully lobby the USDOT to move up the deadline which was originally Feb. 13 for different airlines to submit EAS bids. We cut a couple of months off the fiddling around by having conversations with the USDOT. The USDOT acted swiftly, Caron said. If we had just waited for this to collapse before asking the USDOT to step in, wed just be starting this whole process now. Caron said Watertown remains an attractive market for small airlines. Particularly, Caron said airlines have taken notice of the strong passenger enplanement numbers Watertown has recorded when its airport has had reliable air service. In 2017 and 2018, Watertown Regional Airport had more than 10,000 passenger enplanements. Reaching 10,000 enplanements in ADIs first full year of service was outstanding. That got peoples attention, Caron said. Weve shown we have a desire to fly out of Watertown. Watertown reached those marks even though the destinations lied solely to the west. If Watertown would also get eastbound flights to either Minneapolis-St. Paul or Chicago, Caron believes the airports passenger enplanement totals could reach new heights. We can grow that, she said. I think we could probably double it or even more, particularly if we had east and west connections. We were still hearing from people that having an eastward flight would be useful. For now, city officials remain focused on the short term. While its currently a waiting game to see which airlines submit bids by the Jan. 30 deadline, the days and weeks following should feature plenty of activity. Caron expects the USDOT will quickly distribute copies of all submitted bids to city officials, which will be made publicly available. The Watertown Regional Airport Board will then convene to evaluate the bids and submit its preference to the USDOT. Interested airline executives will likely appear to make pitches. Throughout the process, Caron said citizens are welcome to voice their opinions. Were going to want that input from the community, Caron said. Barring any unforeseen complications, Caron said a new airline could be in place by mid spring. If we get good, clear bids where we know which one wed want and theres a consensus among everybody (including the USDOT), we could be up and running in something like 45 days, she said. I think its probably at least a couple of months away right now. If a new airline is indeed in place by sometime this spring, Caron believes theres an outside chance Watertown Regional Airport could once again achieve 10,000 passenger enplanements. Dana Hess For The S.D. Newspaper Association PIERRE The minority leader in the state House of Representatives said he is cautiously optimistic about the new governor and the prospects for the current session of the Legislature to get things done for the betterment of South Dakotans. Rep. Jamie Smith, D-Sioux Falls, made his remarks to about 40 editors and publishers gathered in Pierre for Newspaper Day at the Legislature, sponsored by the South Dakota Newspaper Association. Smith said he was heartened by Gov. Kristi Noems calls for greater transparency in government and her emphasis on education. They were things Democrats could get behind, said Smith, noting that there are 11 Democrats in the House and seven of them are rookie legislators. They are great new representatives, Smith said. We are people who want to solve South Dakota problems. Asked about the prospect of a bill being introduced governing transgender bathrooms, Smith said that kind of legislation wasnt good for South Dakota. Were trying to solve a problem that doesnt exist, Smith said. Smith said hes worried about legislation that would allow permitless carry of concealed weapons and allow guns in the Capitol. I dont feel that guns on the Capitol floor make me safer, Smith said. A former teacher, Smith said he was not necessarily opposed to the governors proposal that high school seniors pass a U.S. citizenship test in order to graduate. Civics is part of the curriculum in South Dakota starting in kindergarten, Smith said. There are ways they should be getting this information, Smith said. As an example, Smith said he doesnt think its so important that students be able to name the Supreme Court justices as it is for them to know how to find that information in five minutes. Senate Bill 6 requires that a woman have a sonogram prior to an abortion. Smith characterized this as a gotcha piece of legislation designed to get lawmakers on the record and then use it against them when they run for re-election. Smith ended the press conference on an optimistic note about the current legislative session: At the end of the day, there will be positive change made for the state of South Dakota. Julianne Endres Watertown Area

Community Foundation Its 2019 and, as always, the Watertown Area Community Foundation is looking forward and giving back. But this year, the Foundation is also looking back 40 years and beyond. The Watertown Area Community Foundation was established in 1979. However, the idea was actually suggested 13 years prior at the Lions Club swimming pool dedication. If we can generate this spirit throughout Watertown, a spirit of giving, yes, but also a spirit of contributing to a community that has meant much to all of us, we will be well on our way to establishing a total community, John Lowrie, former Public Opinion publisher, was quoted as saying at the pool dedication. The idea was nurtured by several community committees and just prior to that monumental Watertown Centennial Celebration, the Watertown Community Foundation was born the first community foundation in South Dakota. Clark Redlinger (deceased) was elected chairman of the foundations board. He and local attorney Irving Hinderaker formalized the Foundation and assured Centennial contributors that any leftover funds would be designated to the Watertown Community Foundation. Those remaining funds, came to $3,000 which became the first entry in the Foundations bank account. At that time, and for several years, the Foundation office was a box stored in the broom closet at City Hall. In addition to Redlinger, the other charter board members were Lauretta Hoff, secretary; Robert Carey, vice chairman; Dr. Robert Cockle and Floyd Bill Snyder (all are since deceased). The board met as needed and started awarding its first grants on an annual basis in 1981. The Foundation as outlined in its Declaration of Trust could receive property for educational, cultural, charitable or benevolent purposes for the benefit and improvement of Watertown area residents quality of life. Property of many kinds, small and large cash gifts, as well as bequests, may be given to the Foundation. Gifts that donors give to the Foundation become part of a permanent endowment, which means they will help the Watertown area forever. Only a percentage of the earnings are spent and the Foundation continues to operate on less than a 1.5 percent administrative fee per year. Forty years later, that spirit of giving is alive and well. The Foundation has grown to $20 million in assets and has awarded more than $7 million in grants to approximately 200 nonprofit groups and organizations. Community foundations vary greatly in asset size, but all share the common goal of serving donors, nonprofit organization and the community as a whole. In addition to this, one of a community foundations special functions is to provide effective leadership and coordinate the needs and services in its communities so that charitable gifts are used effectively to meet a communitys most critical needs. Today, there are more than 750 community foundations in the United States and a handful of community foundations in South Dakota. In addition, several communities have an account with the South Dakota Community Foundation. The Watertown Area Community Foundation will continue to invest in the vitality of the greater Watertown area through the generosity of its donors (past, present and future) who share the passion for looking forward and giving back. Staff reports Watertown Public Opinion CROOKSTON, Minn. The University of Minnesota Crookston (UMN Crookston) will host the 44th annual Ag Arama today, Saturday, Jan. 26. Contests in agronomy, agricultural business and photography will take place along with an animal showmanship competition throughout the morning. These events serve as an opportunity for students to showcase their knowledge and skills while giving them a chance to interact with alumni and faculty members. Concluding the competitions will be the coronation of the 2019 Ag Arama Royalty. Sadie Bingham, the daughter of Wes and Nancy Bingham of Gary and a member of the Class of 2021, has been named one of the candidates. Ending the 2019 Ag Arama is a dance with live music performed by Jacked Up at the Crookston Eagles Club. All are invited to attend the festivities. We're always interested in hearing about business news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Woman who laundered drug money gets death penalty BANGKOK: The Criminal Court has handed down a death sentence to a Myanmar woman for laundering dirty money and her connection with the methamphetamine trade. drugscrimepolice By Bangkok Post Saturday 26 January 2019, 09:37AM The court passed sentence on Myint Thein Aye, 43, after finding her guilty of several counts including laundering money from meth that she possessed, trafficked and financed. She was arrested in November 2017 when Narcotics Suppression Bureau officers intercepted her van in Bangkok. Investigators had been tracking the gangs she led for years. She claimed she had travelled from Myanmar for medical treatment in Bangkok and ran a foreign-exchange business in Thailand and her country. However, police believed Myint Thein Aye was a key figure in a drug gang, handling the money from the meth trade. Her name had been on the wanted list after NSB officers busted a gang in Mae Sai district in Chiang Rai in 2016 by posing as drug buyers. They agreed on a price of B13.5 million and were told to transfer the money into a bank account under the womans name in Mae Sai. The money was laundered to open jewellery and gold shops, as well as a hotel business in the two countries, according to the NSB. Police also cracked down other members of the gang when they raided a house in Samut Prakan in December 2017. Read original story here. Theatre at a moments notice: The power of Yes, and Some of you will see yes, and... and know immediately what Ill be talking about in this months article. For those of you who are as yet uninitiated, I am referring to the foundation stones of one of my favourite forms of theatre: improv. Improv is short for improvisational theatre, theatre that is unscripted and made up on the spot. One of the most exciting things about improv is that no two shows are alike. The-Plays-the-Thing!Art By Joel Adams Saturday 26 January 2019, 10:00AM But what does yes, and have to do with improv? Before I explain, lets explore how improvisational theatre actually got started. Its presently undergoing a tremendous revival, having slowly reemerged in the early 20th century in both America and England, and then snowballed in the last half of the century. Improv theatres and theatre groups are springing up all over the world: across the US; across Europe; even in Bangkok, Phnom Penh and now Phuket. However, its much older than a mere hundred years. The earliest theatre we know of involving improvised comedy is the Atellan Farce dating back to 391 BCE in Rome. The first concerted attempt to build a professional improvisational comedy theatre troupe took place in the 16th century in Renaissance Italy, and Commedia DellArte was born. Commedia performed improvised plays around a lineup of stock characters and familiar situations with lots of slapstick, mime and running jokes. Each character, with the exception of the lover characters, wore stylised masks, and they all had special movements and characteristics. Commedia was extremely popular, its influence on theatre felt right up to the present day. We see elements of Commedia in the plays of Moliere and Shakespeare, in many operas and in such characters as Charlie Chaplins Gentleman Tramp and Buster Keatons sad sack underdog hero. In modern times, around the turn of the 20th century, improvisation was used extensively by the great Russian director, actor and theatrical entrepreneur Konstantin Stanislavski. However, Stanislavski used improv as a tool to help actors in their scripted roles, not as a performance piece in itself. It was in the 1920s that the vaudevillian performer Dudley Riggs was credited with being the first actor to ask for audience suggestions to improvise sketches onstage. Starting in the 1940s and continuing to the 1960s, Viola Spolin developed hundreds of improvisation exercises that are now codified in her book Improvisation for the Theatre, called the Bible of Improvisation by some. Her work led to the foundation of Second City Theatre in Chicago under the leadership of her son, Paul Sills, and from there improv burgeoned in many directions. Many of the original comedians of Saturday Night Live came from Second City; people like Mike Myers, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Dan Akroyd and John Belushi. Keith Johnstone, an improviser in England, created Theatre Sports, a competitive improvisational event that has become very popular today. Today, when we think of improv, we often think of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Drew Carey and his team were extremely funny. That show did only short-form sketches, but there are troupes who perform long-form improv, which to me is very fascinating; an entire play created on the spot from audience suggestions. Often these are very funny, but they can also be serious and highly poignant. In the words of one of the earliest long-form improvisers and the creator of the form called The Harold, Del Close, You dont always have to be funny, but you always have to be interesting. And what could be more interesting than seeing theatre that is made up by a team of actors who get their ideas from the audience? Just think, what you are watching and/or performing is being created at that precise moment and will never ever be done again. And you were part of that creative process. Oh, yes. I almost forgot. What do we mean by yes, and? In short, whatever you receive from your fellow actors, you say, Yes to and then add on, building a story together as a team to the delight of your audience. (Yes,) The story is not built if an actor denies: Hi, Mum. Whats for dinner? Im not your mother. (And) The story is not built if you dont add something: Lets go swimming. Good idea. Rather than: Good idea, can I bring my pet elephant along? Thats what we mean by yes, and Its that simple and so much fun. And now for the best news. OUTTA THE BOX, Theatrixs improv team, will be performing an evening of improv comedy theatre at Shanti Lodge in Chalong tonight (Jan 26) starting at 7:30pm for just B150. This is part of a monthly series of improv nights now in planning. Its interactive, never the same twice and lots of fun for performers and audience alike. And thats not all. On Valentines Day (Feb 14), LOVE BITES, a dinner theatre evening of comic plays on love and marriage, also at Shanti Lodge, will be on the boards from Theatrix! Contact Theatrix or Shanti Lodge or look for details coming soon. Joel Adams is building a vibrant theatre community right here in Phuket. You can contact him at theatrixphuket@gmail.com or by phone on 093 6490066. Facebook: Theatrix Group Running on empty: Officials float ideas to counter low water-supply reserves PHUKET: Large areas of Cherng Talay, mostly concentrated in the Bang Tao area, went on water rations this week in an attempt to prevent what water remains in Bang Neow Dum reservoir from running out before the annual rains return in May. natural-resourcesconstructiontourism By Tanyaluk Sakoot Saturday 26 January 2019, 09:00AM The order to implement water rations, directly affecting Moo 2, 3 and 5 of Cherng Talay, was introduced with immediate effect on Tuesday by a directive issued by Cherng Talay Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor) Chief MaAnn Samran. During the dry season, there is less water to replenish water supplies. This leads to having not enough water that people need to use, Mr MaAnn said in his statement announcing the water restrictions. Mr MaAnn urged residents to use as little water as possible and to keep water reserves in containers for use when mains water supply is not available. The water ration measures directly affected Moo 2, Moo 3 and Moo 5 Cherng Talay, which are all in the Bang Tao beach area. (See story here.) If you see a pipe water broken or damaged, please inform the Cherng Talay OrBorTor at 076-271096-7, Mr MaAnn urged. If there are any changes (to the scheduled water rationing), Cherng Talay OrBorTor will make further announcements, he added. The warnings for local residents in the Cherng Talay and Srisoonthorn areas to start using water more sparing were first unveiled by a report by The Phuket News in November. At that time, Somsawat Chaisinsod, Director of Phuket Provincial Irrigation Office, explained that the Bang Neow Dum reservoir contained only about 3.25 million cubic meters. The reservoir's full capacity is 7.2mn cubic meters. "Of that, we are able to use only 3.14mn cubic meters as 0.11mn cubic meters of that capacity is useless. Its just mud, which we cant use, Mr Somsawat explained. We need about 5mn cubic meters or about 70% of the reservoirs capacity by the end of December to cope with the demand during the dry season (December-April), he warned. My advice is for people and businesses in the affected areas to start storing water reserves so they can use it for their own needs in the first few months of 2019. This week, Mr Somsawat confirmed that the reservoir is currently about 2.3mn cubic meters of water, or just less than 32% full. That reading was taken on Monday (Jan 21). Mr Somsawat declined to confirm or deny whether the forced water restrictions were at his request. Instead, he explained that a plan for water-saving measures "was given to" the Phuket Provincial Water Authority office, who "modified the plan by themselves. "The plan will conserve water supplies for people until April 2019. Thats the plan," he said. Bang Neow Dum reservoir just needs 3 million cubic meters to be enough for the dry season this year, but we dont have that much water in the reservoir," he pointed out blankly. Mr Somsawat noted that plans were being drawn up to counter the problem, but declined to reveal any details. I cant tell you about the plan in detail yet. I will check the water level again at the end of January, then I will present the plan to the Provincial Water Authority (PWA)," he said. It is the PWA's responsibility to manage water supply to be enough to serve local residents, Mr Somsawat said guardedly. That understanding, however, flies in the face of the duties and responsibilities listed on the Royal Irrigation Department website, which plainly states as the top priority: "1. Implementation of activities aimed at achieving, collecting, storing, controlling, distributing, draining or allocating water for agricultural, energy, household consumption or industrial purposes under irrigation laws, ditch and dike laws and other related laws." Meanwhile, Thamdongrak Kumphet, the Phuket Provincial Water Authority (PWA) official responsible for water supply, flatly denied that the PWA had called for any rationing of water supply. We have not had any ideas to limit water supply. Our plan is to source water from privately owned water sources. We will have meeting to talk about this issue next month, he said on Tuesday. Regardless, Mr Somsawat warned that water supply issues in the area will not go away, especially considering the growth in developments in the area, specifically in Srisoonthorn, Baan Manik and Cherng Talay. Phuket residents use of a lot of water, and presently the reservoir is not enough for residents and businesses specifically in the nearby areas," he said. "We will need the reservoir to be more than 80% full to make it through the next dry season," he said. "I think Phuket province needs an extra reservoir, and soon. If there isn't one, residents wont have enough water supply." A long-term solution is in the works, Mr Somsawat noted. "We have had a long-term plan that was created 10 years ago. It will help Phuket to have enough water in the future. I am checking the documents to present to the Director-General of The Royal Irrigation Department in Bangkok in February. I will present this issue. We dont have water enough here," he said. Again, Mr Somsawat declined to reveal any details of the long-term solution to Phuket's ever-increasing water-supply woes. However, a project to have a large mains water pipeline feeding Phuket from the Cheow Lan Lake, in Khao Sok National Park in Phang Nga, has been repeatedly proposed over the years. The reservoir, also called the "Rachaprapha Dam Reservoir" ("Public Waterworks Reservoir"), covers 185 square kilometres, stretching from Surat Thani province into Phang Nga. In the meantime, Mr Somsawat called on local residents to understand the problem and to take appropriate action. People must realise this problem for themselves. After April, people should make arrangements for their own water supply to last a month in case of emergency," he said. "After the beginning of May, the rains will come and replenish the water levels at Bang Neow Dum reservoir." Resort faces charges over dead corals PHUKET: Senior management at a resort on Koh Racha Yai will face a charge of having coral illegally on the resort premises and for damaging reefs, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) Phuket office has confirmed. tourismmarineanimalsenvironmentnatural-resourcescrimepolice By The Phuket News Saturday 26 January 2019, 12:58PM Dead corals were found piled up along the banks of the canal and on resort property. Photo: DMCR Dead corals were found piled up along the banks of the canal and on resort property. Photo: DMCR Dead corals were found piled up along the banks of the canal and on resort property. Photo: DMCR Dead corals were found piled up along the banks of the canal and on resort property. Photo: DMCR Local conservationist Sarit Chandee formally hands over the written complaint, which included a petition of signatures of support. Photo: DMCR Dead corals were found piled up along the banks of the canal and on resort property. Photo: DMCR Dead corals were found piled up along the banks of the canal and on resort property. Photo: DMCR The reefs at Siam Beach have already sustained heavy damage by development on the island, said local conservationist Sarit Chandee. Photo: DMCR The reefs at Siam Beach have already sustained heavy damage by development on the island, said local conservationist Sarit Chandee. Photo: DMCR Management at the resort will face charges for having the dead corals on the property, the DMRC Phuket office said. Photo: DMCR The news follows an inspection on Koh Racha, south of Phuket, on Thursday (Jan 24), Nares Choopueng of the DMCR Phuket office explained to The Phuket News. The inspection team comprised officers from the DMCR Phuket office, Royal Thai Navy personnel and the Chalong Police, he said. Key to the inspection was a canal that runs alongside the Racha Island Resort, also called the Rayaburi, where dead corals were found piled up for about 50 metres along the banks of the canal, Mr Nares explained. Officers also found lots of dead corals piled up on the resort property, he said. This is clearly illegal, and there is no excuse to deny this action, Mr Nares added. I am preparing the documents to have the people involved charged with illegally having corals in their possession and for damaging coral reefs, he said. We have all our evidence ready for the Chalong Police to continue with legal proceedings, Mr Nares added. The inspection on Thursday followed the DMCR Phuket office receiving a formal complaint submitted by Sarit Chandee, Head of Raya Yai Conservation and Self Defense Club. The manager of Rayaburi Resort ordered its workers to collect dead corals from Siam Beach to fill and make the canal shallow and narrow. This action affects nature and the public area, Mr Sarit said in the complaint. The reefs at Siam Beach have already sustained heavy damage by development on the island, he added. Contacted by The Phuket News today, the management of the Rayaburi resort said a public statement on the issue will be forthcoming. Phuket tourists safe after tour speedboat takes on water, capsizes en route to Phi Phi PHUKET: All tourists on board a Phuket speedboat that took on water and capsized en route to Phi Phi Island after departing Chalong Pier yesterday morning were safely recovered from the water yesterday afternoon (Jan 25). tourismmarineSafety By The Phuket News Saturday 26 January 2019, 11:58AM The Phuket tour speedboat Aphitada 1 took on water and capsized off Koh Dok Mai, about 13 kilometres east of Phuket, yesterday. All 43 tourists were safely recovered. Photo: Matichon The Phuket Marine Office was informed by staff at Chalong Pier at about 11:40am that the tour speedboat Aphitada 1 was taking on water and had called for assistance, reports Thai-language newspaper Matichon. The boat had departed Chalong Pier earlier that morning with 45 people on board 43 of them tourists on a tour around Maithon Island and Phi Phi Island, said the report. (See story here.) The boat was en route from Maithon Island to Phi Phi Island when it began taking on water. The captain pulled the boat close to Koh Dok Mai, about 13 kilometres direct east of the tip of Cape Panwa. Another boat passing through the area soon arrived and safely recovered all 43 tourists and the two crew. The tourists were put on board another boat to continue their journey to Phi Phi Island, said the report. The company that operates the Aphitada 1 is located in Wichit, Phuket, added the Matichon report, but failed to identify which company. Conditions on the bay yesterday were mild, with light breezes and some strong gusts, but waves not reaching more than one metre in height. What caused the leaky tour speedboat to take on water is now being investigated, the report added. Attempts by The Phuket News to contact the relevant officials for more details have yet to be successful. Killer cop confesses to Phuket street slaying PHUKET: The Border Patrol Police lance corporal arrested for shooting dead a local councillors son in the street near Saphan Hin early last Saturday (Jan 19) has confessed to the killing, police have confirmed to The Phuket News. murdercrimepolicedeathviolence By The Phuket News Saturday 26 January 2019, 01:29PM L/Cpl Jakkrit Sangsaart, 23, from Chachoengsao, as pictured on his arrest warrant. L/Cpl Jakkrit Sangsaart, 23, from Chachoengsao, presented himself at Wichit Police Station at 5:30pm last Sunday for the fatal shooting of Theerasak Sae-Ong. Mr Theerasak, the 30-year-old son of Rassada Municipality councillor Charoen Sae-Ong, was gunned down on Rattanakosin 200 Pi Rd at about 3:30am last Saturday. (See story here.) Police reported finding at the scene seven bullet casings, but no firearms were reported as found. Mr Theerasak had a bullet wound on his left temple and an exit wound on his right temple. Within hours police had arrest warrants issued for L/Cpl Jakkrit and his associate Kongkiat Songkram, whom witnesses placed at the scene at the time of the shooting. After presenting himself at Wichit Police Station last Sunday, L/Cpl Jakkrit denied the charge of murder and the charge of carrying a firearm in public without a permit. (See story here.) However, Wichit Police Chief Col Nikorn Somsuk told The Phuket News late yesterday (Jan 25) that L/Cpl Jakkrit has changed his statement and has now accepted both charges against him. Mr Jakkrit has confessed to the murder charge and to the charge of carrying a firearm in a public place, he said. Col Nikorn refused to explain how or when L/Cpl Jakkrit changed his mind and made his confession. The best Col Nikorn would explain was during the investigation process. At last report, L/Cpl Jakkrit last Sunday had denied both charges and released on B400,000 bail that was granted by the Wichit Police. The Phuket Provincial Court and the Phuket Public Prosecutors Office had no role in the decision to allow the murder suspect to walk free. Meanwhile, Wichit Police are now working on having the murder charge against Kongkiat Songkram dropped. Jakkrit confessed that he did it alone and that he was the gunman. Nobody else was involved in this crime. Only himself did it, Col Nikorn said. Also, the witness confirmed with investigators that they saw him (Kongkiat) in the dark with unclear vision, he added. And so Mr Kongkiat Songkram was present for the incident but he was not involved with this crime, Col Nikorn assured. L/Cpl Jakkrit remains free to walk the streets of Phuket while police continue their investigation, Col Nikorn confirmed. The Wichit Police Chief is confident that the now self-confessed killer will not flee the island. I am not worried about it. Remember, Mr Jakkrit surrendered. He is in Phuket province, and his commander knows about this already. He wont escape, he said. Asked when L/Cpl Jakkrit was due to present himself back at Wichit Police Station, Col Nikorn assured, Anytime and any day that investigators want to question him more, but all aspects of the investigation must be completed within two months. Asked whether L/Cpl Jakkrit remained on active service as a police officer, Col Nikorn said, I have no idea. It is up to the commander of Border Patrol Police Unit 425. Col Nikorn declined to explain any further details. I have spoken enough at this stage. Thank you, he said. Fatal high-speed bypass accident was suicide bid by fleeing Phuket murder suspect, say police PHUKET: Police believe that the 60-year-old man who died after his car slammed into a pickup truck at high speed on the bypass road yesterday morning (Jan 25) may have been committing suicide after murdering his long-term partner with a knife in their home in Phuket Villa 5 housing estate in Wichit. deathmurdersuicidetransportaccidentspolice By Eakkapop Thongtub Saturday 26 January 2019, 11:09AM Only after learning the sequence of events, and confirming through CCTV, did police come to believe that Panuruj may have been committing suicide in the high-speed accident, said Lt Sirinya Klaisombat of the Wichit Police. Photo: Wichit Police The red Toyota Corona that Panuruj Petchoi, 60, died in was confirmed as the car last seen leaving the house where Thipyaporn Kai Thipmanee, 50, from Phattalung, was found murdered. Photo: Phuket Provincial Police Panuruj Petchai, 60, died after his red Toyota Corona slammed into the side of a pickup truck in a U-turn lane on the bypass road at about 10:50am yesterday. Panuruj died at the scene in the high-speed impact. (See story here.) At the time, police believed Panuruj was driving back to his home province of Nakhon Sri Thammarat. Dash cam footage from Panurujs car showed that his car swerved a little only after it was too late to avoid the impact. However, only after the accident were Wichit Police alerted to a woman found murdered at her home in Phuket Villa 5 Wichit, explained Lt Sirinya Klaisombat of the Wichit Police. The officers were called to the house after neighbours reported hearing a loud argument followed by silence. The woman, Thipyaporn Kai Thipmanee, 50, from Phattalung, was found with a stab wound in the middle of her back. Blood was through trailed throughout the house. Officers found a sharp knife covered with blood at the front of the home, Lt Sirinya explained. Neighbours told police that Panuruj and Thipyaporn lived together at the home, said Lt Sirinya. The couple had been arguing recently over financial difficulties, she added. By 6pm last night police had tracked through CCTV that the suspect last seen leaving the house was driving a red sedan registered in Nakhon Sri Thammarat with licence plates Kor Yor 1345 the very same licence registration of the red Toyota Corona that Panuruj was driving when he died in the bypass road collision. It is only after learning this sequence of events that we came to realise that Panuruj might well have intentionally driven his car into the pickup to kill himself to escape his crime, Lt Sirinya said. Here is a look at some of the trending stories from recent days, stories from late last week and from this morning. The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the 2016 conviction of former reality show contestant and Oakland County resident Michael Skupin, 56, As survivors age, Holocaust educators rush to preserve their testimony As survivors age, Holocaust educators rush to preserve their testimony This subscription will allow curernt subscribers of The News Guard to access all of our online Subscriber-Only content, including the E Editions area. NOTE: To claim your access to the site, you will need to enter the Last Name and First Name that is tied to your subscription in this format: SMITH, JOHN If you need help with exactly how your specific name needs be entered, please call us at 1-541-994-2178 or email admin@countrymedia.net. The Philippines January 26, 2019 Papaya Play will be welcoming the Philippines and rest of the SEA region to their Global Servers. Following the shutdown of the War Rock Philippines service by publisher Fragmatic Games, Papaya Play has swiftly opened a server for Filipino players to join their War Rock Global Service and enjoy the same high-quality service that Papaya Play offers its global community. These include robust anti-cheat measures, consistent updates, gameplay improvements, and many seasonal events. Additionally, for the first time, Filipino players will experience the all-new Battle Royale mode that has been successful in the Global service. With this expansion and the upcoming Steam Launch, War Rocks Global Service will continue to grow in the year 2019. More information and details can be found on the official announcement page: link All news and current happenings, as well as events offering free rewards are available here. Follow the War Rock community on our Official Website, Facebook & Discord and stay up-to-date! About Papaya Play: Papaya Play is the multi-platform gaming portal of Vertigo Games America, Inc. Through Papaya Play, Vertigo Games provides quality service for users of its currently supported titles, BlackShot: Revolution, Dekaron, La Tale, War Rock, and Uncharted Waters Online. The Papaya Play team is comprised of experienced publishers and talented individuals who strive daily to maintain a standard of excellence. https://www.papayaplay.com/ About Vertigo Games: Founded in 2006, Vertigo Games is a game development company specializing in immersive and competitive online first-person shooter games. Vertigo Games first FPS title, BlackShot, now BlackShot: Revolution, is a military-concept, fast-paced, competitive FPS set in a near future devastated by economic collapse and ruled by private military organizations. Initially launched in Korea in 2007, BlackShot is now enjoyed by players in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, South American and European regions. http://www.vertigogames.com/ Haywood Waterways' now wildly popular Plunge began seven years ago due to one man's crazy idea Story Highlights The seventh annual Plunge will be held at Lake Junaluska Feb. 2 starting at 11:30 a.m. The Plunge allows folks to dress up in crazy costumes (if they feel so inclined) and leap into the frigid waters of Lake Junaluska, all while raising money for Haywood Waterways, a local non-profit that focuses on water quality in Haywood County. Those interested in participating are encouraged to register for the event and/or donate at www.crowdrise.com/7thannualhwaplunge. UPDATE: James Eric Davis Jr. has been ruled "not guilty by reason of insanity" in the shooting deaths of both his parents in a Central Michiga Dont Buy Options. Follow My #1 Rule Instead. (Ad) Most Options traders lose 7 out of 10 trades. This investing legend has flipped options trading upside down... making money on 85% of his trades. Hes agreed to share his secret with a small group of investors. It could help you make as much as $185 a day on average in as little as 9 minutes a week Get the full details here Ubisoft has announced that it's making changes to the controversial Assassin's Creed Odyssey DLC which came under fire recently. This follows the apology Ubisoft issued last week regarding the DLC, which presented a mandatory in-game relationship rendering any romantic decisions the player made (whether to pursue relationships with men or women regardless of playing as Alexios or Kassandra) null. The content of the DLC was initially going to remain unchanged, but an updated forum post seems to indicate a shift in direction. "After hearing player feedback and discussing within the development team we are making changes to a cutscene and some dialogue in Shadow Heritage to better reflect the nature of the relationship for players selecting a non-romantic storyline," the post reads. "These changes, along with renaming a trophy/achievement, are being made now and will be implemented in an upcoming patch. Weve also been carefully looking at the next episode, Bloodline, to ensure the paths that players experience mirror the choices they make in game." It's worth noting that the player-character is still locked into the decisions of the DLC, but the language around the event is being changed, as well as the nature of the relationship. Still, it's a welcome improvement that the community seems to be content with. Additionally, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has also made a separate post addressing concerns over the DLC, explaining that it has been in communication with Ubisoft about the DLC. This comes in response to Assassin's Creed Odyssey's nomination for the Outstanding Video Game award, a category that seeks to celebrate interactive experiences that include authentic and impactful LGBTQ characters or storylines. Ad Legacy Research 1,215 Interested This Week To Any American Who Owns a Cell Phone If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But youve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead. Ad Resource Stock Digest 1,846 Interested This Week Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. Experiential travel is no longer enough. The gig economy is rewriting the way people live and work, making travel an integrated part of their lifestyle. And tectonic power shifts from West to East are remapping the centers of influence and the world's mobility. These are some of the megatrends outlined in a new report from the World Travel and Tourism Council called "World, Transformed: Megatrends and their implications for Travel & Tourism." The findings were presented at major tourism trade fair FITUR in Madrid, Spain this week and shed light on how changing demographics, political, technological and economic forces are impacting the travel and tourism landscape. By 2037, eight billion air travelers are expected to take to the skies. Read also: Millennial travelers are sick of social media influencers Here are a few interesting takeaways: Meaningful travel: It's not enough anymore to go home having checked off a list of interesting travel experiences. Consumers are seeking more meaningful, unique and enriching experiences related to wellness and self-care. One of the biggest examples is the popularity of digital detox vacations that challenge consumers to unplug and go analogue throughout their holiday. The rise of the gig economy and mobile freelancers: With an estimated 25 per cent of the US and EU classified as independent workers, lifestyles are becoming less tethered to office desks in a 9-5 environment. Think digital nomads who carry out their work duties living in countries around the world. That means businesses will need to rethink their workforce and the way they operate, authors note. Demographic shifts: South-South travel is expected to grow significantly, notably from Africa to the Middle East and Asia. A new generation of travelers Chinese millennials in particular present a new suite of expectations and opportunities. Technology: Consumers are both quick to embrace and distrust emerging technologies. In the travel world, technology that can enrich their experience like translation, natural language processing and chatbot concierges at airports, are more readily accepted. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani (The Jakarta Post) Karangasem Sat, January 26, 2019 11:30 875 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e8b9b6b 1 National Mount-Agung,bali,mountain-climbing Free A Russian man has been found injured on the slopes of Mount Agung in Bali on Friday, 10 hours after he was declared missing. The man who was identified only as Alexander was found with an injury to his leg and wrist. Alexander was reported missing by his friends on Thursday night. The 28-year-old was climbing the volcano with three other people, two from Ukraine and one from France. They had ignored the authorities alert status that advised people to stay away from the volcano's peak. They had started to hike the mountain on Thursday morning. Alexander separated from the group during the journey and went missing. The Bali Search and Rescue Agency immediately started an operation to find him and entered the forbidden zone on the volcano. He was found safe at around 10 a.m. on Friday morning at a height of 2,049 meters above sea level. [The climbers] are safe. [Alexander] suffered an injury to his leg and wrist, said agency head I Made Junetra on Friday. Karangasem Disaster Mitigation Agency head Ida Bagus Ketut Arimbawa deplored the action of Alexander and his friends. Hiking Mt. Agung is prohibited as the volcano could erupt at any time, Arimbawa said. Arimbawa explained that the volcano is now on the third alert level and the area 4 kilometers from the summit is prohibited for any activity. The Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center has announced that the alert status of the volcano is at the third level out of four stages of emergency status, which means that hiking and other activities are not allowed within a radius of 4 km from the summit. The authorities have forbidden climbing Mt. Agung since volcanic activity increased in 2017. We hope that all people, including tourists, obey there rules, said Arimbawa. TheJakartaPost Please Update your browser Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below. Just click on the icons to get to the download page. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marcel Thee (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26 2019 The partys over: Netflix's Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened is a documentary about the 2017 Fyre Festival, which was billed as a luxury music experience on a posh private island that failed spectacularly in the hands of a cocky entrepreneur.(Courtesy of Netflix) Netflixs documentary on the Fyre Festival reveals the mismanagement and fraud behind the failed event, while Hulus Fyre Fraud digs deeper into the social media-obsessed generation. Released almost simultaneously, two new documentaries share the same focus on last years Fyre Festival fiasco, in which organizers went above and beyond to market a high-class music festival in the Bahamas that spiraled into an epic disaster. Approaching the festival from different angles, both documentaries offer fascinating hypothesis into the things that needed to happen for an event to go so wron... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26, 2019 13:27 875 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e8bb01e 4 City Fraud,fraud-cases,fraud-suspect,Tanah-Abang,police Free Tanah Abang Police in Jakarta have arrested an unemployed man named Achmad Bajuri, 55, for alleged fraud after he claimed to be able to multiply money invested by his clients. Tanah Abang Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Lukman Cahyono said Achmad was arrested after Sasmat Mawati, 53, reported the case to police. Achmad claimed that he could turn Rp 1 million (US$ 71) into Rp 1 billion, Lukman said. The case started on May 21, 2018 when Sasmat made acquaintance with the suspect. Around June, the victim gave the first cash to the suspect, Lukman said on Friday as reported by tempo.co. Convincing Sasmat, Achmad persuaded Sasmat to gave him cash two more times by bank transfer amounting to a total of Rp 571 million. The last time Sasmat gave his money to Achmad was in August whereupon the latter became unreachable with no news of the money. The suspect disappeared and his mobile phone was turned off, Lukman said. Sasmat then filed a report to the police along with transfer proofs and receipts totaling Rp 571 million. Police arrested Achmad on Thursday in Sukabumi, West Java. The suspect has been detained in the Tanah Abang Police office and faces Criminal Code charges of fraud with a maximum penalty of four years imprisonment. (gis) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26 2019 The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has detained Mesuji Regent Khamami after he was named a suspect in a bribery case related to infrastructure projects in the regency. He was accused of receiving Rp 1.58 trillion (US$111.7 million) in bribes from the companies that had worked on the projects. Khamami is being detained at the Military Polices Guntur detention house for 20 days, KPK spokesperson Febri Diansyah told reporters. The Mesuji regent has been in detention since early Friday after being grilled by KPK investigators for 24 hours. Four other suspects have been arrested but they were placed in different detention centers. Khamamis brother, Taufik Hidayat, who is among the suspects, was detained at the Jakarta Polices detention center, while Public Works and Housing Agency secretary Wawan Suhendra is being held at the East J... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26 2019 Hanura Party chairman Oesman Sapta Odang has said he would ask President Joko Jokowi Widodo to reprimand the General Elections Commission (KPU) over its refusal to list the businessman-turned-politician as a Regional Representatives Council (DPD) candidate. Oesmans lawyer Herman Kadir said his client would also ask the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN Jakarta) to send a letter to Jokowi demanding that the KPU issue a ruling that says Oesman is an eligible candidate. Oesman, Herman said, would not resign from Hanura or step back from the candidacy. No, he wont step back. [We will] order the PTUN to send a letter to the President. Then, its the President who will decide, Herman said. Hanura is one of the political parties that support Jokowi. Tension between Oesman and the KPU started in September, when the commission remov... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Vela Andapita (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26 2019 Gilang Akbar, a student at SMK 4 vocational school in Jakarta, proudly displays and explains how he created a motorbike fingerprint ignition switch to visitors at Gebyar SMK, which is an exhibition showcasing the inventions of SMK students in North Jakarta on Thursday. He said his invention, which turns on a motorcycle engine using a fingerprint, came about through personal experience. I was late for school so many times because I forgot where I put my motorcycles key, Gilang told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. My invention can also deter motorcycle thieves because they will find it hard to turn on the motorbike let alone steal it, the 18-year-old said. Gilang added that it took him a month to create the tool from scratch, excluding the fingerprint censor which he bought online. Based on the theories and practical lessons he learned at ... Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26, 2019 13:46 875 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e8bb8c2 4 City BPOM,Cosmetics,West-Jakarta Free The Indonesia Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) has raided four illegal cosmetics factories producing billions of rupiah worth of products in Kalideres district in West Jakarta. The factories were located in the Taman Surya housing complex, a Daan Mogot Baru shop house, Citra Business Park and the Surya Molek Park complex. "The economic value of these four factories amounts to Rp 30 billion [US$ 2.1 million]," BPOM head Penny Kusumastuti Lukito said at the factory in Taman Surya on Friday as reported by kompas.com. BPOM confiscated 679,193 pieces of 53 product items, among which were lipsticks, soaps, face-whitening creams, hair growth serums and powders. Other evidence seized by the police included raw materials, packaging materials, products, tools and machines, vehicles and documents. Penny said the four factories were illegal as they had not acquired BPOM certificates. "The facilities alone were illegal; the production was not hygienic as it could contain dangerous ingredients. We will be looking into it. There is also forgery as the production and the products are illegal, they don't meet quality, efficacy, benefit and safety standards," Penny said. The police have detained one suspect, identified only as DV, the owner of the four factories. The police have also questioned four witnesses. The suspect will be charged under the 2009 Health Law on illegal facilities and products and faces 15 years imprisonment or Rp 1.5 billion in fines, as well as under the 1999 Consumer Protection Law, facing five years imprisonment or Rp 2 billion in fines. (ars) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ni Komang Erviani and Bambang Muryanto (The Jakarta Post) Denpasar/Yogyakarta Sat, January 26 2019 In solidarity: Journalists march to the Law and Human Rights Ministrys Bali office in Denpasar on Friday to protest against a sentence remission granted to I Nyoman Susrama, the mastermind behind the murder of Radar Bali daily journalist Prabangsa in 2009. The journalists urged President Joko Jokowi Widodo to retract a government decision to commute Susramas sentence from a life sentence to 20 years imprisonment.(JP/Zul Trio Anggono) Journalists and rights activists across Indonesia were outraged by President Joko Jokowi Widodos move to grant remission to I Nyoman Susrama, the mastermind behind the murder of Anak Agung Gde Bagus Narendra Prabangsa, a Radar Bali daily journalist, calling on the incumbent to annul the decision. Jokowi issued Presidential Decree No. 29/2018, which commuted Susramas sentence from a life sentence to 20 years im... Early childhood education center Tutor Time Indonesia has donated Rp 470 million (US$33,180) to Rachel House and the Lets Love Children Institution (YMCKK) foundations related to palliative and medical care for children with cancer, HIV, tuberculosis and other serious illnesses. Rachel House provides palliative care for children, while YMCKK offers financial support for the treatment of young patients in Jakarta hospitals. Both foundations focus on children's suffering from chronic illnesses. The donation was formally given during an event on Jan. 16 at Tutor Time Kemang in South Jakarta, with the organizations each receiving half of the donation. Rachel House CEO Kartika Kurniasari expressed her appreciation for the donation. This will allow our nurses to care for many more children with serious and terminal illnesses in the comfort of their home, Kartika said in a statement. Read also: Tracking global trends in early childhood education Tutor Time Foundation head Melania Hamdan (second right),Lets Love Children Institution volunteer Julie van Laarhoven (right) and Rumah Rachel CEO Kartika Kurniasari (left) during a handover event on Jan. 16 at Tutor Time Kemang in South Jakarta. (Tutor Time Indonesia/File) Involving more than 1,200 families, the donation was raised through the center's Care to Share 2018 program. The charity program was established in October last year across all Tutor Time Indonesia's nine campuses. Set as a biennial fund-raising program, it encourages parents and students to make a contribution to selected organizations that focus on childrens education and health. Parents and teachers also collaborated in organizing the fund-raising events, which featured bazaar, car wash, crafts auctions and music performances. Aside from gaining experience in performing charity, children are expected to learn about empathy through the program. Its our fifth charity program in our 23 years of operating in Indonesia. Were so blessed and grateful to be able to contribute to improving Indonesias children quality of life year after year," said Melania Hamdan, the foundation head of Tutor Time Indonesia. At each charity program our teachers and parents gave their best efforts, but this year theyve exceeded themselves by raising the highest amount of donation in our history. (wir/kes) The Communications and Information Ministry has launched an online antihoax show in a fresh approach to counter various falsehoods masquerading as truth, especially those found floating around on social media. The program is entitled Lambe Hoaks, which takes the Javanese word for lips and means "Hoax Lips". The first video is already available on the ministry's YouTube channel, garnering more than 2,700 views as of Friday evening. The peppy host, Miss Lambe Hoaks, is seen wearing a fuchsia faux-feather boa and a mask as she sets out to tackle various hoaxes that have been circulating on social media. "Miss Lambe Hoaks wants to share information because there's more and more hoax information that cannot be accounted for," she flamboyantly says in her introduction to the video before proceeding to debunk 10 hoaxes. Ferinandus Setu, the acting head of the ministry's public relations bureau, said that the program is to target a wide range of false information, beyond just those that concern the government. "A complete range of hoaxes, so not just political hoaxes, not just hoaxes that attack the government, but all hoaxes that can be found on social media," Ferdinandus said, as quoted by Kompas.com. He added that the program would target hoaxes that are receiving the most attention online. "Those receiving the highest rate of response, such as those on trending topics," Ferdinandus said, referring to the categorization of topics on Twitter that are being most talked about. Read also: Hoax busters: How millennials can tackle fake news, hate speech As Indonesia approaches a presidential election, which is set to take place on April 17, hoaxes are not uncommon on social media. The timing of Lambe Hoaks' launch has led to speculation that the program was produced to coincide with the campaign period. Ferdinandus emphasized that Lambe Hoaks is in line with the government's steadfast policy of fighting against false information, denying that it was created as a campaign tool, calling such allegations "not true". Launched on Jan. 24, Lambe Hoaks is a weekly show that is to be uploaded every Thursday on the ministry's YouTube channel. In each episode, Miss Lambe is to present the top 10 hoaxes culled from the findings of the Content Complaints Team at the ministry's Information Applications Directorate General. In a bid to innovate and avoid the stuffy and bureaucratic appearance often associated with the government, the show takes an upbeat and energetic tone to appeal to millennials. (wng) Indonesian retail distributor the Kanmo Group has added Kate Spade New York to its list of fashion brands, taking over the business in the country in December. Manoj Bharwani, cofounder and group managing director of Kanmo Group, said Indonesia was one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world and it presented a dynamic opportunity for all brands, particularly premium fashion ones. "Kate Spade New York is well-placed to enjoy growth in the years to come in Indonesia with its unique positioning and the appeal it holds for customers," Manoj said in a statement. The fashion brand first entered Indonesia in 2006 and has since opened seven stores, including in Jakarta, Surabaya, Bali and Bandung. The brand was established by namesake designer Kate with her husband Andy Spade in 1993. Kate died last year at the age of 55. Read also: Kate Spade honors late founder at NY Fashion Week Since its launch with a focus on bags, the brand grew to become a global life and style house that features handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, fashion accessories, eyewear and footwear. Kate Spade New York is known for its polished-ease style with cheerful use of bright colors. Under the vision of creative director Nicola Glass, the brand continues to celebrate confident women with a youthful spirit. "Kate Spade New York is all about personality. It is a brand filled with femininity, it represents a confident and personal style," said Maya Anggraini, the Kanmo Groups fashion and accessories brand director. Established in 2005, the group has been steadily growing, with operations across retail, wholesale, online and travel retail channels. It has positioned itself as an omni-channel operator, running more than 230 stores spread in 16 cities across Indonesia. (liz/wng) Former Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, who prefers to be known as BTP following his release from prison, met with the leader of Hanura party, Oesman Sapta Odang (OSO), on Friday evening. The meeting was recorded on camera and uploaded on OSO TV, a YouTube channel owned by OSO, and it quickly went viral as it answered a burning question; will there be a wedding soon? After complimenting BTP on looking younger, OSO asked the former governor, Is the rumor true that youre getting married? to which BTP replied, Yes. Because my mother said Hok, I cannot take care or live with you, Im in my 70s. How long [do I have to take care of you]? My mother also said your wife should be my replacement to cook, make cakes and take care of you'. The last one didnt want to, he added. BTP said his mother had advised him to get married right away, before reaching the age of 55. He confirmed his plans to marry Second Brig. Puput Nastiti Devi, a police officer. Yes, its her. She has been helping [my mother] cook for a long time now. BTP told OSP that it all started when full police protection for his family was ordered by Gen. Tito Karnavian following the 411 rally in 2016. I didnt think that I would date a female police officer. That never entered my mind, he said. A friend of mine came and said that I should marry somebody with 'the same palm lines'. My ex-wife, in Chinese beliefs, could not accept her luck and that is why we parted. It doesnt mean [my future wife] has to have the same lines on her palms as I do, but it means that our fate is the same, BTP said. Read also: Marriage forms signed: Wedding bells for BTP and Puput? Following this conversation with his friend BTP asked to meet Puput, then his wifes aide, and to his surprise, the lines on their palms matched. He also mentioned that Puput came from a family of police officers. Halfway into the interview with OSO, BTP invited Puput to join in and show her palms to the camera to compared them with his. According to BTP, his relationship with Puput has led to an improvement in his mothers health. My mother is now healthier. Her cholesterol level is below 200, he said. She knows that there will be somebody to take care of her son. She already trusts me, Puput chimed in. When asked whether she was of Chinese ancestry, Puput said she had no knowledge of any Chinese ethnicity, I dont know about that, all I know is that my whole family is Javanese, but yes, most of my family have fair skin and chubby cheeks." Rumors about the impending marriage between BTP and Puput had been circulating weeks prior to his release. Both families denied the rumors, although City Council speaker Prasetio Edi Marsudi had confirmed the Feb. 15 wedding. I will be their witness, he said as quoted by tempo.co recently. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama divorced his wife, Veronica Tan, in April 2018. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, January 26, 2019 08:13 875 75e76da2d15e495661b6357e2e8b6802 1 Editorial discrimination,Chinese-Indonesians,basuki-tjahaja-purnama,ahok,politics,election,Politician Free Many worried that the Defend Islam marches in Jakarta, referred to as the 212 rallies, would encourage negative sentiments against Chinese-Indonesians and prevent the minority from having political representation. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnamas defeat in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election and his subsequent conviction on blasphemy charges seemed to confirm the worst fears of those who shared the concerns: There would be no more Ahoks in Indonesian politics, no non-Muslims in national and local elections in majority Muslim areas. The release of Ahok or BTP as he recently requested to be called from detention after he served his two-year prison sentence on Thursday was greeted with joy, but also some apprehension. If a politician as popular as Ahok, whom many think did a good job as governor, failed to win an election and was instead imprisoned, what hopes have other Chinese-Indonesians, especially non-Muslim ones? However, several Chinese-Indonesians who are even now running for election in Jakarta and nationally beg to differ with the pessimism. Six Chinese-Indonesians are running for Jakarta City Council seats in the April 17 elections. Twenty Chinese-Indonesians are running for the House of Representatives and 15 of them are battling it out in Jakartas electoral districts. Some of the legislative candidates are running in areas with many Chinese-Indonesians like North Jakarta and West Jakarta. Karna Brata Lesmana, who is running for a House seat in the electoral district covering the Thousand Islands regency, West Jakarta and North Jakarta, said that although he relied on Chinese-Indonesian voters, he was also wooing voters from all demographic segments. Some Chinese-Indonesian voters say they would choose anyone deemed competent who had a good track record, regardless of ethnicity. The aforementioned spirited politicians remain aware of racism against Chinese-Indonesians, the non-pri (nonindigenous), a label that pits them against the pribumi, those claiming to be natives of the land. Councillor Gani Suwondo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, who is seeking reelection, said greater political participation by Chinese-Indonesians was necessary to address issues centering on racial discrimination. Many of the complaints [from citizens of Chinese descent] are about discrimination. We are even called aseng, he said, using a pejorative word for Chinese. Yet, they march on courageously and hope their political participation would help end discrimination. Heriandi Lim, 38, one of the few Chinese-Indonesians in the National Awakening Party, said despite the negative sentiments, particularly against the prospect of the minority members holding public office, he was confident about winning enough support to send him to council and that would inspire more people like him to jump into politics. Along with efforts to reduce discrimination against and stigmatization of minorities, one day we should see more such individuals aiming for public office like Ahmadis, Shiites, or transgender people. It sounds impossible, but so was a Chinese-Indonesian governor. Illinois Democrats have introduced an ambitious gun control bill that would ban the sale or unregistered possession of dozens of firearms labeled as assault weapons. Deerfield Sen. Julie Morrison introduced Senate Bill 107 this week. It would prohibit a range of rifles, pistols and shotguns and require every such weapon in the state to be registered with the Illinois State Police. Owners would pay a $25 fee for that registration. A person found in possession of one of the prohibited weapons without registration could face a Class 3 felony, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years and a $25,000 fine. Morrison wasnt immediately available for comment on her legislation. Illinois State Rifle Association President Richard Pearson said he wasnt surprised that Democrats would use their new supermajorities in the General Assembly and a cooperative governors office to push for a ban. This bill overreaches. It bans common firearms, he said. Its not really about crime. Its about taking firearms away from law-abiding people. Pearson said the association would challenge the law in court if its passed. The bill includes a provision for punishment of up to three years in prison for owning any type of assault weapon attachment. It would only allow a person passing through the state with one of the named firearms 24 hours before they would have to leave with it, lest they be arrested on felony charges. Illinois reported 1,490 gun deaths in 2017, the most recent year available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I strongly object to The Grand Island Independent publishing out-of-state letters to the editor on Article V. The Grand Island Independent must limit the debate to Nebraskans. I recently read several letters to the editor from a gentleman from Minden, Nev., regarding an issue that is relevant only to Nebraska. The issue is Nebraskas applications for an Article V Convention of States. The author of the letters to the editor did not provide his education or credentials as a scholar to qualify his input. I do thank him for his service to our country, but he is wrong. Our Founders gave the right to call an Article V convention of states to the individual states. Article V conventions only become a national issue when a convention is called. Right now, the man is butting into Nebraskas business. The man must restrain himself to influencing his legislature regarding any Article V issues in Nevada. Nebraskas calls for a convention of states under Article V is now before the Legislature. The two resolutions are LR7 and LR9. The hearing for LR7 is on Feb. 1 at 1 p.m. I encourage everyone to watch the testimony on NET. Nebraskans must decide based on their observations, not input from Nevada. A hearty Saturday Salute goes this week to the dozens of volunteers who help the Crane Trust provide the best experience possible to crane watchers who will be visiting our area during the next three months. More than 30,000 visitors from around the world come to the Grand Island area to watch the annual sandhill crane migration. As many as 500,000 cranes spend several weeks along the Platte River from around Valentines Day through mid-April, fattening up for their long flight to their breeding grounds in Canada, Alaska and Russia. The Crane Trust Nature and Visitors Center is well positioned on the Platte River to show the migration to these visitors, but its only because of its many volunteers that it is able to provide a full range of tourist services, including early morning and evening blind tours, special events and displays in the nature center. Crane Trust president Brice Krohn said the Crane Trust is a nonprofit organization that relies on the generous support of its volunteers to fulfill its mission of protecting/maintaining critical habitat or cranes and other migratory birds along the Platte River. There are a variety of jobs for volunteers, from leading blind tours to helping out with special events and providing trail maintenance. Defining solitude? Think of Henry David Thoreaus journal entry: The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks. And consider Cheryl Strayeds definition in Wild: Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it werent a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was. Unwilling loneliness, in contrast to solitude, is disorienting. Loneliness is where we cannot be who we really are. Instead, we lose perspective, lose our balance and no longer intuit where, precisely, the boundaries lie between the world and ourselves. Its as if we become unwitting mimes, slapping against invisible walls that are imperceptible to everyone else but impossible for us to shatter. Defining loneliness? Think of Carson McCullers The Member of the Wedding: The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome. Think of F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby: Theres a loneliness that only exists in ones mind. The loneliest moment in someones life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blink. Hopping out of his semi-truck, Kenny Kohlhof was ready to brighten the day. Santas a little late this year, he said and laughed. Wanda Kincheloe didnt mind the wait. What good stuff did you bring me today? asked Kincheloe, who is the kitchen supervisor at the Grand Island Salvation Army. Opening up the back of the truck showed more than 100 boxes full of beef that Kohlhof, owner of Nebraska Premier Beef based out of Dannebrog, was giving to the organization. He delivered about 2,300 pounds of ground beef in the form of patties and in tubes, which was a welcomed donation for the Salvation Army. The meat will be used for its weekly lunch and dinner program. The organization serves 125 to 300 meals a day. Kincheloe said the Salvation Army relies on donations because she has a limited budget to order food. Pretty much all the meat is donated to us. Mr. Kohlhof is the only one who brings me hamburger, she said. Kohlhof has been donating to the Salvation Army for a couple of years. LINCOLN Michael Brandon Richardson, formerly of Hastings, was sentenced Thursday in Lincoln to two years in prison by Senior U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf for failing to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. After his release from prison, Richardson will serve five years on supervised release and still be required to register. Richardson, 29, was convicted previously of third-degree sexual assault of an incompetent, which is a misdemeanor, on Jan. 13, 2009, in Nuckolls County District Court, and was required to register as a sex offender for 15 years. After that conviction, Richardson relocated to Georgia where he initially registered but then failed to re-register, and a warrant was issued. In February 2018, the Nebraska State Patrol was informed by Georgia law enforcement that Richardson appeared to have obtained a Nebraska drivers license in November 2017, and had listed an address in Hastings. After investigation it appeared that Richardson had been living and working in Hastings since June of 2017, but was now living in Superior. The Nebraska State Patrol confirmed that Richardson had not registered as a sex offender in Nebraska since his return from Georgia. Richards was arrested by U.S. Marshals in August, and has remained in custody since that time. OMAHA A Grand Island man is one of 33 defendants charged in 28 indictments returned Thursday by a federal grand jury for the District of Nebraska. U.S. Attorney Joe Kelly announced the results of the grand jury. Indictments are charging documents that contain one or more individual counts that are merely accusations, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Aron Villareal Moreno, a 40-year-old Grand Island man, is charged with illegal re-entry after deportation following a felony conviction on or about Aug. 16, 2018. The maximum possible penalty if convicted is 10 years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, a 3-year term of supervised release and a $100 special assessment. What is most striking about Israel's election campaign is that virtually no one is debating issues. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn't perceived as unbeatable, but the smart money is still on his prevailing - despite widespread dissatisfaction with him. The April 9 election, it seems, is more about jockeying for position in the next election, when, common wisdom has it, Netanyahu will no longer be a candidate. This is an election about personalities, not issues, because there are no major policy matters about which Israelis are agitated. The economy is doing fine, and neither right nor left are urging major changes. Many Israelis don't love how Netanyahu has cozied up to a variety of unsavory foreign leaders, but still admire the skill with which he has held Russian President Vladimir Putin at bay. He has also dealt with President Donald Trump's shocking announcement to pull American troops out of Syria, and has successfully navigated the unchartable waters of a Trump presidency. Netanyahu is a pro, even his foes acknowledge, and his experience and smarts have served Israel well of late. With Israel and Iran increasing their saber-rattling, his experience will only matter more to Israelis. Netanyahu faces no formidable opposition. It is possible that some combination of Benny Gantz, a former army chief of staff with a stellar reputation, and a seasoned politician like Tzipi Livni, recently "dumped" by Labor, or Yair Lapid, long languishing as the not-much-noticed leader of the center, might topple Netanyahu, especially if he is indicted prior to the elections. But the indictments may be delayed, and though Gantz is considered talented and honest, Israelis are also worried that he is an unknown on policy matters. If Israelis re-elect Netanyahu, it will be not because they love him, but because they believe he can keep them safe. Netanyahu's steady hand and stability have been in striking evidence since Israel narrowly avoided war with Hamas a few months ago. Even his critics give Netanyahu credit for that. There was, in the days after Israeli dodged a looming war, a sense that had the hawkish Avigdor Lieberman or Naftali Bennett been in power, Israel would have gone to war. Lieberman, who had been serving as defense minister in Netanyahu's coalition, has since resigned in protest over the fact that Israel did not attack Hamas. Bennett sought to take Lieberman's post, was rebuffed, and formed his own party amid the fallout. Avi Gabbay, of the Labor Party, or Lapid, the popular wisdom says, might well have had to go to war to prove that they had what it takes to go to war. It was only Netanyahu who both desperately wanted to avoid a war that he believed was as a losing proposition and had nothing to prove to anyone about his willingness to fight if necessary. Israel is both at relative peace and free from the grip of the far right, even some of his detractors unhappily admit, because Netanyahu is the prime minister. In contrast to Netanyahu's political stability stands what is perhaps the most telling dimension of Israel's current elections, the virtual demise of Israel's Labor Party. Labor, the party of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister, once ruled Israel with an iron fist. But the socialism that lay at the core of Labor's domestic vision has long since fallen out of favor, while the "land for peace" mantra that animated Israel's foreign policy for decades was disemboweled by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's decision to launch the second Intifada rather than negotiate with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. In the almost two decades that have ensued, Labor has failed to offer Israel any compelling vision for either its domestic or its diplomatic future. Labor, which was reduced to 13 of the 120 seats in the current Knesset, is polling at around seven seats for this April's elections. The demise of Israel's founding party is a metaphor for Israel's predicament at present. Netanyahu has brought political and economic stability, and diplomatic progress on many fronts. Even on the Palestinian issue, which remains hopelessly stuck, he has convinced most Israelis that Iran, Syria and Turkey, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, are all more pressing challenges than the Palestinians. Yet what does Netanyahu foresee as a viable option with the Palestinians? No one really knows, for he has succeeded in burying the conversation. He has been able to do that, however, because no one on the left has much of a vision to offer, either. Labor has made no bold foreign policy suggestions. When Gantz entered the political fray, his first major pronouncement was that he was going to heal relations with Israel's Druze, who were offended by a recently passed nation-state law. He said nothing about the Palestinians. Even Commanders for Israel's Security, widely considered a left-leaning organization, advocates only not taking steps that would preclude a two-state solution; they, too, are saying nothing about a "deal" with the Palestinians at any time in future. What will that future eventually look like? That is the conversation glaringly missing from Israel's political scene. The subject arose, if only momentarily, when Amos Oz, one of Israel's greatest novelists, died last month. Oz, widely considered a leftist, had bitterly bemoaned Israel's slide to the right. Yet tellingly, what many obituaries got wrong, was the fact that though he envisioned an Israel at peace with its Palestinian neighbors, neither he nor his political allies had any idea of how to get there. Also largely overlooked was that Oz despised Ben-Gurion and his now dying Labor Party. In 1954, Israel was embroiled in a scandal called the Lavon Affair; the country had apparently tried to recruit Egyptian Jews to plant bombs in Cairo, but the plot was uncovered. Ben-Gurion dodged most of the political damage by placing the blame on Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign. Oz had grown up on Kibbutz Hulda, which was also Lavon's home, and Oz never forgave Ben-Gurion or his party for betraying his fellow kibbutznik. Later, still, Oz castigated Yitzhak Rabin, also of the Labor Party, for abandoning Israel's socialist roots and succumbing to the attractions of a consumerist Western economy. Oz, in short, despised Israel's right but was also exasperated with the left's lack of vision. Oz was less a leftist than an idealist, and his death is thus a striking metaphor for where Israel finds itself. In many ways, Israel is thriving. Israelis know their economy is stable, and they feel largely secure. They know, though, that they need to talk about the Palestinians and their vision for their country. To what ideals is the country devoted? What kind of society are Israelis trying to build? Sadly, the questions that once riveted Israeli intellectual life have been silenced. Israelis, like the much-missed Oz, who still hold out hope that Israel can revive a conversation about vision know that this election will not accomplish that. Instead, they are holding out hope that this is the last Netanyahu run, and that once the prime minister finally steps aside, a real conversation about the future of the Jewish state can emerge once again. --- Gordis is senior vice president and Koret distinguished fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. Author of 11 books, his latest is "Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn." NORWALK Police are investigating a report of a man who offered to drive home a 10-year-old boy after school on Tuesday. Meghan Zeoli said her son, Jaymee Jamison, was walking from Jefferson Elementary School to a friends house about two blocks away when an unknown man drove up next to him and offered him a ride just before 3 p.m. Zeoli said her son declined and kept walking toward his friends house. Jamisons dad picked him up from the friends house about 10 minutes later. The unknown man was still nearby and he pulled alongside them, made eye contact and then drove off, said Zeoli, who described the suspect as a black man with a bald head driving a gray or silver compact car. They attempted to follow the man to get his license plate number, but another car turned in front of them causing them to lose sight of the vehicle. As soon as she learned what had happened, Zeoli said she called the Norwalk Police Departments dispatch line Tuesday afternoon and spoke to an officer who said he would investigate the matter, but she said she had not heard back from them, as of Friday. Police spokesman Lt. Terry Blake, however, told The Hour Friday afternoon that the school resource officer is investigating the matter. Zeoli also said she called Jefferson Schools main office on Tuesday and described the incident to an employee, who said the school would investigate the matter and then follow up with her. The following day, Zeoli said Jamison told his teacher about the incident. I was under the impression that they would do what they needed to do as police and as a school to make sure this doesnt happen to other kids and that this doesnt go on, she said. When she had not heard back from anyone at the school by Thursday morning, Zeoli said she called Jefferson School again and left a voicemail for the schools principal, Nicholas Brophy. Brophy said he followed protocol after Zeoli notified him of the incident. Upon receipt of her phone call, my staff directly contacted the school resource officer, Brophy said. Ms. Zeoli was directed to call the NPD right away. I believe the parent then contacted the police as we recommended. Because the child was approached on a street that is not adjacent to the school, after the school day, the police would have needed to become involved. My communication to parents was sent after the investigation. Brophys email to parents, sent Thursday afternoon, stated an investigation is pending. He advised, in the meantime, students should walk home in groups and refrain from speaking to strangers. The email also asked students to report situations that make them uncomfortable. While we dont know if this was a well-intentioned person or something more serious, we would like to take this opportunity to remind adults to not approach children they do not know, Brophy wrote in the email. Still, Zeoli said she was concerned it took multiple calls to school officials to alert the community and that she worried about other students walking home alone after school on Tuesday and Wednesday. I just want to know where the ball got dropped that the principal never made anyone aware, Zeoli said. What actions will they take to make sure kids are OK? Anyone with information should call the Norwalk Police Department at 203-854-3000. The Coaliton of Norwalk Neighborhood Associations will host a panel discussion all about water, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28 in City Hall room 231. The event, Water, water, everywhere... A Conversation about Water-related Issues in Norwalk, will feature former Maritime Aquarium educator Joe Schnierlein, former Harbor Master Tony DAndrea, Environmental Consultant Diane Lauricella, President of the Norwalk River Watershed Association Louise Washer, and Shellfish Commissioner Steve Bartush. Topics may include the health of Long Island Sound and the Norwalk Harbor, water quality and water potability, street flooding, catch basins and infrastructure, water contamination and water pollution from contractor yards, the health of the Norwalk River and its tributaries, droughts, well fields, well water and fracking, impacts on water quality, marine life and flooding from construction projects large and small. This event will be moderated by CNNA member Heather Dunn. The Norwalk Historical Society will kick off Black History Month at 2 p.m. Saturday with a presentation from the Connecticut Womens Hall of Fame called Connecticuts African American Heroines, at the Norwalk Historical Society Museum, 141 East Ave. This 45-minute multimedia program will celebrate some of Connecticuts most remarkable African American heroines, including womens rights advocate Maria Miller Stewart, legendary contralto and Civil Rights catalyst Marian Anderson, pioneering artist Laura Wheeler Waring, former state Treasurer Denise L. Nappier and Tony-award winner Anika Noni Rose. The lecture will conclude with a Q&A session and refreshments. The lecture is free and open to the public. Space is limited and advanced registration is encouraged. To register, visit ctafricanamericanheroines.brownpapertickets.com or call 203-846-0525. Downtown This week, District A Common Council member Eloisa Melendez was named treasurer of the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee, effective Feb. 1. With the partys other officers, Melendez will focus on building party infrastructure and leading Connecticut Democrats as they prepare for municipal elections and defending their majority in 2020, according to a press release from the Connecticut Democrats. Melendez, 24, is in her third term on Norwalks Common Council. She was first elected at 19. A first-generation Norwalker, Melendez is a student at the University of Connecticut, Stamford campus. Shes the president of the UConn Stamford College Democrats and vice president of the UConn Stamford Latinx Organization. The Norwalk Library, in partnership with the Norwalk Health Department, will host its third week of Healthy Resolutions, a six-week program meant to help people attain the goals theyve set for themselves, 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesday. Each week will focus on a different healthy resolution and the skills needed to achieve it. The sessions include videos, group discussion and skill-building exercises. A light meal will be served. The third installment will be, Asking For Help, Reducing Stress, and Managing our Time. The session will include information on the importance of mindfulness, tricks to reduce stress and stay positive and keys to good health. For more information, contact 203-899-2780, ext. 15127 or visit norwalkpl.org. Let us know whats going on in your neighborhood. Contact staff writer Justin Papp at justin.papp@scni.com or 203-842-2586. Jon Nowinskis Facebook motto reads, Made it through the storm and living my dream! On Jan. 23, Nowinski died at age 37 following a long battle with health complications, but his dream lives on through EARS (Emergency Animal Response Services), the nonprofit he founded in 2012. He was always there to support any animal cause, lend a hand or offer a kind word, said Animal Control Officer Karen Lombardi of Woodbridge Animal Control, who laughed as she reminisced about chasing a pair of escaped emus with Nowinski. He would often be the first to show up at an emergency. He was the bravest man I ever knew. Any time of day or night, Nowinski, an animal EMT and K9 medic, was available to help a pet owner with an injured dog or downed horse, arriving with his EARS animal ambulance chock full of first aid supplies and bearing the knowledge and training to put them to use. He showed up at the drop of a hat when he was needed, said Dr. Stacey Golub, owner of Connecticut Valley Equine Veterinary Services and founder of CT Draft Horse Rescue. He came to help with a downed horse in Northford, driving all the way from Westport. His impact was huge. Jon helped countless animals in all situations. This is a huge loss for animals as well as people; no one can ever fill those shoes. Nowinskis mission included training others, and he tirelessly traveled the region teaching seminars in emergency and disaster preparedness and animal first aid. When he realized there was no way to safely transport injured or compromised animals he raised funds to purchase and outfit an animal ambulance, complete with oxygen. If an animal organization needed help with a project, hed jump in with a fundraiser. The announcement of Nowinskis passing produced a flood of posts from police K-9 units throughout the state. The Easton Police posted a photo of their team on Instagram with Nowinski that reads, . . . our good friend Jon Nowinski passed away last night. Jon was an amazing person who wanted nothing but to give back to the K-9 and animal community . . . Jon also donated several medical kits to K-9 teams throughout CT and also volunteered his time teaching emergency medical classes to civilian and K-9 teams. The post also stated that the Easton, Wilton and Meriden police departments are coordinating to have a K-9 presence at Nowinskis memorial services. Shortly before he entered the hospital late last year, Nowinski had been hired by Central Hospital for Veterinary Medicine in North Haven to do community engagement and outreach. He never had the opportunity to begin his job. I had met Jon through EARS and you couldnt help but be impressed by him, said Ken Aldrich, Central Hospital director. He was one of those rare people who was able to find his passion with helping animals and educating others about it. Its exponential in that he taught others to help others, whether it was pet owners or emergency personal, and they continue to teach what they learned from Jon. Its an amazing legacy. Golub agreed. He was just an incredible guy with a huge heart, she said. How do you summarize so many great things he did in just a few words? He was an amazing man who did great things to better the lives of animals. I can only hope that someone can take the reins and continue forward with the legacy Jon started. There will be a gathering of family and friends on Thursday, Jan. 31, from 3 to 7 p.m. at Cody-White Funeral Home, 107 N. Broad St., Milford. Donations can be made in Jon Nowinskis name to EARS at EARSCT.org. BRIDGEPORT City cops arrested Onaje Smith Tuesday morning for his role in an Aug. 2016 murder, according to court documents. Smith, 19, was charged with murder, felony murder, first-degree conspiracy to commit robbery, third-degree larceny and carrying a pistol without a permit. He is being held on a $1 million bond. An additional arrest is expected shortly, said police spokesman Av Harris on Tuesday. On Aug. 27, 2016, Shane Slinsky was gunned down on Wood Terrace in Bridgeport. Slinsky had been shot twice in the head. He was the sixth homicide of 2016. Despite the initial belief by investigators back in 2016 that Slinsky, 18, of Stamford, was killed during a drug deal gone bad, that is no longer the case. That was a working theory by police two years ago that we have publicly stated that we do not believe is what happened in this homicide, Harris said Friday. Onaje is the second person to be arrested and face charges in connection with Slinskys murder. On March 10, 2017, police arrested and charged 19-year-old Stamford resident Jeremy Middleton. Middleton was charged with felony murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery and third-degree robbery. At Middletons arraignment, Slinskys mother Laura Slinsky said the two were longtime friends. A few months before he was killed, Slinsky and his family accepted a $100,000 check from the city of Stamford. The check was for injuries Slinskys family said he suffered from a drug-infused relationship with Stamford High School English teacher Danielle Watkins. Watkins was having a sexual relationship with one of Slinskys friends and would supply them with marijuana, according to the arrest affidavit for Watkins. She pleaded guilty to charges of sexual assault of a student, threatening and risk of injury to a child. She is serving a five-year prison sentence. The schools principal, Donna Valentine, and assistant principal, Roth Nordin, were also arrested for failing to report their suspicions. The charges were later dismissed after Valentine and Nordin each completed a court diversionary program for first-time offenders. . . , , . - . , , , ... When a big storm is approaching, some airlines will let you rebook your flight to go out earlier at no extra charge. (Unsplash) What to Do When Mother Nature Alters Your Vacation Plans We had been looking forward to our European river cruise for weeks. Then a few days before our trip, we got a notice from our cruise company. Due to abnormally low water on the Rhine, all river traffic had been shut down near Cologne, Germany. The ship couldnt reach our embarkation city in Switzerland. There would be no cruise on the Rhine that next week. Of course, we were disappointed. Visions of German castles and French vineyards had been dancing in my head for monthsand now it wasnt going to happen. Mother Nature can sometimes put a damper on your vacation plans, and that can be disappointing, especially after youve put time and effort into planning your trip. Sometimes, though, life doesnt go as planned. In our case, drought in Europe last summer caused river levels to drop so low in the fall that river traffic on the Rhine was affected for weeks. There was nothing anyone could do to fix that. Fortunately, it didnt ruin our vacation. Thats because we had purchased travel insurance ahead of time, and we had booked with a reputable river cruise company, AmaWaterways. The AmaWaterways team worked quickly to put together an alternative cruise itinerary. Instead of cruising the Rhine through Germany and France, we cruised the waterways of the Netherlands and Belgium. Even better, in addition to our altered cruise, the company offered passengers a certificate for a free cruise at another time. The only problem was, our new cruise itinerary was leaving from Amsterdam instead of Basel, Switzerland, our original destination. Thats where our travel insurance came in. We had purchased a travel insurance plan through Allianz, a travel insurance company that we have used for years. Our plan included trip interruption and trip cancellation coverage. This was a trip interruption due to the environment, so any changes were covered. We booked a flight from Basel to Amsterdam, and Allianz soon reimbursed us for the flight. Read the Fine Print When booking with a travel company or provider, be sure to read the fine print in your purchase agreement. Cruise companies, for example, often have to deal with weather. Some have weather guarantees; others dont. Know what your cruise line policy is on cancellations and changes, advises Colleen McDaniel, senior executive editor of Cruise Critic, a large online cruise resource. Virtually all cruise companies have their contracts online. It also helps to work with a travel agent because they are knowledgeable about the cruise lines and well-versed in travel insurance. Buy Travel Insurance The most important thing you can do to protect your vacation is purchase travel insurance, adds McDaniel. Plans vary, so take time to compare them. You can purchase a plan that covers an individual trip or an annual travel insurance plan. Its best to pick a plan with trip cancellation and interruption benefits, as well as travel delay benefits or missed connection coverage. When traveling overseas, purchase a plan with emergency medical coverage, as well as emergency medical transportation benefits. This would cover you in case you had an illness or accident abroad and needed to be transported to the nearest appropriate medical facility. It would also cover medical transportation benefits in case you needed to return home with a medical escort. Look Ahead and Have a Backup Plan Air travel is especially vulnerable to weather delays and cancellations. Its helpful to keep an eye on upcoming weather conditions at your destination, especially if youre traveling to the southeast or the Caribbean in the hurricane season (from June 1 to Nov. 30) or traveling during the winter. When a big storm is approaching, some airlines will let you rebook your flight to go out earlier at no extra charge. To give yourself some wiggle room in case there are flight cancellations, try to book the first flight of the day, so other options are available if something happens. If youre flying out for a cruise, consider flying in the night before. If you get to the airport to find your flight canceled, go to the customer service counter right away, even if the line is long. While in line, get on the phone with the airlines customer service. They may be able to help you before you reach the front of the line. While canceled flights are disappointing, keeping your cool with airline representatives will ensure better assistance. They are often overwhelmed with demands and trying their best to assist. Maintaining a pleasant demeanor helps everyone involved. If you do end up stuck at the airport for a night, book a nearby hotel right away. During major storms, they can fill up quickly. Depending on your travel insurance plan, your hotel stay may be reimbursable. Traveling by Car When traveling by car, its also key to keep an eye on the weather. If youve ever traveled by car across the Midwest in winter, you know this is important. Interstate highways can close completely when conditions become dangerous. Phil and Krista Miller learned this while traveling from Oklahoma to Denver over the holidays. When they saw that I-70 was likely to shut down in Kansas, they altered their route to go west across Texas and New Mexico instead. While their altered route took longer, they discovered several new places in New Mexico and southern Colorado and arrived safely. Look on the Bright Side Your mental outlook can affect your whole journey. While it may sound trite, it helps to keep a positive attitude. Sometimes the best plan is to go with the flow. Travel is about the destination, but its also about the journey. It can enrich our lives, even when it doesnt go as planned. Janna Graber has covered travel in more than 45 countries. She is the editor of three travel anthologies, including A Pink Suitcase: 22 Tales of Womens Travel, and is the managing editor of Go World Travel Magazine. A migrant from Honduras passes a child to her father after jumping the border fence to reach the US side in San Diego, Calif., on Jan. 3, 2019. (Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo) US Returns Asylum Seekers to Mexico TIJUANA/MEXICO CITY, MexicoThe United States was expected to send a first group of 20 Central American asylum seekers back to Mexico through the border city of Tijuana on January 25, as part of President Donald Trumps hardening of longstanding immigration policy. Under a policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols, announced on December 20, the United States will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts. Mexican Foreign Ministry spokesman Roberto Velasco confirmed U.S. authorities were expected to send the first group of 20 Central American asylum seekers back to Mexican territory through Tijuana on Jan. 25. U.S. authorities will send as many as 20 people a day through Tijuana and gradually start sending people back through the other legal ports of entry along the Mexican border, Velasco said. Mexico will accept certain individuals who have a date to appear in a U.S. immigration court but reject those in danger on Mexican territory, suffering from health problems, or are unaccompanied minors, he said. Velasco said Mexico does not have a Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States, which would imply a binding commitment to process in our territory all U.S. asylum requests of migrants that pass through our country and take full responsibility for their legal situation. Asylum seekers have traditionally been granted the right to stay in the United States while their cases are decided by a U.S. immigration judge but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases means the process can take years. Now, the U.S. government says migrants will be turned away with a notice to appear in immigration court. They will be able to enter the United States for their hearings but have to live in Mexico in the interim. If they lose their cases, they will be deported to their home countries. Shelters are at capacity and we cant receive migrants that are being deported or (Mexican) nationals that are passing through the city. Lets hope this doesnt happen, said Jose Maria Garcia, who runs the Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana. Leopoldo Guerrero, Tijuanas secretary of government, said Mexicos federal government should take responsibility for the migrants, stressing the city does not have the resources to cope. The U.S. policy aims to curb the increasing number of families, arriving mostly from Central America to request asylum. They claim to be afraid of returning home due to threats of violence. The Trump administration believes many of the claims are invalid. The program will apply to arriving migrants who seek asylum at ports of entry, or those who are caught crossing illegally and are afraid to return home. It is unclear exactly how Mexico plans to house what could be thousands of asylum seekers during their immigration proceedings. By Julia Love and Delphine Schrank Trump Signs Bill to Re-open the Government Temporarily President Trump has signed a bill to reopen the federal government for three weeks until February 15 after it passed through both the Senate and House of Representatives. Friday, 25 January 2019 THE WHITE HOUSE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE On Friday, January 25, 2019, the President signed into law: pic.twitter.com/6K76aJ3Xhl POTUS_Schedule (@POTUS_Schedule) January 26, 2019 Earlier in the day, the president announced that a deal has been reached, 36 days after a partial shutdown began in December due to a standoff between the president and Democratic leaders over funding for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. Shortly after the presidents announcement, the Senate passed a bill to reopen the government through a voice vote without opposition. Now that govt is reopened Pelosi/Schumer need to keep their word to negotiate on border security instead of saying a simple NO to everything Pres Trump proposes w/o even a counteroffer Ldrship requires good faith negotiating & compromise ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) January 26, 2019 The Senate also passed a separate bill appointing seven senators, including four Republicans and three Democrats, as members of the conference committee, which will negotiate a border security agreement between Congress and the White House over the next three weeks. The seven conference committee members from the Senate include Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). Over the last month, Speaker Pelosi and liberals in Washington have put their personal differences with President Trump over the security of our border and the paychecks of federal workers. Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) January 26, 2019 The House aligned with the Senate and passed the stopgap spending bill via unanimous consent. Furloughed Workers Will Be Back Paid The reopening of the government means 800,000 federal workers will receive the pay they missed during the longest furlough in U.S. history. The White House promised federal workers would be paid as soon as possible after the partial government shutdown ends. A senior official, however, said the different government agencies are responsible for their own payroll issues and workers should check with their respective departments for details on when they will be paid. Trump praised the federal workers and their families as incredible patriots and amazing, during a speech at the White House earlier in the day. I want to thank all of the incredible federal workers and their amazing families who have shown such extraordinary devotion in the face of this recent hardship, said Trump. Many of you have suffered far greater than anyone but your families would know or understand You [did] not complain. I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly or as soon as possible. It will happen fast, he added. Trump Wants Fair Deal From Congress Trump is demanding $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall, his signature campaign promise. Those funds are part of a comprehensive border security package requested by experts from the Department of Homeland Security. The package includes funding for more border patrol agents, immigration judges, and scanning equipment at ports of entry. The president stressed in his announcement that the situation on the southern border is a serious threat to national security, pointing to the massive flow of illicit drugs, gangs, and human trafficking. I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, its off to the races! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 If we dont get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on Feb. 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency, Trump said. Democratic leaders in Congress have refused to negotiate funding for a border wall while the government is closed. Trumps move is a temporary concession that returns the spotlight to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Democrats have been saying for weeks theyll negotiate on wall funding when the government is open. POTUS is now giving them yet another opportunity to come to the table. Americans will be able to judge for themselves whether Democrats are truly serious about securing our border. Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) January 25, 2019 After Trumps announcement and at a joint press conference with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Pelosi, who has said repeatedly she will not approve money for the border wall, said: Have I not been clear? No, I have been very clear. The longest shutdown in American history will finally end. The president has agreed to our request to open the government then debate border security. This is great news for 800,000 federal workers and millions of Americans who depend on government services. https://t.co/lXuepIC2kJ Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 25, 2019 In addition to this, Schumer said while Democrats oppose the wall money, they agree on other ways to secure the border and that bodes well for coming to an eventual agreement. The Associated Press and Epoch Times reporter Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report. From NTD News Suspect Identified in Georgia Shootings That Killed 4 ROCKMART, Ga.Authorities in Georgia are on the lookout for a gunman they say killed four people and wounded a man in a pair of shootings. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation tweeted early Friday that 27-year-old Daylon Delon Gamble is armed and dangerous and wanted on four charges of murder for the shootings Thursday night in Rockmart, about 45 miles northwest of Atlanta. Please share this more recent picture of Rockmart Murder Suspect, Daylon Delon Gamble. Anyone with information about his whereabouts should contact the Rockmart Police Department at 770.684.6558 or 911. #RockmartShooting https://t.co/ulnNMvaPmf pic.twitter.com/nOkYHCDOJy GA Bureau of Invest (@GBI_GA) January 25, 2019 A GBI news release said 48-year-old Helen Rose Mitchell and 19-year-old Jaequnn Davis died at one home, and 24-year-old Arkeyla Perry and 26-year-old Dadrian Cummings died at another home several blocks away. Victims have been identified in the #RockmartShooting. https://t.co/ulnNMvaPmf 319 Williamson St. Helen Rose Mitchell ,48, Deceased Jaequnn Davis,19, Deceased Peerless Brown, 24, Hospitalized 503 Rome St. Arkeyla Perry, 24, Deceased Dadrian Cummings, 26, Deceased GA Bureau of Invest (@GBI_GA) January 25, 2019 The GBI says 24-year-old Peerless Brown was injured at the home where Mitchell and Davis were killed. He was flown to an Atlanta hospital. His condition was unknown. Only 1 shooting victim survived the deadly massacre in Polk County last night 24 y/o Peerless Brown. He was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center after police say Daylon Gamble shot him. 4 of his relatives were shot & killed. Story in 8 min on Ch2 pic.twitter.com/TkevZdceU8 Tyisha Fernandes (@TyishaWSB) January 25, 2019 State police say Gamble fled in a stolen truck that has since been recovered. Gunman Kills 3 Men in Separate Shootings, Then Kills Himself A gunman opened fire at a hotel bar near Penn States main campus, killing two men and wounding a woman, broke into a strangers house and fatally shot the 83-year-old homeowner, and then killed himself, authorities said. The initial shooting happened just after 10 p.m. Thursday at P.J. Harrigans Bar & Grill in State College, about 2 miles from Penn States campus. State College Police Chief John Gardner said Friday afternoon they are still trying to determine why Jordan Witmer, 21, of Bellefonte, opened fire inside the bar, shooting two men he apparently didnt know, and Nicole Abrino, with whom he had an unspecified connection. BREAKING: State College police chief John Gardner confirmed three people, including the shooter, died tonight. pic.twitter.com/lR6oDretbT Onward State (@OnwardState) January 25, 2019 Dean Beachy, 62, of Millersburg, Ohio, died at the scene, and Beachys 19-year-old son Steven Beachy died at a hospital Friday afternoon. Abrino was shot in the chest and remains at a Pittsburgh hospital. Gardner said he didnt know her condition. #UPDATE Victims in the deadly State College shooting have been identified. Police say: 62-year-old Dean Beachy was shot in killed at P.J. Harrigans. And 83-year-old George McCormick was shot and killed at his residence. The 21-year-old shooter, Jordan Witmer took his own life. pic.twitter.com/gO5oxkhquz Alexis Wainwright (@AWainwrightTV) January 25, 2019 Witmer then fled the bar, crashed his vehicle and broke into a home by shooting out a sliding glass door, Gardner said. Inside, he fatally shot homeowner George McCormick, 83, before turning the gun on himself. McCormicks distraught 80-year-old wife barricaded herself in a room and called 911. There was no relationship between Witmer and McCormick, and officials believe he chose the home at random, Gardner said. There was never any threat to Penn State or its students, he said. The safety of our students is a top priority at Penn State. Our thoughts are with those in the State College community impacted by this tragedy. @StateCollegePD responded to the shooting in the borough last night as it was not on Penn States campus. Penn State (@penn_state) January 25, 2019 They are still gathering information about the shooter, whom he described as being in the military. Family members told WNEP-TV that Dean Beachy was an auctioneer and that he and his son were in State College for a horse auction. Murders and Violent crimes The number of murders and violent crimes committed in the United States dropped slightly in 2017, according to new crime statistics released in September 2018. Crime declined nationwide last year, consistent with our earlier analyses of 2017 data in the nations 30 largest cities, Ames Grawert, senior counsel for the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, told the Washington Times. Thats the good news. The bad news is that even while crime is falling, the number of Americans incarcerated remains near-record highs. Now is the time to address the problem. The number of cases of manslaughter and murder dropped 0.7 percent in 2017 from the prior year, the report said. Rapes rose by 3 percent and aggravated assault rose by 1 percent, but overall violent crimes dropped 0.2 percent, the report added. Stray Cat Believed to Paralyze 24-Year-Old Blogger A stray cat was linked to the paralysis of a 24-year-old blogger during her vacation in Portugal. The feline she befriended and named Catarina during her trip carried a rare bacteria, Media Drum World (MDW) reported. In 2014, Gemma Birch from Southport, United Kingdom, first suffered from symptoms of food poisoning, such as vomiting and a bloated stomach. On the last day before her return to the United Kingdom, she fell terribly ill, and even fainted during the flight home. She went to the hospital as soon as she arrived. When we got to passport control in England, my stomach bloated, and I looked nine months pregnant despite having no food or liquid in me, she told MDW. I was in hospital for a week on a drip as I was very dehydrated. View this post on Instagram My favourite photo of me and baby Layla A post shared by Gemma Birch (@sorsasta) on Jun 28, 2018 at 1:09am PDT Campylobacter and the Pescatarian At the hospital, doctors found campylobacter in her stool: a bacteria that is the leading cause of diarrhea in the United Kingdom, according to the Health and Safety Executive (pdf). Birch found it odd that campylobacter was found as it is contracted by eating raw meat, ingesting unpasteurized milk, or drinking contaminated watershes a pescatarian. They found campylobacter in my stool but as I am a pescatarian, and dont eat chicken, they asked me if I had come into contact with animals, so I said yes, she told MDW. It is believed that Catarina picked up the infection when she rummaged through bins. Over time, the disease gradually worsened, and her doctors told her that she just needed rest. But that didnt help. She stated that one day she felt like she was dragged out of her bed in the middle of the night: her legs, which she couldnt feel, slid off the bed and the rest of her body followed. To make matters worse, she couldnt feel the carpet when she stood up, and even after scratching her leg until she bled, she felt nothing. Realizing the severity of her illness, she went to the Southport Hospital, where she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS). The syndrome confuses the bodys immune system into attacking the nervous system, and is known to be triggered by food poisoning, the flu, and cytomegalovirus, according to the National Health Service in England. Because she did not receive early treatment her bladder and bowls were affected by the syndrome, she told MDW. Recovery, Graduation, and No More Stray Cats Birch learned how to walk and use her arms again in rehabilitation, and it took her a little over a year to recover. She managed to graduate from her university along with her twin sister. And rather than thinking negatively, she changed her perception about what happened and is thankful for the learning experience. She can still feel the damage caused to her nervous system whenever she suffers from infections or injuries, experiencing numbness and tingling sensations. Stray cats will have to look for someone elses gentle pats. As much as I love them, I couldnt touch a stray cat now. I love pet cats and would stroke them as I would hope they havent rummaged around hotel bins, she told MDW. This undated photo released by the St. Louis Police Department shows officer Katlyn Alix. St. Louis police say an officer "mishandled" a gun and accidentally shot and killed Alix at an officer's home, early Jan. 24, 2019. (St. Louis Police Department via AP) St. Louis Officer Charged After Deadly Game With Revolver ST. LOUISA male St. Louis police officer was charged on Jan. 25, with involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a female officer during what was described as a deadly game with a revolver. Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner announced the charge against Nathaniel Hendren, 29, in the death of 24-year-old Katlyn Alix, as they allegedly played a game in which a revolvers cylinder was emptied, one bullet put back and the two colleagues took turns pointing at each other and pulling the trigger. RT andybankertv: Unraveling a tragedy; SLMPD officer and Army vet killed in accidental shooting by fellow officer; FOX2now KPLR11 live at 5, 6, and 7pm pic.twitter.com/s2VVvfxP9R All things St. Louis (@WeLoveSTL) January 24, 2019 Alix was with two male officers at an apartment when she was killed just before 1 a.m. Thursday. A probable cause statement from police, provided by Gardners office, offered a chilling account of the dangerous game that led to her death. The probable cause statement said Alix and Hendren were playing with guns when Hendren produced a revolver. Statement regarding the officer-involved shooting this morning in the City of St. Louis. pic.twitter.com/X8MUwUv4py Circuit Attorney (@stlcao) January 24, 2019 The defendant emptied the cylinder of the revolver and then put one cartridge back into the cylinder, the statement said. He allegedly spun the cylinder, pointed the gun away and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire. The statement said Alix took the gun, pointed it at Hendren and pulled the trigger. Again, it didnt fire. Hendren took the gun back and pointed it at the victim and pulled the trigger causing the gun to discharge, the statement said. The victim was struck in the chest. In honor of Officer Katlyn Alix, members of the #SLMPD will be wearing the Department mourning band. Officer Alix was an enthusiastic and energetic young woman with a bright future ahead of her @ChiefJohnHayden pic.twitter.com/BDIZ2d6NOQ St. Louis, MO Police (@SLMPD) January 24, 2019 The other male officer told investigators he warned Hendren and Alix not to play with guns and reminded them they were police officers. He was about to leave when he heard the fatal shot, the statement said. The male officers drove Alix to a hospital where she died. Hendren also is charged with armed criminal action. The two men were on duty at the time of the shooting. Police Chief John Hayden has declined to answer questions about why the officers had gathered at the apartment, which was home to one of the men. St. Louis police said the charges were the result of a promise Hayden made to Alixs family to conduct a thorough and competent investigation. Alix, a military veteran who was married, was not working but met the men at the apartment. Police immediately launched an internal investigation and placed both officers on paid leave. Gardner also began her own investigation on Thursday and enlisted the Missouri State Highway Patrol to conduct it. Alix was a patrol officer who had graduated from the St. Louis Police Academy in January 2017. Restoring Trust, Building Community In my article titled America Policing: Restoring Trust, Building Community, published in the Epoch Times on Oct. 20, 2016, police-community controversies are addressed. The article underscores Americas need for a clarion call to renew, restore, and rejuvenate police-community unity. The indisputable reality of negative repercussions of police-community controversies are also addressed. The article highlights that any breakdown of trust between community and police demands an urgent, unwavering, and complete dedication to remedy the problem. Building trust and enhancing human contact with respect as its foundation is crystalized as mission critical. Additionally, the article asserts that respect, the heart of policing, must always be complemented by improving use of force standards, enhanced training and certification initiatives, transparency and accountability, and a renaissance of ethical values in policing and throughout all of society. By Jim Salter Jose Rosello (L), father of Julen who fell down a well, cries as rescue efforts continue to find the boy in Totalan in southern Spain, on Jan. 16, 2019. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) Spanish Rescuers Find Body of Toddler Trapped in Well Spanish rescuers have found the body of a 2-year-old boy who had fallen into a deep narrow well in southern Spain on Jan. 13, a Spanish official said. Julen Rosello: Hair discovered in search for two-year-old boy trapped down 360ft well in Malaga https://t.co/7QwrjNPG9N pic.twitter.com/g1Tx7vjNSp RAY (@raybae689) January 17, 2019 Miners had been drilling tirelessly day and night into the borehole which was blocked with soil300 feet deep and just 10 inches wideto reach the boy, Julen. A helicopter of the Spanish Guardia Civil, transporting explosives, lands at the site where a child fell down a well in Totalan, southern Spain, on Jan. 24, 2019. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) At 1:25 a.m. the rescue teams reached the area of the well where they were looking for Julen and they found the lifeless body of the little one, said a government spokesperson in Malaga. Spanish civil guard spokesman Jorge Martin (L) gives a press conference in Totalan, southern Spain, on Jan. 25, 2019. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) The tragic news came after 100 firefighters and emergency personnel worked tirelessly around the clock with the use of a robotic camera and other equipment to get to Julen in the borehole. The well was too narrow for any adult to enter, according to the Associated Press. Spains Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez expressed his sorrow at the news. All of Spain feels the infinite sadness of Julens family, he wrote on Twitter. We have followed closely every step to reach him. We will always appreciate the tireless effort of those who searched for him during all these days. After the announcement, emergency services along with Spanish police met Julens family at a neighbors house near the rescue scene where they had been staying during the search. Journalists take images of the rescue works to reach two-year-old Julen Rosello who fell down a well in Totalan, southern Spain, on Jan. 25, 2019. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) On the afternoon of Jan. 13, Julen and his family were walking through a private estate in Totalan in southern Spain when Julen wandered away from his parents and slipped into the borehole, according to the Associated Press. There had been no sign of life since the boy had fallen. Rescuers found the well was blocked with soil, raising fears the well had collapsed on top of the child, according to The Washington Post. Inside 240ft tunnel where boy, 2, has been trapped for 4 days after falling down well Julen Rosello's dad said his family is 'dead inside' but they are holding onto hope the child will be rescued from the well in Malaga, Spain pic.twitter.com/wjSB6K2MtE Lilian Chan (@bestgug) January 17, 2019 The case has captivated Spain and the whole country was holding its breath for the outcome, not least because Julens parents lived another family tragedy less than two years ago. In May 2017, the couple lost their older son, Oliver, who reportedly died of a congenital heart defect. The parents expressed their hope that Oliver is now watching over his little brother from heaven. Oliver, dont forget your brother, Julen, his mother wrote on social media, according to the Express. You know weve been waiting for him for many hours. I know you protect him a lot, my little King. #Spain Massive rescue operation for a 2-year old that fell into a narrow, 100-meters-deep borehole reaches key moment. Miners excavate by hand last leg of the tunnel. The child fell 8 days ago. From @elpais_espana in English: https://t.co/Igy2Oj8KBH pic.twitter.com/4owxE14lGl Iliana Mier-Lavin (@imlavin) January 21, 2019 On Jan. 23, Jose, the boys father, told reporters that he and his wife were devastated. My wife is broken, he told reporters, according to NBC. We are dead inside. But we hope we have an angel to get my son out of there. Residents gathered nearby for a vigil to support the family, many holding homemade placards reading, All of Spain is with you. Neighbors gather in support of two-year-old Julen Rosello and his parents in Totalan, southern Spain, on Jan. 24, 2019. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images) Reuters contributed to this report. An archaelogist measures a coffin under St James Gardens near Euston Train Station in London, England, on Nov. 1, 2018. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images) Remains of Explorer Who Named Australia 200 Years Ago Finally Found The final burial place for one of the most important people in Colonial Australian history has finally been discovered. A January 24 archaeological excavation at Euston Station in London, United Kingdom unearthed the coffin of Captain Matthew Flinders (17741814), the first person to map and name Australia more than 200 years ago. JUST IN: The remains of explorer Matthew Flinders, who led the first circumnavigation of Australia, have been found under a London train station ending a 200 year mystery! #sun7 pic.twitter.com/DsA9vNtTyW Sunrise (@sunriseon7) January 24, 2019 Flinders final resting place had been a mystery for more than 170 years when the body disappeared. The English-born navigator and cartographers remains were identified by a breastplate on his coffin at the St Jamess Burial Ground, which will make way for Englands 56 billion (A$103.5 billion or US$73.4 billion) High Speed 2 Rail Project. The body of Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) found at Euston by HS2 archaeologists, identified by an inscribed lead breastplate. https://t.co/zgkRjrKDaP pic.twitter.com/ohf8VvHS3H Dan Hicks (@profdanhicks) January 24, 2019 Archaeologists will study Flinders skeleton for scientific purposes to see what effect his seafaring journeys had on his body. Capt. Matthew Flinders put Australia on the map due to his tenacity and expertise as a navigator and explorer, HS2 Head of Heritage Helen Wass said in a statement to the Australian Associated Press (AAP). Given the number of human remains at St. James, we werent confident that we were going to find him. We were very lucky that Capt. Flinders had a breastplate made of lead, meaning it would not have corroded. Flinders is famous for sailing the HMS Investigator around Australia with fellow explorer George Bass and Aboriginal shipmate Bungaree, between July 1802 and May 1803. The trio proved to Europeans that Australia is a single land mass instead of being two separate islands, previously called New Holland in the West and New South Wales in the East. They also proved the southern state of Tasmania was an island and separate from the mainland. He also coined the term widely credited with popularising the name Australia especially in his 1814 book and atlas, A Voyage to Terra Australis. Flinders faced great difficulties in returning to England after the circumnavigation was over. He tried to board the HMS Porpoise as a passenger in 1803 but the ship crashed at the Great Barrier Reef and he had to return to Sydney to arrange for a rescue crew. Later that same year he tried to sail back to England again as captain of the HMS Cumberland but was detained by French officials on Mauritius for six years. Flinders finally returned home to England in 1810 but barely survived to see his book published due to his very poor health condition. After his death and funeral in 1814, his tombstone was removed from St James for the Euston Station Expansion Project and during the process his remains were believed to be lost. Australian High Commissioner in London George Brandis promised Flinders would have a proper memorial to mark his significance in the Australian story and also his heroic place in the great age of adventure and navigation in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This is a very exciting moment for Australia, he told AAP outside Euston Station. It is serendipitous the discovery of the remains of Matthew Flinders, one of the great early explorers, should come in the week of Australia Day. The Australian and British governments will hold talks to decide a new location for the remains to be relocated to. Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum responds to questions following his participation at the federal cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que., on Jan. 16, 2019. (The Canadian Press/Paul Chiasson) Questions Linger About Unusual Comments by Canadas China Envoy in Huawei CFO Case News Analysis TORONTOAs an old Chinese saying goes, Spilled water is hard to retrieve. This could be the lesson Canadas China envoy is learning the hard way as he took back his comments made to Chinese media regarding the legal proceedings of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, whose arrest in Vancouver at the request of the United States has soured Canada-China relations. At a Toronto news conference on Jan. 22, John McCallum told the gathering of reporters exclusively from Chinese state-owned media and a select group of Canada-based Chinese-language media that Meng has a strong case to fight U.S. extradition in Canadian courts. He later added that her extradition would not be a happy outcome. The kerfuffle that followed, including the opposition Conservative Party calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fire the ambassador, resulted in McCallum issuing a statement on Jan. 25 expressing regrets for his comments and noting that his remarks do not accurately represent my position on this issue. At the news conference, before taking questions, McCallum had delivered opening remarks in which he listed potential legal arguments that Meng could use. The manner in which he spoke doesnt give the impression that it was just a slip of the tongue, said Shuvaloy Majumdar, a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Majumdar is also a former senior policy director who served under successive Canadian foreign ministers. It was pre-planned. It was organized for Chinese-language speaking media, excluding major Canadian press, Majumdar said. He provided a detailed assessment around how Ms. Meng has so-called grounds for an appeal, which presumably took a lot of analysis, and left the room knowing exactly what he was doing in a very controlled way. Perhaps only McCallum can explain the reason for his peculiar news conference. So far he hasnt responded to Epoch Times requests for comments. Majumdar calls it stunning that McCallum would throw an ally, the United States, under the bus to provide Communist Party talking points. Chinas foreign ministry responded by saying it has noted McCallums comments and reiterating demands that Meng be released. Reference News, a Chinese state-owned media and the largest-circulation daily newspaper in China, said in a headline that the Canadian ambassador to China has changed sides. In an interview with CBCs Power & Politics, former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney said McCallums credibility has been severely compromised. Sponsored Travels As a member of Parliament prior to becoming ambassador, McCallum was one of the heaviest users of sponsored travels to China, accepting over $73,000 in trips sponsored by China or pro-Beijing groups between 2008 to 2015. Scott Gilmore, a former Canadian diplomat and columnist for Macleans, wrote in a recent op-ed in the publication that if any of the other Canadian diplomats in our embassy had accepted those trips, we would consider them compromised, and they would be fired. McCallum opined last year that in some important policy areas, Canada has more in common with China than the United States under President Donald Trump. He also said the tension between China and the United States is good for Canada. In a sense, its a good thing for me as an ambassador and for Canada with China because, because of these big differences. It gives us opportunities in China, The Globe and Mail quoted him as saying. As a Liberal MP and later cabinet minister, McCallum was also a regular guest at the Chinese Consulate in Toronto. Majumdar says he is not opposed to parliamentarians taking sponsored trips to become more educated, but he cautions that there are growing concerns over foreign influence campaigns targeting Canadian politicians. The accountability for McCallum also comes back to roost because of his surprisingly pro-Communist Party positions, Majumdar said. The tenure of them over the course of time raises great questions about his actual independence. Because hes taken so much hospitality from the Chinese, it has directly resulted in very positive statements from him and from his government towards the Communist Party and the Chinese government. South African Open hosted by the City of Johannesburg Randpark GC, Johannesburg, South Africa Host Sean "Diddy" Combs and Kim Porter with their twin daughters D'Lila Star Combs and Jessie James Combs pictured in 2007. (Mat Szwajkos/CP/Getty Images for CP) Kim Porters Cause of Death Is Revealed, Says Coroners Office The cause of death was revealed for the longtime former girlfriend of Sean Diddy Combs, Kim Porter. Porter died on Nov. 15 of pneumonia at the age of 47, confirmed the Los Angeles County Coroners Office on Jan. 25, CNN reported. Porter, who had two daughters and a son with Combs, was found dead at her home in Toluca Lake, and her cause of death was pending since then. Kim Porter's cause of death has been certified as natural. E! News 2019125 At the time, police said they didnt expect foul play in her death. On Nov. 16, an autopsy was performed on Porter. The cause of death was deferred pending additional tests. Porters body has since been released from our facility, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and Coroner said at the time of her death. After their split, Combs and Porter remained close friends. Combs Reaction For the last three days Ive been trying to wake up out of this nightmare, Combs, who is also known as Puff Daddy or P. Diddy, wrote on Instagram. The death of model and actress Kim Porter was a caused by pneumonia, the Los Angeles County Coroners Office says https://t.co/06aEYDAcCW pic.twitter.com/4bfdepzG6S CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 25, 2019 He continued: I dont know what Im going to do without you baby. I miss you so much. Today Im going to pay tribute to you, Im going to try and find the words to explain our unexplainable relationship. She was buried in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia, during a public funeral held by Combs. He arranged for her casket to be pulled by horses, and had famed pastor T.D. Jakes officiate the service. I just want to say to my kids, Justin, Christian, DLila, Jessie, Chance and the other man in the house, Quincy: Your mother instilled in me this, and I pledge in front of everybody right now that I will always be there for you, Combs said, TMZ reported. Combs added, To the girls especially, we about to enter some different type of times. I want you to be able to talk to me about everything, and I mean everything, and I mean everything. Before the funeral, Combs honored his ex with an emotional tweet. Today we lay to rest our ANGEL, he tweeted. Her spirit lives on with us FOREVER!!! We thank you all for your prayers and support. You have no idea how much it means to us. We thank GOD for all of you. Today we lay to rest our ANGEL. Her spirit lives on with us FOREVER!!! We thank you all for your prayers and support. You have no idea how much it means to us. We thank GOD for all of you. #KimPorter pic.twitter.com/OdI5hyKBeT Diddy (@Diddy) November 24, 2018 One day after Porters death, a source told People magazine: Diddy is devastated and shocked. He and Kim were still very close friends and co-parents even though their romantic relationship didnt work. They were still a family. Another person claimed, This is the most awful, sad and unreal situation for him. Its a nightmare He isnt sleeping. He always had a very special relationship with Kim. Despite not being together romantically, he loved Kim. It was really true love, and he is hurting badly right now. Porter worked as a model and appeared in several films and television shows over the years, including Wicked Wicked Game and The Brothers. John McCallum, then Canadas ambassador to the Peoples Republic of China, at a meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in Ottawa on May 2, 2017. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick) Canadas China Envoy McCallum Resigns at Request of Prime Minister Trudeau TORONTOJohn McCallum, Canadas ambassador to China who came under fire for providing legal arguments in defence of arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, has resigned at the request of the prime minister. Last night I asked for and accepted John McCallums resignation as Canadas Ambassador to China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement on Jan. 26. Trudeau didnt provide a reason for requesting McCallums resignation, but the move comes after McCallum was quoted by a StarMetro Vancouver reporter on Jan. 25 as saying it would be great for Canada if Mengs extradition request was dropped by the United States. Trudeau had earlier resisted calls by the opposition to fire McCallum. In a press conference in Toronto on Jan. 22 with Chinese state-owned media including CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, and a select group of Canada-based Chinese-language media, McCallum said Meng has a strong case to fight extradition to the United States, adding that her extradition would not be a happy outcome. His statements were seen as political interference by a government official in a case that is before the courts. McCallum later withdrew his comments in a statement issued on Jan. 24, saying he misspoke. Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer said in a tweet that Trudeau should have fired McCallum after his initial comments in the Jan. 22 press conference. It should never have come to this. Justin Trudeau should have fired his ambassador the moment he interfered in this case. Instead, he did nothing and allowed more damage to be done. More weakness and more indecision from Trudeau on China, Scheer wrote. Regular Guest McCallum, a former Liberal member of Parliament and cabinet minister, was one of the heaviest users of sponsored trips to China as an MP. He was also a regular guest at the Chinese Consulate in Toronto. The Epoch Times was able to find close to 50 Toronto consulate-related events on its website that McCallum attended from his time as an MP. Many were celebrations to welcome or bid farewell to heads of the consulate. Online records also show him meeting both in Canada and in China with officials from various levels of Chinas Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO). The OCAO and United Front Department are organizations mandated by the Chinese communist regime to organize its overseas espionage activities and initiatives for the purpose of exerting influence abroad. Last year, the OCAO was merged with the United Front. United Front activities incorporate working with groups and prominent individuals in society; information management and propaganda; and it has also frequently been a means of facilitating espionage, according to a paper by Anne-Marie Brady, a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and a global fellow at the Wilson Center. So Many Friends Here In a video of the Jan. 22 news conference in Toronto, after walking into the room McCallum is greeted by Tao (Thomas) Qu, executive president of the Canada China Guanxi Council, which organized the event. Qu points to the room and says, So many friends here. Qu has been involved in a number of initiatives in the Chinese community that are closely linked to Beijing. In 2014, he was among the speakers at a Toronto District School Board (TDSB) hearing who defended keeping the boards partnership with the Confucius Institute, a network of educational establishments used by Beijing to spread its soft power. Qu was also seen acting as an organizer and directing other speakers who supported the Confucius Institute. An article published in the Chinese state-owned media China Daily quotes Qu as saying that if Meng is extradited, it will set back Canada-China relationship for decades. Back in 2005, Qu was one of only 28 overseas Chinese invited to the 10-day Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, a privilege afforded only to the most trusted supporters of the Chinese Communist Party. Qu is also a founding board member and past president of the pro-Beijing Chinese Professional Association of Canada (CPAC). During a presentation to the TDSB, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former chief of Asia-Pacific for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, showed pictures and online records of representatives from a number of organizations, including CPAC, being received or praised by Chinese officials. What is very important [for China] is to have certain organizations that become agents of influence of their own within the community, to be capable to identify first the dissidents, and be capable after that to lobby very much the local government of any country, Juneau-Katsuya said. Qu also worked on the election campaigns of McCallum and former Ontario Liberal MPP Michael Chan. The Epoch Times contacted Qu and McCallum for comment but received no response. More analysis to follow in upcoming articles. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) celebrates at his election day victory party at the Embassy Suites in Charleston, West Virginia, on Nov. 6, 2018. Manchin won his second full Senate term after he defeated West Virginia Republican Senate Candidate Patrick Morrisey. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images) In Break From Leadership, Several Democrats Back Border Wall Several Senate Democrats are bucking leadership to support President Donald Trumps proposal for a wall on the southern border. West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told The Daily Caller on Jan. 24 that Senate Democrats agree on the need for a border wall and that House Republicans are the holdouts. On the Senate side, we understand. I dont think any Senators said they dont want any secured structure fence or wall or whatever you want to call it, he said. Manchin made the comment after the Senate failed to pass a Republican measure that would fund the government and provide over $5 billion in funds for a border wall and a Democratic measure that would fund the government, but not the wall. Trump and Democratic leaders are in a standoff over funding for a border wall which has triggered the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history. Several other Democratic senators expressed support for a border wall. I know were going to have to add additional border security, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told Fox News. Weve got about 700 miles of existing fencing. Where folks say we need additional barrier protections, Im all for it. Everybody is for border security, Maine Democratic Sen. Angus King told CNN on Jan. 7. The question is, lets do it in a rational, economic, sensible way. There are places where a wall makes sense. I am a huge advocate of border security. I think fencing makes sense in a lot of places. We have hundreds of miles of fencing, and in a lot of places, fences alongside roads make sense, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has documented statements from a total of seven Democratic senators supporting the idea of a border wall. Despite the public statements, Manchin was the only Democratic senator to vote on Jan. 24 for the measure that would fund the border wall. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and need seven Democrat votes to reach the 60-vote threshold to pass the border wall funding measure and end the shutdown. A number of Democrats in the House of Representatives are also defying leadership to back the border wall. Cassidy documented 10 House Democrats who have expressed support for a border structure. Look, I think physical barriers are part of the solution. If its protecting people, its moral. So were for border security and I think we can get there, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Jan. 22. Hes not talking about a wall from sea to shining sea. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about physical barriers as recommended by experts, said Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) on Jan. 23. Give Trump the money, said Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Jan. 22. Id give him the whole thing and put strings on it so you make sure he puts the wall where it needs to be. Why are we fighting over this? Were going to build that wall anyway, at some time. The president was expected to make an announcement about the government shutdown from the White House on Jan. 25. A Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to New York City was diverted to San Francisco after a male flight attendant died of an apparent heart attack, officials said Jan. 25. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images) Hawaiian Air Flight Diverted After Flight Attendant Dies SAN FRANCISCOA Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to New York City was diverted to San Francisco after a male flight attendant died of an apparent heart attack, officials said Jan. 25. Medical personnel attempted CPR during the flight but suspended those efforts prior to landing. Our hearts go out to Emiles family and friends today. pic.twitter.com/SP66ty6uyi Hawaiian Airlines (@HawaiianAir) January 25, 2019 Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said Emile Griffith had been with the company for 31 years. Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests, Botticelli said in a statement. The airline has made counseling available for Griffiths colleagues, she said. The plane was carrying 253 passengers and 12 crewmembers when it departed Honolulu on Jan. 24. San Francisco airport spokesman Doug Yakel says the plane landed in San Francisco five hours after takeoff after a flight crew member had a suspected heart attack, and the passengers were put on other flights. Yakel says medical personnel attempted CPR during the flight, but suspended those efforts before landing. Andrea Bartz, who was on the flight to John F. Kennedy Airport, said on Twitter that the crew made an announcement asking for a doctor to go to first class and help with a medical emergency. JUST IN: Sadly, we've learned the flight attendant who suffered the medical emergency has died.#HINews #HNN Hawaii News Now 2019125 Andrea Bartz tweeted that so many doctors came forward and that police officers came on board after the plane landed in San Francisco on Jan. 24 night. Bartz declined to be interviewed. Bartz declined to be interviewed. But she and another passenger complained on Twitter that the airline played ukulele music during the emergency. Btw if youre ever going to have a medical emergency in the air, this is the flight to do it on. So many doctors came forward they had to make a second announcement like never mind, all set!! Andrea Bartz (@andibartz) January 25, 2019 Hawaiian Airlines is still playing the ukulele/traditional singing soundtrack meant for boarding and deplaning, and Ill tell ya, its not making anyone calmer, she tweeted. Hawaiian Airlines is still playing the ukulele/traditional singing soundtrack meant for boarding and deplaning, and Ill tell ya, its not making anyone calmer. Andrea Bartz (@andibartz) January 25, 2019 The San Mateo County Coroner declared the flight crew member deceased on arrival. Deep Freeze Grips Upper Midwest, More Bitter Cold to Come BISMARCK, N.D.An arctic wave has wrapped parts of the Midwest in numbing cold, sending temperatures plunging and prompting officials to close schools in several states on Friday, but forecasters say the worst may be yet to come. Cold weather advisories were in effect from North Dakota to Ohio, with dangerously cold wind chills that could dip to as low as 45 below zero (negative 42 Celsius) in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and to 35 below (negative 37 Celsius) in parts of northern Illinois and Iowa. The bitter cold caused administrators in Wisconsins largest school district to cancel classes, meaning nearly 78,000 students in Milwaukee Public Schools were told to stay home Friday. High temperatures in the area were expected to reach just 2 degrees (negative 16.7 Celsius) with a wind chill of minus 23 (negative 20.5 Celsius). The wind chill, which describes the effect of wind and cold temperatures on exposed skin, is of more concern because frostbite can occur within minutes. Schools also closed because of the cold in western Michigan, northern Illinois, eastern Iowa and other parts of Wisconsin. Ice fishing guide Bryan Lang acknowledged that extreme cold was part of his job in northern North Dakota, but he said he felt lucky to have taken Friday off work: the morning temperature was negative 21 degrees (negative 29 Celsius) with a wind chill of minus 42 (negative 41 Celsius). Im glad to be in the house drinking coffee, he laughed. The deep freeze caused organizers of the Winter Carnival in Minnesota to cancel several events, including Thursday nights parade through downtown St. Paul. In South Dakota, the city of Sioux Falls has closed its six outdoor skating rinks because of the cold weather. Even harsher weather is expected next week. Bitter cold as badif not worsethan the 2014 polar vortex outbreak is expected, as frigid air escapes the Arctic in two icy excursions into Canada and the continental U.S., according to Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for weathermodels.com. The first bout of cold air will strike northern Michigan and bring extreme cold to Ontario, while the second will spin south over the Midwest and through the Great Lakes, Maue said. Its going to be some insult after injury, Maue said. Any hope in sight for a warm-up? No. Some forecasters are calling the frigid invasions of cold air Barney because computer forecast models show them as chubby purple blobs, Maue said. The National Weather Service notes that potentially historic cold is possible in northern Illinois starting Tuesday, following several inches of snow, with daytime temperatures below zero and wind chills frequently falling below negative 30 (negative 34.4 Celsius). In northern Michigan, the U.S. Coast Guard warned residents of islands in the river connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron that they could be cut off from ferry service during next weeks deep freeze. The guard urged residents to stock up on supplies including food and heating fuel. Ice-breaking operations were working to keep ferry routes open. In Minnesota, Kenny Blumenfeld, a senior climatologist with the Department of Natural Resources State Climatology Office, said winter cold snaps on average are an annual occurrence in Minnesota, but extreme cold happens once every three to five years. Its Minnesota. Were supposed to go below zero and spend a lot of time not coming above zero. Its part of our winter, Blumenfeld said. The University of Maines Climate Reanalyzer notes that the temporary icy cold doesnt disprove global warming, despite what some non-scientists may claim. On Friday, the globe as a whole was 1.08 degrees (0.6 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average. In a warming world youre still going to have unusually hot and unusually cold events happening in a particular part of the world, Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said. Weather is not going away. Hunter, Emilio de la Cruz trains with his bow in the outskirts of San Agustin de Guadalix near Madrid on Dec. 12, 2016; A fallow deer roars during the rutting season in the zoological garden in Hannover, northern Germany on Oct. 2, 2018. (Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images; Julian Stratenschulte/AFP/Getty Images) Bowhunters Mule Deer Sets New World Record In the backwoods of Canada, Dennis Bennett, set a new world record after downing a non-typical mule deer with a bow and arrow in the Arm River area of Saskatchewan on Oct. 1, 2018. Bennett, a bow hunting member of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation (SWF) shot the Mule Deer that measured in with a score of 291 and 1/8 on the Pope & Young scoring system, earning him the new world record for non-typical mule deer. The Pope & Young Clubs Record Program is only for animals that have been taken by the use of bow and arrow, and measures the antlers, horns, or skulls of certain wildlife that have to go through a drying period with a minimum of 60 days. The trophy antlers were also measured on the Saskatchewan Henry Kelsey Big Game Records System, which uses the green score and does not require a drying period, also having minimum score requirements. Official Henry Kelsey measurers declared the non-typical Mule Deer antlers a provincial record on Oct. 7, 2019. Scoring the antlers 293 and 6/8, meeting the minimum score of 200, and surpassing the previous Henry Kelsey record of 290 earned by Nelson Clark in the 1920s. Bennetts Non-Typical Mule Deer entry now joins Milo Hansons Buck (White-tailed Deer) as another recognized world record harvested from Saskatchewan, said Warren Howse, SWF Henry Kelsey Chair in a press release. It is indicative of the quality of wildlife resources we cherish here in our province. Pope & Young and Henry Kelsey both use the Boone & Crockett scoring method (pdf), measuring the length of the main beam and different points and circumferences of the antlers. Pope And Young Club Names New World Record Non-Typical Mule Deer During Special PanelOn Wednesday, January 9th, the Pope and Young Club 2019119 Ethics of the Hunt To be qualified for a Pope & Young record, hunters must only use archery and abide by an ethical code of hunting defined in the rules of the Fair Chase. Some of the rules (pdf) in the fair chase philosophy include not killing animals helpless in a trap, deep snow, water, or on ice, not hunting from a powered vehicle or boat, not using lights to blind and immobilize, not using tranquilizers or poisons, not hunting inside escape proof fenced-off enclosures, not spotting from the air or communicating with airborne assistants, and not using electronic devices for attracting, locating, or pursuing game. Another rule of fair chase is bow hunters are not allowed to use any electronic add-ons to their bows that aid in range finding, sights, or firing of the bow. The only exceptions being lighted nocks and recording devices that dont cast any light towards a target. According to the Pope & Young website, the fair chase concept extends beyond the hunt. It is also an attitude and theme based on deep respect for wildlife, the environment, and other individuals. Hunting Story According to a Pope & Young news release on Jan. 19, Bennett was scouting the Arm River area early on the morning of Oct. 1, 2018, when he spotted the large non-typical Mule Deer and got within 44 yards of the animal. The deer was spooked when another smaller buck that was bedded nearby was alerted, causing both deer to run away uphill and into the trees. Later that afternoon, Bennett returned to the area where he had spotted the huge buck and found it close to where he had first seen it that morning. The buck was sitting near the top of the hill, and thanks to a change in the wind and circumstance, Bennett was able to follow the fence line at the hilltop to get within 37 yards. With the buck now standing at a perfect angle for the broadside shot, Bennett took aim and ranged in the buck that was feeding on brush. Bennett said the shot hit a little high as it was on such a steep angle, dropping the deer which then rolled down the hill approximately 50 yards. Potential Records Recently in November, hunter Keith Szableswki downed a deer in Williamson County, Ill., that may be the largest ever shot in the United States. It will be scored during the Illinois Deer and Turkey expo in July this year. Szableswki donated most of the meat to people in need. The biggest Illinois whitetail deer you'll see today.. https://t.co/TExa3uX9Pt Classic Hits 103.9 WLPO (@1039WLPO) December 13, 2018 In November 2017, hunter Stephen Tucker got a potential world record Whitetail Deer in Sumner County, Tenn. with a 47 point rack, that will be scored this year at the Boone and Crockett awards banquet. A man in Tennessee set the world record for largest whitetail deer ever killed. A panel of four judges https://t.co/3hH9xuBgqM ROCK 108 (@ROCK_108) January 10, 2017 These cases were performed ethically and legally, which isnt always the case as poachers are sometimes caught by conservation officers and held accountable. Such as Josiah Killingbeck of Michigan, who blamed his wife for his poaching, saying she would be angry at him if he returned home without deer meat, and David Berry Jr. of Southwest Missouri, who was found guilty of killing several hundred deer over a period of three years, taking only the heads and leaving the bodies to rot. Berry was ordered by a judge that he must watch the Disney movie Bambi once a month during his one year sentence. Bishop Apologizes to Covington Students He Threatened to Expel, Says He Was Bullied The Kentucky bishop who threatened to expel high school students who were confronted by a religious fringe group and a group of Native Americans in Washington apologized for the threat, claiming he was bullied and pressured to make the statement. Covington Catholic High School students in the nations capital on Jan. 18 were accosted by Black Hebrew Israelites, who hurled a slew of obscenities at them. Then, Native American activist Nathan Phillips approached them and started banging a drum in the face of one student, Nick Sandmann, while a member of his group shouted at the students to go back to Europe. An edited video of the encounter spread widely later that day and into the next, utilized by a slew of media outlets to publish articles denouncing the students for alleged racism. But when the full video footage of the situation emerged, many reporters and media outlets were forced to backtrack, acknowledging that the reports were based on limited information. In his initial statement, Rev. Roger Foys, who oversees the high school, said that the students behavior is opposed to the Churchs teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. He said that school officials had launched an investigation and that Sandmann and other students could be expelled. Reversing the statement in a letter to parents, Foys said: We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements which were made with goodwill based on the information we had. We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it, he added in the Jan. 25 letter, which was obtained and published in full by the Cincinnati Enquirer. I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family as well as to all CovCath families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal. Foys acknowledged bowing to pressure applied on the basis of the misleading video clip that circulated and was promoted by a number of media outlets before noting that many people who contacted him urging him to condemn the students changed their minds after seeing the full video. Covington Bishop Roger Foys by on Scribd Some of the very same people who had put tremendous pressure on us to condemn the actions of the students now wanted a retraction, he said. Foys said that an investigation by a third party is still ongoing and vowed to make the results public. In the meantime, we call on all those who continue to spew venom and hate to desist and instead pray for a peaceful resolution to this tragic spectacle, he wrote, denouncing the death threats made against the school, students, and their parents. He also said he would not fire Robert Rowe, the Covington Catholic principal. The letter came a day after Foys delivered a speech to a silent gym filled with faculty, staff, and students on Jan. 23. These last four days have been a living hell for many of you, for your parents, for your relatives, for your friends and it certainly has been for me, Bishop Foys told the crowd, reported the school newspaper (pdf). We are under all kinds of pressure from a lot of different people, for a lot of different reasons. He said that the number of vested interests meant that the situation was a no-win situation. The Messenger, the newspaper from the Diocese of Covington, has a story about what Bishop Foys told students Wednesday night. The last 4 days have been a living hell This is a no-win situation. Were not going to win. Read the entire story below @Local12 pic.twitter.com/o1A3RFqvsg Angenette Levy (@Angenette5) January 25, 2019 We are not going to win. No matter what we say, one way or another, there are going to be people who are going to argue about it, people who will try to get into peoples heads and say, This is what he meant. This is what they meant when they were doing this and doing that. The best we can do is, first of all, to find out the truth, to find out what really went on, what really happened, he said. So we do have investigators who are here today, a third-party who are not associated with our diocese, not associated with me or with the school, who are working on this investigation to find out what happened. We have to ask ourselves, what are we going to learn from this? One of the things I hope weve learned, I hope youve learned, is that perception can become reality, he added. A person can be doing something that is absolutely innocent but if he gives the slightest hint, the slightest perception, that this is something wrong that is what people are going to remember, and then for them that becomes their reality. From NTD News Students at the University of Texas in Austin participate in the "Walkout to Vote" event in Austin, Texas on Nov. 6, 2018. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images) Texas Identifies 58,000 Voters Who Might Not Be Citizens The top election official in Texas said that his office discovered that nearly 95,000 non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote in the state and that about 58,000 of them have voted at least once. Texas Secretary of State David Whitley said that his office identified potentially tens of thousands of illegal votes. Voting in an election when the voter knows he or she isnt eligible to vote is a second-degree felony in Texas. Whitley said his office sent the data to the Texas Attorney Generals Office to investigate and prosecute those who illegally voted. Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our states voter rolls, and my office is committed to using all available tools under the law to maintain an accurate list of registered voters, Whitley said in a statement. Texas voters should not have their voices muted by those who abuse the system, he added. The information came from Department of Public Safety records, which the ssecretary of states office now plans to use to cross-reference with the states statewide voter registration database on a monthly basis to root out potential non-U.S. citizens who have registered to vote. What is not clear from the DPS records is whether someone who was a noncitizen when he or she applied for a drivers license has since naturalized. When noncitizens are identified, the office will notify the county in which the person is registered. If the person who has been identified doesnt respond with proof within 30 days then their registration will be canceled. Our agency has provided extensive training opportunities to county voter registrars so that they can properly perform list maintenance activities in accordance with federal and state law, which affords every registered voter the chance to submit proof of eligibility, Whitley said. Groups that advocate for everyone possible to vote admitted that illegal voting does happen, but said it doesnt happen very much. There is no credible data that indicates illegal voting is happening in any significant numbers, and the Secretarys statement does not change that fact, Beth Stevens, voting rights legal director with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Houston Chronicle. Meanwhile, Attorney General Ken Paxton confirmed that his office received the information from Whitleys office. Every single instance of illegal voting threatens democracy in our state and deprives individual Texans of their voice. Were honored to have partnered with the Texas Secretary of States office in the past on voter initiatives and we will spare no effort in assisting with these troubling cases. My Election Fraud Unit stands ready to investigate and prosecute crimes against the democratic process when needed, he said in a statement. From 2005 to 2017 the office prosecuted 97 people for voter fraud violations, and in 2018 alone, it prosecuted another 33 defendants for election fraud violations. Under Texas law, noncitizens who are in the United States legally can obtain drivers licensesbut only citizens are eligible to vote. Texas law does not require verification of a voters statement that they are a citizen, leading to the thousands of people illegally voting. #Mexico native and #IllegalImmigrant Enrique Salazar Ortiz, who voted in US elections, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for making a false statement on a passport application, unlawful voting by an #IllegalAlien, and aggravated #IdentityTheft. https://t.co/weiOaWoIY6 The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) January 25, 2019 Illegal Immigrant Sentenced for Voting The news came during the same week that an illegal immigrant from Mexico who admitted to voting was sentenced to 30 months in prison. Enrique Salazar Ortiz, a native of Mexico, was convicted of making a false statement on a passport application, unlawful voting by an illegal alien, and aggravated identity theft, reported the San Antonio Express-News. Ortiz used a stolen identity to vote in the 2016 presidential election. The name on the stolen ID was Jesse Vargas Jr. According to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration released in 2017, illegal aliens steal hundreds of thousands of legal identities to gain employment. Up to 29 million illegal aliens are living in the United States, according to researchers at Yale University. Vargas himself left the area as a teenager but someone has used his identification to vote in local elections since at least 1994, including in the 2008 Democratic primary, Bexar County elections administrator Jacque Callanen told the Express-News. A public defender told District Judge Fred Biery that the Vargas identity was used by four men in total and that Ortiz had just used it in the 2016 election. Ortiz began using the name several years ago after buying it from a man in a bar for $20, she added. In late 2018, Ortiz admitted to voting in the 2016 election but refused to tell authorities if he had voted in any other elections, reported the Express-News. The fake identification was detected by the State Department in December 2016 after Ortiz mailed in a passport renewal application for a passport that he had been using fraudulently for 10 years. He was arrested in August 2017. When asked in court whether he knew what he was doing was illegal, Ortiz said he did. Unfortunately, yes, I knew it was, Ortiz said. From NTD News 3-Year-Old Boy Dies After Being Shot in Car Seat A 3-year-old boy who was hit by a bullet while riding in his car seat died at the hospital, police said. The boy was riding in a Dodge Journey being driven by his godmother in Detroit on Jan. 24 when bullets pierced the side of the vehicle and one hit him. The child was shot between the shoulder blades, according to the Michigan State Police. Paramedics rushed him to Sinai Grace Hospital, where he was revived, police added. The godmother was not injured. State Police Lt. Michael Shaw said late Thursday that the boy was not in good condition. I would say that we need to say some prayers tonight, he told WDIV. Its not looking very promising. The Michigan State Police said on Friday morning that the boy had died. Police said the shooting took place when a silver four-door car, believed to be a 2014, 2015, or 2016 Mercedes, pulled alongside the vehicle and shot at it. The [godmother] had [the boy] in the backseat behind her when a vehicle pulled up alongside and fired one shot at her, Shaw said. HEARTBREAKING: The 3-year-old who died after he was shot on Southfield Freeway last night has been identified as WXYZ-TV Channel 7 2019125 Investigators said that the vehicle was seen on surveillance video at a nearby gas station and urged people to contact them with any information about the car or its occupants. We are looking for the publics assistance for information on the homicide of a three-year-old male that occurred on the Southfield Freeway, the Michigan State Police said. Along with surveillance video, the police shared a still image of the vehicle. Police described the suspect driver as a light-skinned male with a full beard. Anyone with information was asked to call 855 MICH-TIP or 1 800 SPEAK-UP. We are looking for the publics assistance for information on the homicide of a three year old male that occurred on the Southfield Freeway. Below is the suspects vehicle which is believed to be a 2014-2016 Mercedes, four door, Silver in color. The vehicle is shown in the video pic.twitter.com/X5sN0jbNns MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) January 26, 2019 Here is a still photo of the suspect vehicle after the incident. Contact MSP with any information. pic.twitter.com/m50jifVDzk MSP Metro Detroit (@mspmetrodet) January 26, 2019 A relative said that investigators told the family theyre not sure if the shooter or shooters were part of a high-speed chase. They were driving down the freeway and I guess it was some guythey dont know if they were chasing another car, [a] group of guys, or whatever, Marilyn Perry, a relative, told Fox 2. And they were shooting. So I guess the baby probably cried and when they looked in the back seat, he was shot. I was told the bullet went through his car seat. A woman taking her godson to see Sesame Street Live was shot at on the Southfield Fwy. The three year old was killed in his car seat. MSP need your help finding the shooter. https://t.co/P04H99jix9 Priya Mann (@priyamanntv) January 25, 2019 Family and Friends Want Justice The boy was identified as Christian Miller by friends family members, who want justice for the slaying. Another 3-year-old boy was sitting right next to Christian. The group was on its way to see Sesame Street Live. My son and godson was in the car and I want somebody to talk, said Mario Campbell, the father of the other 3-year-old. Christians aunt, Lacresha Hunter, added to WXYZ: You hurt our family. You hurt everybody. From NTD News 3 Predictions by Nostradamus That Have Come True. The #2 Has the Exact Date! The content is not available due to expiration. 12-Year-Old Boy Charged in Shooting Death of Texas Boxer John VanMeter A 12-year-old boy was arrested and charged with the murder of John VanMeter, a boxer who was shot to death in a house in Uvalde, Texas, on Jan. 23. VanMeters girlfriend, Sammy Chapa, called 911 at about 7:55 p.m. that day and said someone had broken into her house and shot her boyfriend. When paramedics and police officers arrived, the boxer was lying on the floor with a gunshot wound to his head. Within an hour, he was pronounced dead. Officials arrested the 12-year-old, who hasnt been publicly identified, on Thursday, the Uvalde Police Department said in a statement. Hes being held at the Jourdanton Juvenile Detention Center. Chapa said that she and VanMeter, who lived together, took the boy into their home about two months ago for about a week. The suspect was a good friend of Chapas son and they felt bad that he was always in the streets and in and out of the Child Protective Services System. But their attempt to help the boy was spurned and they eventually kicked him out. He kept getting my son in trouble so I told him he wasnt allowed in our home anymore, Chapa told the San Antonio Express-News via text message. I dont know why he did this now. She said the boy may have discerned that the house was an easy target because she and VanMeter were often not at home. He was a troubled boy. Everyone warned us but we just followed our hearts, she said. Night of the Murder In an interview with News 4, Chapa, identified as Sammy Arellano, said that she and VanMeter had just finished up dinner when the break-in occurred. What it sounded like was when Johns in the kitchen and hes throwing pots and pans around making noise but it sounded so much louder, she said. Witnesses described a male subject wearing all-black and a black bandana across the lower part of his face. He saw me and my son and he started pointing the gun at me and my son, said Arellano. While she didnt know who it was, my son knew right away. Then, the boy shot VanMeter before fleeing. Uvalde boxer shot, killed in own home; 12-year old charged with capital murder https://t.co/Vbx4Zv8spk pic.twitter.com/sC6oKJHm4j KABB FOX 29 (@KABBFOX29) January 25, 2019 Juvenile Because hes not 14 or older, the 12-year-old was charged with capital murder. He will face a maximum of 40 years in prison if convicted. If he was an adult, he could face life in prison or even a death sentence. Legal experts told NBC that the boy is one of the youngest people in the country to be charged with capital murder, which differs from first-degree murder in that it usually involves a special circumstance. The robbery is likely that special circumstance, according to Mandy Miller, a Houston-area attorney who represents several juveniles who were convicted of capital murder years ago. Its a common practice for district attorneys offices to charge as high as they believe they can possibly make it and work their way down, said Miller, who is not involved in the VanMeter case. This case is obviously going to be complicated. Steven Halpert, the juvenile division chief for the Harris County, Texas, public defenders office, claimed that the boy, if he did commit the murder, could be rehabilitated. With a 12-year-old, youre talking about the absolute lower end of brain development. People might say its a heinous crimeobviously, someone died, which is horriblebut I dont care who the 12-year-old is, he cannot fathom the consequences of his actions at that age, he said. Thats never appropriate, putting a 12-year-old in prison for 40 years. Theres some serious rehabilitation that needs to occur if the 12-year-old did commit this crime. Father of 12-year old charged with capital murder searches for answers https://t.co/8cnJU1IFx5 pic.twitter.com/YaKtHk5wRF KABB FOX 29 (@KABBFOX29) January 25, 2019 Father of Suspect Speaks Out The father of the suspect, who was also not identified, said claimed that VanMeter made a threat against his son. He was being threatened and bullied by these one of the gentleman and supposedly the brother, the father told Fox. At the same time, he acknowledged that his son had committed the murder. I wish this wouldnt have happened, said the boys father. I had a gut feeling like something was bothering me that day. Maybe all this couldve been avoided and things wouldve been different. They didnt deserve, that family did not deserve that. My son is going to have to pay for the consequences that he did. From NTD News A Buckholts man has been sentenced to spend 10 years in prison for injuring a child. According to a press release from the Milam County District Attorney, Mario Alberto Rodriguez, 28, of Buckholts pleaded guilty Friday to the first-degree felony charge of injuring a child. Rodriguez was originally arrested on the charge in July. Rodriguez has been sentenced to spend 10 years confined in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. When he is released, a process of hearings will be held to deport Rodriguez, as he is an undocumented immigrant. Rodriguez also relinquished his parental rights in a separate civil case. Injury to a child is considered a second-degree felony when a child is harmed because of the offender's reckless behavior. The charge increases to a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison, when the offender harms the child intentionally. A Bryan woman was arrested Thursday after authorities said she tried to stab her roommate in the chest. According to Bryan police, officers responded to a mobile home on East Martin Luther King Street on Thursday afternoon. There, they spoke with a 63-year-old man who said he had been attacked by his roommate. The man told authorities he shares the home with two other tenants and collects the group's rent to turn in to the landlord. Jannet Strickley Pharms, 38, moved into one of the rooms on New Year's Day. The man said he approached Pharms about her share of the rent and she became argumentative and accused him of stealing from her. During the argument, police said Pharms went to the kitchen and got a knife. She then blocked the man's path, grabbed him and plunged the knife toward his chest, police said. The man said he would've been stabbed had he not stepped back. The victim ran out the door and said Pharms threw the knife at him, police said. No injuries were reported. Pharms was arrested. While being transported, police said, Pharms told the officer she was going to get revenge on the roommate and said she should have cut him. She is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. She is being held in the Brazos County Jail on $30,000 bond. Bush was indicted on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. He remains in the Brazos County Jail on $16,000 bond. According to Bryan police, authorities responded to a home on West 15th Street the evening of Aug. 7 following the report of a fight. Officials spoke with a 34-year-old woman who was six months pregnant with twins. The woman told police she and her godmother, Gwendolyn Faye Diggles, who is now 59, had made a trip to the grocery store earlier in the day and got in an argument over a baby shower. The woman said Diggles wanted to buy her food stamps, and when the victim refused, Diggles left her at the store and the victim called a friend to take her home. A Navasota teacher has been put on indefinite leave after reportedly exchanging improper electronic communications with a student last year, school officials said. Superintendent Stu Musick said Friday the district received a tip about a potential violation of policy by a female teacher. An investigation by the district and police uncovered evidence of the communication and that it occurred during last school year while the male student was still enrolled. The teacher is on indefinite leave pending further investigation, and Musick said that the conduct will be reported to the Texas Education Agency and the State Board of Educator Certification. Musick said that although the conduct violates district and state policy, the teacher did not commit a criminal offense and therefore her identity will not be released. The district says the investigation is ongoing. On Jan. 15, Jennifer Drushel, 30, was arrested by Navasota police for reportedly having an inappropriate relationship with a student while she was teaching for the high school. The cases are unrelated, the district said. A Caldwell man out on bond on a murder charge was arrested Friday in Brazos County after authorities said he was threatening a family member. A warrant for Rod Sterling Clanton's arrest was issued by Real County officials earlier this week on a charge of making terroristic threats against a family member, Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said. Clanton, 53, is accused of shooting and killing his stepbrother in December 2016. According to officials, Clanton had loaned money to one of his nephews several months prior, and he demanded repayment and made threats if he didn't receive money. Authorities reported that following a 911 call by Clanton, Stephen Craig Bishop, 54, was found sitting in his truck at OSR and Texas 21 with a gunshot wound to his head. In a previous Eagle report, the sheriff's office reported that, according to Clanton, Bishop had displayed a weapon during the argument, which prompted Clanton to grab his. He told officials that he remembers pointing the gun but he blacked out and does not remember pulling the trigger. He was cooperative and surrendered to authorities, reports state. According to Brazos County court documents, a hearing is scheduled in February for a motion to revoke Clanton's bond on the murder charge over multiple violations. On Friday evening, Clanton remained in the Brazos County on a $50,000 bond. Johnson stated that Real County requested Clanton be required to wear a GPS ankle bracelet upon bond release citing safety concerns and that he reportedly left the state while out on bond. "That would be a bigger need than any food bank could handle," she said, noting that 13 percent of Brazos Valley residents receive SNAP benefits. Federal Prison Camp correctional officer and union president of Local 3978 Yerlonda Pittman said Friday that the local community has been supportive of the prison employees. Restaurants have made offers, some day cares and utility companies have been patient in requesting federal employees' payments, and some local landlords have been gracious with tenants' bill deadlines. Despite the suspension on the shutdown, Pittman said those who distribute the paychecks for the prison have been furloughed at least until Monday, leaving staff without two pay cycles' worth of checks for the next two days. She noted that the team of dedicated workers don't like asking for help, but receiving assistance from the food bank is important. "We are so overwhelmingly appreciative of the food bank and the support from the community that will help staff get through the weekend," Pittman said. Pittman said staff are relieved to be getting their money after 35 days. The co-workers have been supporting one another, trying to keep morale high. A few of the prison's inmates have expressed that they would say prayers for their correctional officers and other employees. Click the image to the left and log in to get your exclusive reader perks. Oneonta, NY (13820) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 80F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Showers early, then partly cloudy overnight. Low 58F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Towanda, PA (18848) Today Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. A few storms may be severe. High 84F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low around 60F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. This subscription will allow current subscribers of The Clatskanie Chief to access all of our online Subscriber-Only content, including the E Editions area. NOTE: To claim your access to the site, you will need to enter the Last Name and First Name that is tied to your subscription in this format: SMITH, JOHN If you need help with exactly how your specific name needs be entered, please call us at 1-503-728-3350. LMC Autonomus Ride Report Attending the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month provided the perfect opportunity to test out an Autonomous Vehicle (AV). My colleague Amber McLincha-Herrick opened the Lyft app and we then waited in anticipation for our AV to arrive. As Las Vegas is home to Aptivs largest fleet of self-driving vehicles, we could not have failed to spot the many BMW 5 Series bearing the huge company logo since arriving for the show. Unlike a standard vehicle from a ride-hailing company like Uber, however, the sedan that pulled up to collect us had both a driver and a co-pilot, if you will. Having consented, as required, that Aptiv would not be liable for any accidents, we were then instructed as you might expect to buckle our seatbelts. We were also requested to refrain from taking photographs inside the vehicle. Autonomous driving is not permitted within the boundaries of hotel properties in Las Vegas, so there was a short wait before the driver could switch to fun mode! The central screen reminded me of a video game and displayed the outlines of all the vehicles around us. The AV is equipped with sensors to measure the speed of the vehicle ahead, and others to communicate with traffic lights, similar to those fitted to emergency vehicles. These sensors immobilise the AV in the event of the vehicle in front going through a red light. There were three main highlights for me during our trip: 1) having to turn left, while surrounded by other vehicles; 2) a Mercedes-Benz cutting in front of the 5 Series; and 3) an aborted lane change because a vehicle to our right was travelling too fast. The BMW did everything as it should: the wheels were turned at the exact right angle, the speed was ideal, and the brakes were applied at the correct moment. Having said that, I was struck by the fact that the ride was not as smooth as I expected. In AV mode, the 5 Series accelerates and brakes more aggressively than a human driver typically would, while the cruise control system rushes the vehicle to the set speed. In conversation with the driver, he confessed that, at first, he found it challenging to trust the technology, but soon realised that it was superior to his own driving skills because the sensors are so accurate and perceive far more than a human driver could. At just 1.4 miles, our ride was short, but long enough to get a sense of why so many people are still reluctant to trust AV technology. According to a survey by AAA from May 2018, 73% of American drivers stated that they would be too afraid to travel in a fully self-driving vehicle, and 63% of adults in the US claimed that they would feel less safe sharing the road with AVs. As with any new technology, gaining public trust will be critical to the future of autonomous driving. I was reminded of the time when my parents bought their first microwave oven and my fathers insistence that my sisters and I should not go near it for fear that the radiation would harm us. And yet here we are today, doing just fine fine enough, in fact, to be testing an AV all these years later! Our view at LMC Automotive is that AVs will initially be sold in geo-fenced areas of the US such as the Las Vegas Strip, for instance and only to fleet buyers, starting in the mid-2020s. Final consumers will continue to purchase regular vehicles, meaning that AVs will boost total sales figures in the early years, until they begin to have a negative impact on volumes. By 2030, we forecast that AV sales in the US could reach 1.2 mn units as not only will the technology be more widely accepted by then, but the notion of owning a self-driving vehicle will be far less daunting than it is today Nissan's CEO Saikawa Resigns The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance is getting two new chief executives after Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa announced that he will leave his post at Nissan just a day after Carlos Ghosn did the same at Renault. Bloomberg reports that Saikawa will hand over the reins at Nissan in coming months after he reforms the governance behind the car manufacturer. Saikawa was a former protege of Ghosn but the Japanese chief executive was pivotal in ousting Ghosn as Nissan chairman when allegations of his financial misdeeds came to light. Nissans quick firing of Ghosn sparked fierce opposition from Renault who for more than two months, kept Ghosn in charge despite his Japanese imprisonment. Some have speculated that Ghosn was the victim of a coup by Saikawa to consolidate his power with the automaker. It remains to be seen why exactly Saikawa is preparing to step aside but analysts say it could help to mend the fractured relationship between Renault and Nissan. Renault recently confirmed that Michelin chief executive Jean-Dominique Senard will take over as its chairman. Senards appointment has been backed by France which just so happens to be the most powerful Renault shareholder. Senard will also join Nissans board and is charged with proposing changes to the alliances structure. It is hoped that Senard will help to fix the carnage left behind by Ghosn and Saikawa. Hopefully he takes his time to speak with a wide range of people before setting a strategy, Macquarie Group analyst Janet Lewis said. He needs to gain trust with the leadership of both Nissan and Renault, and needs to ensure he is not being viewed as a mouthpiece for the French government. Rescue workers were frantically working Saturday to recover more survivors from a flooded area in Brazil, where about 300 people were missing after a mining dam burst and inundated the surrounding area in a sea of mud. Brazilian firefighters said on Saturday that at least 34 people were killed when a dam burst at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA , as rescuers continued to search for hundreds still missing. The Minas Gerais state fire department also said 23 people have been hospitalised after the dam released a torrent of mud on Friday, leaving a roughly 150-metre-wide wake of destruction. In an earlier statement, the department had said 300 people were still missing and 46 had been found alive, a figure that it did not update in its latest disclosure. Seven people have died in an air crash over a glacier favoured by off-piste skiers on the northwestern Italian Alps while a survivor is being investigated. The accident, involving a helicopter and a small aircraft, took place on Friday afternoon over the Rutor glacier, located near the French border in the Valle d'Aosta region. The Rutor is next to the La Thuile ski resort, and it is used by heli skiers, people who ski or snowboard off-piste using helicopters to reach the slopes rather than ski lifts or chair lifts. Rescue doctors Paolo Comune and Luca Cavoretto said in a press conference that the two survivors were in intensive care with multiple fractures, but not in life-threatening conditions. The French survivor is a 55-year-old flight instructor and the other two were his students. The extraordinarily wealthy Sultan of Brunei gifted Queensland police officers more than $14,000 in cash following his trip to Cairns for the APEC summit. In November, several Queensland Police close personal protection officers were assigned to the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, during his stay in Cairns. The Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, was assigned several Queensland police officers as part of his security during his APEC visit. Credit:AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, Pool A Queensland Police Service spokesman said a member of the Sultan's travelling party handed $11,000 in US dollars to an Australian government representative at the end of his stay, with the intention it be distributed to members of the close protection team. "The money was recorded by senior QPS members and the Commissioner [Ian Stewart] has since approved the entirety of this money be donated to two separate registered charities on behalf of the QPS," he said. Tens of thousands of protesters have called for the abolition of Australia Day on January 26, which they say marks the start of an "attempted subjugation of over 500 different nations". As official celebrations to mark the landing of the First Fleet of British Ships in 1788 took place across the country, so too did "Invasion Day" protests, which have been growing in size each year. Taking to the streets: Invasion Day Rally in Sydney on Saturday. David Dungay 's nephew Paul Dungay waves the Aboriginal flag. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer In Sydney, organisers estimated the crowd swelled to as big as 35,000 - about 5000 more than last year - while in Melbourne, estimates were as large as 40,000. Police wouldnt confirm the numbers. "It is offensive to celebrate genocide and the attempted subjugation of over 500 different nations," organisers said. A young man has died after falling from the roof of a three-storey building at Putney in Sydney's north-west on Saturday night. Police are investigating reports the man, 21, fell to the pavement next to a swimming pool from a height of about 10 metres. Emergency services were called to a home on McGowan Street, just before 6pm, after reports a man was injured. He was treated at the scene by paramedics before being taken to Royal North Shore Hospital, where he later died. Officers from Ryde Police Area Command attended and are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident, which has not been deemed suspicious. A 20-year-old man has been charged with stabbing a 23-year-old man in Sydney's southwest overnight. The injured man was found in Eagle Vale late on Friday night. He underwent surgery on his arm at Liverpool Hospital where he remains in a serious but stable condition. A man from the nearby suburb of Eschol Park was charged with reckless grievous bodily harm and will appear in Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday. AAP AUSTRALIAN OPEN 7pm, Nine Yes, it's the men's singles final, the end of another memorable Australian Open and a major cultural marker: school goes back, only a few weeks of summer left, and the start of the television ratings year. Before all that, though, there's still a match to play and no matter how uninspired or one-sided it might turn out to be (and it might not be who knows?) it's a television moment few care to miss. Adam Hills: Clown Heart is as insightful and bittersweet as it is funny. ADAM HILLS: CLOWN HEART 9.10pm, ABC Comedy If you like your comedy black and bitter, don't even bother. This live show recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo (but performed here too a few years ago at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival) is classic Adam Hills. The first section is all ad-lib and audience interaction (and if you were going to be audience-involved by a comedian, you'd want it to be Hills). The second is scripted, written not long after the death of his father, and as insightful and bittersweet as it is funny. Historical fiction often threads facts and fiction together, taking the reader back vividly to a moment in time. Kirsten Alexander's first novel, Half Moon Lake, does exactly that. It is the gripping story of Sonny Davenport, a four-year-old boy who walks into the Louisiana woods one summer's day and never comes back. The novel examines the multi-layered aspects of identity, and the bonds formed between parents and children, and Alexander delves into the ways we come to understand ourselves and the decisions we make regarding our families. Kirsten Alexander's Half Moon Lake examines the lies we tell ourselves when reacting to the ultimate grief. Credit:Lee Sandwith In Half Moon Lake, Sonny's mysterious disappearance is front-page news. His parents, John Henry and Mary Davenport, are desperate to bring him home, willing to do just about anything in their power to find their son. But it is not that simple. The search for Sonny takes two years and when a boy is eventually discovered with a tramp, Mary identifies him and takes him home. But is he really Sonny? Somehow the boy isn't quite how she remembers him. When an unmarried farm worker then claims him as her own son, Mary's world is once again thrown into disarray. Both mothers apparently believe the boy is their son. But he can't belong to both of them, so who is he? Federal monitors overseeing reforms of the New Orleans Police Department are set to unveil their first grade of the department's progress on Friday, issuing the report amid recent statements from city leaders that the six-year-long consent decree should be nearing its end. For years, those monitors have resisted scoring the NOPDs performance under its 2012 consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, which was enacted after a federal report painted the department as poorly trained, sloppy, brutal and corrupt. Instead, the monitors have preferred to speak about the quality of individual programs, like body-worn cameras and the training academy. But the monitors now say the time has come for a more complete update. In a hearing at the Loyola University law school, they promise to provide the public a section-by-section assessment of the state of NOPD compliance. The hearing was already being planned before an exchange of letters a month ago laid bare tensions between city leaders and the court-appointed monitors. Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other city officials said the NOPD considers itself to be in 93 percent compliance with the consent decree. They asked for a speedy release from the consent decree's strict mandates, and the monitors' $2.1 million per year contract. The city also objected to carrying the hearing on public-access television. The monitors wrote back that they were unsure as to how the city came to the 93 percent figure, and that much work still needs to be done. Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, who oversees the reform plan, said the public and television crews would be allowed to attend the hearing. The dueling letters highlighted the sensitive question of just how long the city will remain under the extensive, intrusive and costly reform pact, which went into effect in 2013, the year after it was signed. City leaders agreed to what the Justice Department at the time called the most comprehensive police reform plan ever created, which outlined the changes that must be instituted at the Police Department in 492 exhaustively detailed paragraphs. The document called for strict controls over officers' use of force, limits on dangerous police chases, beefed-up misconduct investigations, video-recorded interrogations of suspects, and a wholesale makeover of the training academy, among many other mandates. Morgan has the sole and final say over whether the NOPD has reached its goals. The city expects that by the end of 2019 it will have spent $55 million on coming into compliance with the plan, including expenses for the monitors, equipment and training. The lead federal monitor, Jonathan Aronie, has been active in working through the reforms but has not yet provided a comprehensive report on how far the department has come. A government contracts lawyer at the international law firm Sheppard Mullin, Aronie once served as the deputy monitor overseeing the Washington, D.C., police department. His 10-member monitoring team holds regular community meetings and appears at court hearings, but most of its work occurs behind the scenes on ride-alongs, station inspections and meetings with the department's brass. The monitors got off to a rocky start. A rival team vying for the pricey monitoring contract submitted letters from political heavy-hitters like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and won the backing of then-New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. I was so not enamored by the process, to say the least. And other teams were doing kind of strange things. Some teams were submitting letters from politicians, Aronie said during a lengthy interview last April. Morgan chose Aronies team in July 2013, citing their experience and public concern over the rival team. +3 New Orleans reaches six-figure settlement with parents of man slain by cop in 2017 As Arties Manning gasped for air in the courtyard of a New Orleans East apartment complex, Officer Terrance Hilliards head was spinning. We walked into a department that was really broken, Aronie said. We couldnt even get the data that we needed to do the audits that we wanted to do I mean, whats the point of auditing an academy class if they dont even have a lesson plan? The monitors spent their first two to three years reviewing hundreds of new policies and offering advice on modern police practices. There was also the sticky subject of off-duty, paid details, which the Justice Department dubbed the NOPDs aorta of corruption in a scathing 2011 report. The citys police officer associations fought against the transfer of control of police details to an office in City Hall. Aronie said he pointed out that the change was mandated in the court-ordered reform plan. Years into that plan, with the new office receiving positive audits, Aronie said he rarely hears from the police unions. The detail system, once a snakes' den of departmental politics, rarely makes the news, either. "We have not seen any evidence of any sort of widespread corruption" under the new detail system, Aronie said last year. There was also early distance from the city and the NOPD. Aronie said he got along well with former Superintendent Ronal Serpas, who oversaw the department from 2010 to 2014. However, he added that during that early time period, the department generally was pushing back a lot more. Nevertheless, Serpas instituted one reform that was not listed in the reform plan but became central to its implementation: body-worn cameras. He ordered that every New Orleans patrol officer be outfitted with a camera, making it one of the first big-city departments to do so. One controversial, non-fatal shooting was not caught on tape. But looking back, Aronie said last year that he thinks the departments transition to always-on video was remarkably smooth. I would say they reduce misconduct. Not just that, but they drive civility, too, he said. Aronie said the entire monitoring team has access to officers camera footage and they use it consistently to track the departments progress on the level of individual officers. The footage complements monitors' rides in cop cars. I promised when I took the job that I would not monitor from a desk, Aronie said. I see mistakes made. I see problems. I see good things, I see bad things and they all happen right in front of me. The same goes for Morgan, according to Aronie. She will visit station houses and talk to district commanders. New Orleans police gets new chief from within ranks; meet the 'firm, fair, friendly' leader New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has selected a veteran cop who once commanded officers in her City Council district as the citys next polic Shes a very active and intimately involved judge, he said. Shes out in the field more than any other judge that Ive ever known. As the years passed, the monitors have appeared more confident in taking strong stances on police practices. A January 2017 report found the department skipping over red flags like drug arrests and failed lie detector tests in its hiring of new cops. But before the monitors issued their report, they gave the NOPD a heads-up so it could start revamping its recruitment practices. "What we think is the best way to drive actual improvement in compliance is you find the things that need work, you lock in the corrective action, you test the corrective action, and then you publish the problem, the solution and whether or not the solution worked," Aronie said. "Most of what we do the public doesn't see. Its like the sausage making, as they say." In the interview last year, Aronie praised the cooperation he received from then-Superintendent Michael Harrison and described weekly calls among department leaders, the judge, the monitors and the Department of Justice. Yet the monitors close involvement in department affairs led city leaders last month to question whether they were overstepping their authority. "The consent decree stipulates the court-appointed monitors shall not replace or assume the role and duties of the city and NOPD, including the superintendent. Yet, it appears that the lines have been blurred over the years," officials said. They even suggested that the monitors have weighed in on city contracts, without elaborating. Their biggest complaints were about time and money, however. Cantrell, who became mayor in May 2018, expressed her desire to have the reform plan completed as soon as possible. Other large police departments have lingered under court oversight for years. One agreement, in Detroit, took 11 years to fulfill. Another in Los Angeles lasted for 12 years. It will be up to Harrisons successor, Shaun Ferguson, to see the process through to the end. Fridays hearing could provide his first realistic timeline. By some measures, the department is on its best footing in years. Between January 2017 and January 2019, New Orleans police went nearly two years without fatally shooting someone, which would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. Meanwhile, last year the city logged its lowest homicide count since 1971. Yet the monitors have warned that the NOPD still needs to prove its supervisors are effectively overseeing their beat cops, and that those ordinary officers follow constitutional practices when they stop and frisk people on the street. Last year, Aronie repeated a well-worn phrase of his about what he told police brass when he first came to New Orleans. I will be the biggest thorn in your side when things are not right, but ultimately I will be your biggest cheerleader, he said. The NOPD reform hearing is open to the public. It takes place at 9 a.m. Friday at the Loyola University College of Law, 526 Pine St. A boy looks at the border wall, topped with razor wire and bathed in floodlights from the U.S. side, as he walks on the beach Monday, Jan. 7, 2019, in Tijuana, Mexico. When Kenneth Gleason stands trial March 11 in the fatal 2017 shooting of a black man in Baton Rouge, prosecutors want jurors to hear that he allegedly shot another black man to death two days earlier and also fired into the home of a black family that lived two houses from Gleason. Gleason, 24, is charged in both killings and the non-fatal shooting that occurred in a four-day span in September 2017, but will be tried first in the second of the fatal shootings. Gleason was in court Friday for a hearing to determine the admissibility of the so-called "other crimes" evidence, but a state judge pushed the proceeding back to Wednesday to give the defense more time to prepare. +4 Kenneth Gleason won't face death penalty in September slayings in Baton Rouge A prosecutor announced Wednesday she wont pursue the death penalty against a 24-year-old Baton Rouge man accused in the apparently random kil Gleason, who is white, is charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of Bruce Cofield, 59, on Sept. 12, 2017, and first-degree murder in the killing of Donald Smart, 49, on Sept. 14, 2017. Police have described the nighttime shootings as random and possibly racially motivated. Prosecutors are trying Gleason first in the killing of Smart. They aren't seeking the death penalty. The non-fatal shooting incident on Gleason's street, Sandy Ridge Drive, occurred on Sept. 11, 2017. Two brothers were in the house at the time but weren't injured. +3 Baton Rouge serial killings case: Prosecutors to talk with victim's family about death penalty option A prosecutor said Monday she wants to meet with the family of one of the men shot to death last fall allegedly by Kenneth Gleason before decid Gleason, of Baton Rouge, is charged with two counts of attempted second-degree murder in that shooting. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges filed against him. A witness observed Gleason outside the Sandy Ridge home immediately after the shooting, according to an "other crimes" motion filed by prosecutor Dana Cummings. The day before the first fatal shooting, the motion says, an employee of a Jiffy Lube on Coursey Boulevard reported to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office that a suspicious white male in a red vehicle "removed a handgun from the flower bed in front of the business." The worker later identified the man as Gleason. On Sept. 12, 2017, a local surveillance company, Custom Security, alerted law enforcement that a white male was seen parking a small red car in a parking lot, removing the license plate and placing duct tape over identifying markings on the car, the motion states. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Cofield was killed that night. +10 How Baton Rouge officials made arrest in 'cold, calculated' slayings of 2 black men Armed with DNA evidence taken from shell casings left behind when a 59-year-old black man was gunned down last week, Baton Rouge police Tuesda Three shell casings were found on a walkway "a few feet" from the Sandy Ridge shooting scene, 13 casings were discovered at the scene of the Cofield shooting and 10 casings were located at the Smart crime scene, the motion says. A State Police Crime Lab firearm examiner determined that all of the shell casings were fired from the same gun "and were consistent with being fired from the same type of weapon that the defendant purchased in November of 2016," Cummings wrote. Different kinds of ammunition were used in each shooting, East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III has said, but the bullets were fired from the same 9 mm gun. That gun has not been found. Cummings also stated that a DNA profile obtained from the casings at the Cofield crime scene matched Gleason's DNA profile. Gleason allegedly shot Cofield and Smart from inside his car, then got out and fired more shots while standing over them, authorities have said. Cofield was killed on the corner of South Acadian Thruway and Florida Street. Witness statements and video surveillance indicated the shooter was driving a small red car, according to the motion. Alleged BR serial killer pleads not guilty; one victim's family believes 'justice will be served' Kenneth James Gleason, a white man accused in the shooting deaths of two black men and of firing a gun into the home of a black family in thre Witnesses told detectives the suspect "began shooting the victim from the strip mall parking lot, at which point the victim fell to the ground and rolled into the street where the shooter stood over him and fire more shots into his body," Cummings says in her motion. Smart was shot to death as he walked by the Alaska Street BREC Park to his overnight shift at Louie's Cafe. A witness told investigators he saw a white man driving a small red vehicle "shoot the victim in the driveway area of the parking lot, and then stand over the victim firing additional shots into him after he was down," Cummings wrote. State District Judge Beau Higginbotham is presiding over Gleason's case. ADA [ndash] Wanda Lee Brewer, 91, of Ada, Oklahoma passed away Sunday, June 13, 2021, in Ada. Services for Wanda will be held Thursday, June 17, 2021, at 10 a.m. at the Estes-Phillips Funeral Home Chapel, with Bro. Roger Arter officiating. Interment will follow at New Bethel Cemetery. For up Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email please call (208) 542-6777 for help. Rented electric scooters provide people with a new convenient way to get around cities. Findings of a new study, however, showed use of these vehicles are taking a toll on public health. The findings show scooter use is linked to numerous types of injuries, which include dislocated joints, fractures, and head trauma. Serious Injuries From Electric Scooter Use In a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open on Jan. 25, Joann Elmore, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)'s David Geffen School of Medicine, and colleagues examined injuries at two emergency rooms in Los Angeles area, where rental electric scooters first became available. They found that in just one year, nearly 250 people were sent to the ER for injuries tied to use of electric scooters. The number of injuries is almost the same as those tied to bicycle use seen at the two ER's over the same time period. Elmore and colleagues also found that 40 percent of those who were sent to the ER suffered from head trauma, 32 percent had bone bone fractures, and 28 percent suffered from cuts, sprains, and bruises. Only 4 percent of those injured were documented to be wearing a helmet and nearly 11 percent were below 18 years old. "In this study, helmet use was low and a significant subset of injuries occurred in patients younger than 18 years, the minimum age permitted by private scooter company regulations. These findings may inform public policy regarding standing electric scooter use," the researchers reported. Safety Measures To Avoid Injury The researchers said riders could be underestimating the hazards of these vehicles. Elmore said scooters provide a fun and inexpensive way to get around, but riders need to be careful, follow traffic laws, and wear helmet. Frederick Rivara, from the University of Washington in Seattle, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, also stressed the importance of scooter riders wearing a helmet. "In addition, cities that allow these things ought to partner with the companies to try to solve the problem of how to provide helmets for the riders -- with these things being motorized, there's a real need to address this problem," Rivara said. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. School districts in at least 12 states have already lost at least one school day because of the ongoing flu season. There have been 11.4 million flu-related illnesses and over 100,000 hospitalizations as of Jan. 19. Flu-Related School Cancellations Flu activity increased in the past weeks. In fact, the week that ended in Jan. 19 alone, there were three additional pediatric deaths related to flu, bringing the total number to 22. Furthermore, in the same week, the states reporting high flu activity also rose to 36 from 30 in the previous week. There are about 55 million students and 7 million staff members who attend 130,000 public and private school in the United States every day, and they are being affected by the flu season as well. Although no government agency takes note of the number of school closings related to the flu, CNN did an unofficial tally and found that school districts in at least 12 states have already closed for a day or more because of flu outbreaks. Furthermore, there are also private schools that canceled classes in additional states including New York, New Jersey, Louisiana, and West Virginia. Flu Season Although the flu season is already in full swing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still state that the best response against the flu is the flu vaccine. Everyone aged 6 months and older are recommended to get the flu shot each year. This, as well as the pneumonia vaccine, is especially important in children below 2 years old and adults over 65 years old. In fact, the overall rates of hospitalization in the past week were highest among those over 65 years old and under 4 years old. While the flu vaccine is not perfect, and people who get it may still get the flu, it can lessen the likelihood of hospitalization and death. Last year, the flu shots effectiveness was at 40 percent, meaning that it reduced peoples chances of requiring medical care by 40 percent. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Apple has registered a couple of new iPad models with the Eurasian Economic Commission or EEC, which could be a telltale sign that the rumored iPad mini 5 and 10-inch iPad are coming soon. In the past, the commission based in Russia has revealed info on the Cupertino brand's products, meaning that these recent filings for "tablet computers" carries some weight. Updated iPads As first spotted by MySmartPrice, Apple made two filings that involve new tablets running on iOS 12. In the first one, there are five model numbers: A2123, A2124, A2126, A2153, and A2154. In the second, there are two: A2133 and A2152. They don't exactly reveal much about the devices, but they typically depend on their storage configurations and LTE connectivity. At any rate, filings such as these give a good idea of a company's release schedule, if nothing else. Aligned With Rumors As mentioned earlier, Apple is rumored to be working on a new iPad mini model and an entry-level iPad, and they're presumably the iPad mini 5 and a 10-inch iPad, respectively. Back in October, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo already said that the iPad mini 5 with a 7.9-inch display could be unveiled sometime during early 2019. Furthermore, there have been reports that say a 10-inch iPad is in the works, and it could replace the 9.7-inch iPad, which was last refreshed in March 2018. Apple is said to release these devices sometime in the first quarter of 2019, and going by the timing of the filings, it's possible that it'll launch these new iPad models sometime in March. The expected release date isn't a stretch to believe either. The company did take the wraps off the $329 9.7-inch iPad with Apple Pencil support in the same month at a Chicago high school, after all. There's a good chance that it's going to unveil the new AirPods 2 then as well. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. NASAs New Horizons spacecraft beams back to Earth the latest and best image yet of Ultima Thule that it captured during its Jan. 1 flyby. The lighting of the image shows some of the striking details of the Kuiper Belt object (KBO). New Horizons' Image Of Ultima Thule The New Horizons spacecraft has beamed home the images it took of Ultima Thule during its historic New Years Day flyby. Using its wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera instrument, New Horizons took the image when it was 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) away from Ultima Thule. It was the first time a small KBO was explored by a spacecraft. On Jan. 18 and 19 the spacecraft transmitted the images it took back to Earth, and scientists sharpened them through a process called deconvolution to enhance the details. Image Details The image revealed the incredible details on the day/night boundary of the KBO, particularly some small pits about 0.4 miles (0.7 km) in diameter, as well as a large, round feature about 4 miles (7 km) across on the smaller lobe. Its not yet clear if the said details are impact craters or if they resulted from other processes. Also striking are the light and dark patterns on both lobes and the bright collar between the two. According to experts, this may reveal clues about how it was formed around 4.5 billion years ago. This new image is starting to reveal differences in the geologic character of the two lobes of Ultima Thule, and is presenting us with new mysteries as well, said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator. Ultima Thule Ultima Thule was first observed on June 26, 2014, when scientists used the Hubble Telescope to search for a post-Pluto, Kuiper Belt flyby target. It was initially called 2014 MU69, but it was eventually named Ultima Thule, which means beyond the known world. Ultima Thule is in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptunes orbit, is about 18 miles (30 km) in diameter and is irregularly shaped. Not a lot is still known about the mysterious KBO, but scientists so far know that it is likely reddish in color because of the exposure of hydrocarbons to sunlight for billions of years. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Share The Black Arrow programme from 1969-71 saw the first and only successful UK-led orbital launch An engineer who worked on the only British rocket to launch a satellite into orbit described seeing it again as meeting an old friend, as it went on display after almost 50 years languishing in the Australian Outback. The Black Arrow programme completed four rockets between 1969 and 1971, with the third flight marking the first and only successful UK-led orbital launch. A six-metre section of the projectile crash-landed in South Australia where its remained for 48 years. Former engineer Derek Mack said seeing the rocket again was like meeting an old friend (Jane Barlow/PA) Derek Mack was among those in attendance as the rocket was unveiled in Midlothian on Friday, following a 10,000-mile journey back to the UK. The 86-year-old, from the Isle of Wight where the Black Arrow was developed and tested, was a senior trial engineer on the rocket project. He said: (Working on the scheme was) very interesting, the best time Ive ever had in my life as an engineer. It was unique and in those days it was very advanced. We tended to get a bit of a reputation, like what an astronaut might get today. I have seen it, on photographs, it was interesting to look over it to see the actual detail of the damage and the various things that survived. But really it was like meeting an old friend, because the last time I saw it was as it lifted off the launcher to take Prospero (the satellite) up to orbit. Former engineers Derek Mack, left, and Mike Kelloway inspect the projectile (Jane Barlow/PA) Mike Kelloway had been a site inspector during the projects development. The 75-year-old, also from the Isle of Wight, said: It was good fun, it was always up against the clock Ive spent a night with this thing. To see it now, when I can think of all the people I knew that worked on this close friends some, colleagues, and a lot of them are no longer with us. To be here now and see it I never expected to see it again. Speeches were made by representatives from the UK Space Agency, the Royal Air Force and the London Science Museum. The rocket, which is being exhibited in a storage facility in Penicuik, was returned to the UK by Edinburgh space company Skyrora to be used for educational purposes. The rocket was unveiled during a ceremony at a storage facility in Penicuik, Midlothian (Jane Barlow/PA) Skyrora director Daniel Smith said: With the UK Governments aim to make us a launch nation again, it seemed like the perfect time to bring Black Arrow back. We hope its a reminder not only to our own team, but to everyone thats part of the new commercial space race of whats been accomplished before. It has been some journey we wouldnt have been able to do it without the support of the William Creek Progress Association and the Australian Government, so were extremely grateful to both. We really hope the rocket will help to inspire current and future generations of scientists and engineers. In July last year, the UK Space Agency announced 2.5 million of funding for a proposed vertical launch spaceport in Sutherland, in the far north of Scotland. For latest tech stories go to TechDigest.tv Share this: Email Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn Print Reddit Twitter Tumblr Pocket Like this: Like Loading... NEWPORT, N.Y. -- A 14-year-old boy was injured Friday evening when the Amish horse-drawn buggy he was operating collided with a pickup truck in Herkimer County, according to the New York State Police. The crash occurred at about 8:35 p.m. in the town of Newport. Samuel Miller, 14, was operating the buggy and pulled out of a private residence located at 392 Honey Hill Road into the direct path of a 2008 Chevrolet pickup truck with a snow plow, state police said. After the collision, the horse dragged the buggy west eventually breaking free and the buggy came to rest off the northern shoulder of the roadway. Miller was transported by Kuyahorra Ambulance to St. Elizabeths Medical Center in Utica and then to Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse for a skull and facial fractures. He is currently listed in stable condition, state police said. The horse was not injured in the accident and was returned back to its farm, according to Trooper Jack Keller, a spokesman for state police. Jeffrey S. Yaworski, 28, of Newport, was operating the pickup truck. He was not injured in the crash. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A Syracuse University student who died Thursday was killed in a bus crash in New Jersey on her to visit family near New York City, according to New Jersey State Police. Briana Herrera, 21, of Ozone Park, died when a bus and three cars were involved in an accident, state police say. Herrera majored in information management and technology in the iSchool with a minor in public communications in the Newhouse School. She was a member of Sigma Delta Tau, the university announced in an email. At least two others were seriously injured. According to NJ.com, more than 20 people were injured in the crash. Herrera was a passenger on an Adirondack Trailways commercial bus as she headed to visit famiy, NJ.com reported. The cause of the crash is still under investigation, police said. We join our campus community in keeping Brianna, her loved ones and all who knew her in our thoughts and prayers, said Rob Hradsky, senior associate vice president and dean of students division of enrollment and the student experience in an email. Our office is in communication with Briannas roommates, sorority sisters and friends. We are working to support our community, particularly those who were closest to her, as they grieve this loss. The university is offering counseling for students. The Endangered Artifacts program invites the public to vote for its favorite endangered artifact in an online voting competition happening between Jan. 22-31. The two artifacts that receive the most votes will be recognized as the Peoples Choice Awards and receive $4,000 and $3,000, respectively, to conserve the artifacts and care for their continued preservation. Remaining honorees will be eligible for other monetary awards provided by the selection committee. The Wythe County fraktur has some damage with fading paint and possible water stains. The historical society and museum will use the money to hire a professional to preserve the paper, reduce the water stains and enhance the color, Emerson. It is delicate, Beamer said. There has been some fading and mixing of the colors. We hope to get it restored to as close to the original as possible. Its really a beautiful piece. The identity of the wild turkey artists may be unknown, but researchers have a guess. Wytheville museum employee Michael Gillman said they believe he is one of two ministers who served at St. Johns Lutheran Church: the churchs first minister George Flohr or Jacob Repass. He didnt know at all, he said. He was surprised, really. We were surprised that the school had done it. It was pretty awesome. He wanted a dog for his birthday, and we are picking up a German Shepherd on Monday, so hes been excited the whole week, and the video just topped it off. Its drawn a lot of attention, said Rouse, who was getting ready to return a phone call from NBC headquarters. But this is normal stuff for Rural Retreat Elementary. People are doing nice things for people all of the time. Weve got a great staff. Im glad to have all of the positive publicity, and people get a chance to see what we are all about here. All of our staff does awesome things for kids every day but this one just happened to be put on video. We have great kids, and its a good reflection of our community. One of the great things about Rural Retreat and I live here - is that people look out for one another, and that is what we see in our kids, and we try to take that and run with it so that it continues for generations here in Rural Retreat. Do you already have a paid subscription to any of the SWNewsMedia newspapers? If so, you can Activate your Premium online account by clicking here. Activation will allow you to view unlimited online articles each month. To activate your Premium online account, the email address and phone number provided with your paid newspaper subscription needs to match the information you use in setting up your online user account. If you are having trouble or want to confirm what email address and phone number is listed on your subscription account, please call 952-345-6682 or email circulation@swpub.com and we'll be happy to assist. Sometimes, faking smiles for rude customers and coming home covered in grease and oil is the least of a fast food employees worries. While the fast food industry is raking in sales of around $11 billion in New Zealand each year, nobody really knows what happens behind the scenes other than employees. One Tauranga woman, who does not wish to be named, contacted The Weekend Sun when she was threatened with disciplinary action after she called in sick. The woman has been working pay check to pay check at a Western Bay of Plenty fast-food restaurant for the last three months. She says she has regularly asked for more shifts to make ends meet, but just gets the bare minimum some weeks. She was reluctant to take the day off when she started feeling sick, because she wasnt eligible to receive paid sick leave until shed been in the role for six months. I was feeling really sick not long after I started my shift, she explains. I kept vomit burping and swallowing it back down, because I couldnt afford to leave work. She waited to see if the sickness would pass, but it didnt. Her manager admitted she was not well enough to work, but made her stay for another two hours until a replacement was found. Later that evening, after she had been sent home, she started feeling a little better. She hoped to sleep off the rest of her sickness and be ready for her 6am start the next day. I couldnt afford to take more time off, because I wouldnt have enough money to pay the bills and buy groceries, so I was hoping Id be better in the morning. When she woke up, however, she was feeling worse, but was scared to call in sick. She eventually plucked up the courage to call her manager and explained the situation. She told me that it was a huge inconvenience. She said she couldnt find someone to replace me at such short notice and that I would have to come in to work regardless. I told her that I had been vomiting, and she said shed let me off this once, but to expect a phone call that day from the operations manager. She admits theres an agreement that if someone works early shifts and theyre ill, theyre supposed to call in sick before 8pm the night before. But sickness doesnt work to a schedule, she says. However, in her contract that rule is not stipulated, and instead says employees should try to give at least two hours notice. Manager employment standards policy, Gerard Clark, says the owner has a responsibility to act in good faith when dealing with any employee, as required under the Employment Relations Act 2000. The employer has a duty of care to a sick employee, to other employees, and to customers, to ensure they dont put others at risk by having a sick, potentially infectious employee at work in a role that would worsen their health, or the health and safety of others, says Gerard. He says if an employer requires an employee to work when the employee is sick, this could well be a breach of the employers health and safety obligations. Employers in the food industry are likely to have additional obligations around sick workers, for food hygiene reasons, and extra care should be taken. All employers need to meet their obligations to their staff in good faith, and this includes making appropriate arrangements when staff fall sick, so that all staff and customers can have a fair, healthy and safe workplace. The Blackcaps have been outclassed by India for the second straight One Day International, going down by 90 runs in front of a packed house at the Bay Oval tonight. As in the first match of the series in Napier, the top order batting for the home side failed to get the job done as they chased the target of 325 set by India who made the unsurprising decision in perfect batting conditions to bat first after winning the toss. All the Blackcaps' top six got starts but failed to go on to build a substantial score, with Tom Latham the best performing of them reaching 34. Indian supporters made up a huge proportion of the 9100 sellout crowd Local hero Kane Williamson was responsible for the loudest cheer of the night unfortunately for Blackcaps fans though it was for his dismissal from the huge proportion of Indian supporters in the sell-out crowd of 9100. His 20 came off 11 balls, and included 2 sixes, and he may have been referring to himself afterwards when he suggested some of his team were guilty of attempting to force the pace unnecessarily. Perhaps if we look at some of our dismissals that might have been going a little bit hard when in fact we were in control of the run rate in terms of the chase, with this outfield and the boundaries here, if we'd had wickets in hand you never know. Those are some of the important lessons that I think we need to take into the next one. India's legendary wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni admires a drive through the covers by Doug Bracewell Just a classy 57 from Tauranga-born Doug Bracewell late in the evening when the game had gone gave the Blackcaps some respectability, as they fell for 234 in the 41st over. So India, who have a quality opening partnership of 154 between Rohit Sharma (87) and Shikhar Dhawan (66) to thank for laying the foundations of their winning total of 324/4, take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. With half their 50 overs gone a total of 350-plus looked on for the Indians, but composed bowling from Ish Sodhi, Bracewell and Trent Boult put the brakes on to some extent and left their side chasing a more realistic target. Colin de Grandhomme tries to go big over cow corner... ...but can't get the distance and watches on as Ambati Rayudu holds on to the catch on the boundary It was one Williamson believed to be within reach of his side. We showed glimpses in the chase, we just never put it together long enough. It's two games in a row we haven't had control at any stage, which is the part that's most frustrating, but it's important we look to make small steps forward and not get carried away with the results. Bay of Plenty Ever thought of joining the civil construction industry? if so then this is your chance to get a foot in the door. We are... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. Sponsored By: Arvest Bank In 2007, when making a speech during his bid for the presidency of the United States, the late Senator John McCain spoke about Irans supposed nuclear weapons programme and when questioned as to whether there might be US reaction to such allegations responded by singing That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. This jovial retort about killing people by bombing them was not surprising to those who remembered that during the US war on Vietnam McCain was shot down on a mission to bomb a power generation plant in Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, in the course of the entrancingly-named Operation Rolling Thunder. If he hadnt been shot down before he released his bombs there would almost certainly have been civilian casualties and deaths. Power stations in cities are not manned by soldiers, after all, and around the Hanoi plant there were houses that would doubtless be struck by errant bombs. But who cares about civilians who are killed or maimed in bombing or rocket attacks? In Syria, for example, in October 2018 the US-led coalition was responsible for 46% of civilian casualties from all explosive weapon use in Syria. And in November Reuters reported that At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed in US air strikes in the Afghan province of Helmand, officials and residents of the area said on Wednesday, the latest casualties from a surge in air operations aimed at driving the Taliban into talks. Forbes records that the US has never dropped as many bombs on Afghanistan as it did this year. According to U.S. Air Forces Central Command data, manned and unmanned aircraft released 5,213 weapons between January and the end of September 2018. The UN announced that the number of civilian casualties in the first nine months of 2018 is higher than in any year since it started documenting them in 2009. On January 25 Defense Post reported that Afghanistan is investigating reports that at least 16 civilians including women and children were killed in an airstrike in southern Helmand province, the defense ministry said in a statement. On and on its goes Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Afghanistan. Theres nothing new in this, so far as US Secretary of State Pompeo is concerned. As a member of Congress in 2014 he made it clear that he was one of the bombing club. As The Nation reported, Representative Mike Pompeo (R-KS), participating in the same [Foreign Affairs Committee] roundtable, urged the United States and its allies to strongly consider a pre-emptive bombing campaign of Irans nuclear sites. He said In an unclassified setting, it is under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity. This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces. The fact that when Pompeo was asked at a US Senate hearing in April 2018 if he was supportive of a preemptive strike on Iran he declared Im not. Im absolutely not is indicative only of the fact that he is given to duplicity. Which brings us to Trumps National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who has been an advocate of bombing for many years. He is the man who declared in November 2002 that We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq and four weeks before the US invaded Iraq, according to Israels Haaretz newspaper in February 2003, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials on Monday that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards. Iraq was duly bombed and rocketed and reduced to chaos, and Bolton was totally unrepentant. In an article in the UKs Daily Telegraph in 2016 he pronounced that Iraq today suffers not from the 2003 invasion, but from the 2011 withdrawal of all US combat forces. What strengthened Irans hand in Iraq was not the absence of Saddam [Hussein], but the absence of coalition troops with a writ to crush efforts by the ayatollahs to support and arm Shiite militias. When US forces left, the last possibility of Iraq succeeding as a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state left with them. Dont blame Tony Blair and George W Bush for that failure. Blame their successors. In November 2016 Bolton was aptly described by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough as a massive neocon on steroids but the Financial Times argues that he is not a neocon, because Neocons believe US values should be universal. Mr Bolton believes in aggressive promotion of the US national interest, which is quite different. Be that as it may, there are some things that are certain, such as that Bolton is a rabid warmonger who avoided serving in Vietnam just like Donald Trump and George W Bush and Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney and many others. (And here it has to be said that my feelings are strong about this, having served in Vietnam in the Australian Army in 1970-71.) As noted by the Daily News of his Alma Mater, Yale, though Bolton supported the Vietnam War, he declined to enter combat duty, instead enlisting in the National Guard and attending law school after his 1970 graduation. I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy, Bolton wrote of his decision in the 25th reunion book. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost. But now that it is obvious that Washington lost its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bolton is ready for another one. In July 2018, while tension between the US and Iran was heightening, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, warned Washington about pursuing a hostile policy against his country, saying Mr Trump, dont play with the lions tail, this would only lead to regret America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars. That was a red rag to a bull, and Trump responded in his normal way by tweeting To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) That is frightening. Any world leader who tweets such things as North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen is verging on the psychotic. And, in his own words, the demented. Trumps former foreign policy officials were not altogether in favour of having Iran and North Korea suffer unspecified by obviously terrifying consequences for having expressed its views on Trump policy, but now, as the BBC notes, Mr Trump has built a foreign policy team that is largely on the same page his page. Thats the Fire and Fury Page, and its being proof-read and expanded by Pompeo and Bolton. Stand by for Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran. Washington, MO (63090) Today Mixed clouds and sun this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. Hot. High 94F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 72F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. America's immigration debate will continue to rage until Americans ultimately get on the same page. This dispute exists because we are neither asking nor answering the right questions. Yes, there is a humanitarian crisis at America's southern border. Blame for the crisis fits squarely upon those who have either forgotten or who have besmirched our American history. Multiple credible sources state that between 1907 and 1912, as many as 5,000 immigrants per day were processed through the Ellis Island Immigration Center in New York harbor. Today's problem of undocumented immigrants is just that; we are refusing to set up and staff documentation facilities. Dishonoring our history and heritage by processing only 150 immigrants per day shows the ill intent of conservative oligarchs who would rather hoard America than share it. In 1907, America had the will to provide the facilities and the manpower to process our immigrants, expending our consciences and collective compassions in ways that minimized the suffering of those victims of the socio-economic injustice that drove them from their homelands. We had the understanding of what made America universally viable and what would sustain that viability. Simply put, we understood the meaning of "E Pluribus Unum." In Missouri, governors find mercy as theyre heading out the door. Republican Gov. Eric Greitens pardoned five people and commuted the sentences of four before he resigned. Democrat Jay Nixon granted 110 clemency actions the most by a Missouri governor in three decades and the vast majority came late in his second term. Gov. Mike Parson has an opportunity to restore clemency power as it was meant to be exercised to remedy the worst injustices. For the past several decades, those who suffered miscarriages of justice hung their hopes on an unlikely last chance based on a governors whims and political calculations. The prevailing social attitude was to lock offenders up and throw away the key, and sentencing reflected this mindset. But that mindset is changing as the public becomes acquainted with the significant and obvious flaws in the criminal justice system. Harsh sentences handed down decades ago to drug abusers, for example, would no longer be given today. Such sentences fail to serve the cause of justice, and lawmakers have been taking action at state and national levels to fix whats wrong in sentencing guidelines. CNN has exclusive footage showing FBI arrive at Roger Stone's Florida home to arrest him. Friday appeared to be shaping up as a normal day for Roger Stone as the clock ticked past midnight: He was promoting recent media appearances and attacking former colleague Jerome Corsi on his social media accounts. Hours later, FBI agents would be knocking on his door and he'd be heading to a courtroom to face an indictment on a myriad of charges from special counsel Robert Mueller. CNN compiled Stone's activities from the 72 hours before his arrest based on a review of his social media accounts and media appearances. He spent most of that time pushing the same message -- his former colleagues and acquaintances who had spoken to special counsel Robert Mueller were liars and traitors, he was an innocent man and that he was standing behind President Donald Trump. Here's CNN's breakdown of Stone's days leading up to his arrest: Wednesday, January 23 3:00 p.m. Roger Stone co-hosts InfoWars show. 8:10 p.m. "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization how did that language become offensive?" the Iowa Republican told the Times. "Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?" On Saturday, King said that his quote was only referencing Western civilization, which he promised to defend from alleged affronts from the left. "What I was addressing was not those terms of white supremacy or white nationalism," King said. "Yes, (the Times reporter) said those terms to me, and yes, I responded to his question about them. But when I said 'why did that language become offensive,' I was speaking exclusively and directly about Western civilization." "They are denigrating Western civilization today, and if they can break down Western civilization and turn it into the scourge of history, then our freedom is gone, and there's nothing left to fight for," he added. Stone also criticized the FBI, which arrested him at his home in Florida just after 6 a.m. Friday. Mueller wrote in the indictment that publicly disclosing the arrest would "increase the risk of the defendant fleeing and destroying (or tampering with) evidence" in an explanation for its manner. "There was no need to have 29 FBI agents with assault weapons and side arms and hand grenades and a battering ram to smash in my front door," Stone said. "They could simply have called my attorney and I would have surrendered voluntarily." "When you don't have evidence, you use theatrics," he added. When asked whether his testimony could compromise other campaign officials, Stone replied, "certainly not the President." He said it would be "highly unlikely" that he could implicate other officials, adding that he was not "in regular contact with the campaign" after former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort left his role, and that the remaining aides "were not close associates of mine." Mueller alleges that the longtime Trump associate sought stolen emails from WikiLeaks that could damage Trump's opponents while in coordination with senior Trump campaign officials. Five are dead after a string of shootings in Louisiana, law enforcement officials said. CNN's Kaylee Hartung reports. A manhunt is underway in Louisiana following a string of shootings that left the suspect's parents and three others dead, law enforcement officials said. Authorities are looking for 21-year Dakota Theriot after two Saturday morning shootings in Ascension and Livingston parishes, near Baton Rouge. "This is probably one of the worst domestic violence incidents I've seen in quite a while," said Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre. Theriot is accused of killing his parents, Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 50, in the town of Gonzalez, the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office said. The Theriots were alive Saturday morning when deputies arrived to their home and were able to identify their son as the gunman, Webre told reporters. The suspect has been charged with two counts of first degree murder, illegal use of weapons and home invasion, Webre told reporters. "Dakota Theriot lived there for a brief period of time but was recently asked to leave the residence and not to return," Webre said. Dakota Theriot is also suspected of killing three more people less than 30 miles northeast in Livingston Parish. But the St. Louis County NAACP and others demanded that the station fire Steincross, saying that whether or not it was a mistake, it was grounds for termination. The organization was joined by the Ethical Society of Police, a police membership organization that represents primarily black officers. KTVI management apologized Friday and said it met with the NAACP, the Urban League, the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists and others over the last week to talk. We are committed to the healing process and moving forward together through open dialogue and action, the station said in a written statement. We look forward to continuing these discussions and taking specific action in the days ahead. St. Louis County NAACP President John Gaskin said Friday that Steincross suspension was a result of the pressure they put on the station and its owners, Tribune Media. Had we not called for his termination we genuinely believe that they would not have done anything in the first place, Gaskin said. I think the Tribune needs to do some very in-depth soul searching. ST. LOUIS A man who was shot Friday night near Interstate 70 in the College Hill neighborhood has died, police said. The shooting occurred around 10:15 p.m. in the 1400 block of De Soto Avenue. The man was not conscious or breathing, according to police. Police said early Saturday morning the victim had died. Police at the scene were looking into a car that hopped the curb and had a shattered driver's side window. Authorities asked anyone with information to contact CrimeStoppers at 1-866-371-8477. Tipsters can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a reward. BELLEVILLE Belleville attorney James A. Gomric is expected to be named to replace St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly, who resigned to lead the Illinois State Police. As first reported by the Belleville News-Democrat, Mondays St. Clair County Board agenda lists Gomric's name to be recommended to the post by County Board Chairman Mark Kern. Gomric, 49, worked in the states attorneys office from 1995 until 1998. He has worked as a criminal defense attorney representing clients in state and federal courts. Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker picked Kelly to be the new head of the Illinois State Police, Kelly confirmed to the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday. Kelly, 42, of Swansea, has been the top St. Clair County prosecutor since 2010. He ran as a Democrat for Illinois' 12th Congressional District seat in the 2018 midterm election, but lost to incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro. Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Tony Messenger Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Two decades ago, Bill Maritz called for unity. It was April 1999, and the chairman of the board of Maritz Inc. was being honored as the 46th Citizen of the Year in St. Louis. As former Sen. Thomas Eagleton had done in a similar speech just a few years before, Maritz urged the leaders of the St. Louis region, all gathered for the annual event, to unite the city and the county as one governmental entity. 5 St. Louisans guided Better Together's merger recommendations Five local residents have worked for 18 months in near anonymity to craft a future for St. Louis that is unified in government, devoid of geog Instead of being known as a community which is racially and economically divided with profound disparities, why not become a community where we forget race, color, creed and gender and become known as a big, important, open-minded, generous, kind and forward-looking, 21st-century American city? Maritz asked. Why not forget our pettiness, our animosities, our anxieties? Why not become one for the benefit of all? Mark Wrighton remembers the speech. He was just a couple of years into his job as chancellor of Washington University, a job that he is stepping down from in June. Wrighton came to St. Louis from Boston, and he remembers the division of government entities being striking to him when he moved to the metro area that would become his home. ST. LOUIS The Pink Sisters prayed for good weather. Stagehands at America's Center tore down a car show and put up an altar, framed by a 45-foot-tall arch. There was too much talk of highway gridlock. Pope John Paul II, leader of the world's Roman Catholics, arrived in St. Louis on Jan. 26, 1999, for a whirlwind 31-hour visit. The 78-year-old Polish pontiff managed to take part in a lively youth rally in Kiel (now Enterprise) Center, celebrate Mass with 104,000 people, lead an ecumenical service at the New Cathedral and persuade a governor to spare a condemned man. It was 54 degrees on Jan. 26. On the second day, the temperature reached 68. The Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters, a cloistered order near O'Fallon Park known for their rose-colored habits, credited a higher power. The pope arrived from Mexico City in Shepherd One, his TWA charter, at 1:20 p.m. and met with President Bill Clinton and other leaders at Lambert Field. Then unfolded the visit's only disappointment his motorcade greeted by decent, but not overwhelming, crowds along the miles of orange crowd-control fence. That morning, young people had filled Market Street from the Old Cathedral to Kiel Center with a two-hour parade of banners, posters and exuberance. A young womans fond memories of her happy childhood and loving parents are turned upside down when she learns she may have been kidnapped more than 28 years ago in The Nowhere Child, a stunning debut by Christian White. The perceptive plot of The Nowhere Child works well as a story about the extremes that one will go to protect loved ones as well as a tale about what makes a family. White skillfully creates a credible story filled with surprises and realistic characters worth caring about. Kim Leamy has a quiet life teaching photography at a school in Melbourne, Australia. Her loving mother, Carol, recently died, but she has a solid relationship with her supportive stepfather, Dean. While she isnt as close to her half-sister, Amy, she knows she can always count on her. Kims life changes when she is approached by an American, James Finn, who tells her that she may be Sammy Went, who was kidnapped from her home in Kentucky when she was 2. Kim doesnt believe him. She has her birth certificate, and her family has always lived in Australia. One reason that Jo Ann Parks has served 27 years of a life sentence for a triple murder she probably did not commit is jurors tendency to play amateur shrink. After her garage apartment in the Bell City section of Los Angeles went up in flames on April 9, 1989, and she escaped, with her three young children still inside, Parks repeatedly asked a police officer if they were OK; each time, he assured her that they were. Without demanding to see them, however, she complied with the cops request that she wait at a police station a few blocks away. Some jurors made Parks acquiescence the deciding factor in their vote to convict her of murder by arson. In Burned, his riveting account of the fire and its repercussions, Edward Humes sums up those jurors reasoning: There was no way any mother any mother who wasnt a killer, that is would hear her kids were OK and then leave the scene without first seeing them for herself. Yet the prosecution had not made that argument, perhaps because the defense could easily have explained such behavior by a mother in Parks situation. (On her lawyers advice, Parks herself did not testify.) For example, she may have had a foreboding that the kids were not OK, so putting off seeing them was a way to keep hope alive. UNPR (National Union for the Progress of Romania) on Saturday told a press conference in Iasi that more than 50,000 persons registered with this party in the past three months. "In the past three months, and this is no exaggeration, more than 50,000 persons registered with the UNPR, especially military and reserve policemen," said Oprea. In his turn, the leader of the Iasi County branch of the UNPR, Mircea Manolache, specified that this branch has 2,600 members."Most definitely, I can tell you that the number of our organisation's members will double," said Manolache.The UNPR head, Gabriel Oprea , participated in the Conference of UNPR organisations in Region 1 North-Eastern Moldova. According to Oprea, this action is part of a series taken by the leadership of the part during this time of reorganisation of the UNPR structures.On this occasion, Vasile Salaru is designated president of the municipal organisation UNPR Iasi. Salaru was president of ALDE Iasi and county counselor on behalf of this political entity. He was also secretary of state with the Ministry of Education. Former Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos on Saturday told the participants in the National Convention of the Freedom, Unity and Solidarity Party (PLUS) that, if they were to wait for the PSD (Social Democratic Party, part of the ruling coalition) to disappear by itself, through political self-destruction, they might have the "surprise" of watching it return "in other shapes". "We will lay the principles of good governance and good community collaboration at the grounds of our society." We will form strong and involved local communities to show the citizens they can do it. For we need concrete examples for those who lost their faith that things could change and only then we can say we truly succeeded. At the bottom of its society, Romania is not divided. We all want the same thing, but we do not know how to get it. There are no such camps like "in favour of the PDS" and "against the PSD," there are only people with their needs, who want to live better. And we are the ones who need to give them a hand and not to judge them, for such judgments are artificially tearing the community apart. This is how we will definitely overcome the cleavages and hatred because of political choices. If we expect PSD to disappear through political self-destruction we can have the surprise of see it return in other shapes. Only by changing the mentalities and behaviors at the bottom of our society we can come out of this trap of politicians who divide and incite hate. This is what we want PLUS to bring into Romanian society," Ciolos said. He added that he wants PLUS to be an open party in which all who want to participate in social reconstruction are welcome."We are proposing a political motion, a programmatic motion. We are starting to build our project around a national strategy of sustainable welfare, which is the basis of this programmatic motion - a sustainable welfare that is only achievable by a type of education that builds personalities capable of assuming one's own becoming and their own opinions, an education that succeeds when it stimulates critical thinking, when society reinvents its way of organizing and stimulates entrepreneurship and creativity. This must happen in rural areas as well and in the urban area," said Dacian Ciolos. By JPost , Jan . 24, 2019 Support for competing sides in Venezuelas latest crisis has divided the world and has its origins in differences over Middle Eastern politics. On January 23, the US recognized Juan Guaido as the interim President of Venezuela, even as the regime of President Nicolas Maduro continues to hold the mantle of power in Caracas. Turkey has offered some of the strongest support for Maduro yet. Maduro brother, stand tall, Turkey stands with you, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Maduro in a recent phone call. Read More: Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com Follow Larry Elder on Follow Larry Elder on Twitter "Like" Larry Elder on Facebook But his weaknesses were also evident. His opening lines referred to Adlai Stevenson, who died 54 years ago. He seemed at times to not have control over the volume of his own voice, and he meandered so much that at one point he stopped himself to say, "Now I'm beginning to sound like the wonk I hate." He did not mention Trump by name. He made light of a New York Times story about how he went to Michigan just before the November election and, during a $200,000 paid speech, praised Rep. Fred Upton in remarks that were used to help the Republican incumbent win a tight reelection campaign. "I read in the New York Times today that one of my problems is, if I were to run for president, is that I like Republicans," he said. Then he crossed himself, adding, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." "It's like we've divided the country into pieces," he added. "How can we be one America if we continue down this road? I don't care what your party affiliation is." Biden is one of the few candidates whose decision could shape the field, at least minimally, and alter the calculus of other prospective presidential candidates. But unlike most any other potential presidential aspirant, he has a lengthy legacy to consider that could be greatly impacted by a presidential campaign. A Greensboro man was arrested along the interstate in Iredell County on charges of identity theft and stolen property. The sheriffs office said it arrested Chai Xiong, 38, of Greensboro, on Tuesday afternoon while conducting a traffic stop at mile marker 155 on Interstate 40. Deputy M. Hicks stopped a westbound 2005 Cadillac Escalade for a traffic violation, according to a release. Deputy Hicks identified Xiong and ran a criminal data search, learning that Xiong had six outstanding warrants for his arrest in Greensboro, the release stated. The warrants were for three counts of felony obtaining property by false pretense, two counts of felony identity theft and felony conspiracy. Authorities said Xiong was found to be out on bond for unrelated charges in Guilford County. Hicks arrested Xiong on the outstanding warrants and cited him for driving without a license, according to the release. He was issued a $15,000 secured bond for both the driving charge and the warrants. His sister, Kayla Randolph, echoed her mothers concerns. I wish I knew if he was alive, she said. She will lead a search party of about 40 people on Saturday to look for her brother. A mysterious disappearence Randolph was reportedly last seen by family on Jan. 16, when his sister claimed she saw him near the woods behind a family home on Twisted Oak Lane off Hickory Highway in western Iredell County, according to the press release. Kayla Randolph told the Record & Landmark that she last saw her brother entering the woods behind their mothers property around 3:30 a.m. She said that Randolph was gone for 15 to 20 minutes before she heard three gunshots, went outside and could not locate him. She said hearing gunfire is common in the area. Maj. Andy Poteat, supervisor of the sheriffs criminal investigation unit at the sheriffs office, said investigators have been unable to find evidence of gunfire in the area. Kayla Randolph, 28, also said that a friend came to her home around 7 a.m. that morning. The friend apparently said he discovered Randolph inside the friends home trying to calm a house dog around 6:30 a.m. and threw him out. Community Bank was conditionally approved by the FDIC in December for deposit insurance. The bank also must receive a bank charter from the N.C. Office of the Commissioner of Banks, and have continued operation within the parameters of an approved business plan for its first three years. More than 400 local investors have committed to participate in the Community Bank IPO. Investors believe the time is right to bring back community banking, Brown said Nov. 12. Many customers are simply being underserved by big banks. The public offering of between 2.27 million and 2.73 million shares, priced at $11 per share, will expire Feb. 28. Organizers, however, have the option to extend the deadline. Investors must buy at least 2,000 shares, representing a $22,000 expenditure. They are limited to acquiring no more than 100,000 shares, representing a $1.1 million expenditure. The average investor has provided about $50,000, Brown said. I am a nearly lifelong resident of Scotts Bluff County, and a Scottsbluff business owner and employer. I am also a member of the board of directors of the Riverside Discovery Center. In this editorial, I am asking readers for their continuing support for our excellent zoo. This includes contacting our elected representatives in Scottsbluff, Gering and Terrytown to express our support for the zoo. Riverside Discovery Center should be a point of pride for our community. It is the only zoo between Denver and Lincoln. Our zoo is a quality of life reason for a young Nebraska family to make Scottsbluff their choice for their new home. Our executive director has great vision for how Riverside Discovery Center can expand the ways in which it serves our community: new educational programs, exciting new animals and great attention to the small details that make a zoo attractive for visitors. But the zoo cannot exist on community donations alone. The zoo is committed to keeping memberships and admission prices affordable so that any family or individual can visit. Our supporters are as generous as they can be, within their family and business budgets. Yet anyone who has tried to raise money for a school or nonprofit organization knows that it is easier to say you should just raise more private donations than to actually make that happen. SCOTTSBLUFF West Nebraska Arts Center (WNAC) has been awarded a grant of $4,000.00 by the Oregon Trail Community Foundation (OTCF) to purchase new sound systems for both of our galleries, the Main gallery and our Bronson gallery. West Nebraska Arts Center Executive Director, Michele Denon, said, We are thrilled to be supported by such a wonderful organization. OTCF and their financial leadership are an important part of the upkeep, as well as the progress, at WNAC, and we couldnt be more grateful for the support. The sound systems have already helped to round out the beautiful environment we have here at the West Nebraska Arts Center. Music is an integral part of the atmosphere in the galleries and sets the tone for viewing and enjoying the artwork. Our wine tasting fundraiser last weekend was enhanced by the opportunity to play 60s music to go along with our Creative Juices theme. The sound systems we had previously were very outdated, the one from the Bronson gallery had and 8 track in it. LINCOLN Nebraskans receiving a tax refund this year have an opportunity to support wildlife and habitat conservation. On Line 45 of the Nebraska state income tax form, individuals may donate all or part of their tax refund to the Nebraska Wildlife Conservation Fund, which helps the thousands of species in Nebraska that are not hunted or fished, particularly those that are rare, endangered or threatened. Tax refund donations have benefited many species over the years, including river otters, monarch butterflies, swift fox, peregrine falcons and bald eagles. Donations are used to maintain and improve habitat for these and many other nongame animals, as well as to provide wildlife viewing and other educational opportunities for Nebraskans. Additional information is available online at NebraskaWildlifeFund.org. For taxpayers not entitled to a state tax refund, contributions can be made online at NebraskaWildlifeFund.org or by mail to: Nebraska Wildlife Conservation Fund, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, P.O. Box 30370, 2200 N. 33rd Street, Lincoln, NE 68503. Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form LINCOLN The annual Nebraska State Habitat Meeting, hosted by Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, will be held Feb. 9 at the Holiday Inn Convention Center in Kearney. The meeting, which is open to the public, will include presentations on wildlife, wildlife habitat and education. For more information or to register, visit NebraskaPF.com or call 308-850-8395. Pheasants Forever, including its quail conservation division, Quail Forever, is the nations largest nonprofit organization dedicated to upland habitat conservation, with more than 149,000 members and 725 chapters across the United States and Canada. Submit Your News We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form LINCOLN Thursday, Governor Pete Ricketts signed a proclamation highlighting School Choice Week at a rally with students in the Warner Chamber at the State Capitol. Following the rally, the Governor hosted a press conference with Senator Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, the Nebraska Catholic Conference, and other groups supporting school choice. School Choice Week is a great opportunity to highlight the work we have to do to give more students and families more opportunities to get the education they need to achieve their dreams, said Ricketts. This year, we are working to create Opportunity Scholarships for K-12 students and establish the Nebraska Talent Scholarships program for college students. Initiatives like these will give students more choice in pursuing education in their preferred setting to help them achieve great things. Jerry Meyring, co-owner of the Meyring Cattle Company, testified that the dog had been trained to nip at the cows heels, however, the dog had been trained to stay away from the enclosed tub/alley/chute area. Jerry Meyring, co-owner Jay Meyring and another employee testified they had never seen the dog near the area and did not see him in that area on the day of the accident. They also testified Smith should not have been in the alley where he had been charged. According to testimony also introduced at trial, Smiths girlfriend at the time of the accident testified she and Smith had used methamphetamine the night of the accident and during his lunch break. There was medical evidence he was under the influence at the time of the accident. The defense had sought a motion for a directed verdict, which the court granted, in favor of Meyring. Smith appealed. The main question for the appeals court revolved around whether or not the strict liability law applied as Smith had interpreted it. Smith cited the nipping dog as the proximate cause of his injuries. Ogden jazz icon Joe McQueen may be gone, but his memory and legacy live on. One physical reminder of his life, McQueen's lifelong home at 3158 Grant Ave., has now become available for sale. The house received extensive remodeling, but as investor Richard Casperson has said, "Joe's energy is T raditional careers are over: now kids want to be YouTubers or Instagrammers. But, what does the future of influencing look like? Is the bubble ever going to burst? Or will we eventually all end up selling teeth whitening kits on Instagram, trying our hardest to land a book deal? This is a question Lucy Loveridge, head of talent management at Gleam Futures UK office, is going to be pondering in a few weeks time at Vidcon London, a dedicated festival and conference to all things YouTube and social media. It first started about three years ago with people saying the influencer bubble is going to be burst. To be quite honest, Ive been told it so many times, I was thinking, am I the only one who thinks its not going to burst and are they all right and Im wrong? she tells the Standard. Life at Gleam If anyone is going to know what the future of influencers holds, its the staff at Gleam. The agency, started in 2010 by founder and CEO Dominic Smales, initially launched as a consultancy for brands wanting to connect with online audiences. After working with the Chapman sisters, the duo behind Pixie Woo, on behalf of Chanel, Smales moved into the management side of things, helping the up and coming YouTubers to negotiate deals and grow their audiences. Now, the company is the original influencer talent management agency. Its roster includes some of the biggest names in digital-first talent: Zoella, Jack Maynard, Mother Pukka, and Marcus Butler. Loveridge has been at the agency for seven years, firstly as an account manager for some beauty brands, before moving onto the talent side of things. Back then YouTube was king, Instagram was still independent, and no one had even heard of Snapchat. Its all changed so much over the years, [if anyone] asks me why Ive been here so long I always say the fact the industry changes every six months means its really interesting; we have to evolve, the talent has to evolve and that keeps it fresh, she says. Lucy Loveridge has been working for Gleam for seven years / Gleam Futures In her role as head of talent management UK, Loveridge oversees the 17-strong talent team in the companys head office. She liaises with brands, works alongside the different platforms, and takes part in new talent meetings. If youre hoping to be noticed by Gleam, youll be happy to know the agency doesnt take on people with specific follower count. Weve taken on talent at 30,000 Instagram followers, weve taken on at 3 million, she explains. Revenue doesnt correlate with following, its really different individual to individual. Really, its about doing something a little different and making sure youre ready to put the time in. Loveridge thinks the biggest misconception with influencers is that they dont work hard. A lot of people think its easy if it was easier then more of us would do it successfully, she says. The people on our roster started doing it as a hobby on the side of their career, spending all of their evenings and weekends trying to shoot content. That kind of determination and willpower wont go unnoticed. What's next for influencers? It is becoming harder for people to break through. It's one thing to have an Instagram following, it's quite another to reach the heights that the likes of Zoella, who's reportedly worth 2.5 million. This is where that passion, and individuality, needs to come through. Last year, Gleam signed its first influencer from Instagram Stories: @MrsHinchHome uses Stories to showcase videos of her cleaning her home. Mrs Hinch went from over 1,000 followers to one million in six months, is releasing a book later this year, and recently announced her pregnancy on Instagram. Its fascinating. Shes one of the first that Ive seen really grow through the use of Stories. All of the girls in the office suddenly started talking about her. I had a friend last night saying, Oh my god, Im obsessed with Mrs Hinch, says Loveridge. Its an interesting case we might see more of [influencers from Instagram Stories] but I havent seen anyone other than Mrs Hinch do that yet. It doesnt mean its not happening, I just havent seen it. Vidcon, the festival and conference dedicated to all things YouTube, is coming to London for the first time / VidCon What about micro influencers, the term for a range of Instagram stars with up to 100,000 followers that have an extremely engaged following. I think theres a role for everybody. If youre a brand and you want a lot of people to see beautiful content about your brand, then a micro influencer campaign can work well, but youre obviously missing reach. Its all about what you want to achieve: do you want eyeballs, clicks, sales? The micro influencers might want to watch out though, as Loveridge says nano influencers are reportedly on the rise, accounts with followings around the 1,000 2,000 mark. I think the majority of young people on Instagram that have that kind of following, she laughs. It becomes harder to ascertain what is an influencer and what is just your friend at that point. YouTubers, influencers, micro influencers, nano influencers, where is it all going? All weve seen is growth in the industry with more and more big media agencies, big brands, TV networks investing in it. Now, I have no doubt that it wont burst, I can only see it growing, says Loveridge. The determining factor though will be who has talent and who doesnt. There is a lot of influencers or talent on the market and it is somewhat saturated, she says. I think we will see it separate in terms of people and talent who have the ability to have long and diverse careers built off the back of a social following, and influencers who are doing lots of brand partnerships and look at it through a short term lens. D ebbie McGee who rose to fame alongside magician husband Paul Daniels has revealed she has had surgery to treat breast cancer. McGee, 60, had two tumours removed last week after cancerous tissue was found in her left breast, she told The Sun. The TV and radio star found fame as Daniels's assistant before they married in April 1988. The couple had been married for 28 years, and were together for a decade before that, when Daniels died of a brain tumour at the age of 77 in March 2016. She told the paper she thinks the stress of losing her husband may have brought on the disease, which was diagnosed at an early stage in October. She said: "Stress, I think caused mine. I've never been through the stress I've been through since I lost Paul. Debbie McGee on Strictly Come Dancing / BBC / Guy Levy "Grief hits you in so many ways you're not expecting." McGee turned heads during the 2017 series of Strictly, reaching the final with professional partner Giovanni Pernice. Her foray into the BBC Saturday night hit show followed on from Daniels' appearance in 2010. Speaking at the time, she said: "The last time I danced was over 35 years ago. "I've never had any experience in this type of dancing, but I learnt ballet and modern tap when I was a child and I did dance for a few years - but that was 35 years ago, so now it's like starting from scratch." She said her appearance on Strictly made her "genuinely happy" for the first time since her husband's death. In her youth, McGee won a place at the Royal Ballet School and went on to join the Iranian National Ballet Company in Tehran, but the overthrowing of the Shah by Ayatollah Khomeni in the 1979 Revolution meant she had to return to the UK. She first met Daniels after being chosen to perform on stage in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, for a summer show and returned for a second summer in Bournemouth. The West End followed and the couple performed together in It's Magic, which ran for more than a year in the early 1980s. E uropean leaders have delivered an ultimatum to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and said they will officially recognise the leader of the opposition if he does not call elections within eight days. The United Nations Security Council is meeting on Saturday to discuss the situation in Venezuela after Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president of Venezuela, setting off a standoff with Mr Maduro. Mr Guaido is head of the Congress, which considers Maduro's re-election last year invalid. The US and several other countries have recognized Mr Guaido as president, while Mr Maduro accuses opponents of staging a coup. Foreign minister Jeremy Hunt has now joined officials in Germany, France and Spain in committing their support for Mr Guaido as the interim president if fresh elections are not announced by next Sunday. A crowd gathers for opposition leader Juan Guido / Getty Images After banning opposition candidates, ballot box stuffing and counting irregularities in a deeply flawed election it is clear Nicolas Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela, Mr Hunt wrote on Twitter on Saturday. Juan Guaido is the right person to take Venezuela forward. If there are not fresh and fair elections announced within 8 days the UK will recognise him as interim President to take forward the political process towards democracy. Similar comments were made by spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wrote that the people of Venezuela must be able to freely and securely decide about its future. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also gave an eight-day ultimatum, saying on Saturday that Spain is giving the government of Nicolas Maduro eight days to convoke free, transparent and democratic elections. He added: If that does not occur, Spain will recognize Juan Guaido as the president charged with carrying out said elections." Mr Sanchez said that as leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, Mr Guaido is "the person who should lead the transition to free elections." He said his government wants other EU members to back its position. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez / REUTERS US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to address Saturday's UN Security Council meeting along with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and the other council members, including supporters of both duelling presidents. The session focusing on Venezuela's crisis comes a day after Mr Guaido vowed to remain on the streets until his country has a transitional government, while Mr Maduro stood his ground. A puppy born in the US with his front paws facing up instead of down has had elbow surgery to help him be able to walk. The 10-week-old puppy, named Milo, was left unable to walk after suffering a congenital elbow dislocation. He is recovering from an operation earlier this month to correct his paws. Dr. Erik Clary from Oklahoma State Universitys Center for Veterinary Health Services said Friday that he is pleased with the progress Milo, a 10-week-old puppy, is recovering after surgery to realign his elbows. / AP Milo, a part beagle, part coonhound, had pins inserted into his elbows to realign the joints. An animal rescue group founder took Milo to the school. It is caring for the puppy post-surgery. T he death toll from the horrific Mexico pipeline explosion earlier this month has risen to 114. This almost doubles the previous figure of 66, while 33 people remain in hospital. Mexican Health Minister Jorge Alcocer said on Saturday that 46 of those injured in the blast have died in hospital. He said those remaining in hospital run a high risk of infection in their kidneys, cardiovascular and respiratory systems. This, he explained, is because they inhaled scalding air that burned their tracheas and bronchial tubes. Three patients are being treated in Galveston, Texas. Hundreds of people were in the vicinity of an illegal pipeline tap that spewed gasoline in the town of Tlahuelilpan on January 18 when the liquid caught fire and exploded into a fireball. Dozens of local residents scrambling to fill up containers with oil were engulfed in flames after the blast. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has launched a major crackdown on rampant fuel theft, which the government said cost the country more than $3 billion last year. A prosecutor is investigating a flight instructor who was in the back of a plane which fatally collided with a helicopter over the Italian alps. The man survived the midair collision on Friday and has been questioned over the incident. This comes as authorities said the bodies of the last two people from the crash in Italy's Val d'Aosta region were found on Saturday, raising the death toll to seven. The French flight instructor was one of two survivors of the accident over the Rutor glacier. Wreckage left in the snow following the collision / AP Italian news agency ANSA quoted Aosta Chief Prosecutor Paolo Fortuna saying he was investigating the instructor for alleged manslaughter. He has been questioned him in a hospital intensive care unit. ANSA says the instructor was reportedly sitting in the rear of the plane and his students were in front. The students, a Belgian man and a Frenchman, died. The helicopter involved was bringing skiers to the glacier. The Rutor glacier covers nine square kilometres, 3.5 square miles, and is the second-largest in the Val d'Aosta region, which borders F rances yellow vest campaigners took the streets for the eleventh weekend in a row as they continued to apply pressure on President Emmanuel Macron. Tear gas was deployed in some areas while cars were set alight as authorities remained concerned of escalating violence. Multiple anti-government protests took place in Paris and other cities. They were centred on criticising policies from Mr Macron which seen as favouring the wealthy. France deployed about 80,000 police officers to patrol the events. A few cars were set ablaze in the Normandy town of Evreux and in Paris, crowds gathered at the columned headquarters of France's lower house of parliament. Protestors gather by a barricade in France (ZAKARIA ABDELKAFI/AFP/Getty Images) Police used tear gas on demonstrators at the iconic Bastille Plaza who hurled items while armored vehicles circled the Arc de Triomphe monument as a group of protesters weaved down the elegant Champs-Elysees, where riots recently broke out. Some yellow vest leaders want to maintain momentum by holding protests after dark as well as during the day. Two groups planned Saturday events at Place de la Republique in eastern Paris. Some some protesters threatened to try to defy police and stay overnight. Mr Macron has sapped some support for the movement by taking an active role in a national debate in towns across France. This was launched to address the protesters' concerns. Participants at the Champs-Elysees march called Mr Macron's national debate a "smokescreen" and said it was distract the French from his pro-business policies. They expressed views which ranged from the far left to the far right, highlighting a split in the movement. Many want Mr Macron to restore France's wealth tax and allow the public to propose national referendums on anything from pulling France out of the euro to rewriting the constitution. It is unclear how long the movement can maintain its momentum, following Mr Macron scrapping the fuel tax hike that initially sparked the protests. He offered widespread tax relief when the protest violence hit a peak in December. One branch of the movement launched a bid this week for the European Parliament elections in May, though other protest leaders disagree with the idea. In another challenge for the yellow vest movement, rival groups calling themselves the "red scarves" plan demonstrations on Sunday. These will be held to condemn violence unleashed by recent protests. In between the Saturday protests, yellow-vested crowds have occupied scattered roundabouts as well as tollbooths around France. They have disrupted traffic to express a sense of neglect by the central government. D onald Trump has said a migrant caravan of up to 8,000 people is heading for the US-Mexico border as he again made his case for building the wall. The US President, who agreed a temporary three-week stop-gap with Congressional leaders to end the Government shutdown on Friday, said America needed a powerful wall to deter people from making the long and dangerous journey to the border. He vowed to start negotiating immediately with the Democrats, who control the Senate, for a long-term solution to the funding impasse that led to the Government shutdown which began on December 22 and was the longest in history. In a series of tweets, he said: 21 days goes very quickly. Negotiations with Democrats will start immediately. Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in. The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border and through dialogue. We will build the Wall! We have turned away, at great expense, two major Caravans, but a big one has now formed and is coming. US President Donald Trump / AP At least 8,000 people! If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldnt even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall! The deal announced on Friday will temporarily reopen the government and leave the issue of the presidents s $5.7 billion request for the US-Mexico border wall to further talks for three weeks, through to February 15. The President said he will make sure those who have not been paid due to the shutdown will get back pay "quickly". The temporary funding bill is set to extend agency funding at the last fiscal year's levels and would include some money for border security. T he coastguard has been called into search for a "lovely" and "caring" 86-year-old woman missing in Scotland. Phyllis Milne, 86, was last seen at around 10pm on Friday by a family member. Emergency services are searching for her after she was reported missing from Quarryhill in Keith, Moray. She is described being around 5ft 6in and of medium build. She has grey thick short curly hair and wears glasses. The elderly woman is potentially wearing a beige jacket with a fur collar and hat. As police shared details of her disappearance, many expressed concerns for the elderly lady. One wrote: "Phyllis is a lovely, caring lady, I pray that she is found safe and well." Other echoed this sentiment and spoke of it being "awful weather to be out in". A man whose brother-in-law was knifed to death in London has scaled Antarctica's highest peak to raise 150,000 to reduce violent crime in the capital. Entrepreneur Henry Smith, 57, set out earlier this month to climb Mount Vinson for the Wickers Charity, which he set up last year to support young people in Hackney. The businessman, who is CEO of the Aitch Group, founded the charity with the hope of putting a stop to the high rates of stabbings in the capital after his own family's experience with knife crime. Twenty years ago his sister's husband, James Mesher, was fatally stabbed outside a takeaway shop in Stratford. She later died in a car accident. Mr Smith returned from the trip on Monday after completing the climb, but the successful expedition was not without its challenges after he was almost pulled down from the mountain for frostbite. Henry Smith scales Antarctica's highest peak for charity 1 /9 Henry Smith scales Antarctica's highest peak for charity The view as Henry Smith scales Mount Vinson, Antarctica's highest peak. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity The view as Henry Smith scales Mount Vinson, Antarctica's highest peak. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity The view as Henry Smith scales Mount Vinson, Antarctica's highest peak. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity Henry Smith holding the Wickers Charity flag as he scales Antarctica's highest peak. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity Henry Smith standing beside the "50-year-old Russian plane" that took him and other mountaineers to Antarctica. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity The team of mountaineers who traveled to Antarctica to scale the continent's highest peak. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity Henry Smith holding the Wickers Charity flag as he scales Mount Vison, Antarctica's highest peak, to raise money to fight knife and gun crime in London. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity Base camp for the mountaineers climbing Antarctica's highest peak. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity Camping at the base of Antarctica's highest peak in conditions of minus 25 degrees and 24-hour daylight. Henry Smith / Wickers Charity With an initial fundraising target of 75,000, Mr Smith's climb was an even bigger success than he could have imagined. Upon his return to London Mr Smith received the news he had raised more than double his goal. But Mr Smith, an experienced adventurer who has already conquered part of the journey to the last degree in the North Pole, said he was not prepared for the challenges the icy continent would throw at him. Mount Vinson is as tall as Kilimanjaro - 5,000 metres - and conditions in Antarctica, even at the height of summer, are brutal. Henry Smith holding the Wickers Charity flag as he scales Antarctica's highest peak. / Henry Smith / Wickers Charity Mr Smith faced 24-hour daylight, - 55C temperatures and high speed winds, all while carrying 30 to 40 kilograms worth of gear up the mountain. As he came mere metres from the summit, thinking "he was going to do this," Mr Smith was grabbed by one of his companions and told to turn back because frostbite was forming on his nose. We were marching on and we get to about 50 metres (from the peak) and as far as Im concerned Im going to do it, Mr Smith said. Then one of the guides grabbed me and said: youre going down. Im standing there literally looking 40, 50 metres away (from the finish) and weve got this drop to the right, two or three thousand feet. Henry Smith standing beside the "50-year-old Russian plane" that took him and other mountaineers to Antarctica. / Henry Smith / Wickers Charity He looked at me and said: your nose is gone.' Straight away I touched my nose and there was no feeling. Luckily for Mr Smith, a quick thinking guide responded by wrapping a scarf so tightly around his face he couldnt breathe and pushed him the final metres to the peak. Originally we're thinking, banners out, take some photos but there was none of that, Mr Smith said. The team were up on the summit less than a minute before it became a race to get Mr Smith back to base camp to have his nose treated. He escaped with minor damage thanks to the tightly wrapped scarf bringing circulation back to the extremities on his face, although a fellow climber was not so lucky. After removing his gloves at the summit to take a photo, the mans fingers were immediately frostbitten bitterly cold temperatures. Once your flesh dies, it dies, there's no coming back, Mr Smith said. Mr Smith said from the get-go it was clear he was the newbie among experienced mountaineers. One of his fellow climbers, from the United States, had cashed in his house policy to complete the climb, which would make him one of 500 people in the world to complete the seven summits. On returning to London to find how much he had raised towards the Wickers Charity campaign, Mr Smith said people had been really, really generous. I think it resonates, he said. Knife crime, gun crime is a serious issue in London, it's almost now you hear about these children being stabbed, dying - its every day. A teenage boy believed to be 15 has been rushed to hospital after being stabbed in south London. The incident happened at around 7.20pm, in New Park Road in Brixton Hill, Lambeth. Scotland Yard stated he has been rushed to hospital and police were on the scene. A spokeswoman for the Met Police said that his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. An earlier statement from Lambeth MPS said: "A male, believed to be aged 15, was stabbed in #NewParkRoad #BrixtonHill #Lambeth around 19:20hrs this evening. "He has been taken to hospital, we await an update on his condition. Police are on scene. No arrests at this early stage." The Bomber Command sculpture was unveiled by the Queen in June 2012 and commemorates the 55,573 airmen who were killed during the Second World War. The Allies Statue of Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in New Bond Street was also damaged. The Canada memorial commemorates members of the Canadian forces who were killed during the First and Second World Wars. It was unveiled by the Queen in 1994 after being built two years earlier. The Royal Marines Memorial on the Mall was designed and unveiled in 1903. It remembers members of the Royal Marines who died in the Boxer Rebellion Campaign in China and the Boer War in southern Africa and features two bronze figures on a stone plinth. The memorial for Yvonne Fletcher was built to remember her after she was shot dead aged 25 while policing a protest outside the Libyan embassy in St Jamess Square in 1984. A police officer has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after one of his colleagues was shot dead following what prosecutors describe as a fatal game with a revolver. St Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner announced the charge against Nathaniel Hendren, 29, in the death of 24-year-old Katlyn Alix. They allegedly played a game akin to Russian Roulette, in which a revolver's cylinder was emptied, one bullet put back and the two colleagues took turns pointing at each other and pulling the trigger. Alix was with two male officers at an apartment when she was killed just before 1am on Thursday in the city in Missouri. A probable cause statement from police, provided by Ms Gardner's office, offered a chilling account of the dangerous game that led to the officers death. The probable cause statement said Ms Alix and Hendren were playing with guns when Hendren produced a revolver. It said: "The defendant emptied the cylinder of the revolver and then put one cartridge back into the cylinder. He allegedly spun the cylinder, pointed the gun away and pulled the trigger. This first time, the report said the gun did not fire. The statement said Ms Alix took the gun, pointed it at Hendren and pulled the trigger and again it did not shoot. Hendren then "took the gun back and pointed it at the victim (and) pulled the trigger causing the gun to discharge," the statement said. It added: "The victim was struck in the chest." The other male officer told investigators he warned Hendren and Ms Alix not to play with guns and reminded them they were police officers. He was about to leave when he heard the fatal shot, the statement said. The male officers drove Alix to a hospital where she died and Hendren is also charged with armed criminal action. The two men were on-duty at the time of the shooting and Police Chief John Hayden has declined to answer questions about why the officers had gathered at the apartment, which was home to one of the men. St. Louis police said the charges were the result of a promise Mr Hayden made to Ms Alix's family to conduct a "thorough and competent investigation. Ms Alix, a military veteran who was married, was not working when she met the men at the apartment. She was a patrol officer and had graduated from the St. Louis Police Academy in January 2017. Police immediately launched an internal investigation following the incident. Both surviving officers were placed on paid leave. Ms Gardner also began her own investigation on Thursday. T he family of speedboat killer Jack Shepherds victim have described their rollercoaster ride of emotions after the fugitive handed himself in in Georgia following months on the run. Charlotte Browns family, her two sisters Katie and Vicky and father Graham, have described their frustration and relief after Shepherd handed himself into the authorities on Wednesday. The father of one, originally from Exeter, was absent from his trial at the Old Bailey in July, when he was convicted of the manslaughter of Ms Brown, 24, and given a six-year prison sentence. On Friday, he launched a bid to resist extradition from the country by claiming his life could be in danger if he is returned to Britain. Charlotte Brown who was killed in a speedboat crash on the River Thames whilst on a date with Jack Shepherd. / Metropolitan Police/PA Wire Ms Browns father and her sisters told the Daily Mail that it feels as though Shepherd, 31, is taunting them and that they believe he has never spared a thought for them or his victim. Father of Charlotte Brown, Graham, giving a statement outside Portcullis House / Getty Images Vicky Brown told the newspaper: He would not have fled the country; he would not be blaming my sister for her own death; he would not be appealing his conviction and he would not be laughing and joking when handing himself in. He certainly would not be hiring lawyers to fight his extradition. Shepherd maintains that Ms Brown had been driving the speedboat at the time of the crash that killed her after she was flung into the icy waters of the Thames in December 2015. Her father also dismissed Shepherds suggestion to Georgian media that he has used his influence in the prison service to have him prosecuted. Charlotte Brown's sister Katie / BBC He said that because of the stress following his daughters death, he had given up his position as a population manager with the prison service to take on a part-time role collating prison statistics. He said: I'm a Mr Nobody now. The idea that I had some sort of influence over the case is ridiculous.' Mr Brown went on: I feel nothing for Shepherd. I simply have a strong sense that he needs to be in prison. That's where he belongs. Charlotte has had her life stolen from her. God forbid this should happen to any other family. Ms Browns family gave their interview as it emerged that Shepherd has apparently been wining and dining a Georgian journalist despite having an estranged wife and child back in the UK. He is said to have been dating TV journalist Maiko Tchanturidze, 24, who allegedly persuaded him to hand himself in to the authorities. The 31-year-old fugitive appeared in a court in Tbilisi on Friday, two days after handing himself in to police in the Georgian capital. The hearing was adjourned and Shepherd was ordered to stay in custody for three months while the extradition continues. Prosecutors argued Shepherd should not be given bail, and said there was evidence that he had been planning to flee to Thailand or Indonesia. The court was told Shepherd had entered the former Soviet republic in March last year after travelling via Turkey. Mr Brown said: "'He got six years for my daughter's life. It doesn't seem much to me, but objectively I can see it's a fair sentence." E ach summer, we Brits collectively flock to European hotspots like Spain, Italy and Greece as soon as the first sign of heat appears and for good reason. Our warmer neighbours are a great place to lounge in the sun, soaking up that all-important vitamin D, and unwind for a while. Crete, Greece largest island, is filled with a number of resorts perfect for both couples and families. Its latest luxury resort, Casa Cook in Chania, is opening this summer. As London embraces the cold, our Hotel of the Week lets us dream of warmer days. The vibe People. Fashion. Power. Delivered weekly. Email Sign up Sign up I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice {{message}} {{permutiveUid}} {{message}} Laid-back luxury is what this hotel is all about. Nestled along a pristine stretch of Cretan coast with hills behind and the Mediterranean Sea stretching out in front you get the best of both worlds. The village-style hotel is family-friendly and designed by travel masters Thomas Cook, with a tailored kids program offering cooking classes, painting workshops and a sleepover experience in a tepee allowing parents a chance for a date night under the stars. Inside the hotel, youll find the 106-rooms have a modern, minimalist design in calming colours and each with a private terrace and some with private pools. George Roske/Casa Cook Who for? Families who want a luxe holiday their kids will enjoy too. What to Instagram? You, lounging in your private pool, looking out over the palm trees towards the sea. Known for High-quality service with a stunning backdrop, this hotel will be one you want to come back to. How to get there As the hotel is part of the Thomas Cook empire, you can book a package holiday directly with them. Otherwise, you can get flights direct to Chania from London with a number of budget airlines. W hen it comes to deciding where your next holiday will be, money is often a big factor. Usefully, Post Office Travel Money has revealed its list of the most affordable locations to visit in 2019. The Post Office took into account the local costs, how the sterling stacks up against the local currency and local events and celebrations for the year ahead. Below are the best-value destinations to head to in 2019. 1. Turkey Spend summer evenings along the Turkish Riviera / Unsplash People. Fashion. Power. Delivered weekly. Email Sign up Sign up I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice {{message}} {{permutiveUid}} {{message}} Over the past year there has been a slump in Turkeys local currency lira meaning you can now get around a third more lira for your pounds than a year ago. Bookings for April to December are already up 65 per cent year-on-year, with Marmaris along the Turkish Riviera being one of the cheapest cities to visit in Europe. 10 of the cheapest destinations to go to in 2019 2. Bali Get more for your money in Bali / Unsplash Theres a reason all the people you follow on Instagram have visited Bali in the past year the cost of living is low which means Brits can get more for the pound. UK currency sales for the rupiah (Balinese currency) have surged by 483 per cent in the past decade and the average meal for two costs around 10. 3. Spain Continue your love affair with Spain this summer / Unsplash Spain was rated the best-value destination in Europe in the Post Offices Holiday Spending report after prices fell two per cent year-on-year. Spain has always been a beloved destination by Brits and year-round cheap flights mean its easily accessible. 4. Bratislava Cheap flights? Sign us up / Unsplash Slovakias capital is becoming a go-to city for millennials. With cheap flight prices and local spending that is 44 per cent lower than Austrias Vienna, Bratislava is an appealing weekend break. 5. Porto Visit Portugal's under-the-radar city of Porto / Unsplash Porto in Portugal is bursting with culture, restaurants, bars and, as the name would have it, port. Just two hours from London, it's one of the cheapest cities in Western Europe with prices a third less than they are in Lisbon. 6. Iceland Iceland is a beautiful destination during both the winter and summer months / Unsplash With a 237 per cent increase in Brits buying krona (Icelandic currency) over the past decade, the UK has certainly cottoned on to the beauty of Iceland. The krona is also one of the few currencies that has weakened to the pound over the past few months, so nows the time to visit. Head in the winter to bathe in the Blue Lagoon and search for the Aurora Borealis or in the summer to chase waterfalls. Flights are cheap to Reykjavik year-round. 7. Croatia Croatia is the new must-visit summer destination / Unsplash Post Office reports that sales for the Croatian currency have gone up by 325 per cent in the past decade, making it one of Europes great travel success stories. With over 1,000 islands to visit and plenty to do and see on the mainland, Croatia is one of the best summer destinations in Europe. 8. Southern Italy Matera is this year's European Capital of Culture / Unsplash This year, Italys ancient city of Matera is the European Capital of Culture. As its significantly cheaper than most of Italys hotspots, its a great place to head to see the cultural side of Italy. 9. India Head to India to join in Ghandi celebrations / Unsplash This year marks 150 years since the birth of Mahatma Gandhi and there will be numerous celebrations held throughout India during 2019. Whats more, a mid-range hotel rooms cost around 16 per night and you can get street food meals for just 1. 10. Patagonia Visit Patagonia's new Route of Parks this summer / Unsplash Going to the beach Visiting family/friends out of town Camping/hiking Other (let us know!) Vote View Results NEW HAVEN Jon Nowinski, of Milford, was known as an animal lover. Together with other volunteers, he regularly used his vetererinary skills to help animals after disasters and provided training to emergency departments on how to help animals in need. Nowinski, 37, formerly of Westport and the operations director of the Westport-based Emergency Animal Response Service, died this week at Yale New Haven Hospital, friends and family said. Your passion for working dogs is amazing and you will be forever missed, John Michael wrote on Nowinskis Facebook page on behalf of the Brookfield Police Departments canine unit. Mickayla Vitali wrote that she hopes Nowinski continues to care for all the animals in heaven. You were and are a special person and friend, Julie Zaffis Marron wrote. Diana Autumn Skye said in her Facebook post that Nowinski was one of her heroes. He was always there for anyone, especially animals, when they needed him., Skye wrote. He was funny, smart and passionate about what he did. The world seems so much sadder this morning knowing that he isn't in it. In an interview with Connecticut Magazine last year, Nowinski talked about how much it meant for EARS to be able to buy a used ambulance and modify it in order for his group of volunteers to help transport animals and also be a mobile clinic during power outages. We had never thought about actually operating an ambulance, Nowinski told the magazine. But we figured, at the very least for the ability to get supplies and things where they needed to go, it would be great. Whatever steps he took, it was always with the animals in mind. And despite his passing, his own cats and his dog, Coyote, are being well taken care of, his sister Lisa Price assured people on Facebook. Jon was such a spirited person with so much brightness and determination, Heidi Matos wrote on Facebook. Friends said the loss of Nowinski is a loss to the world. You have been an inspiration for many many people Jon and your life will be celebrated more than you could have ever imagined, Kim Warner wrote on Facebook. Now its your turn on the other side! Nowinski was also the founder of the Smoking Gun Research Agency, through which he investigated ghosts and UFO sightings. Paul Newman was an Academy-Award winning star of films like "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Color of Money." He was also a philanthropist, activist, race car driver and Connecticut resident. January 26, 2019 would have been his 94th birthday. Newman died at home in Westport, Connecticut in 2008, after a long battle with cancer. He died at the 18th century farmhouse he shared with his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, and where they raised their daughters, Elinor "Nell," Melissa and Clea. Newman had two daughters, Susan and Stephanie, and a son, Scott, from a previous marriage to Jacqueline Witte. Newman's legacy in Connecticut was less about acting and more about philanthropy. In 1982, Newman and his Westport neighbor, writer A.E. Hotchner, started a company to market Newman's original oil-and-vinegar dressing. Newman's Own, which began as a joke, grew into a multimillion-dollar business selling popcorn, salad dressing, spaghetti sauce and other foods. All of the company's profits are donated to charities. The company has given away more than $535 million, "helping thousands of charities and millions of people around the world," according to its website.. In 1988, Newman founded The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, CT. The camp was created for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. He eventually established similar camps in several other states and in Europe. In 2017, a 1968 Rolex watch that had been owned by Newman was sold at auction. With an opening bid of $1 million, the watch sold for $17.8 million, a record for a wristwatch at an auction. The watch had been a gift from Joanne Woodward to her husband. The model became known as the "Paul Newman Daytona," after the actor was seen wearing the timepiece. After Newman's death in 2008, the watch world and Newman fans began to wonder what had happened to the original Paul Newman Daytona. It turned out, Newman had given the watch to his daughter's boyfriend, James Cox. James Cox spent a large part of the summer of 1984 building a tree house with Newman at the actor's Westport home. At the time, Cox had been dating Newman's daughter Nell for about a year; they met in college. They have since gone separate ways, but Cox held on to the watch until 2017. A portion of the proceeds from the sale went to to the Nell Newman Foundation, which supports her father's philanthropic values as well as sustainable agriculture. Another portion of the sale proceeds will go to benefit Newman's Own Foundation. ____________________ At the time of his death, the Associated Press ran this article about Newman. Read on for a look back at his life and career: Newman got his start in theater and on television during the 1950s, and went on to become one of the world's most enduring and popular film stars, a legend held in awe by his peers. He was nominated for Oscars 10 times, winning one regular award and two honorary ones, and had major roles in more than 50 motion pictures, including "Exodus," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Verdict," "The Sting" and "Absence of Malice." Newman worked with some of the greatest directors of the past half century, from Alfred Hitchcock and John Huston to Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese and the Coen brothers. His co-stars included Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and, most famously, Robert Redford, his sidekick in "Butch Cassidy" and "The Sting." He sometimes teamed with his wife and fellow Oscar winner, Joanne Woodward, with whom he had one of Hollywood's rare long-term marriages. "I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?" Newman told Playboy magazine when asked if he was tempted to stray. They wed in 1958, around the same time they both appeared in "The Long Hot Summer," and Newman directed her in several films, including "Rachel, Rachel" and "The Glass Menagerie." With his strong, classically handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Newman was a heartthrob just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. "I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood." Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon's "enemies list," one of the actor's proudest achievements, he liked to say. A screen legend by his mid-40s, he waited a long time for his first competitive Oscar, winning in 1987 for "The Color of Money," a reprise of the role of pool shark "Fast" Eddie Felson, whom Newman portrayed in the 1961 film "The Hustler." Newman delivered a magnetic performance in "The Hustler," playing a smooth-talking, whiskey-chugging pool shark who takes on Minnesota Fats -- played by Jackie Gleason -- and becomes entangled with a gambler played by George C. Scott. In the sequel -- directed by Scorsese -- "Fast Eddie" is no longer the high-stakes hustler he once was, but rather an aging liquor salesman who takes a young pool player (Cruise) under his wing before making a comeback. He won an honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft." In 1994, he won a third Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for his charitable work. His most recent academy nod was a supporting actor nomination for the 2002 film "Road to Perdition." One of Newman's nominations was as a producer; the other nine were in acting categories. (Jack Nicholson holds the record among actors for Oscar nominations, with 12; actress Meryl Streep has had 14.) As he passed his 80th birthday, he remained in demand, winning an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the 2005 HBO drama "Empire Falls" and providing the voice of a crusty 1951 car in the 2006 Disney-Pixar hit, "Cars." But in May 2007, he told ABC's "Good Morning America" he had given up acting, though he intended to remain active in charity projects. "I'm not able to work anymore as an actor at the level I would want to," he said. "You start to lose your memory, your confidence, your invention. So that's pretty much a closed book for me." He received his first Oscar nomination for playing a bitter, alcoholic former star athlete in the 1958 film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Elizabeth Taylor played his unhappy wife and Burl Ives his wealthy, domineering father in Tennessee Williams' harrowing drama, which was given an upbeat ending for the screen. In "Cool Hand Luke," he was nominated for his gritty role as a rebellious inmate in a brutal Southern prison. The movie was one of the biggest hits of 1967 and included a tagline, delivered one time by Newman and one time by prison warden Strother Martin, that helped define the generation gap, "What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate." Newman's hair was graying, but he was as gourgeous as ever and on the verge of his greatest popular success. In 1969, Newman teamed with Redford for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," a comic Western about two outlaws running out of time. Newman paired with Redford again in 1973 in "The Sting," a comedy about two Depression-era con men. Both were multiple Oscar winners and huge hits, irreverent, unforgettable pairings of two of the best-looking actors of their time. Newman also turned to producing and directing. In 1968, he directed "Rachel, Rachel," a film about a lonely spinster's rebirth. The movie received four Oscar nominations, including Newman, for producer of a best motion picture, and Woodward, for best actress. The film earned Newman the best director award from the New York Film Critics. In the 1970s, Newman, admittedly bored with acting, became fascinated with auto racing, a sport he studied when he starred in the 1972 film, "Winning." After turning professional in 1977, Newman and his driving team made strong showings in several major races, including fifth place in Daytona in 1977 and second place in the Le Mans in 1979. "Racing is the best way I know to get away from all the rubbish of Hollywood," he told People magazine in 1979. Despite his love of race cars, Newman continued to make movies and continued to pile up Oscar nominations, his looks remarkably intact, his acting becoming more subtle, nothing like the mannered method performances of his early years, when he was sometimes dismissed as a Brando imitator. "It takes a long time for an actor to develop the assurance that the trim, silver-haired Paul Newman has acquired," Pauline Kael wrote of him in the early 1980s. In 1982, he got his Oscar fifth nomination for his portrayal of an honest businessman persecuted by an irresponsible reporter in "Absence of Malice." The following year, he got his sixth for playing a down-and-out alcoholic attorney in "The Verdict." In 1995, he was nominated for his slyest, most understated work yet, the town curmudgeon and deadbeat in "Nobody's Fool." New York Times critic Caryn James found his acting "without cheap sentiment and self-pity," and observed, "It says everything about Mr. Newman's performance, the single best of this year and among the finest he has ever given, that you never stop to wonder how a guy as good-looking as Paul Newman ended up this way." Newman, who shunned Hollywood life, was reluctant to give interviews and usually refused to sign autographs because he found the majesty of the act offensive, according to one friend. He also claimed that he never read reviews of his movies. "If they're good you get a fat head and if they're bad you're depressed for three weeks," he said. Off the screen, Newman had a taste for beer and was known for his practical jokes. He once had a Porsche installed in Redford's hallway -- crushed and covered with ribbons. "I think that my sense of humor is the only thing that keeps me sane," he told Newsweek magazine in a 1994 interview. Scott died in 1978 of an accidental overdose of alcohol and Valium. After his only son's death, Newman established the Scott Newman Foundation to finance the production of anti-drug films for children. Newman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the second of two boys of Arthur S. Newman, a partner in a sporting goods store, and Theresa Fetzer Newman. He was raised in the affluent suburb of Shaker Heights, where he was encouraged him to pursue his interest in the arts by his mother and his uncle Joseph Newman, a well-known Ohio poet and journalist. Following World War II service in the Navy, he enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he got a degree in English and was active in student productions. He later studied at Yale University's School of Drama, then headed to New York to work in theater and television, his classmates at the famed Actor's Studio including Brando, James Dean and Karl Malden. His breakthrough was enabled by tragedy: Dean, scheduled to star as the disfigured boxer in a television adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's "The Battler," died in a car crash in 1955. His role was taken by Newman, then a little-known performer. Newman started in movies the year before, in "The Silver Chalice," a costume film he so despised that he took out an ad in Variety to apologize. By 1958, he had won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for the shiftless Ben Quick in "The Long Hot Summer." In December 1994, about a month before his 70th birthday, he told Newsweek magazine he had changed little with age. "I'm not mellower, I'm not less angry, I'm not less self-critical, I'm not less tenacious," he said. "Maybe the best part is that your liver can't handle those beers at noon anymore," he said. Jan 25th, 2019 A new Performance Series product from Muscletech has been confirmed as coming soon to supplement stores in Canada. The release is a high-quality, fast absorbing protein powder called Ultra Pure Whey Isolate that features a nutrition profile thats as clean as you can get. Muscletechs Ultra Pure Whey Isolate comes with a solid 25g of protein per serving, all from whey isolate, with absolutely no carbohydrates or fat, and a total of just 100 calories. The product also transparently lists that it has 27.5g of whey isolate per serving to provide its 25g of actual protein. Ultra Pure Whey Isolate is due to launch in Canada in the one 32 serving tub size and in just the one French Vanilla flavor option. Muscletech fans can look to seeing the protein supplement in major retailers like Popeyes, Supplements Canada, and Supplement Source. The SpaceShipTwo vehicle VSS Unity on the tarmac at the Mojave Air and Space Port Dec. 13 after its flight to the edge of space. Less than a month after that flight, Virgin laid off about five percent of its workforce as part of a realignment while development of the vehicle continues. WASHINGTON Suborbital spaceflight company Virgin Galactic laid off about 40 people earlier this month as part of a realignment of "skill sets" in the company's workforce as it prepares to shift into commercial operations later this year. In a statement to SpaceNews, Virgin Galactic confirmed the layoffs that accounted for roughly five percent of the overall workforce at Virgin Galactic and its subsidiary, The Spaceship Company. The layoffs were first reported Jan. 25 by New Mexico publication NMPolitics.net. "Recently we separated a small number of our team in order to position our organization for the drive to commercial operations following our successful recent spaceflight, and make room for new skill sets that we need to bring in over the course of this year," the company said in its statement. "We are offering support to those impacted and sincerely thank them for their contributions, and wish them well for the future." [Video: Watch Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Launch to Space!] Most of the affected employees are at the company's facilities in Mojave, California, where it is building and testing its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane. Three people were laid off in New Mexico, where the company is preparing for commercial operations of the vehicle from Spaceport America scheduled to begin later this year. Virgin Galactic didn't elaborate on the specific positions affected by the layoffs. "It was overall looking at the different skill sets," said a company official, speaking on background. "Ultimately, we always need to be running as efficiently as we possibly can and constantly need to be evaluating the skills that are needed." The layoffs took place in early January, less than a month after the company performed the first test flight of SpaceShipTwo that flew above the 50-mile (80-kilometer) altitude used by U.S. government agencies for awarding astronaut wings. Virgin Galactic is using that altitude, rather than the 100-kilometer Karman Line, as the boundary of space for its flights. Those layoffs will not affect plans to continue testing SpaceShipTwo, with the next test flight expected to take place the coming weeks. Company founder Richard Branson, in a television interview Jan. 24, said he expected that next test flight to take place in a handful of weeks, with commercial flights beginning in the middle of the year. He made no mention of any changes in staffing in that interview. "This does not deter us from our commitment to New Mexico or the spaceport at all," the company official said of the layoffs. Virgin Galactic is the third commercial spaceflight company this month to announce significant layoffs. SpaceX said Jan. 11 it was laying off about 10 percent of its overall workforce of more than 6,000 employees, including 577 at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX said it "must become a leaner company" in order to carry out its plans to develop the Starlink broadband constellation and Starship/Super Heavy reusable launch system. Stratolaunch announced Jan. 18 that it was terminating work on a family of launch vehicles intended to be flown on its giant aircraft under development, as well as the rocket engine that would have powered them. The company said it was "streamlining operations" to focus on completion of the aircraft, which will now be used solely for launching Pegasus XL rockets. The company didn't disclose the size of layoffs resulting from that streamlining, but industry sources said up to several dozen people lost their jobs. This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. A ceremonial groundbreaking Jan. 25 marked the beginning of construction of a new factory in Huntsville, Alabama, that will build Blue Origin's BE-4 and BE-3U engines. WASHINGTON As Blue Origin breaks ground on a new factory for producing rocket engines, the company says development of its BE-4 engine will be completed later this year. Blue Origin held a groundbreaking ceremony in Huntsville, Alabama, Jan. 25 to formally mark the start of construction of a factory that will be used for building BE-4 engines. The company announced plans to build the factory there in June 2017, contingent on the selection of the engine by United Launch Alliance for its Vulcan rocket. ULA picked the BE-4 in September 2018. The factory, scheduled for completion in March 2020, will build dozens of BE-4 engines a year for both Vulcan as well as Blue Origin's own New Glenn vehicle. Both rockets are scheduled to make first launches in 2021. Vulcan will use two BE-4 engines in its first stage while New Glenn's reusable first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines. [Blue Origin's New Glenn Megarocket in Pictures] "This engine production facility demonstrates commitment to the state of Alabama," said Bob Smith, chief executive of Blue Origin, in remarks at the groundbreaking event webcast by a local television station. He and others there said that discussions about locating the factory in Huntsville took place over several years before the company made its selection in 2017. "It also demonstrates our confidence that the highly skilled workforce and business climate in Huntsville will play a critical role in advancing our vision of millions of people living and working in space." The facility will create more than 300 jobs, Smith said, with a total company investment of more than $200 million, figures similar to those that Blue Origin offered when it made it selection of Huntsville in 2017. While Blue Origin builds the factory, it's continuing to test the BE-4 engine, which uses liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas propellants and is capable of producing up to 550,000 pounds-force of thrust. The company is building initial versions of the engine at its headquarters in Kent, Washington, and testing them in West Texas, where it also performs test flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. "It will be a true marvel of engineering when we complete its development this year," Smith said of the engine. "We are currently rocking our test stands out in West Texas." He didn't provide additional details about the status of BE-4 development and testing, but during a webcast of the latest New Shepard test flight Jan. 23, Ariane Cornell, head of astronaut strategy and sales at Blue Origin, said the engine has been tested to 70 percent of its rated thrust and for durations of more than 200 seconds. A new version of the engine will soon be installed at the test site, she said, "and we're going to be going up to 100 percent power." Blue Origin plans to use the Huntsville factory to also produce the BE-3U engine, a version of the liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen BE-3 engine used on New Shepard modified for use on the New Glenn second stage. Two BE-3U engines will power that second stage. Smith announced at the groundbreaking that Blue Origin is working on agreement with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to take over Building 4670 at the center. That site, a test stand previously used for testing engines for the Saturn 5 and shuttle, will be used for acceptance testing for both the BE-3U and BE-4 engines. "Through this agreement, we'll provide for the refurbishment, restoration and modernization of this piece of American history," Smith said. Blue Origin and NASA Marshall signed a Space Act Agreement in July 2018 to cover "suitability analysis and preliminary facility preparations" for potential use of the test stand for engine testing by the company. Attending the groundbreaking event with Smith were members of Congress as well as state and local officials, all of whom praised Blue Origin for deciding to locate its factory in Huntsville, known as the "Rocket City" given the long history of rocket development work at Marshall and Redstone Arsenal. "Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance represent what we're all about in Alabama," said Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. Also in attendance was Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, which builds its rockets, including the future Vulcan vehicle, in nearby Decatur, Alabama. "The people of Alabama have provided us with wonderful leadership in this state, which is as passionate about rockets as we are," he said. "I would not do this anywhere else." This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. OTTAWA, Ontario Neurologist, astronaut, wildlife photographer, nonprofit founder, public speaker, inspirer of countless children for a generation is there anything that Roberta Bondar can't do? Canada's first female astronaut in space made an appearance Tuesday (Jan. 22) in front of 500 wildly excited children at the Canada Science and Technology Museum here in Ottawa. Yesterday was already a special day in Bondar's life history the 27th anniversary of her STS-42 shuttle spaceflight in 1992 but it was made more unique when Bondar and Canadian astronaut Jenni Sidey-Gibbons spoke live to David Saint-Jacques, a Canadian astronaut on a half-year mission on the International Space Station. [Happy New Year from Space! Astronauts Ring in 2019 from Orbit] The year 2019 also marks Canada's 35th anniversary of sending astronauts into space, which officially takes place in October during the anniversary of Marc Garneau's founding flight. "We have very few opportunities to put human beings in space," Bondar told Space.com. "Obviously, we want to have more opportunities for women, because there have been a lot of men who went into space and on multiple trips, and not so much for women. But I'm hoping that somebody like Jenni will go to the moon and be the first Canadian on the moon that would be wonderful." The dual anniversaries carried weight with Sidey-Gibbons, who was hired by the Canadian Space Agency in 2017 (along with Joshua Kutryk) and is in the last year of her astronaut candidate training. Fellow Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is overseeing the training schedules of the entire 2017 astronaut class, including NASA astronauts. "It's just such an interesting time to be involved in space, but beyond that, if you think about the lineage and the history of Canada as a spacefaring nation, it's incredible," Sidey-Gibbons told Space.com. "Even just speaking about it now, I get goosebumps about what space can do. And the opportunities that lie ahead of us are going to be pretty outstanding as well. I mean, commercial crew vehicles coming online, hopefully this year with crewed missions, and maybe, going back to the moon. How exciting would that be for Canada?" Bondar is once again pushing science forward at age 73, a time when many people settle for retirement. A few times a year, Bondar flies to remote areas in Kenya, Florida and other locations to document migratory bird populations. (Her foundation nicknames her #RoBIRDa on Twitter.) As Bondar takes pictures of these birds on Earth, Saint-Jacques will document their migratory paths from orbit, in a partnership overseen by the Roberta Bondar Foundation. The research program's goal is to watch the birds as they move from breeding sites, along migratory flight paths and into the regions where they hang out during the nonbreeding season. Much of those paths are under threat, as ecosystems fall prey to climate change, human construction and other issues. The pictures from ground and space will together go in a traveling exhibit that will be released sometime after Saint-Jacques' return from space later this year. Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques (on screen) speaks to students in Ottawa, Canada Jan. 22, 2019 from the International Space Station while in conversation with fellow astronauts Roberta Bondar (far left) and Jenni Sidey-Gibbons (center). (Image credit: Elizabeth Howell/Space.com) A milestone year When Bondar flew into space in 1992, the air was thick with milestones in Canada. It was the 125th year of the country's first colonies unifying into a federal state (a precursor to the modern Canada). It was year for two Canadians (Bondar and Steve MacLean) going to space. The Canadian Space Agency opened shiny new headquarters just outside of Montreal that year. Also, Canada accepted four new astronauts into its space program, including Chris Hadfield (who later commanded the International Space Station) and Julie Payette (a two-time flier who became Canada's head of state, the governor general). Bondar visited the museum here in late June 1992 to inaugurate its new Canada in Space exhibit in fact, my parents pulled me out of school to see her. Walking through the exhibit was like seeing a who's who of how Canada got to space. It featured several models of the Canadarm robotic arm, a simulated shuttle payload bay, models of early Canadian satellites and rockets, and tons of 1990s-exciting interactive exhibits (such as rocket sites that lit up at the touch of a button). International partners were shown off, too. The 1992 exhibit included the real-life Apollo 7 spacecraft that went into space in 1968 to prepare NASA for future moon missions. (It was on loan from the Smithsonian, and since 2004 it has resided in the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas.) Also of note was a huge Rand McNally Earth globe just inside the entrance to the exhibit, underneath models of spacecraft and a "Star Trek" Enterprise. There were globes like this in several museums, staff told me. Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques speaks live to students in Ottawa, Canada Jan. 22, 2019 from the International Space Station. At right is the view below the orbiting complex. (Image credit: Elizabeth Howell/Space.com) Memories of the exhibit and the crowds in 1992 still resonated with Bondar decades later. "The idea of people greeting me when I came back from space, in the old building, was really tremendous. And now we have a new building and new astronauts," Bondar said. You can't see the exhibit today it was dismantled during a two-year-long museum shutdown to remove asbestos and update the exhibits but there are still some mentions of spaceflight among the exhibits in the new building. One area celebrates the science of the very big and the very small, and includes microscopes and telescopes to show the scale of nature and how we observe it. There's also a space presence growing at another of the same organization's museum just a few minutes' drive away, at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Today, visitors can see a real-life Canadarm robotic arm (no humdrum, light-up models for this generation of kids), among other space-flown artifacts. In February, a new exhibit there will celebrate the role of medicine in space. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com. Success! An email has been sent with a link to confirm list signup. Thelma Duncan, age 93 of Columbus, OH, formerly of Somerset, passed away on Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at Kobacker House Hospice Care in Columbus. Services are pending at this time and will be announced on Thursday. Lake Cumberland Funeral Home is entrusted with the arrangements for Thelma Duncan. PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Police Force (KPSM) TAPS (Teens and Police Service Academy) program has been deemed a success by KPSM, and Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever would like to commend KPSM leadership, the coordinator, participating officers and students for a job well done. Minister De Weever stated that this type of program brings more awareness about pertinent issues that school-going youth are confronted with from time to time during their years in high school. TAPS is an 11-week US program primarily designed for at-risk youth where students partner with mentor police officers to discuss such issues as violence, physical and sexual abuse, stalking, sexual exploitation, and bullying. The program was adjusted to meet the juvenile needs of the Sint Maarten youth according to a statement by the Sint Maarten Police Force back in October when the training started at the St. Maarten Academy P.S.V.E. section. Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever said the program initiated by the Sint Maarten Police Force is a great initiative that comes at a time when students and the educational system are confronted with a number of social youth-related challenges. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. There are a number of international programs designed to confront anti-youth social behavior and TAPS is one such program being utilized as an intervention by the Police Force. TAPS cover a number of areas pertinent to youth development such as conflict resolution, truancy, drugs and alcohol, safe driving and being stopped by the police, health, fitness and nutrition, service learning, human trafficking, victimization/bullying, and team building. Another program that the Police Force will be starting in February is Cops and Kids. These programs are very important for the youth of the nation. Everyone has a role to play when it comes to our nations youth. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, and the Police Force as an integral part of society, will do its part by creating awareness in order for our young people to make the right choices, Minister of Justice Cornelius de Weever said on Friday. PHILIPSBURG:--- The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department of the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour, is calling on the community to continue to practice hand hygiene and cough etiquette in order to prevent the spread of influenza and other infections. Symptoms of the flu include sudden onset of fever, cough (usually dry), headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat and a runny nose. The cough can be severe and can last two or more weeks. Most people recover from fever and other symptoms within a week. However, influenza can cause severe illness or death in high-risk groups such as pregnant women at any stage of pregnancy; children younger than five-years; people older than 65-years; people with chronic medical conditions such as HIV/AIDS, asthma, heart and lung diseases and diabetes; people with increased risk of exposure to influenza, which includes health care workers. Keeping hands clean through improved hand hygiene and cough etiquette which are two of the most important steps one can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others. Washing your hands should take 40 to 60 seconds. Your hands should be washed after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing. Flu viruses are thought to spread mainly from person to person through the coughing, sneezing, or talking to someone with the flu. Flu viruses can also spread when people touch something with the flu virus on it and then tough their mouth, eyes, or nose. Many other viruses spread these ways too. People infected with the flu may be able to infect others beginning from day one before symptoms develop and up to five to seven days after becoming sick. That means you may be able to spread the flu to someone else before you know you are sick. Preventive actions entails: try to avoid close contact with sick people; cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze (cough etiquette); throw the tissue in the trash after you use it; clean and disinfect surfaces and objects that may be contaminated with germs like the flu. Kabul: A co-founder of the Taliban who was released from prison in Pakistan in October has been appointed head of the group's political office in Qatar as it negotiates with the United States over ending the 17-year Afghan war, the Taliban said Friday. Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Taliban military commander, was arrested in Pakistan in 2010. His release is believed to have been arranged by the US as part of the negotiations, and his presence could reassure battlefield commanders who may fear concessions by the political leadership. Baradar was brought in to "strengthen and properly handle the ongoing negotiations process with the United States", Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. "Multiple changes have also taken place in the military and civilian departments" of the group, "so that the ongoing jihadi process and political efforts can develop positively", he added. US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has met with the Taliban on a number of occasions in recent months in the latest bid to end America's longest war. The US invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks to topple the Taliban, who were harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Taliban have staged a comeback in recent years and today hold sway over nearly half the country. New Delhi: Election season has arrived in the world's largest democracy, and politicians across India are rolling out measures to woo voters debt relief for farmers, tax breaks for small businesses, even subsidized cars. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist who is seeking another term in elections expected in May, has trumped them all: he has enacted an amendment to the country's constitution that amounts to a sea change in India's system of affirmative action. To Modi's supporters, the move is a masterstroke, shoring up his traditional voters and underlining his commitment to uplifting India's poor. For his detractors, it is a political gimmick that highlights the government's inability to create jobs and may not withstand a legal challenge. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends the Bharatiya Janata Party's national convention in New Delhi. Credit:AP The constitutional amendment is a dramatic step that suggests Modi, elected in 2014 with a commanding majority, is not as confident as he once was about his reelection prospects. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered electoral defeats in three states in December, a significant setback. Jakarta: Australia's very particular and peculiar love affair with the Indonesian island of Bali is well-established, to the point where some even joke the island could be our seventh state. (Sorry New Zealand, but this story aint about you.) Bali can be a crazy rite of passage for some Australians, a luxury escape for others, while for some it will be about as exotic and foreign as they will ever get in an overseas trip. But on a recent visit with my young family to Bali's beach side suburb of Seminyak, for a week of post-Christmas rest and relaxation, I was struck by just how different Bali seemed when arriving from Jakarta, rather than Canberra (my most recent home in Australia). Like so many Aussies, I had visited Bali a couple of times before moving to Indonesia in March last 2018 and loved it. Harare: A violent crackdown continued Friday in Zimbabwe as rights groups alleged that women had been raped during house-to-house searches, while the government criticised a report by its own rights commission that said security forces had used "systematic torture". Zimbabweans say abuses have not calmed since President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday denounced the violence as "unacceptable". The unrest began last week as people protested a steep increase in fuel prices that made gasoline the world's most expensive. The government accuses the opposition of stirring up trouble. At least 12 people have been killed in the unrest over rising petrol prices and economic instability in Zimbabwe. Credit:AP The army asserts that uniformed perpetrators of abuses are "bogus elements" out to tarnish its image. Fearful residents in poor and working-class suburbs of the capital, Harare, and second city, Bulawayo, are locking themselves in at night. At least 12 people have been killed in the unrest and more than 300 wounded, scores with gunshot wounds, doctors and rights workers have said. Abuja: Nigeria's president on Friday suspended the country's chief justice just three weeks before the presidential election and a likely court challenge to the results, while the president's top rival called the move "an act of dictatorship". The decision by President Muhammadu Buhari, who seeks a second term in the February 16 vote, sent Africa's most populous country into a constitutional crisis. The Nigerian Bar Association called it an "attempted coup against the Nigerian judiciary" and Senate president Abubakar Bukola Saraki said Buhari cannot act alone in a process that involves all three arms of government. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Credit:AP Observers already have warned that the vote could lead to violence Buhari's election in 2015 was a rare peaceful transfer of power in oil-rich Nigeria and diplomats have urged the top candidates to sign a peace pledge. The chief justice, Walter Nkanu Samuel Onnoghen, faces trial on charges of allegedly failing to declare his assets. Buhari said his suspension will continue until the case is concluded. This is the first time a chief justice is standing trial in Nigeria, where corruption is widespread. Onnoghen has argued that the charges lack merit. Opposition leader Bill Shorten accused Prime Minister Morrison of having a bizarre Captain Cook fetish. If experience serves me correctly, hes not the only middle-aged man with such an obsession. Since I first wrote about the 2017 vandalism of the Captain James Cook statue in Hyde Park, and the start of 250th anniversary of Cooks journey to Australia back in August, Ive been the go-to girl for Cook enthusiasts. Loading Theres the one who writes and calls to update me about his decade-long James Cook musical theatre project, Between Worlds, which centres on the drama of Cooks encounter with the Hawaiian people, which led to his grisly death in 1779. Theres the one who sent me photos of his younger self visiting Point Venus in Tahiti, where the explorer observed the transit of Venus. Another who hand-delivers brown paper envelopes at my office with excerpts of his Cook manuscript, research about Cooks telescope (more powerful than previously thought), and offering me exclusive publishing rights, for a fee. Not to mention the pin-up boy of Cook afficianados, actor Sam Neill, who narrates the Discovery Channel/Foxtels series Uncharted on Cooks three epic Pacific voyages (1768-1779). Let me tell you, the Captain Cook world is as divided and plagued by internecine battles as the Liberal Party. Aside from the Captain Cook society which meets every six months, theres Restoring Cooks Legacy 2020, which is a project of Australia on the Map (AOTM), the history and heritage division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society. Not to mention the Cook scholars, who have a zeal for the British sea captain akin only to the Ramsay Centres enthusiasm for Western civilisation. Such is their quiet competitiveness, whenever I talk to one branch of the Cook fan club, they are keen to know what the others are doing. But there's one thing they were all on the same page of the captains log book about: the lack of interest, back in August, about Cook's 250th anniversary celebrations from the then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Sure, back in April 2018, Turnbull announced a $50 million upgrade of the historic area at Kurnell, including a new $3 million Cook statue where he landed at Botany Bay. But they were getting no love, nor money, from the Turnbull camp when it came to funding the re-enactment of the Endeavour voyage or Cooktown 2020. That all changed when Scott Morrison, the member for Cook, named for the explorer, became Prime Minister. The Cook fanboys and so far in my experience they have all been men were suddenly doing a happy dance. Funnily enough, Kurnell, Cooks 1770 landing place, is in Morrisons electorate. One enthusiast, Trevor Lipscombe of the Restoring Cooks Legacy group, explained the intense interest: "Cook, for me, like many young men, has always been a heroic figure like Lawrence of Arabia or John Monash, and it is time to restore his legacy." Mal Nicolson, president of the Captain Cook Society, told me this week: A journey around Australia is fitting for such a commemoration; maybe more so than that of the Queen coming to Australia for the 200th anniversary in 1970. Miss NAIDOC Perth Sophie Coffin protests January 26 as Australia Day in Invasion Day rally. A young Western Australian Indigenous leader is proud to be part of the oldest culture in the world but disgraced her country celebrates on a day that marks genocide and massacre. Reigning Miss NAIDOC Sophie Coffin was among hundreds of Australians, from all walks of life and cultures, who took part in an Invasion Day protest in Perth on Saturday. The protest in Forrest Chase highlighted the high rates of Aboriginal incarceration, suicide and the appalling number of Indigenous children taken from their families. Ms Coffin, a Ngangumarta Yindjibarndi woman from Port Hedland, said she was baffled anyone would celebrate January 26 knowing the history of which Australia was founded. There was no way Victorian households could have been warned their power would be cut during Fridays heatwave, the energy market operator has said. As Melbourne sweltered through a 42-degree day, more than 200,000 people had their electricity switched off during the afternoon. The energy market operator said the rolling blackouts during Friday's heatwave were an emergency mechanism". Credit:Michele Mossop While services were restored to most of these households within a few hours, some Victorians are questioning why they didn't receive a warning before their power went off. A spokesman for the Australian Energy Market Operator said the rolling blackouts, which impacted people in more than 50 suburbs and townships, were an emergency mechanism in response to a depletion in power reserves. After years of sleeping rough or in cutthroat boarding houses, the hollows in Graeme Starrs gaunt, tattooed cheeks have finally rounded out a little. Hes eating well, no longer takes medication for schizophrenia and has stopped self-harming. Despite a long history of mental illness, alcohol abuse and decades of homelessness, his life has undergone a profound shift since The Age interviewed him for a story about boarding houses two years ago. The catalyst for this change is clear, he says. Graeme finally found a home. Victorian state schools are knocking back hundreds of frustrated families as controversial changes to enrolment rules start to bite. From this year, schools are not entitled to extra portable classrooms if 50 per cent or more of their students do not live locally. Emma, 8, and Ethan, 10, were rejected from the state school of their choice due to controversial changes to enrolment rules. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui While the move is aimed at restricting the growth of larger schools, and encouraging families to attend their closest school, critics have accused the state government of winding back school choice. Thomas Mitchell Primary School principal John Hurley said hed been forced to turn away about 30 students this year due to the new rules. Between 2016 and 2018 three auditors-general Commonwealth, NSW and Victorian reported a serious lack of transparency in the way non-government schools redistribute public funding. In late 2017, the Australian National Audit Office criticised the federal Department of Educations reliance on non-government education authorities to report on their own implementation of policy requirements, without providing evidence of compliance with the needs-based funding system. Funding review: Kathryn Greiner. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer In 2016, the NSW Catholic Bishops commissioned Kathryn Greiner to conduct a review of funding for Catholic schools. Her report, tabled in 2017, was critical of a lack of accountability and "prudent resource allocation". Greiner had been on the panel of Sydney businessman David Gonski's review of schools funding that former prime minister Julia Gillard commissioned in 2010. Greiner's report said resources for quality education were being diverted to Catholic schools in highly populated areas of NSW "to the detriment of the greater need in the rural and remote Dioceses", including the most disadvantaged in Wilcannia-Forbes in north-western NSW. A spokesman for Catholic Schools NSW says Greiner was commissioned to review Catholic schooling in NSW and develop a new governance model and funding distribution model. "Since submitting her draft report, Catholic education has done both," the spokesman says. The spokesman said Catholic education authorities take compliance responsibilities seriously and report school financial data, which is externally audited. In the1981 landmark High Court decision of Attorney-General (Vic) ex rel Black v Commonwealth, known as the DOGS case, the court affirmed public funding for non-government schools. The plaintiffs, a group of public school advocates, failed to convince the court that section 116 of the Australian Constitution prevented the Commonwealth subsidising religious schools. Section 116 prohibits the Commonwealth from making "any law for establishing any religion" and is known as the "establishment clause". Legal experts have recently argued there is greater scope now for developing a broader interpretation of the clause to stop the preferential treatment of schools from one religious denomination over others. This includes giving special favours or advantages to one that are denied to others. Constitutional law scholar Luke Beck, from Monash University, says that in the DOGS case, the majority judges were influenced by the fact that the government funding of Catholic schools was entirely non-discriminatory. Catholic and other religious private schools were all funded on the same basis. "It follows that if government funding of religious schools was discriminatory, we would be in a different situation to the situation in the DOGS case," he says. "If government funding of religious schools was discriminatory in the sense that the schools associated with one faith tradition got a special deal, then there would be a real question mark about whether that special funding deal was constitutionally valid. "More generally, any federal law that effectively 'plays favourites' between different religions has real constitutional doubts over it." Goss argues that until 2017, the schools funding formula was "particularly advantageous to a subgroup of Catholic primary schools with well-off families". "It is unclear that there has been any deliberate bias in favour of one or another group of religious schools," he says. "It's more the case that schools that had over-generous funding for whatever historical reason tended to hang on to it. "That said, Catholic education seems to have been particularly effective at arguing its case. For example, the funding formula put in place in 2013 was incredibly generous to high socio-economic status [SES] Catholic primary schools. "Because the formula treated all Catholic schools as alike, parents were never assumed to be able to pay fees of more than $2000 or so. This was ludicrous when the average household income in some Catholic primary schools was around the $300,000 mark." The Catholic Schools spokesman says if non-government primary schools in higher SES areas were forced to raise their fees, families would move their children to local government primary schools, putting pressure on government schools and rendering local Catholic or Christian schools unviable. "The Catholic school system does not receive preferential funding treatment," the spokesman says, adding that public resources were calculated in the same way for every student regardless of school sector. It is now 37 years since the High Court of Australia settled the constitutional argument over state aid for non-government schools. Today, the federal government's commitment to end what it has called "special deals" provides a new basis for asking how the DOGS case might be argued differently. Former prime minister John Howard. Credit:Paul Harris The Howard government's schools funding review in 2006 found 60 per cent of those in the Catholic system and 25 per cent in the independent sector were over-funded. Despite extra money being provided as a transitional arrangement, the Howard government promised to never take a dollar away. The Gillard government did the same. Which left Labor's funding review by businessman David Gonski with only one option to boost funding for all schools to level the playing field. But the bulk of funding never arrived and the Turnbull government's own funding review, known as Gonski 2.0, promised to redistribute funding to ensure some over-funded schools would get less in future. The government named some overfunded schools including Loreto Kirribilli and Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College that stood to lose funding. Redevelopment plans for Loreto Kirribilli. Credit:Loreto Kirribilli. But the Catholic sector protested and won extra funding last year. Some Catholic leaders had expressed a preference for Labor's education funding policies in the lead-up to a series of byelections in 2018. Had the independent sector not succeeded in getting a better deal, it may have argued a potential breach under Section 116 of the constitution. Goss says the government's announcement last year of an extra $1.2 billion for non-government schools to keep fees "affordable" appeared to be a "political fix" to the Catholic claim that parents in advantaged Catholic primary schools could not afford increased fees under the Gonski 2.0 model. Australian organised criminals are more likely to commit their first offence well into adulthood, rather than start a life of crime in their teenage years. The first Australian study looking into the criminal histories of organised offenders has found almost 60 per cent of organised criminals first offended after they turned 20. A new study has found most organised criminals commit their first offence well into their 20s. Credit:AFP Media Almost a third of Australian organised criminals were more than 30-years-old by the time they were first arrested for offences such as drug smuggling, money laundering or being involved with outlaw motorcycle gangs. The study, conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology, examined the criminal history and behaviour of more than 2000 organised criminals, who had committed a combined 37,000 offences. "We are a land of opportunity but we also face challenges," City of Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore told 25 beaming Australians-to-be during their citizenship ceremony at Circular Quay on Saturday. "Two of the biggest are addressing climate change and reconciliation with our First Australians." Ferries raced in Sydney Harbour during Australia Day celebrations. Credit:Dan Himbrechts As one woman was removed from the top of the Harbour Bridge with heat exhaustion and tens of thousands took to the streets of capital cities in rallies to protest at what they call Invasion Day, these were pertinent concerns. But opportunity was the focus of those who battled through the heat on Australia Day, during which Australia's Aboriginal heritage and multicultural diversity were at the forefront of celebrations. Canberra pet owners are being warned not to leave their dog or cat unattended in their car, as the RSPCA recorded its busiest year for animal rescues from hot vehicles in 2018. RSPCA ACT inspectors rescued 46 animals trapped in cars in the past year, almost twice as many as the year before. RSPCA Canberra shelter manager Simon Yates, and Stubbs the 8-year-old Australian bulldog. Dogs like bulldogs are more susceptible to heat stress. Credit:Jamila Toderas December had the highest number of rescues in a month in the organisation's history, as 12 pets were pulled from cars. New draft laws proposed by the ACT government would fine or even imprison those who abandon pets in a vehicle. ACT Fire and Rescue is proposing to halve the level of additional crews it is required to stand up on days with a very high fire danger rating, in a move that has been slammed by the United Firefighters Union. But Emergency Services Agency commissioner Dominic Lane stressed that ACT Fire and Rescue was only a small part of fire authorities' overall response to bushfires, with the Rural Fire Service taking primary responsibility. He also said the planned changes would have no impact on public safety. United Firefighters Union ACT branch secretary Greg McConville, who has blasted an ACT Fire and Rescue proposal to halve the number of additional crews it is required to make available on days of very high fire danger. Credit:Karleen Minney A draft copy of ACT Fire and Rescue's new bushfire and storm enhanced crewing policy, obtained by the Sunday Canberra Times, shows that on days when the fire danger rating reaches level three very high the service would be required to stand up four tanker crews or four compressed air foam system crews. The extra vehicles would be crewed by dedicated staff from 12pm until 6pm. Canberrans who advertised their property for rent on Airbnb during 2018 made on average almost $9000 each. Airbnb use has surged in the ACT over the past year. There was 143,000 nights booked in Canberra through the property-sharing website among about 300,000 guests. Silvia Nestoroska started using Airbnb in 2018 and makes $1200 a month from her New Acton apartment. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos Over the past year there was a 51 per cent increase in the number of trips to Canberra using Airbnb, and a 63 per cent jump in the number of Canberrans using the service in the ACT. In 2018, 87,600 guests staying in Canberra through Airbnb were from the ACT, while 210,500 guests came from interstate or overseas. Hundreds of people have marched through Canberra as part of an Invasion Day rally, urging Australians to stand together against the injustices faced by the Aboriginal community so the country can unite. Protesters walked from Garema Place in the city to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy opposite Old Parliament House on Saturday morning as official Australia Day celebrations to mark the landing of the First Fleet in 1788 took place at Commonwealth Park. Invasion Day protesters march through Canberra on their way to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy on Saturday morning. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos The marchers carried banners emblazoned with slogans including "Always was, always will be Aboriginal land", "No pride in genocide" and "Lest we forget the frontier wars". As they arrived at the Tent Embassy, many in the crowd were chanting "No more genocide. End the war." His maps were very, very beautiful and popular, and embraced the charming delusion, we might call it Earthism, that the moon was essentially Earthy, Earths cousin, as geographically diverse, green, wondrous and Nature action-packed as our own planet. It was what Hevelius and earthlings wanted to believe. The discovery that the moon is dry and lifeless, a place where not even the inventive Sir David Attenborough would find anything to make a wildlife doco about, has been a tragedy for our yearning, romantically-inclined species. We so badly wanted a friend, a playmate in our neighbourhood in the immensity of space. Instead what we have is this aloof stranger who may even hate us. Italo Calvino captures the moons aloof, mysterious strangeness beautifully in his essay/short story Moon in the afternoon. The moon is the most changeable body in the visible universe, and [yet] the most regular in its complicated habits: it never fails to show up for an appointment and you can always wait for it at the appointed spot; but if you leave it in one place you always find it next in another, and if you recall its face turned in a certain way, you see it has already changed its pose, a little or a lot it is imperceptibly eluding you. Yes, on the night in question the Supermoon, having paused and posed for a little in the frame of our Woden window, shimmied off to another place, perhaps to Tuggeranong to eerily beautify the former Hyperdome with beams of supermoon moonlight. Decked out in Akubras on a scorching hot Canberra day, Hans Koenderink and his son Noah Djavan Keoni Koenderink looked every bit like Australians. On Saturday that became official as the pair, who moved to Australia from the Netherlands in 2010, received Australian citizenship from Prime Minister Scott Morrison at Commonwealth Park. New Australian citizens Hans Koenderink and Noah Djavan Keoni Koenderink at the national citizenship ceremony in Commonwealth Park on Saturday. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos Father and son spoke glowingly of their new home and said they were "awfully proud" to become Australians. Mr Koenderink said they originally planned to stay here for four years, but extended their stay after falling in love with the country. There seems to be a current fascination with all things Japanese. Numerous Australians are escaping the summer heat to hit the ski slopes in Japan in a trend that has seen Australian tourism to Japan increase by 170% in the past 5 years. Open banking has many benefits. Credit: Marie Kondos tidying techniques have conquered Netflix and a 100-year-old practice of daily financial journaling called Kakeibo is teaching many how to set and stick to financial goals. As we approach the introduction of open banking, fintech entrepreneur Paul Chapman is betting that the Japanese experience has a lot to teach Australians. In a society consumed with social media it's become near impossible to stumble upon authentic Insta-stars who aren't quick to push fit-tea down our throats and into our Instagram feeds. Instagrammers Sally O'Neil and Sally Spratt in Bondi. Credit:Brook Mitchell Influencers and social media stars have fast become some of the most sought-after names in fitness, lifestyle, fashion, travel and creative industries, and the biggest platform for influencer marketing is undoubtedly Instagram, with brands lining up to be associated with popular social media personas. From Kayla Itsines' fitness empire to Tash Oakley's bikini-a-day, Aussies are gaining hundreds of thousands of followers, making them the biggest and most influential social media stars. Lesser known Sydney influencers have quietly been making a name for themselves online and their content is well worth double tapping. It has been almost two years since 13-year-old Luca Raso died of appendicitis. For almost two years his mother Michelle Degenhardt has doggedly pushed for a coronial inquest to understand how a preventable condition killed her gentle, cheeky child. Michelle Degenhardt holds a photograph of her son Luca Raso, 13, who died of appendicitis. Credit:Max Mason-Hubers I cant bring him back, but I can do something so that it never happens to another child and another family again, Ms Degenhardt said. Just before Christmas, Ms Degenhardt was given a date: a full coronial inquest into the death of Luca will be held on October 21-24 this year. If you have four police officers at an arrest, you have to look at all four body cameras; even if three of them have no relevant information, they still have to watch them, said Michael Jay, a House Appropriations committee legislative analyst. A conversation between the Today Show's presenters describing the Australian Open's audience as "our own little Europe" has been dubbed "a cringefest" by viewers on social media. A clip from the live-to-air broadcast before 6am on Friday, filmed in the Today studio at the Australian Open in Melbourne, discussing the crowd at the "international event" has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. "I love walking around and hearing all the different accents, because so many people come from so many different parts of the world. It's just like our own little Europe for two weeks here," Nine News sports presenter Tony Jones said. "Well, there's a fair few people from Asia as well here," fellow panellist Tom Steinfort said. "The accuracy wasn't great so I switched it off. It was a few bucks I wasn't getting anything out of." Before he decided to pull the plug, he opted for the voice-to-text option. Senior lecturer of Sociology at Monash University Brady Robards says voicemails are an ineffective and awkward means of communicating. Credit:Chris Hopkins "Honestly, no one ever left messages for me. When they did, it was stuff that could really easily be in a text," says the 33-year-old senior sociology lecturer at Monash University. The 2016 Deloitte Mobile Consumer survey found that more than one in four Australians were no longer using their smartphones to make "traditional" phone calls, with 27 per cent saying they made fewer than one phone call per week, instead preferring text-based communication and data-rich plans. "The telephone has evolved to such an extent that for many its original purpose is now defunct," the report said, noting that nearly nine out of 10 Australians regard text messaging as the preferred method of regular communication. Dr Robards is part of a growing number of people who are discontinuing their voicemail, following the lead of Wall Street's JP Morgan who cut the service for employees in 2015 claiming "hardly anyone uses voicemail any more". In Australia, voicemail became widely adopted with the launch of Telstra's free MessageBank service in 1994. As our mobile habits changed, so too did voicemail services. Voice2Text was introduced in 2009, with machine learning promising to pick up Aussie slang and diverse accents. But the service came with a fee starting at $5 per month and inaccurate translations caused users to lose faith. When I was an officer in the US Navy, I had the opportunity to escort his Surgeon General C. Everett Koop during the celebration to relight the torch of the Statue of Liberty that was always a beacon for immigrants to come and make America Great in the beginning. There were Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi and other immigrants that contributed to America's greatness. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. In an historic year when the Dems took back the House of Representatives and there are more women serving in Congress than ever before, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hands-down the biggest political show in America. Its making Republicans and right-wingers nuts. But Democrats, especially the throng running for president, should be wary as well. Ocasio-Cortez is already stomping all over their turf. Ocasio-Cortez came out of nowhere to beat Queens Rep. Joe Crowley, a long-entrenched power player, in a Democratic primary last year. From that moment on, Ocasio-Cortez has quickly her stamp on the American political scene, and at a volume loud enough to be heard over even the biggest voice out there: President Donald Trumps. Its been amusing to see those on the right tie themselves into knots trying to knock Ocasio-Cortez down. She doesnt always have her facts correct! She shoots from the hip! She tweets at a moments notice! She doesnt respect her elders! Sound like anybody you know, Trump fans? So now the left has their own version of the hyperbolic Trump. And just like with Trump, her supporters are only too eager to forgive or overlook any of Ocasio-Cortezs foibles. Ocasio-Cortez may not always be able to keep the branches of government straight. She may have grown up in the hardscrabble Bronx or in tonier Westchester. She may be alarmist in saying that climate change will end the world in 12 years. She may think that a world that allows for billionaires is immoral, thus undermining the very foundation of a country that rewards individual initiative and aspiration. So what? Republicans have tried to shush her. Senior Democrats have told her to mind her place and wait her turn. Ocasio-Cortez gives all of them zero you-know-whats. Shes even got that cool AOC handle. Fight me! Dems who thirst for the White House are lucky that Ocasio-Cortez is only 29 and thus ineligible under the Constitution to run for president. Can you imagine the hoopla shed cause showing up in Iowa or New Hampshire? Ocasio-Cortez on the same stage would make Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders look like the old, Establishment Dems they are. Warren and Sanders may have been the darlings of the left, but the left is leftier than it was three years ago. Their time has passed. And Ocasio-Cortez may just hit the presidential hustings anyway. Nothing should surprise you. At least for the moment. But even if Ocasio-Cortez isnt running for president, her influence is still going to be felt as Dems look to defeat Trump next year. Because she has electrified the left and other Dems in a way that others in the party can only hope to do. And 2020 definitely looks like a year of the left in presidential politics. A C-SPAN tweet of Ocasio-Cortezs first speech in Congress got a record 1.6 million views in the first 12 hours. The cameras follow her wherever she goes. The more she aggravates people, both left and right, the more her supporters like it. Shes probably already thinking which Cabinet post shed like were a Dem to win in 2020. It cant last, you say. People will see through her. The attraction will wear off. People will come to their senses. Right. They said that about Trump too. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are still asking for help locating 69-year-old Johynita Johnson who has been missing for one week. Jordan, described as standing about 5 feet 2 inches tall, weighing about 155 pounds and having brown eyes and black hair, was last seen on Friday, Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. leaving her Park Hill apartment. The NYPDs Missing Persons Squad said is a social media post asking for tips that she frequently rides the Staten Island Railway. She was seen wearing a black three-quarters-length coat and black sneakers, according to police. Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A police detective from Staten Island pleaded guilty Friday to bank fraud and conspiracy for stealing money from New Yorkers' bank accounts, according to a report in the New York Post. Detective Michael Bonanno, 44, faces up to 46 months in prison when he is sentenced April 26 in Manhattan federal court, the report said. Bonanno and a co-conspirator, Domenic Aiello, were arrested in February and accused of attempting to steal approximately $1.5 million in fraudulent wire transfers, authorities said. The duo allegedly ran their operation from November 2016 to March 2017, prosecutors said. On more than 20 occasions, Bonanno made payments on his mortgage and credit card bills using the information from the stolen accounts, according to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. Bonanno, who joined the police force in 2001, worked with the NYPDs Crime Stoppers Unit. Public records indicate he lives in Eltingville. Aiello pleaded guilty earlier this month, the Post reported. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Groundhog Day is celebrated each year on Feb. 2, when people across the country wait to discover if a small furry rodent will predict an early spring or another six weeks of harsh winter weather. For those of you who dont know the science around the tradition, if the groundhog sees his shadow, winter will be around for a little while longer. However, if the groundhog doesnt see his shadow, spring is on its way. Here are 7 key facts about the holiday: The tradition can be traced to Candlemas, an early Christian holiday. Those who celebrated Candlemas decided that clear skies on the holiday meant a longer winter. The Germans eventually began to believe that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, a hedgehog would cast a shadow -- predicting six more weeks of winter. When German immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania, they found a large number of groundhogs. So they decided that the groundhog, which resembles the European hedgehog, could predict the weather. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club was founded in Punxsutawney, Pa., in 1887 by a group of groundhog hunters. The editor of the Punxsutawney newspaper was a member of the club, and he claimed that Punxsutawney Phil was the only true weather-predicting groundhog. Eventually the furry Pennsylvania rodent -- known as Punxsutawney Phil -- became famous. Staten Islands own groundhog -- Staten Island Chuck -- has been making his prediction at the Staten Island Zoo for over three decades. According to the Staten Island Zoo, Chuck has an almost 80 percent accuracy rate on his predictions. Phil and Chuck disagreed last year, as Phil saw his shadow, calling for six more weeks of winter. 2019 CELEBRATION This years Groundhog Day celebration at the Staten Island Zoo, West Brighton, will begin at 7 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 2. Gates will open at 6 a.m. Charles G. Hogg, also known as Staten Island Chuck, is scheduled to make his prediction at 7:30 a.m. HOW THE PREDICTION IS MEASURED Local elementary school children are given the task of tracking how many days over the next six weeks are warmer, or atypical, for winter weather. A day when the temperature exceeds 40 degrees is considered atypical. At the end of the six-week period, if there are more atypical weather days than typical weather days, we got an early spring. If there are more typical weather days than atypical weather days, we got six more weeks of winter. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Members of Community Board 1 are looking to sue to the city in an attempt to stop its plans for a homeless shelter in the heart of the Bay Street Corridor, the board chairman told the Advance on Saturday. The city plans to build a 200-family shelter at 44 Victory Blvd. in Tompkinsville by next winter, in addition to a 22-bed all-female shelter at Mount Loretto on a site owned by Catholic Charities, according to information obtained by the Advance earlier this week. The name of our organization is community board, and we cannot sit idly by when the city of New York, whether through ineptitude, lack of communication or apathy, destroys the Tompkinsville/St. George community, Nicholas Siclari said. The need for housing is an unalienable right and we will pursue other locations to help this citywide crisis. Siclari noted that the North Shore already has an existing homeless shelter in addition to many other social welfare programs. He cited a part of the City Charter, which states that when the city considers locations for city facilities, it must consider fair distribution among communities of the burdens and benefits associated with city facilities, consistent with community needs for services and efficient and cost effective delivery of services and with due regard for the social and economic impacts of such facilities upon the areas surrounding the sites. Siclari said the board would like to recommend other locations in more commercial areas outside of the Bay Street Corridor rezoning area. He said there are several other commercial sites the city could consider off Richmond Terrace. The main reason we feel we have to pursue legal action is that my board is apoplectic. We have endured over two years of pedantic city planning PowerPoint presentations and banal walking tours discussing the Bay Street Corridor rezoning, and not once, not once, did any city official say here is where the 200-family homeless shelter is going, Siclari said. Every neighborhood across New York City has a part to play in addressing this citywide challenge. We remain committed to open, ongoing engagement with the community and are confident that through collaborative support and compassion, we will make this the best experience it can be for these families with children as they get back on their feet, city Department of Homeless Services spokesman Isaac McGinn said in response to Community Board 1s planned lawsuit. Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) declined to comment Saturday about the boards plans. The city previously said it selected the nonprofit WIN (Women in Need), which helps homeless women and children, as the North Shore shelters onsite service provider. Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the president and CEO of WIN, told the Advance on Saturday that the organization continues to stand behind the purpose of the shelter -- to support women and children. This shelter will allow hundreds of vulnerable Staten Island moms and kids to return to or stay in their home community -- and we are confident it will be a boon for a revitalizing neighborhood," she said. We at WIN stand by this proposed shelter and are at the ready for a thoughtful, open discussion with the community, but lets never lose sight of the fact that this is about Staten Island women and children. LEFT IN THE DARK? In documents obtained by the Advance, the city indicated it plans to look for additional sites for 300 more beds over the course of our plan, specifically in the Mid-Island and South Shore. However, the city Department of Homeless Services later said the agency would look for additional sites all around the Island and not just limit its search to those areas. The boroughs three City Council members previously slammed the city for leaving them in the dark about its site plans and for not involving them in the selection process. In Manhattans Billionaires Row, where the city plans to open a 150-resident mens homeless shelter, local elected officials said they also learned of the shelter plans in their district from constituents and not from City Hall. But DHS said the agency did not receive any proposals or ideas for other sites when it asked elected officials and community stakeholders across the city to help them decide where the new shelters should go. When asked why his administration appears to only tell the community and elected officials about plans for homeless shelters after it chooses a site, Mayor Bill de Blasio argued that was not an accurate characterization of the process. He also admitted he did not know how his administration handled consulting with the local politicians about the new Island sites. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Tony Lukes plans to sizzle soon in New York City. The famed restaurant is one of three prime cheesesteak outlets in Philadelphia. They call it the big three -- Pats, Ginos and Tony Lukes," said John Moser, CEO for MBB Management and handler of the Tony Lukes brand. [However] were the only ones who executed expansion. Moser said that the first stop on the franchises Big Apple tour will be Brooklyn at 6 Flatbush Ave. near the Barclays Center. The hope is that establishment will have an April opening. A Manhattan location, Moser said, "should be summer-ish. For Staten Island, the overall store development will be done within three, three and a half years, said Moser. Queens, the Bronx, Long Island and Yonkers will get their share of Tony Lukes outlets as well. All seven restaurants in the metro area will be run by a single restaurant group. Moser said the companys research shows Tony Lukes relates strongly with Staten Island. Patrons of their Atlantic City, South Jersey and South Philly restaurants hail from New York, many of them from Staten Island, specifically. Why does Tony Lukes seem to resonate with borough residents? I think [its] our authenticity to the quality of our product. An example of that would be we use 100 percent rib eye, no fillers. We have our own fresh bread baked at our commissary thats baked and finished at each store, said Moser. Philly-made hero rolls, as opposed to a denser New York City version, have a distinct style with pillowy insides that soak up juices from the meat and toppings. Tony Lukes can top the sandwich with American, Provolone or Cheez Whiz. Moser would also like to believe that the love for Tony Lukes comes from its care with ingredients: The company sources its veggies -- onions, peppers, spinach and broccoli rabe -- solely from South Jersey farmers. Or perhaps Staten Islanders might appreciate the man behind the sandwich sensation, Tony Lucidonio Jr., whose nickname is the restaurants moniker. According to the company, Tony Luke is a songwriter and entertainer. Hes appeared on Food Network in shows such as Not My Mamas Meals and Throwdown with Bobby Flay. He hosts the Food Mashups" web series and served as a judge on Frankenfood, one of SpikeTVs earliest food reality shows. And he grew up cooking on his fathers food truck, which roamed South Philly until the family opened the flagship brick-and-mortar shop in 1992. Tony Luke's comes to New York City. If this discussion has you pining for a shaved ribeye sandwich smothered in cheese, there are a few options to stop an impromptu drive to South Philly. At the moment, the borough is home to G-Knows -- 1310 Forest Ave., Port Richmond; 718-273-9016, Gknowscheesesteaks.com -- a shop owned by Giacomo Pisano, a Staten Island resident formerly of Philadelphia. Jodys Club Forests cheesesteak on the lunch and dinner menu -- 372 Forest Ave., West Brighton; 718-727-6338 -- also draws raves. Charlys Philly Steaks, located at Level 2 in the Staten Island Mall, is one of 560 cheesesteak chains. The casual food concept promises USDA Choice beef and pure white meat chicken. Jersey Mikes -- 2714 Hylan Blvd., New Dorp, 718-509-6553, JerseyMikes.com -- offers a dozen styles of cheesesteaks with various combos of poultry and beef. At Rookies -- 1547 Arthur Kill Rd., New Springville; 718-948-0200, RookiesSportsBarandGrill.com -- Chef Rob Nilsen tops Royal Crown bread with skillet-fried, thin-shaved ribeye with caramelized Vidalia onions and a six-cheese molten cheese sauce. Joe Alayon, the owner of Basil Cucina -- 1686 Forest Ave., Graniteville; 718-448-1087, BasilCucina.com -- also is quite proud of his beef- or chicken-driven cheesesteak on New York City bread topped with house-roasted red peppers and the option of cherry pepper aioli. I use fresh top round that I roast myself and slice thin, heat the pan up with a little olive oil until it almost smokes, then I drop the onions in first, then the roast beef so it caramelizes both. The hot pan is the trick," he said. The cheese, too, is added to the pan so it melds with the meat. One key question in all of that would seem to be whether there was any kind of a give-and-take - whether Stone was not only getting information but also strategizing with WikiLeaks, either on his own or at the direction of the Trump campaign. And Stone's indictment suggests he was engaging. It lists three occasions on which Stone asked his intermediary to pass along a message to WikiLeaks, including one in which he requested specific emails: Sharon, PA (16146) Today Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 73F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms mainly during the evening. Low around 65F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites and ad networks. Such third party cookies may track your use on Sharedots sites for better rendering. Our partners use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on Sharedots website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Learn more HARARE, Zimbabwe A violent crackdown continued Friday in Zimbabwe as rights groups alleged that women had been raped during house-to-house searches, while the government criticized a report by its own rights commission that said security forces had used systematic torture. Zimbabweans say abuses have not calmed since President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday denounced the violence as unacceptable. The unrest began last week as people protested a steep increase in fuel prices that made gasoline the worlds most expensive. The government accuses the opposition of stirring up trouble. The army asserts that uniformed perpetrators of abuses are bogus elements out to tarnish its image. Fearful residents in poor and working-class suburbs of the capital, Harare, and second city, Bulawayo, are locking themselves in at night. At least 12 people have been killed in the unrest and more than 300 wounded, scores with gunshot wounds, doctors and rights workers have said. We have received very disturbing reports of a number of cases of women allegedly raped by members of security forces, said Dewa Mavhinga, southern Africa director for Human Rights Watch. He added: Beatings, harassment and other abuses have continued after Mnangagwas return and there are no clear actions from the government to hold accountable those committing the abuses. Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said she had not received any reports of rape. Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said a critical report earlier this week by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, a constitutional body, was not based on thorough investigation and did not cover the two most anarchical days of last weeks unrest. Those with complaints should report them to the police or to military police, he said. Meanwhile, vendors in the city center were being routinely rounded up by the military, beaten and dumped at police stations, human rights lawyer Doug Coltart said. Farai Mutsaka is an Associated Press writer. KABUL The United States and the Taliban are closing in on a deal to end Americas longest war after six days of some of the most serious Afghan peace negotiations to date wrapped up Saturday. The talks in Doha, Qatar, lasted much longer than planned and longer than any previous attempt to end the 17-year conflict, and both sides publicly reported progress a rarity. The chief American negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, said on Twitter that the talks were more productive than they have been in the past and he hoped they would resume shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and everything must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive cease-fire, he said. Khalilzads comments suggested that the key sticking points were the terms of a Taliban cease-fire and getting the insurgents to give up their long-standing refusal to speak to the Afghan government, which they deride as an American puppet. Still, this is the first time in nine years of intermittent peace efforts that all sides seem serious about reaching a deal that, in the first phase, would exchange a Taliban cease-fire for a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces. The Taliban would also pledge not to allow international terror groups to use Afghanistan as a launching pad for attacks against the United States. Then the Afghans and the Taliban would need to detail exactly what the peace will look like in terms of the Taliban sharing power in government and how that might affect an array of other issues, such as the status of women in the country. Since the United States started to engage the Taliban, this by far is the closest to a deal, said Hekmat Khalil Karzai, a former Afghan deputy foreign minister. Late Saturday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reiterated the insurgents long-standing position. Until the issue of withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan is agreed upon, he said, progress in other issues is impossible. But Mujahid said progress was made on a withdrawal, and he emphasized that the insurgents still wanted to negotiate. Rod Nordland and Mujib Mashal are New York Times writers. The United States urged the United Nations Security Council on Saturday to recognize a Venezuelan opposition leader as the countrys president to replace authoritarian leader Nicholas Maduro, but Russia quickly denounced such action. At an emergency session called by the United States, Moscow and Washington clashed over what the Trump administration characterized as a return to democracy, and Russia labeled an illegal coup that meddled in a sovereign nations domestic affairs. The time is now to support the Venezuelan people, recognize the new democratic government led by interim President (Juan) Guaido, and end this nightmare, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. Pompeo emphasized Venezuelas humanitarian catastrophe, blaming Maduro and his looting of the countrys treasury for plunging Venezuelans into poverty, starvation and death. Saturdays session was not aimed at producing a resolution, which Russia would probably veto, but rather to air the issue and measure support for one side or the other. The Trump administration recognized Guaido on Wednesday, when he proclaimed himself interim president because of his role as head of the National Assembly, and as tens of thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets of Caracas in protest of Maduro. The U.S. immediately granted the Guaido forces $20 million in humanitarian aid. The U.S. position received support of varying degrees from about half a dozen of the councils 15 member countries, including France and Germany, which said they would recognize Guaido unless Maduro calls new elections within eight days. In addition to Russia, at least three other countries were strongly opposed; several abstained. Venezuela, which is not a member of the Security Council, was represented in the session by Maduros foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, who condemned what he called Washingtons long history of arrogant interventionism. On Saturday, Venezuelas government backtracked on an earlier 72-hour deadline for U.S. Embassy personnel to leave the country. Venezuelas Foreign Affairs Ministry said it is negotiating the establishment of a U.S. Interests Office and will allow U.S. Embassy personnel to remain in the country while talks take place. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Tracy Wilkinson is a Los Angeles Times writer. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia An expert from the United Nations human rights office will look into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist killed in October by Saudi agents, the agency said Friday. Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, will lead the inquiry into the killing of Khashoggi at Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul and will report her findings in June, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights announced. She will review and evaluate, from a human rights perspective, the circumstances surrounding the killing of Khashoggi, the office said in a statement, and will assess the steps taken by governments to address and respond to the killing, and the nature and extent of states and individuals responsibilities for the killing. As special rapporteur, Callamards role is to examine any allegations of extrajudicial executions on her own authority, without specific further authorization from the human rights commissioners office or any other U.N. body. Her inquiry does not amount to a formal, independent investigation of the kind the United Nations has ordered in the past, notably into the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan in 2007. But it is a first step that might lead to a fuller U.N. examination of the case. Callamards investigation will begin with a trip next week to Turkey. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabias 33-year-old crown prince and de facto ruler, personally ordered the assassination of Khashoggi, a Virginia resident who was killed and dismembered, and whose remains Turkish investigators have yet to find. Saudi Arabia has said it is conducting its own investigation into the killing, and Saudi officials have said their initial inquiry has indicated that the leader of a team of agents on the ground in Istanbul not the crown prince decided to kill Khashoggi. David D. Kirkpatrick is a New York Times writer. ISTANBUL Turkeys president warned on Friday that Ankara can go it alone in establishing a safe zone in northeastern Syria if talks with Washington on the issue fail to produce results. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not wait forever to set up the so-called safe zone east of the Euphrates River in Syria. Ankara wants Syrian Kurdish militia to withdraw from there and Erdogan has been seeking logistical and financial assistance from the U.S. in this. BRUMADINHO, Brazil Rescuers in helicopters searched Saturday searched for survivors while firefighters dug through mud in a huge area in southeastern Brazil buried by the collapse of a dam holding back mine waste, with at least 40 people dead and almost 300 missing. A day after the disaster happened, finding many more survivors looked increasingly unlikely. Romeu Zema, the governor of the state of Minas Gerais, said officials expected to find many more bodies and he warned that those responsible would be punished. Daily Folha de S.Paulo reported Saturday that the dams mining complex, owned and operated by Brazilian company Vale, was issued an expedited license to expand in December due to decreased risk. Preservation groups in the area say the approval was unlawful. There were some signs of hope. Authorities found 43 people alive Saturday, though the number missing was still almost 300. For many, hope was fading to anguish. I dont think he is alive, Joao Bosco said of his cousin, Jorge Luis Ferreira, who worked for Vale. Right now I can only hope for a miracle of God. Vale workers were eating lunch Friday when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of mud that knocked over and buried several structures of the company and surrounding areas. The status of the workers and others in the city of Brumadinho was unknown Saturday, but the level of devastation quickly led Bolsonaro and other officials to describe it as a tragedy. Nine bodies had been recovered by Saturday, according to a statement from Zemas office. But the fear is that there will be many more as rescue and recovery teams dig through feet of mud. Its distressing, maddening, said Vanilza Sueli Oliveira, who was awaiting news of her nephew. Time is passing. Its been 24 hours already. Time is passing. I just dont want to think that he is under the mud. Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened, and about 100 had been accounted for. The principal victims were our own workers, Schvartsman said Friday evening, adding that the restaurant where many ate was buried by the mud. Anna Jean Kaiser, Marcelo Silva De Sousa and Peter Prengaman are Associated Press writers. Those that probably need it the most -- the aged and severely disabled -- are probably the least likely to be able to travel the long distances to get to one of those five locations, Davis previously told The Virginian-Pilot this month. Initially, the production that could come from the five locations would be significantly under what the demand would be. LONDON Queen Elizabeth II has urged people to seek common ground, in remarks widely interpreted as a veiled criticism of the toxic debate surrounding Britains departure from the European Union. While the monarch didnt mention Brexit and is barred from commenting on political issues, the Times of London described the comments as a rebuke to warring politicians. Lawmakers on all sides of the increasingly tense Brexit debate have traded barbs in recent weeks as Prime Minister Theresa May tries to push ahead with the divorce deal she negotiated with EU leaders even though it has been overwhelmingly rejected by Parliament. MANILA Two bombs exploded outside a Roman Catholic cathedral on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are active, killing at least 19 people during a Sunday Mass, officials said. The first bomb went off in or near the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital, followed by a second blast outside the compound as government forces were responding to the attack, security officials said. TOKYO Human rights and LGBT activists on Friday denounced a ruling by Japans Supreme Court upholding a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilized before they can have their gender changed on official documents. The court said the law is constitutional because it was meant to reduce confusion in families and society. But it acknowledged that it restricts freedom and could become out of step with changing social values. ANGELOS TZORTZINIS;Angelos Tzortzinis / AFP / Getty Images ATHENS Greek lawmakers ratified an agreement Friday to end a nearly three decade-long dispute over neighboring Macedonias name, in a landmark vote that will see the small country renamed North Macedonia and clear its path to NATO membership. The deal passed with 153 votes in the 300-member parliament, two more than the minimum needed. It has faced fierce opposition in both countries, and recently cost Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras his parliamentary majority after a small right-wing party quit the governing coalition in protest. It passed with the support of independent lawmakers. CARACAS, Venezuela The Venezuelan opposition leader who has declared himself interim president vowed Friday he would remain on the streets until the South American country has a transitional government, while President Nicolas Maduro dug in and accused his opponents of orchestrating a coup. In dueling press conferences, Juan Guaido urged followers to stage another mass protest next week while Maduro pushed his oft-repeated call for dialogue. Each man appeared ready to defend his claim to the presidency no matter the cost, with Guaido telling supporters that if he is arrested they should stay the course and peacefully protest. But the standoff could set the scene for more violence and has plunged troubled Venezuela into a new chapter of political turmoil that rights groups say has already left more than two dozen dead as thousands take to the streets demanding Maduro step down. They can cut a flower, but they will never keep spring from coming, Guaido told supporters Friday, alluding to a similar phrase from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Guaidos talk with reporters at a plaza in Caracas turned into a de facto rally as thousands gathered after hearing he would speak in public for the first time since taking a symbolic oath Wednesday proclaiming himself the nations rightful leader. Maduro, meanwhile, spoke in the presidential palace before a room of journalists. The Trump administration announced it was recognizing Guaido as president quickly after his oath, leading Maduro to announce that he was breaking all diplomatic ties with the United States. Maduro is accusing the opposition of working with the U.S. to overthrow him. Though over a dozen nations as well as the Inter-American Development Bank are recognizing Guaido as president, Maduro still has the support of powerful, longtime allies like Russia and China and is vowing to defend his socialist rule. This is nothing more than a coup detat, ordered, promoted, financed and supported by the government of the United States, he said Friday. Anti-Maduro coalition grew from secret talks The coalition of Latin American governments that joined the U.S. in quickly recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president came together over weeks of secret diplomacy that included whispered messages to activists under constant surveillance and a high-risk foreign trip by the opposition leader challenging President Nicolas Maduro for power, those involved in the talks said. In mid-December, Guaido quietly traveled to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to brief officials on the opposition's strategy of mass demonstrations to coincide with Maduro's expected swearing-in for a second term on Jan. 10 in the face of widespread international condemnation, according to exiled former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, an ally. On Jan. 4 - a day before Guaido was sworn in as national assembly president - foreign ministers from 13 nations said they wouldn't recognize Maduro's second term. -Associated Press See More Collapse On Friday, Alexander Shchetinin, head of the Russian Foreign Ministrys Latin America department, told the state RIA Novosti news agency that Moscow is ready to play mediator between Venezuelas government and the opposition. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, has called out the United States for what he said was its unacceptable and destructive moves. Christine Armario and Scott Smith are Associated Press writers. In 2009, the Fleet Week tradition on San Francisco Bay was about to die from disinterest. The Parade of Ships had shrunk to a Parade of Ship, and the U.S. Navy, which sends the Blue Angels, was feeling that maybe it wasnt worth all the expense and effort. So Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Chief of Protocol Charlotte Shultz turned to the one person who could save the Columbus Day weekend attraction: retired Marine Maj. Gen. Mike Myatt. Myatt, who at the time was president and CEO of the Marines Memorial Association and co-chairman of the committee to get a World War II monument built outside the Veterans Building, was not looking for more projects. But hes known as a man who responds to a mission as proved by his time in the first Gulf War, where his mission was to drive the Iraq army out of Kuwait. His strategy to bring the fleet back to San Francisco Fleet Week was to turn it into an emergency and disaster preparedness exercise on Treasure Island. The drill, to be conducted by the San Francisco Fire Department, would be for the direct benefit of U.S. Navy, Marine and Coast Guard rescue teams, thereby attracting the very units that were put off by the cost and logistical hassles of S.F. Fleet Week. It worked. One lonely ship carrying six Marines through the Golden Gate in 2009 became 10 ships carrying 2,000 uniformed personnel in 2010. It was a singular idea, to be sure, but Myatt is not a singular idea type of thinker. Ten years later, the training exercise has evolved into the Center for Humanitarian Assistance, training 100 or more uniformed personnel per year. The worlds best humanitarian assistance providers are the men and women of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Coast Guard, because they respond to all the crises around the world, says Myatt, who humbly declines accepting credit for being the man who saved S.F. Fleet Week. But others are happy to give it to him, and that is why he has been nominated as a Chronicle Visionary of the Year by Charlotte and husband George Shultz, who served in four U.S. Cabinet positions. He is one of six finalists for The Chronicles annual recognition of Bay Area leaders whose work improves the world. About VisionSF This is one of six profiles of finalists for The Chronicle's fifth annual Visionary of the Year award. The honor salutes leaders who strive to make the world a better place and drive social and economic change by employing new, innovative business models and practices. The finalists were selected by a nominating committee that included Daniel Lurie, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Tipping Point Community; John Diaz, editorial page editor of The Chronicle; London Breed, mayor of San Francisco; Sam Liccardo, mayor of San Jose; Libby Schaaf, mayor of Oakland; Charlotte Shultz, chief of protocol for the city and county of San Francisco; and George Shultz, former U.S. secretary of state. Chronicle Publisher Bill Nagel, Editor in Chief Audrey Cooper and Diaz will select the winner, which will be announced in late March. See More Collapse Gen. Myatt definitely has brought Fleet Week back by engaging the first responders, Charlotte Shultz says. Fleet Week was always fun, but he has made it into something that is really worthwhile. If we have an earthquake, we will know what to do, with the help of out military and first responders working together. Now 78, the general is retired for the third time. He served 32 years in the Marines, six years with Bechtel Corp. and 16 with the Marines Memorial, his first resuscitation job in the city. The Marines Memorial was decayed when he took it over, and he has brought it back to life, Charlotte Shultz says. He is so respected by the military. When Gen. Myatt speaks, they listen. We all do. Myatt is in remission from a recurrence of lung cancer and deserving of a stay-at-home break at his house next to Lowell High School in the Outer Sunset. But his wife, Wendy Lee, still gets up at 5:30 in the morning and goes to work so he finds himself compelled to put on his coat and tie and go to work, too. Most often it is to the S.F. Fleet Week Garage, headquarters in a single-car garage of a Victorian home in Noe Valley. Myatt serves as chairman of the S.F. Fleet Week board. The other chairs in the garage are filled by Executive Director Lewis Loeven, formerly the chief information officer for the city and county of San Francisco, and Diana Bartram, chief of staff. Their involvement allows Myatt to use the only pronoun he is comfortable with in discussing accomplishments: we. Since we took over, Fleet Week has just taken off, Myatt quips. To get Myatt to brag, you have to throw him a trick question, like asking him whether S.F. Fleet Week is his greatest accomplishment. It probably is, he says. Its hard to compare. Compare to what? Well, I commanded the First Marine Division in Operation Desert Storm, he says, reluctantly. We liberated Kuwait City. He also did two tours in Vietnam and over the course of his career, the three highest-ranking former military officers in the Trump White House Gen. Joe Dunford, the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. John Kelly, former White House chief of staff; and Gen. Jim Mattis, former secretary of defense. If Myatt was a talker, hed have stories to tell and a captive audience at the Bohemian Club, where he is a member; that would be an obvious destination for lunch. But Myatt is loyal to the Marines Memorial around the corner, so he takes his lunch there instead. The 12th floor restaurant is empty, but the staff is there and thats who he comes to see. They all proudly wear name tags that state the year they started at the Marines Memorial and the country of origin (1997, Guatemala reads one thats the generals touch). When it is mentioned that the view at the Marines Memorial would make it a nice place to watch the Blue Angels rehearse, he agrees. But he quickly points out that the air show is a very small part of Fleet Week even though, he adds, it brings in the people, about a million and a half of them, which is no small feat. S.F. Fleet Week fans, who often come from outside of the city for all the attractions the week has to offer, are all invited to visit the Humanitarian Village at Crissy Field and the band shell in Golden Gate Park, where they host a high school band contest. The contests prize is $10,000 to support the winning bands school program. This was Charlotte Shultzs idea, he says, excited to deflect credit. Another person he wants to credit is Bartram, who worked in emergency management for the city, before going to Fleet Week full time. In 2016, she took part in a Fleet Week exercise involving resource distribution after an earthquake. In 2017, she put all that training to urgent use, setting up distribution points in Santa Rosa after the Nuns Fire. We had 300 cars an hour coming through checkpoints, Bartram says. Each car got a bucket with gloves, mask and bottled water in it. Thats just one in a long line of heroics provided by the armed forces, ranging from the 1989 earthquake when the military police came out of the Presidio to secure the Marina district to the 1906 earthquake when the Navy ship Chicago came into the bay and evacuated 23,000 citizens as the city burned. We try to show the people of San Francisco and the Bay Area the capabilities of the military other than fighting wars, Myatt says. They are the best providers of humanitarian assistance. San Francisco Fleet Week has now become the model for Fleet Weeks in Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland and San Diego. In 2018, it was introduced in New York City. But the general doesnt mention these; that would be bragging. By the end of lunch, it is raining hard as he heads out onto Sutter Street. But Marines dont carry umbrellas. He stands there in his suit, rain pounding on his bare head to make one final point: San Francisco has a political reputation for being anti-military, he says, but Fleet Week, I think, has changed that perception a lot because the people of the city welcome the Marines. Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SamWhitingSF Instagram: sfchronicle_art At Tuesdays work session, Waters said the city is obligated under its contract with the regional jail to pay for 250 beds at $60.45 each per day a rate that has nearly doubled over the past decade. The city jail itself is under capacity capable of holding 288 people but currently housing 186 and the number of inmates Portsmouth sends to the regional jail has consistently gone down over the past eight years, Waters said. Police chief Steve Drew told the Daily Press on Friday that Pittman had active warrants for possession of a firearm by a nonviolent felon and for charges out of Henrico County. However, he also said more charges may be coming. Second, the Peninsulas strong and growing corporations generate a lot of business travel. Giardino said the airport in Rochester, N.Y., where he used to work, has boosted flights by 10 percent despite a sliding economy. So he said the Peninsula, with a shipyard thats hiring and an economy powered by long-term government contracts, ought to be able to attract airlines. The wall sits on the other side of what would have been the original 1607 fort wall. It also is a larger footprint than the 1640s church that later replaced it, implying that the congregation might have gotten smaller by the time the second church was built, Lounsbury said. Ernest and Hadley found their way to Paris on a writing assignment for the Toronto Star. There they came to know expats like Gertrude Stein, her partner Alice B. Toklas, and Ezra Pound, and later Archibald MacLeish and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway spent a great deal of time in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the fall of 1922, and eventually Hadley decided to join him. Unfortunately, on her way she lost a valise, probably stolen, that contained copies of his unpublished "serious writing the vignettes and stories he really cared about," which he had labored over in Paris. Power, Energy and Business Promotion Minister Ravi Karunanayaka has instructed ministry officials to restrict to the minimum the controversial spot purchases of electricity, a spokesman said. He said according to the Minister, a new National Power and Energy Policy would be introduced by March this year. He had also instructed officials to expand solar power projects on the basis of them being environmentally friendly, affordable and a source of clean energy available for power generation. The Minister has issued these instructions at a meeting held with members of the Small-Scale Solar Power Producers Association and officials of the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA). The spokesman said officials had been asked to ensure uninterrupted power supply round the year at the lowest possible tariff. He said the Minister had pointed out that Sri Lanka had failed to implement a single power project in the past three years and as such it would badly affect the power supply in the years to come. He also expressed his concern about the negative reaction to spot purchases by the opposition, the public, the media and officials on the suspicion that spot power purchases benefit someone. The Minister has asked small scale solar power producers to send him a report outlining their grievances. Meanwhile, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Sri Lanka Air Force to launch a project for artificial rain. Under the MOU, the Air Force will provide logistic support such as airplanes and technical know-how by Thailand to the CEB to activate artificial rain in Sri Lanka. (Sandun A Jayasekera) (Sandun A Jayasekera) State officials will host four permitting workshops for cannabis cultivators in Northern California over the next five weeks. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the State Water Resources Control Board will give presentations at the workshops. The wildlife agency will address topics that include how to begin the notification process, lake and streambed alteration agreements, and limiting environmental impacts. The water board will address policy and permitting and computers will be available for applicants to apply for water rights and water quality permits. In the coming months, more workshops will be announced throughout the state. The four upcoming Northern California workshops will be held: * From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30, at Sonoma Lab Works, 1201 Corporate Center Parkway, Santa Rosa. For more information, visit www.scgalliance.com/event/cannabis-cultivation-permitting-open-house/ * From 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, at The Foothills Event Center, 400 Idaho Maryland Road, Grass Valley. For more information, visit: www.nccannabisalliance.org/calendar/water-board-fish-wildlife-water-rights-a-get-legit-workshop-2/ * From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, at North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, 5550 Skyline Blvd. Suite A, Santa Rosa, *From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28 at Trinity County Fairgrounds, 6000 CA-3, Hayfork. In addition, the California Department of Food and Agriculture will be at the Feb. 26 and 28 workshops. The agriculture department will provide an overview of the state's cannabis cultivation licensing program and review the primary requirements for a cannabis farming license. Staff will also be available to answer questions. The wildlife agency encourages cannabis cultivators to obtain all necessary state licenses and county permits, as well as implement best management practices to reduce environmental impacts. Following these recommended actions could help cultivators avoid common pitfalls that may lead to enforcement actions, the agency said. More information can be obtained at www.wildlife.ca.gov/conservation/cannabis or by emailing AskCannabis@wildlife.ca.gov. For more water board information on the topic, visit www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/cannabis/. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. The 9th annual Whalefest Monterey is being held this weekend at Old Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey, organizers said. The free event starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. each day. The event among other things is meant to celebrate the biodiversity of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Visitors can take part in a two-day symposium with world-renowned marine experts and visit many exhibit booths. Local and national marine groups that educate and empower people to protect the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary will benefit from the event. Weather permitting, visitors can take part in whale-watching tours and other water events. A Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant died Thursday on a flight to New York that was diverted to San Francisco International Airport, officials with the airlines said Friday. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Emile Griffith, a member of our flight attendant 'ohana for over 31 years who passed away while working on our flight between Honolulu and New York last night," Ann Botticelli, a spokesperson for the airlines, said. Hawaiian Airlines Flight 50 was carrying 253 passengers and 12 crewmembers on its way to John F. Kennedy International Airport after leaving Daniel K. Inouye International Airport at 4:13 p.m. Hawaii time. The plane landed at San Francisco International Airport shortly after 11 p.m. Pacific time, Hawaiian Airlines officials said. At least for now, six law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa County do not have to release police personnel records following a legal challenge to a transparency law that went into effect Jan. 1. Senate Bill 1421 was passed by the California legislature last year and was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Before then, California's laws shielded police personnel records from public view. SB 1421, also known as the Right to Know Act, requires certain types of those records to be made public. Law enforcement agencies are now required to turn over personnel records related to use of force, sexual assault, and officer dishonesty. Attorneys for police unions are arguing that the law shouldn't apply retroactively - meaning only documents for incidents that occur after Jan. 1, 2019, are subject to disclosure. A study released on Friday says the Oakland A's proposed aerial gondola connecting downtown Oakland with Jack London Square and the proposed site of a new Oakland A's waterfront ballpark would generate $685 million in economic benefits for the city over 10 years. The analysis by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a think tank focused on economic and policy issues in the region, also says that the gondola would serve more than one million passengers a year. The institute said the gondola, which would transport riders between the downtown and the waterfront in an estimated 3.5 minutes, is also expected to spur new residential and commercial development and support the equivalent of 46 full-time jobs. "A gondola provides a unique and important transportation solution for better connecting Oakland's growing downtown and waterfront," Jeff Bellisario, a vice president of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute and lead author of the analysis, said in a statement. Bellisario said, "A gondola can serve as a major magnet for economic development, support the Oakland A's exciting vision for a waterfront ballpark, attract tourists and other visitors and reduce commute times for thousands of workers." Over thirty passengers escaped safely after a bus carrying the Stanford Track and Field team caught fire Friday afternoon on Interstate Highway 5 in Seattle, the Washington State Patrol confirmed. Firefighters were dispatched at 2:11 p.m. to northbound Highway 5 near the exit for the University of Washington, where Stanford is attending an invitational track meet this weekend. The charter bus driver pulled over to the side of the highway when the fire began, likely in the area of the wheel brakes, according to spokesman Trooper Rick Johnson. Everyone in the bus was able to evacuate safely and no one was injured. Johnson said he believes 31 people were on the bus, and were picked up by King County Metro Transit buses and taken to their destination. Athletes took videos of the fire when it began, and Johnson said it had essentially consumed the bus by the time it was extinguished. A chiropractor, who fled Sonoma County before he was convicted of sexual battery and annoying or molesting eight female patients or underage employees at his Santa Rosa practice, was captured Thursday in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, the Santa Rosa Police Department said. Daryoush "Darius" Bunyad, 36, of Petaluma, failed to show up in Sonoma County Superior Court to hear a jury's verdict on March 9, 2017. He faced eight years in prison for six felony sexual battery by fraud charges and six misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a child. A no-bail warrant for his arrest was issued when he disappeared, and Santa Rosa police put Bunyad on its Most Wanted Fugitive list. His attorney Richard Scott said at the time he was concerned about his client's welfare. Scott said after hearing prosecutors' closing arguments at his trial, Bunyad "may have felt there was no way out for him." Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. At least for now, six law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa County do not have to release police personnel records following a legal challenge to a transparency law that went into effect Jan. 1. Senate Bill 1421 was passed by the California legislature last year and was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Before then, California's laws shielded police personnel records from public view. SB 1421, also known as the Right to Know Act, requires certain types of those records to be made public. Law enforcement agencies are now required to turn over personnel records related to use of force, sexual assault, and officer dishonesty. Attorneys for police unions are arguing that the law shouldn't apply retroactively - meaning only documents for incidents that occur after Jan. 1, 2019, are subject to disclosure. "We believe the case law is very, very strong in our favor... if it doesn't say it's retroactive, it's not retroactive," said Rocky Lucia, an attorney with Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, who is representing six law enforcement unions in Contra Costa County. But attorneys with the ACLU say that's a "red herring" argument, as the law was supposed to open up records from any time frame. "The law was intended to, and does, make existing records available to the public," Kathleen Guneratne, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, said. "We think this is just an attempt by the police unions to undermine an overwhelmingly popular law that's key to transparency." Guneratne said police transparency is especially important to people of color whose family members have been on the receiving end of police violence. "All this law does is make two categories of sustained findings of misconduct public, as they are in many other professions," she said. "There is absolutely no reason that the public should not know about that." But Lucia argued that police officers are able to hold themselves accountable and don't need more scrutiny. "All of these cops, whether they committed any one of those acts or not, they have a right to have those personnel records be confidential," Lucia said. Lucia is representing the police unions in Richmond, Antioch, Concord, Martinez and Walnut Creek, as well as Contra Costa County. A judge ordered temporary restraining orders against all those agencies, asking them not to release records, at least for now. Another more in-depth hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Deputies have arrested a man in connection with a stabbing that occurred Friday in Pescadero. Christian Uries Arellano-Nevarez, 23, of Pescadero, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism and disobeying a court order, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office. Deputies responded Friday at 10:10 a.m. to a residence in the 200 block of Butano Cutoff on a report of a stabbing. Deputies said the victim found Arellano-Nevarez asleep inside the victim's residence. Arellano-Nevarez was not allowed to be at the residence due to a current restraining order. The victim confronted Arellano-Nevarez, and the suspect grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the victim, deputies said. Following the stabbing, the suspect walked outside and vandalized the victim's car. Arellano-Nevarez left the property, was located a short time later by deputies and arrested. The victim received medical attention at the scene and was ultimately transported to hospital. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (BCN) A Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant died Thursday on a flight to New York that was diverted to San Francisco International Airport, officials with the airlines said Friday. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of Emile Griffith, a member of our flight attendant 'ohana for over 31 years who passed away while working on our flight between Honolulu and New York last night," Ann Botticelli, a spokesperson for the airlines, said. Hawaiian Airlines Flight 50 was carrying 253 passengers and 12 crewmembers on its way to John F. Kennedy International Airport after leaving Daniel K. Inouye International Airport at 4:13 p.m. Hawaii time. The plane landed at San Francisco International Airport shortly after 11 p.m. Pacific time, Hawaiian Airlines officials said. Botticelli said, "Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with out guests. Our hearts are with Emile's family, friends and all those fortunate to have known him." Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. STANFORD (BCN) Over thirty passengers escaped safely after a bus carrying the Stanford Track and Field team caught fire Friday afternoon on Interstate Highway 5 in Seattle, the Washington State Patrol confirmed. Firefighters were dispatched at 2:11 p.m. to northbound Highway 5 near the exit for the University of Washington, where Stanford is attending an invitational track meet this weekend. The charter bus driver pulled over to the side of the highway when the fire began, likely in the area of the wheel brakes, according to spokesman Trooper Rick Johnson. Everyone in the bus was able to evacuate safely and no one was injured. Johnson said he believes 31 people were on the bus, and were picked up by King County Metro Transit buses and taken to their destination. Athletes took videos of the fire when it began, and Johnson said it had essentially consumed the bus by the time it was extinguished. Fire officials said they used two water sources with over a thousand feet of hose, six engines and one rescue unit to respond to the blaze. "You can imagine when a fire burns this intense, it's gonna be very difficult, but we're gonna go and research it, do all the work we can," Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins said during a news conference. The team posted on Twitter to say that all athletes are safe and the team will continue to compete in the invitational. The fire caused a major traffic buildup in the northbound lanes even though the direction of travel is not a typical rush hour route, Johnson said. "Everyone's safe, and that's our main concern," he said. Copyright 2019 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Elizabeth City, NC (27909) Today Sunny to partly cloudy. Hot. High near 95F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low around 75F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. South Africa: Youth urged to play role in protecting democracy The future of South Africa demands young people to step up and play a meaningful role in building and protecting its democracy, says National Youth Development Agency (NYDA). At the centre of youth participation in democracy is the agenda towards full youth socio-economic emancipation, said NYDA Executive Chairperson Sifiso Mtsweni. The NYDA has concluded a successful Voter Registration and Education Campaign (VREC) held across South Africa. The campaign was hosted in partnership with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) aimed at ensuring that young people take advantage of the final voter registration weekend on 26 and 27 January 2019 from 8am till 5pm. Through the National Youth Service Programme (NYSP), the NYDA visited schools across the country, conducted voter education workshops and various activities within communities. Recruited and trained volunteers accompanied members of the NYDA board during this week-long campaign. The NYDA will continue its partnership and support for the IECs X Se campaign and participate during the special registrations targeting institutions of higher learning. We are confident that our efforts to reach as many young people, especially between the ages of 18 and 19 years old, which will be voting for the first time and those between 20 and 29 years will translate into a success, Mtsweni said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. And Trump? The man who bragged he never hired a pollster seemed to know instinctively that any politician can promise to fight nearly all of them did but very few could truly and unequivocally win, and thats exactly what he promised voters to do in 2016. At a rally in South Carolina that year, he never even discussed fighting. Instead, he said the word win 22 times. Were going to win so much youre going to be tired of winning. America, are we tired of winning yet? The proposed Bloomfield ordinance calls for a $250 penalty for retailers who violate it. It also requires suspension of sales of tobacco products for repeat offenders. They are: seven days for anyone who has violated the policy twice in three years; 30 days for anyone who has violated the policy three times in three years; and the revocation of the permit to sell tobacco products to anyone who has violated the policy four times in three years. WASHINGTON Roger Stone, a Republican consultant who embraced his decades-old reputation as a dirty trickster and helped launch President Trumps political career, was arrested Friday morning in the Russia investigation and accused of lying about his pursuit of hacked Democratic Party emails. Stone, 66, was charged with one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements and one count of witness tampering. He was released on a $250,000 bond after a federal court appearance in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he was taken into custody at his home before sunrise. He emerged from the courthouse smiling, his arms outstretched in a V-for-victory pose made famous by his political idol, President Richard Nixon, who resigned from office during the Watergate scandal. I will plead not guilty to these charges, Stone told reporters. I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically motivated investigation. At the center of the charges are Stones conversations involving WikiLeaks, which released emails that were hacked by Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign. According to prosecutors, Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee about those communications and tried to persuade another person to provide false testimony. The indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller also said Stone had several contacts with unnamed people in the Trump campaign about WikiLeaks. After the organization released the first batch of hacked emails shortly before the Democratic National Convention, a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about what else WikiLeaks might have, according to the indictment. Stone allegedly sought information from WikiLeaks through an intermediary, Jerome Corsi, a far-right writer and conspiracy theorist, and then updated people connected to the Trump campaign. The payload is still coming, Stone wrote to one supporter on Oct. 3, according to the indictment. Status of probe Roger Stone is the sixth President Trump adviser or official to be charged in the special counsel investigation. The others: Paul Manafort, former campaign chairman; Michael Flynn, former national security adviser; Michael Cohen, former lawyer; George Papadopoulos, former campaign adviser; Rick Gates, former campaign adviser. In all, Robert Mueller has issued more than 100 criminal counts against dozens of people and three companies. Source: New York Times See More Collapse Stone also received an inquiry from Steve Bannon, the Trump campaigns chief executive who was identified in the indictment as a high-ranking member of the team. He told Bannon to expect a load every week going forward. Days later, WikiLeaks began releasing emails hacked from the account of John Podesta, Hillary Clintons campaign chairman. Stone later claimed credit for having correctly predicted the October 7, 2016 release, the indictment said. Trump reacted angrily on Twitter, calling the Mueller investigation the Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! Stone met Trump while raising money for President Ronald Reagans campaign in 1980, and Stone eventually began encouraging the New York real estate developer to run for the White House himself. Chris Megerian is a Los Angeles Times writer. HARRISBURG, Pa. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Harris Wofford, a longtime civil rights activist who helped persuade John F. Kennedy to make a crucial phone call to the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1960 presidential campaign, has died. He was 92. Wofford died in the hospital Monday night of complications from a fall Jan. 19 in his Washington apartment, his son, Daniel Wofford, said. Kennedys call to Coretta Scott King when her husband was locked in a Georgia prison cell in 1960 is credited by some analysts with turning the black vote in his favor and perhaps proving to be the decisive factor in the race against Richard Nixon. Wofford was an aide to Kennedy during his administration and worked in government and higher education until his upset Senate win in 1991. Woffords activism started in high school. Visits to India left him inspired by Mohandas K. Gandhi, and he marched with King. He became an aide and friend to Democratic presidents over a span of decades. He was really blessed to have such a long and full and interesting and happy life, Daniel Wofford said Tuesday. As we realized that we were going to lose him, we began to focus on what an amazing career and father and friend he was to so many. As the head of President Bill Clintons domestic volunteer program, Wofford was behind the national Martin Luther King Day of Service, which urged Americans to volunteer on the holiday. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., D-Pa., on Tuesday called Wofford a champion of justice and a man of uncommon courage who dedicated his life to service. Its only fitting that Harris passed away on the national day of service he helped to bring into existence, Casey said. Though perhaps best known for his three years in the Senate, Wofford left a large legacy by shaping government programs behind the scenes. He advised Kennedy on civil rights, assisted in the establishment of the Peace Corps and headed Clintons Corporation for National Service. He also spent years leading higher education institutions and was an early supporter of Barack Obamas presidential candidacy. With a philosophy grounded in Kennedy-style liberalism, he promoted an activist government and crafted a career in public service. I obviously get a lot of joy out of public service, Wofford said in a 1995 interview. Ive followed ideas in life, and the idea of volunteer service has been with me even before I went to college. Its very hard to imagine life when youre not following ideas. In 1991, he was appointed by then-Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr. to fill the Senate vacancy created by the death of three-term Republican John Heinz in a plane crash. Six months later, he pulled off a surprise victory in the special election to complete the Senate term. He beat Republican Dick Thornburgh, who was President George H.W. Bushs attorney general and a popular former Pennsylvania governor, by 10 percentage points. The special election was considered a dry run for Democratic themes in 1992, when Clinton won the presidency. Wofford campaigned on a pledge to guarantee health care for all Americans, much like Clinton would embrace through his first two years in office. If criminals have a right to a lawyer, I think working Americans should have the right to a doctor, he repeated in his campaign commercials. As a senator, Wofford pushed Clintons doomed health care plan and helped write legislation to create a national service program, which he also ran. Wofford was known as a bit of an egghead, not a smooth-talking politician. He had difficulty speaking in 30-second sound bites, and many analysts say he preferred the technical nuts and bolts of legislation over ribbon-cutting events and public visits. In the historic midterm election of 1994, voters soured on Clintons early efforts and gave control of both houses of Congress back to Republicans for the first time in decades. In Pennsylvania, Wofford fell in his bid for a full Senate term to Republican Rick Santorum, who campaigned against the kinds of government programs that Wofford had an affinity for. A year later, Clinton named Wofford to head the Corporation for National Service, which included Clintons beloved AmeriCorps. He later was co-chair of Americas Promise, a group that aims to help young people. In late 2007, Wofford traveled to Iowa to endorse the candidacy of then-Sen. Obama. According to the New York Times, he told a crowd that he had not felt so inspired since the days of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. ... Barack Obama picked up the torch that they lit. In 2016, Wofford, by then a widower of two decades after his wife of 48 years, Clare, died of leukemia, announced in a column in the Times that he had found love with a man 50 years his junior. At age 70, I did not imagine that I would fall in love again and remarry. But the past 20 years have made my life a story of two great loves, he wrote. Wofford was 75 when he met Matthew Charlton, who was 25, and they married when they were 90 and 40. Woffords activism in civil rights dated to the 1950s. A close confidante of King, Wofford served as a lawyer for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was one of the first white graduates of Howard University Law School in 1954. After working on Kennedys presidential campaign, Wofford later served as chairman of Kennedys White House Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights and helped R. Sargent Shriver form the Peace Corps in the early 1960s. At the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago, Wofford was arrested in street protests. Charges of disorderly conduct were later dropped. The author of four books, Wofford was president of the State University of New York at Old Westbury, which began as an experimental college on Long Island, from 1966 to 1969. A committee of educators later decided the college was too informal the school had no departments, no failing grades and no exams and it was reformed in 1971. He then led Bryn Mawr, the liberal arts institution outside Philadelphia, from 1970 to 1978. After a decade in private law practice and a stint as Pennsylvanias Democratic Party chairman, he joined the Cabinet of Gov. Casey Sr. in 1987 as secretary of labor and industry. Born in 1926 in New York City to a successful insurance salesman and a civic activist, Harris Llewellyn Wofford parted ways with his family politically at age 10. For months, he refused to ride in the family car, which sported a bumper sticker for the 1936 Republican presidential candidate, Alf Landon. Wofford was active during his teenage years in Scarsdale, N.Y., advocating worldwide government as the founder of Student Federalists. But during a visit to India, he was exposed to Gandhis teachings and his enthusiasm was tempered by a realization that more practical solutions would be needed for world problems. He and Clare later wrote India Afire, which was published in 1951. Wofford found that big ideas come to fruition only with persistence and thats the key lesson I learned from him, Daniel Wofford said Tuesday. He is survived by Charlton and three children, Susanne, Daniel and David, and six grandchildren. MCLEAN, Va. Potential Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said Friday that Donald Trumps presidency cannot be helped and was dangerous for the country. The former New York City mayor also described the partial government shutdown as a complete failure of presidential leadership. The billionaire businessman said that for fellow New Yorker Trump, the art of the deal is simply cheating people and not caring about how badly they get hurt and now hes doing it to the American people. Bloomberg also told a meeting of the Democratic Business Council of Northern Virginia that he thinks its clear that this president, at this point, cannot be helped. The remarks by Bloomberg, a former Republican who registered as a Democrat only last fall, were some of his toughest against Trump since Bloombergs speech to the Democratic National Convention more than two years ago. Back then, Bloomberg warned of the prospect of a Trump presidency: God help us. Bloomberg reflected upon that 2016 speech repeatedly Friday, and he went further, suggesting that the government shutdown has proved that his initial warning about Trump was correct. The presidency is not an entry-level job. Theres just too much at stake, Bloomberg said. And the longer we have a pretend CEO whos recklessly running this country, the worst its going to be for our economy and our security. ... This is really dangerous. Bloombergs warm reception highlighted the chief political challenge should he enter the 2020 race. Liberal activists, who like to attack what they call corporate Democrats, play a far more prominent role in the primary process than do the kind of business executives who gave him a standing ovation Friday. Bloomberg tried to make the case for both capitalism and a centrist candidate, suggesting Democrats dont need to choose between energizing the base and pragmatic leadership. Asked about his 2020 intentions, he acknowledged he can make a difference even if he doesnt run. Having said that, I dont like walking away from challenges. Steve Peoples is an Associated Press writer. A Sacramento native and Southern California college student studying in Bali thought tacking on a quick trip to Japan would make for a fun excursion. But a night out in Tokyo wound up costing him his freedom for over eight months, starting with the moment he broke a pricy lamp. The man, Julian Adame, was supposed to meet his friend Kate Emmons in Thailand after a brief jaunt around Tokyo. But when he didn't make it, Emmons grew worried. As she found out later by reaching out to others who had been in contact with him in Japan, Adame was having beers with friends when "the alcohol and in combination of him traveling" made him fall asleep, according to KXTV. RELATED: Travel groups praise deal on shutdown after flight delays As later detailed by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Adame was reportedly awakened by officers after his friends left. They told him he broke a lamp worth $900, and they needed to see his passport. Emmons later told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Adame was "convinced they were gang members" pretending to be police officers. As a result, Adame was already on edge when they took him to a community police box and then to his hostel to get his passport. As he retrieved his passport, they arrested him. That's when things took a turn for the worse. "He was really startled by this," Emmons said, "so he turned around and accidentally scuffed one of the officers' chins." Now, Adame is being charged with the "obstruction of the performance of official duties." He was officially arrested on May 22, 2018, as the United States Department of State confirms to SFGATE. Nine months later, Adame is still in Japan, working with the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Consular officers continue to visit him regularly, and are in contact with his family and friends in the U.S. RELATED: Government shutdown strains emerge in US air travel system Adame's mother in Sacramento, Leah Smith, didn't know her son was missing until she saw news of it on Emmons' social media feed. Smith and her son have been estranged for two years, she told the Tribune, but she hopes that when he gets out that they can rebuild their relationship. "First, he was missing, then he was found, then he was in jail," she told the Tribune, adding that Adame has never been in trouble with the law. "It was literally the worst day of my life." At this point, Adame plans to plead guilty and pay a fine, but his trial date keeps getting delayed. "It's just not fair," Smith told KTXL. "It's a simple case. Let's just get it done." The University of Redlands in Southern California, where Adame attends classes, says they are aware of Adame's detainment. The school clarified that Adame was not in Asia with an official university program, but that administrators have been "in contact with local and international law enforcement agencies in Japan to ask for status, express our concern, and offer our assistance." Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira. If theres one thing I hate, its when you order something from a menu you were told was spicy but then when you take that first bite, you quickly realize how far from the truth that claim was. Ive always been partial to spicy dishes, something I credit to a variety of spicy food I ate growing up. When go to restaurants, I usually have my mind set on that or request the hottest salsa available to douse my entree with. This article, Electric scooter injuries are piling up, originally appeared on CNET.com. Scooter riders are getting into serious accidents that result in broken bones and head injuries, according to the first official medical study on the new form of transportation. Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles examined data from two emergency departments from Sept. 1, 2017, to Aug. 31, 2018, and found that 249 people required medical care from scooter accidents. One-third of those patients arrived at the hospital in an ambulance. "These injuries can be severe," Dr. Tarak Trivedi, emergency physician at UCLA and the study's lead author, said in a phone interview. "These aren't just minor cuts and scrapes. These are legit fractures." Electric scooter company Bird first rolled out these vehicles in September 2017 in Santa Monica, California. Now there are nearly a dozen companies that have scooters for rent in roughly 100 cities across the US. Because the rentable vehicles are so new, federal and local officials haven't started tracking accidents, and the companies have declined to release any statistics. But emergency rooms in various cities, such as Austin, San Diego and San Francisco, have begun to tally injuries. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also conducting a nationwide study on scooter accident rates. UCLA's researchers found that the most common injuries were from falls (74 percent), while 10 percent of accidents happened because of collisions with objects. The vast majority of people injured were scooter riders, but about 8 percent of those injured were pedestrians who either were hit by a scooter or tripped over one. More for you Culture Man riding scooter injured after being struck by possible... Of the total injuries, 40 percent were head traumas, 32 percent were bone fractures and the remaining 28 percent were cuts, sprains and bruises. The doctors said only 4 percent of injured people were documented to be wearing a helmet. "There was abysmally low rates of helmet use," Trivedi said. "Going 15 mph without a helmet on is concerning." The top two scooter companies, Bird and Lime, give riders tips on how to be safe and recommend wearing helmets. But they don't require helmet use. Both companies have said they're committed to safety and public education. "At Lime, the safety of our riders and the community is our number one priority," Lime spokeswoman Mary Caroline Pruitt said in an email. "That's why every day we're innovating on technology, infrastructure and education to set the standard." Even though Bird hasn't publicly released data on scooter accidents, it criticized the UCLA researchers for not involving it in the study. "Bird did not have the opportunity to work with the study's authors or to collaborate with them, and we find the report to be very limited," Paul Steely White, Bird's director of safety policy and advocacy, said in an email. The report "fails to take into account the sheer number of e-scooter trips taken -- the number of injuries reported would amount to a fraction of one percent of the total number of e-scooter rides." The researchers said they were interested in completing this first study to better understand the public health implications of riding electric scooters and how to keep people safe. "We're just trying to bring some light to the issue," Trivedi said. First published Jan. 25, 8 a.m. PT. Correction, 11:26 a.m.: One-third of scooter-accident victims treated at UCLA arrived at the hospital in an ambulance. Because of an inconsistency in a press release from UCLA, the story earlier said that one-third of scooter riders involved in accidents end up in the emergency room. CNET Magazine: Check out a sampling of the stories you'll find in CNET's newsstand edition. Follow the Money: This is how digital cash is changing the way we save, shop and work. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to integrate the social networks messaging services WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger asserting his control over the Menlo Park companys sprawling divisions at a time when its business has been battered by scandals. The move, described by four people involved in the effort, requires thousands of Facebook employees to reconfigure how WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger function at their most basic levels. While all three services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their underlying messaging infrastructure will be unified, the people said. Facebook is still in the early stages of the work and plans to complete it by early next year, they said. Zuckerberg has also ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end encryption, the people said, a significant step that protects messages from being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation. After the changes take effect, a Facebook user could send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, for example. Currently, that isnt possible because the apps are separate. By stitching the apps infrastructure together, Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. If people turn more regularly to Facebook-owned properties for texting, they may forgo rival messaging services, such as those from Apple and Google, said the people, who declined to be identified because the moves are confidential. If users interact more frequently with Facebooks apps, the company may also be able to build up its advertising business or add new services to make money, they said. In a statement, Facebook said it wanted to build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private. It added: Were working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks. Zuckerbergs move to take more control of Facebooks disparate businesses follows two years of scrutiny of its core social network, which has been criticized for allowing election meddling and the spread of disinformation. Those and other issues have slowed Facebooks growth and damaged its reputation, raising the hackles of lawmakers and regulators around the globe. Zuckerberg has repeatedly apologized and vowed to fix the problems. Knitting together Facebooks apps is a stark reversal of Zuckerbergs previous stance toward WhatsApp and Instagram, which were independent companies that Facebook acquired. At the time that Facebook bought the firms, Zuckerberg promised WhatsApp and Instagram plenty of autonomy. (Facebook Messenger was a homegrown messaging service, spun out of the main Facebook app in 2014.) WhatsApp and Instagram have since grown tremendously, prompting a change in Zuckerbergs thinking, said one of the people. The chief executive now believes tighter integration will benefit Facebooks entire family of apps over the long term by making them more useful, the person said. Zuckerberg had floated the integration idea for months and began promoting it more heavily to employees toward the end of last year, the people said. The effort has caused internal strife. Instagrams founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, abruptly left Facebook last fall after Zuckerberg began weighing in more. WhatsApps founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, departed for similar reasons. More recently, dozens of WhatsApp employees clashed with Zuckerberg over the integration plan on internal message boards and during a contentious staff meeting in December, said four people who attended or were briefed on the event. The changes may also raise questions of data privacy because of how user information may be shared between the services. Today, WhatsApp requires people to register only a phone number to sign up for the service. By contrast, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ask users to provide their real identities. Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized. As you would expect, there is a lot of discussion and debate as we begin the long process of figuring out all the details of how this will work, Facebook said. In many countries, people often rely on only one or two text messaging services. In China, WeChat, which is made by Tencent, is popular, while WhatsApp is heavily used in South America. But Americans are fragmented across multiple services, like Apples iMessage, SMS and various Google chat apps. For Facebook, the changes provide a better chance at making money from Instagram and WhatsApp, which currently generate little revenue even though they have vast numbers of users. Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, while WhatsApp has 1.5 billion. Zuckerberg does not yet have specific plans for how to profit from the integration of the services, said two of the people. But a more engaged audience could lead to new forms of advertising or other services for which Facebook could charge a fee, they said. One business opportunity involves Facebook Marketplace, a free Craigslist-like product where people can buy and sell goods. The service has grown popular in Southeast Asia and other markets outside the United States. When the apps are knitted together, Facebook Marketplace buyers and sellers in Southeast Asia would be able to reach out and communicate with each other using WhatsApp which is popular there rather than using Facebook Messenger or another, non-Facebook text messaging service. Eventually, that could lead to new ad opportunities or services for profit, said one of the people. Within Facebook, some employees said they were confused as to why Zuckerberg found putting the messaging services together so compelling. Some said it was jarring given his past promises about independence. When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, Koum talked publicly about user privacy and said, If partnering with Facebook meant that we had to change our values, we wouldnt have done it. Early last month, during one of WhatsApps monthly Tuesday staff meetings, it became clear that Zuckerbergs mandate would be a priority in 2019, according to a person familiar with the matter. One WhatsApp employee then ran an analysis on the number of potential new U.S. users that the integration plan could bring to Facebook, said two people familiar with the study. The amount was relatively meager, the analysis showed. To assuage concerns, Zuckerberg called a follow-up meeting with WhatsApp employees later in the week, three of the people said. On Dec. 7, employees gathered around microphones at WhatsApps offices to ask Zuckerberg why he was so invested in merging the services. Some said his answers were vague and meandering. Several WhatsApp employees have left or plan to leave because of Zuckerbergs plans, the people said. Unifying the infrastructure for WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger is technically challenging. Unlike Facebook Messenger and Instagram, WhatsApp does not store user data or messages. It is the only one of the three services to currently use end-to-end encryption by default. Encrypted messaging has long been supported by privacy advocates who fear governments or hackers may intrude into peoples personal messages. But it will raise other issues for Facebook, particularly around its ability to spot and curb the spread of illicit activity or disinformation. Last year, researchers had difficulties tracking disinformation on WhatsApp ahead of the Brazilian presidential election, before eventually finding ways to do so. WhatsApp has recently placed limits on how many times a message can be forwarded on its service, in an attempt to reduce the distribution of false content. Mike Isaac is a New York Times writer. In October, the Chinese province of Guangdong the manufacturing center on the southern coast that drives 12 percent of the countrys economy stopped publishing a monthly report on the health of its local factories. For five consecutive months, this key economic index had shown a drop in factory production as the United States applied billions of dollars in tariffs on Chinese exports. Then, amid an increasingly bitter trade war between the United States and China, government authorities in Beijing shut the index down. A small startup in San Francisco began rebuilding the index, lifting information from photos and infrared images of Guangdongs factories captured by satellites orbiting overhead. The company, SpaceKnow, is now selling this information to hedge funds, banks and other market traders looking for an edge. High-altitude surveillance was once the domain of global superpowers. Now, a growing number of startups are turning it into a business, aiming to sell insights gleaned from cameras and other sensors installed on small and inexpensive cube satellites. The companies and governments that spent decades using internet services, cameras and other devices to collect data on regular people may soon get a taste of their own information technology. Businesses will not be able to hide from competitors or regulators or watchdogs, said Mark Johnson, chief executive and co-founder of Descartes Labs, another satellite information startup. They need to realize that their traditional competitive advantage information will be available to everyone. Nearly 730 Earth observation satellites were launched over the last decade, according to Euroconsult, a research firm that tracks the space market. In the next 10 years, 2,220 more will follow them into orbit, training an increasingly wide array of sensors on the planet. Orbital Insight is one of the first companies to build a business around cube satellite data. Sitting in Orbitals Palo Alto offices on a recent afternoon, founder and CEO James Crawford, who goes by Jimi, opened his laptop and pulled up a report on three big-name retailers: J.C. Penney, Macys and Sears. Based on the companys satellite data, a color-coded line graph showed a steady drop in the number of cars parked outside the thousands of stores operated by the three retailers. The drop was particularly steep for Sears, which had filed for bankruptcy just days earlier. Orbital Insight tracks activity in more than 260,000 retail parking lots across the country, and it monitors the levels of more than 25,000 oil tanks around the world. Not surprisingly, Orbital Insight and SpaceKnow said, some of their customers use this satellite data to track the progress of their direct competitors, though those customers and their competitors are very reluctant to talk about it. Crawford believes the satellite analysis will ultimately lead to more efficient markets and a better understanding of the global economy. Fred Abrahams, a researcher with advocacy group Human Rights Watch, sees it as a check on the worlds companies and governments. Abrahams and his team use satellite imagery to track everything from illegal mining and logging operations to large-scale home demolitions. This is why we are so committed to these technologies, he said. They make it that much harder to hide large-scale abuses. Today, a $3 million satellite that weighs less than 10 pounds can capture significantly sharper images than a $300 million, 900-pound satellite built in the late 1990s. That allows companies to put up dozens of devices, each of which can focus on a particular area of the globe or on a particular kind of data collection. Orbital Insight does not operate its own satellites. Nor does SpaceKnow or Descartes Labs. The startups buy their data from a growing number of satellite operators, and they build the automated systems that analyze the data, pinpointing objects like cars, buildings, mines and oil tankers in high-resolution photos and other images. Now satellite operators are building similar systems, selling analysis as well as the raw data. The market topped $4.6 billion in 2017. By 2027, it will reach $11.4 billion, according to Euroconsult. What began with satellite cameras is rapidly expanding to infrared sensors that detect heat; hyperspectral sensors that identify minerals, vegetation and other materials; and radar scanners that can build 3-D images of the landscape below. As it reconstructs the Guangdong economic index, SpaceKnow uses infrared imagery, which can help show activity around roughly 600 factories and other industrial sites in the province. After a new satellite went up in December, a Virginia startup called HawkEye 360 will soon track wireless signals a way of understanding the behavior of everything from cell phone networks to cargo ships. This could provide new insight in the progress of cellular companies like AT&T and Verizon, including how many cellular towers are in operation, how active they are, and what technologies and wireless bands are being used. But as technology improves and costs drop, some still warn satellite intelligence gathering has its limits. Finding useful information in satellite imagery can be expensive, said Shawana Johnson, a veteran of satellite intelligence work who is now president of Global Marketing Insights, a consulting firm. The data collected by SpaceKnow provides a rough guide to factory production in Guangdong, said Jeremy Fand, the SpaceKnow chief executive. We can see when activity is growing and slowing, he said. But it is by no means as detailed or as reliable as the information Guangdong officials were collecting for their original index. In January, one satellite also provided a reminder that this is far more complicated technology than smartphones and street cameras. The WorldView-4 satellite operated by Digital Globe suddenly went dark. Space is cool, but it takes a long time to get things right, Mark Johnson said. You cant just send a technician into space. Cade Metz is a New York Times writer. A tiny fraction of Twitter users spread the vast majority of fake news in 2016, with conservatives and older people sharing misinformation more, a new study finds. Scientists examined more than 16,000 U.S. Twitter accounts and found that 16 of them less than one-tenth of 1 percent tweeted out nearly 80 percent of the misinformation masquerading as news, according to a study Thursday in the journal Science. About 99 percent of the Twitter users spread virtually no fake information in the most heated part of the election year, said study co-author David Lazer, a Northeastern University political and computer science professor. Spreading fake information is taking place in a very seamy, but small, corner of Twitter, Lazer said. Lazer said misinformation super sharers flood Twitter: an average of 308 pieces of fakery each between Aug. 1 and Dec. 6 in 2016. And its not just few people spreading it, but few people reading it, Lazer said. The vast majority of people are exposed to very little fake news despite the fact that theres a concerted effort to push it into the system, Lazer said. The researchers found the 16,442 accounts they analyzed by starting with a random pool of voter records, matching names to Twitter users and then screening out accounts that appeared to not be controlled by real people. Their conclusions are similar to a study this month that looked at the spread of false information on Facebook. It also found that few people shared fakery, but those who did were more likely to be over 65 and conservatives. That makes this study more believable because two groups of researchers using different social media services, measuring political affiliation differently, came to the same conclusion, said Yonchai Benkler, co-director of Harvard Law Schools center on the internet and society. He wasnt part of either study but praised them, saying they should reduce misguided panic about how out-of-control technological processes had rendered us as a society incapable of telling truth from fiction. Experts say a recent showdown between Kentucky Catholic school students and an American Indian elder at the Lincoln Memorial seemed to be stoked by a single Twitter account, now shut down. Lazer said the account fit some characteristics of super sharers from his study but it was more left-leaning, which didnt match the study. Unlike the earlier Facebook study, Lazer didnt interview the people but ranked peoples politics based on what they read and shared on Twitter. Lazers team found that among people they categorized as left-leaning and centrists, fewer than 5 percent shared any fake information. Among those they determined were right-leaning, 11 percent of accounts shared misinformation masquerading as news. For those on the extreme right, it was 21 percent. This study shows most of us arent too bad at circulating information, but some of us are determined propagandists who are trying to manipulate the public sphere, said Texas A&M Universitys Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of political rhetoric who wasnt part of the study. Seth Borenstein is an Associated Press writer. When a major electronics firm started seeing strange documents being printed out remotely on more than 100 of its smart printers late last year, it frantically contacted the manufacturer to investigate. The firm nervously wondered how and why an unauthorized third party was sending documents to its printers remotely. And worse, it feared its entire corporate network had been breached. The manufacturer immediately called in the big guns, Charles Henderson, global head of X-Force Red, a professional hacking team at IBM Security, for answers. Unless you believe in ghosts, you get kind of concerned when your printer just starts printing stuff out that you cant account for, said Henderson, who declined to name the firm for privacy reasons. His team quickly identified the problem as a flaw in the printers remote access function, and a patch fixed the vulnerability. Finding and testing for flaws and breaches in smart devices is Hendersons specialty. I run a team of hackers, is how Henderson describes his role, then clarifying they are paid professional hackers who look for bugs, glitches, and malfunctions. And with demand for smart devices, ranging from smart lights to outdoor sprinklers, surging in mainstream America, his job has gotten a lot busier. Weve received roughly five times the number of requests for security testing of (internet of things) devices in the last year, Henderson said. Growth has been immense over the last year to 18 months. But all of this buzz and hype are putting pressure on smart device makers to rush their gadgets into the market while demand is hot and sometimes, this means security features take a back seat, Henderson said. And cybercriminals are watching. To lower risk and security concerns, experts suggest steps people should take when building a smart home. Buy quality brands. While some big brands, like Samsung, are leaders in smart appliances, the rest of the smart device world is fragmented, with much of the innovation coming from focused startups and midsize companies. Some of the leaders are Philips Hue for lights, Nest and Ecobee for thermostats, Ring for doorbells and WeMo for light switches and plugs. If its a startup, research the firm and make sure it has a strong online presence, preferably with active user groups discussing the product. If they dont have a budget for an online presence, then they probably dont have a budget for security, Henderson said. Security updates are critical. Most technology companies are going to have vulnerabilities its hard to get everything right at the start, Henderson said. He recommends checking for patches or firmware updates on the companys website to make sure its on top of security issues. Create strong Wi-Fi passwords and engage two-factor authentication where possible. If you move into a new home, buy a secondhand car or purchase a used smart device, always make sure previous owners accounts arent still connected to the hubs, routers and devices. Also, always look at all devices that are connected to your network. If youve got rogue devices connected to your network, its not your network anymore. Its a shared network, Henderson said. If you had access to somebodys home hub and that hub had a sprinkler system, light switches and garage door opener connected to it, you could open their garage door, turn on the sprinkler systems and start flashing the lights. Prepare for a smart devices failure whether its because of a product malfunction or a power or internet outage. Turn off power to the devices and unplug the internet and see what happens, Henderson said. But you definitely dont want to wait and find out that they dont work when youre standing outside your home trying to get in. Being technology, it will malfunction sometimes, whether its smart or not. Things do break, said Charles Golvin, senior research director at Gartner, a research and advisory firm. In this fiercely competitive and fast-changing space, many smart device makers will implode and people need a fallback plan in place if they do. Even the most promising company can go belly-up without warning. LightHouse was widely hailed as a trailblazer with its home cameras that offered 3-D sensors and artificial intelligence capabilities. Its cameras could monitor with such precision that a voice command asking the app how a vase got broken earlier in the day could pull up the section of video that showed the child or pet who did the deed, said Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. LightHouse was viewed as the future. However, the company abruptly closed in late 2018, with a note on its web page, titled Lights Out, that read: Unfortunately, we did not achieve the commercial success we were looking for and will be shutting down operations in the near future. This is what happens sometimes with these cool vendors who are ahead of the curve, Golvin said. Bleeding edge versus leading edge. Janet Morrissey is a New York Times writer. For two years, Amazon has aggressively marketed its facial recognition technology to police departments and federal agencies as a service to help law enforcement identify suspects more quickly. It has done so as another tech giant, Microsoft, has called on Congress to regulate the technology, arguing that it is too risky for companies to oversee on their own. Now a new study from researchers at the MIT Media Lab has found that Amazons system, Rekognition, had much more difficulty in telling the gender of female faces and of darker-skinned faces in photos than similar services from IBM and Microsoft. The results raise questions about potential bias that could hamper Amazons drive to popularize the technology. In the study, published Thursday, Rekognition made no errors in recognizing the gender of lighter-skinned men. But it misclassified women as men 19 percent of the time, the researchers said, and mistook darker-skinned women for men 31 percent of the time. Microsofts technology mistook darker-skinned women for men just 1.5 percent of the time. A study published a year ago found similar problems in the programs built by IBM, Microsoft and Megvii, an artificial intelligence company in China known as Face++. Those results set off an outcry that was amplified when a co-author of the study, Joy Buolamwini, posted YouTube videos showing the technology misclassifying famous African American women, like Michelle Obama, as men. The companies in last years report all reacted by quickly releasing more accurate technology. For the latest study, Buolamwini said, she sent a letter with some preliminary results to Amazon seven months ago. But she said she hadnt heard back from Amazon, and when she and a co-author retested the companys product a couple of months later, it had not improved. Matt Wood, general manager of artificial intelligence at Amazon Web Services, said the researchers had examined facial analysis a technology that can spot features such as mustaches or expressions such as smiles and not facial recognition, a technology that can match faces in photos or video stills to identify individuals. Amazon markets both services. Its not possible to draw a conclusion on the accuracy of facial recognition for any use case including law enforcement based on results obtained using facial analysis, Wood said in a statement. He added that the researchers had not tested the latest version of Rekognition, which was updated in November. Amazon said that in recent internal tests using an updated version of its service, the company found no difference in accuracy in classifying gender across all ethnicities. With advancements in artificial intelligence, facial technologies services that can be used to identify people in crowds, analyze their emotions, or detect their age and facial characteristics are proliferating. As companies begin to market these services more aggressively for uses like policing and vetting job candidates, they have emerged as a lightning rod in the debate about whether and how Congress should regulate powerful emerging technologies. The new study, scheduled to be presented Monday at an artificial intelligence and ethics conference in Honolulu, is sure to inflame that argument. Proponents see facial recognition as an important advance in helping law enforcement agencies catch criminals and find missing children. Some police departments, and the FBI, have tested Amazons product. But civil liberties experts warn that it can also be used to secretly identify people potentially chilling Americans ability to speak freely or simply go about their business anonymously in public. Over the past year, Amazon has come under intense scrutiny by federal lawmakers, the American Civil Liberties Union, shareholders, employees and academic researchers for marketing Rekognition to law enforcement agencies. That is partly because, unlike Microsoft, IBM and other tech giants, Amazon has been less willing to publicly discuss concerns. Amazon, citing customer confidentiality, has also declined to answer questions from federal lawmakers about which government agencies are using Rekognition or how they are using it. The companys responses have further troubled some federal lawmakers. Not only do I want to see them address our concerns with the sense of urgency it deserves, said Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, who has been investigating Amazons facial recognition practices. But I also want to know if law enforcement is using it in ways that violate civil liberties, and what if any protections Amazon has built into the technology to protect the rights of our constituents. In a letter last month to Gomez, Amazon said Rekognition customers must abide by Amazons policies, which require them to comply with civil rights and other laws. But the company said that for privacy reasons it did not audit customers, giving it little insight into how its product is being used. The study published last year reported that Microsoft had a perfect score in identifying the gender of lighter-skinned men in a photo database, but that it misclassified darker-skinned women as men about 1 in 5 times. IBM and Face++ had an even higher error rate, each misclassifying the gender of darker-skinned women about 1 in 3 times. Buolamwini said she developed her methodology with the idea of harnessing public pressure, and market competition, to push companies to fix biases in their software that could pose serious risks to people. One of the things we were trying to explore with the paper was how to galvanize action, Buolamwini said. Immediately after the study came out last year, IBM published a blog post, Mitigating Bias in AI Models, citing Buolamwinis study. In the post, Ruchir Puri, chief architect at IBM Watson, said IBM had been working for months to reduce bias in its facial recognition system. The company post included test results showing improvements, particularly in classifying the gender of darker-skinned women. Soon after, IBM released a new system that the company said had a tenfold decrease in error rates. A few months later, Microsoft published its own post, titled Microsoft improves facial recognition technology to perform well across all skin tones, genders. In particular, the company said, it had significantly reduced the error rates for female and darker-skinned faces. Buolamwini wanted to learn whether the study had changed overall industry practices. So she and a colleague, Deborah Raji, a college student who did an internship at the MIT Media Lab last summer, conducted a new study. In it, they retested the facial systems of IBM, Microsoft and Face++. They also tested the facial systems of two companies that were not included in the first study: Amazon and Kairos, a startup in Florida. The new study found that IBM, Microsoft and Face++ improved their accuracy in identifying gender. By contrast, the study reported, Amazon misclassified the gender of darker-skinned females 31 percent of the time, while Kairos had an error rate of 22.5 percent. Melissa Doval, chief executive of Kairos, said the company, inspired by Buolamwinis work, released a more accurate algorithm in October. Buolamwini said the results of her studies raised fundamental questions for society about whether facial technology should not be used in certain situations, such as job interviews, or in products, like drones or police body cameras. Some federal lawmakers are voicing similar issues. Technology like Amazons Rekognition should be used if and only if it is imbued with American values like the right to privacy and equal protection, said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who has been investigating Amazons facial recognition practices. I do not think that standard is currently being met. Natasha Singer is a New York Times writer. In the end, President Trump learned two lessons in Politics 101 the hard way from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: People who own shutdowns never win them. And if he ever was Washingtons unquestioned alpha politician, hes not anymore. Even according to some conservatives. In agreeing Friday to end the partial government shutdown at least temporarily with no promise his southern border wall will ever be funded, Trump found out what divided government means. If the other party controls one chamber of Congress, as Pelosis Democrats now do for the first time in Trumps presidency, nothing happens without negotiations. The San Francisco Democrat could have told Trump about the perils of owning shutdowns she and the Democrats tried it themselves last year, to try to help undocumented immigrant Dreamers, and abandoned the strategy after two days of public relations disaster. Ted Cruzs Republicans lost a 2013 shutdown. Newt Gingrichs GOP lost two in the 1990s. And Trump lost this one the moment he declared in December that he would proudly own it on behalf of border security. Every poll showed it, most recently a Washington Post/ABC News survey that found 53 percent of respondents blaming Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown. Just 34 percent held Pelosi and the Democrats responsible. Trumps disapproval rating was at 58 percent, five points higher than in November. This is a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, said Terri Bimes, who teaches about the presidency at UC Berkeley. She held her ground and did not budge. In starting out at no to Trumps demand for $5.7 billion for a border wall in exchange for funding shuttered agencies and then staying there Pelosi played the last few weeks beautifully, Bimes said. She didnt overplay her hand. She just played a very strong hand. Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers will spend three weeks trying to figure out what to do about border security, and whether Trumps money for a wall will be part of the mix. The deal Trump agreed to Friday was essentially the same one he turned down in mid-December. The same one that Pelosi unflinchingly kept offering. This is a rude awakening for (Trump) to the reality of divided government, and how Congress is not going to line up behind him just because he says so, said Sarah Binder, author of Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock and a professor of political science at George Washington University. The public quickly figured out who is holding the government hostage, Binder said. Pelosi played this absolutely correctly, and the public came to her side. Pelosi also correctly read that it was important to Trump that he deliver his State of the Union message before a joint session of Congress. Pelosi who holds sway over who gets to speak in the House chamber rescinded her invitation this month, pending the shutdowns end. She invited Trump to deliver his annual message in writing, but that didnt appeal to him. He enjoys getting applause and the live audience, Bimes said. But Binder added that Fridays resolution was not just due to Pelosis political jujitsu. It was a combination of outside pressures on the White House, including a shortage of air traffic controllers Friday that led to significant flight delays along the East Coast. It was also Trumps top economic adviser Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers warning that the nations gross domestic product could be very close to zero in the first quarter if the shutdown didnt soon end. It was not any one individual thing, Binder said. Analysts also gave credit to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who goaded Trump into saying, I am proud to shut down the government for border security, during a December meeting that was televised live from the White House. On Friday, Schumer directed the praise back at Pelosi, saying: No one should ever underestimate the speaker, as Donald Trump has learned. Even some of Trumps conservative supporters recognized who had prevailed, just 24 hours after Trump promised, We will not cave. Nancy Pelosi is alpha, tweeted right-wing commentator Mike Cernovich. Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States, tweeted conservative commentator Ann Coulter. On Jan. 2, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham, who has become one of Trumps strongest defenders in the Senate, predicted dire consequences should Trump agree to a deal like the one he did Friday. Hes not going to sign a bill that doesnt have money for the wall, Graham said. If he gives in now, thats the end of 2019 in terms of him being an effective president. Thats probably the end of his presidency." On that score, Trump may have more problems with the wall negotiations going forward. Fridays Washington Post/ABC News poll said 42 percent of the respondents trust Pelosi and Democrats more to handle border security, compared with 40 percent who trust the president and Republicans. Pelosi, meanwhile, remained confident. She attributed Fridays deal to Democrats sticking together. Our unity is our power, Pelosi said. And that maybe is what the president underestimated. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli President Trumps unprecedented shutdown ended as it began: as a pointless assault from within on the United States government, workers, economy and security. Five weeks after Trump forced the partial shutdown, he accepted the same deal he could have made without crippling the government he was elected to run. The agreement will reopen the shuttered agencies for three weeks, pending negotiations on border security, without providing any of the billions for a border wall that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats rightly refused to discuss while the closure continued. It was much the same legislation that the then-Republican-controlled Congress and Trump himself contemplated before Christmas and before a right-wing media outcry pushed the president into a reversal to which GOP lawmakers largely deferred. Trumps capitulation Friday, clearing the way for back pay to roughly 800,000 federal workers, came as they missed a second paycheck. About half the unpaid employees were deemed essential and had to work, limiting their ability to earn money by other means. The rest were furloughed and will cost taxpayers billions in lost services. Many federal contract workers, meanwhile, will never recover the lost wages. In inflicting such hardship for 35 days, two weeks longer than the previous record, the administration revealed a callous disregard for those who cant, as Pelosi put it, ask their father for more money. Proving her point, Trump suggested he thought supermarkets would let federal employees buy their groceries on layaway, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he didnt really quite understand why some resorted to food banks, and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said furloughed workers were better off. Hassett acknowledged, however, that the economy was worse off. According to his estimate, the shutdown may have cost more than half a percentage point in economic growth. With the Homeland Security Department among the affected agencies, the shutdown also senselessly threatened public safety, including the border security that was Trumps supposed goal. FBI Director Christopher Wray called the situation mind-boggling. The gathering strain on air travel forced the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday to restrict traffic into and out of LaGuardia Airport in the presidents native Queens. Such repercussions may have forced Trump and his enabler, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to relent. Or perhaps the president was motivated by Pelosis cunning cancellation of his appearance before Congress, and on television, for the State of the Union address. There are also the polls showing the public increasingly disapproves of Trumps performance and remains skeptical, despite a pretend border crisis, of his wall. Trump has absurdly threatened to force another shutdown if he doesnt get his way in the next three weeks, but he has done more than anyone to discredit an already dubious tactic. If any good can come of historys longest shutdown, it will be to consign shutdowns to history. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. On Jan. 28, 1969, 3 million gallons of crude oil from an oil rig explosion fouled 35 miles of coast near Santa Barbara. Images of oiled birds and distraught coastal residents scrubbing rocks and shoveling sandy clumps of crude into barrels played for weeks on the nightly TV news across the nation. Fifty years later, we can trace how that one environmental crisis gave rise to an ethos baked into Californians consciousness. One that shapes our institutions, our attitudes and our states relationship with Washington, D.C. Until that day, Californians, like most Americans, saw oil, gas, timber, mining industries reliant on extracting natural resources from Earth as activities necessary to keep our factories running and people employed, but gave little thought to their effect. The Santa Barbara oil spill made it clear what the costs of not thinking about the environment are, said Holly Doremus, a professor of environmental law at UC Berkeley. Overnight, Californias magnificent 1,100-mile coastline went from a much-loved destination to a threatened public treasure. In less than a decade, the Legislature and voters passed a series of laws and regulations to safeguard the quality of the environment, protect the shoreline, establish a moratorium on offshore oil drilling and enact a coastal protection plan. Within weeks of the spill, the State Lands Commission passed a moratorium on leasing state offshore oil tracts. In 1994, the Legislature prohibited any new oil leases on state offshore tracts. When President Trump promised last fall to expand oil drilling on federal tracts (located more than 3 miles from the California coast), the Legislature passed and Gov. Jerry Brown immediately signed two bills that would prohibit oil pipelines from crossing into state waters, thus making is unprofitable to move oil from federal waters to onshore refineries. But it was the decades-old law that gave the governor leverage over Trumps plans (although the courts will hand down the final verdict). Within two years of the spill, coastal activists circulated and then qualified for the ballot an initiative, citing two issues: the horrifying effects of oil washing up on pristine beaches and a worrisome pattern of private oceanfront development. Over time, they predicted, more beach cottages and sea-cliff homes would wall off the coast from the general public. Despite being outspent $100 to $1 by opponents, the measure passed in 1972. The Legislature made it permanent four years later by passing the Coastal Act. That initiative created and the act outlined the jurisdiction of a new and powerful state institution: the California Coastal Commission. The Coastal Commission oversees local plans to conserve coastal lands and resources and ensure Californias beaches are open to everyone. Enshrined in the Coastal Act is the idea that coastal lands belong to us all to cherish, enjoy and protect. The powers of the commission and the durability of the Coastal Act are constantly challenged. A recent example was efforts (unsuccessful) by a Silicon Valley titan and coastal landowner to close Martins Beach in San Mateo to the public. Curiously enough, the Santa Barbara spill didnt prompt a legislative response to ocean pollution. It took a later spill, in Orange County, to do that (the 1990 Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act, noted Rick Frank, who was a student at UC Santa Barbara in 1969 and today directs an environmental law center at UC Davis. The Santa Barbara oil spill unified an entire generation under a banner of environmental concerns. It prompted UC Santa Barbara to establish the first environmental studies program, the germ of what is now an international field of academic study. Lessons first taught there have helped develop environmental sensitivities that shape law, life and politics in California, and the world. The spill changed the political conversation in ways that have really lasted, Frank said. Will the Wine Country and Camp fires galvanize the public around climate change in the way the Santa Barbara oil spill initiated an era of environmental defense? Thats still unclear, but if it happens anywhere soon, its likely to be here in California. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye, directed by Perry Miller Adato, interviews descendants, historians and writers to tell the story of Stieglitzs embrace of the European avant-garde including Matisse, Picasso, Cezanne and Brancusi, as well as American modernists such as John Marin, Arthur Dove, Paul Strand, Marsden Hartley and OKeeffe. He and OKeeffe were married from 1924 to his death in 1946. The temporary end of the government shutdown will give the National Park Service a chance to clean up and assess the damage to its 58 parks that were left virtually unsupervised for three weeks while trash piled up, off-road vehicles skidded about and graffiti artists thrived. Toilet paper, diapers, cigarette butts, wrappers and other garbage were found during the more than monthlong shutdown, which left the Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Yosemite and other popular parks across the nation with only 13 percent of their staffing. The impasse over President Trumps proposed wall at the Mexican border meant bears and other wildlife had free rein over overflowing garbage cans. Car tracks from illegal campers marked the banks of rivers and the edges of forests. Without sufficient staff to protect natural resources, there was damage to resources, some of which the park service doesnt know about yet, said John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association. So one of the challenges that the park service will have in coming back will be to assess the damage to natural and cultural resources and determine the extent of the cleanup that will be necessary. Jon Jarvis, former National Park Service director under President Barack Obama and now executive director of UC Berkeleys Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity, said he is concerned about the long-term impacts from bears getting into trash, wolves being poached, graffiti and other damage to sensitive resources. Sixty or so elephant seals at Point Reyes National Seashore Reyes moved in next to a parking lot at Drakes Beach during the shutdown, which happened in the midst of their breeding season. Volunteers had to step in at one point when unsupervised tourists began harassing a 1,600-pound bull, officials said. Those kinds of stories are across the system. Nature was not on furlough, Jarvis said. Now the parks have to figure out how to make it so visitors can be safe. These are not zoos. They are open wild places. Those places are vulnerable. Most national parks, including Yosemite, remained open during the impasse thanks to more than 40 agreements with states, concessionaires and nonprofit groups that provided maintenance, visitor services and portable toilets. Some, like the Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, did shut down. In the Bay Area, Fort Point, Muir Woods and Muir Beach were closed. The Point Reyes National Seashore closed its southern entrance at the Palomarin Trailhead. Much of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area remained open because of help from volunteer groups and the Presidio Trust, but parking lots and restrooms were locked up. All the Bay Area parks will now reopen, but park watchers arent sure how long it will take for them to recover and return to normal. Ultimately, this model of furloughing employees and leaving the parks open has been a disaster for the resources and for the public, Jarvis said. I think it was an abdication of their stewardship responsibilities. Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @pfimrite More than two years after California voters made it illegal to possess high-capacity gun magazines commonly used in mass shootings, the National Rifle Association has tied the measure up in court. Now the gun lobby has set its sights on a nearly 2-decade-old law that banned the sale of those devices in the state. That law, which took effect in 2000, has made it illegal to buy or sell magazines that can hold more than 10 cartridges. Proposition 63, sponsored by then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and approved by the voters in 2016, would require anyone who owns the magazines to turn them in, send them out of state or remake them to comply with the law. If the NRA succeeds in killing one or both measures, they would be the organizations first victories in a lengthy California campaign against some of the nations strictest gun-control laws. The final decision will likely rest with the U.S. Supreme Court and could signal whether President Trumps new appointees have revived the courts fervor on firearms issues after nearly a decade of silence. The high-capacity magazines allow their owners to fire dozens of shots without reloading and have been used along with semiautomatic rifles, some of which are banned in the state in mass killings such as the school massacre in Newtown, Conn. Tens of millions of Americans own firearms with those attachments, said Sean Brady, a lawyer for the NRA-affiliated California Rifle and Pistol Association. Every police department in the nation has them, too, he said, to defend themselves and the public. California did not try to prevent owners of those magazines from keeping them until 63 percent of the voters passed Newsoms Prop. 63 in November 2016. One section of Prop. 63, a first-in-the-nation requirement of background checks before sales of ammunition, has taken effect while the NRA challenges it before a federal judge in San Diego. The other main provision, banning possession of high-capacity magazines, was due to take effect in July 2017 but was blocked two days earlier by the same judge, Roger Benitez, who issued a statewide injunction against it. While state lawyers argued that the ban would save lives without interfering with Second Amendment rights of self-defense, Benitez said the new law burdens the core of the Second Amendment by criminalizing the mere possession of these magazines that are commonly held by law-abiding citizens for defense of self, home, and state. And by requiring those citizens to sell them, modify them or send them out of state to avoid criminal penalties, the state is confiscating their property without compensation, Benitez said. Attorney General Xavier Becerra appealed the ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has a history of upholding gun-control measures including a ban on high-capacity magazines by the city of Sunnyvale that the court left intact in 2015. But in July, a panel of the appeals court upheld Benitez in a 2-1 ruling that drew relatively little notice because it was not published as a precedent for future cases, although it maintained the statewide injunction. Legal challenges to California gun laws by the NRA and its allies have become commonplace, particularly since the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess guns at home for self-defense. Gun advocates have scored occasional victories before panels of the Ninth Circuit, such as a 2014 ruling striking down the states restrictions on carrying concealed handguns in public, but the court promptly granted the state attorney generals request for a rehearing before a larger panel, which then upheld the law. This time, though, Becerras office decided against seeking a rehearing, saying it wouldnt resolve anything because Benitez was already considering arguments from both sides on whether to declare the voter-approved ban unconstitutional. The judge held a hearing in May, and has received further written arguments since then, but has given no indication when he will rule. And the NRAs California affiliate has raised the stakes by also asking Benitez to overturn the 2000 law that banned sale or purchase of the magazines. The states total ban on magazines typically possessed for lawful purposes, including self-defense, plainly violates the Second Amendment, lawyers for the association said in a filing with Benitez. The availability of more ammunition in a firearm increases the likelihood of surviving a criminal attack. Thats not what the evidence shows in mass shootings, said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, which supports the state law. For reducing lethality and injury counts, this is the single most effective way to do that, Skaggs said in an interview. Without a large-capacity magazine, he said, you have to stop to reload, and can be disarmed. ... These are critically important laws. They dont restrict anybodys ability to use guns for self-defense. Laws similar to Californias have been upheld by courts throughout the country, Skaggs said, including a 10-cartridge limit in New Jersey that was affirmed by a federal appeals court last month. But in view of Benitezs assessment of Prop. 63 in 2017, Skaggs said, no one should be surprised if he strikes down both the voter-approved ban on possessing large-capacity magazines and the 2000 legislative ban on buying or selling them. The case would then return to the Ninth Circuit, whose record suggests that it would be likely to uphold both state laws, a process that could take a year or longer. The final decision would be up to the Supreme Court, which until recently had denied review of state laws regulating firearms, including the California concealed-handguns law, for nearly a decade. On Tuesday, the court agreed to hear a challenge to a New York City law that prohibits residents from taking guns out of the home except to a firing range within the city. The case, to be heard in the term that starts in October, could allow the justices to examine an issue that has divided lower federal courts: whether the Second Amendment, interpreted in 2008 to allow in-home possession of handguns for self-defense, applies outside the home. The courts acceptance of the case may be an sign that Trumps appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are more willing than their predecessors to take on firearms issues like the California gun-magazine laws. Kavanaugh, in particular, said as a federal appeals court judge in 2011 that the Second Amendment should be interpreted to allow possession of semiautomatic rifles, prohibit mandatory gun registration and allow only regulation that has been historically or traditionally accepted. It appears the current court probably will be more receptive to Second Amendment challenges, said Skaggs, the Giffords Law Center attorney. In the meantime, he said, its quite rare that something passed by a significant majority of California voters is held up by one judge. Newsoms office did not respond to requests for comment. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko President Trump made a commitment last month to reduce wildfire danger across the West, rolling out an ambitious, if uncertain, executive order that demands more aggressive management of the nations forests. The order, which calls for a big boost in logging, grows out of the presidents repeated claims that the deadly fire season in California last year was due to the states failure to tame its overgrown woodlands. The week that Trump visited the ruins of the Camp Fire in Butte County, he even threatened to halt disaster funding if the state didnt remedy the situation. As it turns out, the more immediate risk to forest health and fire prevention is probably not California, but the monthlong shutdown of the federal government. Even as it came to an end Friday, the presidents impasse with Congress over funding for his border wall hamstrung the nations largest land-management agencies long enough to slow Trumps forest initiative. It also halted vegetation work that fire experts say is even more critical to heading off another bad fire year. During the shutdown, no new logging projects went forward, nor did fuel reduction programs like brush clearing, controlled fires and slash-pile burns. Also, much of the planning and hiring of firefighters that typically gets done in winter was put on hold. Some federal employees, unauthorized to speak to the media, say fire programs at national parks and forests wont be fully staffed before the new fire season begins. A lot of preparation just didnt happen, said Stephen Graydon, a former firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and now executive director of Terra Fuego, a Butte County organization that works with the government to reduce fire risk. Its hard enough to get ahead on large-scale forest treatments. While I cant give you a number of acres that wasnt treated during the shutdown, weve lost opportunities. The shutdown will have a lasting effect. One of Graydons latest projects, creating a fire break around the community of Forest Ranch near the Camp Fire, hasnt been completed because he needed sign-off from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The local office was closed during the 35-day shutdown. For Trump to come out here and see the devastation and then handcuff people by taking federal agencies out of action, its somewhat a slap in the face, Graydon said. Butte County also has missed out on the expertise of the federal government as it tries to rebuild after the most destructive wildfire in California history. Although cleanup and emergency aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have continued, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have not been involved in post-Camp Fire planning, local officials say. The blaze killed 86 people and destroyed nearly 14,000 homes. The federal agencies havent been at the table, said Don Hankins, a professor of geography and planning at California State University Chico who has been tapped to help with the recovery. If you know what people are doing in different areas of the county, you can build a better plan around that. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Hankins said such immediate tasks as figuring out what to do with burned trees and getting salvage timber to market before it goes bad have moved slowly because of the lack of federal assistance. Problems like Butte Countys have popped up across California. In Yosemite Valley, piles of trees cleared from forest floors to remove fire-prone underbrush have sat since early December because staff at national parks have been on furlough and unable to burn them. The same is true of slash piles at other national parks and forests, including around nearby Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. In foothill regions, where snow hasnt blanketed the Sierra and Cascades, controlled burns to preemptively remove flammable vegetation have also been put off. With a limited window to ignite the burns before fire season, its unclear how much of the work can proceed now. Perhaps most worrisome, though, is how far behind federal land-management agencies have fallen in readying logistics, namely personnel, for the coming year. The hiring of seasonal firefighters for summer, which typically gets under way in January, fell by the wayside. So did the hiring of permanent staff, a particular problem for fire programs where as many as a third of the positions were vacant even before the shutdown. With key employees on furlough, basic planning, from figuring out budgets to ordering supplies to coming up with strategies for fire prevention and suppression, also ground to a halt. This prep work is often being done right now because all the way through the fall, many fire crews are working on active fires, said John Buckley, a former Forest Service firefighter and now director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center. The fact that for basically the last four weeks or so, fire and fuels specialists are not doing the planning is an issue. Officials with the Forest Service in California, which manages the bulk of the states federal land, were not available for comment. Neither were regional officials with the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, which also manage forest land in California. Interactive California Fire Tracker This interactive map provides information on wildfires burning across California and lets you explore coverage of past fire seasons. A spokesman with the Forest Service in Washington declined to address specific questions about the agencys operations. In a statement, John Hayes, acting deputy director of communications, said the Forest Service has been assessing and prioritizing activities we are able to maintain during the lapse in funding. Some firefighters remained on the job to deal with emergencies, according to federal contingency plans for the shutdown. The firefighters who worked were not paid, however. Trump said Friday that employees will be reimbursed as soon as possible. The presidents executive order, signed Dec. 21 just hours before the government closure began, calls for active management of Americas forests, rangelands and other federal lands to improve conditions and reduce wildfire risk. It commits land-management agencies to reducing vegetation by harvesting a cumulative 3.9 billion acre-feet of timber in federal forests, about 30 percent more than in 2017. The order also calls for reducing fuel loads on more than 4 million acres of federal land, and can include other forest work like mechanical removal of small trees. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been among those to praise Trumps directive as a good start to enhancing fire safety. But Newsom and others have also noted that his order includes no new money or staffing to meet the targets, nor hard deadlines. Some federal foresters, even before the initiative, worried about having sufficient resources to process, review and oversee new logging projects. The shutdown only put them further behind. The presidents executive order has been outright knocked by some. Critics said the directive fails to offer a broader menu of policies to address wildfire risk, including steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say is necessary to curb global warming, a major cause of recent blazes. Trump also has been criticized for his recent remarks about Californias forestry practices. Not only have his comments been viewed as callous, coming on the heels of last years fateful fires, but misinformed. The president has repeatedly blamed the state for poor forest management, although the federal government oversees most of Californias forests. Also, many of the states wildfires, such as Southern Californias deadly Woolsey Fire last year, did not occur in forests, but in chaparral and oak woodlands. It doesnt make any sense to blame the state of California, said LeRoy Westerling, a climate scientist and wildfire specialist at UC Merced, who has denounced Trumps push for logging. The presidents order, he said, fails to address the dense forest understory that looms as the real fire danger. His policy is not going to be helpful. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander It was 9:20 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2017, and the Tubbs Fire had already spent 12 hours becoming the most destructive blaze in California history. Residents were fleeing the flames, firefighters were chasing them, and whole neighborhoods were in smoldering ruin. Amid the chaos, on a wooded hillside property 3 miles northwest of Calistoga, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mark Frits carefully began taping off sections of blackened land. But while he immediately observed fire pattern indicators around the property at 1128 N. Bennett Lane, and spoke to eyewitnesses who described flames racing down the hillside, officials werent close to determining the cause of a wind-driven inferno that killed 24 people and destroyed 5,600 structures as it shot southwest into Santa Rosa. More than 15 months had passed when, on Thursday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection identified privately owned electrical equipment on the property as the fires cause leaving PG&E blameless. In that time, investigators collected pieces of melted wires and charred debris, studied burn patterns, pulled records, interviewed witnesses and considered whether a hitchhiker with a reputation for starting fires might have visited Bennett Lane. An 80-page report written by Cal Fire Battalion Chief John Martinez which had been long-awaited by the fires victims tells the story of an exhaustive probe that began the day the disaster exploded. The documents dont reveal exactly why Cal Fire took so long to go public with its findings. But experts say that pinpointing a definitive cause of a fire is as much about eliminating possible sources as zeroing in on an origin point. Investigators must go through heaps of evidence from the scene and beyond to tell the story of how a fire started. In Californias massive blazes, Theres never anything that stands out, said Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean. The Tubbs Fire, he said, was devastating, and burned so hot and destroyed so much, there was very little left. There is no predominant cause of wildfires in the state, according to a Cal Fire data from 2016, the most recent year available. Of the 2,816 fires that ignited in state jurisdictions that year, 8 percent were blamed on arson, 10 percent on electrical equipment and 13 percent on burning debris. Other causes included lightning, vehicles, and kids playing with fire. In 27 percent of cases, investigators couldnt settle on a cause. In the case of the Tubbs Fire, some clues like a description of a badly wood-peckered private power pole brought officials closer to their eventual conclusion. Other leads like the tip about the hitchhiker were dead ends. After a lengthy elimination process, officials ultimately determined that the fire was sparked by private electrical equipment a finding that shocked some victims who had already sued PG&E and prompted their attorneys to pledge to fight on. According to their report, the fire was first reported at 9:41 p.m. on Oct. 8, 2017, when Michelle Hickman called 911 from her home across Highway 128 from the Bennett Lane property. Hickman and her husband would flee and their home would be lost by the time Frits arrived. Frits came all the way from his home in Red Bluff (Tehama County). So many fires were burning around Napa and Sonoma counties that night that no local investigators were available. In wildland fire investigations, officials look for key indicators about how a fire burned grass, trees, stumps and even pine needles to determine whether flames were advancing, backing up or moving sideways to define a general origin area before fixing on a specific origin area. Its a very meticulous, time-consuming, labor-intensive situation, McLean said. Youre back-stepping. In Calistoga, investigators in a helicopter observed a telltale V pattern in vegetation, showing what appeared to be the fire spreading out from a single point, according to the report. Once they find the where, investigators begin looking for the how. Sometimes the pivotal clue might be a cigarette butt, melted metal from a power line, or the presence of nearby machinery. The Tubbs Fire cause, however, remained somewhat ambiguous, Martinez wrote. He described PG&E electrical wires that had run to a weatherhead and meter on the side of the house at 1128 Bennett Lane. From there, electrical tubing ran to a private power pole, later identified as Power Pole 3. Interactive California Fire Tracker This interactive map provides information on wildfires burning across California and lets you explore coverage of past fire seasons. Thats where private power lines that Martinez said did not appear professionally installed forked in two directions. One line went toward a pool patio, while the other extended to two more poles, a pump station and a well. On Oct. 16, 2017, Martinez reported, he walked around the lot with caretaker Mike Andrews, who oversaw the property for owner 91-year-old Ann Zink, who now lives in San Bernardino County. Neither Andrews nor Zink returned calls for comment after the report was released, but Zink previously told The Chronicle the property was unoccupied when the fire started. Andrews said Power Pole 3 needed to be replaced because it had been wood-peckered so damn bad and that we were afraid of it falling over, Martinez wrote. The pole burned up, but it was unclear whether it had toppled before it caught fire. He added that Cal Fire had cited the property owners twice in 2015, for not maintaining defensible spaces between vegetation and buildings. As they began to narrow in on the origin, investigators continued eliminating other potential causes. On Oct. 14, 2017, Martinez spoke to Officer Amy Hunter with the Napa Police Department about a hitchhiker who was known to start campfires and had been picked up the day of the fire along the Napa Valleys Silverado Trail. It turned out the hitchhiker had a solid alibi, eliminating him as a person of interest, officials said. Martinez said he was unable to determine the exact cause of the spark that became the Tubbs Fire. But he concluded that the origin of the blaze was the primary residential structure and immediate area surrounding the structure on the Bennett Lane property, with the possibility of a fire cause by the structure and/or private conductor lines. More significantly, Martinez found that it is unlikely PG&E equipment is responsible for causing the Tubbs Fire. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky After saying for weeks that he would not reopen the government without border wall money, Trump was expected to agree to a bill to re-open the government without additional money for his signature campaign promise, according to five people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal private discussion. As San Francisco supervisors consider putting a vacant-property tax on the November ballot, Oakland is struggling with the reality of implementing one. Oakland voters in November approved a tax that applies to any privately owned property in the city including residential, commercial and empty lots that is not in use for more than 50 days in a calendar year starting in 2019. The annual tax is $6,000 per parcel for most properties, regardless of size or value. The tax for condo or duplex units or ground-floor commercial space is $3,000 per year. There are 10 possible exemptions. The tax will be added to annual property tax bills starting with the one that goes out next year. It will continue for 20 years. Oaklands City Council put Measure W on the ballot, saying it would raise $10 million annually, which can only be used for homeless services, affordable housing, programs to fight blight and illegal dumping, administer the tax and defend any possible lawsuits. Measure W passed with 70 percent of the vote. Among the many issues now facing the city: defining in use, identifying vacant properties, clarifying the 10 exemptions, developing software to administer the program and forming a commission on homelessness to recommend how the revenue should be spent. The City Council could, by ordinance, restrict the tax to certain zones within the city, but has not done so. In December, the citys Finance Department sent a letter to owners of 25,000 non-owner-occupied properties warning them about the tax should their property be deemed vacant. The letter set off alarm bells for some owners. I thought it was only on vacant homes, not vacant property, said James Liu, who lives in Fremont and owns five steep lots on Ascot Drive in the Oakland hills. Liu bought the adjacent parcels in 2012 and 2013, thinking naively, he admits that he could develop them, despite their 50 percent slope. But architects and engineers told him it wouldnt be possible. He put them on the market twice, with no takers. Meanwhile hes paying $3,000 per year in property taxes on each lot, plus another $3,000 per year to have them cleared of debris. He said the the additional $6,000 per parcel tax is not just about money. Its about fairness. Its not something I realized could happen in America. The measure exempts owners who can demonstrate that exceptional specific circumstances prevent the use or development of the property. But most owners wont know if they qualify for this or any exemption until the Finance Department writes rules implementing the measure and the City Council adopts them. Another provision that merits clarification says, for parcels with multiple units, whether residential or non-residential, the parcel is not vacant if any unit on it is not vacant. A condominium, duplex, or town house unit under separate ownership is treated as a separate parcel The Finance Department will probably bring an implementing ordinance to the City Council in April, but it could take a number of meetings before its adopted, said Karen Boyd, a spokeswoman for the city. Vacancy-tax exemptions These are 10 exemptions to Oakland's new vacant-property tax, as described in Measure W. The Finance Department will clarify them in an implementing ordinance, which must be approved by the City Council. (1) Owner is "very low income," as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city wouldn't define it. But HUD's website says that the income limit in Oakland is $40,700 per year for a one-person household and goes up with family size. (2) Owner is 65 or older and "low income," as defined by HUD. That limit is $62,750 for one person. (3) Owner of any age receives Supplemental Security Income for a disability or Social Security Disability Insurance benefits and has income that does not exceed 250 percent of the 2012 federal poverty guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That limit is $11,170 for one person and goes up with family size. (4) The tax would create a "financial hardship due to specific factual circumstances." (5) The property is vacant because of a "demonstrable hardship that is unrelated to the owner's personal finances." (6) The property is under active construction. (7) The owner has an active building permit application being processed by the city. (8) The owner has a "substantially complete application for planning approval" under review. (9) The owner can prove that "exceptional specific circumstances prevent the use or development of the property." (10) The owner is or is controlled by a nonprofit organization. See More Collapse In its letter to property owners, the Finance Department said it would be difficult to answer questions until the ordinance is adopted. It strongly urged them, in a bold and underlined comment, to not make any inquiries regarding this letter or the tax at this time. It did give them an email address, VacantPropertyTaxInquiry@oaklandca.gov, but said it could take up to 30 days to get their questions answered. The citys finance director, Katano Kasaine, urged the council in a May letter to delay implementation for one year, citing the aggressive timetable required for the implementation of the tax. The City Council could delay implementation, but theres no sign it plans to. The Finance Department estimated it would cost $425,000 per year to administer the tax, plus a one-time startup cost of at least $100,000. Boyd said the city has received a legal challenge to the tax but provided no details. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf supports the tax, her spokesman Justin Berton said in an email. Its a novel idea that will generate new resources to address some of Oaklands biggest challenges, such as homelessness, Berton said. It also taxes people who are failing to utilize their property during a housing shortage, which damages overall community vitality. Nobody is sure how many vacant properties there are and how many will get an exemption. Using data from the county assessor, Hayley Raetz, a researcher at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, estimated that there are about 4,000 undeveloped, privately owned lots in Oakland. Most are small lots in residential neighborhoods. If approved by Oakland voters, the tax could act as a deterrent for speculation, and encourage owners of vacant parcels to sell or develop their land, ideally unlocking sites for housing, Raetz wrote in a report. She did not look at lots with homes or businesses on them, because theres no methodical way to determine whether theyre vacant. Looking just at an estimated 4,000 vacant lots, the Finance Department said that the tax could bring in $6 million to $10.5 million a year, depending on how many got exemptions. Building a home or apartment building on raw land is not easy or cheap, and some vacant lots are in areas prone to landslides and wildfires. Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. Oakland real estate agent Mel Copland owns one of several empty lots on Oakwood Court in the Montclair neighborhood. The infrastructure is so expensive, to bring, solar, gas and water to the property, plus a private road, he said, adding that the value of that land has dropped 50 percent since the last recession. Whats going to happen, people are not going to pay the tax, and you are going to have a lot of defaulted lots. Dragos Badeamic, a structural engineer and contractor who lives outside Sacramento, owns three vacant properties on Woodrow Avenue in Oakland., I was planning to build some houses there, but for family reasons, I could not do that, he said. Hes paying about $1,900 per year in property tax on each of the three lots; the vacancy tax would be nearly three times that per lot. Badeamic grew up in Romania, where the communists imprisoned his grandfather and seized the familys property, forcing them to flee the country. He said the tax reminds him of what went on in the early days of the communist regime there. I never thought I was going to see this here, in the bastion of capitalism, he said. SPUR, a Bay Area urban planning think tank, said in its voter guide that it supports the idea of a vacant parcel tax, as a way to help move vacant land into active use and eliminate blight, but it opposed Measure W because it would be very difficult to implement fairly. The definition of what constitutes vacancy is very broad, it said, and the exemptions are also very broadly defined, such as a demonstrable hardship that is not financial. It also said a flat tax may disproportionately affect small property owners. Evelyn Sinclair, who owns a vacant lot next to her home in the Oakland hills near Redwood Regional Park, said she objects to the tax because we shouldnt be balancing somebodys project for helping homeless people and urban blight on a tiny minority of people in the city. Candice Elder, director of the East Oakland Collective, a Millennial-focused nonprofit, said that once everything gets ironed out, (the tax) has the potential to help address some of the issues in homelessness and the housing crisis. She said it wont overcome all of the obstacles, but its one component of the solution. She hopes the tax will spur landowners with a challenging piece of property, or low-income owners who cant afford to develop, to work with the city or with nonprofit agencies to reimagine the use of the land. James Vann, co-founder of the Homeless Advocacy Working Group, which campaigned for Measure W, said the tax will probably deplete itself as vacant lots, homes and buildings are put to use. Meanwhile in San Francisco, Supervisor Aaron Peskin said in a news conference Wednesday that he wants the Board of Supervisors to put a vacancy tax on the November ballot. The $250-per-day tax would apply to some commercial and multifamily residential properties that are intentionally kept vacant for more than six months of the year. Peskin has been talking about a vacancy tax since 2017 but hasnt introduced any legislation. Before crafting a tax, San Francisco might want to consider the challenges facing Oakland. Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender California Sen. Kamala Harris is riding a buzz wave the likes of which we havent seen in years. The question is whether she can turn the buzz into a solid political operation. As announcements go, Harris MLK Day rollout was a blockbuster. The coverage was largely positive, and the campaign said it had raised $1.5 million in mostly small contributions in the first 24 hours. Although I also noticed that the campaign gave no report on how much came in on Day Two. Before the week was over, the Washington chatterers had put Harris at the front of the Democratic pack with former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasnt announced whether hell run. But as exciting as good media and internet buzz are, they dont always translate to votes. Just ask independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. All the talk was about people feeling the Bern in 2016, but it was Hillary Clintons block-and-tackle operation that won the nomination. The first test for Harris will be whether she can fill Oaklands Frank Ogawa Plaza at her kickoff rally Sunday. The Harris people picked the plaza in part because it was where Barack Obama drew a big crowd in 2007 during his first presidential run. That feat took months of old-fashioned organizing by Obamas operation. It will be interesting to see if Harris can match it using social media. Elephant in the room: Ive been peppered with calls from the national media about my relationship with Kamala Harris, most of which I have not returned. Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago. Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco. I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a host of other politicians. The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I so much as jaywalked while she was D.A. Thats politics for ya. Schooled: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did what no one else has been able to do in the world of politics: She caused President Trump to admit hes overmatched. The one silver lining for Trump in his shutdown fiasco: Hell get to deliver the State of the Union address in the House chamber. Trump knows its a great stage. Everyone in the government is there. All eyes on the president. Its the ultimate ego candy for a guy like Trump. Oscar time: The nominations are out, and the biggest surprise is the best-picture nomination for Roma. Roma is a foreign-language film. Unless youre fluent in Spanish, you have to work at it to enjoy it tracking the subtitles while trying to watch the nuances on the screen. And how is it that none of the stars of Black Panther is up for an award? The movie was nominated for best picture, but apparently none of its actors had anything to do with its excellence. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: I wandered over to Oaklands Oracle Arena to catch Elton Johns final tour. Man, have things changed. I havent seen so many old white people this side of Rossmoor. The only nonwhites in the arena were the security guards, the ushers and me. In the middle of the concert, I went to get a hot dog. I was politely told, We dont sell hot dogs at an Elton John concert, but we do have something more organic. On the way back to my seat, I did catch a whiff of marijuana and smiled knowingly at one of the ushers. He smiled back and said, Its probably medical. Look out below: Im moving into San Franciscos tower of tilt. I joined with a couple of investors and together were buying a condo in the Millennium Tower. The price was right. The bet is that the tower will be fixed and if we hold on we stand to make some good money down the line. We couldnt find a lender who shared our optimism, so we paid cash. The only downside so far is the lack of closet space. I had to order a slew of portable clothing racks. When the racks were being set up, one of the workers asked, What are you doing? Opening a used clothing store? No, but if this investment doesnt work out, I will be. Want to sound off? Email: wbrown@sfchronicle.com Jim Cullum is a traditional guy a suit, bow tie, a little mustache, glasses. He looks like an old-time banker. Cullum is a jazz man. He plays traditional jazz, hot and loud in the style of King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong. His band, seven musicians and the man himself on cornet, plays in San Antonio mostly, but he was in San Francisco for a bit, at Pier 23, to talk about the San Francisco sound, which was born here, lost for a while, then reborn, and now reborn once again on the internet. He talked about it over lunch at Sams Grill about the jazz pioneers from the Barbary Coast a century ago, about Lu Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band in the 40s, Turk Murphys band up to the 80s. It was a very special sound, he said. Not like modern jazz, which is swingier and softer, but a bit like Dixieland. Big, brassy and loud, Cullum said. You could almost hear the music as he talked about it, and you can hear the sounds Sid Le Protti on piano, Lu Watters, Turk Murphy and the rest at a new traditional jazz website offered by the Stanford University library. Stanford University Libraries Theres Turk Murphy with his growly voice, old programs, pictures, matchbook covers, interviews and music. You dont have to pay a cover charge, buy a drink or tip the doorman. Its all free and can be found at http://exhibits.stanford.edu/sftjf. Cullum was in town to get the word out about the website. The website was a long time coming and a lot of work. Its dedicated to Charles Huggins, who played a little and listened a lot. His widow, Donna, had a big hand in it. Jazz has deep roots in San Franciscos gaudy past. The accepted view is that jazz has African American roots in New Orleans and spread across the country, to Chicago and Kansas City. But there are roots in San Francisco, too, on the old Barbary Coast in the dives and dance halls along Pacific Street or Terrific Street as they called it in the days when Frisco was wide open. One joint on the Coast was Purcells So Different, where black musicians and dance hall girls catered to black and white patrons. It was called a black and tan establishment, and was illegal as hell. Unless you paid off the cops. The leader of the So Different house band was Sid Le Protti, an African American from Oakland, who also played the piano. This was just over a hundred years ago, when jazz was just getting going. Le Protti was influenced by ragtime, and Dixieland, but his band developed its own style. One film clip on the website shows Le Prottis So Different Jazz Band playing for dancers on the sidewalk in 1910. The So Different band was the first to use the word jazz for his group. A lot of new dances came out of the Barbary Coast, too. It was a time when old conventions were fading away. They said a new world was being born, and new music. On the coast it had a San Francisco twist. But not long after reformers pressed the cops to close down the Barbary Coast, the traditional jazz style faded away. Le Protti and his band couldnt get steady work, and he opened a bootblack stand in Berkeley, and then in Walnut Creek, playing piano now and then. In the late 1930s, the heyday of the swing dance bands, a musician named Lu Watters and his friends revived the traditional jazz music. They played at a basement dive called the Dawn Club in an alley near the Palace Hotel. It was a sensation lost music rediscovered, uniquely San Francisco. A native-born style, Cullum said of the music. A unique sound like nowhere else in the world. It didnt come here. It came from here. Melvin Turk Murphy, a Stanford dropout, musical arranger and trombone player, joined the Lu Watters band. When it broke up, about 1950, Murphy started his own band, the Bay City Stompers. They played all over, even in New York for a bit. But San Francisco was home. Murphy lived in the Marina and played at the Italian Village, the Tin Angel, and Earthquake McGoons. He played Easter Sundays at Grace Cathedral, and for the last two years of his life at the New Orleans Room in the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill. Murphys band played what Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called gut bucket, rock bottom, come-home-to-mama style music. Hes a white boy but he plays real good, said renowned clarinetist Jimmy Noone, who was black. In January 1987, Turk Murphys Jazz Band played Carnegie Hall in New York. Cullums band was on the bill as well. It was Murphys last big show. He died of bone cancer five months later. At his funeral at Grace Cathedral, C. Julian Bartlett, the dean of the cathedral, said Murphy was a unique child of God. His gift to us will last, and last, and last, and last, and last. The collection at the Stanford library, and the internet, is making sure that Bartlett was right. Carl Noltes column appears Sundays. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf San Francisco Mayor London Breed is planning to roll out an unusual and elaborate proposal in an attempt to unlock some of the money brought in by Proposition C, the November ballot measure that raised taxes on big businesses to fund homelessness programs. Breed is expected to introduce legislation Tuesday that would give individual businesses subject to Prop. Cs tax the option of letting the city keep the money they pay even if the courts ultimately strike down the measure and order the funds repaid. While Prop. C passed with more than 61 percent of the vote, the hundreds of millions of dollars its projected to bring in annually will be collected but not spent until a legal dispute over the measures margin of victory is resolved. The process could take years, stymieing the citys ability to spend any of the money in the meantime. And if the courts deem the measure unconstitutional, the city would be forced to refund Prop. C revenue back to businesses. But under Breeds proposal, which shell co-sponsor with Supervisor Vallie Brown, a company could choose to let the city keep some or all of the money it paid under Prop. C if the city loses its court case. In return, the company would get a 10 percent tax credit on the money it lets the city hold on to, and the city would be able to spend the money immediately because the possibility of having to refund it would be eliminated. Whether the 10 percent credit would create enough incentive for major corporations to abandon money they could potentially win back remains an open question. But perhaps the measures most prominent backer was a business titan Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff who donated substantially in the run-up to the election, framing it as a moral imperative for confronting homelessness in San Francisco. This is an opportunity to free up funding for homelessness now so we can put it to work helping people who are suffering on our streets, Breed said in a statement Friday. We know this funding could be tied up in litigation for years, and while we wait for the legal issues to be resolved, with this legislation we can start building shelter beds, mental health beds and affordable housing now. Representatives for Breed have spent at least the past week quietly lobbying businesses to consider signing the waiver, according to three people with knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity. Its not clear if any business has yet agreed to waive its right to a refund if the measure is deemed unconstitutional. Prop. C levies an average of about 0.5 percent in gross receipts tax on corporate revenue above $50 million. There are between 300 and 400 companies in San Francisco subject to the tax, which would bring in up to $300 million annually to pay for housing, shelters, mental health treatment and other services. The Hearst Corp., owner of The Chronicle, is subject to the tax. The treasurers office expects the first payments to begin arriving in April. But in order to spend any of that money, City Attorney Dennis Herreras office will have to convince the courts that Prop. C as well as two other 2018 ballot measures was passed legally. For more than two decades in California, since voters approved Proposition 218, passing a new tax measure where the proceeds are used for specific purposes has required a two-thirds majority. But last year, a memo from the city attorneys office interpreting a recent state Supreme Court ruling argued that proposed tax measures put on the ballot by citizens and not government officials required only a simple majority to pass. Three tax measures passed with simple majorities last year but up to $500 million a year in funding for homelessness, child care and teacher salaries now depends on whether the courts agree with Herreras reading of the state Supreme Courts intentions. Herrera is now confronting multiple court cases in which hell attempt to prove the simple-majority threshold was appropriate. Breed opposed Prop. C prior to the election. Though she thought the measure was well-intentioned, she said it lacked accountability provisions to ensure the money was spent as it was intended. After the measure passed by a wide margin, she said she would use her office to honor the will of the voters. Shortly after the election, Breed authorized Herrera to take proactive steps in court that would begin the process of validating the measure. Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa Thank you for reading! You have reached your 30-day limit of free access to SentinelSource.com, The Keene Sentinels website. If you would like to read two more articles for free at this time, please register for an account by clicking the sign up button below. We hope you find The Sentinels coverage of the Monadnock Region valuable. We rely on our subscribers to bring you strong local journalism and hope you will consider supporting our work by taking advantage of this special subscription offer here. Kenneth Gill, age 65, husband of 47 years of Marsha Gill of Lily, Kentucky went home to be with the Lord on Saturday, June 5, 2021 at his residence. He was the father of Kenneth E. Gill, Jr., of Hamilton, Ohio and Jessica Bowman and husband Terry of London, Kentucky; the brother of Vic Gill Toure, is one of the 283 workers out of a planned 1,000 to be hired at the three-floor office, which officially opened in December after operating out of temporary spaces in the area since March. Shes also one of 176 employees who came to Hartford from outside Connecticut, primarily states in the Northeast and New England, according to leader of the hub, Jeff Auker. FLORENCE, S.C. The Doctors Bruce and Lee Foundation Library's Morris Gallery will host a Black History Month program Feb. 10, at 3 p.m. featuring South Carolina artist Alvin Glen. Glen will speak about his art, which is being exhibited in the Morris Gallery until March 15. Glen presents works about common people, emotions, and ideas. He uses recognizable images, sometimes subtle, allowing the viewers to slowly discover and interpret the works. He explores emotion as well as social and spiritual concepts. Some of his works illustrate low country Gullah life while other works bring attention to social or political issues. Glen earned a bachelor of arts in arts education at South Carolina State College. He has presented solo shows at the Charleston Art Institute, the Avery Research Center, and at the Charleston Trident Chamber of Commerce. The Doctor N. Lee Morris Gallery is located on the second floor of the Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation Library in Florence. For more information about the exhibit and related events, please visit the librarys website at www.florencelibrary.org. Researchers have long known that the quality of an adult's romantic life is closely tied to both physical and mental health in adolescence. A new longitudinal study sought to identify the factors in adolescence that best predicted who would and would not have a satisfying romantic life in their late 20s. The study found that the skills teens learn in friendships with peers of the same gender were the strongest predictors of later romantic satisfaction. The study, by researchers at the University of Virginia and James Madison University, appears in Child Development, a journal of the Society for Research in Child Development. "In spite of the emphasis teens put on adolescent romantic relationships, they turn out not to be the most important predictor of future romantic success," says Joseph P. Allen, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, who led the study. "Instead, it's the skills learned in friendships with peers of the same gender -- skills such as stability, assertiveness, intimacy, and social competence -- that correspond most closely to the skills needed for success in adult romantic relationships." Researchers interviewed and observed 165 adolescents from ages 13 to 30; the youth lived in suburban and urban areas in the southeastern United States and the group was racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse. The study assessed teens' reports of the quality of their social and romantic relationships, as well as reports by close friends. Each year across a three-year period when the youth were in their late 20s, researchers also interviewed participants about how satisfied they were with romantic life. The study found that progress in key social developmental tasks in adolescence predicted future romantic competence at ages 27 to 30, even though the adolescent tasks were in nonromantic areas. For example: At age 13, adolescents' abilities to establish positive expectations of relationships with their peers and to be appropriately assertive with peers were the best predictors of future romantic satisfaction. At ages 15 and 16, social competence -- that is, teens' ability to establish close friendships and to manage a broad array of relationships with peers -- was the best predictor. And from ages 16 to 18, teens' ability to establish and maintain close, stable friendships was the best predictor of satisfaction romantically. These factors were more closely associated than anything related to romantic behavior in adolescence, such as how much teens dated, whether they were involved physically in romantic relationships, their sexual behavior, and their physical attractiveness, according to the study. The researchers note that their study did not establish causal processes. "Romantic relationships in adolescence are much more likely to be fleeting, and as such, they don't appear to be the main way teens learn skills needed for the future," suggests Rachel K. Narr, a doctoral student at the University of Virginia, who coauthored the study. The study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health. Balance and harmony Official portrait honors UofSCs president and first lady The University of South Carolinas president, Harris Pastides, and his wife, Patricia Moore-Pastides, make quite a team. On Friday (Jan. 25), a portrait of the two was unveiled at the UofSC Alumni Center to honor the power couple. The unveiling comes at an appropriate time, with President Pastides retirement looming this summer, but the process actually began a year ago, before anyone knew of that plan. A portrait of Harris Pastides and Patricia Moore-Pastides was unveiled Friday at the University of South Carolina Alumni Center. Mark Buyck, a former University of South Carolina Board of Trustees member, recalls getting things started. Johnny Fields and I talked to Harris about having his portrait done before he got, quote, too old, he says, and we had no idea at the time that he would be retiring this year. Fields was a member of the universitys Board of Visitors and the Board of Directors of the University of South Carolina Development Foundation before his death last March. The decision to pursue the portrait was an easy one for Buyck, who has high praise for Pastides. I would say and I think a lot of people agree with me that the past 10 years have really been the golden era of the university. We have progressed in so many phases. Its been a really wonderful and progressive era under Pastides leadership. When first approached, Pastides was hesitant, but the thought of having his wife by his side made him reconsider. We pushed him, and after a while Harris said and we knew it was true that being president was a joint job with Patricia and that he would like to have the portrait of both of them together. We thought that was a good idea as well, says Buyck. Early in the process, it was agreed that funds for the project would be raised from private donors. It was the easiest fund-raising Ive ever done in my life, says Susie VanHuss, a longtime Gamecock and the secretary/treasurer of the University Foundations Board of Directors. VanHuss heard about the fledgling project from Jancy Houck, South Carolinas vice president of the Division of Development, at an event and told Houck she wanted to donate and to recruit other donors. At the same event where I saw Jancy, VanHuss explains, I saw four really good friends who are supporters of the university, and all four of them immediately said they would make generous contributions. Harris and Patricia are simply loved by virtually everybody theyve encountered. From donors to students, the president and first ladys impact has been immense. The day that Pastides announced his retirement during his 2018 State of the University address, VanHuss was greeting student nurses at a flu clinic. Every student she spoke to said they were sad because of the announcement. You know what makes me the most sad? they would say. He wont be here to sign my diploma when I graduate next year. I probably had 20 students make that statement to me, says VanHuss. The reaction from students was unbelievable. It really impacted what I thought about the whole university. Soon after agreeing to the idea of a portrait, the president and his wife chose to work with John Seibels Walker, a highly regarded painter and portrait artist and a native South Carolinian. This was certainly a great honor because I did grow up truly down the street from campus, says Walker. Seeing the changes the university has made and all that Harris and Patricia have done, its particularly nice to be a part of this. An expert in academic realist painting, Walker says the biggest challenge was figuring out how to best represent the two subjects. Obviously, Patricia and Harris are a charming and outgoing couple, and capturing that dynamism is a good thing. Walker says such portraits are composites of information: he draws from direct observation and photography to create a composition that has balance and harmony. Its something that takes on a life of its own, Walker explains, but I was aware at some point that their clasped hands are at the center of the painting, and its very symbolic about this couple. Theyre a dynamic duo, and to know them and see how well they play off each other and share together was a real pleasure. What Walker ultimately hopes to create is a work of art that honors his subjects and captures a moment in time. But its not just about now. It becomes a time capsule for 50 years, 100 years from now. It will tell future generations that these people were loved, were valued. Share this Story! Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about Judges and Chief Justice Vincent Lunabek during the guard of honour. More Photos on page 12. Danvers, MA (01923) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Danvers, MA (01923) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. New Delhi, Jan 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Madurai, Tamil Nadu on January 27, a statement said. He will also inaugurate the super speciality blocks of Rajaji Medical College (Madurai), Thanjavur Medical College (Thanjavur) and Tirunelveli Medical College (Tirunelveli) as a part of upgradation projects of government medical colleges. AIIMS The prime minister will visit Kochi on the same day and unveil a plaque to dedicate to the nation an integrated refinery expansion complex of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. He will also lay the foundation stone for a petrochemical complex at the same venue, inaugurate a mounded storage vessel at an LPG bottling plant of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited in Kochi and lay the foundation stone for skill development institute at Ettumanoor. Weather Alert ...FLASH FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 2 PM EDT THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING... The Flash Flood Watch continues for * Portions of north and central Georgia. * From 2 PM EDT this afternoon through Sunday evening. * A tropical low pressure system will bring heavy rainfall to portions of Georgia today and Sunday. Rainfall totals of 3 to 5 inches are expected over the watch area, with higher amounts to 6 inches possible over portions of western and north Georgia. Quickly accumulating rainfall will easily allow for efficient runoff and increase flash flooding potential. * Creeks and streams may rise out of their banks and inundate fields, roads, businesses and other property. Street flooding could also lead to road closures. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... You should monitor later forecasts and be prepared to take action should Flash Flood Warnings be issued. && For courage for our Virginia State Water Control Board to exercise its oversight of DEQ, quickly set a date to reconsider the 401water certificate and finally revoke it. To stop the overbuilding of pipelines and for FERC commissioners to recognize that pipelines will exponentially increase greenhouse gases. That sacred ancestral lands, historic districts and preservation easements be honored and exempt from pipeline crossings. For a transition from fossil fuels and gas pipelines to renewables and for America to develop a sustainable economy and energy that does not threaten humanity. For wildlife to be protected and fragile karst terrain not to be trenched. For our roads to be free of potential pipeline explosions. For ratepayers, especially the poor, not to be forced to pay for the unneeded MVP and Roanoke Gas Companys taps in Elliston and Franklin County through rate increases. He hurled insults and accused her of cheating on him. After she threw a glass of water in his face, Dalton choked her from behind. As she screamed for help, Dalton jammed his hand into her mouth, which caused bruising on the back of her trachea consistent with blunt-force trauma, Pather testified. Dalton then banged her head on the floor repeatedly, causing numerous injuries, including bruising on her neck and hemorrhaging in her eyes consistent with blunt-force trauma, according to testimony. Following the assault, Pather said, the survivor of the attack went to her personal doctor and then to the UVa Medical Center, where her injuries were documented. She then filed a police report. Additionally, Pather said, Dalton admitted in his initial interview with police officers that he wished that she had died. Rhonda Quagliana, Daltons defense attorney, said the plea agreement showed her client was taking responsibility for his actions. Two terms of the plea agreement a two-year protective order and a promise not to return to the UVa or Charlottesville were suggested by Dalton, she said. Judge Humes J. Franklin accepted the plea agreement and set Daltons sentencing for May 2. Tyler Hammel is a reporter for The Daily Progress. Contact him at (434) 978-7268, thammel@dailyprogress.com or @TylerHammelVA on Twitter. You dont have to look very hard to realize people in Christiansburg are not too thrilled with the current options, Morgan said before later suggesting to town officials some ideas for potentially expanding internet options. Chris Kyle, Shentels vice president of industry affairs and regulatory, was present and provided some of the reasons for his companys pricing in Christiansburg. The thing I say is economies of scale in our business matter, Kyle said. Kyle described Comcast as a multi-billion dollar corporation, which he said has prompted the telecom company to be very, very cost-competitive because of their size. Kyle made a reference to how internet service providers are generally reluctant to lay down broadband lines in less populated areas where returns on investments are expected to be lower. We dont have a New York City to offset these costs, he said before adding that Shentel does make efforts to lower its prices. Kyle also touted his companys recently launched 150-megabit deal. Mayor Mike Barber said he knows that providing free wifi downtown doesnt necessarily solve the broadband situation that was debated Tuesday. To the speaker, the more imaginative and inquiring of the two neighbors, it is a reason-devoid game, a stone-age ritual. Yet doggedly, We meet to walk the line and set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. When pressed for why? the wall-preserving neighbor cannot think of any use for the barrier. So he repeats the same sentence he had always heard his dad repeat. Good fences make good neighbours. Do they? The poem leaves you to decide, even to consider whether the illogical stone wall it speaks of exists only out there. Transitions Last year, this column series looked at new brain research and its parallels to ancient wisdom teachings. Both old and new mind sciences cast light on the brains awesome potential, as well as its divisive self-cherishing the habit of walling out larger reality the ego has no desire to know or see. So this year, having started it so stoutly beating our heads against a projected external barrier, I figured we could transition from brain science to walls the ones already constructed with, around and between us all. Man arrested in Playa del Carmen after shootout with police Playa del Carmen, Q.R. A police chase has led to the arrest of a man after he attempted to collect a year-old debt with a gun in hand. Reports say the man, identified only as Jamie N, attempted to collect an outstanding debt of 4,500 peso from another person. When the second man arrived at their agreed meeting point, he saw the collector was carrying a gun. He started to phone police when the aggressor took it away and fled in a grey vehicle. The second man was able to flag down municipal police, explaining that the man had just left armed in a grey vehicle. State police reported that the officers began their search operation, visually locating his vehicle on 30th Avenue with Juarez. When attempting to stop him, officers were assaulted with gunfire by the subject, initiating a pursuit. The capture of Jamie N took place on Avenue 20 near Constituyentes. He was taken into custody. His vehicle was seized. Jamie N will be presented before the state attorney. Richmond, KY (40475) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. The other list comes from SafeHome.org and has Virginia listed No. 49 out of 50 states and Washington, D.C. Our near-to-last ranking isnt because our homes arent safe, but quite the opposite, actually. With only 218 break-ins per 100,000 people, justNew Hampshire and New York had lower numbers than the Old Dominion. We are pleased but not surprised after all, isnt that the Virginia way? Is this any way to run a military training academy? The United States Naval Academy in Annapolis is falling apart. Pipes leak and mold is growing on walls. Offices have been condemned and the plumbing system is overloaded. Infrastructure has degraded so badly that a 2018 report from the Naval Audit Service says the schools ability to train future naval officers might be threatened. Auditors say that the conditions are so deleterious that midshipmen and visitors might actually be in danger and the schools accreditation status is at risk. Between fiscal years 2012 and 2015, the academys renovation budget fell from about $35 million to less than $5 million and its maintenance budget declined from $35 million to $25 million. This is inexcusable. The young men and women who have committed to serving their nation deserve better. In 2016, the Navy blew more than $226 million developing and rolling out yet another uniform change. The latest we kid you not is a woodland patterned uniform. To be worn by sailors on gray ships that sail the ocean blue. We wonder if Navy leadership cant see the forest for the trees. Find the money. Midlothian *** In regard to Virginias governor: As an alternative to re-election proposals, how about modifying the single term to six years? Douglas Peel, Enon *** A new rule should be: Congress does not get paid if any government workers dont get paid. Rick Court, Chester *** To all politicians in Washington, including the president and Congress: You were elected to RUN the country, not to RUIN the country! Please stop acting like a bunch of spoiled children. People have different opinions, but as intelligent adults, we should come together somewhere in the middle for the good of our country. Herman Birdsong, Powhatan *** U.S. responsibilities in Syria have not ended Editor, Times-Dispatch: Reading the recent headlines proclaiming ISIS is defeated and U.S. troops in Syria are soon coming home, one could conclude that our responsibility in this war-torn Middle Eastern nation is over. No doubt exists that ISIS is a reprehensible terrorist organization, responsible for more than 2,600 deaths in worldwide attacks, in addition to 25,000 civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq during the past four years. Add to this the litany of war crimes, promotion of global jihad, and broadcasting public beheadings of foreigners on social media. All these acts have made ISIS an obvious candidate for public enemy No. 1. However, when it comes to committing wartime atrocities, ISIS pales in comparison to Bashar al-Assads Syrian government. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirms 511,000 deaths in that nations eight-year civil war: 85 percent civilian casualties by government forces backed by Russia and Iran; 30 percent women and children. Legislation is also needed to protect professional journalists. Currently, Virginia is one of only 10 states that has not adopted legislation to protect members of the press from being forced to reveal the names of confidential sources. HB 2250, the Virginia Shield Law, adds this critical protection. Its been 40 years since a Richmond Circuit Court judge threatened jail time to a Norfolk Star-Ledger reporter for refusing to name a confidential source and 37 years since the same judge fined a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter for a similar reason, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Yet Virginia still has no Shield Law, even as reporters since then have ended up in federal court from Abingdon to Alexandria for protecting their sources. The bill balances freedom of the press with public safety concerns journalists would still be required to reveal sources when an imminent threat of bodily harm or death exists, though such instances are extraordinarily rare. Every year, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle speak of the importance of transparency in government. If we are truly committed to clean, open governance, we must remember that sunshine is, and always has been, the best disinfectant. By taking commonsense and long-overdue steps to protect the journalists who serve in the vanguard of our free society, Virginia can live up to the founding ideals that our commonwealth contributed to this great nation. As the name indicates, there is a significant and complex range of symptoms that can present in any combination and range in severity. Just as is with all human beings, no two individuals with autism are the same. Each individual with autism has his or her own unique set of strengths, abilities, interests, and challenges. As Dr. Stephen Shore, an adult with autism, says, if youve met one person with autism, youve met one person with autism. Challenges can include, but are not limited to, impairment in social communication and interaction, and the presence of restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior. Some individuals on the spectrum have difficulty with eye contact and making conversation, where others are nonverbal and use assistive technology to communicate. Some individuals stim (repeat physical movements, sounds, or words), fidget, or pace when excited or anxious. Many with ASD have amazing abilities to focus intently on subjects of interest, whether it be trains, reciting an entire Disney movie, or the ability to debug a computer software program. All individuals on the autism spectrum have something unique to contribute, if just given the chance to be included. As a neuroscientist who has dedicated my career to investigating cannabinoids, I have watched this surge of public excitement with hope that we will finally learn which constituents are medicine and for what conditions. But marketing and anecdotal reports appear to have replaced evidence-based research. Compelling testimony from families of children and others who spoke of their experience with CBD oil easing seizures, spasms, and other symptoms undoubtedly contributed to its approval by Virginias legislators. Also, the fact that CBD and THCA do not directly produce intoxication likely eased the legislators decision. (However, simply heating THCA turns it into delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the primary ingredient responsible for cannabiss intoxicating effects.) Although I agree with the idea of offering cannabis extracts under the auspices of compassionate medicine, we are at risk of overlooking the value of research. Any such proposal to expand the use of a treatment needs to include research that can support or refute the health claims being made. Yet no systems exist to track or measure what will happen when CBD and THCA are sold to Virginians who seek healing. GOOCH, Major Robert Saunders IV, 34, born in Richmond, Virginia, passed away during surgery after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds on Tuesday, January 8, 2019. Major Gooch is survived by his fiancee, Kathryn Dizon; mother, Sherry and lonel Nae; father, Robert Gooch III (Diane); and grandfather, retired U.S. Army Private, Arther Groux. Robert is also survived by his beloved children, Mia Gooch (13), Abby Gooch (10) and Robert Gooch V (4); and Leslie Ortega, mother of the children. In addition, he leaves behind his sisters, Stacy Pawluk and Stephanie Felts; brothers, Brandon Gooch and Jacob Gooch; his faithful four-legged friend, Leg; and eight adoring nieces and nephews. Robert was a devoted father who was passionate about making memories with his family, spending time together swimming, skating and biking. Robert, Kathryn and the children loved family movie nights at home! He was an avid fitness and nutrition enthusiast who enjoyed snowboarding, mountain biking and riding motorcycles. As a civilian, he was a skilled electronics technician and held numerous certifications while working in his family's business. In addition, he was frequently found using his skill set helping at his mother's business. Robert was a resilient person who overcame every personal and professional obstacle. He believed in choosing to be happy, which was reflected in the way he carried himself. Robert was the shining light in every room. He was a great listener and had the gift of making people feel comfortable and cared for. Robert was widely known as a friend to all. His infectious smile and goofy laugh brought happiness to everyone he encountered. He was a man who would do it all and was always willing to lend a helping hand. Major Gooch was an active duty soldier currently serving in the United States Army Medical Service Corps at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on his 17th birthday. After earning his Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences, Magna Cum Laude, in 2006, he was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army. Among the numerous accolades he earned during his distinguished career were the Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with two bronze service stars and the Parachutist Badge. Major Gooch's overseas deployments included three rotations and one tour, all to Afghanistan. Major Gooch would have medically retired on January 11. Family and friends are invited to visit on Thursday, January 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. and Friday, January 25, from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. at Bennett Funeral Home, 11020 W. Broad St., Glen Allen, Va. 23060. Funeral on Saturday, January 26, at 11 a.m. at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church, 11220 Nuckols Rd., Glen Allen, Va. 23059. A military memorial will be held later at Ft. Belvoir. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Gooch Children Education Fund at any Wells Fargo bank. Robert will be deeply missed and never forgotten by all who knew him! The proposed budget also includes money for new special education teachers and for converting some part-time assistant positions to full-time jobs. A recent study of Henricos special education services led by former Secretary of Education Anne Holton recommended those changes, among other things. Montgomery said changing those part-time positions will also help keep employees from leaving. If you have a person working only 30 hours [per week], thats 10 fewer hours with students and it makes it easier for another school division to take them if they can offer a 40-hour job, he said. Whats missing from the financial plan is a potential pay raise for all school system employees. Gov. Ralph Northam has proposed a 5 percent teacher raise, which is contingent on a funding match from local school districts. If approved by state lawmakers, the boost would be the largest single-year increase for teachers in 15 years, he said when unveiling the proposal last month. Montgomery said he anticipates that Henricos financial plan will be modified before the board votes to approve the school budget for fiscal year 2020 on Feb. 28. As teacher pay has stagnated, how far those dollars will stretch has shrunk. Prices on consumer goods are 17 percent higher than they were in 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If were going to be able to recruit and retain talented teachers, we need to pay them, Northam said. Obviously, they teach for the love of it and they love children, but they also have bills to pay. A 1 percent increase in teacher pay reduces teacher turnover by 1.4 percent, a 2014 study published in the Journal of Public Economics found, with the biggest impact coming among less experienced teachers. Kathy Beery, a teacher in Harrisonburg, has taught for 20 years and called Northams proposal a good start. Beery said shes not close to retirement, for financial reasons, and wants the General Assembly to act. Its there, she said of state money. They could very easily put it toward education, but thats not their priority. The General Assembly is currently looking at a long list of options for more than $2 billion in new dollars. Most of the $155 million in internet sales tax money is already earmarked for localities, transportation and some for education. About a third of that money is still up for grabs. A teenager has received 35 years in prison for the fatal shooting of a 21-year-old Chesterfield County man in eastern Henrico County. Taiveon A. Tucker, 18, of Henrico was sentenced Friday for the Nov. 15, 2017, killing of RaQuan L. Mayo. Prosecutors said Tucker killed Mayo during a drug deal and robbery in the 4600 block of Needham Court. Prosecutors said Tucker had been sending texts to Mayo prior to the killing to get marijuana from the victim. Tucker was 17 at the time, but he was tried as an adult at an August trial in which jurors found him guilty of murdering Mayo during a robbery. The jury also found him guilty of two additional charges, robbery and using a firearm while committing a murder. B.J. McGee, an assistant commonwealths attorney for Henrico, said at Fridays sentencing hearing that Mayo lost his life over a small bag of marijuana. An armed 17-year-old young boy who was trying to purchase marijuana decided to take a life, McGee said. McGee said that Mayo, a Highland Springs High School graduate, was killed just days before the birth of his daughter, who is now 1 year old. A local prosecutor who serves as an executive officer on the Chesterfield County Republican Committee will kick off her campaign for Chesterfield commonwealths attorney on Saturday in a bid to unseat Democrat Scott Miles, who was elected two months ago to a one-year term. Stacey T. Davenport, 41, who currently serves as an assistant commonwealths attorney in Henrico County, said she started thinking about running after Miles won the seat Nov. 6 by defeating Republican John Childrey, the offices former chief deputy, with 51 percent of the vote. I started gathering paperwork and doing things like getting petition signatures ... pretty much after the turn of the new year, Davenport said. On Saturday, Del. Kirk Cox, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, will join her at a campaign kickoff at the Collington clubhouse in Midlothian. Should no other Republican seek the nomination before the filing deadline, Davenport will become the partys candidate by default. Davenport sought the partys nomination last year to run against Miles on Nov. 6 but lost to Childrey in a canvass of party members. SHELBY -- As I sit down to pen this article, Im at a loss. Words, who have always been my friends, are eluding me. Perhaps its because we dont have words strong or eloquent enough to describe the young woman Im currently thinking of ... maybe we never will. Lindsey Gies is humble, kind, gracious, gregarious, and above all else, joyous. Her laughter often rings out through the hallways and classrooms, creating a domino effect of joy in its wake. I know that I am not alone when I say that I cannot wait to hear it again. Five weeks ago, Lindsey added some new words to her vocabulary, and that is what Im struggling with defining now. An infection, silent and predatory, tried to claim Lindsey. As she lay on a hospital bed, air artificially pumped into her body, a community came together to pray. Her strength is something better described in comic books, in a world of daring heroes and superpowers. She prevailed, and in the wake of conquering this infection, she remains so completely humble; laying thanks at the feet of a higher power. Those same words of thanks are on the lips of an entire community. This infection has left its mark on Lindsey, requiring her to undergo a double leg amputation below each knee on Jan. 3. The bitterness and angst that might accompany such a diagnosis for anyone else are nonexistent in Lindsey. Her response to a newspaper article that described her amputation as a setback shines with the quintessential strength and perseverance that she has come to embody: I do not see this as a setback, but as another chance at life. My feet are in constant pain and without this surgery, I would never be able to return to my life again. I couldnt get through this without my amazing family and all the love and support from all of you! I am truly so grateful to be here today, God is so good! Again, there are really no words that encapsulate that type of tenacity, fortitude, and faith. Lindsey is now concentrating on her rehabilitation in a hospital closer to home. As a community, when she is discharged, we would like you to join us in lining the streets and homes of Shelby and beyond with yellow ribbons, Lindseys favorite color. As that date is still in flux, more information will be shared later. In the meantime, we would like to encourage the public to support both the Gies family and Lindsay. Students at SHS will be making ribbons to hang outside homes and business. These ribbons will be available to the public in the SHS main office starting on Monday, Jan. 28, for donations that will go directly to the Gies family. In addition to wrapping the town in yellow, there are also t-shirts available. The Love for Lindsey t-shirt is another way to show support for Lindsey. They are only $10 and all orders are due by Jan 31. That money will be given directly to the Gies family to offset the financial burden that they have incurred. When Lindsay is released from the hospital, we will line the streets of Shelby, and our hope is to also do this across Richland, Crawford, Huron and Ashland County too, wearing t-shirts in her favorite color along with yellow ribbons place proudly in front of homes and businesses. We plan to line the streets that day, no matter what the weather, and welcome her home where she is surrounded by love and support. There are order forms for the t-shirts from Youth SM Adult 3XL all for $10. Schools will only ACCEPT CASH for orders. Orders can also be placed online at https://shop.cain.graphics/collections/love-for-lindsey. Any person wishing to make an additional donation to the Gies family can send a check to Shelby High School Student Council/Tawny Cox, 1 Whippet Way, Shelby, Ohio 44875. If you have any questions regarding t-shirt orders please contact Bobbi Weaver at Shelby High School. Email: weaver.bobbi@shelbyk12.org Phone: 419-342-5065 Ext .27402; Cell: 419-961-7587. Jackie Duncan Shelby, Ohio MANSFIELD -- Two people were arrested Friday in connection with more than 40 cases all across Richland County, according to Sheriff Steve Sheldon. The suspects are currently incarcerated in the Richland County Jail and are being held on other non-related charges, Sheldon noted in a press release. Their identities will be disclosed after they are officially charged in cases including burglary, breaking and entering, theft from a motor vehicle, theft of a firearm, criminal trespass and receiving stolen property. The vehicle involved in the case was a 2003 Black Ford Explorer, registration HQL5930. Sheldon reported that deputies recovered approximately 40 stolen items at a residence Friday morning. The Sheriff's Department's Major Crimes Unit, Patrol Deputies and the US Marshalls combined to arrest the duo for multiple thefts from motor vehicles, burglaries and breaking and enterings totaling approximately 100 reports. The areas of the crimes included the following roads; Vanderbilt, Honeycreek, Bowman, Amoy East and West, Impala, Sprucewood, Satinwood, Bryonaire, Reed, Crall, Kline, Cairns and Leppo. In addition, authorities say there were approximately eight crimes committed in Ontario, six crimes in Lexington and 28 crimes in the City of Mansfield. The crimes started in December 2018 through Thursday night. Items stolen included cell phones, money, tools, construction equipment, firearms, book bags, purses, laptops, notebooks, electronic equipment, snow blowers, leaf blowers, power tools, lawn care tools, etc. The Major Crimes Unit will be contacting the victims of the crimes to return their property, Sheldon stated. ASHLAND -- In light of new information in the Brandon Campo case, Ashland University's board of trustees has hired a law firm to conduct an independent review of the university's hiring practices and substance abuse policies. The investigation was announced by board of trustees president Kevin Doss in a letter sent to all AU faculty, staff and students on Wednesday. "On behalf of Ashland Universitys Board of Trustees, I write to express our dismay and disappointment upon learning of Brandon Campos recent guilty plea and additional concerns that came to light during his sentencing hearing," Doss wrote. "As an employee of this university until June 2018 and as the son of our president, Brandons case left us with many unanswered questions that demand our timely and thorough inquiry." Last week, Ashland Municipal Court Judge John Good sentenced Campo to 180 days in jail on charges of schedule four drug possession and endangering children. Campo pleaded guilty to both charges in December. During the sentencing hearing, Good said Campo purchased illegal drugs from a university student. The judge also detailed Campo's extensive criminal record and questioned the university's judgement in hiring Campo. Brandon Campo is the son of university president Carlos Campo and was employed as an administrator at AU until his arrest last June. "We are determined to gather all of the facts surrounding this situation and to carefully examine their implications for Ashland University," Doss wrote in the letter to the university community. "To this end, we have engaged the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg to conduct an independent review and to report back to the Trustees within 30 days." Doss said Barnes & Thornburgs work will include, but not be limited to, the examination of the Universitys hiring practices and its substance abuse policies. "While Ashland University has made great strides in academic excellence and creating a healthy culture for faculty, students and staff, the trustees intend to take appropriate steps, based on the facts, to redouble our efforts where there is a need to do so," Doss wrote. "President Campo has assured us that he supports these independent fact-finding efforts and is cooperating fully with the inquiry. As is the Ashland University way, our thoughts and prayers are with the Campo family in this time of personal challenge." MANSFIELD -- Community Health Screenings are free health assessments from Richland Public Health nurses for Richland County adults at locations close to home. Community Health Screenings include the following: FREE Blood Pressure Reading FREE Blood Sugar Check (3-hour fast recommended) FREE Anemia Check (hemoglobin and hematocrit) FREE Education and Referrals $12 Cholesterol Checks (9-12 hour fast required). Cash or check only please. Dates, locations and times: Monday, Feb. 4: Friendly House, 380 N. Mulberry St., Mansfield from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6: Butler/Clear Fork Adult Center, 20 W. Henry St., Butler from 7 to 8:30 a.m. Monday, Feb. 11: Madison Branch Library, 1395 Grace St., Mansfield from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb.12: Masonic Temple, 1250 Middle-Bellville Rd., Mansfield from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 14: Springfield Twp. Fire Station, 3700 Park Ave. West, Ontario from 9 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19: Richland Public Health, 555 Lexington Ave., Mansfield from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 21: Yes We Can Senior Center, 271 Hedges St., Mansfield from noon to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28: Lucas Community Center, 252 W. Main St., Lucas from 9 to 11 a.m. For additional information call Public Health Nursing at 419-774-4540. Community Health Screenings are partly funded by local tax dollars. Elizabeth Sherman was born on Park Avenue West just a couple blocks off Central Park, so her playground growing up was the public square, in front of her fathers office. At that point in Mansfields history1857the park was only newly established as a green space, so she got to watch the young grass become established even as she was sprouting too. She had a famous uncle down the street who was a United States Senator, and another uncle in the army who was a famous war hero. She was the youngest of seven kids in the family, and was used to being lost in the shuffle, and, in a world among all those giant relatives, she was generally overlooked. Her life, however, was not destined to remain obscure. Her life, in fact, became so fabulous that the evidence of her today, more than a century later, is valuable enough to be kept in locked safes. Her countenance is minted in gold and admired around the world. The political name Lizzie Shermans father was an attorney in town and then, once her famous uncle the Senator got power in the nations Capitol, her father was appointed as a Federal judge of Northern Ohio. And then, once it seemed that the common Mansfield Shermans were about to sit at the table with the famous Washington Shermans, Lizzies mother started brokering a suitably famous marriage for her youngest daughter. Lizzie was, literally, the bartered bride. The famous uncles struck a deal with their political enemy to marry her to a widowed Senator from Pennsylvania, who happened to be one of the richest men in America. The rich Senator was not her first choice, or her choice at all. He came with his own spoiled, mean children who resented Lizzie; and biographers always refer to their union as a loveless marriage. Her disappointing love life was not without its compensating benefits though, and in her new position at the pinnacle of the social pyramid, Lizzies life blossomed in the company of the most brilliant, talented, and interesting people of her era. A gallery of artists One of her best friends was the American author Edith Wharton, whose novels of high society characters in frustrating love triangles sounds very much like the life of Elizabeth Sherman Cameron and her lifelong paramour, Henry Adams. Adams, the American novelist and historian, was descended of two Presidents and wealthy even before he launched his writing career. He roamed the world pining for Lizzie, and wrote of her as a character in two of his novels. From her salons in Washington and Paris, Lizzie served as hostess to politicians and leaders of the world, and because of her role as wealthy socialite, literally all doors were open to her. She was presented to royalty in Europe, including Queen Victoria; and, on occasion, shared carriages with the likes of Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt and King Leopold of Belgium. John Hay, the US Secretary of State, called her the most beautiful woman in Washington, and artists agreed. She knew and regularly conversed with all the greatest portrait artists of her generation, yet most of them declined to paint her because they said what made her so remarkably stunning was the motion of her faceher moods, her conversant attentions, her glances and storytelling eyesand these mercurial qualities could never adequately be captured in an image that remained immobile on the canvas. There was one sculptor however, who had a crush on Lizzie, and as he became world famous, he put her face into the public imagination for all timeor as long as bronze and gold last. Carved into time Augustus Saint-Guadens was an American sculptor living in Paris, whose studio was not far from Lizzies Rue du Bois de Bologne house; and in his infatuation with her, he studied her face whenever he could. When he was commissioned to create a public monument to honor Lizzies famous war hero uncle, St. Gaudens chose to depict the man riding a horse led by the allegorical figure of Victory. The statue was many years in the making, with several version and variations along the way, but when it was completed there was no question in the minds of Lizzies friends as to whose face the huge Victory wore. St. Gaudens always said he believed the face of Victory could not be one particular, individual person, but those in Paris, and those in DC, and those in New York who knew Elizabeth Sherman Cameron, all agreed that hers was the immortal face on the statue. A few years later, when President Theodore Roosevelt asked St. Gaudens to design coins for the United States mint, the celebrated Victory image was adapted into what is often called, the most beautiful US coin. So, on the $20 gold piece, there is a tiny revised rendition of Elizabeth Sherman Cameron from Mansfield, Ohio. Golden memories Elizabeth Sherman Cameron lived through The Gilded Age, and, appropriately enough, that is exactly how she survives in our time: in gold. The statue of her in New York City, at the corner of Central Park, was recently restored by re-gilding it with 23.75 karat gold leaf; so if you see her today, she is as gilded as it gets. Lizzie came back to Mansfield only once, as far as can be documented, in 1903. Her mother always told reporters that Lizzie was born in Cleveland, because it sounded more metropolitan for her daughters social career; but Lizzie was proud to claim Mansfield as her first home. In a letter she wrote in 1900 to an old grade school friend, Lizzie referred to Mansfield, appropriately enough, as the place where she spent golden years as a child. NETHERLANDS, Jan. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --A Europe, Univar B.V., a subsidiary of Univar Inc. (NYSE: UNVR) ("Univar"), a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, said today that Kao Chemicals has appointed Univar as its distributor in Spain and Portugal.A The appointment marks an expanded agreement with Kao Chemicals where Univar increases its offering for the home and industrial cleaning, as well as beauty and personal care markets. Kao Chemicals' broad surfactants portfolio includes alkyl ether carboxylates, which are used as mild co-surfactants, emulsifiers and solubilising agents in both personal care and detergent products and are all available under the trade name AKYPOA.A Other notable products from Kao include a line of glycerin polyoxyethylene esters that are available under the trade names LEVENOLA and EMANONA.A These well-established products are versatile nonionic specialities that can be used in foaming compositions.A The product line is completed by alcohol sulphates, amine oxides and ester quats. "Kao is proud to extend our collaboration with Univar, a leading specialty distributor in Europe, Middle East, and Africa," said Jordi Rios, business unit manager, SCA and F&A, Kao Chemicals Europe.A "Their logistics capabilities in Iberia coupled with the robust salesforce is the optimal choice for furthering our growth strategy and delivering the best product and service to our customers." "Kao has been a key strategic partner to Univar for over 20 years, so we are excited to further expand our collaboration together," said Nigel Hayes, vice president of the local chemical distribution business in the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Univar.A "We are confident that our customers will benefit from the consistent focus we will bring, backed by strong local, technical and commercial execution." With access to a large and prestigious portfolio of home and industrial cleaning, as well as beauty and personal care solutions, Univar offers strong market coverage and industry expertise to supplier partners around the globe. "Surfactants are a key product focus for Univar across our beauty and personal care as well as our household chemical businesses and Kao's broad range is a great addition to strengthen our Iberian portfolio, bringing more innovative solutions to our customers," noted Matthew Ottaway, vice president of focused industries in the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Univar. About Univar Inc. Founded in 1924, Univar (NYSE: UNVR) is a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, working with leading suppliers worldwide.A Supported by a comprehensive team of sales and technical professionals with deep specialty and market expertise, Univar operates hundreds of distribution facilities throughout North America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. A Univar delivers tailored customer solutions through a broad product and services portfolio sustained by one of the most extensive industry distribution networks in the world. A For more information, visit www.univar.com. About Kao Chemicals Europe Kao Chemicals Europe is part of Kao Group, having 3 production sites located in Germany (Emmerich), Spain (Olesa de Montserrat, Mollet and BarberA del VallAs) and MAxico (Guadalajara) and the headquarters located in BarberA del VallAs. Since 1999, Kao Chemicals Europe works as a holding company, giving support to the sales structure within the 5 different Business Units into which the company is organized.A Two of these Business Units have their origin in surfactant technology and deal with products that are addressed to the Consumer & Technical Applications markets. The other three Business Units, Oleochemicals, Fragrance & Aroma Chemicals and Imaging Materials, belong to global activities that are coordinated by Kao Corporation (Japan).A For more informati! on, visit www.kaochemicals-eu.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.A Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which may be beyond our control.A We caution you that the forward-looking information presented in this press release is not a guarantee of future events, and that actual events may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking information contained in this press release.A In addition, forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "plan," "seek," "comfortable with," "will," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology.A Any forward-looking information presented herein is made o! nly as of the date of this press release, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect changes in assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events, or otherwise. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/813853/Cleaners_SoapwithLeaf_HD.jpg LogoA - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/550092/UNIVAR_LOGO.jpg The winter landscape may look lifeless, but in tunnels and under-tree spaces (left), always active animals such as mice, their presence given away by breathing-turned-to-ice-crystals, continue to explore their surroundings in search of new food to add to their larders. The United States has urged Kosovo to immediately suspend a 100 percent tariff on imported Serbian goods, warning otherwise it will suffer "consequences" in its ties with Washington. Kosovo imposed the import tax on Serbian goods in November in retaliation for what it called Belgrade's attempts to undermine its statehood. Belgrade has never recognized the independence of its former province, proclaimed in 2008 after a 1998-99 guerilla war. More than 10,000 were killed in the war, which prompted NATO to launch an air campaign in the spring of 1999 to end the conflict. Both the European Union and the Washington have pressed Kosovo to repeal the tariff measure that has strained international efforts to broker a deal between the former foes. "We reiterate our view that an immediate suspension of the tariff on imports from Serbia...is one necessary measure to restore momentum to the dialogue process" between the two sides, the U.S. Embassy in Pristina said in a January 25 statement. Meanwhile, Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj told French news agency AFP that a deal between Serbia and Kosovo, which have been in EU-led negotiations to normalize their relations since 2011, was possible this year. However, Haradinaj said such a deal could not include border changes, warning that territory swaps could revive old enmities in the Balkans. The possibility that Serbia and Kosovo might end their long-running dispute through a land swap was briefly floated last year. But the proposal was immediately abandoned following a firestorm of criticism from rights groups as well as Haradinaj, who is fiercely against ceding any ground to Serbia. "To open the discussion on territories and borders is to open up the past, and the past was tragic," said Haradinaj, a former guerrilla commander in Kosovo's independence war. Borders "were the subject of the past wars", he added. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called on all United Nations members to recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president. "Now it is time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro and his mayhem," Pompeo said at a January 26 special session of the UN Security Council, referring to Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, who Washington is urging to step down. Pompeo called Maduro's government an "illegitimate mafia state" and said its "socialist experiment caused the economy to collapse," citing deep poverty and the collapse of services such as hospitals. Pompeo also said he hoped countries who have expressed support for Venezuelan opposition leader Guaido also disconnect their financial system from Maduro's government. "We hope, too, that each of those nations will ensure that they disconnect their financial systems from the Maduro regime and allow assets that belong to the Venezuelan people to go to the rightful governors of that state," Pompeo told reporters on the sidelines of the UN meeting on Venezuela. Maduro has broken off diplomatic relations with Washington and ordered U.S. diplomatic staff to leave by January 27. Venezuelas government later stepped back from the order, saying the diplomats would be allowed to stay while the matter is being negotiated. Meanwhile, Venezuela's defense attache to the United States broke with his government on January 26, saying he no longer recognized Maduro as president and supported Guaido as interim leader. Russia's UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, told the Security Council on January 26 that Venezuela did not pose a threat to international peace and security and should not be on its agenda. "If anything does represent a threat to peace, it is the shameless and aggressive actions of the United States and their allies in the ouster of the legitimate elected present of Venezuela," Nebenzya said. He accused the United States of attempting "to engineer a coup d'etat" in Venezuela while demanding to know whether the Trump administration "is ready to use military force" against Maduro's government. Ahead of the meeting, Germany, France, and Spain said they would recognize opposition leader Guaido as interim president if no elections were held within eight days. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza dismissed the deadline in his comments at the Security Council meeting. "Europe is giving us eight days? Where do you get that you have the power to establish a deadline or an ultimatum to a sovereign people," Arreaza told the Security Council. "It's almost childlike." "Venezuela will not allow anyone to impose on us any decision or order," he said. Arreaza said Maduro's government still hoped to establish communication and dialogue with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. "That offer stands," he told the council. Maduro has refused to step down after disputed elections last year, despite growing pressure from the opposition in Venezuela and internationally. "We are not seeking to install or remove governments. We want democracy and free elections in Venezuela," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in Madrid. In what appears to be a coordinated message from European Union countries, French President Manuel Macron sent a tweet echoing Sanchez's comments at almost the same time. "The Venezuelan people must be able to freely decide their own future," Macron wrote. Meanwhile, German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz said, "Unless elections are announced in the next eight days, we are ready to recognize Juan Guaido as interim president." EU officials have stopped short of recognizing Guaido as interim president, instead calling for democratic elections. The United States, Canada, and major regional players, including Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, have already thrown their support behind the opposition. Other countries -- including Russia, Iran, Turkey, Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua -- have backed Maduro. Russia has accused Washington of backing a coup attempt. In a press conferences on January 25, Guaido urged his sympathizers to stage another mass protest next week and told them that if he was arrested they should "stay the course" and peacefully protest, while Maduro called for dialogue. Maduro won a second term in May elections widely seen as undemocratic and was sworn in on January 10 amid mounting international pressure on him to step down. Guaido has described the situation in Venezuela as a "humanitarian emergency." Despite possessing the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela has been in economic and political crisis for years. With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa The U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan says progress had been made in six days of discussions with the Taliban in Qatar aimed at bringing an end to Afghanistan's 17-year conflict. Zalmay Khalilzad said on Twitter on January 26 that no deal had been finalized with the militants, but he said further talks would resume shortly. He also said that he was flying back to Afghanistan to discuss the talks. "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We have made significant progress on vital issues," Khalilzad said in a tweet. "We have a number of issues left to work out," he said, while adding that "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and 'everything' must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire." Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that while there was "progress" at the meetings, reports of an agreement on a cease-fire and talks with Kabul "are not true." "Since issues are of critical nature and need comprehensive discussions, therefore it was decided that talks about unresolved matters will resume in similar future meetings," Mujahid said in a statement released on January 26. The statement added that until the withdrawal of international troops was hammered out, "progress in other issues is impossible." Earlier, unnamed Taliban sources quoted by Reuters had said that the hard-line Islamic group had offered assurances that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used by Al-Qaeda and the extremist group Islamic State (IS) to attack the United States and its allies. "In 18 months, if the foreign forces are withdrawn and cease-fire is implemented then other aspects of the peace process can be put into action," a Taliban source told Reuters, quoting from the draft. More talks on the draft are expected in February, again in the Qatari capital of Doha, Reuters reported, citing Taliban sources. The Taliban has so far refused to hold direct talks with the Afghan government officials. Khalilzad has held at least four meetings with Taliban representatives, but there has been no letup in the violence so far. He has recently made visits to China, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in an effort to bring the Taliban and Afghan government negotiators together. With reporting by AFP and Reuters Turkmenistan has begun construction on a multibillion-dollar, cross-country highway project that the gas-rich, largely isolated Central Asian state hopes will help generate more regional trade. The four-lane highway is projected to link Turkmenistan's capital of Ashgabat, the largest city in Central Asia, to Turkmenabat near the border with Uzbekistan. The government newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan reported on January 25 that the artery, expected to cost $2.3 billion when completed, will stretch across some 600 kilometers of desert. It is hoped the new highway will boost regional trade by linking with another planned artery linking the capital to the port of Turkmenbashi, on the Caspian Sea. The son of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, a deputy regional governor, was on hand for a ceremony to mark the launch of construction on January 25. Serdar Berdymukhammedov called the highway an example of Turkmenistan's "great support to the private sector, which is developing rapidly in our country." The road will be constructed by a little-known private company called Turkmen Awtoban, with a loan provided by the national bank. Commentators says Ashgabat has been eager to invest in transit-related infrastructure in a bid to diversify the economy which is heavily reliant on hydrocarbon revenues. Turkmen state television said the road construction was intended to build up cargo transit along key trade corridors leading to Europe and the Middle East. Turkmenistan's manat currency lost a fifth of its value after the collapse of hydrocarbon prices in 2014, while Russian energy giant Gazprom's decision to cease purchasing Turkmen gas at the start of 2016 further hurt the economy. The move left Turkmenistan even more reliant on demand from China, which last year imported 35 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas via the Central Asia-China pipeline. With reporting by AFP and AP Several thousand people have marched in Serbia's capital for the eighth week to protest against President Aleksandar Vucic. The protesters marched on January 26 through the center of Belgrade, to the building housing state broadcaster RTS and to the government seat. The protesters have been accusing Vucic of stifling democratic liberties, cracking down on political opponents, and controlling the media. He denies the accusation. The demonstrations were triggered when a gang of thugs beat up opposition politician Borko Stefanovic in November. Based on reporting by AP and dpa When Azra Omerovic embarked on an assignment to get a degree at a medical technical school, she knew about Bosnia-Herzegovina's open secret on buying fake degrees. What she didn't expect was how quick and easy it would actually be to get her own diploma. Seventeen days and 2,500 marks ($1,450) later, she was a graduate of the Medical Technical School from Sanski Most's two-year requalification program, certified to practice as a medical technician locally and in the European Union. No classes. No tests. No problem. Well, actually that's not true. Fake educational achievements are becoming a problem for one of Europe's youngest and poorest countries. And for the region. Across the Balkans, scandals involving fake degrees, politicians with dubious diplomas, and questions about plagiarized doctoral theses have put the spotlight on a lack of reforms in the education system and institutional corruption as countries struggle to rebuild following years of conflict that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. "Everyone is talking about corruption, everyone is running away because of corruption, but everyone is ready to give money, to get a diploma, on the basis of which they could get a job somewhere in the European Union," Avdo Avdic, who worked with Omerovic on a report about the experience for the information portal Zurnal.info, told RFE/RL's Balkan Service. Losing Control Stories of so-called degree mills have long circulated among academic circles in Bosnia. While the country has an estimated student population of only around 110,000, it also has the greatest number of post-secondary learning institutions at 46. A case in point is the town of Bijeljina. Located in the northeast of Bosnia's predominantly ethnic Serb entity, Republika Srpska, Bijelina has a population of about 107,000. It is also home to 14 different faculties and universities offering economics degrees. Part of the problem is a lack of institutional control stemming from Bosnia's governing structure, according to Saudin Sivro, president of the Union of Basic Education of the Sarajevo Canton. The 1995 Dayton peace accords established a state comprising two entities, each with a high degree of autonomy: Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat federation. Added to that decentralized federal system are 10 autonomous cantons, each with its own government and constitution. This has left the federal Education Ministry with only a coordinative role and little oversight power to rein in dubious educational institutions. Inmates Policing The Asylum Given that many officials themselves have benefited from fake diplomas, there is little incentive to fix the problem, Sivro says. "We have a number of people who simply show ignorance, or their diplomas are at least suspicious. They are mostly diplomas that colleagues have acquired at universities where you can pass an exam over the weekend. We thought that it is necessary to do a review of these diplomas, but the former minister transferred responsibility to school directors who simply did not do anything about it," Sivro says. "Reforms cannot be carried out by those who have invalid diplomas, or diplomas that were not earned through gaining knowledge," he adds. State officials, however, seem loathe to address the issue. Last year the State Investigation and Protection Agency submitted information to the State Prosecutor's Office detailing the illegal issuance of diplomas through several educational institutions. But, Advic says, prosecutors shrugged off the issue, saying there was "reasonable doubt" that diplomas were sold in these schools. "The prosecutor's office didn't take any action to collect the evidence needed for reasonable suspicion in order to obtain special investigative actions. They basically have decided that they will not carry out an investigation in any way," he adds. Exacerbating Brain Drain The scandal compounds the effects of an exodus of young people from Bosnia and the Balkans as a whole. Stubbornly high unemployment, low wages, corruption, and a lack of opportunity for career advancement is prompting thousands of educated young professionals to leave each year for the European Union, the Middle East, or North America, where they often have better prospects. The combination of this brain drain and a wave of "uneducated graduates" with fake diplomas threatens to deepen the economic crisis Bosnia faces. The country ranked 135th out of 137 countries for "capacity to retain talent" in the World Economic Forum's 2017-18 Global Competitiveness Report, an indicator of the worsening situation for educated job seekers. "All of these problems we have with the lack of employment for young people, and with the departure of young people, stem in part from this. By purchasing these diplomas, they are getting a false sense of security," says Damir Marjanovic, a professor at International Burch University. "Even worse, those who actually do study, they will pay a price as well. They will study hard for four years or earn a master's degree or a doctorate and they won't be able to find jobs because it will be known that they come from a place where it is normal to buy and sell diplomas. Very soon such schools and such countries as Bosnia will be blacklisted," he adds. Bosnia's reputation as a degree mill is already starting to show. The Croatian Agency for Science and Higher Education recently warned it may stop recognizing diplomas from Bosnia, as well as Serbia, over the "credibility" of agencies in charge of quality assurance in higher education in the two countries. Students themselves are quick to point out the "public secret" of Bosnia's broken educational system. Indira attends Sarajevo University and says she studies constantly. Yet she knows she will be competing for the few job opportunities that come her way against those who have taken a shortcut to get their education. "This method has in some way become the goal of most young people. They stop trying to invest in knowledge. People have learned to try to get things the easy way," she says. Iran has accused France of destabilizing the region after Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian threatened new sanctions against Tehran over its missile program. "The Islamic republic has always called for the strengthening of peace and stability in the region," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released overnight on January 25-26. As such Iran "considers the mass sales of sophisticated and offensive weapons by...France as a factor in destabilizing the balance of the region," the statement said. It came after Le Drian on January 25 said Paris was ready to impose new sanctions on Tehran if talks on its missile program make no progress. "We have begun a difficult dialogue with Iran... and unless progress is made we are ready to apply sanctions, firmly, and they know it," Le Drian said. He also demanded that Iran change its behavior in the region, especially regarding its military actions in Syria. "Iran's missile program is not negotiable," the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in response, warning that "any new sanction by European countries will lead to a review of our relations with them." Iran gave up most of its nuclear program under a landmark 2015 deal with major powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States -- in exchange for sanctions lifting. But in May the United States withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Tehran has continued to develop its ballistic missiles but it says the program is purely defensive. Based on reporting by AFP Kazakhstan has just launched operation of the largest solar power station in Central Asia, in the central Karaganda Province, the heart of coal country. Authorities in Kazakhstan have pledged to "go green," the theme of EXPO-2017 in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, and the solar plant near the town of Saran that started operation on January 24 is a first step toward that goal. The 307,664 photovoltaic panels cover an area of more than 160 hectares and have the capacity to generate some 100 megawatts (MW) of power, providing some 145 million kilowatt hours annually. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) provided a loan of nearly $53 million, and the Green Climate Fund extended a loan of some $22 million toward the project's estimated cost of around $130 million. Germany's Solarnet partnered with SES Saran, the latter being described as "a special purpose company incorporated in Kazakhstan and owned by the German-based group Joachim Holding." The 100 MW of power the Saran plant will supply is not much. The EBRD noted the new solar plant would "contribute to achieving the Kazakh government goal of non-hydro renewable energy accounting for 3 percent of all power generation by 2020." Kazakhstan has huge oil reserves and is the world's leading producer of uranium, but at least 75 percent of Kazakhstan's power needs continue to be filled by coal. It is a resource that Kazakhstan has in abundance -- some 37.5 billion tons. But this dependence on coal is taking its toll on the environment. Last year in Temirtau, some 40 kilometers north of Saran, black snow fell on the ground, alarming locals and sparking calls for the government to take measures to find another source of generating energy. According to the EBRD, the Saran plant will "help reduce CO2 emissions by 93,500 tons per year." On its own, that won't bring white snow back to Temirtau soon, but it is a start. The EBRD is helping to finance construction of another 100 MW solar power plant in Kazakhstan's southern Zhambyl Province. The operators of the Saran plant say the solar panels can withstand snow and rain and will operate for some 40 years. Even in adverse weather conditions, the plant can still deliver some 10-15 MW. That is not to say there are no drawbacks to the Saran plant. RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq, reported the cost of electricity generated by the plant would be 36.41 tenges ($1=377 tenges), which is 2- to 2.5-times higher than the average rate. The Saran plant was due to start operation in November 2018 but this needed to be rescheduled several times. Kazakhstan has vowed that by 2050, the country will generate half of its electricity needs through renewable resources. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned a five-year prison sentence recently imposed on Iranian journalist Yashar Soltani and called on Iran to stop persecuting journalists for doing their job. "Jailing a journalist for reporting about corruption in his country is unacceptable and will only ensure that corruption continues unchecked," CPJ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator Sherif Mansour said in a statement released on January 25. On January 23, an Iranian court sentenced journalist Soltani, who had investigated corruption in municipal real-estate sales in Tehran, to five years in prison after finding him guilty of "spreading lies" and "gathering classified information with the intent to harm national security." Soltani was also banned from participating in political and media activities, or traveling outside the country for two years after his release, Iranian media reported. The sentence can be appealed within 20 days. Soltani called the sentence "unjust" in a January 23 tweet, while vowing to "turn the verdict into an opportunity to fight corruption" in the country. We will not hand over Iran to the corrupt," he said on Twitter. Soltani was first arrested over his reporting on municipal land deals in September 2016, after former Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf and municipal council chairman Mehdi Chamran filed a lawsuit against him. He was released about two months later on bail. Eight journalists were found to be imprisoned in Iran in direct relation to their work at the time of the CPJ's December 2018 prison census. Iran ranks 164th on Reporters Without Borders 2018 World Press Freedom Index. The Paris-based media watchdog calls Iran "one of the world's five biggest prisons for journalists and citizen-journalists." Vietnamese police have arrested two democracy activists, one an ethnic Vietnamese citizen of Australia, in an ongoing round-up of advocates for political reform in the one-party communist state, a Vietnamese dissident group said on Friday. Nguyen Van Vien, a member of the banned Brotherhood for Democracy, and Chau Van Kham, a member of Viet Tan--an unsanctioned pro-democracy party with members inside Vietnam and abroad--were taken into custody on Jan. 13 in Ho Chi Minh City, according to a Brotherhood for Democracy statement on Jan. 25. Security agents later arrived at Viens family home to carry out a search and threaten Viens wife, the Brotherhood said, asserting Viens innocence and condemning what it called his illegal arrest by communist authorities. Born in 1971 in central Vietnams Quang Nam province, Vien had been active in environmental protection work following a massive spill in 2016 of toxic waste by the Taiwan-owned Formosa firm, the Brotherhood said. The environmental disaster destroyed livelihoods across Vietnams central coast and led to widespread protests and arrests in affected provinces. Harassed by authorities and deprived of employment because of his activism, Vien had later moved to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, to earn a living, the Brotherhood said. 'Fact-finding trip' Detained with Vien, Australian citizen Chau Van Kham was described in a statement Friday by political party Viet Tan as a long-time democracy activist and well-known member of the Vietnamese community in Sydney. He had recently returned to Vietnam on a human rights fact-finding trip, entering Vietnam by way of Cambodia in early January, Viet Tan said. Writing in an email to RFA, Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it is seeking consular access to Kham, but declined to discuss further details of the case, citing privacy concerns. No formal notifications by Vietnam of the arrest of the two men have yet been made. Vietnams one-party communist government currently holds more than 200 political prisoners, including rights advocates and bloggers deemed threats to national security, Nguyen Kim Binh of the California-based Vietnam Human Rights Network said in a speech on Dec. 9. It also controls all media, censors the internet, and restricts basic freedoms of expression. Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Richard Finney. Major General Tun Tun Nyi, vice chairman of the Myanmar militarys information committee, prepares to discuss the recent Arakan Army conflict at a rare military press conference at the Defense Services Museum in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw, Jan. 18, 2019. Myanmars military on Friday warned ethnic armed groups to end hostilities in five of its command regions around the country and to stop attempts to expand their territory during the temporary unilateral cease-fire that the armed forces imposed in December, or risk damaging the nations teetering peace process. The Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are called in Myanmar, is determined to achieve peace in the war-torn country by 2020 and wants talks on national reconciliation and peace to be held in the near future, said a statement issued by the Myanmar militarys information team. [W]hile the EAOs [ethnic armed organizations] should be putting their efforts into peace negotiations during the truce, they have focused on building up strength, recruitment and boundary expansions that have impacted civilian livelihoods, increased the number of people displaced by fighting, disrupted road transportation security, and affected the countrys peace process, the statement said. Fighting between ethnic armed groups occurred 13 times from Dec. 21 and Jan. 24 between the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army-South (RCSS/SSA-S) and Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army-North (SSPP/SSA-N) forces, as well as between the RCSS/SSA-S and Pa-Oh National Liberation Organization (PNLO), it said. Ethnic armies operated outside their designated territories nearly 170 times, extorted money from civilians 10 times, recruited people 20 times, ambushed government troops 10 times, and conducted two mine attacks on vehicles, the statement said. The Myanmar military also cautioned the TNLA, Arakan Army (AA), and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), whose troops all operate in northern Shan state, to adhere to a joint statement they issued on Dec. 12 to halt military operations and support the government's efforts for national reconciliation and nationwide peace. Military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun told RFAs Myanmar Service that ethnic armed groups that enter territory controlled by the military or by other rebel forces should withdraw by Feb. 12, the countrys Union Day, an annual holiday commemorating the date in 1947 when a pact on ethnic autonomy known as the Panglong Agreement was signed. The agreement between the government under General Aung San the countrys independence hero and father of current State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic Shan, Kachin, and Chin leaders granted autonomy in internal administration to the frontier regions. If the ethnic armies fail to stop intruding into others territory, the Myanmar Army will take measures as necessary, Zaw Min Tun said. The brigadier general also said that the doors are open for the AA, which is fighting government forces in western Myanmars Rakhine state in a bid for greater autonomy for the state, to participate in the peace process. Hostilities between the AA and the Myanmar military have intensified since late November 2018. Arakan fighters launched coordinated attacks on four police outposts in northern Rakhine in early January, killing 13 policemen and wounding nine others. The government military is operating under a four-month cease-fire it declared in five command zones, excluding Rakhine state, from Dec. 21 through April 30 in an effort to open talks to armed rebel groups, including both signatories and non-signatories of the governments nationwide cease-fire agreement (NCA). No talks yet Colonel Khun Okkar of the Nationwide Ceasefire Coordination Team (NCCT) told RFA that the government military has yet to begin any talks since it announced its unilateral cease-fire. The team led by Lieutenant General Yar Pyae hasnt started any talks since then, so I wonder if there are more efforts to be made [on the military side], he said. But he added that peace still may be achievable, with China pushing the rebel groups that operate in parts of Myanmar along its border to stop fighting. The prospects are good because every single group has their own interests, and Chinas interests are even bigger, Yar Pyae said. Under the pressure of a country with great interest and influence, the [ethnic armed] organizations will have to get along [with the military]. Colonel Tar Aik Kyaw, spokesman of the non-NCA signatory TNLA, confirmed that Myanmar forces have not yet engaged in any peace talks. They havent been able to hold talks with us despite the [cease-fire] announcement, he said. In addition, we dont have any territorial arrangement or agreement, so they cant say we have violated anything. Its just a one-sided statement. The TNLA, however, is ready to hold negotiations with the government army, he said. But we cant have the talks since they didnt reach out to us, Tar Aik Kyaw said. They always set conditions whenever we have talks, and setting such conditions is an obstacle for talks. The colonel doubted the Myanmar militarys sincerity in calling for peace negotiations. They have yet to end the offensives, [so] I think the reason behind their statement is to have an excuse to launch military operations [against us], he said. Village administrator missing The current most problematic region for government forces is conflict-ridden Rakhine state, which has seen an uptick in skirmishes between the AA and the national military in a handful of townships since late last November. The Myanmar government has ordered its soldiers to crush the AA and has accused the rebel fighters of having links to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Muslim militant group responsible for deadly attacks on police outposts in August 2017 that sparked a brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. The regional violence has been punctuated by the disappearances and murders of village heads and ordinary residents alike. More than 40 village tract administrators in Kyauktaw township sent a letter to township administrator Thiha Zaw on Thursday, calling for an investigation into the disappearance of Tun Nu, administrator of Taung Min Kalar village, who was abducted on Jan. 19. We dont know which group has taken the administrator of Taung Min Kalar village, said Thin Khar Kyaw, administrator of Kanzauk village. We dont know exactly if it was the Tatmadaw or the AA, or why he was taken, so we jointly presented [our concerns]. The 45 year-old ethnic Mro administrator was living in Than Chaung village with his family when he was abducted around 7 p.m. by an unknown armed group, his clerk Aung San Thein said. His wife told me that three men entered the house first, and two followed later, Aung San Thein said. They wore guerilla uniforms with black dots and armbands with a white star on a red background. They had guns. He was asked to come out and then taken away. The family reported Thiha Zaws abduction to local police and the Myanmar Army, Kyauktaw township deputy administrator Myo Thein Zaw said. Weve reported it [again] to the appropriate authorities since the incident occurred, he said, but he declined to provide further details because his boss is on leave. Local Myanmar soldiers denied that they were involved in the abduction, according to area residents, and the AA told RFA that it had nothing to do with the incident. Human traffickers arrested While Myanmar grapples with fighting, abductions, and occasional murders in Rakhine state, it has yet to begin repatriating some of the more than 725,000 Rohingya refugees who fled to Bangladesh after security forces unleashed a campaign of terror in 2017. Some Rohingya living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and Muslim villages in Rakhine state, where they have been confined since 2012 as a result of communal violence between Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, have sought to illegally leave and seek a better life in Muslim-majority Malaysia. On Thursday, police arrested 18 Rohingya and two human traffickers on a beach in Rakhines capital Sittwe as they planned to leave by boat, a police officer who declined to be named told RFA. The group of 16 women and four men, including the two traffickers, are in their late teens and early 20s, and the young women told police that they were going to Malaysia to marry men who are working there, he added. The Rohingya from Sabara, Ohntaw Che, Ohntaw Gyi, and Thae Chaung villages in Sittwe township paid the traffickers 1.5 million kyats (U.S. $973) to transport them, he said. They were arrested in an eggplant field near the coast on the west side of Sittwe as they prepared to leave, the policeman said. They wanted to leave Sittwe because, as Rohingya considered by Myanmar to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, they face daily hardships and restrictions on travel, the officer said. The suspected traffickers one woman and one man have been charged under Section 367 of Myanmars Penal Code for abducting persons who may be put in danger of being subjected to injury or slavery, he said. The offense carries a punishment of up to 10 years in jail and a fine. Authorities are still waiting to hear from their superiors about whether the Rohingya, who are detained at Myoma Police Station in Sittwe, will be charged, he added. A Muslim from Sittwe who requested anonymity out of concern for his safety told RFA that more than 60 Rohingya had gathered in the field to be picked up and taken to neighboring countries, and that some of them escaped when police approached the area. Myanmar Hindus speak to a Myanmar police officer at a makeshift camp after fleeing violence in Maungdaw township, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Aug. 30, 2017. Credit: AFP Hindu IDPs refuse to return Meanwhile, dozens of Hindu IDPs displaced during ARSAs deadly attacks on police outposts in 2017 crackdown in which the Muslim militants attacked their community have implored government officials not to force them to return to Maungdaw township because they are afraid of Rohingya extremists. Nearly two dozen Hindu households ordered by authorities to return to their community sent a joint letter to Myanmars Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development on Jan. 21, asking officials not to send them back to the township where their entire village was destroyed by ARSA. The 68 Hindus who have been staying at a temple in Sittwe say they are concerned about their safety if they return to northern Rakhine state where they had informed authorities about the massacre of their community by ARSA in August 2017. We know how much danger we will be in if we go back there as we spoke the truth about the August 2017 terrorist attacks, said Hindu community leader Ni Maul. Raku Nay Myint, a member of a Hindu assistance group in Sittwe, said, They are afraid to go back to Maungdaw because they are the ones who told the government officials about what happened during the ARSA attacks. Their lives are at risk [if they return]. The Hindus have received threatening phone calls from people they dont know and are reluctant to return to the place where their family members were killed, he said. All our family members were killed, said Hindu IDP Archi Koma. All our belongings were taken, and our houses burned down by Muslim terrorists. Authorities havent found the Muslims who did this to us yet. We dont dare live in those places they are sending us to, he said. If there were no Muslims in Maungdaw, then we would go back, but its still full of Muslims. Another Hindu IDS, Sharaw Shawti, said she was the only one of her 23 family members who was not killed by the Muslim militants because she was visiting her mothers house at the time of the attack. I was in total anguish at that time and couldnt even eat or drink anything, she said. We had to run whenever we heard Muslims were coming. We dont want to return to where our families were killed. Hau Do Suan, Myanmars permanent representative to the United Nations, said the Hindus should not be forced to return to Maungdaw unless their safety can be assured. The local government and authorities have to check to see if its safe for these Hindu refugees according to the current situation on the ground in the region, he said. If they cannot really live in that place safely, then the authorities shouldnt send them back. Authorities and IDPs must discuss resettlements based on places that are secure for the Hindus and where they want to live voluntarily, he said. If they say this place is really not safe, then we have to consider another place for them, said Rakhine state spokesman Win Myint. Reported by Nandar Chann, Min Thein Aung, and Khin Maung Soe for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Nandar Chann and Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Cambodias Interior Ministry has received a warrant to arrest acting president of the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Sam Rainsy upon entering the country, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday, daring the opposition chief to honor his pledge to return from self-imposed exile. Sam Rainsy left Cambodia three years to avoid what are seen as a string of politically motivated convictions on defamation and other charges, and ceded control of the CNRP to then-vice president Kem Sokha as part of a bid to prevent the government from shutting down the opposition party. In September 2017, Kem Sokha was arrested over an alleged plot to topple the government, and the Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP two months later, leaving Hun Sens Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) with no viable challenger in a general election last July that saw the ruling party win all 125 parliamentary seats up for bid. The CNRP has continued to operate abroad, but Sam Rainsy recently pledged to return to Cambodia by March to lead the party inside the country, despite the threat of arrest. On Friday, Hun Sen addressed Sam Rainsy during a speech to garment factory workers in Kampot province, telling the exiled opposition leader, I truly want you to return to face his convictions. You must be aware of the courts verdictInterior Minister Sar Kheng confirmed yesterday that he has received the related arrest warrant, so there is no issue with that, he said. I feel so bad having let you run, so now if you come back Ill be able to rid myself of this feeling. Earlier this week, Cambodias government issued a statement warning that authorities will take action against anyone who identifies as a member of the CNRP and gathers to welcome Sam Rainsy back to Cambodia. The statement also warned that if Sam Rainsys return is associated with the CNRP, the government will view it as a violation of the Supreme Courts November 2017 decision, but added that the executive branch is separate from the judiciary, and will not interfere in any legal decision. On Friday, Ly Ratanaraksmey, a top CNRP official in Thailand, told RFAs Khmer Service that hundreds of thousands of Cambodian workers in Thailand will join Sam Rainsy when he returns, adding that they desperately want freedom and democracy. Venezuela election Also on Friday, the prime minister lashed out at the U.S. and other countries that have dismissed Nicolas Maduros claim to Venezuelas presidency as illegitimate following elections widely seen as unfree and unfair, and backed opposition leader Juan Guaido to helm the nation. Maduro was sworn in for his second term earlier this month, but Guaido, who is president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, says he has the constitutional right to take power because Maduro assumed office illegally. I dont understand what is going in Venezuelathe U.S. and some other countries dont recognize the elected and siting president, and instead recognize the opposition leader, who has sworn himself in as president, Hun Sen said. This country will soon have a civil war because Maduro will not want to relinquish power. Why should this kind of thing happen? The opposition leader did not take part in the election, but has now been recognized as the countrys president. Hun Sen also warned western countries against interfering in Cambodias internal affairs, as in Venezuela, because doing so would destabilize peace in the Southeast Asian nation. Following Cambodias July ballot, the U.S. announced visa bans on individuals seen as limiting democracy in the country, as part of a series of measures aimed at pressuring Hun Sen to reverse course, and the EU, which was the second biggest trade partner of Cambodia in 2017, has said it will drop a preferential trade scheme for Cambodian exports based on the countrys election environment. Friday marked the second day in a row that Hun Sen addressed the power struggle in Venezuela while speaking to the public. A day earlier, the prime minister also called on Cambodias military to smash anyone he believes is plotting to overthrow the government. Internal conflict Political analyst Kim Sok told RFA Friday that Hun Sen is worried about internal conflict within his partyparticularly among members of the militaryas well as Western support for the CNRP, which could attempt to establish a temporary government, as the opposition has done in Venezuela. Hun Sen is most worried about is U.S. and EU support for the people of Cambodia to stand up for a change, he said of the political strongman who has ruled the country for more than three decades. If they do announce their support for the people, this will encourage members of the public and military who wish to remove Hun Sen, because he has treated them unjustly. Such an announcement would also encourage those within the ruling party who are worried or have been victimized by Hun Sen, so Hun Sen issued this warning out of fear of change in Cambodia. Sam Rainsy on Friday urged Cambodias military to ignore Hun Sens demands for loyalty and call for them to attack those who oppose him. I appeal to the armed forces not to use their weapons to shoot people for Hun Sen, he said in a post to his Facebook page. Please keep those weapons to protect yourself, the people and the country Dont protect dictators. Hun Sen has warned repeatedly that CNRP leadership in Cambodia would bring instability and war to the country, and threatened to use the ruling party-controlled military to eliminate anyone calling for an end to his government. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun and Chrea Vanrith. Written in English by Joshua Lipes. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email please call (208) 542-6777 for help. We get it. You don't want to see the ads. We'd just ask you to understand that those ads help us pay the bills and our reporters. Please, consider white-listing the Standard Journal in your ad-blocker or, even better, purchase a subscription so that you can help support quality local journalism. Lebanon, IN (46052) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 83F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Low 68F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. LITCHFIELD Audrey Blondin, a Torrington attorney and Litchfield resident, was recently re-elected as secretary of the Connecticut Democratic Party. She joins newly elected officers including former Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, chairwoman; vice chairman Erick Russell of New Haven; and treasurer Eloisa Melende of Norwalk. Blondin was born and raised in the New Haven area and has lived in the Northwest Corner for 40 years. Her first campaign experience was with Torrington Mayor Mike Conway's campaign in 1979 which he won. Blondin went on to serve as the first female member of the Torrington Democratic Town Committee, before moving to Litchfield in 1986. In Litchfield she served as Democratic Town Committee chairman from 1988-1992, and was a member of the Litchfield Board of Selectman from 1993-2003. She ran for secretary of the state in 2005. Blondin was the first woman attorney to serve on the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee, and has been a member since 2002. She is now serving her ninth term, representing 14 towns in the 30th District in the Northwest corner, and was first elected as CDP Secretary to fill a vacancy in 2018. Blondin served as a member of the Connecticut delegation to the Democratic National Conventions in 2000, 2004, 2012 and 2016, most recently in Philadelphia as a Bernie Sanders delegate. She also served as a member of the Judicial Selection Commission from 2014-2018. She and her husband, Dr. Matthew Blondin, are the founders of Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity and oversaw 19 eye care missions to Nicaragua. The couple and the VOSH-CT team are planning a June mission to Emporia, Va. Blondin, founder of Torringtons first woman-owned law firm, practices real estate, business, probate and estate planning law with her daughter, attorney Rose Blondin, as well as assisting her husband in Blondin-Shea Eye Care. Along with their daughter, the couple has two sons: Dr. Joseph Blondin, an endodontist in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Dr. Nicholas Blondin, a neuro-oncologist at Yale Smilow Cancer Center, and a foster son from Nicaragua, Orlando Sevilla of Torrington. The couple also has nine grandchildren. Beckley, WV (25801) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. January 26, 2019 08:30 IST The updated election ads policy for India will require advertisers to provide a 'pre-certificate' issued by the EC or anyone authorised by the poll panel, for each ad. Further, Google will verify the identity of advertisers before their election ads run on its platforms, reports Peerzada Abrar. Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com As the country braces for the general elections this year, technology giant Google last week said it is bringing more openness to election advertising online and is enabling voters to get the election-related information they need. To bring more transparency to the online election ads, Google is introducing an India-specific 'Political Advertising Transparency Report' and searchable 'Political Ads Library'. Through these initiatives, which will go live in March this year, the company is looking at providing comprehensive information about who is purchasing election ads on Google platforms and how much money is being spent. This year, over 850 million Indians are expected to cast their votes to elect the countrys next government. "We're thinking hard about elections and how we continue to support democratic processes in India and around the world," said Chetan Krishnaswamy, director, public policy, Google India, adding, "We are bringing more transparency to election advertising online, and surfacing relevant information to help people better navigate the electoral process." In light of recent controversy about fake news and foreign interference in elections specifically, the case of Russian involvement to influence United States elections, "The present initiative by Google, in terms of the India-specific Transparency Report, is commendable," said Salman Waris, managing partner at Delhi-based specialist technology law firm TechLegis Advocates & Solicitors. "This is because such data would show how the policies and actions of political parties and corporations affect privacy, security, and access to information online. It will show to what extent they are trying to influence digital and online media platforms," said Waris. Experts say such initiatives need to be emulated on a large scale by other information technology service providers, especially in the social media domain. They are increasingly seeing scandals surrounding Facebook-Cambridge Analytica, hacking of democratic processes, and fake news on platforms like WhatsApp. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal was a major political scandal in early 2018. It was revealed that British analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data from Facebook profiles of millions of users without their consent and used it for political purposes. Pavan Duggal, a top cyberlaw expert and a Supreme Court lawyer, sees Googles initiative as a good start, but "a drop in the ocean". He said Googles initiative is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the dissemination of fake news. "Because India does not have fake news law," he said. Duggal said there are other challenges as well such as knowing whether a particular advertisement is a political ad and also the source of funding behind it. Facebook recently said it is providing some of its political advertising rules and tools to prevent election interference in India, the European Union, Ukraine, and Nigeria. The most popular social network worldwide, which has 2.27 billion monthly active users, has become a platform for politicians and their rivals to spread propaganda and fake news. According to data platform Statista, India claimed the first place with 294 million users, ahead of second-ranked US with 204 million users, as of October 2018. The updated election ads policy for India will require advertisers that are running election ads in India to provide a 'pre-certificate' issued by the Election Commission of India or anyone authorised by the ECI, for each ad they wish to run. Further, Google will verify the identity of advertisers before their election ads run on its platforms. The advertiser verification process will begin on February 14. In the build-up to the elections, people need useful and relevant information to help them navigate the electoral process. For the 2019 general election, Google will make electoral information from the ECI and other authoritative sources easily discoverable on Search. "We have to see what kind of supervisory role the ECI would have on these political advertisements. Most of them have been out of their ambit all these years," said Duggal. January 26, 2019 08:26 IST 'The Andamans are strategic territory for India.' 'We need at least three full-length, 10,000-feet airfields here.' Ajai Shukla reports. IMAGE: Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba and his wife Reena Lanba, president, Naval Wives Welfare Association, and other officers unveil the INS Kohassa in Port Blair, January 24, 2019. Photograph: @indiannavy/Twitter India's military presence in the Indian Ocean got a long-delayed boost on Thursday, January 24, 2019, with the commissioning of a full-fledged naval base, the Indian Naval Ship Kohassa, on North Andaman Island. The base, commissioned by Admiral Sunil Lanba, chief of the naval staff, is the fourth military airfield in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago (the Andamans). The 572-island archipelago dominates the Malacca Strait that links the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea. The Andamans also straddle the vital Indian Ocean sea lanes, through which 100,000 merchant vessels carry $3 trillion worth of cargo each year, including much of China's oil supplies and trade. INS Kohassa, which was established in 2001 as Naval Air Station Shibpur, permitted short-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft such as the Dornier-229 to monitor the northern Bay of Bengal, where India shares maritime borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Many Indian aircraft, which participated in the abortive search for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, operated from NAS Shibpur. There are plans to expand the current 3,000 feet-long airfield to allow the navy's long range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, the Boeing P-8I Poseidon, which currently operates from Arakkonam, Tamil Nadu, to stage through INS Kohassa. Being able to refuel and rearm at Kohassa, instead of doing the three-hour round trip to Arakkonam, would greatly increase the P-8I's persistence over these waters. Expanding the airfield to 10,000 feet would also allow wide-bodied airliners to carry out commercial operations from INS Kohassa, facilitating tourism in the Andamans. 'NAS Shibpur was identified by NITI Aayog as one of the 'Early Bird' projects as part of holistic island development. Towards this, (the navy) has been ready in all respects to facilitate civil flight operations from NAS Shibpur. The runway extension to 10,000 feet is also planned in the near future to facilitate operations of wide-bodied aircraft,' the navy stated on Thursday. The other airfields in the Andamans include the INS Utkrosh in the Union territory's capital, Port Blair. This is a 10,000 feet long runway, but a hill at one side makes commercial operations tricky, especially in windy conditions. There is also the Indian Air Force base of Car Nicobar,/strong>, at the centre of the 750 km long Andaman chain. No fighter aircraft is permanently stationed at Car Nicobar, but the IAF rotates fighters on detachment through the airbase. Finally, there is INS Baaz, located in Campbell Bay, the southern-most island in the Andamans, which also happens to be the souther-nmost tip of India -- even further south than Kanyakumari. This is the navy's most forward located base, sitting less than a hundred nautical miles from the Strait of Malacca. The navy has long pushed for extending the 3,000 feet strip at INS Baaz into a 10,000 feet runway that could allow fighters to be over the Malacca Strait in minutes. However, the development has been delayed by land acquisition issues and inter-ministerial wrangling with the ministries of home affairs and environment. Meanwhile, causing heartburn in the navy, Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo on May 30 announced in Jakarta that India would help Indonesia develop the port of Sabang, less than a hundred nautical miles from Campbell Bay. "Instead of focusing attention and resources on developing an Indonesian port, New Delhi would do well to devote attention to upgrading INS Baaz, which is urgently needed," says former navy chief, Admiral Arun Prakash (retd). Relations with Indonesia have not always been smooth. In the 1950s, then Indonesian president Sukarno had claimed the Andamans, and offered to support Pakistan in the 1965 war by opening a naval front against India. New Delhi's relations with Jakarta are now much closer. Since 2002, the two navies jointly carry out an annual India-Indonesia 'Coordinated Patrol' in the Andaman Sea. Similarly, relations with Myanmar are now much friendlier. At the turn of the century, there were reports that Yangon had permitted China to open a radar monitoring station on the Coco Islands, barely 70 nautical miles from NAS Shibpur. However, Admiral Arun Prakash recounts that in 2001, Yangon took Indian Navy officers on a Myanmar navy vessel to the Coco Islands and demonstrated that these fears were misplaced. "The Andamans are strategic territory for India. We need at least three full-length, 10,000-feet airfields here, not just for military use, but to serve multiple objectives of security, development and tourism to earn revenue," says Vice Admiral Anup Singh (retd), former chief of the Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Naval Command. Source: Last updated on: January 26, 2019 23:48 IST Various facets of Mahatma Gandhi's life journey were displayed by the 22 tableaux that rolled down the Rajpath during the 70th Republic Day Parade to mark the 150th birth anniversary of the father of the nation. While 16 tableaux were from states and Union Territories, six were from various central ministries and departments -- agriculture, power, drinking water and sanitation, Indian Railways, Central Industrial Security Force and Central Public Works Department. Photographs: Kamal Kishore, Atul Yadav/PTI Photo The Railways Ministry, whose tableau made a come back at the Republic Day parade after three years, depicted the "transformation of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to Mahatma Gandhi" and highlighted the yet-to-be-launched bullet train and Train 18. The tableau highlighted the incident in 1893, when the young Mohandas was thrown out of a "European only" compartment at Pietermaritzburg railway station in South Africa which acted as a catalyst for him to practice ''Satyagrah''. The front portion of tableau showcased a steam engine on whose top was perched a bust of Mahatma Gandhi which is similar to the bust installed in June 2018 at the Pietermaritzburg railway station of South Africa. Incidentally, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade. He became the second South African president to be invited to the event as the chief guest. Former South African president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest for the prestigious event in 1995. The theme for Andaman and Nicobar's tableau was "Role of Gandhiji on inmates of Cellular Jail in Andaman". The tableau showcased the effect that Mahatma Gandhi had amongst the inmates of the historic jail. The tableau of Maharashtra shows, the scene from Quit India Movement. After a gap of 11 years, the tableau of Central Industrial Security Force made a comeback at Republic Day parade. The front portion of the tableau depicted the CISF security cover to the "Samadhi" of Mahatma Gandhi and the middle portion shows the force providing security to various government installations like petrochemical and nuclear power plants. "Peace Within"-themed Arunachal Pradesh's tableau shows a tribal Monpa placing flowers at Gandhi's feet. It also shows the dancing Monpa tribe stressing on peace and cleanliness. The Central Public Works Department tableau showcased the non-violent struggle by Gandhi, which led to freedom of India. The tableau was crafted in natural flowers. The front part of the tableau showed Gandhi, the middle part showed his non-violent followers while the rear portion depicted the message given by him for world peace and unity. The Uttarakhand tableau featured Kausani's Anasakti Ashram where Mahatma Gandhi had stayed in 1929. The tableau showed Gandhi writing his book 'Anasakti Yoga' at the ashram in the backdrop of mountains and deodar trees. The Delhi tableau showcased a theme of "Mahatma Gandhi and Delhi" and displayed his association with the national capital and the Birla House which is now known as Gandhi Smriti. The tableau of West Bengal depicted two phases in Mahatma Gandhi's life -- his stay in Kolkata during India's Independence and association with Rabindranath Tagore. Gujarat with the "historical Dandi March" theme depicted the great movement which shook the foundation of the British Empire by lifting a handful of salt. "Gandhi's ray of hope our composite culture" was Jammu and Kashmir's tableau theme this year. The tableau showcased Gandhi along with his charkha and ethnic diversity of the Valley. The tableau of Tamil Nadu will have "transformation of dress code of Mahatma Gandhi" as theme. The theme for Tripura's tableau was "empowerment rural economy in Gandhian Way". Source: Last updated on: January 26, 2019 21:47 IST A kaleidoscope of rich cultural heritage of states and their journey towards development was on display as colourful parades marked the 70th Republic Day which passed off peacefully amid tight security, though celebrations were marred in some parts of Northeast following a boycott call by outfits against the citizenship bill. IMAGE: At a height of 18,000 feet -- even Everest is just around 3 km taller -- and -30C temperature, Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel celebrate Republic Day in Ladakh. Photograph: Press Information Bureau Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath announced the launch of a scheme to ensure 100 days of employment every year to the youths from the economically weaker sections (EWS) in the urban areas during his address. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel announced waiver of farmers' outstanding irrigation taxes worth Rs 207 crore during his Republic Day address in Raipur. Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu hailed the state's efforts to create a conducive industrial environment, making way for more investments and job opportunities. People attend the flag hoisting ceremony during Republic Day parade at Ridge in Shimla. Photograph: PTI Photo Kerala governor P Sathasivam pitched for a united approach towards rebuilding the state devastated by last year's deadly monsoon floods and cautioned against narrow politics and violent protests derailing the efforts and lowering the state's image. Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik said the militancy-hit Kashmir valley will once again become "the paradise on earth" as was once described by Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Mobile internet services were suspended across Kashmir as a precautionary measure on the occasion, but mobile phone services functioned as usual. Normal life was affected due to a strike called by separatist groups, which asked people to observe the Republic Day as a black day. Security was tightened in the Northeast which was rocked by protests against the citizenship bill. A contingent of the Indian Reserve Battalion march during the 70th Republic Day celebrations at DDSC Stadium in Dimapur, Nagaland. Photograph: PTI Photo Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan addressed an almost-empty ground in Aizawl on the occasion due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation. No member from the general public attended the function, police said, adding only ministers, legislators and top officials were present. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed in Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several outfits in the Northeast have opposed it claiming that it would undermine the rights of the indigenous people of the region. IMAGE: Women police personnel pose for a group photo after participating in the 70th Republic Day celebrations in Agartala. Photograph: PTI Photo Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh came down heavily on organisations that boycotted the celebrations in the state against the bill, saying they should instead contest elections to get people's mandate. He warned that actions of these outfits would tantamount to running a parallel administration which is unacceptable. Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi said there is no place for illegal foreigners and only the indigenous people of the state have the right on its resources. School children display their paintings during the 70th Republic Day celebrations in Thane, Maharashtra. Photograph: PTI Photo Apprehending that the protests against the bill could affect the celebrations, the Assam Police took rigorous steps to ensure that no one carried black cloth to official functions. Black flags were being shown to the ministers and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders wherever they have been going during the last few weeks in the state as part of protests. In Gujarat, six children and a woman constable riding a stunt motorcycle were injured when the two-wheeler slipped at a state-level Republic Day parade organised in Palanpur. Saints at Kumbh Mela take out some time to celebrate Republic Day. Photograph: Press Information Bureau A Madhya Pradesh minister was unable to read out the chief minister's message during a Republic Day function in Gwalior and had to ask the district collector to read it. A video of the incident was widely circulated on social media showing MP Women and Child Development Minister Imarti Devi, 43, reading Nath's message in broken Hindi before she asked the collector to read it. IMAGE: Children hold tricolours at Daryapur, in Ahmedabad. Photograph: Santosh Hirlekar/PTI Photo Tripura Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki stressed on the need for cordial relations with the neighbouring Bangladesh for development of transport routes that would benefit the state as well as the entire north eastern region. Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan hoisted the tricolour and said the state was poised to spearhead the country's efforts in leveraging technology for development and governance and in enhancing happiness levels of people despite hostile treatment by the Centre and a non-conducive atmosphere. School children perform during the 70th Republic Day celebrations in Jammu. Photograph: PTI Photo In Odisha, colourful tableaux displaying the state's rich culture and progress made in different sectors were taken out on the stretch, enthralling the bystanders. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said development, welfare of the poor and empowerment of all sections have become the state's identity. IMAGE: A helicopter shower flowers during Republic Day celebrations at Red Road, in Kolkata. Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photo Punjab, Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh Saturday joined the nation in celebrating the 70th Republic Day, amid tight security arrangements. Police, home guards and NCC contingents were among other participants in the parades held in district headquarters in the two states and their joint capital Chandigarh. A slew of flag hoisting ceremonies were held across Uttarakhand on Saturday to mark the 70th Republic Day. A mini-India came alive on the streets of Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow on the occasion as artistes from 11 states along with marching contingents and youngsters participated in the colourful festivities despite the cold weather. January 26, 2019 13:30 IST 'There is a degree of civility, efficiency, cleanliness and cultural ease here that has all but vanished in the squalid, chaotic and rootless Hindi heartland,' says Sunil Sethi. IMAGE: Karthyayani Amma, candidate and top scorer in the Aksharalaksham programme, a flagship initiative of the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority. Photograph: PTI It was Salman Rushdie who observed many years ago that south India not only felt, but functioned like another country. After a recent 10-day coast-to-coast journey in Kochi, then Chennai to Puducherry along the scenic East Coast Road -- taking in the splendid 10-acre Dakshina Chitra 'living' museum and the rock-cut temples of Mahabalipuram -- Mr Rushdie's insight holds unshakably true. There is a degree of civility, efficiency, cleanliness and cultural ease here that has all but vanished in the squalid, chaotic and rootless urban agglomerations of the Hindi heartland. Above the cash counter at a large highway eatery serving vegetarian thalis in Tamil Nadu was a notice in bold lettering that summed up the sense of fair play: 'Dear Customers, Pls. Demand Bill for Your Purchase. If not give call (three cell numbers given) to Get Your Purchase Absolutely Free'. Kerala and Tamil Nadu are the quiet champions of India. You can banish the creeping trepidation of encounters with boorish, unhelpful functionaries, the push-and-shove of public places, or sullen drivers of smelly car-hailing rides who either fail to arrive, are often clueless about routes or unable to use GPS. In southern cities, Uber drivers answer promptly, arrive within minutes, and know their way about; officials may have gone to village schools but speak perfect English; pedestrian pavements are wide and women safe on the streets after dark. Some reasons for these well-ordered standards of civic life are obvious: Both states have zero population growth, 100 per cent literacy, and high levels of investment in education, health care and public transport -- Kochi's car ferries, for example, work to a clockwork time table. Principal among the tangible changes I noticed is a shedding of provincialism for a surge in cosmopolitan confidence. A shining example of this is the fourth Kochi-Muziris Biennale, the country's biggest and longest international art show, an event so exhilarating in the city's historic Fort precinct that it makes exhibitions in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru look like Cinderella's shop-soiled stepsisters. Despite the constraints imposed by last year's floods last year, the government came through with generous financial support; indeed, it helped marshall so many private sponsors, led by Yusuff Ali, the Gulf's supermarket king, that the list takes up 17 pages of the biennale's fat catalogue. The world-class show continues till March 31, featuring some 99 artists from 30-odd countries in a dozen venues, many of them in restored government buildings and abandoned spice warehouses. IMAGE: Ode to Kochi Biennale by Pangrok Sulap. The fourth edition of the biennale opened on December 12. Photograph: Kind courtesy KochiMuzirisBiennale/Facebook.com For those planning a visit here are three top picks: South African artist William Kentridge's enthralling panoramic eight-screen video of a processional to the sound of brass bands; Shilpa Gupta's vast dark room installation of a 100 microphones and glimmering bulbs that echo the voices of poets; and Priya Ravish Mehra's haunting works with Kashmiri rafugaars (repairers of shawls) that reprise the pain of a body that did not heal. Ms Mehra succumbed to cancer last year and her art is a moving last testament. The Kochi biennale is an institution-in-the-making but it is a novice as compared to the century-old musical sabhas of Chennai in January-February, the apogee of the cultural calendar. Something like a hundred venues feature the best in Carnatic music and classical dance; at the apex is the Music Academy, run by the city fathers, to regimental perfection. From early morning to late evening a succession of concerts follows an exact, well-advertised plan in a hall with state-of-the-art acoustics. No delay is brooked; no one gets in for free; excellent meals and coffee are served at precise breaks. Nowhere else in the country can you encounter such engaged or knowledgeable audiences that come from distant cities. A senior executive I met said he bought family season tickets for two weeks each year. "It is my happiest time off." In its 90th cycle last month a star guest was Indra Nooyi, proud daughter of the city, and cousin of the classical vocalist Aruna Sairam. One reason for the enduring success of these institutions is their independence from government interference, unlike New Delhi, where mouldering decay is hastened with philistine appointments and changing political dispensations. Captivated by the zeitgeist, young professionals are moving south in search of not just a relaxed vibe but opportunities in the travel and hospitality business. A young couple from Mumbai moved to Kochi, they told me, not just for the quality of life but better prospects. They now run customised tours and a boutique aptly named Kingdom of Calm. They enthusiastically Whatsapped me the best eateries including 'the most fabulous Kerala beef fry'. In Puduchery's elegantly revived French quarter, Sid Saikia quit apparel exports in Delhi to put his savings into restoring a 19th century Indo-French courtyard house as a homestay. He calls it Gratitude. A small brass plaque at the door reads: 'If you are looking for a room please ring the doorbell.' The 18th century political philosopher Edmund Burke decreed that good manners were more important than good laws. Several aspects of south India are proof of his axiom. Athens, GA (30605) Today Cloudy. Some light rain will fall throughout the day. High 76F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Rain likely. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. COVID-19 may have kept visitors from enjoying treats of cherry pies and samples of cherry cheesecake, but it did not deter supporters from coming out to participate in the Beaumont-Cherry Valley Rotary Clubs Cherries Jubilee event and fundraising spaghetti pickup dinner. How often, when carrying concealed, have you struggled with finding the right spot for an extra magazine? Lets face it, digging around in the bottom of a pocket to find a magazine that may have shifted can cost you precious seconds. Critical seconds that you may not have. Likewise, carrying a concealed magazine holder isnt always practical either. Fortunately, the team over at NeoMag have created an easy to use, practical solution to the problems of concealed magazines. 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Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate Property details: You Are Bidding on The Full Purchase Price for 13.94 Acres in Washington! Surveyed. Fenced. County Road Frontage. Views. Electric. Less than 2 miles to Canada. Seller will Finance with Only $499 down! Property: This auction is for legal description: South half of the Southwest quarter of the Southeast quarter of Section 9, Township 40 North, Range 30, East of the W.M., Okanogan County, Washington lying West of Okanogan County Road No. 4883. This is a 13.94 ACRE parcel of land in Okanogan County,... Price: $ 29,900 Seller State of Residence: Arizona Zip/Postal Code: 98844 Property Address: 203 Bolster Road City: Oroville State/Province: Washington Zoning: Residential Type: Homesite, Lot Location: 852**, Tempe, Arizona You will be redirected to eBay Nearby Homesite, Lot By Steve Miller, RealClearInvestigations The Chippewa Valley school district in suburban Detroit didnt retreat in 2017 after voters overwhelmingly defeated its proposal to borrow $90 million for spending pitched as protecting the communitys investment in our schools. Instead it rebranded the package as if lives were on the line as an effort to literally protect students. Last year, voters approved the bond proposal with the campaign tag line safe schools, strong schools emphasizing the need for new security funding. School districts around the nation have found that security sells in the year since a troubled student killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Posen, Mich.: Michelle Wesner, schools superintendent, checks out video feeds from the security cameras around the building. Hundreds of districts have moved to arm teachers or staff, a once unthinkable notion. Along with that much-publicized development is a quieter one with high price tags stretching long into the future: officials borrowing billions, with little taxpayer pushback, for added security staffing, mental health counselors and protective upgrades no matter how tangential some of the spending may be to the stated purpose. Much of it comes in bond measures because they are easier to pass using the appeal of safety and security. Although many districts have reported a rise in safety issues since the Department of Education insisted in 2014 that schools adopt more lenient discipline policies to address racial disparities in suspension rates, this has not been emphasized in the bond campaigns. The Trump administration rescinded those Obama-era guidelines last month. Across Florida after Parkland, seven of 25 bond proposals were pitched as security related and voters approved all of them. More than half of California school districts last year emphasized security as part of bond proposals, and nearly 80 percent passed. These districts sell bonds by using those words, like safety or security, said Richard Michael, who operates a website that tracks public school bond issuances in California. Hamilton, Ohio: A sheriff's billboard campaign for security upgrades reflects anxieties nationwide. But they make things so vague, like secure doors, he said. The money can be spent in any number of ways, but the first thing that is done is to upgrade the facilities, and they can roll in security as part of that. So a district can redo the entryway of a school, then add a few cameras and maybe a buzzer access system and say, See, its for security. Tom Gentzel, executive director of the National School Boards Association, declined to be interviewed for this article. But in a statement last month, he praised boards for working "diligently and consistently for many years to enhance security" and urged continued federal spending to fund school resource officers, to expand mental health services and school counseling, and to enhance school building design and construction initiatives. In addition to taxpayer-approved bonds, several states passed emergency measures that require more security personnel at the schools. That means new hires who are likely here to stay, since no one is ready to shed security staff, with attendant legacy costs including health care and pensions that exceed the immediate cost of reassuring parents. When you add staff, it tends to be an ongoing commitment, said Joy Baskin, director of legal services for the Texas Association of School Boards. But school districts say they would rather have more access to law enforcement than other forms of security, like technology. Texas Gov. Greg Abbotts $110 million school safety plan is aimed at more security staffing at schools. Its the governments conclusion that trained people on site is what brings a stronger safety focus, Baskin said. The Parkland shooting is just the latest incident stoking decades-long concerns about school security. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that during the 1999-2000 school year, 19 percent of the nations campuses were equipped with security cameras. Today the figure is around 81 percent, making it hard to find a school without them. All of this has happened despite the fact that the odds of being a victim of a shooting in one of the nations 122,000 public and private K-12 schools are exceedingly rare, and becoming more so. Canton, Ohio: Officer high-fives bus passenger. James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University, has run the numbers. There were more school casualties in the last five years of the 1990s than between 2013 and 2017, he said, referring to shootings. Hes found that since 1990, there have been 22 shootings at K-12 schools in which two or more people were shot, not including the shooters. Five of those have occurred since 2013, with 27 fatalities, compared with 33 killed in the last half of the 1990s. More of the nations 50 million public school students were killed commuting to school, roughly 30 a year, Fox notes, citing a 10-year study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In Florida, each school is now required to have a dedicated security staffer, partly funded by a state allocation. That could be called an unfunded mandate, acknowledged Andrea Messina, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. The money the state provided is not enough to cover the cost of a school resource officer in every school, she said. She said officials hoped that schools could use retired military or law enforcement officers personnel already drawing a public pension -- to meet the states requirement. In every county, it is set up differently, she said, with some places using armed teachers or local police officers rather than new hires. Meantime, schools are pushing bond proposals for technology that includes facial and license plate recognition software, enhanced campus communication systems, cameras and intrusion detection peddled to them by security companies that have formed to exploit the school shootings of the last couple of years. On top of the local spending, Congress last year released $70 million in security funding to schools. The money comes even when the district already has funding in place for security. Lincoln, Neb.: A resource officer on his school rounds. Most of these districts are using the money they are getting through grants and bonds to hire more security guards, said Mary Scott Nabers, CEO of Strategic Partnerships, a Texas-based consulting firm for government contractors. But, she said, there is just as much a need for technology. Theres demand for security construction, Nabers said. And its clear money will be no issue. Keeping students safe has never been more important, Chippewa Valley Superintendent Ron Roberts said in a press release before the election. In the same release, Beth Pyden, Chippewa Valley Schools Board of Education president, claimed, I hear from parents and constituents all the time who say we need to do everything possible to enhance school security and stay ahead of emerging threats. Neither Pyden nor Roberts responded to interview requests from RealClearInvestigations. We defeated the bond proposal but they came back with the safety tactic and with the superintendent talking about how we need to secure our students, and we lost, said Grace Caporuscio, a parent active in school issues. It was smart, she admitted, in an area that is becoming a destination for upcoming millennial parents. Parkland, Fla.: Clear backpacks are now de rigueur post-massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. What 30-something parent wouldnt read about how we need this money to keep our kids safe and say, Oh, my God. I need to vote for this? said Caporuscio, who has had three children attend Chippewa Valley schools. In Broward County, the school board has received nearly $400,000 in federal grant funding for security, even though the district has $100 million from a previous bond issuance dedicated to security, part of an $800 million bond proposal voters approved in 2014. Broward voters in August approved another $93 million, with up to $18.6 million to add security personnel to the districts 327 schools, despite the fact that the district, even with multiple sources of security funding, has had trouble getting basic metal detectors into its schools. The district did not respond to an interview request. Skeptics insist that the remote possibility of a student being victimized by a school shooting shows the flurry of spending is encouraged more by blanket media coverage of school violence than by facts. Some place the odds of being shot in a public school at one in 614 million, longer than those of winning a Powerball lottery. Youre still in more danger going to the movies than going to school, Caporuscio said. And with all this money being spent, they better hope nothing happens in these schools. In the Philippines, a major corporate bankruptcy has sparked national security concerns about whether a port near the disputed South China Sea could fall under Beijing's control. Philippine officials are currently exploring ways to take over a shipyard located at a former U.S. naval base known as Subic Bay to prevent Chinese companies from buying the site. Australia: The NSW government has awarded Network Rail Consulting and Go-Ahead the A$16m System Integrator contract within its Digital Systems programme which includes rolling out ETCS Level 2, ATO and a traffic management system. COMPLETE IMPACT WRESTLING REPORT: WE'RE OFF TO MEXICO AS JOHNNY IMPACT DEFENDS THE IMPACT WORLD TITLE AGAINST KILLER KROSS By Stuart Carapola on 2019-01-25 21:58:00 Welcome to the Impact Wrestling Report here on PWInsider.com! We start off with our usual look back at last week's show, then we're off to Mexico City for our opening match... X Division Title Match: Rich Swann vs Vikingo A lucha viking...now I've seen it all. Feeling out process to start, neither man gets an advantage. They trade flying headscissors, then the usual lucha back and forth leading to the indy stalemate. Vikingo with a spinning enziguiri, followed by a springboard headscissors or two. Swann bails to the floor, Vikingo hits a dive, Swann springboards off the rail, and wipes Vikingo out on the bare concrete. Back into the ring where Swann hits Rolling Thunder for 2. Vikingo hits a cradle driver (like Tyler Black when he did God's Last Gift) for 2. Swann hits a leaping super Frankensteiner for 2. Vikingo catches Swann in midair and hits a spinning uranage for 2. Swann with a small package for 2, spinning back kick, and the Chemical Imbalance for 2. Swann comes off the second rope with a 450 for the win. Winner: Rich Swann It was a flippy dippy lucha match. oVe comes out after the match and we go to commercial. We're back, and the Twitch ads cut into the beginning of the promo. We rejoin as Sami tells Swann that they're best friends outside the ring, and Swann is like a little brother to him, and that's why it's time for him to join oVe. Swann tries to walk away, but the Crists block him, and Sami says he can't walk away because Sami made all this possible because he saved him, and if it weren't for him, he'd probably be dead on the side of the road somewhere. He asked where his family was when he was 18 and homeless, and says that oVe is his real family. He tells Swann again to step up and join the oVe family. Swann takes the t-shirt and mic, and he says the shirt is the right size, but not the right fit. He tosses the shirt and mic at Sami and leaves, and Sami says that wasn't a no, and to remember that he took him in and gave him everything and to think about it. Josh and Don talk about stuff, then we go to our new backstage interviewer Melissa Santos, who is backstage with Moose and Killer Kross. Kross says that Impact's legacy dies tonight, and his begins as the Impact World Champion. Tonight, he's going to choke Impact out fast. Santos asks about the message Brian Cage sent him, but Moose says Cage should worry more about getting to Mexico, because he heard from his sources that he ran into a little trouble at immigration and won't be here tonight. Taya Valkyrie is backstage, and she's...WARMING UP! She wrestles NEXT! Melissa Santos is backstage with Kiera Hogan and Jordynne Grace, who says they can handle whatever Su Yung and Allie throw at them. Kiera says that person is a shell of who Allie used to be. Santos asks what role Rosemary could play in this, but the screen flickers and a message appears on the wall behind them saying that the darkness will take them, and this is not their fight. Knockouts Champion Taya Valkyrie vs Keyra Keyra backjumps Taya, but Taya catches her on a flying headscissors attempt and counters to a side backbreaker. Taya with a double stomp to the back for 2. Keyra uses her speed to outmaneuver Taya and hit a missile dropkick in the corner that nearly goes through Taya's head. Only gets 2. Keyra really drilled Taya good on that one. Taya with a few clotheslines, hammerlock backdrop suplex, running double knees in the corner, and covers for 2. Keyra with a lungblower and a second rope moonsault for 2. Taya with a northern lights suplex for 2, another double stomp for another 2, and a running Liger Bomb for another 2. Taya with a curb stomp, followed by an STF variant for the tapout win. Winner: Taya Valkyrie Good match. Josh interviews Taya afterward, and she says a bunch of stuff in Spanish. She says Mexico has a special place in her heart and she loves these people, and she couldn't be prouder to have this title. Killer Kross ruined their special night at Homecoming, but she knows Johnny will take care of him tonight. She says when Tessa comes back from suspension, she'll be waiting. Desi Hit Squad vs The Rascalz Rascalz gets the early advantage, but Singh grabs Zachary Wenta from the outside and Rohit Raju drills him with a dropkick to the ribs. Zachary is in peril as Raju hits a double stomp to the outside. Wentz finally gets free and takes both Singh and Raju out and makes the hot tag. Desmond Xavier cleans house on Singh, Rascalz with a series of double teams on Raju, and Wentz with a HUGE springboard dive to the floor that takes out both the Desis. Desis with a wheelbarrow DDT on Xavier for 2, but a series of double teams and the shove moonsault finishes Singh. Winners: The Rascalz That was a lot of fun, the Rascalz have a great energy to them. Melissa Santos is backstage with Johnny Impact, who says that seeing Taya come back tonight made him think of a couple of things. The first is what a badass his wife is, but also how badly he wants to get his hands on Killer Kross for putting her in the hospital. When he gets done with him, all anyone will remember about Kross is what a piece of garbage he is. Santos asks him about Brian Cage, but he says he's focused on Kross. He's also glad Moose will be at ringside, because then he'll be where Impact can see him. We go to the LAX clubhouse, where Konnan is giving them a talking to over what they said to Pentagon and Fenix last week, and is again paranoid about the friendship blowing up. Konnan says maybe he's paranoid, but next week, he's got another couple of luchadores to throw into the mix for a six man with the Lucha Bros. Ethan Page vs Trey We join the match in progress as Trey dropkicks Page to the floor and goes for a diving flying headscissors, but Page catches him, tosses him off, and boots him in the face. Trey quickly recovers and hits an Asai moonsault to the floor. We head back inside, where Page catches Trey on a crossbody attempt and hits a powerslam. Page with a spinning bodybag to Trey for 2, then whips him hard into the corner and covers for 2. Page with a hard forearm to the face, then pops Trey up and hot shots him off the top rope for 2. Trey connects with a Pelle kick, but Page boots his head all the way back to the United States. Trey with a stiff kick and a running neckbreaker, then he trips Page and hits a 619 before hitting a split-legged moonsault for 2. Page with a big vertical suplex for 2, Trey escapes the super Samoan drop, and knocks Page to the mat with another 619. Page dodges a top rope double stomp, but Trey rolls the dice for the win. Winner: Trey Really good big man vs little man match. Johnny Impact is backstage, and he's...WARMING UP! Killer Kross is also backstage, and he's...ALSO WARMING UP! They face off...NEXT! Josh and Don talk about stuff, then it's MAIN EVENT TIME! Impact World Title Match: Johnny Impact vs Killer Kross Impact uses his speed to try and outmaneuver Kross, but the big man takes him to the mat and hammers him with right hands. Impact with a Russian legsweep and a handstand legdrop for 1. Kross avoids a top rope something and knocks Impact silly with a running kneestrike to the face. Kross with a gutwrench, rolls through, goes for a powerbomb, Impact reverses to a Frankensteiner, drills Kross with a leaping enziguiri, and Moose grabs Impact's ankle, distracting him long enough for Kross to nail Impact from behind and choke him in full view of the referee as we go to commercial. We're back, and Impact is still firmly in peril as Kross pounds his skull in. Impact eventually mounts a comeback, hitting a running knee and a spear for 2. Impact goes for Starship Pain, but Kross rolls out of the way, then gets the choke, but Impact blocks it. Brian Cage suddenly runs in and takes them both out with a double clothesline. NO CONTEST Cage picks Moose up and hits an F5, Kross hits Cage with a Saito suplex, but Cage pops right back up and rips Kross' head off with a roaring clothesline. Impact superkicks Cage, but Cage rolls over him with a clothesline as well. Kross and Moose finally work together to attack Cage, but Impact gets involved and it just turns into a wild brawl. Kross and Moose bail, Impact and Cage have a staredown, and we call it a week. Thanks for reading the Impact Wrestling Report here on PWInsider.com, I'll be back Sunday to discuss Impact and more with Dave Scherer on the Stu & Pid Show! If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here! Theres plenty of discord to go around these days. Arguments about gun control, racial violence, climate change, and other headline-grabbing issues have been the subject of numerous books. But looking into 2019, it is the overarching topic of division in American religion and culture that has spawned some of the most notable titles in the religion category. Wrestling with Religious Freedom Evolving ideas about which civil rights should be protected by law are increasingly clashing with what some see as the principles and practices of their religious groups. A baker in Colorado who refused to make cakes for gay weddings and a retail chain that refused to cover birth control for its employees took their cases to the Supreme Court. Some Christians argue that they should not be compelled to support behavior they believe is against Christian principles and that religious freedom itself is under attack. In Sacred Liberty: Americas Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom (HarperOne, May), Steven Waldman reminds readers that conflicts over religious practices and principles are not new. Since early in its history, America has wrestled with integrating the different faiths of its citizensfirst Jews, Catholics, African slaves, and Native Americans; later Mormons; and now Muslims. The more successful American paradigm has emerged over many years, shaped through civil disobedience, elections, lawsuits, coalition building, and bloodshed, Waldman writes. Won through great struggle, religious freedom achieved an exalted status as a core element of our national identity. The author also wrote Founding Faith and is a Wall Street Journal columnist. An attorney who specializes in religious freedom cases offers his point of view in Free to Believe: The Battle over Religious Liberty in America (WaterBrook, Oct.). Luke Goodrich has represented many clients in religious freedom court cases; he says that now many Christians see their beliefs being characterized as bigotry. He writes, Weve long lived in a country where religious freedom was secure, and we didnt need to give it much thought. Now were realizing that the country is changing, and we might not enjoy the same degree of religious freedom forever. He adds, You dont have to care about the Bible to care about religious freedom. Religious freedom is worth protecting because it benefits society, protects our other rights, and is a fundamental human right. In Faith in American Public Life (Baylor, Oct.), Melissa Rogers refutes the idea that government and the law prohibit religious participation in public life. Instead, she argues that the law bars government-backed religion while protecting the rights of religious bodies and individuals to promote their faith in the public square. Religious liberty has been central to our countrys history and still matters greatly today, she writes. The government has no say in decisions about the organization or membership of congregations. And the right to speak out on public issues belongs to religious speakers as much as secular ones. Rogers served as special assistant to President Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The Enemy Is Us In addition to discord between religions and conflicts between religions and American laws and culture, there are squabbling factions within faith groups. Brazos executive acquisitions editor Robert Hosack says, Most of the churchs enemies today have actually been drawn from within Christianity itself. In The Church of Us vs. Them: Freedom from a Faith that Feeds on Making Enemies (Brazos, July), David E. Fitch writes, Because we [Christians] have been so used to power, we take positions against other churches on the Bible, salvation or even justice.... Christianity becomes a set of belief statements we either argue for or against other Christians. And the actual practice of following Jesus becomes lost in the fray. Fitch is the author of The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies, which PW called a searing but loving insider critique of the individualism that marks North American evangelicals. Presbyterian minister Layton E. Williams thinks division is not always a bad thing. In Holy Disunity: How What Separates Us Can Save Us (WJK, Oct.), she writes, Disunity doesnt have to mean destruction. In the arguments and protests born from our disunified state, we hear hard but important truths that push back on our assumptions and our hubris. Williams cautions against unity at all costs, writing that disunity may not be so much a problem to be solved as a holy opportunity for growth and transformation, noting that disunity provides a chance to engage those with whom we disagree. Disillusioned Americans have backed away from politics, with disastrous results, argues Peter Wehner in The Death Of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump (HarperOne, June). The New York Times opinion writer, media commentator, outspoken Republican, and Christian critic of the Trump presidency defends the crucial role of politics in preserving democracy. A veteran of three Republican administrations, Wehner says that participation in politics is essential. We have lost sight of who we are as a people and as a nation, he writes. We need to relearn what American politics ought to be about, and we need to realize that as citizens we have the power and ability to repair the fraying we have witnessed. Jake Meadors forthcoming book addresses the decline in the sense of community, the worsening economic inequity, and the poisonous turn public discourse has taken in the country. In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World (IVP, June) offers Meadors vision of a renewed common life, with Christians focused on faith rather than the economy or politics. Meador is v-p of the evangelical Davenant Institute think tank and editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy, an online magazine about Christian faith in the public sphere. Americans are living in a unique moment, one of those pivot-points in history that textbooks will ponder over for decades to come, says David Dobson, associate publisher of Westminster John Knox. WJKs mission, he says, is to provide people of faith with the resources to help them live out that faith in their everyday lives. He adds, That might mean talking with their neighbors who hold different political views, or with a fellow churchgoer who has misunderstandings or fears about other religions. Or it may mean helping them understand what it means to be privileged in contemporary North American society. In his 2005 book, The Gospel According to America, David Dark warned Christians not to conflate love of country with love of God. His new book, The Possibility of America: How the Gospel Can Mend Our God-Blessed, God-Forsaken Land (Westminster, Apr.), applies theological, cultural, and political analysis to todays political landscape, addressing the rise of white supremacy, the surrender of evangelical principles in favor of expediency, and other Trump-era issues. When confronted with the fact that our government has tortured terrorist suspects, confiscated rosaries, or forcibly separated children from their asylum-seeking parents on our behalf, appeals to an earlier state of righteousness dont cut it, he writes. This isnt who we are or Were better than this might work as a late step in a season of repentance, but it fails on delivery in light of our history, a crime scene of carnage, captivity, and seizure consistently undertaken in the name of freedom and security and God. Getting Active If there has been an upside to Americas current angst, its the resulting surge in activism. Benedictine nun Joan Chittister (Radical Spirit) invites readers disgusted with todays political and cultural climate to join her in opposition to Trumps policies and the direction of the country; her latest, The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage (Crown, Mar.), is both a call to arms and a faith-based guide for activists. Our world waits for you and me, for spiritual people everywhere, Chittister writes, to refuse to be the pawns in the destruction of a global world for the sake of national self-centeredness. The author of dozens of books, Chittister has advocated for womens rights for more than 50 years; PW has called her one of the most well-known and trusted contemporary spiritual authors. Longtime evangelical activist Jim Wallis offers his own guide for perplexed Christians in What About Jesus? Finding a Place to Stand in a Time of Crisis (HarperOne, Sept.), proposing an activism that is grounded in the teachings of Jesus. Wallis is the author of Americas Original Sin, The Great Awakening, and Gods Politics and served on Obamas White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Its never too early to shape the next generation of activists. And Social Justice for All: Empowering Churches, Families, and Schools to Make a Difference in Gods World by Lisa Van Engen (Kregel, Mar.) aims to help adults teach children about issues like poverty, immigration, and environmental threats and to give them ways to respond. As I wrote this manuscript, the United States experienced discord, Van Engen writes. Kindness disappeared into the background, and the need for justice seekers became even more pronounced. Sometimes I desperately wanted to give up. But, she adds, each time I wanted to quit... I would be left stunned again by each young persons thoughtful response, wise insight, and simple profundity. The temptation to give up is part of the battle, writes pastor Timothy Charles Murphy in Sustaining Hope in an Unjust World: How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up (Chalice, May). The problems seem intractable, and failure comes with the process of change. If evil often wins, how can we faithfully respond in hope of a better day? he writes. How have people endured across generations, and how can we learn from them today? If we can give compelling answers to these questions, then we just might have a shot at a better future after all. Murphy is former executive director of the faith and social justice organization Progressive Christians Uniting and the author of Counter-Imperial Churching for a Planetary Gospel. Is prayer activism? Your Life Is Your Prayer: Wake Up to the Spiritual Power in Everything You by BJ Gallagher and Sam Beasley (Mango, Apr.) contends it is, defining prayer not only as a private conversation with God but also as a way for people to live out their beliefs by helping others. In times like these, people turn to religion and spiritual practices as rudders for navigating the turbulence, says Mango acquisitions chief Brenda Knight. Everything is cyclical, and in many ways we are experiencing a cycle familiar to us from the late 1960s and early 70s. Fearing the Other An American society that grows ever more diverse can spark anxiety. Some evangelical Christians fear the encroachment of Islam and the imposition of sharia lawa fear reflected in The Third Jihad: Overcoming Radical Islams Plan for the West by Michael Youssef (Tyndale Momentum, Mar.). Pastor and evangelist Youssef warns Western Christians that a third jihad is underway and that its goal is to take over the West. Charles A. Kimball counters that view in Truth over Fear: Combatting the Lies About Islam: A Guide for Christians Working Together (WJK, Aug.). He points to the ways politicians and religious leaders promote Islamophobia to achieve their own objectives, writing, Wittingly or unwittingly, they add an explosive component in the 21st century world where many turbulent forces and events are already in the mix. The book encourages readers to teach family and friends the facts about Muslim beliefs. Simplistic stereotypes of Islam, Muslims, and core teachings in the Quran abound, he notes. The result is a caricature of Islam and Muslims that reflects the highly visible actions of extremists and revolutionaries. Physician Ayaz Virji confronted Islamophobia while practicing medicine in a small town in Minnesota, a story he tells in Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctors Struggle for Home in Rural America (Crown, June). After Trump won in his country in 2016, Virjis children were harassed and some of his patients questioned whether the family belonged in their community. Virji planned to leave, until a local pastor invited him to speak at her church and address misconceptions about what Muslims practice and believe. That grew into lectures he delivers in schools, libraries, community centers, churches, and colleges and universities throughout the country. Embracing the Stranger As waves of migrants flee poverty and persecution in their home countries, fear has fueled conflicts over immigration policies around the world. Exclusion and Embrace (revised edition) by Miroslav Volf (Abingdon, Aug.) tackles the illusion that otherness is inherently evil. Using the New Testament metaphor of salvation as reconciliation, Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion. Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale University Divinity School, won the 2002 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for the first edition of Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation. Croatian by birth, Volf analyzed civil war and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. Now, he has revised the book to take a second, post-9/11 look at todays interethnic and international strife. The Bible describes Gods people as strangers in this world who are called to show grace and hospitality to others. Jesus, King of Strangers: What the Bible Really Says About Immigration by Mark Hamilton (Eerdmans, Apr.) applies the Bibles teachings to human movement and to how host countries should treat migrants. He aims to save the church from nationalism and demagoguery and to show that the way we treat strangers has political, economic, and religious implications. Hamiltons other books include Slaverys Long Shadow: Race and Reconciliation in American Christianity. Immigration advocate and writer Karen Gonzalez journeyed with her family from Guatemala to Los Angeles and Florida in search of safety and stability, a story she tells in The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong (Herald, May). Comparing her odyssey to those of Hagar, Joseph, Ruth, and Jesus, who also experienced loss and displacement, Gonzalez suggests ways to welcome immigrants and to work for a more fair and compassionate immigration system. One solution to all this strife is simple but not easy. In A Politics of Love: A Handbook for a New American Revolution (HarperOne, Apr.), bestselling author Marianne Williamson (Tears to Triumph) writes that love is the only way to mend the fractures in American society, envisioning a new politics of both head and heart. Deal of the Week: E.L. Jamess Mister Unveiled at Knopf E.L. James, the author of one of the bestselling adult series of all time, has a new standalone novel. Anne Messitte, at Knopfs Vintage imprint, took North American and Spanish-language rights to The Mister from Valerie Hoskins at Valerie Hoskins Associates. The new novel from the Fifty Shades scribe, set for April 16, is, Vintage said, a contemporary romance... that introduces readers to the privileged and aristocratic young Englishman Maxim Trevelyan and the mysterious, talented, and beautiful Alessia Demachi, whos recently arrived in London owning little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. The Fifty Shades trilogy has, per Knopf, sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. FROM THE U.S. Abbott Moves to Putnam After a 12-house auction, Megan Abbott signed a three-book North American rights deal with Putnams Sally Kim, moving from Little, Brown in the process. Though Putnam offered no details about the titles under the deal, it confirmed that the first is slated for 2021. Abbott, a celebrated crime fiction author, was represented by Dan Conaway at Writers House. Now a sought-after name in Hollywood, Abbott is a writer on the HBO drama The Deuce. She also, Putnam noted, has nearly all of her novels in active development for either TV or film, and is the cocreator of a USA Network series based on her novel Dare Me. Abrams, Fisher Re-up for Seven Figures Dan Abrams and David Fisher closed a rumored seven-figure, two-book world rights deal with Peter Joseph at Hanover Square Press. The deal continues a relationship that the pair have with the HarperCollins imprint, marking their third and fourth books there. Hanover said both books will focus on a single court case and chronicle a trial that sheds new light on well-known characters from history. The books are tentatively set for 2020 and 2021, respectively. Frank Weimann at Folio Literary Management represented Abrams, the chief legal affairs anchor for ABC News, and Fisher, a bestselling author. Immigrant Detainees Memoir to HC In a high-six-figure world English and world Spanish rights deal, HarperOne acquired a memoir titled Tender Mercies, which the publisher claims will be the first by one of the detained immigrant mothers whose children have been separated from them at the border by the U.S. government. The book, which Judith Curr and Shannon Welch acquired from Scott Mendel at Mendel Media Group, is, HC said, a riveting, inspiring firsthand account of a heartbreaking journey. It is being cowritten by Rosayra Pablo-Cruz, whose story is the focus, and Julie Schwietert Collazo, who cofounded a collective called Immigrant Families Together to help detainees. Kristoffs Vampire Flies to SMP In a rumored mid-six-figure acquisition, Pete Wolverton at St. Martins Press bought North American rights to a new fantasy series by Jay Kristoff (the Nevernight Chronicle series). Empire of the Vampire, an adult/crossover trilogy, was sold by Josh Adams at Adams Literary. He described the series as the love child of Interview with the Vampire, The Road, and The Name of the Wind. In separate deals, rights to the series have been acquired in Germany, Poland, Russia, and the U.K. Harper Takes in Acostas Enemy Jim Acosta, chief White House correspondent for CNN, sold The Enemy of the People to Harper in a world rights deal. The reporter, who recently had a public tussle with the White House over his press credentials, was represented by Beltway lawyer/literary deal maker Bob Barnett at Williams & Connolly. Barnett brokered the agreement with Lisa Sharkey and HC plans to release the title on June 11. The publisher said the book, which is subtitled A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, exposes the tumultuous and dangerous realities of the current White House and its war on truth and the First Amendment. Gardner Takes Dane Duo to Dutton In a two-book deal, with each title fetching a rumored sum over seven figures, Lisa Gardner signed with Dutton to write two titles featuring Flora Dane as a central character. Dane (a kidnapping victim turned vigilante) first appeared in Gardners 2016 thriller Find Her, which is part of the authors bestselling series featuring Boston detective D.D. Warren. Dutton claimed the appearance of Dane spurred sales of Find Her with new fans flocking to Gardners most psychological suspense yet. The forthcoming Warren mystery, Never Tell, which also features Dane and will be released by Dutton in February, has a first announced printing of 250,000 copies. Meg Ruley at the Jane Rotrosen Agency represented Gardner. Behind the Deal Robert Jordans first novel is about to see daylight. Known for his bestselling and iconic Wheel of Time series, the author, who was born James Oliver Rigney Jr. and died in 2007, wrote an epic fantasy titled Warrior of the Altaii that wound up in the hands of a young publisher at Ace in 1979. That young publisher, Tom Doherty, is now chairman of Tor Books. Before Doherty could do anything with the manuscript, another editor at Ace, Harriet McDougal, published a book by Jordan titled Fallon Blood, written under another pen name, Reagan ONeal. (McDougal was also Jordans wife.) As Doherty recounts, an intense publishing schedule ensued as both publisher and author wound up at Tor. The Fallon Trilogy finished in 8182, then came the Conan novels, and, of course, the Wheel of Time. Through it all, Warrior of the Altaii remained in a drawer. The standalone novel will finally be released in fall 2019. McDougal noted, It has been sold twice, but never published, until now. When I reread it this winter, after this long intermission, I was amazed at the foreshadowing of the Wheel of Time. According to Tor, the Wheel of Time series has sold more than 14 million copies in North America alone. INTERNATIONAL The Stray Cats of Homs, by Swedish journalist Eva Nour, was acquired by Transworld in a world English rights acquisition. (Double- day bought the book in the U.S.) Elisabet Brannstrom at Bonnier Rights Sweden, who brokered the deal, said the book is based on the true story of a young boy growing up inside al-Assads Syria andlater onhis harrowing experiences during the war as he chose to stay in his home city of Homs. Moira Fowley-Doyles All the Bad Apples has been acquired by RCW in a world rights deal. The Bookseller said the YA novel explores themes of abortion, illegitimate pregnancy and the tragedy of the Magdalen Laundries, rape, and gay rights. [The Bookseller] PAGE TO SCREEN Two of Leigh Bardugos bestselling YA fantasy series, Shadow and Bone and Six Crows, are being adapted into a series for Netflix. Eric Heisserer, screenwriter of Bird Box, is attached to adapt the books and serve as the showrunner. In what Deadline called a competitive auction situation, Jenny Lees forthcoming YA novel Ann K (Flatiron, 2020) was optioned for TV by Creative Engine Entertainment and SB Projects. A modern take on Anna Karenina, the book, Deadline said, follows a Korean-American it girl and is Gossip Girl and 13 Reasons Why meets Crazy Rich Asians. [Deadline] For more childrens and YA book deals, see our latest Rights Report. National ACR& Heat Pump Awards 2019 Winner Its an honour to accept this award on behalf of all of the Star team who worked incredibly hard on this project. Snozone was a great project with a heavy cooling demand and we were always confident that the Azanechiller 2.0 was the best solution. Star Refrigeration are celebrating after winning one of the most sought after gongs at an industry awards ceremony in Manchester. Star Refrigerations Azanechiller 2.0 installation at Snozone Milton Keynes was named Refrigeration Project of the Year at the annual National ACR and Heat Pump Awards 2019. The revolutionary low charge ammonia chiller was also named Runner Up for Refrigeration Product of the Year. The National ACR and Heat Pump Awards is held annually and serves as an opportunity to celebrate innovation spanning the UKs refrigeration and heat pump industry. Last nights awards evening, held at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, saw Stars work showcased three times, across different categories with a triple nomination for the ground breaking Azanechiller 2.0. The ultra-efficient, low charge ammonia chiller has delivered incredible energy savings and reduced carbon emissions for the countrys top indoor leisure attraction, Snozone, in addition to future-proofing the business for the next 20 years. As the markets first air cooled low charge ammonia chiller, it makes ammonia more accessible and offers the potential for huge energy reduction and lower running costs. Snozone reported a 56% saving on energy usage in the first four months of the Azanechiller 2.0 in operation. The company also reduced its carbon footprint by 700 tonnes of CO2, and has improved green credentials by dropping HFCs for a natural refrigerant with zero global warming potential. Alan Walkinshaw, Star Refrigerations Special Projects Sales Manager and responsible for the Snozone installation, said, Its an honour to accept this award on behalf of all of the Star team who worked incredibly hard on this project. Snozone was a great project with a heavy cooling demand and we were always confident that the Azanechiller 2.0 was the best solution. Ice and leisure is just one growing sector which can utilise the power of the Star Azanechiller 2.0. Star worked closely with Hulley & Kirkwood to successfully deliver the upgrade project and achieve outstanding benefits including lower running and maintenance costs. Snozones Milton Keynes facility has 1500 tones of snow and ice which requires constant cooling at -4C to maintain optimum ski conditions. The air-cooled low charge ammonia chiller was able to maintain lower temperatures than the previous equipment whilst also delivering savings on electricity, thanks to its energy efficient design. Suitable for cooling secondary fluids down to as low as -20C, the Azanechiller 2.0 is designed to suit a range of applications including temperature control distribution, food production, HVAC, data centres, ice rinks and indoor ski slopes. The unique low charge ammonia chiller is designed to meet the specific market challenges of HFC refrigerant phaseout and lowering carbon emissions industry wide. The Azanechiller 2.0 exceeds the EU Ecodesign requirements by between 74% and 146% depending on the application and operating temperature. This results in energy savings for customers and a reduction in environmental impact. Partnerships with large scale businesses such as Snozone and distribution company Gist have highlighted the many benefits of the low charge ammonia chiller. The Azanechiller 2.0 is a plug and play industrial refrigeration solution designed and manufactured by Star Refrigeration in Glasgow. For more information about the ACRHP Awards 2019 visit: http://www.acrheatpumpawards.uk/ To find out more about the low charge ammonia Azanechiller 2.0 go to: http://www.star-ref.co.uk/our-products/azanechiller.aspx Edmonton-area families are invited to visit Sherwood Ford for a free informational session about child car seat safety tips on February 18, 2019. As all growing families can attest to, one of the most important aspects of every drive is ensuring that children are safe and secure inside their vehicles. The best way to do this is by installing the proper car seat, so to help Edmonton families find the best ones for their kids, local dealership Sherwood Ford is hosting a free safety clinic about car seat safety on February 18 at 1 p.m. The information session, which will take place at Sherwood Ford located at 2540 Broadmoor Boulevard in Sherwood Park is to be taught by volunteers from the St. John Ambulance Community Services department. It is intended to give parents and caregivers information on correct installation of a child safety seat, as well as how to safely transport children in a vehicle. Those who attend will also be given an overview of occupant restraint laws in Alberta. Other topics to be covered during the session will include the different types of child safety seats; how to install safety seats and secure children in the safety seats; and the four stages of child passenger safety. The Sherwood Ford team will also check visitors child seats to make sure that they are installed properly. More information about car seat safety may be found by visiting the websites of Alberta Transportation, Safe Kids Canada, and Transport Canada. Sherwood Ford would like to thank the St. John Ambulances Child Safety Seat Program Instructors and Technicians for their support for developing and teaching this session. All members of the public who would like to attend are encouraged to contact Sherwood Ford, either online at sherwoodford.ca or over the phone at 587-860-1538, for more information. Giving God Ultimate Love: Over-The-Top Mega Love by Bukky Agboola "Over-the-top, mega love" of God not only brings innumerable blessings to our lives, but also enables our spirits to overcome life's most difficult adversities and trials. In Bukky Agboolas new book, Giving God Ultimate Love: Over-The-Top Mega Love ($15.99, paperback, 978-1-7335652-0-2; $7.99, eBook, 978-1-7335652-1-9) readers will be blessed and inspired to greater love of God. Do you have what it takes to give God ultimate love? This is the important question Bukky Agboola challenges all of us to explore. God desires that love become our highest goal. Giving God Ultimate Love will help you Discover the meaning and source of ultimate love Learn how Jesus and others expressed ultimate love Gain practical insights into obedience, worship, and love Full of valuable guidance and thought-provoking questions, "Over-the-top, mega love" of God not only brings innumerable blessings to our lives, but also enables our spirits to overcome life's most difficult adversities and trials. Bukky Agboola is a Christian author, speaker, and gospel recording artist. She is a graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Her book I Made it Through tells her life story and struggles following the 1983 military takeover in Nigeria. She has been an ordained minister for over two decades and has released four gospel albums, two of which were sold out during her tours in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. Amazing Grace is her latest CD release. Christopher Lee Many have committed decades to serving our country as federal workers but through no fault of their own, they may now have no way to pay their day-to-day living expenses. As the month long government shutdown drags on, Lee Law Firm, PLLC offers some Dallas-Fort Worth residents financial relief. Existing and new clients impacted by the government shutdown may be eligible to receive discounted legal services for their bankruptcy needs. Nationwide around 800,000 federal workers are directly impacted by the government shutdown, forcing thousands of people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to work without pay. Attorney Christopher Lee, understands that as the shutdown drags on, the bills will continue to mountrent, mortgage payments, food, utility bills, and credit card debts wont wait on the deferred payments promised to workers. So many of our new and existing clients are facing serious financial hardships, Lee says. Many have committed decades to serving our country as federal workers but through no fault of their own, they may now have no way to pay their day-to-day living expenses. Were hoping to help them get through these tough times by making it easier and more affordable for them to get the legal services they need. Dallas-Fort Worth federal workers arent the only casualties of the government shutdown, many businesses that depend on federal workers and government agencies are also suffering serious blows to their bottom-line. Restaurant owners, day care centers, and vendors that depend heavily on government contracts are all facing their own crises as the government shutdown slows their cash flow to a trickle and threatens to exhaust their cash reserves and credit lines. One of the biggest mistakes that people make in times like these is that they dont speak up when theyre hurting, Lee says. Sometimes when youre use to getting a paycheck regularly and it suddenly stops, you may feel too much pride to reach out for help. But when you dont get the help you need and youre struggling to put food on the table, it will only make things worse. If youre struggling because of the government shutdown, please reach out to us for help. About Christopher Lee Christopher Lee and his attorneys offer residents of Tarrant, Dallas, Denton, Parker, Denton, Johnson, Hood, Hunt, Rockwall, Collin, Ellis, Kaufman, Somervell and Wise counties sound legal advice and guidance through the debt resolution process. Every member of the Lee Law firm provides big law firm expertise and professionalism with the flexibility and personal touch of a small firm. Lee offers many non-bankruptcy options as well. The Social Shake-Up Show (May 6 8), the leading social media marketing conference in the U.S., will provide marketers with the opportunity to rub shoulders with professionals at Fortune 1000 companies, hear about innovative technologies and absorb countless "aha" moments from a lineup of dynamic speakers. Amir Farokhi, Atlanta City Councilman, will proclaim May 6, 2019 as the beginning of The Social Shake-Up Show Week in the City of Atlanta as over 1,000 marketers come together to disrupt the social media status quo. We feel so honored to have Atlanta City Councilman Amir Farokhi declare May 6 as the start of The Social Shake-Up Show week! The week will be full of experiential learning and networking as we welcome over 1,000 forward-thinking marketers from all over the United States," said Amy Jefferies, The Social Shake-Up Show's director and VP of marketing. "What we've programmed for the 2019 Social Shake-Up Show will allow attendees to learn about the most important trends in digital and social media while also making long-lasting connections with other Shakers during activities like a History Pub Crawl, a cooking class, a behind-the-scenes tour of the famous Atlanta Aquarium and so much more. At The Social Shake-Up Show in Atlanta, brands like Buffalo Wild Wings, Cinnabon, SalesForce, Twitter, Arby's, Southwest Airlines, IBM, Walmart, Cisco, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Harvard University, Viacom, Google, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel and The Coca-Cola Company will share their expertise on the ins and outs of live streaming, artificial intelligence, SEO, storytelling, user engagement, social media monitoring, getting social media buy-in from the C-Suite, influencers and social ads. The conference sold out the past two years, so you'll want to register soon and make sure you take advantage of VIP savings by booking your spot before January 31. Groups of three or more also save an additional $100. For registration questions, contact director of marketing, Laura Snitkovskiy at laura@accessintel.com. To sponsor this event, contact sales director, Katie Sullivan at ksullivan@accessintel.com. Show Partners and Sponsors: AR|PR, AMA Atlanta, AMA D.C., Business Wire, Buztubr, ChooseATL, MMRA, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, Proofpoint, Social Media Club Atlanta, Social Media Research Association and Verizon. # # # About The Social Shake-Up Show: The Social Shake-Up Show is an annual conference presented by The Social Shake-Up in partnership with Social Media Today and dozens of leaders in the marketing, communications and customer experience arena. The 2019 Show will take place May 6-8 in Atlanta and will bring together hundreds of marketing, digital, social media and communications professionals focused on better integrating social media into their business strategies. For more information, visit http://www.socialshakeupshow.com. Imphal, Jan 26 : The 70th Republic Day was celebrated in Manipur on Saturday despite a shutdown called by insurgent groups. The main function was held at Kangla here where Governor Najma Heptulla took the salute from military and other contingents. Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, opposition leader Okram Ibobi and several Ministers were present at the event. But public participation was s injury to Koscielny. An accidental boot in the face from Lukaku left the French defender with a possible broken jaw. Man United have outscored opponents 22-5 during what is now their longest winning streak in two years. Shillong, Jan 26 : Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy on Saturday appealed to the people to hold steadfastly to the ideals and principles of democracy as the hill state celebrated the 70th Republic Day. "Being fully aware that violence is never a way out for any problem, we should always resort to solve problems through meaningful dialogue and peaceful engagement," Roy said after unfurling the national flag and taking salute at a ceremonial parade here. Noting that law and order situation in the state was by and large peaceful, the Governor said: "The overall internal security situation has also significantly improved over the last one year. We must now take this opportunity and redouble our efforts to ensure durable peace and sustained development in the state." He said all measures were being taken to ensure safety and security, with particular emphasis on combating crimes against women and children and human trafficking. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, who unfurled the tricolour and took theto New Zealand, Australia and the European countries and oranges to Dubai. He said the nation, in spite of numerous challenges, has emerged stronger and reinforced on the strength of its democratic institutions and values over the last 69 years. A colourful cultural programme, displaying the diversity of Arunachal Pradesh was presented on the occasion to commemorate Republic Day. Melbourne, Jan 26 : Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic on Saturday saved three consecutive match points in the second set to make Naomi Osaka of Japan sweat a little more for a 7-6 (7-2), 5-7, 6-4 win in a nail-biting Australian Open final. The 21-year-old Osaka secured the top spot oll. On Monday they have convened a public meeting to chalk out a strategy for their demand to scrap the bill. These organizations say if people are allowed to enter India on the basis of their religion, they will swamp the indigenous people. Sunil Karam, president of United Committee Manipur said, "The Centre's move comes at a time when the people of Manipur are demanding Inner Line Permit system. Politial parties should make their stand clear". Imphal, Jan 26 : Even as several civic society organisations and student outfits boycotted the Republic Day function, Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren on Saturday advised activists in the state to join politics since they plan to run a parallel Legislative assembly. Speaking at the Manipur Rifles parade ground, Biren said: "It becomes advisable to the people to study the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. If it turns out that the Bill will be against the interest of the people, our party (BJP) will lead the people in protest. We have already approached the Centre demanding to insert a clause in the interest of the people". In Manipur several civil society organisations and some students' bodies have been organising agitations demanding withdrawal of the contentious Bill. They boycotted the Republic day celebrations in Manipur. The Chief Minister said the Ministry of Home Affairs had already made it known that the provisions of the Bill, when enacted, will not be implemented without a consent from the state concerned. "Now that the assurance has been given by the Ministry, all agitations should be called off because these are impeding the progress of development in the state," said Biren. Many organisations have firmed up their stand on the Bill. On Monday they have convened a public meeting to chalk out a strategy for their demand to scrap the bill. These organizations say if people are allowed to enter India on the basis of their religion, they will swamp the indigenous people. Sunil Karam, president of United Committee Manipur said, "The Centre's move comes at a time when the people of Manipur are demanding Inner Line Permit system. Politial parties should make their stand clear". Melbourne, Jan 26 : Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic on Saturday saved three consecutive match points in the second set to make Naomi Osaka of Japan sweat a little more for a 7-6 (7-2), 5-7, 6-4 win in a nail-biting Australian Open final. The 21-year-old Osaka secured the top spot of the WTA ranking -- which will be issued on Monday -- becoming the first Japanese player ever to top the rankings since the beginning of the current ranking system in 1975 and the youngest to do so since Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark achieved that feat at the age of 20 years and 92 days in 2010, reports Efe. "Huge congrats to Petra. I've always wanted to play you. You've been through so much. Honestly, I wouldn't have wanted this to be our first match," an emotional Osaka said during the trophy ceremony. It took the 21-year-old Osaka two hours and 27 minutes and five match points to secure her second Grand Slam title in a row, following her successful 2018 US Open campaign, when she prevailed over Serena Williams of the United States. If the controversy that erupted when Williams called the chair umpire a thief cast a shadow over Osaka's maiden major title, nothing but the eagerness and the great fight by both players marked the nerve-wracking final in the Land Down Under. With her third Grand Slam title at stake and the first final of what she has called her "second career," Kvitova, who survived what seemed like a career-ending stabbing injury to her playing hand late in 2016, tried to put pressure on her opponent from the beginning. Subsequently, she created two break points in a long fifth game, which featured three deuces, but Osaka, the 2018 Indian Wells champion, served her way out of trouble as she did a game later, when she faced three consecutive break points. In the 12th game, Osaka had two set points on Kvitova's serve, but the Czech player fended off the two break points, as she did with the first chance earlier, pushing the set to a tie break. The Japanese player eased past Kvitova in the tie break, moving a set closer to score her 14th consecutive win in Grand Slam events dating back to the first round of the 2018 US Open. In the early going of the second set, Kvitova broke Osaka's first serve for a 2-0 lead in what seemed to be a timely reaction, but the Japanese player did not offer her a foothold as she proceeded to win four games in a row, two service breaks included. It was in the tenth game of the second set when Osaka had three consecutive match points as she was leading 40-0 on the Czech serve, but a fighting staged an unexpected comeback. Yet, serving for the match in the following game, Osaka was unable to deliver and won just one point as she saw her serve broken for Kvitova to draw level 5-5 in the second set. A highly-motivated Kvitova saved a break point in the following game and eased to seal the set as Osaka failed to win a point on the serve in the 12th game. Osaka pulled herself together as the third set offered her a new start and she seemed to be eager to make the most of it. After an easy hold for both players in first couple of games, Osaka, having learned from the first two sets, seized on the first break point she had to take a 2-1 lead. Once again, Osaka built on the one-service break advantage until 5-4, but this time was on her serve. Having assimilated her second-set mistakes, she capitalised on the fifth match point -- the second in a row -- to post her first win over the Czech player, who won Wimbledon twice in 2011 and 2014, in their first-ever meeting. New Delhi, Jan 26 : Air India has started flying with the logo of Mahatma Gandhi to commemorate his 150th birth anniversary later this year. Right now only two aircraft have been painted with the logo of the Father of the Nation on the left side of the fuselage and the rest of its fleet of 163 aircraft would also sport his image in due course. "The logo to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's 150 year birth anniversary was embossed on Air India's Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft last week. The two aircraft have since been operating on both domestic as well as international routes. "The plan is to have all 163 aircraft belonging to Air India, Alliance Air and Air India Express to be embossed with the logo within the next 3-months. It takes about 5-hours to get the logo embossed on an aircraft. After that it is thrust back into service," the official said." a senior Air India official told IANS here. "We will also unveil the logo on one of the Airbus aircraft during the upcoming Aero India Show to be held in February in Bengaluru," he said. Currently, Air India has 125 aircraft under its main brand which will be embossed with the logo. Besides, the Air India Group has 23 aircraft with its subsidiary Air India Express and 15 planes with Alliance Air. The airline also plans to play Gandhiji's favourite bhajans on its flights, apart from playing short videos on the Mahatma on it international flights. The government also plans to have Gandhiji's pictures on trains, metro rail, and State roadways buses. Madrid, Jan 26 : Spain, France and Germany on Saturday gave an ultimatum to embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, saying that they would recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as President unless he calls a new election within eight days. "Spain gives Nicolas Maduro eight days to call an election and if it doesn't occur, we will recognize Juan Guaido as President," said Sanchez during a press conference here. Sanchez thus became the first of the European Union's 28 heads of government to position himself before the bloc's adoption of a common stance on the ongoing legitimacy crisis in Venezuela, the BBC reported. Guaido, the 35-year-old head of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself Venezuela's acting President on Wednesday, a move that was recognized by several countries, including the US. But Maduro accused US President Donald Trump of mounting a coup and cut off diplomatic ties with Washington in response. He also said that Sanchez was "repeating the script" of Spain's former right-wing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar (1996-2004), who immediately supported the failed coup against then-President Hugo Chavez in 2002. The Spanish Prime Minister's call was soon followed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who reiterated the eight-day ultimatum in a post on Twitter. "The Venezuelan people need to be able to freely decide their future," Macron wrote. "Without announcing elections in 8 days, we could recognize Guaido as "President in charge" of Venezuela to implement said political process. We are working together with our European allies." A spokesperson of the German government issued a similar statement. The UN Security Council was expected to meet on the crisis later in the day. Maduro's opponents claim that he has "usurped" his position by being sworn into the office following a snap presidential election that he won with 67.8 per cent of the vote and the main opposition parties boycotted by calling for active abstention. In response to the crisis, Trump and the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru had announced their recognition of Guaido as Venezuela's interim President. The Chinese, Bolivian, Cuban, Iranian, Turkish and Russian governments, on the other hand, expressed their support for Maduro. Tens of thousands had taken part in anti-Maduro protests, angry at years of economic freefall. On Friday, Maduro said he was ready to talk to his rival, but Guaido rejected "fake dialogue" and said he would consider offering Maduro amnesty. Maduro has so far retained the support of the country's military, but Guaido asked them to "put themselves on the side of the Venezuelan people" and support him instead. He also called for major demonstrations demanding Maduro's resignation to be held next week. Lucknow, Jan 26 : It's a mixed bag of hope, faith and cynicism at the Congress office at the Mall Avenue here as party loyalists await both "acche din" and the arrival of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, after her appointment as the party general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls. On Saturday, as hundreds gathered at the party office to celebrate the 70th Republic Day, the mood here was upbeat, euphoric but there were words for abundant caution as party leaders said while they see "Indira Gandhi in Priyanka" there was a lots to be done. Anil Kumar Sharma, assistant permanent secretary (Organisation) who pedals more than 14-km to reach the office daily is all smiles as he says a defining moment "in the battle of truth versus lies has arrived." "Modi and the BJP fooled the people with their lofty talks and have delivered nothing. Their slogan of Congress-Mukt Bharat will never succeed and Priyanka ji will knock the daylights out of the ruling party" he mused. Ram Avtaar who runs the party canteen and has been living in the party office campus since he was two (he is now 47), is also a thumbs up for Priyanka Gandhi's entry into active politics. He says while till not long ago he sold 100 off cups of tea daily, the number has gone up to 250 ever since the high-decibel announcement was made and footfalls to the office increased. Om Prakash Rai, is a 'chowkidar' at the office. Hailing from Ballia in eastern UP, he is sure that "acche din (good days) for the party were just round the corner". However there are many like Gyas Ahmad, Santosh Gaur, Pramod Shukla, Shiv Shankar and Vishnu Avatar who are circumspect at the assessment of others. All of them were drivers and have been terminated from service a few months back due to cash crunch that the Congress was facing. "We will meet her, may be she will help." says a former party staffer. In a dimly-lit room inside the office, packed with old newspaper clippings, Arman Ahmad, a bearded 33-year-old Muslim working for the 'Seva Dal' for the past three years is however circumspect at the euphoria following Priyanka's political debut. "I am wedded to the Congress due to its secular ideology but tell me how can change come if the organisational structure continues to be so rusted as it is now" he points out. A homeopath by profession and a self-professed admirer of the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he rues how he could manage to convince a paltry 50 persons in his ward New Haiderganj in three years to join the party. "We need more visibility," he suggests. The party office here is also getting dressed up for the visit of Priyanka Gandhi, dates of which are being worked out. Camouflaged by high-rises that have cropped up in the neighbourhood, government offices and a heritage hotel on one side, the state Congress headquarters has been painted in white, the old media interaction hall has been demolished and a new, bigger one is being built with new tiles, bigger windows and new air-conditioners. The NSUI office in the campus however lies neglected. Inaugurated in 1986, the office next to a bust of Indira Gandhi has a rusted lock at its gate, which rarely opens now, says a party man. UPCC spokesman Virendra Madan downplays the renovation and makeover. "This has been going on for some months now as we try to get battle ready for the Lok Sabha challenge" Madan told IANS. (Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in) Mumbai, Jan 26 : Actress Sayani Gupta, who is playing a journalist in the "Four More Shots Please!" show, says that media is controlled by the powerful people who are using it as a propaganda machinery. Expressing concern over the current state of media, Sayani told IANS: "I am extremely worried about the state of media and journalism that has become propaganda machinery for people with power and money. Ethical journalism has really taken a backseat." "Before commencing the show's shoot, an activist, Gauri Lankesh, was brutally murdered. We all marched holding the candles in our hands and raised our voices to get justice but nothing has happened." Accordng to the 33-year-old, it is a very "sorry state where a bunch of people trying to upload truth and a scary state for people who are trying to stand by the truth". Sayani has appeared in films like "Margarita with a Straw", "Parched", "Fan", "Baar Baar Dekho", "Jab Harry Met Sejal", "Fukrey Returns" and web series like "Inside Edge" and "Kaushiki". Asked why she does not focus on increasing her visibility, she said: "Being a student of the film institute, I have watched a lot of great world cinema and I understand scripts much better. So I always go for a project that I would like to watch as an audience." "Since I am not in hurry to make my mark and I believe that I am here for a long run, I don't think much about visibility." "Four More Shots Please!" is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Gurugram, Jan 26 : A semi-decomposed body of a 25-year-old woman was recovered on Saturday from the bed storage of the house she was living in, police said. Babita's body was found after her neighbours complained following foul smell coming from the house. She used to live with her husband Rajesh, a taxi driver, in a rented house in Sector 46 area here. He is missing since Monday. "We are searching for Rajesh but it is not yet clear who is behind her murder. Further investigation is underway," police said. New Delhi, Jan 26 : An eclectic display of military might, rising women's power, tableaux depicting different aspects of Mahatma Gandhi's life and cultural performances by school children marked the celebrations of the 70th Republic Day at Rajpath here. Ahead of the parade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi drove down Rajpath to the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate where he paid homage to the Unkbown Soldier before returning to the saluting base to recieve President Ram Nath Kovind and his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, the chief guest on the ocassion. The national anthem was then played and the tricolour unfurled as a 21-gun-salute boomed. President Ram Nath Kovind honoured Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry 34th Battalion with a posthumous Ashoka Chakra, the highest peacetime military decoration, for showing utmost valour and laying down his life while fighting terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir on November 25, 2018. The solemn ceremony over, four IAF helicopters rumbled overhead, flying the tricolour and the flags of the three services and showering petals on the crowds and making for much excitment. The parade then commenced under the command of Lt General Asit Mistry, the General Officer Commanding of the Delhi Area, with his deputy, Major General Rajpal Punia, following. As in the past, the parade was led by the lancers of the 61 Cavalry in their blue and black uniforms, astride powerful steeds - the only active serving horse cavalry regiment in the world. And in a departure from tradition, right behind them came the Indian Army's Main Battle Tank (MBT), the T-90 Bhishma followed by Infantry Combat Vehicles and the track-mounted Surface Mine Clearing System (SMCS). Next up was the the newly-inducted K-9 Vajra self-propelled howitzer and the M 777 A2 Ultra Light Howitzer (ULH), which were inducted last year. Both were making their debut at the Republic Day parade. The Transportable Satellite Terminal (TST) that can transmit high quality data and is the mainstay of military communication, as also the Akash missile weapon system were the other attractions in the mechanised columns. It was then the turn of the marching contingents to take centre-stage - drawn from, among others, the Madras Regiment, the Rajputana Rifles, the Sikh Regiment, the Gorkha Brigade, the Army Service Corps, the Territorial Army and the Veteran Tableau that showed retired Army personnel of the age of 95 years. In between them was the massed band of the Sikh Light Infantry, the Mahar Regimental Centre and Ladakh Scouts, playing the tune 'Shankhnaad', also for the first time in the parade. The focus then shifted to the Indian Navy contingent, comprising 144 young sailors led by Lt Commander Ambika Sudhakarn that gave a cracking salute to President Kovind, the Supreme Commander of the Indian armed forces. The naval tableau depicted the combat potential of the multi-dimensional Indian Navy of the 21st century. The Indian Air Force marching contingent also consisted of 144 air warriors. It was followed by a tableau showcasing scaled-down models of aircraft, radar and missile system which have been indigenously designed and manufactured. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) displayed its Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) developed in collaboration with Israel and and Armoured Recovery and Repair Vehicle mounted on the chassis of an indegenously-developed Arjun MBT. In a powerful statement of empowerment, the all-women's contingent of the Assam Rifles, another first at the parade, was led by Major Khushboo Kanwar. Among the other marching contingents were those of the Indian Coast Guard, Central Reserve Police Force, Railway Protection Force, Delhi Police, the National Cadet Corps and the National Service Scheme. The Border Security Force Camel Contingent - the world's only such unit - and their band playing "Hum hai Seema Suraksha Bal" raised quite a cheer. Twenty-two tableaux, comprising 16 from different states and Union Territories and six ministries, departments and other institutions, displaying the life, times and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi moved on the Rajpath. The Indian Army's Daredevils team received a standing ovation as it roared down Rajpath on powerfull motorcycles, displaying various formations like Yoga, Suryanamaskar, Signal Fighter, Murkey Peak, Video Conferencing on wheel, Tivra Chokas Commando, Lotus and Human Pyramid. Not surprisingly, a special cheer was reserved for Captai Sikha Surbhi, the Indian Army's first female stunt rider. Providing the grand finale was the flypast led by the Rudra Advanced Light Helicopter Weapon System Integrated (WSI) and two Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters of Army Aviation Corps in a 'Diamond' formation. The IAF's Su-30 MKI than enthralled the audience with a Vertical Charlie, zooming up into the sky and disappearing from sight. Baloons were released and the national anthem was played to mark the culmination of the 90-minute ceremony. Subsequently, Soon after the President and the chief guest left. At the end, the Prime Minister, as like previous years, walked down the road a few metres on Rajpath waiving towards the crowds before he boarded his car. New Delhi, Jan 26 : The melodious 'Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram' wafted through the air on Saturday as the Delhi tableau, among 21 others, rode past a sea of onlookers and thousands of heads swayed to the uplifting music at the 70th Republic Day Parade on Rajpath -- an event VVIPs, commoners and security personnel unanimously declared to be a 'parade of pride'. "I grew up admiring their uniform and the immense responsibility it brings. Republic Day is truly the day for which a policeman wears the 'vardi' (uniform) with extra pride," Tej Singh, a Delhi Home Guard, told IANS, smiling proudly and bringing back to mind the 21-gun salute that marked the beginning of the parade an hour earlier. Currently in his 10th year of service, Singh said that he has only seen the parade thrice, when he was deployed inside one of the enclosures. Posted on duty as early as 3 a.m. on Saturday for the 10 a.m. parade, he said he revelled in the enthusiasm of the audience. Despite the early morning winter chill, enthusiasts thronged the venue in their thousands for the perfect family day-out -- with even the children bundled up in woollens to beat the cold. Long queues outside each entry gate, tight security arrangements, and closure of roads and nearby Metro stations do not deter the 'Delhiwallahs' and others who flocked to Rajpath for the annual jamboree. "People start trickling in from 6 a.m., and even before -- such is the excitement," said Ram, an auto rickshaw driver, who couldn't make it to Rajpath but said gleefully: "I saw the full dress rehearsal (on January 23)." "Pride connects us all", was how a Class 12 student put it. For the security personnel involved in the event, the parade is a mater of national pride. "Nothing can go wrong. Even after returning to my room at 12 midnight yesterday, I was back on duty at 4 a.m. It's our national festival and I am proud to serve," a senior police officer told IANS, lauding the innumerable backstage enablers of an event that connects millions of citizens - be it in person or on television. The images from the parade will remain forever etched in the mind as will the loud cheers that rent the air as the cavalcade of President Ram Nath Kovind and his visiting South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa (the chief guest on the ocassion) and before that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled down Rajpath. With this year's Republic Day parade themed on Mahatma Gandhi in the 150th year of his birth, there was much more showcased than military might and an impressive flypast of fighter jets. Each of the 22 tableaux - 16 from various Indian states and six from central ministries and departments - provided an episodic slice from the life of the Father of the Nation. Maharashtra presented the Quit India Movement while Punjab touched the raw nerve of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre a 100 years ago. Retelling India's struggle for independence the tableaux left many teary-eyed reminding them of a bloody battles fought by our forefathers, a common past that binds us all. Elizabeth, a science educator at a school in south Delhi's Chattarpur, adored the Goa tableau. "It had bits of Christianity, bits of Hinduism and other religions. That's the composite culture we have in India," she told IANS, while enjoying the parade under the bright sun. Another regular visitor said the parade left her with feelings she could not put into words. "You really have to come here to experience it yourself," she said. The parade, a grand success as always, came to a close with a sea of people making their way out. "Please take back your powerbanks, chargers and other items" called out the voices of dutiful police officers who had thoroughly frisked each visitor on the way in. One thing is for sure: many of the vast multitude would again make their way back next year. Such is the patriotism that the parade stirs. (Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in) New Delhi, Jan 26 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi will be visiting South Africa on the invitation of President Cyril Ramaphosa who was the chief guest at the 70th Republic Day parade here on Saturday. A Congress delegation led by Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Ramaphosa, also the President of African National Congress (ANC). President Ramaphosa invited Rahul Gandhi to visit South Africa and the invitation was accepted, Congress said. Details are being worked out by the foreign affairs departments of the two parties, the party said. Both the parties share century-old historic ties, and leaders had a discussion on party-to-party, regional and global issues. "President Ramaphosa lauded India's role in the fight against Apartheid. Both, ANC president and Rahul Gandhi reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two fraternal parties," the party said. Ramaphosa arrived in the capital on Friday for a two-day visit. Lucknow, Jan 26 : Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday welcomed the appointment of Priyanka Gandhi as a Congress General Secretary. Talking to reporters after hoisting the national flag at the Janeshwar Mishra Park here, he said he was happy that the Congress too was promoting new leaders. Yadav's remarks came three days after Priyanka Gandhi's appointment as General Secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. He expressed the hope that this decision will strengthen the Congress in Uttar Pradesh at the grassroots level. "We socialists are always happy when new people are introduced in politics," he said. The 45-year-old, however, parried questions on the possibility of possible friendship with the Congress. The Samajwadi Party recently sealed an electoral alliance with one-time arch rival BSP, leaving the Congress out in the cold. Chennai, Jan 26 : Opposition party leaders on Saturday urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami to hold talks with the protesting state government employees and teachers rather than resorting to measures like arrests or appointing new teachers. Recalling the strong measures taken by late Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa against government employees when they struck work years ago, DMK President M.K. Stalin said in a statement that this had resulted in her AIADMK party losing power at the time. Instead, Palaniswami should talk to the members of the Joint Action Committee of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisation and Government Employees Organisation (JACTTO-GEO) who are on strike in support of their various demands. The government decided to crackdown on the protests by arresting the office bearers of the two organisations. Tamil Nadu State CPI Secretary R. Mutharasan said measures like appointment of temporary teachers will not help in resolving the issues. Condemning the arrests of JACTTO-GEO leaders, Mutharasan urged the government to release them and hold talks. Aizawl, Jan 26 : The 70th Republic Day celebrations in Mizoram on Saturday were low key as a NGO organised demonstrations across the state in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. On Friday, the NGO Coordination Committee (NCC) announced that it would boycott the Republic Day celebrations "to protest the passing of the Bill in the Lok Sabha". NCC activists demonstrated near the Assam Rifles ground here where Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan unfurled the national flag and addressed a very small gathering. "In response to the boycott call, the members of the public did not participate in any Republic Day event in the state. However, there were no reports of any untoward incident," a police official said. Earlier, Chief Minister Zoramthanga threatened to sever ties with the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) if the Centre does not withdraw the Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to migrants from six non-Muslim minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The ruling Mizo National Front party is a constituent of the BJP-led NEDA. Kolkata, Jan 26 : West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi unfurled the tricolour and took the ceremonial salute as the state celebrated the 70th Republic Day on Saturday. Amidst stringent security, Tripathi inspected a guard of honour and unfurled the Indian flag as the national anthem reverberated across the arterial Indira Gandhi Sarani to kickstart a colourful parade. Units from the Army, Navy and Air Force took part in the parade displaying sophisticated weapons in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her ministerial colleagues, Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay, senior bureaucrats, police officers and members of the diplomatic corps. Several contingents of the Kolkata and West Bengal Police, Border Security Force, traffic sergeants, fire brigade, and NCC Cadets also participated. School students presented brief but highly interesting cultural road shows. Earlier in a tweet, Mamata Banerjee called for cherishing the "idea of India" for which freedom fighters had laid down their lives to end colonial rule. "Our people and our great institutions must strive to remain 'independent"', in the true sense of the word," she said. The national flag was hoisted at various union and state government offices, and political party headquarters to mark the day. Mount Maunganui : , Jan 26 (IANS) Maintaining their winning streak, a dominant India outclassed New Zealand by 90 runs in the second match of the five-game rubber at the Bay Oval here on Saturday to go 2-0 up in the series. After the Indian openers -- Rohit Sharma (87) and Shikhar Dhawan (66) handed a solid start to the visiting side, chinaman Kuldeep Yadav (4/45) starred with the leather to help India register a thumping win. Chasing a challenging 325 for victory, the hosts suffered another batting collapse as most of their batsmen succumbed before a clinical Indian attack. The Indian bowlers struck at regular intervals, denying the Kiwi batsmen to build any big partnership. Bowling all-rounder Doug Bracewell chipped in valuable 57 runs down the order however, it wasn't enough to help the Kiwis cross the line. Bhuvneshwar Kumar came with an early breakthrough, dismissing Kiwi opener Martin Guptill (15) cheaply before Mohammed Shami packed back hosts' skipper Kane Williamson (20) with New Zealand's scorecard reading 51/2 in the eighth over. With the addition of 33 runs in the Kiwi scorecard, leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal also joined the party, sending back a good looking Colin Munro (31). Just when the hosts touched the three-digit mark, Kedhar Jadav worsened New Zealand's situation after dismissing Ross Taylor (22), who was stumped by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Tom Latham (34) then tried to rescue his side but became Kuldeep's victim in the 25th over. The chinaman then struck thrice in quick succession, sending back Colin de Grandhomme (3), Henry Nicholls (28) and Ish Sodhi, who failed to open his account, with New Zealand at 166/8. Bracewell restored some respectablity for the hosts, smashing a 46-ball 57 to take New Zealand past the 200-run mark. The all-rounder's firework was decoarted with five boundaries and three hits into the stands. Bhuvneshwar finally applied brakes on Bracewell's innings as the batsman, while trying to clear the fence, handed an easy catch to Dhawan at long-on. Chahal put the final nail in the coffin, dismissing Lockie Ferguson (12) as India registered a thumping 90-run win. Earlier, a brilliant batting display helped India put a challenging 324/4 against the Kiwis. Opener Rohit and Dhawan were the top contributors with individual scores of 87 and 66 respectively. Opting to bat, India were off to a perfect start, thanks to the openers, who forged a crucial 154 runs for the first wicket before Kiwi pacer Trent Boult gave some relief to his side, dismissing Dhawan in the 26th over. Ferguson struck soon, packing back a well-settled Rohit with India's scorecard reading 172/2. Skipper Virat Kohli (43) and Ambati Rayudu (47) were then involved in a 64-run partnership for the third wicket. Boult gave the visitors a major blow as a thick edge off Kohli was caught at fine-led by Sodhi. Rayudu was then joined by Dhoni (48 not out) as the two steadily lifted India near the 300-run mark before the former fell to Ferguson in the 46th over. Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav's (22 not out off 10 balls) fireworks then accelerated the run-rate, taking India to a good total of 324/4 in the allotted 50 overs. For New Zealand, Boult and Ferguson picked two wickets each, conceding 61 and 81 runs respectively. Brief score: India 324/4 (Rohit Sharma 87, Shikhar Dhawan 66; Trent Boult 2/61) beat New Zealand 234 all out (Doug Bracewell 57, Tom Latham 34; Kuldeep Yadav 4/45) by 90 runs. Space News space history and artifacts articles Messages space history discussion forums Sightings worldwide astronaut appearances Resources selected space history documents advertisements 'Apollo 11' lands at Sundance with never-before-seen mission footage January 25, 2019 Attendees at this year's Sundance Film Festival are getting a first look at never-before-seen footage from the first moon landing mission. Billed as "a cinematic event fifty years in the making," director Todd Douglas Miller's "Apollo 11" premiered Thursday (Jan. 24) as one of the festival's opening night films. The 93-minute documentary, presented by Neon and CNN Films, was crafted from a newly-discovered trove of large-format, 65mm footage and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings to provide a new look of one of the most iconic and historic moments in human history. Disclosure: The author of this article, collectSPACE.com editor Robert Pearlman, served as the historical consultant on "Apollo 11." "'Apollo 11' tells the story of Apollo 11, the mission, in a direct cinema way," said Miller in an interview with collectSPACE. "The intention was to make an art film out of all of the archival materials that we had available." "We've jokingly called it 'Dunkirk' in space, but it is a good parallel of the narrative arc of the story in that you're dropped right into mission, right before the launch, and it ends with the astronauts returning home. It's really a fly-on-the-wall, direct cinema experience," said Miller. The film relies entirely on archival footage and audio to tell the story of the July 1969 Apollo 11 mission, which landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on moon while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit. Miller and his team collaborated with NASA and the National Archives (NARA) to locate all of the existing footage from the Apollo 11 mission. In the course of sourcing all of the known imagery, NARA staff members made a discovery that changed the course of the project an unprocessed collection of 65mm footage, never before seen by the public. Unbeknownst to even the NARA archivists, the reels contained wide format scenes of the Saturn V launch, the inside of the Launch Control Center and post-mission activities aboard the USS Hornet aircraft carrier. The find resulted in the project evolving from one of only filmmaking to one of also film curation and historic preservation. The resulting transfer from which the documentary was cut is the highest resolution, highest quality digital collection of Apollo 11 footage in existence. "We knew that the clock was ticking, this material had been sitting around for 50 years," said Miller, commenting on the motivation behind the film scanning effort. The other unexpected find was a massive cache of audio recordings more than 11,000 hours comprising the individual tracks from 60 members of the Mission Control team. "Apollo 11" film team members wrote code to restore the audio and make it searchable and then began the multi-year process of listening to and documenting the recordings. The effort yielded new insights into key events of the moon landing mission, as well as surprising moments of humor and camaraderie. "Much of the footage in 'Apollo 11' is, by virtue of both access and proper preservation, utterly breathtaking," wrote The Hollywood Reporter's Daniel Fienberg in his review of the film. "The sense of scale, especially in the opening minutes, sets the tone as [the] rocket is being transported to the launch pad and resembles nothing so much as a scene from 'Star Wars' only with the weight and grandeur that come from 6.5 million pounds of machinery instead of CG." Thursday's premiere brought together Miller with the members of his production team, including producers Thomas Petersen and Evan Krauss, composer Matt Morton, archival producer Stephen Slater and technical consultant Ben Feist. Rick Armstrong, son of the late Neil Armstrong, joined the filmmakers on the red carpet at the Park City, Utah event. Neon is planning a theatrical run for "Apollo 11" later this spring (a date for the release is expected soon), with a giant screen release for museums and science centers in May, followed by CNN airing a version of the documentary closer to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission this summer. Todd Douglas Miller's new documentary "Apollo 11," presented by Neon and CNN Films, premiered on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019 at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (Neon/CNN Films) Stephen Slater, Matt Morton, Rick Armstrong, Robert Pearlman, Ben Feist, Todd Douglas Miller, Thomas Petersen, Eric Milano and Bryan Elmer attend the "Apollo 11" premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (Cassidy Sparrow/Getty) A costume Apollo astronaut poses with the audience during the "Apollo 11" premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. (Cassidy Sparrow/Getty) 2021 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved. Bengaluru, Jan 26 : Karnataka on Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with pomp and pageantry marking the patriotic fervour across the state. In the state capital, Governor Vajubhai Vala unfurled the tricolour at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw parade ground in the city centre. An Army helicopter showered rose petals, welcoming the dignitaries and the public at the venue before the Governor hoisted the national flag. About 5,000 people, including women and children, flocked to the ground to celebrate the event and witness the colourful march past and cultural programmes, including songs and dances on patriotic themes. After the military band rendered the National Anthem on a chilly morning under a partly cloudy sky, Vala inspected the guard of honour by the men and women of the three services and the state police. About 20 contingents of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the state and central police forces, National Cadet Corps (NCC) and Bharat Scouts and Guides participated in the parade and received the salute from the Governor. The contingents were led by parade commander Major Prashanth Thapa and the second-in-command, Major Amit Choudhary. The state's anthem, penned by Padma Vibhushan poet Kuvempu, was also played in Kannada. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, cabinet ministers, legislators, officials and city Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun attended the event. In a 20-minute Republic Day address in Hindi, the Governor highlighted the vision and achievements of the southern state over the past four years since he assumed office in 2014. "Four years ago, when I delivered my first Republic Day address from the very same dais, I expressed hope that Karnataka would overcome many challenges and be on the path of progress," said Vala. After the military and police bands played patriotic songs, the audience was treated to an hour-long cultural programme. About 2,000 boys and girls from state-run schools and junior colleges in the city enacted patriotic and cultural shows, including one on the 1999 Kargil War (Kargil katha) and "Our India and Bright India" (Namma Bharatha, Bhavya Bharatha). Dog squads of the military and state police were the star attraction, drawing huge applause from the audience. The R-Day fete also included the sport of tent-pegging, a cavalry game involving edged weapons. Hundreds of enthusiastic members of the audience cheered as trained personnel rode the horses in the ground. Mule trick riding and room intervention display by para troops of the Indian Army personnel enthralled the viewers. Songs celebrating the state's farmers (raitha geethe) were sung during the event. The Governor later presented the "Sarvotham Seva" awards to few state government employees for their dedication and service. Through his Republic Day message to the state earlier, the Chief Minister said everyone must work to strengthen the democracy. "Karnataka is the proud state where the concept of democracy was introduced during pre-Independence era itself by Mysore Wodeyars (erstwhile rulers of Mysore). Let us understand, respect and strengthen the value of democracy," Kumaraswamy had said. According to reports from districts across the state, the day was celebrated with gaiety and patriotic fervour after the chief guests hoisted the national flag and impressive parades were held. Mumbai, Jan 26 : In an unprecedented gesture, India on Saturday accorded the status of 'Special Guests' to Mauritius Prime Minister P.K. Jugnauth and his wife Kobita at the Republic Day celebrations here, official sources said. The Jugnauth couple witnessed the unfurling of the National Tricolour by Maharashtra Governor C.V. Rao, inspection of the ceremonial parade and other events that were held at the state function held in Shivaji Park. An official said that usually India hosts a foreign head of state or government or royalty as Chief Guest at the Republic Day function in New Delhi. However, this time, the Mauritius PM was in India for the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2019 and later on an official trip to Mumbai where he had a series of programmes to attend. "The Government of India suggested they should be invited as 'Special Guests' at the function here," an official requesting anonymity told IANS. Present with the visiting dignitaries and Rao were Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagade, Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, diplomatic corps stationed in Mumbai and other senior officers. Later, Rao delivered his official address highlighting the state's achievements in different sectors. Disciplined columns of Indian Navy, Indian Coast Guard, Central Industrial Security Force, SRPF, Mumbai Police, Riot Control Police, Women Police, Railway Police, Traffic Police, Fire Brigade, BMC Security Forces, Forest Department, NSS, NCC, RSP, Bharat Scouts & Guides, bands of various forces and others presented a march past on the occasion. Floats of various departments were taken out on the occasion. Special functions were also held at other central and state government departments, including Central Railway, Western Railway, Konkan Railway, district collectorates, schools, colleges and housing complexes. Jammu, Jan 26 : In the aftermath of ceasefire violation by Pakistan on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Saturday, the Indian Army cancelled the traditional exchange of sweets between the two armies to mark India's Republic Day. A Defence Ministry source told IANS: "There will be no exchange of sweets between the two armies at Chakan Da Bagh crossing point on LoC in Poonch district." Traditionally, each year on January 26 and August 15, the two armies exchange greetings and sweets on the LoC in Poonch district. Lucknow, Jan 26 : Three persons, including an infant, were killed on Saturday in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh after the roof of their house collapsed following incessant rains, police said. The incident took place in Baanpur village. The deceased were identified as Chandrabhan (34), his wife Pramila (30) and their six-month-old son Satish. Their 8-year-old daughter Semal and another person were injured, a police official told IANS. Is Priyanka Vadra The Brahmastra of Rahul Gandhi directed only at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or is one of the Congress president's targets also the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) combine in Uttar Pradesh? While the BJP is obviously the Congress's main adversary, politics in India can rarely be depicted in black and white. There are shades of grey which blur the outlines of friends and foes. There is little doubt that the Congress was miffed by the peremptory decision of the SP and the BSP to treat Uttar Pradesh as an exclusive bailiwick of their own by keeping out the Congress from their own state-level mini-gathbandhan by allotting the 134-year party only two seats out of 80 for the forthcoming general election. The blow of the exclusion could have been softened by a few kind words, as the SP's Akhilesh Yadav subsequently did by expressing his "respect" for Rahul Gandhi. But the BSP's Mayawati was unduly harsh as she has been ever since she abruptly broke off the seat-sharing talks with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Following the uncalled for snub in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress vowed to contest all the 80 seats in the state. Priyanka Vadra's appointment as the party's general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh (Jyotiraditya Scindia has been chosen for the western half) may well be related to the extra effort which the Congress will have to put in to make its presence felt in a state where it hasn't fared well for a decade. It goes without saying that the SP-BSP combine will not be too pleased with a reinvigorated Congress taking the field because there is little doubt that the Congress cadres will be greatly enthused by the formal induction of a charismatic scion of the party's first family for whom they have long been waiting. Will this stirring at the ground level induce the SP-BSP combine to take a fresh look at its virtual hogging of the seats by taking 75 of them - SP 37, BSP 38, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) three and the Congress two? At the moment, the SP, the BSP and the RLD expect that they have an unbreachable support base of backward castes, jatavs and jats. Now, they will expect a revived Congress to wean away the upper castes from the BJP, thereby securing a foolproof winning caste arithmetic for the "secular" parties. But it is also possible that a three-way division of votes between the SP-BSP-RLD, the Congress and the BJP will help the latter, especially if the Muslim votes are divided between the SP-BSP-RLD and the Congress. In addition, Rahul Gandhi's assertion that the Congress will not be playing on the back foot, which is already evident from the party's decision to have no truck with the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, means that the claims about fielding one "secular" candidate against the BJP in each constituency will not come true in some states. As a result, the dampening effect on the talk of a national-level mahagathbandhan is easy to imagine. Priyanka Vadra's entry, therefore, can have an unsettling effect which may not always be beneficial for the Congress in the matter of winning friends and influencing people. However, the political energy which she is likely to infuse into the Congress with her communication skills and a lively, empathetic interaction with the crowds can bolster her brother's claims to be the Prime Minister. Already, Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has echoed DMK leader M.K. Stalin's call for making Rahul Gandhi the "secular" combine's prime ministerial face. This turn of events will not please either the Trinamool Congress's Mamata Banerjee - Kumaraswamy has said that he was misquoted about making her the PM - or the BSP's Mayawati. While these rumbles among the secularists will please the BJP, it will also have to take note of its ally, the Shiv Sena's observation that Priyanka Vadra's entry into big time politics is in keeping with the achhe din (good days) which have come for the Congress ever since it won the three assembly elections in north and central India. While one Shiv Sena spokesperson reiterated the commonly articulated resemblance between Indira Gandhi and her granddaughter, another noted the "rishta" (relationship) which the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has had with the people of India. It is a stance which is diametrically opposite to the BJP's constant criticism of the Congress dynastism and the supposed political and economic follies of Jawaharlal Nehru and his progenies. Since the BJP is dependent on Narendra Modi's oratorical skills, it cannot but be wary of Priyanka Vadra's forays in this field since she may present a kind of challenge which the BJP hasn't faced in the last four-and-a-half years. The BJP will also carefully watch Priyanka Vadra's capacity to attract crowds to see whether she matches Nehru's and Indira Gandhi's magnetism. What the national opposition has lacked so far is a leader who can take on Modi on his own terms in the matter of eloquence and popular appeal since Rahul Gandhi, by his own admission, never quite measured up to these exacting demands. Now the scales are more evenly balanced. (Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com) Abu Dhabi, Jan 26 : Hundreds of Indian expats from across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) celebrated their country's 70th Republic Day at the Consulate General of India (CGI) in Dubai on Saturday. The tri-colour was hoisted by the Consul General of India to Dubai, Vipul, at the CGI as residents and visitors sang patriotic songs and took pictures alongside the Indian flag, the Khaleej Times reported. After the flag-hoisting ceremony, Vipul greeted people gathered at the Consulate and read out Indian President Ram Nath Kovind's speech to the nation. The Consul General also honoured the two war heroes and parents of war martyrs who presided over the ceremony. "We are honoured to have the war heroes and parents of war martyrs in our midst," Vipul said. Children and adults decked in traditional wear were seen waving miniature Indian flags and celebrating the occasion. After the surprising state assembly results of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the upcoming interim Budget is quite unlikely to be a traditional vote-on-account. It is a common election-year convention that the Budget presented by the outgoing government is delivered with the intention of securing the parliament's approval for the expenses that are to be incurred until a new government assumes power. However, after the precarious position of the government in the recent elections, the Budget might be more populist in nature. An issue that will gain particular prominence is the persistent problem of farm distress. The problems ailing the agricultural sector are only growing in magnitude as each year passes by and it has become a pressing issue that is affecting a majority of the country's population. However, little has been done to find a long-term solution to the crisis. Instead, it has often been used as a tool to win elections by promising farm loan waivers. Since April 2017, eight states have given farm loan waivers, which have amounted to a staggering total of Rs 1.9 lakh crore (two-thirds the defence budget for 2018-19). Rahul Gandhi has even promised a nation-wide farm loan waiver if the Congress is voted to power in the upcoming general elections. By all means, farm loans waivers are a poor move to address the farming distress effectively. First, it impacts a significantly low segment of agricultural households. As per NABARD data, only 43.5 per cent of households took loans between July 2015 and June 2016. Among these households, 69.7 per cent of them took institutional loans. This implies that, as a percentage of total agricultural households, about 30 per cent (69.7 multiplied by 43.5) of agricultural households took institutional loans. Loan waivers would benefit only this segment of the population leaving 70 per cent of the farming community out of its ambit. Second, moves like farm loan waivers stretch government finances and have an adverse impact on the fiscal health of the economy. India has consistently missed its fiscal targets and can ill-afford to continue to do so. When government funds are diverted to cater to such demands, it leaves little for developmental purposes. Third, loan waivers also have a damning impact on the credit culture of the country. An eventual assurance by the state to waive loans creates a classic problem of a moral hazard where the borrowers have no incentive to meet their commitments. More robust measures are needed to overhaul the crisis-ridden agricultural sector. Any attempt to use minimum support price (MSP) as a means of resolution also prove problematic as it only distorts markets and results in overflowing government stocks that cannot be afforded without incurring excessive losses. Moreover, MSP operations only benefit the large farmers who have marketable surplus - excluding a majority of the agricultural community. Amidst all these instances of economic inefficiency, a few states are trying out innovative ways of reaching the maximum proportion of farm population. The Telangana government, for instance, is attempting income and investment support to farmers through its Rythu Bandhu Scheme (RBS), wherein it transfers Rs 4,000 per acre to every farmer in the state. This is done twice a year to coincide with the two cropping seasons. The cash support helps farmers with their input purchases. The scheme has proven to be more successful than either of the aforementioned practices. It has reached more than 90 percent of the landowners in the state. The Telangana scheme is, however, solely focused on landed farmers while neglecting tenants. The Odisha government has gone a step further with its Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme. Under this, the state has promised to make one-time payments to tenants and agricultural labourers. The only challenge will be to effectively identify the latter two categories as no legal records exist. Nevertheless, such attempts are the best bet to resolve the agricultural crisis in India as they create the least amount of market distortions and are also economically efficient as the scope of leakages and corruption is minimised if the challenge of identification is overcome. An ICRIER-OECD study on Indian agricultural policies released last year estimated the market distortions created due to interventionist and restrictive policies depresses producer prices below international market levels. As a result, the gross farm revenues fall by over 6 per cent per year on an average. Such policies, therefore, implicitly tax the Indian farmer. The Modi government has an opportunity to move away from the status quo in the upcoming Budget by enforcing solutions that can infuse structural transformations of the Indian farmland. Until India reforms its arcane agricultural policies that have been driven by short-termism, the age-old problem of the distressed Indian farmer cannot be resolved. At least now we have actionable policy choices in sight that seem to be working in the Indian context. (Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness. He can be contacted at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya. Chirag Yadav, senior researcher, Institute for Competitiveness, has contributed to the article) Kabul, Jan 26 : At least four people were killed and 20 others injured in a blast that targeted a volleyball match in Afghanistan's Baghlan province, an official said on Saturday. "Hundreds of people were watching the match on Friday evening when a blast rocked the ground in Tala-o-Barfak district," an official told Xinhua news agency. No terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack. United Nations, Jan 26 : India has questioned the rush at the UN to declare climate change an international security issue, potentially giving the Security Council the right to take action on it, and pointed out the pitfalls in the approach. A "mere decision of the Council" to takeover enforcement of climate change action would disrupt the Paris Agreement and multilateral efforts to find solutions, India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin told the Security Council on Friday. India has been wary of the Council's mission creep as it tries to extend its reach beyond what is allocated in the UN Charter by redefining other issues, even as it struggles to fulfil its primary functions. Taking aim at the composition of the Council that does not reflect the contemporary world, Akbaruddin asked: "Can the needs of climate justice be served by shifting climate law-making from the inclusive UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) to decision-making by a structurally unrepresentative institution with an exclusionary approach decided in secretive deliberations?" He said the main point of contention "is about what manner, which aspects and which global governance mechanisms are best suited to tackle these phenomena" and India favoured a cautious approach. The Council was discussing the impact of climate-related disasters on international peace and security after the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, said the trends of heat waves, heavier rain events, higher sea levels and severe damage to agriculture "represent a security risk for the entire world". "The relationship between climate-related risks and conflict is complex and often intersects with political, social, economic and demographic factors," she said. Akbaruddin pointed out that the UNFCC had found that "the evidence on the effect of climate change and variability on violence is contested". Making climate change an international security issue, he said "may help heighten public awareness. It may even help in surmounting opposition. But securitisation also carries significant downsides". Taking a security approach brings "overly militarised solutions to problems, which inherently require non-military responses". "It brings the wrong actors to the table. As the saying goes, 'If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail'." Akbaruddin questioned if climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies could be carried out by enforcement actions of the Council as it was supposed to do with terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Would those who fail to their obligations under the Paris Agreement to cut their emissions or fail to provide obligatory financing for climate change programmes be be held accountable for climate change, he asked. The US, a permanent member of the Council, has pulled out of the Paris Agreement and has cut back on aid for countering climate change. Akbaruddin said that India supports cooperation and action that are consistent with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities to prevent and address serious disasters linked to climate. (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis) MINAS GERAIS (BRAZIL), Jan. 25, 2019 (Xinhua) -- A vehicle is seen submerged after the collapse of a dam in Brumadinho Municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on Jan. 25, 2019. About 200 people were missing after a tailings da Image Source: IANS News MINAS GERAIS (BRAZIL), Jan. 25, 2019 (Xinhua) -- A building is seen destroyed after the collapse of a dam in Brumadinho Municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on Jan. 25, 2019. About 200 people were missing after a tailings d Image Source: IANS News Brasilia, Jan 26 : A dam collapse at an iron-ore me southeast Brazil has left at least seven people dead and some 150 others missg, officials say. The break caused a sea of muddy sludge to spread across rural areas of Brumadho, Mas Gerais state, buryg buildgs and vehicles on Friday, the BBC reported. It is not clear what caused the dam, owned by Brazil's largest mg company, Vale, to break. Many of those missg were workers who were havg lunch the dam's cafeteria that was buried by the sludge. The dam near the Feijao iron ore me burst its barrier at around lunchtime, floodg another dam down below. Leaked tailgs from the me spread to the nearby community of Vila Forteco, close to Brumadho. Residents low-lyg areas have been evacuated. Emergency teams rescued scores of trapped people by helicopter," Brumadho Mayor Avimar de Melo said, addg, "We do not have more details because everythg is happeng very fast." "Our ma worry now is to quickly fd out where the missg people are," he told television channel GloboNews. Some 100 rescuers are searchg for the missg with 100 more expected to jo them on Saturday, the BBC said. On Twitter, President Jair Bolsonaro called it a "serious tragedy" and said he would visit the region later on Saturday. The misters for the Environment, Mes and Energy, and Regional development have already set off to the scene. Built 1976, the dam was one of several the area and it was used to hold residue from the me. With a capacity of 12 million cubic metre the site has been lyg active for three years, accordg to Vale. It is not yet known how much waste was released. The accident comes just over three years sce a dam burst another town Mas Gerais, killg 19 people. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:39 pm Most public high school biology students would be forgiven for thinking they had mistakenly wandered into a college-level lab when entering W.F. Wests STEM wing. For many of us, high school biology brings to mind mostly book-based assignments, and perhaps some lab work with slides and microscopes. The lucky among us (or unlucky, depending on your perspective) learned about anatomy through dissections. But W.F. West science students are light years past formaldehyde-soaked frogs. Last year, senior Ashlynn Gallagher created an innovative test strip for the Zika virus in the schools lab, earning her accolades at an international science and engineering fair in California. This year, students Dawson Brindle, Noah Layton and Rubilynn Saranchuk are conducting experiments on influenza vaccines and treatment, the effects of blue light from electronic devices on our bodies and a bioprinter to help burn victims. Theyll soon have one more tool to aid their endeavors CRISPR technology that allows them to edit portions of genes. Students in Chehalis a small school district in a rural area stack up amongst the most promising in the country, and its because of the investment the community has made in their future. Thats not to say these arent gifted students to begin with, or that there isnt just something in the water in Chehalis, but without the investment of the community including the Chehalis Foundation, the school district and state legislators who helped secure funding for the wing these students ambitions could have been stymied. The STEM Wing a 16,000 square-foot addition to the high school featuring six labs, two science classrooms, three lab prep rooms, a cell culture room and a separate room for its scanning electron microscope, according to past Chronicle reporting was funded with a $5.5 million grant from the state. The Chehalis Foundation and other donors fund the continuing operations and new equipment for the labs, including CRISPR. Teacher Wendy Neal, who runs the advanced molecular genetics class, told The Chronicle the Chehalis Foundation and school board have been very supportive. Whatever she wants to do, were going to do it, W.F. West Assistant Principal Tommy Elder told The Chronicle. ... She is the most amazing educator that I have had a chance to work with. She is committed to her kids and really pushing what we can do in a high school and the technology that kids have access to. The program is certainly getting results, and is giving kids our future leaders access to the best education they can get. We should all be proud of what they are achieving. United Nations, Jan 26 : Global greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise to record levels in 2018-2019, the chief economist of World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has told United Nations Security Council (UNSC). "Global average greenhouse gas concentrations of CO2 (carbon dioxide) reached 405.5 parts per million in 2017 and continue to rise to record levels in 2018-2019," Professor Pavel Kabat was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency on Friday. "The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3 million to 5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now." The past four years have been the warmest on record, with many high-impact weather events which bear the hallmarks of climate change. The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years. The global average temperature is nearly 1 degree Celcius above the pre-industrial era, said Kabat in the WMO's first ever briefing to the Security Council. He noted that the World Economic Forum taking place in Davos, Switzerland, has put extreme weather, natural disasters, climate change and water crises as the top four existential threats in its Global Risks Report 2019. These show significant interconnections with other shocks and impacts to peace and security and sustainable development, he said. Research by the WMO and its partners and network of scientists shows that sea level rise is accelerating, as is the melting of polar ice sheets, posing an increasing existential threat to small island developing countries, said Kabat. The shrinking of Arctic sea ice affects not just the local environment and indigenous peoples, but also influences weather patterns in the world's populated regions. Glacier melt continues unchecked, with short-term impacts including increased flooding and a long-term threat to water supplies for many millions of people. Ocean heat content is also at record levels, with far-reaching, lasting consequences for marine life, coral reefs and food security, he said. Climate change has a multitude of security impacts, rolling back the gains in nutrition and access to food, heightening the risk of wildfires and exacerbating air quality challenges, increasing the potential for water conflict, leading to more internal displacement and migration, warned Kabat. "It is increasingly regarded as a national security threat." He expressed the hope for closer collaboration and for the establishment of mechanisms for future briefings to the Security Council "to provide authoritative information for decision-making and support the diplomatic business of the council in areas appropriate to the understanding and analysis of peace and security threats." The WMO is honoured to support UN member states and the Security Council in the provision of top-quality information on weather, climate, water and environment-related threats to peace and security, he said. Kabat said there is a need for a new political and investment paradigm to build a new generation of hydro-climate forecasting and early-warning services. "This should become a component of basic country-infrastructure, like roads and bridges," he said. Mumbai, Jan 25 : The Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute (KDAH), among the top multispecialty healthcare institutes, celebrated the completion of 10 years of redefining healthcare services in India, here on Friday. KDAH Chairperson Tina Ambani and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan were among those present on the momentous red-letter day. "In the past 10 years we have committed ourselves to transforming healthcare in India by making it more accessible and building awareness to make people more proactive, rather than reactive, about their health," said Tina Ambani. Besides, it had employed the best technology and treatment protocols in the world and strove to create an ecosystem of inclusion by working together with other like-minded organisations, she added. "On this milestone, we reiterate our determination to extend our embrace of care and compassion, strive harder and aim higher to give Indians the healthcare they truly deserve," she said. Furthering its commitment, Tina Ambani announced the opening of two new hospitals in Indore and Raipur by 2020, and as part of the initiative to open 18 Cancer Care Centres in Maharashtra. Two have started in Akola and Gondiya and the third will be launched in March at Solapur. Besides, clinics and telemedicine centres are already functional in Surat and Rajkot (Gujarat) since 2016. Tina Ambani said the KDAH is in a dialogue with Boston Children's Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute, US, for clinical research in Paediatric Cardiac Sciences and Cancer. Taking the cause of medical research ahead, the KDAH's Medical Research Institute has conducted over 112 research projects, 22 international multi-centric drug trials, and published 138 research papers in international research journals. She said the institute ranks among the leaders in the world in research on Wilson Disease, having identified genetic mutations specific to Indian patients suffering from this disorder. The KDAH Executive Director Ram Narain said medical excellence and research has been the focus and in the coming years, it would strive to raise the bar in terms of clinical excellence, launch new programmes to further bridge gaps and engage in path-breaking research to benefit the country. Started in 2009 in Andheri west, the 750-bed KDAH is the flagship social initiative of the Reliance Group that attracts around 265,000 outpatient cases and 40,000-plus admissions annually with over 20 per cent patients coming from other parts of India. It has done more than 600 robotic surgeries in 2018, the largest such programme in the country. It has performed over 7,000 child heart surgeries with 60 per cent of them on infants less than a month old, and with a success rate of 97 per cent - its outcome matches that ofessible and building awareness to make people more proactive, rather than reactive, about their health," said Tina Ambani. Besides, it had employed the best technology and treatment protocols in the world and strove to create an ecosystem of inclusion by working together with other like-minded organisations, she added. "On this milestone, we reiterate our determination to extend our embrace of care and compassion, strive harder and aim higher to give Indians the healthcare they truly deserve," she said. Furthering its commitment, Tina Ambani announced the opening of two new hospitals in Indore and Raipur by 2020, and as part of the initiative to open 18 Cancer Care Centres in Maharashtra. Two have started in Akola and Gondiya and the third will be launched in March at Solapur. Besides, clinics and telemedicine centres are already functional in Surat and Rajkot (Gujarat) since 2016. Tina Ambani said the KDAH is in a dialogue with Boston Children's Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute, US, for clinical research in Paediatric Cardiac Sciences and Cancer. Taking the cause of medical research ahead, the KDAH's Medical Research Institute has conducted over 112 research projects, 22 international multi-centric drug trials, and published 138 research papers in international research journals. She said the institute ranks among the leaders in the world in research on Wilson Disease, having identified genetic mutations specific to Indian patients suffering from this disorder. The KDAH Executive Director Ram Narain said medical excellence and research has been the focus and in the coming years, it would strive to raise the bar in terms of clinical excellence, launch new programmes to further bridge gaps and engage in path-breaking research to benefit the country. Started in 2009 in Andheri west, the 750-bed KDAH is the flagship social initiative of the Reliance Group that attracts around 265,000 outpatient cases and 40,000-plus admissions annually with over 20 per cent patients coming from other parts of India. It has done more than 600 robotic surgeries in 2018, the largest such programme in the country. It has performed over 7,000 child heart surgeries with 60 per cent of them on infants less than a month old, and with a success rate of 97 per cent - its outcome matches that of Boston Children's Heart Hospital, US. In academics, the KDAH offers Masters in Emergency Medicine programme with George Washington University, US and has launched the first Varian Clinical School for Stereotactic. Mumbai, Jan 25 : The Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital & Medical Research Institute (KDAH), among the top multispecialty healthcare institutes, celebrated the completion of 10 years of redefining healthcare services in India, here on Friday. KDAH Chairperson Tina Ambani and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan were among those present on the momentous red-letter day. "In the past 10 years we have committed ourselves to transforming healthcare in India by making it more accessible and building awareness to make people more proactive, rather than reactive, a, we see organisations realising real business benefits from their investments in protecting their data," said Michelle Dennedy, Chief Privacy Officer, Cisco. Customers are increasingly concerned that the products and services they deploy provide appropriate privacy protections. "Nearly 75 per cent of respondents cited that they are realising multiple broader benefits from their privacy investments, which include greater agility and innovation resulting from having appropriate data controls, gaining competitive advantage and improved operational efficiency from having data organized and catalogued," the report explained. New Delhi: South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa calls on President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi on Jan 25, 2019. (Photo: IANS/RB) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa at Hyderabad House ahead of delegation level talks, in New Delhi on Jan 25, 2019. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa at the India-South Africa Business Forum, in New Delhi on Jan 25, 2019. (Photo: IANS/PIB) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Jan 25 : India and South Africa on Friday signed an agreement to further deepen their Strategic Partnership, including in political, economic and defence spheres, following delegation-level talks led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa here. The Three-Year Strategic Programme of Cooperation is aimed at enhancing the Strategic Partnership Agreement that was signed in 1997 by Prime Minister H.D. Deva Gowda and South African President Nelson Mandela in 1997. According to a joint statement issued after the meeting, both sides "emphasised the need to further deepen relations in the political, economic, defense, scientific, consular and socio-cultural spheres". In a joint address to the media with Ramaphosa following the talks, Modi said that both sides reviewed the entire gamut of their bilateral ties. "Our trade and investment ties are becoming more and more intense," he said. "Our bilateral trade is more than $10 billion." Modi said that Indian companies are contributing to President Ramphosa's efforts to increase investments in South Africa. According to the joint statement, both sides welcomed th='171' height='100' data-title='New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa at the India-South Africa Business Forum, in New Delhi on Jan 25, 2019. (Photo: IANS/PIB)' />The Three-Year Strategic Programme of Cooperation is aimed at enhancing the Strategic Partnership Agreement that was signed in 1997 by Prime Minister H.D. Deva Gowda and South African President Nelson Mandela in 1997. According to a joint statement issued after the meeting, both sides "emphasised the need to further deepen relations in the political, economic, defense, scientific, consular and socio-cultural spheres". In a joint address to the media with Ramaphosa following the talks, Modi said that both sides reviewed the entire gamut of their bilateral ties. "Our trade and investment ties are becoming more and more intense," he said. "Our bilateral trade is more than $10 billion." Modi said that Indian companies are contributing to President Ramphosa's efforts to increase investments in South Africa. According to the joint statement, both sides welcomed the significant investment and presence of a large number of Indian companies and business entities in South Africa and the growing number of South African investments in India. The two sides also agreed to cooperate, share best practices, technology and expertise on the ease of doing business reform programme. The statement also said that both sides agreed that the two countries should explore solutions aimed at boosting trade and investment. "In this context, President Ramaphosa agreed to simplify and reform South African business visa regime," it stated. Stating that India is a partner in South Africa's efforts in skill development, Modi, in his address to the media, said that a Gandhi-Mandela Skills Institute will soon be opened in Pretoria. "We are both committed to take our relationship to a new level," he said. The Prime Minister said that both India and South Africa are strategically located in the Indian Ocean region. According to the joint statement, both sides recognised the importance of increased bilateral naval cooperation and closer synergy within the context of Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) which, by keeping the sea lanes secure against illegal actors, will ensure unhindered passage for trade and continued prosperity of the entire Indian Ocean region. It also stated that the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation in the field of the oceans economy and to cooperate in multilateral forums on the Blue Economy including within the framework of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). Modi also said said both countries are pluralistic democracies that are carrying forward the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. "As such, both countries share a similar broad global outlook," Modi said. "Our mutual cooperation and coordination in many forums like BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), G-20, Indian Ocean Rim Association and IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) are very strong." Modi also said that both countries are working together to bring about reforms in the UN Security Council. On his part, Ramaphosa said that that India is a strategic partner for South Africa. "PM Modi and I were in agreement that considerable scope exists for growing and expanding our bilateral ties, especially economic ties," he said. New Delhi, Jan 25 : Treading on political turf, President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday fully backed the 10 per cent reservation for economically backward sections enacted by the Modi government, saying it is another step towards an India of Mahatma Gandhis dreams. Addressing the nation on the eve of 70th Republic Day, he called the coming Lok Sabha elections "not just a once-in-a-generation moment" but "once-in-a century moment" saying it will shape India of the remainder of 21st century. Kovind also said the country belongs to all sections -- every group and every community, every region and every identity. "India's pluralism is its greatest strength and its the greatest example to the world. The 'Indian model' rests on a tripod of diversity, democracy and development. We cannot choose one above the other; we must have all the three and, we will have all three," he said. The President referred to Gandhiji's book 'India of My Dreams' in which he wrote of an India where the poorest will have an "effective voice", where there will be no "high class and low class", where "all communities shall live in perfect harmony", and where "women will enjoy the same rights as men". "These ideals are a constant reminder of the India that we are building. In this context, the recent constitutional amendment to provide special facilities for talented children from poorer families is another step to an India of our dreams - and of Gandhiji's dreams," he said in an apparent reference to the 103rd Constitution amendment providing for quota for the economically weaker sections that are not covered by any of the existing reservations. The Bill to Day programme, in New Delhi on January 25, 2019. (Photo: IANS/RB)' />Addressing the nation on the eve of 70th Republic Day, he called the coming Lok Sabha elections "not just a once-in-a-generation moment" but "once-in-a century moment" saying it will shape India of the remainder of 21st century. Kovind also said the country belongs to all sections -- every group and every community, every region and every identity. "India's pluralism is its greatest strength and its the greatest example to the world. The 'Indian model' rests on a tripod of diversity, democracy and development. We cannot choose one above the other; we must have all the three and, we will have all three," he said. The President referred to Gandhiji's book 'India of My Dreams' in which he wrote of an India where the poorest will have an "effective voice", where there will be no "high class and low class", where "all communities shall live in perfect harmony", and where "women will enjoy the same rights as men". "These ideals are a constant reminder of the India that we are building. In this context, the recent constitutional amendment to provide special facilities for talented children from poorer families is another step to an India of our dreams - and of Gandhiji's dreams," he said in an apparent reference to the 103rd Constitution amendment providing for quota for the economically weaker sections that are not covered by any of the existing reservations. The Bill to provide 10 per cent quota to the economically backward among upper castes was passed by Parliament earlier this month. Referring to the upcoming general election, he said "each one of us" has the responsibility of voting in the elections. "The ideas and idealism of our democracy will come into full force. Once more, as we do every five years, voters will deliver their verdict and write their destiny. This year's election will be the first when voters born in the 21st century will contribute to electing a new Lok Sabha." He said election is not just a political exercise, it is a collective call to wisdom and a collective call to action. The election, he said, represents a renewal and recommitment to the goals of a "shared and egalitarian society", diverse and yet singular urges of people, and that the act of voting is sacred. "Who the voter chooses to vote for is up to him or her, I would only request all eligible voters to go out and vote. Our country is at a key juncture. In some respects this is as critical and formative a period as the late 1940s and early 1950s. Decisions and actions of today will shape the India of the remainder of the 21st century. As such, this is not just a once-in-a-generation moment - it is a once-in-a-century moment," he said. Kovind said the election is only a milestone in the journey towards fulfilling the aspirations of people and building a developed India and the country was at the doorstep of eliminating extreme poverty for the first time in memory. He referred to efforts to boost connectivity through rail, road, air and waterways besides the surge in phones and data access and said all of it is bringing together as never before. "India has been united and integrated - now it is being networked." He said "leapfrogging technologies" were empowering farmers and equipping soldiers, enabling the deprived and boosting entreprenuership and start up culture. The President said that through his travels and engagements, he has sensed an appreciation for such efforts and such hard-won advance. "This is more so in the perception of senior generations that have lived through and strived to overcome the shortage economy." He said difficulty has been converted into availability in all areas and a change was visible in areas ranging from foodgrain, LPG cylinders, telephone connections and ability to get a passport. "In many cases, technology has been a force multiplier. And in all cases, inclusiveness has been a moral multiplier." He said a programme of universal healthcare has begun, affordable medicines and medical devices and implants were becoming more accessible and a greater number of Indians have access to proper housing, with modern sanitation and electricity. The President said that values that shaped India's independence and which continue to shape the Republic are also the values that uphold supremacy of the people. The Republic Day, he said, commemorates the values of democracy and was an occasion to reaffirm commitment to liberty, fraternity and equality. He said the concept of devotion to public service and to the broadening of the ambit of justice, must get its due and well-intentioned contributions of individuals, groups, institutions, society or the government must be acknowledged and appreciated. He said these are guiding principles that shape India's global approach and are earning it a new respect in the international system. "These are the principles, I would stress, that are at the root of our Republic." The President said the year was "extra special" as the country will mark 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 and 70th anniversary of adoption of Constitution on November 26. He recalled the role of B.R. Ambedkar in drafting the Constitution. So, what does this mean for the EB-5 Regional Center Program? As previously reported, most EB-5 operations continued during the shutdown due to the fact that USCIS is a self-funded agency in which revenue is derived from filing fees paid by immigrant investor applicants. During the shutdown, there were two major restrictions for new and existing EB-5 investors the pause on new immigrant visa interviews and the bar of participating investors from filing adjustment of status applications these will no longer be in effect. As of Monday, business will be conducted as usual for all aspects of EB-5, at least until February 15th (the date on which the current short-term extension is set to expire). Moving forward on the EB-5 Program legislation reform front, more positive news for the long-term future and success of the EB-5 Program is coming from Congress. Ron Klein, partner at Holland & Knight and member of the Public Policy & Regulation Group commented, "although the shutdown hampered some aspects of the U.S. government, the U.S. Congress has been in full operation and various members are continuing to work on different proposals to reauthorize and improve the EB-5 program. Due to a change in committee leadership in the House and Senate, there are now different and more favorable members who have control over EB-5 legislation. We are grateful for their interest and positive view of the program and are working closely with them on developing bipartisan legislation which will improve backlog issues and make the program more user friendly." U.S. Immigration Fund provides outstanding EB-5 project opportunities backed by 30+ years of collective real-estate development, financing and banking experience. USIF has formed and sponsored highly successful regional centers throughout the United States, jointly assisting nearly 6,000 EB-5 investors and their families to date. USIF will continue to follow this story closely and provide updates. Contact: U.S Immigration Fund 115 Front Street suite 300, Jupiter, FL 33477 (561) 799-1883 [email protected] SOURCE U.S. Immigration Fund Related Links http://www.visaeb-5.com DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Thunder Tactical, a leading AR rifle kits producer, recently fell under the knife after a leading online shopping platform implemented tighter restrictions on gun commerce. After shuttering their digital store, the $11.4 million East Coast rifle kit manufacturer has gone independent. Thunder Tactical leaves shopping platform host amid stringent new trade regulations. Thunder Tactical officials confirmed the business has officially brought their online store in-house in 2019. Responding to a prohibition on certain gun and accessory sales from their online shopping platform host, the company integrated their sales platform with their website so that loyal clients wouldn't miss a step. Thunder Tactical fans and loyal customers can now enjoy completely independent sales, available via their website. Featuring AR-15 parts and pistol kits, accessories, hand guards, jigs and apparel, this Daytona Beach company's sales platform is as healthy and robust as it's ever been. Clients are buying AR 80 lower and rifle kits at a rate faster than ever before. Visit Thunder Tactical today for high-end rifle kits and components at the click of a button. Thunder Tactical leads the industry in manufacturing and retailing 308 rifle and tactical shooting components. Based in Daytona Beach, Florida, their 80% lowers, receivers and kits have cemented their brand within the industry since 2014. This family-owned and operated business connects gun owners with various high-end rifle products and components. Thunder Tactical +1 386-262-1876 email us here Visit us on social media: Facebook Related Images top-ar-80-lower-manufacturer-goes.jpg Top AR 80 Lower Manufacturer Goes Independent Thunder Tactical leaves shopping platform host amid stringent new trade regulations. ar-components-heavily-restricted.jpg AR Components Heavily Restricted Thunder Tactical deals in high-end rifle kits for hobbyist gun owners. ar-components-heavily-restricted.jpg AR Components Heavily Restricted Shopping platform host's new restrictions on gun retailing have driven away Thunder Guns, one of the highest-earning names in the industry. ar-components-heavily-restricted.jpg AR Components Heavily Restricted Thunder Guns, a high-earning name in the rifle build industry, has officially announced its departure from their shopping platform host. Related Links .308 Rifle Kits AR-15 80% Lowers Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hiq5zBx7TH8 SOURCE Thunder Tactical WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) issued the following statement about the agreement to temporarily end the shutdown and reopen the government. NATCA's President Paul Rinaldi stated: After 35 days of this senseless government shutdown, we are grateful and relieved that the President and Congress reached an agreement to temporarily end the shutdown and reopen the government through February 15, 2019. We are hopeful for a long-term appropriations bill. The air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals represented by NATCA can continue to ensure the safety of the National Airspace System (NAS) and the flying public, without worrying about their next paycheck. Today's agreement is due, in large part, to the tireless activism of NATCA's members since the shutdown began. We express our deepest gratitude to NATCA members who continued to work for the past 35 days despite the stress caused by the shutdown. NATCA also recognizes the sacrifices made by those other aviation safety professionals who were furloughed. We want to thank all aviation industry stakeholders for their efforts to end the shutdown and specifically acknowledge the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) and Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) for their solidarity during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Although the news today is positive, we must not lose focus on the short-term nature of this agreement, and the need to continue to make our voice heard to avoid another shutdown on February 15, 2019. This 35-day shutdown reinforces our strong belief that the status quo is broken. The NAS requires a stable, predictable funding stream in order to adequately support air traffic control services, staffing, hiring and training, long-term modernization projects, preventative maintenance, ongoing modernization to the physical infrastructure, integration of new entrants, and the timely implementation of NextGen modernization projects. The constant funding crises that arise from stop-and-go funding continue to wreak havoc on our system and perpetuate the current staffing crisis, which has resulted in a 30-year low of certified professional controllers. We remain hopeful that today's agreement will lead to a long-term appropriations bill that prevents another senseless shutdown. MORE INFORMATION: Doug Church, Deputy Director of Public Affairs; FOR FASTER RESPONSE PLEASE TEXT 301-346-8245, [email protected]. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) is a labor union and aviation safety organization in the United States that represents nearly 20,000 highly skilled air traffic controllers, engineers, and other aviation safety-related professionals. NATCA was certified in 1987 by the Federal Labor Relations Authority to be the exclusive bargaining representative for air traffic controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Today, NATCA is one of the strongest labor unions in the federal sector and represents a range of aviation safety professionals in 15 FAA bargaining units, 4 Department of Defense air traffic facilities, and 102 federal contract towers. These air traffic controllers and other aviation safety professionals make vital contributions to the U.S. economy and make modern life possible by coordinating the safe, orderly, and expeditious movement of nearly one billion aviation passengers and millions of tons of freight within the National Airspace System each year. NATCA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. SOURCE National Air Traffic Controllers Association Related Links https://www.natca.org NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq., a partner at the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF"), announces that KSF has commenced an investigation into Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE: FL). On August 18, 2017, the Company revealed negative financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017, including revenue significantly below expectations, attributed in part to lower same-store sales, that it was closing 100 more stores than previously announced, and that weaker sales were expected for the rest of the fiscal year. Thereafter, the Company and certain of its executives were sued in a securities class action lawsuit, charging them with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws, which is ongoing. KSF's investigation is focusing on whether Foot Locker's officers and/or directors breached their fiduciary duties to Foot Locker's shareholders or otherwise violated state or federal laws. If you have information that would assist KSF in its investigation, or have been a long-term holder of Foot Locker shares and would like to discuss your legal rights, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-fl/ to learn more. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Lewis Kahn, Managing Partner [email protected] 1-877-515-1850 1100 Poydras St., Suite 3200 New Orleans, LA 70163 SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Related Links http://www.ksfcounsel.com NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until February 25, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against DXC Technology Company (NYSE:DXC), if they purchased the Company's shares between February 8, 2018 and November 6, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Get Help DXC investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-dxc-technology-company-securities-litigation or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit DXC and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On November 6, 2018, the Company revealed a range of adverse financial news including the loss of sales to significant customers, quarterly revenue shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and an $800 million reduction to its 2019 revenue outlook as well as a lack of growth in the digital space and ineffective sales strategies. On this news, the price of DXC's shares plummeted. The case is City of Warren Police and Fire Retirement System v. DXC Technology Company, et al., No. 18-cv-1599. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com. SOURCE ClaimsFiler Related Links https://www.claimsfiler.com Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:46 pm As Shanghai Cafe owners Song and Young Ok prepare for their final week in business, customers have flooded the more than 90-year-old Chinese restaurant to say goodbye. We have been here about 30 years and its time to retire, said Young Ok Friday morning. I want to spend time with my mom and my grandkids. The Oks, a Korean immigrant family, purchased the restaurant in 1990, according to previous Chronicle reporting by Brian Mittge. The restaurant first opened in 1928 then moved to its current location on North Tower in the 1930s. It was founded by Chinese immigrant Kan Chinn and is believed to be one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in Washington state. Friday afternoon, the Shanghai Cafe had to temporarily close after it ran out of food. Due to its popularity, an influx of customers cleared the kitchen. As Young Ok walked around to the tables, refilling water glasses, customers could be heard throughout the restaurant thanking her for all her years in business. One man asked Young Ok if his wife could have a picture with her. Earlier that morning, Young Ok prepared to open the restaurant with her family and staff. She discussed her familys first year in business and gifts various customers have brought after hearing about the couples retirement. Thank you for the loyalty of my customers, Song Ok added. Young Ok repeatedly stressed the love she and her family has for their customers, and noted that the Oks would reimburse anyone who didnt have a chance to use restaurant gift cards before the Shanghai Cafe closed she asked people to leave their name, contact information and the gift card amount in Shanghai Cafes mailbox by the door. Young Ok said she and her husband, Song Ok, have been thinking about retiring for the last year or so. She said that she is ready to spend more time with her grandchildren. My grandkids, they are already counting down, Young Ok said. Oh, Grandma, how many more days? They love me. Young Ok said they will stay in Centralia for a while, because she needs to take care of her house. Eventually, though, she wants to move closer to her children. At the time Song and Young Ok purchased the business, their children were about to enter elementary school. The plan, Young Ok said, was to stay in Centralia until their kids left elementary school. The couple only expected to run the business for about five or six years. They saw Shanghai Cafe after visiting Song Oks sister. I love Centralia, Young Ok said. (Its) really quiet, not very busy. Its a very peaceful area. The Shanghai Cafe is for sale, but Young Ok said the couple has not received an offer yet. Young Ok said she has spent most of her life at Shanghai Cafe and will miss the customers, many of whom have visited the restaurant numerous times since the Oks announced they would retire at the end of the month. Thirty years, said Young Ok, with a laugh. I cant believe (it) myself, either. NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until February 19, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Allergan plc. (NYSE: AGN), if they purchased the Company's shares between February 24, 2017, and December 19, 2018, inclusive (the "Class Period"). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Get Help Allergan investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/view-allergan-plc-securities-litigation-1 or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Allergan and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On December 19, 2018, the Company announced that it had halted the sale of its textured breast implants in the European market following a compulsory recall request from the French regulatory authority, Agence Nationale de Securite du Medicament, after the product's CE Mark certification expired, amid concerns of a link to a rare form of cancer. On this news, the price of Allergan's shares plummeted. The case is Cook v. Allergan Plc et al, No. 18-cv-12089. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com. SOURCE ClaimsFiler Related Links http://www.claimsfiler.com WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Board of Directors of the HSUS today announced significant leadership and governance changes as part of its ongoing efforts to chart the way forward for the organization. The Board has appointed Kitty Block, currently acting President and CEO, as permanent President and CEO of the HSUS. Ms. Block, an attorney, has devoted more than a quarter century to protecting animals. She joined the HSUS in 1992 as a legal investigator and later moved on to oversee international policy work related to international trade and treaties. While at the HSUS, Ms. Block has served in various executive roles, including as President, Humane Society International, the international affiliate of the HSUS. During her time as acting President and CEO of the HSUS, she has been a key contributor to the passage of major state ballot initiatives, which have set new animal welfare standards across the country. While at the HSUS, she has also been instrumental in bringing cruelties such as horse slaughter and the killing of dogs and cats for their fur in China to light, and her efforts led to major policy reforms in those realms. In addition, the protection of whales, dolphins and other wildlife have been major areas of focus for Ms. Block, and her efforts have helped to secure and strengthen international protections for these animals. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and daughter and their street dog rescue, Lilly, and brother and sister rescue cats, Misti and Storm. Ms. Block said, "I look forward to building on the progress we have made for our staff, for our volunteers, for our donors and for the animals. We have made great strides in addressing the challenges facing the HSUS. Giving animals a better tomorrow is my lifelong passion and it is what we are all fighting for here at the HSUS. It is a true honor to lead this organization in its next chapter." Eric L. Bernthal, Board Chair, said, "The HSUS has a proven leader in Kitty, a professional who is deeply passionate about our mission and who inspires those around her. Her ability to motivate our staff and our donor base is second to none, and has resulted in meaningful change on behalf of the animals for whom we fight every day. She has the unanimous support of the Board and we are all excited for what the organization will accomplish under her leadership." The Board has also appointed Susan Atherton and Thomas J. Sabatino, Jr., as Co-Chairs of the HSUS Board following Mr. Bernthal's decision to step down as Board Chair after seven years of service in this role. This transition is effective immediately. Ms. Atherton is an independent philanthropist and long-time advocate for animals at the local, national and global level. In addition to her service on the HSUS Board, she serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of UC Riverside, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco SPCA and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Prevent Cruelty California initiative. She also served as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Humane Society Legislative Fund for 14 years, and continues to serve as a member on this Board. Professionally, Ms. Atherton served in executive management positions in the enterprise software and cloud computing industries for 25 years. She lives in California with her husband and their adopted dog Simba, who was rescued from a puppy mill. Mr. Sabatino is a longtime animal advocate actively engaged in animal rescue in communities across Florida and New England. Mr. Sabatino most recently served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Aetna, and has served in comparable positions at other major companies. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards, including the Inside Counsel's Transformative Leader Award, the National Bar Association Gertrude E. Rush Award and the Equal Justice Works Scales of Justice Award. In 2016, the Women's In-House Counsel Leadership Institute created the Sabatino Advocacy Award in his honor. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their 17-year-old Jack Russell. Ms. Atherton and Mr. Sabatino said, "Rick Bernthal has made significant and lasting contributions in our fight to help all animals during his tenure as Board Chair and as a Board member over the last 12 years. His involvement with the HSUS follows a long personal history of pro bono work with environmental and animal protection organizations. We are pleased to be able to build on the substantial progress our Board has made this year under Rick's leadership and look forward to overseeing the Board's continued efforts to make the HSUS the most effective animal welfare protection organization in the country, as well as a better, more compassionate and more supportive place to work." Update on Governance Enhancement Action Plan The Board continues to implement the governance recommendations made by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, one of the nation's leading law firms, to modernize the organization's bylaws and adopt updated governance principles. Full implementation of the plan will occur by the Board's April 2019 meeting. This follows an extensive engagement, during which Gibson Dunn reviewed and advised on the HSUS' governance practices on a pro bono basis. The Board noted its deep appreciation for Gibson Dunn's time, expertise and dedication to the HSUS. About the Humane Society of the United States The HSUS is the nation's most effective animal protection organization dedicated to ending all forms of animal cruelty and achieving the vision behind our name: a humane society. We not only come to the aid of animals in crisis through our sanctuaries, veterinary programs and emergency shelters and rescues, but also prevent cruelty before it occurs through legislation, corporate policy and education and awareness programs. We fight to improve legal protections for animals through the courts and the ballot box, we train law enforcement to help stop animal cruelty and we work with some of the world's biggest companies to reform and improve their treatment of animals. Through our awareness campaigns and investigations, we shape public opinion on animal cruelty, encouraging and empowering people to make kinder, more informed choices today to give animals a better tomorrow. Media Contact: Anna West: 240-751-2669, [email protected] SOURCE Humane Society of the United States Related Links https://www.humanesociety.org PITTSBURGH, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- StarKist Co. today announced it has entered into a settlement agreement with Walmart Inc. resolving all antitrust claims brought by the retailer. Walmart is the largest retailer for canned tuna in the United States. The StarKist portion of the settlement is valued at $20.5 million, based on a combination of cash payment and certain favorable commercial terms, which will further strengthen the business relationship between the two companies. "StarKist is pleased to resolve this matter with our valued customer, Walmart. The resolution is a business-oriented and reasonable one, which sets a benchmark for resolving remaining matters with our other valued customers," said Scott Meece, StarKist's General Counsel & Sr. Vice President. "StarKist is committed to being a socially responsible company and we are pleased to resolve this lawsuit with our largest customer under fair and reasonable terms," said Andrew Choe, President & CEO, StarKist Co. "We will continue to conduct our business with the utmost transparency and integrity, and we hope to resolve the remaining lawsuits with our other customers under similarly fair and mutually beneficial terms." About StarKist Co. StarKist Co. provides trusted, healthy, food products in the United States. An industry innovator, StarKist was the first brand to introduce StarKist single-serve pouch products, which include Tuna Creations, Salmon Creations and Chicken Creations. As America's favorite tuna, StarKist represents a tradition of quality, consumer trust and a commitment to sustainability. StarKist's charismatic brand icon, Charlie the Tuna, swam into the hearts of tuna fans in 1961 and is still a fan favorite today. StarKist Co. is a subsidiary of the Dongwon Group. Media Contact: Michelle Faist 412-323-7457 [email protected] SOURCE StarKist Co. Related Links http://starkist.com/ BALTIMORE, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kinetic Capital , a private financing firm launched by Kara DiPietro, HMC Inc. CEO and Maryland's Small Business Person of the Year, today announced the kickoff of its Government Shutdown Program for federal contractors. Kinetic Capital is licensed by the State of Maryland to offer a custom financing solution for those businesses who have been impacted by the shutdown and are in need of immediate cash flow to cover their expenses. According to federal data analyzed by Wallethub, Maryland is the third most impacted state by the federal shutdown. Maryland officials estimate that 172,000 residents are affected, resulting in roughly $57.5 million less in combined state and local income tax withholding and $2.1 million less in sales tax collections. Federal contractors and small businesses can apply for funds to cover their business expenses directly from Kinetic Capital. Following a basic application process that includes verification of federal contract, a review of expenses (lease statement, utility bills, etc.), cashflow statement and recent bank statements, Kinetic Capital will calculate the amount of funding needed, and schedule automatic debit and credit transactions. The schedule will enable Kinetic Capital and the business owner to sustain the financing over time. Funding amounts will be determined based on income and expense criteria. Payments are disbursed automatically from Kinetic Capital's private placement fund 24-48 hours after all information has been received and an offer accepted. The repayment schedule will begin once the government re-opens. "Kinetic Capital was founded to design unique custom funding options for those who are most invested in the success of our communities," said DiPietro. "Cashflow is the kinetic energy of a business, propelling the business forward and creating positive momentum. In the same way, we believe have a responsibility to keep the wheels of the local economy in motion by supporting small business owners." Federal contractors and small businesses can learn more about the program and begin the application process at www.kineticcapitalllc.com , or by emailing [email protected] . About Kinetic Capital, LLC Founded by Kara DiPietro, CEO of HMC, Inc., Board Member of the National Small Business Party, and Maryland Small Business Person of the Year, Kinetic Capital, LLC is a private financing firm that was founded to offer custom financing options and plans for small business owners (SBO), designed by small business owners. Because our success is rooted in the success of our clients, we have checks and balances in place to ensure borrowers are equipped and empowered to make fund repayments in a timely manner. Visit kineticcapitalllc.com to learn more. SOURCE Kinetic Capital, LLC Related Links http://www.kineticcapitalllc.com NEW YORK, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- AJC applauded the House of Deputies of the Czech Parliament for adopting the international working definition of anti-Semitism. "The Czech Republic once again demonstrates its solidarity with the Jewish People," said AJC CEO David Harris, who has visited the country and met with its leaders on numerous occasions. "We heartily commend the House of Deputies for working toward this important step." The vote to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, took place just two days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and only minutes after the annual commemoration event of the Czech government. There, the President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, and other top Czech officials, including EU Commissioner Vera Jourova , discussed the importance of combating anti-Semitism as the most significant way to remember the Holocaust. President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament Radek Vondracek stated, "Evil and lies have one name - anti-Semitism." The Czech Senate, the upper chamber of the Parliament, has scheduled a vote on the adoption of the Definition for next week. AJC has long been involved with the Czech Republic. AJC Central Europe, which is based in Warsaw and covers seven countries, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia, appointed Tomas Kraus as AJC's official representative in Prague in December 2018. Moreover, AJC has a longstanding association agreement with the Jewish Community of the Czech Republic. The working definition of anti-Semitism is based on an earlier definition drafted by the European Union's European Monitoring Center (EUMC, now known as the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights). It offers a clear and comprehensive description of anti-Semitism in its various forms, including hatred and discrimination against Jews, Holocaust denial, and anti-Semitism as it relates to Israel. AJC worked closely with the EUMC to develop the original definition. SOURCE American Jewish Committee Related Links http://www.ajc.org Sergio Ramos set to leave Real Madrid after 16 years Sergio Ramos is set to leave Real Madrid after the club announced a "farewell" Belgium reach last 16 of Euro 2020 after Denmark win Kevin de Bruyne inspired Belgium to a comeback win against Denmark that secured Italy becomes first team to reach Euro 2020 knockout stage Manuel Locatelli had never scored twice in a match during his professional Botswana diamond could be world's third largest A diamond believed to be the third largest ever found has been put on display Black Meteors arrive home after 15-2 defeat in Asian tour The Black Meteors have touched down in the country after ending their Asian Shenzhou-12: China launches first crew to new space station China has launched three astronauts into orbit to begin occupation of the ECG issues mobile money scam alert The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has issued a scam alert on the Iranians vote in presidential election marred by disqualification row Iranians are voting to elect a new president, with all but one of the four Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:52 pm The Interstate 5/Mellen Street Connector Project has been postponed by a year, due to a delay in the Washington State Department of Transportation approval process, Port of Centralia Executive Director Kyle Heaton said Wednesday. Outside of the port, there has been no local push for it, so its no real priority to them, said Heaton, during the Port of Centralias regular meeting on Wednesday. I intend to speak to Sen. (john) Braun (R-Centralia). I dont know that we are going to move them that much. We met with WSDOT for two and a half hours yesterday. Heaton said during Wednesdays meeting that the Port of Centralia submitted 30 percent plans and requested April approval from WSDOT. They said we would expect no earlier than September, Heaton said. So that really takes us out of a whole construction year, so it would be 2020. The Interstate 5/Mellen Street Connector project has been in the works for the last five and a half years. The project includes a new off ramp and existing street extensions. Heaton told The Chronicle in December 2018 that the project is fully funded. At the time, Heaton said the Port of Centralia budgeted $9.5 million for the project. Heaton originally anticipated to complete infrastructure development for the Centralia Station Project by the end of 2019, with pieces potentially lagging into early 2020. The Port of Centralia did not intend to halt infrastructure development for the Centralia Station Project, even after it announced that anchor tenant Fred Meyer pulled out of the project. Heaton did not respond to request for comment Friday. What we are trying to do, is we are trying to climb a mountain and get a new exit on Interstate 5, said Port of Centralia Commissioner Peter Lahmann on Friday. Its a difficult project. I think we had thoughts it would go quicker, but its not. Its just one of those things. Once WSDOT approves the plans, they go to the Federal Highway Administration for approval. This is speculation, but until we have that ramp, it doesnt really make sense to go forward, Lahmann said. We may still try to come in and get the Yew Street extension going, and the utilities, but what makes that property good is the access to I-5 and if we dont have access to I-5 its not as good. Once we get that, were golden. Until we get that ramp or have absolute authorization we can do it, its hard to move forward. Port of Centralia Commissioner Dan Keahey and Commissioner Julie Shaffley were not available for comment Friday. FRANCONIA [mdash] Donald "Don" Swift was born in Montreal, Quebec, on March 3, 1954, and passed peacefully from his battle with cancer on June 13, 2021, with some family by his side. He is formerly of Scarborough, Ontario, and Beaconsfield, Quebec. He is survived by his two daughters: Katie Stones regional connections include media types, too, such as Harry Hurley, who has hosted Hurley in the Morning on WFPG-AM 1450 since 1991. Stone has been a regular guest since the beginning, and the two have been friends for more than 30 years, Hurley said, having known each other originally through political circles. He was last on the program a few weeks ago and has said countless times, on air, that he expected to be indicted in the special counsel probe, Hurley said. Stones colorful persona is no recent development. He once owned a vacation condo in Margate, and Levinson remembers hanging with him on the beach, and seeing the tattoo across his back of Richard Nixons face, which Levinson described as life-sized. I could see possibly putting George Washington or Abraham Lincoln on permanent display, but you have to scratch your head with Nixon, Levinson said. None of those interviewed seemed delighted by Fridays news. Hurley was sad for his friend. I think its a very sad day, and I think that this is another example that this special counsel probe has just gone off the rails, Hurley said, arguing most of the charges lodged against Stone were process crimes. ATLANTIC CITY Members of the city police foundation and department delivered 170 coats Friday to students in the resorts public schools. Officers gave the coats to school officials, who handed them out to students at Brighton Avenue School, Chelsea Heights School, Pennsylvania Avenue School and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School Complex, according to a release from the Atlantic City Police Foundation, who funded the initiative through grants from the Tour de Shore Childrens Foundation. Retired Deputy Chief Joseph Nolan, Police Foundation board chairman, made the suggestion to the foundation and worked directly with the school, the coat-drive organization Operation Warm and city police, according to a news release. We are pleased that the significant efforts of the foundation and our partners at the Tour de Shore Childrens Foundation and Operation Warm permit us to do our part in ensuring the basic right of children to be warm, Nolan said. Officers from the Patrol Division, Community Relations and Tourism District Unit assisted in delivering the jackets. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. While Blee recognized and commended the efforts of the volunteers who have worked under these organizations for years, he said the MAO had the right to make decisions. Blee said the state organizations do not own or have a stake in the brands because the brand is owned and trademarked by the MAO. +7 Miss America meets with Atlantic City police, mayor ATLANTIC CITY Oh theres the statue! said Miss America 2019 Nia Franklin, as members of He said the agreements between the individual states and the MAO clearly stated the MAO had the right to revoke licences after one or two years. New Jersey, New York and Florida pageant organizations have had their licenses reinstated and new directors appointed after appeals. Tennessee, Georgia and Pennsylvania have new licenses awarded to new separate pageant entities, and Blee said West Virginia is looking to start a new one as well. Blee said an injunction would halt these new pageant endeavors altogether. The lack of competitions in these states could have an impact of depriving young women (of) the opportunity to participate ultimately in the Miss America program and to obtain the career advancement opportunities that come with participating in such a worthwhile endeavor, he said. MAO attorney Timothy Davis said the opposition is a vocal minority unable to accept change. Its not something any one district can fund on its own, he said. Students who graduate from the recovery high school will receive a high school diploma from their home district. Faldetta said those working on the high school program have been in communication with the two existing recovery high schools in the state Raymond Lesniak in Union County and KEYS Academy in Monmouth County to learn best practices. Kids who have graduated from that program have gone on to college, have gone on to start their own recovery programs, have gone on to start their lives, she said. The kids are doing so without drugs and alcohol. And I dont know if you can say they would have if they didnt have the support to them and to their families that the recovery high school provided them. Sally Onesty, of Ocean City, said her son, Tyler, who died of an opioid overdose nearly three years ago, could have benefited from a recovery high school. I think its amazing, and I think its needed. I think the community should definitely get behind it, said Onesty, who has been a vocal advocate for addiction services and family support in the community. PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. ADVERTISEMENT The United Kingdom has joined other members of the international community in expressing reservations over Fridays suspension of Nigerias Chief Justice, Walter Onnoghen. In a statement by its high commission in Abuja, the British government said the timing for the action gives cause for concern. President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday swore in Ibrahim Mohammed as acting chief justice of Nigeria after suspending Mr Onnoghen ostensibly relying on an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Mr Onnoghen was taken before court by the federal government on allegations of false asset declaration and concealment. His suspension has come under heavy criticism from Nigerians and foreign governments. Read the UK High Commission statement below: The UK issued the following statement: The British High Commission expresses serious concern over the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria. We have heard a wide range of credible and independent voices, including in the Nigerian legal profession and civil society, who have expressed concern over the constitutionality of the executive branchs suspension of the chief officer of the judiciary. We respect Nigerias sovereign authority and its right to adjudicate on constitutional provisions but as friends of the Nigerian people, we are compelled to observe that the timing of this action, so close to national elections, gives cause for concern. It risks affecting both domestic and international perceptions on the credibility of the forthcoming elections. We, along with other members of the international community, are following developments closely. We encourage all actors to maintain calm and address the concerns raised by this development through due process, demonstrating their commitment to respecting the constitution and the impartial administration of the rule of law. We further urge them to take steps to ensure that elections take place in an environment conducive to a free, fair and peaceful process. ADVERTISEMENT A former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba, has described the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, as an attack on the constitution. Mr Onnoghen, who was charged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on January 14, with offences bordering on non declaration of assets, was suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday. Mr Buhari, in a move that is clearly seen as illegal, swore in Mohammed Tanko as the acting CJN. In a statement on Saturday, Mr Agbakoba said that all actions ought to be stayed, pending the determination of several cases and appeals filed on the issue before various courts which ordered maintenance of status quo. He said the suspension contravenes the ruling of CCT on the matter. The CCT itself, adjourned proceedings in respect of Justice Onnoghens matter in order to determine if it has jurisdiction to try Justice Onnoghen; the suspension contravenes the ruling. There are at least six pending cases in superior courts of Nigeria and one in the Court of Appeal. All these cases ruled that Justice Onnoghen should remain in office pending when all cases against him are resolved. In any case Section 292 of the 1999 Constitution sets out the procedure for removing or suspending the Chief Justice of Nigeria. The power to suspend or remove the Chief Justice of Nigeria vests in the Senate side of the National Assembly, he said. Mr Agbakoba called for reversal of the suspension. Also, a rights campaigner, Malcom Omirhobo, told NAN that the suspension violated constitutional provisions. Mr Omirhobo said that the suspension of Mr Onnoghen and appointment of Mr Tanko as Acting CJN did not follow due process of law. It is insulting to ignore the order of the Court of Appeal asking parties in the suit between the CCT and the CJN to maintain status quo. As the law stands, Justice Mohammed Tanko was not recommended to the president by the Nigerian Judicial Council for appointment; therefore, such an appointment is unlawful. (NAN) Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 5:55 pm A two-hour meeting Thursday between a pair of Onalaska Water-Sewer Districts made little measurable progress at resolving their impasse over a voided sewer agreement, but provided an in-depth look at the bureaucratic and interpersonal tangle that has flustered everyone whos tried to fix it. I think the problem in District 5 is that we are in very substantial disagreement on virtually everything, said commissioner Virgil Fox, one of the few times anyone else at the table found themselves agreeing with him. Fox was at the center of most of the contention, both with his fellow District 5 commissioners and those from District 2. Hes the developer behind the failed Birchfield community, which District 5 encompasses. Fox abandoned his application for that 2,700-residence community, leaving only a 90-lot subdivision, which led District 2 to nix its agreement to provide sewer services for its neighbor. District 2 maintains that its agreement was to offer sewer services under Foxs more ambitious development proposal, and it will require a new agreement to proceed. For that to happen, though, the district has offered conditions: District 5 must provide a clear picture of its finances, and it must resolve its conflict-of-interest issues. The conflict-of-interest concerns also center around Fox, who serving as developer and commissioner sold the district more than $300,000 in water infrastructure, for which the district still owes him more than $200,000. Serving as a commissioner of a district for which he is also a creditor is a clear ethics violation, said District 2 commissioner Kevin Emerson, and one that will prevent any renewed agreement. District 5 has a commissioner who has continued to engage in ethics codes violations of Washington for 15 years and continues to do that, Emerson said. We have a moral responsibility to the people we represent to abstain from engaging in ethics violations. For a moment, it seemed the obvious solution Foxs resignation was close at hand. I would like to resign, and I would like whoever is not allowing me to resign to come forward and say, I want you to do this, I want you to do that, Fox said. I just want to end this thing. Of course, no one at the table had the power to prevent Fox from resigning in the first place. Emerson surveyed the table to see if anyone had an objection to Fox stepping aside. No one did. I think we just settled it, he said. At that point, Fox indicated that his resignation was conditional, referring to an earlier proposal that would restructure the debt the district owes him in exchange for his departure as commissioner. Both District 2 commissioners and Foxs fellow District 5 commissioners have indicated that attempted bargain is itself a conflict of interest. The proposal that we received was an attempt by an elected official to negotiate a contract in which he has beneficial interest, and that would be a conflict of interest, Emerson said. Fox offered to resign many more times throughout the meeting, and was ignored each time after it became clear he was unwilling to step down without conditions. The meeting was hosted by Lewis County leaders, who are as frustrated as anyone with the ongoing stalemate. Because of the lapsed sewer agreement, the county has stopped issuing building permits in District 5, since it cant ensure the availability of sewer services. Thats led to developers being frustrated with the county, and its cost the county tax revenue. Lewis County does not like having a moratorium in place, said deputy prosecuting attorney Eric Eisenberg. Its bad for people who want to develop, and it reduces the tax base. The purpose of the meeting from our perspective is to find out the status of the dispute. Much of the meeting consisted of District 2 repeating its demands. District 2 is not the cause of this moratorium, Emerson said. We are a district that is simply doing our best to comply with state law. I just dont know why the burden would be on us to try to come up with a way to move forward. District 2 leaders credited District 5 commissioners Deborah Hilliard and April Toups, saying theyre doing their best to clean up Foxs mess. Theyve been trying to provide the financial information District 2 has asked for, such as gross expenses and revenues, assets and liabilities, and accounts payable and receivable. Sometimes it just seems like were spinning our wheels waiting for certain things to happen, Hilliard said. We need to resolve that conflict issue before we work on the financials again. Thats something only commissioner Fox can resolve. Once we get that conflict of interest issue resolved, everybodys going to be ready to go full speed ahead. Toups indicated that District 5s financial situation was dire, and getting worse as the breakdown has stifled development and limited collections. This moratorium has hurt us financially, she said. We are now losing money. If this keeps continuing on, I dont know if this little district is going to make it. The amount of people that we have is not going to support the current debt that we have. Hilliard said she had looked at other sewer options if the agreement with District 2 cannot be renewed, and found none were financially feasible. Other options were floated, such as allowing select new sewer hookups between the districts under separate terms that avoid the overall conflict and finance issues plaguing District 5. Emerson said that would still put District 2 in business with an entity that has outstanding ethics issues. Lewis County commissioner Gary Stamper suggested that the sewer ban be lifted for six months to allow District 5 to bring in more revenue as it works through its issues. Emerson said that wouldnt be possible without a working interlocal agreement. The fact that District 5 is not able to show us a basic financial snapshot is a red flag, Emerson said. Deborah and April are working very diligently to fumble through information that is not clear to them. Stamper said the situation frustrated him, knowing that some developers have indicated theyre ready to build once the moratorium on building permits is lifted. He and Eisenberg suggested appointing a mediator to help the districts reconcile, even offering to help cover some of the expenses with county funds. I think we should have a mediator, because it seems like were not able to get there by ourselves, Fox replied. Emerson also said he would be open to a third party stepping in to help, but balked at the idea that District 2 might have to cover some of the cost. We just dont believe that the requests that weve made are cumbersome, he said, before making a possible allusion to Foxs resignation. I know Im not the only one in this room that sees the obstacle that needs to be overcome. Im still not real hopeful without the preliminary issues being resolved. Earlier in the meeting, Emerson had noted that three separate state audits had found Fox to have an unethical beneficial interest in the district, which Fox had justified by saying no one else in the community was available to serve as commissioner. Noting that District 5 currently had a quorum with Hilliard and Toups on the commission, he asked Fox what was keeping him from stepping down. Fox replied that the state auditor had provided him no solution to resolve the conflict issue, and his lawyers had said there was no way out. He again offered to resign and get it over with, which was again ignored. Ultimately, the districts agreed that they would allow the county to look into the possibility of lining up a mediator, only pledging to at least listen to the proposal. Im not trying to give a false hope of something, Emerson said. One of the prosecution witnesses in the ongoing Offa robbery case, Hitila Hassan, said on Friday that no fewer than 21 AK 47 rifles were stolen from the armoury of a police station in the community. The witness, who was being led by the prosecutor, Wahab Egbewole, spoke at the resumed hearing of the case at an Ilorin High Court. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that no fewer than 33 people, including nine police officers, were killed in the bloody robbery on April 5, 2018. The witness identified the five accused persons undergoing trial as accomplices of the late main suspect, Micheal Adikwu. They are Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salaudeen Azeez and Niyi Ogundiran. He also told the court that the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) footages of the robbed banks disclosed the identity of the accused, culminating in their arrest. Mr Hassan, an officer attached to the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), said other members of the gang were still at large. IRT was set up by the former IGP Ibrahim Idris and is headed by an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari. He said his team was in Ilorin on the directive of the then IGP to fish out the perpetrators of the dastardly act. Mr Hassan said his team worked with officers of the Criminal Investigation Department on its assignment. We visited the armoury at Offa Police Station where we discovered that no fewer than 21 AK 47 rifles were carted away by the armed robbers. We also gathered from the accused persons that the late Michael Adikwu after the attacks on the banks headed for the police station and started shouting that he had come on a revenge mission over his dismissal from the force. Then he started shooting sporadically in every direction at the station. Having carefully watched the footages of the CCTV, we identified the faces in the camera and then circulated them in the social media for Nigerians to assist us in the arrest of the culprits. Through that, we generated our intelligence that led to the arrest of one Ibikunle Ogunleye in Oro, Irepodun Local Government Area of the state. Initially, he denied having anything to do with the incident but when confronted with CCTV evidence, he confessed and said he was one of the persons inside the banks wielding AK47 rifles. His arrest assisted us in the arrest of four other accused persons standing trial, he said. Earlier, Yusuf Dauda, an exhibit keeper at the headquarters of the Nigeria Police in Ilorin, also testified. ADVERTISEMENT He said on April 10, 2018, a former Divisional Police Officer in Offa Local Government, Danjuma Adamu, handed to him some weapons and ammunition allegedly used in the robbery operation. Mr Dauda said that the ammunition included 39 expended 7.6mm ammunition, four expended 5.6mm, two expended blank cartridges, four used bullets, one live 5.6mm ammunition, one cartridge safety box on which Ikoyi South West, Lagos, Nigeria, was written and a damaged padlock. He also said that on April 15, 2018, Mr Hassan attached to the IGP response team, also brought one Lexus Jeep on which a sticker bearing, Saraki, was written with its key, a Kompressor Mercedes Benz and four stickers bearing Saraki The prosecution tendered all the items as exhibits in the case. Justice Halimat Salman adjourned the case till February 19 and February 20 for the continuation of hearing. (NAN) ADVERTISEMENT Senate President Bukola Saraki has described the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, by President Muhammadu Buhari as a coup against democracy. In a statement he personally signed, the Senate President said the suspension was another act of desperation by President Buhari. Mr Saraki said Mr Buhari acted outside the provision of the constitution and that the action amounted to gross misconduct. Mr Buhari in a statement on Friday said he suspended Mr Onnoghen based on a Code of Conduct Tribunal order. Shortly after the suspension, the president swore in a new CJN, Ibrahim Mohammed, from Bauchi State. The removal has continued to elicit reactions from Nigerians who believe the president has no such powers to remove a CJN from office. PREMIUM TIMES checks indicate a sitting CJN can only be removed from office by the president after at least two-thirds majority members of the Senate support such a move as enshrined in section 292 of the Constitution. No such matter has been debated in the Senate. In reaction, the Senate President said the country has returned to the days of military dictatorship. This action is capable of undermining the nations judiciary, subverting the constitution, intimidating judges of all the courts of record, and creating uncertainty in the electoral process. By unilaterally suspending the CJN without following the provision of the constitution, President Buhari has sent a dangerous signal to the entire world that Nigeria is no longer a democratic nation and that we have returned to the old, jaded era of military dictatorship. Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen Our constitution makes no provision for suspension of the nations highest judicial officer. The constitution provides a clear process for removal of the CJN and specifies the roles of the three arms of government, beginning from the National Judicial Council (NJC), the National Assembly and lastly, the Presidency, have different roles to play in that process. There is no condition under which the President can usurp the powers of other arms of government. I do not know where the President and his advisers got this idea of suspending the CJN on the so-called order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal but this is novel, disingenuous and alien to our laws. It is strange that President Buhari is claiming to be taking orders from a Tribunal which has been ordered by a superior court to halt all actions on the trial. With this action, President Buhari has initiated a process the consequence of which nobody can predict. They have precipitated a constitutional crisis. At this point, all democratic institutions in the country, the international community and democrats across the world should rise against this blatant act of impunity. We should jointly condemn this retrogressive, uncivilized and despotic measure, Mr Saraki said. Mr Saraki called on President Buhari to immediately reverse this decision and allow the due process of law to take its natural course in determining the guilt or otherwise of Justice Onnoghen. A senator, Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara State), has hailed the judgment of a Federal High Court in Abuja which upheld the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INECs) rejection of Zamfara All Progressives Congress candidates. INEC had last October said it would not allow the ruling APC to field candidates in Zamfara because the party failed to conduct primaries before the deadline stipulated. This was because the party failed to meet the October 7 deadline for conducting primaries to elect candidates for the elections. Some members of the APC in the state had approached the court challenging the decision of INEC. The party said it conducted primaries which produced current governor Abdulaziz Yari as a senatorial candidate and his commissioner of finance, Shehu Idris, as the governorship candidate, among others. Conflicting rulings PREMIUM TIMES had reported how two courts gave conflicting rulings on whether INEC can accept candidates presented by the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Zamfara elections in 2019. A Federal High Court in Abuja had ruled that the governing APC did not conduct primaries in the state and should not be allowed to present candidates for the electoral contest. It said INEC acted within its powers by refusing to accept the list of candidates from the Zamfara State chapter of the APC. However, a High Court sitting in Gusau, Zamfara State, on Friday ruled that the governing APC actually conducted primaries in the state and should be allowed to present candidates for the electoral contest. The Zamfara court specifically directed the electoral commission to accept candidates from the party for Zamfara State in the forthcoming elections. Ending a dynasty In a statement on Friday, Mr Marafa, who is also a governorship aspirant, commended the ruling of the Federal High Court. He said the decision of the court put a stop to the fielding of candidates belonging to Yaris faction of the party. This has ended the political dynasty that brought in governor Abdulaziz Yari as governor of Zamfara State. INEC acted within its powers by refusing to accept list of candidates for the next general elections from a faction of the APC in Zamfara state, he said. The lawmaker also said that he would challenge the judgment of a Zamfara State High Court, affirming that primaries were conducted by the Yari-led APC faction in the state. Mr Marafa has been the governors political foe overtime. ADVERTISEMENT Both men have constantly accused each other of being responsible for the unrest in the troubled state. He had in June, declared his intention to vie for the governorship slot. He said he joined the race due to numerous calls from members of the party in the 14 local government areas of the state. The lawmaker had pledged to fight corruption, injustice and provide leadership to stimulate the growth of the state. He also pledged to provide security as well as look at the states legal system to make it conform with the true teachings of Islam. The state has been ruptured by violence in recent months with armed bandits killing scores of people and destroying several houses. The lawmaker has continuously blamed the state governor for the high rate of insecurity and poverty in the state. ADVERTISEMENT The Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) has not been disbanded, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in charge of the unit, Abba Kyari, has said. Mr Kyari told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday that the clarification became necessary in view of IRTs reported disbandment in the social media. He said that IRT was not among police formations recently disbanded by the Acting Inspector General of Police (I-G), Mohammed Adamu. He said reports that one DCP Ben Okolo took over as new IRT commander was false, saying that he is still in charge. According to Mr Kyari, Mr Okolo was sent to IRT as head of the Routine Audit Team to audit arms, exhibits, operational vehicles, suspects etc. Such audit was not only applicable to IRT, but likewise many other senior officers were sent to other police departments as heads of routine audit teams. Ignore the fake news going round. IRT has not been disbanded as clearly shown in the IGPs speech and other IGP signals that followed, he said. NAN reports that the new IGP had, during his maiden meeting with commissioners of police in Abuja, ordered the decentralisation of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). With the decentralisation, commissioners of police in each state have assumed full command and control of all SARS operation in their various commands. The IGP also announced the disbandment of the Special Investigation Panel (SIP) and Special Tactical Squad (STS), and other investigation teams. NAN further reports that IRT had been a nightmare to kidnappers, armed robbers and other criminals, since inception. (NAN) The acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Ibrahim Mohammad, appointed in controversial circumstances by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, has inaugurated 250 members of the presidential and National Assembly elections. The elections will hold February 16. Mr Mohammed was appointed by Mr Buhari as replacement for Justice Walter Onnoghen, who is accused of false asset declaration. Mr Onnoghens removal has sparked widespread condemnation as it is deemed unconstitutional. Under the 1999 constitution, the chief justice can only be removed with the approval of the National Judicial Council and the Senate. Mr Onnoghen was removed as he prepared to inaugurate members of the election tribunal. Justice Mohammad chaired the inauguration of the tribunal members at the ceremonial complex of Nigerias Supreme Court on Saturday. He urged the 250 appointed chairpersons and members of the Election Petition Tribunals to be guided by the fear of God in the performance of their duties. I am delighted to address you all on this occasion of the swearing-in ceremony for the newly appointed Chairmen and members of Election Petition Tribunals for the 2019 General Elections that is around the corner. As you lordships take the oath of office as chairmen and members of the Election Petition Tribunals, let me remind you that this oath is a solemn appeal to Almighty God. Therefore, it is God Almighty that you will be ultimately responsible to. Therefore, it is from this oath that your duties and responsibilities as chairmen and members of the Election Petition Tribunals in your various places of assignment spring forth and has a binding effect. This is an ethical undertaking to justice as well as upholding the rule of law in our courts. As such, I implore you to discharge your onerous duty diligently and with the fear of God Almighty, he said. Mr Muhammad also said: The judiciary is in trying times; you must stand to protect and uphold the integrity of this arm of government. I therefore congratulate you on this appointment and I urge you to see this assignment as a call to greater service to your nation. I encourage you to uphold and enhance the honour and standing of the judiciary and I pray that the Almighty God will bestow upon you strength, good health and wisdom in the performance of your duties, Mr Muhammad said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Justice Sidi Bage was one out of the remaining 15 justices of the Supreme Court that attended the ceremony along with the acting CJN. ADVERTISEMENT (NAN) READ OUR PREVIOUS REPORT HERE President Muhammadu Buharis controversial suspension of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen from office has drawn criticisms from the United States and the European Union. The Embassy of the United States said in a statement Saturday afternoon it was deeply concerned by the impact of the executive branchs decision to suspend and replace the Chief Justice and head of the judicial branch without the support of the legislative branch on the eve of national and state elections. Mr Buhari said he relied on an order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, an auxiliary judicial panel that addresses assets filings of public officials, to suspend Mr Onnoghen from office and appoint a replacement. The decision is contrary to Nigerias Constitution which says in Section 292 that only the National Judicial Council could recommend sanctions against a federal judge. The Nigerian Senate would then consider such recommendations and forward its findings to the president before a federal judge could be removed from office. But those supporting the decision say the president acted based on a court order. This has been countered as every other law is subject to the constitution. Mr Onnoghen has been facing trial before the tribunal for alleged non-declaration of some bank accounts which contained large amount of dollars and other foreign currencies. Mr Onnoghen said he forgot to declare the account, an admission the president said was tantamount to pleading guilty and warranted his immediate removal from office. The president has argued that he only suspended Mr Onnoghen but not removed him. However, the Nigerian Interpretation Act defined suspension and removal as meaning same. The president has faced serious allegations of constitutional breach, with Atiku Abubakar, his main challenger at the next months general elections, saying the Constitution has been effectively suspended. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party on Saturday said it was suspending its presidential election campaign temporarily in protest. The U.S. authorities said the development was a mockery of Mr Buhari and other Nigerian politicians commitment to a free elections exercise next month. We note widespread Nigerian criticism that this decision is unconstitutional and that it undermines the independence of the judicial branch, a statement said. That undercuts the stated determination of government, candidates, and political party leaders to ensure that the elections proceed in a way that is free, fair, transparent, and peaceful leading to a credible result, it said. The statement called for immediate resolution of the matter to prevent Nigeria from descending into crisis. We urge that the issues raised by this decision be resolved swiftly and peacefully in accordance with due process, full respect for the rule of law, and the spirit of the Constitution of Nigeria. Such action is needed urgently now to ensure that this decision does not cast a pall over the electoral process, the statement added. The statement reads: The Embassy of the United States is deeply concerned by the impact of the executive branchs decision to suspend and replace the Chief Justice and head of the judicial branch without the support of the legislative branch on the eve of national and state elections. We note widespread Nigerian criticism that this decision is unconstitutional and that it undermines the independence of the judicial branch. That undercuts the stated determination of government, candidates, and political party leaders to ensure that the elections proceed in a way that is free, fair, transparent, and peaceful leading to a credible result. ADVERTISEMENT We urge that the issues raised by this decision be resolved swiftly and peacefully in accordance with due process, full respect for the rule of law, and the spirit of the Constitution of Nigeria. Such action is needed urgently now to ensure that this decision does not cast a pall over the electoral process. Also, in its reaction, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) expressed concern over the process and timing of the suspension. Its statement reads: The European Union was invited by the Independent National Electoral Commission to observe the 2019 general elections. The EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) is very concerned about the process and timing of the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Honourable Justice Walter Onnoghen, on 25 January. With 20 days until the presidential and National Assembly elections, political parties, candidates and voters must be able to have confidence in the impartiality and independence of the judicial system. The decision to suspend the Chief Justice has led to many Nigerians, including lawyers and civil society observer groups, to question whether due process was followed. The timing, just before the swearing in of justices for Electoral Tribunals and the hearing of election-related cases, has also raised concerns about the opportunity for electoral justice. The EU EOM calls on all parties to follow the legal processes provided for in the Constitution and to respond calmly to any concerns they may have. The EU EOM will continue observing all aspects of the election, including the independence of the election administration, the neutrality of security agencies, and the extent to which the judiciary can and does fulfil its election-related responsibilities. Also, a presidential candidate, Olawepo Hashim, criticised the presidents action, calling for urgent international sanctions against Mr Buhari and his administration officials. Mr Olawepo in his statement said Mr Buhari has plunged Nigeria into dictatorship. This is a clear indication that we have returned to full blown dictatorship. Following the suspension of the Chief Justice of the Federation, we are seeing full-blown dictatorship in Nigeria. It is an abyss, an aberration and a clear violation of our laws. We will not allow Nigeria fall into dictatorship anymore. I call on all lovers of Nigeria and lovers of democracy and the international community to immediately impose sanctions on officials of the executive arm of government, their families, including their friends and associates, Mr Olawepo said. ADVERTISEMENT After submitting it dismissed an officer for failing to renew his contract, the Nigerian Army on Friday indicated it may have sacked the officer and 38 others for alleged electoral partisanship, among other allegations. The affected officer, Abdulfatah Mohammed, was controversially dismissed in 2016 alongside others, including military generals without facing any panel as required by law. The army had submitted during repeated hearings in court that it sacked the officers for failing to renew their contracts after 18 years of service. The officers, who have instituted various actions against their dismissal, have however argued that the armed forces guiding rules do not oblige them to make any such application, once they have been employed. Speaking during further cross-examination of Mr Mohammed, a lawyer for the defence team, Ibrahim Etsu, alleged the applicant was in Edo State during the 2015 election. According to the lawyer, Mr Mohammed, a dismissed army lieutenant colonel, was allegedly involved in election malpractice in Edo State from the South-south, the region the former President, Goodluck Jonathan, is from. Responding, however, Mr Mohammed said he was posted to Borno State where he fought alongside other soldiers against attacks by the dreaded Boko Haram. LAWYER SPEAKS Explaining the proceedings of the day in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES after the court session on Monday, Mr Mohammeds lawyer, Abdul Mohammed, said the case was adjourned till February 22 after a defence lawyer informed the court that he would like to change a defence witness. He also informed this newspaper that his client was accused of playing partisan roles in Edo State, during the previous election. What happened today was that the defence counsel, Ibrahim Etsu, did further cross-examination of the applicant. A defence lawyer, Etsu put a number of questions before the applicant. One of the questions was intended to put to the applicant that he was in Edo State during the 2015 general elections. But the applicant was able to put forth documents that showed that he was in Borno State during that period. Mr Mohammed explained that the other defence counsel, Jibrin Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, asked the court to allow him time to present a new witness because his initial one was transferred by the army. Following that application, the court adjourned till February 22, for the defence to change their witness and bring him or her to court. Attempts by this newspaper to speak with Mr Etsu failed. The lawyer said he was not permitted to speak with journalists about the matter. ADVERTISEMENT The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has suspended its campaign for 72 hours to protest the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen. President Muhammadu Buhari controversially suspended Mr Onnoghen from office on Friday. The president said he was acting on a court order by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). The president then swore in another Supreme Court justice, Tanko Mohammed, as Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria. Many Nigerians including the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and Senate President Bukola Saraki have described the presidents action as illegal. In its statement by its national chairman, Uche Secondus, the PDP said it was suspending its campaign for 72 hours in solidarity with Nigerians. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council has suspended its presidential campaign in protest of President Muhammadu Buharis decision to suspend the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen. The PDP Campaign Council further predicated the suspension of its campaign activities in solidarity with Nigerians in our collective rejection of the assault against our democratic order. The campaign council, co-chaired by Mr Secondus, also described Mr Buharis action as a dangerous and brazen assault on the constitution The basis for this election is the democracy itself. When democracy comes under this kind of virulent attack, then the election itself becomes superfluous, the statement said. The PDP Presidential Campaign was scheduled to be in Benue State on Saturday before the suspension. In the first instance, we are suspending our campaign for 72 hours. It is our hope that President Buhari will listen to the voice of all lovers of democracy the world over and restore democracy in Nigeria immediately and without qualifications. At the moment, the President has effectively suspended the constitution under whose basis the elections are being contested. The action of President Buhari represents a constitutional breach and a direct attack on our democracy. This must never be allowed to stand, as there is no way by which democracy can survive under these autocratic tendencies. We call on all well meaning Nigerians to rise in defence of democracy and save our nation from this imminent slide into tyranny, Mr Secondus said. The PDP led Nigeria between 1999 and 2015 when it lost the presidential election to Mr Buharis APC. The partys flagbearer, Atiku Abubakar, is the main challenger to Mr Buhari in next monthss presidential election. Six companies will construct 19 federal roads covering 794.4km under the new Executive Order 007 signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday. The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, listed the roads at the signing ceremony inside the council chamber of State House Presidential Villa. She said the Executive Order #7 of 2019, titled Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme, is the outcome of efforts to think outside of the box and deploy new techniques to develop critical roads infrastructure in the country. She said the scheme will incentivise private sector investment in Nigerian roads across key economic corridors and industrial clusters, relieving the government of the burden of funding the initial outlays for these investments. Participating investors will use tax credits to reduce corporate taxes payable to government until they recoup the value of their investments in roads and bridges. Essentially, this scheme will utilise tax expenditures, refundable by way of tax credits, to finance the construction of critical roads infrastructure through a Public Private Partnership mechanism, she said. The minister also said Mr Buhari is empowered by Sections 5 and 315 of the 1999 Constitution to make Executive Orders to alter, repeal or otherwise modify existing laws. She said relevant provisions of the Companies Income Tax Act also empower him to authorise the exemption from corporate taxation, for certain companies or groups of companies, by way of the issuance of tax credits. Mrs Ahmed said the new scheme is based on the demand for road projects by companies and other corporate sponsors, who are willing to deploy their own working capital and financial resources to fund road projects located in the major economic corridors of the country where they have significant businesses and operations. In this pilot phase, the following six private sector companies have chosen to participate in the Scheme: a) Dangote Industries Limited; b) Lafarge Africa Plc; c) Unilever Nigeria Plc; d) Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc; e) Nigeria LNG Limited; and f) China Road and Bridge Corporation Nigeria Limited. These investors will be investing in the following 19 eligible road projects, totalling 794.4km which have been prioritised in 11 states across each of the six geo-political zones: a) Construction of Ashaka-Bajoga Highway in Gombe State; ADVERTISEMENT b) Reconstruction of Dikwa-GambaruNgala Road in Borno State; c) Reconstruction of Bama-Banki Road in Borno State; d) Rehabilitation of Sharada Road in Kano State; e) Rehabilitation of Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway / Bypass, in Kaduna State; f) Reconstruction of Birnin Gwari Expressway Road in Kaduna State; g) Reconstruction of Birnin Gwari Dansadau Road in Kaduna State; h) Reconstruction of Makurdi-Yandev-Gboko Road in Benue State; i) Reconstruction of Zone Roundabout-House of Assembly Road in Benue State; j) Reconstruction of Obajana-Kabba Road in Kogi State; k) Reconstruction of Ekuku-Idoma-Obehira Road in Kogi State; l) Construction of AdaviEba-Ikuehi-Obeiba-Obokore Road in Kogi State; m) Rehabilitation of Lokoja-Ganaja Road in Kogi State; n) Ofeme Community Road Network and Bridges in Abia State; o) Rehabilitation of Obele-Ilaro-Papalanto-Shagamu Road in Ogun State; p) Reconstruction of Sokoto Road in Ogun State; q) Reconstruction of Apapa-Oshodi-Oworonshoki-Ojota Road in Lagos State; r) Construction of Bodo-Bonny Road & Bridges across Opobo Channel in Rivers State; and s) Rehabilitation of Benin City Asaba Road in Edo State. The finance minister said the government is still soliciting for more serious proposals from interested Investors, state governments and others who may wish to take advantage of the scheme to partner with the federal government in investing in roads. Our intention is for there to be at least one significant eligible road project underway in every state of the federation within the first year of the operation of this scheme. In terms of process and governance, prospective road projects are to be submitted to the government via the schemes management committee. This management committee, which I chair, has the Minister of Power, Works and Housing as its Deputy Chairman, and the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance as its Secretary. The other members of the management committee are drawn from a number of relevant federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), she said. She identified representations from the MDAs to include: a) The Federal Ministry of Finance; b) The Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing; c) The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment; d) The Federal Ministry of Justice; e) The Bureau of Public Procurement; f) The Federal Inland Revenue Service; g) The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission; h) The Securities and Exchange Commission; i) The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission; j) The Budget Office of the Federation; k) The National Bureau of Statistics; l) The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority; and m) The Office of the Chief of Staff to the President. Mrs Ahmed said after carefully considering submissions by investors, the management committee will forward the proposals, through the chairman of the committee, to the president. She said Mr. Buhari will, based on the new Executive Order, select eligible road projects which will be published in an official gazette. ADVERTISEMENT The controversial suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, by President Muhammadu Buhari has continued to elicit mixed reactions. In removing Mr Onnoghen, Mr Buhari claimed he acted based on a Code of Conduct Tribunal order. Many Nigerians, however, believe the president has no such powers to remove a Chief Justice of Nigeria from office. Section 292 of the Nigerian constitution deals with the removal of some public officials including the CJN. The section does not distinguish temporary removal (suspension) from a permanent removal (sack). Below is the law as reproduced verbatim from the constitution A judicial officer shall not be removed from his office or appointment before his age of retirement except in the following circumstances (a) in the case of Chief Justice of Nigeria, President of the Court of Appeal, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Grand Kadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and President, Customary Court of Appeal of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, by the President acting on an address supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate. (ii) Chief Judge of a State, Grand Kadi of a Sharia Court of Appeal or President of a Customary Court of Appeal of a State, by the Governor acting on an address supported by two-thirds majority of the House of Assembly of the State, Praying that he be so removed for his inability to discharge the functions of his office or appointment (whether arising from infirmity of mind or of body) or for misconduct or contravention of the Code of Conduct; (b) in any case, other than those to which paragraph (a) of this subsection applies, by the President or, as the case may be, the Governor acting on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council that the judicial officer be so removed for his inability to discharge the functions of his office or appointment (whether arising from infirmity of mind or of body) or for misconduct or contravention of the Code of Conduct. In other words, a sitting CJN can only be removed from office by the president after at least two-thirds majority members of the Senate support such a move. No such matter has been debated in the Senate. History of the Supreme Court of Nigeria According to the courts website, the coinage Supreme Court was first used in 1863 by the colonial administration through the enactment of the Supreme Court Ordinance No. II which established it as a colony with civil and criminal jurisdiction. In 1963, following the proclamation of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the constitution which came into operation on October 1, 1963, Section III of this constitution gave legal instrument that gave birth to Supreme Court following the abolition of section 120 which abrogated the appellate jurisdiction of the judicial committee of the Privy Council which was Nigerias apex Court. This Act also gave it the status of the highest Court in the judicial hierarchy while the Independence Constitution of 1960 vested in it the jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court. The 1979 Constitution in its Section 210 (1) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution clearly gave it the name Supreme Court of Nigeria. The Court operates as the apex Court on matters involving both Federal and State Laws. The Supreme Court is composed of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and not more than twenty others appointed by the President after being recommended by the National Judicial Council subject to the Senates confirmation. They are required to retire after a mandatory service age of 70. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 2:13 pm With mud flying and while surrounded by children wielding tools akin to heavy-duty pogo sticks, Brandon Bywater of the Nisqually River Education Project couldnt help but crack a smile. For me, the number one goal is that the kids are having fun outdoors, Bywater said. Hopefully, they leave having learned something, too. The kids Bywater spoke of consisted of the entire fourth grade class from Simpson Elementary School in Montesano. The school tries to bring that grade to Centralia each year for a day of planting trees along the Discovery Trail. Representatives from the Chehalis River Basin Land Trust, Chehalis Basin Education Consortium and others helped to facilitate the experience on Thursday. Under the watchful guidance of Bywater, Rachel Stendahl of the CBEC and a dozen other adult volunteers, students bored holes in the ground and planted tree starts, dotting the reed canary grass with barren sticks measuring about a yard in length. Local volunteers worked Monday to clear circular areas within the thick brush so the children could reach the soil beneath. Sporting colorful rain boots and jackets, the kids enjoyed a few minutes of stomping through the mud and play-fighting with their work gloves before Stendahl got their attention for a short introduction. Its a controlled chaos, said Jan Robinson, president of the CRBLT board of directors, as she helped distribute gloves and tools. But thats a good thing. Between this and the field studies that happen in the spring, its always great to get the kids out here. Longtime Simpson Elementary teacher Tina Niels pointed out trees along the trail her past students had planted as fourth-graders more than a decade ago. She helped a group of students space out their tree starts while explaining how the experience helps lock in the units on ecology and wildlife biology she teaches each year. Children who Simpson Elementary learn about riparian zones areas of vegetation along river banks that separates the waterway from the land and the life cycle of salmon. They do water testing exercises twice a year. Niels said her goal is that by the end of each school year, her students know which plants they see are native to the Pacific Northwest and which are not. Im going to remember how fun it was to plant the trees with the digger tools and put the sticks in the ground, Zayden Moreau said. Also, how the trees can help the environment. The students were split into two groups Thursday. One spent the morning out on the trail, while the other received a tour of the wastewater treatment plant operated by the city of Centralia. After a lunch break, the two clusters swapped roles for the remainder of the afternoon. On the tour, students saw how wastewater enters the facility, gets filtered, treated and released back out into the water supply. Employees showed off the laboratory space where they keep the bacteria used to treat contaminated water. The city and CRBLT partnered to create the Discovery Trail through a conservation easement awarded in conjunction with efforts to build the wastewater treatment plant about 15 years ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board and other groups also helped bring the 1.5 miles of nature walk to fruition. Getting to plant, see, and understand what happens out here is really good for the kids, Niels said. Pictures in a book are not the same thing. This feeds into all of the things they learn, and helps them feel connected to to it all. Having dotted a section of the brush with what will hopefully become another stretch of greenery rising above the fray, the children headed back to the opening along the trail where a school bus would pick them up and return them to Montesano. Muddied, but not rained on, everyone smiled for a group picture while they waited for their ride. They had time to take a few pictures, and for everyone to use the restroom. The bus had gotten stuck in the mud while driving up the unpaved roadway. A backhoe was summoned to tow it out of the muck. While an inconvenience to be sure, the scene had the full attention of each student, and might have made it more likely theyll remember the field trip for years to come. Sitting on the bed in a room at Ogene-Amejo village and listening to Rose Abah, mother of the deceased rape victim, Ochanya Ogbanje; there was almost no way of telling what her next stunning revelation would be. She earlier narrated the horrible details about her daughter, Ochanyas death. Mrs Abah told PREMIUM TIMES that Andrew Ogbuja made several attempts to rape her other 26-year-old daughter, Esther Ameh. According to Mrs Abah, the incident happened in April, 2018, when Miss Ameh went to the Ogbujas to care for her 13-year-old sister who had become perennially sick, after going to live with Mrs Ogbuja who was a maternal second cousin to the siblings. Do you know that he also tried to sleep with my late daughters elder sister, Esther? That one is 13 years older than Ochanya, Ms Abah said. Pointing at Miss Amehs picture hung on the wall, Mrs Abah said her other daughter had gone to the Ogbujas to care of the late Miss Ochanya, when the incident occurred. The woman added that her elder daughter, who had travelled back to Lagos for work, made an audio record of some conversations with Mr Ogbuja. Mrs Abah spoke with PREMIUM TIMES during a visit to the Ogene-Amejo village where the late Ochanyas parents had lived with their daughter till 2010. In search of sound education, Mrs Abah had taken Miss Ochanya, at the age of five, to live with Mrs Ogbuja whose residence was located on a street almost opposite the Emmanuel Primary and Secondary School where Miss Ochanya obtained her primary education in Ugbokolo, Benue State. Federal Government Girls College According to Miss Ochanyas parents, Mrs Ogbujas maternal grand-father was a direct sibling to Mrs Abahs mother, making the suspended lecturers wife a niece to Mrs Abah and second cousin to the late Miss Ochanya. Mrs Abah and her family were, however, plunged into sorrow when medical practitioners pronounced their daughter dead in October after 13-year-old Ochanya suffered from Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF). This followed a series of rapes allegedly perpetrated by her nieces husband, Andrew, and his fugitive son, Victor Ogbuja, during the eight years when Miss Ochanya stayed with them. Conversations with the suspect Due to the current revelation by Mrs Abah, PREMIUM TIMES contacted Miss Ameh who provided curious records of a conversation between the 51-year-old man and herself during a night at the Ogbujas. Miss Ameh said she recorded the conversation oblivious of the cause of her kid sisters terminal illness because it was difficult to believe the mischief intended by Mr Ogbuja. In the recorded conversation, Mr Ogbujas voice is heard begging Miss Esther to meet him at a lonely place within his matrimonial home during night time. I am waiting oh, the voice beckons on Mr Ogbujas end of the phone conversation, recorded by Miss Ameh. I cant come, oh. What if someone sees us? Miss Amehs voice is heard responding to Mr Ogbuja on the other end of the phone in Idoma language. As if to prove his state of desperation; Mr Ogbuja starts pleading with the young lady in Gods name. ADVERTISEMENT Please now, please! I beg you with God. Nobody is here. I have seen everywhere is clear. They have all slept. The place is clear, said the now suspended Catholic Knight and lecturer of the Benue State Polytechnic. Before ending the call, Miss Esther announces her decision to meet with him, outside the house, during day time. The dilapidated part of the school In fact, me: I want to see you. I want us to sit and talk. Though not this night and not in this house, Miss Ameh said. Sexual Predator? Miss Ameh later recalled how Mr Ogbuja began his strange sexual advances towards her. According to the lady, Mr Ogbuja started making casual romantic passes at her, each time she was working alone in the kitchen. Confused about the situation, Miss Ameh said she wondered how to place the actions of Mr Ogbuja whom she fondly regarded as her uncle, until the suspected rapist demanded her audience. The man told me that he had been eyeing me since I was small. That he wanted to ask my parents to let me come to stay at his house, Miss Ameh told PREMIUM TIMES. She added that following her consistent refusal to yield to Mr Ogbujas request, the accused rapist instigated his wife to send both siblings packing. This development marked the end of the late Ochanyas eight years of misery at the Ogbujas residence and subsequently resulted in the discoveries about the source of her illness. Controversial Case The trial of the two suspects accused of raping Miss Ochanya has already suffered two successive and controversial adjournments, at the instance of the court. After finding out the true nature of their daughters sickness with the aid of a caregiver, Enuwa Soo, the case was reported to the Benue States branch of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, who filed a two-count charge against the suspects at an area court in Benue, before the death of Miss Ochanya in October. However, after a previous adjournment of the matter in November, following the absence of the presiding judge, Isaac Ajim, who was said to be attending a conference in Abuja, the court again shifted the case till January 22 on the grounds that the judge had another meeting at a separate court in Benue. Group protesting the repeated adjournments of Ochanyas case Even the prosecution team present in court that December, 14 could not immediately provide a sufficient explanation to journalists on the reason for the second adjournment, after the court announced its next hearing date. We are not happy that the court did not sit. We have not been told that there is a cogent reason why, a spokeswoman for the prosecution, Terfa Suswam told journalists, suggesting that she and her team of lawyers were not informed about the alleged attendance of Mr Ajim at the said meeting. A court clerk later told PREMIUM TIMES during further enquiries about the absence of the judge; that he (the judge) could not sit because he had a meeting to attend at another court that same day. Similarly, the younger Ogbuja who was also accused of sexually abusing the late victim is still at large, five months after the case began in August. How it began The late Ochanyas unfortunate journey began, following her quest for qualitative education, after the only primary school in Ogene-Amejo village became abandoned by the government. According to the Ogene-Amejo community leader Onaji Cletus, the village with a population of 2000 people in 170 households had battled to educate its young ones, in a dilapidated government primary school under the rain and sunshine until a small part of the school was renovated three years ago. Before the renovation; there were times when the roofing top covering the dilapidated building would fall off and we will have to fetch them and continue managing the place, so that our poor children can get whatever kind of education is affordable, Mr Cletus told PREMIUM TIMES. The renovated building described by Mr Cletus is a block of few classes, currently managed by children within the village, after it was rebuilt by government. A larger part of the school still appears devastated, like a set of buildings destroyed by storm, or some form of crisis. According to Mr Cletus, the villagers are only able to manage the renovated block because a lot of children currently do not go to school in the village. Efforts by this newspaper to find out when the state government plans to complete the renovation failed. After repeated visits to the state ministry of education, this reporter was told by an official of the practically deserted department of information at the state ministry, Cecelia Akegh that the two people authorised to speak on the matter; namely the commissioner for education and permanent secretary were not available. Ochanyas grave The states commissioner and his permanent secretary are not the only ones whose absence have left more questions unanswered regarding the unfortunate story of the late victim. Nigerias rape cases The prosecution of rape cases is dismal in Nigeria. Evans Ufeli, a lawyer who has worked on child rape cases for over a decade, in 2015, said only 18 rape matters reported in courts had resulted in convictions throughout Nigerias history. Mr Ufeli said this at a quarterly public dialogue that focuses on child abuses and parenting in Lagos. As explained by Mr Ufeli, a lot of rape cases are frustrated by the prosecution team who are mostly employed by the Nigerian Police Force. According to a 2014 statistics provided by NOIPolls, a data website, about 78 percent of reported rape cases involving children within the ages of seven to 12, were taken to the police for necessary action. And according to data provided by the UNICEF for children within the same age group in Nigeria, only 25 percent of female rape victims actually reported the matter, while 11 percent was recorded for men. A previous investigation by PREMIUM TIMES had shown how the poor prosecution of a rape case involving an eight-year-old victim and her neighbour, Victor Enejor, resulted in the discharge of the matter. This was after a medical report indicating that the victim contracted sexually transmitted disease from her alleged rapist was removed from the case file by the prosecution during their investigation. A lawyer representing the second victim in another report by this newspaper, Beneath Nnemeka, told PREMIUM TIMES in a recent telephone interview that his clients father was frustrated by the case and has taken his daughter to the village. The victim, now 15, was raped and impregnated by her schoolmates in 2016 at a public school in Abuja. Advocates React A child rights advocate, Ronke Ojeikere, who is the South-south zonal coordinator, National Council of Child Rights Advocates of Nigeria, (NACCRAN) said the country is practically living in a state of denial on many issues affecting Nigerian children. We should sit down and look at our child right laws and examine critically the many gaps that remain silent. We are living in denial over so many things that are happening to children, Ms Ojeikere said. Another child rights advocate, Mojirayo Ogunlana-Nkanga, noted the consequence of poor prosecution or abandonment of rape cases in Nigeria. The one (suspect) you let go yesterday, may end up raping more tomorrow, Mrs Ogunlana-Nkanga told PREMIUM TIMES. ADVERTISEMENT Business mogul, Aliko Dangote, says the Executive Order 007 signed by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday will make businesses run smoothly and more profitably. Africas richest man also said the new order, tagged Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme, will reduce the cost of doing business in the country. Dangote Group is one of six companies selected to construct 19 federal roads in the pilot phase of the new scheme. The companies will enjoy tax credit to finance the construction of key economic roads. Speaking with State House correspondents Friday after the signing ceremony, Mr Dangote said the impact is huge because as we speak today all of you know the deplorable conditions of roads in Nigeria. This order will allow private sector to use their capital, their knowhow and also their efficiency in terms of delivering roads in time. It is not going to be business as usual, when you look at Abuja-Lokoja that road started by the administration of President Obasanjo up till today is still ongoing, it might still be ongoing in the next five years because it is very difficult to deliver roads based on budgets, he said. Mr Dangote said based on the new order the Nigerian government will be saving billions of naira. As we speak now, what is going to happen for example by the government doing Apapa Oshodi-Oworonshoki and Ojota roads? These roads alone will save people billions and billions of naira. I dont know what other companies have lost but I think we, apart from losing a percentage of our profitability, we have actually lost more than N20 billion naira in the last one year paying demurrage because we have not been able to remove our goods from the ports, he said? Mr Dangote said the order will allow such firms to quickly go and build that road, now you will not see trucks littered all over in Lagos, so this will help quite a lot. Mr Dangote also said the new order will also help other motorists who are using the roads. He, however, said the government will need to do a lot more in marketing the new scheme. What this means is that you will advance your taxes. You know advancing taxes is not an easy job, but some of us will like to do that so that the infrastructure can be provided and it will help us to make more money in our businesses. ADVERTISEMENT Pursuant to its planned acquisition of Diamond bank PLC, Access Bank Friday announced the schedule for the court-ordered shareholders meeting for March 5, 2019. The meeting, which all shareholders are expected to attend in Lagos, was ordered on January 24 by Justice O. O. Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court, Lagos. The court directed that a meeting of the holders of the fully paid-up ordinary shares of Access Bank Plc be convened and held for the purpose of considering and if thought fit, approving a Scheme of Merger between the company and Diamond Bank Plc as well as related matters. A copy of the scheme document sent to all the shareholders said the following resolutions will be proposed, and if thought fit passed as special resolutions of Access Bank. For purposes of identification, the publication said the scheme document dated January 24, 2019, has been endorsed by the Chairman and approved by the Directors of the bank. They have also given consent to any modification of the scheme that the regulatory authorities, namely Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or the court shall impose or approve. The directors were authorised to accept the transfer of all the assets, liabilities and undertakings, including real properties and intellectual property rights of Diamond Bank Plc upon the terms and subject to the conditions set out in the scheme document, without any further act or deed. As consideration for the transfer of all the assets, liabilities and undertakings, including real properties and intellectual property rights of Diamond Bank Plc, the court authorised the directors to allot the scheme shares to Diamond Bank shareholders upon the terms and subject to the conditions set out in the scheme document, without any further act or deed. The directors were also authorized to pay N1.00 per share for each issued and paid-up Diamond Bank ordinary share held as at the date of the court-ordered meeting Also, it directed the companys solicitors to seek orders of the court sanctioning the scheme and the foregoing resolutions as well as such other incidental, consequential or supplemental orders as are necessary or required to give full effect to the scheme. The directors of the bank were equally authorised to take such actions as may be necessary to give effect to the scheme, including but not limited to the listing of its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Consequently, by the order of the court, Mosun Belo-Olusoga was appointed the Chairman of the Board of Directors, with Ajoritsedere Awosika named as a director of the company. In case both of them fail to accept the appointment, the court said any other director may be appointed by the shareholders present at the meeting to act as chairman of the meeting, while the chairman has been directed to report the outcome to the court. Voting at the meeting will be by poll. Shareholders may vote in person or they may appoint another person, whether a shareholder or not to attend and vote in their stead. In addition to the questions that Shareholders can ask at the meeting, the shareholders may submit questions on the Scheme to the Company prior to the date of the meeting. All such questions must be submitted to the Company Secretary on or before 5 p.m. on Monday March 4, 2019, the court said. The scheme will be subject to the subsequent approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the sanction of the Federal High Court. This afternoon, President Trump announced a deal to fund the portion of the federal government that has been shut down for the next three weeks, with no provision for border security. Many conservatives are howling, but I am not sure this temporary resolution of the shutdown is a big dealjust as I didnt think the shutdown was a big deal in the first place. Speaking for myself, I never noticed it. This years shutdown was even purer political theater than most. Trump says he intends to negotiate with the Democrats over border security for the next three weeks; the Democrats say they will negotiate in good faith. Which is ridiculous, of course. At the White House today, Trump strongly suggested that if the Democrats dont agree to wall funding during the next three weeks, he will declare an emergency and start building the wall with funds he can easily find within the military budget and other areas of the executive branch. That presumably will lead to litigation. Ultimately, I agree with Collin Peterson, Minnesotas 7th District Congressman who is perhaps the most conservative Democrat left in Congress. Peterson urged his fellow Democrats to give Trump the $5.7 billion he was asking for, and added: Why are we fighting over this? Were going to build that wall anyway, at some time. I think that is right. Regardless of whether you think todays agreement represents a setback, the wall is going to be built. Unfortunately, a lot of illegal immigrants, including gang members and perhaps terrorists, are going to enter the country in the meantime. Its not that we are obsessed with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The problem is that she does so many outrageous things. And also, when she vents on foreign policy, we have to take her seriously as a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, courtesy of Nancy Pelosi. So this idiocy is newsworthy: A US backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump's efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region. We must support Mexico, Uruguay & the Vatican's efforts to facilitate a peaceful dialogue. Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 25, 2019 There is no US backed coup in Venezuela, nor is the opposition to Maduro far right. Omar just makes this stuff up. Omar cites left-wing support for Maduro from the governments of Mexico and Uruguay (as well as the appalling Pope Francis), but for some reason doesnt mention that Russia, China, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian Authority are, like her, pro-Maduro. She also doesnt mention that Brazil, Argentina, Chili, Canada, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Honduras, Panama, Guatemala and Costa Rica have all joined the U.S. in recognizing Juan Guaido, the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as interim President of Venezuela. Nor does she manifest any awareness that the dire issues they [Venezuelans] face are the inevitable product of socialism. The end stage of Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez/Omar socialism is when people have eaten their pets and zoo animals, and rats are in short supply, along with toilet paper. It also isnt clear what peaceful dialogue Omar has in mind. The Chavez/Maduro regime hasnt been in a dialogue with anyone. The regimes opponents have been suppressed, silenced, jailed and shot. But Ilhan Omar, like Russia, China, Irans mullahs, Bashar Assad and the Palestinian Authority, doesnt seem to have a problem with such measures. UPDATE: You can sign a petition to formally censure Omar for her many hateful statements and actions here. An explosion of joy among the usual media suspect greeted the indictment and arrest of Roger Stone yesterday. Yet insofar as collusion with organs of the Russian government in manipulating the 2016 election is concerned, there seems to be no there there. The indictment (posted below) belies it. Thats not quite the way New York Times reporters Eileen Sullivan and Sharon LaFraniere (with help from Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman) put it this morning in their explication of the indictment, but thats what I get out of it. Even they note, however, Campaign officials sought information from WikiLeaks, the indictment said, but it did not allege that those interactions were illegal or that Mr. Stone or anyone else tied to the Trump campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the organization. This past November the Guardian got into the action with a dubious story reporting that Paul Manafort had met several times with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Mollie Hemingway drew the moral of that particular story. I confessed at that time. I confessed that I had listened to Sean Hannity talk live with Julian Assange on Hannitys radio show about his work at Wikileaks during the campaign. I even enjoyed it. Surely this cannot stand. Come get me, coppers! I have taken my cues on the substance of the Mueller investigation from Andrew McCarthy and two or three other knowledgeable observers with insight and judgment. This past November Andy appeared for a brief interview on the heavy-breathing Corsi and Stone stories of that moment. The video clip is posted here along with a brief story. Host Sandra Smith asked Andy to comment on the news to give us a sense where all this goes, as she put it. What I get from all of this, he said as he warmed up, and Im coming at this as somebody who has known and respected Bob Mueller and a number of the people on his staff who are very able lawyers, so I want to give this thing the benefit of the doubt. The preliminaries out of the way, he recalled, they were asked to get to the bottom of what Russia did to interfere with the election, which is a worthy cause. But thats camouflage, it seems to me, for what has become a clown show. NR has placed Andys current NR column behind its paywall this morning. He writes: What matters is this: The indictment is just the latest blatant demonstration that Special Counsel Robert Muellers office, the Department of Justice, and the FBI have known for many months that there was no such [criminal collusion] conspiracy. And yet, fully aware that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI had assiduously crafted a public narrative that Trump may have been in cahoots with the Russian regime, they have allowed that cloud of suspicion to hover over the presidency over the Trump administrations efforts to govern heedless of the damage to the country. Stone Indictment by Scott Johnson on Scribd Sound Off is a forum to spur dialogue from residents of the communities we serve on topics of interest in those communities. Fair game are comments that raise issues of note or amplify ongoing debates. We will not publish comments that are potentially libelous, slanderous, mean-spirited, vulgar or inappropriate. Publications of Sound Off comments are at the sole discretion of the publisher. Commentary >> Kathryn Lopez The real meaning of the March for Life Guest column Citizens are heroes in fight for pipeline safety Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 5:50 pm The Pinchot Partners, a nonprofit that works to promote restoration projects and improve accessibility to the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in a responsible manner, has a new executive director. Jess Martin, of Mineral, is set to take over the reins from Jamie Tolfree, who has led the organization for the past eight years. Theres a ton of possibility out here in East Lewis County, Martin said. I can imagine us becoming more active in helping the people who capitalize on the recreation opportunities around Mt. Rainier and Mount St. Helens. We try to be a mouthpiece for what would benefit our region. During Tolfrees time in charge, the Pinchot Partners have initiated a project to improve the growth of huckleberries within the forest, helped fund outdoor excursions for the White Pass School Districts Discovery Team and improved relations between the nonprofit and the state Department of Natural Resources. An extended period of organizational growth combined with Tolfrees desire to retire from her leadership role led to the hiring of Martin, who has worked for the Mt. Rainier Railroad and Logging Museum, the Fire Mountain Arts Council and taught courses for Centralia College East in Morton. She just has the type of experience were looking for, Tolfree said. She understands forestry and working with the forest service, has some nonprofit background, and has connections with folks in Lewis County. We wanted someone more local than myself and advertised just in Lewis County for awhile. We opened it up, but Jess immediately rose to the top of our applicants. Tolfee said theres a chance she will still perform contract work with the Pinchot Partners on a case-by-case basis. She expects the nonprofit to look at diversifying its efforts to include more hands-on projects within the GPNF as well as expanding its reach to the realm of recreation. Theyre financially secure now, so theyll be able work on getting more grants and funding that will help with projects on the ground as opposed to just planning, Tolfree said. As weve grown, weve needed to have more contact within the community. Weve definitely improved our rapport with the (U.S. Forest Service) over the past eight years. I think (Martin) will be able to take the Pinchot Partners through the transition while exploring new ideas we havent yet been able to explore. Pinchot Partners Board Chair Taylor Aalvik and Vice Chair Bob Guenther voiced their support for Martin in a press release distributed by Tolfree. Her first order of business will be assessing the impact of the government shutdown on projects already in motion. She said the five-week hiatus has thrown a lot of timelines into limbo while placing added stress on the USFS staff who havent been at work since last year. Other priorities for 2019 include collaborating with state and federal organizations on restoration efforts and finding collective goals for partners at all levels to work toward. Prior to being hired in November, I had a very limited knowledge of the nonprofit, Martin said. Ive lived in Washington for four years. Ive worked in Lewis County and Pierce County during that time. A board member tapped me as a candidate when the job was opened. Im grateful I was made aware of the opportunity to work with a nonprofit with so much room for growth. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@postregister.com for help creating one. Dr. B Speaks! Selecting the right kinds of books to bridge learning loss is like choosing the right stream when prospecting for gold. You have to be deliber Read more As a travel seller, Id hear it from time to time: "That hotel was totally unacceptable." But you slept there, right? Travelers often abandon rational thinking in pursuit of a travel objective. Its difficult to make significant emotional investment selecting and booking a hotel, long anticipating a safe, quiet sanctuary in an unfamiliar city at the end of a long journey, only to run into an obstacle. You just want to get into your room, right? Thats not always the best idea. Sometimes its necessary to refuse a hotel room, no matter how travel-worn you might be. In most cases, its a matter of getting the product you were expecting, but in others, your safety and security can depend on refusing a room assignment. Based on my experience, here are a number of situations where travelers should refuse a hotel room theyve been given. THE ROOM IS DAMAGED OR IN POOR CONDITION I once checked into a beach hotel in South Florida late the night before a cruise. When I stepped into the room I heard a disconcerting splash beneath my feet. The carpet was completely soaked through with water of unknown provenance. I called the front desk and they said they were sold out of rooms in that category, but they could send up dryer fans. Nope. A room with a wet carpet should be taken out of service. Hotels should maintain and clean rooms on their own time, not their guests time. After some unnecessarily standoffish discussion, I was eventually given a room of the same type with a slightly better view. ROOM CATEGORY DOES NOT MATCH WHAT WAS BOOKED Hotel room categories can often be difficult to figure out. Whats the difference between an Oceanview Room and an Oceanfront Room? How much bigger is a Junior Suite versus a Suite? Whats Deluxe about the Deluxe Room, or is that really a Standard Room? A guest shouldnt reach a guest room to find out its markedly different from what was expected the room category and configuration should be confirmed verbally during the check-in process. The room location should also be discussed (without giving the room number verbally). If the room doesnt sound like the category reserved, ask. Sometimes the difference between categories could be as simple as a floor. I once worked at a hotel where Moderate and Deluxe Rooms were identical; Deluxe Rooms were simply on the fourth floor or higher. Guests also have a responsibility to inquire at booking if the difference between room categories is unclear. Its best to contact the property directly, as employees working there will have intimate familiarity with their rooms, and can better accommodate specific questions. THE SAFETY OR SECURITY OF THE ROOM IS COMPROMISED Its my habit to deadbolt and chain the door behind me upon entering. However, in one room I checked into, I turned to find there was no chain. The hardware was there, but the chain was missing. It seems trivial, but a rooms security features should be operational. Thats a definite room change. Another issue is when hotel employees mention a guests room number out loud, particularly if used in conjunction with a guest name. Key cards have greatly improved hotel security over the past several decades, but not to the point where a guest should be comfortable with their room number being pronounced within earshot of a stranger not only does it announce the location of a guest and their belongings, it also gives a would-be imposter the ability to sign charges to a guest room, as most properties verify guest name and room number at most before extending signing privileges. FACILITIES OR SERVICES DO NOT MATCH EXPECTATIONS Guests staying at affected Marriott hotels during the recent strikes checked in to find housekeeping services significantly curtailed, and many restaurants and facilities closed. Marriott handled complaints on a case-by-case basis, but there have been reports that local management kept pointing to the fact that the hotels remained open and able to honor confirmed reservations. Yes and no. The reservations were honored, but not for the same product the guest understood theyd be receiving when they made the reservation (many guests reported they were informed of the strike-related service changes only upon arrival at the property). Its important to pay close attention to special conditions when booking. Some hotel brands are better about informing guests with confirmed reservations about service changes up front if its a surprise, guests should be allowed the opportunity to cancel without penalty. HOW TO REFUSE A hotel room should be refused politely, and if necessary, with management. First, explain why the room isnt acceptable, and request alternate accommodations. Unless there are significant service deficiencies, guests will typically be accommodated into the same room category, if available, without any additional compensation. If an acceptable room or the property at large is not acceptable, management should agree to waive any cancellation fees (and contact any consolidators or suppliers theyve sold the room through on your behalf to authorize a refund if your hotel stay is prepaid), and give suggestions on alternative accommodations. The best hotels will call competitors on a guests behalf to check rates and availability. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:33 pm A man was robbed at gunpoint Tuesday night while sitting in his car in a parking lot near Vancouver Mall. Officers were dispatched at 10:37 p.m. to the Red Robin restaurant at 8311 N.E. Vancouver Mall Drive for a report of a robbery that had just occurred. The man was in his vehicle on the phone when another man got into the backseat, pointed a handgun at him and demanded his wallet, Vancouver Police Department spokeswoman Kim Kapp said in an email. The victim handed over his wallet, and the suspect fled on foot, Kapp said. Police described the armed robber as a white man about 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a thin build. The Major Crimes Unit is investigating the incident. It ended up being India Eisleys good fortune that her parents musician David Glen Eisley and actress Olivia Hussey waited until they were in their 40s to have a child. Because they both grew up in the 1960s, Eisley was exposed to the politics, fashion, music and art of that time. That gave Eisley an appreciation for the era that made it easier for her to slip into the role of Fauna Hodel in the TNT limited series "I Am the Night." The six-part production, starting Monday, is inspired by the life of Fauna Hodel (Eilseys role), a white girl who grew up in Nevada thinking she was mixed race. That happened because a wealthy family gave Hodel to a black casino attendant shortly after her birth. Hodels efforts to find out the truth about her family lead her into a world of mystery (the Black Dahlia kind) and murder. The teenagers investigation takes her from Sparks, Nev., to Los Angeles, where she meets disgraced reporter Jay Singletary (Chris Pine). They join forces to find the facts, an effort that takes them to the infamous Los Angeles gynecologist, Dr. George Hodel (Jefferson Mays). Most of what Eisley needed to know about the time and story was in the script. She spoke with the daughters of the real Fauna Hodel as background but she was careful not to do too much research. "Ultimately, I didnt want the work to feel like she was too aware of everything. She is not stupid by any means but she is very young and has been kind of sheltered from the world," Eisley says. "I didnt find her to be a shy person. But, she has grown up in this small town so I wanted there to be a real naive aspect to her. "I got the feeling from her daughters that Fauna was very transient and a loner." That was a part of the character Eisley had no problem understanding. She didnt get to stay in school for long periods because she was always traveling with her performing parents. Eisley describes herself as being "very shy" when she did get to attend regular school. She said she can relate to being a loner, having never felt like she belonged. Its an interesting description since Eisley has been acting for more than half her life, starting when she was 10. With roles in "Headspace," "Kite," "The Curse of Sleeping Beauty," "Underworld: Awakening" and "My Sweet Audrina," Eisley is best known for her role as Ashley Juergens in the ABC Family television series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." Getting past her shyness was critical because the plan was for Eisley to follow her mothers career path. "I was a (expletive deleted) student, too," Eisley says with a laugh. "There was a period of time when I studied ballet a lot when I was growing up. There was a point when I thought about being a dancer but I loved acting. "As a painfully shy kid, my fun time was locking myself away and watching movie after movie after movie. Watching a good performance to me was like getting a new toy. Ultimately, the career of a dancer is very, very short." Since starting her acting career, Eisley has approached every role she has played, whether a fictional character or one based on a real person, with the same deep respect. That approach was notched up with "I Am the Night" because the real Fauna Hodel died a few weeks before Eisley was cast to play her. She felt like it was a very "tender spot" to play the role so close to her passing. There were pressure Eisley put on herself but there were no problems when it came to the cast. She talks about how Chris Pine is a "big sweetheart" and how she adored working with Golden Brooks, who played her mother. "They are the kind of actors that make your life easy because every take has a life of its own," Eisley says. "There is a great energy and you end up feeling like a big kid." Projects like "I Am the Night" make her happy that she grew up watching her mother perform. It was decades before she was born that Hussey was stealing hearts with her work in Franco Zeffirellis "Romeo and Juliet." Eisley loves taking on a wide variety of roles but she is extremely quick to state in no uncertain terms that she will never play Juliet. "Never, never, never. Absolutely not," Eisley says. "Plus, I am not a Juliet type." Ive just returned from a week near the U.S.-Mexico border. The time was spent learning about immigration and accompanying refugee families in a "Border Immersion Experience." I was nervous headed into the time away. Traveling with new people, staying with a family I didnt know, being away from my husband for a week, and managing an uncertain schedule: These were just a few of the uncertainties making my stomach uneasy as I packed my bags. The Spirit sustained me during every hour of this visit with a deep sense of connectedness to others and to God. I was reminded all along the way that one doesnt need to fully understand immigration legislation in order to respond to the needs of others with compassion. Early in the week, I opened my pocket-sized travel Bible and prayed for guidance. The verses I opened to and meditated upon were from the book of Hebrews. The author writes in chapter 13, "Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." There were many opportunities to extend hospitality to others during the week, but more often than that, our group of five felt the gracious hospitality of others. All of those we encountered were our teachers. Id like to share with you some of their wise words. "Were here to wear this church out." Don Don was one of our home hosts for the week. He and his wife, Betty, are long time members of a congregation involved in a ministry that serves refugee families. Don shared with us that a while back he served on the church council. At the time, some members were worried that the buildings kitchen was getting disorganized by having so many people using it. The council president at that time said, "Were not here to keep everything organized and in place. Were here to wear this church out." What a powerful philosophy. "We all have the opportunity to put in our two cents in this country, but we all need to do that. Thats what makes our country work." Federal Magistrate Judge Kevin Sweazea Early in the week we attended a federal court docket, and all the cases related to individuals who crossed into the United States at a point other than an official port of entry. For me, these 90 minutes were some of the most emotionally heartbreaking of the week. At the end of our time in New Mexico, we had the opportunity to see the same judge in a different role. He presided over the naturalization ceremony of 203 new U.S. citizens. During his comments, he encouraged all of us to get involved in our democracy. "Each morning I say thank you, Lord, for this day. Im ready for the adventures of this day. We try not to worry about things we cant control. We have enough to do here." E. and B. At some sections of the border wall, there are spaces between the giant metal panels through which people can communicate. We had the opportunity to talk to two women on the other side one morning. They were both involved in the social work field and worked hard each day to improve the lives of those in their community of Anapra, Mexico. Theyre grateful, grounded spirits helped us all keep perspective. "You have a lot to offer and a lot to share. Register to vote. Work to make a difference in your communities. Volunteer with new immigrants. Share your culture and cuisine with others. You are weaving more vibrant colors into the fabric of our country." Valina Salinas Salinas was the keynote speaker during the naturalization ceremony. Shes a federal public defender, and her parents immigrated to the United States. Her words of encouragement were an inspiration to all of us. On the way home, I read a book, "The Issue at Hand: Essays on Buddhist Mindfulness Practice" by Gil Fronsdal. In the book, the author writes about the importance of cultivating patience. He says that one form of patience is the acceptance of truth which is "the willingness to see deeply, without resistance, the truth of the moment and the truth of the deepest levels of reality." During the "Border Immersion Experience," I felt moments of the acceptance of truth, and it shifted my sense of vocational call and personal priorities. The connectedness of all beings is more apparent to me now than it has ever been. Please partner with me in seeking out ways to extend compassion to all those involved in issues related to immigration: border patrol agents, judges, lawyers, social service agencies, refugee families, and those holding political office. Follow the Spirits guidance. Get involved. Pray. Serve. Respond. Holy Everything is a weekly column by Emily Carson. She is a Lutheran pastor serving at the Southeastern Minnesota Synod Office in Rochester. Visit her blog at emilyannecarson.com. Trinity Presbyterian Church of Rochester will host a Financial Peace University course starting Jan. 30. FPU is a nine-week course taught by Dave Ramsey and his team of financial experts. Through life-changing videos, online tools and resources, and group accountability, attendees learn how to create and stick to a budget, save for emergencies, pay off debt, and plan for the future. To register, go online to fpu.com/1080596. For more information, contact Karl Pasch, krpasch@charter.net. Trinity church is at 2577 Schaeffer Lane NE. Douglas church hosts breakfast, bake sale Douglas Methodist Church will host a breakfast and bake sale, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Feb. 2. The breakfast menu includes scrambled eggs with ham, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, sausage and a beverage. Cost of breakfast is $8 for adults, $4 for kids ages 5-10, and free for kids 4 and under. The church is at 6507 75th St. NW, Oronoco. True-life story may inspire, deepen your faith Scott Schwalbe will share his story of conversion, from not caring about God to his desire to be a man of God, at the next Catholic Evangelization Outreach (CEO) event, 7 p.m. Feb. 8 at Church of the Resurrection. The series, which features "real people sharing real stories," will help inspire you and renew and deepen your faith. The public is invited. Admission is free and light refreshments will be served. Child care is also provided. The church is at 1600 11th Ave. SE in Rochester. For more information, call 507-288-5528. Join Rochester church for marriage conference Spend a Valentines Day weekend with your spouse, Feb. 8-9 at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Rochester. The church is playing host to a simulcast of the XO Marriage Conference, an event at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, a suburb of Dallas-Ft. Worth. The simulcast runs from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Feb. 8, and from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Feb. 9. It is a one and a half day experience that provides expert marriage advice and practical teachings to help couples navigate their marriage journey. Participants will hear from Christian marriage expert Jimmy Evans, Dave and Ashley Willis and other leading speakers about the secrets to a thriving, healthy marriage. To enroll, go to marriagetoday.brushfire.com/xo-simulcast-2019/449658. The website also includes answers to common questions about the event. Tickets are $17 per person. Holy Cross is at 2703 Ninth Ave. NW. Cowboy service is Feb. 3 SPRING VALLEY The public is invited to a cowboy service at 6 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 3, at Cherry Grove United Methodist Church. Cowboy church is nondenominational. New musicians are welcome, but should contact Cindy Seabright at seabright.cindy@gmail.com or 507-272-1682 one week prior to the service, which usually is the first Sunday of the month. Cherry Grove United Methodist Church is at 18183 160th St., in the small community of Cherry Grove in rural Spring Valley. Cherry Grove Church is handicapped accessible. Join improvised drumming circle at Assisi Heights The beat goes on this Groundhog Day, when all ages are invited to take part in an improvised Community Drumming Circle at Assisi Heights in Rochester. The event, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Feb. 2, will be held near the indoor hearth at Assisi Heights. It is an opportunity for you to experience the natural rhythm of the drum, to get in tune with each other and form a group consciousness. This native-led encounter offers equality of the circle, generates a new voice and a collective voice. Whether the groundhog sees its shadow or not, drumming grounds the heart to the earth, lifts stress and restores energy. Bring your own drum. Hosted by the Southeastern MN Omni Drummers. Donations appreciated. Preregistration required. Register online, tinyurl.com/y8paepey, or call 507-529-3524 to register. Assisi Heights is at 1001 14th St. NW. Broadway show tunes meet St. Francis Francis of Assisi and Broadway? This must be mistake! But no, it isnt come explore the ways that St. Francis sayings of centuries ago resonate with this art form, the musical theater. Presented by Frank McIlmail, a native New Yorker who grew up in the shadow of the theater district, the event, 9:30 to 11 a.m. Feb. 4 at Assisi Heights in Rochester, is a chance to get acquainted with stage performance in a new light. Franks wife, Judy, fuels his passion for the messages in the musicals. Admission is $20 preregistered/prepaid. Includes lunch. Registration required by Jan. 28. Register online, tinyurl.com/yavorvnf, or call 507-529-3524 to register. Assisi Heights is at 1001 14th St. NW. Learn more about meditation Learn to quiet your mind and bring forth clarity and tenderness, while cultivating forgiveness and love. "Meditation: Embracing Compassion" is the course Feb. 6 at Assisi Heights in Rochester. It runs from 5:15 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Meditation is a mindful practice of being aware and awake to the present moment. It demands of you to be truly present and at-one with those around you and with what you are doing. We open ourselves to the mysterious and silent space within. It is an opportunity to explore the meaning and methods of mindfulness, drawn from a range of traditions and approaches. The time begins with a short guided meditation followed by silence. A bell will ring every 15 minutes allowing you to enter or exit as needed. All spiritual paths are welcome. Donations appreciated. Register online, tinyurl.com/ya9fsjvh, or call 507-529-3524 to register. Assisi Heights is at 1001 14th St. NW. News items for Faith Focus are due by Monday prior to Saturday publication. You may email information to life@postbulletin.com or mail to Faith Focus, Life section, 18 First Ave. SE, Rochester, MN 55904. Be sure to include event locations and contact information. News items for Faith Focus are due by Monday prior to Saturday publication. You may email information to life@postbulletin.com or mail to Faith Focus, Life section, 18 First Ave. SE, Rochester, MN 55904. Be sure to include event locations and contact information. Charleston, SC (29403) Today Thunderstorms. High 88F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. Low 76F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Jamie Lovegrove is a political reporter covering the South Carolina Statehouse, congressional delegation and campaigns. He previously covered Texas politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News and in Austin for the Texas Tribune. Columbia/Myrtle Beach Managing Editor Andy Shain runs The Post and Courier's newsrooms based in Columbia and Myrtle Beach. He was editor of Free Times and has been a reporter and editor for newspapers in Charlotte, Columbia and Myrtle Beach. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. Gregory Yee covers breaking news and public safety. He's a native Angeleno and previously covered crime and courts for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, CA. He studied journalism and Spanish literature at the University of California, Irvine. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:55 pm While most of us spent our high school biology classes squinting through dusty old microscopes and dissecting frogs, W.F. West students have already left such rudimentary learning in their past. One student is studying how the light from cellphones affects mood using zebrafish. Another is testing the effectiveness of current flu vaccines and treatments. Another is designing a bioprinter that can print skin onto burn victims last year he studied the rate at which cancer grows. These teenagers science projects are already on par with graduate research, but advanced molecular genetics students at W.F. West High School will soon have access to something even more advanced. This fall, science teacher Wendy Neal plans to implement a tool called CRISPR. Put simply, CRISPR is a tool that can edit the base of a gene. Theoretically, the tool could be used to fix a strand of DNA by editing out something such as a hereditary disease in humans. Neal plans to begin using the tool on something simple to start with, such as yeast. She has only come across one other high school in the U.S. that is currently using CRISPR. This year, Neal has three students in her advanced class, where they select an individual, yearlong project. Neal speaks casually about equipment in the high schools lab, but the molecular genetics program is cutting edge. The Chehalis Foundation and donors fund the equipment Neal purchases, and board members have encouraged her to push the envelope. They are very supportive and like whatever you want to do, go for it, Neal said. The Chehalis School District opened its STEM Wing at W.F. West High School in January 2018, after it secured a $5.5 million grant from the state in 2016. Chehalis Foundation board member and Chehalis School District assistant superintendent Mary Lou Bissett said the push for a STEM Wing came after students in the district were working on incredible science projects, without proper facilities. W.F. West High School assistant principal Tommy Elder said Neal has the go-ahead to implement pretty much whatever she wants into the high schools molecular genetics program. Whatever she wants to do, were going to do it, Elder said. ... She is the most amazing educator that I have had a chance to work with. She is committed to her kids and really pushing what we can do in a high school and the technology that kids have access to. First, though, Neal has to learn to use CRISPR, too. Previously, she has worked with the University of Washington to improve the high schools molecular genetics program. Recently, Neal and advanced molecular genetics students Dawson Brindle and Noah Layton visited the Aquatics Core at the University of Washington Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine. The three learned more about how to start and maintain a colony of zebrafish as well as how to use a microinjector, which is essentially a microscopic needle that can inject a protein, virus or DNA into a zebrafish embryo. As complex as humans are, we share 70 percent of our DNA with one tiny type of minnow the zebrafish. It is a fish scientists use to study molecular genetics, and one that the high school students will soon have access to as well. They have a very quick turnaround, Brindle said. Its just an easy way to quickly see the effects of something in a very short time, but you can see a full spectrum of what it could cause and they do share a lot of our same DNA. Brindle, 17, Layton, 17, and Rubilynn Saranchuk, 16, are all in Neals advanced molecular genetics class. Neal offers minimal direction, but suggests academic papers to read or helps a student narrow his or her focus. None of the students live in the Chehalis School District. Each one commutes from a different town in Lewis County, specifically for W.F. Wests molecular genetics program. Layton is currently studying the influenza virus and possible vaccines or medications for treatment. He is evaluating the effectiveness of current vaccines. There is a huge influenza pandemic predicted by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) coming up, Layton said. So I thought it would be important to get a deeper look and see how our vaccines are working on our immune system, because zebrafishes immune systems, theyre very similar to humans and Im able to see how they react to influenza virus and see how the vaccine combats it. Last year, Brindle used zebrafish to test a protein called growth factor beta 1 that can be used in some cases of cancer to put a patient into 100 percent remission within the first term. If its after the first term, it can exponentially increase the rate at which cancer grows, Brindle said. So there is a very fine line between where it works and where it doesnt. So I was kind of using zebrafish and treating them with that protein to see where that fine line was and why that line exists. This year, Brindle is working to design and build a bioprinter that can print skin onto burn victims, all the way around the victims arm. These projects, Neal explained, are typically based on a personal interest. Either a grandparent has Parkinsons or its something they are directly interested in, Neal said. Like, Rubilynn was interested in stress hormones. Its like, do something you are interested in, or have a connection or a buy in with, and then you are more likely to carry it through because its a lot of work. Rubilynn Saranchuk will also work with zebrafish this year. Saranchuk is studying the correlation between blue lights (i.e. the light emitted from cellphones) and cortisol levels (the hormone that controls mood and increases under stress). Blue light is emitted from phones and phones are a 21st century tool that everyone has, Saranchuk said. So I figured if we can find a direct correlation, we might be able to find a way to have a safer, less cortisol-inducing phone that might benefit everyone. Neal noted that while not all of her science students will go on to study molecular genetics, they will become voters. In all of her molecular genetics classes, she discusses the ethics behind genetic research. Part of it, too, is we are going to, as voting citizens, have to make decisions about what molecular geneticists can do, Neal said. ... If they understand the procedures, they can make an informed decision about (what) is okay or not okay. Vanuatu turns the Corner LETS USE THIS AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR THE FUTURE Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. 642 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising At least 17 officials and advisers from President Donald Trumps 2016 campaign had direct or indirect contacts with Russian nationals before his inauguration, according to a new article from The New York Times. The Times analysis indicates that these Trump people were in contact with Russians over 100 times before Trump took office in January of 2017. Trump himself had at least six such contacts before the Republican National Convention (RNC) which took place in July of 2016. One of Trumps personal contacts involved signing a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, the Times reported. In addition, a Russian billionaire who hosted the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow with Trump, Aras Agalarov, talked to Donald Trump multiple times before the RNC convention took place. Agalarovs son, Emin, was also in direct contact Trump himself on several occasions. Aras Agalarov sent a letter to Trump shortly after the 2016 presidential primaries began saying that the friend of Putin had great interest in his campaign, the Times noted. Advertising Trump denied his, and his campaigns, contacts and interactions with Russian nationals throughout the campaign and even after winning the Republican presidential nomination. The Times compiled the damning data by analyzing their own articles, documents submitted to Congress, and court records related to special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. In addition to the 17 named individuals who were in contact with Russians, ten other Trump campaign associates were informed about the campaigns Russian interactions. The presidents eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reportedly had at least 17 direct contacts with Russians or a Russian intermediary, although he has denied most of these took place. The most famous of Don Jr.s contacts took place when he arranged the notorious June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and senior members of the Trump campaign. Juniors contacts also included exchanging private Twitter messages with WikiLeaks, the organization which published thousands of emails which had been stolen by Russian agents from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign. The presidents son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is a White House senior adviser, had at least six contacts with Russians, according to the Times. Kushners contacts included meeting with the Russian ambassador during Trumps transition as well as attending the Trump Tower meeting. Longtime Trump friend and campaign adviser Roger Stone, who was arrested by the FBI yesterday, had the most contacts, according to the Times. Stone reportedly had a minimum of 18 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks before Trump took was inaugurated as president. Stones arrest yesterday occurred after he had been indicted on seven counts in connection with Muellers investigation into Russian collusion by the Trump campaign. Stones indictment states that a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton Campaign. Stone thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by [WikiLeaks], the indictment reads. Stone is the sixth campaign aide and associate of Trump to be charged in Muellers Russia probe. Others include Trumps former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, adviser George Papadopoulos, ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. According to the Times, Cohen had at least 17 contacts with Russians during the campaign and transition, including being heavily involved in the plans to build Trump Tower Moscow. He also had other meetings with Russian oligarchs on other matters. Papadopoulos, Manafort and Flynn all had many contacts with Russians throughout the campaign and transition before Trump took over the presidency. This new detailed analysis by the Times is helpful because it shows just how extensively the Trump campaign worked with Russia in order to get Trump elected. History will show that Donald Trumps presidency is illegitimate, and it was won using criminal means that including committing treason and conspiring with Americas biggest foreign adversary. 4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising A desperate and unhinged Donald Trump took to his favorite platform this morning Twitter to make outlandish statements, defend himself, and promise that he would still build a border wall with Mexico. The president has come under withering attack from his right-wing base of conservative voters and media personalities since yesterday. One such person, Ann Coulter, who speaks for many other anti-immigrant Trump supporters, demanded that Trump break ground and build his wall. So this morning Trump, clearly energized by fear that the Roger Stone arrest means his presidency may soon be over, posted the following tweets: I like the fact that the President is making the case (Border Security & Crime) to the American people. Now we know where Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer & the Democrats stand, which is no Border Security. Will be big 2020 issue. Matt Schlapp, Chair, ACU. Bigger than anyone knows! Advertising 21 days goes very quickly. Negotiations with Democrats will start immediately. Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in. The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue. We will build the Wall! We have turned away, at great expense, two major Caravans, but a big one has now formed and is coming. At least 8000 people! If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldnt even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall! Thank you to the Republican National Committee, (the RNC), who voted UNANIMOUSLY yesterday to support me in the upcoming 2020 Election. Considering that we have done more than any Administration in the first two years, this should be easy. More great things now in the works! We absolutely need a physical barrier or Wall, whatever you want to call it. The President yesterday laid all that out. We need to do it all, including the Wall. I provided the same information to the previous administration, & it was ignored. Mark Morgan, Border Chief for O! I like the fact that the President is making the case (Border Security & Crime) to the American people. Now we know where Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer & the Democrats stand, which is no Border Security. Will be big 2020 issue. Matt Schlapp, Chair, ACU. Bigger than anyone knows! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 21 days goes very quickly. Negotiations with Democrats will start immediately. Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in. The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue. We will build the Wall! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 We have turned away, at great expense, two major Caravans, but a big one has now formed and is coming. At least 8000 people! If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldnt even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 Thank you to the Republican National Committee, (the RNC), who voted UNANIMOUSLY yesterday to support me in the upcoming 2020 Election. Considering that we have done more than any Administration in the first two years, this should be easy. More great things now in the works! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 We absolutely need a physical barrier or Wall, whatever you want to call it. The President yesterday laid all that out. We need to do it all, including the Wall. I provided the same information to the previous administration, & it was ignored. Mark Morgan, Border Chief for O! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 Earlier Trump had blasted the indictment and arrest of Roger Stone, and in typical Trump fashion tried to point the blame elsewhere. If Roger Stone was indicted for lying to Congress, what about the lying done by Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Lisa Page & lover, Baker and soooo many others? What about Hillary to FBI and her 33,000 deleted Emails? What about Lisa & Peters deleted texts & Wieners laptop? Much more! If Roger Stone was indicted for lying to Congress, what about the lying done by Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Lisa Page & lover, Baker and soooo many others? What about Hillary to FBI and her 33,000 deleted Emails? What about Lisa & Peters deleted texts & Wieners laptop? Much more! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019 Once again, everything Donald Trump writes or says makes it seem like his desperation is increasing. He really has no clue what to do other than spew forth his unhinged words on Twitter. He is being attacked by the right wingers, but Democrats in Congress will never give him what he wants, so he is really powerless. On top of these problems, Trump has also completely lost the support of the American public. They know he caused the costly government shutdown which hurt millions of people but served no purpose. They also know and increasingly have proof that he and his campaign illegally conspired with Russia to fraudulently win the presidency. The Trump presidency will soon be over, and he hasnt figured that out yet. He is clueless enough to not see what is obvious to everyone else, and he probably wont see it until he is led out of the White House in handcuffs. 1.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Roger Stone still idolizes disgraced former President Richard Nixon and even has Nixons head tattooed on his back. But last night, after Stone was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller and arrested by the FBI, the Nixon Foundation issued a statement saying they wanted nothing to do with Donald Trumps oldest friend and adviser. The Nixon Foundation distances itself from Roger Stone after the Mueller indictment https://t.co/AIw5t3mtfc pic.twitter.com/rvrFbypLWN CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 26, 2019 When Stone left the Florida federal courthouse after his arraignment yesterday he took a second to pose for the camera, and flashed Nixons signature double V hand signal. The signal is used to symbolize victory or peace, but Nixon appropriated it for his own use in 1974 after resigning from office. While leaving the White House for the last time, Nixon also flashed the same hand signal that Stone gave yesterday. Advertising Not only is Stone a huge Nixon fan, but he also has embellished his resume by saying that he was an aide during the Nixon administration. So the statement from the Nixon Foundation tried to set the record straight, saying: This mornings widely-circulated characterization of Roger Stone as a Nixon campaign aide or adviser is a gross misstatement. Mr. Stone was 16 years old during the Nixon presidential campaign of 1968 and 20 years old during the reelection campaign of 1972. Mr. Stone, during his time as a student at George Washington University, was a junior scheduler on the Nixon reelection committee. Mr. Stone was not a campaign aide or adviser. Nowhere in the Presidential Daily Diaries from 1972 to 1974 does the name Roger Stone appear. This mornings widely-circulated characterization of Roger Stone as a Nixon campaign aide or adviser is a gross misstatement. Mr. Stone was 16 years old during the Nixon presidential campaign of 1968 and 20 years old during the reelection campaign of 1972. 1/2 Nixon Foundation (@nixonfoundation) January 25, 2019 Mr. Stone, during his time as a student at George Washington University, was a junior scheduler on the Nixon reelection committee. Mr. Stone was not a campaign aide or adviser. Nowhere in the Presidential Daily Diaries from 1972 to 1974 does the name "Roger Stone" appear. 2/2 Nixon Foundation (@nixonfoundation) January 25, 2019 Stone was arrested early Friday morning by the FBI after he was indicted by a grand jury Thursday night on seven felony charges brought by Mueller. The special counsel alleged that Stone sought stolen emails from WikiLeaks to hurt Hillary Clinton, and that he coordinated his efforts with senior members of the 2016 Trump campaign. The lengthy indictment also states that several unnamed Trump advisers knew of Stones attempts and worked with him. The implication is that Stone was communicating and working with the very top people in the campaign. In one text to radio host Randy Credico, his alleged WikiLeaks back channel, Stone quoted Nixon, writing: Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan Richard Nixon The current occupant of the Oval Office now appears to be disowning Stone as well. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told CNN: This has nothing to do with the President and certainly nothing to do with the White house. This is something that has to do solely with that individual, and not something that affects us here in (the White House). Roger Stone, even after his arrest, is still defiant. He still maintains he will never flip against Trump and start working for Miller. But eventually he may figure out that he doesnt have any friends left, and if he doesnt cut a deal with Mueller he may spend the rest of his life in jail. 1.6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the perfect person to lead the resistance to Donald Trumps unpatriotic presidency, a power he built on mob-style intimidation and childish bullying techniques. Nancy Pelosi knows that Donald Trump is just a little man hiding behind a curtain of bravado. This is why Miss Nancy, as she was so perfectly dubbed by one of the federal workers for whom she stood up against the play-doh president, knows that the facade of strongman strength will crumble if challenged with rightful power. Now that she is in the position to do so, Pelosi, as the leader of a co-equal branch of government, will not allow the toddler Trump to run wild. She said of the Trump government shutdown: Its a temper tantrum by the president. Im the mother of five, grandmother of nine. I know a temper tantrum when I see one. But its more than that. Pelosi started her career as a smart young woman and a beautiful one. She understands men like Donald Trump. She knows what men like that do to young women, and she also knows that men like that cant handle mature women, let alone mature women with power. Advertising Pelosi is not just doing her job to finally put a constitutional check on this presidency this crime and ethics violation ridden presidency, but she is quietly giving the women of this country the feeling that they matter and she wont let this subjugating tyrant get off on hurting people anymore. Now when Trump hurts people, he will pay. He wont get his Vanity Wall. He gets nothing until he behaves. The grab-em-by-the-p*ssy because he can tyrant is being brought down. The message is: No, you cant Donald. Actually, you cannot. There are rules and you will abide. For the women who have spent the last three years gas lit and triggered, suffering what I called, on November 10th of 2016, Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder, Pelosi-in-power can be a stabilizing salve to their wounds. Pelosi knows Donald Trump. They are from the same generation, and she knows better than most how the worst men of that age behaved toward women. Pelosi survived decades of the sexist attacks aimed at undercutting her power, the rather constant need for the Right to sexualize her as if this would diminish her (the psychology behind that is as pervasive as it is horrifying), only to rise from the last two years of Trump trashing our beloved country as the Warrior Woman who has a spine of steel to stand up to the evil king. Finally, someone will call his bluff. And now that she has, denying him his SOTU until he pays American workers suffering due to his petulant shutdown, Trump is, as Mike Cernovich tweeted, a broken man. Because the first rip in the curtain revealed to all the little man behind the nasty tweets; Trump is not impervious, after all. Yes, even Donald, with his Russian bot help and hackers at his disposal, is vulnerable to public opinion. And public opinion can only be tricked for so long. I wrote yesterday, Trumps mistake is that he projects himself onto others and therefore cant understand what makes Pelosi tick. He cant win with her because shes playing a different game. Trump cant win against Pelosi, because he is playing for himself and she is playing for the people. Sure, there are people who disagree with Pelosis policy stances and who didnt want her as Speaker, and its inevitable that she will temporarily lose favor among her own side at some point in the future, but no one can legitimately accuse her of not caring about working Americans. She has spent her public life fighting for working Americans, while Trump has spent his short two years in power sucking the money and life out of America for his own benefit. Last night, after pushing Trump into submission on the shutdown, Pelosi not only issued a statement on Roger Stone, but also tweeted it out in parceled bits, making sure the president would see. What does Putin have on @realDonaldTrump, politically, personally or financially? She coolly asked to world, driving the next narrative before Trump could finish licking his wounds from the last round. Predictably, this drove him insane. The age of reason is upon us, for we have this woman who can bring all of her experience with men like Trump and use it to her/our advantage in taming the little Oz behind the curtain. Do not be confused; Pelosi is not being petty or mean-spirited. That would be too easy, and would be Trumps game. Pelosi is calling the shots, she is playing by her rules, not his. She is setting narratives, not reacting. Pelosi approaches Trumps position as president with the respect it deserves. This respect is a way of avoiding the mud that Trump revels in, and from there she can, Obama-style, politely poke the bear until he reveals his cowardly, weak underbelly to the world in a humiliatingly weak Twitter wail. Pelosi does not waste words, and when she says that the President must think Americans can just ask their dad for money to eat, she was only following up on what he and his Commerce Secretary said out loud as they expressed Marie Antoinette level bewilderment that furloughed workers needed to go to a food bank, when they could just get a loan from the bank like privileged people do, or get free groceries with an IOU. This only mean-spirited if one confuses being nice with being kind. Pelosi is only concerned with the people getting their paycheck and holding this toxic, two-faced, mercurial con artist accountable, because he is not good for this country and that is not an ideological point of view, that is a fact. We are way past sides we are now engaged in a battle to uphold what is left of western democracy. For all of the good she will do for the country, Pelosi is also helping millions of women who have been victimized by men like Trump and have spent the last two plus years in a dark place beyond rage and grief, as their own country seemingly betrayed their very value as human beings. All people who have been victimized by a grossly privileged bully will get some satisfaction in this one being held in check for once. It took a woman like Pelosi to do it. 6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance dropped a chilling warning on Saturday that officials in Donald Trumps White House appeared to have set up a secret network to share top-secret intelligence with Russia. In an interview with MSNBCs AM Joy, Nance said, Was [Carl Kline] either influenced by a hostile foreign power or influenced by political preference within the White House and allowing these unclearable individuals to come in there to set up, like I said, a network where they could be compromising the national security of the United States? Kline, of course, was a hand-picked Trump official who overruled the objections of career security officials and approved security applications for dozens of flagged individuals like Kushner. Video: Advertising .@MalcolmNance says Democrats need to thoroughly investigate why Jared Kushner and others were given top secret security clearance. #ctl #p2 #amjoy pic.twitter.com/1TjOvgTP93 PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 26, 2019 Nance said: Theres an additional point that Im going to terrify you with right now. The counterintelligence professionals who are making these determinations that people shouldnt have [clearance] are now going to or have probably thought about this individual, Mr. Klein, to determine was he allowing a network to set up within the White House? Was he himself either influenced by a hostile foreign power or influenced by political preference within the White House and allowing these unclearable individuals to come in there to set up, like I said, a network where they could be compromising the national security of the United States? If I was in counterintelligence at the FBI and definitely at the CIA, I would be pulling my hair out right now because we all know Jared Kushner, as you mentioned in the previous segment, asked a foreign power to use foreign cryptographic communication systems so he could speak behind the back of the United States government. You know what, the House needs to rip this thing apart because I think that what were going to find is, individuals for their own personal benefit, may have been using this information that they were given access to that they should never have ever seen. The House plans to investigate White House security clearance process With Democrats now in control of the House of Representatives, the Trump White House is no longer getting a free pass. According to The Hill this week, House Democrats are launching an expansive investigation into the White House security clearance process, accusing the Trump administration of disregarding established protocols in a way that has resulted in grave breaches of national security.' In a letter, chairman of the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings wrote, The goals of this investigation are to determine why the White House and Transition Team appear to have disregarded established procedures for safeguarding classified information, evaluate the extent to which the nations most highly guarded secrets were provided to officials who should not have had access to them, and develop reforms to remedy the flaws in current White House systems and practices. The presidents days of running an unchecked executive branch are over. After the Trump administration has operated for two years with no regard for U.S. national security or the rule of law, the investigations are starting to pile up. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter 1.6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising Ann Coulter continued her attacks on President Donald Trump late into Friday night, tweeting just before midnight: NO MORE WORDS! Break ground today. NO MORE WORDS! Break ground today. https://t.co/mmGBrL53fO Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 26, 2019 Coulters tweet was in response to a Trump tweet had also posted late Friday night where he said that agreeing to the resolution to fund the government for three weeks was in no way a concession. Advertising Most people, however, viewed Trumps actions as a concession where he agreed to end the shutdown he had caused, and got nothing in return. Trump signed the resolution on Friday night, but it has no funding for his promised border wall with Mexico. I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall, Trump wrote. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, its off to the races! Coulter was one of the conservatives blamed for influencing Trump and helping to spark the shutdown back in December. After the announcement that Trump was caving to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on wall funding, Coulter began her attacks on the president. She lashed out at Trump in a tweetstorm after the news broke that a deal had been reached and the shutdown was over. She wrote, Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States. Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019 Then she continued her tweetstorm, writing: Obviously the govt shutdown hasnt gone far enough if the corrupt & incompetent FBI still has funds for a Keystone Cops stunt like the pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone. Sure feel safer today, with the feds taking Roger Stone off the streets. No need for a border wall now. Nothing to fear from MS-13. #OurTaxDollarsAtWork Trump tweets about Roger Stone raid, Who alerted CNN to be there? Just think! If you were president, you could haul the FBI directors ass into the Oval Office and ask him yourself. Maybe the solution to the border crisis is not deporting 22 million illegals but one Jared Kushner. Obviously the gov't shutdown hasn't gone far enough if the corrupt & incompetent FBI still has funds for a Keystone Cops stunt like the pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019 Sure feel safer today, with the feds taking Roger Stone off the streets. No need for a border wall now. Nothing to fear from MS-13. #OurTaxDollarsAtWork Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019 Trump tweets about Roger Stone raid, "Who alerted CNN to be there?" Just think! If you were president, you could haul the FBI director's ass into the Oval Office and ask him yourself. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019 Maybe the solution to the border crisis is not deporting 22 million illegals but one Jared Kushner. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019 Coulters attacks on Trump are very significant. She is a voice from the right-wing who the president looks to as a gauge of the level of his support among his conservative voter base. When she said right before the shutdown began that she would not vote for Trump again in 2020 without a border wall, this upset him. He recognized that many of those who had voted for him in 2016 feel the same way, and this is a big reason he closed the government last month. She has been a huge supporter in the past and in 2016 published the book In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! But she said a few weeks ago that Trumps presidency would be a joke if he gave in to Democrats by signing government funding legislation that didnt include money for a border wall. She warned him not to cave, but yesterday he caved, and she is not happy. As Trumps approval ratings keep falling, even among Republicans, this is really bad news. If Trump has lost Ann Coulter, it is probably true that he has also lost the nation. 210 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Advertising By Julia Love and Delphine Schrank TIJUANA/MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) The United States was expected to send a first group of 20 Central American asylum seekers back to Mexico through the border city of Tijuana on Friday as part of President Donald Trumps hardening of longstanding U.S. immigration policy. Under a policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols, announced on Dec. 20, the United States will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts. Mexican Foreign Ministry spokesman Roberto Velasco said U.S. authorities were expected to send the first group of 20 Central American asylum seekers back to Mexicos territory on Friday through Tijuana. Advertising U.S. authorities will send as many as 20 people per day through Tijuana and gradually start sending people back through the other legal ports of entry along the Mexican border, he said. Mexico will accept the return of certain individuals who have a date to appear in a U.S. immigration court, but will reject those who are in danger in Mexican territory, suffering health problems, or are unaccompanied minors, Velasco said. Velasco said Mexico does not have a Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States, which would imply a binding commitment to process in our territory all U.S. asylum requests of migrants that pass through our country and take full responsibility for their legal situation. Asylum seekers have traditionally been granted the right to stay in the United States while their cases were decided by a U.S. immigration judge, but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases means the process can take years. Now, the U.S. government says migrants will be turned away with a notice to appear in immigration court. They will be able to enter the United States for their hearings but will have to live in Mexico in the interim. If they lose their cases, they will be deported to their home countries. Shelters are at capacity and we cant receive migrants that are being deported or (Mexican) nationals that are passing through the city. Lets hope this doesnt happen, said Jose Maria Garcia, who runs the Juventud 2000 shelter in Tijuana. Leopoldo Guerrero, Tijuanas secretary of government, said Mexicos federal government should take responsibility for the migrants, stressing that the city did not have the resources to do so. The U.S. policy is aimed at curbing the increasing number of families arriving mostly from Central America to request asylum who say they fear returning home due to threats of violence. The Trump administration says many of the claims are not valid. The program will apply to arriving migrants who ask for asylum at ports of entry or who are caught crossing illegally and say they are afraid to return home. Immigration advocates fear Mexico is not safe for migrants who are regularly kidnapped by criminal gangs and smugglers, and have raised concerns that applicants will not be able to access proper legal counsel in U.S. courts. Twenty-four year-old Danis Lazaro, who left his native Guatemala five months ago with his two daughters, aged 6 and 7, said he was concerned about the new U.S. policy. It doesnt seem fair to me. Its safer for us on the other side (of the border), he said. It is unclear how Mexico plans to house what could be thousands of asylum seekers during their immigration proceedings. Some Mexican border towns are more violent than the cities the Central Americans left behind. For many of them, Mexico is not a safe place to stay, said Betsy Fisher, policy director for the International Refugee Assistance Project. Trumps administration, which has described Central American migrants as a danger, says it is relying on a U.S. law that allows migrants attempting to enter the United States from a contiguous country to be removed to that country. But the policy will likely be challenged in court since claiming asylum is protected under both international and U.S. law. Several of Trumps signature immigration policies, including some attempting to reduce asylum applications, have been halted by U.S. federal courts. (Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, Mica Rosenberg in New York and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Tom Brown) Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 5:51 pm The Community Farmers Market in Chehalis announced that it is now accepting vendor applications for the 2019 season. According to a press release from the Greater Lewis County Farmers Market Association, hot or prepared food vendors are highly encouraged to apply. Artisans, producers and farmers are also encouraged to apply. Potential vendors may find applications and policies at chehalisfarmersmarket.com on the Join Us tab. People may also obtain hard copies of the application by contacting the market manager. According to the press release, first consideration will be given to potential vendors who apply before March 17. After March 17, applicants will be considered on a space-available basis. The Community Farmers Markets 15th season begins May 7. The Community Farmers Market will operate on Tuesdays (11 a.m.-4 p.m.) and Fridays (4-7 p.m.) until the end of October. Direct questions to info@chehalisfarmersmarket.com or 360-219-7710. On Saturday morning, MSNBCs Ali Velshi and two panelists discussed the bill making Juneteenth a national holiday. They also talked about critical race theory and Republican opposition. Velshi accosted opposition to the Juneteenth bill from Republicans concerned about the inclusion of independence in the holiday title. Primarily because Juneteenth is an Independence Day for slaves finally freed from servitude in Texas read more Logansport, IN (46947) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 85F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 67F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. New York Times, Jan. 2, 2019 California this week became the first state in the nation to bar pet stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits unless they come from animal shelters or rescue groups. The law targets the controversial breeding facilities known as puppy mills or kitten factories, which often operate with little or no oversight and house animals in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions without adequate food, water, socialization or veterinary care, according to a fact sheet for the legislation. **** PITTSBURGH (KDKA) (May 15, 2018) Pennsylvania has the fourth highest number of puppy mills, thats according to the Humane Society of the United States. The organization has released its 2018 Horrible Hundred report of the worst puppy mills in the country. They say nine on the list are located in Pennsylvania. **** Boy, if that doesnt make you sick to your stomach as a Pennsylvania resident, someone ought to check you for a pulse. Outrageous. Venal. Vile. And all for a little profit and a misguided conception of what makes a good dog or cat. I get particularly exercised over this because my entire 70-year life has been immeasurably enriched by all the rescue dogs and there have been many, most gone but none ever forgotten who I have been privileged to know and love. None so much as Opie, the love of my life, a little ball of love saved from a high-kill shelter in the south by the good folks at Blue Chip Animal Rescue, a local -- and much loved -- no-kill shelter. Opie has brought such joy, magic and love into my life thats its truly indescribable. Were an interspecies Romeo and Juliet and Im damn proud of that fact. But in the eyes of purebred lovers which keep the puppy mills going because an estimated 90 percent of the dogs and cats sold at pet stores come from puppy mills mutts like Opie are damaged goods. How wrong they are. Sure, he had a rough three years before we got him and has little fur on his back, problems with his paws that might have come from being restrained, and other blemishes and imperfections, but his love and truly unique personality and sheer joy at being alive trump any alleged bloodline. But pet store buyers dont look under the surface and in their quest for a perfect pet they allow the festering puppy mills to thrive. If youre not familiar with the vile world of puppy mills they are essentially concentration camps for dogs, as cruel and mean as Auschwitz and Treblinka. The Animal Center at Michigan State University describes them this way: Puppy mills are facilities where dogs are forced to breed their whole lives until they are physically incapable . At that time, the dogs are either sold to other breeders, left on the side of the road, neglected, or even killed. The dogs spend twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in cages, with often little to no contact with people or the outside world. The facilities that are classified as puppy mills are kept in deplorable and unsanitary conditions, lack proper veterinary care for the dogs, yet often have USDA licenses . . . " Yep, your government at work. Pennsylvania has hundreds of puppy mills but they are overwhelmingly located in Lancaster County and -- surprise, surprise (at least to me) -- run by the plain people. According to PAWS, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has been called the puppy mill capital of the U.S., and the trade is largely dominated by the Amish There are about 300 licensed breeders in Lancaster County alone, and rescue workers estimate another 600 unlicensed facilities operate in barns and sheds. Those breeders go to great measures to avoid discovery. Secretive and profitable. Breeders can make upwards of half million dollars a year. Another folksy architype down the drain. An ABC report found a very simple reason for the Amish breeders: greed. According to Bill Smith, founder of Main Line Animal Rescue who spends his time trying to rescue dogs from Lancaster County breeders, Dogs in this community are viewed as livestock. Nothing more. Chickens or pigs or goats. It's just a source of income for them. Thankfully, some state legislators have seen the light and have introduced legislation to make us California East, at least when it comes to puppy mills. According to the Jan. 19 Daily Local News of West Chester, state Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19 of West Whiteland, and Sen. Tom Killion, R-9 of Middletown, announced reintroduced bipartisan legislation to prohibit the sale of commercially raised dogs, cats, and rabbits in pet stores across Pennsylvania. The bill is dubbed Victorias Law, in honor of a Victoria, a 10-year-old German Shepherd puppy mill survivor. Weve tried so many times to stop puppy mills in Pennsylvania and I am confident that Victorias Law will be the economic noose that ends them once and for all, Dinniman said. If we can cut off their source of revenue, we can put them out of existence and ensure that no more dogs, like Victoria, are hurt by this cruel and inhumane practice. Lets hope it passes and we can stop the moral stench emanating from Lancaster County and all the other stables of animal evil across the state. For the sake of all the other Opies out there waiting to make someone as happy as hes made me -- and for the thousands upon thousands of poor creatures being tortured in puppy mills -- it is clearly time to muzzle, forever, these rabid enterprises. -- Bob Quarteroni, a frequent PennLive Opinion contributor, is a former columnist and editor at the Centre Daily Times. He lives in Swoyersville, Pa. Readers may email him at bobqsix@verizon.net. His nature blog is www.bobqnature.com. PALMERTON, Pa. (AP) State police say a man distraught over a breakup killed his former girlfriend and himself at an eastern Pennsylvania home. Police in Berks County said 27-year-old Kyle Gruver of Fleetwood went to the Lower Towamensing Township, Carbon County home sometime Thursday. There, police said, he bludgeoned, stabbed and shot 26-year-old Megan Leland of Palmerton, then shot himself. Police called the case an isolated incident and asked anyone with information about the two to call troopers at the Lehighton barracks. It happened the same day a man shot his ex-girlfriend and killed three others, plus himself, in State College. WILLIAMSPORT - A Lycoming County judge has rejected the plea agreement of a music teacher who admitted superimposing photographs of his young female students on magazine pictures depicting females engaged in sexual activity. Judge Marc F. Lovecchio Friday said the proposed sentence was too light for Robert S. Morrison, 74, because of "the sheer volume" of pictures and the number of students involved. He also cited a lack of remorse and that he took advantage of numerous students in a vulnerable situation over a period of years. The judge gave the Cogan Station resident 14 days in which to notify the court he wants to withdraw his guilty plea; otherwise he will be sentenced March 26. One of the victims, now 17, and her father, told Lovecchio they were displeased with the plea agreement and said Morrison should get more jail time. Two months is hardly enough for taking his daughter's innocence, the father said. "Mr. Morrison did a bad thing," he said, adding his daughter suffers from emotional issues and sees a psychologist. He accused him of tricking her to have her picture taken. The jail sentence proposed in the plea agreement was for two months to two years minus a day. Morrison had served the two months until he posted bail so he would not get additional jail time. The sentence Lovecchio said he will impose in March if the guilty plea is not withdrawn is 11 months to 2 years minus a day followed by five years' of probation plus 25 years registration as a sex offender. Robert Morrison Morrison pleaded guilty to two counts of manufacturing obscene materials, one of which specified the victims were minors. He told Lovecchio he took the pictures for the bulletin board and not with a pornographic intent. The father of the victim was critical of the system, claiming until earlier Friday he had not been consulted about the terms of the plea agreement. Later, his daughter told the judge, "I feel very manipulated." She went to Morrison once a week for music lessons when she was in fourth through seventh grades, she explained. "It's reprehensible you have to be here," Lovecchio told her. "You were victimized by someone else. You didn't do anything at all to deserve it." The investigation that led to the charges began when Morrison's wife, Elizabeth, reported to police she believed her husband was producing obscene materials in which minors were depicted. She provided a collage that contained six photographs of two different females both appearing to be under the age of 18 that had been superimposed on a female involved in sexual activity, they said. Other prints of young girls superimposed on bodies of females engaged in sexual activity were found in the house, they said. Morrison is a retired public school teacher having taught in the Williamsport and Montoursville districts. There is no evidence any of the superimposed pictures are of girls he had in school, police said. STATE COLLEGE Penn State students lit up social media with complaints that the university did not inform them about shootings at a bar and a residence near campus on Thursday night. Many students took to Twitter to express their dismay that the university did not use its text alert system to apprise them that a gunman was on the loose, especially since the university had alerted the campus community earlier that day that afternoon classes were canceled due to icy roads. Four people died in the shootings, including gunman Jordan Witmer, a 21-year-old from Benner Township. Steven Beachy, 19, died early Friday after being shot at P.J. Harrigan's Bar & Grill. His father, Dean Beachy, 62, of Millersburg, Ohio, died at the scene on Thursday night. Nicole Abrino, 21, is being treated for gunshot wounds at a Pittsburgh hospital. Witmer fled the bar, crashed his car at the intersection of Tussey Lane and Waupelani Drive, then broke into a nearby house, where he shot and killed George McCormick, 83, before taking his own life. Both the Ramada Inn, where the bar is located, and the Waupelani Drive neighborhood, where McCormick lived, are about 2 miles from campus. I had just gotten home and decided to check a group chat and they had said that there was a shooting, said Leonard Feil, a sophomore. That's when I found out it was at the Ramada and he was still at large. I am a five-minute walk from the Ramada. It wasn't until 4 a.m. that I found out the suspect was stopped. I was terrified that he would break in and kill me as well. Ammanda Maldonado, a junior, said she was shocked at how close the hotel was to two of her friends. They both live in that direction, she said. I messaged both instantly and neither of them were aware until I informed them. When asked why the university did not inform its students that there was a gunman on the loose, Lisa Powers, Penn States senior director of news and media relations, sent a statement that said that campus police determined that there was a lack of an imminent threat to Penn State students or the campus and therefore decided that an alert would not be sent. The statement said the university would adjust our processes as needed. Police Chief John Gardner addresses the media on updates and detail of last night's shooting at the Ramada in State College. Sarah Price | Special to PennLive I slept in my bathtub because I didnt know if it was safe to come out. The part that aggravates me the most is that they didnt send an all-clear alert, said Feil. Thanks to this one incident, I no longer feel safe here. At a briefing held at the State College borough municipal building on Friday afternoon, Police Chief John Gardner acknowledged that the all-clear could have been given sooner. I take ownership for that, Gardner said. There was no immediate threat to Penn State or its students. Relatively speaking, State College is one of the safest places in America. In his 29 years with the State College police, Gardner said he has never seen something like this. Still, Maldonado said, the incident happened near the campus. "The perpetrator was in a vehicle and could have easily drove toward campus rather than away. His vehicle where he crashed was near my friends apartment, just blocks away. The home invasion could have been a students rather than an elderly couple. State College police say Witmer was drinking with Abrino but did not know the Beachys or McCormick. They do not yet know a motive for the shootings. Witmer had a lawful permit to carry the firearm and served in the military. Whether he was active duty is still being determined. Patna: Bihar governor Lalji Tandon and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday paid tribute to former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur at his life-statue located within the state Assembly premises and later at the Karpoori Museum where a number of NDA leaders Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi and senior officials were present. His life-long struggle to ensure social justice for all is legendary. Unfortunately, he died at the young age of 64 otherwise he was certain to be the Prime Minister of India, Kumar said in his speech at a function at Sri Krishna Memorial Hall in Patna. Continuing to shower praise on Thakur, a veteran social justice advocate and an early proponent of caste-based reservation, the Chief Minister, obviously with Lok Sabha elections on his mind, said that he was in favor of raising the percentage in reservation that, according to him, should be based on caste ratio instead of a fixed percentage for all. In order to achieve this goal, the 2021 census should be based on caste consideration. The 2011 census that was based on social, economic, and caste factors was so flawed and full of errors that it is no wonder it was never released by the government. By counting people based on their caste, it would become clear which caste has large population and which caste has small and that would be go a long way in formulating a new reservation policy, the Chief Minister said. Kumar, whose party is part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led NDA in Bihar, said that those who were responsible for creating communal hatred and causing unrest in the nation would be punished by the voters in the coming elections. He also slammed the current state of social media saying all it did was spread rumors and create social unrest in the nation. You should spread positive news about the state and not just rumors and inuendoes, Kumar, who is known for his liking for government-sponsored propaganda otherwise dubbed as social message, said. The Chief Minister then praised his administration for restoring Bihari pride since coming into power in 2005. There was a time when Biharis were ashamed to admit they were Biharis. Today they proudly proclaim where they are from. I achieved this by restoring law and order in the state. People say a lot of negative things about me but I do not care about them because I have and will continue to work for the development of every class without any discrimination for anyone, he said. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:43 pm As the child of a climate scientist, Kristy Royce grew up making almost yearly trips to the Arctic with her family. Decades later she returned to the Arctic as a tour guide, only to find that the sea ice and polar bears she remembered from her childhood trips were significantly less abundant than they once had been in the region. We always talk about these things like theyll be happening in 50 years, said Royce, who became a climate activist as a result of her last Arctic trip. But climate change is happening now. It was that trip that brought Royce before the Senate Environment, Energy and Technology Committee Jan. 17 to testify in support of SB 5116, a bill that would support Washington states transition to carbon-neutral energy by 2030 and carbon-free energy by 2045. A companion to the Senate bill, HB 1211, is in the House and was heard Tuesday by the Environment and Energy Committee. Hundreds showed their support for both bills by making appearances at the hearings. We can have healthy, more vibrant communities and a liveable future for our kids growing up today, but to get there we must transform the ways we produce and consume energy, said Bruce Speight, state director at Environment Washington. That has to start with a 100 percent renewable energy commitment and passage of HB 1211. SB 5116 and HB 1211 establish three new standards for electric utilities in the state: a coal elimination standard, a greenhouse gas neutral standard and a clean energy standard. The bills would require the Utilities and Transportation Commission to accelerate the depreciation schedule for any coal-fired resources by Dec. 31, 2025. All electric utilities must eliminate all costs associated with delivering electricity to Washington customers that are generated from a coal-fired resource by this date as well. Both bills would require all retail sales of electricity to Washington customers to be greenhouse gas neutral by Jan. 1, 2030. By Jan. 1, 2045 electric utilities must supply 100 percent of electric retail sales using renewable sources. Electric utilities not in compliance with any of the terms of the bills would face hefty administrative penalties. There are a few current state laws affecting the procurement of renewable resources and the emission of greenhouse gases in the electric utilities sector including Initiative 937, which was passed in 2006. Initiative 937 only required utilities companies to receive 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources. SB 5116 and HB 1211, on the other hand, would tackle climate change more aggressively and attempt to do it faster. The goal of this policy is to send a signal to the market that we want to be clean in 25 years without compromising reliability, said Lauren McCloy, senior policy advisor on energy to Gov. Jay Inslee. During both public hearings, most people signed in to support SB 5116 and HB 1211. Those who signed in as other were given the opportunity to express their concerns. Issac Kastama, who spoke on behalf of the Low Carbon Prosperity Institute and both Benton and Franklin Public Utilities, said they believe it is an admirable goal to aim for 100 percent renewable energy, but concerns still abound. Maintaining cost advantage and protection for low-income residents were some of Kastamas priorities and were echoed throughout the hearing by others. Grid reliability, equitable affordability and cost caps were the most frequently cited concerns and will continue to be addressed by committee members as the bills move through the legislature. Its asking a lot of us, said Rep. Gael Tarleton, D-Seattle. But just remember, if we dont ask a lot of ourselves now, we will never be where we need to be 25 years from now. Patna: The district administration in Patna on Thursday rolled out a new bus service between Gandhi Maidan and the airport for a ticket price of Rs. 50. The new service was green-flagged by Bihar Transport minister Santosh Kumar Nirala in the presence of Transport Secretary Sanjay Kumar Agrawal and other senior officials at the Gandhi Maidan bus stand. Speaking on the occasion, Agrawal said that the new service will run on two separate routes though the origin and destination of both services would be the same. Route No. 200 would leave Gandhi Maidan for Patna Airport via Frazer Road, Income Tax Roundabout, Bailey Road, and Sheikhpura intersection while Route No. 100 would go through Patna Junction, R-Block, and Haj Bhawan before arriving at the airport, he said. Once the bus leaves the airport, no one will be allowed to get on it until it reaches Gandhi Maidan. Those getting off the bus between the airport and Gandhi Maidan would be able to purchase ticket for as little as Rs. 30. Depending on the success of this route, the government may increase the number of buses in its fleet. For the utmost convenience of travelers arriving at the airport, air-conditioned buses will be used in the summer time. A parking shed specially for these buses will be built outside the airport and travelers would be able to pick up the luggage buggy at that point, the Transport Secretary said. Borrowing the idea from airplanes, officials said conductors will be trained to extend cordial welcome to all passengers getting aboard the bus by saying they were welcome in the capital city of Bihar. They will also be trained in customer patronage and how to address them in a welcoming, polite tone. The service will be a boon for Biharis returning to their motherland from foreign countries, Patna Airport director R S Lahauria said. Patna: A couple of days after the students of BBM and BCA of Arvind Mahila College in Patna observed Freshers Day for the incoming students, the Commerce department of the same college on Tuesday organized a day of welcoming new students of their own with dance, music, Miss Fresher competition and other fun programs to mark the day. Following the same pattern as the BBM and BCA event, todays program was also kicked off by college principal Dr. Usha Jha who, this time, was accompanied by Commerce Head of the Department Dr. Sanjay Agrawal. Jha and Agrawal jointly cut the ceremonial cake after which the music and dance programs began. In the Miss Fresher contest, the crown wen to Aditi Rani. Anjali Akriti was adjudged the first runners-up followed up by second runners-up Komal Kumari. Prof. MIH Khan, Dr. Shiv Narayan, Dr. RC Prasad, Dr. Farzana Alam, and Dr. Snigdha Prasad were among many who were present on the occasion. Patna: With riots and lathi charges now the new daily normal for Bihars state capital, Saturday was no exception as people in Digha-Rajiv Nagar area clashed with the police after gun-toting police jawans surrounded and barricaded a 6-acre piece of land belonging to the Bihar State Housing Board (BHSB) but illegally occupied by encroachers. https://www.patnadaily.com/index.php/news/14089-many-cops-hurt-during-anti-encroachment-drive-in-patna.html#sigProIddc1212fe81 View the embedded image gallery online at: As the news of the anti-encroachment drive spread in the area, more than 500 angry men and women mounted a scathing attack on the police in which more than a dozen cops were injured. The mob also torched two police motorcycles as hapless policemen, showing immense restrain by not opening fire on the mob, ducked to take cover from being hit by a flying object in their direction. The government plans to use the land to set up an office for the Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB) and another for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). A new police station for Rajiv Nagar is also planned to be built at this place. Kumar Ravi, Patna District Magistrate (DM), said that more than a dozen persons were taken into custody and FIRs were lodged against over two dozen of the miscreants. Patna: Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Purnia Uday Singh, also known as Pappu Singh, resigned from his party on Friday saying he could no longer remain in the party that had surrendered before the tainted Janata Dal U led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Singh, who had won twice from Purnia, said at a press conference in Patna that he was frustrated with the way his party had folded before Nitish Kumar who, he said, was a discredited leader and did not deserve equal sharing of seat in Bihar. Like other previous disgruntled NDA leaders including Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) chief Upendra Kushwaha and former BJP MP Kirti Azad, Singh showered praise on Rahul Gandhi saying his popularity had grown tremendously while Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lost the political goodwill that he had amassed in 2014. Prime Minister Modi seems to have shielded himself from reality and is living in a bubble where he listens to only what he wants to listen. His concept of a Congress-free India is a very bad idea and is not conducive the basic tenets of democracy that cannot survive in the absence of the opposition party, Singh said. The former MP said that though he had not finalized his future plans, he intended to meet with both Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav to discuss his future plans. He further said that it had become nearly impossible to get a meeting with the Prime Minister who is only surrounded by those who tell him what he wants to hear. It is because of this Upendra Kushwaha had to leave the NDA, he said. Singh is the younger brother of N K Singh, the Chairman of the 15th Finance Commission. He had won from Purnia in 2004 and 2009 but lost to a JD-U candidate by over a lakh vote in 2014 in spite of the Modi wave at the time. Patna: Former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejaswi Yadav, held a Q&A session live on Twitter to protect his and his partys brand while at the same time launching scathing attacks on the NDA in general, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in particular. Dubbed as Twitter Chaupal, Yadav, the younger son of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi, questioned the Nitish administration in Bihar saying the state was in the clutches of criminals where no one felt safe anymore. Answering to a question, the former Deputy Chief Minister lamented corruption in the government, the dwindling law and order situation in Bihar, and the collapse of healthcare and education in the state. Because of these reasons, Biharis are leaving the state in large numbers. Until the standard of education is improved in the state and more employment opportunities are created, this phenomenon will continue to grow, Yadav, who has been guarding the RJD fort in the absence of his father who is cooling his heels in a Ranchi prison in connection with a number of cases related to the fodder scam, said. On the topic of NDAs decision to provide 10% reservation to economically-challenged people from upper castes, the leader of the opposition in the state Assembly said that while his party had no issue with the Modi governments decision, it took umbrage to the way it was announced just months before the next Lok Sabha polls. Did NDA carry out an independent survey to see if poor people from upper castes needed 10% reservation. Was there a commission formed for this purpose? What was the basis of this number? he asked. Taking a veiled shot at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Yadav said people should be wary of those who talk big but dont back them with their works and accomplishments. Its not necessary that he who talks the loudest is also the best performer. You have to judge a person by how much work he does, Yadav said. He also said that the Center should grant special status to Bihar without further delay. Janata Dal U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar wasted no time in responding to Yadav saying the prince who was born with a golden spoon in his mouth is afraid to go to villages and instead spreading falsities through Twitter. He talks about corruption knowing full well that his father is rotting in jail on various corruption charges. Moreover, Tejaswi Yadav himself is facing a host of CBI probes in many corruption cases. He ceded the moral ground to talk on corruption a long time ago, Kumar said. Patna: A team of Election Commission officials led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora arrived in Patna on Thursday to review poll preparation in the run up of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in the country. The ten-member EC team is on a two-day visit to the state capital to ensure the government is doing everything to hold free and fair election in the state. On Thursday, Aroras team was to hold meeting with the Chief Election Officer of Bihar, Nodal officers of police, excise, income tax, transport, commercial tax, railways, and civil aviation departments. They were also scheduled to meet with representatives of various political parties. On Friday, the EC team will hold meetings with the top police brass, district election officers, and senior bureaucrats from all 38 districts. As always, our goal is to hold a free and fair election in all states and by acting early, it will allow us to identify any weakness in the system that we will work to rectify before the election day, said Arora. Patna: Students from nearly a dozen schools of Patna participated in a debate on the issue of pollution held at the St. Michael's High School jointly sponsored by the Tarumitra, a student organization dedicated to promote awareness about various ecological issues. Besides the host school, other schools that participated in the debate contest included Notre Dame Academy Loyola High School, Mount Carmel High School, Tribhuvan School, Trinity Global School, St. Dominic Savio's High School, R P S Residential Public School, Radiant International School, and both ICSE and CBSE wings of the International School. While Aditi Abhijeet of Notre Dame Academy was declared the best speaker, her schoolmate Neha Verma won the second-place award. St. Michael's Vatsala Pandey was adjudged the second runner-up. The debate was divided into two sessions the first session highlighting the problem of pollution and the second session focusing on solutions to reduce pollution. Students had six minutes to present their argument. The Green School Award was given to Loyola High School. Ashok Ghosh, Bihar State Pollution Control Board Chairman was the chief guest at the function while Rossy Alexandra Henriquez Reyes of Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural University in Honduras was the special guest. Tarumitra founder Father Robert Athickal, Notre Dame teacher Abha Chowdhary, and St. Michael's teacher Amita Jha constituted the judges panel. The contestants, teachers and guests later formed a human chain against pollution in Digha area. Patna: At least five persons including four women and a child were feared dead when a boat carrying them from Fatuha Ghat to the Diara area capsized in the midstream in the Ganges on Wednesday morning. {gallery}newsimages2018/jan/013118{/gallery}The incident took place around 11:00 am when members of one family from Gaya were going to the Diara region to take a dip in the Ganges on the occasion of Magh Purnima, an auspicious day among the Hindus. As reported, the victims, all from Arunia village in Gaya district, were first planning to take a dip in the Ganges at Mastana Ghat in Fatuha but due to overall filthiness of the ghat, decided to take a boat instead and go to the Diara area where water is said to be much cleaner. Divers and relief workers arrived at the scene of accident in a matter of minutes but were able to save only five others in the boat. Disaster Relief Force jawans and divers were still searching for any survivor till late evening, Fatuha police station in-charge Naseem Ahmed said. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, after hearing about the tragedy, expressed his grief and announced Rs. 4 lakh for the each victim of the drowning. Survivors were being treated at hospitals in Patna. New Delhi: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday held a meeting with Central Water Resources and Ground Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari in Delhi to discuss various road and waterways projects related to Bihar. Bihar Water Resources and Planning Minister Lallan Singh, Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and many other top state bureaucrats were also present during the meeting. Gadkari, at the conclusion of the meeting, gave Kumar a short tour outside his government bungalow where he introduced the Chief Minister to a motorcycle and an auto-rickshaw that ran on ethanol instead of the more conventional petrol. The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader then talked about the advantages of bio-fuel and how it could curb pollution in congested cities like Delhi and Patna. For the purpose of demonstration, a man filled the tanks of both vehicles with ethanol fuel and gave a short ride to both Gadkari and Kumar. Impressed with the bio-fuel efficiency, the Chief Minister told the Central Minister that Bihar could use the technology as it is one of the largest buyers of motorcycles in the nation. "I have been told that ethanol is not only cheaper to produce, it also adds zero pollution to the atmosphere. Bihar has tremendous potential for it and we must try to set up plants in the state that remains one of the largest producer of corn, a key ingredient in ethanol production," Kumar said. Patna: While the response to the call for formation of yet another human chain in Bihar by Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) leader and Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha was anything but successful, the entire event resembled a political exercise designed to feel the pulse of other parties in the hope of formation of new alliances in Bihar. Giving rise to speculations of a possible rift in the NDA in Bihar and murmurs of new alliances emerging in the wake of the collapse of Mahagathbandhan, all key members of the NDA including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janata Dal U, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) refrained from joining Kushwaha in his human chain on Tuesday saying the event was organized without any consultation with other members of the alliance and while they were indeed invited by Kushwaha himself, they chose not to join him since he had invited both Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress, the two arch enemies of the BJP, to be a part of the human chain. "How can Kushwaha expects us to share the platform with him where RJD and Congress leaders are also present?" asked senior BJP leader Prem Kumar. The RLSP President and Central Human Resources Minister for State had called for the formation of a human chain, an idea he borrowed from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, to spread awareness about the right to education and improving quality of education in Bihar. Kushwaha, who kicked off the event at the Miller High School ground in Patna at 11:30 am, was flanked by RJD leaders Shivanand Tiwari, Ramchandra Purvey, and other RJD leaders who said they supported the minister's cause that was meant to improve education in Bihar. Incidentally, Kushwaha had participated in both human chains called by Nitish Kumar in Bihar one in favor of prohibition and the second one just days ago to promote eradication of dowry and child marriage system in the state. As reported, RJD national Vice President Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Monday had said that the NDA was about to lose some of its partners as both Kushwaha and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi were looking a way out of it so they could join hands with the RJD. Talking to the reporters, Kushwaha denied any rift within the NDA saying he had support of the BJP who were working behind the scene to make today's event successful. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:25 pm CENTRALIA POLICE DEPARTMENT Theft At 9:18 a.m. Wednesday, a theft of cash was reported in the 300 block of South Street. Driver Cited for Suspended License after Collision At 11:55 a.m. Wednesday, police responded to a two-vehicle collision in the 900 block of Harrison Avenue. No one was injured, but one driver, a 19-year-old Lacey resident, was cited for third-degree driving with a suspended license. Vehicle Strikes Car, Building At 3:42 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to the 600 block of West Main Street where a vehicle collided with a second vehicle and then with a building. The at-fault driver was cited, and injuries were reported. Three-Vehicle Collision Results in Injury At 6:31 p.m. Wednesday, a three-vehicle collision with injuries was reported at Main and Yew streets. Juveniles Referred on MIP Charge At 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, police responded to the 900 block of Johnson Road. Two juvenile females are being referred to Lewis County Juvenile Court on suspicion of being minors in possession of alcohol. Stolen Vehicle Recovered At 11:31 a.m. on Thursday, police recovered a vehicle in the 700 block of South Pearl Street that had been reported stolen the previous night. Police Respond to Report of Suspicious Activity, Arrest One on Warrant At 12:37 p.m. on Thursday, police responded to a report of suspicious circumstances in the 1200 block of Alder Street and arrested Shyanne Lester, 39, of Centralia on an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. Lester was released with a new court date. Suspected Trespasser Booked At 2:41 p.m. on Thursday, police responded to the 400 block of South Silver Street and arrested Kendra J. Chancy, 34, of Centralia, on suspicion of criminal trespass. Vehicle Prowl At 4:47 p.m. on Thursday, a vehicle prowl was reported in the 600 block of Nick Road. Items were reported stolen from an unlocked vehicle. Rollover Crash Reported At 6:32 a.m. on Friday, police responded to a report of a rollover crash in the 800 block of South Gold Street. The driver had minor injuries. No further information was available. CHEHALIS POLICE DEPARTMENT Theft At 1:22 p.m. Wednesday, a theft of a quilt from a dryer was reported in the 300 block of Southeast Washington Avenue. Accused Shoplifter Runs From Police, Arrested At 6:34 p.m. on Thursday, police responded to a report of a trespasser in the 1700 block Northwest Louisiana Avenue. The suspect reported ran from the scene on foot and was arrested on a nearby Interstate 5 onramp. The suspect, Joseph K. Dodd, 37, a transient, was arrested on suspicion of third-degree theft and outstanding warrants. Teen Booked for Assault At 4:54 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to the 300 block of Southwest Third Street and arrested a 15-year-old boy on suspicion of fourth-degree assault domestic violence. Trespasser Reported, Accused of Urinating in Public At 10:21 a.m. on Thursday, police responded to a report of a man urinating in public in the 1600 block of Northwest Louisiana Avenue. Michael A. Caballero, 37, of Vancouver, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree criminal trespass. Vehicle Prowl At 4:09 p.m. on Thursday, police received a report of a vehicle prowl in the 100 block of Southwest Interstate Avenue. A purse and cellphone were taken from the car. A possible suspect was caught on camera. Theft Reported At 5:10 p.m. on Thursday, a theft was reported in the 1700 block of North National Avenue. Lewis County Jail As of Friday morning, the Lewis County Jail had a total system population of 236 inmates, including 197 in general population and 35 in the Work Ethic and Restitution Center. Of general population inmates, 162 were male and 35 were female and of WERC inmates, 30 were male and five female. Four inmates were on work release. A total of 31 inmates were booked through contracts with agencies outside Lewis County. By The Chronicle Staff Please call news reporter Cody Neuenschwander with news tips. He can be reached at 807-8208 or cneuenschwander@chronline.com New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and MP from Patna Saheb Shatrughan Sinha on Tuesday joined a new political forum started by former Union Minister and another disgruntled BJP leader Yashwant Sinha saying since he had no voice in his own party, he would be able to speak through this platform to launch a new movement against the Modi government at the Center. The actor-turned-politician, along with a number of other leaders from various parties including Pawan Verma of Janata Dal U, Renuka Chowdhary of Congress, Dinesh Trivedi of Trinamool Congress, Majid Memon of Nationalist Congress Party, Sanjay Singh of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and former Gujarat Chief Minister Suresh Mehta joined a new political action committee (PAC) called 'Rashtra Manch' launched by Yashwant Sinha who has emerged as the most vociferous critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team at the Center. "My own party has refused to give me a platform to speak my mind and that is why I have chosen this forum started by Yashwant ji whom I respect a lot. However, my decision to join Rashtra Manch should not be seen as anti-party activities as it is in the interest of the nation," the Patna Saheb MP said. Yashwant Sinha, former Central Finance Minister, said that situation in India was same today that was exactly 70 years ago when Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. "Our democratic institutions are under attack today and party leaders are living in a constant state of fear. However, we are not afraid of anyone," he said adding under the Modi administration, farmers across the nation had been reduced to the status of beggars as the government cooked up numbers and data to present a rosy picture of the country. Rashtra Manch is not an outfit but a national movement and the first item on our agenda is to take up the cause of the farmers," the octogenarian leader said. Patna: With no takers in Congress or the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Sharad Yadav, the disgruntled Janata Dal U leader, as anticipated, is all set to launch his own party at a function in New Delhi on February 20, Arun Srivastava, the national General Secretary of the Sharad faction of the JD-U, said at a press conference in Patna on Monday. The group has shortlisted three names for the new party including Loktantrik Janata Dal, Samajwadi Janata Dal, and Apna Janata Dal with Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) likely to be approved by the Election Commission, Srivastava said adding the new name would be approved by the EC within a day or two. "The new party would be launched at the Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi on February 20 with more than 10,000 delegates from Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh attending the event," he said. As reported, Yadav, the former Nitish friend and JD-U National President, went against his own party after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to break the Grand Alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress and go back to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA in Bihar last July. Calling it a betrayal of the trust of the people of Bihar, Yadav went on to berate Kumar who then successfully sought the end of his Parliamentary membership, along with the membership of another JD-U leader Ali Anwar, on charges of engaging in anti-party activities. Back in November 2017 Patently Apple posted a report titled "U.S. Court of Appeals dismisses a Lawsuit brought against Apple by Rembrandt Patent Innovations over iTunes Functionality." The patent troll is back to sue Apple on another front regarding Bluetooth with EDR. The patents used to sue Apple with are the very same ones that beat Samsung in court, even though Samsung was able to get the penalty reduced from $15.7 million to $11.1 million. Virginia's Rembrandt Patent Innovations now appears to be Rembrandt Wireless Technologies from Virginia. Rembrandt is the assignee and owner of the patents at issue in this action: United States Patent No. 8,457,228 (the 228 Patent) and United States Patent No. 8,023,580 (the580 Patent) were originally owned by Gordon Bremer. Rembrandt isn't fighting for the little inventor but rather for themselves, a patent troll. In their formal complaint against Apple they make it clear that "The patents accused of infringement in this lawsuit, US Patent Nos. 8,457,228 and 8,023,580, were previously asserted in this District against Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC. As part of that lawsuit, this Court construed the meaning of certain terms and phrases from those patents, and ultimately conducted a jury trial, during which both of those patents were found to be valid and infringed. After extensively reviewing the post-trial motions, this Court denied Samsungs motions for judgment as a matter of law, and its request for a new trial, and entered Judgment in favor of the patent owner, Rembrandt. Later in their complaint Rembrandt notes that " Upon information and belief, Apple has infringed directly and indirectly and continues to infringe directly and indirectly claim 21 of the 228 Patent. The infringing acts include, but are not limited to, the manufacture, use, sale, importation, exportation, and/or offer for sale of products practicing any of the following Bluetooth specifications that support Enhanced Data Rate (EDR): Version 2.0 + EDR, Version 2.1 + EDR, Version 3.0 + HS, Version 4.0 + LE, Version 4.1, Version 4.2, or version 5 (collectively, the Bluetooth EDR Specifications). Such Apple products that support one or more of the Bluetooth EDR Specifications are hereinafter referred to as the Apple Bluetooth EDR Products. 29. Apples Bluetooth EDR Products include but are not limited to the: iPhone XR; iPhone XS; iPhone XS Max; iPhone X; iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus; iPhone 7; iPhone 7 Plus; iPhone SE; iPhone 6; iPhone 6 Plus; iPhone 5; iPhone 5S; iPhone 5C; iPhone 4; iPhone 4S; iPhone 3G; iPhone 3GS; iPad Pro (3rd Generation); iPad (2018); iPad Pro (2nd Generation, 10.5 and 12.9); iPad (2017); iPad Pro (1st Generation, 9.7 and 12.9); iPad Air 2; iPad Air; iPad 4th Generation; iPad 3rd Generation; iPad 2; iPad; iPad mini 4; iPad mini 3; iPad mini 2; iPad mini; iPod Touch 6th Generation; iPod Touch 5th Generation; iPod Touch 4th Generation; iPod Touch 3rd Generation; iPod Touch 2nd Generation; iPod Nano 7th Generation; Apple Watch, Series 4; Apple Watch Series 3; Apple Watch Nike+; Apple Watch Hermes; Apple Watch Series 2; Apple Watch Series 1; Apple TV 5th Generation; Apple TV 4th Generation; Apple TV 3rd Generation; Apple TV 2nd Generation; Apple TV 4K; AirPort Extreme; MacBook; MacBook Pro; MacBook Air; iMac Pro; Mac Mini; iMac; Mac Pro; Beats Solo2 Wireless Headphones; Beats Studio Wireless Headphones; Beats PowerBeats3 Wireless In-Ear Headphones; Beats PowerBeats2 Wireless In- Ear Headphones; AirPods; Beats Pill+ Wireless Speaker; Beats Pill Wireless Speaker; Beats Pill XL Wireless Speaker; Beats Studio3 Wireless; Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones; BeatsX Earphones; Powerbeats3 Wireless Earphones; HomePod; and all other devices that use Bluetooth EDR. Apples Bluetooth EDR Products satisfy the limitations of the claims of the 228 Patent. For example, each of Apples Bluetooth EDR Product is a master communication device that can operate in the role of the master in a master-slave relationship and communicate with other Bluetooth EDR Products operating in the role of slaves." Keeping up with all the ins and outs of technology in this rapidly changing world can be difficult. Its completely understandable (and unavoidable) for a bit of false information to slip into the conversation here and there. But when misinformation becomes myth, it can persist in the culture for yearslong after its been debunked. In addition to looking at some popular tech tales people google around the country, we also surveyed people about the tech myths they still believe. Heres what we found! 86% Believe Smartphone Cameras with more Megapixels Capture Better Pics Well forgive you for believing this one because its tricky. A camera with more megapixels can take pictures with higher resolution, but that doesnt necessarily mean theyre better quality. The lens and the sensor on your smartphone camera play bigger roles in image quality. For example, if you have a bad lens, youll get a bad picture. If you have a bad lens but a lot of megapixels, all youll get is a bad picture in high resolution. 52% Believe Charging a Cellphone Overnight can Ruin the Battery This myth is more expired than untrue. Nowadays, charging modern smartphone batteries wont ruin them. Years ago, overcharging cellphone batteries could cause them to overheat or wear down their life cycle. Thankfully, both smartphones and batteries have advanced significantly since then. 52% Believe Smartphone companies Deliberately slow down Existing Phone Models when a new Model is Released Okay, we cant say for sure that no smartphone company slows down your phone, but its hard to prove that its done deliberately. [So this myth may actually be true. I wonder who paid for this entry?] Smartphones slow down over time because advances in software and technology require more system updates that use more processing power. Eventually, these upgrades stretch the limits of an older phone and slow it down. This process happens naturally, so smartphone manufacturers dont really need to manually slow down phones more than whats already happening to convince you to buy a new phone. Still, Samsung and Apple were both accused of deliberate slowing and fined for it in Italy. However, even in that case, all the companies were guilty of was simply telling customers to install the latest operating system. Those systems happened to be designed for the next generation of hardware and caused major issues when installed on the older phones. But was that deliberate? Or just clumsy? Well let you decide. 31% Believe Airport X-ray Machines can Wipe the memory on a Phone or Laptop The X-rays used by airport security scanners will not erase your hard drive or damage the information on ityou would need a magnet to do that. X-rays can damage images on old-school rolls of film but nothing digital. If your photos are all on your phone, they should be fine. 30% Think a Computer must be Shut Down Every Night for it to run Properly Shutting down your computer every night doesnt affect how your computer functions. If you still have a computer from the 1990s, you can possibly extend its life slightly by shutting it down every night, but even thats debatable. Modern computers have fewer mechanical components and better power management than previous machines. These advancements minimize the effects of shutting down and restarting your computer. While your computer will need to reboot occasionally to install updates, it doesnt need to restart every night. 17% Believe that Macs cant get Viruses Lets clear this up: Macs can get viruses. They dont get them as often as PCs, but it happens. This myth likely stems from years past when Apples market share was much smaller. Early Macs had two big advantages to help keep them virus-free: First, the source code was harder to access. Second, the percentage of people with Macs was so small that it wasnt worth creating a virus for them. Today, Macs are everywhere. While they still limit access to the source code, theyre mainstream enough to be targeted. There's even more to this story and you could check it out here. For instance, the report found that "California is thinking about charging phones in the microwave." That's as dumb as drying our cat in a microwave. California, that just embarrassing! About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus I think Apple and Qualcomm have to be pleased with President Trump's move to dissuade American, Australian and European telecoms from using Huawei 5G technology. After a Huawei executive was arrested for spying in Poland, it made the U.S. case more compelling. Yesterday we learned that Huawei's Q4 shipments in China outpaced Apple's by 3 to 1 and they're on a roll with new technology that doesn't depend on Qualcomm technology that gives them an edge over all of their competitors. Huawei's smartphone pricing could hurt Apple in Europe this year but luckily it won't be the case in the U.S. due to the U.S. Government's (bipartisan) intervention. It appears that Huawei is on the war path when it comes to 5G. They're pushing their 5G telecom equipment Worldwide and yesterday introduced a new 5G modem for the home or office. More importantly, Huawei announced that they will be introducing a 5G smartphone during their keynote at Mobile World Congress at the end of February in addition to a 5G foldable smartphone. This week at a special event, Huawei's CEO introduced their new 5G CPE Pro home / office modem using their new 5G Multi-Mode chipset. Huawei's CEO Richard Yu stated during his keynote that the Balong 5000 Multi-Mode chipset officially unlocks the 5G era. This chipset supports a broad range of 5G products in addition to smartphones, including home broadband devices, vehicle-mounted devices, and 5G modules. It will provide consumers with a brand new 5G experience across multiple scenarios. Yu further stated that "The Balong 5000 will open up a whole new world to consumers. It will enable everything to sense, and will provide the high-speed connections needed for pervasive intelligence. Powered by the Balong 5000, the Huawei 5G CPE Pro enables consumers to access networks more freely and enjoy an incredibly fast connected experience. Huawei has an integrated set of capabilities across chips, devices, cloud services, and networks. Building on these strengths, as the leader of the 5G era, we will bring an inspired, intelligent experience to global consumers in every aspect of their lives." With a small form factor and high degree of integration, Balong 5000 supports 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G on a single chip. It effectively reduces latency and power consumption when exchanging data between different modes, and will significantly enhance user experience in the early stages of commercial 5G deployment. Balong 5000 marks a significant step forward for the Balong series of chipsets. Balong 5000 is the first chipset to perform to industry benchmarks for peak 5G download speeds. At Sub-6 GHz (low-frequency bands, the main spectrum used for 5G), Balong 5000 can achieve download speeds up to 4.6 Gbps. On the Millimeter Wave spectrum (mmWave high-frequency bands used as extended spectrum for 5G), Balong 5000 can achieve download speeds up to 6.5 Gbps 10 times faster than top 4G LTE speeds on the market today. Balong 5000 is also the world's first chipset that supports both standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) network architectures for 5G. With non-standalone, 5G network architecture is built on top of legacy 4G LTE networks, whereas standalone 5G, as the name implies, will have its own independent architecture. Balong 5000 can flexibly meet different user and carrier requirements for connecting devices throughout different stages of 5G development. Balong 5000 is the world's first multi-mode chipset that supports Vehicle to Everything (V2X) communications, providing low-latency and highly reliable solutions for connected vehicles. Huawei's 5G smartphones powered by Balong 5000 will be released at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Powered by Balong 5000, the Huawei 5G CPE Pro supports both 4G and 5G wireless connections. On a 5G network, a 1-GB HD video clip can be downloaded within three seconds, and 8K video can be streamed smoothly without lag. This sets a new benchmark for home CPEs. In addition to homes, the Huawei 5G CPE Pro can also be used by small and medium-sized enterprises for super-fast broadband access. Adopting new Wi-Fi 6 technology, the Huawei 5G CPE Pro delivers speeds of up to 4.8 Gbps. It is the first 5G CPE that supports HUAWEI HiLink protocols, bringing smart homes into the 5G era. This year folding smartphones will likely be launched by Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi and others. Xiaomi's surprise video this week presented the best folding phone design concept to date and could pose a problem for Samsung and Huawei's foldables if it ships later this year. Although Apple has folding smartphone patents on record, they're likely to skip this form factor until it proves itself. Apple was late to the phablet shift in the market and it appears that they'll be late here as well. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus. I went after Chris Cuomo earlier this week for elevating easily disproven racist garbage that regurgitated the Obama birther controversy, but with Kamala Harris at the center of it. I still stand by everything I wrote, as that was an unconscionable error that literally repeated the mistakes of the past. Kamala Harris was born in Oakland and the 14th Amendment existsend of non-story. Insinuating that she may not be eligible to run for president means that you are either ignorant of basic constitutional matters, or you are suggesting that she wasnt born in America. That said, this new video from last night is making me rethink phrases that I wrote, like TV anchors like Cuomo [are] desperate for the eyeballs of white America and more trained to cosplay a journalist than to actually be one. This clip is hard-nosed journalism, and Chris Cuomos diatribe here is simply incredible for how truthful it is and how aggressively it cuts against the grain of average American discourse. ok how is CHRIS CUOMO giving a better response to the BUT VENEZUELA! people than like 90% of progressives and even many Democratic Socialists pic.twitter.com/PruGNoog9H connor (@alsoconnor) January 24, 2019 You know whats 100% preventable? Poverty! You know whats 100% preventable? Hunger! Heres a clip of leftist Twitter watching this segment last night: via GIPHY This minute of fire-breathing honesty should serve as a template for every single Democratic politician who wants to win the 2020 nomination. While some of you may raise your eyebrow at Cuomos extremely correct assertion that poverty is 100% preventable, I promise you that the math backs that claim up. The THREE richest Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans. The Forbes top 400 richest people have $2.68 trillion in wealthwhich is more than the GDP of Britain. If we were to simply divide up that $2.68 trillion and distribute it evenly across all 330 million men, women and children in America, everyone would have an extra $8,000 in their pocket (thats a 23% raise for your average single household). Obviously not every man, woman and child would need that payout, so if we narrowed it down from 330 million people to the 127 million households in America, dividing the top 400 richest Americans wealth evenly across every household would give each home an extra $21,000 (thats the poverty line in America for a three-person household). Dont tell me that poverty isnt 100% preventable with figures like that. Even if we just took half of the wealth of the top 400 Americans, that would still give $10,000 to each and every householdwhich equates to about a 20% raise on the average salary in America. Widespread poverty is unequivocally a choice in this country. It would be remarkable enough if one of CNNs prime time TV hosts stopped there, but Cuomo went on to critique U.S. foreign policy better than any Democratic candidate for president in my lifetime. Per Cuomo: Venezuela? Cuz thats a great strategy youve got goin there, right? You starve these countries of support, then you create environments on the ground where they can blow up, and then you stand back and watch them burn. What are we gonna do there now? Sanctions dont really work to achieve their intended outcome. Weve known this for quite some time. Sure, you look at a country like Russia right now, and how their ruling class is boxed in, leading them to try to use Trump to lift sanctions on the Russian elite, but at the end of the day, sanctions hurt the populace more than they hurt the ruling classas the deteriorating situation in Iran is currently demonstrating. What always winds up happening is that sanctions cut off funding and supplies to the country, so the ruling elite hoards as much as they can while less funding and supplies reach the people. Like Cuomo accurately pointed out, our foreign policy on this stuff basically amounts to you stand back and watch them burn. What are we gonna do there now? Critiquing the mainstream media is simultaneously an incredibly easy and difficult endeavor. While unforced errors like Cuomo elevating birther BS about Kamala Harris are easy to find, ascertaining why these unforced errors occurred is more difficult. The kind of thoughtfulness and journalistic clout that Cuomo displays in this short clip above is betrayed by the both-sides nonsense he demonstrated in elevating the birther BS. Its a clear fact at this point that the mainstream media trains its journalists to think in the untrue both-sides worldview that was on display when Cuomo unnecessarily elevated false garbage about Kamala Harris from the far-right. However, Cuomos extremely thoughtful pushback against but Venezuela! and the astounding and correct claim that poverty is preventable makes me believe that the problem with our mainstream media isnt anchors like Chris Cuomo, but the higher-ups in his ear dictating the bankrupt both-sides worldview that has helped lead us to an utterly preventable, poverty-stricken America. Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling. 100 years ago Jan. 26, 1919: Sam Rove, a Russian Jew now living in LeRoy, has his own plan for peace. It begins with a universal coin and develops into a seven-point plan involving Germany, Russia and Japan. Roves writings on farming for Jews have been hailed as a noteworthy success. 75 years ago Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Jan. 26, 1944: Charles Loeffler, 81, was killed when a semi truck ran over him at Washington and Center streets. A car apparently struck the victim first as it made a turn, knocking him beneath the wheels of the semi trailer. The truck driver, from Chicago, was not held. 50 years ago Jan. 26, 1969: William Walton, 23, a Bloomington soldier headed for Vietnam, was shot in the foot as he went after a man who had just robbed him at gunpoint. The robbery occurred as Walton left the Bel Air Club on Springfield Road. Hes hospitalized in good condition. 25 years ago Jan. 26, 1994: Jerry Gummere is retiring as chairman and CEO of the parent company of Peoples Bank. He cited health reasons for his decision to step down. Gummere started with the bank in 1960. Andrew Anderson will be promoted to Gummeres position in April. Compiled by Jack Keefe; jkeefe@coldwellhomes.com. BLOOMINGTON McLean County's plan to add three mental health programs within the next two months was praised this week by some behavioral health service providers. "We applaud them (county officials) for stepping up in this way," said Puneet Leekha, chief operating officer of Chestnut Health Systems in Bloomington. Renee Donaldson, executive director for Advocate Aurora's Illinois behavioral health service line, including its inpatient mental health unit at Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal, said, "It's an exciting and innovative way to look at meeting the mental health needs in our county." Lynn Fulton, president of OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center, Bloomington, said "No one entity can own mental health services in a community." Tom Barr, executive director of the Center for Human Services, McLean County's mental health agency, also was supportive but expressed concerns. "There are multiple providers in behavioral health care in McLean County that are working collaboratively," Barr said. "Having the county assume responsibility for some of this is a huge undertaking. I would hope for continued collaboration and potential funding of the service providers in the areas where each of them have demonstrated expertise." The county's telepsychiatry program is a direct response to CHS suspending accepting new clients into its psychiatric program, citing declining support from the state and United Way of McLean County. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. "There is a critical need for psychiatric services and we genuinely regretted making the decision that we had to make," Barr said. He said CHS has used $1.4 million of its reserves to keep the program going, with $3.6 million left. The program has 750 clients. Barr said the program could begin accepting new clients again if the Board of Health fully funds the program and the program receives another $400,000, which Barr hopes comes from sales tax revenue. "Psychiatric services are going to have to be there," he said. Barr supports telepsychiatry but said that's not enough for people with severe and persistent mental illness. Donaldson said, "We use telepsychiatry within Advocate BroMenn and we have had great success." Chestnut CEO Dave Sharar said "Telepsychiatry works and we do a lot of it in Madison and St. Clair counties. But it's not a replacement for other services." Barr also supports the county's plans for a triage center. CHS originally was awarded an Illinois Department of Human Services' grant to staff a triage center but couldn't meet meet the grant's stipulation that the center needed to be staffed 24/7 by master's-degree-level clinicians. The new triage center, to be funded with county sales tax money, does not require 24/7 staffing by master's-level clinicians. Contact Paul Swiech at (309) 820-3275. Follow him on Twitter: @pg_swiech Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. NORMAL Democrats have to show spine and not seek perfection in their candidates if they are going to have a chance to prevent the re-election of President Donald Trump, an award-winning author and NPR news-and-talk show host said Friday at Illinois State University. Michael Eric Dyson, named one of the 150 most powerful African-Americans by Ebony magazine and a two-time NAACP Image Award winner, was the keynote speaker at Friday's Martin Luther King Cultural Dinner. Before the dinner, he took questions from students and others at a master's class in the Bone Student Center. "(House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi has shown some spine, he said during the class, which occurred shortly after a deal was reached to end the partial government shutdown at least temporarily. I do believe the Democrats have to find a more sturdy spine. Dyson, a sociology professor at Georgetown University, said, I'm very depressed to tell you Donald Trump could be re-elected, but now is a prime opportunity to defeat him. He said Pelosi has shown what works is to stand your ground. Grind the bully down. Asked about who is the strongest among the Democrats who have announced or are likely to announce as candidates for president in 2020, Dyson said a lot of these people are impressive. Among those he singled out were three U.S. senators, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} As for former Vice President Joe Biden, Dyson said, Are we desperate enough to choose an 'old man' like that? Yes, we are. Others also may emerge and each is likely to have a past that could be held against them, he said. Dyson noted that young people who have brought energy to the party also have been tough on candidates' past transgressions, even if they have apologized. And that's not necessarily new. "The left has used circular firing squads for years," he said. In selecting a candidate to support, don't get obsessed with perfection or purity, Dyson said. Instead of asking Jesus to run, look for someone with integrity and good ideas. In answer to a question about white supremacy, Dyson said it manifests itself in many ways and is more than someone saying blacks and Jews should be killed. White supremacy 2.0 is more sophisticated, he said. They can dress it up but it's the same old nastiness. Striking a pessimistic tone, Dyson said, We could hope for more progressive insight after centuries, but it ain't here. However, he said, it is still important to talk about. Thinking racism or white supremacy will go away if no one talks about it is like thinking cancer will go away if the doctor doesn't talk about the tumor, said Dyson. Contact Lenore Sobota at (309) 820-3240. Follow her on Twitter: @Pg_Sobota Love 7 Funny 2 Wow 1 Sad 1 Angry 7 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. MOUNT ZION A Mount Zion High School student has pleaded not guilty to three charges of tampering with computers after police said he shut down his school districts computer network while trying to sabotage a homework assignment. Gage C. Hart, 18, appeared in Macon County Circuit Court earlier this week, represented by Chief Public Defender David Ellison, who told Judge Phoebe Bowers that Hart was waiving a preliminary hearing on three counts of computer tampering/insert program charges, which are Class 4 felonies. Ellison assigned public defender Tiffany Senger to defend Hart and Bowers put the case on the trial list of Judge Thomas Griffith. A pretrial hearing was scheduled for March 6. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Mount Zion Police investigated the attacks on Mount Zion School Districts computer network and soon traced the incidents to Hart, said police. Lt. Mike Foster said the first attack came Nov. 20 and shut down the computer system for about an hour. A second attack occurred Nov. 26 and disrupted service for about five hours. A third attack hit service on the morning of Nov. 27. Police said the aim of the attacks was to knock out a homework assignment but denial of service intrusions shut everything down. Denial of service involves bombarding computer systems with so much information they overload and cease working. Foster said, however, that the schools computer firewall system prevented any lasting damage. ...The firewall was doing what it was supposed to do and didnt let any information out or in, he said at the time. The Public Defender's Office has a policy of not commenting on pending cases. Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 1 Gary Wayne Starr age 42, passed away Tuesday June 15, 2021 at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas. He is survived by his wife Wilma Starr, his mother Paula Fountain of Tennessee Colony, his brother Andy Starr of Tennessee Colony, plus numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. He was proceeded in death To the editor: The Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network held its first Mobile Food Pantry of 2019 at the Midland Civic Arena, located on Fast Ice Drive on Jan. 16. This food giveaway was funded by the Lions Club of Midland. Fifty-six volunteers served 200 families (613 individuals) with food purchased from the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. The food included potatoes, apples, pears, frozen meats and pizzas, canned and boxed foods, pastries and breads. The Network is very grateful to the many donors of food, money and time throughout the year to the Network's mission of "always food in every home." Midland County residents in (financial) need of food and personal care items during the year may call the Network at 989-486-9393 to leave your name and phone number. The second MFP of 2019 is scheduled for Feb. 23 at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, located at the corner of West Sugnet and Eastman roads in Midland. Thanks again to the members of the Lions Club of Midland and to the staff of the Midland Civic Arena for their partnering support. SALLY ANN SUTTON Midland County EFPN To the editor: These are my own personal opinions, and I do not speak for The Dow Chemical Co. in any capacity. Regarding the letter written by Kim Jimenez: I may not be a member of the LGBT community, but I want people in this area that are to know that not all the people here, nor all the people at Dow share Kim's opinions. Although I am not a Dow employee, I work there as a consultant, so I know that most people there are open-minded and welcoming regardless of what their personal views may be. I dont know what the flag represents, but in my opinion her letter was borderline hateful. If a company were to fly a flag having to do with the LGBT community, it would support inclusion of them. It would support that community's right to work for and with that company without being ostracized or discriminated against. It would not be "to cram ... the liberal views of some down the throats of the masses," as Kim said. A flag like that would not be "a case of discrimination on behalf of the employees and community that believes marriage equals one man and one woman," which she stated. It can be flown in support of the LGBT community without meaning that the company is against an opposing community. Just because the two groups hold opposing opinions does not mean that a symbol of inclusion of one is automatically a symbol of exclusion towards the other. JASON COUSINEAU Midland EDITOR'S NOTE -- OWI means operating while intoxicated. DWLS means driving while license suspended. (MC) is for Judge Michael D. Carpenter. (L) is for Magistrate Gerald Ladwig. (B) is for Circuit Judge Michael J. Beale. (SC) is for Circuit Judge Stephen P. Carras. Sentences may vary based on previous offenses committed by the defendant. Some sentencings include other fees imposed by the state. Compiled by reporter Mitchell Kukulka. Midland Sean Luke Bendall, 18, Tiffany Lane, operating while impaired on Sept. 3, 2018, $625 in costs and fines, 93 days in jail with credit for one day, six months of probation, may not use or possess alcohol/illegal drugs/marijuana or mind-altering substances, may not enter bars and subject to random drug/alcohol screening. (L) Dwayne Arthur Church, 45, Dutch Drive, aggravated domestic violence on Nov. 2, 2018, $75 in costs and fines, one year in jail with credit for 74 days. (L) Stephen Carl Ohsowski, 17, East Ashman Street, malicious use of telecommunication services and failure to report the discovery of a dead body on Sept. 25, 2018, and Jan. 2, 2018, respectively, $200 in costs and fines, 180 days in jail with credit for 83 days on first charge, one year in jail with credit for 85 days for second, sentences to run concurrrently. (L) The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Mitchell Kukulka. Thursday, Jan. 24 10:38 p.m. -- Deputies responded to a car/deer crash near a Jasper Township residence. 10:14 p.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 4400 Block of North Saginaw Road for a liquor inspection. 9:43 p.m. -- A 60-year-old man called 911 to report that a Charter Communications worker was trespassing on his property. The man shares a driveway/easement with his neighbor. The 23-year-old Charter worker was working on his neighbor's internet. Deputies told the worker to pull all the way onto the neighbor's property so he wasn't in the easement. The 60-year-old said that Charter was not allowed to be on the property at all. Deputies told the man that he could not prevent utility workers from accessing the power poles/lines. He disagreed and said he would be suing Charter. 9:09 p.m. -- Officers reported to the 4800 Block of Glencoe Street for a death investigation. 9:02 p.m. -- Officers were dispatched to the 800 Block of Ashman Street for a liquor inspection. 8:29 p.m. -- Officers responded to an animal complaint in the 700 Block of Eastman Avenue. 8:28 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to the area of East Schaffer Road near North Eastman Road in reference to a single-vehicle crash. The vehicle was gone when the deputy arrived, and there was no damage. 7:55 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to MidMichigan Urgent Care for a report of a dog bite that occurred about one week earlier. The patient left prior to the deputy's arrival, though the deputy made contact with them at their residence and issued an isolation notice. 5:13 p.m. -- An intoxicated 60-year-old man called 911 because he was upset with his ex-girlfriend who lives in Gladwin. He claimed that the woman told him his health insurance was being cancelled. It was learned that the man had diagnosed mental health issues. The subject said that he was all set and did not need additional assistance. The deputy also contacted the man's roommate, who said they were both fine. Both men said they would call 911 if they had any more issues. 4:49 p.m. -- Deputies responded to a landlord/tenant civil issue in Lee Township. 3:01 p.m. -- Animal Control was dispatched to MidMichigan Urgent Care for a report of a cat bite. A veterinarian assistant had been bitten while working. An isolation notice was issued. 2:03 p.m. -- Officers responded to a civil complaint in the 1400 Block of West Union Street. 12:57 p.m. -- Officers responded to a parking complaint in the 100 Block of West Main Street. 12:33 p.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to Greendale Township for a report of a teenage boy walking along the edge of the road who appeared to have a bloody nose. A deputy had recently passed through the area and had seen the boy walking. His face was "reddish" in color from the cold air, and he appeared to be fine, waving at the deputy as the patrol vehicle drove by. 12:07 p.m. -- Officers responded to a property damage accident in the 4900 Block of Eastman Avenue. 12:04 p.m. -- Officers responded to a report of found property in the 1600 Block of South Saginaw Road. 11:50 a.m. -- A deputy spoke with an adult Jasper Township man at his residence regarding a 35-year-old Jasper Township man frequently driving impaired on drugs and alcohol. The man who called wanted law enforcement to be aware. The deputy discovered the 35-year-old is currently on probation, and informed Midland Probation Control. 1:58 a.m. -- A deputy was dispatched to the Wayne County Jail to pick up a 24-year-old inmate with a warrant out of Midland County. After reviewing the paperwork, it was discovered that there had been a mistake in the arrest warrant, and the warrant had been meant for the man's 26-year-old brother. The 24-year-old was not transferred to Midland County and was kept in Wayne County's custody. Associated Press Writer The body of a missing student was found along a highway in the Great Smoky Mountains after police arrested her alleged stalker and killer. Sandy Jeffers, 25, was found Friday evening, a day before she was to graduate from the University of Tennessee. Earlier Friday, police arrested Aaron Lee Skeen, 20, but refused to say whether he led them to the body. Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp described Skeen as a stalker and said Jeffers apparently did not know her assailant. Police said Jeffers was abducted Tuesday night from her apartment in Maryville, in eastern Tennessee. Police said Skeen's car matched the description of the vehicle Jeffers' neighbors described driving away from her apartment, and that store security cameras show him making purchases with checks stolen from Jeffers before she disappeared. Jeffers reported the first bounced check to police the day she was kidnapped, police said. Skeen, who has no criminal record, will be charged with homicide, burglary, kidnapping and rape, Crisp said. Jeffers, who was to receive a bachelor's degree in anthropology, was a dedicated Christian who would never hurt anyone, her boyfriend James Wayne Anderson told The Daily Times of Maryville. "Sandy was the kind of person who would make me take a spider outside instead of killing it," Anderson said. A Beaverton woman was sentenced this week to life in prison after admitting to killing her elderly neighbor, who died a month after being set on fire in 2016. Maria L. Meisner, 57, pleaded guilty to murder Wednesday in Washington County Circuit Court. Additional charges of aggravated murder, first-degree arson and first-degree assault were dismissed as part of a plea deal. She will not be eligible for parole for 25 years. Kathryn Breen, 74, was set on fire while lying in bed at her Beaverton home two days before Christmas in 2016. She died at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center while being treated for second- and third-degree burns on a quarter of her body, court records show. Meisner lived across the street from Breen and was initially charged in the older womans death along with Celia Schwab, who described herself to police as Breens live-in caretaker. Schwab, 64, died in September 2017 while in custody at the Oregon State Hospital. According to Beaverton police search warrant affidavits in the case, Schwab also was suspected of stealing $12,000 from Breen before she was set on fire. Schwab was never charged with theft. Schwab wasnt licensed by the state to care for Breen. Shed been banned by a judge in 2009 from providing elder care after she was convicted for using the food stamps card of another Beaverton woman in her care without permission, court records show. Schwab told police after Breen was burned that shed been living with Breen as her caretaker since 2012. Schwab told investigators at the time that demons caused the fire, the affidavits said. Meisner claimed she saw Schwab go into Breens room with matches, then saw Breen on fire. Meisner pleaded guilty in December 2012 in Multnomah County to first-degree arson and reckless burning for setting four fires at a Northeast Portland apartment complex, court records show. The guilty plea for arson was dropped a year laterm and that charge was dismissed because she completed mental health court. Court records show Meisner has mental health disabilities including psychotic disorder and congenital brain damage. A volunteer chaplain at the Washington County Jail reported that Meisner asked in January 2017 if Jesus would forgive her because she said Schwab convinced her to light Breens bed on fire because Schwab was tired of taking care of Breen, court documents said. A county jail deputy reported that Meisner told him that October that she wasnt sad Schwab died because she got what she deserved, court documents said. The deputy said Meisner explained Schwab had done it for the insurance money, and that Schwab had a pretty good case to get off. Everton Bailey Jr. A man was taken to a hospital Friday after being shot in the leg in Southeast Portland, police say. The shooting occurred around 3 p.m. and was suspected of occurring in an apartment in the 400 block of Southeast 127th Avenue. Police have announced no arrests and have not released any information about the suspect. The wounded man is expected to survive. Two other shootings were reported in Portland within 24 hours. No one was injured in a shooting that occurred a little before 1 p.m. near Northeast Irving Street and 75th Avenue. Two men were injured after police say they were shot by another man around 2:30 p.m. Thursday in downtown Portlands Ankeny Alley near the 200 block of Southwest Broadway. The men are believed to have suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. The shooter, described by police as a thin man in his late teens to early 20s wearing dark clothing and a backpack, has not yet been arrested. Police have not said if any of the shootings are related to one another. The Portland Police Bureau asks anyone with more information on these cases to call their non-emergency line at 503-823-3333. -- Everton Bailey Jr. ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. In our system of government, we have the ability to override a president who vetoes legislation sent to him by Congress. So why do we have no way of preventing the Senate majority leader from blocking the normal progression of legislation or the confirmation of judges or -- apparently -- whatever else he is against? Am I imagining this, or is he the most powerful person in government? Did the framers of our constitution intend to give that much power to one senator from one state, or are the rest of our representatives just allowing this behavior to go unchecked? Jim Schwindt, The Dalles City officials are moving to rescind the firing of a Portland police sergeant, who was reported to have made an inflammatory remark about killing a black man during roll call, and allow him to retire with a three-week suspension instead. He wont be eligible for any job at the Portland Police Bureau or in the city again, under the negotiated agreement with the police union. The proposal, which goes before City Council on Wednesday, was drafted after the mayors office received advice from the city attorneys office cautioning that an arbitrator likely would overturn the sergeants termination. Gregg Lewis was fired on Feb. 2, 2018, after other officers reported to command staff a year earlier that they were alarmed by alleged racist and violent remarks the sergeant made about the use of force against a black man during a Central Precinct roll call. The remarks were made just three days after the controversial fatal police shooting of a black teenager, 17-year-old Quanice Hayes. Shortly after Lewis was placed under investigation in 2017, Mayor Ted Wheeler said, " I will not tolerate racism or threats of violence by any police officer. Any officer who is found to have engaged in such behavior will face severe discipline, including termination. Now the mayor is bringing to the Council a proposed emergency ordinance that would allow Lewiss firing to be erased, with the city paying him $100,020.53 in back pay. Further, Lewis would be considered retired, effective Dec. 3, with the city ensuring he receives pension credits for his adjusted service time through his retirement date. The back pay figure covers his wages from Feb. 2, 2018 through Dec. 3, 2018, at the base hourly rate of pay at the time of his firing, minus the newly imposed 120 hours of suspension without pay. The settlement results from a grievance that the Portland Police Association filed three days after Lewis was fired. The union argued Lewis was fired without just cause in violation of the citys bargaining agreement. Lewis argued that his remarks were done in a joking manner, according to the mayors office. The city initially denied the grievance. The bureaus Police Review Board had found Lewis remarks brought discredit to the bureau. One board member called Lewis' comments an "egregious, abhorrent act'' that had no place in the police bureau. Several board members also noted that Lewis failed to recognize the gravity of his inappropriate remarks and the negative effect they could have on younger officers under his command and the police bureau. As the union advanced toward arbitration, though, the city negotiated a compromise, without taking the case to an arbitration hearing before an administrative judge, according to city records. "This is the only way we can ensure 100 percent that he will never become part of the Portland Police Bureau again,'' said Berk Nelson, the mayors senior policy advisor. Deputy City Attorney Mark Amberg advised the mayors office in this case. Because Lewis didnt have a prior history of making such "racist'' remarks before that February 2017 roll call address, it was considered likely that his firing would be overturned by an arbitrator, Amberg advised the mayor, according to Nelson. Wheeler objects to the arbitration process, which often second-guesses and overturns discipline meted out by the police chief and police commissioner, Nelson said. The mayor and chief will work to challenge it in the next Portland Police Association contract, Nelson said. Lewis has already retired from the Police Bureau once. He retired on Oct. 31, 2016, but was rehired two months later, part of the police bureaus retire-rehire program to fill vacancies. The proposal goes before the council for a vote at its 9:30 a.m. meeting in City Halls council chambers. -- Maxine Bernstein Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian The Vancouver-area measles outbreak that started in early January has crossed the river into Oregon. Heres a full list of the locations that have been linked to the Oregon outbreak. Officials ask anyone who has been exposed and believes they have measles symptoms to call their doctor before visiting a medical office to avoid exposing others. This list will be updated. Public exposure locations People who visited the following locations may have been exposed to measles: Health care facilities: Legacy GoHealth, 22262 NE Glisan St., Gresham, Sunday, Jan. 20, 911:30 a.m. Gresham Troutdale Family Medical Center, 1700 SW 257th Drive, Troutdale, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 12:302 p.m. Randall Childrens Hospital at Legacy Emanuel emergency department: 10:30 p.m Tuesday, Feb. 19 to 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 20. Other locations: Fred Meyer, 22855 NE Parklane, Wood Village, Sunday, Jan. 20, 11 a.m.12 p.m. Walgreens Pharmacy, 25699 SE Stark St., Troutdale, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 12:30 p.m. Portland International Airport: Tuesday, Feb. 19, 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Oregon sites linked to the Vancouver outbreak include: Magnolia Family Clinic, 2207 NE Broadway, Suite 200, Portland from 11:30 am to 3 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8. Portland International Airport, 7000 NE Airport Way, Portland from 10:45 am to 3:45 pm on Monday, Jan. 7. More specifically, anyone who spent time in Concourse D and the Delta Sky Lounge during that time period. Portland International Airport, baggage claim and south end of the ticket counter (near Alaska Airlines and Starbucks), 7000 NE Airport Way, Portland from 7:30 to 11 pm Tuesday, Jan. 15. Costco, 4849 NE 138th Ave., Portland from 1 to 5:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 8. Costco, 4849 NE 138th Ave., Portland from 5:30 to 8:40 pm Wednesday, Jan. 16. Amazon Lockers, 1131 SW Jefferson St., Portland from 3:30 pm to 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 10. Rejuvenation, 1100 SE Grand Ave. Portland from 3:30 to 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 10. Ikea, 10280 NE Cascades Parkway, Portland from 4:30 to 8:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11. Moda Center (Trail Blazers game), 1 N Center Court St., Portland from 5:30 to 11:30 pm Friday, Jan. 11. Verizon Wireless at Cascade Station, 10103 NE Cascades Parkway, Portland from 5 to 11 pm Monday, Jan. 14. Mountain Air, 20495 Murray Rd, Suite 150, Bend, Saturday, Jan. 19, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Juniper Swim and Fitness Center, 800 NE 6th St, Bend, Sunday, Jan. 20 (Timeframe currently unknown. Updates will be provided as they are available). Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. A former inmate at Oregons womens prison says a nurse fondled her on two occasions in 2017, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Portland this week. The lawsuit alleges an abusive culture at the Coffee Creek Correctional Institution in Wilsonville and specifically names Tony Klein, a nurse who worked there for more than five years before resigning last year. The Oregonian/OregonLive isnt identifying the plaintiff because she is alleging she is a sexual abuse victim. The woman is out of custody. Klein, reached this week by phone, said he was unaware of the lawsuit. The Oregonian/OregonLive sent him a copy of the document and asked for comment. He did not respond to the email. Klein has not been charged with a crime. His nursing license remains active, according to the Oregon State Board of Nursing. The agency said Klein has no record of discipline. A representative of the nursing agency said she could not say whether there is an open investigation into Klein because such inquiries are confidential. The lawsuit alleges the Oregon Department of Corrections violated the federal law intended to protect inmates from rape and sexual assault and that the state failed to provide medical care and failed to supervise its employees. It was filed on behalf of a woman who was released from prison last fall. She was sentenced to prison for unlawful use of a weapon and attempted first-degree assault. Lawyer Michelle Burrows said she has seven other clients with similar allegations against Klein. Three are out of custody and the rest remain behind bars, she said. Burrows and attorney Leonard Williamson, the former inspector general for the Department of Corrections, said they plan to file more lawsuits alleging abuse at the prison. The Department of Corrections this week declined to comment on the lawsuit, but spokeswoman Jennifer Black said the agency takes all allegations of sexual assault very seriously and is committed to following the federal law aimed at preventing sexual assaults in prison. Black said Klein was hired on Oct. 5, 2010, and resigned on Jan. 31, 2018. Beyond the specific allegations regarding Klein, the lawsuit claims the prison has a culture where some employees make a concerted effort to intimidate all women from reporting sexual abuse. The suit alleges that prison employees will intimidate reporting inmates, put them in segregation and subject them to other punishments in an effort to dissuade them from reporting. Regarding Klein, the lawsuit alleges that the nurse systematically sexually harassed, assaulted and pursued female inmates while working at the prison. It alleges that Klein was largely unsupervised and called inmates who did not need medical care from their housing units to the medical unit. His behaviors evolved and became more obvious and brazen such that many security staff and other staff in medical services were aware, the lawsuit states. Klein rarely documented these impromptu visits, according to the lawsuit. During the abuse, he wore scrubs without underwear allowing him to easily access his penis for sexual activity without undressing, the suit alleges. The women who allege they were abused by Klein were particularly vulnerable because theyd previously experienced sexual abuse or trauma, were new to prison or had significant drug and alcohol addition, the suit says. Mr. Klein generally preferred younger pretty women but as his skills in predation increased, and as he grew more confident in the fact that no one else was watching his increasingly emboldened behaviors, he took every available opportunity to engage in sexual contact with female patients, the suit alleges. The former inmate alleges that in January 2017 Klein called her to the medical unit where he pretended to examine her. The lawsuit says the nurse isolated the woman and fondled her breasts while he had an erection. Six months later, the lawsuit states, he saw her again for a back problems and once again fondled her and while pressing up against her, he rubbed his erection against her. The lawsuit says the woman avoided the medical unit until she learned Mr. Klein had left the institution. -- Noelle Crombie 503-276-7184 ncrombie@oregonian.com @noellecrombie Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox. Portland State University has backed off a plan to acquire the Oregon College of Art and Craft, leaving the venerable Southwest Portland institution and its 140 students with an uncertain future. Based on our research, it is not financially feasible for us given other budget challenges that we face, PSU President Rahmat Shoureshi told officials for the art school. The school has struggled financially, and its unclear how long it can continue to operate. Liz Loulan, a spokesman for the college, said the Oregon College of Art and Craft is experiencing the same difficulties besetting many small liberal arts schools. Among other things, the booming economy has led to flat enrollment. Here in Oregon, Marylhurst College in Lake Oswego and the Art Institute of Portland both shut their doors in 2018. This is the second time in a matter of months that the Oregon College of Art and Craft has explored a merger only to see it fail. Last fall, the art school and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, which has also struggled, mutually agreed to call off their deal. "Were continuing to explore our options, Loulan said. Were looking at partnerships, new revenue streams, were going through a lot of scenarios. Local art patrons lamented the struggles of the school, which was founded in 1907. Jordan Schnitzer, Portland real estate developer and arts patron, had emerged as the key middle-man trying to broker a deal between PSU and the smaller arts school. OCAC has been a jewel in our community, he said. To find out its in financial distress is heartbreaking. Schnitzer lobbied Shoureshi on a merger. The PSU president spoke enthusiastically about the potential acquisition last week. He described to the PSU board of trustees a vision of a merger of two art schools with different strengths that could push PSU into the top 10 art schools nationwide. The small private schools emphasis on crafts like book-making and metal work set it apart from PSUs school, Shoureshi said. Plus, the private schools eight acres near Providence St. Vincents Medical Center on Portlands westside would provide an attractive satellite campus. Upon taking a closer look, however, PSU officials decided the risk and the expense were too high. Our study of different acquisition scenarios, including those involving private philanthropy, showed the potential costs would be too high for PSU, Shoureshi said. The campus has attracted other suitors. Portland developers Jim Winkler and Bob Niehaus have offered to buy the property and lease it back to the school, Winkler confirmed. A sale-leaseback would give them some time to get their act together, Winkler said. Winklers son serves on the arts schools board of trustees. Alan Melnick is frustrated and open to new ideas. The Clark County health officer and his staff are on the fourth week of a public health crisis that Washington hasnt seen before and he suspects that the measles outbreak that has already claimed 23 people at that point will only grow larger for the foreseeable future. But what has him so frustrated he is seeking input is that the rapid-fire spread of the sometimes-fatal disease is preventable. For years the vaccination rates in Clark County have remained well below the threshold to stop a highly contagious disease like measles from ravaging a community. The bottom line is, theres no surprise were seeing this right now, Melnick said. If we dont get our immunization rates up, were going to see more of it in the future. The misinformation that has fueled the decline in vaccination rates, largely born from a debunked assertion that vaccines cause autism, seems to be as contagious as measles itself. Clark County, like other health agencies and news organizations, is bombarded on social media with myths and junk science about the dangers of vaccination. Melnick sees the links pop up on Facebook and spread because the articles seem well sourced and the websites look professional. Thats garbage, but its out there, and theyre making it look good, Melnick said in an interview Wednesday. By Saturday, the number of Clark Countys confirmed measles cases would jump to 31 since Jan. 1. The list of locations where people with measles might have spread it to others included nine health care facilities, nine schools, three churches, the Portland International Airport and a Portland Trail Blazers game. Infected people shopped at Costco and high-end grocery store Chucks Produce. They went out to eat and met with their financial planners. If the Vancouver area met what is called herd immunity, the number of people who need to be vaccinated to stop a contagious disease, those would be fine activities. But you need a vaccination rate of 93 percent to achieve herd immunity, and as of 2017, the Vancouver area's was at only 66. That means that people who have never received a vaccine, people who have weak immune systems, children too young to receive a vaccine or people who cannot for a medical reason are in danger of the air itself when they leave the house. Melnick has a store of immune globulin that can help stave off the disease, but he's rationing it out for the most dire cases, such as pregnant women, who run a much higher chance of miscarriage or stillbirth if infected with measles. Measles outbreaks generally go in 21-day cycles. The virus radiates out from the original carriers to their personal community first, then to the broader community through central locations, then from people who were infected second-hand and then spread it to their own communities. And its doing just that -- one man in King County with measles visited southwest Washington before he was diagnosed, and then Friday night, Multnomah County officials announced an Oregonian had been diagnosed with measles. Before the measles vaccine was widely available, between 400 and 500 people died every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1,000 people every year dealt with one of the most serious consequences -- swelling of the brain, which can cause lifelong problems. Nearly every child under 15 in the U.S. got measles before 1963. But after vaccination became widespread, that number dropped so low that the 30 people diagnosed in Clark County is one of the largest outbreaks nationally. At the same time, New York has more than 160 cases of measles in an outbreak that took hold in a orthodox Jewish community, where many people are unvaccinated and spend most days working, socializing and worshipping together. Melnick said that the Vancouver outbreak is not confined to any one religion or demographic population. But it still has the potential to be as large and dangerous as New Yorks. It is is what keeps me up at night, Melnick said. This could be exponential. Its like taking gasoline and throwing a match into it. TWO STATES AT RISK Clark County and state health officials say they dont know yet how the outbreak started. Usually, measles is brought back by someone who traveled abroad and then unknowingly introduces it into the U.S. New Yorks outbreak has been linked to a measles outbreak in Israel, where members of the New York Jewish community visited or hosted guests. Health officials in Washington have not pinpointed a source and say that they are too busy right now trying to mitigate the reach of the outbreak to dedicate more resources to the investigation. And officials say they need more resources. Friday, Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency to access medical help from other states and deploy all available Washington state agencies to assist the response to the outbreak. State data and national research does show that there trends in who is vaccinated and who is not. The demographics are varied and make it hard to point to who might be a likely culprit. The resistance to vaccination often falls across political divides. Christian and Waldorf schools in Oregon report some of the lowest vaccination rates, though the parents who send their kids to each might vote for opposing political parties. Among the Vancouver-area churches with infected parishioners, many are evangelical. People resistant to vaccines also span the socioeconomic spectrum. While some outbreaks have been linked to more wealthy enclaves, rural parts of Washington show some of the lowest immunization rates. Washington Health agency spokeswoman Danielle Koenig said that is partly due to access. Some counties in Washington have so few places that can administer these vaccines that parents go without. But despite knowing which schools and regions of Oregon and Washington have low immunization rates, there is a growing sense that public health agencies are losing the battle to anti-vaxxers -- the label attached to those most fervently against vaccines. Koenig pointed out that Washingtons vaccination rates have held relatively stable for the past decade -- but that level is below what health officials want it to be. Oregon, too, suffers from chronically low vaccination rates. The Washington State Department of Health provides education and messaging about the benefits of vaccines. Officials remind parents that most do choose to vaccinate their children. Throughout the state, seven out of 10 people are fully vaccinated. While it does seem like a loud argument online, it really is just a small percent of people who are not choosing vaccinations, Koenig said. But a statewide average does not necessarily help Clark County, where just 77.4 percent of all public students have completed their vaccinations. EXEMPTIONS ARE EASY Washington and Oregon laws require public school students to be vaccinated in order to receive an education -- mostly. Both states allow significant leeway for parents to obtain an exemption. Oregon and Washington, among many states, allow parents to enroll their children in school without vaccines by claiming a philosophical objection, as well as religious and medical ones. To balance that leniency, a parent must meet with a health care provider first. The intent was that perhaps a doctor could explain the serious risks in the choice not to vaccinate. But in Washington, parents can also opt out of that meeting if they claim they have a religious objection to any form of health care intervention. In Oregon, they can choose to watch a state-produced video instead. The trade-off is that children who lack required vaccinations can be barred from school, as they have been in the Evergreen School District during the measles outbreak. More than 100 students do not have necessary vaccinations, according to district spokeswoman Gail Spolar. Of those, the vast majority have philosophical or religious exemptions. The school district tries to send work home for the students to keep up with school while they must stay home, Spolar said, but cannot ensure they will stay on track. Once they are allowed back at school, staff try to help them catch up. Spolar said that school officials share the same harried problems as anyone trying to control the measles outbreak, but that pro-vaccination messaging is not the school districts job. Parents and guardians file the immunization paperwork when they enroll kids in school, and it would be impossible to try to convince each one of the cost of not vaccinating, Spolar said. That isnt something that were going to do, she said. Instead, they are focused on handling the current outbreak. Not even the 20-year veterans of the district can remember an outbreak like this one, Spolar said, so they have had to learn how to manage it on the fly. The school district is sending letters and emails in several languages, posting signs at schools, locking doors against unannounced visitors. The learning curve is steep, so any conversation about whether this situation will be commonplace in the future is left for later, Spolar said. IT IS A BIG DEAL But at the county health office, Melnick is ready. We need a cultural shift here and broad community consensus on this before this changes. He expects outbreaks to get worse before they get beter. The last confirmed measles case in Clark County was 2011 -- two children had the disease. In 2015, the first person to die of measles in 12 years was in Washington. Multnomah County had a measles case last summer, and Clark County had a suspected case that could not be confirmed. Meanwhile, mumps and chickenpox -- which children often get vaccinated for at the same time as measles -- have become more regular occurrences. Vaccination opponents point to the low number of people hospitalized or dying of measles as a sign that the risk is overblown. Only one person has been hospitalized so far in the current outbreak. But Melnick argues that one out of 30 is higher than it should be. Especially when the hospitalization comes from a disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 and is expected to affect no people every year. If the airline industry was crashing two jumbo jets each year, I think people would be afraid to fly, Melnick said. It is a big deal. For more information: 2025 Analysis on ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market Report Forecast: By key players Medtronic, Karl Storz, Smith & Nephew, Stryker, Olympus, Cochlear, Johnson & Johnson, William Demant, Etc. ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/24087 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/24087 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/24087 www.upmarketresearch.com ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period.Get Exclusive FREE Sample Copy Of this Report @UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 2025.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.For More Information On This Report, Please VisitThe generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices market analysis & forecast 2018- 2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region- wise Analysis Global ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market covers: North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)The Major players reported in the market include: Medtronic Karl Storz Smith & Nephew Stryker Olympus Cochlear Limited Johnson & Johnson Hoya Corporation William Demant Sonova Holding Richard Wolf Boston Scientific ZEISS International Conmed Pentax Intersect ENT Welch AllynGlobal ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market: Product Segment Analysis: By Device Type Diagnostic Devices Surgical Devices By Products Hearing Aids Hearing Implants CO2 Lasers Image-Guided Surgery Systems StethoscopeGlobal ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market: Application Segment Analysis: Hospitals Ambulatory Settings Clinics (ENT)Major Topics Covered in this Report: Chapter 1 Study Coverage Chapter 2 Executive Summary Chapter 3 Market Size by Manufacturers Chapter 4 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Production by Regions Chapter 5 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Consumption by Regions Chapter 6 Market Size by Type Chapter 7 Market Size by Application Chapter 8 Manufacturers Profiles Chapter 9 Production Forecasts Chapter 10 Consumption Forecast Chapter 11 Upstream, Industry Chain and Downstream Customers Analysis Chapter 12 Opportunities & Challenges, Threat and Affecting Factors Chapter 13 Key Findings Chapter 14 AppendixENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market- driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real- time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real- time scenario.Global ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market: Key Stakeholders: ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Manufacturers ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream VendorsIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices Market Analysis and Forecast 2018- 2025 and its commercial landscape. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations. 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Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.You can also ask for region wise market research report, as below: ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - Global Market Status & Trend Report 2018-2025 Top 20 Countries Data ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - North America Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - South America Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - Europe Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - EMEA Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - Asia Pacific Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - China Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - India Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025 ENT Diagnostic and Surgical Devices - United States Market Status and Trend Report 2018-2025About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well- defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States. 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The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Tobacco and Hookah market global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2019 2025.For more information on this report, please visit@Tobacco and Hookah Breakdown Data by Region United States Europe China Japan Other RegionsThe following manufacturers are covered in this report: Starbuzz Fantasia Al Fakher Social Smoke Alchemist Tobacco Al-Tawareg Tobacco Haze Tobacco FumariTobacco and Hookah Breakdown Data by Type Fruit Flavor Mixed Flavor Herbal FlavorTobacco and Hookah Breakdown Data by Application Offline Sales Online SalesThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Tobacco and Hookah Market Overview Chapter 2 Global Tobacco and Hookah Market Competition by Manufacturers Chapter 3 Global Tobacco and Hookah Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018) Chapter 4 Global Tobacco and Hookah Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018) Chapter 5 Global Tobacco and Hookah Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type Chapter 6 Global Tobacco and Hookah Market Analysis by Application Chapter 7 Global Tobacco and Hookah Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis Chapter 8 Tobacco and Hookah Manufacturing Cost Analysis Chapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers Chapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders Chapter 11 Market Effect Factors Analysis Chapter 12 Global Tobacco and Hookah Market Forecast (2018-2025) Chapter 13 Research Findings and Conclusion Chapter 14 AppendixAvail Discount On this Report@Global Tobacco and Hookah Market: Key Stakeholders: Tobacco and Hookah Manufacturers Tobacco and Hookah Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Tobacco and Hookah Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream VendorsIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Tobacco and Hookah are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Tobacco and Hookah and its commercial landscape Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations To understand the future outlook and prospects for Tobacco and Hookah market analysis and forecast 2019-2025.For detailed information on this report, please visit@Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.You can also ask for region wise market research report, as below: Tobacco and Hookah Global Market Status & Trend Report 2018- 2025 Top 20 Countries Data Tobacco and Hookah North America Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah South America Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah Europe Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah EMEA Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah Asia Pacific Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah China Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah India Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025 Tobacco and Hookah United States Market Status and Trend Report 2018- 2025About UpMarketResearch:UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States Automatic Identification System Market 2025 Forecast : L3 Technologies, Transas, Saab, exactEarth Ltd, Garmin International, Japan Radio Company, Kongsberg Maritime, ORBCOMM, Furuno USA, Inc. , Lab.gruppen, ComNav Marine Ltd. Automatic Identification System Market http://databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-automatic-identification-system-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-automatic-identification-system-market http://databridgemarketresearch.com/inquire-before-buying/?dbmr=global-automatic-identification-system-market http://databridgemarketresearch.com In the Automatic identification system Market research report, market opportunities, market risk and market overview are enclosed along with in-depth study of each point. The sales, revenue, and pricing analysis by types and applications of the market key players are also covered. This report also studies the global market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis. The report also contains SWOT analysis for the Automatic identification system market by displaying what the market drivers and restrains are.Get Sample of Global Market Information:The AIS on board must be switched on all the time until being asked to turn off for security reasons or anything else. The working mode of AIS is continuous and autonomous. AIS consists of a transponder system through which ships constantly transmit their id, position, course, speed and other data over vhf. This information is further used by other ships to track their movements and by coast stations for coastal surveillance and vessel traffic management.The Automatic Identification System market report contains data for historic years 2014 & 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025. The Global Automatic Identification System Market is expected to reach USD 305 Million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 5.8% during the forecast period of 2018 to 2025. There are various regulation in this market for instance, in 2007 international marine organization (IMO) announced that AIS has to be tailored in all ships of 300 gross tonnage, cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and all passenger ships regardless of size and this became operative for all ships by December 2004. Some of the major players operating in the global automatic identification system market are Saab FURUNO ELECTRIC CO., LTD. exactEarth ORBCOMM Kongsberg Gruppen L3 Technologies, Inc. Japan Radio Co. Garmin Ltd. CNS Systems Transas. ComNav Marine Ltd. True Heading AB WartsilaOthers: Jotron AS, FLIR Systems, ACR Electronics, Inc., ONWA Marine Electronics Co. Ltd., Simrad, SRT Marine Systems plc, exactEarth, among others. The global automatic identification system market is highly fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of automatic identification system market for global, Europe, North America, Asia pacific and South America.Get TOC For Full Analysis Of Report:Major Market Drivers and Restraints: Improved navigation and maritime traffic management Better coastal surveillance Increasing government regulations to use AIS due to rising safety concerns. Difficult to track range and reporting capabilitiesMarket Segmentation: Global Automatic Identification System Market The global automatic identification system market is segmented into class, application, platform, and by geography.Based on class, the global automatic identification system market is segmented into Class A AIS Class B AIS AIS base stationsOn the basis of platform, the global automatic identification system market is segmented into Vessel-based platform Onshore-based platformOn the basis of application, the global automatic identification system market is segmented into Fleet management Vessel tracking Maritime security and other applications Based on geography, the global automatic identification system market report covers data points for 28 countries across multiple geographies namely north America & south America, Europe, Asia-Pacific And, Middle East & Africa. Some of the major countries covered in this report are U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and, Brazil among others.Table of Content1. Introduction1.1. Objectives Of The Study1.2. Market Definition1.3. Overview Of Global Automatic Identification System Market1.4. Currency And Pricing1.5. Limitation1.6. Markets Covered2. Market Segmentation2.1. Markets Covered2.2. Geographic Scope2.3. Years Considered For The Automatic Identification System Study2.4. Currency And Pricing2.5. Research Methodology2.6. Primary Interviews With Key Opinion Leaders2.7. Secondary Sources2.8. Assumptions3. Market Overview4. Executive Summary5. Premium Insights6. Global Automatic Identification System Market, By Application7. Global Automatic Identification System Market, By Product8. Global Automatic Identification System Market, By Vertical9. Global Automatic Identification System Market, By Geography10. Global Automatic Identification System Market, Company Landscape11. Company Profile12. Related ReportsWant Full Report? Enquire Here:About UsData Bridge set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with an unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Data Bridge adepts in creating satisfied clients who reckon upon our services and rely on our hard work with certitude. For Customization and Getting Discount on Report by emailing sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com . We are content with our glorious 99.9 % client satisfying rate.Contact UsData Bridge Market ResearchToll Free: +1-888-387-2818Mail: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com North America Microarray Market 2027 Top Key Players are ABCAM, Asterand Bioscience, IHC World LLC, Novus Biologicals LLC North America Microarray Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2641 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/north-america-microarray-market-2641 Market research future published a cooked research report on North America microarray market. The North America market for microarray is growing slowly and expected to reach USD 1.63 Billion by the end of 2027.Market Highlights:The North America microarray market has been evaluated as slowly growing market and expected to continue in the similar way in the near future. A microarray is a multiplex lab-on-a-chip. It is a 2D array on a solid substrate, usually a glass slide or silicon thin-film cell, that assays large amounts of biological material using high-throughput screening miniaturized, multiplexed and parallel processing and detection methods. Globally the microarray market is dominated by DNA microarrays. The protein microarray is currently the fastest growing market. The use of peptide and carbohydrate microarrays is expanding. Tissue and cell microarrays are in their infancy stage and are developing slowly because of many complications in the process development. Microarray is one of the methods which was used for the diagnostic purpose in cancer research. But commonly used types like DNA microarray, antibody array have not been proven to be effective methods in case of the disease like cancer. So in order to deal with the limitations of other types, tissue microarray was developed. Tissue microarray is an effective diagnostic tool for cancer diagnosis. The more and more research is going on to make the tissue microarray more accurate and efficient. As the prevalence of cancer is spreading, the growth in the tissue microarray method is expected in the future.Get Sample Copy @On the other hand, as the technique is in its infancy stage, lots of mistakes and errors occur. The readings are not accurate many times. As the results are not reliable, it creates a hindrance in the growth of the tissue microarray method. Besides this, tissue microarrays are not recommended for certain types of studies. In certain tumors such as glioblastoma, there is such marked heterogeneity within tumors that this feature may not be adequately captured in tissue microarray studies. In addition, microarrays are also not very useful to study rare or focal events, such as number of immune cells in tumors. These are some of the factors that cause hindrance to the growth of the Tissue microarray market.Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 16 market data tables and figures spread over 31 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth TOC & market synopsis on North America Microarray Market Research Report Forecast to 2027.North America Microarray Market Players:The major participants of this market are ABCAM, Asterand Bioscience, IHC World LLC, Novus Biologicals LLC (Acquired By BIO-TECHNE), Origene Technologies Inc, Pantomics, Inc, Protein Biotechnologies Inc, US Biomax, Inc., US Bioupton Int, Vitrovivo Biotech, LLC And OthersRegional Analysis:North America tissue microarray market is segmented into two countries: United States, and Canada. U.S. is the largest market for tissue microarray. The U.S market for tissue microarray is expected to reach at USD 364.2 million by the end of the forecasted period. Canada is the second-largest market for tissue microarray which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.4%.Browse Report Details @Segmentation:North America Microarray market has been segmented on the basis of types which comprises of protein microarray, tissue microarray, and cellular microarray. On the basis of product, North America Tissue microarray market is segmented into paraffin tissue sections (FFPE), frozen tissue sections, and others. On the basis of applications, tissue microarray market is segmented into immunohistochemistry, in-situ hybridization, and others.About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Non-Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market 2019 with Fagron, B.Braun Melsungen AG, Fresenius Kabi AG, TRUE NATURE HOLDING, Dougherty's Pharmacy, and PHARMEDIUM, etc Non-Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4669 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/non-sterile-compounding-pharmacy-market-4669 MRFR Offers a Thorough Analysis of "Global Non-Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market 2019 ". The primary objective of the report is to analyze the current market landscape and its future potential.Non-Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market - SynopsisThe U.S. & Europe non-sterile compounding pharmacy market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.65% during the forecast period. Compounding involves the customization of the medicine based on the physician prescription. The pharmacist customizes the dosage or strength and reformulates the drug by excluding unwanted ingredients to which the patient is allergic, or may change the form of the medicine for the patients who are unable to swallow the oral medications.Non-sterile compounding requires clean environment for the preparation of drugs or other products. However, maintaining clean workplace is essential during the formulation of non-sterile compounding as per the standard specified by the regulatory bodies governing the use of ingredients. About 125 simple formulas for non-sterile compounds are formulated in the U.S. Pharmacopeia. The pediatricians and veterinarians commonly prescribe the non-sterile compounding products.In pharmacy, the compounding pharmacists have to comply with the standards set by the regulatory authorities. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) monitors the use of any controlled substances for the preparation of compounded medications. The U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) Convention issues standards that apply to the compounding.Request Sample Copy atTaste the market data and market information presented through more than 55 market data tables and figures spread over 101 pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content (TOC) & market synopsis on Non-sterile compounding pharmacy market research reportU.S. & Europe forecast till 2023.Non-Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market Top VendorsSome of the key players in this market are Fagron (the Netherlands), B.Braun Melsungen AG (Germany), Fresenius Kabi AG (Germany), TRUE NATURE HOLDING, INC (U.S), Dougherty's Pharmacy Inc. (U.S.), and PHARMEDIUM (U.S.).Segmentation:The U.S. & Europe non-sterile compounding pharmacy market is segmented by product, application, and end user.By type, the market is segmented into oral medication, topical medication, otologic/nasal medication, and others. The oral medications are further segmented into solid and liquid preparations. The topical medications include ointments, creams, gels, pastes, and others.By application, the market is segmented into pain medication, hormone replacement therapy, and others.By end user, the market is segmented into hospitals, compounding pharmacy, and others.Regional Analysis:America is the largest market for non-sterile compounding pharmacy owing to the rising demand for customized medicine, and rising number of hospital-based compounding pharmacies. As per the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2015, 30.3 million Americans, i.e., 9.4% of the population had diabetes. Additionally, 1.25 million American children and adults had type 1 diabetes. Key market players are engaged in a number of strategy such as mergers & acquisitions, for instance, Fresenius Kabi AG, a company based in Germany, acquired the U.S. based generic drugs manufacturer Akorn, Inc. to expand its wings in the U.S.Europe is the second largest non-sterile compounding pharmacy market. In Europe, the number of chronic diseases such as diabetes, drug allergies, and rising awareness about the availability of compounded medications is increasing. Furthermore, availability of funds for research and development activities strengthens the market growth. According to European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI), around 2.6% hospitalization registered due to adverse drug effects while the prevalence of drug allergy in the hospitalized patients is around 10% in the Europe. As per European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 150 million European Union (EU) citizens have the chronic allergic disease.Browse Complete 101 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Respective Tables and Figures atNon-sterile compounding requires clean environment for the preparation of drugs or other products. However, maintaining clean workplace is essential during the formulation of non-sterile compounding as per the standard specified by the regulatory bodies governing the use of ingredients. About 125 simple formulas for non-sterile compounds are formulated in the U.S. Pharmacopeia. The pediatricians and veterinarians commonly prescribe the non-sterile compounding products.Major TOC of Non-Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market U.S. & Europe Forecast Till 2023:1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction3 Research Methodology4 Market Dynamics5 Market Factor Analysis6 U.S. & Europe Non- Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market, By Product7 U.S. & Europe Non- Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market, By Application8 U.S. & Europe Non- Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market, By End User9 U.S. & Europe Non- Sterile Compounding Pharmacy Market, By Region10 Company LandscapeTOC CONTINUEDAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Europe Facial Injectable Market 2019 Along with Allergan, Merz Pharma, Ipsen, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Galderma, Integra Lifesciences, etc Europe Facial Injectable Market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2536 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/europe-facial-injectable-market-2536 Europe Facial Injectable Market - OverviewThe Europe Facial injectable market has been evaluated as promptly growing market in the coming future and it is expected that the market will have high demand. The Europe Facial injectable market is undergoing a rapid change.The market for facial injectable is growing due to worldwide growing demand for beauty treatments and other anti-ageing related cosmetic procedures is accelerating the growth of facial injectable market. Growing demand to look young and visible positive effects of these treatments is increasing popularity of aesthetic procedures in population all across the globe.Further Technological Advancements is one of the main factor which is supporting the growth of the facial injectable market. Moreover the twenty first century is witnessing new developments in the industry of life science every day in various aspects. New technologies offers wide array of products to treat number of different cosmetic surgeries.The expanding use of soft tissue fillers in aesthetic medicine is supporting the market growth. Soft tissue fillers are now the second most commonly performed minimally-invasive procedure behind botulinum toxin injections. Procedures using HA soft tissue fillers are predicted to increase in near future with a lucrative growth rate. Drivers for this growth include greater awareness and acceptance of aesthetic medicine, improved accessibility to practitioners in the field, an ageing population, and the opportunity for individuals to increase their general wellbeing.Request Sample Copy atFurther as the facial injectable market has grown in popularity, the black market for facial injectables is also gaining awareness. As per a survey conducted it was found out that Asia is accounted for the largest facial injectable black market where in many illegal drugs are entering into the market which is resulting in many side effects. As a result of this side effects the patients are thinking twice about receiving facial injectable surgeries, thus restraining the growth of this market.Key Vendors:AllerganMerz PharmaIpsenValeant PharmaceuticalsGalderma and others.Segmentation:Europe Facial Injectable market has been segmented on the basis of types which comprises of Hyaluronic Acid, Collagen, Botulinum Toxin, Polymers and Particles and others. On the basis of end users which consists of hospitals, clinics, research and development facilities and others. On the basis of application which consists of facial surgery, facial uplift and others.Regional Analysis:The European market for facial injectables is expected to grow at a CAGR of Around 13.5%Further Botulinum Toxin has captured a major share of the Europe facial injectables market of around whereas personal Hyaluronic Acid, Polymers & Particles, Collagen have covered the rest of the market. Based on the historical trends and market scenario, Botulinum Toxin is expected to be the fastest growing segment of this market during the forecasted period 2016-2022.Major TOC of Europe Facial Injectable Market Research Report- Forecast to 20211 REPORT PROLOGUE2 INTRODUCTION3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY4 MARKET DYNAMICS5 EUROPE FACIAL INJECTABLESMARKET: BY TYPES (USD MILLION)6 EUROPE FACIAL INJECTABLESMARKET, BY REGION (USD MILLION)7 EUROPE FACIAL INJECTABLESMARKET: COMPANY LANDSCAPE8 COMPANY PROFILE9 APPENDIXBrowse Complete 100 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with Respective Tables and Figures atAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Two killed several injured in oxygen cylinder blast in Lucknow UP class 10 exams cancelled, abridged version proposed for class 12 in July UP: Farmer killed in lightning strike Lucknow pti-PTI Balrampur (UP), Jan 26: A farmer was killed after being struck by lightning in Sugaon village in Balrampur district of Uttar Pradesh, a senior official said Saturday. Balesar (65) died after lightning struck him on Friday evening when he was returning home from his field, District Magistrate Krishna Karunesh said. He said compensation will be given to the farmer's family after a report a received in this regard. PTI Meet 105 yr old Padma Shri awardee Pappammal, the farmer who wants people to take up farming Writer Gita Mehta declines Padma Shri, says timing could be misconstrued India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Jan 26: Renowned author and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik's sister Gita Mehta has declined to accept the Padma Shri saying the timing of the award is not right as the general elections are round the corner. Padma Shri is the highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. The Padma Shri is conferred by President of India at ceremonial functions which are held at Rashtrapati Bhawan usually around March/ April every year. This year's Padma award list announced on the eve of Republic Day on Friday. Mehta, in a statement, said she was honoured to be considered for the award, but with general elections hardly a few months away, it may cause embarassment. [Padma awards 2019 announced: Here's the full list of winners] "I am deeply honoured that the Government of India should think me worthy of a Padma Shri but with great regret I feel I must decline as there is a general election looming and the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the Government and myself, which I would much regret (sic)," the statement said. The BJD chief and Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has aligned either with the BJP or the opposition. An award to his sister at this juncture could be perceived as the BJP-led government's attempt to woo the BJD. TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu asks CM Jagan Reddy not to shift capital from Amaravati Jagan Reddy betrayer of hindus: Chandrababu Naidu lashes out after 400-year-old Ram statue beheaded Time for Modi to go home says Naidu India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Amaravati, Jan 26: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said the time has come for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to go home as the BJP's defeat in the ensuing the general elections was certain. "Save India, save democracy slogan is reverberating across the country. The United India rallies (of opposition parties) are creating a buzz in the country. The country will not tolerate anti-people rule," the TDP president told party leaders during his daily teleconference. Here's why Chandrababu Naidu wants Andhra people to have more than 3 children While antagonism towards the Bharatiya Janata Party was a political inevitability, opposition to Modi was a democratic inevitability, the TDP chief remarked. He pointed out that the BJP was routed in the recent elections to the five state assemblies. "Now, surveys are making the opposition to Modi clear. The BJP and its puppet parties' defeat is thus certain in the coming elections," he said, referring to the YSR Congress in Andhra. Naidu claimed the Centre still owed Rs 1.16 lakh crore to Andhra Pradesh and accused the BJP of neglecting the state. "I wrote a letter to the prime minister on this," he said, but did not disclose the details. The entire country demanded that justice be done to the state. Collective leadership need of the hour: Chandrababu Naidu In Parliament, 15 parties questioned the Centre on this. At the recent Kolkata rally, 22 parties demanded justice for Andhra Pradesh , but the YSRC never questioned the Centre. "The people will teach a lesson to the BJP and the YSRC," Naidu added. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 10:43 [IST] Republic Day 2019: Remembering the man who wrote the entire constitution but didnt take a paisa India oi-Shubham Ghosh New Delhi, Jan 26: Today is January 26, the day the Constitution of India was adopted 69 years ago. It was with the adoption of the Constitution in 1950 that India became a republic and its first general election was held in 1952. Though we associate the name of Dr BR Ambedkar more with the voluminous (longest in the world with 395 articles, 22 parts and 8 schedules at the time of enactment) constitution that we have, not much is discussed about Prem Behari Narain Raizada. India celebrates 70th Republic Day today: What's difference between Republic Day & Independence Day Born in December 1901, Raizada was a man from Delhi who had written the entire document, not with the help of a typewriter or keyword, but with his own hand. The entire constitution was hand-written and handwriting was impeccable And despite the fact that it took a long time to write the entire constitution, there was not a single mark of inconsistency and the flowing italic style in which it was penned is one of the best examples of calligraphic excellence. Raizada, whose grandfather Ram Parshad was an eminent scholar of Persian and English, was a noted calligraphist who also learnt the art from his grandfather who raised him along with his four brothers after his parents died. A graduate from St Stephens, Delhi, Raizada famously told former prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru that he would not charge a single paisa for the job of writing the constitution when picked for it. "Not a Single Penny I need. By the grace of Good I have all things and quite happy with my life. But I have one reservation, that on every page of constitution I will write my name and on the last page I will write my name along with my grandfather's name," Raizada had said and his wish was granted." Over 250 pen-holder nibs were used to produce the work. Our unsung heroes: When the IB thwarted 5 major attacks ahead of Republic Day The original version of the constitution which has undergone several amendments since its coming into force, was signed by all the members of the Constituent Assembly in January 1950. Each page of the document was decorated with high quality art made by eminent scholars from Shantiniketan led by Nandalal Bose. Various experiences and figures from India's history were depicted in those pages of the constitution. The noble document outlining the country's goals and ideals was signed by a number of leaders except Mahatma Gandhi who was no more when it came into force. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 11:03 [IST] Why govt used COVID-19 data as 'propaganda tool' rather than to stop coronavirus, asks Priyanka Gandhi Indians do not come first for PM, politics does: Priyanka on Covid crisis Priyanka Gandhi likely to begin political innings with holy dip at Kumbh on Feb 4 India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Jan 26: Priyanka Gandhi, who has been appointed Congress General Secretary for Uttar Pradesh East, is expected to begin her formal political career with a holy dip in the Ganga at the Kumbh Mela on February 4. Party chief and brother Rahul Gandhi is expected to accompany her and they are also likely to hold a joint press conference jointly in Lucknow. According to informed sources, the Gandhis have zeroed in on February 4 for the holy dip on the occasion of "Mauni Amavasya" and the second "Shahi Snan", reported IANS news agency. Why Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's formal entry into politics matters But if they don't get a chance to take a holy dip on February 4, they will opt for February 10 on the occasion of Basant Panchami and the 3rd 'Shahi Snan", the report said. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday (January 23) appointed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as general secretary for Uttar Pradesh East which comprises Lok Sabha seats of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. While Congress and its allies welcomed the decision, saying it will be a great success for the party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls given Priyanka's profile and the adoration she commands, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mocked it saying that her entry into active politics is an admission from the Congress party that Rahul Gandhi has failed in providing leadership. PM Narendra Modi took a dig at Priyanka Gandhi's entry into politics saying that in the BJP, decisions are not taken considering a person or a family. Modi was interacting with BJP booth workers in Maharashtra when he made the statement. He said, "BJP does not take decisions based on what one person or one family wants, and that's why it is said mostly in the country family is the party, but in BJP party is the family." For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 18:21 [IST] President awards Ashoka Chakra: An emotional moment for Lance Naik Wanis family India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 26: The family of Lance Ahmad Nazir Wani received the Ashok Chakra from President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday. Awarded posthomously, Wani is the first Kashmiri to be bestowed this award. The Ashoka Chakra is India's highest peacetime gallantry medal. Lance Naik Wani laid down his life during an anti-terror operation at Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir last year. This is the first time that a Kashmiri received the honour. Ashoka Chakra debuts in Kashmir: Lance Naik Wani you made India proud "Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani exhibited the most conspicuous gallantry in personality eliminating two terrorists and assisting in the evacuation of his wounded colleagues and made supreme sacrifice in the highest traditions of the Indian Army," a press release from the President's Secretariat said. He was a terrorist initially. However, he realised that this entire exercise was a futile one. He went on to become a highly decorated Armyman and last year, he laid down his life battling terrorists. Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani was martyred while battling terrorists at Shopian in Jammu and Kashmir. Six terrorists were killed in the operation. Sadly, Wani, once an ikhwan was martyred in the operation. An ikhwan is one who has been a terrorist, but has surrendered to become involved in counter insurgency operations. Terrorist to decorated soldier: Lance Naik Wani to be conferred Ashoka Chakra posthumously Lance Naik Wani, began his career with the 162 Battalion of the Territorial Army in 2004. A highly decorated soldier, he had received the Sena Medal for gallantry in 2007. He had also received a bar to the Sena Medal in August this year. A resident of Cheki Ashmuji village in Kulgam, he is survived by his wife and two children. For this brave soldier, life came a full cycle. He was initially a terrorist, but over the years realised that violence was a futile exercise. He then surrendered and later became involved in counter-insurgency operations. On Monday, Lance Naik Wani's body was taken to his village. Draped in the Tricolur, he was given a 21 gun salute. The 38 year old soldier had been shot and injured during an operation at the Batagund village in Shopian on Sunday. He was evacuated to a hospital immediately, but succumbed to his injuries later. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 10:24 [IST] Explained: Who is this gynaecologist from Ladakh who was awarded the Padma Bhushan Padma Awards 2019: Nartaki Natraj, the first trans person to receive award India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 26: The Padma Awards for 2019 have been announced. This year's list comprises of 4 Padma Vibhushan, 14 Padma Bhushan and 94 Padma Shri awardees. Dancer Narthaki Natraj is the first trans person to receive a Padma award. 54-year-old Dr Nartaki Natraj is a Bharatanatyam dancer and trans activist from Madurai who specialises in the Tanjavur tradition of Nayaki Bhava. She has founded a dance school where she teaches Bharatanatyam, and is known for her research and performances around the world. She trained under veteran dancer K P Kittappa Pillai. Narthaki left home at a young age, and fought the rampant social taboo that trans persons face. She soon became a symbol of transgender empowerment in the field, particularly in Tamil Nadu. Braving poverty and social stigma, Narthaki followed her passion to become a dancer with the financial support of Shakti - her childhood friend. An empanelled artist of the Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India and a top grade artist with national television, Narthaki has been a recipient of the Kalaimamani award, the highest honour of the Tamil Nadu government and the Nritya Choodamani of the Sri Krishna Gana Sabha in 2009. The Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar (2011) and the Vetri Award of the University of Madras for performers from marginalised communities in society (2013) are among her other distinctions. Narthaki has a rare collection of Tamil literature, which she uses for research in her solo and group productions. Some of her dance productions are 'Tamizh Amudhu', 'Siva Darisanam', 'Shakthi Darisanam', 'Kumara Vijayam', 'AranganVaibhavam', 'SwatantraVriksha' and productions on contemporary issues. The Padma awards 2019 are one of the highest civilian awards in India. They are announced before Republic Day every year to honour people in disciplines like art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service. The awards are conferred by the President of India at a function in Rashtrapati Bhawan in March or April every year. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 13:15 [IST] Our unsung heroes: When the IB thwarted 5 major attacks ahead of Republic Day India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 26: A very happy Republic Day to all. There are many who are being honoured for their bravery today. On this day, let us take a moment to thank our unsung heroes, who work quietly behind the scenes to ensure that our nation are safe. They are not out in the open. They do not appear in the media, but work tirelessly for hours to ensure that you and I sleep in peace. This is the Intelligence Bureau who have had a very busy couple of months. Thanks their surveillance, inputs and hard work, the IB officers have managed to bust at least five major plots ahead of Republic Day. Let us take a look. Terrorist to decorated soldier: Lance Naik Wani to be conferred Ashoka Chakra posthumously The plot in Punjab: The first one was a plot in Punjab. The intelligence detected movement of terrorists of the Khalistan movement and also those from Jammu and Kashmir coming together to carry out a big attack in Punjab and New Delhi. A plan had been hatched by Zakir Musa, who entered Punjab in disguise. He was planning on carrying out a strike along with the Khalistan terrorists in Ludhiana and Delhi. He came to Punjab disguised as a Sikh and was in touch with several persons part of the local module. A high alert was declared in Punjab, following which there was a major crackdown on the modules. IB officials say that the threat has not passed, but has been neutralised to a great extent. The ISIS: In December, the National Investigation Agency acting on the basis of several inputs provided by the Intelligence Bureau raided modules of Harkat-ul-Harb in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Over 10 persons were arrested with several arms and ammunition. The NIA said that they were planning on carrying out a series of strikes ahead of Republic Day and also the general elections. During the raids, the NIA found literature relating to the Islamic State and said that the module was inspired by the international terrorist group. However further investigations have shown that the module boss was being handled from Pakistan. This lent credence to the fact that the Intelligence Bureau has always maintained that the ISI has been setting up modules in the name of the ISIS in India. Investigations also revealed the main intention was to disrupt the elections and embarrass the security agencies. An NIA official also said that the module was ready to launch a major strike ahead of January 26 and would have gone through with the plan had it not been busted in the nick of time. Padma awards 2019 announced: Here's the full list of winners The communal plot: The latest plot to be busted was one that was hatched by the D-syndicate. Three sharpshooters including an Afghan national identified as Wali Raja were arrested by the sleuths of the Special Cell, Delhi Police. A man alleged to be a member of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) has been arrested on charges of planning to carry out terror strikes in the national capital during Republic Day celebrations, Delhi Police officials said. The JeM: Abdul Latif Ganai, alias Umair alias Dilawar, was arrested by Delhi Police's Special Cell late night on January 20, they said. The arrest was made after police got a tip-off that a JeM terrorist, the mastermind behind a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar recently, was planning similar terror strikes in heavy footfall areas in Delhi during Republic Day celebrations, an official said. Dilawar was arrested with incriminating material during the night of January 20-21, he said. A team rushed to Jammu and Kashmir and recovered two IED/grenades. It also arrested another terrorist, Hilal, from Bandipora who had carried out recce of target areas in Delhi. Information about the module was shared with Srinagar Police, which thereafter arrested terrorists involved in grenade attacks in Jammu and Kashmir. The acid plot: The Maharashtra ATS, with the help of intelligence inputs busted a major module which was planning on carrying out lone wolf attacks ahead of Republic Day. At least 7 persons were arrested and incriminating material was seized from them. The ATS said that these persons were planing on carrying out acid and knife attacks and they were inspired by the Islamic State. The entire operation was being coordinated by a PFI operative from Aurangabad. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 7:55 [IST] Once accused of being a spy to Padma Bhushan; Finally recognition to Nambi Narayanan India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Jan 26: He was once accused in an espionage case and put behind the bars. He and four others were arrested on charges of leaking vital defence secrets including drawings of ISRO's Vikas engine and cryogenic technology. And in the list of Padma award winners that was announced yesterday, former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan is being bestowed with the third highest civilian honour of the country. The scientist was instrumental in developing the Vikas engine that would be used for the first PSLV that India launched. But, Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely implicated in the ISRO spy case, was accused of selling state secrets comprising confidential test data from rocket and satellite launches. He was arrested in December 1994 and charged with espionage. With his name featuring in the list of 18 Padma Bhushan awardees announced by the government on Friday, Narayanan's life seems to have come a full circle. "Of course, I am happy. I became a victim of spying, I became more popular in that sense, in a way people started sympathising with me. This award gives me a feeling that my contribution has been recognised," he told news agency ANI. ISRO spy case: Arrest of scientist was unnecessary says SC However, the arrest in 1994 brought his career to a standstill and mental agony to him and his family. Narayanan, who was a senior scientist at ISRO, was in charge of the cryogenics division and was leading the development of the liquid technology - a key technology in rocket propulsion that is being deployed in GSLV when he was arrested in December 1994 in the infamous ISRO espionage case. Following his arrest by the Kerala police, the case was transferred to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for investigation and was in custody for 50 days. After his release, the scientist claimed that the IB officials, who interrogated him, wanted him to testify falsely against some of his superiors. The Supreme Court in September last year held that former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan was "arrested unnecessarily, harassed and subjected to mental cruelty" in a 1994 espionage case and ordered a probe into the role of Kerala police officers. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra awarded Rs 50 lakh compensation to 76-year-old Narayanan for being subjected to mental cruelty in the case. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 15:05 [IST] False: Centre is not planning to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir Some actions by Indian government inconsistent with democratic values: Top US official We will soon take decision on conducting Amarnath Yatra: Jammu and Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha No respite, Pakistan continues to support terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir India oi-Oneindia Staff By Anuj Cariappa Jammu, Jan 26: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik blamed Pakistan for continuing its support to terrorists and engineering infiltration across the Indo-Pak border to disrupt peace and harmony in the state. He said the administration was taking required measures to alleviate the sufferings of border dwellers. "Our neighbouring country (Pakistan) continues to support terrorists to disrupt peace and harmony in the state," Malik said in his message on the occasion of 70th Republic Day. He said there have been repeated attempts to infiltrate terrorists across the International Border and Line of Control. "Repeated ceasefire violations have brought untold hardships to the people living in the villages along the borders," he said. The Governor also hailed the armed forces and state police for working tirelessly in maintaining unity and integrity of the nation. "On this joyous seventieth Republic Day, I extend warm greetings to the people of Jammu & Kashmir. On this day, we remember and pay tributes to the founding fathers of the nation who fought for our freedom and handed over to us a constitution that guarantees liberty, equality and justice. "Notwithstanding the tough terrain, climate and other challenges, our armed and security forces continue to maintain strict vigil and alertness on our frontiers," he said. "Our armed and police forces also carried out effective operations to neutralise the largest number of terrorists ever in a year," Malik said. "Our hearts also go out to the families of the civilians who lost their loved ones in the wanton violence," he added in the message. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 10:30 [IST] Meghalaya mine collapse: 45 days later, second body of miner detected India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 26: The body of another miner was detected by a joint rescue team of NDRF and the Indian Navy from a rat-hole mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills on Saturday. The second body was detected on Saturday by an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV), equipped with an electronic eye and mechanical arms, at a distance of 280 ft from where the first body was detected. Meanwhile, the local authorities have handed over the body of first victim - identified as Amir Hussain(35) - to his widow and uncle at district headquarters Khliehriat. Last week, Hussain's yet-to-be-identified body was detected in the mine at a depth of 160 feet and at a lateral distance of 210 feet into the rat-hole tunnel. The highly decomposed body was pulled to the water surface by an underwater remotely operated vehicle (UROV) and then taken out. At least 15 miners were trapped in the remote illegal coal mine in Khloo Ryngksan in East Jaintia hills district when it got flooded on December 13. The operation to look for survivors continues. The miners were trapped after water gushed into the illegal mine located in Ksan village, about 130 km from the state capital Shillong. Only five managed to escape. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 13:34 [IST] Air India flight returns from Sydney with just cargo after crew member tests positive for COVID-19 Air India flight returns to Delhi airport half hour after take off as cabin crew sees bat Top US official says some actions by India inconsistent with democratic values High value offender set to be brought back: Long range Air India flight commissioned India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 26: A high value economic offender is all set to be brought back to India. A long range Air India Boeing has been commissioned to handle the mission. Officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate will fly to the West Indies to bring back these persons. It may be recalled that Mehul Choksi and Winsome Diamonds promoter Jatin Mehta have taken citizenship in these parts. The duo had availed the controversial paid citizenship programme provided by the Islands in the Carribbean. Mehta had become a citizen of St Kitts a few years back, while Choksi had taken citizenship of Antigua and Barbados recently. These islands provide visa free travel to 132 countries. Choksi and Nirav Modi are the primary targets of this mission. However there is no clarity if Modi is at one of the islands. There is a likelihood of Choksi being picked from the island. However the details relating to Nirav Modi is not clear. The flight which would be a non -stop one would have three sets of crew and 15 to 20 non-airline personnel. However there has been no official confirmation on the mission. Sources when asked by OneIndia did not confirm or deny the mission. Some actions by Indian government inconsistent with democratic values: Top US official We will soon take decision on conducting Amarnath Yatra: Jammu and Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha J&K: Two terrorists killed near Srinagar India oi-Vikas SV Srinagar, Jan 26: The security forces on Saturday gunned down two terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Khonmoh. The began in the wee hours of morning today. On January 23, at least three terrorists were killed during an encounter with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district. The killing of the three terrorists on January 23 ensured that Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir became the first district in the state to become terrorist free. [J&K: Pakistan violates ceasefire at four locations in Poonch, Rajouri] On Wednesday three terrorists identified as Suhaib Farooq, Mohsin Mushtaq and Nasir Amhad Darzi of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba were killed in an encounter with security forces. All of them were dreaded terrorists, who had a long history of terror and crime. There were several terror cases registered against them. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 9:11 [IST] Get out of Venezuela, Trump warns Russia; says all options open to make it happen India refuses to side with US to recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelas interim president India oi-Shubham Ghosh New Delhi, Jan 26: As the Latin American country of Venezuela emerged as a new theatre of diplomatic crisis, thanks to the US's recognition of Opposition leader Juan Guaido as it interim president and the incumbent president, Nicolas Maduro, hitting back asking US diplomats from the country to leave, India decided to take a non-intervening stance. On Wednesday, January 23, the US along with Canada and many other Latin American nations recognised Guaido, president of Venezuela's national assembly, as its head of state in the wake of huge street protests on Tuesday, January 22. India, however, refused to side with the US to recognise Guaido, saying the crisis should be resolved by the "people of Venezuela" through "constructive dialogue". Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday, January 25, India believed that "it is for the people of Venezuela to find a political solution to resolve their differences through constructive dialogue and discussion without resorting to violence". "We believe democracy, peace and security in Venezuela are of paramount importance for the progress and prosperity of the people of Venezuela," he said, adding that New Delhi and Caracas enjoyed "close and cordial relations". Russia and China have opposed the US's action in Venezuela saying it amounted to interference. US President Donald Trump tweeted his support for Guaido moments after the latter announced himself as the new president of Venezuela. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also urged the international community to "support Venezuela's path to free and fair elections". Venezuela, a member of OPEC, is a major supplier of crude to India though the supply went down last year with the Latin American country's oil production going down because of political and economic instability. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 11:49 [IST] India celebrates 70th Republic Day today: Whats difference between Republic Day & Independence Day India oi-Shubham Ghosh New Delhi, Jan 26: Saturday, January 26, is being celebrated as the Republic Day in India. Similar to August 15, Indians celebrate this date in January with hoisting of the Tricolour and plunging into depths of patriotic emotion. But there must be some difference between August 15 and January 26 even though the mode of celebrations is similar. It was on August 15, 1947, that India had got independence from the British rule who had wielded power in this country for almost two centuries. However, India was yet to be a republic at the time of its formal independence and it was only on January 26, 1950, when the country adopted its constitution and became a republic. The first general elections took place in India two years later, in 1952. The Constitution of India was drafted on November 26, 1949, a couple of months before it came into operation. Republic Day is an occasion when the nation salutes its citizens and highlights the contribution made to the life of the republic. It is the day when the government recognises contributions made by its citizens and awards the picked ones. The Independence Day, on the other hand, is about paying homage to the nation's martyrs and soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the motherland. Another difference between the ways of celebrating the two dates is that while an extravagant parade is held on January 26 where each state and Union Territory of the country makes their distinct mark, Independence Day sees everybody celebrating as a nation as a whole. The nation also sees addresses by the president on the eves of both Independence and Republic Day. The prime minister, on the other hand, addresses the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort in Delhi only on Independence Day. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 10:05 [IST] In a first, Four veterans of Netaji's INA take part in R-Day parade India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Jan 26: In a first, four INA veterans, aged between 90-100 years took part in the 70th Republic Day parade this year. The veterans, seated in open jeeps, were preceded and succeeded by various contingents of the Indian Armed Forces. Th four veterans who marched past the saluting base in open jeeps were, Laltiram (98) from Chandigarh; Parmanand (99), Hira Singh (97) and Bhaagmal (95), all from Gurugram. While it deserves to be revered as independent India's first military force, the Indian National Army (INA) had been relegated to the shadows and denied a place in our forces. Netaji quit as the Indian National Congress president in 1939 and formed the Forward Bloc before heading off to Germany after he had escaped from Kolkata. On October 21, 1943, he proclaimed the establishment of a provisional independent Indian government named the Azad Hind government and 'Azad Hind Fauj' (INA). Bose and the INA entered India with the Japanese and marched into Kohima in March 1944 before being defeated by the British. Netaji is believed to have died in a plane crash in August 1945. Earlier this month, the Union government renamed three islands in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, honouring Subhash Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army. Importance of Republic Day: Why is it celebrated India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Jan 26: Every year on this day India celebrates the Republic Day and every citizen's chest swells with pride upon seeing the grand parade at Rajpath. It is a day which marks the adoption of the Constitution and it was on this day in 1950 that India truly became democratic republic. The Constitution is of immense importance in India post-independence history. While many nations who got freedom from the colonial rule became unstable and fell prey to political turmoil, India stood ground and the democracy thrived. Many western thinkers at the time of independence thought that India may disintegrate, many thought that the cultural diversity was so much that it may not be possible for us remain as one country. But now that we have stood united for over 70 years, such critics have been silenced. This shows the Indian Constitution has proved enormously resilient. What stands out however in India's constitutional story is its acceptability and resilience on one hand and adaptability and dynamism on the other. India celebrates 70th Republic Day today: What's difference between Republic Day & Independence Day The Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949, and came into effect on 26 January 1950 with a democratic government system, completing the country's transition towards becoming an independent republic. 26 January was chosen as the Republic day because it was on this day in 1930 when Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj) was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress as opposed to the Dominion status offered by British Regime. History of Republic Day: India obtained its independence on 15 August 1947 as a constitutional monarchy with George VI as head of state and the Earl Mountbatten as governor-general. The country, though, did not yet have a permanent constitution; instead its laws were based on the modified colonial Government of India Act 1935. On 28 August 1947, the Drafting Committee was appointed to draft a permanent constitution, with Dr B R Ambedkar as chairman. While India's Independence Day celebrates its freedom from British Rule, the Republic Day celebrates the coming into force of its constitution. A draft constitution was prepared by the committee and submitted to the Constituent Assembly on 4 November 1947. The Assembly met, in sessions open to public, for 166 days, spread over a period of two years, 11 months and 18 days before adopting the Constitution. After many deliberations and some modifications, the 308 members of the Assembly signed two hand-written copies of the document (one each in Hindi and English) on 24 January 1950. Two days later which was on 26 January 1950, it came into effect throughout the whole nation. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 11:14 [IST] Kharge hits out at those 'weakening' Congress from within by attacking leadership 'If one goes from our camp, 10 will come from there': Mallikarjun Kharge on Operation Lotus India oi-Deepika S Bengaluru, Jan 26: Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday said 'Operation Kamala' is still underway and all other central forces were at work to destabilise Karnataka before the Lok Sabha elections and impose governor's rule. "BJP, RSS and all the central forces are at work to destabilise Karnataka before the elections, and bring in Governor's rule but this won't happen. Aur kitna bhi girane ki koshish karne do, agar ek jaenge to 10 udhar se aenge (If one goes, ten will come back)," ANI tweeted. "Operation Kamala is underway due to the central govt. This was earlier being done by Yeddyurappa ji in 2008 & now this is being done again. This is a brainchild of BJP. Some are being lured with money, some with power, some are being threatened," he added. On Friday, chief minister HD Kumaraswamy said the BJP had offered huge "gift" to a Congress MLA on Thursday night asking him to defect to the BJP. Speaking to media, he said "The BJP is desperate for power. They want to topple my government before next month. They are offering unimaginable amount of money for defection. Where do they get the money from? Yeddyurappa must answer. Our Congress MLA has flatly refused their offer. We are united and no amount of pressure and money will make our MLAs defect to their side." Kharge also said that the government ignored Shivakumara Swami, the spiritual leader who passed away Monday, while conferring the Padma awards. Expressing his disappointment, Kharge said that the Lingayat seer spent his life working for orphan children but was still not considered by the government for the Bharat Ratna. "It is disappointing that the Central government did not announce to confer the Bharat Ratna award on Shivakumara Swami, iconic Lingayat seer who died recently," said veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge. Born on April 1, 1908, in Veerapura village of Ramanagara district in Karnataka, the Swami was also involved in several philanthropic activities and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2015. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 23:56 [IST] Co-accused in AgustaWestland case Gautam Khaitan arrested on black money charges India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Jan 26: Advocate Gautam Khaitan, who is one of the accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate under the Black Money Act. The agency says Khaitan has several illegal properties. Gautam Khaitan's offices and properties in Delhi-NCR were raided by the Income Tax department last week. Sources say he is also being probed for whether he received kickbacks in other defence deals. The ED in its earlier charge sheet in 2018 had accused 34 Indian and foreign individuals and companies, including lawyer Gautam Khaitan of laundering money to the tune of around 28 million Euro. The others named in the charge sheet were Italian middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke, and Finmeccanica, the parent company of AgustaWestland, and ex-IAF chief SP Tyagi. It also claimed that Khaitan also received proceeds of crime in personal bank accounts opened in his name and the accounts of his companies in India and abroad. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 12:51 [IST] 'No HERO Without HER': Smriti Irani lauds role of women healthcare workers in tackling COVID-19 North-East got its respect only after advent of PM Modi's government in 2014: Smriti Irani Politicians have no business talking about how people dress: Smriti Irani on CM's ripped jeans remarks Smriti Irani hails Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, says he believed in idea of India India oi-Deepika S Bengaluru, Jan 26: Union Minister Smriti Irani on Saturday hailed Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, who was awarded the Ashoka Chakra (posthumous) on the 70th Republic day. She highlighted that the interesting thing about Wani's journey is that before he joined the Indian Army, he was a part of a terrorist group. "Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani joined Army in 2004, received Sena medal in 2007 and 2018. Today posthumously, the Ashok Chakra was bestowed upon him. The interesting thing about his journey is that before he joined the Indian Army, he was a part of a terrorist movement," she said while addressing students in Bengaluru. "A man who raised arms against India, surrendered, for he believed in India, and then went on to fight for that very idea of India. It's very easy for people like us to talk about belief, it's absolutely different when you're laying your life for that belief," she added. Terrorist to decorated soldier: Lance Naik Wani to be conferred Ashoka Chakra posthumously Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the family of Lance Naik Wani at the "At Home" function in the national capital after the Republic day celebrations. President Ram Nath Kovind and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman too met the family. He was conferred the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime gallantry award. Wani's wife Mahajabeen and mother Raja Bano received the award from President Kovind. Wani was a terrorist-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district in November 2018. Amid row over Rahul meeting Chinese ministers, Beijing says welcomes all Indian pilgrims India oi-PTI New Delhi, Jan 26: Amid a row over Rahul Gandhi's Kailash Mansarovar visit last year, the Congress chief on Friday said he had also met Chinese ministers during his trip, the Beijing's envoy here said all Indian pilgrims were welcome to the country. "The Chinese government, the Chinese side will welcome all pilgrims from India," Chinese envoy Luo Zhaohui said in response to a question on Gandhi's meeting with his country's ministers. Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Gandhi of acting as a "Chinese propagandist" and asked him to give complete details of his meeting with China's ministers and officials during his Kailash Mansarovar visit and questioned why had he not kept the Indian government informed about it. "The Kailash Mansarovar yatra was an excuse. He had gone to meet these ministers. Rahul Gandhi is not an ordinary citizen. Why did he not inform the Ministry of External Affairs? Why was the Indian embassy not kept in loop? We want to know the details of his talks," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters. The ruling party's attack on Gandhi came after the Congress president told a public meeting in Odisha that the Chinese ministers had told him during his Kailash Mansarovar visit in August-September last year that job creation was not a problem in their country. "When I had gone to Kailash, I had met a couple of their ministers and they had said job creation was not a problem in China at all," Gandhi had said. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Saturday, January 26, 2019, 20:08 [IST] 7th Pay Commission: Why the TA for CG employees will not increase despite rise in DA 7th Pay Commission: What CG employees get good news today India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Jan 25: There have been several reports suggesting that there could be some announcement regarding the 7th Pay Commission soon. The reports emerged ahead of Republic Day and it was said that the government would make some announcement. Similar reports had emerged ahead of the Independence Day last year as well. Let us put the issue to rest and there will be no announcement on the 7th Pay Commission tomorrow, January 26 2019. As OneIndia had reported earlier that only sops will be given, but that would be over a period of time. Hence in this regard, the CG employees must keen a close watch on the Cabinet meetings that will take place. All announcements would be made during the Cabinet meetings and not on Republic Day, the official also confirmed. In another development, there has been a change of guard at the Union Finance Ministry. Piyush Goyal has filled in for Arun Jaitley, who is away abroad for treatment. Will Goyal make some announcement in the absence of Jaitley? It is highly unlikely because Goyal would look to focus more on the agrarian issues. Another issue is that all talks that the employees have had is with Jaitley. Hence until Jaitley returns to India, all issues regarding the 7th Pay Commission will remain pending. Submitted Photo State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-47, right, recently presented a New York State Senate Empire Award to Jorge Pena, CEO of Sovena USA. The company operates a facility on the Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome. Each session, many of the issues before the Legislature dont fall along left-right political lines at all. In those cases, a senator will prevail only by working with a breadth of colleagues. Senators who start out this session by casting the other tribe as untrustworthy undercut their own effectiveness. Proper committee work. Filibusters are a legitimate tool and can serve an important purpose. But they will be particularly easy to mount this session, given the Legislatures ideological makeup. Committees can reduce the chances for excessive filibusters by rigorously honing legislation in practical fashion before sending legislation to the floor. Bill sponsors should be open to constructive amendments. Effective use of time. In debate over the rules this week, senators emphasized that they regard it as crucial to provide ample time in coming weeks to debate tax policy. Thats an appropriate goal. The tax issue is a key demand from many constituents, but its also highly complex and so far has failed to gain consensus agreement among state leaders. To leave adequate time for it, senators should exercise appropriate restraint throughout the session when it comes to speaking during floor debate and mounting filibusters. As senators indicated, any time carelessly spent during this 90-day session will be time that could have been devoted to important Nebraska needs. From 2006 to 2016, the budget of the Veterans Hospital Administration, the VAs medical wing, grew from $38 billion to $91 billion. But it has failed to put that money to use in an efficient way. One reason is that the VHA, like many an entrenched bureaucracy, is less than nimble at responding to new demands. A new plan from the Trump administration will apply both resources and pressure, by making it easier for veterans to get treatment from private doctors and hospitals, with the government paying. It would replace the popular Veterans Choice program, which has attracted 1 million veterans happy to obtain care in the private sector. The new approach, building on a law enacted last year called the Mission Act, should also help focus the VHA on its most important function: treating the often serious and unusual ailments that stem directly from military service. As it is, reports Concerned Veterans for America, 59 percent of the current unique VHA patients do not have a service-connected disability. Private providers are perfectly capable of taking care of veterans with high blood pressure or seasonal allergies. Those patients who dont need specialized care ought to have the option of going to private facilities. WASHINGTON Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., on Friday welcomed the end at least for now of a partial government shutdown, despite a lack of new money for a border wall. The president has stepped up to the plate by agreeing to reopen the government and laying a framework for what is needed to secure our nations borders, Bacon said in a press release. It is time for Speaker Pelosi and other Democrat leaders to negotiate in good faith a bipartisan permanent solution that includes border security, along with funding for 234 miles of barriers along the border. We need strong border security and a modernized immigration policy as our end result. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., offered his own endorsement of the measure via Twitter. I will support this latest initiative to reopen the government and give the space for proper border security negotiations between Republicans and Democrats, Fortenberry wrote. An attorney has been selected to fill an open seat on the Sarpy County Board. Angela Burmeister, a managing partner at Berkshire & Burmeister Law Offices, will represent District 3, which covers the northeast portion of the county, including much of Bellevue. The selection committee, composed of the county attorney, county clerk and county treasurer, voted 3-0 for Burmeister on Friday. The seat became vacant when Brian Zuger resigned Jan. 2 to become county treasurer. He was elected to that position in November. A Bellevue West graduate, Burmeister attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she received her bachelors degree in business administration. She then received a law degree from Creighton University School of Law. Burmeister serves as chairwoman of the Nebraska State Bar Associations Legislation and Annual Meeting Committees and sits on the Nebraska Supreme Courts Unauthorized Practice of Law Commission. She also serves on the Girl Scouts Spirit of Nebraska board of directors and the Omaha Childrens Museums Guild Board. The World-Heralds statehouse reporters round up news highlights from the Legislature and state government into the Capitol Digest a daily briefing for the political newshound with a busy schedule. Breastfeeding products. Sales taxes on breast pumps and related products would be eliminated under Legislative Bill 13 from State Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue. Blood said at a hearing Friday that breastfeeding is the best option for a baby. Jessica McClure testified that for her, a breast pump was necessary for medical reasons, but the one her insurance company sent her didnt work. The Department of Revenue estimated that the exemption would cost the state more than $300,000 in lost revenue in fiscal year 2020-21, but Blood said that was a poor estimate. Women also could not be charged with public indecency for breastfeeding under the bill. Currently, they cannot be prosecuted unless someone complains, Blood and other testifiers said. It makes clear that women who do choose to breastfeed are not punished, financially or criminally, for their decision, said Scout Richters of the ACLU of Nebraska. A recent campaign to illuminate the problem of hunger in Omaha dished up millions of meals for those in need. Conagra Brands 12th annual Shine the Light on Hunger campaign raised enough over the past seven weeks to provide more than 2.1 million meals, the company announced Friday. That surpasses the campaigns goal of 1.5 million meals. This years campaign was a tremendous success, with over two million meals generated for Food Bank for the Heartland, which serves nearly 600 nonprofit partners in Nebraska and western Iowa including pantries, schools, emergency shelters and meal providers, Rick Hansen, Conagras vice president of human resources, said in a press release. Shine the Light on Hunger highlights the incredible impact our generous community leaders, businesses, and neighbors have when we are united by a common goal. The campaign provided enough resources for the Food Bank to stock the pantries it serves for more than a month, Hansen said. Many community organizations helped out by collecting canned food. The participants included Bakers Supermarkets, The Durham Museum, Omaha Performing Arts, the Joslyn Art Museum, the Omaha Childrens Museum, the Omaha Symphony, Opera Omaha, the Omaha Community Playhouse and the Omaha Theater Company. Logan talked about the hardworking students shes met and how she became the OPS superintendent. She took questions from the crowd, including one about the districts pension shortfall. The World-Herald is currently publishing an occasional series looking at the roots of the $771 million shortfall in the OPS pension fund. A massive liability, the shortfall is forcing the district to slash its budget to meet mandated obligations to its retirees. The series has revealed that bad decisions by the funds trustees have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Those decisions included selling off stocks during the Great Recession and missing out on the rebound, risky alternative investments, and a cozy relationship with a firm that both advised the trustees and sold them investments. In 2016, the state took over investment authority from the trustees and the district. The Rotary members question was simple: Is there an end point for the pension troubles? Obviously, thats the goal, Logan said. The ACLU, in a statement Friday, said it plans to pursue those issues in individual, post-conviction appeals on behalf of the inmates. Todays ruling does not resolve our clients claims that, after the Legislatures 2015 repeal of the death penalty, they no longer may be executed, said Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU of Nebraska. We look forward to resolution of those claims in the individual post-conviction proceedings the court has ruled that each prisoner must undertake. Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, whose lawyers argued the case for the state, said the Supreme Court reached the correct conclusion. The ACLU requested the court override the will of the people, Peterson said. Attorneys with the Attorney Generals Office also argued that the Legislature, regardless of its vote to repeal the death penalty, lacks the power to overturn sentences that were previously imposed by judges. The ACLU has actively opposed the death penalty, saying it is a waste of government resources, that minorities and low-income offenders are more likely to have the sentence imposed, and that the process lacks transparency. The investigator asked her if the stress of being a young mother of four children including premature twins may have led her to oversleep and miss feedings. I got up in the middle of the night with them; I dont know why they were losing weight, she responded. She told Durkan she had called a nurses hotline several times for advice, but Durkan found few calls when he pulled her phone records. She also sent Facebook messages to a NICU nurse. In an interview with law enforcement, the nurse said she was under the impression that the twins were being monitored by a pediatrician. On Sept. 1, the day of Samanthas death, David and Kassandra Krutina said the baby was congested and vomited at home. They brought her to Childrens, where medical staff performed CPR for two hours. Hospital staff then asked the Krutinas to bring in Charlotte, too. A social worker called the Cass County Sheriffs Office to report the parents. Samantha died later that night. Staff reported concerning behavior: The couple stayed with Charlotte on a different floor instead of with Samantha, and at one point before the baby died, they said they wanted to go home because they were tired, hungry and needed to let their dogs out. A St. Clair Correctional Facility inmate who escaped from the Springville facility on Wednesday hid inside a trailer used to transport furniture to Montgomery, according to a preliminary investigation. Prison officials confirmed Friday that Corey Aris Davis, 30, hid inside the trailer while he was working in a furniture plant that is managed by Alabama Correctional Industries. The trailer left the facility at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday and was taken directly to the ACI facility in Montgomery, according to a news release from the Alabama Department of Corrections. Investigators found evidence today that confirms Davis had been inside the trailer and had used an item of furniture for concealment, Fridays news release reads. The evidence also shows that Davis exited the trailer sometime after it was parked at the ACI facility, according to investigators. The Department of Corrections has identified three inmate suspects at the prison who assisted Davis in his escape, but their identities are not being released at this time. NYTimes.com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. Please upgrade your browser. BEIRUT, Lebanon The Syrian government and its Russian backers have suggested that the recent takeover of the last rebel stronghold in Syria by an Al Qaeda-linked group could threaten a cease-fire that has been in place for several months. Nearly a million of the more than three million civilians in Idlib Province have already fled their homes elsewhere in Syria, often more than once. Many landed there after Syrian President Bashar al-Assads government seized control of other opposition areas in recent years, busing rebels and civilians who refused to live under his rule to Idlib. The shattering of the cease-fire in Idlib, in northwest Syria, would put the population in the path of yet another military onslaught and propel a wave of refugees into Turkey, which lies to the north. Many analysts have regarded Mr. Assads assault on Idlib, backed by Russian air power, as a matter of when, not if. Mr. Assad is determined to retake control of all of Syria, grinding out victory after nearly eight years of civil war; Moscow is concerned about foreign fighters from its neighbors in Central Asia taking root in Idlib. BERLIN Germany will spend tens of billions of dollars to end its use of coal power within two decades, if a plan agreed to early Saturday by representatives of the power industry, environmental movement, miners and local interest groups becomes official policy. The deal, hammered out after more than 20 hours of intense, often fractious negotiating among a 28-member commission appointed last year by Chancellor Angela Merkel, would be one of the most significant energy transformations a nation has yet attempted in the face of climate change. Thirty countries have already set out proposals to cut their carbon emissions by eliminating coal, the dirtiest and cheapest fossil fuel, including Britain, Canada and Sweden. But none of those plans are of the scale laid out in Germany, an industrial giant that currently relies on coal for almost a third of its energy needs. The commissions plan now requires approval from the leaders of four states affected and the federal government. The language that I speak has got a poor status or standing in Ontario. Not only the language, its also the culture, said Ms. Truax, 64. Because of that, here are many small daily battles to be won if I want to live en francais. Many of those battles in Ontario have been around education. Ms. Truax is from the first generation of francophone Ontarians who were able to attend all of high school in French. The now-abandoned plan to build a French-language university in Toronto, which was created by the previous Liberal government, was widely seen as the final step in a campaign dating back to 1890. The province currently has three bilingual universities, including Laurentian, although exactly what that means varies both by field of study and campus. Marie-Pierre Heroux, a third-year Canadian history major at Laurentian, who is from a French-speaking farm town east of Ottawa, attends all of her classes in French, something that is impossible for students in sciences. But English dominates life at her residence and around campus. After Mr. Ford announced the cuts, Ms. Heroux said she was in tears. Im in history, right, so I learned about all the battles that had been fought, she said. I never thought I was going to live one like that in my life. Ms. Heroux advertises her passion as she walks around campus. A piece of green felt and a piece of white felt, the colors of Franco Ontario, are pinned to the front of her jacket. NEW DELHI The mans last footsteps, cast in concrete, lead out from an all-white mansion to the spot where he took his final breath. On a mild winter day, Mohandas K. Gandhi walked slowly across a stately lawn in New Delhi, Indias capital, leaning on the shoulders of two young women, when an assassin greeted him, touched his feet and then shot the frail 78-year-old three times in the chest. The grounds where Gandhi crumpled to the ground, and the elegant mansion where he spent his final days, have been turned into a memorial to his life, and violent death. To enter, there is no security check or ticket booth. You walk in off the street, unfettered and free, just the way Gandhi would have probably liked it. The memorial, the Gandhi Smriti, is perhaps the best place in India to contemplate the legacy of one of historys momentous figures. But Mr. Mujahid said progress was made on a withdrawal, and he emphasized that the insurgents still wanted to negotiate. Since these issues are critical and need comprehensive discussion, it was decided that talks about unsolved matters will resume in similar future meetings, he added. The basic outlines of the emerging deal have leaked out through Taliban sources. American officials have been tight-lipped by comparison, though Western diplomats tacitly confirmed those outlines. The Americans would promise to withdraw their 14,000 troops, and the Taliban would agree to never again allow their territory to be used by extremists like Al Qaeda, the terrorist network that staged the 2001 attacks on the United States from Afghanistan and set off the start of the war. That much seemed in agreement. But as always, the devil is in the details. How long would the cease-fire be, and would it start before, after or even during the American withdrawal? How long a time frame would the withdrawal cover? All of these questions are potential deal-breakers. Taliban sources remained optimistic, even as Western diplomats expressed concern that there would not be a deal from this round of Doha talks. On Saturday afternoon, Sayed Akbar Agha, a former Taliban official who now lives in Kabul but keeps close contacts with insurgent leaders, said he had just spoken to them. I have been told that talks are going ahead very well and we are close to an agreement, he said. Whatever the result this time, Mr. Agha said, Afghanistan was never so close to peace in these past years. What is happening now has never happened before. WASHINGTON His hand chopping in the air, his voice stern and stalwart, he declared that it was time for the regional despot to go and warned of the consequences if he did not. With a commander in chiefs resolve, he vowed that the United States would do whatever it took to protect its own diplomats on the ground. It was not the commander in chief but Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who nearly three years after losing his own bid for the presidency has become a lead policy architect and de facto spokesman in a daring and risky campaign involving the United States in the unrest that is now gripping Venezuela. Through sheer force of will and a concerted effort to engage and educate President Trump, Mr. Rubio has made himself, in effect, a virtual secretary of state for Latin America, driving administration strategy and articulating it to the region from the Senate floor, as he did the other day, and every television camera he can find. Perhaps no other individual outside Venezuela has been more critical in challenging President Nicolas Maduro. Hes picked a battle he cant win, Mr. Rubio, 47, said of Mr. Maduro in an interview on Friday. Its just a matter of time. The only thing we dont know is how long it will take and whether it will be peaceful or bloody. MONTREAL Canadas ambassador to China has resigned following a series of diplomatic missteps that further complicated already strained relations between the two countries. The resignation came days after the ambassador, John McCallum, stunned seasoned diplomatic observers by saying that Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom firm Huawei who was arrested in December by Canadian authorities in Vancouver at the United States request, stood a good chance of avoiding extradition to the United States. His public assessment of the sensitive and high profile case came under sharp criticism, including from the leader of the opposition conservative party Andrew Scheer, who said Mr. McCallums comments threatened to politicize the case and called for him to be fired. Last night, I asked for and accepted John McCallums resignation as Canadas ambassador to China, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday. BRUMADINHO, Brazil One woman searching for her husband collapsed on the floor. Another clutched a photo of her missing daughter and a third shouted at volunteers: To you, he is just someone you can substitute. But he is my husband, the father of my daughter! Scenes of desperation played out at a local school on Saturday in the Brazilian town of Brumadinho where hundreds of people waited as rescue workers dug through mud and sludge searching for survivors a day after a mining dam collapse in southeastern Brazil left at least 34 dead and almost 300 missing. More than 24 hours after one of the deadliest mining accidents in Brazils history, official information was scarce. The Civil Defense office said 199 people had been rescued by emergency workers, but only 23 of their names were tacked on the walls of the makeshift crisis center. Im anxious, despaired, because there is no news, said Lucilene Ferreira, 37, who was looking for her husband Emerson Jose. Sometimes, I think everything will be all right. And sometimes, I think the worst. A St. Louis police officer has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after the authorities said he fatally shot another officer during a game of Russian roulette. The officer, Nathaniel R. Hendren, was charged on Friday in the death of Katlyn Alix, another officer with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Officer Hendren had been on duty when he met Officer Alix, who was off duty, at his home on Thursday and the two began playing with guns, according to a statement of probable cause. Officer Hendren produced a revolver, emptied the cylinder and put one round back in, the statement said. He then spun the cylinder, pointed it away and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire, the authorities said. In the meeting, Ms. Hair described herself as a strong Trump supporter, according to those familiar with the events. Ms. Hair did not respond to an email seeking comment. A central focus for Ms. Hair and Ms. Thomas was administration appointments that they wanted made and that they accused the presidents aides of blocking. People familiar with the situation indicated that the people Ms. Hair and Ms. Thomas wanted hired were rejected for a range of reasons, and in at least one case someone was offered a job and declined it because the position was not considered senior enough. Another complaint was that Ms. Thomas had not actually shared the full list of people to be hired, said those familiar with the meeting. Others attending included Frank Gaffney, the founder of the Center for Security Policy who has advocated curtailing immigration and has repeatedly denounced Muslims, and Rosemary Jenks, who works for the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA, according to the people familiar with the events. Ms. Thomas whose group, Groundswell, was formed in 2013 to strategize against Democrats and the political left and meets weekly joined others in prayer at the start of the meeting. Some members of the group prayed at different moments as the meeting continued. At one point, Mr. Trump pulled in his daughter Ivanka, a West Wing adviser, saying she would be beloved if she were serving a liberal president, instead of getting negative news coverage. One attendee criticized Republican congressional leaders, saying they should be tarred and feathered, a person briefed on the meeting said. Mr. Trump defended the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, saying that they had held strong for nearly five weeks of a shutdown, and that it was not clear what else the attendees thought they could be doing. Ms. Thomas, who was said to have opened the meeting by informing the assembled White House staff members that she feared being open because she did not trust the people there, has long been more conservative than her husband, and has often provoked controversy. In 2011 she formed a government affairs firm called Liberty Consulting, which drew criticism for boasting on its website that Ms. Thomas would use her experience and connections to help clients. But at a minimum, that would require evidence that the Trump campaign knew that WikiLeaks was trying to damage Hillary Clintons candidacy, agreed with that objective and engaged in overt acts to further the scheme. Two or more people have to agree to do something that the law forbids, and at least one of them has to take a step to further the conspiracy an overt act, said Chuck Rosenberg, a former United States attorney and senior F.B.I. official. What might constitute an overt act? If Trump campaign officials coordinated with Julian Assange, the organizations founder, on the timing and content of the document releases in an effort to maximize the damage to the Clinton campaign, that might qualify. But Mr. Mueller has offered no evidence of that. Will charges come later? Maybe. Mr. Rosenberg cautioned against viewing Mr. Stones indictment as the final word on whether the Trump campaign did or did not conspire with WikiLeaks. I wouldnt take from the fact that they didnt charge it that they cant charge it or that they wont charge it, he said. The special counsel has mounted two criminal cases claiming illegal schemes to tilt the election results, both against Russians. Legal experts cited those cases as possible templates for what a conspiracy case involving the Trump campaign might look like, assuming the evidence existed to bring one. Thirteen Russians and three Russian companies were accused of conspiring to defraud the United States by illegally influencing the presidential election. That indictment said the Russians mounted an illicit social media campaign aimed at sowing political discord, undercutting Mrs. Clinton and promoting Mr. Trump. Their activities were illegal because foreigners cannot spend money to influence American elections or engage in political activity in the United States without registering with the Justice Department. In the other case, Mr. Mueller charged 12 Russian military officers with hacking into Democratic computers and releasing tens of thousands of stolen documents, using WikiLeaks and other means. That case alleged a conspiracy to commit computer crimes. It is one of these moments where after many years of us trying to get something passed that ends the shutdown, I think there is support coalescing around a legislative response, Mr. Portman said. Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat whose state is home to tens of thousands of federal employees and contractors, introduced his own proposal, partly with the idea of shaming his colleagues and the Trump administration into avoiding such confrontations. Searching for a bill title that would deliver the message, he and his staff came up with Stop Shutdowns Transferring Unnecessary Pain and Inflicting Damage in the Coming Years, otherwise known as the Stop Stupidity Act. In the event of funding showdowns, his approach would be to maintain spending for all but the legislative branch and the White House. More than a little bit of common sense tells me that we wouldnt be here 35 days into this shutdown if all our staffs were experiencing the same kind of shortfall and economic distress that 800,000 of our fellow federal workers experienced, he said on the Senate floor. Mr. Warner acknowledged that his title was somewhat tongue in cheek and that he would be receptive to making changes in the interest of enacting a law that would prevent recurrences of the last weeks. The final language in any deal that comes out three weeks from now should put strong provisions and strong penalties in place to prevent this tactic from being used by either party or any White House or Congress in the future, he said, a view shared by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. President Trumps defeat in his border-wall standoff with Congress has clouded his already perilous path to a second term in 2020, undercutting Mr. Trumps cherished image as a forceful leader and deft negotiator, and emboldening alike his Democratic challengers and Republican dissenters who hope to block his re-election. The longest government shutdown in history inflicted severe political damage on the president, dragging down his poll numbers even among Republicans and stirring concern among party leaders about his ability to navigate the next two years of divided government. Mr. Trump, close associates acknowledge, appears without a plan for mounting a strong campaign in 2020, or for persuading the majority of Americans who view him negatively to give him another chance. Compounding the harm to Mr. Trump on Friday was the indictment of Roger Stone, his political adviser for several decades, on charges of lying to investigators and obstructing the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The indictment was taken by some Republicans as the surest sign yet that Mr. Muellers investigation is likely to grow more painful to Mr. Trump and his associates before it wraps up. Mr. Trump still commands the loyalty of a passionate electoral base that has rallied to him in trying moments, and advisers believe he will have room to right himself while Democratic presidential candidates are mired in a long nomination fight. Yet they are also growing anxious that he could face a draining primary of his own next year. From the shutdowns end to Roger Stones indictment, its been a busy week in American politics. Here are some of the biggest stories you might have missed (and some links if youd like to read further). ___________________ The shutdown is over, for now. President Trump agreed Friday to reopen the federal government for three weeks while talks on securing the border proceed, backing down after failing to force Democrats to fund his long-promised wall. The announcement came after federal workers missed their second consecutive paycheck and flight delays rippled across the Northeast because of a shortage of air traffic controllers. Over the next three weeks, a House-Senate conference committee representing both parties will try to reach a consensus on a border security plan. Mr. Trump indicated that if lawmakers cannot strike a deal by Feb. 15, he is prepared to close the government again. WASHINGTON When a pharmaceutical company sold its patent rights for a blockbuster drug to an Indian tribe 16 months ago, stymied competitors and consumer groups condemned the move as a flagrant abuse of the patent system. This month, the company, Allergan, doubled down, asking the Supreme Court to rule that the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe can use its sovereign immunity to fend off challenges by makers of low-cost generic copies of the best-selling prescription eyedrops, Restasis. Congress is gearing up for what promises to be a yearlong investigation of drug prices, with House and Senate committees planning to hold hearings on Tuesday. The deal between Allergan and the Saint Regis Mohawks promises to be front and center when lawmakers in both parties examine the use of patents to delay competition and keep prices high. Restasis, a treatment of chronic dry eye disease, had sales of nearly $1.5 billion in 2017 Allergans best seller after Botox. When a father-and-son hunting pair from Alaska poached a black bear mother and her two newborn cubs in their den last year, they initially seemed to get away with it. There was little chance for witnesses on a remote island off Alaskas southern coast. The hunters traveled there by boat, strapping on backcountry skis to reach the bear den. But a motion-activated camera, being used for wildlife research, captured the hunters actions on the island, the authorities said. This week, after pleading guilty to various poaching charges, the father, Andrew Renner, a 41-year-old from Wasilla, Alaska, was sentenced to three months in jail and barred from hunting for a decade, said Aaron Peterson, the states assistant attorney general, who prosecuted the case. His son Owen Renner, 18, received a 30-day suspended sentence and was required to perform community service. Based on state law, killing a mother bear or bear cubs is a crime. But Mr. Peterson said that defendants in poaching cases rarely get jail time. Thats because hunters often argue that they poached an animal by mistake and typically have no criminal record, he said. Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. A little more than a year ago, Noel Millea, the deputy editor of the New York Times Real Estate section, asked if I could recommend a journalist to take over a column called What You Get. The assignment was to write every week about three houses on the market that were roughly the same price, but located in different parts of the United States. Like many New Yorkers, I was already spending a lot of time online looking at real estate for free. I usually did this at night when I couldnt sleep and the idea of uprooting my family and moving to, say, Abiquiu, N.M. where we could buy a house with 50 acres of vineyards for the price of a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan didnt seem preposterous. So I did a Dick Cheney and recommended myself. Now every week, in broad daylight, I think up a number from $250,000 to $3 million and investigate what it would buy in San Diego or Philadelphia or maybe Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Using websites like Zillow, I pick three homes that are in good condition and nicely furnished and photographed. If a house has been staged with cliches like horse-head portraits or caged hanging light fixtures, I pass it by. I am also averse to obviously faked photos, with fires pasted into fireplaces and lawns the color of Sprite bottles. The idea that the United States could withdraw from NATO is surreal. The alliance, now numbering 29 countries, has been the foundation of trans-Atlantic stability and prosperity for seven decades. It continues to keep a predatory Russia at bay and diminish the danger that American soldiers might once again have to fight on European soil. Yet in Donald Trumps go-it-alone presidency, the possibility of Americas withdrawal has become such a concern that Congress is taking steps to prevent it. The Democratic-led House on Jan. 22 voted 357-22 for a bipartisan bill that would tie Mr. Trumps hands by refusing him any federal money to pay the costs of leaving the alliance. The Republican-led Senate should quickly follow, either approving the House measure or a separate bill proposed by a bipartisan group of senators that requires Mr. Trump to obtain approval from two-thirds of the Senate to suspend, terminate or withdraw U.S. membership in NATO. If the president refused to abide by a Senate vote preserving NATO membership, the bill would then prohibit the use of federal funds for withdrawal. WASHINGTON Roger Stone has always lived in a dog-eat-dog world. So it was apt that he was charged with skulduggery in part for threatening to kidnap a therapy dog, a fluffy, sweet-faced Coton de Tulear, belonging to Randy Credico, a New York radio host. Robert Mueller believes that Credico, a pal of Julian Assange, served as an intermediary with WikiLeaks for Stone. Muellers indictment charges that Stone called Credico a rat and a stoolie because he believed that the radio host was not going to back up what the special counsel says is Stones false story about contacts with WikiLeaks, which disseminated Russias hacked emails from the D.N.C. and Hillary Clintons campaign chairman. Stone emailed Credico that he would take that dog away from you, the indictment says, later adding: I am so ready. Lets get it on. Prepare to die (expletive). As the owner of two Yorkies, Stone clearly knows how scary it is when a beloved dog is in harms way. When he emerged from court on Friday, he immediately complained that F.B.I. agents had terrorized his dogs when they came to arrest him at dawn at his home in Fort Lauderdale. Remember this name: Loujain (pronounced Loo-JAYNE) al-Hathloul. She is 29 years old and a courageous advocate for gender equality so she is in a Saudi Arabian prison, and reportedly our Saudi allies have tortured her, even waterboarded her. There has properly been global outrage at Saudi Arabias murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia. Jamal was a friend of mine, and I find it infuriating that President Trump and other officials wont hold Saudi Arabia accountable for killing and dismembering him. Still, we cant bring him back. So lets direct equal attention to those still alive like Hathloul, along with nine other womens rights activists who are also in custody, including some who say they have endured torture. Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner bet big on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, but they were bamboozled. M.B.S. isnt a great reformer, and he isnt coming clean about Khashoggis murder. That first travel ban, and each subsequent one, made my stomach lurch, as I imagined not being allowed back into the place I belong. And since that chaotic weekend two years ago, I have wondered what life has been like for immigration lawyers people whose livelihoods depend on getting others through a door that was only ever ajar and is now in danger of slamming shut. As the administration hacks away at immigrants rights and rains down policy changes, immigration requests that would usually have been approved are denied, many lawyers told me. They are receiving requests for further evidence that are baffling, with precedents continuously blurring. Any way the government can have a moment of gotcha they do and they will, Ms. Gupta said. If they can get you out of the country, they will. John Khosravi, an immigration lawyer in Los Angeles, agrees. These past two years its like someone is running around sticking their finger in peoples eyes and Im an eye doctor, he said. Sure, business is good, but those arent the injuries I want to treat. On his podcast The Immigration Lawyers Podcast, he urges his colleagues to have a Plan B and to save their money for a rainy day. Mr. Khosravi is Iranian-American, and when he started practicing nearly a decade ago, all of his clients were Iranian. Since then, he has diversified and now has clients from around the world. Had I just been starting out when the ban came down, that would have been lights out, just no way, he said. For Lauren Blodgett, a staff lawyer at Safe Passage Project, the past two years have seen her definition of success change. She has represented children seeking asylum who were separated from a parent at the border, per the policy put in place by this administration last year. She said that even if her clients are denied a chance to stay in the United States, its crucial to her to help them feel heard and even loved throughout the process. One evening in 2014 , a police officer in Kolwezi, a dusty mining city of a half-million people in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo, decided that his family needed a new latrine. He picked up a shovel and started digging a pit in his yard and soon stood transfixed at the shimmering black dirt hed unearthed: Before him was a pile of cobalt, one of the worlds most important minerals. Cobalt is an essential component of rechargeable batteries in cars and mobile phones, and Congo is by far the worlds largest producer, with about half of all known reserves. In Kolwezi, the cobalt is often found with vast deposits of copper: After a rainstorm, some of the ground in the city turns as green as the Statue of Liberty. With the electronics boom worldwide, demand for both minerals has exploded. In the days that followed the policemans discovery, he began digging up his living room, his bathroom, his bedroom, his kitchen. Within weeks, his neighbors followed suit. By mid-2015, when I started visiting that area of Kolwezi, known as Kasulo, the place looked as if it had been bombed. Kasulo was once a quiet hillside neighborhood, home to the families of the cooks and cleaners, mechanics and drivers who worked for the mining industry. Now its small brick and concrete houses were crumbling and the streets were pockmarked with cavernous holes. The electorates foreknowledge of a politicians sleaziness doesn't preclude impeachment. But it means that there is, at least, a quantum of sleaze that the president's supporters voted to accept. And the closer we get to a new election including another primary campaign the stronger the case for asking voters to retract that endorsement, instead of pre-empting their judgment from on high. The rebuttal here is that the danger of keeping Trump in office is too great a point with which I sympathize, because I fear Trumps incapacity in an unlooked-for crisis. But Im more doubtful about the policy dangers that are supposedly evident right now. Appelbaum, for instance, analogizes Trumps race-baiting to Andrew Johnsons efforts to impede Reconstruction in the late-1860s South. But when he was impeached, Johnson was literally using his veto to abet the possible restoration of white supremacy. Whereas Trump is conspicuously losing a fight over some modest border fencing, and his last race-inflected policy move was a criminal justice reform supported by many African-Americans. The president may be a bigot, but the policy stakes do not remotely resemble 1868. Then there are the geopolitical risks of Trumps alleged Russian loyalties. After the Stone arrest, Appelbaums Atlantic colleague David Frum deemed these too severe to wait even for Robert Muellers verdict: But now now! the country is in danger. But in the absence of Mueller-stamped evidence, what we have to prove that peril is Trumps actual foreign policy, which is erratic but frequently quite unfriendly to Moscow with the administrations effort to subvert the Russian-aligned Maduro regime in Venezuela just this weeks example. Which makes it entirely reasonable to wait to see whether Mueller vindicates the various uncorroborated scoops about a conspiracy hatched in Prague or the Ecuadorean Embassy, rather than trying to impeach Trump for, say, his private griping about NATO. At the end of my invoke-the-25th-Amendment column I wrote, There will be time to return again to world-weariness and cynicism as this agony drags on. That was month four of this presidency; as we approach month 25 I suppose I have become that world-weary cynic. To the Editor: Re May the Best Woman Win, by Michelle Goldberg (column, Jan. 22): After the total disaster of Trumpism, America needs and deserves the empathy, compassion and fair-mindedness that only a woman can bring to the Oval Office. While I would vote for a ham sandwich over Donald Trump, 2020 and beyond will be the era of powerful women with governing experience and the patience and understanding it takes to lead the nation. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and most likely Amy Klobuchar are all capable candidates, and I expect there will be other women who will enter the fray. We are a long way off until the 2020 election, but I applaud the women who have thrown their hats into the ring now, as Americans need to get to know and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and help choose the woman with the best chance of taking back the White House. The midterms in 2018 showed that women are on the move in American politics, and there is little doubt in my mind that the best woman will be our 46th president. Henry A. Lowenstein New York To the Editor: While I wholeheartedly agree with Michelle Goldbergs argument that it would be nothing short of poetic justice for President Trump to lose re-election in 2020 to a female Democrat, I worry that she is too optimistic about a female Democrats chances in a general election, even if she can get through the competitive Democratic primary. But today, as tech culture infiltrates every corner of the business world, its hymns to the virtues of relentless work remind me of nothing so much as Soviet-era propaganda, which promoted impossible-seeming feats of worker productivity to motivate the labor force. One obvious difference, of course, is that those Stakhanovite posters had an anticapitalist bent, criticizing the fat cats profiting from free enterprise. Todays messages glorify personal profit, even if bosses and investors not workers are the ones capturing most of the gains. Wage growth has been essentially stagnant for years. Perhaps weve all gotten a little hungry for meaning. Participation in organized religion is falling, especially among American millennials. In San Francisco, where I live, Ive noticed that the concept of productivity has taken on an almost spiritual dimension. Techies here have internalized the idea rooted in the Protestant work ethic that work is not something you do to get what you want; the work itself is all. Therefore any life hack or company perk that optimizes their day, allowing them to fit in even more work, is not just desirable but inherently good. Aidan Harper, who created a European workweek-shrinkage campaign called 4 Day Week, argues that this is dehumanizing and toxic. It creates the assumption that the only value we have as human beings is our productivity capability our ability to work, rather than our humanity, he told me. Its cultist, Mr. Harper added, to convince workers to buy into their own exploitation with a change-the-world message. Its creating the idea that Elon Musk is your high priest, he said. Youre going into your church every day and worshiping at the altar of work. For congregants of the Cathedral of Perpetual Hustle, spending time on anything thats nonwork related has become a reason to feel guilty. Jonathan Crawford, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur, told me that he sacrificed his relationships and gained more than 40 pounds while working on Storenvy, his e-commerce start-up. If he socialized, it was at a networking event. If he read, it was a business book. He rarely did anything that didnt have a direct R.O.I., or return on investment, for his company. Mr. Crawford changed his lifestyle after he realized it made him miserable. Now, as an entrepreneur-in-residence at 500 Start-ups, an investment firm, he tells fellow founders to seek out nonwork-related activities like reading fiction, watching movies or playing games. Somehow this comes off as radical advice. Its oddly eye-opening to them because they didnt realize they saw themselves as a resource to be expended, Mr. Crawford said. Its easy to become addicted to the pace and stress of work in 2019. Bernie Klinder, a consultant for a large tech company, said he tried to limit himself to five 11-hour days per week, which adds up to an extra day of productivity. If your peers are competitive, working a normal workweek will make you look like a slacker, he wrote in an email. The mystery over the incarceration of a Navy veteran in Iran last July deepened on Friday, when an Iranian prosecutor said that the case had been based on an individual plaintiff and that the prisoner might face security-related charges. The veteran, Michael R. White of Imperial Beach, Calif., is the first American to be imprisoned in Iran since the Trump administration took office two years ago. His arrest raised the number of American prisoners in Iran to at least four, and has added an irritant to the already poor relations between the countries. The prosecutor, Gholamali Sadeqi, in the northeast Iranian city of Mashhad, was quoted in a brief report by Irans Mehr news agency as saying there is an individual plaintiff in the case, but he did not provide details. MADRID The Spanish authorities said early Saturday that they had found the body of a 2-year-old boy who fell into a well nearly two weeks ago, bringing to a tragic end a search operation that had gripped the nation. The toddler, Julen Rosello, was said to have slipped into an abandoned, narrow borehole on Jan. 13, while his parents were preparing lunch in the countryside near the southern port city of Malaga. His fall set off a rescue mission that was covered around the clock by Spanish news outlets. As the operation encountered engineering and geological obstacles, it grew to include about 300 people, including Spanish mining specialists and a Swedish company that provided the technology to help save 33 Chilean miners in 2010. Officials had tried various routes to the toddler, whose body was trapped behind hardened soil and rock that blocked rescue workers and equipment. A government official, Alfonso Rodriguez Gomez de Celis, said that Julens body was found at 1:25 a.m. Saturday. A group of miners used a series of controlled explosions to help them excavate the last few meters of earth separating them from the child. Ms. Best, 32, who has published at the investigative site MuckRock and elsewhere, noted that the Distributed Denial of Secrets site already hosts thousands of leaked documents from dozens of countries, the largest number from the United States. The new site operates roughly on the model pioneered by WikiLeaks inviting hackers and whistle-blowers to send confidential documents for posting. But Ms. Best has been quite critical of that site and its founder, Julian Assange, who played a central role in distributing the Democrats emails that Russians hacked in 2016. Distributed Denial of Secrets has posted a large archive of internal documents from WikiLeaks itself. Personally, I am disappointed by what I see as dishonest and egotistic behavior from Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Ms. Best said. But she added that she had made the Russian document collection available to WikiLeaks ahead of its public release on Friday, and had posted material favorable to Mr. Assange leaked from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has lived for more than six years to avoid arrest. Russian and Eastern European hackers have for many years been among the worlds most active, many operating, initially, from a criminal underground in search of profit. But over the last decade, Russian intelligence agencies have become adept at using cyberintrusions to pilfer documents abroad as part of intelligence gathering and to leak for political purposes. While the 2016 American election attack, carried out by Russian military intelligence hackers from the agency known as the G.R.U., has gotten the most attention, similar hack-and-leak operations have been carried out on a daily or weekly basis for years in Eastern Europe. Ukrainian hackers have worked aggressively to expose Russian covert activities in Crimea and the regions of eastern Ukraine controlled by separatist rebels. Business tycoons have used hackers to go after rivals. Activists have sought to expose wrongdoing by the police and security agencies. The resulting archives of emails and inside documents have been posted all over the web, and the new collection seeks to gather it all in one place. Ms. Best said Distributed Denial of Secrets is operated by fewer than 20 people who live in multiple countries, most preferring to remain anonymous. She said the Russian project began last year when she connected with a journalist looking for a collection of emails hacked by Shaltai Boltai, the Russian group whose name means Humpty Dumpty. Even by the Mounties tight-lipped standards, remarkably few facts were released on Friday about the plot and the people the police said had originated it. At a news conference, an official of the Mounties, Chief Superintendent Michael LeSage, said that the national police force had received a tip from the F.B.I. in late December that a terror plot was underway in Kingston. About 300 people and a special, low-flying surveillance airplane which provoked curiosity and irritation among many people in the city were brought in to aid in the investigation. Superintendent Peter Lambertucci of the Mounties, who heads one of its counterterrorism units in Ottawa, said that while Mr. Alzahabi and his friend had developed an attack plan, they had no target or date. And while the police seized materials that could be components for a bomb, they said the two had not built one. The police would not answer questions about a possible motive or ideology fueling the plot. Canadas welcoming attitude toward refugees from Syrias civil war, which is approaching its eighth year, became a powerful symbol of its openness as a country. In 2017, Mr. Trudeau famously wrote a tweet saying that Canada was ready to welcome those fleeing persecution, terror & war. It came after President Trump moved to ban travelers from several Muslim-majority countries and seemed calculated to present liberal Canadas embrace of refugees as a counterpoint to the attitude of the Trump administration. A group of four churches in Kingston sponsored Mr. Alzahabis family, said Alex Pierson, the executive director of the Anglican Diocese of Ontario. Citing privacy reasons, he declined to say when the family arrived, other than that it was more than a year ago. An annual report for one of the churches indicates that Mr. Alzahabi arrived from Kuwait with his father, Amin Alzahabi, his mother and three siblings after their home in Damascus, Syria, was destroyed. Amin Alzahabi, the report said, had been jailed for political reasons and would be vulnerable to arrest and extreme measures should he and the family return home. For far too long, our immigration system has been exploited by smugglers, traffickers and those with no legal right to be in the United States, said Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, on Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security said that the claims for those returned would be adjudicated within a year, with an initial hearing held within 45 days. But immigration courts are already clogged with 800,0000 pending cases, raising questions about whether this timetable can be achieved, experts said. The policy would apply both to some asylum seekers who try to enter the United States at border crossings and to those apprehended by the authorities after illegally touching United States soil. Historically, undocumented single men have represented the bulk of those arrested and subsequently removed from the county. But since 2013, unaccompanied children and families have arrived in ever-larger numbers. That influx of people was cited by a Department of Homeland Security fact sheet as justification for the policy. Children cannot be detained for more than 72 hours in border holding facilities, prompting the authorities to release their adult parents with them, and the fact sheet referred to a shift in the profile of immigrants reaching the border, from a demographic who could be quickly removed when they had no legal right to stay to one that cannot be detained and timely removed. Analysts and lawyers raised other questions about the program. Human rights groups questioned the ethics of sending people fleeing in search of safety back into Mexico, which itself is experiencing horrific violence. Politically, some have asked why Mexicos new president would essentially agree to turn his country into a waiting room for American asylum seekers. The Mexican government has cautioned that the details of who would be returned and when were still unclear. But in its statement, the government said that it would not accept unaccompanied children or people suffering from health problems. Mexico has yet to agree to accept families, but opened the door for future discussions. Some cried with relief. Their 35-day nightmare of missing bill payments, working without paychecks, asking strangers for money and visiting food pantries was finally ending. But many of the federal workers who have been furloughed or working for free since December were leery of the three-week deal reached on Friday to reopen the government. New worries gnawed: How long before they got paid? Would federal contractors see even a dime of back pay? And most of all, after the longest shutdown in American history, would they and 800,000 other federal workers be back in the same mess in three weeks if President Trump and Democrats do not reach an accord on whether to fund his proposed border wall? This was all for nothing, basically, said Angela Kelley, 51, a furloughed worker for the Bureau of Land Management in Milwaukee who picked up shifts as an Uber driver to earn money to buy gas and groceries as the shutdown dragged on. The Texas secretary of states office on Friday called into question the citizenship status of 95,000 registered voters who were found to have identified themselves at some point to a state law enforcement agency as noncitizen, legal residents of the United States. The office of David Whitley, the secretary of state, said its findings were a result of an 11-month investigation with the Texas Department of Public Safety that also found that about 58,000 people on the list had voted since 1996. The results of the investigation were referred on Friday to Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said he planned to open a potentially sprawling investigation. The two announcements seemed certain to reignite partisan debates over the frequency and impact of voter fraud, which Republicans have claimed is rampant in America. Democrats scoff at that notion, and a voter fraud commission started by (and later angrily disbanded by) President Trump found no evidence of widespread electoral fraud. Every single instance of illegal voting threatens democracy in our state and deprives individual Texans of their voice, Mr. Paxton, a firebrand conservative who has prosecuted isolated cases of illegal voting with gusto, said in a statement. Nothing is more vital to preserving our Constitution than the integrity of our voting process, and my office will do everything within its abilities to solidify trust in every election in the state of Texas. He dont be in that neighborhood. When one court reporter in Philadelphia transcribed that phrase, it turned into this: We going to be in this neighborhood. In other words, the opposite of what the phrase actually meant that someone is not usually in a neighborhood. That was just one transcription error captured in a soon-to-be published study that found court reporters in Philadelphia regularly made errors in transcribing sentences that were spoken in a dialect that linguists term African-American English. Researchers played audio recordings of a series of sentences spoken in African-American English and asked 27 stenographers who work in courthouses in Philadelphia to transcribe them. On average, the reporters made errors in two out of every five sentences, according to the study. The findings could have far-reaching consequences, as errors or misinterpretations in courtroom transcripts can influence the official court record in ways that are harmful to defendants, researchers and lawyers said. FRONT PAGE An article on Friday about the most expensive residential sale in United States history described incorrectly the gift Kenneth Griffin gave to Harvard. Mr. Griffins $150 million gift to Harvard University in 2014 was, at the time, the largest gift in the schools history; the university has since received larger donations. BUSINESS Because of an editing error, an article about layoffs at BuzzFeed and other media companies misstated Gannetts reason for reducing the size of its work force. It is to shore up its shrinking profits, not to attract a buyer. MAGAZINE An article this weekend about Mitch McConnell misstated the number of American troops in Afghanistan and the number of troops that President Trump said he would withdraw from the country. Seven thousand of 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan were going to be pulled out. It is not the case that only 7,000 troops were still deployed to Afghanistan. OBITUARIES An obituary on Thursday about Mary Boyd Higgins, the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reichs trustee, using information from a family member, misstated the year she moved to Lexington, Ky., where she died. It was 2018, not 2001. What a debacle President Trumps shutdown proved to be what a toddlers pageant of foot-stomping and incompetence, of vainglory and self-defeat. Mr. Trump tormented public servants and citizens and wounded the country, and, in conceding on Friday after holding the government hostage for 35 days, could claim to have achieved nothing. He succeeded only in exposing the emptiness of his bullys bravado, of his I alone can fix it posturing. Once upon a time, Mr. Trump promised that Mexico would pay for a wall. He instead made all Americans pay for a partisan fantasy. Maybe you want a wall. Can you possibly argue that Mr. Trumps shutdown strategy advanced your cause? He made the right decision on Friday to sign a bill reopening the government through Feb. 15, giving lawmakers time to reach a permanent deal. But he could have had this same outcome without a shutdown. He ultimately agreed to the sort of bill that Democrats have been pitching for weeks one that contains not one dollar in wall funding. In his announcement, the president struggled to obscure his failure with yet another rambling infomercial about the glory of walls. No matter where you go, they work, he said (raising the question of how you can get there if, in fact, theres a wall in your way). He had nothing of substance to offer beyond the usual specious claims that only his wall can end the border flood of drugs, crime and migrant women who have been duct-taped and stuffed into vans by human traffickers . To repeat: Fewer border-crossing apprehensions were made in 2017 than at any time since 1971 ; drugs are overwhelmingly smuggled through established points of entry; and the only crisis at the border is a humanitarian one, of people fleeing violence and seeking asylum again, mostly at established points of entry under international law. How about lawyer Michael Cohen, now sentenced to three years in prison for lying to Congress? If Trump and the gang were a Sopranos remake, Cohen would be Big Pussy Bonpensiero, who turned on Tony after being busted himself. Really, theres so much talent there, it could have been anybody. Stone and Trump go way back. They were introduced about 40 years ago by their good mutual friend Roy Cohn, the guy who gave us the McCarthy witch hunts. Trump still burbles about how great Cohn was. And he enthused to a documentary interviewer that Stone is a quality guy who always wanted me to run for president. Cant get a better recommendation than that. Stone has a talent for identifying presidential talent hes got a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back. He was partners with Paul Manafort in a Washington lobbying firm that specialized in representing the most terrible dictators on the planet. If you had a million dollars, a need for support from the United States government and a small problem with torture, rape and terrorism, these were the guys to see. (A third partner, Charlie Black, said that when reporters called him to ask if Stone was the connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, he replied, With all due respect, Roger couldnt find Russia on a map. As always, when were considering possible crimes committed during the 2016 campaign, the best defense of Trump and his associates is that they were too dumb to be capable of plotting.) Im proud of the job I did at Black Manafort and Stone because I made a lot of money, Stone told those documentarians, getting right to the point. Stones political career almost came to a crashing end in 1996 when he ran into a scandal that forced him to resign from the Bob Dole campaign. (The candidate was touchy about headlines like Top Dole Aide Caught in Group Sex Ring.) Stone blamed the story on a lying, disgruntled former employee. Later, he admitted that it was true, and explained that he needed to deny it because my grandparents were still alive. But no matter, he would go on triumphantly to organize a wild protest that stopped the recount of votes after the Gore-Bush election in Florida. Or maybe not. Stone bragged that he was the guy who staged one of the most spectacular assaults on the democratic process in recent history, but there was competition for the title. Mr. Trump and his associates might have thought that Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, was just being a mischievous scamp, not passing along communications stolen by Russian intelligence, most of which came from the hacker Guccifer 2.0, an online persona created by Russian military intelligence officers. Mr. Stone said in 2017 that he had carried out completely innocuous private Twitter exchanges with Guccifer 2.0 during the presidential campaign. But then why did Mr. Trump say, five days after the first WikiLeaks release, Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. And might not the Trump circle have suspected that WikiLeaks was working with Russia after Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and the campaign chairman Paul Manafort met at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, with Russians who were peddling dirt on Mrs. Clinton? And if Mr. Trumps first F.B.I. intelligence briefing on Aug. 17, 2016, included a warning about Russian espionage, as NBC News reported in 2017, why didnt Mr. Trump or anyone else in the campaign tell the agents about the meeting or the suspicious release of emails? After the first WikiLeaks release, the indictment says, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed presumably by someone even more senior to contact Mr. Stone about what dirt the group had on the Clinton campaign. If the Trump campaign had not known that it was getting dirt from Russia, why did George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser whom Mr. Trump called an excellent guy, plead guilty to lying about his contact with a professor who said he had dirt from Russia on Mrs. Clinton? (Mr. Papadopouloss lawyer said his client had taken his cues from Mr. Trump, and that the president of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could.) I am a European patriot because I have lived in Germany and seen how the idea of Europe provided salvation to postwar Germans; because I have lived in Italy and seen how the European Union anchored the country in the West when the communist temptation was strong; because I have lived in Belgium and seen what painstaking steps NATO and the European Union took to forge a Europe that is whole and free; because I have lived in France and seen how Europe gave the French a new avenue for expressing their universal message of human dignity; because I have lived in Britain and seen how Europe broadened the post-imperial British psyche and, more recently, to what impasse little-England insularity leads; because I have lived in the Balkans and chronicled a European war that took 100,000 lives; because plain-routine, rut-living Bertie Cohen of Johannesburg, as he put it, came to Europe to save the continent along with the young Americans whose graves I have gazed at in Normandy. Not least, I am a European patriot because I am a Jew. I am a European patriot and an American patriot. I am not from one place but several. The bond that binds the West is freedom the cry of revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic. There is no contradiction in my patriotisms. Patriotism is to nationalism as dignity is to barbarism. As nationalism equals war, so contempt for the law brings savagery. Will anyone remember Europa? As the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska wrote of the aftermath of war: Those who knew/ what was going on here/ must make way for/ those who know little./ And less than little./ And finally as little as nothing. European patriots do remember. They are multiplying in the face of danger. Writers including Milan Kundera, Elfriede Jelinek, Ian McEwan, Anne Applebaum, Salman Rushdie, Bernard-Henri Levy, Herta Muller, Adam Michnik and Orhan Pamuk have just published an important European manifesto, drafted by Levy. Europe, it declares, has been abandoned by the two great allies who in the previous century twice saved it from suicide; one across the Channel and the other across the Atlantic. The continent is vulnerable to the increasingly brazen meddling of the occupant of the Kremlin. Europe as an idea is falling apart before our eyes. We must now fight for the idea of Europe or see it perish beneath the waves of populism. We must. European unity is a peace magnet. I am a European patriot for my children and grandchildren. It is they who will pay the price if the most beautiful postwar political idea dies. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Thousands of artifacts were eventually recovered, and the museum reopened in 2015. Lamia Al-Gailani was born on March 8, 1938, in Baghdad, where she grew up with four siblings. Her father, Ahmad Jamal al-Din Al-Gailanilani, was a landowner, and her mother, Madiha Asif Mahmud Arif-Agha, was a homemaker. Iraqi history ran deep in her family. Her father descended from Abdul-Qadir al-Gailani, a 12th-century Muslim theologian and mystic, and her lineage included the first prime minister of modern Iraq. Nobody in her family before her was in archaeology, but because her family is one of the oldest in Iraq, her sense of history was very keen, Zainab Bahrani, a friend and professor of ancient Near Eastern and archaeology at Columbia University, said in a telephone interview. Her archaeological education began with one year at Baghdad University before she moved to England, where she graduated from the University of Cambridge with a bachelors degree in archaeology and architecture. She earned a masters at the University of Edinburgh and her Ph.D at University College London, where the subject of her thesis was cylinder seals. Dr. Gailani joined the National Museum of Iraq in 1961 as a curator. One of her first tasks was to make clay impressions of the cylinder seals. But her ambition to join an archaeological dig in Iraq fertile territory for excavations was circumscribed by conservative Iraqi attitudes toward women. Still, she convinced the museum authorities that she was capable of the work, although in agreeing to take her on they limited her to excavating in the Baghdad area. At Tell al-Dhibai, on the outskirts of the city, Dr. Gailani was part of a group that discovered a Babylonian town, complete with houses, a temple and an administrative building. Get the DealBook newsletter to make sense of major business and policy headlines and the power-brokers who shape them. __________ The indictment unsealed this month charging Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in June 2016, with obstruction of justice in another case raises an interesting question: Why would the Justice Department pursue a case in which there is little likelihood of ever getting the defendant to the United States? The charges stem from a civil asset forfeiture case filed two years ago. Ms. Veselnitskaya is accused of making false statements in that case to thwart a money laundering investigation involving her clients, Prevezon Holdings and its owner, Denis P. Katsyv, an influential Russian businessman. According to the Justice Department, the defendants financed real estate purchases in New York to hide funds as part of a tax evasion scheme. In an interview with Yahoo News, Ms. Veselnitskaya said that she would not return to the United States but planned to use all methods to defend herself. HOBART Three suspects robbed Jared Galleria of Jewelry, leaving a trail of jewelry behind them as they fled across U.S. 30, police said. Hobart Police were dispatched to 2100 Southlake Mall Drive for a jewelry store robbery at 7:14 p.m. Friday, Hobart Capt. James Gonzales said. As officers were responding to the scene, two of the suspects fled from Jared's, running north across U.S. 30. Officers pursued the suspects on foot and arrested a 19-year-old and 27-year-old from Detroit, Gonzales said. Officers found several pieces of jewelry, suspected to have been stolen from the store, along the path of the fleeing thieves. The total value of items stolen was $200,000, Gonzales said. Officers were told there was a third suspect who fled on foot south to Huntington Cove Apartments. Police suspect the man was picked up from the area by a vehicle, Gonzales said. Jared employees told police that the three suspects entered the store and appeared to be browsing at the display cases. Council President Mark Barenie acknowledged a concern regarding the amount of this years donation, which increased by $2,500. He said the town definitely does pay a bit more than we probably should just based on population, adding that the council has made that conscious decision many years. It is very worthwhile when you hear about the amount of kids that go through and the education that they get, Barenie said. The council also addressed public comments involving future bike trails in St. John. One resident referred to Gov. Eric Holcombs Next Level Trails grant program as an option for the town to invest in. The program requires a 20 percent match from the local agencies and must be used for trails and trail amenities. The application deadline is Feb. 15. Forbes said he found out about the grant in early January and is planning to apply. I have been talking to several developers who are interested in donating easements to the town, that way we dont have to purchase land in order to install this, Forbes said. If land is donated to us, it has monetary value and we can use that value as our matching portion to the grant. HAMMOND The bid process for new garbage trucks was rigged, former Portage Street Superintendent Steve Charnetzky told jurors in Mayor James Snyder's public corruption case. Charnetzky told the jury his opinion of Snyder began to change when the mayor cut him out of the process to develop bids for new automated garbage trucks. He said Snyder appointed his assistant, Randy Reeder, to the task. The garbage trucks are the center of one of the bribery charges. Snyder is accused of taking $13,000 from Great Lakes Peterbilt, a truck dealership, in return for steering the bids to that company. "I felt the bid process was being done illegally, and I didn't want it to tarnish the department or myself," Charnetzky told jurors Friday about why he reached out to the FBI. Charnetzky told jurors he had 31 years of experience on the department, 20 as superintendent. He said he had been responsible for drawing up bid specifications numerous times in his tenure. In each instance, he said, he would form a committee of workers who used the piece of equipment to draw up the bids. In previous testimony this week, FBI Special Agent Eric Field testified Reeder used bid specifications from Peterbilt and McNeilius, a truck body manufacturing company, to formulate the bids. Iconic jeweler Tiffany said uncertainty surrounding the stock market and Britain's departure from the European Union also hurt its sales, along with protests in France that forced it to close a store during some weekends. Tiffany became the latest luxury brand to run into trouble. Several companies have said in recent months that shoppers from China have also cut back on spending as the Chinese economy weakened, and the strong dollar has made it more expensive to buy Tiffany jewelry outside of its stores in China. Hard times for department stores and luxury companies don't mean the entire holiday shopping season was a total disaster. Experts believe shoppers spent more money online than any other year. That's bad for mall-based retailers, and the trend toward shelling out for "experiences" like spas and restaurant meals might be making things worse. Investors are also being deprived of data they might appreciate at a time like this. The Commerce Department isn't issuing its monthly report on retail sales or a great deal of other economic data as a result of the partial shutdown of the federal government. As of Wednesday, the shutdown has lasted more than a month, and federal employees have either been furloughed or are working without paychecks, and some government contracts or services have been disrupted. While federal employees will eventually be paid back, experts say consumer spending and economic growth might still be hindered in a significant way. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The business news you need With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission honored a late, former member with the Norman E. Tufford Award at its January meeting. Several children of Paul Doherty, a long-time elected official in the town of Highland and a former NIRPC chairman, accepted the honor on their father's behalf. The Tufford award is named for NIRPC's first executive director and recognizes outstanding leadership and service to the commission and the Region. "I think Paul Doherty met those criteria big-time," said former NIRPC executive director John Swanson, who nominated Doherty for the award. In addition to his public service, Doherty was involved in a variety of nonprofit and community organizations, Swanson said, including Catholic Charities and Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, Arc of Northwest Indiana, the Salvation Army and Lake Area United Way. Doherty was a World War II veteran, and long-time employee of Illinois Bell and First Financial Bank. He died in July, 2017. Doherty was succeeded as Highland clerk-treasurer in 1992 by Michael Griffin, who now represents Highland on NIRPC. When youre from an emerging community, the fear of gentrification tends to loom in the backdrop. A question I often get asked is 'How do we encourage people to move to Gary and bring new opportunities here without alienating folks in the process?'" Miller Spotlight community builder Jessica Renslow said. Thats what makes businesses like the Cultivated Culture Cafe so important to cities like ours. Anna and Oscar are committed to place making. Out of all the spots in the world they chose to invest here." Aidan Stoner, 3, sits on one of many New Holland products available from Forrester Farm Equipment, which opened on Friday in Woodstock. Andy Schmookler is a prize-winning author many of whose works can be found at www.ABetterHumanStory.org. The LG G8 ThinQ has leaked in the first official press renders of the device ahead of its official unveiling at Mobile World Congress next month. Despite a previous CAD render that was virtually identical to this latest leak being shot down as erroneous by LGs head corporate communications, the latest leak confirms fears that LG has essentially rehashed the design of last years LG G7 ThinQ. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 5G , Accessory , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker What is LG ThinQing? is the question that most people are asking after the first official renders of the forthcoming LG G8 ThinQ surfaced. The image shows a device that is virtually a dead ringer for last years LG G7 ThinQ resplendent with a notched display, the sort that has been dumped in favor of less intrusive teardrop and punch-hole notches by virtually every other maker except Apple. There are changes in the design, but they are subtle. The most obvious difference about this years G8 over the G7 notch is not its dimensions, but rather the absence of an earpiece. This points to the rumored sound on display technology that recently made an appearance on the Meizu Zero, where like some of Sonys OLED TVs, the sound is delivered through the display itself. The rear camera arrangement has also been shifted from vertical to horizontal, but sticks with two rear cameras unlike the triple rear camera configuration of the LG V40. Other differences in the G8 over the G7 appear to include display edges that are curved in appearance. The overall dimensions of the G8 have changed slightly as well, despite the obvious similarities to the soon to be superseded model: where the G7 measures at 153.2 x 71.9 x 7.9 mm the G8 is slightly shorter and thicker with measurements of 152 x 72 x 8.4mm. We hope that the extra 0.5 mm at least means a larger battery. Still, overall, for a smartphone maker that has been bleeding money quarter after quarter, we really expected LG to deliver much more than what the G8 appears to be offering -- at least at face value. Lets hope it has a few tricks up its sleeve that will be revealed at its official launch. The first 5G smartphone made by LG will be revealed at MWC on February 24. It will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 SoC and will feature a bigger vapor chamber, suggesting the SoC will probably run at overclocked frequencies. Additionally, it will come with a 4,000 mAh battery, so there is a possibility of seeing a larger screen, as well. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 5G , Accessory , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker The two most prominent technologies that will be showcased at MWC this year have to be foldable phones and 5G-compatible devices. We already know that LG is working on foldable phones, but it looked like the South Korean company may not showcase any 5G devices this year, since the G8 model was already announced without 5G support. However, LG has just announced that it will introduce a separate lineup of 5G smartphones later this year and it will showcase them at MWC next month. In the press release, LG also mentioned a few interesting specs for the new 5G smartphone. Besides being powered by the latest Snapdragon 855 SoC from Qualcomm, the phone will also feature a new vapor chamber 2.7 times the size of the one from the V40 ThinQ model. This probably means that the new 5G model will get factory overclocked frequencies for increased performance. LGs 5G smartphone will get a 4,000 mAh battery, which is 20% larger than the 3,300 one from the LG V40 ThinQ. The South Korean company is looking to strengthen its partnership with the Far East, North American and European partners that are ready to launch 5G networks this year. Moreover, LG promises that the 5G connections will not drain the batteries faster, so the bigger batteries may actually be added for larger displays and faster SoCs. The press release ends by mentioning that the LG MWC 2019 Premier event will take place in the CCIB building on February 24 at 8 AM GMT. It seems that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 flagship smartphones could feature reverse wireless charging. Thanks to a photo of what looks like a demo booth controller, speculation has risen that the South Korean manufacturer will take a leaf out of Huaweis book and include the capability to wirelessly charge other phones with its much-anticipated devices. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 5G , Accessory , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker An image has appeared on the Korean language version of the Samsung Members community board that seems to suggest the Galaxy S10 phones will come with a reverse wireless charging function. The image shows a controller with Korean labels. According to GSMArena, the text at the top of the controller reads press button to experience, and this is followed by a circular button with S10 written on it. As the image also includes a conveniently placed Samsung-branded item, it is reasonable to start adding one plus one to make two here. The S10 button is followed by one for the display, one for the fingerprint sensor, and an obvious one that shows three camera icons for the triple camera setup that some members of the flagship range are expected to have. The final button shows a battery icon and an arrow pointing outwards, and it is believed this will demonstrate the Samsung S10 Galaxy smartphones ability to offer reverse wireless charging to other devices. Another source gives the reverse wireless charging ability a specific name: Powershare. It appears Samsung does not want its loyal customers to be excluded from experiencing the novel technology that the rival Huawei Mate 20 Pro has, regardless of the fact that the actual feature seems somewhat lethargic in its process. But its believed the Samsung Galaxy S10+ will come with a 4000 mAh battery, so at least it should have enough power resources to enable owners to impress their friends with the reverse wireless charging technology. Photo Provided Singer-songwriter Kat Lock performs locally and is recording an EP to be released in late spring. She plans to release music videos later in the year. Bass guitar player Matt Ellis is shown in the background. Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian, a nominee for the 2018 Grammy Award for best contemporary classical composition, will be in Council Bluffs today Saturday, Jan. 26 visiting the Union Pacific Railroad Museum. As part of its 50th anniversary in 2019, which corresponds with the 150th celebration of the Transcontinental Railroads completion, the Reno Philharmonic Association is leading a consortium to commission Zhou to write an orchestral work. From the nations post-Civil War healing and recovery to the plight of migrant railroad builders to the opening of the west and the creation of the city of Reno, the Transcontinental Railroad is a trove of themes. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Patricia LaBounty, curator of the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs mile 0 of the Transcontinental Railroad said Zhou is touring the museum for historical contest and inspiration for his composition. Todays visit to the Union Pacific Railroad Museum will compliment other sites that he has also visited in California and Nevada. Teams from St. Albert Catholic Schools, Shenandoah High School and Boyer Valley Middle-High School will compete in regional competitions of the U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl. The Iowa Regional High School Science Bowl will be held today at the Iowa State University Engineering Complex, hosted by Ames Laboratories. The Iowa Regional Middle School Science Bowl will be held Feb. 16 at ISU, again hosted by Ames Laboratories. Four students from each team will face off in a fast-paced question-and-answer format, according to a press release from the Department of Energy. The competition will test students knowledge in all areas of science and mathematics, including biology, chemistry, Earth science, physics and energy. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The regional contests will determine who will represent Iowa in the national finals April 25-29 in Washington, D.C. At the finals, teams can win trips to Alaska and national parks across the country to learn first-hand about science in the field as well as trophies, medals and supplies for their schools science departments. The National Science Bowl draws more than 14,000 middle and high school competitors annually. Since the first competition in 1991, more than 290,000 students have faced off in the National Science Bowl Finals. An Omaha man was charged with second-degree theft after his arrest Friday morning, as police allege he stole a car. Ronald Shane Hoschar, 29, faces up to five years in prison if convicted. He is currently being held at the Pottawattamie County Jail without bond awaiting his initial appearance in court Monday. According to Council Bluffs Police, officers were notified at about 10:13 a.m. of a stolen gray 2001 Chevy Suburban seen heading east on Broadway from 32nd Street. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The car was being followed by a a party familiar with the vehicle being stolen. Police were able to get behind the car as it turned into an apartment complex at 805 Second Ave. Hoschar was apprehended and the car was returned to the owner without incident. Hoschar also was found to have a outstanding warrant for his arrest for violating his probation, issued Jan. 16. Hoschar pleaded guilty in October to leading officers on a high-speed pursuit on I-29 in September in a stolen vehicle which he knew was stolen and paid $45 for, police reported. Timothy Radermacher is new to town, and he brought a tune with him to St. Albert Catholic Schools. Radermacher, 22, is a Minneapolis native. He graduated from Wayzata High School in 2014 and later moved to Iowa to attend Luther College in Decorah, where he studied music education. He moved back to Minnesota last spring and worked a few jobs before an old professor of his sent him a job listing for the band instructor position at St. Albert. He applied, got the job and moved to Council Bluffs in the summer. Radermacher teaches band and directs the program for fifth-graders through high school seniors. He said his musical career started when he picked up the saxophone as a sixth-grader. After having the opportunity to learn a few different instruments, Radermacher said music was the life for him. He said he has enjoyed his time in Council Bluffs so far. Its been great so far, he said. Its been such a welcoming school and welcoming community. All of the students are great and we have a program with a lot of potential. You can tell they all just love playing and they like having fun, which is the best part for me. Radermacher said he would like to see more students get involved in the band programs as his time at the school goes on. As for himself, he said he wants to grow as a teacher and explore his new community ever further. An expansive effort to restructure Louisiana's fishing and hunting licenses and increase fees on commercial and recreational license-holders for the first time in more than two decades won easy approval from the Senate Monday. Six years ago, the New Orleans Police Department entered into a landmark agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to enact far-reaching reforms to prevent the excessive use of force, promote bias-free policing, combat corruption and ensure meaningful engagement with the community. Today, as the city prepares to make the case that the NOPD has met the terms of that agreement, it is vital that this process remain as open and transparent as possible. The City Councils decision not to televise Fridays (Jan. 25) public hearing on the NOPDs consent decree was completely wrongheaded and unjustifiable. It sends entirely the wrong message of preference for closed-door government at a time when the city should strive for absolute transparency. Remarkable reforms made at NOPD, but work on consent decree remains, judge says Although court hearings on the consent decree are public, they are held at times and locations that are not accessible for most workaday residents. This fact has made it difficult or almost impossible for most New Orleans residents to stay informed about the NOPDs progress in meeting its obligations. This is unacceptable. While the federal monitors charged with tracking the citys progress have acknowledged admirable steps forward, they dispute the citys internal assessment of 93 percent compliance. This is all the more reason for the public to have every opportunity to see for themselves the progress thats been made and the work that still needs to be done. Taxpayers also have paid dearly for NOPDs past abuses, as spending related to the consent decree is expected to reach $55 million by the end of this year. Thankfully, reporters at the Lens and NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune stepped in to provide live video of the hearing, and media coverage shed light on the proceedings. But the citys opposition to broadcasting the hearing on public-access television signals that Mayor LaToya Cantrells administration, the NOPD and the City Council prefer to operate in obscurity. At a time when the citys surveillance cameras are so widely focused on members of the public, why does the city balk at turning cameras on itself? Moving forward, city leaders should operate with the openness and transparency New Orleans residents deserve. Alanah Odoms Hebert Executive Director of the ACLU of Louisiana A Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges in nearby hospitals was to go into effect Monday (Jan. 28) after a federal appeals court decided this week against reconsidering a decision that upheld the law. On Friday, the 5th Circuit also quickly denied a motion seeking a delay in the effective date. That motion, however, triggered a seven-day delay under court rules. The law is now set to take effect on Feb. 4. The 2014 law requires abortion doctors to be able to admit patients to hospitals within 30 miles in case of any medical complications from the procedure. Opponents fear it will further restrict access to abortion services in Louisiana by potentially leaving some of the three remaining abortion clinics in the state with no other option but to close. Katie Caldwell, the clinic coordinator at the Womens Healthcare Center in New Orleans said the legislation could particularly impact low-income women who already have to travel from rural parts of the state or from out of state to get services. Its not just geography that makes a difference, she said. If they dont have the means to travel any distance, 90 miles away might very well mean 500 miles away. Abortion services are already limited in the Gulf South. There is only one abortion provider in Mississippi. The clinic in New Orleans frequently sees patients traveling from Mobile, southern Mississippi, and even as far as Houston to access services. Louisiana has only three abortion providers, including Women's Healthcare Center in New Orleans, and a clinic in Baton Rouge and in Shreveport. When the law was passed in 2014 there were five clinics in the state. Benjamin Clapper, the executive director of Louisiana Right to Life, a pro-life organization that lobbied in support of the law, said it will improve the standard of care in Louisianas remaining abortion clinics by putting in place the same requirements as in ambulatory surgical centers. Abortion providers typically have a transfer agreement with a local hospital which allows them to transfer a patient to the care of an attending physician in a nearby emergency room in case of an emergency during the procedure. Admitting privileges would allow the abortion provider to go to the hospital with the patient in case of any complications. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up These types of privileges havent been required because the complication rate of abortions is low, according to Amy Irvin, the executive director of the New Orleans Abortion Fund, an organization that provides funding assistance to patients who are unable to fully fund the procedure. In the past year the organizations hotline has received 1,742 calls from women in Louisiana looking for financial help to cover the costs of going to a clinic locally. The situation is dire. Women are already having to travel out of state for care, she said. The Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive health research organization, estimates that major complications from a first-trimester abortion (those requiring hospital, care surgery or transfusion) occur at a rate of less than 0.5 percent of the time. Louisianas law was challenged in 2017 after a similar law in Texas forced 32 abortion clinics to close when Texas doctors could not gain admitting privileges. The number of women forced to drive more than 150 miles in Texas increased by 350 percent, the appeals court said in its ruling. The appeals court determined that in Louisiana the law would have no impact on womens driving distances and added, "in Louisiana, however, the cessation of one doctors practice will affect, at most, only 30 percent of women, and even then, not substantially. Michelle Erenberg, the executive director of LIFT Louisiana, a womens health advocacy organization, anticipates however that the impact from the decision will be substantial with women having to travel out of state to Texas or to Mississippis remaining clinic for care. I dont think the one clinic in Mississippi is operating with the flexibility in their schedule to help thousands of women in Louisiana who need to be able to access care, she said. NOTE: This story was updated to include information about the court ruling that delayed the new law for seven days. AP reporter Kevin McGill contributed to this story. Three priests in the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi were removed from ministry after they were credibly accused of sexual misconduct of minors, the Biloxi Sun Herald reported. In a release on Thursday (Jan. 24), the Diocese identified them as former priests Jose Vazquez Morales, Jerome J. Axton and Vincent The Quang Nguyen. In all three cases, the Diocese notified the District Attorneys Office, the newspaper reported. The list does not include alleged abuse reported to have happened outside the Diocese by extern clergy who served in the Diocese, or allegations from before the Diocese was founded in 1977, the Sun Herald reported. The Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, is expected to release names of priests credibly accused of abuse this spring. The Archdiocese of New Orleans released the names of credibly accused clergy members under its jurisdiction on Nov. 2. Dozens of other dioceses around the country have made similar releases. Read the entire Sun Herald story here. New Orleans new superintendent of police on Friday (Jan. 25) told an audience of his command staff, the city attorney, the federal judge who oversees New Orleans Police Departments consent decree and others that he is committed to completing this circle, by pushing NOPD to become fully compliant with the court-mandated policing reforms. We will go forward. Will refuse and will not go backward, said Superintendent Shaun Ferguson, one week after taking over as chief of police. Ferguson addressed the group at Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law after U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan and pair of Washington, D.C.-based lawyers tasked with monitoring NOPDs compliance with the consent decree spoke about NOPDs progress. Entered into in early 2013 by the City of New Orleans and U.S. Department of Justice, the NOPD consent decree has been called the most comprehensive of its kind. It contains 492 directives intended to bring policing in New Orleans in line with constitutional standards. A justice department investigation into NOPD, following fatal shootings of unarmed civilians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, found NOPD was a broken department, and that basic elements of effective policing, clear policies, training... and accountably to the citizenry had been absent for years, Morgan said Friday. But in the last few years, she said, NOPD has become a national model of constitutional policing reform, with other agencies looking to New Orleans as guide for reform and innovation. Morgan brought up the justice departments pre-consent decree findings, she said, not to dwell on the past, but because it highlights how remarkable the transition has been. Former Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced in April 2017 his hopes that NOPD would reach full compliance with the reform document by the end of his term. That hasnt happened. While NOPD has made substantial progress toward the goal, the judge said, there is more work to be done. Substantial work remains on NOPD consent decree, feds tell city in tense letter exchange Areas still lacking compliance with court-ordered mandated reforms include supervision; recruitment; and stops, searches and arrests, said Jonathan Aronie, a D.C. lawyer who has served as lead monitor since the city entered into the consent decree six Januarys ago. Once Morgan, who is guided by the monitors recommendations, finds NOPD is fully compliant with all aspects of the reform document, NOPD must remain under the consent decree for at least two years at which point the oversight will downshift for a period of sustained compliance. Until we know the reforms will be sustained, our work is not complete, Morgan said. What still needs work before the 2-year clock starts Despite all the progress, deputy monitor David Douglass said the monitoring team has felt tremendous uneasiness in the quality of supervision at NOPD. Douglass, a partner in the same D.C. law firm as Aronie, Sheppard Mullin, said supervision would likely be our biggest area of focus, moving forward. Aronie has previously said that there are three problems with NOPD supervisors: those who dont care; those who care, but dont know how to properly supervise people under their charge; and those who care and know how to do their jobs, but dont have the time. The supervisors who dont care should not be supervisors, Aronie said. Those who dont know how to do their jobs should be trained, he said, and those with the will and knowledge should be given enough time and resources. Problems with supervision pertain mostly to sergeants and lieutenants, but can also apply to commanders, Aronie said after the hearing. Douglass said the consent decree requires a ratio of one supervisor to every eight officers or subordinates, and that is not always the case with NOPD. Especially when several supervisors require time off after working special events, the proper amount of supervision can be lacking, Aronie said. NOPD invested millions of dollars in an early warning system, called INSIGHT. The computerized system, which flags potential problems with officers such as complaints or missed days, is not used to full capacity, Douglass said. Its a tremendous tool, but only if used consistently by supervisors, Douglass said of INSIGHT. NOPD also continues struggling with recruitment, the monitors said. It has taken too long, Douglass said, up until recently, for NOPDs recruitment unit to run effectively. Internal communication regarding recruitment is lacking, he said. NOPD is still not attracting the quality recruits it really needs to grow to the level of force it needs, Douglass said. The monitors issued a report critical of recruitment in the summer of 2017 that found the vetting process overlooked certain red flags. While there have been strides in background investigations, Douglass said, we still see a need for improvement. Stops, searches and arrests, a critical component of constitutional policing, also requires more work before the department can be considered fully compliant with the consent decree, Douglass said. Monitors, who audit body-cam footage to oversee officers interactions with the public, are not finding blatant unconstitutional stops, he said, but NOPD officers make stops without being clear with those they stop about the process. Consent searches are not always approved by supervisors, which is required, he added. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Other areas in need of work include community engagement and performance evaluations, the monitors said. Achievements under the consent decree The areas of concern for the monitors should not overshadow the strides the department has made -- sometimes above and beyond consent decree requirements -- to reform the practices and culture of NOPD, Aronie said. Aronie cited two examples of innovative programs, EPIC and a detective training session with Innocence Project of New Orleans, that NOPD started and have garnered national attention. Neither are required by the consent decree, he noted. EPIC, which stands for Ethical Policing Is Courageous, trains officers and supervisors to intervene with their colleagues with an aim prevent misconduct before it occurs. Former NOPD superintendent Michael Harrison, who started a new job as police commissioner in Baltimore, plans to bring EPIC to the Baltimore Police Department, and other agencies, including the FBI, have shown interest. In 'EPIC' effort, New Orleans police work to stop officer misconduct before it happens As a result of NOPDs partnership with Innocence Project New Orleans, lawyers from the organization that helps overturn wrongful convictions teach detectives about investigative pitfalls like the fallacies of witness identification and false convictions. Complaints from the public have gone down each year except 2016 since NOPD entered the consent decree. There were 669 public initiated complains in 2013, 654 in 2014, 549 in 2015, 591 in 2016 and 470 in 2017, according to a presentation from Aronie. Officer-involved shootings and uses of force have reduced fairly steadily in recent years under the consent decree, Aronie said. In 2012, before NOPD entered the consent decree, there were 20 officer involved shootings, including nine people shot, nine animals and two accidental shootings. In 2018, NOPD saw the fewest officer-involved shootings since before the consent decree was implemented: four. One of the shootings involved an animal and three were accidental shootings, according to the presentation. Improvements in photo line-ups, interrogations, the K9 unit and the creation of the Office of Secondary Employment, which manages off-duty details, have also come a long way, the monitors said. Community satisfaction surveys show improvement in NOPDs relationship with the public, they said. Sustaining reforms The progress at NOPD shows the consent decree is working, justice department attorney Jude Volek said at Fridays public hearing. In some other cities where tens of millions of dollars have been spent on consent decrees, the reforms have not taken hold for long after the oversight ends, he said. Unfortunately, theyve slipped back, Volek said. The City of New Orleans has so far spent over $55 million on the consent decree and related costs since it was implemented in January 2013. Mary Howell, a member of the board of the National Police Accountability Project and civil rights attorney whose career has focused on representing people whose rights have been violated by the NOPD, said earlier this month the federal consent decree is a good long-term investment," and one that should not be rushed. The painstaking process to ensure NOPD is fully compliant with the consent decree before the two-year sustained compliance period begins is to meant to ensure the reforms take root, Volek said. Ferguson also pointed to measures taken up by the New Orleans City Council that ensure some of the reforms stay in place, via city ordinance. Council members Jason Williams and Helena Moreno attended much of Fridays hearing. Its been encouraging, Volek said, that NOPD has set up internal accountably systems, demonstrating the department has taken ownership of its own constructional reforms and is in a better position to retain them after the decree is lifted. While NOPDs violent crime remains high in comparison to cities its size, there have been reductions in the last two years in shootings and murders and a reduction the last three years in armed robberies, Volek said. It shows, he said, that the more the community trusts police, the more civilians can partner with law enforcement to help fight crime. Constitutional and effective policing go hand it hand, he said. Theres no timeline the monitors can provide for when NOPD will reach full compliance, Aronie said. To achieve it, however, NOPD must simple continue down the bath of progress it has so far forged. Watch the press conference below. Police arrested a fourth man in connection to the sex trafficking of a 16-year-old girl Thursday (Jan. 24), according to an arrest warrant. David Perry, 33 was booked with trafficking of children for sex purposes, second-degree rape and felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile, the warrant stated. Last month, police arrested Elbert Riascos, 29, and Jovan Martin, 24, in connection to drugging, beating and raping the 16-year-old. During an investigation with Louisiana State Police and other law enforcement officials, the girl told authorities that the two men prostituted her to at least three men. Police arrested 38-year-old Kentrail Foster, one of the men police say the girl was sold to for sex, on Jan. 11. Perry, also known as Tootie, was another man that the girl said raped her while Riascos and Martin held her against her will, police said. Police charge 3rd man in sex-trafficking of 16-year-old girl: warrant According to an arrest warrant, Martin arranged for the girl to meet Perry at a convenience store in the 7900 block of Chef Menteur Highway between December 11, 2018 and December 15, 2018, after Martin told the girl that he wanted her to make him some money. After the girl got in a white four-door Mercedes-Benz with Perry, Riascos gave her a cell phone and told her to call him if she needed anything, the warrant stated. Perry then took the 16-year-old girl to another convenience store near the intersection of Bullard Avenue and Haynes Street to buy a soft drink and then to his home in New Orleans East. Perry told the girl that he wanted her to leave Riascos and work for him as a prostitute, according to the warrant. When she refused, he got violent and raped the 16-year-old girl, police said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Missing teen rescued, 2 New Orleans men arrested in sex trafficking case: State Police When Perry fell asleep, the 16-year-old girl called Riascos and told him to pick her up, police said. After she tried to sneak out of Perrys home, he woke up and dropped her off at a gas station. Police conducted a search of Perrys address and looked him up on Facebook, the warrant stated. A photo on his Facebook page showed a man with a large tattoo on his chest that read Florida Projects, which matched the description the girl gave police. Given a six-person photographic lineup, the girl identified Perry as the man who raped her almost immediately, police said. She was visibly shaken to see his photo and explained that she had told Perry that she was 16 years old when he raped her, police said. Perrys bond was set at $500,000. He was removed from court for disruptive behavior, according to jail records. Riascos bond was set at $900,000 and Martins at $350,000 in December, after Orleans Parish Criminal Court Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell sparked outrage for initially setting their bond at amounts victims advocates called dangerously low. Orleans Parish Criminal Court Magistrate Judge Brigid Collins set Fosters bond at $300,000. Heres what experts want you to know about human trafficking in New Orleans Sweeney vs. Murphy coming to a debate stage near you? State Senate President Stephen Sweeney, New Jerseys highest-ranking state lawmaker, has challenged Gov. Phil Murphy a fellow Democrat but frequent rival to a debate on how to fix the states public-worker pension problem. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, issued the challenge Friday during an interview with NJTV, saying hed be willing to debate Murphy anywhere in this state, side by side. A spokesman for Murphys office declined to comment. BREAKING: @NJSenatePres Steve Sweeney challenges @GovMurphy to debate state's fiscal health. Catch a preview of On The Record tonight at 6, 7:30 and 11. pic.twitter.com/akqTQhuwJK NJTV News (@NJTVNews) January 25, 2019 The challenge comes one day after NJ Advance Media published a story about how a top Murphy aide discussed with liberal activists during a conference call how they could fight back against a false narrative she believes Sweeney is pushing against public-worker unions. The moved irked Sweeney, adding a new chapter to the strained relationship between New Jerseys top two elected state officials. Sweeney has issued a report called the Path to Progress, which outlines recommendations for how to save the state government money. One major suggestion is that New Jersey may need to make more cuts to public-worker pensions and health benefits, which swallow a large portion of the taxpayer-funded state budget each year. In the conference call, the aide Deborah Cornavaca, Murphys deputy chief of staff for outreach said shes "a unionist through and through and that I do agree with Governor Murphy that the commitments we made to public-sector workers are ones we have to figure out how to honor. Cornavaca made it clear on the call she was giving her own opinion and not acting in her role as a Murphy staffer. During Fridays interview, Sweeney reiterated that Cornavacas actions are disappointing. When youre speaking, youre part of the administration, he said. And I let the governor know I was disappointed about that. Thats when Sweeney challenged Murphy. Ive got to tell you: If theyre saying this is a false narrative, I would be willing to go anywhere in this state, side by side with Gov. Murphy and have a debate on this," he said. To see whether there is a problem or not a problem. Sweeney added that New Jersey is facing a financial crisis" because pension and health costs for government workers will blow a $4 billion hole in the state budget by 2023. The pension fund for state and local workers has $59.7 billion in unfunded liabilities, according to the state. You cant raise taxes enough to fix this now, Sweeney said. Murphy has not publicly said what he thinks of Sweeneys recommendations to cut pension and health benefits. Still, he is strongly pro-union and his administration issued its own report last month that called for changes to public-worker health benefits but stopped short of seeking cuts. Last year, Murphy signed a state budget that included more than $1 billion in state tax hikes to help pay for funding increases for pensions, education, and transportation. Murphy has not ruled out seeking further tax hikes in his second state budget proposal, which hell unveil in March. But the state Legislature has to pass the budget before Murphy can sign it. And Sweeney and state Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, have already said theyd oppose new tax increases, unless there are significant state government spending cuts. Though Democrats control both the governors office and Legislature after eight years of Republican Gov. Chris Christie, Murphy often clashed with Sweeney in his rookie year. In fact, if a debate does happen, itll offer a glimpse of what might have happened had both Murphy and Sweeney ran for governor two years ago. Sweeney originally planned to seek the 2017 Democratic nomination for governor but decided not to after Murphy, a multimillionaire set to spend millions of his own money, consolidated support from powerful county party chairs in North Jersey. Then, Murphy declined to step in when the New Jersey Education Association, the states largest teachers union, spent millions trying to unseat Sweeney in the Senate. That angered Sweeney. And last summer, Murphy sparred with Sweeney and Murphy over his tax hike plan, taking the state to the brink of another state government shutdown. Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. WASHINGTON In the three days before President Donald Trump and Congress agreed Friday to temporarily reopen the government while continuing to negotiate border security, House Democrats passed three measures designed to end the shutdown without funding for a southern border wall. Just five Republicans crossed party lines to back all three proposals. One was Rep. Chris Smith, New Jerseys only Republican in Washington. Smith, R-4th Dist., earlier was one of only six House Republicans to vote for separate legislation that reopened the government while providing federal aid to victims of recent disasters. He was one of only 10 GOP lawmakers who voted for legislation funding the Interior Department, and one of just 12 who voted for a bill to fund the Transportation Department. He also was one of seven House Republicans who joined a bipartisan effort to expand background checks to cover all gun purchases, including those at gun shows and over the internet. And so far this year, he supported Trump just 17 percent of the time through Friday, less than any other congressional Republican, according to Nate Silvers FiveThirtyEight. Hes always been like this, said Ben Dworkin, director of Rowan Universitys Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship. Smith has generally been very conservative on taxes and abortion but beyond that, he adjusts to reflect the very purple nature of much of his district. For his part, the longest-serving member of the states congressional delegation said hes doing what he always has done. What I always do, honestly, is make my own assessments, Smith said. I have always been fiercely independent but not for the sake of being independent. I honestly disagree or agree, depending on what the issue will be. Its jut how I do it." Smith was named one of the most bipartisan members two years running by Georgetown Universitys McCourt School of Public Policy and the Lugar Center, a public policy group headed by former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. He was the fifth biggest dissenter from the Republican Party line in 2017 on votes where a majority of the GOP went one way and a majority of House Democrats went the the other, according to Congressional Quarterly. And he opposed both major Republican priorities in the last Congress, repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would have left as many as 32 million more Americans without insurance; and passing a tax plan that capped the deduction for state and local taxes, targeting New Jersey and other high-tax states that sent billions of dollars more to Washington than they received in services. He voted with Trump less than all but eight other House Republicans in the recently concluded 115th Congress. That independence helped him survive last Novembers Democratic blue wave, which swept out four of New Jerseys five House members and left only Smith. That was despite the fact that he faced his first million-dollar opponent, Josh Welle, a Navy veteran and businessman. Smith also raised more thaan a million dollars for the first time in his 20 congressional elections. Unlike other Republicans who voted down the line with Trump and his party no matter what the impact on their constituents, Smith never had to worry about someone challenging him in a Republican primary because he was not loyal enough, Dworkin said. Hes safe enough and entrenched enough that he does not have to worry about taking a vote here and there, he said. This is who he is. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. I was one of the naive fools who felt relieved when Attorney General Gurbir Grewal moved the rape case against Al Alvarez to Middlesex County for a second look in October, after Hudson County decided against pressing charges. A fresh look made great sense, given revelations that the Hudson County Prosecutor, Esther Suarez, had profound conflicts of interest in the case. She had known Alvarez since 2003. And during the investigation, she was on the short list to be Gov. Phil Murphy's next attorney general, while Alvarez was a senior advisor to the governor's campaign. But I was dead wrong to feel relieved. Because Middlesex prosecutors did not conduct a fresh investigation into Katie Brennan's charge of rape after all. They didn't start from scratch. They relied heavily on the investigative work done in Hudson instead. What sense does that make? If the conflicts in Hudson raised doubts about the integrity of the investigation, why would Middlesex rely on their work? How could that possibly reassure Brennan, or the public, that she was getting a fair shake? Investigators in Middlesex did not bother to talk to Brennan's husband, who she called immediately after Alvarez left her apartment. They did not talk to her close friend, who rushed over to hold her hand while her husband flew back from a business trip abroad. How could they assess Brennan's credibility without taking those basic steps? And while they did invite Brennan in to tell her story, they asked only one question, according to her lawyer, Alan Zegas, who was present. "They asked her how much she had been drinking," he said. "And they took few, if any, notes." I don't know what happened that night, and the truth is no one but Alvarez and Brennan know for sure. He says it was consensual, she says it wasn't, and there is apparently no forensic evidence to break that tie. And so far, no one has presented evidence showing that Suarez meddled in the investigation. Grewal exonerated her, and the chief assistant supervising rape cases, John Mulkeen, says he made the decision against filing charges on his own. But neither Mulkeen nor Grewal would comment when asked if Suarez knew about the investigation. That's curious. Grewal's exoneration letter skips around that question, and Mulkeen refused to discuss it, even though he freely discussed the points that reflected well on his boss. Suarez says she knew nothing of the investigation, but many people find that hard to believe, including members of the Legislature's investigative committee. They have asked for e-mails from three specific dates in April and May of 2017, just as the investigation began. Suarez has refused to hand them over. Several sources said those e-mails discussed evidence in the case and were sent to Suarez. A subpoena is likely, so we'll probably find out more. In the meantime, Suarez seems to be preparing an ignorance defense: "My role is not to read documents and files all day long," she said when asked about the e-mails by Craig McCarthy of NJ Advance Media. "I have to trust that other people are doing what they need to do." Think about Brennan, having to wonder whether Suarez knew, whether Hudson's investigation was tainted, and why Middlesex wouldn't talk to her husband and best friend to help assess her credibility. Imagine what it felt like to her when she read a press release from Middlesex saying they found "no credible evidence" of rape. This is exactly why ethics laws talk about avoiding the "appearance" of a conflict. The appearance itself raises doubts that no victim should have to endure. If Grewal's purpose was to remove suspicions, then he should have insisted that Middlesex conduct a fresh investigation of its own, from the top. He left that up to Middlesex prosecutors, and he won't explain why. Middlesex won't discuss the case either. Grewal is a star in the Murphy administration, for good reason. But he's blowing this assignment. The Legislature needs to ask him if he knew about the e-mails that were reportedly sent to Suarez, and if so, why he exonerated her. While they're at it, they could ask him why Middlesex ignored the protocols on rape investigations he issued just a few months ago. "It is vital that prosecutors explain to victims - in a respectful and compassionate way - that sometimes criminal charges are simply not viable, and that a prosecutor can decline to charge a sexual assault case for a variety of reasons unrelated to the victim's credibility," the directive says. Middlesex sent an e-mail to Brennan's attorney, and issued a press release saying they found no credible evidence of rape, a message that suggests they believe Brennan was lying, even without doing the legwork needed to assess her credibility. Respectful and compassionate? Not so much. I can't second guess the final decision of prosecutors in Hudson or in Middlesex. Rape charges are notoriously difficult to prove, and discussing the evidence in public would be monstrously unfair to Alvarez, who deserves the presumption of innocence. But we can conclude this: New Jersey's criminal justice system mistreated Brennan from start to finish, just as Murphy's senior aides mistreated her. That's bound to discourage women who are raped from coming forward. And that's a tragedy. More: Tom Moran columns Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. Here is a grim New Jersey fact that makes you question how much weve evolved since Hackensack was a prairie: Since 1844, state law has deprived a sizable part of our citizenry the right to vote. Today, there are 73,000 New Jerseyans who are denied that fundamental civil right because they are on parole, or on probation all because lawmakers from an era dominated by the Whig Party decided that losing ones freedom was not a sufficient punishment. Felons, they figured, should also be excluded from the democratic process as long as they are serving a sentence. And today, you may be one of the 15,000 parolees who has already served time in prison. Or you may be one of the 58,000 New Jerseyans on probation, who has never even seen the inside of a jail. Under the law, that doesnt matter: Your voice does not count. You are still relegated to second-class citizenship. Yes, even here, in the state that initially refused to ratify the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote. Thankfully, there is political momentum to update our democracy by a century or two, and at least catch up to such citadels of progressivism as Utah and Montana, just two of the 14 states that restore voting rights for those on parole and probation. The Senate State Government Committee will conduct hearings Thursday morning and debate the bill. Thats the good news. The Assembly, however, isnt so eager: A spokeswoman for Speaker Craig Coughlin said leadership is still reviewing the bills and has no plan to post it anytime soon, which is code for Well look at this after Election Day. Thats a ludicrous dodge. If political capital cannot be spent on something as essential as the right to vote, there is no sense in having it. We have now spent 175 years trying to erase this moral stain on our democracy, as Ryan Haygood, president of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, calls it. The felon disenfranchisement laws have Jim Crow origins. After the Civil War, Southern States employed the Black Codes, which deprived former slaves from voting, so crimes such as moral turpitude or loitering were routinely enforced, all with the purpose of subjugating men of color. Behold, the Old South was avenged. But then it spread throughout the land, as many states used drug laws to banish millions of men of color from the mainstream. In New Jersey, blacks make up 15 percent of our population, yet they represent half of those who have lost their voting rights because of a criminal conviction. Only legislative cowardice could keep it that way. Whether those currently incarcerated should have their rights restored is a longer discussion, and a much heavier political lift. Only Vermont and Maine allow that. And it makes practical sense to put off that fight for now, rather than endanger voting rights for the 73,000 on parole and probation. There should not be any relationship between voting and the criminal justice system especially in New Jersey, where we have a 12-to-1 racial disparity in the adult incarceration rate, the largest in the country, Haygood says. If youre serious about criminal justice reform, you must acknowledge that voting facilitates reentry and reduces recidivism. Spot-on. When you restore a felons right to vote, he is three times less likely to re-offend. And if reform is truly the aim, recall what Justice William Brennan said of felony disenfranchisement: The very antithesis of rehabilitation, the iconic New Jerseyan called it. Once felons leave prison, we trust them to be productive members of society, pay bills, hold jobs, and to live responsibly. But it is an outrage that one antiquated law deprives them of full citizenship. After 175 years, its time that law was changed. Some Atlantic County activists are rallying to support Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner after three women who worked under him accused him of crimes and misconduct and sued him for gender discrimination. In a press release, the Organizing Committee to Support Prosecutor Tyner suggested that the accusations against Tyner were made because the women objected to his efforts to diversify the office something they deny. The group plans to hold a public rally and press conference Monday at 11 a.m. at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville. It is led by several pastors and members of the Atlantic City branch of the NAACP, but is not affiliated with the NAACP. One of the leaders, Charles Goodman, said many residents feel that Tyner, the first African-American prosecutor in the county, is a great leader who listens to and cares for the residents, and that hes been wrongly accused of gender discrimination. He has two daughters and I dont think theres any way a man with two daughters is going to discriminate against women, said Goodman, who is also political action chair for the NAACP chapter. In a complaint to state and federal law enforcement, and later in their lawsuit, the three women have accused Tyner of mortgage fraud, prosecutorial misconduct by hiding evidence, nepotism, and covering up sexual harassment complaints, among other things. The prosecutor, they claim, engaged in discriminatory behavior including demoting high-ranking women, promoting men and paying them more, cutting the women out of important matters and retaliating against them for asking for equal treatment. Tyner and several of his highest-ranking assistant prosecutors made disparaging and inappropriate comments about and to women, they claim. The women are Diane Ruberton, a former first assistant prosecutor who Tyner fired in June after she complained about alleged misconduct; Heather McManus, a former detective lieutenant who retired earlier this year after believing he intended to fire her; and Donna Fetzer, a chief assistant prosecutor who still works in the office. In an interview Friday, Goodman said he and others believe that the lawsuit and accusations against Tyner all began because people in the office were upset about how he tried to make the office more diverse. In a statement, Michelle Douglass and Phillip Burnham, the attorneys for the women, said the suggestion that the suit was racially motivated is offensive. The lawsuit is about Mr. Tyner's alleged retaliation against three courageous women who dared challenge him about alleged gender discrimination and unlawful or unethical conduct within the ACPO, the attorneys said. As we predicted, instead of explaining to Atlantic County taxpayers why they should not be outraged by the allegations in the lawsuit, Team Tyner apparently would prefer to 'circle the wagons' and attack these three women. Goodman said that Tyner has nothing to do with the group and will not be at the event Monday. The group also objected to how, at a press conference Jan. 10 to announce the lawsuit, an attorney for the women used the phrase Jim Crow to describe the kind of discrimination they faced. To associate the term Jim Crow with Prosecutor Tyner is outrageous and deserves an apology, said Linda Steele, president of the Atlantic City NAACP branch and leader of the group supporting Tyner. Asked to comment on the group and its plans for a rally, Tyner said he is "the product of parents who were born into legal segregation in the South during the 1920s and 1930s in the midst of the atrocities suffered by African Americans. As such, I am deeply offended that these plaintiffs would stoop to compare my leadership to Jim Crow Discrimination. Goodman said the committee decided to form and hold an event because they have been getting calls from community members wanting to know what they could do to respond to the accusations against Tyner. We thought we had to do something to paint the real picture of Prosecutor Tyner and push back on something thats trying to put this man in a bad light over politics, he said. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Authorities on Friday identified the woman killed in a crash involving a bus and three cars on Route 80 as a 21-year-old college student from New York who was reportedly traveling home to visit family. Brianna Herrera was a passenger on the commercial bus when the wreck occurred in Parsippany Thursday around 7:30 p.m., according to New Jersey State Police. Herrera, a Syracuse University student, was headed to visit her family in her hometown of Ozone Park, Queens, when the bus she was on crashed, Syracuse.com reported. She was studying information management and technology and a member of the Sigma Delta Tau sorority. We join our campus community in keeping Brianna, her loved ones and all who knew her in our thoughts and prayers, the school said in a statement. We have no words to describe the tragedy that occurred last night that took the life of one of our beloved sisters. Brianna was a senior in our chapter and loved by so many, the sorority said in an Instagram post. The sisters of Sigma Delta Tau will remember her infectious smile and positive light forever. Students gathered Friday night for a vigil at the Syracuse campus. Hundreds of students from across campus are gathering outside of Hendricks Chapel right now for a vigil in remembrance of Brianna Herrera. pic.twitter.com/cDnyTtk9GL CitrusTV News (@CitrusTVNews) January 25, 2019 This is a sad day for everyone - her family, her friends, our school, and the University as a whole. Brianna was an active member of our iSchool community, and she will be deeply missed, School of Information Studies Dean Elizabeth D. Liddy wrote in a message to students. The multi-vehicle wreck on Route 80 eastbound sent 21 people to Morristown Medical Center, according to officials. Two people remained hospitalized there Friday, including one in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. The other 18 were released. In all, 36 people were treated or evaluated from the crash, according to the Morris County Office of Emergency Management. Sad news in #Parsippany. Heavy traffic due to major bus accident! Hope everyone is safe pic.twitter.com/dRacx1Bdk3 Melinda Reyes (@botsreyes) January 25, 2019 State Police said the cause of the wreck remained under investigation. The bus was marked as being from New York-based Adirondack Trailways, which did not respond to requests for comment. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. An attorney from Hunterdon County facing theft and forgery charges had his bail revoked Thursday, a week after missing a court appearance, the Monroe County District Attorneys Office said. Scott M. Marinelli, 47, of Clinton Township, turned himself in Wednesday on a bench warrant issued after he failed to appear in court for a pre-trial conference Jan. 16, according to a news release from the prosecutor's office. He was sent to the Monroe County prison to await trial in April on dozens of charges filed in 2018. At his bail-revocation hearing, the prosecutors office said Marinelli continued to commit new fraudulent acts related to real estate while out on bail. Additional charges are likely, Monroe County Chief Detective Eric Kerchner said in the release. Marinelli was originally arrested last July on charges for allegedly failing to pay $15,801 in closing fees on four real estate deals he oversaw. Released on $25,000 unsecured bail, he is alleged to have been involved in the fraudulent sale of four other properties in Monroe Countys Cresco, Tobyhanna and Coolbaugh townships involving more than $230,000 in fraudulent mortgages. The man who had owned the properties said his signature was forged on the deeds and that he was not present at closing on the sales, according to the DAs office: The previous owner never received money for these properties and did not consent to the sale of the properties. The victim further stated that he previously worked with Marinelli at Mountain Lakes Abstract Co. without issue, according to court records from Thursdays hearing. Marinelli represented to him that he had investors to purchase his real estate properties. Marinelli was barred from representing himself as a title agent or settlement agent in any Pennsylvania real estate transaction under bail conditions set last July. Those original charges were related to the sales of four properties in Lehigh and Monroe counties in which Marinelli represented Mountain Lakes Abstract and Homestead Land Services, according to court records. In the latest fraudulent transactions: Marinelli is the only suspect, court records indicate. Also while free on bail, Marinelli is accused of participating in a scheme as a lawyer for Synergy Law to bilk consumers out of thousand of dollars by offering unfulfilled services to modify mortgages, file for bankruptcy and relocate families after they lost their homes in mortgage foreclosure, the Monroe County DAs Office said in the release issued Friday night. Detective Kerchner received complaints and information from bankruptcy courts and/or consumers in Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia, the release noted. Allegations of the unauthorized practice of law, charging of unreasonable compensation and fraudulent and deceptive practices were made in all seven states. Marinelli allegedly was paid $129,000 by Synergy Law between August and December 2018. Marinelli is not licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, and his New Jersey law license was suspended in January 2014 for allegedly failing to file a registration statement and pay the required registration fee. During the hearing it was also disclosed that Mr. Marinelli was under investigation for several additional criminal acts including thefts he allegedly committed as an employee of Homestead Land Services, falsifying documents submitted to First America Title Co. and the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics and the commission of various other schemes, fraudulent transactions and theft, Fridays news release stated. Marinelli is being represented by Pittsburgh-based attorney Mark Nolfi, who also represents Synergy Law, according to the release. Reached by phone Saturday morning, Nolfi declined to comment on Marinellis behalf or on his role with Synergy Law. The Monroe County District Attorneys Office asks that anyone believed to have been victimized by Marinelli between 2016 and the present call investigators at 570-517-3052. The prosecutor's office also wants to hear from anyone who used Synergy Law in relation to real estate in Monroe County, according to the release. The investigation is being led by Assistant District Attorney Christy Schlottman and Kerchner, the chief county detective. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. JERSEY CITY The mother of an 11-year-old girl whose bullying by fellow students at a Jersey City school was caught on video is breathing a sigh of relief that her daughter has been transferred to another school. But Crystal Mason is still angry about the incident and wants to bring attention to what she calls a persistent problem of bullying at School 24, an 800-student elementary school on Virginia Avenue. "My daughter was crying that she didn't want to go back to this school because she's afraid," said Mason. On Dec. 19, a parent of another child in the girls class posted a video to Facebook of a group of boys attacking Masons sixth-grade daughter, Ciara. The video shows one boy who is about a head taller than her throwing her to the ground, pushing her up against a wall and calling her a profanity. The boy is 13 years old, according to Mason. "I was devastated by the video," she said. "I started screaming and crying. The teacher who is usually in the classroom was out and replaced by a substitute, who left the room during the fight to get help, according to Mason. The parent who posted the video is Ty-Nifa Chandler-Watson. She said her son, 12, filmed it. He sent me that video showing me that his class was out of control, Chandler-Watson said. I posted the video to show that these kids are left unattended and alone. Her son was also a victim of bullying at the school, she added. He was attacked by a classmate, leaving him with deep scratches on his face, she said. The 30,000-student district reported 67 total instances of harassment and bullying in 2016-17, up from 62 three years before. Both moms say the school gave them the "runaround" when they asked for help in December. Chandler-Watson said her son was suspended for taking the video that showed Masons daughter being attacked. Asked to comment, school district spokeswoman Maryann Dickar told The Jersey Journal she cannot comment on student disciplinary records. After The Jersey Journal contacted Dickar, the district offered to transfer Ciara to another school. That happened last week. The girl is happy there, her mom said. She loves her new school and her new class and friends, Mason said. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. Andre Braugher is best known for playing cops and military commanders on TV and in movies. That's one reason he was drawn to a lead role in American Theatre Group's "Tell Them I'm Still Young," which will have its world premiere at South Orange Performing Arts Center Jan. 26. "It's quite a change from the stuff I used to do. It's a funny, intimate, touching play," Braugher said in an interview with NJ Advance Media. "To do a play as humane as this, as lovely as this, is a pleasure." Playwright Julia Doolittle's story centers on a long-married couple who are trying rebuild their lives and their relationship after the unexpected death of their daughter. Things become further complicated when two young people enter their lives and prompt thoughts of "What if?" Braugher is the male lead, a history professor. Michele Pawk, who won a best featured actress Tony Award for "Hollywood Arms," plays his wife, a poet. Braugher, who graduated from Julliard School's Drama division with a Master's degree in 1987, is best known as a dramatic actor. His first role was in 1989's "Glory" playing a free black man who joins the Union Army. A big fan of Shakespeare, Braugher won an Obie Award for his performance as the title character in "Henry V" in the 1996 Shakespeare in the Park Festival - and he's had roles in "Othello," "Richard the II" and other Shakespeare classics. In 2014, he told "The New York Times" that his love of the Bard is so deep that he has avoided reading the play "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" until later in life: "I've never read it because I'd like to see one Shakespeare play that I don't know what happens ... I close my ears and hum whenever I hear anything about 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre.'" Braugher began building his loyal fan base while playing homicide detective Frank Pembleton in "Homicide: Life On The Streets" from 1993-1998. Set in Baltimore, the drama based on the book by David Simon is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest TV police procedurals ever aired. Braugher won his first Emmy Award playing Pembleton. Braugher's second Emmy came in 2006 for his role as a robber juggling his illegal activities with his personal life in the six-episode mini-series "Thief." His resume All of that makes his current success in comedy all the more notable. He's currently scene-stealing Captain Ray Holt on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," a role for which he's earned three Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Emmy nominations. IndieWire concluded that Braugher made straight-laced Holt, "one of broadcast televisions's funniest characters." "Comedy is difficult but it's also incredibly pleasurable and so rewarding when it works well," Braugher said. "Comedy engages your brain and when people come out of a show laughing, they remember it for a long time." Yet a decade ago, when someone asked Ray Romano if he'd consider casting Braugher in the comedy-drama "Men of A Certain Age," the comedian replied, "You mean the guy from 'Homicide' that scares everybody?" Later, Romano joked that he did a web search for "Andre Braugher and comedy and "We stumped Google ...We couldn't find anything." Romano cast him anyway. "Comedy is difficult and those three years on 'Men of a Certain Age' really taught me a lot," said Braugher, who has been nominated for work on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine." "I learned a lot by watching comedians. Their physical humor and their commitment to a comic reality that's just a little bit extreme, a little bit exaggerated, but with a core commitment and dignity to what they do." "Tell Them I'm Still Young" is yet another sharp turn. Braugher's last major stage role was in the Civil War drama "The Whipping Man," which ran off-Broadway in 2011. Braugher said he fell in love with "Tell Them I'm Still Young" after doing a staged reading of the play with Pawk in New York last year. (The pair, both South Orange residents, met when they missed the train to Manhattan beforehand.) He said he saw something unique in Doolittle's work and was impressed by how the playwright, who graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 2013, captured the essence of a 30-year marriage. "Stories that involve marriage typically involve who's fooling around with who," he said. "This seems to touch on all of the things as adults we work our tails off: to preserve a family, to support and love the people around us and to continue to do right by others." The actor knows what it takes to maintain a long-term relationship: he recently celebrated his 27th wedding anniversary with Ami Brabson - who played his character's wife on "Homicide." The couple moved their family to New jersey in 1998 for "the backyard, the Little League games, the community of a small town." "We brought three boys into the world and there's nothing more joyous than that," he said. "It's made life meaningful and we did that together. It's one achievement we made together that surpasses all others." TELL THEM I'M STILL YOUNG South Orange Performing Arts Center One SOPAC Way, South Orange Tickets: $35-49, available online at www.sopacnow.org. Jan. 24 - Feb. 3. Natalie Pompilio is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She can be reached at nataliepompilio@yahoo.com. Find her on Twitter @nataliepompilio. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook. Move over, Singled Out. A new dating show is joining the MTV lineup, featuring a bromance for the ages. Jersey Shore Family Vacation stars Vinny Guadagnino and Pauly DJ Pauly D DelVecchio are getting a spinoff series. The premise: they need dates. It turns out their famous bromance just wasnt cutting it. The two bachelors, who appeared on the original run of Jersey Shore" which debuted in 2009 and ended in 2012 before returning for the reality series revival in 2018, will head up the dating competition series Double Shot at Love With DJ Pauly D & Vinny," MTV announced on Friday. Guadagnino and DelVecchios new show is produced by SallyAnn Salsanos 495 Productions, the same team behind Jersey Shore, which created the similarly named reality competition series A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila in 2007. The moment weve all been waiting for, Guadagnino tweeted. Me and my boyfriend have a new show... a crazy dating competition show.. what could go wrong ? You asked for it, and it's happening!!! Your favorite bromance is getting a show, A Double Shot At Love With DJ Pauly D & Vinny! https://t.co/F9ilH7I0VL pic.twitter.com/ffXM3ANSZy Jersey Shore (@JerseyShore) January 25, 2019 MTV shared news of the upcoming series with a video looking back on the duos famous bromance. While the two Shore denizens were often on the prowl in the original Jersey Shore, they developed an enduring love for one another which they have sustained through the series revival. Last season, the castmates even had a bromitment ceremony, for which Guadagnino wore a veil to walk down the aisle cement his bond with DelVecchio at a Las Vegas chapel (Elvis presided, of course). Now that Guadagninos last relationship (with a woman) went south, hes game for being Single Vinny again (not to be confused with Single Ronnie). DelVecchio, 38, is a successful DJ who hails from Rhode Island and currently lives in Las Vegas, where he has a residency and a souped-up bachelor pad. He has one daughter. Guadagnino, 31, has embraced the ketogenic lifestyle, calling himself keto guido," and now lives in his own Staten Island home (near his mothers house). The network says 20 contestants will be given a chance to win over Guadagnino and DelVecchio, who will also have to compete for the affection of the contestants, according to the announcement. Echoing past bachelor-centered dating competitions, in each episode, women vying for the affection of Vinny and Pauly will face an elimination ceremony. Double Shot at Love will air later this year. This is the second Jersey Shore spinoff for both Guadagnino and DelVecchio. In 2012, DelVecchio starred in The Pauly D Project, which was the first spinoff from the Shore crew, premiering months before the end of the original series, featuring DelVecchio and his friends from back home in Rhode Island and other associates in an Entourage-like setup. In 2013, Guadagnino tried his hand at sustaining a show alongside his mother Paola and family, including his Uncle Nino. The Show with Vinny was an offbeat talk show in which Guadagnino interviewed various celebrities, including Lil Wayne, at his Staten Island home and other unconventional places. Like DelVecchios show, that series only lasted one season (though Guadagnino also co-piloted a Cooking Channel show with his mother, Vinny & Ma Eat America.) The only successful Jersey Shore spinoff was Snooki & JWoww, which ran for four seasons on MTV, from 2012 to 2015, starring Nicole Snooki Polizzi and Jenni JWoww Farley. The duo appears alongside Guadagnino, DelVecchio and the rest of the Jersey Shore cast (except Sammi Sweetheart Giancola) in Jersey Shore Family Vacation, which is slated to return for a third season. The next season of the show will likely document the drama surrounding the sentencing of Mike The Situation Sorrentino, who recently reported to federal prison to serve eight months for tax evasion. Starting in 2018, Polizzi, who lives in Florham Park, co-hosted How Far is Tattoo Far?" on MTV with Nico Tortorella. In the reality show, people get tattoos chosen by their significant others, friends or family members, with disastrous results. Polizzi is now expecting her third child. Toms Rivers Farley, who has been sharing her son Greysons progress after he was diagnosed with autism, has been in the headlines for her rocky breakup from husband Roger Mathews. Her co-star, Deena Nicole Cortese, recently welcomed her first baby, son Christopher John Buckner. Jersey Shore Family Vacation" star Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, meanwhile, is reportedly still at odds with on-off girlfriend Jen Harley, the mother of his young daughter. Their often violent, stormy relationship has been a running storyline on the show and in TMZ headlines. Have a tip? Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. A woman seen in surveillance photos may have information on a shooting, and authorities are looking for her. A 35-year-old man from Philadelphia was shot late on Jan. 19 at a Motel 6 in Brooklawn, the Camden County Prosecutors Office said. Officers arrived at the hotel just before midnight and found the man with multiple gunshot wounds. The shooter fled the scene. Anyone with information who can identify the woman or her whereabouts, or has seen the SUV, should call prosecutors Detective Mike Batista at 856-676-8175 or Brooklawn Detective Raymond McKenney at 856-456-0750 ext.171. Information may also be emailed to ccpotips@ccprosecutor.org Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@JBrandt_NJ. FindNJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Newsfrom Japan Miyazaki, Jan. 25 (Jiji Press)--The Miyazaki prefectural government is developing a high-technology system to help save labor in Japan's forestry industry saddled with a lack of successors. To save labor on weed clearance, the Miyazaki government hopes to establish the system to spray herbicide around saplings from an unmanned helicopter using global positioning technology. The Miyazaki government aims to put the system into practical use in fiscal 2020. If realized, it would be the first such system to be commercialized in Japan, according to prefectural officials. The southwestern prefecture is the country's largest producer of cedar logs. The amount of trees cut down is growing on rising demand for wood. Weed clearance is grueling work that must be undertaken for six years after saplings are planted to replace felled trees. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Guideto Japan The namahage of Oga, Akita Prefecture, are notable for their fierce masks and strange costumes. These are raiho-shin, gods come to bring good fortune at special times of the year. These visiting deities are an integral part of local festivals in many parts of Japan. Global Recognition for Local Fiends In November 2018, UNESCOs Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage added the masked and costumed namahage of Oga, Akita Prefecture, and other raiho-shin and related festivals to the UNESCO listing of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Raiho-shin are deities that appear at certain times of the year to admonish the lazy and naughty and to bring bountiful harvests and good fortune. Men wearing fierce masks and strange costumes go from house to house to scold naughty children while dispensing blessings in a raucous community tour. Among other raiho-shin included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage list are the pantu of Miyako Island in Okinawa Prefecture and the amamehagi of Noto in Ishikawa Prefecture. The total encompasses 10 elements involving Raiho-shin in eight prefectures, including the toshidon of Koshikijima in Kagoshima Prefecture which were the first to be registered in the Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2009. All involve events in which men dressed in fierce masks and strange costumes go house to house to scold the naughty and bring good fortune. In the Tohoku region, four local customs were selected: the namahage of Oga, the Yoshihama suneka of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, the Yonekawa Mizukaburi Festival of Tome, Miyagi Prefecture, and the amahage of the Koshogatsu festival in the town of Yuza, Yamagata Prefecture. Meet the Namahage In the dark of New Years Eve, the namahage go from house to house chanting loudly, Where are the crying children? Where are the children who disobey their parents? Children are quick to promise they will never do anything bad again when confronted by the prancing namahage with their fierce masks, straw cloaks, waving big (but thankfully fake) knives. After being served sake and food by the head of the household, the namahage depart in high spirits to make their way to the next house. Tourists can see the namahage, who traditionally appear on New Years Eve, at the Namahage Sedo Festival held every year in February. This festival takes place on the grounds of the Shinzan Shrine, believed to be where the tradition of the namahage originated. After receiving sacred masks under the flickering light of numerous torches, young men make their way up a mountain where they are transformed into namahage. The sight of the beasts returning in the snow bearing torches is breathtaking. The festival also includes a reenactment of the namahage of Oga and a thrilling drum performance. The Namahage Museum near the Shinzan Shrine displays items related to the tradition, and has a large screen showing a video of the namahage on their annual New Years Eve rounds of local homes. Next door, in the Oga Shinzan Folklore Museum, visitors can meet namahage face-to-face in a re-created traditional home setting. The term namahage is believed to come from the word namomi, the name of the rash-like blisters caused by sitting too close to a fire for too long. Namahage refers to peeling away the blisters, the implication being that a person sitting idly by a fire should peel away the heat blisters and get working. This seasonal visitor is a frightening and yet humorous deity that compels people to rue their laziness of the past year while at the same time blessing them with good fortune for the new year. The Yoshihama suneka of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture The Yoshihama suneka of Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture are a particularly dreadful Raiho-shin distinguished by their dog-like, demon-like black masks. Every year on Koshogatsu, the Little New Years of January 15, the suneka make their rounds in search of lazy people and naughty children. The term suneka is thought to refer to the peeling of heat blisters from the shins. The straw capes worn by the suneka are embellished with abalone shells gather from the nearby coastline. The rattling of the shells as the suneka make their rounds is a frightening sound for the waiting children. The Yonekawa Mizukaburi Festival The Yonekawa Mizukaburi Festival is a festival to protect homes from fire that takes place in the Itsukamachi district of Yonekawa in Miyagi Prefecture. Nearly naked mendraped in straw capes, sacred shimenawa ropes looped around their necks, and their faces smeared with sootmake their way through the district, splashing water on themselves and the roofs of the houses they pass. Tradition has it that there will be a fire if anyone who is not a resident of the district dares to participate in the festival; outsiders are only allowed to watch. The straw capes are thought to provide special protection against fire, and the locals vie with each other to pull out pieces of straw from the capes. Placed on rooftops, these talismans serve as charms to ward off fire. The Yuza Koshogatsu Festival Amahage The Yuza Koshogatsu Festival takes place in three hamlets in the Yamagata Prefecture town of Yuza. The protagonists of the festival are amahage that closely resemble the namahage of Oga but are distinguished by different characteristics for each hamlet. In one, the amahage do not speak but instead make a high keening noise. In another, the amahage make their rounds in menacing silence, while in the third hamlet, it is their strange costumes that scare the children. Young men transform themselves into the amahage with masks of demons and old men and costumes made of layers of straw known as kendan. They go from house to house to pray for bountiful harvests and protection from disease and disaster. The raiho-shin are an integral part of traditional local festivals that focus on the home. It is permissible to observe them on their rounds, but do not forget that they are gods on a sacred mission and should by no means be interfered with. (Originally written in Japanese. Banner photo: Namahage making their way from house to house in the snow. Reporting and text by Shoepress. Photos courtesy of the Oga Tourism and Commerce Division unless otherwise indicated.) Niagara Falls, NY (14301) Today Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. High near 80F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 60F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. MADISON At Island Avenue Elementary School in Madison, an interactive sensory movement walkway gives students the chance to get their wiggles out and better focus on their work, said Principal Rebecca Frost. Teachers are already seeing positive impacts on education. Inspired by a similar initiative in a Canadian school, the walkway works a bit like an obstacle course: tape creates various unique paths on the ground, and instructions on the walls tell students how to use it. At a series of wide logs, which consist of brown tape, students are asked to frog jump between them. In another section of the walkway, students trace a complex, zig-zagging route outlined by blue tape; theyre supposed to do that one backwards. The segments come together in a loop, so that if a student has trouble focusing, the teacher can suggest they go into the hallway and do two laps on the walkway. As two students worked their way around the entire loop on Friday, a third cut through the area. He could not help but trace the blue path on his way. A teachers effort The project started when Maria Barnikow, a kindergarten teacher, observed that many kids in the school need movement breaks during the day. Barnikow is a kindergarten teacher at Island Avenue. Though the students get 45 minutes of recess every day, Frost said, teachers wanted something quick and accessible that would allow kids who were having trouble focusing to work off energy. Frost brought in P.E. teacher Bradford Tucker, who she said researched what a movement walkway could be. They brought the idea to their leadership team, and everyone agreed they should give it a try, Frost said. Frost and Tucker purchased the necessary materials and set up the project in a small section of the hallway. Tucker also made a video that taught students how to use the walkway. Tucker worked on the project during his free time, said Frost. A positive impact The school is slated to close in June due to a district-wide reconfiguration, but Frost said she and her staff continue to address the needs of their students regardless. In fact, the initiative has gotten such a positive response, Frost said, that the school may install another walkway in a different section of the school. On Friday, kindergarten teacher Maggie Torrison told Frost about a student who was struggling through a reading assessment. She sent him out to use the sensory walkway and when he came back, he aced the assessment. When the kids get to move, theyre more focused and better able to learn, said Barnikow, the teacher whose concern for students sparked the project. The students are also able to advocate for themselves, Barnikow said. If they need to use the walkway to refocus, they let her know. meghan.friedmann@hearstmediact.com HARTFORD Witnesses Friday before the House Committee on Contested Elections did not dispute previous testimony that 76 voters who cast ballots at Stratfords Bunnell High School in the 120th House District were wrongly given ballots for the 122nd District. For up-to-date information on public policy issues, sign up for the CT Politics newsletter. But Bill Bloss, attorney for Democratic state Rep. Phil Young, who has been sworn-in as district representative, argued that for the House of Representatives to order a new election, Republican challenger Jim Feehan should have to meet a high bar of proof. Bloss urged the committee to consider the precedent of some U.S. House of Representatives election decisions. Young won by only 13 votes. Mr. Young has the prima facie right to the seat, said Bloss. In the absence of a showing that the results of the election would be changed, lack of knowledge of registration laws, improper enforcement by officials charged with their administration are not such irregularities as would void the results of the election. After the meeting Bloss said that he and Young are reviewing all the testimony and do not yet know whether they would be for or against a new election. Feehans attorney was not present Thursday or Friday to give a statement, but both attorneys and candidates are invited to submit written statements to the committee before Wednesday. The four-member committee - State Reps. Michael DAgostino, D-Hamden, Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, and Gregory Haddad, D-Storrs, have until Feb. 4 to decide whether to hold a new election, or to suggest a different remedy. DAgostino did tell Bloss during the committee meeting he is not now considering ordering a new election. Haddad seemed to concerned to hear that the one voter who noticed he was handed the ballot for the wrong district walked past many election officials to speak to Republican assistant registrar David Heriot, stationed at the front door of the gymnasium, about his incorrect ballot. He asked Heriot numerous questions about this point. He choose to come to me, Heriot said. Why I dont know. Joseph Collier, Democratic assistant registrar, testified that he could have been the person to give the incorrect ballots to the ballot clerks because he passed out the majority of the ballots on Election Day. It was a mix-up, whether I did it unintentionally I dont really know, Collier said. emunson@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @emiliemunson NEW HAVEN Yale University will be taking up space in the Alexion building on College Street, after talks of deals to expand its medical labs. In furtherance of the universitys academic priorities, Yale has entered into a lease at 100 College Street in New Haven, an ideal location that connects the universitys medical and central campuses, Provost Ben Polak said in a release. Originally, when Winstanley Enterprises, the Massachusetts-based company that is the landlord for the building, was overseeing construction of 100 College Street, Yale had committed to taking 110,000 square feet in the research lab building to provide more laboratory space for its medical school researchers. As Alexion Pharmacuticals projected its growing space needs, the company first asked Yale whether it could occupy half of the space the university was counting on at 100 College Street, then later requested the rest of the 110,000 square feet. Yale has been looking to lease space in the building for biotech start-ups after Alexion announced it would be moving its headquarters out of New Haven. The Yale Office of Cooperative Research launched 11 new faculty ventures in 2017, representing $70.9 million in aggregate funding. But once a professors lab findings are converted into a company, the business entity can no longer be housed in university-owned space, and lab space in the city is limited. Yale is holding off on saying whether the leased space will be for its medical school researchers. Announcements about how the Yale space at 100 College St. will be utilized to support the universitys academic priorities will be forthcoming as implementation of the USSCs recommendations and other initiatives are finalized, according to a release by the university. In 2017, Yale officials confirmed discussions about some of the Yale spin-offs moving into available space in 100 College Street, but didnt specify at the time what they would be because negotiations were underway, the Register reported. Alexion will continue to lease approximately half of the 14-story, 513,000-square-foot building, including occupying all of its existing laboratory space, with about 450 employees, the release said, while Yales lease ensures the building remains fully occupied. The Alexion building benefits from the assessment deferral program in which the property value is fixed at the base assessment during construction and taxes are phased in over 10 years. Phase-in started in 2018 and the tax payments are set to increase significantly around $2 million for the first time beginning in 2020. Under state law, nonprofit educational institutions are exempt from paying property tax, but in Yales lease at 100 College Street, that portion of the property wont be tax-exempt, City Assessor Alexander Pullen said. In order to qualify for that exemption, Yale needs to own the property and use it for educational purposes. New Havens reliance of property tax to support its annual budget 51 percent has been a fiscal issue with 55 percent of the grand list being tax exempt. Yale University, as of the 2017 grand list , pays approximately $5 million in taxes per year on its $117,082,000 assessed taxable property. Yale New Haven Hospital, on the other hand, pays $3.16 million. Properties are assessed at 70 percent of fair market value and all calculations assume the present tax rate of 42.98 mills. Based on the 2017 grand list, the most recent available, the university has approximately $3,302,900,000 in assessed property not present on the citys taxable list, Pullen said. This would equate to approximately $141,960,000 in taxes at todays mill rate of 42.98, he said. Yale hospital currently has $1,209,542,216 in assessed property not present on the citys taxable list, which would equate to approximately $51,988,629 in taxes at todays tax rate, he said. Under those calculations, the city would receive approximately $194 million in revenue if it were able to tax Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital. But they are purely hypothetical because many factors would come into play if the grand list were $4.5 billion higher , Pullen said, including a lower tax rate or not getting a voluntary payment in lieu of taxes from Yale or the state. Yearly, the university gives New Haven $11.4 million in a voluntary payment in lieu of taxes and for fire service; the hospital sends $2.6 million. mdignan@hearstmediact.com Fred Caplan calls it my man cave of memorabilia and its all within the tall walls of a warehouse on State Street in Hamden, alongside the railroad tracks. You could easily miss it as you drive by, unless you spot the glowing orange neon sign advertising Neon sales and service. Caplan, owner of Elm City Neon, is one of a dwindling endangered species: neon tube benders. If youre as clueless as I was until I walked into that fun man cave, you have no idea that those classic signs need to be created by master craftsmen who have been taught the trade. The process requires heating the glass and molding or welding the letters and shapes. Caplan showed me how he transfers the gas from a beaker into the glass tube. But I was a tad distracted during his demonstration because my eyes were wandering all around the giant garage, featuring shelves upon shelves piled with old signs, extending up to the high ceiling. When I arrived, I was drawn first to the iconic sign I had not seen for more than 10 years: Yankee Doodle Coffee and Sandwich Shop. It was like seeing an old friend, this welcoming depiction of a waiter carrying coffee on a tray. Through many decades, until the anguish of the eaterys closing in January 2008, that sign hung over Elm Street in New Haven, near the corner of York Street. The Doodle had just 12 stools and they were often all occupied. I took it down when (the Doodles owner) Rick Beckwith was trying to get another location, Caplan said. (It never happened). He wanted me to save and store it. Yeah, people freak out when they see it. He showed me the area within the sign where the neon used to be. Im gonna re-do the original neon, put it up on the rafters here and light it up! Ive got the Doodles cigarette machine too, Caplan said, taking me to a separate room near the front door thats filled with pinball machines (including a Pinball Wizard model showing the Who) and more signs, many of them for historic New England beers such as Hulls and Narragansett. A smaller sign next to those reads: 5 cents a dance. That cigarette machine still has Camel and Pall Mall display packs.You know what was in here? Caplan asked. Sand! There must have been sand bags inside, so nobody would steal it. Then he showed me a second Yankee Doodle sign, the one that used to grace its front window. Featuring a large letter Y overlaying it, the message reads: Yankee Doodle Delicious Burgers Coffee Complete Breakfast. But deeper in the room with the cigarette machine and pinball machines, almost obscured by all the other artifacts, patiently waits Caplans all-time favorite sign, the one he has vowed to restore before I die: a big, big Howard Johnsons greeting. If youre of a certain age and can remember the era before Hojos went out of business, youll enjoy this: the cook with the pies, the boy eagerly awaiting the goodies, the dog crouched alongside him. I got it from the Howard Johnsons on Main Street in Waterbury, Caplan said. They were going to throw it in the trash! He said that once he finishes restoring it, hell put the sign up for sale. He figures it could fetch up to $30,000. Caplans tour also included the sign from the Hartford Drive-In movie theater and one for Howdy Doody delicious twin pop Popsicles. Over in a corner, near a roaming cat named Target, sits a phone booth Caplan purchased from a factory in Massachusetts. Im just a big little kid! he freely admitted. I buy all kinds of neon memorabilia and other stuff. Caplan showed me his photo collection, many of them of his lifetime passion: Savin Rock Amusement Park in West Haven. Heres a photo of a big sign at Jimmies, the popular restaurant of that long-ago era: Jimmie says Im proud of my 11,000,004 satisfied customers. Here are photos of Peter Frankes Fun House, the scooter rides, Tiernans Dine and Dance. Caplan also has dispiriting shots of the rides being torn down in the 1960s when the park was closed. I grew up in Hamden but I went to Savin Rock when I was a kid. The phone rang just once during my visit but I got to hear Caplan answer by saying: Elm City! How many business owners can do that? When I asked Caplan what is the appeal of neon, he replied: The appeal? Theres nothing like it. When youre driving down the road and you see it, it turns your head. I want to see a picture of something, he added. Not five lines of boring copy. I dont want to see words. Caplan still remembers an early sighting of neon. I used to go to the M&T Market on Legion Avenue. They had a neon fish with a wagging tail. It made quite an impression on the young lad. But he didnt get started on neon as a profession until he was 25. I bought a neon sign at a flea market and I was hooked. A guy in Rhode Island taught me the fundamentals of bending. Later, Caplan met another tube bender, Randy Buccelli, who operated Joeran Neon Signs with his father in North Haven. Buccelli has retired but Caplan said, He comes in now and then to bend a tube. Caplan showed me a neon clock he is restoring for a customer: Mara Lavitt, a New Haven Register staff photographer for many years. Lavitt is the one who tipped me off about Caplan. Hes such a sweet guy, she told me over the phone from her home in Ivoryton. Ive had this clock for probably 40 years, she said. It has sentimental value and I like the light of the neon. It lights up our downstairs at night. When it started to flicker I called a clock repair shop in Deep River; he told me, I dont do neon. Then I called a sign business in Centerbrook. He said, We dont do neon and we dont know anyone who does. And so Lavitt did a Google search and came up with two neon repair shops: Caplans and one in Bethel. When she needed to do something else in the New Haven area, she brought her clock to Caplan. He told me about another customer, a man who lives in the Naugatuck Valley. Hes a sword swallower. I made a neon sword for him and he swallowed it! His whole throat was lit up red. I asked Caplan why he has a blue van parked in the middle of his man cave. Thats my neon van. He opened a door and let me peek inside. Thats my neon bar. This was the 70s! Many of us have seen Caplans work without knowing it, including at some famous pizza palaces. I repaired the signs at Pepes, Sallys and Roseland in Derby, he said proudly. Caplan assured me he is going to clean up his place. I want to make a little man cave showroom out of this. I noticed he lapsed into the past tense when he said a little later: The intent was to make a museum. A least I had the ammo to do it, anyway. I hope I get to live long enough to bend half of the signs Ive got here, he said. (He is 59). There are only five of us left in Connecticut. Its scary; I dont know whats going to happen with neon. Nobodys willing to learn it. Theres nothing like neon. I never knew LED lights would replace all the window signs. Theyre just dots! LED stands for light-emitting diodes. I call them light-emitting disasters. Contact Randall Beach at 203-680-9345 or randall.beach@hearstmediact.com NEW HAVEN Advocates for affordable housing have been advised to stay on top of the agencies and personnel responsible for implementing changes recommended to boost housing options for struggling households in the city. Use your voices. Make them hear you, the Rev. Bonita Grubbs, who heads Christian Community Action and was a member of the Affordable Housing Task Force, said after it adopted its final report Thursday. The task force, which was established in March and starting meeting in June, said passionate public testimony greatly influenced the comprehensive document that covers zoning changes, regional responsibility and stepped-up enforcement of housing violations. They each had a chance to reflect on the recommendations and how they can be implemented. The group was pleased with the direction it sets out, but Karen DuBois-Walton said one thing was missing. DuBois-Walton, who heads the Housing Authority of New Haven, said there was no one on the task force who personally had experienced housing instability. She said this mistake was ameliorated by the testimony of residents who have had to navigate the citys challenging housing landscape and she thanked them for that. Your participation and voices made up for gaps, DuBois-Walton said. She recommended that, going forward, someone from this demographic should be appointed to the permanent Affordable Housing Commission that the task force wants put in place to oversee policy on affordable housing. DuBois-Walton, similar to her colleagues on the committee, said the work of implementing the recommendations is just beginning and they should continue to show up at hearings. Edward Mattison, another member and chairman of the City Plan Commission, said advocates should immerse themselves in their topics of interest. He works for Continuum of Care as an advocate for the homeless. The best thing you could do is pick an area, really learn about it and argue as a knowledgeable person. ... It does help to say that the change that is needed is great. But it helps even more to say what needs to be done and how it can be accomplished, Mattison said. He said if the follow-up is not thorough and persistent, it will become like any number of reports and just sit on a shelf. We dont want that to happen, Mattison said. Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, who heads the Livable City Initiative, said members of the task force proved to be a great team and she predicted the plan will move forward. One of the biggest recommendations was to have LCI partner with the Economic Development Commission on bigger development projects. Neal-Sanjurjo said it originally was established to do development and LCI would collaborate with it. She said LCI would continue to work with small nonprofits. She said larger developments should be housed with a development authority and that is where ECD comes in. The one thing that we do not have the capacity to do at LCI is to get resources from foundations and the government in terms of new market tax credits, she said. We need a partner who can do that. LCI now chases grants to do very large developments, such as the replacement for Church Street South where more than 300 tenants lived. Those government grants are limited in number, however are highly competitive. The current owner has promised to set aside 30 percent of future units as affordable. Neal-Sanjurjo said what LCI needs are more agents to enforce housing standards, which was its original mission. Those are the kind of things we need to focus our energy on. It is an enforcement agency, she said. Alder Aaron Greenberg, D-8, moderator for the task force, also advised the public to pay close attention to the recommendations and who is responsible for turning them into policy as they direct their energy to needed changes. Greenberg said hundreds participated into the making of the report, which saw multiple rallies to push home the seriousness of homelessness on New Haven and substandard housing. This is a completely different document than the one that this group could have produced ... without all of that ... activism and work and reaching out, he said. Grubbs said on some occasions these kinds of discussions can be divisive, but that did not happen on the task force. Alder Abby Roth, D-7, who attended many of the meetings, said it is a thoughtful report with a lot of actionable items, which I hope we will move forward on. Greenberg said there are a number of things that can be done quickly, starting with naming a permanent commission. He said the City Plan Commission can start to study the proposed zone changes that would allow for denser development, as well as a frame a formal policy on large developers setting aside affordable units as part of a mix of apartments. There are about 10 items the Board of Alders can start to tackle immediately, Greenberg said, after he forwards the document to it for adoption. Claudette Kidd, an activist with Mothers and Others for Justice, who was among the core group of protesters, said she was happy with the outcome, but realizes it is only the first step. Justin Elicker, who has declared his candidacy for mayor, said he was pleased that it was so collaborative with the advocacy groups. He said the report provides a good road map for the city, particularly on zoning changes, that will allow for denser housing in residential areas. He said it will provide more options, such as allowing homeowners to rent out some rooms or build an in-law suite, which would produce revenue to pay their mortgage and taxes. That is an exciting economic development opportunity, he said. Liam Brennan, who works for the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, was happy with much of the report, but said he was disappointed that it did not recommend that the city adopt a bill of rights for the homeless or establish a homeless shelter for young people. Brennan was a member of the group that wrote the A Room For All report, much of which was incorporated into the task forces recommendation. Brennan is also contemplating a run for mayor. The remaining members of the task force are: Alder Dolores Colon, D-6, chairwoman of the Black and Hispanic Caucus; Otis Johnson, head of the Fair Rent Commission; and Erin Kemple of the CT Fair Housing Center. mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com;203-641-2577 OLD LYME An Old Lyme resident is dead and a North Haven man hospitalized after falling through the ice at Rogers Lake on Saturday. The two men were ice staking Saturday afternoon when they fell through the ice, according to state police. First responders rescued one person and were searching for another around 3:30 p.m. MILFORD A judge denied a request from a New York woman awaiting sentencing on an arson charge to release her from custody as she fights for her parental rights. The woman, 27-year-old Speciale Rose Morris, is one of four people charged with conspiring to burn down a home on Route 67 in Oxford July 29, 2016. Morris pleaded guilty last March to conspiracy to commit second-degree arson and has agreed to testify if any of her co-defendants cases go to trial. She has been held on $350,000 bond in the case since her arrest in August 2017. Morris became pregnant before her arrest and gave birth to a son who is now 1 year old and being cared for by a foster family. She sees the boy once a month during visits supervised by the Department of Children and Families. In court Friday, Public Defender Susan Brown asked Judge Peter Brown to release her on a promise to appear in court so she can attend a March hearing at which she said DCF is seeking to terminate Morris parental rights. Her lawyer in that case does believe her parental rights would probably be maintained if she was not incarcerated, Public Defender Susan Brown said. She said her family will help her rent an apartment in Connecticut while her case is pending. She is not going anywhere, Brown said. Brown noted a probation official who prepared a sentencing report in the case recommended Morris, who has no prior record, receive probation. The lawyer also said her client called police less than six hours after the fire and repeatedly met with police voluntarily to give them information during the investigation. Ms. Morris has not been fighting this, she said. Ms. Morris has been doing everything to provide explanation and assistance since day one. The prosecutor in the case, Howard Stein, didnt object to Morris request, but didnt support it either, since doing so could be viewed as compensation for her testimony against her co-defendants. The judge said he read the arrest warrants in the case and noted the differing degrees of culpability contained in the statements each of the co-defendants gave to police. I am very much concerned about the allegations concerning Ms. Morris participation in the conspiracy, Brown said. At this time Im going to deny the motion for bond reduction. After issuing the ruling, the judge said a continuance to late February before Morris parental rights trial would be appropriate. She is scheduled to return to court Feb. 22. According to an arrest warrant, the owner of the home, Delores Lee, wanted to burn the house down because a tenant owed her back rent. After the tenant allegedly told a marshal serving an eviction notice that she didnt plan on leaving, the marshal told police Lee said No one ever pays me. Maybe Ill burn it down. The warrant says Morris drove two other suspects in the case Martina Brandy Jackson and Leon Pops Carson from New York to the home on the night of the fire. Morris implicated Jackson with setting the fire, but Jackson blamed Carson, telling police Lee had offered $800 in exchange for setting the blaze. Lee is awaiting trial in the case. Carson and Jackson are due back in court Feb. 14 and March 14, respectively. ethan.fry@hearstmediact.com How will Maduro be able to keep the loyalty of the military when Guaido has all the money? The USA has already started to arrange to give all of its oil purchase money and gold to Venezuelas new President Guaido. In 8 days, the EU money will start heading to Guaidos side. All of the surrounding South American countries are against Maduro in Venezuela. Most of Venezuelas export partners are against Maduro. Will the loyalty of Venezuelas military follow the money? Britain, Germany, France and Spain all said they would recognize Guaido unless fresh elections were announced. Netherlands has joined the EU ultimatum against Maduro in Venezuela. On January 4, 2019 the Lima Group the bloc that includes Canada and more than a dozen Latin American countries rejected the legitimacy of Maduros May 2018 election victory and his looming Jan. 10 inauguration, while recognizing the legitimately elected National Assembly. Combined the USA, EU, Canada and South American countries represent well over 90% of Venezuelas export countries. The US would easily be able to blockade Venezuela to prevent them from shipping their heavy oil to Russia, Cuba or China. The EU, North and South American Countries will be able to financially strangle the Maduro regime. US Secretary of State Pompeo accused Russia and China of propping up a failed regime in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years. The Trump administration plans to direct the oil and gold transactions into the interim Venezuelan presidents Guaido hands. Venezuela sells a little less than half of its crude oil to the United States. The largest importers of Venezuelan oil include Citgo, Chevron, PBF Energy and Valero Energy. Russia, China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea all members of the Security Council blocked a U.S. push for a statement expressing full support for Venezuelas National Assembly as the countrys only democratically elected institution. Guaido urged his followers to stage another mass protest next week, while Maduro pushed his call for dialogue. Maduro also said his government is preparing to face a potential armed conflict with its people before the coup detat. He announced that military exercises will be held from Feb. 10-15 to make Venezuela unassailable. Venezuelan Colonel in the USA who Represents Venezuela Military Broke with Maduro The Miami Heralds reports that Venezuelas in the USA are breaking with Maduro despite the risk of reprisals. The military attache at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, Col. Jose Luis Silva, broke with the Nicolas Maduro regime Saturday and urged other armed forces members to recognize Juan Guaido as the legitimate interim president of the South American nation. One diplomat at the Venezuelan consulate in Houston contacted Guaido to report that she would not obey Maduro and would help him. A high percentage of Venezuelas diplomats in the US do not agree with Maduros usurpation of power, but theres always fear of what can happen to relatives in Venezuela. CIA, Cuban Intelligence and Russian Intelligence are Likely Involved Cuban intelligence and security have long been in Venezuela helping to protect Maduro from a military coup. There are reports that Russia has sent intelligence and contractor support. It would only make sense that the CIA and other operatives from the main European countries are also involved at this point. Keeping Guaido alive and organizing a split of the Venezuelan military will take the US money and support of covert operations. Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com blwang@gmail.com The US has funded Quantum Science and Engineering with the $1.2 billion National Quantum Initiative Act. The funding is spread of 5 years. This funding is for all quantum related science and technology. China is funding tens of billions into quantum research. The US and Canada are currently leading in quantum computers with many startups and some commercial systems. China might be ahead with deployment of quantum radar. Purdue University is opening a new Quantum Science and Engineering Institute as part of increased quantum research. The new institute will help grow and support quantum information science and engineering research across campus. In 2015, the Purdue Quantum Center, the precursor to the new institute, was co-founded by Vladimir Shalaev, the Robert and Anne Burnett Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and leader of the College of Engineering Quantum Photonics Preeminent Team; and Chris Greene, the Albert Overhauser Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy. Since 2016, Chen has directed the Purdue Quantum Center. In the College of Engineering, researchers are one step closer to unhackable communication, in work led by Shalaev. Other promising areas of research include work to develop spintronics devices for future computers; new materials and energy technologies; quantum sensors and other quantum technologies for industry and medicine; and data analytics. Time to cheer, tree huggers! The hemlock woolly adelgid the scourge of one of the states most consequential trees may be frozen out of Connecticut, a victim of successive blasts from the Polar Vortex. Its one of the few good things climate change may bring to the state. That is absolutely thrilling news, said Patrick Comins, executive director of the Connecticut Audubon Society. Its some of the best environmental news Ive heard in a long time. Carole Cheah, an agricultural scientist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, is the state expert on hemlock woolly adelgids tiny insects that kill the trees by sucking sap from their branches. They may have arrived in the state in 1986, carried here by the winds of Hurricane Gloria. Although a southern import, theyve killed thousands of hemlocks in the state. People used to go out on Candlewood Lake and used to say Look at the beautiful pine trees, said Cathy Hagadorn, director of the Connecticut Audubon Societys Deer Pond Farm nature center in Sherman. Then, they went out a few years later, and those trees were all dying. But Cheah, studying the woolly adelgids over the years, has learned the mightiest foe of the insects is a serious blast of sub-zero cold. Weve had that, she said, in four out of the past five years, especially in the St. Valentines Day massacre cold snap of 2016. As a result, Cheah said, when she went looking for woolly adelgids in the state this year from the Northwest Corner to the states coastline she could hardly find any. Ninety percent of the time when I looked, there was nothing there, she said. The few populations she did find, she said, were much diminished. It is pretty amazing, Cheah said. Cheah thinks cold air from the Polar Vortex bringer of frigid temperatures that freeze your nose, freeze your fingers, freeze any part of your body not covered by at least three layers may be responsible for this good news. Bill Jacquemin, senior meteorologist at the Connecticut Weather Center in Danbury, said the vortex is nothing new its a trough of low pressure thats been in place for millennia. In the summer, it sits over Hudson Bay and the polar region, he said. In the winter it migrates south. If the northern jet stream lets it set up shop over the Great Lakes, Jacquemin said, it cools off southern New England, while still allowing moisture to get to the state from the south. If you like snowy winters, thats what you want, Jacquemin said. However, he said, when the vortex settles over the state it blocks those coastal storms, and all we get is a block of hard, cold, dry winter weather. Cheah said what climate researchers now think is that the vortex is becoming less stable because of climate change. Global warming is bringing us colder winters. In 2017, researchers published a paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society showing why this might be happening. Researchers know Arctic sea ice is melting at a fast pace, warming the polar region. That creates less of a contrast between the vortex and the northern jet steam that ordinarily blocks it from heading south. Thats bringing longer periods of very cold weather south in the United States. Looking at temperature records for December and January from 1975 to 2015, the researchers found cold spells which lasted an average of 5.3 days in the beginning years of the study had expanded to 14.1 days by its end. So while we may curse the cold, its saving the Eastern hemlocks one of the most important native evergreens in the state. Hemlocks grow on hillsides and rocky slopes. They are shade tolerant and grow in acid soils. As a result, they often thrive in habitat others trees cant tolerate. They cool the soil. If they grow close to streams, they shade and cool the water as well. They have a big effect on aquatic life, Comins said. There are certain birds, he said, blue-headed vireo, blue-throated green warblers, and Acadian flycatchers that favor hemlock stands. But theyre really important for wintering birds and migrating birds as well, Comins said of their thick protective groves. Hagadorn said if Cheahs research holds true, it could bring back a native species that in some spots, had truly died off. This has consequences, she said. People could start planting hemlocks again. Contact Robert Miller at earthmattersrgm@gmail.com New polling from Gallup shows that the percentage of uninsured Americans inched up last year, but theres no evidence yet that Connecticut is following that national trend. There was a dip in the latest enrollment in Access Heath CT, Connecticuts Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace. But there was also an increase in the overall number of Connecticut residents who signed up for Medicaid, known as HUSKY in the state. Total enrollment through Access Health CT for a 2019 policy was 111,066 households, about 3,000 fewer than the 2018 enrollment. Andrea Ravitz, marketing director for Access Health CT said it is too early to tell whether the uninsured rate in Connecticut or the rest of the nation is rising. I believe that nationwide it went up, but its too soon to tell, Ravitz said. Access Healths enrollment period for a 2019 health insurance policy ended on Jan. 15, but several other states, including New York, that have their own exchanges have not ended their enrollment periods. However, preliminary figures from the 39 states that use the federal exchange to enroll their residents in health insurance show participation has dropped. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said about 8.5 million people enrolled in ACA coverage, compared to 8.8 million a year ago through the federal exchange. Meanwhile, Gallup estimated the uninsured rate for adults in the United States increased by 1.3 percentage points - or about 3 million Americans - last year and 2.8 percent since the third quarter of 2016. Those living in the South had the sharpest rise in the number of uninsured, while those living along the Eastern seaboard were the least affected. Women, those living in households with annual incomes of less than $48,000 per year, and young adults under the age of 35 reported the greatest increases, Gallup found. That means the adult uninsured rate is at the highest level since the first quarter of 2014, when the ACAs major coverage expansion went into effect. Still, Ravitz said she is pleased with the Access Health CT enrollment numbers. The moral of the story is that were happy with enrollment, she said. A little more than half of those who enrolled in a health plan through the marketplace had premium increases of $100 or more. But the premium increases imposed by Anthem and ConnectiCare, the two insurers who sell policies on the ACA marketplace, were much smaller than those of some previous years. And about 71 percent of those who purchased a policy through Access Health CT were eligible for federal subsidies that helped bring down the cost of coverage. Analysts say efforts to degrade - and even repeal the ACA by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans hurt health insurance enrollment this year. For example, in a massive tax code overhaul, Congress eliminated the individual mandate, which are the tax penalties levied on those who did not purchase insurance. The repeal of the individual mandate, and the decision by a Texas federal court that, without the mandate, the entire ACA is unconstitutional, created a lot of confusion, Ravitz said. The Texas federal court decision has been appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and whatever those judges decide will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, embroiling the ACA in court battles for years. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Department of Social Services says enrollment in Medicaid, or HUSKY, rose last year and is now at 842,548 individuals, including 265,565 in the ACAs Medicaid expansion portion. In December 2017, DSS said it served a total of 821,457 individuals enrolled in Medicaid, including 244,215 in the Medicaid expansion. Definitely, our enrollment has gradually and steadily increased since we began Medicaid expansion in mid-2010, DSS spokesman David Dearborn said. Branson Ultrasonics is moving ahead with plans to relocate its Danbury headquarters plant into Brookfields corner of the sprawling Berkshire Corporate Park. Architectural firms in Stamford and Norwalk laid out their construction sequence plans this week to town officials. Owned by St. Louis, Mo.-based Emerson Electric, Branson Ultrasonics makes precision custom welding machines for any number of components, applying a range of techniques from lasers to vibration welding that can precisely join parts through heating and friction. Branson Ultrasonics is one of more than three dozen companies producing such equipment including Rinco Ultrasonics in Danbury and Sonics & Materials in Newtown. With plans to employ 220 people at its new Brookfield headquarters, Branson Ultrasonics would join the semiconductor equipment maker Photronics as the largest manufacturing company within the towns borders. At Berkshire Corporate Park, Branson Ultrasonics is constructing a new facility designed by Stamford-based CPG Architects on 13 acres of land, with Environmental Land Solutions in Norwalk handling the landscaping design. The headquarters will total more than 140,000 square feet of space, with Branson Ultrasonics currently sharing a half-century-old building on Eagle Road with multiple other companies including the Dere Street commercial dessert bakery, Alphagraphics and Spectral Systems. Through the Connecticut Innovations business assistance fund, the state has approved Branson Ultrasonics for $1.4 million in sales tax exemptions for purchases supporting the move to Berkshire Corporate Park, where the industrial gases giant Linde has its U.S. headquarters and Duracell its main research and development lab. An Emerson spokesperson declined comment on whether Branson Ultrasonics considered other locations in Danbury, southwestern Connecticut or elsewhere, in response to a Hearst Connecticut Media query. Emerson acquired Branson Ultrasonics in 1984 as part of a larger deal for SmithKline Beckman. Branson Ultrasonics has been led since early 2017 by John Meek, who previously was in charge of Emersons ASCO fluid valve division in Florham Park, N.J. Emerson does not break out Branson Ultrasonics results separate from its own, with the automation division that includes the unit producing a 24 percent increase in earnings for Emersons 2018 fiscal year that ended in September, to $1.9 billion, with revenue up 21 percent to $11.4 billion. In October, Emerson added to its welding systems lineup with the acquisition of Ireland-based HTE Engineering Services, which makes machines that use a process called heat staking to fuse plastic parts with other materials. Speaking to investment analysts in November, Emerson CEO David Farr said his companys automation division has been seeing an impact from the ongoing trade dispute between China and the United States. Right now, if the China thing was moving toward a resolution, I would sit here and tell you today that we are going to have a strong ... year in China, Farr said. They can come back and maybe come after companies like Emerson. If the tension continues to ramp up between the two countries I dont feel that at a point in time, but I would be foolish not to be concerned about that. Due to a reporting error, an initial version referenced Linde by its former corporate name of Praxair. Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman New Delhi: In a surprise move, US President Donald Trump has agreed to open the federal government without any fund for building the border wall ahead of the scheduled State of the Union Address in Washington on Saturday. The announcement means that the US government would open, albeit temporarily. Trumps sudden remark ends the longest shutdown in the US history. I will sign a bill to open our Government for three weeks until February 15th. I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly, Trump said in a brief address outside the Oval Office. The White House took to Twitter to inform about the decision. President Trump supports reopening the Government now that many Democrats have finally agreed to negotiate on border security and barrier funding. While we hope that Congress finds a solution in the next 3 weeks, the President will continue to keep all options on the table, the White House said in a series of tweets. The tweets also hinted that Trump agreed to open the government after apparent support from the Democrats. Dozens of rank-and-file Democrats have reached out to the Administration and signaled they are willing to provide wall funding if the Government reopens. The President made a good-faith offer, and there's real opportunity to do things that BOTH parties want (sic), the White House said. Regarding the future of the brief relief, Trump said that, "If we dont get a fair deal from Congress, the Government will either shutdown on February 15th againor I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency. We will have great security. The announcement came on the 36th day of the UWs shutdown. The State of the Union Address, which is scheduled for January 29 will see lots of fireworks. With House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi not relenting, the Democrats and the republicans are appeared to be headed for a collision on SOTU. Throughout the shutdown, the Democrats have repeatedly voted to reopen government so that federal workers can pay their bills. Functioning of several key wings of the US government, including Security and State departments, has been paralysed for nearly four weeks now because of the ongoing partial government shutdown. President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling. The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table. Pelosi and the Democratic party argue that such a funding is a wastage of tax payers payer and does not reflect the ethos of American culture. The divide between the parties has led to some 800,000 federal government employees being rendered without work. The ongoing shutdown on January 12 broke the previous record of 21 days of US government shutdown under the Bill Clinton administration in December 16, 1995 to January 5, 1996. Besides the border issue, the divide between Trump and Pelosi deepened after he denied her a military plane for an "excursion" to Brussels and war-torn Afghanistan, a tit-for-tat retaliation after the House Speaker asked the president to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29. Pelosi, who is third in line to the presidency, had made the suggestion citing security reasons triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 28th day. (With inputs from agencies) For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The 70th Republic Day at Rajpath saw extraordinary feats from the Indian Army, jets in aerobatic stunts, students from all across the country showcasing their talents and the likes. Another particularly spectacular performance to makes its name on the day of celebration was Suchetha Satis. Wearing a school form, she sings Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon at the Indian consulate in Dubai. A Nations pride this school girl is a world record holder for singing in the most languages in the world in a single concert-102 in total. At just 12, Satis was given the prestigious award for signing in 102 languages while on the eve of Republic Day last year. Watch Satis sing for Indias 70th Republic Day: Holder of Guinness Book of world record for singing songs in 102 languages of the world, #Sucheta sings patriotic songs at Indian Consulate in Dubai on the occasion of the 70th #RepublicDay. @cgidubai # #republicdayindia #RDaywithAIR #AIRVideos: Kanchan Prasad pic.twitter.com/nX1n60745A All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) January 26, 2019 For all the Latest Offbeat News News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. highlights The encounter comes on a day when the country is celebrating its Republic Day. The security forces were acting on a tip-off about terrorists' presence in the area. There could be more terrorists hiding in the area. New Delhi : At least two terrorists were gunned down by security forces in an ongoing encounter in Konmoh area of Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar, reported news agency ANI. Around 3-4 terrorists are believed to be cornered by the security forces in the area. After receiving specific inputs about the presence of terrorists in a residential area of Konmoh, a joint team of 50 Rashtriya Rifles (RR), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Srinagar Police has launched the cordon and search operations. As they were closing in, the search operation turned into an encounter after the terrorists opened fire. The security forces were prepared for any eventuality and retaliated. In the firing, two terrorists were gunned down while there were no immediate reports of any collateral damage. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prayagraj Police arrested a serial killer from the ongoing Kumbha Mela on Friday. According to latest reports, the accused identified as Kaluwa alias Sai Baba was planning to murder two seers in during the religious congregation. The police said that the 38-year-old has reportedly killed 10 individuals in last six months in and around Prayagraj. The arrest sent shockwaves across the Mela. The accused used to attack the people during their sleep. He would attack them with an axe and slit their throats. At the time of arrest, Kaluwa Patel had a blood-soaked axe in his possession. We initiated operation 'serial killer' about six months ago, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Allahabad, Nitin Tiwari said. The accused used to stalk victims and attack them during night time. The police said that he seemed to be mentally unstable. Kaluwa Patel also confessed of killing two labourers near Durga Puja Park in Kydganj. He told us that he murdered one labourer near Kotha Parcha area on December 24 followed by another one near Triveni Darshan Road on January 10 and another outside Udaseen Akhara campus in Kydganj on January 13, a Prayagraj Police official was quoted as saying. Ardh Kumbh is held in every six years, while the Kumbh Mela comes after 12 years. The Yogi Adityanath government has renamed Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh and the Kumbh as Maha Kumbh. The mela draws tens of millions of pilgrims over the course of approximately 48 days to bathe at the sacred confluence of the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati river. The congregation includes Ascetics, Saints, Sadhus, Sadhvis, Kalpvasis and pilgrims from all walks of life. In all there are six auspicious bathing dates in this Kumbh - Makar Sankranti (January 15), Paush Poornima (January 21), Mauni Amawasya (February 4), Basant Panchami (February 10), Maghi Poornima (February 19) and Mahashivratri (March 4). According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, the mega Kumbh Mela is expected to generate a revenue of Rs 1.2 lakh crore for Uttar Pradesh Although the Kumbh Mela is spiritual and religious in nature, the economic activities associated with it generate employment for over six lakh workers across various sectors, CII said in a report. The Uttar Pradesh government has allocated Rs 4,200 crore for the 50-day Kumbh Mela this time, which is over thrice the budget of the Maha Kumbh in 2013, making the mega pilgrimage perhaps the costliest ever. The hospitality sector aims at employing 2,50,000 people, airlines and airports around 1,50,000 and tour operators around 45,000. The employment numbers in eco-tourism and medical tourism are being estimated at 85,000, says a CII study. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: As India celebrates its 70th Republic Day, most of us will be glued to our TV sets to watch the brilliant parade on Delhis Rajpath. Just like every year, this year also, the Republic Day parade will be broadcast live on Doordarshan, Indias national broadcaster. But for those of you not much of a TV person, Doordarshan has also made arrangements for the live streaming of the Republic Day parade. You can catch all the action on Doordarshans YouTube channel (https://youtu.be/JM9DjOSTnr4). The Republic Day parade will begin from Vijay Path and will proceed towards the Red Fort grounds through India Gate, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Netaji Subhash Marg. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is the Chief Guest of the Republic Day celebrations this year. "New beginnings to old partnerships. PM @narendramodi warmly welcomes President of #SouthAfrica @CyrilRamaphosa ahead of delegation level talks. This is their fourth meeting within a year, highlighting enhanced engagement with South Africa & the African continent," Raveesh Kumar, Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, tweeted. In another tweet, he said, "Fortifying strategic partnership. PM @narendramodi and South African President @CyrilRamaphosa held wide-ranging talks on cooperation in defence & security, trade & investment, skill development, S&T, education and technical cooperation and multilateral forums." Ahead of the Republic Day celebrations, India and South Africa on Friday announced a three-year strategic programme to expand ties in several key areas such as defence, maritime security and trade and investment after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held extensive talks with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. In his statement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said both sides will discussed all aspects of the bilateral ties with an aim to further expand cooperation in diverse areas. The 'strategic programme of cooperation' is aimed at deepening the bilateral engagement and ensuring that a "result oriented" partnership benefits people of both the countries. The South African president, who arrived here on Friday morning on a two-day visit, will be chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations on Saturday. Calling India a "strategic partner" of South Africa, Ramaphosa said he was "most honoured" to have been invited for the Republic Day celebrations. On his part, Modi said the economic relations between the two sides are burgeoning and the bilateral trade stands at more than USD 10 billion. India is the second largest trading partner of South Africa. This time South Africa participated in the Vibrant Gujarat as a partner country and Indian companies are taking part in the efforts to boost investment efforts by President Ramaphosa, the prime minister said. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Republic Day 2019: India is celebrating its 70th Republic Day today. The highlight of the celebrations will be the majestic parade on Delhis Rajpath today. The parade will showcase Indias military might and cultural diversity. The parade will start at 9.50 am from Vijay Chowk and pass through Rajpath, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar (BSZ) Marg, Netaji Subhash Marg and proceed for the Red Fort. A function will also be held at India Gate at 09.00 am, the traffic police said. In order to facilitate smooth passage of the parade, movement of vehicles on certain roads leading to the parade route will be restricted, they said. Here are LIVE updates from Delhi and across the nation: 11:25 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Indian Air Force fighter jets impress audience with stunning flypast 11:19 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In And now the moment is here the commandos stun the audience with their amazing stunts. 11:17 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Looks like on this special day, politicians have set aside their differences as the watch the stunning parade. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is seen sitting next to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. They can be seen sharing a light moment. 11:14 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In School children give beautiful dance performance just before the Indian Air Forces flypast begins. 11:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In 26 children, who have been awarded the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 for their exceptional achievement take part in the Republic Day parade. 10:45 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The colourful tableaux take over the Rajpath 10:33 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Tunes of kadam, kadam badhaye jaa fill the air on historic Rajpath as smart contingents of armed forces march during the parade. 10:29 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Amidst loud cheer and applause, Assam Rifles all-women contingent marches on Rajpath 10:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Meanwhile, away in Siliguri on Indo-Bangla border, BSF troops exchange sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts at Fulbari On the occasion of 70th #republicdayindia, BSF exchange sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts, at Fulbari, at Indo-Bangladesh border near Siliguri in West Bengal. pic.twitter.com/NjMll2gZec ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:19 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In 10:18 am: This is the very moment India officially became a Republic 10:07 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The celebrations begin on a solemn note as President Ram Nath Kovind honours Lance Naik Nazir (posthumously) with Ashok Chakra. 09:59 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In President Ram Nath Kovind has reached the Rajpath. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Chief Guest of this years Republic Day celebrations, has also reached the venue. 09:51 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In President Ram Nath Kovinds cavalcade will reach the Rajpath shortly 09:46 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In All three service chiefs along with Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman are also present at Amar Jawan Jyoti. 09:45 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The Last Post is being played at Amar Jawan Jyoti right now. It is a symbol of paying tributes to the martyrs. 09:42 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Dressed in smart kurta and churidar, Prime Minister Modi is sporting his signature bandhani saafa 09:40 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaches Amar Jawan Jyoti to pay solemn tributes to the martyred soldiers 09:14 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurl the tricolour at their respective residences in Delhi #RepublicDay2019 : Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurl the tricolour at their respective residences in Delhi pic.twitter.com/QitEVFmRMJ ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 08:51 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Back in Delhi, the parade will begin on Rajpath at 9.50 am. Before this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti 08:16 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The excitement is palpable: Several people have already taken their seats before the start of the parade Crowds gather for the #RepublicDay2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest at the parade today. pic.twitter.com/dZCOKSXTiY ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 08:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Flying of sub-conventional aerial platforms like paragliders, paramotors, hang gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot-air balloons, small size powered aircraft, quadcopters or para jumping from aircraft are prohibited over the jurisdiction of National Capital Territory of Delhi from January 9 to February 9 08:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In On Republic Day, no vehicular movement will be allowed on Tilak Marg, BSZ Marg and Subhash Marg in both directions from 10 am onwards, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Alok Kumar said. 08:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed between 8.45am and 12 pm at Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk metro stations 08:08 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In According to Delhi Police, Parakram vans, manned by NSG-trained commandos, have been patrolling strategic locations to ensure that security is not jeopardised. 08:08 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Women commandos, mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have been deployed at strategic locations to keep a close watch on the eight-km-long Republic Day parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort in central Delhi. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) Operation Kamala was still on and accused the saffron party of offering huge amount of money to a JDS MLA to switch sides. "Operation Kamala (Lotus) is still on. Last night they (BJP) offered one of our MLAs huge amount of money. You'll be surprised to know the amount. Our MLA told them he doesn't need any gift and not to try these things with him. This is how they are still working on poaching," news agency ANI quoted Kumaraswamy as saying. Reacting to the allegations of the Karnataka chief minister, BJPs BS Yeddyurappa said that his party was not indulging in any such operation and that whatever was happening in his party was an internal fight. "We aren't indulging in any Operation Kamala. Their MLAs are trying to go away from them due to their internal fight. It's their duty to keep them intact. They should stop giving baseless statements against us. We're 104 and 2 independent MLAs are also in opposition," Yeddyurappa said. The political crisis gripped the south Indian state after Karnataka minister and Congress strongman DK Shivakumar said that three of their MLAs have gone missing and claimed that they were at a Mumbai hotel with BJP leaders. Shivakumar also alleged that they were offered money to switch sides. Following the claims, the Congress called a legislature meeting to test the loyalties of its MLAs. However, four of them - Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was removed as a minister in the recent cabinet rejig, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli did not turn up for the meeting. The Congress has been accusing the BJP of trying to topple its coalition government with the JD-S. The party had even shifted its 76 MLAs to Bengalurus Eagleton resort in a bid to foil any poaching bid by the BJP. The BJP, however, rebutted the allegations and claimed that it was the Congress-JDS government that was trying to break its MLAs. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A day after former president Pranab Mukherjee, Bharatiya Jan Sangh founding member Nanaji Deshmukh and acclaimed artist Bhupen Hazarika were conferred with the Bharat Ratna, the Congress said that the Centre government ignored Shivakumara Swami, often referred to as walking god, even though the Lingayat seer worked for orphan children all his life. It is disappointing that the Central government did not announce to confer the Bharat Ratna award on Shivakumara Swami, iconic Lingayat seer who died recently, said veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge. Born on April 1, 1908, in Veerapura village of Ramanagara district in Karnataka, the Swami was also involved in several philanthropic activities and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2015. It is disappointing that the Central government did not announce to confer the Bharat Ratna award on Shivakumara Swami, iconic Lingayat seer who died recently, said Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge Read @ANI story | https://t.co/Rb4tFcTuEz pic.twitter.com/tWcCAmcGJu ANI Digital (@ani_digital) January 26, 2019 The seer, who was said to be one of the oldest persons living in India, had been suffering from a lung infection for the past few weeks. Popularly known as Nadedaaduva Devaru (Walking God), Shivakumara Swami was initiated into Viraktha Ashrama in 1930. Before becoming the seer, he went by his name Shivanna. Talking about the ongoing political crisis in Karnataka, the Congress leaders said that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are trying their best to destabilise the state government before the upcoming General Elections. BJP, RSS and all the central forces are at work to destabilise Karnataka before the elections, and bring in Governor's rule but this won't happen. Aur kitna bhi girane ki koshish karne do, agar ek jaenge to 10 udhar se aenge (If one goes, ten will come back), ANI tweeted. Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress: Operation Kamala is underway due to the central govt. This was earlier being done by Yeddyurappa ji in 2008 & now this is being done again. This is a brainchild of BJP. Some are being lured with money, some with power, some are being threatened. pic.twitter.com/QQd10nyXVM ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 Operation Kamala is underway due to the central govt. This was earlier being done by Yeddyurappa ji in 2008 & now this is being done again. This is a brainchild of BJP. Some are being lured with money, some with power, some are being threatened, he added. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Gwalior: A Madhya Pradesh minister suffers an embarrassing moment on Saturday when she failed to read her speech during a Republic Day 2019 function organised at SAF ground in Gwalior. Women and Child Development Minister Imarti Devi, who couldnt read out Chief Minister Kamal Nath's message, asked Collector to then complete her speech and read it out aloud at the function. A video shot at the function is now going viral on social media platforms. The video show 43-year-old Madhya Pradesh minister reading out the message in broken Hindi. A few seconds later, she was heard saying on the dais, "Collector sahab padhenge (Collector will read). Gwalior Collector Bharat Yadav then took over the dais and started reading the message and the minister stood behind him. #WATCH Madhya Pradesh Minister Imarti Devi in Gwalior asks the Collector to read out her #RepublicDay speech pic.twitter.com/vEvy1YVjRM ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 Later, when asked about her inability to read the Republic Day message, the minister said she was unwell for the past two days and this was causing her difficulty in reading. She said, I was sick for the past two days, you can ask the doctor. But it is okay. The collector read it (the speech) properly. Madhya Pradesh Minister Imarti Devi: I was sick for the past two days, you can ask the doctor. But it is okay. the collector read it (the speech) properly. pic.twitter.com/JDQGI9WDuR ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 Imarti Devi - who took oath as the minister in Kamal Nath-led Madhya Pradesh cabinet on December 25, 2018 - in her affidavit submitted for the 2018 state Assembly poll, had stated that she had cleared her Higher Secondary Examination in 2009 through open school. She is a Congress lawmaker from Dabra constituency in Gwalior district. Before being appointed as the minister, Devi served as the vice-president of district Youth Congress Committee, from 1997 to 2000. She was also the general secretary of the district Congress committee for a period of seven years between 2002 and 2005. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Hello and welcome to News Nation breaking blog of January 26. Today is a special day for all the Indians across the globe as the country celebrates its 70th Republic Day. While we celebrate, our national heroes are out there, braving bone-chilling winters and guarding our borders. They do deserve a special mention today. On the other hand, men in blue are also challenging the Kiwis in their own backyard, so will keep an eye on the 2nd ODI between India and New Zealand. Besides this, social media is buzzing with a lot more. With so much happening around us, News Nation brings you all the latest news and updates from around the globe. Stay with us. Below are the latest news updates: 15:27 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Former President Dr Pranab Mukherjee on being conferred with Bharat Ratna: I would like to express my deep gratitude to the people of this country. I always said and I repeat that in my public life I have received much more from the people and from this country than I have given to it. Former President Dr Pranab Mukherjee on being conferred with #BharatRatna: I would like to express my deep gratitude to the people of this country. I always said, & I repeat, that in my public life I've received much more from the people & from this country than I've given to it. pic.twitter.com/c8V5m0AxnK ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 15:26 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In MP Minister Imarti fails to read out speech, asks Collector to do so. 15:25 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Republic Day 2019: ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police) hoisted the tricolour 9000 feet above the sea level in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district. Uttarakhand: ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police) hoisted the tricolour 9000 feet above the sea level in Chamoli district's Auli. #RepublicDay2019 pic.twitter.com/KjQOpZcIzF ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 15:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Padma Shri awardee Manoj Bajpayee: I am honured to receive such a prestigious award. I thank everyone who appreciated our efforts we have put to make the films. #PadmaShri awardee Manoj Bajpayee: Im honured to receive such a prestigious award. I thank everyone who appreciated our efforts we've put to make the films. It's not an honor only for Manoj Bajpayee but for the journey of conviction & belief with which I worked towards my goal. pic.twitter.com/ayUPza9nii ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 15:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In India beat New Zealand by 90 runs in the 2nd ODI, lead the 5-match ODI series by 2-0. 15:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meet South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. He was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade today. Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meet South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. He was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade today. pic.twitter.com/XjRYEO3oF7 ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 12:26 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In ED arrests AgustaWestland scam accused Gautam Khaitan in a fresh case of holding black money and money laundering, reports news agency PTI. 10:50 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Chhattisgarh government waives off 'Sinchai Kar': I announce that 'Sinchai Kar' amounting to Rs 207 crore till October 2018 will be waived off, around 15 lakh farmers will be benefited from this, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said during his Republic Day 2019 speech. 09:49 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Crowds gather for the Republic Day 2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest at the parade today. Crowds gather for the #RepublicDay2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest at the parade today. pic.twitter.com/dZCOKSXTiY ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 09:48 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Delhi: Major pollutants PM 2.5 at 108 and PM 10 at 116, both in 'Moderate' category in Lodhi Road area, according to the Air Quality Index (AQI) data. Delhi: Major pollutants PM 2.5 at 108 and PM 10 at 116, both in 'Moderate' category in Lodhi Road area, according to the Air Quality Index (AQI) data. pic.twitter.com/zGjE2UfBDX ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 09:38 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Republic Day Celebrations: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reach Amar Jawan Jyoti soon. 09:09 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaiks sister Gita Mehta declines Padma Shri Deeply honoured that Govt should think me worthy of a Padma Shri but with great regret I decline it as there is a general election looming and timing might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to Govt and me,which I would much regret, Mehta was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. 09:03 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Two terrorists gunned down by security forces in an ongoing encounter with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Khonmoh. #Visuals: Encounter underway between terrorists and security forces in Khonmoh, Srinagar (Visuals deferred by unspecified time) pic.twitter.com/gxLased8PF ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Two days after the divers of Indian Navy pulled out the body a miner inside the rat-hole mine located in Meghalayas East Jaintia hills, another body was detected at the depth of 280 ft inside the flooded mine on Saturday. More than 40 days after 15 miners were trapped in a 370-feet deep flooded illegal rat hole coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district, the Indian Navy on Thursday had managed to pull out a decomposed body. The body was sent for a post-mortem. The body was spotted last week but on Wednesday as it slipped to the bottom of the main shaft. Bodies of 14 miners still remain trapped inside the mine. The Navy used an underwater remotely operated vehicle (UROV) to pull the body to the water surface, a senior rescue official said. Navy personnel are trying hard to locate the remains in the flooded mine in East Jaintia Hills district. Coal mine accidents have been rampant in the mountainous state due to unscientific "rat hole mining" even after a National Green Tribunal imposed an interim ban in April 2014. The miners had disappeared inside the mine on December 13 last year. According to five miners who had a narrow escape, one of the workers could have accidentally punctured the walls of possibly another nearby abandoned and flooded mine. The state government has announced Rs 1 lakh interim relief for families of all the trapped miners and the Supreme Court is monitoring the case on a weekly basis. The next hearing is scheduled for Monday. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma was briefed on the development at the site and he is constantly monitoring the situation, a senior home official said. The district authorities are waiting for the family members of at least seven miners trapped inside to identify the retrieved body In December last year, the search-and-rescue operation was suspended after water pumped out of the mine did not lead to a drop in the water level. Later, the National Disaster Response Force contradicted media reports which quoted it as saying that the trapped minors were suspected to be dead on the basis of the "foul odour" the force's divers had smelt when they had gone inside the mine. The NDRF battalion based in Guwahati, which is carrying out the rescue operation, said the statement of its Assistant Commandant Santosh Kumar Singh on "foul smell" had been "misinterpreted and he was misquoted as saying that foul odour could indicate that the miners were dead and the bodies are beginning to decompose." For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: At least four sheds of labourers were gutted in fire and several others partially damaged at Bahang in Himachal Pradesh's Kullu district on Saturday. Soon after incident, one fire tender was rushed to the spot and put out the blaze. However, no casualty has been reported in the incident so far. "Four shed of labourers gutted in fire at Bahang in Kullu district this evening. One fire tender is present at the spot. The fire has been doused now. No injuries reported," the news agency ANI reported. The reason behind the fire that broke out this evening is yet to be ascertained. 3 more sheds gutted in the fire at Bahang in Kullu district; the fire has been doused now. No injuries reported. #HimachalPradesh https://t.co/37WaL3GniT ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 The year 2019 continues to prove disastrous for Mumbai when it comes to combating fire incidents. Earlier on Friday, four other houses were gutted in a fire incident in Himachal's tribal district Kinnaur. Property worth Rs 1.81 crore was destroyed in the fire. On January 22, the staff and students of Arni University had a miraculous escape after the bus they were traveling-in caught fire halfway with 15 of them on board in Kangra district of the state. The massive fire engulfed the entire bus and flames were seen billowing out of the windows. According to the eyewitnesses, the flames were so dangerous that they could not peep inside to rescue the passengers. The mishap took place at Bhoop village when the bus was on its way from Pathankot, Punjab, to Arni University situated at Indora area of Himachal Pradesh. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, the terrorist-turned-soldier from Kashmir, who was martyred while fighting off a terror attack in Shopian district last year, on Saturday was posthumously awarded the Ashok Chakra, the country's highest peacetime gallantry honour. The award was received by Wani's wife and mother at the Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath, New Delhi. Early in the day, Wani's family also met President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Naredra Modi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the "At Home" function at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The 38-year-old soldier lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund of Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on November 25. In a daring display of raw courage, Wani eliminated the 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and one foreign terrorist despite intense hail of bullets from the terrorists. The brave son of India succumed to his grievous wounds after being hit multiple times including on his head. "In an unparalleled saga of sacrifice, Lance Naik Wani prevented escape of the terrorists from the target house and made a huge contribution in neutralisation of six hardcore terrorists, in the process laying down his life upholding the highest tradition of the Indian Army," according to a statement released by the Indian Army. Praising the mrtyred soldier, Union Minister Smriti Irani said, "A man who raised arms against India, surrendered, for he believed in India, and then went on to fight for that very idea of India. It is very easy for people like us to talk about belief, it is absolutely different when you are laying your life for that belief". Union min Smriti Irani: A man who raised arms against India, surrendered, for he believed in India, & then went on to fight for that very idea of India. It's very easy for people like us to talk about belief, it's absolutely different when you're laying your life for that belief https://t.co/bBHBTzcWaC ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 As nation remembers the bravery, valour and patriotism of Nazir Ahmad Wani, let's have a quick look at some of the interesting facts about the valiant and committed soldier of India. 1. Prior to joining army, Wani was a part of Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, a pro-government terrorist group. 2. In 2004, he was recruited into 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army), which is affiliated to the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Regiment of Indian Army. 3. Apart from Ashok Chakra, Wani was conferred with the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. He undertook as many as 17 crucial counter-insurgency operations during his tenure. 4. Nazir was married to one Mahajabeen and has two sons - Athar and Shaid. 5. Hailing from Cheki Ashmuji village of Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district, Wani belonged to humble a background and was involved in working for the betterment of the underprivileged section in his village and surrounding areas. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said that the Supreme Court must deliver its judgment on the issue of Ram temple and if it is unable to do so, the top court should "hand it over to us". If the court cant decide, let us take it forward. We will resolve the Ram Temple issue in 24 hours, CM Adityanath was quoted as saying by IANS. When asked whether he would resolve the issue of Ram temple through negotiations or by wielding the stick, Adityanath smiled and replied: "First let the court hand over the issue to us". "I will still appeal to the court to dispose of the dispute soon. On September 30, 2010, the Allahabad High Court division bench gave its verdict not on the issue of division of land but upheld the view that the Babri structure was built by demolishing a Hindu temple or memorial. The Archaeological Survey of India, on the High Court's orders, carried out excavations and in its report admitted that the Babri structure was built by demolishing a Hindu temple or a memorial," the CM said. "By adding the title dispute unnecessarily, the Ayodhya dispute is being prolonged. We appeal to the Supreme Court to give us justice at the earliest, to the satisfaction of millions of people, so that it can become a symbol of people's faith. But if there is an unnecessary delay, institutions may lose people's trust," he added. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister exuded confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win more seats in the state in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections than it did in 2014. When asked why the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre had not brought an ordinance on Ayodhya, the chief minister said the matter was sub judice. "Parliament cannot discuss matters that are sub judice. We are leaving it to the court. Had the court given justice based on the 1994 affidavit filed by the then central government, a good message could have gone to the country. It would have been a nice example. But this unnecessary delay is causing a situation where people's patience is fast running out." With Agency Inputs New Delhi: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who was recently appointed AICC general secretary for Uttar Pradesh east, is likely to begin her political innings by taking a holy dip at Sangam in Prayagraj on February 4. According to a report in IANS, she will be accompanied to the Kumbh by Congress president and her brother Rahul Gandhi. Priyanka Gandhi will hold a press conference along with Rahul Gandhi in Lucknow on the same day, the report said. Priyanka is currently in the US and is likely to return on January 31. According to reports, if the Gandhis dont get a chance to take a holy dip on February 4 - the second Shahi Snan on Mauni Amavasya then they will opt for February 10, the occasion of Basant Panchami or third Shahi Snan". This is perhaps the first time the two Gandhis will take a dip at the Sangam, the confluence of three rivers the Ganges, the Yamuna and a third mythical river the Saraswati. Sonia Gandhi too had attended the Kumbh Mela - a mega Hindu congregation - and taken a holy dip at Sangam in 2001. The reports come amid recent accusation by the Bharatiya Janata Party that the Congress president has begun indulging in 'soft Hindutva'. Of late, the party chief embarked on several temple visits. It started during Gujarat Assembly elections 2017 and the trend continued during elections in Karnataka followed by recent elections in three Hindi heartlands - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Meanwhile, the Congress president said Priyanka's entry into politics was not sudden as she had decided to play a role in the party after her children grew up. The decision on the timing of Priyanka's political plunge was taken some years ago. "Now her children are grown-ups. While one of them has entered university, another too has grown up. Therefore, she decided to join politics," he said. New Delhi: The Karnataka Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) 2019, which is scheduled to take place between February 2 and February 6, has been postponed for the Category III (Upper Primary level) candidates. Hence, the KTET 2019 for High School teachers will now be conducted on February 5, 2019, according to a notification, released by the Office of the Commissioner of examinations of Kerala government. Earlier, the exam was scheduled for February 4. Taking to the official website of the KTET (ktet.kerala.gov.in), the Pareeksha Bhavan announced, "The K-TET January 2019 examination of category which is scheduled to be conducted on 04/02/2019 has been postponed to 05/02/2019". The revised date sheet for KTET 2019 has been also published keralapareekshabhavan.in. Category Date of Examination Duration Time Category I 02/02/2019 - Saturday 10.00 am - 12.30 pm Two and half hours Category II 02/02/2019 - Saturday 2.00 pm - 4.30 pm Two and half hours Category III 05/02/2019 - Monday 2.30 pm - 5.00 pm Two and half hours Category IV 06/02/2019 - Wednesday 2.30 pm - 5.00 pm Two and half hours The Kerala TET exams are held in four categories - Category I, Category II, Category III and Category IV. While Category I is for Lower Primary classes, Category II, Category III and Category IV are for Upper Primary, High School and Language teachers respectively. The examination 2019 will be conducted in two different shifts - morning and afternoon. While the morning shift will begin from 9:30 am, the afternoon shift will be kick-started at 2 pm. Earlier on January 24, the Centralised Admission Cell (CAC) released the admit cards for the Karnataka Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) 2019. The KTET hall tickets 2019 are available at its official website that is schooleducation.kar.nic.in. Aspirants who have successfully completed their application process and paid the requisite fee on time will be allowed to download KARTET 2019 Admit Card online till February 3, 2019. In case of any discrepancies in KTET admit card 2019, candidates are advised to approach the CAC for necessary correction immediately. The helpline numbers for Karnataka TET Admit Card correction are - 080-22483145/080-22228805/080-22483140. KARTET 2019 Admit Card features all the important details such as candidate's name, date of birth, father's name, category (General/SC/ST/OBC), date, time and the examination centre. In order to be allowed inside the examination centre, candidates must bring a valid photo identity proof along with their Karnataka TET admit card 2019. Valid photo identity proof includes a Voter ID card, Aadhaar card, PAN card, Passport, Driving license, Employee ID card and College/University ID proof. About Teacher Eligibility Test (TET): Teacher Eligibility Test known as TET is an Indian entrance examination for teachers. The test is mandatory for getting teaching jobs in government schools from Class 1 to Class 8. It is conducted by both Central government and state governments in India. For all the Latest Education News, Jobs News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Shamokin, PA (17872) Today Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 83F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Showers early, then cloudy overnight. Low 61F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. The US Federal Aviation Authority has briefly issued a ground stop for arriving flights at New York's LaGuardia Airport as the government deals with staffing shortages at two air traffic control facilities. The FAA says it has seen an increased number of workers calling in sick, a sign that the 35-day partial government shutdown is having a tangible impact on everyday American life. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or, as with some airport workers, required to work without pay. The FAA said earlier that staffing shortages among air traffic controllers were delaying flights at Newark Liberty International Airport and Philadelphia International airport. The FAA issued a notice that it was halting flights into LaGuardia due to staffing issues on Friday, but lifted it around 10.45am local time. The FAA said it was instituting a program to manage traffic that would result in significant delays for arriving flights of nearly 90 minutes. The delays immediately became a new flashpoint in the political stand-off between the Democrat-controlled US House of Representatives and President Donald Trump over the shutdown. The stand-off is caused by a dispute about funding for Mr Trump's plan to increase barriers on the US-Mexico border. Democrats in the House are demanding that the government be reopened before negotiating with Mr Trump on border security. The disruptions come the day after the US Senate rejected two shutdown-ending bills as hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed a second pay cheque on Friday. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, wrote on Twitter that the shutdown "has already pushed hundreds of thousands of Americans to the breaking point". "Now it's pushing our airspace to the breaking point too," her message said, calling on Mr Trump to "stop endangering the safety, security and well-being of our nation". Mr Trump announced on Saturday (NZ time) the shutdown would be ending for three weeks to allow more time to negotiate. It could shut down again on February 15. The White House said Mr Trump had been briefed on the delays at LaGuardia and was monitoring the situation at the airports. On Thursday, three major US airlines - American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways - said the impact of the shutdown on their business had so far been limited but was nearing a tipping point. Reuters A Christian missionary could be facing charges of genocide after entering land belonging to an isolated tribe in the Amazon. Steve Campbell, a member of the Greene Baptist Church in the United States, has been questioned by Brazilian government officials after encroaching on territory belonging to the Hi Merima tribe, local media reported. "It's a case of rights violation and exposure to risk of death to isolated indigenous population," Fundacao Nacional do Indio (FUNAI), the agency tasked with protecting native cultures, said in a statement. "Even if direct contact has not occurred, the probability of transmission of diseases to the isolated is high." The Hi Merima are one of the last largely uncontacted tribes in South America. They have hostile relations with neighbouring tribes, and mostly reject contact with the modern world. "If it is established in the investigation that there was an interest in making contact, using his relationship with other Indians to approach the isolated, he could be charged with the crime of genocide by deliberately exposing the safety and life of the Merimas," FUNAI coordinator Bruno Pereira told newspaper Folha. "Their immune memory is not prepared for a simple flu or conjunctivitis. "Another point is contacts conducted by people who do not respect the self-determination of these peoples and their ways of life. Historically, this has led to violent interference in their vital relationships with the environment, with family relationships, with what they believe. " The church says Mr Campbell made a mistake while showing members of a neighbouring tribe how to use a GPS device. One of new Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro's ministers has said tribes should integrate into modern society, but the process needs to be gradual. Police are investigating Mr Campbell's actions. Newshub. National MP Sarah Dowie is being investigated by police over a text message she allegedly sent to Jami-Lee Ross, telling him "you deserve to die". The text was allegedly sent from Ms Dowie's phone to Mr Ross on August 11, 2018, at 1:19am. Mr Ross has spoken publicly about having a long-term affair with Ms Dowie, which ended mid-2018. In New Zealand it is illegal to incite or encourage another person to take their own life, punishable by up to three years in prison under the Harmful Digital Communications Act and up to 14 years in prison under the Crimes Act. Ms Dowie is the MP for Invercargill and is National's Conservation spokesperson. As an electorate MP, it's unlikely she will be stood down from the party. Extreme heat is set to sweep the country on Sunday - and not just in the north. Blenheim, Hastings and Napier could top 30degC, and MetService forecaster Ravi Kandula says most of the country will be affected. "People can start to expect temperatures going up into the high 20s in the North Island. Parts of the east and the north will start to hit 30degC as well. Many parts of the South Island will start to reach the high 20s and 30s." The hot weather should last for the next four or five days. Blenheim is one of the hotspots, but Marlborough Mayor John Leggett says his region is used to dealing with extreme heat. "The early morning walkers will be out on the Taylor River reserve, and the cyclists - and it will be batten down the hatches in the afternoon." Still, he says people should check on their neighbours. "Particularly people that are living alone and are not using air con just make sure they're okay." Mr Kandula says night-time will bring little relief. "Overnight temperatures won't be cooling much at all. They could be as much as 6degC to 8degC above average." The hot weather is set to stay until at least Thursday. "We've got to be sun-smart, and with these heatwaves coming on, we've got to be mindful some people have health issues, and we've got to be vigilant as a community and make sure we look after them," says Mr Leggett. Mr Kandula says only one part of the country won't be affected. "Parts of the West Coast that are most exposed to windy conditions - Buller, Westland, parts of Fiordland should see temperatures that are much more seasonally appropriate." Kiwi scientists think they've discovered a new way to help people recover from stroke. An Otago neuroscientist and a Belgian brain surgeon have teamed up for a trial that involves implanting an electrode into a patient's brain. Four years ago Paul Robertson-Linch's life was turned upside down. A stroke robbed him of his speech, and all movement down his right side. "That was pretty scary. I remember thinking is this going to be life now? Is this it?" he says. A third of the 9000 people who have a stroke each year will never get back to normal. Until now, scientists have tried electrical and magnetic stimulation of the diseased side of the brain, without success. But in a world-first trial scientists decided to target the healthy side instead. "Putting an electrode in the healthy side of the brain when someone has a stroke on the other side is really not a conventional thing to do," Otago University Professor John Reynolds says. By chance, one of the only people in the world who could help, a pioneering Belgian neurosurgeon, had just moved to Dunedin. "We place an electrode on this part of the brain, the healthy part of the brain to send messages across from this side to the stroke side," says Otago University Professor Dirk De Ridder. The wire is tunnelled under the skin to the stimulator in the chest. Mr Robertson-Linch was one of two stroke patients who volunteered to trial it. The device is activated during rehab sessions, and the initial results have scientists excited. "When the patient had only physio there was no real benefit. But when he continued on physio plus stimulation you saw a fairly dramatic improvement in all the measures that were taken," Prof De Ridder says. "I couldn't hold my toothbrush when I came here. Now I can hold it and get it up to my face," Mr Robertson-Linch says. "It's fantastic, yeah." The researchers now want to expand the trial - hoping this could change the lives of many more people. Newshub. A man who's never stepped foot in New Zealand is being deported here by Australia, according to reports. Wichman Uriaere, 26, was born in the Cook Islands, giving him New Zealand citizenship, but he's lived in Australia since he was four years old, Stuff reports. Substance abuse reportedly led to Mr Uriaere committing a number of offences, mostly minor, beginning in 2008. But an aggravated robbery conviction saw him eligible for deportation under Australia's strict laws on non-Australians who offend. He's been sober and crime-free for the past two years, Stuff reports, but Australia's pressing ahead with his deportation anyway. "He has never been to New Zealand - he is a really lovely young man who obviously did some foolish things," his lawyer Susan Phillips said. "We can't just expel him to some country he's never been to He's a naughty boy, but he's our naughty boy." She said without a support network, he'll likely fall back into a lifestyle of drugs and crime once he's in New Zealand. Ms Phillips has lodged an appeal against Mr Uriaere's deportation. About 1600 people have been deported to New Zealand in the last four years. Newshub. A rock star who disappeared 25 years ago and was later presumed dead may in fact be alive and living in Israel, a new book claims. Richey James Edwards was the guitarist and primary lyricist for Welsh band Manic Street Preachers until he vanished on the eve of a tour of the US on February 1, 1995. For years his bandmates, family and friends held out hope he'd show up alive, but despite unconfirmed sightings of the troubled star, Edwards was declared officially dead in 2008. But a new book, written with the cooperation of Edwards' sister Rachel, access to his diaries and writings, and containing new interviews with those close to him, suggests he may have planned his disappearance. "It was very interesting to uncover these things which add credence to the disappearance theory," Withdrawn Traces: Searching for the Truth About Richey Manic author Sara Hawys told Wales Online. They include evidence to suggest Edwards had Asperger's, a form of autism which often leads to people shutting out the world. "[We] started thinking about all the things the band had said about him being robotic, android-like, and we put two and two together," said Hawys. "We read books about Asperger's and a lot of the traits clicked with Richey. It's something that Rachel acknowledged that Richey might well have had - something that wouldnt have been diagnosed back in the '90s." Jeffersonville, IN (47130) Today Mostly cloudy. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 91F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Low 71F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Russia has completed development of doomsday device that uses ocean-based nuclear detonation to unleash deadly tidal wave on coastal cities U.S. defense and diplomatic officials say they are becoming increasingly concerned about next-generation nuclear weapons being developed and deployed by Russia that could wipe out American coastal cities with tsunamis triggered by massive undersea detonations. Christian Whiton, a former State Department senior adviser in the Trump administration, noted that hearing about the Russian doomsday device is enough to give any defense official concerns, the U.K.s Express reported. The news site noted that Whiton, in an interview with Fox News, said that large nuclear devices deployed near American coastal cities would create a highly irradiated wave when detonated, though he admitted it would be worse to be hit by a multi-megaton nuclear blast than the wave that would be caused by one. He noted further that the ocean water would absorb a lot of the force created by the blast. But clearly, such weapons would give Russia a substantial early advance at the beginning of what would become World War III. His warning comes as Russias navy began sea trials of an unstoppable doomsday device in December, Russia media reported, as noted by The National Sentinel. The Tass news agency, quoting unnamed sources, reported that testing of the Poseidon strategic drone, mentioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his state-of-the-nation address to both houses of Parliament earlier this year, was now underway. In the sea area protected from a potential enemys reconnaissance means, the underwater trials of the nuclear propulsion unit of the Poseidon drone are underway, the source told the news agency. Sponsored solution from CWC Labs: This heavy metals test kit allows you to test almost anything for 20+ heavy metals and nutritive minerals, including lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum and more. You can test your own hair, vitamins, well water, garden soil, superfoods, pet hair, beverages and other samples (no blood or urine). ISO accredited laboratory using ICP-MS (mass spec) analysis with parts per billion sensitivity. Learn more here. Tass noted further: According to the source, the works on the drone are included in the state armament program for 2018-2027. The Poseidon is due to be delivered to the Navy until the programs expiry, the source added. Poseidon drones together with their carriers nuclear-powered submarines make part of the so-called oceanic multipurpose system. The drone got its name following the results of open voting on the website of Russias Defense Ministry. Stealthy, fast, and lethal Russian President Vladimir Putin first referenced the Poseidon project during his state-of-the-nation address to both chambers of Russias parliament on March 1. During his address, he talked about the Russian navys efforts to build nuclear-powered undersea vehicles that were capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads that were capable of destroying an enemys carrier battle groups, coastal infrastructure, and other targets. (Related: Senior State Dept. official says nuclear terrorism still a MAJOR concern.) Development of the new drone sub project was first disclosed by the Washington Free Beacon in September 2015. The news site reported the following year in December 2016 that U.S. intelligence agencies became aware of the unmanned undersea vehicle, then code-named Kanyon by the Pentagon, as it was launched by a Savor-class submarine the previous month. Pentagon analysts have said they believe that the Kanyon drones are capable of carrying nuclear warheads in the megatons range powerful enough to wipe out coastal cities after approaching ports using stealth technology. Whats more, if Putins description of the Kanyon is to be believed, the drones can make their way silently through the water at high speeds of up to 70 knots, and trials are already happening. The Express noted that experts believe a multi-megaton nuclear device detonated undersea at close range could generate a tsunami as powerful as the one that killed 20,000 people in Japan in 2011, following a major earthquake. And the sediment that such an explosion blew into the air would also be highly radioactive. A well-placed nuclear weapon yield in the range of 20 megatons to 50 megatons near a sea coast could certainly couple enough energy to equal the 2011 tsunami, perhaps much more, Rex Richardson, a physicist, told Business Insider. Read more about Russian threats to our national security at NationalSecurity.news. Sources include: Express.co.uk TheNationalSentinel.com FreeBeacon.com BusinessInsider.com However, before conducting the feasibility study, members of The Oasis Project committee want to be sure those the store is meant to serve will support it. So, they have planned a large community meeting for March 21, where Sambol will discuss the project and answer questions. Brennan said the hope is to come out of the meeting and move onto the study with the backing of the community. If the study determines a grocery store is viable, Brennan said Oasis Community Partners could work with The Oasis Project committee and others to implement a store in the city after appropriate funding is identified. Kelly Cecil, a member of The Oasis Project committee, said the idea of bringing a grocery store to Lynchburgs food desert originated from community conversations in November 2013. Since then, a group of local residents has worked on addressing the need with small opportunities, but Cecil said they were band-aids that didnt really fix the problem. So the group brought in additional community leaders who had interest in finding a solution for the food desert. They conducted a survey and started researching potential options. A study commissioned by The Oasis Project last year confirmed the viability of a 4,500- to 11,000-square-foot full-service, affordable grocery store in the downtown area. This takes into account the opening of Grassroots Local Market, a co-op natural food store that will sell locally raised produce, organic food, beer and wine and prepared foods at its store on 1300 Main St. The case of a North Carolina man accused of assaulting police officers and resisting arrest will go before a grand jury next month, a judge ruled Friday. Larry Anthony Booker, 31, of Winston-Salem, was arrested by Lynchburg Police officers July 18 after a routine traffic stop devolved into a scuffle with officers, police said at the time. Police accused Booker of ignoring commands and kicking a police dog as three officers struggled to subdue him. Allegations that LPD officers used excessive force during the arrest sparked outcry on social media. Three days after the arrest, Bookers friends and family members led a protest march of about 30 people from the site of his arrest on 17th Street to Monument Terrace. The protestors carried signs and chanted justice for all. At Bookers preliminary hearing Tuesday, the arresting officers testified Booker was stopped after failing to yield at a stop sign at 17th and Floyd streets. The officers said Booker flailed as police attempted to take him into custody after a K-9 unit alerted authorities to the presence of drugs in his vehicle. I asked [Booker] over and over again to put his hands behind his back, Officer L.I. Shartiger said. It was sometime before I was able to put one handcuff on him. Houchens and Anthony Anderson, Soto Bonillas second attorney, filed a motion to hire an expert on prison violence risk assessments to help establish hes not likely to commit another violent crime if he is sentenced to life imprisonment rather than death, the only two sentencing options for a conviction of capital murder. Given the length of the Defendants pre-trial incarceration, his lack of a criminal record, his age and other particularized factors applicable to this Defendant, a prison risk assessment is one form of mitigation evidence that the jury in this case should be permitted to consider, Houchens wrote in the motion. Houchens said in court the jury likely will be left with a strong inference that members of the MS-13 gang commit crimes while in prison by the time any sentencing phase of the trial would occur. Nance objected to hiring the expert, pointing out case law that has established defense attorneys must prove a specific need for an experts assistance and mere hope or suspicion is not enough. Judge James Updike approved spending $15,000 to hire the expert after finding Soto Bonillas attorneys demonstrated a particular in the case. His attorneys would have to petition the court for any extra funding. Also during Fridays hearing, Updike denied a motion by Soto Bonillas lawyers to declare Virginias death penalty unconstitutional. They argued both methods lethal injection and the electric chair constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Updike said the attorneys could revisit the issue if the trial reaches the sentencing phase. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is associated with a 5-fold increased risk of stroke. Nearly 3 million Americans are living with AFib. For years, researchers have been looking for ways to reduce the risk of stroke for this patient population. In a recent article published in Circulation, Lin Yee Chen, MD, MS, Associate Professor with tenure, Cardiovascular Division, in the Department of Medicine with the University of Minnesota Medical School demonstrates how to improve the prediction of stroke in patients with AFib. The CHA2DS2-VASc score is a prediction tool that is commonly used to stratify the risk of stroke in patients with AFib. In this article, Dr. Chen and colleagues reported that in people with AFib, abnormal P-wave indices during sinus rhythm are associated with stroke independent of CHA2DS2- VASc variables. They did this by investigating groups of P-wave indices and tested their association with the risk of stroke in two population-based cohort studies known as ARIC and MESA. They also came up with a scoring system known as P2-CHA2DS2-VASc score. "We now possibly have a better scoring system that we can use to more accurately classify which patients with AFib are at higher risk of stroke, and who may require treatment to prevent stroke," explained Dr. Chen. This discovery was a culmination of years of work, which grant funding (R01HL126637 and R01HL141288 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute) allowed Chen to take to the next level. "We hope to transform care for patients with AFib, but there is still additional research to be done," said Chen. "For example, we need more studies to confirm the reproducibility of P wave axis. In other words, if I did an ECG today and I repeat the ECG one week later, will it report the same number for the P wave axis?" This discovery by Chen and colleagues is an important step and one which could have a big impact on the management of AFib because the P2-CHA2DS2-VASc score is easy to use and can be applied to a very wide community. Patients undergoing long-term treatment with steroids may suffer from metabolic side effects. Researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), partners in the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), have now pinpointed a mechanism that leads to so-called steroid diabetes. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications. "Glucocorticoids such as cortisone have been used to treat inflammatory diseases such as asthma or rheumatism for many decades, and they are the most commonly prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs," explains Prof. Henriette Uhlenhaut, Group Leader at the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity (IDO) at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and the Gene Center of the LMU. "They are also frequently used in autoimmune diseases, organ transplantations and cancer. It is estimated that between one and three percent of the Western population are currently receiving these drugs - which corresponds to more than one million Germans alone." However, although glucocorticoids are prescribed for a wide range of conditions, their use is limited by the various side effects - including unwanted metabolic effects - that can occur during treatment. Once the glucocorticoids bind to their receptor inside the cell, the receptor starts switching numerous genes on and off. "These include various metabolic genes, which can consequently cause so-called steroid diabetes," Henriette Uhlenhaut explains. In the current study, her team - together with colleagues from the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, the Salk Institute in San Diego and the University of Freiburg - set out to identify the exact sequence of events that occurs once the steroids bind their receptor. "What struck us most was the E47 transcription factor, which - along with the glucocorticoid receptor - is responsible for the changes in gene expression, particularly in liver cells," explains Charlotte Hemmer, a doctoral candidate at the IDO and first author of the current study. "We were able to identify the underlying pathway by conducting genome-wide analyses and genetic studies." In order to corroborate their findings, the scientists then proceeded to examine a preclinical model lacking the E47 gene. "The loss of E47 actually protected against the negative impact of glucocorticoids, while an intact E47 gene led to metabolic changes such as high blood sugar, elevated blood fat levels or a fatty liver as a response to steroid treatment," Charlotte Hemmer adds. Since the components of the newly discovered mechanism are also conserved in humans, Henriette Uhlenhaut and her team, along with their clinical cooperation partners, would now like to find out whether their results can be translated to human studies. "If this is the case, it could open up new opportunities for therapeutic intervention and the use of safer immuno-suppressants in order to combat the side effects of steroid therapy." Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading. To subscribe, click here. Already a subscriber? Click here. TOLEDO A judge says a 17-year-old from Detroit will be tried as an adult in the shooting d Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to news-daily.com including stories, photos, obituaries, e-edition and more on your computer, tablet or phone. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@news-daily.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. DANBURY - Nine commercial kitchens failed their health inspections in December - mostly for food temperature violations - according to the latest records from City Hall. The nine establishments - including three restaurants, two hotels, and a bakery - were given 24 hours to correct the violations, and have subsequently passed their re-inspections. Our inspectors follow up on these reports to ensure that the corrections are made, said Lisa Morrissey, Danburys director of health and human services. If something is egregious we can actually ask them to close until the corrections have been done. The kitchens that were fined $250 for failing their inspections in December are: Basilico restaurant, Hotel Zero Degrees Danbury, La Costenita restaurant, Lous Deli & Salads, Padaminas NY Bakery, Planeta Brazil Bar & Grill, the Portuguese Cultural Center, Residence Inn by Marriott, and Stanziatos Wood Fired Pizza, the health department said. One restaurateur whose kitchen failed inspection had mixed feelings. Honestly, it was very simple stuff like food containers on the floor in the cooler, and we didnt have paper to dry peoples hands because one of the center pull paper boxes was empty, said Leo Gecaj, owner of Basilico Pizza, Pasta & Gourmet. If you go straight by the book, any kitchen is going to have a few issues. That much seems to be true. Of the 42 commercial kitchens that the city health department inspected in December, each one had multiple minor demerits - including all 33 establishments that passed inspection. Among the infractions cited in the passing kitchens were poor hygienic practices, the presence of insects or rodents, food not property thawed, and improper disposal of wastewater. As long as there arent too many of those minor violations, a kitchen can still pass, with the condition that it corrects them promptly. But none of the passing kitchens had the most serious type of violation - the four-point demerit, which is grounds for an automatic failure. Examples of four-point demerits are failing to keep food at safe temperatures, failing to protect food from spoiling or contamination, and failing to keep hands clean. A Danbury restaurant closed for 24 hours in late December while the health department investigated complaints about people getting sick after eating there. An investigation is continuing, but local health officials believe the sickness was caused by a stomach bug called norovirus. Gecajs restaurant, which was cited with 20 demerits, including unsafe food temperatures, said he stands by the integrity of his kitchen. Absolutely, he said. I wont serve anybody something that I wont eat myself. rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342 BRIDGEPORT Three juveniles were taken into custody Friday night after a pursuit following a carjacking and shots fired in the city, Police Chief Armando Perez said. The incident began at the CVS Pharmacy store at 3710 Main St. Perez said three juvenile males approached a BMW in the parking lot and started up a conversation with a male and female in the car. Perez said the male and female got out of the car and two of the juveniles jumped into the vehicle. The third juvenile pulled out a gun and fired at the male and female before getting into the car and driving off, Perez said. No one was hit by any of the bullets. An anti-crime police unit saw the car double parked on Washington Terrace later that evening, around 9:30 p.m. The anti-crime unit tried to get the driver to pull over, but he took off, Perez said, adding that the driver got onto the highway and Bridgeport police pursued the vehicle. The Bridgeport unit lost site of the car when the driver got off the Lordship Boulevard exit in Stratford off Interstate 95. At this point, Perez said, Connecticut State Police and Stratford police were notified of the pursuit. A pursuit continued throughout Stratford, reports indicated in the area of the airport, until the car bottomed out and became disabled, Perez said. All three bailed out of the car, but they were apprehended relatively quickly, the chief said. It was a joint effort by Stratford, Bridgeport and state police. The driver is a juvenile known to Bridgeport police, Perez said, adding that he had a very, very poor attitude when he was taken into custody. Perez said police canvassed for the gun, which they believed was tossed out of the vehicle at some point during the pursuit, but were unable to locate it after a thorough search. Help support your local hometown newspaper/website. Independent local news reporting matters. Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription, for as little as $3, so we can continue to provide independent local reporting on our communities. Whippany, NJ (07981) Today Scattered thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 89F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Showers this evening becoming less numerous overnight. Low 62F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Force gives scant details of incident which brought armed officers to Hungerford street POLICE have declined to give details of an operation in which officers with guns were on the streets of Hungerford, just yards from a school. On Thursday, December 13, our website Newburytoday.co.uk reported that a police armed response unit was involved in a dramatic, pre-dawn operation. Officers, some of them armed, later stood guard by a silver car with a shattered window in Fairview Road as children walked to nearby Hungerford Primary School. One resident said they saw a man kneeling on the pavement, apparently under arrest, at around 6am and that several unmarked police vehicles were involved. Thames Valley Police spokesman James Williams said the force had seized a car on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. Met Police spokesman Alan Crockford said at the time that the incident related to an ongoing operation, not terrorism. It is not known whether the operation was a local incident or whether anyone was subsequently charged or brought to justice. Following repeated requests for an update, another Metropolitan Police spokesman, Chioma Dijeh, said: This was a Met operation relating to robbery. Thats as much as I can tell you. Newburyport, MA (01950) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. President Donald Trump told federal workers Friday that their paychecks would be coming soon, under a temporary deal to reopen government after the partial shutdown that reached 35 days. I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly, Trump pledged Friday. While 800,000 federal employees will certainly welcome the presidents announcement of a temporary deal to reopen government and get paychecks printing again, the measure was just for three weeks, while border security debates continuing on Capitol Hill. This environment is stressful, Ben Deutch, the local leader of the air traffic controllers union at the Burlington International Airport, said Friday, before Trumps announcement about the plan to reopen the government. Deutch and his coworkers missed another payday Friday because of the partial government shutdownmeaning, they went a month without their incomes. We are not a negotiating tactic, Deutch said, describing how federal employees felt caught in the middle of the fight over the presidents desire for a border barrier. We are not to be held hostage. Necn was with the air traffic controller before the start of his shift as FAA staffing pinches linked to the shutdown sent delays rippling through airports everywhere Friday, including in Vermont. Its going to impact more than the 800,000 government employees and their families, Deutch noted, describing the uncertainty and confusion that comes from a government shutdown and was blamed for the air travel delays. Its going to impact the entire country. And the country doesnt deserve that. As Deutch waits for his back pay, charities keep stepping up to help. An estimated 1.2-million Americans have jobs as federal contractors. Theyve also lost money, and, unlike direct U.S. government employees, the contractors were not covered by back pay legislation passed by Congress. The Humane Society of Chittenden County announced itll distribute pet food to struggling federal workersurging them to stay pawsitive. When the reopening of government was announced, the shelter said federal workers and their pets remain in need, so the free food offer would continue for now. We appreciate all the support we received from the community, the HSCC wrote on its Facebook page. Any excess funds will go towards our emergency pet food shelf for families in crisis and support our animal care. Vermont Catholic Charities extended its emergency aid program to folks statewide directly affected by the shutdown, offering support for groceries or utility bills. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Vermont said this week it increased its support of the emergency aid program. Vermont Catholic Charities administers the safety net for struggling people, regardless of faith. Whether youre a parishioner, non-parishioner, Catholic, non-Catholicwe help people because were Catholic, not because those we serve are Catholic, noted Mary Beth Pinard, the executive director of Vermont Catholic Charities. Reaction was swift to the presidents announced goal to reopen government until at least mid-Februaryand it was biting from Vermonts Congressional delegation, which is made up of two Democrats and one Independent who caucuses with the Democrats. The Trump Shutdown should have never happened, and it should have never dragged on for 35 days, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said in a written statement. And for what? All of this pain and suffering to end where we began. On December 19, the Senate passed a bill by voice vote to fund the government to February 8 nearly what the President has proposed today only for President Trump to break his word and precipitate this national crisis. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, echoed Sen. Leahy in saying he considered the shutdown completely avoidable. Sanders, in a speech on the Senate floor, called it a happy and positive day for federal employees and all Americans that government would reopen, yet pointed out that a bipartisan, unanimous Senate vote last month would have extended government operations until February. Think of the suffering, the uncertainty, the pain that hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been forced to experience, Sen. Sanders said. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, accused Trump of recklessness and charged that he was using the shutdown merely to attempt to fulfill a phony campaign promise to build barriers along the border with Mexico. America needs common sense, cost-effective border and port security and comprehensive immigration reform, Welch said in a written statement. Those important goals will never be met if this impetuous and willful president does not abandon the now-thoroughly discredited tactic of closing the federal government. It should never be used again. Air traffic controller Ben Deutch said federal workers everywhere are eager to reclaim normalcy in their lives. Its extremely frustrating, Deutch said of the past several weeks of life under the shutdown. What to Know Exclusive video caught a man clinging on the hood of an SUV down the Mass. Pike in an apparent road rage incident. The driver, IDd as Mark Fitzgerald, and the man on the hood, Richard Kamrowski, were arrested after the Friday incident. Fitzgerald allegedly drove a very significant distance with Kamrowski on the hood of his SUV. Exclusive video shows an SUV driving a significant distance on the Massachusetts Turnpike with a man on the hood. An apparent road rage incident took place on the westbound side of Interstate 90 near the exchange with Interstate 95 in Weston. State police say two vehicles had been involved in a minor sideswipe in that town. After a verbal altercation, police say 65-year-old Richard Kamrowski of Framingham jumped onto a white Inifiniti SUV being driven by 37-year-old Mark Fitzgerald of Lynn. Police say Fitzgerald drove "a very significant distance" with Kamrowski on the hood, slowing and accelerating when he would not get off of the vehicle. The SUV reached speeds of 70 mph during the incident. "I thought he was going to run over me," Kamrowski told NBC10 Boston. "I don't think he stopped, he kept going fast, slow, fast, slow, to get me to slide off." Video from the scene showed that the SUV's windshield had been cracked. Fitzgerald appeared to run the windshield wipers with Kamrowski on the hood in the footage. Authorities say good Samaritans intervened. A man could be seen on video pointing a gun at the SUV. When officers arrived, they were initially seen pointing a gun at that armed person. Fitzgerald was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, negligent operation and leaving the scene of a crash causing property damage. Kamrowski was also arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. "I was assaulted. That's it," Kamrowski told NBC10 Boston. "I just kept telling him, 'Stop the car, stop the car,' and he wouldn't stop." Fitzgerald refused to speak with NBC10 Boston Friday, running away from our camera and into a vehicle, slamming the door behind him. Kamrowski said Fitzgerald sideswiped him, and that he ended up on the hood during the altercation that ensued. "I felt that he bumped me, and I kind of, you know, was pushed up," he said. Kamrowski said he was grateful that the man with the gun came, as well as officers. Anyone with information is asked to call Massachusetts State Police. Detectives have arrested and charged a 16-year-old boy with shooting his friend inside a home in Landover, Maryland, police say. The 15-year-old victim remains in critical condition after he was shot in the head in the basement of the home on Dorman Street on Wednesday, police say. Prince George's County police said an investigation revealed Edwin Munoz Hernandez was drinking alcohol with the victim in the house. Police said Hernandez admitted to playing with two guns and while handling them he pointed one of them at his friend and pulled the trigger. Hernandez was charged as an adult with first-degree assault and related handgun charges, police said Thursday. Sources previously told News4 a grandfather was upstairs in the house at the time. The County Health Department (CHD) would be required to share more information about disease outbreaks if a new law proposed Friday is passed. Supporters of the legislation say the proposed rules are the best way to prevent another deadly Hepatitis A outbreak like the one that hit San Diego County in 2017, killing 20 and hospitalizing more than 400. "Whether it's bird flu, or swine flu, or H1N1, or any potential public health crisis, you have to make sure that your systems are in place that are responsive and allow you to move swiftly, to break down barriers, to provide accountability, County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said. Fletcher said those systems were not in place two years ago when the outbreak hit. The disease spread quickly due to poor sanitation in homeless camps and downtown sidewalks. A recent state audit faulted the County Health Department for not sharing information about the outbreak with local cities. AB 262, presented by Assemblymember Todd Gloria, would require the county to share details immediately, including the location and concentration of disease outbreaks, and the number of residents affected. San Diego City Councilwoman Jen Campbell, who's also a doctor, said quick reporting would be the first step towards preventing and containing another outbreak. "And our fellow citizens who are on the streets must be housed. They must have wraparound services, so they can get back on their feet and be healthy, she said. San Deigo homeless advocate Michael McConnell said the new bill won't let the county hide behind "weak excuses." "I welcome AB 262 introduced by Assemblymember Todd Gloria. It will help ensure that San Diego County officials can no longer hide behind weak excuses that endanger the health and safety of our region. Public health crises demand a sense of urgency no matter what group of people are initially impacted." The CHD said it also welcomes the proposed legislation. It issued a response to the bill Friday. "These measures bolster our ability to protect the publics health by increasing our capacity to compel action from other jurisdictions in regional efforts to prevent and/or contain communicable disease outbreaks." The all-male, behind-closed-doors negotiations involving the governor, Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader were criticized for decades by editorial writers, reformers and good-government groups. But "three men in a room" was doomed when Democrats regained control of the Senate in the November elections. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate minority leader since 2012, took over as majority leader when the Legislature convened earlier this month, making her the first woman and first African-American to lead the 63-member Senate. Stewart-Cousin, 68, was feted during her chamber's opening day of the 2019 legislative session. Two weeks later, her first meeting with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Cuomo as a member of Albany's power trio didn't make headlines, despite the seismic shift it represents in New York politics. Melissa Derosa, secretary to the governor, took to Twitter to mark the occasion, posting a photo of Stewart-Cousins, Cuomo and Heastie seated at a conference table in Cuomo's office. DeRosa's tweet read: "First leaders meeting of the year. Amen." Stewart-Cousins "is singlehandedly redefining the power structure in Albany," said Sonia Ossorio, president of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women. "It's the shattering of a huge glass ceiling." Stewart-Cousins, who represents parts of Westchester County, said her first meeting with Cuomo and Heastie as Senate majority leader "was sort of a spontaneous thing" without an agenda. The significance of that brief inaugural sit-down didn't hit her initially, but probably will someday, she said. "I didn't have any particular thoughts other than the work at hand and the fact that we're going into a budget cycle and we accomplish as much for New Yorkers as possible," she said. "I'm happy to be in this position at this kind of historic moment and this reawakening of civic involvement." What to Know A 4-month-old baby died after being found unresponsive during a nap at his Brooklyn day care, sources say The boy was identified as Ayden Perez; his family has no history or case with the city's Administration for Children's Services No criminality is suspected at this point The city's child welfare agency has opened an investigation into the death of a 4-month-old boy who died at a Brooklyn day care. The Administration for Children's Services confirmed the investigation Saturday into the death of Ayden Perez. "Our top priority is protecting the safety and wellbeing of all children in New York City," said spokeswoman Chanel Caraway. "We are investigating this case." Ayden was napping in a crib at his day care on Blake Avenue in Brownsville when a worker went to check on him Friday afternoon, law enforcement sources said. The baby wasn't breathing, and staff immediately started CPR as 911 was called. EMS rushed the boy to Brookdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The medical examiner will determine a cause of death. The baby had been at day care with several other children, according to sources. The United States urged all nations Saturday to support Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido while Russia accused the Trump administration of attempting "to engineer a coup d'etat" against President Nicolas Maduro a reflection of the world's deep divisions over the crisis in the embattled Latin American country. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the U.N. Security Council at a meeting called by the United States that it's beyond time to back the Venezuelan people as they try to free themselves from what he called Maduro's "illegitimate mafia state" and back Guaido, who has declared himself the country's interim president, arguing that Maduro's re-election was fraudulent. But Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Venezuela doesn't threaten international peace and security and accused "extremist opponents" of Maduro's legitimate government of choosing "maximum confrontation," including the artificial creation of a parallel government. He urged Pompeo to say whether the U.S. will use military force. Pompeo later told reporters who asked for a response, "I am not going to speculate or hypothesize on what the U.S. will do next." What has played out in Venezuela and the world's media between supporters and opponents of the Maduro government played out face-to-face in the chamber of the U.N.'s most powerful body, which has failed to take action on the Venezuelan crisis because of deep divisions, especially among the Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members. The leaders of two of those council nations France and Britain joined Spain and Germany to turn up the pressure on Maduro Saturday, saying they would follow the U.S. and others in recognizing Guaido unless Venezuela calls new presidential elections within eight days. But the opposition to Guaido was reflected in the initial procedural vote on whether the 15-member Security Council should even discuss the crisis in Venezuela, which is not on its official agenda. The United States barely survived the vote to go ahead with the meeting, receiving the minimum nine "yes" votes from the council's six Western nations along with Kuwait, Peru and the Dominican Republic. China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea joined Russia in voting "no" while Indonesia and Ivory Coast abstained. Pompeo went after Russia and China, accusing them of trying "to prop up Maduro while he is in dire straits ... in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years." But he saved his sharped attack for Cuba, saying no country has done more to sustain "the nightmarish condition of the Venezuelan people." He said Cuba has sent "security and intelligence thugs" to sustain Maduro's "illegitimate rule." "Now is the time for every other nation to pick a side," Pompeo said. "No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro and his mayhem." China's U.N. Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu said his government "firmly opposed" the U.S. accusations and doesn't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. "We hope the country that accuses others can do likewise itself," Ma told the council. The council meeting came a day after Guaido vowed to remain on the streets until his country has a transitional government, while Maduro dug in and accused his opponents of orchestrating a coup. "They can cut a flower, but they will never keep spring from coming," Guaido told supporters Friday, alluding to a similar phrase from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. In rival press conferences, Guaido urged his followers to stage another mass protest next week, while Maduro pushed his call for dialogue. Each man appeared ready to defend his claim to the presidency no matter the cost, with Guaido telling supporters that if he is arrested they should "stay the course" and peacefully protest. But the standoff could set the scene for more violence and has plunged troubled Venezuela into a new chapter of political turmoil that rights groups say has already left more than two dozen dead as thousands take to the street demanding Maduro step down. Guaido took a symbolic oath of office Wednesday proclaiming himself the nation's constitutional leader on grounds that Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent an allegation supported by the U.S., the European Union and many other nations. The government of President Donald Trump announced it was recognizing the 35-year-old leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly quickly after his oath, leading Maduro to say that he was breaking all diplomatic ties with the United States and expelling U.S. diplomats. Guaido told the Americans to stay. Pompeo told the Security Council on Saturday: "Let me be 100 percent clear President Trump and I fully expect that our diplomats will continue to receive protections provided under the Vienna Convention. Do not test the United States on our resolve to protect our people." Guaido's move is the most direct challenge to Maduro's rule despite years of protests at home and international efforts to isolate the regime amid a growing humanitarian crisis fueled by falling oil prices and government mismanagement. Maduro is accusing the opposition of working with the U.S. to overthrow him. Though over a dozen nations are recognizing Guaido as president, Maduro still has the support of the military and powerful, longtime allies like Russia and China. "This is nothing more than a coup d'etat, ordered, promoted, financed and supported by the government of the United States," Maduro said Friday. "They intend to put a puppet government in Venezuela, destroy the state and take colonial control of the country." But he added that he was still willing to talk with the opposition even if he "had to go naked." Both sides attempted dialogue last year, but it fell apart as Maduro pushed forward with an early election that the country's most popular opposition leaders were barred from running in. Many in the international community condemned that vote and now consider the National Assembly, which Maduro has stripped of its power, the only legitimate institution. Navy divers have recovered the cockpit voice recorder of a Lion Air jet that crashed into the Java Sea in October, Indonesian officials said Monday, in a possible boost to the accident investigation. Ridwan Djamaluddin, a deputy maritime minister, told reporters that remains of some of the 189 people who died in the crash were also discovered at the seabed location. "We got confirmation this morning from the National Transportation Safety Committee's chairman," he said. A spokesman for the Indonesian navy's western fleet, Lt. Col. Agung Nugroho, said divers using high-tech "ping locator" equipment had started a new search effort on Friday and found the voice recorder beneath 8 meters (26 feet) of seabed mud. The plane crashed in waters 30 meters (98 feet) deep. The device is being transported to a navy port in Jakarta, Nugroho said, and will be handed over to the transportation safety committee, which is overseeing the accident investigation. "This is good news, especially for us who lost our loved ones," said Irianto, the father of Rio Nanda Pratama, a doctor who died in the crash. "Even though we don't yet know the contents of the CVR, this is some relief from our despair," he said. The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta on Oct. 29, killing everyone on board. The cockpit data recorder was recovered within days of the crash and showed that the jet's airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights. If the voice recorder is undamaged, it could provide valuable additional information to investigators. The Lion Air crash was the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died on a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 people on board. Lion Air is one of Indonesia's youngest airlines but has grown rapidly, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. Once an outsider mocked by fellow lawmakers for his far-right positions, constant use of expletives and even casual dressing, former army captain Jair Bolsonaro is taking office as Brazil's president Tuesday. A fan of U.S. President Donald Trump, the 63-year-old longtime congressman rose to power on an anti-corruption and pro-gun agenda that has energized Brazilian conservatives and hard-right supporters after four consecutive presidential election wins by the left-leaning Workers' Party. Bolsonaro is the latest of several far-right leaders around the world who have come to power by riding waves of anger at the establishment and promises to ditch the status quo. "I will cry" upon seeing Bolsonaro inaugurated, said Paulo de Sousa, a teacher from Rio de Janeiro who traveled to the capital of Brasilia for the ceremony. "It will be a wonderful year. We have to help our president to achieve that. There will be jobs, health and peace." Brasilia will be under tight security, with 3,000 police patrolling the event. Military tanks, fighter jets and even anti-aircraft missiles will also be deployed. The increased security came at Bolsonaro's request. His intestine was pierced when a knife-wielding man stabbed him at a campaign rally in September, and he has to wear a colostomy bag. His sons, politicians themselves, insist their father could be targeted by radicals, but security officials have not spoken of threats. Bolsonaro has done little moderating since being elected in October, with progressives and liberals decrying stances that they say are anti-homosexual, sexist and racist. The incoming president, who spent nearly three decades in Congress, has also drawn international criticism for his plans to roll back regulations in the Amazon and his disinterest in social programs in a country that is one of the world's most unequal in terms of income. On the economic front, where Bolsonaro will ultimately lead Latin America's largest economy is unknown, as during the campaign he reversed course from previous statist stances with pledges to lead market-friendly reforms. He also promised to overhaul Brazil's pension system and privatize several state-owned companies, which has given him wide support among financial players. Bolsonaro says he will prioritize the fight against crime in a nation that has long led the world in annual homicides. More than 63,000 people were killed last year. Human rights groups fear his defense of police violence could shield officers from investigations of misconduct and lead to more extrajudicial killings. The most notable foreign leaders planning to attend the inauguration are also associated with far-right movements: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Leftist Presidents Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, deemed dictators by Bolsonaro, were uninvited by Bolsonaro's team after the foreign ministry sent them invitations. The United States will be represented by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Seven of Bolsonaro's 22 Cabinet ministers are former military personnel, more than in any administration during Brazil's 1964-1985 dictatorship. That has sparked fears among his adversaries of a return to autocratic rule, but Bolsonaro insists he will respect the country's constitution. Bolsonaro's vice president is a retired general, Hamilton Mourao. Bolsonaro's Liberal and Social Party will have 52 seats in Brazil's 513-member lower house, the second largest bloc behind the Workers' Party. Michael Shifter, president of the think tank Inter-American Dialogue, believes the president will have trouble achieving major changes. "The obstacles are formidable, including in the business community. In some cases, necessary reform will clash with the business interests and incomes of large numbers of lawmakers," Shifter said. Associated Press writer Stan Lehman and video journalist Diarlei Rodrigues contributed to this report. The last time these soldiers of Bravo Company, 2nd Platoon, were together, they were tromping through the jungles of Vietnam on enemy patrol. The San Antonio Express-News reports they were the core group of 37 men whom 2nd Lt. Perry Dotson led for four harrowing months in 1970. On a recent Saturday in a San Antonio hotel, 49 years later, they gathered to remember a fallen brother-in-arms and renew a connection that time and distance could not break. They came from across the country, bringing wives and children with them. San Antonio resident Ignacio Amaro, 67, and his wife, Irene. Edwin "Doc" Ayers, 71, of South Carolina and his daughter, Stacy Ayers Williams. Ernie Levesque, 70, of Massachusetts. Bill Steele, 68, of California. Armando Moralez, 68, of Indiana and his son, Jesus. Tim "Porky" Roland, 70, of McAllen and his wife, Carmen. As they walked into the room, the men swarmed Dotson, 71, whom they hold in high regard. He helped them survive those hellish days in 1970, they said, thousands of miles from loved ones. "The camaraderie was something," Levesque said. "You got everybody pulling together." There was one notable absence among the friends: Pfc. Leonard Nitzsche, killed in action by an enemy sniper in 1970. The reunion gave the Vietnam veterans a safe space to talk and celebrate their survival. The meeting was set in motion years ago when Dotson sought out Nitzsche's grave site in Chester, Illinois. He said it was his duty to give the private who was in his command the proper farewell he didn't receive when he was felled by a sniper's bullet. He found his first clue online, identifying a cemetery in Southern Illinois as Nitzsche's possible resting site. In October 2017, he traveled to the small town and, with the help of the town clerk and a librarian in Ellis Grove, found the site where Nitzsche was buried. Dotson laid flowers at the tombstone, with a note: To friends and family of Leonard Nitzsche: "Len, we all appreciated your courage and selflessness. We will never forget you. Perry Dotson, Leonard's platoon leader." "I don't want to ever lose the pain," Dotson said. "I don't want to lose his memory." The clerk and librarian also helped him find Nitzsche's relatives. Last year, he returned to Illinois to speak with Nitzsche's sister, Linda Rader, and other family members. The completion of his search set off phone calls and texts from other platoon members and relatives. Roland's wife saw a newspaper story online about Dotson's visit and contacted Rader, who gave her Dotson's phone number. Amaro and Roland had been keeping up with each other over the years. In September, the pair sent a selfie and text to Dotson that read, "Hey Lieutenant ... remember us?" As word spread about a possible reunion, four more joined in. The group of seven convened in San Antonio, where the winters are warm. "It's just a gift to get together," Dotson said, "It's indescribable. You take care of your buddy, we all go home, and that's what these guys did." The men, with 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion/3rd Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade, operated 40 miles northwest of Saigon. They walked in single file, charged with adrenaline, ready to react to any movement. They depended on each other and followed the lead of the young lieutenant from St. Paul, Minnesota. In October 1969, Dotson had caught a puck hit off hockey star Bobby Orr's stick at a game between the Boston Bruins and the Minnesota North Stars. On patrol, he carried the black disk for luck in the pocket over his heart. Ayers recalled that on his second day in country, he took off his fatigue shirt and hung it on a tree branch. Dotson told him if he raised up to get it, he would get a round in his head or his chest. The lieutenant slid onto the ground and quickly pulled the shirt down. "It was a training opportunity," Dotson said. "Fuel them with a little confidence and people survive." The unofficial mission was fighting to stay alive for 365 days -- the length of their tour of duty. "The ultimate goal was to get on the freedom bird and get back to the world," Levesque said. The men said Nitzsche, a big, quiet farm boy with a slight smile, wanted to be the point man, the soldier who walked up front and kept an eye out for danger. "The guys who walk point, in their hearts they know they're taking care of their buddies," Dotson said. "He wanted to do his share." On April 8, 1970, the soldiers knew they were near a bunker complex. They were cautious as they walked down a shallow incline, when shots rang out from across a stream. Lynn Becker, the slack man behind Nitzsche, yelled, "Leonard's hit!" Dotson and Roland, the radio man, ran to the front but were pinned down by sniper fire. "We're not going to leave him here," Dotson recalled the soldiers said at the time. With suppressive gunfire from a Cobra helicopter overhead, and smoke grenades between them and the bunker, they were able to retrieve the soldier. The men kept an eye out for the enemy as Doc cleaned the body. Twenty minutes later, the helicopter departed with Nitzsche. There was no time to say goodbye to their comrade. The men pushed their grief aside and continued their patrol. "It was serious business," Ayers said. "A man just died. It brought us closer together." After the war, the men went on with their lives. Ignacio worked for the U.S. Postal Service; Doc became a college professor and counselor; Dotson was a construction executive; Steele became a respiratory therapist; Moralez worked for a phone company and Levesque drove commercial trucks. They carried the nightmares of the war home with them. They woke up slowly, were wary in areas that looked similar to Vietnam and grappled with the loss of those who never made it home. Roland's wife said all she could do was listen and ask how she could take away his pain. Moralez's son said many people have negative thoughts of Vietnam. For him, it's how his mother met his father, who was attending the wedding of a soldier he knew in Vietnam. "I'm actually here because of the war," Jesus Moralez said. Ayers' daughter said the reunion helped the men settle old anxieties from the conflict. "I think it was really good therapy for all of them," Williams, 35, said. "It was long overdue." The men still have one more task: to share their meeting with Nitzsche's sister and family. Their goal is to visit his gravesite as a group. "It's amazing to me, the human spirit," Moralez said, his voice breaking. "You do what you have to do." There is a bit of a solar energy showdown shaping up in Van Zandt County as a group of nearly 1,000 residents fight a proposed solar farm. Houston-based Pattern Development touts the renewable energy and jobs the project would create, but the Save Van Zandt County initiative insists the project is not suitable for their community. David Dunagan said he first found out about the project when talking to the owner of the land adjacent to his property. The gentleman that owns the land next to me, who leased out to them, kind of casually over the fence one day said Hey. Youre never going to have to worry about someone building a house next to you. I leased my land out to a company who is going to put a few solar panels up, Dunagan said. He started talking to elected officials and looking at government filings and records to learn the scope of the project and was shocked. According to Pattern Development the project will be approximately 750 acres and approximately 400,000 solar panels. Those numbers make Dunagan uneasy, but his concerns start with the actual construction. Its going to be difficult for us just to live on this property with that going on around us, he said. There is the noise of the ca-chunking and ca-chunking of them driving these pylons. The Save Van Zandt group are fearful of the future environmentally and economically. It scares us to death, Dunagan said. What its going to do to us environmentally, but then long term. What happens 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road. He fears his property value will plummet, but also has concerns about issues specific to his area. Less than two years ago, we had five tornadoes blow through here, and tornadoes are kind of common around here as is hail, Dunagan said. When the [panels] go up, if they get damaged, or a tornado starts ripping them out of the ground and were all targets for it. Pattern insists there are no environmental issues. Prior to project construction and operations of the facility, all personnel will receive Environmental Awareness Training to make them aware of any potential environmental issues that might arise during the construction and operation of the facility, material released Pattern said. Project construction will avoid streams and forested wetlands and therefore avoid impacts to aquatic species. In addition, the project will maintain the top soil of the existing pastures to the maximum extent. NBC 5 also asked Pattern representatives about community concerns surrounding weather issues in the county. Solar panels are secured to posts that are buried in the ground. The panels are designed to withstand the climate around where it is constructed, representative Matt Dallas said. Pattern Development will actively manage this project during operations. Read the full Frequently Asked Questions document from Pattern addressing community concerns here. DV.load("https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5695658-Solar-in-Van-Zandt-County-FAQ-Pages-2.js", { responsive: true, container: "#DV-viewer-5695658-Solar-in-Van-Zandt-County-FAQ-Pages-2" }); Solar in Van Zandt County FAQ Pages (2) (PDF) Pattern reminds that project will generate enough clean energy to power more than 27,000 homes, pump $22 million into area schools and create 250 construction jobs. Members of the citizen action group are still not convinced. Im scared that we are going to have to start over. Im angry, Dunagan said. We are going to fight and fight and fight. Dunagan said there is now a scheduled meeting with state lawmakers to discuss possible legislation in their fight. Ledyard Police have released the names of the officers who were involved in an officer-involved shooting last weekend. On Sunday, January 20, 2019, Ledyard Police were involved in a traffic pursuit that ended in the rear yard of a home on Reservoir View. During the incident, police said two officers fired shots and the driver was hit by gunfire. Ledyard Police have identified the two officers who fired the shots during the incident as Officer Benjamin Burbank and Officer First Class Bobby Kempke. Officer Burbank is a five-year veteran of the Ledyard Police Department and Officer First Class Kempke is a 13-year veteran, police said. Other officers who were involved or assisting in the traffic pursuit were Sgt. Ernest Bailey, Sgt. Thomas Olsen and Officer Kyle Long. All are assigned to the Ledyard Police Patrol Division, officers said. Sgt. Bailey is a ten-year veteran, Sgt. Olsen is a 21-year veteran and Officer Long is a four-year veteran. The incident remains under investigation at the direction of the New London County State's Attorney's Office with assistance from Connecticut State Police Eastern District Major Crime Squad. A Hawaiian Airlines flight heading to New York was diverted to the San Francisco International Airport Thursday night following a medical emergency that led to the death of a veteran flight attendant. Flight 50 left Honolulu at 4:20 p.m. and was headed to John F. Kennedy International Airport when was it re-routed to SFO around 1 a.m. Friday after a flight crew member experienced a suspected heart attack, a spokesperson for SFO Doug Yakel confirmed. Hawaiian Airlines identified the crew member as flight attendant Emile Griffith, who has been with the airline for 31 years. "We are forever grateful for Emile's colleagues and good Samaritans on board who stayed by his side and provided extensive medical help. Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests," the airline said in a statement. One passenger, author Andrea Bartz, sent out a series of tweets saying flight attendants made an announcement calling for any doctor on board to help. Flight from Honolulu to JFK diverted to SFO for a passenger needing medical attention. Its been a long time since they asked for doctors to come to first class so I hope theyre okay. First time Ive ever had a flight diverted, somehow. Waiting for medics to board now. Andrea Bartz (@andibartz) January 25, 2019 "Its been a long time since they asked for doctors to come to first class so I hope theyre okay," Bartz tweeted. Yakel said that qualified medical personnel were attempting CPR onboard but the efforts stopped prior to landing at the San Francisco airport. "The San Mateo County Coroner declared the flight crew member deceased on arrival at SFO. Passengers were re-accommodated on other flights," Yakel said in a statement. The flight, which initially carried 253 and 12 crew members, was seen leaving San Francisco before 5 a.m. Police uncovered a massive marijuana stash and nearly $43,000 in cash during searches of two homes Thursday in northwest Indiana. About 9:30 a.m., officers following up on an anonymous tip conducted a search of a home on 10th Street in Chesterton and found pot, marijuana edibles, drug paraphernalia and over $11,000 in cash, according to Porter County sheriffs office. The officers were also looking for a resident of the home who had been non-compliant with the terms of their probation, but did not locate the person. Information collected at the home then led investigators to another residence in the 800 block of South Second Street in Chesterton, the sheriffs office said. When they showed up at the home, the homeowner refused to let them inside to conduct a search. Nevertheless, detectives had already established probable cause and collected enough information to secure a search warrant for the home, the sheriffs office said. Once inside the homes master bedroom, investigators found additional cannabis, weed edibles and paraphernalia, as well as more than $31,000 more in cash. The total haul which included 15.5 pounds of pot, 1,123 packages of edibles, 351 marijuana vaporizers, 205 jars of cannabis concentrate, 64 grams of psychedelic mushrooms and 112 pieces of paraphernalia had an estimated street value of $150,000, which police described as a low figured estimate. Investigators are seeking arrest warrants for two people in connection with the seizures, police said. Gov. J.B. Pritzker is asking the Illinois Supreme Court for more time to consider legal options on his predecessor's claim that negotiations with the state's largest public employee union are at a stalemate. The Democrat's lawyers asked the court Thursday for a 90-day deadline extension to seek an appeal of a lower court ruling that went against former GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner. An appeal is unlikely. Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh says that Pritzker's "priority is to return to the bargaining table." Rauner broke off contract talks with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 two years ago. He said talks were at an inextricable "impasse" and he could impose his terms. He sought the high court's permission to appeal but left office Jan. 14. Tired but smiling, an 18-year-old Saudi woman who said she feared death if deported back home arrived Saturday in Canada, which offered her asylum in a case that attracted global attention after she mounted a social media campaign. "This is Rahaf Alqunun, a very brave new Canadian," Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said arm-in-arm with the Saudi woman in Toronto's airport. Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun smiled broadly as she exited an airport arrival door sporting a Canada zipper hoodie and a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees hat, capping a dramatic week that saw her flee her family while visiting Kuwait and before flying to Bangkok. Once there, she barricaded herself in an airport hotel to avoid deportation and tweeted about her situation. On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would accept Alqunun as a refugee. Her situation has highlighted the cause of women's rights in Saudi Arabia, where several women fleeing abuse by their families have been caught trying to seek asylum abroad in recent years and returned home. Freeland said Alqunun preferred not to take questions Saturday. "She is obviously very tired after a long journey and she preferred to go and get settled," Freeland said. "But it was Rahaf's choice to come out and say hello to Canadians. She wanted Canadians to see that she's here, that she's well and that she's very happy to be in her new home." After arriving she was off to get winter clothes, said Mario Calla, executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services, which is helping her settle in temporary housing and applying for a health card. Calla said Alqunun has friends in Toronto who she would be meeting up with this weekend. "She did comment to me about the cold," Freeland said. "It does get warmer," Freeland said she told her. Alqunun flew to Toronto via Seoul, South Korea, according to Thai immigration Police Chief Surachate Hakparn. Alqunun tweeted two pictures from her plane seat one with what appears to be a glass of wine and her passport and another holding her passport while on the plane with the hashtag "I did it" and the emojis showing a plane, hearts and a wine glass. Canada's decision to grant her asylum could further upset the country's relations with Saudi Arabia. In August, Saudi Arabia expelled Canada's ambassador to the kingdom and withdrew its own ambassador after Canada's Foreign Ministry tweeted support for women's right activists who had been arrested. The Saudis also sold Canadian investments and ordered their citizens studying in Canada to leave. Freeland avoided an answer when asked what Alqunun's case would mean to Saudi-Canadian relations. There was no immediate Saudi government reaction, nor any mention of her arrival in state media. But a Saudi government-sanctioned body, the National Society for Human Rights, said it deplores the methods used by some foreign officials and organizations to "incite" some young Saudi females to disobey their families and leave the country. In a statement late Saturday, the group's director, Muftal al-Qahtani, slammed alleged political motives of some countries and said attempts to encourage these women to disobey their families leaves some vulnerable to abuse and trafficking, and harms families. Al-Qahtani insisted women facing abuse in the kingdom can turn to Saudi authorities and local organizations for assistance. Freeland said that the U.N. refugee agency found Alqunun was in danger in Thailand and that Canada's government is glad it was able to act quickly to offer her refuge. Alqunun's father arrived in Bangkok on Tuesday, but his daughter refused to meet with him. Several other countries, including Australia, had been in talks with the U.N.'s refugee agency to accept Alqunun, Surachate said. "She chose Canada. It's her personal decision," he said. Australian media reported that UNHCR had withdrawn its referral for Alqunun to be resettled in Australia because Canberra was taking too long to decide on her asylum. "When referring cases with specific vulnerabilities who need immediate resettlement, we attach great importance to the speed at which countries consider and process cases," a UNHCR spokesperson in Bangkok told The Associated Press in an email reply on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to discuss the case publicly. "Why did Rahaf go to Canada instead of her preferred choice of Australia where she had friends?" Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said in a tweet. "Because she needed safety from her Saudi pursuers fast, and Canada expedited her case while Australia slow-walked it." Canada's ambassador saw her off at the airport, where Alqunun thanked everyone for helping her. She plans to start learning more English, though she already speaks it more than passably. Alqunun was stopped Jan. 5 at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport by immigration police who denied her entry and seized her passport. She barricaded herself in an airport hotel room where her social media campaign got enough public and diplomatic support that Thai officials admitted her temporarily under the protection of U.N. officials, who granted her refugee status Wednesday. Surachate said her father whose name has not been released denied physically abusing Alqunun or trying to force her into an arranged marriage, which were among the reasons she gave for her flight. He said Alqunun's father wanted his daughter back but respected her decision. "He has 10 children. He said the daughter might feel neglected sometimes," Surachate said. UNHCR spokeswoman Lauren La Rose said the fact she was processed so quickly is a credit to those that made it happen. "This is someone who was clearly in harm's way, who clearly felt her life with her threatened, and my colleagues in concert with governments in Thailand and Canada recognized that need," she said A little girl wearing a backpack in a pool of blood, the first black president of the United States standing next to Rosa Parks and the woman who dared testify against a future Supreme Court Justice. Images that define moments in history. Images that stay with you forever. San Francisco artist John Mavroudis has always let politics inspire his art, but last year when he pulled an all-nighter to create what would go on to become one of the most iconic magazine covers in history, Mavroudis turned to something else for inspiration: The moment that was the most powerful was when she took the oath of law She kind of tilted her head back and closed her eyes a little bit, almost like she was in prayer." Meet John Mavroudis, the San Francisco artist behind the iconic Christine Blasey Ford Time magazine cover. We caught up with him to talk about his latest work, San Francisco gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Those who watched Professor Christine Blasey Ford testify in Senate about sexual assault allegations against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh know exactly what Mavroudis means. We caught up with him at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where he works as a graphic artist to talk about life after immortalizing that moment for a lot of women (and men) and his latest work, another icon in history San Francisco gay rights leader, Harvey Milk. Harvey had a way of speaking to people and moving past all the barriers that seemed to stop other people And he didn't seem to take no for an answer when all he was really asking for was to be treated just like everybody else, Mavroudis said, showing us the vivid typographical portrait etched out in the colors of the rainbow flag reminiscent in style to the Time cover except this time the words form a halo around Milks face, immortalizing those who played an important role in LGBTQ history. The portrait also includes names of people who died from the ravages of AIDS (there are currently more than 36 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide), you can also make out important places and moments in gay rights history the attacks targeting the LGBTQ community at the Central Station nightclub in Moscow, the launch of the gay rights movement at New York's Stonewall Inn, the Orlando Pulse nightclub attack and Harvey Milks famous phrase, Hope Will Never be Silent. When Mavroudis got a call from Roger McNamee, venture capitalist and band member of the San Francisco psychedelic rock band Moonalice (and author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, which was recently featured on a Time cover), asking him to help commemorate a light installation in the Castro called Harvey's Halo, he couldnt pass on an opportunity to honor Milk. He represents so much about the history of progress in the gay rights movement, Mavroudis said, adding that the project led him on a discovery mission about important figures of the civil rights movement artists, actors, activists, and politicians. I wanted to make sure people were represented fairly, people who had suffered the same fate I knew about Matthew Shepard, and the tragedy that befell him simply because he was a gay kid, and that is unfortunately representative of often what happens to a lot of gay kids. Not all of them get killed obviously, but theres a lot of bullying, and for a lack of better term, torture. And they go on to become symbols for something greater. After the artwork was used for Harveys Halo, Mavroudis decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to turn it into limited edition silkscreen prints. He hopes that his art finds a home in the new Harvey Milk Terminal at San Francisco International Airport. We ask Mavroudis what Harvey Milk means for San Francisco and the gay rights movement today. Unfortunately a lot what Harvey wanted didn't happen while he was alive, Mavroudis said. I think he saw to it that a lot of it did. I think to this next generation of young people actually, it's not an issue like it was for previous generations Like you're gay or straight doesn't matter. And I think that would have been an incredible realization, and I really wish Harvey had been around to see that because if you were living during the 70s and before, I think that you were either in the closet or you lived in fear of being exposed and you could never be who you were. So I think he represents hope for a lot of people. The moment that was the most powerful was when she took the oath of law. She kind of tilted her head back and closed her eyes a little bit, almost like she was in prayer. As he hunches over his iPad Pro, showing us a kaleidoscope of words, lines, squiggles, faces and figures on his Procreate app (his collection spans from illustrations for The Nation to the New Yorker to a poster for Sia at The Fillmore, San Francisco), Mavroudis reminds us of something between a modern day Andy Warhol and Banksy. If you look closely, especially at some of the melancholic faces that dot his portfolio, pieces of Greek mythology take shape, which is not surprising, given that his dads side of the family is Greek. I grew up in a family where I had aunts and uncles who constantly argued politics, Mavroudis said. I get outraged by certain things and I have to find some way to get that outrage out." We move on to the question we already know some of the answers to, but can't get enough of: Did you know the Christine Blasey Ford Time cover was going to be a big deal? John Mavroudis has had his art featured on over two dozen posters for the legendary concert venue, The Fillmore, in San Francisco. He takes us on a visual journey of what it was like to work with everyone from M83 to Nada Surf to Sia. I was excited about it, I had grown up with Time magazine as a kid and I always loved looking at the covers, Mavroudis said. I kind of knew it was a big deal because it was a Time cover. I guess every Time magazine cover is kind of a big deal, so I dont know where I fit in that scale. But I was kind of overwhelmed by the feedback. Id check my Twitter notifications and there was like a hundred or something like right after it published and then I looked again there was like four thousand!" Mavroudis had two days to work on the cover. The editors over at Time wanted something similar to his typographical portrait of President Donald Trump in The Nation. I watched the testimony as it happened, then I rewatched it two times then I started pulling words and photos," Mavroudis said. "Ninety-eight percent of the photos were from the hearing because there were so few photos of her out there before." In the end, there were some graphic elements of the testimony that Time decided to take out. "The point was not to retraumatize her. The point was to accurately depict her," Mavroudis said. Perhaps the most powerful part of that image were the words I tried to call for help, right above her mouth. [[504883091, C]] When asked whether he would call the Time cover the defining moment of his career, Mavroudis said: A lot of women who had been through a similar situation as Dr. Ford wanted to share their experience and thank me for it. They thought it meant a lot. There was one woman who worked with victims of sexual assault and she wanted to print it out and put it up because she thought it would really help the people she worked with who were trying to work through their own recovery from sexual assaults." But the story that holds a special place in his heart is about an email he received from a woman while he was riding BART over to work. She said her husband didnt believe her (Blasey Ford) because she waited so long," Mavroudis said. "And the woman said it was that moment, you know, she was sitting at the kitchen table, and she told her husband what happened to her when she was 13 years old. She never told anybody. I'm surprised I can get through this without crying. But it meant a lot to me that she took the time to thank me for the cover because of what she had been through." You can follow John @ZenPopArt to find out more about his work. After five long weeks without a pay check, local Transportation Security Administration agents say theyre feeling relieved about the presidents announcement to end the partial shutdown Friday but they fear how long the government will stay open. TSA agents, union members and fellow furloughed workers rallied at the Oakland Internarial Airport Friday to vent their frustration over their missed salaries in hopes their message is heard by lawmakers. We dont know how were going to pay our car payments, our house payments, our rent, our childcare, TSA officer Susan Braverman said. We cant keep doing this & no one should be allowing us to keep doing this. As the shutdown continued agents received support from local community members offering meals and groceries as TSA agents went to work without pay. If were not screening folks before they get on aircrafts then planes arent going anywhere, TSA agent Hadley Adams said. Although the shutdown is now over, employees remain fearful and urge lawmakers to know they cant afford another shutdown. Make the right decision were counting on you guys, TSA agent Ivelize Rodriguez said. What to Know Car brands and parts suppliers are already preparing for driving's autonomous future by redesigning the insides of cars The latest concept car from interior parts maker Yanfeng is a shared autonomous vehicle like those Uber and Lyft will operate Others including Hyundai showed off concept cars that convert into offices or gyms while on the move You step outside to the curb and summon a ride with an app on your phone but in the self-driving future envisioned by Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, that's where the familiar part ends. "Even before it arrives, it's already cleaning itself," Yanfeng VP Tim Shih explained as we approached a full-sized vehicle simulator the size of an SUV, with a purple beam of light crawling across the dashboard. "It's slowly sweeping that front surface that's our UV sanitation." From the anti-germ measures to the odor-killing ventilation system, the XIM-20 Yanfeng's latest concept car is built from the wheels up to be a shared electric vehicle that needs no human driver to steer it or clean it. Yanfeng Automotive Interiors latest concept car reimagines what an Uber or Lyft vehicle will look like once it can drive itself. Passengers can choose between a bright, windowed front seat and a cozy, private back seat. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA Yanfeng Automotive Interiors latest concept car reimagines what an Uber or Lyft vehicle will look like once it can drive itself. Passengers can choose between a bright, windowed front seat and a cozy, private back seat. "You notice there's no instrument panel, there's no floor console, door panels as we typically know them are also not there," Shih said. Instead, a clean bamboo surface sweeps across the front of the vehicle, with disappearing touch controls and illuminated outlines where a motorized cup holder and phone charging pocket can appear when needed. A domed windshield lets in the daylight in front, while the windowless back seat remains a cocoon of privacy. Shih calls the two areas the "exposure zone" and the "enclosure zone." "if you go out to a restaurant, for example, you can have the privacy of the booth inside maybe it's a date," he said. "Or you're with friends, you want to sit outside, have the openness to the outdoors, especially when the weather's nice." At CES 2019, Hyundai showed off this concept for a car interior that allows humans to drive in style... or put away the steering wheel and relax while the car does the work. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA At CES 2019, Hyundai showed off this concept for a car interior that allows humans to drive in style... or put away the steering wheel and relax while the car does the work. Yanfeng, headquartered in Shanghai, is just one of the companies focused on redesigning the inside of tomorrow's vehicles, while other companies like Waymo and Zoox focus on making them drive autonomously. At CES in Las Vegas, a division of Hyundai called Mobis showed of a different interior concept one for a personally-owned vehicle used to commute to work. The Mobis concept car transforms using motorized seats and smart glass from a "relaxation mode" with blacked-out windows, a giant movie screen and reclining seats, to an "office mode," with a small desk, and finally to "drive mode" in which a steering wheel pops out of the front console. Across the CES show floor, another Hyundai exhibit showed off a car with rowing machines built into the dash, turning the sluggish morning commute into prime workout time. At CES 2019, an entire convention hall devoted to vehicle technology included a slew of concept designs for cars and buses that could exist in an age when human drivers arent necessary. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA At CES 2019, an entire convention hall devoted to vehicle technology included a slew of concept designs for cars and buses that could exist in an age when human drivers arent necessary. Shih acknowledges these vehicles are a long way off: State and Federal laws still require passenger cars to have such mundane features as steering wheels, pedals and side windows you can see out of. "We hope that by showcasing the possibilities of an autonomous future, we can help to accelerate the progression," he said. Thousands of abortion opponents marched across downtown San Francisco on Saturday in the 15th annual Walk for Life. The event, which included a Roman Catholic Mass and a rally at Civic Center Plaza, was held close to the 46th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Many people walked behind a large banner that said "Abortion HURTS Women" and carried signs with messages such as: "Defund Planned Parenthood" and "Choose Life, Your Mom Did." Police didn't provide a crowd count, but organizers expected tens of thousands of participants. The marchers were met by counter-demonstrators, but there were no immediate reports of violence. The speakers focused on abortion as a women's health issue and brought onto the stage seven pregnant women who placed fetal heartbeat monitors against their bellies and amplified the sound of their fetuses' heartbeats. One speaker urged greater activism, noting that some Democratic elected officials and lawmakers across the country are trying to enact new abortion protections. "There is no end to this cause as long as life is threatened," said Father Shenan Boquet, president of Human Life International. "Even if today we were fighting for one child in the womb, we would still be here. Of course we would, because the injustice against the child, the injustice against life, is worth every effort." What to Know CA Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit against Huntington Beach on Friday. Newsom says Huntington Beach has not complied with state laws to build additional housing unity. Huntington Beach rejects the lawsuit, saying their own city charters establish different housing guidelines. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a lawsuit on Friday against the city of Huntington Beach, accusing the Orange County surfing haven of blocking the production of affordable housing and thus exacerbating the statewide housing crisis. "The state doesn't take this action lightly,'' Newsom said in a statement. "The huge housing costs and sky-high rents are eroding quality of life for families across this state. California's housing crisis is an existential threat to our state's future and demands and urgent and comprehensive response." Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael E. Gates said the governor's statement "contains inaccuracies" and said the move would slow down efforts to negotiate a legal settlement regarding housing issues. According to Newsom's office, the city has refused to comply with state housing law, "even after extensive attempts to offer partnership and support from the California Department of Housing and Community Development." The state argued that cities are required to enact housing plans that meet "the needs of the broader region and its economy." The state Department of Housing and Community Development found Huntington Beach's housing plan to be deficient in 2015. According to Newsom's office, the city was in compliance two years earlier, but it then amended its housing plan "and significantly reduced the number of new housing units able to be built." The city later rejected a proposed amendment that would have added the ability for more units to be built, according to the governor's office. "Cities and counties are important partners in addressing this housing crisis, and many cities are making herculean efforts to meet this crisis head-on," Newsom said. "But some cities are refusing to do their part to address this crisis and willfully stand in violation of California law. Those cities will be held to account." Gates responded that the city has been "complying with all applicable state housing and zoning laws and has been, and will continue to, work with the California Department of Housing and Community Development regarding meeting the city's Regional Housing Needs Assessment." Gates said proof of that "is evidenced by the city's recent court victories in lawsuits challenging the city's actions to zone for additional housing, including affordable housing." Efforts by city officials to improve its zoning "has been caused by the city fighting lawsuits and court appeals filed by plaintiffs such as the Kennedy Commission." Gates said the lawsuit was "timed poorly as it now interrupts recent months of discussions with both (Housing and Community Development) and the Kennedy Commission with regard to a resolution to the remaining outstanding disputes." Since 2014, the city has "issued permits and filed inspections for over 2,500 new housing units, including approximately 100 very low-income and low-income deed-restricted units," Gates said. "Moreover, the city has also permitted or entitled all of its moderate-income (Regional Housing Needs Assessment) target," Gates said. "The city has also established programs, such as our Tenant Based Rental Assistance program, dedicated to providing assistance to extremely low income and at-risk homeless households." Gates said it was "noteworthy" that Huntington Beach has been singled out "while over 50 other cities in California have not yet met their RHNA targets. That raises questions about the motivation for this lawsuit filed only against Huntington Beach." The city also is embroiled in a legal battle with the state over the so-called "sanctuary state" law that the city has claimed doesn't apply to Huntington Beach since it is a charter city. State Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, criticized the lawsuit in a statement. Moorlach said he was "befuddled that Gov. Newsom - a former mayor of a city and county with astronomical housing costs and multitudinous problems - would try and make an example out of my constituents, the city of Huntington Beach, and sue them for not having enough affordable housing." Moorlach said he believes the city "is doing its best to comply with applicable state housing and zoning laws and continues to work on meeting its housing goals and has consistently prevailed in court on this very issue." The state senator said the governor has "made things worse" and "exacerbated the housing crisis by unilaterally" suing. Moorlach said Huntington Beach should not be singled out when other cities lag behind affordable housing requirements. "Otherwise, these are strong-arm tactics," Moorlach said. A species of frog endemic to the Pacific Northwest faces a 50 per cent increase in the probability of extinction by the 2080s due to climate change, according to a new study published by SFU researchers in the Ecological Society of America. The mountain-dwelling Cascades frog thrives in extreme climatic conditions, ranging from dozens of feet of snow in winter to temperatures in excess of 90F in summer. Cascades frogs are explosive breeders and their role as predators of flying insects is critical to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. SFU biologist Wendy Palen, along with co-authors Mike Adams of the United States Geological Survey and Maureen Ryan and Amanda Kissel of Conservation Science Partners, set out to understand the effects of climate change on these unique amphibians. Specifically, they aimed to assess how the warmer and drier temperatures occurring with climate change affect the survival of two distinct aspects of the frog's life cycle: in the aquatic stage where the frogs develop as tadpoles in shallow ponds, and in the terrestrial environment stage where they live as adults. During the frogs' aquatic stage, the researchers evaluated whether warmer temperatures would increase food production and result in larger, healthier frogs upon metamorphosis, or whether entire generations of frogs would die in years when warmer, drier winters lead to ponds that dry quickly, stranding tadpoles before metamorphosis. For the terrestrial stage, they evaluated whether the milder winters of climate change would present a warm welcome and lead to higher survival of adult frogs. The species has been tracked in Olympic National Park's Sol Duc watershed for approximately 15 years. In fact, Palen, now a professor of biology at SFU, was a graduate student at the University of Washington when she began tagging hundreds of frogs with tiny microchips. More recently Kissel, a lead scientist at Conservation Science Partners, continued the work by monitoring more than 50 ponds that the frogs use for breeding. She tracked water levels and the timing of metamorphosis to identify how often ponds dried before the frogs could emerge. The team found that currently, up to a quarter of the tadpoles are stranded and die each year. Applying projections from hydrologists from the universities of Washington and Notre Dame, the researchers predict that nearly 40 per cent of the tadpoles could be lost by the 2080s as a result of dry ponds. The results from studying the frog's terrestrial stage were even more surprising. Data showed that thinner snow-packs and warmer summer temperatures actually reduced adult survival. Taking both trends together, the researchers forecast that the Cascades frog will have a 62 per cent chance of extinction risk by the 2080s. Kissel says, "This is a worst-case scenario, where a frog that largely occurs inside some of our most protected landscapes will be at high risk of extinction by the end of this century." The study supports an emerging picture of climate change in the Pacific Northwest where, as a result of warmer temperatures, precipitation will fall more often as rain rather than snow, leading to longer, drier summers with compounding negative consequences for many wildlife species. (Natural News) In an early morning raid with guns drawn, federal agents raided the Fort Lauderdale home of Roger Stone, arresting the former Nixon administration official political dirty trickster and making him the most recent associate of POTUS Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign to be indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller. According to published reports, agents showed up at Stones home around 6:00 a.m. Friday morning to arrest him on seven counts including lying to federal investigators, which is nothing but a process crime that would not have occurred had he never been questioned by Muellers politically motivated investigators. According to The Associated Press, in addition to allegations of making false statements to investigators, Stone has been charged with witness tampering, obstruction, and making additional false statements to the House Intelligence Committee. (Related: Roger Stones attorney demands House Intelligence Committee release FULL transcript of his 2017 testimony.) Justice in America just died Notably, Stone has not been charged with a criminal conspiracy to collude with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton which, never forget, was Muellers original mandate. Also, hes not been charged with conspiring with whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which published Democratic National Committee emails allegedly hacked by Russia, or the Moscow officers Mueller has accused of conducting the hack. So whats the real purpose for indicting Stone? What kind of justice is Mueller serving up on behalf of the country by arresting and charging a political operative with dubious process crimes some of the same allegations the FBI refused to level against two top Clinton aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, after they lied about having no prior knowledge of their boss private email server? The answer should be obvious by now. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and now Roger Stone were all associates of the president, either personally or as part of his 2016 campaign; Mueller is acting on behalf of the Deep State to undermine and, hopefully, remove, a duly-elected president. There is no more justice in America. Its dead and gone. Read more about Robert Muellers corruption at RoberMueller.news. Sources for this article include: TheGatewayPundit.com APNews.com NewsTarget.com (Natural News) U.S. defense and diplomatic officials say they are becoming increasingly concerned about next-generation nuclear weapons being developed and deployed by Russia that could wipe out American coastal cities with tsunamis triggered by massive undersea detonations. Christian Whiton, a former State Department senior adviser in the Trump administration, noted that hearing about the Russian doomsday device is enough to give any defense official concerns, the U.K.s Express reported. The news site noted that Whiton, in an interview with Fox News, said that large nuclear devices deployed near American coastal cities would create a highly irradiated wave when detonated, though he admitted it would be worse to be hit by a multi-megaton nuclear blast than the wave that would be caused by one. He noted further that the ocean water would absorb a lot of the force created by the blast. But clearly, such weapons would give Russia a substantial early advance at the beginning of what would become World War III. His warning comes as Russias navy began sea trials of an unstoppable doomsday device in December, Russia media reported, as noted by The National Sentinel. The Tass news agency, quoting unnamed sources, reported that testing of the Poseidon strategic drone, mentioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin during his state-of-the-nation address to both houses of Parliament earlier this year, was now underway. In the sea area protected from a potential enemys reconnaissance means, the underwater trials of the nuclear propulsion unit of the Poseidon drone are underway, the source told the news agency. Tass noted further: According to the source, the works on the drone are included in the state armament program for 2018-2027. The Poseidon is due to be delivered to the Navy until the programs expiry, the source added. Poseidon drones together with their carriers nuclear-powered submarines make part of the so-called oceanic multipurpose system. The drone got its name following the results of open voting on the website of Russias Defense Ministry. Stealthy, fast, and lethal Russian President Vladimir Putin first referenced the Poseidon project during his state-of-the-nation address to both chambers of Russias parliament on March 1. During his address, he talked about the Russian navys efforts to build nuclear-powered undersea vehicles that were capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads that were capable of destroying an enemys carrier battle groups, coastal infrastructure, and other targets. (Related: Senior State Dept. official says nuclear terrorism still a MAJOR concern.) Development of the new drone sub project was first disclosed by the Washington Free Beacon in September 2015. The news site reported the following year in December 2016 that U.S. intelligence agencies became aware of the unmanned undersea vehicle, then code-named Kanyon by the Pentagon, as it was launched by a Savor-class submarine the previous month. Pentagon analysts have said they believe that the Kanyon drones are capable of carrying nuclear warheads in the megatons range powerful enough to wipe out coastal cities after approaching ports using stealth technology. Whats more, if Putins description of the Kanyon is to be believed, the drones can make their way silently through the water at high speeds of up to 70 knots, and trials are already happening. The Express noted that experts believe a multi-megaton nuclear device detonated undersea at close range could generate a tsunami as powerful as the one that killed 20,000 people in Japan in 2011, following a major earthquake. And the sediment that such an explosion blew into the air would also be highly radioactive. A well-placed nuclear weapon yield in the range of 20 megatons to 50 megatons near a sea coast could certainly couple enough energy to equal the 2011 tsunami, perhaps much more, Rex Richardson, a physicist, told Business Insider. Read more about Russian threats to our national security at NationalSecurity.news. Sources include: Express.co.uk TheNationalSentinel.com FreeBeacon.com BusinessInsider.com (Natural News) Excessive exposure to traffic-related air pollution was found to induce DNA damage in both children and adolescents, according to a small study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. As part of the study, a team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley examined 14 children and adolescents living in Fresno, Calif. Fresno was touted as the second most polluted city in the state. The research team also examined the correlation between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and telomere shortening. According to the scientists, PAHs are ubiquitous air pollutants produced by motor vehicle exhaust. On the other hand, telomere shortening was defined as a DNA damage closely associated with the onset of aging. The study showed increased exposure to PAHs coincided with marked reductions in telomere length. The research team also noted that children and teens with asthma had higher PAH exposure compared with their healthier counterparts. According to the researchers, excessive exposure to air pollution may exacerbate asthma, which in turn may lead to telomere shortening. The research team also noted that the inverse association between increased PAH exposure and shorter telomere length remained constant when other factors such as age, sex, and race were taken into account. The relationship between PAH exposure and telomere length we observed in this study of adolescents is consistent with studies in healthy adults that have shown telomere shortening with increasing air pollution levelsPrevious studies have reported a doseresponse relationship between PAH exposure and biomarkers of oxidative stress. Although preliminary pilot data, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to ambient PAHs (largely generated during combustion of diesel and gasoline fuels in Fresno) leads to oxidative stress, which in turn causes telomere shorteningOur pilot study results suggest that telomere shortening in children may be associated with exposure to traffic-related air pollution. Greater knowledge of the impact of air pollution at the molecular level is necessary to design effective interventions and policies. Our preliminary data will inform the design of a larger study to examine the hypothesis generated from these results, the researchers wrote. Studies confirm that air pollution exposure spurs DNA damage The latest research is only one of the many studies confirming the link between air pollution exposure and DNA damage. For instance, a study published in 2015 revealed that even short-term exposure to diesel exhaust fumes may significantly affect the DNA structure. To carry out the study, a team of researchers from the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health in Canada put participants in a small room with diluted and aged exhaust fumes. The air quality in the room was comparable to those of a Beijing highway or a busy B.C. port. The research team found that just two hours of exposure to polluted air affected the chemical coating attached in human DNA, which in turn prompted a methylation process that can inhibit a gene from producing protein. The researchers cautioned that while a two-hour exposure may not adversely affect a persons health, the results provide an overview of how long-term exposure could be detrimental to the body. (Related: Brain smog: Traffic pollution reduces childrens ability to learn in school.) Another study published in PLOS ONE revealed that traffic-related air pollutants such as PAHs and particulate matter cause significant damage in human DNA. As part of the research, the scientists analyzed spot urine and blood samples from 91 traffic conductors and 53 indoor office workers. The study revealed that traffic conductors had higher levels of air pollution markers than those who worked in the office. The research team also found that the occurrence of DNA strand breaks were more prevalent among traffic conductors compared with the office workers. Sources include: ScienceDaily.com Journals.IWW.com TheGlobeandMail.com Journals.PLOS.org By Jeff Bryant, a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm. Produced by Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute Isnt it reasonable to have some regulations on charters? asked Ingrid King, a kindergarten and dual language teacher at Latona Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles. She and two of her colleagues spoke to me from the picket lines during the recently resolved teacher strike in her city. When she and over 30,000 teachers and school personnel walked off the job, it closed the nations second-largest school system of nearly a half-million students for six days and filled the streets with huge protests. The strike ended when the district conceded to give teachers a 6 percent pay raise, limit class sizes, reduce the number of student assessments by half, and hire full-time nurses for every school, a librarian for every middle and high school, and enough counselors to provide one for every 500 students. But the concessions teachers won that will likely have the most impact outside of LA are related to charter schools. The teachers forced the district leader to present to the school board a resolution calling on the state to cap the number of charter schools, and the teachers made the district give their union increased oversight of charter co-locationsa practice that allows charter operations to take possession of a portion of an existing public school campus. Los Angeles Unified has 277 charter schools, the largest number of charter schools of any school district in the nation. The schools serve nearly 119,000 students, nearly one in five students. The vast majority of charters are staffed by non-union teachers. (Teachers at a chain of unionized charter schools in the city that joined district teachers on the strike are still on strike.) So the quick takefrom some is the teachers union made curbs on charter schools part of their demands because these schools are a threat to the unions power. But when you talk to teachers, thats not what they say. They tell you they want to curb charter school growth, not because it threatens their union, but because charters threaten the very survival of public schools. Teachers See an Existential Threat Latona teachers I spoke with described competition from surrounding charter schools as an existential threat to their school and an undermining influence on the public system. Charter schools are popping up everywhere and siphoning money and taking away students from our public school, said King. Ive had a lot of friends teach at charters, said Linda Butala, an English language and Title I coordinator. These schools often mean well. But charters have become another level of haves and have-nots in our system. The haves these teachers referred to are the more savvy parents who take advantage of what many charters offer, including smaller class sizes and newer resources and technology. The disparity is especially acute when the charter is co-located on the same campus as an existing public school. Traci Rustin, a second-grade teacher, recalled that at a previous school where she worked, the charter co-located on the campus had much fewer teachers and students of color. The charter students had more abundant and newer technology, the school lunches were more nutritious, and the classroom supplies were up-to-date. And when students returned to the public school when the charter didnt work out, the new technology and resources, along with the funding that had left her school, didnt transfer back. In neighborhoods that are more racially homogeneous, explained Rustin, you see more well-abled children in the charter. You see a two-tier system going on. Charter schools are set up to target certain populations of students and arent even set up to meet the needs of some students, said King. And some parents who cant meet the expectations set down by the charters know they shouldnt bother trying to enroll their children in charters. Meanwhile, her school has to serve all students and parents and gets the families and children the charters arent interested in serving. This leads to a more segregated system. Butala, who also previously worked at a school with a co-located charter, recalled when the charter moved in, her school immediately had to devise ways to place students in more crowded classrooms and share common areassuch as the playground and cafeteria. But it was never clear to her what the charter was being asked to share with her school. She watched the new charter lure students away from her school, often to see them return months later after the funding was lost. She claimed her schools test scores were better than the charters, but advocates for the charter were adept at convincing parents the charter was better. Charters Take Their Toll Latona is experiencing a similar fate. The school doesnt have to deal with a co-located charter, but competition from surrounding charters has taken a toll on the school. The schools student enrollment is virtually all Hispanic, with a quarter of the students being English language learners, and 90.6 percent are socioeconomically disadvantaged. Yet, despite this challenging student population, the school significantly outperforms the stateon academic measures of English language arts and mathematics and has been steadily improving, boosting proficiency levels by 12 points in ELA and nearly 19 points in math on the most recent assessments. Nevertheless, Latonas student enrollment has long been in decline, according to state data. In the 2017-18 school year, the school enrolled 170 students. Five years ago, it was 267; ten years ago, it was 336, and the student body was more racially diverse. The enrollment declines have resulted in the school having to let go support staff, such as counselors and nurses, who are essential to the health and well-being of the students. I see more kids with social-emotional needs we simply are unable to meet, said Butala. If the child isnt okay socially and emotionally, then we cant be the best teachers we can be. But too often, were called upon not just to be teachers but to be parents and psychologists. Were having to wear too many hats. Maybe if we had the resources and staff we need, we wouldnt see so many parents transferring their students to charters, Rustin conjectured. Past the Tipping Point The argument Latona teachers make is not lost on parents, many of whom supported the teacher demands and joined them on the picket linesbecause they see how their schools are being slowly depleted of funding and resources due to charter school expansions. Were past the tipping point on charters in Los Angeles, Julian Vasquez Heilig told me in a phone interview. Heilig is a professor at California State University, Sacramento and the author of numerous studies on the impacts of accountability-based and market-based education reforms. Heilig is not doctrinairely opposed to charter schools, as some proponents of charter schools accuse their critics of being. On the contrary, he formerly worked as an instructor in a charter school, was a charter school parent and donor, and at one point served as a charter board member. But the situation has changed, he stated. The situation he referred to is the long-held claim that charter schools, by their very nature, are a positive force in the public school system. The preferred narrative is that charter schools are just another form of public school, that competition from charters makes public schools up their game, and when parents vote with their feet and choose to transfer their children to charters, money that follows the child out of the public school has no negative effects on the remaining students because the school can adapt to a lower student head count. Heilig and other charter school critics argue that theory of charter schools in no way resembles the realities of charters on the ground. And striking teachers in Los Angeles have opened peoples eyes to that reality. Now that class sizes and lack of resources and school support staff have grown intolerable in Los Angeles public schools, teachers are bringing the publics attention to the reality of what charters have helped create, Heilig explained. Five years ago, we werent talking about the financial impact of charter schools. Meanwhile, poor performing charters have been allowed to proliferate in the state, and the public is largely unaware of the negative impact this has on the public education system. Until now. The Bad Math of Charter Schools Truth is, the financials of charter schools have never added up. A 2017 report authored by Gordon Lafer, a political economist and an associate professor at the University of Oregon, looked at the spread of charter schools in Californiaand found hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each year without any meaningful strategy. Because charter operators often get permission to set up new schools wherever they want, far too much of this public funding is spent on schools built in neighborhoods that have no need for additional classroom space, Lafer concluded. While public school districts cant build new schools unless increases in enrollment or an influx of school-aged children demands them, charter schools can make the case based on subjective arguments having nothing to do with numbers, and when local school boards deny charter applicants, charter operators can appeal to the county or state board that, more often than not, overrules the local board. As a result, the report found, nearly 450 charter schools have opened in places that already had enough classroom space for all students. Los Angeles is the poster person of having too many schools chasing after too few students. District enrollment peaked in 2004 at just under 750,000 and has been dropping ever since, not just due to the growth of charters. A combination of factorsincluding declining birth rates, population flight to the suburbs, the exorbitant cost of child care, and skyrocketing housing prices that discourage young couples from having childrenhas led to a steep declinein the population of school-aged children in the district. Another flaw of charter school financials is that they add layers of administrative and infrastructure costs that public schools are expected to pay for, even though public school budgets are already under stress, and government leaders are unwilling to provide new funding. Charters contribute to the funding problems because were paying for two school systems, argued Heilig: the local public one and the privately run charter ones operating like parallel districts to the local schools, with their own duplicative layers of administrative staff and infrastructure. Theres an incredible amount of waste and inefficiency in this arrangement. Changing Our Minds about Charters Charter proponents arent acknowledging these problems, Heilig said. Indeed, after news of the LA strike resolution spread, proponents of charter schools and choice responded angrily to limits put on charters. Nina Rees, president and chief executive of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, toldthe New York Times that placing a cap on the growth of charter schools is a constraint we cannot stand for. And U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, an ardent fan of the charter industry, declaredteachers unions were the only thing standing in the way of the spread of school choice. But the stark contrast of the rhetoric from charter school hardliners to the reasonable requests of Los Angeles teachers, like Ingrid King, changes a conversation that has long been one-sided and clouded in lofty claims about charters. The strike has made me consider how charter school expansion is harming the city, wrotecharter school teacher Riley McDonald Vaca in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times after seeing how the strike played out. As more money is invested in new ideas and new campuses, fewer resources and students are left for the many great programs still trying to gain their footing in our current district and charter schools, she stated. I believe in my charter school, but I dont believe that the charter industrys mission to increase its share of the educational marketplace in Los Angeles can solve the problems we all face educating children. These issues with charters are coming from the bottom-up, said Heilig. Legislators are starting to take notice, and so has the public. Were clearly changing our minds about charters. To learn more about school privatization, check out Who Controls Our Schools? The Privatization of American Public Education, a free ebook published by the Independent Media Institute. Click here to read a selectionof Who Controls Our Schools? published on AlterNet, or here to access the complete text. Yves here. The UKs post-Brexit Singapore on the Thames pretenses should be laughed out of the room. Anyoe who has been paying attention knows that the UK and its Crown Dependencies are already a monster tax haven; pray what more is there to be gained with Brexit? And as this talk points out, there is much to be lost. The EU will be able to crack down on UK financial institutions when the UK is outside the EU that it cant, or cant very well, right now. On top of that, Singapore has a population of 5.6 million versus the UKs 66 million. So even if Singapore made some sort of sense, it cant be scaled up enough to serve as a national strategy. Originally published at the Tax Justice Network This week the Tax Justice Networks John Christensen spoke at this event at the European Parliament organised by the European Free Alliance of the Greens on Brexit and the future of tax havens. Heres more information on the event and you can watch the whole thing here. John spoke on the impact of Brexit on tax evasion and money laundering, offering up some important recommendations on how the EU should move forward in its treatment of the UK, its satellite havens and the City of London. Here are the notes he spoke from, and the accompanying slides. BREXIT AND THE FUTURE OF TAX HAVENS The Impact of Brexit on Tax Evasion and Money Laundering 22nd January 2019 It will come as no surprise that at the time of the 2016 referendum the UK government did not have a clear vision of the type of relationship for trade in financial services they would be seeking with the EU27 once Brexit is finalised. The initial assumption seems to have been that passporting rights could be retained for the UK-based financial services sector and extended to satellites in the crown dependencies and overseas territories. This was the message I heard in the summer of 2016 both in London and the Channel Islands. However, once it had become clear by end-2016 that passporting would not be a viable option, the focus shifted to gaining acceptance of mutual recognition of regulatory standards on the basis of equivalence. Judging from discussions Ive had this month in London, this expectation of recognition of equivalence of standards remains the goal for post-Brexit relations. I am going to suggest that granting of equivalence should be contingent on the UK and its dependencies committing to and implementing minimum standards on transparency and regulatory compliance, and these commitments are subject to regular annual review of their spillover impacts on EU and other third-party states in order to block the UK from engaging in tax wars and regulatory competition. Before discussing this further, I want to raise my concerns about the UK governments proposals for a Singapore-on-Thames. Senior government ministers have been signalling the Singapore-on-Thames development strategy since January 2017, when Prime Minister May and her Chancellor Philip Hammond both flagged it up as a potential route. Since then other senior ministers, including Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Sajid Javid, have signalled that this is the model they would pursue post-Brexit. Just to put this in context, Singapore has rapidly expanded its role as an offshore financial centre in the past decade, currently ranks number five on the Financial Secrecy Index, and has a secrecy score of 67. That secrecy score reflects general weaknesses in Singapores corporate transparency regime and low level of commitment to tackling corporate tax dodging. So this raises questions about what senior politicians in London mean when they talk about Singapore-on-the-Thames. Mr Javid a serious contender to replace Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party, who has worked as a banker in Singapore has spoken about using tax cuts and deregulation as part of a shock and awe strategy to transform the post-Brexit UK economy. What the Singapore-on-the-Thames visionaries appear to have in mind can be summed up as: A commitment to sweeping tax cuts for corporations and mobile rich people tax wars as a fiscal weapon; Tax measures such as accelerated capital allowances to attract mobile investments to UK; Comprehensive de-regulation, removal of social and environmental protections; Weak or non-existent compliance with international anti-money laundering measures; Retaining golden visa arrangements to provide residence rights of wealthy non-British citizens, increasing exposure to oligarchs and corrupt illicit financial flows. Of course, none of this is new. The UK set out down the route of becoming a major tax haven economy in the 1950s, and has pursued this development strategy under governments of all complexions. The scale of the risks that tax haven Britain already imposes on other countries is revealed by a recent spillover analysis conducted by a research team comprising Professor Andrew Baker (SPERI) and Professor Richard Murphy (City University). These risks include: The use of competitive cutting of the corporate income tax rate to the lowest among G20 countries, accompanied by favouring of territorial taxation which encourages profits shifting to tax havens, patent box arrangements, relaxed controlled foreign company rules, special facilities to encourage location of company treasury operations in tax havens: The UKs (non) domicile rule which undermines the CIT and PIT tax bases of other countries by making Britain an attractive haven for high and ultra high net worth individuals; Notwithstanding the commitment to making company ownership information available on public registry, the Companies House registry is under-resourced and the available information is frequently inaccurate, out of date, and incomplete. This presents a major barrier to investigation. Company and trust administration practices in the UK and its tax haven dependencies threaten the integrity of third party country tax regimes because they (a) fail to accurately identify the beneficial owners of companies, (b) dont comply with or enforce delivery of accounting data, and (c) dont require adequate disclosure of company trading data; In practice British arrangements undermine the tax regimes of other countries by not requiring companies that are incorporated in Britain, but which claim to trade in third party countries and not in the UK, to submit annual tax returns. This creates a blind spot in international information exchange processes which deprive revenue authorities of other countries of vital information; Crucially, Britain continues to sustain a spiders web of satellite tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions which act in a vertically integrated way to block information exchange processes and undermine international cooperation on tackling money laundering. Looked at in isolation, the UK appears to be relatively transparent and fit for cooperation in anti-money laundering and anti-tax evasion programmes. But this is something of a Potemkin village: yes, the UK has committed to an open public registry of beneficial ownership of companies, but in practice the information available from Companies House is frequently out of date, inaccurate and consequently useless. Compliance across the entire financial services sector is weak, reflecting an under-resourced and fragmented regulatory service. Among the many things revealed by the Panama and Paradise Papers leaks, it should be clear to everyone that British territories like the British Virgin Islands, Cayman, and the Channel Islands are intimately linked to the UK through commercial, legal and political ties. They even boast about these ties in their promotional literature. Collectively the provide a complex and evolving ecosystem of laws, regulations and (non)compliance, which undermines transparency and regulation across the world. At the Tax Justice Network we consider the UK and its dependencies as a single entity, with London sitting as the voracious spider at the centre of a secrecy web which spans the globe. Our financial secrecy index reveals that this web is not uniform in its provision of secrecy to non-resident clients. While the UK appears relatively transparent in terms of laws and regulations, the majority of its satellites have secrecy scores which fall into the red zone, making them highly vulnerable to abuse by tax evaders and money-launderers. This range of scores does not happen by accident. London likes to do its dirty business elsewhere, providing plausible deniability for its bankers, officials and politicians. Despite all the promises to be transparent and cooperative, Britains offshore secrecy jurisdictions have resolutely refused to make their company registries open to public scrutiny, and some have even threatened to secede if this is forced upon them. Shamefully, these threats of secession have a historical echo; during the period of huge public campaigning to end Britains slave economy in the early C19th, some of the same Caribbean territories currently resisting anti-money laundering measures also threatened to secede in order to protect the interests of their slave plantation owning elites. This month the UK Government has delayed plans to implement a parliamentary decision to require these British territories to make ownership publicly available. This is why we argue that Britains tax haven empire should be treated as a single entity and judged on the score of its lowest common denominator, currently the Turks & Caicos Islands with a secrecy score of 77 out of 100. This approach provides a realistic assessment of Britains progress towards tackling tax cheating and money-laundering. On this basis Britain and all of its secrecy jurisdiction territories should be included on the European Unions blacklist and on every other tax haven blacklist. So what is to be done in the context of Britains imminent withdrawal from the European Union? The implication of the Prime Ministers threat of a Singapore-on-the-Thames strategy is that London will continue with its weak anti money-laundering regime and its support for offshore secrecy in order to attract dirty money from all corners of the world. Its satellite secrecy jurisdictions will continue to resist measures to strengthen international cooperation and make offshore companies and trusts more transparent. And the UK government will be complicit with this refusal to cooperate. In such circumstances, it seems foolhardy for the European Union to grant financial service providers in London equivalent treatment to providers who operate within the Single Market and are regulated under the common rulebook. Put simply, this gives the fox full access to the hen house. Therefore the first of my two principal recommendations is that the European Union should commission a comprehensive spillover analysis of the external risks posed by the British tax haven empire taken as a single entity. This spillover analysis should be conducted by experts independent of any political influence, and its remit should be to provide an assessment of potential threats to the integrity of EU member states on the basis of the weakest points across the entire British spiders web. In other words, look behind the greenwash of domestic laws in the UK itself and make an assessment on the basis of what international law firms, banks and accounting practices can do in territories like Bermuda, Cayman and the Turks & Caicos. This spillover analysis should inform any decision by the EU regarding the recognition of equivalence of regulation. Until such time as the UK government requires all of its dependencies to fully adopt transparency standards (e.g. public registries of beneficial ownership), recognition of equivalence should be withheld and London-based banks and law firms should be required to operate within the Single Market on the basis of having commercial establishment subject to regulatory oversight by an EU Member State (in compliance with WTO rules on services falling under the mode 3 arrangements). My second recommendation relates to the taxing of multinational companies. The threat of a post-Brexit UK government accelerating the race-to-the-bottom on tax rates and special treatments is clear and imminent. This can only worsen the rise of inequality and the undermining of the capacity of democratic states to protect their citizens. The EU must therefore proceed with its Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base project and move towards an apportionment-based approach for allocating profits to the countries where they are genuinely. But establishing a common standard for the tax base will not protect individual member states from the predatory actions of a potential spoiler state committed to a Singapore-on-the-Thames strategy. The common tax base will need to be underpinned by an agreed minimum rate, say 25 percent, to block the race-to-the-bottom tactics adopted by tax havens. The threat of a post-Brexit Singapore-on-the-Thames places Europe at a point in its political evolution at which it must choose between committing to deeper cooperation, for example on setting a common corporate tax base underpinned by a minimum tax rate, or whether to follow through on the current race-to-the-bottom trajectory, which will inevitably further erode national tax bases and regulatory, leading to slower growth, increased financial market volatility, deeper inequality and social division. Thanks for your attention. POLICE in Chitungwiza allegedly beat up and tortured a 12-year old boy in order to coerce him to become a State witness in a case involving three men accused of public violence and looting at Chitungwiza Vehicle Inspection Depot, the court heard on Wednesday. Steven Sango (24), Sandurai Nyatete (20) and Spencer Mudzingwa (22) are being charged with public violence. Their lawyer, Job Sikhala, on Wednesday told Chitungwiza magistrate Nyasha Vhitorini while making an application for discharge at the close of the State case that the evidence against his clients was manifestly unreliable that no reasonable court should safely sit upon it. According to the State outline, the minor was seen coming out of the VID depot and was interrogated on why he had a VID stamp on his body. He revealed to the court that the stamp was put on him by a dreadlocked man in jeans. The gallery was cleared as he led evidence and at no time did he implicate the accused. According to court papers, on January 14, police officers and soldiers looking for suspects that had attacked ZRP Chitungwiza and VID Chitungwiza depot came across the minor who was exiting the depot in the company of Mudzingwa. After they stopped, they noticed some stampings from the VIDs official stamp on the minors face and arms and at that moment Mudzingwa bolted away. Police then interviewed the boy who said he was stamped by Mudzingwa, who was subsequently arrested, leading to the recovery of some of the looted property. Vhitorini dismissed the accuseds application saying the trio had a case to answer. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News In a move that will benefit thousands of people and provide an overdue measure of equality to the criminal justice system, Bexar County officials have paved the way for representation of defendants at bail hearings. Two key changes have made this possible. Bexar Countys criminal district and court-at-law judges, who oversee felonies and misdemeanors, have issued parallel orders allowing attorneys with the public defenders office to represent all defendants at bail hearings at the countys new Justice Intake and Assessment Center. Meanwhile, Bexar County commissioners have expanded the public defenders office to provide this representation. The orders were overdue. But the expansion of the Bexar County Public Defenders Office, while welcome and necessary, is too limited. Its also marred by the ongoing city-county dispute over the new intake center. Well return to these points. First, though, about those important orders. On the felony side, this is an update to a previous order from the district court judges that granted such representation to indigents. Credit goes to Ron Rangel, the administrative judge for the district courts, who believed everyone should have representation at bail hearings. But the county court criminal judges, who oversee misdemeanors, previously stayed silent on the matter. The argument was that no order was necessary because magistrate judges, who oversee bail hearings, report to the district court judges. The magistrates are completely under the control of the district courts, John Longoria, the presiding judge for the county courts, told us. Clear enough, right? Wrong. Michael Ugarte, Bexars presiding magistrate judge, had the exact opposite view. There has always been a district court order and always been a county court order over everything that we do, Ugarte said. This is how representation can get denied. Bogged down in a bureaucratic quagmire. Nonetheless, this standing order should settle the matter. And yet not every defendant will receive representation. Most will. But some will not. Why? Because about half of the defendants in Bexar County are booked at the city of San Antonios Frank Wing Municipal Court building. Thank the city and the county for this redundancy. The two have been at an impasse about the countys new building, even though one expert has called the citys detention center a dungeon. This dispute has created a number of headaches. For example, the Bexar County District Attorneys Office has not been present at Frank Wing, which means there have been no prosecutors to assist police officers with their reports and filing appropriate charges. District Attorney Joe Gonzales said it makes sense to review everything after inmates have been charged and transferred to the countys new building because thats where all other services are located. Another headache: Even though the public defenders office is allowed to be present for bail hearings at Frank Wing, it lacks the staff to be in two buildings. To remedy this, Bexar County Commissioners Court recently added two positions to the public defenders office. But even with these new hires, the plan is to only be at the citys building during peak hours (prosecutors will be there, too). This is almost understandable given the situation, but its problematic. If charges are going to be filed, the prosecution and defense should be present. For everyone. Not almost everyone. Imagine if Janice Dotson-Stephens, the schizophrenic grandmother who died in the Bexar County Jail after spending five months on a misdemeanor charge, had an attorney at her bail hearing? She might have been placed in treatment. Eventually, this will be resolved. The city and county will find a way at the new building, and all defendants will be represented at bail hearings. But even then, more reforms are needed. It took a lawsuit, but judges in Harris County have effectively ended cash bail for most misdemeanors. Bexar County officials should read the writing on the wall. Defendants should be judged on their risk to the public, not on their ability to pay a bond. To better make that judgment, Bexar County should explore adopting the Laura and John Arnold Foundations risk-assessment tool. Its been praised by many experts because of the factors it weighs and underlying methodology. The assessment is based on 1.5 million cases across 300 jurisdictions. Bexar County also lacks oversight over private court-appointed attorneys, who represent most defendants after these bail hearings. Outcomes are not tracked. Pay in misdemeanor cases incentivizes guilty pleas. In December, we spotlighted a better way in Lubbock County, but Bexar officials appear intransigent. Representation at bail hearings is a significant reform, and best practice, that will benefit thousands of people. But it is just one reform in a system in need of many and all too often defined by complacent acceptance of glaring inadequacies. This editorial is part of the Unequal Justice series, which explores the inequities in Bexar Countys criminal justice system and how they can be fixed. Through a blooming diversity of investigations, we will soon discover if the world that has always surrounded Donald Trump the sleazy fixers, the disposable women, the questionable deals, the gold-plated vanity, the viciousness to subordinates, the casual prejudice, the obsession with enemies, the shady international contacts, the nepotism, the ethical emptiness, the bottomless narcissism is also a criminal enterprise. On the increasingly likely assumption that it is, how would institutions on the right be affected? It wont be pretty for the Republican Party. It has become thoroughly braided into Trumps bigotry. In a nation where the chant of Trump! Trump! Trump! has become a racist jeer, the GOP has accepted a rebranding as his subsidiary. To many suburban voters, the party has become a symbol of intolerance. To many younger voters, an instrument of white privilege. At the national level at least, the GOPs fate is inseparable from the fate of the president. Most members of the conservative movement will be tainted for flipping their inspiration from Ronald Reagan to George Wallace with hardly a moments thought. This gives credence to charges of racial prejudice I once thought exaggerated. But let me focus a moment on the pro-life movement, which has traditionally been in a different category. If you believe that a fetus is a member of the human family from its first moment and millions of Americans do then opposition to abortion is inherently a social justice issue. It is the defense of the weak and voiceless against violence. I realize, of course, that millions of Americans dont believe this. And millions of other Americans would locate personhood in the later stages of a pregnancy. But since empathy requires imagination, imagine if you believed what pro-life people do. By your own lights, you would be defending human rights and dignity. To be consistent, of course, you would need to care equally for the lives of women in crisis. And for the health and welfare of children after birth. But that is my point. Defending human dignity at every stage of human development is not a commitment currently embodied in either political party, or in either conservatism or liberalism. People who hold this view should be against Roe v. Wade and against the separation of children from their parents at the border. They should be opposed to the dehumanization of unborn children and the dehumanization of refugees and migrants. The legitimacy of pro-life sentiment is demonstrated by its consistency. But it is not a coincidence that there were so many Make America Great Again hats at the March for Life, or that Trump made a prominent video appearance. The March for Life and the Susan B. Anthony List two major pro-life organizations have featured Trump at their major gatherings. The president of the SBA has pronounced Trump the most pro-life president in our nations history and called it a privilege to stand with him. The issue here is complicated. Trump has governed as a pro-life president, especially in the appointment of two justices to the Supreme Court who more than pass Federalist Society muster. Gratitude here is natural and understandable. But if the overturn or revision of Roe v. Wade comes, it will almost certainly return greater flexibility to states in the regulation of abortion. This will kindle dozens of debates across the country and become a contest of persuasion and organization. It is then that the Trumpification of the pro-life movement will exact a price. There is a serious cost when a movement that regards itself as pro-woman associates with misogyny. There is a serious cost when a movement that claims to be expanding the circle of social inclusion associates itself with nativism and racism. There is a serious cost when a movement that needs to be seen as charitable and reasonable associates itself with the politics of abuse and cruelty. This turns out to be a particularly pure test of transactional, single-issue politics. Would you trade a major political gain for a large chunk of your moral reputation? I dont want to argue that such a choice is easy. Maybe gaining two justices is worth it. But Im skeptical. The pro-life movement needs to be, and be seen as, advocating the defense of the weak against the strong. Trumpism is the elevation of the strong against refugees, and against migrant children, and against minorities. The gains of moral and political compromise are material; the costs are spiritual. We will see which matters more. michaelgerson@washpost.com San Antonio police are investigating a shooting that left the driver of an SUV in serious condition after someone in a nearby vehicle opened fire on the SUV late Friday on the far West Side, according to police. Officers say the blue SUV was at the intersection of Alamo Ranch Parkway and Culebra Road about 11:30 p.m. when a tan vehicle pulled up next to it. The driver was shot in the abdomen when police say someone in the tan vehicle began shooting at the SUV. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, along with several law enforcement agencies across Texas took to social media Saturday to share their condolences to Chucky, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office K-9 unit killed in the line of duty overnight. "Protecting others until the end. Rest In Peace, Chucky," Nirenberg posted on Twitter. The 5-year-old Belgian Malinois was deployed by BSCO to restrain a man involved in a high-speed, multi-county chase that began in Karnes County and ended on San Antonio's Far West Side Friday night. "Chucky was able to get a bite on the suspect," Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said. "Unfortunately that suspect fired several shots, Chucky was struck and died there at the scene." RELATED: BCSO K9 unit shot, killed attempting to restrain chase suspect Salazar said law enforcement then opened fire on the man, striking him several times in the lower extremities. He was transported to University Hospital in critical condition after officers performed life-saving measures on him. The man, later identified as Matthew Reyes Mireles, 38, has been charged with multiple felonies including interference with a police service animal, attempted capital murder of a police officer, aggravated assault on a public servant, and evading arrest detention with a vehicle. In a solemn sign of respect, a long line of Bexar County Sheriff's Office deputies accompanied Chucky's remains early Saturday to Becker Animal Hospital. Salazar said there will be a funeral for Chucky. Click through the photos above to see how law enforcement and other officials are remembering Chucky. Candice.Garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @_candicegarcia Bexar County Sheriff's Office Authorities are asking the community to help them find a missing woman with special needs. Deena Martin, 55, has been missing since 8 a.m. Thursday, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. 99.5 KISS celebrated seven years of the Billy Madison Show with a music bash. Disturbed and Three Days Grace rocked the Alamodome Friday night. Disturbed has been on tour with Three Days Grace and recently performed at the Austin City Limits Music Festival last year. DALLAS (AP) Southwest Airlines will drop service to Mexico City this spring and use the financial resources to bolster other routes. Dallas-based Southwest says it will cease operations at Benito Juarez Mexico City International Airport on March 30. A viral video of a college student apparently seizing in a North Texas police officer's squad car earlier this week has been viewed almost two million times in four days, sparking outrage on social media. Witnesses said they heard the student yell "stop choking me" in a struggle with officers, but the University of North Texas Police Department in Denton says the video doesn't show the full story. Police say the man appeared to be faking a seizure after he was taken into custody on a theft charge, and they have since released the full 39-minute body camera video of the incident. The video covers the time he was taken into custody until his booking at the Denton County Jail. It shows the inside of the vehicle when the suspect, identified as UNT student Peyton Long, appeared to be convulsing. It also shows a police officer grab his neck a move that police say prevented him from hitting his head against the safety cage. HPD BODY CAMS: HPD to revise policy on body cam video release "The officers grasped the suspect below his jaw to control his head movements and prevent him from biting," the police department said in a press release issued Thursday, two day after the incident. "His airway remained clear as he continued to talk to the officers. The suspect then began to shake his entire body, mimicking the symptoms of a seizure." They department goes on to say that based on the officers' training, the man appeared to be faking the seizure. Long was booked into Denton County Jail on a misdemeanor charge of theft between $100 to $750, according to university officials speaking on behalf of the police department. He has not yet retained an attorney, according to misdemeanor court records, and he did not immediately respond to a phone call and message requesting comment. The bystander who originally posted the video on Twitter, who goes by the handle @pleasehelp420, could not immediately be reached for comment. Her caption on the post reads "always record the police if ur white." Since the video was posted Tuesday, the police department has responded to an ongoing flood of criticism on the post, referring viewers to its full-length video on the university website. In a press release, UNT police said the incident started when they responded to multiple theft reports at the university library. Police said they located and arrested Long at the top level of a nearby parking garage. After police detained the man in the squad car, the bystander started filming as police officer asked her to back away from the scene. "I'm not interfering whatsoever," the bystander says in the video. Police said the video "misrepresents the professional actions our officers took to prevent the suspect from seriously harming himself." Their body camera video shows Long asking officers what he was accused of stealing. Long then appears to slam his head multiple times against the safety cage in front of him. At that point, one officer grabbed his neck and told him to stop. "You just choked me out," Long can be heard saying in the video. Long speaks to officers about his charge as they explain to him he's going to jail. He appears to strike his head once more against the safety cafe. An officer again grabs him by the neck while asking him to stop. "Why do y'all keep choking me?" Long says in the video, which also shows him fall back and close his eyes as his body shakes in the back seat. Chunks of the video did not have sound. Police said Texas common-law privacy protects the suspect's individual rights when it comes to comments he made while in custody. As a result, they muted some of the audio. Police said they transported him to the jail and immediately requested medical support. Paramedics evaluated and cleared him before releasing him to jail staff, police said. Court records show he bonded out of jail Wednesday after posting his $1,500 bail. Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com | NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. A man convicted of killing a pregnant woman pleaded not guilty Thursday in another murder case, in which he's charged with bludgeoning or suffocating a 19-year-old woman who has been missing since 2002. Michael Keith Moore, 31, was charged with the murder of Rachel Cooke, who vanished while jogging near her parent's Georgetown home. Several family members and friends of Cooke sat in the courtroom during the arraignment, many wearing buttons with a photo of Cooke. The charge alleges Moore killed Cooke "by striking her with a hammer, by suffocating her, by some manner and means unknown, or by a combination of these acts." Hundreds of volunteers helped search for Cooke in the days following her disappearance. They later drove around Central Texas distributing fliers with Cooke's picture. Her parents have made numerous pleas for anyone with information about the case to come forward. The family has also offered a $50,000 reward for information that could lead to a break in the case. In 2004, the Williamson County sheriff's office assembled a multi-agency team, including investigators from the Austin Police Department and the FBI, to examine the case. The charges Thursday were the first in the case. Moore was convicted in February of the 2003 murder of Christina Moore at her Round Rock home. Christina Moore, not related to Michael Moore, was 14 weeks pregnant when he slit her throat as she knelt on the floor of her bedroom closet, her right arm restrained by a handcuff. He then stole her purse, some jewelry and her wedding rings, according to testimony in the trial. Her husband, Robert Moore, came home to find his wife dead and the couple's then 15-month-old daughter Gracie crying, unharmed, in her crib. ___ Information from the Austin American-Statesman: http://www.statesman.com NEW YORK A huge bonfire was burning at Joaquin Guzman Loeras mountain hideout one night when the crime lords bodyguards brought him two enemy soldiers slumped across the backs of two ATVs. The men members of the Zetas, a rival cartel had been tortured for hours, and many of their bones had already been broken. The soldiers, as listless as rag dolls, according to a gunman who was there, could barely move. In the glow of the firelight, Guzman ordered the Zetas to be placed beside the flames and then approached them with a rifle. Pressing its barrel to the first mans head, the kingpin cursed the soldiers mother and abruptly pulled the trigger. After he had done the same to the second, he ordered his assassins to dispose of the bodies. Put them in the bonfire, the gunman recalled Guzman saying. I dont want any bones to remain. This morbid story was recounted Thursday by Isaias Valdez Rios, a former cartel killer, at Guzmans drug trial in New York. Though dozens of murders have been described in court since the trial began 10 weeks ago, Judge Brian M. Cogan has sought to keep a tight leash on the gore. But Valdezs testimony was exceptionally gruesome and marked the first time that jurors heard explicitly graphic examples of the bloodshed that Mexican cartels have long been known for. It was also the first time that evidence was shown that depicted the violence personally committed by the defendant, known to the world as El Chapo. RELATED: El Chapo Trial: The Kingpin's Mistress Tells All In three grueling hours on the witness stand, Valdez spellbound the jury in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn with wrenching accounts from the front lines of Mexicos bloody drug wars. He spoke about running someone down in his truck during a frantic highway gunfight. He spoke about killing an informant in the earshot of women and children. He spoke about burying a bound and blindfolded man, who was still alive, on Guzmans orders. As the prosecutions last cooperating witness, Valdezs appearance on the stand suggested that the governments case was coming to an end. He seemed to have been called to deliver a gut punch to jurors. His testimony brutal, relentless and unquestionably damaging to Guzman was a kind of emotional punctuation mark. Valdez started his account with a vivid description of his first day working in what he described as Guzmans security circle. On that day in 2004, he recalled, a man he knew as Fantasma one of the kingpins bodyguards whose nickname translates to ghost picked him up in Culiacan and took him to an airstrip where he boarded a plane for a short flight into the Sierra Madre. When Valdez landed at Guzmans hideout, someone walked up to him, he said, and placed a bulletproof vest, an AK-47 and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in his hands. The rules of his new workplace were eventually explained to him. He would be on duty for a month, he was told, then off for a month. He would sleep in the dirt outside the kingpins cabin. He would be paid 2,000 pesos a month (or a little more than $175). He was never to approach the boss. If the boss wanted to speak with him, he would be summoned. RELATED: El Chapo's Wife Is Implicated in His Infamous Prison Escape That happened, Valdez said, 10 or 15 days after he arrived at the encampment known as The Sky. As he approached Guzman, he recalled, the crime lord jocularly asked, Dude, how you doing? Guzman wanted to know about his new recruits service in the Mexican special forces. He also warned the novice gunman that he had to be especially vigilant in the mountains. Here, Valdez recalled the drug lord saying, you really have to be on the lookout. Shortly after, Valdez, in his first assignment as one of Guzmans sicarios, or assassins, was ordered to accompany the kingpins chief of security, Alejandro Aponte, known as El Negro, to hunt down and execute an informant. Valdez told jurors that three other killers accompanied him. One was known as El Ocho. The other was nicknamed Mojo Jojo. After the hit team arrived at the informants house, Valdez said, they subdued the women and children then found their target hiding in a bedroom. The man was taken to an indoor patio where, apparently desperate, he wrapped his arms around one of its support columns. Valdez said that Aponte shot the man first with a burst of automatic gunfire. After he fell to the ground, Valdez said, another sicario shot him in the head. Then the hit team simply returned to their pickup truck. We headed toward the mountains, Valdez said. A few years later, he recalled, he watched Guzman interrogate then kill an ally of his bitter enemies, the Arellano Felix brothers. Speaking softly in the silent courtroom, Valdez recounted how the kingpin had the man brought, bound and blindfolded, to a graveyard in one of his mountain camps. The man had already been tortured so viciously with an iron, he said, that his T-shirt had been soldered into his skin. He also reeked, Valdez added, from having been locked inside a hen house for days. Although the victim couldnt see it, he had been placed in front of his own freshly dug grave. Valdez said Guzman asked the man several questions, and in the middle of an answer, pulled out a .25-caliber pistol and shot him. Remove his handcuffs and bury him, he recalled the crime lord saying. But as Valdez and another gunman bent to fetch the body, they realized the small caliber bullet hadnt killed the man. He was still gasping for air. And thats how we dumped him in the hole and buried him, Valdez said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Texans are leaving a lot of vacation time unused. A survey commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association found that Texans have 67 million unused days of vacation. It is second only to California when it comes to leaving time off on the table. Nearly half of Texans reported leaving vacation time unused, a finding the Travel Association tied to decreased happiness. The travel industry advocate reported finding that "workers who use the majority of their vacation days for travel are significantly happier than those who travel less or not at all." Of course, Texas's size contributes to the sheer number of unused vacation days in Texas. If you look instead at the percentage of vacation days that go unused, Texans are only 10th worst in the nation. Mississippi, Washington, D.C., North Dakota, New Mexico, Tennessee, California, Oklahoma, Maryland and Nevada blow off roughly a third of their paid vacation, while Texas fails to use 29 percent. Angels Camp, CA Although the deadly bird disease has not spread to the Mother Lode, Calaveras County Fair officials are not taking any chances especially with spring coming meaning birds will be migrating. The word came down from the State of Californias Veterinarian Doctor Annette Jones, who recently recommending that all poultry shows from now until July 1 be cancelled, according to Calaveras CEO and Fair Manager Laurie Giannini. This is a result of the Newcastle disease outbreak in some areas of the state, most recently in the Los Angeles area as shown on the map below. Newcastle is a contagious and fatal viral disease affecting the respiratory, nervous and digestive systems of birds and poultry. Noting that the cancellation will be impacting many kids, Giannini hopes this early notice will give enough time for exhibitors to join other fair projects. To help with the switch, she is encouraging farming leaders to assist exhibitors in meeting all the attendance requirements. In an email sent out to exhibitors regarding the poultry show cancellation, Giannini expressed, This is very unfortunate but it is our hope that this can be a learning experience for our young agriculturalist. On behalf of the [Fair] board of directors I thank you advance in assisting our kids to have the best experience possible. The Poultry Barn will not sit empty during this years fair, however, as Giannini reveals that they are in the process of creating some additional competitions targeted at mini-members. She details that by entering one of the competitions listed below kids will be eligible for exhibitor prices, which includes carnival passes. Further information on these special contests will be released next week, according to Giannini. Special poultry contests: Display Boards Decorated eggs Lego Chickens Paper Mache Chickens The 2019 Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog Jubilee runs May 16-19. This years theme is Be A Kid Again! and the new logo was created by Zac Calbert from Sonora. He also designed last years art work. A picture of the logo is in the image box. Curtis Creek School District Superintendent Sharon Johnson View Photos Sonora, CA Clarke Broadcasting has learned that the Curtis Creek School Districts Superintendent Sharon Johnson is stepping down to take a job in Santa Clara County. In an email to students parents announcing her resignation, Johnson began with fond memories and ended it with best wishes for the districts future success. She went on to write that she was taking the position of Coordinator District Support with the Santa Clara County Office of Education in San Jose. Johnson relayed the process to find her replacement, which will include public input, stating that the Principal of Curtis Creek Elementary, Terri Bell, will take over the position on an interim basis. She advised that the board will work quickly to find another interim Superintendent until the job can be filled permanently. Johnsons last day is the 30th of this month. Today the board announced it will hold a special meeting on Monday, January 28 at 3:30 p.m. in the district office board room located at 18755 Standard Road in Sonora to discuss Johnsons replacement. The agenda outlines that the board will look at three possible options: whether the next superintendent should be a shared position with another Tuolumne County School District; should the next hire be a superintendent/principal; and if the board wants to search for a retiree to serve as a part-time superintendent. The board will also consider who should conduct the superintendent search and feedback from the staff and public regarding what qualities the new hire will need. Johnsons entire email can be viewed below: It is with the warmth of wonderful memories, and some sadness, that I announce my departure from CCSD. My last day will be January 30th. It has been a wonderful five years filled with love, laughter, and sadness. Weve worked through challenging times and also through many days filled with hope for our students future. Ive accepted a position as Coordinator District Support with the Santa Clara County Office of Education in San Jose. The CC School Board stated that Terri Bell will act as Interim Superintendent during the search for an Interim Superintendent. The Board will also begin obtaining staff and public input for the permanent Superintendent position. I have great hope and well wishes for the CCSD and Ill continue to follow the Districts progress. Sincerely, Sharon Johnson (CNN) In a plaza in Caracas, surrounded by supporters carrying flags and chanting for democracy, Juan Guaido, a 35 year-old legislator from a coastal town in Venezuela swore to "to assume all the powers of the presidency to secure an end to the usurpation." The event was widely reported as "Guaido declares himself President of Venezuela." This language, the idea that he "declared himself," suggests images of banana republics and of misguided attempts to claim foreign pieces of land for oneself or one's children a la Jeremiah Heaton and Princess Emily. This language misrepresents what happened in Venezuela on Wednesday. Guaido did not "declare himself" president of the South American country. He assumed the presidency of Venezuela as constitutionally mandated. Guaido was elected to represent his home state of Vargas in the Venezuelan National Assembly, the unicameral legislature, in December 2015. He was part of a group of opposition legislators that handed then-President Nicolas Maduro his first significant electoral defeat. Maduro responded by attempting to strip the legislature of its powers. Maduro had the Venezuelan Supreme Court, a judicial body that is not independent, rule all of the powers of the National Assembly be passed on to the court. The court later reversed its decision. A few months later, Maduro called for elections for a new Constituent Assembly, which would assume the legislative power. The opposition boycotted the election. Through all of this maneuvering, the opposition-controlled National Assembly continued to meet regularly to seek ways to restore democratic order in Venezuela. Maduro's actions against the National Assembly and the subsequent bogus election of the Constitutional Assembly caught the attention of the international community. The U.S. slapped the regime with sanctions in 2017. The country and the regime were, and remain, in crisis. The country's economy continues to suffer from falling oil prices, dwindling oil production, and mismanagement of resources. The first people to receive sanctions from the U.S. in July 2017 were celebrated as heroes by Maduro and given replicas of Bolivar's sword. The sanctions kept coming. The regime evidently ran out of swords. Reports of discontent within the top brass started to emerge. Opportunities were opening up for the opposition. Maduro sought re-election to a second six-year term in May 2018. At the time, the country was experiencing an economic and humanitarian crisis. Millions of Venezuelans fled the country in search of food and medicine. Maduro banned opposition candidates from running. The opposition boycotted the election. Maduro nonetheless had the non-independent electoral body declare him the winner with 67% of the vote. The election was widely perceived as a sham and resulted in more sanctions for the regime. It is clear that in the days leading up to Guaido taking the stage in that plaza, Venezuela was not a democratic country. Indeed, Freedom House, an influential watchdog organization, had rated Venezuela as "not free," as early as 2017. At the time, Venezuela joined Cuba as the only two "not free" countries in the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela was an impoverished oil-rich country governed by a dictator. What distinguished Venezuela from other impoverished oil-rich countries governed by dictators was its location in a region of peace, its proximity to the US, and its people's commitment to restore democratic order through democratic means. The opportunity to do so presented itself in January. Having declared himself the victor of the 2018 presidential election, Maduro was inaugurated for his second term on January 10, 2019. Most democratic countries in the region refused to recognize Maduro as president of Venezuela on that date even if they had recognized him previously. The few friendly nations that supported him on that day reveal the nature of the regime: Belarus, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Turkey and Russia all sent representatives to Maduro's inauguration. The Venezuelan Constitution calls for all citizens to ensure that constitutional order is maintained (Art 333) and for Venezuelans to not recognize any regime that goes against its "values, principles, and democratic guarantees or violates human rights" (Art 350). Maduro's regime was very clearly in violation of democratic principles and in violation of human rights, as can be seen in the Freedom House reports and Organization of American States (OAS) reports. Maduro's dictatorial rule activated the responsibility placed on citizens to defend the Constitution. The nature of the election that Maduro claimed to have won singled out his regime as not democratic. When Juan Guaido stepped on that stage on Wednesday, he was not "declaring himself" president, rather, as the highest-ranking democratically elected official in the country, he was assuming the responsibility for steering the country back to democracy. The United States immediately recognized Guaido as the president of Venezuela and many other democratic countries, including most of Venezuela's neighbors, followed suit. President Guaido is facing an uphill battle in trying to bring this country back to the peace and prosperity that characterized it two decades ago. Further, he has to carry out this Herculean task while facing threats to his physical security. Guaido and the people of Venezuela need the full support of defenders of democracy and human rights everywhere. Reporting that he went to a plaza and "declared himself" president risks dismissing a critical juncture in the political life of Venezuela. It conjures images of Venezuela as a barren land where people can live out their wildest delusions. In reality, Venezuela is a country of nearly 30 million people fighting to live free. Guaido is just the person whose turn it was to step up to that challenge. This story was first published on CNN.com, "What's really going on in Venezuela." Fairfields long-defunct Stratfield Market is becoming a new school. The Goddard School, a private preschool, plans to convert the 9,700-square-foot, free-standing building at 1290 Stratfield Road, which has been empty since 2006, into its newest location, with a target opening of Sept. 1. The school, which provides a play-based curriculum for children 6 weeks to 6 years old, signed a 15-year lease with Summit Development of Southport, which recently acquired the property. Goddard has 460 schools in 36 states, with a total enrollment of 65,000 children. Founded in 1988, the school is based in King of Prussia, Pa. There are 10 locations already in Connecticut, including Danbury, Brookfield, Monroe, Westport and Wilton. Felix Charney, principal of Summit Development, said the company plans to design the school in collaboration with the non-profit Stratfield Village Association to ensure it meshes with their Four Corners Project. Four Corners focuses on streetscape and pedestrian improvements to the intersection of Fairfield Woods Road and Stratfield Road. The SVA started two years ago, in large part to decide the fate of the Stratfield Market which had been in the neighborhood for 50 years and vacant for more than a decade. The Association recently received a $650,000 grant from the State of Connecticut for the Four Corners Project. The Four Corners is at the heart of our neighborhood, and we look forward to working with Felix Charney to help improve and revitalize the area, said SVA co-president Jamie McCusker in a press release. Summit has a great track record of owning and developing beautiful properties and we are excited by the potential of having a Summit property in our neighborhood. Shining track record For more than 30 years, Charney has been in business with Summit Development dealing with a wide range of properties, according to Geoff Thompson, a spokesperson for the Fairfield-based firm. Most developers stick with a certain (type of property) either you do really small stuff or really big stuff. Felix has always done all sizes of things, Thompson said. Summit has worked with an array of properties throughout Connecticut, New York and Florida, specializing in distressed commercial and residential real estate projects. The firm now owns and manages buildings totaling more than seven million square feet. This is not at all out of character with the kind of properties (Charney) is interested in, Thompson said. He loves to take these smaller properties that are in nice communities where he can come up with a new use, redo it, and make it better. Troubled past Summit is the latest in a list of developers whove owned the former grocery store in the past 12 years. Following its closure in 2006, the space was purchased by Samuel Lotstein Realty which secured a 25-year lease with Walgreens for the space. The proposed pharmacy sparked controversy among residents who successfully defeated the plan and got a zoning change adopted that prevents chain stores from opening in designated neighborhood districts. The protracted legal battle began in 2006 and ended in 2011. There are no chain stores beyond a Mobile Station and a Peoples Bank, and we didnt want to have a large big box national chain retailer drug store sitting in the middle of our village, McCusker said. Though it handed residents their victory over Walgreens, the amendment created its own challenge in trying to meet the demands of residents who still wanted a market. The fact is, that when the market was here, it did very well for itself, he said, adding that 50 percent of the markets revenue came from Easton and Redding residents who preferred to do their shopping at the store rather than going to Black Rock Turnpike stores. Greenwich-based developers Urstadt-Biddle Group Inc. purchased the parcel in March 2017 for $3 million with plans to open another market, but the plan was abandoned despite a deal with Walgreens that included a lease termination in exchange for a cash payment. The space switched hands yet again months later with local developer Michael Moorin acquiring the site in August 2017 with plans to clean the site and find a new tenant, to no avail. Long awaited change The long-awaited leasing of the supermarket space is a good sign for the neighborhood and the town, according to Fairfield officials. Were delighted to welcome the Godard School to Fairfield, said Mark Barnhart, director of the towns economic development department. We think its a great use for the siteWeve sat ... looking at a vacant storefront for the last decade. Its become quite a blight on the neighborhood and (this is) positive. Its not for lack of trying to get a grocer to go into that space but that has not proven to be possible. Opening the new Goddard School in the Stratfield neighborhood was paved, in large part, to a 2013 zoning change. At the time, Childs World Academy wanted to fill the space and the Planning and Zoning commission altered zoning for the space to allow for the business. The daycare center abandoned its plans in 2014 when McCusker said Lotstein was unwilling to pay for remediation of asbestos and PCBs in the building. While the addition of Goddard to the neighborhood will fill the long-standing void, it also isnt what residents initially wanted. An SVA-conducted survey found that roughly 80 percent still wanted a neighborhood market, McCusker said. I think people are tired of the place sitting there ugly and blighted and empty for 12 years, so I do think there is going to be a large percent of the neighborhood that is just happy that something is happening there, McCusker said. Is it the best-case scenarios for the neighborhood? No, but its better than whats been happening. Jordan.grice@hearstmediact.com Jamison Jaron Weeden, 28, Okmulgee resident, left us June 5, 2021. Service of Remembrance will be Friday, 11:00 AM, The Chapel of Peace of the Keith D. Biglow Funeral Directors, Inc., of Okmulgee. biglowfunerals.com A former member of the Bandidos who helped bring down the outlaw motorcycle clubs national leaders got a huge break in a San Antonio courtroom Wednesday when he walked out with probation instead of the 14 to 17 years in prison he faced for a drug-trafficking conviction. Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra granted a request from federal prosecutors to cut Raul K-Oz Puente a break for his assistance in the Bandidos racketeering case. At Wednesdays hearing, everyone was careful not to mention what Puente did for the feds or to speak of the Bandidos by name as Ezra departed from the recommended sentencing guideline range of 168 months to 210 months in prison, without parole, and instead sentenced Puente to five years of probation. Puente pleaded guilty three years ago to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamines. On ExpressNews.com: Jurors find Bandidos leaders guilty Ezra cautioned that he would not normally, if ever, consider a probated sentence as requested by the government for someone who faced such a high sentence for a drug offense. Every so often, and not that frequently, there are circumstances where the government has justified the request, Ezra said. Sadly, this is one of those situations where it requires that (the motion for downward departure) remain sealed, pursuant to law. It might seem to public that the court is not being as stern as it should be in terms of drug cases, the judge continued. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wish I can go into detail of why Im imposing the sentence I am, but I cant. If I did, it would endanger individuals. Ezra added that Puentes sentence reduction was not as drastic as that of Sammy the Bull Gravano, the infamous mafia underboss who killed 19 people but avoided life in prison, or the death penalty, because he got government-sanctioned breaks for helping convict mob boss John Gotti. In Gravanos case, the government (and the judge who approved Gravanos pass) looked at the bigger picture: Taking down the head of a mafia organization was more important then imposing a hefty sentence against one individual, Ezra said. Related: Bandidos upset Cossacks patch was bigger than ours According to court records, Puente went from being president of the Northeast San Antonio chapter of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club to something that put him in danger he flipped. During a trial last year, testimony surfaced that Puente cooperated and agreed to wear a wire and record phone calls with other Bandidos, following his 2015 drug indictment. That helped the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety identify the Bandidos drug-trafficking, and to solve other crimes that were also rolled into a racketeering indictment against the organizations national leadership. Puentes cooperation helped the government flip other high-ranking members of the Bandidos and to convict its top two leaders, former national president Jeffrey Fay Pike of Conroe and then-national vice president John Xavier Portillo of San Antonio. The pair were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in a three-month trial in 2018 of leading the Bandidos racketeering conspiracy that included drug-trafficking, assaults on rivals and murder. I tried to balance everything out, the good (and) the bad, Puente told the judge Wednesday. Theres no excuse for the situation I was put in. I could have gone left and I went right. Ive done my best to rectify and correct and fix and prevent. Related: Fight at strip club leads to drug arrest For several years before 2015, Puente was in all things Bandido. He drew headlines for a bloody fight over turf with a member of another gang, the Texas Syndicate, at a local strip club in 2009. He was caught on a wiretap during a drug-dealing investigation of Johnny Romo, a national sergeant-at-arms of the Bandidos who later turned states evidence himself and testified against Portillo and Pike. In one of those intercepted calls, Puente warned another Bandidos member that it appeared the call was being monitored by law enforcement. Puentes lawyer, Tony Jimenez, said after Wednesdays hearing that his client is no longer in the Bandidos. Its a very difficult situation, Jimenez said. Hes just wanting to move on and put this behind him. Puente, knowing hes at risk, told the judge it wont be easy to forge ahead. Even after this, I dont know what tomorrow brings, Puente said. Its just something that Im going to have to look over my shoulder (for) the rest of my life. Its going to be what its going to be. I apologize to my family and everybody in general. Guillermo Contreras covers federal court and immigration news in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | gcontreras@express-news.net | Twitter: @gmaninfedland The rig count in the Permian is on the upswing this week, according to the oilfield services company Baker Hughes. The basin gained three rigs for a total of 484. But Midland lost one rig and stands at 49, while the Permians most active county, Reeves, has 77 rigs, up two. MOULTRIE [mdash] Gary Ray Riggins, age 67 of Colquitt County died Monday June 14, 2021 at his home surrounded by family Celebrations of Life Services are being planned and will be announced later Gary was born September 17, 1953 in Moultrie Ga. to the late Curtis R. and Martha Latrail Holmes Editorial Hardy and commission must address concerns from new member Lorain Man gets life in prison for selling fentanyl that killed 23-year-old Jason Antonio Lytle, 39, of Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor indecent exposure. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $25,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 23. Pheng Lee, 41, of 1288 Gardiol Ave. N.E., in Valdese, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,000 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 28. Joseph William Patton, 29, of 2557 Harding Road, in Connelly Springs, was charged with misdemeanor larceny by trick. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $1,500 secured bond. Reginald Eugene Bolden, 22, of 11 Unit St., C, in Asheville, was charged with felony malicious conduct by a prisoner. He was served at the Burke-Catawba jail where he was being held on previous charges. He was issued an additional $20,000 secured bond and a trial date was set for Feb. 18. Joseph Paul W Mosteller, 36, of 326 Walker Road, in Morganton, was charged with misdemeanor failure to appear or comply. He was transported to Burke-Catawba jail and placed under a $750 secured bond. His trial date was set for Jan. 28. January 26, 2019 Pelosi Aghast - Stone Indictment Proves That Trump Campaign Deliberately Campaigned For Trump On Friday Roger Stone, a political consultant who in 2016 publicly supported the Trump campaign, was arrested on criminal charges filed by special counsel Robert Mueller. He has since been released on bail. Stone is indicted (pdf) in five cases for making false statements, one attempt of influencing a witness and an obstruction of a proceeding. Since May 2017 the former FBI chief Mueller investigates an alleged collusion between Trump, his campaign and something Russian with regards to the 2016 election. No evidence has been produced so far that substantiate any such collusion. The people who fanatically claim that there must have been such a connection are now disappointed. The long awaited Stone indictment was one of their last straws. But there is absolutely nothing in it that hints at any collusion. All these alleged crimes were committed in relation to an appearance of Stone before a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) investigation. During the 2016 election Stone publicly claimed that he was in direct communication with Wikileaks and its editor Julian Assange. Steve Bannon, then part of the Trump campaign, asked Stone to ask Wikileaks at what time it would release new batches of emails that had been obtained from the Democratic National Committee. The Trump campaign was naturally interested in using these releases to attack the competing candidate Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks and Assange denied that they had any relations or communications with Roger Stone. It later turned out that Stone had two contact persons, the New Yorker comedian Randy Credico and the conservative writer Jerome Corsi, who he MIGHT have had some contact or insight into Wikileaks. The indictment says nothing about their relations to Wikileaks. During his appearance in front of the HPSCI Stone misremembered, contradicted or lied about several details related to his earlier false claim. He also asked Randy Credico to lie to the committee. Those are the only issues the indictment is about. It is about the lies of a notorious liar which became process crimes when he repeated them during an investigation. Stone himself denies emphatically that he committed any crime and promises to defend himself in court. Nowhere does the indictment say that this has anything to do with the Trump campaign, Russia, Wikileaks or the not existing relations between them. But some media will not tell you that. The New York Times falsely headlines: Indicting Roger Stone, Mueller Shows Link Between Trump Campaign and WikiLeaks. The first graph: The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, revealed on Friday the most direct link yet between parallel efforts by the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks to damage Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election using Democratic Party material stolen by Russians. There follow 28 paragraphs about the arrest and others issues, five pictures and the above graphic, but no explanation of the supposed link which, according to the indictment, Stone claimed to have but which never existed. Stone claimed to have contact with Wikileaks. Bannon asked him to ask Wikileaks a questions. Stone had no relation with Wikileaks. He responded with second hand rumors and publicly available information. End of the story. Mueller found no connection between the Trump campaign and anything Russia to influence the election. He indicted some people of issues unrelated to the elections. Others committed process crimes by lying to the investigation. He also indicted some Russians for money laundering and hacking. But those cases are quite dubious and will anyway never come in front of a court. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attempts to divert from this disappointing outcome of the Mueller investigation. The Russian influence turned out be nothing. The collusion claim is dead. She is not allowed to blame Hillary Clinton for being the most unlikable candidate who run a lame campaign. Who then can be blamed for the outcome of the 2016 election? After some deep thinking Pelosi finally found the people who are guilty of winning Trump the election: Washington, D.C. Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement after Special Counsel Mueller released a seven-count indictment of top Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone, for lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction: The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ... Top Trump campaign officials deliberately tried "to influence the 2016 election"? Holy moley! They "subverted the will of the American people" by asking them to vote for Trump? Incredible! The Trump campaign worked to get Trump elected? Isn't that illegal? In the face of 37 indictments, the Presidents continued actions to undermine the Special Counsel investigation raise the questions: what does Putin have on the President, politically, personally or financially? Why has the Trump Administration continued to discuss pulling the U.S. out of NATO, which would be a massive victory for Putin? Last week we listed the many good things Trump did for Russia which proves that he is totally under Putin's influence. But that was meant as satire. In fact Trump made dozens of decisions that severely hurt Russia's interests. He lauds NATO and uses it to press other states to buy more U.S. weapons. Do the Democrats think that spewing such nonsense will attract voters? Or is it a diversion from the fact that they fail to attack Trump's disastrous policies on all but the most minor issues? Posted by b on January 26, 2019 at 20:01 UTC | Permalink Comments We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Submit Nawaz Sharif Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif's lawyer on Saturday filed a petition in the high court here for suspension of his sentence and seeking bail on medical grounds for the incarcerated PML-N leader. Sharif has been incarcerated in the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore after he was sentenced to seven years in jail by an accountability court in the Al-Azizia steel mills case on December 24. Sharif's counsel Khawaja Haris filed the petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), where petitions for suspension of sentence and appeal against conviction have been already filed. The court had set a hearing for February 18 to hear the earlier petition and appeal, but Sharif's legal team wanted to persuade the court for early hearing. Sharif is a heart patent and his health has deteriorated as he needs urgent medical attention in a hospital, according to his daughter Maryam Nawaz. A panel of experts appointed by the government to examine the former premier also recommended that he should be given proper medical attention. Sharif was tried in three corruption case launched in September, 2017. He was first convicted and sentenced for 10 years in July last year in a case related to Avenfield properties in London. The IHC granted him bail in the case in September. He was convicted in the Al-Azizia case but was acquitted in Flagship investment case in December. The cases were launched on the orders of the Supreme Court which had ousted Sharif as premier in July, 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a televised address to the nation from his desk in the Oval Office about immigration and the southern U.S. border on the 18th day of a partial government shutdown at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 8, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria - RC1874104B10 US President Donald Trump has announced a deal with the Democrats to temporarily open the government for three weeks till mid-February, ending the longest-ever partial shutdown and enabling over 800,000 federal workers to resume their job. "I am very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end the shutdown and re-open the federal government," Trump said at the White House on Friday. "After 36 days of spirited debate and dialogue, I've seen and heard from enough Democrats and Republicans that they're willing to put partisanship aside, I think, and put the security of the American people first." The president, however, implied about declaring a national emergency if the Congress did not approve a funding for the wall by February 15. "If we don't get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15 again or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency." Minutes after the announcement, Republicans and the Democrats came together on the Senate floor to support a three-week continuing resolution to reopen the government, while they negotiate a bipartisan border security deal. Both the House and the Senate are expected to pass the resolution shortly for Trump to sign into law on Friday. Trump assured the federal workers that they would be receiving their pay checks as soon as possible. "In a short while, I will sign a bill to open our government for three weeks until February 15th. I will make sure that all employees receive their back pay very quickly," Trump said in his address to the nation on Friday afternoon. No sooner had Trump announced to have reached the deal, the White House hoped that Congress finds a solution in the next three weeks, or else the president will continue to keep all options on the table. "I'm glad the president announced a deal with House leaders.... So, with cooperation, we can pass legislation opening the government... today," Senator Mitch McConnell said. AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal on January 26 hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his government's crop insurance scheme alleging it has failed to benefit the farming community and charged the NDA with dividing the society on caste lines. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) is aimed at enabling farmers avail insurance cover against crop loss due to natural calamities. "Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Modi promised crop insurance scheme... Now, if a farmer's crop gets destroyed, the insurance firms refuse to give compensation to them saying that it is only applicable if over 70 per cent crop is damaged," Kejriwal said addressing rally for the Jind Assembly bypoll here. The bypoll for the Jind seat is scheduled to be held on January 28 and was necessitated following the death of INLD MLA Hari Chand Middha. Kejriwal claimed that Modi's promises to benefit farmers by way of crop insurance scheme have failed to yield the result and alleged that the prime minister also did not implement the Swaminathan Commission report as was assured by him before the general elections in 2014. "I urge the electorate that if Modi and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar come to seek votes for the BJP, then ask them to get these from insurance firms," the AAP national convener said. "In Haryana, if farmers approach Khattar for compensation of damaged crops, they are told by the chief minister to go to insurance firms," he said. The Delhi chief minister said that his government had been giving a compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre to farmers for loss of crops due to natural calamities. He also accused the BJP of dividing the society on the lines of caste. "The BJP government at the centre and in Haryana has been dividing the society on the basis of caste," Kejriwal alleged, adding that he had never seen the kind of casteism which he being followed during the BJP rule. "Khattar has sought votes in the name of being a Punjabi during the recent mayoral polls in Haryana...now if he seeks votes in the name of caste, I request the other communities not to vote for the BJP as it will be their insult," he said. Kejriwal was addressing a rally in favour of Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) nominee Digvijay Singh Chautala. JJP was constituted after Ajay Singh Chautala, the elder son of INLD supremo and jailed leader Om Prakash Chautala, was expelled from the party for indiscipline. Ajay Singh Chautala's sons - Digvijay and Hisar MP Dushyant too were expelled from the INLD. The power struggle within the Chautala family led to differences between Chautala senior's younger son Abhay Singh and his elder brother Ajay. This is JJP's first election. Throwing his weight behind the JJP, Kejriwal said that people used to make mockery of the AAP when it was floated in Delhi. However, in the 2015 Assembly polls the party got 67 seats as against three by BJP and nil by the Congress, he said Claiming that the AAP has brought "revolution" in education and health sectors in the national capital, the Delhi chief minister alleged that the Congress and the BJP looted the country in turns. "The entire country is looking at the result of the Jind bypoll. If the people of Delhi can change the politics by bringing the AAP to power, I am sure that the people of Haryana can bring revolution and change the government," Kejriwal said. Asserting that he has high hopes from the young leaders of the JJP, the AAP leader said his party decided to support the JJP as he found its young leaders "selfless". "The JJP came into existence following a family dispute... in today's time everyone is selfish. If a dispute takes place within a family, no one is ready to leave the party and it's symbol," he said referring to Dushyant handing over the INLD to the party's "veterans" (Om Pakash Chautala). "Dushyant and Digvijay took no time in giving their right over the INLD and it's symbol...the day they decided it I realised that they are selfless and respectable people," Kejriwal said. Dushyant and Digvijay, in their turn, heaped praises on Kejriwal and his work while projecting him the next prime minister. 2019 was a particularly eventful year for India: We voted in the general elections, some historic decisions were made and some equally historic judgements were passed by our judiciary. And we consumed almost all of this via the social media site from where we are now used to consuming our daily dosage of news: Twitter. So, here we look at the biggest moments in India on Twitter. India on January 26 donated 30 ambulances and six buses to Nepal and extended its support to the country in achieving prosperity. India's gesture came as it marked 70th Republic Day. India's Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri handed over keys of the ambulances and buses to the recipient organisations amidst celebrations in Indian Embassy premises, Katmandu on January 26. Since 1994, the Government of India has gifted 722 ambulances and 142 buses to various organisations across Nepal to expand access to healthcare and educational services in Nepal. Ambassador Puri also distributed cash to the kins of war veterans from the Gorkha regiment and gifted books to 53 schools and libraries across the country. Puri unfurled the Indian national flag and read out the message delivered by the president of Indian to the nation on the occasion of the Republic Day. "Government of India will extend support to government of Nepal in attaining its goal of 'Samriddha Nepal ra Sukhi Nepali' or 'Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepali'," assured ambassador Puri. The function was attended by more than 2,000 people, including Indian embassy staff, Indian citizens residing in Nepal, Indian business community in Kathmandu, media persons and students. The Housing for All by 2022 initiative was launched by the Modi government within five months of assuming office. Its all about ensuring a home for every Indian by 2022. To boost affordable housing and achieve the vision of Housing for all by 2022, the government (Central and State) have undertaken several initiatives, such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) that aims to build 1 crore homes in urban and rural India by 2022. Affordable housing has also been accorded infrastructure status, ensuring that developers in this segment have access to cheaper loans. The Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme for the Middle Income Group (CLSS for MIG) was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 31, 2016 and was earlier extended twice till March 2019. The government in the last week of December 2018 extended the interest subsidy scheme till March 2020 for first time urban home buyers who have annual income between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 18 lakh. Till now, over 93,000 people from this income group (MIG) have availed the Rs 1,960 crore interest subsidy from the Centre, which has been disbursed through banks. Overall, until December 30 this year, around 3.39 lakh beneficiaries have availed the CLSS under the PMAY (Urban) and the total subsidy released was Rs 7,543 crore. For the MIG I category, which consists of individuals with an annual income of Rs 6-12 lakh, an interest subsidy of 4 percent is provided on a loan of up to Rs 9 lakh. For the MIG II category, which is made up of individuals with an annual income of Rs 12-18 lakh, an interest subsidy of 3 percent is given on a loan of up to Rs 12 lakh. The benefits are typically up to Rs 2.67 lakh on home loans. The carpet area of a housing unit was initially revised to up to 120 sq m and up to 150 sq m for MIG I and MIG II respectively in November, 2017 and further enhanced to up to 160 sq m and up to 200 sq m for MIG I and MIG II, respectively in June, 2018. As per the data shared by the ministry of urban affairs and housing, around 68.5 lakh houses have been approved so far for construction under the PMAY (U). Out of these, 35.67 lakh houses are under various stages of construction of which 12.45 lakh houses have already been completed. The total investment involved is Rs 3,56,397 crore. An amount of Rs 33,455 crore has already been released to states and union territories out of the approved total central assistance of Rs 1,00,275 crore. Land is the biggest challenge for implementing this scheme. Its current shortage in major city-centric areas prevents the development of affordable housing in areas where it is most direly needed. The cost of land currently accounts for as much as 30-50 percent of the cost of a project within city limits. However, RBI regulations do not allow banks to fund land purchase. On the demand side, securing financing for eligible buyers from banks and housing finance agencies is not an easy task. As the scheme targets EWS and LIG households who work in the informal sector, documentation required to avail of finance under the scheme is a challenge. Besides, delinquencies on repayment of loans taken for purchase of affordable houses has already started to rise and could deter lenders from sanctioning fresh loans if the trend persists. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also cautioned against loan sanctions for affordable houses. Aluminium Sakina Mandsaurwala In the commodity market last week, precious metal prices remained steady near its highs on worries over US government shutdown and rising dollar. Also, no major price change was seen in the energy complex with Nymex crude losing mere 0.2 percent to USD 53.6 per bbl while Nymex natural gas closed the week with 2 percent losses. Crude oil prices remained range bound on stronger oil output cuts by OPEC and rising US oil production. Natural gas prices were pushed lower on forecasts of warmer weather in US and below average gas storage withdrawals. Base metal prices reacted positively last week gaining more than 2 percent with the exception being copper losing more than 1.5 percent. Metal prices traded higher on optimism ahead of high level trade meeting between US and China on Jan 30th -31st 2019 and after China reacted promptly by lowering its RRR ratio to improve the liquidity situation just before the Chinese New year holiday starting from 5th Feb to 10th Feb 2019. Aluminum prices surged despite the lifting of US sanctions on Rusal this month. The lower inventory and higher cancelled warrants helped the metal to rally by 7 percent this month. Cancelled warrants increased by one-third of the total inventory at the LME. With the global aluminum production growth rate of 1.5 percent in 2018, the slowest since 2009, increases the likelihood of deficit scenario this year. Even China, the leading producer of the metal has slowed down its production in 2018 on account of higher raw material cost, lower margin and environmental restriction all leading to smelter cutbacks in the aluminum producing region. Going forward, the capacity additions in United States and Middle East will significantly reduce the ex-China deficit in aluminum in 2019. Outlook: We expect Aluminum prices to take support and trade higher in the near term as high cost capacity closures will reduce supply in the coming months. Given the important trade meeting between US and China next week, any positive outcome will take LME aluminum prices higher towards USD 1950-USD 2000 per ton. (The author is Commodity Analyst at Narnolia Financial Advisors) PAW PAW, MI A jury has found a former Mattawan police officer not guilty of reckless discharge of a firearm. Chelsey Omilian, 27, was charged with the misdemeanor after a Nov. 3, 2017, shooting. Omilian feared for her life when she fired five shots at the stolen car, shooting out the back windshield and hitting a passenger inside the vehicle in the leg, her defense attorney has said. Testimony in Omilians two-day trial started Thursday, Jan. 24. The Van Buren County District Court jury delivered the verdict Friday afternoon. Ultimately, jurors believed her defense attorneys argument that she was justified in using force to try to stop a man whom she had reason to believe was armed and dangerous, Omilians defense attorney, Sarissa Montague, said in a statement. Officers have a sworn duty to protect the communities they serve, and she was doing just that when attempting to stop a vehicle with a known felon believed to have been armed," Montague said. "The verdict of not guilty vindicates Ms. Omilian who has lived under a cloud since being wrongfully charged with a crime. She had a split second to make a hard decision and the jury verdict tells us that she made the right decision under difficult circumstances. Omilian was investigating a report of a stolen Impala and had the cars owner with her in her police cruiser when they drove to the a gas station Nov. 7, 2017. As Omilian approached the station, she saw the Impala attempting to leave, so she turned on her overhead lights and tried to block its path, according to police reports. She recognized the driver and based on her prior knowledge believed he could have a gun and be under the influence of drugs, Omilian later told a Michigan State Police investigator. Omilian got out of her cruiser and pulled her gun, intending to order the driver and his two passengers to get out of the car as she waited for other officers to arrive, she said. But he drove straight toward her as she stood in front of her cruiser, Omilian told the investigator. There were four apparent bullet holes in the Impala, including two near the license plate, one that went through the trunk and into backseat area, and another that shattered the rear window, according to the police reports. The female backseat passenger was struck by one bullet near one of her knees. She was found near the Impala, which had crashed into a fence next to a house, and treated at a hospital. The front-seat passenger fled the scene after the Impala crashed, not far from Mattawan schools. She briefly got inside Mattawan High School, which had been placed on lockdown during the incident, but was discovered by school staff who then called police. Omilian resigned from the police department after the shooting. The driver of the stolen car, Gary Kingsbury III, was sentenced in April 2018 to six months of jail and two years of probation after pleading guilty to unlawful use of a motor vehicle, according to court records. GRAND RAPIDS, MI Seventh-grader Frederick Charles said he struggled to see the board in his classroom and it was irritating and tiring. On Thursday, Jan. 24 Charles was among 22 Aberdeen PK-8 School students to receive free eyeglasses from the California-based nonprofit Vision to Learn through a new Grand Rapids Public Schools partnership. An estimated 3,000 district students in need will get glasses this semester. I used to have to get closer to the board just to read a few letters, said Charles, removing his new glasses and noting he couldnt read something at a distance. I knew glasses would help me see and read better and make things easier. This is just a real blessing to me. Ann Hollister, president of the Vision to Learn headquartered in Los Angeles, said uncorrected vision issues can make schoolwork difficult, causing kids to fall behind, and in some instances affect classroom behavior. This is a problem that can be fixed, she said. By bringing free eye exams to kids at school, Vision to Learn helps them get the glasses they need to succeed. Hollister said the nonprofits founder, Austin Beutner is native of Grand Rapids who has long wanted to launch a program in the district. She said Vision to Learn also provides exams and eyeglasses to low-income communities in Detroit, Flint and Redford. Superintendent Teresa Weatherall Neal said the district has been working with the nonprofit for more than six months to help their students do better in school. It is rare a single intervention can make such as immediate and meaningful difference in a students education, she said. Breasha White, 11, said she can see better with her new, stylish glasses. She said sometimes when she would read up close with her old glasses it would be blurry. Hollister said some students received glasses for the first time and others needed a new pair after a prescription adjustment. Joann Hoganson, community wellness division director for the Kent County Health Department, said the health department provides vision screening for students in Kent County under the Public Health Code. She said they screen 92,000 students per year from September through May from preschool to high school. However, she said one of their biggest challenges is connecting students with the glasses they need once the department identifies that they have a vision deficit. Hoganson said there are few reasons, including there is often an expense involved but explained even when the child has Medicaid there could be transportation or a work conflict. We do the screening, identify what kids need further but Vision to Learn steps in to fill in that gap so kids get what they need, she said. She said other groups assist schools in the county in spots such as Cherry Health and the Lions Club. For example, GRPS has worked with Cherry Health in the past. In the past mont, 174 Aberdeen students were provided with vision screenings, 35 students or 20 percent received eye exams, and 22 were prescribed or provided glasses. OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- A Holland Township man charged with shooting an acquaintance last week was on parole from a 2010 drive-by shooting that sent him to prison in 2011. Demetrio Flores III, 25, was arraigned Friday, Jan. 25, on charges of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder, first-degree home invasion, felony firearm, and possession of a firearm by a felony. Hes also charged as a fourth-offense habitual offender, which could lead to more serious sentencing guidelines if hes convicted. Flores is accused of breaking into the home of a male acquaintance around 8:50 p.m. Jan. 15 at Ottogan Estates Park in Zeeland Township, and shooting him in the mid-section. The shooting victim was treated for a gunshot wound and released from Holland Hospital. Flores was arrested Thursday, Jan. 24, and booked in the Ottawa County Jail, where he remains with bond set at $250,000. Flores was on parole when the shooting occurred, according to Department of Corrections records. He had previously served prison time for a 2010 drive-by, gang-related shooting of a teen. In January 2011, the then-17 Flores was listed as one of Holland polices four most wanted suspects when he was arrested in Palm Bay, Florida. He was extradited back and charged with assault with intent to commit murder, gang membership, carrying a concealed weapon and felony firearm in connection to a July 2011 shooting. Flores pleaded guilty to gang membership and felony firearms, and was sentenced on Sept. 19, 2011 to 45-to-240 months in prison. While locked up in 2015, he was convicted of possessing a weapon in prison and was given an additional 13-to-30 months, according to DOC records. According to state records, Flores became a parole absconder on Jan. 3. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Undercover federal agents baited three Lansing men into trying to join the ISIS terrorist group, attorneys for the men said Friday. Muse Abdikadir Muse, 20; Mohamed Salat Haji, 26; and Mohamud Abdikadir Muse, 23, were in a federal courtroom for a detention hearing Friday, Jan. 25 after they were arrested Jan. 21 at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents said Muse Muse planned to fly to Mogadishu, Somalia with plans to join and fight for the Islamic State terrorist group. The other two men shared similar views and took him to the airport. A judge listened to more than two hours of testimony from FBI special agent Paul Dunham about a nearly three-year investigation into the men. Fridays hearing was adjourned until Monday to allow for further defense questioning. Some of that testimony showed that undercover FBI agents, communicating with the men via Facebook messenger and posing as ISIS operatives, provided at least one of them with language for an oath of allegiance. The agent told Muse Muse that he needed to make a video recording of him reciting allegiance to ISIS in order to join the group. Mary Chartier, an attorney representing Haji, suggested that the FBI essentially encouraged the three men into making incriminating decisions regarding ISIS. The special agent testified that before the FBI got involved, none of the (3) gentlemen had ever spoken with anyone from ISIS at all. Not until the FBI gets involved, and then this crime is created, she said after the hearing. Our position is the government created the circumstances and then they brought these charges and were going to fight it tooth and nail, she said. Several supporters of the three men were in the courtroom. One spoke briefly outside the courthouse and said he believes the three men are innocent of the charges. Thats what we believe because we raised those kids, said the man, who did not give his name. The FBI began investigating the three men -- Muse Muse and Mohamud Muse are brothers and Haji is their brother-in-law -- because of public posts first noticed on Mohamud Muses Facebook page. The posts were described as pro-ISIS in nature and what can be described as violent, extremist propaganda. According to the FBI, Facebook messenger conversations between Muse Muse and Haji showed they wanted to fight for ISIS or, in the event they could not travel overseas, possibly conduct some type of vehicle attack in the United States. Some of the exchanges, obtained through federal search warrants, are disturbing. In one from April 2018, the two men were talking about ISIS videos they recently watched. Seeing the heads getting cut off heals the heart, Dunham read from a thread allegedly written by Muse Muse. Testimony showed that Muse Muse did not have enough money for the $1,700 airfare needed to get to Somalia, so the FBI procured $1,200 and wired a portion of it to each of the three men. The three men believed the money was coming from an ISIS fighter in Somalia who actually was an undercover agent. Muse Muse, Mohamud Muse and Mohamed Haji all were born in Kenya but are U.S. citizens. Testimony showed Muse Muse was born in a Kenya refugee camp, then after coming to the U.S., graduated high school and had taken classes at Lansing Community College. He has no criminal record. He signed a written statement after his arrest. An FBI agent helped him write it. I wanted to join ISIS in Somalia so I wouldnt have to do an attack in the U.S.," according to the statement. One thing Michiganders can expect to hear about in Gov. Gretchen Whitmers first State of the State speech is education, she revealed at a Clare event last week. She was at the Cops and Doughnuts shop in downtown Clare with former Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, now president of the Small Business Association of Michigan, talking to small business owners in the area on Thursday. But she got some questions, too, from a group of six retired educators from Harrison who attended the event. She assured the retired educators they would hear more about education in the near future. Youll hear a lot about education during my State of the State on Feb. 5, and youll see my plan, she said. When the group raised concerns about having heard plans from previous governors, Whitmer was upbeat. I think youre going to see something different this time around. I need you to help me get it done, she told the group. Barbara Richards, one of the educators in the exchange, said after the exchange that elected officials talk about fixing education every year. We are still 50 out of 50 for support, she said, referencing a recent study that found Michigan ranks last among the 50 states in funding growth for public education. Teachers, though, always have hope" that something could change, she said. While Whitmer touched on other topics at the Clare roundtable, including issues affecting businesses, skilled workers the companies needed, and fixing the roads. But when she talked with the educators, she got serious. Even if she accomplishes all of those other priorities, she said, if we dont fix the education crisis in Michigan, none of the rest of it matters. She thanked Richards and the other teachers for going into education, and had one question for them. Would you recommend young people go into teaching right now? she asked. No, the educators said. Were going to treat educators like professionals and give them the respect and support that they deserve, Whitmer said. MARQUETTE, MI - Authorities today were resuming the search for a Northern Michigan University student who went missing after a hike near the Yellow Dog River in Ishpeming Township. Guiancarlo Estupigan, 25, left Thursday for a hike near County Road 510 and to take pictures of waterfalls, according to what his roommate told the Marquette County Sheriffs Department, WLUC reported. When his roommate noticed Estupigan had not returned, he went looking for him and found Estupigans car in a parking area near Yellow Dog. The roommate called the sheriffs department around 2 p.m. Friday, police said. Estupigan is a sophomore studying fish and wildlife management, the station reported. Anyone with information is asked to contact 911 or the Marquette County Sheriffs Office at 906-225-8435. Note: This story has been updated with the four charges Bates is facing. Trevor Bates was arrested in New York City for allegedly refusing to pay a cab driver, and that was only where the early morning began to go wrong for the backup Lions linebacker. Bates was arrested around 3 a.m. Saturday morning and then transported to a nearby jail, but when it came time for fingerprinting, he became unruly with officers. Bates allegedly punched an officer above the left eye, causing a laceration that needed three stitches, police said. Bates was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center for a psychiatric evaluation. He is still in police custody, awaiting arraignment on charges of second-degree assault, obstructing government administration, theft of services and resisting arrest, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced. If convicted, he faces probation and up to seven years in prison. We are aware of the arrest of Trevor Bates earlier today in New York, Lions general manager Bob Quinn said in a statement. We have not spoken to Trevor as of yet and are still in the process of gathering more information. The Detroit Lions will have no further comment at this time. The night started when a cab driver accused Bates of refusing to pay a $32 fare. Police arrested Bates in front of a Hampton Inn Hotel in Queens. Bates was transported without incident to the 115th Precinct and notified that as long as he didnt have any outstanding warrants, he would be released with a ticket. Bates then grew agitated and refused to be fingerprinted, the district attorney said. NYPD sergeant James OBrien attempted to calm him down, but Bates responded by punching OBrien in the face. Police then tasered Bates in order to subdue him. OBrien was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for a laceration that required three stitches, New York police said. He also suffered a concussion. He has since been released from the hospital. The Sergeants Benevolent Association, the union that represents OBrien and other NYPD sergeants, had strong words for Bates' actions: Trevor Bates acted beyond that of a wild animal. He refused to be fingerprinted, showed disdain for the officers & decided to punch a Sgt in the face. Fighting with officers he was tasered & ripped the taser prongs from his body. Hes dog crap and the NFL condones criminals. https://t.co/sAd9rMKWHb SBA (@SBANYPD) January 26, 2019 Bates' agent, Jeff Jankovich, has declined comment at this time. Bates, 25, appeared in nine games for the Lions this season, playing mostly on special teams. He recorded three tackles. He arrived in Detroit after playing for Matt Patricia in New England in 2017. He is signed through 2019 on a $570,000 salary, and he is set to be an exclusive-rights free agent in 2020. Astros owner Jim Crane gave some interesting comments today regarding his organizations remaining plans for the winter and the state of the market at large, as MLB.coms Alyson Footer of MLB.com reports on Twitter. Its tough to tell the degree of interest, but Crane certainly seemed to indicate that the organization has some realistic inclination to bring back one or more of its recent players who remain available on the open market. Weve got a couple guys that were here last year that are a possibility to be back here [this] year, said Crane. We hope that happens. He went on to specifically cite southpaw Dallas Keuchel and utilityman Marwin Gonzalez, both of whom are among the most-accomplished players who have yet to find new teams. Calling both Keuchel and Gonzalez great players and great for the franchise, Crane suggested there was at least a chance still of a reunion. Maybe something will work out there, he said, who knows? Its certainly arguable that both of those outgoing free agents still make sense on the roster. Between Keuchel and Charlie Morton, the Astros saw a lot of innings walk out the door. While there are options on hand to fill them, pursuit of another starter has long seemed sensible. Its a bit of a tougher match with Gonzalez, particularly now that the Houston front office has acquired a potential replacement piece in Aledmys Diaz, but perhaps hed still be of interest at the right price. The club also bid adieu to several other veterans this winter, a few of whom have already signed elsewhere (including Morton). Backstop Martin Maldonado, southpaw reliever Tony Sipp, and DH Evan Gattis, however, all remain available after wrapping up their contracts with the Stros. Among them, Sipp seems to represent the most sensible roster fit, though theres no reason to think at this point that hes a particular target. However things shake out on Keuchel and Gonzalez, Cranes comments didnt admit of much of an opening for the team to pursue free agent markets two biggest stars or much of an appetite for any true blockbuster contracts in the future. Stating that the market is a little bottled up due to the ongoing presence of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, Crane went on to offer some revealing thoughts on the state of the hot stove economy and his own organizations theoretical leanings. I think that teams are very focused on value, said Crane of the business-wide approach to free agency. I dont know that youll see many more ten-year deals in this business anymore because the analytics are so good and a lot of those deals never work. The notion of value as an overriding concern increasingly treated as something of an actuarial assessment of risk is hardly a novel concept. But its interesting to see an owner not only come forward with that viewpoint, but to characterize it as an industry-wide phenomenon and acknowledge a particular practical ramification of such an approach. Beyond those somewhat eyebrow-raising aspects of Cranes comment, its also an interesting point to consider. Its certainly possible to imagine decade-long deals that make sense, particularly for especially youthful players, even if its to be expected that the bulk of the on-field performance contributions will be reaped in such a contracts earlier seasons. Beyond that, nobody really needed analytics to tell them of the concerns with guaranteeing so much money for so many years to one necessarily aging, potentially injured player. After all, the teams that have done so in the past did not tack on years and dollars because they preferred to; they simply did what it took to get the player in an open bidding situation. Such elite players remain highly prized, of course, but the still-deepening analytical revolution which has both recognized and helped usher in an influx of cheaply-acquired, increasingly well-prepared, league-minimum-earning players along with a youthened aging curve has pointed to cheaper ways to maximize roster output while highlighting the financial risks of clogging future payrolls. The resulting reductions in demand have made it increasingly difficult for free agents to squeeze extra guaranteed seasons from clubs. Itll be interesting to see how things transpire this winter, with a pair of obvious candidates for extremely lengthy deals still waiting to sign them. While the Astros evidently will not be dabbling in such corners of the market, theyll still be working to improve the roster in other ways perhaps even by looking at the second tier of remaining free agents, which includes Keuchel, Gonzales, and others. Every day were looking at opportunities, says Crane. The path to developing a mine in Alaska goes through the state's First People; understanding the ANCSA landscape is key North of 60 Mining News February 1, 2019 Red Dog, which accounts for roughly 5 percent of global zinc mine production, is located on lands owned by NANA, the ANCSA regional corporation for Northwest Arctic. Alaska boasts what many consider the most successful Aboriginal land claims settlement on Earth a solution that has not only turned out to be a cultural success, but a brilliant business move for the more than 140,000 Alaska Natives and an economic boon for the state that covers the resource-rich lands these industrious and innovative peoples have called home for millennia. Signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, commonly referred to as ANCSA, involved a unique plan to organize Alaska Natives into 12 regional corporations, with each of these corporations having its own geographical regions based largely on heritage and shared interests. A thirteenth regional corporation was established for those Alaska Natives residing outside the state. More than 240 village corporations were also established under ANCSA. Some village corporations within regions have merged to form stronger business entities with shared interests and in at least one instance the village and regional corporations have merged to provide a consolidated body for doing business. Eligible Alaska Natives had the opportunity to be issued shares in both a regional and village corporation at the time ANCSA was formed, shares that cannot be sold. While placing aboriginal peoples who put more value into a successful whale hunt in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) than being a wolf on Wall Street in a western corporate boardroom may not seem like a good fit, a look back from 47 years later proves otherwise. Alaska Native regional and village corporations make up 17 of the top 20 Alaska-owned businesses listed on the Top 49ers, an annual list published by the Alaska Business magazine that ranks Alaska-owned businesses by gross revenue. The Alaska Native-owned business titans that now dominate the top of this list have achieved much of their corporate success off the natural resources found on the 44.7 million acres of lands they will own once all lands guaranteed under ANCSA are conveyed, an area about the size of Oklahoma. While they have title to just over 10 percent of Alaska, their regions, or traditional territories cover every square inch of the Far North State. These corporations also own a wide range of businesses, both at home and globally, many of which provide the services vital to mineral exploration, mine development and mining in Alaska. This makes ANCSA corporations important partners to mining companies seeking to explore and develop Alaska's vast mineral potential. Prime mineral real estate Aside from being a good neighbor to the peoples that have called Alaska home for some 15,000 years, one of the primary reasons mining companies want to build solid relationships with the ANCSA corporations is that these major landholders have some of the prime mineral real estate across the Last Frontier. Red Dog, which accounts for roughly 5 percent of the global zinc mine production, for example, is located on lands owned by NANA Regional Corp., the regional Alaska Native corporation for Northwest Arctic. Donlin Gold, a 39-million-ounce gold mine project situated on lands owned by Calista Corp. and The Kuskokwim Corp., is another example of the rich mineral tenures ANCSA corporations identified and selected for ownership. The regional-village co-ownership at Donlin brings up an important point that any mining company planning to do business in Alaska should understand. Much of the lands selected under ANCSA are split estate, with the regional corporations owning the subsurface rights and the village corporations owning the surface estate. In addition to their resource potential, the lands Alaska Native corporations selected under ANCSA were based on traditional, infrastructure and other strategic uses. Sometimes, however, regional corporations will own both the surface and subsurface rights. It is often the case that a mineral exploration company will establish a solid agreement on mineral rights with the regional corporations and early stage surface agreements with the village corporations before exploration begins. Once a deposit is established to the point that the economics of a mine are being considered, and the details of what surface lands will be needed for a potential mine and its supporting infrastructure begin to emerge, longer term surface land use, hiring, contracting, subsistence and other agreements are then struck. Crafted successfully and carried out in a way that provides economic benefits, while respecting the traditional values of the surface and mineral rights landholders these agreements form the basis for a strong and enduring partnership. Unique Red Dog agreement The Red Dog Mine, operated by Teck Resources Ltd. in partnership with NANA, is a prime example of the success that can be achieved by building strong partnerships with ANCSA corporations. While early negotiations between the mining company and the Northwest Alaska Native corporation were rough, by 1982 Cominco (now Teck) and NANA signed a landmark agreement that directs how the mine is operated and ensures sustainable benefits for the region and its people. This unique development and lease agreement mandated that Red Dog: Protect subsistence and the Inupiaq way of life; Create lasting jobs for NANA shareholders; Provide opportunities for NANA's youth; and Act as a catalyst for regional economic benefits. It also gave NANA a direct ownership interest in the operation that results in healthy royalty payments on the net proceeds from the metals produced at Red Dog. Teck paid off its capital and operating costs at Red Dog in 2007, triggering an increase in NANA's net proceeds royalty to 25 percent from the zinc mine. Under the agreement, this net proceed royalty increases by 5 percent every five years, up to a maximum of 50 percent. In 2017, NANA's royalty from the net profits at Red Dog was bumped to 35 percent. So far, NANA has received around $2 billion in net proceeds payments. Red Dog also directly creates more than 700 full-time and temporary jobs in an area of Alaska where good-paying jobs would otherwise be scarce. Today, around 57 percent of the roughly 600-person workforce at Red Dog are Alaska Natives, mostly NANA shareholders, who bring home an average annual wage of around US$100,000. "It has been a revolutionary thing for our region economically and demonstrates the kind of development that can be done that not only benefits the local people but protects the environment," said Willie Hensley, who was active in the founding of NANA and subsequent development of Red Dog. Nearly four decades after the landmark agreement, all signs point to the world class zinc mine continuing to serve as an economic engine in the Northwest Arctic for several decades to come. Red Dog currently has enough high-grade zinc ore in reserves to keep the operation going until 2031 and new zinc deposits show the likelihood that this world-class mine will continue to be a globally significant supplier of this important base metal much deeper into the 21st Century. "The mine was an opportunity to responsibly develop resources in this area of the state and provide economic development to the communities," NANA Vice President of External and Government Affairs Liv Cravalho informed Alaska lawmakers in 2018. "The mine continues to have a significant impact on the NANA region." Building a solid relationship The world-class Donlin Gold deposit is poised to provide a similar boost to the Calista region, which covers 58,000 square miles of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Southwest Alaska, an area about the size of New York state. Donlin Gold LLC a joint venture owned equally by Novagold Resources Inc. and Barrick Gold Corp. has worked hard to build a solid relationship with the ANCSA corporations and people of Calista region. This engagement began with a commitment to hiring local residents during the early exploration phase at the gold discovery and grown stronger over the ensuing two decades. By 2008, nearly 90 percent of the more than 200 workers at the advanced exploration project were Calista shareholders, or their descendants. June McAtee, former vice president of Calista's land department, told Mining News in 2009 that the key to the success of the shareholder-hire program at Donlin Creek is twofold Calista's ownership of the land encompassing the Donlin Creek deposit, and Placer Dome, Barrick Gold and Novagold's longstanding commitment to hiring and training shareholders at the project. "There has been a continual process of hiring and training shareholders from the very beginning. Even though the original company (Placer Dome) isn't there any more, the companies that came after it believed in those same concepts and did more than just pay it lip service. They actually acted on that, and took the lead, in fact, in the hiring and training," McAtee said. Today, Novagold has taken what it has learned with working in the Calista region and enshrined that into its core values. "Novagold believes that a company must earn its social license in any given region by establishing a strong and collaborative working relationship with the community where it operates," the company says on its website. "Moreover, this social license must be based on a solid foundation and thorough understanding of the language, values and culture of the people in the region." While Donlin Gold has built a reputation for local hire, this commitment is preserved in agreements with Calista Corp. and The Kuskokwim Corporation. This combination of shareholder hire, community engagement and strong agreements with Calista and TKC has earned Donlin Gold LLC strong endorsements by local leaders. "As a mine that focuses on environmental responsibility, meaningful dialogue with communities, job opportunities, and economic stimulus for one of the poorest regions in the entire state, Donlin Gold has TKC's full support," said The Kuskokwim Corporation President and CEO Maver Carey. Currently envisioned as a mine that will produce more than 1 million ounces of gold per year from 504.8 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 2.09 grams per metric ton (33.85 million oz) gold, Donlin Gold is expected to be a globally significant mine. To develop this operation, Donlin Gold LLC anticipates paying out roughly $375 million in wages to around 3,000 workers during the three- to four-year construction phase. Once in production, the company expects a payroll of more than $100 million per year for the minimum of 800 workers that would be needed at the mine currently being considered. In addition to this direct employment, Donlin Gold is expected to spur about another US$60 million a year worth of jobs. While not all these jobs will be filled by residents of the region, history indicates that a large portion of them will. Donlin Gold has now reached the end of the permitting process and the project partners are expected to decide on developing this world-class gold project in the near future. "Ultimately, economic development of such a large project will help fulfill the broader goal of self determination by allowing residents and Calista shareholders to significantly participate in the world economy," said Calista President and CEO Andrew Guy. Section 7(I) sharing the hunt While a regional corporation such as NANA or Calista can be elevated to a significant participant in the world economy through the development of a mine on the lands it owns, the economic benefits of such an endeavor is shared by all the ANCSA corporations, due to sections 7(i) and 7(j) of ANCSA. ANCSA Section 7(i) requires Regional corporations to distribute 70 percent of net revenues from resource development on ANCSA land among all 12 regional corporations. In turn, Section 7(j) requires that half of the Section 7(i) payments received are distributed to the respective village corporations within each of the ANCSA regions. While these provisions were primarily put into ANCSA as a way to bring balance to all the regional and village corporations by sharing the resource successes, they also fit well with millennia-long traditions of sharing the "proceeds" of successful hunts. When it comes to Section 7(i) proceeds from mining, NANA has been by far the largest contributor. Of the approximately $1.3 billion in proceeds NANA received from Red Dog through 2015, the most recent year for comprehensive data on Section 7(i) distribution, the Northwest Alaska Native corporation has made more than $820 million in 7(i) payments to the other ANCSA Regional corporations. "That means we have a significant impact on the rest of the state and the other Alaska Native communities," said Vice President of External and Government Affairs Cravalho. In total, mining has contributed $863 million to Section 7(i) distribution through 2015. When combined with oil and gas ($1.45 billion) and timber ($278 million), roughly $2.5 billion has been distributed through ANCSA Section 7(i) through 2015. The "leveling effect" of sections 7(i) and 7(j) creates economic activity that otherwise would not occur in recipient regions and provides village corporations with vital funding. Getting to know the people Whether a mining company is looking to explore and develop mineral properties on Alaska Native, state or federal lands, understanding the landscape of the ANCSA regional and village corporations in the area is a key first step in the future success of the project. In addition to earning that ever important social license, ANCSA regional and village corporations have much to offer Alaska's mining sector. While sitting down with ANCSA regional, village and business leaders is a good start, getting to know the people in the region of Alaska a mining or mineral exploration company is planning to work provides an enormous advantage. One of the primary rewards is recruiting a local workforce. Many of the ANCSA shareholders living in rural Alaska have worked in remote camps and have experience with the positions needed at mineral exploration projects. When you couple this work experience with lifelong and generational knowledge of living and working in the region, hiring local provides many advantages for mining companies. Mining companies can also learn a lot about the area by sitting down and talking with local residents. Getting to know the "traditional knowledge" can pay dividends down the road. This traditional knowledge could be finding out about a trapline that is in the same area as a potential deposit and being able to talk with the individual early in the process; getting generational insight into weather and wildlife; or even information on outcrops or other geological structures. Understanding the landscape From the prospector scouring Alaska's broad expanse for the next Red Dog or Donlin Gold, to the global miner looking to acquire a world-class deposit already found, the ultimate goal is to develop a mine that delivers the metals needed and wanted. This path inevitably leads to the people that have called these mineral-rich northern lands home for millennia and the corporations they are shareholders of. Understanding the ANCSA landscape early could be the difference between efficiently permitting and developing a successful mine with strong local partners, or arduous work later to gain the social license and government permits needed to extract the rich mineral resources Alaska has to offer. ANCSA involved a unique plan that created 12 Alaska Native regional corporations, with each having its own geographical regions based largely on heritage and shared interests. For these reasons, an ANCSA map and information on the Alaska Native lands, people, corporations and businesses has a place among the geological maps and mineral data for any prospector, explorer or miner looking to unlock Alaska's vast mineral potential EDITOR'S NOTE: "An Alaska Native claims primer for miners" is the first article in a 13-part series that investigates what the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act means for Alaska's mining sector and its future. The coming 12 articles will dig deeper into each of the land-holding Regional corporations and the Village corporations within them; the mining lands that they own; and the services they offer to the mining sector. As a life-long Alaskan that has written about mining here for more than a decade, it is my hope that this series will provide a better understanding of ANCSA and serve as a guide to mining companies seeking to do business in The Last Frontier. Hello Lance,Welcome to Mindat. Your specimen certainly is not libethenite . . . wrong color and wrong crystallography. We need some more information in order to help you.Can you check the hardness with a steel sewing needle (somewhere inconspicuous); will the needle scratch it? Easily, with difficulty, not at all?The crystals appear to be hexagonal. In hand, do they appear to be six sided, with 120 degee external angles? Do the "hexagonal ends" seem to meet the prism faces at 90 degrees?The prisms on many of the crystals are ridged . . . does such a crystal come apart easily, or are they pretty solid? (foliated vs, oscillatory?)If there is a crystal at the edge or on the back that you can remove, can you determine its specific gravity?And most importantly, do you have the locality in Zambia from which it came? Editor's Note: Air Forces Central Command has released new information related to these exercises that contradicts what officials previously told Military.com. AFCENT on Aug. 1, 2019, said the Air Warfare Center did support this exercise, and coordinated U.S. participation, according to spokeswoman Capt. Amanda Farr. Two F-16 fighters, one B-1 bomber, one KC-10 tanker, one E-3 Airborne early warning and control aircraft, and a "white cell" support staff participated, Farr said in an email. "U.S. personnel assigned to the AWC also assisted coalition partners in improving tactical capability and interoperability, [and] assisted in developing tactics, techniques and procedures," she said. The U.S. military was not planning to participate in a recent United Arab Emirates-led exercise with Middle East partners even before a decision was made to curtail American operations related to Yemen, Military.com has learned. The U.S. Air Force did not partake in the Advanced Tactical Leadership Course, coordinated by the Air Warfare Center at Al Dhafra Air Base, UAE, this past October, according to Central Command spokesman Army Lt. Col. Josh Jacques. The course, which focuses on flight leadership, training and flight safety, "varies from year to year," Jacques said. "It was held in the UAE as they always host it, however, the United States did not participate in 2018," Jacques said in an email. Related content: Jacques could not confirm whether the U.S. would drop out of the upcoming 2019 exercise with its Middle East partners, but said it was "possible." Asked why the U.S. did not participate in October, Jacques said it is not uncommon for the U.S. military to withdraw from annual exercises, but could not cite a specific reason. The last time the Defense Department publicly participated in the exercise was in 2016, according to military releases and photographs. There have been at least 25 ATLCs since the course's inception in 2004. The region's seven-week version of the Air Force's "Red Flag" exercise starts out with participants hitting the books and mission plans, then training regional partners for the role of mission commanders. The latest news about the ATLC follows a report from Yahoo News that said the U.S. had trained UAE and Saudi Arabia in "combat operations" sometime between Jan. 2016 and Dec. 2017, even as the Defense Department consistently denied that training was happening. Documents, obtained by a Freedom of Information Request, showed that the U.S. "escorted six UAE F-16s to RED FLAG" and "assisted 150 airmen in challenging ex[ercise] to prepare for combat ops in Yemen," according to Yahoo's report. It wasn't immediately clear if the Red Flag exercise mentioned in the 2017 FOIA document was the notorious U.S. Air Force-led exercise held multiple times throughout the year at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, or UAE's version of the exercise. The U.S.-based Red Flag exercise, established in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War, is an integrated, multi-force training exercise within a simulated combat environment. Its no secret that UAE, as well as Saudi Arabia, have participated in the U.S.'s Red Flag many times before. "Our big mission here is to host big exercises for the region," to include interoperability, tactical capability, and air operations, which includes missile defense with Middle Eastern partners, the Gulf Cooperation Council and other coalition warfighters "that we're fighting currently with" side-by-side, said Air Force Col. Steven Boatright, then-commander of the Air Warfare Center, in 2016. Military.com spoke to Boatright then about the Advanced Tactical Leadership Course as the Saudi-led operation to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen approached the two-year mark. At the time, the Air Force had viewed the strategic exercise as a way for the coalition to mitigate civilian casualties, the colonel said. "Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are fighting in Yemen, and the missions we talk about here [are] directly transferrable -- the issues of civilian casualties," Boatright said at the time. "The key takeaway is, [the partners] are doing the fighting ... and they've gotten to this point, they're very capable air forces, and these exercises just make them better." "From an American serviceman's perspective, we're busy enough as it is in Iraq and Syria, and the fact that they're handling that situation is a good thing," Boatright added, alluding to consistent U.S.-led strikes during Operation Inherent Resolve. That year, the U.S. averaged 2,550 strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria per month, according to Air Forces Central Command. Besides the Advanced Tactical Leadership Course, Jacques said Gulf Cooperation Council partners and allies often cooperate with the U.S. military at the Air Warfare Center for various kinds of training. That still includes reducing civilian casualties. "For over 15 years, the Air Warfare Center has served as a unique location for DoD's multilateral air and missile defense training efforts in the Middle East. Its programs support the acquisition of greater capabilities and interoperability between the United States, European nations and our GCC partners," Jacques said. "This is a long-term training effort that is distinct from any day-to-day military operations." He continued, "The Department of Defense has taken measures to assist the Saudi-led coalition, which includes the Emirates, in mitigating civilian casualties through military-to-military key leadership engagements, seminars and advisory teams that provide recommendations to improve operational effectiveness and reduce the risk of civilian casualties." The Trump administration has received congressional pushback for its support of Saudi Arabia in arms sales and intelligence after the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist. Khashoggi is believed to have been killed by Saudi operatives at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October. Lawmakers for the last three years have tried a variety of ways to oppose the war. In December, the Senate voted 56 to 41 to end additional U.S. military assistance for Saudi Arabia's coalition. -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @oriana0214. As troops sit down to file their 2018 income tax returns, the Defense Department wants them to know that some significant changes in tax law could put more money in their pockets. But to maximize their refund, they should know about several new rules. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Veterans Benefits and Transition Act, the Combat Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act and DoD policy changes all have affected the tax code as it applies to military personnel, explained Army Lt. Col. David Dulaney, executive director of the Armed Forces Tax Council during a phone call with reporters on Friday. The good news, Dulaney said, is that most service members "should see a substantial reduction in the overall federal taxes for 2018, even if their itemized deductions are suspended or capped because of changes in tax code." Increased standard deductions and reduced tax rates, introduced in late 2017 by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, affect nearly all service members, and a doubling of the child tax credit will help those with children, Dulaney said. "Most of our military families will see a substantial reduction of their overall tax liability," he said. Several other changes apply to specific populations within the military community, Dulaney said. Here are some of the changes that apply: Sinai Peninsula Service Troops who served in the Sinai Peninsula as far back as June 9, 2015, qualify for a combat tax exclusion that allows them to file an amended tax return to receive a refund on taxes they paid while in the region. Starting in 2015, service members assigned to the Sinai Peninsula began receiving imminent danger or hostile fire pay. But although the locale was considered a hazardous duty assignment, it was not considered a combat zone, so troops still were required to pay taxes on their base pay and certain other specialty pays while assigned there. The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act stipulated that the Sinai Peninsula is considered a combat zone, so anyone serving in the region back to mid-2015 can apply for a tax refund. Dulaney said about 900 service members a year have served in the area, making roughly 3,000 troops eligible for a refund. The IRS provides details for how to file a claim on its website. Spouse Residency Declaration Changes The 2018 Veterans Benefits and Transition Act allowed military spouses to choose their active-duty service member's legal residence for state and local tax purposes, as well as voter registration, even if the spouse has never lived in the state. This means that for some working spouses, they may be eligible to receive a partial or full refund for state taxes they paid in 2018 at the locale where they worked if their spouse is from a state with no income tax or a lower income tax rate. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, troops can maintain legal residence in a state as they move elsewhere on military orders. This lets them retain their voting rights in the state they claim as their legal residence, keep their driver's license and car registration and pay taxes. Before VBTA, spouses could declare the same state as their service member's legal residence but they had to have lived in the state at some point. The new rule means that spouses who work can receive their entire 2018 state income tax back or a portion if their service member's legal residence is a state with no state income taxes, such as Texas or Florida, or if the state has a lower income tax rate than the state in which the spouse worked. To get the refund, spouses who want to change their residency will have to file two state income tax forms -- one to the state where their service member is a resident and one to the state where they actually paid taxes. Dulaney advised, however, that military couples go to their base legal assistance offices for help in making the decision. He said military personnel should make sure they are actually legal residents of the state they have declared. "[Troops] move around so much, sometimes you end up with a driver's license in one state, registered your car in another state, vote in another state. It becomes a jumbled mess of what exactly is your state of legal residence," Dulaney said. 2016 Combat Injured Veterans Tax Fairness Act Roughly 133,000 combat-injured veterans paid taxes on their disability severance pay when they shouldn't have. Those veterans qualify for refunds on the taxes they paid and should have received a letter last July from the IRS instructing them on how to file a claim for their money. They have a year from the date of their letters, which went out in July, or three years after filing the tax return that reported their disability severance pay -- whichever is later -- to file a claim. Veterans who paid taxes on disability severance pay back to Jan. 17, 1991, are eligible for refunds. With the understanding that many of these veterans do not have copies of their applicable tax records or income documentation dating back nearly 30 years, the IRS approved standard refunds based on the year in which the DSP was paid. For veterans who received DSP between 1991 and 2005, the amount is $1,750; for those who received it from 2006 to 2010, it's $2,400; and $3,200 for those who earned it from 2011 to 2016. Veterans may qualify for larger refunds if they have paperwork to support their claim. "We encourage those veterans who received those letters to seek help from a tax professional," Dulaney said. Moving Expenses While the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act eliminated deductions for unreimbursed moving expenses for civilians, military personnel are not included, meaning service members can still deduct moving expenses that aren't reimbursed. Qualifying expenses include lodging during a move and moving-related expenses such as shipping a car or a pet if those expenses weren't reimbursed. Negative Impacts Before the Tax Cut and Jobs Act was signed by President Donald Trump, Reserve members could deduct travel expenses incurred while reporting to duty -- an above-line deduction if they traveled 100 miles or more to duty and an itemized deduction if they went less than 100 miles. Now, with the suspension of miscellaneous itemized deductions, Reserve members cannot deduct expenses for traveling less than 100 miles. Also eliminated this year was the opportunity for Marines to take an itemized deduction for wear and tear of their uniforms. Marines were the only service that qualified for this deduction, as they aren't allowed to wear their uniforms while not on duty. Again, with the loss of miscellaneous itemized deductions, Marines will no longer be able to make these claims. "But again, bottom line is the increased standard deduction, the reduced tax rates and doubling the child tax credit will make it so military members will see an overall reduction in their tax liability," Dulaney said. Taxes can be daunting, but help is available, Dulaney said. The Defense Department offers in-person tax counseling through the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program available on many bases. With VITA, persons trained and certified to assist troops, retirees and family members with the tax nuances of military pay provide free counseling and assistance with filing federal and state tax returns. Dulaney recommended going to Military OneSource to determine which bases offer VITA. Military OneSource also provides tax filing support to active-duty military, their family members and transitioning troops up to a year after leaving service. Through Military OneSource's MilTax portal, eligible users can access tax preparation and electronic filing software and connect with trained tax advisors for assistance. -- Patricia Kime can be reached Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime. MIDDLETOWN St. Clements Castle in Portland will be the setting for the second annual Open Your Heart: A Tasty Celebration of Middletown Areas Finest Cuisine next month. The dining event, which will take place Feb. 7 from 6 to 9 p.m., will benefit St. Vincent de Paul Middletown. St. Clements Castle is located at 1931 Portland-Cobalt Road in Portland. Tickets, $75, available at svdmiddletown.org/open-your-heart, include food, drink and activities. PIGEON The Orr family name has been a part of the Pigeon business community for 100 years. This week, Fred Orr and his son, Bob, were honored at the Pigeon Lions Club meeting, as their store, Orrs Drug Store, celebrated being in business for a century. I really was very flattered, said Fred Orr, who has owned Orrs Drug Store since 1976. It was something that I wasnt expecting, and I really appreciated them noticing me. Orrs Drug Store has served the Pigeon community since 1919, and while it is impressive, Fred said he didnt think that it was all that surprising. It never would have happened in a larger community, I dont think, Orr said. The big box stores have pretty much gobbled up all the independents in any larger town. So, maybe its not that crazy at all. Weve tried to be responsive to what the customers want, and usually it works. Robert H. Orr, Freds grandfather, first arrived in Pigeon in the fall of 1917. Robert left his job at Wood Drug Store in Cass City to run Sutton Drug Store in Pigeon, as Sutton left the store to enter the Armed Services. Shortly after returning in 1919, Sutton sold the store to Orr. I have no idea whether that was his goal all along, Orr said. I know in Cass City he worked on the corner at the Woods Drug store, which was a big family owned store there. I imagine he was in the position where he knew he couldnt go any farther, there were family members that would be interested in taking over that store. Coming to Pigeon was an opportunity for him. Back then, even coming from Cass City to Pigeon was an adventure. Thirty-one years later, Robert sold 50 percent of Orrs to his son, Freds father, John. The years that I worked beside my father, as not a kid, but an adult, were really some of the best years that I had with him, Orr said. Here in the store, he never treated me like a kid, and I really developed a relationship with him that my brothers and sisters, who werent in the area, never had. As far as the store goes, my earliest recollections are, what a friendly place it was and still is, he added. I think thats probably what drew me back here. While the friendliness of the community drew him back, Orr added it was a little bit of destiny that got him into the business. I spent enough years of my life with people saying, are you going to be a druggist too?" Orr said. I got to the point where the answer was, no. When I was ready to choose a college, I chose Michigan State and part of my rationale was, they did not have a pharmacy school. I spent two years there and hadnt declared a solid major. As I looked at what classes Id take and what my interests were, it all said pharmacy. At that point, I stopped fighting it and started looking at it seriously. He transferred to Ferris State, where he earned his degree, and in 1976, he took over the store. My dad started giving me all of the things that he didnt like, Orr said. So, I was doing the bookkeeping and this and that. One task after another, he was handing them over to me until I was running it. Now, Fred runs the business with his son, Bob. Its been good, Fred said. Like I said about my dad, I never felt like I was a kid, but we were more like equals. Bob has stepped in here and he has good relationships with the customers and Ill see him do some things and it will just make me smile. During his time working at Orrs, Fred said his favorite thing is the customers. Ive made a lot of friends over the years and have done business with multiple generations and many families, Orr said. Someone comes in the door and you think about their grandmother. It just feels good. While the business has been in three different locations in Pigeon during its 100 years, the customers have always supported the store. It says a lot about the community, Orr said. Weve had so many people stick with us over the years. Loyalty, and thats a tough commodity to find these days, but its here. As the store celebrates its 100th year in business, Fred is unsure of what the future holds for himself and for the business. I dont know, but Ive got my alarm set, and Im coming to work tomorrow, Orr said. As far as any long-term plans or decisions, as long as Im enjoying it, Ill keep doing it. Its disheartening to read comments online disparaging Bad Axe City Council members for their decision to approve a ban on marijuana businesses within the city limits. Voters went to the polls in November to give their opinion on allowing recreational marijuana. Though voters statewide approved it, the majority of Huron County residents voted no. As did the majority of Bad Axe voters, 541 to 534. Though it did not pass locally with as large of a margin as it did county-wide, the majority of voters still said no. Part of the job of city council members is to listen to their constituents. In this instance, the majority said no. One could argue that in the months following the election, local favor of marijuana may have improved. But at December's meeting, only two residents spoke out in favor of allowing the marijuana industry in the community. During this week's meeting, when council voted on the ban, nobody from the public spoke against it. Rather, council heard from the local police chief, who suggested council members pass the ordinance now and then readdress the issue in the future. Even Michigan NORML The Michigan Affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws weighed in on comments on Facebook regarding the Huron Daily Tribunes story, Bad Axe bans pot industry within city limits. The group said were going to see a lot of opt-outs until the state promulgates rules, and many of the areas that have recently opted out will opt in after the rules are released. The point of this editorial is not to debate the merits of marijuana, or lack thereof. The point is that people should focus on participating in their local government, rather than resorting to insulting locally-elected officials and vilifying the area as a whole on social media. But it comes down to the age-old story that its easier to run your mouth than it is to do things like vote, attend a meeting and participate in democracy like a responsible citizen. Come hell or high water, Anthony Gerald shows up. Be it with a cane, a walker or simply limping; he rarely misses a community event because he knows how important it is to be a shining example to his children, often seeks out every opportunity he can to serve as a blessing to someone else. (CNN) In what may be the most significant diplomatic step in the Balkans since the end of the Bosnian war, a bitter, decades-long bilateral dispute has been put to rest in Europe Friday. After 27 years of mutual mistrust, a name deal has been sealed between Athens and Skopje. Under the agreement, Greece's neighbor will stop using the name "Republic of Macedonia," a name it chose for itself when it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. It will instead call itself "Republic of North Macedonia." Following months of street protests and heated debate in both countries, the name deal has overcome the last of a number of hurdles in Athens Friday, with 153 votes in support in the 300-seat parliament. The change is significant because Greece, a member of both NATO and the European Union, has been blocking Skopje's membership to NATO and the beginning of accession talks with the EU until the name dispute is resolved. Under the deal, Greece will lift its objections paving the way for its neighbor's integration. How we got here Both countries have been under pressure to resolve the dispute, as Western nations see the further integration of Balkan countries into the EU and NATO as a way of improving the region's stability. The move will perhaps even serve as a compromise that can ease other regional disputes. But Moscow openly opposes Macedonia's aspirations, having long been a major player in the region. The agreement, first ratified in Skopje, follows the defeat of Macedonia's nationalist conservatives by the social democrats. It has significantly improved the climate between the two neighboring countries after decades of strong nationalist rhetoric on both sides. Since the early 1990s, maps have widely circulated in Greece with the landlocked state's borders extending to the port city of Thessaloniki, Greek Macedonia's capital, funneling territorial fears. A giant statue of the ancient Macedonian King Alexander the Great erected in Skopje's central square fueled further claims of cultural plunder. In summer 2018, the easing of relations led to a joint declaration by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev that the name dispute was finally over. In a ceremony high in symbolism, held by Lake Prespa where the borders of Greece, Albania and Macedonia meet, the two men signed the landmark agreement, known as the Prespa accord. Deal seen as PM's legacy project The deal has been faced with widespread criticism in both countries in the steps leading to its ratification. A referendum in Skopje saw low turnout and the Greek government has survived two no confidence votes in seven months and the loss of its junior coalition partner over the deal. Concerns revolve around identity and how it may affect future security. Opponents say the addition of the word "North" may help to define geographical terms but it does nothing to separate nationality and language, which could create a basis for minority issues and territorial claims. With latest polls showing that more than six in 10 Greeks oppose the deal, demonstrations have been held across the country in the buildup to Friday's vote. A protest rally in Athens Sunday attended by tens of thousands was marred by violence. The Greek Prime Minister has expended political capital to push the deal describing it as a "patriotic duty." He has also acknowledged that the deal would come "with a political cost." His party is trailing 10% behind the main opposition, a strong opponent of the deal. Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, of the New Democracy party, speaking in parliament ahead of Friday's vote, described a ratification of the agreement as "a national mistake that is an affront to truth and history." Shortly after the deal was ratified, Tspiras said in a tweet: "Today we are writing a new page in the Balkans. Nationalist hatreds, disputes and conflicts give their place to friendship, peace and co-operation." His Macedonian counterpart shared the same positive outlook in a congratulatory tweet to the Greek PM. European leaders also took to social media to celebrate the agreement. European Council President Donald Tusk praised Tspiras and Zaev for their courage in finding a middle ground while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the confirmation of the Prespa accord as "an important contribution to the stability and prosperity of the whole region." "They had imagination, they took the risk, they were ready to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good," Tusk wrote on his official Twitter account. Polls indicate Tsipras is set to lose an election that will take place this year. The 44-year-old politician took office in 2015 as an economic populist in the height of Greece's financial crisis, promising to rewrite the terms of Greece's bailout with grand fanfare but without great success. Many Greeks see the name deal as Tsipras' legacy project aimed at securing his future in politics and strengthening his image beyond Greek borders. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Macedonia will change its name. Here's why it matters." Meridian, MS (39302) Today Cloudy with periods of light rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 76F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Cloudy with occasional light rain . Low 68F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. . . , " ". . " " . , . . , . Meadville, PA (16335) Today Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 76F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening, with mostly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%. Marietta, GA (30060) Today Rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 73F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. Atlanta, GA (30342) Today Rain likely. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 73F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch.. Tonight Periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected. Those who know me and still talk to me know I always wanted to be a wheelin-dealin kiss-stealin gear-jammin coffee-slammin truck-driving daddy sweet talking every carrot-top waitress from the Queen City to Shaky-Town. But the journalism gig came along and my long-haul trucking dreams faded like the CB radio craze. I figured I would never get the opportunity to tour this great land of ours behind the wheel of a sweet rig. But it appears that opportunity has finally pulled in to the terminal. Oscar Meyer is hiring a driver for the Wienermobile. Sure, its not a Kenworth or a Peterbilt, but it is an impressive vehicle and Oscar Meyer is offering someone the chance to drive it around the country (at least for one year). The company is taking applications through Jan. 31 to become a Hotdogger starting this June and continuing for 12 months. The perfect Hotdogger, in addition to driving the Wienermobile, would represent the Oscar Meyer brand as a goodwill ambassador through ra-dio and television appearances, newspaper interviews, according to the news release. Flash The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a stopgap bill that would fund the government for the next three weeks, sending the bill to the White House for ratification. The bill was approved unanimously. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill later Friday, ending a record 35-day-long government shutdown. The bill would fund the government until Feb. 15, giving the White House and the Democrats three weeks to work out a deal regarding border security. The swift passage of the bill came one day after the Senate blocked two competing measures that would reopen the government, backed by the White House and the Democrats respectively. The pressure from the shutdown mounted Friday morning with the halting of flights bound for LaGuardia Airport of New York due to staff shortage. Trump told an impromptu press conference on Friday that an agreement has been reached to open the government without funding for a border wall, which had been the thorny issue preventing earlier deals. Despite the apparent concession, Trump threatened a second shutdown or call for state of emergency if both sides fail to reach an agreement within the next three weeks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had disinvited Trump from a state of the union address on Jan. 29 citing government shutdown, said she would consider inviting Trump again after the government reopens. The U.S. government went into partial shutdown on Dec. 22 after the White House and the Democrats failed to agree on whether to allocate fund for a physical wall on the U.S. Southern border. The shutdown spooked the economy, disrupted air traffic and affected 800,000 federal workers, many of whom were furloughed or forced to work without pay. KEVIN HARVISON | Staff photo Some of the board members of McAlester Defense Support Services are shown during a meeting at the McAlester Area Chamber of Commerce. Pictured, from left are Eastern Oklahoma State College President Dr. Steve Smith, MDSS Executive Director Jessica Gragg; Board member Michael Echelle, of the Warren Clinic; and MDSS Treasurer Kirk Ridenour, who is executive director of the city of McAlesters office of Economic Development. Viola Caudill, 85, a resident of the Gowen Community passed away Thursday June 10, 2021 at home. A Graveside service will be held a 11:00 AM Monday June 14, 2021 in the Pavilion at Bache-Red Oak Cemetery. There will be a family and friends visitation on Sunday June 13, 2021 from 5:00pm to 7: WARE -- A Dale Street man arrested early Wednesday morning allegedly pistol whipped a 60-year-old friend and fired a black powder pistol inside a home. Gregory Babb, 58, of 5 Dale St. was arraigned Wednesday afternoon. Babb was released on his own recognizance with a pre-trial scheduled on March 13. He was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon -- a black powder pistol -- and discharging a gun within 500 feet of a house. According to a police report included in the case file at Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, Babb and the alleged victim were friends and had been drinking together at Babb's home. The report says the victim was seen bleeding from the face in the vicinity of Main and Parker streets just after midnight, when he was then taken by ambulance to Baystate Mary Lane's emergency department in Ware for treatment. As a condition of release, Babb must remain alcohol free and submit to random testing. He is represented by the Committee for Public Counsel. The firearms charge carries a maximum sentence of three months in jail. In 1994 Babb was found guilty of assaulting a Southampton man with a dangerous weapon following a four-day trial at Hampshire Superior Court. The male victim said he discovered Babb in his home. A Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling from 1994 said that at the time of his arrest Babb was on parole from the State of Alaska, where he'd been convicted on four counts of burglary and three counts of escape. Babb was also convicted and served time for the 1978 hit-and-run death of an 11-year-old girl in Ware. AMHERST -- The school superintendent and the chairwoman of the Amherst School Committee are scheduled to discuss with the Town Council an "urgent need to renovate or replace Fort River and Wildwood" school buildings at Monday's council meeting. The council and school officials will talk about submitting a new request to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for funds to pay more than half the costs of any renovation or new construction. The first step would be sending the MSBA a "letter of interest" to begin that process. Such a letter first requires both the council's and school committee's approval. The MSBA, in a letter to the town dated Dec. 12, denied the district's request, saying that they approved projects for 2018 "that have the greatest and most urgent need." The letter did not specify why Amherst's request was rejected. Superintendent Michael Morris and school board Chairwoman Anastasia Ordonez are slated to make a presentation, outlined in a 15-page document they have already provided the council, at Monday's council meeting. "The buildings need significant financial investment to continue to be used as school buildings," the document says. The schools are "nearing the end of expected lifespan of school buildings that have not undergone significant renovation -- MSBA building life estimate: 50 years." In an interview on Friday, Morris said he contacted the MSBA following their Dec. 12 letter. "How can we improve our chances?" Morris said he asked them. He said the MSBA told him that "they want us to have additional information" in any future letter of interest "that shows we have consensus in the community" supporting the request. "We have schools that need help," Morris said. The MSBA in 2016 had awarded the town a $33.7 million grant to build a new Wildwood Elementary School. The approval letter said the money "will provide a new 21st century learning environment for Elementary School students in Amherst." But Town Meeting twice rejected funding for that proposal, once in 2016 and again in 2017. A new charter voters approved in March that took effect in December replaced Town Meeting as the community's legislative assembly with the Town Council. The Jan. 28 Town Council meeting, at Town Hall, 4 Boltwood Ave., begins at 6:30 p.m. Flash Politicians from China and Japan had an in-depth exchange of views on bilateral relations at an event held in Osaka Friday, calling for sound and stable development of relations between the two countries. China and Japan are important neighbors to each other, said Chinese Ambassador Cheng Yonghua at the third China-Japan friendly exchange conference of West Japan held by the Chinese Consulate General in Osaka. Cheng said the long-term, sound and stable development of bilateral ties is in line with the fundamental interests of the two peoples and is also the common expectation of the region and the international community. He called on all sectors of the society to build consensus and did practical things to deepen pragmatic cooperation and expand people-to-people exchanges, especially among the youth. Li Tianran, Chinese consul-general in Osaka, said that by hosting a series of exchange activities, the consulate general will help promote the development of China-Japan relations into a new stage, and expects all sectors to strengthen cooperation and deepen regional exchanges between the two countries. At the conference joined by more than 600 representatives from both sides, Japanese participants also called for seizing the opportunity to further safeguard and develop the friendly bilateral relations. Fumihiro Kawamika, Japanese consul-general in China's Shenyang, and Deputy Governor of Tokushima Prefecture Dahiroshi Gotou reviewed the development of China-Japan relations based on their own experiences, saying that the exchanges between the two countries play an important role in the development of Asia and the world. They also said they are expecting greater development of bilateral relations in the future. Column Grosse Pointe educator travels to every country in the world Lockport, NY (14094) Today Partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. High around 80F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 61F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Roger Stone, adviser to President Donald Trump, was arrested Friday in the special counsel's Russia investigation and charged with lying to Congress. With increasing attention being paid to parallels between Trump and Richard Nixon, it's no surprise that people were quick to fixate on one particular quirk of Stone's: His abiding love of Nixon, on display in the form of an upper back tattoo of the former president's face. ALSO: Four takeaways from the Roger Stone indictment Stone got the tattoo in Venice Beach, and told the New Yorker that "women love it." It grins from dead center on Stone's upper back, as if to say "I've got your back, Roger. I won't let you get indicted." (This doesn't seem to have worked). As he spoke to the media on Friday, Stone also mimicked the "V for victory" pose Nixon struck when boarding Marine One after resigning the presidency in 1974. So what's the Stone-Nixon connection? Why does Stone love Tricky Dick so much? MORE: Chad 'Ochocinco' Johnson says he watched Roger Stone get arrested Stone's admiration for Nixon is nearly as old as his career in Washington. At 19, having moved to D.C. and becoming fascinated by politics, Stone took on a pseudonym and used it to make a contribution to Nixon's rival for the 1972 Republican nomination on behalf of the Young Socialist Alliance. He then used the donation receipt to discredit the opponent as a secret leftist, according to the New Yorker. He also paid another Republican operative to infiltrate Democrat George McGovern's campaign for president a move that, when it was revealed during the Watergate hearings, lost Stone his job working for Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan. Stone has written and spoken for years about his admiration for Nixon's bare-knuckle political style and anti-elite sensibilities (Stone, for his part, reportedly owns 400 suits). They also seem to share a penchant for paranoid, conspiracy theory-driven thinking; Stone wrote a book in 2013 positing that it was LBJ who was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. "The reason I'm a Nixonite is because of his indestructibility and resilience," Over the years, Stone has spoken with pride of his small role in Watergate. His affection for Nixon comes out in all kinds of ways. He makes martinis with a recipe he got from Nixon ("He said he got it from Winston Churchill," Stone told the New Yorker). He owns multiple bongs that look like Nixon's head. He reportedly told an audience at a cannabis conference that he wants to make a strain of marijuana called "Tricky Dick." It's clear he loves Nixon, but it remains to be seen if he'll look back on Trump so fondly. Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser to be charged by Mueller, according to the AP. He is charged with lying about emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign that were hacked by Russia. The indictment alleges that Stone was contacted by Trump campaign officials asking when the stolen emails would be disclosed. "There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president," said Stone, "nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself." Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchroncle.com and follow her on Twitter Satisfying the demand for tax relief while fixing a broken public school finance system is going to require some fancy financial footwork if the two competing needs are going to be equitably addressed this legislative session. Home values are directly tied to the quality of the public schools that surround them. School districts with reputations for providing a quality education are sought-after destinations for families with school-age children, but the impact of public schools stretches beyond that. Good schools result in a better educated workforce, and that encourages economic development, contributing to the states overall financial well-being. Lawmakers cannot afford to lose sight of those factors as they move forward. Tax relief that adversely affects the bottom line of public education could have a detrimental impact in the classroom. A decline in the quality of education affects the market appeal of one of the taxpayers biggest investment and minimizes the benefit a lower tax bill might provide. Finding a balance between two of the sessions top priorities will be a challenge. Falling back on tactics that shuffle around funds money without adding any is not a option. Its time to rethink old strategies. For decades, the state has slowly shifted the financial burden for public education onto school districts, leaving local taxpayers to pick up the tab. It is no wonder that as a result, Texas has one of the highest property tax rates in the country, sixth from the top among the states. In just the past six years, the states contribution to public education has fallen from 46 percent to 38 percent. To compensate for the loss of state revenue, school districts have come to rely heavily on local tax assessments for the bulk of their operation and maintenance costs. As a result, school taxes are the biggest line item on most property owners tax bills. The state has needed to step up with its checkbook for a long time, but now state leaders are looking to limit the taxes that local entities can collect. Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed a 2.5 percent cap on year-over-year increases to property tax revenue that taxing entities, including school districts, can collect without going to voters for the increase. Current law allows taxing entities to collect up to 8 percent more revenue from increased valuation of property and additions to tax roles. A Hearst Newspapers analysis found Texas homeowners, on average, could save about $326 a year on school taxes under Abbotts proposal to limit year-over-year tax increases. But such move would also mean the loss of millions of dollars in tax revenue to individual school districts. According to the analysis, if the cap had been implemented in 2008, there would have been $7 billion less for public education in 2017. The state is under federal orders to do better by its special education students, and the Texas Supreme Court has found the states public school finance system constitutional but severely lacking. The Legislature can ill afford to reduce a vital source of education funding without replacing it. The state House has answered with a budget that envisions $7 billion in additional funding for public schools; the Senate $4.3 billion more. The House version is more in line with the need. Where this extra funding comes from is important. This funding has to be a sustainable revenue stream and not just a temporary fix. Along with school finance, capping property taxes has become the newest passion in Austin. Boosting funding for public education will not cut property taxes, but it could limit future increases. The best way to make sure this funding is sustainable? Comb through the entire state tax code to get rid of unnecessary exemptions and loopholes. Boost revenue, in other words. Our children and the states economic future are worth the effort. High school seniors across the city are starting their final semester. Theyre picking out tassels and getting measured for caps and gowns. More than 300,000 Texans will walk the stage, more than any other graduation season so far. In fact, according to federal data, Texas ranks second in the country in graduation rates. And the states high school attrition rates, which measure loss between ninth and 12th grade, are improving. The states first dropout study, conducted by the Intercultural Development Research Association, or IDRA, 2 decades ago, found that Texas schools were losing 1 in 3 students. Today, the loss is down to about 1 in 5 22 percent an all-time low. So, thats progress. Right? Not if you consider that it has taken more than three decades to improve by only 11 percentage points. At this pace, Texas will not reach universal high school education for another two decades. We stand to lose more than 2.3 million more students the equivalent of everyone in San Antonio and Austin. Dropouts do not disappear into thin air. They struggle, trying to earn a living without a diploma. They, and we, pay for that loss with less income from taxes, a lower tax base, increased social services and criminal justice costs, and training that businesses must pay for (and pass on to consumers). We no longer live in a world where a dropout can earn a decent living. Todays world is very different, and people need greater education and skills to have a chance at success. But Texas is failing to graduate roughly 11 students per hour. Schools are losing black and Hispanic students at rates about twice that of white students. So, no. Losing 1 in 5 students is not OK. Most children, at one time or another, look forward to school. As young learners, they proudly carried their No. 2 pencils, crayons and Elmers glue, ready for an adventure. But something happened along the way or perhaps several somethings happened and they never reached their final destination: graduation. Even worse, no one is looking for many of them. Some will not even admit the students are gone. Those who do admit they have lost students usually blame the students or their families for the loss. We hear mantras like: It starts in the home. They have a language barrier. Its their culture; They dont value education like we do. When the state releases accountability ratings, we hear officials defensive criticisms that the system doesnt account for the kinds of students their district has to serve. The underlying message We would do better if we had better kids is that some kids poor, minority, English learners are, by their very being, difficult to teach. IDRAs study this year also looked at data for economically disadvantaged students. Using data from the Texas Education Agency, we found that, for the class of 2017, the attrition rate for students who are poor was 29 times higher than that of their peers. There is no way that our states largest student population is 29 times more difficult to teach. The truth is, children are not the problem. The characteristics of children are absolutely not what leads schools to fail to graduate all students. Being poor does not erase a childs ability to learn and succeed. It just doesnt. Texas cannot afford to educate some students and not others. We cannot treat students who are poor as if they are outsiders. At almost two-thirds of our school population, children of the poor are hardly the exception. Texas has more students in poverty than 21 states have people. Our schools must be designed and funded to serve the students who are in schools. Instead, being poor or minority means you are more likely to be in an underfunded school with teachers who are not well prepared, and you are more likely to be affected by policies and practices that dont work to keep students in school through graduation. For example, IDRA has identified six school practices and policies that lead to higher dropout rates: zero tolerance discipline; in-grade retention instead of good teaching the first time around; insufficient support for English learners; unfair and insufficient funding; watered-down noncollege prep curricula; and high-stakes testing. Educators and communities can examine these practices and policies together in their neighborhood public schools to know where to focus attention. And we can learn from schools that do a good job with poor children. At IDRA, we work with teachers, principals and others on a daily basis. We have seen tremendous leadership, especially when leaders decide to see the value in each student and set up systems to ensure their success. Our state leadership has a serious job to do too. In the early phase of the latest school finance case, IDRA was asked to look beyond the poverty of students and examine the poverty of schools. We recently updated that review for the class of 2018. The data show that attrition rates are higher in property-poor districts and large urban areas. The poorest 10 percent of school districts in Texas had an attrition rate of 25.1 percent compared do a 17.7 percent rate in the highest wealth group. Locally, half the school districts in San Antonio are among the poorest 20 percent in the state. All but one have attrition rates above the state average with one at 36 percent. In contrast, our single district in the highest wealth group has an attrition rate of less than 10 percent. But is this really surprising? Not a single day in the past 50 years if ever has the state of Texas fully funded public education. True, the system was more equitable for about a decade after the recapture feature was established. Student achievement improved, taxpayers were more equally sharing the cost of paying for public schools, and businesses were seeing the results of better-prepared graduates. But as the state population grew more diverse and poorer, the state made matters worse. The system was weakened in 2005, privileging a few children to the detriment of many. This was followed by the huge unnecessary funding cuts in 2011 that are still crippling our schools. And since then, recapture became the scapegoat for what was really happening when the state backed out of its promises and cut its share of education funding. At the same time, state leaders have allowed public school funds to be plundered away into a separate charter school system that is not accountable to the public. Just one example is the recent $60 million per year the state established for charter facilities. IDRA studied the effects for the class of 2016, which saw graduation rates of 62 percent in charter schools compared to 90 percent in traditional schools. And the data show there is very little difference in the percentage of students they serve who are considered at risk of dropping out: 50 percent in traditional schools; 52 percent in charters. Nearly 1 of every 5 charter campuses failed to achieve met standard or the lower alternative standard, compared to 1 of every 25 traditional public schools. Yet in the last decade, policymakers increased funding for charter schools at a much faster rate (236 percent) than for traditional schools (8 percent). Some praise these diversions in the name of choice. But the Texas Constitution does not require the state to provide school choice. It does, however, require the state to educate every child. This is the states responsibility. Our success is not measured by the choice we provide; rather our success is determined by the choices we make. We cannot choose to continue funding gaps. We must not choose to put our children in over-crowded classes with dumbed-down curriculum and weak graduation requirements, or track our poor kids into vocational classes. We must not choose to excuse leaders from their responsibility to provide an excellent education for every child. The choices we make today will determine how many children will one day toss their graduation caps in the air with confidence that they are prepared to succeed in college and life. Maria Cuca Robledo Montecel is president and CEO of the Intercultural Development Research Association, or IDRA. UPDATE: 1:19 p.m. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office identified Matthew Reyes Mireles, 38, as the man they charged in the shooting death of a BCSO K-9 unit Friday night following an erratic, multi-county chase. Mireles has been charged with multiple felonies including interference with a police service animal, attempted capital murder of a police officer, aggravated assault on a public servant, and evading arrest detention with a vehicle. ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES A Bexar County Sheriff's Office K-9 unit is dead and a man is in critical condition at an area hospital after a high-speed, multi-county chase that began in Karnes City ended in an exchange of gunfire on the far West Side of San Antonio, according to Sheriff Javier Salazar. The 38-year-old male suspect, who according to BSCO had several outstanding warrants, fled from Karnes City police attempting to pull him over sometime after 10 p.m. Friday. The chase followed U.S. 181 to Interstate 37 North where the chase turned toward San Antonio with the man intermediately firing shots at pursuing law enforcement, Salazar said. At some point, two State Troopers and three BCSO deputies joined the pursuit. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox The man abandoned his vehicle at an area near Loop 1604 and Texas 151, leaving it in drive, which resulted in the vehicle striking a patrol car, according to Salazar. The man continued on foot and "continued to fire shots wildly." Salazar described the chaotic situation saying deputies and troopers attempted to keep traffic back and away from the scene as the man "with a complete disregard for human life" walked along pointing his gun at officers, himself, an overhead helicopter and at passersby. "All the officers involved showed an amazing amount of restraint and I'm very proud of the way they reacted," Salazar said. At a certain point Chucky, a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, was deployed by BSCO to restrain the man. "Chucky was able to get a bite on the suspect," Salazar said. "Unfortunately that suspect fired several shots, Chucky was struck and died there at the scene." Salazar explained that law enforcement then opened fire on the man, striking him several times in the lower extremities. He was transported to University Hospital in critical condition after officers performed life-saving measures on him. Chucky did have an issued vest but wasn't able to wear it at the time, the Sheriff's Office said in an emailed statement. The vest can't be worn all the time because of concerns with overheating and fatigue, and it is supposed to put on the dog in the case of a pre-planned operation. The incident Friday wasn't pre-planned. Chucky's handler "who was actively engaged in pursuing the armed suspect did not have an opportunity to place the vest on Chucky, as doing so would have continued to place the public in imminent danger," the Sheriff's Office said. "Immediate actions had to be taken to ensure the suspect was stopped quickly." Talking about the loss of one of his deputies Salazar said sometimes not everybody makes it home and sometimes law enforcement officers lose their lives in the line of duty. "That doesn't make it any easier when that deputy's got four legs," Salazar said. "It's a heartbreaking situation and these dogs are part of our family they are deputies as well. Chucky went out doing what he was brought here to do, to save lives. And he undoubtedly saved lives with what he was able to accomplish in his last moments. Salazar said there will be a funeral for Chucky, who according to officials had been partnered with an unidentified deputy for the last two years. If he survives, the unidentified man is facing multiple charges. This story will be updated as more information becomes available. A San Antonio Police Department detective accused of domestic violence earlier this month was found standing next to a crying woman who was bleeding when deputies arrived at the scene, a sheriff's office report states. Daniel Pue, 34, was arrested on Jan. 7 at about 9 a.m. in the 11000 block of Barclay Point, according to police. Pue, an 11-year veteran of SAPDs Repeat Offenders Unit, was charged with assault causing bodily injury. He posted a $3,500 bond the same day he was arrested, according to court records. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office report states that deputies were called to the scene for reports of a man in a green sweatshirt and blue sweatpants standing over a woman and punching her in the face. The suspect, identified as Pue, and another woman were found in the front yard. She was crying as her face was covered in blood, the report noted. As one deputy looked at the woman, Pue began walking toward the house, the report said. The deputy ordered him to come here, to which the man stated No! as he closed the door to the home, authorities said. Not knowing what Pues intentions were, the deputy kicked in the front door and ordered him to get on the ground. Pue responded For what? Im a police officer!? the report said. The deputy warned Pue that if he did not lay on the ground he would be electrocuted by stun gun. He complied and was placed into custody in the deputys patrol vehicle, according to the report. Pue told deputies that a woman he used to date a year ago had gone to the residence to cause problems between him and another person,the report said. In talking to the woman who was injured, she told deputies that she was fine and did not want Pue to get in trouble. First responders were called to check on the woman, but she refused their treatment. The woman said that she did not wish to file charges, but only asked if she could talk to Pue. When she was informed that Pue was detained in the deputys vehicle, she responded Well, if theres bars in the window, then he cant hit me anymore, the report said Both Pue and another person at the scene smelled of alcohol, deputies noted. Police said in a previous statement that Pue was to be placed on administrative leave pending further investigation. The Guadalupe County Commissioners Court voted on Thursday to deny a permit for Float Fest, just days after a study commissioned by organizers of the annual music festival showed it generated $12.3 million in total economic impact last year. Without a permit, which is required for gatherings of more than 5,000 people, the event cannot be legally held. Commissioners voted 3-2 during a special meeting that lasted more than three hours to deny the request by festival promoter Marcus Federman. He had asked for a maximum attendance of 25,000 people per day, a 25 percent increase from the 20,000 allowed in 2018. Those voting to deny the permit cited congestion, river cleanliness and safety as their biggest concerns. Float Fest organizers could not be reached for comment on their decision or their plans moving forward. RELATED: Date for San Antonio's 2019 Barbacoa & Big Red Festival revealed The festival, which would be in its sixth year, was scheduled to take place July 19-21 at Cool River Ranch along the San Marcos River. Attendees often camp near the river overnight and float it during the day. Big-name musicians such as Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne have been among the performers in previous years. The event has proven controversial, however, and for many residents of the 1,300-person town of Martindale where the festival takes place, even 20,000 people was too many. Several residents addressed the commissioners at the meeting to request the permit be denied. The music was too loud, they said, and the words too profane. The traffic congestion was unsafe and would severely hinder any emergency vehicles coming through. The portable toilets smelled bad, the beer cans trashed the river and that $12.3 economic impact didn't go to Guadalupe County, residents told commissioners. After a traffic engineer said at the meeting that while the sharp increase in vehicles caused some minor delays it was not substantial enough to cause major safety concerns, residents and some commissioners questioned whether the traffic study was thorough enough to come to that conclusion. FIND OUT FIRST: Get San Antonio breaking news directly to your inbox Beer cans and other trash in the river has long been one of the biggest sticking points between residents and the festival and some proposed a can ban. Federman said he also loves the river and wants it clean, but doesn't believe a can ban for this event is the right way to go about eliminating river trash. "It's got to be a process where you can change their mindsets and make them think it's their idea," Federman said during the meeting. "It's not just at my festival, but over the course of the summer there's thousands of people and thousands of opinions, and how do you get all of those people to like one thing? You have to come at them in a way they can understand and relate." Ultimately, the commissioners' decision came down to whether or not the Float Fest application met the occupations code. Three commissioners voted that Section 5 posed too serious a concern to ignore. The section reads, "The times of the festival and the festival location create a substantial danger of congestion and the disruption of other lawful activities in the immediate vicinity of the festival." The commissioners voting against denying the permit said there was not a preponderance of evidence to prove substantial danger of congestion. RELATED: Cleaning crew collected 40,000 beer cans during Float Fest In 2018, Federman faced a similar battle with the commissioners. He had applied for a permit to host up to 30,000 people more than double the previous year's attendance and was denied. Commissioners cited the same concerns and the same section of the occupations code in denying the permit as they did this year. Federman filed a lawsuit in March 2018 to appeal the decision. Before the state district court took any action, the commissioners reconsidered their denial. Later that month, they came to a compromise with Federman to move forward with a 20,000 person cap. It's wasn't clear on Thursday whether the commissioners would be willing to approve the festival with 20,000 attendees or whether Federman intends to sue again. S. M. Chavey is a breaking news and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | @smchavey In the predawn hours of Saturday morning, a gargantuan search-and-rescue operation in Spain came to a tragic end as workers discovered the body of Julen Rosello, a 2-year-old boy who had fallen more than 30 stories down a narrow borehole nearly two weeks ago. "At 1:25 a.m., Julen was found dead, unfortunately," Alfonso Rodriguez, a government representative in Andalusia, told reporters later, his eyes brimming with tears as he gave details of the discovery. Julen had been found by two miners and an officer on duty from the national Civil Guard. The toddler's body was retrieved from the hole at 4 a.m., Rodriguez said. Julen's fate had captivated the country ever since Jan. 13, when he had tumbled into a narrow, unmarked hole - 15 inches at its widest spot - that had been drilled for a possible well on private property in Totalan, a small town on the southern coast of Spain. The tragedy happened as his parents, Jose Rosello and Vicky Garcia, were setting up for a paella picnic. The boy's parents would later say they heard Julen's echoing cries as he plummeted into darkness, down a hole suspected to be 360 feet deep. Then, there was nothing but agonizing silence. Thirteen days elapsed, speckled with hope but increasingly laden with dread. A team of rescuers - including experts who previously helped retrieve trapped miners - worked around the clock to drill a separate, vertical tunnel parallel to the borehole. Initial efforts to drill into the earth were hampered by difficult terrain, bad weather and, most of all, time. The ensuing mission was billed as unprecedented - what engineers said might otherwise have taken a month was condensed into a few days. Late Thursday afternoon, after workers digging the parallel tunnel had reached a depth of about 230 feet, they began drilling horizontally to try to reach where Julen was thought to be trapped, El Pais reported. "The whole design of the operation, which was carried out on an urgent basis, and all of the work that was carried out, was based on one theory: that Julen was in the borehole," Rodriguez said Saturday, according to the newspaper. "That he was at the depth where he was eventually found. We worked with urgency, but also delicacy. Because the aim was to reach him without causing him any harm." Video released by the Civil Guard showed miners drilling horizontally into what appeared to be solid rock, chipping out small pieces at a time. "Centimeter by centimeter," the agency wrote. Still, it was too late. Julen's body awaits an autopsy, Rodriguez told reporters. There were few conclusive details, but he indicated Julen had reached his ultimate resting place quickly. "The position of the body determines that it was a fast free-fall, to [233 feet], which is where he was found," he said, according to El Pais. Rodriguez said that a judge in the nearby city of Malaga would be in charge of investigating who should be held responsible for Julen's death and cautioned that his autopsy results could not be released ahead of that investigation being finished. Both the borehole and the rescue tunnels would be filled, he added. On Saturday, dozens of Spanish officials observed a moment of silence outside Malaga's town hall for Julen. "Today, all of Spain feels the infinite sadness of Julen's family," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted Saturday. Julen's parents, their faces stricken with grief, were seen arriving at a cemetery Saturday morning, hours after their son's body had been discovered. Throughout the ordeal, the boy's parents had tried to hope against hope Julen would be found alive, often referring to an angel watching over them - their first son, Oliver, who had collapsed and died suddenly of a reported congenital heart defect at age 3. "Oliver, don't forget your brother, Julen," his mother wrote on social media shortly after Julen's fall, according to the Express. "You know we've been waiting for him for many hours. I know you protect him a lot, my little King." Later, she posted another picture of a sleeping baby: "If it's true that there's a God up there," she wrote, "help him please." - - - The Washington Post's Cleve R. Wootson Jr. contributed to this report. A new juice and smoothie bar soon will offer Jacksonville residents healthy beverages made with fresh ingredients, according to owner Jessica Lynn. The Fresh Press, which will be at 216 Mauvisterre St., will fill a need in town for a place to get fresh juice and smoothies. Im from Ventura, California, and we had a lot of juice and smoothie bars down there, Lynn said. Ive been talking with my husband, Bobby, about how we should have something like that here in town Its hard to be healthy, sometimes, and everyone wants to try and be healthy. Its difficult when theres no product around to come to. With Jacksonvilles gyms staying busy throughout the year, Lynn expects The Fresh Press to be a hit with Jacksonvilles fitness-minded residents. Lynn intends to use fresh ingredients and will source locally whenever she can, utilizing the areas farmers markets when theyre open, she said. She hopes to create special seasonal drinks when particular fruits and vegetables are in season, she said. Ive gone to the grocery store so much and bought so many different types of produce to mix together and mix and match, Lynn said. Ive been doing that for the last eight months, trying to make the best kinds of recipes for our customers. Ill have six signature juices as far as your greens, reds and oranges, and then well have classic juices and customized juices. Lynn is in the process of remodeling the site to give it a relaxing motif with a bit of a rustic look, she said. She also hopes to include a library space where people can pick up a book or drop one off as they please. Were also having a couple students from MacMurray do a mural on our wall for us, so Im excited about that, Lynn said. Nick Draper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1223, or on Twitter @nick_draper. WASHINGTON - The Pentagon remained on the margins of the U.S. response to the crisis in Venezuela on Friday as military officials stressed they had not been asked to evacuate Americans amid an intensifying standoff between the Trump administration and President Nicolas Maduro. The cautious response from the Defense Department, which said it had sent no troops, planes or ships to assist diplomats defying an expulsion order, highlighted the negligible military role in the administration's mainly diplomatic and financial campaign to force out Maduro's government. The reluctance of defense officials to discuss even the position of U.S. military assets underscored the Pentagon's desire to avoid escalating a potentially explosive situation in a region where the United States has limited military weight. Some U.S. diplomats flew out of the country on commercial flights Friday as the U.S. Embassy in Caracas curtailed its operations, two days after the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's legitimate leader. Others remained at the embassy despite a Saturday departure deadline from Maduro, who had announced he would cut ties with the United States. The dramatic events this week follow two years of political pressure and economic sanctions on the Maduro government. They also raised questions about whether embassy employees and their families would be caught in the tug of war. While President Donald Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, have suggested that the United States would consider "all options" in the crisis, the military has not yet made any of the moves typically associated with an armed confrontation or the kind of militarized evacuation that has occurred during past conflicts. Military officials said the White House had not issued any orders to help Americans depart or increase protection for those who remain. On Thursday, the State Department initiated the departure of certain embassy employees and asked others, deemed more central to the U.S. mission, to remain. It also advised American citizens in Venezuela - who number almost 50,000 - to leave while they can. One defense official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, pushed back on any notion that additional U.S. military involvement is anticipated in Venezuela. "Let me just throw cold water on that," the official said. "I'm not seeing anything with any movement at this time." The crisis in Venezuela marks a rare moment of focus on Latin America for the Pentagon, which has been consumed by insurgent wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan for nearly two decades and is now seeking to reorient toward China. In recent decades the Defense Department has deployed few ships and military units to the U.S. Southern Command, or Southcom, the military's name for the region that includes Central and South America and the Caribbean. Much of the military activity that has occurred has been focused on counternarcotics efforts and disaster relief. Southcom maintains a network of facilities across the region that is much more modest than what the Pentagon has elsewhere. Officials said the U.S. military presence in Venezuela itself is minimal, consisting mainly of less than 20 Marine guards at the embassy. The Pentagon's negligible role in Venezuela contrasts sharply with the situation in the 1960s and '70s, when the oil-rich nation was a major U.S. military partner and an important customer for sophisticated U.S. weaponry including F-16 fighter jets, said Evan Ellis, an expert in U.S.-Latin America military ties at the U.S. Army War College. That relationship deteriorated after the rise of Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who saw Washington as an adversary and embraced close military ties with Russia. In more-recent years, Venezuela has bought billions of dollars of sophisticated military equipment from Russia, including fighter jets and attack helicopters. The tensions in Venezuela may pose an early test for acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan, who took leadership of the Pentagon this month after his predecessor, retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, resigned, citing differences with Trump. Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, had little military or foreign policy experience before joining the Pentagon in a senior role in 2017. Defense officials said the State Department had not requested any steps to bolster security at the Caracas embassy, such as sending additional Marine embassy security guards or deploying Special Operations troops, or to help American citizens depart. While the decision to evacuate diplomats is typically made by the senior diplomat in a foreign country in conjunction with officials in Washington, military personnel have played roles in the past in evacuating and protecting Americans overseas. In 2006, the Pentagon deployed ships and Marine units to assist in a major noncombatant evacuation operation from Lebanon amid clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces. In 2014, a hefty contingent of combat Marines stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, helped stage an evacuation of diplomats there, via a large convoy of armed vehicles backed by American aircraft. Embassies typically conduct planning exercises for emergency evacuations. In this case, military officials said they had a noncombatant evacuation plan for Venezuela "on the shelf" and had identified units that could assist in executing that plan if needed. But, they stressed, they did not expect to need to take such a step unless conditions changed significantly. Military officials are also mindful of the escalatory effect that even positioning ships or other assets closer to Venezuela, to be on standby in the event of an emergency, could have. Officials said that as of Friday afternoon the Navy had not been asked to move ships near the coast of Venezuela. A hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, was dispatched to the Colombian port of Riohacha last fall to treat Venezuelan migrants but returned to the United States several weeks ago. In a sign of the sensitivity surrounding deliberations about how to respond to the crisis, U.S. military officials have declined to comment about the operation in recent days, or even to offer routine information about what units and ships are in the region. One U.S. official said that is the case in part because the National Security Council and State Department both want to be in charge of communications about the situation. Navy officials at the Pentagon referred questions about what ships are in the Southcom region to the command's headquarters in Florida, which in turn referred questions to the NSC. The U.S. military usually answers such questions. "NSC is handling all queries on anything related to VEN at this time," Army Col. Amanda Azubuike, a Southcom spokeswoman, said in an email. For years, military leaders have emphasized the need to stay out of engagements in South America and noted the sensitivities in how U.S. interests are perceived in Venezuela. "Anytime I open my mouth and utter the word 'Venezuela,' tomorrow morning there will be stories in the Caracas newspapers that will talk about how I'm planning the invasion of Venezuela," said now-retired Navy Adm. Kurt Tidd, the former commander of Southcom, during an April 2017 briefing at the Pentagon. "That is not true." The Pentagon has also sought to show it is still concerned about the region, especially as China and Russia expand their involvement in the Americas. "Anything that we can do to show we are reliable is important," Tidd said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in February. Navy Adm. Craig S. Faller, who took over for Tidd in November, said in prepared congressional testimony ahead of his confirmation that he believed Venezuela's instability was having a negative impact across the entire region and "can be best addressed through diplomatic efforts." The Defense Department was providing some limited support to neighboring countries to help with the Venezuelan migration crisis, he said, citing the deployment of the USNS Comfort as one example. "President Maduro is focused on undermining democracy and consolidating authority in his regime," Faller said in prepared responses. "He is a vocal critic of the United States and attempts to challenge U.S. standing in the region with his rhetoric." Southcom on Friday declined to discuss how Faller has monitored events in Venezuela this week or prepared any U.S. response to the growing instability. - - - The Washington Post's Julie Tate contributed to this report. Burrell Parmer, Navy Recruiting District San Antonio, Public Affairs Officer Fire Controlman 2nd Class Shereen Allen, a 1997 Dayton High School in Dayton, Texas, graduate and Houston, Texas, native, was promoted to the rank of Navy petty officer first class during a frocking ceremony held at Navy Recruiting District (NRD) San Antonio on Jan. 8. Allen is a recruiter assigned to Navy Recruiting Station Midland, Texas. She enlisted in the Navy in 2010 becoming a recruiter in 2018. SCHENECTADY For a few hours Friday, city officials and residents of the city's Stockade watched and hoped the rising Mohawk River would not send water pouring into the neighborhood. The river, swelled by Thursday's rain and the rapid melting of ice and snow upstream, rose through the morning and nearly hit flood stage. The extra water and swift moving ice chunks fueled fear the river would be blocked at a nearby train bridge or Freenman's Bridge Santa Clara County Superior Court officials disputed the San Jose police unions claim that a software glitch has caused warrant backlogs and endangered officer safety, and the software manufacturer threatened to take legal action Friday in defense of its product. At least 2,548 bench warrants issued when people fail to appear in court are inactive at this time, according to the San Jose Police Department. On Thursday, the departments police union alleged a system software glitch caused the backlog and, as a result, officers could be approaching vehicles or planning operations without any idea about a suspects criminal history. If theyre interacting with someone who has a criminal warrant and we dont know what for, it puts them at great risk and great danger, said Tom Saggau, a union spokesman. The backlog began in December, one month after Santa Clara County Superior Court adopted a new software called Odyssey. It allows judges, clerks and lawyers to manage active court cases and filings, and it lets the public examine public records, according to manufacturer Tyler Technologies. But in a statement Friday, the court and softwares manufacturer said there was no glitch. The backlog is due to law enforcements request that the court manually vet each warrant in its system, according to court officials. The majority of the existing warrant backlogs are for low-level crimes referred to as misdemeanors, the court said in a statement. Both the San Jose Police Department and the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Office issued internal memos notifying deputies of the backlog in data entry, according to documents from the police union. The sheriffs memo was a precaution and the backlog has not affected county jail operations, said Deputy Mike Low, a sheriffs office spokesman. Law enforcement can still use the Criminal Justice Information Center, or CJIC, to check a persons criminal history, according to the sheriffs office memo. Both departments attributed the slowdown to integration issues between the countys CJIC system and the legal systems Odyssey Court Solutions software. Tyler Technologies disputed this claim and called the unions accusation inaccurate, unwarranted, and inflammatory. We have investigated these claims and have verified that Tyler and our products are in no way involved, the company said Friday, adding that it is considering legal action against the police unions PR firm, Saggau & DeRollo LLC. Saggau shrugged off the companys response. Attacking the messenger is typical when one is holding a losing hand, he said. It's appalling that Tyler Technologies would disparage rank and file police officers for speaking out about this imminent public safety crisis. Court staff are working overtime to validate the warrants and hope to automate the process in the near future, said Benjamin Rada, a court spokesman. Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu Did you watch the 1993 movie blockbuster "Jurassic Park" and wonder, "Could this happen for real? Could the dinosaurs ever come back?" The idea that these mighty creatures could wander our Earth again some day is for most humans both fascinating and terrifying in equal measure. Even real-life scientists are intrigued as to whether the evolutionary process could bring us back to the time of the Tyrannosaurs. But Susie Maidment, a vertebrate paleontologist at London's Natural History Museum, quickly dismissed the notion that a DNA-filled mosquito preserved in amber for millions of years as in "Jurassic Park" could ever help recreate an extinct dinosaur. "We do have mosquitos and biting flies from the time of the dinosaurs, and they do preserve in amber," Maidment said in a statement. "But when amber preserves things, it tends to preserve the husk, not the soft tissues. So, you don't get blood preserved inside mosquitos in amber." [Is It Possible to Clone a Dinosaur?] Researchers have found blood vessels and collagen in dinosaur fossils, but these components don't have actual dinosaur DNA in them. Unlike collagen or other robust proteins, DNA is very fragile, and sensitive to the effects of sunlight and water. The oldest DNA in the fossil record is around 1 million years old, and the dinosaurs died out about 66 million years ago. Maidment added: "Although we have what appears to be blood from mosquitos up to 50 million years old, we haven't found DNA, and in order to reconstruct something, we need DNA." Jamal Nasir, a geneticist at the University of Northampton in the United Kingdom, said he wouldn't rule out the idea of dinosaurs evolving back from the dead. In his opinion, evolution isn't fixed or planned. In other words, anything could happen. "Evolution is largely stochastic [randomly determined], and evolution doesn't necessarily have to go in a forward direction; it could have multiple directions. I would argue that going back to dinosaurs is more likely to happen in reverse, because the building blocks are already there." Of course, Nasir pointed out, the right conditions would have to exist for dinosaurs to reappear. "Clearly, one could imagine viral pandemics that might disrupt our genomes, our physiology and behavior beyond our control," he told Live Science. This, in turn, could create the right conditions for evolution to take a path toward reinventing the ancient reptiles. However, while evolution might not be directional in any particular sense, something we do know is that we don't see the same animal evolving again, Maidment countered. "We can see an animal that is closely related occupying a similar ecological niche for example, ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles with long pointy snouts and dolphin-like body shapes and tails," she told Live Science. "Today we see the dolphin, and they probably occupy a similar ecological niche. But we wouldn't describe a dolphin as an ichthyosaur because they don't possess the anatomical characteristics that allow them to be ichthyosaurs." [What If a Giant Asteroid Had Not Wiped Out the Dinosaurs?] Besides, dinosaurs never quite died out in the first place, Maidment said. Birds evolved from meat-eating dinosaurs, and thus in strict biological definition, everything that evolved from this common ancestor is a dinosaur, sharing the same anatomical characteristics, she said. "Dinosaurs are still with us," Maidment said. "They say dinosaurs went extinct, but only the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. Birds are dinosaurs, and birds are still evolving, so we will certainly see new species of birds evolving and those will be new species of dinosaur." Some scientists are even dabbling with the evolution process by trying to reverse engineer a chicken into a dinosaur, dubbed the "chickenosaurus." However, this beast, if it ever comes to fruition, would not be a replica of a dinosaur, but rather a modified chicken, Jack Horner, a research associate at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, previously told Live Science. Things have changed drastically over 66 million years, and if one day a dinosaur evolved back onto Earth, it would be to a very different world. "An animal that died out naturally, perhaps 150 million years ago, is not going to recognize anything in this world if you bring it back," Maidment noted "What is it going to eat when grass hadn't [yet] evolved back then? What is its function, where do we put it, does anyone own it?" That said, it may be best to let sleeping dinosaurs lie, she said. Originally published on Live Science. COUNTRY star Charlie Landsborough is to play a show in Limerick on his Farewell tour. The British country and folk icon is embarking on a Farewell tour of Ireland this spring and will perform at the Lime Tree Theatre on Thursday, January 31. The Country Music Association Hall of Fame Star has also released a new album called The Attic Collection, his 35th offering that is out on both CD and DVD. It features 15 totally different versions of the original releases from his early albums and five totally new songs, consisting of one cover version of Bob Dylans famous song Dont Think Twice and four new self-penned songs by Charlie. He makes a welcome return to these shores and will perform all the hits - My Forever Friend, I Will Love You All My Life, What Colour Is the Wind, Special, Shine Your Light, Five Fingers and more. Landsborough is well known for keeping concert goers enthralled with his heartfelt and telling lyrics and his very human anecdotes but is difficult to categorise as a performer - sometimes folk, sometimes country, sometimes rock n roll, sometimes gospel. He is uncomfortable with labels but his music spans various musical forms. Charlie was, by his own admission, for a long time quite unsure of his talents, yet he has become a prolific songwriter, his strong and often personal lyric content mixed with his wit that has become a winning formula. He has toured the UK and Ireland twice a year since 1995, building up a large following for his live work. One song in particular was to transform his life - What Colour is the Wind, which tells the story of a young blind childs attempts to envision the world. A full-time school teacher, he was almost in his 50s when major success came in 1994 with the song. Indeed, after his mother died when he was 12, Landsborough embraced a life of petty crime, spending two months behind bars before turning his life around and embracing music. Tickets for the Lime Tree show on January 31 are available now. See www.limetreetheatre.ie. LIMERICK is to endure strong gusts after Met Eireann has warned of a nationwide "Status Yellow" wind warning this Saturday night. According to Met Eireann this Saturday morning, there will be "north to northwest winds will reach mean speeds of 50 to 65 kph with gusts of 90 to 100 kph." Status Yellow - Wind Warning issued for Leinster, Cavan, Monaghan, Roscommon, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford Valid from 20:00 hours Sat, 26-Jan-2019 to 09:00 hours Sun, 27-Jan-2019.https://t.co/ozrQHtoOkt pic.twitter.com/1DGDDXDbrR Met Eireann (@MetEireann) January 26, 2019 The Status Yellow warning will come into effect as of 8pm on Saturday and will conclude at 9am on Sunday. A LIMERICK taxi driver who refused to carry a heavily pregnant woman a short distance to a hotel in the city centre was fined 400 after he was successfully prosecuted by the National Transport Authority. Conor ODonoghue, a former general election and local election candidate, of Woodview Park, Caherdavin, Limerick had denied the charge which related to an incident on September 23, 2017. The complainant told Limerick District Court she was eight months pregnant at the time and that she and her husband had come to Limerick for the weekend. It was raining heavily when they came out of Debenhams at around 3.25pm so they went to the first taxi in the nearby rank to get a lift to their hotel No.1 Pery Square. The woman said the door of the taxi was locked and that she knocked on the window to alert the driver to her presence. He replied oh its just up the road no, no, no when asked to be taken to the hotel. The complainant, who lives in Dublin, said she stood back and showed Mr ODonoghue her bump and directly asked if he was refusing to carry her. He said yes, she told Judge Brian OShea. The couple who then went to the next taxi made a formal complaint about the incident a short time later via the NTA website. Being cross-examined by Mr ODonoghue, the complainant accepted he was on the phone when she knocked on the window of his taxi. He put it to the witness that it was reasonable for him to refuse her in those circumstances and he asked why she did not go to another taxi. You didnt say you were busy and on the phone, she replied reiterating her belief that he refused to take her because the journey would not have been profitable enough. Bernard Barry, a compliance officer with the NTA, said the complaint was referred to him and that he met with Mr ODonoghue on November 2, 2017. When the allegation was put to him, he stated he did not think it was unreasonable given the short distance involved. He said it would have cost him money and that it would have taken him 40 to 60 minutes to get back to the top of the rank, he told prosecuting solicitor Jason Teahan. Addressing the court Mr ODonoghue said he did not recall the incident and he insisted he has never refused to carry a pregnant women in his taxi. However, Judge OShea said he was satisfied Mr ODonoghue had determined the potential fare and had decided it was either too inconvenient or not profitable enough. He imposed a 400 fine and directed that 200 be paid to the complainant and husband to cover their expenses for attending court. ONE thousand tickets for a fund-raising dance in Limerick are being snapped up and money is flooding into an online account, thanks to the self-less and courageous decision by Mary Cregan to give back. Mary was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2015 when she was just 30 years of age and received extensive treatment. Unfortunately, the tumour returned last year and she is, once again, receiving treatment. But Mary is determined to do her bit, and is spearheading a fund-raising campaign for a number of cancer-related charities. People are going through worse than me every day, she said. I was lucky enough to have the support of many amazing charities, she explained to the Limerick Leader this week. Unfortunately nobody knows when cancer is going to knock on their door, but it brings amazing comfort to know that there are so many fantastic charities and organisations out there that go above and beyond every day to help people like me. These same organisations and charities would not be possible without fundraising, which is why I am doing something to give back. Mary is hosting a dance with music by Paddy Quilligan in the Devon Inn Hotel on Friday, March 15 and the evening will also feature the Liam OConnor Show, the accordion player who hit the spotlight with Michael Flatleys Lord of the Dances. But the GoFundMe site Mary set up is also attracting support, with 3,560 raised in just nine days. Initially, my target was to raise 600-700 for each of the four charities, Mary explained. But there are nearly 1,000 tickets gone out and they are going like wildfire. She is also stunned by the generosity of those contributing online, many of them giving donations of 100. I cant believe how generous people are, she said. It all began for Mary, a qualified nurse, on a night in 2015, a night she was due to go on night shift. She had been feeling out of sorts for about a week but ignored it. That night however she got a fierce headache and tingling along her side. I knew it was something serious. When the brain tumour was discovered, she had surgery, followed by chemotherapy and regular scans but made a good recovery. I was off the road for two years, she explained but got back behind the wheel early last year. She had made a staged return to work. I felt fine, she explained. So when a scan last June showed the return of the tumour, it was a shock. Her treatment now is based on starving the tumour she continued, and she is currently unable to work. But she is buoyed up by the response to her fund-raising drive and insists that every donation is deeply appreciated. The four charities that will receive funding are the Brain Tumour Association of Ireland, Bru Columbanus which provides accommodation for the families of patients at University Hospital Cork; ACT,the Aid Cancer Treatment organisation which works to improve quality of life for cancer patients and BHOC, the Bandon Hyperbaric Oxygen Centre. BHOC has oxygen chambers which give patients large doses of oxygen which, Mary explains, helps promote healing. Tickets for the event on March 15 cost 10 or if you would like to donate go to https://www.gofundme.com/6pddoeo. THIRTY homeowners across Limerick, whose mortgages were in arrears, received assistance from housing group i-Care over the past year, it has been revealed. Led by campaigner David Hall, the not-for-profit housing company is dedicated to the resolution of mortgage arrears involving those who are in long term distress and who qualify for Social Housing Support. The figures show there is a real alternative to vulture funds. We can deal with our problems on our own. They also show that whilst others talk, we do, said Mr Hall. Under a unique new process, a house in mortgage arrears is sold to i-Care at a substantial discount and i-Care then rents the house back to qualifying owners. The homeowner agrees a thirty-year lease with i-Care when they lose their home. However, those who are renting their former home can, at any point, re-purchase the property at the cost i-Care has paid. They cannot sell the property on or borrow irresponsibly to re-purchase. Each deal is negotiated by representatives of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association who have expertise in dealing with distressed mortgages. It is vital to note that i-Care is an All-Ireland based organisation. We are very aware of the extent of the mortgage arrears problem and the deep concern about vulture funds invading our countryside, said David Hall following publication of the figures. Working in partnership with AIB and the government, i-Care was established by the Irish Mortgage Holders Association in 2017 to buy suitable homes from banks where mortgage holders cannot pay the mortgage and are eligible for social housing. A registered charity, i-Care has negotiated deals with banks on behalf of just under 600 distressed mortgage holders across the country. BUSINESS owners in Limerick have been advised to report any crimes which occur on their premises as they happen so the gardai can respond quickly. Linda Breen, An Garda Siochanas senior analyst for this region, said with theft from shops on the rise, many business owners choose to bulk report incidents, as opposed to at the same time. Addressing company owners at this weeks Chamber event on retail, she said: We are dependent on the pulse data which comes in from yourselves. Very frequently, when I look through the data I have at my disposal, some shops have a tendency to bulk report. Four months in, we get batch reporting of things that have happened previously. She said this presents an operational challenge for front-line gardai. When patrols are being sent out, I will do up a report for every week. If you wait four weeks to report it, youre not going to get the benefit of these patrols until the week after. The times will be inaccurate, the mapping will be completely inaccurate. If youre not reporting it at the time, the guard wont be nearby when you decide to ring the garda station and say something has been robbed from your premises, she explained. Over the last two years, there has been increase of 279 theft incidents, from 1,133 in 2016 to 1,412 last year. In Limerick, we implemented 104 JLO (Juvenile Liaison Officer) cautions, 161 adult cautions, 487 charges and 106 summonses. Thats roughly around 60% of your theft on shops which have been actioned which is a relatively high number, she said. Ms Breen did call for companies to make sure closed circuit television is as good as it can be. Even with what we have at our disposal, the need for high quality CCTV and for it to be located correctly is crucial. A good clear facial representation is more likely to lead to success, she added. THE PRODUCER of the Netflix sci-fi horror series Nightflyers that was filmed in Limerick has said he is hopeful that the show will see a second season at Troy Studios. Nightflyers, an adaptation of a George RR Martin novella, will air on Netflix next Friday, February 1, following its release on the Syfy channel in the US. The new show, which features a considerable number of Irish cast and crew, is said to have generated around 50m for the local economy. In a special press briefing, Nightflyers producer Sean Ryerson said he believed that Limerick will become a hub for the film industry, particularly in relation to a strong workforce. Asked if he was confident of a second season appearing, Mr Ryerson said: Oh, I am hopeful. What are ya gonna do? You cant say, but I think it will. And while he could not confirm the cost of the project, he said: Suffice it to say, its huge, and its a very, very big budget. By far, the biggest show Syfy has ever contemplated. When the Limerick Leader asked if production companies would now be vying for space at Troy Studios, he replied: I hope not because we want to keep them, the studios, for us. I hope what it means is that somebody builds another studio here because there is interest and now there is a crew base, and now people will want to keep it going. That would be ideal because I am still here and I have got a choice of a bigger crew. Its how this whole thing works. Every place in the world is the same. Was there a crew base in New Mexico? There is now. Was there a crew base in Baton Rouge, Louisiana? Nope. There is now. Atlantathere is a huge crew base. You definitely cant make a show in Calgary, but now Emmy award-winning shows, like Fargo, are made in Calgary. How is that possible? Its impossible until it happens. Mike Cantwell, of Innovate Limerick, one of the driving forces behind Troy Studios, said they are hopeful that either Nightflyers or another big production company will come to Limerick. We have already conversations with a number of production companies, who are interested in coming to the region now, because we have shown that we have the capability to do it within the region, he said. UP TO 2,000 attended moving and sensitively handled ceremonies on Sunday to commemorate the start of the War of Independence. Large numbers travelled from County Limerick to Solohead, close to the county bounds. The Soloheadbeg Ambush happened two miles away from the Solohead memorial on a quiet country road. Two RIC officers died as a result of the ambush 100 years ago. Wreaths were laid, an information board unveiled, a Mass said and a number of addresses to the large attendance. Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan spoke on behalf of the government. Dr Martin Mansergh, guest of honour, unveiled the heritage information board while Deputy Eamon O Cuiv gave the keynote oration. PRO of the organising committee and MC, Tim Hanly said the aim of the commemoration was to honour the key contribution of the Third Tipperary Brigade in the struggle for Irish freedom whilst being sensitive to the losses and sacrifices experienced on all sides in this conflict. This theme was evident both at the earlier Mass and the subsequent commemoration ceremony where family descendants from all sides were present at the programme of events, said Mr Hanly, who thanked every one for their help in organising the day, including neighbouring parishes in east Limerick. The Solohead committee have already had contact with the Knocklong History Group to give advice and feedback on the challenges and opportunities presented by the Decade of Centenaries which now moves towards Limerick with the Limerick Soviet and the rescue of Sean Hogan at Knocklong Station in the coming months. The Third Tipperary Brigade Old IRA Commemoration Committee hosted a separate event at the ambush site later in the afternoon. Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said: These were ordinary men living in extraordinary times. A LIMERICK city councillor has accused the HSE of union-busting tactics following the all-day strike action held by members of the National Ambulance Service in Limerick this week. Around 30 ambulance personnel in Limerick took to the picket lines for 10 hours on Tuesday, in response to the HSEs not recognising their union, the National Ambulance Service Representatives Association (Nasra). A local Nasra member has warned that if the HSE refuses to recognise the union, members will return to the picket lines on another date. Meanwhile, Solidarity councillor Mary Cahillane has supported the ambulance personnel at this weeks strike action at their base on St Nessans Road. The HSE previously deducted members subscriptions for NASRA as is customary and then suddenly stopped, instead challenging Nasras right to represent those workers. Why the sudden change? Their justification is that it is to maintain good relations with existing unions, but that sounds like an excuse. In reality it looks like HSE management fear proactive and fighting representation among their workers. No one wants to see the disruption of ambulance services, but if there is disruption the responsibility will lie at the door of the HSE and their union busting tactics. Liam Moore, of Nasram said that all contingencies were in place for the day, and that all emergency calls were covered by paramedics. He said: Our message is very clear. We are not asking for money. All we want the HSE to do is to recognise our union and sit down and talk with us. Thats all we want. If they dont come to the table after today, we will be taking to the picket lines again. Also supporting Nasra at the picket line this Tuesday morning, Fianna Fail TD Niall Collins said they have a legitimate grievance. Theyre being denied their right to choose or to have their own union. I really think they should be in a position to exercise their own choice in relation to that, and not be dictated to by either the HSE or the Minister. Unfortunately, whether its the ambulance drivers or the nurses, the Government needs to take seriously the fact that there are a number of genuine and legitimate issues across the sector, in terms of pay and conditions and representation. NOEL Hogan of The Cranberries likes the idea of commemorating the late Dolores ORiordan and the bands music in their native Limerick with an engraved replica of the couch used on the groups album covers. Following the first anniversary of the late rockstar's death in January 2018, calls have been made to honour the Ballybricken women with a permanent memorial in her home city. Metropolitan Mayor Daniel Butler has suggested an engraved replica of the couch used on the groups album covers to sit in the citys new civic square at Project Opera. The couch, from what I've heard, sounds like a really nice idea because it's not something we were ever meant to be known for but from being on those few albums, it's certainly lived longer than we ever thought it would, Mr Hogan said. Mr Hogan was speaking as he received a Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Limerick. His brother and fellow bandmate Mike also received a Honorary Doctorate of Letters from UL. A posthumous doctorate for Dolores was also presented to her mother Eileen ORiordan. Fergal Lawlor, The Cranberries drummer was unable to attend the ceremony and Mr Hogan accepted his award on his behalf. I guess the way to look at it really is that it's fantastic that they do want to honour Dolores and the band after all this time, Mr Hogan said. It certainly shows to us how much people appreciate the work we did because for us, we loved doing it. We were kids that had a hobby, that became a job that took off far greater than we ever thought. I think we thought if we got on The Late, Late Show, it would be great. We never really thought much further than that and here we are, doing something like this 30 years later, a few hundred yards from where we began. It's kind of surreal. I hope, and Im sure it will, that who ever makes the decision (on the commemoration) in the end to do whatever it is, that it will be suitable and respectful. Last week, fans flocked to Limerick to remember Dolores on the first anniversary of her death, with an event in Ormston House in Patrick Street allowing them to pay personal tributes. This Lukeman/McCabe collaboration might best be described as old-style village hall vaudeville for the future. Jack L will be joined on stage at The Dock on Saturday, February 2 by the renowned Irish novelist Patrick McCabe as the duo will be perform together for the first time in nearly 20 years. If anyone could conceive of a cottage fire being raked late at night as a scratchy phonograph playing Joyce and Count John Mc Cormack begins its revolutions they might find themselves coming close to capturing the atmosphere of this unique show. In Lukemans own words the show is basically Pat reading and me following up with a few songs but, as anyone who has seen either Jack L or Patrick McCabe perfrom will know, this performance will be something very special and unique. The duo last toured together in the late 1990s when they travelled across the US together with a show featuring a combination of songs and storytelling. When McCabe launched his latest novel, Heartland, in Whelans in Dublin last September, they decided to give touring together another shot, booking three special gigs in the middle of Lukemans Irish tour. Luckily one of these has been booked into The Dock, Carrickon-Shannon and with tickets almost sold out, it promises to be a night of revelations and a maybe few surprises. Tickets for this performance are 20. You can book on www.thedock.ie or on 0719650828. Also read: The First Protestant:A play for our time A mother-of-one has said that someone must have been looking over her the day that her ex-boyfriends gun repeatedly jammed as he tried to shoot her in the face at a house outside Carrick-on-Shannon. The Dublin mans barrister also said that but for the good grace and intervention of another power, he may have faced a more serious charge than the attempted murder to which he had pleaded guilty. It was a consequence of jealousy and an inability to accept that the relationship had collapsed. Gerard Mooney (39) of no fixed abode, but with a previous address in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, was before the Central Criminal Court prior to Christmas for his sentence hearing. The father-of-three had pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Stephanie Clifton (28) on 12th February 2017 at Cartron, Co Roscommon. He had also pleaded guilty to committing burglary on that date at the home of Stephen O'Donoghue in Cartron, which is near Carrick-on-Shannon. This involved him entering as a trespasser and committing assault causing harm to Stephanie Clifton. Hed also admitted to the possession of a shotgun, making a threat to kill or cause serious harm to Ms Clifton and the criminal damage of Mr ODonoghues door on the same occasion. Hed further pleaded guilty to harassing Ms Clifton by persistently following, watching, pestering, besetting or communicating with her between 7th and 12th February 2017. Garda Fergal Reynolds of Boyle Garda Station testified that Ms Clifford, a Birmingham-born woman, had met the accused three or four years ago when they were both living in Co Roscommon. He told Philipp Rahn BL, prosecuting, that they began a turbulent relationship, which had broken down by 7th February, 2017. On that evening, she was at home in Meadow Crest, Boyle, with her young daughter, who was asleep. The accused arrived around 8.30pm and began banging on her windows and demanding entry. She had moved on with someone else and refused to let him in, but she spoke to him through a window. He would have been at her house for a couple of hours trying to talk to her, explained Gda Reynolds. He said that he had become quite agitated when he realised that he wasnt getting in. His victim told him that she had to go to attend to food that was cooking and left the window. However, she heard glass breaking, looked out and saw the accused standing with a crowbar, having smashed her car windows. See you, rat face. Youre dead, he had said, while also threatening to burn her house down. It was almost midnight when she called the gardai. The officers attended and later came across the accused leaving the estate. He took off running, but was found hiding inside a hedge, two feet off the ground. He was released from custody the following morning on strict bail conditions, including that he would not have any contact with the victim and stay out of Boyle. However, he phoned her and threatened to kill her that very morning. See you, rat face. Youre dead, he had said, while also threatening to burn her house down. He proceeded to make another 273 calls to her on 11th and 12th February. She went to stay with her cousin, Mr ODonoghue, in Cartron that weekend. She woke up at 7.30am on Sunday 12th to find the accused standing over her. He pulled her out of bed and assaulted her. The accused had brought another man with him, and they left together after the assault. Ms Clifton dialled 999 and gardai were dispatched. We were enroute to the initial call to the assault when we got a further call to say hed returned to the house and a shot had been discharged, recalled Gda Reynolds. The door had been unlocked on his first arrival, but Mooney found it locked this time. He fired a shot through the glass part of the door, and gained entry that way. Wearing blue surgical gloves, he walked to the bedroom with a sawn-off shotgun in his hand. He brought Ms Clifton to the kitchen and pointed the gun to her head. He pulled the trigger a number of times but it didnt fire. So he opened it and tried to unload and load it before pulling the trigger another few times. It still didnt work so he tried the same procedure again. He just seemed to be getting really pissed off when the gun didnt go off, said Mr ODonoghue in a statement. The gun was inches away from her face. She was shouting: Ger dont do it. Please dont do it. Before he left, Mooney shouted that he would kill her if she rang the gardai. He also referred to killing her father and Mr ODonoghue. She said that her daughter had also been affected and that her worst fear was now that my Mummy would be killed. Gardai were there by the time the accused made his next threats to his victim, this time in a phone call. He was tracked down that evening, hiding in a wardrobe in a friends house in Castlerea. He was arrested and interviewed, but denied everything. Gda Reynolds read out Ms Cliftons victim impact statement, in which she said that her mental health had suffered as a result of the incident with the gun. I have constant flashbacks of the gun being pointed at my head and him reloading, she wrote. She said she had since been diagnosed with PTSD, was on medication and had felt suicidal. She had also been left with a fractured rib. I constantly suffer from anxiety and jump at loud bangs, she continued. I feel weakened as a person but have to stay strong for my daughter. She said she felt like a prisoner in her own home and constantly thought he would turn up. She also had to leave work as a result. I think that someone must have been looking over me that day, as the bullets kept jamming, despite him reloading, she said. She said that her daughter had also been affected and that her worst fear was now that my Mummy would be killed. She requested a lifetime barring order on Mooney, who had 42 previous convictions. Under cross examination by Michael Bowman SC, defending, Gda Reynolds agreed that the accused had been heard shouting I love you like a wild animal. He wasnt prepared to see the relationship go, noted the garda The defendant was reluctant to accept it had concluded, agreed Mr Bowman. He knew there was a third person on the scene... He shouted that he loved her and it was her fault; she had driven him to this. Mr Bowman said that his client had a history of self harm, had attempted suicide and had received inpatient psychiatric treatment. Originally from Dublin, both he and his brother had moved to Castlerea and he had been living in a car at the time. He told Mr Justice Michael White that the offence was a consequence of jealousy and an inability to accept that the relationship had collapsed. But for the good grace and intervention of another power, so to speak, he may well have been facing a far more serious charge, he said. He said that his greatest acknowledgement of wrongdoing was his guilty plea and that his period in custody had been an awakening. Justice White remanded the accused in custody until January 18th, when he will hand down sentence. (CNN) Japan has upheld a law effectively requiring trans people seeking to legally change their gender to be sterilized. Takakito Usui, a transgender man who wants to change the gender listed on his official documents, had appealed to the court seeking to overturn Law 111, which requires applicants to "permanently lack functioning" reproductive parts to qualify for gender affirmation. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Usui's case Thursday, ruling the 2003 law constitutional -- though judges added it was invasive and encouraged the legislature to review it. "It is unthinkable in this day and time that the law requires a sex-change operation to change gender," Usui's lawyer Tomoyasu Oyama told CNN. "When the law was established 15 years ago, LGBT people had to make a bitter decision and swallow the conditions to pave a narrow way for official change of gender. With this decision, I hope lawmakers will change the law to support the wishes of the LGBT community." The court initially said the law was intended to prevent "problems" in parent-child relations which could lead to societal "confusion," and avoid "abrupt changes" to society. About 7,000 people have changed their gender registration under the law since it was first passed. While they ruled against Usui, two judges issued an additional opinion calling on society to "embrace the diversity of sexual identity." Suki Chung, Asia Pacific campaign manager at Amnesty International, said the ruling was "a blow for the recognition of transgender people in Japan. It is a missed opportunity to address the discrimination transgender people face." "Forcing people to undertake medical treatment in order to obtain legal gender recognition violates their right to the highest attainable standard of health. We urge the Japanese government to end this discriminatory and highly intrusive policy," she told CNN. 'Stain on Japan's record' Requiring sterilization has been widely denounced by LGBT groups in Japan and around the world, and in 2013 the UN's special rapporteur on human rights called on all states "to outlaw forced or coerced sterilization in all circumstances and provide special protection to individuals belonging to marginalized groups." In a 2017 report noting some advances on transgender rights, Human Rights Watch said the 2003 law "remains a stain on Japan's record." "The procedure is discriminatory, requiring applicants to be single and without children under 20, undergo a psychiatric evaluation to receive a diagnosis of 'Gender Identity Disorder', and be sterilized," the report said. Nine countries across Asia provide no right for people to change their legal gender, according to NQAPIA, a federation of regional LGBT groups, while a number of others have significant hurdles to doing so. Conservative Japanese lawmaker Mio Sugita, who belongs to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, attracted widespread criticism last year when she published an article saying "Support for LGBTs has gone too far." "Will people agree to have their taxes used on LGBT couples? They cannot have children, so they are unproductive," said Sugita, according to the Japan Times. However polls suggest Japan is becoming less conservative on LGBT issues. A poll this month by advertising firm Dentsu found more respondents than ever openly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Over 70% of respondents said they supported stronger legal protections for LGBT people. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Trans people must still be sterilized before changing gender in Japan after top court upholds ruling." Newbridge man Dr Joe Byrne is one of 20 Irish researchers who will receive a significant grant from Science Foundation Ireland to pursue cutting-edge research. Read also: Appeal to Bord Pleanala over north Kildare housing decision The grants, made through SFIs Starting Investigator Research Fund, total 10.8 million over four years. Dr Byrne was awarded 419,585 for a research project to develop new diagnostic devices to help identify bacterial infections which, hopefully, will give doctors fast answers on how to treat infections and minimise the use of broad spectrum antibiotics I will be starting my research in the School of Chemistry in NUI Galway in April. The grant will support my work and that of a PhD student for four years, said Dr Byrne. The Moorefield Drive man is a former student of the Patrician Brothers in Newbridge and Maynooth University, who completed his PhD in supramolecular chemistry at Trinity College Dublin. For the last number of years he has worked as a research fellow at the University of Bern in Switzerland. The official awarding of the grant was made on Dr Byrnes 30th birthday last Tuesday, January 15 and will enable him to return home to continue his research work. This award allows me to return to Ireland and make a contribution to Irish society through scientific research, building upon my experience abroad in Switzerland and the UK. The Starting Investigator Research Grant scheme has given me a fantastic opportunity to begin my independent research programme at a relatively young age in NUI Galway School of Chemistry, and also to work closely with the CURAM SFI Centre for Medical Device Research, a hub of expertise in this sector, he said. Maynooth University and Trinity provided me with excellent training, working alongside supportive researchers, and I now look forward to expanding my network of colleagues in both academia and the medical devices industry, and forging new productive partnerships in the years to come. Dr Byrnes research will not only use colour changing chemistry to identify the presence of bacteria, but will develop compact diagnostic devices using 3D printing which will benefit patient outcomes and quality of life. My new project aims to bring together the skills I have learned through my research training to address practical problems that affect peoples lives, he said. Dr Byrne said his work will help to rapidly diagnose infections, including one which has a devastating effect on people with Cystic Fibrosis. By providing a new methodology for rapid diagnosis of bacterial infection, my work will facilitate quicker decision-making on targeted medical treatment strategies for patients. In Ireland this would be particularly valuable for rapid diagnosis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections, a significant risk factor for Cystic Fibrosis patients, as well as others with compromised immune systems. More generally, helping clinicians avoid the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics would help combat the global challenge of increased antibiotic resistance. This new technology could also be deployed in other scenarios such as detecting bacterial contamination of water supplies. TROPHIES Thomas Decker was charged with making terroristic threats on Jan. 22, 2019. He allegedly pointed a gun at employees after he was terminated from a warehouse in Bethlehem Township. (Courtesy photo)Courtesy photo An employee at QPSI, a Bethlehem warehouse, might have prevented a shooting by locking out an armed former co-worker who was trying to enter the facility Tuesday afternoon. Bethlehem Township police said the secretary acted quickly in securing the door when Thomas Decker Jr. returned to his former workplace with a gun and entered the office. The secretary and a GEODIS security manager told Decker he was no longer allowed in the building. Decker pulled out a handgun and pointed it at them, police said. The secretary managed to lock the door to the warehouse where more than 100 employees were working. Decker, of Saylorsburg, had been fired earlier that day after allegedly assaulting a co-worker. He left and was arrested about an hour later by Pennsylvania State Police. Looking for good acoustics? The Bethlehem Area Public Library is converting a basement meeting room to a recording studio for public use. The studio is lined with bookshelves and has been outfitted with acoustical tiles to insulate it from quieter areas upstairs. Library Director Josh Berk is working on the conversion with Matt Molchany, owner and sound engineer at Shards Recording Studio in Bethlehem. Lehigh University gave the library $10,000 to help with acoustic treatment, a mixing board, Mac computer, cables, headphones, microphones and stands. The library and Molchany are accepting donations of new or gently used musical equipment. The studio will be available free to cardholders. Ken French, a 1975 Lehigh University graduate, has given his alma mater $5 million to endow scholarships for students who need financial assistance. French said he realized as a high school student in Buffalo, N.Y., that hed need help to attend a top-flight school, and Lehigh came through. I am repaying a debt. Thats the way I think of it, said French, a professor of finance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Lehigh says the gift will provide full-ride scholarships to five deserving students, eventually increasing to 20. TURKEYS When does a bar become a neighborhood nuisance? Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said that reported gunfire last weekend at Spankys East Gentlemens Club was the final straw, and he will seek to have the Wilson Borough topless bar shut down. Three men went to local hospitals early Saturday for treatment of gunshot wounds after a disturbance at the bar, Wilson police said. Morganelli said a series of reported crimes at the club qualifies as a nuisance. Spankys has outworn its welcome and has proven it cannot be a good neighbor, he said. A homeless man who visited the soup kitchen at the Stroudsburg United Methodist Church is being sought for breaking one of the churchs 106-year-old stained windows, the Pocono Record reported. Church officials believe the patron threw a can and a block of wood through the window Sunday evening after he had been told to leave the soup kitchen because of his behavior. A neighbor reported hearing the glass break and saw a man driving a blue pickup truck away from the church. Pastor Bob Shank said the church hopes to find a company to restore the damaged glasswork, which was installed when the church was built in 1912. A driver was killed and his passenger was badly hurt when he lost control on a patch of ice whlie traveling at a high rate of speed Friday night in Monroe County, Pennsylvania State Police said. Anthony R. Spann, 21, of East Stroudsburg, was pronounced dead at the crash, state police at Stroudsburg said. His passenger, 21-year-old Imani K. Clarke, also of East Stroudsburg, was taken by Bushkill Emergency Corps to a landing zone, where Air Atlantic 1 flew her for treatment at Lehigh Valley Hospital, Salisbury Township. Her condition was not immediately available. The crash occurred about 11 p.m. on Woodale Road, 150 feet north of Georgianna Drive, in Middle Smithfield Township, police said. Spann was driving a 1999 Volkswagen Jetta when he lost control on a curve to the right, drifted into the oncoming lane and went off the left side of the road, where the sedan struck a tree. Spann was not wearing a seat belt while Clarke was wearing hers, police said. The Marshalls Creek Fire Department and CHC Towing also assisted police. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Growing up during Liberias first civil war as a member of an ethic minority meant that Roosevelt Totaye called a refugee camp home. The camps in Ivory Coast and Ghana were cruel places to live; illness and violence were commonplace. Tents and, later, makeshift shacks provided the only shelter. Totaye vividly remembers how the camps would change when American Red Cross or International Rescue Committee nurses arrived to administer immunizations. Mothers were smiling with relief, filled with the hope that their children could grow up healthy, he said Thursday. I grew up knowing nurses to be my heroes, Totaye, 36, of Allentown, said. One day, I want to be like them. I want to help people. On Saturday, Totaye gets to become one of those people, a nurse. He is one of 600 students who will cross the stage Saturday at Northampton Community Colleges winter commencement to receive a degree. This moment was never guaranteed. Its meant huge sacrifice. Years spent away from his wife, daughter, who is now 14, and family. Going almost 5,000 miles from home to reinvent himself. Juggling working full-time with going to school full-time while continuing to provide for his extended family in Africa. And theres been almost insurmountable grief. Shorty after he was accepted to the nursing program, he and wife lost their 6-month old daughter, Abigail, who was born with an atrial ventricle heart defect and spent her life in the hospital. Theres also been joy. He became a U.S. citizen, a homeowner and a foster dad (taking in 40 kids and counting). His older daughter and family joined them from Africa. At the graduation Saturday, Totaye gets to celebrate it all with his wife, Oretha; his daughter, Rosemary; his three foster children; his mother; and his mother-in-law all by his side. But hes not done with school. He hopes to one day become a physician or a physician assistant. I would love to apply to the United Nations and go to a disaster area and help people like I was helped, Totaye said. I know what they are feeling right now and they can see myself on the other side right now. Next week, he begins working as a nurse at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg and hes already started classes for his bachelor of science degree at East Stroudsburg University. It will take a long time but I will get there. Waiting to be a physician is not a bad time to wait, he said. It is way better than a lot of the other waiting in my life. And boy has there been waiting. In 1989, when Totaye was 8-years-old, rebel forces invaded his native Nimba County -- the Liberian equivalent of an American state -- attacking civilians and burning villages to the ground. Liberia has five ethnic tribes and the rebel leader used the history of conflict among these tribes to his advantage, Totaye explained. Each county has its own traditional culture and dialect while every tribe also has its own way of life and language, he said. Totayes family is part of the Krahm tribe, which has its own county, but resided in Nimba. Once the war came to their county, the majority Gio tribe thought the subset of Krahm people should return to their home county, but the Krahms there rejected them. This group is still marginalized today and that is the group I belong to, Totaye said. They said, You are from the area of our enemies. When the rebels attacked in the night, his family fled into the bush, hiding for about a week and making their way across the river to Ivory Coast. You are hearing them shooting and you dont know which way to go, he said. Because attacks occurred in the dead of the night, people often jumped out the first available window, fleeing in chaos, separated from family and children. When fight or flight kicks in, you can do anything, he said. So, then there was waiting in the camps, hoping and praying the missing were just still making the treacherous journey. Eventually, as the war across the border worsened and spilled across, life in the Ivory Coast camp became too dangerous for a teenage boy, so Totayes mother sent him alone to another camp in Ghana. At 15, he made his way across the country and into Ghana alone. A refugee is not really free. The only advantage of being a refugee is you arent running every day from a gun, Totaye said. I really, really, really appreciate the time I spent in Ivory Coast and Ghana because they gave us shelter. But we saw what our parents experienced. He repaired shoes and made bricks out of soil to get by in the Buduburam Refugee Camp, where he encountered many people from his village. People are still living in the camp today. I want to open the eyes of people to realize you dont know what freedom is until you lose it," Totaye said. He met his wife when he was 18; they began dating two years later. The couple welcomed their daughter Rosemary in 2004. Then in 2006, Oretha immigrated to the United States without the family. She spent four years working as a certified nursing assistant, saving and sending money back to Ghana. During that time, Oretha discovered NCC, where she learned English and earned her certificate, Totaye said. Roosevelt Totaye on the day he earned his citizenship. She returned to Ghaha in 2010 and the couple wed April 13 of that year. Then, Totaye returned to Liberia to begin the process of obtaining an immigrant visa. Finally, in August of 2012 he was able to join Oretha in Allentown. They were overjoyed to finally be in the same place together. He began working at the Lutron Electronics factory in Fogelsville via a staffing agency and enrolled at NCC at the urging of his wife. He started taking general ed classes with the aim of earning a seat in the colleges competitive nursing program. It was a whole new world but I was able to conquer it and get used to it, Totaye said of the U.S. education system. The couple moved to a bigger apartment in anticipation of the Abigails birth. Sadly, she never came home, instead going to St. Christophers Hospital. The months after her birth were spent working 12-hour shifts, squeezing in classes and driving to the hospital to bring Abigail breastmilk and sit by her side. Totaye barely slept in those months, but that was nothing compared to the pain of losing his child. At that point, I thought I was strong. Im not, Totaye said. When Abigail passed, I saw how weak I was and (my wife) became strong. He tried to plow ahead with the nursing program in the fall of 2015, telling no one about the loss of his daughter. But he floundered. His first semester grades stood in sharp contrast to his earlier grades and his professor brought him in for a meeting. When he shared his story, NCC staff encouraged him to withdraw from the program and connected him with counseling services. He balked, afraid to give up his seat in the competitive program. They promised to hold his place. They told me, use this spring and summer to clear your mind, get whatever help you can and by the fall of 2016 you can come back, Totaye said. He took the time to grieve and support his wife and re-enrolled in the program the following year. Until recently, he was working as a caregiver in a group home, so his work could bring him closer to his future career. Once in the program, Totaye shined in class. His nursing professor Marie Everhart knew nothing about his background when he came into his class, but he sparked her curiosity. He was a sponge for learning and so very thankful for the opportunity, she said. He was very, very attentive in class and very respectful. He wouldnt speak a lot until he has something really relevant to say, Everhart said. (He intrigued her) not just in the classroom, but in the clinical area where we care for patients. There were so many stories, every patient he took care of was just so glowing with him. Everhart was shocked to learn at the end of the program that hed encountered racism with several of his patients. I wish I couldve helped him more through it, but he didnt need my help, she said. I think with all the adversity hes experienced in life, it just made him a stronger person. Totaye recalled one nursing home patient who refused to be cared for by a black man. He did not argue with her or raise the issue. He asked a classmate to trade patients. I am going to take care of people like her every single day, he said. But one day that patient needed help and he was the only one available. She decided she wanted his assistance and later apologized for her ignorance, he said. They became close and he cared for her often during his clinical rotation. Reacting in anger wouldve only reinforced her negative stereotypes about black people, he said. My not reacting was so heavy she had to come and tell me, Im sorry, Totaye said. It was remarkable that some of the patients who initially took issue with his color became his loudest fans, Everhart said. Where someone else might have taken offense, he just took the bigger road and he always did, she said. He was a great advocate for his patients. Everhart is grateful to have had Totaye in her classroom. He takes a pure joy in learning and is so grateful for his freedom and opportunity. He just touched my heart, watching him, knowing what he came from and what hes developed himself in to and always taking the high road, never being a victim, saying, Why did this happen to me?" Everhart said. "A lot of us can learn from that. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. - President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, January 26, approved a set of appointments in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) - President Buhari appointed Nelson Braimbraifa as acting managing director of the NDDC and dissolved the extant board - He also appointed Chris Amadi and Samuel Adjogbe as acting executive director of finance and administration and acting executive director (projects) respectively President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday, January 26, approved the appointment of Professor Nelson Braimbraifa as acting managing director for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), TVC News reports. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda On the resolve of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) President Buhari placed the supervisory role of the commission in the honourable minister of Niger Delta affairs and dissolved the board. Moreover, the president appointed Chris Amadi and Samuel Adjogbe as acting executive director of finance and administration and acting executive director (projects) respectively. The appointments are to take effect immediately. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, January 25, 2019, suspended the embattled Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen and appointed Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed from Bauchi state as acting CJN. However, President Buhari in a statement released late Friday, said Onnoghen was suspended based on the order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). Legit.ng gathered that the acting CJN, Muhammed was sworn in by President Buhari on Friday, January 25, at the council chamber of State House Presidential Villa, Abuja. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng: Same great journalism, upgraded for better service! EXCLUSIVE: Be patient with President Buhari, Femi Adesina tells Nigerians | Legit TV Source: Legit Clashes between rival ethnic groups in the African nation of DR Congo left 900 people dead, and more than 80 injured according to a report by the United Nations Human Rights office. "Credible sources" say clashes between Banunu and Batende communities took place in four villages in the country before general elections, the UN Human Rights Office says. More than 450 houses and buildings were burned down or ransacked during the violence. These included government facilities like primary schools, a health centre, a health post, and the office of the country's independent electoral commission, the UN said. The UN Human Rights Office said it had launched an investigation. "It is crucial that this shocking violence be promptly, thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators be brought to justice," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. Investigating the claims "is essential to ensure justice for the victims of these horrific attacks, but also to prevent new episodes of intercommunal strife, and to address the anger and feelings of gross injustice that may otherwise lead to repeated cycles of violence between communities," Bachelet said. However, UN officials have warned that the actual death toll could be still higher. "I have to emphasise that 890 is the number of people we know were actually buried," UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said after the release of a statement on the attacks. "But there are reports that many others may have been killed and their bodies may have been dumped in the Congo River or they may have been burned to death," she said. The violence has also led an estimated 16,000 people to be displaced as they have sought refuge by crossing the Congo River into the Republic of Congo, the UN rights office said. The recent general elections in the country have led to the surfacing of long-held grievances in rival communities. The ensuing violence of December is a manifestation of long, unresolved issues in DR Congo which has been riven by communal violence. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 17, 2019 06:44 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Just The Facts Using a flagpole, porous fabric and a water sprayer, Laramie climber Matt Troyanek built a tower of ice in his backyard this winter. A top-rope belay system allows him to use it for ice climbing. The Casper Aquifer provides the city with about half of its drinking water. Albany County's planning commission voted Monday against advancing certain proposed regulations for development atop a sensitive part of the aquifer. Dr. Paul Vincelli, a University of Kentucky Extension professor, spoke during Delaware Ag Week on Jan. 15. Vincelli spoke about GMOs, and how to effectively talk to consumers about them. Vermont dairy farmers are deciding whether they will attend the Northern Tier Dairy Summit at Jay Peak Resort, in Jay, on April 1 and 2. A court in eastern China's Zhejiang province has ordered an online shopkeeper to pay his business rival 2.1 million yuan (US$300,000) in damages due to malicious complaints. The plaintiff, surnamed Wang, runs a sportswear shop on Taobao, the e-commerce retail platform of Alibaba, China's e-commerce giant. In December 2016 Wang was complained on by the defendant, surnamed Jiang, of selling alleged infringing products. Taobao then deleted the links of the involved products based on evidence provided by Jiang. In January 2017, Wang lodged a complaint with the intellectual property protection platform of Alibaba and won the appeal and his products links were restored. Jiang filed a counter-appeal later, leading to another round of blocks involving links and punishment of Wang conducted by the IP protection platform for selling infringing products. However, police investigation eventually found that Jiang sold counterfeit products through making fake official endorsement and product certificates and made complaints against Wang with fabricated evidence and malicious intent. The Hangzhou Internet Court ruled that Jiang's behavior had resulted in a sharp decline in the sales value of Wang's e-shop. It ordered Jiang to pay compensation to Wang for unfair competition. "China has made more detailed rules to cope with malicious complaints and unfair competition in accordance with the country's first e-commerce law, which officially took effect this month," said Ye Shengnan, the judge who undertook the case. Online trading activities will be scrutinized more strictly in line with the new e-commerce law, in order to keep China's e-commerce sector on an orderly track, the judge said. Internet watchdogs in China are inspecting smartphone applications to determine if they illegally or excessively collect users' information. The move is expected to better regulate the industry and protect privacy. Apps that offer services such as ordering food and help with health issues, navigation or car hailing are the main targets in the campaign, which will last to the end of December, according to a statement by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration for Market Regulation. App operators are required to strictly abide by the Cybersecurity Law and avoid collecting data unrelated to services they offer. Data collection and procedures should be explained to consumers in a straightforward way and their permission should be obtained, the statement said. Yang Chunyan, an official from the Cyberspace Administration of China, told a news conference on Friday that this year they plan to review about 1,000 apps with large numbers of users or that offer services closely related to peoples' daily lives. Four organizations, including the National Information Security Standardization Technical Committee and the Cyberspace Association of China, will evaluate these apps first to determine whether there is excessive collection or use of data and whether operators force consumers to provide personal information. Problematic cases will be transferred to law enforcement authorities, and violators will be required to change their practices or have their business license revoked. Those suspected of crimes will also be handed over to authorities, according to the statement. Apps that pass inspection will be given verification certificates and be recommended to consumers, it said. "The crackdown is being conducted amid rising violations of excessive or illegal collection of consumer data," Yang said. Last year, 160,000 apps were reviewed by officers with industry and information technology departments nationwide, and 191 were removed from online app stores. Thirty-nine app operators were ordered to halt excessive or illegal data collection practices, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Also, police apprehended over 13,000 people suspected of illegally collecting, stealing or purchasing personal data last year, Zhong Zhong, an official from the Ministry of Public Security, said on Friday. Zhong added that the fight against data-related crime will be strengthened this year. Li Yuxiao, secretary-general of the Cybersecurity Association of China, said such an intensive inspection will help make app operators better aware of their duties and maintain market order. Li also said the campaign will help clarify the duties of each agency, which will make enforcement of the Cybersecurity Law more effective. The crackdown is "urgent and essential", said Kong Yiying, 30, from Guangdong province. "Apps are bundled with my life," she said, especially online shopping and food ordering apps, which are services she uses every day. "Some data collection is necessary, such as home addresses for food delivery, but some are not," she said. "For example, if an app asks me to provide an extra contact person and his or her phone number for a food order, that's too much." Besides data collection, regulation of app operators' use of collected data is also a must, Kong said. The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday held a meeting to review a report on the work of several organs and some Party regulations. The meeting was held to review a comprehensive report on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee hearing and studying reports from leading Party members' groups of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the State Council, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the Supreme People's Court (SPC), and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), as well as the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting. The meeting also reviewed the CPC Central Committee's opinions on strengthening the Party's political work, and two regulations on the reporting of major issues and selection of Party and government officials. The leading Party members' groups of the Standing Committee of the NPC, the State Council, the National Committee of the CPPCC, the SPC and the SPP were urged to follow the guidance of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and make effective efforts in all their work. The meeting said the Party's political building was of fundamental importance to the Party as it determined the direction and effectiveness of the Party building. The meeting also called on Party organizations at every level, Party members and officials to closely follow the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core. BUTTE- The Montana Red Cross is looking for volunteers for their Disaster Action Team in Butte. The team is part of the Red Cross and provides immediate relief for individuals or families after disaster strikes. The Red Cross is looking for volunteers in Butte to help respond primarily after house fires due to the high volume in the city. Volunteer Mary-Jo Egervary said when the volunteers arrive on scene of a disaster, they assess what the person needs for immediate relief. Egervary said often the first thing the person needs is shelter and they often provide victims of disaster with hotel vouchers. She said they help the victims out with clothing, medications and other day to day essentials. Egervary has been volunteering for the past two and a half years. She said there are only two volunteers in Butte right now and they need several more. "Working with American Red Cross as a volunteer helps to build a better Butte a stronger community and more passionate community and it also provides hope for people in one of the worst possible days of their lives," said Egervary. To be a volunteer you must be 18-years-old, have a valid drivers license and a reliable car. To apply go to the Red Cross's website. The Red Cross provides training for all their volunteers. KULR-8 had the opportunity to speak one on one with Montana's sole United States Representative Greg Gianforte following his recent trip to Arizona. While there, Gianforte had an opportunity to meet with ranchers and border patrol customs to hear first hand, the struggles they are facing. "We have a humanitarian and national security crisis. The 6 ranchers that i met with; everyone of them had found dead bodies on their property. Everyone of them had people break into their home, while they were home," said Gianforte He also said one rancher he spoke with estimates 10,000 people a year are crossing his ranch. Gianforte says it's not just illegal immigration that's the issue. "It's also drugs flooding into this country that make their way to Montana. here, they're tearing families apart in our communities," he said. Gianforte said both the ranchers and border patrol agents he spoke with believe that some sort of physical barrier is needed on the United States and Mexico border. However, that wasn't the only thing they told the congressmen they needed. "They also asked for more equipment. They don't have the density testers they need to find drugs that are hidden in tires of cars. They don't have the body armor they need. You go out there and you see the wall that exists, it goes two miles out town and it just ends," Gianforte said. What Gianforte is hoping the wall will do is funnel people to ports of entry between the U.S. and Mexico giving customs the opportunity to do their jobs and apprehend the individuals trying to enter the country illegally. There are seven new adorable cheetah cubs in Virginia, but you'll have to wait a couple of months to visit them. The two-month-old septuplets were born at the Metro Richmond Zoo. The odds of a cheetah giving birth to septuplets is just 1%. It's a big boost for the captive cheetah population. The zoo says the cheetah population in the wild has dropped from 100,000 to 7,000, and it's the most endangered wildcat in Africa. The cubs are all in good health and the zoo will announce their first appearance set for sometime in March. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Friday stressed efforts to boost integrated media development and amplify mainstream tone in public communication so as to consolidate the common theoretical foundation for all Party members and all the people to unite and work hard. Xi made the remarks at a group study session of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau. The move will provide strong spiritual strength and public support for the realization of the two centenary goals and the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, Xi said. Led by Xi, members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee visited the People's Daily on Friday morning. During the visit, Xi stressed Party newspapers and periodicals should strengthen the development and innovation of their means of communication. Efforts should be made to develop websites, microblogs, WeChat, electronic newspaper bulletins, mobile newspapers, internet protocol television and other forms of new media to enable the voice of the Party to directly reach all kinds of user terminals and gain new public opinion fields, he added. The work of news and public opinion is facing new challenges as profound changes have taken place in the ecology of public opinion, the media landscape and the means of communication, Xi said. The integrated development of the media should be accelerated to make the penetration, guidance, influence, and credibility of the mainstream media more powerful, said Xi, urging for building of competitive, strongly influential new types of mainstream media. "Priority should be given to mobile platforms," he said, calling for the exploration of using artificial intelligence in news gathering, generation, distribution, receiving and feedback. "We should strengthen the management of new media in accordance with the law to ensure a cleaner cyberspace," Xi stressed. Xi also asked the mainstream media to provide more authentic and objective information with clear viewpoints in a timely manner, and called for efforts to improve the online content to safeguard the country's political, cultural and ideological security. Party committees and governments at all levels should give greater support to integrated media development in terms of policies, funds and talent, he said. While stressing the status of the People's Daily as the CPC Central Committee's official newspaper, Xi demanded the newspaper improve its work to give full play to its key role in guiding public opinion. You are here: Business China's cabinet has released a guideline on upgrading comprehensive bonded zones for high-level opening up and high-quality development. Improved policies and innovative regulation are needed to foster the competitive edge of the zones in industrial support and the business environment, according to the guideline released by the State Council. These zones should be developed into "globally influential and competitive centers of processing and manufacturing, R&D and design, logistics and distribution, testing and maintenance, and marketing and services," the guideline said. Comprehensive bonded zones are areas where preferential tax and foreign exchange policies are applied and are home to firms mainly engaged in export manufacturing and logistics. A slew of measures will be taken to achieve the goals. Manufacturers within the zones will be allowed to take orders from domestic firms outside the zones. Cellphones and automobile parts made in the zones will no longer need import licenses for sale in China. Support will be provided for the development of R&D institutions such as the national industrial innovation centers in the zones. Logistics will be facilitated with the scrapping of customs clearance for qualified imports. Comprehensive bonded zones capable of importing whole automobiles are allowed to offer car storage and exhibition services. Global service outsourcing will be supported, and preferential cross-border e-commerce retail import polices will be gradually applied in comprehensive bonded zones. Government departments should give all-out support to "create first-class business environment" in these zones, the guideline said. There are 96 comprehensive bonded zones in China currently, according to Li Guo, deputy head of the General Administration of Customs. (KANSAS CITY, Mo.) The Kansas City Royals kicked off the 2019 FanFest Friday afternoon at the Kansas City Convention Center. The event features autograph sessions with current and former Royals, interactive games for fans of all ages, main stage programming and more. A portion of Royals Authentics proceeds will benefit Royals Charities. FanFest continues Friday night until 9 p.m. and reopens at 9 a.m. Saturday for season ticket members and then 11 a.m. to all fans. Pocatello, ID (83201) Today Sunny with gusty winds developing this afternoon. High 94F. W winds at 10 to 15 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low near 60F. WSW winds at 15 to 25 mph, decreasing to 5 to 10 mph. While there was a significant physical intrusion, when officers kicked down the door to get inside, officers did not go through (Thomas) Snows personal effects, and limited their entry of the residence to ensure no one in the residence was in need of aid, according to the order. New exposure site for measles in Clark Co., 31 confirmed cases health officials say Auburn, IN (46706) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 63F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Bailey pitched the purchase of $1.8 million in new election equipment to the county council on Jan. 15. An attempt last year by the election board for the same proposal failed when it was combined with plans to cut the number of polling places roughly in half, drawing questions about readiness from the council and an outright rejection from commissioners. By Jung Da-min North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has released a new set of propaganda posters, one of which shows young people at the vanguard on "all fronts of socialist construction." The posters show North Korean workers, especially young people, active in the country's key industries, including power, coal, metal and chemical production, agriculture, fisheries, light industry, construction and science. The state media said on Friday that an appeal to the country's young people was adopted at the ninth Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist Youth League that took place a day before, to encourage their devotion to achieving economic goals set by the leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year speech. "The appeal called upon the youth league organizations and youth of the country to fully demonstrate the heroic spirit as youth vanguard in the van of the general offensive campaign to open a new road of advance for socialist construction under the uplifted banner of self-reliance," KCNA said. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) organ Rodong Sinmun also carried the full text of the appeal that called for young people's devotion to state industries over their personal interests or housework. Forest restoration was also included in the national tasks, along with the key industries. H&G Underground Utilities completed the installation for $158,000. The original back-up line was damaged when work began on the state reconstruction of the Indiana 51 bridge last year. Because the line is in the states easement, the state wasnt liable for the repair, officials said. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 26) A food processing firm in the Philippines announced on Friday it will no longer use the endangered Tawilis in its products and vowed to pull out its stocks from stores. In a statement posted on its social media platforms Friday, San Marino of CDO Foodsphere, Inc. said it will work closely with government regulatory bodies to help preserve "Sardinella tawilis." The species endemic to Taal Lake was recently declared endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nations (IUCN). "San Marino is committed to doing its share in protecting and preserving our marine wildlife and natural resources," it said. San Marino previously had a product named "Premium Tawilis." As of Saturday morning, the product has been removed from the company website. Hong Kong: Anthem talks held with intl schools The Education Bureau has been in touch with and discussed arrangements regarding national anthem education with international schools, Secretary for Constitutional & Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip said today. Speaking after attending a radio programme, Mr Nip said under the National Anthem Bill, the Secretary for Education will issue directions for inclusion of the national anthem in primary and secondary education, including international and special schools. I understand that the international schools basically understand the requirements (under the National Anthem Bill) and the Education Bureau will continue to follow up and to provide the necessary support. I do not think the international schools would have any major difficulties in doing that because the international schools themselves are also embracing diversity and respect for others, especially the signs and symbols of countries. Mr Nip noted the actual implementation will be school-based and rely on the professional expertise and judgement of the schools and teachers, adding that if they encounter any problems, the Education Bureau will provide them with all the necessary support. This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. In this file photo, President Donald Trump speaks on the possibility of a government shutdown during the signing ceremony for the First Step Act and the Juvenile Justice Reform Act in the Oval Office of the White House December 21, 2018 in Washington, DC. Roger Stone arrested; Mueller says he was coordinating with Trump officials about WikiLeaks' stolen emails Through a public information request, News 4 gathered the list of approximately 120 calls the two officers responded to in the last 30 days. HOUSTON (KPRC/Meredith) -- In December, seven-year-old Jazmine Barnes was killed in a drive-by shooting. The story made headlines everywhere as the community tried to find who killed her. The little girl was with her mom and her sisters running errands when someone pulled up alongside them and opened fire. Since then, two black men have been arrested and charged with capital murder but not before another white man was falsely accused and practically convicted on social media. Now, Jazmine's family is apologizing for the cries of a hate crime. Police arrest suspect in drive-by killing of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes A man faces a charge of capital murder in the shooting of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes, who was killed as she rode in a car with her family in Texas. Jazmines great aunt Mary Buffin said she regrets how the focus on Jazmines death shifted to race amid claims that a hate crime was the driving force behind the shooting. But after arresting two suspects, investigators said it appears to be a case of mistaken identity, not a hate crime. Both the suspects are black, not white, as originally thought. In the days following the shooting, investigators released a sketch from descriptions given by Jazmine's mother and two of her three sisters: a white man wearing a hooded sweatshirt. A red truck was also caught on surveillance cameras speeding away from the scene. Investigators now believe the man in the sketch was actually a witness, driving the truck away quickly in an attempt to get to safety when shots were fired. Buffin said the family asked others to hold off on assuming Jazmines killing was a hate crime. Buffin said activists who worked with the family to find Jazmines killer were sure it was a hate crime. Despite the familys doubts in private, nothing came up in public. She said the family tried to challenge the hate crime cries, but it was hard to focus on anything but being in distress after losing Jazmine. Tips sent to an activist named Shaun King led to a man who looked like the police sketch, and that man's family was then receiving threats for something he didn't do. I apologize to his family because, you know, they didn't deserve that, either. Just like we didn't deserve what we got, Buffin said. The mystery man who held an umbrella for a saluting deputy in the rain has been identified. | WBMA via CNN A young pit bull is on the road to recovery after being severely beaten, spray-painted and tied to a fence. Though she's been through unimaginable pain, the wounded puppy is already learning to trust again. Rasuli said with election season coming up, not only do they want to make sure the people running for office have the peoples agenda in hand, but continue the peoples agenda in hand once they get in to office in order to hold them accountable. ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) -- A former Navy SEAL from St. Louis killed in Syria was laid to rest Wednesday. Scott Wirtz, a navy SEAL of 10 years, had been working for the Defense Intelligence Agency since 2017. He completed three deployments for the agency in the Middle East. The funeral mass was held at the Cathedral Basilica on Lindell. A big crowd turned out despite the rain. U.S. military members, the Patriot Guard, St. Louis Fire Department and members of local law enforcement were on hand at Lambert Airport last Saturday when Wirtz's body arrived. Flags were placed on every overpass between Lambert Airport and the funeral home when his body arrived in St. Louis. The visitation for Wirtz was held Tuesday at Ortmann-Stipanovich funeral home in Creve Coeur. After the funeral mass, a motorcade took his body to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. The Washington Post reports: The Drudge Report, in big red letters, summed up President Trumps announcement of a temporary end to the shutdown with three words: NO WALL FUNDS. Ann Coulter tweeted, Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States. (Kitco News) - Nolan Watson, President, CEO and Director of Sandstorm Gold, feels confident in the gold space for the first time in years, due to a host of fundamental factors coming together in golds favor. For the first time in a long time I feel all of the signs, everything is lining up to back gold, Watson told Kitco News on the sidelines of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Spot gold fell more than 1% in 2018, but has trended higher towards the end of the year, with prices closing at the highest level since June. According to Watson, gold prices are still held back by a lack of capital. We're not seeing the flow of funds yet, so share prices are still really low. Companies share prices are down and out. I think its a good time to invest in the gold space, Watson said. Watsons comments come as Newmont announced its plans to acquire Goldcorp earlier this month, and he said investors can expect more mergers to come. I think we are going to see more consolidation in the space, he said. I dont think its because the executives know anything that the rest of us dont, but effectively whats going on is, the whole financial markets around the world are changing and its not just in metals and mining. Watson said that investor capital is shifting from active institutional investing to passive funds like ETFs. WASHINGTON, D.C. - The government shutdown is coming to an end, for now. And elected officials are speaking up. Here are a few statements KIMT has received. U.S. Senator Tina Smith (DFL - Minnesota): From the beginning, the government shutdown was a waste focused on a political symbol instead of real solutions. Finally, President Trump is realizing the increasingly harmful toll the shutdown is taking on our country. Im glad a deal has been reached to reopen the government and focus on meaningful negotiations, but we still need to make sure federal contract employees get back paywhich is an issue I introduced a bill to address. I am going to keep pushing for these Americansthe people who are often invisible securing buildings and keeping them clean, and working in cafeteriasbecause Ive made it my job to fight for people whove been hurt by the shutdown. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (DFL - Minnesota): Today, this senseless shutdown will finally come to an endthats a good thing. For the last five weeks, hundreds of thousands of workers went without pay, and everything from air safety to medical advancements were undermined. But this shutdown never should have happened in the first placewere in the exact same place we were five weeks ago, but our workers, our economy, and our country have seriously suffered. The President needs to stop playing games, end the threats, and allow the country to get back to work. U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn (MN - First Congressional District) The President provided leadership today to bring stability to our nation. Speaker Pelosi and her fellow party members refusal to negotiate in good faith has hurt federal workers and the safety of American. Moving forward, I encourage my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to negotiate in good faith and craft a longterm spending bill. My support for solutions to secure Americas borders, including the construction of physical structures, remains firm. The President is right that illegal entry, drugs and human trafficking at the southern border must be addressed, once-and-for-all. If Democrats refuse to support the long overdue border security measures, I encourage President Trump to take all necessary action, including declaring the border chaos a national emergency and reprogramming federal funds to address our border security needs. U.S. Rep. Abby Finkenauer (IA - 01) For 35 days, this unnecessary and hurtful shutdown has put the American dream on hold. This is not how our country should work. This is not how we treat people. We owe it to our federal employees, farmers, and every American impacted by this shutdown to come together with a core understanding that working families should never again be used as bargaining chips, by this administration or the next. KASSON, Minn.-The cold is real and unrelenting that's why a local business owner is opening up her doors to those in need. Thick coats, hats and gloves are winter essentials and you can find many of those items here at Becky's Community Closet. With freezing temperatures here to stay owner Becky Shultz has been busy keeping warm items on the shelves.She also sees another need in her community, a warm place to stay. I made some inquiries with the sheriff department and the local police department and they said they're some possibilities out there but nothing accessible, she said. She started her own temporary warming center. When temperatures get dangerously low, shell open her doors to those in need. For community members like Daniel Ziebell this kind gesture can save a life. Some people dont realize how a serious situation can occur in subzero temperatures especially when the wind hits,said Ziebell. Becky hopes this will start Kassons very own warming center. I'm hoping this kind of open people heart up a little bit and they want to open their doors while people are snuggled at home some people are freezing, She said. Most of our donors who have been with us a long time identify with the original name, and know it very well in the Chicago community, said Anne Wohlberg, LBFE director of programs. There are chapter standards all over the world and the same name is one of them. Weve seen Lori Isenberg in prison jumpsuits in previous court appearances, but Wednesday morning, she was in street clothes at the federal courthouse in Coeur dAlene. The embezzlement charges shed been facing in Kootenai County, dropped, but then immediately filed by federal prosecutors. Now, Isenberg is charged with three counts of wire fraud and one count of federal program theft. BENTON COUNTY, Ore .-- An Oregon State University student charged with rape and sex abuse wants his bail to be significantly reduced. Roland Richards, 19, is lodged at the Benton county jail, and his bail is set at $525,000. In a new court filing, Richards is asking the judge to reduce that bail to $50,000. The alleged crime happened last weekend, and he was booked on Jan. 19. According to court documents, the victim wasn't capable of giving consent. Investigators said Richards had also recorded the alleged victim when she was naked. EUGENE, Ore. -- Rep. Peter DeFazio met with federal workers impacted by the shutdown on Friday after President Donald Trump announced plans to reopen the goverment temporarily. DeFazio said the meeting was emotional. The meeting was just the latest of similar meetings he's had with federal workers during the partial government shutdown, DeFazio said. These workers have now missed two paychecks, and some are having to take second jobs with companies like Uber just to pay their bills. Before DeFazio's meeting, Trump announced plans for a three-week continuing resolution that would end the shutdown until Feb. 15 as they work toward a long-term solution. But DeFazio said the workers he spoke to said that's simply not long enough. RELATED: Trump, Congress leaders reach deal to end shutdown "They said three weeks doesn't cut it," DeFazio said. "There were people there who are at the supervisory level. They said we're trying to hire people into the agency -- GS-4, GS-5. How are we going to hire people if, you know, three weeks from today they might, you know, they might not be getting a paycheck?" DeFazio said he does think significant progress will be made while the government is back open but made one thing clear: federal workers can't go any longer without pay. "It just can't happen. It just can't happen. I mean, routinely -- I've been there a long time, and we've had a few shutdowns. But generally, they are resolved by saying, okay, look, we've got some disputes, let's just continue existing operations while we work out these disputes called continuing resolutions." DeFazio said no matter what deals are made over the next few weeks, his message to people at Saturday's town hall will be the same. "We're going to see long-lasting impacts from this, and (federal employees) said three weeks does not cut it," DeFazio said. "It does not get to the heart of the problem, and they asked me if I could figure out a way that this does not happen again, and I think there might be a way." That town hall meeting will still be happening on Saturday as scheduled, at 3 p.m. in the Center for Meeting and Learning at Lane Community College. 13 Shares Share A face feels nothing like a frozen pigs foot, I thought, as I guided a curved needle into the womans cheek, drawing the absorbable thread across her still-bleeding wound. Two wraps around the needle driver and I pulled the nearly invisible thread through, bringing the edges of her skin back together, securing my first knot. Hey, have you ever sutured? the ER doctor had asked, just minutes before. Only in class, I replied, thinking back to the stitches we learned on thawing pigs feet. I had also practiced that morning on a little plastic pad that had clean cuts of fake, rubbery skin. You can close up that womans laceration, she hollered, already walking away to gather supplies. Great! Thank you! Oh, I paused, but isnt the cut on her face? The doctor stopped in her tracks and I immediately regretted expressing hesitation. Im here to learn, I reminded myself, I have to take whatever opportunities Im given. I stifled my own question with another eager round of great! and thank you! and trailed after the physician. On hour four of my procedure shift, I had grown comfortable lurking in her shadow. I was in the ER to practice new skills placing IVs and catheters, doing EKGs, and suturing but I was enjoying observing too. For the first time, I was able to follow a doctors thought process. As the physician talked with patients and examined them, I tried to predict the diagnoses on her unspoken differential, and I watched as she collected evidence to help narrow down the possibilities. We gathered the materials: a suturing kit, lidocaine shots, needles, and sterile gloves one set in her size and another in my own. The doctor grabbed a small rolling metal table and unfolded the equipment on top of a sterile blue pad. I pushed the cart into the patients bay and, with an imaginary knock, pulled back the curtain. The patient was around the same age as my mother. For a moment, I imagined my mom in her place. I wondered if my mom, who carefully tends to her face with lotions and makeup, would be okay with a medical student stitching her up. I shook away the thought and turned back to the patient. Her arm was bandaged, her leg raised, and her cheek puffed out just below the eye an open wound at the center of a swollen target. Were going to cover your face and give you some numbing medicine now, the doctor said as she laid down a white cloth with one small hole, covering everything save for the wound. Both eyes hidden beneath the cloth, the patient nearly disappeared. I moved the light to shine directly on her laceration as the doctor injected the numbing lidocaine. She threw the first stitch, and then silently gestured for me to put on my gloves. I stepped in to the narrow space between the patients bed and the curtain. Picking up the tweezers in my left hand, I steadied the needle in my right and dug its point a few centimeters into the torn skin. Good, the doctor mumbled, looking over my shoulder, keep going. Medical students are so lucky that some patients permit us to learn on them. We can suture as many pigs feet as possible, but at some point, we need to start working on people. Some patients let us while others rightfully refuse. While placing IVs earlier that night, I was turned away by a handful of patients. If you dont mind, sweetheart, I would prefer that the nurse do my IV, one man said. After placing the IV, the nurse approached me and told me that, instead of asking for permission, I should instead say, Im the medical student here to place your IV. No need to make it sound like a choice, the nurse had said. But it is, I thought, as I carefully stitched up the womans wound creating a scar that would forever live on her face. Orly Farber is a medical student who blogs at Scope, where this article originally appeared. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 644 Shares Share This article is sponsored by Careers by KevinMD.com. Physician burnout is not a novel topic within the health care industry. Numerous studies have been done on the increasing prevalence of its symptoms from emotional exhaustion and loss of empathy to doubt that ones work even makes a difference among todays practitioners. In fact, a recent survey polled more than 15,000 physicians from 29 specialties and found that 42 percent reported feelings of burnout. Several of the specialties reporting the highest levels of burnout were within the realm of primary care and included family medicine (47 percent), obstetrics and gynecology (46 percent) and internal medicine (46 percent). Does this mean choosing to practice primary care unavoidably increases your likelihood of eventual burnout? Not exactly especially if you work within a small, independent practice. Study author suggests autonomy may be the key to lower burnout rates A study led by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine and published in the online Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine examined levels of burnout among 235 physicians practicing in 174 small, independent primary care practices in New York City. Among these physicians, the study authors found an astonishingly low level of burnout: a mere 13.5 percent compared to 54.4 percent (the national average in 2014). But why? We had to go back to the qualitative data to figure this out, says Donna Shelley, M.D., senior study author, and professor in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine at NYU Langone Health. Thats always where the answers really are. When the researchers sat down with their subjects, they discovered that a lot of them actually had the same complaints as non-independent doctors who work within health care systems. They had complaints about electronic health records and reimbursement rates, Shelley continues. And because theyre actually running their own business, you would think that would lead to some serious stress and subsequent burnout. But somehow whatever control they had over their practice as a result of remaining independent seemed to be related to that low burnout rate. Shelley says that the physicians who participated in the study valued the autonomy they had as independents and the ability it gave them to practice medicine the way they wanted and where they wanted. Many of these doctors were immigrants and practiced within the communities in which they lived, Shelley explains. Many spoke more than one language and attracted a lot of bilingual and non-English-speaking immigrants. They were really committed to their communities and were the kind of old-fashioned docs who see a patient from cradle to grave. Many had taken care of generations of the same family. That is very fulfilling. Doctors mostly go into medicine to take care of people. Thats their mission. Shelley says that its important to note that the small, independent primary care practices included in the study were well-supported by the city health department. Their burnout rate could potentially be lower because the city health department identified them years ago as serving a large number of Medicaid and underserved populations and has been helping them with electronic health records and quality improvement, she adds. So, what can the health care industry do to improve burnout rates among physicians in general? Shelley says, We should look into sites that are actually happier and try to understand the secret sauce. What is it about these small, independent practices that create a lower level of burnout even though they are under tremendous stress to deal with this challenging environment regarding reimbursements and financial security and sophisticated use of the electronic health record to document quality improvements? Despite all of that, they seem to be happier. She suggests health care systems start by finding ways to give their physicians a greater sense of autonomy. We have a project here at NYU where we provide small amounts of money to individual clinicians or teams of clinicians so that they can innovate in an area where they see a need for change, Shelley explains. Theoretically, it should improve burnout rates. These physicians are being given funds and space to act autonomously and make changes. Shelley adds that shes looking forward to further research into factors that drive lower burnout rates. Ive been moved by the doctors Ive met, she says. It has given me a lot of hope for the future of medicine. AID suggests restoring the doctor-patient relationship may also help reduce burnout As Shelley noted earlier, practicing as an independent physician is not without its stresses and not all independent doctors have a well-funded city health department providing them with support. But that doesnt mean youre totally on your own if youd rather not work within a health care system. Independent practice associations, like the Association of Independent Doctors (AID), are working to educate patients, insurance providers and the government about the importance of independent physicians as well as looking out for their best interests. The Association of Independent Doctors was founded in 2013 to give independent doctors a collective voice, explains executive director Marni Carey. While hospitals are fantastic at marketing their physicians, independent doctors were sort of dying on the vine because they didnt have the time, resources, clout or skills to do that sort of PR work for themselves. We stood up to speak out on behalf of independent doctors and explain to businesses, lawmakers, and consumers why its so important that they remain so. Carey says AID has five mission statements including promoting transparency in pricing, stopping the consolidation of hospitals and medical groups, working with insurance companies on payments, educating patients and helping doctors remain independent. Weve had over 1,000 doctors become members of AID, and were in 33 states, she adds. Carey agrees with Shelleys hypothesis that greater autonomy could reduce physician burnout rates among doctors in general. Its certainly one of the biggest benefits of practicing as an independent doctor, she says. Being able to make decisions that are strictly about the patient and what you think is best for the patient without having to try to make your employer happy as well. When hospitals employ doctors, I think that allegiance shifts from the patient to the employer who is measuring productivity, even though doctors dont want it to. Doctors who work autonomously in small practices have a say in how things are run, Carey continues. They can be decision makers. After all, doctors are naturally gifted people. Most of them are pretty sharp. They want a say in how their day goes and how the practice is run. If that means they can only see 15 patients a day and do a great job, rather than see 35, they get to make that decision. She also notes that she regularly hears that doctors would be happier if they could restore the integrity of the patient-doctor relationship. They want it to be about the two people who care most about the patient, which is the patient and the doctor, Carey says. The hospital doesnt care. The government doesnt care. Theyre just trying to make the money work out. Doctors dont want to be exploited. They dont want everybody making money off of their backs, which is unfortunately what is happening. Angela Rose is a writer, Careers by KevinMD.com. Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Everybody went to their home country to see if they would participate. I went with international colleagues to India, he said. Everybody wants to know what they are going to get out of it. They are not going to fund anything unless their scientists are part of it. We went to universities all over the country to understand their needs. It took almost a decade to come up with a plan that is acceptable to both sides. You do it because you really want to make it happen. BNSF and Metra have been in conversation with city staff prior to the request for proposal being issued. BNSF owns part of the property so theyve been part of conversations along with Metra since the beginning, Louden said, adding the city has shared all information thats come out of smaller working groups with Metra and BNSF. A variety of development measures are allowed under LB840. Among them are grants or loans for relocating businesses; building or rehabilitating workforce housing; and paying a coordinator to implement the economic development program. It was bad news about Baldwin, but Gothenburg had many of the pieces in place to launch its recovery. By a 7-1 margin, Gothenburgs LB840 plan was convincingly passed by voters. They must have been confident their town could springboard from prior economic successes. Those include the Frito-Lay corn gathering facility, where 13,000 truckloads and more than 2,800 rail cars of specialty corn grown in the region is shipped to factories for corn chips and tortillas. Gothenburg also proudly claims the Bayer (formerly Monsanto) facility where researchers are developing drought-resistant corn varieties. The president of Gothenburg Improvement Co., Nate Wyatt, tends Gothenburg State Bank when his boss, state Sen. Matt Williams, is making laws in Lincoln. Wyatt said theres evidence that his town is hanging in there, despite Baldwins exit. School enrollment is steady and home values are appreciating. Opening of the Stonehearth Estates independent and assisted living apartments created jobs and may be easing the towns tight real estate market. As seniors exit their houses they are leaving openings for younger buyers. Id like to send a dozen roses to the brilliant guru who concocted the new state motto, Nebraska: Honestly, its not for everyone, Its designed to arouse the curiosity of outsiders and get them to poke their heads out of their gopher holes and start sniffing around. But as a non-Nebraskan, I have one question: What happens after that? Outsiders dont get Nebraska. When I go home to Cleveland and tell acquaintances that I now live in the city of Kearney, 200 miles west of Omaha, they gape at me as if Nebraska cornstalks are growing out of my brain. My nieces husband Andre grew up in Norfolk, Va., and settled in New York City after becoming a professional actor. A few years ago, when he headed out to Los Angeles for graduate school, he and his wife Molly barreled across I-80 from Omaha to Denver, barely breathing during that nine-hour drive. They only paused to have lunch with me here in Kearney. Didnt you stop to see anything? I asked them when they arrived. Theres nothing to see in Nebraska, they said. In the screen-lit bustle of modern life, sleep is expendable. There are television shows to binge-watch, work emails to answer, homework to finish, social media posts to scroll through. We'll catch up on shut-eye later, so the thinking goes - right after we click down one last digital rabbit hole. Brain research, which has pushed back hard against this nonchalant attitude, is now expanding rapidly, reaching beyond the laboratory and delving into exactly how sleep works in disease and in normal cognitive functions such as memory. The growing consensus is that casual disregard for sleep is wrongheaded - even downright dangerous. Preschoolers who skip naps are worse at a memory game than those who snooze, even after the children "catch up" on sleep the next night. An alarming new line of research suggests poor sleep may increase the risk of Alzheimer's, as even a single night of sleep deprivation boosts brain levels of the proteins that form toxic clumps in Alzheimer's patients. All-nighters push anxiety to clinical levels, and even modest sleep reductions are linked to increased feelings of social isolation and loneliness. "It used to be popular for people to say, 'I'll sleep when I'm dead.' The ironic thing is, not sleeping enough may get you there sooner," said Daniel Buysse, a professor of sleep medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. MINDEN The Nebraska Library Commission has awarded Nebraska Library Internship Grants totaling $44,800 to 46 public libraries to support student interns. Area libraries included are the Jensen Memorial Library in Minden, the Cozad Public Library and the Franklin Public Library. Student interns will shadow staff, assist with day-to-day library operations and implement special projects. Among other duties, they may plan programs; create book displays; assist with book selection and collection management; create fliers, newsletters, newspaper articles and other promotional materials, and assist with verbal and written Spanish/English communication. Beyond earning money and gaining valuable work experience, internships allow the student to view the library as a viable and satisfying career choice. Interns bring a fresh perspective and their own unique talents to the library, said Rod Wagner, Nebraska Library Commission director. KEARNEY Best-selling authors and poetry critics are raving about Nicole Sealey. Essence magazine called her one of todays most interesting poets and The Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan says her poems should be read, re-read and read aloud to others. The nationally acclaimed poet will share her dynamic work 8 p.m. Feb. 6 during a reading at the Museum of Nebraska Art, 2401 Central Ave., in Kearney. Part of the University of Nebraska at Kearneys Reynolds Visiting Writers Series, the event also includes a question-and-answer session and book signing. Admission is free and open to the public. Sealey, born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida, is the author of The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize, and Ordinary Beast, a finalist for the 2018 PEN Open Book Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Nicole Sealey is a poet for the ages, and this is a stunning debut, U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith said of Ordinary Beast, which was published in 2017. Brad Modlin, the Reynolds poetry chair in UNKs Department of English, described the book as energetic, fun, serious and surprising. Anderson sees a lot of differences between Goodfellows and other nonprofits. Goodfellows has no office, no staff, no payroll and no overhead. The nine-member board, which meets quarterly, is all volunteer. Along with Christmas gifts, Goodfellows raises money to buy new coats, hats and mittens for children every October. This year, it gave away 500 coats. Goodfellows also provides free milk at Boogaarts for underprivileged families and helps with the Kiwanis free backpack program for underprivileged families every August. What we raise each year is what we spend, Anderson said. Still, its primary project happens at Christmas. Goodfellows purchases toys for children based on names provided by The Salvation Army. Any family that needs help at Christmas can call The Salvation Army or go there and sign up. We dont ask questions. We dont ask about income or employment. We just put them on the list. Im sure there are people who take advantage of us, but we dont spend time worrying about that, he said. Busy Christmas season AXTELL The family of Marjorie and the late Bob Wendell, longtime Axtell community supporters, challenged the Axtell Community Fund to raise $10,000 between Oct. 1, 2018, and Jan. 31, 2019. If the goal was reached, the Wendells agreed to match the funds one-to-two with $5,000. Not only did the Axtell Community Fund, an affiliated fund of Nebraska Community Foundation, exceed the fundraising goal, it did so an entire month ahead of schedule. In total, $23,000 will be contributed to the Axtell community unrestricted endowment as a result of the challenge. Similar to a community savings account, unrestricted endowments are an important tool to keep hometowns across Nebraska growing, thriving and improving for future generations. While ACF grants out a portion of the income earned by the unrestricted endowment each year to fund projects and programs to benefit the community, the principal remains intact and grows forever. ACF received contributions from both organizations and individuals. Among the organizations that supported ACFs efforts to meet the Wendell Family Challenge were Windmill Housing and Development Corp. and Integrity Construction. KEARNEY Town & Country Bank has announced that James Friesen has been promoted to president of the central Nebraska banking chain. Friesen succeeds Dale Johnson, who served the bank since 1996 and who continues to sit on the board of directors. Friesen joined Town & Country Bank in 2002 and previously was the executive vice president and manager of the Kearney branch at 6005 Second Ave. Friesen brings 24 total years of banking experience, specializing in serving agricultural and commercial loan customers. He has been an active board member for Kearneys Gateway Farm Expo and is a member of Leadership Kearneys 2017-2019 class. Friesen has degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and is an alum of Colorados Graduate School of Banking. I enjoy learning about each of our customers business operations, and finding ways that we can add value to their businesses, Friesen stated. I am privileged to lead a team of very capable bankers, delivering high-quality service to both deposit and loan customers. Town & Country Bank is a community bank with $160 million in assets. In addition to Kearney, it has branches in Ravenna, Pleasanton and Litchfield. Firefighters saw heavy flames and smoke coming from an upstairs window at the split-level home in the 200 block of Pine Tree Row after arriving on scene at at 1:21 a.m. Thursday, said Lake Zurich Fire Chief John Malcolm. PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) The Oregon Environmental Quality Commission has approved new smoke rules for the state that will allow more planned burns that reduce wildfire risk by getting rid of underbrush and dead trees. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that the rules approved Thursday are a tradeoff between having some smoke drift into communities during the winter months and the potential for devastating wildfires in the summer. On the color-based system used for air quality alerts, the cutoff would now be within the yellow or "moderate" category. The rules also designate limits for the 24-hour average of smoke in communities. The new rules apply to public and private landowners and burning on industrial timberlands. "This change will allow relatively low levels of smoke from prescribed burning to occur more frequently in communities. And that's a tradeoff for reducing the potential for much worse smoke incidence from wildfire in the summer season," said Department of Environmental Quality director Richard Whitman. The new state standards still fall within federal guidelines. Support for the changes has not been unanimous; some health and air quality advocates objected during the rule-making process. Still others asked for even more flexibility to use fire to restore forests. Communities interested in promoting prescribed burns will also be able to apply to state regulators for exemptions to occasionally allow higher hourly smoke totals, which would provide even more flexibility. "We'll be able to do the amount of controlled burning, which will occasionally will put a small amount of smoke for not a long time into the community, just because of weather conditions," said Ashland Mayor John Stromburg. Much of Ashland is surrounded by fire-prone forests, and the city has been proactive in supporting work to reduce the wildfire risk. MEDFORD, Ore. -- A local Bureau of Land Management worker who is passionate about doing yoga thought he was going to have to give it up when he was furloughed. That's when the Rasa Center for Yoga and Wellness stepped in to help. Jon Larson has been going to several classes a week at the center for the last four years. After the paychecks stopped coming in, he soon realized it was a hobby he wasn't going to be able to afford. "I was trying to think of something that I might be interested in doing. I've been thinking about becoming a yoga teacher at some point so I thought I would reach out to Rasa and see what I could possibly do," Larson said. He was able to begin working for the yoga center in exchange for free classes. Owner Mariane Corallo said Larson was the inspiration for free yoga classes for all furloughed workers. "It allows people like Jon or anyone who is affected by things that happen outside of their control to have the community rally behind them, I think it's a really good support network," Corallo said. She asked her teachers if they would be willing to make the free classes happen and it was a unanimous 'yes.' Larson said he can't thank the Rasa Yoga Center enough. "I would really like to thank the community of Rasa for offering free yoga classes for furloughed employees and just making us feel a part of their community and really just bringing us under their wing, I feel grateful," Larson said. As the government shutdown rolls into its second month and federal employees brace to miss their second paychecks Friday, some states are pushing back against federal guidance to ensure that more workers have access to unemployment benefits. Full credit:Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images In January, the city council voted to change the name of the Paseo to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Then a group collected signatures to undo the renaming, forcing the topic to a public vote. Now its up to voters to decide what the name of the nearly 10-mile stretch of road will be. I believe (the increase in calls) is directly correlated to our outreach efforts that we do, and I think we are really working towards prevention, she said. Before, we were getting our program going and doing a lot of different things, but we are at the point where we can (add) to that public health approach by getting people involved. Jim Crow statues According to a 2016 study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the vast majority of Confederate statues and monuments were constructed in the early 1900s. What was so unique about this time period? In the early 1900s, Southern states were enacting Jim Crow laws for the purpose of enforcing segregation and the disenfranchisement of African-Americans. These laws were based on the theory of white supremacy, which was the philosophical foundation of the Confederacy. Alexander H. Stephens, who was to become vice president of the Confederate States of America, stated in his famous Cornerstone speech, given March 21, 1861, that the cornerstone of the Confederate government rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. The statues and monuments that were erected in public places near government buildings in the 1900s were meant to explicitly represent white supremacy in the South and remind African-Americans of their place. It is easy to understand why African-Americans are offended by seeing these monuments near governmental buildings. Did Nathan Phillips, the 64-year-old Omaha elder, spark the confrontation by walking toward the Covington Catholic High School teens? Were those teens especially 16-year old Nicholas Sandmann, who in videos is seen staring Phillips down, refusing to move disrespectful, possibly even racist? Was this a case of the liberal news media rushing to destroy young peoples reputations, or of conservatives attempting to reframe reprehensible behavior into martyrdom? Rashomon on the Mall, pundits have dubbed it: a far less exalted version, as befitting our far less exalted times. Yet Kurosawas film is celebrated for its investigation of deeper questions than most of our Twitter debates have touched on so far. In the original Rashomon, an attentive viewer soon understands why the incident is rendered differently in the minds of its different participants. Of course the proud bandit says that he seduced the beautiful woman and killed the samurai in an honorable duel. And of course the young bride denies being seduced by a man who is not her husband. Is either telling the truth? The viewer will never know. Motives and flaws of memory necessarily twist each tale. In an interview with The Post last year about experimentation on dogs in federal research labs, a practice he has publicly opposed, Stone said he and his wife were "dog lovers and cat lovers." They owned three cats and two Yorkshire terriers - the latest of nine Yorkies they had owned over the years, he said. They'd also at one point taken in a Wheaten terrier they found injured on a roadside, he said; its leg was later amputated. "We often refer to our place as Stone's Animal Farm," said Stone, whose coexistence with dogs goes back at least three decades: At age 33, he had two Dachshunds, according to a 1986 Post article. So passionate is he about dogs, Stone said last year, that he'd encouraged candidates for office in his Florida district to rail against the local animal shelter's euthanasia rates. He said he'd also organized a small protest in 2018 outside what he described as a shady storefront "puppy mill" that sold ill dogs and offered dubious financing. (To spread the word, Stone said, he "printed out fliers and went into all the gay bars . . . and called all my friends in college Republican clubs.") "It's just something I feel very strongly about," Stone said of animal causes. In fact, he added, he had plans to retire from political life and devote his time to animal welfare. He asked Kintzele if he wanted it weighed and measured for the Fish of the Year Award. In Indiana, the DNR recognizes the largest registered fish caught for each species. Dickinson has never seen a bigger walleye caught in Lake Michigan in six years. Hes seen bigger netted. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 26) All systems go for the massive rehabilitation of the Manila Bay on Sunday, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said on Friday. Over 5,000 participants, including national and local government officials, will kickstart the rehabilitation called by Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu as "Battle for Manila Bay." "This is a battle that will be won not with force or arms but with the firm resolve to bring Manila Bay back to life... With the commitment and determination of every Filipino to do his share in this rehabilitation effort, we have already won the battle for Manila Bay," he said in a statement. Along with the ceremonial launch, simultaneous cleanup activities will be held in parts of Las Pinas, Navotas, and towns in Bulacan, Bataan, and Pampanga. The DENR aims to reduce the coliform level in Manila Bay to less than 270 most probable number (MPN) per 100 milliliters (ml) and in all esteros to 100 mpn/100ml. Some parts of the bay are home to a whopping 1.3 billion MPN of coliform for every 100 ml; the safe level is below 200 MPN/100 ml. Cimatu is also expected to identify establishments initially found to be violating the clean water law. "We will serve notices of violation to these establishments whose outfalls discharge untreated water to esteros, rivers and other tributaries that flow into Manila Bay," the environment chief said. At the latter part of the rehabilitation, national and local government officials will also focus on relocating 232,000 illegal settler families around Manila Bay. NEW YORK - There had been signs for weeks: a growing number of TSA officers weren't showing up for work. Elected officials and union leaders warned the prolonged government shutdown was bad for the safety and efficiency of the nation's aviation system. On Friday, those warnings played out with astonishing speed after the Federal Aviation Administration announced it was restricting flights into and out of New York's LaGuardia Airport because there weren't enough air traffic controllers to manage them safely. Within hours, the White House weighed in. "We are in regular contact with officials at the Department of Transportation and the FAA," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. It was only one airport, but the impact rippled through the system. At one point, arrivals at LaGuardia were delayed for an average of nearly two hours; for departures, it was nearly an hour. Delays also were reported at airports in Newark, Philadelphia and Atlanta. The FAA's action was the first time staffing shortages hit air traffic control centers during the shutdown. The TSA had struggled to keep security checkpoints operating amid a growing number of callouts, but while those shortages increased wait times at some airports, they didn't affect planes once in the air. Winston Salem Christian School is celebrating its 40th year on Saturday evening, and Elliott said the event will be used to try to spread the message of the plight of the school. Well use the 40th birthday to show Gods faith, she said. We hope to spread more awareness. Freshman Kate Shotwell, 15, is only in her first year at the school, but also said the school supported her. Here the teachers care about you and how you are doing emotionally and spiritually, not just academically, she said. You can tell that these teachers care about every single one of us and want us to be the best person we can be. She said there were also no real cliques at the school, just one big group of people. High school history teacher Lizzy Broughton said she wants to remain with the school. We just want a chance to continue, she said. I would go anywhere Dr. Wolfe was going. As long as Winston Salem Christian exists, I would do anything I can to be a part of it. She attributes this to the students. I think its very diverse and is a reflection of this city. A lot of our kids have been here forever, Broughton said. My kids are on their phones, on social media, fighting for their school. You dont give up on kids like that. I have to stay with them. snewell@wsjournal.com 336-727-4068 @s_k_newell on Twitter A threat was made against schools across Northwest North Carolina Friday morning, prompting investigation by law enforcement officials in Forsyth and surrounding counties. The unspecific threat did not mention any Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school or this district, said schools spokesman Brent Campbell. An email and phone message were sent to parents Friday morning to notify them of the threat. We are closely monitoring any information and will adhere to all security procedures throughout the day, Campbell said. Again, we have no known threat to Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools but want you to be aware of information being circulated throughout the entire region. The man who made the threat called the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office Thursday evening about an unrelated issue, said Christina Howell, the offices public affairs officer. The man then called the Winston-Salem Police Department Thursday night to make the threat. Howell said she did not know the exact nature of the threat, and police declined to comment. After a month of wondering how they were going to continue to feed their families or pay their bills, air-traffic controllers at Piedmont Triad International Airport were abuzz with excitement Friday afternoon. On the 35th day of the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, President Donald Trump announced an agreement to temporarily reopen the government at least until Feb. 15. On Friday night, he signed a stopgap spending bill the U.S. Senate and House had approved on a voice vote earlier in the day The partial shutdown affected about 800,000 federal workers including employees at the Greensboro airport who were furloughed or worked without pay through two missed paychecks. It felt like a huge weight lifted off our shoulders, said Travis Payne, 31, an air-traffic controller at PTI who lives in Winston-Salem. We dont know exactly how the back pay is going to work, but its definitely a sigh of relief. Uncertainty still on the horizon As the news broke Friday, Payne said some of his co-workers watched the live news coverage as they sat in the break room, hoping for an end to their worries. The boy was caught in vines at the time, but officials said they suspect he was moving around most of the time he was lost, WSOC said. He was cold but verbal, Grier said at the news conference, adding Casey was wet. For the conditions, I think he fared very well. Were very fortunate. TV station WYFF says the boy was alert enough to tell them his name and age. Casey was taken to Carolina East Medical Center to be evaluated by doctors, the sheriffs office said on Facebook. Its a great evening, folks, Hughes said at the news conference. We brought Casey to his family, just like we said we were going to do. ... Little fella is happy, and his parents are very happy, too. Casey was so happy that he already asked his mother if he could watch Netflix, Brittany Hathaway said at the news conference. We just want to tell everybody that were very thankful that you took the time out to come search for Casey and pray for him. And hes good, he is good, hes up and talking, Brittany Hathaway said at the news conference, before hugging Grier and Hughes, video shows. Were thrilled that we received that money. Its being put to a very good use, Sussman said. Were going to wind up paying over $2 million when it would have been over $12 million. Thats wonderful. Theres so much infrastructure that has to be done, when you can get a grant, thats wonderful. David Abel, 72, died June 18th, 2021, at his home in El Dorado, AR, surrounded by his family after a short battle with cancer. David was born November 26, 1948, in Sacramento, CA, to Earnest "Bood" Abel and Peggy Downing Abel. David attended school in Miami, OK, and graduated in 1967. He joi Allie Gross covers Teton County government. Originally from the Chicago area, she joined the News&Guide in 2017 after studying politics and Spanish at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. A really important angle is that this is a very multicultural, multi-ethnic program, Gerrard said. We have volunteer moms who bring in their 2-year-olds. We have grandmas that walk here and dont speak English. They help even though they dont have kids in school anymore. People just want to give back. They dont want to just keep taking. Funeral services for June Ann Leadbetter Arnold will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, 2021, in the Chapel at Boren-Conner Funeral Home, Jacksonville with Bro. George Folmar officiating. Burial will follow at the Jacksonville Old City Cemetery. June was born April 15, 1932 in Hidalgo, Te The lawyer has submitted a barrage of filings, some of them striking racial tones and some of them strangely sexual, filled with allegations of collusion and conspiracy, and all pointing to a deep belief that powerful people are working together to keep his brother behind bars. Today Abundant sunshine. Near record high temperatures. High 118F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Tonight Clear skies. Low 82F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Tomorrow Sunny. High 116F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph, becoming W and increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph. Ithaca, NY (14850) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray severe thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 61F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%. On Friday, officials with the Walker County Hospital District board announced that they have finalized a $7.8 million purchase of Huntsville Memorial Hospital. Do you feel like this is a good use of tax dollars, and is this the right direction for the struggling health care facility? You voted: Commentary Imagining a Better World in a Kayan Mountain Village A view from the mountaintop Rankhu Center near Rankhu, a Kayan village in Shan State. / Kyaw Zwa Moe Just before our Toyota pick-up set off, a local middle-aged man told my friend who had organized our trip, Sorry, I cant join you, but our platoon commander will accompany you up there. Nothing to worry about. Then, a cheerful, stout man in his 20s wearing camouflage pants and a blue jacket with a pistol jammed in his belt jumped onto our four-wheel-drive truck and we were off. We were in Cebu, a village about three hours drive from Loikaw, the capital of Kayah (Karenni) State in eastern Myanmar. Though it is located in Shan State, almost the entire population of the village is Kayan, a Karenni subgroup. Encountering such a village is not unusual in Myanmarit simply demonstrates how diverse the country is, with its different regions that are home to various tribes and religious groups. The Kayan are legendary for the bronze rings worn by some of their long-necked women. Our pickup truck was now gearing up to climb a narrow road into a village, with rocky mountains on our right and a steep abyss to our left. The cool mountain breeze coming through the windows kept the air inside the vehicle crisp, and the green hills made for a refreshing sight. Without the presence of the platoon commander from the Kayan National Liberation Army (KNLA), however, we wouldnt have been able to drive up to the village, as it is located in the ethnic armed groups territory. The KNLA signed a ceasefire with the previous military regime in the mid-1990s. On the way to our mountainous destination, any worries we may have had began to seem unfounded. The view was scenic, the road rough and steep, the weather pleasantly chilly, the situation peaceful. On the way, our car had to stop twice at makeshift bamboo gates; the platoon commander briskly jumped off to open and reclose the gatesthere were no guards or other signs of military presence. It did not feel to us inside the car that we were in rebel-held territory. The area is no longer an active military zoneunlike two decades ago. Our trip had a single purposeto explore virgin territory as domestic tourists. Before driving up into the mountains, we enjoyed a lunch of authentic Kayan dishes of boar meat with local spices. As we ate, our host in Cebu Village pointed to the mountains behind the village and told me, Many years ago, we used to go and hide up in those mountains occasionally, as there was fighting between the government army and Kayan rebels. Our host continued, We had to stay up there for days or weeks. One time, I was taken by the [government] army as a porter, like other villagers. Luckily I survived. No more fighting these days, he continued. In his 50s now, he is clearly a happy family man living with his wife and daughters. My friend told me he is the best chef in the village. That certainly seemed true but his wifes dishes of boar meat were also amazingly tasty. All Kayan dishes have a unique flavor, thanks to the use of locally grown Matkhar pepper, which makes your tongue slightly numb; their heat is reminiscent of Szechuan peppercorns. Today, Cebu is still a stronghold of the KNLA and its political wing, the Kayan New Land Party, whose headquarters are located in this village. In a grand Kayan mausoleum near the headquarters, their late leader U Shwe Aye is buried. He founded the KNLP in 1964, two years after the dictator General Ne Win staged a coup and began his iron-fisted rule of the county, which included repressing ethnic peoples rights in remote areas like Kayah State. After driving up and down several mountains for an hour-and-a-half on a dirt road, our lunch host pointed out that our car had reached its destination, Rankhu Village, which sits around 4,000 feet above sea level on a peak surrounded by other mountains. Rankhu means rocky; residents said the village was built 300 years ago on the mountain as a refuge from tribal fighting and natural disasters. Our jaws dropped to see the way the houses literally perch atop rocks and large boulders. The entire village was built up among and upon rocks and boulders. There are about 60 households in the village, whose population is just over 300. All are Kayan, but they belong to various sub-tribes. Almost all are Catholic. The children and other villagers seemed to be expecting us, and flocked to the center of the village when our vehicle pulled up. Smiles beamed from every face. It was almost sunset, so our group climbed to the central point of the village, which is elevated above most of the homes. At night, some of the senior villagers, including bishops, mostly middle-aged, came to converse with us. They said many of the other villagers had wanted to come up and talk, but they had told them not to disturb the guests. Much of the conversation was focused on what they can do to develop their village, whose livelihood is based entirely on agriculture, especially rice, chilies and a few other crops. They said they were interested in developing community-based tourism, which they believe has potential as another income stream for the village. They are eager to embark on the kind of development they see occurring in other, better-connected villages. The conversation barely touched on politics. The crowing of roosters woke me up next morning. They seemed to be engaged in a crowing competition. I climbed out of my sleeping bag to find that thin clouds had gathered around central Rankhu and above the roofs of the houses in the village. Before long, our group was amazed to see an invasion of thick clouds into the village. The entire village and the nearby peaks were soon enveloped in a sea of cloud. I felt as if I were being borne aloft in the air by this sea of clouds. The atmosphere brought to mind some lyrics from John Lennons Imagine: Imagine theres no heaven Its easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today (ah ah ah) They were the perfect lyrics for this moment, encapsulating my feeling of floating serenely among a sea of cloud in a space with no heaven above and no hell below. Looking down on the village from this point was so tranquil. The message of Imagine was enhanced by something I had noticed since arriving in the village the previous day: the total lack of any political party officesno flags or offices of the ruling and popular National League for Democracy, no presence of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by ex-generals: nothing. It seemed to set this place apart from any other in the country. That doesnt mean that the villagers are not interested in politics. In the Rankhu Center, there are several photos hanging on the wall, just as you find in other Kayan villages. Among them, the main three are: independence hero Bogyoke Aung San; his daughter and the countrys current de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; and the late Kayan leader U Shwe Aye, in that order. My friend told me that those three photos are seen in most Kayan villages and other official places. In Cebu and Rankhu, I saw no pictures of previous and current military leaders like ex-president U Thein Sein or Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, the current commander-in-chief. On the way back down the mountain, I asked whether there were still poppy farms in these mountains. Our Kayan driver answered, We have far fewer poppy plantations these days. He cracked a local joke while steering the car along the dirt road: We used to say here, We grow mustard seeds, but poppy plants come out! We all laughed at this together. Reflecting on how nice and peaceful this trip was, I felt like the dreamer Lennon refers to in Imagine, thinking about my country and the many problems it still faces, while silently singing to myself: Imagine theres no countries It isnt hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too. Imagine all the people Living life in peace. You may say Im a dreamer But Im not the only one. I hope someday youll join us News Myanmar Failing to Create Conditions Needed for Rohingya Return: UN UN Special Rapporteur to Myanmar Yanghee Lee during a press conference in Yangon in January 2017. / The Irrawaddy DHAKAThe United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, on Friday said Myanmar security forces have been engaged in an intimidation campaign against Rohingya people living in border areas and camps in Bangladesh to ensure they do not return to Myanmar. It is evident that Myanmar is not working to create conditions for return for the Rohingya but is engaging in a sustained campaign of violence, intimidation and harassment, she told a press conference at a hotel in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Friday evening. The press conference marked the conclusion of her 11-day visit to Bangladesh and Thailand. To the contrary, she said, Myanmar security forces have continued to force Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. The UN special envoy said she had found during her visit that Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh will not be able to return to Myanmar in the near future. She encouraged the Bangladeshi government to begin to engage in longer-term planning and prepare the local population for this reality. She also suggested UN member countries consider setting up an ad-hoc court on Myanmar for ensuring accountability for crimes against humanity in Rakhine State. Obtaining such a decision from the UN Security Council is unlikely as permanent members have veto power and they are not all likely to agree. Therefore, she said, UN member countries could also take the step of establishing an ad-hoc court on Myanmar, among several other options. She expressed her annoyance over the deportation of Rohingya people from India and Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh, adding that Delhi and Riyadh must ensure that the Rohingya people can live in safety and dignity within their territories until the refugees can return home. Lee on Thursday visited Bhashan Char, an island in Noakhali District, to check the progress of facilities there. The Bangladesh government has a plan to transfer a portion of the Rohingya refugees to the island. If any plans are made about refugee relocation in the future, refugees must be fully engaged and participate in the process, she said. Without a protection framework agreed with the humanitarian community, the plans cannot move forward. She said third-country resettlement was not a realistic possibility, given the huge number of people involved. In a separate statement issued by the UN in Geneva on the same day, Lee said, Communities are divided based on religion and ethnicity, and members of minorities face marginalization and discrimination. Ethnic nationalities continue to be subject to domination by [Myanmars] central government and the military, despite the official stance that they are working for peace to be brought to the country. Regarding the situation in Rakhine State, Lee said the escalation in fighting between the military and the Arakan Army is very worrisome, especially because the government and military have blocked humanitarian access. The special rapporteur also noted that there was continued fighting in Kayin State, and that new military bases have been built in Kayah State. Dateline The Myanmar Military's Loose Lips: Gaffe or Gambit? The Irrawaddy discusses the military's uncharacteristic disclosure of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's controversial remarks during a top-level closed-door meeting and the ensuing fallout. Kyaw Zwa Moe: Welcome to Dateline Irrawaddy! Recently, spokespeople for the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) said during a press conference that State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi instructed it to crush the Arakan Army (AA). The following day, a spokesperson of the Presidents Office, U Zaw Htay, released a statement in response and said it was privileged information. Well discuss whether the military spokesperson disclosed something he shouldnt have or did so with political or other motives, and what impact the claim will have on relations between the government and the military. U Kyi Myint, a lawyer and chairman of the Union Lawyers and Paralegals Association, and Dr. Min Zaw Oo, executive director of the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, join me to discuss this. Im Kyaw Zwa Moe. Spokespeople for the Tatmadaw at their press conference revealed what was discussed at the top-level meeting between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the president, the military chief and some Union-level ministers. U Zaw Htay said it was privileged information, which is defined as secret information that is barred from being disclosed to the public. Ko Min Zaw Oo, what is your assessment of this? Why did the Tatmadaw spokespeople disclose it? Do you think they have political motives, or other motives? Min Zaw Oo: I wouldnt like to speculate about their intentions. According to procedure, the records of the meetings of state leaders are top secret. Privileged information is a formal term. Normally it is called classified information. Any piece of information that can negatively impact national security if it is exposed is treated as classified information. Once a piece of information is designated as classified information, it cant be told to the public until it is declassified. Some of the issues discussed at the national-level meeting relate to policies. Then there must be discussion about whether or not to make those policies public. If something is to be made public, for example, (spokespeople) can say the Tatmadaw and the government share the same position on internal insurgency. But according to procedure, disclosing exactly who said what at the meeting is not allowed. It is difficult to say why [the military spokespeople] said it. But we can say that it is not in line with the procedures for handling and publishing classified information. KZM: Tatmadaw spokespeople named Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as the one who instructed it to annihilate the AA. It provoked widespread criticism on social media as well as from the Arakanese community, and criticism of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. What is your assessment of this from a legal perspective? Kyi Myint: I was quite taken aback by the statement of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team. I wouldnt have believed it if it were not said by the Tatmadaw True News Information Team. It is in fact a violation of the Official Secrets Act. There is no higher-level meeting than the recent one. If somebody speaks about it the same day as the meeting, it might be because he was instructed (by the leaders) to do so. But if it is said at a different place at a different time, it is a violation of the Official Secrets Act. The term privileged information is used to cover up the violation of the Official Secrets Act. How justifiable is that? Union Parliament Law No. 11, Lower House Law Section 12 and Upper House Law Section 12 grant exemptions, but only for lawmakers and not for other people. Filing a complaint against someone under the Official Secrets Act needs the approval of the president. You cant just file a complaint directly. Penalties vary depending on the degree of the secret a maximum of 14 years and a minimum of two years in prison. Even if a piece of information is leaked, it depends on the opinion of the president and the state counselor. A lawsuit cant be filed if they dont approve it. It is, without doubt, a disclosure of official secrets to have revealed who said what at a top-level meeting. Though U Zaw Htay said it was privileged information, that is not enough justification. Only the state counselor and the president have the authority to decide whether or not to take action. KZM: We dont know what political motives the military has. It seems the Tatmadaw spokespeople made the disclosure under instructions from their bosses. Some doubted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi really said it. Whether she said it or not, Arakanese political parties and the Arakanese community expressed their negative feelings towards Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her government on social media. So how bad was the impact? Didnt the Tatmadaw leaders expect it, or did they just want to show that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is on their side on that issue? MZO: To make a fair assessment, what U Zaw Htay told the media made an impact even before the press conference of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team. And the impact intensified when the Tatmadaw spokesperson named Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in particular. The gulf between the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Arakanese parties widened. The Arakanese communitys view of the government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has become more negative. There is more criticism from the Arakanese community on social media. The Official Secrets Act of Myanmar mainly lists the conditions under which the law can be violated and doesnt clearly define official secrets. And there is no procedure regarding declassification. So there are related problems. KZM: Before the most recent one, there were top-level meetings in the past. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, while she was under house arrest, had meetings with former military chief Senior General Than Shwe, Vice Senior General Maung Aye and General Khin Nyunt during the military regime. And since the 2015 elections, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing have met four, five times including their private meetings. Their last meeting took place in January 2019 and focused on the Rakhine issue. Before this, there were no information leaks. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has never leaked information even though she might have discussed important issues. There were reports that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Than Shwe met two times in the past few years. But no information leaked about their meetings. There are no regulations about what information should and should not be disclosed. They are mainly concerned with the motives behind it. Today, our country is focusing on national reconciliation, mainly between the civilian government, Tatmadaw and ethnic armed groups. So I dont think [the government] will take harsh action for saying so. But what can [the government] do in response in a moderate way? KM: The Official Secrets Act was enacted in 1923 as Act No. 19. Sections 3 and 4 of the law define the conditions deemed to constitute the disclosure of official secrets. And the law classifies actions that are punishable by 14 years [in prison] and punishable by 2 years. [And the Tatmadaw spokespersons disclosure of information] infringes on the Official Secrets Act. But then, the law doesnt necessitate taking action for violations. (The recent meeting) is the highest-level meeting in the country. Everybody knows that such a disclosure negatively affects the image of a peoples leader both inside and outside the country. So I would like to suggest that responsible people should exercise caution with such information in the future. KZM: The Tatmadaw spokespeople quoted Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as saying there would be finger-pointing if the Tatmadaw did not attack the AA, (whose members are from a recognized) ethnic group, but crushed ARSA (Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army), (whose members) practice a different religion. Do you think the Tatmadaw spokespeople need to reveal such details? The disclosure has caused great division between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her government and Arakanese political parties and the Arakanese community. How bad was the impact of the disclosure? MZO: It seems to have caused some friction between the government and the Tatmadaw. And it caused some friction between the NLD and Arakanese political parties and the Arakanese community. What can be done to prevent this? Suppose the top leaders hold a meeting and adopt a policy. The top leaders should discuss whether or not that policy should be made public. If they agree to make it public, they can do so. The nature of a meeting is that a decision reached at the meeting can be made public, but normally the details about who said what and why are not made public. If such things are disclosed, the classified information will no longer be secret. It would be good if everyone could work together to prevent this from happening again. KZM: Some scholars suggest that the disclosure of such information could undermine trust. MZO: In the peace process, there is a need to hold many talks with many ethnic armed groups. They are not lawful groups; they are outlawed. Even in talks with such groups, there are lines that cant be crossed. Both sides know the others misdeeds, which they can use to criticize the other side. But they should not disclose them. Though there is no law [that prohibits the disclosure of information], certain things must be observed according to protocol. KZM: Thank you for your contributions! Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko. To back their point, Illinois Chamber officials brought with them a report published recently by Magnum Economics, which analyzes the effects of business investment and policy changes. The study shows that Illinois is not growing in data center development as fast as it should be, and not as fast as surrounding states. While thousands of Australians celebrated Australia Day by going to the beach and participating in parades, others gathered to protest in what has become known as the Invasion Day Rally. Some of the protesters want the date changed, while others want the day abolished entirely. January 26 marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson, New South Wales, and the raising of the Flag of Great Britain at Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip. It also is a time the country celebrates its 60,000 years of indigenous history. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked to comment about the Invasion Day rally by SBS News. He said: "Today is not a day for crab-walking away from our history as you heard me say today. "I mean, in 1788, January 26 was a pretty miserable day for my ancestors as well, they came not by choice and in some pretty desperate circumstances. "The thing is, Australia is the story of being able to overcome, to be able to see the better nature of Australians and the values we hold together from all races, all peoples, all cultures, all religions, all languages, even. "That's what we actually celebrate today. That we are the great country we are today despite many of the things we've had to face in the past. "You can't walk away from these things. You've got to come together." Waiting for the Australia Day fireworks pic.twitter.com/QlyEwXzjyt David Rudge (@d_rudge1) January 26, 2019 However, according to a poll of 1,000 Australians carried out by the Institute of Public Affairs, 75% were in support of Australia Day on January 26, with 88% saying they were proud to be Australian. 76% of those who took part said that Australia has a history to be proud of, while 92% said freedom of speech is an important Australian value. 77% also said they believe freedom of religion is an important Australian value. Update 11.15pm: At least 200 people are missing after the collapse of a dam which was holding back mining waste in south-eastern Brazil. The death toll has risen to 34 after the disaster inundated a mining complex in the state of Minas Gerais. State governor Romeu Zema warned that anyone found to be responsible for the disaster would be punished. According to reports, the complex, owned and operated by Brazilian company Vale, was issued an expedited licence to expand in December due to decreased risk. Environmental groups in the area say this approval was unlawful. A total of 23 people were taken to hospital after the collapse, according to the Minas Gerais fire department. The mud covers the backyard of a house (AP) Vale workers were eating lunch on Friday afternoon when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several of the companys buildings as well as the surrounding areas. The level of devastation quickly led President Jair Bolsonaro and other officials to describe it as a tragedy. The rivers of mining waste have also raised fears of widespread contamination. This house was completely destroyed by the flow of mining waste (AP) Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what had caused the collapse. He confirmed about 300 employees were working on the site when it happened. After the dam collapsed, parts of the town of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Several helicopters flew over the area on Saturday while firefighters carefully traversed heavily inundated areas looking for survivors. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and a Vale administrative office, where employees were present. A van is seen in half buried in the mud (AP) Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana, also in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds of people from their homes. Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic metres of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Rescue efforts are continuing at the scene with dozens of people still missing (AP) Mr Bolsonaro, who assumed office on January 1, took part in a flyover of the area on Saturday. On Twitter, he said his government would do everything it could to prevent more tragedies like Mariana and now Brumadinho. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underlined a lack of regulation, and many promised to fight any further deregulation by Mr Bolsonaro in Latin Americas largest nation.- Press Association Nine dead and up to 300 people missing after Brazilian dam bursts Update 3pm: Rescuers are searching for survivors in a huge area of south-eastern Brazil buried by mud after the collapse of a dam holding back mining waste. At least nine people are dead and up to 300 more are missing after the disaster in Minas Gerais state. State governor Romeu Zema said: Most likely, from now on we are mostly going to be recovering bodies. Workers with Brazilian mining company Vale were eating lunch on Friday afternoon when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several structures belonging to the company. Dozens of companys employees will act as volunteers helping with reception and identification services. Vale is already providing all the necessary resources (food, water, medicines etc). Vale Global (@valeglobal) January 25, 2019 The level of devastation in the city of Brumadinho and surrounding areas quickly led President Jair Bolsonaro to describe it as a tragedy. Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what caused the collapse, and confirmed that about 300 employees were working in the area when it happened. About 100 have been accounted for, and rescue efforts are under way to determine what had happened to the others. A collapsed bridge near Brumadinho, Brazil (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) After the dam collapsed in the afternoon, parts of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste. Photos showed rooftops poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and a Vale administrative office, where employees were present. A cut-off road near Brumadinho (Leo Drumond/Nitro via AP) Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic metres of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Mr Schvartsman said what happened on Friday was a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less. Flooding triggered by the dam collapse (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) We will take all the possible steps to minimise the suffering of families and victims, Mr Bolsonaro said in a speech, which he posted on Twitter. The president plans to tour the area later. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underlined a lack of regulation. The rivers of mining waste raised fears of widespread contamination. According to Vales website, the mine waste, often called tailings, is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster contained high levels of toxic heavy metals. - Press Association Nine dead and hundreds missing after Brazil dam bursts At least nine people have died and around 200 remain missing after a mining dam collapsed in Brazil. President Jair Bolsonaro described the collapse in the city of Brumadinho as a tragedy. Seven bodies had been recovered by late on Friday, according to the governors office of Minas Gerais state. But it was feared the death toll would grow as rescue and recovery teams dug through feet of mud. Fabio Schvartsman, CEO of mining company Vale, said he did not know what caused the collapse. About 300 employees were working when it happened. About 100 had been accounted for, and rescue efforts were under way to determine what had happened to the others. The principal victims were our own workers, Mr Schvartsman told a news conference, adding that the restaurant where many ate was buried by the mud at lunchtime. After the dam collapsed in the afternoon, parts of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Local television channel TV Record showed a helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the waste. Ive never seen anything like it, said Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, president of Brumadinho residents association. It was horrible the amount of mud that took over. Ms Silva Tomas said she was awaiting news of her cousin, and many she knew were trying to get news of loved ones. Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds from their homes. Mr Schvartsman said what happened on Friday was a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less. The state fire department said about 200 people were missing. The Minas Gerais governors office said 150 were missing. Mr Bolsonaro, who assumed office on January 1, said he lamented the accident and sent three cabinet ministers to the area. We will take all the possible steps to minimise the suffering of families and victims, Mr Bolsonaro said. Mr Bolsonaro planned to tour the area by helicopter on Saturday. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. The latest spill is a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies responsible for the tragedy with Samarco dam, in Mariana, also controlled by Vale, Greenpeace said in a statement. History repeats itself, tweeted Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and three-time presidential candidate. Its unacceptable that government and mining companies havent learned anything. The rivers of mining waste raised fears of widespread contamination. According to Vales website, the mine waste, often called tailings, is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster contained high levels of toxic heavy metals. Vale is Brazils largest mining company. Two hours after the accident, its stock fell 10% on the New York Stock Exchange. Just before midnight Saturday, firefighters put out a list of 187 people who had been rescued throughout the afternoon. Of the 427 workers who were on hand when the dam collapsed, 279 had been accounted for, Vale said in a statement. More than 100 firefighters were on the scene and another 200 were expected to arrive Saturday.- Press Association In Eric Bogles great anti-war song The Band Played Waltzing Matilda his narrator lived the free life of the rover From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback I waltzed my Matilda all over before he was called, like hundreds of Irishmen, to fight at Gallipoli. Neither he or Bogle could have imagined how like the dusty outback Murrays green basin might be a century after WWI because of mans misuse of natures gifts and climate change. Today, Murrays green basin is choked, and dying because of poorly controlled abstraction to irrigate farmland eked out of a hostile environment and unprecedented temperatures. The catastrophe unfolds despite a river-system management plan put in place a decade ago to protect the resource. Maybe its time to recognise that in the face of escalating climate change humanitys options to avert and restore are becoming more and more limited. This week, temperatures in Adelaide hit a record at 46.6C. Seventeen heat records were broken in the region amid animal culls intended to preserve water for farm animals. There have been huge fish kills as deoxygenated, tepid rivers parboil their inhabitants. The fish kill in the Murray-Darling basin has been described as the biggest in world history. As ever industry, farmers, government, and conservationists argue over the precise causes but none has dared suggest that it is anything other than manmade. If Bogle and his narrator could not have imagined a destroyed Murrays green basin they could hardly have imagined that our world faces a threat far greater than anything flowing from either world war but that is now undeniably, almost incomprehensibly the case. New data shows that while Earth was slightly cooler last year than the previous few years, 2018 was the fourth warmest year on record. Berkeley Earth calculate that last years average temperature was 14.96C, 0.77C degrees warmer than the average from 1951 to 1980 and about 1.16 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times. Only 2016, 2017 and 2015 were warmer. Last year, 29 countries, including Ireland and much of Central Europe, and Antarctica had record hot years. Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann warned that the fact that nearly every year recently is in the top five or top 10 hottest years is clear evidence of human-caused warming on this planet. We may imagine that we are a small player in this but, as we like to assert in so many other spheres, we punch above our weight in climate change too. Our failure on emissions reduction is well known but that bad-neighbour behaviour is exacerbated by ESB International in Dutertes Philippines. The company has won a 10-year contract to run a coal-fired power station in Quezon. This seems a mixture of misplaced ambition and hypocrisy as we press the ESB to end coal burning at this countrys largest single polluter Moneypoint. Surely, in 2019, it is time to invoke the not-in-our-name principle and insist that the state-owned enterprise withdraws from that project. Climate destruction is the greatest challenge faced by humanity. It is time our inadequate response reflected that unless we want to join the half-forgotten ghosts heard as they march by the billabong. Who will fact check for you before and after referenda and elections? Who will tell you that 6,000 people need repeat smear tests? Mark Zuckerberg?, writes Joyce Fegan. I WENT to college with a girl whose mother did not believe in couples living together before marriage. Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free? was the nuts and bolts of her mothers argument. Romance aside, its a bit like our rocky relationship with news. Whether you think you have one or not, you do. You might be a purchaser of newspapers, if only on a Sunday. You could have a monthly subscription to a news site. You perhaps only consume online news thats available to you for free, save for the time it took to skim read the sites headlines. Maybe you dont fit into any of these three categories and youre one of those people who say: Oh, I never read the news, its too negative. Chances are though, that a meme about Donald Trump or a video clip from one of his political speeches has appeared in your Facebook or Instagram feed. You too are a consumer of news, albeit an accidental one. This week, Independent News and Media (INM), one of Irelands largest media companies, announced plans to cut 31 jobs, for various reasons. In the same week, Facebook announced 1,000 new jobs in its Dublin operation. Why should you care about any of this? On Friday, June 24, 2016, we all woke up to the news that Britain had voted to exit the EU, an institution founded on the principle of co-operation after a brutal war triggered by propaganda and fuelled by the promulgation of hatred. On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, we all woke up to the news that six-time bankruptee and reality TV star Donald Trump had been elected as the 45th President of the United States of America. Social media was proven to play a role in both. A data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, worked with Trumps election team. In 2014, it harvested more than 50m Facebook profiles of US voters, using the gathered information to create a powerful software programme to predict and influence choices at the ballot box. It was one of Facebooks biggest ever data breaches. In Britain, Twitter had been employed early on by the Leave campaign, where it built momentum and set the tone of the debate across all major social networking platforms, says Vyacheslav Polonski, a network scientist at the University of Oxford. He was involved in a large-scale social media analysis, which found that there were twice as many Brexit supporters on Instagram compared with Remainers, and on Twitter, Brexit supporters outnumbered the Remain campaigners by seven to one. Social media is a powerful tool, no doubt. But the thing about social media is that you create the content for free, with your holiday snaps and your #10yearchallenge selfies. Not only do you create the content, but you also consume it, willingly scrolling its feed on your commute to and from work, and generally in any unaccounted-for-time you meet in your day. The other thing is, social media firms get paid, not you. They are making money off of your content and your attention. To get technical for a moment, it is an unregulated beast. Yes, platforms do their best to keep it safe from terrorists and hate groups, prowling pedophiles and Russian troll farms, but it is newspapers that get sued. Newspapers or news sites, do not rely on you to research and report, write and edit their content, they pay journalists and editors to do that. However, newspaper publishers live with daily threats of defamation and libel cases. Legal cases which, if they are successful, come with hefty fines. Newspapers and reporters also operate according to a code of ethics, where balance is sought so as to avoid bias, and ultimately propaganda. Journalists are sent out to stories to report on what they see. We call this #IRL in real life so that the first draft of history can be written with firsthand information. This kind of content creation costs time and money. But to pay these salaries, you need an income. This income used to come from ads and newspaper sales. Between 1970 and 2016, the year the American Society of News Editors stopped counting, 500 daily papers went out of business in the US, The New Yorker reported this week. With sales declining, newspapers went online, cut costs and hoped that digital ads would help them survive. This, unfortunately, wasnt the case. Facebook and Google gobbled up the digital ad market, now taking up about 80% between them. And again, why does any of this matter to you? Who told you about the CervicalCheck scandal? Did Facebook pay its staff to research the issue, ask those in power important questions and then distill their findings down into bitesize infographics for your feed? During last years snow and throughout Storm Ophelia, who kept you abreast of road closures, weather warnings and what hospitals were and werent open? Did Instagram send their employees to work with cameras in order to create stories that would keep you safe? Before the referendum on the Eighth Amendment, as foreign ads with misinformation were appearing on Irish Facebook feeds, who reported on bogus claims and exposed fake nurses? Sometimes, when youre used to getting milk for free, you place no value on the cow. The public is now used to getting its news for free be that through social media feeds or on news sites that dont come with a paywall. But what happens when this free flow of information dries up, when news organisations can no longer afford to pay its staff? Who will fact check for you before and after referenda and elections? Who will tell you that 6,000 people need repeat smear tests? Mark Zuckerberg? The news that Facebook has another 1,000 jobs in the offing and that INM is cutting another 31, is a damning sign of the times, one we can no longer afford to ignore. Ignorance paves the way for propaganda, which ushers in authoritarianism without accountability. Information, thats sifted through and verified, is the antidote. But how do we pay for this? Canadians are to get a tax credit towards any online news subscriptions they may have. The Canadian governments editorial hands-off approach to news, encourages their citizens to pay for content, therefore supporting jobs that support democracy. Its not rocket science. Its a simple solution to a potentially catastrophic problem. Last weekends car bomb outside Derrys courthouse raises questions about dissident republicanism and the threat it still poses, writes David Young. THE seven teenagers who walked by the hijacked car parked outside Derrys courthouse minutes before it blew up were from both sides of the Norths divided community. They were friends enjoying an evening out in a city transformed since the Troubles, unwittingly close to losing their lives at the hands of extremists still wedded to the past. Soon after they passed, the pizza delivery vehicle exploded, engulfing the pavement in a ball of flames. It was only by good grace that local people werent killed, said PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton as he laid the blame squarely on the New IRA. This was a callous act against the people of Derry. The dramatic CCTV footage of Saturday nights car bomb has served as stark reminder of a time the people of the North hoped had been left long behind. It has also raised uncomfortable questions about dissident republicanism and the threat it still poses, 21 years on from the Good Friday Agreement. A cloud of uncertainty has hung over the Maiden City all week, with residents wondering if it was an isolated act of defiance to mark a date in history or a sinister portent of a more worrying future. Concerns merely intensified on Monday with the sight of masked men hijacking vehicles in broad daylight as three bomb alerts, all subsequently declared hoaxes, caused widespread disruption. PSNI officers with a sniffer dog at the scene of a hijacked van in Creggan. Picture: North West Newspix The New IRA is a title its members dislike. They instead style themselves simply the IRA, laying claim as the true inheritors of those who fought British rule in the War of Independence. One hundred years on from the inaugural Dail sitting in the Mansion House and the wars first shots at Soloheadbeg in Co Tipperary, the dissidents appeared to be sending a blunt message that their war is still not over. The New IRA is the biggest dissident republican organisation on the island, having formed seven years ago from the remnants of the Real IRA the group behind the 1998 Omagh bomb and several other disparate anti-peace process factions. There is also the Continuity IRA, whose origins date back to a 1986 split with the Provisional IRA, and Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH), which declared a ceasefire in January last year. An ONH splinter group opposed to the decision to pursue peaceful means subsequently announced it would continue its armed conflict as the Irish Republican Movement. Another dissident grouping that has recently emerged is Arm na Poblacht. Collectively the number of active dissidents is thought to be in the low hundreds. They comprise both hard-line veteran republicans who left the Provisionals behind when they renounced violence and younger recruits with no memory of the bloody sectarian strife of the Troubles. Members are drawn from both north and south. They come nowhere close to the size or capability of the PIRA, nor do they attract anything like the community support the Provos enjoyed during the 30-year conflict. But they remain extremely dangerous nonetheless, particularly in the areas where they are strongest: Derry, north and west Belfast, Strabane in Co Tyrone, Lurgan in Co Armagh, and pockets of Tyrone. While they have proved themselves incapable of mounting a sustained campaign of violence, they continue to demonstrate the ability to launch sporadic and sometimes deadly attacks. In the last 10 years, dissidents have murdered two soldiers, two police men, and two prison officers. British army sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar were gunned down by the Real IRA as they collected a pizza delivery outside Massareene army barracks in Co Antrim in March 2009. Two days later PSNI constable Stephen Carroll was shot dead by the Continuity IRA in Craigavon, Co Armagh. In April 2011, freshly qualified PSNI officer Ronan Kerr was killed by an undercar booby trap bomb outside his home in Omagh, Co Tyrone. In November the following year, prison officer David Black was shot dead as he drove to work along the M1 motorway in Co Armagh. In March 2016, fellow prison officer Adrian Ismay died from injuries sustained in a car bomb attack in east Belfast. The latter three murders have been linked either to the New IRA or individuals now thought to occupy its ranks. The group has also been responsible for several other serious terrorist incidents, including the shooting and wounding of a policeman on a busy petrol station forecourt in north Belfast in January 2017. But, prior to last Saturday, there had been evidence the New IRA, and the other dissident groupings, were becoming less active. There was only one recorded national security attack in the North last year, compared with five in 2017, four in 2016, and 16 in 2015. There were 17 bombing incidents in 2018, compared to 29 the year before. Army bomb disposal experts still attend regular call outs across the region, but their workload has dropped and, as Monday demonstrated, many alerts transpire to be elaborate hoaxes. In a bizarre incident last summer an infuriated motorist in Belfast got out of his car, picked up the suspect device blocking his path a gas canister with some wires taped to the side brought it home, and turned it into a wood burning stove, posting the whole episode on social media. His actions, ill-advised as they were, were an extreme example of a growing sense of apathy among us toward security alerts, with commonplace scares increasingly met by community frustration rather than fear. Shootings linked to the security situation have decreased too 39 last year compared to 58 in 2017. The longer-term trends also indicate a steady fall in paramilitary use of the bullet and bomb. In 2010 there were 79 shootings and in 2011 there were 99 bombing incidents. Last year 17 people were shot in paramilitary-style vigilante attacks in Northern Ireland, compared to 28 in the previous 12 months. Though these statistics all point to a gradual deterioration of dissident capacity and intent, they do not tell the full story. What is not captured by the figures is the increasingly successful efforts of the PSNI, MI5, and An Garda Siochana in thwarting many other acts of violence. Recent cases north of the border have revealed the extent of sophisticated surveillance techniques being deployed, suggesting many of the main players are on constant watch. Fears of infiltration have also sparked internal rows among the disparate groups, leading to further splits and undoubtedly instilling a hesitancy among some wavering recruits to get involved. SINCE 2011, the British government has given the PSNI around 400m additional ring-fenced funding to resource counter-terrorism work. The operational deployment of the National Crime Agency, the UKs equivalent of the FBI, has also bolstered efforts to clamp down on organised crime rackets run by paramilitaries. Gardai have achieved significant success south of the border as well, with intelligence-led operations resulting in significant seizures and interceptions. Police in the North rate the working relationship with the Garda as the best it has ever been. So, while the official figures record fewer violent incidents, there is little doubt the numbers would be significantly higher but for the relentless work of the authorities. Police commanders are certainly not complacent enough to think the dissidents have had their day. Vigilance is key and, as Saturday showed, they only need to slip through the net once to make a potentially devastating impact. The threat level in the North remains classified as severe, meaning further attacks are highly likely. And that ever-present menace of violence is corrosive. It has been cited as a main factor holding back efforts to address the religious imbalance within the PSNI. Catholics are not applying in the same numbers as Protestants due to fear of reprisals for them or their families. Dissidents have actively targeted Catholic officers in the past Constable Kerrs murder being a stark example to create a chill factor and stymie PSNI efforts to build trust in once hostile nationalist communities. One Catholic from Derry who did join the ranks of the PSNI recently told the BBC he had been forced to cut all ties with his family as a result. Once you join up as someone from Derry it is very hard to socialise with your family, or come back into the city, he said. Such instances prove the dissidents do not need to be large in number to exert a pernicious influence. Commanders in Derry have been on high alert for several weeks now, concerned at an apparent step-change in dissident activity and reports of intensified recruiting efforts. Intelligence has painted a similar picture in Belfast. It is against that backdrop that detectives are investigating the courthouse bombing and trying to establish what might come next. Britains Northern secretary Karen Bradley was at pains this week to reject any notion the violence was linked to Brexit. The attack on Saturday night is the result of a threat level that has been in place since before the Brexit vote, she told MPs in the House of Commons. Those people have been working and trying to carry out these plots and activities for many years. Derry, while close to the border, has been the focus of dissident activity for years and, if this weeks activities were meant to send a message about Brexit, that was not apparent from the target. Bishop St courthouse, a heavily fortified symbol of British rule adjacent to the nationalist Bogside, has been attacked by republicans in the past, but it is hardly redolent of the Brexit impasse. The incident was more likely timed to coincide with the centenary of the Soloheadbeg ambush and the first Dail. Minutes after the bombing on Saturday, republican socialist party Saoradh was quick to reference events in Co Tipperary 100 years previously in a tweet that also used the hashtag #Dail100. While Saoradh denies any link with the New IRA, a claim the police dispute, it certainly would be in tune with its thinking. Even if Brexit was incidental to the latest events in Derry, there remains concern among senior officers on both sides of the border that the thorny issue could spark a further upsurge in dissident activity in the months ahead. Not that dissident republicans are any defenders of the European Union quite the opposite, ideologically they view the institution as a capitalist super-state intent on usurping Irish sovereignty. Instead there are fears they may attempt to exploit the renewed political focus on the border, at home and internationally, for their own ends. To the extremists, the return of any physical border infrastructure would be manifestation of the inequities of partition. The Police Federation for Northern Ireland, the body that represents the rank and file of the PSNI, has warned that checkpoints would be seen by the dissidents as propaganda gifts and sitting ducks for attack. MORE than a century on from the First World War and physical force republicans are hoping Englands difficulty could again bring their opportunity. But the dissident battle is as much for the heart of republicanism as it is with the British state. In republican communities in Belfast and Derry they are a thorn in Sinn Feins side, trying to undermine and challenge the partys long-held pre-eminence. Sinn Fein offices have been attacked on several occasions in recent months and, last July, crude industrial fireworks were thrown at the Belfast homes of Gerry Adams and veteran republican Bobby Storey. Sinn Fein was quick to blame dissident elements, with Mary Lou McDonald branding them enemies of the people. In Derry, the death of Martin McGuinness, a totemic figure within republican circles, has left the party shorn of one of its most powerful community influencers, a persuasive voice in countering the dissident narrative. At the ballot box, dissidents have failed to make any sort of a dent in the Sinn Fein vote, a pattern that is unlikely to change. But they are a problem for the party nonetheless, especially when it comes to wielding influence on vulnerable young people. In Derry last summer, rioting fomented by dissidents saw youths embroiled in disorder in the Bogside for six successive nights. At the height of the unrest, dissidents used the disturbances to launch murder bids on police, shooting an automatic weapon and throwing explosives at officers stationed on the historic city walls. Similar tactics have been used in Lurgan in recent years, with rioting whipped up to lure police toward danger. There are concerns that ability to orchestrate street violence may factor amid the turbulence a chaotic Brexit might bring. In that context the political vacuum at Stormont is not helpful. Politically, dissidents view the collapse of powersharing as proof the Good Friday Agreement is a busted flush and Sinn Feins historic decision to sign up to a partitionist deal was not only a grand betrayal, but also a grand folly. Practically, there have also been consequences of not having a functioning government for two years. An ambitious Stormont strategy to tackle the root causes of paramilitarism has stalled, while a law that would give police more power to seize the ill-gotten gains of suspected terror bosses remains unenacted. Inaction on wider socio-economic issues must also be considered. Hardliners thrive in areas of deprivation and underinvestment, places where the dividend of peace is sometimes difficult to identify, and the current political impasse is limiting statutory efforts to tackle those problems. The scourge of paramilitarism continues to hold back many working-class communities across the North. Republican and loyalist gunmen alike rake in millions every year through racketeering and while so-called punishment shootings and assaults are decreasing, they still happen all too often. Aside from politically motivated killings, dissidents and loyalists have been responsible for multiple murders within their own communities in recent years, crimes not widely reported outside of the North as they are not seen as significant challenges to national security. The head of peace-building charity Co-operation Ireland provoked debate last year when he called on people to stop using the word paramilitary. For Peter Sheridan, a former police commander in Derry, it bestows a measure of legitimacy on groups he suggests are now simply crime gangs that pay only lip service to political ideals. It is about turf wars, it is about internal feuding, it is about ordinary criminality; it is nothing to do with the conflict that they are involved in, he said. Yet we continue to separate out these two things as if they are somehow different. We need to re-brand Northern Ireland, we are the only community that I know of that talks about paramilitary organised crime as if they are somehow separate. Post-1998 and the Good Friday Agreement, thereafter people are, in my view, in organised crime gangs. New IRA or IRA, paramilitary or criminal whatever you call them, the events in Derry suggest the dissidents are not intending to leave the stage anytime soon. When Neptune U20s play in this weekends National Cup semi-final theyll be without a couple of players who should be there, and theyll have a couple of players who may not be there much longer. Adam Drummond and Sean Jenkins would be part of the squad but theyre in the States aleady on college scholarships, says Neptune chairman Paul Barrett. Theyre there a year and two years, respectively, while Cian Heaphy and Darragh OSullivan should be gone next summer - all going well, I dont want to jinx them ahead of time. Barrett acknowledges that from the outside it looks like Neptunes crop of young stars is being readied for export, but he points out that their sojourn in the States should be an interruption, with the players returning to the Cork club in due course. Our philosophy for the last few years was to develop players and then to give them their chance. Wed have by far the youngest first five of any Superleague team three of our starting five are 18, 19-years-old. The long-term objective would be to have them all back home in time playing for Neptune and dominating, but in order for them to do that they need to go away. Theyll develop over there and come back as Neptune players - its an interruption rather than a finish to the project. The guys underneath them understand that that means theyll get their chance too. We have a conveyor belt of quality players that we can look down the line at, and thats the model we have. If youre good enough youre old enough, and if you work hard with us well stand by you. We dont go outside the club for outside players, we dont have to - we sink or swim by Neptune players and it seems to be working out. And a few years training at a near-professional level in the States means a future crop of mature, experienced players returning to bolster the Superleague side. We could never replicate the kind of practice and training theyll get in the States. Theyre going to colleges which are very well funded, the practice schedule begins at 7am, long before school starts - thats not something in a club setting in Ireland that would be a runner. Theyll develop physically as well while theyre there, all of that, so its a very good life experience for them all round - an opportunity to get an education, to develop as players, all of that. When they come back theyre bigger, stronger, faster, better players. As Barrett explains it, the cycle becomes a self-perpetuating one, with the youngsters in Neptune having an obvious career path to follow thanks to the example of those U20s if theyre so minded. Obviously basketball is a huge beast in the context of American sport, and the number of fellas who make it to the very top, as a percentage, would shock you. In that sense, though, our lads would hold their own and have very good college careers, theyll probably come back afterwards. We see it as a plus, as a validation of what were trying to do as a club. And obviously it becomes something for the younger kids in the club to aim for as well when their time comes. We have players whod be more than capable of going to the States, but theyve chosen not to. Pep Guardiola insists Manchester City will not overpay in terms of wages to recruit their top targets. City this week lost out to Barcelona in the chase for Ajaxs highly-rated midfielder Frenkie De Jong. The Holland midfielder is to move to the Nou Camp in a 65m deal in the summer, with the player reportedly set to earn around 300,000 per week. In this case Guardiola accepts the lure of Barca is a strong one, but it is understood the salary was also beyond what City were prepared to pay. City boss Guardiola said: I think we try to keep the harmony in the locker room with the wages. When you have no balance with that then there is always a problem with the mood in the locker room. One of the good things that City have done is keeping that balance. Transfer fees and wages are continually rising but, despite Citys modern reputation for lavish investment, they have shown they are not prepared to overspend if they believe deals do not represent good value. Alexis Sanchez, Dani Alves and Jorginho are among the players to have been pursued by City in the recent past, only for other clubs to move in. Guardiola believes extra emphasis will have to be placed on spotting talent early. He said: The reality is that its not just one or two teams paying a lot on wages. There are many. Many, many. Before, the rumours were that it was just PSG and Manchester City. That is over. Everybody can pay a lot in fees and wages. There are many and sometimes we cant compete with that. We have to be quicker, faster and dont get nervous. At the end we want players who want to come here. De Jong is the latest midfield target to have got beyond City as they seek a natural replacement for Fernandinho following frustration over Fred and Jorginho. But Guardiola said: I said many times, with Barcelona and Madrid its impossible to fight against them for the prestige, the incredible league, the incredible clubs they are. The players have to take their own decisions. When they dont want to come its because they want another place. There are other options and we are going to try if we believe we need players in that position. Guardiola dismissed as fantasy the prospect of City winning the quadruple. Guardiola said: We are able to try to win against Burnley thats all I can assure you. The other is fantasy. Burnleys trip to City is the first of three games in eight days for the Clarets. They travel to Manchester United on Tuesday and host Southampton next weekend. A recent upturn in form has seen them move three points clear of the relegation zone, but Sean Dyche would still like to strengthen his squad for the final stretch of the campaign. Youve got to push the levels all the time, he said. Theres only so much pressure as a manager you can put on players. Theres a different kind of healthy pressure which comes with new signings, with capable signings, because I was a player and you look around and think: Ive got to look after myself. That can enhance performances. Ahead of National Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow, we talk to three of the four remaining survivors left in Ireland. Their stories have never been more important, writes Ailin Quinlan. Tomi Reichental was just nine years old when he was captured by the Nazis in November 1944 along with his mother, brother, grandmother, aunt, and cousin. Tomi Reichental a Holocaust survivor at his home in Dublin. Herded into a cattle car, they spent seven nights living in unbearable conditions with neither privacy nor hygiene. When the doors were eventually flung open, the terrified family was greeted by barking dogs and bullying shouts from armed SS men. Tomi and his family had arrived at the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where he was to stay until the liberation of the camp in April 1945. What I witnessed as a nine-year-old boy is impossible to describe, recalls Tomi, now 83: The starvation, the cruelty of the camp guards, the cold and disease People, who were just skin and bone and looked like living skeletons, were walking around very slowly, some of them dropping to the ground, never to get up again. They were dying in their hundreds, their emaciated bodies left where they fell or thrown into heaps. In front of our barracks there were piles of decomposing corpses. For many prisoners in Bergen-Belsen, the conditions were too much to bear and they threw themselves on the barbed wire at night to be shot in order to put an end to their misery We found their corpses there in the mornings. In all, 70,000 prisoners of Bergen-Belsen are buried there in mass graves. I lost 35 members of my family in the Holocaust. In Eastern Poland another boy around the same age as Tomi had been, escaped into the forest when his village, Bilgoraj - one of thousands to come under Nazi occupation in 1942 - was burned to the ground in November of that year. Jan Kaminskis mother, father and three siblings were deported to the Belzec death camp located 70 kilometres away. Its believed that up to 500,000 Jews were murdered by the SS at Belzec which makes it the third deadliest extermination camp, exceeded only by Treblinka and Auschwitz. However, despite the enormous number of people murdered at Belzec, the camp is not as well-known as either Auschwitz or Treblinka, because of the lack of viable witnesses to testify about the operations there. Jan, whose real name was actually Chaim Srul Zybner (he changed it in order to stay alive) somehow survived, foraging, working as a shepherd, and carrying out farm work and narrowly escaping death time and time again. On one occasion, the young boy, who later became a runner and mascot for the Russian armys Polish Corps, was captured and placed at the end of a line of 20 people who were to be shot. Note: The following video contains graphic footage that could shock, offend and upset. When it was Jans turn to face the rifle, he stood with tears running down his face and his hands in his pockets. Inexplicably, the soldier turned away. On another occasion the boy was captured and placed aboard a transport of Jews believed to be destined for one of the concentration camps - only to be taken off the train at a border crossing by a soldier in search of a suitable boy to carry out farm-work. After coming under the protection of the Red Cross, Jan was sent to Scotland and later worked as a bus-boy at the famous Dorchester Hotel in London. In later years, he visited Ireland, won a scholarship to Trinity College, where he studied economics and philosophy and afterwards set up the well-known Concord Travel Agency: His daughter Jadzia Kaminska says that for 30 years Jan, now aged 86, searched for surviving family members, but to date no trace of immediate family members has been found. Now 76 and a mother of two adult children, Suzi Diamond still remembers the knock on the door which presaged her familys deportation to Ravensbruck camp and later, Bergen-Belsen. She was only two and a half at the time. Her mother died shortly after the liberation of the camp. Her father had died in 1943 in the Soviet Union after being forcibly conscripted into the slave labour corps of the Hungarian Army. For decades, Suzi and her brother Terry believed they had no living relatives. Then three years ago, a cousin who is still living in the familys home village in in Karcag in Hungary, made contact. Alas Terry, who had passed away in 2007 was never to know that relatives still existed - family members who tried to trace the young brother and sister following the war succeeded in tracing them to Sweden, where had they lived for a year after liberation. However, the siblings were brought to Ireland by Irish doctor, Dr Bob Collis, who worked for the International Red Cross and became known as the Irish Schindler for his work with the children of Bergen-Belsen. However the fact that Terrys name was actually George on his birth certificate is believed to have significantly confused matters. In 1941 the Soviets arrested Walter Sekules family as enemy aliens and deported them to Siberia. Walters family endured harsh conditions but somehow survived the war - and three Soviet camps during more than six years in exile. Suzi Diamond in the arms of Dr Bob Collis and other child refugees on the day she arrived in Ireland. Tomorrow, on Sunday January 27th, the stories of these people, their families, the six million Jewish people and millions of others who were persecuted and murdered, will be recalled during a special gathering of Irish Holocaust survivors and their families at Dublins Mansion House. Speaking at the event alongside President Michael D Higgins and Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan, TD. are three Holocaust survivors; Tomi Reichental, Suzi Diamond and Walter Sekules. Jadzia Kaminska will represent her father Jan Kaminski at the solemn, dignified ceremony, which includes readings, survivors recollections, candle-lighting, music and the Scroll of Names read by young people. It will be attended by people from all walks of Irish life. Jan Kaminski on a visit to his hometown Bilgoraj in July 2017 Three years ago I started to compare the tragedy that happened to the Jews in the nineteen thirties when they wanted to escape to Europe and nobody wanted them, with the tragedy of the refugees of today who are escaping persecution, rape and murder - and people dont want them, recalls Tomi. People asked me how could I compare the Holocaust to what is happening today? I say when you are looking at pictures of refugees in 1939 and in the 1940s, you see the queues of Jews walking with their little bags; you can see struggle in the picture.Now we see the refugees walking and trying to find sanctuary after long journeys. When you look at the pictures they look the same These people are suffering. Today we hear this comparison quite often but when I said this, I was criticized because people thought they were two different things. It seems to me that the two groups of people were the same. Now many people are comparing it to the experience of the Jews in the 1930s. Today, right-wing politics is on the rise. Anti-Semitism is on the rise, racism is one the rise; you have anti-semitic and racist slogans appearing in demonstrations abroad. The Mansion House commemoration is very important, he says, because of what it stands for: As far as I am concerned from my point of view, history is beginning to repeat itself. The Holocaust started with a whisper, and then abuse and finally murder. Its very important to remember that, she says: "When I am speaking to young people I warn them that they should not be bystanders if they see someone being bullied at school for example because of their skin is a different colour - they should report it. They should stand up to these people because if we dont stand up, this type of thing just grows in strength and ends up in tragedy. The commemoration is very important - it reminds people about what happened and about the importance of making sure something similar does not happen again. Explains Eibhlin Byrne, Chairperson of Holocaust Education Trust Ireland, which is hosting the event in association with the Department of Justice and Equality, The Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration and Dublin City Council: In 1930s Europe, fear and uncertainty nurtured extremes, unleashing a cataclysmic disaster on the world. The Holocaust did not emerge from nowhere. It was the result of fear and uncertainty. It was the result of seeds sown over many years. Seeds of hatred, mistrust, of antisemitism. Ultimately, the seeds of evil. Those who perpetrated the Holocaust were, like their victims, men and women, sons and daughters, cherished family members. And yet, given fertile ground for hatred, they became killers and the world became a dark and dangerous place. At times of great uncertainty, there is always a danger that extremists will triumph. It can emerge amongst any nations at any stage. Our vigilance and resolve to fight hatred and fear whenever it emerges will ensure that the Holocaust cannot, will not, and must not be repeated. Kane County Assistant States Attorneys Lori Schmidt and Andrew Leuchtmann presented evidence during the trial that between December 2005 and December 2008 Buhay sexually assaulted the victim, whom Buhay knew, according to the release. The abuse started when the victim was younger than 13 years old. A few million years, is how long it would take to see the same combination of images in his work 77 Million Paintings, Brian Eno once said. The couches provided in the large upper gallery at the RHA, where the work has been installed, are comfortable enough for a durational experience, though perhaps not that durational. 77 Million Paintings was first seen in Tokyo in 2006 and has traveled much since then, including to Venice, St Petersburg and Beijing. In 2009, it was projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been inundated with letters from furious nurses and hospital staff and their families over his call for holiday leave to be postponed. Correspondence sent to Mr Varadkar, obtained by the Irish Examiner , shows the outrage expressed by health staff who say the Taoiseachs remarks hit out at frontline staff and demoralised a struggling nurse workforce. It was suggested to Mr Varadkar that nurses, who are set to strike next week over pay and conditions, should get better allowances, free meals, and parking. The Taoiseach told the Dail before Christmas that doctors and nurses should not take holidays over the festive period, arguing that the health services winter plan had not worked for years because hospitals essentially went into shutdown mode over the festive period and into early January. One nurse wrote to him saying she was disgusted and furious over the comments. Nurses did not take extended leave over the Christmas period, she added, saying that his comments were stupid. Maybe look at yourselves first with the stupid amount of holidays you get, your salaries and pensions, said the letter, signed a very annoyed, hardworking nurse. In another letter, a senior nurse said staff had worked through Storm Emma and slept rough in a hospital after being snowed in. There was no annual leave for nurses over Christmas and all beds remain open, said the nurse. Your comments published as you dine out in Helsinki are much appreciated! Perhaps youll come visit the hospitals over your break, Mr Varadkar was told. The Taoiseach did, in fact, visit a hospital department over Christmas. One intern in a hospital told Mr Varadkar by email that his holiday remarks were ludicrous. We undoubtedly will be working full whack over the Christmas period, unlike members of the Dail, the intern said in correspondence obtained under Freedom of Information. Telling people they cannot take annual leave around the Christmas period is not just disrespectful, it is downright illegal. I thought you would have more sympathy for the real people running the health service, given your medical background. We are not the problem. A poor health service governed by the joke that is the HSE is [the problem]. Some of the emails warned Mr Varadkar and the Government that comments about staff taking time off were adding to the reasons for nurses choosing not to stay in Ireland but to instead work abroad. One annoyed hospital laboratory worker complained that Christmas family arrangements took second place when it came to being on duty. The disappointed technician wrote: The laboratories work 24-hour on-site cover seven days a week, 365 days a year. My husband has stalled the arrival of Santa when I worked Christmas Eve. A family member with two relatives working in Dublin hospitals expressed disgust at the remarks about holidays and a suggestion doctors or nurses on leave were to blame for closed beds. I think Leo is blaming a very hard working staff for the Governments mess over the years. I have supported Leo but take a very dim view of his take on the situation. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says a no-deal Brexit would lead to a period of chaos which would need his Government, the EU, and Britain to figure out a solution. He was speaking as the Central Bank warned that a disorderly Brexit scenario could lead to around 4% lower output in the first year. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Varadkar said a disorderly exit would cause a major dilemma which would need to be addressed to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the North. If we found ourselves in a few weeks time in a no-deal scenario, we would face a major dilemma, he said. Ireland has obligations to protect the single market its our market, our jobs, our standards. Both the UK and Ireland would have a responsibility to honour the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process. So, I think wed end up in a situation where the EU, Ireland, and the UK would have to come together in order to honour our commitments to the people of Ireland that thered be no hard border and agree on full alignment on customs and regulations. Mr Varadkar said a period of chaos would result and the EU and Britain would most likely end up with a similar withdrawal agreement that is currently on the table but has been rejected by the British parliament. This is the best deal on offer for Britain and Ireland, he said. He reiterated that the Government can not accept a UK withdrawal deal that doesnt give us a legal binding working guarantee on a Northern Ireland backstop. But well keep working on this over the next couple of weeks and at the same time prepare for a no-deal scenario, should that arise. Mr Varadkar refused to be drawn on what Ireland would do if the European Commission told the Government to install a physical border in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Mr Varadkar refused to be drawn on questions surrounding his briefing of Opposition leaders on Tuesday night, where the Taoiseach mentioned the prospects of border checks in Calais, France, and in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that could affect Irish trade in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Sources have said that the comments were made in passing and did not refer to a concrete plan being proposed by the European Commission. Commenting on the likely impact of a no-deal Brexit, Mark Cassidy, the Central Banks director of economics and statistics, said: A disorderly no-deal Brexit has the potential to significantly alter the path of the Irish economy in both the short and medium term, with a substantial and permanent loss of output. Update: Peter Kavanagh has been found safe and well. Earlier: Gardai are appealing for help to find a 62-year-old man who has gone missing from his home in Dublin today. Peter Kavanagh from Royal Canal Park, Dublin 15, was last seen when he left his home shortly after 3pm today. He was reported missing by his family who are concerned for his wellbeing. He is described as five foot five inches tall with a slight build and brown hair. When last seen he was wearing a dark grey jacket, light grey tracksuit pants and black runners. He may be carrying a large blue shopping bag. Anyone with information is asked to contact Cabra Garda Station 01 6667400 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111. The Taoiseach has come under fire for inflaming tensions with reckless and irresponsible warnings of a return to soldiers and checkpoints along the border if there is a no-deal Brexit. Opposition parties have rounded on Leo Varadkar after he painted a graphic picture of a return to the border of the Troubles with physical infrastructure, cameras, and an army presence which he said could become a terrorist target. In a significant change of tone and messaging, Mr Varadkar said: If things go very wrong it will look like it looked 20 years ago. It would involve customs posts, it would involve people in uniform and it may involve the need, for example, for cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly a police presence, or an army presence to back it up. The problem with that, in the context of Irish politics and history, is those things become targets and we have already had a certain degree of violence in the last few weeks, he told Bloomberg TV in Davos. His comments were described as unhelpful rhetoric by the DUP, which remains vehemently opposed to the backstop option. The remarks came ahead of another critical Brexit vote in Westminster next Tuesday, after the House of Commons rejected the withdrawal agreement. Mr Varadkar stressed that Ireland and the EU are not going to give up a mechanism that we know will work, that is legally binding and said ultimately its the people who caused all of this and started this who have to come up with solutions. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin told the Irish Examiner that Mr Varadkar had heightened tensions and his comments would raise significant concern, especially among people living in border areas who lived through the Troubles. Mr Martin said the Taoiseachs comments represented a marked change in language but said that Government had been putting out different messages every day in the last few weeks. He is heightening tensions when he references soldiers along the border, said Mr Martin. I personally think he should cool it. The Cork South-Central TD pointed to the fact that the Taoiseachs comments seemed to directly contradict the head of Revenue Niall Cody, who told the Finance Committee this week that there were no plans to install any physical infrastructure. Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said the comments were reckless and irresponsible and totally contrary to previous assertions regarding the Governments commitment to the backstop. She said Mr Varadkar had painted a doomsday scenario of the return of soldiers to the border in the event of a no deal Brexit. If that is the case then the only way to prevent such a scenario is by affording the Irish people their say in the form of a border poll on Irish unity, said Ms McDonald. Despite Mr Varadkars detailed description of the return to troops and checkpoints, the Government yesterday remained adamant that no planning is under way for a border with the North and all contingencies are based around the east-west links at ports and airports. While a Government spokesman stuck hard to the line that they are not contemplating a hard border, it is understood that at a private briefing this week, Opposition leaders were told there have been general discussions around border checks with the EU. Labour leader Brendan Howlin said the Taoiseach has questions to answer on his remarks in Davos. For a Government who apparently are not contemplating a hard border, the Taoiseach seemed to be able to conjure a vivid description of just what a hard border might entail, said Mr Howlin. These kind of hardline gestures will infuriate those in the UK who already see Irelands concerns as the main barrier to a UK deal with the EU. Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson said the remarks would wind things up. A man who had been questioned about an alleged sexual assault at a Dublin hospital on St Stephen's Day has been released without charge. The man who is in his late 40s was detained on Thursday as part of an investigation into reports of an assault on a woman on the December 26. The National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) has refused to release a report it commissioned when the cost of building the new childrens hospital shot up and external experts were asked to assess if they were overdesigning. UK-based consulting engineers DSSR were called in when it became apparent in 2018 that the extent of mechanical and electrical services the new hospital would require had been severely underestimated. Ultimately, finalisation of the detail around mechanical and electrical services added 94m to the project. The preliminary design had looked at 120 typical rooms, which then had to be scaled up to detailed design for 6,150 rooms, leading to a major increase in the quantity of materials required. Laboratory and kitchen design completed after tender also contributed to the 94m increase.The overall cost of the project currently stands at 1.7bn. Chair of the board Tom Costello told the Joint Oireachtas Health Committee last week: When we learned of the increase [in relation to mechanical and electrical systems], we got an outside review done. The review looked to see if they were overdesigning and found that they were not, he said. Sinn Fein health spokeswoman Louise OReilly asked how much the review had cost but Mr Costello said he did not have it to hand. Yesterday, Ms OReilly said that, as the decision to continue with the catastrophic overspend was made on the back of that review, it is very worrying that it has not been made available. A spokesperson for the board refused to tell the Irish Examiner how much the review cost or to release the report. The spokesperson said DSSR were called in to independently confirm mechanical and electrical services were fit for purpose and that the review didnt relate to costs. The Government and HSE is embarking on another external review to look at escalation in cost of the project. The 450,000 review by PwC is due for completion in March. A separate review will look at the existing oversight arrangements between the Department of Health, HSE and the NPHDB. Who will conduct this review and when is unclear. Currently the NPHDB reports to the Childrens Hospital Project and Programme steering group, chaired by Dean Sullivan, the HSE deputy director general. The steering group reports to the Childrens Hospital Project and Programme board, chaired by Department of Health secretary general Jim Breslin. The Department of Health has also committed to undertaking a scenario analysis to identify any residual risks to the project and is considering how best to undertake this review to ensure that it is completed in early 2019. Mr Breslin and Health Minister Simon Harris are due before the health committee on Tuesday to discuss the hospital project. The new hospital is scheduled to open in 2023. It will have 473 beds, just 68 more than the current complement in the existing three childrens hospitals. Judge Sean O Donnabhain said yesterday that despite the moments of extreme tension that could occur in court, they had never erupted into trouble in Washington St, Cork, for the last 24 years thanks to the presence of The Ringer. Tributes were paid yesterday to the retiring member of An Garda Siochana who safeguarded the courthouse at Washington St for almost a quarter of a century, Garda Denis Ring. Barrister Donal McCarthy said: He has minded this building inside and outside for almost a quarter of a century. More than anybody else in this building, if you wanted to know where a judge was, Denis Ring knew. As that comment generated knowing laughter in Courtroom 2 yesterday, Judge O Donnabhain remarked: Hold on to yourself now, Mr McCarthy. On behalf of the Southern Law Association, solicitor Gerard OFlynn, said: Denis was always very helpful. He went the extra mile to assist you when required. He was the go-to man when you were looking for anyone in the courthouse. He was highly respectful, energetically hard-working, and diligent. Your loss to the legal profession will be immense. You are a hard act to follow a top man. Court registrar Deirdre OMahony said to the retiring garda: Thank you for keeping us all safe for many years, as you worked with great tact and efficiency and possessed a unique ability to know where trouble would start and diffused it before it did. Chief Superintendent Barry McPolin spoke of Gda Rings high degree of empathy for victims and their families and his ability to sense danger around corners and nip it in the bud. Martin ODonovan, court registrar, described the easy-going manner of the retiring garda, whether he was speaking to a senior member of judiciary or a gouger in custody for showing contempt of court. Mr ODonovan also remarked on Gda Rings numerous TV appearances as evidenced by Reeling In The Years, and he always seemed to know where the TV cameras were. Emmet Boyle, barrister, read some words of thanks from Gda Ring: In performing this role for 24 years, hand on heart, I looked forward to everything the day would bring. As for the future, he looks forward with his partner Helen and their adult children to life between Kenmare and Lanzarote, and possibly an occasional visit to Turners Cross to see Cork City FC, a club of which he is a founder member. The fact that we are now sitting here in a potential position, or at least in a position where if we dont convert people are going to be disappointed, is an important step forward for this organization. We belong at the table in these negotiations. We belong (to be) part of these negotiations for premium talent. It is rare that a campaign is faulted for representing too many people but that, in essence, was one of the arguments against the group who took the State to court for failing to meet its climate change responsibilities. Rory Mulcahy SC told the High Court that Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) could not assert that any failures breached human rights under the Constitution and the European Convention because the group was not a human person. It would have to be shown that there was a specific, imminent risk to an identifiable person or persons before even addressing the question of whether the State had failed to adequately protect that person or persons against that risk. Mr Mulcahy was addressing the court on the closing day of the case taken by FIE, a group supported by other environmental and human rights groups and backed by an online petition with, at last count, the signatures of 16,800 human persons. More than 100 of them squeezed into a compact Court 29, Judge Michael McGrath inviting them to fill the narrow aisles and vacant jury box and thanking them for their attentiveness throughout. FIE has asked the court to quash the National Mitigation Plan (NMP) and direct the Government to remake it, on the grounds that it is weak and vague and does not set out how the country is to achieve the substantial reductions in our carbon emissions to which we are committed under EU and international agreements. By those failures, it argued, the NMP did not comply with the Carbon Act 2015 and breached human rights including the right to life, property, livelihood, and an environment consistent with human dignity. In addition to his contention that FIE was not entitled to claim human rights breaches, Mr Mulcahy said the European Convention did not cover the kind of general environmental deterioration envisaged under climate change. Localised pollution, yes. Wholesale environmental destruction, no. He also argued that FIE was attaching too much weight to the NMP. It is part of the picture of how the State intends to achieve that national transition [to carbon neutrality] objective, he said. In fact, he said, there was overabundance of environmental legislation beyond the NMP. Brian Kennedy SC, summing up for FIE, said on the contrary, the NMP was central to the issues and it was simply not fit for purpose, resulting, in the words of the States own Climate Change Advisory Council, a disturbing state of affairs. He said in failing to provide an adequate NMP, the State had exposed its citizens to risk and danger without justification. It may not be possible to point to an individual that suffered a specific wrong at this particular point in time but there is no doubt that rights are being impacted now and will be impacted into the future, he said. Judge McGrath reserved judgement on what he described as a very complex matter. Gardai have confirmed that the limestone dog bowl sculpture believed to have been stolen from St Patricks St in Cork in recent days has been recovered. A spokesperson told the Irish Examiner that investigations are still ongoing to get to the bottom of the matter. On Thursday, the heritage office at Cork City Council confirmed that Seamus Murphys limestone sculpture of a dog bowl was removed without permission from its location at 124, St Patricks St. The much-loved piece, which has the word madrai carved on it, had stood on the street since the 1950s when it was commissioned by businessman Knolly Stokes, then the owner of the Milk Bar which occupied the premises at the time. Its removal sparked an outcry on social media, with many sharing images of the piece and local historian and city councillor Kieran McCarthy describing it as cultural vandalism. However, the sculpture has since been located and investigations are now underway to determine why the piece was removed in the first place. A garda spokesperson in Cork said: Gardai received a report of a possible theft of a sculpture on St Patrick St, Co Cork. The item has since been found. It is unsure if the item was actually stolen but gardai will be carrying out enquiries. The incident has prompted concern in Cork City, with several other heritage pieces, including the 19th-century Dunscombe fountain and a number of plaques still unaccounted for. Fianna Fail councillor Kenneth OFlynn has supported a call for Cork City Council to carry out a full inventory of all heritage items under its protection. Fianna Fail MEP hopeful Billy Kelleher has said his party should be seeking to seize power and should be willing to talk to Sinn Fein and Fine Gael if necessary. Mr Kelleher said Sinn Fein has travelled some way into the political centre ground, adding that it could become compatible with Fianna Fail. His comments, in an interview with the Irish Examiner, are in stark contrast to the expressed position of party leader Micheal Martin, who has repeatedly ruled out a coalition with Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein has a road to travel on this yet, said Mr Kelleher. They have travelled somewhat, they have started that journey. They have embraced democratic politics. They need to show that resolve and continue on that path. Certainly if they continue to move their policies to the centre where they would be compatible with a party like mine, then obviously you can enter a discussion process, but it is a matter for the electorate to decide. But parties should strive to be in Government, yes. Asked if he was willing to entertain the idea of the so-called grand coalition with Fine Gael, Mr Kelleher said he has no difficulty with it if it means delivering a government. Confidence and supply means Fianna Fail is keeping Fine Gael in Government, he said. Even a short time ago, that would have been unheard of. In terms of doing business, I have no difficulty in looking at that if it was the only coalition available. Ireland needs a government and Fianna Fail at the heart of any government is best for Ireland. Mr Kelleher, a TD for Cork North Central, said his party must strive to be in government after the next election. Political parties must strive to be in government, he said. Yes, you must not sell your soul to be in government but, equally, you must be in government to implement your policies. That is what it is all about. In relation to Europe, it is clear that, despite Mr Martins express wish that he not stand for Europe, Mr Kelleher has decided to defy his leader. Micheal said he wanted his strongest people around him for the Dail elections but, as a party we are very pro-Europe, said Mr Kelleher. I always said we need to engage with the EU parliament and now that Brian Crowley has announced his retirement, we need to look as to how we replace him. Latest: The Association of Secondary School Teachers (ASTI) plans to ballot for strike action if the INTO does the same. The Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland's taken the decision at a meeting of its Central Executive Council. It is after Government proposals on new entrant pay steps were rejected by both unions. ASTI General Secretary Ciaran Christy says they are backing their colleagues in the INTO. "We have made a decision that we will ballot our members in parallel with our other union the INTO who are currently considering a ballot proposal as well," said Mr Christy. ASTI to meet to discuss next moves on pay equality for new teachers Earlier: The Association of Secondary School Teachers is meeting today to discuss its next moves on pay equality for new entrant teachers. It's after members rejected government pay proposals for those who entered the profession after 2010. 58% of ASTI members voted in the November ballot, with the plan being rejected by a margin of 6%. As part of the Public Service Pay Plan, newer entrants would have received an average pay increase of over 3,000. Louisiana Insurance Commissioner James Donelon on Jan. 25 issued a bulletin to insurers operating in his state, asking that they help out policyholders affected by the federal government shutdown by exercising leniency in the case of late premium payments. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready also made a similar plea to insurers in Oklahoma. The bulletin issued by the Louisiana Department of Insurance strongly encouraged property/casualty and life, health and accident insurers to reasonably accommodate shutdown-affected policyholders by providing payment plants or extensions of time for premium payments. The department is also encouraging impacted policyholders to contact their insurance carriers to inform them of the federal government employment status and to request arrangements for insurance premium payments. The departments bulletin noted that around 6,000 Louisianans work for federal agencies impacted by the government shutdown. Around 5,858 of those federal employees were not being paid, the LDI noted. Topics Louisiana Oklahoma Local Twin Cities artists Enzyrose, Eyenga Bokamba, Noah Lawrence-Holder, LeShon Lee, and Meadow Gillispie, talk about their reaction to the murder of George Floyd, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and life as a black artist during this time. Woodbridge, VA (22192) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High around 85F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then cloudy skies after midnight. Low 68F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. Check your oil. If its due for a change, consider refilling it with a lower viscosity oil. On the bottle it lists two numbers, or grades, the first for low temperature viscosity, the second for high temperature. 10W-30 is a common designation. The higher the number, the more viscous, or thick it is, the less fluid it is especially in cold temps. So you might want to consider 5W-20 or-30. That W stands for winter, according to Valvoline and other sources. Insurance fraud seems like it might be an easy thing to do. Insurance companies are often so huge, one wonders how they might not even notic... We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form On January 25, the police nabbed a serial killer roaming in Kumbh Mela with a blood-soaked axe in his hand. Identified as Kalua Patel alias Sai Baba, the 38-year-old man has confessed to committing 10 murders in the past year. A resident of Lalapur area, Uttar Pradesh, Patel told police officials that he killed people who used to make fun of his untidy looks, according to The Times Of India. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Allahabad, Nitin Tiwari told TOI that the Uttar Pradesh police has been on the lookout for a serial killer for quite some time now. We initiated operation 'serial killer' about six months ago, said Tiwari. A joint team of city police was deployed at the Kumbh Mela when they came across Patel, who was seen carrying an axe with him. Representational Image/Reuters While the investigation, Patel confessed that he murdered 10 people in the last year most of whom were labourers sleeping on the pavements. A senior police official told the local media that Patel 'seems to be of unstable mind'. He said that the serial killer stalked his victims and struck them at night. He hit the victims trachea with the axe resulting in instant death. Till now, he has confessed to killing two labourers near Durga Puja Park in Kydganj on July 4, one in Daraganj on November 27 and one near Kotha Parcha area on December 24. In 2019, he has admitted to having killed a labourer near Triveni Darshan Road on January 10 and another person outside Udaseen Akhara campus in Kydagnj on January 13, said police adding that his interrogation was underway. India's 70th Republic Day is extraordinary for more than one reason. It's one with many firsts and a very conspicuous display of female power, where women have literally walked shoulder to shoulder with men. An all-woman contingent from the Assam Rifles unit of the Indian Army saluted the President at the Rajpath. Led by Major Khushboo Kanwar, this contingent was a part of the Assam Rifles, also known as Indias oldest paramilitary force. R-Day parade to see 'Nari Shakti' on display; showcase M777 howitzer, K9 Vajra... pic.twitter.com/gDfSYalXQe defencenewsclub (@defencenewsclu1) January 23, 2019 The jawans in the contingent are family members of soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the nation, The Northeast Today reported, For the first time in history, a women contingent of the paramilitary will be marching on the majestic Rajpath, a lady officer said. Another highlight of the event was Lieutenant Bhavana Kasturi, who led a contingent of Army Service Corps (ASC) consisting of 144 men. It is after a gap of 23 years that the Army Service Corps (which handles logistics for the Army) will be a part of the parade. Twitter Among many firsts, a woman officer will be part of the Armys Dare Devils motorcycle team - Captain Shikha Surbhi, performed rode a bike standing as she saluted the President. This Republic Day will see a woman army officer taking part in all the risky motorcycle stunts performed by the Army Daredevils team. Captain Shikha Surabhi is the first woman officer in the Armys Daredevils Motorcycle Display Team'. Till now, only men were part of this team. pic.twitter.com/vYLX97EUlM KavitaM (@Kavita_M57) January 23, 2019 Contingents of the Navy, Army Services Corps and a unit of Corps of Signals will all be led by women officers. It makes us proud to see so many women script history and break the glass ceiling in single day. What a monumental day for India. A couple and their 19-month-old daughter were removed from an American Airlines flight after the airline told the couple that the other passengers and crew members complained about their body odour. Yossi Adler said he and his wife with their daughter were heading home from a vacation in Miami on the night of January 23 when the incident happened and they were told that there was some emergency and they needed to evacuate the airplane. The couple also said that they had eight other children back home in Michigan, US and they thought there had been an accident involving one of them. Later, when he and his wife stepped off the plane and were told the reason and they were humiliated and frustrated. Twitter "Obviously, there was a reason," Adler, who is Jewish, said in a phone interview Friday with The Washington Post. "But I think it was an anti-Semitic reason." "Even if it wasn't," he added, "they were anti-Semitic afterwards." American Airlines in a statement said that the Adlers were asked to deplane after "multiple passengers, along with our crew members, complained about Mr Adler's body odour. Our Miami airport team members were concerned about the comfort of our other passengers due to the odour. Our team members took care of the family and provided hotel accommodations and meals, and rebooked them on a flight to Detroit Thursday morning. Twitter Adler was furious and said that if the airline was so concerned about their body odour they should have given them clean clothes to wear. "I'm trying to stay calm here," Adler told an employee. "But there's two Jewish people on the plane, and now they're kicking us off because of odour. Seriously? Nobody here thinks I have an odour. I need to get on a plane tonight. I have eight children at home. According to the reports, the passengers present there said that it was not about the religion. Another woman who claims to have been on the flight took to Twitter to back up American Airline's claim. "The smell was so bad I don't think I could have made it through the 2.5 hr flight," she said. Twitter Adler said that his experience was horrible with the airlines. He also said that he took a bath in the morning. "Not once in my life has someone said I smell," he told The Washington Post. There have been a lot of incidents like these in recent years, where passengers claimed they were removed from flights over a birthday cake, breastfeeding, and menstrual cramps, and a seat-kicking toddler. Technology is evolving at an extremely fast pace. It's moving too fast for human resource to adequately adapt to all the changes, in fact. This isn't our opinion, but what the CEO of IBM Ginni Rometty is seriously concerned about, especially from the future of tech and jobs going ahead. Reuters ALSO READ: 50,000 AI & Data Science Jobs Are Vacant In India, As Candidates Don't Have The Required Skills Ginni Rometty made an important statement at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, last week. The IBM CEO said that to preserve the future of tech innovation, companies should hire people based on the skills they possess, and not necessarily on their glorious degrees and diplomas. She was specifically talking about people who're trying to get a) job in the tech industry and b) keep that job for the foreseeable future, not just in the US but all over the world. "I think those of us who benefit from the technologies, we have a really serious duty, because these technologies are moving faster in time than their skills are going to change," Rometty was quoted as saying in a Gizmodo report. Reuters ALSO READ: Over 180 Million Jobs For Women May End Soon Due To Tech Advancement, Says IMF The CEO of 108-year-old IBM emphasized while speaking on a panel of other big business leaders that companies are full of degrees and PHDs as it is, and to ensure the fourth industrial revolution powered by technology reaches its full potential companies need to find room for everyone in society for the jobs of future. Life has come full circle for Nambi Narayanan, a former top scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). From dragged away in a police jeep and being called a spy to now being bestowed with the third highest civilian honour of the country. Narayanan, who was a senior scientist at ISRO, was in charge of the cryogenics division and was leading the development of the liquid technology a key technology in rocket propulsion that is being deployed in GSLV when he was arrested in December 1994 in the infamous ISRO espionage case. BCCL He and four others were arrested on charges of leaking vital defence secrets including drawings of ISROs Vikas engine and cryogenic technology to Pakistan to two alleged Maldivian intelligence officers, Mariam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan. In the 50 days, he was in custody, Narayanan had alleged that he was tortured and pressured to give false statements to implicate others in the case. BCCL However, the CBI which later took over the probe found no evidence against him. When the case come up for trial it was thrown out by the CBI Court in 1996, subsequently he was exonerated by the Supreme Court in 1998 and granted him a compensation of Rs 1 lakhs. Narayanan challenged the compensation amount in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The Kerala High Court ordered a compensation amount of Rs 10 lakhs to be paid to Nambi Narayanan based on an appeal from NHRC India in September 2012. In September 2018 the SC awarded a compensation of Rs 50 lakhs to him and constituted a committee headed by retired SC judge D K Jain to inquire into the role of investigating officials in implicating him. BCCL Though he reinstated by the ISRO after his aquitala, Narayana was never given any major position in the organization. Thus wasting the talent of Princeton University educated scientist who was the original architect of Vikas engine that is still at the heart of Indias rockets, including those in the likes of Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan. BCCL Many regard the 76-year-old in a league with the likes of Vikram Sarabia and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, as the best of the best space scientist India has ever produced. It also believed that his arrest had almost derailed the Indian space mission in its infancy and India would have reached where it is now at least a decade ago if he was involved. The cow politics has been dominating the Indian politics for a while. Now, a Hindu group has urged the Reserve Bank of Australia to print currency notes with no component of beef, citing Hindu sentiments. Currency notes of Australian dollars of 20 and 100 are being printed currently, and the Next Generation notes are expected to be issued in 2019 and 2020 and after it was revealed that cow fat is being used in the production of the new notes. The Hindu community has now come forward and has urged the Reserve Bank Of Australia not to use cow fat in the printing of the notes. Tallow is a hard and fatty substance made from the animal fat is used in the making of the currency notes in order to make them anti-static and also to neutralize trace additives. The Bank of England uses tallow and so does the Reserve Bank of Australia. Rajan Zed, the President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, wrote to the Reserve Bank of Australia to 'show respect to the feelings of Hindus and come up with a banknote production process which did not use beef as an ingredient.' "Consumption of beef is highly conflicting to Hindu beliefs and it is certainly banned from entering Hindu religious centres. Cow, the seat of many deities, is sacred and has long been venerated in Hinduism," Zed states in the letter. Zed also urged governor of RBA Philip Lowe to seriously look into the matter and he also urged Australian PM Scott Morrison to intervene. "RBA should have been wise and literate enough to look into the religious sensitivities of its consumers before investing so much money and effort into the production of polymer banknotes," Zed further added in his letter. If someone was shot in the baby finger by a firearm, unjustly, and all the elements of aggravated battery with a firearm were there, that would be the crime of aggravated battery with a firearm, he said. Again, if someone was shot in the baby toe by a firearm, unjustly, and all the elements of aggravated battery with a firearm had been proven, those are aggravated battery with a firearm cases. The thing to evaluate, especially case specific, is here. Is it more serious for a Laquan McDonald to be shot by a firearm or is it more serious for Laquan McDonald to be murdered by a firearm? Common sense comes to an easy answer on that in this specific case. Narthaki Nataraj, a renowned dancer from Tamil Nadu has become the first person from the trans community to be honoured with one of the top civilian awards in India. The 54-year-old Bharatanatyam exponent was among those bestowed with Padma Shri, the third highest civilian award this year. BCCL Born in the temple town of Madurai, Nataraj learned the art under Tanjore Shri K P Kittappa Pillai and gave her on advances to the Tanjore Quartet of Bharatanatyam (Nayaki Bhava tradition) through a dance school she established. According to her website, Nataraj was subject to social ridicule and rejection. However her passion for dance took her to Pillai who went on to become her mentor. BCCL As a transgender, Nataraj who has performed across the world is widely seen as a icon when it comes to empowerment of the marginalised community. Last year, she even made it to the school textbook. The Tamil Nadu School Education Department introduced a lesson about Nataraj in the Tamil textbook for Plus One students. It was arguably one of the most daring and risky airlifts that was ever undertaken by the Indian Navy. A heavily pregnant woman who was about to go into labour had to be brought to safety during the destructive Kerala floods last year. 25-year-old Sajitha Jabil, who lives in one of the worst affected areas in Chengamanad town near Aluva, was rescued on a helicopter. The operation was spearheaded by Commander Vijay Varma of the Indian Navy as pilot-in-command. The almost heart-stopping video of the rescue showed Sajitha being airlifted to safety by the helicopter. Despite all the risks involved and Sajitha, who could not spread her arms as instructed swinging wildly as she was being lifted, the Navy brought her to safety. A pregnant lady with water bag leaking has been airlifted and evacuated to Sanjivani. Doctor was lowered to assess the lady. Operation successful #OpMadad #KeralaFloodRelief #KeralaFloods2018 pic.twitter.com/bycGXEBV8q SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) August 17, 2018 She went into labour within hours in a Navy Medical facility and gave birth to a baby boy. On Friday, Cdr Vijay Varma who led the mission was recognised for his efforts and the officer who is posted as staff QI in INS Garuda and honored him with the Nao Sena Medal for gallantry. He was also instrumental in the air lift and rescue of more than two dozen people including another pregnant woman. Later, recalling about the operation, Varma, who is also from Kerala admitted that it was a dangerous rescue he had ever undertaken. "The two rescue missions stand out due to the unprecedented skills, valour and grit displayed by the officer while flying in extremely hostile conditions,"The citation for the officer read. After the end of the Operation Madad, as the Navy were returning they were in for a surprise. A big thank you note painted on the roof of the house from where the women were rescued, to appreciate their service! What would you do with a culprit? Seek revenge or get him punished, right? In Aamir Khans documentary, families took an unimaginable step. They forgave them. Twitter On the 70th Republic Day, Aamir Khan treated fans with a documentary film titled Rubaru Roshni which is produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao. Not long ago, he had disappointed fans with Thugs of Hindostan, but Aamir Khan is back with what he does the best. Winning the audiences over again, Aamir Khans Rubaru Roshni gets a big thumbs-up from fans. Twitter The tele-short film had three different stories that revolved around forgiveness and forgiving oneself. The movie aired on Star Network in seven languages. It is said that Netflix had approached Aamir Khan to acquire the rights of the movie, but Aamir wanted to reach a wider audience, and hence, chose to release the movie on TV. The tales of emotion, loss and forgiveness not only had the audiences shook, but it also made them cry. It will move you to tears... #RubaruRoshni Sandeep (@Sandeep01629728) January 26, 2019 @aamir_khan #RubaruRoshni is an amazing creation by you and Kiran... Must Watch in Full... Forced to think on Forgiveness... Kabhi nhi socha iss tarah maafi dene ko iss tarah... Luv u sir for sonderful creation.... Nikunj Mohatta (@nikunjmohatta) January 26, 2019 Drop everything and watch #RubaruRoshni now. The best thing you can do on #RepublicDay2019. It's a must watch. Very very brave. Teaches you forgiveness. Aamir Khan, we forgive you for Thugs of Hindustan Rashid (@iamrashidaftab) January 26, 2019 #RubaruRoshni A complex thing expressed so simply, so beautifully. Thank you Svati and @aamir_khan for reminding us of our best selves. A very Happy Republic Day indeed Kausar Munir (@KausarMunir) January 26, 2019 Thank you @aamir_khan sir for giving a gem like #RubaruRoshni not a fan of documentaries but this film made me realise what moving on actually means .... forgiveness is above anything ... it guarantees us mental peace Aashna (@Aashna_Sh) January 26, 2019 @aamir_khan thnk u so much for #RubaruRoshni ....I'm very touched and I'm really now believe with what u teach to me via #RubaruRoshni ... I didn't change my tv channel during this documentary ... Thank to dub this in #tamillanguage also ... I spend my time for more valuable Balavignesh M (@balavignesh_m) January 26, 2019 Thnx sir fr made good though by #rubaruRoshni...sir u r really great person n Ur work spread positivity in world.. really I appreciate Ur hunger for making positive world... pankaj (@pankaj1012k) January 26, 2019 There is no limit of kindness. Never thought if human hearts can be so big! #RubaruRoshni is a must watch for every humankind on earth. Huge respect for the team for making this beautiful piece and @aamir_khan sir for producing and supporting the film. #Respect #Love Pradeep Singh (@Prady1092) January 26, 2019 Rubaru Roshnis three unbelievable true stories were helmed by Svati Chakravarthy Bhatkal. In case you missed it, you can watch it on Hotstar for free. KOI DESH PERFECT NAHI HOTA, USSE BEHTAR BANANA PADTA HAI 13 years ago, this one line had struck a chord in our hearts making us aware of the power we possess to change the society. Rang De Basanti was neither a mainstream film and nor an offbeat one, it was a movie that awakened an entire generation and changed India forever. I still remember, the first time I saw Rang De Basanti, I was in school I was carefree but gradually getting acquainted with the harsh reality of a corrupt society I was living in. While Bollywood was obsessing over films such as Don, Dhoom and Krissh among others, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra changed it all with a more relatable, goosebumps-inducing movie that had some stellar dialogues and an amazing storyline, which even after 13 years, remains to be very much relevant for everyone, particularly millennials. pinimg.com Are we really living in a free nation now? Door se commentary dena bahut aasan hota hai. Doosron ko gaali dena aur bhi aasan. Agar tumhe itna problem hai toh tum badlon na iss desh ko. The youth holds the power to change the nation, we all had heard. Rang De Basanti showed us how to bring about the change. Bhagat Singh died at the age of 23 while fighting for freedom of India. DJ, Karan, Aslam, Sukhi, and Sonia were also in college when they took a stand to change the system. YouTube Drawing a parallel between British rule and politicians of corrupt India, Rang De Basanti made us question if Indias struggle for independence was really over back in 1947. ''Zindagi jeene ke 2 hi tareeke hote hai, ek- jo ho raha hai use hone do, ya 2-khud kuch karne ki zimmedari uthao'' ibtimes.co.in Jesssica Lal Verdict and Nirbhaya Case was a Rang De Basanti moment! In the movie, the youth protests at India Gate after R Madhavans character dies in the movie. This scene literally translated into real life after a large number of people participated in protests organised via SMS. nyt.com From candle-light silent march during Jessica Lal verdict (in 2006, the same year when the movie had released) and Nirbhayas spine-chilling brutal rape case to anti-reservations protests students across the nation were galvanised by the Aamir Khan starrer movie, which made them believe that they have a voice which needs to be heard. moviekoop.com India against corruption! It was in 2011 that India against corruption movement was named among Top 10 News Stories of 2011 by Time magazine. It all started with anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare going on a hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in order to alleviate corruption through the introduction of Jan Lokpal Bill. A lot of people left their jobs to join the movement, which eventually led to a formation of a political party called Aam Aadmi Party joined by a faction of IAC members. wikimedia.org Anna Hazare wasnt a relative to thousands of people who supported him in the cause neither was Nirabhaya, it was spirit and love for nation that made all these people unite for a cause even after being dragged, beaten and detained multiple times during the protests. Even after being beaten, people went to the protests yet again, because they had realised that violence wasnt a quick fix solution and anger needs to be translated into action. Twitter Its not about religious enmity! Another thing that we realised was that it was never about religious enmity. A lot of people argue that the Britishers had sown the seed of casteism in India. They divided us and left us fighting among ourselves making us forget the real issue. youtube In the movie, Laxman Pandey (played by Atul Kulkarni) and Aslam Khan (played by Kunal Kapoor) would butt heads plenty of times, but in the end they united for a cause realising that they were never divided by religion. When Ram Prasad Bismil tells Ashfaqulla Khan that they have equal right to live and die for and fight for the cause, Pandey realised that he is right. The conflict between Right-wing extremists and liberals! bollywoodhungama.com Rang De Basanti showed us how political parties maneuver the youth of the nation for their own political interests. Showing how people are forced out and couples are manhandled, it was all a reflection of the reality. Mob lynchings and instances of sedition happen for real. We all have seen it havent we? imgur.com The biggest takeaways from the movie were that we need to stop pinning our failures on the nation and system, its time to take matters in our own hands its not impossible to bring about a positive change in the society the nation doesnt fail us but corrupt politicians and the system do stop blaming the country, be the change you want to be. With a perfect ensemble cast and spectacular music, Rang De Basanti was indeed a game changer for the youth of India. remaining of Thank you for Reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, middle, said of her members: Our unity is our power. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Donald Trump has agreed to a deal to reopen the US government for three weeks, backing down from demanding that Congress give him money for his border wall before federal agencies get back to work. Submitting to mounting pressure amid growing disruption, Mr Trump said he would sign legislation funding closed agencies until February 15 and try again to persuade lawmakers to finance his long-sought wall. The deal he reached with congressional leaders contains no new money for the wall but ends the longest shutdown in US history. First the Senate, then the House of Representatives swiftly and unanimously approved the deal. The president signed the bill late on Friday and his administration asked federal department heads to reopen offices in a prompt and orderly manner. Mr Trumps retreat came in the 35th day of the partial shutdown as intensifying delays at the nations airports and another missed payday for hundreds of thousands of federal workers brought new urgency to efforts to resolve the standoff. Tonight, we are sending legislation to the Presidentas desk that will re-open our government for Americaas families & small businesses, as well as ensure federal workers finally receive the pay they deserve. #EndTheShutdown pic.twitter.com/nkVLTF3jF5 Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 26, 2019 The shutdown was ending as Democratic leaders had insisted it must reopen the government first, then talk border security. The president thought he could crack Democrats, and he didnt, and I hope its a lesson for him, said the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of her members: Our unity is our power. And that is what maybe the president underestimated. Mr Trump still made the case for a border wall and maintained he might again shut down the government over it. Yet, as negotiations restart, Mr Trump enters them from a weakened position. A strong majority of Americans blamed him for the standoff and rejected his arguments for a border wall, recent polls show. If we dont get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on February 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency, Mr Trump said. The president has said he could declare a national emergency to fund the border wall unilaterally if Congress does not provide the money. Such a move would almost certainly face legal hurdles. As part of the deal with congressional leaders, a bipartisan committee of House and Senate lawmakers was being formed to consider border spending as part of the legislative process in the weeks ahead. As Democrats have said all along, the solution to this impasse was to separate funding the government from our disagreements over border security. This agreement endorses that position. Iam about to talk to the press with @SpeakerPelosi. Watch: https://t.co/nX1TuDpEJP Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 25, 2019 They are willing to put partisanship aside, I think, and put the security of the American people first, Mr Trump said. He asserted that a barrier or walls will be an important part of the solution. The deal includes back pay for some 800,000 federal workers who have gone without paychecks. The Trump administration promises to pay them as soon as possible. Also expected is a new date for the president to deliver his State of the Union address, postponed during the shutdown. But it will not be January 29 as once planned, according to a person familiar with the planning. An aerial view shows a destroyed bridge after the dam burst (AP) An estimated 300 people are missing after the collapse of a dam which was holding back mining waste in south-eastern Brazil. The death toll has risen to at least 40 after the disaster inundated a mining complex in the state of Minas Gerais. State governor Romeu Zema warned that anyone found to be responsible for the disaster would be punished. According to reports, the complex, owned and operated by Brazilian company Vale, was issued an expedited licence to expand in December due to decreased risk. Environmental groups in the area say this approval was unlawful. A total of 23 people were taken to hospital after the collapse, according to the Minas Gerais fire department. There had been some signs of hope earlier on Saturday when authorities found 43 people alive. Company officials also had said that 100 workers were accounted for. Expand Close The mud covers the backyard of a house (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The mud covers the backyard of a house (AP) Vale workers were eating lunch on Friday afternoon when the dam collapsed, unleashing a sea of reddish-brown mud that knocked over and buried several of the companys buildings as well as the surrounding areas. The level of devastation quickly led President Jair Bolsonaro and other officials to describe it as a tragedy. The rivers of mining waste have also raised fears of widespread contamination. According to Vales website, the waste, often called tailings, is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from a similar disaster in 2015 contained high levels of toxic heavy metals. Expand Close This house was completely destroyed by the flow of mining waste (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp This house was completely destroyed by the flow of mining waste (AP) Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what had caused the collapse. He confirmed about 300 employees were working on the site when it happened. After the dam collapsed, parts of the town of Brumadinho were evacuated, and firefighters rescued people by helicopter and ground vehicles. Several helicopters flew over the area on Saturday while firefighters carefully traversed heavily inundated areas looking for survivors. The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and a Vale administrative office, where employees were present. On Friday, Minas Gerais state court blocked 260 million dollars (197 million) from Vale for state emergency services and is requiring the company to present a report about how they will help victims. On Saturday, the states justice ministry ordered an additional 1.3 billion dollars (989 million) blocked. Expand Close A van is seen in half buried in the mud (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A van is seen in half buried in the mud (AP) Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in 2015 in the city of Mariana, also in Minas Gerais state, resulting in 19 deaths and forcing hundreds of people from their homes. Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic metres of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Mr Schvartsman said what happened on Friday was a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less. Expand Close Rescue efforts are continuing at the scene with dozens of people still missing (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Rescue efforts are continuing at the scene with dozens of people still missing (AP) Mr Bolsonaro, who assumed office on January 1, took part in a flyover of the area on Saturday. On Twitter, he said his government would do everything it could to prevent more tragedies like Mariana and now Brumadinho. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underlined a lack of regulation, and many promised to fight any further deregulation by Mr Bolsonaro in Latin Americas largest nation. Close: Donald Trump and Roger Stone have been friends for three decades. Photo: Reuters Roger Stone, a long-time informal adviser to US President Donald Trump, was arrested by the FBI yesterday after being indicted in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr Stone was charged with seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements and one count of witness tampering, according to Mr Mueller's office. With Mr Stone's indictment, Mr Mueller has struck deep inside Mr Trump's inner circle, charging a long-standing friend of the president and one of the first people to promote Mr Trump for the White House. Mr Stone (66), who has been friends with Mr Trump for three decades, served briefly as a formal adviser to his presidential campaign in 2015 and then remained in contact with him and top advisers through the election. The GOP operative has been a key focus of the special counsel for months as Mr Mueller has investigated whether anyone in Mr Trump's orbit conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr Stone did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In an interview yesterday, Mr Stone's friend and spokesman Michael Caputo said: "Roger and his legal team are ready to fight this in court." Mr Caputo asserted that Mr Mueller's team was targeting Mr Stone on other charges because prosecutors have been unable to prove co-ordination between Russia and Mr Trump's campaign. "They can't prove collusion because it doesn't exist, so they're going after him personally," he said. CNN broadcast a video of a team of law enforcement officials raiding Mr Stone's house in the Fort Lauderdale area. During the White House race, Mr Stone publicly cheered on the group WikiLeaks as it released hacked emails that embarrassed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Mr Stone also claimed before the election that he was in contact with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whom he called "my hero". In July, a grand jury indicted 12 Russian military officers on charges that they orchestrated the hacks and distributed pilfered documents to WikiLeaks and other sites. After the election, Mr Stone acknowledged exchanging what he characterised as benign messages with Guccifer 2.0, a Twitter persona that US intelligence officials say was a front operated by the Russian military officers. But Mr Stone has repeatedly denied any contact with Russia or WikiLeaks. He has said he had no advance knowledge of what material WikiLeaks held, adding that predictions he made about the group's plans were based on Mr Assange's public comments and tips from associates. The investigation "has devolved into 'gotcha' word games, perjury traps and trumped-up process crimes," Mr Stone told the 'Washington Post' late last year. "I think people can see through the political motivations behind this. "Where is the evidence of Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration?" In sworn testimony to the House Intelligence Committee last year, Mr Stone also denied any contact with WikiLeaks or knowledge of its plans, saying he did not intend to imply that he had communicated with Mr Assange directly. In a closed-door meeting late last year, the committee voted to turn over a copy of Mr Stone's testimony to Mr Mueller, who requested the document. WikiLeaks and Mr Assange have also said they never communicated with Mr Stone, who the group said "was trolling to attract attention to himself", according to a tweet late last year by WikiLeaks's legal campaign. During the campaign, Mr Stone privately told associates that he was in contact with Mr Assange and that WikiLeaks had material that would be damaging to Ms Clinton. In an October 2016 email to Mr Trump's then-chief campaign strategist Steve Bannon, Mr Stone implied he had information about the group's plans. In recent months, the longtime GOP operative has offered conflicting accounts of who provided him with tips about WikiLeaks's plans. With Mr Stone's indictment, the special counsel investigation has now led to charges against 34 people, and guilty pleas by six of Mr Trump's associates and advisers. Washington Post The accused had mental health issues and became addicted to tablets. (stock photo) The daughters of a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row for blasphemy have been taken to Canada for safety ahead of a court hearing next week that could see her finally freed. Asia Bibi is expected to join the girls abroad if Pakistan's supreme court upholds its decision to quash her conviction for defaming the Prophet Mohammed during a row with fellow workers. The daughters of the 51-year-old Catholic farmhand last month flew to Canada with their guardian, and diplomatic sources told 'The Daily Telegraph' that the country is a leading contender to take her if freed. Pakistan's supreme court quashed her original 2010 conviction and death sentence in October. But after days of protests by hardline Islamist clerics, Imran Khan, the prime minister, agreed to allow a petition against the decision to be heard on Tuesday. If things follow the traditional pattern in Trumps Washington, I expect to see both parties extract as many concessions as they can in negotiations, pressured by the possibility of another shutdown that nobody wants. With Democrats receiving almost none of the blame for the shutdown compared with President Trump, who naively let himself take the blame for it even before it happened, I dont expect them to surrender their wall opposition while theyre ahead. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 26) The chief of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) denied a senator's claim that the franchise of Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company (Mislatel), a firm under the consortium mandated to be the country's third major telecommunications (telco) player, has been revoked. DICT Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr., in a Facebook post Saturday afternoon, countered Senator Franklin Drilon's statement that Mislatel's franchise is "ipso facto (matter of factly)" revoked due to violations of its own franchise provisions. Rio said Drilon made it appear during the Senate hearings on the third telco that the selection process of the DICT and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) was faulty since Mislatel lacked a valid franchise under the terms of reference for selection, or the Memorandum Circular (MC) 09-09-2018. "NTC took much effort in doing its due diligence to make sure that all requirements of the MC are complied with. First, NTC, during the pre-qualification period, wrote Congress if the franchise of Mislatel is still valid, and got the answer that on record, their franchise has never been revoked. In other words, since there is no declaration of revocation by competent authorities, NTC has no right to consider the franchise as revoked as the presumption of regularity and the validity of the franchise must be respected," Rio said. The DICT chief likened this to marriages, wherein parties must still go to court and ask for annulment. "Parties still need to go to court and ask for a declaration of nullity of marriage, and absent such, no other person or entity, private or public, can claim that said marriage is void ab initio and just throw away the marriage certificate, and ignore all rights granted by law to the married couple," he said. Rio also argued, similar to Mislatel spokesperson Adel Tamano's claim, that the Supreme Court has ruled that franchises are property rights and that a quo warranto petition is the proper action to take. "To date, no quo warranto proceeding has been filed by the State against Mislatel. The truth is that so many telcos may have in one way or another 'violated' their franchises, but without due process, none of these franchises have been actually revoked," Rio added. Drilon, during the inquiry, said Mislatel's franchise is "deemed revoked" since it failed to operate within a year after it received congressional approval, and Congress failed to approve the turnover of the telco entity's controlling interests. Rio also hoped Congress would change some of its provisions in granting telco entities franchises. "For example, it is almost impossible now to roll out and become operational within a year as a telco. Much more if there are fortuitous events like natural and man-made calamities that can delay the roll-out. This would make franchises much easier to comply with," he said. Italy's far-right dominated ruling coalition took its latest pop at Paris this week with a barrage that sought to blame migrant deaths in the Mediterranean on the legacy of French colonialism in Africa. Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has long sought to demonise French President Emmanuel Macron as embodying everything he and his allies - including the self-declared "illiberal democrat" leader of Hungary, Viktor Orban - are against. Macron, an unabashed Europhile, wants a stronger and more integrated EU at ease with itself and open to the world. Salvini et al seek to undermine the EU and revive not just nationalist sentiment, but the "illiberal democracy" Orban and his ilk boast of installing in their own countries. It's not a new battle for ideas in Europe - the far-right and the Eurosceptics have long been with us - but it has taken on a greater urgency in recent years with the electoral gains made by populists across the continent. Now, with Europe facing, in May, arguably the most critical European Parliament elections in the history of the institution, the barbs between Rome and Paris take on more significance. This week, it was not the firebrand Salvini leading the attack, but Italy's deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio, whose 5 Star Movement, a party that struggles to define itself beyond anti-establishment sloganeering, joined with Salvini's far-right Lega to form the coalition government last year. It can sometimes appear a rather uneasy political marriage, the 5 Stars are political neophytes and it shows. Salvini is widely considered the driving force of the government. The fact that support for 5 Star is plummeting - in a recent election in Sardinia, its share of the vote slid from 42pc to 29pc - possibly because many who earlier backed the party now see it as having empowered the far-right, may partly explain Di Maio's outburst. Di Maio, speaking after 170 migrants were reported to have perished in the Mediterranean, called on the EU to "sanction France and all countries like France that impoverish Africa and make these people leave, because Africans should be in Africa, not at the bottom of the Mediterranean". He later claimed the root cause of the migration crisis is poverty in countries that "use French currency and pay for the French deficit". This, he argued, "is a colonialism that has never finished". Di Maio was referring to the CFA franc, the name of two currencies pegged to the euro that are used mainly by former French colonies in Africa, backed by the French treasury. The French treasury holds half the foreign reserves of the 14 countries that use the CFA franc, an arrangement critics argue hobbles economic development, though others counter it guarantees financial stability. Abolishing the CFA franc is among the many demands put forward by the inchoate Yellow Vests movement in France, whose nationwide protests, some of which have descended into violence, have been challenging Macron for more than two months. The Yellow Vests say they plan to run candidates in the European Parliament elections, 5 Star sees them as possible allies there, and Di Maio has been praising the movement. But there were several ironies in Di Maio using the stick of the CFA franc and French colonialism in Africa to beat Paris over the question of migrants dying in the Mediterranean. Di Maio's government has shut all Italian ports to NGO boats rescuing migrants at risk of drowning. Most migrants who attempt the Mediterranean crossing to get to Europe originate from countries that don't use the CFA franc. And, as a number of Libyans pointed out on social media this week, Italy has its own history of colonial misadventures in Africa, not only in Libya - where that history can still be painfully raw - but also Somalia and Eritrea. Paris responded to Di Maio's remarks by summoning the Italian ambassador, but Salvini decided to stir things further a few days later. "The migrant problem has many causes," he said. "In Africa, some take away wealth from the people and the continent. France is certainly among them. Italy isn't." The French response was to accuse Salvini of playing to a domestic audience. "We're not going to be drawn into a stupidity contest," said France's Europe minister, Nathalie Loiseau. Pope Francis visited a juvenile jail in Panama yesterday to comfort young people who could not leave to attend a global gathering of Catholic youth, and the pontiff urged society to give offenders everywhere a second chance. Francis (82) travelled by car to the town of Pacora, east of Panama City, for a prayer service with the 200 juvenile inmates at the institution, considered a model one for Latin America. The young inmates are required to take vocational training courses and are helped by a team of social workers, psychologists and teachers. Francis, a strong supporter of rehabilitation of inmates and an opponent of life imprisonment, has visited many prisons in Italy and on his overseas trips. He has called for a worldwide ban on the death penalty and under his watch last year the Catholic Church formally changed its teaching to declare capital punishment inadmissible in any circumstance. "Friends, each of us is much more than our labels," Francis told the young inmates, urging them to embark on a path of change and appealing to society to accept them. "A society grows sick when it is unable to celebrate change in its sons and daughters. "A community grows sick when it lives off relentless, negative and heartless complaining," said the pope, who heard the confessions of five inmates during the visit. Pope Francis is on a six-day trip to Panama centred around the Roman Catholic Church's World Youth Day celebrations. The self-declared interim president of Venezuela has promised Nicolas Maduro amnesty if he cedes power in a peaceful transition. Juan Guaido has been in hiding since the 35-year-old was symbolically sworn in on Wednesday before tens of thousands of cheering supporters, promising to uphold the constitution and rid Venezuela of Mr Maduro's dictatorship. Speaking from an undisclosed location, Mr Guaido told Univision he would consider granting amnesty to Mr Maduro and his allies if they helped return Venezuela to democracy. "Amnesty is on the table," said Mr Guaido, who just weeks earlier was named head of the opposition-controlled congress. "Those guarantees are for all those who are willing to side with the constitution to recover the constitutional order." He added that a similar move had played a role in Chile's democratic transition. Venezuela's powerful military threw its weight behind Mr Maduro on Thursday as the US-backed opposition leader Mr Guaido pressed a direct challenge to his authority. As the death toll from days of street protests jumped to 26, a defiant Mr Maduro announced the closure of Venezuela's embassy and consulates in the United States, a day after US President Donald Trump's administration declared his regime "illegitimate". The oil-rich but economically devastated country was plunged into uncertainty on Wednesday when Mr Guaido, head of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself "acting president" - earning swift endorsement from Washington, the UK and a dozen regional powers including Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Russia accused the United States of trying to usurp power in Venezuela and warned against US military intervention there. Mr Maduro's re-election last year was contested by the opposition, and criticised internationally - but the socialist leader has until now retained the loyalty of the powerful military, whose response was being keenly watched. Flanked by military top brass, Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino, himself a general, declared the 56-year-old Mr Maduro "the legitimate president" - and vowed to defend his authority against an attempted "coup d'etat". Following Mr Padrino's lead, eight generals in turn reiterated their "absolute loyalty and subordination" to the socialist leader in messages carried on state television. The Supreme Court - made up of regime loyalists - doubled down by reaffirming its allegiance to Mr Maduro's "legitimate authority". "A coup is brewing in Venezuela with the consent of foreign governments," charged the court's president Maikel Moreno. Yesterday a US official claimed that some American diplomats and their families have headed in a caravan to the Venezuelan capital's airport amid a diplomatic standoff with Mr Maduro. A letter written by a US Embassy security officer requesting a Venezuelan police escort for 10 vehicles was leaked earlier yesterday on social media. Mr Maduro on Wednesday gave the US diplomats 72 hours to leave the country and close their hilltop embassy as he announced he was breaking diplomatic relations over the Trump administration's decision to recognise lawmaker Mr Guaido as interim president. The Trump administration has rebuffed those demands and says it will keep the embassy open. On Thursday it said it would reduce staffing levels over security concerns. A zoo has introduced three Star Wars-themed baby otters to the world and theyre so cute they come with Mark Hamills seal of approval. Asian small-clawed otters Han, Luke and Leia made their first public appearance at Kansas City Zoo on Friday. They join their siblings Connor, Clover and Otis in the exhibit, as well as mum Cai and their dad, who goes by the decidedly un-Star Warsy name of Ian. If you look closely you might just spy Ian telling Luke some unwanted news about his parentage. The adorable little otters caught the attention of none other than actor Mark Hamill, who of course played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars movies. The zoo said in a Facebook post: They still have a lot of swim lessons ahead to master their abilities! Swim or do not swim. There is no try. Zimbabweans say abuses have not calmed since President Emmerson Mnangagwa (pictured) on Tuesday denounced the violence as unacceptable. Photo: AP A violent crackdown continued yesterday in Zimbabwe as rights groups alleged that women had been raped during house-to-house searches, while the government criticised a report by its own rights commission that said security forces had used "systematic torture". Zimbabweans say abuses have not calmed since President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday denounced the violence as "unacceptable". The unrest began last week as people protested a steep increase in fuel prices that made petrol the world's most expensive. The government accuses the opposition of stirring up trouble. The army asserts that uniformed perpetrators of abuses are "bogus elements" out to tarnish its image. Fearful residents in poor and working-class suburbs of the capital, Harare, and second city, Bulawayo, are locking themselves in at night. At least 12 people have been killed in the unrest and more than 300 wounded, scores with gunshot wounds, doctors and rights workers have said. "We have received very disturbing reports of a number of cases of women allegedly raped by members of security forces," said Dewa Mavhinga, southern Africa director for Human Rights Watch. He added: "Beatings, harassment and other abuses have continued after Mnangagwa's return." London Fashion Week is less than a month away but, with Brexit on a knife edge, many designers and small-time manufacturers showing on the fringes are conflicted about whether the bi-annual catwalk event will hold anything for them. A slowdown in customer spending on the high street has triggered similar cautiousness in the rag trade. Luxury retailer Harrods says it is increasing its spring/summer stock in order to protect more exposed areas of its business ahead of the March 29 deadline. Its strategy was confirmed on the Business of Fashion website, which pointed out how the UK fashion sector fears disruptions to key imports and losing access to international talent if the UK fails to reach a deal to soften the country's exit from the European Union. (At the time of Weekend going to print, which Brexit option the UK would choose remained unclear.) Meanwhile, this side of the Irish sea, designers, manufacturers and retailers are concentrating on dealing with new worries, such as getting their heads around what customs clearance means and the challenges around pricing, tariffs, sourcing production and fabrics that would come with a No Deal Brexit. And then there's the prospect of carnets coming back - those international customs and temporary export-import document fashion veterans remember with distaste. It's one massive headache and for the fashion-loving consumer there's the annoying prospect of increased costs, potential shipping and customs delays to hit delivery times. For online shoppers, there's the added disappointment of an end to free delivery from some sites. Expand Close Jennifer Rothwell circular stained-glass digitally printed gown / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jennifer Rothwell circular stained-glass digitally printed gown Eddie Shanahan is a highly experienced retail consultant and founder of the Council of Irish Fashion Designers (CIFD) which is made up of many one-person operations trying to survive the rigours of a tough retail landscape. Last season Eddie led a group of Irish designers to show in London. Their enthusiasm was high and not even annoying flight delays on the day could dampen their spirits. After a hugely successful show in aid of the London Irish Centre in Camden, however, their optimism about how they can now tap into in that market is tinged, naturally, with concerns. Eddie says: "There are upsides and downsides to what might happen. For example, if there is a No Deal Brexit, it will probably impact severely on the value of sterling. That would be a disadvantage to Irish designers trying to sell into the UK because, in addition to the exchange rate, you would have to add tariffs, so that would make it very difficult for them to compete profitably. "On the other hand, in that scenario with a weak sterling, it would be very difficult for UK manufacturers to buy fabric and to source production across Europe. They, too, would be paying over the odds for goods and services and when they in turn came to export, they would be paying tariffs on exports to the EU." In short, a double blow for the consumer. Expand Close Designer Heidi Higgins. Photo: Siobhan Hennessy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Designer Heidi Higgins. Photo: Siobhan Hennessy Designer Heidi Higgins (pictured arranging her rails before the CIFD London show) told me: "I am not sourcing fabrics or producing in the UK, so, for the main part, I am not affected as much as other colleagues in the business. At the moment, we are distributing to a small number of retailers in Northern Ireland so we will have to wait and see what happens there." Expand Close SS19 look from Caroline Kilkenny whose search for unusual fabrics is ever widening / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp SS19 look from Caroline Kilkenny whose search for unusual fabrics is ever widening However, for Heidi and other brands many of us have hanging in our wardrobes, Brexit could hit deep on their direct sales. After being sensible and building up online relationships, while at the same time keeping a watchful eye on her bricks and mortar offer, Heidi says: "It's the sales with the consumer through our online store that will be our main challenge but I hope the existing agreements should remain in place between Ireland and the UK and a favourable exit will be reached soon." Expand Close Niamh O'Neill with fellow designers Caroline Mitchell, Sarah Murphy and Sara O'Neill at the CIFD show. Photo: Siobhan Hennessy / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Niamh O'Neill with fellow designers Caroline Mitchell, Sarah Murphy and Sara O'Neill at the CIFD show. Photo: Siobhan Hennessy Designer Niamh O'Neill (pictured above in purple with fellow designers Caroline Mitchell, Sarah Murphy and Sara O'Neill at the CIFD show) acknowledges that Brexit is creating uncertainty for small business. She says the big fear is tariffs which could push up prices, something savvy designers won't want to pass onto fashion consumers. But will they have a choice? "Importation costs would increase with the introduction of tariffs. For example, whilst most of our fabrics come from Italy and France, we have our silks printed in UK. We have discussed the possible impacts of Brexit with our print company and we are both hopeful that we will continue to be able to work together in a post-Brexit scenario. However, we have had to look at other options for printing within the EU if it becomes necessary." Niamh explains: "We send approx 15pc of our e-commerce orders to customers in the UK, it's a substantial part of our business. At the moment we offer free shipping to customers in Ireland and the UK. With shipping costs estimated to rise by 30pc post-Brexit, this rising cost will become difficult for a small business to absorb," she warns. The prospect of increased costs on favourite British labels will immediately jump out at fashion customers. For those harbouring dreams of going into the industry, business uncertainty is enough to dampen dreams. For students already on the academic ladder, buying fabrics for end-of-year or graduate collection could be hit too. The modus operandi has been for many students to buy their fabrics through wholesalers in Britain. Expand Close Katie Hanlan crochet dress which featured in the Fi fashion film / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Katie Hanlan crochet dress which featured in the Fi fashion film "Many colleges would have brought them over and brought them to a wholesaler but that leg up now will be taken away," says Eddie, warning that extra tariffs would simply make it too expensive. At the opening of the Showcase Irish Creative Expo in the RDS last Sunday, Heather Humphreys, Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, recommended that designers diversify as much as possible and to not have all their eggs in one basket, so to speak. Expand Close Don Gormley and Fiona Heaney. Photo: Kieran Harnett / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Don Gormley and Fiona Heaney. Photo: Kieran Harnett Diversification is something that the FeeG label from Dublin, run by husband and wife team Don Gormley and Fiona Heaney, has been successful with. They have grown their markets outside the UK which, Don says, was sluggish even before Brexit. They have got a foothold in Italy and in Jewish markets in Israel and, now, New York. Brexit will mean having to look at a whole different transport system and instead of going through Holyhead and the land bridge, they will instead use Irish ports. When asked about her Brexit plans, Dublin designer Jennifer Rothwell (whose work is pictured below) reports that she is focusing on exporting to the Middle East, Dubai in particular. Expand Close Jennifer Rothwell circular stained-glass digitally printed gown / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jennifer Rothwell circular stained-glass digitally printed gown Jennifer says: "Brexit should not massively affect my UK sales as my brand/market is high-end luxury and I am also planning some US pop-ups later in the year to continue my brand expansion in the US." Luxury knitwear designer Ros Dukes (whose work features in our main photo) was one of the small operators whose work was very well received at Showcase, and she has already built up a loyal customer base in the US. Knitwear designer Katie Hanlan, whose crochet dress (pictured below) is a star of the new Fi fashion movie commissioned by the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland, has already stepped beyond the European and US market and her work is collected by clients in Shanghai. Expand Close Katie Hanlan crochet dress which featured in the Fi fashion film / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Katie Hanlan crochet dress which featured in the Fi fashion film Last week, amid the chaos of Brexit, Michael Walsh, marketing director of Dubarry of Ireland in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, reported good news for the Irish fashion industry with a "double Irish" success. Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, appeared at her first engagement of 2019 wearing the Dubarry 'Bracken' tweed utility jacket, made in tweed from John Hanly & Co in Nenagh. There has been a notable uplift in Dubarry's website traffic this week, particularly from the US. The jacket sold out but should be available again in April. The company is very well placed in the current Brexit impasse because it already has business systems in place on both sides of the Irish sea. "We already have our own operation in the UK so all of our websales we fulfil from our warehouse in the UK. We carry stock over there and we service our UK retailers from Ballinasloe. We do a lot of events in the UK and all of that stock is handled from the UK warehouse." For sheer enterprise, Bernie Murphy deserves applause. She was made redundant after 21 years working with Fruit of the Loom in Co Donegal. Her skills were garment technologist and product development and she went back to college as a mature student. Two years ago she launched her own fashion label starting with a distinctive smocked scarf followed by striking tweed pieces for which she sources her fabrics and yarns in her own native county. It is a huge asset as Brexit looms, one that fellow designers must envy. Bernie's fashion tale is a positive one in an industry where so many designers have had their creative impulses cut to the quick by fear. In Britain, the legendary designer Katharine Hamnett has done what she does best. She has produced a politically charged slogan T shirt. Two powerful words: Cancel Brexit. If only they would. Royal fan Expand Close Kate Middleton / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kate Middleton Kate Middleton wearing Dubarry's 'Bracken' jacket in John Hanly & Co tweed from Co Tipperary which sold out on the Dubarry website, with particular interest from the US. Gardai have renewed their appeal for help in tracing the whereabouts of missing Dublin teenager, Dylan Keogh. Eighteen-year-old Dylan, who lives in Glasnevin, was last seen in the Clontarf area of Dublin on Friday, January 11. Dylan's bike was located in the dunes at Dollymount Beach, Clontarf, and gardai are keen to hear from anyone who may have been walking in the area. Dylan is described as being 5'8" in height, of slim build with dark shoulder length hair and brown eyes. He was last last seen wearing a navy 'onesie', black runners and a blue bandana on his forehead. Dylan's family have said that he is very fond of Co Wicklow and particularly the Lough Dan area. Anyone with information is asked to contact Ballymun Garda Station at (01) 666 4400, the Garda Confidential Line 1800-66-111 or any garda station. Wicklow County Council chief executive Frank Curran has welcomed the allocation of funding to three outdoor recreation projects. Vartry Reservoir Walk and Car Park will receive 157,705, St Kevin's Way will receive 160,000 for an upgrade from Hollywood village to Glendalough and 149,600 will be provided for a reroute and repair of The Spinc in Glendalough. The funding will be provided under Measure 2 of the 2018 Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme. Addressing last Monday's meeting of Wicklow County Council, Mr Curran said he was pleased with the funding levels which accounted for 80 per cent of the different projects the local authority sought funding for. While Cllr Chris Fox welcomed the monthly management reports presented to Councillors, he felt the planning application section was lacking. 'How many applications are submitted to Wicklow County Council? I find the figures slightly misleading. They don't include applications whereby people have to withdraw them before a decision has been made because a refusal is recommended. One off housing applications often have to go through two to three applications in order to overcome all issues,' said Cllr Fox. Mr Curran replied that he would include the requested planning information in all future monthly management reports. Cllr Edward Timmins felt all grants issued to community and voluntary groups should also be included in the reports to assist Councillors when allocating potential funds. 'It's to be welcomed that groups, voluntary and community, are receiving funding but there is no system in place where we can see a list of grants given to groups in our community, a system where we are informed which groups got funding. One of our functions with discretionary funding is to have a say over allocations. How can we make a sensible and informed opinion when we don't know what groups have previously received funding? It will also give us an idea of where the funding is spent'. Cllr Tommy Cullen was in agreement. He said: 'Back in November we at Baltinglass Municipal District were asked to approve discretionary funding and we did, only to find out later that the same group had received funding from Wicklow County Council'. Cllr Vincent Blake inquired about an empty council house in Knockananna which has been vacant for over a year. 'I was told works would be carried out within six months of the fire. Now the property has been vacant for over a year'. Director of Services, Joe Lane, said he would follow up the matter but believed an insurance issue might be responsible for the hold up. Cllr Blake also requested an update over remediation works at the illegal dump at lands in Whitestown. 'We need an update on the cost and the implications for Wicklow County Council'. Chief Executive Curran said a detail site investigation was currently taking place. 'When that work is done we will have an indication of the costs and will then sit down with the EPA and Department,' said Mr Curran. Wicklow Rose Lorna Mallick with Molly Lego and Fiona Mallick at her fundraising coffee morning in the Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely. Photos: Joe Byrne A large number of people turned out in Tinahely recently to support a charity event hosted by Wicklow Rose Lorna Mallick. Lorna hosted a fundraising coffee morning at the Courthouse Arts Centre in her home village. Young and old came along to enjoy a cuppa and make a donation to Lorna's initiative supporting Chernobyl Children Ireland, the charity founded by Adi Roche. Lorna is soon planning a trip to Vesnova Children's Orphanage and Mental Asylum in Belarus which she will visit with some of her fellow 2018 Roses contestants and escorts. Lorna will be volunteering at the orphanage during her February trip. There was great support shown for the coffee morning and a total of 1700 was raised which will go directly to this Chernoyl charity. Thanks are extended to everyone who donated sponsorship and raffle prizes and who attended the event to show their support as well as to those who helped out on the day. There is much we can agree on with regard to the Lincoln Yards proposal. I agree about the assessment of the North Branch planned manufacturing district: It is characterized by poor infrastructure, traffic congestion, a lack of public investment and a loss of jobs. I think the answer is to make the investments necessary to retain the area as a job creator. Instead of investment in infrastructure to create a new high-rise district, I would prefer to see the city invest in the infrastructure to assist the thriving businesses currently in place, and provide for manufacturing and innovation districts and maker spaces (where people gather to invent and learn) that would provide a suitable location for 21st-century jobs. Wicklow ceramicist Chloe Dowds was among the seven Irish brands selected to exhibit at one of Europe's most influential trade fair for the home. The Design and Crafts Council of Ireland presented their own 'Design Ireland' stand at Maison&Objet (M&O) Paris, and introduced the work of three Irish ceramicists as part of the overall presentation, including Chloe, who operates out of Glendarragh Studios in Newtownmountkennedy. Chloe creates tactile porcelain tableware. Every element of her design has been considered to stimulate and heighten the user's experience of the piece. In 2018 Chloe was awarded the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Merit Award and is winner of the Future Lights in Ceramics - Ambassador of European Ceramics 2018. M&O Paris is Europe's leading home decor fair connecting the international interior design and lifestyle community and presents a valuable opportunity for the selected Irish brands to meet with existing customers and establish further relationships with trade buyers, influencers and press from across the globe. The event generally attracts in excess of 90,000 professional visitors from Europe, the UK, the US and Asia. The West Wicklow Festival returns for the third time with an expanded programme featuring 15 artists over five days. Concerts are being held from May 15 to May 19 at Russborough House and St Mary's Church in Blessington. The programme will include performances from captivating Australian soprano Lauren Fagan, internationally acclaimed violinist Elena Urioste with pianist Tom Poster, renowned string quartet Quatuor Voce, prominent French ensemble Trio Atanassov, the dynamic Duo Jatekok and the festival's founder and artistic director, celebrated Irish pianist Fiachra Garvey. Explaining the inspiration behind the 2019 festival, Fiachra said: 'This year's programme marks two very important events - namely the 200th Anniversary of Clara Schumann's birth and the centenary of the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence. We join in celebrating the music of Clara Schumann this year as well as music by other female composers and we have commissioned two new works in memory of the Irish War of Independence. I look forward to welcoming everyone to the stunning Russborough House in May to enjoy this fantastic programme in a uniquely intimate setting'. The birth of Clara Schuman 200 years ago will be marked by presenting some of her finest works alongside those of other influential Irish and international female composers, including Amy Beach, Lili Boulanger, Rhona Clarke, Rhoda Coghill and Joan Trimble. West Wicklow Festival has also commissioned two new pieces of music to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence. The first of these new compositions is by prominent Irish composer Sam Perkin, with this highly anticipated new piece receiving its world premiere on Wednesday, May 15, performed by Fiachra. The other new commission, written by young British composer Lilly Vadaneaux, will be performed for the first time by Lauren Fagan (soprano), and accompanied by Fiachra on Sunday, May 19 at St. Mary's Church, Blessington. Last year, the festival teamed up with the National Concert Hall's Learning and Participation team to deliver an interactive family concert as well as an innovative programme of musical activities at Russborough's intricate hedge-maze and mystical Lady's Island. This collaboration will continue in 2019 with full details of the Festival's family and educational activities being announced shortly. To book your tickets, please visit westwicklowfestival.com. Tinahely Variety Group will present 'Eclipsed' by Patricia Burke Brogan in Tinahely Community Hall for four nights from Wednesday, February 6, to Saturday, February 9, before embarking on the festival circuit. 'Eclipsed' tells the story of four women and an orphan girl in a Magdalene Laundry in 1963. The play explores the relationship between the women and the nuns and how society treated these women. The audience can expect to have plenty of laughs and perhaps at times shed a tear. They will meet Elvis Presley, witness his marriage and join in with some of his best known hits. When the curtain comes down, the audience will leave grateful for the fact that Ireland has moved on and happy in the knowledge that we will never forget. 'Eclipsed' begins at 8 p.m. nightly. Booking is essential. Call 085 8364244 from Monday, January 28, from 11 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. The exhibition 'Rome Wasn't Built in a Day' by Fergus Fitzgerald will take place at Mermaid Arts Centre from Friday, February 8 to Saturday, March 16. The gallery is open daily, with an opening reception on Thursday, February 7, at 6 p.m. Emma Finucan will lead an open workshop in spired by Fergus' work on February 16 and March 2 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Artists of all levels will work at their own pace in acrylic paint. Fergus Fitzgerald works primarily in acrylic on canvas. An avid traveller, particularly to Italy, location greatly informs Fergus' work. Being a lover of linguistics and books, Fergus enjoys thoroughly researching his subjects for paintings and using text within his paintings. Fergus paints images exploring various locations he has visited or aspires to visit. Such as Ljubljana in Slovenia, Siena in Tuscany, Cefaluin Sicily and Mozart's birthplace in Salzburg in Austria. In an exploration of text as drawing and text as imagery, each painting has text drawn onto the surface weaving his own personal thoughts on the subject of the work with researched facts. Fergus has shown work at Dublin City Council Offices, Kilkenny Arts Festival, The Glasshouse Gallery, Kilkenny and An Tearmann, Kilcullen Kildare. In 2014 he took part in I Want To Know, an International exchange and practice development with Co-operations, Luxembourg, SKID, Germany, Pyramid of Arts, Leeds, UK, KCAT Studio Ireland at Ueberlingen, Germany (October 2014). Tubbercurry has been chosen as for a Smart Community Initiative. Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development Sean Canney was in the South Sligo town on Friday to launch the initiative. Smart Communities is a new approach that will bring exposure to digital content and technology out into the community and support people to discover the value of using digital in their daily lives. Minister Canny explained why Tubbercurry was chosen to test the feasibility of this initiative: "Mainly the strong active community groups. Tubbercurry is also a Bank Of Ireland enterprise town; there is a strong local presence by all of the Stakeholders in the Action Group, well established community networks, the availability of high speed broadband, the existence of an Open library, co-location of a post office and a Supervalu, which is being used as a test site for the An Post digital assist initiative. "In the post office you will find a smart tablet, keyboard and printer, which is available to the public providing access to government and An Post websites. Post office staff are on hand to assist customers to access government or local authority services, forms and information and customers can print government application forms and information brochures free of charge." There are 316 online sites available, including Government Departments, their Agencies, Local Authorities, and other semi-State bodies. Tubbercurry also boasts 'My Open Library' which provides self-service access to the library using innovative technology. Tubbercurry library opens from 8am to 10pm; 7 days a week; 365 days a year. These opening hours are in addition to the normal staffed hours and provides enhanced access for the community. Hidden gems along the Wild Atlantic Way, including in Sligo, have been viewed a massive 13.8 million times in the 'Call of the Wild' campaign, a joint initiative between the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Tourism Ireland and Failte Ireland. The campaign - which kicked off in October and came to an end in December - showcased the beauty of Sligo and the Wild Atlantic Way to potential visitors in the US, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, the Nordic countries, India and New Zealand. It delivered superb results - with some 13.8 million views recorded for the three-month campaign. 'Call of the Wild' asked people in counties along the Wild Atlantic Way to share images and videos of their favourite hidden gems on social media. A sporting personality from each county helped launch the campaign, serving as 'Call of the Wild' ambassadors. These included Alan Cawley from Sligo. The response from people along the Wild Atlantic Way was significant, with more than 4,000 uploads of stunning scenery, regional delicacies and local delights captured on camera and then shared via social media using the hashtag #MyWildAtlanticWay. A protest calling for a clean drinking water supply from Lough Talt looks set to take place following a public meeting. Sixty people attended a recent public meeting about the ongoing boil water notice affecting 13,000 people where MEP Marian Harkin set out the ongoing delays in planning for a new water treatment plant. The latest boil water notice was put in place on Friday, January 11th following a detection of cryptosporidium during routine sampling at the water treatment plant. On October 25th last a boil water notice was lifted since its introduction in February. Since then those affected have had to boil water or buy bottled water for drinking, food preparation and to brush their teeth. Organiser of the meeting, Kellie Cadman told The Sligo Champion there has been 'so much anger in the area.' "There will be a petition drawn up and circulated to businesses, schools, creches and everyone else. Apparently we need 10,000 signatures to be taken seriously.. "Everybody who was at the meeting wants to have some kind of protest or a march, that will be organised. We're appealing to every community group to be there and represent your group," said Kellie. She outlined people's frustrations with the ongoing delays in planning. "It's a breach against our human rights, we are fully entitled to take a claim against Irish Water because this is an infringement, not to be provided with clean drinking water." The organiser explained that yesterday (Monday) the full application was due to be lodged to Sligo County Council. "Irish Water needed to submit a 100 page document and all that is holding everything up is a sign that is to be put up at the plant and an ad in a local paper. That is all that is holding up the planning application from Irish Water to Sligo County Council to upgrade the plant. All relevant paperwork has been done and nobody can answer why Irish Water has not gone through with this stage." The meeting heard that legislation regarding the protection of flora and fauna had to be dealt with. Improvements to the water scheme have been prevented as the lake is designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) due to sensitive lake species that live on the foreshore - including the Arctic Charr, rare snail vertigo geyeri and the Oak Fern. "Once the HSE can prove that people are getting sick from this, people's health comes ahead of this Flora and Fauna Act. It is now being proved that there has been 2 cases but I imagine there's more," explained Ms Cadman. It was outlined that once this latest application is lodged and gets approval, work on a new plant can begin immediately, however, a timeframe for completion will still be in the region of 2 years. "We will be looking at a 2 year building time before a new processing plant is ready. What do we do till then? The HSE will not lift this boil notice warning because the water has to be tested 20 times without a result. So what are we meant to do in the meantime," asked Ms Cadman. She added that even if the boil water notice is lifted, many people will still refuse to drink the water due to fears of contracting the bug. Friday's meeting was not attended by any representatives from Irish Water who refused an invite to the non-political meeting, according to the organiser. Ms Cadman explained that MEP Harkin will make contact with Irish Water this week in order to arrange a meeting on behalf of the public, to discuss an interim solution for the 13,000 people affected. "Marian knows its a huge catchment area, she said when this happened in Galway they bypassed this flora and fauna law altogether...We need to make noise, we're not going to sit for 2 years while this application goes through," said Ms Cadman. Various ideas to address the boil notice were also discussed at the meeting, from tankards of water, to grant schemes . It was outlined to the meeting that even if tanks of water were supplied to those affected, the water would still need to be boiled. The issue of environmental damage was also highlighted, with people finding the use of plastic bottles very destructive. A filtration system for people's homes was suggested by one woman in attendance. "She said she is looking at a filtration system because she has a huge problem with plastics and doesn't believe boiling is enough. She said why can't everybody push to get one of these filration systems and Irish Water put in a grant for them to apply for it. That's something I hope will be put forward when they meet. We have no solution to this." Ms Cadman also referenced the expense on people having to buy bottled water. "A woman was representing an afterschool club where kids have dinner and they can't afford to buy bottled water, they're still drinking it from the tap, even though they know. In this day and age it shouldn't be something you choose, do you buy your dinner or do you buy water." A Manorhamilton based councillor has slammed An Post's decision to move their post office from the main street to the SuperValu just down the road. Felim Gurn says it contradicts the government's rural regeneration plan. "It's a ridiculous decision," he told The Sligo Champion. "Under this Rural Regeneration Plan we are trying to bring back main streets in rural towns and villages. "The post office has been 40 years in the locality. There is the W8 site which has plenty of car park spaces but it's now being moved to SuperValu." Locals have expressed their concerns over the availability of car parking at SuperValu, and Councillor Gurn says this is one of the main reasons this move should not be going ahead. He claims there are not enough car park spaces to deal with the volume of traffic that will now be going into SuperValu, with only two disabled car park spots. "It makes no sense. There are parking problems at SuperValu. There are only two spots there for the disabled and the elderly. If I wanted to expand my business I'd have to make more car park spaces. I'd have to buy spaces probably," he said. The premises which houses the post office will now add to the number of empty buildings on the main street in the town. "We lost our newsagents, we have four butcher shops under severe pressure, an off-licence closed, this is another business hit. We're trying to bring back rural Ireland. The post office is currently in a newer area of town which was regenerated around 2006. "There was new shop-fronts, apartments, and at the time the units were about 200,000 each. Now beside the post office there's two units selling for 50,000 for both of them. If the post office was moving into the W8 site it would be ok because there are 100 car park spaces for it." A businessman in the town, Cllr. Gurn says he is concerned about another business closing. "It concerns me to see another business going. When the Ulster Bank closed two years ago it had a significant effect on the town. We lost a shop them followed by a hotel. On the other side, we have 900 jobs for a population of 1,600. We have loads of empty shops, we are trying to do something about that." A petition has started online to prevent the move of the post office, but Cllr. Gurn accepts that it is probably too late to do anything about it. There were rumours for sometime regarding the future of the post office, but this was not confirmed until last Wednesday. "I would say it is too late. The decision has been made. But by setting up a petition and reacting to it, we are letting An Post know that as a town we are not taking this decision lightly." An Post were unable to clarify whether the jobs of those currently employed in the post office in Manorhamilton will be safe once the move happens. It has not been decided yet when the post office will move to SuperValu, but the estimated timeline is around the end of February or the beginning of March. Spokesperson for An Post, Angus Laverty explained the decision to The Sligo Champion. "The reason why we came to this decision was that the current postmaster is retiring and we put it up for tender, the successful contractor had applied for the location to be in SuperValu. "It's a nice busy location for the post office where other businesses can bounce off one another." Mr. Laverty said there was no danger of the service ever leaving Manorhamilton, and that the post men at the back in the sorting centre will remain in situ. "An Post were anxious to maintain a presence in the town," he said. Although this means that the current location will now be empty, Mr. Laverty says it is a good decision. "The current premises will be left vacant but it will be filled. The move makes it handy and convenient for people to get all they need done in the one place." The Bobby Kerr report that was released two years ago recommended 'co-located' post offices in order to boost the viability of the service in rural Ireland. "It makes sense. It's a good business model. It's a model that works for both sides. One side of the business can compliment another," he added. A Dublin man whose gun jammed when he tried to shoot his ex-girlfriend has been sentenced to eight years in prison for her attempted murder. Justice Michael White said Gerard Mooney (39), of no fixed abode, had come "within a hair's breadth" of facing the most serious charge in Irish law and that but for good fortune his victim would not have survived. Mooney, a father of three who previously lived in Castlerea pleaded guilty last year to the attempted murder of Stephanie Clifton (28) on 12th February 2017 at Cartron near Carrick-on-Shannon. He also admitted to the possession of a shotgun, making a threat to kill or cause serious harm to Ms Clifton and criminal damage on the same occasion. He further pleaded guilty to harassing Ms Clifton by persistently following, watching, pestering, besetting or communicating with her between 7th and 12th February 2017. The court heard that he made more than 250 calls to her phone between those dates. He also pleaded guilty to committing burglary at the home of Stephen O'Donoghue in Cartron by entering as a trespasser and committing assault causing harm to Stephanie Clifton. Justice White said the evidence showed that Mooney had been in a "turbulent" relationship with Ms Clifton and could not accept it when they broke up. Psychological problems and abuse of drink and drugs were factors in his offending behaviour, the judge added. He said there were a number of aggravating factors including that he had been ordered by a court not to contact Ms Clifton when he tried to murder her. Justice White noted that relationships are often "the most dangerous place for victims" and said this was a "startling example" of the reality where love becomes distorted to something very different. In mitigation the judge noted that Mooney had mental health problems and issues with alcohol and drug abuse. He shows genuine remorse, the judge said, and while in custody has attended courses in anger management, alternatives to violence, peer mediation, conflict awareness and harm reduction. He has also achieved a certificate of basic literacy. On the attempted murder charge Justice White imposed a 12-year sentence but suspended the last four. He sentenced him to five years for burglary, eight years for possession of a firearm, three years for criminal damage, five years for threatening to kill and two years for harassment. All sentences will run concurrently and were backdated to February 15, 2017 when he first went into custody. Justice White further ordered that for 15 years from the date of his release Mooney must not contact Ms Clifton in any way directly or indirectly. Mr Mooney entered a bond and accepted the terms. During a sentence hearing last December Garda Fergal Reynolds of Boyle Garda Station said Ms Clifton, a Birmingham-born woman, had met the accused three or four years ago when they were both living in Co Roscommon. He told Philipp Rahn BL, prosecuting, that they began a turbulent relationship, which had broken down by 7th February, 2017. On that evening she was at home in Meadow Crest, Boyle with her young daughter, who was asleep. The accused arrived around 8.30pm and began banging on her windows and demanding entry. She had moved on with someone else and refused to let him in, but she spoke to him through a window. "He would have been at her house for a couple of hours trying to talk to her," explained Gda Reynolds. He said that he had become quite agitated when he realised that he wasn't getting in. His victim told him that she had to go to attend to food that was cooking and left the window. She then heard glass breaking, looked out and saw the accused standing with a crowbar, having smashed her car windows. It was almost midnight when she called the gardai. The officers attended and later came across the accused leaving the estate. He took off running, but was found hiding inside a hedge, two feet off the ground. He was released from custody the following morning on strict bail conditions, including that he would not have any contact with the victim and stay out of Boyle. He phoned her and threatened to kill her that very morning. "See you, rat face. You're dead," he said, while also threatening to burn her house down. He proceeded to make another 273 calls to her on 11th and 12th February. She went to stay with her cousin, Mr O'Donoghue, in Cartron that weekend. She woke up at 7.30am on Sunday 12th to find the accused standing over her. He pulled her out of bed and assaulted her. The accused had brought another man with him, and they left together after the assault. Ms Clifton dialled 999 and gardai were dispatched. "We were en-route to the initial call to the assault when we got a further call to say he'd returned to the house and a shot had been discharged," recalled Gda Reynolds. The door had been unlocked on his first arrival, but Mooney found it locked this time. He fired a shot through the glass part of the door, and gained entry that way. Wearing blue surgical gloves, he walked to the bedroom with a sawn-off shotgun in his hand. He brought Ms Clifton to the kitchen and pointed the gun at her head. He pulled the trigger a number of times but it didn't fire. So he opened it and tried to unload and load it before pulling the trigger another few times. It still didn't work so he tried the same procedure again. "He just seemed to be getting really pissed off when the gun didn't go off," said Mr O'Donoghue in a statement. "The gun was inches away from her face. She was shouting: 'Ger don't do it. Please don't do it'." Before he left, Mooney shouted that he would kill her if she rang the gardai. He also referred to killing her father and Mr O'Donoghue. Gardai were there by the time the accused made his next threats to his victim, this time in a phone call. He was tracked down that evening, hiding in a wardrobe in a friend's house in Castlerea. He was arrested and interviewed, but denied everything. Gda Reynolds read out Ms Clifton's victim impact statement, in which she said that her mental health had suffered as a result of the incident with the gun. "I have constant flashbacks of the gun being pointed at my head and him reloading," she wrote. She said she had since been diagnosed with PTSD, was on medication and had felt suicidal. She had also been left with a fractured rib. "I constantly suffer from anxiety and jump at loud bangs," she continued. "I feel weakened as a person but have to stay strong for my daughter." She said she felt like prisoner in her own home and constantly though he would turn up. She also had to leave work as a result. "I think that someone must have been looking over me that day, as the bullets kept jamming, despite him reloading," she said. She said that her daughter had also been affected and that her worst fear was now 'that my Mummy would be killed'. Over seven long years, as dining trends have come and gone, the city has prevailed. But Pekarik is not alone in asserting that Chicago hinders these small businesses. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says Chicagos food truck environment is perhaps one of the most difficult in the country, reports the Tribunes Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz. The citys regulatory attitude sinks it to a ranking of No. 13 out of 20 large cities for friendliness to food trucks. A multi-media touring exhibition by the Elephant Collective which is raising awareness of issues surrounding maternal deaths in Ireland is continuing in the Print Room at Wexford Arts Centre, with people invited to take part in a free craft morning on Thursday, January 31. The collective comprises individuals and groups who have been campaigning since 2014 for legislative change to secure mandatory inquests for all maternal deaths in Ireland. The exhibition, called 'Picking up the Threads; Remaking the Fabric of Care' highlights the issue through the creative display of a beautiful hand-crafted quilt, eight painted portraits, a documentary, an art film and a book which have been created by artists working with the collective. The show, which seeks to highlight the issue and to commemorate women who have died in Ireland's maternity service, was officially opened by Margaret Cullen, a development officer with Access 2000. An accompanying short film by Laura Fitzpatrick called 'Silent Killer' won first place in the short film category at the Wexford Documentary Film Festival in 2016. As it tours Ireland, the exhibition is attempting to gather the support of County Councils with Wexford County Council becoming the third local authority to unanimously pass a motion calling on the government to introduce legislation for mandatory inquests. In addition to a craft morning on January 31, a public talk on 'Art in Activism' will be held in Wexford Arts Centre on Thursday, February 7, at 2 p.m. with guest speakers Martina Hynan, an artist from the Elephant Collective, Cllr Tony Walsh of People Before Profit and Dr Orla Ryan from the Wexford Campus School of Art and Design at IT Carlow. All are welcome to attend. Admission is also free to the craft morning taking place in the Arts Centre from 10.30 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. at which the participants will create responses to the work of the exhibition. The New Ross branch of the Labour party have selected Bridin Moloney to be their 2019 Local Election candidate for the New Ross district. Born and raised in Cushinstown and then Newtown Commons, New Ross, Bridin attended St. Joseph's and then St. Mary's schools. She studied in Maynooth University before moving to San Francisco for some years. Upon returning to Dublin she moved to Sallins, Co. Kildare, where she was very active in the local community groups. Bridin moved back to Cushinstown in 2011 and in 2015 graduated with her H.Dip. in Adult Education from WIT. Bridin has been a Labour party member since 2016 but prior to joining the party had always been involved in voluntary and community projects, be it volunteering as a tutor with unaccompanied minors or helping organise community festivals projects in the various localities she has lived in. Over the last number of years Bridin has campaigned extensively for both Marriage Equality and the Repeal of the 8th Amendment (she was one of three local women to set up the New Ross branch of Together for Yes). Among the issues Bridin is campaigning on is to lobby for more social houses to be built in the area, controls on private rents, addressing the health system and availability of GPs in the area, the opening of the Waterford to New Ross greenway and the opening of a new community space in New Ross for the area's youth. Bridin said: 'I am passionate about how local government can facilitate change in the community, from working closer with our young people and parents of young children - I truly hope the people of the New Ross district will give me a chance, I am new to politics so I cannot talk about the things I have done in council, however, I do have a proven track record in hard work and in getting things done with all groups I have worked with over the last 20 something years.' Breda Sinnott, of 'The Shop', Rosbercon Hill, was one of the area's most popular residents and as its former shopkeeper, wit and resident dog lover, she will be greatly missed in her native area. Breda passed away aged 84 on January 10. Born Breda Mackey on July 5, 1934, she was the daughter of the late Lar and Kate Mackey, Tinneranny. With her passing the last remaining family member of the Mackey's born and raised in Tinneranny has departed. Breda was predeceased by her father Lar who died on January 6, 1973, and her mother Kate who died on January 23, 1985. Breda's eldest brother Sean died in August, 1985, the same year as his mother. Pat died on September 12, 2013, and Pat's twin brother, Jim passed away on July 17, 2006. Following her time in school at the Holy Faith convent, Breda went to work for Maher's bakery in South Street, New Ross. This was a wonderful confectionery business that is long since closed. Breda's aunts on her mother's side, Maggie and Josephine Egan, ran a grocery and guest house in Rosbercon. In 1967 the business premises became Breda Mackey's Shop as all Rosbercon residents called it. Breda ran this shop herself until August, 1970, when she married Ned, a man with a great knowledge of the grocery trade and a work ethic to match. While the shop was always called Breda Mackey's, the knowledge and hard work Ned brought to the business, working alongside Breda, made it as successful as it ever was. A great range of supplies could be bought on credit and delivered to your door. Payment followed when the grain or mart cheque arrived or better times in the household were restored. Mart days were exceptionally busy and the younger customer had to judge Breda's humour on the day and often had to rush their selection of penny sweets so as not to draw upon themselves her sharp and cutting wit. Breda's interests outside of the business was centred on a love for animals. She held one of the Irish Kennel Club's longest memberships. Some of her friends from the dog world came to Rosbceron to honour her association with the club. Breda loved her Dachshunds, many of which she turned into Irish champions over the years. Her favourite breed, however, was the German shepherd, but they were just too big an animal for her to handle in the show ring. Many people may not be aware that Breda once travelled to Canada in the early 1960s to visit her cousin 'Canadian Jim' and having fallen in love with the country, she had to seriously debate whether or not to return home. While attending a Johnny Cash concert in Toronto Breda joined the famous 'Man in Black' and his wife June Carter on stage and sang two songs with them (Forty Shades of Green and Take Me Home Again Kathleen) to a packed theatre. Like her brother Sean, Breda was very musical and had a great voice. In the end the pull of Rosbercon and its people proved too strong. In later years Breda and Ned needed some support to continue to live independently in Rosbercon and that help was provided by John Bennett. All those who remember Breda and know Ned are aware of the great work he has done for the Sinnotts. In her final years Breda was cared for by the staff of the Millhouse Nursing Home. A large crowd attended her funeral Mass, including Ned, her nephews and their families, Gerard, Kevin and Lar Mackey. Ned's family was also well represented by his brother Dick and family. The crowd at the Requiem Mass in the Church of the Assumption, Rosbercon Hill on Sunday, January 14, was a tribute to Breda's popularity in south Kilkenny and beyond. Fr Dan Cavanagh officiated at the Mass where the church choir sang. Honouring Breda, a life-long pioneer, light non-alcoholic beverages were served after the funeral at Doyle's Funeral Home in her native Rosbercon. May she Rest in Peace. With just months to go ahead of the European Elections, the popular Ireland South MEP Brian Crowley has announced he will not be contesting this years European elections, due to ill-health. At a press conference last week, he said his health in recent years meant that he would not be able for an election campaign and for this reason would not be seeking re-election. Mr Crowley, who topped the poll in the 2014 European Election when he got 180,329 first preference votes, many from Kerry, has missed all parliament sittings since his re-election. The 54-year old has said that he will attend the final sessions of this term in the coming months. Mr Crowley has, in fact, topped the poll in every European Election since 1994, when he first won a seat as an outsider, proving his popularity in the Southern region. This region will now have five seats instead of four in the forthcoming elections because of Brexit. Senator Mark Daly paid tributes to Mr Crowley. The way in which he has faced, and continues to face, all the challenges life has thrown at him is an inspiration. Brian represented Munster and his constituency, and indeed Irish society with distinction in Europe. I am grateful for his dedication and his service to Fianna Fail and to Ireland, and I wish him well with whatever he does in the future. It wasn't long after Vera O'Leary gave a recent radio interview when an elderly woman made a phone call to the Princes Quay-based Kerry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre [KRSAC] and shared a decades-old burden. Life had brought that caller much happiness since she'd survived being abused as a child - she had been married for some 50 years and had children - but she had never spoken to anyone of what she lived through. Of those who contact the centre Vera directs, some present right away. Others, like that caller, need years before they feel able to get in touch. Some never share their stories at all. "There are people who suffer sexual violence but either can't name it for themselves, or their shame is so great that they couldn't imagine telling someone," Vera says today in the front room of the centre at Number Five Greenview Terrace. "They carry that with them, and the cost - perhaps in the form of abusing drugs or alcohol; relationships breaking down; failing school; mental health issues or even suicide - is so high." One hopes the establishment of a dedicated unit in Kerry for survivors of sexual violence, led by Inspector Paul Kennedy, will prove a great stride in reaching out to those shouldering such pain. Its potential benefits are many: it will increase the visibility of Gardai for victims, Vera feels, while the fact that the service even exists could see more people coming forward. But one aspect in particular, that the two sergeants and 10 Gardai who make up the unit have put themselves forward and have gone through an interview process and comprehensive training, gives Vera added hope. "If a survivor comes forward and gets a compassionate, caring response to all their needs... It can be almost as healing as going through the criminal justice system, which is fraught with difficulties for those coming forward," she says. "We [KRSAC] have a great relationship with the guards. But a guard could come here, take a statement, and then have to follow up a burglary, anything. This unit is specifically tasked with sexual and domestic violence. Guards will build up expertise with the issue and the survivors. "I feel there will also be a closer working relationship with KRSAC, which can only benefit survivors coming forward." Though the CSO recently released data showing there were 23 reports of sexual offences in Kerry during the third quarter of 2018 - the highest third-quarter figure since 2010 - it's impossible even for someone as knowledgeable as Vera to pinpoint what exactly this figure says about society. We do not know if these alleged attacks happened recently or years ago. There are also serious misgivings about the quality of Garda PULSE data, and the CSO issues the statistics 'under reservation'. Considering that reported incidents only represent about 30 per cent of all sexual crimes committed, Vera explains, we also do not know how prevalent sexual violence truly is, and while the CSO has announced it will deliver a national survey on the issue, the process will likely take years. "I do, however, know there is an increase in people coming forward," she says. "There are more people coming out after court with no issue being named or with talking to the media. That gives confidence to another person to say, 'I can talk. I can report it'. "We also notice a lot more young people coming forward, but they're more reluctant to report There's often the issue with young people that you could almost write a script: they're out but shouldn't be out; they're drinking when they're not supposed to be; they fancy the guy and, maybe, engage in some sexual activities. And then they're raped. "For them, the difficulty is, 'Who is going to believe me?' We find it's often a parent that reports it, but then the young person is reluctant make a signed statement." While admitting some of the attitudes she has encountered recently - during discussions around the Belfast rape trial, for example - still "horrify" her, she feels there has been a change for the better when it comes to modern views on sexual violence. That said, the issues society needs to tackle remain many and varied. One such concern is the number of young people who do not understand what constitutes consent. Embedding a program in the school curriculum is vital in terms of addressing this, Vera says, and while KRSAC currently delivers a pilot, its future is less than certain. "We have a worker half a week, she goes to as many schools as possible, and NUI Galway is evaluating it," Vera says. "It's funded externally, but when that funding runs out next year, unless I can raise funds through other means, we don't know if we can reach all the young people we need to reach. "We have no problem being part of its development and don't mind being there as consultants. But it needs to be there, and teachers need to be trained up on it. "I read a piece by a father recently: his son got into the car after school one evening and was really upset. The child said one of the kids wouldn't let him hug her goodbye. The father said, 'Sometimes, people don't want you to hug them - so you need to ask. If they say no, you need to say that's all right. "I thought to myself, 'What a lesson he has given his son." You can contact KRSAC in confidence and needn't report the incident. KRSAC can give you the information and the support you need to make a report and can arrange for the guards or social workers to meet you, if you so wish - but never tries to influence one's decision. It is obliged to report an incident if a child is at risk. It works with men and women, and survivors of any kind of sexual violence. Services are free, and its therapists are highly qualified and accredited. Phone (066) 712 3122 or (1800) 633 333; visit either www.facebook.com/krsacentre or www.krsac.com;.or call into 5 Greenview Terrace, Princes Quay, Tralee. Portmagee man James Murphy has always wanted to return to Kerry to live with his family, but the lack of employment opportunities in rural Kerry had proven to be a barrier to this. Now, thanks to a innovative project he is hoping to create a number of jobs in his native Portmagee with plans for a Portmagee Whiskey and smuggling experience and Seine Boat experience visitor centre. This is the next step in a long-term project which includes the launch of a new Portmagee whiskey - a premium nine-year-old traditional Irish triple-distilled whiskey - at Christmas. This is the first-ever whiskey brand originating from the picturesque fishing village and is named after a famous 18th century smuggler, Captain Theobald Magee. It is also believed to be the only nine-year-old Irish whiskey currently on the market. With the first whiskey having been snapped up by Irish whiskey collectors, those behind the company have major plans for the business and for their home place of Portmagee in 2019. John and James Murphy are behind Portmagee Whiskey along with their business partner, Stuart McNamara, who is a well-known Irish whiskey blogger who owns and edits IrishWhiskey.com, WhiskeyBlogger.com and The Irish Whiskey Trail tourism guide. The first batch of whiskey yielded 399 bottles, and in the coming months, another unique batch is also to be launched. The logo and branding of all their products honours the traditional seine boat and maritime heritage of Portmagee. 2019 is also set to be an exciting year for Portmagee whiskey and in particular the development of a new visitor attraction for the region. Funding has been granted from Failte Ireland's New Horizons scheme for the development of the exhibition centre, which will be developed at John and James's family land in Barrack Hill in Portmagee, in a former RIC barracks which was once a cowshed. It is now set to be home to a high-tech exhibition centre which will include a an enhanced whiskey tasting and smuggling experience alongside a Seine boat experience focusing on the history of rowing in South West Kerry. This will run alongside a planned micro-distillery which will produce Portmagee Whiskey. This is currently being produced through a mixture of matured Irish Whiskey blends in the Great Northern Distillery. "It is a visitor centre complex of various things to do and experience in Portmagee," says James. "New Horizons is helping develop the Skellig Coast to help new and existing tourist attractions creating jobs for the area." James set up his own video production company 'Bold Puppy Ltd' while living in Dublin, and this technological experience will be key to the exhibition space, which will use virtual reality and augmented reality to bring the exhibition to life. Augmented reality is an interactive experience that brings information to users via their own phone. The Murphys are to meet with Failte Ireland in the coming weeks to step up their plans for the centre but the funding of 200,000 from New Horizons is a huge step for the project. "I am very excited by this opportunity to develop and grow this business. I have witnessed so many young people who have all had to leave the area we loved so much growing up," explains James. "Many of my peers know all too well the sadness and tragedy of seeing our beautiful area constantly depleted of our young and ambitious talents. I would love to see my son have the opportunities to grow up here." John Murphy, a co-founder of Portmagee Whiskey, is a chartered engineer and was keen to point out that the design of the visitor experiences will be based on the latest energy efficient and environmentally friendly technologies. "We are a Bord Bia - Origin Green-registered company and, as such, have committed to a number of specific goals based around sustainability and energy efficiency," he said. "I'm looking forward to working on these plans and developing the business with a long-term sustainability goal in mind. "A business that promotes the best of what Portmagee and South Kerry have to offer while still celebrating our history and traditions. "We plan on supporting the local environment and maintaining the area's unique beauty in every aspect of our business. He believes this project has potential to develop the region as an all-year round whiskey tourism destination and with other similar projects planned for the area that in future there could be a Kerry whiskey tourism trail. "Ireland is in the middle of a global Irish Whiskey renaissance. Portmagee Whiskey and Seine Boat Experience is perfectly positioned to rise on the incoming Irish Whiskey tourism tide." The whiskey is now on sale at selected pubs, restaurants and off-licences in Portmagee and the wider South Kerry region, with plans to stock further afield in Ireland and abroad with the release of the non-age Statement Portmagee Whiskey early in 2019. Portmagee Whiskey has been working closely with Bord Bia on plans to export the Portmagee Whiskey and brand, with every bottle exported around the world promoting Portmagee village and the region around the world. The attack on January 21, 1919, in which two Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) members were killed at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary, is usually described as the first action of the Irish War of Independence. However that distinction really belongs to an incident in Kerry almost ten months earlier. On April 10, 1918, the day after Prime Minister Lloyd George announced conscription would be introduced in Ireland, seven members of the Ballymacelligott company of the Irish Volunteers met to discuss what to do about the impending crisis. They were John Cronin, Maurice Carmody, Maurice Reidy, John Browne, Richard Laide, John Flynn and Tom McEllistrim. They decided to raid the RIC hut at Gortatlea for weapons to resist conscription. The raid was planned for the night of Saturday, April 13, while two of the four RIC men stationed in the hut would be out on routine patrol. While his six colleagues waited on the railway line about sixty yards away, Flynn watched from the railway station for the two policemen to go on patrol. As the two RIC men left the hut, Flynn saw an opportunity to establish an alibi for himself by conveying a friend home before telling his colleagues that Sergeant Martin Boyle and Constable Patrick Fallon had gone on patrol. He did not realise, however, that they had only gone as far as the railway station to await the arrival of the Cork-Tralee train. As the train pulled into the station at about 10.25, the six walked up to the hut and knocked on the door. When Constable John Considine opened it, McEllistrim dashed past him and made for Constable Michael Denning inside, while the others overpowered the startled Considine at the door. Denning grappled briefly with McEllistrim but promptly surrendered, when Cronin entered with a double-barrel shotgun. "We had the barracks captured in less than three minutes," McEllistrim noted. He and Cronin proceeded to collect the arms in the hut. They took two rifles off a rack and placed them on a table when a shot rang out. Sergeant Boyle and Constable Fallon, who had seen what was happening from the railway station, had slipped up to the open door of the hut and began shooting, according to McEllistrim. Browne was shot in the head, while Laide was wounded by a bullet that entered his back and went through a kidney and stomach. They decided to fight their way out, McEllistrim noted: "We thought at first that we had been surrounded." "Will we shoot those two prisoners before leaving?" someone asked. "How can we shoot them with their hands up?" McEllistrim replied. They took the wounded Laide to a nearby house, from where he was transferred to hospital in Tralee, but he died the following afternoon. Browne never really had a chance, because of the nature of his head wound. The first press reports were on the inquest into the two deaths. The raid itself was essentially ignored. But there was a dramatic sequel two months later, when a couple of them sought to avenge their colleagues' deaths. Sergeant Boyle had been promoted to Head Constable, and Constable Fallon became a Sergeant, which added insult to injury in the eyes of the volunteers. On learning that the two would be giving evidence at a court case in Tralee on June 14, 1918, McEllistrim and Cronin decided to shoot them in The Mall as they were walking through the town from the Court House to the RIC barracks at lunchtime. They brought two shotguns in a sack into the snug of a pub, where they had a "full view of the main street", McEllistrim recalled. "We knew that Boyle and Fallon would have to pass that way." It was a busy day in town. About five minutes past one, they saw the two coming down the street. "There were scores of people passing to and fro," according to McEllistrim. "Cronin was by my side and we dashed together across the street. "There was great excitement and shouting, and when we got halfway across the street, Boyle and Fallon heard someone shout, 'look out'." "They turned in our direction and saw us facing them with two shotguns," McEllistrim continued. "They first attempted to draw their guns. We lifted our guns to fire. We were now only ten yards from them. As we did, they flung themselves backwards in a somewhat sitting position on the flags. We took aim and fired." Fallon turned instinctively and was hit in the back around the shoulder, but made a full recovery. Boyle was missed altogether. McEllistrim and Cronin dropped the shotguns on the spot and raced back through the pub to the rear, "where we jumped on our bicycles and got clear away". In 1921, in what was really the first book covering the period of would become known as the War of Independence, Cecil JC Street described the attack on the two policemen in Tralee as "a most daring outrage committed in daylight in the presence of over a hundred inhabitants, who were too terrified to interfere or subsequently identify the culprits". That was a second major incident in Kerry, and it was almost seven months before the Soloheadbeg ambush. You can learn more about the War of Independence in Kerry in the book 'Rebel Kerry', published by The Kerryman and Mercier Press and on sale at The Kerryman offices in Tralee and all good bookshops. Bertie Ahern reading his notes prior to the start of the Killarney Economic Conference in The Brehon Killarney on Thursday. Photo by Michelle Cooper Galvin 'Kerry is potentially at risk because of a hard Brexit' was one of many forecasts debated at the Killarney Economic Conference at The Brehon Hotel and INEC Centre in Killarney last week. The annual high-powered conference is designed to encourage dialogue between economic and civic leaders from across Britain and Ireland, and between academics and politicians, which included former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Not surprisingly, Brexit dominated discourse, with experts from different fields pitching in about the impending crisis posed by Britain's decision to withdraw from the EU. Implications for financial and legal systems in a post-Brexit scenario - and challenges to business and political relations between both islands after the March 29 deadline - were debated at length. Kerry formed the focus for much of the debate, with economic progress and concerns over tourism in a post-Brexit scenario most discussed. Kerry County Council Chief Executive Moira Murrell told the Killarney Economic Conference that 'people power' can help to attract investment and new business opportunities to Kerry. She added that companies thinking about setting up in the county need to know that local people and agencies in the county will look after them when they get here. But the Chief Executive also acknowledged that outside of the Killarney-Tralee-Killorglin triangle, areas in the north and south of the county have seen rural decline continue. "We have to say to companies coming into Kerry that we'll mind you, we'll make life easy for you, we'll do what we can for you and we'll work with you," Ms Murrell said. Some welcome news in a climate of Brexit uncertainty came when Fexco Corporate Payments CEO Ruth McCarthy (whose father, Brian, founded the company in 1981) said that Killorglin is a perfect base for Fexco and that no move to a city is necessary for the company. She stated that there was never any danger that Fexco would 'out-grow' the town and consider moving to the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin. Fexco was set up over 37 years ago at its current location. Ms McCarthy said that key Fexco personnel are just as likely to have to attend meetings in Sydney, Beijing or Dublin as they are meetings in Kerry, and that this is a modern expectation in a globalised world. "If you have a global presence, as we do, whether you are based in Dublin or Kerry, you're still going to have to travel to Beijing, so it doesn't particularly matter," Ms McCarthy stated. Central Bank Deputy Governor Ed Sibley outlined the fact that 13 per cent of goods and 16 per cent of services are exported from Ireland to the UK, and that this would hit Ireland in a very uneven way with Agri-food and tourism. He said, "Kerry is an area that is potentially at risk when it comes to places likely to suffer most." Anglo-Irish relations arising from a Brexit fallout were also a hot topic, with speakers painting a less than positive picture of current relations. Ryanair's Director of Operations Peter Bellew is a Killarney resident and a former marketing manager with Kerry Airport. Mr Bellew warned against 'gloating' by Irish people when it comes to Brexit, adding that people here should "show more gratitude for what the UK has done for this country". He said Ryanair has taken a view that it will not be "bashing the English" and that the Irish government, businesses and people here would do well to do the same when dealing with British people and doing business with them. "A lot of things could be solved by jumping on a plane to London or Manchester or Birmingham or Brussels and talk over a cup of tea and a few purple Snacks, which was traditionally how we sorted out some situations...we need to show a bit more common sense," Mr Bellow said. Meanwhile, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's contribution to the two-day conference centred on the besieged British Prime Minister, Theresa May. Mr Ahern said that the Prime Minister must try and implement negotiations with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and others, if the Brexit crisis is to be sorted before the deadline. "The capacity and the ability of people to properly negotiate is fading fast. I spent weeks of my life trying to get people to turn up at the negotiating table. You do it by soft diplomacy; try to convince people and talk quietly," Mr Ahern said. There is no guarantee that this deal will mean a return to functional government. Its a short-term agreement that keeps the lights on for three weeks while negotiations continue. Trump vowed that if he didnt get money for the wall, the government will either shut down on Feb. 15, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency. Municipal District members are gearing up for the Gorey 400 Festival to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Gorey's town charter. At last week's meeting, Cllr Anthony Donohoe said they should get in contact with the Danish embassy to see about bringing over Titania's Palace as part of the celebration. 'It has been all over the world and it would be nice to see it's return back to where it originally came from,' said Cllr Donohoe. 'It should have never left the country.' Titania's Palace was an elaborate 'doll's house' that was on display in Ballynastragh House near Kilanerin for 20 years until 1965 when it was auctioned off and eventually landed in Legoland. 'When it was in Ballynastragh house it attracted over 300,000 visitors,' said Cllr Donohoe. 'It would be suitable upstairs in the Market House too in the summer time as part of Gorey 400. It's a priceless piece of furniture.' Amanda Byrne, district manager, said they will start with the Danish embassy first to see if they can get it over to Gorey. Cllr Mary Farrell said the film produced by Garrett Keogh would really help with their case to bring over the house as it shows the historical side of things. Ms Byrne added details on the Expo evening on January 31 in relation to Gorey 400 are being finalised. Local historian Michael Fitzpatrick of Cluainin has been reeling in the years on his beloved hometown Gorey as part of his research for his new book. Michael is currently working on Volume Seven of his 'Historic Gorey' series, having produced his last volume in December, 2012. Speaking to this newspaper, Michael said one of his main reasons for such a long delay in publishing further works was a long period of ill health. Now, still in recovery and in his 84th year, he feels it is now or never as so many classmates from school and a host of friends and relatives have passed on to their eternal rewards. Following a life time of historical research, both at home and abroad, Michael has found a great deal of historical documentation, much of it pertaining to Gorey and north Wexford. 'Genealogy in general has also been a real passion, especially the families of the county, but more importantly of the town of Gorey and its environs,' said Michael. During the many periods of his illness, Michael was not completely divorced from his love of local history and managed to produce a local family history of great interest for a lifetime friend. He has also compiled lists of all town denominations and inter-marriages, which were far from popular in years gone by. In 2013, St Michael's Gorey Pipe Band decided to publish a volume of the bands long history and again, Michael, as a former member, assisted in providing many old photographs and historical articles as a memoir of 75 years. In previous years, Michael was very much involved in the publication of a magazine called 'Link' by contributing articles for the publication. 'The late and great Rev Walter Forde who served for so many years as Curate of St Michael's Church published a magazine known as Link,' said Michael. 'The period of time involved began in 1974 mainly producing two editions per year. 'As a wonderful entrepreneur and Gorey's greatest organiser for the good of the town, he never failed to remind those as writers to have our articles ready for printing.' Following Rev Walter's departure from Gorey to serve as PP of Castlebridge, John Woodbyrne, Gorey church sexton, stepped into the breach as Link editor until 2004. Michael believes that his interest in Gorey's history appealed to him at a very young age, a time when very few locals with families would risk publishing a local town history book. Through his years of constant research, people from all classes of society presented him with a great deal of ancient unpublished material that was about Gorey and North Wexford. 'As a protective custodian of historical material, I have been faithful and true to those gone before me,' he added. To date, Michael's historic volumes include: Clonattin in the Fields; Historic Gorey - A Pictorial View Vol. 1; Historic Gorey - Historic Gorey Vol. 2; Historic Gorey - The Famine Years Vol. 3; Historic Gorey - Reflections of 1798 Vol. 4; Historic Gorey - The Changing Face of Gorey Vol. 5; Historic Gorey - Gorey and Courtown Vol. 6. He is currently working on Vol. 7. Parish priest of Kilanerin Rev Fr Denis Browne has been appointed Vicar Forane for the North of the Ferns Diocese. The duties of Vicar Forane include representing Bishop Denis Brennan when he is unavailable and also be the Presiding Celebrant at the Sacrament of Confirmation in Bishop Brennan's absence. Fr Browne will replace Fr William Howell who retired from the position this year. Speaking to this newspaper, Fr Browne said he is delighted with the new position as it is an honorary title. A native of Carnew, County Wicklow, Fr Browne was ordained in St Peter's College in Wexford in 1991. His first appointment was Chaplain of Wexford General Hospital from 1991, until 1995. 'In 2005 I was appointed as Curate of Gorey that included Tara Hill Church and the Rock,' said Fr Browne. He served in Gorey Parish until 2012 and decided to take a new path in his career by joining the Ferns Missions. 'I was a missionary in the Amazon Basin in Brazil for a while,' added Fr Browne. Upon his return to Ireland in 2012, Fr Browne became Administrator in Ballycullane before being appointed as Curate to Bannow/Ballymitty Parish. In 2017, he was appointed as PP to Kilanerin where he still remains today. The village of Kilanerin and surrounding districts wish him all the best with his new position. Askamore - Sincere sympathy: The community was saddened to learn of the death of Patty Rogan (nee Gilbert) from Drummond, Askamore last week. Patty died following a short illness and we extend our deepest sympathy to her sons, Paul, Gary and Geoff and to her brothers, Jim, Willie, Bob, Aidan and Donal and her sisters, Stacey and Ann and to all of her extended family. Requiem Mass for Patty took place in St Brigid's Church, Askamore on Monday last at 11 p.m. Split-the-pot Friday, January 18, winner of split-the-pot is Angela Morris, Knockshaunfin - winning 144. We thank everyone for supporting split-the-pot. Envelopes can be obtained from the School or any parent and from Ashling Walsh after weekend Masses in Askamore Church. Draws will take place every Friday morning in Ballyellis School. Ballyellis NS Enrolment Enrolment forms are now available for those wishing to enrol in September 2019. If you know of anyone wishing to have a child enrolled in Ballyellis please inform them that these forms are now available. Please contact the office at 053 9426159 or email the school at ballyellisns@eircom.net if you wish to have an enrolment form sent out or call into the school to collect form. Wedding Bells Heartiest congratulations to Garry Doran, Burrow and to Lin Luo from China, who were married in St Brigid's Church, Askamore recently. We wish them health and happiness in their future lives together. First Aid Course The level of interest shown in attendance at the first aid courses which were organised and held at Askamore Community Centre was very encouraging. We hope to hold similar training courses in future. Time at these three evening classes is extremely well spent and equips participants with the knowledge and confidence to offer help and assistance should they encounter a medical emergency. More info. on further courses please phone Geraldine at 087 7795922. Mon - Thur - mornings. Day out in Dublin We hope to arrange a day out to our capital City in March next. We are looking at Cultural and social venues with a view to organising an enjoyable day out for all who would like to come along. More details soon. Cairde The new cairdeapp system is now in use by Askamore Community Text/Event Alert group. You can still join and keep informed of what is happening in your area. New members welcome. Ph. 087 7795922 or speak to any community council member for more info. Finches Fitness Pilates classes continue in Askamore at 8.45 a.m. every Wednesday followed by fitness classes at 10 a.m. and Fit for Anything group 11.15-12.15. Contact Declan at 086 8468165. Rural Transport The local link bus leaves Askamore Church car park at 9.30a m every Tuesday morning and 9.45 a.m. on Saturday mornings. This is a vital link to Gorey for many people and we would encourage people to use the service as often as possible. Phone Willie - 087 2449167 - for more info. Kilrush-Askamore GAA Lotto - Congratulations to Siobhan Whelan of Codd's, Kilrush, on winning the jackpot, worth 3,600, in the latest lotto draw. The winning numbers were 3, 8, 10 and 20. Jacqui Mulholland, Sally Myers, Margaret Carton and James Lancaster won the Lucky Dips and Jason Redmond won the Sellers' Prize. The next draw is on Tuesday, January 22, in the Courtyard, Ferns, with the jackpot 3,000. 2 tickets are widely available from players and members. Direct Debit Scheme - We're currently in the process of trying to fill our quota of 250 people paying into a Direct Debit Scheme of 15/month over five years, in order to procure badly needed new land. This is a once in a generation investment, and we really need everyone on board. If you would like to contribute to the future of the club, please contact our GAA Club chairman, Frank Doyle, at 087 2510923, or the camogie club chairman, Paul Tobin, at 087 7673493. Kilrush Drama Group Members of Kilrush Drama Group are busy preparing for their forthcoming production of 'The Steward of Chrisendom'. The Steward of Christendom is a 1995 play written by Irish playwright Sebastian Barry. It focuses on Thomas Dunne, loosely based on Barry's great-grandfather, the former chief superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (1932) confined to a psychiatric facility. The play recounts Dunne's personal and public life throughout the 1910s and into the early 1920s. The play is being directed by Mick Byrne and the role of Thomas Dunne is being played by Michael Dunbar. His three daughters, Anne, Maud and Dolly are being played by Cora Tyrell, Maire Doran and Olivia Matthews. The warder in the Hospital (Smith) is being played Joe Sinnott and the seamstress Mrs O'Dea is being played by Jane Kinsella. Matt Kirwan (Maud's husband) is being played by Brendan Doyle and the Garda Recruit is being played by Stephen Kehoe, and Thomas's son Willy, who is a boy soprano is being played by Niall Kehoe. The play will open in St Brigid's Hall, Carnew on Friday, February 15, and will also be staged on Sunday, February 17. Camolin Irish Dancing Classes Adult Fitness through Irish Dance beginners' classes have started in Camolin village hall on Tuesday evenings from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. for five-week blocks, and on Wednesday afternoons from 3.30 p.m. to 5 p.m., Children's Irish Dance Classes: Qualified teacher with garda vetting. From three years upwards all levels welcome. For more info contact 087 6196590. Enrolment Forms Enrolment forms for Camolin National School are available from the school office for the New school Year September 2019. Please contact school at 053 9383455 or call into the office. GAA lotto There was no winner of last week's jackpot; winning numbers were 19, 20, 23 and 25. Nobody matched three numbers so 200 was donated to Hope and Dream. Drama production Ballyoughter drama group presents their three-act comedy the Tow Loves of Gaberial Foley by Jimmy Keery in Camolin Hall on Friday and Saturday, February 1, and two, at 8 p.m. Door open at 7.30 p.m. Tickets available from Ballyoughter National School Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9.15 p.m. to 1.15 p.m. or phone 053 9382000 or calling Margaret at 086 8531927. Carnew Split the pot The winner of Scoil Aodan Naofa Carnew split-the-pot of January 11 was Celine Jordan and Maureen OFlaherty winning 202, tickets on sale from the school or local shops. Birth Congratulations to Garrett and Ashling Kinsella, Drummond on the birth of their son. Bingo The next bingo is February 3 at 2.30 p.m. in St Bridget's Hall, Carnew all welcome. Sympathy Sincere sympathy is extended to the family and relatives of Patty Rogan, nee Gilbert, Drummond Lane, who died last week, her remains were removed to Askamore on Monday morning for 11 a.m. Mass followed by cremation. Tinahely Walking Club Details of Tinahely Walking club for the next two weeks. January 27: Ballineddan - Slievemaan. Level B, 12km, 3.5 hours. Meet Tinahely 10 a.m. February 3: Mullens. Level B, 10km, three hours. Meet Tinahely 10.30 a.m. As usual, please remember to wear proper walking boots, pack full rain gear and bring adequate food and drink. Table quiz Carnew Agricultural Show are holding a table quiz on Friday, February 1, at 8.30 p.m. in Kenny's Lounge Corner House, Carnew. 40 for a Table of four. Ballyellis NS Friday, January 18 winner of split-the-pot is Angela Morris, Knockshaunfin - winning 144. We thank everyone for supporting split-the-pot. Envelopes can be obtained from the School or any parent and from Ashling Walsh after weekend Masses in Askamore Church. Draws will take place every Friday morning in Ballyellis School. Enrolment forms are now available for those wishing to enrol in September 2019. If you know of anyone wishing to have a child enrolled in Ballyellis please inform them that these forms are now available. Please contact the office at 053 9426159 or email the school at ballyellisns@eircom.net if you wish to have an enrolment form sent out or call into the school to collect form. Mikel Murfi play Theatre goers will be delighted to hear of an upcoming theatre treat in January. Colaiste Bhride are delighted to announce that Mikel Murfi will perform his new play 'I Hear You and Rejoice' ,in St Brigid's Hall Carnew on Thursday, January 31, for one night only. This play is a sequel to his previous play 'The Man in the Woman's Shoes'. He has toured in London, New York and Edinburgh with this new play so it will be great to see him return to our local community. Tickets will cost 16 each and will include a cheese and wine reception. They can be booked by calling 086 8500607 or calling into the school reception. Thank you The Travers family, Tombreane would like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped in anyway during their recent shed fire, especially to the Fire Brigade's and all the farmers who drew water and to everyone for their support, it is very much appreciated. All Saints NS open day All Saints NS are Gavin their open day on Thursday 31 st January from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., come along for information, refreshments and enrollment details. Contact the school at 053 9426513, email school@allsaintscarnew.net or allsaintscarnew.wixsite.com/home. Kilrush Drama Group Members of Kilrush Drama Group are busy preparing for their forthcoming production of 'The Steward of Chrisendom'. The Steward of Christendom is a 1995 play written by Irish playwright Sebastian Barry. It focuses on Thomas Dunne, loosely based on Barry's great-grandfather, the former chief superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (1932) confined to a psychiatric facility. The play recounts Dunne's personal and public life throughout the 1910s and into the early 1920s. The play is being directed by Mick Byrne and the role of Thomas Dunne is being played by Michael Dunbar. His three daughters, Anne, Maud and Dolly are being played by Cora Tyrell, Maire Doran and Olivia Matthews. The warder in the Hospital (Smith) is being played Joe Sinnott and the seamstress Mrs O'Dea is being played by Jane Kinsella. Matt Kirwan (Maud's husband) is being played by Brendan Doyle and the Garda Recruit is being played by Stephen Kehoe, and Thomas's son Willy, who is a boy soprano is being played by Niall Kehoe. The play will open in St Brigid's Hall, Carnew on Friday, February 15, and will also be staged on Sunday, February 17. Monageer Annual tractor run Monageer-Boolavogue GAA Club are holding their annual Tractor and Vintage Run on Sunday, February 3, departing the GAA complex at midday noon. Entry fee is 20 and includes ticket for drivers only draw. Refreshments will be provided. There will also be a raffle on the day. For any queries please contact Colin Hawkins at 086 1587139. GAA lotto There was no winner of the jackpot which now stands at 5,600 - the numbers drawn were 7, 22, 26 and 29. There was no winner of match three to win share 160. The next draw is on Tuesday night at 9.30 p.m. in the GAA Complex. Tickets 2 and can be got at the usual retailers or club members. A man who was caught driving without insurance while he was under a driving ban claimed he helping a friend when he drove as the friend had been drinking and received tragic family news. Craig Browne (28) also gave gardai a false name and address when he was stopped at a checkpoint because he 'was in fear of a warrant'. He has been sentenced to six months in prison which has been suspended for two years and banned from driving for ten years. The defendant, with an address at Graddium, Crosserlough in Co Cavan pleaded guilty at Swords District Court to driving without insurance, having no driving licence and giving gardai false information on September 1, 2017 at Swords Road. He has 20 previous convictions including one for no insurance. Defence solicitor Fiona D'Arcy said the defendant's friend was at Dublin Airport when he received bad news that his brother had died. 'He stopped his friend from driving and he foolishly drove the car," said Ms D'Arcy. She said the father-of-two, who now works as a sales rep, admits he has a poor history and knows he is going to get a long driving ban. 'He has completed community service before and is willing to do more,' said Ms D'Arcy. Taking to the witness box, the defendant told Judge Gerry Jones that he 'was trying to help a friend at the time'. 'My friend had been drinking and I didn't want him to lose his licence,' said the defendant. However, Judge Jones said he did not believe the defendant. 'I am a visiting judge and I am not doing my job if I don't send you to prison,' remarked Judge Jones as he imposed a six months suspended prison sentence on the defendant. He also banned him from driving for ten years for driving without insurance. He took the rest of the offences into consideration. The Search is on for the best young Food Entrepreneurs in Fingal. Registration is now open for GROW2CEO - a unique competition to find Irelands' next young food entrepreneurs and Fingal students are teens are invited to take part. GROW2CEO is a collaboration between Cully & Sully and GIY. The campaign was launched today in Cork by food entrepreneur Cullen Allen from Cully & Sully and Mick Kelly founder of GIY. GROW2CEO will give students and teenagers across Irish Secondary Schools everything they need to start growing some food, get a better understanding of what goes into the food they eat, and how they can make healthier choices in their own lives. The campaign involves four exciting challenges, which will take students on a fascinating journey where they will create their own food business and soup recipe while learning all about where food comes from. Free growing kits will be delivered to all of the teachers who register for the 2019 competition. The kits will include everything the students need to grow spinach including the seeds, pots, soil and plenty of expert growing recipe development tips from GIY and Cully & Sully. In the final phase, they will be asked come up with a soup recipe and business plan. Three classes will then be selected for the competition finale. These finalists will be invited to a 'Dragon's Den' style pitch scenario at the home of GIY, GROW HQ in Waterford on Wednesday the 15th May, where the winning class will be selected and crowned 'GROW 2 CEO' Champions 2019. Speaking ahead of the upcoming competition deadline, Michael Kelly of GIY said: 'Last year's competition was a phenomenal success, it is really interesting to see the keen level of interest and the vast knowledge that teenagers have about their food - they are far more interested than their peers of ten or twenty years ago. We hope that the Grow 2 CEO campaign will encourage more students and schools to make growing and food nutrition a bigger part of the curriculum and therefore encourage more students to consider food entrepreneurship as a possible career choice in the future.' Cullen Allen of Cully & Sully said: 'We are excited to launch GROW2CEO 2019 with our friends at GIY, We are especially excited to see what Irish secondary schools come up with this year. The 2018 campaign was hugely inspirational with some amazing presentations and product concepts developed. At Cully & Sully we are passionate about using excellent quality ingredients in the products we produce and we hope that the students will appreciate the importance of using fresh produce and of course find the joy in growing their own ingredients. The growing kits will be delivered to all schools that register to take part and the competition and challenge will commence on March 4.' An eagerly-awaited all-weather playing pitch for River Valley in Swords will be delivered by the end of this year, according to Fingal County Council. The council are pursing similar developments around the county as part of an overall plan to deliver 'recreational hubs' to population centres around Fingal. In an update on the roll-out of these recreational hubs, Fingal County Council issued a statemetn sayint it 'expects to continue the delivery of recreational hubs around the region during 2019'. The Local Authority says it will deliver an all-weather facility and running track in Porterstown in Dublin 15. It is also anticipated that the all-weather facility in River Valley in Swords will be in place by the end of the year. Work is also continuing on the development of the Bremore Regional Park in Balbriggan and the preparation of a masterplan for these lands will get underway shortly, according to the local authority. Director of Planning and Strategic Infrastructure AnnMarie Farrelly said that it is part of the council's commitment to deliver state-of-the-art facilities in the Balbriggan area.' Ms Farrell added: 'Work on the masterplan will get underway in the next month or so. 'It is really important that the local residents can see facilities being delivered.' Inspirational women are to be recognised at the inaugural Irish Women's Awards 2019 and among them is a support service for women based in Swords. The Irish Women's Awards 2019 aim to acknowledge and celebrate the success of women entrepreneurs, business women, professionals, civil servants, women in uniform, charity workers and many more that contribute in making Ireland a greater place to live in. The awards embody the continuing strength, grit and determination of women, honouring those who continue to thrive, excelling them to the forefront of their industries. Anew Support Services, Cherry Blossom Cottage, Swords is one of the finalists in the 'Women's Support Group of the Year' category. Anew Support Services will find out if they have managed to win the competition and grab an accolade at the elegant event being held in January. Anew Support Services work with women who are facing with an unplanned pregnancy and are at risk or experiencing homelessness. We offer women the opportunity to reach their full potential as women and mothers in their community. Anew Support Services in Cherry Blossom Cottage, Swords, provides emergency accommodation to women who are pregnant and experiencing homelessness. Cherry Blossom Cottage offers a safe space to support women to have their baby despite the experiencing homelessness and be supported into securing a long term home of their own with their child. In 2018, it supported 18 women who experienced homelessness, to fulfil their goal and will continue to support them through their baby's first year. The service is a vehicle for women to empower and support each other. Good luck to this vital service in the awards. A local community activist has highlighted vast amounts of food waste found on Balbriggan Beach recently, littering the coastline with debris, presenting a hazard for walkers and causing significant environmental damage. Niall Keady said the problem is now a regular occurrence at the beach, and has persisted despite him alerting Fingal County Council to the issue. As far as Niall could determine, the waste appeared to originate from local restaurants or 'some kind of food producer'. As well as looking unsightly and being an environmental hazard, the waste he said, presented a danger for dogs walking along the beach with their owners. Speaking to The Fingal Independent, Niall said: 'June or July of last year was the first time that I noticed it. It's on a stretch of beach locally known as the 'back beach' down at Martello Tower, as opposed to the 'main' beach. 'What's happening, I think, is that people are coming down in the middle of the night and dumping the food. The rubbish dumped in the summer seemed to come from buckets, so obviously someone has come down and just dumped it on the beach. 'It was noodles, mushrooms, carrots, lumps of meat and fruit, just loads of food like that in four or five separate piles. 'This week when I saw it, the tide had come in, and it just washed the rubbish down along the shore and spread it out all along the beach. It's absolutely disgusting.' Niall said that part of the problem was the slipway onto the beach, where cars can drive down and park when the tide is out. People, he said, were probably driving down and dumping waste when the tide was out, assuming the tide would remove it. Niall said: 'I reported it to the council during the summer, and the kind of response I got was that they were limited and what they could do, because there was no evidence and no way of finding who had dumped it.' The Fingal Independent asked the council if it was aware of the problem and if so, what it was doing to resolve it. A council spokesperson responded saying: 'Fingal County Council is aware of the situation the Environment Division is actively involved in its resolution.' Niall said he felt he had to make the issue public. He said: 'When it kept on happening, I decided that there was nothing that I could do except to make a big deal out of it.' He added: 'I've spoken to a few councillors about the problem, and one of them said he was going to call for CCTV to be installed to try and catch whoever was doing it.' According to Niall, even if the tide eventually takes some of the waste from the beach, there are remnants of it left there for weeks. The food, he said, 'mixes with sand', and simply becomes 'part of the environment' and is therefore, very difficult to clean up. Niall points out that Balbriggan Tidy Towns has done 'a great job' in keeping the beach clean, But this problem is 'ruining a picturesque beach' used by walkers on a daily basis, adding that the people of Balbriggan would 'not allow this horrible defilement of our beaches continue.' He added: 'Many concerned residents and people who use the area for recreation have contacted me to raise the issue and to seek action to get the perpetrators caught. I have been sent many photographs and details every time this happens including the photos here by local photographer Owy Forde. The only way I felt this would get addressed properly was to involve the press and highlight the issue.' He concluded: 'Balbriggan is a wonderful town and the number of people contacting me about this and sharing and discussing online show how involved the community are with protecting our town and ensuring our tourism and community leisure resources are kept safe.' The local activist asked anyone with information on the dumping problem on the beach to contact him through his websiste at niallkeady.com Skerries Community College continued to be in a state of euphoria this past week over the top prize win of one of their 5th class students at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition held on January 8. Adam Kelly (17) took the award of the BTYSTE perpetual trophy at the competition with his ground breaking project on quantum computers - work which would have baffled even the best of his teachers. Speaking after celebrations in the school last week, Acting Principal Evelyn Lennon had nothing but praise for the young physics, mathematics and computing genius. She said: 'We were absolutely thrilled when we heard that Adam had won. 'We had some indication that he was doing really well, because he had already won the Scifest competition, but we were absolutely thrilled when it was announced that he was the overall winner. 'Because the project was crossing both the physics and maths subjects, he didn't have one particular teacher working with him. 'He's very much self-taught and the work is very much his own. 'He's a complete mathematical and physics genius, and he had worked on this project himself over the last couple of months.' Ms Lennon asserted that Adam, who took home a 7,500 prize, is a 'superb all-around student', but that he's 'very humble' about his win. He is, she said, highly intelligent, and whereas some students may struggle to grasp certain concepts, he seemed to have no trouble understanding even the most complicated of theories. Adam will now represent Ireland at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, taking place in Bulgaria this September, and Ms Lennon is quietly confident of his chances of winning an award there too for his 'cutting edge' project. She said: 'As regards Adam's future, really, the world is his oyster now. 'I think that most definitely Adam will be turning down offers, and he'll be able to make decisions for himself around what he wishes to do in the future. 'I could see him becoming an entrepreneur of the future who would have an impact on the way that future generations understand computing. We're all extremely proud, and it means a lot for the school too.' Adam took the overall prize in the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition held at the RDS, earlier this month. His project on quantum computing wowed the judges and he became the second winner of the prestigious competition from Fingal in the last four years, keeping up a fine tradition for the county's schools who excel at the exhibition ever year. His school is rightly proud of his achievements. Santa came early for the Balbriggan/North County Dublin Branch of Guide Dogs, when funds raised at The Santa Grotto in Millfield Shopping Centre Balbriggan in the run up to Christmas were kindly donated to the charity. Balbriggan/North County Dublin Branch of Guide dogs offered its sincerest thanks to Brian Brodigan, Manager and Elaine Richardson of Specsavers Opticians and Hear Care Centre in Millfield Shopping Centre Balbriggan, who did all the organising and hard work. The charity also thanked Peter Carey, General Manager of Millfield Shopping Centre for his 'total cooperation' in this 'most successful event for Guide Dogs.' In total, the event raised the impressive sum of 1,293.73, all of which was lodged to the head office of Guide Dogs Cork to train more guide dogs for blind people, and for assistance dogs for families who have a child with autism. Well done to everyone at the Millfield Shopping Centre who helped in raising the funds which the local branch of Irish Guide Dogs will put to very good use. The branch is full of hard-working and dedicated volunteers to the cause and is thoroughly deserving of the generous donation. The branch is always looking for new volunteers to help in its valuable work and if you are interested, they can be contacted on guidedogsbalbriggan@gmail.com or on 0857663107. Fingal County Council's Events Department are inviting applications for community groups or business to participate in this year's St Patrick's Day Parades taking place in Blanchardstown, Balbriggan, and Swords. Those interested can apply by downloading an application form from www.fingalparades.com and submitting the completed form to fingal@davisevents.ie. The closing date for applications is Friday, 15 February. Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Anthony Lavin said: 'Saint Patrick's Day is a significant cultural event and the parades allow Fingal residents to celebrate in their communities. The St Patrick's Day Parades are an opportunity for residents to learn about local community groups and the businesses in their area. I look forward to seeing the diverse and creative floats at the Fingal parades this year.' Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, Paul Reid said: 'Over 55,000 people attended the Fingal Saint Patrick's Day parades last year and I look forward to seeing the turn out for this year.' Davis Events have been again engaged by Fingal County Council to deliver the 2019 parades. Davis Events are liaising with theatre groups to arrange workshops for a number of participants who will be taking part in the parades. Fingal County Council is partnering with St. Patrick's Festival in Swords and this will include the addition of a pageant float "Banba", representing the Celtic Goddess of Ireland. St. Patrick's Festival will work with community groups in Fingal to develop stories around Irish tradition, diversity and Irish mythology. The Swords parade begins at 11am, the Balbriggan parade begins at 2 pm and the Blanchardstown parade begins at 3 pm. There are also parades taking place in Rush, Lusk and Skerries which are organised by community groups. The Rush parade begins at 1 pm and the Lusk parade takes place at 1.30. In Skerries, the parade begins at 3 pm. Debris from a lost shipwreck - believed to have strong connections to County Wexford - has been found on a popular beach more than 120 years after it sank. Experts believe the remains could be from the doomed Enterprise which was lost on a voyage from Swansea to New Ross on December 21, 1907, or the Wasp which lost on a voyage from Newport to Wexford on December 12, 1887. The wreck appears around every ten years when sea and weather conditions cut away the sand at the beach to reveal ship's timbers, a windlass and an anchor. Another theory is that the debris could have come from the Sea King ship which sank on a perilous voyage from Cardiff to Brazil in 1896, claiming the lives of eight men. Sea King was hit by gale force winds as she transported some 1,900 tonnes of coal to Brazil from Cardiff. Maritime historian Ted Goddard said he believes the remains could be from three ships, but thinks there is most likely debris from the Sea King. Mr Goddard said wreckage from the Sea King appears with regularity every decade. He said: 'The Barafundle wreck appears every ten years or so when the sea and weather conditions cut away the sand at the beach to reveal ship's timbers, a windlass and an anchor. 'It's believed to be a ship which ran on to rocks at Stackpole Head and drifted ashore on to Barafundle beach, between the 1880s and early 1900s.' Mr Goddard added the remains could potentially be from the Dublin-registered wooden schooner Enterprise. He also said it could be the small wooden Wexford schooner Wasp, lost on a voyage from Newport to Wexford on December 12, 1887. Speaking after the Sea King disaster, surviving Norwegian captain Gattorn Olsen gave the following account: 'All went well until it commenced to blow a gale. About three o'clock in the morning two seas came over us, and washed three hands overboard, and dismasted us. 'All the sails were carried away, and the ship began to let in water. 'The pump being smashed and the steering gear lost, we had to run before the wind, and when we sounded the well and discovered that we had 8ft or 9ft of water in the vessel, we could see that all we could do was to run her ashore, and so save our lives.' With Wexford having already taken part in a pilot scheme last year, the IFA have announced the national roll out of a new peer-to-peer farm safety learning initiative. The pilot scheme was rolled out by the local IFA's Farm Family Group, who stated that it had been a huge success. It consisted of farmers taking part in safety walks on each other's farms around the county and pointing out some safety concerns that may not have been noticed without the benefit of fresh eyes. 'It proved very successful,' said Alice Doyle Chairperson of the Farm Family committee. 'I think there was a walk at five farms, evaluating various different safety issues and concerns. It could only take a couple of hours, but it might just save a life.' Ms Doyle pointed out that, now that the safety programme had been rolled out nationally, it was the ideal time for farmers to take part. 'This is the right time for farmers to carry out checks, just before the busy season,' she said. 'We would hope that all the Wexford branches would organise a farm safety walk in their branch.' Anyone seeking information or support can contact the IFA Centre in Millpark Road or call Alice on 0868295172. At the public meeting in the Ferrycarrig Hotel: Patrick Beary, Lean Nic Chomhaill, Peader Toibin, Jim Codd and Moira Whittaker The new All Ireland Movement political party has held its first public meeting in Wexford and those behind said it was very well received. The meeting, which attracted a good crowd to the Ferrycarrig Hotel on Tuesday, was one of a series taking place around the country as the movement works at recruiting people to its rank ahead of the forthcoming local elections. Deputy Peader Toibin TD, who is the political figure behind the new party, spoke at the event and highlighted that many of those who are getting involved are from a Sinn Fein or Fianna Fail background but are disillusioned with the direction of their respective former parties. 'People are saying that they have no one to vote for,' said Deputy Toibin in a statement issued to this newspaper following the Wexford meeting. 'Respectful opposition is not the enemy, it's an important part of a health a democracy,' he said. He also commented that the political establishment seems to be prioritising 'everything else but economic justice'. The party is proclaiming itself as an 'All-Ireland party' and while it had a distinct pro-life approach to the referendum on repeal of the Eight Amendment Deputy Toibin said the party is 'broader and more welcoming' [than others] and will be an inclusive organisation. The party's right to life stance was highlighted in Wexford with Deputy Toibin commenting: 'We believe that all human life should be protected and we seek to protect the most vulnerable in society at all stages of life.' 'We believe all necessary economic and social supports must be provided to mothers and families to ensure that they know that they can raise their children in confidence,' he added. Deputy Toibin also pointing out that 1,400 people have signed up to the party to-date. So far nine elected representatives from independent and main political party backgrounds have joined the movement and Deputy Toibin said he and his colleagues are talking to another 20 elected reps from across the political spectrum. 'We officially founded our party on Saturday, January 5, [this year] 100 years after the first Dail,' he said. The party plans to hold 21 more public meetings around the country and hopes to gain a foothold on the political landscape north and south of the border; six of the party's 20 Cumainn have been set up in the North and across the country the party hopes to establish more in the coming weeks and months. They are currently registering the party name with the electoral authorities in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The party confirmed there will be at least one Wexford candidate in the forthcoming local elections and 120 people signed up to the party at the Wexford meeting. Campaigners attempting to save the name of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital will take their case to the steps of the Dail and the HSE on Thursday February 7 at noon. At a meeting last week, The Save the Name committee agreed to hold a protest at the Dail on the day to highlight the lack of consultation on the proposal to change the name of the hospital. Hospital bosses want to change it to Drogheda University, Regional or General Hospital. They claim that due to the series of scandals in the past, it is difficult to recruit staff when they hear the name. But campaigners say recruiting staff is not an issue confined to Drogheda with hundreds of posts free all over the country while there are 70,000 vacant posts in the UK. They have also written to hospital management and Minister Simon Harris asking why the people of Drogheda were not consulted when the suggestion first came up - 18 months ago - that a name change was being considered. They claim that the Drogheda situation is different than other hospitals who had their names altered or changed down the years, They say that local people helped to build and fund the hospital that stands today, so deserve the respect to be part of any attempt to change its name and should have been part of the process from the very start. They say the protest on February 7 is open to anyone to come along and meet up outside the Dail at noon. They will hand documentation in to the department at the same time. As a further increase in their campaign, theyll mount a protest for a few hours on Thursday January 24 from 3pm outside the hospital and again, people can come along to support them if they wish. The committee met hospital management for two hours recently and were told that the plan remained to change the name. They also say that there will be no cost involved. The committee are seeking a reply in writing from the HSE and hospital management in relation to the present situation with the name change. Hospital 'park' issue of name change - Bell Councillor Paul Bell says 'well placed sources' inside the HSE have informed him that the proposed name change of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital is no longer a 'priority' for the RCSI Group of Hospitals and that the existing name of the Hospital will remain as is for the foreseeable future. "In support of the local campaign, I have continually made contact with the HSE on this matter which is of huge interest to thousands of Drogheda's citizens. The HSE and Department of Health have taken into consideration the depth of feeling of the citizens of Drogheda on this matter and have, rightfully in my view, parked the issue which I sincerely hope is never returned to". Councillor Bell also confirmed that many high ranking officials in the HSE were taken aback by the inadequacy of the consultation process. "Having attended the local demonstration which was supported by thousands of local citizens I believe that the Government and the HSE reviewed their position.' Be vigilant, warns Nash Senator Ged Nash has advised those battling to save the name of Our Lady of Lourdes to remain 'vigilant' because the proposal remains live. 'Last week, I revealed that no monies were allocated in this years RCSI hospital group budget for the proposed name change at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. It is clear therefore that a change to the name of our hospital will not take place in the short term,' he stated. ' This position was also articulated in a direct meeting I had with senior hospital management last week. It is also clear to me that the proposed name change remains very much on the medium to long term agenda of senior management. By no means has this issue gone away and I would call on all of those who are concerned about this issue to remain vigilant.' Sacred Heart School, Drogheda, is holding a 5km Race/walk on Sunday January 27th to raise funds to complete the construction of their 400m school running track. The event is open to their school community (students and their families), as well as the local community The race/walk starts at Bettystown beach at 11am and goes to Morningtown beach and back. "We have started building the first 140 meters of our running track with funds previously raised, but we need more funds to complete this project," says principal Ms Leoni Carroll. "Donations can be made also on the day towards this cause. Those interested can register for the race, order chip/ t-shirts online or donate towards the running track by following the link on the school website www.sacredheart.ie or their facebook page. Packs will be available in school prior to the race and on the day. Refreshments will be served after the race/walk and cash prizes will be awarded to the winners. A photographer will be there on the day to take race photos which may be purchased after the race. Students will receive sponsorship cards at school to help raise additional funds for this project. Students are being encouraged to complete the couch to 5km programme leading up to this race/walk at school. Registration is now open. Please use the link listed to register; www.register.primoevents.com/ps/event/SacredHeartSchool5km2019 It is proposed that the new Beach Management Plan for Bettystown will see a requirement for all dogs to be kept on a lease at all times while owners are using the facility. And parking on the beach will also be banned, once alternative parking areas are agreed. The draft proposals, which will go to public consultation in the coming months, were outlined to councillors at a meeting in Duleek last week. Horses will also be banned from the dunes at Mornington and also on the shoreline at the Nanny. All horse drawn carriages will also be banned. The ban on allowiing dogs off the lead raised debate, with Cllr Sharon Tolan saying she had 'concerns' about the proposal. She said the ban during the summer would be ok as people enjoy picnics, etc, but at other times she'd take 'strong exception' at not being allowed take a dog off the lead, if the owner was in control of the animal. Cllr Eimear Ferguson said she'd like to see an area where dogs could run. Cllr Tom Kelly felt the ban was needed. 'I'm frightened of dogs running loose,' he stated. 'They need to be on leads. I know people who bring small dogs for a walk and they have to bring a stick to fend off big dogs. It is something we have to look at.' Cllr Wayne Harding said he had reports of incidents with dogs running free. 'Last week, a person came to me to say they were with a child and they came across a dog running loose and the child was frightened. 'Most owners are responsible and although the dog might not harm someone, it can be frightening.' Council officials said that failure to clean up after your dog is also being increased to a 150 fine and if dogs are on a lease it's easier to police and find who the owners are. They say most beaches in Ireland have a ban on dogs being allowed to run free. 'We have spoken to other councils and they say that dogs must be on leads. Not all dog owners are responsible,' Director of Finance Fiona Lawless explained. 'People are used to dogs without leads but we need to do the right thing.' Cllr Tolan said she felt that the majority of people would want a zone where dogs are allowed off the lead. The proposals are now likely to go to full council for consideration. The 1918 Centenary exhibition 'It is resolved that ...' will be on display to the public in the Louth Co Council offices, Co Hall, Dundalk from the 22nd - 31st January. It will then travel to venues throughout County Louth such as local libraries or public buildings. Details of venue names and times will be available later on the Council's website. The exhibition focuses on the critical period between the 1916 Rising and the General Election of December 1918 where the narrowest margin of victory for that election was seen in County Louth. It intertwines the Louth perspective in telling the narrative of events that occurred in this turbulent period of the country's history which affected Ireland nationally. Some of the themes the exhibition touches on includes the rise of radical Irish nationalism, the enactment of the Representation of the People Act 1918 and the Parliament (Qualification of Women Act) 1918, election campaigning and the 1918 General Election, the decline of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the ending of World War I. The exhibition draws on numerous fascinating archives found in collections held in Louth County Archives, some never seen before, and includes images of these alongside additional material sourced from other institutions and the County Archives thanks them for their kind permission to reproduce these images. The exhibition also includes resolutions that were passed by the local authorities of the day illustrating their attitudes and policies to the continual political changes. The title of this exhibition "It is resolved that ..." comes from the term used in the minute books when they pass these resolutions. County Archivist, Lorraine McCann said, "I encourage everyone, not just those with a particular interest in the period, to take the opportunity to visit this informative exhibition to explore and learn about how County Louth and its representatives saw and responded to events in this intriguing episode of our history which led to Ireland's independence". The exhibition was developed by Louth County Archives Service under the Decade of Centenaries Programme with help kindly provided by Dr Donal Hall. It is supported by The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Creative Ireland and Louth County Council. Members of the public are encouraged to contact Louth County Archives by emailing archive@louthcoco.ie if they have archival material relating to the period that they would like to donate to the archive, or if they have any comments on the exhibition; Louth County Archives would be delighted to hear from you. If you ever wondered where local luminaries and characters in Drogheda got nicknames like Sho Sho Duff, Whack Coddington, Black Friday and Chum Connor, then The Tholsel in West Street was the place to be on Thursday. Giving Jimmy Weldon a run for his money, Mayor of Drogheda Frank Godfrey last week launched a short exhibition of some of his photo portraits from down the years, containing black and white images of some of Drogheda's most familiar faces and names from the 70s and 80s. "I started taking photos of well-known people in the town long before Jimmy did," said Cllr Godfrey with a laugh. "These are the men and women from the generation before his collections, and many of the them will be familiar, and bring back vivid memories to those who visit." He said he was delighted to see so many of the town's current well-known people in attendance, including photographer Des Clinton, Phil Conyngham and John McGovern. "I had so many more photographs before the cottage fire in 2008, but I still have a lot more if I can just find them," he added. "I hope we can hold lots more exhibitions like this to raise funds for Drogheda on the Boyne tourism, which is badly needed." To explain some of the subjects of the photos was local historian Liam 'Smiley' Reilly, himself a long-time recipient of a nick-name since the age of 5! "There's great stories attached to some of the names, and of course to some of the characters Frank photographed, plus as far as I know, you can't slander the dead,' said Liam. "There's eight-time Mayor of Drogheda Peter Moore, the ultimate politician - he used to chat to the lads in the council yard to see what jobs they had on that day and head off before them knocking on the doors of those who were due to get work done. "You need your window fixed...well I'll have someone round in an hour", he'd say, and they all thought he could work miracles!" Another photo is infamous local politician Paddy Donegan, renowned for his description of President Cearbhall O'Dalaigh as a 'thundering disgrace' when Defence Minister in 1976. "I have it on good authority that what he actually called him was an 'feffing b", but you couldn't print that," he laughed. "Sho Sho Duff from Bellewstown was another great character, who used to come to Drogheda on his horse, and tie him up outside the White Horse Hotel, while he had a few pints!" The small exhibition spent two days in the Tholsel before a short trip to the Market Bar, and will no doubt find another home very soon. Also present was one of Frank Godfrey's biggest fans; Michael McCann, who makes scrap books of Frank's newspaper cuttings for him. "I just think he's great the way he does so much for the town,' he said, as he presented the Mayor with his latest album. And as for Black Friday McEnaney from Pearse Park. What dark reason was behind his sobriquet? "Would you believe it was something as simple as eating a steak on a Friday,' explained guest Brendan Burke from the Chord Road. "You could do something as a child in Drogheda and still be stuck with the name 80 years later!" Drogheda Creative Writers first Open Mic of the year with guest poet Michael Farry takes place on January 28th. All writers and poets are welcome to listen and read from their own work. Michael, a native of Sligo but living in Meath, is a retired teacher, a poet and a historian. He was a founding member of Boyne Writers Group in Trim and edited its magazine Boyne Berries. He has had two poetry collection published, Asking for Directions, by Doghouse Books, Tralee, in 2012 and The Age of Glass, by Revival Press, Limerick in June 2017. His poetry has been published in journals and anthologies in Ireland, the UK, America, Israel, India, Australia and Canada and poems of his have won prizes in competitions. His history book, Sligo, The Irish Revolution 1912-1923, was published in 2012 by Four Courts Press, Dublin. Plans are in hand for a full programme of meetings and activities in 2019 including celebration of National Poetry Day and Culture Night as well as taking part in the Fleadh Cheoil again and publishing an anthology. Meetings are on the second and fourth Monday of every month in the Living Room Bar at Sarsfields Pub. Popular radio presenter John Greene is no stranger to listeners both to C103 and, previously, Radio Kerry. 'The Irish Sunday' and 'Where The Road Takes Me' are his signature shows, and he has endeared himself to listeners through the warmth of his personality and the wealth of expertise he brings to presenting. He also temporarily took on 'Cork's More Music Breakfast Show' after the recent departure of Colum McGrath from C103. A native of Castletownbere, but a resident of Bandon for quite some time, he clearly enjoys his job: "I enjoy coming to work so much; there aren't enough hours in the day," he says with a smile. "'Where the Road Takes Me' has been on air now for almost seven years. I enjoy the challenge that it offers me every week to come up with something new; between recording, scripting and editing, it takes three days to put this one-hour show together," John explains. Commenting on his stint presenting the Breakfast Show, he says there is no such person as a radio expert. "You are learning all of the time and I certainly believe that the show made me a better presenter. It was extremely busy and required total concentration, something I didn't possess a lot of in the past. I fell in love with the show, and I believe we had fun with the listeners - and that's what radio should be all about," he said. "I had mixed feelings vacating the show. The 3am rise every morning was tough on my partner, Rose, as well as myself, but the show is in good hands now with Simon Murdoch," he added. A consummate professional on air, John is loved by his listeners. However, few are aware of the battle he has fought in his private life. While he sat down with this reporter to primarily talk about his life on radio, he spontaneously decided to share his story so that others who are currently enduring what he has suffered might see that there can be light at the end of the tunnel. "I have lived with depression for 16 years," he says. "I have had some horrific days in my battle with it. It kind of sneaked up on me from nowhere. "I was always somebody who didn't take life too seriously and never worried about tomorrow; if it comes, then it's only 'today' again". But early in 2003 John felt himself going downhill and becoming physically and mentally exhausted. "I started blaming radio; I became bored with it and ended up hating it with a passion. Waking up in the mornings and heading into work felt like walking through the gates of hell. "I began calling myself a hypocrite. It made me mad to think that I was portraying a character on-air that I was so far removed from in real life. "I found it so difficult to muster the energy to say five words into the microphone and became so angry with myself," John explains, and adding that his anger with himself certainly spread to his workmates. "I became unpredictable; nobody knew which version of John Greene would turn up on any given day." On the Friday before the All Ireland hurling final between Cork and Kilkenny in 2003, it came to a head. "I was as low as you could possibly get. I had more regard for what you might scrape from the bottom of your shoe than I had for myself, I was barely able to speak and had no control over what I would do with myself - anything and everything was an effort," he said. John was in the middle of presenting a current affairs programme from the West Cork studio and had two more hours to go. There was no body available at the time to make a decision to take him off air, and he knew that he wasn't going to get through the day's work. "We would usually have an interview lined up for after 12, but on this day we didn't, so I asked the researcher what was happening after the mid-day news, and she told me that nothing was confirmed but that we could do something on depression. "This is where the irony kicks in big-time: I blew a fuse," he said. "'Cork are playing in an All-Ireland Final on Sunday, and you want to do something on f*****g depression,' I said to her. Calmly, I took off the headphones, put them down, told everybody to have a nice day and walked out the door. I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do with myself, which frightened me big time," John explains. "It was a beautiful autumn day. I drove out to Upton, where I was living at the time, got out of the station jeep, which I had the cheek to use, and walked up the hill behind Knockavilla. You could see for miles from there and I had plenty of fresh air and time to think. "I was ashamed of what I had done, but to this day I am still 100 per cent satisfied in my mind that I was not capable of sitting in that studio for one more second. The absence of an interview after twelve was only the small spark that lit a big flame," he said. John felt that his career in radio was over, but at that stage he hated his job so much that he didn't really care. "Our chief executive at the time in 96 and 103FM was Ronan McMenamy, and I will never forget his kindness to me. He did everything to facilitate my return to radio, but I was having none of it," John says. After taking a break for a few months, he felt a little better and went to work for Radio Kerry. "Although we were short-listed for best current affairs programme in 2008 and won it in 2009, I knew that I had made a mistake in returning. I had the opportunity to work with some great people there, including a producer who kept me on my toes, but eventually I went downhill again, even worse than before. "Ten minutes before going on air I would have to go to the bathroom, where I would pound my fist against the wall with frustration, pleading and begging God to take me, saying 'Why are you taking people who want to live, and here am I longing to die - would you, for f**k sake, wake up and do the right thing. "Sometimes the anger in me would boil over in interviews, and politicians and ministers, especially, would hang up on me. I was in a total mess, I wanted to go home, go to bed and never get up. I'm not sure if I would be alive today only for my partner, Rose, who kept at me, telling me constantly to do one more day and that I was good at my job," he said. Eventually he handed in his notice and finished with Radio Kerry. "I loved it there, I loved the people of Kerry, but I was beginning to realise that I was the problem, and not radio," he says. "A friend who had suffered from depression suggested that this could be my problem, but I laughed. However, I took their advice and went to a doctor who didn't know me. At least it wouldn't be half as embarrassing telling a stranger that I might be suffering from depression, which was hilarious as far as I was concerned," he says. "I thought there was no such thing as depression - wrong again. "I was told that I was suffering from a serious form of clinical depression. I was to take a complete break, and I was handed a prescription that looked like a novel - which I threw in the bin." The following day he went to his own doctor, Denis Cotter in Bantry, who is also a long-time friend. He was alarmed at the condition that John was in physically. "Stupidly, I never mentioned depression to him, and I was top notch at hiding it at this stage. "He kept me at the surgery for hours; my blood pressure was gone through the roof, and I got one of Denis's lectures, which are a bit unusual but totally effective. It was time for change," John says. "The next morning I got up and did a five-mile walk. Hail rain or shine, I repeated it every single day, and followed it up with a gym session. My weight dropped by two stone, and I was already beginning to feel the benefit. I studied the books of Patrick Holford and followed his advice on nutritional benefits to combat depression. "I carried out various tests on myself and discovered that sugar and sugar-based foods were my downfall. Overindulge on these and I was back where I started. "I refused point blank to take any anti-depressant medicine. Eventually, good days far outweighed my bad days. I now knew what I was dealing with. "I put a bully label on depression, and this was the incentive I needed to fight it. I was ready for radio again. But could I be trusted? I would have to work harder than I ever did to prove myself. "I still have bad days, but they are few and far between, and I know how to handle them. Instead of regarding radio as my enemy, which it never was, it's now my saviour, and any bad days are nullified by coming to work, which acts as my anti-depressant." It strikes a very raw nerve now when John hears of anybody taking their own life. He is a firm believer that anybody who does so as a result of bullying on social media or the likes has been the victim of a crime. "I am no expert on the law, but driving somebody to take their own life because of the nastiness you directed towards them on social media should, I believe, result in you being charged with manslaughter. That should put a stop to the keyboard cowards," he said. "And, for God's sake, if you suffer from depression, talk to somebody that you know will listen to you, and go to your doctor. What worked for me certainly isn't a silver bullet for everybody who suffers from depression, but it certainly is part of a combination. "Loading people with anti-depressents alone is not a silver bullet either," he believes. "I presume that people who are bereaved by suicide often feel guilty: should I have listened more, should I have noticed the signs of depression, should I have kept a close eye on him or her? All I can say is that we are experts at hiding it from those who are close to us," he says. The real turning point for John was the evening he stood up in front of 500 strangers in the church in Lixnaw in North Kerry, and spoke for 30 minutes on the subject. "I was there at the invitation of a good friend, Fr Mossie Brick, a great Kerry hurler in his day. He didn't know what I was to speak about, and neither did I, until I landed behind the microphone on the altar. "I knew that if I came away without doing so it would be a setback," he says. "I was surprised at the amount of people who came to me afterwards and thanked me. That was the prescription that did me the best good of all!" There is a wait time of three months at Cork District Office for a Grant of Probate, and this could be rectified by creating a database of wills, according to an expert It has been said that where there is a will there is a way - but when it comes to probate, it seems that there is a wait time of three months in Cork District Probate Office for a Grant of Probate. This could all be rectified by "creating a database of wills" which would register its existence and tag its location. A protection specialist, Royal London, is calling on the Government to establish a register of Wills to overhaul the current system, which it says, makes the process of locating a will more "difficult than it ought to be." Tony Burke of Royal London in Cork explained, "Typically a person will look for a will if a friend or family member has passed away, and they have been asked by the Probate Office to provide a will before the deceased's estate can be settled. "However, a will can go missing for a variety of reasons. For example, the executor of the deceased's estate simply cannot locate the will, or the deceased may not have told anyone they have made a will". However, he said, as it stands anyone wanting to locate a will has only two options. The first is to inform their solicitor, who in turn contacts other solicitors on their behalf to see if they are holding their will. Alternatively, they can place an advertisement in the Law Society Gazette and hope that the solicitor who is holding the will sees the advertisement remembers the name of the client and comes forward. It was his view that as there are over 10,000 practicing solicitors in the country - coupled with the fact that the country has an ageing population - this method is no longer "fit for purpose". Over the last two years, the life assurance company has been examining the probate process in Ireland. They have found significant inefficiencies within the system, which are leading to lengthy delays across the country for families looking to settle the affairs of deceased loved ones. In July of this year, the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan reported figures from the Courts Service showing a waiting time of 10 to 12 weeks in Cork District Probate Office for a Grant of Probate. Its investigations have found that, while probate delays are a product of a complex processes with insufficient resources, the lack of a centralised wills register is compounding the issue. Royal London says that Ireland could model a wills register on the UK system, which does not collect the specific details of a Will, rather it simply registers its existence and tags its location. "The contents of the will itself can only be accessed when the person passes away and will only be disclosed if the person searching for it has a legitimate interest and can provide a copy of the deceased's death certificate," Mr Burke said. "Essentially, it's a database for wills with a record of where they are located for when the time comes to recover them. "This is a much more efficient and effective method of dealing with an already difficult process for families and friends of deceased. Establishing a wills register in Ireland would make the whole process much easier and more transparent for all concerned." Royal London advised that Ireland is lagging behind its European counterparts when it comes to wills registers. According to www.successions-europe.eu, a website co-financed by the European Commission, just seven out of the 28 European Union member states do not have a national wills register - although five of these countries have now initiated a legislative process to establish one. Additionally, a European Network of Registers of Wills Association (ENRWA) report from as far back as 2010 called out Ireland as the only country that has not made any strides in this regard3. This issue has been brought to the attention of the Dail several times. In particular, Senator Terry Leyden has been drawing attention to this topic since 2011, when he first proposed a Will Register Bill to the sitting administration. Senator Leyden brought another Bill to the attention of the current Government in December, 2016. However, with Brexit matters dominating Government proceedings since then, not much progress has been made, although it is hoped the Bill will be moved forward in the near future and that Government support can be secured. Just 300,000 has been allocated to the proposed Mallow Northern Relief Road project for this year - raising fears that it may take the best part of another decade before the road is finally opened. The issue was raised at the January meeting of Cork County Council's northern area committee, where local councillors were told that this year's funding allocation for the project would only cover the design of the road and the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement. The case for the bypass has been put forward at Council level on numerous occasions over recent years, with a 2017 report undertaken by Jacobs Consulting Engineers recommending that "the requirement for a Northern Relief Road stands on its own merits as a strategic congestion solution for Mallow Town." Prior to that the 2015 independent report commissioned by the Mallow Representative Group (MRG) said the bypass would remove heavy traffic from the town centre, increasing accessibility and footfall; enhance Mallow's attractiveness for investment creating new jobs and facilitate the revitalisation of the town. Crucially, the report also found that a bypass could be worth up to 90 million to the town. Speaking at Monday's meeting Cllr Timmy Collin's (Ind) again criticised the lack of progress on the project. "This is going on for years and years. It's ridiculous. It's an insult to us. I'm sick and tired of nothing being done. It's true for the Healy-Reas that when you pass the Red Cow there's no money. There's no problem getting money in Dublin," he fumed. These sentiments were echoed by other councillors including Gearoid Murphy (FF) and Melissa Mullane (SF), the latter pointing out it had been more than three decades since the idea for the road was first mooted. Speaking at the meeting Aidan Weir, the head of the authority's roads directorate, said the Council was also "disappointed" the project did not seem to be moving towards the construction phase at any time in the near future. He said the relief road could be built as a stand alone project or in conjunction with the M20 (Cork - Limerick) motorway and that while an announcement on the successful tender for the construction of the M20 has been described as imminent, it was his understanding the motorway wouldn't be completed until at least 2027. "It (the relief road) is not progressing the way we would like, so there's a good chance it will be done with the motorway," Mr Weir added. He said "the jury was out" on whether the M20 would be built in sections or in one fell swoop. Cllr Murphy said he was "alarmed" to learn the two projects could now be run in tandem, which would therefore seriously delay the opening of the badly-needed relief road. His proposal that Cork County Council write to the Department of the Environment and Transport Infrastructure Ireland pushing the case for the relief road to progress as a stand alone project and be completed before the M20 received the unanimous support of his colleagues. Confirmation that funding had been ring-fenced for an expansion and refurbishment project at Boherbue National School has been warmly welcomed by Cork North-West Fianna Fail TD Michael Moynihan. The Department of Education and Skills this week announced that the funding had been granted for the works under its capital investment plan. The project will incorporate a new 80 sq metre general classroom, two 19 sq metre Special Education Needs rooms and a 35 sq metre foyer/storage area. "This is incredibly positive news for the school and the local community. I have been lobbying the Minister and the Department for some time to have this funding secured, and I am delighted that finally, progress has been made," said Deputy Moynihan. "As the local TD and a former pupil of the school, this is major progress. "For many years, smaller schools, in rural communities, were worried for their futures. This new funding gives confidence to the school management and local community and will provide top class facilities for our young people," he added. Meanwhile, the Department has also given the Cork Education and Training Board (CETB) permission to proceed to tender for the completion of the extension project at Colaiste an Chraoibhin in Fermoy. The 5.9million project has been dogged by delays since work commenced on it in 2015, with work grinding to a halt last summer after it emerged the construction company undertaking the project has gone into examinership. The High Court's appointment of an interim examiner to the Kildare-based Sammon Contracting Group in April came about following the liquidation of the UK firm Carillion, which had hired the Irish company to build several other educational facilities in Ireland. It has now emerged that following the submission of a progress report on the project by the CETB late last year, tender documentation has been issued to the list of pre-qualified contractors, with the closing date for submissions set for February 11. A CETB spokesperson said that once the submitted tenders have been assessed, a report will be forwarded to the Department for approval to appoint a contractor. "We will continue keep stakeholders informed of key developments on the progress of that report," said the spokesperson. It is hoped that once the contract has been awarded completion works on the extension, which The Corkman understands is more than 90% complete, will finally get underway before the summer and be completed before the start of the 2019/2020 school year. There are over 100,000 workers in Cork who are losing out on almost 500 of a tax refund on their medical expenses. That is according to Tax refund specialists Taxback.com who are drawing fresh attention to the claiming of tax refunds on the back of Revenue's current communications campaign which was rolled out at the end of 2018. Commercial Director Eileen Devereux at Taxback.com said that the number of people claiming medical expense tax refunds is "still quite low." Revenue data reveals that in 2017, 454,700 people applied for the refund - just 20% of the total two million plus workers who might be eligible for a refund. She said: "In Cork alone, there were 134,323 people employed in the county in 2016 - meaning that up to 107,459 workers could be missing out on an average refund of 494 for medical expenses over four years. That's a huge number of people that would benefit significantly from a post-Christmas lump-sum." Taxback.com say Revenue figures show, in no uncertain terms, that the tax relief which applies to the greatest number of households throughout the country is also probably the most underutilised - and that is medical expenses relief. Ms. Devereux continued, "Most people have to make at least one trip to the doctor over the year, but even if they manage to avoid it this year - surely, they have had to go at some stage in the previous four years? That's how far back you can go when claiming medical expense relief. Analysis of our own customer records indicates the average refund for medical expenses over four years totals 494," she said. "Medical expense relief is probably the most underutilised tax relief available." According to Taxback.com, the most common medical expenses include, GP, medicines, physiotherapy, hospital, surgical, dental, nursing appliance. She said that filling out an application form "is easier than shopping online" and can be done at any point in a four year period. A new bus service linking Bray and Ballymun will not travel through Dun Laoghaire, the NTA has confirmed. This information was confirmed in a letter from the NTA to a Green Party councillor based in Dun Laoghaire. The new 155 route will, however, travel through the city centre of Dublin from Ballymun before taking the N11 to Bray. The route is expected to operate from February and will travel every 20 minutes. According to the NTA, Dublin Bus has expanded its network of buses following the transfer of some routs to Go-Ahead Ireland. The expanded services are being introduced on a phased basis as resources become available following the transfer of routes to Go-Ahead. The new 155 service will provide additional capacity on the N11 and Ballymun corridors. Full details have not been confirmed yet, including a timetable and journey time. The NTA said that this information will be announced no later than early March. Glendalough Gin is one of three Irish gins to go on sale in Ontario Glendalough Gin is one of three Irish gin brands which are now available in Ontario, which is the world's largest controlled market for alcohol sales. Glendalough Gin, along with Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin and Galway Gin, have been approved for sale in Ontario following a trade mission last year. The Irish gin producers were listed last week for sale by LCBO, which retails and distributes alcoholic beverages in Ontario. LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) has a monopoly of alcohol off-trade sales in Ontario, the province where 40 per cent of the Canadian population lives. Ontario is the largest controlled market for alcohol sales in the world and LCBO is the largest buyer of alcohol in the world. The Glendalough Distillery was set up by a group of friends from Wicklow and Dublin with a passion for reviving the heritage of craft distilling in Ireland. To make their gins, Glendalough Distillery forage wild plants from the mountains around the distillery. What they pick goes fresh into the still within hours of foraging. The listing by LCBO follows a successful trade mission to Canada last year, led by Michael Creed TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and The Marine. The Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) joined the trade mission which focused on increasing exports of Irish drinks categories to Canada following the completion of the new trade deal between the EU and Canada, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The CETA agreement removed the remaining tariffs on Irish gin entering Canada. It also reformed provincial liquor board levels on imported spirits, which has helped the pricing of premium Irish gins in Canada. During the trade mission, Minister Creed, at the request of ABFI, asked the President of LCBO to consider listing Irish gin. This request by the Minister and follow-up lobbying by ABFI resulted in the decision by LCBO to run the first-ever competitive process to select Irish gin for listing in their stores. Patricia Callan, Director of Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) said: 'Last year, Irish gin became increasingly popular among international consumers. The latest figures from the CSO show that the value of exports of Irish gin from the Republic of Ireland was up 213 per cent to 4.2 million in the first nine months of 2018. Following last year's successful trade mission to Canada and significant engagement by ABFI, the listing of Irish gin by LCBO will see Canada opening up as another key market'. Linda Bannnon, Zoe Murphy and Eamon Murphy receiving a cheque for 2,222 for the Zoe Murphy Fund from Anthony Sheehy of Irish Whiskey auctions, David White of the Great Northern DIstillery, Katie Sheehy Irish Whiskey Auctions and John Teeling, Chairman of The Great Northern Distillery. The money was raised from proceeds of the Irish Whiskey Auction. A charity sale of special bottles of whiskey by Irish Whiskey Auctions recently raised more than 2,000 for local charity, the Zoe Murphy appeal. The total raised at the auction was generously matched by the Great Northern Distillery who donated the three exclusive, limited edition bottles into December's online auction. Dundalk-based Irish Whiskey Auctions also donated the commission sales to ensure the maximum amount was raised for Zoe and her family - bringing the final total donated to the local charity to 4,222. Anthony Sheehy, founder and director of Irish Whiskey Auctions said: 'We are delighted and feel privileged to be involved in such a fantastic cause and hope by facilitating the sale of these unique bottles of Irish whiskey, that in some way we are helping to make life better for Zoe and her whole family. He said those using the Irish Whiskey Auctions website took the cause to heart and promoted it on social media, making the fundraiser such a success. 'It was particularly exciting watching the bidding during the closing moments of the auction. There were a lot of bidders who knew exactly how special these bottles are and we were delighted at the final bid of 1850.' The three 'First Born' bottles that went 'under the hammer' mark the coming of age of the Great Northern Distillery, Dundalk and were released to mark the launch of its first spirit. Distilled in 2015, the Single Grain, Tripled Distilled Malt and Blended Irish Whiskey bottles were part of the exclusive first casks, individually numbered and hand-signed by John Teeling, chairman and founder of Great Northern distillery. A limited-edition bottle of Portmagee 9 also went under the hammer, and was sold for 170 to Seamus O'Dowdens, an award-winning publican from Vermont, USA. As Britain's leaving the EU looms, concern is growing among those living in border communities about how Brexit will impact on their way of life amid fears that it could plunge the region back into the dark days of The Troubles. From the vexed question of 'a hard border' as to how it will affect day to day activities, , the uncertainties posed by Brexit are causing concern in relation to business, health services, farming and tourism. While the details of how the withdrawal will take place have yet to be hammered out, local businesses are preparing for a major change in how they do business after March 29, from dealing with imports and exports to what impact it will have on employees who cross the Border to work every day. Dundalk Chamber of Commerce is planning a special meeting on Brexit on March 13, says PRO Paddy Malone. 'We will have national experts there to talk about what is happening and we are running it as close to the deadline as we can so to have the most up to date information available.' The uncertainty surrounding Brexit is one of the biggest obstacles facing the business community. 'The uncertainty of Brexit is not doing anyone any good. It is causing worries in all areas of business because if there's one thing business needs, it's certainty.' He feels that the business community will be able to adjust to whatever eventuality arises. 'We coped when the punt and sterling split and when Britain didn't enter the Eurozone,' he recalls. 'We will learn how to cope with whatever is presented if we can plan for it.' 'It's a question of minimising the damage and making sure we take advantage of the few places where there might be opportunities.' He points to a number of Northern Ireland companies which have set up a presence in Dundalk. 'While they are not creating a huge amount of jobs yet, more will hopefully come.' Those involved in the tourism industry are anxiously watching to see how the Brexit talks play out, especially in relation to the question of whether there will be a hard or soft border. Richard Brennan of Visit Carlingford says 'It's very worrying. At least 50 per cent of our trade comes from Northern Ireland, so obviously it depends on what happens after March 29. If there's a hard border, we could see it impacted dramatically.' He reckons that tourism supports at least 1,000 jobs in Carlingford, noting that business had increased considerably in the last five or six years. 'A lot of people have invested in providing accommodation for visitors.'. And it's not just the Northern Ireland market which would be affected, he says, as he fears that it would lead to a reduction in the number of tourists travelling from the UK. The chairman of Cooley IFA Martin McGrehan is worried about the impact of a 'hard border'. 'People wouldn't accept that. It would be very foolish if it got to that stage. No one wants a return of checkpoints and lookout posts.' Principal of St. Marys College, Alan Craven, Teacher, Claire Woods, Members of the Student Council with Paddy Hodgins, Defence Forces along with Raymond Mullen, Brendan Rogers and Sharon Lennon, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the Global Schools Programme in St. Marys College. Photo: Aidan Dullaghan/Newspics Principal of Colaiste Ris, Padraig Hamill, Students, David Mullooly and Aoife Purcell with Paddy Hodgins, Defence Forces along with Raymond Mullen, Brendan Rogers and Sharon Lennon, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the Global Schools programme in Colaiste Ris . Photo: Aidan Dullaghan/Newspics Two local schools were recently among the very first second level schools in the country to receive a visit from officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs as part the 'Global Schools' programme. During 2019, Irish Ambassadors, diplomats and peacekeepers will give students around the country the chance to learn about their role in a changing world from diplomats and peacekeepers who have served Ireland abroad. The 'Global Schools' programme will bring a deeper understanding of how UN membership has been central to our foreign policy, and has played a significant role in Ireland's history. Each school will be presented with a UN flag and a copy of the preamble of the UN Charter, in recognition of Ireland's contributions to addressing the biggest challenges facing our world today through peacekeeping, international development, human rights and disarmament. This forms part of the 'Global Ireland' programme - the Government's strategy for doubling Ireland's international impact by 2025. In conjunction with the Departments of Education and Skills, and Defence, the 'Global Schools' programme will run throughout 2019, with staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Irish UN peacekeepers who have served abroad visiting secondary schools to engage students in the scope and ambition of 'Global Ireland'. Two Dundalk schools, St Mary's College and Colaiste Ris were among the very first schools to be visited and each had the bonus of hearing directly from two of their former students who now hold senior positions with the Department of Foreign Affairs. Sharon Lennon is a former student of St Mary's College and is Deputy Director of UN Policy within the Department of Foreign Affairs, while Brendan Rogers a former student of Colaiste Ris is Deputy Secretary General and the second most senior official in the Department. 'I must admit that it was strange turning left rather than right when I returned to the school', observed Sharon Lennon who marvelled at the new school building for her former alma mater. Sharon has served overseas in Brazil from 2009 to 2014 and stated that the students in both schools were really engaged in the presentations and put both herself and Brendan through their paces with a wide range of engaging and informed questions from Brexit, global warming, foreign aid and Ireland's campaign to win a seat on the UN Security Council. A local member of the Irish Defence Forces attached to the 27th Battalion in Aiken Barracks also spoke to both groups of senior students. Patrick Hodgins has served on eight UN missions with the Defence Forces, including Lebanon and Liberia. Speaking about the 'Global Schools' programme, Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Coveney T.D., said: 'Through our peacekeeping operations around the world, the work of our diplomats, state agencies, and international development programme, Ireland has always proven that a small country can have a decisive impact on the international stage. 'Although we are an island, Ireland has never been isolated, and must continue to show that we are part of that bigger world which exists beyond our borders. In 'Global Ireland', we set an ambitious target as a country to double our global impact and our footprint around the world by 2025. The 'Global Schools' initiative plays an important role in this by highlighting to secondary school students how our membership of the United Nations and European Union have affected Ireland's history, as we celebrate the centenary of our presence as an actor on the international stage. 'My hope is that this programme can inspire those students to realise the potential they have to make a real impact; be it in their schools, their local communities, or in the wider world.' The Global Schools programme will return to Dundalk in the coming year to visit all the remaining secondary schools as part of their objectives for 2019. Cllr. Anne Campbell, with Kevin Meenan and David Minto, Dundalk Chamber of Commerce at the St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee meeting in The County Museum. Photo: Aidan Dullaghan/Newspics. It's looking increasingly unlikely that Dundalk will have a St Patrick's Day parade this year, although it is hoped that our national feast day will still be marked in town. While the turnout at the public meeting in the County Museum last Thursday was disappointing, plans are afoot to form a committee to organise some events for this year and to plan a bigger parade next year when the Clanbrassil Street/St Nicholas Quarter rejuvenation works are completed. The meeting was called after Dundalk Chamber of Commerce announced that they would be unable to take on the responsibility of organising the parade due to lack of resources. The small attendance including the President of Dundalk Chamber of Commerce Pat McCormick, who chaired the meeting, and Chamber PRO Paddy Malone. Local councillors Anne Campbell, Maeve York and Conor Keelan were also present, as were representatives of Louth County Council, An Garda Siochana, An Tain Arts Centre, Louth Volunteer Centre and PayPal. Chamber PRO Paddy Malone admitted that he was very disappointed that there were no representatives from the town's publicans or restaurant. The meeting heard that planning for the parade would normally be well advanced at this stage, and due to the health and safety risks posed by the works on Clanbrassil, it wouldn't be advisable for the parade to follow its traditional route through the town. The possibility of holding events at a locations in the town centre to mark St Patrick's Day was discussed. A committee was formed which was due to meet early this week to discuss what can be done to ensure that our national holiday is recognised in Dundalk and to plan for a bigger parade, with full community involvement, in 2020. Dundalk born designer Niamh O'Neill took time out from the studio to visit her old alma mater recently. Niamh, a hugely successful designer who has worked with Diane Von Furstenberg and John Galliano, presented Junior Cycle certificates to St.Louis students. A past pupil of the school, Niamh said she was delighted to return to present the JCPAs, the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement which replaces the old Junior Certificate. Doyenne of fashion Niamh set up her own fashion label in 2012 in Ireland and hasn't looked back since. She is a regular visitor to the school, having previously being honoured with the Sr Claire Past Pupils Award. Deputy Principal Mary Glmore was delighted to welcome Niamh to the school. 'The JCPA is very different to the old Junior Certificate. It contains an area for each girl to highlight her personal achievements in school outside of the academic ones. It is a lovely certificate of achievement and so we in St Louis like to celebrate all the wonderful achievement of every girl.' Principal Michelle Dolan said: 'Our ethos here in St Louis is about so much more than just the academic achievements of our students. It is wonderful to see that recognised too in this new certificate. It shows the whole education received through all the extras that go on in the school every day. We were delighted that Niamh, who is such a great role model for the girls, was able to present the awards. It made for a very special day for them and for the parents who also attended.' Dundalk company Diaceutics are set to launch a new Asian base, with a regional hub opening in Singapore. The data analytics firm, which is based at the Creative Spark offices in Clontygora are opening an Asia headquarters in Singapore as part of international growth plans. Diaceutics is the world's leading provider of precision medicine data analytics, software and service solutions and works with the pharmaceutical industry to further the application of precision medicine - an approach which tailors medical treatments to the individual characteristics of each patient. Diaceutics Asia is building an initial team of six - consisting of lab directors, data scientists and sales personnel - working to reinforce its presence and patient impact in Asia. The company already has offices in Belfast, Dundalk and in the US. Damian Thornton, COO of Diaceutics said the new Asia base is a natural step for the company. 'Singapore provides the ideal hub from which to ramp up our work in Asia,' he said. 'Diaceutics is on a mission to improve patient outcomes worldwide through better testing,' said Mr. Thornton With more than half of the world's population residing in Asia, this is a natural step for us. We are excited to have a very skilled team of scientists and business people, who share the company's vision of helping to improve patient outcomes through better testing.' 'We expect our presence in Asia will be buoyed by recent activity in the Chinese precision medicine market.' He said the company estimated that there are currently more than 300 targeted oncology drugs in late stage development across the major Asian markets and from its new base the company will be able to support the launch of and access to precision therapies in China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan. 'The country is making a concerted effort to provide those who get sick access to the latest and most effective treatments. That means rapidly approving ground-breaking new drugs. This is making it an attractive market for pharmaceutical companies to launch new therapies and as more targeted treatments become available, efficient biomarker testing will be crucial to getting those drugs to the right people. That is where we believe we will make a difference - not only in China but also throughout the rest of Asia.' Ms. Ho Weng Si, Director, Healthcare, Singapore EDB, said: 'Diaceutics' decision to establish its Asia Hub in Singapore reflects a growing need for more holistic pharmaceutical and diagnostic solutions to enable personalized medicine in Asia. We welcome Diaceutics' addition to Singapore's growing healthcare ecosystem.' 10,146 in Government funding has been granted to Men's Sheds in Louth a Fine Gael Councillor has confirmed. Cllr. John McGahon has welcomed the funding announcement by the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Michael Ring, which will benefit six Men's Sheds in Louth. 'It is really positive to see the Government supporting the The Irish Men's Sheds Association which does fantastic work. I have seen first-hand the positive impact of their activities here in Louth. 'Last Summer, my colleague Minister Ring allocated 500,000 under the Men's Sheds stream of the Community Enhancement Programme to enable individual Sheds to update their facilities by purchasing equipment or by carrying out minor works to improve their shed. 'Each Local Authority area was then allocated funding and the application process was overseen by Local Community Development Committees (LCDCs) around the country. 'I am delighted to say that six Men's Sheds in Louth were successful in their applications. 'These groups will receive 10,146 in funding to update and improve their facilities. For example, the six sheds set to receive 1,691 each are, Dundalk, Drogheda, Cooley, Mid Louth, Tullyallen and Dunleer Men's Sheds are a great outlet for men in Louth to connect with each other in their locality, to share their skills and to work together on community projects. 'Not only is this good for the health and wellbeing of the men themselves but it's also of great benefit to the wider community. I will continue to support my local Men's Shed and I strongly welcome the Government funding to assist their work.' Louth Contemporary Music Society (LCMS) has been nominated for another major award with the announcement is on the longlist for a Classical:NEXT Innovation Award. The longlist for the award, which will be presented in Rotterdam in May, contains 37 nominees selected by members of an international nominating committee, which includes music journalists from 26 countries. Eamonn Quinn, the director of LCMS, was presented with the Belmont Prize Ceremony from the Forberg-Schneider-Stiftung last year. News of the nomination comes as LCMS revealed the programme for their 2019 festival. This year, to coincide with the solstice, their annual festival of new music is called Stations of the Sun. It takes place on the weekend of June 21 and 21, with a programme which follows the solar cycle in a sequence of five concerts. The midsummer sun will bring some of the most exciting composers an Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, making her first visit to Ireland d outstanding musicians from around the globe to Dundalk. The path begins and ends with music by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, making her first visit to Ireland. Internationally esteemed for her sonic imagination and expressive power, Saariaho works with contemporary digital means and ancient scales to create dreamlike music, loaded with a strong feeling for nature and with primal human emotion. In Dundalk, vocal and instrumental pieces from throughout her career will be performed by musicians including Aliisa Neige Barriere, Meta 4 String Quartet, Jakob Kullberg, Camilla Hoitenga and Raphaele Kennedy with whom she collaborates closely. The programme for Stations of the Sun also features a new work by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, who, at the age of 92, has recently been acclaimed worldwide for his first opera, setting Samuel Beckett's Endgame. There will also be a performance of Kurtag's Bach-inspired HiPartita for solo violin, given by the musician for whom it was written: the extraordinary Hiromi Kikuchi. Music by three diverse composers will follow in the atmospheric and resonant space of the old Dundalk Gaol. Linda Caitlin Smith's new work comes out of North American minimalism, carrying a care for detail that is uniquely hers and intensely telling. Peter Garland, coming from something of the same background but going very much his own way, arrives with a new piece for string quartet and tenor voice. Pascale Criton uses special tunings to explore very small intervals in music that is mesmerizing. Also to be heard for the first time in Ireland are the sonorous voices of the Moscow Russian Patriarchate Choir, in new pieces and venerable chants. The Moscow Russian Patriarchate Choir, with conductor Anatoly Grindenko, led the way in the rediscovery of Orthodox church music in the late years of the Soviet regime. At this time - when the music was far from approved by the government - the choir spent years decoding ancient manuscripts and giving the first performances of works that had lain in obscurity for centuries. Tickets available from https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/stations-of-the-sun-21-22-june-2019-tickets-53509632752 She describes him as one of her "early-morning skinny latte set", so she felt comfortable giving him a knowing grimace. "They're an oddball lot - most of my generation would never vote for them,'' she said. They had both been joshing good-humouredly over the Polish foreign affairs minister's aside that Ireland should ease up on its Brexit backstop fixation. The waitress from Warsaw is one of 120,000 Poles now living in Ireland. And here she was dissing her own government. She is a classic beneficiary of the EU-inspired 'Europe without borders' dream which has transformed the lives of her generation. Ireland and Poland are separated by a distance of more than 2,000km. Yet there are remarkable cultural similarities forged by over two millennia of Roman Catholicism. Even in the international soccer arena it is no coincidence we have played Poland more often than any other country. Back in the day, when we found friendly matches hard to come by, it was the Poles who usually obliged. After decades of piecemeal development and historic under-investment, Irish Water is delivering sustained improvements. However, over 200,000 people in rural Ireland continue to rely on private group schemes for water. Without these structures, which are generally voluntary, these communities might still be depending on their own wells for water. I was reminded of this when recently visiting south-eastern Uganda with the charity Goal. In Uganda, millions of people exist on subsistence agriculture without clean water, sanitation or indeed electricity. Polluted local drinking water sources, and a lack of hygiene awareness and practice, often result in chronic illness and exposure to life-limiting and life-threatening disease. Consequences are especially critical for children. While billions of euro have been invested by donors in water facilities in Africa, up to half of all schemes can be out of action due to the absence of structures to manage them, the operational skills needed to maintain them and - critically - the funds required to put these arrangements in place. Goal takes a community-led approach, encouraging the adoption by local village committees of responsibility for managing and maintaining water points, building latrines and promoting hygiene among families and village groups. Only with this support are projects implemented, ensuring operational viability. Historically, donors have been available to fund new facilities, but few are enthused by supporting their day-to-day operation and maintenance. Without this, however, the chronic deficit in the service will remain. The scale of the challenge was highlighted in our visit to two Goal projects in the Bugiri district of south-eastern Uganda, near the shoreline of Lake Victoria. Goal has facilitated a new handpump, which provides good quality, safe drinking water for the village community in Bugali. Previously, the community relied on the polluted Lake Victoria. Goal has adopted a novel system which obliges 'pay as you use' to ensure that the pump will be maintained. Our second visit was to Namayingo school, with over 1,300 pupils and 13 teachers. Here, Goal had provided a new borehole, boys' and girls' latrines and a girls' washroom. The visit confirmed that there is scope for the Irish water sector to support this work by Goal, and indeed other NGOs. The water sector could assist through targeted funding, staff secondments, training in plant operation, research and development, project design and material resources. Plans are being considered within the sector to make this collaboration a reality during 2019. This approach would be mutually beneficial giving valuable experience and development opportunities at home, while making a real difference to those in need. Jerry Grant is a former managing director of Irish Water To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, "relationships move pretty fast, and if you don't look around once in a while, you could miss it." Certainly, modern-day interactions with our nearest and dearest are more likely to be conducted in a blur of Facebook likes, emojis and texts, and meaningful face time (as opposed to, well, FaceTime), becomes the first collateral damage. "There's a big difference between communication and connection and nowhere is that more apparent than on social media," explains Chris Flack, co-founder of Irish digital wellbeing company UnPlug. "In small quantities it can encourage deeper connection and intimacy, however, overuse can lead to tension and has been shown to increase loneliness." Sharron Grainger, psychologist at the Connolly Counselling Centre, agrees: "Technology encourages us to avoid intimacy. For some, rather than relate to the one they love face to face, they disappear into their screens. However, if you choose to get your head out of the screen for long enough and commit to working creatively at it, cultivating meaningful relationships is possible." So in a world where company appears plentiful but is really a triumph of quantity over quality, is there a way of making our interactions with others more nourishing? More substantial? More able to work for us? The Slow Movement, which began in Rome in 1968 but has gained traction in recent years, encourages us to move off life's hamster wheel into a less busy but more focused, gratifying existence. Slow Food, Slow Fashion and Slow Parenting advocate for a more mindful, 'present' approach, so it stands to reason that when it comes to Slow Relationships, the maxim is very much 'less is more'. Or rather, it's about making time for the relationships that matter rather trying to be all things to all men. To avoid getting into a rut with the people that matter the most, take an inventory of the three major groups in your life and make some small but hugely efficient changes: Family Family relationships are an obvious starting point; they tend to be among the most potentially gratifying and rich of all. Yet old dynamics can run bone-deep, and they're the one group of people with which we're often the most complacent. Complexity is writ large in family relationships, according to psychotherapist Lorraine Hackett (mymind.org): "The parent-child relationships can be tricky as parents can still feel like they're responsible for their child's emotional wellbeing," she says. "The fact is that true wellbeing comes when you can be with someone and be as sad or as happy as you really are. "Parenting an adult can be different, and can come when parental health is in decline, and when the dynamic changes quite fast, there can be a wave of resentment and pain on the child's part," Hackett adds. "But in order to maintain a deep, intimate contact within the family, we need to meet family members as we, and they, are at the moment." Your significant other According to relationship psychologist Dave Kavanagh, who runs online courses for couples (relationshipbootcamp.ie), humans are governed by chemistry. "When you're scoring left and right, you get these little bursts of dopamine that are highly addictive. Once you give yourself an overload of dopamine, in some ways it can make an individual seem less exciting over time. It can make the idea of committing to one individual less appealing." Yet a deeper connection, involving intimacy and authenticity, is of much more lasting benefit: "It's important to recognise other people's humanity and vulnerability," explains Kavanagh. "It takes a lot of time to build this up - you don't know someone immediately after a two-hour dinner date. With multiple dating experiences though, we lost some of the richness of humanity, and that's not great for your expectations of relationships." Those in long-term romances needn't get stuck in a rut, either: "I often mention the importance of adventure and excitement, and flooding the brain with chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, testosterone, and adrenaline," says Kavanagh. "If you watch Netflix or do the same thing over and over, your pleasure-seeking mechanisms will be screaming for attention. People spend too much time in each other's company that the element of excitement is no longer there. Give each other space, and be sure to do novel new activities. Things like rock-climbing will have a more dramatic effect than going to the cinema, and allowing these chemicals to be recreated in the brain can affect the amount of lust people experience for each other." Friends According to the experts, a major cull is often needed, starting with cutting out the 'have tos' with acquaintances in our life. In her book, The Life Changing Magic Of Not Giving A F***, author Sarah Knight suggests doing away with events, meetings or people that mean little or nothing, even if you feel a misplaced sense of social obligation. She was clearly onto something - the book was a worldwide bestseller. According to psychotherapist Emma Doyle (mymind.org), we tend to do this for several reasons: "Lots of my clients force themselves to do things they don't want to do," she observes. "Often, what drives this behaviour is their personality and internal self-belief. They're people who tend to people-please, and are reluctant to say no because of how they'd be perceived." Adds psychotherapist Trish Murphy (trishmurphy-psychotherapist.com): "If you do say yes to these interactions, go with a full heart behind it, but only spend time with people if they're not toxic and moany." When friendships fall into a complacent rut, changing up the scenery can offer relationships a much-needed shot in the arm. "Change the setting and conversation," suggests Doyle. "It's fine to go to the pub for drinks, but open up and ask someone what's going on for them. If your group pattern is to meet and rant about work, talk about something else, like a big holiday you'll take this year. It can be a hard conversation to start, but try something like, 'I'm glad you're here and I value the time we have together and I really want to know what's going on with you.'" It may sound novel, but physical contact is hugely important in platonic friendships, too: "A lot of my clients, particularly male ones, find that unless they're in a sexual relationship it can be a long time before someone will hold their hand, and that affects us physically," observes psychotherapist Lorraine Hackett. "On a very basic level, if you want to see a decrease in anxiety and depression societally, we need to depend more on this contact." How to be a good friend Laura O'Herlihy, from Dublin's Stoneybatter, works in finance. "I think most of my friends would see me as a positive person, someone who encourages them to look on the bright side or make the best of things. I would also hope they would say I'm a good listener. "The best way to keep meaningful relationships is contact - it doesn't always have to be face to face - even phone calls and texts to check in and let them know I'm thinking of them. A reminder that a band we both like is touring soon, or sharing an article on something I know they're interested in. Little ways of reaching out to let people know they're in your thoughts and keep the lines of communication open. "Friendship should be forgiving of most things but it's almost impossible to stay friends with someone who constantly takes and needs your support when times are tough but vanishes into thin air when the situation is reversed. It's good to remember that making time for people doesn't always mean spending a whole day with them - a quick coffee when you're in their part of town, asking them if they'd like to come along to an event you're planning to go to, or a lunch during the week if you work close to each other." My first taste of alcohol was sherry. It was before I even hit 10. That's what happens when you grow up with teetotal parents. My mother's trifle was, and still is, legendary; so yes, I've always had a soft spot for Harvey's Bristol Cream. But apart from that, I always considered it to be a bit old fashioned. That all changed when I visited Barcelona for the first time 18 years ago. The Spanish food scene was starting to make waves, with a slew of creative chefs influenced by Ferran Adria of elBulli; so as well as some top end restaurants, I had a few casual spots on my list - Quimet I Quimet, a standing-only tapas bar that specialises in serving montaditos, tapas topped with conservas (foods that have been preserved in cans or jars); and Cal Pep, a casual tapas bar which had managed to land on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. As a result, it had queues down the street, but it was worth the wait. Run by the inimitable owner Pep, the accepted wisdom was, when it comes to ordering, say that you 'eat everything' and let him bring the plates. When it came to wine, Pep suggested a bottle of fino to have throughout our meal, and although dubious, I thought, who am I to argue with the man in charge? And from there started my love of sherry. In case you haven't picked up on it from my long intro, sherry pairs insanely well with food and you should really give it a go. It has been an insider's favourite for years, and is quietly making a comeback. In London, top tapas restaurants like Barrafina have had it on their wine list since they opened, but now sherry bars like Sack in Shoreditch and Bar Pepito in King's Cross have moved it resolutely onto the cool hipster list. In Dublin, Uno Mas, the new Spanish restaurant from the people behind Etto, have sherry and sherry cocktails on their wine list, so when I visited recently, I decided to repeat my Barcelona experience and have a bottle to drink throughout the meal. Fino and Manzanilla are pale coloured, bone dry sherries which are deliciously savoury, and although they are fortified, at 15pc alcohol, they are about as strong as a new world red wine. A bottle of Callejuela, a Manzanilla sherry was a wonderful match for the tapas, which included a gilda (the small olive, hot pepper and anchovy tapa), jamon, cockles that had been cooked in fino, squid a la plancha, morcilla with piquillo pepper and pork with Romesco sauce. Other restaurants that serve sherry by the glass include The Port House, Tapas de Lola, and The Fish Shop in Dublin, Cava in Galway, and specialist off-licences include The Celtic Whiskey Shop and 64 Wine in Dublin. Why not get a group of friends together, get everyone to make one tapas dish, and try tasting them with a fino-style sherry? Tio Pepe Expand Close Tio Pepe / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tio Pepe 15.99-16.99, 15pc, from O'Brien's, The Celtic Whiskey Shop, winesoftheworld.ie From Jerez, this is one of the world's most famous sherries. With zesty grapefruit, lemon and apple flavours that lead to a more saline slightly bitter finish, this is great with roasted almonds and seafood. UBE Miraflores 2017 Expand Close Ube Miraflores 2017 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ube Miraflores 2017 23, 11pc, from Loose Cannon, Green Man Wines, 64 Wine, Martins Off-licence, Jus de Vine, Blackrock Cellar I tasted this amazing wild yeast sherry when Ramiro Ibanez visited Dublin recently. Unfortified, so lower in alcohol than a usual fino sherry, it has a floral note with citrus and pear, and a touch of white pepper, truffle and herbs. Lustau Manzanilla 'Papirusa' Expand Close Lustau Manzanilla 'Papirusa' / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lustau Manzanilla 'Papirusa' 24, 15pc, from Mitchell & Son, CHQ, Sandycove, Avoca Kilmacanogue and Dunboyne, mitchellandson.com Bone dry with fruity notes, this light, crisp sherry has a hint of sea salt on the finish from its aging in American oak casks in Sanlucar de Barrameda on the estuary of the Guadalquivir river. Grapevine Wine Australia are running a wine tasting on January 30 in The Round Room at the Mansion House in Dublin. With more than 250 wines from across 30 regions, you get a chance to taste an impressive range of grape varieties and styles. Tickets are 16.87, available from Jean Smullen at jean@jeansmullen.com. We have three sets of free tickets for Weekend readers - email Jean to be in with a chance of winning. Terms & conditions apply. Coffee culture has well and truly taken hold in Ireland over the past decade. But with the price of a flat white now firmly established at over 3, thanks in part to the recent VAT increase, it matters more than ever whether it's any good or not. Too often what should be a small occasion of joy turns out to be a bitter disappointment. While there are many cafes and restaurants throughout the country that serve great coffee, the list below concentrates - in no particular order - on the establishments where getting the espressos and pour-overs just right is the number one priority. We plan to focus on cafes in another feature soon. Inevitably, Dublin has more than its fair share of great coffee shops, so almost half of our list is made up of establishments based in the capital. But Cork is not far behind, and there are seriously good contenders popping up all over the country. Cork 1 Three Fools The Three Fools roast their own coffee which is available wholesale and online. Their own shop on Cork's Grand parade has a reputation for serving excellent espresso and brew coffees, and cheerful service. Plenty of advice for those wanting to make great coffee at home. Find it: Grand Parade, Cork city, see threefoolscoffee.ie 2 Cork Coffee Roasters Expand Close Cork Coffee Roasters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Cork Coffee Roasters John and Anna Gowan are first and foremost coffee roasters, but also barista-educators, who roast their high-grown, Arabic green beans on a traditional cast iron coffee roaster built in the 1930s. They say that this may not be the most efficient way of roasting coffee, "but it is gentle, it takes time and it takes the human touch". The proof is in the drinking. Find it: Two locations, see corkcoffeeroasters.ie 3 Kangabrew "Coffee on the hop," it says on the side, and Chris Broderick's little van, based in Carrigaline, crops up in various different locations in the area. "The guy is from Melbourne and is so sound he might as well be Irish, plus he knows his coffee," says one regular. Find it: Mobile coffee van, see Facebook/KangaBrew 4 Dukes Coffee Company Aidan Dukes has been in business since 2005, before coffee became quite as trendy as it is now. He works with local roasters including Golden Bean, Badger & Dodo and Roasting House, as well as 'superstar' roasters such as 3fe. Dukes baristas are trained to get to know each coffee and how to get the personality out of each and every bean. Find it: Two locations, Cork city, see dukes.ie 5 Soma Coffee Cork's coolest coffee shop is Soma, owned by Irene and Damien Twohig and Alex Bruce. Michelin-starred chef, Takashi Miyazaki, is just one of the regulars who shows up for a daily fix of brews from roasters such as West Cork Coffee, Dark Arts and Koppi. Find it: Tuckey Street, Cork city, see Facebook/SomaCoffeeCompany 6 Filter A destination for serious coffee drinkers, Eoin MacCarthy and Alex O'Callaghan stock a selection of Irish-roasted beans, including from 3fe and Cloudpicker, as well as other guest blends and a fine array of kit for obsessives. Find it: 19 Georges Quay, Cork city, see @FilterCork on Twitter 7 Alchemy Alchemy is a Cork institution. It serves 3fe coffee and welcomes dogs - a winning combination. The cakes are good too. Find it: 123 Barrack Street, Cork city, see @AlchemyCoffee on Instagram 8 The Heron Cafe This family-run coffee shop in Fermoy is a popular meeting place serving locally roasted specialty coffee from Badger & Dodo. Espresso-based and Chemex options available. Find it: 19 Pearse Square, Fermoy, see @TheHeronCafe on Instagram 9 Budd's Food writer Trish Deseine says that Budd's keeps her and all the other locals nicely "caffeinated all year round," with its locally roasted Badger & Dodo coffee. Find it: Ballydehob, see budds.ie 10 O'Neill Coffee Located in Ms O Neill's former grocery shop in Skibbereen, West Cork, O'Neill Coffee serves locally roasted coffee from West Cork Coffee and guest brands such as Red Strand and Fjord from Berlin. There are sweet and savoury accompaniments on offer too. Find it: Skibbereen, see oneillcoffee.ie 11 Butlers Chocolate Cafe Butlers may be a chain but it serves great coffee. The medium roast house blend is 100pc Arabica, with flavours of sweet dried stone fruits and toasted almond, and a rich dark chocolate after-taste. For regulars, the Happiness card means that every tenth coffee is free. And you get a free chocolate. Find it: Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork city - also in Galway, Limerick and throughout Dublin, see butlerschocolates.com Donegal 12 The Shack Overlooking the Blue Flag Marble Hill beach, The Shack roasts its own coffee beans and comes into its own in good weather. No extra charge for the magnificent views. Find it: Marble Hill, Dunfanaghy, see Facebook/TheShack 13 Caffe Banba The most northerly coffee shop in the country, Caffe Banba is a small family business that trades from two mobile coffee shops equipped with serious Fracino Espresso coffee machines. From Easter to September you'll find one at Banba's Crown, the very northern tip of Ireland, and another around events, festivals and beaches on the Inishowen peninsula. Find it: Malin Head, see caffebanba.com Dublin 14 Hatch Sisters Mealla, Hannah, and Norabeth Tarrant learned their barista skills abroad, including in Melbourne, the home of coffee culture, and are beloved by SoCoDu locals. Hatch serves 3fe coffee. Find it: 4 Glasthule Road, Glasthule, Co Dublin, see hatchcoffee.ie 15 Ground State Located close to St. James' Hospital - and a salvation for people working there, who had nowhere to buy good coffee until it opened last year - Ground State morphs into a yoga studio by night. The beans are sourced from Colonna Coffee in the UK, and the Nicaraguan espresso from Jesus Mountain Marsellesa is the current favourite. Find it: 48-50 James Street, Dublin 8, see groundstated8.com 16 KAPH "Hipster with a heart, consistently well-made coffee, and the beats and bants are mighty without being overwhelmingly loud. Kaph is welcoming, friendly and importantly they don't say normal milk to mean dairy." That's one customer's glowing review of their favourite coffee shops. A favourite with social media legend James Kavanagh (flat white with oat milk please). Find it: Drury Street, Dublin 2, see kaph.ie 17 Vice Coffee INC Located inside Wigwam, Vice features a number of roasters from Ireland and abroad, including Squaremile, Bailies, Calendar, Roundhill, 3fe, Coffee Collective, Upside, Friedhats and others. As well as coffee, there's a range of coffee-based cocktails for when caffeine alone is not enough. Find it: 54 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1, see vicecoffeeinc.com 18 Proper Order The house coffee here is Red Brick from Square Mile Roasters in East London, a smooth, rich blend with notes of milk chocolate, butterscotch and tangerine. The vibe is cheerful and friendly. Find it: 7 Haymarket, Arran Quay, Dublin 7, see properordercoffeeco.com 19 3fe The mothership of Dublin's coffee culture, 3fe is where it all began and is still a mecca for coffee anoraks. For the uninitiated, 3fe can be intimidating, but the coffee is so good that it's worth persevering through the shame of ignorance. Owner Colin Harmon wrote the book - literally - on running coffee shops. It's called What I Know About Running Coffee Shops. 3fe supplies coffee to many cafes around the country as well as its own; if you spot it on the menu, it's a sign that the establishment takes its coffee seriously. Find it: Various branches, see 3fe.com 20 Reference Coffee Co-owned with everyone's favourite breakfast/brunch spot, Meet Me In The Morning (next door), and wine bar, Loose Canon (on Drury Street), Reference Coffee uses beans from a few different roasteries including Colonna and Bailies and makes a mean cinnamon swirl. Find it: 49 Pleasants Street, Dublin 8, see Facebook/ ReferenceCoffee 21 Coffee Angel Expand Close Coffee Angel / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Coffee Angel Karl Purdy's Coffee Angel house espresso, Forsa Gala, is a medium-bodied blend of seasonally rotating coffees using 100pc Arabica beans. Tasting notes say to expect notes of milk chocolate and red currants with a syrupy mouth-feel. It's as good in an espresso as it is with milk. Find it: Various locations, see coffeeangel.com 22 Lilliput Stores Expand Close Lilliput Stores / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lilliput Stores Lovely Lilliput Stores serves Ariosa coffee, and you can pick up a sandwich for lunch or a few bits and pieces for dinner while you're waiting for yours to be ready. Or sit out the back and relax. Find it: 5 Rosemount Terrace, Arbour Hill, Dublin 7, see lilliputstores.com 23 Nick's Great coffee and a sense of community - Nick's is a Ranelagh institution that serves free coffee to over-65s; locals say that it's a great place to catch up with the gossip. Nurses, paramedics and members of the emergency services in uniform pay just 1 for all hot drinks. Find it: 22 Ranelagh, Dublin 6, see @NicksCoffeeCo on Twitter 24 Twofifty Square Serving a range of espresso and filter coffees, TwoFifty Square roasts its own beans on the premises in the middle of Rathmines. If you opt for AeroPress, you can choose between three different kinds of water. Fancy. Their new location is Project Black in Ranelagh. Find it: Williams Park, Rathmines, Dublin 6, see twofiftysquare.ie 25 Ebb & Flow Deservedly popular with locals, Ebb & Flow serves expertly crafted espresso and batch brews supplied by Full Circle Roasters, with Cracked Nut and Camerino supplying the sweet accompaniments. Find it: 56 Clontarf Road, Dublin 3, see ebbandflow.ie 26 Two Beans Dun Laoghaire folk love Two Beans, serving a seasonally changing range of espresso and filter specialty coffees, all sourced according to Two Beans' strict ethical standards. These people take their coffee seriously - and it shows. Very good. Find it: 11 Lower Georges Street, Dun Laoghaire, see twobeans.ie 27 Honey Hone Cafe The specialty coffee at this little Portmarnock gem comes from Bailies coffee roasters in Belfast. As well as being sourced ethically and sustainably, it also tastes gorgeous. Find it: Strand Road, Portmarnock, see honeyhoneycafe.com 28 Bear market Expand Close Bear Market coffee shop in the IFSC / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bear Market coffee shop in the IFSC Architects-turned-coffee shop owners, Stephen and Ruth Deasy started out in Blackrock and now have four locations. They serve a special blend of coffee roasted for them each week in Dublin, and each member of their staff is a trained barista. Bear Market's customers - from those needing a quick-fix on the way to work to the true coffee experts - are devoted. Find it: Various locations, see bearmarket.ie 29 Happy Out Expand Close Happy Out at Bull Island / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Happy Out at Bull Island If you've witnessed the queues at Happy Out, located in a repurposed shipping container beside Dollymount beach, you'll have figured out that there's something special about its coffee. The specialty coffees are locally roasted by Roasted Brown; the location makes them taste even better. Find it: Bull Island, Dublin 3, see happyout.ie 30 Coffee 2 Go You could be forgiven for thinking that Dublin's coffee scene only kicked off in the last five years, but Coffee 2 Go beside Baggot St Bridge has been around for far longer than that. The cars pulled up on the double yellows outside all day long, risking the attention of Mespil Road's crack team of clampers, is testament to the fact that the coffee tastes great. Find it: 79 Mespil Road, Dublin 4, see coffee2go.ie 31 Sasha House Petite "Doesn't charge extra for plant milk and generous with advice about blends and flavours," says one devoted customer. The beans come from Sasha's own micro-roastery and the pastries are excellent. Less hipster than most of the coffee shops in the city centre. Find it: Drury Street Carpark, Dublin 2, see shpetite.ie 32 Thru the Green Dublin's only drive-thru coffee shop serves immaculate coffee sourced fairly and sustainably from small crops in Columbia. Skilled baristas and great beans make for happy customers. Find it: Windy Arbour, Dundrum, Dublin 14, see thruthegreencoffeeco.com 33 Love Supreme Love Supreme serves coffee roasted by Koppi in Sweden and makes a delectable range of cakes and pastries - not to mention epic sausage rolls - in its on-site bakery. A Stoneybatter landmark, with a special place in the hearts of D7 folk. Find it: 57 Stoneybatter, Dublin 7, see lovesupreme.ie Galway 34 Coffeewerk & Press This rather lovely little shop is part-gallery, part-beautifully created homeware shop and part-coffee shop. Lots of nice coffee accessories too, and beans from Calendar and others. Find it: 4 Quay Street, Galway, see coffeewerkandpress.com 35 Urban Grind A destination for Galway's coffee cohort, Urban Grind serves AeroPress filter coffee from 3fe, Clifton Coffee and Koppi amongst others, and a full range of coffee equipment and publications. Find it: 8 William Street West, see urbangrind.ie Kerry 36 Bean in Dingle The Burgess family's smart little coffee shop in Dingle is as popular with locals as it is with visitors. Justin and his team of baristas take their specialty coffee seriously and it shows. Also in Dingle, My Boy Blue serves 3fe coffee. Find it: Green Street, Dingle, see beanindingle.com 37 Maison Gourmet A little outpost of France in Kerry, Maison Gourmet serves organic freshly roasted coffee from Java Republic and lovely pastries. Find it: Kenmare, see Facebook/MaisonGourmet Kildare 38 PS Roasters Brothers Peter and Simon McCormack have their own micro-roastery in Naas and last year opened a second specialty coffee shop in Clane. "Beautiful flavours and vibe," says one fan, "Simon and Peter live and breathe roasting." The brothers import their own Fair Trade beans and source sustainably. Find it: Clane and Naas, see pscoffeeroasters.ie 39 UBH The small cafe and coffee roasters in the heart of Newbridge is everything that a local cafe should be. Find it: 2-4 George's Street, Piercetown, Newbridge, see ubh.ie 40 Brewery Coffee House Serving coffee from 3fe, The Barn Berlin, Dark Arts, Square Mile and Sweet Shop, the tiny Brewery Coffee House takes its coffee seriously - to good effect and the delight of locals. Find it: Straffan Road, Maynooth, see Facebook/BreweryCoffee Limerick 41 Rift Coffee This small multi-roaster coffee shop is focussed on quality, tastiness and sustainability, with a regularly changing suite of different espresso and pour-over coffees on offer. It's always busy. Canteen on Catherine Street is another option, with more of a focus on food but also serving great coffee. Further along is Stormy Espresso, a local favourite. Find it: 30 Mallow Street, see riftcoffee.com Louth 42 Ariosa Coffee "Brilliant super friendly service, passionate team, excellent products and they've brought a new energy to the town of Drogheda," say Patrick Hanlon and Russell Alford aka The Gastro Gays. Endorsements don't get better than that. Find it: 1 St Laurence Street, Drogheda, see ariosacoffee.com Sligo 43 Osta Coffee "Local food, friendly faces, and fab coffee," says one regular. The coffee is prepared by trained baristas using an ethically sourced, Fairtrade and organic mix of Mexican and Peruvian Arabica, freshly roasted and blended in Dublin by Java Republic. Osta makes its milky coffees with a blend from Westport-based BeanWest Coffee. Find it: Garavogue Weir, off Stephen Street, Sligo, see osta.ie 44 Hearts Desire Tony Conway's smart barista bar uses beans from The Art of Coffee. Modestly, its social media hashtag is #bestcoffeeinSligo. Find it: Stephen Street Car Park, Abbeyquarter North, Sligo, see Facebook/Hearts.Desire.311 45 Shells Surfer hangout Shells uses hand-roasted beans from McCabes in Co Wicklow and all coffees are made with a double shot as standard, which must help with the big waves. Find it: Shore Road, Strandhill, see shellscafe.com Tipperary 46 Old Barracks Roastery Billing itself as "the destination for the coffee curious," the Old Barracks offers up to 10 coffees each day and has invested in Europe's first gravimetric (no, we're not sure either but it sounds impressive) Modbar coffee machine technology. The layout is configured to remove all barriers between barista and customer to encourage conversation. Coffee anorak heaven. Find it: Birdhill, see theoldbarracks.ie Waterford 47 Bia & Brew Tra Coffee Roasters, which hand-roasts 100pc Arabica beans, shares the site with Bia & Brew making for a true bean-to-cup coffee experience. Good food too. Find it: Tramore, see biandbrew.ie 48 Arch coffee Waterford folk love Arch Coffee, which now has two sites in the city. Serving 3fe coffee, last year's coffee of the year, for the second year running, was the Kenyan Kiamaina AA but Arch isn't afraid to experiment and serves coffee from as far away as Thailand, alongside a full range of coffee paraphernalia. Find it: Two locations, Waterford city, see archcoffe.ie Wicklow 49 Copper & Straw Barely open a wet week, Copper & Straw in Bray has already made a name for itself in Bray serving espresso-based and batch brew single origin coffees from Bailies and Nomad. Find it: Main Street, Bray, Co Wicklow, see Facebook/Copper&Straw Northern Ireland 50 Various In Northern Ireland you'll find great coffee at branches of the Ground Espresso chain, at Kaffe O, Cafe Cuan, Root & Branch and Established in Belfast, Finnegan & Sons in Newry, The Craic'd Pot in Armagh, The Sea Shed at Benone Beach near Limavady and Koko in Portrush. Shane O'Loughlin is a dairy farmer from Aughrim, Co Wicklow. Every day he draws around 10,000 litres of water from a spring on his land, which provides drinking water for his 110-strong herd. Last July, the spring ran dry. It didn't come back until November 8. It was the first time in living memory that it failed. "I'm the fourth or fifth generation here," he says. "The spring was set up years ago, and all the pipework was replaced around 10 years ago. There's a man in his 80s living on the farm, who started working here when he was 14, and he had never seen it run dry. "In early July, I noticed a problem. Over about a week, things started to go slack. By mid-July, it was gone." The farm had no back-up mains supply. While the well serving the family home continued to flow, Shane was forced to draw water from a stream on his land for months. "Around two tankers a day kept me going, rising to four tankers a day, around 18,000 or 20,000 litres (in total). You'd try and get the first tanker filled before 6.30am. It would take around 45 minutes to fill one load, but at peak I needed four loads. "At the worst of the drought, between milking, drawing water and cutting grass and bringing it to the cows, it was a nine-hour day before I did anything else. "I continued to draw water, two loads a day, until November 8. I was surprised at how quickly the spring came back, it was full pelt. The financial cost was significant, but the time and labour cost was worse, and the stress of having to do it." The unprecedented weather of 2018 has thrown the vulnerability of our ageing and creaking water network into sharp focus. Storm Emma and the Beast from the East early in the year saw pipes burst in sub-zero temperatures and treatment plants struggle to keep up with demand. Restrictions affected 370,000 people. And while most welcomed the glorious summer sunshine, it resulted in widespread restrictions as demand spiked and sources ran dry. Just how vulnerable is Ireland's water supply, especially in light of climate change which will place unprecedented stress on the sources we have? And what is being done to address the looming problem? Irish Water abstracts 1.7 billion litres of water every day to serve more than four million people and an estimated 180,000 businesses. The group water sector supplies much of the remainder, although some families and businesses rely on private wells. Most water for agriculture comes from small, private sources. Irish Water draws from 280 surface water sources, including rivers and lakes, which provide 80pc of total supply. In periods of drought, they can fail, but most recover fast. There are 906 smaller sources including springs and boreholes which provide the remainder. These take longer to fail, but need more time to replenish. We have a "phenomenal" number of sources, one industry expert says. Northern Ireland has just 24. We have over 1,000. They range in scale from The Strand in Laois, which serves just three households, to the River Liffey, which provides 85pc of supply to Dublin and surrounding counties. Some 40pc of the river's flow is abstracted every day, highlighting the enormous reliance placed on just one source. Dublin isn't an outlier. Cork largely relies on the Lee, Galway the Corrib and Limerick the Shannon. The biggest groundwater source in Laois supplies up to two million litres a day from just one borehole. Ireland has lots of rain, but it doesn't fall where it's most needed. Much of the national population is located around Dublin, but apart from the Wicklow Mountains, most rain falls on the west coast in counties including Cork, Kerry, Galway and Donegal. Ireland is expected to get more rainfall overall as climate change takes hold, but summers are likely to be drier. That raises the prospects of water shortages unless we plan ahead. That said, droughts are not a new phenomena. An analysis of historical records conducted by a team including Dr Conor Murphy from Maynooth University found that Ireland was subject to persistent droughts in the 1800s, 1820s, 1850s, 1880s, 1920s, 1930s, 1950s and 1970s. 1995 saw a prolonged drought in the midlands and in the summer of 2013, at least 10 local authorities restricted supplies. But the last 40 years, researchers noted, had been unusual due to the absence of persistent drought events. Much of our infrastructure has been built since then, meaning it is not designed to adapt to a changing climate. There was no indication that 2018 would see anything other than a normal summer. Early in the year there were frequent storms with above-average rainfall recorded, leading to higher water levels in many areas. Melting snow from Storm Emma helped maintain the saturated ground conditions into April, but by May, most Met Eireann weather stations were reporting below-average rainfall, with very little following into June. As of June 27, the majority of the country was in drought, defined as 15 consecutive days with less than 0.2mm of rainfall. Rivers in Wicklow, Louth, Tipperary, Galway, Cork and Cavan were at or approaching record low levels. Such was the extent of the severe drought that Irish Water warned there were likely to be "serious deficiencies" of water available. Demand across the Greater Dublin water supply area, which takes in large parts of Dublin, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow, spiked at an average of 616 million litres a day in June compared with average demand of 553 million litres the same month one year previously. "Large-scale outages are inevitable if demand is not reduced through voluntary reductions or restrictions in water usage," a technical report to the utility's board said, adding supply was "at risk of imminent failure". The picture was no better nationally. Of 790 drinking water treatment plants assessed in late July, just 18 - 2pc - were operating normally. The rest were enduring drought conditions. In addition, the soil moisture deficit - essentially the amount of water in the soil compared with what it can hold - ranged from -45mm to -88mm. This meant at least this volume of rain was needed before water would soak through and replenish the various drinking water sources on which the citizens of the State rely. Rising demand Restrictions were introduced in early July which were not fully lifted until late September. In the interim, Irish Water and group water schemes struggled to keep up with demand which shot up by some 40pc on some private schemes. The utility was forced to find new sources in Kilkenny and Laois, and transport water for 35,000 people every day in Kilkenny, Limerick, Wicklow, Cork, Waterford, Carlow, Tipperary and Clare because treatment plants could not meet local demand. One small group water scheme in Cavan, serving 25 homes, was forced to spend 150 a day bringing in water by tanker. Denis Drennan, a farmer at Maddoxtown in Kilkenny and chair of the ICMSA (Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association) Farm and Rural Affairs Committee, is highly critical of the cut-offs. "Irish Water implemented a one-size-fits-all when they cut water off at night. If you have a couple of hundred cattle drinking a couple of hundred litres of water each, it's a problem," he says. "The main drinking period for a cow is after evening milking. Even if it does come back at 7am, there's an animal welfare issue. Most of our members have a private water supply because they can't rely on Irish Water." Four months after restrictions were lifted, parts of the system remain on a knife-edge. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that while most sources are back to normal, some remain vulnerable. The River Deel, which serves families in Limerick, remains at low levels. The main source for Mullingar, Lough Owel; Lough Bane, which supplies Kells and Oldcastle, and Lough Lene which supplies Castlepollard, are all hovering near historic lows. "During 2018, Lough Owel and Lough Bane reached their lowest levels in over 30 years and Lough Lene was also very low," a spokesman said. "Of concern is that water levels in these lakes have not recovered much since the summer. "The net effect of this may be seen during the summer of 2019 if we get another dry summer, unless there is a significant amount of rain in the intervening period." Irish Water says a new supply is needed for Dublin and the midlands, where 330 million litres a day will be abstracted from the River Shannon at the Parteen Basin, before being piped 170km to Dublin with connections along the way. There is opposition to the 1.3bn plan, permission for which is expected to be sought for this year, but the utility insists it's not just for Dublin. Tipperary has eight sources providing eight million litres which are "inadequate, shallow" and "vulnerable". Offaly imports water from neighbouring counties, and a "vulnerable" source serves Edenderry. Laois has nine different sources, most of which should be retired, while Meath has "limited" and "vulnerable" groundwater sources. All these counties would benefit from the project. This week it emerged that the Lough Talt supply in Sligo will have to be abandoned due to its impact on the local eco-system. It serves 13,000 and will be replaced with a new source from Lough Conn, 40km away. Dublin's supply is a serious worry, especially in light of the fact that the system has little headroom or spare capacity and its population is growing. Some 1.6 million people rely on the Poulaphouca reservoir in the Wicklow Mountains. It must release water to maintain river flows and protect the environment, and serve the two biggest treatment plants in the country: Leixlip which produces 205 million litres a day and Ballymore Eustace which produces 308 million. If storage levels dip below 100 days, Irish Water goes on "high alert", water resource planner with the utility, Angela Ryan, says. "Over the summer, it would have fallen below that line," she says. The company says it manages supplies through pressure reductions and other network controls, and will shortly begin a public consultation on a National Water Resources Plan, designed to future-proof the network. It will mean some sources will have to be abandoned, Ryan says. "For every water supply across the country, we're looking at how sustainable those sources are. We're looking at population growth, to try and ensure we have enough supply to meet demand. "The options can be to find new supplies and to reduce leakage. We also have to look at how we all use less water. "We will have to find new sources. In some places, we have four or five small treatment plants, all abstracting from tiny sources. We'll come up with a huge amount of problems, and will have to prioritise those problems over a 25-year timeframe, to get Ireland moving to a sustainable and resilient supply." But should we build more reservoirs, like Poulaphouca, as a back-up? "Poulaphouca is a very good source because you can store water in the wet period of the year. But it was an enormous engineering feat which would have involved flooding entire valleys. "This is not something which can be delivered in a very short space of time. We also have to look at environmental impact, and projects like Poulaphouca might not even be possible (today). "But it's a reservoir on a river, and a very effective water supply site. We have Inniscarra on the Lee in Cork which is similar, and which provides the majority of drinking water for Cork City. Extraction from Parteen (the Shannon scheme) is almost exactly like Poulaphouca, in that the river and dam are in place." The issues are mirrored in the group water sector, which serves around 6pc of the population. Jean Rosney from the National Federation of Group Water Schemes says 22 schemes reported issues at the height of the summer, with 10 having to draw from alternative sources. "The increase in demand put huge pressure on the treatment plants and some were operating 24 hours a day," she says. "In terms of future planning, schemes are now looking at additional and back-up sources and installing generators at treatment plants and pump houses. Schemes are ramping up their leakage control measures to ensure there is sufficient capacity for future situations. I'd say some are looking at new sources." The State faces the challenge of developing and upgrading treatment plants and systems which can operate into the future as climate change takes hold, while abstracting no more water than absolutely necessary. Angela Ryan says Irish Water does not plan to draw more than 1.7 billion litres a day at any point in the future - even taking into account of population growth. Reducing leaking, upgrading the network, finding more sustainable supplies and reducing consumption will be key to a resilient supply. "All the assets we are designing and building, we are testing them against climate change standards," she says. "It will need better utilising of reservoir and groundwater sources." But in the meantime, Shane O'Loughlin worries about the future. The father-of-three, who is also chair of the ICMSA Farm Business Committee, is hoping for rain. "I'm very worried about this summer coming. We had a wet December, probably six weeks of normal weather, but the ground has never got wet. We could get a wash-out spring, but it's going to take a hell of a good year to put last year behind us. "People are talking about climate change coming but for farmers, it's here. The weather has been unbelievable in the last year. There's strong evidence to say it's already here. Things are on their head." Paul Melia is the Irish Independent's Environment Editor Tanaiste Simon Coveney warned that Ireland is likely to face higher food prices rather than food shortages if the UK crashes out of the EU without a Brexit deal. Mr Coveney, reacting to a hard-hitting Central Bank report on potential no-deal Brexit fall-out for Ireland, admitted such a scenario would put "enormous strain on the Irish economy" and not just on the UK-reliant food sector. However, he bluntly warned that the focus by everyone should now remain on London rather than Dublin in the intensive bid to achieve a Brexit deal. "I think many people are trying to shift the focus away from London on Dublin this week and I don't think we should allow that," he warned. "Solutions here need to come from where the problem is which is London - not Dublin." However, the Tanaiste acknowledged that Ireland would face significant economic challenges in the event of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal - including on food prices. "What I have always said that [is] a no-deal Brexit will put an enormous strain on the Irish economy," he said. "Tariffs apply to food and if it impacts on the value of sterling, well then that is going to impact and puts pressure on the very significant trade between these two islands. "There is no question about that [but] I don't think there are going to be shortages. Certainly there will be cost implications for that trade. "A no-deal Brexit will put our economy and systems under strain. People should know that and plan accordingly as indeed the Government is so we will continue to avoid that scenario." Cathal Haughey is the grandson of Charlie Haughey A fourth generation of the Haughey family dynasty is now running for Fianna Fail. Cathal Haughey, the grandson of Charlie Haughey, will be a party candidate in the local elections. His great-grandfather and grandfather both served as Taoisigh and his uncle is a former minister and sitting TD. Cathal is the son of Conor Haughey, whose brother is Fianna Fail TD Sean Haughey, a former junior minister. Expand Close Former Taoiseach Charlie Haughey. Photo: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former Taoiseach Charlie Haughey. Photo: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Conor and Seans father was the late Charles J Haughey, the controversial former Taoiseach and Fianna Fail leader. Cathal is the Irish version of Charles. Charles J Haughey was married to the late Maureen Lemass, the daughter of the late Sean Lemass, a veteran of the War of Independence and Civil War who also served as Taoiseach and Fianna Fail leader. Mr Lemass is viewed by some historians and commentators as the countrys greatest Taoiseach as he was leader during the industrialisation of the 1960s. Expand Close TD Sean Haughey Photo: Steve Humphreys / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp TD Sean Haughey Photo: Steve Humphreys Cathal is a 21-year-old DCU student and is the Dublin organiser with Ogra Fianna Fail, the partys youth wing. He will be running for Dublin City Council in the Clontarf electoral area on the northside of Dublin. He was added by party headquarters to the ticket. Sean Haugheys constituency of Dublin Bay North also covers this area and Charles Haughey represented parts of the area when he was a TD. The area covers the suburbs of Clontarf, Raheny, Killester, Donnycarney, Marino, Beaumont, Fairview, Harmonstown and Drumcondra. Following in the family tradition, Cathal Haughey describes himself as a proud Republican. He takes a pragmatic view on the question of Irish unity. A border poll is unlikely to pass without a certain level of unionist support. This cannot simply be a numbers game. Unity will only occur peacefully through dialogue and co-operation with both nationalists and unionists. We must communicate to unionists that even if they oppose Irish unity, they have nothing to fear from it. London rule has always failed to represent the nationalist community of Northern Ireland. The challenge for nationalists is to show that a united Ireland will not fail the unionist community in the same way, he wrote on the Slugger OToole website last year. OWNERS of childrens play centres across the country are said to be in a state of panic over rising insurance costs. Stephanie Reid, owner of Monkey Business in Co Galway, said many of the owners are convinced that they wont have businesses this time next year, with a number already facing closure. Its a huge issue, we have a group of play centre owners and theyre all in a panic. Im 90pc sure there wont be any left next year if this continues, Stephanie told Independent.ie. With many people having renewals coming up, insurance companies seem to be picking high numbers out of the sky. The thing is theyre not making money from them, play centres are considered high risk. It seems like theyre picking policies depending on location, and things like their history of claims and then giving out quotes. One of the leading members of the group, Linda Murray, found out on Monday that her insurance had spiralled. Linda explained how she was given a quote of 2,500 for insurance when she first opened Huckleberrys Den in Navan in May 2013, but was last year quoted almost 16,500. She said that she has had two claims over the past five years, neither of which were negligent. Expand Close 24/01/2019 Monkey Business owner Stephanie Reid, Knocknacarra Galway . Photo:Andrew Downes XPOSURE / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp 24/01/2019 Monkey Business owner Stephanie Reid, Knocknacarra Galway . Photo:Andrew Downes XPOSURE Failing to match the rocketing premium prices, Linda said she now faces closure if she cannot find insurance. Im not going down without a fight. Im gone now until something changes, and I dont know where Im going to get insurance, Linda told Independent.ie. Ive got 12 employees and Ive been open for five years. If we close our centre in Navan, there wont be any indoor play areas for children in the locality. We complain about obesity among children, but where are they supposed to play on a rainy day?. According to Linda, the insurance difficulties may come from an increase in fraudulent claims nationwide. Parents need to stop wrapping their kids in cotton wool. Kids need to be able to run, theyll graze their arms or their legs, and unfortunately sometimes they may break an arm or a leg. But that's not the playgrounds fault, neither is it the childs fault, the play centre hasn't been negligent- the child simply fell. It happens. We used to run and fall all the time when we were kids, but we didnt run into court to get money for it. One incident that Linda recalls was a letter she received from a customer, claiming their child had been injured at their centre unbeknownst to Linda and her staff. I received a claim where I had nine staff members on, seven of which were first-aid trained, and there was no incident report or nothing reported to staff, she explained. Four months later I got a letter saying their child had been injured at our centre. There was no child left crying, and no CCTV evidence. When you get something like that, that you dont know if it happened, the onus should be on them. The group of owners have received support from the Alliance for Insurance Reform, of which Linda is a board member. A spokesperson for the group, Peter Boland, told Independent.ie that the group have noticed the childrens sector being particularly hit with high insurance quotes. What were seeing is that certain sectors are being affected and kids play zones are one of them. Regardless of the reasons, what seems to be happening is that areas that facilitate the children of the country are particularly targeted, he said. If you look at the attitude towards playgrounds, adventure centres, bouncy castles and the likes in Ireland, it appears theyre all under threat. Mr Boland said that the alliance would like to see the establishment of a Garda Fraud Unit in the near future to deal with these claims. "We also need a massive improvement in transparency coming from insurance industry. Were calling on the industry to tell us what reduction in our premiums were going to get because of all the reforms being pushed through. We're frustrated with the lack of progress. Were not trying to be hysterical or alarmist, but we did say 10 months ago that kids play centres are in danger of closing, and they are. A spokesperson for Bonkers.ie, a comparison site for insurance cover, said that one of the problems lies with an increase in exaggerated claims over the last few years. The main issue here is the huge increase in personal liability claims in Ireland over the past few years. In 2007, for instance, there were 133 High Court personal injury cases with court awards. By 2016, there were 390, they told Independent.ie. While some claims are genuine, many are frivolous at best and outright fraudulent at worst, and this is pushing up the cost of insurance for everyone, to the point where it's unaffordable for some businesses. It doesn't help that awards for personal injury claims in Irish courts are sometimes multiples of those awarded in other jurisdictions. Gardai are appealing for witnesses following a fatal collision in Co Monaghan this evening. The man and woman, who are both in their 70s and locals of the area, were killed in a single car crash near the Monaghan and Armagh border at Killyneill Cross shortly before 6pm. Gardai and emergency services were called to the scene shortly before 6pm, when the alarm was raised that a car travelling on the route had left the road and ended up in a nearby bog. It is believed their car had become submerged in water. The two people, who were the only occupants of the car, were removed and pronounced dead at the scene a short time later. The local Coroner Dr Watters attended the scene and both bodies will be removed to the mortuary at Monaghan Hospital later this evening. Garda forensic collision investigators will examine the scene tomorrow morning. The R213 road is currently closed and local diversions are in place. Local Cllr Paudge Connolly told the Irish Independent that the entire community is numb with grief. Everyone in our tight-knit community is in a total state of shock, he said. At first we heard there was an accident and then we learned that there were two fatalities. Its been a very upsetting day and my sympathies and prayers are with their families." Anyone with information is asked to contact Gardai at Monaghan 047-77200 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111. This latest tragedy comes as the fifth death on Irish roads this week. On Thursday evening, a male pedestrian in his 40s died after he was struck by a 4x4 vehicle on the Dublin Road in Monasterevin. Earlier in the day, Dublin woman Jackie Griffin was killed in a collision on the M50. And shortly after 9am on the same day, a female passenger in her 80s died after the car she was travelling in was involved in a serious collision in Loughrea, Co Galway. Then on Sunday night, a 60-year-old male died after he was struck by a truck in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. Last year saw a decrease in road deaths with 150 fatalities compared with 156 in 2017. It's time to get ready for D1ND. In case you have not been paying attention to Brexit, and your eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the word, the acronym stands for Day One, No Deal. The British border police use the word D1ND to describe the preparations required for the UK crashing out of the European Union without a deal. The authorities want to avoid an apocalypse of 10-mile lorry jams and food shortages, but they are not making a great fist of it so far. So what can we expect if we wake up with D1ND in Ireland on the morning of March 30? Should we stock up on yards of toilet roll, sheds full of sliced pans and cans of petrol - and will we be able to drown our sorrows by going on a duty-free booze cruise in the Irish Sea? Will there be shortages of goods in shops - like the bread panic in the snowstorm? DCU Economist Professor Edgar Morgenroth, who compiled reports on the effects of Brexit when he was in the Economic and Social Research Institute, says there could be turmoil in transport in the event of no deal. He says delays in moving goods through customs could lead to shortages of certain products. Keeping a store of toilet rolls may be advisable, as nearly all our lavatory paper comes from the UK. Otherwise, you might have to cut up rectangles of newspaper, as in days of yore. Ireland also imports 42pc of its petrol and diesel from the UK. "If a no-deal seems likely, there may come a point when I'll have to consider keeping a spare can of petrol. It could only be temporary, but it is possible," said Morgenroth. There is also no reckoning with how consumers can panic. We saw during Storm Emma how bread disappeared from shelves even before the blizzards hit. Will there be price hikes if there is a no-deal? Huge price increases for many goods, including many of the most popular Irish grocery brands, are seen as inevitable if the UK crashes out. Iconic 'Irish brands' such as Lyon's Tea and HB ice cream come from the UK - and the news is bleak for chocoholics. If there is a hard Brexit, Ireland and the UK would be expected to trade under World Trade Organisation rules and this would mean hefty tariffs on many goods coming in. Any delays of goods caused by extra customs checks would also add to costs. The ESRI has estimated that tariffs and other border red tape would add up to 1,400 in costs to the average Irish household. The price of bread and cereals would soar by 30pc, coffee and tea by 20pc, and meat by 24pc. Sugar, jam, chocolate and confectionery would rise in price by 27pc. Will I be stopped crossing the Border? Ordinary punters should still be able to cross the border freely because Ireland and the UK will be part of a common travel area. That is if they are not delayed by queues of lorries trying to get through customs. Getting a straight answer from a government minister about whether no-deal would mean a hard border proved to be next to impossible this week. Quizzed on the matter on RTE's Morning Ireland, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed proved to be as slippery as an eel in a bucket full of olive oil. Some kind of customs checks are seen as inevitable. Otherwise, if the UK did trade deals with other countries, we could be inundated with the notorious chlorinated chickens from the US, or cheap Brazilian beef. Revenue has hired 400 extra staff to deal with the customs requirements after March 29. Will I be able to buy duty-free booze on the Irish Sea? If the UK crashes out, there is likely to be a revival of the "booze cruise". Passenger should be able to travel out to sea to avail of cheap duty-free prices on alcohol and cigarettes. Will they stop my cross-border shopping trip to Newry? It depends what you are buying. In a no-deal situation, duties will only apply to goods brought from the UK to Ireland by consumers once their combined value exceeds 430. So, that gives ordinary shoppers some leeway. However, those trying to fill up their car boot with booze and fags are likely to be hit. The duty-free allowances are one litre of spirits and 200 cigarettes. Revenue Commissioners chairman Niall Cody acknowledged this week that collecting customs on cross-border shopping would be a big challenge. Economist Edgar Morgenroth said there could also be restrictions imposed on those shopping for meat in the North. Is it likely that I will be charged an arm and a leg by my mobile phone company for taking selfies next to Big Ben? Brexit has inevitably prompted fears that mobile phone users will again be hit by hefty roaming charges once they arrive in Britain, or when they drive over the border into the North. This is unlikely to happen, however. Both Three Ireland and Vodafone have said that they will not be reintroducing roaming charges after Brexit. There are rumours about planes being grounded. Will all my holidays be in Ballybunion from now on? Hopefully, you will be able to fly, but there are still some doubts in certain quarters. Before Christmas, the UK and EU announced short-term plans to allow planes to fly between UK and EU airports in the event of no deal. This agreement would last for a year. However, some questions have been raised about where Aer Lingus would be allowed to fly unhindered, because of the ownership structure of its parent company IAG. Under current rules, in order to maintain open access to European skies, airlines must have a majority of their shareholders based in the EU. The European Commission has reportedly expressed doubt about whether IAG, which also owns British Airways and Iberia, will continue to satisfy that requirement after Brexit. However, the Aer Lingus chief executive Sean Doyle said in recent days he was confident that the airline can continue to operate. If all else fails can I at least watch the chaos unfolding on BBC News? Even that is in some doubt. The news agency Bloomberg recently reported that the BBC is in talks with Irish and Dutch authorities to obtain licences allowing it to continue broadcasting across the European Union in the event of a no-deal Brexit. There are also fears some other channels will be blacked out. But with any luck, British ministers and parliamentarians will get their act together, and put off Brexit or agree some kind of compromise deal that retains an open border. In that case it will be alright on the night, but with Theresa May's unique talent for unleashing chaos, don't count on it. Women who are waiting months for the results of cervical screening and are found to have high-grade abnormalities are facing another delay of up to six weeks for further investigation. The delays experienced in colposcopy clinics - where women with an abnormal smear test result are referred for examination - are causing further concern as CervicalCheck struggles to cope with a backlog of 82,000 tests. The delay of up to six weeks was revealed to the CervicalCheck steering group made up of patient representatives, doctors and health officials set up following the damning Scally report on the service. It means a woman who goes for cervical screening can face a potential delay of six months before getting the test result back. And if she needs more investigation the wait can be up to six weeks before for a colposcopy which may indicate potential signs of cervical cancer. This is a potential wait of more than seven months. The HSE was unable to confirm yesterday what kind of triage system is in place or what the waiting time is for women with low-grade abnormalities who are also sent forward for a colposcopy. It follows revelations that 6,000 women will be contacted at the end of next week and asked to come back for retesting. The women's tests were sent to Quest laboratories in New Jersey between 2015 and 2018. A standard test found they had low-grade abnormalities and a second HPV virus test was carried out in the lab. But the HPV tests were done outside the recommended timescale. The HSE said the issue poses little clinical risk and the recall is precautionary. A letter sent yesterday to GPs from Frances McNamara, head of screening at the National Screening Service, said the evidence showed these tests are "likely to remain effective outside of the manufacturer's recommended timeframe". It said that "as a precautionary measure, around 6,000 women will be asked to attend their GP for a repeat smear test". "We expect to issue letters to women affected, and their GPs, by late next week," the correspondence said. The HSE had indicated that action is being taken to investigate the issue. Meanwhile, Labour Party spokesman on health Alan Kelly said yesterday there still needs to be clarity on whether there is any prioritisation of at-risk women when it comes to smear testing. He said that in early November the Public Accounts Committee was told the labs carrying out smear test analysis could not distinguish between women getting smear tests regularly under medical advice and women who get routine smears every three years. "Waiting for any test result to come back can be anxiety-inducing but if you are a woman who knows she is at risk and is waiting over five months for results, it can be extremely worrying," he said. The 221+ CervicalCheck Patient Support Group said the backlog of tests which have built up as a direct outcome of concerns about CervicalCheck must be tackled. "The capacity must be found as a matter of urgency to clear the present delays," it said in a statement. The group also called for the recommendations of the Scally report on CervicalCheck to be implemented in a specific timeframe. Health advocate Vicky Phelan has pleaded with women to continue to go for smear tests after it was revealed that women are facing long delays for follow-up treatments after abnormalities are detected. The Irish Independent revealed this morning that women who are waiting months for the results of cervical screening and are found to have high-grade abnormalities are facing another delay of up to six weeks for further investigation. Expand Close Vicky Phelan at FemFest. Photo: Damien Eagers / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Vicky Phelan at FemFest. Photo: Damien Eagers The delays experienced in colposcopy clinics - where women with an abnormal smear test result are referred for examination - are causing further concern as CervicalCheck struggles to cope with a backlog of 82,000 tests. The delay of up to six weeks was revealed to the CervicalCheck steering group made up of patient representatives, doctors and health officials set up following the damning Scally report on the service. It means a woman who goes for cervical screening can face a potential delay of six months before getting the test result back. And if she needs more investigation the wait can be up to six weeks before for a colposcopy which may indicate potential signs of cervical cancer. This morning, Vicky Phelan took to Twitter to urge women to continue going for their smear tests. "Please, please continue going for smears and bear with the screening programme. We will get there and we will have a programme that we can trust and one which will be on a par with the best in the world. That is what Stephen, Lorraine and myself and many others in the HSE are striving for," Ms Phelan wrote on Twitter. I have not weighed in on the latest cock ups concerning our screening programme, leaving it instead in the very capable hands of our two patient advocates @Stephenteap and @LorcallWalsh who are doing sterling work on the Cervical Check Steering Committee... https://t.co/gSJuITdmYZ Vicky Phelan (@PhelanVicky) January 26, 2019 Yesterday, the HSE was unable to confirm what kind of triage system is in place or what the waiting time is for women with low-grade abnormalities who are also sent forward for a colposcopy. It follows revelations that 6,000 women will be contacted at the end of next week and asked to come back for retesting. The women's tests were sent to Quest laboratories in New Jersey between 2015 and 2018. A standard test found they had low-grade abnormalities and a second HPV virus test was carried out in the lab. But the HPV tests were done outside the recommended timescale. The HSE said the issue poses little clinical risk and the recall is precautionary. A letter sent yesterday to GPs from Frances McNamara, head of screening at the National Screening Service, said the evidence showed these tests are "likely to remain effective outside of the manufacturer's recommended timeframe". It said that "as a precautionary measure, around 6,000 women will be asked to attend their GP for a repeat smear test". "We expect to issue letters to women affected, and their GPs, by late next week," the correspondence said. The HSE had indicated that action is being taken to investigate the issue. Meanwhile, Labour Party spokesman on health Alan Kelly said yesterday there still needs to be clarity on whether there is any prioritisation of at-risk women when it comes to smear testing. He said that in early November the Public Accounts Committee was told the labs carrying out smear test analysis could not distinguish between women getting smear tests regularly under medical advice and women who get routine smears every three years. "Waiting for any test result to come back can be anxiety-inducing but if you are a woman who knows she is at risk and is waiting over five months for results, it can be extremely worrying," he said. The 221+ CervicalCheck Patient Support Group said the backlog of tests which have built up as a direct outcome of concerns about CervicalCheck must be tackled. "The capacity must be found as a matter of urgency to clear the present delays," it said in a statement. The group also called for the recommendations of the Scally report on CervicalCheck to be implemented in a specific timeframe. Talks: Paediatric nurse Catherine Sheridan, from Galway, outside the Workplace Relations Commission at Lansdowne House, Dublin yesterday during the negotiations on strike action. Photo: Justin Farrelly. Patients will bear the brunt of a winter of discontent in the health service after a desperate bid to avert a 24-hour strike by more than 35,000 nurses next week collapsed yesterday. Nurses now say they will walk off the wards next Wednesday leaving hospitals to struggle with only an emergency service. Tens of thousands of patients on waiting lists for surgery and an outpatient appointment are being told to stay at home. It will be followed then by an overtime ban by the Psychiatric Nurses Association in mental health facilities on Thursday and Friday. GPs yesterday also revealed they will march on the Dail on February 6 in frustration at doctor shortages, workload, fees and the need to "constantly apologise" to patients over the state of the health service. Discussions between the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the Psychiatric Nurses Association and the HSE over a 12pc pay rise broke down just before 6pm yesterday at the Workplace Relations Commission. General secretary of the INMO Phil Ni Sheaghdha said the talks were a "non starter" and called on the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to intervene. She said no proposals were tabled and no further talks are planned. "Disappointingly again, we're no further on. We believe now we're very close to a national nurses' dispute where 35,000 nurses will be on strike next Wednesday. "There's absolutely no indication of intent to divert that from what we've seen from the Government side and we firmly believe now it's time for the Taoiseach to intervene. "The big question our members are going to ask us is where is the Taoiseach. Where is the Minister for Finance? And how come they are not intently trying to resolve the matters at stake here which are after all about patient care, about how we provide care to patients," she said. "And are the nurses and midwives of this country the only group who are going to have to take a stand to make sure that our patients are safely cared for?" A spokeswoman for Health Minister Simon Harris said the HSE and the Workplace Relations Commission would be available over the weekend. He encouraged both sides to use the time to find a resolution. Gardai are investigating whether drivers took photos or videos of the horrific crash on the M50 while they were behind the wheel. Investigators are also examining CCTV to see if anyone stopped at the scene unnecessarily. There has been outcry after distressing imagery of Thursday's crash, which claimed the life of Jackie Griffin, was circulated on social media. It's understood that Ms Griffin, a driver for courier company Nightline, was working when the tragedy occurred. Gardai believe that in the early stages after the crash, a number of people may have recorded video. Prosecutions would be possible for drivers who were holding phones at the wheel or for those individuals who may have stopped their vehicle and left it to take footage. Separately, gardai are appealing for witnesses following a fatal collision in Co Monaghan yesterday evening where a man and a woman in their 70s were killed. Two elderly people have died after their car crashed into a flooded bog in Co Monaghan. Joseph and Louise Waller, who are both in their 70s and locals from the area, were killed in a single car crash near the Monaghan and Armagh border at Killyneill Cross shortly before 6pm yesterday. Gardai and emergency services were called to the scene after learning that a car travelling on the route had left the road and ended up in a nearby bog. It is believed their car had become submerged in water. Joseph and Louise, who were the only occupants of the car, were removed and pronounced dead at the scene a short time later. The local coroner Dr Watters attended the scene and both bodies were removed to the mortuary at Monaghan Hospital later last night. Garda forensic collision investigators will examine the scene this morning. The R213 road was closed and local diversions were also put in place. Monaghan politician Paudge Connolly told the Irish Independent that the entire community is numb with grief. "Everyone in our tight-knit community is in a total state of shock," he said. "At first we heard there was an accident and then we learned that there were two fatalities. "It's been a very upsetting day and my sympathies and prayers are with their families." Anyone with information is asked to contact gardai at Monaghan on 047-77200 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111. This latest tragedy is the fifth death on Irish roads this week. On Thursday evening, a male pedestrian in his 40s died after he was struck by a 4x4 vehicle on Dublin Road, Monasterevin. Earlier in the day, Dublin woman Jackie Griffin was killed in a collision on the M50. And after 9am on the same day, a female passenger in her 80s died after the car she was travelling in was involved in a serious collision in Loughrea, Co Galway. Last Sunday night, a 60-year-old male was involved in a serious road collision with a truck in Dungarvan, Co Waterford. Last year saw a decrease in road deaths with 150 fatalities compared with 156 during 2017. Primary teachers will be paid to be available for work under new plans to address staff shortages in schools. Stock photo: Getty Primary teachers will be paid to be available for work under new plans to address staff shortages in schools. Panels of teachers will be formed and used to fill temporary vacancies, making it much easier for schools to find a replacement at short notice. Education Minister Joe McHugh has confirmed that talks are ongoing with the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) about the panels. He said they may be set up on a regional basis. Only a year ago, his predecessor Richard Bruton dismissed the idea of panels as being "expensive and ineffective". Teacher supply panels were previously trialled but they were abandoned in the early years of the recession. The INTO and the Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN) have made repeated calls for their roll-out to deal with the teacher supply crisis. IPPN president David Ruddy told his association's annual conference yesterday that "if it weren't for retired teachers we would not be able to survive". The issue facing primary schools is finding substitute teachers for vacancies ranging from sudden, short-term illness to a longer absence, such as maternity leave. The shortages are partly attributed to young teachers moving to the UK or the Middle East, or elsewhere, for job security and/or higher pay. Even though there is a lot of substitute work available, it can be intermittent, with no continuity in earnings and being on a panel would mean being paid full time. According to Department of Education statistics, in the 2017-18 school year some 1,003 retired primary teachers covered 33,093 days, up from 320 retired teachers covering 5,996 days in 2014-15. Addressing the teacher shortage issue, Mr McHugh told the IPPN conference that he wanted " to see clever, creative practical" solutions. "The information I'm getting back is the substitute panel is an example of doing this and it's something I want to see happen," he said. The secondary teachers union, ASTI has signalled its intention to conduct a ballot for industrial action in its campaign for the abolition of two-tier pay scales, but there are no immediate plans for one. The teacher unions are adopting a joint approach on the issue, and much will depend on the outcome of talks currently underway and whether the primary teachers union, the INTO, decides to go ahead with a similar ballot. Both the ASTI and the INTO reject proposals in the autumn that went a long way towards bring post 2010-entrants up to pay parity with longer serving colleagues. The INTO is bound to conduct a ballot on industrial action if the dispute is not resolved. However, both unions, along with the Teachers Union of Ireland which accepted the pay proposals are now involved in discussions with the Oversight Body for the Public Service Stability Agreement on the issue. That process will be given some time before any decisions are taken on whether to go ahead with ballots for industrial action to put pressure on the Government. The immediate focus of the discussions is on those who started between 2011 and 2014, who stand to lose most, who , notwithstanding the autumn proposals, face pay shortfalls over their careers of between about 27,000 and 49,000.. A meeting of the ASTI 180-member central executive committee today adopted a motion signalling its intention to conduct a ballot for industrial action in parallel with the INTO, if the INTO decides to go for a ballot. ASTI President Breda Lynch said the union was committed to the abolition of a two-tier pay system for teachers. The ASTI has already taken strike action as part of its campaign to achieve equal pay for equal work. We will continue to stand in solidarity with our lower paid colleagues until full pay equality is restored. It is unacceptable that in 2019 we expect a cohort of teachers to do the same work as their colleagues for inferior pay which will lead to substantial losses over their careers. We are committed to ending this discriminatory treatment. A male nurse has been arrested after a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted at a hospital. (Stock picture) A male nurse has been arrested after a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted at a hospital. The elderly woman, who is understood to be a patient at the Dublin hospital, was allegedly sexually assaulted on December 26 last. Gardai have confirmed to the Irish Independent they arrested the nurse, aged in his late 40s, as part of the investigation into the alleged assault. A Garda spokeswoman said in a statement: "Gardai are investigating an alleged sexual assault of a woman at a hospital in the Dublin area on December 26, 2018. "As part of the investigation a man in his late 40s was arrested on January 24, 2019." The spokeswoman said he had since been released without charge and a file would be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The hospital, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, is co-operating with gardai but would not comment as the matter is under investigation. All hospitals in the country are obliged to follow the HSE's 'Trust in Care' policy, which aims to uphold the dignity and welfare of patients and manage allegations of abuse against staff. It states that the health service is committed to promoting the well-being of patients and providing a caring environment where they are treated with dignity and respect. The policy states that health managers are responsible for maintaining the required standards of care within their area of responsibility and for dealing with any shortfalls in standards or reports of suspected or alleged abuse. In the event that a manager receives a complaint of abuse, a preliminary screening should be carried out to establish the facts around the complaint. When dealing with the complaint, the manager should ensure, insofar as possible, that confidentiality is maintained and the staff member against whom the allegation is made is fully protected throughout the process. The purpose of the preliminary screening is to ascertain, if it is possible, that an abusive action could have occurred. It says the preliminary screening must be carried out by the immediate line manager of the accused person. Sexually explicit text messages which a married man instructed a schoolgirl to delete from her phone once she'd read them were easily retrieved by gardai following a complaint from the child's mother. The 'sexts' led to the conviction by a jury of Ray McHugh (39), from Ballaghbawn, Belclare, Tuam, Co Galway, for the oral rape, sexual exploitation and sexual assault of the schoolgirl four years ago when she was 13 years old. The father of one was brought in custody before Galway Circuit Criminal Court, where he received an eight-and-a-half-year prison term, with the final 18 months suspended. The now 17-year-old girl was present in court with her mother for the sentence hearing. McHugh hung his head and started to cry when sentence was imposed. He had denied 20 sample charges involving the oral rape, sexual assault and sexual exploitation of the girl on dates between May 1, 2014, and February 27, 2015, during a two-week trial in December. He had deleted explicit sexual texts he had sent to the child and instructed her to delete them once she'd read them. Passing sentence, Judge Rory McCabe said there had been an element of grooming involved. In her victim impact statement to the court, the girl said she was scared when her mother read the texts on her phone because McHugh had warned and threatened her not to tell anyone. "Until someone else knew about it and I said it out loud, I didn't know how wrong it was. He took so many pieces of me and he didn't care," she said. The trial in December heard McHugh had claimed in statements given to gardai that the girl was lying because he suffered from erectile dysfunction around the time she said he had abused her. Medical records confirmed McHugh, who was newly married at the time, did suffer from the condition but had been prescribed medication for it. Jurors found him guilty of orally raping the child on four separate dates between October and December 2015.They found him guilty of four counts of sexually assaulting the girl and guilty of seven counts of sexually exploiting her. The trial heard the girl was aged between 12 and 13 at the time of the grooming and abuse, and McHugh was aged between 34 and 35. McHugh started to hug the girl and this progressed to kissing her on the lips. He began to grope her and this escalated to sexual assault and oral rape. The abuse continued, along with texts to the girl's phone on an almost daily basis pestering her to give him oral sex, until the girl's mother, by chance, came across the messages while checking the phone. The texts came to light when the girl's phone froze and her mother offered to have a look at it. Her mother found the disturbing texts. The girl was subsequently interviewed by gardai. She told gardai McHugh bought her a charm bracelet for her 13th birthday with 'love' inscribed on one charm. The abuse started after that. McHugh admitted sending the text messages to the girl claiming that, in hindsight, it had been a very stupid and inappropriate thing to do. "It started as a joke and spiralled," he told gardai during interview, sobbing at one point. The sentence hearing heard McHugh came from a very respectable family and his wife and baby son were victims too of his crimes. With a mere 67 days to Brexit, the host of Claire Byrne Live (RTE1) promised us that last Monday night's show would provide "everything you need to know, from car insurance to food costs, medical expenses, flights and border controls". Oh goody, I thought, finally a current affairs programme that will explain Brexit to a thicko like me and that will tell me what to expect when it comes to the humdrum business of getting on with life as a neighbouring islander to Theresa May. But in the event, I learned nothing - either from the host herself, her panellists or the various experts in the audience. Helen McEntee, who's the Minister of State for European Affairs, waffled on in government-speak about hard borders and backstops, while none of the experts were able to enlighten me about the probable costs in 67 days' time of a loaf of bread, a packet of painkillers or a flight to Malaga. That's because they haven't a clue about what will actually happen, just as Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney haven't a clue, either. At this stage it's all conjecture, which made Claire's perky promise to deliver "everything you need to know" somewhat hollow. A similar misplaced optimism led me to expect more than I got from the following night's Prime Time (RTE1), which concerned young people in Ireland who are seeking to change their gender. When I was an adolescent, people were mostly male or female and either straight or gay. There were girls who were considered tomboys but they generally "grew out of it". Occasionally you'd hear about someone who had a sex-change operation, but that was so radical as to be deemed freakish. All has changed, of course, and mostly for the better in a society that had seen people's lives maimed by church and state attitudes towards gender and sexuality. But the legacy of those grim times is that people of my generation, no matter how liberal, can feel puzzled and confused by such matters as transgender and gender fluidity. Gwen Doyle felt this confusion about her 14-year-old son Will, who had been born a girl. "Please could you not just be gay?" she had wondered, as many parents might also have inquired, but Will himself wasn't interviewed and so the question remained unanswered in a programme that tiptoed around its subject. Father Ted creator Graham Linehan worried about the "predatory men out there who are taking advantage of this situation" - by declaring themselves female and thus getting intimate access to girls and young women in changing rooms and toilets. This seemed unduly alarmist and psychotherapist Stella O'Malley was more persuasive in worrying that proposed changes in the law might allow 12-year-olds to undergo medical treatments that would irreversibly alter their adult lives. At that age, she had felt herself to be a boy but now, as an adult, was comfortable in her female identity. All of this was interesting, yet when the programme ended, I felt I knew as little about gender fluidity as when it started. One Day: Showing Ireland Off (RTE1) was more interesting than the previous One Day films about the personal beautification and rubbish collecting industries, but it suffered from similar defects: in all three films we encountered lots of people involved in their various occupations, but it was all so fleeting that we didn't really get to know anything about them and so our engagement with them was minimal. This week's film focused on some of the quarter-of-a-million people who work in tourism, including the driver of a tour bus, the owner of a Ring of Kerry B&B, a ferry captain in Doolin, a Ballyfin butler and a Bunratty performer. Along the way, the voiceover provided lots of statistics, but it all amounted to very little. In episode three of Resistance (RTE1), horrid banker Harry told wife Constance that "this is not the time for your Republican nonsense". Then he went off to his floozy's flat, where he was lying in bed when he got a surprise visit from US senator Shea. "I don't get you," Shea told him, "beautiful wife at home, business going up in smoke, and you're here screwing a two-bit whore." Meanwhile, reluctant spy Ursula was blindfolded by the IRA and taken to see her son, who'd been kidnapped until she did their bidding. The toddler looked about eight. Shurely some mistake. Then it was back to Dublin Castle, where she was beginning to come under suspicion, so she'd better watch out or it'll be curtains for her. It was curtains for lots of others this week, and I can't wait for the vile General Winters and the even more loathsome Captain McCloud to get their comeuppance. Am I taking this seriously? Not really. In A Year of British Murder (Channel 4), we were told that 768 people in Britain died of murder or manslaughter in 2017. Forty-seven per cent of female victims were killed by partners or ex-partners, including Tina from Birmingham, who was stabbed to death after numerous beatings. We met her two grown-up sons, who were inconsolable, as was the father of Shaun, attacked outside an Edinburgh pub, for which his killer received a sentence of just four years. It all made for grim viewing, and by the end I wondered what point it was meant to be making. James Bulgers mother, Denise Fergus, wants the film to be pulled from the Oscars ceremony (Dave Thompson/PA) A controversial short film about the murder of toddler James Bulger will be allowed to compete at the Oscars. James mother, Denise Fergus, had asked for Vincent Lambes Detainment to be pulled from next months ceremony after it was nominated in the best live action short category. Mrs Fergus said she was haunted by some of the imagery in the film, especially reenactments of James being led away by the hand by his killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Expand Close James Bulger, whose murder in 1993 shocked the nation (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp James Bulger, whose murder in 1993 shocked the nation (PA) Despite her pleas, the Academy has confirmed Detainment will remain in contention. In a statement, it said: The Academy offers its deepest condolences to Ms Fergus and her family. We are deeply moved and saddened by the loss that they have endured, and we take their concerns very seriously. Following long-standing foundational principles established to maintain the integrity of the awards, the Academy does not in any way influence the voting process. Detainment was voted on by Academy members. When making their choices, each individual applies their own judgment regarding the films creative, artistic and technical merits. We understand that this will not alleviate the pain experienced by the family; however we hope it clarifies the Academys neutral role in the voting process. Expand Close Denise Fergus, the mother of murdered toddler James Bulger, had called for a short film about her sons death be removed from circulation (Jonathan Brady/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Denise Fergus, the mother of murdered toddler James Bulger, had called for a short film about her sons death be removed from circulation (Jonathan Brady/PA) Two-year-old James was led away from a Merseyside shopping centre in 1993 a moment captured on CCTV by Venables and Thompson who then tortured and killed him. They were arrested soon after and convicted following a 17-day trial at Preston Crown Court and ordered to be detained at Her Majestys pleasure, the normal substitute sentence for life imprisonment when the offender is a juvenile. Trial judge Mr Justice Morland told the pair they had committed a crime of unparalleled evil and barbarity. Detainment follows the events surrounding the murder, and is comprised of re-enactments based on the transcripts from police interviews with Venables and Thompson. Lambe said: The public opinion at the moment now is that those two boys were simply evil and anybody who says anything different or gives an alternate reason as to why they did it, or tries to understand why they did it, they get criticised for it. I think we have the responsibility to try and make sense of what happened. The Academy Awards take place in Los Angeles on February 24. Debbie McGee said she believes stress over husband Paul Danielss death may have brought on the disease (Ian West/PA) Debbie McGee who rose to fame alongside magician husband Paul Daniels has revealed she has had surgery to treat breast cancer. McGee, 60, had two tumours removed last week after cancerous tissue was found in her left breast, she told The Sun. The TV and radio star found fame as Danielss assistant before they married in April 1988. The couple had been married for 28 years, and were together for a decade before that, when Daniels died of a brain tumour at the age of 77 in March 2016. Expand Close Daniels and McGee were married in 1988 (PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Daniels and McGee were married in 1988 (PA) She told the paper she thinks the stress of losing her husband may have brought on the disease, which was diagnosed at an early stage in October. She said: Stress, I think caused mine. Ive never been through the stress Ive been through since I lost Paul. Grief hits you in so many ways youre not expecting. McGee turned heads during the 2017 series of Strictly, reaching the final with professional partner Giovanni Pernice. Expand Close Debbie McGee and Giovanni Pernice during the live show of Strictly Come Dancing (Guy Levy/BBC) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Debbie McGee and Giovanni Pernice during the live show of Strictly Come Dancing (Guy Levy/BBC) Her foray into the BBC Saturday night hit show followed on from Daniels appearance in 2010. Speaking at the time, she said: The last time I danced was over 35 years ago. Ive never had any experience in this type of dancing, but I learnt ballet and modern tap when I was a child and I did dance for a few years but that was 35 years ago, so now its like starting from scratch. She said her appearance on Strictly made her genuinely happy for the first time since her husbands death. Expand Close Debbie McGee started her career in ballet (Ian West/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Debbie McGee started her career in ballet (Ian West/PA) In her youth, McGee won a place at the Royal Ballet School and went on to join the Iranian National Ballet Company in Tehran, but the overthrowing of the Shah by Ayatollah Khomeni in the 1979 Revolution meant she had to return to the UK. She first met Daniels after being chosen to perform on stage in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, for a summer show and returned for a second summer in Bournemouth. The West End followed and the couple performed together in Its Magic, which ran for more than a year in the early 1980s. It was then that the producer of The Paul Daniels Magic Show asked her to consider becoming his full-time assistant on the BBC programme. 'Huawei faces increasing scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and has denied allegations that its technology could be used by Beijing for spying.' Photo: Bloomberg Siro, the broadband firm co-owned by Vodafone and the ESB said it is sticking with controversial equipment provider Huawei, despite Vodafone pausing its deployment of the Chinese telecoms technology provider's equipment. In 2017 Siro signed a 25m deal with Huawei for equipment used in the roll-out of fiber-optic broadband to 50 Irish regional towns. Huawei faces increasing scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and has denied allegations that its technology could be used by Beijing for spying. Yesterday, a spokesman for Siro said it had raised the issue of security with Huawei but that the partnership agreement remains in place. "The quality and security of our service is of the upmost importance to Siro and we work closely with all of our suppliers to ensure the highest standard of security" the spokesman said. "While we continue to monitor the situation, it is important to note that Siro operates an access-only network, not a core network which is the focus of recent media coverage. "We have been in liaison with Huawei about their security standards and we remain in partnership with them," he added. Earlier, Vodafone, the world's second-largest mobile operator, said it was "pausing" the deployment of Huawei equipment in its core networks until concerns about the firm's activities are resolved. Vodafone's CEO Nick Read said that the debate about Huawei was playing out at a "too simplistic level", adding that Huawei was an important player in an equipment market dominated by three companies. "Given that, we have decided to pause further Huawei in our core whilst we engage with the various agencies and governments and Huawei just to finalise the situation, of which I feel Huawei is really open and working hard," he said. Additional reporting Reuters "We find significant gains from broadband availability in two services sectors, the information and communication services and administrative and support service activities," said the ESRI report. Stock image / PA High-speed broadband boosts productivity for Irish firms by up to a third, a new study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has found. The report follows European Commission research suggesting that Irish small firms with access to broadband achieve better trading results than European peers. "We find significant gains from broadband availability in two services sectors, the information and communication services and administrative and support service activities," said the ESRI report. "The effects measured for these two sectors are large, equivalent to about a third of the typical variation in productivity among the firms." The report said that "most other sectors show smaller positive associations between broadband and firms' productivity levels". However, it said that the effect was not consistent across the board and that "the benefits of broadband for productivity depend heavily upon sectoral and firm characteristics rather than representing a generalised effect". And it said that some sectors show minimal productivity gains when given access to broadband. Figures from the European Commission's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) show that Ireland ranks first out of 28 countries in Europe when it comes to small firms selling online, turnover from ecommerce and cross-border ecommerce. The ESRI report comes as 540,000 rural homes and businesses await the fate of the National Broadband Plan, the Government's promise of a high speed roll-out to areas of the country not adequately covered by private broadband firms. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has signalled that it could be the end of February before the Government decides whether it will award a contract under the bidding process it has pursued for the last five years. There is only one remaining bidder, Granahan McCourt, vying for the contract. Earlier this week, Communications Minister Richard Bruton defended the delayed decision, saying that the extra time was needed to ensure that a "robust" service was rolled out. "Whatever decision is taken will be taken on the grounds that this is in the best interests of delivering the sort of service and technology that's robust at an appropriate cost," he told the Dail. "That is why the time is being taken to evaluate what has been submitted... that we have the checks and balances within the contract that protects the taxpayer and the user." Mr Bruton is to report to Cabinet in the coming weeks on the awarding of the NBP contract. Mortgage rates are unlikely to come down further despite being the second highest in the eurozone. Stock: Getty Images Mortgage rates are unlikely to come down further despite being the second highest in the eurozone. An analysis by stockbroker Goodbody has concluded that mortgage rates are "fairly" priced as banks in Ireland have to set aside 50 of capital for every 1,000 of lending, compared with just 16 in other eurozone countries. The conclusion that rates are unlikely to fall further comes after recent comments in Dublin by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, who blamed a "quasi-monopoly" among banks here for the high rates. Goodbody banking analyst Eamonn Hughes noted that new customer mortgage rates in Ireland are the second highest in the euro area. There has been extensive debate about why this is the case "bringing unwelcome political pressure on the banks and concerns about potential further competition". The banking analyst argues that it is too simplistic to focus on headline rates alone. In a review of the rates charged by 36 banks, across 14 countries, he concluded that mortgage rates here are 1.7 times higher than the average in the eurozone. But banks here have to make much higher capital provisions when they issue mortgages. This reflects high mortgage default rates since the economic collapse. The return on equity for banks here, a key measure of profitability, is also low in eurozone terms. Despite this, Goodbody is forecasting AIB to report pre-tax profits of 1.26bn for last year, and 992m for Bank of Ireland. Permanent TSB is expected to have made profits of 94m last year. Mr Hughes does not see any escalation in last year's rates war, which saw Ulster Bank offer a rate on a two-year fixed rate of as low as 2.3pc. "Our analysis shows Irish rates are 'fairly' priced for the raw material inputs, which should ease pricing concerns. "Rates will remain elevated for some time," he said. Meanwhile, mortgage lender EBS has been identified as the institution forced to pay 90,000 in compensation by the financial services ombudsman. The ombudsman made the ruling after EBS adopted an "unreasonable and obstructive approach" when a couple went into arrears on their buy-to-let mortgage. Ombudsman Ger Deering found EBS had acted in an unfair manner after he carried out an investigation. The lender was not named when Mr Deering published full details of decisions he made in the last year. But this publication has established that EBS was the lender. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 25) A senator is eyeing to insert additional funding for the establishment of additional youth care facilities where children in conflict with the law may be admitted into. During the Senate justice committee's hearing on proposals to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility on Friday, Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan, who authored the present Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, said lawmakers could add funding for Bahay Pag-asas or Houses of Hope at the bicameral conference committee for the 2019 budget. "We're still doing the bicam of the budget," Pangilinan told Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano, who told senators that additional funding would help in the establishment of more Bahay Pag-asas. "'Yung 75 billion na pang-dredging, baka pupwedeng 2 billion doon na lang dalhin." [Translation: We're still going the bicam of the budget The 75 billion for dredging projects, maybe we could get 2 billion and use that there.] Pangilinan was referring to the controversial 75 billion additional funding for the Public Works department which the Budget department said was given to the agency to meet their target of spending five percent of the country's gross domestic product for infrastructure. READ: Lacson, Legarda agree to remove additional 75-B in DPWH's 2019 budget Senate Justice panel chair Richard "Dick" Gordon agreed with Pangilinan saying, "Ang dami-daming flood project, lagay muna natin ang pera diyan!" [Translation: There's so many flood projects, let's place the funds there first!] Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon revealed Tuesday that there is no funding for Bahay Pag-asas in the proposed 2019 budget, which is currently being deliberated upon by representatives from both chambers of Congress in a bicameral conference committee tasked to thresh out differences in the versions of the budget passed by the House and the Senate. The Juvenile Justice and Welfare Center (JJWC), the executive agency that monitors the implementation of the current law, said only 55 of 113 Bahay Pag-asas required have been built. JJWC Executive Director said funding for these 24-hour youth care facilities staffed by a team of child experts was only given in 2013, when the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act was amended to make it mandatory for children aged 12 to 15 who commit serious offenses to be committed to these institutions. Ano told senators that the Department of the Interior and Local Government will order local government units (LGUs) to establish Bahay Pag-asas, as required by the law. "We can direct the LGUs to construct their Bahay Pag-asa. But we have to come up with a standard para pare-parehas siya at saka [so that they are uniform and] the agencies involved should be mandatory," he said. However, Oco said the law only allows the national government to provide 5 million for funding Bahay Pag-asas. Under the amended Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, LGUs and the national government should each give 5 million for every youth care facility. The 2012 amendment also provided 400 million for the construction of Bahay Pag-asas in provinces and cities with many children in conflict with the law. However, Oco had pointed out in a previous Senate hearing that many of these youth care facilities fall short of the requirements set out in the law and some are even "worse" than prisons. READ: 'Bahay Pag-asa' centers not fit for children juvenile justice agency "So many of these Bahay Pag-asa don't have reformative programs for young children," Dr. Liane Alampay from the Psychological Association of the Philippines said. The Social Welfare department also pointed out that they do not have the budget to equip Bahay Pag-asas with social workers. "We have been fighting for the budget of the DSWD your honor. We lack budget, therefore we cannot hire more social workers," Social Welfare undersecretary Aimee Neri said. Still, Gordon pushed for more judges to be appointed to family courts and for every barangay to have at least one welfare officer. Guidance counselors, truant officers Gordon also pushed for more guidance counselors in public schools to provide counselling to troubled kids and truant officers in barangays to track down children who are not going to school. "Bawat hanay ng corridor namin [sa Ateneo de Manila University] nung freshman ka, mayroong student counselor na pari na kapag may problema ka, pupunta ka doon. Sasabihin mo sa pari, 'Father I have a problem,'" Gordon said. "Sa public school, tinanong ko 'yung mga staff ko na nag-public school, halos wala." [Translation: Every corridor back in Ateneo de Manila University, when I was a freshman, there was a priest who served as a student counselor who you could go to if you had a problem. You could tell the priest, 'Father I have a problem ' In public schools, I asked my staff who attended public schools, there are almost none.] However, Education Undersecretary Josephine Maribojoc said on top with a problem with salaries, there is "a problem with supply" of guidance counsellors. But before Maribojoc was able to explain further, Gordon cut her off. The Senate justice panel chair wants one guidance counselor for every two floors of public school buildings. He also wants truant officers to be roaming in barangays and checking with families to see if children are going to school. The Interior Secretary said employing truant officers for this purpose is "very possible." Gordon shrugged off any debates regarding the exact age of criminal responsibility, but said he is in favor of lowering it to 12 years old. READ: CHR: Keep age of liability at 15 The House passed on second reading House Bill No. 8858 which seeks to make children as young as 12 to be accountable for crimes. This was a last minute amendment introduced in the plenary, which changed the minimum age of responsibility from nine to 12 years old and dropped the phrase "criminal responsibility" in favor of "social responsibility." The lower chamber is expected to pass the measure on third and final reading next week. Before Gordon's committee are two similar bills which have yet to be acted on. New start: What the new Clerys building will look like For 165 years, it was an iconic landmark of Dublin's city centre - before it closed its doors in 2015. Now Clerys department store will be returned to its former glory. The building has remained all but empty over the last three years, following a controversial sale and closure which left a hole in the capital's shopping thoroughfare. But the O'Connell Street site will spring back to life as new owners, the UK-based Europa Capital, unveiled its plans for the famous building. It promised the historic building and its famous clock will be restored and the development "will regenerate Dublin's landmark street". Building is due to begin before March and finish late next year. Expand Close Its rooftop cafe / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Its rooftop cafe More than 400 jobs will be created with the opening of what will be called 'Clerys Quarter'. Another 750 temporary construction workers will be hired to work on the project that will include a 176-bedroom four-star hotel, its new owner Europa announced. There will also be retail outlets, office space, a panoramic rooftop restaurant, cafes, restaurants, and a market. In a statement, Europa and its partners Core Capital and Oakmount, said the historic store will be restored into a "new city centre destination". Expand Close The iconic clock on the old building / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The iconic clock on the old building Sympathetic "Key to the development will be the sympathetic transformation of the listed Clerys building into a world-class retail, office and leisure destination," they said. "This will include the restoration of Clerys iconic features, including the colonnaded facade, internal staircases, columns and ceilings and the famous Clerys clock." Clerys original restaurant and bar, the Tea Rooms, will be fully refurbished. Former workers have demanded the new owner live up to an agreement to ensure the northside community benefits from the job opportunities. "Myself and my colleagues expect this agreement to be fully respected by the new owners," said Justice for Clerys Workers spokesman, John Finn. "We look forward to ensuring that this development is one that works for business, those who are employed in it and the surrounding local communities." Workers were given just 30 minutes to leave when the department store went into liquidation in 2015, and the building was sold to the Natrium Investment Group. The new owner said new employment opportunities will be available on completion, anticipated in late 2020. It said there will be positions in retail, leisure and hospitality. Europa acquired the development in October last year and got planning permission to extend the buildings from 212,000 sq ft to 344,000 sq ft. There is a tendering process under way and construction is expected to start in the first three months of this year. The plans include, 92,100 sq ft of office space across two buildings and 60,000 sq ft of retail space, An 18,762 sq ft panoramic rooftop restaurant, bar and events venue, are also planned. A former warehouse will become the new hotel at Earl Place Market. It will be close to a new Moxy Hotel. The owners said they are in talks with a number of occupiers for the retail, office and hospitality areas. Meanwhile, a Siptu spokesperson said it will seek clarity from the owner on an agreement reached after Clerys closed to boost job opportunities in the area. "I was interested to see that the owners didn't refer to the community benefits scheme that was formally agreed under Dublin City Council, and is part of the planning process," he said. "To the best of our knowledge, they haven't engaged with that process yet and we expect them to as soon as possible but it looks like they may have to be contacted." He said the scheme meant the owners should be in touch with local representatives and training institutes in the north east inner city to ensure locals were trained for the various roles. A spokesperson for Europa Capital said it was "fully committed to providing the jobs, and training". She said the jobs will be advertised among the local community, and in the mainstream media. Clerys dates from 1853 but the current building was constructed in 1922 after being destroyed in the Easter Rising. Regaining firepower: CEO Jan Jenisch has admitted the companys Southeast Asia business has been challenging Building materials giant LafargeHolcim is exploring options for its business in the Philippines, including a potential sale, as the company seeks to further reduce debt by selling non-core assets, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ireland's CRH entered the Philippines in 2015 through its 6.5 billion acquisition of assets globally from Holcim and Lafarge when they merged to form Europe's biggest cement maker. LafargeHolcim's Philippines divestment is being considered as part of a broader strategic review of the company's Southeast Asia operations following the sale of its Indonesian business, sources said. However, LafargeHolcim may keep the business if it decides it can't fetch an attractive enough price, the same sources claimed. A spokesman for the company declined to comment. The seller may seek to value the Philippines assets at around $2.5bn, though some suitors have indicated they think the business is worth less, the people said. A rival seeking to purchase all of LafargeHolcim's plants in the country may face antitrust issues, which could make it more difficult to find a single buyer, they said. If the business is sold, the next disposal candidate would be Malaysia. LafargeHolcim has been divesting assets as part of a five-year turnaround plan, announcing in November that it will sell its Indonesian unit for $1.75bn including debt to PT Semen Indonesia. Chief Executive Officer Jan Jenisch admitted last May that the company's Southeast Asia business has been "a bit more challenging" amid price pressure in markets such as the Philippines and Malaysia. LafargeHolcim also revealed in November it has one or two more disposals coming up after the Indonesia sale. The company's cost-cutting plan is aimed at regaining firepower to make acquisitions, Jenisch told investors at the time. Shares in the company's Manila-listed unit Holcim Philippines have fallen about 41pc over the past year. Bloomberg Farmers are not properly compensated for the environmental and wildlife preservation work they do as part of their everyday farming enterprises, and this has to be addressed both by Irish politicians and in Brussels. That's the view of Ailbhe Gerrard, who runs an organic farm on the shores of Lough Derg in Co Tipperary. "We are facing a biodiversity crisis and it is the farmers who are solely taking care of the health of the soil and the water supply, and this has to be reflected in the distribution of the funds in the next Common Agricultural Policy funds," says the 48-year-old. "It is critical that the CAP funding recognises the threat to sustainable farming. "If you look at biodiversity you see that a third of our insect species are under threat and we have problems with our water quality and the health of our soils. "The farmers are the only ones dealing with these issues, and the CAP funding should be used to assist them." Ailbhe bought Brookfield farm near Nenagh eight years ago and runs a lamb, barley and forestry enterprise, divided evenly over the 75 acres; she has won numerous Good Taste awards. She has been nominated for the inaugural RDS Talamh awards for sustainable farming and for the Forestry Awards. She is also part of a countrywide beehive venture which markets honey and beeswax candles. She has a pop-up shop on the farm to seasonably sell her honey and candles and is planning to build a proper shop as soon as is practical. She is building up her flock and at the moment is sending around 20 lambs to her processing butchers in Portumna and Cloughjordan for her "food direct" service for her customers. She refuses to take the Mart route for her stock, saying their lamb prices do not get near balancing the costs and work put in by producers. Her 25 acres of barley is harvested by a local contractor and sold on to Arrabawn Co-Op. She is replanting her forest with native oak and sycamore. And if that's not enough, Ailbhe also lectures on sustainable agriculture and equine science at Gurteen agricultural college near Roscrea. An academic by nature - "I always liked learning - she has three masters degrees in various agricultural and environmental disciplines . Asked how she it all, she replies: "A third of the time in the college and a third of the time for myself and the rest on the farm". In conversation with Ken Whelan When James Murphy's son Tom said he wanted to come home and farm, the IFA stalwart was thrilled. "I was delighted," he says. "I was quite busy with IFA at the time and it was becoming harder and harder to source casual labour, and myself and Chrissy are not getting any younger." Farming 110ha his father bought in the 1950s, James and his wife Chrissy had raised their six children on the drystock farm outside Inistoge, Kilkenny. But about a year after Tom returned, the family realised that the figures were just not adding up; the farm was not making enough to give two incomes. It had been in drystock, with the level of suckling, sheep and tillage enterprises varying over the years depending on the returns. "We have always ebbed and flowed - when tillage was most profitable, 50-60pc of the farm was in corn, and when it became less and less profitable, we drifted more towards suckling; there was a time that was returning quite well and you could make a living out it," says James. Expand Close Tom and his father James on the farm outside Inistoge, Kilkenny. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tom and his father James on the farm outside Inistoge, Kilkenny. "And we always had a flock of ewes - we peaked with 450 - mainly because I like working with sheep." But now the Murphys are exiting beef production, but it hasn't been an easy decision. "We put all six through college here, on that system," says James. "We had a fairly decent farm payment, but not extravagant and it is being hard hit with convergence. "When we looked at it, we realised we're lucky the last ones were going through college; we were struggling. "It was always a challenge, but we were starting to realise that if we were back again now with six to go through college, we could not offer them that opportunity. That challenged our thinking. "This mixed system, when you grow up with it, it's hard to come around to the idea of monoculture, with just one enterprise on the farm. Maybe that's why I'm determined I'm going to hold onto some sheep." Profit monitor But the farm's profit monitor showed they were struggling. "We were farming in a pretty good way, we were in discussion groups, a good paddock system in place," says James. "We were doing a lot right and it still wasn't working. "Tom had been saying we had to look at something else. I was saying 'what else?' and he was saying that all his friends in dairying say they have a margin, an income, a life." But no one on the Murphy farm had ever milked cows, and James had one message for his son. "If you're serious about dairying you may go milk cows for a while." After a season in Cumbria, on a grass-based farm, Tom came home full of enthusiasm for dairying, although James admits he was still resistant to the idea. "There is no point in saying anything else," he says. "Drystock is a way of life and system of farming that I had gotten from my dad, and skill-sets from him that I valued. But it came down to the economics, and the more facts and figures we got, it was chalk and cheese." James is keeping his pedigree Charollais flock, with 270 ewes scanned this year. "I get a lot of fun out of that, I like breeding stock and really enjoyed breeding good-quality stock, doing the research around bulls and AI and sourcing the right lineage. I'm not going to walk away from that," he explains. But the sucklers are being phased out. "There is a part of me that is still holding on to them to a degree," he says. "But there is no point in having two sets of bovines on the farm, one of which is struggling to generate an income." At the end of this week, the Murphys will be milking 94 cows, some British Friesian, the majority cross-bred. Building a dairy needed financing. Expand Close "Drystock is a way of life and system of farming that I had gotten from my dad, and skill-sets from him that I valued. But it came down to the economics, and the more facts and figures we got, it was chalk and cheese." / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp "Drystock is a way of life and system of farming that I had gotten from my dad, and skill-sets from him that I valued. But it came down to the economics, and the more facts and figures we got, it was chalk and cheese." "AIB backed the family. There was no surplus cash here. We never got road money, or pipeline money or sold sites," James says. "This is financed by going to the bank, who came out and sat down in the kitchen and talked to us and said they have confidence in dairying." The family has installed a 14-unit Dairymaster parlour that has room for expansion out to 30. There is a one million-gallon lagoon built, and the outdoor slatted area can be converted to take a roof if needed at a later stage. According to James, the set-up allows Tom 10 years to get the debt under control and leave him still young enough to "drive on". "Tom has the benefit of youth and is fearless. He's confident to be able to handle whatever comes," he says. "This is Tom's choice. We never said to him to come home, we're going dairying and you'll run it. Tom is the one who said he wanted to come home after college and didn't want to go travelling. This is his choice, but we're with him all the way. Expand Close The new 1m gallon lagoon on the farm. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The new 1m gallon lagoon on the farm. "Tom had a real interest in the sucklers, did an AI course, was part of a discussion group, but when he did his figures he kept making the point there really isn't two incomes here. "I believe that if there was a good income to be generated from sucklers, Tom would stay at it." Facing up to the hard facts on drystock The drystock and tillage sectors have to make economic sense for young people coming out of agricultural college, warns James Murphy. "They are well educated and they know what the workplace can return to them; and rightly, they are not tolerant of the idea of coming home to a farm that can't generate a decent income for them," the Kilkenny man says. The IFA man feels that it is imperative that solutions are found for the Irish beef sector. "That has to start with a little bit of honesty. What is the government's plan for Ireland's suckler herd?" he asks. "There is no money out of suckling at 370-380c/kg, you need to get nicely over 400c/kg - can we do that? Is that likely at a time when we hear rumours coming from Brussels of global price convergence?" Expand Close James in the just about finished Dairymaster parlour / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp James in the just about finished Dairymaster parlour The IFA's beef review, which James says is long overdue, will at least provide farmers with facts, even if they don't like them. "Farmers might like us to do more, but they're not fools. Right now it's not easy to find solutions on the beef price," he says. James says the industry must look at real alternatives for drystock farmers who maybe might not like the story that comes out of the review. Switching to dairy, he says, is not an option for the vast majority of farmers, particularly those with small fragmented holdings and difficult land to work. Paying farmers to exit suckling is not something he's a fan of, but he knows suckler farmers are very disillusioned and are saying "if they don't want my cows, pay me to get out". He points out that other countries have offered alternatives to farmers - particularly the drystock sector - by investing in schemes and incentives that encourage them to get involved in farm-scale renewable energy production. This would be a better strategy n Ireland, James says, than paying farmers to exit - and it would help the country hit climate change targets. "From 2020 on we may well end up having to pay 500-600m a year in fines because we have failed to reach targets," he says. "Would it not have made a lot more sense to spend even a fraction of that on schemes that would encourage farmers, in general, to take up side enterprises that would automatically lead to a scaling back of drystock farms?" he asks. "That level of outside-the-box thinking is needed but so far, our Government has looked at big-scale, multinational operations - giant wind farms which are not popular with the people of Ireland. "Why not support farmers to play their role, encourage and facilitate them to become 'prosumers' not just consumers on fossil fuel - and produce renewable electricity for their own house and farm use and trickle extra back into the grid?" The Kilkenny Group has - for now - put a block on plans by a Goodman family firm to construct a 100m office block development on Nassau Street in Dublin. Last month, the retailer along with three other parties, lodged appeals to An Bord Pleanala against the decision by Dublin City Council to give Ternary Ltd the planning go-ahead. The proposed project involves the redevelopment of the Setanta Centre and will create 430 jobs during its construction phase, and will accommodate 1,600 workers when the offices are ready for occupation. The Council gave the scheme the go-ahead after the applicants reduced the scale of the proposal. The planning authority concluded that the development would integrate satisfactorily with the surrounding development and would not seriously detract from visual amenities and the area's established character and pattern of development. But the Kilkenny Group houses its flagship Kilkenny Design centre store in the Setanta Centre and has stated that the plan will have consequences for the 88 full time and 20 seasonal employees at the store and the one million shoppers who visit the Kilkenny shop every year. Ternary has stated that the Kilkenny enterprise is to remain untouched in the redevelopment of the centre. The firm, Setanta Unlimited which owns the site lists beef baron, Larry Goodman and his son Lawrence Goodman as directors. Lawrence heads up the family's property interests as well as running his own property development business. Others to also appeal the Council decision are property owner at South Frederick Street, Ciaran McGrath, Trinity Real Estates and Iput plc. The objection lodged on behalf of the Kilkenny Group argued that the proposed development includes a design that is both inappropriate for the area and unacceptable for the shop. Actors in military fatigues take part in an anti-Brexit rally near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth, expressing their opposition to the imposition of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has reportedly told UK Prime Minister Theresa May in a telephone call that she will have to sign up to a permanent customs union if she wants the EU to revisit the backstop. Mr Juncker is said to have told Ms May she would have to significantly change her red line position on remaining in the customs union if she wants the EU to negotiate on the backstop. The Irish backstop is an insurance policy in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement which ensures against a hard border returning to the island of Ireland. Details of the telephone conversation came as European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said there was no way he could live in a situation in which the EU throw Ireland under the bus. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close A mock border wall is being destroyed during a protest by anti-Brexit campaigners, Borders Against Brexit in Carrickcarnan, Ireland, January 26, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne People destroy a mock border wall as they attend a protest by anti-Brexit campaigners, Borders Against Brexit in Carrickcarnan, Ireland, January 26, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Actors in military fatigues take part in an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth, expressing their opposition to the imposition of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday January 26, 2019. See PA story POLITICS Brexit Border. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire People stand next to a mock militarised border crossing as they attend a protest by anti-Brexit campaigners, Borders Against Brexit in Carrickcarnan, Ireland, January 26, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne An actor in military fatigues takes part in an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth, expressing their opposition to the imposition of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday January 26, 2019. See PA story POLITICS Brexit Border. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire People take part in an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth, expressing their opposition to the imposition of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday January 26, 2019. See PA story POLITICS Brexit Border. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire A mock checkpoint manned by actors dressed as customs officers constructed during an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday January 26, 2019. Hundreds of protesters have warned Theresa May that a hard Irish border risks destroying Northern Ireland's hard-won peace. See PA story POLITICS Brexit Border. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire A mock checkpoint manned by actors dressed as soldiers and customs officers constructed during an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday January 26, 2019. Hundreds of protesters have warned Theresa May that a hard Irish border risks destroying Northern Ireland's hard-won peace. See PA story POLITICS Brexit Border. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire A man holds a sign next to a mock border wall during a protest by anti-Brexit campaigners, Borders Against Brexit in Carrickcarnan, Ireland, January 26, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A mock border wall is being destroyed during a protest by anti-Brexit campaigners, Borders Against Brexit in Carrickcarnan, Ireland, January 26, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne As far as the European Commission is concerned, the backstop is an essential element for showing to Ireland and to the rest of Europe that we are in this together, Mr Timmermans told the Guardian newspaper. Mind you, a backstop is called a backstop because it doesnt have a time limit. If it has a time limit it is no longer a backstop, so that backstop for the European Union is very important. And there can be no uncertainty about that, he added. Expand Close A woman holds a poster advocating a people's vote during an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A woman holds a poster advocating a people's vote during an anti-Brexit rally at the Irish border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters have warned UK Prime Minister Theresa May that a hard Irish border risks destroying Northern Ireland's hard-won peace. A mock checkpoint manned by actors dressed as soldiers and customs officers was constructed close to the frontier in Co Down on Saturday. Machine gun-toting soldiers' "towers" were camouflaged in green and black and concrete blocks were craned into place across the road as a backdrop for a string of angry speeches by anti-Brexit campaigners from across the island. If the UK leaves Europe without a deal, the free flow of goods could be disrupted by the creation of a hard frontier on the island, the European Commission has said. Demonstrator Tom Murray, from Co Donegal, said it is Theresa May's responsibility to sort out the issue. He said: "Ireland will not be made to suffer the folly of the Tory party. "We are the ones who will be suffering for the mistakes made in Westminster. "We will not accept this border, we demand that London sort out the problem that they created." It is more than 20 years since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which largely ended decades of violence. Mr Murray added: "All the peace and prosperity that we have enjoyed will be destroyed by a hard border. "Communities could be dragged back into the old days of living in the shadow of someone else's border. "We are the people who will suffer the most." Security towers manned by the British Army in the hilly and remote area near the city of Newry were decommissioned in 2003 as it ended conflict-era operations in Northern Ireland in support of the police. The Irish and British governments have said they want to avoid a hard border after Brexit, and multiple sources have said Britain's withdrawal from the EU should not prompt a return to violence. Some security sources have argued that if customs checks are put in place, police will be required to protect them and that could leave officers at risk from dissident republicans. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has received extra resources for Brexit but have officially envisaged light-touch, community-style policing. Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney this week said it would be difficult to avoid installing new infrastructure following a no-deal Brexit. Meanwhile, the UK must satisfy their Good Friday obligations to prevent the return of a hard border in the North of Ireland, according to Minister of State for European Affairs Helen McEntee. Ms McEntee, speaking on BBC radio 4s Today programme, said that the Good Friday Agreement is more important than Brexit to Ireland. According to the Fine Gael politician, there seems to be an attitude that it is Irelands responsibility to compromise during Brexit negotiations but that because Ireland didnt vote in the Brexit referendum, it is the duty of the UK to obey their international peace treaty obligations as outlined in the Good Friday Agreement. "We are protecting a peace process. There is an obligation on the UK to ensure that the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, is protected, she said. I think now, for some reason, the onus by the UK has been shifted back on Ireland. That we should compromise, that we are the ones that are trying to be awkward or difficult. We did not vote for Brexit. We dont believe in it. We absolutely respect that it was a democratic decision, of course we do. We absolutely expect that the UK will fulfil its commitment, and will live up to its obligations because Brexit, or no Brexit, the UK Government is a co-guarantor of what is an international peace treaty." Ms McEntee said that the only plausible preventative action for a hard border now is a backstop written into the UKs withdrawal agreement. While she said that the backstop is something the Irish government never want to have to use, the UK red line and lack of alternative solutions to the problems they pose, makes the backstops inclusion in the agreement absolutely necessary. "It is because of those red lines that a backstop is absolutely necessary," she said. We dont want to use the backstop. Weve spent 18 month negotiating something we dont ever want to have to use. For those Brexiteers, or others, who say that the backstop is not necessary, that we can avoid a hard border without it, I would ask them how they expect to do that because they are yet to come up with another solution. We are not asking you to change your red lines but we are asking you to respect that you have an obligation to an international peace treaty that you signed long before Brexit took place and for us the Good Friday agreement is much more important than Brexit. Ms McEntee said that Ireland has been continuously guaranteed the prevention of a return to a hard border throughout the Brexit process and that it is integral to the Good Friday agreement that their commitment is upheld. This is not just from an Irish point of view. There is an obligation on the UK to ensure that the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, is protected. Any suggestion that they can walk away from that, we simply wont accept. We have been very clear on this throughout the entire process. We are not planning for the reintroduction of a border. This is not an Irish policy, this is not something that weve voted on and certainly this is a commitment that was given time and time again. The UK government have given a commitment that we must protect the peace process and I think that must be something that people didnt think about when they voted to leave the European Union but also to ensure that we never return to a border on this island. Integral to protecting that peace treaty is ensuring that we never return to any kind of borders that we saw in the past. With additional reporting from the Press Association The Government is scrambling to defuse the controversy caused by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's warning a hard border would need a "police or army presence" in a no-deal Brexit. After months of refusals to answer questions on the impact of a no deal, Mr Varadkar's gaffe was viewed as a sign of the panic in Government at the prospect of a looming hard Brexit. The Government last night denied there were plans to deploy troops to the Border. Read More The gaffe follows intense scrutiny of contingency planning for a crash-out. Despite denials of any Garda role, it is understood a large number of probationer gardai are to be sent to the northern region. They will be posted to policing duties in the main population centres, and there they will cover for the release of more experienced personnel for duty at other stations closer to the Border. In Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, Mr Varadkar raised the prospect of the Army and gardai manning customs posts. The Taoiseach's clumsy comments sparked criticism from Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin. "When the Taoiseach tells an audience in Davos that the Army may have to be sent to the Border, he is contradicting everything we've been told about preparations." Unionists said Mr Varadkar was "ramping up tensions." The denials of contingency planning were highlighted this week by Agriculture Minster Michael Creed floundering under questions and State agencies claiming there were no plans for a no-deal scenario. In the interview, Mr Varadkar said at present the Border was "totally open" but "if things go very wrong it looks like 20 years ago." He added: "It would involve customs posts, it would involve people in uniform and it may involve the need, for example, for cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly a police presence, or an army presence to back it up." Mr Varadkar said: "The problem with that in the context of Irish politics and history is those things become targets." The Government scrambled to clarify Mr Varadkar's remarks. A spokesman said the Taoiseach said the Government was "determined to avoid a no-deal scenario and the consequent risk of a hard border". Expand Close No passing: a mock customs post set up at Ravensdale, Co Louth as anti-Brexit campaigners hold a go-slow protest across the Border. Photo by Niall Carson / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp No passing: a mock customs post set up at Ravensdale, Co Louth as anti-Brexit campaigners hold a go-slow protest across the Border. Photo by Niall Carson He said Mr Varadkar "gave a description of what it used to look like, and the risk of what it could look like in the worst case scenario." He added: "He was not referring to Irish personnel and the Irish Government has no plans to deploy infrastructure or personnel at the border." Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, meanwhile, branded the remarks as "reckless and irresponsible" adding: "They are totally contrary to previous assertions regarding the Government's commitment to the backstop." Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has moved to deny that plans to deploy 600 gardai to the Border. But Mr Varadkar's interview in Davos confirmed police and troops could be needed for a hard border. The Garda did not directly respond to Irish Independent questions about funding or specific contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit border. A statement repeated Mr Harris's denial that 600 Gardai are to be moved to the border. However, the Irish Independent can reveal some details of the contingency planning. It is understood a large number of probationer Gardai are to be sent to the Border to help the force cope with the additional workload created. Probationers are usually divided up between the regions when they are released from the training college in Templemore for on-the-job learning on the streets. However, a big percentage of the next batch will be deployed in the Garda's northern region, which embraces the Border divisions. The probationers will be posted to policing duties in the main population centres, as they must be sent to areas with training facilities such as district headquarters, and there they will cover for the release of more experienced personnel for duty at other stations closer to the Border. The deployment of the probationers is currently being finalised while there are already plans in place to send more armed officers to the Border. This will be achieved in a two-fold process, transferring more Special Branch personnel to the northern region and setting up a third armed support unit, to be based in Cavan-Monaghan division and augmenting the existing two in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal and Dundalk. Meanwhile, House of Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom suggested the UK may seek to delay leaving the EU "by a couple of weeks" in order to get Brexit legislation through Parliament, The prominent Cabinet Brexiteer insisted it would be "feasible" to remain in the bloc for a time after the scheduled exit date of March 29. Mrs Leadsom's comments came after Chancellor Philip Hammond piled fresh pressure on Theresa May by declining to rule out quitting if the UK goes through with a no-deal Brexit. Brexit is but one crevasse of a constitutional crisis as deep as the Mariana Trench. We see this crisis in the dark money that flooded into the referendum campaign, through Britains network of overseas territories and crown dependencies. We see it in the failure of our regulators and our police to protect our democracy: it took the work of journalists to show that referendum rules were broken because those who are supposed to enforce these laws lack the time, money or motivation. We see this in the national distribution of the Leave vote in our multinational state: the result was delivered by England-without-London: a country without constitutional expression, whose post-imperial identity is shaped by those who obsess about nations. We see it in Northern Ireland, where the failure of the British to consider the border before the referendum is just another symptom of the neglect of a country whose government hasnt sat for two years. We see it in Scotland, which voted overwhelmingly to Remain but which will be pulled from the EU anyway. We see it in Wales, where the valleys voted Leave, not despite receiving EU funds, but because they saw how badly Britains and Wales overcentralised state distributes money, because people are rightly fed up with having things done to them. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters We see it in the confused mess about where sovereignty really lies in modern Britain: if its the crown in parliament, what was the meaning of the referendum? And, as the minority of Supreme Court justices argued in the Gina Miller case, why could judges instruct parliament to vote on Brexit if parliament is sovereign over courts? We have the most centralised state in the western world, overseen by one chamber whose representatives are elected by a system that ensures most people dont get what they want, and another chamber populated by old boys, cronies and the only guaranteed parliamentary seats for clerics outside Iran. There is the sense that our system has allowed the same class of people, more or less, to govern the UK for a millennium, a sense that the system is designed to ensure that the same people stay in charge. Its no wonder people wanted to take back control. If we are to address the root causes of the current crisis, we need to replace Britains decaying empire state. That means a full constitutional convention to write the rules of a modern democratic state, fit for the internet age. Specifically, it means convening a jury or juries of citizens, empowering them to call experts and develop a process and, ultimately, to propose a written constitution, putting it or each element of it to a public vote. The EU referendum process showed us how bad we have become at democracy. But we dont need to look far to learn how to improve only to Ireland, whose constitutional convention, two-thirds of the membership of which was randomly selected members of the public, recommended changes to their constitution, leading to their magnificent referendum results on abortion and equal marriage. In the UK, such a process would be more complex we dont have a codified constitution to begin with, just a set of rules that the powerful can bend to their own ends. But ultimately, democracy is politics by, of and for the people, and its time to become a proper modern democracy, with a system designed by, of and for the people. Adam Ramsay wrote this piece as part of the Best for Britain series of articles Staying and Rebuilding. You can read his detailed proposals for a constitutional convention here Stop the scams involving helicopter evacuations or we will exclude Nepal from coverage: that is the message from the travel insurance industry to the government of the Himalayan nation. A trio of insurance underwriters have given the tourism minister in Kathmandu, Rabindra Prasad Adhikari, an ultimatum. Between them they cover over 100,000 visitors annually to Nepal. They are demanding an end to what they call an elaborate scam that has defrauded millions of dollars from global travel insurance companies and even claimed lives, according to experts. The accusation centres on helicopter evacuations from high-altitude locations such as Everest base camp, the high point for many treks. Each flight costs thousands of dollars, and some bills are inflated by fraudulent commission payments to trekking firms and guides. One experienced UK guide in Nepal, who wanted to remain anonymous, called it the instant Everest base camp scam, saying: You go up, throw up and come down. Usually by rescue helicopter, with 30 per cent commission to your guide or agent. Rebuilding lives in Nepal Show all 12 1 /12 Rebuilding lives in Nepal Rebuilding lives in Nepal Most of the workers helping build in Nepal are migrants from India Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Brick factories and the red clay blocks they produce are in demand after the earthquake. For every set of bricks workers bring to the truck, they receive a token, and each token translates into payment. So the more they work, the faster they work, the more they get paid Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Works are underway to restore buildings like this one across Nepal Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Rebuilding lives in Nepal Many buildings were destroyed in the devastating earthquake and the aftershock that followed Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Mina is a shy 11 year old with strikingly beautiful eyes. Her favourite subject is Nepali. She walks half an hour each way to get to her school in the Sindhuli Valley each day Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal 65-year-old Rebati, dressed in a vivid blue sari, is Musahar woman from Itharwa, Dhanusha. When we send our children to school, they are sent back if they walk across land owned by someone else, she says Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Street Child of Nepal and UNICEF new classroom site at Sunkoshi Higher Secondary School Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal Thousands of students will be able to study in the new buildings being constructed Chris Parkes Rebuilding lives in Nepal The temporary Sunkoshi school building will be one of 25 Chris Parkes In some cases, foreign visitors connive with the trekking firms. They are offered cut-price expeditions from Kathmandu on the understanding that they will feign acute mountain sickness (AMS, colloquially known as altitude sickness) and ask for a helicopter rescue. Their insurance documents are checked before they are accepted on the trip to ensure that the helicopter firm and its agent will be paid off. It is alleged that other trekkers are made temporarily unwell by spiking their meals with baking soda, uncooked chicken or even rat droppings. The scam is said to have cost lives. Leading figures in Nepals tourism industry have told The Independent of cases in which the evacuation of genuinely ill trekkers has been delayed until a helicopter known to pay commission was available. Before the approved rescue can happen, the victim has died. World Nomads, based in Sydney, now warns trekkers to Nepal that they must get approval from its emergency assistance team before a helicopter rescue, saying: Helicopter operators inflate flight hours to gain more money and guides of trekking companies gain commission payments as a result of calling for the helicopter evacuation of insured trekkers. All of this results in the insurer paying unnecessary bills, and trekkers often being taken off the mountain when they didnt need to miss out on the rest of their trek. Some guides, it is alleged, have two mobile phones. They call the assistance company on one to warn them a trekker is ill, then turn it off so they cannot be instructed to halt the evacuation. Meanwhile they coordinate the rescue on their other phone. Since the symptoms of AMS disappear once the patient is at low altitude, it is impossible to say with hindsight whether the evacuation was necessary. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Sometimes a number of trekkers are carried on a single flight but are charged for individual rescues. The insurers say that helicopter firms are being paid commission by hospitals for delivering patients to them. The letter says that unscrupulous companies are pushing trekkers to agree to a helicopter for minor illnesses, multiple claims for a single helicopter and overtreatment at hospitals. All of these added costs would be billed to the insurer through inflated helicopter and medical bills. The letter was hand-delivered to the Ministry for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation by Danny Kaine of the assistance company Traveller Assist. He told The Independent: In 2018, after an extensive investigation, our company uncovered an elaborate scam that defrauded millions of dollars from global travel insurance companies. Details of the investigation were passed on to the ministry, he said, which promised to clamp down on the practice as well as prosecuting offenders for fraud and tax evasion. But, he says: Not a single charge has been laid. The letter tells the tourism minister: If our clients stop issuing travel insurance policies in Nepal, it wont be long until other insurers do the same. This will have a devastating effect on the tourism industry in Nepal, and your countrys reputation. The move would not affect policies issued before 15 February 2019. Mr Kaine said: My worry is that people will still go there but they wont be insured. As a proactive measure, Traveller Assist is setting up a booth at Kathmandu airport to advise arriving trekkers about how to avoid AMS and remain healthy. The firm is also deploying medics to two key locations from which there are frequent evacuations, in order to assess patients before a helicopter is summoned. It has offered to help the government in Nepal to investigate the alleged practices. Nepals embassy in London has rejected the accusations, saying: This is not true. Government is always looking [at] this matter seriously and taking necessary measures to ensure the safety of the tourists and also facilitates travel insurer for their concern. The European Union has concerns about aviation safety in Nepal, and currently bans all Nepali air carriers. An Air New Zealand flight had such bad turbulence that the airline is refunding passengers. The hour-long hop from Christchurch to Invercargill was rocked by extreme winds for all but 10 minutes of the journey, according to passenger Owen Scott. He told Stuff that around 20 per cent of those onboard were vomiting; describing it as the worst flight he had ever experienced. However, he praised the pilot, who was flying amid 180kmh cross winds. I would say he had his work cut out, he would have been busy up there, said Scott. I think Air New Zealand did a great job, I think the pilot deserves a medal. The world's safest low-cost airlines Show all 8 1 /8 The world's safest low-cost airlines The world's safest low-cost airlines WestJet, a low cost Canadian carrier, was voted one of the safest low-cost airlines Alasdair McLellan/Creative Commons The world's safest low-cost airlines Virgin America was named as a low cost carrier by airlineratings.com Virginamerica.com The world's safest low-cost airlines Thomas Cook airlines were ranked highly on the world's best low cost carriers by airlineratings.com The world's safest low-cost airlines Boeing 737 Boeing 737 is part of TUI Fly, a German based subsidiary of Thomas Cook Tuifly.com The world's safest low-cost airlines Volaris, a low-cost Mexican carrier, has been rated one of the safest airlines to fly Volaris/Carribeanairlinenews The world's safest low-cost airlines HK Express was rated highly in the rankings HKExpress The world's safest low-cost airlines Aer Lingus was rated as one of the safest low-cost airlines in the world. The world's safest low-cost airlines America's low-cost carrier has been rated as super safe. The flight landed safely, but emergency services were on hand to treat passengers before they were debriefed by airline staff. Passengers received an email from Air New Zealand later the same day. It read: As you will be aware, on approach to Invercargill Airport the aircraft experienced strong turbulence which is likely to have caused some discomfort to you and your passengers. On landing you would have noticed emergency services were on hand to provide assistance as a number of customers were feeling unwell. In recognition of your experience, a full refund of this flight will be processed. An Air New Zealand spokesperson told Stuff: Air New Zealand flight NZ5715 from Christchurch to Invercargill last night experienced strong turbulence during the descent. The flight made a normal landing in Invercargill, however, emergency services were on hand to provide assistance to some customers who were feeling unwell. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events At least one customer has contacted the airline today saying the refund offer is appreciated but unnecessary. A military base in Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, according to experts who have examined satellite images. US analysts told the Associated Press the images offered evidence of the type of weapons programme the Saudi authorities had criticised Iran for possessing. The November satellite imagery, taken by US company Planet Labs Inc and analysed by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, revealed a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, around 145 miles west of the capital, Riyadh. It shows what appear to be structures big enough to build and fuel ballistic missiles. Last year Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman said the kingdom would not hesitate to develop nuclear weapons if Iran did. Ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads. An apparent rocket engine test stand was seen in one part of the base captured in the photos. Experts say test firing is key for countries trying to build working missiles. Michael Elleman, senior fellow for missile defence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, reviewed the satellite photos and said they appeared to show a ballistic missile programme. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi embassy in Washington have not yet responded to the satellite images. Having a ballistic missile programme, if confirmed, could further damage Saudi relations with the US at a time when ties are under strain over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Bloomberg/Jeenah Moon) (Bloomberg) Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, said heavy investment in missiles often correlated with an interest in nuclear weapons. I would be a little worried that were underestimating the Saudis ambitions here, said Mr Lewis, who has also studied the satellite images. He said the Saudi stand closely resembled a design used by China, though it was smaller. Asked on Friday about the base, Chinas Defence Ministry declined to comment. I have never heard of such a thing as China helping Saudi Arabia to build a missile base, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Neither Saudi Arabia nor China are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of rockets capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the US, has long criticised Irans ballistic missile programme, viewing it as a regional threat. In his interview with CBSs 60 Minutes last March, Prince Mohammad said: Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible. A Saudi programme would only complicate efforts by the US and its Western allies to limit Irans ballistic missile programme, said Stratfor, a private intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas. Should Saudi Arabia move into a test-launch phase, the United States will be pressured to take action with sanctions, [as it has done with Iran]," it said Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Congress has grown increasingly critical of Saudi Arabia since the 2 October assassination of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, allegedly carried out by members of Prince Mohammads entourage. The kingdoms years-long war in Yemen also has angered politicians. [If the Saudis produce] medium-range systems inherently capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the response will be much more robust, though likely out of public view, Mr Elleman said. Congress, on the other hand, may lash out, as this will be seen as another affront to the US and regional stability. Additional reporting by Associated Press The researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggis inner circle before his death are being targeted by international undercover operatives, an investigation by the Associated Press has revealed. Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded. Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert described the stunts as a new low. We condemn these sinister, underhanded activities in the strongest possible terms, he said in a statement on Friday. Such a deceitful attack on an academic group like the Citizen Lab is an attack on academic freedom everywhere. Who these operatives are working for remains unknown, but their tactics recall those of private investigators who assume elaborate false identities to gather intelligence or compromising material on critics of powerful figures in government or business. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA Citizen Lab, based out of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, has for years played a leading role in exposing state-backed hackers operating in places as far afield as Tibet, Ethiopia and Syria. Lately the group has drawn attention for its repeated exposes of an Israeli surveillance software vendor called the NSO Group, a firm whose wares have been used by governments to target journalists in Mexico, opposition figures in Panama and human rights activists in the Middle East. In October, Citizen Lab reported that an iPhone belonging to one of Khashoggis confidantes had been infected by the NSOs signature spy software only months before the journalists grisly murder. The friend, Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, would later claim that the hacking had exposed Khashoggis private criticisms of the Saudi royal family to the Arab kingdoms spies and thus played a major role in his death. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group, holds his cell phone which has its camera blocked by an adhesive sticker, as he poses for a photograph (AP) In a statement, NSO denied having anything to do with the undercover operations targeting Citizen Lab, either directly or indirectly and said it had neither hired nor asked anyone to hire private investigators to pursue the Canadian organisation. Any suggestion to the contrary is factually incorrect and nothing more than baseless speculation, NSO said. NSO has long denied its software was used to target Khashoggi, although it has refused to comment when asked whether it has sold its software to the Saudi government more generally. The first message reached Bahr Abdul Razzak, a Syrian refugee who works as a Citizen Lab researcher, on 6 December, when a man calling himself Gary Bowman got in touch via LinkedIn. The man described himself as a South African financial technology executive based in Madrid. Researcher at watchdog group which uncovered Khashoggi surveillance before his murder describes meeting with supposed undercover agent Michel Lambert I came across your profile and think that the work youve done helping Syrian refugees and your extensive technical background could be a great fit for our new initiative, Mr Bowman wrote. Mr Abdul Razzak said he thought the proposal was a bit odd, but he eventually agreed to meet the man at Torontos Shangri-La Hotel on the morning of 18 December. The conversation got weird very quickly, Mr Abdul Razzak said. Mr Scott-Railtons phone with its blocked camera (AP) Instead of talking about refugees, Mr Abdul Razzak said, Mr Bowman grilled him about his work for Citizen Lab and its investigations into the use of NSOs software. Mr Abdul Razzak said Mr Bowman appeared to be reading off cue cards, asking him if he was earning enough money and throwing out pointed questions about Israel, the war in Syria and Mr Abdul Razzaks religiosity. Do you pray? Mr Abdul Razzak recalled Mr Bowman asking. Why do you write only about NSO? Do you write about it because its an Israeli company? Do you hate Israel? Mr Abdul Razzak said he emerged from the meeting feeling shaken. He alerted his Citizen Lab colleagues, who quickly determined the breakfast get-together had been a ruse. Mr Bowmans supposed Madrid-based company, FlameTech, had no web presence beyond a LinkedIn page, a handful of social media profiles and an entry in the business information platform Crunchbase. A reverse image search revealed the profile picture of the man listed as FlameTechs chief executive, Mauricio Alonso, was a stock photograph. Recommended Amnesty International reveals employee targeted with Israeli spyware My immediate gut feeling was: This is a fake, said John Scott-Railton, one of Mr Abdul Razzaks colleagues. Mr Scott-Railton flagged the incident to the AP, which confirmed FlameTech was a digital facade. Searches of the Orbis database of corporate records, which has data on some 300 million global companies, turned up no evidence of a Spanish firm called FlameTech or Flame Tech or any company anywhere in the world matching its description. Similarly, the AP found no record of FlameTech in Madrids official registry or of a Gary Bowman in the citys telephone listings. An Orbis search for Alonso, the supposed chief executive, also drew a blank. When an AP reporter visited Madrids Crystal Tower high-rise, where FlameTech claimed to have 250sqm of office space, he could find no trace of the firm and calls to the number listed on its website went unanswered. The AP was about to publish a story about the curious company when, on 9 January, Mr Scott-Railton received an intriguing message of his own. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty This time the contact came not from Mr Bowman of FlameTech but from someone who identified himself as Michel Lambert, a director at the Paris-based agricultural technology firm CPW-Consulting. In his introductory email, he referred to Mr Scott-Railtons early doctoral research on kite aerial photography a mapping technique using kite-mounted cameras and said he was quite impressed. We have a few projects and clients coming up that could significantly benefit from implementing Kite Aerial Photography, he said. Like FlameTech, CPW-Consulting was a fiction. Searches of Orbis and the French commercial court registry Infogreffe turned up no trace of the supposedly Paris-based company or indeed of any Paris-based company bearing the acronym CPW. And when the AP visited CPWs alleged office there was no evidence of the company; the address was home to a mainly residential apartment building. Residents and the buildings caretaker said they had never heard of the firm. Recommended Key suspect in Khashoggi trial and former top royal adviser disappears Whoever dreamed up CPW had taken steps to ensure the illusion survived a casual web search, but even those efforts didnt bear much scrutiny. The company had issued a help wanted ad, for example, seeking a digital mapping specialist for their Paris office, but Mr Scott-Railton discovered the language had been lifted almost word-for-word from an ad from an unrelated company seeking a mapping specialist in London. A blogpost touted CPW as a major player in Africa, but an examination of the authors profile suggested the article was the only one the blogger had ever written. When Mr Lambert suggested an in-person meeting in New York during a 19 January phone call, Mr Scott-Railton felt certain Mr Lambert was trying to set him up but agreed to the meeting. Mr Scott-Railton had spent the night before the meeting trying to hide a homemade camera in his tie, he later told AP, eventually settling for a GoPro action camera and several recording devices hidden about his person. On the table, Mr Lambert had placed a large pen in which Mr Scott-Railton said he spotted a tiny camera lens peeking out from an opening in the top. At the beginning of the meal, a man sat behind Mr Lambert, holding up his phone as if to take pictures and then abruptly left the restaurant, having eaten nothing. Later, two or three men materialised at the bar and appeared to be monitoring proceedings. A few tables away, two Associated Press journalists were making small talk as they waited for a signal from Mr Scott-Railton, who had invited the reporters to observe the lunch from nearby and then interview Mr Lambert near the end of the meal. Like Mr Bowman, Mr Lambert appeared to be working off cue cards. At one point he repeated a racist French expression, insisting it wasnt offensive. He also asked Mr Scott-Railton questions about the Holocaust, antisemitism and whether he grew up with any Jewish friends. At another point he asked whether there might not be a racist element to Citizen Labs interest in Israeli spyware. Recommended How Khashoggi got caught in the crossfire between two rival nations After dessert arrived, the AP reporters approached Mr Lambert at his table and asked him why his company didnt seem to exist. I know what Im doing, Mr Lambert said, as he put his files and his pen into a bag. Then he stood up, bumped into a chair and walked off, saying Ciao and waving his hand, before returning because he had neglected to pay the bill. As he paced around the restaurant waiting for the check, Mr Lambert refused to answer questions about who he worked for or why no trace of his firm could be found. I dont have to give you any explanation, he said. He eventually retreated to a back room and closed the door. Who Mr Lambert and Mr Bowman really are isnt clear. Neither men returned emails, LinkedIn messages or phone calls. And despite their keen focus on NSO, the AP found no evidence of any link to the Israeli spyware merchant, which is adamant that it wasnt involved. The kind of aggressive investigative tactics used by the men who targeted Citizen Lab have come under fire in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. Black Cube, an Israeli private investigation firm, apologised after The New Yorker and other media outlets revealed that the companys operatives had used subterfuge and dirty tricks to help the Hollywood mogul suppress allegations of rape and sexual assault. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Scott-Railton and Mr Abdul Razzak said they didnt want to speculate about who was involved. But both said they believed they were being steered toward making controversial comments that could be used to blacken Citizen Labs reputation. It could be they wanted me to say, Yes, I hate Israel, or Yes, Citizen Lab is against NSO because its Israeli, Mr Abdul Razzak said. Mr Scott-Railton said the elaborate, multinational operation was gratifying. People were paid to fly to a city to sit you down to an expensive meal and try to convince you to say bad things about your work, your colleagues and your employer, he said. That means that your work is important. AP Represenatives of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have been banned from attending Holocaust remembrance services at the largest Nazi concentration camp on German soil. Volkhard Knigge, director of the Buchenwald Memorials Foundation, told AfD politicians in the state of Thuringia where the camp is located they were no longer welcome because of anti-democratic and racist tendencies in the party. He sent a letter to the local AfD chapter informing them the ban on memorial services would run indefinitely, according to The Local. Mr Knigge said AfD politicians were not welcome until they had credibly distanced themselves from their partys anti-democratic, anti-human rights and revisionist positions. Around 56,000 people were killed at Buchenwald during the Second World War, among the estimated six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Remembering the Holocaust Show all 16 1 /16 Remembering the Holocaust Remembering the Holocaust 119165.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119169.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119229.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119167.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119162.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119166.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119163.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119224.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119168.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119228.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119152.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119226.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119150.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119151.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119147.bin Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust 119231.bin Hannah Bills Bjoern Hoecke, the AfDs leader in Thuringia, told supporters two years ago that Berlins memorial to the victims of the Holocaust was a memorial of shame and said history books should be rewritten to focus more on German victims. The far-right party, whose popularity surged amid anger over German chancellor Angel Merkels 2015 decision to accommodate over a million refugees, has said Islam is incompatible with the German constitution, but rejects charges of racism. Earlier this week, MPs from the AfD staged a walk out from the Bavarian parliament during a service to remember Holocaust victims after it was accused of playing down Nazi crimes. Charlotte Knobloch the former head of Germanys Central Council of Jews and a Holocaust survivor told the chamber the AfD based its policies on hate and marginalisation, leading more than a dozen AfD politicians to walk out while remaining members of the parliament applauded her speech. Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor, speaks at the Bavarian Parliament in Munich (AP) On Saturday Chancellor Merkel underscored the urgency of combating antisemitism, racism and hatred more than 70 years after the Holocaust, calling for new ways to keep alive the memory of the millions of people killed by the Nazis. Ms Merkel, in a video address released ahead of Sundays International Holocaust Remembrance Day, said it was everyones responsibility to ensure zero tolerance of xenophobia and all forms of antisemitism. People growing up today must know what people were capable of in the past, and we must work proactively to ensure that it is never repeated, Ms Merkel said. Last year Germany appointed a commissioner to oversee efforts to combat antisemitism and will also set up a central repository to collect information about such incidents, Ms Merkel said. It will be crucial in the coming time to find new ways of remembrance, she added. We must look more closely at the personalities of people who were victims back then, and to tell their stories. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Ms Merkel also cited the importance of supporting Holocaust memorials and private initiatives such as the stumbling stones project, which installs brass bricks inscribed with the names and key details of people near the homes from which they were deported during the Nazi era. Additional reporting by Reuters Western corporations are pumping huge sums of money into developing industrial farming in Sri Lanka, research has found despite warnings meat and dairy consumption must halve to avoid climate change. Food and farming giants are investing in a rapid expansion of intensive animal agriculture in the south Asian country, the researchers said. Yet scientists believe it is one of the top two nations that will suffer most from tropical storms and floods. And activists say the funding is driving up numbers of animals in deplorable conditions. Some cows have been filmed lying on concrete floors with chains around their necks so short they can barely move. Companies and food groups in the US, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand are changing Sri Lankas eating habits, the study by the Moving Animals group found. High-profile advertising campaigns have tried to stress the benefits of dairy products. Since 2012 Australias largest live exporter, Wellard, has exported about 24,500 heifers to Sri Lanka in multi-million-pound deals. About 200 died from disease, it was reported. Australia will benefit from the deals longer term, too, as animal feed is one of its main exports to Sri Lanka. Cows were filmed with chains so short they could barely move (Moving Animals) Swiss-based Nestle has become a major player in growing the nations dairy industry: it buys milk from more than 25,000 dairy farms, representing about 40 per cent of all milk sold nationwide. The research found that advertising campaigns for Nestles chocolate malt drink Milo, particularly aimed at children, are predominant, even though doubts have been raised over its healthy claims in Malaysia and Australia. The US government has put $14m (10.6m) into efforts to double yields from herds by 2022. With the project reported to be focused on less cows and more milk experts fear it means increasing animal exploitation. Dairy collective Fonterra, New Zealands largest company, has a decade-long commitment to develop Sri Lankas dairy industry. Its two big brands, Anchor and Ratthi, account for 60 per cent of Sri Lankas huge milk-powder market. A goat was photographed with a bloody head injury (Moving Animals) Amy Jones, of Moving Animals, who photographed a typical Sri Lankan factory farm, said: The Western model of industrial farming is causing millions of animals to suffer in deplorable conditions. The farm was a haunting replica of industrialised Western dairy farms a stark contrast to conventional, small-scale herds. Pregnant female cows were slumped on bare floors, chained to the ceiling by their necks, while next door, calves were stashed inside isolated, metal cages. On the goat farm, one animal was suffering a head injury, their face caked in dry blood. Recommended Skeletons of 21 children found in mass grave in Sri Lanka The Global Climate Risk Index 2019 ranked Sri Lanka second after Puerto Rico for landslides, floods and monsoons. Wellard said it does not deliver heifers to farms that tether animals, and that the mortality rate of 4 per cent is lower than that in some developed countries. A Fonterra spokesperson said: All the milk we collect locally comes from small-scale local dairy farmers, adding the company had trained over 6,000 farmers and industry professionals, and invested over Rs 3bn (12.5m) in dairy development. Were committed to managing animals responsibly and eliminating practices that contravene the internationally recognised five freedoms of animal welfare. This includes ensuring animals have access to quality nutrition, shelter and medical care, and have sufficient space and facilities to live comfortably, he said. Fonterras market-leading Anchor and Ratthi milk is sourced from New Zealand, he said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events A Nestle spokeswoman said: We do not own any farms in Sri Lanka. All of our regular milk suppliers are smallholder farmers, whom we have helped develop for more than 35 years together with the Sri Lankan government. Our aim is to provide training and development to local farmers, offer them assistance to develop their business in line with our commitment to rural development, and provide them with a route to market by buying their milk. We have set up essential infrastructure such as milk chilling centres, which offer farmers a means to keep their milk fresh in tropical weather until it is transported to our factory. We also train farmers on a range of technical topics and best practices including cattle feeding and breeding, and animal health and farm management. It offers free mobile veterinary clinics in collaboration with the government, she said. Our programmes also educate farmers about the five freedoms applied to animals, ie freedom from hunger, thirst and malnutrition; fear and distress; physical and thermal discomfort; pain, injury and disease; and freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour. Kremlin-linked military contractors have flown to Venezuela to provide security for Nicolas Maduro, reports say, as the president says he is willing to engage in talks with the opposition. While the US intensified its push to drive the Venezuelan president from power, Russia has vowed to back its South American ally. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo is set to brief the UN Security Council on 26 January after the US and a string of countries in the region said they recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nations legitimate head of state and urged Mr Maduro to step down. Russia opposed the USs request to speak at the UN and instead accused Washington of engaging in a destructive foreign policy. Private military contractors linked to Russia have flown into Venezuela in the past few days to beef up security for Mr Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, Reuters cited sources as saying. Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Show all 18 1 /18 Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Protesters clash with the Bolivarian National Police during a demonstration against the government of the Venezuela and president Nicolas Maduro in Caracas on 23 January 2019 EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators cheer as Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido declares himself the country's "acting president" at a rally in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally in Caracas demanding leader Nicolas Maduro's resignation AP Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word "Democracy" while taking part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Police watch over marching anti-government protesters in Caracas EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A vehicle is overturned as opposition demonstrators block a road during a protest against the Venezuelan government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A National Police officer fires rubber bullets during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government A demonstrator throws back a gas canister while clashing with security forces during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Security forces look on after clashing with opposition supporters participating in a rally against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's government REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Demonstrators during a protest against the government of Nicolas Maduro at Plaza Altamira in Caracas Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government EPA Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government The remains of a statue of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez is seen hanging from a pedestrian bridge after it was destroyed in San Felix, Venezuela REUTERS Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Riot police on motorcycles clash with opposition demonstrators during protests in Caracas AFP/Getty Images Venezuela protests: thousands rally against government Supporters celebrate Juan Guaido declaration that he is Venezuelan president EPA Mr Maduro held a news conference on Friday to defend the validity of his presidency and denounce Mr Guaidos challenge. He said the declaration was a desperate act backed by the US. But he said that he would be willing to go to talks even if he had to go naked. Recommended The situation in Venezuela could easily spiral into civil war Earlier, US diplomats left their embassy in Caracas in a convoy of sport utility vehicles and with a police escort en route to the airport, according to a witness. The state department ordered some US government workers to leave Venezuela and said US citizens there should consider leaving as well. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the movement of embassy personnel. Their departure came after Mr Maduro broke off relations with Washington and ordered the US personnel out. Additional reporting by agencies Donald Trumps government shutdown cost the US economy at least $6bn (4.5bn) in just over a month, according to the S&P Global Ratings. The loss was driven by a fall in productivity from furloughed government workers, and economic anxiety which spread from the shutdown into the business sector. Mr Trump agreed to reopen the government on Friday, 35 days into a shutdown he had forced in order to demand $5.7bn (4.3bn) to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. The deal he struck with congressional Democrats included no funding for the wall, and is a temporary measure that expires in three weeks. Although this shutdown has ended, little agreement on Capitol Hill will likely weigh on business confidence and financial market sentiments, the S&P said in a news release. Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures The US Capitol on the first morning of a partial government shutdown in Washington EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures President Trump speaks with children who called the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa tracker in the State Dining Room of the White House. He earlier in the day, tweeted that he was 'all alone in the White House' waiting for Democrats to make a deal on border security EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Furloughed federal workers pick up free food at a pop-up store of Kraft Heinz Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Hundreds of federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Reuters Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures From left, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Dick Durbin and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi walk to speak to reporters after meeting with President Donald Trump about border security in the Situation Room of the White House. Trump declared he could keep parts of the government shut down for "months or even years" as he and Democratic leaders failed in a second closed-door meeting to resolve his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall with Mexico Evan Vucci AP Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures A sign alerts visitors to the closure of the National Archives on the fifth day of a partial government shutdown EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Hundreds of federal workers and contractors rally against the partial federal government shutdown Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Visitors read signs announcing the closure of the White House Visitor Center EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures President Donald Trump speaks during a round-table discussion on border security and safe communities with State, local, and community leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House Getty Images Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures A sign alerts visitors to the closure of the White House Visitor Center on the first day of a partial government shutdown EPA Trump shuts down US government over Mexico border wall in pictures Furloughed federal workers show their IDs for entering a pop-up store of Kraft Heinz Getty Images The shutdown impacted nine federal agencies, and roughly 800,000 federal workers were either furloughed or forced to work without pay. That included federal aviation workers, which led to a meltdown on Friday resulting in delayed or grounded planes in Newark International Airport, LaGuardia International Airport, and Philadelphia International Airport. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Mr Trump agreed to reopen the government on Friday amid tanking public support, with polls indicating the majority of Americans blamed him for the shutdown. The deal also came after the Senate held two major votes on Thursday to reopen the government, with two competing deals one supported by the president and he other put forward by democrats both failing to attract enough votes for the funding bill to proceed. Mr Trump and the White House have indicated they are considering alternative measures to build the wall if Congress fails to allocate funding for the presidents wall. He was, in the eyes of many, the US president who came to embody White House sleaze. But it seems even the foundation of Richard Tricky Dicky Nixon can get embarrassed by allegations of an association with arrested Trump adviser Roger Stone. After Mr Stones arrest as part of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into the Trump Campaigns possible Russia links, the Nixon Foundation has taken swift action to dissociate the disgraced 37th US president from an adviser to current incumbent Donald Trump. The foundation stated aim: Teaching new generations about the legacy and relevance of President Richard Nixon felt compelled to act after hundreds of reports referenced Mr Stones boasts about having been involved in some of the dirty tricks that led to the Watergate scandal. This mornings widely-circulated characterization of Roger Stone as a Nixon campaign aide or adviser is a gross misstatement, the foundation declared. Mr Stone was 20 years old during the re-election campaign of 1972. Mr Stone was a junior scheduler on the Nixon re-election committee, not a campaign aide or adviser. Nowhere in the Presidential Daily Diaries from 1972 to 1974 does the name Roger Stone appear. This account, however, differs from the tales told by Mr Stone, who has an image of a Nixons face tattooed on his back, and who left the courthouse on Friday giving the both-arms-raised double victory salute made famous by a president who obstructed justice, then resigned in disgrace. In the past, Mr Stone has appeared in a documentary, smoking a fat cigar as he reminisced about being named in the Watergate scandal. On his own website he posted a magazine interview which described him as a political operative, Nixon-era dirty trickster, and quoted enemies as saying he was the boastful black prince of Republican sleaze. During the 2007 interview, Mr Stone said that despite being a lowly scheduler, Nixons people used him for dirty tricks like giving money to Republican primary rival Pete McCloskey in the name of the Young Socialists Alliance, then leaking the donation receipt to the media. The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images By day he was just a junior, he told Weekly Standard writer Matt Labash. By night Im trafficking in the black arts. Donald Trump has previously praised Mr Stone for having the guts to declare that he would never testify against him. Carl Bernstein, the reporter who played a key part in exposing Watergate, has said that possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia could be even worse than the scandal that ended Nixons presidency. Mr Bernstein has also described Mr Trumps administration as "dangerous beyond any modern presidency". Mr Stone has vowed to fight the charges against him, saying he has been "falsely accused" and is "looking forward to being fully and completely vindicated". The Trump administration has announced that Elliott Abrams, who was convicted over the Iran-Contra scandal in which the Ronald Reagan administration secretly funded paramilitary groups in Nicaragua, will lead the USs efforts to press for democracy in Venezuela. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the 71-year-old would oversee Washingtons outreach, after Donald Trump declared he would recognise Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, and not elected president Nicolas Maduro, as the nations legitimate ruler. Elliott will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country, Mr Pompeo said, according to Reuters. Mr Pompeo said Mr Abrams would accompany him to the United Nations on Saturday for a Security Council meeting on Venezuela where Washington will push other countries to recognise Mr Guaido as the countrys interim head of state. So far, Canada, Britain Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and the Organisation of American States, have done so. Russia, China, El Salvador, Mexico and Turkey have said they believe Mr Maduro remains the president. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Reuters described Mr Abrams was a neoconservative who has long advocated an activist US role in the world. He last served in government in the George W Bush White House, first as a Middle East expert on the national security council and later as a global democracy strategy adviser. He was assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration and was convicted in 1991 on two misdemeanour counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal. He was later pardoned by President George HW Bush. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events For many Latin America watchers he will be associated with his denial of a 1982 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador of hundreds of civilians by the military. Mr Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote were not credible. In 1993, after a UN truth commission which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 per cent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its death-squad allies, Mr Abrams said: The administrations record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement. Meanwhile on Friday, the two men both claiming to be president of Venezuela made different appeals for support. At a press conference in Caracas, Mr Guaido urged followers to stage another mass protest next week, according to the Associated Press. They can cut a flower, but they will never keep spring from coming, said Mr Guaido, alluding to a similar phrase from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Mr Maduro spoke in the presidential palace before a room of journalists. This is nothing more than a coup detat, ordered, promoted, financed and supported by the government of the United States, he said. They intend to put a puppet government in Venezuela, destroy the state and take colonial control of the country. A male St Louis police officer has been charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly shooting a female college during a game of Russian roulette. Nathaniel Hendren, 29, shot fellow officer Katlyn Alix, 24, at an apartment in the Missouri city in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to a St Louis Police Department statement. A probable cause statement from the force, provided by St Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardners office, offered an account of the deadly game that allegedly led to her death. Ms Alix and Mr Hendren were playing with guns when the male officer produced a revolver. The defendant emptied the cylinder of the revolver and then put one cartridge back into the cylinder, the statement said. He allegedly spun the cylinder, pointed the gun away and pulled the trigger. Police officer Katlyn Alix (AP) The gun did not fire. The statement said Ms Alix took the gun, pointed it at Mr Hendren and pulled the trigger. Again, it didnt fire. Mr Hendren took the gun back and pointed it at the victim (and) pulled the trigger causing the gun to discharge, according to a police statement. The victim was struck in the chest. Another male officer present at the apartment told investigators he warned Mr Hendren and Ms Alix not to play with guns and reminded them they were police officers. He was about to leave when he heard the fatal shot. The two male officers drove Ms Alix to a hospital where she died. Both men were on duty at the time of the shooting. Police Commissioner John Hayden has declined to answer questions about why the officers had gathered at the apartment, which was home to one of the men. Ms Alix, a military veteran who was married, was a patrol officer who had graduated from the St Louis Police Academy in January 2017. She was not working at the time of her death, but had gone to the apartment to meet the men. Police immediately launched an internal investigation and placed both officers on paid leave. On Thursday the commissioner called it an accidental discharge of the weapon. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty St. Louis police said the charges announced on Friday were the result of a promise Mr Hayden made to Ms Alixs family to conduct a thorough and competent investigation. Ms Gardner, the prosecutor for state-level criminal cases, began her own investigation on Thursday and enlisted the Missouri State Highway Patrol to conduct it. Additional reporting by Associated Press He is a comedian known for his acidic put-downs and staunch anti-Trump views. But when Patton Oswalt was trolled by a Republican on Twitter, the writer and actor came up with a response more suited to a saint than a stand-up. Discovering his assailant was battling grave health problems, he donated $2,000 towards his unpaid medical bills then urged his 4.5 million followers to follow suit. The heartwarming exchange between Oswalt, an Emmy Award winner, and Michael Beatty - a 64-year-old Vietnam veteran from Huntsville, Alabama - was sparked on Thursday after the celebrity posted an unflattering poem about Donald Trump. Mr Beatty, who had just 11 followers at the time, responded by saying: I just realized why I was so happy you died in Blade Trinity!" World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty And that would have been that. I expected a scathing retort or just to be ignored, Mr Beatty told the Washington Post on Friday. Instead, Oswalt apparently read through his trolls feed, saw he needed $5,000 to cover the urgent medical costs of a recent stay in hospital for sepsis, and decided to donate. "This dude just attacked me on Twitter and I joked back but then I looked at his timeline and he's in a LOT of trouble health-wise," the 49-year-old tweeted. "I'd be pissed off too. He's been dealt some s***** cards let's deal him some good ones. Click and donate just like I'm about to." The result was that a GoFundMe page set up by Mr Beatty a diabetic who had spent eight days in a coma with his illness received $35,000 in just 24 hours. "Patton, he wrote in response. You have humbled me to the point where I can barely compose my words. You have caused me to take pause and reflect on how harmful words from my mouth could result in such an outpouring. Thank you for this and I will pass this on to my cousin who needs help. Patton Oswalt explains how his late wife's book helped to catch the Golden State Killer Describing the whole encounter in an interview on Friday, he added: After today, I tend to think Im a tempered Republican. Im having to re-evaluate some of the things Ive gone along with. The biggest thing I learned about [Oswalt] is that he is a man of character. Monica Benicio sensed something bad had happened as she waited for her partner Marielle Franco to return home on the night of her death. Benicio had called Franco a Brazilian feminist LGBT+ human rights defender she was due to marry later this year many times as she became increasingly anxious about her whereabouts. A friend came to my house to break the news, her fiancee recalls. I already knew something was wrong because I had talked to Marielle when she was in the car on the way home. I tried to talk to her, called her many times, already worried about her delay. I knew there was something wrong. The first reaction is always not to believe. I could not believe in what I was hearing. Franco was shot four times in the head on 14 March last year after leaving a public meeting in downtown Rio. Benicio, who had been in a relationship with the Rio de Janeiro councilwoman for 13 years, believes the killing was political. She lamented the fact that 10 months on from the murder, there are still no official answers about who killed her life companion. Marielles murder was well executed and the involvement of militiamen and or politicians places the Brazilian state under the spotlight, the architect and urban planner says. Brazil faces international embarrassment for being incompetent and not presenting any result for one of the most important political crimes in the countrys history. There will be no democracy while Marielles execution is unanswered. Earlier this week, it was revealed suspects in Francos murder have ties to the family of Brazils new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. The country has been swept up in a swelling scandal involving one of Bolsonaros sons, the recently elected senator Flavio Bolsonaro. Rio broadsheet newspaper O Globo linked his son with members of a Rio de Janeiro death squad called the Escritorio do Crime (The Crime Bureau). Police and prosecutors reportedly suspect members of The Crime Bureau were behind Francos murder last year. But Flavio has rejected the report, claiming he was the victim of a defamation campaign designed to hurt his father. Those who have made mistakes must be held accountable for their acts, he said in a statement. Benicio says she is very worried about the election of Jair Bolsonaro, saying the LGBT+ community is similarly anxious and homophobia is rising in the country. I cannot speak for the entire LGBTI community, especially because we are diverse in our ideas, she says. But I do believe the feeling is a widespread concern for our lives. After all, Bolsonaro has been attacking us directly for years. I worry about more bodies being victimised, about setbacks in laws and the insecurity of not being able to know the course of politics. Benicio was thrust headfirst into a state of disbelief and denial after being told that Franco had died. I could not believe it, she says. I said I wanted to go to the hospital where she was because she was going to be okay. And I was told that she had no chance of going to a hospital. I fainted at the gate and when I woke up I was inside the house and some friends and family were already there. I broke things at home because I could not understand all that pain. I just wanted to wake up from what seemed to be the worst nightmare of my life. Every night I wake up dreaming of that moment, it is hard to live with the fact that the nightmare has become my actual life. Marielle Franco and Monica Benicio The pair had met on a trip with friends when Benicio was 18 and Franco was 24 but their relationship had often found itself interrupted due to their families and friends inability to accept it. Benicio lost 11kgs in the space of just a month after Franco died, saying she stopped eating and doing anything associated with pleasure. It was not easy to see life as a place where I wanted to be, she says. It is still not. The passing of the months changes things, but the pain still hurts, and every morning it is difficult to get up. The immersion in endless militant activism is a way of feeling that I still have her beside me. Benicio was writing her Masters degree dissertation about violence in public spaces and rights in the city from the perspective of slum dwellers until the tragic night of Francos death. This has now been put on hold and she has instead thrown herself into human rights activism and justice for Franco. She says she has stopped therapy but is still taking antidepressants and tranquilisers. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Benicio says she agrees with media reports which say the murder was planned and involved politicians and security forces. She even says there are lines of investigation that confirm these involvements. As long as the culprits do not pay for what they have done, other people are at risk, she says. Only someone who thinks they are very powerful could articulate such a barbaric act and still trust that they would go unpunished. Only a politically powerful person could plot something so heinous. The police have previously said that details of the case were released as a way of protecting witnesses and relatives to ensure the success of the homicide investigation. Benicio argues it is typical for blacks, women and LGBT+ people to be murdered in Brazil and thus reduced to a grizzly statistic. Brazil has long been the world leader in overall homicides, and its murder rate is also one of the highest. More than 1,000 women were killed in hate crimes tied to their gender in 2017. Last year, research revealed violent deaths of LGBT+ people in Brazil had hit an all-time high following a sudden spike in 2017. According to LGBT+ watchdog group Grupo Gay de Bahia, at least 445 LGBT+ Brazilians died as victims of homophobia in 2017 a 30 per cent increase from 2016. I often say that even the title of parliamentarian did not protect Marielle, Benicio reflects. She was the personification of everything that this racist, sexist, LGBT-phobic state rejects. In her view, justice for Francos death is inextricably linked to denouncing the impunity of other deaths. She argues the lives Franco represented are disposable for those in power. Benicio was born and raised in the Mare complex one of Rios largest, poorest and most violent slums where Franco also grew up. Monica Benicio and Marielle Franco Franco, who became a single mother at the age of 19, dedicated her life to fighting for LGBT+ people, Afro-Brazilians and the poor to be liberated from discrimination and violence. She passionately criticised police killings in the Rio favelas where she grew up and led often dangerous campaigns against pervasive police violence, corruption and extra-judicial murders that targeted the citys poor, black dwellers. According to an Amnesty International report, of 1,275 registered cases of killings by on-duty police between 2010 and 2013, 99.5 per cent of the victims were men, 79 per cent were black and 7 per cent were between the ages of 15 and 29. Just a day before she was killed, Franco tweeted: Another murder of a young man that could be entering into the [military polices] account. Matheus Melo was leaving the church. How many more will have to die for this war to end? Latin Americas largest nation is one of the most unequal societies in the world, a place where six men possess as much wealth as half the population and where only 10 per cent of congress members are black despite the fact Brazil is majority black or mixed race. Back in 2016, Franco ran for public office for the first time as a candidate for Rios city council and was elected with a gargantuan vote. Thousands descended on the streets of Central Rio to weep and embrace the day after she died. Recommended How Jair Bolsonaro can be stopped from trashing the Amazon rainforest Bolsonaro famed for making offensive, incendiary, off-the-cuff comments about women, black people and sexual minorities won the general election in October and was sworn in as president at the beginning of this month. The leader, who has been branded the Trump of the Tropics, previously told a congresswoman she did not deserve to be raped because she was too ugly and has said the birth of his daughter had made him weaker. He has said the mistake of Brazils military dictatorship (1964-1985) was to torture, not kill left-wing activists. Benicio notes that Brazil is one of the countries that kills the greatest number of its LGBT+ population, and says she is concerned the numbers of victims of this hatred will now rise. She believes Bolsonaros declared homophobia has increased violence and discrimination against the LGBT+ community in Brazil. A mural depicting Marielle Franco (Getty) (Getty Images) There were several reports of violence during the electoral period. she says. People have taken up the streets and social media with words and actions of hatred, feeling that he makes them legitimate. Some say that if we have a closed regime they will leave. But the majority will stay. Brazil is our land and we will continue to resist. Earlier this week, Brazils first openly gay congressman said he would not serve the new term for which he was re-elected due to death threats and he now planned to live abroad. Jean Wyllys said that he hardly left his Rio home, saying the climate of violence in Brazil had worsened since the election of Bolsonaro. Benicio, who says she thinks Bolsonaros arrival will also roll back womens rights in the country, admits there is not one of his governments proposals she is not anxious about. There are no progressive proposals for human rights, labour, the environment, economy, health, education, security not one proposal that does not withdraw rights, she says. It is regrettable to see a government being founded on such retrograde agendas and with a discourse fundamentally built on hatred. Benicio says Franco would have responded to Bolsonaros election with the same indignation felt by thousands of Brazilians. None of us thought his election would be possible, she says. His candidacy was confirmed only very recently. But it is always worthwhile to remember that over 80 million people voted blank, null or for Haddad. It was not a victory. Jair Bolsonaro speaks after winning Brazil presidential elections She says she has little hope Bolsonaro will prioritise investigations into Francos death noting that he, the vice president and his party had made a number of declarations violating Marielles memory and mocking her execution. Ten months after her brutal murder, in spite of all the global attention on her case, Brazilian authorities have failed to take her killing seriously and her case remains unsolved, says Jurema Werneck, the executive director of Amnesty International Brazil. Every day that goes by without developments casts fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the investigation. Brazilian authorities must ensure a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into the tragic killing of Marielle. A terrifying precedent will be set if her murderer is not brought to justice. Thats why its so crucial that people speak out now and demand justice. We will not stand by and let human rights defenders be killed with impunity. Brazilian authorities did not respond to The Independents request for comment. Benicio casts her mind back to the last time she saw her life partner. It was at Francos office on the afternoon of her death a place they rarely went. We had lunch together in her office, she recalls. We ate the food she had prepared that morning. We stayed together, talking and making out during her lunch hour. Then she walked with me to the elevator. It was hard for us to say goodbye. The elevator operator was amused because the elevator went up and down 20 times and I didnt go in. We stood there, exchanging farewell kisses. When I finally got in the elevator to leave, she stood at the door looking at me, threw a kiss and said, I love you. This is the last image I have of her. Adolf Hitler once owned a disturbing book that catalogued the number of the Jewish residents of the United States and Canada during the Second World War, which has now been acquired by Canadas national archive. The book, published in 1944 by Heinz Kloss, a German researcher and linguist, appears to show that Nazis planned on making the Holocaust a worldwide event that spanned continents. [The book] demonstrates that the Holocaust wasnt a European event it was an event that didnt have the opportunity to spread out of Europe, Micael Kent, the curator for Library and Archives Canada, told The Guardian. The book is believed to have been a part of one of Hitlers libraries, and sorted Jewish residents of North America by language and ethnic and origin. Kloss was known for frequently working for the Third Reich, and used 1930s data to compile the book. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The book has been likened to the so-called Black Book, which Mr Kent says was a similar catalogue of British residents that was made in the event that Hitlers Germany managed to take over the United Kingdom. It shows, Mr Kent said, that the horrors of those wars were well thought and analyzed plans. I think thats part of the horrors of Word War II and the Holocaust recognizing how much intellectual effort went into work of the perpetrators, he said. The book is expected to be used by the archives for educational purposes, and to combat a recent trend toward hate speech that has been sprouting up in the US, Canada, and elsewhere. At least 10 people have been killed and around 300 are missing after a dam collapsed in eastern Brazil, in a disaster that triggered mudslides and left the surrounding area buried in mining waste. The death toll was expected to rise sharply said Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of the mining town of Brumadinho. Workers at the dam were eating lunch on Friday when the collapse occurred, burying the town in a sea of sludge. Evacuations began as the flow destroyed a nearby restaurant, cut off roads and reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco. Firefighters rescued residents with helicopters, pulling people covered in mud from the waste. Photos taken in the immediate aftermath show the rooftops of buildings above fields of sludge. Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste Show all 7 1 /7 Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste A building lays in ruins after a dam collapsed in eastern Brazil. AP Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste A road near Brumadihno is blocked by waste. AP Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste An aerial view of the burst dam in eastern Brazil. AFP/Getty Images Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste The flow of waste spread from the dam to a nearby village. AP Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste A firefighters' helicopter hovers as rescuers work in the search for victims AFP/Getty Images Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste An aerial view shows flooding triggered by a dam collapse near Brumadinho. AP Brazil dam collapse leaves town buried in waste An aerial view after a dam collapsed near Brumadinho, Brazil. AP Recovery teams on Saturday were digging through the waste as efforts continued to track down the missing. More than 100 firefighters were at the scene, with another 200 expected to arrive. "I've never seen anything like it," said Josiele Rosa Silva Tomas, president of Brumadinho resident's association. It was horrible ... the amount of mud that took over." "Unfortunately, at this point, the chances of finding survivors are minimal. We're likely to just be rescuing bodies," said Romeu Zema, governor of the mining-intensive state of Minas Gerais where the disaster struck. The collapse of the dam which is owned by Vale SA, Brazil's largest mining company comes just three years after another dam administered by the company and Australian mining firm BHP Billiton burst in 2015 in the city of Mariana, burying a village and pouring toxic waste into a river. Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said he did not know what caused the latest collapse. He said that the burst dam, located at the Feijao iron mine, was being decommissioned and that equipment had shown the dam was stable on 10 January. Two hours after the accident, Vale's stock fell by 10 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange. Many local residents were waiting for news of loved ones who had been working near the dam. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underscored a lack of regulation. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events "[The latest spill] is a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies responsible for the tragedy with Samarco dam, in Mariana, also controlled by Vale," Greenpeace said in a statement. "History repeats itself," tweeted Marina Silva, a former environmental minister and three-time presidential candidate. "It's unacceptable that government and mining companies haven't learned anything." Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is expected to tour the area by helicopter on Saturday. He campaigned on promises to jump-start Brazil's economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Additional reporting by agencies The European Parliaments Brexit spokesman has said that both big British parties have put political interests ahead of the national good. Guy Verhofstadt said that in his Belgian homeland a majority committee would have been formed to break the Brexit impasse. It comes after Theresa May was criticised for not being prepared to compromise on her red lines in recent cross-party talks, while Jeremy Corbyn came under attack for refusing to take part in the talks at all. On Tuesday parliament will vote on whether to adopt any of the alternative approaches to Brexit that have been put forward by groups of cross-party MPs. But it in an interview with LEcho newspaper, Mr Verhofstadt said: The question is whether an agreement can be settled between the two major parties, Labour and the Conservatives. Still, this situation is the result of British politics. Elsewhere, in Belgium for example, a joint majority opposition committee would have set itself up to make a decision in the countrys interest. At the moment, it seems that the interest of British parties is more important than that of their country. That said, last Monday, Theresa May partially opened the door, for the first time, during her speech to the British parliament. Jeremy Corbyn too. In a statement after winning her vote of confidence last week, Ms May said she would begin talks with leaders in both politics and wider society in a bid to find a Brexit compromise. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters But she was criticised for going into the talks maintaining the principles with which she entered the broader Brexit negotiations, including staying out of a customs union and scrapping freedom of movement. Mr Corbyn said he would not take part at all until Ms May ruled out the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, something she has refused to do since taking office. Proposals likely to be put to a vote on Tuesday include one that would extend Article 50 and one to give parliament power over the commons schedule instead of the executive, while another aiming for a second referendum was dropped due to a lack of support. There appeared to be hope for Ms May to receive backing from rebels and her DUP partners in government under an amendment tabled by Sir Graham Brady that would approve the deal she has negotiated with Brussels as long as the Irish backstop was replaced. Multiple Conservative Party donors are reportedly witholding money from the organisation because of their dismay at Theresa Mays Brexit strategy. They join numerous public figures criticising the prime ministers leadership, a list which also includes her own MPs, opposition party politicians and European Union leaders. The Midlands Industrial Council, a group of 33 members who collectively donated 5m before the 2017 general election, is among the donors refusing to provide funds, according to The Daily Telegraph. On Tuesday, Ms May will navigate a series of votes in parliament, during which MPs hope to end the Brexit deadlock. But with the Commons divided over the best way to leave the EU, a snap general election remains a possibility and a shortage of funds would prove a significant disadvantage to the Tories. A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Show all 65 1 /65 A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit An estimated 700,000 people marched through London to demand a final say on the withdrawal agreement Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Red smoke from a canister hangs in the air as around 100,000 demonstrators march through London during a People's Vote anti-brexit demonstration savings banners and placards Anti-Brexit People's Vote March for the Future in London Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Mayor of London Sadiq Khan takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Protesters wearing final Say shirts and holding placards Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit MP Chuka Umunna (left) and MP Vince Cable (right) as MP Anna Soubry (centre) addresses Anti-Brexit campaigners at a rally after the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A Peoples Vote march attendee calls for a Final Say Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators with banners 'We're with EU' during the People's Vote March for the Future in London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Protesters at Londons march for the future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Editor of The Independent Christian Broughton speaks to demonstrators in Parliament Sqaure after they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A poster at the March for the Future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 campaigner wrapped in EU flag Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators pass Trafalgar Square as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators wave Union and European flags and hold up placards as they pass Trafalgar Square, taking part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A demonstrator holds a message during a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators take part in the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A protester brandishes an Independent t-shirt during the Brexit March Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Tens of thousands of people take part in People's Vote March for the Future in central London. The march organised by the People's Vote campaign is led by young people calling for a People's Vote on the Brexit deal Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA Dwindling donations are now causing concern within the party, which has sent out two fundraising emails appealing for money in the past 10 days. CCHQs role is to campaign and win elections to keep Conservatives in local and national government, a Conservative Party source told The Independent. Part of that work involves campaign planning and fundraising all of which continues as usual. Several donors are also planning to skip next months Black and White Ball, one of the most lavish fundraising events of the political year. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In past years attendees have paid thousands of pounds for lots at the balls fundraising auction, including for shoe shopping with Theresa May and an Iron Man endeavour with Iain Duncan Smith. But the 2019 event is expected to be a more muted affair. People have turned away in disgust, said one Tory donor, who criticised the party for spending money on promoting Mays deal. Once May has gone, the donations will resume. Plans to allow new parent MPs to nominate a colleague to vote on their behalf could be extended to the seriously ill and bereaved under a new Commons bid. Tory MP Philip Davies has tabled several amendments to plans to allow proxy voting in parliament, which he said must also cover the sick and grieving, as well as women who have suffered a miscarriage and carers of those who are seriously ill. But the move has sparked a parliamentary row, with Labours Jess Phillips accusing him of trying to hinder the rollout of the one-year proxy voting pilot announced by Commons leader Andrea Leadsom on Thursday. Mr Davies has gained a reputation in parliament for blocking legislation, using protracted speeches to filibuster bills on issues such as offering free hospital parking for carers and first-aid training in schools. Proxy voting could be allowed within days if it is backed by MPs on Monday, and aims to prevent politicians from being forced to bring new babies through the division lobbies. Recommended Pregnant MPs to be allowed to vote by proxy imminently It follows an outcry after Labours Tulip Siddiq opted to delay the birth of her child by caesarean section to ensure she could vote down Theresa Mays Brexit deal. The Hampstead and Kilburn MP said she defied doctors advice because she did not trust the current system, after Tory chair Brandon Lewis accidentally broke a pact with new mother Jo Swinson in a knife-edge Brexit vote last year. The prime minister is known to be supportive of the plans, with one cabinet source warning Conservative colleagues against opposing it. The source said: This is something the prime minister has personally advocated for and is supportive of, so that would be acting against the express view of the PM and the party on this. Ms Phillips, the campaigning Labour MP, has pledged to make a misery of the lives of anyone who opposes proxy voting based on their patriarchal, paternalistic, draconian and old-fashioned sensibilities. She accused Mr Davies of putting down amendments as an excuse for not supporting the proposals. Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Show all 11 1 /11 Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray (left) and a pro-Brexit protester argue as they demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A pro-Brexit protester argues Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police surround the pro-Brexit protester after he confronted Steve Bray, a pro-European protester Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A leave supporter is spoken to by a police officer as he argues with a remain supporter, Steve Bray, outside Parliament PA Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament MPs in Parliament are to vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal next week after her December vote was called off in the face of a major defeat Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A leave supporter is spoken to by a police officer PA Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police look on as anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament. Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police hold back a leave supporter PA Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament A police officer speaks with anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Police surround a pro-Brexit protester after he confronted a pro-European protester Getty Images Police separate clashing Brexit protesters outside Parliament Conservative MP David Davies, wearing a gopro camera, speaks to anti-Brexit protester Steve Bray Getty Images He has never tried to fight for sick MPs before, unless Im mistaken he hasnt asked or pushed for this before, or laid any amendments, she told The Independent. He is, in my opinion, looking for a way to block it while looking reasonable. Id have more respect of he owned his objection. Mr Davies said he was not attempting to block the motion but to make the proxy voting system fairer. The Shipley MP said: I dont think if you were on your deathbed then you are less deserving of a proxy vote. Im not sure why one is more important than the other. Ive also put forward an amendment to extend proxy voting to people who have had a miscarriage, I am not particularly sure why somebody who has suffered a miscarriage would be less deserving of a vote than a new parent. The current system for parental leave is informal and organised by the political parties, where whips make pairing arrangements so an MP from a rival party does not vote along with the absent politician. The campaign for proxy voting has been led by senior Labour MP Harriet Harman. This is a small step into the 21st century which is long overdue, she said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Women MPs who fought to get into parliament dont want to be excused they want to exercise that vote. We dont want tiny babies to have to be brought in to the division lobbies for these important Brexit votes, nor is it acceptable for women to be excluded from voting. It sets a terrible example that the babies of men in parliament are invisible and now thats not what men MPs want either. The pilot will be based on a blueprint created by the cross-party Commons procedure committee. The full details will need to be signed off by the speaker and the political parties. Theresa May appears to have a new hope of getting a positive result on Tuesday, when MPs will begin what once for her seemed like a potentially career-ending round of votes on Brexit. After the devastating defeat of her proposed withdrawal agreement, when more than 100 of her own MPs defied her, it now seems like she may get a majority for an approach that could revive that plan the operative word is most certainly could. This last shot of adrenalin for her deal, bringing it back from the brink of oblivion even if just for a moment, comes in the form of what is now being called the Brady amendment. Cabinet unity has been stretched to its limits as Theresa May prepares for another critical round of Commons votes, with her ministers splitting over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Justice secretary David Gauke said no deal would be disastrous and indicated he would quit his job if the PM took that route, but Brexiteer Andrea Leadsom insisted it was still on the cards. On Tuesday Ms May will navigate a series of votes in parliament during which MPs will attempt to wrestle control of the Brexit process from her. But on Saturday it appeared she may actually win a majority for a more supportive motion from a leading Conservative backbencher, which would see the party back her deal as long as the Irish backstop is renegotiated. Asked if he believed it would be pretty disastrous for the UK to leave the EU without a deal, Mr Gauke told the BBC: Yes, I do. He went on: What I have said repeatedly is if there is a conscious choice, right, thats it, were going no deal, when there are other options available, that would be something I would find extremely difficult. And, given the requirements of collective responsibility, then, obviously, Id have to consider my position. Pressed on whether he backed MPs being given a free vote on extending Article 50 when alternatives to the governments Brexit plans are debated on Tuesday, Mr Gauke said: I think there is a case for free votes in this area to resolve things. Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Show all 20 1 /20 Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Brexit supporters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester adjusts her pro-EU wig AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A message to Jeremy Corbyn in support of a peoples vote Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A mock Titanic captained by Theresa May heads towards an iceberg in a stunt by campaigning group Avaaz AP Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters outside parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides are in close contact outside of parliament PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Paintings of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester in Parliament Square Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Opposing protesters share the space outside parliament Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester holds EU balloons outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters stand on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at the protests outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate outside the Houses of Parliament EPA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A pro-Brexit protester sets up outside parliament Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An Avaaz campaigner holds a Peoples Vote life float Reuters Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament A demonstrator holds a sign advocating a no-deal Brexit outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament An anti-Brexit protester waves an EU flag on Westminster Bridge PA Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides demonstrate outside parliament AFP/Getty Brexit deal vote: Opposing groups of protesters gather by parliament Protesters of opposing sides stand near parliament Reuters Chancellor Philip Hammond also declined to rule out quitting his post if the UK goes through with a no-deal Brexit. Mr Hammond said it would cause significant disruption and damage to the economy, and that it went against what Leave voters had been told before the 2016 referendum. But Commons leader Ms Leadsom stressed the need for cabinet unity behind Ms Mays stated position on a no-deal Brexit, while speaking on BBC2s Newsnight. She said: Im totally aligned to the prime minister. I believe that is where collective responsibility should lie. So number one, the legal default is we leave the EU on 29 March without a deal unless there is a deal is in place. That hasnt changed. That is the prime ministers view and thats my view. Proposals likely to be put to a vote on Tuesday include one that would extend Article 50 and one to give parliament power over the Commons schedule instead of the executive, while another aiming for a second referendum was dropped due to a lack of support. There appeared to be hope for Ms May to receive backing from rebels and her DUP partners in government under an amendment tabled by Sir Graham Brady that would approve the deal she has negotiated with Brussels as long as the Irish backstop was replaced. Pedrosa, 45, and her parents dashed to their car and drove to the highest point in the neighborhood. "If we had gone down the other direction, we would have died," Pedrosa said, adding that she had a feeling "that this was the end of my life." Brexit could be delayed by a couple of weeks in order to get crucial legislation through the Commons, a senior minister has said. Andrea Leadsom has become the first of Theresa May's top MPs to publicly acknowledge Britain may have to extend the process of leaving the European Union. The prominent Brexiteer insisted it would be "feasible" to remain in the bloc for a short time after the scheduled exit date of 29 March. We can get the legislation through. And in particular I think we do, in spite of everything, have a very strong relationship with our EU friends and neighbours and I'm absolutely certain that if we needed a couple of extra weeks or something, that that would be feasible, Ms Leadsom told BBC2's Newsnight. The leader of the House of Commons made the claim as Westminster remained deadlocked in the wake of Ms Mays historic defeat on her Brexit deal. Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Show all 16 1 /16 Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Britain Before Brexit: Greater London West Croydon A police vans speed and siren bring people to shop windows, keen to watch the drama of the public space, curious to know if a crime has been committed and lining up like townsfolk in a western movie Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Trafalgar Square Morning light illuminates a typical scene outside the National Gallery. Everyone interacts with a phone, held in hands and gazed at, or held in the hands of others and posed for. The figure in the background is on another level, an exception, an anomaly Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London East Croydon A dispute about shoplifting outside a stores entrance, conducted in French, revolving around a gold watch Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Bank The Chinese flag hangs over the centre of British finance, its red blush bringing luck to the morning. St Pauls Cathedral occupies the blue distance Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Bond Street Three pairs of legs and feet in different states, playing different roles in the heart of British commerce: one clothed, striding purposefully; another of white plastic, made to model and convince; the last barefoot, not standing Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Upton Park Plastic bags dress naked trees, only partially, flaying in the wind, torn and damp, leaving most of the branches exposed, like black cracks spreading across thin ice, across the tower block of civilisation Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Westminster A pro-Brexit protester walks past the Houses of Parliament and the anti-Brexit protesters camped opposite. Both have appropriated the Union Jack, claim to be acting in the national interest and to be patriotic. Caught in between are child and mother, who photographs the home of democracy, or herself Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Islington A new tube map is put up outside the station, hands reaching high, stretching upwards, as if in worship of the security camera, in awe of surveillance itself, one of Londons most valued currencies Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Tooting Broadway A huge bingo hall hidden away from the high street, populated sparsely by a few players. Theres so much concentration and focus. I cant decide if theyre there to play, to win, to hide, to escape, or to kill time Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London The Mall Horses are tourist attractions in certain parts of London, especially when theyre dressed in military regal attire and carrying a soldier or a guard. Tourists pose alongside them for selfies and generic holiday snaps, which when taken daily in their millions, re-enforce a global image of London as a hub of ceremonial pomp and ritual Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Tooting Bec An anonymous critique of an adverts imagery, wheeling out the age-old distinction between lust and love, sex and companionship, surface and interior, shallowness and depth, superficial and real Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Wandsworth A declaration of the existence of community is damaged and broken. A sign portraying strength and solidarity looks weak and sad and lonely when it begins to crumble and fall apart Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Buckingham Palace I watch a lineup of paparazzi photographers outside the palace. They wait to pounce upon blacked out windows concealing guests to the Queens Christmas lunch. They appear bored and unenthusiastic, as if photography were for them but a chore that flashes light on celebrity faces Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London St Pauls The city is reflected by its values: a relentless list of imperative commands to become something else, some better version, upgraded; a message that says we need to acquire to improve; a hard-hitting reminder of your inadequacy and incompleteness Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Colliers Wood A laundrette on the peripheries, zone 3, where a man sits below another London Piccadilly Circus with its giddy movements and interactions, its colours and vibrancy, where life is shaken up and spun, as if in one of the washing machines below, rotating and loud, everything inside blurred Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain Before Brexit: Greater London Uxbridge A building site concealed with an image of what will be. A common way to cover up the messy process of (de)construction. The housing development claims to be affecting time and space, moving people into new places and better futures, fundamentally altering their existence Richard Morgan/The Independent "I think we would want to think carefully about it. But as things stand, I do feel that we can get, with the support of both Houses, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with goodwill and a determination, we can still get the legislation through in time, she said. Ms Leadsom also called for cabinet unity, insisting Britain could still leave the EU without a deal at the end of March. "I'm totally aligned to the prime minister. I believe that is where collective responsibility should lie. The comments come as Philip Hammond refused to rule out resigning if Ms May decides to pursue a no-deal Brexit. Asked repeatedly whether he would continue on as chancellor under that scenario, Mr Hammond told the Today programme: Im not going to speculate because a lot depends on the circumstances, what happens. The responsibility I have is to manage the economy in what is the best interests of the British people. Pressure has been mounting on the prime minister, as Amber Rudd also hinted she could resign from the front bench to prevent Ms May from crashing the UK out with no-deal. During a BBC Newsnight interview, Ms Rudd was asked three times whether she would quit the cabinet. She said: At this stage Im going to stick to trying to persuade the government to allow it to be a free vote. There is a lot taking place and there are a lot of new amendments. Well have to wait and see. Additional reporting by agencies Rates of self-harm among children in custody have soared by 37 per cent in three years, fuelling concerns that there is a lack of support for vulnerable people in the youth justice system. An analysis of government figures shows there were 108 incidents of self-harm for every 100 young people in custodial settings which include those in young offenders institutions (YOIs), secure training centres (STCs) and secure childrens homes in 2016-17, compared with 79 per 100 in 2013-14. The rise was particularly stark in STCs and secure childrens homes, which accommodate young offenders aged between 12 and 17 who are deemed to be the most vulnerable. Self-harm incidents increased by 159 per cent, from 306 to 794, despite the number of youths in these facilities falling by 32 per cent, from 390 to 267. Campaigners said the rise could be attributed to a shortfall in mental health support in youth custodial settings, as well as austerity cuts to children's services in the community. Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon said the figures were deeply troubling. "Far too many children are being sent to custody when what they really need is help and support, including for their mental health," he said. "The state has a special responsibility for children in its custody and this situation cannot be allowed to continue. Recent Ofsted reports have raised concerns about self-harm in STCs, with one citing a lack of detail and rigour in practices in measuring young offenders mental health, and another noting there is not enough account of trends in behaviour which could lead to self-harm. The Independent reported a year ago that children in custody were facing a significant shortfall in mental health provision as a result of reduced services in STCs, with some given no access to psychology services and having to wait more than half a year for treatment. Carolyne Willow, director of childrens rights charity Article 39, described the rise as appalling but not surprising, saying it was inextricably linked to the waning support for disadvantaged children in the community, which she attributed largely to austerity. She cited a report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) this week which warned that more children in the community were being exposed to neglect and abuse as local authorities struggle to meet demand. Ms Willow said: The wider critique of how austerity is impacting on children in the community needs to be applied to those who end up in custody, because here we consistently see extreme forms of unmet need. Its appalling that so many children are in the most serious way showing that theyre profoundly distressed and in need of adult help, but they are locked alone in cells for up to 22 or 23 hours a day. Prison is no place for children. They need to be in a completely different environment where they have skilled and supported professionals who can meet their needs. Andy Bell, deputy chief executive of the Centre for Mental Health, said the figures could be explained in part by the fact that because the youth custody population had been reduced from 3,000 in 2010 to approximately 1,000 today the levels of vulnerability were higher than ever. There are thankfully fewer children in custody now than there used to be, but now we need to ensure that we take the opportunity of a vulnerable child being in a secure setting to provide them with the most effective support possible and prioritise their safety and wellbeing," he said. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: The number of children entering the youth justice system continues to decline and as a result a higher number of those in custody have complex needs and might be prone to self-harm. We have responded to this by putting 300 frontline staff through degree-level specialist training and have employed additional psychologists and support staff for the most vulnerable children to ensure they feel safe and supported. Alaa Akad knows she is one of the lucky ones. The 40-year-old woman in a headscarf and winter coat sits across the table at the Kreuzberger Himmel, a restaurant in Yorckstrasse in West Berlin. She explains that many wives and children never make it out of Syria, where conflict has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced 6 million. Akads husband left their home in Damascus first and travelled over land and sea to Europe. He later sent for his wife and their young son. Akad had an office job in her hometown, but in Germany she has found work working for Kreuzberger Himmel as a pastry chef. The job has given her security, but also a connection to a community of people with similar experiences and the support of a team of volunteers, she explains. She apologises for her English, explaining it has got worse since she has been learning German. It is her son who has really excelled at German and at school, she says. It is on him they pin their hopes. McDonalds has apologised after customers reported finding meat in vegetarian meals across the UK. The fast-food chain launched its spicy veggie wrap earlier this month. Its supposed to contain red pesto, a vegetarian goujon, relish, tomato, lettuce and red onion, but Twitter users have been posting photos of the wraps appearing to contain chicken nuggets. I ordered a spicy veggie wrap from one of your stores and thanks to the sheer incompetency of some of your staff Ive been given chicken, wrote one person. Ive been veggie my whole life and this has literally put me in tears as I ingested part of this wrap thinking it was veggie. Another user made the same complaint a few days later, uploading a video that showed a Spicy Veggie One wrap in its corresponding packaging that also appeared to contain chicken. McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Show all 24 1 /24 McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay JD Wetherspoon, McDonald's and TGI Fridays stage walkouts in a pay dispute Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Strikers want to highlight the issue of poverty pay and insecure working in the UK hospitality industry. Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay The hospitality sector employs around 4.5 million people ten per cent of the UKs working population. But its workers have not traditionally organised to demand better pay and conditions, making the current strike significant, despite its small scale Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay A growing movement of low-paid workers, particularly in the fast-food industry, has come together over recent years, catalysed by the Fight for $15 campaign in the US Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay A McDonalds spokesperson said the company was disappointed to hear about planned UK strikes and said the numbers of people involved represented an extremely small proportion of its 120,000 workforce. Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay This is against a backdrop of more people choosing to join our business, with more than 1,000 new managers recruited in the past year. Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Shadow chancellor John McDonnell backed the action and reiterated Labour's plan to give all workers a living wage of 10 an hour. "I am giving my support to the striking workers in Wetherspoons, TGI Fridays and McDonald's today," he said. "These are workers that have been ignored by their employers and are simply asking for a wage they can live on and the same basic rights at work we should all be entitled to." Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Wetherspoon spokesperson Eddie Gershon said rates of pay at the pub chain were increasing as they are in the economy generally. We are also moving to the same rate for 18-21s as we already have for over 21s from 5 November 2018, he said. In addition, we are putting up the rate of pay. In the last financial year we paid record monthly bonuses and free shares of 43 million, equivalent to about 50 per cent of our net profits. Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou McDonald's, Wetherspoons and TGIs workers strike over pay Angela Christofilou Hi @McDonalds just ordered the veggie wrap from your store in Byker, turns out you gave me chicken!!!!!! they wrote. This is disgraceful Im fuming was so looking forward to this!!! Im a strict vegetarian and just took a mouthful of chicken, thanks a lot. According to numerous reports on Twitter, this has been happening across the UK since the wrap launched. Rebecca Butcher, 21, told BBC Newsbeat that shed heard about the issue prior to buying a veggie wrap on 22 January, but was disgusted to find that it did indeed have chicken in it. I gave it a bit of time so it hopefully wouldnt happen to me, she said. I was kind of shocked that weeks later, theyre still getting it wrong. A McDonalds spokesperson acknowledged that it was not acceptable to serve meat when a vegetarian product had been ordered. Recommended Asian fast food restaurant Jollibee is coming to London The spokesperson said: We would like to apologise to any customer who has experienced this. We would also like to reassure that we have a number of procedures in place to avoid inaccurate orders, and that, after we saw that mistakes were being made, we introduced a number of additional measures in our kitchens and communicated with all stores to reduce inaccuracies quickly and effectively. This action has led to an increase in order accuracy and a reduction in contact from our customers, however we are disappointed that mistakes are still being made. We never want to disappoint customers, and any inaccuracy is not good enough. We would encourage anyone with any concerns to contact our customer services team. I am still over the moon in a negative way about the fact that when the City Council learned there was an alderman who was wearing a wire, they basically said, Snitches get stitches, McCarthy said. Street thuggery code is what it is. At the end of the day, that infects everything that happens in city government. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation2@journalnet.com for help creating one. Community Information If you would like to submit an upcoming event or community announcement, please contact our staff at 208-232-4161 or send an email to cjohnson@journalnet.com. We will also accept news from local clubs and engagement, wedding and anniversary announcements. You can post your community or club events on our calendar. Obituaries Submit an obituary/notice All obituaries must be placed by your mortuary or onlineDeadline is 3 p.m. for publication the next day. The ISJ is not responsible for spelling, grammar, or basic mistakes. Green was wearing a pink- and gold-colored shiny coat, black stretch pants and short black boots, police said. She is 5-foot-5, weighs about 195 pounds, has black eyes and wears her hair, black with red highlights, in braids. We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email circulation@idahopress.com for help creating one. Q&A With Megadeths Dave Mustaine Recent news that Slayer will be packing it in after this year's tour has metal fans getting nostalgic. In an effort to get a feel for where other pioneers of metal are at, Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine sat down to chat about where the band is headed and the state of metal's Big Four. _____________________________ Guest post by William Glanz of SoundExchange When Slayer announced January 22 that it plans to hang it up after this years tour, we began to get a bit nostalgic and wonder about the future of metals Big Four Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica. With Slayer packing it in, will the others retire, too? We reached out to the musicians who helped make the metal genre what it is today and asked what they thought of Slayers announcement and what their own plans include. Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine was the first to get on the phone with us. Speaking from his home outside of Nashville, Tenn., Mustaine talked about Slayers announcement, Megadeths 35-year anniversary, the bands current lineup and whether another Big Four concert will happen. Mustaine whose band has sold more than 38 million albums, earned 12 GRAMMY nominations and won a GRAMMY also mentioned that Thrashville, the management company he runs with his son, has signed metal bands Diamond Head and Dead Label. And hes still promoting A Tout le Monde, a Belgian-style saison beer made by Canadian brewer Unibroue that bears the name of a Megadeth single. SoundExchange:Slayer plans to retire from touring, so were wondering if the rest of the Big Four will retire. Does Megadeth have plans to do anything other than to continue recording and touring? Mustaine: You mean like open a theme park? SoundExchange: Do you plan to keep on going? Mustaine: For now, Im completely healthy, and the band just came off a successful campaign. Were all getting along really well, musically and personally. I dont see any reason to think about [retirement] right now, unless someone gets burnt out or gets hurt. I dont really want to go through another lineup change at this point in my life. Its going to be super hard to replace any of these three guys. Not just as musicians. Im not going to be doing this when Im as old as the Stones, but if you dont look like you should be on life support, then flaunt it. SoundExchange: So, youre loving the current lineup? Mustaine: Lets hope that its the last lineup. And loving them in a very platonic, agape kind of way, sure. We are really, really close. Ive had up and downs with [David] Ellefson over the years but were getting along great right now. Dave has his own stuff that he does. We all are really excited. Kiko [Loureiro] and I are getting together in the next couple of weeks to start writing. When the time is right, well bring Dirk [Verbeuren] in. Once we have all the songs ready to go well bring David Ellefson out and see what hes got up his sleeve. SoundExchange: Talk about the bands incredible milestone. Megadeth will celebrate its 35th anniversary this year. Did you have any idea that you would still be at it 35 years later? Mustaine: I didnt think Id make it to 35 years old, so this is a surprise for me. A pleasant surprise. If you do life right, youre going to mellow in your old age and find that theres a lot more good in the world than bad. Theres a stupid saying that life is like a roll of toilet paper it speeds up at the end. Its getting faster right now for some weird reason. A week seems like a couple of days. I am worried about that because I have so much left that I want to do, but Ive had a great life. SoundExchange: Can the Big Four pull off another concert before Slayer retires from touring, and would you support another Big Four concert? Mustaine: Thats not up to me. Everybody on the planet knows thats up to Lars Ulrich because Lars runs Metallica and they are the ones that are in control of this, which doesnt seem fair since the moniker [the Big Four] suggests that were equal. If they say no, then theres no Big Four show. I think the guys in Slayer and Anthrax and my guys are dedicated enough to the metal community that if there was a Big Four show we would do it, even if there was a prior commitment, because I think everybody would understand these are momentous concerts. Any one Big Four show, to a metal fan, [is like] Woodstock to rock fans of the 70s. Its where they celebrate life, meet people and fall in love and do all that great stuff that happens when people get together. SoundExchange: And reconnect, because its been a few years since the last Big Four concert. Mustaine: Right. Its been a long time, and if they dont do it I would love to do something with Slayer just out of deference, out of respect for them as people, what they stand for and what theyve done for our community. There will never be another Slayer. SoundExchange: Do you think there are any rising metal bands that will fill the void left behind by Slayers retirement? Mustaine: No. Never. There will be bands that will be influenced by Slayer. That will sound like Slayer. But there will never be another Slayer because Tom [Araya] is one of a kind. So is Kerry [King]. There are dark bands lots of bands that talk about murderers and war and the occult and the dark side. But no one is really as prolific as Tom. SoundExchange: Is there anyone in the industry no matter what genre theyre in that you would like to collaborate with? Mustaine: The person who immediately comes to mind is Jimmy Page, because he is one of my heroes. I would have loved to work with [AC/DC guitarist] Malcolm [Young, who passed away in November 2017]. SoundExchange: Do you have a vision of what your next album will look like? Mustaine: Sure my vision I see theres a bar and I see that Im running towards it, and I have to jump pretty high to get over it, but thats my intention. I think we can do as good as Dystopia again, and Im hoping we can better it. When you make a new record you always think its the greatest thing youve ever done, and then you get a few records down the road and youre like that was such a dumb idea. You go through ups and downs. Its cyclical. The music business is finicky. I remember when Countdown to Extinction came out [in 1992], and we could do no wrong. Then I said one thing on MTV. I mixed up two songs I was introducing. One was supposed to be aired on TV, and the next one was off-camera. It wasnt going to be aired. I accidently flipped them. Done. Done. I saw this white-haired congressman talking a couple of days ago who said its not about winning all the time. Its about finishing with integrity. I thought theres a guy who has his priorities in order. Share on: As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Then we can make more of a clear statement as to what we believe should be done, Hunter said. But, just off the cuff, I believe the sentence (the judge) gave was wrong. It was wrong, and we have to get this right because the world is watching. Certainly, three years is not a sentence that matches the crime that happened. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. A free chance to win $1 million or more in lottery Free tickets to sporting events A paid day off work I'm anti-vax and think incentives are a distraction Vote View Results Mohammad Amad pulled the first truck over at 10:16 p.m. Thursday, a red pickup with a defective headlamp. Amad, a member of the Harris County Sheriffs Offices DWI task force, spoke briefly with the driver, then waved him on his way. No scent of alcohol. Hes just getting off work, Amad said, tapping a few notes on his computer before heading back into the hunt. Lights from patrol cars illuminated Texas 249 like a string of Christmas decorations as deputies and police worked similar traffic stops Thursday and Friday night. This marked the first operation of a local task force created in response to last years Houston Chronicle investigation, Out of Control, which found that the Houston region is home to the nations most dangerous roads. More than 600 motorists, passengers and pedestrians die every year in traffic collisions often caused by drivers who are speeding, driving while intoxicated or distracted and often on poorly designed roads. GRIM RANKING: Houston's roads, drivers are nation's most deadly The Chronicles investigation found a lack of a comprehensive strategy to fight the thousands of serious traffic crashes that plague the region, devastate families and cost countless dollars every year. In some cases, local authorities reduced enforcement even as traffic fatalities rose. In the wake of the investigation, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez called for the formation of a regional task force to better patrol roads. Sheriffs officials said their goal is to crack down on traffic violations and unsafe driving in the hopes of preventing serious crashes. Saturating the area also makes drivers more aware and more likely to tap their brakes. We want to make sure were visible, and not just performing spot enforcement, Gonzalez said. And make it more sustainable. Shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday, more than 30 officers and deputies from the sheriffs office, the Houston Police Department, the Department of Public Safety, and constables offices 1 and 8 blanketed a 10-mile stretch of TX 249 from Interstate 45 to its intersection with FM 1960 in Willowbrook. IMPAIRED: Houston is 'ground zero' for drunken and drugged drivers The highway, which snakes 26 miles through northwest Harris County to Pinehurst, has weathered 42 fatal crashes over the last five years, according to Texas Department of Transportation data. Houston Police Traffic Enforcement Division Cmdr. Kenneth Campbell said the high number of officers working in tandem which was more than six times the size of the sheriffs offices DWI Task force yielded better results. We covered a very large portion of 249 because we had so many different units and were hitting so many different places, Campbell said. Having the extra resources there proved to be very effective. On Thursday night, officers tried to pull over a driver in a blue Mustang who fled from Houston into unincorporated Harris County, he said. Task force officers responded to a crash miles away, only to find the Mustang. The driver had been speeding and overshot a turn, hopping a sidewalk and plowing dozens of yards across a grassy field before finally stopping. The task force officers recognized the vehicle and detained the driver. By the end of the night, the army of officers had made dozens of stops. Some were for minor offenses: defective headlights, or expired registration. In some cases, they were able to drive off with a brief chat and a warning. PLANNING: In Houston's traffic carnage, design makes a difference Others got stopped for speeding or weaving in and out of their lanes after too many drinks. Deputies pulled over a wrong-way driver who confessed to drinking five Coronas before getting behind the wheel to head home. They arrested another driver for unlawfully carrying a weapon. Over the two days, task force officers made 406 traffic stops, issued 263 written warnings, wrote 297 tickets and made 38 arrests 23 for drunk driving and 15 for other crimes. Thats a good two days, said DPS Sgt. Erik Burse. Youre taking DWI drivers off the road, capturing people wanted by the state of Texas. Thats what a task force wants to do. Gonzalez said he hoped local law enforcement would find ways to have a visible, continued presence. We have to make sure we build on this momentum so that everyone feels safer driving their families on our roads every day, he said. Not just during these short term initiatives. Authorities hope to run similar efforts monthly. The Houston Police Department plans to lead one in February, and the Harris County Precinct 8 Constables Office is planning one in southeast Harris County in March, specifically focused on drunk-driving enforcement. Kara Macek of the Washington D.C.-based Governors Highway Safety Association said efforts like the task forces recent initiative are key to making drivers more aware of their behavior and getting them to slow down. LIKE 'FROGGER': Walking, cycling in Houston region can be risky Law enforcement is absolutely critical to change behavior, she said. Weve seen this with drunk driving, with effective campaigns like Click-it or Ticket The more we can get law enforcement engaged, the better. But Macek and criminal justice reform advocates said the region would have to take additional steps to reduce the death toll across greater Houston. We need to do more and think more strategically about prioritizing safety over getting cars from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible, Macek said. We need to think about getting people from Point A to Point B as safely as possible. Franklin Bynum, a newly elected misdemeanor jurist, said improving street design and increasing access to public transit across the region would be more effective than issuing citations and clogging the court system with more cases. EYES ON THE ROAD: Houstonians driven to distraction We live in a city of unsafe streets, that requires people to drive around, he said. If you engineer safer streets if you build transit, and give people options to get around even when drinking thats something that youre reaping the benefits of every day. Around 2 a.m., after helping arrest the wrong-way driver, Amad returned to Texas 249, driving south. It was closing time, and many impaired motorists would be hitting the road. Church is over, he joked. Theyll be on their way home. Moments later, a white Toyota Highlander barreled toward him, traveling 15 miles above the speed limit. Amad revved his engine, spun around and headed off in pursuit. Staff writer Dug Begley contributed to this story. st.john.smith@chron.com NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. The threat of state takeover has loomed over Houston ISD for months, largely due to chronically low-rated schools and mounting frustration with its much-criticized school board. Now, another factor could give state leaders more reason to pull the trigger: a new investigation into potential violations of open meetings laws by five trustees last year. Its far too soon to tell whether state investigators will dig up any dirt on the five board members, but the fallout from the disclosure of the investigation is leading to speculation about what sanctions could befall the states largest school district. The worst-case scenario for those who want HISD to remain under local control: investigators find extensive wrongdoing that provides cover for Gov. Greg Abbotts administration to wrest jurisdiction over the board. Im inclined to think this gives them the opportunity to really seize the public discourse, said Jasmine Jenkins, executive director of Houstonians for Great Public School, a nonprofit that monitors HISDs governance practices. Part of the problem about the governor taking over is that its politically unpopular. Its easier to do that if you remind the public how dysfunctional the board is. The Texas Education Agency officials notified the district last week they are investigating whether five trustees broke open meetings laws in October 2018 prior to an unexpected 5-4 vote to oust Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan and replace her with former district superintendent Abelardo Saavedra. Several elected officials and community members have alleged the five board members illegally coordinated before the motion to replace Lathan, which caught some trustees off-guard. The five trustees Diana Davila, Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca, Sergio Lira, Elizabeth Santos and Anne Sung have denied wrongdoing or not responded to requests for comment following disclosure of the investigation on Tuesday. Two trustees, Davila and Lira, have said they communicated with one other trustee prior to the vote, but argued their conduct did not violate any laws. Saavedra has said he communicated with all five trustees individually before the motion, though he did not meet with them as a group. Saavedra backed out of the job three days after the vote, and trustees subsequently reinstated Lathan. Davila, who has said she initiated first contact among the trustees with Saavedra, has pledged full cooperation with the investigation. Its transparent. There are some individuals that have made some opinionated allegations throughout the three years Ive served on this board, Davila said. Cant stay silent Texas law requires that deliberations between school board members about public business or public policy subject to a vote must occur at public meetings. State investigators likely will seek evidence of a walking quorum, a term used to describe a deliberate effort to privately communicate as a group. A special accreditation investigation allows Texas Education Agency staff members to obtain documents and interview witnesses to determine whether school officials violated laws or threatened a districts welfare. If investigators find one-time or minor missteps by HISD trustees, TEA officials could mandate relatively light sanctions, such as additional training on open records laws. However, more egregious or systemic wrongdoing could allow TEA to lower the districts accreditation, opening the district to a wide array of escalating sanctions. Given that HISD already is monitored by a state-appointed conservator one of the most severe interventions at the TEAs disposal some district onlookers fear a state takeover of the districts board could be next. Trustee Jolanda Jones, who has called for state and criminal investigations into her five fellow board members, said she believes the inquiry very well could be the cause for us getting taken over. It was one of the hardest decisions Ive had to make, to ask for an investigation from an agency I dont even respect, said Jones, an ardent critic of the TEA and supporter of Lathan. That bothers me, but I cant stay silent and turn a blind eye. Politically perilous Abbott blasted HISDs leadership earlier this month in a tweet, calling it a disaster and declaring that if ever there was a school board that needs to be taken over and reformed, its HISD. However, Abbotts education commissioner, Mike Morath, has had the option to replace Houstons school board since September 2017 due to the conservators continued presence in the district without taking that step. Abbott has declined to discuss the HISD board, but Jenkins said such a move carries risk for the governor. State takeovers generally have not produced dramatic turnarounds in school districts, and the optics of such a move Abbott, a white Republican, taking control of a Democrat-run, predominantly black and Hispanic district are politically perilous, she said. I think (Abbott) is just trying to avoid it at all costs, Jenkins said. However, governance dysfunction is actually cause for a takeover, and theres no ability to remove specific trustees. If state investigators find no wrongdoing or issue relatively minor sanctions, HISD still faces a possible state takeover of the school board if any one of four long-struggling schools fails to meet state academic standard when results are released in August. TEA officials have not released a timeline for the investigation. jacob.carpenter@chron.com "I said they have the responsibility to assess what they need and to bring in the leadership they think can deliver on that," Walker said in a telephone interview Friday evening. President Donald Trump should be commended for agreeing to end the federal government shutdown that began last month. But Americans should praise Trump judiciously, even if his ego demands that we do so effusively. After all, it was Trumps decision to shut down the federal government in the first place and he hasnt ruled out the possibility of doing so again. He announced Friday afternoon that he is prepared to sign a short-term spending measure to fund the government for the next three weeks. On HoustonChronicle.com: Border security debates should be grounded in reality Thats progress. There is a humanitarian crisis on Americas southern border, as well as a number of legitimate security concerns. But the shutdown plunged thousands of Americans into crisis too. As of Friday, some 800,000 federal workers had gone 35 days without their regular paycheck. For all too many Americans, a blow like that isnt easy to absorb. At the Northeast Community Center, Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia partnered with the Houston Food Bank to stage a drive-thru food fair for the hundreds of federal workers who live in Precinct 2, which abuts Houston Hobby Airport and includes the Port of Houston and NASAs Johnson Space Center. County workers put together care packages, including a variety of staples green beans, carrots, grapefruits, noodles, dried beans, meat and apple juice. I want to make sure that we are doing our part to make sure that people have all the support possible, whether its a natural disaster or a political disaster, said Garcia, the former sheriff who was elected as a Harris County commissioner in last years midterm election. On HoustonChronicle.com: Gloves provided: Unpaid workers at NASA's Houston center asked to clean toilets during shutdown I asked the Democrat if he blamed Trump for this protracted mess. Look, he is the president, Garcia said, And that title does not come with a diminishing amount of responsibility. Trump had said in December said that he would be proud to shut down the government to secure funding for his border wall. But Garcia didnt even mention that. His criticism was that Trump had not taken advantage of the opportunity to play a productive role in ending the shutdown. As a country, we all have a share of the blame in terms of national leadership, but he is the president, Garcia said, and he can be the one to offer the leadership to get us through this. He was hoping Trump would set aside his zero-sum approach to negotiations with Democrats. On HoustonChronicle.com: When populism roils politics, voters still care about bread-and-butter issues Compromises are what they are. No side wins. But you get something done, Garcia said. In his speech later that day, Trump offered an approximation of leadership. He acknowledged the hardship that federal workers endured over the past five weeks, and expressed a desire to work with Congress to develop a border security plan that makes sense. The president also claimed, however, that he had never demanded funding for a contiguous physical barrier across the entire southern border, which stretches over some 2,000 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Trump also suggested that if Democrats dont give him what he wants, he may shut down the government again or declare a national emergency to get his hands on the funding he seeks. As everyone knows, I have a powerful alternative, but I didnt want to use it at this time, Trump said. Hopefully it will be unnecessary, he added. On HoustonChronicle.com: Presidential powers are limited and an emergency declaration is not a blank check I hope that the president has taken a few lessons to heart over the past 35 days. In the future, for example, Trump should avoid picking fights with Congressional leaders unless he has a clear exit strategy especially now that the House is led by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He should remember that theres no guarantee that Democrats will come to support the border wall over the next three weeks. In fact, they may well become more skeptical, after discussing the subject with their Republican colleagues. Trumps correct to say that Democrats recognize the need for physical barriers, such as fencing, on the southern border. Those barriers already exist in sectors where such barriers make sense. Thats been the case for over a decade. Hundreds of miles of fencing were built after the passage of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Most of all, though, I hope Trump reflects on the strain his shutdown caused hundreds of thousands of Americans, who are not to blame for the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. but who are still paying the price for it. CARACAS, Venezuela - President Nicolas Maduro faced increasing international pressure on Saturday, as European governments threatened to recognize his chief opponent as Venezuela's leader unless a plan for new elections is announced within eight days. The statements from Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Britain came as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressed the United Nations to throw its support behind Juan Guaido, the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, who declared himself president on Wednesday. The United States and most Latin American countries have recognized Guaido as interim leader in recent days, after Maduro was sworn in for a second term following elections riddled with fraud. But Russia, China and others have defended Maduro. Guaido's actions have represented the most significant challenge yet to Maduro, whose socialist policies have contributed to an economic meltdown in this oil-rich country. "After banning opposition candidates, ballot box stuffing and counting irregularities in a deeply flawed election it is clear Nicolas Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela," Jeremy Hunt, Britain's foreign minister, tweeted Saturday. Maduro responded to the U.S. recognition of Guaido on Wednesday by severing relations and giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. Pompeo, however, declared that Maduro's orders were no longer legitimate and that the embassy would remain open. As the deadline approached on Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Caracas appeared to still be functioning. There was no sign of any unusual Venezuelan security presence at the massive, reinforced-concrete building in the Andean foothills. A convoy of official vehicles rolled out of the embassy a day earlier, as the State Department withdrew non-emergency personnel and diplomats' families from the country. More staff were expected to depart on Saturday and Sunday. Diplomats and analysts said they could not recall a similar standoff involving U.S. diplomats. In his appearance Saturday at the U.N. Security Council, Pompeo warned the Venezuelan government again not to harm the American personnel in Caracas. "I want to be 100 percent clear - President [Donald] Trump and I fully expect that our diplomats will continue to receive protections provided under the Vienna Convention," he said. "Do not test the United States on our resolve to protect our own people." Some of Europe's most influential countries told Maduro on Saturday that if he did not call elections in eight days, they would recognize Guaido as interim president. They included Germany, Britain, Spain, France and the Netherlands, which has a naval presence at its island territories off Venezuela's coast. European Union members met Saturday to discuss the Venezuela crisis and issued a statement calling for "the urgent holding of free, transparent and credible presidential elections." The statement hinted that the entire 28-nation body could recognize Guaido if Maduro didn't announce elections soon, but didn't specify a deadline. Still, the action was an escalation by the EU, whose members have differed on how tough to be on the Venezuelan leader. Guaido celebrated the European statements, telling a rally in a south Caracas park: "We have the EU support. They took a firm step toward our fight for democracy." Maduro has labeled Guaido's actions as part of a coup attempt and insisted as recently as Friday that American diplomats had to depart the country within the 72-hour timetable. He has ordered Venezuelan diplomats to shut down his country's embassy in Washington. It was unclear Saturday how many personnel remained at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. A memo from the embassy obtained by The Washington Post in recent days said that 124 Americans, including 46 family members, were under its authority as of Thursday night. About 47, 500 U.S. citizens live in the country, most of them dual Venezuelan-American citizens. Retired diplomats said that Maduro could respond to the U.S. defiance of his removal order in any number of ways -- including a military assault, which they said was unlikely. More probable, they said, was a siege of the facility, or an attack by pro-government mobs. Already, Maduro allies have threatened to cut off power to the facility. Patrick Kennedy, the former U.S. undersecretary of state for management, said that the 95,000-square-foot embassy was built to withstand an assault by a mob -or worse. While rioters could perhaps scale the walls and burn vehicles or some of the outer buildings, the main structures "are built of solid concrete, and glass you can beat on, and doors you can beat on with sledgehammers," he said. "They are not going to give." Kennedy said that, while he did not have inside knowledge of the current situation, an embassy that was facing a potential siege would probably have moved diplomats from their homes into the main building on the diplomatic compound. The Caracas embassy has stockpiles of food, water and diesel to run generators in case the power is cut. Keeping the embassy open offers symbolic support to Guaido and could enable U.S. diplomats to keep in closer touch with Venezuelan officials and activists. Diplomats could probably survive there for months if necessary, according to former officials. However, said Kennedy, eventually "you reach a tipping point, where the risk cannot be mitigated sufficiently in comparison to what we're still getting out of it." - - - Sheridan reported from Mexico City. The Washington Post's Rachelle Krygier in Miami, Andreina Elena Aponte in Caracas, Michael Birnbaum in Brussels, Anthony Faiola in Rio de Janeiro and John Hudson and Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report. Before he became linked to the shocking creation of the worlds first gene-edited babies, Rice University professor Michael Deem was probably best known for the development of a mathematical model to improve the flu vaccine. But that same year, he published little-noticed research that would turn out to be more influential: a 2010 study describing how a strange cluster of DNA sequences in bacteria acts as a sort of immune system to repel infections, the latest in the then-hot new field in molecular genetics. This research is teaching us things we could havent have imagined just a few years ago, but theres an applied interest in this work as well, Deem said in a Rice news release. Its believed, for instance, that the bacterial immune system uses a process to silence disease genes it recognizes, and biotechnology companies may find it useful to develop this as a tool for silencing particular genes. He Jiankui, Deems co-author on the paper and then a Rice graduate student, would go on to apply related techniques. In China in November, He announced the birth of twin girls whose DNA hed altered as embryos to help them resist infection with the HIV/AIDS virus. The bombshell declaration outraged the international scientific community because of concerns the DNA changes would be passed to future generations and could cause harm. This week, He was fired from Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, in the wake of an investigation that seemed to confirm his claim about the girls. The future is still uncertain for Deem, whose seeming involvement in the work is under investigation by Rice. The Associated Press, which broke the story, wrote that Deem worked with He on the project and quoted him on a few aspects, such as the consent parents gave and how the editing works like a vaccine. RELATED: Chinese scientist and Houston professor claim to have created first gene-edited babies The new spotlight is unfamiliar turf to the previously under-the-radar Deem, a bioengineering and physics professor who colleagues describe as brilliant, ambitious and bold. His interests range from the pursuit of a Newtons laws of biology and the identification of materials for natural gas cars to the detection of a subtle electrocardiogram signal that might predict a heart attack. Whether he ever received any training in human subjects research is another matter. Reaction from colleagues I believe Michael Deem to be a person of integrity, do not believe he would knowingly do something dishonest or unethical, said Ariel Fernandez, a former Rice professor now based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. If he was indeed involved in this huge scientific miscarriage in a substantive way, Id have to assume he was unaware of the ethical complexities associated with (gene editing), Fernandez said. Kirsten Matthews, a fellow in Rices Baker Institute who co-authored a policy paper with Deem on the flu vaccine research, added that he seems very much the engineering/physicist type a problem solver focused on how to fix things. Im not sure he saw societal implications. Deem, who has not spoken publicly since talking to the AP, declined Chronicle interview requests through his lawyers. He previously didnt respond to a Chronicle phone call and email. Rices administration also declined to comment. The university issued a statement in November saying Rice had no knowledge of the work and that the work as described in press reports violates scientific conduct guidelines. The statement called the work inconsistent with ethical norms of the scientific community and Rice University. A one of a kind scientist Deems interest in science dates back to his public high school days in New Jersey, where he competed in state competitions in biology, chemistry and physics. I really enjoyed those, even coming in 1st in physics one year, he told the Biological Physicist in 2009. Deem would go on to be much decorated and accomplished. A graduate of the California Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard, he received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and MIT recognition as a Top Innovator Under 35 as a UCLA professor in the 1990s. And after coming to Rice in 2002, he received the Academy of Science, Medicine and Engineering of Texas ODonnell Award. Hes on 15 U.S. patents and eight international ones. It is Deems breadth that most stands out. He holds two professorships at Rice one in biochemical and genetic engineering and one in physics and astronomy and hes also the founding director of a university program in synthetic and physical biology. Hes trained in statistical mechanics, an abstract basic science that deals with the collective behavior of large ensembles. His interests include evolution, immunology, materials science, computer modeling, vaccine development and genetic engineering, according to his Rice lab website. Only a very smart person with extreme confidence in his abilities and an extreme drive to succeed would dare to be as bold as Deem, said Fernandez. He surely wants to leave his mark as a scientist. But Fernandez and others say the extremely interdisciplinary nature of Deems work can be a handicap, hard to assess unless the person judging has a similarly broad background and interests. Also, scientists typically make their mark because of the depth of their work, not the breadth, they noted. Fernandez says Deem is one of a kind, maybe a genius, but some may say he still needs to be discovered. Theres a perception that we havent yet seen the home run we would expect given his potential. Colleagues add that though Deems research is first-rate, it doesnt help that it is typically published in journals considered fairly middle of the road, not high-impact ones. Hes currently unfunded by the National Institutes of Health, the gold standard for biomedical research. His last NIH grant ended in 2014. Still, his forte is the lab. The Rice Thresher, the student newspaper, reported he hasnt taught an undergraduate class since fall 2013 and said student reviews from that class characterized him as extremely smart but a poor instructor, a great researcher forced into a teaching role. In fall 2007, Deem hit it off with He, then new to the Rice campus from China. The 2010 publication of three significant papers by the two prompted Rices media relations office to put out a news release entitled Hes on a hot streak in which He said he looks forward to making the move from theoretical work in Deems lab to experimental work in immunology. Jiankui is a very high-impact student, Deem said in the news release. He has done a fantastic job here at Rice, and I am sure he will be highly successful in his career. The 2010 Deem-He papers included one that applied evolutionary biology statistical techniques to trade data to show that the world economy is more sensitive to recessionary shocks and recovers more slowly than 40 years ago because of globalization; the mathematical flu model work, which predicts which strain will become dominant in a given season; and the gene-editing one, which describes how natural selection and evolution influence the way bacteria acquire immunity from diseases. Fernandez says the gene-editing in China was very much inspired and based on that last research. Conflicting reports APs reporting of Deems involvement in the gene-edited baby work in China stunned colleagues at Rice, partly because Deem is a theoretician who doesnt maintain a wet lab where chemicals and drugs are tested. The online publication Stat reported that the day story broke, Deem was accompanied into his students office area by Rices vice provost for research, and grad students and post-docs were told to turn over their files and research records as part of the university investigation. Deems lawyers in December denied any involvement by Deem, issuing a statement that Michael does not do human research and he did not do human research on this project. DEEM DEFENSE: Lawyers say Rice professor not involved in controversial gene-edited babies research AP responded that it stood by its story, noting a reporter interviewed Deem. To questions about whether the work might have been a hoax, Deem told the AP, Of course the work occurred. I met the parents. I was there for the informed consent of the parents. He said he absolutely thought they were able to understand the risks. The AP, which reported that Deem holds a small stake in Hes two companies and sits on the scientific advisory boards of both, also wrote that the Rice professor defended Hes actions, noting the research team did earlier experiments on animals. We have multiple generations of animals that were genetically edited and produced viable offspring, and a lot of research on unintended effects on other genes, said Deem. In addition, Deem was listed as a collaborator on Hes website, which on Friday could not be accessed. In all, the two have eight publications together, including one in 2017 on sequencing a virus genome. That doesnt include a He paper on gene editing human embryos that lists Deem as a co-author that Stat last month reported was rejected by an international journal days before news broke about the gene-edited babies in China. Two people familiar with the peer-review process told Stat that the journal, which was not named in the story, cited ethical and scientific concerns raised by independent scientists. The paper, which describes altering a gene involved in an inherited disorder that leads to premature cardiovascular disease, did not report a pregnancy. Rice officials this week gave no timetable for when they hope to wrap up the investigation. Todd Ackerman can be reached at todd.ackerman@chron.com or on Twitter @chronmed With tortillas replacing the venerable slice of white bread as the go-to accompaniment for a typical three-meat plate at your favorite neighborhood barbecue joint, the fusion of craft barbecue with Tex-Mex traditions is becoming even more prominent. Now those tortillas are being put to good use as the foundation for the latest trendy menu item: tacos. Of course, whats old is new again. Tacos have long been a tradition in Tejano barbecue, specifically related to the preparation of barbacoa, which is made from beef cheeks and other cuts from the head of a steer. Veras Backyard Bar-B-Que in Brownsville still makes barbacoa the old-fashioned way by cooking whole steer heads in below-ground coal pits. Arguably, the original barbecue taco of Houston can be found at Gerardos Drive-in on Patton. The cachete (cheek) tacos with onions, cilantro and house-made green sauce are a local classic. More recently, craft-barbecue joints have gotten into the taco game. Inspired by the success of Valentinas Tex-Mex BBQ in Austin, many have added tacos to the menu. Killens Barbecue in Pearland added a menu section of Tex-Mex barbecue favorites that became so successful it inspired owner Ronnie Killen to open an entirely new restaurant called Killens TMX that combines barbecue, Tex-Mex and traditional Mexican cuisine. Love the smell of wood smoke in the morning? Join J.C. Reid, Alison Cook and Greg Morago as they discuss barbecue culture with special guests by subscribing to the Chronicle's BBQ State of Mind podcast on Apple's Podcasts, or visit houstonchronicle.com/ bbqpodcast. See More Collapse The Pit Room in Montrose has become famous for its suite of three tacos brisket, pulled pork or shredded chicken on house-made, brisket-fat-infused flour tortillas. Tejas Chocolate & Barbecue in Tomball is known for its Taco Tuesday offering a beef cheek taco with onions, cilantro and fresh pico de gallo on a flour tortilla. More recently, its added a chile relleno sausage that turns the Mexican dish of a stuffed poblano pepper into a classic Tex-Mex-inspired barbecue offering. And if youre looking for a quick Tex-Mex barbecue fix in the morning, hit the drive-thru at any Pappas Bar-B-Q location where the barbecue breakfast tacos are tasty, filling and inexpensive. Beyond the occasional Tex-Mex item added to a traditional menu, a new generation of Houston barbecue entrepreneurs is basing the entire menu on a Tex-Mex barbecue model. John and Veronica Avila of El Burro & the Bull restaurant in downtowns Conservatory food hall were one of the first to incorporate Tex-Mex into a philosophy of Texas barbecue they call Smoked Texana. John is a son of Houstons East End, and Veronica hails from El Paso. John was one of the first employees at internationally renowned Franklin Barbecue in Austin, where he learned the ins and outs of Central Texas-style craft barbecue. He also takes inspiration from his time growing up at his grandfathers business, A.C. Saenz Tamales and BBQ, in Bryan. The Avilas describe their menu as combining the best of German smokehouses and Mexican ranchers. The success of establishments including Valentinas in Austin, 2M Smokehouse in San Antonio and El Burro & the Bull is inspiring even more Tex-Mex-inspired barbecue outlets. Local pitmaster Eduardo Eddie Ortiz and family of Eddie Os BBQ now serve every weekend at D&T Drive Inn in the greater Heights. Other Tex-Mex-inspired pop-ups and trailers include JQs Tex Mex BBQ and Rays Texas Smoke Barbecue (check their Facebook pages for dates and locations). Its all certainly a welcome and natural evolution of Texas barbecue. jcreid@jcreidtx.com twitter.com/jcreidtx Kanye West and Jay-Z's relationship these days is kind of complicated. Although they've both shared their issues with each, they've insisted they're still family throughout it all. Unfortunately, when money comes into play, family is usually secondary. According to TMZ, Kanye West is taking Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records and EMI Publishing to court over money he claims he's owed. Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images Kanye West reportedly filed two lawsuits earlier today against his former label and EMI Publishing. Kanye claims he signed an exclusive deal with Roc-A-Fella. Although the suit is heavily redacted, he's demanding the money he's owed. He's also requesting the declaration of rights over a dispute he's having. His suit against EMI April Music simply claims they owe him over a music dispute. The rapper claims he signed a contract with EMI in 2003, a year before his debut album College Dropout was released. He claims that by the end of 2011, he had written, both individually and with other writers, more than 200 track with the rights of those songs going to EMI. The lawsuit didn't specify which songs he was referring to, but the publication claims it's some of his most influential and successful tracks. The suit documents are redacted, but it did reveal that Kanye's wants the judge to help him declare his rights under the contract which is likely for money. At 1 p.m., a 65-year-old man was shot in the 5900 block of South Indiana Avenue in the Washington Park neighborhood. Two assailants shot him in the back after he refused to let them inside his home, police said. He was taken in serious condition to the University of Chicago Medical Center. Click here to find out where to get a COVID-19 vaccine or test. To find out how many local residents have been vaccinated for COVID-19, click here. Use the map to find numbers for individual counties. Find detailed statistics about COVID-19 tests, cases and deaths by county and for the state as a whole on the Indiana State Department of Health's online dashboard. Lima, OH (45805) Today Partly cloudy. Risk of scattered storms. Isolated strong to severe storms. High 84F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms before midnight. Low 68F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Copyright 2019 at Sun Newspapers/ APG Media of East Central Minnesota. Digital dissemination of this content without prior written consent is a violation of federal law and may be subject to legal action. My heart went out to the TSA workers, Barbara said Friday, shortly before the announcement that the government would be reopened for three weeks while negotiations proceeded. They're so low-paid to begin with, and now, to be forced to work without pay it's appalling. I wanted to help them at least a bit and to show them that the public cares. Erin Weller and Keaton Hilby are shown moments after he went down on one knee to propose to Erin at Angels Landing, one of the most scenic cl Women and children walk miles each day in search for water in a crowded, downtrodden district of Pakistans financial capital, Karachi a scene repeated in cities throughout the country. Across the border in India, government research indicates about three-quarters of people dont have drinking water at home and 70 % of the countrys water is contaminated. A man fills containers with water in Karachi. Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg (Bloomberg) As rivers and taps run dry, water has the potential to become a major flash point between arch-rivals India and Pakistan. Both have repeatedly accused each other of violating the World Bank-brokered 1960s Indus Waters Treaty that ensures shared management of the six rivers crossing between the two neighbors, which have fought three major wars in the past 71 years. The latest dispute is over hydroelectric projects India is building along the Chenab River that Pakistan says violate the treaty and will impact its water supply. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is sending inspectors to visit the site on Jan. 27. Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi who faces elections in the next few months has vowed to proceed with construction, and it remains unclear how the impasse will be resolved. Under the Indus Water Treaty, India has exclusive rights to three Indus basin rivers, including the Ravi, which has virtually disappeared on the Pakistani side. Pakistani and Indian officials said Wednesday they would consider resuming direct talks over water sharing after the World Bank halted a process to arbitrate a longstanding dispute over two Indian hydroelectric projects. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary) (AP) Tensions over water will undoubtedly intensify and put the Indus Waters Treaty which to this point has helped ensure that they have never fought a war over water to its greatest test, Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington said by email. The prospect of two nuclear-armed rivals becoming enmeshed in increasing tensions over a critical resource like water is unsettling and poses highly troubling implications for security in South Asia and the world on the whole, he said. Water tankers in Karachi. Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg (Bloomberg) For now, relations between India and Pakistan appear to be stable, and even looking more positive. Khans six-month-old Pakistani government has sought to mend ties with India, and has said the countrys powerful military supports those efforts a notion greeted with skepticism in New Delhi. Still, all sides see the long-term risks of a conflict over water: Khan himself is attempting to raise $17 billion via the worlds largest crowd fund for the construction of two large dams, one of which would be built in the disputed territory of Kashmir. In a region thats home to about a quarter of the worlds population, failure to manage water shortages could be catastrophic. People bathe with water from a pipe leakage. Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg (Bloomberg) Any future war that happens will be on these issues, Major General Asif Ghafoor, Pakistans military spokesman, told reporters last year, referring to water issues. We need to give it a lot of attention. The most serious threat to the water agreement of late followed a terrorist attack on an Indian army camp in September 2016, when Modi stated that blood and water and cannot flow together and vowed to review the treaty. If Modi is re-elected theres a possibility that water may become a tool to try bring Pakistan to heel, said Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research and the director of research at the School of International Water Cooperation at Uppsala University in Sweden. Many south asian cities will face extreme water shortage by 2040. (Bloomberg) He may not do something immediately after resuming power but if relations with Pakistan deteriorate, by 2020-21, its a possibility, Swain said. And although Pakistans new political leaders are aware the two dams being built by India are only one part its problem, a water conflict with India can be a good way to hide their own mismanagement.Indias Ministry of Water spokesman Sudhir Pandey didnt respond to phone calls, while Pakistans Commissioner for Indus Waters Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah was unavailable to comment. Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are among the worlds eight most water stressed countries. Waiting for hours or going days without water supply is the new normal in some crowded South Asian cities. The Indus river, one of Asias longest that originates in the Tibetan Plateau and flows into the Arabian sea near Karachi, has shriveled to a shadow of its former self. Water scarcity has led to regular protests in cities from Shimla in India to Lahore in Pakistan. Most South Asian nations are heavily dependent on agriculture that consumes the majority of fresh water supply. Rice and sugarcane are grown by flooding the entire area with more than four feet of water. About 60 percent of households in India rely on agriculture while about half of Pakistans labor force is employed by the industry. South Asia has a water crisis, said Pervaiz Amir, a regional expert for the Stockholm-based Global Water Partnership, pointing to the cities of Karachi and Indias capital, New Delhi. You immediately start a ripple effect, first it is poverty that will increase. In the southern areas of Pakistan, extremism and terrorism will increase. Global agencies have made dire predictions that Pakistan despite having the worlds largest glaciers will face mass water scarcity by 2025. Already availability per capita has dropped by a third since 1991 to 1,017 cubic meters, according to the International Monetary Fund. In most areas of Karachi flowing piped water is a rarity and its more than 15 million residents receive less than half of their daily needs. Even when it is supplied in the densely populated district of Lyari it only reaches a handful of houses through a leaking line that passes through mounds of garbage and leaves it smelling of sewage. When water comes, women come from far, far away to fill water, said 30-year-old fisherman Abdul Qadir, pointing out dilapidated pipelines in Lyaris Khadda Market area. There is a line of more than 200 people here. Last year a judicial report showed that 91 % of Karachis water was unsafe to drink. Pakistans poorest urban dwellers have access to only 10 liters per capita just one fifth of the requirement, according to James Wescoat, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The World Economic Forum rates the water crisis as the biggest risk in Pakistan, with terrorist attacks third on the list. Waseem Akhtar, Karachis mayor, told Bloomberg the city needs to fix widespread leakages and theft, but funding is scarce. Neighboring Indias water demand is projected to be twice the available supply by 2030 and will lead to a six percent loss in the countrys economic growth by 2050, according to the New Delhi-based government think-tank NITI Aayog. While a solution will need regional cooperation, theres been little coordination between India and Pakistan apart from their decades-old river-sharing agreement. Still, officials on both sides of the border recognize they need to act with urgency. We have a near crisis, said S. Massod Hussain, chairman of Indias central water commission. We need better management of our water resources. For more than two centuries, the New England Journal of Medicine has been the go-to destination for blockbuster pharmaceutical trials, debates about health policy and practice-changing medical findings. Its most popular feature, however, isnt any of those things. The venerable publication has occasionally gone viral because of medical images like the ones that were being debated by its top editors earlier this year, in preparation for coming print issues and its website. Wow, thats weird. Thats really weird. If somebody walked in with that, that wouldnt be your first diagnosis. Thats too extreme. Next. In the journals offices atop Harvard Universitys medical library outside Boston, the editors gather every two weeks to pick through a dozen finalists from the hundreds of submissions that have flooded in from around the globe. Part medical mystery, part curiosity, they offer glimpses of conditions most doctors may never see, or particularly compelling images of ones they see every day. There was the boy with the mysterious whistling cough, who had swallowed an actual whistle that lodged in his lungs. (It happens all the time, said Jeffrey Drazen, the journals bespectacled editor in chief.) Theres a patient who inhaled barium during a medical procedure, instead of swallowing it. The liquid coated the delicate branches of his lungs, lighting up an X-ray like a Christmas tree. (Its just gorgeous, said Chana Sacks, the journals images editor.) A motorcycle accident, where the top of the victims femur snapped and kinetically relocated in his scrotum. (You have to relearn the anatomy of how the hip joint is connected, Sacks said. The article became the journals most-viewed image of all time.) There was one we published a year or two ago, a scope where theyre pulling a worm out. And literally the worm is across the room, how big this tapeworm is. That makes everybody cringe, said Sacks. Having said that, theres an interesting teaching point of, do you need to get it out all the time? (Please, yes.) The Snakebite There are a few ways to get published by the journal, a nonprofit with an acceptance rate similar to Harvards undergraduate school. For most physicians and researchers, it takes a breakthrough in science or a landmark medical trial that will be scrutinized by doctors and investors. Being accepted can mark the highlight of an academic career. The images section offers doctors a different way in. Some photos are beautiful. Gross is fine, if its educational or at least interesting. Nobody needs to see another Really Big Tumor. This section is about things that you see, and a good physician has to be a good observer, said Drazen, who wore a bow-tie patterned with the journals red and white seal. Its all part of this education: what are normal variants of the body, and what are ones that teach you more? And then, of course, there is what may be the journals most legendary image. It is titled A Viper Bite, and there is no way to describe it delicately. The photo was submitted by Tajamul Hussain, a doctor in India. His patient, a 46-year-old farmer, was out in a field when he had to relieve himself. Unbeknownst to the farmer, a Levantine viper, Macrovipera lebetina, was hiding nearby. He unzipped his pants and was one can assume, based on the location of the fang marks at the ready, when the serpent struck. The journal published a photo of the injury head-on. The farmer lived. The picture lived in infamy. A Chest Cough Many of the New England Journals photos now go online, where theyre available for free and can gain the periodical an audience far beyond its claimed readership of 600,000. Gavitt Woodard, a cardiothoracic surgery fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, submitted the photograph that has become the sections latest viral hit. One of her patients had coughed up a huge blood clot. She unfolded the blob, splayed it out on a piece of surgical cloth, and saw a perfect cast of the inside of the patients right lung. Its been insane. Its not why I published it obviously, but I probably have 50 emails from news outlets, Woodard said by phone as she drove home after a day in the operating room. Woodard has degrees from Stanford and Harvard universities, and has credits on almost two dozen academic papers. This one, however, holds a special place. At some point, Woodard said, Ill probably frame it and put it on the wall. The headquarters of regulator European Medicines Agency (EMA) has become the first casualty of Brexit: it closed its doors for the final time in Londons Canary Wharf on Friday to relocate to Amsterdam, as the Westminster impasse continues. The agency that evaluates medicines needs to be located in a country within the European Union. The United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, with or without an agreement on life beyond Brexit. The EMA said in a tweet on Friday: Today, EMA staff lowered the 28 EU flags and symbolically said goodbye to their London offices. Guido Rasi (executive director) expressed his thanks to the UK for its contribution to the work of the Agency and for having been a gracious host of EMA since 1995. Jeremy Farrar, director of the biomedical research charity organisation Wellcome Trust, tweeted that it was a very sad day for the UK and a great day for the Netherlands, while Labour member of the European parliament Claude Moraes said he was disappointed. Simon Fraser, vice-chair of think-tank Chatham House and a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, told The Guardian: Losing the European Medicines Agency HQ is a significant loss for London and for the UK. Its ironic that the wisest show this year was one that was shackled with a phenomenally blunt title: Sex Education. True, its still early days, and soon itll have to defend its throne in an arena that is rapidly running out of room, but part of the reason the show succeeded was its distractingly basic title. Sex Education injected this subversive streak in each of its main characters - from the repressed lead, Otis, to the misunderstood bully, Adam. These were characters who appeared to have been disguised under decades of genre tropes, but as they shed their layers, they were revealed to be frighteningly real human beings. And in Maeve Wiley, the show created one of the strongest modern heroines in recent memory. An early episode has a fittingly direct scene that perfectly captures the shows fondness for genre tropes, and the rebellious teenage quality that makes it want to upend them. What are you into? the handsome jock asks Maeve, who has successfully fostered a too-cool-for-school aura that makes her all the more attractive to simple-minded dudes. Complex female characters, comes her smug reply, sending a shock wave through her suitor. Not quite the lip-biting reply hed anticipated, one that sent him down a path he - being a man - wasnt quite familiar with. The path of self doubt. Sex Education has settled comfortably into the same space that the terrific British teen show, Skins, had occupied for many years about a decade ago. Like Sex Education, its title - Skins could be a reference to rolling paper or condoms, or more intelligently, a reference to the superficial lens through which adults view teenage - was meant to inspire thought. Skins was perhaps one of the first shows of the Golden Age of TV to present empathetically written, well-rounded female characters, a trend that has fortunately been encouraged by the empowerment of female writers and directors. This week, this new wave of enlightenment has arrived on our shores. Amazon Prime Videos Four More Shots Please, like so many shows like it, aims to portray modern, city-dwelling women as they are. And keeping with the trend, it boasts a devastatingly dumb title. Being neither a woman nor particularly funny, I understand that there will be more qualified persons to talk about these issues, and there is a danger of coming across as a know-it-all on matters that I have little idea about. But I understand TV, and so it is with only the best intentions that I list my favourite female-driven television of recent years. And because were taking off from Sex Education and Four More Shots Please, Im going to restrict this to comedies, and not dramas such as Big Little Lies and The Handmaids Tale. Girls Perhaps the closest cousin to Four More Shots..., Lena Dunhams generation-defining HBO series transcended its rather restrictive title and had the courage to suggest that girls can be just as aggravatingly self-centred as men. In fact, for a show called Girls, its most relatable characters were the guys, whod often find themselves in messy situations of the central foursomes making. From offering blazing insight into female bonding - the characters shared everything from body grooming sessions to boyfriends - to capturing its characters in their most vulnerable moments - dealing with unwanted pregnancies and unresponsive parents - Girls is mandatory viewing. Fleabag Of the many renegade women creators working in television these days, few are quite as talented as Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Her breakout show, Fleabag, tells the story of a young, working woman navigating life in London. From launching into uncomfortably frank (and hilarious) takes on periods, to having the flat-out manic imagination of making its heroine begin touching herself to the sounds of Barack Obama making a rousing speech (while a man lies unwanted and unused in bed next to her!), Fleabag is confrontational comedy at its best. Broad City Surprisingly, sitcoms are a terrific breeding ground for strong female characters, despite the obvious constraints of their form. From Parks & Recreations Leslie Knope to The Good Places Eleanor, modern sitcoms prove that 20 minutes is often perfectly adequate time to tell honest stories. Broad City is a particularly loony example of a show that doesnt gloss over certain traits of its characters. Abbi and Ilana can be positively insufferable at times, but thats what makes them and their painful desperation so relatable. Bonus points for matching Parks & Recs Michelle Obama cameo by bringing Hillary Clinton to the party. Chewing Gum Starring the supremely talented Micaela Coel as a repressed young girl, raised under the restrictions of a strict religious household, Chewing Gum is a surprisingly insightful comedy that isnt afraid to talk about serious issues like body image and sexual identity. Raised by Wolves Created and written by one of the most prominent feminist voices of our generation, Caitlin Moran, Raised by Wolves was a semi-autobiographical telling of her own childhood in Wolverhampton. The short-lived shows greatest success was balancing a bright young cast of teenage girls and their equally well-written mother - a fiercely independent woman played by Rebekah Staton. Its a personal favourite, cancelled after two seasons. Even a last-ditch Kickstarter campaign couldnt save it. Seek it out. Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar A 55-year-old man from Vadodara, Gujarat, was arrested on Friday for allegedly raping a 45-year-old woman in Malad on the pretext of marriage and threatening her. The accused who hails from Vadodara, has been living in Mumbai for the past few years. According to the Mumbai crime branch, posing as the deputy inspector general of the fire department, he had also cheated several people in the Gujarat along with his associates. The accused met the woman, a Malad (West) resident, who is a widow, in 2016. He promised to marry her and they both had a physical relationship. However, whenever she asked him about marriage, he avoided her and gave excuses. On one such instance, he went away to Gujarat, said an officer. He returned in a few days and convinced the woman he would marry her, but that he needed some time to settle his business, said the officer. In December 2018, when the woman insisted on their marriage, he refused and threatened her. He then left Mumbai and stopped responding to her. He started living in Vadodara, in a rented house, said the officer. The woman then approached Malwani police and on January 9, a case was registered against the accused under sections 376 (punishment for rape), 376 (2) (punishment of rape on multiple occasion) 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code. Unit 11 of the Mumbai crime branch started conducting a parallel inquiry and a team went to Vadodara to look for him. We traced him on Thursday night. He was brought to Mumbai on Friday morning and was handed over to the Malwani police for further probe, said inspector Chimaji Adhav of Unit 11. The police said the accused had cheated several people in central Gujarat by posing as a cop and kept fake identity cards. He was earlier arrested by the Gujarat police in a cheating case and the police found morphed photographs of the accused in police uniforms with senior politicians, added an officer. The accused also cheated people by taking money from them citing excuses such as death of a relative, raid in his factory, or his own illness. After taking the money, he would switch off his phone and cut all contacts, added an officer. In the morning, we did not know what was happening, right? Mendoza chattered. We heard about the wire, and when I was asked was I going to return any contributions related to him and of course your opposition is pounding away, Oh she should return the contribution! right? And I said we dont even know what this story is about and if he hasnt been accused of any wrongdoing or if there is any additional information that comes up along the day, I would of course, my integrity is worth more than whatever dollar sign is in place, right? Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 25) The Commission on Elections (Comelec) Special Task Force - Daraga has ordered the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to install the vice mayor of Daraga, Albay to act in place of Mayor Carlwyn Baldo. "Considering the temporary incapacity of Mayor Baldo, Hon. Victor U. Perete, Vice Mayor of Daraga, shall then assume as Acting Mayor who will be performing executive functions," regional election director Atty. Maria Juana Valeza said in a letter to DILG regional director Atty. Anthony Nuyda. The Comelec is expecting the order to be implemented within 48 hours. Perete is challenging Baldo in the mayoralty race. Batocabe was also among the challengers to Baldo's seat before he and his police escort were killed in a shooting allegedly masterminded by Baldo. Baldo was arrested Tuesday for illegal possession of firearms. He was rushed to the hospital shortly after due to "hyperventilation." In ordering the DILG to install Perete as acting mayor, the Comelec cited a 2015 DILG legal opinion which states that detention prevents elected officials from exercising their powers and thus gives rise to a temporary vacancy in their posts. Baldo designated Municipal Councilor Joey Marcellana as the officer-in-charge of the Mayor's Office yesterday due to what he said were the "succeeding occurring events which have been very taxing physically and mentally to undersigned leading to eventual hospitalization for life-threatening condition." However, in a separate memorandum, Baldo reminded all municipal personnel that documents which need his signature still need to be signed by him. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said a Legazpi court has issued a hold departure order against the Daraga mayor. "We received word that the Regional Trial Court at Legazpi City has issued a Precautionary Hold Departure Order (PHDO) against Mayor Carlwyn Baldo in relation to the Batocabe case," DOJ spokesperson Markk Perete said Friday. The Albay provincial prosecutor filed last January 7 an application for a PHDO against Baldo and five other personalities in relation to the murder charges filed against them. A PHDO prevents suspects of crimes with a minimum penalty of imprisonment from six years and one day from leaving the country. It can be lifted when the respondent contests the probable cause or when he proves he is not a flight risk. The DOJ earlier placed Baldo and six other suspects in the killing of Batocabe and his police escort on the immigration lookout bulletin. CNN Philippines Correspondent Anjo Alimario and Bicol-based journalist Rosas Olarte contributed to this report. The state Congress will finalise its list of probable candidates for the Lok Sabha elections early next week and submit it to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) by the end of the month. During the review meeting held over last month, the state unit received lists of probable candidates from the district units in each of the 48 constituencies, with highest number of names (52) from Latur, followed by Shirdi (more than 25). The parliamentary board, comprising senior party leaders from the state, will shortlist them to two to three names in their meet on Monday and Tuesday and send the list to AlCC. At our meeting with party president Rahul Gandhi earlier this month, we were given deadlines for various election-related activities. The deadline for submission of list of candidates is end of January, said a senior Congress leader. The board is headed by state unit chief Ashok Chavan, with leader of Opposition in state Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, former CMs Sushilkumar Shinde, Prithviraj Chavan, and former ministers Rohidas Patil, Balasaheb Thorat as its members. Despite the alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party and other smaller parties, the party is looking at candidates for all seats. AICC has its own mechanism to judge the best candidates by conducting surveys. The final decision is taken based on the names suggested by the state unit and its feedback, said another party leader. In Mumbai, the district units of all six constituencies held meetings over the last week and completed the procedure of finalising the names of probable candidates. In Mumbai South, Milind Deora has emerged as the only contender, while former MP Eknath Gaikwads name saw opposition within the unit. After former MP Priya Dutt backed out, big names within the party have come as contenders from Mumbai North-Central constituency. Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam is vying for North-West constituency. AICC has also asked the state Congress unit to submit probable dates of tours of Gandhi in Maharashtra. The state unit is planning three public meetings for the general elections. In 2014 Assembly elections, the party was caught unawares after the NCP pulled out of the state government and announced its decision to snap ties. This time, we have decided to be ready. The Congress and NCP are likely to settle for 25 and 23 seats, said a Congress leader. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has planned over 300 rallies in West Bengal over the next two months, and a grand show in Kolkata in the first week of April, as a build-up to the summer election in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a re-election, according to a senior leader of the party. BJP chief Amit Shah launched this campaign on January 22 in Malda, where he strongly criticised the state government led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been at the forefront of a move to cobble together a grand federal alliance against the BJP. We had planned a yatra in West Bengal. But we did not get permission from the state government. The rallies are to mobilise support for the grand rally that we plan to organise in Kolkata in the first week of April, said the BJP leader cited above who asked not to be named. Modi will hold two rallies in West Bengal on February 2 and another on November 8. One more rally is being planned between these dates, the leader said. We will invite CMs [of BJP-ruled states] and other senior leaders of the party, like Union ministers, to address these 300 rallies, the leader added. The BJP planned to launch three simultaneous yatras from various parts of the state, to converge in a grand meeting in Kolkata. After the state government refused to give permission for the rath yatra, the BJP approached the Supreme Court, which, on January 15, said the yatra couldnt be held. The court said the states fears of violence werent unfounded and asked the BJP to submit a fresh proposal to the state government. The BJP is upbeat about its prospects in West Bengal, and claims it can win 23 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections. It fielded candidates in all the seats in 2014, but could win just two despite polling nearly 8.7 million votes. This was a big jump from its 2009 tally of 2.62 million votes (6.1% vote share). The BJP did not do well in the 2016 assembly elections either. It fielded candidates in 291 seats, won three and polled 5.5 million votes for a 10.16% vote share. The party, however, believes it has now emerged as the main Opposition to Banerjees Trinamool Congress in the state and will do better in 2019 riding on Modis popularity. The 2019 elections are to choose the PM, and Modi has an edge over everyone. The BJP will do better than 2014, the leader said. The party has attacked the Mamta Banerjee government on the issues of governance and minority appeasement. BJP leaders feel that Banerjees soft corner for Muslimsabout 24% of West Bengals populationwill lead to a consolidation of Hindu votes in BJPs favour. They also insist that Modis governance record will outshine Banerjees. Other BJP leaders contend that their rivals in the state TMC, the Left parties, and the Congressare competing with each other the same electoral space, leaving the rest for the BJP. The BJP is also expecting a proposed amendment to the Citizenship Act, to provide citizenship to members of minority communities from Muslim-majority countries Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, will have an impact in West Bengal, where Bengali Hindus have settled in large numbers. But this has become a contentious issue in north-eastern states and several of the BJPs allies have opposed the move. A Trinamool leader downplayed any possible implication of the campaign. The PM should address rallies from all of Bengals 42 constituencies. I mean, if he really wants to work hard and travel Bengal. This will have no effect on the results, though, as Bengal will return BJP empty handed, said senior TMC leader and food and supplies minister Jyoti Priya Mallick. According to a political expert, the BJP faces an uphill battle. Mamata has outsmarted the BJP by foiling its rath yatra plan. She has unsettled BJPs momentum had managed to create over the prospect of the yatra. BJP really needs to work hard if they hope to benefit from anti-incumbency, said psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty, a professor of political science at Rabindra Bharati University. Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Telugu Desam Party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu will hold a day-long relay fast in New Delhi on February 13, the last day of the Parliaments budget session and its last sitting ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, in protest against how the Narendra Modi government allegedly deceived his state in its rebuilding after bifurcation. TDP Lok Sabha member Avanti Srinivas told Hindustan Times that Naidu shared his plans on his proposed fast at a parliamentary party meeting at his Undavalli residence in Amaravati on Saturday. He also directed party MPs to spare no efforts in taking the NDA government to task in the current session in a bid to show people how the Modi government cheated Andhras people. In this endeavour, the TDP MPs will present Jana Sena leader Pawan Kalyans fact-finding report which says the Centre is due to extend Rs 75,000 crore to Andhra Pradesh as a part of its bifurcation related commitment. Besides, they will also will cite Lok Satta chief Jayaprakash Narayans report on the same subject to buttress their argument. Naidu claims that his state is due to get Rs 1.25 lakh crore from the centre under different heads after bifurcation. The Andhra Pradesh Pratyeka Hoda Sadhana Samithi, headed by Chalasani Srinivas, gave a call for state bandh on February 1 in protest against the BJP governments failure to grant special category status come to the state with the CPI, CPI (M) and the Congress backing the agitation. Samithi leaders also a few days back met Naidu to seek his support. The TDPs protests are seen as Naidus efforts to apparently take his fight against the Modi government to the national capital to give momentum to his efforts in uniting opposition parties into an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party front on the national level for the coming elections. After the parliament session ends, he is also planning to hold an opposition conclave in Vijayawada followed by a rally with 20 lakh people, on the lines of the one organised by West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on January 19. Naidus TDP pulled out the NDA government during the budget session last year over his state not being granted special category status, one of the major promises of the NDA after the state was divided in 2014. BJPs Andhra Pradesh unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana, however, made light of Naidus proposed fast in Delhi, saying no one believes the TDP chief. Chandrababu Naidu will only expose himself but not the NDA government with his protest, he said at a meeting in Tirupati. The BJP leader said the NDA government has delivered more assistance to Andhra than what it had promised. On Indias 70th Republic Day on Saturday, authorities of a village in Chhattisgarhs Maoist-affected Bastar found a unique way of honouring a slain village head while sending a message to the Red brigade. The Police and District Administration officials waded through water to hoist the Tricolour on the banks of river Indravati in memory of a village head who was killed six months ago by Maoist for demanding that a bridge be constructed across the River. We came early morning to hoist the flag here. To convey the message that the people and the police will rule the forests, not Naxals, a senior police official said. The Police and District Administration officials waded through water to hoist the Tricolour on the banks of river Indravati. (ANI Photo/Twitter) Bastar is one of the Maoist-affected regions of Chhattisgarh, where the rebels are known to issue diktats. They oppose any kind of development in the area and are known to burn schools, damage roads and bridges to check the movement of security forces. Other areas of Maoist influence in the state are Kanker, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Rajnandgaon. The areas witnessed several attacks in the run up to the assembly elections held in November. Hours before the main Republic Day function in Jammu and Kashmir, two foreign militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad were killed in an operation in south Kashmirs Pulwama district. The operation was launched on Saturday morning after security forces received information that militants are hiding in a house at Khanmoh. As a cordon and search operation operation was launched in the area, the militants opened fire, triggering an encounter which continued for three hours and ended with killing of two militants. Three security personnel were injured and later shifted to the army hospital. Inspector general of police, Kashmir, S P Pani said that preliminary investigation has revealed that both the militants were affiliated with the Jaish. The militants have not been identified. This was the fourth operation launched by security forces against militants this week which has left 11 militants killed in different operations in south Kashmir and Baramulla. Nine of these were locals who were affiliated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish and the Hizbul Mujahideen. Meanwhile, high security arrangements were made around the Sher-e-Kashmir stadium in Srinagar where the main Republic day parade was held. Though the function passed peacefully without any untoward incident, many journalists, especially photojournalists, were not allowed in to cover it despite the information department having issued security passes to them. Journalists later held a protest against the government, alleging that it was the first time they have been stopped from covering the Republic Day function. Several associations of journalists in the Valley have condemned government for not allowing journalists to cover the Republic Day function. Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar said that the issue of some journalists not being permitted to cover the Republic Day function in Srinagar would be looked into. It is learnt that today at Republic Day parade venue in Srinagar some journalists were not permitted to cover the event as the security passes issued to them were found not to be authenticated. The matter shall be looked into, Kumar, who is in charge Home Department, said in a statement. He said it has been given to understand that primarily the incident occurred because of the procedure followed by the police for issuance of security passes during such events. The entire process of such security clearance shall be reviewed for better coordination in future, he said. As parade ends, PM Modi greets crowd at Rajpath As the parade ended, Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the huge crowd gathered at Rajpath for Republic Day celebrations. Republic Day 2019: ( ANI Photo ) IAF planes flypast over Rajpath Subedar Major Ramesh A leads human pyramid on 9 motorcycles Subedar Major Ramesh A led a human pyramid of 33 people on 9 motorcycles. Motorcyclists showcase Yoga postures Motorcyclists showcase Yoga postures during Republic Day parade at Rajpath. Rahul Gandhi, Nitin Gadkari at Rajpath Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Union Minister and BJP leader Nitin Gadkari are seen attending the Republic Day parade at Rajpath in Delhi. 26 children honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 26 children, six girls and 20 boys, were today honoured with the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019. Indo-Tibetan Border Police celebrates 70th Republic Day Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel celebrated 70th Republic Day at 18,000 feet and -30 degree Celsius in Ladakh Delhi tableau showcases Gandhijis association with Delhi and Birla House Tableau of Delhi showcases Gandhijis association with Delhi and Birla House, which is now known as Gandhi Smriti; Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and his wife witness Republic Day parade at Rajpath. Tableau of Delhi showcases Gandhijis association with Delhi and Birla House. ( DD national ) Karnataka tableau based 39th session of Indian National Congress held in Belagavi in 1924 Tableau of Karnataka is based on the 39th session of the Indian National Congress held in Belagavi in 1924, which was presided over by Mahatma Gandhi. Visuals of tableaux of different states Tableau of Punjab based on the theme of Jallianwala Bagh massacre. ( DD national ) Tableau of Andaman & Nicobar Islands ( DD national ) Tableau of Maharashtra ( DD national ) Major Khushboo Kanwar leads contingent of Assam Rifles Maj Khushboo Kanwar, 30, and mother of a child, who lead a contingent of the Assam Rifles, the oldest paramilitary force in the country, was brimming with pride. Leading an all-women contingent of the Assam Rifles is a matter of great honour and pride for me. We have practiced very hard...I am a daughter of a bus conductor from Rajasthan and if I can accomplish this, then any girl can fulfil her dream, she told PTI on the sidelines of the media interaction. Lieutenant Bhavana Kasturi leads all-male Army Service Corps Lieutenant Bhavana Kasturi lead all-male Army Service Corps (ASC) contingent during the Republic Day Parade at Rajpath in New Delhi. Kasturi is be the first-ever lady officer to lead an all-male contingent in the Republic Day parade. BSF exchange sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts On the occasion of 70th #republicdayindia, BSF exchange sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts, at Fulbari, at Indo-Bangladesh border near Siliguri in West Bengal. pic.twitter.com/NjMll2gZec ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 K-9 Vajra-T commanded by Captain Devansh Bhutani As the parade began, K-9 Vajra-T, a self-propelled howitzer, was commanded by Captain Devansh Bhutani. T-90 (Bhishma) commanded by Captain Navneet Eric of 45 Cavalry T-90 (Bhishma), the main battle tank of the Indian Army, commanded by Captain Navneet Eric of 45 Cavalry. Commander Major General Rajpal Punia leads parade As India celebrates its 70th Republic Day, CDR Major Heneral Rajpal Punia led the parade at Rajpath. Flower shower by MI-17 helicopters During the 70th Republic Day celebrations, there was a flower shower by MI-17 helicopters. President Kovind awards Ashok Chakra to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a surrendered militant who became a soldier, was posthumously awarded Indias highest peacetime gallantry award, the Ashok Chakra, on Republic Day for his courage during a fierce encounter in which six terrorists were killed in Kashmir last November. Wani belonged to an army unit raised 15 years ago with surrendered militants as an experiment to rewrite the rules of counter-terror operations in Kashmir. Republic Day 2019: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, awarded the Ashok Chakra. Award was received by his wife and mother. ( ANI Photo ) PM Modi greets Dr Manmohan Singh at Rajpath Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted Dr.Manmohan Singh at Rajpath. PM Modi pays tribute at Amar Jawan Jyoti Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial at India Gate. Republic Day 2019: PM Modi pays tribute at Amar Jawan Jyoti ( ANI Photo ) Republic Day WhatsApp stickers WhatsApp rolled out stickers on the messaging late last year. WhatsApp Stickers has become one of the most popular features on the app. WhatsApp offers pre-installed stickers and allows users to download third-party ones as wel. There are WhatsApp stickers for every major occasion, one being Indias 70th Republic Day celebrated today. There are many Republic Day sticker packs available on WhatsApp which can be sent to wish people. Users can download these sticker packs from Google Play Store. Heres how to send Republic Day WhatsApp stickers SWAT women commandos, anti-aircraft guns snipers deployed in Delhi SWAT women commandos, mobile hit teams, snipers are among the varied layers of security under which the national capital has been placed for the Republic Day celebrations. Elaborate measures, including deployment of anti-aircraft guns, were put in place to secure the airspace. Following the arrest of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members, who were planning to carry out terror strikes in the city during the 70th Republic Day celebrations, Delhi had been placed under high-security cover to avoid any terror strike or untoward incident. Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel takes part celebrations in Raipur Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel took part in Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Raipur. Republic Day 2019: Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel takes part celebrations in Raipur ( ANI Photo ) Google marks Indias 70th Republic Day with a doodle Search giant Google Saturday dedicated a special doodle to mark Indias 70th Republic Day, which captured the countrys architectural and cultural legacy as well as its rich bio-diversity. The doodle with a 3D impression depicts the iconic facade of the grand Rashtrapati Bhavan in the backdrop, flanked by trees, reflecting the flora and fauna that resides on its sprawling campus. Republic Day 2019: Search giant Google Saturday dedicated a special doodle to mark Indias 70th Republic Day. ( Screengrab ) Yogi Adityanath at Republic Day celebrations in Lucknow Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath at Republic Day celebrations in Lucknow. ( Republic Day 2019: ) Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari unfurl tricolour Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurl the tricolour at their respective residences in Delhi. #RepublicDay2019 : Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurl the tricolour at their respective residences in Delhi pic.twitter.com/QitEVFmRMJ ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb unfurls national flag Unfurled our beloved national flag at @BJP4Tripura office in Agartala. #RepublicDay2019 pic.twitter.com/nDhCw7g1pW Biplab Kumar Deb (@BjpBiplab) January 26, 2019 Time to reiterate ideals of the Constitution: Capt. Amarinder Singh Greetings to all of you on the occasion of India's #70thRepublicDay. A time to remember & reiterate the ideals of the Constitution and to pledge to work towards strengthening the Indian Republic for the true spirit of federalism to flourish.# pic.twitter.com/6zT8YBUN8c Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) January 26, 2019 Rajnath Singhs Republic Day greetings # Republic Day greetings to all the people of India. Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) January 26, 2019 PM greets people on Republic Day Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the people on the countrys 70th Republic Day on Saturday. Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians, he tweeted. Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians. # ! Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 26, 2019 PM Modi to pay tribute at Amar Jawan Jyoti Republic Day 2019 parade will begin at Rajpath at 9.50 am, prior to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Republic Day celebrations in Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu on Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with patriotic fervour as Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurled the tricolour at the Marina Beach here. Purohit took the salute from the armed forces and other security agencies while Chief Minister K. Palaniswami and his ministers and large number of people enjoyed the colourful floats. District Collectors across the state unfurled the national flag and took salute from police contingents. Go out and vote: President Ram Nath Kovind President Ram Nath Kovind called upon all voters to cast their votes in the upcoming Lok Sabha poll, which, according to him, is only a milestone in the journey towards fulfilling peoples aspirations and building a developed India, even as he made a pitch for pluralism and gender equality. Significance of January 26 Republic Day commemorates the day when the Indian Constitution came into effect. This year shall be Indias 70th Republic Day. Post independence, the constitution was formulated by the drafting committee, whose chairman was Dr BR Ambedkar. The Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, and came into effect on January 26, 1950, which completed Indias transition towards becoming an independent republic. The reason January 26 was chosen is because it was on this day in 1930 when Purna Swaraj, the Declaration of Indian Independence, was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress. 3,000 personnel deployed to manage route diversions The traffic police have deployed 3,000 personnel to manage route diversions and ensure a safe and secure passage for the visiting dignitaries. Delhi Police mounted high vigilance on the activities of suspected bad characters in view of the security requirements for an incident-free Republic Day and detained about 5,000 such people in the capital. Metro service to remain available Metro service shall remain available at all stations during the Republic Day parade. However, boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan from 5 am till 12 pm, Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk from 8.45 am to 12 pm. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to be chief guest South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be the chief guest at the parade, which will be presided by the president of India, Ram Nath Kovind. Carrying forward the tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial at the India Gate. Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal at celebrations in Bhubaneswar Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal at Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Bhubaneswar. Republic Day 2019: Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal at Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Bhubaneswar. ( ANI Photo ) BJP president Amit Shah unfurled the tricolour at the party office BJP president Amit Shah unfurled the tricolour at the party office in Delhi. Republic Day 2019: BJP president Amit Shah unfurls the tricolour at Delhi party office. ( ANI Photo ) Security tightened Mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have been deployed to keep a watch on the eight-km-long parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort, besides the nearby localities. Thirty-six women commandos of the Delhi Polices Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, who were formally inducted in August last year, will also be part of the security arrangements. AP Governor ESL Narasimhan hoists tricolour in Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan hoisted the tricolour on Republic Day 2019 in Vijayawada. Republic Day 2019: Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan hoists tricolour on Republic Day 2019 in Vijayawada. ( ANI Photo/Twitter ) Parade to begin at 9:50 am The Republic Day 2019 parade will start at 9.50 am from Vijay Chowk and proceed towards the Red Fort grounds through the Rajpath, India Gate, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Netaji Subhash Marg. The function at India Gate will begin at 9 am. Crowds gather for Republic Day 2019 parade Ahead of 70th Republic Day celebrations, a huge crowd gathered for the Republic Day 2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. Samajwadi party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Singh Yadav today congratulated Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party on Priyanka Gandhi Vadras appointment as a general secretary in charge of eastern U.P. Young people are being given chance, Samajwadi Party is happy. I would like to congratulate Congress party and their President that they took a right decision, ANI quoted him as saying. On Wednesday, Priyanka formally joined active politics in a surprise move. Congress leaders hailed the move as a game changer for the party ahead of the 2019 general elections. Akhilesh Yadav, SP President on #PriyankaGandhiVadra: Young people are being given chance, Samajwadi Party is happy. I would like to congratulate Congress party and their President that they took a right decision. pic.twitter.com/oZdIVxVbsJ ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 26, 2019 Rahul Gandhi who was visiting his constituency Amethi when Pryankas appointment was announced, described his sister as capable. The Congress has an uphill task in Uttar Pradesh after the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party announced an alliance earlier this month without taking the grand old party on board. Snubbed by the SP and BSP, the Congress initially declared that it would contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in U.P. and then said it was still open to alliances with other like-minded parties. A team from Pakistan is scheduled to visit the Chenab river basin in Jammu and Kashmir for inspection from January 28-31, local media reported on Saturday. Pakistans Indus water commissioner Syed Mohammad Mehr Ali Shah will arrive in India along with two advisers, as mandated under the Indus Water Treaty, the report added. In 2018, a nine-member team led by Indian commissioner for Indus waters, Pradeep Kumar Saxena, had visited Lahore and held talks over two days with its Pakistani counterparts on water disputes on the platform of the Pakistan-India Permanent Commission for Indus Waters (PCIW). But soon after, India postponed the return inspection of its two hydropower projects 1,000MW Pakal Dul and 48MW Lower Kalnal by Pakistani experts. The tour was originally scheduled in October 2018 but was put off because of local bodies and panchayat polls in Jammu and Kashmir. The proposed tour by the Pakistan team is likely to be followed by a visit by the Indian Indus commissioner to Pakistan at a mutually convenient date. Kamal Majidullah, former advisor on water to ex-Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, said he was happy things were moving ahead. What we are seeing is some movement from both sides. It is a positive development. Under the Indus Water Treaty, waters flowing in three Indus tributaries Sutlej, Beas and Ravi have been allotted to India; while Chenab, Jhelum and Indus waters have been allotted to Pakistan. During the talks in 2018, Pakistans commissioner for Indus waters Shah raised objections and suggested possible solutions to the problem, taking into account Indias previous replies and feedback on design of Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnal projects. It was on the basis of this that India agreed to get the sites of its two projects in the Chenab basin inspected by Pakistani experts. It also assured Pakistan that its objections over the two projects would be resolved amicably in the light of technical memoranda to be prepared and exchanged by the two countries at the next meeting of the Pakistan-India PCIW in New Delhi. Since signing the treaty, a total of 118 such tours on both sides have been undertaken by the commission. Even as former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist Nambi Narayanan expressed happiness over the governments decision to confer upon him the Padma Bhushan award describing it as an acknowledgement of my innocence, former Kerala director general of police (DGP) TP Senkumar on Saturday called the move to honour the former cryogenic expert as shocking. Narayanan had run into a huge controversy during 1990s when he was arrested on spying charges. He was heading the cryogenic division of the ISRO when he and another scientist D Sasimukar were arrested in the alleged espionage case in 1994. They were held with two Maldivian women on charges of selling space secrets of the country to foreigners. Senkumar said people who have suggested his name will have to explain later. I dont know on which ground he was honoured. It is almost like mixing poison with nectar. Since the top court has set up a one-man commission to get into the ISRO spy case his name should not have been considered now, said Senkumar, an officer known for his integrity. When Senkumar was removed from the state police chief post he took the Pinarayi government to the apex court and got him reinstated three years ago. What is his contribution to the country? He was an average scientist and he took retirement from the ISRO on his own. I would have been happy if the award was bestowed on a young scientist. I was really shocked to hear the announcement, he said adding he still feels that ISRO spy case was not investigated properly. Earlier, reacting to the award Narayanan said he was really humbled. I consider this as an acknowledgement of my innocence, he said. I never campaigned for this. I dont know why Senkumar is getting so indignant. He is spreading canards saying ISRO spy case is relevant and the SC-appointed committee is still investigating it. The panel is only probing police officers lapses including him, Narayanan said while reacting to Senkumars comments. Following a protracted legal battle, the Supreme Court quashed the case against Narayanan, who was cleared of all the charges. In 2018, the Supreme Court directed the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 50 lakh to him. The court also ordered an inquiry against police officers who probed the case. Many books were written over the sensational ISRO spy case and a Bollywood director is making a biopic on Narayanan who had to pay a heavy price along with former Chief Minister K Karunakaran in the sordid drama. With opposition BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa undertaking a statewide tour of the drought-affected areas of Karnataka, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has alleged that poaching attempts are being made on the MLAs from the ruling Janata Dal (Secular) or the JD(S). Renewing the charge, Kumaraswamy said that Operation Kamala is still on and that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) offered money to one of our MLAs. Operation Kamala is still on. Last night they (the BJP) offered one of our MLAs huge amount of money. Youll be surprised to know the amount. Our MLA told them he doesnt need any gift and not to try these things with him. This is how they are still working on poaching, Kumaraswamy was quoted as saying by news agency ANI on Saturday. The BJP rejected the charge with Yeddyurappa calling it baseless while stating that it was the duty of the ruling parties to keep their MLAs intact. He denied that there was any Operation Kamala going on in Karnataka, which threw a hung assembly in the state elections held last year. We arent indulging in any Operation Kamala.Their MLAs are trying to go away from them due to their internal fight. Its their duty to keep them intact.They should stop giving baseless statements against us.We are 104, and two Independent MLAs are also in the Opposition, said Yeddyurappa, according to ANI. Yeddyurappa is currently on a tour of drought-affected areas of Karnataka, where farm distress was the talking point during the assembly election last year. The Kumaraswamy government announced a loan waiver scheme worth Rs 44,000 crore but the BJP termed the move as inadequate. Kumaraswamys allegation has come at a time when the Congress, the alliance partner of the JD(S) in the Karnataka government, is dealing with a crisis after two of the party MLAs were reported to have engaged in physical duel resulting in injuries to one of them. Congress MLA Anand Singh claimed that he was assaulted by party legislator JN Ganesh at a resort in the outskirts of Bengaluru earlier this month. Anand Singh was admitted to a hospital. Anand Singh later lodged an FIR accusing JN Ganesh of assaulting him. The Congress leadership responded by suspending JN Ganesh and setting up a special committee to investigate the issue of fight between the two party MLAs. There have been reports suggesting that the Congress MLAs were not happy with the party playing junior role in the government. On the other hand, Kumaraswamy has also been vocal about his discomfort with the Congress. Kumaraswamy was reported to have told his partymen that he was working like a clerk and not a chief minister due to interference of the Congress party, which was behaving like a big brother. Karnataka went to the polls in May 2018, when the BJP won 104 seats while the Congress secured 80 seats. The JD(S) had won 37 seats. The Congress extended unconditional support to the JD(S) to keep the BJP out of power. The BJP, though, formed a short-lived government, which fell before the floor test in the Karnataka assembly. Kumaraswamy, thereafter, formed the government stitching a JD(S)-Congress alliance. Ostensibly adapted from a graphic novel, but primarily feeling like something oozing from a rusted tin, Polar stars a mustachioed Mads Mikkelsen as a grizzled cutthroat hanging up his weapons but pulled into lets say it together now one last job. If only assassin movies as a genre were closing up shop with only one more of them left, in which case, Ill take that upcoming third John Wick and pretend Polar its grisly nastiness like a case of toxic flatulence never happened. Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy has alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party continues to try to poach MLAs from his Janata Dal (Secular) party. Operation Kamala is still on, he said, adding that the BJP offered money to one of our MLAs. Last night they (the BJP) offered one of our MLAs huge amount of money. Youll be surprised to know the amount. Our MLA told them he doesnt need any gift and not to try these things with him. This is how they are still working on poaching, Kumaraswamy was quoted as saying by news agency ANI on Saturday. Operation Kamala refers to the BJPs effort to form a government in the state soon after it emerged the single largest party in elections held in May 2018. The Congress and the JD (S) partnered to form the government in the state. The BJP rejected the charge with its leader and former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa calling it baseless while stating that it was the duty of the ruling parties to keep their MLAs intact. He denied that there was any Operation Kamala going on in Karnataka. We arent indulging in any Operation Kamala.Their MLAs are trying to go away from them due to their internal fight. Its their duty to keep them intact.They should stop giving baseless statements against us.We are 104, and two Independent MLAs are also in the Opposition, said Yeddyurappa, according to ANI. Yeddyurappa is currently on a tour of drought-affected areas of Karnataka, where farm distress was the talking point during the assembly election last year. The Kumaraswamy government announced a loan waiver scheme worth ?44,000 crore but the BJP has termed the move as inadequate. Kumaraswamys allegation comes at a time when the Congress, the alliance partner of the JD(S) in the Karnataka government, is dealing with a crisis. Following a cabinet reshuffle in December, several of the partys legislators were unhappy. Since then, there have been reports that some of them may quit the party altogether. The Congress and the JD (S) together have 118 MLAs in the 224 member house. The Congress problems worsened after one of its legislators Anand Singh claimed he was assaulted by another earlier this month. He later lodged an FIR accusing JN Ganesh of assaulting him. The Congress leadership responded by suspending JN Ganesh and setting up a special committee to investigate the issue. Kumaraswamy has repeatedly stressed that his government is stable. Having deposed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power in Chhattisgarh after a long run of 15 years in the assembly elections held in November 2018, the Congress government has decided to waive off irrigation tax amounting to Rs 207 crore. The announcement that would benefit around 15 lakh farmers was made by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel during his Republic Day speech in Raipur on Saturday. Baghel said the waiver would be applicable on irrigation tax imposed till October 2018. I announce that Sinchai Kar (irrigation tax) amounting to Rs 207 crore till October 2018 will be waived off. Around 15 lakh farmers will benefit from this, Baghel was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Farm distress was among the top poll planks during election campaign in Chhattisgarh. The Congress had promised in all three Hindi heartland states which went to the polls Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan having been other two that if voted power it would waive off farm loans and take steps to help farmers and improve overall agricultural situation. Earlier, the Baghel government had announced two major steps aimed at reducing distress in agriculture. First came the loan waiver. Soon after formation of the government, Baghel announced a loan waiver scheme worth Rs 140 billion. The next big ticket decision came as a surprise when the Baghel government in December last year announced that it would return the unused land to the farmers. About 2,000 hectare of the land in question had been acquired by the BJP government in 2005 for a Tata Steel factory in Bastar district of the state. Some of the farmers had then protested acquisition. Tata group pulled out of the project in 2016. The land was lying unused and the Baghel government, in a rare move, ordered the officials to return the land to the owner farmers. Top government sources have confirmed that India is moving ahead to bring back high-value economic offenders from the West Indies. A long-range Air India Boeing has been commissioned to handle this mission. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials will fly to the West Indies to bring these persons back. Availing of the controversial paid citizenship programme provided by many of the islands in the Caribbean, diamantaire Mehul Choksi and Winsome Diamonds promoter Jatin Mehta have taken citizenship in these parts. Mehta became a citizen of St Kitts and Nevis some years ago while Choksi has taken Antigua and Barbuda citizenship recently. These islands provide visa free travel to 132 countries. Citizenship through investment has become popular among Indian economic offenders. Investigative agency sources also revealed that Choksi and absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi are the principal targets of this exercise but it is not clear whether Modi lives on one of these islands. Choksi may be picked up in the Caribbean while Modi may be sequestered on the return route from Europe where he is reportedly hiding. Lack of extradition treaties has made these islands a safe haven for Indias uber rich. Other countries like Grenada, St Lucia and Dominica also have similar citizenship by investment programmes. Dominica and St Lucia give citizenship and a valid passport for just $100,000 which is chump change for ultra rich Indians on the run. If your spouse needs a similar passport, then it is $165,000 in St Lucia and $175,000 in Dominica. Meanwhile, Grenada gives you similar passports for $200,000. President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday awarded the countrys highest peacetime gallantry award posthumously to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani at the 70th Republic Day parade that showcased Indias growing military might and captured its cultural extravaganza on a bright sunny morning. Thousands of people at Raj Path stood up and applauded the outstanding courage of the braveheart who fronted an operation in which six terrorists were killed in Kashmir last November. Wanis wife Mahajabeen, accompanied by his mother Raja Banu, received his Ashok Chakra, the first for a soldier from Kashmir. Both women stood on the dais in front of the President with folded hands, their heads lowered as the parade commentator read out the brave mans citation, giving goosebumps to not only those in attendance but also the millions watching the spectacular event on their televisions at home. Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, awarded the Ashok Chakra. Award was received by his wife and mother Republic Day 2019 on Saturday. (ANI) What makes the Ashok Chakra even more special is that Wani was a surrendered militant who became a soldier. He belonged to an army unit raised 15 years ago with surrendered militants as an experiment to rewrite the rules of counter-terror operations in Kashmir. Lieutenant General Asit Mistry, General Officer Commanding, Headquarters Delhi Area, led the parade that saw Russian-origin T-90 tanks and BMP-II infantry combat vehicles, tracked self-propelled K9 VAJRA-T artillery guns and surface mine clearing systems roll down the road, as parade chief guest South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries watched from the stage and frequently clapped. Apart from the K9 gun, the Indian Armys M777 ultra-light howitzers, imported from the United States, also debuted at the parade both being the first artillery weapons to be inducted after the Bofors scandal exploded in the late 1980s. Private sector defence major Larsen & Toubro and South Korean firm Hanwha Techwin are supplying 100 K9 guns to army under a $720 million contract. The artillery gun has a range of 40 km. Also, the army is inducting a total of 145 M777 howitzers as part of a $750-million contract with the United States. The US is supplying 25 ready-built weapons and the remaining 120 howitzers will be produced in the country under the Modi governments ambitious Make in India initiative. The first-ever participation of veterans from Netaji Subhas Chandra Boses Indian National Army (INA) and marching contingents led by women officers were some of the other highlights of the 90-minute parade. The INA was represented by four veterans, all of whom were aged between 95 and 100 and seated in an open Gypsy. Among them, Bhagmal (100) from Manesar, was the oldest participant in the parade. Women were well represented. The parade featured an all-women contingent of Assam Rifles, a woman officer leading the Army Service Corps marching squad and a lady officer who became the first and only woman to be a part of the Corps of Signals motorcycle stunt team. A total of 16 smartly-turned out marching contingents and an equal number of bands took part in the parade. The Gorkha brigades marching contingent was represented at the parade for the first time. States and different government departments were represented by 22 colourful tableaux, with the theme being 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi. Three Param Vir Chakra and five Ashok Chakra awardees also took part. It was hard to miss Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Union minister Nitin Gadkari seated next to each other and often engaging in a conversation in the front row of one of the VVIP enclosures. BJP chief Amit Shah was seated three seats to Gandhis right. The seating arrangement had triggered a controversy last year as Gandhi was allocated a seat in the fourth row. The Indian Air Forces flying display towards the end of the parade was the cherry on the cake and cheers and applause erupted from the spectators as roaring fighter jets dived and rolled in the skies carrying out a string of breathtaking manoeuvres. These included Su-30s, Jaguars and upgraded MiG-29s. In another first, one of the AN-32 transport planes taking part in the fly past used aviation turbine fuel blended with 10% bio-jet fuel. Extracted from Jatropha plant seeds, the use of bio-jet fuel could lead to significant savings for the IAF in the coming years. After the parade ended, Modi walked along the Raj Path and waved to the crowds, with his security detail following him. Earlier, the PM placed a wreath at Amar Jawan Jyoti where he was greeted by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the three service chiefs. The Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Scheme, being constructed on the Godavari river in Telangana, is set to escalate the mounting debt of the state further with the government going in for massive borrowings to complete the project, as Delhi has turned a deaf ear to its plea for central assistance. With an estimated project cost of Rs 80,000 crore, Kaleshwaram is the costliest lift irrigation project in the country, involving the construction of three barrages, reverse pumping of water from Godavari into three major reservoirs and diverting it into a huge and complex system of reservoirs, water tunnels, pipelines and canals. As per the Detailed Project Report, the Kaleshwaram project will utilise nearly 200 thousand million cubic feet (tmc) of Godavari river water, including 134 tmc to irrigate 18.25 lakh acres, another 34.5 tmc ft for stabilisation of already irrigated area of six lakh acres, 10 tmc towards drinking water and 16 tmc for industrial purposes. The Telangana government has taken up such a massive project with its own financial resources, besides borrowing heavily from various financial institutions. So far, the government has spent over Rs 40,000 crore on the project, including borrowings of Rs 20,550 crore from various commercial banks, besides another Rs 12,067 crore from the Power Finance Corporation (PFC). The funding is being released in tune with the progress of the project works. On Wednesday, the government approved a proposal to borrow another Rs 8,685 crore from the PFC, taking the overall debt component of the Kaleshwaram projects funding to more than Rs 40,000 crore. The latest borrowing from PFC is meant for funding mostly the power component of the lift irrigation scheme, as it involves erection of various electric pumps and construction of sub-stations, Sridhar Deshpande, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said. Deshpande said the project of such a gigantic magnitude would need liberal funding from the Centre, but so far, it had not received a penny despite repeated representations from the state government. According to him, the first phase of the project will be completed by April or May. Such a huge borrowing would add to the debt burden of the state government. As per the budgetary figures, the outstanding borrowings of the state went up from Rs 70,000 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 1.7 lakh crore in 2017-18 and is expected touch Rs 2 lakh crore by 2018-19. This indiscriminate borrowing in the name of Kaleshwaram is not a healthy sign. The state requires another Rs 13,000 crore for annual operations and maintenance cost. Right from the beginning, we have been telling that the cost-benefit ratio of the project is very less. In the name of redesigning [the project], the TRS government escalated the cost from Rs 34,000 crore to 80,000 crore just to benefit contractors, alleged former minister, Marri Shashidhar Reddy, the previous head of the Forum for Utilisation of Godavari Waters. Deshpande, however, said the burden on the state would come down if the Centre declares Kaleshwaram as a national project with 100% funding. The chief minister is hopeful of achieving national project status to it, once there is a favourable government at the Centre after next elections, he said. Telangana BJP official spokesman, Krishna Sagar Rao, refuted the TRS governments allegations that the Centre had turned down states pleas for funding the Kaleshwaram project. KCR just submitted some frivolous letters to the Prime Minister asking for funds. He did not follow the due procedure of submitting detailed project reports to the Centre, he said. In July 2018, Union minister of state for water resources, Arjun Ram Meghwal, told Rajya Sabha in reply to a question from Congress MP, T Subbarami Reddy, that the Central Water Commission had not received any proposal from the Telangana state government seeking financial assistance for the Kaleshwaram project. At the height of 18,000 feet and minus 30-degree celsius, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) keeps the tricolour flying high on Republic Day in Ladakh. ITBP personnel celebrating #RepublicDay2019 at 18,000 feet and minus 30 degree Celsius somewhere in Ladakh, ITBP tweeted. This magnificent tableau of grit and patriotism was photographed in Ladakh as India celebrated the day on which its supreme law -- the Constitution -- came into effect on January 26, 1950. The ITBP is a specialised mountain force -- most of whose officers and men are trained mountaineers and skiers -- and guards the border from Ladakhs Karakoram Pass to Jachep La in Arunachal Pradesh. India displayed its military might and rich cultural diversity during the dazzling 70th Republic Day parade in the Capital which for the first time saw veteran soldiers of the Indian National Army walking down the Rajpath. In Leh, Chief Executive Councillor Jamyang Tsering Namgyal unfurled the national flag at polo ground. Meanwhile, the Border Security Forces exchanged sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts in Fulbari, at Indo-Bangladesh border near Siliguri in West Bengal. Fifty-eight tribal guests from various parts of the country, 22 tableaux of states and central government departments and performance by school children were part of the 90-minute dazzling Republic Day parade. For the first time in the history of the paramilitary, an all-women contingent from the Assam Rifles participated in the parade. To tackle mortality and permanent disability from snake bites, it is essential for India to set up regional venom collection centres, says a series of reports published in the British Medical Journal looking at tackling neglected diseases in South Asia. Currently, all the antivenoms available in India and most of South Asia is based on the venoms collected from the only collection centre in Tamil Nadu. But it has been observed that the venom of same species of snake varies from place to place. For example, Russells viper venom causes neurological symptoms like paralysis in the south and just severe bleeding in north India, said Dr Ravikar Ralph, associate professor of internal medicine from Christian Medical College, Vellore. The Wildlife Protection Act makes it extremely difficult to procure license to set-up such venom collection centre, he said. And, all the antivenoms available in India and most of South Asian countries that source it from India are against the big four -- the common krait, binocellate cobra, Russells viper, and saw-scaled viper. So it is ineffective against snakes of local importance apart from the big four. If we look at Bangladesh, it used antivenoms made in India, two of the big four species are not even found there. And, antivenoms come with several adverse effect, said Ralph. Globally, five million snake bites occur every year that result in anywhere between 81000 to 138000 deaths. And, 70% of the deaths are in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Snakebite is definitely receiving more attention now that it has been flagged as a priority area. In fact, the department of biotechnology itself is supporting studies at various institutes on snake bites, said Dr Renu Swarup, secretary, department of bio-technology in the Union government. In India, every year an estimated 2.8 million people are bitten and 50,000 die, according to a country-wide study on causes of death. The National Health Profile - 2018 puts this figure at 1.4 million bites and a mere 948 deaths. The problem is that most of the figures that we have is based on hospital data, when the fact is that anywhere between 70 to 80% of the snake bite victims die before reaching a healthcare facility, resulting in a massive underreporting, said Ralph. There is limited evidence to guide treatment protocols, the study states. There is also a need to strengthen the rural healthcare system. The primary healthcare centre must not only be stocked with antivenoms, the staff must be trained to administer and manage the adverse effects of the antivenoms, said Ralph. The lack of supportive care such as ventilators and dialysis machines needed to manage respiratory paralysis and acute kidney injury from snake bite at rural healthcare also leads to patients being referred to higher centres and a delay in treatment. A Delhi court on Saturday remanded lawyer Gautam Khaitan, an accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case to the Enforcement Directorrates custody for two days in a different case involving possession of black money and money laundering. During the court proceedings, EDs special public prosecutors D P Singh and N K Matta maintained that the present case had nothing to do with the AgustaWestland case where air force officials, middlemen and others are alleged to have conspired to ensure an Air Force deal for helicopters meant for VVIPs was closed in favour of Finmeccanica, the Italian firm that makes the choppers . Metropolitan Magistrate Neetu Sharma sent the accused to custody after the Enforcement Directorte (ED) alleged that he is operating and holding a number of foreign bank accounts illegally. Khaitans advocate P K Dubey opposed the EDs submissions and accused the agency of forging documents; he also insisted the present case is related to the AgustaWestland one in which Khaitan is already being prosecuted and out on bail. He said that the case number of the present case is that of the AgustaWestland case. The fresh criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Aact was filed by ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. ED sought seven days custody of the accused, claiming it has knowledge of unidentified assets with the accused that amount to at least Rs 500 crore. Custody is not being sought in relation to (an) account which (we) came across in AgustaWestland (case). He runs less of a law firm and more of a money laundering (operation). IT department has given figures which we have to verify. He didnt help in verifying them, the agency said, adding that Khaitans custody is required to unearth the conspiracy. This case has nothing to do with AgustaWestland. Custodial interrogation is a must to reach the truth, it added. The defence counsel opposed the ED plea saying the IT department is already probing the matter. Through his lawyer, Khaitan said that he went out of the country with the permission of the court hearing AgustaWestland case. He claimed that when he landed in India he was detained by IT department and later arrested by the ED. First IT raided my (Khaitan) premises, the moment they left, ED entered the premises and detained me. There was no apprehension that I was fleeing.... Can I be prosecuted by multiple agencies for the same offence? Khaitan asked through Dubey, insisting that this case is related to the Agusta Westland one. Khaitan was placed under arrest on Friday night by the agency. The Income Tax Department last week carried out searches against Khaitan in the new case filed under the anti-black money law. Khaitan was arrested by ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he is currently out on bail. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) this month asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take necessary action against its ex-director Alok Verma in a case involving a bribe allegedly paid to him by Sana Satish Babu, and the Department of Personnel and Trading (DoPT) to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him both based on a CVC report submitted to the Supreme Court in November, according to three officials in the federal investigation agency and DoPT who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to the officials, a complaint is likely to be filed against Verma over an allegation that middleman Sana Satish Babu paid a Rs 2 crore bribe to him in the Moin Qureshi case. DoPT will look into an incident involving the exclusion of the name of a key suspect Rakesh Saxena from a complaint registered by CBI in the Indian Railways Catering and Tourist Corp (IRCTC) case, allegedly at Vermas behest. The CVC report has highlighted both as instances of serious misconduct. It has also left it to DoPT to initiate major or minor penalty proceedings against Verma in all the other cases where the report substantiates or partially substantiates allegations made by CBIs then special director Rakesh Asthana. The file is being processed for departmental proceedings, said one of the three officials, who works for DoPT. The government has thus far not accepted a resignation letter from Verma leading to speculation that this is to facilitate action by DoPT. Opinion | Alok Verma has rekindled our sense of dharma Verma did not respond to calls or messages from HT on the issue on Friday. Verma was first divested of his powers by the government on October 23. He and his deputy Asthana were at the time engaged in an internecine war that split the agency down the middle. Asthana too was divested of his powers. In August, Athana wrote to the cabinet secretary, levelling allegations of corruption against Verma. The cabinet secretary forwarded this to CVC. On October 15, CBI registered a complaint against Asthana. Soon after he was divested of his powers, Verma filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking his reinstatement. The court asked CVC to finish the enquiry against him and submit a report, but also subsequently said that it would only rule on the mechanism of his effective removal from CBI. The agencys chief is appointed by a panel comprising the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition, and the Chief Justice of India. On January 8, the court conditionally reinstated Verma and asked this panel to review the CVC report against him and take a call on his future. On January 10, by a 2-1 majority, the panel removed him from CBI and transferred him as DG, fire services - a post Verma refused to take up citing the fact that he had reached the age of retirement while at CBI. On January 17, the government terminated Asthanas tenure at CBI and named him DG, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security. In its report on the charges being made against Verma, CVC said, with reference to the Sana Satish Babu case that in light of the substantial circumstantial evidence the entire truth could come out if a thorough criminal investigation is ordered by the court. The CVC, through a letter sent earlier this month, has also asked DoPT to take disciplinary action against Verma for attempting to certain officers into CBI. The CVC report also recommended action against Verma in his capacity as Delhi Police commissioner over allegations related to undue interference in CBI cases against enforcement directorate officials; smuggling of gold at IGI airport; and not taking vigilance action against the involved officer. Also read | Alok Verma quits: Full text of IPS officers letter to the government Reading out from a written speech at the 70th Republic Day function in Gwalior turned out to be an awkward moment for Madhya Pradesh women and child development minister Imarti Devi, who struggled with the script and fumbled before she passed the baton to the district collector Bharat Yadav, who finished the speech. A video of the event, put out by news agency ANI, showed her struggling with the speech. Later, ANI quoted her as saying, I was sick for the past two days, you can ask the doctor. But it is okay. The collector read it (the speech) properly. Elected from Dabra assembly constituency, Congress leader Imarti Devi is a third-time MLA in the Madhya Pradesh assembly. Imarti Devi has risen through ranks in the Madhya Pradesh Congress having been a part of the Youth Congress in the late 1990s. Imarti Devi was first elected to the Madhya Pradesh assembly in 2008. Elaborate arrangements have been made for the conduct of the 70th Republic Day celebrations across the country, especially in the national capital New Delhi, where the majestic parade will be held on the Rajpath. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be the chief guest at the parade, which will be presided by the president of India, Ram Nath Kovind. Carrying forward the tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial at the India Gate. Besides the several contingents of the Indian Army and other forces, the parade will also have representations from various states and ministries of the government. The parade will start at 9.50 am from Vijay Chowk and proceed towards the Red Fort grounds through the Rajpath, India Gate, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Netaji Subhash Marg. The function at India Gate will begin at 9 am. Metro service shall remain available at all stations during the Republic Day parade. However, boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan from 5 am till 12 pm, Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk from 8.45 am to 12 pm. Also read | Republic Day 2019: 69 years ago, India decided how it would be governed Women commandos, mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have been deployed at strategic locations to keep a close watch on the eight-km-long Republic Day parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort in central Delhi. According to Delhi Police, parakram vans, manned by NSG-trained commandos, have been patrolling strategic locations to ensure that security is not jeopardised. The traffic police have deployed 3,000 personnel to manage route diversions and ensure a safe and secure passage for the visiting dignitaries. Delhi Police mounted high vigilance on the activities of suspected bad characters in view of the security requirements for an incident-free Republic Day and detained about 5,000 such people in the capital. Republic Day parades and celebrations will be held across the country in state capitals, government offices, schools, colleges and other institutions. The tricolour will be hoisted by the respective state heads or officials. Security has been tightened in various parts of the country, especially in Jammu and Kashmirs Srinagar and Chhattisgarhs Maoist affected areas to avert any untoward incident during Republic Day celebrations. Also read | Pranab Mukherjee, Bhupen Hazarika and Nanaji Deshmukh awarded Bharat Ratna Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday rolled out transfer of funds to small and marginal farmers and landless sharecroppers under the Krushak Assistant for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme. Under the Rs 10,180 crore livelihood support and insurance scheme, a sum of Rs 5000 transferred to bank accounts of over 12.4 lakh farmers in the State. Around 30.17 lakh small and marginal farmers would get Rs 25000 as farm assistance over five agricultural seasons for purchase of inputs like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, labour charges. Besides, each landless agricultural households would get one-time assistance of Rs.12,500 for agricultural allied activities like livestock, fishery and horticulture-based activities towards livelihood supports in three phases as the BJD seeks to overcome farmer discontent ahead of the elections. Initiating the transfer of Rs 5000 to each of the bank accounts of the beneficiaries at a massive gathering of farmers in Malatipatapur village in Puri district, Patnaik said: For Odishas development, this is a milestone and no one can hinder its progress. This scheme will help you (farmers) in your farming activities and you and your family will progress. Ninety two per cent of the States farmers will reap benefits form this scheme. This program will pave the path for the entire nation as everybody countrywide is appreciating the scheme, said Patnaik. You are providing food to the state. The grains and vegetables you produce are being used in Lord Jagannaths Mahaprasad. It is a great deed, a noble deed. Therefore, I have given the name of this scheme KALIA and before launching the scheme, I took the blessings of the Lord today, he said. On Friday, the state government transferred Rs 622.5 crore to the banks accounts of 12.4 lakh farmers. In February, another Rs 1000 crore would be transferred to the farmers accounts. Officials said zeroing in on small and marginal farmers from the 67 lakh-odd farmers who had applied under the scheme was a big challenge. Using databases of Direct Benefit Transfer, Paddy Procurement Automation System, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Human Resources Management System, State Food Security Scheme, teahers data from OPEPA, lecturers data from higher education department, police department employees, pension accounts from State Bank of India we did a lot of number crunching and data analysis to ferret out the real beneficiaries. In the first phase we are giving Rs 5000 to 12.45 lakh farmers, said cooperation department secretary Dr Krishan Kumar. The scheme has drawn mixed reactions. While economist Ashok Gulati hailed the scheme calling it the lighthouse to guide the nation on what type of agriculture policy for Indias farmers, Swaminathan Ankalsaria Aiyar praised it calling it fairer than Rythu Bandhu scheme of Telengana, but cautioned it would be difficult to implement due to administrative resource issues. Political analysts believe Kalia scheme is going to be a gamechanger for BJD as it would help the party battle anti-incumbency at the grassroots at a time when farm distress has emerged as a major worry. Nothing works like money during election. One really does not know how much the Rs 5000 cash assistance per cropping season would help the cause of agriculture, but it would surely be a big help for Odisha farmers. This scheme would ensure Naveen returns as CM for the fifth term, said Prof SP Dash, political science professor or Sambalpur University. But both the Congress and the BJP attacked Patnaik over the cash transfer scheme Congress President Rahul Gandhi who was in Bhubaneswar on Friday said the decision of the Congress government in Chhattisgarh to raise minimum support price (MSP) seems to have spurred Patnaik to launch the KALIA scheme. Suddenly Naveen Patnaik has woken up to the idea that farmers need help. What has he been doing for last 10-15 years? Why is it that after the Chhattisgarh government raised MSP, Patnaik woke up to the plight of farmers? Gandhi asked at a closed door interaction with intellectuals in Bhubaneswar. Union petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan said when the state government has admitted in the Assembly that it does not have any data on sharecroppers, how could it extend financial assistance to them. The government is just trying to hoodwink farmers, said Pradhan. While the BJD is banking on the KALIA scheme to win the upcoming elections, voices on ground attest to the growing disenchantment with the ruling party. The Naveen Patnaik government has not given a single rupees extra for MSP on paddy. In the last four years, the State government has not acknowledged a single farmer death due to farm distress. Farmers are not able to sell their paddy at MSP. The government just wants to buy votes through KALIA scheme, said Ashok Pradhan, leader of farmer organisation Paschima Odisha Krushak Surakhya Samanwaya Samiti. The government is planning to use a fleet of 150 vehicles with audio-visual aids to spread awareness on KALIA in all the 6800 gram panhayats for the next 45 days in an effort to gain maximum leverage. Television advertisements, radio jingles on 13 channels of All India Radio and FM and newspaper advertisements have been prepared and are being broadcast. A call centre working as KALIA helpline has also been made operational that would redress grievances of farmers, said an official, underlining the importance of the scheme. Twenty seven of 31 Rohingya including 16 children arrested by Tripura Police on Tuesday are registered as refugees with the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency has said. The UNHCR has also urged the Indian government to respect the principle of non-refoulement - the principle of global law that disallows the repatriation of refugees to a country where they are liable to be persecuted - and not detain or deport the refugees. The group of Rohingya were arrested by the Tripura Police after they were stranded for almost four days between the border fence and the international border with Bangladesh and a standoff ensued between the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) and Indias Border Security Force (BSF). The group was detained by the BGB on January 18 which alleged that they were pushed into Bangladesh by BSF. The BGB pushed the group back to the Indian side of the international border, according to officials. The BSF said the Rohingya infiltrated from Bangladesh. They were later handed over to the Tripura police. 27 among them were registered with UNHCR as refugees and four young children are not registered, the UNCHR said in an email to HT responding to queries about their status. According to UNHCR, the group was living in Jammu for the last several years. Some members of the group had earlier acknowledged that they were living in Jammu and had planned to cross the border illegally to Bangladesh fearing deportation to Myanmar after the Indian government sent back another group earlier this month. According to UNHCR, a family of five Rohingya was returned to Myanmar in January 2019 despite being registered with UNHCR as asylum seekers. The family had been detained in Tezpur in central Assam. Meanwhile, Tripura Police officials said the group continues to be in judicial custody and their UNHCR identity cards are being verified. The Rohingyas were arrested for violation of the Indian Passports Act. Without a valid passport, no foreign nationals are allowed to enter India, said Ajay Kumar Das, Sub Divisional Police Officer, Amtali. The UNHCR said refugees and asylum seekers are often forced to flee without proper documents and should not be denied asylum merely on the basis of irregular entry. UNHCR advocates that the principle of non-refoulement is respected and Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers are not detained or deported under the Foreigners Act, to a place where their lives would be in danger, UNHCR said urged their release. Taking vitamin D supplements could reduce the risk of deadly lung attacks in some chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, finds a recent study. Conducted by researchers at Queen Mary University of London, the study has been published in the journal Thorax. The findings add to a growing list of health benefits for the sunshine vitamin. While vitamin D is best known for its effects on bone health, previous studies have revealed its role in protecting against colds, flu and asthma attacks, and even helping with weight gain and brain development in malnourished children. The latest research found that the use of vitamin D supplements led to a 45 per cent reduction in lung attacks among COPD patients who were deficient in vitamin D. No benefit was seen for patients with higher vitamin D levels. COPD describes a number of lung conditions, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis, where a persons airways become inflamed, making it harder to breathe 1. Almost all COPD deaths are due to lung attacks (termed exacerbations) in which symptoms worsen acutely. These are often triggered by viral upper respiratory infections - the type that cause the common cold. The disease affects more than 170 million people worldwide, and caused an estimated 3.2 million deaths in 2015. Lead researcher Professor Adrian Martineau said: New treatments are urgently needed to prevent COPD attacks. Our study shows that giving supplements to vitamin D-deficient COPD patients nearly halves their rate of potentially fatal attacks. Vitamin D supplementation is safe, and it costs just a few pence to supplement a person for a year - so this is a potentially highly cost-effective treatment that could be targeted at those who have low vitamin D levels following routine testing. The analysis found that vitamin D supplements, given by mouth, reduced the rate of moderate/severe COPD exacerbations in patients with low vitamin D levels (less than 25 nmol per litre of blood or 10 nanograms per millilitre). Doses of vitamin D ranged from 30 micrograms daily to 2500 micrograms monthly. Supplementation did not influence the proportion of participants experiencing serious adverse events, indicating that it was safe. Giving supplements to patients who did not have such low levels of vitamin D did not reduce their risk of COPD attacks. The researchers therefore highlight that this would need to be a targeted therapy, with doctors first testing vitamin D levels in COPD patients who experience frequent attacks, and then giving vitamin D supplements to those who are deficient. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Spotted and smitten thats the emotion we felt when we saw Sara Ali Khans pictures from the Singapore International Indian Expo 2019. With a great month in December after delivering two films, one of which continues to break records all over, Sara is making a statement with her sartorial sense, her personality and her humility. The best part she rocks almost everything shes styled in and we, like the several other followers of hers on Instagram, love how she carries herself. Theres beauty, brains, and a lot of style packed in this 25-YO. In a promotional interview before her last release, Simmba, Sara had said that she looks the best in a white churidaar kurta we agree - not that she hasnt proven her versatility in fashion already, but theres a simplistic sophistication to the Indian traditional wear that may not be too easy for everyone to flaunt. Dont you agree? At the recent event, Sara wore a white anarkali with gota patti on the border, with a churidaar in the same shade. The dupatta she carried had a blend of gota patti (or gota handwork) and intricate embroidery. The suit set has been designed Sukriti and Akriti Grover, while Sara was styled by Tanya Ghavri. The juttis Sara paired with this beautiful outfit are from a collaboration collection between ace designers Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla and NeedleDust. The juttis called Darpan cost Rs 7800 and you can get the complete look for approximately Rs 40000. Sara rocked the airport look too as she was spotted in the same outfit at Mumbai airport upon her return from Singapore. Take a look at the pictures below and tell us tweet to us what you loved most about Saras most-recent look. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter In a glittering award ceremony, the US $25,000 DSC Prize was awarded to Jayant Kaikini and Tejaswini Niranjana along with a unique trophy by eminent writer Ruskin Bond. No Presents Please originally written in Kannada by noted author Jayant Kaikini and translated into English by eminent translator Tejaswini Niranjana has been announced as the winner of the prestigious DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet in Kolkata, India. The DSC Prize has always encouraged writing in regional languages and translations, and this is the first time that a translated work has won the prize. This magnificent book gives us a protagonist that is vivid yet full of contradictions, spirited yet lonely, embattled yet big-hearted the city of Mumbai. Empathy and survival are the constant, co-dependent themes that unify every strand of this extraordinary book, creating a shimmering mosaic of a conflicted city that is as kind as it is, at times, cruel. The cracks in the curtains of the ordinary open up to possibilities that might not have existed, but for this city where the surreal meets the everyday. The six shortlisted authors and books for the DSC Prize this year were Jayant Kaikini: No Presents Please (Translated by Tejaswini Niranjana), Kamila Shamsie: Home Fire, Manu Joseph: Miss Laila Armed And Dangerous, Mohsin Hamid: Exit West, Neel Mukherjee: A State Of Freedom and Sujit Saraf: Harilal & Sons. The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 was judged by a diverse and distinguished five member jury panel comprising eminent figures drawn from the international literary fraternity who have worked in or around South Asian literature and issues. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Bollywood has, in its own capacity, contributed to nation building by delivering patriotic films that continue to raise the spirits of the countrymen with captivating stories of the ones who made the nation proud. The recent years have seen a surge in biopics on all, from sportspersons and several forgotten personalities, who dedicated their lives to the country. Also Read: Vicky Kaushal leads an efficient but unimpressive attack in Uri As India celebrates its 70th Republic Day, we look back at some of the best dialogues from Bollywood films that reflect the spirit of the new India. Paresh Rawal played national security advisor in Uri: The Surgical Strike and raised the spirits of the moviegoers with the dialogue, Ab Hindustan badal chuka hai, ye naya Hindustan hai. Ye ghar me khusega bhi aur marega bhi. (This is a changed India, new India. It will enter in the house and will kill the inmates too). Kangana Ranaut can be seen addressing a gathering in the film Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, where she says, Beti jab udh khadi hoti hai tabhi vijay badi hoti hai. (When the daughter stands to fight, the victory is bigger.) She plays Rani Laxmibai, originally named Manikarnika, who was a leading figure in the revolt of 1857 against the British. Actor Alia Bhatt played an Indian spy in the film Raazi and won wide praise for her performance in the film. She played a college-going girl married to a Pakistani army man to spy for India. Her famous dialogue for the film, Vatan ke aage kuch nahi..... Khud bhi nahi. (Nation comes first and foremost even before self). Also Read: Kangana Ranaut is glorious, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi puts Sanjay Leela Bhansalis carnivals to shame John Abraham and Diana Pentys film Parmanu released last year and told the story of how India became a nuclear power. Post the climax, John says, Humne jo socha wo desh ke liye tha, humne jo kia wo desh ke liye hai aur humne jo paya wo desh ka hoga. (What we planned was for the nation, what we did is for the nation and what we achieved belongs to the nation). Manoj Bajpayee shared the secret of how to take the right decision in the film Aiyaary. He says in the 2018 film, Jab aapke paas options ho aur aap confuse hai ki aapko karna kya hai ... toss karlo ... kyun ki sikka jab hawa mein hota hai, ek pal aisa aata hai jab aapko ekdum clear ho jaata hai ... ki actually aapko kya chahiye. (When you have options and when youre confused with what you should do ... then go for a toss ... because when the coin is in the air, then a moment comes when you become absolutely clear ... about what actually you need to do). Follow @htshowbiz for more Janhvi Kapoor is among the most popular young stars to hit the silver screen in 2018. Her mischievous and endearing persona in Dhadak ensured that the nation gave her a thumbs up. Thanks to her appealing ways, Janhvi has two major films in her kitty Takht and an unnamed film where she plays an IAF pilot (both with Karan Johar). Not just films, she has also been signed on for advertisements. Janhvi is currently in Barcelona to shoot an advertisement. She shared a number of pictures of herself and her sister Khushi from the Spanish city. Janhvi Kapoor shared these pictures from Barcelona. In one of the pictures, she shared, Janhvi looks fresh and beautiful. With her flowing hair, falling softly over her shoulders, Janhvi looks every bit a star. She also shared pictures of churches in the Spanish city, in some, she is posing with sister Khushi and another friend. Janhvi Kapoor, Khushi with a friend in Barcelona. She also made Khushi her muse in other photos. Khushi Kapoor in Barcelona. Janhvi has begun preparing for her film on IAF pilot Gunjan Saxena and in December last year, she was spotted at Indian Air Force base in Bangalore, dressed as a pilot. Janhvi was seen wearing a pair of IAF dungarees in blue. Her hair was done in a tight bun, while she had minimal make-up on. Gunjan Saxena is Indian Air Forces first female combat pilot, who took part in the Kargil War in 1999. Follow @htshowbiz for more In the little world in which children have their existence, there is nothing so finely perceived and finely felt, as injustice. Commenting on this Dickensian wisdom (in Great Expectations), Nobel laureate Amartya Sen writes: the strong perception of manifest injustice applies to adult human beings as well. What moves usis not the realization that the world falls short of being completely just... but that there are clearly remediable injustices around us which we want to eliminate. Unfortunately, our Supreme Court lost a great opportunity to remedy one such injustice. In a dreadful decision (V Surendra Mohan vs State of Tamil Nadu), the apex court ruled that a visual impairment or hearing disability above 50% rendered an otherwise competent candidate unworthy of being a judge. Ironical, given that the scales of justice are balanced by a blindfolded lady. But irony aside, lets tackle this at the level of the law as espoused in that sacrament we call the Constitution. Article 14 guarantees to all of us the fundamental right to equality. At a broad level, this connotes the right to participate in society and contribute as meaningfully as the others. This constitutional promise has been translated for the differently abled through a series of Parliamentary enactments, the latest of which is the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. Under this law, as also its predecessor legislation (which applied to the facts of this case), all public establishments are to provide 3-4% reservation in identified posts for the differently abled (with some exceptions). The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) advertised certain posts for civil judges. This advertisement (notification) stated that candidates with visual/ hearing impairment were eligible, so long as their impairment was between 40-50%. How this upper limit of 50% was arrived at is anyones guess! The apex court simply defers to the government wisdom on this, without questioning its scientific basis. It is also unclear as to how an advertisement by TNPSC pursuant to a letter from the government attained the status of an overriding legal norm. Surendra Mohan, a visually impaired lawyer, was told that he was ineligible for the advertised post. Upon challenging this at the Madras High Court, he was permitted to sit the interview. But the court later ruled that he was ineligible to be a judge, as he suffered a 70% impairment. Upon appeal, the Supreme court endorsed this view. Apart from breaching the letter and spirit of the Constitution, this regressive ruling also ignores the fact that some of our finest judges have been differently abled. In fact, one of Indian origin sat in the highest court of South Africa for many years. Justice Zak Yacoob was robbed of his vision as a child. But that didnt stop him from entering the hallowed halls of justice where he served with exemplary juristic merit. Unfortunately, he would not have been considered fit enough to judge in India! So, too, with Judges David S Tatel and David Szumowski, both of whom are 100% blind. All of these legal luminaries were interviewed by the disability team of Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA ), an initiative to empower underprivileged communities through legal education. These interviews were submitted to the Hyderabad high court on behalf of one of IDIAs visually impaired students, who wanted to be a judge. Although hed graduated from a reputable national law university, he was told that he wasnt worthy of being a judge. He fought for a while and then gave up. For he had to put bread on the table for him and his family. Now he sits at a bank, where he dispenses cash instead of justice! Is this the kind of inclusive justice our Constitution makers had in mind? What is even more appalling is the tendency of our courts to carve out a separate set of rules for themselves, for instance on the applicability of the RTI Act. Similarly, had a government department been accused of refusing employment in a case like this, the court would have come down hard on it. And yet our judges are loath to apply the same rules to themselves. Clearly, charity does not begin at home. But then again, this is not about charity. This is a constitutionally guaranteed right. And a promise to create an inclusive society. Even if it takes extra resources. For, in the end, thats what the economics is about: to provide for reasonable accommodation/support in terms of manpower (scribes), IT support (screen reader software) etc. Perhaps justice isnt blind after all. And some are indeed more equal than others. Shamnad Basheer is the Bok Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) The views expressed are personal The Austria forward wrote on Instagram that it was time to "put a stop to all the writings and speculation," having needed time to talk to his family and West Ham about his future. HICKORY Veterans Coffee Connection will meet Thursday, Jan. 31, at 8:30 a.m. at Outback Steakhouse in Hickory. The informal coffee group, sponsored by Carolina Caring and hosted by Outback Steakhouse, is a welcoming place for veterans from all branches of military service to meet other veterans in the area. This free gathering is a great place to relax with a cup of hot coffee, some tasty doughnuts provided by Krispy Kreme, and socialize. Carolina Caring is proud to be a Level IV partner of the We Honor Veterans program, an awareness program spearheaded by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Coffee Connection meets the last Thursday of every month. For more information, contact the Rev. Sandi Hood, director of community relations, Carolina Caring, 828-466-0466, ext. 3212 or shood@carolinacaring.org. Staff reports The Herald-Mail To the editor: The following letter was sent to West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Austin Caperton. Secretary Caperton: I am writing to call your attention to the less than quality work the staff of the Division of Water and Waste Management are providing to the citizens of West Virginia, specifically Jefferson County. This division recently released transcripts of a hearing held on Dec. 10 in Ranson, W.Va. The transcripts begin with the heading, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania RE: Charlestown WV. Charles Town has been two words officially since 1912 and was once a part of Virginia but has never been part of Pennsylvania. Errors abound throughout the document. Most telling is the use of the name Rockwell. Since the hearing concerned a waste discharge permit for Rockwool, this is a serious error. This document is filled with mistakes, should be withdrawn, and any review or decision on the permit should be delayed until an accurate document is produced. The lack of quality control by your staff is just another example of what appears to be a total lack of care, rigor and professionalism by the DEP concerning Rockwool. In addition to reviewing the work performed by your staff, someone should re-evaluate the contract with the Pennsylvania firm that produced such an error-filled document. Timothy L. Ross Member, Concerned Citizens against Rockwool-Ranson Charles Town, W.Va. Hagerstown, MD (21740) Today Thunderstorms likely. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 83F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 67F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Matthew Umstead mumstead@herald-mail.com MARTINSBURG, W.Va. The first building considered for the Mid-Atlantic 81 Logistics Park in Berkeley County, W.Va., is substantially complete, but plans for the development project off exit 8 of Interstate 81 still are far from finalized. At the end of the day, this is going to be a 150-acre site that will have 1.9 million square feet (of building space) on it, said Dan DiLella Jr., senior vice president of Newtown Square, Pa.-based Equus Capital Partners Ltd. Altogether, DiLella said more than $100 million of investment is eyed for the acreage in the 200 block of Development Drive, which is about a mile from I-81. The site is closer to Procter & Gamble Co.s plant in Tabler Station Business Park at 396 Development Drive, and P&G has pre-leased about 182,000 square feet of the private real-estate investment fund managers first project in the logistics park a 356,700-square-foot structure for storage. Were very hopeful that P&Gs presence continues to expand in the market and we can accommodate them, possibly in the rest of this building, or in subsequent buildings on the site, DiLella said. Were told that theyre going to have a number of suppliers that are going to need to locate in the area. Theres really not much in the area, and you cant be anymore in the area than we are right here to be ... maybe a half-mile away as the crow flies, maybe less, and a direct industrial road with one traffic light, he said. West Virginia transportation officials move to build Development Drive from Business Park Drive a couple of years ago was a net positive for the project because it eliminated a very circuitous route from I-81 to the site via U.S. 11 and Corning Way, DiLella said. When you were showing potential users that site, it was not ideal, he said. With the first building now substantially complete, DiLella said the next step is to complete civil engineering for the remaining portion of the site. He indicated that the firm also plans to break ground this year on a more than 320,000-square-foot spec building in the logistics park. The largest building envisioned for the logistics park, a more than 860,000-square-foot structure, is expected to be the last to be built. I would hope that we would be fully developed in five years for sure, DiLella said. He said all of the buildings are expected to be similar in construction, and he anticipates similar warehouse/logistics users being interested in the sites access to I-81. DiLella said the firm has been involved with the acreage for about 10 years and had chased a number of potential users including Amazon, Macys and Church & Dwight Co. Inc., the makers of Arm & Hammer products for the site, which had been under contract. The property was acquired in March for about $4.8 million, according to Berkeley County deed records. Certainly, P&G landing in the market has been a real positive for us, DiLella said. In discussing the investment, DiLella noted that the development is exceptional due to the lack of Class A warehouse/distribution construction in the area between Hagerstown and Winchester, Va. On its website, Equus promotes the parks building features, including a 32-foot clearance height, pre-cast concrete walls, single-loaded truck court with two drive-in doors, a 52-foot-by-50-foot column spacing with a 60-foot speed bay, 45 dock locations and a 410-foot building depth. DiLella said if someone is coming in the market looking for anywhere from 200,000 to 400,000 square feet in a modern building ... it doesnt exist. The new warehouse/logistics park is being marketed as being within a one-day drive of nearly 40 percent of the countrys population. Joyce F. Nowell jnowell@herald-mail.com By JOYCE F. NOWELL jnowell@herald-mail.com CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. Farmers need to keep telling their own stories, especially in challenging times, according to Pennsylvanias secretary of agriculture. Russell Redding spoke Friday before about 200 farmers at Wilson College in Chambersburg. They gathered as guests of Smiths Implements, which hosted a day of information and training on the topic of Navigating the Future of Agriculture. Redding told the food producers that international markets, commodity prices and consumption levels are among the challenges to Pennsylvanias $136 billion agriculture industry and there is a strategic plan at work on the state level to help. Redding encouraged farmers to speak to consumers and build relationships. Im encouraged that consumers want to know who feeds them, he said. Its one of the great developments of our time. We have to get good at telling the story ourselves to navigate the story of the benefits of agriculture, food, land stewardship, water quality and quality of life. When that happens, agriculture wins. Smiths, which serves those who work the land with John Deere equipment, has locations in Mercersburg, Chambersburg and Carlisle in Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown in Washington County. The event offered myriad classes on topics such as technology, finances, transportation and, of course, information about the iconic green-and-yellow equipment. The ag industry is changing, and the customer base is changing, as well, said Kevin Malone, Smiths corporate aftermarket manager. Weve moved more and more toward technology-driven advancements. We understand there are a lot of tried-and-true ways of doing business, and we want to make sure our customers are apprised of all the technology and all the options they have to maximize the productivity of their equipment, the productivity of their animals, the efficiency of the way they do business on the farm. Redding remains optimistic, and called for farmers to have patience, hope and faith. Weve had challenging years, but looking ahead, Im enthusiastic about agriculture, he said. I share the worries that we have to figure out some of the macro concerns, particularly on the relationship side. We want to believe that were in the dairy business, fruit business, cattle business, grain business. Were actually in a relationship business. Managing those relationships, whether at a customer level at Smiths, in your own community interfacing with the larger public, at market selling your product or in trade negotiations around the world, youre in the relationship business. Malone hopes the educational event did its part in supporting agriculture, which he sees as having a bright future in the region as producers show a willingness to change, adjust and adapt. That can help us drive more productivity and get more out of each dollar we spend and most importantly, get more out of each hour we spend in the field, he said. Theres a payoff there that we anticipate at some point in time, but these folks are our neighbors, and theyre not just customers. We want them to be successful and their families to be successful, and that helps everybody. Everybody benefits whenever our farmers do well. Mike Lewis mlewis@herald-mail.com HANCOCK Hancock voters will choose a mayor and two town council members Monday. The election comes at a time when the western Washington County town is seeking a new town manager and preparing plans for a new wastewater treatment plant. In the mayoral race, first-term incumbent Ralph Salvagno will face Nigel Dardar in a rematch of the 2017 campaign. In that election, Salvagno received 269 votes and Dardar garnered 54. Hancock mayors serve two-year terms, while council members are elected to four-year stints. The top two vote-getters among the council hopefuls will take office. The race features two incumbents, Levi Little and Tim Smith, along with David Kerns, Preston Hall and Roland Lanehart Jr. Voting will take place Monday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Town Hall at 126 W. High St. The following is a look at each candidate: Mayoral race Nigel Dardar, 71, is retired and a former Hancock Town Council member. He said he has come to love the town after moving here. I truly love Hancock, the citizens, the families, the kids, the recreation, he said. Dardar said the town manager should be a member of ICMA, which bills itself as the worlds leading association of professional city and county managers and other employees who serve local governments. Among his major concerns, he said, is the number of motorists who drive through town while using cellphones. Maryland law prohibits the use of hand-held devices while driving. During his council stint, he attended multiple meetings of other governmental bodies to learn how they addressed their problems, he said. Ralph Salvagno, 63, is retired as an orthopedic surgeon, but remains involved with Meritus Medical Center near Hagerstown as its chief of staff. He served on the Hancock Town Council before being elected mayor two years ago. Salvagno said he has worked to address the towns long-range issues and deal with residents immediate problems as they arise. He also said he has worked to help the town establish relationships with area, state and national governmental and civic leaders. An important priority, he said, will be hiring a town manager. This is not an easy job to fill. We need someone who can do the administrative work as well as the operational work, Salvagno said. He also said the town can build its future on certain things that are not going to change, such as the presence of the Potomac River, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park and the Western Maryland Rail Trail. Council race David Kerns, 50, works as a building inspector. Were at a crossroads, Kerns said of Hancock. In recent decades, the town lost three major employers London Fog, Fleetwood Travel Trailers and Rayloc Co. Kerns estimated 1,200 jobs were lost. We have to change our method of thinking to bring in new residents and new businesses, he said. He suggested the town first should work with local businesses to help them grow, then reach out to other enterprises that could locate in town. Roland Lanehart Jr., 49, runs Rolands Garage and Used Cars in Hancock. He said he would focus on financial responsibility. I know what it takes to run a business in a small town with limited resources and funds, he said, noting that he would spend the citizens money like it is my own. He said he would work with other agencies and arms of government to continue to steer Hancock in the right direction. Levi Little, 36, is finishing his first term on the council. He has been a volunteer with the Hancock Rescue Service and works as a professional firefighter and paramedic in Maryland. I will be an advocate for our communitys best interests, Little said, pointing to projects such as the sewer treatment plant and the need to fill the town manager slot and open positions on the police force. Speaking of the cost of the sewage treatment plant, he said he has been working to lessen the financial burden on Hancocks residents. Tim Smith, 42, said he first was elected to the council 12 years ago. He runs Smiths Auction Service and works at Harvest of Maryland. He said he has tried to be responsive to Hancock residents and their concerns and to be up front and honest in tackling the towns issues during his time on the council. (Voters) just want a good, honest, hard-working guy, he said. I go to work like everyone else. ... Im not a suit-and-tie guy. Preston Hall also is seeking election as a council member. Hall, 65, contacted Herald-Mail Media after the deadline for print in Sunday's newspaper. "I'll try to put a Walmart in Hancock, or a Lowe's (home-improvement store) or a Home Depot," he said in a telephone interview Sunday afternoon. "I'd try to bring the apple festival back," he added. Editor's note: This story was updated Jan. 27 to include comments from council candidate Preston Hall. Mike Lewis mlewis@herald-mail.com A judge on Friday cited William Joseph Sauls ill health as he ordered Saul to be released to a nursing home while awaiting trial on 10 charges of possessing child pornography. According to charging documents, the charges stem from images police found in a search of a digital tablet earlier this month. The photographs depict prepubescent youths and toddler-aged boys and girls in sexually explicit situations. At least two photos show a child with an adult. During a bond hearing Friday in Washington County District Court, Assistant Public Defender Brian Hutchinson said that Saul, 36, has been staying at a nursing home for about two months now. Saul suffers from muscular dystrophy and prostate cancer, the attorney said, and typically uses a walker. He is a man who is physically in need of a lot of care, Hutchinson said. Through a video feed from the Washington County Detention Center, Saul told Judge Terry A. Myers that he previously lived in a local hotel. A hospice nurse made arrangements for him to be moved to the nursing home. In response to a question from Myers, an officer at the jail said it would be a burden to care for Saul there. Myers ordered Saul to be released without bond to the care of the nursing home. Saul, who has had a Hagerstown address in the past, is to have no access to computers or the internet. The Washington County Sheriffs Office was to transport Saul from the jail to the nursing home after Fridays hearing. The criminal investigation started earlier this month when the sheriffs office received a call from a Hagerstown pawn shop. According to the charging documents, shop employees told police a Samsung digital tablet was pawned there in October. The owner did not follow through with the pawn agreement, and the pawn shop took possession of the device. When the employees examined the tablet to prepare it for sale, they saw photos and called police. Calling the images child erotica, the charging document said the pictures did not meet the states legal definition of child pornography. But other images were not visible. Their existence was listed in the photo application of the device. To access those pictures, police obtained a warrant that allowed them to connect to a network account associated with the device. Police then downloaded files from that account and found many pictures that meet the Maryland statute of child pornography. A warrant for Sauls arrest was issued Thursday. Janet Heim janeth@herald-mail.com When Dr. Frederic H. Kass III accepted a position in 1979 with a medical practice in Hagerstown, it was the start of a 40-year career in internal medicine, focused primarily on hematology and oncology. Treatment for cancer and blood disorders has changed exponentially since then. Immunotherapy, a type of cancer treatment that boosts the bodys natural defenses to fight cancer, only was a dream and now is producing remarkable responses, Kass said. At 70 years of age, Kass, who goes by Rick, plans to keep up on advances in the specialty. He is looking forward to finally having time to read the books he wants to read, many of them recommended by his former patients. Even though he mastered the computer for work, Kass plans to take computer courses to learn how to use the computer as a tool outside of medicine. Kass, who retired Dec. 31, also looks forward to traveling with his wife of 45 years, Susanne. They plan to stay in Hagerstown, having downsized from a 200-year-old farmhouse along Antietam Creek to the Arborgate development north of Hagerstown in 2016. The Kasses have a married daughter who lives in New York City, and a married son in Baltimore who has two children. Building relationships As Kass reflects on his career, it comes down to relationships. The most rewarding part is getting to know the patients and families well, developing ongoing relationships with them, he said. And certainly, the people I worked with colleagues and support staff were exemplary in helping me provide care. Kass didnt set out to become a doctor. He majored in sociology and anthropology as an undergraduate student at a college in upstate New York. Always interested in science, it was Susannes father, himself a doctor, who got Kass interested in medicine. Kass, who grew up in northern New Jersey, graduated from George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. He did a medical residency at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Va., and a fellowship at GWUs School of Medicine in hematology and medical oncology. As he was finishing up in 1979, Kass applied to a practice in Hagerstown, where he knew two of the doctors who had attended the University of Virginia. I joined them and did some internal medicine, but the bulk of the practice was cancer and blood disorders, said Kass, noting that provided a good balance for him. He was with that practice, initially named Newman, Wagshal, Wooster and Kass, and eventually known as Tri-State Physicians for a year or two. Kass then joined Meritus Hematology/Oncology Specialists four or five years ago. Kass said when he first came to Hagerstown, Dr. Richard Smith was the only doctor practicing oncology. Chemotherapy was administered in the emergency room at the former Washington County Hospital, then moved to a wing in the old hospital. In 1996, the hospital opened the John R. Marsh Cancer Center at Robinwood Professional Center, which has grown significantly since, Kass said. The group Kass was with moved its offices from Howell Road to Robinwood Professional Center next to the cancer center, where Kass was medical director from 1996 to 2018. A collaborative effort Dr. Michael McCormack has been a colleague of Kass for 27 1/2 years. Rick Kass essentially established oncology care in this area. When he came in 1979, he was one of only two oncologists. ... Now, there are seven oncologists in the community that offer a full-range of oncology services, McCormack said. Hes been medical director for hospice for as long as Ive know him. Its remarkable. Kass said the coordination of care is far better now and, as a result, patients receive much more support. Caring for patients is a collaborative effort. Its not just the physician, but also the people who check patients in and out, nurses, the pathologist, the radiologists and radiation oncologists, he said. It takes a large number of people to provide care. Even though I direct things, its with assistance. Karen Statler of Greencastle, Pa., retired two years ago and said she was one of the first oncology nurses to work with Kass. We all loved him. He was very easy to work with. He was a great support for the nursing staff. The patients just loved him. He got to know them and that was important. That was a big, big element in their treatment, she said. Statler said Kass professionalism inspired the nurses to get certified in oncology to provide their patients the best care. Im so proud of him and grateful for all he did. Im humbled to have worked for him, for all he did to bring us topnotch cancer care here, she said. Other than a few conditions, most cancer patients can be treated in Hagerstown instead of having to drive to Baltimore or Washington, D.C. I think most patients would want to be treated here in town, Kass said, noting the friendliness and support of the cancer centers staff members. Kass has been involved with Hospice of Washington County from the beginning in 1980 and served as its only medical director until stepping down from that role when he retired. He continues his involvement by attending team meetings. There have been many successes. Hospice is something Im particularly proud of, he said. He said initially, the majority of hospice patients had cancer, but that is not the case any more. Im happy with what has happened. Hospice now services 230 patients in Washington County a day, he said. Kass retired without any regrets, and said he knows his patients are in good hands. Since announcing his retirement, he has received heartwarming letters and notes from his patients. At the end of the day, Im glad people felt supported enough to write a letter. When people are pleased and comforted with what you do, thats the best vote of confidence you get, he said. Don Aines daines@herald-mail.com A judge on Friday went above the states recommendation of two years, sentencing a Hagerstown man to five years in prison for possessing and training dogs for dogfighting. Whats grotesquely offensive ... is the condition these nine dogs were found in, Washington County Circuit Court Judge Daniel P. Dwyer said before sentencing James Andrew Lambert Jr. Assistant States Attorney Michele Hansen read a statement of facts resulting from a Aug. 19, 2016, search of Lamberts Bethel Street residence. Dwyer described some of the training equipment found in Lamberts house as right out of a torture chamber. Lambert, 35, entered a plea of not guilty with an agreed statement of facts, before Dwyer, meaning the judge would decide whether Lambert was guilty or not guilty based on a statement of facts presented by Hansen. The judge gave Lambert a total of six years on the fighting dog charges, suspending one year. He added another nine-year suspended sentence on the firearms charge. Following his release Lambert will be on probation for five years, during which time he will not be allowed to own, possess or live in the same home as any animal. No dogs ...no ferrets, no goldfish, Dwyer said. You are not to be trusted with any animal. Assistant Public Defender Stephen Musselman had asked for a judgment of acquittal, telling Dwyer the state had not established Lamberts guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Hes asserting and maintaining his innocence, Musselman told Dwyer. The not guilty with an agreed statement of facts plea allows Lambert to preserve his right to appeal, Dwyer noted during the hearing. Twenty-seven other counts were dismissed as part of the plea agreement. However, Dwyer found Lambert guilty on the two dogfighting counts and one count of illegal possession of a regulated firearm by a person with a disqualifying crime. Hansen said the crimes prohibiting Lambert from having a firearm were a 2010 conviction for conspiracy to possess a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute and a 2007 conviction for drug possession. Hansen said several dogs had extensive scarring on their faces and legs, indicating injuries the animals would get in staged dog fighting. She described training equipment, including a treadmill, a break stick device used to pry open dogs jaws, and a teaser pole, on which a cat, rabbit or chicken would be tied, then given as a reward to the dog during training. Lambert maintained records of the training of the dogs, Hansen said. Of the nine dogs found in the house, most were in the basement in kennel cages and the smell of urine was overwhelming, Hansen said. All of the dogs eventually had to be euthanized because they were too dangerous, she said. Also found in the search was a shotgun in a bedroom and a .22-caliber handgun under a living room couch, Hansen said. Lambert admitted owning the weapons, she said. Musselman asked for a judgment of acquittal prior to Dwyer finding Lambert guilty. Musselman told Dwyer there was never probable cause for the police to search the house and the search warrant itself contained hearsay information. Hansen countered that the information for the warrant came from a confidential informant experienced around the country in investigating dogfighting. Additional information came from a repair person who was called to the house and reported seeing the conditions in which the dogs were living. To say that he was fighting dogs ... that is not true at all, Lamberts mother told Dwyer. Hes a kind-hearted person. He loves people and animals and often rescued dogs, she said. Crystal Mowery, the field service director for the Human Society of Washington County, read off the names of all the dogs that were seized and the six puppies born to one of the animals afterward. Only three of the puppies were not euthanized, she said. The humane society worked with the dogs for 16 months, but their past continued to haunt them and they were aggressive in the presence of other animals and to some staff, she said. You raised, bred and trained them to be killers to fight to the death Mowery said to Lambert. And you, sir, succeeded. Valerie Bonk vabonk@herald-mail.com It started as a service learning project to get hours required for school. Then, Alyssa Goetz walked through the doors of the Eastern Boulevard branch of Middletown Valley Bank in Hagerstown. She saw that the empty box she dropped off the day before was now overflowing with food. Alyssa, 12, decided that this was going to go beyond a school project. Its crazy because I didnt think that I would get so much in a day, but I got a lot, she said. The canned food and other pantry items will be taken to Community Action Council. Alyssa created the drive after volunteering at CAC with the Womens Giving Circle of Washington County. The CAC provides food to an average of 200 households in Washington County every month. Last year, 93,000 pounds of food was distributed through the pantry. Alyssa put out boxes in six branches of Middletown Valley Bank, where her father BJ Goetz is the president and CEO. The boxes will stay there until Feb. 1. Geordie Newman, president and CEO of Community Action Council, said hes thrilled that young students like Alyssa help their community. We think its just wonderful that youth are willing to get involved in the community and to really be involved and not just talk about it and just take action, Newman said. He said CAC has seen an increase in need with about 15 food appointments each day. Were very thankful for the assistance and hope other students will learn from Alyssa, he said. Alyssa is a seventh-grader at Boonsboro Middle School. Others students at school hand her donations when she gets to class. Shes excited to see the enthusiasm surrounding her project. I think its so cool because its like people taking their part and I find it so much fun to like help people out and its nice to know that other people are like willing to help people in need, Alyssa said. Alyssa said she wants to become a neurosurgeon or a kindergarten or first-grade teacher. Her hope in the meantime is to keep the project going each year to help those in the area. I think it would be cool to do it every year because its a nice thing that I like to do, Alyssa said. Don Aines daines@herald-mail.com Easton Blickenstaff did not fire the gun that killed Eddie Ragland, but a jury on Friday found him guilty of first-degree murder and other offenses in a fatal 2017 drive-by shooting. Blickenstaff, 21, of Hagerstown faces life in prison for the murder of a man the state said was not his intended target in a revenge shooting. Washington County Circuit Court Judge Mark K. Boyer ordered that a presentence investigation be done before sentencing later this year. Blickenstaff did not testify and the defense presented no witnesses. The jury deliberated about two hours before reaching a verdict. In October, a jury convicted Jason Scott Carter II, the man who shot Ragland, of involuntary manslaughter and found him not guilty of murder. On that charge and guilty findings on other counts, Carter was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but is appealing his conviction to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Carters lawyer argued his client had been drinking and was high on marijuana when he shot Ragland. On May 20, 2017, Blickenstaff drove Carter to Noland Drive, where they followed another car to the Sherman Avenue intersection. At about 4:15 a.m., Blickenstaff pulled the Mercury Mountaineer alongside the Nissan Versa and Carter fired six rounds into the drivers side passenger door, killing Ragland and wounding his cousin, Jaseye Stephens. A baby in a safety seat beside Stephens and two women in the front seat were unhurt. Deputy States Attorney Joseph Michael told the jury in his closing argument in Blickenstaffs trial that the killing was in retaliation for a drive-by shooting at about 3:45 a.m. However, Ragland was the wrong guy, Michael said. In a recorded statement to Hagerstown police following his arrest four days after the murder, Blickenstaff named a man he referred to as Stats as the person he thought fired into a parked Chrysler Pacifica that Blickenstaff, Carter and a woman were sitting in off Main Avenue. After the shooting, the three drove to Carters residence, where they switched vehicles and Carter got a 9 mm handgun. Blickenstaff and Carter then dropped the woman off at Main Avenue to get her car. Blickenstaff and Carter drove to a court off Noland Drive where Stats girlfriend lived. Instead of Stats coming out and getting into the Versa, it was Ragland and Stephens. Ragland had earlier called his girlfriend for a ride, according to her testimony on the first day of the three-day trial. Blickenstaff told investigators Carter was armed with a hitman gun, but later changed that, saying he saw him with a handgun magazine. Blickenstaff knew something bad was going down and was liable as an accomplice for the same crimes Carter was charged with, Michael told the jury. Assistant Public Defender Thomas Tamm told the jury Blickenstaff did not knowingly drive Carter to the scene with the intention of Carter committing murder, elements needed to establish him as an accomplice. The two were drinking and smoking weed and Blickenstaff should not be judged an accomplice because he saw the guy loading a clip. Its on Carter. I didnt do this, Blickenstaff said after the shooting, Tamm told the jurors. The jury also found Blickenstaff guilty on other charges, including the attempted murder of Stephens, first- and second-degree assault, criminal conspiracy, transporting a handgun and five counts of reckless endangerment. He was found not guilty of using a firearm in a crime of violence and some other assault and conspiracy charges related to the uninjured people in the car. The Herald-Mail Hell be operating in a larger domain, but he says hell always be a fan of the Maryland Symphony Orchestra. Friday was Stephen Marc Beaudoins last day as MSOs executive director. He announced his resignation last month, and will begin his new job as executive director of the Washington Chorus on Feb. 4. Beaudoin has been with MSO since September 2017, when he replaced Michael Jonnes as executive director. The new job is a step up, he said, but thats not in any way reflective of the high esteem and love that I have for this organization and this community, because moving here and working with the Maryland Symphony was also a step up for me. Beaudoin came to Hagerstown from Portland, Ore., where he spent seven years as executive director of Pacific Honored Artists, Musicians, and Entertainers, a Portland-based nonprofit group serving artists and musicians with intellectual disabilities. Hed already been involved with the Washington Chorus, singing in the groups tenor section. I think for me personally and professionally, it is a step forward, and the breadth of the choruss work, the types and the caliber of artistic relationships and artistic collaborations with the National Symphony, with the Kennedy Center. Its a different milieu and there will be no shortage of challenges. ... And the opportunities are rich. MSOs board of directors announced Friday that former Executive Director Andrew Kipe is serving as interim executive director as the board seeks a permanent replacement. Kipe, a Hagerstown native, currently is director of concert and ensemble operations at the Peabody Institute, a division of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Kipe was MSOs executive director from June 2006 to December 2010. Transitions are great moments for organizations, Beaudoin said. Not only to think about and talk about some of the short-term challenges, but to ask themselves again, What do we really want? Theres some foundational pieces that have been built in the last 16 months that will persist, I think, for many years to come. Im gonna be a fan of this orchestra for the rest of my life. He has a long list of favorite memories, he said, but MSOs Salute to Independence at Antietam National Battlefield last summer was among the best. Beaudoin and Music Director Elizabeth Schulze included a piece by African-American composer Kimo Williams, who now lives in Shepherdstown, W.Va., called Fanfare for Life in the program that night. I will never forget seeing Kimo, who is an important black American composer and a Vietnam veteran, walking out on stage, addressing the audience, and then the Maryland Symphony playing his music, he said. And that was important and profound for me because it was perfectly representative of what that field is about. And to think that, however many lifetimes after that battle happened, here was a homegrown orchestra, born and raised in the backyard of Antietam, playing and celebrating the work of a black American composer. The Herald-Mail ANNAPOLIS Everybody wants better education for every child. But what that looks like, how much it costs and who pays for it are at the center of discussions in the General Assembly on how to move forward with future education plans. The Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was created by the General Assembly in 2016 to study the states education needs. It is also known as the Kirwan Commission for its chairman, University System of Maryland Chancellor Emeritus William Brit Kirwan, Its assignment was to provide recommendations on preparing students in the state to meet the challenges of a changing global economy, to meet the states workforce needs, to be prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce, and to be successful citizens in the 21st century. The commissions final report initially was due in December 2017, but the commission has been asked to keep at it a while longer. Its ambitious roadmap for Maryland education would incrementally add nearly $4 billion to education budgets over 10 years. But as of yet, it is not clear where that money would come from. Mediocrity or merit? Maryland students perform at a mediocre level in a country that performs at a mediocre level globally, Kirwan told four legislative committees Friday as he presented the commissions recommendations. For example, the commission found that Maryland students had scored between 18th and 29th in the country in reading and math scores in National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. The panel also determined that fewer than 40 percent of high school graduates were career and college ready. School districts with more low-income students get less funding in Maryland, the commission concluded, and in more than half of Marylands public schools, 40 percent or more students are eligible for free or reduced-price meal because of the household income level. The way out of poverty for those students, the commission stressed, is quality education. To remedy the problem, the commission recommends: Investing more in early childhood education. Raising the status of teachers with more training, performance-based advancement and higher salaries. More rigorous curricula and support to prepare students for college and careers. Weighted funding formulas for low-income students, students with disabilities and English-learner students. More oversight and accountability. The commission is offering a 10-year plan to do all of those things, but with total yearly spending on kindergarten-to-12th-grade education rising by $3.8 billion in state and local funding by the 10th year. It also is asking the Maryland General Assembly to start now by adopting the commissions policies, provide up to $325 million in extra funding to get started, and reserve $750 million as the states share of the plan in the fiscal 2021 budget. Money matters Local lawmakers didnt argue much with many of the commissions findings, but the question plaguing the legislative committees is how to pay for everything the Kirwan Commission recommends. Realistically, I dont see where we get the $3.8 billion, said state Sen. Andrew Serafini, R-Washington, who serves on the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. And the states tab only is part of it the funding formula would require local governments to contribute more, too. Youve already got some friction with maintenance of effort, he said, which requires county governments to provide at least as much funding per student to local school systems each year as they contributed the year before. In addition, Serafini noted, pension costs and payment for school safety officers already has been passed along to the counties. What was missing in the report, he said, was, What are we gonna get rid of? Teachers have been asked to do more and more, he said, noting that his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law all chose teaching professions. Im surrounded, he said. Ive heard their stories. Theyre saying, I dont know what not to do anymore. Even if we tried to raise taxes, I dont see how we get to $3.8 billion. The biggest question is the funding, and funding formulas for the locals, said Del. Paul Corderman, R-Washington, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Brit Kirwan, and the commission has done some excellent work, he said. But the price tag even in fiscal 2021 would be a huge ask, particularly if local governments were expected to match the $750 million the state would kick in. That would be really difficult, he said. The points are all excellent, Corderman said. Teachers need to be paid more, he said, and he liked the fact that the funding formulas would be weighted to help impoverished areas. Those were all excellent points, he said. It was a very informative presentation. But a formula that weights funding toward impoverished areas can have a downside, Serafini warned, because if incomes improve, those schools then will lose money. School systems are gonna want to look poor, he said, or risk losing funding. And given the number of poorer systems in the state, he said, at some point, the funding issue might come down to how much wealthier areas such as Montgomery and Howard counties would be willing to pay for educating the rest of the state. Del. Mike McKay, R-Washington/Allegany, said hearing the presentation was enlightening and a little like Groundhog Day, the movie in which the lead character relives the same day over and over. That is because back in 2002, the General Assembly approved a plan by the Commission on Education Finance, Equity and Excellence, also known as the Thornton Commission, to devote more resources to education, but without a plan in place to pay for it, he said. I believe theyre on the right track, but is it fiscally prudent? he said. Laying out the framework for cutting class sizes and improving education without a funding plan to pay for was a little like getting childrens hopes up at Christmas without a conversation about what the family can afford, he said. I think it was a disservice to the legislature, he said. These are legacy costs, not one-time costs. We really need a clear picture of things. Without the fiscal impact, I dont think its fair. Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Mike Busch last month asked the Kirwan Commission to continue working until next fall to reach an agreement on funding formulas for the plan. Quiz: What do you see in this snapshot of Sandmann? The face of white supremacy, as was quickly alleged on social media? Or the nervous smile of a kid who isnt sure what to do after a fellow gets in his face, seemingly intent on a staring contest? Perhaps, one can see a little of both and, perhaps, both impressions are somewhat accurate without necessarily representing a whole truth. Both Phillips and Sandmann subsequently told differing accounts, but with one similarity: Each said he was trying to convey calm in a tense situation. The boys, in fact, had earlier been the targets of a stream of profanity and invective from a third group the Black Hebrew Israelites, who believe that African-Americans are Gods chosen people. According to Sandmann, the Israelites shouted at one of his black classmates, saying that the white students would harvest his organs. One can see how things might have gotten out of hand but they didnt. Despite the obvious intent to provoke a confrontation with the Catholic kids, the boys didnt take the bait. They may have acted out a bit shouting school cheers, doing tomahawk-chop gestures and arguing with a Native American who told one student to go back to Europe. But, largely, they acted just like dumb high school kids, if youll pardon the redundancy. ABINGDON, Va. Saying it takes any and all threats to student safety seriously, Abingdon police on Friday charged a juvenile with making a threat on social media, according to a written statement. The formal charge is to communicate a threat, in a writing, to kill or do bodily harm on the grounds of any elementary, middle, or secondary school property, according to the statement. On Jan. 20, a middle school student posted on social media, Im shooting up the school dont come. Police first notified the community on Sunday about the threat. They interviewed the student and spoke with the mother and determined it was not a credible threat, according to a previous statement. The student admitted to making the post. While the student was playing Xbox with a friend, the friend dared the student to make the post in hopes of not having to go to school tomorrow. The student made the post, obviously, without realizing the full consequences of these actions, police said. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. He was tasked with covering the aftermath at a collapsed apartment complex. Walters and a photographer were in one of the only cars on a closed interstate as they raced at nearly 80 mph to get to the scene. The pair hit a berm and went airborne for a few seconds, causing a flat tire that had to be repaired before they continued their trek into Northridge. He recalled the destruction he saw along the way. As soon as we got in to the L.A. Basin in the Northridge area, off the freeway you could see where the gas mains had snapped off it was just a tower of fire, Walters said. Fire hydrants snapped off, so there would be these towers of fire and then just gushers of water. He also recalled seeing several loose dogs in the area. That part of me wanted to grab all the lost dogs and help them find their owners, but I had a job to do, Walters said. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The apartment complex was a 164-unit building near the epicenter of the quake. I talked to one of the rescue workers [at the apartment complex], who crawled in on his belly. And they had cadaver dogs going in, Walters said. Everyone here is affected, said Shoemaker. Coming out of Christmas, it was actually shut down right before Christmas. People used part of their savings and what-have-you for Christmas. And then? Bam! You missed your first two paychecks. At 48, with a wife working and his children grown, the shutdown has not dramatically impacted Shoemakers household. Hes simply gone to work for weeks without pay only knowing that someday he will be back-paid, he said. Weve not had anyone quit, said Shoemaker, a union representative for the American Federation of Government Employees. And weve actually hired on eight new staff since the shutdown started. But, theyve gotten no pay. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Shoemaker says none of this lightly. Weve got several single parents here, and its the only income for the house, he said. And weve got several husband-and-wife teams that work here. Theyve lost all the income coming into their homes. Thats a problem, Shoemaker said. Everybodys still got the mortgage or the rent, still got your electric bill and the gas to get back and forth to work. Disaster If you are old enough to remember the hit comedy movie of 1980, Caddy Shack, then you will recall that a gopher infestation was threatening a golf course in Nebraska. The somewhat deranged groundskeeper was tasked with getting rid of the pest. His efforts at eradication include shooting, f Anderson, IN (46016) Today Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. Low 69F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Note: We've recently updated our online systems. If you can't login please try resetting your password. You must login with an email address. If you don't have an email associated with your account email customercare@heraldandnews.com for help creating one. 'Nurses face the threat of severe financial penalties if they go on strike.' (stock photo) Hospital patients face major disruption on Wednesday as last-ditch talks to avert a strike by more than 40,000 nurses have collapsed. Discussions between nursing unions and Government officials at the Workplace Relations Commission ended without agreement last night. General secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) Phil Ni Sheaghdha called on the Taoiseach to intervene and said no proposals were tabled. She said no further talks were planned. The INMO and the Psychiatric Nurses Association are demanding a 12pc pay rise to put their pay on a par with other healthcare professionals. But Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe have warned that granting the increase, at a cost of 300m, would trigger knock-on claims by other public servants. Mr Donohoe pointed out that nurses are already in line for pay rises of around 2,000 under the existing wage agreement. The Government has also offered a 20m package to nurses in specialised grades as the Public Service Pay Commission found retention issues. However, the pay commission decided that there was no general recruitment and retention crisis among nurses. Nurses face the threat of severe financial penalties if they go on strike. These include a nine-month delay to the pay rises already due and loss of a pay deal worth 3,300 each to recent recruits. When asked if the talks had collapsed, Ms Ni Sheaghdha said they were a "non-starter". "Disappointingly again, we're no further on," she said. "We believe now we're very close to a national nurses' dispute where 35,000 nurses will be on strike next Wednesday. Intervene "The big question our members are going to ask us is where is the taoiseach? Where is the minister for finance? And how come they are not intently trying to resolve the matters at stake here, which are after all about patient care, about how we provide care to patients?" She said no proposals were tabled over the last three days but there was ample opportunity to resolve the dispute within the current pay deal. The general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, Peter Hughes, said the gap between the parties had not narrowed. "We heard nothing new today and the Government needs at this stage to intervene with intent to resolve this matter," he said. A Fine Gael TD has called for social media companies such as Facebook and WhatsApp to be held to account following the sharing of graphic videos of a car crash on the M50. Dublin South West TD Colm Brophy said the sharing of misinformation, defamatory comments and graphic material on social media was a "serious problem" which can no longer be ignored by politicians. Mr Brophy's comments followed a plea by the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris asking WhatsApp users to stop sharing images of the horrific fatal crash on the M50 on Thursday. Jackie Griffin from Tallaght, Dublin, lost her life in the accident. "Family and friends who have to come to terms with the loss of a loved one should not have to hear that voyeurs are sending images through WhatsApp," Mr Brophy said. "We must have modern rules and regulations for social media that respect human decency and the privacy of other individuals. If traditional media can abide by this and have socially accepted boundaries in which they operate while still providing all with a public service, social media companies must also. "They are publishers and have to be responsible, as do those who use their products and services," he added. Mr Brophy also made reference to the hoax WhatsApp recording in which it was claimed former taoiseach Bertie Ahern had a fake profile on dating app Tinder. Ordeals Mr Ahern categorically denied the contents of the voice recording which were shared on the social media platform without content. Mr Brophy said: "Victims of alleged serious assaults have had their social media pictures circulated with accounts of their ordeals to such an extent that private individuals have had to go public and say they are the victims of fake news. "Members of An Garda Siochana have had videos of them carrying out their public duty edited and shared to cast an unfavourable light upon them. What implications does this have for WhatsApp or those who post such content? None. This has to change," he added. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has finally admitted that police and troops may need to be deployed to the Border in a worst-case scenario Brexit. It comes after months of the Government refusing to answer questions on the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the Border. The remarks sparked immediate criticism from the Opposition which claimed Mr Varadkar contradicted what the Government has been telling them. In recent days there has been intense scrutiny over contingency planning for a crash-out Brexit. Agriculture Minster Michael Creed floundered in a radio interview as he repeatedly refused to answer questions on the Border in a no-deal scenario. Mr Varadkar's comments came less than a day after sources warned that some 600 gardai would be required to man Border crossings under a hard Brexit. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris moved to deny that there was a plan to do this but Mr Varadkar's interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos confirmed that police and troops could be needed for a hard Border. Last night Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said: "When the Taoiseach tells an audience in Davos that the Army may have to be sent to the Border, he is contradicting everything that we have been told about preparations. It is hard to see how this helps our case." Reckless Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, meanwhile, branded the remarks as "reckless and irresponsible", adding: "They are totally contrary to previous assertions regarding the Government's commitment to the backstop." In the interview, Mr Varadkar said that at present the Border is "totally open" but "if things go very wrong it looks like 20 years ago. It would involve customs posts, it would involve people in uniform and it may involve the need, for example, for cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly a police presence, or an Army presence to back it up. "The problem with that, in the context of Irish politics and history, is those things become targets." Last night, the Government scrambled to clarify Mr Varadkar's remarks. A spokesman said Mr Varadkar made it clear that the Government is "determined to avoid a no-deal scenario and the consequent risk of a hard Border". He said Mr Varadkar "gave a description of what it used to look like, and the risk of what it could look like in the worst-case scenario". "He was not referring to Irish personnel and the Irish Government has no plans to deploy infrastructure or personnel at the Border," he said. The Taoiseach also hit out at some British politicians who say they want to avoid a hard Border but also oppose the so-called "backstop" to avoid it. Brexiteer MPs oppose British Prime Minister Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement due to the backstop amid fears it will see the UK tied to EU rules indefinitely. "The only alternative they can offer to a backstop is a promise to sort it out later or a promise around technologies that don't exist yet," Mr Varadkar said. Ross Cahill is accused of robbing a phone at knifepoint A young man accused of robbing another individual of his mobile phone at a train station has been sent for trial. Ross Cahill (25) was allegedly armed with a flick knife when he stole the Nokia mobile phone. He has been ordered to stay out of the Dublin seaside village of Malahide for the duration of the trial. The accused, of Holywell View, Feltrim Road, Swords, appeared before Swords District Court charged with robbery and production of an article. The incident allegedly took place at Malahide Train Station on August 12 last year. It is alleged that Mr Cahill robbed another man of a black Nokia mobile phone, worth 300, while he was armed with a small flick knife. Curfew A State solicitor said that the book of evidence was ready and had been served on the accused, who goes forward to the present sittings of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Judge Dermot Dempsey gave Mr Cahill the formal alibi caution. The court heard that Mr Cahill was not working. Judge Dempsey assigned defence solicitor John Shanley and one junior counsel on free legal aid. Mr Cahill has not yet indicated how he will plead to the charges. He was remanded on bail to appear before the circuit court on a date next month. As part of his bail conditions, Mr Cahill must sign on daily at Swords Garda Station, obey an 11pm to 7am curfew, reside at an agreed address and provide gardai with a mobile phone number. He has also been ordered to have no contact, either directly or indirectly, with any witnesses involved in the case, and to stay out of the Malahide area for the duration of the court case. Tripura Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki today stressed on the need for cordial relations with the neighbouring Bangladesh for development of transport routes that would benefit the state as well as the entire north eastern region. Addressing the 70th Republic Day function at the Assam Rifles Ground here after unfurling the Tri-colour, Solanki said a new waterway is being set up between Bangladesh and Tripura to make the state a trade hub. The government is setting up a new river port at Sonamura subdivision of Sipahijala district so that ships can carry goods to Bangladesh via Gomati and Meghna rivers. The governor said, "The state government has taken various steps to make Tripura a model state and corruption free state. With all hopes, I believe the future of the state is very bright. We should work together and help each other so the state would develop faster." He said, the biggest IT centre in the entire NE would be set up in the state. Solanki also congratulated the people, NGOs, religious institutions and media for being committed to protect peace and harmony. He said, "Our state is geographically small but it is very rich in terms of natural beauty and resources. The incumbent government has already taken a lot of initiative to develop the state as a major tourist spot." "The new government implemented the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission for the employees of the state. It was a historic decision.... The government reserved 10 per cent seats in home department for women empowerment. Crime against women have also come down. The government is also working very hard to make the state drug free," Solanki said. -PTI (CNN) China's economy may be slowing down, but the country is still set to eclipse the United States as the world's top retail market for the first time. Retail sales in China will reach more than $5.6 trillion this year, about $100 billion more than in the United States, according to a report published Wednesday by research firm eMarketer. The Chinese population's growing wealth and the rapid development of e-commerce have driven the country's epic retail boom. "In recent years, consumers in China have experienced rising incomes, catapulting millions into the new middle class," said Monica Peart, senior forecasting director at eMarketer. "The result has been a marked rise in purchasing power and average spending per person." The firm's prediction highlights China's increasing importance as a market for global brands even as growth overall cools. The country is already the world's largest market for cars and smartphones. The gap between the Chinese and U.S. retail markets is set to widen in the coming years, with China's growing more quickly through at least 2022, according to eMarketer. China's biggest e-commerce companies, Alibaba (BABA) and JD.com (JD), have played a key role in the industry's explosive growth. More than 35%, or almost $2 trillion, of Chinese retail spending is expected to take place online this year, eMarketer said, compared with just 11% in the United States. China is home to Singles Day, Alibaba's annual online spending blitz that regularly racks up bigger sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Alibaba accounts for more than half of all online sales in China, but it faces increasing competition from smaller rivals like Pinduoduo, according to eMarketer. Like Amazon (AMZN) in the United States, China's internet giants have moved into the brick-and-mortar retail industry, as well. Tencent (TCEHY), the owner of top messaging app WeChat, and three other companies invested $5 billion in Wanda Commercial Properties, China's biggest mall operator, a year ago. Tencent is also a major shareholder in JD.com. In 2017, Alibaba paid $2.9 billion for a 36% stake in Sun Art Retail Group (SURRY), widely considered the Chinese equivalent of Walmart (WMT). Slowdown fears overdone? Chinese consumers are feeling the effects of the country's slowing economy and trade war with the United States. Retail sales growth is expected to weaken to 7.5% in 2019, from around 8.5% last year, according to eMarketer. Apple (AAPL) alarmed investors earlier this month by warning that its sales in China were lower than anticipated for the holiday quarter. CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to investors that the company had been blindsided by "the magnitude of the economic deceleration" in China. Spending on products like cosmetics and jewelery is suffering as consumers feel the pinch from cooling growth in the real estate market and rising debt, according to Michelle Lam, an analyst at investment bank Societe Generale. "As China's growth has been losing momentum, consumer spending has also exhibited clear signs of weakness," she wrote in a note to clients this week. But other analysts are more optimistic. "While we expect consumption growth to slow, we think that the anxiety about China's consumers is largely overdone," Tianjie He, a senior economist at research firm Oxford Economics, wrote in a note on Wednesday. "We do not expect a significant slowdown in 2019," he wrote, adding that China's consumers will remain "a key driver of economic growth." This story was first published on CNN.com. "China will overtake the US as the world's biggest retail market this year." Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Free access for current print subscribers As a home delivery subscriber, you get free unlimited digital access to premium content on HenryHerald.com, including local news, local sports, obituaries, legal notices, local features, and the e-edition. All you need is your print subscription account number and your last name. Don't know your subscription number? Email access@henryherald.com with your delivery address. Activate your account now. I love fish the way they look, the way they fry up, the secret lives they live u By Vasia Orion | Published on 2019/01/25 Kim Dong-wook will be arriving as the justice-serving "Special Labor Inspector, Mr. Jo" this spring, and he brings quite the cast with him. We can see some of the main and supporting actors in recently released stills from the drama's script reading, and I look forward to seeing this great ensemble's magic. Advertisement Attending the event were Kim Dong-wook, Park Se-young, Kim Kyung-nam, Oh Dae-hwan, Song Ok-sook, Lee Won-jong, Kim Hong-pa, Seol In-ah, Oh Dae-hwan, Yoo Su-bin and more. The production promises a sweet, refreshing and exciting work, with the good atmosphere of the script reading carrying over to the filming. We have a nice mix of beloved veterans and fresher faces here, and we will hopefully get the best of different acting worlds. "Special Labor Inspector, Mr. Jo" will be following "The Item" in April on MBC, and I'm eager to see some teasers and other goodies starting to drop as the premiere date comes closer. Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings' Sources (1) South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's participation as the chief guest at India's Republic Day celebrations on Saturday reaffirms the special relationship between the two countries, a Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awardee has said. Ramaphosa is the second South African president to be invited to the event as the chief guest. Former South African president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 1995. Anil Sooklal, who received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman for his lifelong contribution in promoting relations between India and South Africa at the Bharatiya Divas in Varanasi, said the ties between India and South Africa have grown "exponentially since the dawn of democracy under President Nelson Mandela in 1994." He said Ramaphosa's presence at the Republic day "is a clear message that the Indians are serious about South Africa and President Ramaphosa accepting the invitation by India is a message that South Africa treasures this relationship." Sooklal lamented the fact that there was not enough knowledge among the South African public about the level of cooperative work being done by India and South Africa together. "This is unfortunate," he said, adding that occasions like President Ramaphosa's visit should be regarded as a testimony to how important India regards South Africa." Ramaphosa will attend a number of events, including a business summit here. Sooklal was confident that the business summit where more than 200 industry leaders will be addressed by Ramaphosa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will yield good results. "India does not need any convincing, with about 130 major Indian companies having major operations in South Africa, and the Indians are very keen to invest further. This (business) summit will be a very important forum to market South Africa as a great destination for investment. Commenting on being part of the founding of IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) alliance that preceded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Sooklal said IBSA continues to play a very dynamic role between the three countries, despite critics increasingly saying that it has been overshadowed by BRICS. -PTI Haiti - Tourism : A delegation of the Diaspora in Cap-Haitien Marnatha Irene Ternier, Minister of Haitians Living Abroad, hosted a delegation of 70 compatriots from the Diaspora in Cap-Haitien, Monday, January 21, 2019, who came to discover and rediscover the potential of the Destination North. "It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to Cap-Haitien and experience the beauty of your country, and I take this opportunity to ask you to become ambassadors of Haiti to talk about the wonders of Haiti in the world. Tell them that Haiti is more immensely of what we are following in the news," said the Minister in her welcoming remarks to the members of the delegation. The Minister has renewed her commitment to accompany members of the Diaspora who wish to return to the country for multiple reasons. For her part, Nadege Fleurimond, organizer of one of the tour operators who planned this tour did not hide her satisfactions and those of the members of the Delegation. "Many thanks to the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad for its warm welcome and thank you to the Minister, Marnatha Irene Ternier, for her unwavering support for the success of the delegation's stay," she said. Note that this tour is an initiative of tour operators: "Nadege Fleurimond Catering", "Belle Vue Tours" and "Mathieu Media". HL/ HaitiLibre Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer at HMD Global, already made it clear that Nokia will be attending this year's Mobile World Congress. The date is set for February 24 and apparently, the company is also planning a public stream, so anybody interested can tune into. Neat! Although we do kind of wish the announcement came in a more formal or at least less "cringy" format than the "really really" meme Sarvikas posted on Twitter. We really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really would like you to tune into our Barcelona MWC showdown on the 24th of Feb Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) January 25, 2019 Well, apparently our wish was sort of granted as a couple of new teasers for the February 24 event have surfaced online. One of these is a clear reference to the eagerly-anticipated and long-hyped Nokia 9 . By all accounts and as per the tidal wave of leaks, it will sport a whopping five main camera setup. Nokia 9 teaser: Original Enhanced These are represented by the five faint circles on the banner itself. The second teaser banner, when enhanced reveals the silhouette of a phone with a punch hole selfie camera in the top left corner of the display. And we're pretty sure this is the display side we are looking at thanks to the small Nokia logo underneath the panel. Nokia punch hole phone teaser: Original Enhanced Since all the renders we have seen on the Nokia 9 thus far have shown fairly wide top and bottom bezels around a notch-free display on its front, there is a very high possibility that this is a totally different device. It does look quite similar to a set of renders, recently attributed to an unannounced Nokia 8.1 Plus. So, it might just be on the horizon as well. Nokia 8.1 Plus renders Throw the recent Nokia 1 Plus leak into the mix and you get a pretty interesting HMD event in the making. We'll definitely be reporting on the announcements next month and will be on the lookout for more info in the meantime. Source 1 (In Chinese) | Source 2 With MWC right around the corner and Nokia's presence at the event already confirmed everybody is understandably looking at HMD Global with high expectations regarding the long-elusive and eagerly-anticipated Nokia 9. However, that might not be the only new phone the Nokia teams brings to the convention floor. Industry insider sources have dug-up some interesting info on an upcoming entry-level device. It's a successor to the 2018 Nokia 1, which will likely be called the Nokia 1 Plus. In keeping with its mostly neat numbering scheme, it is clear that the Nokia 1 Plus will be the "runt of the litter", just like its predecessor. At least as far as the company's smartphone lineup is concerned. The leak consists of a rather plain render of the front panel of the upcoming phone, along with some key specs. As you can probably imagine, hardware is on the modest side of things. That being said, however, one notable upgrade over the original that instantly sticks out is the 480x960 pixel resolution. While it is clearly not drastically different than the one on the original Nokia 1 panel, it is sporting a trendy 18:9 aspect ratio. Unfortunately, the leaked specs sheet offers no mention of display size, but it does quote a pixel density of 213 DPI. Combined with the taller aspect, this likely means the Nokia 1 Plus will be marketed as a 5-inch device. In terms of internals, the Nokia 1 Plus is based around a Mediatek MT6739WW chipset. It has a total of four Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 1.5 GHz, along with a PowerVR GE8100 GPU, running at 570 MHz. These are backed up by 1GB of RAM, out of which 889 MB are advertised as actually usable. We clearly can't expect any chart-topping performance here, but that's still enough horse power to run under Google's Android Go ecosystem. In fact, the Nokia 1 Plus will likely boot the current Android 9 Pie Go edition out of the box. Unfortunately, there is no word on battery capacity or camera specs. The same goes for pricing and availability. Going be experience, we expect something in the neighbourhood of $100 or EUR 100 for the modest handset. We'll be sure to keep you in the loop as more information becomes available. Source Photo: The Canadian Press Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum listens to a question following participation at the federal cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que., Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019. UPDATE: 2:30 p.m. John McCallum has resigned as ambassador to China at the request of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in the wake of comments he made about a Huawei executive detained in Canada. The prime minister did not immediately issue an explanation, but the move came just hours after McCallum was quoted in a Vancouver newspaper as saying it would be "great for Canada" if the United States dropped its extradition request for Meng Wanzhou. "From Canada's point of view, if (the U.S.) drops the extradition request, that would be great for Canada," McCallum told the StarMetro Vancouver. That comment followed a statement McCallum issued Thursday, saying he misspoke earlier in the week when he discussed Meng's case with a group of Chinese-language journalists in Toronto, listing several arguments he thought could help her with her legal fight against extradition. The dismissal of McCallum was too little too late for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who had called on Trudeau to fire the ambassador on the grounds that the remarks raised concerns about the politicization of the Meng case. "It should never have come to this," Scheer tweeted Saturday. "Justin Trudeau should have fired his ambassador the moment he interfered in this case. Instead, he did nothing and allowed more damage to be done. More weakness and more indecision from Trudeau on China." In a brief scrum in Ottawa on Saturday afternoon, Scheer accused the prime minister of damaging Canada's international reputation by failing to act sooner. "This is, I think, part of a bigger problem. And that is Just Trudeau's approach to diplomacy, where he thought he could conduct image over substance foreign affairs. And now Canadians are paying for his mistakes," Scheer said. Trudeau initially came to McCallum's defence, after the first set of controversial remarks became public but before Friday's comments. The prime minister said earlier this week that his government's focus was on getting detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor home safely from China and ensuring their rights are respected and recalling McCallum wouldn't achieve that. The PMO declined to comment on exactly what led to the prime minister's change of heart about McCallum's fate. In a news release announcing the ambassador's resignation, Trudeau thanked McCallum for nearly two decades of service. He noted that McCallum served as minister of immigration and refugees between 2015 and 2017, during the height of Canada's effort to resettle Syrian refugees. By appointing McCallum to the Beijing post in the cabinet shuffle in 2017 ,Trudeau appeared to have the right person in place to push Canadas trade agenda with China even further. McCallum had strong personal ties to China. His wife is of Chinese ethnicity and his three sons have Chinese spouses, something McCallum was fond of pointing out. He also had a large Chinese constituency in his former federal riding in Markham. In the wake of McCallum's resignation, Jim Nickel, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Canada in Beijing, will represent the country in China as charge d'affaires effective immediately, the prime minister said. ORIGINAL: 11:30 a.m. John McCallum has resigned as ambassador to China at the request of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau says he asked McCallum to step down on Friday night. The prime minister did not immediately issue an explanation, but the move comes after the former ambassador was quoted in StarMetro Vancouver on Friday as saying it would be "great for Canada" if the United States drops an extradition request against a Huawei executive detained in Canada. That comment follows a statement McCallum issued Thursday, saying he misspoke earlier in the week when he discussed Meng Wanzhou's case with a group of Chinese-language journalists in Toronto, listing several arguments he thought could help her with her fight against extradition. Trudeau says Jim Nickel, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Canada in Beijing, will represent the country in China as charge d'affaires effective immediately. More coming. Photo: The Canadian Press Police officers and Yellow vest demonstrators gather near the Arc de Triomphe before a march in Paris, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019. France's yellow vest protesters are hitting the streets again, keeping up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron even as internal divisions and frustration over protest violence cloud the movement's future. France's yellow vest movement kept up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron with mainly peaceful marches and scattered skirmishes Saturday, its 11th straight weekend action despite internal divisions and growing worries about protest violence. Multiple anti-government protests took place in Paris and other cities, centred on Macron policies seen as favouring the rich. France deployed about 80,000 police officers to patrol the events and to disperse trouble. A few cars were set ablaze in the Normandy town of Evreux. In Paris, crowds gathered at the columned headquarters of France's lower house of parliament. Police used tear gas on demonstrators at the iconic Bastille Plaza who hurled items within reach. Armoured vehicles circled the Arc de Triomphe monument as a group of protesters weaved down the elegant Champs-Elysees, the site of recent rioting. Some yellow vest leaders want to maintain momentum by holding protests after dark as well as during the day. Two groups planned Saturday events at Place de la Republique in eastern Paris, and some protesters threatened to try to defy police and stay overnight. Macron has sapped some support for the movement by taking an active role in recent days in a national debate in towns across France, launched to address the protesters' concerns. Participants at the Champs-Elysees march called Macron's national debate a "smoke screen" to distract the French from his pro-business policies. They expressed views from the far left to the far right, or a middle-ground, middle-class malaise. Many want Macron to restore France's wealth tax and allow the public to propose national referendums on anything from pulling France out of the euro to rewriting the constitution. "We are forgotten," said protester Mervyn Ramsamy, a hospital employee from north of Paris lamenting recent closures of maternity wards and other medical services in already struggling areas. "We won't give up." It's unclear how long the movement can maintain its momentum. Macron scrapped the fuel tax hike that initially sparked the protests and offered widespread tax relief when the protest violence hit a peak in December. A 52-year-old home care worker who identified herself only as Nadine says the measures aren't enough, so she's still protesting. "I have a salary of 1,200 euros. I don't run out of money by the 15th of the month, I run out of money by the 6th of the month. I can no longer manage to survive. That's why I'm here, because nothing is moving, nothing is changing," she said on the Champs-Elysees. One branch of the movement launched a bid this week for the European Parliament elections in May, but other protest leaders disagree with the idea. In another challenge for the yellow vest movement, rival groups calling themselves the "red scarves" plan demonstrations Sunday to condemn violence unleashed by recent protests. Police armed with guns firing non-lethal rubber balls which have seriously injured several are equipped with body cameras Saturday for the first time, in an experiment to record use of the weapons, providing context and eventual evidence if needed. In between the Saturday protests, yellow-vested crowds occupy scattered roundabouts and tollbooths around France , disrupting traffic to express a sense of neglect by the central government. The movement began Nov. 17, named after the fluorescent garments French motorists must carry in case of emergency. A bill to allow for motorcyclists to lane split ride between two lanes of traffic has been introduced by state Sen. Cathy Osten (D-Sprague). Proposed Senate Bill 629 would amend section 14-289b to "permit the operator of a motorcycle to operate between lanes of traffic." The stated purpose of the bill is to "To permit the operator of a motorcycle to operate between lanes of traffic as is permitted in other states and countries and thereby ease traffic congestion" The existing statue reads: (b) The operator of a motorcycle shall not (1) overtake and pass, in the same single traffic lane occupied by such motorcycle, any motor vehicle other than a motorcycle, or (2) operate a motorcycle between lanes of traffic. An autocycle shall not overtake and pass any motor vehicle operating in the same single traffic lane occupied by such autocycle. Senate Bill 629, which provides no specific details, has been referred to the transportation committee. Lane splitting is currently not legal in 49 states with California being the lone exception. The practice had been not explicitly legal or illegal in that state for decades until it was formally legalized in 2016. Photos: The 2018 CT United Ride Motorcyclists in California may still be ticketed for driving recklessly, enforcement of which has been left to the discretion officers. Separately, State Rep. Michelle Cook (D-Torrington) has introduced House Bill 6161, which would require riders under the age of 21 to wear helmets while riding a motorcycle. Currently, the state of Connecticut only requires riders 17 and younger to wear helmets. Connecticut is one of the 28 states which require only some riders to wear helmets. This week, lets start with a little TV game show action. Borrowing the format from Jeopardy, I am going to give you the answer, and you have to identify the question. Ready? Thrilled? I thought so. This weeks answer is, This Town of Greenwich elected board can best be described as cowardly, incompetent, unscrupulous, capricious and feckless. There are no prizes on the line, but if it took you more than a nanosecond to come up with the correct question, What is the Board of Education, then you just dont pay attention to local news. And you were one of the few people in town not to be asked to sign an online petition calling for the school board to reverse its decision to dump interim School Superintendent Ralph Mayo. The school board knew there would be hell to pay for its decision to name current Fairfield Superintendent Toni Jones as Mayos replacement. That is why the board released the news late on a Friday afternoon before the three-day holiday weekend. (That checks the cowardly box.) This trick of timing used to effectively mute stories, but it hasnt worked really since the advent of social media and the ubiquitous 24/7 news cycle, where someone is always listening or reading, and news spreads like fire through dry tinder. People have spent the last week trying to figure out what happened to Mayos supposedly sure appointment. Seven months ago, the school board was left reeling and embarrassed by then Superintendent Jill Gildeas sudden departure for Park City, Utah, after less than a year in Greenwich. The board needed a quick fix, and found it at Eastern Middle School, where Mayo was the well-respected and popular principal. He was the right man at the right time, everyone agreed; everyone, that is, except for school board member Barbara ONeill, a retired Greenwich teacher and former school board chairman. ONeill voiced concerns that Mayo did not have central office experience. That seemed a weak complaint and the school board wisely paid it no attention. By all accounts, Mayo had been doing an excellent job. Teachers felt they had someone who knew Greenwich and understood the unique challenges teachers face here. Administrators, at least those who had worked in town for any length of time, appreciated someone who did not need directions to Glenville or Parkway schools and already knew everyone in town. And the parents? Well, several hundred have already signed the online petition, and comments on local news sites are almost universally pro-Mayo. So, what was behind Mayos demise? The final vote for Jones was 7-1, with the lone dissenter being Republican Peter Sherr of North Mianus. He told this newspaper last week that he thought the board had made a mistake in not making Mayos appointment permanent. This week, I asked Sherr for more details about how the board went about picking a new superintendent. I was disappointed that the rest of the board did not pay attention to our agreed upon criteria for the new superintendent, Sherr said late Friday. We agreed on three basic criteria. First, we needed someone to stabilize the system. We had to close the revolving door in the superintendents office. We needed someone who could manage the relationship with the finance board, the RTM and the selectman. And, we needed a professional who could follow through on our strategic plan for the schools and implement personalized learning. Sherr said Jones had an impressive resume, but it was no more impressive than Mayos. I felt if we were going to replace Ralph, especially after he gave up his permanent position as a principal, we had to make sure it was someone better. We did not do that. Sherr said he was also very concerned over the boards discussion of Mayo and Joness candidacy. In the first search committee meeting after Mayos and Joness interviews, the board took a straw vote. It came out 5-3 for Jones, Sherr said. In the discussion that followed, Sherr said he was afraid the board was making a mistake. I am an Eastern Middle School parent, and Ive been on this board for almost 10 years. I have never heard a bad word about Ralph Mayo, Sherr told the rest of the board, according to our conversation. At that point, Sherr said, Barbara ONeill answered him by saying she had heard some things about Mayo. I asked Barbara what did she hear, but she refused to say, he said. (School board member) Jennifer Dayton then said she had heard things, too, according to Sherr. But, like ONeill, Dayton would not be at all specific about these things, he reported. ONeill did not return my request for comment, but Dayton said in an email that all conversations were confidential because they were held in executive session. She added, To address solely the question posed by you and without disclosing any information from said executive session I am not aware that any allegations were made in the manner you describe. I have no reason to doubt Sherrs account. But it is particularly unfair to Mayo that the board conducted a background check on Jones, but not on Mayo. So, Mayo, a professional who has devoted his entire career to Greenwich, does not even get the courtesy of a background check that would have answered whatever might have been said or heard about Mayo? In the end, Greenwich chose to continue the musical chairs at the Havemeyer Building rather than grab the chance to let a well-known professional continue in the job. They chose a resume over a proven local track record and stability. A new superintendent will take over, inheriting senior staff that she did not hire and with whom she has never worked. She will need at least a year to learn how Greenwich works. But by then, the recruiters will be luring her with offers from other districts. I am not one that always wants the local guy to get the job. But in this case, he should have. Bob Horton can be reached at bobhorton@yahoo.com. GREENWICH First Selectman Peter Tesei has joined the chorus of Greenwich residents voicing their support for Ralph Mayo, who was passed over for the job of superintendent of schools earlier this month. Tesei endorsed Mayo, a Greenwich native who has served as interim superintendent since last summer, both in a statement to Greenwich Time and on Twitter on Saturday morning. I believe (the Board of Education) needs to stop the insanity and look at what the internal and external stakeholders are saying. We cannot undergo several more years of instability given the proposed capital program, he told Greenwich Time. This is worth going to the mat over, as a parent of a kid in the district and a taxpayer, aside from my position. His tweet shared a Greenwich Time article about a petition, circulating on social media, that also supports Mayo. Ralph Mayo provides deep knowledge of and experience in our school district and needed stability in administration. The BoE should reconsider their decision and stop the decades of revolving door Supers, Tesei said on Twitter. Suzanne Sullivan, an Old Greenwich resident, started the petition to bring together the comments scattered across social media about the community reaction to the appointment. As of Saturday morning, the petition had 731 signatures, up from more than 300 on Thursday. The Greenwich Board of Education announced it had appointed Toni Jones, the current superintendent in Fairfield, on Friday, Jan. 18. But for the first time in memory, the decision on a new superintendent was not unanimous, with board member Peter Sherr dissenting. Many residents expressed shock and dismay in multiple posts on social media that Mayo, a hometown candidate, was not hired. The post at iPetitions wishes Jones well, but says, this is about the BOE completely disregarding the opinions of large groups in the community they represent. The local teachers union also supported Mayo for the job. Having Ralph in the interim position has been good for morale, Greenwich Education Association President Carol Sutton said. We hoped to have the opportunity to rebuild momentum under his leadership. Board of Education Chair Peter Bernstein on Saturday said the vote to hire Jones was not a knock against Mayo. Peter Tesei is a parent of students in the district and has previously expressed his support for Ralph, so he is clearly entitled to express his opinion as others have done, he said. There is no question that this was a difficult decision for the board as Ralph has done a good job as the interim superintendent and is continuing in that position through the end of June. However, the discussion should never have been about why Ralph did not get the position. Instead, this is really about why Dr. Toni Jones was selected as the superintendent for the Greenwich Public Schools. He touted Jones experience as a teacher and building principal who also has served in cabinet level positions including as chief academic officer for a school system. He said she has a firm understanding of budgets and capital issues, including construction and soil challenges, both ongoing concerns in Greenwich. She has been the superintendent in similar districts and specifically within Fairfield County, Bernstein said. We will certainly benefit from having both Toni and Ralph in leadership positions going forward. Mayo is a lifelong resident of Greenwich and a graduate of Greenwich High School. He became a teacher's aide there in 1976 and an English teacher in 1980. His has been an administrator in town schools for 26 years, including as program administrator for special education and as Clark housemaster at Greenwich High. He was principal of Eastern Middle School for 14 years before being named interim superintendent. Mayo, who said he started reading the many emails and text messages he was receiving this week, did not expect the outpouring of support for him and disagreement with the school board to be this intense. Ive known for a week, but they learned on the 18th, he said of his many supporters in the community. They get their time to vent, and like all professionals, were going to move on. They need to have their chance. Mayo, a finalist for the position, took on the role of interim superintendent in July to replace Jill Gildea, who left last year after less than a year on the job. Gildea had replaced Sal Corda, who served as the interim superintendent after William McKersie left to lead the Weston Public School District. The position of Greenwich schools superintendent has seen turnover a dozen times in the past two decades including interim school chiefs who filled in for a year while the school board searched for a new permanent leader. Jones has eight years of experience as a superintendent, two of which have been in Fairfield. Many people have fears. Some are afraid of heights. Others are afraid of closed-in spaces. Some are afraid of spiders or mice. Many are afraid of the dark. Whatever our fears may be, they have a cause. I had a friend whose wife kept waking him in the middle of the night, day after day, saying, My dear, someone is walking on the roof. Go back to sleep, he would say, No one is walking on the roof. She was afraid. After so many days of this, she could take no more. Honey, she said one night at 2 a.m., Get up and see whats going on. So he got up, went to the window and lifted the blind. Standing in front of the window was a police officer with a flashlight in hand. The husband raised the window. The police officer said, Sir, Im sorry for waking you at this hour in the morning, but we were dispatched because of a call from a neighbor who saw someone walking on the roofs of the condominium. Were just checking things out. We very often minimize others fears while justifying our own. We are quick to tell others that they shouldnt be afraid of certain people, things or situations, while, at the same time, we harbor our own fears. Why do we do this? Mainly because we have no subjective experience of others fears but only of our own. While one will fear losing his or her job because of a misunderstanding, another will have no worry at all, realizing that misunderstandings are common in the workplace and easily overcome with dialogue and comprehension. One person may feel intimidated at speaking in front of a group while someone else will rise to the occasion and be able to stand up and ad-lib with comfort and ease. Fears are subjective reactions of our psyche which produces an aversion in response to the sensation of a perceived danger, threat or the presence of a lurking unknown. We naturally become fearful in the presence of these things. There is always an objective and a subjective element in fear. Fears are never unfounded. Fears always result from a reaction to a perception. That could be in response to something external or something internal. Someone may be afraid of their shadow. Another may be afraid of certain distressful emotions. Independently on whether or not our fears are based on external or internal factors, or they are more objectively or subjectively oriented, they can be either paralyzing or transformative. In fears, we can find either defeat or great opportunities. Fear could stop us in our tracks. Fear could also put us on a wrong track. Bertrand Russell, an English philosopher, said, Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. Rudyard Kipling said that, Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears. If we let our fears get a grip on us, they can lead us down a path that we should not go. On the other hand, if we conquer our fears and tame them, they can be a source of great energy in our life. James Byrnes once said, Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death. Why fear what lies ahead, what lies beyond? The ultimate fear that should certainly determine our way of living is our death. The fear of death, which we all experience in some way, will either be a transformative strength that will give us a profound respect for life and open the door to personal and communal growth or a paralyzing force that will lead us to a skepticism of anything beyond the here and now and close the window of opportunity to a better future. To paraphrase the words of William Allen White, we should not be afraid of tomorrow, for we have seen yesterday and we love today. (I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.) On the contrary, we must use or fears as a trampoline to launch ourselves into tomorrow to create a better self, a better community and a better world. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain, says Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Rev. Arthur Mollenhauer is the pastor of St. James Church in Stratford and judicial vicar for the Diocese of Bridgeport. GREENWICH A planned panel discussion at Town Hall will go forward this week despite ongoing controversy over the Greenwich resident who put it together. Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL who has been criticized in the past for comments about gay people, immigrants and others, has organized an event for Jan. 30 that he bills as a bipartisan talk on issues including immigration, gun control, taxes and foreign policy. Pushback over Town Halls hosting the event has grown in recent days. On Friday, state Rep. Fred Camillo, R-151st, who had been scheduled to give remarks but not take part in the panel discussion, announced he would no longer take part. Camillo said his commitments in Hartford that day would make it impossible to make the 7 p.m. event, but he also addressed Higbies past remarks. Any form of hate and intolerance is unwelcome in Greenwich and I condemn those remarks, Camillo said. His words were hurtful to many, and I hope he takes this opportunity to reflect on, and learn from, his mistakes. I also believe that it is our duty both as residents and public servants to have discussions about difficult topics like the ones on the agenda for the forum, but such conversations need to happen in a positive, constructive and diplomatic way. First Selectman Peter Tesei will still take part. He has been scheduled to deliver brief welcoming remarks at the event, and not be a part of the panel. It was announced this week he will also issue a statement reaffirming the communitys standard of civility in discourse and behavior as well as town values. On Friday, Higbie confirmed the panel is still a go. We are absolutely moving forward with the event, he said. We will not be silenced, bullied or intimidated by a very small but very loud mob of people who oppose views other than their own. Higbie, who served two tours in Iraq, resigned last January from a position in President Donald Trumps administration after past racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim remarks he had made were published in a CNN online report. He had worked as chief of external affairs for the Corporation for National and Community Service but stepped down over the remarks, most of which he had made in 2013 when he was hosting the Sound of Freedom show on Internet radio. He questioned the citizenship of President Barack Obama while hosting the show and volunteered to shoot immigrants crossing the countrys southern border. I told this story the other day on my show, he was quoted as saying by CNN. Somebody who lives in my condo association that has five kids, and its her and her husband with the five kids and the mother, the grandmother of the kids, and they dont have jobs, theyre there all the time I bet you can guess what color they are and they have no job. He made other comments about black people being lazy, advocated for birth control for black women and once said black women believe breeding is a form of government employment. When Rhode Island approved same-sex marriage in 2013, Higbie maligned the LGBT community. Go ahead and twist the knife a little, little bit more, he said. I mean, you are breaking the morals, the moral fiber of our country. You know, I dont like gay people. I just dont. He also caused a social media stir when he compared a U.S. Muslim registry to the World War II Japanese interment policy in the United States, saying both were defensible in the name of national security. Higbie later apologized, saying he was attempting to be a radio shock jock and create controversy. Those words do not reflect who I am or what I stand for, I regret saying them, he said in a statement last year. But the controversy has followed him to the panel at Town Hall. Higbie has put it together for Americas Voice News, for which he hosts an online weekday show. The event is to feature a four-person panel with two voices from the right, including Higbie, and two from the left. The use of Town Hall for the event has been criticized by some residents. While Town Hall can be used for educational and informative purposes by outside groups, the towns policy says a 501(c)3 form must be submitted to do so, and Americas Voice News is not a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Both the Democratic Town Committee and the local activist group Indivisible Greenwich have criticized the decision to hold the event at Town Hall. The DTC issued a statement on Thursday saying it was dismayed that Town Hall was being used by a divisive, right wing, for profit media company. The party said the issue was a matter of civil decency. Higbie said the goal of the panel remains holding a fair debate between two sides. The Democrats, Indivisible and other liberals have tried to make this about moral outrage based on something that happened over half a decade ago, Higbie said. To quote the Greenwich Public Schools motto, Let go and move on. The controversy and childish behavior of these groups has only strengthened support for the event and for that I would like to thank them. Tesei discussed the matter at Thursdays Board of Selectmen meeting, saying Higbies comments were incendiary, prejudicial and ones that, frankly do not reconcile with who we are as a town, who I am or who any of us are. But he said the Wednesday event is about giving a resident a chance to have a town meeting with a discussion that has various points of view. I embrace (having the discussion), Tesei said. I embrace it because I truly believe weve seen a degradation of civil discourse in our society. Weve seen people resort to name calling, hateful comments and, I would say, juvenile comments. Democratic Selectman Sandy Litvack has expressed a different view, though. He said earlier in the week that affording Higbie a platform at Town Hall would be no different than affording one to David Duke. Litvacks earlier comments drew a rebuke from Higbie in a letter to the editor, in which he pointed out that Litvack had never met him but formed an opinion based on what hed read. To me thats a shocking lack of thoroughness from an elected official, Higbie wrote. On Thursday, Litvack said he and Tesei had talking about the issue and that while he respected Teseis decision he disagreed with it and said it was misguided. I am all for (Higbie) or any individual having the right to free speech, Litvack said. This is essential. They can say whatever they like within the confines of the Constitution. The issue here is we have someone who is, I would say, an avowed racist, a person who has been homophobic, misogynist, sexist and has openly said so. He said he regrets it and I have no doubt he regrets it. Hes lost his job. Hes probably the only man too racist for the Trump administration and has been ousted. Litvacvk said he was troubled by the use of Town Hall, which has its operations funded by taxpayers, for the event and felt Tesei and Camillo were making a mistake by being a part of it. The comment was made before Camillo backed out. They are legitimizing someone who should not be legitimized, Litvack said, adding while he truly, truly admired Teseis optimism he felt it was unfounded. But Higbie fired back, noting it was insincere for Litvack, a former high-ranking Disney executive, to criticize him as misogynistic given Disneys association with Harvey Weinstein. Litvack has repeatedly said he barely knew Weinstein during his years at Disney and was not aware of the claims about him at the time. With all the times Sandy Litvack has criticized me, a good leader could take five minutes to give a local resident a call and hear for himself firsthand what kind of person I am, Higbie said. There are thousands of people in Greenwich including Peter Tesei that know me well and vouch for my character. Sandy has willful ignorance. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com HARTFORD Keeping with a campaign promise, Gov. Ned Lamont said Friday the new state police gun range wont be in Griswold. Were not going to put it in Griswold, Lamont said at an unrelated press conference. He said hes talking to the commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and there are dozens of existing ranges here in the state that his administration will look at. Were going to do a complete analysis, Lamont said. There is the National Guard shooting range in East Haven that has been suggested as a location in the past. The previous administration contended that the East Haven National Guard site would not meet the state polices training needs because police are trained to react differently in a shooting than Army personnel. The current state police shooting range at the base of Avon Mountain floods too often, making training almost impossible. State police have said it needs to be relocated because its in a flood plain and the repeated flooding and mold led to the condemnation and demolition of the classroom building on the property. Last March, the state planned purchase 113 acres of private land in Griswold off Lee Road near Pachaug State Forest. It had not yet completed the environmental impact study before Lamont took office. An estimated $2.87 million in bond authorizations remain for the firearms training facility. Proposals to build a new state police range in Willington and East Windsor havent officially been scrapped, but state officials turned their attention to far eastern Connecticut, including Griswold, in 2016 following public hearings. U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney applauded Lamonts decision. For over three years, the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services has attempted to identify a location for a new training range, Courtney said. And in every instance, they have both faced strong objection of local citizens and municipal leaders and resisted alternatives to this misguided plan. Every step of the way, I have opposed those efforts and spoken up on behalf of communities across eastern Connecticut who felt that they were not being heard in the process. Courtney said residents in eastern Connecticut are breathing a sigh of relief. I welcome his decision to take a fresh look at this issue, and in particular his focus on evaluating the use of existing ranges and facilities to augment the training needs of our state police an approach I have called for since 2015. Governor Lamont and I have spoken about this important issue many times before he was elected and since hes taken office, and I am grateful for his understanding and shared concern about our region. Photo: The Canadian Press The slim hold on power Premier John Horgan's minority NDP government has in British Columbia will be tested Wednesday in a byelection on Vancouver Island where a Liberal win would leave the legislature deadlocked. Nanaimo has been a New Democrat stronghold, but a Liberal win would give the party 43 seats, tying it with the 43 seats held by the NDP and the Green party, which signed an agreement in 2017 allowing the New Democrats to form a minority government. Byelections in B.C. don't often favour sitting governments, voters tend to stay home and the results rarely have the potential to shift the balance of power, but the Nanaimo byelection is anything but traditional, says Prof. David Black, a political communications expert at Victoria's Royal Roads University. "This is the perfect byelection," said Black. "You'll never see a more interesting, layered, complex and consequential one in my lifetime at the provincial level." He said the byelection has all the ingredients of a high-stakes political drama that features solid local candidates, strong provincial issues and a potential game-changing result. "This may be the best byelection ever," Black said. "Just to add icing to that very multi-layered cake you have the fact that this byelection, unlike most, could be consequential with respect to the composition of the government and the fate of this particular NDP-Green alliance." Six candidates are in the race: former New Democrat MP Sheila Malcolmson, the Green's Michele Ney, Liberal Tony Harris, Conservative Justin Greenwood, Robin Richardson of the Vancouver Island Party and Libertarian Bill Walker. The byelection was called to replace Leonard Krog, the five-term NDP member of the legislature who resigned his seat last year after being elected mayor of the city. Harris is a well-known local businessman whose family has been in Nanaimo for six generations. He said he wants to focus on local health, education and economic issues rather than get caught up in the provincial numbers game. "This is Nanaimo's byelection and Nanaimo's time," said Harris. "I feel everybody should be talking about grassroots ideas, solutions to meet the needs of our community. Instead, this election is seeing Nanaimo being hijacked for this provincial cause and I don't like that." Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said voters have the opportunity to pass judgment on the NDP. "I'll be very interested in hearing from the people of Nanaimo and their concerns," said Wilkinson who is spending the days before the byelection campaigning in the city. Horgan said the NDP has been in Nanaimo telling voters about its child care, health, education and housing initiatives since forming a government after the 2017 election. "We've been doing our level best to make our case to the people of Nanaimo that, in the time we've had as government, we've been delivering for the people and the community," he said. "I believe the continuation of our government is in the best interest of the community." Malcolmson said she is leaving the bigger picture political strategies to NDP officials while she spends her time door knocking and hearing from voters, who she says are telling her the former Liberal government did little to address homelessness and high housing costs in Nanaimo. Ney, the daughter of former long-time Nanaimo mayor Frank Ney, said she tells voters she has a vision to make Nanaimo a clean economy leader. Electing a fourth Green in the B.C. legislature would give voters more power than electing either Harris or Malcolmson, who will play minor roles for their parties, she argued. If the Liberals win, it would likely lead to an early election with the Liberals forcing confidence votes in the legislature at every opportunity, Black said. Nanaimo is strong NDP territory, but an election win is not a sure thing, he added. "But if you were going to have a byelection to decide the fate of your government from the NDP perspective, you'd want it in Nanaimo," said Black. "They've only lost twice in the last 50 years." From small batches brewed in New York City apartments to hundreds of kegs per day filled at their brewery in Stamford, the founders behind Rise Brewing Co. have come a long way in a few years. Greenwich natives Grant Gyesky, Jarrett McGovern and Justin Weinstein launched their nitro-infused cold-brew coffee business Rise Brewing Co. two years ago. Now their brand headlines coffee offerings at bars and restaurants in the same neighborhoods in which they grew up. Heading into the fall, the friends and co-founders are celebrating the launch of two new products, nitro lemonade coffee and nitro blood orange coffee, and anticipate closing on their Series A round of funding. At the start, it could take up to 24 hours to brew a sweet and frothy cup of cold-brew coffee that its makers boast as smoother tasting than traditional drip coffee. We dont heat up the beans, so its not acidic, McGovern said. But we had to figure out a way to scale it, so we put it in kegs and started taking it to barbecues and parties. At the time we didnt see anyone making nitro coffee. Their creamy cold coffee was a hit and friends were asking if they could invest in the burgeoning business. Before long, Rises primary customers became companies buying kegs to install in bulk at their offices. As orders from offices grew, they became one of the main focuses. Today, Rise supplies around 400 offices in New York City, McGovern said. Early on, the company also partnered with Brooklyn bar Colony and opened a shop in Manhattans Lower East Side, which is still there and includes company offices. All of Rises more than 20 staff members have learned how customers interact with the companys products through working at least one day there, Weinstein said. Following Colonys decision to offer Rise nitro cold brew on tap, other bars and restaurants expressed interest in doing the same. The Cask Republic, which has Connecticut locations in Norwalk, Stamford and New Haven and serves Rise on tap and mixed into cocktails, signified one of Rises first Connecticut outposts. Since then, Rise has been added to bar taps and shop shelves all over, including Aux Delices, Granola Bar, Green & Tonic, Old Greenwich Social, Upper Crust Bagel Co. in Old Greenwich and as a beachside refreshment at the concession stand at Tods Point. Whole Foods shops around the Northeast also sell Rise products. In the coming months, Rise will add several pop-up shops in New York City as the company adjusts to expanding its distribution locations that now go as far north as Maine and have wandered West with customers in California. Were building on both coasts and will eventually meet in the middle, Weinstein said. This summer, Rise was named best new beverage in BevNets annual competition. The judges lauded Rises sales strategy and breadth of distribution but cautioned the founders from attempting to expand internationally too quickly. Along with the title, Rise won a $10,000 prize. That was very validating for us since it was from industry professionals, Weinstein said. Looking ahead, some of the biggest hurdles Rise will face include how to maintain its quality consistently and figuring out the logistics of distribution to more customers, the co-founders said. At the beginning of all this, people were telling us, Dont say nitro. People wont know what it means, McGovern said. Now were seeing others getting in and its gone from a potential trend to a category of coffee. Contact the writer at mbennett@greenwichtime.com; Twitter @Macaela_ Greensburg, IN (47240) Today Scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 83F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Thunderstorms. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. GREENSBORO Threats to four jurors forced a judge Friday morning to restrict who can attend a murder trial involving a Bloods gang member. Each juror alerted bailiffs they had been followed from a parking area to the courthouse by a man dressed from head to toe in red the color worn by members of the Bloods. Judge David Hall, four days into a trial that has increased security at the Guilford County Courthouse, slammed down a stack of papers after hearing the news. One juror was so shaken, Hall said, she was hysterical. She was later dismissed from the trial. Because of repeated and credible threats to the witnesses, the prosecutor and now jurors, Im now faced with either closing the courtroom or limiting those who attend, Hall said. Hall ultimately decided to restrict the number of people allowed inside the courtroom and ordered officers to be on the lookout for a man fitting the jurors description. He was eventually found. It was the latest drama in the trial of Chauncey Slade, a 20-year-old facing life in prison for allegedly killing Ernest Lemark Cuthbertson, a Bloods member, and another man when he was 16. Quite a bit of news dropped on Friday, so you may have missed a hedgehog-related alert that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued early that afternoon. Those tiny, prickly, adorable mammals - which have jumped in popularity as household pets in recent years - may be carrying salmonella germs and spreading them to nearby humans, according to the CDC. "CDC and public health officials in several states are investigating a multistate outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to contact with pet hedgehogs," the agency's notice read. As of Friday, the CDC said there had been 11 people in eight states sickened by a strain of Salmonella typhimurium; in 10 of the 11 cases, "ill people reported contact with a hedgehog," the agency said. Though one person was hospitalized, no deaths have been reported. Three of the cases were reported in Missouri, two in Minnesota and one each in Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming. Researchers collected samples from hedgehogs in the two Minnesota patients' homes and identified the strain of salmonella that was making people sick. It's still unclear if all or some of the pet hedgehogs came from "a common supplier," the CDC said. In all cases, when the tests came back, the district took the fountains or faucets out of service before the start of the next school day, the interim report says. The Foust Elementary water cooler will be replaced, and the Allen Jay drinking station will be removed because its rarely used anyway, the report says. The others are out of service for now, awaiting further scrutiny and potential action. Testers found no lead levels above 10 parts-per-billion at Claxton, Falkener, Kirkman Park and Morehead elementaries and none at Southeast and Swann Middle. District administrators adopted 10-parts-per-billion as an action level for fixing or removing specific taps. Thats a stricter standard than the approximately 20-parts-per-billion action threshold they used for their last round of tests. That prior threshold was based on then-guidance from the EPA for schools. The district is using the 10-parts standard out of an abundance of caution and to protect the health of students and staff, according to the districts report. Unlike some other states, North Carolina does not require schools to test for lead in their drinking water unless they use wells. However, the EPA recommends districts also test taps at schools that draw from city or town water sources. Along with roll call votes this week, the Senate also passed the TANF Extension Act to extend the program of block grants to states for temporary assistance for needy families and related programs through June 30, 2019. The House also passed the Clean Up the Code Act to eliminate unused sections of the United States Code; the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act to require certain additional actions in connection with the national emergency with respect to Syria; and a bill to direct the secretary of state to develop a strategy to regain observer status for Taiwan in the World Health Organization. U.S. House Support for NATO: The House has passed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Support Act to reiterate Congresss support for NATO and block funding for U.S. withdrawal from NATO. The vote on Tuesday, Jan. 22, was 357-22 nays. Yeas: U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, R-Greensboro, 6th District Not voting: U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, R-Advance, 13th District In 1784, in a letter to his daughter Sarah, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the choice of the bald eagle as the symbol of America, and stated his own preference: the turkey. In 1788, the first European settlers in Australia, led by Capt. Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sydney. In 1870, Virginia rejoined the Union. In 1939, principal photography began for David O. Selznicks movie version of Gone with the Wind. In 1942, the first American Expeditionary Force to head to Europe during World War II arrived in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1962, the United States launched Ranger 3 to land scientific instruments on the moon but the probe ended up missing its target by more than 22,000 miles. In 1988, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Phantom of the Opera opened at Broadways Majestic Theater. In 1993, Vaclav Havel was elected president of the newly formed Czech Republic. Photo: Contributed UPDATE: 5:40 p.m. RCMP have confirmed the identity of the man involved in a dramatic police takedown outside Orchard Park Mall this week. Shots were fired in the arrest of John Michael Aronson of Kelowna, who has a lengthy criminal record and has been involved in previous high-risk police takedowns and assaults. The Kelowna RCMP Street Enforcement Unit and Southeast District Emergency Response Team apprehended Aronson on Wednesday, following a road rage incident Tuesday morning that is alleged to have involved an assault with pepper spray. On Wednesday, he was taken into custody outside the Orchard Park CIBC branch. Aronson, 30, has been charged with seven counts, including assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, theft of a motor vehicle, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, flight from police and driving while disqualified. He has been remanded in custody, awaiting his first court appearance. Meanwhile, RCMP are asking anyone with information, photos, or video of the incidents leading up to Aronson's arrest to come forward. ORIGINAL: 5 p.m. The Independent Investigations Office of BC has sent nine investigators to Kelowna to look into a police-involved shooting incident Wednesday outside Orchard Park Mall. It's unclear how long the investigation will take, the IIO said Friday. Meanwhile, the IIO is looking to speak with witnesses of the dramatic police takedown. Police shot and wounded a suspect during the incident, played out in broad daylight, in front of the Orchard Park CIBC branch about 3 p.m. The suspect was taken to hospital with serious injuries. "Although the IIO has some civilian witnesses, anybody who saw, heard or may have footage of the incident is asked to contact the IIO witness line even if they have already spoken to police," the IIO tweeted Friday. The IIO witness line is 1-855-446-8477. The carpet, sink, dresser and televisions would need to be replaced, she wrote, while the deep ruts in the lawn and closet door would need to be repaired. Other items the Deritas left would need to be taken to the landfill and would cost hundreds of dollars to discard, the statement detailed. Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content. The writer is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, an editor-at-large for the National Review Online and a commentator for CNN. Write to him in care of this newspaper or by e-mail at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com, or via Twitter @JonahNRO. Copyright 2019 tribune Content Agency LLC. Im just afraid that we have to make some cuts in order to get the budget balanced, McIntosh said. Im afraid theres some overspending. Its amazing to be in this position. The budget grew bigger and faster than our Spending Affordability Committee wanted. The ministers found that a plastic donation box the church had been using to collect money for children oversees was missing. No other items appeared to be gone, including musical instruments that would have been accessible at the time of the alleged burglary, according to the statement. Goshen, IN (46526) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 61F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Donald Trump promoted the falsehood, linking vaccines and autism during a primary debate. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network condemned the remark. Measles cases in Europe rose to 60,000 last year, including 72 deaths, more than double the number in 2017. Consider that this disease was once close to being eradicated. In this country, 18 states still allow nonmedical exemptions for vaccinating children based on a philosophical belief. Requests for such exemptions are rising in 12 of them. New York state is seeing its most troubling measles outbreak in decades. Almost all the cases occur among ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose insular communities have been ripe for anti-vaccine propagandists. William Handler, an Orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn, told Vox that parents who placate the gods of vaccination are engaging in child sacrifice. Thats not far off from a League party officials nutty labeling of state-funded vaccinations as free genocide. Once vaccination levels fall below 95 percent, epidemiologists explain, there arent enough people to hold the disease in check. And measles is highly contagious. The virus floats in the air and can live on surfaces for hours. Shorter noted the treasurers office cant refuse payment from anyone. If your neighbor wants to come in and pay your bill, thats fine, he said. We accept it. He said the Virginia Freedom of Information Act also requires them to release all information associated with a parcel number upon request. He said they noticed what was happening immediately after the annual payment from escrow companies had been deposited in their bank. They saw it started triggering overpayments. Because the account ultimately belongs to the taxpayer, it was the taxpayer that was refunded for the overpayment rather than the escrow company. He said whether someone received a refund or not, depended on whether they were a client of the single escrow company that remitted the fee. In the future, Shorter said the recurrence of something like this will depend on how much information it receives from the escrow companies upfront in the small window between the tax being set and the bills going out. Its only going to be as reliable as the information we receive from the escrow company, he said. Haskins said he typically hires six workers. They come in batches of three and stay for six to seven months. They overlap during the peak season for tobacco. Staying on that schedule, Haskins said his costs are set to increase by $8,500 this year during a time where hes usually just just lucky to break even. He estimated that if he includes the cost of providing transportation and free housing for his H-2A workers with the $12.25 hourly rate, the compensation would be somewhere between $16 and $17 per hour. Mills and Haskins said theyd prefer to hire local workers, but no ones willing to do the work. It would be one thing if these migrant workers were replacing American workers on the farm, but there are no local workers who want to do these jobs, said Mills. When Haskins was a teenager, he said his father used all local help on the farm but everyone was in their 40s or 50s. From the 1990s on, there wasnt anyone physically able to do the work who stepped up to the plate, he said. We would much rather higher local help, he said. It would be so much cheaper. Not only are small businesses a key constituency of our grassroots advocacy efforts, Marylands overall success in the national and global marketplace is directly tied to the states ability to foster a climate that is competitive and favorable to small business, said Christine Ross, president and CEO of MDCC, at Maryland chambers annual Meet the State event in Annapolis on Wednesday. ROANOKE Defense attorneys and prosecutors in the federal cases against accused members of Danvilles Rollin 60s Crips and MILLA Bloods street gangs met in Roanoke District Court on Friday to discuss the governments motion to take photos of defendants tattoos for use at trial, the schedule of events before trial and, briefly, the government shutdown. Defense attorneys claimed that the governments motion to take photos of their clients tattoos amounted to a fishing expedition without probable cause to justify it. There is no probable cause state for these defendants, defense attorney Bernadette Donovan said in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. That is a search without probable cause. The defenses argument had precedent. Judge Michael F. Urbanski ruled on a case in 2017 that dealt with a similar issue, he said in court. In that case, he held the government could photograph tattoos only on visible parts of defendants bodies like their heads, faces, hands, arms and necks. The government signaled it would abide by that earlier ruling at the Friday conference, but defense attorneys pushed back anyway, saying the issue of photographing tattoos would have to be made on a case-by-case-basis. When the March for Life makes headlines, it is almost always for political reasons, such as this years remarks by Vice President Mike Pence and a video-chat from President Donald Trump. The massive march also serves as a hub for dozens of smaller events, with groups ranging from Episcopalians for Life to Feminists for Life, from Pro-Life Humanists to the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians. Almost all mainstream religious groups including progressive flocks include a pro-life caucus of some kind. For decades, United Methodists were powerful supporters of the interfaith Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, ties that were cut by delegates at the denominations 2016 General Conference. That same conference defeated a motion to retain an old affirmation of Roe v. Wade. Nevertheless, the UMC homepage notes that the denominations Social Principles include two statements that remain in tension: Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child. Gloucester, MA (01930) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 63F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Syrian S-300 Systems Were 'Inactive' During Israeli Missile Attack Iranian MP Sputnik News 13:50 25.01.2019(updated 13:57 25.01.2019) Israel recently carried out a spate of missile strikes on alleged Iranian targets in Syria. The Syrian air defences reportedly destroyed over 30 Israeli cruise missiles and guided bombs during the attack, which lasted two days. Heshmatollah Falahat-Pisheh, head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, claimed that the Russian-made S-300 missile defence system, which is deployed in Syria, was "inactive" during a recent Israeli missile attack on Damascus, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Falahat-Pisheh insisted that if the S-300 systems in Syria operated correctly, the Israeli military would be unable to easily conduct airstrikes on Syria, which it conducted for two days in a row. The remarks came after the Syrian Foreign Ministry notified the United Nations that the Israeli airstrikes were possible only with US support, and with immunity "silently" approved by some other members of the UN Security Council. Referring to Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in turn, urged Israel to stop "the practice of arbitrary strikes on the territory of a sovereign state". In early October, Russia completed its delivery of new S-300 systems to Syria, including 49 units of systems-related equipment such as radars, basic target acquisition systems, command posts and four launchers. Earlier, Moscow announced that it would provide Syria with the S-300s as part of its response to the downing of a Russian Il-20 plane with 15 military personnel on board in the Syrian port city of Latakia. Moscow accused the Israeli Air Force of deliberately using the Russian aircraft as a shield during their attack on targets in Syria, which led to the plane's accidental destruction by a Syrian air defence battery. Israel rejected the accusations, claiming that it had warned Moscow about the upcoming air raid in the area in advance. Israel has repeatedly accused Iran of having a military presence in Syria, as well as suspected attempts to build a base there. However, Tehran has strongly refuted the claims, insisting that its military presence in the country is limited to sending military advisers at Damascus' request to help fight terrorists. Sputnik US-Led Coalition Probing Possible Civilian Casualties in Syria Sputnik News 17:06 25.01.2019 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US-led coalition is investigating whether an attack out on January 22 caused the deaths of civilians in Syria, Operation Inherent Resolve-Joint Task Force said in a statement on Friday. "Through self-reporting, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve is investigating a potential incident involving civilian casualties in the Middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria on Jan. 22, 2019," the coalition said. The coalition did not specify exactly where the incident took place. However, reports in recent days have indicated that several civilians were killed in a coalition airstrike in the village of Baguz in Deir ez-Zor province, which lies in the Middle Eastern Euphrates River Valley. According to the Ikhbariya TV channel, coalition jets struck vehicles carrying civilians who were fleeing the village, where US-led forces were battling the Daesh* terrorist group. Women and children were among those who were killed or injured in the airstrike, the reports stated. "This incident is under investigation, and the coalition will release additional details once it is complete," the coalition said. The new reports come as Syrian media have frequently published and broadcasted news of civilian casualties resulting from the US-led coalition's airstrikes. The coalition has acknowledged that at least 1,114 civilians have been killed in Syria and Iraq as a result of its campaign to defeat the Daesh. Syrian authorities have repeatedly called on the United Nations to hold those responsible for civilian deaths accountable and put an end to the US-led coalition's unauthorized presence on Syrian territory. Syria has been mired in a civil war since 2011, with the government forces fighting against numerous opposition groups as well as militant and terrorist organizations. In 2014, the US-led coalition of over 70 states launched its military operation against the Daesh* terrorist group in Syria, which was not authorized by Damascus. The US-led coalition's activities in Iraq are conducted in cooperation with Iraqi officials, but those in Syria are not authorized by the government of President Bashar Assad or the United Nations Security Council. *Daesh, also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS/Islamic State, is a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries. Sputnik US Reportedly Sends Scores of Trucks With Arms to Syria Amid Troop Exit Sputnik News 17:33 25.01.2019 The report comes amid the beginning of US troops' withdrawal from Syria, which was announced by President Donald Trump in December 2018, when he also declared victory over the terrorist group Daesh*. A video which allegedly shows the US deploying trucks loaded with weapons and logistical equipment to Syria, has emerged on the Internet. The authenticity of the footage has yet to be confirmed. Iran's Press TV reported that in the video, a column of more than 100 vehicles ostensibly coming from Iraq's Kurdistan Region enters Syria to the east of the Euphrates. According to Press TV, the weapons were deployed to US military bases in the cities of Hasakah, Raqqa and Aleppo. The alleged deployment comes after President Donald Trump tweeted in mid-January that US troops in Syria are starting their pullout "while hitting the little remaining ISIS [Daesh] terrorists from many directions". In December 2018, Trump announced plans to withdraw roughly 2,000 US troops from Syria within the next several months, in a move that he claimed can be explained by the fact that American forces had implemented their task of obliterating Daesh in the Arab country. At the same time, the White House pledged that the US-led international coalition's fight against terrorism would continue. The troop withdrawal decision was slammed by some US officials and prompted two resignations US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, who announced that his views were no longer aligned with Trump's, and Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the US coalition in Syria. A US-led coalition of over 70 member-nations has been conducting military operations against the Daesh terror group in Syria and Iraq. Coalition strikes in Syria are neither authorised by the government of President Bashar Assad nor by the United Nations Security Council. *Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State/IS), a terrorist group banned in Russia and a wide number of other countries. Sputnik Arab Tribes in North Syria Speak Out Against Turkish Security Zone Plan Sputnik News 18:05 25.01.2019 BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Over 10,000 representatives of the Arab tribes living in the northern and northeastern regions of Syria spoke out against the presence of US troops, a possible Turkish military operation and the creation of a security zone on the border territory between Syria and Turkey, SANA news agency reported on Friday. "The flag of Syria is the banner of the homeland, which symbolizes its sovereignty. We strongly oppose the creation of a so-called safe zone in the north of Syria The Syrian people are brought up on the concept of protecting the independence and sovereignty of their homeland and themselves by all possible means against any kind of aggression, including the occupation of the Syrian territory by the United States and Turkey," a statement by the clan leaders said, as quoted by the SANA news agency. The leaders of the clans have agreed that the Syrian nation has the right to decide the country's political, economic, and social future through dialogue without foreign interference. "We stand for the unity and independence of Syria and against any project or plan for the division [of the territory] under any excuse," the statement read. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week that Turkey intends to create a security zone in northeastern Syria. Over 10,000 representatives of the Arab tribes and clans gathered on Friday in Athriya in the Aleppo province to show their support for the Syrian government and the Syrian army in their fight for the country's unity. In December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Ankara was ready to launch a military operation against Kurdish fighters on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River as well as in Syria's Manbij, located near the Turkish border, if the United States did not remove the militia from there. He later said that he had decided to postpone the start of the military operation in Syria after a phone conversation with US President Donald Trump on December 14, during which the US president also revealed his plans to withdraw troops from Syria. Sputnik Damascus 'welcomes' Kurdish negotiation appeal, talks to start 'in days' Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 09:22AM The head of a Syrian Kurdish group says talks with Damascus will begin "in days" following the government's "positive" reaction to a negotiation appeal. "There are attempts to carry out negotiations. The Syrian government stance was positive," Reuters quoted Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) chief Sipan Hemo as saying. "We believe they will start in the coming days." Syria's Kurds have been granted some degree of self-rule by the government since the war began in 2011. Last month, they sought to come back under the full Syrian sovereignty after the US announced plans to withdraw troops. People in the Kurdish-populated areas are wary of a planned Turkish incursion into northern Syria in order to establish a "safe zone". Ankara views the YPG as the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which Ankara sees indistinguishable from PKK militants who have waged an insurgency inside Turkey. "We want to be on good ties as neighbors, but the Turkish state does not accept this," said Hemo. "If Turkey attacks our region, we will respond appropriately." The return of the territories under Syria's sovereignty would piece together the two biggest chunks of a nation splintered by eight years of war. Syrian Kurdish leaders have sought Russian mediation for talks with the government of President Bashar al-Assad, hoping to safeguard their autonomy when US troops pull out. Russia coordinates its moves in Syria with Iran and Turkey - the guarantors of the Astana process which has resulted in the return of a succession of militant bastions to the government fold and movement of civilians to safe zones. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was planning a trilateral summit "in the near future" to further discuss the situation in Syria. The last meeting between Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani took place in the Iranian capital, Tehran, last September. The talks led to the creation of a demilitarized buffer zone separating Syrian troops from Takfiri militants in the northwestern province of Idlib. Despite repeated truce violations by terrorist forces, the ceasefire has greatly decreased violence in the war-torn country. Walgreens is a company of pharmacists living and working in the communities we serve, and we have always taken the safety and reliability of the medicines our patients need very seriously, said Phil Caruso, a Walgreens spokesman, in an email. We are resolving these matters because we believe it is in the best interest of our customers, patients and other stakeholders to move forward. GFA Issues Prayer Appeal on Behalf of Village Pastor Abducted at Gunpoint in Myanmar Concerns growing for the safety of South Asia church leader Tun N., serving with GFA Asia field partner WILLS POINT, Texas, Jan. 25, 2019 / Christian Newswire / -- GFA (Gospel for Asia, www.gfa.org ) has issued an urgent prayer appeal on behalf of one of its field-partner workers who was abducted at gunpoint in Myanmar, formerly Burma. Tun N., aged 41, who pastors a congregation in the country's western Sittwe District, was last seen when he was taken from his home the evening of Jan. 19. Married with three children, he leads a church of around 50 members. Photo: A global prayer appeal has been issued on behalf of Tun N., who pastors a congregation of GFA field partner in Myanmar's Sittwe District, and who has not been seen since his abduction Jan. 19. "We are extremely concerned for Pastor Tun's safety, and we appeal to Christians around the world to join us in praying for his release without harm," said GFA founder Dr. K.P. Yohannan. Armed members of a rebel group abducted Pastor Tun, telling him that their leader wanted to ask him some questions. The incident was reported to local officials, who have not been able to locate him. Pastor Tun's wife, local church members, and regional church leaders have been unsuccessful in learning his whereabouts. "Please pray earnestly for peace and strength for Pastor Tun, wherever he may be, and for comfort for his family and church members," Yohannan added. "And we are also praying for those who have taken him, that God will touch their hearts and reveal his love to them, and cause them to release Pastor Tun." Pastor Tun is a graduate of GFA's field partner's seminary in Yangon. His abduction is the first incident of its kind for GFA-supported ministry in Myanmar, which includes several hundred congregations. "Just as the apostle Peter was miraculously freed from jail as his friends interceded for him, so we hope to see Pastor Tun restored to his family as his brothers and sisters in Christ pray on his behalf," said Yohannan. Video shows US deploying 250 trucks of arms in Syria despite pullout claim Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 10:13AM The US has reportedly deployed at least 250 trucks filled with weapons to its bases in Syria despite President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw all American forces from the Arab country. A video by the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in the UK, purportedly shows the entry of about 250 trucks loaded with weapons and logistical equipment. The SOHR said it had obtained information from a number of reliable sources that a column of over 100 vehicles carrying military and logistical equipment had entered the Syrian territory in the east of the Euphrates, coming from Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Observatory, the arms have been distributed among US military bases in Hasakah, Raqqah and Aleppo. Last month, Trump announced a plan to withdraw American forces from Syria amid preparations by Turkey to launch an operation against US-backed Kurdish militants in northern Syria. His abrupt move sparked concern among officials in Washington, prompting Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to step down in protest. Opponents of the decision argued that leaving Syria would amount to a victory for Iran and Russia, which have helped the Syrian government purge foreign-backed militants from most parts of the country. In what seemed to be a sign of disagreement in Washington, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently announced that American military forces would remain in Syria until Daesh terrorists were defeated. "And so in Syria, President Trump has made a tactical decision," Pompeo told Fox News. "We're going to withdraw our 2,000 uniformed military personnel from that country, but make no mistake about it: the defeat of the caliphate, the ISIS caliphate in Syria, is almost complete. We're going to stay there till it's done," he said, using another acronym for Daesh. Upon unveiling his plans for Syria, Trump claimed that American troops were going back home because, with Daesh defeated, their mission had come to an end. The founder of an infamous private military company recently said US troops in Syria could be replaced with mercenaries. In an interview with Fox Business, Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater now called Academi, welcomed Trump's Syria pullout decision, adding that US allies should not be abandoned in the war-torn country. "The United States doesn't have a long-term strategic obligation to stay in Syria. But, I also think it's not a good idea to abandon our allies," he said. Turkey expects creation of Syria security zone in few months, Erdogan says Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 03:21PM Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the Ankara government expects a "security zone" to be created in neighboring Syria within a few months as the United States withdraws its troops from the war-torn Arab country. "The zone should be aimed at protecting our country from terrorists not protecting terrorists right beside our border, and should be established within a few months," Erdogan said in a speech in Turkey's eastern province of Erzurum on Friday. "Otherwise, we will definitely form this safe or buffer zone ourselves. Our only expectation from our allies is that they provide logistical support to Turkey's effort," he added. "Our patience has a limit," Erdogan said. "We will not wait forever for the fulfillment of the promises given to us." Since 2012, Turkey has been calling for the establishment of a safe zone of 30-40 kilometers between the northern Syrian towns of Jarablus and al-Rai in a bid to drive out Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and to protect civilians. However, the plan has not come to fruition so far. Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump held a telephone conversation last week, where the Turkish leader expressed Ankara's determination to establish a safe zone in northern Syria. Trump has suggested creation of a 30-kilometer safe zone along Turkey's border with Syria, but has not specified who would create, enforce or pay for it, or where it would be located. Ankara has been threatening for months to launch an offensive in northern Syria against US-backed YPG militants. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous region inside Turkey since 1984. The Turkish military, with support from allied militants of the so-called Free Syrian Army, has launched two cross-border operations in northern Syria, dubbed "Euphrates Shield" and "Olive Branch", against the YPG and Daesh Takfiri terrorists. Warning to Iran? US Media Claims Riyadh Building Missile Factory at Remote Base Sputnik News 19:52 25.01.2019(updated 20:05 25.01.2019) The Al-Watah missile base was first discovered by private intelligence firm Jane's in 2013, with further media reports citing satellite photos indicating that the missiles at the base were targeting Israel and Iran. Fresh satellite images taken by US-based private Earth imaging company Planet Labs Inc. suggest that Saudi Arabia has built a factory to make domestically produced ballistic missiles, nuclear arms specialist Jeffrey Lewis, who made the discovery, told The Washington Post. The facility is said to be located at the same remote Al-Watah missile base about 200 km southwest of Riyadh which houses foreign-bought missiles in Saudi Arabia's arsenal. Speaking to The Post, Lewis, a nuclear arms specialist at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said the satellite images raise "the possibility that Saudi Arabia is going to build longer-range missiles and seek nuclear weapons." The US "may be underestimating [Riyadh's] desire and their capabilities" to produce home-made missiles, Lewis added. David Schmerler, an analyst who helped discover the Al-Watah base, told al-Jazeera that the new possible factory seems to confirm Saudi intentions to build missiles. "We were monitoring a site that was previously associated with being a Saudi missile base, and as we continued to monitor the site we noticedthe construction of buildings related to the testing and production of solid fuel ballistic missiles," Schmerler explained. "We haven't really seen this type of construction activity elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia does not have any other large-scale solid fuel production facilities in the country, so this would be a significant leap forward for them being able to develop their own domestic missile programme," he added. Riyadh is yet to comment on the media reports about the alleged missile factory. In addition to its arsenal of US-made air-launched missiles and bombs of various ranges and classes, Riyadh is known to possess a stock of Chinese missiles, including the DF-3A intermediate-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, which Saudi Arabia unveiled at a parade in 2014. According to media reports, the CIA also helped Riyadh to secure improved Chinese DF-21 medium-range ballistic missiles in 2007. Sputnik has also reported extensively on the presumably aborted Saudi talks with Ukraine regarding the purchase of the Grom-2, a new tactical short-range ballistic missile system developed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. Sputnik Berlin set to sell weapons to Doha amid tension with Riyadh Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 07:48AM Germany has approved exporting military equipment to Qatar amid deepening tensions with Riyadh, Doha's rival. Germany's Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told lawmakers in a letter dated January 23rd that the German government approved selling to Qatar four RAM naval missile systems. Chancellor Angela Merkel said in October that Berlin would stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the murder of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul earlier that month. Merkel called Khashoggi's murder an "atrocity" that "had to be clarified," calling on fellow European governments to follow suit and suspend arms exports to the kingdom. The decision was met with strong criticism from a major German arms manufacture which threatened to take legal action against the decision. Rheinmetall AG - one of Germany's largest military contractors - believes the halt in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has waged a war on Yemen since 2015, has already affected approved exports worth up to 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion). Jointly developed by Germany and the United States, RAM is a ship-based rolling airframe missile that protects naval vessels against missiles, aircraft, helicopters and other ships. The sale also includes 85 dual-mode radar and infrared seekers that guide the missile into its target. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt all cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar in 2017, accusing it of "sponsoring terrorism", a charge Doha strongly denies. They then released a 13-point list of demands, including the closure of Al Jazeera television network and downgrade of relations with Iran in return for the normalization of diplomatic relations. Qatar rejected the demands as an attack on the country's sovereignty and interference in its domestic affairs and foreign policy agenda. Germany last year announced it plans to enhance ties with Qatar, which pledged to invest 10 billion euros in the German economy. Russia to Express Concern Over US Arms Violating INF Treaty During Friday Talks Sputnik News BRUSSELS (Sputnik) Russia will express its concern over the US weapons violating the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) during the Friday meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters. On late Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov arrived in the Belgian capital of Brussels to take part in the NATO-Russia Council's meeting that will focus on the situation around the INF Treaty. "Of course, we will speak about that. We are becoming increasingly concerned over certain aspects of the US [military] policy, which are not in line with the provisions of the [INF] treaty. We will discuss that," Ryabkov said on late Thursday. Ryabkov added that the Russian party would also speak about the ways to resolve existing US concerns over the situation around the INF Treaty. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister also said that Russia will inform the NATO countries about its position on the situation around the INF Treaty during the upcoming Friday meeting. "We will directly inform high-ranking NATO officials about our assessments and ideas on overcoming the today's stalemate," Ryabkov said on late Thursday, pointing out that the US party had already been informed about the Russian position on the issue. He expressed a hope that Russia and NATO would feel after the NATO-Russia Council's meeting that the differences on the INF Treaty could be overcome. "Honestly speaking, I still have doubts that we will manage to do that given, among other things, almost full boycott of the event, held by the Russian Defence Ministry in the Patriot park, staged by embassies of the NATO states. However, we will try [to settle differences]," Ryabkov said. He also characterized the Western countries' boycott of the Russian Defence Ministry's press briefing on the INF Treaty as unacceptable. Ryabkov also said that he would meet US State Department's Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson on the sidelines of the upcoming meeting of five nuclear states in Beijing adding that he was not sure whether she would be ready to discuss the situation around the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. According to some media reports, the United States proposed to hold talks with Russia on arms control on the sidelines of the meeting of five nuclear states in Beijing. "I do not have such understanding. I have also read the reports We will have contacts [with Thompson] but I do not know whether Ms Thompson will be ready to discuss the INF Treaty during this meeting," Ryabkov told reporters on late Thursday. The Russian diplomat added that Moscow was interested in maintaining the dialogue on the issue with the United States. According to Spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Hua Chunying, the meeting of five nuclear states China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and France will be held in Beijing on January 30. On Friday, the NATO headquarters in Brussels will host the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council that will focus on the situation around the INF Treaty. In October, US President Donald Trump announced his country's intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty over alleged Russian violations of the agreement. On December 4, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Russia had 60 days to start to comply with the agreement, or, otherwise, the United States could leave the treaty on February 2. The United States has in particular repeatedly voiced concern over Russia's 9M729 missile, which, according to Washington, violates the provisions of the INF treaty. Moscow has refuted US accusations as unsubstantiated, insisting that the missile was tested at the range permitted by the agreement. Russia, in turn, has complained that launchers of US defence systems in Europe are capable of firing cruise missiles at ranges that are banned by the agreement. The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 by then-leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and then-US President Ronald Reagan. The leaders agreed to destroy all cruise or ground-launched ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres (310 and 3,400 miles). Sputnik Moscow Once Again Urges US to Abandon Plans to Resurrect 'Star Wars' Programme Sputnik News 14:01 25.01.2019(updated 16:18 25.01.2019) Earlier on Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has held a press conference after the meeting of the Russia-NATO Council. The meeting focused on the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in light of Washington's decision to withdraw from the agreement. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Washington on Friday to abandon its plans to implement a missile defence system in space, noting that such a move may trigger an arms race. "The United States' implementation of its military space plans will hit the current system of space activities safety resulting from the international space law. All of Washington's previous attempts to achieve superiority in the military sphere invariably resulted in growing tensions and new turns of the arms race," the ministry said in a statement. According to the ministry, the efforts appear to be aimed at bringing back the so-called Star Wars programme or US Strategic Defence Initiative, which former American President Ronald Reagan initially announced back in the 1980s. Moreover, Moscow thinks that the strategy proves that Washington's plans to use space for military operations in the nearest future are real. The official statement came after Stoltenberg held a press conference earlier in the day during which he said that there was a possibility to save the INF treaty even if the US begins the withdrawal process. He explained that Washington will start the six-month withdrawal process from the accord after 2 February if the US requirements are not met by Russia. Thus, the top official called on Russia to go back into compliance with the treaty, repeating the accusations previously voiced by the US. He added that the deal was 'in real jeopardy'. The official also stressed that NATO will continue dialogue with Russia on the deal on different levels further noting that the US didn't want a new Cold War and an arms race. Commenting on the meeting with Russia over the SS-CX-8 (9M729 cruise missile) that Washington claims doesn't comply with the INF treaty, Stoltenberg said no real progress has been made. The NATO chief's comments came after late last year Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the United States has provided no evidence to support the allegations of Russia violating the accord. Moreover, Kremlin, earlier said that Moscow would continue to defend its position on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). According the Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Washington was not ready for talks because of the fact that the military attaches from the United States and its NATO allies had ignored the recent briefing on the 9M729 missile organised by the Russian Defence Ministry. Sputnik Missile Pact In Danger, NATO Chief Says After Russia Talks January 25, 2019 BRUSSELS -- A meeting between NATO and Russian envoys has failed to resolve a dispute over a new Russian cruise missile that the alliance says is a threat to Europe, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on January 25. Following the talks in Brussels, Stoltenberg said that a major Cold War-era missile pact "is now in jeopardy and unfortunately we have not seen any signs of [a] breakthrough." The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the United States and the Soviet Union bans production, testing, and deployment of land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers. The INF has been the backbone of Europe's security system, curbing the risk of nuclear attack. But Washington and NATO now accuse Russia of breaching the treaty by developing the 9M729 cruise missile, also known as the SSC-8. Moscow has denied that it is violating the INF treaty, arguing that the SSC-8 has a range of only 480 kilometers. It accuses the United States in turn that it wants to abandon the pact so it can start a new arms race. Washington has said that if Russia does not return to compliance, it will start the six-month process of leaving the pact from February 2. Stoltenberg, speaking at a news conference where Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also in attendance, said there was "no real progress." He said that Russia still had half a year after February 2 to come back into compliance, but after that, "the treaty will cease to exist." With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels, Reuters, AFP, AP, and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/missile-pact-in-danger-nato-chief -says-after-russia-talks/29731023.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Russian Lawmakers Pass Bills On 'Fake News,' Offending Authorities In First Reading January 25, 2019 Russian lawmakers have given tentative approval to bills prohibiting the spread of fake news online and punishing those who insult authorities with jail terms of up to 15 days, in measures the opposition says are aimed at curbing dissent. The two bills passed their first of three readings in the 450-seat State Duma with 332 and 336 votes respectively, Russian news agencies reported January 24. One bill proposed introducing fines of up to 5,000 rubles ($76) or a 15-day jail sentence on those disrespecting government agencies, the state, the public, the Russian flag, or constitution. A second bill proposes imposing fines of up to 5,000 rubles on individuals who spread fake news and up to 1 million rubles ($15,000) on companies that do so. It also envisages blocking Internet sources that publish what is deemed to be fake news. Moscow has implemented tougher Internet legislation over the past five years, requiring search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services, and social networks to store users' personal data on servers within the country. "These are crazy bills. How can they prohibit people from criticizing the authorities?" said opposition politician Ilya Yashin, adding that he expected the bills to become law. The bills can still be amended and must be approved at two further readings in the Duma before they are approved by the upper house and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin. Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and TASS Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-lawmakers- pass-bills-on-fake-news-offending-authorities- in-first-reading/29730243.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Russia: US igniting arms race in outer space by weaponizing it Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 04:08PM Russia has warned that the United States' new space missile program would weaponize outer space and ignite an arms race there. In a statement on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the space program recently declared by the administration of US President Donald Trump would violate the practice of using outer space for peaceful purposes. "It is obvious that the appearance of weapons in space would be contrary to the established practice of international cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes," the statement read. It compared the plan with the ill-fated "Star Wars" program launched by former President Ronald Reagan in the midst of Cold War rivalries between America and the former Soviet Union. "We are deeply disappointed that the US instead of building a constructive dialog on strategic stability and the prevention of an arms race in space chose to return to the next version of the Star Wars program of the times of President Ronald Reagan," it said, calling on Washington to "abandon such irresponsible adventures." Last week, Trump unveiled a space missile program that would seek to develop space-based sensors to detect incoming missiles. Reagan's "Star Wars" program, officially known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, was a similar weapons plan that was introduced in the 1980s and sought to develop new technologies for missile systems in outer space. It was, however, dropped by later administrations due to the complexity of the technology and its high costs. The development comes as the US and Russia are already at loggerheads over a range of other issues, prominently a missile treaty that also dates back to the Cold War. The White House has recently accused Moscow of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed in 1987 and has announced it will unilaterally stop complying with it in February. Russia has denied violating the INF and has warned against the US's pullout. The INF banned all land-based missiles with ranges of 310 to 3,420 miles and included missiles carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads. A new missile developed by Russia has fueled that dispute. On Wednesday, Russia officially released the specifications of the missile for the first time, saying the weapon did not fall under the category of armaments banned by the INF. Earlier this week, Russia also announced that it had proposed putting on a demonstration of the missile for American inspectors. Washington rejected that offer, nevertheless. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of a new arms race if the agreement collapses. Myanmar Government side-lining democratic reform, resorting to military era repression: UN expert 25 January 2019 - The human rights situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, as the civilian government fails to bring about democratic reforms and instead resorts to the kind of repression carried out under previous military regimes, said the UN human rights expert Yanghee Lee, speaking at the end of an 11-day mission to neighbouring Thailand and Bangladesh. Ms. Lee, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, described the "democratic space" in Myanmar (including freedom of speech and association) as "fragile," with religious and ethnic divisions remaining across the country, as well as the marginalization and discrimination of minorities: "I am greatly concerned that the enduring repressive environment is discouraging people from speaking out freely about human rights violations and injustices', she said. She added that "disagreements, criticism and debate are healthy and necessary in any functioning democracy. Journalists and human rights defenders continue to be targeted for exercising their right to freedom of expression. I call on the authorities to end this mistreatment and immediately release all those unjustly imprisoned." The human rights situation in Myanmar, she said, has been further complicated by fighting in several regions of the country, undermining the prospects that some 162,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in the area will be able to return home. The Myanmar government plan to close IDP camps and relocate people to remote areas, she added, far from their places of origin and removed from economic opportunities and humanitarian support. Whilst they have consulted with the UN on the subject of camp closures, the government have failed to consult with IDPs or organizations working with the displaced populations, and the return of people to their places of origin must be in accord with international standards of safety, voluntariness, dignity and sustainability. Ms. Lee expressed her deep concern that Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are particularly vulnerable to losing their rights to ancestral homelands, following recent amendments to a law that permits the government to expropriate land, from ethnic areas including Rakhine, Kachin, Shan and Kayin State where communities have depended on this land for their livelihoods, traditions and culture for generations at particular risk. No Rohingya returns, rather 'a sustained campaign of violence' As for the potential return of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, Ms. Lee stated that Myanmar is not working to created conditions for their return, but is instead engaging in a "sustained campaign of violence, intimidation and harassment." She shared testimony from Rohingya refugees she met during her visit to the refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, citing a fresh arrival to the camp who said that her father had been stabbed to death by Myanmar security forces; a refugee who fled with his entire family after his mother and sister were abducted and raped; and videos in which she saw houses burning in Muangdaw township, which, according to information gathered by her team, were set alight by Myanmar security forces working in concert with Rakhine extremists. Under Myanmar's plan for the return of Rohingya, according to reports in November 2018, Muangdaw was identified as a resettlement area. Refugees must have say in any island relocation Ms. Lee also visited the island of Bhashan Char, which the Bangladesh Government is reportedly transforming into a camp for some of the Rohingya refugees, despite concerns that it could be vulnerable to extreme weather events such as cyclones. She told journalists at a press conference on Friday in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, that she was anxious about whether the conditions on the island, which she described as isolated, are adequate to fulfil the needs and rights of Rohingya's refugees: "If any plans are made about refugee relocation in the future, refugees must be fully engaged and participate in the process," she said. "Without a protection framework agreed with the humanitarian community, the plans cannot move forward." Margaret was well known in her profession, but she was adored by her family, said her niece. She spent vacations and holidays with us in California. She was an inspiration to all of us. She was a mentor to all of us in education and was always interested in our achievements. Myanmar Army Chief Must be Prosecuted for Rohingya "Genocide": U.N. Rights Envoy Says Saudi Press Agency Friday 1440/5/19 - 2019/01/25 Bangkok, Dhaka, Jan 25, 2019, SPA -- Myanmar's army chief should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority, a U.N. human rights investigator said, adding that holding perpetrators to account for crimes was necessary before refugees who fled the country could return. Yanghee Lee, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar, was speaking during a trip to Thailand and Bangladesh, where she met officials and Rohingya driven out of western Rakhine state after an army crackdown in 2017. "Min Aung Hlaing and others should be held accountable for genocide in Rakhine and for crimes against humanity and war crimes in other parts of Myanmar," said Lee, who is barred from the country, referring to the military's commander-in-chief. Her interview marked the first time Lee has publicly called for the army chief to be prosecuted for genocide. A U.N. fact-finding mission on Myanmar last year said that the military campaign, which refugees say included mass killings and rape, was orchestrated with "genocidal intent" and recommended charging Min Aung Hlaing and five other generals with the "gravest crimes under international law". Since August 2017 some 730,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine to Bangladesh, where they now live in overcrowded camps. -- SPA 21:54 LOCAL TIME 18:54 GMT 0014 UN envoy says Myanmar army chief must be tried for genocide Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 02:49PM The United Nations (UN)'s envoy for Myanmar says the country's army chief should be prosecuted for committing genocide against minority Rohingya Muslims, many of whom have now fled but face repatriation to the Buddhist-majority state. "Min Aung Hlaing (the Myanmarese military's commander-in-chief) and others should be held accountable for genocide in Rakhine [State] and for crimes against humanity and war crimes in other parts of Myanmar," Yanghee Lee, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in an interview conducted with Reuters earlier but published on Friday. She did not clarify who the others were. Myanmar's de facto ruler, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has been mostly exempt from Western criticism despite effectively condoning the violence against the Rohingya. Lee gave the interview on a recent trip to Thailand and Bangladesh, where she met officials and Rohingya refugees, who started fleeing Myanmar's western Rakhine State after coordinated, state-sponsored violence began against them in November 2016. In August last year, a UN fact-finding mission concluded Myanmar's military had carried out "genocide" and other gross rights violations against the Rohingya Muslims. Lee was appointed to investigate the matter. Min Aung Hlaing, the Myanmarese military chief, has retained his position despite the UN findings and massive international furor, while Lee has been barred from the country. The violence against the Rohingya carried out by military soldiers and Buddhist mobs intensified in August 2017. Thousands of Muslims were killed, and more than 700,000 others survived only by fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh, where they are now living in overcrowded refugee camps in dire humanitarian conditions. In October 2018, Bangladeshi and Myanmarese government officials announced that they had struck a "very concrete" repatriation deal for the return of the Rohingya Muslims. The refugees, and rights activists, however, fear that violence awaits them back home. In her interview, Lee effectively confirmed those concerns. "For any repatriation to happen... the perpetrators must be held to account, because sending the refugees back with no accountability is going to really exacerbate or prolong the horrific situation in Myanmar," she said. "And then we'll see another cycle of expulsion again." In September 2018, the International Criminal Court opened a preliminary probe into the Myanmarese military's crimes against members of the Rohingya Muslim minority group. Myanmar has said it "absolutely rejects" ICC jurisdiction. The country is not a signatory to the ICC's founding statute, but judges have ruled that the court still has jurisdiction over any alleged crimes against the Rohingya, as Bangladesh where the Rohingya have taken shelter is an ICC member. 'A great disappointment' Lee said Myanmarese authorities had turned down her latest request to visit the country. "They responded and reminded me that they had asked the Human Rights Council to replace me so they cannot engage with me," she said. She also denounced as a "great disappointment" the country's human rights record. The Rohingya Muslims, who have lived in Myanmar for generations, are denied citizenship and are branded illegal emigrants from Bangladesh, which likewise denies them citizenship. Before coordinated violence began in late 2016, they had already faced persecution for years. Indian Army Launches Global Hunt for 360,000 Carbines in $750Mln Potential Deal Sputnik News 10:06 25.01.2019(updated 14:38 25.01.2019) The tender, which is expected to be issued later this year, will seek a transfer of technology for the carbines to be produced under licence in India under a partnership deal with domestic defence companies. The Indian Army has issued a global request for information (RFI) for the procurement of 360,000 5.56mm close-quarter battle carbines at a cost of about $750 million under the Buy and Make India category. This RFI is supplementary to the one issued by the Indian Army earlier this month for a 5.56 x 45 mm calibre carbine having an effective range of at least 200 metres. Since as early as 2008, the Indian Army has been looking to replace its ageing in-service Sterling 9mm carbines, but the procurement process has failed to materialise, due to a number of reasons. Last year, the Indian Army successfully purchased 93,895 CAR 816 carbines from UAE-based Caracal International. As the Indian Army seeks maximum participation of vendors in this contest, industry sources have suggested that overseas manufacturers, including Italy's Beretta , Belgium's FN FAL, Germany's Heckler & Koch, the US' Colt's Manufacturing Company, in addition to a number Russian firms, may take part in the bid. Surprisingly, these vendors opted out mid-way from the earlier fast track procurement contest that was won by Caracal International. Indian firms, like MKU Ltd, Mahindra Defence, Larsen & Toubro, and Bharat Forge, are aiming to partner with the global firms. A dream contest for the Indian Army would involve Caracal International, Colt, Beretta, S&T Motiv, Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), SIG Sauer, Heckler & Koch, and FN Herstal. Earlier in 2016, the Indian Defence Ministry cancelled a six-year-old tender involving the procurement of 44,618 close-quarter battle carbines and 33.6 million rounds of ammunition. The bid was won by IWI but the Indian Law Ministry did not give its final go-ahead for the "single vendor situation" deal. Sputnik Texas Man Arrested for Attempting to Provide Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, January 25, 2019 A former Sugar Land, Texas, resident has been arrested and detained for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick and Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner of the FBI's Houston Field Office. A federal grand jury returned a sealed indictment against Warren Christopher Clark, 34, on Jan. 23, 2019. It was unsealed today following his initial appearance in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Bray in Houston. Clark was captured in Syria by the Syrian Democratic Forces, transferred to U.S. law enforcement custody this week and arrived yesterday in the Southern District of Texas. "The arm of American Justice has a lengthy reach," said Patrick. "The number one priority of the Southern District of Texas, along with the FBI and our other national security partners, is to keep America safe. The protection of life is the most sacred job law enforcement has." Clark is charged with attempting to provide himself as material support to ISIS, which the Secretary of State designated as a foreign terrorist organization pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. "The FBI continues to aggressively pursue individuals who attempt to join the ranks of ISIS's foreign fighters or try to provide support for other terrorist organizations. This fight against terrorism is not one we can combat alone," said Turner. "The FBI relies on our domestic counterparts and foreign law enforcement agencies, as well as the public. Anyone who has information about individuals who have traveled or are planning to travel overseas to support terrorist groups should report it immediately to their local FBI office." The charged material support violation carries a possible penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine, upon conviction. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and police departments in Houston and Sugar Land conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Mark McIntyre and Craig M. Feazel and Trial Attorney Michael J. Dittoe of the Justice Department's Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case. An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law. Topic(s): Counterterrorism Component(s): National Security Division (NSD) USAO - Texas, Southern Press Release Number: 19-10 Colombia Won't Provide US With Bases Needed for Invasion in Venezuela Sputnik News 01:05 26.01.2019(updated 01:15 26.01.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Colombian government is not going to provide the United States will military bases so that the latter could launch a possible military invasion in Venezuela, the Colombian Defense Ministry told Sputnik. "No," the Defence Ministry's representative said, answering the question, whether Bogota was going to provide Washington with military bases needed for a possible operation against Caracas. The Colombian Defence Ministry also said that Colombia is not preparing a military intervention in neighbouring Venezuela. "The troops will remain at bases, there has been and there is going to be no redeployment of troops," the ministry said on late Friday. According to the press service, the vessels and aircraft were also not redeployed, while the high alert in the Armed Forces and police is linked to the recent deadly terror attack on a police academy in Bogota. "Colombia is not staging provocations and will not allow anyone to provoke it, as Defence Minister [Guillermo] Botero has said, and we are conducting such policy toward Venezuela," the ministry added. On Tuesday, the opposition-run Venezuelan National Assembly adopted a statement declaring President Nicolas Maduro a "dictator." On Wednesday, opposition leader Juan Guaido proclaimed himself the country's interim president at a mass rally in Caracas. The United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Colombia, among others, have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, while some other countries, including Russia and Mexico, expressed support for incumbent President Maduro. On Thursday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov called on foreign states to refrain from any kind of military invasion in Venezuela. Sputnik US Appoints New Venezuela Envoy to Help 'Restore Democracy' By Nike Ching January 25, 2019 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed foreign policy veteran Elliott Abrams to be U.S. envoy to Venezuela, tasked with helping "restore democracy" to the South American nation. Pompeo made the announcement Friday afternoon in Washington, ahead of a special session of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday. Pompeo said Abrams would travel with him to the meeting, which was initiated by the United States. Pompeo said the United States thinks "every country ought to recognize" National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader, as the U.S. does. He called disputed President Nicolas Maduro a "cruel dictator" and said he had caused much devastation for the people of Venezuela. Pompeo said the U.S. hoped Venezuela would have free and fair elections to designate a new leader. He also vowed that U.S. diplomats in Venezuela, ordered out of the country by Maduro on Wednesday, would be protected while in Venezuela. He said the U.S. government was taking "all appropriate measures" to ensure their safety. He declined to give details on those plans. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed foreign policy veteran Elliott Abrams to be U.S. envoy to Venezuela, tasked with helping "restore democracy" to the South American nation. Pompeo made the announcement Friday afternoon in Washington, ahead of a special session of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday. Pompeo said Abrams would travel with him to the meeting, which was initiated by the United States. Pompeo said the United States thinks "every country ought to recognize" National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader, as the U.S. does. He called disputed President Nicolas Maduro a "cruel dictator" and said he had caused much devastation for the people of Venezuela. Pompeo said the U.S. hoped Venezuela would have free and fair elections to designate a new leader. He also vowed that U.S. diplomats in Venezuela, ordered out of the country by Maduro on Wednesday, would be protected while in Venezuela. He said the U.S. government was taking "all appropriate measures" to ensure their safety. He declined to give details on those plans. Diplomatic rift On Wednesday, Maduro said he was ending diplomatic relations with the United States in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. was officially recognizing Guaido as Venezuela's interim leader after Guaido swore himself into office. Trump bluntly warned Maduro on Thursday that "all options are on the table" if there was not a peaceful transition to democracy in the South American country. Also Thursday, 16 of the 34 nations in the Organization of American States recognized Guaido as interim president of Venezuela. Pompeo urged members to oppose the "illegitimate'' Maduro and pledged to make $20 million available for humanitarian assistance to Venezuela. "All OAS member states must align themselves with democracy and respect for the rule of law," the top U.S. diplomat said. Meanwhile, the State Department ordered nonemergency personnel to leave Venezuela, but it is not closing its embassy in Caracas. The department said it was ordering the evacuation for security reasons, and that U.S. citizens should "strongly consider" leaving the country. More sanctions possible White House officials emphasized that Trump was not ruling out any response, such as a naval blockade or other military action, if Maduro unleashed violence against protesters or took action against Guaido. Several nations have joined the U.S. in recognizing Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, including Canada and 11 of the 14 members of the newly formed Lima Group of Latin nations, among them Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Peru. French President Emmanuel Macron called Venezuela's elections "illegitimate" in a tweet on Thursday, and saluted the bravery of Venezuelans demanding freedom. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Thursday that the situation in Venezuela could descend into "disaster" if the country's main political rivals failed to reach an agreement. Warnings from Russia, China But officials in Russia, one of Venezuela's biggest allies, reacted with anger Thursday at the United States and other Western nations for backing Guaido, accusing them of interfering in its internal affairs. Russia's Foreign Ministry warned the United States against any military intervention, saying such a move would have "catastrophic" consequences. China urged the United States to stay out of the crisis. Beijing and Moscow have extensive economic interests, having loaned Caracas billions of dollars. Bolivia, Cuba, Iran and Syria also issued statements throwing their support behind Maduro. AFRICOM to Resume Announcing Somalia Airstrike Death Tolls By Carla Babb January 25, 2019 U.S. Africa Command, which oversees U.S. military operations on the continent, will again release the number of enemy fighters killed and damage information caused from its airstrikes, after briefly saying it would no longer do so. "We will continue to report results of strikes, although we are working on refining our messaging to place less emphasis on the number of militants killed and place more context on how these strikes are helping our Somali partners achieve their strategic security objectives," AFRICOM spokesman John Manley told VOA Friday. The U.S. military announced Thursday it had carried out two new airstrikes in Somalia against the al-Shabab extremist group the day before but did not provide details on fighters killed or damage done to enemy weapons or positions. A U.S. Africa Command spokesman referred VOA and other outlets to the Somali government to obtain that information. Hours later, a defense official told VOA the strikes had targeted an al-Shabab checkpoint, killing one militant. The latest strikes come days after the deadliest U.S. airstrike in Somalia in months. U.S. Africa Command announced Saturday that 52 militants of the al-Qaida-linked extremist group were killed in a strike in Somalia's Middle Juba region. The U.S. military said the strike was in retaliation for an attack on Somali forces. "The terrorists have attacked the base with suicide blasts and fierce fighting occurred. We defeated them and forced them to flee, killing at least 70 militants during the attack and an airstrike that followed," Abdinur Ibrahim, a Somali regional security spokesman, told VOA. VOA Somali service reporter Mohamed Olad Hassan contributed to this report. Who Is Taliban's New Chief Negotiator? By Ayesha Tanzeem January 25, 2019 As peace talks between the United States and Afghan Taliban enter a crucial stage, the Taliban leadership has announced a new chief negotiator, a man named Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. According to a statement issued Thursday night by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, the action is intended to "strengthen and properly handle" the ongoing dialogue. The change has signaled to many that the negotiations have progressed beyond any contact between the two sides in the past. Here is a look at why. Who is Mullah Baradar? Baradar, also known as Mullah Baradar Akhund, is one of the founding members of the Taliban movement. He was present in its first meeting headed by Taliban chief Mullah Omar in the autumn of 1994, in a village in Maiwand district of Kandahar province. Known primarily as a military man and an astute commander, Baradar was sent to what was considered the most difficult places. As the Taliban solidified and expanded its hold on Afghanistan in the mid- to late 1990s, Baradar held many important posts in the government, fighting on various fronts. He became the governor of Herat at a time when fighting was fierce. As a trusted companion of Mullah Omar, Baradar was third in line in the Taliban hierarchy. The second in line, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, later died in a prison in Pakistan. "He was always there. He was in every important meeting," said journalist Rahimullah Yousufzai, who has covered the region for decades. When the Taliban government fell in 2001, Baradar was the deputy minister of defense. He was immediately listed as one of the top Taliban commanders on a U.N. Security Council sanctions list. Out of power and on the run, he continued to serve in important roles in the organization. After Obaidullah Akhund was taken into custody, Baradar took over as head of the Taliban Supreme Council, also known as Quetta Shura. Mullah Akhtar Monsour, the man who became the head of the Taliban after Mullah Omar died, was previously a deputy to Baradar, according to the U.N. records. "If he [Baradar] was not in custody, I think he would have been the leader after Mullah Omar died," Yousufzai said, adding that in many ways, he is considered as important as the current chief Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada. Akhundzada has also appointed him his deputy for political affairs. Baradar was taken into custody in 2010 from Karachi in a joint raid by Pakistani and American security operatives. "At the time of his arrest, he was the effective No. 2 in the movement and the de facto operational chief of the insurgency," wrote Kate Klark in her piece for the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a Kabul-based research organization. "His wife is Mullah Omar's sister. He controlled the money. He was launching some of the deadliest attacks against our security forces," an Afghan official who did not want to be named told the BBC at the time of Baradar's arrest. According to United Nations Security Council documents, Baradar was born in 1968 in Yatimak village, Dehrawood district, Uruzgan province, Afghanistan. He was part of the Popalzai branch of the Durrani tribe, the same as former Afghan President Hamid Karzai. What difference does he make? The appointment of Baradar as the chief negotiator will likely bring additional credibility to the negotiation process and assuage any concerns of the Taliban cadre fighting on the ground, according to people who watch the region closely. "Someone who is from Kandahar or southern Afghanistan usually gets importance among the Taliban. Secondly, they have more credibility. If you want to get the political process more acceptance among the cadre on the ground, it's helpful," said Tahir Khan, a journalist who has sources among the Taliban. Baradar was released from a prison in Pakistan last October at the insistence of Zalmay Khalilzad, the special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation who is leading the negotiations from the American side. "When they started talking to Taliban, the Taliban raised this issue whenever there was any contact with the Americans," Yousufzai said. On one hand, the Americans wanted to facilitate the Taliban to move the process forward. On the other hand, they also wanted the Taliban's Qatar office to be empowered to make decisions. They wanted to "negotiate with the most important people among the Taliban," according to Yousufzai. Baradar's release fulfilled that dual purpose. Ghani Concerned About Exclusion From US-Taliban Talks By Ayaz Gul January 25, 2019 As U.S.-Taliban peace talks take place in Qatar, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said any eventual truce between the insurgents and Afghanistan must respect his country's constitution and legal framework. The president made the remarks in Davos during a public conversation, and his office released the transcript Friday to media. Ghani went on to suggest that only an Afghan-led dialogue should decide the fate of foreign troops present in the country. The special representative for Afghan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, is heading the U.S. team in its talks with Taliban envoys. As the meeting entered a fifth day Friday, there were signs of progress being made toward ending the deadly 17-year-old war - the longest overseas American military intervention. "The function of ambassador Khalilzad's office is to bring the Afghan government and the Taliban into face-to-face discussions and negotiations. Within that then, the larger issues of the U.S. presence and other international issues will be addressed," Ghani said. Ghani emphasized the need for Washington to take into account the concerns of Afghanistan's neighbors, including Russia and India, before reaching a deal. Russia fears continued Afghan instability will threaten central Asian allies that share a border with Afghanistan. India is skeptical of arch rival Pakistan's involvement in the peace process. The Taliban consider the U.S. as their main adversary in the Afghan war and dismiss the Kabul government as an illegitimate entity or an "American puppet." Ghani has indirectly complained about the exclusion of his envoys but went public for the first time saying his administration is not even being informed about what is being discussed in Doha. "There's discussion, but this discussion needs to be shared back. A discussion that does not involve the region we will not trust," said Ghani. "If we don't get all the pieces right, one piece alone doesn't suffice." He was replying to a question about whether the talks have made any headway. Khalilzad has maintained that since taking office last September, he has been tasked to work for a political settlement to the war through an intra-Afghan dialogue process. Before entering into the latest round of talks with the Taliban on Monday, the Afghan-born U.S. envoy again clarified his stance and underscored the need to first halt hostilities. "To achieve peace, we are ready to address legitimate concerns of all Afghan sides in a process that ensures Afghan independence and sovereignty, and accounts for legitimate interests of regional states. Urgent that fighting end. But pursuing peace still means we fight as needed," Khalilzad tweeted. Insurgent officials have maintained from the outset the discussions in Doha are focused on seeking a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO-led foreign troops from Afghanistan, while the Taliban side would give assurances that Afghan soil would not be used to threaten the United States or any other country. Ghani severely criticized the Taliban and maintained any understanding reached in Doha must be within the Afghan constitution and take into account Afghanistan's international, as well as bilateral bindings, including those with the U.S. and NATO. "They [the Taliban] have relationships with all known terrorist groups. They have relationships with the largest criminal mafia on Earth, which after cocaine, is the heroin mafia. They have an organic relationship with the state of Pakistan that is providing them sanctuary, resources, support and [for] others," asserted the Afghan president. Islamabad rejects charges it hosts Taliban sanctuaries and says it is helping the United States as a shared responsibility to promote regional peace and to help end Afghan hostilities. Pakistan has taken credit for arranging the ongoing peace process between the U.S. and the Taliban, saying its peace and stability are linked to a peaceful Afghanistan. There was no immediate official reaction from the Pakistani government to Ghani's remarks. A senior Pakistani government official, while responding to sustained criticism emanating from Kabul, told VOA that Pakistan has "sincerely and faithfully diverted the recent positive environment in its relations with the U.S. to the complete benefit of the Afghan peace process and Afghanistan as a whole." The official, while speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, "Afghans may never recognize or admit it, but if any nation after Afghans themselves feels their pain, it is Pakistan." Critics have long viewed mutual tension between Islamabad and Kabul as a major hurdle in the way of jumpstarting a productive Afghan peace process. UN chief 'commends' leadership of Greece and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as name dispute draws to final close 25 January 2019 - The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres congratulated the Greek Parliament over its ratification of a name change for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on Friday, and commended the leaders of both countries for signalling the end to a naming dispute that has roiled the region for some 28 years. Matthew Nimetz, the UN chief's Personal Envoy who has been engaged with the process for nearly two-decades, also welcomed the ratification of the name-change, commending "this visionary step" both sides had now taken. The UN chief said in a statement from his Spokesperson, that "the implementation of the Agreement will strengthen peace and security in the region and provide a fresh impetus to reconciliation efforts in Europe and beyond. The Secretary-General looks forward to the completion of the process as outlined in the Prespa Agreement." Mr. Nimetz said the historic Prespa Agreement between two neighbours "opens the door to a new relationship between them and ushers in a new era for the consolidation of peace and security in the Balkans." The dispute stretches back to 1991, when the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia declared its independence from Yugoslavia and announced its intention to be named "Macedonia." Neighbouring Greece refused to recognize the name, insisting that only the northern Greek region of the same name should be called Macedonia, and arguing that the former Yugoslav Republic's use of the name was a challenge to Greek sovereignty. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Parliament and the country's citizens approved the change renaming the country the Republic of North Macedonia in a referendum held in September 2018, shortly after the leaders of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece signed a deal on the issue in a ceremony at Lake Prespa, where the borders of the two countries (and Albania) meet. In today's statement, Mr. Nimitz looked forward look forward to completion of the process as outlined in the Agreement and reiterated the "continued commitment of the United Nations to working with the two Parties." Jim Trogdon, secretary for the N.C. Department of Transportation, speaks about major projects Tuesday while on site at the Slocum Road access to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock. (Dylan Ray photo) Venezuela: At least 20 dead, situation could 'rapidly spiral out of control' warns UN rights chief 25 January 2019 - UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet warned on Friday that the situation in Venezuela could "rapidly spiral out of control", amid ongoing deadly violence and uncertainty linked to Wednesday's declaration by Juan Guaido that he had become the country's interim president. At the same time, the UN refugee agency (UNCHR) warned of "mounting tension" in the troubled country as some 5,000 people a day continue to leave, a "significant number" of them in "dire" need of protection. Speaking to journalists in Geneva on behalf of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Spokesperson Rupert Colville said: "We have received information from credible local sources that at least 20 people have died after allegedly being shot by security forces or by members of pro-government groups during demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday with many other reported injured by bullets, buckshot and rubber bullets." Well over 350 people have also been detained in the recent protests, including 320 on 23 January alone, said the UN rights office, while staff have also reported raids on property in some of the poorest areas of Caracas where at least 180 protests have taken place this week. He added: "The High Commissioner is extremely concerned, and I quote, 'that the situation in Venezuela may rapidly spiral out of control with catastrophic consequences.'" In her statement, Ms Bachelet insisted that it was vital to prevent a repetition of repression against protesters of the Government of President Nicolas Maduro, who was officially sworn back into office, just two weeks ago. Grave rights abuses documented by OHCHR in 2017 included extrajudicial killings, widespread arbitrary detentions, restrictions to freedom of assembly and expression and indiscriminate house raids and attacks. Mr Colville noted the High Commissioner's appeal to the Venezuelan authorities to exercise restraint, especially the security forces. They should also respect everyone's fundamental right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, he continued, adding that the UN rights chief wished to remind them that the "excessive, disproportionate or indiscriminate use of force is clearly and unequivocally prohibited under international law". Echoing comments by UN chief Antonio Guterres on Thursday that everything must be done to avoid the kind of conflict "that would be a total disaster for Venezuela, for the Venezuelan people and for the region", Ms. Bachelet urged the country's political leaders to begin "immediate" talks to defuse the situation and find a practical long-term solution to the country's entrenched social, political and economic crisis. "She says it's vital the authorities refrain from closing any remaining avenue of dialogue by prosecuting political and social leaders including members of the National Assembly," Mr Colville said, in reference to the opposition-controlled chamber, which is led by Juan Guaido, whose declaration assuming the interim-presidency has also sparked a diplomatic crisis, with some countries in the region, including the US, backing him, while others, including Russia and Cuba, have defended President Maduro. Exodus of 5,000 each day continues: UNHCR At the Venezuelan border, meanwhile, UNHCR said that thousands of people continue to leave the country, amid the ongoing economic and security crisis. More than three million have done so in recent years. "The population movement so far has remained constant since last year, and that is some 5,000 Venezuelans leaving their country every day on average," Spokesperson Liz Throssell said. She confirmed that UNHCR staff were also monitoring the situation at "key" border areas. "We are providing assistance to those in need, those who may be crossing the borders," Ms Throssell explained. "With the mounting tension that we have seen between Venezuela and its neighbours, UNHCR has reinforced its presence along these borders; we are monitoring populations movement and we have been also preparing for any potential change in the number of refugees and migrants leaving Venezuela." Commenting on the situation of those travelling outside Venezuela to neighbouring countries, the UNHCR spokesperson noted that "we have seen a significant number in dire need of international refugee protection and humanitarian assistance. Climate change recognized as 'threat multiplier', UN Security Council debates its impact on peace 25 January 2019 - As climate change is increasingly recognized as a "threat multiplier" by scientists, political representatives, and civil society across the world, the United Nations Security Council held an open debate on Friday to discuss its concrete impact on peace and security, and focus on tangible ways to diminish the effects of global warming. "The relationship between climate-related risks and conflict is complex and often intersects with political, social, economic and demographic factors," said Rosemary DiCarlo, the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs in her opening remarks. "The risks associated with climate-related disasters do not represent a scenario of some distant future. They are already a reality for millions of people around the globe and they are not going away," she stressed. The meeting took place almost two months after 197 parties to the UN Climate Change Convention agreed to a concrete way forward on implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement which aims to keep global warming under 1.5C from pre-industrial levels and ahead of the UN Secretary-General's Climate Summit, convened for 23 September this year. Climate risk: to debate or not to debate? Whether climate change is an issue that should be examined by the UN's peace and security body to begin with, has been the subject of controversy. Some Member States believe that this is stepping on the toes of other UN entities, specifically mandated with taking a lead on social and economic development, or environmental protection. The first ever meeting of the Security Council examining the linkages between climate change and insecurity happened in April 2007. Since then, the UN body has increasingly taken steps that effectively acknowledge that the two issues are related: in July 2011, another open debate on the matter was held; in March 2017, resolution 2349 was adopted highlighting the need to address climate-related risks in order to tackle the conflict in the Lake Chad basin; and in July 2018, a debate was held on "understanding and addressing climate-related security risks". In a sign of how important the discussion is to many countries, the debate was attended by over 70 Member States and included statements in the Council chamber from a dozen Ministers, including Kuwait, Belgium, Indonesia, Germany and Poland. 'Keeping up with the challenge' After citing the various ways in which UN political missions, regional or country-based, are already actively seeking ways to address climate-related security risks, Ms. DiCarlo insisted on the need to focus on three key areas: - Developing stronger analytical capacity with integrated risk assessment frameworks. - Collecting stronger evidence base so good practices on climate risk prevention and management can be replicated in the field. - Building and reinforcing partnerships to leverage existing capacities within and outside the UN system. "Most important, for all of us, is the recognition that deeds must follow words. Major armies and businesses have long recognized the need to prepare for climate-related risks, rightfully assessing climate change as a threat multiplier," said the UN Political Affairs chief. "We cannot lag behind. We must act now, with a sense of urgency and a commitment to place people, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, at the centre of our efforts," she stated. The Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner, also delivered remarks, by phone. An environmentalist by training, he noted that climate change is "not only affecting the atmosphere, but also the biosphere", and that the world is "not keeping up with the challenge." He called on the Security Council to recognize the science and empirical evidence, leverage all possible measures that can slow global warming, and invest in climate adaptation and risk reduction for the millions of people already suffering from the effects of climate change. Mr. Steiner cited some of the hundreds of projects carried out by UNDP in some 140 countries, including a water management system in the Maldives, the development of a vulnerability index to facilitate preparedness, and a financial support scheme for vulnerable households in the Caribbean. Scientists and youth to advise the Council For the first time in history, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was invited to brief the members of the Security Council on climate and extreme weather issues. Professor Pavel Kabat, Chief Scientist at the WMO brought some clear scientific data to the table, to inform the debate. "Climate change has a multitude of security impacts - rolling back the gains in nutrition and access to food; heightening the risk of wildfires and exacerbating air quality challenges; increasing the potential for water conflict; leading to more internal displacement and migration," he said. "It is increasingly regarded as a national security threat." He noted that WMO stands ready to support the UN and Member States with "cutting-edge science" and "expert information" so informed decisions can be made. Before the floor was opened to Members of the Security Council, a youth representative and a researcher on environmental security, Lindsay Getschel, was also invited to speak. She came to the meeting with three key asks for the UN body: - A resolution officially recognizing climate change as a threat to international peace and security. - An assessment on how climate change impacts local youth (e.g., through displacement, unemployment, food insecurity, and recruitment in armed groups). - A reduction of reliance on fossil fuel energy in UN missions worldwide and a commitment 50 per cent of energy used to be from renewable sources by 2025, with regular reporting to the Secretary-General to monitor progress. She finished by reminding those present in the room that many across the world "do not have the luxury to not care about this issue," and called on world leaders to "live up to their words." Greece Ratifies Prespa Agreement Press Statement Michael R. Pompeo Secretary of State Washington, DC January 25, 2019 The United States welcomes the decision by Greece's Parliament to ratify the Prespa Agreement. The leaders of Greece demonstrated vision, courage, and persistence in their pursuit of a solution to the name dispute, which will allow the future Republic of North Macedonia to take its rightful place in NATO and the EU. The United States applauds this historic opportunity to advance stability, security, and prosperity throughout the region. Details on the "Ministerial To Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East" Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC January 25, 2019 The "Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East," held jointly by the United States and Poland, will take place in Warsaw, Poland on February 13-14. We have received very positive responses from our partners and allies around the world, with dozens of countries expressing their willingness and intention to participate in this constructive dialogue. This Ministerial will be an opportunity for countries to share their perspectives both from within and outside the region. This includes a conversation on current regional crises as well as international efforts to address them. During the Ministerial, participants will also discuss the following topics: - Regional crises and their effects on civilians in the Middle East; - Missile development and proliferation; - Cyber security and emerging threats to the energy sector; and - Countering extremism and illicit finance. Countries will come together to prioritize these regional challenges, share information, and discuss how we can cooperate more effectively to address them. There will be a press briefing held at the conclusion of the Ministerial to summarize the event's discussions as well as present a joint statement by the Ministerial co-chairs the United States and Poland. For further information, please contact NEA-PRESS@state.gov. Russia Warns Military Scenario in Venezuela Would Be Catastrophic Sputnik News 10:36 25.01.2019(updated 11:26 25.01.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Friday that a military scenario in Venezuela, which is experiencing a deep political crisis, may be catastrophic. "Use of military force may be catastrophic," Ryabkov told CNN, adding that Unites States were aggravating the situation in Venezuelan. The Russian Embassy in the United States expressed hope on Friday that Washington would not resort to "foreign ventures," in particular, in Venezuela or Syria, to divert public attention from the ongoing partial shutdown of the US government. "The only thing left is to hope that the U.S. Administration will not pursuit foreign ventures, for instance, in Syria or Venezuela in attempt to shift public opinion from the aftermath of the shutdown," the embassy said via its official Facebook page. The embassy also slammed US State Secretary Mike Pompeo, who, in his interview with The Laura Ingraham Show late on Thursday, used the shutdown as a pretext to once again pick on Russia, saying that its "government never shuts downs" and implying that there was no democracy in the country, because it would otherwise sometimes get "a little bit messy." "It is sad that the US Secretary of State's attempt to cheer up his diplomats, who are forced to fulfill their duties without a paycheck, dumbed down, just as always, to an aspiration to offend Russia, in this particular case 'Vladimir Putin's government that never shuts down.' There are seemingly no reasonable arguments for his subordinates in Michael Pompeo's arsenal," the Russian embassy said. On Tuesday, the months-long political crisis in Venezuela escalated after the opposition-led Venezuelan National Assembly announced that recently sworn-in President Nicolas Maduro was a usurper, paving the way for the legislature's leader, Juan Guaido, to declare himself the country's acting president. The next day, Washington recognized the would-be interim president. In turn, Maduro insisted that he was the country's constitutional president and called the opposition leader a puppet manipulated by the United States. United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru have recognized Guaido as the country's interim president. Sputnik Venezuelan Opposition Leader Guaido Says May Grant Pardon to President Maduro Sputnik News 10:41 25.01.2019 MOSCOW (Sputnik) Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself the country's interim president, has not ruled out he may grant pardon to incumbent leader Nicolas Maduro. According to Guaido, the initiatives on pardon for former officials and senior military officers, which will allow to restore democracy in the country, are being considered by the opposition-held National Assembly. "Such developments take place in transition periods. The draft law on amnesty is being considered," Guaido told the Univision broadcaster on Thursday. On Tuesday, the opposition-run Venezuelan National Assembly adopted a statement declaring President Maduro a usurper. On Wednesday, Guaido declared himself the country's interim president. The United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Colombia, among others, have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, while other countries, including Russia and Mexico, expressed support for incumbent President Maduro. Sputnik 'Let the Public Decide': India Echoes Russian, Chinese Sentiment on Venezuela Sputnik News 13:13 25.01.2019(updated 15:32 25.01.2019) In its first response to the ongoing political developments in Venezuela, India's Ministry of External Affairs on Friday extended its support to President Nicolas Maduro by indicating that it does not support interference in the nation's domestic affairs. Echoing the views of Russia and China, India has stated that it should be left to the people of Venezuela to decide who their president should be. "We are closely following the emerging situation in Venezuela. We are of the view that it is for the people of Venezuela to find a political solution to resolve their differences through constructive dialogue and discussion without resorting to violence," a statement issued by India's Ministry of External Affairs reads. Responding to queries about India's position on the crisis, the ministry further added that it believes democracy, peace and security in Venezuela are of paramount importance to the South American state. The political crisis, marked with violent protests for and against President Nicolas Maduro, deepened on Wednesday after opposition leader Juan Guaido, who heads the National Assembly, declared himself interim president, describing last year's election as invalid. Guaido, backed by US President Donald Trump and a few other global powers, argued that the country's constitution allows him to assume interim power despite Maduro refusing to step down. However, other countries, including Russia, China and now India, observe that Guaido's move violates international norms and is a "bid to usurp power" from a democratically elected government. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday pledged his support to Nicolas Maduro in a phone call. "He (Putin) emphasised that destructive external interference is a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international law. He spoke in favour of searching for solutions within the constitutional framework and overcoming differences in Venezuelan society through peaceful dialogue," a statement issued by the Kremlin reads. China echoed his comments on Thursday, with its foreign ministry saying it favours a solution within "the framework of the Venezuelan Constitution." "China always upholds the principle of non-interference in other counties' internal affairs and opposes foreign interference in Venezuela's affairs. We hope that the international community can jointly create favourable conditions for that," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Thursday. Sputnik Ex-Trump Adviser Stone Arrested in Mueller Probe - Special Counsel's Office Sputnik News 14:28 25.01.2019(updated 17:02 25.01.2019) The arrest follows a decision by the House Intelligence Committee last month to hand over transcripts of Stone's congressional testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller. Political consultant and long-time Trump ally Roger Stone has been arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and indicted on seven charges, including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and five counts of making false statements, Mueller's office has announced. The indictment includes claims that Stone made multiple false statements to the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 regarding the WikiLeaks leak of hacked Democratic National Committee emails. The charges do not mention any alleged 'collusion' between Stone and the Russian government, the key charge being investigated by Mueller and his team. Later Friday, White House spokeswoman Sara Sanders told reporters that Stone's indictment had "nothing to do with" President Trump, adding that "the president did nothing wrong." Stone, under investigation by the Special Prosecutor's Office in connection with the 'Russiagate' case against President Trump, has repeatedly denied claims that he knew the source or content of the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks ahead of the 2016 election, amid claims that he collaborated with WikiLeaks whisteblower Julian Assange to derail Hillary Clinton's campaign. During the campaign, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta accused Stone of having prior knowledge on the WikiLeaks leak. The ex-Trump adviser, who has previously indicated that wouldn't be surprised if he was indicted in the Mueller probe, is expected to make a court appearance on Friday. In December, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said Mueller's focus on Stone's alleged communications with WikiLeaks was evidence that the probe has gone off course. Also last month, conspiracy theorist and Stone associate Jerome Corsi filed a lawsuit against Mueller's office and the FBI, the CIA and the NSA, accusing investigators of illegally leaking confidential information, and engaging in illegal surveillance. Corsi accused Mueller's office of threatening him with jail time if he didn't agree to give false testimony about being the liaison between Assange and Stone. The Special Counsel Investigation, formed in 2017 to probe claims of Russian attempts to meddle in the 2016 election, has issued subpoenas and indictments against multiple Trump associates, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime personal lawyer. Russia has denied interfering in the election, characterising the meddling claims as an absurd attempt to explain away Hillary Clinton's unexpected defeat to Trump, and a bid to deflect from actual cases of electoral fraud and corruption. Trump himself has characterised the Mueller probe as a "witch hunt." Sputnik Greek Parliament Ratifies Macedonia Name Change Deal Sputnik News 16:31 25.01.2019(updated 18:02 25.01.2019) Greece and Macedonia, officially known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), have been engaged in a name dispute for many years. Athens opposes the use of "Macedonia," which is also the name of a region in Greece. The Greek Parliament approved the agreement between Athens and Skopje to rename the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of Northern Macedonia. This is evidenced by the results of the vote held on Friday in the main legislative body of the country after the three-day debate. 153 deputies of the 300-member parliament voted in favour of the agreement, while 146 were against it and one abstained. According to the regulations, a simple majority of the deputies present in the hall was enough for ratification of the agreement, but Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras set the goal of ratifying the document with a minimum of 151 votes in the unicameral main legislative body. Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev congratulated his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras on Friday over the Greek parliament ratifying the agreement between Athens and Skopje to rename the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of Northern Macedonia. "Congratulations my friend @tsipras_eu, together with our peoples we reached a historical victory. Long live the Prespa Agreement! For eternal peace and progress of the Balkans and in Europe!" Zaev wrote on Twitter. The so-called Prespa Agreement on the new official name of the former Yugoslav Republic was signed on 17 June 2018 by the foreign ministers of Macedonia and Greece on the shore of Lake Prespa, along which the border between the two countries passes. In particular, it stipulated the renaming of the Republic of Macedonia to the Republic of Northern Macedonia. The ratification of the agreement by the parliaments of the two countries opens Skopje's way to NATO and the EU. Sputnik Spain, Germany to Recognize Guaido if Maduro Fails to Set Early Election Sputnik News 17:03 25.01.2019(updated 17:45 25.01.2019) MADRID (Sputnik) - Spain will recognize Venezuelan Parliament Speaker Juan Guaido as interim president of the country if incumbent President Nicolas Maduro does not call for early elections in the country, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said Friday. A similar stance has been voiced by Berlin. "If we see that there is no intention on the part of the Venezuelan regime to call [early] elections, other measures will be taken, including the recognition of the interim president so that these elections could be set by the National Assembly," Borrell said at a press conference in Madrid. At the same time, the German Cabinet's spokesman has voiced a similar position. "Venezuela now needs free and fair elections. The federal government, in the framework of the forthcoming consultations in the European Union, would support recognition of Juan Guaido, the interim president of Venezuela, if such free and fair elections are not held in the near future. The EU Political and Security Committee is meeting on this issue at this moment," Steffen Seibert said at a briefing. The Venezuelan crisis could be resolved only through a peaceful political process within the framework of the constitution, the spokesman noted. Berlin recognizes the opposition-run Venezuelan National Assembly, chaired by Guaido, as "the only democratically legitimate institute, which plays a special role on the country's path to democracy," according to Seibert. The comments come after on Wednesday, opposition leader Guaido proclaimed himself the country's interim president at a mass rally in Caracas. The day before, the opposition-run Venezuelan National Assembly adopted a statement declaring Maduro a usurper. The United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile and Colombia, among others, have recognized Guaido as Venezuela's interim president, while some other countries, including Russia and Mexico, expressed support for incumbent President Maduro. Sputnik US Diplomats Must Obey Order to Leave Venezuela - Nicolas Maduro Sputnik News 20:01 25.01.2019(updated 21:56 25.01.2019) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro addressed journalists in a press conference at the presidential palace in Caracas amid the ongoing political crisis in the country. During the press conference, Maduro said that there were 'always channels for communication with the opposition' and he was ready to meet the head of the National Assembly Juan Guaido who declared himself the country's interim president at a mass rally on Wednesday, on any conditions. "There is always a channel for dialogue with opposition, in any circumstances I will be ready to come [to talk with Guaido] today, tomorrow, and always If I have to meet with this guy at 3 a.m., I will come If I have to come naked, I will do it as I'm ready for dialogue," Maduro said at a press conference broadcast in his Twitter account. Commenting on the news coverage of events in Venezuela, Maduro stated that the dominant global news networks presented a distorted image of him and the state that would serve Washington's interests. Maduro further stressed that the US diplomats must obey an order to leave Venezuela. The official also stressed that the United States was pursuing imperialistic aims and he was against it, therefore, he has abandoned diplomatic ties with Washington. However, he highlighted that other relations with the United States, including trade, will 'continue to flourish.' Moreover, he said that Caracas will continue to sell oil to the United States if Washington continues to buy it. "We will continue to sell everything we are selling. If they [the US] buy potatoes from us we will sell them, if they buy onions we will sell them If they buy oil we will sell it. But if they don't buy, then we will sell it to others," Maduro told a press conference. Maduro's press conference comes after on 23 January, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president of the country. His claims for the presidency was supported by around a dozen countries, including the US. Sputnik US Policy Toward Venezuela is 'Destructive' - Lavrov Sputnik News 20:13 25.01.2019(updated 21:06 25.01.2019) Earlier, Washington recognised Venezuelan National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the country's interim president while calling Nicolas Maduro's presidency "illegitimate" and warning Caracas against the use of force against protesters. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described the US policy toward Venezuela as "destructive," adding that Moscow considers Washington's open calls to insurrection in the Latin American country as "unacceptable." "We know the position of the United States. We know the position of those seeking to toe the line of American politics. The fact that this policy is destructive, in relation to both Venezuela and a whole host of other countries, is something that doesn't need to be demonstrated. The open calls for a coup d'etat are obvious to everyone," Lavrov said, speaking to reporters in Morocco on Friday. "We consider such behaviour unacceptable, and consider it to undermine the principles outlined in the UN Charter, as well as the norms of communication between states. And we will speak from these positions at the Security Council if a decision is made to hold a meeting on the situation in Venezuela at the Security Council," Lavrov stressed. Venezuela's political crisis escalated this week following an abortive uprising in the capital by members of the national guard. Following the incident, Venezuela's Supreme Court dismissed opposition leader Juan Guaido from his post as National Assembly chairman. On Wednesday, Guaido declared himself the country's interim president, with the US, Canada, and allies in Latin America recognising the politician as such. Caracas responded by announcing that it would be breaking off relations with the United States. Any 'Syrian Buffer Zone' Must Include Damascus's Participation Turning to the Syrian matter, and US-Turkish negotiations surrounding a proposed 30 kilometre (18 mile) "buffer zone" in Syria between Turkish and Kurdish forces, Lavrov said that any agreement involving Syrian territory must include agreement from Damascus. "As for discussions about the buffer zone, the security zone, this cannot be the subject of an agreement between Russia and Turkey. This should be the subject of an agreement with the participation of the Syrian government, because ultimately the need to restore the Syrian government's control over the country's whole territory, including the zone, is clear to everyone. I am convinced that this will be the best solution to the problems that persist in this region; there should be as little foreign interference as possible," the diplomat said. Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Ankara would not exclude the US, Russia or other countries if they want to cooperate in the creation of a safe zone in Syria. Last week, following a phone conversation with President Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the US had proposed the creation of a 30 km buffer zone in Syria to be controlled by the Turkish military. Damascus rejected the proposal, with a senior Syrian official telling Syrian media that Ankara had turned "a blind eye to the international resolutions which have always affirmed respect for Syrian territorial integrity." Sputnik US Air War in Somalia Goes Dark Sputnik News 22:40 25.01.2019(updated 22:42 25.01.2019) US President Donald Trump subtly announced that the Pentagon's many overseas operations would become even more secretive during the first Cabinet hearing of 2019. The Pentagon disclosed that it will no longer furnish public reports on its missions in Somalia during a Friday announcement in which US Africa Command said it recently carried out two major bombings in the country. This announcement was apparently the final one from AFRICOM. The job of disclosing the Pentagon's air war is now up to the Somali government, a spokesman for AFRICOM told the Associated Press Friday. Last Saturday, US airstrikes killed approximately 54 al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in a major bombing attack, while the latest airstrike on Wednesday occurred in the same area (near Jilib in Middle Juba region) and killed one. According to AP, Trump has expanded the airstrike campaign against al-Shabab terrorists, with at least 47 strikes occurring since Trump took office. Trump announced that his administration would hew to a new level of secrecy during the first Cabinet meeting of 2019, though that declaration did not receive much attention in the press at the time. "And one of the things I've told the secretary and other people: We do these reports on our military. Some IG [inspector general] goes over there, who are mostly appointed by President [Barack] Obama but we'll have ours too and he goes over there, and they do a report on every single thing that's happening, and they release it to the public," Trump said. "We're fighting wars, and they're doing reports and releasing it to the public? Now, the public means the enemy. The enemy reads those reports; they study every line of it. Those reports should be private reports. Let him do a report, but they should be private reports and be locked up," he said at the January 3 meeting. Reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) are one of those rare public glimpses into what's happening in one of America's several overseas military engagements. SIGAR's reports include information such as the number of weapons released from conventional strike aircraft, as well as from drones, Sputnik News has reported. John Sopko, appointed to head SIGAR in 2012, lamented the absurd bureaucratic embarrassments of the Afghanistan War in May 2016, according to a report in Politico. A Pentagon effort to bolster Afghanistan's cashmere industry saw the Department of Defense spend $6 million on tasks such as importing nine light-haired Italian goats. "We do not know how much money was spent on goats or if the goats were eaten or not. We do not know. This is so poorly managed," Sopko said at the time. Sputnik Greek Parliament Approves Macedonia Name Change By RFE/RL January 25, 2019 The Greek parliament has narrowly approved a historic agreement to normalize relations with neighboring Macedonia, in a move welcomed by the European Union. Greek lawmakers on January 25 voted 153-146 in favor of the deal, which has already been ratified by Macedonia's parliament. The agreement, signed last year by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev at Lake Prespa along the border separating Macedonia and Greece, could pave the way for Macedonia to seek membership in the EU and NATO. "Today is a historic day," Tsipras said in a tweet he posted after the vote. "Today we write a new page for the Balkans. The hatred of nationalism, dispute and conflict will be replaced by friendship, peace and cooperation," Tsipras added. "We warmly welcome the next crucial step in the ratification of the Prespa Agreement, taken with today's vote by the Hellenic Parliament," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in a joint statement after the vote. The agreement has been backed by Western countries that want to limit Russian influence in the Balkans. But it has faced opposition, mainly from nationalists in both Greece and Macedonia who argue it gives away too much to the other side. "From the very beginning, the European Union has strongly supported the historic agreement signed by Prime Ministers Tsipras and Zaev, following negotiations under the auspices of the UN," the EU statement said. "It took political courage, leadership, and responsibility on all sides to resolve one of the most entrenched disputes in the region. Both countries have seized this unique opportunity which sets an example of reconciliation for Europe as a whole and will give a further boost to the European perspective of the region." European Council President Donald Tusk said the two countries had achieved "mission impossible." "They had imagination, they took the risk, they were ready to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good," Tusk wrote on Twitter. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the vote in a tweet, saying it is "an important contribution to the stability and prosperity of the whole region." "I look forward to the future Republic of North Macedonia joining NATO," he added. Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev congratulated the Greek prime minister on the vote in a message posted on Twitter. "Congratulations my friend, Alexis Tsipras. Together with our peoples we reached a historical victory. Long live the Prespa Agreement! For eternal peace and progress of the Balkans and in Europe!" Both prime ministers faced political opposition and struggled to ratify the deal. The ratification vote came after three days of heated debate and some violent protests against the deal, aimed at ending a nearly three decade-long dispute that has kept Macedonia from joining the Western military alliance and the European Union. Several small protests against the deal were under way in Athens, but only a few dozen demonstrators attended because of the torrential rain. On January 24, as lawmakers debated the deal, demonstrators clashed with police outside, some of them chanting "traitors." Police fired tear gas and stun grenades after some in the crowd hurled rocks and other objects in their direction. Police later said they arrested 10 people and detained another 133 on suspicion of committing or planning acts of violence. A new protest has been called outside parliament on January 25. Under the agreement, Macedonia changes its name to the Republic of North Macedonia. The deal could unblock Macedonia's bids to join NATO and the European Union, long blocked by Greece. Tsipras secured the parliamentary majority needed to get the accord approved with support from independent and opposition lawmakers. "After one year of negotiations, discussions and exhaustive diaologue, we are reaching the end of a tough and painful process," Tsipras told parliament during a heated debate on January 24. The ratification vote in parliament originally was scheduled for January 24. Debate was extended until January 25 to allow the large number of registered speakers to have their say. With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/greek-parliament- approves-macedonia-name-change/29730811.html Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. Israel sends 'strongly-worded' messages to Lebanon over Hezbollah missiles Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 07:07AM Israel has reportedly sent strongly-worded messages to Lebanon, delivered through France, warning the Arab country of the consequences of the precision missiles possessed by the Hezbollah resistance movement. According to Israeli media, the issue was discussed at length during a Wednesday meeting between the regime's President Reuven Rivlin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris. The talks, also attended by Israeli air force commander Amikam Norkin, were held ahead of Macron's planned visit to Beirut. In a move coordinated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rivlin has reportedly stressed Tel Aviv's concern over Hezbollah's "large rocket and missile arsenal", and what Israel calls "efforts made by Iran and Hezbollah to improve the precision of the missiles the Lebanese organization holds." He has also expressed the regime's worry about the tunnels Israel says Hezbollah has dug near the occupied territories. Back in September, Hezbollah's chief warned Israel of a fate it "has never expected" if it chooses to wage a new war on Lebanon, reminding the regime that the Lebanese resistance movement was in possession of precision rockets. In a speech on Sep. 20, 2018, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Tel Aviv regime had failed in all its attempts to prevent Lebanon's Hezbollah from achieving precision rockets. "No matter what you do to cut the route, the matter is over and the resistance possesses precision and non-precision rockets and weapons capabilities," he said. "All your attempts to prevent Hezbollah from possessing accurate missiles are foiled," he added. A few days later, in a speech at the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu showed photographs of three sites in which he claimed there was an attempt to build "precision-improving plants" for rockets, close to Beirut's international airport. Tel Aviv claims the Hezbollah withdrew from those sites a few days after Netanyahu's speech; however, the Israelis say the factories might have been relocated to other sites in Lebanon. Hezbollah was formed following the Israeli regime's invasion of Lebanon and the ensuing occupation of its southern parts in the 1980s, and currently constitutes Lebanon's de facto military power. Since then, the movement has helped the national army retake the occupied regions from Tel Aviv and thwart two Israeli acts of aggression in 2000 and 2006. The movement has also been playing a significant role in the Syrian army's fight against Takfiri terrorist groups, including Daesh and al-Nusra Front, thus preventing the spillover of the war into Lebanon. Since the end of the 2006 war, Israeli forces have regularly violated Lebanon's sovereignty, with the regime's officials even threatening another offensive against the Arab country. Trump's election adviser Roger Stone arrested by FBI over Russia probe Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 02:36PM US President Donald Trump's longtime ally and presidential campaign adviser, Roger Stone, has been arrested over charges that he obstructed US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible collusion between the Trump election campaign and Russia before the 2016 US presidential election. Stone was arrested Friday by FBI agents at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after being indicted by a grand jury on Thursday, according to Mueller's office. He was also charged with making false statements and witness tampering. Stone appeared at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on Friday. A federal magistrate judge ruled that he is not a flight risk and can be released on a $250,000 signature bond. Stone has faced scrutiny for his support for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, when he suggested he had access to information obtained by hackers that could damage the campaigns of Democratic Party presidential candidates, including Trump's rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton. In the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks began publishing Democratic emails that Mueller has previously alleged were obtained by Russian government hackers in an effort to interfere with the presidential election and embarrass Clinton. Stone "took steps to obstruct" investigations by intelligence committees in the House of Representatives and Senate into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, prosecutors said. He also tried to persuade a witness to provide false testimony and withhold information from the congressional investigations, the indictment said. The indictment goes to the heart of Mueller's investigation and could pose serious risk to Trump. In the indictment, Stone is alleged to have had advance notice that WikiLeaks would release personal emails stolen from the account of Clinton election campaign chairman John Podesta. Trump has repeatedly denied collusion with Russia and slammed the federal investigation as a "witch hunt." Russia also has rejected any cooperation with Trump's campaign. US intelligence agencies say Moscow interfered in US politics in the 2016 election in an effort to boost Trump's chances of winning the election. Russia offers to mediate between Venezuela government, opposition Iran Press TV Fri Jan 25, 2019 07:08PM Russia has offered to mediate between the Venezuelan government and opposition, amid a political crisis that has plagued the Latin American country. Alexander Shchetinin, the director of the Latin America Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, offered mediation in Venezuela on Friday, according to the Russian RIA news agency. Shchetinin said Moscow was ready to cooperate with international players and use its capacity to ensure "dialog is established" between the conflicting parties in Venezuela. Venezuela is convulsed by political crisis. On Wednesday, opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the "interim president" of the country, rejecting the presidency of Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn earlier after winning elections boycotted by the opposition. Minutes after Guaido's self-proclamation, the United States said it recognized him as the "legitimate" leader of Venezuela, calling on other countries to follow suit. The government of President Maduro responded by cutting ties with the US. Pro- and anti-government rallies were also held in the capital, Caracas. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to support Maduro against a "destructive external interference that grossly violates the most basic norms of the international law." Other countries, including Turkey and Iran, have expressed support for the elected government of Maduro and have condemned outside interference in Venezuela. 'That will not pass' The US State Department said on Friday that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to press United Nations Security Council members to recognize Guaido as the "acting president" of Venezuela. The announcement was swiftly rejected by Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, who vowed to oppose any such initiative. "That will not pass. For us, nothing changes," Nebenzia told Reuters. Guaido, meanwhile, has pledged to press forward with a "transitional government." At least 20 people have been reportedly killed in recent clashes between government supporters and opponents, prompting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to call for an independent investigation into the deaths on Friday. Joint press point with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 25 Jan. 2019 (As delivered) Prime Minister Ardern, Jacinda, It's great to have you here, welcome to the NATO Headquarters. And New Zealand and NATO are far apart on the map but we are very close as partners. And we really appreciate the close partnership with New Zealand. We share the same values, we believe in a rules-based order and have worked together for peace and security for many years. We also understand that many of the threats and challenges we face are truly global. Terrorism, cyber, proliferation of nuclear weapons, all these threats and challenges are a challenge both for NATO Allies and for New Zealand. We welcome very much the close partnership. We see that in many different ways. We see that in Afghanistan where we have been working together for many years and New Zealand has contributed with personnel to the National Army Defence Academy, helping to train and educate Afghan soldiers and officers. And the purpose of our presence in Afghanistan is to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for international terrorism. It's still a difficult situation in Afghanistan, but we strongly believe that the best way to help to stabilize the country is to train the forces, build local capacity so they can stabilize their own country. We're also happy and glad that New Zealand plays a valuable role in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. You are training Iraqi forces. NATO has trained Iraqi forces for some time but we're now scaling up our presence in Iraq with a new training mission and in our meeting today, we discussed how New Zealand and NATO can best coordinate our efforts in the fight against terrorism. Both in Afghanistan, in Iraq and elsewhere. New Zealand also has maritime capabilities, which contribute to our shared security and we have seen that especially in our joint efforts to fight piracy off the Horn of Africa. The Alliance also benefits from New Zealand's expertise and insight in Asia-Pacific security and we look forward to continue our close consultations. Today we discussed the full range of our cooperation. We identified the areas where we could do more together, including work on maritime security, cyber defence and Women, Peace and Security. So I look forward to continue to cooperation with New Zealand and with you and once again, warm welcome to NATO Headquarters. Jacinda Ardern [Prime Minister of New Zealand]: Thank you very much, Secretary General. Thank you for the warmth of your welcome. Obviously my first official visit here to Brussels, so obviously my first official visit to your new and expensive NATO Headquarters, but it's a real pleasure to be here with you and to receive this warm welcome. As you say, the security environment has changed remarkably in the last 20 years. Globalisation has, in many ways, particularly for a small country at a great distance from others, it has made the world feel that much smaller. And it has had positive benefits for a country like ours, that is often distant from traditional theatres of conflict, but which has always sought its role and its part in the defence of values and norms in which we hold dear. But globalisation is also creating an increasingly complex security and economic environment, making that relationship between us all the more relevant, but also the need for us to be all the more dynamic and adaptable for the challenges that we face, including for instance cybersecurity. That's why New Zealand's geographic isolation is no longer a barrier it once was - and that is why we cannot respond just to those security threats alone. And nor can any other individual state. The threats we face are truly global in their nature, but also in their impact, and that is why we will continue to make the case for collective action, because the case for it has never been clearer. And this is where our partnership with NATO is so important and where also it has the ability to be mutually beneficial. Although separated by great distance, we share common values: the values of democracy; the values of human rights; protecting fundamental freedoms; and increasingly the need to uphold the rules-based order. It's incredibly helpful for us to be able to share, as we have done today, insights on key security challenges, and identifying ways that we can work together. Today, the Secretary General and I discussed how we can be swooped together to achieve those mutual goals, and of course we discussed issues of maritime security, terrorism in particular. We also had a discussion around some of the challenges in our region, in particular. I'd like to think New Zealand has a small in fact, I know New Zealand has a small but highly-capable security and defence force. We've a well-earned reputation, which we discussed today, for providing high-quality personnel for international missions, and that includes to NATO operations. And we have supported efforts led by NATO to deliver peace and security in Afghanistan and Kosovo, for instance, and we continue to work alongside you and your members in many other theatres, to defend that rule-based order. We did discuss the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq together today, and it is clear that international support is required in the region, to assist both countries to provide security, prosperity, the rule of law and, as we discussed today, to continue to see those improvements in excess to some of the things that we consider most basic, like for instance, education. I'm grateful to the Secretary General for his openness, his willingness to share his insights with me, and I thank you again for your hospitality and I look forward to continuing our important relationship together, between New Zealand and NATO. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Thank you. Yes, please, TV New Zealand? Question [TV New Zealand]: Hello, my name is Joy, I'm from Television New Zealand. Just a question: do NATO and New Zealand have plans together in Afghanistan or Iraq, going forward? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: New Zealand is helping and supporting the NATO mission in Afghanistan and we have many partners working together with NATO in Afghanistan, and we welcome of course that very much. Because, as I said, the reason why we are in Afghanistan is to make sure that Afghanistan not once again becomes a safe haven for international terrorism. We saw the consequences back in 2001, when the 9/11 attacks on the United States were organised/planned, from Afghanistan. And that's the reason why we went in. Then of course I understand that people may ask, we have been there for so long, so why should we continue to be there. Then I think it's important to remember that not many years ago we were part of a big combat operation, with more than 100,000 troops in combat operations in Afghanistan. Now, the NATO mission, which is supported the Resolute Support Mission, which New Zealand is contributing to, is a train, assist and advice mission, where we help the Afghans stabilise their own country and the Afghans are now taking over responsibility for the security in their own country. And we highly value the contribution from New Zealand because it's high quality; the personnel from New Zealand are very committed, they are playing a key role in helping to educate and to build a national defence academy. And that's the best way to help Afghanistan, and that is to help them develop their own forces, so they can create security in their own country themselves. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Deutsche Welle/National Public Radio. Question [Deutsche Welle / NPR]: Hi, Teri Schultz, over here. To the Prime Minister, are you concerned by reports coming out of the US about the drawdown of troops, the potential, the expected drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, with you of course continuing your contribution there? And to the Secretary General, a momentous day for Macedonia; all of us who've covered this issue for so many years have waited for this. What is your reaction? Is the Greek parliament's approval the last hurdle that Macedonia had to becoming a NATO member? What's the next step? How quickly will this happen? Thanks. Jacinda Ardern [Prime Minister of New Zealand]: Thank you. I'll cover very briefly the question that you asked. Obviously, the decision of other governments as to the way that they choose to deploy their forces, the length of stay for those forces, are ultimately decisions for those individual countries and their leaders. What New Zealand focuses on is of course the nature of our contribution, the quality of our contribution, and in Afghanistan we know, with the individuals that we here have there now, which roughly total 11, that we do have high-quality individuals providing an incredibly important role and as part of a wider team. And so that, for us, it's about our individual contribution; we don't judge what we're doing relative to others. Those are decisions for them. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Let me just first add one small remark to the previous question on Afghanistan and Iraq, because I forgot to say anything about Iraq. We have launched a training mission in Iraq. We will of course welcome also contributions from New Zealand to that training mission. New Zealand is already present in Iraq, but we will of course in the context of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, but we will also of course welcome contributions to the NATO training mission. Then, on the decision in the Greek parliament today; this is an historic decision and it's a decision I really welcome, because the ratification of the name agreement, between Athens and Skopje, is historic because it removes an obstacle for Euro-Atlantic integration of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia into NATO, and it's something we have been supporting for many, many years, and now we see that the name agreement has been supported by a majority in the parliament in Skopje and now also today in Athens. I would like to commend the leadership and the courage of Prime Minister Tsipras, but also of Prime Minister Zaev. They have made this possible and this has become possible because they have shown leadership which is really impressive. We will now move on with in the process of getting FYROM as the 30th member of NATO, under it's new name, the Republic of Northern Macedonia. We will be able to sign the accession protocol shortly and then this protocol has to be ratified in the different parliaments, and after that the country will be a full member of the Alliance. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: The Newshub? Question [Newshub]: Thank you. Secretary General, are you concerned about China and China's growing influence in the Pacific and the South Pacific? And is that one of the reasons why you see New Zealand as an important ally? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: So, one of the issues we discussed today was the security situation in the Asia-Pacific region, and of course we follow that closely for many reasons, not least because of the concerns we have related to the development of nuclear weapons and the nuclear programmes of North Korea, but also because we see other challenges in the region. China is a growing power with growing economic might and military might, and of course we follow that. NATO is not present in the Asia-Pacific region, but, of course, we have partners in the region and for us it is important to always be able to deal with a changing security environment, and we see also that, for instance, when it comes to an issue which is now very urgent for European NATO Allies; the INF Treaty, that's the treaty related to intermediate-range nuclear missiles. This treaty is now in jeopardy, partly because Russia is developing new missiles. But, one of the reasons why Russia is developing these new missiles is that China is also deploying the same kind of missiles. So, this just illustrates that security is something which is interconnected and therefore, of course we also follow the rise of the of China and their military capabilities. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Lady over there. Question: [LAILUMA SADID, KABUL TIMES]: Thank you, Secretary General. I would like to ask about peace negotiation, even some time the Afghan government is not optimistic, but the people of Afghanistan are really optimistic. If a peace deal is reached whatever, NATO relations and assistance to Afghanistan will change? Or no? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: First of all, we strongly support the efforts to find a peaceful and negotiated solution to the crisis in Afghanistan. And we welcome the initiative taken by President Ghani and we welcome also the talks between the US and the Taliban, and we hope that that can lead towards a process which includes, of course, the Afghan government. I will not speculate about the likelihood of a success, but it is extremely important to support those efforts. The way NATO supports those efforts is of course to support the Afghan government: political support, practical support, and also through our military presence, because the purpose of our military presence in Afghanistan is to send a message to the Taliban that they will not win on the battlefield. So, they have to sit down at the negotiating table and find a political solution. Then I will expect that a political solution, a peace agreement in Afghanistan will also address the issue of presence of troops from other countries, including NATO, but it's much too early to speculate exactly what kind of consequences that will have, because that will depend on the character of the agreement. We are ready to continue a partnership, the cooperation with Afghanistan and our presence is conditions-based and of course, a new peace agreement will have an important consequence for NATO presence in Afghanistan. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Okay, we can have time for one more question. Over there. Question: I'm sorry, I didn't have time to have a question at the previous briefing, so if I may: the question is Jacinda Ardern [Prime Minister of New Zealand]: It's obviously for me. Question [Belarus TV]: No, for the Secretary General. Mr Secretary, what do you think I'm representing Belarus, Belarus TV station, so the question is: how do you think, what risks does the withdrawal from treaty bring to such countries like Belarus, which are exactly between NATO and Russia? What should our politics do? Maybe join negotiation on [inaudible] because our people are care about it. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: The INF Treaty has been and still is extremely important for all European countries. Because these missiles, they can only reach targets in Europe. And the challenge and the problem with the new Russian missiles is that they are mobile, they are hard to detect, they are nuclear-capable, they can reach European cities, they have a short warning time, so by that they also reduce the threshold for any potential use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. That's the reason why this treaty has been so important. And, as you know, it didn't only limit the number of missiles, but it actually banned a whole category of missiles. That's also the reason why we still call on Russia to come back into compliance, in a transparent and verifiable way. And that's also the reason why I welcome the very strong message from all NATO Allies to Russia, to do exactly that. This is of course also important for Belarus, but I am only able to speak on behalf of NATO Allies. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Thank you very much. This concludes this press point. Thank you. Press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 25 Jan. 2019 (As delivered) Good afternoon. We've just had a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. Our first meeting this year. And the ninth since 2016. It was a successful and useful and professional meeting, at which we discussed two important topics: Ukraine and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. On both of these issues, Allies and Russia fundamentally disagree. But that is exactly why it is important to talk. To address concerns, increase predictability and reduce risks. Since 2014, Ukraine has always been the first item on our agenda. We discussed the heightened tensions in and around the Sea of Azov, as well as the security situation in eastern Ukraine. Allies made clear that they do not and will not recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea. And they called on Russia to immediately release the sailors and ships seized in November. We also addressed the INF Treaty. All members of the NATO-Russia Council agree that the Treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security. But the Treaty is now in jeopardy. And unfortunately, we have not seen any signs of a breakthrough. NATO Foreign Ministers met on this issue in December. And all Allies agreed that Russia's SSC-8 system violates the INF Treaty. Today, Allies urged Russia again to return to full and verifiable compliance with the Treaty. They also expressed firm commitment to supporting and strengthening real and verifiable arms control. Today's meeting covered two of the most serious issues affecting Euro-Atlantic security. Our discussions are not always easy. But that's exactly why they are so important. And we remain committed to continuing our dialogue. And with that, I'm ready to take your questions. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Okay, we'll go to Agence France-Presse. Question [Agence France-Presse]: Hello. David Wake from Agence France-Presse. On the INF, was in your meeting today, was there any indication of any willingness on the Russian side to make allowances or change their behaviour, in response to concerns? Or are you getting the same obfuscations that the Americans say they've had for five years now? Thanks. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: There was no real progress in the meeting because Russia did not indicate any willingness to change their position. But Russia still has an opportunity to come back into compliance, and we call on Russia to use that opportunity. And the responsibility to preserve the treaty lies on Russia, because Russia is now violating the treaty, by developing and deploying new missiles, which are in violation of the treaty. And these new missiles are hard to detect, they are mobile, they are nuclear capable, they can reach European cities, and they reduce the warning time and thereby also the threshold for any potential use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. All this makes these missiles something we have to take very seriously and that's the reason why this issue, the new Russian missiles, have been raised. This issue has been raised by two US Administrations, over several years, and it has been raised from the US side in 30 high-level diplomatic meetings or engagements with Russia, to try to get Russia back into compliance. Then, at the NATO Foreign Ministerial meeting in December, all Allies clearly stated that Russia is in violation of the treaty. We call on Russia to come back into compliance with the treaty. And United States also stated clearly that, if Russia doesn't come back into compliance, then US will start the withdrawal process, after 2nd February. So, we will continue to call on Russia to use this opportunity, this window of opportunity to come back into compliance, but so far we have not seen any progress. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Politico, gentleman with glasses there. Question: David Herszenhorn with Politico. Do you envision anything changing between now and 2nd February? And if nothing changes and the withdrawal process begins, are European NATO Allies safer if the US starts redeploying weapons that otherwise would be banned under the INF, on the European continent? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: I think we have to understand that what happens as first of all, Russia can come back into compliance before 2nd February. But even if they don't come back into compliance before 2nd February, there will still be an opportunity to preserve the treaty. Because what happens after 2nd February is that the US will start the process, initiate the process of withdrawal, but that process will be completed at the end of the six-month period. So, we will have a new opportunity, within that six-month period, before the withdrawal process is completed from the US side, for Russia to come back into compliance. So, we will continue to engage with Russia on this issue, continue to talk with them on different levels. Allies will do it, we will do it in NATO-Russia Council, and of course the US and other NATO Allies will also raise this issue with Russia also in the coming months, even if Russia doesn't come back into compliance within 2nd February. Then, we have to realise that the treaty is in real jeopardy. That's the reason why we have asked our military commanders, our military authorities, to look into the consequences of a world without the INF Treaty and where Russia continues to deploy these missiles. I will not speculate about what the outcome will be of this process, partly because our main focus now is on getting Russia back into compliance and partly because this is a very serious issue and we have to also look into new initiatives on arms control. All NATO Allies, NATO, is strongly in favour of arms control, we are at the forefront of arms control efforts, and arms control serves us all well, it makes us all safer. So, we will continue also to work for effective and verifiable arms control. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: ITAR-TASS. Question: TASS News Agency, Denis Dubrovin. Thank you very much. Mr Secretary General, have you discussed today the US systems which are in violation of the INF Treaty - like predator drones, like the intermediate-range missiles which are used for target practice for the NATO for the US anti-missile systems, but which are perfectly capable of delivering nuclear warheads? In Russia, there is a strong feeling that US is simply trying to put the blame on Russia for its unilateral decision to leave the INF Treaty, yet another international treaty which US is leaving. Thank you very much. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: These issues have been discussed for several years. The question of UAVs, ballistic target missiles which are used to testing ballistic defence, interceptors, and these systems are not in violation of the INF Treaty. And Russia continues to raise this issue to deflect tension from the real problem, and that is the new Russian missiles. There are no new US missiles in Europe, but there are new Russian missiles in Europe. That's the problem. That's the issue which is now undermining the INF Treaty, and this issue has been raised by the US, which is a signatory to the treaty, over several years. It started with the Obama Administration and then continued with this Administration. The message from NATO and from NATO Allies, and especially from the United States being a part of the treaty, is that arms control will not work if it's only respected by one side. If one side doesn't respect, doesn't adhere, is not in compliance with the treaty, then the treaty doesn't work. And Russia has hollowed out the INF Treaty over several years. That's the problem and that's the problem we try to fix by continuing to call on Russia to come back into compliance, and by also giving Russia this window of opportunity to come back into compliance before US starts the withdrawal process. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: ZDF. Lady over there. Question: Anna Galiena, German Television in Brussels. Mr Secretary General, how would you describe the atmosphere in the NATO-Russia Council? How do you talk to each other? And secondly, if the INF Treaty is suspended, we will see nuclear weapons deployed in Germany again? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: It was a professional, open atmosphere, where we exchanged views and we also of course saw disagreements, real disagreements on both the issue of the situation in and around Ukraine, and on the INF Treaty. But I strongly believe that, especially when tensions are high, when we have some real differences, some real difficulties, then it is important to meet to address these issues. So, even though we didn't solve those issues, the only way forward is to sit down, address them, to improve the understanding of each other's positions and then try to find a way forward. So, in that sense, it was a very useful meeting and I think we need to continue the dialogue with Russia because that's the only way to address these issues. As I said, it's much too early now to pre-empt what NATO will do if Russia continues to violate the treaty and the treaty is then no longer effective. So, we will come back to that because it is a very serious issue. We have to make sure that NATO continues to provide a credible and effective deterrence and defence. At the same time, we don't want a new cold war, we don't want a new arms race, so what we will do will be measured, it will be defensive, and we don't mirror what Russia does, missile for missile or plane for plane, or battle tank for battle tank. We need to make sure that we have effective credible deterrence, but not necessarily mirroring exactly what Russia does. And at the same time, we will continue to work for arms control and I also welcome the initiative by Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to convene a conference in Berlin, to address arms control and how to make progress on arms control. So, we will of course address the military aspects, but also continue to work for effective arms control. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Deutsche Welle/NPR. Question [Deutsche-Welle/NPR]: Hi, Teri Schultz with Deutsche Welle and NPR. Thank you. Why is there now a window of opportunity when Russia has been given these warnings for years? NATO Allies have been briefed for months, if not years, and convinced months ago that this missile was in existence. Why do you think now, at the very last minute, that there's some window of opportunity? And the US has made clear that when it notifies a withdrawal/suspension, whatever it calls it on that day, it will go ahead and start moving ahead, as is its right, with creating its own missile system. Then don't you have an arms race, whether or not you want one? Thanks. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: The sooner Russia comes back into compliance the better. The reason why I said we have a window of opportunity is that, if they come back into compliance with the treaty before 2nd February, then actually the treaty is preserved, because then US will not start the withdrawal process. But my second message was that, even if Russia doesn't come back into compliance before 2nd February, there will be a new window of opportunity because the withdrawal process will take six months. So, in that new period, there is still an opportunity to come back into compliance before Russia before United States has completed the withdrawal process. After that, then the treaty has ceased to exist. But again, we have to remember that a treaty has no value if it's not respected, if it's not adhered to. So, the problem is the existence of the new Russian missiles in Europe. That is what's undermining and hollowing out the INF Treaty. And that's why NATO Allies so strongly urge Russia to come back into compliance, in a transparent and verifiable way. We still don't want a new arms race and that's exactly why, when we now have started to be prepared for a world without the INF Treaty, both [inaudible] look into new arms control initiatives. One of the challenges we see is that intermediate-range missiles or weapon systems, back in the 1980s, were something almost only the US and then Soviet Union possessed. Today, these kind of weapon systems is something that China, India, Pakistan, Iran and also North Korea are developing. So, new initiatives to address also the global challenges related to intermediate-range weapons is one of the issues we have to look into, in one way or another. So, we will continue to strive to avoid a arms control a new arms race, but of course that will become more difficult if Russia doesn't come back into compliance of the INF Treaty and preserve the treaty. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Der Spiegel. Question [Spiegal]: Markus Becker with Der Spiegel. In determining a NATO response to the [inaudible] deployment, it's obviously important to know what the other side wants. So, what is your theory as to why the Russian side is deploying these missiles? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: First of all, I will always be very careful about speculating too much about the motives of Russia, why they develop and deploy these new missiles. But if you read different statements from different Russian political leaders, and also military leaders, you see that they have publically, several times, announced their concerns about the INF Treaty. Because, in their view, this treaty limits their possibility to respond to the development of intermediate-range weapons in other countries than the United States, meaning China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and also North Korea. And this has been publically stated, both by President Trump, by different no sorry, President Putin, by different military leaders, from the Russian side. And the US Ambassador actually quoted a lot of these Russian statements, explaining why they actually dislike the INF Treaty. So, if you would like to look into why Russia is violating the treaty, you can actually study those public statements and also Former Defence Secretary Gates of the United States, he actually referred to a conversation he had with the then Defence Minister of Russia, that clearly stated that he wanted US and Russia to withdraw from the whole treaty. So, they have previously expressed concern about the treaty and I think that's the main reason why they also now violate the treaty. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: We have Ukrainian National News Agency. Question [National News Agency of Ukraine]: National News Agency of Ukraine and my question is about the Kerch Strait. Was the issue of free passage through that Kerch Strait discussed and what solution was reached? And follow up, were there any sign of progress in liberating our servicemen captured in that strait? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Yes, the incident in the Kerch Strait where Russia used violence against Ukrainian naval ships and seized the ships and the sailors, was one of the main topics we discussed in the meeting. And the NATO Allies called on Russia to immediately release the sailors. That will be perhaps the most efficient way to deescalate and to try address the heightened tensions we have seen in and around Ukraine, and especially in the Black Sea region. And Allies also expressed very strongly that they support freedom of navigation and the full respect for Ukraine's integrity and sovereignty, including of course their territorial waters. So, this was one of the main issues and many Allies expressed their concern that the combination of the illegal annexation of Crimea, the building of the bridge and Russia trying to interfere and to hamper freedom of navigation in and out of the Azov Sea creates new tensions and new problems. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: OK, we have gentleman over there. Question: Mr Secretary General, do you think there is a possibility the US to deploy missiles which are actually forbidden by the INF, in case they retreat for the INF? I mean in Europe. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Well, as I said, there are no new US missiles in Europe today, but there are new Russian missiles and they have been there for some years, and there are coming more and more Russian missiles. They continue to deploy missiles which are in clear violation of the INF Treaty. That's the problem. That's the reason why the INF Treaty now is in jeopardy. And the treaty is hollowed out, by the fact that one party is not respecting the treaty. And no treaty will be effective if it's only respected by one part, that's the problem. Then, the United States has made clear that Russia should come back into compliance. They have given them the time until 2nd February. If they don't come back into compliance before that date, the United States would start the withdrawal process. But that will end at the end of a six-month period. So, there is still time, still a window of opportunity for Russia to come back into compliance. We have started the process of looking into what we will do if Russia doesn't come back into compliance, but our main focus now is to get Russia back into compliance, because that will save or preserve the treaty. As, as I have just said, I will not now speculate, I will not now preempt what kind of conclusions we will make, because this is an issue that requires some careful assessments, some really important considerations about finding the right balance between preserving effective deterrence and defence from the NATO side, without escalating the situation unnecessarily. And that's exactly why we will do this in a very measured, prudent and considered way, before we make our conclusions. We will do that as an Alliance, in consultation with each other, and we will both look into military options, but also of course look into how can we take new initiatives when it comes to arms control. And I also underline that we will not necessarily mirror exactly what Russia does, but we need to have a credible deterrence and defence. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Gentleman in front here. Question [German Television]: Just a question to the meeting. You said that this is useful for understanding the other one's position. Can you tell us on what part did you better understand the Russian position? What were the things where you say OK, we understand this or that? Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: I think it is useful that Russia share with us their views and their considerations, both about their systems, but also their assessments of our systems. But I have to admit that the main problem is that when Russia addresses our systems, they raise these issues which have been discussed, but that are clearly not in violation of the INF Treaty. UAVs and NATO's missile defence system is not in violation of the INF Treaty. Missile defence is a defensive system, while the Russian missiles are offensive. The Russian missiles are armed, both with nuclear and conventional warheads. Our interceptors are unarmed, they don't carry explosives. So, it's no meaning to compare those systems, a defensive missile defence with offensive nuclear-capable missiles. But again, I believe that it's better that we sit down, that all Allies are able to listen to each other and to listen to Russia, instead of not meeting and sitting down and address these issues. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: OK, gentleman in the back. Question: Thank you. Sir, you delineated a little bit that you have now issued a tasking to the military authorities to look for alternatives. Could you unveil some details of in particular of the timing? Because this falls together with the measured responses you just mentioned. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: I fully respect that you ask questions about what NATO will do, but I hope also that you respect that I will not answer. Because if I now started to speculate about all the possible options NATO had or have, or has, then I will only add to uncertainty and add to the tensions. And that's not my purpose. My task is to try to find a way to preserve the INF Treaty. That's the main focus. But, at the same time, we have to realise that this treaty is now really in great jeopardy and therefore, we need to start the preparations for the possible situation that we don't have an INF Treaty in the future. And, regardless of how you ask the question, I will not speculate because I think that will be the wrong thing to do now. What I can promise you is that we will have a process in NATO, all Allies included, and a part of that will also be to address arms control. And therefore, I also welcome the fact that several Allies, but for instance also Germany has been very active in trying to preserve the treaty, but also trying to take new initiatives on arms control. I welcome the proposal by Foreign Minister Maas to look at new arms control arrangements and also to address arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, also in a world with new technologies that actually puts new challenges on how we have effective arms control. And we will continue to work for that at the same time as we make sure that NATO has credible deterrence and defence. Oana Lungescu [NATO Spokesperson]: Thank you very. This concludes this press point. Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg [NATO Secretary General]: Thank you. Philippine Defense Chief Eyes Subic Bay Amid Chinese Takeover Fears 2019-01-17 Philippines authorities should take over a major shipyard that sits on the site of a former U.S. navy base, or risk letting it fall into the hands of the Chinese who could use it as a regional foothold amid contentious South China Sea claims, Filipino officials said Thursday. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he had met with President Rodrigo Duterte and other officials on Wednesday, including Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, to discuss ways for the Philippines to take over the facility in Subic Bay from its failing South Korean operator and keep it in local hands. A state-run company is among two Chinese firms that have expressed interest in taking over the shipyard after South Koreas Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction filed for bankruptcy last week, according to local media reports. Manila was also studying the prospect of offering the shipyard operations to players from the United States, Australia, South Korea and Japan countries that are all considered as allies by the Philippines, the defense chief said. The Philippine Navy suggested that why not the Philippines take over so that well have a naval base there? Then well have ship-building capabilities, Lorenzana said during an annual event in Manila of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines. He said Manila was looking to purchase more ships in the next decade, and it would be advantageous for it to have the shipyard under its control. The most critical external security challenge for the Philippines is the territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea, Lorenzana said. Compounding the issue is the backdrop of a rapidly evolving regional environment, where the United States-China geopolitical rivalry is deepening and a potential Taiwan Strait conflict is brewing. He noted that Washington remained the Philippines only treaty ally despite Dutertes military pivot to China since he became president in mid-2016. China, our big, next door neighbor, has occupied and militarized some features closer to our shores, the defense secretary said. We have not, and we will not, surrender any part of our territory. However, a constructive approach was needed to engage China in the future, he said. The goal is to pursue functional cooperation with China and with other claimant countries, Lorenzana said, adding that a 2016 international arbitration tribunal ruling in favor of Manila was valid and legitimate. U.S. officials were not immediately available to comment on the news around Subic Bay. A very significant national security issue Philippines defense sources, meanwhile, have said that Beijing may seek to gain control of Subic, a strategic former naval base to use it as a monitoring post. Former Philippine navy chief Alexander Pama, in particular, warned that Subic was a very significant national security issue beyond business matters. The ownership of the shipyard in Subic will give owners unlimited access to one of our most strategic geographic Naval and maritime asset, Pama said, according to the Philippine Inquirer. He noted that while the shipyard would remain a commercial interest on paper, nothing can prevent the owners from making it into a de facto naval base. Filipino Sen. Richard Gordon, who was once the mayor of the town where Subic is located, on Thursday also proposed that the government enter into a deal with local businessmen and some unidentified South Korean investors in a bid to take over the Hanjin operations. He said the shipyard was a very important logistical and engineering resource that the country should control. We should take over the shipyard if needed. The important thing here is that the Philippines will be able to make its own ships, said Gordon, who met with Lorenzana and other senators on Wednesday. Gordon said the Philippine Navy should have its headquarters inside the shipyard, on Luzons western side facing the South China Sea. Subic, along with the nearby Clark Air Base, used to host one of the largest U.S. military facilities outside of the mainland United States. The bases were key staging points during the Vietnam War. At the end of the Cold War, the last U.S. military ship sailed out of Subic in 1992 after a nationalist Philippine Senate voted then to end a lease agreement, which allowed the Americans to operate in the area for years. Last week, Hanjin Philippines, the local unit of South Koreas Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction, filed for rehabilitation after it defaulted on some U.S. $400 million in loans, reports said. The firm also owed about $900 million to creditors in South Korea. Two unnamed major Chinese shipbuilders have expressed interest in taking over the failed shipyard in Subic, which would effectively allow Beijing to gain a strategic foothold into the Philippines, its territorial rival in the South China Sea, critics said. Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, who was part of the Philippine legal team that argued the arbitration case in 2016, warned that China was moving to occupy areas, even including shorelines. The intention of China is very clear. They want to control the West Philippine Sea, Carpio said, using the Philippines name for the South China Sea. He said Beijing was still intent on grabbing Manilas exclusive economic zone, despite international condemnation. Allowing Beijing to gain a toehold into Subic could give the Chinese an edge in pressing their territorial claims in the disputed sea region, said Carpio who had publicly opposed Dutertes pro-China stance. Why would we allow the Chinese to get a foothold in Subic when they are trying to seize the West Philippine Sea just across? he said. It doesnt make sense. Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. Copyright 1998-2016, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content may not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. Beginning Jan. 28, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission temporarily paused its aquatic herbicide treatment program throughout the state. During the pause, staff will work to collect public comments regarding the FWCs aquatic plant management program. The FWC will hold several public meetings to gather community input about the program. Specific dates and locations of the meetings will be announced shortly. Comments can also be sent to Invasiveplants@MyFWC.com. Invasive plants degrade and diminish Floridas waterways by displacing native plant communities. Some invasive aquatic plants pose a significant threat to human welfare and cause economic problems by impeding flood control and affecting recreational use of waterways. Go to MyFWC.com/WildlifeHabitats and click on Invasive Plants to find out more about invasive plant management, including frequently asked questions. Kushner Trumped Top Secret Clearance Process After Two Rejections Report Sputnik News 16:20 25.01.2019(updated 16:21 25.01.2019) Earlier this week, the US House Oversight Committee launched a probe into the White House security clearance process, in a bid to shed more light on how Jared Kushner managed to gain access to highly classified information. Although Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, was denied a top secret clearance both times he applied, the rejection was finally overruled, NBC News cited unnamed sources as saying. The sources claimed that Kushner's clearance application was rejected by two career White House security but approved by their supervisor Carl Kline, an ex-Pentagon employee who was nominated director of the personnel security office in the Executive Office of the President in May 2017. Kushner became "one of at least 30 cases in which Kline overruled career security experts and approved a top secret clearance for incoming Trump officials despite unfavourable information", the sources said, adding the number of the rejections that were overruled is unprecedented. The White House security specialists rejected Kushner's application after an FBI background check raised concerns about potential foreign influence on Trump's son-in-law. The check included questions related to Kushner's family business, foreign contacts and travel as well as meetings he had during the 2016 US election campaign. Separately, the sources claimed that Kushner even tried to gain access to "sensitive compartmented information", or SCI, which includes the US government's most sensitive secrets and is overseen by the CIA. After Kushner's file went to the CIA for a ruling on SCI, one of the agency's officials reportedly wondered how Trump's son-in-low got even a top secret clearance before he rejected Kushner's clearance to review SCI materials. Both the White House and the CIA declined to comment on the matter. Earlier this week, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chairman of the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said in a letter to the White House obtained by NBC News that the committee is "launching an investigation into the White House security clearance process, an inquiry that promises to put a spotlight on how President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, overcame concerns to gain access to highly classified information". According to him, the probe's goal is to determine "the extent to which the nation's most highly guarded secrets were provided to officials who should not have had access to them". The investigation comes after The Washington Post reported last February that at least four countries, including the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, had privately discussed ways to manipulate Kushner to their advantage. Sputnik The Sanibel and Captiva Islands Chamber of Commerce continues to be a part of the fight to save local ecosystem and tourism economy as an advocate on behalf of the islands business community. Over the summer, two concurrent harmful algae blooms precipitated an unprecedented fish kill and nearly destroyed the tourism economy. It quickly became clear that we, as a chamber, had to do something and felt advocacy is the best thing we can do, President John Lai, who has traveled to Tallahassee on numerous occasions and was part of a panel at the 34th annual Everglades Coalition Conference in January, said. He has been presenting data on the economic impact of the water crisis to the islands businesses, which collectively reported millions of dollars in lost revenue. Poor water quality remains a threat to the $3 billion in annual revenue generated by local tourism. The health of our ecosystem and economy are inextricably linked, Lai said. Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation Natural Resource Policy Director Rae Ann Wessel has been an advocate on behalf of the unbalanced ecosystem. She has presented data collected by SCCFs marine scientists and was present when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order implementing water policy reforms. Its important we continue to share the adverse economic effect of poor water quality, as well as advocate for these water protection policies and the restoration of the Everglades, Lai said. We are grateful to have leaders like Rae Ann, and many others, who help bring changes necessary to protect the natural resources on which our economy and quality of life depend. Lai will be a part of the Visit Florida Conference in Tampa, where there will be a meeting with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He will travel to Tallahassee twice in February for legislative meetings and will be in Orlando for the quarterly board meeting of the Florida Association of Chamber Professionals. In March and April, Lai will return to Tallahassee for Florida Tourism Days and the Everglades Action Days. It has been and continues to be an honor representing our island business community as a whole, he said. Our chamber board of directors deserves a tremendous amount of thanks for their support in this crucial fight. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Lebanon Fire District crews battled to a fire in a vacant house Saturday morning. According to a news release, firefighters were called out at 9:06 a.m. for a fire in a three-bedroom house at 221 Jennings Street. Personnel saw smoke coming from the building upon arrival and forced entry to put the fire out and search for potential victims. They concluded the house was unoccupied. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Eight fire apparatus responded to the blaze and crews were on scene for about two hours working to control the fire as it burned through interior walls. No injuries were reported. Neighbors told investigators that the house was recently under remodel and was listed for sale, with realtors showing the home to potential buyers as recently as Friday afternoon, the news release said. The Lebanon Fire Investigation team is currently working to determine the cause of the fire. Anyone with information about the fire is encouraged to contact Deputy Fire Marshal Ken Foster at 541-619-8746. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. And youve got people who have never seen a black person in their life. We werent prepared. What am I doing here? You have to be a student and also a representative of my race. There were so many stereotypes out there. All they had seen were movies. People would go up and touch my hair You have to ask first." I worked at the Cultural Center. I was my hall council president. I gave back, but I didnt quite get it. With my white friends I could walk into a store and not be followed. We dont even know what rights we have." Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Ive been involved with the NAACP for the last five to six years as a member and on the executive team. President? That is the work. I cant hide in the background anymore. When you put that president thing on you have to be the one who does the hard stuff. Im ready for the challenge. And its not just talk. We are going to do something about this. Working with kids and teachers. Now I can actually do something. I dont want to see kids running with their tails between their legs. Linn County will receive a $99,010 grant from the Oregon State Marine Board to purchase precast concrete boat ramp planks for the Stayton Bridge access site. The county will match the grant with $127,990 for a project total of $227,000. The area has been closed for three years due to damage caused by 2015 flooding on the North Santiam River. The project can only be done from July 15 to Aug. 15, so purchasing the planks earlier will allow contractors time to maximize the work schedule. In other action taken during the Marine Boards Jan. 22 meeting at Clackamas Community College: The board adopted rules to allow electric motors on boats at Turner Lake in Marion County, with a speed limit of 5 mph. Josephine County will receive a $175,000 grant to purchase property next to Lanthrop Landing on the Rogue River. The total project cost will be $350,600 and will include access improvements. The city of Gladstone will get a $133,000 grant to dredge the Meldrum bar at milepost 24 on the Willamette River. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department will receive a $60,000 grant, to be combined with a $21,500 cash match, to install a debris deflection boom at Bullards Beach State Park. High winds and coastal storms often deposit large amounts of debris at the site. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Stacy E. Wilson is the president of the Childrens Hospital Association of Texas. At the Responding to an Active Shooter presentation on Jan. 23, attendees learned the three-step response if there is an active shooter first run, then hide, and finally flight as the last resort. Bill Behrens, a retired violent crimes detective from metropolitan Chicago, provided those in attendance with information on the correct responses in an active shooter situation. The free program was organized by the Americas Boating Club of Sanibel-Captiva at The Community House. On the same day of the presentation, an active shooter in Sebring was reported to have killed five people at a SunTrust Bank, illustrating that such violence can occur anywhere at anytime by anyone. Several times during the program, Behrens reminded the audience that while the odds are very slim they could be confronted with an active shooter, the consequences of such an event would be terribly catastrophic. Sanibel Police Department Lt. Elizabeth Buikema also took part in the presentation. They reinforced the same message: The worst reaction one can have is doing nothing. They recommended that everyone develop an automatic sense of situational awareness, particularly in large areas. Know where the exits are, the quickest path to flee. In short, always have an exit plan. Behrens explained that if it is necessary to stay in place, then hide. Turn off all lights and silence all sound, including cell phones. Close window shades and lock or barricade all the doors. Finally, protect yourself by fighting if necessary. Use anything as a weapon. It can be as simple as a pen, chair or fire extinguisher. Attendees then watched a Run! Hide! Fight! video aimed at reinforcing the main message: Everyone needs to develop the personal resolve to purposefully react and react right away during such a crisis. The presentation was the first offering in the clubs series, called Be Informed; Be Engaged. For more information about the club, visit online at sancapboating.club. A celebration of life for Barabra Zackery, 79, of Gainesville, will be held at a later date. A full obituary will be published when service times have been scheduled. Barbara passed away on June 15, 2021 in Gainesville. You may sign the online registry at www.geojcarroll.com. Have any questions? Please give us a call at 907-352-2250 Pelosi obviously doesnt want to hear what President Trump has to say and on that point I stand with her. Trump will no doubt use the State of the Union address as a bully pulpit to push for his wall. At a moment when 800,000 federal workers are not getting a paycheck, that is as deplorable as Pelosis rescinded invitation.. During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to drain the swamp in Washington. Ive got news for you, Mr. President: The swamp is still there. And the muck is as deep and the stench is as powerful in the White House as it is in Congress. And holding America hostage is in no way contributing to cleaning it up. Even if Pelosi believes that Trump has stooped to a new low with his border wall demand, you still dont lower yourself to your adversarys level. If you do, you turn into what you insist you despise. The unfortunate part of this whole shutdown situation is that Trump and Pelosi reflect the attitudes of Americans today. Most are divided into two camps, with each side hating the other. If there is any goodwill left in this country, it is hidden somewhere under a rock. Neither side cares about our country. All anyone cares about is getting his own way. It is a shameful situation. This week, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio named Baileys General Store on Sanibel as the Small Business of the Week for the week of Jan. 21-25. It was nominated by the Sanibel and Captiva Islands Chamber of Commerce. Small businesses play a vital role in Floridas diverse economy, Rubio, chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said. As entrepreneurs who have found their niche in a market and succeeded in growing a customer-focused business, Richard and Mary Bailey Johnson, owners of Baileys General Store, set an example for other small businesses. Not only do they operate an outstanding general store, but they also go above and beyond to serve their community. Through various fundraisers, the Johnsons support both the local F.I.S.H. food pantry and Kiwanis Club, he said. After Hurricane Irma, the general store became a lifeline for residents needing supplies, and employees worked for 10 days to clear debris with chainsaws. Baileys General Store exemplifies Floridas unique entrepreneurial spirit, and I am proud to honor them as the Small Business of the Week. Baileys was founded in 1899 as the Sanibel Packing Company by Frank P. Bailey. Since then, three generations of the Bailey family have continued to serve the people of Sanibel. Today, it is owned and run by Richard and Mary Bailey Johnson, who continue the tradition of service to the community. The Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship oversees proposed legislation on matters relating to the Small Business Administration and investigates problems relating to Americas small businesses. For more information, visit baileys-sanibel.com or call 239-472-1516. Baileys General Store is at 2477 Periwinkle Way. The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors on Tuesday postponed a public hearing for a proposed solar power facility. The original meeting was set for Feb. 5, but the applicant, Sustainable Power Group, asked for a delay. The supervisors did not set a new date for the public hearing, but plan to set one during their regular Feb. 12 meeting. During Tuesday's supervisors meeting, Planning Director Wanda Parrish said officials with Sustainable Power Group, also called sPower, did not say why they wanted the delay. It was assumed the company is seeking more time to contend with the long list of conditions set by the countys Planning Commission. The commission this month denied two of three special permits the Utah-based company applied for to construct the 500 megawatt facility in rural western Spotsylvania on land zoned for agricultural use. The company wants to install about 1.8 million solar panels on three swaths of timber property totaling 6,300 acres. The site is bordered, in places, by homes, including the Fawn Lake neighborhood. Residents have formed groups and come out in force against the project. "I wasn't going through that again," he said. Amy Moran and her husband, Mark, work for the FBI, and both have been furloughed as part of the federal government's partial shutdown. "We're the ones who are usually giving and helping others, and now we need the help," she said. "But when [the shutdown] goes into a full month without anything coming in, and you've got bills to pay, it's scary." She was grateful for her neighbors in Aquia Harbour, who have sponsored food drives and regular potluck dinners for those in the gated development. The North Stafford community has a large population of service members and government workers. Susan and John Ayers of Stafford also get both incomes from the federal government. She works for a division of Housing and Urban Development and he's with the Internal Revenue Service. She's heard of dinners in Washington for federal workers, but didn't want to drive the distanceand burn the gas. "It's nice when there's something in your own neighborhood," she said. "It was good to get out of the house, dress up, put on some makeup and talk to other people who are going through the same thing." St. Jude Catholic Church , 9600 Caritas St., and Proximo Travel will host a nine-day pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, and Rome, Italy, from May 2-10. The itinerary includes the Notre Dame Cathedral and numerous historic sites in Paris as well as a tour of Assisi, Italy. The cost is $3,599, based on double occupancy, and covers the costs of airfare, hotels, all meals except lunches, the tour and most tips. Call 540/850-2737 for more information. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , 5600 Smith Station Road. Missionaries offer tours of the church building on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon. Tours include the chapel, cultural hall and classrooms, a 20-minute video segment and free Book of Mormon. To schedule a tour, call 540/455-8341. Unity of Fredericksburg, 3451 Jefferson Davis Highway. On Sunday, Adult Spiritual Education starts at 10 a.m. Sunday Celebration Service begins at 11 a.m. CommUnity on the Hill member Roy Berkowitz will be the guest speaker. Musical ministry will be provided during the service by the ensemble Grace. At 12:30 p.m., Grace will provide a devotional music experience that includes heart opening and inspiring music. Love offerings will be accepted. Winter Wellness Weekend is Feb. 9-10. All events are free. Learn natural and holistic tips and tools to live your best life. On Feb. 9 from 1 to 5 p.m., topics include herbal medicine, feng shui and Eden Energy Medicine, with a sound healing session beginning at 4 p.m. An introduction to Reiki workshop will be held Feb. 10 from 12:30 to 2 p.m. 540/654-5305; uofva.org. Going out to eat with dad and the family Enjoying this nice weather outside with pops Watching sports either in person or on TV with dad Doing whatever he wants. (Which is probably nothing. Hes not one for fanfare.) Vote View Results Not a single resident in Florida lives more than 20 miles from an impaired waterway, John Cassani, with Calusa Waterkeeper, said at the first Florida Water Policy Summit on Jan. 21. Organized around the idea that clean water is a basic human right, the event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day featured six speakers from local conservation groups who spoke about actionable water policy that can improve Floridas impaired waters. And Florida has a lot of impaired waters currently 12 million acres under Best Management Action Plans, or BMAPs, which are 15-year restoration plans required by the federal government when a waterbody is not meeting quality standards. The Federal Clean Water Act requires each state to compile a list of waterbodies that are not up to snuff. Then, the Department of Environmental Protection conducts watershed assessments. Any waterbody that does not meet standards for pollution is scheduled for a Total Maximum Daily Load, which is a limit for the amount of a particular pollutant that a waterbody can handle. The state of Florida currently has 416 TMDLs, with 80 waterbodies on a waiting list to receive one, according to Maria Carrozzo, senior environmental policy specialist at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The next step after establishing a TMDL is writing up a BMAP to restore the waters. How did we get to the point where almost a third of our state is under water quality restoration plans? Carrozzo asked. The answers to her question are long and complicated. A combination of harmful agricultural run-off, insufficient urban stormwater treatment, and fertilizer use have mixed up a cocktail of toxic water. Under Florida water law, farmers can sign a notice of intent to implement best management practices essentially promising to comply with water quality standards. This grants a presumption of compliance, regardless of whether they are actually meeting standards or not. Carrozzo said doing away with that presumption of compliance, updating stormwater run-off standards to remove more nutrients, and strengthening local fertilizer ordinances can all help improve water quality. And then there is Lake Okeechobee. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers created the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule in 2008, and it was intended as an interim measure until repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dam were completed. Those repairs still are not done. The Corps expects them to be finished in 2022, but they have said they will not change the LORS until the dam is completed. According to Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director of the Center for Biological Diversity, the LORS did not consider cyanobacteria and red tide, claiming it was unlikely that discharges from the lake caused harmful algal blooms, and did not analyze them any further. But discharges from the lake do cause problems. Rae Ann Wessel, natural resource policy director at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, refers to the issue of balancing the lakes flow levels as The Goldilocks Condition. Propelled by gravity, Lake Okeechobees discharges travel across 75 miles of freshwater river and estuary and three lock and dam systems to reach the Gulf of Mexico. Too much flow from the lake washes valuable fish and oyster nurseries out into the Gulf, decimating the ecosystem. Too little flow chokes these habitats with salt. When we dont get enough flow into the system through the western lock, the water that is fed by tidal action from the Gulf up the river brings much more salinity than some of these habitats can tolerate, Wessel said. Habitats like tapegrass, which provide a home for crab, fish, and oysters that filter feed and clean water naturally, are destroyed. Not only do we lose the tapegrass, we also lose 100 percent of the oyster reef that is downstream, and those are filtering water for free. 50 gallons a day for a single oyster is a huge contribution to our water quality, she said. In 2001, the South Florida Water Management District set a minimum flow level of 300 cubic feet per second. Scientists realized this forgot to account for inflows to the estuary coming downstream from Telegraph Creek and Orange River, so they adjusted the number to 450, Wessel said. Thats important, because it shows up in the LORS, and every habitat analysis for every state and federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan project as a habitat metric. So if youre meeting 450 cubic feet per second for the Caloosahatchee, it says youre golden and we know thats just not true, she said. A more ideal number is closer to 800, all the way up to 1,000 cubic feet per second, according to Wessel. The SFWMD recently set the flow level to 400 cubic feet per second, and the city of Sanibel gathered three other neighboring municipalities, including Cape Coral, to challenge that rule in administrative court, asking for more flows. That case is still awaiting a ruling. Were doing oyster restoration and tapegrass restoration, trying to keep ahead of the damage, but its not accounted for in the districts analysis. They say the tape grass is doing fine, but thats because we keep going in and planting it, Wessel said. With all of this in mind, Lopez said it is important for citizens to ask the Corps to address the regulations schedule as soon as possible, and to finish repairs to the dam by June 2020. It can be done by then, and we need to demand it, Lopez said. Wessel reminded everyone that it is not just Lake Okeechobee to blame for all our problems, because the watershed the discharges flow through to reach the Gulf is almost two Lake Okeechobees in size. There are many times when we are getting no discharges from the lake, and were having harmful flows just from that estuary and river watershed. So keep in mind that when we talk about where the problems start, and where the solutions lie, its important to recognize that its all of us, we all contribute to it, she said. One researcher shared some hope at the summit. Dr. William Mitsch, director of the Everglades Research Park at Florida Gulf Coast University, is working on a project he calls wetlaculture. It is a plan to restore wetlands that can build up nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus over several years, and then flip the use of the lands to agriculture, using those natural nutrients instead of adding fertilizer. Mitsch called manufactured fertilizer the opiate we have on our landscape. Weve just got to get off of it, he said. Mitsch partnered with the University of Notre Dame to create an economic plan that shows how farmers could actually make money in wetlaculture by utilizing government programs that pay to remove nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus from wetlands. His team has created three different test sites for this project, two in Ohio and one in Naples, that have shown promising water quality results. Florida would need to install 94,000 acres of these treatment wetlands in the Everglades Agricultural Area to ensure clean water in the Everglades, he said, but it could be a sustainable answer to excess fertilizer use. Daniel Andrews, cofounder of Captains for Clean Water, is encouraged by Gov. DeSantis recent water policy order and his request that all SFWMD board members resign. The fact that we have a governors office thats cooperative is a good thing, he said. The most important thing you can do is take an hour out of your day, call everybody up, and let them know this issue is not resolved. Weve set a stake in the ground that enough is enough and were not going to take it anymore, Andrews added. ANDERSON, SC (FOX CAROLINA) -The Anderson County Sheriff's Office says a man threw about 80 grams of meth out of the window while he was trying to flee from deputies during a traffic stop. This is how much of the border wall has been built so far NORTH LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -- Las Vegas Metropolitan police arrested Antwon Perkins, the man suspected of kidnapping and assaulting a Cadwallader Middle School student, after he barricaded himself inside a North Las Vegas home on Friday. According to Lt. David Valenta with Metro Police's Sex Crimes Bureau, authorities located Perkins, 35, near Simmons Street and West Lone Mountain Road at around 6 p.m. Perkins barricaded himself inside a home for about three hours as Metro Police and SWAT teams negotiated with him. Las Vegas police deployed a robot during the barricade to enter the house and see what was happening inside the residence. "Using the robot, we were able to asses the condition and get him to come out at that point," Valenta said. By about 9:15 p.m., the barricade ended and Perkins came outside. +2 Las Vegas police identify suspect in attempted kidnapping of 12-year-old girl Las Vegas Metropolitan police have identified a suspect who attempted to abduct a 12-year-old girl in the northwest valley Thursday afternoon. Perkins was alone, but knew the woman who lives at the residence, according to police. Once Perkins was taken into custody, he was transported to University Medical Center for self-inflicted injuries, according to Valenta. Perkins's injuries were considered non-life threatening, but the extent of his injuries were unknown. The victim is okay, "best as you can be considering the traumatic incident we're talking about," Valenta said. According to police, Perkins lives in North Las Vegas, about four miles away from where he abducted the 12-year-old girl. Detectives had attempted to serve a warrant at his home on Thursday. Investigators were able to locate Perkins's car at McCarran International Airport, where he is an employee, and will work to determine if Perkins is suspected of any other crimes, according to Metro Police. "This is a very brazen, violent crime," Valenta said. "From my experience working sex crimes, most people do not start out at this level. So we will absolutely be looking into that." (CNN) -- President Donald Trump signed a short-term spending bill into law Friday night that does not include President Donald Trump's requested $5.7 billion for a border wall. The White House announced late Friday that Trump had signed the measure, a three-week stopgap bill that will reopen shuttered parts of the government through February 15. The funding measure puts an end to the longest government shutdown in US history. Congressional approval of the measure came quickly after the President conceded earlier Friday to mounting pressure over the ongoing shutdown, agreeing to a temporary funding measure that would allow federal employees to return to work but that does not include the billions of dollars in border wall funding he's spent the past month demanding. "I will sign a bill to open our government for three weeks," the President said in an address on Friday, saying that he was announcing that "we have reached a deal to end the shutdown." Trump said that "a bipartisan conference committee of House and Senate lawmakers and leaders" will work to "put together a homeland security package for me to shortly sign into law." "Over the next 21 days, I expect that both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith," the President said. Democrats have insisted throughout the shutdown that the President should sign a measure to reopen the government before they proceed to a debate on border wall funding. After weeks of resistance, Trump agreed to just that on Friday, paving the way for congressional Democrats and Republicans to approve a stop-gap funding bill. The action on Capitol Hill comes after weeks of negotiations largely going nowhere. And it is not yet clear what kind of a deal can be struck between Democrats and Republicans in the weeks to come over border security. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer suggested at a news conference on Friday that the President's decision to accept a stop-gap funding measure amounted to a validation of the position taken by Democrats during the shutdown fight. "The President has agreed to our request to open the government and then debate border security," Schumer said. Schumer suggested he is optimistic that a resolution over border security can be reached once the government is reopened. "We in Congress will roll up our sleeves and try to find some agreement on border security," Schumer said. Democrats have maintained throughout the shutdown fight that they support border security measures, but not new funding for a border wall, a signature promise of Trump's campaign for the White House. "We don't agree on some of the specifics of border security. Democrats are firmly against the wall," Schumer said on Friday. "But we agree on many things such as the need for drug inspection technology, humanitarian aide, strengthening security at our ports of entry. And that bodes well for finding an eventual agreement," he added. The-CNN-Wire & 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. According to Alabama Department of Corrections officials, an inmate who escaped from the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville on Wednesday hid inside a trailer used to transport furniture from the facility according to a preliminary investigation. Prison officials confirmed today that 30-year-old Corey Aris Davis concealed himself inside the trailer sometime while he was working in facilitys furniture plant that is managed by the Alabama Correctional Industries (ACI). At approximately 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, the trailer left the facility and was taken directly to the ACI facility in Montgomery. They say investigators found evidence that confirmed Davis had been inside the trailer and had used an item of furniture for concealment. The evidence also shows that Davis exited the trailer sometime after it was parked at the ACI facility according to investigators. The ADOC has identified three inmate suspects at the prison who assisted Davis in his escape. Their identities are not being released at this time. In addition to the recapture efforts and determining the details of the escape, the ADOC is working to identify how Davis was able to gain access to the trailer without being observed by prison officials, and why he was not reported missing until a security check at 8 p.m. Wednesday. The facility remains locked down while the investigation is ongoing. Authorities believe Davis in no longer in the Montgomery area and are working closely with the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and other local and state agencies to bring Davis back into custody. Davis was sentenced to life in 2017 for a human trafficking conviction in Lauderdale County. Davis is 5-feet 6-inches tall, weighs approximately 150 pounds, and has blond hair and blue eyes. The public should not approach Davis but should contact their local law enforcement or the Alabama Department of Corrections Investigations and Intelligence Division at 334-353-8912, or 1-800-831-8825 with information that could lead to his recapture. We're supposed to save money for a host of reasons -- emergencies, retirement, and other goals, like homeownership or college. But almost half of Americans are sabotaging themselves off the bat. Specifically, 47% of working adults say their spending regularly equals or exceeds their income, according to a new report by the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Released in late 2018, the report found that among workers whose spending exceeded their income over the previous 12 months, 43% were using credit cards to make ends meet. Meanwhile, only 10% said they were able to access non-retirement savings to cover their expenses when their paychecks didn't suffice. If you're in a situation where you regularly spend all or more than your income allows for, you're essentially sentencing yourself to a mountain of credit card debt and a world of financial upheaval. And frankly, you deserve better. Here's how to get there. 1. Create a budget A big reason why so many spend down their entire paycheck month after month is that they have no sense of how much their bills cost or where their money is going. To remedy that, create a budget for your household. That budget should account for all of your recurring monthly bills, as well as expenses that only pop up once a year, like license or membership renewals. Once you have that budget in place, you'll be able to identify expenses you can reduce to ensure that you're able to put some of your income into savings, even if it's just a small amount. 2. Cut back on one or two major bills You'll often hear that eliminating your morning latte could help you sock away thousands of dollars a year. Well, that's probably not true. Sure, you'll save some money by making coffee at home rather than buying it in a store, but if you really want to improve your financial situation, you'll need to think bigger. That means cutting back on a couple of major expenses that monopolize much of your income, like housing or transportation. If you can manage in a smaller home, downsizing could, indeed, save you thousands of dollars a year. Similarly, if you own a vehicle but have access to public transportation, selling it could free up hundreds of dollars a month in your paycheck by not having to bear the cost of insurance, maintenance, and repairs. The key is to find a way to free up a substantial portion of your income if you're not currently in the habit of saving anything. 3. Get a second job Maybe you're stuck in a dead-end job due to circumstances you can't change right now and there's really no feasible way for you to cut back on expenses. If that's the case, you can boost your income by getting a side gig on top of your regular job. This way, any extra income you take in won't be earmarked for existing expenses, which means you can use it to build some savings to make up for the fact that your primary paycheck doesn't allow for that. 4. Build a safety net In the aforementioned report, 41% of workers whose spending exceeded their income in the past year blamed an unusual uptick in expenses, unusually low wages, or both. And let's face it: Sometimes, we have no choice but to take on added expenses, like when we get sick and start racking up medical bills. At the same time, you never know when your boss might cut your hours, thereby reducing your income substantially. The best way to protect yourself from such scenarios, however, is to build an emergency fund with enough money to cover at least three months' worth of living costs. If you follow the steps mentioned earlier -- cut back on spending and get a second job -- you'll have money to stick in the bank so that the next time your financial circumstances change for the worse, you won't need to resort to credit card debt. We all need savings at various points in life, but if your spending consistently exceeds your earnings, you won't manage to build any. If that's the way you've been operating thus far, it's time to change your ways -- before it's too late. The Fort Myers Beach Library family is mourning the loss of their beloved director, Dr. Leroy Hommerding. Dr. Hommerding was fatally stabbed by a vagrant shortly after opening the library doors to welcome people who were waiting to attend the librarys book sale. Dr. Hommerding was hired as the library director in 2000. During his tenure, he oversaw the building of our state of the art library. He made certain the design included the most current environmentally sound building practices. The librarys heating and cooling system is fueled by solar power. Rainwater is used in the plumbing system. Much of the architectural design includes subtle references to the beach environment. For example, there are waves on the ceiling and canoe bookshelves. The childrens area has a tree and ceiling tiles with whimsical toy representations. Dr. Hommerding understood that many of our patrons are on vacation when they visit our town. He made sure that our collection included reading and audio video materials that would appeal to visitors. Recognizing that our town includes many retirees, he included in our collection the largest selection of large print books in the state. Our director also wanted people to view the library as fun, educational and welcoming. He collected unique bookends for the library shelves. Usually the bookends tied in with the books on that particular shelf. He put flowers and beach related items on display on top of the bookshelves. Puzzles for patrons and visitors to piece together are always out on a large table on the second floor. Our monthly event calendar includes daily classes, weekly movies and monthly book discussions. Dr. Hommerding wrote a weekly column for two of our island newspapers informing readers of library events and new library acquisitions. He also served on the Board of the Friends of the Library and was instrumental in growing its membership. Dr. Hommerding was also very active in our community. He was Treasurer of the Estero Island Historic Society. Most recently, he successfully submitted a grant to the Florida Humanities Council. The Historic Society was awarded enough money to fund a speakers series for the community. He was an enthusiastic and regular volunteer at the Kiwaniss Thrift store. In the past, he served on the Board of Directors for the Mound House. Dr. Hommerding is survived by seven brothers and sisters. They are Joyce (Ken) Bertram, Roger (Terri) Hommerding, Janet (Mark) Eisenschenk, Doris Hommerding, Linda (Mark) Donnay, Vernon (Cathy) Hommerding, Laura (Leonard) Nordmann, twenty-two nieces and nephews and his colleague and friend, Cletus Poser. He was predeceased by his parents, Ervin and Lonie Hommerding. A memorial service is planned for Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 1 PM in the Library garage. Memorials may be made to the Fort Myers Beach Library. Although there are many social programs that Americans might struggle to do without, few if any are as important as Social Security. Signed into law in 1935, Social Security has been providing a financial foundation for retired workers since payout began in January 1940. Without this program, and taking into account the generally poor saving habits of Americans, our country would probably be facing a serious elderly poverty crisis. But for as important as Social Security is, it's also facing some serious challenges. The following 10 figures will help you understand the true promise and peril that America's most important social program provides. 1. 62.9 million beneficiaries According to the latest snapshot in December 2018 from the Social Security Administration, just over 62.9 million people were receiving a benefit check each month. As you might have expected, nearly 7 out of 10 of these recipients are retired workers, who were, on average, receiving $1,461.31 per month. But keep in mind that Social Security is also designed to protect the long-term disabled and survivors of deceased workers. More than 5.9 million survivor benefits were paid out last month, with close to 10.2 million disability benefit-related payouts made. 2. 22.1 million kept out of poverty We often hear about Social Security being important, but it's tough to quantify what "important" actually means. Based on an analysis conducted by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, some 22.1 million Social Security beneficiaries are kept out of poverty as a result of their guaranteed monthly payout. This includes more than 15 million retired workers, whom the program was originally designed to protect. 3. 62% reliant on Social Security for half their income Social Security is only designed to replace about 40% of the average retired worker's wages, but seniors tend to lean more heavily than they should on the program. Data from the Social Security Administration finds that 62% of retired workers generate at least half of their income from the program, with 34% leaning on their monthly payout to provide between 90% and 100% of what they earn. Seniors who are heavily reliant on Social Security could be in for an unpleasant surprise, as you'll find out if you keep reading. 4. Around 60% claim benefits prior to their full retirement age Not only are retired workers far too reliant on Social Security income to make ends meet, but most are also willing to accept a permanent reduction in their monthly payout by claiming benefits before reaching their full retirement age -- i.e., the age at which you're eligible to receive your full payout, as determined by your birth year. The data shows that approximately 3 out of 5 retired workers are filing for benefits prior to reaching their full retirement age, thereby accepting a permanent reduction in benefits that could be as high as 25% to 30%, depending on their birth year. 5. 66 years, six months, and climbing Speaking of the full retirement age, it's on the rise. In 2019, folks who become eligible to claim Social Security benefits -- i.e., those turning 62 in 2019, who were thus born in 1957 -- will see their full retirement age increase by two months to 66 years and six months. The full retirement age will actually continue climbing by two months per year until 2022, when it reaches 67 years for everyone born in 1960 or later. In simple-to-understand terms, future generations of retirees are going to have to wait even longer to collect their full payout. 6. $1 trillion collected annually If you were ever curious just how much revenue the Social Security program collects each year, wonder no more: It's about $1 trillion, and it'll likely rise with each passing year. The 12.4% payroll tax on earned income of up to $132,900 is responsible for more than 87% of total annual revenue, with the interest income earned on the program's asset reserves and the taxation of benefits making up the rest. And yes, you did read that correctly -- Social Security benefits do become taxable at the federal and/or state level if you earn over certain income thresholds. 7. $6.5 billion in administrative costs Something you may not be aware of but certainly should know is that, based on the most recent annual data we have access to, administrative costs for the program totaled "only" $6.5 billion in 2017. Put in another context, it means that more than 99% of the revenue collected by Social Security winds up in the hands of eligible beneficiaries. It's one of the most cost-efficient social programs in the federal government. 8. $2.9 trillion in asset reserves Since 1982, the Social Security program has run a net surplus each and every year (albeit we won't have data on whether this was the case for 2018 until possibly June or July of this year). By law, these net cash surpluses, known as Social Security's asset reserves, are required to be invested in special-issue bonds and, to a lesser extent, certificates of indebtedness. As of December 2018, $2.9 trillion was accounted for in Social Security's investment portfolio, with these assets earning an average of 2.85% per year. And yes, the federal government is borrowing this money; but no, the program wouldn't be better off if it were paid back and this borrowing ceased. 9. $13.2 trillion long-term cash shortfall Social Security has been a financial rock for decades, but it's also in trouble. Due to ongoing demographic changes that include the retirement of baby boomers, increased longevity, and growing income inequality, to name a few, the program's $2.9 trillion in asset reserves is expected to be completely gone by the year 2034. While this doesn't mean Social Security is bankrupt, it does leave the program an estimated $13.2 trillion short if it's to sustain payouts at today's levels over the long term, which the Social Security Board of Trustees defines as the next 75 years. Should additional funding not be raised by Congress, benefit cuts of up to 21% could await. 10. 60 Senate votes needed to pass amendments Lastly, blame Congressional inaction for many of Social Security's issues. Although there are numerous proposals on the table from both Democrats and Republicans that could resolve the estimated $13.2 trillion shortfall, lawmakers haven't come close to reaching the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass an amendment to America's most important social program. Given that it's been four decades since either party had a supermajority, bipartisan cooperation will be needed to resolve the Social Security crisis. On Jan. 3, 2019, China made history. On that date, the People's Republic landed -- for the first time ever -- a robot on the far side of the moon. Launching from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China atop a Long March 3B rocket on Dec. 7, it took "Chang'e-4" just under four weeks to reach its objective, the Von Karman crater near the moon's south pole. There, Chang'e-4 deposited its Jade Rabbit 2 rover to tool around, snap a few first-ever close-up pics of the moon's "dark side," and conduct novel space experiments. In one, Chang'e-4 succeeded in getting a small plant seed to sprout -- the first new life on the moon! (Unfortunately, the plant later died.) In a bit of cosmic plagiarism, Chinese Lunar Exploration Project chief designer Wu Weiren declared the Chang'e-4 mission "a small step for the rover, but one giant leap for the Chinese nation," and also "a decisive move for our exploration of space and the conquering of the universe." Future plans include there-and-back-again missions to retrieve lunar soil samples, a Chinese manned mission to the moon, and, eventually, a manned space base on the lunar surface. And just like that, a new space race was begun. China vs. U.S. vs. whom? Some will argue this race has been ongoing for some time -- at least since China succeeded in landing its first rover on the moon in 2013 -- 44 years after the U.S. China's latest moon landing, however, adds a new dimension to the space race. Whereas 2013's landing merely matched an American accomplishment (and arguably fell short, because that mission, like this one, was unmanned), the success of Chang'e-4 notches a clear "first" for China, leapfrogging past the U.S. to explore hitherto unexplored territory. Nor is China the only country aiming to catch up with, and even surpass, the U.S. in cosmic accomplishments. This year alone, India, Germany, and Israel plan to send their first landers to the moon (Israel with a little help from SpaceX). If they're all successful, that would double the number of Earth-nations to have landed on Luna. Both Japan and Russia plan to send landers early next decade, and by 2030, Russia plans to put its first cosmonaut on the moon. What it means to investors As members of the human race, we should applaud China's (and others') achievements as successes for the human race. Don't expect the government to necessarily see things in that light, however. Competitive by nature, Americans are more likely to see China's (and others') successes in space as a challenge to be taken up -- and as proof that the U.S. space program needs more funding to keep up. As Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang remind us in their latest book on the military history of astrophysics, Accessory to War, the reason NASA was created in the first place was to take up a challenge from the Soviet Union, which had put Sputnik in orbit just the year before: "Here we are telling ourselves we're the top of the world and...they put up a satellite, and we're nowhere near capable of doing that at the time." After 11 years and billions of dollars, though, the U.S. not only closed the space gap but surpassed the USSR's achievements and landed a man on the moon. I'd expect a similar effort to get underway now that China is flexing its space muscles -- and that's the angle investors should be focusing on: how Chinese investment in space might spur further space investments by the American government and mean more space contracts for American companies. For example, in order for America to land humans or even robots on the moon, it would help to have a lander capable of landing on Earth's satellite. Late last year, NASA announced a new Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery Services program for this purpose, naming nine separate companies in the running to win contracts to develop technologies to return America to the moon. Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), one of the companies named in NASA's announcement (and by far the largest company named), is proposing to develop a reusable lunar lander that it says will be capable of shuttling back and forth between the moon and a proposed "lunar Gateway" orbital space station, carrying as many as four astronauts and a ton of supplies. At the same time, companies large (Blue Origin, SpaceX, United Launch Alliance) and small (Rocket Lab, Vector) are developing rockets that could one day carry those landers (both large and small) to the moon. To help fund these efforts, Congress is in the process of appropriating nearly $1 billion in funds for accelerating U.S. efforts to return to and begin exploitation of the moon. The greater the drumbeat of press releases announcing Chinese space successes, the greater will be the pressure on Congress to increase funding for NASA -- and its contractors -- to help the U.S. maintain pole position in the space race. As contracts are announced, we'll keep you up to date on the winners and losers in this latest space race -- and which companies to invest in to profit from it. The marijuana industry is blossoming before our eyes, with the cannabis movement taking its biggest steps forward in history in 2018. Last year, following years of promises from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada officially legalized recreational cannabis. In doing so, the country rolled out the green carpet for a multibillion-dollar industry and, more importantly, demonstrated once and for all that marijuana is a legitimate business. Now, with the country acting as both global ambassador and guinea pig, all eyes are on Canada to see exactly how legalization pans out. Cannabis supply is constrained, and it's visibly hurting sales Earlier this week, Ottawa-based Statistics Canada, the government agency responsible for producing statistics on the Canadian economy, resources, and society, announced cannabis sales for the first full month in the post-legalization environment. Following the $32.3 million (43.1 million Canadian dollars) that consumers spent on pot in the two weeks following its legalization on Oct. 17, 2018, the agency reports that sales rose by 26% to $40.8 million (CA$54.4 million) in November. But on an extrapolated basis, what was purchased in November only works out to $490 million in full-year sales. That's a far cry from the $5 billion-plus that industry analysts and Canadian regulators have called for in intermediate peak annual sales. Statistics Canada, as well as most dispensaries that have been interviewed by Canadian news media outlets, caution that the initial data isn't representative of the full potential of the pot industry. That's because supply constraints are hindering the ability of retail and online stores to meet demand. This supply shortage is occurring on three fronts: 1. Growers are still ramping up production Marijuana growers are still in the midst of expanding their capacity. Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQ:ACB), for instance, likely slots in as the country's largest grower by peak production. While the company conservatively estimates it'll yield "at least 500,000 kilograms," I believe Aurora Cannabis could easily produce around 700,000 kilograms annually by 2021 or 2022. But as of the beginning of 2019, Aurora Cannabis was only producing at an annual run rate of 100,000 kilograms. The company expects to hit 150,000 kilograms on an annual run-rate basis by March 31. It's going to take time -- especially with Aurora working on numerous organically built, retrofitted, and acquisition-based greenhouses -- to get its operations up to spec. The same could be said for other top-tier growers. OrganiGram Holdings expects to produce 113,000 kilograms when its Moncton, New Brunswick, facility is fully operational, but is currently only producing 36,000 kilograms on an annual run-rate basis. Aphria's management team has estimated 255,000 kilograms of peak annual yield. Right now, however, it's only producing about 35,000 kilograms annually. It'll be some time before Canadian growers are able to meet domestic demand. 2. Regulatory red tape at Health Canada The second reason for the supply shortage can be tied to the country's regulatory agency tasked with overseeing the industry, Health Canada. According to data from Marijuana Business Daily in May 2018, Health Canada had a backlog of more than 500 cultivation license applications to review and either approve or deny. These applications often sit around for months, or perhaps longer than a year, before the agency has time to make its decision. Without this license, finished greenhouses will sit idle. Additionally, Marijuana Business Daily noted in May that the average sales permit was taking 341 days between filing and approval. That's nearly a full year that growers are having to wait just to be given the OK to sell harvested cannabis. Health Canada simply doesn't have the means to work through its application backlog with any expediency, which is liable to constrain supply into perhaps 2020. 3. Provincial delays And part of the blame can be placed on the provinces themselves. Just as Health Canada is in charge of regulating cultivation license and sales permit approvals, individual provinces are overseeing the rollout of cannabis in terms of how the product can be sold -- i.e., whether or not online sales are allowed, and if government-run or private stores operate dispensaries. For example, in Ontario, Canada's most populous province and the region expected to see the highest amount of cannabis sales, a network of 25 dispensaries isn't expected to open until April. In the meantime, Ontario residents have no other choice but to purchase cannabis from the online store. This limits the ability of Ontario to meet the immediate demands of its residents. Permitting and red tape are just as much of an issue at the provincial level as at the federal level. Don't overlook the black market Although Canadians can expect a steady ramp-up in production from growers, and more cultivation licenses and sales permits to be approved in the months ahead, it doesn't mean that all consumers will necessarily be turning to legal channels to buy their marijuana. If anything, this supply shortage has been the perfect opportunity for black market growers to dig in their heels and claim substantial market share in the cannabis space. One of the biggest issues for legal channels is going to be competing with the illicit market on price. Even with Trudeau backing a low excise tax rate of 10%, black market consumers won't owe this tax. And illicit producers won't pay federal income tax, nor will they twiddle their thumbs waiting for a cultivation license or sales permit from Health Canada. It's evident from the early sales figures that the legal marijuana market will be huge. But it's also feasible to expect the black market to hang on to more of its share than initially expected following this shortage. In other words, it might be time for marijuana stock investors to reduce their expectations a bit. Check out all our earnings call transcripts. Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo has tapped Elliot Abrams, a central figure in Ronald Reagan's controversial anti-communist campaigns in Central America, as a new envoy to 'restore democracy' in Venezuela. Washington: Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo has tapped Elliot Abrams, a central figure in Ronald Reagan's controversial anti-communist campaigns in Central America, as a new envoy to "restore democracy" in Venezuela. Pompeo announced the appointment of Abrams on Friday, two days after Washington declared head of state Nicolas Maduro to be illegitimate and recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of crisis-plagued Venezuela. Pompeo said Abrams "will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country". Abrams told reporters in brief remarks: "This crisis in Venezuela is deep and difficult and dangerous and I can't wait to get to work on it." The veteran Republican foreign policy hand took charge of Latin America policy under Reagan, clashing with human rights groups as he channeled generous US support to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In one notorious incident, he initially dismissed the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians by the Salvadoran army at El Mozote in 1981. Abrams later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, when the Reagan administration secretly funded the Contra rebels in Nicaragua through arms sales to revolutionary Iran. Abrams later returned as a senior adviser to president George W Bush in charge of human rights and the Middle East. But when Republicans returned to the White House with President Donald Trump's election, Abrams was initially passed over as the new administration shut out critics of the unorthodox new leader. Abrams during the 2016 election had written a piece in The Weekly Standard magazine entitled, "When You Can't Stand Your Candidate," in which he argued that Trump "cannot win and should not be president of the United States". Pompeo, one of Trump's favourite cabinet members, assured that Abrams was on board, saying the new envoy was "eager to advance President Trump's agenda and promote the ideals and interests of the American people". Pompeo said that Abrams would join him Saturday as the secretary of state heads to New York for a special UN Security Council session on Venezuela. By Zachary Fagenson FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - A longtime ally of U.S. By Zachary Fagenson FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - A longtime ally of U.S. President Donald Trump was arrested on Friday for lying to Congress about the 2016 campaign's efforts to use stolen emails to undercut his Democratic rival in the latest arrest of the Special Counsel probe into possible election manipulation. Roger Stone, a 66-year-old self-proclaimed Republican "dirty trickster," declared himself innocent hours after a large team of FBI agents raided his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is one of the closest Trump associates to be charged in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to help win the election. Mueller said in court papers that Stone shared with multiple members of the Trump campaign team advance knowledge he had of a plan by WikiLeaks to release senior Democrats' emails. Some political analysts say the emails, which highlighted disputes among Democrats, contributed to Trump's stunning defeat of election rival Hillary Clinton. The charges mark the first time the Trump campaign has been publicly tied to WikiLeaks by Mueller's team and add to pressure on the president as the newly installed Democratic majority in the House of Representatives plans to step up investigations of him. "Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION!," Trump wrote on Twitter following Stone's arrest, using his most common denunciation of the Mueller probe. Stone was charged with seven criminal counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, witness tampering and making false statements. He is due to be arraigned in federal court in Washington on Tuesday. The charging documents included new details about Trump aides' alleged activities, including an incident in which a senior campaign official "was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information" WikiLeaks had about the Clinton campaign. The construction of that sentence does not make clear who gave that order to a senior campaign official, but raises the possibility the order came from Trump himself. Mueller spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on who gave that order. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If Trump did give the direction, he would have engaged in a conspiracy to violate federal hacking statutes, said Paul Rosenzweig, a lawyer who worked on the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton. "You are directing Stone to take possession of what he knows to be stolen materials," said Rosenzweig, now a fellow at the R Street Institute think tank. Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade said that if Trump gave the direction, it could be evidence the president participated in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by interfering with the fair administration of elections. Legal scholars are divided about whether a sitting president can be indicted. Many believe the remedy for criminal activity would be impeachment. STONE BLASTS 'INQUISITION' In a rowdy scene outside a courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Stone denounced his arrest as politically motivated and told reporters he had done no wrong. "After a two-year inquisition, the charges today related in no way to Russian collusion, WikiLeaks coordination or any other illegal act in connection with the 2016 campaign," he said, flashing the twin "V for Victory" signs that the disgraced President Richard Nixon was famous for. "I will not testify against the president because I would have to bear false witness against him." A crowd chanted "Lock Him Up," riffing on the "Lock Her Up" chant that Trump and his surrogates led against Clinton at rallies in 2016. Someone played the Beatles song "Back in the U.S.S.R." Others cheered in support of Stone. A magistrate judge released Stone on a $250,000 bond and ordered him to limit his travel to South Florida, New York City and Washington. Stone's reputation as an aggressive political operative dates back to the Watergate scandal of the 1970s when he was working for Nixon. He has a back tattoo of the late president's face. The indictment showed him using language evoking mob bosses - and even citing a "Godfather" movie - as he called an unnamed associate facing FBI inquiries "a rat. A stoolie." WikiLeaks, referred to in the indictment as "Organization 1," did not respond to a request for comment. More than 30 people have pleaded guilty, been indicted or otherwise swept up in the Russia inquiry, which has clouded Trump's two-year-old presidency. They include former close associates of Trump such as his one-time lawyer Michael Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, as well as 12 Russian intelligence officers. The indictment referred to an October 2016 email from a "high-ranking Trump Campaign official" asking Stone to inquire about future releases of emails by "Organization 1." Stone responded that "Organization 1" would release "a load every week going forward." The high-ranking official is believed to be former Trump campaign chief Steve Bannon, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bannon did not respond to a request for comment. STUMP CALL TO RUSSIA The interactions with WikiLeaks covered in the indictment occurred days before Trump called out to Russia during a campaign stump speech for help finding "missing" emails from Clinton's time as secretary of state, according to Democratic U.S. Representative Adam Schiff. "At the very time that then-candidate Trump was publicly encouraging Russia's help in acquiring Clinton-related emails, his campaign was privately receiving information about the planned release of stolen Clinton emails," Schiff said in a statement. The Kremlin has denied interfering in the election.. The DNC emails sowed division among Democratic voters by appearing to show party officials favoured Clinton over the insurgent candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as DNC chair in response. Stone's ties to Trump go back four decades. Stone has urged Trump to run for president since 1988, was chairman of his 2000 presidential exploratory committee and was a consultant when Trump considered running in 2012. Stone briefly worked for the 2016 Trump campaign but left in August 2015. The campaign said it fired him after he tried to grab too much of the spotlight. Stone insisted that he quit. Thereafter, he still played a key promotional role for Trump and communicated with people in his camp. (Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld in New York and Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Mark Hosenball and Ginger Gibson in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Alistair Bell and Daniel Wallis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Renee Maltezou and Michele Kambas ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece on Friday ratified a landmark accord that changes the name of neighbouring Macedonia, ending a decades-old dispute with its neighbour and opening the way for the ex-Yugoslav republic to join the European Union and NATO. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who hammered out the deal with his Macedonian counterpart last year, secured enough votes to scrape the vote through a deeply-divided parliament on the third day of a debate fraught with emotion, anger and cries of betrayal By Renee Maltezou and Michele Kambas ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece on Friday ratified a landmark accord that changes the name of neighbouring Macedonia, ending a decades-old dispute with its neighbour and opening the way for the ex-Yugoslav republic to join the European Union and NATO. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who hammered out the deal with his Macedonian counterpart last year, secured enough votes to scrape the vote through a deeply-divided parliament on the third day of a debate fraught with emotion, anger and cries of betrayal. The settlement seeks to end a 28-year old row between Athens and Skopje over the use of the term "Macedonia" by renaming the tiny Balkan state "Republic of North Macedonia" to differentiate from Greece's northern province of Macedonia. Many Greeks opposing the deal view it as an attempt by their neighbours to hijack ancient Greek civilization and culture. But Tsipras, a leftist firebrand who swept to power an anti-austerity platform as Greece was deep in financial crisis in 2015, made a point of pursuing a deal. "This is a historic day for Greece, ending a pending issue which was a burden on our foreign policy," Tsipras told journalists. Greece's European Union allies, who once shuddered at the anti-austerity rhetoric from the 45-year old premier, welcomed the ratification. "They had imagination, they took the risk, they were ready to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good," European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted. "Mission impossible accomplished." GREEKS ANGRY, MEDIATORS RELIEVED The dispute has been on the United Nations agenda for almost three decades, ever since the break-up of former Yugoslavia in 1991 and Greece, swept up by nationalist rage, slapped a short-lived trade embargo on the tiny landlocked state. Matthew Nimetz, a veteran U.N. diplomat who worked on the matter for years, called ratification "visionary". "This historic agreement between two neighbours opens the door to a new relationship between them and ushers in a new era for the consolidation of peace and security in the Balkans," he said in a statement. The row had stymied Macedonian attempts to join the EU and the NATO military alliance in a region where the two organizations jostle for influence with Russia. Moscow had taken a dim view of the accord; Greece had taken an unprecedented step in mid 2018 of expelling four Russians, including two with diplomat status, for perceived meddling on the matter. Opinion polls show that most Greeks oppose the settlement, a fact which may not bode well for Tsipras in an election year. A general election is due by October, and his party is trailing the main opposition, the conservative New Democracy party, by up to 12 points. The debate in parliament was heated, with voting almost interrupted on Friday when an MP for the far-right Golden Dawn Party, asked to cast his vote, responded: "No to treason!" Protests against the deal have at times turned violent this week, and on Thursday evening police fired teargas to disperse crowds outside parliament. Smaller groups of people braved heavy rain on Friday to demonstrate outside parliament. New Democracy slammed the agreement. "This deal should never have been signed or brought to parliament for ratification," party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament. "It is a national defeat ... a national blunder that is an affont to the truth and history of our country." (Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Kevin Liffey) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. President Donald Trump's confidant Roger Stone has been charged with lying about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails to leverage a win for Trump and damaging to Hillary Clinton's 2016 election bid in the Robert Mueller probe. Washington: President Donald Trump's confidant Roger Stone has been charged with lying about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton's 2016 election bid. Prosecutors allege that senior Trump campaign officials sought to leverage the stolen material into a White House win. The self-proclaimed "dirty trickster", arrested by the FBI in a raid before dawn on Friday at his Florida home, swiftly blasted the prosecution as politically motivated. In a circus-like atmosphere outside the courthouse, as supporters cheered him on and jeering spectators shouted, "lock him up," Stone proclaimed his innocence and predicted his vindication. "As I have said previously, there is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself," Stone said. The seven-count indictment, the first criminal case in months in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, provides the most detail to date about how Trump campaign associates in the summer of 2016 actively sought the disclosure of emails the US says were hacked by Russia and then provided to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. It alleges that an unidentified senior Trump campaign official was "directed" to keep in contact with Stone about when stolen emails relating to Clinton might be disclosed. Stone is the sixth Trump aide or adviser charged by Mueller and the 34th person overall. The nearly two-year-old probe has exposed multiple contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign and transition period and revealed efforts by several to conceal those communications. The indictment brings the investigation even further into Trump's circle of advisers and suggests campaign officials were eager to exploit the stolen messages for political gain. But prosecutors did not accuse Trump of wrongdoing or charge Stone with conspiring with WikiLeaks or with the Russian intelligence officers Mueller says hacked the emails. They also did not allege that Trump aides knew in advance of the hacking. The prosecution mirrors other Mueller cases in alleging cover-ups and deception, accusing Stone of lying to lawmakers about WikiLeaks, tampering with witnesses and obstructing a House intelligence committee probe into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the election. Trump attorney Jay Sekulow said the indictment "does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else." Trump himself on Friday called the investigation the "Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country!" CNN aired the video of the raid at Stone's home in Fort Lauderdale at Florida, showing agents in body armor using large weapons and night-vision equipment, running up to the home and banging on the door. "FBI open the door!" one shouts. "FBI, warrant!" Stone could then be seen in the doorway in his sleepwear before he was led away. Though not uncommon for the FBI to make early-morning arrests of targets under indictment, it's the first time Mueller has used that tactic. In court papers, prosecutors wrote they had concerns that if Stone was tipped off to the indictment, it would increase the risk he would flee or destroy evidence. Hours after his arrest, Stone appeared in court in a blue polo shirt and jeans. In releasing him on $250,000 bond, a magistrate judge restricted Stone's travel to South Florida, Washington and New York City and ordered him to avoid contact with witnesses. He's due Tuesday in a court in Washington, where the case was filed. "This morning, at the crack of dawn, 29 FBI agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles, with their lights flashing, when they could simply have contacted my attorneys and I would have been more than willing to surrender voluntarily," Stone said outside court. Known for his political antics, conspiracy theories and hard-ball tactics, Stone has reveled in being a Washington wheeler-dealer dating back to former president Richard Nixon's administration. On Friday, he mimicked Nixon's famous "V'' gesture as he left the courthouse. Stone, a longtime friend of the president's, briefly served on Trump's campaign, but was pushed out amid infighting with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Though sidelined, he continued to communicate with Trump and stayed plugged into his circle of advisers. The indictment says Stone repeatedly discussed WikiLeaks in 2016 with campaign associates and lays out in detail Stone's conversations about emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and posted in the weeks before Trump beat Clinton. The document says that by June and July 2016, Stone had told senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating that WikiLeaks had obtained damaging documents on Clinton. After WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, the indictment says, a senior Trump campaign official "was directed" to contact Stone about additional releases and "what other damaging information" WikiLeaks had "regarding the Clinton campaign." The indictment does not name the official or say who directed the outreach to Stone. Though no officials are identified by name, one Trump campaign aide cited in the case is Steve Bannon, who later became Trump's chief White House strategist. Bannon, referred to as a "high-ranking Trump Campaign official," exchanged emails with Stone in October 2016 about WikiLeaks' plans. The indictment quotes from those emails, which had previously been made public by news outlets. While the indictment provides some new insight into the Trump campaign, it deals largely with what prosecutors say were Stone's false statements about his conversations about WikiLeaks with New York radio host Randy Credico and with conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, who rejected a plea offer from Mueller last year. The indictment says Stone carried out a "prolonged effort" to keep Credico from contradicting his testimony before the House intelligence committee. During that effort, prosecutors note that Stone repeatedly told Credico to "do a 'Frank Pentangeli,'" a reference to a character in "The Godfather: Part II" who lies before Congress. Stone is accused of threatening Credico, including through messages in which he called him "rat" and "stoolie." He also threatened to "take that dog away from you," a reference to Credico's dog, Bianca. "I am so ready. Let's get it on. Prepare to die (expletive)," Stone also wrote to Credico. Stone has said for months he was prepared to be charged, while maintaining he had no inside information about the contents of the emails obtained by WikiLeaks or the timing of their release. Still, he has long attracted scrutiny because of his WikiLeaks-related comments, especially a 2016 tweet "Trust me, it will soon (be) the Podesta's time in the barrel" that appeared to presage knowledge that Podesta's emails would soon be released. In a tweet Friday, Podesta turned Stone's words against him, writing that it was now "Roger's time in the barrel." The daughters of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges, have been taken to Canada. Islamabad: The daughters of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy charges, have been taken to Canada for safety reasons ahead of a court hearing next week that could see their mother finally freed. The mother-of-five was acquitted last October after spending eight years on death row for blasphemy. Asia Bibi is expected to join her daughters in Canada if Pakistan's Supreme Court upholds its decision to quash her conviction for defaming the Prophet Mohammed during a row with fellow workers, The Telegraph reported. Two daughters of the 54-year-old Catholic farmhand last month flew to Canada with their guardian and diplomatic sources told the Telegraph and the country is a leading contender to take her if freed. Pakistan's apex court quashed her 2010 conviction and death sentence in October, in a case that had drawn worldwide outcry from Church groups. But after days of protests by hardline Islamist clerics, Prime Minister Imran Khan agreed to allow a petition against the decision. The petition will now be heard on 29 January by a panel including the country's top judge. The court is widely expected to uphold its original decision, which demolished her conviction and was scathing of the prosecution case. Asia Bibi, her husband and family have decided they will be unable to live safely in Pakistan if she is freed, with religious parties and her own villagers still calling for her to hang. Hardline Islamists had been knocking on doors in the neighbourhood where her husband and daughters live, raising fears that they could be killed before she has a chance to leave Pakistan. Meanwhile, Asia Bibis lawyer Saiful Malook, who left for the Netherlands last year due to security concerns, has decided to return to Pakistan. Talking to The Express Tribune, Malook said he would return to attend the 29 January Supreme Court hearing on the review petition against Asias acquittal of blasphemy charges. He, however, requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to ensure his security in Islamabad. Press Trust of India Scientists say they have discovered what may be the Earth's oldest rock in a lunar sample returned from the Moon by the Apollo 14 astronauts. An international team associated with Center for Lunar Science and Exploration (CLSE) in the US found evidence that the rock was launched from Earth by a large impacting asteroid or comet. This impact jettisoned material through Earth's primitive atmosphere, into space, where it collided with the surface of the Moon which was three times closer to Earth than it is now about four billion years ago, researchers said. The rock was subsequently mixed with other lunar surface materials into one sample, according to the study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The team developed techniques for locating impactor fragments in the lunar regolith, which prompted CLSE Principal Investigator David A Kring to challenge them to locate a piece of Earth on the Moon. The researchers found a two-gramme fragment of rock composed of quartz, feldspar, and zircon, all commonly found on Earth and highly unusual on the Moon. Chemical analysis of the rock fragment shows it crystallised in a terrestrial-like oxidised system, at terrestrial temperatures, rather than in the reducing and higher temperature conditions characteristic of the Moon. "It is an extraordinary find that helps paint a better picture of early Earth and the bombardment that modified our planet during the dawn of life," said Kring, a Universities Space Research Association (USRA) scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). It is possible that the sample is not of terrestrial origin, but instead crystallised on the Moon, however, that would require conditions never before inferred from lunar samples, researchers said. It would require the sample to have formed at tremendous depths, in the lunar mantle, where very different rock compositions are anticipated, they said. The simplest interpretation is that the sample came from Earth, according to researchers. The rock crystallised about 20 kilometres beneath Earth's surface 4.0 to 4.1 billion years ago. It was then excavated by one or more large impact events and launched into lunar space. Previous work by the team showed that impacting asteroids at that time were producing craters thousands of kilometres in diameter on Earth, sufficiently large to bring material from those depths to the surface, researchers said. Once the sample reached the lunar surface, it was affected by several other impact events, one of which partially melted it 3.9 billion years ago, and which probably buried it beneath the surface. The sample is, therefore, a relic of an intense period of bombardment that shaped the solar system during the first billion years. After that period, the Moon was affected by smaller and less frequent impact events. Harris is a woman. Like other candidates, Harris will be judged on her record. She will be challenged from the left to explain some of her perceived failures: Why, as California attorney general, did she not prosecute OneWest Bank, whose CEO was future Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, for what her own office described as thousands of foreclosure law violations? The Branson Board of Aldermen on Thursday (now postponed to July 28) will consider an ordinance that would require face coverings in public spaces. The aldermen might approve it, disapprove it, or approve an amended version. Would you be in favor of some form of mandatory face covering ordinance in the city of Branson? You voted: Reuters Smartphone makers in India are calling for export credits on devices and tariff cuts on machinery imports as part of measures they say will make Asias third-biggest economy a global smartphone manufacturing hub. The I, (ICEA), whose members include some of the industrys biggest names including Apple Inc, made the proposals in a 174-page document reviewed by Reuters and submitted to the government ahead of its annual budget announcement next week. As the country is nearing to achieve saturation point... without an export take-off manufacturing growth cannot be sustained and accelerated, the ICEA said in the document. The ICEA confirmed it submitted the document. The finance and technology ministries did not respond to requests for comment. The governments Make in India campaign beginning 2014 and gradual tax increases on imports of mobile phone components have spurred the creation of more than 260 manufacturing units in the country and over 6,00,000 jobs, ICEA said. That has helped India become the second-biggest producer of mobile phones after China, and prompted foreign smartphone makers such as Oppo and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd as well as contract manufacturers like Wistron Corp and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (Foxconn) to ramp up production for phones primarily sold domestically. The industry is now set for a further boost under a broader National Policy on Electronics currently in the works. Yet at the same time, the government also appears to be raising obstacles. Next month, it will begin taxing imports of touch panels two months earlier than initially planned, sending mixed messages to handset manufacturers as setting up the means to assemble panels locally is a significant expense. Consistency in policy is important for any industry to mature, said Navkendar Singh, associate research director at consultancy International Data Corp. Back-and-forth in policy hurts investor sentiment and the countrys positioning as a destination to manufacture. In its document, ICEA proposed the government raise the export credit received on the value of mobile phone shipments to 8 percent from 4 percent. It also called for the introduction of a 5 percent export credit on services such as mobile apps. Other proposals from the body - which also counts Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Oppo and Foxconn among its members - include lower import taxes on capital goods such as machinery and ensuring manufacturers have access to low-cost capital. The next phase (of manufacturing) can now probably be driven by export incentives, said Vikas Agarwal, India head of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, which is not an ICEA member. The eventual goal is to establish India as the preferred destination - and not just driven by duties, but by the opportunities in the Indian market. TOUCH PANEL ASSEMBLY The ICEA, formerly the Indian Cellular Association, also called on the government to re-consider levying duties on new components, and allow for the local manufacture of parts already under the import tax regime to develop in a timely manner. The import tariff on touch panels has been of particular concern to manufacturers including Samsung. The South Korean firm has written to the federal government saying it cannot make two of its high-end models in India because of the tariff, the Economic Times reported this week. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters Samsung had written to the government, and that the firm was investing in a touch panel assembly plant in India which would ready by the end of March 2020. Samsung declined to comment. The government aims to export $9 billion worth of mobile phones in the year ending March 2020 from just $100 million in 2017, the ICEA said in a previous report. Despite some improvement in exports since 2015, India still has a long way to become an export hub, it said. According to the India Today poll, Narendra Modi is facing discontent over lack of jobs for young people and a weak farm economy, and polls have forecast his ruling alliance will fall short of a majority in the election due by May. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modis ratings have dropped to their lowest-ever level, but he still leads in popularity before a national election expected in the next few months, an India Today poll showed on Friday. Modi is facing discontent over lack of jobs for young people and a weak farm economy, and polls have forecast his ruling alliance will fall short of a majority in the election due by May. The India Today poll, which was conducted from 20 December to 8 January, showed his popularity rating at 46 percent. Thats down from 65 percent in January 2017, a little over a month after he announced a nationwide ban of 500- and 1,000-rupee notes. Nearly 900 million people will be eligible to vote in the election and surveys to predict how they will vote have often gone wrong. Rahul Gandhi, the main challenger to Modi and leader of the opposition Congress party, has seen his ratings rise from a low of 10 percent two years ago to his all-time high of 34 percent, 12 percentage points shy of Modi. The poll interviewed 12,166 voters across 97 parliamentary constituencies out of the total 543 constituencies in India. In an earlier poll by India Today, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance was forecast to win 237 seats, down from 336. The Congress alliance was expected to take 166 seats, up from 59 won in the 2014 elections. Modis popularity began to wane after his sudden move to ban large rupee notes, then imposed tax reforms that hurt small traders and led to several factories closing. The aftershocks of the two moves were exacerbated by falling commodity prices, which affected the incomes of a largely agrarian society. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi is being described as a Brahmastra that the party is firing at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi is being described as a Brahmastra that the party is firing at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Priyanka hasnt objected to this metaphor. Nor has Congress denied its using her as Lord Brahmas missile. This silence is astonishing for two reasons. One is that Brahmastra is labelled in Hindu epics as a weapon of last resort. It was used in mythological wars only when all other astras to defeat the enemy were either exhausted or considered duds. The tacit admission by Congress that Priyanka is its Brahmastra can only mean that its war against Modi and his BJP has taken a hopeless turn. It also means that the R-missiles Congress has used Rahul and Rafale have utterly failed, and BJP can only be vanquished by the invincible B-missile. That brings us to the second reason why the whole thing is so baffling. Is Brahmastra really invincible? Hindu mythology, which says its invincible, also says it isnt at least not always. Epics that talk of the B-missile also mention other B-series weapons. Brahmastra isnt just one thing. It has different versions like, for instance, the BrahMos missile, whose name comes from the first letters of Indias Brahmaputra and Russias Moskva rivers and which the two countries have jointly developed. Brahmastra vs Brahmadanda Brahmadanda was another version of Brahmastra. In his celestial wisdom, Lord Brahma found it necessary to create Brahmadanda as an antidote for his own Brahmastra. Its a good thing that he did it. When sage Vishvamitra fired Brahmastra against Maharishi Vasishta, it was swallowed by the latters Brahmadanda. Lord Hanuman too survived Brahmastra when Indrajit dispatched it in his direction. Those who call Priyanka a Brahmastra have only read one half of Hindu mythology. The other half leaves open the question of Modi using a Brahmadanda to neutralise it. But even if Priyanka isnt as unbeatable as Modi-baiters are making her out to be, the danger of her deployment to Modi in eastern Uttar Pradesh and, by corollary, in the rest of India cant be shrugged off altogether. Thats not because she has a proven track record of attracting voters like a magnet draws iron filings. Its only because she is a new weapon that Congress would be firing, and any good fighter would be wary of untested weaponry. Despite some lost battles in recent state Assembly elections, BJP can depend upon Modi to be a good fighter who would refuse to underestimate Priyanka. Wishful thinking But overestimating Priyanka would be just as harebrained as underestimating her is foolhardy. The ecstatic song-and-dance in Congress and sections of media which are in love with the dynasty are based on unproven theories and hypotheses of the wishful-thinking kind. One is that she will cut into BJPs upper caste votes. She might, and that could harm BJP. But Priyanka might also end up dividing the anti-Modi vote in Uttar Pradesh in a way that could help BJP. If the chances of such an eventuality force SP and BSP in UP to come to some kind of an understanding with Congress, the party may benefit from it, and thats what Modi would be wary of. The common refrain among those celebrating Priyankas appointment is that she will jazz up the partys dishevelled machinery. That could happen in a state where Congress has hit an abysmal depth. The party can only come up because it isnt possible to go any further down. But enthusing cadres isnt exactly the same thing as enthusing voters. All that we know of Priyanka so far is that she is equipped with a natural skill to charm listeners. I could see it as early as 1999 in Bellary (now called Ballari) where Sonia was contesting against BJPs Sushma Swaraj. Congress supporters and some dynasty-loving senior journalists from Delhi transported themselves to cloud nine just by watching her walk gracefully behind her mother. It was evident even then that she connected with voters better than her mother. When Sonia spoke, she seemed as if she was reading the shopping list at the grocers, but the daughter no doubt held the attention of listeners. There were, of course, comments about Priyankas face being a Xerox copy of Indira Gandhis and about the way she tilted her chin just like her grandmother. Similarities extend to hair and nose, and even to the way she joins her palms in a namaste like Indira. We are also told that she has the same glow in her face that Indira apparently had, though many of us missed it. And we are informed that Priyanka has even kept some of her grandmothers saris. Memories of Classic Coke In sum, the biggest quality of Priyanka that the familys crawling and cringing admirers are trumpeting about though she herself keeps a dignified silence is that she is a duplicate of Indira Gandhi. Thats what makes the launch of an Indira-lookalike in the political market look suspiciously like a corporate stratagem to rebrand old brands. For instance, when its old product was untenable, Coca Cola rebranded it as New Coke and, when that didnt work, the original was brought back as Coke Classic. The Priyanka-Indira comparisons are, however, grossly unfair to her. Priyanka is Priyanka and not the clone of somebody else even its her grandmother. To be fair, her entry into politics is also not a sudden event. She has been around, dabbling in politics. If Rahul Gandhi is to be believed, she delayed her formal entry into politics only because of her growing children. The real reason for this delay may never be authentically known. Priyankas political debut isnt sudden, but her appointment as a general secretary is. Thats what raises questions about the intentions behind it. And that also raises another question of shame an affront to healthy democracy. Whether India will be Congress-mukt or not, Congress may never be dynasty-mukt. Author tweets @sprasadindia A large survey of 34,470 people on trust spanning 320 LS constituencies, 291 urban wards and 690 villages in 285 districts across 23 states Narendra Modi is the most trusted leader by far. BJP will try to make this a presidential election. Congress advantage lies in making it a state-level contest. Trust, Stephen MR Covey has written, is the one thing that changes everything. The word, it is safe to say, is high on the minds of the hundreds of millions of Indians who will vote for a new Parliament later this year. Who do we trust to guide our country through the economic and social upheavals we are facing? Who do we trust to guarantee law and order? Who do we trust to ensure our children receive an education and will get jobs? At the polling booth, trust is the opening balance of every candidate before the first vote is cast. The bigger this opening balance, the better the chances of victory. Firstposts National Trust Survey breaks new ground by seeking to understand which leaders Indians trust and why. In an election as bitter and fractious as the upcoming one, the depth of the relationship of the voters with the principal players is key to understanding their behaviour. This survey is very different from opinion polls seeking to provide us a snapshot of the public mood. Mood can be fickle, but trust is lasting. After the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) historic victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in March 2017, many political observers suggested that the return of the Narendra Modi-led government looked inevitable. The emerging consensus now is that the BJP is unlikely to repeat its brute majority performance of 2014. Can the BJP and Narendra Modi turn the rising tide against themselves? The Survey conducted by IPSOS over three calendar months November, December and January (for the second wave in four election states after the results) points both to the possibilities as well as the constraints under which the BJP and Modi will have to frame their re-election bid. While on many indicators the results from the survey point to a very familiar pattern, there are some interesting insights. First, the fait accompli: On Indias national political scene Narendra Modi is in a league of his own. The gap between how much respondents trust Modi and Rahul Gandhi is telling. Modi at 53% trust support is nearly two times more than Rahul at 27%. Mamata Banerjee (4%), Mayawati (3%) and Congress partys latest star Priyanka Gandhi (0.9%) are but a blip on the national radar. Similarly, respondents trust in the principal opposition party remains very low. Surprisingly, the Congress victory in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh brings no good news regarding the improvement in the trust levels associated with either Rahul Gandhi or the main opposition party. There is indeed a slight decline in Modis popularity in the states where the second wave of the survey was conducted post-election, but a similar decline was also visible in Rahul Gandhis popularity. Second, the BJP is trusted by a substantial number of respondents to tackle several issues ranging from law and order, addressing inequality, providing employment opportunities, dealing with corruption, and improving health, educational and general infrastructural facilities. The Congress lags the BJP on all these indicators. As the comparison of Wave I and Wave II data from four states suggests, though the trust level with the BJP declines slightly, there seems to be no improvement in the trust levels associated with the Congress. ARITHMETIC AND CHEMISTRY Third, despite the high level of trust for Modi as a leader and his governance record, this popularity is both socially and geographically limited. Regionally, the prime minister remains very popular, and respondents rate his government very highly, in the Hindi heartland and in western India. The same is not the case in southern and eastern India. Rahul Gandhi is more popular than Modi in the southern states. Trust in Modi is higher among the upper segments of Indian society, i.e., Hindu upper castes, urban dwellers, more educated and middle classes. How should Modi approach his re-election bid? The survey data unequivocally suggests that Modi has national traction and thus the BJP will have a better chance if it manages to make this election a choice between Modi and Rahul Gandhi. While many of the controversial policies (such as demonetisation) do have reasonable support, the BJP seems to be losing the political capital generated in the first half of its term. The BJP needs to ensure that the contest remains national in character as state-by-state arithmetic does not look favourable. But that is not necessarily good news for the principal opposition party either. The data indicates that in the three Hindi heartland states where the Congress won the election, there is a convergence in trust levels associated with the BJP and Congress but the change is driven by a decline in the BJPs position, not Congress rise (see Graph D). So, unlike the BJP, the Congress advantage lies in making this election a state-level contest. Recent Opposition moves suggest that they have begun executing their plan to force the BJP to fight multiple parties in multiple states. The insertion of Priyanka Gandhi into the electoral mix days after Mayawati and Akhilesh decided to keep the Congress out of the their alliance suggests a coordinated plan to bleed the BJP by cutting into its vote bank. Modi revels in a One Vs All situation and the Opposition wants to deny him his electoral elixir. Rahul Gandhi, the survey suggests, has made some inroads in his bid to knock down brand Modi. His Rafale allegations seem to be sticking but only to the extent of causing suspicion. This further suggests that the Congress has successfully challenged the BJP in controlling the political narrative and in setting the agenda. The Congress must continue setting the terms of debate on employment opportunities, agrarian distress, among others, without falling prey to attacking the prime minister with personal jibes. It may win the party brownie points among the sympathisers, but given the PMs popularity, it has the potential to backfire. Thus, Rahul Gandhi must avoid the election becoming a choice between himself and Modi. In conclusion, the data from Firstposts The National Trust Survey suggests that while the contest of 2019 is wide open, the players have limited strategies available to them. That is why, perhaps more than in any past Indian election, 2019 will be a question of trust. (BV Rao is Editor, Firstpost. Rahul Verma, Consulting Editor with Firstpost, is a political scientist and Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research.) Jayant Kaikini's No Presents Please is vivid yet full of contradictions, spirited yet lonely, embattled yet big-hearted the city of Mumbai, the award presenters said. Kannada author Jayant Kaikini, on 25 January, was named the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 for his translated work No Presents Please. The announcement was made at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet at the iconic Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata. The award was given to Kaikini and translator Tejaswini Niranjana, along with a trophy by eminent writer Ruskin Bond. This is the first time that a translated work has won the US $25,000 prize. According to the presenters, No Presents Please is vivid yet full of contradictions, spirited yet lonely, embattled yet big-hearted the city of Mumbai. Empathy and survival are the constant, co-dependent themes that unify every strand of this extraordinary book, creating a shimmering mosaic of a conflicted city that is as kind as it is, at times, cruel, the DSC Group said. According to the prize process, the award money would be equally shared between the author and the translator. No Presents Please is published by HarperCollins India. The other shortlisted authors were Kamila Shamsie (Home Fire), Manu Joseph (Miss Laila Armed And Dangerous), Mohsin Hamid (Exit West), Neel Mukherjee (A State Of Freedom) and Sujit Saraf (Harilal & Sons). Authors Jayant Kaikini and Translator Tejaswini Niranjana share the moment weve all been waiting for. #dscprize #dscprize2018 #southasianliterature pic.twitter.com/ggtdDhoi8q The DSC Prize (@thedscprize) January 25, 2019 Jury Chair Rudrangshu Mukherjee said the panel was deeply impressed by the quiet voice of Kaikini through which he presented vignettes of life in Mumbai and made the city the protagonist of a coherent narrative. "The Mumbai that came across through the pen of Kaikini was the city of ordinary people who inhabit the bustling metropolis. It is a view from the margins and all the more poignant because of it. This is the first time that this award is being given to a translated work and the jury would like to recognise the outstanding contribution of Tejaswini Niranjana, the translator," he said. The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, which was instituted in 2010, awards the best work in South Asian fiction writing each year. The past winners have been from various countries and their work has reflected the importance of South Asian culture and literature. Surina Narula, co-founder of the DSC Prize said, "The challenges faced by the authors to weave their protests against the wave of anti-globalisation into their writings of seemingly harmless pieces of literature could be seen through their work, migration being a major theme this year." Besides Mukherjee, the jury comprised Nandana Sen, Claire Armitstead, Tissa Jayatilaka, and Firdous Azim. With inputs from the Press Trust of India Eleanor Henderson's Everything I Have Is Yours is a love story and a medical mystery all in one book Everything I Have Is Yours is above all else, the story of a marriage that, like any, is filled with both an abundance of love and an abundance of obstacles. This Republic Day, as we celebrate the promise of democratic India, this one fact is inescapable: savage violence is our national language. "On your right," wrote the philosopher Umberto Eco, after a visit to the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Vista, "you see Dracula raising the lid of a tomb, and on the left your own face reflected next to Dracula's, while at times there is the glimmering figure of Jack the Ripper or of Jesus, duplicated by an astute play of corners, curves, and perspective, until it is hard to decide which side is reality and which illusion." "A shadowy character is outlined against the background of an old cemetery then you discover that this character is you". Then, hidden away in our newspapers, there are these stories: the Hyderabad drunk who beheaded four puppies, and flayed a fifth to death, in August; the two Ghaziabad men who raped and killed a bitch, mother of a litter of five, in December; the Delhi security guard who tied eight puppies into a sack, and threw them off the third floor. In Kolkata, this month, we had the nursing student, who may one day watch over our children in a hospital ward, bludgeoning 16 puppies to death. Each of these stories takes us into a world of savagery as strange as Eco's house of horrors. Each one of them is true. And each one ought be a prism to reflect upon ourselves. This Republic Day, as we celebrate the promise of democratic India, this one fact is inescapable: violence is our national language. The young people who, across the Hindi-language heartland, find agency and meaning in lynching humans they suspect of killing cows, are merely one symptom. There are Kashmiri parents who cheer teenagers killing for Islam; caste groups who applaud the murder of young people guilty of nothing but being in love; men who spill their frustrations on the bodies of women; women who educate their children with clenched fists. Government data show seven out of 10 children subjected to violence by adults; 50 per cent sexually abused. Perhaps this ought not surprise us: the Republic of India was not forged only from non-violence. "England" Karl Marx noted in his now-unfashionable but perceptive 1853 essay on colonial India, "has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo [sic]". From authority structures within families to the status of women: imperialism, and capitalist modernisation shattered the basic build-blocks of Indias civic life. India is seeing the emergence of a giant cohort of dependent elderly, at precisely the same time record numbers of undereducated young people are struggling to find work. Demographer JP Singh has noted that even where the joint family exists, it does so "in a nominal or skeleton form". Elsewhere in the world, societies in crisis have behaved exactly as Indians do. In May, 1916, a crowd gathered in Waco, Texas, some of it made up children on their school lunch-break. They cheered as 17 year-old, mentally-disabled Jesse Washington was castrated and his fingers cut off, before he was burned to death. Local photographers sold post-cards of the event: "This is the Barbecue we had last night," one reads, in faded brown ink. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian political theorist, noted that fascism arose in a society "where mothers educate their infant children by hitting them on the head with clogs". He noted: "Each year several dozen workers fell in the streets; and peasants were sent to pick grapes in some places with muzzles on, for fear they might taste the fruit." It is hard not to look into this mirror, though, and see ourselves. Like so many other polities in the making, India is an anaemic state: it has too few police officers for its population, too few courts to administer timely justice; too few doctors and nurse and schools For the practice of politics, the anaemia of the state has had practical consequences. Power has contracted out to community-level tyrants. These tyrannies co-exist in a state of permanent warfare, each waging battles of attrition without end, to shore up group boundaries; to signal to the state their power; to unite followers through the ritual shedding of blood. People committed to India's constitutional promise need, however, to do more than lament this world. The experiences of states from capitalist South Korea to communist Cuba tell us that a robust government, capable of providing education, security and health, is key to a successful transition to modernity. The killing exposes a deep vein of blind faith and violence that runs through Indias most forward-looking state, which prides itself in its high-90s literacy rate and gender ratio It was pouring that morning but the storm clouds went unnoticed by the villagers who gathered in the backyard of a small house to watch the Kerala Polices forensics squad dig up the soft, wet earth. Teenaged Arjuns body was the first to emerge, then came his older sister, Arsha, and mother, Susheela. The family patriarch, Krishnankutty, was at the bottom, his legs bent to accommodate his frame in the ditch he had dug to compost goat droppings. In the six months since the murders at Kambakakkanam village in Idukki, police have pieced together the bizarre story that culminated in the bloodshed: a sorcerers brew of fear and greed. Just as people were coming to terms with the murders, Kerala was to see another round of ugliness and violence in the name of faith after the Supreme Court allowed women of all ages into the revered Sabarimala temple. Many have questioned the anger over the entry of women into a temple in a state considered among Indias most forward-looking. There are more such aberrations. National Crime Records Bureau data shows that Kerala has one of the lowest murder rates in the country but the highest rate of political murders eight times that of Uttar Pradesh and five times that of Bihar, the two states with notorious crime records. The coastal state has been the largest contributor of jihadists to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Maoists and extreme Hindu nationalists are growing in numbers. Beneath the glossy, Gods-Own-Country marketing image, theres a deep vein of blind faith that perhaps also explains the Kambakakkanam murders and the Sabarimala unrest. No one in Kambakakkanam admits to being close to the 52-year-old Krishnankutty. Some even warned their children to keep away from 17-year-old Arjun, who had intellectual disability, and college-going Arsha, five years his senior. People talk about Krishnankutty in whispers, as if afraid an evil spirit might overhear them. But, they used to peep out of their windows to watch the flashy cars that would park outside his house. Within the walls of the neatly painted house, neighbours told Firstpost, Krishnankutty would gaze at a bowl of uncooked rice to tell fortune. He would foretell great perils and, for anywhere between 2,000 and 200,000, ways to ward them off. There is reason to believe that Krishnankutty feared violence. In each corner of the house, he had weapons: a sword hung in the corner of the main room and behind the bed was a hammer. He also had choppers and wooden sticks in different sizes. Perhaps the only person Krishnankutty trusted was his 30-year-old apprentice, Aneesh. Living in a one-room annexe to the Krishnankutty home, Aneesh was sometimes given charge of sacrificing chickensone of the many rituals performed for the clients. But, unknown to Krishnankutty, Aneesh was in the grip of his own dark gods. Another black-arts practitioner, investigators say, told Aneesh that his ascent to a full-blown priest was being held back by his Master. Krishnankutty also possessed palm-leaf scriptures in an obscure language but had refused to initiate Aneesh. Three years into his apprenticeship, Aneesh convinced himself that killing his Master would make him heir to the powers Krishnankutty had harnessed from 300 goddessesas well as his wealthy customers. Libeesh, a friend of Aneesh who ran a local motorcycle-repair workshop, was willing to join the plot. Police say he was promised the gold Krishnankutty had hidden in the house. The killings, on July 29, 2018, were savagebut incomplete. The two men returned the next night, to find Arjun alive, propped up against a wall. Aneesh pulled out a hammer from the house and smashed Arjuns head, killing him, says KP Jose, deputy superintendent of police, Thodupuzha. Later that night, Aneesh pierced his thumb with a pin and let the blood drip into a bowl. The ritual was meant to ensure the police would not catch him. By the eighth day, we caught him, says Jose. Krishnankutty had failed to foresee his violent death. Police investigating Krishnankuttys customers were surprised at the spread of his business. His customers included everyone--students, housewives, businessmen and politicians. The faithful came from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, drawn by his formidable reputation. How will we live now? cried Geetha, a client, when she was told about the murders. Krishnankutty had predicted how and when her estranged husband would come back to her. He got that one right. Unlettered, Krishnankutty was one of nine siblings. About a decade ago, he left cattle rearing and put all his energies into practising black magic. The village was sceptical of the sorcerer in its midst. After his neighbours, Sasi PK and Vilasini, lost three cows in quick succession, Krishnankutty told them they were victims of a curse. Sasi ignored his suggestion to rid the curse through incantations. But the black magician of Kambakakkanam soon became something of a rock star. By fluke, some of his prayers worked well and people started coming to him, Sasi says. Krishnankuttys murder has not dented faith in the gods he worshipped or their agents on earth. About 100km away in the neighbouring Thrissur district, dozens of black-magic temples thrive in Peringottukara village, a study in Indias bizarre collision between faith and consumerism. The Devasthanam is one such temple. The youngest of the three brothers who own the shrine runs a cinema hall next door, where latest Malayalam films are screened. Across the road, is the temples guest house. An obese 31-foot falcon fashioned out of concrete watches over the expensive cars the devotees leave in the parking lot. Pure entrepreneurialism meets shamanism effortlessly at the Devasthanam. Those who want solutions from Chatan, the diminutive demon god worshipped there, must register their name in the temple office to be called before the priest. The price of a personal consultation, lasting a few seconds, is 20,000 rupees, a hen and a bottle of boozebrand no bar. In the next temple, run by the uncle of the Devasthanam head priest, a 21-day prayer schedule is priced at Rs 40,000. A few metres away, devotees nervously huddle in front of a small shrine in the vast premises of Avanangattil Kalari, the oldest of the black-magic temples. The silence is broken by ringing of temple bells, announcing the arrival of Chatan, in the body of the medium. Possessed by Chatans spirit, the priest shakes vigorously. Ghungroo bells tied to his chest make a racket, while the head priest translates his mystic wordsgibberish to the uninitiatedinto Malayalam. Thirty seconds of advice, more often than not, earn a wad of banknotes from the grateful supplicant. The pious have brought with them hens, which they rotate over their heads before depositing the squawking birds in a special donation box. Every few minutes, staff collect the birds, take them to the back of the temple. In the backyard, staff wring the necks of the hen, tossing their heads into a basket. I am doing this as a duty, for the sake of people, said AU Raghuraman Panicker, the head priest. For centuries, Idukkis tribes practised the shamanic rituals from which the Chatan temples practices are drawn. It is an appropriation of a tribal practice, explains Jairam Poduval, a professor of arts, history and aesthetics at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara. The tribal cults have been absorbed into a Brahmanical framework. Poduval says the reason for Chatans popularity is that wishes can be fulfilled by paying cash. Chatans favours are open to all, irrespective of caste, gender, or even religion, as long as they can pay. Udayakumar, a rationalist from Thrissur, says simple demand-and-supply led to mushrooming of the Peringottukara temples. Anyone who worked at a temple and understood how Chatan prayers are done could start their own, he notes. In a society beset with pressures of modernisation unemployment, strain of inter-caste and inter-religious ties and a growing burden of psychiatric illnesses the temples step in where civic institutions lack. Lots of people go to these temples in search of solutions to problems like depression, Podval says. Keralas black-magic world, rationalist-movement activists say, has cashed in on the opportunity: fraud and cheating arent uncommon. These murders, based only on fictitious beliefs, shook the region, says Anilkumar KN, president of Kerala Rationalists Association. But the beliefs have survived. Even a fake faith, perhaps, is better than the rootlessness and uncertainties that come when a polity and culture cant keep pace with change. The path to Krishnankuttys house is covered with withered leaves. Rubber collected from trees has dried in the cups tied to the trunk. A torn surgical glove hangs lonely from a branch and the pit where the bodies were found is covered with shrubs. His brothers burnt everything in the house. The floor and walls are washed and the house has been locked. His ghost, however, still haunts Kerala. Republic Day parade gives the people only opportunity to turn out in large numbers to cheer, respect, and show an indebtedness to the men and women in uniform It is that time of the year again. As India celebrates the 70th Republic Day on 26 January, the debate rages over the need for the parade and the so-called muscular message of militarism it conveys. Parallels are often drawn with the Independence Day celebrations where the armed forces are present but the thrust of the event is political to demand "demilitarisation" of the Republic Day parade which to some symbolises jingoism. The parade marks Indias arrival as a republic which happened a couple of years after it gained independence on 15 August, 1947. There is a connection between the two occasions but the significance of becoming a republic and respecting the primary symbols associated with it are of great importance. Months after independence, India was dragged into its first armed conflict over Kashmir. Even as it grappled with the worlds biggest refugee crisis resulting from the Partition, key institutions of the state responded with alacrity to first contain and then pushback the Pakistani move to wrest Kashmir. All this was happening while India debated the shape, structure, and ethos of its Constitution the most important requirement of an independent nation and a republic. The last shackles of imperial institutions are finally jettisoned once a republic is constituted and the law book becomes supreme rather than an individual. It is another matter that some institutions of the state have become more imperial than their predecessors but that debate is for another day. The form and message of the parade continue to be a matter of discussion, which has only got more animated over the time. The naysayers have been around from the day India was declared a republic, always coming up with some bizarre reason or the other. For them, anything military is anathema and anything patriotic is avoidable at all costs. They believe such symbols are at the root of militarising a society, which in their estimation is akin to fascism. Children get brainwashed, are led astray and tend to support extremist positions under the influence of these smart uniforms and shiny brass. All that heavy weaponry on display at Rajpath encourages an insidious gun culture. Such is the thinking of the naysayers and these are their constantly expressed thoughts. Their line of argument is as predictable as they are incorrect. Predictable because these points are fairly universal, and used around the world to express opposition to all such parades and military functions. Peaceniks all over the world use the same language to explain their opposition to militaries, in general, and parades, in particular. These are also incorrect because there is no proven co-relation between military parades, brainwashed children, armed violence and creeping fascism. In fact, the reverse could well be true of India. Among all the democracies and republics, India is easily the least militarised society in the world. It has the lowest percentage of the population in uniform, armed or otherwise. Indias supposedly large armed forces, in fact, pale in comparison to most countries when it comes to the proportion of the population. Despite being deployed in operational responsibilities for more than 50 years, the armed forces, especially the army, remain outside our daily lives in terms of eulogising press coverage, etc. As far as society at large is concerned, the army is still isolated, which is a pity. Also Read - Republic Day Parade: Tanks and artillery are passe, 26 Jan celebrations require renewed focus on power of people There are countries that dont shy away from showing respect to their military. To cite just one example, which is enviable and copyable, every Russian couple visits the nearest military mausoleum after exchanging marriage vows and only then do the celebrations begin. Those in service get married in uniform, making the occasion even more significant. Such is the respect that the military draws from the people who use each and every occasion to express their gratitude to the uniform that keeps them safe. This is so unlike India, where there is only one occasion for the people to turn out in numbers to cheer, respect, and show an indebtedness to their guardians. Majority of India is quite happy with the fact that someone else is wearing the uniform and going out there to do the dirty job of fighting. The Republic Day parade offers them a chance to thank their protectors. But, even that one occasion is constantly questioned by an ungrateful minority. Thankfully, most of India doesnt read their pontifications and those who do, dont really care. India respects its military, especially the army, and enjoys that one day when the might is on display. We should let them continue that swank and awe. The author is editor of Defence and Security Alert and was a member of the parliamentary standing committee on defence between 2004 and 2009 Follow LIVE coverage of Republic Day Celebrations here Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty venue on the 70th Republic Day, due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. Aizawl: Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty venue on the 70th Republic Day, due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. No member from the general public attended the function, police said adding that only ministers, legislators and top officials were present. The boycott call was given by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies. Six armed contingents participated in the Republic Day parade, officials said. Up to 30 contingents traditionally take part in the annual event. In other district headquarters, the deputy commissioners unfurled the tricolour in the absence of senior officials and public, as was the case in sub-divisional and block headquarters. However, the Republic Day celebrations passed off peacefully without any untoward incident, despite the presence of placard-carrying protesters near the venues, police said. In his address, Rajasekharan said stringent measures would be taken to protect state borders, and welfare schemes for the development of people residing in border areas would be given due importance. He said measures would be taken for execution of Mizoram Village-Level Citizen Registration, and emphasised that the state government is committed to preserve and promote the Mizo identity, tradition and values. "This government will endeavour to work for the unity and brotherhood of all Mizo people living within India and across the globe within our constitutional framework," he said. The governor said Mizoram would introduce the Socio-Economic Development Policy (SEDP), a "holistic inclusive development programme aimed at bringing in socio-economic transformation". The SEDP would accelerate growth in all key sectors where the state has tremendous potential, he said. Hinting that prohibition on liquor would be reimposed in the state, he said, "In keeping with our election manifesto, necessary measures will be taken to repeal the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) Act, 2014, implemented in the state since 15 January, 2015." Rajasekharan added that his government would continue to work towards making Mizoram the "cleanest state in India". Officers call for an ambulance and begin performing CPR, the video shows. They administer Narcan, which is used to block the effects of opioids. They say this is a mental health emergency. Some officers on the scene speculate aloud that Black is on drugs, though that was not substantiated in the autopsy. Cyril Ramaphosa discussed issues of mutual interest with Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh New Delhi: Former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday met South African president Cyril Ramaphosa and are learnt to have discussed issues of mutual interest. Ramaphosa, who is in the national capital as the chief guest for the 70th Republic Day celebrations, discussed issues of mutual interest with Rahul and also with Singh. The South African president, who is also the president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) also invited Rahul to his country and he accepted. "President Ramaphosa invited Shri Rahul Gandhi to visit South Africa and the invitation was accepted and the details worked by the Foreign Affairs departments of the two parties," said senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, who also also present during the meeting. "President Ramaphosa lauded India's role in the fight against Apartheid. Both, the ANC president and Congress president Rahul Gandhi reaffirmed the commitment to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two fraternal parties," the former Union minister said. Sharma said the two parties have century old historic ties and had a discussion on party-to-party, regional and global issues during the discussions between Ramaphosa and Rahul. Rahul's inability to impress voters and inspire trust in his leadership could hobble his party Priyanka Gandhis entry into active politics has helped the Congress avoid the embarrassment of presenting her elder sibling Rahul as a Hobsons choice to voters meaning a take it or leave it choice which actually presents no real options at all. The findings of the Firstpost National Trust Survey suggest Rahul is much less compelling an option when pitted against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the Congress president can take heart that he is head and shoulders above the other options posed to votersMayawati, Mamata Banerjee and HD Deve Gowda. Oneon-one, the Congress would love to portray Rahul as an athlete stretching every sinew, busting his heart and lungs in trying to surge ahead even as supporters cheer him on and excited fans predict a victory in the 2019 race. But unfortunately, Rahul may be on a treadmill going nowhere. In 2013, when Rahul emerged as a potential contender for the post of prime minister, his ratings were abysmally low compared to Modis. Six years later, even with the media buzz around him, the recent victories in Assembly polls, his relentless attacks on Modi, and the perception that he has matured as a leader, his acceptability rating as Indias leader remains at 26.9 per cent, just half that of Modi. Just last month, the Congress defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. But in these states, where the Congress polled around 40 per cent of the vote, less than 25 per cent of the electorate wants Rahul as PM. In Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu Rahuls acceptability is higher than Modis. But in two of these states, the Congress is barely an option, relegating his popularity into just a theoretical concept thats unlikely to translate into votes. The survey data shows that while the Congresss credibility is rising, trust in Rahul remains low relative to Modi. This raises the possibility that the recent revival of the Congress in the Hindi heartland could be undone by the consistently lower rating of its leader. In the Lok Sabha polls, a large number of those who voted for the Congress may thus return to the BJP because of their apparent lack of enthusiasm to see Rahul lead India (Graph B on page 3). Rahuls low rating isnt the only headache for the Congress. The survey shows his strategy of attacking the PM on issues like demonetisation, corruption and the Goods and Services Tax is not working on the ground. Indians still approve of the PMs initiativeseven demonetisation has the backing of 66.7 per cent of respondents and give him credit for Indias economic development. The survey revalidates the axiom that dominated the 2014 chatter: that Modi is invincible as long as Rahul is the only alternative. Its a narrative that suits the BJP. Unfortunately for the other opposition parties, they cant even step into the vacuum. The numbers show the Congress president, to borrow the title of a Chetan Bhagat book, is at least a half-choice. Others in the opposition camp dont count for much. Mamata Banerjee, the next leader in the queue, is far behind Rahul, at just 4 per cent. Arvind Kejriwal, who once dreamt of being Modis nemesis, has faded into oblivion. But the Opposition also knows the only thing necessary for the triumph of the BJP is for the Congress to do nothing. In 2014, the BJP won 100 out of the 106 seats where it was in a direct fight with the Congress. This high strike rate helped it cross the majority mark on its own. If the BJP repeats this performance in 2019, it would land very close to the majority mark even if the SP-BSP alliance wins a huge chunk of seats in Uttar Pradesh. So, Rahuls inability to impress voters and inspire trust in his leadership is calamitous not just for the Congress but also for other prime ministerial aspirants. In this backdrop, Priyankas entry into active politics has the potential to save the Congress and help the Opposition with the expedient but simple option of stepping up as an alternative. A sister coming to the rescue of an embattled brothera contemporary twist to the traditional Indian custom of Raksha Bandhanmay help Modi raise the decibel level on the naamdar vs kaamdar narrative. But with her presence, Priyanka offers the traditional Congress voter averse to seeing her brother as PM, at least, the courtesy of a choicethe freedom to choose another horse to back instead of taking or leaving the one nearest the door in Hobsons proverbial stable. Pakistani troops on Saturday violated ceasefire by targeting forward posts and villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, promoting 'strong and effective retaliation' by the Indian army. Jammu: Pakistani troops on Saturday violated ceasefire by targeting forward posts and villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, promoting "strong and effective retaliation" by the Indian army, a defence spokesman said. The unprovoked small arms firing and mortar shelling from across the border started in Mankote area of Mendhar sector around 10 am, the spokesman said. He said Indian army retaliated strongly and effectively to silence the Pakistani guns. A police official said the exchange of fire between the two sides continued till 1230 hours but there was no report of any casualty on the Indian side in the Pakistani firing. Meanwhile, defence sources said there was no traditional exchange of sweets between the two armies at Chakan Da Bagh crossing point along the LoC in Poonch on the occasion of the Republic Day. "No exchange of sweets at Chakan Da Bagh in view of the ongoing tense situation along the LoC," the sources said. Since the beginning of the New Year, Pakistani troops have been regularly violating the ceasefire especially along the LoC in Jammu division. A few incidents of ceasefire violations were also witnessed along the International Border this year. On 15 January, Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad of the Border Security Force was killed when he was hit by Pakistani sniper from across the international border, while an Army porter lost his life along the LoC in Rajouri district on 11 January, the day when two army personnel including a major were killed in an improvised explosive device attack along the LoC in Naushera sector of Rajouri. The year 2018 had witnessed the highest number of 2,936 ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has stressed the need for implementation of United Nations Security Council's resolutions on Kashmir. Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has stressed the need for implementation of United Nations Security Council's resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir, according to a report in Radio Pakistan. As per the report, Qureshi said that Indian security forces "are bluntly victimising" the people in Jammu and Kashmir. He added that India "has broken all records of atrocities", according to the report. Earlier, in October 2018, Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan, in a tweet, had said that time has come for India to realise that it must move to resolve the Kashmir dispute through dialogue in accordance with the UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Responding to Imran's remarks, the Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said Pakistan's leadership should look inwards and address its own issues. He said Islamabad should stop supporting and glorifying terrorists and terror activities against India and its other neighbours. "The remarks made by Pakistan's prime minister in his tweet today are deeply regrettable. Instead of making comments on India's internal affairs, Pakistan leadership should look inwards and address its own issues. Pakistan would serve the interest of the people of the region by taking credible action against all kind of support to terrorism and terror infrastructure from all territories under its control rather than supporting and glorifying terrorists and terror activities against India and its other neighbours," Kumar said. In August, India said that Pakistan's new government must not indulge in "polemics" but work to build a South Asian region free of terror and violence, after Pakistan had raked up the Kashmir issue at the UNSC. "I take this opportunity to remind Pakistan, the one isolated delegation that made unwarranted references to an integral part of India, that pacific settlement requires pacific intent in thinking and pacific content in action," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said. With inputs from PTI Hours before India will celebrate the 70th Republic Day, an encounter broke out between militants and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar. Three police personnel have sustained injuries in an ongoing encounter. On the morning of the 70th Republic Day, an encounter broke out between militants and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar. Three police personnel sustained injuries in the ongoing encounter. Reportedly, two militants were killed by security forces in the Khonmoh area on the outskirts of Srinagar. Officials said their identities and group affiliation were being ascertained. The joint operation was carried out by 50 Rashtriya Rifles, Central Reserve Police Force, and Srinagar Police at the encounter site. #JammuAndKashmir: 3 police personnel sustained injuries in ongoing encounter with terrorists at Khunmuh Khrew area in #Srinagar outskirts. All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) January 26, 2019 On Friday, militants carried out two grenade attacks on security forces in Anantnag and Pulwama districts. A loud bang was heard in the Civil Lines area of the city as well, but the police have ruled out a terror attack. No casualties were reported in the incident. However, Hindustan Times reported that a police constable was wounded in the grenade attack in Anantnag. He has been hospitalised, a police official said. A third blast near a CRPF bunker in Kashmir's Sopore was also reported. SP Sopore, Javid Iqbal was quoted as saying, Cant say whether it was a grenade or something else. We are checking if any nearby shops have been damaged." According to reports, CRPF claimed that four of their posts had been attacked, however, Jammu and Kashmir Police had confirmation of only three of the incidents. Two alleged Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members were arrested on charges of planning to carry out terror strikes in the national capital during Republic Day celebrations, Delhi Police officials said on Thursday. They were identified as Abdul Latif Ganaie (29), alias Umair alias Dilawar, and Hilal Ahmad Bhat (26) residents of Jammu and Kashmir's Wakura and Batapora areas respectively. Dilawar was arrested on the intervening night of January 20-21 after police got a tip off from military intelligence that a house in Laxmi Nagar was frequented by suspicious persons, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) PS Kushwah said. The Bharat Ratna for Pranab babu carries even greater significance beyond the BJP-Congress political rivalry To think that Bharat Ratna and Padma awards are only about merit and achievements is to stay within a bubble of unaffordable innocence. The awards are and have always been primarily about political signalling. Through its choice of Bharat Ratna recipients, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has just delivered a masterclass in political signalling. Whether the signalling may serve any real political purpose is debatable. What the signalling shows is that slowly but surely the narrative of India is being reclaimed and suppressed ideas of India are coming to the fore that ran parallel to the official, sanitised idea of India flowing from one dynasty. This is a slow, yet momentous and irreversible change that cannot be turned back even if political power changes hands. Indias highest civilian award for former president Pranab Mukherjee an avowed Congressman and a Nehruvian socialist by an National Democratic Alliance government breaches the political divide. But if breaching the political divide and recognising giant leaders from the Congress stable who never found favour with the Dynasty were the sole determinants, then former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao would have been a better choice. Mukherjees profile, however, is unique. By conferring the Bharat Ratna upon him, the Modi government has carried out a giant trolling of the Congress party, who always perceived Mukerjee as a bit of an indispensable inconvenience. A Congressman for five decades, Mukherjee was twice passed over by the Dynasty for the prime ministers chair despite the fact that on both occasions he was the senior most leader and most eligible candidate. Pranab babu, as he was known in New Delhi during his long association with the Congress and the power centres, was widely expected to take over as the prime minister after Indira Gandhis assassination. Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister instead and Mukherjee, who was opposed to the dynastic succession, had to leave the party. He floated the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress that later merged with Rajiv-led Congress in 1989 and the veteran was eventually reinstated. Minzhaz Merchant, author and Rajiv Gandhis biographer, writes on Twitter: Pranab Mukherjee boarded special Calcutta-Delhi flight on Oct 31, 1984 after hearing about Mrs Gandhis assassination. Co-passengers? Rajiv Gandhi & other Cong leaders. Throughout flight Pranabda sat alone, expecting as seniormost Cong leader to be appointed PM. Rest is history. Minhaz Merchant (@MinhazMerchant) January 25, 2019 The second opportunity came in 2004 when the United Progressive Alliance came to power by defeating the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA, but this time Sonia Gandhi bypassed Mukherjee to trust Manmohan Singh, a technocrat, with the top job. Neither in experience nor seniority was Mukherjee behind Singh. Mukherjee, Congress Man Friday, was Indias youngest finance minister at the age of 47 (in 1982). He later handled the finance portfolio again and was also in charge at various times of two crucial ministries: defence and external affairs. Though the veteran Congressman became close to the Gandhis, the trust deficit between him and the family never completely dissipated. Mukherjee was reportedly not the top choice for Sonia for even the presidents post. The UPA chairperson apparently favoured Hamid Ansari, but had to ultimately buckle under pressure the circumstances. The award to Mukherjee by the Modi government is intended to deliver several messages at once. It showcases BJPs fairness in recognising a Congress leader as opposed to Congress petty-mindedness in not being able to breach the ideological divide in honouring someone such as Vajpayee. Congress internal fault lines are also being exposed with recognition for a leader who developed an uneasy relationship with the Gandhi family post Indiras assassination. Modi is essentially highlighting the malevolence of Congress culture that places pliancy and bloodline over merit. The fact that ex-president Mukherjee visited the RSS headquarters in Nagpur for a lecture and courted the wrath of Congress leadership could have been an added incentive. But the Bharat Ratna for Pranab babu carries even greater significance beyond the BJP-Congress political rivalry. Ahead of a hotly-contested Lok Sabha polls where the BJP is looking to recover some of its expected losses in the Hindi heartland by gaining in the east, the award for the quintessential Bangali bhadralok (Bengali gentleman) from Birbhum is expected to carry special significance for Bengal. It is simultaneously BJPs bid to endear itself to the electorate from a state from where it hopes to do well, and also a clever move to catch Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the wrong foot. It is interesting that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has not yet congratulated the former president for being conferred the Bharat Ratna: construed as a moment of pride for all Bengalis. Mamata has been recently stressing on regional pride and Bengals cultural identity, ostensibly to tackle the growing challenge posed by BJP which is seen largely as a north Indian party in Bengal. Given the recent invoking of virulent Bengali chauvinism, Mamata should have seized the opportunity to congratulate Pranab babu who epitomizes the bhadralok culture. The fact that she couldnt points to political difficulty she faces. This signalling is evident in the choice of other two awardees. The posthumous Bharat Ratna for the late Bhupen Hazarika, the bard of Brahmaputra, simultaneously recognises his genius and offers a solace to people from Assam at a time of great political unrest. Similarly, the nod to the core RSS base is evident from the way the late Nanaji Deshmukh was posthumously honoured, a man whose contribution remains under-appreciated in the field of social work, rural development and education. Nanaji Deshmukh's stellar contribution towards rural development showed the way for a new paradigm of empowering those living in our villages. He personifies humility, compassion and service to the downtrodden. He is a Bharat Ratna in the truest sense! Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 25, 2019 In his book Religion, Caste and Politics in India, academic Christophe Jefferlot referred to him as an exceptionally dyanmic pracharak who started an educational movement in rural India through Saraswati Shishu Mandir schools. Though the awards carry a lot of political significance, whether that will translate into tangible benefits for BJP remains the question. Not even the best psephologists or political scientists know for certain if people vote on the basis of quotidian impulses or abstract ideas such as regional pride. Navy divers on Saturday recovered a second body today from the flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya where over 13 workers remain trapped since 13 December, 2018. Shillong: Navy divers on Saturday recovered a second body today from the flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya where over 13 workers remain trapped since 13 December, 2018. The development comes after the divers from Indian Navy had retrieved the dead body of a miner on Friday, officials said. According to the Navy officials, the second body was detected 280 feet inside the mine in the state's East Jaintia Hills, by the Indian Navy diving team. Earlier on Friday, one body recovered from the mine at Ksan near Lytein River in East Jaintia Hills. A total of 15 miners were trapped in the illegal mine in Lumthari village since December 13 last year, when water from the nearby Lytein river flooded the mine. Since then, a multi-agency rescue operation is underway to evacuate the miners. On 21 January, the Centre and the Meghalaya government told the Supreme Court that operations to rescue the miners trapped in a rat-hole mine in the East Jaintia Hills district of the state will not be abandoned. The assurance on the part of the administrations came a day after the Indian Navy had decided to suspend efforts to pull out the decomposed body of a miner that it spotted on 16 January. Mainstream cinema finds a new formula in the run-up to Lok Sabha polls 2019, as films about politics and politicians keep the box-office busy Hows the josh? Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted a packed auditorium of Bollywood celebrities while inaugurating the National Museum of Indian Cinema in Mumbai last week. By now, Bollywood fans recognise those words as a popular dialogue Vicky Kaushal mouths in Uri, essaying a gallant Major who leads Indian troops during the 2016 surgical strike on Pakistan. The `45-crore Uri is patriotic melodrama, and fast inching towards a `200-crore global haul. If Uri has raked it in reconstructing a high point of Indias military history, Modis using a popular dialogue from that film (which recreates him as an architect of the operation) to greet B-Town swish set has impressed most of his target votebank. In India, few efforts endear a leader to the masses as a Bollywood connect. The content of Uri, as well as the prime ministers use of the films dialogue at a high-profile do, represents a new era of political propaganda. Only recently, The Accidental Prime Minister claimed to espose how Sonia and Rahul Gandhi routinely scuttled the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singhs efforts during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule. Mahabharat mein do families thi. India mein toh ek hi hai(the Mahabharat was a tale of two families. India just has one), drawls Akshaye Khanna as Sanjaya Baru. The camera cuts to a close-up of German-origin actress Suzanne Bernerts Sonia Gandhi even as the dialogue fades, underlining which family Baru, media adviser to Singh, is referring to. In Petta, superstar Rajinikanth reloads vintage action hero flourish but accommodates a new breed of villains goons from Uttar Pradesh who talk of gau raksha and force young lovers into marriage because they were celebrating Valentines Day. Yeh dharti, yeh mitti kissi ke baap ki jaagir nahin hai (this land is no ones private property), Rajini roars, snubbing right-wing diktats in a threadbare script about a Hindu-Muslim romance. Ahead of his entry into politics, Rajini insisted Petta is not meant to push an electoral agenda. You do note this is the second time in a year that Thalaivar has condemned hardline Hindutva, after Kaala. A political backdrop and politicians (mostly depicted as villains) are not new to mainstream cinema, but the intent of the new crop in the genre is. Never before have commercial films pushed political propaganda as in the run-up to the 2019 general elections. It seems to be working. If Uri is a superhit, The Accidental Prime Minister, riding a small budget, is seeing reasonable returns (`28.54 crore after 14 days, and counting). Petta continues its bumper run (`150 crore-plus after 14 days). The film might be a success because of Rajini, but its political message is not lost on viewers. If cinema of political propaganda makes most of the charged political atmosphere all around, the advantages are obvious: The real star is the subject and not the actor, and there is a ready fan base. Propaganda cinema conveniently sets up lucrative prospects without having to invest in expensive superstars. A section of Bollywood has found its star in Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Two biopics of the prime minister are being readied ahead of the polls, one starring Vivek Oberoi and the other Paresh Rawal. While Rawal is a member of Parliament for the BJP from Ahmedabad East, the partys push will be crucial for Oberois home production. Regional satraps are at it, too. Thackeray, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray, opened this week. The film, written by the Senas Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut, justifies the late right wing leaders aggressive credo of asserting Marathi identity. Yahan pehla haq Marathi logon ka hai (the Marathi people have first right here), thunders Siddiquis Thackeray, as the poster of a Hindi film is taken down from a Mumbai single-screens facade to accommodate a Marathi release. Elsewhere, NTR: Kathanayakudu, a biopic of NT Rama Rao starring and produced by his son Nandamuri Balakrishna, deifies the late Telugu matinee idol-political titan to boost the Telugu Desam Partys prospects. In a nation besotted with idol worship, intelligent cinema that questions the hallowed and the mighty can be a risk. Gulzars Aandhi, said to be influenced by the lives of Indira Gandhi and Tarkeshwari Sinha, and Sudhir Mishras Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi, a political drama around the Emergency, are ample proof. Both films struggled to find release. Sanjay Gandhi is said to have confiscated all prints of Kissaa Kursee Kaa, Amrit Nahatas satire on the Indira Gandhi regime. There have been the stray Inquilaab, Raajneeti or Satta, but these films used politics as a backdrop to merely create formula fare. The latest crop is not trying to be intelligent either. In sync with mainstream diktats, the slant is towards setting up tales of hero worship. The outcome, mostly, is hagiography. Its obvious. If push comes from the same party as the subject, the film will avoid all shades of grey, as Thackeray or NTR: Kathanayakudu did. If the idea is to tarnish an opponent, the protagonist can always be caricatured. The Accidental Prime Minister is a case in point. Anupam Kher, who plays ex-PM Manmohan Singh in the film, downplays the idea. When people vote, they do not decide anything based on a film. It would be silly to say this film will change election results this year, he argued. Khers contention may not necessarily hold true in a semi-literate mass market hugely influenced by cinema, you realise, as the actor ambles and mumbles awkwardly in a bid to project Singhs style of walking and talking. The effort, inadvertently comic, leaves you wondering how an actor of Khers calibre manages to botch it up. It makes for bad cinema but it also works at reducing the former UPA regime to a joke ahead of the elections. There are other projects. Nithya Menen plays J. Jayalalithaa in The Iron Lady, an upcoming Tamil biopic. BJP sympathiser Vivek Agnihotris The Tashkent Files probes conspiracy theories around Lal Bahadur Shastris mysterious death during his 1966 visit to the then Soviet Union. Agnihotris film must make the Congress wary. After what the party felt was objectionable portrayal of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in The Accidental Prime Minister, could Shastris death be ammunition for the BJP to take aim at Jawaharlal Nehru? Karnataka CM and JD(S) chief HD Kumaraswamy said when approached by the BJP as part of the saffron party's 'Operation Kamala', the JD(S) MLA said he was not in need of a gift and would like to be left alone. Bengaluru: Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday accused BJP of continuing its efforts to poach MLAs and claimed that one of his party's legislators was on Thursday offered huge amount of money under the saffron party's "Operation Kamala". "Operation Kamala is still on. Even last night they (BJP) offered one of our MLAs, a huge amount of money and asked him where it should be sent. You will be surprised to know the gift amount. Our MLA responded that he did not need any gift and wants to be left alone," said Kumaraswamy. "This is how they are still working on poaching," Kumaraswamy said. Former state chief minister and Congress legislature party leader Siddaramaiah also accused BJP of attempting to poach legislators. "There is no operation Kamala. They have benami money which they have earned through corruption. With that corruption money they tried and failed." Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the other hand refuted all such allegations and asserted that legislators are trying to leave the JD(S)-Congress coalition due to internal fight. Party leader Yeddyurappa said, "We are not resorting to any operation Kamala. Their MLAs are trying to go away from them because of their internal fights and it is their duty to keep them intact within their party. They should stop giving baseless statements against us. We have 104 MLAs and two independent MLAs and we are concentrating on our work as the Opposition." The Congress, which shares power with Janata Dal (Secular), has 80 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly, including the Speaker. Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting held under the supervision of central leaders KC Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge. In the poll season, claims of EVM manipulation have become part of our everyday news cycle science be damned. Editor's Note: This article appears in the print edition of Firstpost. To read other stories from the paper, click here. *** We were all riveted to our television screens this week as a masked cyber expert proclaimed that the 2014 Lok Sabha election was stolen by the Bharatiya Janata Party by hacking electronic voting machines en masse. The evidence for his claims is conspicuously thin: we have no idea of the credentials of the supposed cyber expert or verifications of his hyper-real claims, including mass killings and assassinations. But that hasnt stopped plenty of people who should know better from buying the story that EVMs can be manipulated using low-frequency waves, which conspiracy theorists refer to as military grade technology. This is because claims of EVM manipulation have become part of our everyday news cycle science be damned. The Election Commission of India has on several occasions explained the workings of the machines and even conducted hackathons inviting the sceptics to prove their claims. No one has been able to hack an EVM in these hackathons but that has done little to put an end to the conspiracy theories. Such manipulation is simply not possible. The technology used in EVMs and the processes put in place by the ECI do not allow such hacking. I speak from experience. I was a polling booth agent for the Aam Aadmi Party during the 2014 election. I have had extensive discussions with engineers who work on embedded software and device drivers. I also have 20 years experience in the technology sector. First, the technology aspect. An EVM consists of a control unit and a ballot unit. The ballot unit is the one that voters use to pick their preferred candidate, or reject all of them (NOTA), and the control unit is where the vote is recorded. Each booth at a polling station has a combination of the two units that are connected through a wire. The control unit has a piece of software listening on a port to receive a vote from the ballot unit. Just because the control unit receives a vote over the wire from a ballot unit doesnt in any way mean that it can receive a vote or malicious code that can manipulate votes wirelessly from another source. For it to be able to do so, the control unit has to be explicitly designed and manufactured to be compatible with wireless mechanisms and protocols. That involves both a hardware component called a Network Interface Card in average desktops, laptops, servers, etc as a well as a software component that can listen for wireless messages. The ECI has repeatedly said EVMs arent manufactured for wireless communication. Any potential hacker should have at least gone to the ECI hackathon and just opened up the machine to check for that. Also, the code, which assigns a vote to a candidate, totals votes for each of the contestants and adds up the votes registered on a machine, is burnt into the chip. The device is one time programmable, which means this burning of code into the chip can only be done once per EVM. It is not the model where software is downloaded separately and installed and later upgraded. Second, the poll process, which I have seen for myself. Each polling centre has multiple booths. For instance, a school can be a polling centre and a room in the school can be a booth. Four election officials are present in each booth. In addition, an agent for each candidate is also allowed I was the agent posted for AAPs Bangalore Central candidate. An hour before voting begins, the polling officer conducts a mock poll involving all the agents to ensure that the keys have been correctly mapped to candidates. The control unit is then reset and polling begins. Once polling ends, the officer generates a receipt from the control unit that mentions the total number of votes polled in that booth. The receipt is signed by each agent and the EVM sealed with a receipt inside it. Each agent is also given a written receipt, mentioning the number of votes polled. On the counting day, candidates agents use these receipts to cross-check that the votes displayed by the EVMs are the same as those on their receipts and also that the main signed receipt is in the machine. This ensures that no manual tampering can be done between the polling and counting days. Let us for a moment assume a scenario of a possible hacking via wireless transmission. Even if one were to assume that malicious code can be remotely injected into an EVM through wireless transmission, just thinking of what the code has to do starts to boggle the mind. The code cant just assign all votes or extra votes to a given candidate since the total is signed off after polling ends. This means the code has to be intelligent enough to dynamically rebalance the total number of votes in each EVM. The injected code has to be aware of which candidate to assign more votes to and also the proportion in which the remaining votes have to be distributed so that suspicions are not raised. The code should also know where exactly in the EVM is candidate information stored and also where the votes are stored. As if doing it at an individual EVM level is not difficult enough, this manipulation has to be orchestrated across all machines in a constituency. The total votes polled would have to remain unchanged even as the preferred candidate gets more votes. But, the mandate should not be flagrantly at odds with the mood of the people. This should hold true for all other contestants as well, including Nota. Perhaps, the next time the ECI organises a hackathon, it should just bring some unprogrammed EVMs, ask these master hackers to burn their code into the chip and demonstrate their master algorithm for such mass manipulations. That would be a challenge worthy of the saviours of Indian democracy. (The writer is a software developer and architect.) Comment Policy Calaveras Enterprise does not actively monitor comments. However, staff does read through to assess reader interest. When abusive or foul language is used or directed toward other commenters, those comments will be deleted. If a commenter continues to use such language, that person will be blocked from commenting. We wish to foster a community of communication and a sharing of ideas, and we truly value readers' input. From living rooms to newspaper columns to security gatherings, jihad is a much debated topic. From living rooms to newspaper columns to security gatherings, jihad is a much debated topic. A moral struggle, a war for a just and peaceful society or an Islamic world order? Jihad is all of it and more, according to the three broad interpretations traditional or classical, modernist and radical Islamist prevalent in South Asia. Based on their interpretations of the Quran and exegetical literature, traditional/classical Sunni notions of jihad are different from those of the modernists (apologists, progressives) as well as radical Islamists. The traditional interpretations are by those who follow classical models such as Shah Abdul Qadir and the exegetes of Deoband. Some of the classical interpretations are still taught in the madrassas and have their influence on the Sunni ulema of South Asia. The modernists interpret the foundational texts of Islam (the Quran and the Hadith) to support liberal humanist values. For them, jihad is defensive and, in the presence of international treaties of peace, aggressive warfare is not justified. Armed aggression against ones own Muslim rulers or those who do not stop the practice of Islam is not allowed. They also rule out suicide attacks, the use of non-state actors in guerrilla warfare and attacks on non-combatants. The third category is of Islamist radicals or militants who interpret the Quran and the Hadith to justify armed struggle against perceived Western domination and to create an Islamic society and state. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar are among those who adhere to this interpretation. Their main contention is that the Muslim world is already subjected to warfare by the West and, in the case of Kashmir, by India. As Muslim leaders are unwilling to take up the cause of the subjugated masses, non-state actors must do so. They believe that, as weapons of the weak, guerrilla warfare, including suicide attacks, are permissible. In short, the Islamists differ from the classical exegetes who say jihad can only be ordered by a Muslim ruler. As Muslim rulers are subservient to Western powers, jihad can be initiated and continued by non-state actors, the Islamists argue. While in classical theory suicide attacks and killing of non-combatants is not allowed, the Islamists allow these as the tactics of the weak in an unequal conflict. The interpretations of the Quran and Hadith are broadly based on semantic expansion/manipulation, abrogation (Naskh), reasons or circumstances of revelation, specification, privileging principle over particulars, ideological imperatives, emphases and selection. Take, for instance, the verse 9:5. The radicals say the sword verse is from a chapter which is the last in the order of revelation, so it abrogates the peaceful verses mentioned earlier. Others say the verse is general in nature and still relevant. The modernists say it is specific to the Arab polytheists who began aggression against the nascent Muslim community and since they no longer exist, it is not to be acted upon. The Islamists take fitnah, as mentioned in the 2:193 and 8:39 verses, as the rule of non-Muslims over Gods world or the presence of moral evil in such forms of governance. This makes it incumbent upon Muslims to take up warfare to cleanse the world and institute a just government. The modernists say fitnah refers to the difficulty in practising Islam that resulted in the expulsion of Muslims from their homes and aggression against them. Now that this is no longer happening, fighting is no longer valid. All trends in the interpretations of jihad can be linked to the state of Muslim military power. When it was dominant, jihad was expansionist and triumphalist; when it was subservient to colonial dominance, jihad was interpreted as the right of self-defence; and now, in the post-colonial context, jihad is interpreted as the right to resist Western hegemony through unconventional, guerrilla tactics. The writer is a Pakistani academic and has authored the book Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia: an Intellectual History Nambi Narayanan played a critical role in the development of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle New Delhi: From being a celebrated ISRO scientist to being branded a 'spy' and finally awarded with the Padma Bhushan, Nambi Narayanan Saturday said he was glad that his work in the Indian space arena was finally recognised. "My name became famous because of 'spying' charges. Now I am glad that my contribution has been recognised by the government," he told PTI over phone. Narayanan (77) was awarded the prestigious Padma award this Republic Day. The former scientist had played a critical role in the development of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and in the initial phase of making cryogenic engines. He, however, was embroiled in an espionage case in 1994. The case pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women. The case was first investigated by Kerala Police and later handed over to the CBI, which found no espionage as was alleged to have taken place. The case also had its political fallout with a section in the Congress targeting then chief minister late K Karunakaran over the issue, that eventually led to his resignation. Narayanan, the then director of cryogenic project at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was arrested along with ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran and the Indian representative of a Russian space agency, K Chandrasekhar. SK Sharma, a labour contractor and two Maldivian women Fousiya Hasan and Rasheeda were also arrested. What followed was a long legal battle that ended last year with the Supreme Court clearing all charges against Narayanan and directing the Kerala government to give Rs 50 lakh compensation to the scientist. The court also ordered a high-level probe into the action of the erring cops which had caused "tremendous harassment" and "immeasurable anguish" to Narayanan. Looking back at the turn of events, the former scientist said they were "a part of life" and was glad that his contribution was finally recognised. Praising the work of Narayanan, former ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair said, "He played a critical role in the development of PSLV, GSLV and is one of the pioneers in the the Liquid Propulsion System (LPS)." Nair said the scientist was subjected to "severe torture" unheard of by the Kerala police, but Narayanan's efforts have finally been recognised by the government. AS Kiran Kumar, who served as the ISRO chairman from 2015-2018, said Narayanan was one of the pioneers in cryogenic engine technology in India. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said Congress leader Anand Sharma has threatened officers to stop working against corruption which only shows the mentality of Congress party. His comments come after Sharma had issued a veiled warning to government officials after the CBI raided former Haryana chief minister BS Hooda's residence on Friday. New Delhi: BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said on Friday that senior Congress leader Anand Sharma has threatened that officers should stop working against corruption which only shows the mentality of the Congress party. Reacting on the CBI raids at former Haryana chief minister BS Hooda's residence, Anand Sharma on Friday issued a veiled warning to government officials by insinuating that those working at the behest of their "political masters" would be held accountable in next government. "Congress leader Anand Sharma has threatened that officers should stop working against corruption which only shows the mentality of Congress party. This shows that Congress wants to save corruption. Whenever they don't get a satisfactory verdict from Supreme Court they say they will impeach Chief justice of India (CJI)" said Patra. "When they lose an election they hold a press conference in London against EVM and threaten Election Commission from there, saying that EC's credibility has ended. Corruption should be stopped and only a majboot (strong) govt can do this," he said. Reacting on the CBI raids at BS Hooda's residence, Sharma said: "Officials must hear this. Governments do not have any permanency. There are few weeks left for the general elections to begin. It is certain that this government is rattled, the Prime Minister is staring at an imminent defeat, thats why these actions." The CBI on Friday carried out raids at the residence of Hooda and other officials, and also lodged a fresh case against the former Haryana Chief Minister in connection with the alleged irregularities in the acquisition of land in Haryana. The investigating agency conducted raids in over 20 places including in Chandigarh, Rohtak, New Delhi, Gurgaon and Mohali with respect to the land acquisition irregularities. A day after the CBI named banking doyen K V Kamath and virtual who's who of the sector for questioning in the alleged fraud case against former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, Union minister Arun Jaitley Friday advised investigating agency to avoid 'adventurism' and concentrate only on the bull's eye. New Delhi: A day after the CBI named banking doyen K V Kamath and virtual who's who of the sector for questioning in the alleged fraud case against former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar, Union minister Arun Jaitley Friday advised investigating agency to avoid "adventurism" and concentrate only on the bull's eye. Jaitley, who is recuperating after a surgery in a hospital in the US, on Twitter said one of the reasons for "poor" conviction rate in India is that "adventurism and megalomania" overtakes investigators and professionalism takes a back seat. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday filed a case of criminal conspiracy and fraud against the Chanda Kochhar and her husband Deepak Kochhar. The agency also said Kamath as well as present ICICI Bank CEO Sandeep Bakshi, Goldman Sachs India Chairman Sonjoy Chatterjee, Standard Chartered Bank CEO Zarin Daruwala, Tata Capital head Rajiv Sabharwal and Tata Capital senior advisor Homi Khusrokhan need to be investigated for high-value loans ICICI Bank sanctioned under Kochaar to Videocon Industries. It alleged that the loans were extended in violation of bank's lending policies and in exchange for an investment by the consumer electronics company's owner in a business headed by Chanda Kochhar's husband. "There is a fundamental difference between investigative adventurism and professional investigation," Jaitley wrote. "Sitting thousands of kilometres away, when I read the list of potential targets in the ICICI case, the thought that crossed my mind was again the same Instead of focusing primarily on the target, is a journey to nowhere (or everywhere) being undertaken? If we include the entire who's who of the banking industry with or without evidence what cause are we serving or actually hurting." Jaitley, who was finance minister of India till last week and had to temporary handover the charge to his fellow minister Piyush Goyal for the duration of his indisposition, advised the investigators "Follow the advice of Arjun in the Mahabharat Just concentrate on the bull's eye." Investigative adventurism, he said, involves casting the net too wide including people with no 'mens rea' or even having a common intention to commit an offence, relying on presumptions and surmises with no legally admissible evidence. "Adventurism leads to media leaks, ruins reputations and eventually invites strictures and not convictions. In the process, the targets are ruined because of harassment, loss of reputation and financial costs. It costs people their career," he wrote. "Professional investigation targets the real accused on the basis of actual and admissible evidences. It rules out fanciful presumptions. There is no personal malice or corruption. It targets the guilty and protects the innocent. It secures convictions and furthers public interest," Jaitley said. One of the reasons why conviction rates in India are poor is that "adventurism and megalomania overtakes our investigators and professionalism takes a back seat," he wrote. The Budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature will begin in Amaravati on 30 January, with Governor ESL Narasimhan addressing a joint sitting of the two Houses. Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao said there will also be a general discussion on the budget from 6 February. Amaravati: The Budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature will begin in Amaravati on 30 January, with Governor ESL Narasimhan addressing a joint sitting of the two Houses. As elections to the state Assembly are due in May, the government will present only a vote-on-account budget on 5 February for the 2019-20 financial year. After paying homage to the sitting MLA Kidari Sravan Kumar, who was gunned down by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in September, the Assembly will adjourn for the day on 31 January. "There will be three holidays to the House from 1 February. The motion of thanks to the Governor's address will be taken up on 4 February," Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao said. Talking to reporters after unfurling the national flag on the Assembly complex on Republic Day, the Speaker said there will be a general discussion on the budget from 6 February. "We will also take up other government business, including some Bills and the House will adjourn sine die on 8 February," the Speaker added. This is expected to be the final session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly that came into being in June 2014 after the state bifurcation. The pursuit of pleasure, in the Ananga Ranga, involves the subjugation of women for the pleasure of men. "A woman who was burning with love and could find none to satisfy her inordinate desires, threw off her clothes and swore she would wander the world naked till she met with her match. In this condition, she entered the levee-hall of the Rajah upon whom Koka Pandit was attending. When asked if she were not ashamed of herself, the woman looked insolently at the crowd of courtiers around her and scornfully declared that there was not a man in the room. "The King and his company were sore abashed. But the sage joining his hands, applied with due humility for royal permission to tame the shrew." "He then led her home and worked so persuasively that whole night fainting from fatigue and from repeated orgasms she cried for quarter. Thereupon the virile Pandit inserted gold pins into her arms and legs, and, leading her before his Rajah, made her confess her defeat and solemnly veil herself in the presence". The Ananga Ranga Stage of Love was written by Kalyana Malla, sometime in the 1400s or 1500s. The poet wrote the work in honour of Lad Khan, the son of Ahmed Khan Lodi. Translated into English in 1885 by the traveller and scholar Richard Francis Burton and burned, it is believed, by his wife Isabel Burton in the weeks after his death it is often compared with the Kama Sutra. Frank, guilt-free sex is one great legacy of Indian tradition: sensual pleasure, addressed with poetry, wisdom and humour, is seen as an ecstatic expression of lifes possibilities. But this is also a tradition that imprisons. The Ananga Ranga, and similar works, are not simply sex manuals. They represent particular ideologies about gender. The pursuit of pleasure, in the Ananga Ranga, involves the subjugation of women for the pleasure of men a story that haunts us today, as the #MeToo movement unfolds. First published in the 1400s, and into Arabic and Hindustani as the Lazzat al-Nisa "The Pleasures of Women" the Ananga Ranga travelled well over the centuries, appearing in Persian and even Turkish. Its stated intent is to protect the institution of monogamy. "Great and powerful monarchs have ruined themselves and their realms by their desire to enjoy the wives of others," it warns. "Let none, therefore, attempt adultery even in their thoughts." Kalyana Malla, the author of the Ananga Ranga, is an obscure figure, though the text describes him "as a great sage". The work itself, though, was written for Lad Khan, the king's son. King Ahmad, the Ananga Ranga tells us, "was the ornament of the Lodi House. He was a sea, having for waters the tears shed by the widows of his slaughtered foes, and he rose to just renown and wide-spread fame. May his son Lada Khan, versed in the Kama Shastra or Scripture of Love, and having his feet rubbed with the diadems of other kings, be ever victorious!" Sex involves, among other things, performance the Ananga Ranga, and other works in this genre, are manuals to demonstrate masculine virility and feminine objectification. She has no right to either seek or express her pleasure; that would render her, like the woman at the Ananga Ranga, a shrew to be tamed. The representation of the human sexual organs in some Mughal-era painting is instructive. There is one of particular interest, representing the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah, where he displays a phallus of a wholly improbable size. The painting, obviously, is not just about representing pleasure, its true subject is male power. In the Ananga Ranga, the signifier of masculinity, for instance, is quite different. "The man whose linga is very long, will be wretchedly poor. The man whose linga is very thick, will ever be in distress. The man whose linga is thin and lean, will be very lucky; and the man whose linga is short, will be a Rajah." Leaving aside minor details like the penis-size which signifies power, these tropes remain with us. It is not just pornography which limits the role of women to facilitators and providers of male pleasure. The recent controversy around a Bollywood scene where actress Swara Bhaskar is shown to be masturbating is a case in point. There is no similar outrage at expressly sexual sequences or songs, as long as the women perform for the pleasure of men. Thus, our mindsets have not moved on from the time of the Ananga Ranga. We still are deeply embedded in the medieval thought of Ananga Ranga wherein it's the wife whose duty is to satisfy her husband sexually. Never ever, is there a straight question asked or posed to female sexual satisfaction and her sexual pleasure. Syed Mubin Zehra is the author of Sexual and Gender Representations in Mughal India BJP accused Rahul of acting as a 'Chinese propagandist' New Delhi: Amid a row over Rahul Gandhi's Kailash Mansarovar visit last year after the Congress chief on Friday said he had also met Chinese ministers during his trip, Beijing's envoy said all Indian pilgrims were welcome to the country. "The Chinese government, the Chinese side will welcome all pilgrims from India," Chinese envoy Luo Zhaohui said, in response to a question on Rahul's meeting with his country's ministers. Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Rahul of acting as a "Chinese propagandist" and asked him to give complete details of his meeting with China's ministers and officials during his Kailash Mansarovar visit and questioned why had he not kept the Indian government informed about it. "The Kailash Mansarovar yatra was an excuse. He had gone to meet these ministers. Rahul is not an ordinary citizen. Why did he not inform the Ministry of External Affairs? Why was the Indian embassy not kept in loop? We want to know the details of his talks," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters. The ruling party's attack on Rahul came after the Congress president told a public meeting in Odisha that the Chinese ministers had told him during his Kailash Mansarovar visit in August-September last year that job creation was not a problem in their country. "When I had gone to Kailash, I had met a couple of their ministers and they had said job creation was not a problem in China at all," Rahul had said. Symbolic militarism, including that on display at the Republic Day Parade, is a salve to past injuries and a proclamation of contemporary prowess The Republic Day commemorates Indias decisive shift from a colonial arrangement of governance to a post-colonial one. The date on which the Constitution came into effect is also the one that hallows the memory of a struggle that produced independent people. It holds out the promise of a society that is just and creative in the task of producing a prosperous future. How then should we view the Republic Day being represented largely as a show of military might? Is our national culture and the aims of the Constitution best represented through symbols of militarism? In the years following independence, India continued with many colonial practices, including reproducing the imagination of the state as militarily powerful. Imperialism rests fundamentally on the capacity to enforce its writ through violence. The post-colonial elite, having been talked down to by the colonial masters as incapable of self-rule, seek to undo that representation. Militarism, including its symbolic aspects, is a significant part of the post-colonial psychology that seeks to rid itself of the feminisation it perceives to have suffered at the hands of the colonial masters. In India, the Republic Day Parade is also enmeshed in the history of India-Pakistan relations and the deep humiliation suffered at the hands of the Chinese army in 1962. The colonial shame was compounded through post-colonial forms of threat and disgrace. Symbolic militarism, including that on display at the Republic Day Parade, is a salve to past injuries and a proclamation of contemporary prowess. Unlike other countries where wars play a significant role in the national imagination, Indian commemorations only nominally celebrate the common people. In Australia, experiences of war are not remembered through a display of military might. ANZAC Day ceremonies that remember Australian and New Zealand casualties during the World War I focus on the ordinary soldier. In recent years, militarism has got deeply embedded as an existential fact of Indian life and we have become attracted to displays of military braggadocio as an aspect of national character. This is a significant feature of the appeal of the armament aesthetics of the parade. Advertisements for products as disparate as butter, tiles, cars and mens deodorant have through aestheticising violence and caricaturing valour packaged militarism as an everyday part of life. War is no longer an aberration that involves blood and mutilated bodies, but a normalised viewing experience. Keen to shake off the third-world tag, a new India seeks to announce its arrival on the global stage through symbols of military might. Is military might one that has little to do with how wars are experienced by those forced to take part in them the most appropriate symbolism for a national day? How is either the public or its democratic aspirations represented in one of the most significant days of the national calendar? Does it commemorate the sacrifices of defence personnel and their families or is it merely a cynical political exercise? The current form of the parade reinforces the notion that the nation-state is perpetually under threat both from within (terrorists) and beyond its borders (the foreign hand). It also reinforces the idea that to question the actions of governments as they delineate internal and external threats is to question the idea of the nation-state itself. The Republic Day spectacle produces the opposite effect of what it is intended to: rather than cheering entrepreneurial energies, native ingenuity and democratic freedoms, it celebrates a top-down version of national identity. If in military terms it revels in sanctifying the missile over the soldier, in civilian terms it foregrounds the elite over the ordinary citizen. Rituals are contexts that direct us to certain ways of thinking about the social worlds we occupy. So it is with the Republic Day Parade. Unfortunately, it directs us to be passive citizens to be dictated to by the state, one that does not approve of a citizenry that might ask, Why should we celebrate military might? Concern and admiration for the forces would be better exhibited by improving the conditions in which the soldier works. The aspirations of the Constitution cannot be captured by anachronistic ideas derived from hyper-patriotism and ill-served by the current form of the Republic Day Parade. The writer is a sociologist at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi Each weekend, Firstpost will bring a carefully-curated collection of original reportage, opinion and analysis. Newspapers, weve been told, are dead detritus of the industrial age which have been buried under the great tide of digital information hurtling through cyber-space; drowned out by the screaming on our television sets; made irrelevant by declining attention spans and diminishing interest in reading. Yet, eight years after Firstpost came to life as a digital-only news portal, were also arriving at your doorstep as ink on paper. This is an evolution almost without precedent a bet against conventional wisdom that tells a story all of its own. In times that are fractured, in a polity transforming at light speed, theres more need than ever for quality journalism. Decoding the complex, dramatically changing world around us is perhaps more important than ever before to all our lives. But, sadly, were being drowned in noise. Firstpost is a new kind of newspaper, designed to address this. 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India celebrated its 70th Republic Day with a grand display of its military might and rich cultural diversity as the ceremonial parade rolled down the majestic Rajpath in Delhi in presence of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the chief guest. New Delhi: India celebrated its 70th Republic Day with a grand display of its military might and rich cultural diversity as the ceremonial parade rolled down the majestic Rajpath in Delhi in presence of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the chief guest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to the martyrs by laying a wreath at Amar Jawan Jyoti before the start of the parade in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the three service chiefs. Later Modi, wearing his traditional kurta pyjama and the trademark Nehru jacket, reached the Rajpath and received and greeted President Ram Nath Kovind and the chief guest. At the unfurling of the tricolour, the band played the national anthem with a 21-gun salute fired in the background. Many senior leaders, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Deve Gowda, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad were among those present at the event. The overall theme for the Republic Day celebrations this year is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and tableaux of many states, themed on the preeminent leader of the Independence movement who championed the idea of non-violence, were lined up during the parade. Officials said Ramaphosa is the second South African president, after Nelson Mandela, to attend the grand event as its chief guest. Four Indian National Army (INA) veterans, aged over 90 years, are taking part in the parade, among the many firsts for the Republic Day event. India's military might was also on display, with the artillery gun system M777 American Ultra Light Howitzers, recently acquired from the US and K9 Vajra, a self-propelled artillery gun, showcased on Rajpath, being new additions this year. 'Nari Shakti' (women power) was on full display on the ceremonial boulevard with an all-woman Assam Rifles contingent creating history this year by participating for the first time in the parade, which was led by Maj Khushboo Kanwar. Contingents of the Navy, Army Service Corps and a unit of Corps of Signals (transportable satellite terminal) were led by women officers too, as the crowd cheered. The parade took place in cold weather amid a heavy security blanket with thousands of security personnel, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters deployed in view of the event. The march began with a showering of flower petals by helicopters led by the parade commander, parade second-in-command and Param Vir Chakra and Ashoka Chakra awardees. The Indian Army's T-90 tank, Ballway Machine Pikate (BMP-II/IIK), Surface Mine Clearing System, 155 mm/52 Calibre Tracked Self-propelled Gun (K-9 Vajra), Transportable Satellite Terminal, Troop Level Radar and Akash Weapon System was also showcased at the parade. The marching contingents of the Sikh Light Infantry, Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry, Gorkha Brigade, Army Service Corps, Army Supply Corps (North), Territorial Army Battalion participated in the parade. The Indian Navy's brass band, marching contingent and tableau, and Air Force's band and marching contingent were also seen. Para-military and other auxiliary forces also participated in the parade along National Cadet Corps and National Service Scheme. The tableaux of Sikkim, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, West Bengal, Tripura, Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Uttarakhand were also displayed. Twenty-six children who won the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar also passed through the parade in an open jeep followed by presentations by school children. The motorcycle display followed it which was welcomed by crowds and fly-past was observed after it. Chilly weather conditions failed to dampen the spirits of people who came to watch the parade. Lansdale, PA (19446) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 66F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Fifty youngsters in the Nagla Maya village of Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district have, in a desperate measure, proposed to auction themselves to raise money to provide for drinking water in their village. Hathras: Fifty youngsters in the Nagla Maya village of Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district have, in a desperate measure, proposed to auction themselves to raise money to provide for drinking water in their village. Residents of Nagla Maya have alleged that their village is in the grip of an acute shortage of drinking water. They have claimed that even though they have met several officials and raised the issues of water scarcity in the village, no measures have been taken to improve their situation. Exasperated with the poor quality of drinking water, the youngsters who have formed a youth public welfare group have said they will conduct an auction of themselves to protest the deplorable water situation in their village. One youngster participating in the move said, "The administration cites a lack of funds for not addressing our problem. So we decided to auction ourselves on the Republic Day to raise money." One of the protesters claimed as many as 60 villages in the region, housing lakhs of residents, are adversely affected by the scarcity of drinking water. The Hathras district administration took cognizance of the incident and assured of appropriate action. Hathras district magistrate Rama Shankar Maurya said, "A letter has been sent to the government in order to resolve this problem and appropriate action will be taken. Action will also be taken against those who are involved." By Alwyn Scott NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co is advising some buyers of its big power turbines to switch out faulty blades sooner than expected and has disclosed that a blade broke in 2015, according to a presentation reviewed by Reuters and people briefed on the matter. The second blade break, which has not been previously reported, involved an earlier turbine model and was similar to a break last September that severely damaged a turbine in Texas and shut it down for two months of repairs. The defective blade issue affects GE's newest turbine technology, which cost billions of dollars to develop, and is among the challenges facing new Chief Executive Larry Culp as he tries to revive the profits and share price of the 127-year-old conglomerate. By Alwyn Scott NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Electric Co is advising some buyers of its big power turbines to switch out faulty blades sooner than expected and has disclosed that a blade broke in 2015, according to a presentation reviewed by Reuters and people briefed on the matter. The second blade break, which has not been previously reported, involved an earlier turbine model and was similar to a break last September that severely damaged a turbine in Texas and shut it down for two months of repairs. The defective blade issue affects GE's newest turbine technology, which cost billions of dollars to develop, and is among the challenges facing new Chief Executive Larry Culp as he tries to revive the profits and share price of the 127-year-old conglomerate. GE's advice for fixing the problem can curb turbine use by utilities, according to the sources and utilities that use GE turbines, potentially threatening the revenue streams at the power plants. At private meetings in Florida and London last month, GE executives said the company is offering extended warranty coverage and making spare parts available to ease concerns of insurers, lenders and utilities interested in buying turbines, according to a GE executive's slideshow presentation and three people who attended the meetings. Some said they signed non-disclosure agreements. GE told participants that turbines with at-risk blades should run for fewer than about 7,000 hours depending on individual plant circumstances, before shutting down for blade replacement, according to two people who attended the meetings. GE said it had advised customers of the change. GE's previous guidance for blades was after 25,000 hours. The executives also said in the meetings that the blade that broke in 2015 at an undisclosed power plant was in a GE 9FB turbine, which has similar technology to the HA turbine that broke in Texas. The 2015 break prompted GE to work on new protective coatings and alter a heat treatment process for the parts, a second presentation showed. GE told Reuters that after the blade broke in 2015, GE did not know at first that the problem would also afflict its HA models. "The HA components were in development before the initial 9FB issue occurred, and the HA units began to ship while the root-cause analysis was in process and before it was determined that it was a component issue that impacted the 9FB fleet and the HA," GE said in a statement to Reuters. GE declined to provide more detail about the 2015 blade break or usage restrictions, saying some of the information is proprietary. "We are executing the plan we laid out to fix the (blade) issue," GE said in a statement to Reuters. "The feedback from customers has been positive, and they continue to choose the HA, which remains the fastest-growing fleet of advanced technology turbines in the world today." The details from GE's meetings come as GE is installing new blades in about 50 9FB and 52 HA turbines, according to a person familiar with the matter, fewer than the 130 estimated after the blade break in Texas prompted it to warn that other turbines are at risk for blade failure. Reuters previously reported that GE found an oxidation problem, not a break, in 2015 and developed a fix before the failure in Texas. Scaling back use of GE turbines reduces how much electricity they produce, a threat to revenues and profits for Exelon Corp, PSEG Power LLC, Chubu Electric Power Co Inc and others with the 400-ton GE machines that form the core of modern gas-fired power plants, according to utilities and industry experts. Japan's Chubu Electric said it learned about the blade problem with its six new GE turbines last October. It is restricting operation time at one of the two plants that use GE's HA turbines, but expects to have "enough reserve capacity to generate sufficient electricity to meet demand during this winter," a spokesman told Reuters. He said Chubu will tally the financial impact "depending on how long the plants would be shut down" to replace blades. It expects repairs to be completed by the end of February. PSEG Power and Exelon, based in the United States, declined to comment on how restrictions would affect them. GE is continuing to sell turbines in a slumping market for big power plants, where it has lost share to rivals Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems and Siemens AG. GE has said it booked orders for three large turbines last month. GE's share price fell after GE revealed a blade issue in Texas on September 19, saying such "teething problems" are not uncommon with new technology and would require "minor adjustments" to fix. GE has said it would set aside $480 million for repairs and warranty claims. Three days after the break in Texas became known, Electricite de France SA shut down its HA turbine to replace blades. EDF did not respond to requests for comment. At the London meeting, about 100 insurance industry people gathered in the oak-paneled Old Library room of Lloyd's of London on December 13, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information. GE power executives Marcus Scholz and Tom Dreisbach gave presentations about GE's turbine technology. In its turbine documentation, GE has advised its power customers to inspect turbines with so-called "Generation 1" blades after 25,000 hours of use. GE said its improved blades, known as "Generation 2," are designed to last 25,000 hours or more before being replaced. According to page 11 of his presentation, Dreisbach said the Generation 1 blade that broke in 2015 failed after 22,000 hours. New parts treated with a special coating were inspected by technicians after about 12,000 and 16,000 hours and "cracking (was) still observed," the presentation said. GE inspected other turbines at about 7,000 hours and "early stages of cracking (were) observed," the presentation said. (Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Editing by Joe White and Edward Tobin) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Mike Spector and David French NEW YORK (Reuters) - MoneyGram International Inc is exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale of the company, a year after a U.S. government panel nixed its $1.2 billion sale to China's Ant Financial, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The Dallas-based company, which employs more than 2,900 people globally, is also working to restructure its debt pile, which totalled $902.8 million as of the end of September and comes due next year, the sources said. By Mike Spector and David French NEW YORK (Reuters) - MoneyGram International Inc is exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale of the company, a year after a U.S. government panel nixed its $1.2 billion sale to China's Ant Financial, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The Dallas-based company, which employs more than 2,900 people globally, is also working to restructure its debt pile, which totalled $902.8 million as of the end of September and comes due next year, the sources said. The company has more than $80 million available from an undrawn credit line. MoneyGram's debt restructuring efforts are initially focused on addressing a covenant tied to its credit line, the sources said. The company is seeking to gain more time to meet the terms of that covenant, by pushing out a March deadline it faces, the sources added. In addition, the company hopes to extend the maturity on its roughly $900 million loan, the sources said. Without any action, that debt would soon become "current" for accounting purposes and potentially trigger jitters among MoneyGram's creditors and shareholders, the sources said. A spokeswoman for MoneyGram, which has agents at roughly 350,000 outlets in more than 200 countries and territories, declined to comment on the company's sale process, while reiterating that the firm is focused on refinancing its debt. The sources cautioned that a sale of the company is not certain and asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Wall Street restructuring advisers have contacted MoneyGram's chairman and chief executive, Alex Holmes, to offer advice, but their calls have for now gone unanswered, the sources said. In November, Holmes said, "We always entertain discussions," in response to an analyst's question about whether MoneyGram was seeking a buyer. Another option the company is exploring is raising additional money in the form of preferred equity that would sit above shareholders and below lenders for the purposes of repayment in a restructuring, the sources added. (Reporting by Mike Spector and David French in New York; Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. NETHERLANDS, Jan. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Europe, Univar B.V., a subsidiary of Univar Inc. (NYSE: UNVR) ("Univar"), a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, said today that Kao Chemicals has appointed Univar as its distributor in Spain and Portugal. The appointment marks an expanded agreement with Kao Chemicals where Univar increases its offering for the home and industrial cleaning, as well as beauty and personal care markets. Kao Chemicals' broad surfactants portfolio includes alkyl ether carboxylates, which are used as mild co-surfactants, emulsifiers and solubilising agents in both personal care and detergent products and are all available under the trade name AKYPO. Other notable products from Kao include a line of glycerin polyoxyethylene esters that are available under the trade names LEVENOL and EMANON. These well-established products are versatile nonionic specialities that can be used in foaming compositions. The product line is completed by alcohol sulphates, amine oxides and ester quats. "Kao is proud to extend our collaboration with Univar, a leading specialty distributor in Europe, Middle East, and Africa," said Jordi Rios, business unit manager, SCA and F&A, Kao Chemicals Europe. "Their logistics capabilities in Iberia coupled with the robust salesforce is the optimal choice for furthering our growth strategy and delivering the best product and service to our customers." "Kao has been a key strategic partner to Univar for over 20 years, so we are excited to further expand our collaboration together," said Nigel Hayes, vice president of the local chemical distribution business in the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Univar. "We are confident that our customers will benefit from the consistent focus we will bring, backed by strong local, technical and commercial execution." With access to a large and prestigious portfolio of home and industrial cleaning, as well as beauty and personal care solutions, Univar offers strong market coverage and industry expertise to supplier partners around the globe. "Surfactants are a key product focus for Univar across our beauty and personal care as well as our household chemical businesses and Kao's broad range is a great addition to strengthen our Iberian portfolio, bringing more innovative solutions to our customers," noted Matthew Ottaway, vice president of focused industries in the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Univar. About Univar Inc. Founded in 1924, Univar (NYSE: UNVR) is a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, working with leading suppliers worldwide. Supported by a comprehensive team of sales and technical professionals with deep specialty and market expertise, Univar operates hundreds of distribution facilities throughout North America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Univar delivers tailored customer solutions through a broad product and services portfolio sustained by one of the most extensive industry distribution networks in the world. For more information, visit www.univar.com. About Kao Chemicals Europe Kao Chemicals Europe is part of Kao Group, having 3 production sites located in Germany (Emmerich), Spain (Olesa de Montserrat, Mollet and Barbera del Valles) and Mexico (Guadalajara) and the headquarters located in Barbera del Valles. Since 1999, Kao Chemicals Europe works as a holding company, giving support to the sales structure within the 5 different Business Units into which the company is organized. Two of these Business Units have their origin in surfactant technology and deal with products that are addressed to the Consumer & Technical Applications markets. The other three Business Units, Oleochemicals, Fragrance & Aroma Chemicals and Imaging Materials, belong to global activities that are coordinated by Kao Corporation (Japan). For more information, visit www.kaochemicals-eu.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which may be beyond our control. We caution you that the forward-looking information presented in this press release is not a guarantee of future events, and that actual events may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking information contained in this press release. In addition, forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "plan," "seek," "comfortable with," "will," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. Any forward-looking information presented herein is made only as of the date of this press release, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect changes in assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events, or otherwise. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/813853/Cleaners_SoapwithLeaf_HD.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/550092/UNIVAR_LOGO.jpg It is indeed a pride moment for the Malayalam film industry as one of its much loved stars, Mohanlal, has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan award. He is one among the two Keralites who have been honured with the Padma Bhushan title this year. The entire film industry is celebrating this big achievement of the 'Complete Actor'. Congratulatory messages have been pouring in for Mohanlal. Mammootty, the Megastar of Mollywood and the close friend of Mohanlal, took to his official Facebook page to congratulate his dear friend, on this big achievement. He has penned down a message in Malayalam congratulating his dear friend on the special occasion. Take a look at the Facebook post of Mammootty here.. Along with Mammootty, other top celebrities of the Malayalam film inudstry to congratulated Mohanlal for the big achievement. Read on to know more about the same here. Krrish Reveals What & How Things Went Wrong Between Him & Kangana.. Krrish said, "I had finished my entire edit in June. I had completed all the reels and even given them for sound recording. Everybody even dubbed but not Kangana. She was shooting for Mental in London." He further added, "She returned, saw the film and said that she liked it. After few days, she said that iska jyaada hai, uska jyaada hai, this girl is overpowering, that girl is overpowering. Then she came up with yeh change karna hai, woh change karna hai. She also said that Kamal Jain (producer) hadn't liked the film." Krrish Reveals She Wanted To Kill Sonu Soods Character Krrish reveals that Kangana had said that Sonu Sood's character should be killed at the interval point. He said, "This was completely against history. Sonu was playing an important antagonist, he had a beautiful arc in the story and we had shot with him beautifully for 35 days, Sadashiv (Sonu's character) would have died in the film but just little before Laxmibai's death." Kangana Was Adamant To Kill Him Before Interval He revealed, "She said Sonu is not required in the second half. But I put my foot down. Big arguments followed. Kamal Jain took Kangana's side. He went on to add, "A few days later, I got a call from Sonu. He wanted to know if I was directing the film further or not. And then I got a call from Kamal Jain that Kangana is getting help from some guy and they will direct the film." Sonu Walked Out Of Film Because Of Kangana Krrish asserted how things went worse to worst. He said, "I came to Mumbai to meet Kamal Jain. Kangana was present at the meeting. She said the changes were small and she would manage, if I was busy. I came back to Hyderabad and got a call from Sonu that they were terminating his character at the interval. I told them that I won't direct that change in Sonu's role. Kamal Jain replied that Kangana will direct. Sonu told me that he wasn't going ahead if I was not taking any further part." Was Kangana Insecure? When asked if Kangana was feeling insecure, he said, "No insecurity, it was just that she wanted everything to herself. She is rude all the time." Krrish Also Revealed What Kangana Had Said About Sonu Sood Was Untrue He said, "I felt very bad when I read in the papers Kangana saying that 'Sonu couldn't take orders from a female director'. That was annoying and bad. It never happened. What she said was untrue." I don't blame Sonu for quitting. His run time was 100 minutes and it was being chopped to 60 minutes. Who will agree? Nobody would." Krrish Says Kangana Was Upset With Him Because.. "When I spoke to them about the distortion of my name in the teaser, Kangana told me 'You didn't support me in the Sonu Sood episode. Aapko abhi zaroorat hai toh aaye ho." She told me I have anger management issues (laughs), but it was she who was shouting at me. And now after seeing the film, I see my name again distorted and now in a separate slide!" Deepika Is Totally Casual At The Airport Deepika Padukone is capable of looking glam even in the most casual of attires. That's just who she is. Today, Deepika was spotted at the airport in Mumbai in a black Givenchy hoodie teamed with a boot cut denims, black shoes, and her signature black sunglasses. She was all smiles as she prepared to jet off. One Year Since Padmaavat! It has been one year since Deepika's biggest hit, Padmaavat. She told Hindustan Times that the movie changed her life. She said, "Padmaavat showcased the power, strength, courage and resilience of women. When I look back to this time last year, as an individual and artist, I feel a sense of pride, joy and happiness." She added, "The film surpassed all my previous highs professionally. Personally, it changed something in me forever." Shahid & Kiara Return From Mussoorie Post Shoot Shahid Kapoor and Kiara Advani were also snapped at the airport on Saturday evening. The two were returning from Mussoorie, post their shoot for Kabir Singh'. Kiara was all bundled up in a chic white turtleneck sweater, paired with denims, and knee high black boots. Shahid, on the other hand, was wearing a black sweatshirt, black cargo pants, and black sneakers. Kiara Is Traumatized After Shoot With Shahid? Shahid shared this selfie of Kiara and himself and captioned it, "This is how Kiara feels about life ATM post shoot trauma with me." Shahid and Kiara have been shooting for Kabir Singh, which is a Bollywood remake of the Telugu film Arjun Reddy. Both films have been helmed by director Sandeep Vanga. On the flight back to Mumbai, Kiara replaced actress Tara Sutaria in the movie after she walked out of the project. Scottish farmers and crofters taking part in the Beef Efficiency Scheme (BES) have been left 'frustrated' by recent errors in the administration of the scheme. Many Scottish beef producers taking part in the scheme were sent warning letters relating to BES, according to NFU Scotland. Letters, most received early this week, told farmers that they were in breach of the scheme requirements to enter the weights of their cattle into the relevant section of ScotEID database. Some of those letters were genuine, but others were incorrect, according to the union. The Scottish government is now writing to those affected to clarify the situation. BES requires beef farmers and crofters to undertake several on-farm activities such as tissue sampling, weight recording and collecting calving data. An estimated 180,000 beef cows from 2000 farmers have enrolled in the new five-year 45 million Rural Development scheme, which looks to improve the efficiency, sustainability and quality of the beef herd whilst helping producers increase the genetic value of their stock and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. However, farmers have frequently criticised the administration side of the scheme. Late last year, some scheme members also reported that they were being asked to collect tissue samples over and above those actually required by the scheme rules. Commenting on the recent problems, NFU Scotland President Andrew McCornick said The Beef Efficiency Scheme has always been one backed by the sound principles of improving the productivity of the Scottish beef herd, while providing support to hard-working farmers and crofters. However, the recent errors involving the recording of weights and tissue sampling will have further soured the experience of participating in the scheme. While several farmers received warning letters in error, we understand that some will also have received genuine ones. Moving forward, we hope that the scheme administration can be improved and that the Scottish Government will dedicate the necessary resource to provide a high level of support to beef producers taking part in BES. He added: Longer term, we are working hard to develop a future support policy for Scottish agriculture that includes the ambition to build a truly functional support system that delivers for the Scottish beef sector, while building on the BES work already undertaken by farmers through tissue sampling and data recording. SDSU Extension 4-H Youth Development Program has launched a shoe drive to collect 10,000 pairs of new or gently-worn shoes and donate them to Soles4Souls. By Glen Arnold FINDLAY, Ohio This past fall was particularly tough on livestock producers and commercial manure applicators trying to apply livestock manure. Weather conditions were warmer and wetter than normal with the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) station at South Charleston, recording 32 days with measurable rainfall totaling 9.91 inches in November and December. In these same two months, the OARDC station at Hoytville recorded 24 days with measurable rainfall totaling 6.04 inches. The wet weather prevented many acres of cover crops being planted and has severely limited the number of days that field conditions were dry enough or frozen enough for manure application equipment to operate. A substantial number of livestock producers across the state had to wait to apply manure as soon as farm fields were frozen enough to support application equipment. Permitted farms are not allowed to apply manure in the winter unless it is an extreme emergency, and then movement to other suitable storage is usually the selected alternative. This article is for non-permitted livestock operations. In the Grand Lake St. Marys watershed, the winter manure application ban from Dec. 15 to March 1 is still in effect. Thus, no manure application would normally be allowed in January and February. In the Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) watershed, the application of manure to frozen and snow-covered soils requires there to be a growing crop in the field. This could be a pasture, alfalfa, clover, ryegrass or a rape crop. There must be enough vegetation visible to provide 90 percent cover of residue and growing vegetation radishes and oats would not qualify as a growing crop as both are typically winter killed. Manure can be applied to fields without growing crops if the manure is incorporated at the time of application or incorporated within 24 hours of application. The rainfall rule for surface manure application in the WLEB is a weather forecast saying not greater than a 50 percent chance of a half inch or more of rain in the next 24 hours. It is advisable to print out the weather forecast when you start applying manure so you have the needed proof if an unexpected storm drenches the area. The most commonly accepted website for this forecast is weather.gov. Although not required by law, winter manure application should follow the NRCS 590 standards, which limit solid manure application amounts to five tons per acre and liquid manure application amounts to 5,000 gallons per acre. These have 200-foot setback distances from ditches, streams and creeks and must be on slopes of less than 6 percent and less than 20-acre areas in size without additional buffers. For liquid manure applicators, examine fields for tile blowouts. Monitor tile outlets before, during and after manure application and any other situations that might allow manure to reach surface waters. (Arnold is the OSU Extension Field Specialist for Manure Nutrient Management. This article first appeared in the Jan. 9, 2019, Ohio Beef Cattle Letter, a publication of the OSU Extension Beef Team.) MOUNT HOPE, Ohio With the many challenges of running a profitable dairy farm especially in this market it may be in a producers best interest to team up with other producers for ideas, and for moral support. Thats what many dairy graziers are doing, and at this years North Central Ohio Grazing Conference for dairy, Jan. 24-25, farmers spoke about the benefits of farming in small groups, which share records among the members, and experiences of what worked and what did not. You dont have to be ashamed to ask for advice, said Vernon Mast, who milks 40 head seasonally and farms 92 acres with his family in Wayne County. Sharing information Working together in groups of six to 10 members, farmers at the conference said they are able to share their records, their costs of production, and help each other in ways they were unable to do alone. Norman Miller, who milks 30 head with his wife and family, said forming a group with other dairy farmers helps provide him with real people, real numbers and most importantly, real friends. Each group is different, but the idea is to hold meetings and share information that is kept confidential among members, but that is beneficial for each. Normans group helps keep him motivated, he said, with regular meetings and pasture walks, where results can be reviewed. We cannot see our own mistakes and shortcomings as easily as the others can see ours, said Roman Hostetler, who milks about 40 head of Jersey cows and ship milk to Smith Dairy, in Orrville. Cash flow Ray Yoder, a dairy farmer from Middlebury, Indiana, said hes doing a better job of creating and following cash-flow statements, of where his money goes throughout the year, what he needs for living expenses and how much it takes to be profitable. The conference, now in its 18th year, had a business focus, as farmers endure one of the longest stretches of low milk prices in recent history. Although organic and grass-fed milk programs often receive premiums, all dairy producers are struggling with lower prices, and high input costs. One of the key points the first day of the conference was to challenge farmers to identify how much it costs them to produce a 100 pounds of milk, the unit by which most are paid. That figure ranged from $12 to $28 per 100 pounds, depending on the type of operation and whether equipment depreciation was also figured in. When depreciation the wear-and-tear on equipment is figured in, the cost of production can go up significantly. Social benefits Hostetler said forming a group also has social benefits, and that it helps lift dairy farmers spirits when they get together for social events, and even when they get together to work or share services. Groups can be formal or informal, and some vote on decisions and pass basic bylaws of operation. Some also keep minutes, so they know what was said and done at previous meetings. Pete Lehman, an organic farmer who spoke in the afternoon, has been a part of a grazing group since 2008. He said each member of a group has a strength and a weakness, and the beauty of working together is getting to help each other. He said groups should not be formed to criticize an individual farmer, but at the same time, each farmer should be open to criticism, and welcome the opportunity to learn and examine the blind spots. Improving numbers Those who spoke said they have seen their production numbers improve since joining a group of other dairy farmers, although the numbers vary from farmer to farmer. They said its not necessary to have everyone in a group be the same, because each member can benefit from looking at different size operations, and comparing what works and what does not. Sharing similar goals is important, however, and so is attendance. Some groups will not meet if more than one member is absent. The farmers also said its important to use averages when looking at group numbers. Although one farmer may have a low cost of production, which is good, those same numbers may not be practical for everyone in the group. Each farmer had a different situation as to where his or her financing came from. Some rely on bank loans, some use family and community loans, and some said they do a combination. The important thing, they said, is to use debt carefully and not create a situation that hurts the family, or the future generation. The conference also featured sessions on milk quality, nutrition and pasture improvement. The attendance topped 600 people both days, including vendors, and was sponsored by The Small Farm Institute, of Millersburg. by Spencer Babbitt | Suns Correspondent | Fri, Jan 25th 2:28pm EST Devin Booker scored 27 points on 9-of-20 shooting Thursday as the Suns lost to the Trail Blazers. He also had three assists and eight turnovers. Fantasy Impact: It was a solid bounce back game for Booker in the scoring department after he was ejected with only 14 points on Tuesday, but eight turnovers with only three assists sours the box score a bit. Booker should have plenty of opportunity to put up big numbers tonight in Denver with the Suns missing DeAndre Ayton and TJ Warren. Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI South Korea ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI South Korea ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. Banco Santander-Chile, together with its subsidiaries, provides commercial and retail banking products and services in Chile. It operates through Retail Banking, Middle-Market, and Corporate Investment Banking segments. The company offers debit and credit cards, checking accounts, and savings products; consumer, automobile, commercial, mortgage, and government-guaranteed loans; and Chilean peso and foreign currency denominated loans to finance various commercial transactions, trade, foreign currency forward contracts, and credit lines. It also provides mutual funds, insurance and stock brokerage, foreign exchange, leasing, factoring, financial consulting, investment management, foreign trade and mortgage financing, treasury, and transactional services, as well as specialized services to finance projects for the real estate industry. In addition, the company offers short-term financing and fund raising, and brokerage services, as well as derivatives, securitization, and other tailor-made products. It serves individuals, small to middle-sized entities, companies, and large corporations, as well as universities, government entities, and local and regional governments. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 358 branches, which include 220 under the Santander brand name, 19 under the Select brand name, 32 specialized branches for the middle market, and 28 as auxiliary and payment centers, as well as 1,199 ATMs. Banco Santander-Chile was incorporated in 1977 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile. Read More contributed / Snow in Connecticut is a huge part of winter, and although not much snowfall has landed in Fairfield this winter, residents are prepared. The photo featured here is from 30 years ago, 1988, and shows snow on the Merritt Parkway, near exit 44, Fairfields lone exit on that roadway. Last week the Fairfield Museum hosted Dr. Jay Gitlin, history professor at Yale University and Fairfield Museum curator Laurie Pasteryak Lamarre for a discussion on the opening of suburban Connecticut. In 1938, the first year of its publication, Connecticut Circle magazine covered the opening of the Merritt Parkway, a devastating hurricane, and a transformative election on the brink of WWII. Covering the news, recreation, politicians, and above allthe achievements and products of our state, Connecticut Circle promoted the image of a bustling region with creative citizens and renowned institutions. Its readership included not only proud Nutmeggers, but potential tourists, and the states Board of Realtors hoped a potential move from New York City to an ancient colonial homestead made newly accessible via the Merritt Parkway or the New Haven Railroad. Copies of Gitlins newly published Country Acres & Cul de Sacs: Connecticut Circle Magazine from 1938-1952 are on sale at the Fairfield Museum Shop, open daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fairfield University is among several affiliated religious groups that have agreed to pay a $61 million settlement following lawsuits alleging sexual abuse at a school for homeless boys in Haiti. Douglas Perlitz, a former Fairfield University graduate, founded and operated the school in Haiti. He pleaded guilty in August 2010 to one charge of traveling overseas to engage in sex with a minor. Recommended Video Fairfield and other defendants did not admit any guilt, said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based lawyer who has built a reputation for representing victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and employees. But the settlement speaks for itself, he said. The settlement calls for the creation of a $60 million fund to help the 133 victims and a $1.2 million fund to administer the payments, Garabedian said. It comes after seven months of mediation. All of these 133 sexual abuse victims will be members of the proposed settlement class, Garabedian said. Other victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by Douglas Perlitz, Father Paul E. Carrier or anyone else affiliated with (Perlitzs) Project Pierre-Toussaint will have the opportunity to become members of the settlement class. Fairfield University raised funds and sent university student volunteers to work at the Haitian school. The university and the affiliated groups are accused of being negligent in their supervision of Perlitz and Carrier. Related Stories Judge takes sex trafficking off lawsuit against Fairfield U. $500K to each boy in Haiti sex cases $12M settlement reached in sex abuse cases Carrier spent 20 years as an instructor, chaplain and director of campus ministry at Fairfield University. Garabedian, who served as co-lead counsel with Paul J. Hanly Jr., said he does not anticipate any other victims coming forward. We have been scouring the area for nine years, Garabedian said. We think we found all the victims ... If more come forward, their claims will be assessed. But before any settlement is approved and paid out, Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny must first grant Garabedians request to turn the 51 separate lawsuits into one class action matter. Chatigny is expected to conduct a hearing on that request Feb. 11 in his Hartford courtroom. Once that happens, the process of certifying the 133 victims as a class will begin, and it could take a year before payouts are made. A significant proportion of the funds to be used in the Universitys contribution to the settlement will come through a University Insurance carrier, Fairfield University said in a statement regarding Fridays action. The university was among four affiliated religious and charitable organizations and three individuals that agreed to the payout terms. The proposal will settle claims against Perlitz, Fairfield University and the Rev. Paul E. Carrier; the Society of Jesus of New England; and the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, which provided a start-up grant and additional monies to Project Pierre-Toussaint, which included a residential school, Garabedian said. It also settles claims against the defunct Haiti Fund Inc., which served as Project Pierre Toussaint's nonprofit fundraising arm, and Hope Carter, a New Canaan philanthropist and former member of the Haiti Fund's board of directors, Garabedian added. The university has been planning for this litigation, and any difference has been allocated for and will not have material impact on the financial integrity of the university or its day-to-day operations in serving our students, faculty and the broader Fairfield Community, the school said in a prepared statement. We will continue to make investments to enhance our facilities and our faculty to ensure that we provide a world-class education to our students. The deal marks the second time in almost six years that Garabedian has reached a settlement with victims from the Project Pierre-Toussaint scandal in Cap-Haitien, Haitis second largest city. In 2013, Garabedian settled 23 similar suits for $12 million which resulted in payments of $500,000 to 24 victims. Lawyers said that money also came primarily from insurance policies held by many of the same defendants. The payouts enabled the victims to receive occupational, physical and psychological treatment. Shortly after that settlement, Garabedian began filing another 51 suits involving these 133 victims. Many of these clients are severely sick, he said. He described them as starving and very thin, having lumps on their skin and suffering from various diseases. Garabedian said all the victims in the latest settlement claim they were abused by Perlitz, with one of those also alleging to have been sexually abused by Carrier, long described as Perlitzs mentor. The allegation made by Garabedian against Carrier marks the first time the charismatic Jesuit priest has been accused of abusing one of the boys. Carrier often visited Perlitz in Haiti, numerous victims told Hearst Connecticut Media during the newspaper groups investigation in Haiti of Project Pierre-Toussaint. None of those said they were abused by Carrier. Despite the claim, Carrier was never charged with any crime. Nevertheless, the Society of Jesus transferred Carrier from Fairfield University in 2008 as federal investigators, Haitis National Police and the United Nations began digging into claims of misconduct exposed a year earlier by Cyrus Siebert, a radio journalist in Haiti. The order suspended Carrier from performing any religious duties shortly after Perlitzs sentencing in December 2010. Carrier now resides at the Campion Jesuit community in Weston, Mass., Garabedian said. Perlitz was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in federal prison. Now 48 and one of 1,924 inmates incarcerated in the federal correction institution in Seagoville, Texas, Perlitz is awaiting release in 2026. He was left penniless when the federal government seized his bank and retirement accounts totaling about $49,000. That money was distributed to the 16 victims identified in the federal criminal case against him. During his sentencing, Perlitz said he was involved in a dark and abusive relationship both physical and spiritual that began with a Fairfield University priest shortly after he arrived as a freshman on campus in 1988. Ira Grudberg, Perlitzs defense lawyer, said that relationship continued for many years including all of his (Perlitzs) work in Haiti. The priest was never identified. What we learned in these cases is that impoverished Haitian children were sexually abused and then left in pain, agony and without hope, Garabedian said. BRIDGEPORT Before he made a career out of policing, Chief Armando Perez took some college courses to go into banking. All these years later, he is banking a sizable payout from his 28 years with Bridgeports Finest. According to the mayors office, Perez received $171,830 $122,017 after taxes a few days ago for unused vacation, personal and sick days, holidays and for compensatory time as part of the recent contract making him Bridgeports permanent police chief. Perez, who gradually worked his way up through the ranks to captain, was made acting top cop in March 2016 by good friend Mayor Joe Ganim. Ganim, following a national search, then offered a permanent contract to Perez late last year. At the chiefs request, that deal, which was ultimately approved by the city council, provided Perez two payments for time off accrued since he joined the department money that officers in the union typically receive upon retirement. Becoming permanent chief excluded Perez from the union, so he was able to request his payout now. As of Friday, the city had not provided additional details to Hearst Connecticut Media about the remaining amount of money owed to Perez. But the chief said in an interview that same day that he requested three payments, rather than two, and he thought the remaining two payouts would be $80,000 each, after taxes, bringing his after taxes total to $282,017. Thats is a sizable amount, though still short of the controversial $308,639 that ex-Deputy Chief James Honis was paid last March when he retired after 47 years on the beat having taken only six sick days. Perez, who has two children, said that years ago he decided to start planning to pay for their college education by banking his time off. (It is) something the city offered and I took advantage, Perez said Friday. I saved. The initial $171,830 payout was broken down by the mayors office as follows: $74,056 for unused holidays; $71,511 for unused compensatory time instead of overtime pay; $18,880 unused sick days; $6,712 for unused vacation time; and $671 worth of unused personal days. The value of all of that accrued time was based on Perezs salary as acting chief $145,428. Councilman Kyle Langan has a problem with that. Langan last year had questioned whether Perez would be paid out based on what he earned as acting chief, or the around $110,000 he earned as captain. Langan never received an answer. The chief isnt a union position; neither is acting chief, Langan said Friday after learning the details of Perezs payout. So if the agreement is, when you leave the union youre able to have a payout of all your unused time, you should be paid based on your last union position, which (for Perez) was captain. And doing that in Perezs case would save money for the taxpayers, Langan said. Hed still be making out very well, Langan said. Perez confirmed that he was not a union member when acting chief. However, he said, he still paid union dues for a time during that period. President Donald Trumps sudden announcement that hes pulling U.S. troops out of Syria and shrinking their number in Afghanistan has prompted a new debate about American ground forces in the Middle East and whether keeping them there is vital or not. To answer that question, though, I need to start with another question: Why is it that the one Arab Spring country that managed to make a relatively peaceful transition from dictatorship to a constitutional democracy with full empowerment for its women is the country weve had the least to do with and where weve never sent soldiers to fight and die? Its called Tunisia. Yes, Tunisia, the only Middle East country to achieve the ends that we so badly desired for Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan, did so after having hosted more U.S. Peace Corps workers over the past 50 years than U.S. military advisers and after having received only about $1 billion in U.S. aid (and three loan guarantees) since its 2010-11 democracy revolution. By comparison, the U.S. is now spending about $45 billion a year in Afghanistan after 17 years of trying to transform it into a pluralistic democracy. Why could Tunisia transition to democracy when others couldnt? It starts with its founding father, Habib Bourguiba, Tunisias leader from independence, in 1956, to 1987. Though he was a president for life like other Arab autocrats, Bourguiba was unique in other ways: He kept his army very small and did not waste four decades trying to destroy Israel; he was actually a lonely voice calling for coexistence. He educated and empowered Tunisian women and allowed relatively strong civil society groups to emerge trade unions, lawyers syndicates, womens groups, which were vital to toppling Bourguibas tyrannical successor and forging a new constitution with Tunisias Islamic movement. Tunisia was also blessed by having little oil, so it had to invest in its peoples education. Tunisia, in short, had the cultural underpinnings to sustain a democratic revolution. But political and cultural transformations move at different speeds. The U.S. (myself included) wanted to rush the necessary cultural transformation of Afghanistan and Iraq, but as Peter Drucker once noted, Culture eats strategy for breakfast. All this shapes how I think about Trumps order to withdraw from Syria and desire to get out of Afghanistan. I think he is right on Afghanistan. Weve defeated al-Qaida there; its time for us to negotiate with the Taliban and Pakistan the best phased exit we can and take as many people who worked for us as we can. Id keep our special forces in Syria, though, but not because weve yet to defeat ISIS. ISIS is a direct byproduct of the wider regional struggle between Sunnis and Shiites, led by Saudi Arabia and Iran. Thats why the only peace process that could have a stabilizing effect across the Middle East today is not between Israelis and Palestinians but between Iran and Saudi Arabia. What the small, not-all-that-costly U.S. force in Syria does that is most important is prevent the awful there from becoming the truly disastrous. It does so in part by protecting the Kurds and moderate Sunnis from the murderous Syrian government and Turkey. The mainstream Syrian and Iraqi Kurds have been, for the most part, forces for decency and Western values in that corner of the world. Our forces also help stabilize northeastern Syria, making it less likely that another huge wave of refugees will emerge from there that could further destabilize Lebanon and Jordan and create backlashes in the European Union like the earlier wave did. Finally, Id take $2 billion of the $45 billion wed save from getting out of Afghanistan and invest it regionally in all the cultural changes that made Tunisia unique across the whole Arab world. Id give huge aid to the American University in Cairo, the American University in Beirut, the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, and the American University of Afghanistan. Id massively expand the scholarship program we once ran by which top Arab public school students were eligible for a U.S.-funded scholarship to any U.S.-style liberal arts college in Lebanon or anywhere else in the region. Id also massively expand student visas and scholarships especially for Arab women for study in America. And Id offer 5,000 scholarships for Iranians to come to America to get graduate degrees in science, engineering or medicine, with visas available in Dubai. That line would be so long! Nothing would embarrass the Iranian regime more. And Id give Tunisia a $1 billion interest-free loan and quadruple the size of the Tunisian American Enterprise Fund that promotes startups there. Its time we focused on giving more Arabs and Iranians access to the ingredients that enabled Tunisia to transform itself by itself into a democracy without a single U.S. war fighter. As the son of a law enforcement officer who was on the job for nearly four decades, I would submit there ought to be an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not exploit dead cops. It is grotesque that anyone would ever seize on the killing of a police officer for political purposes. Alas, the practice is bipartisan. On the left, the exploitation takes the form of those who ask that we try to understand the sense of alienation that drives some people to self-radicalize to the point where they could kill a police officer. We heard this insane argument from community activists and the liberal media during a rash of violence against cops about five years ago in cities like Dallas, New York and Baton Rouge. On the right, when the alleged assailant is an illegal immigrant, we often see a cheap and shrill attempt to turn the grief of families and communities over a fallen guardian into outrage over illegal immigration and open borders. Republicans typically use this cynical pitch as a way to accuse Democrats of coddling cop killers. Thats what the GOP did last January when it put out a devastating 30-second online ad that helped cause the opposing party to buckle and end President Donald Trumps first shutdown after just three days. Blending high-pitched buzzwords like Democrats and Murder and Illegal Immigrants, the spot which was titled Complicit blamed Trumps political opponents for the damage done by a lowlife named Luis Bracamontes. The unrepentant killer of two police officers in 2014 who bragged about wanting to murder more cops became Trumps Willie Horton a Latino boogeyman intended to scare white people into going along with every crazy anti-immigration idea concocted by the White House. And, as we know, when it comes to cooking up crazy, the grill at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is on 24/7. Bracamontes made a return appearance this time in a television ad released just six days before the November midterms, as the GOP tried to scare up the votes to prevent Democrats from retaking the House of Representatives. But Trump and Co. was just warming up. In December, tragedy struck again this time, in the Central California city of Newman. The day after Christmas, Newman Police Cpl. Ronil Singh himself a legal immigrant from Fiji was gunned down during a traffic stop by an illegal immigrant. The 33-year-old police officer had spent Christmas morning with his wife and 5-month-old son, who will never know his father beyond stories and photographs. Trump couldnt wait to jump onto Twitter and take full advantage of the pain suffered by that family and community. And for what? To push his crusade for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border which may or may not have kept out Singhs assailant. It was a shameless stunt. But as we have learned over the past few years, in a variety of circumstances, no elected official in America has less shame than Donald Trump. The president has become a master of ghoulishly utilizing the death of police officers for short-term political benefit. Personally, Im deaf to the dog whistle. When I learn that a cop has been killed whether in the line of duty or off the job I think to myself: How old was the officer, and how many years was he or she on the job? Was he or she married, and did he or she have children? I dont think: Gee, I wonder if the killer was in the country illegally because then Id really be furious! When a cop dies, Im furious anyway and heartbroken. Memory immediately transports me back to that day in the mid-1970s when my father, dressed in uniform with his service weapon on his hip, pulled me aside before he left to work. He told me that a man had threatened his life and that he may not come home, that I should take care of my younger siblings. So, what kind of conversations did you have with your dad when you were 10 years old? You see, for me, the concept of dead police officers is personal and painful. Its not just another issue du jour to be played with. Still, mercenary politicians use it as a chew toy. May they choke on it. ruben@rubennavarrette.com Texas officials have launched a purge of 95,000 people from the voter rolls, saying they do not appear to be U.S. citizens just the beginning of a wider, more frequent purging that will happen monthly from now on. Texas Secretary of State David Whitley said working with the Department of Public Safety, his office has been able to identify the potential non-citizens among those registered to vote, including 58,000 who have cast ballots before in Texas elections. Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our state's voter rolls, and my office is committed to using all available tools under the law to maintain an accurate list of registered voters, Whitley said. Voter advocacy groups pointed out Friday that none of the states suspicions have been confirmed yet, and objected to the method used to identify the suspected non-citizen voters. They noted that 50,000 Texans become naturalized citizens each year. The Secretary of State cannot remove the voters from the rolls. That is up to county elections officials. But Whitley has recommended counties take action by sending notices that would give the people who have been flagged 30 days to prove they are eligible to vote by presenting a birth certificate, passport, or certificate of naturalization. If they fail to respond, their registrations will be canceled by the county voter registrar. The Secretary of States Office said Friday it was not prepared to release a list of how many voters per county are affected, but verified that Harris County has the most. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Already, the list of 58,000 people suspected to have voted despite being non-citizens is being forwarded to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for potential legal action. It is a felony to vote in Texas when you know you are not eligible. Nothing is more vital to preserving our Constitution than the integrity of our voting process, and my office will do everything within its abilities to solidify trust in every election in the state of Texas, Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement to the media. The news is almost certain to buoy conservatives from President Donald Trump to Gov. Greg Abbott who have alleged illegal voting and voter fraud are rampant. Abbott, who made voter fraud a priority item for the Texas Legislature in 2017, said Friday that illegal voting in Texas will not be tolerated, and as governor, I will continue root it out and punish it. If the 58,000 voters in fact turn out to have wrongly cast ballots, Texas would give Trump his clearest backing yet on claims of mass voter fraud that he says cost him the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election. Though Trump won the Electoral College, he lost the popular vote by a wide margin. "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally," Trump said in a November 2016 tweet. After being elected, Trump set up a voter fraud commission that ultimately disbanded with no clear evidence of widespread wrongdoing. It took little time for Republicans to cite the states preliminary findings in fundraising pleas: We knew it was happening and now we have proof, said an email blast sent three hours after Paxtons press release. But voter advocacy groups warn that Fridays announcement is an attempt to intimidate voters, and the contention that voter fraud is rampant has been repeatedly discounted. There is no credible data that indicates illegal voting is happening in any significant numbers, and the Secretarys statement does not change that fact, said Beth Stevens, Voting Rights Legal Director with the Texas Civil Rights Project. Stevens said she is concerned about how the state identified the suspected non-citizen voters. The Secretary of States office relied on documents that the voters themselves submitted to DPS when they were trying to obtain drivers licenses. Non-citizens, such as temporary residents, asylum seekers and refugees, are eligible to get a Texas drivers license, but they are not allowed to register to vote unless they become U.S. citizens. It is important to note that we are not using information self-reported by the person regarding citizenship status; rather, we are using documents provided by the person to show they are lawfully present in the United States, wrote the states director of elections, Keith Ingram, in a notice to registrars in all 254 Texas counties. Stevens said that could be a problem. About 50,000 Texas residents become naturalized citizens every year. Shes not alone in that concern. I hope that the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are extremely careful to ensure that they make accurate matches and do not unnecessarily alarm the public or falsely accuse people who are eligible to vote, said state Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso. For example, a legal permanent resident with a driver's license who becomes a citizen is not required to go back to DPS and change their status. So just because someone is listed as a non-citizen in DPS records, that does not mean they still are. On Monday, counties are expecting a list from the state of suspected non-citizens on their voter rolls, said Williamson County Voter Registration Supervisor Julie Seippel. Seippel said Williamson County will then review the list, looking for possible errors, before sending letters to registered voters giving them 30 days to prove their citizenship. Those that don't, or can't, will be removed from the rolls. "If they get a letter and they are a citizen, it's important they provide documentation or mail it out to us. That way we can keep them on our rolls," she said. Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said typically the county is alerted to possible non-citizen voters through the jury summons process, though it's not a frequent occurrence. The state flags a few dozen voters a month statewide who are disqualified from jury duty because they declare they are non-citizens, said Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Secretary of States Office. The state then compares those names to the voter rolls and forwards the information to counties. But the new purge is part of larger effort as the states technology allows it to better compare voter rolls with drivers license records. The state now can compare names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and election ID numbers to identify potentially ineligible voters. This is just the beginning. Taylor called the 95,000 names the initial backlog. Going forward, the Secretary of States office will use information from DPS on a monthly basis to cross reference the voter registration database to identify potential non-citizens who have registered to vote. Stevens said the latest efforts and the overzealous celebration from Paxton and others are concerning because the next step will be that the state is going to use this highly suspect investigation to try to pass laws that will make it harder for eligible Texas voters to cast a ballot that counts. Texas has already been aggressive in passing laws aimed at alleged voter fraud over the past decade, many of which critics say have reduced access to the ballot box. For instance, the state has adopted voter ID laws and restricted voter registration drives. More recently, in 2017, it passed tougher penalties for people who wrongly handle absentee ballots. Austin Bureau reporter Allie Morris contributed to this report. Were still early in the process, but the most striking thing about the first week-and-a-half of municipal-election filing action is how little action it has produced. After all, the big lesson that we took from last Novembers charter amendment elections in which voters approved two out of three propositions designed to constrain the power of municipal government is that San Antonians were fed up with City Hall. Nonetheless, apart from Councilman Greg Brockhouses expected (but not yet official) challenge to Mayor Ron Nirenberg, all the signs right now are pointing to a strangely low-drama election cycle. So far, no candidates have filed to challenge council incumbents Rebecca Viagran, Shirley Gonzales, Ana Sandoval, Manny Pelaez or John Courage (although political consultant Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe is certain to file for Pelaezs District 8 seat). In the case of Courage, this is pretty remarkable. Courages North Side district has long been the most politically conservative district in San Antonio and Courage is a liberal Democrat with a history of running against prominent Republicans such as Lamar Smith and Donna Campbell. Courages 2017 runoff victory over pro-business conservative Marco Barros might have been the biggest upset in the history of San Antonio municipal elections. After his win, the common view was that Courage would be a one-termer; that Republican-leaning North Siders would start lining up to challenge him within days of his debut on the dais. That doesnt seem to be happening. In fact, the one council incumbent inundated with challengers is not Courage, but District 1 Councilman Roberto Trevino. As of Friday afternoon, Trevino already had six opponents, with three weeks left before the filing deadline. That matches the most challengers that any local council district incumbent has faced in the past decade. Of course, its not the number of challengers you face, but the seriousness of those challenges, that counts. Julian Castro faced four mayoral opponents in 2011 and still cruised to victory with more than 81 percent of the vote. Its too early to know how serious Trevinos opposition will turn out to be, but at least one of his challengers, Justin Holley, is demonstrating some organizational muscle. Holley, the former chairman of the San Antonio Hotel and Lodging Association, held a Jan. 22 fundraiser with a host committee that included local shakers such as Ernesto and April Ancira, Eddie Aldrete, Blanca Aldaco and George Block. His campaign treasurer is Henry Brun, the popular Latin-jazz musician who serves on the San Antonio Arts Commission and the Visit San Antonio Board. District 1, which represents downtown, is always a big target. So many hot-button issues that affect the city are either based in District 1 or manifest themselves with the greatest intensity there. For example, the proliferation of scooters in the downtown area has become a polarizing local issue, and Trevino cant help but be at the center of it. The same goes for Alamo Plazas ambitious makeover. Trevino couldnt help but take a major role in it, given the boundary lines of his district, but his background as an architect meant that he would be more involved in the details of the design than your typical elected official. Trevino deserves credit for his tireless work on the project, but hell surely feel some heat from those who oppose the planned relocation of the Cenotaph monument, or the closing of Alamo Street and part of Houston Street, or the railing that will surround the missions original footprint. In the case of Holley, his biggest objection to Trevino is the councilmans opposition to San Antonio bidding on the 2020 Republican National Convention. Trevino was only one of several council members who opposed it, but because the local tourism industry is based around downtown, and Trevino represents the downtown area, hes taking a disproportionate amount of criticism from entrepreneurs who wanted the estimated $200 million in RNC tourist business. Trevino fended off a tough challenge two years ago from Michael Montano, a tech-industry attorney who argued that the councilman had not done enough to protect the integrity of historic neighborhoods from gentrification. While the council recently recalibrated its downtown development incentive program, Trevino probably will field more questions on that issue during the campaign. This seems to come with the territory in District 1. Former District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal faced no ballot opposition in 2013, but a few months later had to contend with a recall effort from the religious right after he led the charge to pass a nondiscrimination ordinance, which extended civil-rights protections to those in the LGBTQ community. The spotlight burns pretty bright in District 1. That means plenty of policy influence, but it also comes with plenty of scrutiny. @gilgamesh470 Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470 NASA scientists, engineers and other employees working without pay at Johnson Space Center are being asked to do something else for free: clean the bathrooms during the federal government shutdown. A NASA manager, whose work involves developing requirements for spacewalks to maintain the International Space Station, tweeted Thursday a copy of a sign posted at JSC asking workers to volunteer for bathroom cleanup duty once a week until the shutdown ends. "This is our reality at the Johnson Space Center," the manager tweeted. "We now have no custodial services while we work without pay to keep the International Space Station operating." She ended her tweet with an angry-face emoji. BRAIN DRAIN? Postdocs at NASA's Johnson Space Center latest to lose funding under shutdown Anger and frustration over the shutdown has reached a boiling point in Houston, where 94 percent of the 3,055 federal employees at Johnson have been forced out of work since the government was shuttered Dec. 22 because of a political battle over the proposed border wall. With Johnson employees set to miss their second paycheck of the shutdown Friday, about 50 people took to the streets last week to protest, begging Congressional leaders to reopen the government so they could get back to work and get paid. Even postdoctoral fellows at NASA, who were assured the shutdown wouldn't affect them, have found themselves out of funding and therefore out of work because of the budgetary impasse. Four of the 203 NASA postdocs work out of the Houston center. 'HELPLESS:' About 50 people protest government shutdown at NASA's Johnson Space Center Custodians may be next. Byron Williams, Houston-area labor representative for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said Thursday that only about 20 of the 50 or so custodians he represents currently are working on site. "They're operating at a 50 percent reduction right now," he said. "If they don't reopen the government by [Jan.] 29th or 30th, they're no longer going to be able to fund it and they'll furlough the entire crew." 'Wipe Toilet Seats' Now Playing: People protest against the government shutdown outside of NASA's Johnson Space Center Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019. Video: Houston Chronicle Johnson is home to the nation's astronaut corps, where human space flight research and training take place. It also is home to the space station's mission operations and the Orion program. About 200 federal employees still working at Johnson are there primarily to ensure the astronauts aboard the space station remain safe. Those employees are not getting paid. The manager who tweeted the photo could not be reached for comment Thursday. The notice posted asks workers to sign up to help "clean toilets, wipe toilet seats, handles, and sink faucet handles with disinfectant wipes." It also asks employees to pick trash up from the floors and take out their own garbage. "Please bring your personal desk-side trash to the brown bin (across from the men's bathroom) so we don't attract ants or rodents," the sign read. Gloves will be provided, the sign says. EXPERTS: Shutdown may drive NASA workforce to the private sector The tweet was directed at Texas' Republican Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, a Republican whose district includes the Johnson Space Center. When asked for a comment, a spokeswoman for Cornyn pointed to the senator's vote Thursday to end the shutdown by supporting funding for President Trump's proposed border wall. "This shutdown may have begun as a battle over border security, but it's affecting men and women in all 50 states whose jobs have nothing to do with border security," Cornyn said in a news release distributed after the vote. Cruz also voted for the bill to reopen the government, a spokesman said in a statement, and is "committed to finding a solution to pay federal workers and fund common-sense border security." "Sen. Cruz believes that NASA employees and all federal workers deserve good working conditions and a reliable paycheck," the statement said. Out of work A representative of Native Resource Development, the New Mexico-based company that holds Johnson's custodial contract, told the Houston Chronicle last week that they would begin accepting voluntary layoffs last Friday because of the shutdown, though he could not provide an exact number needed. Some individuals, he added, are exempt and will continue working. "The task has been reduced because there's buildings that are not occupied," he said. He directed more specific questions to company President Steven Cammack, who declined to comment Thursday. Cammack referred all questions to NASA personnel who were unavailable because of the shutdown. UNPAID: Workers at NASA's Johnson Space Center brace for first missing paycheck Shaun Azimi, a robotics engineer at Johnson who is working part-time during the shutdown, said Thursday he and his colleagues are less concerned about dirty bathrooms than they are about the welfare of the custodial staff themselves. "Frankly, I wouldn't mind cleaning all the bathrooms on site if it meant the custodial staff could keep getting paid," Azimi said. "We are like a family here at JSC, and we just want to keep everyone, including our contractor team members, safe and employed. We're all just trying to do our jobs and support NASA's mission." Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey. NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. While San Antonio ponders how to regulate e-scooters, looking for a sensible balance between hipster anarchy and micro-managing its urban micro-transit, a tiny suburb northeast of the big city is about to put its foot down. The city council in Kirby, population about 9,000, directed the city attorney Thursday evening to draft an ordinance that would ban electric scooters from its 118 streets. The six council members and mayor were of one mind on it scooters arent for Kirby, and who needs the liability when someone gets hurt? We didnt take a formal vote yet, said Kirby councilmember Mike Grant. But there is consensus among us all that we have to get in front of this issue and not allow ourselves to be like downtown San Antonio. Though numerous cities around the country, from Waco to Santa Monica, Calif., are flummoxed on how to handle the seemingly overnight invasion of two-wheeled dockless vehicles and have sought legal remedies, few have taken the total-ban approach Kirby is considering. Theres just no need for them out here, said Grant, describing his quiet burb as populated largely by an over-50 crowd served by 11 churches, seven Mexican restaurants and a Dairy Queen. Grant and fellow councilmember Jerry Lehman said Kirbys scooter angst began last week when folks around the old German community, named for a Southern Pacific Railroad yard, noticed a half-dozen of them unceremoniously splayed across a bus stop near a Baptist church on Old Seguin Road. They said Councilmember Kimberly McGehee-Aldrich took a photo of the mess and forwarded it to several people. It was like someone just dumped them and said, Yall deal with it, Lehman said. The thing is, we dont have any sidewalks they can ride them on, so they might get on FM 78 and get killed and then blame the city of Kirby for it. You know that would happen, echoed Grant, a former Kirby police officer who now serves as a reserve officer for the town of Sabinal near Garner State Park. Someone will sue us. Theyre like rockets for kids. Theyre not practical out here. Maybe in San Antonio, but not here. Bruce Selcraig is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read his stories on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | BSelcraig@express-news.net Jerry Lara/Staff Photographer Top former security officials say a wall across the Southwest border is impractical, while congressmen along the border urge for more technology and ports of entry funding. In the episode of EN-Depth, immigration reporter Silvia Foster-Frau shares her on-the-ground experiences while researching how the U.S.-Mexico border is far more militarized, fortified and complicated than many Americans know. Bexar County has completed the first murder trial of the year, a cold case from 2015. In this episode of The Docket, we learn the fate of a 63-year-old San Antonio man who was charged with murder in a cold case involving a body found burning on the side of the road in Southeast Bexar County. Antonio Nunez Jr. was convicted of murder last week and sentenced to 70 years in prison in the death of a 47-year-old woman whose body was found burning on W.W. White Road in Southeast Bexar County in August 2015. He will have to serve 30 years of his term before hes eligible for parole. Authorities arrested him a year and a half after the body of Lisa R. Carter was found. She had been struck at least three times in the head and her body doused with gasoline and set on fire. The case went cold because there were no identifying documents found on her body, and authorities had to use DNA and a fraction of a fingerprint to find out who she was. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio jury takes just 25 minutes to sentence man to 70 years in prison for killing, burning of ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Zavala is a courts and crime reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ezavala@express-news.net | Twitter: @elizabeth2863 The Docket is weekly podcast with courts and crime reporter Elizabeth Zavala as she breaks down the trials in the Bexar County courthouse. The Docket is produced by Joy-Marie Scott and Chance Dorland. Listen and subscribe on: Apple Podcasts Google Play Stitcher TuneIn iHeart Radio All Episodes Grandma Alice Terrazas wouldnt miss the annual Cowboy Breakfast for the world. Neither would daughter Yvonne and Terrazas four grandchildren; in fact, Terrazas has made arrangements every year for the oldest, 11-year-old Danika Garza, to be excused from school for the pre-dawn event that kicks off the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. This is a tradition for us. We have to come every year, Terrazas said before the sun rose Friday. The Cowboy Breakfast, theres just so much going on. This is a truly San Antonio tradition. If youre not here, its like you missed out on something. The family was among the more than 35,000 San Antonians and visitors who came out to a North Side parking lot for free tacos and a whole lot of other breakfast treats at the 41st annual food fest. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo over the years Lines opened at 4:30 a.m. sharp under partly cloudy skies, with the temperature at a reasonable 43 and no rain. The hundreds of volunteers handed out tacos stuffed with barbecue, chorizo and egg, potato and egg, and bacon and egg. There were also sausage wraps, biscuits and gravy, biscuits and sausage, fresh pastry, fresh-brewed Whats Brewing Co. coffee and more. Chuck Christian, Cowboy Breakfast vice president, was all smiles as he organized the presenters who delivered a $20,000 check to the St. Philips College tourism, hospitality and culinary arts department for scholarships for its students, who are among the chefs at the breakfast. The weathers fantastic, and weve got a great crowd, Christian said as the early rays of the sun brought a little warmth. We had a record number of sponsors and donors this year, helping us achieve our $20,000 scholarship goal, and its just been a wonderful morning. Ethan Hernandez, 16, found himself first in line for sausage and egg tacos. He arrived at 2 a.m. to support a friend who was one of 40 St. Philips volunteers helping to prepare tortillas and make breakfast tacos. This was the first time Hernandez ever attended a Cowboy Breakfast. This is pretty cool out here, said the St. Philips Early College High School student. Ill definitely be back next year. First in line for coffee was Denise Coppe, who said she has been coming to the breakfast since 1997. We wouldnt miss it, she said. This is the first time weve been first in line for anything. When we got here,there was nobody in line, so here we are. Were trendsetters! Crystal Briones and Sean Diaz were 100th and 101st in the Pioneer biscuits line. We come every year, mostly, said Briones, 29, who lives on the West Side in the U.S. 90-Texas 151 area, in contrast to Diaz, 30, who lives in Universal City, about five minutes away from Cowboys Dancehall,where the breakfast is served. We used to work together, down the street from here, Briones said. While Diaz had to report to work later Friday, Briones said she wasnt scheduled to go in until 9 p.m. Ive been awake. I havent been to sleep since early this afternoon, she added. The lines have been moving fast. That line (for Rudys barbecue tacos) took not even five minutes, she said. Lanette Sanchez, a second-year student in the St. Philips culinary arts program, was flipping tortillas for the freshly wrapped chorizo and egg tacos. Like the rest of the St. Philips group, she arrived at 2 a.m. to prep and serve. A dual-major student, she is in culinary arts and business management and said her goal is to one day open her own pastry and baking shop. On ExpressNews.com: St. Philips culinary program helps student turn her life around Frank Salinas, chair of the colleges tourism, hospitality and culinary arts department, said the school has been active with the Cowboy Breakfast since 2000. Theyve given us scholarships and been a real strong supporter of education, and were here giving back, Salinas said. Were the ones who get here and start cooking the food, and then slowly the volunteers arrive and start serving the food. Salinas said his department and its students cherish the opportunity to be a part of the annual mass meal, with its 35,000 breakfast tacos and more. This is a great way for us to interact with the community and give back, Salinas said, to say thanks to everyone who helps make their way to college a smoother one. jflinn@express-news.net The four Democrats and one Republican running to become San Antonios next state representative all agree that the state needs to devote more funds to the public school system, but their plans vary in scope and strategy for how to do that. School coordinator Coda Rayo-Garza, former state representative Art Reyna, former city councilman Ray Lopez and consultant Steve Huerta are running as Democrats; business owner Fred Rangel is the lone Republican in the race. Early voting in the special election for House District 125 begins Monday and ends Feb. 8. Election Day is Feb. 12. On ExpressNews.com: Governor sets special election for San Antonio House seat The question is how are we going to identify that solid revenue stream for funding public education equitably, said Rayo-Garza, a senior coordinator for the San Antonio Independent School District and former policy adviser to several City Council members. The five candidates talked about their views with the Express-News editorial board this week. She raised a few possibilities, including taking more revenue from the Texas Lottery or ending the so-called dark store legal theory, which allows businesses to cut their property tax bills by having their property evaluated as empty buildings. Fellow Democrats offered other possibilities. Lopez said the state could continue devoting money from oil revenues to transportation, which would free up general revenue for schools. Reyna, who held the 125th district seat from 1996 to 2002, said there are various corporate loopholes that the state could close. It could also use reform in other areas such as the criminal justice system to save money that could be moved to education. Rangel, owner of Adco Professional Services and Adco Master Builders, agrees more money is needed but said the revenue already available must be distributed more fairly. He said theres also potential to cut overhead administrative costs regarding the number of school districts. The students need to be taken care of, and that has not happened, Rangel said. Huerta was more cautious. He said the state needs to figure out a way to increase funding without jeopardizing peoples assets. On other issues, the candidates split along ideological lines. The four Democrats said they did not support taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, and that the state should have done more to help families separated at the border under federal policy. Rangel said he does support vouchers, and that the family separation policy was handled properly. The 125 House District seat became open when the sitting legislator, Justin Rodriguez, resigned to accept appointment to the Bexar County Commissioners Court. On ExpressNews.com: County judge names Rodriguez to fill the late Elizondos seat The five candidates to replace Rodriguez had stark disagreements about the value of political experience. Reyna, who would retain his six years of seniority in the House if elected, said that was his primary edge over the field. He said he would enter the 150-member chamber somewhere between 50th and 55th in ranking. Everybody else at this table is number 150 out of 150, and I dare say the least effective legislator in this state, Reyna said. But Rayo-Garza, who is originally from Laredo, said the race is about ideas and grit, not seniority. And I have that, she said. You dont get to leave a place like where I came from without grit and determination. Rangel said his decades of experience with community groups equip him to be a state representative. I believe the representation that I bring to the table is genuine from the community perspective, and thats my strength, Rangel said. And that makes me best qualified. Huerta said his experience as an activist would provide a perspective thats much needed in Austin. Im not trying to run for office to start to do something, he said. Ive been doing it, and I do it daily. Lopez said his recent experience with the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, advocating for transportation needs at the Texas Legislature, would help him seamlessly transition into the role. I think whats more important than the seniority that you bring is the relationships that you have, Lopez said. Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinness WASHINGTON - The indictment expected for months has finally come. Roger Stone, President Donald Trump's longest-serving political adviser, has been charged with lying to investigators. The alleged lies pertain to his efforts to secure information from WikiLeaks about its release of Democrats' emails during the 2016 campaign. Here are some key sections and takeaways. 1. An ambundance of contradiction There's really not a lot of ambiguity when it comes to Stone's alleged lies. At one point, the indictment includes two exchanges in which Stone denies ever communicating with his WikiLeaks intermediary via text or email. Here's one exchange: Q: [H]ow did you communicate with the intermediary? A: Over the phone. Q: And did you have any other means of communicating with the intermediary? A: No. Q: No text messages, no - none of the list, right? A: No. Later in his testimony, Stone repeats this: Q: So you never communicated with your intermediary in writing in any way? A: No. Q: Never emailed him or texted him? A: He's not an email guy. Q: So all your conversations with him were in person or over the phone. A: Correct. But the indictment details many messages and makes clear there was no way Stone would simply have forgotten about these things. More for you News President Donald Trump does not appear to understand how... "In truth and in fact, as described above, STONE and Person 2 (who STONE identified to [the House Intelligence Committee] as his intermediary) engaged in frequent written communication by email and text message," the indictment states. "STONE also engaged in frequent written communication by email and text message with Person 1, who also provided STONE with information regarding Organization 1." (Organization 1 is WikiLeaks. It is not immediately clear who Person 1 is.) 2. A 'Godfather' reference In perhaps the most colorful section, the indictment says that Stone urged someone who was testifying in front of the House Intelligence Committee (referred to by its formal acronym HPSCI in the indictment) to emulate a character from "The Godfather: Part II" who feigned ignorance during his own testimony: "On multiple occasions, including on or about December 1, 2017, STONE told Person 2 that Person 2 should do a "Frank Pentangeli" before HPSCI in order to avoid contradicting STONE's testimony. Frank Pentangeli is a character in the film The Godfather: Part II, which both STONE and Person 2 had discussed, who testifies before a congressional committee and in that testimony claims not to know critical information that he does in fact know." The clause "which both STONE and Person 2 had discussed," is key, because it suggests both of them were familiar with exactly that the character had done. 3. The big question: The Trump campaign's role There is no smoking gun in the indictment when it comes to the Trump campaign's culpability, and for most of the campaign, Stone was an informal Trump adviser -- not actually serving on the campaign. So as far as potential Trump campaign collusion with Russia via WikiLeaks, which the U.S. government regards as a front for Russia's election interference, you still need to connect some dots. But the indictment does make clear (repeatedly) the campaign was interested in the WikiLeaks information - and even sought the information from Stone - over a span of months, from the summer of 2016 to October 2016: "During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1." Later in the indictment: "Also on or about October 3, 2016, STONE received an email from a reporter who had connections to a high-ranking Trump Campaign official that asked, "[the head of [Organization 1] - what's he got? Hope it's good." STONE responded in part, "It is. I'd tell [the high-ranking Trump Campaign official] but he doesn't call me back." The "high-ranking Trump Campaign official" appears to be Stephen K. Bannon, who according to emails obtained by the New York Times emailed with Stone about WikiLeaks the next day." And later: "On or about October 7, 2016, Organization 1 released the first set of emails stolen from the Clinton Campaign chairman. Shortly after Organization 1's release, an associate of the highranking Trump Campaign official sent a text message to STONE that read "well done." In subsequent conversations with senior Trump Campaign officials, STONE claimed credit for having correctly predicted the October 7, 2016 release." You'll recall Oct. 7 was the day WikiLeaks orchestrated an email dump shortly after The Washington Post reported on Trump's "Access Hollywood" tape in which he talked crudely about grabbing women by their genitals. That apparent distraction was apparently appreciated by "an associate of a highranking Trump Campaign official." 4. A strong hint of Trump? The most significant reference to members of the campaign, though, could be this: "After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1, a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign. STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1." The words "was directed" loom large here. Who did the directing? Why not just characterize who that was using vague terms, as is done throughout the indictment? Is it because it's not clear who that was, or because Mueller's team doesn't want to reveal too much about that person's role? Though we can't say for sure, it seems entirely possible this is Trump. He, after all, would seem to be the person who would have the authority to direct a "senior Trump Campaign official" - though it's possible another senior aide could also do so. Even if it was Trump, that wouldn't necessarily be some kind of smoking gun, but it certainly be problematic. As he has in past indictments, Mueller isn't showing us too much here. But spending so much time detailing the campaign's interest in WikiLeaks - which speaks to Stone's alleged lies but probably isn't entirely necessary - does seem conspicuous. Remember that Mueller routinely includes stuff like this that comes up later - most notably with Konstantin Kilimnick's ties to Russian intelligence and Michael Cohen's plea to lying about Trump Tower Moscow. In many ways, this feels like another "speaking indictment." There's a hint of something possible to come. It can be downright fun to strip down your inhibitions for the camera. And with Valentines Day just around the bedpost, its as great a time as any to strike a pose for some sexy boudoir photos. That goes for all shapes, sizes and sensibilities. Too shy? Lose that fear and prepare to be empowered. Think youre not pretty enough? Your partner already adores you and knows youre the hottest thing on earth. Were not kidding, either. Remember that viral story about a San Antonio husband who, after his wife gave him boudoir photos of herself, wrote a letter to the photographer bemoaning that her stretch marks and other bodily indicators of their life together has been Photoshopped out?Plenty of other ladies and gentlemen seconded that emotion with supportive comments of their own. So see yourself in a whole new light, preferably one that accentuates those curves and come-hither eyes. Here are some tips for taking your own sexy photos at home, and what to look for when seeking a professional boudoir photographer. Tips for doing it yourself Think about lighting. Every photographer extols the virtues of proper lighting. Mary Talamantez of Miss Mary Boudoir Studio is no different. For indoor photos, she recommends positioning yourself near a window, which will provide natural and flattering light for an intimate yet illuminated image. The direction of your light source matters, too. Angela Michelle, founder of Raven Red Photography in San Antonio, noted backlighting will silhouette the shape of your body as well as your nose, neck and eyelashes when you turn your face to the side. Front lighting can diminish skin texture to help hide imperfections, she said. And side-lighting best highlights those curves or muscles. Have a clean photo backdrop. Stick with plain white bedsheets and other distraction-free minimalism in your photo setting. You dont want anything embarrassing appearing in the background or anything messy, Talamantez said. Strike the right pose for your body. Michelle advises you give yourself a thorough look in the mirror to see how your body changes shape with different poses. For pose ideas, scroll through Pinterest for models that match your body type and look through the online galleries of professional boudoir photographers. Expect poses to feel uncomfortable. Professional models make every languid pose look natural, but the truth is they often must arch their backs and elongate their limbs to point of discomfort. That will go for you, too, especially if youre a woman pointing your toes to make your legs look longer or a guy flexing those muscles. (Youre) going to be in some uncomfortable positions, and it may feel awkward, said Michelle, who advises stretching before your photo shoot. But it will look amazing in the photos. On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Instagram star juggles fitness, fashion and Army duty Give good face. Your facial expression is the most important part of any boudoir photo, according to Vanity Boudoir Photography owner Oscar McAnally. Yes, even more important than the body itself. McAnally said to relax your mouth to show the natural curvature of your lips. (A closed mouth is unnatural, he said.) Stretch your chin toward the camera to accentuate your jawline, and keep your shoulders back to perk up your face. Focus on other body parts. Sexy photos arent just head-to-toe affairs. Michelle said detail photos such as the curve of the neck or just feet in heels can look just as beautiful for women, while guys may want to spotlight their back and shoulder muscles and glutes. Dont limit yourself to lingerie. Not the naughty nightie type? Michelle encourages alternatives to lingerie. Rock a favorite band T-shirt and panties, she said, or try a leather jacket with no bra and high-waist underwear. A bodysuit or just a sweater also work wonders without showing too much skin. Or just make a strategically positioned bedsheet or blanket your costume. It doesnt have to just be (underwear), Michelle said. If thats not your thing then dont force it. Use a tripod with a remote. Skip the awkward, extended-arm selfies. Michelle recommends an inexpensive cellphone tripod with a remote, which you can set up to shoot with the push of an inconspicuous button. Amazon has plenty such tripods, with some that include extra lenses for even more creative shots. Involve your partner. If youre shooting these pics for your significant other, why not include them in the process? Its a chance for your partner to not just tell you but to show you the beauty they see in you, said Michelle, who stresses to focus on that connection and enjoy exploring each other with the camera. That connection can be sensual as well as silly. While shooting photos, say what you love about your partners body or just make each other laugh. Tips for hiring a professional Seek a real professional. Baring so much body and soul to any photographer can be unnerving to say the least. Thats why you want a boudoir photographer who specializes in the field, not some wannabe giving Valentines season a try between weddings and quinceaneras. All boudoir photographers interviewed for this story are part of the Association of International Boudoir Photographers, which has strict standards and ethics for its members. Such guidelines include having boudoir-specific websites that feature at least three models or clients in a gallery and images that reflect consistent lighting and creative storytelling with no overdone post-processing. You can search the organizations member directory at aibphotog.com. You also can seek referrals from lingerie stores as well as the Sexology Institute in San Antonio. Get references. Michelle said a trustworthy boudoir photographer will provide client and model references. Ask those subjects about their experiences and any tips. On ExpressNews.com: Model taxidermist turns heads and mounts them, too Get to know your photographer beyond email. All the boudoir photographers in this article insist on at least a phone call with a prospective client to put that person at ease. Michelle recommends an in-person consultation before the photo shoot as well. Express yourself verbally as well as physically. Communication is key in boudoir photography. Be prepared to discuss candidly what you want and dont want in your photos so you look and feel your best. If you have something in mind, or theres a vision that you have in mind, you want to work with your photographer to be able to build that vision together, Talamantez said. Expect to spend a lot of time on a shoot. In addition to the photo shoot itself, factor in extra time you may need for hair and makeup as well as wardrobe changes. McAnally dedicates a whole day to a client so shell look and feel relaxed for her photo shoot, and takes fully clothed beauty shots of his subjects first to help them get in the mood for those more revealing photos later. Expect to spend a lot of money, too. Boudoir photography is considered luxury photography, McAnally said, and runs more than your typical photo sittings. Michelle said the average cost for boudoir photos in the San Antonio market starts at around $1,000 to cover the photo shoot with several prints or other finished art. Hair and makeup often will run another $200. Book now. Planning in advance is so important, said Talamantez, who recommends booking a boudoir photographer as soon as possible for those Valentines Day pics to account for availability and turnaround time. On ExpressNews.com: Meet San Antonios leading fashion Instagram star, Shear Bear Trust your gut. Safety always is important, Talamantez said. Even after you vet a photographers clients and credentials, youre always within your rights to cancel a shoot if you dont feel comfortable. You should never feel pressured or coerced into doing anything you dont want to do. If youre a woman being photographed by a man, McAnally said its perfectly fine to have a girlfriend present, though he noted his wife is his assistant and always attends shoots. Prepare to feel awesome. Talamantez has seen abuse victims leave a photo shoot feeling invincible, while McAnally has had preachers practically bless him for making their wives feel so beautiful. Boudoir photos can be a life-changing experience, McAnally said. The real gift, Michelle said, is how you are going to see yourself. And if theres anyone who should love the way look in a sexy photo, its that gorgeous person in the mirror. Rene A. Guzman is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rguzman@express-news.net | Twitter: @reneguz WASHINGTON - Three months ago, Exxon Mobil was ready to drill a natural gas well in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Cyprus. Then Turkeys Foreign Ministry released a statement warning oil companies considering drilling in that area to to act with common sense and to duly consider the realities on the ground. Although couched in diplomatic language, the message was clear. Less than a year earlier, Turkish naval ships forced the Italian oil company Eni to suspend drilling off the coast of Cyprus, part of which Turkey claims as its territory. Massive gas discoveries off the coasts of Egypt, Israel and Cyprus, led by international oil companies including Houstons Noble Energy, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon, are inflaming tensions in an already volatile region now facing the huge influx of wealth that comes with being the worlds next big energy play. Cyprus itself has been geopolitical tinderbox for decades, sparking a Turkish invasion in the 1970s that divided the island nation between ethnic Turks and Greeks and led to a United Nations peacekeeping mission that has lasted nearly a half-century. Turkey has shown a willingness to defend their interests even if it brings them into conflict with other countries, said Bulent Aliriza, a senior associate at the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. This issue bears watching because I think theres going to be trouble. Exxon Mobil, which went ahead with its plans, has so far avoided trouble. But the possibility of fighting breaking out in the Eastern Mediterranean has many in the oil sector worried. On HoustonChronicle.com: In Guyana, Exxon project stirs international tensions Charles Ellinas, the former CEO of the Cypriot National Hydrocarbon Co. and now a senior fellow at the Washington think tank Atlantic Council, said there is good reason for concern. Turkey is unlikely to interfere with American companies, lest it provoke the U.S. military. But it might disrupt the operations of the French oil company Total, which has partnered with Eni on its contract to drill in waters in the Cypriot waters claimed by Turkey, Ellinas said. In addition, he said, the geopolitical uncertainty and potential for military action could make it difficult to find the financing needed to develop the offshore gas fields. This sort of situation is not conducive, he said. We can talk about international agreements and the U.N. But when it comes to major projects and billions of dollars in investment, can you tell me a bank that will put the money in when there is a political threat? We need a political solution. The boundaries of Cyprus, a 3,500-square-mile former British colony, have been under dispute since it won independence in 1960. Cypriots of Greek heritage and those of Turkish heritage battled for more than a decade before a coup detat by Greek Cypriot nationalists spurred the invasion by Turkey, which feared a union between Cyprus and Greece. The invasion established the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which neither the United States, Europe nor the United Nations recognizes. The government, which is recognized only by Turkey, must operate under an international embargo that prevents flights from going anywhere but Turkey. Athletes from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus are unable to play in international competition. Their Foreign Minister Kudret Ozersay traveled to New York and Washington earlier this month, as part of a diplomatic push to pressure oil companies to start negotiating with Turkish Cypriot officials. As it stands now, the official Cyprus government has agreed to split gas revenues with the Turkish Cypriots, but has not consulted with them on the development of the gas fields. Ozeray said his government was considering legal action through international courts though he declined to go into specifics to force the Greek Cypriots and oil companies to bring them into the loop, but would prefer a more reasonable and pragmatic approach. The [international] decision-making process may take time. Diplomacy is process, not one meeting, he said in an interview. We try to show everyone it is worth it to think twice. Causing instability in the region may have repercussions for the foreign policy. Plenty is at stake for the oil sector as well. At a time of middling natural gas prices and hesitation around large offshore projects, the huge volumes of gas in the Eastern Mediterranean have turned the region into one of the worlds hottest exploration areas, said Robert Morris, a senior energy analyst at the research firm Wood MacKenzie. Interest was sparked in 2009 with the Nobles discovery of Israels Tamar field, estimated to hold 11 trillion cubic feet of gas. On HoustonChronicle.com: Israel comes to Houston seeking partners to develop gas reserves Then in 2012 Noble announced its Aphrodite field off the coast of Cyprus, holding 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. Three years later Eni announced the Zhor field off the coast of Egypt, with an estimated 21.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. A huge amount of gas has been discovered over the last 10 years, Morris said. They might be deep water wells, but in some of the fields you need to drill very few wells because the reservoir is so productive. Right now, all eyes are on Exxons exploratory wells off Cyprus, the results of which are expected to be announced in the weeks ahead. The Texas oil giant has already floated the idea of building a LNG export facility on Cyprus, should the wells prove as prolific as hoped. And Israel, Egypt and Cyprus announced earlier this month they had formed a joint group to develop the infrastructure necessary to move gas out of the eastern Mediterranean, a region lacking in the LNG terminals and pipelines necessary to move gas to markets in Europe and Asia. But the political issues around Cyprus and Turkey continue to cloud that promise. And considering the long history of conflict in the region stretching back not just decades but centuries to the days of the Ottoman Empire finding a solution will be difficult, said Aliriza, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. You bring in the existing problems, a Syrian war, a Lebanese civil war, and then add energy, which always bring the potential for dispute, he said. The Eastern Med has a long history of dispute, and this is feeding off of that and adding new ones. james.osborne@chron.com After a month without a paycheck, federal prison worker Arthur Trevino was glad to hear news Friday that President Donald Trump had agreed to reopen the federal government. But he wont forget the financial pain he and his family had lived through anytime soon. Trevino, 52, a Three Rivers resident, said the 35-day partial government shutdown depleted his savings, and forced him and his wife to haggle with creditors. He also joined a flood of federal workers who showed up at the San Antonio Food Bank to put food on the table. From the last prolonged shutdown, in 2013, he knows it could still be a week or two before he gets paid what hes owed for the last five weeks. Trevino and other federal employees caught up in the shutdown but whose jobs were deemed essential were required to work without pay. It doesnt help that the deal Trump accepted promised to keep the government open for only three weeks. It is great news but then, remember, theres stipulations, Trevino said. Theyre only going to keep it open for three weeks, so we could be right back where were at again. While the regional economy hadnt suffered a significant blow from the partial government shutdown, the swell of federal workers visiting the food bank was an early warning sign. Economists had few doubts that a continued shutdown would have taken a bigger toll. After missing their first paycheck, on Jan. 11, the number of government employees picking up care packages at the food bank grew into the hundreds, and then thousands. With Friday marking the second missed paycheck, San Antonio Food Bank CEO Eric Cooper was getting worried. "We guesstimated after some web searching theres about 30,000 federal employees in San Antonio, and so we may have served up to 10 percent of them already," Cooper said. If the government hadnt re-opened soon, he added, the impact could have been catastrophic. Keith Phillips, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said the San Antonio area had one big advantage: while its share of federal employees is about twice the state average, many of them are tied to the citys four military bases. The Department of Defense which accounts for a sizable amount of work for local contractors remained funded. But the shutdown, if it had stretched on indefinitely, could have caused some pretty significant problems for the region, Phillips said. The government closure, which started Dec. 22 after congressional Democrats refused President Donald Trumps demand for $5.7 billion for border wall, became the longest federal shutdown on record. While the Defense Department remained open, a host of other agencies didnt. They included the Department of Homeland Security; the Agriculture Department; Housing and Urban Development; and the Interior Department, which oversees national parks such as the San Antonio Missions. Nationwide, about 800,000 federal workers werent getting paid. Joe Brusuelas, the Austin-based chief economist for RSM U.S., a tax consulting firm, said a continued shutdown would have inflicted even more pain on transportation hubs, such as Houston, with large numbers of unpaid Federal Aviation Administration, Customs and Border Protection, and TSA workers. Last week, a sick-out among unpaid TSA workers had forced the closing of a Bush International Airport terminal in Houston. For South Texas farmers and ranchers, the lapse in Agriculture Department funding delayed payments meant to offset losses from the Trump administrations tariffs as well as the roll-out of the new farm bill and its grower-friendly provisions for cotton and other crops. Well just have to see how it all pans out, but were glad that they reached a resolution for now so farmers and ranchers can have a little more certainty as they plan for the crop year, said Laramie Adams, national legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau. He said the three-week deadline would likely prod producers to quickly get in as much of that planning as they can. Im sure it does create a sense of sense of urgency, just because people arent 100-percent certain that the government will remain open, Adams said. Obviously, those discussions are being had at the highest level, so its hard to tell what could happen. At the San Antonio Food Bank, Cooper was growing anxious about another, even greater wave of shutdown-related need as recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, used up their benefits . The Agriculture Department had asked states to release Februarys benefits on Jan. 20, or 10 days early. Since SNAP households tend to deplete their benefits by the last week of the month, Cooper feared a bridge to nowhere between Valentines Day and March. As of December, Bexar County alone accounts for more than 289,000 food stamp recipients. Cooper was encouraged by Fridays news, but still scratching his head. Its a lot of question marks, he said. Its almost like the furlough has been furloughed. Its a weird space. Hes waiting to confirm that food stamps will continue uninterrupted, and whether he can move from the response to recovery phase. We are going to be opening our care centers all next week, and well be there until the storm fully passes, he said. And its too soon to tell whether the storm has truly passed. In other words, the ordeal didnt immediately end with Fridays compromise. The average American wouldnt survive missing a paycheck, and so things get pretty desperate, Cooper said. Credit score gets hammered. You pay your late fees. Many federal prison workers fall in that category. Arthur Trevino said some are single parents, others are caring for aging parents, and even those with savings have seen their bank accounts drain fast. They went to work because they were required to but also because staying home would have increased the danger to co-workers who showed up for their shifts. Inmates would catch on quickly if some of the guards had staged a walkout, he said. Over the past month, Trevino had to tell his sister he couldnt pitch in as usual for his sick mothers care. He had to pony up for health insurance payments that normally come out of his paycheck, and spend a lot of time getting lenders to waive late fees only to see those fees show up anyway. The West Side native who had been proud of his long career and ability to care for his family had to swallow his pride and accept donated food. He questions whether the powers-that-be in Washington, D.C., can resolve the border wall dispute before the three-week reprieve ends on Feb. 15. If you listen to the Republicans, theyre saying that (Trump) better just keep it open for three weeks and keep his hard stance for the wall, he said. So were out of the woods but were not out of the woods yet. Lynn Brezosky is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering trade, agriculture and the economy. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | lbrezosky@express-news.net | Twitter: @lbrezosky BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Surgery to remove the thymus gland in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), a rare autoimmune disease affecting neuromuscular function, provides significant clinical benefits for as long as five years after the procedure, according to a paper published on Jan. 25 in The Lancet Neurology. The study followed 68 patients for up to five years after undergoing thymectomy, the surgical removal of the thymus gland. The benefits they exhibited included improved disease outcomes, less immunosuppressive medications and fewer hospitalizations to address disease exacerbations. These benefits reduce health care costs. The paper describes the results of an extension study of a subset of MG patients who were involved in MGTX, an international trial published previously that definitively confirmed the benefit of thymectomy even in MG patients without a chest tumor. As many as 60,000 Americans have been diagnosed with MG and its incidence is increasing, a result of improved diagnostic techniques and an aging population. Symptoms of MG may include droopy eyelids; blurred or double vision; difficulty speaking, swallowing and breathing; and muscle weakness. Long-lasting benefit "Our current findings reinforce the benefit of thymectomy seen in that original study, dispelling doubts about the procedure's benefits and how long those benefits last," said Gil I. Wolfe, MD, lead author of the international team that conducted the current study, Irvin and Rosemary Smith Chair of the Department of Neurology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo and president of UBMD Neurology. "We do hope that the new findings help reverse the apparent reluctance to do thymectomy and that the proportion of patients with MG who undergo thymectomy will increase." Wolfe was clinical chair and lead author for the main MGTX trial, which was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2016, one of the longest and largest clinical trials in the history of MG. That trial, which followed patients for three years, was the first to definitively confirm the benefits of surgically removing the thymus early in the course of the disease. Patients who had the surgery were compared to those who hadn't in terms of disease status and how much of the corticosteroid prednisone they needed. Patients who had undergone thymectomy needed about a third-less prednisone to control their disease and also had improved disease outcomes. The researchers conducted the current study to determine for how long after surgery that benefit could be sustained. "In prior retrospective studies, there was skepticism that the impact of thymectomy would persist beyond three to four years," said Wolfe. "The assumption was that after that, the rates of improvement would be identical between patients who had had a thymectomy and those who had not." The new results, based on patients' clinical status, medication requirements and adverse events, proved that assumption incorrect. The researchers found that the benefit from thymectomy continues to be seen up to five years after the procedure with improvement continuing to exceed that seen with medical therapy alone. Patients who had the surgery and continued to take prednisone were able to take significantly lower doses of the steroid than patients who didn't have the surgery. More patients had no functional limitations The data were evaluated using commonly accepted outcomes for the disease, such as the Quantititave MG Score (QMG) and the proportion of patients with no functional limitations from the disease other than some muscle weakness, known as minimal manifestation status. Significantly more patients who had thymectomy were able to achieve this minimal manifestation status than those who hadn't. "When you look at minimal manifestation rates in patients who underwent thymectomy, they are pretty much the highest reported for any population of MG patients after five to seven years of focused management," said Wolfe. He added that another important result of the clinical benefits seen in patients undergoing thymectomy is the resulting economic benefit. "We have evidence at both three and five years after surgery that the need for hospitalizations, such as intensive care admissions to treat MG exacerbations, is reduced by some two-thirds compared to medical therapy alone," he said. ### The research was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Support in part was also provided by the NIH's Clinical and Translational Science Award grants to multiple institutions including UB, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Kansas, the Heartland Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the National Center for Research Resources. The Muscular Dystrophy Foundation and MG Foundation of American provided support for initial planning of the MGTX trial. The list of co-authors and their institutions is available in the paper. See our complete list of Top Web Application Firewall Vendors Bottom Line Symantec?Web Application Firewall (WAF) & Reverse Proxy can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud with AWS to block known attack patterns with signature-based engines. It does well on known attacks. The latest version has added content nature detection engines to detect obfuscation and prevent new attacks. It remains to be seen how it stacks up against the competition. Due to lack of independent evaluation, those considering it are advised to test it in their own environment. Product Description Symantec?Web Application Firewall (WAF) & Reverse Proxy is built on the ProxySG platform. It secures and accelerates web applications. Customers can deploy it on-premises or in the cloud with AWS to block known attack patterns with signature-based engines. Symantec Web Application Firewall content nature detection engines to detect obfuscation and prevent new attacks. It can: Analyze and scan inbound executables and files for malware Reduce false positives Increase zero-day protection Offload user authentication and SSL Monitor and apply policy to inbound connections Symantec WAF Features Rated Security: Fair. NSS Labs scored its previous Blue Coat offering with a block rate of only 91.07% and a security effectiveness of 92.45%. However, the company has released a promising new WAF offering. Its Content Nature Detection engines address the shortcomings inherent in the signature-based approach. The Symantec WAF is designed to block new unknown attacks by default. For example, both ShellShock and the recent Apache Struts 2 vulnerabilities were automatically detected without requiring a signature update. The Symantec WAF solution is a full multi-tenant solution, which means you can have multiple web applications defined as tenants in the solution and each tenant can have its own specific security policy that applies to the traffic going to that particular web application. Performance: Fair. NSS Labs tested Blue Coat at only 1,905 connections and 1,600 transaction per second, lowest in its report and almost two orders of magnitude below the top company. The new WAF from Symantec is said to offer models with 50 Mbps up to 5 Gbps in throughput supporting up to 350,000 active connections. Value: Fair. NSS Labs gave Symantec a three-year TCO of $170,949 which was middle of the pack. However, TCO per connection per sec as $25.01, the priciest in the report. Implementation and Management: Good. Users say the Symantec WAF appliance is said to be easy to install, configure, and maintain. The Content Nature Detection engines require no continuous updates and few ongoing configuration changes. Implementation was relatively straightforward. Have had some issues and had to manually move to different cloud pods to restore services, but doesnt happen often, said a CSO in the finance industry. Support: Good. Symantec uses a partner-led approach to consulting. Symantec support team made things easier by supplying us with Best Practice information when configuring, said a senior IT specialist in the finance industry. Cloud features: Good. Symantec now has a cloud-based offering available on AWS. Security Qualifications PCI compliance. Delivery The WAF product is available as a hardware appliance and virtual appliance for on-premises deployments and is available as a virtual appliance for public cloud deployments in AWS, Azure (near future) or hosted public cloud data center. Pricing NSS Labs said the three-year TCO for its previous WAF was $170,949, making its TCO per connection per second was $25,01, the highest in the NSS Labs report by far. The new WAF is expected to improve on this dramatically. What's Included With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please call our customer service team at 814-368-3173 or email nfinnerty@oleantimesherald.com. Members of the BJP have been losing their grip on the 2019 election as well as on their tongues. The diatribe expressed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of legislative assembly (MLA) against the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief has beaten all previous records of the political use of contemptuous language. The foul language used by the peoples representative in question is extraordinarily devastating as it seeks to push a persona woman, a man and a person belonging to the third genderbeyond any recognisable limits of humanity. The MLA and her party leaders did express regret and tender apologies to the BSP chief, but more as a perfunctory, formality than out of genuine regret. However, such calculated gestures by a moral offender are seldom adequate for repairing the damage done to any self-respecting personality, including the BSP chief. The use of offensive words publicly produces a long-lasting impact. Such language, through anti-social gossip, continues to remain in circulation long after the actual expression of the tirade, thanks to the strong presence of caste and patriarchal consciousness that feeds into such gossip. Moreover, such calculated gestures of regret and apologies do not go too far, except in simply excoriating rather than destroying completely the vice of contempt that is driven deep into the caste and patriarchal consciousness. The questions that we need to raise are: Why the contempt against a particular person? What is the nature of this contempt? And, what moral implication does it have for a person who holds such contempt? The contempt that mediates through such diatribes has to be understood primarily in the context of the political challenge of the electoral alliance between the BSP and the Samajwadi Party (SP), which seems to have been perceived by the members of the BJP as formidable. Ironically, the expression of offensive language is an acknowledgement of such a challenge. Interestingly, singling out the BSP chief for such an assault doubly confirms this fear of opposition. Of all the leaders from the opposition, it is the BSP chief who has been at the receiving end of such offensive language. There are two factors that can explain this special treatment meted out to her. First, the BJP legislator in question has chosen as the subject of her diatribe a person who has decided to firm up the alliance without succumbing to being targeted by the ruling party. Second, the challenge posed by a person from a lower caste, and that too from a woman, is not bearable for this BJP legislator. The fear of such a woman is, then, at the core of her diatribe. At least two factors make choosing a disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) provider one of the most complex tasks in the entire enterprise storage market. First, the DRaaS sector offers a remarkable range of approaches, platforms, and capabilities it can be confusing. Second, pricing in the DRaaS market is expensive and it, too, can be confusing. Lets look at what creates the complexity. In general, DRaaS encompasses the management of server image and production data replication to cloud storage by a service provider. This typically includes DR run book creation, automated server recovery and failback to/from the cloud. Vendors support virtual and physical source servers, although some focus on x86, while others are strong in UNIX and IBM non-x86 platforms. Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) vary based on company needs, price tag and vendor capability. Some vendors are almost wholly self-service whereas others manage the service for the user, either wholly or in part. The self-service providers still offer tools for recovery configuration, VM replication, the creation of recovery plans, and so on. But it is up to the user to execute them. There are also variations related to the underlying physical assets. In some cases, companies are using DRaaS providers clouds to replicate on-premise data and systems. In other cases, the provider acts as a colocation provider as well as a DRaaS provider. And more than a few providers rely entirely on the vendor as a secondary site in the event of a disaster, or use the vendor to replicate their data between two or more clouds. DRaaS Costs And Pricing Policies DR has always been expensive. Back in the day, companies had to erect a data center that was a mirror of their primary site. That meant the same servers, tape drives, storage arrays, networking equipment, software, in both locations. Colocation and hosting players came onto the scene as a way to reduce those costs by sharing resources with other users. But costs remained relatively high. Once the cloud appeared, it was initially looked upon as an easy way to reduce DR costs. Simply dumping everything into a low-cost cloud seemed to be the answer. But all it took was one disaster to highlight the folly of that concept. The problem: it can take weeks to download huge quantities of data from the cloud. DRaaS, then, evolved as a way to use the cloud to get companies back online fast. But it isnt cheap. Thats why this area of the IT universe is experiencing steady and impressive growth. Most vendors are cagey about prices. Obtaining prices for Enterprise Storage Forum Buying Guides is often a challenge, but DRaaS proved to be the ultimate in vendor reluctance. Only a couple provided pricing despite repeated attempts to obtain the information. Extensive web search didnt bear much fruit either. Hence vendors are graded Low, Medium or High, with regard to pricing. Top DRaaS Providers: Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Microsoft Azure Site Recovery gets 92% positive user reviews, but receives some low marks for support of high-complexity environments, and its managed service recovery capabilities. However, its extensive global presence, integration with other Microsoft platforms, low cost, and unlimited, pay-as-you-go testing make it a top candidate for low-complexity x86 environments. It tends to compete head-to-head with iland (see below) in the low-cost x86 DRaaS space. And of course, Microsoft clearly has the edge when an organization is committed to Microsoft platforms or the Azure cloud. Read our in-depth analysis of Bluelock Bluelock is considered a leader in the last Forrester Wave for Draas, though it lags iland, Microsoft, IBM, Sungard Availability Services and others in Gartners estimation (it is a Niche Player in the latest Gartner MQ). The niche Bluelock has carved out is far more hands-on and consultative than any of the other DRaaS providers. It may not be the largest DraaS provider, but its approach (backed by a guarantee) brings it a loyal following and strong customer feedback. It takes a lot of care on each engagement to ensure business needs are being met. Its an approach that appeals to some U.S.-based midsize and large companies, but those who have a lot of in-house staff might not be as interested. If you are new to the cloud, lack cloud-savvy IT resources, and need to take great care of heterogeneous workloads that require colocation integrated into a comprehensive recovery plan, Bluelock might be a good bet. For higher-priced managed DRaaS, it may compete with Expedient in some Eastern states. Bluelock probably wins where a more hands-on approach is needed. But Expedient (see below) has the edge when on-premise control is a priority. Read our in-depth analysis of Expedient Expedient offers fully managed DRaaS services in a limited area (certain cities spanning the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S.). A value add is the fact that the compute resources available can be utilized for more than DR. The On-Site Private Cloud with DRaaS is ideal for customers who want to transform their IT operations without sacrificing the benefits or control of an on-premises environment. But those outside of its core area should look elsewhere. For higher-priced managed DRaaS, it may compete with Bluelock in some of its territories. Bluelock probably wins where a more hands-on approach is needed. But Expedient wins out when on-premise control is a priority. Read our in-depth analysis of Tierpoint TierPoint isnt the lowest cost provider of fully managed DRaaS, but it appears to be a little cheaper than U.S. competitors Bluelock and Expedient, which also offer fully managed services. TierPoint differentiates itself by appealing to medium-complexity environments that prioritize flexibility in technology choices and multiple tiers of services. It emphasizes power and infrastructure reliability via dedicated redundant elements. These are backed by an impressive array of generators, utility feeds, main electrical switchboards, and high-speed networks. Read our in-depth analysis of CloudHPT CloudHPT has a very specific niche: Middle Eastern users, as well as global organizations with the need data residency requirements in the Middle East. As it rarely needs to compete with others in this guide in its area, it is naturally higher priced. The service offering includes monthly virtual test and an annual DR test helpful for peace of mind. For those with in-country requirements within Dubai and Saudi Arabia, it is a top contender. It also has some clients configured for recovery to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, within and outside the Middle East. Read our in-depth analysis of iland iland is rated as the top DRaaS provider by Gartner in its latest Magic Quadrant (MQ). It has made the Leaders quadrant for three years straight. It has solid partnerships with the likes of VMware, Cisco, Zerto, and Veeam, and is the one to beat when it comes to DRaaS. It also competes on price with Microsoft on low-cost x86 cloud DR. It is probably best for organizations with compliance needs, network complexity that needs self-service VMware-based IaaS and DRaaS. As its service is primarily self-support, those who lack internal cloud expertise and require in-depth support should probably look elsewhere. Read our in-depth analysis of Recovery Point Recovery Points focus is complex heterogeneous environments that include physical systems and servers, such as IBM Z, IBM i, IBM Power Systems and Oracle SPARC. This broad approach supports its wide U.S. client base, consisting of commercial companies, federal agencies, and state and local governments. While there are many choices for DRaaS on x86 systems, Recovery Point is one of few that is experienced with non-x86 workloads and mainframes. It is ideal for U.S.-based organizations, particularly IBM and Oracle shops. This includes those with complex recovery needs, those with U.S. Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) needs, and those that wish to leverage tape as a secondary recovery option to DRaaS. Recovery Point offers a U.S. alternative to established non-x86 players such as Sungard AS and IBM, which tend to be higher priced, but which can offer greater global reach and broader service offerings than Recovery Point. Read our in-depth analysis of C&W Business The foundation for much of C&Ws DRaaS differentiation is rooted in its multi-country network connectivity capabilities, as well as its commitment to full service for IBM-based platforms and x86 environments in the Caribbean, Latin American and North American regions. C&W is ideal when regional needs, especially network connectivity and hybrid recovery, are priorities for low- to medium-complexity environments. Or when organizations have a desire for complete data center outsourcing in the areas that surround the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The companys customer support centers offer both Spanish and English interactions. Its IaaS-based DRaaS solutions for AIX/iSeries mean it can compete well with IBM and Sungard AS in these service areas. Read our in-depth analysis of IBM DRaaS IBM is one of a small group of vendors with significant non-x86 workload and mainframe recovery experience. Unlike most companies in this guide, it has a long track record in DR that pre-dates the cloud. IBM has supported more than 1,000 recoveries since 1989. It is a good candidate for organizations that desire fully managed DRaaS and global support for IBM hardware/software offerings. For sheer depth and breadth, its Resiliency Services portfolio is hard to beat. This can well serve clients whose recovery options may need to evolve over a longer period of time as their business needs change. However, IBMs DRaaS services comes at a premium price and customer scores are generally lower on most metrics than many others in this guide. If primarily x86 workloads are involved, skip IBM. But if non-x86 IBM-based workloads predominate, it should be one of those on the shortlist. Read our in-depth analysis of > Sungard AS Sungard Availability Services (AS) competes head-to-head with IBM in North American and EU on mixed environments that include a lot of high-value non-x86 infrastructure. While IBM provides fully managed DRaaS, Sungard AS offers both fully and partially managed. This is an important plus for customers whose needs (including staffing situations) may change with time. Sungard also boasts even more recoveries than IBM for non-x86 workloads and mainframes over 3,000 in the last three decades. That kind of experience is enough to convince some to favor it over IBM in some bids. Read our in-depth analysis of See Full Table Vendor Workload Support Regions Covered Best RTO Delivery Key Markets Analyst Eval Price Key Differentiator Bluelock Mainly x86 US Less than 15 min Managed/assisted US mid-sized Niche Player High Consulting approach iland x86 Global Less than 15 min self-serve/ partial-assist Global VMware shops that prefer self-service Leader Low Value for the money Expedient x86 Central, Northeast US Less than 1 hour Fully managed Northeast US Niche Player High Personal service Microsoft ASR x86 Global Less than 2 hours Self service Low complexity x86 Leader Low Supports Azure Recovery Point x86, UNIX, IBM i, mainframe US Less than 30 mins Fully managed/ assisted Complex US with compliance needs Challenger Med. Extensive product offering C&W Business x86m UNIX, IBMi Florida, Carib., Central America, Colombia Less than 3 hours Fully managed Spanish speaking, medium-complexity Caribbean/ Central American Niche Player High English/Spanish support Tierpoint x86, UNIX US Less than 1 hour Fully managed and self-serve US, medium-complexity mixed environments Challenger Med. Flexible managed services Cloud HPT x86 Dubai, Saudi Less than 15 min Fully managed Middle East x86 Niche Player High Focused on Middle East IBM x86, UNIX, IBM I & Z Global Less than 15 min Fully managed IBM shops Visionary High Supports IBM Sungard AS x86, UNIX, IBM I & Z North America, EU Less than 15 min Fully/ partially managed Complex non-86 Visionary High Legacy DR provider Venezuela to continue oil trade with US Venezuela will continue to sell oil to the US despite cutting off diplomatic ties with Washington, President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday. Speaking to reporters at Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Maduro said cutting diplomatic relations would not affect oil trade with the US. "IF THEY WANT, WE WILL SELL" We have multifaceted relations with the US, he said. Weve cut off the diplomatic and political ties with the U.S. government but our other relations will continue. Maduro added, If they want to buy potatoes, we will sell potatoes. If they want to buy oil, we will sell oil. If they do not want to buy anything, we will not sell. Venezuela has been rocked by protests since Jan. 10 when Maduro was sworn in for a second term following a vote boycott by the opposition. On Wednesday, Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuelas opposition-led National Assembly, declared himself acting president. US President Donald Trump recognized Guaido as president of the country. Maduro quickly shot back, cutting off diplomatic relations with the US and giving US diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. He has repeatedly lashed out at the US, saying Washington is waging an economic war against him and his government amid a sweeping sanctions campaign. USs vice president pledged support to Guaido in phone call Washington's plan came before opposition leader declared himself new president, Wall Street Journal says. Mike Pence made a telephone call with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido the night before he declared himself interim president, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. "US WOULD BACK GUAIDO" Pence promised the US would support Guaido, president of the National Assembly if he took control of the government from its leader Nicolas Maduro, a senior administration official told the newspaper. The telephone call came after a plan by Washington developed in secret over the preceding several weeks, accompanied by talks between US officials, allies, lawmakers and key Venezuelan opposition figures, including Mr. Guaido himself," the Journal said. It noted Venezuela had been one of Trump's key foreign policy concerns since he took office. Following mass demonstrations across the country, Guaido declared Maduro's government illegitimate Wednesday and said he would become leader, invoking a clause in Venezuelan Constitution. The announcement was followed by a statement from US President Donald Trump recognizing Guaido as the new president. Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama and Paraguay have followed suit while Bolivia and Mexico continue to recognize Maduro. September 19, 1938 - June 1, 2021 Franklin Dee Crabtree, 82, of North Fort Myers, FL, died peacefully, surrounded by love, on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. Dee was born September 19, 1938, and grew up in the small town of Golden City, Missouri, the youngest child raised by his mother. He met his sw Elkhart, IN (46516) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 60F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Effingham, IL (62401) Today Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. High 89F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms. Low near 70F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. The environmental organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says its crew was attacked Wednesday by roughly 35 fishing boats inside a vaquita refuge in Mexico's Gulf of California. Sea Shepherd released a video showing fishermen shouting, hurling objects and trying to foul the propellors of the M/V Farley Mowat, a Sea Shepherd vessel used in campaigns against illegal fisheries activities. SEA SHEPHERD SHIP ATTACKED INSIDE VAQUITA REFUGE www.youtube.com The vaquita is the world's most endangered marine mammal, with only about a dozen left in their habitat in the Sea of Cortez, according to experts. The porpoises are not directly hunted but get entangled and drown in illegal gillnets set for capturing totoaba, a large and critically endangered fish that's prized for its swim bladder as a Chinese delicacy. The fishermen were participating in "obvious illegal poaching" of totoaba, according to a Sea Shepherd press release sent to EcoWatch. The video shows some of the skiffs carrying gillnets, even though they are banned within the vaquita reserve. Sea Shepherd said: The poachers attacked by hurling leadweights, anchors, trash, dead fish and even Tabasco sauce at the vessel and its wheelhouse windows in addition to threatening ship's crew with Molotov cocktails, spraying gasoline at the ship and pouring gas in the sea around the vessel. The video also shows the crew on the Farley Mowat using a hose to repel some of the boats. Sea Shepherd said that while its vessel was temporarily immobilized after the propeller fouling, five fishermen boarded the ship and looted multiple objects from the deck. "During the illegal boarding, the Sea Shepherd crew was able to keep the poachers from entering into the ship, and used an emergency firehose to repel the boarders, while waiting for naval forces to arrive," the press release said. "At this time a Mexican Naval Helicopter made several passes above the scene and the skiffs began to disperse." The vessel's captain was eventually able restart the engines and headed to the port of San Felipe where the ship was met by the regional Navy Commander and reinforcements, according to Sea Shepherd. Sea Shepherd conducts maritime patrols inside the vaquita refuge and had recovered three illegal gillnets in the morning before the attack. The group's operations are conducted with the knowledge and cooperation of the Mexican government to help detect illegal fishing activities, the Associated Press noted. Captain Paul Watson, founder and CEO of Sea Shepherd, said his organization "will not be deterred by violence." "Our mission is to prevent the extinction of the vaquita porpoise and we will continue to seize the nets of poachers in the Vaquita Refuge," he said in the press release. "Sea Shepherd salutes the quick responsiveness of the Mexican Navy in defusing a dangerous situation." Ask the people of Flint how running government like a business worked for them Billionaire Howard Schultz has a fantastic plan to reelect Donald Trump. The former CEO of Starbucks appears on the brink of announcing an independent run for the presidency in 2020. Because hooking millions of Americans on regular caffeine infusions isnt enough of an earthly accomplishment, he wants to hook us on four more years of Trump. On 60 Minutes Sunday night, hes set to attack both parties to create a lane for his self-financed run. And its a big lane. Independent is the most popular party self-designation, according to Gallup. Its so popular that even people who always vote for one party regularly claim it. Its also the perfect identification to reelect the most unpopular president in the history of polling. Trump knows that if he survives to the 2020 election, hes likely going to get even less than the 46 percent of the vote that made him the biggest popular vote loser elected in 140 years. And James Comey wont be around to alley-oop him into the Oval Office. So he needs the same formula that got him elected in 2016: Democratic candidate with high unfavorables (dont fool yourself: tearing down people is Trumps forte), millions of Obama voters staying home and millions more voting third party. Schultz would draw some votes from Republicans who voted Democratic in midterms. But hed also draw from a much bigger pool than Jill Stein did people who fancy themselves as centrists. Meanwhile, Trump has the advantages of incumbency, multiplied by his lawlessness and ingrained corruption backed by the courts that enables mass voter suppression. Centrism is the official religion of the political press and devotion to it wins you plaudits and plenty of media coverage. Saying that youll run government like a business automatically makes millions of older white people tumescent. And Schultzs billions could take care of the rest. As Jamelle Bouie points out, the best hope is that Schultz flounders and the polls, wastes millions and drops out before the campaign really begins. But we cant risk imagining that this is an inevitability. Starting now, Democrats need to reject self-funding for the one billionaire whos already planning it. Its good that Michael Bloomberg is running as a Democrat but he feeds off the same sort of appeal to a center that mostly exists on Meet the Press. Democrats need to say no to billionaire donors owning our political process even if that donor is trying to elect himself. Self-funding removes the crucial role the Democratic base and activists play in fighting for their party. It also removes accountability. Schultzs only base is the thousands of retail stores hes opened up around America. Hes no longer running Starbucks but hes still the companys single largest shareholder. If hes determined to play the both sides card then both sides may recognize that by supporting Starbucks, youre supporting the corporate agenda of electing Howard Schultz. And since we know that its unlikely he will be the first third-party candidate ever elected, when a former president and a richer man could not pull it off, one has to assume any dollar spent at Starbucks is a vote for Trump. Hopefully, he can find better uses for his money. Mainly Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province & Ringing Trips to Bahrain North Andover, MA (01845) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 65F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Claremont, NH (03743) Today Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 83F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Low 58F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. In the late 1960s Myrtis Creasey opened a Merle Norman studio in Carol Plaza. Creasey probably never imagined how far this business would go. When Ginger Harris was 15, she went to work for Creasey while attending Marianna High School. I enjoyed working with people and continued working while taking some classes at Chipola, explained Harris. Creasey offered Harris the opportunity to stay and run her studio for her. About nine years after Ginger started working for Creasey, she married Scott Harris, and the next year they purchased Creaseys store and Sun Tan Villa. Ginger and Scott combined the businesses and relocated to Plaza Del Rio. In 1991, the couple decided to move their business to the Cross Roads Shopping Center to pick up some of the traffic created by Wal-Mart and to be more convenient for their customers. During this time Ginger went back to school and obtained her certificate and license in cosmetology. As Leaving Cert students across the country deliberate their choices ahead of the CAO deadline on 1st February, the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) is encouraging young people in Donegal to consider a career in the tourism and hospitality sector, one of Irelands most successful industries. The IHF has created a dedicated website, Get a Life in Tourism, supported by Failte Ireland, which offers comprehensive information on the many careers available and how to get started as well as the various courses available in Letterkenny Institute of Technology. A free print Get a Life in Tourism magazine is also being published, which will be distributed to over 700 second-level schools, including those in Donegal. In addition to courses available through the CAO, Get a Life in Tourism provides details on a variety of career options accessible through PLC courses as well as opportunities for those who wish to start working straight from school. Every year, the hospitality and tourism businesses around the country recruit over 6,000 entry-level employees across all areas of their operations. These include food and beverage; catering; accommodation services; reception; leisure centre and spa facility management; sales and marketing; human resources; IT; management and finance. Paul Diver (pictured above), Chair of the Donegal branch of the IHF said: Tourism is Irelands largest indigenous industry, providing employment in every county in Ireland including Donegal. It offers thousands of opportunities for young people interested in pursuing a career in tourism with enormous potential for professional development and advancement. Were encouraging school leavers especially to explore the many options available, from earn and learn chef programmes through to the wide selection of specialist third-level courses on offer throughout the country for those interested in obtaining a recognised qualification. If you are looking for an exciting challenge, with endless career possibilities then tourism and hospitality is the path for you. Get a Life in Tourism features personal stories from young people already working in tourism and hospitality that offer a realistic picture of what to expect from a career in the sector, providing young people with valuable first-hand information to help them make their course or career choice. The tourism and hospitality sector in Donegal supports 7,500 jobs and contributes some 213m to the local economy annually. Tourism now supports an estimated 266,000 Jobs in Ireland, over 70% of which are outside Dublin. Tourism created over 94,000 new jobs since 2011. A ceremonial event will take place tomorrow, Sunday at Rockhill House, Letterkenny, to mark the tenth anniversary of the closure of the barracks. The final march out of the estate by the Irish Defence Forces took place on January 28, 2009. Current and retired members of 28th Battalion will commemorate the last march with a military parade up to Rockhill House from the avenue. The Army was stationed at the manor house for 70 years, arriving around the time of the outbreak of World War II, some years after the land was acquired by the State in 1936. Rockhill took on a position of strategic importance as the Troubles flared in nearby Derry in 1969; and operations continued at the site through more peaceful times until the decision was made to withdraw in 2009. The Defence Forces, and in particular the 17th, 24th and 28th Battalions, form a key part of the rich, layered heritage of Rockhill House and estate, and the importance of that history to the families of current and former soldiers has been plain to see since the restored country manor opened its doors last year. Owner, John Molloy said: The parade will be followed by a remembrance Mass for fallen soldiers who were stationed at Rockhill then we will plant an oak in an area of ongoing cultivation that in time will become a dedicated natural, quiet and reflective arboretum to the memory of those now gone who once served here. Mr Molloy added: We want to pay tribute to that invisible weave of culture, history, stories, memories and beliefs that is Rockhill, A Spirit of Place, in the presence of friends and kindred spirits. We look forward to welcoming anybody who has an interest and affinity with that past to join us for what is sure to be an impressive and memorable event this Sunday. SALT LAKE CITY A Salt Lake woman is facing a long list of charges after allegedly shooting at a house, fleeing from police and causing a head-on car crash that broke both of her legs last year. Caysee Rai Rebolloso, 28, was charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with 36 counts of felony discharge of a firearm, a second-degree felony, in connection with a drive-by shooting that occurred in Salt Lake City in May 2018, according to court documents. The shooting, caught on tape by a neighbor's surveillance camera, was heard by a Salt Lake police detective who followed the vehicle, the charges state. Police later found 29 rifle casings and seven 9 mm casings at the house. Court documents state the driver refused to stop and the pursuit ceased "due to safety reasons." Shortly after, Rebolloso fled east in the westbound lanes on state Route 201 and crashed into another vehicle head on. The driver of the vehicle that was hit "suffered severe injuries and has undergone multiple surgeries" as a result of the crash, court documents state. When police arrived on scene, Rebolloso was sitting in the back seat with broken legs and told officers the driver of the vehicle fled the scene on foot, the charges state. Additional information about the men was not immediately available, police said. However, a passenger of the vehicle told officers Rebolloso was the driver and two men were in the back seat who fled on foot after the accident, according to court documents. Salt Lake police said Friday there is no additional information about the men who fled the scene of the crash. The driver's side floorboard was collapsed inward, whereas the other floorboards were intact, court documents state. Rebolloso is also charged with failure to stop or respond at command of police, a second-degree felony, and obstructing justice, a third-degree felony. Her initial court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday. State leaders released a timeline this week outlining transition details for the closure of Salt Lake Citys downtown homeless shelter, as well as new deadlines for the countys three new resource centers, which are under construction. The mood among stakeholders is optimistic, but will this be enough to make Utah a model for the nation in how to solve homelessness? The answer depends on a range of factors. However, this much is clear: Managing the homeless population may keep people off the streets at night, but giving the homeless a real chance at changing their lives will take more than a couple of shelters and a few hundred beds. The goal should always be moving people from the street and into affordable homes while getting them connected to steady work. Those closest to the homeless situation understand this procession and already engage local organizations, housing developers and state programs to make that a reality for some, but much work remains. The public, also accountable for progress, needs to know the role they play in these efforts. City dwellers, commuters and visitors to Utahs urban areas should all have access to readily available information that communicates resources and best practices for interacting with homeless populations. What, for instance, should a resident say when approached late at night by a man looking for a place to sleep? Would that person know the address of the nearest shelter, what time it closes its doors or the quickest way to get there? The city will need a strong network of officers and citizens who know how to help those wandering the streets and get them to a center. This sort of information could easily be printed on handout cards, posters or signs that dot the city. Cities could also invest in public service campaigns that utilize their avenues of communication. Its one thing, of course, for the public to help with physical needs, but more often its the simple gift of time that can make the most difference to others. A listening ear and a friendly smile can ease fears or issue a measure of hope. But how should commuters, in a rush to get to work, stop and engage a stranger on the street in meaningful conversation? Thats for individuals to answer. We hope they come to understand the integral part they play in the overarching solution. Once people in need do find a shelter, its critical they stay safe from drugs or violence. The new resource centers, which comprise a 200-bed women's shelter at 131 E. 700 South, a 200-bed men and women's shelter at 275 Paramount Ave. and a 300-bed men's shelter at 3380 S. 1000 West in South Salt Lake, must not devolve into the criminal environment that plagued the Rio Grande area. Another concern is whether the new centers would provide enough beds. Leaders report the downtown Road Home's nightly average is 750 people, but a particularly cold night or a local crisis could cause a sharp influx of bed seekers, surpassing capacity. Motel vouchers and overflow beds are available, but it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which those won't be enough. Utah has a chance to turn these actions into a model for others. Troubling audits of late indicate the state isnt there yet, but whats most important is that each step of progress lifts the hands that hang down and helps individuals thrive in a dignified life. SALT LAKE CITY How dedicated are you to helping to clean the air you breathe? Local leaders are calling on residents to park their cars in a major effort to improve air quality along the Wasatch Front. The Salt Lake Chamber Friday, along with UCAIR and TravelWise, launched the annual Clear the Air Challenge. The one-month effort that kicks off on Feb. 1 is issued by business, government and community leaders as a four-week competition to encourage Utahns to reduce their vehicle emissions by choosing alternatives to driving by themselves. Transportation emissions are responsible for nearly half of the pollutants that create the poor air quality in northern Utah, explained Derek Miller, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber and Downtown Alliance. By reducing vehicle trips, residents can help improve the environment, the economy and the quality of life in the area, he said. "The business community, both as individuals and organizations, need to be part of that crowd that recognizes that solutions start with us," he said. "We're asking businesses to support their employees in being able to eliminate driving trips." Participants of the Clear the Air Challenge use TravelWise strategies like carpooling, using public transit, teleworking, trip chaining, using electric vehicles, walking or riding their bike or scooter to reduce their emissions and help clean Utahs air, a news release stated. While we cant do much about our geography, we can control the choices we make to decrease the emissions that cause air pollution, Miller said. The Clear the Air Challenge shows us that small individual changes can, and do, make a difference to Utahs air quality. And when we improve our air quality, we enhance the well-being of all Utahns and ensure our continued economic success. Since starting in 2009, participants have helped make a big difference in improving Utahs air quality, Miller said. In that time, more than a million trips have been eliminated, 15 million miles saved, 5,000 tons of emissions reduced and $6.5 million saved, he added. "The best thing that we can do is reducing vehicle trips," Miller said. "It helps the environment, it helps our economy, helps our quality of life and helps our health." He noted that next month the chamber will test a remote-working policy in which employees will work from home one day per week. In addition, Miller said he will pledge to take public transit to work for one week during the month. "I'm going to just keep my car parked in my garage and see if I can get myself to work and everywhere I need to go just by taking mass transit," he said. When he lived in Washington, D.C., years ago, he didn't have a car and took public transportation all the time, he explained. UCAIR is a statewide clean air partnership created to make it easier for individuals, businesses and communities to make small changes to improve Utahs air, according to the organization's website. The challenge is designed to promote habits that support environmental consciousness, according to UCAIR Executive Director Thom Carter. As we all know, there are no perfect answers to solving Utahs air quality problems, but there are practical solutions, he said. The Clear the Air Challenge is one way to engage the citizens of Utah in finding practical solutions that make a real difference in improving our air quality. "It allows employers and employees to work together to identify ways that people can be smart about how they use their car," he said. Eliminating idling and trip chaining completing numerous tasks at one time instead of in multiple trips can help lower emissions and improve air quality, he said. Meanwhile, business and organization participation is a key component of the challenge, Carter said. By encouraging employees to participate, businesses can create a team to make an even bigger impact. We incentivize our employees to participate in the challenge by offering fare reimbursement for those who take public transit, flex schedules, teleworking options as well as encourage carpooling whenever possible," said Dave Smith, president of Salt Lake City-based marketing agency Penna Powers. Participants can track mileage using the Commute Tracker app, which allows them to log their regular trips like going from home to work automatically. It also lets users manually log their trips from their phone throughout the challenge, a news release stated. To sign up for the challenge and to get a personal identification pin for the Commute Tracker app, log on to ClearTheAirChallenge.org Participants can also track their trips from a mobile device or computer with the TravelWise Tracker. Once registered for the challenge, enter in a starting and ending location and receive carpool options, transit routes, or biking and walking routes. The TravelWise tracker gives the volume of emissions saved and the time it will take to make the trip. MIDVALE A man and woman were arrested Friday for investigation of child neglect homicide after police say a baby died at a Midvale motel. About 1:30 p.m., police were already at the Motel 6, 7263 S. 440 West, on another call when a staff member told them a 911 call was coming from another motel room. When officers went to room 113, they found a 4-month-old baby boy unresponsive on the bed. Police and firefighters tried to revive the baby but were unsuccessful, Unified Police Sgt. Melody Gray said. Police are calling the death suspicious. "Anytime a 4-month-old dies for an unexplained reason, we have to look into it and we always treat it as if it were a suspicious death so we can determine exactly what happened," Gray said. The boy's parents and a sibling were in the room at the time of the baby's death, and the father called 911, according to police. Jose Ramirez, 21, and Jessica Lujan, 20, were arrested later Friday evening for investigation of child neglect homicide, Unified police said. SALT LAKE CITY Last year, Kansas legislators passed a law protecting faith-based adoption agencies, ensuring they could access government funds even if, for religious reasons, they turned away LGBT couples. Now, the law is in limbo under the state's new Democratic governor, who says she'll do everything in her power to keep it from being enforced. "If there is way to direct the agency to not implement that, then I will do that," said Gov. Laura Kelly during her first post-election news conference. The statement doesn't surprise those involved in today's top religious freedom debates, which increasingly feature partisan clashes instead of compromise. Laws aimed at expanding either religious freedom or LGBT rights but not both are easy targets when power changes hands. "Who is in the executive branch affects how (religious freedom) issues are adjudicated," said Tim Schultz, president of 1st Amendment Partnership, which works on religious freedom policy across the country. He compared the situation to a high-stakes game of pingpong, featuring Democrats and Republicans who want to slam the ball in each other's face. Instead of working together, lawmakers fight for the upper hand. "The nature of political discussions has changed," said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group working to reduce entanglement between faith groups and the government. If lawmakers put down their pingpong paddles and crafted policies that everyone was interested in upholding, it would help religious freedom and LGBT rights advocates alike, Schultz said. "The only realistic way we're going to resolve these issues is to find solutions that seek as much common ground as possible," he said. Lopsided legislation What Schultz supports is legislation that gives each side in a debate 90 or 95 percent of what they want, instead of going all in on one group's demands. He cites the Utah compromise, a pair of laws passed in March 2015 that simultaneously protected the LGBT community and religious objectors to same-sex marriage, as an example. "Other states can't cut and paste" the Utah legislation, he said, but they can "export the spirit of what Utah did." That spirit is in short supply during an era of intense polarization, as the Deseret News reported last year. Today's religious freedom bills are mostly one-sided, protecting one group of people without worrying about those who are potentially harmed. Newly elected leaders continued that trend this month through executive orders and other actions. For example, the new Democratic attorney general in Michigan said she wouldn't defend the state's law protecting faith-based adoption agencies in court. In Kansas, Kelly signed an executive order banning anti-LGBT discrimination by state agencies and contractors, angering those concerned for conservative, religious employers. "In a perfect world, we wouldn't need executive orders like this," Kelly said at the time. Schultz agrees, although his reasoning is different. In his perfect world, LGBT rights and religious freedom advocates work together, regardless of who occupies the White House or governor's mansion. "If fundamental rights are always contingent upon who becomes governor or president, we exist in a constant state of red alert," Schultz said. Although Laser applauded recent actions in Michigan and Kansas, she agreed that recent political trends have made it more difficult to bridge divides. "Because religious freedom has become so politicized, it's hard to have courageous conversations," she said. And without courageous conversations, lawmakers will rarely enact legislation that lasts, Schultz said. Recent drama related to adoption-related laws in Michigan and Kansas stemmed, in part, from the circumstances of their initial passage. "A lot of state legislatures don't fully resolve issues around LGBT rights and religious rights even if they passed related laws," he said. Searching for solutions In the current political environment, legislators and policy groups advocating for more balanced laws are fighting an uphill battle, Schultz said. But they do seem to be gaining ground in some states. "I think more and more people are saying, 'Let's find a solution.' That makes me hopeful," Schultz said. In Georgia, where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams in November, political analysts predicted a brawl over Kemp's religious freedom-related promises. On the campaign trail, he'd expressed support for a state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a policy then-Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed in March 2016 after a nationwide outcry. However, earlier this month, the Republican speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, David Ralston, said he wanted to focus on unity instead of fulfilling the governor's campaign promises. "I'm pretty well on the record about having some serious concerns about RFRA. That's one of those issues that divide us, and I think if we're going to continue to move Georgia forward, we have to do it united as opposed to being divided," he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Similarly, Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, an LGBT rights advocacy group, said his team is focused on supporting broad anti-discrimination protections instead of fighting against religious conservatives at any cost. "What we've been doing the last few years is encouraging bipartisan support for a state civil rights law," he said. "Lots of people face discrimination for lots of reasons. It should be an issue that people on both sides of the aisle rally around." Schultz also highlighted Virginia Republican Del. Roxann Robinson, R-Chesterfield, as a bright spot amid polarization. She's sponsoring a bill this term that would prevent discrimination against the LGBT community in housing and has supported more conservative religious freedom legislation in the past. "I don't want people to put me in a box here," she told The Washington Post. These modest steps toward compromise and balance could make a big difference in the long run, Schultz said. "There's going to be a lot more stability in a law if it's not passed with a pure partisan majority and if it has buy-in from across the political spectrum." SALT LAKE CITY New court documents paint a grim picture of a 15-year-old stranger surprising a Vernal family in their sleep and attacking an elderly couple and their son with a knife. The incident occurred on Sept. 13. The teenager was charged with aggravated murder Thursday in Vernal's 8th District Juvenile Court in the stabbing death of a man during that home invasion. The Deseret News has chosen not to name the boy at this time. The boy broke into the home of 84-year-old CalDee Reynolds near the Ashley Regional Medical Center, 150 W. 100 North, at 3 a.m. on Sept. 13, according to police. He got in through a window, court documents state. When Reynolds woke up and went to the bathroom, he saw the boy and "verbally confronted him," police said. The teen then allegedly stabbed Reynolds multiple times. The elderly man called for help and his adult son woke up and went to his father's aid, the charges state. "Before help could be rendered, the defendant blindsided the second victim, attacking him with a knife and stabbing him multiple times," the charging documents say. While the father and son were down, police said, the boy "entered a bedroom where he found the elderly wife" of Reynolds. The teen "proceeded to pull her from the bed and subsequently stabbed her several times," according to court documents. Reynolds was flown to a Salt Lake area hospital and died of his injuries in November. Police said the two other victims suffered "extensive injuries" but survived. The teen is also accused of aggravated burglary and two counts of attempted aggravated murder in that incident. Eight days later, the same 15-year-old is accused of being involved in another violent home invasion. The boy is also charged with three counts of aggravated robbery and three counts of aggravated kidnapping for an incident that took place on Sept. 21 in which several people were held hostage at gunpoint. In that incident, the boy went with two of his friends, ages 16 and 17, to the apartment of one of the friend's ex-girlfriends to rob her, according to charging documents. The girls told police that "three men had broken into their apartment with guns (one had a knife, one had a handgun and one had a rifle) and their faces were covered with bandanas," search warrants state. Two girls were able to run out the door of the apartment and scream for help, prompting neighbors to call 911, according to charging documents. One of the girls was dragged down a flight of stairs by her hair, the charges state. The warrants further state that girl suffered an "injured shoulder and chipped tooth from being (dragged) down the stairs by her hair. The suspects were demanding money and credit cards from these victims." OGDEN Ron Stallworth, subject of the recent movie BlacKkKlansman, will share his story and experience as a law enforcement officer with the Ku Klux Klan on Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. in Weber State Universitys Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater. Stallworth is a retired law enforcement officer and author of the book, Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime. The book details Stallworths undercover investigation where he infiltrated a chapter of the KKK as a black police officer. The book inspired the movie BlacKkKlansman, which recently received six Oscar nominations, including best picture. Stallworth was the first black police officer with the Colorado Springs Police Department. He had to deal with issues of racism and bigotry from the community and within the department. One day, Stallworth noticed an ad in the paper about a new chapter of the KKK forming in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Wanting to get more information about the organization, Stallworth called the number, posing as a white man with racist sentiments. The call launched a seven-month investigation with Stallworth posing as a Klan member over the phone and sending a white officer in his place for face-to-face meetings. Stallworth will be at Weber State to share his story and answer questions from the audience. Stallworths visit is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Student Involvement & Leadership and Black Scholars United. The presentations are free and open to the public. SOUTH JORDAN The Kennecott Charitable Foundation recently donated $109,000 to support more than 50 local community charities that support underserved populations and individuals along the Wasatch Front. The nonprofit foundation focuses on programs for children, veterans, disabled, the homeless and senior citizens throughout the valley. Since its inception in 1992, the foundation has donated more than $3 million to local community charities and nonprofit organizations. The foundation consists of nine volunteer trustees representing local government, education, religion and communities. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load SALT LAKE CITY Sen. Mitt Romney says President Donald Trump called Democrats' bluff in making a short-term deal to reopen the federal government to work out an agreement to fund border security and avoid another shutdown. "This decision to reopen government for three weeks basically says to the Democrats, 'OK, now put up or shut up,'" the Utah Republican said. Democrats have repeatedly called for ending the shutdown so 800,000 federal workers can start collecting paychecks again while congressional leaders and the president negotiate a final agreement. "So the president calls their bluff and says, 'OK, we'll open government. Now it's your turn to actually come up with a deal that helps us secure the border,'" Romney said. Trump announced an end to the 35-day impasse Friday, but warned that if money for a wall isn't part of an agreement by Feb. 15, he could still declare an emergency on the southern border to get the funding. Utah members of Congress hailed the temporary deal, which the Senate and House passed on a voice votes hours after Trump's speech. "It is of course a relief that the shutdown is over. But the shutdown was not created by the crisis on the border. It was created by the failure of Congress to do its job," said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Lee said the way Congress is doing things now is convenient for politicians, but not for the American people. "Government funding and immigration policy shouldnt be a secret negotiation, but an open debate on the floors of the House and Senate," he said. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, echoed Romney in putting the ball in Democrats' court. "Now is the time to end the political theatrics and for the Democrats to join Republicans in offering serious border security proposals. The Democrats have said all along: Open the government, then well negotiate. Now is the time for them to honor that promise," he said. Utah's lone Democrat in Congress, Rep. Ben McAdams, was among those calling to end the shutdown and then hold talks on homeland security funding. "Im ready to roll up my sleeves as a member of Congress and begin the bipartisan work of funding government operations, fully restoring public access to services, reforming our immigration system and returning to normal legislative business," he said. Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, said he plans to support the temporary deal. He said he's been calling for Republicans and Democrats to reach a compromise since the start of the shutdown. The people of Utah have had enough of this shutdown and are ready to see us get back to work solving the countrys problems," he said. "Im glad to see a solution brought forward to open the government and allow us to address critical border security needs." Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said it's about time federal workers were paid. "However, I cant yet celebrate until we find a lasting solution, which includes a secure border. Now lets do it," he said. Romney said although Congress and the president agree to reopen government for three weeks, Trump and the Republicans will not back away from funding for a border wall. Furloughed workers at the Internal Revenue Service center in Ogden will be among those federal employees back on the job. "We're hopeful that it's not just a Band-aid for three weeks and we're shutting down again, said Krystal Kirkpatrick, a spokeswoman for the National Treasury Employees Union chapter 67, which represents 4,000 IRS workers in Ogden. The union canceled a second rally planned for next week as a result of Friday's deal. "Hopefully, we'll be busy working," she said. But Kirkpatrick said the rally would be on again if Congress and the president fail to reach an agreement and government shuts down again. "I really, really hope that it goes great. But the realist in me says that if they didn't figure it out in six weeks, how are they going to figure it out in three," she said. Friday's breakthrough came as LaGuardia Airport in New York and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey experienced at least 90-minute delays in takeoffs due to a lack of air traffic controllers. "It's unquestionably going to build the pressure, and I hope it does," Stewart said in an interview earlier Friday. "I hope the pressure continues to build to force these three leaders Pelosi, Schumer and the president to the table once again." Among House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Trump, Stewart said he believes Schumer is the key. Meantime, Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski talked with Pelosi on Thursday while in Washington for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "The speaker was very clear that she is frustrated with (Senate Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell. She feels like Sen. McConnell is really involved in this shutdown in an extreme way and is part of the problem," Biskupski said. "It's not just the president but Mitch McConnell is one of the barriers." Biskupski, also speaking before Trump announced the deal, said Pelosi asked mayors, particularly Republican mayors, to push their members of Congress to open the government and work on policy differences later. "We need to take the politics out of this and get the government back up and running and then figure out how to come to some sort of compromise," she said. Stewart said the Thursday votes in the Senate, even though they failed, were an important step to breaking the gridlock. At least there was a legislative effort, and more importantly, it engaged Schumer, he said. "I think Speaker Pelosi is so entrenched, she's so dug into this thing about not one penny for a wall. I know Sen. Schumer is not as adamant about that and I think he might be the key to bring the parties together now," Stewart said. Trump has tried to find a compromise, taking his demands for wall funding from $25 billion to $5.7 billion and agreeing to take care of immigrant children whose parents brought them into the U.S. illegally, he said. "Pelosi has not done any of that," Stewart said. "I've never seen a scenario quite like this where you've got two sides that are so entrenched." SALT LAKE CITY This week, Jackie Chan was in Salt Lake City to premiere his debut art exhibit, Jackie Chan: Green Hero at the Leonardo. The exhibit, which opens Saturday, Jan. 26, consists of sculptures Chan created using waste from film sets, such as old props, camera equipment and film. When hes not saving the planet one recycled material at a time, Chan is saving the world one stunt at a time on the big screen. Weve scoured the web for some of Chans craziest and most dangerous on-film stunts. Here are seven (and we would definitely advise you to not try any of these at home). Warning: The videos contain moderate levels of violence. That crazy slide down a 21-story Rotterdam skyscraper in Who Am I? According to the National Post, Chans slide was billed by film producers as the worlds most dangerous stunt. It took place on a building slanted at 45 degrees and took Chan two weeks to work up to. That light-shattering pole slide in Police Story that ended with a crash through a glass pane. In an IGN video about this scene, Chan said there was no safe landing gear and instead, the crew used a small prop car filled with candy to catch his fall. I was really scared, Chan said of the stunt. Im an ordinary person. Im not Superman. Chan reportedly suffered second-degree burns and a serious back injury while filming this stunt. That time Chan dropped six stories from a clock tower, fell through two awnings and landed on his head. Shockingly, this scene from Project A, which starts around the 1:30 minute mark, isnt fake. Chan really fell on his head, and according to Ranker, Chan damaged his cervical spine in the process. That insane crawl across burning coals in The Legend of the Drunken Master. According to Hollywood Reporter, Chans eyebrow bone was injured during this stunt, nearly causing him to go blind. That careening bus ride through the city where Chan somehow managed to not get run over. Considered Chans most action-packed stunt film, New Police Story features the stunt master rolling across the roof of a bus, dodging billboards, parkouring off buildings and breaking into windows. That jaw-dropping leap and dangle from a helicopter rope ladder in Police Story 3: Supercop. Quenton Tarantino reportedly calls this stunt one of the greatest stunts ever filmed in any movie ever. While filming this scene, Chan was struck from behind by a helicopter, which, according to Charge, fractured his rib, broke his shoulder and dislocated his cheekbone. Watch the outtake below. That time Chan snowboarded off of a cliff and grabbed a helicopter ski in First Strike. We dont even want to think about what would have happened had Chan been a few inches too high or low on this one. Rozsa reported from Fort Lauderdale. The Washington Posts John Wagner, Tom Hamburger, Robert Costa, Matt Zapotosky, Spencer S. Hsu and Tim Elfrink in Washington and Leonard Shapiro in Fort Lauderdale contributed to this report. crime Two men busted for attempting to sneak drugs into Delco prison Im glad to see that President Trump has brokered a deal to open the government for the next three weeks while adequate border security funding is negotiated," Harris said. "America needs to see an end to the threat of any future shutdown by Democrats who cling to their dangerous pursuit of open borders and amnesty." Crime Ex-courier pleads guilty to stealing more than $245,000 from Main Line Health Ambassador of France to India, Alexandre Ziegler on Friday said that the row on Rafale is a political issue with a short life and it will not affect Indo-French ties. Ziegler, who was at the Jaipur Literature Festival said that the controversy over Rafale will not affect relationship between India and France. "The ties between the two countries are over 70 years old, and the nations have stood with each other in good as well as bad times. Controversies come and go, the bond stands firm," Ziegler replied to a question on the Rafale deal at a press conference held on the sidelines of Jaipur Literature Festival. "Strategic partnership is a small part of our relations. But people-to-people is our real strategic partnership," the french ambassador added. Ziegler's remark on Indo-French ties becomes important at a time when the ruling BJP is facing allegations by the Opposition Congress that the former has misled the country on the Rafale fighter jets deal. He further said that France provides employment opportunities to over three lakh youth in India and shares good cooperation in tourism, education and defence sectors. "We are also planning to open French learning sessions in small cities of India, as we did in Lucknow." Among other sessions at the JLF, the fourth edition of the Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia Award for Poetry was also held, and noted Tamil writer Rajathi Salma was conferred the award. She will be felicitated at the Diggi Palace on the January 27. Salma has so far written two volumes of poetry, anthology and two novels, several of which have been translated to other languages. Moreover, Lakshmi Holmstroms English translation of her novel, titled The Hour Past Midnight, was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Prize and listed for the Man Asian DSC Award. London: Queen Elizabeth II has emphasised the need for Britons to come together to seek out the common ground, in what has been viewed as an appeal to overcome divisions over Brexit. Speaking to members of the Womens Institute (WI) near her Sandrin-gham estate in eastern England, the 92-year-old said people should never lose sight of the bigger picture. Reflecting on a century of change, it is clear that the qualities of the WI endure, she said, noting the foundation of the institute in 1915, to encourage contributions to World War One. The continued emphasis on patience, friendship, a strong community-focus, and considering the needs of others, are as important today as they were when the group was founded all those years ago. Of course, every generation faces fresh challenges and opportunities. As we look for new answers in the modern age, I for one prefer the tried and tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture. To me, these approaches are timeless, and I commend them to everyone.Her message, delivered in a meeting late on Thursday, comes amid intense argument in parliament about Britain's exit from the EU, which is scheduled for March 29. The royals tend to steer well clear of politics, and as head of state, the queen in particular is careful to stay neutral in public. In her traditional Christmas broadcast to the nation last month, she offered a similar message. Caracas: Maduro warned that if US officials have any sense they will pull out their own diplomats from the US Embassy in Caracas, rather than defying his order for them to leave. They believe they have a colonial hold in Venezuela, where they decide what they want to do, Maduro said in an address broadcast live on state TV. You must fulfil my order from the government of Venezuela. Tensions have soared between the two nations after the Trump administration recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido, who claimed on Wed-nesday to hold the presidency and vowed to remove Maduro, calling him a dictator. Maduro retaliated by severing relations with the US and giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave Venezuela. However, Washington said it would ignore the order after Guaido issued his own statement urging foreign embassies to disavow Maduros orders and keep their diplomats in the country. All eyes have been on the military, a traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela, as a critical indicator of whether the Opposition will succeed in establishing a new government. Venezuelas top military brass pledged their unwavering support to Maduro, delivering vows of loyalty earlier on Thursday before rows of green-uniformed officers on state television. A half-dozen generals belonging largely to district commands and with direct control over thousands of troops joined Maduro in accusing the United States of meddling in Venezuelas affairs and said they would uphold the socialist leaders rule. Washington: US President Donald Trump has set his eyes on the high 150 per cent Indian duties on American whisky after he struck what he called a very fair deal with India in about two minutes on the 100 per cent tariffs on the iconic moto-rcycle Harley-Davidson. India in February last year slashed the customs duty on imported high-end motorcycles like Harley-Davidson to 50 per cent after Trump called it unfair and threatened to increase the tariff on import of Indian bikes to the US. At a White House event on the Reciprocal Trade Act on Thursday, Trump flashed out a green colour board with examples of non-reciprocal tariffs from various countries. Trump alleged that many countries have taken advantage of the US. Look at motorcycles as an example. (In) India, it was 100 per cent. I got them down to 50 per cent, just by talking for about two minutes. Its still 50 per cent vs 2.4 per cent (on imported motorcycles to the US). Again, other than that, its a very fair deal, the president said. Trump, however, pointed out to the high tariff by India on import of wines. India has a very high tariff. They charge a lot of tariffs. You look at whisky... India gets 150 per cent, we get nothing. In his interaction with lawmakers at the White House, Trump said the Reciprocal Trade Act would give US workers a fair and level-playing field against other countries. The Reciprocal Trade Act, which Trump was expected to highlight in his now-delayed State of the Union address, would give him authority to levy tariffs equal to those of a foreign country on a particular product if that countrys tariffs are determined to be significantly lower than those charged by the US. It will also allow Trump to take into account non-tariff barriers when determining such tariffs. They charge us tariffs and taxes, the likes of which nobody has any understanding. They are so high and so unfair! They also have barriers where we cant go in. They have trade barriers that make it impossible for us to sell our farm products and our other products. Whether they think we're very nice or not so smart, theyve been doing it for many, many years and we want to end it. Many of these are friends, many of these are allies... but, sometimes, allies take advantage of us even more so than our non-allies, he said. Trump said the Reciprocal Trade Act would help to solve the problem once and for all. Whatever the tariff for a foreign country is, we place the same tariff on us. What's going to happen, I think, from a practical standpoint, is they won't be charging us tariffs anymore. We'll see. Or we'll charge them a lot. Tremendous amount of money, he said. The Reciprocal Trade Act will be an incredible tool to bring foreign countries to the negotiating table and to get them to lower tariffs on US products and also to get rid of their trade barriers, the president asserted. America cannot lose almost USD 800 billion on trade like has been done for many years, he said. Congressman Sean Duffy, who introduced the Reciprocal Trade Act, has put granite from India in his global list of non-reciprocal tariffs. While other leaders too played important roles, without Dr Ambedkars missionary drive and intellectual weight, the provision of reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would not have been a part of the Constitution of India. Countries whose societies are deeply divided on social hierarchies have seldom succeeded in defending themselves against foreign interventions. The ease with which numerous invaders rampaged through India over the centuries, slaughtering hapless people, destroying monuments and plundering her riches, is testimony to this phenomenon. The fact that Mahmud of Ghazni could invade India, all the way from Afghanistan, 17 times, destroy the Somnath temple and take away the jyotirlinga (though some historians dispute this), and barely 100,000 British soldiers and administrators could rule over such a vast and diverse land like India for 200 years speaks volumes about this historic malaise, often denied by Indians. But have we really learnt any lessons? Sociologically speaking, a nation cant progress to its full potential if its society excludes a large section of its population from its mainstream, depriving these people of basic human rights and redeeming factors a clean environment, decent and dignified living, education and capacity building and condemning it to perpetual poverty. Mindful of this irrefutable logic, most modern nations have consciously introduced certain affirmative action measures to pull up those who were left behind, help them overcome political, social, psychological and emotional ill-effects of long periods of deprivation, include them in the mainstream, making them a productive part of the development process. These affirmative me7asures were not triggered off so much by altruistic instincts and human kindness, but the result of long years of struggle by leaders of the oppressed classes and grudging realisation by the ruling classes of the inescapable needs of the organic development of society. Despite the fact that many Americans were against slavery and David Henry Thoreau wrote his inspiring essay Civil Disobedience in 1849, it is doubtful whether Barack Obama could have become US President if there was no Civil Rights Movement spearheaded by Dr Marin Luther King Jr. In India, Shahu Maharaj (1874-1922) tried to eradicate untouchability and reserved 50 per cent of jobs for the lower castes in his kingdom. Social reformers like Jyotiba Phule played a pivotal role in leading the movement against untouchability, caste oppression and social discrimination perpetrated by the higher castes against lower castes, generation after generation. The unthinkable indignities which Dr B.R. Ambedkar had to experience personally on his return from Britain and the United States armed with two doctorates from the University of Colombia and the University of London (even a bullock cart driver wasnt prepared to carry him as his shadow would pollute him, no one was willing to offer him water to quench his thirst, no Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Parsi was ready to rent him an apartment and even the peon in his office would not hand over files directly to his hand) provoked him to write his famous essay Annihilation of Caste. While other leaders too played important roles, without Dr Ambedkars missionary drive and intellectual weight, the provision of reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would not have been a part of the Constitution of India. However, the founding fathers of the Constitution erred on two counts they grossly overestimated the magnanimity of Hindu society to embrace those castes whom they had been exploiting and discriminating against for centuries and overestimated the ability of the lower castes to overcome the most debilitating social, psychological and emotional deprivation of two millennia in 10 years! This wasnt just possible. The reservation of seats in Parliament, the Legislative Assemblies, educational institutes and posts in various Central and state services for SCs/STs has undeniably led to some upward social mobility and improvement in living standards. For them, affirmative action wasnt about economic gains only; it was a means for social empowerment. A teenager who might have seen his parents being abused and ill-treated by the higher castes of his village sees a sea change in the treatment meted out to them if he gets into the IAS or IPS. That doesnt mean instances of atrocities against dalits and molestation of their women have stopped; a former Chief Justice of India had once quipped dalit girls are routinely raped in rural India. Even during BSP supremo Mayawatis term as CM, such crimes didnt disappear. The 40,700 cases of assault against dalits registered by the NCRB in 2016 underlines the staggering task still left to be completed. Though there were massive protests against the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs, this affirmative action since 1990s has resulted in a surge of OBCs in the services and educational institutes. Notwithstanding the Bua-Bhatija alliance for 2019, the harsh reality in Uttar Pradesh is that a lot of the atrocities on dalits are inflicted by OBCs. The government seems to believe the beneficiaries of quotas for EBCs (Jats, Gujjars, Patidars and Marathas), though not socially discriminated against or oppressed, are likely to vote for the ruling BJP. With deft handling, it has got the constitutional amendment providing 10 per cent reservation for EBCs in the general category passed by both Houses of Parliament and duly notified. Checkmated, the Opposition parties went along, though many feel this provision might be overturned by the courts and wonder how the criterion of a `8 lakh annual income per family will be implemented when 95 per cent Indians might be eligible. Regrettably, the political parties didnt enlighten job seekers of how little an impact such reservations might have on their prospects. Dont such decisions amount to mere tokenism, driven by the prospect of electoral benefits? Out of the roughly 450,000 young men and women who try their luck every year to join the civil services, around 1,100 are finally selected; the rest keep trying; and their number swells each year. The situation in the state civil services isnt any better. So, even if reservation is totally abolished today, only around 1,100 candidates of all castes will be able to join the civil services. Will it end joblessness? Will millions of youth be gainfully employed? If the share of government jobs is just 3.5 per cent of the total job market, how will 10 per cent reservations solve the problem of the educated unemployed? Politicians seem interested only in telling their constituents they have kept their electoral promises and acted on their demands for reservation, though their actual intake might be minuscule. Doesnt the latest quota literally put the oppressor and the oppressed on the same footing? In Haryana, many Jats who still dont allow dalit bridegrooms to ride a horse at their own wedding will now avail of reservations under the EBC category! What could be more ironical? Without a massive job creation drive and an exponential expansion of affordable education using new technology tools, vocational education and skill development, the educated youth will remain without jobs. A white paper giving detailed and credible information about the total number of jobs available, the share of government jobs, availability in the organised sector and non-organised sector, jobs created by various initiatives like Make in India, Start-Up India, Skill India, Stand-up India, the impact of the existing reservation policy and how to make it more focused might be a sensible idea. O God, I can worship you not on a hungry stomach: Here I give back my rosary to you O Lord, how can I pull on with you? But, if thou givest not Thyself, Ill make a demand on Thee. I seek no more than two seers of wheat flour, With a quarter seer of ghee and a pinch of salt. And half a seer of lentils too, That I can eat my fill two times a day. I seek a couch too, supported by four legs, Anda bedding also, along with a pillow. And, shall I ask not for a quilt too to cover my body, So that attuned to Thee I worship no one but Thee? No, no, Iveshowed no covetousness, asserts Kabir. While addressing God, Kabir says that the things of basic needs are his rights. If the latter will not give it, the former will ask for it, as is recorded in the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred scripture of the Sikhs. Humans have a natural right to life and Sikh Gurus have always fought for the preservation of human rights and raised their voice against the prevalent social inequalities, oppressive political and social conditions and degradation of basic values of life. Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, not only strongly advocated human rights but condemned the cruel rulers also who deprived the persons of their basic rights. He admonishes the rulers and their ministers and asks them to work for the welfare of the people. But Guru Nanak blamed the people more, for being puppets and mute spectators. In Asa-di-Var, he writes, Avarice and sin are the king and the minister, and falsehood is their chief; And lust is the adviser, and so they all confabulate. Their subjects are blind, without wisdom; and like the dead, they dance to their tune and submit to their will. Guru Nanak was in favour of granting the right to protest and raise a voice against the oppression of the rulers. The Guru believed that it was lack of knowledge that made the people suffer. No wonder, the Sikh Gurus emphasised on the importance of education and it is to be imparted to all, irrespective of gender, class or caste distinctions. In Sikhism women are considered equal to men with equal rights. Guru Nanak, in fact, assigned a higher status to woman and viewed her as a doorway of awareness since of woman we are born, of woman conceived, to woman engaged and to woman married. No distinctions have been made in matters of initiation and participation in religious matters. Sikhism regards nature and its all parts, animals as well as plants as manifestations of the Almighty and hence their protection is equally desired. The Sikh society enshrines the ideals of justice, equality and universal brotherhood which implies respect for the rights of others and under no circumstances one should exploit the other. On the contrary, the Khalsa is enjoined to defend the helpless and the oppressed. A true Sikh is a compassionate person and shows kindness to all .It is a divine quality because the Almighty is dayalam (merciful). The oneness of all creatures has been strongly advocated in Sikhism. All forms of life, high and low, are considered equal with equal rights. As says Guru Nanak, What can humble Nanak say when all men have been made equal. Kolkata, the city of seething opinions and the real home of all argumentative Indians and closet revolutionaries, is strangely silent, almost evasive when it comes to Didi the feisty and formidable chief minister of West Bengal. Nobody wants to express a candid opinion and everybody wants to stay on her good side. This was evident at a very chi chi dinner party in the city, on the very day Mamata Banerjee had hosted her big bash for Opposition leaders representing 22 parties and holding diverse political beliefs. Didis coming out party was like an overcooked Kolkata khichidi but not half as delicious as the original. The Bengali khichidi is a complete and utterly satisfying dish it requires no additional items on the menu, when served piping hot on a cold winter day. It is a palate tingle all the way! Spicy and richly textured. What Didis motley crew was served was a tepid and unappetising mish mash. But what do you expect when the hostess who had created it does not relish too many flavours herself! And thinks she is the main tadka. Locals used the rally as an excuse to skip work and stay parked in all those fancy Kolkata clubs they seem to prefer to their own homes. The Bengali aversion to any form of physical exertion (not counting puchhka eating), is well known. Since every second Bengali is either plotting a revolution or believes he/she is already in the thick of one, it is a tad disappointing to note how Didi has tamed even the most fiery critics. Its a choice between jail, public flogging, raids or silence. Most have opted for silence. Didi has clearly decided to go for the big kill the top job in India. She is ready to do to the rest of the country, what she has done to West Bengal. This being a family newspaper, I will refrain from spelling it out. Given Didis temper, nobody is protesting or complaining. Talk to anybody and the person will only sing Didis praises. See how clean Kolkata looks just like London! Errrrr ermmmm okay. The City Of Joy has been cleaned up. No denying that. And it does look rather pretty, especially in the late afternoon light. Besides, as loyalists pointed out, Didis rally went off seamlessly, without a single untoward incident. This is quite a feat, given the numbers. Traffic management was smoothly and efficiently managed, with nobody being inconvenienced. All the brown sahibs and memsahibs who stayed indoors and had generously given the day off to chauffeurs, talked in fruity accents about the transformation. Yup. Didis Poribartan is acknowledged as a reality, and is now being unleashed on the rest of India. The elite folks of Kolkata are slowly but surely falling in line. Even Didis most strident critics are bending over backwards to woo her coterie and make amends for past sins. Didi as PM may scare the hell out of the rest of us who dont live in Kolkata and worship Mamata Banerjee. But for the average Bengali attending the mandatory adda with buddies in and around Victoria Memorial, it is already a done deal. What Didi wants, Didi gets! Her administrative skills are gushed over by fawning minions. Nobody questions how Didi gets things done there is method in her madness, they say. Okay. Whether this madness will work across India, remains to be tested. If such an eventuality does take place. But why should we feel nervous? I think of Didi as Narendra Modi in drag. Temperamentally, they are pretty similar. Their work style matches. They both loathe critics and criticism. They know exactly what is to be done to and with those who oppose them. Their names taken in vain, come with a hefty price tag. Their political rhetoric is impressive well, ask the followers. They are ruthless and swift in suppressing dissent. Both prefer to think in their mother tongue and then attempt a Hindi version for the speeches. Unlike Narendra Modi, Didi has simplified her sartorial choices to simple, handspun white sarees. But like Mr Modi, she is a master at positioning and branding herself. Both she and Mr Modi are married to their political ambitions nothing and nobody exists outside that bubble. Modis highly embarrassing jadoo ki jhappis will be missed cannot visualise Didi grabbing and embracing foreign heads of State with the same gusto. But who knows? It certainly looks like India may have a female Prime Minister next. There are several hopefuls in the running. Mayawati being the top choice as of now. And one with the highest chances of bagging the post , if the math falls into place after all the horse trading and maara-maari. Purely going by numbers, and nationwide awareness, she is streets ahead of Didi. She has more money as well! Now its a matter of who gets into bed with whom. Politics is all about hugging strange bedfellows at the opportune time. I love this scenario the most two seemingly heartless women affectionately called Behenji and Didi by their followers in a race to grab Indias gaddi and show the world the real meaning of Girl Power. Let our Sisters in Arms lead the way to polls 2019, I say!. Adityanath also dubbed Priyanka Gandhis appointment as the Congress general secretary for eastern UP an extension of the 'political dynasty' culture in the party. (Photo: File) Noida: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday said Priyanka Gandhi Vadras entry into active politics would not have any impact on the outcome of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as zero plus zero results in zero. Adityanath also dubbed Priyanka Gandhis appointment as the Congress general secretary for eastern UP an extension of the political dynasty culture in the party. Zero plus zero results in zero. This would not make any impact on the poll outcome. With her appointment, the Congress has only extended its culture of political dynasty, he told reporters in Noida. Priyanka Gandhi, 47, the sister of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, was Wednesday appointed the partys general secretary for UP East, effective from February. Her region of responsibility would also include Gorakhpur, from where Adityanath has been a five-time member of parliament. The chief minister, who was here to inaugurate the Noida-Greater Noida Metro Rail and half-a-dozen infrastructure projects, also took on rivals Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. Earlier there was a jinx associated with Noida and Greater Noida. It was said that any chief minister who visits this region loses his/her chair. Hence this region remained ignored, he said referring to former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, without naming them. When I became the chief minister, I was asked if I would visit the twin-cities in western UP, I said why not! Noida and Greater Noida are also part of UP. We are not working for the chair or power, we are working for the people. I have visited this region multiple times since March 2017 and would continue to do so in future, Adityanath said. Flanked by Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri, he hit out at the previous governments for not being able to complete development works in a time-bound manner. During the previous Samajwadi Partys governments full term in the state, 20,000 houses were sanctioned under the central housing scheme for all, but in a short span of time, we have built more than eight lakh houses. We are speeding up our efforts to make more houses for the people, he said. White said the county has been particularly focused on trying to intervene at age 3 with children who have deficits. The county is recognizing and diagnosing the deficiencies early on to help get them on track, she said, through Judy Centers that link families to resources in early childhood, a preschool center, and a program that identifies children with disabilities as toddlers. New Delhi: On 70th Republic Day, elaborate arrangements have been made for celebrations across the country, especially in New Delhi, where the majestic parade will be held on the Rajpath. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be the chief guest at the parade, which will be presided by the president of India, Ram Nath Kovind. Ramaphosa was invited by PM Modi when the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina last year. Carrying forward the tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial at the India Gate. Besides the several contingents of the Indian Army and other forces, the parade will also have representations from various states and ministries of the government. Twenty-two tableaux of states and central government departments, and performances by school children will be part of the 90-minute parade. From modern to traditional, the themes will be an eclectic mix of folk dances, music and drama. Here are the LIVE updates: 11:45 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds at Republic Day parade in Delhi #RepublicDay2019 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds at Republic Day parade in Delhi pic.twitter.com/rRl3ZK8jNr ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:35 am: PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi. PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi pic.twitter.com/XSd1B6Lrgw ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:20 am: 33 people on 9 motorcycles make a human pyramid, Subedar Major Ramesh A leads this formation. Photo: ANI | Twitter 11:15 am: Motorcyclists showcase Yoga display, at Rajpath during Republic Day parade Photo: ANI | Twitter 11:05 am: 26 children including 6 girls and 20 boys have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 #republicdayindia 26 children including 6 girls and 20 boys have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 pic.twitter.com/8xxrTEM2OX ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:02 am: Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel celebrating Republic Day at 18,000 feet and -30 degree celsius in Ladakh Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:42 am: Sweets exchanged between India and Pakistan at Attari-Wagah border. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:40 am: Tableaux of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra and Sikkim #RepublicDay2019 : Tableaux of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra and Sikkim pic.twitter.com/fumDqB7xQl ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:35 am: Camel Mounted Band of BSF at Rajpath. #republicdayindia : Camel Mounted Band of BSF playing 'Hum Hai Seema Suraksha Bal', at Rajpath pic.twitter.com/u7gdMHcsMU ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:24 am: The Veterans tableau-2019, it showcases the theme, 'Veterans: Accelerators in Nation's Growth' Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:20 am: On the occasion of 70th Republic Day, BSF exchange sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts, at Fulbari, at Indo-Bangladesh border near Siliguri in West Bengal. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:10 am: Visuals of the T-90 (Bhishma), the main battle tank of the Indian Army, commanded by Captain Navneet Eric of 45 Cavalry. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:05 am: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, awarded the Ashok Chakra. Award was received by his wife and mother. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:02 am: President Kovind unfurls Indian flag. 10:00 am: PM Modi receives President Ram Nath Kovind with the R-Day chief guest South African President Cyril Ramaphosa 09:45 am: PM Modi pays tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. #RepublicDay2019 pic.twitter.com/mykhT7oxxP ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 09:00 am: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel takes part in Republic Day celebrations in Raipur. Photo: ANI | Twitter 08:50 am: Republic Day parade will begin at Rajpath at 09:50 am. Delhi: #RepublicDay2019 parade will begin at Rajpath at 9.50 am, prior to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti pic.twitter.com/ByzZ4nwZTs ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 08:47 am: Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal present at Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Bhubaneswar. Photo: ANI | Twitter 08:45 am: BJP President Amit Shah unfurls the tricolour at the party office in Delhi Photo: ANI | Twitter 08:00 am: Crowds gather for the Republic Day parade at Rajpath in Delhi. Crowds gather for the #RepublicDay2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest at the parade today. pic.twitter.com/dZCOKSXTiY ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 07:30 am: Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurls the national flag on Republic Day 2019. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam also present. Photo: ANI | Twitter 07:15 am: PM Modi wishes the nation on 70th Republic Day. Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians. # ! Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 26, 2019 07:00 am: The Delhi Traffic Police has advised commuters to plan their journeys in advance to avoid delays and avoid the route of Republic Day parade between Vijay Chowk and Red Fort grounds in the national capital. Photo: ANI | Twitter The woman, Rajeshwari Mishra, who has been for the last 40 years, apart of the annual flag hoisting event at the Shahjahapur district collectorate couldnt control her emotions and wept during her address after the flag hosting ceremony. (Photo: ANI) Shahjahapur: The daughter of a freedom fighter on Saturday broke down and asked for the government's help during an event celebrating Republic Day, in which she was the chief guest. The woman, Rajeshwari Mishra, who has been for the last 40 years, apart of the annual flag hoisting event at the Shahjahapur district collectorate couldnt control her emotions and wept during her address after the flag hosting ceremony. Mishra, the daughter of Mahesh Nath Mishra said she had not been receiving any benefits from the government and asked for assistance from the government. "Jin'ne apni shaheedi, apni kurbani di unki beti aaj thokrein kha rahi hai (The daughter of the person who gave up his life for the country is facing troubles," she told reporters after the event. District Magistrate Amrit Tripathi told ANI that he got to know that the woman has not been getting any help from the government for many years. He assured that every possible help would be given to the woman. The Union government had launched a central scheme to grant pension to freedom fighters and their eligible dependents with effect from August 15, 1972, an initiative, which was later renamed as Swatantrata Sainik Samman Pension Scheme in the year 1980. The Income Tax Department had last week carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. (Photo: File) New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested lawyer Gautam Khaitan, accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, in connection with a fresh case of possession of black money and money laundering, officials said Saturday. They said Khaitan was placed under arrest Friday night by the agency sleuths under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). He will be produced before a court here on Saturday, they said. Sources said a fresh criminal case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. Khaitan has been alleged to have been operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stash assets, they said. It is understood that the investigative agencies have got fresh leads against Khaitan after the questioning of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the VVIP chopper deal with AgustaWestland, who was extradited by India from Dubai in December last. The Income Tax Department had last week carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. Khaitan had been arrested by the ED and the CBI a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail, they said. Meanwhile, the destination of the migrants is still unclear as the officer declined to reveal whether it was Australia or New Zealand. KOCHI: Two weeks after 100-odd people allegedly sailed out from Munambam on a modified fishing vessel, the special investigation team (SIT) probing the case has recorded the arrest of three persons. The accused Anilkumar of Venganoor, Thiruvan-anthapuram, Prabhu Dandapani, 30, and Ravi Raja, 31, of Madangir, New Delhi, were in the custody of the SIT for the past few days. They have been charged with various provisions of Indian Passport Act and Emigration Act and various Sections (109, 120 (B), 468, 471) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Mr Vijay Sakhare, Inspector- General of Police, Kochi Range, told reporters on Friday that the police had identified five kingpins of the mafia that facilitated the illegal migration. We suspect that the four out of the five suspects left with the group on January 12. We are searching for the remaining one who is still in the country, Mr. Sakhare said. The mafia behind the illegal migration may have attempted a similar operation in the past. It is a possibility. However, we cannot confirm it without solid evidence. An investigation is underway, he said. Sreekanthan, the prime accused in the case, is a Sri Lankan national and police had recovered numerous bank passbooks and five Sri Lankan passports from his house. To a question whether Sreekanthan has any connection with the terrorist outfit, LTTE, he said it was being probed. Mr. Sakhare confirmed that the arrested accused were not the prime organisers. They only had arranged the boat purchase and helped the group while staying in Kochi. He said an alert was earlier sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs and various other central agencies. A lot of illegal money transactions had taken place for the act, he said. Meanwhile, the destination of the migrants is still unclear as the officer declined to reveal whether it was Australia or New Zealand. The Creta is priced between Rs 9.50 lakh and Rs 15.10 lakh (ex-showroom New Delhi) while the Harrier is priced between Rs 12.69 lakh and Rs 16.25 lakh (ex-showroom New Delhi). The Tata Harrier has just been launched in India with an aggressive starting price of Rs 12.69 lakh. This ensures that it competes with a lot of cars which are priced above and below it. And one such car is the best-selling compact SUV in the country, the Hyundai Creta. While we suggested before the launch of the Harrier that the new SUV will encroach into the Cretas territory somewhat, the Harriers price tag has ensured that it is not just a passing competition to the Creta but rather a bigger and more value-for-money alternative. The Creta is priced between Rs 9.50 lakh and Rs 15.10 lakh (ex-showroom New Delhi) while the Harrier is priced between Rs 12.69 lakh and Rs 16.25 lakh (ex-showroom New Delhi). But before starting off the comparison, lets have a look at the basic differences between the two SUVs. Hyundai Creta Tata Harrier Powertrain options: The Creta can be had in a host of powertrain configurations with a manual and automatic transmission available with both petrol and diesel engines. Powertrain options: The Harrier is available with a single diesel engine that can, for now, only be had with a manual transmission. Size: The Creta is big, but compared to its direct rivals like the Renault Duster, Captur and Nissan Terrano, it feels a bit cramped on the inside. Size: The Harrier has thrown the size debate out the window with even the Tucson, Hyundais flagship SUV in India, being dwarfed by the Tata. Segment Competition: The Cretas main rivals are the Maruti S-Cross, Renault Captur and Nissan Kicks. Segment Competition: The Harrier will go up against the Jeep Compass, Mahindra XUV500 and Mahindra Scorpio. Dimension Comparison Measurements Hyundai Creta Tata Harrier Length 4270mm 4598mm Width 1780mm 1894mm Height 1665mm 1706mm Wheelbase 2590mm 2741mm Ground Clearance 190mm 205mm Boot Space 400 litres 425 litres Engine Comparison Engine Hyundai Creta Tata Harrier Displacement 1.6-litre 2.0-litre Power 128PS 140PS Torque 260Nm 350Nm Transmission 6-speed MT/AT 6-speed MT Fuel Efficiency 20.5kmpl/17.6kmpl 16.79kmpl Lets first take a look at the price of different variants of the Creta and Harrier and see which variants of the two are priced close together. Hyundai Creta Variant Price Tata Harrier Variant Price 1.4 CRDi E+ Rs 10 lakh 1.4 CRDi S Rs 11.80 lakh 1.6 CRDi SX Rs 13.34 lakh XE Rs 12.69 lakh 1.6 CRDi SX Dual Tone Rs 13.84 lakh XM Rs 13.75 lakh 1.6 CRDi SX (O) Rs 15.10 lakh XT Rs 14.95 lakh XZ Rs 16.25 lakh Disclaimer: We are only picking diesel variants of the Creta as the Harrier is not yet offered with a petrol engine. We will also not be picking up the automatic variants of the Creta for this comparison as the Harrier is not offered with an automatic transmission either. We will be picking variants that are priced between Rs 50,000 of each other for the comparison. By looking at the table above, you can make out that there are two variants each of the Creta and Harrier that overlap with each other within the set parameters. Also Read: Tata Harrier First Drive Review Variant Comparison Hyundai Creta 1.6 CRDi SX Dual Tone Vs Tata Harrier XM Hyundai Creta 1.6 CRDi SX Dual Tone Tata Harrier XM Difference Rs 13.84 lakh Rs 13.75 lakh Rs 9,000 (Creta is more expensive) Common features: ABS with EBD, dual front airbags, rear parking sensors, front fog lamps, rear wiper and washer, follow-me-home headlamps, projector headlamps, LED daytime running lamps (DRLs), turn indicators on ORVMs, 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system, four speakers + two tweeters, tilt-adjustable steering wheel, steering-mounted controls, height adjustable drivers seat, electrically-adjustable ORVMs, rear AC vents, LED tail lamps. What the Creta 1.6 CRDi SX Dual Tone gets over the Harrier XM: Rear defogger, 17-inch alloy wheels, rear camera, cruise control, key fob with push button start-stop, auto climate control, electrically-foldable ORVMs, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, wireless smartphone charger. What the Harrier XM gets over the Creta 1.6 CRDi SX Dual Tone: Telescopic steering wheel, multi drive modes (eco, city, sport). Verdict: This one is a hands down win for the Hyundai Creta. When talking of features, the Creta is offers a host of them over the Harrier. And all these extra goodies for a premium of just Rs 9,000 seems like a steal. Round 1 goes to the Hyundai Creta. Hyundai Creta 1.6 CRDi SX (O) Vs Tata Harrier XT Hyundai Creta 1.6 CRDi SX(O) Tata Harrier XT Difference Rs 15.10 lakh Rs 14.95 lakh Rs 15,000 (Creta is more expensive) Common features (over previous variants): 17-inch alloy wheels, rear camera, cruise control, auto climate control, key fob with push button start-stop, electrically-foldable ORVMs, Apple CarPlay (this feature will be available on the Harrier soon), Android Auto and rear defogger. What the Creta 1.6 CRDi SX (O) gets over the Harrier XT: Six airbags, electronic stability control, vehicle stability management control, hill start assist control, auto-dimming IRVM, height-adjustable front seatbelts, sunroof, 6-way electrically adjustable driver seat, smart key band and wireless smartphone charger. What the Harrier XT gets over the Creta 1.6 CRDi SX (O): Telescopic steering wheel, dual function DRLs with turn indicators, multi drive modes 2.0 (eco, city, sport), eight speakers, rain-sensing wipers, auto headlamps, 8-way manually adjustable driver seat and cooled storage box. Verdict: Round 2 goes to the Creta too. You might be surprised at this one but the Hyundai Creta offers the option of six airbags as well as electronic stability control and vehicle stability management control in the SX (O) variant. While the Harrier does offer some basics in this price segment like auto headlamps and rain-sensing wipers, the safety package of the Creta is too compelling to ignore. Why Buy The Hyundai Creta? Multiple powertrain options: If finding the right powertrain setup is a task for you, then the Hyundai Creta will definitely appeal to you. It can be had with both petrol and diesel engines. And there is not one, but two diesel engines on offer. Apart from that, you can opt for an automatic transmission with either the petrol or diesel (1.6-litre only) engine. Sunroof: The top-spec Hyundai Creta can be had with a sunroof, an option that is missing on the Harrier. So if the lack of a sunroof is a deal breaker for you, then go for the Creta. Also, the Creta gets other useful features like wireless charging for your smartphone, auto-dimming IRVM and electrically-adjustable driver seat. Why Buy The Tata Harrier? Size: Saying that the Harrier is big could be a bit of an understatement. That is because the Harrier manages to dwarf its competition when it comes to size. The Jeep Compass, Mahindra XUV500 and the likes pale in comparison when stood next to the Harrier. It even manages to dwarf over the Cretas big brother, the Tucson. If size and road presence is your priority, put your money down on the Harrier with your eyes closed. Ground Clearance: The Harrier has a massive 205mm of ground clearance, meaning it will go over most obstacles thrown its way with relative ease. The Creta has a ground clearance of 190mm. And while it is in no way less, it is at a slight disadvantage when compared to Harrier while tackling the really rough stuff. So if you frequent places where the tarmac becomes a distant spec in your rearview mirror, the Harrier is the option to go for. Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription and are still unable to access our content, please link your digital account to your print subscription If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. School Board President Kathleen Causey said the board has asked the school administration to look at the best way of hiring a search firm. She said the board could piggyback off an existing contract from another school district in order to shorten the process. For more than a year, workers have been installing a new basement kitchen and modifying the old Alex. Brown & Sons banking floor into a stylish restaurant and bar. Old portraits and classic Baltimore prints now fill the walls and suggest that this is a gilded temple of Baltimore and Maryland history. Theres an eye-popping original stained-glass circular skylight and enough veined marble and bronzework to fill a fashionable Charles Street church. The formal new restaurants dazzling quarters are something to behold. Det. Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman, said the cause of death was unknown, and the body was transported to the office of the chief medical examiner in Baltimore so that an autopsy could be performed. Washington Nearly a half century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court held that education was not a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution. The 5-4 decision came in 1973 in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez , which rejected a 14th Amendment equal-protection clause challenge to Texas school funding system by residents of a small, property-poor school district, the Edgewood Independent School District, which covers part of San Antonio. But in recent years, in both the legal academy and in the courts, thinkers and advocates have been pushing a revival of the idea that there is an implied fundamental right to education in the Constitution. At a Jan. 24 event in Washington, the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute held a debate on the proposition that the Supreme Court was wrong on Rodriguez and that there should be recognition of a federal right to education. This issue is considered settled by some, but there are recent lawsuits in Connecticut, Michigan, Mississippi, and one thats gearing up right now in Rhode Island that [are] asking the courts again to approach this issue, said Nat Malkus, a resident scholar and deputy director of education policy at AEI, who moderated the debate. Arguing for the motion were Derek W. Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, and Kimberly J. Robinson, a law professor at the University of Richmond and currently a visiting professor at the University of Virginia law school. Robinson is the editor of a forthcoming book, Thoughts on a Federal Right to Education, that will argue for such a right and explore how it might be achieved and defined. The court in Rodriguez relied on the laboratory of the states to address inequality in spending and educational opportunity, Robinson said at the AEI debate. The court was very clear that there needed to be greater opportunity and there needed to be school funding reform. But it said the states should be the ones to address that. Well, almost 50 years later, weve had some improvement ... in narrowing opportunity gaps. However, the laboratory of the states has been largely ineffective in ensuring that all students have an excellent education. Black is the author of a 2018 article in the Stanford Law Review, The Constitutional Compromise to Guarantee Education , which argues that the framers of the 14th Amendment, after the Civil War, intended to guarantee education as a right of state citizenship. He points to the requirement that Confederate states seeking readmission to the Union were required to rewrite their state constitutions to affirmatively guarantee education. From the beginning, public education has been bound up in the very idea of our democracy, Black said in the debate, citing the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the 14th Amendment, and the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Speaking against the motion were Earl Maltz, a law professor at Rutgers University who has written prominently on constitutional law and the Brown case; and Ilya Shapiro, the director of the Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. Derek argues that we should interpret the 14th Amendment by reference to what was required of the Southern states, said Maltz. The problem with that is, some things that were required of the Southern states were clearly not covered by Section One of the amendment, which includes the due process and equal protection clauses and pertained to the nation as a whole. Shapiro said the notion of a federal right to education was a Utopian abstraction. If we establish, either constitutionally or statutorily, a federal right to education, well then what about things that seem even more important than educationfood, health care, shelter, clothing, he said. Education is important, very important, but these things are probably even more important. So it really opens a Pandoras box. The hourlong debate moved breezily through a range of subjects, from relatively obscure provisions of the Constitution to the effects of school spending to what a federal right to education might entail. Robinson said equitable funding, well-qualified teachers, and a guarantee of citizens who are prepared to be engaged in democracy would be among the building blocks of a federal right. Shapiro said such a right would inevitably lead to more lawsuits over education and a lawyers full employment act. One thing the two sides seemed to agree on is that the Supreme Court as currently constituted would likely be unreceptive to recognizing a federal right to education. Maltz said the chances of the current court overturning the holding in Rodriguez that there is no fundamental right to education in the Constitution would be less than zero. I agree that the current [Supreme] Court is not going to recognize a right to education, said Robinson. There may be a future [composition of the] court that could do so. The return to federal court is an indication that state courts are not providing the remedies that communities need. The debate drew a large in-person crowd to the AEIs Washington headquarters, as well as a web audience. Both were asked at the outset to vote on the proposition, and to vote again at the end of the debate. At the beginning, 57 percent of respondents said they agreed there should be a federal right to education, while 17 percent said no and 26 percent were undecided. By the end, 64 percent said yes, 30 percent said no, and 6 percent remained undecided. While that is a healthy proportion in favor of a federal right, the no side was deemed to be the victor of the debate, since it gained more of the undecided vote than the yes side didplus-13 percentage points for no versus plus-7 points for yes. Broadway Market consists of two buildings in the blocks between Fleet and Lancaster streets along Broadway. The North Market Shed, undergoing a $3 million renovation after being vacant for nearly a decade, is scheduled to open early this year. The South Market shed is closed for renovation and will reopen as the Choptank restaurant in spring. WASHINGTON Heres how area members of Congress voted during the legislative week ending Jan. 25. There were no roll-call votes on the final version of the continuing resolution (HJ Res 28) that reopened the government through Feb. 15. The House and Senate approved the measure on non-record votes on Jan. 25 and President Donald Trump signed it into law the same day, ending a 35-day government shutdown. House Continuing U.S. support of NATO. Voting 357 for and 22 against, the House on Jan. 22 passed a measure (HR 676) declaring congressional support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and attempting to block any effort to withdraw the United States from the 70-year-old mutual defense pact. President Trump has criticized other NATO members for relying on the United States to protect them, and has reportedly discussed withdrawing from the alliance. The United States was a founding member of NATO, which includes 29 European and North American countries and was formed as a bulwark against the former Soviet Union. Today, it seeks to counter Russian military and cyber aggression, including electoral interference in Western democracies. But Trump has called NATO an obsolete drain on U.S. taxpayers and military resources. I had to be a mastermind, Deborah Rider told me Saturday in Glen Burnie, where Maryland Food Bank volunteers handed her some fresh and canned vegetables to augment her grocery shopping. I learned how to juggle things. The first thing I did was call my lenders; they need to hear from you. But I need to give [credit] to Navy Federal Credit Union. They said right away to federal workers, Weve got you. They were phenomenal. Navy Federal cut Rider a break on her car payment and, because she was a direct deposit customer, advanced her the first pay she missed as an interest-free loan. The bank that holds her mortgage was not so helpful. But, Rider says, Navy Federals program helped her get by until the Trump Shutdown ended. RICHMOND The Senate passed legislation on Friday that would repeal a current state law that suspends the Virginia drivers license of anyone who doesnt promptly pay court fines or costs unrelated to driving offenses. The Senate passed SB 1013 sponsored by Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, on a 36-4 vote. Stanley estimates more than 600,000 people in Virginia have suspended drivers licenses. What were doing is disproportionately punishing the poor, Stanley said on the floor. This is the second time Stanley has introduced this bill, which heads to the House of Delegates. Gov. Ralph Northam has signaled support for ending the practice. The bill would require the DMV to reinstate drivers licenses that had been suspended solely for this reason before July 1, 2019, the expected day of enactment. What this has created in effect is a debtors prison, Stanley said. Those who cannot pay their fines most certainly lose their license. Then they cannot drive, and then they lose their jobs, then the fine grows, then the debt grows and the despair grows. Holmes said she encountered discrimination, from standing up to a supervisor to convincing a shopkeeper that she really was buying a nursing uniform for herself. She kept her uniforms white fabric ironed and pressed and wore it every day, she said, even after nurses began wearing scrubs. I had earned the right to wear that uniform, she said. Kelley, pastor and founder of Faith, Hope and Love Church of Deliverance, said she always wanted to help people, and she has worked toward that goal since she was a child. Born in 1940, Kelley grew up in Charlottesville and in Washington, D.C. She said a vision at a young age encouraged her to seek ways to help people. She worked as a nurse at Martha Jefferson Hospital, where she said a supervisor threatened to fire her just for using the wrong color of ink when she filled out charts. Later, when she decided get a degree from East Coast Polytechnic Institute, she said a company in Crozet offered jobs to three white classmates with the same grades, but not her. She filed a federal complaint and decided to return to nursing. He hurled insults and accused her of cheating on him. After she threw a glass of water in his face, Dalton choked her from behind. As she screamed for help, Dalton jammed his hand into her mouth, which caused bruising on the back of her trachea consistent with blunt-force trauma, Pather testified. Dalton then banged her head on the floor repeatedly, causing numerous injuries, including bruising on her neck and hemorrhaging in her eyes consistent with blunt-force trauma, according to testimony. Following the assault, Pather said, the survivor of the attack went to her personal doctor and then to the UVa Medical Center, where her injuries were documented. She then filed a police report. Additionally, Pather said, Dalton admitted in his initial interview with police officers that he wished that she had died. Rhonda Quagliana, Daltons defense attorney, said the plea agreement showed her client was taking responsibility for his actions. Two terms of the plea agreement a two-year protective order and a promise not to return to the UVa or Charlottesville were suggested by Dalton, she said. Judge Humes J. Franklin accepted the plea agreement and set Daltons sentencing for May 2. Tyler Hammel is a reporter for The Daily Progress. Contact him at (434) 978-7268, thammel@dailyprogress.com or @TylerHammelVA on Twitter. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Charlottesville has received 37 applications for its city manager position. Applications to be the next administrative head of the city were due Monday. Councilor Heather Hill said officials werent focused on the number of applicants, but their quality. I didnt come into this with a target number of applications, but a desire to make sure we attracted a strong pool of candidates, she said. The applicants are looking to replace former City Manager Maurice Jones, who left in July 2018 and became the town manager of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At his departure, Jones was paid $191,500. City Council had announced in May it would not renew Jones contract. He was among roughly a half dozen high-ranking city officials to depart following the fallout of the 2017 Unite the Right rally. Assistant City Manager Mike Murphy was appointed interim city manager in July after another candidate turned down the job. Murphy is still being paid the $152,475 salary he made as assistant city manager; his appointment is slated to end no later than Aug. 1. A Radford University student was charged Thursday with killing a classmate Radfords first murder charge in eight years, the city prosecutor said. Luisa Ines Tudela Harris Cutting, 21, of Jeffersonton, in Culpeper County, was charged with second-degree murder. Cutting is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Radford General District Court. The victim was identified Friday morning by Radford police as Alexa Cannon, 20, the daughter of a Roanoke family, and like Cutting, a student at Radford University. Radford University President Brian Hemphill sent a campus-wide email Thursday saying, Without question, this is a difficult day for our campus and our community. The days and months to come will also be difficult as we extend our deepest sympathies, as well as our thoughts and prayers, to the family and loved ones of our student, Hemphill continued. On Friday, Hemphill sent out another email, writing: WESCO International, Inc. provides business-to-business distribution, logistics, and supply chain solutions in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It operates in three segments: Electrical & Electronic Solutions (EES), Communications & Security Solutions (CSS), and Utility and Broadband Solutions (UBS). The EES segment supplies products and supply chain solutions, including electrical equipment and supplies, wires and cables, lubricants, pipes, valves, fittings, fasteners, cutting tools, power transmission products, and safety products, as well as assemblies and components; and provides various value-added services, such as supplier consolidation, design and technical support, just-in-time supply and electronic commerce, and supply chain management services to the construction, industrial, and original equipment manufacturing markets. The CSS segment provides copper and fiber optic cable and connectivity, access control, video surveillance, intrusion and fire/life safety, cabinets, power, cable management, wireless, professional audio/video, voice and networking switches, and other ancillary products; and value-added supply chain solutions, including inventory management, product packaging and enhancement, and customized supply chain services to the network infrastructure and security markets. The UBS segment supplies electrical transmission and distribution, power plant maintenance, repair and operations supplies, and smart-grid products; arranges materials management and procurement outsourcing services for the power generation, transmission, and distribution industries; and offers conductors, transformers, overhead transmission and distribution hardware, switches, protective devices and underground distribution products, connectors, critical components, and lighting and conduit products for the investor-owned utilities, public power companies, and contractors. The company was founded in 1922 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Read More Valero Energy Corporation manufactures, markets, and sells transportation fuels and petrochemical products in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol. The company is involved in oil and gas refining, marketing, and bulk selling activities. It produces conventional, premium, and reformulated gasolines; gasoline meeting the specifications of the California Air Resources Board (CARB); diesel fuels, low-sulfur and ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuels; CARB diesel; other distillates; jet fuels; blendstocks; lube oils and natural gas liquids; and asphalts, petrochemicals, lubricants, and other refined petroleum products. As of December 31, 2020, the company owned 15 petroleum refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.2 million barrels per day. It sells its refined products through wholesale rack and bulk markets; and through approximately 7,000 outlets under the Valero, Beacon, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Ultramar, and Texaco brands. The company also produces and sells ethanol, dry distiller grains, syrup, and inedible corn oil primarily to refiners and gasoline blenders, as well as to animal feed customers. It owns and operates 13 ethanol plants with a combined ethanol production capacity of approximately 1.69 billion gallons per year. In addition, the company owns and operates crude oil and refined petroleum products pipelines, terminals, tanks, marine docks, truck rack bays, and other logistics assets. Further, it owns and operates a plant that processes animal fats, used cooking oils, and other vegetable oils into renewable diesel. The company was formerly known as Valero Refining and Marketing Company and changed its name to Valero Energy Corporation in August 1997. Valero Energy Corporation was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Read More Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. State Street Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides a range of financial products and services to institutional investors worldwide. It offers investment servicing products and services, including custody; product accounting; daily pricing and administration; master trust and master custody; depotbank; record-keeping; cash management; foreign exchange, brokerage, and other trading services; securities finance; deposit and short-term investment facilities; loans and lease financing; investment manager and alternative investment manager operations outsourcing; performance, risk, and compliance analytics; and financial data management to support institutional investors. The company also engages in the provision of portfolio management and risk analytics, as well as trading and post-trade settlement services with integrated compliance and managed data throughout. In addition, it provides investment management strategies and products, such as core and enhanced indexing, multi-asset strategies, active quantitative and fundamental active capabilities, and alternative investment strategies. Further, the company offers services and solutions, including environmental, social, and governance investing; defined benefit and defined contribution; and global fiduciary solutions, as well as exchange-traded fund under the SPDR ETF brand. The company provides its products and services to mutual funds, collective investment funds and other investment pools, corporate and public retirement plans, insurance companies, foundations, endowments, and investment managers. State Street Corporation was founded in 1792 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Read More National Bank Holdings Corporation operates as the bank holding company for NBH Bank that provides various banking products and financial services to commercial, business, and consumer clients in the United States. It offers deposit products, including checking, savings, money market, and other deposit accounts, including fixed-rate and fixed maturity time deposits. The company also provides commercial and industrial loans and leases, such as working capital loans, equipment loans, lender finance loans, food and agriculture loans, government and non-profit loans, owner occupied commercial real estate loans, and other commercial loans and leases; non-owner occupied commercial real estate loans consisting of loans on commercial properties, such as office buildings, warehouse/distribution buildings, multi-family, hospitality, and retail buildings; small business administration loans to support manufacturers, distributors, and service providers; term loans, line of credits, and real estate secured loans; residential real estate loans; and consumer loans. In addition, it offers treasury management solutions comprising online and mobile banking, commercial credit card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, electronic bill payment, lock box, remote deposit capture, merchant processing, cash vault, controlled disbursements, and fraud prevention services, as well as other auxiliary services, including account reconciliation, collections, repurchase accounts, zero balance accounts, and sweep accounts. As of February 24, 2021, the company operated through a network of 89 banking centers located in Colorado, the greater Kansas City region, New Mexico, Utah, and Texas. It also operates 128 ATMs. The company was formerly known as NBH Holdings Corp. and changed its name to National Bank Holdings Corporation in March 2012. National Bank Holdings Corporation was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Read More Hubbell Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells electrical and electronic products in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Electrical Solution and Utility Solution. The Electrical Solution segment offers standard and special application wiring device products, rough-in electrical products, connector and grounding products, lighting fixtures and controls, and other electrical equipment for use in industrial, commercial, and institutional facilities by electrical contractors, maintenance personnel, electricians, utilities, and telecommunications companies, as well as components and assemblies for the natural gas distribution market. It also designs and manufactures various industrial controls, and communication systems for use in the non-residential and industrial markets, as well as in the oil and gas, and mining industries. This segment sells its products through electrical and industrial distributors, home centers, retail and hardware outlets, lighting showrooms, and residential product oriented Internet sites; and special application products primarily through wholesale distributors to contractors, industrial customers, and original equipment manufacturers. The Utility Solution segment designs, manufactures, and sells distribution, transmission, substation, and telecommunications products. This segment sells its products to distributors, as well as directly to users, such as utilities, telecommunication companies, industrial firms, construction and engineering firms, and civil construction, water utility, transportation industries. The company was founded in 1888 and is headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Core MSCI Europe ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks. Sempra Energy operates as an energy-services holding company in the United States and internationally. The company's San Diego Gas & Electric Company segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity; and supplies natural gas. It offers electric services to approximately 3.7 million population and natural gas services to approximately 3.4 million population that covers 4,100 square miles. Its Southern California Gas Company segment owns and operates a natural gas distribution, transmission, and storage system that supplies natural gas to a population of approximately 22 million covering an area of 24,000 square miles. The company's Sempra Texas Utilities segment is involved in the regulated transmission and distribution of electricity serving 3.7 million homes and businesses, and operation of 139,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. Its transmission system includes 18,127 circuit miles of transmission lines, 336 transmission stations, and 806 distribution substations; distribution system comprises 121,129 miles of overhead and underground lines; and 63 miles of electric transmission lines. Its Sempra Mexico segment develops, owns, operates, or holds interests in natural gas, electric, liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG), ethane, and liquid fuels infrastructure; and purchases LNG, and purchases and sells natural gas. This segment operates natural-gas-fired, and wind and solar power generation facilities. Its assets/facilities consist of 1,850 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines, 15 compressor stations, and 139 miles of ethane pipelines; and 2,729 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines. The company's Sempra LNG segment develops and builds natural gas liquefaction export facilities; holds an interest in a facility for the export of LNG; owns and operates natural gas pipelines; and buys, sells, and transports natural gas. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. Read More Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. Imperial Brands PLC, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, imports, markets, and sells tobacco and tobacco-related products. It offers a range of cigarettes, fine cut and smokeless tobacco, papers, and cigars; and next generation product (NGP) portfolio, such as e-vapour products, as well as oral nicotine and heated tobacco products. The company sells its products under various brands, including Davidoff, Gauloises, JPS, West, L&B, Bastos, Fine, Winston, News, Parker & Simpson, blu, Kool, Horizon, Jade, Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo Y Julieta, Backwoods, Skruf, Golden Virginia, Rizla, and Knox in approximately 160 countries worldwide. It also provides logistics services that include the distribution of tobacco and NGP products for tobacco and NGP product manufacturers; and various non-tobacco and NGP products and services. In addition, the company is involved in the management of a golf course; marketing of papers; restaurant business; distribution of pharmaceuticals, POS software, and published materials and other products; printing and publishing activities; and provision of long haul transportation, industrial parcel and express delivery, advertising, and support management services. Further, it owns the trademarks; and retails its products. The company was formerly known as Imperial Tobacco Group PLC and changed its name to Imperial Brands PLC in February 2016. Imperial Brands PLC was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Bristol, the United Kingdom. Read More 15 Wall Street analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Hugo Boss in the last twelve months. There are currently 10 hold ratings and 5 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street analysts is that investors should "hold" Hugo Boss stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in BOSS, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares. View analyst ratings for Hugo Boss or view top-rated stocks. EnerSys provides various stored energy solutions for industrial applications worldwide. It operates in three segments: Energy Systems, Motive Power, and Specialty. The company offers uninterruptible power systems applications for computer and computer-controlled systems, as well as telecommunications systems; switchgear and electrical control systems used in industrial facilities and electric utilities, large-scale energy storage, and energy pipelines; integrated power solutions and services to broadband, telecom, renewable, and industrial customers; and thermally managed cabinets and enclosures for electronic equipment and batteries. It also provides motive power products that are used to provide power for electric industrial forklifts used in manufacturing, warehousing, and other material handling applications, as well as mining equipment, diesel locomotive starting, and other rail equipment. In addition, the company offers specialty batteries for starting, lighting, and ignition applications in transportation; and energy solutions for satellites, military aircraft, submarines, ships, and other tactical vehicles, as well as medical and security systems. Further, it provides battery chargers, power equipment, battery accessories, and outdoor cabinet enclosures, as well as related after-market and customer-support services for industrial batteries. The company sells its products through a network of distributors, independent representatives, and internal sales forces. The company was formerly known as Yuasa, Inc. and changed its name to EnerSys in January 2001. EnerSys was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania. Read More Dunelm Group plc engages in the retail of homewares in the United Kingdom. The company offers furniture for bedroom, living room, dining room, and office; sofas and chairs; bean bags; bed frames, mattresses, divan beds and bases, and headboards, as well as kids beds; and bedding products, such as bed linens, duvets, pillows, protectors, and baby and kids beddings. It also provides curtains, and poles and tracks; blinds; rugs, runners, and door mats; mirrors; cushion pads, covers; throws; seat pads; pictures and frames, wallpapers, and accessories; lighting products, including ceiling and wall lights, lamp shades, floor and table lamps, and outdoor lights; kitchen products, such as cooking, dining, utility, and electrical products; and storage products for home, clothes, and kitchen, as well as travel and luggage products. In addition, the company offers towels and bathmats, bathroom accessories, and bathroom furniture; kids accessories and toys, and nursery furniture and products, as well as travel, safety, and wellbeing products; garden furniture and storage, and garden dAcor products; and Christmas trees and lights, wreaths and garlands, baubles and tree decoration, and novelty products. It operates 173 superstores and 2 distribution centers, as well as sells its products through an online store at dunelm.com. Dunelm Group plc was founded in 1979 and is based in Syston, the United Kingdom. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Dominion Energy: 96WI 8me LLC, Alamo Solar LLC, Align RNG Grady Road LLC, Align RNG LLC, Align RNG North Carolina LLC, Align RNG Utah LLC, Align RNG Utah-Milford LLC, Align RNG Virginia LLC, Align RNG Virginia-Waverly LLC, Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, Azalea Solar LLC, BrightSuite Distributed Solar Holdings Inc., BrightSuite Home LLC, BrightSuite Inc., BrightSuite Solar LLC, Buckingham Solar I LLC, CEA Americus LLC, CEA Clovis LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Colorado LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Georgia LLC, CEA Dairy RNG Nevada LLC, CEA Dairy RNG New Mexico LLC, CEA Greely LLC, CEA Mason LLC, CID Solar LLC, CNG Coal Company, CNG Power Services Corporation, Carolina Gas Transmission Corporation, Catalina Solar 2 LLC, Clean Energy Asset USA LLC, Clean Energy Enterprises Inc., Clipperton Holdings LLC, Consolidated Natural Gas Company, Correctional Solar LLC, Cottonwood Solar LLC, Cove Point GP Holding Company LLC, Cove Point LNG Limited, DE Fluvanna Solar LLC, DE Hanover Solar LLC, DE King William Solar LLC, DE Powhatan Solar LLC, Dairy RNG Holdings LLC, Dominion ACP Holding Inc., Dominion Alternative Energy Holdings Inc., Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, Dominion Bridgeport Fuel Cell LLC, Dominion Brine LLC, Dominion Capital Inc., Dominion Cogen WV Inc., Dominion Cove Point Inc., Dominion Cove Point LLC, Dominion Energy BTM Inc., Dominion Energy Carolina Gas Services Inc., Dominion Energy Carolina Gas Transmission LLC, Dominion Energy Cove Point LNG LP, Dominion Energy Field Services Inc., Dominion Energy Fuel Services Inc., Dominion Energy Gas Distribution LLC, Dominion Energy Gas Holdings LLC, Dominion Energy Generation Marketing Inc., Dominion Energy Inc., Dominion Energy Kewaunee Inc., Dominion Energy Marketplace LLC, Dominion Energy Midstream GP LLC, Dominion Energy Midstream Partners LP, Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut Inc., Dominion Energy Overthrust Pipeline LLC, Dominion Energy Payroll Company Inc., Dominion Energy Questar Corporation, Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline LLC, Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline Services Inc., Dominion Energy RNG Holdings II Inc., Dominion Energy RNG Holdings Inc., Dominion Energy Services Inc., Dominion Energy Smart Home LLC, Dominion Energy Solar CA LLC, Dominion Energy Solutions Inc., Dominion Energy South Carolina Inc., Dominion Energy Southeast Services Inc., Dominion Energy Technical Solutions Inc., Dominion Energy Technologies II Inc., Dominion Energy Technologies Inc., Dominion Energy Terminal Company Inc., Dominion Energy Transmission Inc., Dominion Energy Wexpro Services Company, Dominion Equipment III Inc., Dominion Equipment Inc., Dominion Fairless Hills Inc., Dominion Fowler Ridge Wind LLC, Dominion Gas Projects Company LLC, Dominion Gathering & Processing Inc., Dominion Gathering?& Processing Inc., Dominion Generation Inc., Dominion Greenbrier Inc., Dominion High Voltage Holdings Inc., Dominion High Voltage MidAtlantic Inc., Dominion Investments Inc., Dominion Iroquois Inc., Dominion Keystone Pipeline Holdings Inc., Dominion Keystone Pipeline LLC, Dominion MLP Holding Company II Inc., Dominion MLP Holding Company II LLC, Dominion MLP Holding Company III Inc., Dominion MLP Holding Company LLC, Dominion Modular LNG Holdings Inc., Dominion Mt. Storm Wind LLC, Dominion North Star Generation Inc., Dominion Nuclear Projects Inc., Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration & Production Inc., Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration?& Production Inc., Dominion Person Inc., Dominion Privatization Florida LLC, Dominion Privatization Georgia LLC, Dominion Privatization Holdings Inc., Dominion Privatization Kentucky LLC, Dominion Privatization South Carolina LLC, Dominion Privatization Texas LLC, Dominion Privatization Virginia LLC, Dominion Products and Services Inc., Dominion Projects Services Inc., Dominion Resources Capital Trust III, Dominion Retail Gas Holdings Inc., Dominion Solar Construction and Maintenance LLC, Dominion Solar Gen-Tie LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings I LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings II LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings III LLC, Dominion Solar Holdings IV LLC, Dominion Solar Projects A Inc., Dominion Solar Projects B Inc., Dominion Solar Projects C Inc., Dominion Solar Projects D Inc., Dominion Solar Projects I Inc., Dominion Solar Projects II Inc., Dominion Solar Projects III Inc., Dominion Solar Projects IV Inc., Dominion Solar Projects V Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VI Inc., Dominion Solar Projects VII Inc., Dominion Solar Services Inc., Dominion Solar?Gen-Tie ?LLC, Dominion State Line LLC, Dominion Voltage Inc., Dominion Wholesale Inc., Dominion Wind Development LLC, Dominion Wind Projects Inc., Eagle Holdco Solar LLC, Eagle Solar LLC, Eastern Shore Solar LLC, Enterprise Solar LLC, Escalante Solar I LLC, Escalante Solar II LLC, Escalante Solar III LLC, Farmington Properties Inc., Four Brothers Solar LLC, Fremont Farm LLC, Granite Mountain Holdings LLC, Granite Mountain Solar East LLC, Granite Mountain Solar West LLC, Greenbrier Marketing Company LLC, Greenbrier Pipeline Company LLC, Greensville County Solar Project LLC, Hecate Energy Cherrydale LLC, Hecate Energy Clarke County LLC, Hope Gas Inc., Imperial Valley Solar Company (IVSC) 2 LLC, Indy Solar Development LLC, Indy Solar I LLC, Indy Solar II LLC, Indy Solar III LLC, Innovative Solar 37 LLC, Iron Springs Holdings LLC, Iron Springs Solar LLC, Iroquois GP Holding Company LLC, Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas, Maricopa West Solar PV LLC, Moffett Solar 1 LLC, Moorings Farm 2 LLC, Mulberry Farm LLC, Mustang Solar LLC, NE Hub Partners L.L.C., NE Hub Partners L.P., NiCHe Storage Solutions LLC, Niche LNG LLC, North Star Generation LLC, PSNC Blue Ridge Corporation, PSNC Cardinal Pipeline Company, PSNC Southgate LLC, Pavant Solar LLC, Phone House, Pikeville Farm LLC, Prairie Fork Wind Farm LLC, Public Service Company of North Carolina Incorporated, QPC Holding Company, QPC Holding Company LLC, Questar Corporation, Questar Energy Services Inc., Questar Field Services LLC, Questar Gas Company, Questar InfoComm Inc., Questar Southern Trails Pipeline Company, Questar White River Hub LLC, RE Adams East LLC, RE Camelot LLC, RE Columbia LLC, RE Columbia LLC, RE Columbia Two LLC, RE Kansas LLC, RE Kent South LLC, RE Old River One LLC, Rev LNG SSL BC LLC, Richland Solar Center LLC, Ridgeland Solar Farm I LLC, SBL Holdco LLC, SCANA, SCANA Communications Holdings Inc., SCANA Corporate Security Services Inc., SCANA Energy Marketing Inc., SCANA Energy Marketing LLC, SCANA Pharmacy LLC, SCANA Services Inc., SRFI LLC, Sappony Solar LLC, Scana Corporation, Scott-II Solar LLC, Scott-II?Solar LLC, Seabrook Solar LLC, Selmer Farm LLC, Siler Solar LLC, Somers Solar Center LLC, South Carolina Electric?& Gas Company, South Carolina Fuel Company Inc., South Carolina Generating Company Inc., Southampton Solar LLC, Summit Farms Solar LLC, TA - Acacia LLC, TA ? Acacia LLC, TWE Myrtle Solar Project LLC, The East Ohio Gas Company, Tioga Properties LLC, Tredegar Solar Fund I LLC, VP Property Inc., Virginia Electric And Power Company, Virginia Power Fuel Corporation, Virginia Power Nuclear Services Company, Virginia Power Services Energy Corp. Inc., Virginia Power Services LLC, Virginia Solar 2017 Projects LLC, Wakefield Solar LLC, Wexpro Company, Wexpro Development Company, Wexpro II Company, Wilkinson Solar LLC, Wrangler Retail Gas Holdings LLC, and roquois GP Holding Company LLC. Deutsche BArse AG operates as an exchange organization in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates through seven segments: Eurex (Financial Derivatives), EEX (Commodities), 360T (Foreign Exchange), Xetra (Cash Equities), Clearstream (Post-Trading), IFS (Investment Fund Services), and Qontigo (index and analytics business). The company engages in the electronic trading of derivatives, electricity and gas products, emission rights, and foreign exchange; operating of Eurex Repo over the counter (OTC) trading platform and electronic clearing architecture; and operating as a central counterparty for on-and-off exchange derivatives, repo transactions, and OTC and exchange-traded derivatives. It also operates in the cash market through Xetra, BArse Frankfurt, and Tradegate trading venues; operates as a central counterparty for equities and bonds; and provides listing services. In addition, the company offers custody and settlement services for securities; investment fund services; global securities financing services; and global securities finance and collateral management, as well as secured money, market transaction, and repos and securities lending transaction services. Further, it develops and markets indices, as well as portfolio management and risk analysis software; markets licenses for trading and market signals; provides technology and reporting solutions for external customers; and offers link-up of trading participants. Deutsche BArse AG was founded in 1585 and is headquartered in Eschborn, Germany. Read More The BIG CON Screwing Americans (Ad) The rich and powerful are thrilled... Inflation is GREAT for them. Its everyone else wholl get screwed. But according to an ex-Wall Street vet, theres actually a way for YOU to turn the tables just make this one move before July 29th. Click here to see why Companhia Brasileira de DistribuiAAo engages in the retail of food, clothing, home appliances, electronics, and other products through its chain of hypermarkets, supermarkets, specialized stores, and department stores in Brazil. It operates in Food Retail, and Axito Group segments. The company sells non-perishables, beverages, fruits, vegetables, meat, breads, cold cuts, dairy products, cleaning products, disposable products, and personal care products; and home appliances and other non-food products, such as clothing and baby items, shoes and accessories, household articles, books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, stationery, toys, sports and camping gears, furniture, mobile phones, mattresses, pet products, and gardening equipment and tools, as well as electronic products, including personal computers, software, computer accessories, and sound and image systems. It also offers medications and cosmetics at its drugstores; and non-food products at gas stations, as well as rents commercial spaces and e-commerce sales. The company operates its supermarkets under the banners of PAo de AAAcar, Extra Supermercado, Mercado Extra, and Compre Bem; hypermarkets under the banner of Extra Hiper; and proximity stores under the banners of Mini Extra, Minuto PAo de AAAcar, PAo de AAAcar Adega, and Aliados Minimercado; and gas stations and drugstores under the banners of Extra and PAo de AAAcar, as well as sells its products through its Websites, paodeacucar.com and clubeextra.com.br. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 696 stores, 74 gas stations, and 103 drugstores in 15 Brazilian states and the Federal District, as well as 15 distribution centers and warehouses across Brazil. The company was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in SAo Paulo, Brazil. Read More Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys. View MarketBeat's top stock picks here. The following companies are subsidiares of The Procter & Gamble: "Procter & Gamble Services" LLC, "Procter & Gamble" LLC, Agile Pursuits, Agile Pursuits Franchising, Arbora, Arbora & Ausonia, Arborinvest, Billie, Braun (Shanghai) Co., Braun GmbH, Braun-Gillette Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG, Celtic Insurance Company, Compania Procter & Gamble Mexico, Compania Quimica S.A., Corporativo Procter & Gamble, Cosmetic Products Pty. Ltd., Detergent Products B.V., Detergent Products SARL, Detergenti S.A., Eurocos Cosmetic GmbH, FPG Oleochemicals Sdn. Bhd., Fameccanica Data S.p.A., Fameccanica Industria e Comercio Do Brasil LTDA., Fameccanica Machinery (Shanghai) Co., Fater S.p.A., Fountain Square Music Publishing Co., Gillette (China) Ltd., Gillette (Shanghai) Ltd., Gillette Aesop Ltd., Gillette Australia Pty. Ltd., Gillette Canada Holdings, Gillette Commercial Operations North America, Gillette Diversified Operations Pvt. Ltd., Gillette Egypt S.A.E., Gillette Group UK Ltd, Gillette Gruppe Deutschland GmbH & Co. oHG, Gillette Holding Company LLC, Gillette Holding GmbH, Gillette India Limited, Gillette Industries Ltd., Gillette International B.V., Gillette Latin America Holding B.V., Gillette Management LLC, Gillette Nova Scotia Company, Gillette Pakistan Limited, Gillette Poland International Sp. z.o.o., Gillette Poland S.A., Gillette U.K. Limited, Gillette del Uruguay, Giorgio Beverly Hills Inc., Hyginett KFT, Industries Marocaines Modernes SA, LLC "Procter & Gamble Novomoskovsk", LLL "Procter & Gamble Distributorskaya Compania", Laboratorios Vicks, Liberty Street Music Publishing Company, Limited Liability Company 'Procter & Gamble Trading Ukraine', Limited Liability Company with foreign investments Procter & and Gamble Ukraine, MDVIP, MERCK KGAA NPV, Marcvenca Inversiones, Modern Industries Company - Dammam, Modern Products Company - Jeddah, New Chapter, New Chapter Canada Inc., Olay LLC, Oral-B Laboratories, P&G Distribution Morocco SAS, P&G Hair Care Holding, P&G Industrial Peru S.R.L., P&G Innovation Godo Kaisha, P&G Israel M.D.O. Ltd., P&G K.K., P&G Northeast Asia Pte. Ltd., P&G Prestige Godo Kaisha, P&G Prestige Service GmbH, P&G South African Trading (Pty.) Ltd., PGT Health Care (Zhejiang) Limited, PGT Healthcare LLP, PPI ZAO, PT Procter & Gamble Home Products Indonesia, PT Procter & Gamble Operations Indonesia, Phase II Holdings Corporation, Procter & Gamble (Chengdu) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (China) Sales Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (East Africa) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Egypt) Manufacturing Company, Procter & Gamble (Enterprise Fund) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Consumer Products Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Enterprise Management Service Company Limited, Procter & Gamble (Guangzhou) Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Health & Beauty Care) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Jiangsu) Ltd. China, Procter & Gamble (L&CP) Limited, Procter & Gamble (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Procter & Gamble (Manufacturing) Ireland Limited, Procter & Gamble (Shanghai) International Trade Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Acquisition GmbH, Procter & Gamble Administration GmbH, Procter & Gamble Algeria EURL, Procter & Gamble Amazon Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Amiens S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Argentina SRL, Procter & Gamble Asia Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Australia Proprietary Limited, Procter & Gamble Azerbaijan Services LLC, Procter & Gamble Bangladesh Private Ltd., Procter & Gamble Blois S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Brazil Holdings B.V., Procter & Gamble Bulgaria EOOD, Procter & Gamble Business Services Canada Company, Procter & Gamble Canada Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Chile , Procter & Gamble Chile Limitada, Procter & Gamble Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Commercial LLC, Procter & Gamble Commercial de Cuba S.A., Procter & Gamble Czech Republic s.r.o., Procter & Gamble DS Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Danmark ApS, Procter & Gamble Detergent (Beijing) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Deuttschland GmbH, Procter & Gamble Distributing (Philippines) Inc., Procter & Gamble Distributing New Zealand Limited, Procter & Gamble Distribution Company (Europe) BVBA, Procter & Gamble Distribution S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Eastern Europe, Procter & Gamble Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Procter & Gamble Egypt, Procter & Gamble Egypt Distribution, Procter & Gamble Egypt Holding, Procter & Gamble Egypt Supplies, Procter & Gamble Energy Company LLC, Procter & Gamble Espana, Procter & Gamble Europe SA, Procter & Gamble Export Operations SARL, Procter & Gamble Exportadora e Importadora Ltda., Procter & Gamble Exports, Procter & Gamble Fabricacao e Comercio Ltda., Procter & Gamble Far East, Procter & Gamble Finance (U.K.) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Holding Ltd., Procter & Gamble Finance Management S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Financial Investments LLP, Procter & Gamble Financial Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Financial Services S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Finland OY, Procter & Gamble France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH, Procter & Gamble Germany GmbH & Co. Operations oHG, Procter & Gamble GmbH, Procter & Gamble Grundstucks-und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Procter & Gamble Gulf FZE, Procter & Gamble Hair Care, Procter & Gamble Hellas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Holding (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Holding France S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Holding GmbH, Procter & Gamble Holding S.r.l., Procter & Gamble Holdings (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Home Products Private Limited, Procter & Gamble Hong Kong Limited, Procter & Gamble Hungary Wholesale Trading Partnership (KKT), Procter & Gamble Hygiene & Health Care Limited, Procter & Gamble Inc., Procter & Gamble India Holdings, Procter & Gamble Indochina Limited Company, Procter & Gamble Industrial - 2012 C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial Colombia Ltda., Procter & Gamble Industrial S.C.A., Procter & Gamble Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Costa Rica, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Guatemala, Procter & Gamble Interamericas de Panama, Procter & Gamble International Operations Pte. Ltd., Procter & Gamble International Operations SA, Procter & Gamble International Operations SA-ROHQ, Procter & Gamble International S.a.r.l., Procter & Gamble Investment Company (UK) Ltd., Procter & Gamble Investment GmbH, Procter & Gamble Italia, Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan Distribution LLP, Procter & Gamble Kazakhstan LLP, Procter & Gamble Korea, Procter & Gamble Korea S&D Co., Procter & Gamble Lanka Private Ltd. Sri Lanka, Procter & Gamble Leasing LLC, Procter & Gamble Levant S.A.L., Procter & Gamble Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Belgium N.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Berlin GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing GmbH, Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Procter & Gamble Manufacturing SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Marketing Romania SRL, Procter & Gamble Marketing and Services doo, Procter & Gamble Maroc SA, Procter & Gamble Mataro, Procter & Gamble Mexico Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Mexico Inc., Procter & Gamble Middle East FZE, Procter & Gamble Nederland B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Investments B.V., Procter & Gamble Netherlands Services B.V., Procter & Gamble Nigeria Limited, Procter & Gamble Nordic, Procter & Gamble Norge AS, Procter & Gamble Operations Polska Sp. z o.o., Procter & Gamble Overseas India B.V., Procter & Gamble Overseas Ltd., Procter & Gamble Pakistan (Private) Limited, Procter & Gamble Partnership LLP, Procter & Gamble Peru S.R.L., Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals France SAS, Procter & Gamble Philippines, Procter & Gamble Polska Sp. z o.o, Procter & Gamble Portugal - Produtos De Consumo, Procter & Gamble Product Supply (U.K.) Limited U.K., Procter & Gamble Production GmbH, Procter & Gamble Productions, Procter & Gamble Productos de Consumo, Procter & Gamble RHD, Procter & Gamble RSC Regional Service Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Retail Services BVBA, Procter & Gamble S.r.l., Procter & Gamble SA (Pty) Ltd, Procter & Gamble Satis ve Dagitim Ltd. Sti., Procter & Gamble Seine S.A.S., Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Procter & Gamble Services (Switzerland) SA, Procter & Gamble Services Company N.V., Procter & Gamble Services Ltd., Procter & Gamble Share Incentive Plan Trustee Ltd., Procter & Gamble South America Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Spol. s.r.o. (Ltd.), Procter & Gamble Sports and Social Club Ltd., Procter & Gamble Sverige AB, Procter & Gamble Switzerland SARL, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Limited, Procter & Gamble Taiwan Sales Company Limited, Procter & Gamble Technical Centres Limited, Procter & Gamble Technology (Beijing) Co., Procter & Gamble Trading (Thailand) Limited, Procter & Gamble Tuketim Mallari Sanayii A.S., Procter & Gamble UK, Procter & Gamble UK Group Holdings Ltd, Procter & Gamble UK Parent Company Ltd., Procter & Gamble Universal Holding B.V., Procter & Gamble Verwaltungs GmbH, Procter & Gamble Vietnam, Procter & Gamble d.o.o. za trgovinu, Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.C.A., Procter & Gamble de Venezuela S.R.L., Procter & Gamble do Brasil S/A, Procter & Gamble do Brazil, Procter & Gamble do Nordeste S/A, Procter & Gamble-Rakona s.r.o., Progam Realty & Development Corporation, Redmond Products, Richardson-Vicks Real Estate Inc., Richardson-Vicks do Brasil Quimica e Farmaceutica Ltda, Riverfront Music Publishing Co., Rosemount LLC, SPD Development Company Limited, SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH, Scannon S.A.S., Series Acquisition B.V., Shulton, Surfac S.R.L., Sycamore Productions, TAOS - FL, TAOS Retail, Tambrands Inc., Temple Trees Impex & Investment Private Limited, The Art of Shaving - FL, The Dover Wipes Company, The Gillette Company, The Gillette Company LLC, The Gillette co., The Procter & Gamble Distributing LLC, The Procter & Gamble GBS Company, The Procter & Gamble Global Finance Company, The Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company, The Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, The Procter & Gamble U.S. Business Services Company, This is L., US CD LLC, Vidal Sassoon (Shanghai) Academy, Vidal Sassoon Co., WEBA Betriebsrenten-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Walker & Company Brands, and iMFLUX Inc.. 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USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Epylon, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SALT Solutions GmbH, SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sinnerschrader, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH. Finance PhD: Move your money BEFORE June 30th (Ad) The clock just started on the biggest financial event in 20 years. And the next months could decide your wealth in 2021. Heres what to do now. The following companies are subsidiares of Anthem: 1-800 Contacts, AIM Specialty Health, AMERIGROUP Community Care of New Mexico Inc., AMERIGROUP Corporation, AMERIGROUP Maryland Inc., AMERIGROUP New Jersey Inc., AMERIGROUP Ohio Inc., AMERIGROUP Tennessee Inc., AMERIGROUP Texas Inc., AMERIGROUP Washington Inc., AMGP Georgia Managed Care Company Inc., ATH Holding Company LLC, America's 1st Choice of South Carolina Inc., America's Health Management Services Inc., American Imaging Management Inc., Americas 1st Choice, Amerigroup, Amerigroup Delaware Inc., Amerigroup District of Columbia Inc., Amerigroup Health Plan of Louisiana Inc., Amerigroup IPA of New York LLC, Amerigroup Insurance Company, Amerigroup Iowa Inc., Amerigroup Kansas Inc., Amerigroup Mississippi Inc., Amerigroup Oklahoma Inc., Amerigroup Partnership Plan LLC, Amerigroup Pennsylvania Inc., Anthem Blue Cross Life and Health Insurance Company, Anthem Financial Inc., Anthem Health Plans Inc., Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky Inc., Anthem Health Plans of Maine Inc., Anthem Health Plans of New Hampshire Inc., Anthem Health Plans of Virginia Inc., Anthem Holding Corp., Anthem Innovation Israel Ltd., Anthem Insurance Companies Inc., Anthem Kentucky Managed Care Plan Inc., Anthem Life & Disability Insurance Company, Anthem Life Insurance Company, Anthem Partnership Holding Company LLC, Anthem Services Company LLC, Anthem Southeast Inc., Anthem UM Services Inc., Anthem Workers' Compensation LLC, Applied Pathways LLC, Arcus Enterprises Inc., Aspire Health Inc., Aspire Healthcare Corp, Associated Group Inc., Beacon Health Options, Blue Cross Blue Shield Healthcare Plan of Georgia Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Blue Cross of California, Blue Cross of California Partnership Plan Inc., CareMarket Inc., CareMore Health Plan, CareMore Health Plan of Arizona Inc., CareMore Health Plan of Nevada, CareMore Health Plan of Texas Inc., CareMore Health System, CareMore LLC, Cerulean Companies Inc., Claim Management Services Inc., Community Care Health Plan of Louisiana Inc., Community Care Health Plan of Nevada Inc., Community Insurance Company, Compcare Health Services Insurance Corporation, Crossroads Acquisition Corp., DBG Holdings Inc., DeCare Analytics LLC, DeCare Dental Health International LLC, DeCare Dental Insurance Ireland Ltd., DeCare Dental LLC, DeCare Dental Networks LLC, DeCare Operations Ireland Limited, Delivery Network LLC, Designated Agent Company Inc., EHC Benefits Agency Inc., EasyScripts Cutler Bay LLC, EasyScripts Hialeah LLC, EasyScripts LLC, EasyScripts Westchester LLC, Empire HealthChoice Assurance Inc., Empire HealthChoice HMO Inc., Federal Government Solutions LLC, Freedom Health Inc., Global TPA LLC, Golden West Health Plan Inc., Greater Georgia Life Insurance Company, HEP AP Holdings Inc., HMO Colorado Inc., HMO Missouri Inc., Health Core Inc., Health Management Corporation, Health Ventures Partner L.L.C., HealthKeepers Inc., HealthLink HMO Inc., HealthLink Inc., HealthLink Insurance Company, HealthPlus HP LLC, HealthSun Health Plans, HealthSun Health Plans Inc., HealthSun Holdings LLC, HealthSun Management LLC, HealthSun Physicians Network I LLC, HealthSun Physicians Network LLC, Healthy Alliance Life Insurance Company, Highland Acquisition Holdings LLC, Highland Holdco Inc., Highland Intermediate Holdings LLC, Highland Investor Holdings LLC, Imaging Management Holdings LLC, IngenioRx Inc., Legato Health Technologies LLP, Legato Health Technologies Philippines Inc., Legato Holdings I Inc., Legato Holdings II LLC, Living Complete Technologies Inc., Matthew Thornton Health Plan Inc., Memphis Supportive Care Partnership LLC, Meridian Resource Company LLC, Missouri Care Incorporated, NGS Federal LLC, Nash Holding Company LLC, National Government Services Inc., New England Research Institutes Inc., Optimum Healthcare Inc., Park Square Holdings Inc., Park Square I Inc., Park Square II Inc., Pasteur Medical Bird Road LLC, Pasteur Medical Center LLC, Pasteur Medical Cutler Bay LLC, Pasteur Medical Group LLC, Pasteur Medical Hialeah Gardens LLC, Pasteur Medical Holdings LLC, Pasteur Medical Kendall LLC, Pasteur Medical Management LLC, Pasteur Medical Miami Gardens LLC, Pasteur Medical North Miami Beach LLC, Pasteur Medical Partners LLC, Resolution Health Inc, Resolution Health Inc., RightCHOICE Managed Care Inc., Rocky Mountain Hospital and Medical Service Inc., SellCore Inc., Simply Healthcare Holdings, Simply Healthcare Plans Inc., Southeast Services Inc., State Sponsored DM Services Inc., The Anthem Companies Inc., The Anthem Companies of California Inc., TrustSolutions LLC, UNICARE Health Plan of West Virginia Inc., UNICARE Illinois Services Inc., UNICARE National Services Inc., UniCare Life & Health Insurance Company, UniCare Specialty Services Inc., Valus Inc., WPMI LLC, WellCare of Nebraska Inc., WellPoint Acquisition LLC, WellPoint California Services Inc., WellPoint Dental Services Inc., WellPoint Health Solutions Inc., WellPoint Holding Corp., WellPoint Information Technology Services Inc., WellPoint Insurance Services Inc., WellPoint Military Care Corporation, Wellmax Health Medical Centers LLC, Wellmax Health Physicians Network LLC, and Wisconsin Collaborative Insurance Company. Thales S.A. provides various solutions for civilian and military customers in the aeronautics, space, defense, security, and ground transportation markets worldwide. It operates through Aerospace, Transport, Defence & Security, and Digital Identity & Security segments. The company offers communications, command, and control systems; mission services and support; protection and mission/combat systems; surveillance, detection, and intelligence systems; training and simulation solutions for air, land, naval, and joint forces; and digital identity and security solutions. It also provides air traffic management solutions; flight decks and avionics equipment and functions; in-flight entertainment and connectivity systems and services; electrical systems; aerospace training solutions; navigation solutions; support and services for avionics equipment; and vision systems. In addition, the company designs, operates, and delivers satellite-based systems for telecommunications, navigation, earth observation, environmental management, exploration, and science and orbital infrastructures; signaling, communications and supervision, and fare collection management systems and related services; cybersecurity and railway digitalization systems; and main line rail, and urban and intermodal mobility solutions. Further, it provides solutions for various markets and applications, including radiology, radio frequency, microwave sources, training and simulation solutions, lasers, and microelectronics solutions for science, industry, space, defense, automotive, railways, and energy conversion platforms. The company was formerly known as Thomson-CSF and changed its name to Thales S.A. in 2000. Thales S.A. was founded in 1893 and is based in Courbevoie, France. Read More Precision Drilling Corporation, an oilfield services company, provides oil and natural gas drilling and related products and services in North America and the Middle East. The company operates in two segments, Contract Drilling Services, and Completion and Production Services. The Contract Drilling Services segment offers onshore well drilling services to exploration and production companies in the oil and natural gas industry. This segment's services include land drilling, directional drilling, and turnkey drilling; and procurement and distribution of oilfield supplies, as well as manufacture, sale, and repair of drilling equipment. As of December 31, 2020, it operated 227 land drilling rigs, including 109 in Canada; 105 in the United States; 6 in Kuwait; 4 in Saudi Arabia; 2 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq; and 1 in the country of Georgia. The Completion and Production Services segment provides service rigs for well completion, workover, abandonment, maintenance, and re-entry preparation services; wellsite accommodations; oilfield surface equipment rentals; and camp and catering services to oil and natural gas exploration and production companies. This segment operated 123 well completion and workover service rigs, including 113 in Canada and 10 in the United States. It also had approximately 1,400 oilfield rental items, including surface storage, small-flow wastewater treatment, power generation, and solids control equipment; 113 wellsite accommodation units; 966 drill camp beds; 822 base camp beds; and three kitchen diners in Canada. Precision Drilling Corporation was incorporated in 1951 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More During the occupation of the city by the Islamic State, the prelate helped displaced people from the Nineveh Plain. He saved part of Mosuls Christian and non-Christian cultural heritage from destruction. For the Chaldean Patriarch, he will have to focus on reconciliation and trust. Mosul (AsiaNews) Mgr Najib Mikhael Moussa (pictured) yesterday issued a message of coexistence, love, and peace on the occasion of his inauguration as the new archbishop of Mosul. In it, he calls for an end to the extremist ideology of Daesh (Islamic State group). The ceremony was held in Mosuls St. Paul Catholic Church in the presence of numerous Catholic leaders, local officials, faithful and residents of the region. Born in Mosul in 1955, Mgr Moussa became a Dominican priest when he was 31. For years, he served the Catholic community at the Al-Saa (Our Lady of the Hour) Church where he was also in charge of conservation of about 850 ancient manuscripts in Aramaic, Arabic and other languages, as well as 300-year-old letters and about 50,000 books. During the years of occupation by the Islamic State group, the priest helped displaced people from the city and the Nineveh Plain. Thanks to his training as an archivist, he was able to preserve part of Mosuls Christian and non-Christian cultural heritage that extremists wanted to destroy. On the eve of his ordination on 18 January in Baghdads Cathedral of St Joseph, the Chaldean Patriarch Card Louis Raphael Sako emphasised the significance of the appointment, which described as a "source of hope" for the whole local community. For the patriarch, "The two factors which he must insist on are reconciliation and trust among the people of the city, lost due to the violence of ISIS and fundamentalist ideology. Indeed, The new bishop has the task of restarting the dialogue and of encouraging Muslims themselves towards reconciliation and reconstruction reconciliation and trust from a perspective of lasting peace." Finally, he will have to help Christians "reconnect the threads of history in Mosul, revive churches and places of worship, some of which are among the oldest and most important for the Chaldean Church. They are part of the life and history of the city." Ad Resource Stock Digest 1,836 Interested This Week Could This Be the Biggest US Gold Discovery in Years? See how this tiny, unknown gold company secured a prime land package right next door to the worlds two largest gold producers in Nevadas famed Carlin Trend where 84 Million gold ounces have already been extracted. Best of all, investors can still get in well below US$0.50 per share. To Any American Who Owns a Cell Phone (Ad) If you own a cell phone, then mobile service providers hope you never get to see this video that could soon go viral. His experiment could strike a bad chord with mobile phone companies. But youve got to see what this man discovered and what it means for phone users in the weeks ahead. Click here to see this video before it's removed by NAT da Polis On the feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianuz, the ecumenical patriarch defends his decision to grant autonomy to the Ukrainian Church, as well as upholding the "primus inter pares" status for himself and the Mother Church of Orthodoxy. Istanbul (AsiaNews) The anniversary of the death of one of the great Fathers of the undivided Church was commemorated yesterday at the Phanar, headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Gregory of Nazianzus, theologian and patriarch of Constantinople, was a close friend of Saint Basil the Great, whose cultural and ecclesial education he shared, and a great rhetorical stylist, so much so that he was dubbed the "Christian Demosthenes". Bartholomew used the occasion to defend the Patriarchates decision to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, insisting that that he did the right thing. In his homily, the ecumenical patriarch noted that in 1923 the Phanar had granted autonomy to the Estonian Orthodox Church, autonomy which was suppressed following the Soviet invasion of 1940, and the Churchs forced incorporation into the Patriarchate of Moscow. After the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1990 and 1991, Estonia achieved its independence, as did its Orthodox Church. This angered the then Patriarch of Moscow Alexy II, who broke sacramental communion, but only for a short time. "Although we have received unjust insults, we have tried to do the right thing, said Bartholomew. This was done according to the wisdom of the ancient millennial Orthodox tradition, accumulated over the centuries, whereby the See of Constantinople is" primus inter pares". "Based on this accumulated treasure, we proceeded, Bartholomew noted, as we consider it right to grant autocephaly to our Ukrainian Orthodox brothers, who have been deprived of sacramental communion with other Orthodox Churches for almost 30 years, for the mere purpose of punishing Filaret, because he had dared to ask Moscow for the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church." "It is very clear, that there were no dogmatic, doctrinal differences. Simply, with the independence of 45 million Ukrainians from the Soviet regime, the metropolitan of Kyiv, as an expression of popular conscience, asked for autocephaly." For the Ecumenical Patriarch, "Filaret was wrong to ask autocephaly from Moscow. He had to ask the Mother Church in Constantinople, who had given them baptism, culture, and the Cyrillic alphabet, and was therefore the only one that had this right and privilege to grant autocephaly." In any case, "Filaret asked Moscow for autocephaly and got excommunication instead, which is why we intervened as a Mother Church to restore the wrong they suffered. The rest is bad information of northern provenance. It should be noted that in granting the Tomos to the new metropolitan of Kyiv Epiphanius on 6 January, Bartholomew also reminded him to respect those Orthodox Ukrainians who want to remain under the jurisdiction of his brother patriarch of Moscow. Roger Stone indictment isn't good news for those seeking Trump impeachment Collusion isn't one of the charges against Richard Nixon-loving political trickster Roger Stone. by Jonathan Turley The arrest of Roger Stone by Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not have been more dramatically presented. The pre-dawn raid of Stones house by a contingent of heavily armed, body-armored agents could easily have fit the arrest of El Chapo rather than an elderly crank with a Nixon fetish. Despite the breathless media accounts, the actual indictment of Stone is most notable for what it does not include. This was supposed to be the long-rumored linchpin to Russian collusion: The Russians fed information to Wikileaks which fed the information to Stone who fed the information to the Trump campaign. The raid on Stones home clearly made for great television, but the Stone indictment hardly makes for a great collusion case. Lets be honest. After more than a year of investigation, Mueller nailed a gadfly on false statements, witness tampering and obstruction rather than illegal collusion with Russia. That's what has been happening all along. Mueller has almost exclusively charged non-Russian defendants with either false statements or other process crimes. Maybe Mueller has more evidence This does not mean that Mueller cannot reveal a wealth of evidence of collusion that he will release in the final scene like some Agatha Christie novel. Yet, coverage has been saturated with speculation on possible collusion angles without observing that little evidence has been raised in numerous and lengthy indictments since July 2017. This is not to say that Mueller was wrong to pursue and ultimately indict Stone. There was ample reason why Mueller targeted Stone initially. After all, Stone suggested to others that he was the conduit of hacked information from Wikileaks but he later insisted that he was not actually speaking to Julian Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hacks. Mueller had every reason to pursue Stone, but it quickly became evident that Stone is a clown-like figure who reveled in the attention of scandal. He was someone who publicly admitted to being a trickster and still admires Richard Nixon (whose image in tattooed on his back). Moreover, some of these charges are obviously well-founded. Stone said that he did not write to key individuals. He did. He allegedly spoke directly to a potential witness and pressured him to change his account. Like Paul Manaforts contacting potential witnesses through his monitored phone (while under house arrest), stupidity alone might justify a prison stint. Mueller however seems to have a strikingly inconsistent approach to these targets. With some targets, Mueller followed the common practice of allowing them to surrender. For Manafort and and Stone, Mueller carried out heavy-handed raids. With Michael Cohen, Mueller matter-of-factly in a footnote noted that he made various false statements but was allowed to simply correct them. With Stonethe allegedly false statements were all related to part of his congressional testimony regarding the meaning of prior public statements and past written communications with Wikileaks. Sensational style, not criminal intent In some ways, the Stone prosecution could highlight an element of the defense that could used by Trump himself. Many of the most sinister statements by Stone are consistent with this sensational style of speech and there is a question of intent. Stone for example told one witness to Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan . . . Richard Nixon. The Special Counsel also recounts how Stone told a You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds. He also allegedly threatened the mans dog and said that he would take that dog away from you. Hardly nice, but Stone is likely to point out that he spoke publicly in the same fashion and he is known for such colorful language. In the end, however, Stone could have talked himself into an indictment just as Trump could well tweet himself into an impeachment. The main issue however remains the lack of objectivity of the coverage of the indictment. Stone has featured prominently in theories seeking "smoking gun" evidence of collusion. There is nothing smoking in this indictment. There is no suggestion of involvement or knowledge by Stone in the hacking. Stone has suggested that he was a conduit of hacked information from Wikileaks but he later insisted that he was not actually speaking to Julian Assange and that he had no direct knowledge that Russians were responsible for the Democratic hackings. The indictment does not contradict that later account. The indictment clearly states that Stone told multiple campaign officials that he had such information and the question is who "directed" campaign officials to reach out to Stone. Obviously, many will want to know if that person was President Trump or his close aides. On the other hand, it also references people like Steve Bannon as not even returning his calls. The important thing is that, even if Stone and the campaign did seek the email information, it would not be a crime. The crime is the conspiracy to hack the email system. Campaigns often seek confidential information obtained by journalists, leakers, whistleblowers and others. Indeed, the Clinton campaign (while denying its role before the election) funded the Steele dossier investigation to dig up dirt on Trump, including dirt from Russian intelligence figures. Even if Stone implicated Trump in seeking the information, it would merely establish the type of dirty politics that Stone expressly embraced as his curious calling and talent. Nailing Roger Stone on false statements was hardly a challenge. Stone could not give an interview without contradicting himself on national television. The question is, without Stone, what is left of the hack-and-attack conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign? Like the Trump Tower meeting, the Stone angle seems to have fizzled out. On closer examination, there clearly appears to be dirty politics but nothing that can be fairly described as a criminal conspiracy. Mueller has been unrelenting in pursuing Stone. Now he has him. For whatever it is worth. Jonathan Turley, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter: @JonathanTurley. South Africa: Last chance, register to vote Government has urged South Africans to register to vote at various voting stations this weekend. The countries 22 925 voting stations will be open for the final registration between 8am and 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. To be able to vote in the upcoming national and provincial elections which will most likely be held in May, your name and information need to be on the voters roll. The roll needs to be updated to contain the details of individual voters in line with the Constitutional Court ruling. Currently containing over 26 million names, the voters roll allows the IEC to plan an election and identify fraud, as it tells the commission how many voters to expect in each voting district. All South African citizens aged 16 and older in possession of an official ID can register as voters (although only those who are at least 18 years old on voting day may vote). Voters should take a copy of their barcoded ID book, smart card ID or temporary ID certificate when they go to register in the voting district in which they ordinarily reside. The Department of Home Affairs is ready to assist those who will require identity documentation to help them register for the upcoming elections. Home Affairs offices will open on Saturday and Sunday from 08h00 to 17h00. This, according to the Department of Home Affairs, will afford eligible voters an opportunity to apply for their IDs to go and register. When registering, voters will need to provide their address or a description of where they live to allow the Electoral Commission to place them on the correct segment of the voters roll. Proof of address is not required. If you have previously registered, you must update your registration details for example if you changed address changes or when your ID number changes due to changed. Registered voters can check if their details are correct and which voting station will they vote in via the Click, Check and Confirm facility on the Electoral Commissions website at www.elections.org.za. - SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. 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We live in a symbiotic environment, and in India, a lot has come to traditional aesthetics within this environment despite and because of various constraints of transferability between modernity and tradition AnantU as we fondly call it is Indias first design university in the making located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. The campus, these days, is a mega construction site, save a spanking new and trendy academic complex. The students are around, building prototypes of homes, green cities, furniture, fashion accessories, cars, in the studio classrooms, labs, and outdoors on campus. They are encouraged by faculty and practitioners from India and abroad to be rooted in indigenous techniques and aesthetics, yet informed by the world. I am on the AnantU campus for a few days every month all round the year. Spearheaded by the inimitable power-packed trio of Ajay Piramal, Abhishek Lodha, and Pramath Sinha, I have been asked to set up a do-tank here that publishes research, implements projects, creates coursework, and transform the campus into becoming environmentally, socially, and culturally responsible. On a typical day, classes on ethnography, design in craft, stories of clay across civilisations, coincides with a travelling exhibition of built environment in Japan. Trips to train in traditional craft in Hunnarshala in Bhuj are paired with education grants to study sustainable development in Prague. The faculty is a mix there are designers, such as Gunjan Gupta, who are reviving Indian craft skills as much as professors from abroad. AnantU rides a new revivalist wave in our aesthetics in India. The old crafts of India are being brought back to the mainstream. The traditional sari is once again in the limelight, with a renewed conviction that the sari belongs to the loom. Indian classical music is being revived and, at times, re-imagined. Materials, such as copper or earth, is again popular for storing water. The ancient science (or not) of Vaastu is being deployed for designing modern built habitats. It is not uncommon these days to see furniture inspired from our heritage a chair designed like a throne or a door etched in wood similar to ancient temple entrances. The list is long. The list is also work in progress for example, we do not yet connect with the tribal population on their taste in design, nor do we trust them for the quality and manufacturing technique of their product. There still is a disconnect in taste towards those in India who are denigrated by political and social oppression. We are still at the ebb of the revival of our aesthetic heritage, but it already affects how we live, what we wear, the products we use, the words we choose, the tune we hum, the food we eat, how we eat. The role of institutions like AnantU is, therefore, paramount not just in equipping our next generation with the skills and knowledge to build buildings and products that marry heritage with modernity, but also to soothe attitudes and mindsets to not necessarily choose between tradition and modernity, India and the West, traditional and organic, and so on. These pairs are not differences. They are not polar opposites to each other. Institutions like this teach that we can indeed straddle both or several, and do this in our own unique way. Aesthetics is an ever-shifting sensibility. It flows and changes its course like a river. It is shaped over time by social, financial, geographical, and other constraints we face and our perception of the environment around us, at times subsumed by culturally defined ideas of appropriateness. It is only momentarily influenced by our immediate situation. Instead, our observations, deductions, and experiences that each of us accumulate in our heads over a lifetime shape our idea of what beauty or great design means to us personally which could thus be either evolutionarily pathbreaking or mere plagiarism. I also think taste is defined by each ones personal circles of interaction and influence over extended periods of time. Within community and family networks there are always the influencers and the influenced. These roles are fluid and mutable, each one influencing the other, such that taste operates like a meme. Great design to me is one that is inspired from the world and gives back a sensibility that is completely authentic to the world. But we often have a cop-and-thief relationship with modernity in India. On one hand, some feel that only our ancestors had a genetic in-built propensity for appreciating and creating beauty, and that modernity has now chased that out of our reach. There is, some times, a feeling that we have come away too far and too soon, perhaps because we have lost much of our ancient knowledge in the sciences and mathematics or that many of us do not know any more how to read Sanskrit, the language in which most of the treasures of our ancient wisdom is written out. On the other hand, modernity, with all its new technologies and global connectivity, has also boosted the creative industry. Yet change is not a bad thing, nor is sticking with traditions. We live in a symbiotic environment, and in India, a lot has come to Indian traditional aesthetics within this environment despite and because of various constraints of transferability between modernity and tradition. Our design revolution may begin with this acceptance. Miniya is CEO of Sustain Labs, and author of the best selling book, Indian Instincts: Essays on Freedom and Equality in India A Patiala Houses special court on Saturday remanded lawyer Gautam Khaitan to two days custody of Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a fresh case of black money and money laundering. Khaitan, an accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, was arrested by the ED on Friday. The Court granted only two days custody as opposed to seven days demanded by ED. Metropolitan Magistrate Neetu Sharma sent the accused to custody after the ED alleged that he was operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stash assets. During the hearing, Special prosecutors for ED, Advocate Davinder Pal Singh and NK Matta maintained that the present case had nothing to do with the alleged AgustaWestland scam. The ED counsels told the Court that income tax sleuths have discovered black money over Rs 500 crore. The ED said the accused Khaitan is running less of a law firm and more of a money laundering business. The ED counsels told the court that the accused who was arrested on Friday evening, is not co-operating with the investigation. ED counsels said the lawyer had been controlling the modus operandi and was responsible for routing the money, misusing his connections and clients, including the ones inherited from his father, to launder the money with the use of a variety of accounts in Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore, Tunisia, Switzerland, the UK, and India. It is further alleged that Khaitan used several Indian and foreign bank accounts to launder the money of various politicians abroad and influential persons in foreign countries. Khaitans advocate P K Dubey opposed the EDs submissions and accused the agency of forging documents, saying that the present case was related to AgustaWestland case for which Khaitan was already being prosecuted and was out on bail. The defence counsel claimed that Khaitans arrest is illegal and that the entire investigation pertains to AgustaWestland deal. Sources in ED said a fresh criminal case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. Khaitan has been alleged to have been operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stash assets, ED said. Khaitan stands charge sheeted- both by CBI and ED in the high profile VVIP chopper deal. He was arrested in September 2014 for his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland deal. Khaitan was enlarged on bail in January 2015. Khaitan was again arrested along with Sanjeev Tyagi on December 9, 2016 by the CBI. It is understood that the investigative agencies have got fresh leads against Khaitan after the questioning of Christian Michel, an alleged middleman in the VVIP chopper deal with AgustaWestland, who was extradited by India from Dubai in December last. The Income Tax Department had last week carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail, ED officials said. The ED in its charge sheet had elaborated on how the bribe money paid to clinch the chopper deal was layered and projected as untainted money by creating fictitious invoices. It mentioned how fictitious engineering contracts were created to hide the kickbacks allegedly paid by AgustaWestland to companies directly controlled by Khaitan and his associate Rajiv Saxena, a co-accused in the case. EDs supplementary charge sheet put the spotlight on Khaitan. It explained how some disclosures about his complicity came from Khaitans associates, colleagues, staff. In response to the letters rogatory written by India, documents were received from Mauritius, Singapore and Switzerland. Amid a row over Rahul Gandhi's Kailash Mansarovar visit last year after the Congress chief on Friday said he had also met Chinese ministers during his trip, the Beijing's envoy here said all Indian pilgrims were welcome to the country. "The Chinese government, the Chinese side will welcome all pilgrims from India," Chinese envoy Luo Zhaohui said in response to a question on Gandhi's meeting with his country's ministers. Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Gandhi of acting as a "Chinese propagandist" and asked him to give complete details of his meeting with China's ministers and officials during his Kailash Mansarovar visit and questioned why had he not kept the Indian government informed about it. "The Kailash Mansarovar yatra was an excuse. He had gone to meet these ministers. Rahul Gandhi is not an ordinary citizen. Why did he not inform the Ministry of External Affairs? Why was the Indian embassy not kept in loop? We want to know the details of his talks," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters. The ruling party's attack on Gandhi came after the Congress president told a public meeting in Odisha that the Chinese ministers had told him during his Kailash Mansarovar visit in August-September last year that job creation was not a problem in their country. "When I had gone to Kailash, I had met a couple of their ministers and they had said job creation was not a problem in China at all," Gandhi had said. A political party or an expedient coalition may pin hopes on favoured coverage in the media to sail through the coming general elections, but it will be travesty of the Indian democracy if imagined truths, rather than actual promises, influence voters decision at polling booths In May 2004, the ragtag band of coalition led by the Congress pipped the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government to the post as the latter failed to weave a dominant narrative of India Shining, despite the BJP regime being the boldest Government to earn India the nuclear state tag. Five years later in 2009, the UPA pulled through anti-incumbency with its overriding stories of higher economic growth the fact that the foundation was laid by the previous BJP Government was consigned to oblivion and higher job generation rate, albeit for daily wagers via its flagship MGNREGA. In December 2013 Delhi Assembly election, the BJP missed the majority mark but the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), in the name of anti-corruption crusade, trounced the 15 years rule of Sheila Dikshit, who bore the brunt of voters ire as by then the Opposition had successfully constructed the narrative of the Congress-led UPA heading the Government of scams. Next year, the Modi wave, coupled with the stories of vibrant Gujarat under his leadership, did the UPA in. One thing was common in all these election results, except in the 2014 LS polls: Perception was stronger than reality on voters minds. The India Shining success and the poll slogan proved an abject failure. MGNREGA that was hailed as a universal job scheme and had tremendous contribution in giving UPA-I another chance in power could not withstand the narrative of series of scams under the UPA-II Government. And in Delhi, the AAP cashed in on the civic society movement for anti-graft ombudsman Lokpal, only to eschew the cause after gaining power. In the present scenario, the buzz doing the rounds in the Opposition camps is that the Congress good show in the recently concluded Assembly elections is a sign of voters growing weary of BJPs Achchhe Din promise. The assumption underlies the efforts to cobble together coalitions in the unanimous hope that people are yearning for a change at the Centre. However, there is a wide divergence of opinion on who can lead these disparate coalitions and who can take on the mantle of the prime ministerial candidate. There is a parallel but smaller buzz, a murmur of agreement that no single party in the Opposition camps is in position to take on the formidable Narendra Modi successfully. While the perception that the Modi Government is on its last legs is gaining ground, the fact that the formation of alliances out of expediency to save Opposition parties from the existential threat in the event of Modi returning to power has not come out well in the public sphere. Therefore, despite serious misgivings about the PM-like leadership potential of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, or for that matter any other leader in the Opposition camps, partners are straining every nerve to project camaraderie. But everything is not so smooth. To project a united face against Modi, the united Opposition should have a single common big national party around which the coalition can stick together. That common single big national party should naturally have been the Congress. But till now the Opposition groups have not given that slot to the Congress. For example, in biggest State UP with 80 Lok Sabha seats, the SP-BSP alliance has left just two seats for the Congress. In Andhra Pradesh also, the TDP is likely to go solo. Despite the grand Opposition unity extravaganza in Kolkata, Mamatas TMC is unlikely to accommodate the Congress as long as she can hope to win allies to support her ambition of becoming Prime Minister. The perception is that a strong Central party weakens the potential of regional players, and therefore a weak Congress will serve their interests in case the coalition comes to power. However, nobody knows how voters will react to the unspoken concept of a weak Central party in the coalition. In fact, the multi-dimensional process of construction of public perception is very complex. According to a psychological theory, everybody always try to think they are right. And therefore, naive or rather neutral voters are carried away by the wave, real or fabricated, lest their votes go to waste. It is not with the voters alone, even a section of the media falls into that trap. In order to prove the news report are facts, they often perform great mental gymnastics by reinforcing a supportive narrative under the guise of disseminating information. Therefore, measures like Triple Talaq Ordinance, SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, ten per cent reservation for economic weaker section among general category, etc, always come with competing narratives, one by the Government and the other by the anti-establishment. Whose narrative gains prominence depends on the understanding and interests of force multipliers, like media and civic society groups. Studies have proved that people generally consider media perceptions as truth and accordingly react to the reports. It is also because it is a Herculean task for them to verify the media reports. However, medias credibility and trust hinge on pre-existing notions developed in the course of news/views consumption. Similarly, there are areas people mistrust media and media persons if their known political allegiance and economic interests stand in stark contrast to theirs. But the most intriguing is the media behaviour. The common refrain is that the media is divided in two camps: Pro-Modi, anti-Modi. Views are openly woven in news stories. The perception is that the Modi Government has been against the media, particularly print and electronic. One reason of this strong perception may be the Modi Government breaking the culture of media persons strategic framing of politics and bureaucracy by keeping decision-making process confined to the persons concerned. The crackdown on the tradition of top journalists trading secret information may have ruffled a few feathers. It may have helped the Opposition camps beat the BJP in the war of perception, by setting themselves at the ideal position by way of keeping the attack, information, and arguments consistent. A tinge of facts can further reinforce their narrative. And so were the results in Chhattisgarh and MP Assembly polls. Despite all welfare measure by the State Governments, the perception of farmers distress sprung the Congress back in power there. The BJP has failed to weave the narrative of post-poll scenario in these two States: A farmer in MP got meagre Rs 13 loan waiver instead of the promised Rs 24,000, but that is not big news. It is tragic that we are moving away from objective truth towards the culture of perception. A political party or an expedient coalition may pin hopes on favoured coverage in the media to sail through the coming general elections, but it will be travesty of the Indian democracy if imagined truths, rather than actual promises, influence voters decision at polling booths. (The writer is Associate Editor & News Editor, The Pioneer) The DPC has this week opened a new statutory inquiry into the latest data breach it received from Twitter on 8 January, 2019. Article 33 of the EUs General Data Protection Regulation states that a personal data breach must be referred to the commissioner within 72 hours after becoming aware of it, and sets out the amount and type of information that must be supplied with the notification. Twitters lead regulator in the European Union, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), said on Friday it was investigating the company for a breach notification received from the social networking site. The DPC has this week opened a new statutory inquiry into the latest data breach it received from Twitter on 8 January, 2019, said the Commission in a statement posted on its website. This inquiry will examine a discreet issue relating to Twitters compliance with Article 33 of the GDPR. We actively notify the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner and the public of these issues as appropriate, Twitter said in a statement on Friday. We are fully committed to working with the Data Protection Commissioners Office to improve the already strong data and privacy protections we offer to the people who use our services. Article 33 of the EUs General Data Protection Regulation states that a personal data breach must be referred to the commissioner within 72 hours after becoming aware of it, and sets out the amount and type of information that must be supplied with the notification. Under the new GDPR European privacy regulations, which came into effect in May, breaking privacy laws can result in fines of up to 4 percent of global revenue or 20 million euros ($22.82 million), whichever is higher, as opposed to a few hundred thousand euros previously. The DPC has been investigating Twitter since November for a number of other breach notifications received from the company since the introduction of the GDPR. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europes data protection regulators have received more than 95,000 complaints about possible data breaches, eight months after the adoption of a landmark EU privacy law, the European Commission said on Friday. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives new powers to privacy enforcers, allowing them to levy fines of up to 4 percent of global revenue or 20 million euros ($23 million), whichever is higher. Last week, the French data protection watchdog slapped a 50 million euro fine on Alphabet-owned Google for failing to properly obtain users consent for personalized ads, the largest sanction under GDPR rules to date. More penalties could come as Europeans become more aware of their rights, EU digital chief Andrus Ansip, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, EU justice chief Vera Jourova and EU digital economy commissioner Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement. What is at stake is not only the protection of our privacy, but also the protection of our democracies and ensuring the sustainability of our data-driven economies, they said. The majority of the complaints focused on telemarketing, promotional emails and video surveillance by closed-circuit televisions. Privacy regulators have opened 225 investigations to date. Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh has asked the farmers associations to wait, adding that this time, the Government will announce something big in the Budget. There is speculation that the Government might give direct benefit of subsidy per acre of land and up to Rs 2 lakh interest free loans to farmers. The Government is also mulling over the demand of pension for farmers A tradition is followed when the Interim Budget and Vote on Account are presented in the election year. The Government seeks permission for expenditure for the months from April to July and doesnt make any announcement over policy related matters. But this time, it is likely that the tradition will be broken as the Government has given many indications in this direction. Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh has asked the farmers associations to wait, adding that this time, the Government will announce something big in the Budget. There is speculation that the Government might give direct benefit of subsidy per acre of land and up to Rs 2 lakh interest free loans to farmers. The Government is also mulling over the demand of pension for farmers. The Government has also hinted that tax relaxation could be announced in the Interim Budget itself. At present, the tax relaxation limit is up to Rs 2.5 lakh; the Government might increase it. It is noteworthy that the Government has recently made a law to ensure 10 per cent reservation for the poor among forward classes. To benefit from this reservation, ones income should not be more than Rs 8 lakh per annum. That means if your income is up to Rs 8 lakh per annum and you are from a forward caste, you and your family can avail the benefits of reservation. But you will have to pay tax if your income is Rs 2.5 lakh, and at the same time, you will be considered poor if your income is Rs 8 lakh. The third big decision might be over the minimum income. The Government is gearing up to execute the policy of universal basic income. Under this policy, the Government will transfer some amount to the accounts of the poor. So, the Budget may be interim, wherein permission will be taken for the expenses of three months, but three big policy related announcements for farmers, middle class, and the poor might be made. The Opposition will certainly create ruckus, but its highly unlikely the Government will stop. SUSPENSE OVER ELECTIONS It seems that drama in Karnataka is over and the Congress MLAs are not joining the BJP, at least for now. On January 18, the Congress held a CLP meeting where all MLAs were present, barring four. Later, all BJP MLAs also returned from the resort and BS Yeddyurappa said he would never try to destabilise the Congress-JDS Government. Though there is no immediate danger, new suspense has crept in. It is being said that the four Congress MLAs will join the BJP after resigning from the House. The BJP is thinking about the possibility of Presidents rule and fresh elections after the resignation of some more MLAs from the Government side. There is speculation that mid-term elections might be held in Karnataka before the present Government celebrates its anniversary. The BJP leaders are of the view that if the Assembly Elections are being held along with the Lok Sabha polls, then the Congress would not go into an alliance with the JDS. If that doesnt happen, both parties will go together in the Lok Sabha polls. Suspense is also building up vis-a-vis Haryana, where the Assembly Elections are scheduled in October this year. However, the BJP is gearing up for elections along with the Lok Sabha. The party has its eyes set on Jind byelections scheduled for January 28. If it fares well, then the party can think of elections before schedule. It must be noted that Jind elections have become high profile as the Congress has roped in its media in-charge and MLA from Kaithal, Randeep Surjewala. At the same time, Digvijay Chautala, grandson of OP Chautala, is also in the race as an Independent candidate. The election is being considered big from the Jat vote bank point of view. MAHA-JHARKHAND SCENARIO Maharashtra and Jharkhand are set to go to the polls at the end of this year. But the BJP has managed to build suspense in both States, where it is gearing up for elections before schedule. The BJP thinks that the Congress, JMM, JVM, Left, and RJD will go together in the Lok Sabha polls but will fight separately if the Assembly Elections are held simultaneously. Recently, Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das told party leaders to gear up for the Assembly polls along with Lok Sabha Elections. And that is why the Opposition parties are on edge. On the other hand, the BJP is trying its best to go into an alliance with the Shiv Sena, which is in the mood for hard bargaining. The Sena either wants the old formula or wants half the seats in the Assembly Elections along with the CM post. In this scenario, if the Assembly Elections are held along with the Lok Sabha polls, then alliance with the Shiv Sena will become more difficult. That is why the BJP is preparing another strategy for Maharashtra. However, there is one problem in holding simultaneous elections in Karnataka, Haryana, and Jharkhand. Elections in five States Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, J&K, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim are already scheduled with the General Elections. If two or three States are added, the Election Commission will need more EVMs, which is not possible right now. BJPS ALLIANCE IN GOA In Goa, the BJP alliance is facing hurdles, as two partners are said to be unhappy. The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) has announced that it would field its own candidate for the byelections for two seats. The BJP will also fight on these seats. The byelection is crucial for the BJP as it wants to move ahead of the Congress to end instability in the State. After the resignation of two Congress MLAs, both parties have 13 MLAs. The Congress had earlier won 16 seats. When Vishwajeet Rane left the party, the Congress came down to 15 MLAs. Some time ago, two more MLAs from the Congress tendered their resignation. Now, byelections will be held on those two seats. The MGP leader Deepak Dhavlikar, who is supporting the Government, has announced that he will fight the byelections. Deepaks brother, Sudhin Dhavlikar, is demanding the CM post for himself. So, this is certain that if the MGP goes into the byelection, the BJPs equation will go haywire. If the Congress wins the two seats, the State Government will become unstable. There is already uncertainty over CM Manohar Parrikars health, and Subhash Welingkar who was the RSS chief in the State has also demanded his resignation. Best course of action for the UK is to delay the Brexit date. This will simply allow the Britons to decide whether to remain within the EU or get out. With more time, a new deal could be negotiated wherein both UK Parliament and the EU may come to an agreement either for a permanent customs union or a Norwegian-style model Brexit or no-Brexit each seems to be an uncharted territory for British Prime Minister Theresa May. It is even worse for the people of Britain. Britain is tired of Brexit. It is more of an equivocal issue today that demands serious consideration of the grievances of both the Remainers and the Leave Campaigners. Much beyond this, the politicians of all hues in Britain must realise that instead of mudslinging, they all need to bring the Brexit debate to an end. Today, many of the chatbots are airing the public anger that is strongly noticeable across many parts of Britain. Brexit is not as murky as many of us think and interpret. Initially, a considerable section of the academia, journalists, political pundits and commoners veered around the view that it is beneficial for the EU, the UK, and the Commonwealth if Britain remains within. This was the centre point of many debates and dialogues that preceded the historic referendum on June 23, 2016. Indeed, a concatenation of issues that are questioning the very existence of the EU system finally led to this referendum vote. Also people are bringing home the message that their existing political system has less and less to do with the lives of the ordinary folks. On that fateful day of Brexit referendum, the exit camp prevailed over the Remainers, but not by a significant majority. The Leave Campaigners received 51.9 per cent votes, whereas the Remainers got 48.1 per cent. The turnout in the referendum was 71.8 per cent, with more than 30 million people voting at that moment. Though the margin of votes between the two groups was thin, the protest registered by the leave campaigners was very significant. When the historic vote took place almost three years back, it clearly showed the differences among the people across the country. England voted for Brexit by 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent and for the Wales region it was 52.5 per cent to 47.5 per cent. However, both the Northern Ireland and Scotland backed their demands of remaining in the EU. The Scottish voters backed the remain vote by 62 per cent to 38 per cent, whereas 55.8 per cent in Northern Ireland voted in favour of the Remainers and 44.2 per cent supported the Leave Campaigners. Many of the people who supported the Remainers camp now feel that they have misjudged the depth of common public anger and their serious disenchantment with the EU. Writing on the wall is clear: Britain can no longer remain in the EU the way it used to be before the Brexit deal. It is interesting to note why the current imbroglio continues around Brexit. It is in public domain today that UK has to leave the EU by March 29 this year. For the UK to formally leave the EU, the former had to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that offers two years time to both the parties to decide the terms and conditions of separation. Prime Minister May initiated this formal process two years back on March 29, 2017, meaning the UK is leaving the EU in coming March 29. However, the EU court ruled that the UK can decide to stop the formal split. Again, the entire process can be extended if all 28 members of the union agree for the same. Now the problem around the Brexit deal is that May has made separation process a law. Hence preventing the Brexit with the EU would immediately require a drastic change in this law in the UK. On December 10, 2018, the European Court of Justice ruled that the UK could cancel Article 50 even without the permission of the rest of the 27 members and remain within the Union as per the existing statutes, provided the decision follows a democratic process. But the question is that how that democratic process will follow, looking at the current splits within the rank and file of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Worse is that there is a marked difference and confusion among the MPs of all the political parties. What is shocking is that no plan by any modern British Government has been so humiliatingly rejected the way the Brexit deal was by Parliament on January 15. After five days of continued debate, it was rejected by 432 MPs while only 202 stood by it. Sadly, her own Conservative Party backbenchers voted against the agreement by three to one. For May, it was a humiliating defeat and for the Brexiteers it would be really difficult to look for a fresh withdrawal agreement in the near future. The deal was the fulcrum of Mays career as the Prime Minister as she took over nearly two years ago while hammering it out with the uber bureaucrats in Brussels. The way the Brexit impasse appears today is because of Mays ways and means in trying to force her lawmakers to vote for it. Before the vote, she warned the Conservative MPs saying voting against the deal would lead her Government to no Brexit at all. Her doggedness led to what the international community witnessed on January 15. When it comes to the main Opposition party, the Labour, its leader Jeremy Corbyn is equally confused and frustrated about what is really happening in Parliament and outside. Just before the vote on the Brexit deal agreement in Parliament, Corbyn made it clear that his party will vote against it. But he failed to offer a plausible course of action on his partys behalf. Experts call it the abdication of Labours responsibility as a credible Opposition which directly makes it complicit in the current crisis. Sadly, his indecisiveness demonstrates his hollowness of the promise that he is in favour of handing over power to his MPs to voice over crucial issues that Britain is facing today. What irritates many of his MPs is that he is time and again ignoring their call for a second referendum on the Brexit deal. He argues that the separation terms from the EU must provide the same benefits to Britain as it would to any other existing member country of the single market and should allow his country to manage the issues related to migration on its own. The EU would never ever agree to it even if Corbyn comes to power in future. His fervent attempt is to try for a fresh election wherein he hopes his party will form the next Government. But he is not supporting another referendum. He appears to accept that any referendum must have an option to remain in the EU. Even after making such remarks, he confuses people by saying we cant stop Brexit. His shock doctrines may simply drive Britain to more catastrophe and finally to his unique style of disaster socialism of sort. Best course of action is to delay the exit date. This will simply allow the Britons to decide whether to remain within the EU or not. But the EU shows no interest in renegotiating the Brexit deal. Hence the only way to sort out the crisis is to ask the EU for some more time. With more time, may be a new deal could be negotiated wherein both UK Parliament and the EU may come to an agreement either for a permanent customs union or a Norwegian style model. Succinctly, both of them demand compromises on the part of the EU and British Parliament. What brings home contrast is that the modern British political history is witnessing a clash between direct democracy and indirect democracy. When the offer of referendum was given to people they voiced their concerns, but their representatives are now struggling in Parliament to either say yes, or no on what the people voted for. Hope the exit deal does not remain elusive as it appears today. The British MPs may restrict themselves from haring off in all directions, irrespective of their party affiliations. For the Prime Minister to stay on course, while venturing out to hammer must from her colleagues, it is better to consider and ponder over what May happen in the coming days. Her short premiership should not be so evanescent that she is remembered only as a mother of all messes. (The writer is an expert on international affairs) Scotlands health secretary Jeane Freeman has told ME sufferers their experiences matter to her. Ms Freeman addressed the Public Petitions Committee at the Scottish Parliament on Thursday as it considered a petition calling for a review of the level of support available to people with the condition. Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), can have a wide range of symptoms including muscle fatigue, pain and neurological symptoms. According to Scotlands chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood, however, almost half of the medical profession does not accept ME to be a real condition. It is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as being neurological but doubts have been raised by practitioners due to the difficulty in diagnosing it. Ms Freeman said: To people living with ME I believe you. I believe that this disease is a life-limiting disease in terms of the quality of your life, I hear what you are saying to us and your experience does matter to me. Health Secretary Jeane Freeman MSP at the Public Petitions Committee on Thursday (Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament) In order to make progress, we have to recognise the position were starting from and that is one where there is clearly a lack of evidence, both around what causes ME and from that, how to treat ME. We need more research into this condition. The only way to build an evidence base which can inform treatment options and the development of service is by enhancing the research base. Ms Freeman said the Scottish Government has been developing a national action plan on neurological conditions over the past 18 months, working with partners and stakeholders including patients, carers and families. The health secretary said that it is part of a wide-ranging five-year plan that has been welcomed by the neurological community in Scotland. Committee convener Scottish Labour MSP Johann Lamont, said: This is a condition that I was aware of 30 years ago. There was a lot of scepticism and probably very unhelpful commentary round about it in the 80s but I worked with one specific colleague who had the condition and it was absolutely evident to me that this was a significant problem. Do you have a view of why 30 years on theyre almost still at the point of proving that they exist? Dr Catherine Calderwood responded: I first came across people with ME as a junior doctor in Glasgow where I did a regular clinic at Ruchill Hospital in Maryhill. It was very clear to me then that this was a condition that really was very debilitating. People are coming forward with a range of symptoms which is quite wide. The effect on a persons life is also quite broad. So the symptoms can range from nausea, dizziness, extreme fatigue is always there which is not helped by any amount of sleep or rest, muscle pain, the inability to be able to perhaps have enough energy to get out of the house in extreme cases. Dr Calderwood said the difficulty in diagnosis has proved to be a barrier in finding appropriate treatments. We have something that is, in scientific terms, somewhat unusual in that we havent got a test, we havent got biological markers, said Dr Calderwood. We cant do a blood test or an imaging test that comes back where the report says this person has ME and therein lies much of the issue. In not having a means of diagnosing, except by exclusion, we also dont have a cure. So we havent got a mechanism by which to create medication or find a treatment through some usual modality through medication. Ms Freeman said the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland accepts the WHO definition of ME and would urge practitioners in the country to operate on that basis. She also indicated the decision taken by practitioners on patients cannot be overruled. European judges have ruled in favour of Amanda Knoxs appeal over her remaining conviction in relation to the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in 2007. Ms Knox was convicted, but later cleared, of Ms Kerchers murder following years of legal battles. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said on Thursday that there had been breaches of Ms Knoxs rights leading up to a related conviction for malicious accusation. Meredith Kercher died while on an exchange trip (Family handout/PA) Italian police alleged Ms Knox made false accusations against Congolese bar owner Diya Patrick Lumumba, knowing him to be innocent and in order to distract investigators away from her own responsibility. Mr Lumumba was arrested in relation to Ms Kerchers murder but released without charge after providing an alibi. But Ms Knox, now 31 years old, appealed on the grounds she was denied access to a lawyer and an independent interpreter, was slapped on the head and subjected to psychological pressure when interviewed by Italian police on November 6 2017. The ECHR ruled that there had been a violation of Ms Knoxs rights when her claims of ill-treatment in police custody were not investigated. But the judges said the court did not have any evidence that Ms Knox was subjected to the inhuman or degrading treatment she complained about. They also said that the Italian government had failed to show that Ms Knoxs restricted access to a lawyer at police interview had not irreparably undermined the fairness of the proceedings as a whole. Judges further found that authorities had failed to assess the conduct of the interpreter assigned to Ms Knox and whether this had affected criminal proceedings against her. (ECHR via Twitter) The Italian government was ordered to pay Ms Knox 10,400 euro (9,000) in damages and 8,000 euro (7,000) for costs and expenses. The judges ruling is not yet final, with any party in the case given a three-month period to request it be referred to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, where it could be further examined. The body of Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found by police in the flat she shared with Ms Knox on November 2, 2007. Officers discovered her throat was slashed and she had been sexually assaulted. Ms Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested and later convicted of murder and sexual assault in 2009. The couple maintained their innocence, insisting that they had spent the evening together at Mr Sollecitos home watching a film, smoking marijuana and being intimate. Two years later, the Perugia Court of Appeal acquitted the pair of the more serious charges, but upheld Ms Knoxs conviction for malicious accusation. After three years in custody, Ms Knox was released and left Italy for the United States. Ms Knox challenged the malicious conviction, but the Court of Cassation quashed her acquittal in 2013 and referred the case back to the Assize Court of Appeal. That court re-sentenced her to more than 28 years in prison for complicity in sexual assault and murder, and three years for malicious accusation. Ms Knox launched another appeal, and in 2015 she and Mr Sollecito were acquitted of sexual assault and murder by Italys highest court, but Ms Knox was not cleared of the malicious accusation charge. Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian, is serving a 16-year sentence for Ms Kerchers murder. A man has appeared in court charged with causing the death of a Police Community Support Officer by dangerous driving. Darren Ogom, 42, is accused of causing the death of off-duty PCSO Holly Burke after a police pursuit in Birmingham on Tuesday night. Ms Burke, who had worked for West Midlands Police for 14 months, died on Lordswood Road in the Bearwood area at around 11.30pm. The court heard unemployed Ogom is accused of causing the PCSOs death by driving a silver Renault Megane Scenic dangerously. He is also charged with driving without a licence and without insurance, and failing to stop for a police officer. Appearing at Birmingham Maigstrates Court on Thursday, Ogom spoke only to confirm his name, address, date of birth and nationality in a five-minute hearing. Undated West Midlands Police handout photos of Police Community Support Officer Holly Burke, 28, who died in a crash after a car being followed by police failed to stop during a 15-minute chase. Wearing a grey t-shirt, he looked at the floor throughout the hearing while flanked by two dock officers. Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson described Ms Burkes death as truly tragic, and said she was greatly valued by the force and the communities she served. The force said the incident has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, who said investigators have been gathering evidence including body-worn and in-car footage. Ogom, of Longdales Road, Kings Norton, Birmingham, was remanded into custody to appear at the citys crown court on February 21. TUC general secretary Frances OGrady has repeated her call for Theresa May to take a no-deal Brexit off the table, as she emerged from Downing Street saying she had not received the guarantees unions are seeking on jobs and workers rights. The Prime Minister was meeting union bosses as one of Britains largest manufacturers, Airbus, issued a stark warning of the potential damage to jobs from a no-deal departure. The aerospace giants chief executive, Tom Enders, branded the Governments handling of EU withdrawal a disgrace and warned the company could pull out of the UK if Brexit undermines its ability to compete. Chancellor Philip Hammond was preparing to tell leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos that post-Brexit Britain will still be a great place to do business. But Mr Enders said the UKs multi-billion pound aerospace sector was standing at a precipice. Brexit is threatening to destroy a century of development based on education, research and human capital, he said. If theres a no-deal Brexit, we at Airbus will have to make potentially very harmful decisions for the UK. Speaking after talks in Downing Street, Ms OGrady said: The Prime Minister should do the right thing and take a no deal off the table so that genuine dialogue can take place. Also taking part in discussions with the Prime Minister and her team were Len McCluskey of Unite, Dave Prentis of Unison and Tim Roache of the GMB. (PA Graphics) The discussions are part of Mrs Mays bid to try and get widespread political backing in finding a Brexit agenda that would command a majority in the Commons after her plans were heavily rejected by MPs. With 64 days to go until the scheduled date of Britains EU withdrawal on March 29, House of Commons Brexit Committee chairman Hilary Benn demanded that the Government rule out no-deal to stop the slow haemorrhage of business from the UK. Mr Benn told the House of Commons: In a week in which P&O has announced its re-flagging its entire cross-channel fleet in Cyprus, Sony is following Panasonic in moving its European headquarters from the UK to the Netherlands and Airbus has warned of potentially very harmful decisions if the UK crashes out without a deal, including future investment going elsewhere. I would definitely describe that as sub-optimal. When is the Government going to make its own announcement that under no circumstances it will allow the UK to leave without a deal so we can stop this slow and damaging haemorrhage? Brexit Minister Chris Heaton-Harris replied: It does beg the reply that why on earth is he not then backing the deal that delivers the certainty all of those businesses he named have asked for? I think he needs to look at the deal once again, to deliver the certainty that businesses across the UK require. The developments came amid growing support in Labour ranks for a parliamentary bid by former minister Yvette Cooper to extend Article 50, which would keep the UK in the EU longer, unless a deal is reached by the end of February. Leading Brexiteers have attacked such initiatives, saying they would take control of events from the Government. In another sign of opposition to the Prime Ministers stance, 19 ministers, including Cabinet members, have been meeting to discuss preventing a no-deal Brexit, according to the Daily Telegraph. One member of the ministerial group dubbed it the hair-shirt club, the newspaper reported. Unions have been warning of the impact on jobs of a no-deal Brexit and have been pressing for assurances about employment rights after the UK leaves the EU. Some have also argued in favour of a second referendum. Nigel Farage (Kirsty OConnor/PA) On the issue of a new national poll on EU withdrawal, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said any referendum should have just two options. He told ITVs Peston: I think there should definitely be Remain. And there should be a genuine Leave option. I think it would be better if it was a binary choice. Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage insisted Mrs Mays withdrawal plans should be opposed, even if that risked a new referendum. He told ITVs Peston: Personally, my view at the moment is better to vote down this dreadful deal and take the risk of a second referendum. Ms Coopers Article 50 bid, which has cross-party backing including from Conservative Nick Boles, is one of a number of amendments that could be voted on next Tuesday if selected by Commons Speaker John Bercow. Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd may fight the extradition process, his lawyer has confirmed, despite handing himself in to police in Georgia. The 31-year-old surrendered at a police station in the capital, Tbilisi, on Wednesday six months after he was convicted of killing 24-year-old Charlotte Brown during a speedboat date on the River Thames in London. The web designer was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence and sentenced to six years in prison in his absence, although he was controversially granted leave to appeal in December. Speaking to the Press Association, Shepherds Georgian lawyer, Tariel Kakabadze, confirmed that the process to extradite him back to the UK may be contested. He said: We just need to study the case documents and I need to discuss it with my client before making the final decision about it. As a lawyer I have to agree each step with my client. Jack Shepherd talks to journalists as he hands himself in at a police station in Georgias capital, Tbilisi (Rustavi2/AP) If the extradition happens, it is important to make sure there will not be a danger to him in the UK. If I get assurances that his extradition is not dangerous, we might not disagree with extradition. Each step will be decided after we carefully study all the possibilities and options. On Wednesday night, the Crown Prosecution Service was preparing an extradition request to be lodged with Georgian legal authorities. Shepherd is expected to appear for a short hearing at Tbilisi City Court on Friday. Mr Kakabadze said the prosecutor will demand Shepherds arrest before the extradition and that his arrest has to be confirmed by a judge according to Georgian law. But he has also suggested it may be some time before Shepherd possibly returns to the UK. Ms Browns family said they were overwhelmed with emotion after it emerged that he had surrendered, and her father said it was time for him to atone for his actions. Charlotte Browns father Graham Brown (left) sister Katie (2nd left) and mother Roz Wickens (right) (Yui Mok/PA) Home Secretary Sajid Javid said it is vital Charlotte Browns family see justice done and UK law enforcement will seek to swiftly extradite him to Britain. And Theresa Mays official spokesman said: The Prime Minister called earlier this month for Jack Shepherd to hand himself in to face justice and she welcomes the news that he is now in custody. Its now essential that the judicial process is completed in the UK as soon as possible. The Government will now work alongside the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that extradition proceedings are expedited. Scotland Yard, the force leading the investigation, said officers had been updated by the National Crime Agency on the development and are awaiting confirmation of Shepherds identity. The Metropolitan Police added that, once identity was secured, extradition proceedings will begin immediately against Shepherd, originally from Exeter, who was the subject of an international arrest warrant. Under Georgian law, prosecutors are required to apply for restriction measures for a person wanted in another country within 48 hours of them being arrested. On Wednesday, a heavily-bearded Shepherd wearing a long coat, jeans and a check scarf smiled as he walked into the station from a black car while flanked by lawyers. In the footage shown on Georgian television station Rustavi2, he vowed to local reporters that he would clear his name over the tragic accident. Speaking to journalists, he said: Yes, my name is Jack Shepherd. I was involved in a tragic accident in which a lady called Charlotte Brown tragically died. Billed by the network as an exclusive interview, Shepherd added that he hoped justice will be done with his pending appeal against the conviction. Ms Brown, from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, died in December 2015 when Shepherds boat flipped into the wintry waters of the Thames after they shared a Champagne-fuelled first date. Her family ramped up pressure in recent weeks and renewed their calls for Shepherd to surrender after they met the Home Secretary on Tuesday. Appearing on BBC Breakfast on Thursday morning, Ms Browns sister Katie said that, when the family heard Shepherd had handed himself in, they were all very shocked and relieved. But she said that seeing him stroll into the police station smiling and waving, it was unbelievable his arrogance and everything. Charlotte Brown was killed during a speedboat date on the River Thames with Jack Shepherd (Metropolitan Police/PA) Asked how she felt about the comments Shepherd made to reporters in Georgia, where he said he was frightened about what might happen and how he hoped justice will prevail, she said: He seems to be concerned about his own feelings and how hes felt throughout the whole thing, and has had no empathy or remorse for his reckless actions. He has caused the loss of my sisters life and, whilst hes been off in Georgia, he claims that he went to see friends and he has always wanted to see the scenery there almost like he was claiming it was a holiday. He said that he has been out socialising, going to nightclubs, so, whilst he has been doing that, we have been back here, had the agony of the trial, left to pick up the pieces. He is not thinking about Charli, us, respect for the legal system, all he is thinking about is himself and his feelings. While Shepherd was on the run, his lawyers have been working to appeal against the conviction. Shepherds UK solicitor, Richard Egan, said: In the light of todays developments I dont think it would be appropriate to comment further until Mr Shepherd is back in the jurisdiction. Homicides have increased by 14% in a year while offences involving a knife are up by 8%, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Official data shows there were 90 more homicides recorded by the police in England and Wales in the year to September 2018, excluding victims of terror attacks, with the total number up from 649 to 739. It comes amid a 7% rise in overall police-recorded crime, with a total of 5,723,182 offences in the year to September 2018. This is the highest number in a 12-month period since the year ending March 2004, when there were 6.01 million offences recorded. Police-recorded crime in England and Wales (PA Graphics) Alex Mayes, policy and public affairs adviser at charity Victim Support, said: These figures starkly highlight the devastating human cost of the recent rises in serious violence that weve seen across the country. Working with bereaved families through our national homicide service we know just how destructive these shocking crimes are. Statisticians said the rise in homicides continues an upward trend since March 2014, indicating a change to the long-term decrease over the previous decade. Many of the higher-harm types of violence are concentrated in London and other metropolitan areas, with the Press Associations own analysis finding there were 128 homicides in the capital last year the highest level in a calendar year this decade. The data published on Thursday shows an 8% increase in the number of offences involving knives or sharp instruments a figure which does not include Greater Manchester Police after an internal review revealed they were under-counting these offences. Figures released by the British Transport Police (BTP) this week suggest knife crime on Britains rail network has more than tripled in the last three years. (PA Graphics) There was also a 15% rise in the number of hospital admissions for assaults in England involving a sharp implement, according to the data, while the number of firearms offences dropped by 4%. Crimes involving violence against the person are up by 19%, which includes a 41% increase in stalking and harassment offences. The police-recorded figures show a 17% increase in offences of robbery and a 3% rise in vehicle offences, largely due to a 10% jump in theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle. Chief Constable Bill Skelly, National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead for crime recording and statistics, said: Rising crime, increased terrorist activity and fewer police officers have put serious strain on the policing we offer to the public. We are determining the additional capabilities and investment we need to drive down violence and catch more criminals and we will make the case at the next government spending review. Equally important is driving up productivity and cutting any remaining inefficiencies. The other measure used to track levels of offending, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), showed most types of crime have stayed at similar levels to the previous year. (PA Graphics) Commenting on the figures, Helen Ross, from the ONS Centre for Crime and Justice, said: In recent decades weve seen the overall level of crime falling, but in the last year, it remained level. There are variations within this overall figure, depending on the type of crime. Burglary, shoplifting and computer misuse are decreasing but others, such as vehicle offences and robbery are rising. We have also seen increases in some types of lower-volume, high-harm violence including offences involving knives or sharp instruments. Separate figures released on Thursday show police officer numbers have fallen by 15% since a peak of 144,353 in 2009. There were 21,958 fewer by the end of September 2018, when there were 122,395 police officers in the 43 forces in England and Wales. However, an extra 0.4% or 466 more officers from 2017 represents the first year-on-year increase since 2009. Prime Minister Theresa Mays official spokesman said: These statistics show that your chance of being a victim of crime remains low, but we recognise that certain crimes particularly violent crime have increased, and we are taking action to address this. The Offensive Weapons Bill will give police extra powers to tackle knife crime and to get weapons off the street. The serious violence strategy puts a greater focus on early intervention and stopping young people from being drawn into crime in the first place. We have also put forward the biggest increase in police funding since 2010. Its encouraging to see the first signs of police officer numbers rising in the statistics today. People in Scotland have the right to consider independence as an alternative to Prime Minister Theresa Mays worsening Brexit crisis, a senior member of Nicola Sturgeons Cabinet has said. Mike Russell, the Scottish Constitutional Relations Secretary, added that, while everybody will have an opinion on the timing of another Scottish referendum, he trusts the First Minister on the issue. He spoke out after the SNP leader accused Mrs May of running scared of a second vote on independence. Speaking after talks with the PM in Downing Street on Wednesday, Ms Sturgeon said: I think the Prime Minister fears that she would lose another Scottish independence referendum so shes running scared of the verdict of the people. Its probably the reason she doesnt want another EU referendum, because she thinks she might lose that. People that are confident in their arguments dont run away from the verdict of the people. Constitutional Relations Secretary Mike Russell (Jane Barlow/PA) But Mrs May insisted it is the SNP that is out of touch with the people of Scotland, who she said do not want another divisive Scottish independence referendum. The two leaders clashed at the same time as Ms Sturgeon faced growing calls within her own party to call for a fresh vote on Scotlands future place within the UK. Former first minister Alex Salmond has argued that there is not likely to be a better time to force the issue following the PMs Brexit deal defeat. Similarly, SNP Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil has argued that it is time for calls for a fresh independence vote to come to fore, urging Ms Sturgeon to prioritise this over demands for a second European referendum. However, SNP MEP Alyn Smith said supporters of holding another independence vote in the near future should cacanny as uncertainty over what will happen with Brexit means practical questions over independence remain unanswered. Mr Russell told BBC Radio Scotlands Good Morning Scotland programme that everybody will have an opinion about the timing of a possible second referendum. He added: There are clearly many interests to be taken into account and I absolutely trust the First Ministers judgment on these things. Ms Sturgeon has already pledged to set out her views on this in a matter of weeks. But with the UK facing a Brexit crisis which he said was getting considerably worse, Mr Russell said Scots should look to ourselves and our own future. He stated: It is absolutely the right moment to say that these are very, very serious concerns we are facing and the people of Scotland have the right to say Do we have to go through this? It is something that we did not vote for. That is the truth at the heart of this. Scotland did not vote for Brexit, weve spent two-and-a-half years trying to negotiate the best possible outcome of this, compromising all the way, and we are incredibly within weeks of the supposed end date without anything firm in place. Now the people of Scotland have the right to say That is unacceptable, that is damaging and we must look to ourselves and our own future. Prime Minister Theresa May (House of Commons/PA) Following Wednesdays meeting between the First Minister and Mrs May, Downing Street revealed that both Ms Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart, Carwyn Jones, had been invited to sit on a new Cabinet sub-committee which will work on preparations for the UKs exit from the EU, spanning both deal and no-deal outcomes But Mr Russell said he had previously found promises of more involvement and consultation from the UK Government to be hollow. Motorists, cyclists and pedestrians have been urged to remain cautious after the cold snap brought ice to many parts of the country. An overnight low of minus 9C (15.8F) was recorded in Aboyne, a village on the edge of the Highlands in Aberdeenshire, while Cavendish in Suffolk was hit by temperatures of minus 5C (23F). Becky Mitchell, a Met Office meteorologist, warned that showers in predominately eastern parts of the country, as well as freezing rain in the south east, could bring treacherous travel conditions throughout Thursday. She added that cold temperatures across northern, central and eastern parts had led to a yellow weather warning for ice being put in place across large parts of the nation until 11am on Thursday. Discussing the impact that this could have, Ms Mitchell said: In these sorts of conditions, ice is normally going to form on any unattended roads, pavements and cycle paths. Wed advise motorists, pedestrians and cyclists to take extra care for much of the morning and the day. A car drives through heavy snowfall on the Glenshane Pass in Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland as a band of wintry weather brought snow and a risk of ice to large parts of the UK. #DancingOnIce? Let's leave it to the celebrities! Wherever you're going, make sure it's not you that has a spectacular stumble this morning... Drive to the conditions, otherwise you might be in-store for a @officialJasonG style judging from one of our officers! 0 pic.twitter.com/ArWXtYdLqT Surrey Police (@SurreyPolice) January 24, 2019 She added that the potential for freezing rain in the south east including in north and east Greater London areas could bring instant ice, creating hazardous travel conditions. Wintry showers, including sleet and hail, are also expected in eastern parts, but Ms Mitchell said that milder temperatures are likely to arrive later on Thursday. However, colder conditions are expected to return later in the week with the potential for snow at the weekend, especially over northern and western areas, as well as heavy winds in many places. WEATHER UPDATE It is now socially acceptable to wear your duvet outside. innocent drinks (@innocent) January 24, 2019 Tricky conditions on Thursday meant that the Driving Standards Agency was forced to cancel many driving tests across the nation. Despite having a good service on most of its network, Merseyrail ran a replacement bus between Hooton and Ellesmere Port due to thick ice on the rails. South Yorkshire Police told how officers came to the aid of a 90-year-old woman, who slipped on the ice and broke her arm. Good morning everyone. A #ThankYouThursday from the daughter of a 90-year-old woman who slipped on ice and suffered a broken arm. We are #proudtoserve and appreciate you taking the time to write in. pic.twitter.com/5kTLIZvdpy South Yorkshire Police - #StayAlert (@syptweet) January 24, 2019 The pensioners daughter penned a thank you note to the force, explaining how police carried her wounded mother back into her house. In Darlington, the High Coniscliffe CE Primary School had to close on Thursday after being left without heating and hot water as cold temperatures hit. Huawei is facing scrutiny in many countries over its ties with the Chinese government. The new legislation will require operators to seek formal approval for the use of certain kinds of equipment considered to be particularly sensitive for spying or sabotage risks. France is stepping up controls of telecoms infrastructure used in next-generation networks, a finance ministry official said, amid growing security concerns over Chinese group Huawei. The increased vetting is not intended to target any particular equipment maker, the official said, after the measures were unveiled on Friday in a new amendment to draft business legislation backed by the government. Huawei is facing scrutiny in many countries over its ties with the Chinese government and allegations that Beijing could use its technology for spying. It denies those allegations. The United States and some allies, including Australia and New Zealand, have banned Huawei from 5G networks. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday that Paris was aware of the risks of Huaweis access to mobile networks and said the government would take the necessary steps when needed. The new legislation will require operators to seek formal approval for the use of certain kinds of equipment considered to be particularly sensitive for spying or sabotage risks. Aberdeens depute lord provost has been arrested and charged in connection with an alleged sexual assault. Councillor Alan Donnelly was suspended by the Scottish Conservatives earlier this month as police launched an investigation. The alleged incident happened at Trinity Hall in Holburn Street, Aberdeen, in November last year. Mr Donnelly represents the Torry and Ferryhill ward on the Conservative and Labour-ruled council, and has been in post for more than a decade. A police spokesman said: Police Scotland can confirm a 64-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with an alleged sexual assault. The incident happened in November 2018 at Trinity Hall, Holburn Street, Aberdeen, and was reported to police in January 2019, when an investigation began. Police said a 64-year-old man has been charged in connection with an alleged sexual assault (David Cheskin/PA) A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal. Naomi Osaka kept her hopes of winning back-to-back grand slam titles alive by dispatching Serena Williams conqueror Karolina Pliskova to reach the Australian Open final. Osaka produced a brutal display of power hitting under the roof on Rod Laver Arena, striking 56 winners in a 6-2 4-6 6-4 victory and will face Petra Kvitova on Saturday. The 21-year-olds achievement makes her the first women to back up a first slam title by making the final of the next major tournament since Jennifer Capriati in 2001. As well as the title, the world number one ranking will also be on the line on Saturday, with Kvitova and Osaka both looking to get there for the first time. Capriati followed her maiden title here 18 years ago by winning the French Open and, if Osaka can maintain the form she showed in this match, then there is absolutely no reason why she cannot emulate that. Having survived tough battles against the unconventional pair of Hsieh Su-wei and Anastasija Sevastova earlier in the tournament, Osaka certainly looked more comfortable taking on a fellow ball-basher. Naomi Osaka (pictured) booked her place in the final by beating Karolina Pliskova (Andy Brownbill/AP) #AusOpen title isn't the only thing on the line. Whoever wins the final will be the new world No.1 pic.twitter.com/5bKrBPIRxG #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 24, 2019 And bash the ball she did, repeatedly into the corners, off both forehand and backhand, to win the first set. Osaka had won her previous 58 matches after winning the first set but following her remarkable comeback to beat Williams Pliskova would have known that no cause was impossible. Osaka broke serve again at the start of the second set but then gave it straight back with a poor game and slowly the momentum began to shift, the two women trading fiercer and fiercer blows. Osaka produced some fine play to hold off her opponent at 3-4 but two games later Pliskova broke to love to take the match to a decider. The 26-year-old, who reached her only slam final at the US Open in 2016, looked to continue her momentum at the start of the decider but Osaka saved three break points before playing a tremendous return game to move 2-1 ahead. Pliskova had one chance to get back on level terms in the eighth game but Osaka served an ace, and then another one given by HawkEye to clinch the victory. US president Donald Trump will postpone his State of the Union address until the partial government shutdown ends. Following a high-stakes game of dare and double-dare with speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr Trump conceded there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber and that he was not looking for an alternate option. It came after Ms Pelosi served notice earlier on Wednesday that Mr Trump will not be allowed to deliver the address to a joint session of Congress next week. As the Shutdown was going on, Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address. I agreed. She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown, suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative - I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over. I am not looking for an.... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2019 ....alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber. I look forward to giving a great State of the Union Address in the near future! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2019 She had taken the step after Mr Trump said he planned to show up in spite of Democratic objections to the speech taking place with large swaths of the government shut down. Denied that grand venue, Mr Trump promised to come up with some sort of alternative event. The White House scrambled to find a site matching the gravitas of the traditional address from the rostrum of the House to lawmakers from both parties, Supreme Court justices, invited guests and a television audience of millions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Jose Luis Magana/AP) As the Shutdown was going on, Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address. I agreed, Mr Trump tweeted. She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown, suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over. It was the latest round of brinkmanship between the president and Ms Pelosi as they remain locked in an increasingly personal standoff over Mr Trumps demand for border wall money that has forced a partial government shutdown, now in its second month. Ms Pelosi asked Mr Trump last week to make other plans but stopped short of denying him the chamber for his address. This afternoon, I sent @realDonaldTrump a letter informing him that the House will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the Presidents State of the Union address in the House Chamber until government has opened. https://t.co/r1oad0xEAh pic.twitter.com/kGEbayx95u Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 23, 2019 She issued that denial on Wednesday after Mr Trump told her he wanted to go ahead with it, in essence, calling her bluff. In a letter to Ms Pelosi earlier on Wednesday, Mr Trump dismissed her previous suggestion that the speech be postponed or delivered in writing due to security issues related to the partial government shutdown. Declaring there are no security concerns, Mr Trump said he planned to fulfil his Constitutional duty to report to Congress on the state of the union. It would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location, Mr Trumps letter said. Efforts to swiftly extradite fugitive Jack Shepherd are under way after he finally handed himself in to police in Georgia. The 31-year-old surrendered at a police station in the nations capital of Tbilisi on Wednesday six months after he was convicted of killing 24-year-old Charlotte Brown during a speedboat date on the Thames. The web designer was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence and sentenced to six years in prison in his absence, although he was controversially granted leave to appeal in December. Ms Browns family said they were overwhelmed with emotion after it emerged that Shepherd had surrendered and her father said it was time for him to atone for his actions. On Wednesday night the Crown Prosecution Service was preparing an extradition request to be lodged with Georgian legal authorities. Home Secretary Sajid Javid said it is vital Charlotte Browns family see justice done and UK law enforcement will seek to swiftly extradite him to Britain. Charlotte Browns father Graham Brown (left) sister Katie (2nd left) and mother Roz Wickens (right) (Yui Mok/PA) Scotland Yard, the force leading the investigation, said officers had been updated by the National Crime Agency on the development and are awaiting confirmation of Shepherds identity. The Metropolitan Police added that once identity was secured extradition proceedings will begin immediately against Shepherd, originally from Exeter, who was the subject of an international arrest warrant. Under Georgian law, prosecutors are required to apply for restriction measures for a person wanted in another country within 48 hours of them being arrested. Speaking to the Press Association, Shepherds lawyer, Tariel Kakabadze, said he may go before a court in Tbilisi on Thursday or Friday, but suggested it may be some time before he returns to the UK. Extradition doesnt happen in one or two days. All the documents will need to be translated, many things will need to be made ready, he said. Depending on what evidence they show us it might be very soon or it might be several months. Ms Browns family had reiterated their calls for the 31-year-old to hand himself in after he fled justice ahead of his trial at the Old Bailey. Jack Shepherd speaks to the media at the police station in Tbilisi , Georgia (Rustavi2/AP On Wednesday a heavily-bearded Shepherd smiled as he walked into the station some 2,000 miles away while flanked by lawyers. He vowed to local reporters he would clear his name over the tragic accident. Ms Browns father, Graham Brown, celebrated the overwhelming development, writing on Facebook: Justice for Charlotte is close! My opinions towards Jack Shepherd is that hes a very crass, reckless man, who managed to abscond and stick two fingers up at the judiciary, Mr Brown told BBC Radio 5 Live. Hes got to come back to atone for all that and I think that hes done the right thing and thank goodness hes realised that now and handed himself in. Ms Brown, from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, died in December 2015 when Shepherds boat flipped into the wintry waters of the River Thames in London after they shared a Champagne-fuelled first date. Charlotte Brown died during a speedboat date on the Thames(Metropolitan Police/PA) The family of Ms Brown, known to loved ones as Charli, ramped up pressure in recent weeks and renewed their calls for Shepherd to surrender after they met with Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Tuesday. A day later Shepherd wearing a long coat, jeans and a checked scarf waved and smiled as he walked into the station from a black car, footage on Georgian television station Rustavi2 showed. Speaking to journalists, he said: Yes, my name is Jack Shepherd. I was involved in a tragic accident in which a lady called Charlotte Brown tragically died. Billed by the network as an exclusive interview, Shepherd added he hopes justice will be done with his pending appeal against the conviction. He continued to say he hopes I can just, before pausing to correct himself and add, everybody can move forward with their lives. The familys MP, James Brokenshire, said Shepherds wanton and selfish actions had heaped further strain on the family at a time of unimaginable grief. While Shepherd was on the run, his lawyers have been working to appeal against the conviction. Shepherds UK solicitor Richard Egan said: In the light of todays developments I dont think it would be appropriate to comment further until Mr Shepherd is back in the jurisdiction. Petra Kvitova blazed her way into her first Australian Open final with victory over Danielle Collins under the roof on Rod Laver Arena. With temperatures soaring towards 40C (104F) in Melbourne, the tournaments new extreme heat policy came into play and the roof was closed with the score at 4-4 in the first set. Kvitova, who has struggled in the past in hot conditions, found the cooler temperatures much more to her liking and powered to a 7-6 (2) 6-0 victory in an hour and 34 minutes. Juchuuuuu I'm in the final of the @AustralianOpen pic.twitter.com/sYpIxipwqJ Petra Kvitova (@Petra_Kvitova) January 24, 2019 This is the Czechs first grand slam final outside of the two Wimbledon titles she won in 2011 and 2014, and she said: It means everything. Thats why I really work very hard to be in the finals of tournaments. Finally I could make it deep in this major and I will enjoy the final whatever happens. Im really very, very happy. Asked about the closing of the roof, Kvitova said: The first set was very tight, I was pretty nervous. I think I was happier than the fans that the roof closed. I like playing indoors. It was kind of warm. If it was open I was still going to fight so it doesnt really matter. Petra Kvitova celebrates her victory over Danielle Collins (Kin Cheung/AP) Kvitova had gone from being distinctly under the radar to the title favourite in a couple of days so, as well as being a physical examination, this was a test of how well the Czech could keep her mental cool. Collins run has been one of the stories of the tournament and the 25-year-old, who had never previously won a grand slam match, is a confident character who was never likely to be overawed by the occasion. She showed just that early on as she broke the Kvitova serve to lead 3-2, but the eighth seed also brings a fierce intensity to the court and there were several of her famous screams of pojd'(Czech for come on) as she broke back immediately. Collins looked unhappy about the decision to shut the roof, perhaps knowing that, as a Florida native, the heat could have given her a crucial advantage. Still there was nothing to choose between them until the tie-break, when Kvitova stepped up to a new level and left a frustrated Collins in her wake. The American had a brief exchange with umpire Carlos Ramos, the central figure in last years US Open final drama, over his decision to replay a point after an over-rule but by that point was already 5-1 behind. Kvitova was now well and truly in her groove and Collins found herself helpless in the second set as the eighth seed blasted 13 winners in six games. Pep Guardiola savoured the prospect of another Wembley appearance after Manchester City completed formalities against Burton in their Carabao Cup semi-final. The City manager was also pleased his players came through unscathed on a freezing pitch at the Pirelli Stadium on Wednesday. Sergio Aguero scored the only goal on a bitterly cold night as City beat the League One side 1-0 to complete an emphatic 10-0 aggregate success. The holders will now face Chelsea or Tottenham in the final next month. City boss Guardiola said: Protect the habit the habit of getting into the final. I know its a competition, with all respect, that when you win and you are in the final you are so happy, but when youre out youre not sad. But once we are there, we take every game seriously and we are in the final. We won already one title this season, the Community Shield. We are in the final and we are of course going to try to win it. The pitch was kept covered until around two hours before kick-off to protect from frost, but with the temperature around zero degrees, Guardiola still felt conditions were difficult. Guardiola, who fielded a mixture of young and experienced players, said: In winter time, freezing, the pitch was dangerous. Some mistakes were made at the back were because it was slippery. It was not stable. It was risky but everyone finished good. Aguero was among a handful of senior players to feature along with the likes of Riyad Mahrez, Kevin De Bruyne and Fabian Delph. Some of the clubs most promising youngsters also played, including Phil Foden, Eric Garcia, Philippe Sandler and Ian Poveda-Ocampo. Manchester Citys Phil Foden and Burtons Kieran Wallace battle for the ball (Nick Potts/PA) Benjamin Mendy returned as a substitute after more than two months out following knee surgery. Burton put up more of a fight than in their first leg hammering at the Etihad Stadium and manager Nigel Clough felt a lot of pride in their performance. Clough, a former City player, said: For a League One team to cause them as many problems as Premier League teams do I know they had some young players playing but they still had enough big hitters out there. We got about them a bit and Im just a bit disappointed we didnt get the goal we could have had. Clough admitted the pitch was difficult. It did get a bit crispy towards the end, he said. I think they were wondering when we were going to turn the undersoil heating on! Young Gaelic speakers have a duty to pass on the language to the next generation, according to SNP MSP Kate Forbes. Ms Forbes made the comments ahead of delivering the first annual address in memory of John Macleod, the former president of An Comunn Gaidhealach the Highland Association. She will deliver her lecture in Gaelic at the University of Edinburgh later on Thursday. The organisation was set up in 1891 to help support and promote the Scottish Gaelic language, culture and history at local, national and international level. It is also organises the Royal National Mod. Mr Macleod died in early 2018, having worked to encourage young people in the Gaelic community throughout his life. The Prince of Wales alongside John Macleod, former President of An Comunn Gaidhealach, during a visit to Stornoway, Lewis (Sandy McCook/PA) Ms Forbes, who worked with Mr Macleod while convener of the cross-party group on Gaelic, said she was honoured to deliver the address, paying tribute to the late An Comunn Gaidhealach president. He was a man who recognised his responsibility to safeguard and invest in the language, she said. Most critically, he saw that the next generation needed to pick up the baton. She added: The title of the address captures the sense that as we have inherited a great heritage, we have an even greater responsibility to pass it on. I will be discussing the role of young people in taking the language beyond the school gates and into their daily lives. We have seen a beautiful musical and cultural revival in Scotland and it seems fitting that the lecture should fall during Celtic Connections but we want that to include the language. Social media is helping spread misleading and dangerous information to the public about vaccines, a new report has suggested. The study, from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), said social media was a breeding ground for misleading information and negative messaging around vaccination. Experts called for more to be done to challenge untruths about possible side-effects of vaccines and said social media giants should clampdown on fake news. The online environment, and social media in particular, has become increasingly influential in the 21st century, the study said. The influence of social media over the publics view on vaccinations is likely to increase, particularly as younger generations become parents. We have found that the impact of social media is likely to be negative, it is a breeding ground for misleading information and negative messaging around vaccination. Myths about vaccines on social media are harmful, experts say (David Cheskin/PA) The RSPH said it would look at how collaborations could be made with social media giants, including Facebook and Twitter, to help signpost whether health information was from reputable sources. Social media platforms and message boards could also clampdown on fake news spread on their sites by prioritising health information from reputable sources, it said. Currently, on Facebook for example, suggested groups or pages are ordered by popularity rather than credibility of the information. Google already prioritises organisations such as the NHS or the British Medical Association, and this should be enforced across social media platforms. The report included a survey of 2,000 people, of whom 82% agreed that social media platforms should take steps to limit fake news regarding vaccinations. Among parents in the survey, two out of five with children under the age of 18 said they were often or sometimes exposed to negative messages about vaccinations on social media. The report said: Health misinformation on social media is concerning, spreading misleading and dangerous information about vaccination to the public. Misinformation can have dangerous consequences, as seen with the MMR controversy, and, at present, it seems that the powerful tool of social media is being utilised more prominently by those looking to spread negative information and fake news about vaccinations. The report found that among all age groups, a fear of side-effects was the number one reason why people failed to vaccinate themselves or their children. But among all parents, 91% agreed that vaccines were important for their childrens health. The report also said that vaccinations should be offered in a more diverse range of locations, including at high street pop-ups, gyms and workplaces. Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the RSPH, said: Vaccinations are one of the most powerful tools we have for protecting and improving the publics health, saving millions of lives every year across the globe. She said the UK had a world-leading vaccination programme, but added: We should never be complacent. History has taught us that fear and misinformation about vaccines can cause substantial damage to even the strongest vaccination programmes. With the rise of social media, we must guard against the spread of fake news about vaccinations. We have found worrying levels of exposure to negative messages about vaccinations on social media, and the spread of misinformation if it impacts uptake of vaccines could severely damage the publics health. Helen Donovan, professional lead for public health at the Royal College of Nursing, said: Challenging misinformation is vital to reverse the decline in vaccination uptake and ensure people recognise the protection it offers. In 2017 Britain was declared free of endemic measles, with just 259 lab confirmed cases. But last year saw 913 confirmed cases of this potentially fatal yet entirely preventable disease, a three-fold increase. This has been exacerbated by myths propagated largely online. A Facebook spokesman said: We dont want misleading content on Facebook and have made significant investments in recent years to stop misinformation from spreading and to promote high-quality journalism and news literacy. That said, we always try to strike a balance between allowing free speech and keeping people safe, which is why we dont prevent people from saying something that is factually incorrect, particularly if they arent doing so intentionally. However we do take steps to ensure this kind of content is demoted in peoples News Feeds to give it less chance of being seen and spread and, ultimately, to discourage those posting it. England now boasts more distilleries than Scotland for the first time, official figures show. The UK recorded a total of 361 distilleries last year according to HMRC figures, of which 166 are in England and 160 are based in Scotland. For centuries Scotland has been the dominant spirits maker thanks to the popularity and history of Scotch Whisky. However, the gin boom has helped the number of UK distilleries to more than double in the last five years, with HMRC issuing 31 new distillery licences in England in 2018 compared to just 11 in Scotland. In 2017 Scotland had a total of 149 distilleries beating Englands 135. The equivalent of one distillery a week opened in the UK last year in 2018 The gin boom has helped the number of UK distilleries to more than double in the last five years (Andrew Milligan/PA) The Wine and Spirits Trade Associations (WSTA) end of year market report showed UK gin sales saw a significant boost over the summer to take the total value to over 1.9 billion. More than 66 million bottles of gin were sold in the UK in 12 months, up 41% on the same period last year. WSTA chief executive Miles Beale said: With all the uncertainty surrounding Brexit it is extremely reassuring that our talented spirit makers are continuing to innovate, invest and grow. With England now boasting more distilleries than its Scottish cousins, 2018 really has marked a moment in history. English wine and beer maker Chapel Down last year branched out into gin while construction has begun on the Thomas Dakin Gin Distillery and visitor experience in Manchester. UK distillery openings have risen by 210% since 2010 an increase of 245 in eight years when WSTA first started collecting the data. England had only 23 distilleries in 2010 compared to 166 last year, accounting for 58% of all UK openings in the last eight years. Philip Hammond will urge companies to continue to invest in post-Brexit Britain as he uses a speech in Davos to say the UK is a great place to do business. The Chancellor is set to announce a 100 million investment to create 1,000 new PhD places across the UK for the next generation of Artificial Intelligence when he addresses the World Economic Forum on Thursday. It will be used to fund research into life-saving technology for NHS hospitals, improve voice-recognition software for business and consumers, and develop early-warning systems to protect people from pollution hotspots. The investment is part of a 7 billion fund the Government has committed to science and innovation since 2016. Mr Hammond is expected to say: Britain is a great place to do business. And we are determined, as we leave the EU, to make sure it remains that way. We are leading the way in the tech revolution. The UK digital sector is now worth over 130 billion with jobs growing at twice the rate of those in the wider economy. The World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos (Markus Schreiber/AP) I want to ensure we remain the standard bearer, so we must invest in our new economy so that it can adapt and remain competitive. We are backing British innovation to help create growth, more jobs and higher living standards. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: You dont need a PhD to understand that a No Deal would be catastrophic for the economy. Instead of swanning around amongst the rich in Davos, Philip Hammond should tell the Prime Minister to take No Deal off the table. The Government already announced in April 2018 that it would establish 1,000 PhD scholarships in AI. Given that we have been told that the funding comes from 2016 funding commitments, this sounds like nothing more than a repackaged announcement. You dont future-proof the economy by retrieving past policy announcements. The Sena also praised the patience of Mr Gandhi over the alliance between Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Mumbai: The Shiv Sena on Friday said that comments by ruling party leaders stating that Priyanka Gandhi was formally inducted due to the failure of her brother, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, had no substance. Ms Gandhi, like (former Prime Minister) Indira Gandhi, will emerge as the queen if she plays her cards well, the Sena said. The party, in an editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana, said Mr Gandhi would do whatever is needed to win the election and he has increased the problems of the government over the Rafale issue. The Sena also said, that even if one ignores Mr Gandhis attacks at the Modi government over corruption in the Rafale deal, the Congress dethroned the BJP in three states, which had given Sanjeevani (oxygen) to his party. Despite this, not giving him credit for the wins in three states shows a closed mindset. The Sena also praised the patience of Mr Gandhi over the alliance between Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. The editorial further stated that Ms Gandhi bears an uncanny resemblance to her grandmother Indira Gandhi in her looks and manner of speaking. Hence, the Congress would surely benefit in the Hindi heartland, it said. The SP and BSP tied up not giving space to the Congress. However, Rahul Gandhi, with a lot of patience, kept his cool. Mr Gandhi said that it doesnt matter. We will fight all seats in Uttar Pradesh and will help the SP and BSP wherever possible. It further said that this is a strategy and later on, by bringing Priyanka into mainstream politics and giving her responsibility in Uttar Pradesh is part of the plan. It is very apparent that the Congress will benefit from this, it said. Referring the Prime Minister Narendra Modis reaction to the entry of Ms Gandhi in politics, the Sena said that even the Prime Minister had to weigh in on the issue. Mr Modi had said that a few people think that the family is the party. It asked, Even if the people have accepted a family, why do some have to bellyache about it? The Sena also alleged that the BJP harbours ill will towards the Nehru-Gandhi family because it sees formidable competition and that it is scared of facing a stiff challenge in the general election the family would create hurdles with regards to crossing the majority mark. The Sena, however, also clarified that the party does not have affection for the Congress. The Sena also lauded her for agreeing to join active politics without worrying about the opening of cases against her husband Robert Vadra The use of pre-recorded evidence in criminal trials in Scotland could be increased after MSPs on Holyroods Justice Committee approved initial proposals. The committee has been considering the Vulnerable Witnesses (Criminal Evidence) (Scotland) Bill, which aims to reduce the stress and trauma of being involved in the legal system for victims and witnesses of crime. The Bill will now be debated by Parliament before it is referred back to the committee to include any changes made by members. In their report, the committee calls on the Scottish Government to fully adopt the Scandinavian Barnahus or Childrens House principles. The Barnahus model means that young people who have to give evidence in a criminal trial, either as a victim or witness, do not have to appear in court. They are interviewed in a Barnahus, as well as offered support there. The committee report also stated while pre-recorded evidence by specialist interviewers is an important part of the model and already covered in the Bill other elements such as child-friendly design and under one roof welfare and well-being support should also be implemented. The bill was introduced in June 2018 by Michael Matheson, who was the Justice Secretary at the time (Andrew Milligan/PA) In the longer-term, the committee also indicated the one forensic interview approach should be adapted for Scotland, believing it could reduce the overall trauma a child is put through during an investigation and improve childrens welfare. The committee also suggested the Bill be extended to include child witnesses in High Court and sheriff and jury domestic abuse cases in the first tranche of those eligible for the new measures. Further recommendations include ensuring all professionals involved in questioning child and vulnerable witnesses receive appropriate, trauma-informed training, as well as the need to aim to pre-record evidence as close to the alleged offence as possible, to help improve recall of the events in question and allow the witness or victim to start moving on sooner. Justice Committee convener Margaret Mitchell said: Events that precede a child becoming either a witness or possibly the victim in a criminal trial are likely to have been distressing in themselves. Efforts to reduce the subsequent stress and trauma that can be exacerbated by the legal process are strongly supported by the committee. However, we also believe the changes could be more ambitious. The committee is calling for the Barnahus principle to be fully introduced so that young people receive wraparound support through the whole legal and recovery process. A Scottish Government spokesman added: We welcome the committees support for the principles of the Bill, which is a key part of our wider work to improve support for victims through the justice system. If passed, far fewer child witnesses and vulnerable adults will have to give evidence in court during criminal trials by the greater use of pre-recording evidence in the most serious cases. Our initial focus for such significant reform is on those children for whom it can make the greatest positive impact ensuring we do not overwhelm the system and risk making matters worse for the very people we seek to protect. We have commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland, in partnership with the Care Inspectorate, to develop Scotland-specific standards for Barnahus. These will form a framework for health, justice and local authorities to understand what is required to improve our collective response to child victims and provide a roadmap for developing our approach to Barnahus approach in Scotland. We will carefully consider the committees recommendations and look forward to the stage one debate on these important proposed reforms. Health experts have warned Scottish hospitals are at risk of an outbreak of a new potentially deadly superbug unless attitudes towards screening change. Rates of antibiotic-resistant bacteria carbapenemase producing enterobacteriaceae (CPE) in Scotland are relatively low compared to other parts of Europe, the US, India and Africa. But a study by researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) found there is a lack of awareness among health professionals and the public about the threat of CPE. More than 30% of nurses questioned in a nationwide survey were unaware of the emerging risk of CPE and the same proportion thought taking rectal swabs from patients, the best screening method, was unacceptable. In the survey, 450 nursing staff from all Scottish health board areas and 261 members of the public were asked a series of questions to find out what they knew about CPE and the acceptability of rectal swabs. Lead study author Professor Kay Currie, GCU School of Health and Life Sciences associate dean, research, said: This is very important research because it will be used to educate nurses and raise awareness among the general public, which will increase uptake of screening and help prevent an outbreak of this very dangerous resistant bacteria in the UK. Professor Kay Currie, GCU School of Health and Life Sciences Associate Dean Research (Peter Devlin/PA) CPE is a growing threat to our healthcare system and we really want to try to stop it becoming endemic in our hospitals because its extremely difficult to treat and get rid of once it takes hold. The bacteria lives harmlessly in the gut in healthy people but can be extremely dangerous if it gets into the bloodstream, urine or surgical wounds and causes an infection. Half of nurses surveyed said they had not been informed about their hospitals policy and procedures for CPE screening and less than 50% felt the consequences of CPE to their patients were so severe that screening was a priority. Almost 70% of nurses questioned in the survey thought members of the public would be embarrassed by a rectal swab and 74% said they would ask patients to do the test themselves despite the fact this method may be unreliable. The majority of members of the public surveyed strongly agreed providing a rectal swab was acceptable, contrary to nurses perceptions. More than 80% of members of the public said they knew about the growing problem of drug-resistant bacteria but only 23% had heard of CPE. As a result of the research, NHS Education for Scotland is developing new online educational resources for nurses to help them understand that the public are not as embarrassed by the rectal swab test as they think. Professor Jacqui Reilly, Lead consultant for healthcare associated infection, antimicrobial resistance and infection control at Health Protection Scotland (HPS), said: Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to our healthcare system. Early identification of those patients coming into hospitals who may be at risk of getting an infection, such as one caused by CPE, is critical to stopping the onward transmission of these infections to other patients. This study demonstrates the importance of ensuring any screening programme, for the identification and prevention of these infections, is based on an understanding of the important public health principle of acceptability. HPS will use these findings to inform further development of the CPE screening programme, in order to ensure we make it easy for staff and patients to do the right thing to protect health. The research has been published in the BMC journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control. A Scottish Government spokesman added: We welcome this new research from Glasgow Caledonian University as antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to our healthcare system. Findings from this research has informed the infection prevention work within the Chief Nursing Officers Excellence in Care approach. A new National Clinical Risk Assessment (CRA) which identifies individuals most at risk of carrying multi drug resistant bacteria has been developed and tested. Using a person centred approach, early identification of bacteria prompts correct treatment and management of these patients. Trade union leaders are holding top-level Brexit talks with the Government as Theresa May seeks to keep her grip on the EU withdrawal agenda. In an unusual move, union chiefs will attend Whitehall discussions on Thursday, which are expected to involve the Prime Minister. TUC general secretary Frances OGrady, Len McCluskey of Unite, Dave Prentis of Unison and Tim Roache of the GMB, will all hold separate meetings with ministers. (PA Graphics) The discussions are part of Mrs Mays bid to try and get widespread political backing in finding a Brexit agenda that would command a majority in the Commons after her plans were heavily rejected by MPs. The Government move comes as there appeared to be growing support in Labour ranks for a parliamentary bid by former minister Yvette Cooper to extend Article 50, which would keep the UK in the EU longer, unless a deal is reached by the end of February. Leading Brexiteers have attacked such initiatives, saying they would take control of events from the Government. In another sign of opposition to the Prime Ministers stance, 19 ministers, including Cabinet members, have been meeting to discuss preventing a no-deal Brexit, according to the Daily Telegraph. One member of the ministerial group dubbed it the hair-shirt club, the newspaper reported. Despite Jeremy Corbyn branding the PMs talks initiative a stunt, a senior spokesman said the Labour leaders request for the partys MPs to boycott discussions with Mrs May did not extend to union leaders. The Labour spokesman said: As Jeremy set out last week, he is more than ready to engage in talks with the Prime Minister on the basis that no-deal is taken off the table. I think that has been vindicated by subsequent events. Unless she makes clear that she is prepared to move and compromise and accept the reality of the position, then she is simply continuing to try to run down the clock and prevent any solution to this crisis. Of course it is absolutely right for union leaders to represent their members and to engage with the Government on issues that affect their members. There must be a majority in Parliament for any deal, including a mechanism to rule out no-deal. That is going to take place among the political parties. A Downing Street spokesman said: The Prime Minister has said that this is a process of engagement across the House of Commons but also with other interested sectors. She has spoken to business leaders and she will be talking with union leaders. Issues I expect to be discussed will be around employment rights, environmental standards and those sorts of things. Unions have been warning of the impact on jobs of a no-deal Brexit and have been pressing for assurances about employment rights after the UK leaves the EU. Some have also argued in favour of a second referendum. Nigel Farage (Kirsty OConnor/PA) On the issue of a new national poll on EU withdrawal, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said any referendum should have just two options. He told ITVs Peston: I think there should definitely be Remain. And there should be a genuine Leave option. I think it would be better if it was a binary choice. Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage insisted Mrs Mays withdrawal plans should be opposed, even if that risked a new referendum. He told ITVs Peston: Personally my view at the moment is better to vote down this dreadful deal and take the risk of a second referendum. Ms Coopers Article 50 bid, which has cross-party backing including from Conservative Nick Boles, is one of a number of amendments that could be voted on next Tuesday if selected by Commons Speaker John Bercow. A man has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving over a crash that killed a Police Community Support Officer, West Midlands Police said. Darren Ogom, 42, is accused of causing the death of the off-duty PCSO Holly Burke in Birmingham on Tuesday night. He has been remanded in custody and will appear at Birmingham Magistrates Court on Thursday. Ms Burke, who had been in the job for 14 months, died on Lordswood Road in the Bearwood area of the city at around 11.30pm. A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: Despite the best efforts of police and medical professionals, 28-year-old Holly sadly died at the scene. Her family has been informed and are being supported at this time. Police Community Support Officer Holly Burke, 28, died in the crash (West Midlands Police/PA) Ogom, who is unemployed and lives in Kings Norton in Birmingham, has also been charged with driving without a licence, driving with no insurance and failing to stop for a police officer. Chief Superintendent Kenny Bell said: This is a desperately sad time for everyone who knew Holly and our thoughts and condolences are with Hollys mum and dad, family, friends and colleagues. There is no doubt that this tragic event will have an impact on those officers who responded and those who worked alongside her. Holly has been taken from us too soon and as a police family we are feeling this. #CHARGED| We've just charged a 42y/o #Birmingham man with causing death by dangerous driving, driving without a licence or insurance and failing to stop for police in relation to the collision in #Bearwood yesterday, where one of our PCSOs lost their lives:https://t.co/OI1t7h5VH4 pic.twitter.com/wjlXPsZPRC Birmingham Police - #StayHomeSaveLives (@brumpolice) January 23, 2019 Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson described Ms Burkes death as truly tragic, and said she was greatly valued by the force and the communities she served. The force said the incident has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, who said investigators have been gathering evidence including body-worn and in-car footage. IOPC regional director Derrick Campbell said: Our sympathies are with the family of the woman who sadly died in this tragic incident and everyone else affected. We have a duty to independently investigate in these circumstances and we will be examining the events prior to the collision to determine if appropriate policies and procedures were followed. We will be contacting the family of the woman who died to more fully explain our role and will keep them and the force regularly updated on our investigation. Anyone who witnessed the crash or has any information is asked to contact police. Boyzone frontman Ronan Keating thanked fans in Belfast as the band played their final concert in the city. Standing before a packed SSE Arena after receiving a rapturous welcome on to the stage on Wednesday night, Keating said the band had never expected the success they have had. Who would have thought 25 years ago, we certainly didnt, he told fans. Ronan Keating thanked fans for all their support throughout the bands career (Niall Carson/PA) To have had the career that we have had, the amount of albums that we sold, the journeys that we were on as individuals and collectively, its been one hell of a ride. And you have been there every step of the way. Screams erupted around the arena as the lights dimmed just before 9pm, and their volume increased as Keating, Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham and Shane Lynch were lowered on to the stage. Ronan Keating, left, and Shane Lynch enjoy the screams from the Belfast audience (Niall Carson/PA) It has been a long and glittering path for the band, who as fresh-faced teenagers played pubs in Northern Ireland in the early 1990s before getting their big break when they were signed by Polygram in 1994. There was excitement on social media earlier on Wednesday as Keating was photographed landing at Belfast City Airport. The fans who gathered in Belfast on Wednesday night ranged from the younger ages who would never have seen the band in their chart-topping prime, to the more mature original followers. Keating paid tribute to all the fans. We have got a room full of mixed people, we have got people who have been with us for 25 years, we have got a lot of new faces and new ears in the room who have joined us in the last five or six years, thank-you very much, he said. Sorry we have decided to call it a day but we have got a huge legacy of music that you can listen to and spend time with and enjoy. The band have insisted the Thank You & Goodnight tour will be their last (Niall Carson/PA wire) The gig was tinged with sadness at the absence of the late Stephen Gately. Gately died in 2009 at his home in Majorca from an undiagnosed heart condition. A brief film in tribute to him was played during the concert, recalling how he never stopped singing morning, noon and night, and how full of love and fun he had been. Gatelys familiar voice was heard in Belfast on Wednesday night as one of the bands newest songs, Dream, which features his vocals, was performed. Last November the band, now aged in their 40s, released what they have described as their final album, Thank You & Goodnight, and also announced a final tour to mark their 25th anniversary. They split up to the heartbreak of their fans in 1999 before making a very successful come back in the late 2000s. Now they insist 2019 is the end. Graham told media in Dublin earlier this week that this is definitely the end for Boyzone. The #ThankYouAndGoodNight Tour has arrived in #Belfast! Whos joining us tonight?? Dont forget a very limited amount of tickets are still available, just hit the link in the bio to join us! #Boyzone pic.twitter.com/JClU1EFuFI Boyzone (@theREALboyzone) January 23, 2019 They will head south for Thursday nights performance at the 3Arena in Dublin before setting off across the United Kingdom. The family of the woman killed on a speedboat date have said they are overwhelmed with emotion after the fugitive convicted over her death was arrested in Georgia. Jack Shepherd surrendered at a police station in the nations capital of Tbilisi on Wednesday six months after he was convicted of 24-year-old Charlotte Browns manslaughter. Ms Browns family had increased their calls for the 31-year-old to hand himself in after he fled justice ahead of his trial at the Old Bailey. A heavily-bearded Shepherd smiled as he walked into the station some 2,000 miles away while flanked by lawyers. He vowed to local reporters he would clear his name over the tragic accident. Ms Browns father, Graham Brown, celebrated the overwhelming development, writing on Facebook: Justice for Charlotte is close! My opinions towards Jack Shepherd is that hes a very crass, reckless man, who managed to abscond and stick two fingers up at the judiciary, Mr Brown told BBC Radio 5 Live. Hes got to come back to atone for all that and I think that hes done the right thing and thank goodness hes realised that now and handed himself in. Charlotte Brown who died after a speedboat crash on the Thames (Metropolitan Police/PA) Ms Brown, from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, died in December 2015 when Shepherds boat flipped into the wintry waters of the River Thames in London after they shared a Champagne-fuelled first date. Shepherd, originally from Exeter, was sentenced in his absence to six years in prison for manslaughter by gross negligence in July. The family of Ms Brown, known to loved ones as Charli, ramped up pressure in recent weeks and renewed their calls for Shepherd to surrender after they met with Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Tuesday. A day later Shepherd wearing a long coat, jeans and a checked scarf waved and smiled as he walked into the station from a black car, footage on Georgian television station Rustavi2 showed. Speaking to journalists, he said: Yes, my name is Jack Shepherd. I was involved in a tragic accident in which a lady called Charlotte Brown tragically died. Billed by the network as an exclusive interview, Shepherd added he hopes justice will be done with his pending appeal against the conviction. Charlotte Browns family on the way to meet Sajid Javid (Yui Mok/PA) He continued to say he hopes I can just, before pausing to correct himself and add, everybody can move forward with their lives. Ms Browns sister Katie told BBC News that Shepherds smug TV appearance portrayed a very arrogant man. I dont understand how someone can go on the run for two crimes and be found guilty and still then just walk straight in with a very smug look on his face and claim innocence, she said. His arrest was first confirmed by the Georgian embassy in London, with a spokesman saying: He has just surrendered himself to the Georgian Police and now the police undertakes relevant detaining formalities. Mr Javid, who a day earlier warned there can be no hiding place for Shepherd, celebrated the web designers arrest. We will seek to swiftly extradite him to Britain. It is vital Charlotte Browns family see justice done, he added. The speedboat involved in the crash on the Thames (Met Police/PA) The familys MP, James Brokenshire, said Shepherds wanton and selfish actions had heaped further strain on the family at a time of unimaginable grief. Nothing can take away their loss, but I hope this may now offer some sense of justice, the Communities Secretary added. Scotland Yard, the force leading the investigation, said officers had been updated by the National Crime Agency on the development and are awaiting confirmation of Shepherds identity. The Metropolitan Police added that once identity was secured extradition proceedings will begin immediately against Shepherd, who was the subject of an international arrest warrant. Georgian law states that extradition is granted over convicted individuals if they have been sentenced to at least four months imprisonment. While Shepherd was on the run, his lawyers have been working to appeal against the conviction. Solicitor Richard Egan: In the light of todays developments I dont think it would be appropriate to comment further until Mr Shepherd is back in the jurisdiction. The Crown Prosecution Service was on Wednesday night drafting an extradition request. The Foreign Office said: We thank the Georgian Police for their efforts and co-operation. We are working closely with the local authorities. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has served notice that President Donald Trump will not be allowed to deliver his State Of The Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday after the president said he was aiming to show up even though he was not welcome. Ms Pelosi told Mr Trump on Wednesday that the House will not approve a resolution allowing him to come until the government reopens. Thats a great blotch on the incredible country that we all love, Mr Trump shot back, calling it a very, very negative part of history. It would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location! President @realDonaldTrump's letter to Speaker Pelosi: https://t.co/ojdoOmchid The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 23, 2019 Ms Pelosis snub confronted Mr Trump with the need to find another way to put his views to the nation, one lacking the spectacle and history afforded by a State of the Union speech in the House chamber, the traditional venue. Well do something in the alternative, he said, while branding Democrats radicalised. It was the latest round of brinkmanship between the president and Ms Pelosi as they remain locked in an increasingly personal standoff over Mr Trumps demand for border wall money that has forced a partial government shutdown, now in its second month. Ms Pelosi asked Mr Trump last week to make other plans but stopped short of denying him the chamber for his address. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Carolyn Kaster/AP) She issued that denial Wednesday after Mr Trump told her he wanted to go ahead with it, in essence, calling her bluff. In a letter to Ms Pelosi earlier Wednesday, Trump dismissed her previous suggestion that the speech be postponed or delivered in writing due to security issues related to the partial government shutdown. Declaring there are no security concerns, Mr Trump said he planned to fulfil his Constitutional duty to report to Congress on the state of the union. It would be so very sad for our Country if the State of the Union were not delivered on time, on schedule, and very importantly, on location, Mr Trumps letter said. A portion of a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from President Donald Trump (Wayne Partlow/AP) But Ms Pelosi made her decision final not long after. She told him the House will not consider a concurrent resolution authorising the Presidents State of the Union address in the House Chamber until government has opened. The president cannot speak in front of a joint session of Congress without both chambers explicit permission. A resolution needs to be approved by both chambers specifying the date and time for receiving an address from the president. White House officials have been working on a backup plan to have him give the speech somewhere else if Democrats blocked access to the House chamber. Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said before Ms Pelosis letter was released that it would be remarkably petty for the speaker to deny Trump the location. Each side has been accusing the other of pettiness since Ms Pelosi raised doubts about the speech and Mr Trump followed up by revoking her use of a military aircraft, thereby cancelling a congressional delegation visit to Afghanistan. A portion of a letter sent to President Donald Trump from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Wayne Partlow/AP) Mr Trump said the Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service assured him there would be absolutely no problem regarding security for the State of the Union and they have since confirmed this publicly. Officials have been considering alternative venues for the speech, including a rally-style event, an Oval Office address, a speech in the Senate chamber, and even a visit to the Mexican border. Multiple versions of the speech were being drafted to suit the final venue. The Constitution states only that the president shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State Of The Union, meaning the president can speak anywhere he chooses or give his update in writing. But a joint address in the House chamber, in front of politicians from both parties, the Supreme Court justices and invited guests, provides the kind of grand backdrop that is hard to mimic and that this president, especially, enjoys. Still, North Carolinas House speaker, Tim Moore, invited Mr Trump to deliver the speech in the North Carolina House chamber. Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield has offered his state capitol. Mr Trump spoke with both of them this week, according to Mr Moores office and a tweet from Mr Chatfield. Theresa May shows no sign of compromise on her Brexit red lines, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said following a meeting at Number 10. Speaking from Downing Street, Ms Sturgeon said Mrs May seems set on wooing the utterly laughable hard Brexiteers in her own party instead. She was speaking after the two leaders held face-to-face talks on the way forward for the Brexit process. Nicola Sturgeon leaves 10 Downing Street after Brexit talks with Theresa May (Stefan Rousseau/PA) Ms Sturgeon said: It seems to me her priority is trying to win support from the DUP and the hardline Brexiteers in her own party rather than genuinely trying to compromise to bring others on side. It seems to me shes putting all of her eggs in the basket of trying to win over the DUP and the ERG (European Research Group) playing to the right-wing hardline Brexiteers which, unless something fundamental changes that I cant see right now, is destined to fail. Its also taking the entire country and Scotland in particular down the wrong road, one thats going to be devastating for our economy and, particularly around free movement, deeply damaging to Scotlands population and therefore our economy in the long-term. Ms Sturgeon also dismissed calls by ERG leader Jacob Rees-Mogg to suspend or prorogue Parliament to prevent a no-deal Brexit. If it wasnt so serious it would be utterly laughable, she said. These are the same people, of course, who campaigned for Brexit on the basis it was taking back control for the UK Parliament and at the first whiff of Parliament actually exerting control, they want Parliament, it sounds to me, pretty much abolished. Jacob Rees-Mogg and co dont seem to care too much for democracy, and what worries me after the discussion with the Prime Minister is its those people shes putting all of her efforts into trying to persuade, rather than trying to build a compromise with more reasonable voices. The First Minister said she had specifically asked Mrs May whether she would soften her Brexit red lines or consider another EU referendum, but was rebuffed. Jacob Rees-Mogg heads the ERG of leading Brexiteers (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Ms Sturgeon said: I think the Prime Minister fears that she would lose another Scottish independence referendum so shes running scared of the verdict of the people. Its probably the reason she doesnt want another EU referendum, because she thinks she might lose that. People that are confident in their arguments dont run away from the verdict of the people. But Mrs May earlier told the Commons the SNP is out of touch with the people of Scotland, who she said do not want another divisive Scottish independence referendum. Speaking at Prime Ministers Questions, Tory MP Stephen Kerr attacked Ms Sturgeons plan for a second Scottish referendum. The Stirling MP said: May I say, as a proud Scot, that the UK is the most successful political union the world has ever known. Does the Prime Minister agree with me that when Nicola Sturgeon demands a second independence referendum only four years after we had the last one that the UK Government should side with the majority of people of Scotland and firmly tell her No? 4 years ago #Scotland voted to stay part of the UK in a "once in a lifetime referendum". Since then the SNP have been agitating non-stop for a second divisive referendum. I asked the Prime Minister today to take a second independence referendum off the table. #PMQs pic.twitter.com/RHOz5sqpiq Stephen Kerr (@RealStephenKerr) January 23, 2019 Mrs May replied: He is absolutely right. As he points out, Scotland held a referendum in 2014 -it was legal, it was fair, it was decisive and the people clearly voted for Scotland to remain part of the UK. But more than that, at the last general election the people of Scotland again sent a very clear message that they do not want a second divisive referendum. But the SNP sadly are out of touch with the people of Scotland and they havent yet heard that message. The last thing we want is a second independence referendum the UK should be pulling together not being driven apart. Ms Sturgeon claimed Scots have run out of patience with the Prime Minister. I think people in Scotland are probably getting sick and tired of hearing what the Prime Minister wants, she said. What the PM wants is not the most important thing here what Scotland needs is what matters most. Brexit is demonstrating on a daily basis right now that Scotland needs the ability to take our own decisions so were not dragged down the wrong path by Tory idealogues, and we dont constantly face the prospect of having policies imposed by Westminster governments that we didnt vote for. Prime Minister Theresa May said there is no demand for a second Scottish independence referendum (PA) When asked if that means she is firing the starting gun on a second Scottish independence referendum, Ms Sturgeon laughed and said those are your words, not mine. She reiterated her plan to give more details on the timing of a second vote in the near future. She said: Im not going to go further than what Ive said. I will set out my views in greater detail on this in a matter of weeks. Not at the SNP spring conference. It will be at a time and a place that I tell you in due course. I will set out my views in greater detail on that in the near future. You cant stand in the way of people having the right to choose indefinitely. The Prime Ministers position has never been a sustainable one and it isnt a sustainable one now. JOHANNESBURG (AP) - Nigeria has slid into a constitutional crisis three weeks before the presidential election after President Muhammadu Buhari suspended the country's chief justice, a key player in what likely will be a disputed vote affecting the lives of some 190 million people. The president's rival calls the suspension "an act of dictatorship" meant to influence the election. Africa's most populous country already faces multiple challenges as it tries for a second consecutive democratic transfer of power on Feb. 16 after decades marked by coups. Here's a look at what's at stake. ___ OIL-RICH, DEEPLY POOR Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer but its economy is sluggish and corruption is widespread. A rich elite dazzles in seaside Lagos, the continent's largest city, but most of the country struggles to get by. In a too common scene, at least a dozen people died earlier this month when an overturned oil tanker exploded in the south while scores of people were scooping up the leaking fuel to use at home. Many Nigerians were dismayed last year by reports based on data by the World Poverty Clock saying their country had surpassed India with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty. A changing climate in the arid north is already pushing some people toward the heavily populated south in search of the means to survive. FILE - In this Wednesday, July 8, 2015 file photo, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, left, stands next to Oby Ezekwesili, a coordinator of the 'Bring Back Our Girls' campaign, at the presidential residence in Abuja, Nigeria. The woman who led the global campaign to free Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram extremists is dropping out of the race for Nigeria's presidency, it was announced Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Oby Ezekwesili is the most prominent woman to seek the presidency in Nigeria, where politics, as in many African nations, have long been dominated by men. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga, file) ___ DEADLY CONFLICTS The Boko Haram extremist group and an offshoot affiliated with the Islamic State group are making a deadly resurgence in the northeast despite declarations by Buhari's government that Boko Haram had been crushed. The government has noted the extremists' worrying new use of drones. A separate conflict in central Nigeria has become even deadlier, with fighting between farmers and herdsmen over scare resources killing some 1,300 people in the first half of 2018 - six times more than those killed by extremists, according to the International Crisis Group. The conflict between the largely Muslim herders and largely Christian farmers is a sensitive issue for Buhari, a Muslim and ethnic Fulani from the north who is accused by some of not doing enough to end the fighting. Meanwhile, oil militants in the south and bandits in the northwest continue to pose a deadly threat. ___ FRAGILE DEMOCRACY In a year of several major elections in Africa, people across the continent are watching to see how Nigeria's will unfold. It did not help confidence when neither Buhari nor his main challenger, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, showed up for a presidential debate a week ago. Buhari's win in 2015 was a rare peaceful power transfer in Nigeria, the powerhouse of West Africa, a region that has been trending toward stable elections. Already the United States and Britain, worried about vote-buying, heated rhetoric and intimidation, are warning against election-related violence. The countries have threatened visa restrictions, severed access to U.K.-based funds and prosecution for those who undermine the vote. The crisis that erupted Friday night over the suspended chief justice, who faces corruption allegations, has infuriated the main opposition People's Democratic Party, which on Saturday stopped campaigning for 72 hours in protest. Both the U.S. and European Union have expressed concern, with the U.S. warning that the lack of a swift resolution could "cast a pall" over the vote. "Both parties appear to be laying the groundwork for declaring the election results fraudulent if they lose," John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday. Now many Nigerians worry that any legal challenge to the vote could be compromised if the judicial system itself is in disarray. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa SAO PAULO (AP) - A United Nations report says that a global failure to enforce environmental protection laws is exacerbating threats. The report from the United Nations Environment Program released Thursday says there is a lack of monitoring agencies capable of effectively enforcing laws. It says poor implementation is one of the "greatest challenges to mitigating climate change, reducing pollution and preventing widespread species and habitat loss." It also called attention to the "harassment, arbitrary arrests, threats, and killing of environmental defenders." It said 207 forest rangers, inspectors and activists were killed in 2018 in Latin America, Africa and the Philippines. Shortly after the films trailer came out in December, its release dates attracted a lot of controversy, said film critics. Mumbai: Shiv Sena workers created a ruckus on the premises of a movie theatre in Mumbai as it did not display the Thackeray film poster. Sena workers on Thursday staged a protest outside a theatre in Vashi against the theatre management for not putting up posters of the film Thackeray inside the theatre. In a video of these Sena volunteers (Shiv Sainiks) creating a ruckus on the theatre premises, the protesters can be seen staging a sit-in protest and shouting slogans. During the protest, the workers also got into an argument with the theatre staff. Based on the life of Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray, the film hit big screens on Friday, commemorating Thackerays birth anniversary. Shortly after the films trailer came out in December, its release dates attracted a lot of controversy, said film critics. The films producer and Sena leader Sanjay Raut said, Our Shiv Sainiks were demanding that the posters be displayed outside the movie hall so that people understand the film is based on Balasaheb. They came in huge numbers which might have created an uproar but they did not harm anyone. They only wanted to say that like all other movies, display the boards in the same manner. Many claimed that the film was deliberately being released ahead of the elections as part of a political agenda. However, in an interaction, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who plays the role of Bal Thackeray in the film and Amrita Rao, who features as his wife Meenatai Thackeray, refuted all such claims and asserted that the only reason behind releasing the film in January was that January 23 is Bal Thackerays birth date. COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Swedish police say a man in his 50s fatally shot his two children before announcing on social media he was killing himself in an apparent murder-suicide. Police spokesman Johan Thalberg said Thursday in a statement that police had received information the evening before that "a serious incident had occurred" in the village of Moklinta, some 125 kilometers (77 miles) northwest of Stockholm. Sweden's Expressen tabloid reported that the man had announced live on Facebook that he had killed his sons before declaring he was killing himself. Thalbert confirmed authorities received information about the social media broadcast but didn't give details. Police also said a firearm was used, without elaborating. The man and the children were not identified. SAN DIEGO (AP) - The San Diego Humane Society has rescued 84 cockatiels from an apartment. The society posted on Twitter that officers were called to the apartment in the Rancho Bernardo section on Wednesday morning and found most of the birds flying freely in "unsanitary conditions." Sgt. Laurel Monreal says it is "extremely sad" to see animals living like this. The birds were placed in boxes and taken for medical evaluations. They'll be quarantined while officials check for diseases. Police are investigating the man who lives in the apartment. BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's parliament on Thursday approved a vastly expanded state budget for 2019, after weeks of wrangling over how to apportion revenue among the country's regions damaged by the war against the Islamic State group. The new budget, at 133 trillion Iraqi dinars ($112 billion), represents a 27 percent increase in spending over the previous year, to be paid in part by higher projected oil prices and a slight bump in oil exports. It forecasts oil exports from OPEC's second leading oil producer to average 3.88 million barrels per day, at $56 per barrel, up from 3.8 million barrels at $46 per day in 2018. Still, the budget projects a $23 billion deficit in 2019. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi's government still needs to ratify the bill, which includes several amendments to the budget proposal it submitted last year. "The government will study the amendments and additions that Parliament has included," Abdul-Mahdi's office said. FILE - in this Monday, Sept. 3, 2018, file photo, Iraqi lawmakers attend a parliament session in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraq's parliament on Thursday, Jan. 24 has approved a national budget for 2019 after weeks of wrangling over how to apportion revenues between the regions damaged by the war against the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File) The budget authorizes a reconstruction fund for provinces liberated from IS in the 2014-2017 war, and a sum of $28 billion for investment projects throughout the country. Sunni politicians said their provinces, which bore the brunt of the fighting during the war, were being neglected by the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad. "This budget is not able to help the liberated areas," said Sunni lawmaker Dhafer al-Ani. Iraq's Ministry of Planning calculated last year that the country required some $88 billion for reconstruction. Some 1.8 million Iraqis, of a national population of 38 million, are still waiting to return to their homes, according to the United Nations. Most of them are Sunnis. Iraq's southern predominantly-Shiite provinces are in dire need of investment as well. The budget earmarks $336 million for a port investment project in Faw, in the Basra province, which saw riots over pollution, joblessness, and failing public services last summer. The budget also includes provisions to pay the salaries of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces in the country's semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, and to enlist an additional 6,500 fighters to the semi-autonomous Popular Mobilization Forces, a government sanctioned umbrella of mainly Shiite militias and other anti-IS units. It also mandates the Ministries of Defense and Interior to re-enroll thousands of members of the police and security forces who were wiped off the payrolls after they abandoned their posts in the face of advancing IS militants in 2014. This was the first budget passed since parliament elections last May. ___ Associated Press writer Philip Issa in Baghdad contributed to this report. MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) - The woman who led the global campaign to free Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram extremists said Thursday she was dropping out of the race for Nigeria's presidency to form an opposition coalition ahead of next month's election. The 55-year-old Oby Ezekwesili had been the most prominent woman to seek the presidency in Nigeria, where politics, as in many African nations, have long been dominated by men. She said in a series of tweets that she planned to focus on building a "strong and viable" coalition to challenge the two main political parties before the Feb. 16 vote. She criticized what she called "the mess that has now become the political class." A former World Bank vice president, Ezekwesili also co-founded Transparency International, one of the world's leading organizations against corruption - a widespread problem in oil-rich Nigeria. The 76-year-old President Muhammadu Buhari, who promised to fight both Boko Haram and corruption when he took office in 2015, seeks a second term in next month's election. The top challenger is veteran politician and 72-year-old former vice president Atiku Abubakar. FILE - In this Wednesday, July 8, 2015 file photo, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, left, stands next to Oby Ezekwesili, a coordinator of the 'Bring Back Our Girls' campaign, at the presidential residence in Abuja, Nigeria. The woman who led the global campaign to free Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram extremists is dropping out of the race for Nigeria's presidency, it was announced Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Oby Ezekwesili is the most prominent woman to seek the presidency in Nigeria, where politics, as in many African nations, have long been dominated by men. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga, file) The winner will lead Africa's biggest crude oil producer and most populous country. A major challenge for Ezekwesili's candidacy was the attitude toward female candidates in Nigeria, where many say women are fit only for the kitchen. Buhari himself once asserted he had "superior knowledge" over his wife and that she belonged to his kitchen, his living room and the "other room." He made the comments while standing next to an unimpressed-looking German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the world's most powerful women. Ezekwesili had hoped to appeal to Nigeria's booming youth population as many in the West African powerhouse say politics has been dominated by the older generation for too long. She also had hoped to appeal to women who want to see more female participation in the country's governance. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa ISLAMABAD (AP) - A Pakistani Christian woman's defense lawyer says the country's top court has set the date for the much-awaited hearing on a petition by radical Islamists against her acquittal from death row. The lawyer, Saiful Malook, says the Supreme Court will review the petition against Aasia Bibi next Tuesday. Bibi was on death row for eight years in a blasphemy case but was acquitted by the Supreme Court last October. The acquittal sparked nationwide protests by radical Islamists and compelled authorities to take Bibi into hiding. She has since been living at a secret location, under guard. The extremists have threatened to kill anyone who supports Bibi. Her lawyer says he is confident the court will reject the petition and confirm Bibi's acquittal, meaning she would be free to leave Pakistan. ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's foreign minister says the time has come for an international investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mevlut Cavusoglu told A Haber television on Thursday that the issue would be taken up with U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Execution, Agnes Callamard, during her visit next week. The minister also suggested that many countries were trying to "efface" the killing to shield Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post columnist, who wrote critically about the Saudi crown prince, was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October. Riyadh has indicted 11 people over the killing and is seeking the death penalty against five of them. Critics see the move as an effort to distance the crown prince from the killing. BEIJING (AP) - The Latest on the Chinese-Australian writer held in China (all times local): 5 p.m. China says it is holding a Chinese-Australian writer on the charge of "engaging in criminal activities endangering China's national security." Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying offered no details in making the comments about Yang Hengjun in response to a question at a daily news briefing Thursday. Such charges are extremely vague and frequently leveled at critics of the ruling Communist Party, with little hard evidence provided in support. Australia's Defense Minister Christopher Pyne said earlier Thursday he would press Chinese officials to treat Yang fairly and release all information about his case. Pyne told reporters at the start of his visit to Beijing that the spy novelist and online commentator was being held under a type of home detention in Beijing. ___ 1:55 p.m. Australia's foreign minister has urged China to treat a Chinese-Australian writer fairly and says there is no evidence that his detention is part of a backlash against Canada's arrest of a top Chinese telecommunications executive. Spy novelist and online commentator Yang Hengjun was a Chinese diplomat before he became an Australian citizen. Friends say the 53-year-old had been living in New York as a visiting scholar at Columbia University and had returned to China last week with his wife and 14-year-old stepdaughter. Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australian Embassy officials had their first meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing on Yang's detention on Thursday. Australia had requested urgent consular accesses to him, an explanation for his detention and of possible charges. SYDNEY (AP) - An Australian businessman who was allegedly part of a criminal syndicate that smuggled 1.28 metric tons (1.41 U.S. tons) of cocaine inside a shipment of prefabricated steel from China faced a Sydney court on Thursday after becoming the last of three accused conspirators to be extradited from Serbia. Tristan Waters, 35, was the last of three Australian alleged accomplices to be charged in a Sydney court with helping to import Australia's second-largest cocaine haul valued at $400 million. The illicit drug was found in 2,576 individual blocks inside a shipping container aboard a Chinese freighter docked in Sydney in April 2017. Serbian police arrested Waters, Rohan Arnold, 44, and David Campbell, 49, at gunpoint in the foyer of a luxury Belgrade hotel in January last year and they each fought extradition to Australia. All three have now been charged in Sydney with drug smuggling offenses that carry potential sentences of life imprisonment. Waters did not apply for bail or enter pleas when he appeared by a video link in Sydney's Central Local Court. He will appear in the court next on Feb. 13. He left Australia for the United Arab Emirates in 2016. Court documents list a luxurious hotel on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah canals as his address there. Arnold was extradited from Serbia in March last year and Campbell in July. Prosecutors allege the trio was lured to the Belgrade hotel by an undercover police operative who told them the cocaine had been mistakenly delivered to New Zealand. They were told they would have to hand over $3 million to get the drugs back. The largest Australian cocaine haul was 1.4 metric tons (1.5 U.S. tons) found in February 2017 in a yacht that had allegedly smuggled it from the South Pacific. Six people were charged and face potential life prison sentences. That larger haul was valued at only around $210 million because its purity was lower than the second-largest haul. SELCUK, Turkey (AP) - Braveheart, Crazy Hasan, The Conqueror and Black Diamond were among the furry, hump-backed contestants in this year's annual sporting showdown in Turkey: camel wrestling. Thousands of spectators gathered in the Aegean town of Selcuk to watch the event, a tradition that dates back 2,400 years. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months - traditionally camel mating season - the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. The 37th installment of the competition brought together about 120 camels and their proud owners, many of whom adorned their animals with the red-and-white Turkish flag. The pouty-lipped competitors weigh in at an average of 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) and are decorated with multicolored pompoms and ornate headdresses. With their humps hidden under embroidered saddles, the wrestlers strut into the arena two at a time and duke it out, generally within short distance of a female camel in heat. Each battle ends within minutes, often to thunderous cheering from the crowds. A victor is declared when one of the camels falls to the ground or runs out of the field. Most matches, however, end in a draw because owners fear their prized animals could be harmed during the rough sparring. The festival is also more than just wrestling. The day before the competition, the bedecked camels are paraded through town in a beauty pageant. During the main event, musicians perform traditional folk songs and families barbecue in the hills overlooking the arena, feasting on meat and sausage washed down by raki, Turkey's traditional anise alcoholic beverage. ___ In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, camels bearing elaborately decorated saddles, wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) Ayse Wieting reported from Istanbul. In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, camels wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a Turkish flag and a poster of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk are seen on a hill full of spectators overlooking the arena where camels wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019 photo, a camel handler kisses his camel prior to a parade during a contest in Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a camel owner tries to pull his camel as it wrestles with another during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, camels bearing elaborately decorated saddles, wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a dancer performs for the spectators during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a vendor offers sausages for sale to spectators during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a musician performs traditional folk songs, as spectators enjoy on the hill overlooking the arena where camels wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, musicians perform traditional folk songs, as spectators enjoy on the hill overlooking the arena where camels wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, camels wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, handlers of a wrestling camel celebrate after it 'beat' its opponent, during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, musicians perform traditional folk songs, as a spectator washes down raki, Turkey's traditional anise alcoholic beverage, backdropped by a Turkish flag decorated with an image of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a camel handler embraces his animal during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, musicians perform traditional folk songs, as spectators enjoy on the hill overlooking the arena where camels wrestle during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a camel handler smiles as he arrives to Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019 photo, camel handlers lead a camel, bearing an elaborately decorated saddle, to a parade during a contest in Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019 photo, a camel owner tries to pull his camel as it wrestles with another during Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) In this Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019 photo, wrestling camels, bearing elaborately decorated saddles, parade during a contest in Turkey's largest camel wrestling festival in the Aegean town of Selcuk, Turkey. While smaller festivals are held across the country during the winter months _ traditionally camel mating season _ the one in Selcuk, just a few miles from the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, is the largest and most prestigious. This year's instalment of the competition brought together some 120 camels and their proud owners. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) SAN DIEGO (AP) - SailGP, the new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts, will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. SailGP will be a true global league, featuring many of the world's most accomplished sailors racing aboard the planet's fastest sailboats, 50-foot, wing-sailed catamarans that fly across the top of waves on hydrofoils. Teams representing six countries will compete at five tour stops, with the finale being a winner-take-all, $1 million match race between the top two teams to crown the 2019 champion. It's not the prestigious America's Cup, and that's OK with these sailors. "Nothing like this has been done in sailing," said Tom Slingsby, an America's Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist who will skipper the deep Australian team starting with the inaugural regatta in home waters Feb. 15-16. Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle Corp. and one of the world's richest men with a fortune estimated at around $60 billion, will initially cover the league's costs. If his vision plays out, SailGP will move to a franchise ownership model. SailGP will stand out from other professional classes, said Australian Nathan Outteridge, who will skipper Japan SailGP Team. There won't be team owners driving boats as there are on other circuits, and this will be as close to nation-vs.-nation sailing as there can be. A French race boat is tested on Sydney Harbor by a crew of members from several different teams as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) "The big difference is this is probably the most difficult boat in the world to sail and it's going to be proper professional sailing," said Outteridge, who has won Olympic gold and silver medals and skippered a Swedish-backed team in the last two America's Cup regattas. SailGP came along after Ellison's run in the America's Cup ended when his two-time defending champion Oracle Team USA was soundly defeated by Emirates Team New Zealand in Bermuda in 2017. While the America's Cup will return to monohulls in 2021, SailGP took three 50-foot foiling catamarans from the 2017 America's Cup and redesigned and re-engineered them, and built three new ones. Unlike in the America's Cup, all the boats are identical. Crews won't be allowed to make changes without approval of the measurement team. "I think this isn't just filling a void in sailing, it's creating something new that has the potential to really span the reach of our sport. So that's pretty exciting," said Coutts, who once sailed undefeated through three straight America's Cup matches, for two different countries. He won twice more as CEO of Oracle Team USA. Coutts feels the timing is right both on and off the water, such as taking advantage of the many advances in digital technology in the broadcast world. "With the way people are consuming information these days, I think this suits this format," he said. "It suits us a lot more, possibly, than it would have 10-15 years ago." Racing will be available live globally, and in most cases streamed at SailGP.com with a second-screen app set to be launched in early February. Slingsby sailed with Oracle Team USA in its remarkable comeback win in 2013 on San Francisco Bay and again in Bermuda. He explored doing an Australian campaign for the 2021 America's Cup but couldn't secure the financial backing needed to be competitive. While not closing the door on the America's Cup, Slingsby is excited for SailGP's promise of continuity. He points to the four-year gap between Oracle's 2013 win and the next regatta. "The problem was, it disappeared out of the eyes of the public for four years and lost all momentum," Slingsby said. "This league will change that. Every month or two we'll have these boats racing. It's going to be a sport that's always in the public eye." Crews had limited practice time recently in New Zealand. The catamarans - called F50s - have been moved to Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbor and are going in the water this week. Crews will get more practice time starting Feb. 1. Slingsby and Outteridge said the cats are capable of going faster than 50 knots (57.5 mph). There have been changes to the daggerboards and rudders since Bermuda that will increase the boats' performance. In a substantial change, batteries will be used to raise and lower the daggerboards, and grinders will be used only to trim the wingsheet. "I can tell you that in Bermuda, they were the most painful boat to sail," Outteridge said. "You had two people sailing and four people grinding. They were massively energy-hungry just to get boards up and down and keep pressure up on cylinders to control for flight. You had four people grinding as hard as they can the whole time the boat was moving. That was not sustainable. ... Unless you were driving or trimming the wing, you were not a sailor, just a grinder. This brings more sailing to the boat." With the Australian team assigned to Slingsby, Coutts tapped Outteridge to head the Japanese team with the intention of building a foundation that will eventually lead to it being 100 percent Japanese. Likewise, New Zealander Phil Robertson is skippering the Chinese team. The other teams will be skippered by nationals: Great Britain by 49er class world champion Dylan Fletcher, France by Nacra 17 world champion Billy Besson and the United States by Rome Kirby of Newport, Rhode Island, who also sailed with Oracle Team USA in the 2013 America's Cup. "It's going to be extremely competitive," Kirby said. "The whole circuit has a ton of potential and I'm really looking forward to it. It's definitely going to take some time to develop, especially with the boats being so fast and powered up." After Sydney, the tour stops in San Francisco on May 4-5; New York on June 21-22; Cowes, England, on Aug. 10-11; and Marseille, France, on Sept. 20-22 for the finale that will include a winner-take-all $1 million match race. ___ Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/berniewilson A French race boat is tested on Sydney Harbor by a crew of members from several different teams as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) In this Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, photo, Australian skipper Tom Slingsby sits in his boat as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) In this Jan. 23, 2019, photo, Tom Woodcock, left, Andrew Henderson and Gavin Hawkless, right, work on the Australian boat as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) In this Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, photo, Australian technician Bryce Ruthenberg works on the sail for the Australian boat as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) The French boat, left, sails past 2 smaller sailboats as it is tested on Sydney Harbor by a crew of members from several different teams as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) In this Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, photo, Australian skipper Tom Slingsby sits on the edge of Sydney Harbour as the French boat floats behind him as preparations for the SailGP series are underway in Sydney. The new sailing league founded by tech billionaire Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts will leap from concept to reality next month when six souped-up catamarans hit the starting line off Shark Island in Sydney Harbor. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) Kejriwal and his AAP have accused the BJP-led Central government of creating hurdles in the works of Delhi government. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal during the state-level Republic Day function of the Government of NCT at Chhatrasal Stadium in New Delhi on Friday. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said creating hurdles in the functioning of the AAP government is like betrayal to the country. In his 20-minute long speech during the state-level Republic Day function at Chhatrasal Stadium, Mr Kejriwal alleged that his government was stopped from building schools, hospitals and mo-halla clinics in the city. The CM said that before Independence, there were some people who used to help the British to weaken the fight of the revolutionaries and that today too there are such people who try to do the same to the country. On several occasions in the past, Mr Kejriwal and his AAP have accused the BJP-led Central government of creating hurdles in the works of Delhi government. In reference to the AAP governments Rs 1 crore ex-gratia scheme for the kins of martyrs belonging to Delhi, Mr Kejriwal alleged that he was also prevented from implementing it. I want to ask whether this is not betrayal to the country. Why is there politics in it? If any soldier sacrifices his life at the border, he does not see that he is saving the life of a person from BJP or Congress or AAP. Instead, he sacrifices his life while protecting the country. We are stopped from doing our works, which is betrayal to the country, Mr Kejriwal said. Four years ago, Delhiites had changed the politics of the country and installed a new government of its kind in the national capital, he said, asserting that today the government in Delhi is a revolution and a movement. Mr Kejriwal also accused the BJP-led Central government of committing sedition by creating hurdles in the works of Delhi government. TOKYO (AP) - Japanese whalers discussed plans Thursday to resume their commercial hunting along the northeastern coast on July 1, for the first time in three decades. Their preparation follows Japan's decision in December to leave the International Whaling Commission, abandoning decades-long campaigning in hopes of gaining support within the organization that has largely become a home for conservationists. The Fisheries Agency said whalers in six Pacific coast towns, including Taiji, which is known for dolphin hunts, were expected to bring five vessels to form a joint fleet beginning July 1, one day after Japan formally withdraws from the IWC. Taiji is leading the effort as a traditional whale town and will contribute one vessel to the fleet that will catch minke whales. Exact locations and hunting plans will be decided based on results of research operations planned by the end of June, said Shigeki Takaya, a Fisheries Agency official in charge of whaling. Catch quota and hunting schedule are yet to be decided. Japan's national broadcaster NHK said the coastal whaling will start from Hachinohe in northern Japan, or Kushiro, a main whaling hub farther north, on the island of Hokkaido. Each vessel would then head southward to Chiba, near Tokyo, while making several stops along the coast before heading back to Kushiro for more hunts later in the year, NHK said. Experts are deciding the sustainable catch quota using the IWC method. Japan plans to remain as observer of the IWC. While conservationists criticize Japan's move, whalers' scope of operation would be much smaller than previous research hunts and would save hundreds of whales that Japan used to catch in distant seas. FILE - In this March 8, 2010, file photo, a woman walks by sculptures of whales, the symbol of the southwestern Japanese town of Taiji. Japanese whalers are discussing plans ahead of their July 1, 2019 resumption of commercial hunting along the northeastern coasts for the first time in three decades. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File) Japan will stop its much-criticized hunts in the Antarctic, where it had conducted what it called research hunts since the IWC imposed moratorium in the 1980s. Japan at its peak caught as many as 1,200 whales in the Antarctic, but has increasingly cut back on its catch in recent years as international protests escalated and whale meat consumption slumped at home. Japan has hunted whales for centuries, but its Antarctic expedition began after the U.S. postwar occupation in 1946 approved it to get protein from whale meat as cheaper alternative to other meat. Records of parliamentary debate from that time show no reference to Japanese culture being linked to whaling. Today, conservative lawmakers including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, promote whales not only as delicacy but as Japan's cultural heritage. Fisheries officials plan to start with a modest plan to carefully gauge a market size, a former IWC negotiator, Hideki Moronuki, said. Fisheries officials say Japan today annually consumes about 5,000 tons of whale meat from the research hunts, mainly by older Japanese seeking a nostalgic meal. It's a fraction of the country's whale meat supply of about 200,000 tons before the IWC moratorium. Critics say they doubt commercial whaling can be a sustainable industry because younger Japanese may not view the animals as food. ___ Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2008, file photo, a motorist rides past a statue of a whale at the entrance to the town of Taiji, Japan. Japanese whalers are discussing plans ahead of their July 1, 2019 resumption of commercial hunting along the northeastern coasts for the first time in three decades. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa, File) BEIJING (AP) - Chinese tech giant Huawei announced plans Wednesday for a next-generation smartphone that will use its own technology instead of U.S. components, maneuvering to gain a competitive edge and sidestep complaints it is a security risk. The leading supplier of network switching gear for phone companies, Huawei Technologies Ltd. is spending heavily to develop its own chips, an area where the U.S. dominates. That can reduce Huawei's multibillion-dollar annual components bill and help insulate it against possible supply disruptions when U.S.-Chinese relations are strained. The handset, billed by Huawei as the first foldable fifth-generation smartphone, will be unveiled next month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry's biggest annual event, said Richard Yu, CEO of the company's consumer unit. The phone is based on Huawei's own Kirin 980 chipset and Balong 5000 modem. The company says the Kirin 980, released in August, performs on a par with Qualcomm Inc.'s widely used Snapdragon 845. Sales of Huawei smartphones and other consumer products rose more than 50 percent last year over 2017, showing "no influence" from Western security warnings, Yu told reporters. He said the consumer unit's sales topped $52 billion, or more than half of the $100 billion in annual revenue the company has forecast. Huawei has yet to release 2018 results for the whole company. "In this complicated political environment, we still maintain strong growth," Yu said. Fruits' cups with a mini flags are displayed on a refreshment corner as Huawei unveils it 5G chipsets in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Chinese companies are trying to develop technology to better compete with Western suppliers in telecoms, solar power, electric cars, biotechnology and other fields. The ruling Communist Party's plans for state-led development of such industries, along with robotics and artificial intelligence, helped trigger a trade war with President Donald Trump. Both sides have raised tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of each other's goods in the dispute over American complaints Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. Washington also says Chinese technology plans violate Beijing's market-opening obligations. Huawei surpassed Apple as the No. 2 global smartphone brand behind Samsung in mid-2018. It uses Qualcomm in its high-end fourth-generation smartphones and earlier Kirin versions in lower-end models. The company, based in the southern city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong, also has developed chips for servers and mobile devices. Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Ltd. already make their own chips. Qualcomm has far more smartphone chip technology but Huawei is catching up, said Xi Wang of IDC. "Generally speaking, Huawei's chips are equal to Qualcomm chips in performance," Wang said. "Not only at the mid-level but at the high end, Huawei can compete with Qualcomm." Huawei, founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, has rejected accusations it is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or modifies its equipment to allow eavesdropping. Its U.S. market evaporated after a congressional panel labeled Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE Corp. security risks in 2012 and told phone companies to avoid dealing with them. ZTE was nearly driven into bankruptcy last year after the Washington cut off access to U.S. technology over its exports to Iran and North Korea. President Donald Trump restored access after ZTE paid a $1 billion fine and agreed to replace its executive team and install U.S.-chosen compliance officers. Australia, Japan and some other governments also have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology. The company has stepped up efforts to mollify security fears after its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 on U.S. charges she lied to banks about trade with Iran. Huawei's founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, is Meng's father. In a rare public appearance, he told foreign reporters in a 2-hour interview on Jan. 15 that he would reject requests from Chinese authorities for confidential information about its customers. Yu said that despite "political noise" in some countries, Huawei sales outside the United States haven't suffered due to security concerns. The company says it serves 45 of the 50 biggest global phone companies and has signed contracts with 30 carriers to test 5G technology. "Worldwide, all the carriers love us," said Yu. Yu repeated Ren's assurances that Huawei has never received an official request for confidential information about customers. "At Huawei, we never do these kinds of things," he said. "We always protect our customer." Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, unveils the 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group speaks as he unveils the 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, speaks as he unveils the 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Huawei 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset is displayed after the presentation event in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Huawei 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset is displayed after the presentation event in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Ryan Ding, chief of Huawei's carrier business group, holds a Tiangang 5G base station chipset, speaks during a product presentation in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Fissures appear along roads while massive holes open up in the countryside, their gaping maws a visible sign from the air of something Iranian authorities now openly acknowledge: the area around Tehran is literally sinking. Stressed by a 30-year drought and hollowed by excessive water pumping, the parched landscape around Iran's capital has begun to sink dramatically. Seen by satellite and on foot around the city, officials warn that what they call land subsidence poses a grave danger to a country where protests over water scarcity already have seen violence. "Land subsidence is a destructive phenomenon," said Siavash Arabi, a measurement expert at Iran's cartography department. "Its impact may not be immediately felt like an earthquake, but as you can see, it can gradually cause destructive changes over time." He said he can identify "destruction of farmland, the cracks of the earth's surface, damage to civilian areas in cities, wastewater lines, cracks in roads and damages to water and natural gas pipes." Tehran, which sits 1,200 meters (3,900 feet) above sea level against the Alborz Mountains on a plateau, has rapidly grown over the last 100 years to a sprawling city of 13 million people in its metropolitan area. All those people have put incredible pressure on water resources on a semi-arid plateau in a country that saw only 171 millimeters (6.7 inches) of rain last year. Over-reliance on ground aquifers has seen increasingly salty water pumped from below ground. This frame grab from video taken on Aug. 8, 2018, provided by Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, shows the edge of a massive hole caused by drought and excessive water pumping in Kabudarahang, in Hamadan province, western Iran. Some sinkholes formed in western Iran are as deep as 60 meters (196 feet). (ISNA via AP) "Surface soil contains water and air. When you pump water from under the ground surface, you cause some empty space to be formed in the soil," Arabi told The Associated Press. "Gradually, the pressure from above causes the soil particles to stick together and this leads to sinking of the ground and formation of cracks." Rain and snow to recharge the underground aquifers have been in short supply. Over the past decade, Iran has seen the most prolonged and severe drought in more than 30 years, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. An estimated 97 percent of the country has faced some level of drought, Iran's Meteorological Organization says. That has caused the sinkholes and fissures now seen around Tehran. Iranian authorities say they have measured up to 22 centimeters (8.6 inches) of annual subsidence near the capital, while the normal range would be only as high as 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) per year. Even higher numbers have been measured in other parts of the country. Some sinkholes formed in western Iran are as deep as 60 meters (196 feet). Those figures are close to those found in a study by scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam previously discussed by the journal Nature and accepted by the journal Remote Sensing of Environment. Using satellite images between 2003 and 2017, the scientists estimate the western Tehran plain is sinking by 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) a year. Either way, the numbers are alarming to experts. "In European countries, even 4 millimeters (0.15 inches) of yearly subsidence is considered a crisis," Iranian environmental activist Mohammad Darvish said. The sinking can be seen in Tehran's southern Yaftabad neighborhood, which sits close to farmland and water wells on the edge of the city. Cracks run down walls and below windows, and waterpipes have ruptured. Residents fear poorly built buildings may collapse. The sinking also threatens vital infrastructure, like Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport. German scientists estimate that land under the airport is sinking by 5 centimeters (1.9 inches) a year. Tehran's oil refinery, a key highway, automobile manufacturing plants and railroads also all sit on sinking ground, said Ali Beitollahi, a Ministry of Roads and Transportation official. Some 2 million people live in the area, he said. Masoud Shafiee, head of Iran's cartography department, also acknowledged the danger. "Rates (for subsidence) are very high and in many instances it's happening in densely populated areas," Shafiee told the AP. "It's happening near sensitive infrastructures like airports, which we consider a top priority." Geopolitics play a role in Iran's water crisis. Since the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has sought to become self-sufficient across industries to thwart international sanctions. That has included agriculture and food production. The problem, however, comes in inefficient water use on farms, which represents over 90 percent of the country's water usage, experts say. Already, the drought and water crisis has fed into the sporadic unrest Iran has faced over the last year. In July, protests around Khorramshahr, some 650 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Tehran, saw violence as residents of the predominantly Arab city near the border with Iraq complained of salty, muddy water coming out of their taps amid the yearslong drought. The unrest there only compounds the wider unease felt across Iran as it faces an economic crisis sparked by President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who long has opposed Iran's theocratic government, even released an online video in June offering his country's water technology in a jab at Iran's leaders. "The Iranian regime shouts: 'Death to Israel,'" Netanyahu said. "In response, Israel shouts: 'Life to the Iranian people.'" Iranian officials shrugged off the offer. But solutions to the water crisis will be difficult to find. The crisis "stems from decades of sanctions and compounding political mismanagement that is likely to make it very difficult to alleviate the emerging crisis before it wreaks lasting damage upon the country," wrote Gabriel Collins, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. Iranian authorities have begun to crack down on illegal water wells. They also are exploring using desalinization plants along the Persian Gulf as well, though they require tremendous energy. Farming practices also need to change as well, experts say. "We need to shift our development model so that it relies less on water and soil," Darvish, the activist, said. "If we don't act quickly to stop the subsidence, it can spread to other areas." This frame grab from video taken on Jan. 8, 2019, shows fissure caused by drought and excessive water pumping in Malard, west of Tehran, Iran. Fissures appear along roads, while massive holes open up in the countryside, their gaping maws a visible sign from the air of something Iranian authorities now openly acknowledge: The area around the capital Tehran is literally sinking. (AP Photo) This frame grab from an Aug. 8, 2018 video provided by Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, shows an aerial view of a massive hole caused by drought and excessive water pumping in Kabudarahang, in Hamadan province, in western Iran. Some sinkholes formed in western Iran are as deep as 60 meters (196 feet). (ISNA via AP) This frame grab from video taken on Aug. 8, 2018, provided by Iranian Students' News Agency, ISNA, shows an aerial view of massive holes caused by drought and excessive water pumping in Kabudarahang, in Hamadan province, western Iran. Some sinkholes formed in western Iran are as deep as 60 meters (196 feet). Already, the drought and water crisis has fed into the sporadic unrest Iran has faced over the last year. (ISNA via AP) SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) - As President Donald Trump's approval rating falls, the Republican Party is grasping him ever tighter. Gathering in New Mexico, the Republican National Committee's governing body will take the unusual step Friday of voting to declare the party's "undivided support" for Trump and his "effective presidency." Amid concerns about the political fallout from the government shutdown and what might be ahead in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the RNC move is an attempt to block another Republican from mounting a primary challenge that, even if unsuccessful, could damage Trump going into the general election. More fundamentally, it cements a merger between the RNC and Trump, a onetime Democrat who now asserts full control over virtually every aspect of the GOP. "President Trump has incredible support amongst Republican voters and the full support of the RNC," said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. "Our unprecedented relationship with the President and his campaign will be key to his re-election and ensuring we continue this great American comeback." The resolution set to pass this week stems from internal controversy after the GOP's last failed presidential nominee, McDaniel's uncle Mitt Romney, lashed out at Trump's character and global leadership in an op-ed earlier this month. The scathing message was widely interpreted as a sign of encouragement for Republicans, including former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, to take on Trump. Ardent pro-Trump members of the committee wanted to respond by explicitly endorsing the president, essentially circumventing the nominating process, in a rebuke of those considering challenging him. The more strident effort failed in an RNC sub-committee meeting, but the sentiment stood. In this Jan. 23, 2019, photo, a view of the White House in Washington. As President Donald Trump's approval rating falls, the Republican Party is grasping him ever tighter. Gathering in New Mexico, the Republican National Committee's governing body will take the unusual step Friday of voting to declare the party's "undivided support" for Trump and his "effective presidency." (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows Republicans are largely standing by the president, even as his overall approval rating has eroded amid the ongoing government shutdown. About 8 in 10 Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing, which is similar to his level of support among Republicans in AP-NORC polls throughout his presidency. Overall, Trump's approval rating stands at 34 percent, its lowest point in more than a year. Incumbents in either party bring universal name recognition and massive institutional support to their re-election campaigns, and an insurgent effort to deny Trump the nomination would almost certainly fail. But there is still ample room for a potential spoiler to enter the race, and Trump advisers are mindful that the one-term presidents in the modern era were weakened by primary challengers. Trump critics contend the unusual move to back Trump is tantamount to "rigging" the 2020 primary season in Trump's favor. While no primary rival has yet emerged, Trump detractors have called for a more traditional Republican to mount a campaign to deny Trump the nomination - or at least to weaken his standing. "This is an assault on the voice of the people," said former New Hampshire GOP Chairwoman Jennifer Horn. "If the president were strong, he wouldn't need them to do this." As the RNC gathered in New Mexico, anti-Trump conservative group Defending Democracy Together announced it was running an ad on Fox News urging the RNC against "rigging" the 2020 primary in Trump's favor. Trump's 2016 effort was entirely reliant on the RNC in the general election for data, field and rapid response, leaning on the national party's army of staffers in swing states and yearslong technology investments to win. Trump's campaign staff of just over 100 was dwarfed by the RNC's efforts. But still party leaders were never fully on board with Trump and debated cutting off support for his effort on several occasions, including after the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape in which he bragged about being able to grope women. Heading into 2020, Trump and the Republican Party are increasingly indistinguishable. In the main hallway of the party's Capitol Hill headquarters, glossy photos of Trump have replaced photos of other GOP presidents. Political director Chris Carr holds the title for both the campaign and the RNC, and the party's regional communications team is being rebranded as 'strategic communications' as it prepares to run the Trump campaign's state-based communications efforts. Carr briefed RNC members on the new division of labor among the committee, the Trump campaign and state parties, according to six RNC members who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private presentation. They described it as a "merger" between the entities, contending it will eliminate duplication and redundancy in their efforts. But the structure also ensures that the resources of the national party will go to protect the president should any challenger emerge from within the GOP. The RNC has also maintained its joint fundraising agreement with the Trump campaign from 2016 and plans to broaden it to benefit critical swing-state state parties in the coming months. And in a wake-up call to state parties, Carr warned that they would have to meet specific metrics to receive disbursements from the RNC. One campaign official compared the role of the RNC to that of a primary subcontractor - coordinating messaging and field on behalf of Trump's operation. BEIJING (AP) - China on Thursday said it has detained a Chinese-Australian writer for allegedly "endangering China's national security," a vague charge frequently leveled at critics of the ruling Communist Party. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying offered no details about the charge against Yang Hengjun, a novelist and online commentator, in response to a question at a daily news briefing. "According to our understanding, the Australian national Yang Hengjun was suspected of engaging in criminal activities endangering China's national security," Hua said. "At present, the case is being handled according to law, and Yang Hengjun's legitimate rights and interests have been fully guaranteed," she said. Hua said Yang's case was in the hands of the Beijing city branch of the national intelligence bureau, potentially raising it to a higher level of scrutiny by state authorities. She said Australia's embassy in China had been informed of the measures taken against him. Friends said Yang, 53, had been living in New York as a visiting scholar at Columbia University with his wife and her child and had returned to China last week. Australia raised the issue of his disappearance on Wednesday. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne addresses the media in Sydney, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Payne urged China to treat Chinese-Australian writer, Yang Hengjun, fairly and transparently, adding there was no evidence that his detention almost a week ago was part of a backlash against Canada's arrest of a top Chinese telecommunications executive. (Dan Himbrechts/AAP Image via AP) It's unclear why Yang would have been detained, although China has become increasingly intolerant of even the hint of criticism. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said in Sydney that Australia has asked for consular access to Yang along with an explanation for his detention and details of the charges brought against him. Payne said the government would be concerned if the detention was related to China's arrest of two Canadians last month or her government's decision in August to block Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from rolling out Australia's 5G network due to security concerns. Both issues have figured in speculation about the reasons for Yang's detention. China detained the two Canadians, entrepreneur Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, on national security charges in what was widely seen as retaliation for Canada's arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States. Meng is also the daughter of the founder of the company, which enjoys strong Chinese government and military backing. The U.S. has led a campaign joined by allies such as Australia to ban Huawei from major projects based on national security grounds. "At this stage there is no evidence of such a connection," Payne told reporters of a possible link to the Canadians' detention. "I'd be concerned if there was an indication of that. So we are calling on the Chinese authorities to ensure this matter is dealt with transparently and fairly," she added. Payne declined to make public details of where and when Yang had been detained. She said she wanted an explanation for why Australia was not informed until Wednesday night after Yang's friends and family had raised the alarm that he was missing. Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne, on a previously scheduled visit to Beijing, met Thursday with his counterpart, Wei Fenghe, and asked that Yang be treated fairly and transparently, his office said in a statement. "General Wei assured Minister Pyne that, while he was not personally aware of the case, Mr. Yang would be treated well and that the general would seek further information," it said. Pyne earlier told reporters that Yang was being held under a type of home detention in Beijing. A friend of Yang's, University of Technology Sydney academic Feng Chongyi, said he had warned Yang against traveling to China in light of the Canadians' arrest. Yang had argued that he was safe because he had flown to China several times since taking the university job in New York in 2016. "I told him the situation had changed. He didn't believe me. It was a horrible misjudgment," Feng said. Feng was detained for two weeks in 2017 while visiting China to research human rights lawyers and said later that he couldn't discuss details of his experience. Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University's National Security College, had warned after the Canadians were detained that an Australian could be the next victim of "China's hostage-taking." "It's hard to tell the precise reason for this detention," Medcalf said. "I think rather it's a signal that we're now - not only Australia, but really all democracies, all middle powers - are in for a period of sustained tension with China where the safety of our nationals in China simply cannot be assured." Columbia University said Yang had been a visiting scholar with the School of International Public Affairs' Institute for the Study of Human Rights since 2016. Spokeswoman Caroline Adelman said the university had no comment on Yang's detention. ___ McGuirk reported from Canberra, Australia. Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne speaks to the journalists at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Pyne says he will raise issue of a missing Chinese-Australian writer with his Chinese counterpart to call for consular assistance and transparency in the case. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) A Chinese paramilitary policeman stands guard at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Australia's foreign minister has urged China to treat a Chinese-Australian writer fairly and says there is no evidence that his detention is part of a backlash against Canada's arrest of a top Chinese telecommunications executive. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) A woman walks by the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Australia's foreign minister has urged China to treat a Chinese-Australian writer fairly and says there is no evidence that his detention is part of a backlash against Canada's arrest of a top Chinese telecommunications executive. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) A Chinese paramilitary policeman stands guard at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Australia's foreign minister has urged China to treat a Chinese-Australian writer fairly and says there is no evidence that his detention is part of a backlash against Canada's arrest of a top Chinese telecommunications executive. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne, center, speaks to the journalists at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Pyne says he will raise issue of a missing Chinese-Australian writer with his Chinese counterpart to call for consular assistance and transparency in the case. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne speaks to the journalists at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Pyne says he will raise issue of a missing Chinese-Australian writer with his Chinese counterpart to call for consular assistance and transparency in the case. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) ST. ANDREWS, New Brunswick (AP) - A Canadian conservation group says a drop in the harvest of Atlantic salmon by Greenland's fishermen is good news for the species. Atlantic salmon are considered endangered by the U.S. government, and only consistently return to a handful of American rivers, all of which are in Maine. Environmental groups such as the New Brunswick-based Atlantic Salmon Federation say one of the major threats to the fish is fishing harvest off of Greenland. The federation says less than 40,000 pounds of the fish were harvested last year. That's the lowest total since 2005. The federation says that is a promising start to a new 12-year conservation agreement signed recently by a union that includes Greenland commercial fishermen. Greenland's fishermen have caught more than 125,000 pounds of salmon in the past. MAKASSAR, Indonesia (AP) - Floods and landslides in a central Indonesian province hit by torrential rains this week have killed 30 people and left more than two dozen missing, the national disaster agency said Thursday. Ten districts and cities in South Sulawesi province including the capital, Makassar, have been affected by flooding that began late Tuesday, forcing more than 3,000 people to flee their homes. Adnan Purichta Ichsann, the chief of Gowa district near Makassar, says operators of the Bili Bili rock-fill embankment dam were forced to release water on Tuesday, which contributed to flooding but avoided a worse disaster. South Sulawesi Gov. Nurdin Adbullah told local media that siltation of the dam and deforestation of the upstream watershed worsened the floods. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said 30 people were confirmed dead and 25 were reported missing. The head of the provincial disaster agency, Syamsibar, who goes by a single name, said the amount of rainfall was declining Thursday and the Bili Bili dam's water level had dropped by about two meters (6.6 feet). A woman carries her daughter as she wades through a flooded neighborhood in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Torrential rains that overwhelmed a dam and caused landslides killed at least six people and displaced more than 2,000 in central Indonesia, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Yusuf Wahil) Deadly landslides and floods are a frequent occurrence during seasonal rains in Indonesia, with man-made changes to the environment often worsening so-called natural disasters. A landslide in Sukabumi on the country's most populous island of Java earlier this month killed 32 people. Residents push a motorbike at a flooded neighborhood in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Torrential rains that overwhelmed a dam and caused landslides killed at least six people and displaced more than 2,000 in central Indonesia, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Masyudi Syachban Firmansyah) A woman sits on a rubber boat as she is evacuated from a flooded neighborhood in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Torrential rains that overwhelmed a dam and caused landslides killed at least six people and displaced more than 2,000 in central Indonesia, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Yusuf Wahil) JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited the largest protests in years in Muslim-majority Indonesia was freed Thursday after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, the former governor of Jakarta, left a paramilitary police prison outside the capital early Thursday with members of his family, said his spokesman Sakti Budiono, avoiding waiting supporters and media. In 2016, Purnama made lighthearted campaign-trail comments that voters shouldn't heed his detractors who said the Quran prohibits Muslims from being led by Christians. Hard-liners seized on the remarks as blasphemy, triggering protests that brought hundreds of thousands of white-robed Muslims to the center of Jakarta. He was defeated in an election by a rival aligned with the protesters and sentenced to prison in May 2017 for blaspheming the Quran. Rights groups said the sentence highlighted why the easily abused blasphemy law should be repealed. Days before being freed, Purnama posted online that he didn't want supporters to make a fuss about his release and apologized to Jakarta civil servants, including "even my haters" that he'd offended by being rude and arrogant. The movement against Purnama, an ally of President Joko Widodo, brought fringe Islamic groups into the political mainstream and rattled the government, highlighting the mingling of religion with politics in Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy. FILE - In this May 9, 2017, file photo, then Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, center, talks to his lawyers after his sentencing hearing at a court in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 9, 2017. The polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited protests that were the largest in Muslim-majority Indonesia in years was freed Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019 after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. (Bay Ismoyo/Pool Photo via AP, File) Widodo subsequently chose a conservative cleric as his running mate for April's presidential election, hoping to deflect attacks that he is insufficiently Islamic. Last week he announced the release of a radical cleric linked to the Bali bombers and other extremists, but back-tracked within days as local and international criticism grew. Widodo told reporters on Wednesday that Purnama, who was his deputy governor before he was elected president in 2014, had "gone through a legal process" and he currently had no plans to meet him. It's unclear if Purnama will return to politics but in a handwritten note posted on Instagram earlier this week he told supporters to not be discouraged and to vote for candidates in April's presidential and legislative elections who support diversity. Islamic Defenders Front member Novel Bakmumin, who filed a police complaint that led to Purnama being investigated for blasphemy, said the former governor should stay out of politics. "I hope Ahok will not repeat a mistake that can cause unrest among Muslims, not only in Indonesia but in the world, because Islam is not his realm to be critical of, he should take care of his own religion," he said. Purnama, part of the tiny ethnic Chinese minority in Indonesia, was popular with Jakarta's middle class for efforts to stamp out corruption and make the teeming capital more livable. But others were angered by his brash outspokenness and the demolition of slums that were home to Jakarta's poorest residents. An activist from the Friends of Ahok group said Purnama's true calling is politics and predicted he would "become a leader, whether a leader of a political party or a leader of this country." "He is a fighting politician, he fights against corruption, injustice and upholds order and democracy. That caused many people to dislike him and become his political enemies," said Hasan Nasbi. In an unlikely twist, the 2016 protests also provided opportunists with the impetus for an alleged plot to topple Widodo, the first Indonesian president not from the country's military and political elite. Police arrested numerous high-profile Indonesians, including a daughter of the founding president, accusing them of plotting to hijack the protests to cause chaos. Their apparent aim was to provide a pretext for military intervention that would unseat Widodo. They were later released and have not faced trial. Supporters of former Jakarta Gov. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, react outside a police prison in Depok, Indonesia, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. A polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited protests that were the largest in Muslim-majority Indonesia in years was freed Thursday after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) Supporters of former Jakarta Gov. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, gather outside a police prison in Depok, Indonesia, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. The polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited protests that were the largest in Muslim-majority Indonesia in years was freed Thursday after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) Supporters of former Jakarta Gov. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, hold a poster outside a police prison in Depok, Indonesia, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. The polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited protests that were the largest in Muslim-majority Indonesia in years was freed Thursday after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) Supporters of former Jakarta Gov. Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, hold a poster outside a police prison in Depok, Indonesia, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. The polarizing Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited protests that were the largest in Muslim-majority Indonesia in years was freed Thursday after serving nearly two years in prison for blasphemy. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) ORLAND PARK, Ill. (AP) - A man wanted in connection with the shooting death of an 18-year-old at a suburban Chicago mall has been taken into custody. Orland Park Police Cmdr. Tony Farrell says 20-year-old Jakharr Williams of University Park was arrested Wednesday without incident. He was wanted in connection with Monday's fatal shooting of Javon Britten of Richton Park. Police say Britten was shot in the center of Orland Square Mall and ran away before collapsing outside a clothing store. A bystander suffered a graze wound. Farrell did not give details about how Williams was tracked down, only saying Orland Park investigators and members of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force worked "almost around the clock" to track him down. Williams is being held until charges can be approved by the Cook County state's attorney's office. SEBRING, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on the shooting inside a Florida bank that killed five people (all times local): 9 p.m. Florida Department of Corrections records show the man arrested at a bank branch where five people were fatally shot was hired as a trainee prison guard in the state in November and resigned two weeks ago. Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund says 21-year-old Zephen Xaver was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a SunTrust Bank branch in that community. Hoglund says a man had contacted dispatch earlier and reported he had fired shots inside the bank before eventually surrendering after a SWAT team entered the building. Police didn't indicate a possible motive for the shooting or say what charges Xaver could face. Corrections records show Xaver was hired Nov. 2 for the trainee post at Florida's Avon Park Correctional Institution and resigned Jan. 9. No disciplinary issues were reported. A Highlands County Sheriff's SWAT vehicle is stationed out in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) ___ 7:45 p.m. Police investigators swarmed well after nightfall around a Florida bank where authorities say five people were fatally shot earlier in the day. Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund said 21-year-old Zephen Xaver was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a SunTrust Bank branch. He says a man had contacted dispatch and reported he had fired shots inside the bank and eventually surrendered after a SWAT team entered the building. No immediate motive was reported. Late Wednesday, police could be seen at the bank, located between a hotel and a hair salon in a business district of four-lane U.S. 27. A few miles (kilometers) away, police on Wednesday evening wrapped up a search at Xaver's nicely maintained, prefabricated double-wide home - set amid a neighborhood of similar homes. John Larose, who lives next door, told The Associated Press that Xaver and his mother had moved in several months ago. He says Xaver kept to himself, but he could hear Xaver playing and yelling at video games in the middle of the night No one answered when an Associated Press reporter knocked at Xaver's home. ___ 5 p.m. Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund says it has been "a tragic day" in his community after the fatal shooting of five people at a bank branch there. Hoglun said at a news conference that 21-year-old Zephen Xaver was arrested Wednesday afternoon at the SunTrust Bank branch. The chief says the community is reeling from what he called a "senseless crime." He didn't immediately identify the victims but called what happened a "significant loss." Authorities haven't said what charges Xaver could face or indicated a possible motive. Hoglund says a man called police dispatch Wednesday afternoon and reported that he had fired shots inside the bank. Authorities say initial negotiations failed to get the barricaded man to leave, so a sheriff's SWAT team entered to continue negotiations, and the man eventually surrendered. ___ 4:30 p.m. Authorities say five people have been killed in a shooting at a Florida bank. Sebring police Chief Karl Hoglund said during a news conference that Zephen Xaver was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a SunTrust Bank branch. Hoglund says a man contacted dispatch and reported that he had fired shots inside the bank. Police say initial negotiations to get the barricaded man to leave the bank were unsuccessful. The Highlands County Sheriff's Office SWAT team entered the bank to continue the negotiations, and the man eventually surrendered. Police didn't say what charges Xaver could face or indicated a possible motive. The victims were not immediately identified. A sheriff's department armored vehicle arrives at a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla. Authorities say they've arrested a man who fired shots inside the Florida bank. (The News Sun via AP) This undated photo provided by the Highlands County Sheriff's Office shows Zephen Xaver. Xaver opened fire inside a Florida bank Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, killing several people before surrendering to a SWAT team, police said. (Highlands County Sheriff's Office via AP) Sebring Police Chief Karl Hoglund wipes his head as he listens to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speak during a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., after authorities said five people were shot and killed at a SunTrust bank branch. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leaves a news conference with Highlands County sheriff Paul Blackman, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., after authorities said five people were shot and killed at a SunTrust Bank branch. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Law enforcement officials climb out a FBI mobile command center vehicle that is parked in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Law enforcement officers stand near a Florida Department of Law Enforcement vehicle that is parked in front of SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) A Sebring, Fla., police officer stands near a Highlands County Sheriff's SWAT vehicle that is stationed in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Law enforcement officials stand out in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Law enforcement officers look over papers out in front of a SunTrust bank, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) A Highlands County Sheriff's SWAT vehicle is stationed out in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Law enforcement officials take cover outside a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla. Authorities say they've arrested a man who fired shots inside the Florida bank. (The News Sun via AP) The (Antiguan) Extradition Act of 1993 provides the legal basis for extraditing offenders from each others jurisdiction, government sources said. New Delhi: Decks are being cleared for an early extradition of Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam-accused Mehul Choksi to India from tiny Caribbean nation Antigua, said government sources, fuelling speculation that the NDA government may want to showcase his return to India to face the law as its major achievement ahead of the general elections. The Indian governments position in the matter has been that there is already an existing facility between India and Antigua, where Mr Choksi has taken citizenship, that constitutes an extradition arrangement between India and (A&B) Antigua and Barbuda. The (Antiguan) Extradition Act of 1993 provides the legal basis for extraditing offenders from each others jurisdiction, government sources said. New Delhi is pursuing Mr Choksis return with the Government of Antigua through diplomatic and legal channels and has handed over a request for his extradition. When asked whether Mr Choksi is going to be extradited soon, officials said on Saturday that they are not aware of any fresh developments. However, tight-lipped sources in the security establishment told this newspaper that any such move would be confidential. If indeed Mr Choksi is extradited soon, this will be the second major success for the NDA government in the past few weeks. In December, alleged British middleman Christian James Michel was extradited to India from the UAE in the Rs 3,546 crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case. In September last year, Antigua had assured India of full cooperation in extradition matter of Mr Choksi. Foreign minister of Antigua & Barbuda Chet Greene had personally conveyed his countrys assurance to external affairs minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj during their bilateral meeting in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. On August 3 last year, New Delhi had issued a gazette notification that the provisions of the Extradition Act, 1962, shall apply with respect to Antigua and Barbuda with effect from 2001 i.e. when Antigua and Barbuda notified India as Designated Commonwealth Country under the provision of its own Extradition Act. This has enabled New Delhi to seek extradition of Mr Choksi from Antigua under this already-existing arrangement. Government sources had earlier said last year, The gazette notification on August 3, 2018, directs that the provisions of the Extradition Act, 1962, shall apply with respect to Antigua and Barbuda with effect from 2001. These notifications constitute an extradition arrangement between India and Antigua and Barbuda under their Extradition Act, 1993, and provides the legal basis for extraditing offenders from each others jurisdiction, said an official source. The tiny Caribbean nation had earlier claimed last year that it was told by Indian agencies that there was no adverse information against Mr Choksi when it did a background check on the fugitive billionaire before granting him citizenship in 2017, according to a local media report there. But India had swiftly set the record straight back then, saying that the police clearance certificate (PCC) was issued to Mr Choksi by passport office, Mumbai, for Antigua and Barbuda on March 16, 2017, since at that time there was a clear police verification report (PVR) available on his passport. What New Delhi had essentially said earlier was that there was nothing incriminating or adverse against Mr Choksi at that particular time as the scam surfaced later. WASHINGTON (AP) - A prominent American-born anchorwoman on Iranian state television who was held in the U.S. as a material witness was released from jail Wednesday evening. Marzieh Hashemi, 59, was released from jail in Washington after being detained for 10 days, according to Abed Ayoub, an attorney with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Hashemi, who works for the Press TV network's English-language service, was detained by federal agents Jan. 13 in St. Louis, Missouri, where she had filmed a Black Lives Matter documentary after visiting relatives in the New Orleans area, her son said. She was then transported to Washington and had remained behind bars since then. Hashemi appeared at least twice before a U.S. District judge in Washington, and court papers said she would be released immediately after her testimony before a grand jury. Court documents did not include details on the criminal case in which she was named a witness. Federal law allows judges to order witnesses to be detained if the government can prove that their testimony has extraordinary value for a criminal case and that they would be a flight risk and unlikely to respond to a subpoena. The statute generally requires those witnesses to be promptly released once they are deposed. A person familiar with the matter said Hashemi had fulfilled her obligation as a material witness and was released. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. In this image provided by Hossein Hashemi, Marzieh Hashemi, poses for a photo. An attorney with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee says the Iranian television anchorwoman has been released from a U.S. jail. Abed Ayoub said Marzieh Hashemi was released Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, after being detained for more than a week in Washington. (Hossein Hashemi via AP) Hashemi is a U.S. citizen and was born Melanie Franklin. She lives in Tehran and comes back to the United States about once a year to see her family, usually scheduling documentary work in the U.S., her son said. Her son, Hossein Hashemi, didn't immediately respond to a call seeking comment on Wednesday. Press TV issued a statement Wednesday, saying, "Marzieh Hashemi and her family will not allow this to be swept under the carpet. They still have serious grievances and want answers as to how this was allowed to happen. They want assurances that this won't happen to any Muslim - or any other person - ever again." The network said Hashemi would remain in Washington for a protest Friday. Hashemi's detention comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal. Iran also faces increasing criticism of its own arrests of dual citizens and other people with Western ties. Earlier Wednesday, dozens of activists protested outside the federal courthouse in Washington, where Hashemi was scheduled to appear before the grand jury. They held signs and chanted, "Free, free, Marzieh!" and "Shame, shame, USA!" Supporters of Marzieh Hashemi, an American-born anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster, demonstrate outside the Federal Courthouse where Hashemi will appear before a U.S. grand jury, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. She is in custody as a material witness. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) Supporters of Marzieh Hashemi, an American-born anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster, demonstrate outside the Federal Courthouse where Hashemi will appear before a U.S. grand jury, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. She is in custody as a material witness. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) Supporters of Marzieh Hashemi, an American-born anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster, demonstrate outside the Federal Courthouse where Hashemi will appear before a U.S. grand jury, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. She is in custody as a material witness. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) Supporters of Marzieh Hashemi, an American-born anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster, demonstrate outside the Federal Courthouse where Hashemi will appear before a U.S. grand jury, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. She is in custody as a material witness. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) Supporters of Marzieh Hashemi, an American-born anchor for Iran's state television broadcaster, demonstrate outside the Federal Courthouse where Hashemi will appear before a U.S. grand jury, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. She is in custody as a material witness. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen) WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Injury-plagued hooker Dane Coles has re-signed with New Zealand Rugby through the 2021 season, providing some good news to the All Blacks amid a growing exodus of top players. The 32-year-old Coles missed most of the last two seasons with a variety of injuries. He had a long battle with a concussion and struggled to overcome knee and calf problems, returning late last year on the All Blacks' tour to Japan and Britain. New Zealand rugby is used to losing players near the end of the careers, when they seek the financial security of big-money contracts in Europe or Japan. But the players now leaving to play overseas are much younger, choosing large club contracts over test caps. Flyhalf Lima Sopoaga and centers Mike Proctor and Malakai Fekitoa are among players to recently depart. Coles, a veteran of 60 tests, said injuries had prevented him achieving all he hoped with the All Blacks and Wellington-based Hurricanes. "I still feel like there are things that I want to achieve in New Zealand with teams that mean a lot to me," Coles said in a statement Thursday. ____ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas (all times local): 8 p.m. Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas is stepping down from her position as chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in addition to leaving her post as leader of one of the House Judiciary Committee's key subcommittees. The moves Wednesday come after a lawsuit from a former employee who complained that her sexual assault complaint had been mishandled. The interim president and CEO of the foundation says Jackson Lee "values the foundation's ideals and does not want to be a distraction during the legal proceedings of the suit filed against the CBCF." Earlier, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler had said it was Jackson Lee's decision to step aside as chairwoman of the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee "to ensure the subcommittee's important work continues." FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2018, file photo, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. Jackson Lee is stepping down from her position as leader of one of the House Judiciary Committee's key subcommittees. The move comes after a lawsuit from a former employee who complained that her sexual assault complaint had been mishandled. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) In a statement last week, Jackson Lee's office denied allegations that it retaliated against the woman who filed the lawsuit. ___ 3:35 p.m. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas is stepping down from her position as leader of one of the House Judiciary Committee's key subcommittees. The move comes after a lawsuit from a former employee who complained that her sexual assault complaint had been mishandled. House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York says Jackson Lee's decision to step aside as chairwoman of the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee was voluntary and "does not suggest any culpability." Jackson Lee is also chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Congressional Black Caucus. Calls to Jackson Lee's office and to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation weren't immediately returned Wednesday. In a statement last week, Jackson Lee's office denied allegations that it retaliated against the woman who filed the lawsuit. WASHINGTON (AP) - The early days of the Democratic primary campaign are highlighting the party's diversity as it seeks a nominee who can build a coalition to take on President Donald Trump. Of the more than half dozen Democrats who have either moved toward a campaign or declared their candidacy, four are women: Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Harris is also African-American. Former Obama Cabinet member Julian Castro, who is Latino, has also joined the race. And on Wednesday, Democrat Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, jumped into the campaign. If he wins the Democratic nomination, he would be the first openly gay presidential nominee from a major political party. He would also be the youngest person ever to become president if he wins the general election. The diversity is likely to expand in the coming weeks as other Democrats enter the race. The field that's taking shape follows a successful midterm election in which Democrats elected a historically diverse class of politicians to Congress, a pattern they'd like to repeat on the presidential scale. Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, hailed the Democrats' multiple trailblazing candidates for reflecting that "the central opposition to Trump is around a vision of the country that's inclusive of all Americans." "A lot of different people are going to see that they can be part of the Democratic Party" thanks to a field that showcases women, candidates of color, and the first potential LGBT nominee, Tanden said. The primary "hopefully will bring a lot of people into the process," she added, recalling the high number of voters who engaged in a 2008 Democratic primary that featured a possible female nominee, Hillary Clinton, and the man who would become the first black president, Barack Obama. The array of backgrounds was on display Wednesday when Buttigieg spoke in personal terms about his marriage. In this Jan. 21, 2019, photo, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks to members of the media at her alma mater, Howard University in Washington. The 2020 presidential election already includes more than a half-dozen Democrats whose identities reflect the nation's growing diversity, as well as embody the coalition that helped Barack Obama first seize the White House in 2008. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) "The most important thing in my life - my marriage to Chasten - is something that exists by the grace of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court," Buttigieg told reporters. "So I'm somebody who understands - whether it's through that or whether it's through the fact that I was sent to war on the orders of the president - I understand politics not in terms of who's up and who's down or some of the other things that command the most attention on the news but in terms of everyday impacts on our lives." Gillibrand has put her identity as a mother at the core of her campaign, and Harris launched her campaign on this week's Martin Luther King holiday, a nod to her historic bid to become the first black woman elected president. A number of high-profile candidates remain on the sidelines, including two who would further bolster the diversity of the 2020 field: Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is black, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Booker, who's widely expected to join the presidential fray in the coming days, visited the pivotal early-voting state of South Carolina this week for public events honoring King and private meetings with local activists. Klobuchar is set to speak at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday about her work on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Booker and Harris also are members. The affable Midwesterner recently told MSNBC that her family "is on board" if she opts to run in 2020, though she's offered little clarity about her timetable to announce a decision. Though Klobuchar would be the fifth major female candidate in the Democratic primary, female candidates shouldn't be shoehorned into a "narrative" dominated by their identity that excludes the policies they're championing, said Virginia Kase, CEO of the League of Women Voters. Kase pushed back at one popular 2018 narrative in a recent interview, noting that that "every year is the year of the woman - the reality is that we've always been major contributors" in the electoral process. Rashad Robinson, executive director of the civil rights-focused nonprofit Color of Change, said in an interview that the diversity of the Democratic field is "a great thing and we should celebrate it," adding that, "Our work is always about changing the rules - changing the rules of who can run and who can rule and who can lead is incredibly important." But in addition to those "unwritten rules," Robinson pointed to the urgency of changing the "written rules" of American life, adding that "diversity alone does not mean structures and policies and practices that have held so many back will change" overnight. Meanwhile, three white male candidates who could scramble the race - former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke - are still weighing their own presidential plans. Biden addressed a key vulnerability in his potential candidacy this week by publicly airing regret about his support for a 1994 crime bill that's had particularly negative effects on African-American communities, while Sanders built his own new connections to black voters during a trip to South Carolina. As Biden mulls a run for president, his allies have been sending supporters a memo that could serve as a rationale for a campaign. The memo hails Biden's long track record in politics and argues that at a time of "unprecedented political chaos" during Trump's administration, Biden would offer "trustworthy, compassionate leadership." O'Rourke, for his part, continues to gauge his own future amid pundits' criticism about blog posts he published during a recent road trip through multiple states. The 46-year-old Texan acknowledged that he's been "in and out of a funk" following his departure from Congress after losing a high-profile Senate race in November, sparking questions about the luxury of his indecision given the family wealth and network of passionate backers he can lean on. As the Democratic field is poised to become more diverse, Republicans say Trump will run for re-election based on his record. "The American people are better off now than they were two years ago because of President Trump's policies," said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Blair Ellis. "GDP and wages are up, unemployment has hit record lows, and industries across this country are thriving. These are the credentials the American voters want from their president and President Trump is the only person who can run on these results." ___ Associated Press writer Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report. In this Jan. 12, 2019, photo, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during a house party in Concord, N.H. The 2020 presidential election already includes more than a half-dozen Democrats whose identities reflect the nation's growing diversity, as well as embody the coalition that helped Barack Obama first seize the White House in 2008. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) FILE - In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, greets supporters in Honolulu. The 2020 presidential election already includes more than a half-dozen Democrats whose identities reflect the nation's growing diversity, as well as embody the coalition that helped Barack Obama first seize the White House in 2008 (AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File) ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York lawmakers voted Wednesday to extend state financial aid to students brought into the country illegally as children, a key liberal priority that had been blocked by Republicans for years until Democrats won control of the state Senate last fall. The so-called Dream Act will ensure that New York children will have the same access to state loans and grants no matter their legal status as American citizens. To be eligible, a person must have a New York high school diploma or the equivalent or meet the requirements for in-state tuition. California, Texas and four other states already have similar laws on the books. In New York, the measure is expected to cost $27 million annually. A new state commission and state fund would be created to identify private sources of funding for scholarships. The Senate passed the bill Wednesday afternoon, hours before the Assembly followed suit. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo supports the measure and is expected to sign it into law. "The dreamers are here. They are New Yorkers," said Assemblywoman Carmen De La Rosa, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the bill. "To the dreamers, I say this: Today we do this for you. The door to higher education is open to all." The measure was at the top of the list of priorities for Democrats, eager to push through a long list of bills that had been blocked in the Senate until the party won a majority in November. The Democrat-led Assembly had passed the bill eight times only to see it languish in the upper chamber. This year it was renamed the Jose Peralta NY Dream Act to honor the late Sen. Peralta of Queens, the bill's longtime Senate sponsor. Peralta died in November from complications of leukemia. Republicans in both the Senate and Assembly argued the Dream Act was unfair to taxpayers and immigrants who came legally and that people who entered the country illegally shouldn't be given the same level of state support. "It sends the wrong message to the millions who have worked their way through college and are still dealing with crippling student loan debt," said Sen. Fred Akshar, R-Broome County. Akshar then added that the Dream Act would "roll out the red carpet for illegals." Akshar's word choice didn't please some of his colleagues. "We are in a moment where words like 'illegal' are offensive," said Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County. "It is antiquated. It is outdated. And most importantly it is unkind." Similar exchanges played out in both chambers throughout the day, with Democrats accusing Republicans of being cruel to immigrants and Republicans defending their word choice as legally accurate. Students who had pushed for the bill cheered their success after so many years of effort. "It just opens up so many doors," said Eugenia Rodriguez, an 18-year-old Long Island woman who was brought here from Argentina when she was less than a year old. Because of the cost, she had to change from going to a four-year college to going to a two-year college for her associates' degree. She will begin classes next week. "There weren't many options financially for me to go with," she said. ___ Hajela reported from New York. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Adam Crapser lives in limbo, a stranger in South Korea, the country of his birth. Forcibly separated from his wife, children and friends in America, he is isolated by language and culture, left alone to navigate this sprawling city he's been expelled to four decades after being sent to adoptive parents in Michigan at age 3. Crapser was abused and abandoned by two different sets of adoptive parents in the United States; then he was deported after run-ins with the law because none of his guardians filed citizenship papers for him. He told The Associated Press in an interview that he has struggled in South Korea with intense anxiety and depression, even as he searches for answers about why his life has become defined by displacement. That search has led him to file a landmark lawsuit against South Korea's government and a private adoption agency, the Seoul-based Holt Children's Services, over what Crapser calls gross negligence regarding the way he and thousands of other Korean children were sent to the United States and other Western nations without accounting for their future citizenship. The 200 million won ($177,000) civil suit, which was described exclusively to the AP ahead of its filing Thursday by Crapser's lawyers in a Seoul court, exposes a dark side of South Korean adoptions, which exploded as a business during the 1970s and '80s when many children were carelessly and unnecessarily removed from their families. The country was then at the height of a so-called "child export" frenzy pushed by military dictatorships that focused on economic growth and reducing the number of mouths to feed. There was no stringent oversight of adoption agencies, which were infamous for aggressive child-gathering activities and fraudulent paperwork as they competed to send more children abroad at faster speeds. In this Jan. 2, 2019, photo, South Korean adoptee Adam Crapser speaks during an interview in Seoul, South Korea. Crasper was deported from the U.S. four decades after his adoption by American parents is suing the Seoul government and a private adoption agency over what he calls gross negligence. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) Crapser's case also highlights the shaky legal status of possibly thousands of South Korean adoptees in the United States whose parents may have failed to get them citizenship, potentially leaving them vulnerable to deportation if they acquire a criminal record in a country that's becoming increasingly aggressive about going after undocumented immigrants. Crapser, who was named Shin Seong-hyeok by his Korean mother, is one of five adoptees who the Seoul government confirms now live in South Korea after being deported from the United States. Several of the deportees have reportedly dealt with mental health issues and served jail time in South Korea for assault and other crimes. Activists say the South Korean government has done a poor job tracking deported adoptees and that the real number is almost certainly larger. Officials wouldn't provide details about the other deportees. In South Korea, human rights lawsuits against the government can drag on for years and are rarely successful because the burden of proof in non-criminal cases is entirely on the plaintiffs, who often lack information and resources. Even if Crapser wins, the payout will likely be significantly smaller than what was demanded, considering past cases, according to Soh Rami, one of his lawyers. Crapser said the amount of money is less important than forcing officials from Holt and the government into a courtroom to face questions of accountability. He said the government and Holt are responsible for failing to follow through on his adoption and ensuring that his American parents naturalized him. Because he wasn't a citizen, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered him deported in November 2016 over criminal convictions, including unlawful possession of a firearm and assault. His lawsuit also attempts to hold Holt and the government accountable for supposedly fraudulent paperwork over his adoption status. Most South Korean adoptees, including Crapser, were documented as abandoned, even in cases where they had known parents or were simply lost, which made them easily adoptable under U.S. laws. He also seeks to hold the government responsible for allowing foreigners to adopt babies without actually visiting South Korea, which Crapser blames for screening failures that led to his adoption by abusive parents. The lawsuit cites the government as responsible for allowing adoptions to be controlled by profit-driven agencies that ran on fees collected from foreign parents. It wasn't until 2013 that South Korea required international adoptions of Korean children to go through local family courts. "It's a daily struggle to survive and to continue to want to push forward and want some justice and want some accountability and want some answers," Crapser, now 43, told AP. "For everything to fall apart and for everything to happen the way it has, most people wouldn't be alive here to talk." Kim Ho Hyun, Holt's president, said the agency followed the laws and procedures of the time and that it was mainly the responsibility of U.S. parents and institutions to ensure that adoptees obtained citizenship. Seong Chang-hyeon, an official from South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare, said the government is trying to improve welfare services for deported adoptees while also consulting with Washington over possible U.S. legal changes that could prevent adoptee deportations. The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which couldn't immediately be reached for comment. Currently living in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in Seoul, Crapser said the deportation has seriously strained his marriage and he often sinks into dark moods over his inability to be actively involved in the lives of his children. He described the difficulties of being stuck in a country where he doesn't speak the language, including dismissive treatment at public offices and monthly visits to a psychiatrist who can't really speak English. While he talked fondly about meeting with his Korean mother every few months, he also expressed frustration over what he sees as a social stigma against adoptees here. He has eight more years before he's eligible to return to the United States. About 200,000 South Koreans were adopted overseas during the past six decades, the majority to American couples. More than 4,000 Korean children were sent abroad in 1979, the year Crapser arrived in the United States. Agency board members with ties to the military dictators of the day were less worried about child welfare than maintaining a business that brought in as much as $20 million a year by some estimates, critics say. Reached on the telephone, Crapser's birth mother, Kwon Pil-ju, sobbed and said she felt like she had "horribly sinned" against her son. She said she was single, disabled and desperately poor, and that she finally decided to give her children away because of fears that they'd starve. They also have problems communicating - he can't speak Korean, she can't speak English, and they don't always have someone who could interpret. Crapser said he "definitely didn't win the lottery" when it came to his American parents. He and a sister were sent to what he says was an abusive couple in Michigan in 1979. Seven years later, the couple abandoned Crapser, then 10, and his sister, and he ended up with Thomas and Dolly Crapser, who he said would sometimes slam their children's heads against walls, strike them with kitchen utensils and burn them with heated objects. Repeated calls to the Crapser home went unanswered. In 1991, the couple was arrested on charges of physical child abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They were reportedly convicted in 1992 on multiple counts of criminal mistreatment and assault. Kicked out of his parents' house after an argument, Crapser pleaded guilty to burglary after he said he later broke into the home to retrieve a Korean-language Bible and a stuffed dog that came with him from a Korean orphanage. He was later convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm and assault. Crapser thought he had turned a corner, opening a barber shop and an upholstery business and starting a family, when he was served his deportation paperwork in 2015 after a green card application triggered a background check. "It's heartbreaking. A lot of the depression that I deal with, a lot of the hopelessness that I feel at times is attributed to the separation from my family that I created and not being able to be actually involved in their life every day like I was," he said. ___ Follow Kim Tong-hyung at www.twitter.com/@KimTongHyung In this Jan. 2, 2019, photo, South Korean adoptee Adam Crapser speaks during an interview in Seoul, South Korea. Crasper was deported from the U.S. four decades after his adoption by American parents is suing the Seoul government and a private adoption agency over what he calls gross negligence. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) - A Chicago suburb has tentatively agreed to pay a former doctoral student $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit alleging police officers tackled him to the ground and arrested him for stealing a car that turned out to be his own, his attorney said. Evanston City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz confirmed a settlement was reached with Lawrence Crosby, who was 25 and an engineering doctoral student at Northwestern University in 2015 when the incident occurred. Bobkiewicz declined to provide the amount of the settlement pending final approval by the City Council next week. Crosby's attorney, Timothy Touhy, told the Chicago Tribune that the amount was $1.25 million. The incident was one of several high-profile cases in the Chicago area in recent years involving violent, sometimes deadly encounters between police officers and black men. Last week, a judge sentenced a former Chicago police officer to nearly seven years in prison for the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, whose death was seen on a graphic dashcam video. Touhy said Crosby was trying to repair loose molding on his car when a woman called police to report a black man trying to steal a car. When he drove off, the woman followed Crosby in her car as he drove from his apartment to Northwestern's science building, giving police his location. Crosby got out the car with his hands raised after being stopped by police but was tackled when he failed to immediately obey orders to get on the ground. Police later determined the car belonged to Crosby but charged him anyhow with disobeying officers and resisting arrest. At the time of Crosby's arrest, an Evanston Police Department spokesman said the use of force by police was justified as officers were responding to what they thought was an auto theft. The spokesman said officers delivered knee strikes and open-handed strikes. A judge later threw out the charges, Touhy said. The lawsuit asked the city of Evanston and the arresting police officers to pay at least $50,000 for compensatory and punitive damages and other relief. "It's his hope that as a result of this case, that all of us begin a discussion on implicit bias and begin to recognize it and begin to discuss it between yourselves and your friends," said Steven Yonover, who represented Crosby in the case. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - A man who was driving a vehicle when a passenger started shooting at a Missouri home, killing a sleeping 3-year-old boy, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. KMBC reports 26-year-old SirTerry Stevenson pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder and three other charges in the May 2015 death of Amorian Hale. Investigators say Stevenson was driving a vehicle when a passenger fired at a Kansas City home where the boy's family lived. Bullets from an assault-style rifle struck the house. The boy was struck in the head and died instantly. The passenger who fired the shot, Dominique Marchbanks, was sentenced to life plus 165 years in prison in December 2018. Two adults and three other children in the home were not injured. ___ Information from: KMBC-TV, http://www.kmbc.com NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - The University of Oklahoma is warning students that someone wearing blackface has been spotted walking on and around the campus in Norman. University officials notified students via text message Wednesday that campus police are investigating and that it is unknown whether the person is a student. The person has not been located. Several videos were posted to social media showing a man wearing black paint on his face and an OU hat walking near campus. The incident comes less than a week after two students withdrew from the university and apologized after a video surfaced in which one of the women wore blackface and used a racial slur. University President James Gallogly attended an anti-racism rally Tuesday and vowed to take action to target racism on campus. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - In an apparent exception to its sanctuary protections, San Francisco officials agreed on Wednesday to work with federal authorities to extradite a felony rape suspect from Canada. The legislation allows the city to notify immigration authorities if Mohamed Ben Azaza posts bail, is acquitted or if there isn't enough evidence to try him. The Department of Homeland Security made the request. San Francisco is a sanctuary for people who are in the country illegally and generally prohibits communication between employees and the federal government regarding a person's immigration status. There are strict rules on when cooperation is allowed. San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen joined two colleagues on the board's rules committee to approve the legislation, calling it a "technical clarification" demanded by an onerous Trump administration. She said the legislation is not an exception to the city's sanctuary protections because the case involves a defendant who is outside the country and must be brought back to face charges. Ronen, however, said that if Ben Azaza had remained in San Francisco, authorities would not be allowed to notify the Department of Homeland Services of his status except under narrow circumstances. A woman waits to cross the street in front of City Hall in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. In an apparent exception to its sanctuary protections, officials agreed on Wednesday to work with federal authorities to extradite a felony rape suspect from Canada. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) "We're not creating an exception or changing our sanctuary ordinance," she said. "The difference here is he's outside the country, and we're seeking to bring him back." The San Francisco Examiner first reported on the legislation. The newspaper reports Ben Azaza was driving for a ride-hailing company when he picked up a female passenger in 2017 and allegedly raped her while she was unconscious. He fled the United States and was detained in Montreal, Canada, in June. The full board will consider the legislation next week. The Trump administration has criticized San Francisco, California and other jurisdictions for granting protections to people who are living in the country illegally. Sanctuary advocates say communities are safer when people feel comfortable working with local police without fear of deportation. South African Prez Cyril Ramaphosa will be chief guest at the parade, which will be presided by the president of India, Kovind. New Delhi: On 70th Republic Day, elaborate arrangements have been made for celebrations across the country, especially in New Delhi, where the majestic parade will be held on the Rajpath. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be the chief guest at the parade, which will be presided by the president of India, Ram Nath Kovind. Ramaphosa was invited by PM Modi when the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina last year. Carrying forward the tradition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti memorial at the India Gate. Besides the several contingents of the Indian Army and other forces, the parade will also have representations from various states and ministries of the government. Twenty-two tableaux of states and central government departments, and performances by school children will be part of the 90-minute parade. From modern to traditional, the themes will be an eclectic mix of folk dances, music and drama. Here are the LIVE updates: 11:45 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds at Republic Day parade in Delhi #RepublicDay2019 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds at Republic Day parade in Delhi pic.twitter.com/rRl3ZK8jNr ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:35 am: PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi. PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi pic.twitter.com/XSd1B6Lrgw ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:20 am: 33 people on 9 motorcycles make a human pyramid, Subedar Major Ramesh A leads this formation. Photo: ANI | Twitter 11:15 am: Motorcyclists showcase Yoga display, at Rajpath during Republic Day parade Photo: ANI | Twitter 11:05 am: 26 children including 6 girls and 20 boys have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 #republicdayindia 26 children including 6 girls and 20 boys have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 pic.twitter.com/8xxrTEM2OX ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:02 am: Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel celebrating Republic Day at 18,000 feet and -30 degree celsius in Ladakh Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:42 am: Sweets exchanged between India and Pakistan at Attari-Wagah border. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:40 am: Tableaux of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra and Sikkim #RepublicDay2019 : Tableaux of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra and Sikkim pic.twitter.com/fumDqB7xQl ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:35 am: Camel Mounted Band of BSF at Rajpath. #republicdayindia : Camel Mounted Band of BSF playing 'Hum Hai Seema Suraksha Bal', at Rajpath pic.twitter.com/u7gdMHcsMU ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:24 am: The Veterans tableau-2019, it showcases the theme, 'Veterans: Accelerators in Nation's Growth' Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:20 am: On the occasion of 70th Republic Day, BSF exchange sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts, at Fulbari, at Indo-Bangladesh border near Siliguri in West Bengal. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:10 am: Visuals of the T-90 (Bhishma), the main battle tank of the Indian Army, commanded by Captain Navneet Eric of 45 Cavalry. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:05 am: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, awarded the Ashok Chakra. Award was received by his wife and mother. Photo: ANI | Twitter 10:02 am: President Kovind unfurls Indian flag. 10:00 am: PM Modi receives President Ram Nath Kovind with the R-Day chief guest South African President Cyril Ramaphosa 09:45 am: PM Modi pays tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. #RepublicDay2019 pic.twitter.com/mykhT7oxxP ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 09:00 am: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel takes part in Republic Day celebrations in Raipur. Photo: ANI | Twitter 08:50 am: Republic Day parade will begin at Rajpath at 09:50 am. Delhi: #RepublicDay2019 parade will begin at Rajpath at 9.50 am, prior to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti pic.twitter.com/ByzZ4nwZTs ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 08:47 am: Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal present at Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Bhubaneswar. Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal present at #RepublicDay2019 celebrations in Bhubaneswar. pic.twitter.com/iFF8PTzkjG ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 08:45 am: BJP President Amit Shah unfurls the tricolour at the party office in Delhi Photo: ANI | Twitter 08:00 am: Crowds gather for the Republic Day parade at Rajpath in Delhi. Crowds gather for the #RepublicDay2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest at the parade today. pic.twitter.com/dZCOKSXTiY ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 07:30 am: Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurls the national flag on Republic Day 2019. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam also present. Photo: ANI | Twitter 07:15 am: PM Modi wishes the nation on 70th Republic Day. Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians. # ! Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 26, 2019 07:00 am: The Delhi Traffic Police has advised commuters to plan their journeys in advance to avoid delays and avoid the route of Republic Day parade between Vijay Chowk and Red Fort grounds in the national capital. Photo: ANI | Twitter UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The new U.N. envoy for Colombia urged the government on Wednesday to swiftly implement its plan to protect social leaders, saying seven leaders were killed in just the first week of January. Carlos Ruiz Massieu told the Security Council that there have also been 31 attacks since Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' latest report was published earlier this month. According to the Colombian attorney general's investigations, three-quarters of the killings are from attacks by "criminal and armed groups" on leaders of "local action boards" and indigenous communities and those active in land reclamation and voluntary crop substitution programs, he said. Massieu urged the government to not only quickly implement its plan to protect leaders but to ensure the state's presence in the 10 areas where the killings have taken place. Since Colombia's government and the main rebel group, known as the FARC, signed a peace deal in 2016, a total of 87 members of the FARC have also been killed, Massieu said. He said this underscores the need for effective security for new settlements outside the training and reintegration areas where former combatants were initially sent and "where the vast majority of these killings have taken place." "The security of communities, leaders and FARC members are ultimately tied to the ability of the state to establish an integrated security and civilian presence in conflict-affected areas," he said. What is urgently required, Massieu said, is translating into effective action the government's "Peace with Legality" plan, which provides a roadmap for security. He also urged that the consensus of Columbians who rejected violence following the Jan. 17 bombing at the General Santander Police Academy that killed 21 people and injured dozens "continue to be nurtured." The National Liberation Army, the largest rebel group still fighting the government, claimed responsibility for the attack. Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes told the council that the country's congress is discussing projects related to implementing the "Peace with Legality" plan. He said 20 collective projects and 29 individual projects have been approved, generating income totaling $3.7 million, which will benefit 1,340 former FARC combatants. Holmes said the government condemns the killings of social leaders, human rights defenders and former FARC members. Colombia is taking measures to step up protection, including ahead of regional and local elections Oct. 27 that the FARC political party will take part in for the first time, and to provide "the most vulnerable communities and the victims and former combatants" with more security and better access to public services and goods, Holmes said. He said the government shares Guterres' assessment that reducing violence and insecurity is "linked to fighting illegal economic activity, especially drug trafficking." ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Environmentalists and nuclear watchdog groups raised dozens of objections Wednesday to an application filed by a New Jersey-based company seeking to build a multibillion-dollar facility in southeastern New Mexico to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors around the United States. Attorneys for the Sierra Club, Maryland-based Beyond Nuclear and several other groups presented their arguments and answered numerous questions posed by members of a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel during an hourslong meeting in Albuquerque. It will be up to the panel to determine which groups have standing and which objections will be considered as part of what's expected to be a lengthy process that comes as the national debate simmers over how to handle the radioactive fuel rods that have been building up at nuclear power plants around the country. Holtec International has applied for a license to construct the storage facility about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Carlsbad. It would eventually be capable of storing as much as 173,000 metric tons of high-level waste. Opponents have concerns about the project's legality, the potential environmental effects and the safety of transporting the fuel from power plants as far as the East Coast to the New Mexico desert. Terry Lodge, an attorney representing six of the groups, said there has been little discussion and no specifics offered by Holtec about possible transportation routes. He pointed to previous research done on Nevada's Yucca Mountain, a mothballed project that would have served as the federal government's permanent underground repository for such high-level waste. In this Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019 photo, Brendan Shaughnessy, left, with the Nuclear Issues Study Group, protests with other activists ahead of a meeting of a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel in Albuquerque, N.M. Environmentalists and nuclear watchdog groups are lining up against plans to build a $2.4 billion storage facility in southeastern New Mexico for spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors around the United States(AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan) Lodge told the panel members that millions of people live within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the transportation arteries that would likely be used, with most of that being railways. He also said barges could be used to move material along the Florida coast, up and down the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers, by the Massachusetts Bay and around Cape Cod. "This is a major national issue," said Lodge, who described the grass-roots groups and other citizens at the hearing as symbolic plaintiffs who represent the people elsewhere who could be affected. Some attorneys also argued that Holtec's application is based on an illegal premise and should be dismissed by the commission. They cited the federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which prevents the U.S. government from taking title to privately produced spent nuclear fuel until a final repository is operational. Holtec officials have argued that the waste could remain the property of the power plants and that its operation would be among the world's safest, most secure storage facilities. According to the company, the four-layer transportation casks that would hold the spent fuel would be made of thick steel and lead. The casks would be transported via a designated train with guards and guns. The company also contends the site in New Mexico is remote and geologically stable. But critics say regulators should consider that the area falls within one of the nation's most prolific oil and gas basins where there's no sign of the drilling boom slowing down. Eddy and Lea County officials have voiced support for the project, citing potential economic benefits for the region. Municipalities elsewhere in New Mexico and Texas have passed resolutions expressing concerns. It could be more than a month before the panel makes a decision on how the case proceeds. Another company also has applied for a license to build a similar storage facility in West Texas. Critics say they're worried that approval in either case could take pressure off the federal government to find a permanent solution for the waste. TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A New Jersey prosecutor's office said Wednesday that it won't charge a former state official accused of sexual assault by another employee in Gov. Phil Murphy's administration, citing "a lack of credible evidence." Katie Brennan, who is chief of staff of the state's housing finance agency, accused Albert Alvarez of sexually assaulting her in 2017 when they were both working to get Murphy elected. Alvarez, who left as the chief of staff of the Schools Development Authority in October when a news account of the accusation was about to come out, has denied the allegation through his attorney. "Due to a lack of credible evidence and corroboration that a crime was committed, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office will not be filing any criminal charges in this matter," the office said in a statement. Brennan's attorney said she was disappointed with the decision. Messages seeking comment were left with Alvarez's attorney. Brennan is suing the state over its handling of her allegation, which she reported to law enforcement after the alleged April 2017 assault as well as to officials in the governor's transition and administration. She has said the administration botched its response to her claims, which officials have testified that they found to be credible. Murphy has defended his administration's handling of the allegations, which included his chief counsel alerting the office's ethics adviser. But he also has said he wishes Alvarez was never hired to work in the administration after the campaign. Who hired Alvarez is not clear. FILE- In this Dec. 4, 2018 file photo, Katie Brennan, the chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, raises her hand as she is sworn-in to testify before the Select Oversight Committee at the Statehouse, in Trenton, N.J. On Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's office said that it would not be filing charges against Albert Alvarez, whom Brennan accused of sexually assaulting her in 2017, when they were both working to get Gov. Phil Murphy elected, citing "a lack of credible evidence." (AP Photo/Mel Evans, File) Murphy's chief of staff and chief counsel asked Alvarez to leave in March and June, but they stopped short of firing him. He left when it was clear that the Wall Street Journal was about to publish an account of Brennan's accusations in October. The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are sexual assault victims unless they grant permission or come forward publicly, as Brennan did. The fallout from the accusation has led to a legislative committee investigation into Murphy's handling of Brennan's allegations. It also led to the review by the Middlesex prosecutor, ordered by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal after the Hudson County prosecutor initially failed to bring charges and when the Hudson prosecutor recused herself after she realized she knew both the accuser and accused. She added that that did not affect the decision not to bring charges. The Middlesex prosecutor has not detailed what it did in its review, but the office said it conducted an independent review of criminal allegations and declined to bring charges. "We are deeply disturbed and disappointed by this egregious miscarriage of justice," Brennan's attorney, Katy McClure, said in a statement. "The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office failed Katie Brennan. The governor's staff failed her. The attorney general failed her. And now the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office has failed her as well." Murphy has also hired former state Supreme Court Justice Peter Verniero to review his administration's handling of the case. Murphy said Wednesday he did not know when Verniero's review would be done. "I would hope it's imminent," he said at an unrelated event earlier Wednesday. PHOENIX (AP) - Daniel Briones has a degree in economics and a job in banking, but his future could not feel less certain. The 30-year-old in San Marcos, Texas, is a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children but don't have legal status here. President Donald Trump's latest plan to reopen the federal government would extend the program's protections for another three years, but the idea is likely dead on arrival and no one knows what comes next. Commonly referred to as "dreamers," the recipients of the Obama-era program known as DACA have spent nearly five years dealing with constant threats to the system, which changed their lives by allowing them to work legally and shielding them from deportation. It has been challenged in lawsuits and congressional legislation. Then came Trump's announcement in 2017 that he was ending it altogether, although the federal courts nixed that plan. The fate of about 700,000 dreamers hangs in the balance, and many say they are growing weary of being pawns in every political battle over immigration. "I think they don't really understand how we feel, or the uncertainty. They want to play back-and-forth politics and try to use us as a means for change. But at the same time, they don't feel how we are feeling," Briones said. Maxima Guerrero poses for a photo in Phoenix on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children see little reason to be hopeful about the latest proposal to extend protections to them as part of President Donald Trump's plan to reopen the federal government. Guerrero, a Phoenix activist who has had Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) protections since 2013, the court challenges, the politics and the perpetual debate involving the program has taken an emotional toll. (AP Photo/Matt York) "It's really hard for us to be able to wake up every day and go to work every day knowing we don't know even know what's going to happen in the future," he said. Trump proposes to extend the program for three years but only for those currently enrolled and with drastic changes that advocates regard as non-negotiable. Democrats also dismissed the offer. A Senate GOP bill introduced last weekend would require recipients to reapply while also doubling the cost of applying. Applicants would have to prove they earn at least 125 percent of the poverty level while in the U.S. and to pay back tax credits that they legally obtained while working. The bill would also severely restrict asylum and temporary protected status. "The 'deal' that Trump proposed over the weekend is no deal at all. Trump created a horrific crisis, and this bill is Stephen Miller's ransom note," said Sanaa Abrar, advocacy director for United We Dream, referring to a senior Trump adviser. For Maxima Guerrero, a Phoenix activist who has had DACA protections since 2013, the court challenges, the politics and the perpetual debate involving the program has taken an emotional toll. "I don't only exist to hear the news about DACA," Guerrero said. Reyna Montoya, another DACA recipient in the Phoenix area, said decisions are hard to make when the future of the program is in doubt. Montoya founded Aliento, an Arizona advocacy group that helps immigrant youths. "Can I even plan a future? What happens to my life? Should I get married? Should I even have kids? This is the country that I love," said Montoya, 28. Gaby Cruz, a 29-year-old community organizer in California with United We Dream, feels continuous uncertainty over her future, too. She was brought here when she was just a year old. "It's just a constant, overwhelming need to know what's going on and the feeling of uncertainty that I have," Cruz said. Cruz, a banker-turned-activist, was sitting at her desk at a private mortgage company in 2017 when Trump announced he was ending the program. She soon quit her job and joined United We Dream. The deal proposed by Republicans is no bargain, she said, not just because of the way it changes DACA but because of how it would affect other immigrants, like those protected by temporary status or asylum-seekers from Central America. "I feel like our community has been constantly under attack by this administration since 2017," Cruz said. "It's hard not to watch when it affects your daily life." Maxima Guerrero poses for a photo in Phoenix on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children see little reason to be hopeful about the latest proposal to extend protections to them as part of President Donald Trump's plan to reopen the federal government. Guerrero, a Phoenix activist who has had Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) protections since 2013, the court challenges, the politics and the perpetual debate involving the program has taken an emotional toll. (AP Photo/Matt York) LOS ANGELES (AP) - After helping broker an end to a teachers strike that marooned more than half a million students, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday the deal shows that government is solving problems in Los Angeles while Washington remains hobbled by a lengthy shutdown. The Democratic mayor, who is considering a 2020 White House run, called the pact a national model that shows how deeply divided factions can find common ground. The teachers union in the nation's second-largest school district ended a walkout Tuesday after winning higher wages and cuts in class sizes. "All politics in this country seem to be about pulling each other apart. This is what we can get when we pull together," the mayor said in an interview. "I believe Americans do want great schools wherever they are, in the same way that Americans want a Washington that functions and isn't in the longest shutdown in our history." The strike that began Jan. 14 threatened the mayor's argument that local government is where progress is made in America, while highlighting the risks of launching a presidential campaign from City Hall. No sitting mayor has ever been elected to the White House. Garcetti suspended consideration of a 2020 candidacy with teachers on the picket lines, but indicated Wednesday a decision was not far off. "Stay tuned," he said. Garcetti said the resolution of a strike that once seemed insoluble - along with improvements for teachers and students - "shows what kind of leadership we have here. ... Accomplishing things is always better than dividing one another." FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019 file photo Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, talks during a news conference at City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. While Washington remains hobbled by a shutdown and deep partisanship, Garcetti says the resolution of a teachers strike shows that government can bridge divides and bring improvements to schools. "It's a national model for what we can do," says Garcetti, who plans to soon decide if he will enter the 2020 White House contest. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File) Political scientist Jack Pitney said the end of the walkout will free up time Garcetti needs to make a 2020 decision, though it's unlikely to add much luster to his resume. Outside of Southern California "not many people are paying attention," said Pitney, who teaches at Claremont McKenna College. With the Democratic field growing larger each day, the mayor faces increasing pressure to make a decision because he could fall behind in crucial fundraising. Even on his home turf he would be competing for those dollars with another Californian, Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, who entered the race on Monday. If he gets into the race "he needs to establish his unique selling proposition, what sets him apart from the other candidates," Pitney said. The mayor has no direct authority in the Los Angeles Unified School District, but Garcetti said he was compelled to get involved because success of the schools is directly linked to the success of the city. His role that began quietly months ago evolved into mediator, note-taker, shuttle diplomat, arm-twister - even therapist, he quipped - between the union and the school administration. He described a bargaining environment that for months was devoid of trust, with each side unwilling to listen to the other. Even when a deal was close early Tuesday morning, both sides nearly walked out over a long-running dispute over a provision that allows the district to unilaterally increase class size during times of financial strain. The talks "actually went off the cliff," Garcetti recalled. "The union said 'We're done.'" With negotiators from both sides packing up at City Hall, Garcetti said he began urging district Superintendent Austin Beutner and union President Alex Caputo-Pearl to give it another chance. The three talked and the disputed language was eventually withdrawn. "We had a deal," the mayor said. DENVER (AP) - The Latest on a planned strike by Denver teachers (all times local): 3:20 p.m. Denver school officials have asked the state to intervene in its pay dispute with teachers, a move that will delay a strike that had been scheduled to start Monday. Denver Public Schools followed through with its plan to ask for help from the state labor department on Wednesday after teachers overwhelmingly voted to strike. Alexandra Hall, the director of the department's labor division, says the teachers' union will be asked to respond to the district's request. Until they do and the department decides whether to get involved, she says the union can't strike. That process could take up to 24 days but it all depends on how long the union takes to respond and the state to decide. FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, file photograph, a teacher wears a button on a union shirt in the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the union's headquarters in south Denver. Teachers voted Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, to authorize a strike, which would be the first called in 25 years in the state's largest school district. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) Union negotiator Rob Gould says the union will respond quickly. He says a strike won't happen Monday but he couldn't say how soon it could begin after that. ____ 12:20 p.m. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is trying to see if he can help prevent Denver teachers from striking next week. Polis said Wednesday that he would meet with representatives of the school district and the teachers' union to see if he could "play a role in bringing them together." But the Democrat who has vowed to increase school funding declined to elaborate. Teachers announced a strike vote Tuesday. The earliest they could walk off the job is Monday. However, the state labor department could also intervene and put the strike on hold for up to 180 days. Denver superintendent Susana Cordova says the school district will ask the state to step in but it's up to the department to decide whether to get involved. FILE - In this Jan. 10, 2019 file photo, Colorado Governor Jared Polis enters the House of Representatives chamber to make his first State of the State address to a joint session of the Colorado Legislature in Denver. Polis said Wednesday, Jan. 23, he is seeking to prevent Denver teachers from walking off the job next week after they overwhelmingly voted to strike over pay. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) CHICAGO (AP) - McDonald's is getting ready to test the idea that bacon goes with everything. The fast food giant will offer free bacon slices with everything ordered between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. local time on Tuesday to celebrate its limited-time offer of bacon on some of its classic menu items. During bacon hour, McDonalds will give everyone two slices of bacon that they can put on anything. McDonald's Chef Michael Haracz says there really is no such thing as too much bacon. Outside of the promotion, the restaurant will offer its Big Mac, Quarter Pounder and french fries with bacon. LOUISBURG, N.C. (AP) - A teacher's aide in North Carolina has been given a 10-day jail sentence and a year's probation after being found guilty of using corporal punishment on a handicapped child. WNCN in Raleigh reports a Franklin County judge found 61-year-old Margaret Harris guilty of a misdemeanor charge of striking a handicapped person. A former co-worker testified she saw Harris hit the 12-year-old girl multiple times last April, hard enough to bend a large kitchen spoon and leave bruises. Harris denied the charges. Harris, who lost her job, also must perform 24 hours of community service and undergo a mental health evaluation. Trial concluded Tuesday. The girl's mother says her daughter has Potocki-Lupski syndrome, described online as a genetic disorder which can cause developmental delay and shows some behaviors associated with autism. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Astronomers managed to capture the moment of an impact during this week's eclipsed moon. Spanish astrophysicist Jose Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva said Wednesday it appears a rock from a comet slammed into the moon during the total lunar eclipse late Sunday and early Monday. The strike was seen by telescopes in Spain and elsewhere as a bright flash. Madiedo said it's the first impact flash ever seen during a lunar eclipse, although such crater-forming impacts are common. The object hit at an estimated 10 miles (17 kilometers) per second, and was 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and 12 inches (30 centimeters) across, according to Madiedo. Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles also recorded the impact during its livestream of the eclipse. A second flash was seen a minute after the first by some observers, said Anthony Cook, an astronomical observer at Griffith. "It was in the brightest part of the moon's image," Cook said of the second suspected strike, "and there might not be enough contrast for the flash to be visible in our video." This image from video provided by Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles shows an impact flash on the moon, bottom left, during the lunar eclipse which started on Sunday evening, Jan. 20, 2019. Spanish astrophysicist Jose Maria Madiedo of the University of Huelva said Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, it appears a rock from a comet slammed into the moon. (Griffith Observatory via AP) Madiedo said lunar impact monitoring generally is conducted five days before and after a new moon, when flashes can be easily observed. To take advantage of the three-plus-hour eclipse, he set up four extra telescopes in addition to the four he operates at the observatory in Seville. "I did not want to miss any potential impact event," he explained in an email. "I could not sleep for almost two days, setting up and testing the extra instruments, and performing the observation during the night of Jan. 21," he wrote. "I was really exhausted when the eclipse was over." Then computer software alerted him to the impact. "I jumped out of the chair I was sitting on. I am really happy, because I think that the effort was rewarded," he said. Moon monitoring can help scientists better predict the rate of impacts, not just at the moon but on Earth, Madiedo noted. He helps run the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System, or MIDAS , in Spain. ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Proposals by a U.S. judge to prevent Pacific Gas & Electric Co. equipment from causing more wildfires would endanger lives, could cost as much as $150 billion and would interfere with the work of federal and state regulators, the utility said Wednesday in a court filing urging the judge not to impose the measures. PG&E said it's committed to system upgrades and wildfire prevention but contended that a criminal case being handled by U.S. District Judge William Alsup was not the right forum to address such measures. Earlier this month, Alsup proposed ordering PG&E to remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines, poles or equipment in high-wind conditions and to document its inspections and work. He also proposed ordering PG&E to reinspect its entire electric grid and to cut off power during certain wind conditions regardless of the inconvenience to customers or loss of profit. The legal arguments came as PG&E is facing hundreds of lawsuits from wildfire victims over catastrophic California wildfires in the past two years that killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes. The utility announced on Jan. 14 that it will file for bankruptcy protection in the face of at least $30 billion in potential liability from the fires. FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2019 file photo, Pacific Gas & Electric vehicles are parked at the PG&E Oakland Service Center in Oakland, Calif. U.S. prosecutors are urging a federal judge to work with a court-appointed monitor to determine ways Pacific Gas & Electric Co. can prevent its equipment from starting more wildfires. In a court filing Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco said Judge William Alsup should refrain from immediately imposing new requirements on the utility. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File) PG&E said in its court filing Wednesday that complying with all of Alsup's proposals could cost as much as $150 billion and require massive rate hikes. The proposals, aimed at stopping fires this year, would require the utility to remove an estimated 100 million trees, causing significant environmental consequences, PG&E said. Shutting down power affects first responders, critical medical care and phone service and is potentially fatal, the utility added. Alsup's proposals could also blackout large parts of the Western U.S. and Canada because the utility's power lines are part of a network that provides power to those massive regions, PG&E said. The judge's measures would interfere with the "role of state and federal regulators without fully accounting for the risks that some of those actions may create" or assessing whether the significant costs it would create are necessary, the legal filing said. U.S. prosecutors urged Alsup on Wednesday to work with a court-appointed monitor to determine ways PG&E could prevent its equipment from starting wildfires. In its court filing, the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco said Alsup should refrain from immediately imposing new requirements on the utility. Alsup has scheduled a hearing on Jan. 30 to discuss his proposals. PG&E said it did not object to additional oversight by a monitor appointed by the court. Alsup is overseeing a jury verdict against PG&E involving the deadly explosion of a company gas pipeline in 2010. The judge is eyeing the wildfire requirements as part of PG&E's probation in the criminal case. Alsup has noted that California fire investigators have determined that PG&E caused 18 wildfires in 2017 - 12 of which could result in criminal prosecution. Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty ground here on the 70th Republic Day. Aizawl: Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty ground here on the 70th Republic Day, due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. No member from the general public attended the function, police said adding that only ministers, legislators and top officials were present. The boycott call was given by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies. Six armed contingents participated in the Republic Day parade, officials said. Up to 30 contingents traditionally take part in the annual event. In other district headquarters, the deputy commissioners unfurled the tricolour in the absence of senior officials and public, as was the case in sub-divisional and block headquarters. However, the Republic Day celebrations passed off peacefully without any untoward incident, despite the presence of placard-carrying protesters near the venues, police said. In his address, Rajasekharan said stringent measures would be taken to protect state borders, and welfare schemes for the development of people residing in border areas would be given due importance. He said measures would be taken for execution of Mizoram Village-Level Citizen Registration, and emphasised that the state government is committed to preserve and promote the Mizo identity, tradition and values. "This government will endeavour to work for the unity and brotherhood of all Mizo people living within India and across the globe within our constitutional framework," he said. The governor said Mizoram would introduce the Socio-Economic Development Policy (SEDP), a "holistic inclusive development programme aimed at bringing in socio- economic transformation". The SEDP would accelerate growth in all key sectors where the state has tremendous potential, he said. Hinting that prohibition on liquor would be reimposed in the state, he said, "In keeping with our election manifesto, necessary measures will be taken to repeal the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) Act, 2014, implemented in the state since January 15, 2015." Rajasekharan added that his government would continue to work towards making Mizoram the "cleanest state in India". COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The federal government agreed Wednesday to allow federally funded foster care agencies in South Carolina to deny services to same-sex or non-Christian couples. The waiver issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will allow Greenville's Miracle Hill Ministries to continue as a state-supported foster care agency. As part of the waiver's requirements, any family that Miracle Hill does not allow to take care of foster children must be referred to other agencies or the state Department of Social Services. The exemption was needed because a regulation from President Barack Obama's administration prevents publicly licensed and funded foster care agencies from serving specific religions. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster asked for the waiver. He said President Donald Trump deserved credit for making sure South Carolina keeps as many groups as it can to help place foster children. The waiver request said Miracle Hill Ministries is responsible for up to 15 percent of foster care placements in the state. "As Americans, our fundamental right to practice religion, regardless of our faith, will not be in jeopardy under this administration," McMaster said in a statement. Gay rights groups and non-Christian religious groups opposed the waiver, saying it would cut down on the number of people willing to be foster parents and allows public money to take away rights. "Let's call this decision what it is: state-sanctioned and government-funded discrimination," said Christina Wilson Remlin, lead lawyer of Children's Rights. The group has successfully sued South Carolina over its foster care system for placing too many children in institutions, taking children too far away from their biological families and denying treatment for the medical needs of foster children. McMaster has said he would have asked for a waiver for a Jewish or Muslim organization because he said the issue isn't Christianity but the constitutional protection of religion. VIRGINIA, Minn. (AP) - An Indiana man pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing his girlfriend whose wrapped and bound body was found in a shallow grave in northern Minnesota last year. Daniel Lynn, 40, of South Bend, Indiana, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder without intent while committing a felony. A second count of intentional second-degree murder was dropped as part of a plea deal, KBJR-TV reported. Lynn was charged in the death of 28-year-old Christina Woods, also of South Bend. Woods' remains were discovered last July on property owned by a family member of Lynn's near Cook, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Duluth. Under questioning by the prosecution, Lynn admitted travelling with Woods to his family's farmhouse on June 12, 2018. Lynn also admitted he strangled Woods at the farmhouse. According to the complaint, Woods' stepfather received a text message from her phone on June 13 saying she was in trouble and needed to be picked up. Two hours later, he received a text from the same number saying Woods was fine. Phone records showed Woods was in the Eveleth, Minnesota, area around June 12. When authorities checked Lynn's family property, they found the lawn was freshly mowed and saw bleach and other cleaning materials. Lynn told investigators he was at his family's property in June to open the cabin for the rest of his family but denied knowing where Woods was or having anything to do with her disappearance. Investigators found a fire pit on the property that included metal buttons from jeans and a necklace. Woods' body was found, wrapped and bound, in a fresh grave. A Crime Stoppers tip to law enforcement in Indiana said Lynn and his wife were packing to leave the area, and that Lynn had said he had killed someone but that the body would not be located, according to the complaint. Lynn's wife told investigators that her husband had strangled Woods and that she saw it, the complaint said. Lynn later was captured in a campground near Edwardsburg, Michigan. The St. Louis County Attorney's office says Lynn is expected to receive a 16-year sentence when he is sentenced Feb. 25. Lynn's attorney did not immediately return a phone message for comment Wednesday. LOS ANGELES (AP) - After five decades, Jimmy Page's dragon has re-emerged from its lair. Fender instruments on Wednesday gave the public its first look at its recreation of a Telecaster guitar that Page once painted with a dragon, a long-lost piece of six-string history that marked the guitar hero's last days in the Yardbirds and first days in Led Zeppelin. The instrument with the psychedelic green-and-red serpent on its body represents "a pivotal moment for the guitar and music," said Paul Waller, the master builder who worked side-by-side with Page to make him a spot-on match of the guitar before making 50 more by hand to sell to the public. The reboot was hatched when Page was looking through photographs for a book celebrating last year's 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin. The dragon guitar, which he says was once his "Excalibur," kept popping up in them, and he started to think it was time to get past his bitterness about its fate. The 1959 Telecaster, pre-paint, had been a cherished gift from his fellow former Yardbird bandmate Jeff Beck. "It was given to me with so much affection," Page told The Associated Press in October. "I really wanted to customize the instrument, almost consecrate the instrument." This image released by Fender shows a recreation of a Telecaster guitar that Jimmy Page once painted with a dragon, a long-lost piece of six-string history that marked the guitar hero's last days in the Yardbirds and first days in Led Zeppelin. Fender craftsman Paul Waller, who worked with Page to reboot the dragon, says it represents "a pivotal moment for the guitar and for music." (Fender via AP) Page first decorated it with mirrors, then pulled out poster paints and used his art-school skills to summon the dragon. He would use the guitar to write and record songs like "Dazed and Confused" for the first Led Zeppelin album, work as significant as any in the history of the electric guitar. But a clueless house-sitter, not thinking much of Page's painting, put his own mosaic artwork over the dragon and presented it to Page as a gift. Page said it was all he could do not to hit the guy over the head with it. Instead, he stripped it bare and angrily threw it into storage, where it sat for 50 years. The guitar-makers at Fender had thought about remaking the instrument long before Page himself came forward, because of its historic significance and as a way to claim for Fender a piece of Page, who among guitar nerds is associated with rival Gibson guitars. "A lot of people were surprised to hear all of Led Zeppelin One was recorded on a Telecaster, that's kind of mind-blowing," said Waller, who has been building guitars since high school woodshop and whose creations have included a Telecaster for Keith Richards and a fully functioning Stratocaster made of cardboard. Page wanted to recreate not just the design, but the form, feel and sound of the original, so Waller went to his house in London and the two took out the old guitar and took it apart piece-by-piece so they could recreate each part for the rebuild. "Best day at work ever," Waller said. Page even made a trip to Fender's California plant - the rocker's first time inside a guitar factory - to inspect and help with the finished products. "All the employees lost their minds," Waller said with a laugh, "to watch somebody like Jimmy Page be totally enthralled with the machinery and act like a kid and be taking pictures." The 75-year-old Page painted at least a stroke on each of the 50 instruments Waller built. "He was adamant about applying paint to every one," Waller said. Fender is also selling assembly-line models of the guitar that are more affordable than the many thousands the handmade ones are likely to bring in. Waller said he had been a bundle of nerves when the first of the recreations was sent to Page in England, and was deeply relieved when he heard back from Page that it was a dead ringer for his original. "As soon as he opened the case he knew," Waller said. Page agreed, telling the AP that "If anything, the colors were just slightly richer." ___ Follow Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton . BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (AP) - Two people running a generator and kerosene heater in a Michigan house without power died from exposure to carbon monoxide, but their 5-month-old son survived, police said Wednesday. "The only explanation is that it's by God's grace that this child survived," said Battle Creek Det. Sgt. Todd Elliott, who called it "amazing." The victims were a 20-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman. Elliott told the Battle Creek Enquirer that they were helping a contractor work on the house Tuesday and spent the night on an air mattress. The house doesn't have electricity, heat or water. Elliott said the contractor was assured by the couple that someone had planned to pick them up Tuesday. "We don't know why they chose to stay there," Elliott said. The baby was responsive and breathing when emergency responders arrived Wednesday. He was being treated at a hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning. Investigators wait outside a home, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Battle Creek, Mich., where police say two people have died but their 5-month-old son survived after carbon monoxide apparently filled the house from a generator and portable heater. (Trace Christenson/Battle Creek Enquirer via AP) "It appears to be just a terrible accident," Elliott said. Carbon monoxide is a gas that is colorless, odorless and tasteless. It can be fatal because it displaces oxygen. Elliott said carbon monoxide levels on the first floor of the house were measured at 700 parts per million. Consistent exposure at 150 ppm or higher can cause death, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission . ___ Information from: Battle Creek Enquirer, http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the decision by President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to postpone his public testimony to Congress (all times local): 4:40 p.m. The chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee says President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer could be brought from prison to testify before Congress if necessary. Rep. Elijah Cummings says the logistics of Michael Cohen's testimony are still being worked out. But the Maryland Democrat says Congress can "bring him in" after Cohen begins his prison sentence. His comments come hours after Cohen announced he was postponing his testimony, which was scheduled for Feb. 7. The Democratic-led committee is investigating hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign to silence women who claimed to have had sex with Trump. Trump has denied the accusation. President Donald Trump speaks during a healthcare roundtable in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Cohen starts a three-year prison sentence March 6. He pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations related to the payments. He's also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a Trump real estate project in Moscow. ___ 3:25 p.m. President Donald Trump claims his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is postponing public testimony to Congress because Cohen has been - in Trump's words - "threatened by the truth." An adviser to Cohen says Cohen is delaying his Feb. 7 appearance before a House committee because Cohen continues to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The adviser also says Cohen has received threats. The committee is investigating 2016 campaign-season payments to women who claimed to have had sex with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs. Prosecutors say Trump directed Cohen to pay the women to hide potential scandals during the campaign. Asked to respond to Cohen, Trump said: "I would say he's been threatened by the truth. He's only been threatened by the truth." Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about a Trump business proposal in Russia during the campaign. Trump has said Cohen changed his story to get a lighter prison sentence. ___ 2:45 p.m. The Democratic chairmen of two House committees say they still expect President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to appear before Congress. Cohen is postponing his scheduled Feb. 7 appearance before one committee. Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings leads the House Oversight and Reform Committee. California Rep. Adam Schiff is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. They say they believe Cohen has "legitimate concerns" for his safety and security in light of threats from the president and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Cohen cited the threats against his family as well as his "ongoing" cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation as the reasons he was postponing his testimony. ___ 2:05 p.m. President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer is postponing his public testimony to Congress. Michael Cohen won't appear as scheduled before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7. Cohen's adviser Lanny Davis says the delay is on the advice of Cohen's lawyers because Cohen's still cooperating in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Davis also says Cohen has received threats. The Democratic-led committee is investigating hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign to silence women who claimed to have had sex with Trump. Prosecutors say Trump directed Cohen to make the payments as a way to quash potential scandals during the campaign. Trump's denied having an affair. Cohen has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his role in a Trump business proposal in Russia considered during the campaign. The ability of drones to interfere with airliners - and inconvenience their passengers - has now been demonstrated on two continents, and the problem is likely to get worse as the number of small, unmanned devices multiply. Law enforcement authorities are trying to figure out who flew a drone so high and so close to Newark Liberty International Airport that incoming flights were held up briefly during a peak hour at one of the nation's busiest airports. Flights resumed within about 30 minutes - much more quickly than after a similar incident last month at London's Gatwick Airport. Here are some common questions readers have about these incidents and brief answers. WHAT HAPPENED IN NEW JERSEY? The pilots of both a Southwest Airlines flight and a United Airlines flight reported seeing a drone around 3,500 feet (1,000 meters) above Teterboro, New Jersey, about 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the Newark airport, on Tuesday. FILE - In this April 29, 2018, file photo, a drone operator helps to retrieve a drone after photographing over Hart Island in New York. Drone sightings reported by airline pilots over New Jersey renew questions about how to accommodate the popular devices into the nation's airspace. The ability of drones to interfere with aviation is likely to get worse as the number of machines multiplies. Many store-bought drones come with technology to prevent owners from flying them near airports, but there are hacks, and home-built machines don't necessarily include those protections. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File) As a precaution, the Federal Aviation Administration held up 43 flights already in the air and bound for Newark; nine landed instead at other airports. Another 170 Newark-bound planes were briefly delayed on the ground before taking off from other airports around the country. No video of the reported drone has surfaced. ___ WHO WAS OPERATING THE DRONE? Authorities have not determined that. The FAA alerted New Jersey State Police and the FBI. ___ CAN WE BE SURE THERE WAS A DRONE? Some drone operators are skeptical about a drone reported at 3,500 feet and whether pilots in a fast-moving jet could accurately identify such a tiny object. Vic Moss, a founder of Drone U, a drone-operator school based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said many consumer drones are restricted from going that high, although home-built devices or older drones are not. There are, however, videos online showing drones at such altitudes. "It's possible, but it's just incredibly unlikely that it was an actual drone," Moss said. "Drones are the new UFO." ___ WHAT HAPPENED IN LONDON? In mid-December, hundreds of flights were canceled and more than 100,000 people were stranded or delayed over two days after reports of drones spotted near the runway at Gatwick Airport, a major international hub. A few days later, police arrested two men living near the airport but later cleared them, and no other suspects have been identified. Police also said that two drones found near the airport were not involved in the disruption. A few weeks later, a reported drone sighting briefly halted flights departing from London's Heathrow Airport, one of the world's busiest. ___ WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? If the intrusions in New Jersey and London were deliberate, the motives are not clear. Officials in London said there was no indication that the Gatwick incident was terror-related. A criminal investigation has been opened into the Heathrow incident. ___ WHAT ARE THE LAWS ABOUT FLYING DRONES NEAR AIRPORTS? Federal rules forbid operating a drone within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of most airports or above 400 feet (120 meters) without a waiver from the FAA. ___ ARE DRONE MANUFACTURERS RESPONSIBLE? Devices from the biggest maker of consumer drones, DJI, include so-called geofencing - technology designed to prevent the aircraft from taking off near an airport. A drone that is launched properly but enters a no-fly zone will hover at the edge of the zone, according to a DJI spokesman. Owners say DJI can take days to unlock no-fly restrictions around even small airports. But DJI says those requests now are automated and handled quickly. However, many drones offered for sale don't include such restrictions: They have no GPS or geofencing. ___ CAN OPERATORS DISABLE SAFETY SYSTEMS? Yes. There are online discussions in which drone operators talk about hacks, but they involve some level of technological sophistication. "The geofences (from manufacturers like DJI) are in place, but in some cases they can be defeated - it's not easy," said Tom Kilpatrick, a drone pilot who founded a drone company in Oklahoma. "They are designed to prevent the average drone operator from flying near an airport." Home-built drones would likely not have those same safety features. ___ WHAT'S BEING DONE TO PREVENT DRONES FROM INTERFERING? DJI says it has developed technology to track nearby drones - their flight path and the operator's location - using mobile, ground-based units. The technology is currently only used to identify other DJI drones. ___ WHAT ARE AIRPORTS DOING? The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the Newark airport, said in a statement that agency officials met last week with counterparts from the FAA, FBI and Homeland Security Department "to review and enhance protocols for the rapid detection and interdiction of drones." A spokesman would not provide specifics and declined to say whether the airport has any anti-drone technology. After the Gatwick incident, British officials said they have deployed drone-defense equipment at other U.K. airports, although they gave few details. ___ ARE TOUGHER RULES IN THE WORKS? Late last year, Congress gave the Homeland Security and Justice departments authority to develop and deploy a system to identify drones and disable - even destroy - drones that authorities consider a threat. FAA spokesman Greg Martin said any such system has to be designed carefully so that it doesn't interfere with navigation equipment used by planes. ___ Associated Press journalist Julie Jacobson in New York contributed to this report. ___ David Koenig can be reached at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter ___ This story has been updated to correct that DJI says a drone entering into a non-fly zone will hover at the edge of the zone, not return its launch site and land by itself. HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Thirty-seven cities and towns in Connecticut have appealed a judge's dismissal of their lawsuits blaming Purdue Pharma and other drugmakers for the opioid crisis. The municipalities appealed to the state Appellate Court on Tuesday. They want to recoup millions of dollars spent responding to drug overdoses and other opioid-related problems. Judge Thomas Moukawsher in Hartford ruled Jan. 8 the lawsuits are not allowed because they were not filed as government enforcement actions authorized by state public interest laws. Purdue Pharma officials have said the judge was right to conclude opioid manufacturers cannot be held responsible to municipalities for indirect harms from the opioid crisis. Stamford-based Purdue Pharma makes the opioid painkiller OxyContin. More than 1,000 lawsuits against opioid makers by state and local governments remain pending nationwide. NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A love for reading and writing as a youngster led Jamel Brinkley to teach high school English and begin pursuit of an advanced degree in literature. But it was the encouragement from professional writers that ultimately led him to quit his job and become a full-time author. Now Brinkley's debut work, "A Lucky Man," has been named the winner of the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. The award, which recognizes rising African-American fiction writers, will be presented to Brinkley in a ceremony Thursday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The book, a collection of nine short stories set in Brooklyn and the South Bronx, where Brinkley grew up, explores "complex ties between boys and men who make mistakes." The book is also a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction. Brinkley says he wrote most of the stories when he was in graduate school. He tried to write about the type of people he knew while growing up in New York City. It wasn't until the summer of 2012 when he participated in writing workshops that he got the courage to leave his job and take up writing full-time. "That was transformative for me. I met a lot of professional writers, who said I should take myself seriously as a writer. Their encouragement is what made me leave my job," he said. "I'm happy I made the move." FILE - In this Nov. 14, 2018 file photo, Jamel Brinkley attends the 69th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner in New York. Brinkley's debut work, "A Lucky Man," has been named the winner of the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. (Photo by Brad Barket/Invision/AP, File) Brinkley said when he heard he'd won the Gaines award, which includes a $10,000 prize, he was shocked. "It's a huge honor, a surprise and really unbelievable," Brinkley he said. "Ernest Gaines is obviously a legendary writer, someone I read in college. I could never have imagined this." A Louisiana native, Gaines wrote the critically acclaimed novel "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," one of four of his works that were adapted for films. His 1993 novel "A Lesson Before Dying" won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. In September, Brinkley started the two-year Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University. Next on the agenda: a novel. Brinkley said he feels "very fortunate to have received any recognition bestowed on this book." But he worries that this type of recognition can make someone worry that they won't be able to do something like this again. "I've just got to be careful to still trust myself and not let the attention or pressure affect me as a writer," he said. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Latest on proposals by a U.S. judge aimed at preventing Pacific Gas & Electric Co. equipment from causing any wildfires in 2019 (all times local): 12:45 p.m. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says a judge's proposal to prevent the utility's equipment from causing any wildfires in 2019 would interfere with state and federal regulators, create safety risks and cost too much money. In a court filing Wednesday. PG&E said a separate criminal case being handled by U.S. District Judge William Alsup is not the right forum to address the wildfire threat. Alsup earlier this month proposed ordering PG&E to remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines and to cut off power during certain wind conditions. U.S. prosecutors want Alsup to work with a court-appointed monitor to determine ways the utility could prevent its equipment from starting fires. The judge is overseeing a criminal verdict against PG&E stemming from a deadly explosion of a company gas pipelines in 2010. He is considering additional terms of probation against the utility in that case. ___ 12:30 p.m. U.S. prosecutors are urging a federal judge to work with a court-appointed monitor to determine ways Pacific Gas & Electric Co. could prevent its equipment from starting more wildfires. In a court filing Wednesday, the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco said Judge William Alsup should refrain from immediately imposing new requirements on the utility. Alsup earlier this month proposed ordering PG&E to remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines and to cut off power during certain wind conditions. PG&E said the judge's proposals would interfere with state and federal regulators. The judge is overseeing a criminal verdict against PG&E stemming from a deadly explosion of a company gas pipelines in 2010. He is considering additional terms of probation against the utility in that case. ATLANTA (AP) - Atlanta's NAACP branch is criticizing the leadership appointment of a Georgia lawmaker who it says has supported "racist institutions and white supremacy." In a statement this week, the group said Rep. Tommy Benton has also praised the Ku Klux Klan. Benton did not respond to phone and email messages Wednesday from The Associated Press. The Republican from Jefferson, Georgia, was recently named chairman of the House Retirement Committee. House Speaker David Ralston announced the assignment last week. Georgia House spokesman Kaleb McMichen is quoted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as saying Ralston's philosophy is that people deserve a second chance. He says that's what he gave Benton. The tourists in about 60 vehicles had been stuck after a landslide near the Point Five area Friday evening. A rescue team was sent at the spot soon after information about them being stuck there was received, he said adding that all tourists were rescued safely after one-and-a-half hour operation. (Photo: ANI | Twitter) Shimla: Hundred of tourists stuck in a landslide in Bir Billing in Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district have been rescued, a district official said Saturday. The tourists in about 60 vehicles had been stuck after a landslide near the Point Five area Friday evening, he said. A rescue team was sent at the spot soon after information about them being stuck there was received, he said adding that all tourists were rescued safely after one-and-a-half hour operation. Baijnath Sub-divisional Magistrate Rameshwar Dass said, "The rescue team led by Special Area Development Authority supervisor Ranvijay cleared the blocked road in one-and-a-half-hour." DSP Baijnath has been asked to deploy police personnel on Billing road, he added. WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas is stepping down from two leadership positions following a lawsuit from a former employee who says her sexual assault complaint was mishandled. Jackson Lee will no longer serve as leader of one of the House Judiciary Committee's key subcommittees or as head of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Congressional Black Caucus. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said it was Jackson Lee's decision to step aside as chairwoman of the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee. Nadler said Jackson Lee's decision "does not suggest any culpability" but "was to ensure the subcommittee's important work continues." Elsie L. Scott, interim president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, said Jackson Lee "values the Foundation's ideals and does not want to be a distraction during the legal proceedings of the suit filed against the CBCF." Scott said an interim chair would be selected by the foundation's board. FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2018, file photo, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. Jackson Lee is stepping down from her position as leader of one of the House Judiciary Committee's key subcommittees. The move comes after a lawsuit from a former employee who complained that her sexual assault complaint had been mishandled. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File) The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence had said it would not work with Jackson Lee, who has served in Congress since 1995, as the lead sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act. This comes following a lawsuit in which a former member of her office and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation said Jackson Lee mishandled a report of sexual assault. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, accuses Jackson Lee's office and the foundation of retaliation after the woman was sexually assaulted by a foundation employee in 2015 and threatened to sue. The National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, in a statement, called her a "strong ally" but said that it "cannot, however, support her continued lead sponsorship." Calls to Jackson Lee's office were not returned Wednesday. But in a statement last week, Jackson Lee's office said that while it could not discuss internal personnel matters, it "adamantly denies the allegations that it retaliated against, or otherwise improperly treated, the plaintiff." LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday let stand an Arkansas law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel, ruling that such a boycott is not protected by the First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Brian Miller dismissed the lawsuit the Arkansas Times had filed challenging the 2017 law. The newspaper had asked the judge to block the law, which requires contractors with the state to reduce their fees by 20 percent if they don't sign the pledge. The Times' lawsuit said the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College refused to contract for advertising with the newspaper unless the Arkansas Times signed the pledge. The paper isn't engaged in a boycott against Israel. Miller wrote that refusing to purchase items isn't protected speech. He noted that the Times wouldn't be barred from other protected forms of speech, including writing or picketing against Israel policies. "It may even call upon others to boycott Israel, write in support of such boycotts, and engage in picketing and pamphleteering to that effect. This does not mean, however, that its decision to refuse to deal, or to refrain from purchasing certain goods, is protected by the First Amendment," Miller wrote. Arkansas' law is similar to restrictions enacted in other states that have been challenged. The measures are aimed at a movement protesting Israel's policies toward Palestinians. A federal judge in September blocked Arizona from enforcing a similar measure. A federal judge also blocked Kansas from enforcing its anti-boycott measure, but lawmakers rewrote the measure so that it no longer applied to individuals and nonprofits and only applied to state contracts worth $100,000 or more. Arkansas' law applies to contracts worth $1,000 or more. "We disagree with the district court's decision, which contradicts two recent federal court decisions and which would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott," said Holly Dickson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which represented the Times. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office, which had defended the law, argued the pledge didn't force the newspaper to take a political position. "Attorney General Rutledge is pleased with Judge Miller's ruling dismissing the Arkansas Times' meritless lawsuit and upholding state law prohibiting discrimination against Israel, an important American ally," Amanda Priest, a spokeswoman for Rutledge, said. The sponsor of Arkansas' law said he's working on a proposal similar to Kansas' revision that would raise the minimum amount for contracts where the pledge would be enforced. "The reality is when we're passing laws we want them to be fair and right and just and if we need to correct something to make it function and work better, that's what we want to do," Republican Sen. Bart Hester said. ___ Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo NEW YORK (AP) - Following the apparent demise of the traditional afternoon briefing of reporters, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News Channel on Wednesday that any notion the Trump administration is not accessible to the press is "absolutely laughable." "I take questions from reporters every single day," she said. Sanders' venue for the statement, the morning show "Fox & Friends," was familiar. Since Dec. 18, the day of the last White House press briefing, she's given eight television interviews - six of them on Fox News Channel, according to networks and the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America. She also appeared once on "CBS This Morning" and had a notably tough interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," which is seen on both the Fox broadcast and cable news network. Sanders has been interviewed on "Fox & Friends," the agenda-setting morning show popular with Trump supporters, on Dec. 21, Jan. 4, Jan. 9, Jan. 16 and Wednesday. On Tuesday night, she appeared on Sean Hannity's prime-time show, according to Media Matters. President Donald Trump tweeted a day earlier that he had told Sanders not to bother with the afternoon briefing with White House reporters from all credentialed outlets because she has been treated rudely and inaccurately by the "fake news" media. "We're in the business of getting information to the American people, not making stars out of people that want to be contributors on CNN and that's a lot of times what we see take place in the briefing room," Sanders said. "We're more than happy to take questions but we think that there should be a certain level of decorum and a certain level of honesty and responsibility that comes with that." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders walks off after speaking with reporters outside the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) The White House Correspondents Association condemned the discontinuation of the afternoon briefing as a retreat from transparency and accountability. Olivier Knox, president of the WHCA, noted that Sanders takes questions from all reporters in the White House driveway after her live segments on Fox News. Other White House officials, like Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, frequently do the same. He said those "gaggles" are basically briefings by another name. But with no set time for these meetings, reporters from smaller news outlets that work both inside and outside of the White House can't always be there to get their questions answered, he said. Fox News is Trump's most frequent venue of choice for interviews, too. A study by Towson State University said that in his first two years in office, Trump was second only to President Bill Clinton in the amount of interviews, news conferences and informal question-and-answer sessions, for a time period dating back to President Ronald Reagan's administration. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders walks to speak with reporters outside the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) GARDNERVILLE RANCHOS, Nev. (AP) - The Latest on the killings of four people in Nevada over the past two weeks (all times local): 3:30 p.m. Nevada resident Jim Gibson says he put his Gardnerville Ranchos home "pretty much on lockdown" following the murders of two women in his community, including his next-door neighbor, 74-year-old Sophia Renken. Gibson said Wednesday that though authorities have arrested a man for the killings of the women and a couple in Reno, his neighborhood is still unnerved because police have released few details about the crimes, including a motive and information about how the suspect entered the homes. Authorities say the 19-year-old man is believed to be in the U.S. illegally. President Donald Trump has cited the killings while making his case for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. Gibson say he installed seven new home security alarms, floodlights and a camera around his home. He says that though he carries a concealed weapon and is always armed, he didn't leave his home for five or six days after Renken's killing because he feared he would find an intruder when he returned. He says he has no clue if Trump's wall is a good idea, but if the suspect "snuck across the border," it bolsters Trump's argument. ___ 12:35 p.m. Some residents of a northern Nevada community are still uneasy despite an arrest in two killings that were linked to two other deaths about an hour north in Reno. Michael Lucas is a neighbor and former co-worker of one of the victims and says friends living in his neighborhood in Gardnerville Ranchos would walk into each other's homes without knocking. He says few people used to turn on their lights at night and now every home is lit up. Lucas said Wednesday that people are waiting to see the evidence and what police know about a 19-year-old man accused of killing two local women in separate attacks over the past two weeks. Authorities allege Wilbur Martinez-Guzman also killed a couple a few days later in Reno and was in the U.S. illegally from El Salvador. ___ 11:45 a.m. Prosecutors in two northern Nevada counties say they are preparing murder charges against a 19-year-old from El Salvador suspected of being in the U.S. illegally and killing four people over the last two weeks. Douglas County District Attorney Mark Jackson said Wednesday that charges in the slayings could be filed this week against Wilbur Martinez-Guzman. President Donald Trump has made the case part of the national immigration debate. He says it shows the need for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. Sheriff Ken Furlong in Carson City says authorities are retracing Martinez-Guzman's steps and trying to determine a motive for the shooting deaths of a Reno couple and two Gardnerville women. Furlong says it hard for investigators to believe that a killer randomly picked victims whose bodies were found about 35 miles (56 kilometers) apart. ____ 10:15 p.m. A Nevada community shaken by the fatal shootings of four people over the past two weeks is grateful that the suspect is behind bars, but a motive for the crimes remains unknown. The case has been thrust into the immigration debate, with President Donald Trump seizing on the killings as evidence of the need for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. Authorities say the suspect, Wilbur Ernesto Martinez-Guzman, is a 19-year-old man from El Salvador who is in the U.S. illegally. He's jailed in Carson City following his arrest Saturday on stolen property, burglary and immigration charges. He's due in court on those charges Thursday. Prosecutors say they expect to file murder charges against him in the shooting deaths of a Washoe County couple and two women in Douglas County. ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) - The Latest on plot to attack an upstate New York Muslim community (all times local): 2:35 p.m. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says state police are increasing patrols around an upstate New York Muslim community named Islamberg that was targeted for attack "out of an abundance of caution." Police in the Rochester area say four people with access to guns and homemade explosives planned an attack on the enclave. Three men face weapons possession and conspiracy charges. A 16-year-old is charged as an adolescent offender. Cuomo said Wednesday he also is directing the State Police Hate Crimes Unit to assist authorities in the investigation. The Democratic governor says "we stand with the Muslim community and we will hold those behind this thwarted plot responsible to the full extent of the law." ___ 9:30 a.m. A Muslim group says news that four people planned an attack on their upstate New York community has sent shockwaves through the rural enclave. The Muslims of America on Wednesday thanked authorities who say they foiled an attack on the rural community of Islamberg, west of the Catskills. Police in suburban Rochester said Tuesday three men and a high school student had access to 23 rifles and shotguns, and three homemade explosives. The Muslims of America said in a statement the alleged plotters and any accomplices should be fully prosecuted. They said it was tragic that religious intolerance continues to fester in the United States. Three men face weapons possession and conspiracy charges. A 16-year-old is charged as an adolescent offender. NEW YORK (AP) - The wife of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman played a key role in his infamous 2015 escape from prison through a tunnel dug into the shower of his cell, a witness tesified Wednesday at the kingpin's U.S. trial. Damaso Lopez Nunez, once a loyal lieutenant for Guzman, told the jury that Emma Coronel Aispuro helped her husband communicate with his sons and others who coordinated the breakout at Altiplano prison in central Mexico. Coronel "was giving us his messages," Lopez told a New York jury, adding that she also was in on meetings about the escape. After the Sinaloa cartel boss was recaptured and thrown in another Mexican lockup, the orginization paid a $2 million bribe to a prison official in exchange for getting him moved back to Altiplano, the witness said. Before that could happen, Guzman was sent in 2017 to the U.S., where he's been kept in solitary confinement while facing drug-trafficking charges he says have been fabricated by cooperators like Lopez. The testimony cast a harsh spotlight on a spouse who has sat quietly in the courtroom for most a trial that began in mid-November. Most of the attention on her so far has been for her wardrobe and her reaction to waves from the defendant. She didn't speak to reporters on Wednesday and Guzman's lawyers declined comment. As described by Lopez, the escape in 2015 was far more elaborate than one Guzman pulled off in 2001 by hiding in a prison laundry cart. It included smuggling a phone with GPS to Guzman so the plotters could determine where best to tunnel in, he said. FILE - In this May 2, 2017 file photo, Damaso Lopez, a leader in Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, is escorted by police after his capture at an upscale apartment building in Mexico City. Lopez testified Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, at the U.S. trial of the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, implicating the kingpin's wife in his 2015 prison escape. (AP Photo/Jorge Barrera, File) His followers also bought property near the facility as the starting point the mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) escape route, Lopez said. Work went on for months and was so loud it could be heard behind bars - to the point where inmates were complaining about it, he said. On the day of the breakout, a motorcycle was used to race Gurman to the exit of the tunnel, where an ATV took him to a warehouse, the witness said. He later was flown to his mountaintop hideaway. In further questioning, Lopez also touched on the 2017 slaying of journalist Javier Valdez outside his office in outside his office in Culiacan, Sinaloa's capital city. He claimed that Guzman's sons - not their father - ordered him shot down because he ignored their threats related to his reporting on drug-trafficking. The government's case at the trial in federal court in Brooklyn is expected to conclude this week. The defense has included Guzman on a list of potential witnesses its case, but lawyers have been mum about whether he would chance actually testifying. ___ Associated Press writer Claudia Torrens contributed to this report. DENVER (AP) - Denver school officials asked the state on Wednesday to intervene in its pay dispute with teachers, a move that will delay a strike that had been scheduled to start Monday. Denver Public Schools asked for help from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment after teachers overwhelmingly voted to strike. The department will ask the teachers' union to respond to the district's request. Until they do and the department decides whether to get involved, the union cannot strike. That process could take up to 24 days - up to 10 days for the union to respond and up to 14 days for the state to decide - but a decision could come faster than that depending on how long the union and the state take to act. The union will respond quickly, negotiator and teacher Rob Gould said, but a walkout will not happen Monday as planned. Gould could not say yet whether it could start later next week. If the labor department ultimately does get involved and use its limited power to try to broker an agreement, it would put a strike on hold for up to 180 days. Apart from the official state process set up to intervene in labor disputes, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday he would meet with representatives of the school district and union to see if he could help with negotiations. The Democrat, who took office this month and has vowed to increase school funding, declined to elaborate. FILE - In this Jan. 10, 2019 file photo, Colorado Governor Jared Polis enters the House of Representatives chamber to make his first State of the State address to a joint session of the Colorado Legislature in Denver. Polis said Wednesday, Jan. 23, he is seeking to prevent Denver teachers from walking off the job next week after they overwhelmingly voted to strike over pay. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) The teachers' union announced late Tuesday that 93 percent of members voted to strike after contract talks broke down last week. The earliest teachers could have legally walk off the job was Monday. As it prepares its response and meets with the governor, Gould said the union was still waiting for the school district to offer to resume negotiations. Denver superintendent Susana Cordova, a former teacher who was recently hired as schools' chief, has vowed to keep schools open if there is a strike and called on teachers to continue talking. The main sticking point is increasing base pay, including lessening teachers' reliance on one-time bonuses for things such as having students with high test scores or working in a high-poverty school. Teachers also wanted to earn more for continuing their education. The union said the school district's offer fell $8 million short from the funding it wants to change the compensation system, an amount it claims the district could find by reducing administrators' bonuses and taking money out of a $64 million reserve. The school district said its offer would mean an average 10-percent raise in the next school year and make the minimum starting salary for teachers $45,500, the second-highest in the Denver area. According to the district's website, the starting salary is currently $39,851 and the average salary overall is $50,449. The Denver vote came just after Los Angeles teachers voted to end a six-day strike after securing a 6-percent pay hike and a commitment to reduce class sizes. Teachers hoped to build on the "Red4Ed" movement that began last year in West Virginia and moved to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, and Washington state. It spread from conservative states with "right to work" laws that limit the ability to strike to the more liberal West Coast with strong unions. FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, file photograph, a teacher wears a button on a union shirt in the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, the union's headquarters in south Denver. Teachers voted Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, to authorize a strike, which would be the first called in 25 years in the state's largest school district. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (AP) - Sen. Joni Ernst on Wednesday denied allegations leveled by her ex-husband that she had an affair with a subordinate while she served in the military. The Iowa Republican answered questions from reporters about that and other allegations at a town hall event on the University of Northern Iowa campus in Cedar Falls, the Des Moines Register reported . In the court documents, Ernst's ex-husband, Gail Ernst, accused her of having an affair with one of her soldiers while she was deployed as a company commander. She said Wednesday that she cares "about all of my soldiers" that the allegation was not true. Ernst also accused her ex-husband in divorce documents of having an affair and physically assaulting her during an argument before she was elected to the Senate. Gail Ernst denied in court documents that he had an affair, but the abuse allegations were not addressed. A working phone number for him could not be found, and his attorney on Tuesday declined to comment. Joni Ernst said Wednesday at the event that she believed the court documents would be sealed from the public and was caught off guard by news reports on the allegations. FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2018 file photo, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, speaks during the signing of an order withdrawing federal protections for countless waterways and wetlands, at EPA headquarters in Washington. Ernst says she turned down Donald Trump's request to run as his vice president in 2016 because of family concerns. Ernst made the claim in an affidavit in a divorce proceeding in October that was first reported by CityView, a Des Moines weekly newspaper. The filing was unsealed earlier this month after Ernst and her former husband of 25 years, Gail Ernst, settled their previously contentious divorce. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File) In an emotional interview with the Register, Ernst said she has always been a strong supporter of survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. She said people will now likely view that work as coming from not just a lawmaker but also a survivor of abuse. "What I want to remind everybody is that I'm still the same person I was a week ago," she said, her voice breaking as she sought to hold back tears. "The only difference is that you know more about me now than you did a week ago." Ernst, 48, has indicated she'll run for a second six-year Senate term in 2020. ___ Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.com FILE - In this June 13, 2017 file photo, President Donald Trump speaks before having lunch with Republican senators in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, as Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, listens. Ernst says she turned down Donald Trump's request to run as his vice president in 2016 because of family concerns. Ernst made the claim in an affidavit in a divorce proceeding in October that was first reported by CityView, a Des Moines weekly newspaper. The filing was unsealed earlier this month after Ernst and her former husband of 25 years, Gail Ernst, settled their previously contentious divorce. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) NEW YORK (AP) - Amazon is bringing delivery robots to the streets of a Seattle suburb. The online shopping giant says it started to test self-driving robots in Snohomish County, Washington, Wednesday that can bring Amazon packages to shoppers' doorsteps. The robots are light blue, about the size of a Labrador, have six wheels and the Amazon smile logo stamped on its side, according to Amazon photos . Six of them will be roaming the sidewalks and streets of the neighborhood. Amazon says a worker will accompany the robots at first, but it didn't provide additional details of how the service would work. The company did not respond to questions about the test. Several companies have been testing similar delivery robots on college campuses that deliver fast food or snacks to students. Amazon says its robot, which it is calling Scout, can navigate around pets and pedestrians. WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will not testify before a House committee next month as scheduled, his adviser said Wednesday, depriving Democrats for now of a prime opportunity to scrutinize Trump, his links to Russia and payments to buy the silence of a porn star. Cohen indefinitely delayed his Feb. 7 appearance before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He blamed threats from Trump and the president's attorney-spokesman, Rudy Giuliani, and cited his own ongoing cooperation in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Cohen adviser Lanny Davis said the decision was made on advice of Cohen's lawyers. "This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first," Davis said in a statement. The statement did not detail the threats. But Trump and Giuliani have publicly urged the Justice Department to investigate Cohen's father-in-law, insinuating he was part of some unspecific criminal activity. Trump, for example, told Fox News this month that Cohen "should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that's the one that people want to look at." Asked about the claim of a threat, Trump accused Cohen of lying. FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017, file photo, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, steps out of a cab during his arrival on Capitol Hill in Washington. Cohen won't appear as scheduled before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Feb. 7, 2019. Cohen's adviser Lanny Davis says the delay is on the advice of Cohen's lawyers because Cohen's still cooperating in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, file) "He's only been threatened by the truth, and he doesn't want to do that, probably for me or other of his clients," Trump said at the White House. "He has other clients also, I assume, and he doesn't want to tell the truth for me or other of his clients." Trump's fixer-turned-foe is a central figure in Mueller's investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump's campaign. Cohen also played a pivotal role in buying the silence of a porn actress and a former Playboy Playmate who both alleged they had sex with Trump. The president has denied their claims. Cohen pleaded guilty last year to campaign finance violations and other offenses connected to the payments. Federal prosecutors have said Trump directed Cohen to make the payments during the campaign. Newly empowered Democrats wanted to make Cohen the first high-profile witness since they regained control of the House and have promised an aggressive effort to investigate the president. They have pledged to limit their questioning to avoid interfering with any investigations. It is unclear how long Cohen is seeking to delay his testimony, but Cohen "looks forward to testifying at the appropriate time," Davis said. Cohen is scheduled to report to prison on March 6 to begin a three-year sentence. Democrats have suggested they may subpoena Cohen to compel his testimony and the committee's chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings, said Cohen could be brought from prison to appear before Congress. "We will get his testimony," Cummings said. In a statement, Cummings and Rep. Adam Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said they understood the "completely legitimate concerns" Cohen raised about threats. But, they added, it "was never an option" for Cohen not to appear before Congress. The committees have been in touch with Cohen and offered to work with law enforcement to enhance security measures to protect his family and is in touch with Cohen's lawyers about when he would testify, they said. "We will not let the president's tactics prevent Congress from fulfilling our constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities," the chairmen said in a statement. "This will not stop us from getting to the truth." In November, Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. He admitted that he said negotiations over the development of a Trump-branded tower in Moscow had ended in January 2016 but had actually continued until at least June 2016, well into Trump's presidential campaign. Cohen has said he lied to be consistent with Trump's "political messaging" and to minimize the public's understanding of Trump's ties with Russia. Republicans, in their questioning at a Cohen hearing, probably would have seized on a disputed BuzzFeed News story that Trump instructed Cohen to lie before Congress. The special counsel's office issued a rare public statement after the story ran last week disputing elements of the article. BuzzFeed stands by the story and has asked for clarity from Mueller's team. ___ Associated Press writers Chad Day, Laurie Kellman and Darlene Superville in Washington and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed to this report. Goyal asked the taxmen to trust the customers with a great degree of intelligence, while adopting a customer friendly approach. New Delhi: Finance minister Piyush Goyal on Friday asked tax officers to refrain from being overzealous in tax administration, while appealing the industry to conduct business ethically. Addressing the Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIC) officers on the occasion of International Customs Day, Mr Goyal asked the tax officers to consider crowdsourcing of feedback from stakeholders as to what more could be done towards adopting a taxpayer-friendly appr-oach by the department. Mr Goyal, who was earlier this week given the additional charge of the finance ministry, asked the taxmen to trust the customers with a great degree of intelligence, while adopting a customer friendly approach. After all, we are here to do a job, to ensure that the revenues of the government, which are rightfully due to be collected and which go to serve the poor of India, to create infrastructure, which go to develop security for our borders should not be lost. No revenue should be lost, he said. The government in last few years has made an honest attempt to make the tax administration taxpayer friendly, and worked towards bringing down tax rates, and make compliance easier. At this stage, I can ... appeal to the business community that it is time to do business ethically and straight. Those days are gone when there was era of very high taxes, very high import duties, very high indirect and direct taxes, which caused people to look at different avenues to skip taxes, Mr Goyal said. Stating that actions of a few people causes agony to a much larger set of people, the minister said, it is not that every businessman is cheating on taxes. He also emphasised that it is not always that government bureaucrats or people in power, all are engaged in wrongdoing but it is the few black sheep, who cause the generalisation in the society or in the public mind that things are not going right, he said. Very often in the over enthusiasm of tax administration, we become overzealous also and that causes a lot of agony, particularly to the honest taxpayer. Similarly, when people talk about administration of different departments of the government, burea-ucracy, its very unfortunate that all are brushed in the same language, Mr Goyal said. Asking the tax officers to collectively recognise responsibility, the finance minister said each one of us as an individual represents 80,000 officers, each one of us will have to recognise that my actions are going to reflect on the image of 79,999 colleagues. BOSTON (AP) - A man charged with kidnapping a 23-year-old woman in Boston sobbed in court Wednesday as he was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation. Victor Pena is accused of holding Olivia Ambrose against her will in his apartment, where police found her on Tuesday. Ambrose had been missing since Saturday, and police said she appeared to be in good health. Pena, 38, will be held without bail and will be sent to a state hospital for a 20-day competency evaluation. Joseph Perullo, an attorney for Pena, said after the hearing that it's too early to comment on the specifics of the case, but Perullo said he's happy that Ambrose is back home with her family. Ambrose vanished Saturday night after leaving a bar near Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, where she had been with her twin sister and friends. Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said surveillance footage captured the man holding Ambrose later that night, and it was clear "she did not go along willingly." Victor Pena, left, is arraigned on kidnapping charges at the Charlestown Division of the Boston Municipal Court in Charlestown, Mass., Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pena, who has been charged with kidnapping a 23-year-old woman in Boston has been ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and will be held without bail. (Aram Boghosian/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool) Ambrose told police that Pena took her phone, according to court documents. At one point, Ambrose managed to get her phone back and send text messages to her mother, they say. When police entered Pena's apartment, Ambrose was crying and had a "horrified look on her face," the documents said. A court psychologist who examined Pena Wednesday said he expressed "bizarre" behavior and "did not appear to know why he was in court today," The Boston Globe reported . Pena's older brother told the newspaper that he believes there was a misunderstanding, calling his brother a "little bit mentally challenged." Jose Pena said his brother is a hoarder and told him in a call from jail that Ambrose was cleaning his apartment for him. "Him kidnapping her, I'm 100 percent sure he didn't," Jose Pena said. Victor Pena was arrested at Rhode Island's Twin River Casino in July on charges of cheating and obtaining money under false pretenses. He was also accused in 2013 of violating a restraining order that his ex-girlfriend took out against him, documents say. The charge was ultimately dropped. Victor Pena, left, is arraigned on kidnapping charges at the Charlestown Division of the Boston Municipal Court in Charlestown, Mass., Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pena's defense attorney Joseph Perullo, right, and an interpreter stand by his side. Pena, who has been charged with kidnapping a 23-year-old woman in Boston has been ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and will be held without bail. (Aram Boghosian/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool) CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela's crisis quickly escalated Wednesday as an opposition leader backed by the Trump administration declared himself interim president in a direct challenge to embattled socialist Nicolas Maduro, who retaliated by breaking off relations with the United States, his biggest trade partner. For the past two weeks, ever since Maduro took the oath for a second six-year term in the face of widespread international condemnation, the newly invigorated opposition had been preparing for nationwide demonstrations Wednesday coinciding with the anniversary marking the end of Venezuela's last military dictatorship in 1958. While Maduro has shown no signs of leaving, his main rival, National Assembly President Juan Guaido, upped the ante by declaring himself interim president before masses of anti-government demonstrators - the only way, he said, to rescue Venezuela from "dictatorship." Outside the capital, seven demonstrators were killed amid disturbances during protests that rocked several cities. In a seemingly coordinated action, the U.S. led a chorus of Western hemisphere nations, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, that immediately recognized Guaido, with President Donald Trump calling on Maduro to resign and promising to use the "full weight" of the U.S. economic and diplomatic power to push for the restoration of Venezuela's democracy. "The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law," Trump said in a statement. The stunning move, which to some harkened back to dark episodes of heavy-handed U.S. interventions in Latin America during the Cold War, drew a strong rebuke from Maduro. He responded by swiftly cutting off diplomatic relations with the United States, the biggest importer of the OPEC nation's oil, giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the nation until elections can be held during a rally demanding President Nicolas Maduro's resignation in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) "Before the people and nations of the world, and as constitutional president. .... I've decided to break diplomatic and political relations with the imperialist U.S. government," Maduro thundered while holding up a decree banning the diplomats before a crowd of red-shirted supporters gathered at the presidential palace. "Don't trust the gringos," he said, rattling off a long list of U.S.-backed military coups - Guatemala, Chile, Brazil - in decades past. "They don't have friends or loyalties. They only have interests, guts and the ambition to take Venezuela's oil, gas and gold." Not to be undone, Guaido issued his own statement, urging foreign embassies to disavow Maduro's orders and keep their diplomats in the country. A few hours later, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would abide by Guaido's directive and ignore Maduro's order to withdraw its diplomats. The 35-year-old Guaido, a virtually unknown lawmaker at the start of the year, has reignited the hopes of Venezuela's often beleaguered opposition by taking a rebellious tack amid a crushing economic crisis that has forced millions to flee or go hungry. Raising his right hand in unison with tens of thousands of supporters, the fresh-faced leader of the opposition-controlled congress took a symbolic oath to assume executive powers he says are his right under two articles of Venezuela constitution to take over as interim president and form a transitional government until he calls new elections. "Today, January 23, 2019, I swear to formally assume the powers of the national executive as president in charge of Venezuela," he told the cheering crowd as he stood behind a lectern emblazoned with Venezuela's national coat of arms. "We know that this will have consequences," he shouted, moments before quickly slipping away to an unknown location amid speculation he would soon be arrested. The price of oil slipped for the third time in four days Wednesday, an indication that international energy markets are not overly concerned yet that the situation in Venezuela - America's third top oil supplier and owner of Houston-based Citgo - will disrupt global crude supplies. The assault on Maduro's rule came after large crowds gathered in Caracas waving flags and chanting "Get out Maduro!" in what was the largest demonstration since a wave of unrest that left more than 120 dead in 2017. While the protests in the capital were mostly peaceful there were no signs that security forces heeded Guaido's call to join the anti-Maduro movement and go light on demonstrators. Hours after most demonstrators went home, violence broke out in Altamira, an upscale zone of Caracas and an opposition stronghold, when National Guardsmen descended on hundreds of youths, some of them with their faces covered, lingering around a plaza. Popping tear gas canisters sent hundreds running and hordes of protesters riding two and three on motorcycles fleeing in panic. Blocks away, a small group knocked a pair of guardsman riding tandem off their motorcycle, pelting them with coconuts as they sped down a wide avenue. Some in the group struck the two guardsmen with their hands while others ran off with their gear and set their motorcycle on fire. Elsewhere, four demonstrators were killed by gunfire in the western city of Barinas as security forces were dispersing a crowd. Three others were killed amid unrest in the border city of San Cristobal. Amid the showdown, all eyes were on the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela - and to whom Guaido has been targeting his message. Maduro, who lacks the military pedigree of his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, has sought to shore up support from the armed forces by doling out key posts to top generals, including heading the PDVSA oil monopoly that is the source of virtually all of Venezuela's export earnings. He has also been playing commander in chief, appearing last week at a military command meeting wearing camouflage fatigues and receiving the blessing of the defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who said his troops were prepared to die for Maduro. But beyond the public displays of loyalty from the top brass, a number of cracks have started to appear. On Monday, Venezuelans awoke to news that a few dozen national guardsmen had taken captive a loyalist officer and seized a stockpile of assault rifles in a pre-dawn raid. The government quickly quelled the uprising, but residents in a nearby slum took to the streets to show their support for the mutineers by burning cars and throwing stones at security forces, who fired back with tear gas. Disturbances continued into Tuesday, with small pockets of unrest in a few working-class neighborhoods where the government has traditionally enjoyed strong support. Retired Maj. Gen. Cliver Alcala, a one-time aide to Chavez and now in exile, said the opposition's newfound momentum has reverberated with the military's lower ranks, many of whom are suffering the same hardships as regular Venezuelan families. "I am absolutely certain that right now, especially younger troops are asking themselves whether Maduro is their commander in chief or a usurper," Alcala said. Though intimidation has worked for the government in the past, it may not this time, said Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst. Discontent now appears to be more widespread and the ranks of security forces and government-allied groups have been thinned by the mass exodus of mostly young Venezuelans, he said. "The government is resorting to its old tricks, but the people no longer believe them," Pantoulas said. ___ Associated Press writers Scott Smith, Fabiola Sanchez and Jorge Rueda in Caracas and Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report. ___ Joshua Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announces he is breaking relations with the U.S., to supporters from a balcony at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Maduro is giving American diplomats 72 hours to abandon the country after breaking diplomatic relations with the U.S. over its decision to recognize an opposition leader as interim president. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) An anti-government protester covers her face with a Venezuelan flag, and uses toothpaste around her eyes to help lessen the effect of tear gas, during clashes with security forces after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Anti-government protesters tear off razor wire from a wall surrounding a vacant lot, to make a barricade during clashes against the Venezuelan Bolivarian National Guard, after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Anti-government protesters seize a state vehicle to use as transport, after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Anti-government protesters hold their hands up during the symbolic swearing-in of Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-run congress who declared himself interim president of Venezuela during a rally demanding President Nicolas Maduro's resignation in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Anti-government protesters cheer as Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the South American country until a new election can be called, at a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Boris Vergara) Anti-government protesters tear off razor wire from a wall surrounding a vacant lot, to make a barricade during clashes against the Venezuelan Bolivarian National Guard, after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Anti-government protesters hold their hands up during the symbolic swearing-in of Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-run congress, who declared himself interim president of Venezuela, during a rally demanding President Nicolas Maduro's resignation in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Juan Guaido, head of the opposition-run congress, looks down and holds up his hand during his symbolic swearing-in as interim president of Venezuela on a stage during a rally demanding President Nicolas Maduro's resignation in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Guaido declared himself interim president. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Anti-government protesters cheer after Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress, declares himself interim president of the South American country until a new election can be called, at a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Boris Vergara) A Venezuelan Bolivarian National Guardsmen keeps an eye out for anti-government protesters after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Venezuelan Bolivarian National Guard soldiers detain an anti-government protester, whose face they covered, after a rally demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. The head of Venezuela's opposition-run congress declared himself interim president at the rally, until new elections can be called. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) An opposition member wears a Venezuelan national flag during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Venezuela's re-invigorated opposition faces a crucial test Wednesday as it seeks to fill streets nationwide with protesters in an appeal to the military and the poor to shift loyalties that until recently looked solidly behind Maduro's government. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) People gather during a protest Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and in support of an opposition leader self-proclaimed as the interim president of the country in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Around 7,000 protesters according to organizers, gathered in a central square of the Spanish capital, where a significant Venezuelan community has grown in recent years with people fleeing persecution or poverty at home. Banners reads in Spanish: "Freedom" and "Out Maduro". (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - They rallied hundreds of thousands to march for gun reform, landed on the cover of Time magazine and raised millions of dollars from celebrities like Oprah and George Clooney. But could the teenage survivors of the Parkland school shooting actually motivate unpredictable young voters to cast their ballots? Newly released data reveals that young Florida voters did hit the polls at a significantly higher rate - 15 percentage points more - compared with the previous midterm election. About 37 percent of the state's 18- to 29-year-olds voted in November, compared with 22 percent who voted in 2014. That's especially notable for midterm elections when turnout is typically low. "Turnout was up across the board; it was up at a higher rate among younger voters without question," said Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who analyzed voter data released by Florida's Department of State last week. Preliminary exit polls and widespread media attention for the March For Our Lives movement launched after 17 were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had suggested high turnout among young voters passionate about gun reform. The teenage founders of the organization reached celebrity status, making appearances on late night TV, earning the International Children's Peace Prize and publicly taking on the National Rifle Association and lawmakers they felt were beholden to the group. Counties with large numbers of college students had particularly impressive turnouts, with 49 percent of 18- to 21-year-olds voting in Leon County, home to Florida State University, and 46.5 percent casting ballots in University of Florida's Alachua County. Nearly 40 percent of that age group voted in Parkland's Broward County and 39 percent in neighboring Miami-Dade County, according to Smith's analysis. The March For Our Lives activists held town halls with lawmakers, started clubs in schools nationwide and visited 24 states in 60 days over the summer to spread their message and encourage people to vote. FILE- In this June 4, 2018 file photo, Cameron Kasky, center, speaks during a news conference in Parkland, Fla., announcing a multistate bus tour to get young people educated, registered and motivated to vote. Young Florida voters hit the polls at a significantly higher rate compared to the previous midterm election. About 37 percent of 18 to 29 year-olds voted in November. That's a 15 point increase compared to the 22 percent who voted in 2014 and especially notable for midterm elections when turnout is typically low(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) "We really saw this huge cultural shift around elections and civic engagement," said Brendan Duff, one of the group's founders, who skipped his fall semester at college to help mobilize young voters. "Even though we had all this support and encouragement, ... it still was kind of like: Will young people actually show up? So just to hear that we had this significant increase is surreal." Not surprisingly, the 65 and older demographic was still twice as likely as 22- to 25-year-olds to vote in Florida. About 73 percent of seniors cast ballots, according to Smith's analysis. And slightly more Republicans turned out among the 8.3 million Floridians who voted on a ballot that included contentious races for governor and a U.S. Senate seat, both so close they required recounts that ended in Republican winners. Young African-Americans were especially energized, likely because of the closely watched gubernatorial race involving Democratic Andrew Gillum, who would have been Florida's first black governor. Trump-backed Republican Ron DeSantis won that race. Just over 38 percent of black voters between the ages of 18 and 21 showed up at the polls, compared with 37.4 percent of young white voters and 33.5 percent of Hispanics. Delaney Tarr, 18, a first-time voter and one of the founders of March For Our Lives, spent her summer urging young people to vote and said her group drew "a lot of counterprotesters" as well as critics who said young people would never make a difference in high stakes politics. The March For Our Lives organization did not endorse candidates or political parties, but repeatedly criticized Republican politicians like Sen. Marco Rubio and others who supported the NRA. Tarr said it can be "disheartening to not see every success you want," but counted it as a victory to have such a close election. "To have people going out there and actually voting in numbers that are so close ... we are seeing history in the making and it's all due to young power, to collective grass roots organizing." Only a handful of states have certified election results, so it's unclear how the youth vote played out nationally, but early exit polls showed gun reform was a key issue on voters' minds. According to The Associated Press' national VoteCast survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, 62 percent of voters said they want to see gun laws made more strict, compared with 8 percent who think they should be less strict; another 29 percent think gun laws should be left as they are. Nearly three quarters - 72 percent - of voters ages 18 to 24 said gun laws should be made more strict. FILE-In this March 24, 2018 file photo, an electronic television screen urges attendees to register to vote at the March For Our Lives in Parkland, Fla. Young Florida voters hit the polls at a significantly higher rate compared to the previous midterm election. About 37 percent of 18 to 29 year-olds voted in November. That's a 15 point increase compared to the 22 percent who voted in 2014 and especially notable for midterm elections when turnout is typically low. (AP Photo/Joe Skipper, File) PHOENIX (AP) - The mother of a newborn girl found dead in a bathroom trash can at an Amazon distribution center told investigators she didn't know she was pregnant, according to court documents released Wednesday. Samantha Vivier of Tonopah, Arizona, was arrested on suspicion of unlawful disposal of human remains. Following her initial court appearance Tuesday night, Vivier was released without bail and ordered to appear at all court proceedings. She faces charges of abandonment and concealment of a dead body. Vivier, 27, told investigators she didn't see the child move or breathe and panicked after giving birth on Jan. 16, according to a court document. Phoenix police have said the baby appeared to be full term. No information has been released on how Vivier was identified, how the baby died or why the woman abandoned her. Under Arizona law, mothers can anonymously leave unharmed newborns at designated "safe haven" locations. They include hospitals, ambulances, churches, on-duty fire stations and adoption agencies. The baby must be under 72 hours old and given to a person. This undated photo provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office shows Samantha Vivier. Vivier has been arrested on suspicion of unlawful disposal of human remains after her newborn baby was found dead inside a bathroom at an Amazon distribution center in southwest Phoenix on Jan. 16, 2019, police announced. (Courtesy of Maricopa County Sheriff's Office via AP) The law, which was passed in 2001, also states the mothers who follow those instructions will not face prosecution. Vivier is due back in court for a status conference on Feb. 5. It wasn't immediately known if she has an attorney to comment on her behalf. A medical examiner will determine the cause of death. Amazon said in a statement last week that the company was working with police to support the investigation and called the incident "terribly sad and tragic." The company's massive distribution center on the city's southwest side is one of several Amazon sites in metro Phoenix. LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - Police in Kentucky were called to a protest by a group of federal government workers at a field office for Sen. Mitch McConnell. The protestors arrived at the Lexington office in hopes of handing off some letters to the senator's staff about the government shutdown, said Chon Jung, an organizer. Jung said it was a "peaceful demonstration" though some protesters banged on windows of the office. He said protesters agreed to leave the building when police arrived. McConnell was in Washington on Wednesday. Lexington police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said about 50 protesters and media left without incident. Jung, a retired law enforcement officer, said workers were at the office to "put some pressure on McConnell" to pass legislation to end the shutdown. He said workers are feeling the pain of the shutdown that has dragged on for over a month. Furloughed government workers protest the government shutdown at the door of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's office in Lexington, Ky., Wednesday, Jan 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston) "They're hurting," Jung said by phone from outside the field office. The American Federation of Government Employees organized the protest to "highlight the effect this shutdown is having on our members, their families, and the nation," according to a statement. Workers from the Transportation Security Administration, the Department of Interior, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Veterans Affairs took part in Wednesday's protest. The U.S. Senate this week is set to vote on dueling proposals - a Republican one that would give Trump money for the wall and one from Democrats that would re-open government through Feb. 8, with no wall money, giving lawmakers time to talk about it. Vickie Martin, President of American Federation of Government Workers Local 1438, reacts to the locked door of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's office in Lexington, Ky., during a furloughed government workers shutdown protest, Wednesday, Jan 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston) Reese Greer, right, a furloughed census worker, argues with a Lexington police officer outside U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's office in Lexington, Ky., Wednesday, Jan 23, 2019, during a government shutdown protest. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston) CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia residents could attend community and technical college for free under a bill passed by the state Senate for the second straight year. The bill approved unanimously Wednesday now moves to the House of Delegates, where it stalled a year ago. Republican Senate President Mitch Carmichael, the bill's lead sponsor, said he could not predict how the House will act. The GOP controls both chambers. "If you're interested in prosperity in West Virginia, this is a 'yes' vote as quick as you can make it," Carmichael said. According to the West Virginia University researchers, 53 percent of West Virginia adults either are working or looking for work - the lowest labor force participation rate in the nation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 5.1 percent in December was the third highest in the nation behind Alaska and Washington, D.C. New House Speaker Roger Hanshaw wants to focus on workforce training opportunities and said earlier this month he wasn't sure whether the community college approach was the way to do that. Senate Finance Committee chairman Craig Blair, a Republican from Berkeley, acknowledged the bill's opposition from some House members who believe it is another handout. "We know what this bill's going to do," Blair said. "This is not an entitlement in any way. It's an investment in the people of West Virginia. It's a big deal." The bill would authorize tuition grants to West Virginians at least 18 years old who have completed a secondary program. It would require passing a drug test each semester, maintaining a 2.0 grade-point average, taking at least six credit hours a semester and performing at least eight hours of community service. Recipients would have to repay grants if they don't live in West Virginia for two years after getting their degree or certificate. Blair said the bill targets those at risk of going on welfare, food stamps or not finding a job and that the estimated $8 million cost of the bill will be saved later on through increased income tax collections. "Instead of being tax takers, they turn into taxpayers," he said. "That's a win for the state of West Virginia." Senators on Tuesday defeated an amendment that would have expanded the bill to the state's four-year colleges, which would have greatly increased the cost. Carmichael said there will be opportunities later to look at expanding the program. Some four-year schools such as Fairmont State University say the bill would put them at a disadvantage by giving students incentives to choose community colleges. Fairmont State shares a campus with Pierpont Community and Technical College. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio doctor's orders for potentially fatal doses of pain medicine given to at least 27 hospital patients were carried out by employees who "made poor decisions" and ignored existing safeguards, a top administrator told staff in an internal video. The Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System said it fired the intensive care doctor, reported its findings to authorities and has put six pharmacists and 14 nurses on paid leave pending further review. "Sadly, our investigation revealed some of our colleagues did not meet our standard of care," President and CEO Ed Lamb said in an internal video message last week to employees that was obtained by WBNS-TV . "The actions that created this tragedy were instigated by this physician and carried out by a small number of good people who made poor decisions. They ignored the safeguards we have in place." Mount Carmel has notified affected families of the deceased patients . The announcement involving patients from the past few years raised questions about whether drugs were used to hasten deaths intentionally or possibly illegally. It also spurred at least four lawsuits alleging patients died because hospital employees either negligently or intentionally gave them inappropriately large doses of the powerful painkiller fentanyl, unbeknownst to the patients' families. Mount Carmel said all the patients were near death but the dosages were significantly larger than necessary to provide comfort. However, some of the families suing the hospital, Dr. William Husel and other staff who approved or administered the drugs are questioning whether relatives were given accurate information about the graveness of their loved ones' conditions. FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2019 file photo, the main entrance to Mount Carmel West Hospital is shown in Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System said a doctor's orders for potentially fatal doses of pain medicine given to over two dozen patients were carried out by what he calls "a small number of good people who made poor decisions." Mount Carmel Health System said it fired the intensive care doctor, put six pharmacists and 14 nurses on paid leave pending further review and reported its findings to authorities. (AP Photo/Andrew Welsh Huggins, File) A wrongful death lawsuit filed Tuesday over the March 2015 death of 65-year-old Jan Thomas also accuses Husel of fraud, alleging he withheld information about Thomas' prognosis, led her family to believe she would die naturally after being removed from life support, and didn't disclose that she would receive lethal fentanyl. Husel worked for Mount Carmel for five years. His lawyers aren't commenting. The Ohio Department of Health is investigating on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Franklin County prosecutor confirmed a local investigation. Husel's work also is under internal review by the Cleveland Clinic, where he was a supervised resident from 2008 to 2013. The medical center said its preliminary review found his prescribing practices were "consistent with appropriate care." Records show the State Medical Board in Ohio has never taken disciplinary action against Husel. The board doesn't disclose whether it has received complaints if no formal disciplinary action is taken. Twenty-six of the 27 patients were at Mount Carmel West, the system's flagship hospital just west of downtown in the lower-income Franklinton neighborhood. The site already was a source of community concern in recent years after Mount Carmel announced it would move inpatient services and hundreds of employees to a new hospital in suburban Grove City this year, leaving some residents near West concerned about the impact on businesses, development and access to medical care. ___ Follow Franko on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kantele10 ___ Have a tip? Contact the author securely at https://www.ap.org/tips NEW YORK (AP) - In many states across the U.S., victims of long-ago child sex-abuse have been lobbying for years, often in vain, to change statute of limitation laws that thwart their quest for justice. This year seems sure to produce some breakthroughs, due in part to the midterm election results and recent disclosures about abuse by Roman Catholic priests. New York state is Exhibit A. The Democrats' takeover of the formerly Republican-controlled Senate seems almost certain to produce a more victim-friendly policy in place of one of the nation's most restrictive laws. Prospects are considered good for similar changes in Rhode Island and New Jersey, and the issue will be raised in Pennsylvania - which became the epicenter of the current abuse crisis in August when a grand jury accused some 300 Catholic priests of abusing more than 1,000 children over seven decades. Abuse survivors and their allies are once again proposing a two-year window for now-adult victims to sue perpetrators and institutions over claims that would otherwise be barred by time limits. That provision was approved by the Pennsylvania House last year but rejected by the top Republican in the Senate. Nationwide, only a handful of states - including California, Minnesota, Delaware and Hawaii - have created these "lookback windows" enabling victims to file civil lawsuits against institutions such as churches and youth groups that bore some responsibility for the abuse. California's one-year window opened in 2003, leading to hundreds of civil actions and more than $1 billion in payouts by the Catholic church; activists and legislators in California hope to create a new lookback window this year. In California, Minnesota and Delaware, large payouts prompted several dioceses to file for bankruptcy. The Catholic Church, the insurance industry and the Boy Scouts of America have lobbied vigorously against efforts to create lookback windows in other states. Brian Toale, 65, a sexual abuse victim when he was a student in a Long Island Catholic school, and now a victims' rights activist, holds a copy of his yearbook photo from around the time he was abused, in New York on Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019. Toale underwent years of therapy and still participates in a weekly 12-step program with other abuse victims, including several who still don't speak publicly about their experience. "When people do tell their stories and expose their abuser, it's so helpful," he said. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) University of Pennsylvania professor Marci Hamilton, an expert on statute-of-limitations reforms, predicts that more states will provide windows despite the vociferous lobbying. She says the Pennsylvania grand jury report has changed the dynamics of the debate, increasing pressure on lawmakers to take victim-friendly actions. "Before, people were giving the bishops the benefit of the doubt, but this time there was outrage," said Hamilton, the CEO of Child USA, a think tank focused on preventing child abuse. "Politicians now understand that people are behind the victims." In New York, victim advocacy groups and their allies in the Legislature have tried for a dozen years to loosen the statute of limitations. Last year, the legislature's Democratic-controlled lower chamber overwhelmingly approved the long-stymied Child Victims Act, which would extend the time frames for pursuing civil and criminal cases in the future, and create a one-year window allowing victims to sue over past abuse claims. Senate Republicans blocked the bill from getting a vote and suggested alternatives that lacked the lookback window. In November, Democrats gained control of the Senate, and the measure is now expected to pass with the window included. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he'll include the act in the state budget, due in April, if a separate measure doesn't pass before then. Among those pleased by the change is Brian Toale, 65, who has written about being abused in the 1970s by the adult adviser to the radio club at his Catholic high school on Long Island. Toale, who lives in New York City, underwent years of therapy and still participates in a weekly 12-step program with other abuse victims, including some who still don't speak publicly about their experience. Toale is unsure whether the Child Victims Act would bring him any compensation or formal apology from the Catholic diocese and religious order that had jurisdiction over his high school. But he hopes that enactment would encourage more victims to come forward. "When people do tell their stories and expose their abuser, it's so helpful," he said. The New York Catholic Conference, which represents the state's bishops, has lobbied vigorously against the lookback window in the past, arguing that it would "force institutions to defend alleged conduct decades ago about which they have no knowledge." However, Catholic Conference spokesman Dennis Poust said Wednesday that the church would drop its opposition to a bill containing a lookback window if it were assured that public entities, including schools, also became targets for retroactive claims. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, says the church is meeting its obligations to victims through a compensation program launched in 2016 that has paid out more than $200 million to more than 1,000 individuals. "It insures fair and reasonable compensation; and prevents the real possibility - as has happened elsewhere - of bankrupting both public and private organizations, including churches, that provide essential services in education, charity and health care," Dolan wrote in a recent newspaper column. Similar compensation programs are being set up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but victim advocates say the programs - unlike civil lawsuits - fail to ensure that there is accountability and full disclosure on the church's part. "The right thing to do is come clean, open the books and know sunlight is the best disinfectant," said Michael Polenberg of Safe Horizon, a New York City nonprofit serving victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. In Pennsylvania, Rep. Mark Rozzi, who has spoken about being abused by a priest as a 13-year-old, will help lead a renewed effort this year to give victims of child sex abuse a two-year window to sue perpetrators and institutions over claims that would otherwise be barred. However, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati maintains that the retroactive provision violates the state constitution, and says the Catholic church's planned compensation programs will be an adequate response. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who oversaw the grand jury investigation, will be part of the alliance pressing Scarnati to allow a vote on the measure. Shapiro's grand jury probe may have changed the political dynamics in neighboring New Jersey, where Sen. Joe Vitale has been fighting since 2002 to ease statute-of-limitations restrictions. Vitale says the Pennsylvania report prompted many of his colleagues to become co-sponsors of his bill offering sex-abuse victims more time to bring civil claims and allowing lawsuits that were dismissed because of the time limits to be refiled. Under current law, adults victimized as juveniles have only two years to file a civil suit from the time they first realize the sexual abuse damaged them. In California, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez has reintroduced a bill that would create a new three-year lookback window for victims who were unable to take advantage of the one-year window in 2003. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed Gonzalez' measure last year; she is hopeful that the new governor, Gavin Newsom, will be more receptive. "Until you make it hurt, people don't change behavior," Gonzalez said. NEW YORK (AP) - Jonas Mekas the Lithuanian-born director, critic, patron and poet widely regarded as the godfather of modern American avant-garde film and as an indispensable documenter of his adopted New York City, has died. He was 96. Mekas, who survived a Nazi labor camp and years as a refugee, died Wednesday morning at his home, said the Anthology Film Archives. Mekas was artistic director of the New York-based nonprofit theater, a leading avant-garde cinema and center for film preservation. Weighted by the scars of wartime Europe, energized by postwar America, he was at the center of an historic era for the avant-garde and befriended such celebrities as Jacqueline Kennedy, John Lennon and Andy Warhol. He published poetry and memoirs, made hundreds of films and videos, wrote an influential column for the Village Voice and opened the Anthology Film Archives, where a young Martin Scorsese was a frequent attendee. "There isn't one word, or even a dozen, to characterize the breadth of Jonas Mekas's achievement," the critic J. Hoberman wrote in 2012. Scorsese, John Waters and James Franco were among his admirers, and, although he never approached mainstream popularity, his friends and collaborators included some of the most important artists of his time and some of the most famous people in the world. On Wednesday, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch called Mekas "one of the most inspiring artists I have ever encountered - the poets' version of the Kung Fu master." FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2014 file photo, Lithuanian-born director Jonas Mekas attend the Whitney Museum Gala in New York. Mekas, 96, who survived a Nazi labor camp and years as a refugee, died Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, at his home, according to the Anthology of Film Archives. He was artistic director of the New York center for film preservation, a leading avant-garde movie theater. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File) Using film as a diary, never far from a 16mm Bolex camera, Mekas defied the rules of commercial movies while reaching back to the earliest days of moving images, when filmmakers simply recorded scenes of everyday life. "The avant-garde is always the front line in any field," Mekas said in 2010. "That's where usually it's all very fragile, and on the front line is where usually most of the bullets hit you. Most of the attacks are directed against the front line. It's that area that I felt needed somebody who would defend it from all those critics and those attacks. So that was my function, to try to help those very fragile new developments." Kennedy allowed Mekas to film her and her family, a rare gesture by the private former first lady and the basis of the Mekas documentary "This Side of Paradise." He was an early supporter of Warhol and helped film Warhol's underground classic, "Empire," an 8-hour silent portrait of the Empire State Building. He shot some of the earliest known footage of rock's prototypical punk/avant-garde band, the Velvet Underground. He was close to Allen Ginsberg and other Beat poets and his first full-length release, "Guns of the Trees," was a 1961 documentary that featured Ginsberg's narration. He knew Yoko Ono years before she met Lennon and later became friends with both, filming a Lennon birthday where guests included Ringo Starr and Miles Davis and helping Lennon and Ono settle into New York after they moved from London in the early 1970s. "It was late at night and I was in bed, when I got a call from Yoko, who had just landed with John at JFK (airport)," Mekas told the Guardian in 2012. "She said, 'Jonas, John wants an espresso. Do you know a good place that is still open in New York?' It was a little crazy, but that was how it was back then." He was among the most vital filmmakers never to receive an Academy Award, although his adaptation of a play about life in a military prison, "The Brig," did win the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1963. Other notable works included "Walden," a 3-hour documentary about the New York art scene of the 1960s that features shots of Lennon and Ono, Norman Mailer and Timothy Leary; "Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania"; and "Lost, Lost, Lost," reflections on his early years in New York with footage of Ginsberg, poet Frank O'Hara and Amiri Baraka. Many of his projects were collaborations with his brother and fellow refugee, Adolfas Mekas, who died in 2011. Some works were as intimate and dreamlike as a home movie, with abrupt cuts and disjointed sound. The technique often reinforced the story; the harsh lighting and blurred images of his Velvet Underground film seemed to capture the jarring, foggy ambiance of the music itself. Mekas was also revered among fellow poets, especially for the cycles "Idylls of Semeniskiai," about his early years in rural Lithuania, and "Reminiscences," verse about his years after World War II. It was a miracle that he lived past childhood. Mekas, born in a farming community in 1922, was repeatedly displaced and persecuted. The Soviet Union annexed Lithuania in 1939, only to have the Nazis seize the country two years and send Mekas and brother Adolfas, to labor camp. The brothers escaped, and lived as refugees in the years immediately following World War II, a time captured in his "Reminiscences" cycle: So, slowly, we pushed on that summer, laying in at every train stop, beside each bridge, trudging down blackened knolls and out along narrow fieldpaths, spending the nights on burned-out platforms and charred tracks. After briefly thinking of emigrating to Israel, the Mekas brothers arrived in New York in October 1949. "Yesterday, at about 10pm, the General Howze pulled into the Hudson River. We stood on the deck and we stared. 1,352 Displaced Persons stared at America," Jonas, who settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, wrote in his diary at the time. "All the wartime, post-war DP miseries, desperations and hopelessness, and then suddenly you are faced with a dream. You have to see New York at night, from the Hudson, like this, to see its incredible beauty." Already fascinated by movies, he initially thought he could adapt avant-garde sensibilities to commercial films. But he decided within a few years that the mainstream was hopeless. In the early 1960s, he helped establish the New American Cinema Group, through which Mekas, Peter Bogdanovich, photographer-filmmaker Robert Frank and others called for an independent system of making and distributing movies. "The official cinema all over the world is running out of breath. It is morally corrupt, esthetically obsolete, thematically superficial, temperamentally boring," the group announced in its founding manifesto. Over the following decades, Mekas championed the avant-garde in every way possible - as a director, fundraiser, critic, publisher, programmer, distributor and agitator, even spending a night in jail in 1964 for exhibiting Jack Smith's explicit "Flaming Creatures." He was the Village Voice's original film reviewer, a job later held by Hoberman and Andrew Sarris among others, and his Film Culture magazine (which ended in the 1990s) included contributions from Sarris, Bogdanovich and Manny Farber. He grew more prolific with age. In 2007, when he turned 85, he posted a new short film online for every day of the year. In his 90s, he was still regularly adding videos to his web site, www.jonasmekas.com , whether shots of rain falling in Brooklyn or a mealtime conversation with fellow documentary maker Agnes Varda. He was also writing about his early years in New York City. "We are bound together by life," he said of himself and the city in 2013. In an interview with The New York Times published in January, Mekas calmly ruminated about death. "It's a very normal transition," he said. "What's beyond that line, it's where the mystery begins, where it becomes interesting. There are glimpses in the messages that come from there, some of the old Scriptures. Indications are there, and I believe it all. I believe it much more than anything that's written since the 12th century." ___ AP Film Writer Jake Coyle contributed to this report. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's State of the Union address (all times local): 11:30 p.m. President Donald Trump says he is postponing his State of the Union address until after "the Shutdown is over," following a standoff with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Trump says in a pair of tweets Wednesday night that he's not looking for an alternative venue "because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber." Pelosi had asked Trump to delay the speech until after the shutdown, but the White House tried to ignore the request, announcing Trump would move forward with the Jan. 29 date. But Pelosi blocked the move, telling the White House earlier Wednesday that the House would not approve a resolution allowing Trump to address a joint session of Congress. President Donald Trump speaks during a healthcare roundtable in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Trump says he looks forward to giving a "great" speech "in the near future!" ___ 5:30 p.m. Republicans are blasting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to block President Donald Trump from delivering his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress because of the government shutdown. Pelosi told Trump Wednesday the House won't approve a resolution allowing him to come until the government reopens. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said Pelosi's action "sets a new low for American politics." He called Pelosi's decision "absurd, petty and shameful," adding: "The judgment of history will not be kind." Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama said Pelosi's action "shows how radical and hyper-partisan the Democrats have become." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Trump should give the address as scheduled, saying Americans "should see their government leaders in the same room working to make our future brighter." ___ 3:50 p.m. President Donald Trump says he will do an "alternative" event since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has blocked him from giving his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress while the government remains partially shut down. Trump at the White House Wednesday said the cancellation was a "disgrace." He did not detail his next move, saying: "We will be announcing what we're doing." The California Democrat told Trump in a letter Wednesday the Democratic-controlled House won't pass the required measure for him to give the nationally televised speech from the House floor on Tuesday. Trump said he was planning a "really important speech" and called Pelosi's move a "great blotch on the country that we all love." He argued Pelosi was blocking him because she doesn't want to hear "the truth" about border security. ___ 3:05 p.m. President Donald Trump says he is not surprised about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially postponing his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress until the government is fully reopened. Trump says Democrats have become "radicalized" and "don't want to see crime stopped, which we could very easily do on the southern border." Trump was asked about Pelosi's action during a health care event at the White House and as the government shutdown extended into a second month. The president said: "This will go on for a while. Ultimately the American people will have their way because they want to see no crime." The stalemate over funding a U.S.-Mexico border wall has produced the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history. Trump wants to deliver the speech Tuesday as planned. ___ 2:50 p.m. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is officially postponing President Donald Trump's State of the Union address until the government is fully reopened. The California Democrat told Trump in a letter Wednesday the Democratic-controlled House won't pass the required measure for him to give the nationally televised speech from the House floor. Pelosi acted just hours after Trump notified her that he was planning to deliver the speech next Tuesday in line with her original invitation. Pelosi's moves have left the White House scrambling to devise an alternative plan for the speech, which is one of the president's top opportunities to lay out his agenda to the public. Pelosi said "I look forward to welcoming you to the House on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened." ___ 12:45 p.m. President Donald Trump says he is planning to deliver his State of the Union address next week in front of a joint session of Congress - despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request that he delay. Trump issued a letter to Pelosi on Wednesday. In it he dismisses her suggestion the speech should be postponed or delivered in writing due to security issues related to the partial government shutdown. Declaring there are "no security concerns," Trump says he will fulfill his "Constitutional duty." Trump adds that it would be "so very sad" for the country if the address is not given as planned on Jan. 29. Pelosi last week cited the impact of the ongoing shutdown on the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Secret Service. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the agencies were prepared to support the speech. __ 12:20 p.m. The White House is proceeding with plans for President Donald Trump to deliver his State of the Union speech in front of a joint session of Congress on Tuesday without knowing whether Democrats will let him have that stage. Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, even as officials continued to work on a backup plan to have the president speak somewhere else. The White House emailed the House sergeant-at-arms asking to schedule a walk-through in anticipation of the speech, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the planning publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The move is the latest in a game of brinkmanship between Trump and the House speaker as they remain locked in an increasingly personal standoff over Trump's demand for border wall money that has forced a partial government shutdown that is now in its second month. The president cannot speak in front of a joint session of Congress without both chambers' explicit permission. A portion of a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from President Donald Trump, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019 in Washington. Trump made it clear Wednesday that he intends to deliver his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, telling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a letter that there are no security concerns stemming from the government shutdown and "therefore I will be honoring your invitation." (AP Photo/Wayne Partlow) RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A panel of federal judges has chosen a redistricting map for Virginia's House of Delegates that could shift some districts toward Democrats and help the party gain control in this year's election. The judges ordered a new map in June after ruling that lawmakers had racially gerrymandered eleven House districts by packing black voters into them. On Tuesday, the judges chose new district lines from a series of proposals submitted by a special master. The judges gave all sides until Feb. 1 to file objections. An analysis of the maps by the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project shows the plan could shift six Republican-held districts toward Democrats, including the district of House Speaker Kirk Cox, which would become 32 percent more Democratic. Cox called the redistricting modules chosen by the court "legally indefensible" and said they attempt to "give Democrats an advantage at every turn." "The modules selected by the Court target senior Republicans, myself included, without a substantive basis in the law," Cox said in a statement. House Speaker, Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, presides over the House during the session at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. A panel of federal judges has chosen a redistricting map for Virginia's House of Delegates that could shift some districts toward Democrats and help the party regain control in this year's election. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the GOP's appeal this spring. The high court rejected a request from Republicans to put on hold the lower court's ruling, which means the election season will begin using whatever map is finalized by the lower court. Cox said that no matter what happens with the redistricting "Republicans are prepared to defend and rebuild our majority in the House." Democrats made huge gains in the 2017 House election, wrestling 15 seats away from Republicans. When the votes in all 100 House districts were added up, Democrats beat Republicans by a margin of 54 percent to 44 percent. Despite that, Republicans still held on to a slim majority in the House, a result some Democrats said showed that gerrymandering insulated Republicans from the will of the voters. Republicans currentlyhold a 51-48 majority in the House, with one additional seat to be decided in a special election next month. The Virginia Public Access Project calculates that the maps would move between 370,000 and 436,000 voters to new districts. The 11 districts that were found to be gerrymandered were mostly in the Richmond and Hampton Roads area. University of California, Irvine political science professor Bernard Grofman was chosen as a special master after the GOP-controlled General Assembly and Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam were unable to reach an agreement on a redistricting plan. Grofman has said redrawing the lines of the districts also affected some surrounding districts, resulting in a total of 26 districts being redrawn. In addition to Cox, Del. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, would see a sharp Democratic shift of 27.4 percentage points in his district, under the Virginia Public Access Project's analysis. Del. David Yancey, R-Newport News, whose 2017 re-election race ended in a tie, would also see a significant Democratic shift - 13.6 percentage points- in his district, under the access project's analysis. Control of the House was decided when Yancey's name was drawn from a bowl, allowing him to hold on to his seat over his Democratic challenger. Jones and Yancey did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday. All 100 House seats will be on the ballot in November, as well as all 40 Senate seats. Marc Elias, an attorney who brought the redistricting lawsuit on behalf of a group of African-American voters, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday. After the court announced its choice of maps Tuesday, Elias said on Twitter that the decision adopts the configuration the group advocated. "We are one important step closer to the end of the GOP's racial gerrymander," Elias tweeted. The new district lines would also make some districts more Republican, including the 93rd District, held by Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, which would have a Republican shift of 12.1 percentage points, according to the VPAP analysis. Jesse Richman, a political science professor at Old Dominion University, said the redrawn districts could shift the balance of power in the General Assembly. "The state has moved in a much bluer direction lately, and on the basis of statewide elections, it looks like the Democrats may well have the upper hand in state politics," Richman said. "The district lines had provided some shelter for Republicans in the House of Delegates. ...If this stands, we're more likely to see the chamber change parties in the next election, barring some major unforeseen shift in political winds." KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - With less than 24 hours left in his rule, Congo's President Joseph Kabila on Wednesday urged the nation to "massively" support incoming leader Felix Tshisekedi after a disputed election that surprised the world by bringing an opposition leader to power. Kabila is stepping aside after more than two turbulent years of delayed elections as many Congolese feared he was seeking a way to stay in office. He praised Congo's 80 million people: "Thanks to your maturity, the elections unrolled amid calm." This is the vast central African nation's first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence in 1960. In a brief, late-night address, Kabila urged the Congolese people to unite in a "grand coalition" against what he called the "predatory forces that will band together to monopolize our natural resources." The country has trillions of dollars' worth of mineral wealth, some of it key to smartphones and electric cars worldwide, yet suffers from underdevelopment and conflict. Kabila congratulated Tshisekedi, son of the late opposition leader Etienne, who had posed such a charismatic challenge that after he died in Belgium in 2017, Congo's government did not allow his body to be brought home. His son's spokesman has said that will be corrected once Felix Tshisekedi takes office on Thursday. Kabila said he will pass on power "without regret" and will do his part to support the incoming president. He also defended his presidency that began in 2001 at age 29 shortly after his father, Laurent, was assassinated. "I never betrayed my oath," Kabila said. He said he didn't claim to have "achieved everything" but said he was leaving behind a more stable economy and "unprecedented advances in democracy." Supporters of Congolese President elect Felix Tshisekedi sell souvenirs outside his party headquarters in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Wednesday Jan. 23, 2019. Tshisekedi is to be inaugurated Thursday Jan. 24, 2019, having won an election that raised numerous concerns about voting irregularities amongst observers as the country chose a successor to longtime President Joseph Kabila. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay) The Dec. 30 election was disputed by the declared runner-up Martin Fayulu, who went to court to seek a recount while pointing to leaking data attributed to Cong's electoral commission that showed he had clearly won. Outside court, his supporters accused Kabila of making a deal with Tshisekedi when it became clear the ruling party's candidate did poorly at the polls. But the Constitutional Court on Sunday rejected Fayulu's petition, and the Congolese people largely have not heeded his call to peacefully protest. Many have signaled that Kabila's departure is enough. Since then, African and Western powers that had expressed concerns over the disputed vote have changed course and noted Tshisekedi's win, if not congratulating him. The United States joined them earlier Wednesday, saying it welcomed the court's certification of Tshisekedi as Congo's next president and committing to working with the new government. The U.S. also encouraged Congo to address "reports of electoral irregularities" and be inclusive. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia's new elections chief asked lawmakers Wednesday for $150 million to replace the state's outdated electronic voting machines. In doing so, he all but closed the door on a hand-marked paper balloting system that experts say is cheapest and most secure. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Georgia legislators meeting for budget hearings that a new voting system is his top priority. Cybersecurity experts and voting integrity activists say the touch-screen machines Georgia has used since 2002 are vulnerable to hacking and can't be audited effectively because they produce no verifiable paper record. The current machines and Georgia's registration practices became the subject of national criticism during last year's governor's race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp. Kemp served as secretary of state and refused calls to resign from overseeing his own election. He stepped down two days postelection after declaring himself the winner. Two main systems offered by election equipment vendors have been considered as a replacement. Ballot-marking devices have an electronic touch screen where voters make choices and then print a paper receipt that is read by a scanner. The other system has hand-marked paper ballots that are read by an optical scanner. Although Raffensperger said the procurement process for the new system would not have a "predetermined outcome," he told lawmakers he believed a system with ballot-marking devices would be faster and more accurate. "We believe that you get a better result, a more accurate result, and are actually able to move people through the lines faster when you have a ballot-marking device, so you don't have to cipher out what someone meant with stray marks," Raffensperger said. FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2018, file photo, candidate for Georgia Secretary of State Republican Brad Raffensperger participates in a debate with fellow candidates Libertarian Smythe DuVal and Democrat John Barrow at Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta. Georgia's new elections chief, Raffensperger, asked lawmakers Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, for $150 million to replace the state's outdated electronic voting machines. In doing so, he all but closed the door on a hand-marked paper balloting system that experts say is cheapest and most secure. (Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) The amount requested is also in line with the more costly ballot-marking systems. Raffensperger's presentation followed a study committee's recommendation earlier this month to use ballot-marking devices over hand-marked paper ballots by a 13-3 vote. Commission co-chairman Barry Fleming, a Republican state representative from Harlem, previously estimated initial expenditures would be roughly $50 million for a hand-marked paper ballot system and about $150 million for a ballot-marking machine system. The three votes for hand-marked paper ballots came from two Democratic lawmakers and the commission's lone cybersecurity expert, Georgia Tech professor Wenke Lee. Lee explained why he favored hand-marked paper ballots in an opinion piece published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week. "Paper provides the trail of evidence for post-election audits to determine if software caused an error in election outcomes and does so without re-running an entire election. Paper is human readable and manually countable when needed," Lee wrote. Next, the legislature will have to rewrite election law to specify requirements for the new machines. Many Democrats have vowed to continue pushing for hand-marked paper ballots. Then, Raffensperger's office will handle the procurement in line with the change in the law. Raffensperger said that, ideally, the state would have new machines in place in some cities for municipal elections in November 2019, before having them fully online across the state before November 2020. He said the funding would cover getting the new machines, decommissioning the old ones, updating electronic poll books, and training and outreach to county elections officials. TORONTO (AP) - Canada's ambassador to China said he thinks a top Chinese executive has a strong case to avoid extradition to the United States and said he hopes she will be released soon in remarks one of his predecessors called "mind-boggling." Ambassador John McCallum told Chinese language media in Markham, Ontario, on Tuesday that Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has "quite good arguments," including "political involvement by comments from Donald Trump on her case." Canada arrested the daughter of Huawei's founder at the request of the U.S. on Dec. 1. Meng is wanted on fraud charges that she misled banks about the company's business dealings in Iran. Trump said last month he would be willing to abandon the Meng case in pursuit of a trade deal with Beijing. That led some to suggest the case has been politicized and the U.S. is loosening its commitment to the rule of law and an independent judiciary. "I think she has some strong arguments that she can make before a judge," said McCallum, who is an economist. McCallum also listed two other arguments Meng could use before a judge. If she is extradited to the U.S., the ambassador said, "That would not be a happy outcome." FILE - In this Dec. 12, 2018, file photo, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou arrives at a parole office with a security guard in Vancouver, British Columbia. China on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, demanded the U.S. drop a request that Canada extradite the top executive of the tech giant Huawei, shifting blame to Washington in a case that has severely damaged Beijing's relations with Ottawa. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File) "And that would take years before it happens because she would have the right to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada." McCallum also said the U.S. could make a deal with China in which it would no longer seek her extradition, and two Canadian detained in China could then be released. The case has severely damaged Beijing's relations with Ottawa. China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor on Dec. 10 in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng. A Chinese court also sentenced a Canadian to death in a sudden retrial, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier. Huawei has close ties to China's military and is considered one of the country's most successful international enterprises, operating in the high-tech sphere where China hopes to establish dominance. "President Xi Jinping was very angry about this and so others in the Chinese government have taken the lead from him," McCallum said. "I don't know exactly why. Maybe it's because Huawei is a national flagship company of China. It's not just any company." David Mulroney, Canada's former ambassador to China, called McCallum's remarks "mind-boggling." Mulroney said talking about the merits of the case and saying he hopes Meng should be released is completely inappropriate when the government has been saying that Meng's extradition is up to judicial authorities. Mulroney said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland have to distance themselves from the remarks of McCallum, who is a former Cabinet minister in the government. "It's a setback and an unfortunate setback. It undermines that Canada is playing this by the book," he said. "If it is a strategy it is a remarkably poor one." Trudeau and Freeland have stressed they can't interfere politically in the case. Trudeau didn't answer when asked by a reporter if he agreed with his ambassador that Meng has a strong case not to be extradited. Freeland spokesman Adam Austen said in a statement there has been no political involvement in the Meng case and that Canada is honoring its extradition treaty with the U.S. McCallum didn't invite major English-speaking media outlets to his press conference. McCallum said the Meng case "a result of ongoing tensions between China and the United States. Or it may be." The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment Wednesday Meng is due back in court Feb. 6 in relation to her bail conditions. McCallum said the first date of her extradition hearing will be in March but the actual hearings will be some time after that. Opposition Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer called for the ambassador to be fired Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto, said McCallum has always been somewhat autonomous and said his behavior when he was a lawmaker for Markham is what he would expect from someone who represented a largely Chinese-Canadian constituency. "McCallum may be right on the extradition case, and the arguments to be used for the defense," Bothwell said. "However, there is the behavior of the Chinese government subsequent to the extradition, and that should be enough to give anybody pause. It evidently doesn't take a lot to send the Chinese into hysterics, and when hysterical they like to throw their weight around." PHOENIX (AP) - A nurse who was supposed to be looking after an incapacitated woman at a long-term health care facility was charged Wednesday with raping her, weeks after she stunned her caregivers and family by giving birth to a baby boy . Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, has been arrested and charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse, according to court records. "We owed this arrest to the victim. We owed this arrest to the newest member of our community - that innocent baby," Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said. The surprise birth late last month triggered reviews by state agencies, highlighted safety concerns for patients who are severely disabled or incapacitated and led to disciplinary actions and resignations of staffers and managers. It also prompted authorities to test the DNA of all the men who worked at the Hacienda HealthCare facility. Sutherland, 36, submitted his DNA sample under court order Tuesday and the results came back a few hours later, showing he was a match to the baby. He declined to speak with police and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, police spokesman Tommy Thompson said. Sutherland appeared in court Wednesday but did not enter a plea. A Maricopa County Superior Court commissioner set a $500,000 cash-only bond. If Sutherland posts bond, he would need to wear an electronic monitoring device. Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, left, announces the arrest of Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, on one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse on an incapacitated woman who gave birth last month at a long-term health care facility Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Phoenix. Sutherland was one of the woman's caregivers at the Hacienda HealthCare facility and he was charged after authorities obtained a court order to take a DNA sample from him, which was compared to DNA of the baby boy, according to police. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Defense attorney David Gregan had asked for a lower bond on the grounds that Sutherland didn't have a criminal record. He described his client as a family man with young children who has lived in Arizona since 1993. "There's no direct evidence that Mr. Sutherland has committed these acts," Gregan said. "I know at this point there's DNA. But he will have a right to his own DNA expert." Gregan did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Investigators found that Sutherland had treated the victim and spent a lot of time with her, according to a probable cause statement. Investigators believe Sutherland raped the patient sometime between February and April. A former neighbor, Esella Burr, said she lived next to Sutherland, his wife and four children for more than five years. She often saw the couple leave for church on Sundays and they would chat occasionally. "I can't believe it," Burr said. "He told me he was a nurse and he liked his job." Court records indicate his wife filed for divorce seven weeks ago. A message left at a number listed for her was not immediately returned. Hacienda officials fired Sutherland after learning of his arrest. The company said it was "troubled beyond words." Sutherland had passed an extensive background check. "Once again, we offer an apology and send our deepest sympathies to the client and her family, to the community and to our agency partners at every level," Hacienda said in a statement. The 29-year-old victim has been in long-term care since age 3 and gave birth at the facility on Dec. 29. Employees said they had no idea she was pregnant. As her guardian, the woman's mother was required to submit an annual report to the court that included results of a medical exam. The case has prompted the departure or discipline of key figures at Hacienda HealthCare, including the CEO. The provider says one doctor who had cared for the woman resigned and another had been suspended. Earlier stories had described the patient as being comatose or in a vegetative state. But her parents released a statement Tuesday disputing that characterization. They described her as intellectually disabled because of seizures in early childhood. While she doesn't speak, she has some mobility in her limbs, head and neck. She also responds to sound and can make facial gestures. The family's attorney, John Micheaels, said in a statement that they knew about the arrest but did not want to comment. Thompson said he believes the baby has since been released from the hospital. The woman's family has said they will care for him. ___ Associated Press journalists Paul Davenport, Jacques Billeaud and Brian Skoloff in Phoenix contributed to this report. Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, right, announces the arrest of Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, on one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse on an incapacitated woman who gave birth last month at a long-term health care facility Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Phoenix. Sutherland was one of the woman's caregivers at the Hacienda HealthCare facility and he was charged after authorities obtained a court order to take a DNA sample from him, which was compared to DNA of the baby boy, according to police. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) FILE - This Friday, Jan. 4, 2019, file photo shows Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix. Two doctors who cared for an incapacitated woman who gave birth as a result of a sexual assault are no longer providing medical services at the long-term care center in Phoenix, Hacienda HealthCare said Sunday, Jan. 20. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) This photo provided by Maricopa County Sheriff's Office shows Nathan Sutherland. Phoenix police say Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, has been arrested on a charge of sexual assault of an incapacitated woman who gave birth last month at a long-term health care facility. Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, that investigators arrested Sutherland on one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse. (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office via AP) Phoenix Mayor Thelda Williams, front right, speaks during a news conference as she is joined by Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, left, and other members of law enforcement as they announce that Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, has been arrested on one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse on an incapacitated woman who gave birth last month at a long-term health care facility Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Phoenix. Sutherland was one of the woman's caregivers at the Hacienda HealthCare facility and he was charged after authorities obtained a court order to take a DNA sample from him, which was compared to DNA of the baby boy, according to police. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Joined by other police officials and city leaders, Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, center, announces the arrest of Nathan Sutherland, a licensed practical nurse, on one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse on an incapacitated woman who gave birth last month at a long-term health care facility Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Phoenix. Sutherland was one of the woman's caregivers at the Hacienda HealthCare facility and he was charged after authorities obtained a court order to take a DNA sample from him, which was compared to DNA of the baby boy, according to police. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the partial government shutdown (all times local): 3 p.m. Several hundred of the 46,000 furloughed IRS employees recalled to work last week have gotten permission to stay off the job because of financial hardship. Nearly 60 percent of the IRS workforce was called back, without pay, during the partial government shutdown so they could handle tax returns and send out refunds. The official start of the tax filing season comes Monday. The Trump administration has promised that taxpayers owed refunds will be paid on time. The IRS employees' union contract allows them to be absent from work if they experience hardship during a shutdown. Furloughed government workers affected by the shutdown hold a silent protest against the ongoing partial government shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) The union and the IRS aren't providing specific numbers on employees not working and invoking the hardship provision. ___ 2:50 p.m. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is officially postponing President Donald Trump's State of the Union address until the government is fully reopened. The California Democrat told Trump in a letter Wednesday the Democratic-controlled House won't pass the required measure for him to give the nationally televised speech from the House floor. Pelosi acted just hours after Trump notified her that he was planning to deliver the speech next Tuesday in line with her original invitation. Pelosi's moves have left the White House scrambling to devise an alternative plan for the speech, which is one of the president's top opportunities to lay out his agenda to the public. Pelosi said "I look forward to welcoming you to the House on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened." ___ 11:25 a.m. President Donald Trump is urging state and local Republican leaders to "stick together" on his border wall demands. Trump held a conference call with state, local and community leaders Wednesday on the 33rd day of the partial government shutdown. During his remarks, Trump said he would not back down in his push for $5.7 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, calling it the "right policy." The president also acknowledged there was "pressure" due to the shutdown, but argued it was worse for Democrats. Trump said "I think there's more pressure on them than there is on us." Polls show Trump gets most of the blame for the shutdown. Trump said: "We need this approved. We have to stick together." ___ 11:20 a.m. A top White House economist says near-zero growth is possible in the first quarter if the government doesn't fully reopen before the end of March. But Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, predicts a "humongous" rebound in the second quarter if the shutdown ends. Hassett told CNN on Wednesday that "we could end up with a number that's very, very low" for January to March after the effects of an extended shutdown are factored into what typically is a weak first-quarter economic growth report. Pressed on whether that could mean no growth, Hassett said the number could be "very close to zero." A stalemate between President Donald Trump and Democratic lawmakers over funding a U.S.-Mexico border wall has produced the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history, now on Day 33. ___ 10:55 a.m. House Democrats are considering drafting a new proposal to provide President Donald Trump with options for securing the border that don't involve a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. No final decisions have been made, according to a senior Democratic aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because the aide wasn't authorized to discuss the lawmakers' private discussions on the record. The proposals are likely to be drafted into a sweeping Homeland Security bill. Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Wednesday that personnel, technology and other options "are the things that would actually improve our border security." Already, House Democrats have added $1.5 billion for border security to legislation being voted on this week. The funding would go toward immigration judges, bolstered infrastructure and aid to Central American countries. -AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro __ 10:15 a.m. The White House isn't saying whether President Donald Trump will veto a bill that's in the Senate to reopen the government through Feb. 8 while negotiations continue over his demand for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. But press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also didn't say that Trump would sign the bill. Sanders declined on Wednesday to "get into hypotheticals" over the bill, which has been passed by the Democratic-controlled House and is due for a vote Thursday in the Republican-led Senate. Sanders says Trump put forward a plan that doesn't kick the problem down the road. She was referring to a bill also set for a Senate vote Thursday reflecting Trump's offer to trade border wall funding for temporary protection for some immigrants. Democrats have rejected the plan. Trump says a border wall is non-negotiable. ___ 12:15 a.m. Two different votes are set in the Republican-controlled Senate with the aim to end the partial government shutdown. One vote Thursday will be on a bill reflecting President Donald Trump's demand for border wall funding in exchange for temporary protections for some immigrants. A second vote is set for a measure already passed by the Democratic-controlled House to reopen the government through Feb. 8. It doesn't allow money for a border wall but gives bargainers more time to talk. Neither bill is expected to advance under Senate rules requiring at least 60 votes. Senate Democrats have dismissed Trump's proposal, and it's unclear whether Senate Republicans will back Trump's insistence that the government remain closed until lawmakers allocate $5.7 billion for his long-promised border wall with Mexico. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders talks with reporters outside the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of N.Y., accompanied by Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Katherine Clark, D-Mass., right, speaks at a news conference following a House Democratic Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) - A Muslim group called Wednesday for full prosecutions against the four people accused of plotting an attack on the group's rural enclave named Islamberg in upstate New York. The arrests of three Rochester-area men and a 16-year-old who had access to homemade explosives and firearms sent shockwaves through the family-centered community, leaders of The Muslims of America said. The community of about 200 residents has been dogged by allegations on right-wing websites that it is a terrorist training camp, and it was the target of a similar plot in 2015. "Let us be clear, the terrorist threat against Islamberg by the four current suspects is about hatred toward Islam and hatred toward American Muslims," Hussein Adams, chief executive of The Muslims of America, told reporters at a news conference in Binghamton. Authorities in suburban Rochester on Tuesday announced weapons possession and conspiracy charges against Brian Colaneri, 20; Andrew Crysel, 18; and Vincent Vetromile, 19. A 16-year-old student at Odyssey Academy in Greece, a Rochester suburb, was charged as an adolescent offender. The three adult suspects were due back in court Feb. 5. Their lawyers did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment Wednesday, and attempts to reach relatives weren't successful. This combination of three Jan. 22, 2019, photographs released by the Greece Police Department in Greece, N.Y., shows Brian Colaneri, from left, Andrew Crysel and Vincent Vetromile. Authorities said that the three men were charged with plotting to attack a rural upstate New York Muslim community with explosives. The three Rochester, NY-area men are accused of plotting to attack Islamberg, a 60-acre Muslim enclave west of the Catskills, according to court papers. (Greece Police Department via AP) At the time of their weekend arrests, the men, three of whom were in Boy Scouts together, had access to 23 rifles and shotguns and three homemade explosives, Greece police said. Investigators uncovered the plot after a student reported a suspicious comment in a lunchroom Friday. The Muslims of America are followers of Sheikh Mubarik Gilani and run 22 communities in North America. The mostly African-American settlers of Islamberg first came to upstate New York in the 1980s to escape crime and crowding in New York City. Police and analysts have dismissed accusations that the community - 120 miles (190 kilometers) southeast of Rochester - is a terrorist training ground. But the claims have persisted for decades . "The lies about Islamberg have been proven wrong countless times," Adams said. "But what speaks volumes is that after 30 years there have been no instances where members of our community have done anything related to these accusations." In 2017, a Tennessee man was convicted on federal charges for what authorities called plans to burn down Islamberg's mosque in 2015. Robert Doggart, now 67, is serving time in federal prison. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that troopers were increasing patrols around Islamberg "out of an abundance of caution" and that he directed the State Police Hate Crimes Unit to assist authorities in the investigation. "In New York, we stand with the Muslim community and we will hold those behind this thwarted plot responsible to the full extent of the law," the Democratic governor said in a prepared statement. HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe faces a new wave of unrest as the group representing government workers announced on Wednesday that roughly 500,000 civil servants across the country will go on strike after salary negotiations failed. David Dzatsunga, secretary of the Civil Service Apex Council, said the strike will begin on Friday as the southern African nation's economic collapse deepens and frustration with President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government grows. A crackdown on last week's protests over a sharp rise in fuel prices continued in the courts and on the streets, where witnesses and rights groups reported abuses by the military, police and ruling party youth gangs. Mnangagwa's call for national dialogue has been met with skepticism. Soldiers and police tortured and assaulted people in their homes in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, overnight in "post-protest retribution," the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said in a statement. A labor federation leader charged with subversion was at court along with dozens of others accused of involvement in the protests, while their lawyers accused the government of systematically denying them justice. Japhet Moyo, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, could face 20 years in prison. He is accused of inciting Zimbabweans to protest the fuel price increase by staying off the streets. Other Zimbabweans, frustrated over the long lines for fuel and other basics, demonstrated, with some looting shops in anger or desperation. A motorist is helped to push his car into a garage after it ran out out of fuel, in the capital Harare, Wednesday, Jan, 23, 2019. The Southern African nation remained tense as President Emmerson Mnangagwa's call for national dialogue is met with skepticism, and reports of abuses by security forces continued. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) The military deployed, and doctors and rights groups have documented at least 12 people killed and more than 300 wounded. Some were shot at close range. Others were pulled from hospital beds and arrested. They are likely "just a fraction of the actual victims," the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said Tuesday. Lawyers say labor leader Moyo is not guilty. Pastor and activist Evan Mawarire, also accused of subversion for joining Moyo's call for protest, had his application for bail delayed until Friday by the High Court in the capital, Harare. He has been detained for a week. Lawyers say more than 600 people have been arrested, with most of them denied bail. Those arrested, killed and wounded include ordinary citizens, including children. Some hungry Zimbabweans were picked up after venturing out in search of bread or other basics from the few shops open during the protests. The dozens in court on Wednesday are accused of "committing public violence." Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa alleged "a coordinated, deliberate orchestrated attempt to subvert justice." Some people were forced to stand trial without being given sufficient time to brief their lawyers, she said. "We have had a pattern ... of every magistrate in different provinces doing exactly the same thing," said Mtetwa, a board member of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. Responding to the president's call for national dialogue, main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa on Tuesday called for the "unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience and political detainees." In Harare's city center and in many of its working-class and poor suburbs, armed soldiers maintained a presence and at times beat up people, according to residents, non-governmental groups and the opposition. Zimbabwe's government has provided buses with cheaper fares, and accompanied by armed soldiers, to ferry people to work. There were long lines for cooking gas and other basic items, and people elbowed each other for bread in shops that still had it in stock. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa People wait in a queue for cooking gas at a garage in the capital Harare, Wednesday, Jan, 23, 2019. The Southern African nation remained tense as President Emmerson Mnangagwa's call for national dialogue is met with skepticism, and reports of abuses by security forces continued. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) SHAH ALAM, Malaysia (AP) - The family of a Mongolian woman murdered in Malaysia 13 years ago hopes to find answers with a lawsuit that opened in court this week, their lawyer said Wednesday. Altantuya Shaariibuu was shot dead and blown up with military-grade plastic explosives in a jungle outside Kuala Lumpur in October 2006. Her killing touched off a scandal linked to former Prime Minister Najib Razak, but he has repeatedly denied any involvement. Two members of an elite police unit who were Najib's bodyguards were convicted of killing Altantuya. Her lover Abdul Razak Baginda, a close aide to Najib, was tried but acquitted of abetting the crime, whose planner was never determined. Altantuya was 28 and pregnant at the time of her death. There was speculation that Altantuya, who was also working as a translator for Abdul Razak, was killed to shut her up from exposing alleged corruption involving the purchase of submarines from France under Najib, who was then deputy premier and defense minister. Najib later became prime minister, until his party lost power in a shocking defeat in May last year. The new government last year ordered investigations into her death to be reopened following appeals from Altantuya's family. The family filed a lawsuit in 2007 seeking 100 million ringgit ($24 million) for the shock and trauma they suffered over her death, but the case was delayed pending conclusion of the criminal trial. Lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo said Altantuya's family wants justice for her. One of her two sons died last year, she said. In this photo taken through frosted glass, Burmaa Oyubchineg, cousin of the murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, arrives at Shah Alam High Court in Shah Alam, Malaysia, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. A lawyer for the family of Altantuya said Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, they hope to find answers with a lawsuit that opened this week. (AP Photo/Yam G-Jun) The family "wants to know who ordered her murder and we hope to get some answers from this trial," she told The Associated Press. The lawsuit names the government, Abdul Razak and the two policemen as defendants. Burmaa Oyunchimeg, a cousin of Altantuya, testified Wednesday that Altantuya and Abdul Razak were lovers since 2004. She said Altantuya had shown her photographs of a trip to Paris with Abdul Razak in 2005, including one of her taken with Abdul Razak and Najib. "I remember I saw a picture of three people, two men and Altantuya. I asked her who they were, and she said one was the deputy prime minister and the other was (Abdul) Razak who worked with him and do business together," said Burmaa, the first witness in the trial. She didn't elaborate further. Najib reiterated later Wednesday that he didn't know the Mongolian nor had any connection with her. "That is slander. Lies. I never met her," he was quoted as saying by the Malaysiakini online news portal. One of the policemen convicted of the murder fled to Australia while his conviction was on appeal. Sirul Azhar Umar has been detained there since 2015 for overstaying his visa and has offered to return to Malaysia to provide evidence in the case if he is promised a pardon. His colleague is on death row. Altantuya's father, Shaariibuu Setev, is due to testify later this week. Shaariibuu Setev, father of murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, arrives at Shah Alam High Court in Shah Alam, Malaysia, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. A lawyer for the family of Altantuya said Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, they hope to find answers with a lawsuit that opened this week. (AP Photo/Yam G-Jun) Ramkarpal Singh, far right and Sangeet Kaur Deo, far left, lawyers of the family of a murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, speaks to the press after a court hearing at Shah Alam High Court in Shah Alam, Malaysia, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. A lawyer for the family of Altantuya said Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, they hope to find answers with a lawsuit that opened this week. (AP Photo/Yam G-Jun) GARDNERVILLE RANCHOS, Nev. (AP) - Prosecutors were preparing Wednesday to charge a 19-year-old man from El Salvador who was living in the U.S. illegally with killing four people in two different Nevada cities, while investigators looked for possible links between the victims and suspect. "They're continuing to look at, 'How were these cases connected?'" Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong said of the separate shootings carried out in a six-day span. Two women were found dead in their homes days apart in the tight-knit community of Gardnerville Ranchos, and the bodies of a couple were discovered in their Reno house about an hour's drive north. A motive for the slayings is not known. Wilbur Ernesto Martinez-Guzman has been arrested and is expected in court Thursday in Carson City. "I have a hard time believing these were random," Furlong said. The case became part of the immigration debate after President Donald Trump cited it as evidence of the need for his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, which is at the heart of a partial government shutdown. This undated photo provided by the Carson City Sheriff's Office in Carson City, Nev., shows suspect Wilbur Martinez-Guzman. Authorities investigating four recent Nevada killings say murder charges are pending against Martinez-Guzman, suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. (Carson City Sheriff's Office via AP) Federal immigration authorities told Furlong that Martinez-Guzman was from El Salvador and in the country illegally. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not have more details on how he got into the U.S. Martinez-Guzman is in jail on charges involving stolen property, burglary and immigration. Carson City District Attorney Jason Woodbury said Martinez-Guzman had been selling the victims' items at pawn shops. He's expected to have a lawyer appointed Thursday in court but not yet face murder charges. Douglas County District Attorney Mark Jackson said those charges will be filed separately, probably this week. Officials said they were deciding where Martinez-Guzman will be prosecuted because the killings occurred in two counties. In Gardnerville Ranchos, a 30-minute drive south of Carson City, the deaths of 56-year-old Connie Koontz and 74-year-old Sophia Renken have left formerly trusting residents on edge. Koontz was found dead in her home Jan. 10. Renken was found three days later in her house about a mile (1.5 kilometers) away. The scenic valley between snowy mountains is the kind of place where people know their neighbors and walk into each other's homes without knocking, resident Michael Lucas said. Lucas worked with Koontz at a Walmart and said she was funny, kind and cared for her mother. In the past, he said, few residents would turn on their lights at night but now every house is lit up. "I pulled over one day to check my phone, and I got immediately flooded with spotlights," Lucas said. "The homeowner came out with a rifle, was checking the side yard. It definitely shook a lot of people up." Lucas said there are mixed feelings among residents about Trump highlighting the killings. Lucas said he didn't previously support a border wall but the crimes have made him reconsider. "Something has to change," Lucas said of U.S. immigration policies. "The good people are struggling to get in and the bad people, it's too easy to get in." Renken belonged to an antique automobile club, driving a Ford Model A and always volunteering to help people, her friend Robin Reedy said. Next-door neighbor Jim Gibson said he was home but didn't hear anything unusual the night authorities believe Renken was killed. "I didn't leave the house for five or six days," Gibson said, characterizing his home as "pretty much on lockdown" with new security alarms, floodlights and a camera. Neighbors are nervous, he said, because police have released few details about the crimes, including information about how someone entered the victims' homes. Illegal immigration has not been a problem in the community in the past, Gibson said. He added, however, that it would bolster Trump's argument if the attacker had "snuck across the border." Gerald David, 81, and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon, were found dead in their south Reno home Jan. 16. Longtime friend Tom Cates remembered the couple as active figures in the rodeo and equestrian scene. Gerald David was Reno Rodeo Association president in 2006 when Cates said he promoted breast cancer awareness by getting the group's cowboys to show they were "tough enough to wear pink shirts." ___ Ritter reported from Las Vegas. This January 2019 photo shows a copy of the 2006 Reno Rodeo program with a photo of Gerald David. A man suspected of being in the U.S. illegally shot and killed several people in Nevada over the past few weeks, including David and his wife, authorities said, and the slayings added fuel to the immigration debate. On Jan. 16, 2019, the bodies of 81-year-old Gerald David, and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon, were found in their home on the southern edge of Reno. (Reno Gazette Journal via AP) ADDS LOCATION OF RENO, NEVADA - This 2006 photo provided by Tom Cates shows Gerald David in Reno, Nev. A man suspected of being in the U.S. illegally shot and killed several people in Nevada over the past few weeks, including David and his wife, authorities said, and the slayings added fuel to the immigration debate. On Jan. 16, 2019, the bodies of 81-year-old Gerald David, and his 80-year-old wife, Sharon, were found in their home on the southern edge of Reno. (Tom Cates via AP) A neighborhood watch sign is seen Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, near the Gardnerville Ranchos, Nev., home of Connie Koontz, the first of two women in the community who were found dead in their homes. The killings of the two women and a couple north in Reno that police say were committed by a man in the U.S. illegally have put the community on edge. (AP Photo/Michelle L. Price) NEW YORK (AP) - Days after appearing as President Donald Trump in a "Deal or No Deal" parody on "Saturday Night Live," Alec Baldwin took a deal of his own Wednesday, agreeing to attend an anger management class to resolve a criminal case stemming from a skirmish over a parking spot. Baldwin, who was accused of striking another driver in the face during the dispute last fall outside his New York City home, pleaded guilty to harassment and will have his case record sealed once he completes the one-day class. The charge is a violation, the lowest level of offense. A misdemeanor attempted assault charge was dropped. Prosecutors offered the compromise after reviewing video of the incident, looking at medical records and talking with the victim and witnesses, Assistant District Attorney Ryan Lipes said. The 60-year-old Baldwin, who's had various scrapes with the law over the years, has a clean criminal record, Lipes said. Baldwin - in a sport coat, black top and black framed glasses - only spoke a few words during the brief court hearing, mostly answering short questions from the judge. The Manhattan prosecutor's office declined comment. Actor Alec Baldwin arrives in a New York City court, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, for a hearing on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. He's charged with misdemeanor attempted assault and harassment, a violation. Baldwin has denied punching anyone in the Nov. 2, 2018, clash. The former "30 Rock" star's lawyer says he'll be vindicated by "incontrovertible video evidence ." (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Baldwin and his lawyer didn't comment outside court, but the actor wasn't shy on Twitter, where he criticized the media for staking out his courtroom when there were more serious cases elsewhere in the building and for misreporting the allegations against him. "The press reported that I punched someone. That is untrue, and that is a serious charge. A man was punched in NY recently and died," Baldwin tweeted, along with a link to a news article about a fatal bar fight in Queens last November. "Nothing that resembles justice ever enters or leaves any courtroom in this country," he added. Baldwin was accused of trying to punch another driver during a Nov. 2 argument over a parking spot in front of his Manhattan apartment building. Police said Baldwin claimed he had a family member holding the spot for him as he attempted to park his black Cadillac Escalade when a man driving a black Saab station wagon pulled up and took it. Police said the men were arguing and pushed each other before Baldwin, got more aggressive. The driver of the station wagon told police that Baldwin hit him with his hand - but wasn't sure if it was a punch or a slap. Baldwin told a police officer that the other driver "stole my spot," used a vulgarity to describe him, and acknowledged pushing him, prosecutors said in court papers. Baldwin's lawyer, Alan Abramson, maintained that the former "30 Rock" actor would be vindicated by "incontrovertible video evidence." Baldwin said on Twitter after Wednesday's hearing that there were three security cameras outside his building and that the punch "didn't happen." No video was shown in court. Baldwin, who got booted off a flight in 2011 for refusing to put his cellphone away, was playing with his phone while waiting for Wednesday's hearing to start - but he didn't argue when court officers announced that phones had to be turned off and out of sight. As it was, the second-floor courtroom was already noisy - with the beeping sound of inmate-transport buses backing up outside, providing a constant, if not annoying, soundtrack for his appearance. ___ Follow Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak Actor Alec Baldwin arrives in a New York City court, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, for a hearing on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. He's charged with misdemeanor attempted assault and harassment, a violation. Baldwin has denied punching anyone in the Nov. 2, 2018, clash. The former "30 Rock" star's lawyer says he'll be vindicated by "incontrovertible video evidence ." (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Actor Alec Baldwin arrives in a New York court, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, for a hearing on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. He's charged with misdemeanor attempted assault and harassment, a violation. Baldwin has denied punching anyone in the Nov. 2, 2018 clash. The former "30 Rock" star's lawyer says he'll be vindicated by "incontrovertible video evidence ." (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) Actor Alec Baldwin leaves a New York City court, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, after a hearing on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2018 file photo, Alec Baldwin attends a gala for "The Public" on day 4 of the Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall, in Toronto. Baldwin is due in court Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in New York City for a hearing on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. He's charged with misdemeanor attempted assault and harassment, a violation. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) Actor Alec Baldwin stands in a New York City court, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, for a hearing on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. (Alec Tabac/The Daily News via AP, Pool) Actor Alec Baldwin, left, stands with his attorney during a hearing, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in New York on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. (Erik Thomas/New York Post via AP, Pool) Actor Alec Baldwin, left, stands with his attorney during a hearing, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in New York on charges that he slugged a man during a dispute over a parking spot last fall. (Erik Thomas/New York Post via AP, Pool) WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats, feeling pressure to display their vision for border security, are preparing a package that would ignore President Donald Trump's demand for $5.7 billion for a wall with Mexico and would instead pay for other ideas aimed at protecting the border. As the government slogged through a record 33rd day of its partial shutdown Wednesday, details of Democrats' border security plan and its cost remained a work in progress, though some said it might match Trump's $5.7 billion figure. Party leaders said it would include money for scanning devices and other technological tools for improving security at ports of entry and along the boundary, plus funds for more border agents and immigration judges. "If his $5.7 billion is about border security, then we see ourselves fulfilling that request, only doing it with what I like to call using a smart wall," said No. 3 House Democratic leader Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. Democrats' movement toward producing a plan, which they said they expected to unveil this week, was significant because it underscored a growing uneasiness with letting Trump cast them as soft on border security. It came as the Senate prepared for Thursday votes on rival plans for reopening federal agencies and paying 800,000 federal workers who are days from missing yet another paycheck. Republicans would couple ending the shutdown with financing Trump's wall and revamping immigration laws. Democrats would reopen agency doors through Feb. 8 while bargainers seek an accord. Both faced likely defeat, but that might spur the two sides into a more serious effort to strike a compromise when each saw it lacked the votes to prevail. Both proposals would need 60 votes to pass in a chamber with 53-47 Republican control. A furloughed government worker affected by the shutdown holds a sign that reads "Reopen the Government" during a silent protest against the ongoing partial government shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Ominously, the day's signs pointed to continued partisan hostilities. Trump told White House reporters that Democrats had become "radicalized" and "a very, very dangerous party," and took personal aim at Congress' top two Democrats. He said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is "very strongly dominated" by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling him her "puppet." Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Senate Republicans to abandon Trump despite his sway with conservative voters, saying, "I know that President Trump has some power in these Republican primaries, but sometimes you have to rise to the occasion." A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Wednesday was the latest indicator that the shutdown is hurting Trump with the general public. While his approval among Republicans remains strong, just 34 percent of Americans like his performance as president and 6 in 10 assign a great deal of responsibility to him for the shutdown, around double the share blaming Democrats. The Senate GOP bill would temporarily shield from deportation 700,000 "Dreamers," migrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children, protections Trump has tried terminating. He's also offered temporary protections for people who fled violence or natural disasters in several countries - another program Trump has curtailed. Democrats have objected to other provisions making it harder for Central American minors to gain asylum in the U.S. The testy relationship between Trump and Pelosi, D-Calif., decayed further when she informed him he couldn't use the House chamber for his planned State of the Union address next Tuesday. She invited him to speak "when government has been opened." Trump said he'd plan an event elsewhere and called Pelosi's move "a great blotch on the country" that showed she didn't want "the truth" about border security. But late Wednesday night he tweeted that he would postpone the address until after the shutdown had ended, saying no other venue could match the House chamber. The clash over the speech suggested that a collaborative atmosphere that could facilitate a shutdown deal wasn't at hand. Democratic leaders have insisted they won't negotiate with Trump on border security unless he reopens the government. Trump has said he'll end the shutdown only if Congress provides money for the wall, though White House officials have indicated he's open to counteroffers. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., has urged the White House to provide green cards to 700,000 Dreamers as a way to break the impasse. Lankford has mentioned this to White House adviser Jared Kushner, said a person familiar with the conversations who wasn't authorized to speak publicly. With Democrats eager to show they're trying to end the impasse, the House used mostly party-line votes Wednesday to approve one measure reopening government agencies through February. By a similar tally, the chamber voted to finance most shuttered agencies through September. Growing numbers of House Democrats say the party should show where it stands on border security. "Right now it's a vacuum and the president is offering fake plans to stop drug smuggling," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. Offering a Democratic alternative "helps the possibility of beginning a real negotiation," he said. Their proposal is expected to exceed the $1.6 billion Trump initially sought for the wall before upping his request. ___ AP congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro and writers Laurie Kellman and Matthew Daly contributed. Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Katherine Clark, D-Mass., accompanied by Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of N.Y., left, speaks at a news conference following a House Democratic Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) BANGKOK (AP) - Thailand's Election Commission on Wednesday announced that the nation's first general election since the military seized power in a 2014 coup will be held on March 24. The long-awaited announcement came just hours after Thailand's royal palace issued a decree authorizing the polls. The decree published Wednesday in the Royal Gazette put into effect election laws that were drafted by the military government, which has kept tight control over political activities and made efforts to quash dissent during its time in power. The ruling junta has repeatedly pushed back several promised election deadlines - at least once every year since their May 2014 coup overthrew the democratically elected government. This is the first time a poll date has been made official and is the most concrete step the country has taken toward a return to some form of civilian governance. A statement issued Wednesday by the office of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the junta leader who staged the coup, said a new government "will be in place by the middle of this year." The most recent promised election date of Feb. 24 had to be abandoned because the decree giving the go-ahead was not issued as expected earlier this month, leaving not enough time to prepare for the polls. The government had announced earlier this month that coronation ceremonies for King Maha Vajiralongkorn would take place in early May, which had also fueled speculation that the poll date could be delayed. FILE - In this Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, file photo, demonstrators hold a rally demanding the general election not be postponed in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand's royal palace has issued a decree announcing the holding of the first general election since the military took power in 2014. The date of the vote is to be announced by the Election Commission within five days. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File) Election Commission chief Ithiporn Boonpakong said the March 24 date was "flexible enough and should be beneficial to everyone concerned." Anti-junta protesters have staged sporadic demonstrations on Bangkok's streets in recent months, demanding there be no further delays. They had voiced suspicion that the military government was postponing the polls to take further measures to strengthen its allied political parties. The military has already overseen the drafting of a new constitution that will limit the power of future elected governments, shifting oversight to unelected bodies. Any new government will also be required to follow a 20-year "national strategy" drawn up by the military government. Prayuth has hinted broadly that he may seek to be named the country's leader after the polls. Several parties seen as serving as proxies for the military have been established, and Prayuth could run with one or he could become a so-called "outsider prime minister" under new rules that don't require the premier to be a member of parliament. Some parties already have announced their support for returning Prayuth to his office and for several months he has been active in making public appearances around the country in what resembles a political campaign. The measures aimed at weakening politicians are seen as being directed at the Pheu Thai Party, which headed the government deposed in 2014. Pheu Thai, under various names changed for legal reasons, has won every national election since it was founded in 1998 by telecoms tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra. Antagonism among the traditional Thai establishment toward Thaksin, who was accused of abuse of power, led to his being ousted as prime minister by a 2006 coup. Since then, his supporters and opponents have waged a struggle for power, erupting several times into violence in the streets. Thaksin and his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who was prime minister until shortly before the 2014 coup, are both in exile avoiding legal action against them that they claim amounts to political persecution. The Pheu Thai Party is still expected to do well, though the new election rules are expected to make it virtually impossible to win a majority and form a government without the support of an unelected Senate largely selected by the military. Chairman of the Election Commission Ithiporn Boonpakong arrives for a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Thailand's Election Commission has announced that the nation's first general election since the military seized power in a 2014 coup will be held on March 24. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe) Chairman of the Election Commission Ithiporn Boonpakong talks to media following a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Thailand's Election Commission has announced that the nation's first general election since the military seized power in a 2014 coup will be held on March 24. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe) Chairman of the Election Commission Ithiporn Boonpakong follows up on a question during a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Thailand's Election Commission has announced that the nation's first general election since the military seized power in a 2014 coup will be held on March 24. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe) PANAMA CITY (AP) - Pope Francis said Wednesday that fear of migration is "making us crazy" as he began a trip to Central America amid a standoff over President Donald Trump's promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and a new caravan of migrants heading north. Francis was asked by reporters about the proposed border wall Wednesday on the way to Panama, where he is looking to leave the sex abuse scandals buffeting his papacy behind. Francis responded: "It is the fear that makes us crazy." The pontiff's plane touched down in Panama City in the afternoon and he was met by President Juan Carlos Varela and first lady Lorena Castillo, who escorted him along a red carpet laid on the tarmac. Spectators waved Panamanian flags in greeting and shouted, "This is the youth of the pope!" After a brief welcoming ceremony, he was driven away from the airport and did not have any more activities scheduled for the evening. Francis landed as Venezuela's protracted political crisis flared up, with the opposition president of the country's National Assembly declaring himself interim president and a number of regional countries including the United States recognizing him. The Vatican had said previously that the pope would refrain from making explicit reference to Venezuela while in Panama, but the developments ensured he would face questions about the South American nation during the trip. People take pictures with their mobile phones as Pope Francis rides the pope mobile through the streets of Panama City, Panama, Wednesday, Jan, 23, 2019. Pope Francis is in Panama to attend World Youth Day, the church's once-every-three-year pep rally that aims to invigorate the next generation of Catholics in their faith. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) The Roman Catholic Church's first Latin American pope and the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, Francis has made the plight of migrants and refugees a cornerstone of his papacy. He is also expected to offer words of encouragement to young people gathered in Panama for World Youth Day, the church's once-every-three-year pep rally that aims to invigorate the next generation of Catholics in their faith. Panama Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa said Francis' message is likely to resonate with young Central Americans who see their only future free of violence and poverty in migrating to the U.S. - "young people who often fall into the hands of drug traffickers and so many other realities that our young people face." The pope is expected to urge young people to create their own opportunities, while calling on governments do their share as well. The visit is taking place as the U.S. government remains partly shut down in a standoff between the Trump administration and Democrats over funding for Trump's promised border wall. Francis famously has called for "bridges, not walls." After celebrating Mass in 2016 on the Mexican side of the U.S. border, he denounced anyone who wants to build a wall to keep out migrants as "not Christian." Crowds are expected to be smaller than usual for this World Youth Day - only about 150,000 people had registered as of last week - but thousands more will certainly throng Francis' main events, which include a vigil and a final Mass on Sunday. The Vatican conceded that the January date doesn't suit school vacations in Europe or North America, both of which typically send huge numbers of pilgrims to World Youth Day gatherings. Francis' trip, the first in a year packed with foreign travel, comes at a critical moment in the papacy as the Catholic hierarchy globally is facing a crisis in credibility for covering up decades of cases of priests molesting young people. The pope is expected to soon rule on the fate of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the high-powered U.S. archbishop accused of molesting minors and adults. And he is hosting church leaders at the Vatican next month on trying to chart a way forward for the global church. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said there were no plans for Francis to meet with abuse survivors in Panama. Central America hasn't yet seen the explosion of sex abuse cases that have shattered trust in the Catholic hierarchy in Chile, the U.S. and other parts of the world. This is the first papal visit to Panama since St. John Paul II was there during a 1983 regional tour that famously included an unscheduled stop at the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. Romero had been gunned down by right-wing death squads three years earlier, at the start of El Salvador's civil war, for having spoken out on behalf of the poor. Salvadoran bishops had hoped Francis would follow suit and make a stop in El Salvador this time to pay his respects at Romero's tomb since Francis canonized him in October. But the Vatican said a Salvador leg was never really in the cards. Nevertheless, Gisotti said Romero would likely loom large at the Panama gathering, given he is such a point of reference for young Central American Catholics who grew up learning about his defense of the poor. The Panama visit is also the first by a pope since the Vatican embassy played a crucial role during the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, when dictator Manuel Noriega took refuge there and requested asylum on Christmas Eve after four days on the run trying to escape U.S. troops. Noriega eventually surrendered, bringing to an end one of the more unusual U.S. military operations: It involved U.S. troops blasting heavy metal and rock music - including Van Halen's "Panama" - at the embassy to try to force Noriega out. Noriega, a onetime U.S. ally, eventually served a 17-year drug sentence in the United States. He died in 2017 after his final years were spent in a Panamanian prison for the murder of political opponents during his 1983-89 regime. Pope Francis confirmed to reporters aboard the papal plane that he plans to go to Japan in November. The pope also said he wants to visit Iraq, but that local church leaders have told him that the security situation is not yet right. This year, the pontiff has already scheduled trips to United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bulgaria and Macedonia, and a trip to Madagascar is rumored. Pope Francis greets children as he arrives to Tocumen international airport to attend World Youth Day events in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pope Francis will be in Panama Jan. 23-27. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis waves between Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and first lady Lorena Castillo de Varela after landing at Tocumen international airport in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pope Francis will be in Panama Jan. 23-27 for World Youth Day events. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis arrives to Tocumen international airport to attend World Youth Day events in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pope Francis will be in Panama Jan. 23-27. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) Pope Francis applauds children between Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and first lady Lorena Castillo de Varela after landing at Tocumen international airport in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pope Francis will be in Panama Jan. 23-27 for World Youth Day events. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) The Panamanian and Vatican flags fly on plane carrying Pope Francis after it landed at Tocumen international airport in Panama City, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019. Pope Francis will be in Panama Jan. 23-27 for World Youth Day events. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco) Pope Francis waves to the crowd gathered to attend the Angelus noon prayer he recited from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019. Pope Francis has prayed for peace in Colombia after the Bogota bombing at a police academy. Francis told faithful in St. Peter's Square Sunday that he wanted to assure the Colombian people of his closeness after the "grave terrorist attack" on Jan. 17 that claimed 21 lives. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) Pilgrims attend the opening ceremony and mass of World Youth Day Panama 2019, in Panama City, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019. Pope Francis will visit Panama on Jan. 23-27.(AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco) Workers clean the Suchiate River on the border between Guatemala and Mexico as Central American migrants wait to their migration issues at the bridge, top, near Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas State, Mexico, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2019. Hundreds of Central American migrants are walking and hitchhiking through the region as part of a new caravan of migrants hoping to reach the United States. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia on Thursday urged China to treat a Chinese-Australian writer fairly and transparently almost a week after he was detained in what a friend suspects is part of a backlash against Canada's arrest of a top Chinese telecommunications executive. Spy novelist and online commentator Yang Hengjun was a Chinese diplomat before he became an Australian citizen. Friends say the 53-year-old had been living in New York as a visiting scholar at Columbia University and had returned to China last week with his wife, Yuan Rui Juan, and 14-year-old stepdaughter. Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Chinese authorities notified the Australian Embassy in Beijing on Wednesday night that they had detained Yang. "We will continue to make representations to China to ensure that this matter is dealt with transparently and fairly," Payne said in a statement. "Our embassy in Beijing will meet with Chinese authorities this morning to seek further clarification of the nature of this detention and to arrange consular access at the earliest possible opportunity, in accordance with the bilateral consular agreement," she added. Opposition leader Bill Shorten, whom opinion polls suggest will become prime minister at general election due by May, criticized China for failing to notify Australia within three days that an Australian had been detained, as stipulated by the consular agreement. "It's surprising and concerning," Shorten told reporters. Yang's friend, University of Technology Sydney academic Feng Chongyi, said he believes Yang is being detained in Beijing by the Ministry of State Security on suspicion of espionage. The detention comes a month after China's detention of two Canadians, entrepreneur Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, in what was widely seen as retaliation for Canada's arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States. Feng, who has been in contact with Yang's family and friends, said Yang's detention was "directly linked to the Huawei case." Feng said he had warned Yang against traveling to China in light of the Canadians' arrest. Yang had argued that he was safe because he had flown to China several times since taking the university job in New York in 2016. "I told him the situation had changed. He didn't believe me. It was a horrible misjudgment," Feng said. Feng was detained in China in 2017 near the end of a three-week trip during which he was researching human rights lawyers, and he was questioned by security services for two weeks before he was allowed to return to Australia. He said on his return to Sydney that he was unable to discuss the details of his experience. Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University's National Security College, had warned after the Canadians were detained that an Australian could be the next victim of "China's hostage-taking." "It's hard to tell the precise reason for this detention," Medcalf said. "I think rather it's a signal that we're now - not only Australia, but really all democracies, all middle powers - are in for a period of sustained tension with China where the safety of our nationals in China simply cannot be assured." Yang's detention comes ahead of a visit by Defense Minister Christopher Pyne to China on Thursday. Pyne left Australia on Tuesday for a weeklong visit to Japan, then China and Singapore. Columbia University said Yang had been a visiting scholar with the School of International Public Affairs' Institute for the Study of Human Rights since 2016. Spokeswoman Caroline Adelman said the university had no comment on Yang's detention. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir speaks during a rally with his supporters in the Green Square in the capital Khartoum on January 9, 2019 Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will travel to Cairo for talks with his Egyptian counterpart, state media reported Saturday, as protesters called for more nationwide demonstrations against his government. Bashir's visit to Cairo on Sunday will be his second trip abroad since deadly protests erupted at home on December 19. On Wednesday, he met Qatar's ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on a trip to the Gulf state. "President Omar al-Bashir will travel to Cairo on Sunday for a one day visit," Sudan's official news agency SUNA reported. "He will hold bilateral talks with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and also discuss regional issues that concern the two countries." Bashir's visit was also confirmed by Sudan's ambassdor to Cairo, Mahmoud Abdel Halim. Protests erupted in Sudan last month after a government decision to triple the price of bread. The rallies swiftly mushroomed into nationwide calls for an end to Bashir's three decades in power, as protesters clashed with security forces. Officials say 30 people have died in the violence, while rights groups say more than 40 people have been killed including medics and children. The Sudanese group that is leading the protest campaign has called for more rallies over the next few days, including night-time demonstrations on Saturday. Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, has remained steadfast in rejecting calls to resign. While the spark for the first protests was the rise of bread prices, anger has been mounting for years over worsening economic hardships and deteriorating living conditions in Sudan. That ire has now spilt onto the streets as protesters chant their main slogan calling for "freedom, peace, justice". Bashir has blamed the economic woes on the United States. Washington lifted its trade embargo on Sudan in October 2017 after two decades of bruising economic punishment, but that failed to revive the country's financial situation. Experts say cash injections from the Gulf states, led by wealthy Qatar, have helped stave off economic collapse. There was no announcement, however, of any financial assistance from Qatar for Bashir during his latest visit. Egypt, which has deep historical ties with Sudan, has called repeatedly for stability in its southern neighbour. "Egypt fully supports the security and stability of Sudan, which is integral to Egypts national security," Sisi told a top Bashir aide who visited Cairo earlier this month. Relations between Cairo and Khartoum had deteriorated sharply in 2017 over territorial disputes and accusations from Bashir that Egypt's intelligence services were supporting opposition forces fighting his troops in the country's conflict zones like Darfur. But in recent months the two governments have ironed out their differences, with Sudan lifting a 17-month ban on Egyptian agricultural produce. Rescuers had struggled earlier to retrieve the badly decomposed corpse, despite being equipped with modern technology Indian search teams recovered the body of a missing "rat-hole" miner Thursday, the first such breakthrough six weeks after 15 men were buried inside the illegal coal pit in the country's northeast. The corpse was located last week in Meghalaya state where rescuers had been using a remote-controlled vehicle and expert divers to navigate deep inside the flooded mine shaft. "The body was retrieved in a joint operation by the Indian Navy and the NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) at 1300 hours (IST) today," rescue official S.K. Singh told AFP from the site. "The body has been handed over to a team of doctors. We will do our best and continue with our work." Rescuers had struggled earlier to retrieve the badly decomposed corpse, despite being equipped with modern technology. Six rescuers entered the mine shaft Thursday in teams of two, using inflatable boats and plastic body bags to retrieve the corpse, local media said. The miners were trapped on December 13 after water from a river gushed into the narrow pit. Indian authorities were criticised for being slow to respond to the emergency, prompting the country's top court to urge them to step up rescue efforts. Rat-hole mines are deep vertical shafts dug mostly into hillsides that branch out into narrow tunnels to reach and retrieve coal and other minerals. A federal environment court banned wildcat mining in Meghalaya in 2014 after local communities complained it was polluting water sources and putting lives at risk. But the practice continues, with mine owners and the state government challenging the ban at India's Supreme Court. At least 15 miners were killed after they were trapped in a flooded rat hole mine in Meghalaya in 2012. Their bodies were never recovered. This file picture, an image grab taken from an AFPTV video, shows pro-government forces firing a heavy machinegun in Yemen's Hodeida province on June 15, 2018 Yemen's embattled government accused rival rebels on Thursday of failing to abide by a truce reached between the warring parties at UN-sponsored peace talks in Sweden last month. "The legitimate government remains committed to the Sweden accords," state-run Saba news agency quoted Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi as saying. Hadi accused Yemen's Huthi rebels of failing to respect an agreement on the flashpoint port city of Hodeida, controlled by the insurgents since 2014, Saba said. The news comes as reports surface that the UN is looking to replace the head of a monitoring mission to Hodeida, a lifeline to millions of Yemenis dependent on its imports to survive. The United Nations' Yemen envoy, Martin Griffiths, met with Hadi in Riyadh on Thursday, after holding talks with rebels in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Also at the Riyadh meeting was retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who heads a monitoring team tasked with overseeing the Hodeida truce. Diplomatic sources on Wednesday said the UN was looking to replace Cammaert. "In due time, he will leave. He is in this position until a successor is found," one of the sources told AFP. The Huthis, who control Hodeida, have accused Cammaert of not being up to the task and of pursuing "other agendas". Cammaert and members of the UN monitoring team came under fire in Hodeida last week but were unharmed. The United Nations did not identify who was behind the shooting. Hodeida was for months the main front line in the Yemen war after government forces supported by Saudi Arabia and its allies launched an offensive to capture it in June. But a precarious calm has largely held in the city since the ceasefire agreement came into force on December 18. The Hodeida agreement stipulates a full ceasefire, followed by the withdrawal and redeployment of rival forces from the city -- two clauses that have yet to be fulfilled. The Yemen conflict has killed some 10,000 people since a Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the beleaguered government in March 2015, according to the World Health Organization. Human rights groups say the real death toll could be five times as high. The war has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of famine in what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Richard Yu says his firm is performing well despite concerns over Huawei's links with Beijing A senior Huawei executive Thursday accused politicians abroad of trying to "harm" the Chinese telecom giant, boasting of the company's stellar year despite concerns over the firm's ties to Beijing. The world's second-largest smartphone maker and biggest producer of telecommunications gear has been under fire in recent months with the arrests of a top executive in Canada and an employee in Poland, along with a worldwide campaign by Washington to blacklist its equipment. Several Western nations have voiced fears that using Huawei base stations and other gear could give Chinese authorities access to critical network infrastructure worldwide, possibly allowing it to spy on foreign governments. "They think they can perhaps impact us with the noise and harm us, but we have a very good reputation, a very good reputation," said Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business and executive director of the board. "Some political guys are trying to influence and slow us down, but we are doing very well," Yu said. Huawei last year cemented its place as one of the world's top smartphone vendors after selling 206 million handsets globally, part of the 350 million smart devices it sold. Its consumer facing business has overtaken its telecom gear in size, Yu said, noting growth of about 50 percent last year brought revenue to more than $52 billion. "Maybe I'm not humble but I say we are the best," Yu told reporters. Shrugging off security concerns, Huawei rolled out its next generation 5G chips on Thursday, with plans to unveil 5G smartphones at the World Mobile Conference in Barcelona next month. Mobile operators have begun to roll out their 5G networks -- technology that promises nearly instantaneous transfers of huge amounts of data, allowing for self-driving cars or remotely accessed sensors in an array of consumer and health products. Huawei has invested billions of dollars in the technology, competing mainly against Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia. - Western fears - Huawei has dismissed concerns its 5G network would be vulnerable to Chinese government spying. The firm has never received any request from Beijing to turn over information and would refuse any such request, Yu said. He brushed aside suggestions the growing movement against Huwawei or the US-China trade war could hold the company back. The firm swiftly sacked an employee arrested this month in Poland on suspicion of spying for China. Last month Canada arrested Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on a US extradition request related to Iran sanctions violations. Chinese authorities then detained two Canadian citizens -- a former diplomat and a business consultant -- on suspicion of endangering national security soon after Meng's arrest in a move widely seen as retaliation. Then authorities revisited the little-known case of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November for drug offences. He was sentenced to death in a hastily arranged retrial. Asked if China's aggressive efforts and lobbying on Huawei's behalf helped the company show its distance from Beijing, Yu demurred. "It's not convenient for me to answer this question," he said. On trial: Duduzane Zuma, pictured as he arrived at court last July to face corruption charges South African prosecutors said Thursday they were temporarily setting aside prosecution of Duduzane Zuma, the son of graft-tainted former president Jacob Zuma, as they await a key witness testifying in corruption probe. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) filed corruption charges against Duduzane, 35, in 2015 for an alleged role in the attempted 600 million rand (about $43 million) bribery of former deputy finance minister, Mcebisi Jonas, on behalf of the wealthy Gupta family. But on Thursday, the NPA told the Specialised Crimes Court in Johannesburg that it wanted to let Jonas finish testifying at a separate inquiry into corruption before they pursued a case against Zuma. "The NPA took a decision to provisionally withdraw the charges against Duduzane Zuma, quoting reasons that one of our key witnesses (Jonas) in this matter is currently under oath at the commission for state capture," they said in a statement. "The prosecutor therefore deemed it fit to halt the prosecution up until that process is finalised." It added: "His evidence (Jonas) is not over. He must still be cross-examined." The other inquiry, called the Zondo commission, began in August. It is investigating a web of murky deals involving government officials, the wealthy Gupta family and state owned entities. Jonas testified at the Zondo commission last year that Zuma's son allegedly offered him the position of finance minister at the Gupta familys Saxonwold compound in exchange for furthering the familys business interests. Jonas is expected to be cross-examined about this encounter at the commission in coming weeks. Duduzane was previously employed by the Guptas. His father Jacob Zuma, 76, was forced to resign last February over allegations centring around the Guptas. Duduzane also appeared at the Randburg magistrates court on Thursday morning for separate charges of culpable homicide. He is accused of causing the death of a woman, Phumzile Dube, after his Porsche hit the minibus she was travelling in. Three others were injured and one passenger, Nankie Mashaba, died in hospital weeks later. The trial in this case will begin on March 26. It is not unusual for prosecuting authorities in South Africa to provisionally withdraw charges. They have temporarily withdrawn formal charges in other high-profile cases, with the intent to reinstate them at a later stage. This was the case last November, when prosecutors withdrew graft charges against some of Zuma's allies but said these would be reintroduced if more cooperation from Indian officials were forthcoming. American student Amanda Knox served four years in jail after her initial conviction for murder before being released on appeal then acquitted Europe's top human rights court said Thursday Italy failed to provide adequate legal representation for Amanda Knox, an American student acquitted in 2015 of the gruesome killing of her British housemate. It ordered the Italian authorities to pay 18,400 euros ($20,900) in damages and legal costs. Knox accused the Italian police of threats and violence during questioning over the 2007 murder, when she was denied both a lawyer and a professional interpreter. The American exchange student served four years in prison after her initial conviction for participating in the killing of Meredith Kercher, before being released on appeal and then definitively acquitted. Kercher's body was found on November 2, 2007, in the apartment she and Knox shared in Perugia, where they were both foreign exchange students. The case at the European Court of Human Rights concerned Knox's claim about ill-treatment during overnight questioning by police on November 6. The court said she claimed she was slapped on the head twice, and forced to speak despite being exhausted and unable to show discernment or willpower. Knox also said she was not assisted by an independent and professional interpreter, but only a police employee who acted instead as a "mediator" who encouraged her to "imagine hypothetical scenarios". During the questioning she accused her former manager at a pub of murdering Kercher, who was later released without charge, prompting prosecutors to accuse Knox of making a "malicious accusation." The court said the Italian authorities had improperly denied access to a lawyer and failed to assess the conduct of the police interpreter, which had "compromised the fairness of the proceedings as a whole." But it said it had found no evidence of inhuman or degrading treatment during her questioning. China is Venezuela's main creditor and Maduro visited the country in September, striking energy and gold mining deals as he sought Beijing's support to help his crisis-hit nation China said Thursday it opposed external interference in Venezuelan politics, after the US and major South American countries sided with opposition leader Juan Guaido over President Nicolas Maduro in a power struggle. China is Venezuela's main creditor and Maduro visited the country in September, striking energy and gold mining deals as he sought Beijing's support to help his crisis-hit nation. Maduro now faces trouble at home, where Guaido proclaimed himself acting president on Wednesday amid rival protests in Caracas. "China has consistently pursued the principle of not interfering with other countries' internal politics, and opposes the interference (in) Venezuelan affairs by external forces," said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a press briefing in Beijing. "We are paying close attention to the current situation in Venezuela and are calling on all parties to remain rational and calm, and to seek a political resolution to Venezuela's problem through peaceful dialogue within Venezuela's constitutional framework," Hua added. Asked whether China recognises Maduro, Hua recalled that Beijing had sent a representatives to his inauguration earlier this month. "We support the efforts made by the Venezuelan government to maintain the countrys sovereignty, independence, and stability," she added. Major regional players Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina all gave their backing to Guaido's self-proclamation as acting president. The European Union called for free elections to restore democracy. After US President Donald Trump recognised Guaido as interim leader, Maduro said he was cutting off diplomatic ties with Washington and gave US diplomats 72 hours to depart. The US State Department responded by saying "former president Maduro" did not have the authority to sever relations. Maduro was re-elected last May in voting boycotted by the majority of the opposition and dismissed as fraudulent by the United States, European Union and Organization of American States (OAS). The 56-year-old leader was sworn in as president on January 10. Maduro has control of virtually all of Venezuela's political institutions and enjoys the support of the military, but many blame him for the country's economic woes, which have left much of the population living in poverty with shortages of basic foods and medicines. China has extended more than $60 billion in credit to the South American country over the last decade. Venezuela still owes Beijing about $20 billion and has been repaying the debt with oil shipments. The archipelago nation of over 7,000 islands saw the number of visitors jump by nearly eight percent over the previous year The Philippines welcomed a record 7.1 million tourists to its beaches and dive spots in 2018, despite its most famous resort Boracay being shut half the year to recover, authorities said Thursday. The archipelago nation of over 7,000 islands saw the number of visitors jump by nearly eight percent over the previous year, with South Koreans leading the way as its top tourists. This growth came without much help from Boracay, which was closed for clean up from April to October after President Rodrigo Duterte branded it a "cesspool" fouled by reckless development. Before the closure, the tiny island's white sand beaches and turquoise waters were seeing some two million sun worshippers a year. "The challenging act of closing down Boracay... the country's top sun-and-beach destination has evidently become a blessing in disguise," said Philippine tourism secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat. Other spots like natural paradise Palawan and beach destination Siargao island saw a jump in foreign tourists during the closure. While South Korean led the pack with 1.6 million tourists, Chinese arrivals jumped by nearly 30 percent over 2017 to hit 1.3 million, the department of tourism said. Americans visitors to the former US colony were at one million. Long known for his inflamatory speeches, Hun Sen has recently stepped up his incendiary rhetoric Cambodia's strongman premier Hun Sen on Thursday called on his country's military to "destroy" opponents if the government comes under threat, in a tirade in which he described himself as the "the one who steers the wheel" of the army. The 66-year-old premier has in recent weeks turned up the rhetoric against the now-dissolved opposition party, the European Union and other critics of his government. Since his ruling party swept a July election widely considered a sham, the EU has warned it may withdraw its Everything But Arms scheme which allows Cambodia's lucrative garment sector duty-free access to its massive market. In the wake of the move, Hun Sen, a five-star general despite his position as the country's civilian leader, has been even more outspoken than usual. "Some people say Hun Sen is consolidating power... that is very correct," he said in a speech to soldiers marking the 20th anniversary of the infantry -- which is headed by his son Hun Manet. Hun Sen urged the army to "destroy... revolutions that attempt to topple the legitimate government" adding he is "not afraid to issue an order" if faced with threats. "Better to see the death of four or five people rather than the death of tens of thousands and millions," he said, referring to the lives lost during the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime which left a quarter of the population dead. He also called on the lines of soldiers in front of him to purge their ranks of any troops who oppose the government, saying "they must be destroyed." "I am the one who steers the wheel," he added. The wily former Khmer Rouge cadre has stayed in power for more than 30 years through a dense patronage network that analysts say largely benefits his family, the armed forces and the elite. The speech shows "exactly why under his rule political opponents and human rights defenders have been killed with total impunity," said Andrea Giorgetta from the International Federation for Human Rights. While previously reliant on Western aid, Cambodia is now bankrolled by China. Hun Sen returned from a visit to Beijing this week with a near $600 million pledge in aid from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Usui's lawyer said parts of the decision could boost a campaign to press lawmakers to change the rule Japan's supreme court has upheld a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilised before their gender can be changed on official documents. The court acknowledged "doubts" were emerging over whether the rule reflects changing social values, but said the law was constitutional. The decision, issued Wednesday but published on Thursday, upholds a law that requires any individual wishing to change their documents have "no reproductive glands or reproductive glands that have permanently lost function," referring to testes or ovaries. It also requires the person to have "a body which appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs of those of the opposite gender." The appeal was filed by Takakito Usui, a transgender man who wants to change official documents that identify him as female. The panel of four justices ruled unanimously to throw out Usui's appeal, declaring the law constitutional. They said the measure was intended to prevent "problems" in parent-child relations that could lead to societal "confusion" and "abrupt changes" in society. The judges said they recognised the invasive nature of the law, adding that legislation should be regularly reviewed as social and family values change. In an additional opinion, presiding justice Mamoru Miura joined another justice to say that while the law may not violate the constitution, "doubts are undeniably emerging". "Suffering related to gender, felt by people with gender identity disorder, is also the problem of society as a whole, which should encompass the diversity of sexual identity," the additional opinion said. The ruling ends Usui's legal battle, but his lawyer said parts of the decision could boost a campaign to press lawmakers to change the rule. "In this day and age, I can't believe there is a law that requires people to have surgery," Tomoyasu Oyama told AFP. "We have been at this case for two years. And every month, every six months, we can see an improved understanding of the issue by society," Oyama said. Togo has elected its first female head of the National Assembly, following parliamentary elections that saw the ruling party maintain its majority. Yawa Djigbodi Tsegan, from President Faure Gnassingbe's Union for the Republic party, was chosen on Wednesday in a vote by her fellow lawmakers. The 47-year-old Tsegan, a tax inspector who previously held the position of parliamentary administrator, won 88 nominations from the 89 members of parliament who voted, an AFP reporter said. She takes over from her party colleague Dama Dramani, who has been in the post since September 2013. Togo held parliamentary elections in December last year to elect 91 new members of the National Assembly. But the main opposition coalition boycotted the vote, citing organistational "irregularities". Gnassingbe's party won 59 of the 91 seats. Observers from the African Union and the West African bloc ECOWAS said the election was "free and fair". Togo has endured nearly 18 months of political turmoil, including street protests calling for constitutional reform that have developed into a call for Gnassingbe to resign. Gnassingbe has been in power since 2005, following the death of his father, who ruled Togo for 37 years beforehand. The opposition wants a return to a limit of two terms for the president, applied retroactively, which would rule out Gnassingbe standing for re-election in 2020 and 2025. Talks with the government, brokered by ECOWAS, are in deadlock, as the ruling party refuses to apply the term limit retroactively. Another opposition protest has been scheduled for Saturday. Oby Ezekwesili is a former education minister and ex-World Bank vice-president Nigeria's leading female presidential candidate Oby Ezekwesili on Thursday withdrew from the race, pledging to form an opposition coalition to defeat the ruling party. Polls to elect a new president and parliament take place on February 16, while governorship and state assembly elections take place two weeks later. A total of 73 candidates want the country's top job but it is expected to be a contest between President Muhammadu Buhari, of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Ezekwesili, from the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, is a former education minister and ex-World Bank vice-president, who in recent years has campaigned for the release of Boko Haram kidnapping victims, including the Chibok schoolgirls. The 55-year-old said she decided to pull out after "extensive consultations with leaders from various walks of life across the country over the past few days". She said she would now "focus on helping to build a veritable coalition to ensure a viable alternative to the #APCPDP in the forthcoming elections". The PDP was in power from the restoration of civilian rule in 1999 to Buhari's victory in 2015. But there are few ideological differences between the main parties, candidates for whom have regularly swapped sides between elections. Both have also faced criticism about their performance in government. Ezekwesili said a "broad coalition for a viable alternative" was now needed "more than ever before". Minor parties signed an agreement known as PACT (Presidential Aspirants Coming Together) last year to have a unified candidate to challenge the main two parties. Political commentators believe only a strong coalition of minor parties can challenge the dominance of the APC and PDP. In 2015, Buhari's APC was able to defeat then ruling PDP after forming a coalition of fringe parties with the support of some leading PDP defectors. Entrepreneur and motivational speaker Fela Durotoye, 47, of the Alliance for New Nigeria, has been tipped to lead the coalition. Others include Kingsley Moghalu, 56, a former deputy governor of Nigeria's central bank, from the Young Progressives Party, and the publisher of the online news site Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore. Sowore, 47, is a former pro-democracy activist and student. At an election debate on Saturday, Durotoye said the APC and PDP were "two sides of the same bad coin". Moghalu agreed: "One is a kettle and one is a pot. And they call each other black." Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh A UN Special Rapporteur on human rights visited on Thursday an island off Bangladesh where Dhaka aims to move Rohingya refugees despite worries it will be vulnerable to extreme weather. Some 750,000 Muslim Rohingyas flooded into Bangladesh in late 2017 after an offensive by Myanmar's military that the United Nations has said could have amounted to genocide, joining 250,000 already there. Bangladesh is spending $280 million transforming Bhashan Char, a muddy silt islet that only emerged from the sea two decades ago, into a camp for some of the refugees. But the island, in a coastal region where weather has killed hundreds of thousands of people in recent decades, is one hour by boat from the nearest land over a stretch of sea prone to violent storms. Some of the Rohingya themselves, living in overcrowded and squalid camps in southeastern Bangladesh border district of Cox's Bazar, have expressed unease about moving, while the UN has insisted that any relocation must be voluntary. Yanghee Lee, the UN rapporteur, visited the island by helicopter accompanied by Bangladeshi foreign ministry officials and was due to inspect the shelters and facilities being built there. Lee, on a visit also taking in Myanmars other neighbour Thailand, issued no statement but she was due to give a news conference in Dhaka on Friday, the UN said. Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen this week said Dhaka was not hiding anything in the island and they would take all interested diplomats once construction work is completed. "We're very open. We're not in any hide-and-seek. Let's finish the work first," he said. Plans for the island camp were first floated in 2015 and Bangladesh previously wanted to start moving refugees from to the island last June before the monsoon season began. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was then slated to open the new settlement, built to house 100,000 refugees but behind schedule, last October, but the inauguration was postponed. A senior disaster management official told AFP in September that nearly three-quarters of the project was complete, with the navy fast-tracking construction of shelters and evacuation centres. Local authorities have been seeking to reassure refugees that they will be safe on the island, which is off limits to the public and to the media. Local officials have pointed to a newly-constructed three-metre (nine-feet) embankment around the island they say will keep out tidal surges in the event of a cyclone. Taiwan's navy says its new 'Rui Yuan' (Sharp Hawk) long-range drone will boost its surveillance capabilities Taiwan's navy showed off its latest long-range surveillance drone Thursday as the island's outgunned armed forces push to counter China's increasingly muscular rhetoric and military exercises. China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since they split in 1949 after a civil war. Beijing has said it will not hesitate to use force if Taipei formally declares independence, or in the case of external intervention -- including by the United States, the island's most powerful unofficial ally. The already terse relationship between the two sides got off to an even rockier start in the new year after Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a landmark speech describing the island's unification with the mainland as "inevitable". Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen hit back saying her people would never relinquish their democratic freedoms, an unusually robust response that saw her receive a bump in the polls after a gruelling few months in which her party lost heavily in local elections. The island's military has hosted multiple drills since Xi's speech, emphasising what it says is a readiness to counter any invasion. On Thursday, the navy showed off its new, long-range surveillance drone, the "Rui Yuan" (Sharp Hawk), which officials said can fly for 12 hours and was now helping to monitor movements in the disputed strait between Taiwan and China. "The drones are now an irreplaceable part of our reconnaissance strategy," Taiwan defence ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi told AFP. "They are our primary option for activities in the strait." The self-ruled island has its own currency, flag and government, but is not recognised as an independent state by the UN. Taiwan has struggled to procure key military equipment and upgrades because of Chinese pressure on suppliers As a result, it struggles to procure key military equipment from many major powers who are fearful of angering Beijing. Instead, it has turned to local manufacturers, particularly for drones and missiles. "The use of more locally-made drones demonstrates Taiwan's defence self-sufficiency and helps boost its reconnaissance capabilities," Wang Kao-cheng, a military analyst at Tamkang University, told AFP. Taiwan's American F-16 and ageing French-made Mirage fighter jets are being increasingly called upon to respond to military movements from China, with some analysts warning the fleet is getting worn down and lacking crucial spare parts. Lin Ming-chang, an executive officer with Taiwan's navy, said drones were particularly cost-effective for surveillance. "A pilot, when he flies, has to come back in two hours. But not the Rui-yuan drone. We can stay up in the air for up to 12 hours," he said. "In operating terms, both when it comes to fuel or machine parts, the drone can operate way longer than manned aircraft." The navy also unveiled a hand-launched surveillance drone on Thursday called "The Cardinal", which it said could stay airborne for an hour. Proceedings have moved slowly in the trial of the women accused of murdering Kim Jong Un's half-brother The trial of two women accused of murdering the North Korean leader's half-brother faced further delays Thursday as the prosecution tried to block the release of key witness statements sought by the defence. Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam have been on trial since October 2017, accused of murdering Kim Jong Nam by smearing the nerve agent VX on his face at Kuala Lumpur airport. The brazen assassination in February 2017 shocked the world but the women have denied murder, saying they believed they were taking part in a prank and were tricked by North Korean agents. Proceedings in the trial of the women, in their 20s, have moved slowly due to the large number of witnesses and the fact that hearings are held infrequently. The case was temporarily halted late last year after Aisyah's lawyers lodged an appeal to get access to key witness statements, which prosecutors argue should not be made public. The seven statements are from individuals including someone who drove Kim Jong Nam around in Malaysia and acquaintances of Aisyah. A court in the administrative capital Putrajaya ruled Thursday the statements should be given to the defence. "The Court of Appeal has allowed our application that the statements of the seven witnesses that we were asking for must be supplied to the defence within two weeks from today," Aisyah's lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, told reporters. But prosecutor Mohammad Dusuki Mokhtar said the prosecution now planned to appeal to a higher court to seek to block the release of the statements. The prosecution will also apply Monday to the High Court, which is hearing the main trial of the women, for the case to be put on hold while the appeal is ongoing. The case would be "more proper and more structured if the High Court gives a postponement", said Muhammad Iskandar Ahmad, another prosecutor. Only Aisyah was in court Thursday, as the hearing related to an appeal by her legal team. Under current laws, the women will be handed a death sentence if convicted of murdering the estranged relative of the North's leader, Kim Jong Un. Malaysia's new government, which took power in May, has vowed to abolish capital punishment for all crimes and has put executions on hold before seeking a change of the law in parliament. Asia Bibi was on death row for eight years before her death sentence was overturned Pakistan's Supreme Court will decide on January 29 whether to allow an appeal against its acquittal of a Christian woman at the centre of a blasphemy row, a lawyer involved in the case said Thursday. If the court refuses to allow the appeal, it will remove the last legal hurdle facing Asia Bibi, who is a prime target in conservative Muslim-majority Pakistan and remains in protective custody. Bibi was on death row for eight years for blasphemy, a hugely sensitive charge. The Supreme Court's decision in October last year to overturn her conviction ignited days of violent demonstrations, with enraged Islamists calling for her beheading, mutiny within the powerful military and the assassination of the country's top judges. The government has since launched a crackdown on the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party -- the Islamist group driving the violent protests -- charging its leaders with sedition and terrorism. But authorities also struck a deal with the protesters to end the violence, forming an agreement which included allowing a final review of the Supreme Court's judgement. On January 29, "the court will determine if our appeal against her acquittal is admitted", Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, the lawyer who filed the petition seeking an appeal, told AFP. "Usually the court decides on the same day if the appeal is admitted or not," he added. Under Pakistan's creaky legal system any private citizen can petition the courts on any matter of public interest or human rights, as in the Bibi case. However legal experts said it would be highly unusual for the Supreme Court to overturn its own decision, especially one that as carefully drafted as the Bibi ruling. "It is very rare," lawyer Saad Rasool told AFP. The three-member bench that will hear the petition will be headed by new Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, considered the country's top expert in criminal law and who helped draft the decision to acquit Bibi. Blasphemy continues to be a massively inflammatory issue in Pakistan, where even unproven accusations of insulting Islam can spark lynchings. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Many cases see Muslims accusing Muslims. But rights activists have warned that minorities -- particularly Christians -- are often caught in the crossfire, with blasphemy charges used to settle personal scores. Speculation has been rife since Bibi's acquittal that an asylum deal with a European or North American country may be in the works. The allegations against her date back to 2009, when Muslim women accused her of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under the colonial-era legislation. Her case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country. Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Seo Ji-hyun said she was groped by her superior Ahn Tae-geun at a funeral in 2010, and that he had her transferred from Seoul to a provincial position after she filed a complaint The woman who started South Korea's #MeToo movement said Thursday she hoped other victims will take heart from the jailing of the senior prosecutor she accused of assault. Seo Ji-hyun said she was groped by her superior Ahn Tae-geun at a funeral in 2010, and that he had her transferred from Seoul to a provincial position after she filed an internal complaint, blighting her career. She suffered in silence for years until she went on television last January, a rare public accusation in a still conservative society where female victims of sexual assault are often reluctant to come forward for fear of shaming. It triggered a flood of similar accusations against powerful men in fields ranging from art and literature to politics and religion that grew into a South Korean #MeToo movement. Ahn could not be charged with sexual assault because the one-year statute of limitations had expired, but was convicted of abuse of power on Wednesday and sentenced to two years in prison. "I hope this verdict can give a sense of hope and comfort to other victims of sexual violence who suffer in silence," a tearful Seo told reporters in Seoul. Former senior South Korean prosecutor Ahn Tae-geun has been convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to two years in prison "I want to tell them that even if it may take a long time, truth will always win in the end." She had been deeply hurt by her organisation's reaction to her television interview, she said. "I was shamed and maliciously labelled a 'traitor' and 'crazy woman' by my colleagues for speaking out against a fellow prosecutor," she told reporters. "My experience is not an isolated case," she went on. "This must stop right now." She claimed about 20 of her colleagues gave investigators false testimony as they sought to defend Ahn, who was separately fired for corruption in 2017. Seo has been on sick leave since the television interview but said she plans to return to the prosecutors' office once her health improves. "My life goal has always been, and still the same," she said. "I want to be a prosecutor who serves justice and fights for truth." Indian soldiers of the President's Bodyguard regiment drill at the Presidential Palace in New Delhi They are members of the most elite regiment in the Indian Army, handpicked by height and heritage from a pool of thousands and bedecked in the finest regalia. The President's Bodyguard, a 200-strong cavalry unit, have for centuries been assigned to India's uppermost VIPs, from British viceroys to modern-day heads of state. Today, the mounted regiment flank President Ram Nath Kovind on ceremonial occasions, most notably the Republic Day parade where they march at the very head of India's armed forces. A member of India's President's Bodyguard washes his horse at the cavalry regiment's barracks Every January 26 in New Delhi, the horsemen -- draped in fine red coats, golden sashes and resplendent turbans -- escort the president to the stage and give the order for the national anthem to begin. "It is the most proud moment for me as the commandant," said Colonel Dhiraj Chengappa, who leads the regiment. Attended by world leaders and beamed across the nation of 1.25 billion, the parade showcases India's military might and is the premier state event of the year. Only the most elite troops -- sourced exclusively from India's traditional warrior castes -- make the cut. A member of the President's Bodyguard regiment adjusts his turban while dressing for parade in India Despite the title, the bodyguards are not charged with protecting the president. His security detail is provided by Delhi police. But the pride, pomp and prestige of the regiment still commands enormous respect, and intrigue. In December, more than 10,000 people applied for just nine vacancies in the mounted unit. Successful candidates must be at least six feet (1.82 metres) tall, boast a pleasing physical appearance and carry an impeccable professional reputation. They were once jokingly referred to as "God's Gift to Beautiful Girls" -- a play on the acronym for the Governor General's Body Guards, one of their former titles. - Storied history - The stringent recruitment policy has been challenged by those without the desired attributes or lineage. In December a petitioner went to Delhi's High Court to contest the rule that bodyguards must be Sikh, or a member of two of India's upper castes -- Jat or Rajput. Members of the President's Bodyguard regiment play polo in New Delhi The court is waiting for a reply from the army and government in Delhi. Chengappa said the regiment was following "the overall recruitment policy" of the army. The storied brigade dates back to 1773, when British Governor General Warren Hastings raised a contingent of warriors later dubbed the "Viceroy's Guard". At independence in 1947, the regiment split as the subcontinent was cleaved into India and Pakistan. As they divided their assets, both Indian and Pakistani officers wanted an ornate black and gold-plated carriage, once owned by the Viceroy of India. The matter was solved by a toss of the coin, and India won. The same horse-drawn buggy now carries the president through the streets of Delhi on Republic Day. The bodyguards ride only the finest horses for the occasion, select beasts pampered and trained in stables at the president's grand residence in Delhi. Like their riders, protocol dictates their height and dimensions: at least 15 hands (1.58 metres) tall. Members of the President's Bodyguard regiment ride towards the India Gate monument during rehearsals for the upcoming Republic Day Unlike other Indian cavalry units, the horses' manes are allowed to grow and are shampooed and sometimes braided for special occasions. In their downtime, the bodyguards play polo, among other activities, and the connection between man and beast is strong. Commandant Chengappa said his horse of 10 years, Virat, shared his dedication to order and duty. "In one of the Republic Day parades I could see Virat looking at other horses with the corner of his eyes to align himself to their position in a straight line," he said. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to respond if he was interested in running for Senate Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged Wednesday that he had been approached to run for Senate next year but said he was focused for now on being America's top diplomat. He said that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican, asked him to consider the race in Kansas, where Pompeo served three terms in the House of Representatives until he joined President Donald Trump's administration. "I spoke to Senator McConnell once. He asked me if I'd think about it, and I told him I appreciated the phone call," Pompeo told Fox News. Pompeo declined to respond if he was interested, saying that answering might violate a US law against federal employees engaging in political activity. "Lots of folks have reached out to me and suggested I ought to do that. I have suggested to them that I have a very full plate as secretary of state, and I intend to keep doing this so long as President Trump will commit to it," Pompeo said. The Republicans are bracing for a potentially tough vote in November 2020, when Trump is up for re-election and the party is defending almost twice as many Senate seats as the Democrats. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, the longest streak in which either of the two major US parties has held a lock on both seats in a state. But the Midwestern state in November elected a Democrat as governor and Senator Pat Roberts, a popular 82-year-old Republican, has said he will not run again next year. Pompeo would enjoy instant name recognition if he ran for Senate. He keeps a presence in Kansas through regular local media interviews and is popular with conservative Christians, speaking often about his faith. Secretary of state is generally considered the most prestigious cabinet position, with Hillary Clinton and John Kerry both leaving the Senate to take the job. But the Senate would ensure Pompeo a prominent position in Washington for at least six years, regardless of the outcome of the next presidential election. Trump has been quick to turn on his cabinet members although Pompeo, who was first tapped to run the CIA, has by all accounts been among the president's favorites. Pompeo last year replaced Rex Tillerson, a former chief executive of oil giant ExxonMobil, whom Trump later derided on Twitter as "dumb as a rock." Jakarta's Christian governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama -- seen here at his trial in 2017 -- won praise for his efforts to clean up Jakarta before his fall from grace Jakarta's ex-governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who was released from prison Thursday after serving nearly two years for blasphemy, won praise for his efforts to clean up the traffic-choked megacity and clamp down on corruption. With his outspoken, combative style and can-do attitude, Purnama cut an unusual figure among the political elite in Muslim-majority Indonesia, where politicians typically take a more gentle, persuasive approach. But the tall, bespectacled politician, who was the city's first non-Muslim governor for half a century and first ever ethnic Chinese leader, quickly overcame any doubts about his leadership as he took concrete steps to improve the city of 10 million. The 52-year-old -- best known by his nickname Ahok -- regularly railed against corruption in one of the world's most graft-ridden countries and led sting operations to catch lazy bureaucrats, drawing praise from a public weary of the city's inefficiencies. Many Jakartans loved him and a movie about him -- "A man called Ahok" -- was released last year to sold-out crowds. The former deputy governor inherited the top job in 2014 after his predecessor Joko Widodo won the presidency. On Purnama's watch, roads were repaired, pavements improved, more parks started appearing in the city and its notoriously filthy rivers were cleaned up. Some of his policies -- particularly a drive to evict poor, riverside communities -- caused anger, but many Jakartans said their lives had changed for the better since he took power. But his aggressive, outspoken style, an advantage when taking on bungling officials, turned out to be a double-edged sword that contributed to his downfall. - Public pressure - In September 2016, in a speech to a group of fisherman during early campaigning for Jakarta's 2017 election, Ahok accused his opponents of using a Koranic verse to trick them into voting against him. The comments were filmed and went viral online -- providing ammunition for fringe hardline groups who had long railed against a non-Muslim leader ruling the capital and his political opponents who were keen to oust him from the job and embarrass his ally Widodo. Despite his apologies and insistence that he only intended to attack his rivals, not the Koran itself, hundreds of thousands of conservative Muslims took to the streets of Jakarta in mass rallies in late 2016, organised by hardliners and encouraged by his political rivals. Under intense public pressure, authorities put him on trial for blasphemy and his popularity slumped. He lost the Jakarta election in April 2017 to a Muslim challenger and was jailed the following month for two years for blasphemy, a shock decision after prosecutors recommended only probation. Purnama was born into a well-off family on Belitung island in western Indonesia, and studied geology at university in Jakarta, before returning to his village and going into business. His father urged him to use his talents to help those less fortunate than himself, and he entered local politics in 2004. He was elected to the national parliament in 2009, where he met Widodo and they then ran in the Jakarta 2012 election with Widodo as the governor candidate and Purnama as the deputy governor. His true legacy, however, may not be the roads or parks he created, but his personality, said Syamsuddin Haris, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. "His legacy will be his openness, honesty, bravery, decisive leadership and his stand against corruption," Haris said. Deciding on the future of the alliance is set to be a tricky task Renault is expected Thursday to appoint a new leadership duo to drive the French carmaker into an era without lynchpin Carlos Ghosn, who remains in a Japanese jail on financial misconduct charges. The firm is poised to select interim chief executive Thierry Bollore as CEO and the head of tyre manufacturer Michelin, Jean-Dominique Senard, as chairman. Ghosn previously held both roles but has reportedly resigned as he fights the charges in Japan. A board meeting will take place at 10:00am (0900 GMT) near Paris to replace Ghosn, who has been at the head of the firm since 2005 as well as leading Renault's three-way alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors. The alliance sold more cars than any other group last year but its future has been thrown into uncertainty with the stunning arrest of Ghosn, who is widely credited with driving the fractious companies together. Bollore, 55, is viewed as an old Asia hand which should help in relations with Nissan. A keen sailor, he will have to plot a course through choppy waters in the wake of the Ghosn shock. The 66-year-old Senard is understood to have the backing of the French state, which owns just over 15 percent of Renault and holds 22 percent of the voting rights. The Michelin man has worked at the firm since 2005 and was the first non-family member to head the world's second-largest tyre manufacturer. He was due to hand over the CEO role to his deputy in May. With a ready smile and elegant attire, Senard has successfully negotiated sensitive labour agreements with trade union leaders in Michelin's French factories to preserve jobs in the face of cheaper imported Asian products. - Merger 'not on table' - Jean-Dominique Senard is poised to take over at a tricky time Ghosn is expected to stay behind bars for several months after seeing a second bail request denied on Tuesday. His own lawyer has warned that a trial could take at least six months to organise given the complexity of the case. He faces three separate charges: two of under-declaring his income by tens of millions of dollars over eight years and another of seeking to shift personal investment losses onto Nissan. The 64-year-old executive has been seen in public only once since his arrest on November 19 stunned the business world -- in a dramatic courtroom appearance where he passionately denied the charges and declared his "genuine love" for Nissan. Current Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa, who oversaw his former mentor's downfall, has stressed that the alliance is "absolutely not in danger". But there are question marks over the tie-up with what critics say is an imbalance in the complex power structure. Renault holds 43 percent of Nissan, which itself holds 15 percent of Renault -- just less than the French state. The French firm and Ghosn were seen as the saviours of Nissan when it was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Carlos Ghosn is likely to remain behind bars for the foreseeable future The question of who replaces Ghosn as head of the alliance promises to be a headache. The statutes of the tie-up say Renault appoints the CEO while Nissan chooses the deputy. But the Japanese firm now outperforms its French "superior" -- selling 5.81 million cars in 2017 compared with 3.76 million for Renault. This has led to grumbling within Nissan that its weight is not properly represented and even to conspiracy theories that Ghosn's downfall was orchestrated by frustrated Nissan executives -- which Saikawa dismisses as "absurd". French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has insisted that a full merger between the two is "not on the table" despite Japanese media reports that Paris is pushing for such an outcome. burs-ric/sah/dan The case of Ghosn has gripped Japan and the business world The rollercoaster saga of former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has gripped Japan and the business world since the tycoon was arrested out of the blue on November 19 as his private jet taxied into a Tokyo airport. As the Renault board meets to appoint a successor to the fallen kingpin of the automotive industry, AFP looks at the key players in the Ghosn drama. - The legal eagles: Otsuru and Morimoto - The two legal hot-shots with Ghosn's fate in their hands as he remains behind bars for more than two months. Defence lawyer Motonari Otsuru is a hot-shot legal mind who was once a prosecutor Motonari Otsuru, Ghosn's lead defence lawyer, is a calm and precise former top prosecutor who has kept a much lower profile than defence attorneys would generally in the West. He has spoken on the record only once, surprising many observers by suggesting his client had little hope of winning bail before a trial expected in at least six months and revealing that Ghosn had not complained about his detention conditions. Prosecutor Hiroshi Morimoto is known as the "ace of aces", a high-flyer in an elite special department that deals only with the most high-profile allegations -- with the internationally scrutinised Ghosn case being one of the biggest in its history. In a quirk of fate, Otsuru used to be Morimoto's boss and the pair are now engaged in a tactical game of legal cat-and-mouse. They appear to have contrasting personalities. While former colleagues describe Morimoto as "passionate and a go-getter", Otsuru is known as "calm and analytical." - The managers: Saikawa and Bollore - Bollore and Ghosn in happier times The effective bosses of Nissan and Renault respectively, Hiroto Saikawa and Thierry Bollore both rose through the ranks under Ghosn's wing. Saikawa was long considered one of "Ghosn's children", a loyalist to his boss who owed him his career but then oversaw his downfall. The mild-mannered 65-year-old Nissan lifer stunned observers when he let rip at his former mentor just hours after Ghosn's arrest. Saikawa seemed to take the allegations as a personal betrayal, saying: "It's way beyond being sorry. I feel, I don't know, big disappointment and frustration and despair. Indignation and resentment." The 55-year-old Bollore is known as an old Asia hand who has spent most of his career on the continent in the car industry. One industry insider who worked alongside him described the discrete father-of-five as "very rigorous, very dedicated -- but at the same time very warm". He has "calm, analytical qualities" that should help him in relations with his Japanese counterparts. A keen sailor, he will need to steer Renault through choppy waters if, as expected, he is promoted from interim CEO to the chief executive role on Thursday. - The right hand woman (and man): Sepehri and Kelly - Greg Kelly was known as Ghosn's right-hand man Mouna Sepehri, Renault's head of legal affairs and communications, has enjoyed a stunning rise through the ranks of a "very masculine" sector but the close Ghosn ally has since found herself embroiled in his affairs. The Franco-Iranian lawyer received payments totalling nearly 500,000 euros ($580,000) on top of her salary over several years, according to documents obtained by AFP. A Renault source said executives at both the French company and Nissan had received bonuses for specific tasks and the firm slammed what it called a "deliberately orchestrated campaign of destabilisation". Greg Kelly, a US executive considered as Ghosn's right-hand man, was arrested at the same time as his boss and charged with conspiracy to under-declare his income. Released on bail of 70 million yen ($635,000) on Christmas Day, he declared his innocence in a statement and vowed to clear his name at trial. Suffering from a spinal condition, he went from prison to hospital and his bail conditions state he may not leave Japan, make contact with anyone involved in the case or tamper with evidence. - The wives: Carole Ghosn and Dee Kelly - Carole Ghosn has slammed her husband's detention conditions After a long initial period of silence, the wives of the two jailed Nissan execs voiced anger and concern over their husbands' fates. Dee Kelly lashed out in a video, saying her husband was "tricked into coming to Japan and betrayed by a group of Nissan executives as part of a political power grab. Their dishonourable motives are clear". She added she was "extremely concerned about his health". Carole Ghosn issued a nine-page statement in which she appealed to Human Rights Watch over his "harsh" detention conditions. "For hours each day, the prosecutors interrogate him, browbeat him, lecture him, and berate him, outside the presence of his lawyers, in an effort to extract a confession," said Ghosn. burs-ric/dan DR Congo's new president Felix Tshisekedi took over the country's largest opposition party just two years ago Felix Tshisekedi, who takes over as DR Congo's new president on Thursday, is the son and heir of the country's veteran opposition leader but has never himself held high office. Barely two years at the helm of the country's oldest and largest opposition party, Tshisekedi has been propelled to power following a long-running political crisis that culminated in last month's bitterly disputed election. Known to his friends as "Fatshi", the portly 55-year-old has secured the prize long denied his late father Etienne, who spent 35 years in opposition but never reached the top. It was his death in February 2017 that triggered his son's unexpected path to the presidency. Taking over as head of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), Tshisekedi steered the party his father founded through a period of growing unrest over President Joseph Kabila's refusal to step down despite his term ending in 2016. Although Tshisekedi has never enjoyed the same degree of popularity as his father, he was one of three frontrunners in the December 30 election. Polls, however, predicted a win by his opposition rival Martin Fayulu -- and many observers expected a result rigged in favour of Kabila's handpicked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. But provisional results named Tshisekedi the winner in an unexpected victory which was confirmed by the courts, though tainted by cries of fraud, with Fayulu declaring it an "electoral coup" masterminded by Kabila. - A late rapprochement? - Felix Tshisekedi goes to the same Pentecostal church in Kinshasa as runner-up Martin Fayulu Back in 2017, Tshisekedi told AFP that if he won the presidency, he would set up a "truth and reconciliation commission" to call Kabila to account for his iron-fisted rule since taking office in 2001. But days before the results were announced, rumours began swirling of a rapprochement after Tshisekedi spoke warmly of Kabila in an interview with Belgium's Le Soir newspaper. "It is clear that he will be able to live peacefully in his own country and carry out his business, he has nothing to fear," he said. "One day we might even think of paying him tribute for agreeing to stand down," he said, suggesting Kabila could even be named a special ambassador. And immediately after he was declared winner, his first words were a tribute to Kabila. "Today we should no longer see him as an adversary, but rather as a partner in the democratic change in our country," he told crowds of triumphant supporters. - Almost didn't run - Analysts said the delay in announcing the results had raised suspicions of some kind of "backroom deal" which would benefit Kabila and enable him to influence the new president. Days before the results were announced, rumours began swirling of a rapprochement after Tshisekedi spoke warmly of outgoing President Joseph Kabila "A Tshisekedi presidency would be the least bad alternative... for the regime as it would put a veil of legitimacy on the electoral process and would be more manageable than a Fayulu presidency," said Adeline VanHoutte of the Economist Intelligence Unit. For a while, it looked like Tshisekedi's name would not even be on the ballot. In November, he had joined six other opposition leaders to rally behind Fayulu as the single unity candidate. But days later, following a furious response from his supporters, he and fellow opposition leader Vital Kamerhe abandoned the deal and said they would run on a joint ticket, splitting the opposition. - Diplomatic, conciliatory - For decades, Etienne Tshisekedi was the face of DR Congo's opposition Since its founding in 1982, the UDPS has served as an opposition mainstay in the former Belgian colony -- first under dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, then under Kabila's father Laurent-Desire Kabila, who ruled from 1997 until his death in 2001. Over the years, Tshisekedi rose steadily through the ranks of the party which was fashioned and directed by his father. In 2008, he became the party's national secretary for external relations and then in 2011 he was elected to parliament as the MP for Mbuji-Mayi, the country's third city. But he never took up his seat after refusing to recognise his father's 2011 election defeat by Kabila. "Etienne was stubborn and proud," said one keen observer of the country's opposition. "Felix is more diplomatic, more conciliatory, more ready to listen to others." A father of five, Tshisekedi goes to the same Pentecostal church as Fayulu in Kinshasa, the capital. Although he holds a Belgian diploma in marketing and communication, he has had little political or managerial experience, with some detractors even suggesting his diploma is not valid. For decades, there wasn't a coffee shop anywhere in Indonesia's Toraja region even as its high-quality beans grabbed top dollar on the international market For decades, there wasn't a coffee shop anywhere in Indonesia's Toraja region even as its high-quality beans grabbed top dollar on the international market. Locals in the lush, mountainous area on Sulawesi island used the bitter beverage in traditional ceremonies, gave away their extra beans to neighbours for free or traded them for a sack of rice and livestock. Locals in Toraja on Indonesia's Sulawesi island used the bitter beverage in traditional ceremonies, gave away their extra beans to neighbours for free or traded them for a sack of rice and livestock But Toraja is experiencinga mini-explosion in cafes, with dozens of shops sprouting up in the region courtesy of entrepreneurs like Suleman Miting. Coffee was introduced to the region by Islamic traders around the 18th century, but for most Torajans paying to drink it in a store was an alien idea. Indonesian Suleman Mitting demonstrates his technique on roasting beans at his cafe in Toraja, which has seen an increase in the number of coffee shops "If I ran out of coffee, I'd just go to my neighbour's place," Miting said from his 16-seat shop in North Toraja. "Us Torajans are not used to drinking coffee at a cafe," he added. But when world coffee prices dropped several years ago, putting pressure on local farmers, Miting said it opened a window for a new business in the area that squeezed out middlemen who largely controlled prices. Coffee was introduced to the region by Islamic traders around the 18th century, but for most Torajans paying to drink it in a store was an alien idea The situation in Toraja mirrors a coffee culture explosion across Indonesia, particularly among young people living in cities. The region mostly produces arabica beans, which have a milder taste and lower caffeine concentration than the alternative robusta beans. It's unique coffee has won devotees abroad -- particularly in Japan. The Toarco Toraja brand is well known in Tokyo and exports are mostly run by a Japanese firm that takes its beans from a 500-hectare plantation almost 2,000 metres above sea level. During harvest season between May and September, dozens of workers scuttle from plant to plant picking the ruby red beans before they are processed at a large factory in Toraja and shipped out. But Indonesia's army of small-scale coffee farmers, who have little marketing experience and can have low yields, are still struggling in a competitive global market. In recent years it has been knocked back to become the world's fourth-largest coffee exporter, behind Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, respectively. Indonesia was previously in third spot globally until it was overtaken by Vietnam in the late Nineties. Lee Hsien Yang, estranged younger brother of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is backing the formation of a new opposition party The estranged brother of Singapore's prime minister on Thursday backed a former ruling party stalwart who is seeking to form a new opposition party, describing him as "the leader Singapore deserves". Lee Hsien Yang has been locked in an acrimonious feud with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong over the fate of a family house since the death in 2015 of their father, Singapore's founding leader Lee Kuan Yew. Last week Tan Cheng Bock, a former ruling party MP and ex-presidential candidate, announced he was seeking to register a new political party -- a move analysts said could revitalise the country's weak and disunited opposition. Singapore must hold elections by 2021 but speculation is mounting they could come later this year, with the long-ruling People's Action Party (PAP) widely expected to win. In a post on Facebook, Lee Hsien Yang congratulated Tan, who narrowly lost the 2011 presidential election to the ruling party's de facto candidate, and his new group, the Progress Singapore Party. "I have known Cheng Bock for many years and he has consistently put the interests of the people first. We are fortunate that he has stepped forward to serve Singapore," he said. "This is good for the future of Singapore. Cheng Bock is the leader Singapore deserves." Tan Cheng Bock has applied to register the Progress Singapore Party Backing from a senior member of the Lee family could provide a boost to Tan. In November, a photo of Lee Hsien Yang having breakfast with Tan went viral and sparked speculation that the pair were planning a political move ahead of the polls. Tan has applied to register his new party, but authorities have not yet announced whether they will approve it. Singapore's opposition has long been fragmented, with several groups trying with little success to make major gains against the ruling party, which has the vast majority of seats in parliament. Under the PAP, Singapore has become one of the world's wealthiest societies and the party still enjoys solid support. But critics accuse them of tactics such as gerrymandering and seeking to bankrupt opponents through civil lawsuits to maintain their hold on power. Relations between Australia and China have been tested amid increased competition for influence in the Pacific China said Thursday that Chinese-Australian author and democracy advocate Yang Hengjun was detained on national security grounds, becoming the latest Western citizen to face such accusations from Beijing. Yang's detention comes at a moment of heightened tension between Western countries and an increasingly muscular Beijing, which recently detained two Canadians amid a diplomatic row with Ottawa. Australia demanded that Yang -- a former Chinese diplomat -- be treated "fairly and transparently" and complained that Beijing had waited four days, instead of three as required, to notify Canberra about his detention. Yang was detained shortly after he made a rare return to China from the United States last week. "Beijing state security took compulsory measures against Australian national Yang Jun and are investigating because he is suspected of engaging in criminal activities that endanger Chinas national security," said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, using Yang's official name. Such accusations in China often imply espionage allegations. Similar allegations were made against the two Canadians who were detained in December. Australian Defence Minister Christopher Pyne, on an official visit to Beijing, told reporters he would be raising the issue with his Chinese counterpart later on Thursday. "As Mr Yang doesn't have a residence in Beijing, I believe he would be held in a... situation which we would describe as home detention," he said. Yang's lawyer Mo Shaoping confirmed to AFP that his client is under residential surveillance, adding that Yang Hengjun is his pen name. But Yang may not have access to his lawyer anytime soon -- a visit will require approval from the Beijing State Security Bureau, standard procedure in such cases involving national security. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said earlier that diplomats met with Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the matter and called on China to deal with the matter "transparently and fairly". Once described as China's "most influential political blogger", Yang became an Australian citizen in 2000, but is currently based at New York's Columbia University. His criticism of the Chinese government and support for democracy has in the past made him a target of Beijing's state security apparatus. He went missing during a 2011 trip to China, but resurfaced days later, describing his disappearance as a "misunderstanding". - Strained relations - Canada's arrest on December 1 of a senior executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei at Vancouver airport was followed days later by the high profile arrests in China of the two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor. Payne said there was "no evidence" Yang's arrest was part of that trend "at this stage", adding "I'd be concerned if there was an indication of that." "It only heightens the feeling that visiting China is unsafe and that the security services may increasingly be going after people for what they say outside of China," said longtime China-watcher Bill Bishop. Relations between China and Australia have likewise been strained by Canberra's decision to ban Huawei from participating in its 5G wireless network over security fears and as the two countries have vied more openly for influence in the Pacific. Yang had worked in the ministry of foreign affairs in Hainan province, but later left for Hong Kong in 1992, before writing a series of politically tinged spy novels. He became an Australian in 2000. Yang's friends first raised concerns when the 53-year-old failed to make a connecting flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai on January 19. He was reportedly travelling with family members, including his wife, who has since posted a cryptic and emotional message on her Weibo page from Beijing. In Australia there is mounting anger that China failed to quickly notify the authorities of his detention and fears that an already difficult relationship may be further damaged. "This is not the way relations between our two countries should be conducted, at all," said Australian opposition leader Bill Shorten, criticising the slow response from the Chinese authorities. Hua countered that Chinese authorities "officially notified the Australian side after taking mandatory measures" against Yang, but she did not say exactly when. Under a 2000 consular agreement between the two countries, China was obliged to notify Australia of Yang's detention within three days and allow consular visits, unless the detainee waives that right. The issue may be further complicated by China's refusal to recognise dual nationality and allegations of Chinese "hostage diplomacy". Writers' advocacy group PEN accused China of overt repression, saying: "It's obvious that Yang would not have been seized if it weren't for his previous critical writings." Florida police have taken a gunman into custody after at least five people were shot dead at a bank A gunman killed at least five people on Wednesday at a bank in Sebring, Florida in the southern United States, police said. "We have at least five victims, people who were senselessly murdered," Police Chief Karl Hoglund told a news conference. The alleged shooter, identified as a 21-year-old resident of Sebring, has been taken into custody, Hoglund said. Their motive was not immediately clear, and the investigation into the shooting is ongoing. The US is plagued by frequent mass shootings and other gun violence that killed nearly 40,000 people in the US in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But despite the scale of the problem, legislative efforts to address it have largely deadlocked for years at the federal level due to opposition to stricter firearm laws from National Rifle Association lobby and its supporters. Jockey Hugh Bowman rides Winx during the Winx Stakes horse race at the Royal Randwick race course in Sydney in August last year In the race to find an Australian role model that has demonstrated hard work, grit and honesty in the last year, one Aussie paper has decided the only one in the running is a horse. Finding a dearth of idols in the two-legged sporting, political, cultural or academic worlds, The Daily Telegraph on Thursday named champion thoroughbred Winx its own "Australian of the Year". "Has the nominee lived by the Australian values of fair play and civility?" the paper asked, beginning a long list of requisite qualities to earn the title. The Sydney paper said the horse -- which has won dozens of races and is expected to soon retire -- was the only Australian that met the winning criteria. The honour was not "bestowed lightly," the paper said. The announcement comes the day before an annual award ceremony to name the official Australian of the Year, a major event that takes place on the eve of Australia Day, 26 January. The eight 2019 nominees -- all human -- include Richard Harris, who worked to rescue 12 Thai kids trapped in a cave, multiple medal winning Paralympian Kurt Fearnley and social activist Bernadette Black. Previous winners include Nobel prize winning scientists and Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama -- Jakarta's first non-Muslim governor in half a century and its first ethnic Chinese leader -- had been a popular politician who won praise for trying to clean up the traffic-clogged megacity and clamp down on corruption Jakarta's former governor was released from prison Thursday, nearly two years after his blasphemy conviction fanned fears of religious intolerance in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama -- the Indonesian capital's first non-Muslim governor in half a century and its first ethnic Chinese leader -- left a prison outside the capital after dawn, his assistant Ima Mahdiah told AFP. Supporters of the Christian ex-governor, who is popularly known as Ahok, gathered outside the prison, chanting and cheering his new found freedom. "My dad's a free man! Thank you everyone for the support," Nicholas Sean, one of his three children, said on Twitter. The release ends one of the most tumultuous chapters in Indonesian politics in recent memory. Purnama had been a popular politician who won praise for trying to clean up the traffic-clogged megacity and clamp down on corruption before his imprisonment. But his downfall came quickly after comments he made on the campaign trail during a re-election bid saw him accused of insulting Islam. The filmed remarks, which went viral online, sparked mass protests in Jakarta, spearheaded by radical groups opposed to a non-Muslim leader and encouraged by his political rivals. Purnama had urged voters to ignore rivals who cited a Koranic verse stating they should reject non-Muslim leaders, with the then governor saying people were being manipulated into voting against him. However, judges ruled the remarks amounted to blasphemy against Islam and he was then sentenced to two years' jail in May 2017, having lost the election to a Muslim challenger. It was an unusually harsh sentence -- prosecutors had only recommended probation for the now 52-year-old. - 'Unjust conviction' - Purnama's case drew international headlines and a wave of criticism, including from the United Nations, which urged the country of 260 million to revise its decades-old blasphemy law. "Ahok's unjust conviction is a reminder that minorities in Indonesia are at risk so long as the abusive blasphemy law remains in place," said Elaine Pearson of Human Rights Watch. "Islamists will use it to bring wrongful prosecutions and even more discriminatory regulations against religious minorities." The huge demonstrations calling for Purnama's jailing fuelled concerns about the growing influence of religious hardliners and that the Southeast Asian country's much-vaunted tolerant brand of Islam was under threat. Indonesia's blasphemy law states that anyone found guilty of "expressing feelings of hostility" towards religion can be jailed for up to five years. It applies to any of the six officially recognised religions, including Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, but most prosecutions are brought against people accused of blaspheming Islam, which is followed by nearly 90 percent of the population. Among them was an ethnic Chinese Buddhist woman found guilty in August of insulting Islam for asking her neighbourhood mosque to lower the volume on its sound system. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail. The woman's comments about the mosque noise triggered riots in 2016 that saw angry Muslim mobs ransack Buddhist temples. Some ethnic Chinese in the area fled in fear. No caption From a young gay mayor who launched his candidacy Wednesday, to high-flying female US senators and charismatic military veterans, a crowded field of Democrats jockeying to challenge Donald Trump in 2020 has already emerged -- and is sure to grow. All told it will likely be the largest and most diverse coterie of candidates ever, with the potential for dozens of current and former lawmakers, governors, mayors, and businessmen to throw their hat in the ultimate political ring. Here are the first politicos to enter the presidential race, 21 months before the election. - Elizabeth Warren - Senator Elizabeth Warren, pictured on January 21, 2019, is on the Democratic Party's left flank At 69, the US Senate's consumer protection champion from Massachusetts became the most high-profile Democrat to enter the race when she announced a presidential exploratory committee on December 31. Warren is on the party's left flank, and built her reputation by holding Wall Street accountable for its missteps. Trump has already taken aim at Warren, mocking her for her proclamation of Native American heritage. - Kirsten Gillibrand - Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, pictured on January 19, 2019, is making gender and women's issues a hallmark of her campaign This senator from New York cut her teeth on the battle to end sexual assault, especially in the military, before the #MeToo movement gained national prominence. The 52-year-old fierce Trump critic is making gender and women's issues a hallmark of her campaign. - Kamala Harris - Kamala Harris, pictured in 2014, served as a district attorney in San Francisco and as California's attorney general The barrier-breaking senator from California who aspires to be the nation's first black female and Indian-American president announced her candidacy this week on a day honoring slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. The daughter of an Indian immigrant medical researcher mother and Jamaican economist father, Harris, 54, began her career as a district attorney in San Francisco before serving as California's attorney general. - Julian Castro - Julian Castro, pictured in 2016, is a former Obama cabinet member and was a mayor of San Antonio, Texas A cabinet member in the Obama era and grandson of a Mexican immigrant, Castro announced his candidacy in English and Spanish on January 12 in the heat of debate on immigration and border security. At 44, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas hopes to become the nation's first Hispanic president. - Tulsi Gabbard - Representative Tulsi Gabbard, pictured in July 2018, would be America's first Hindu president At just 37, this congresswoman from Hawaii would be the first Hindu president if elected. A supporter of liberal Bernie Sanders in the 2016 race, military veteran Gabbard was criticized for meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad during that country's civil war, and for anti-gay positions that she has since retracted and apologized for. - Pete Buttigieg - Sound Bend Indiana Mayor Peter Buttigieg, pictured in 2016, is an Afghanistan veteran and would be the first openly gay nominee of any major party Nine months younger than Gabbard is the South Bend, Indiana mayor who joined the race Wednesday, unveiling a resolutely future-looking and optimistic message to counter Trump's darker vision. A US Navy veteran who put his mayoral duties on hold to serve in Afghanistan, Buttigieg would become the first openly gay nominee of any major party. - Richard Ojeda - Richard Ojeda seen here at the first campaign event of his presidential run in November 2018, voted for Trump in 2016 This tattooed, blunt-talking retired US Army paratrooper rose to prominence last year during his unsuccessful bid for a US congressional seat deep in Trump country. Ojeda voted for Trump in 2016 but feels the president has failed to meet his economic promises. He seeks to return the Democratic Party to its roots as a champion of working class Americans. - Andrew Yang - This 44-year-old tech entrepreneur launched his campaign with little fanfare in late 2017, warning against the dangers that automation presents to US workers. He has advocated for a form of universal basic income as a way to reduce inequality. - John Delaney - A wealthy businessman who served three terms in Congress, Delaney was the earliest Democrat to officially launch a bid, back in July 2017. He has crisscrossed the early-voting state of Iowa seeking to boost his name recognition. - Waiting in the wings - Former Vice President Joe Biden, seen here in 2016, is one of several Democratic big guns yet to join the race Several big Democratic guns have yet to commit, including former vice president Joe Biden and senators Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Sherrod Brown. Former congressman Beto O'Rourke is considering a run, as are billionaire New York ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Current and former governors are in the mix too: Washington's Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Steve Bullock of Montana and Virginia's Terry McAuliffe. Kim Jong Un, pictured here meeting with envoy Kim Yong Chol on Wednesday, said Donald Trump had written him a "good personal letter" North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed "great satisfaction" after receiving a letter from US President Donald Trump ahead of a second summit between the two, Pyongyang's state media reported Thursday. Kim was handed the letter by a North Korean envoy who met Trump at the White House last week and gave him a missive of his own. Trump's meeting with Kim Yong Chol came with negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington on the North's nuclear arsenal deadlocked. After their discussion, Trump said his next summit with the North Korean leader will probably take place near the end of February, without giving an exact date or location. Kim Jong Un "expressed great satisfaction" after receiving Trump's "good personal letter", the official Korea Central New Agency reported. It carried a picture of a broadly smiling Kim holding what appeared to be the letter from Trump and sitting in a plush brown leather armchair in his office with Kim Yong Chol. "We will believe in the positive way of thinking of President Trump (and) wait with patience and in good faith," KCNA cited Kim as saying. He ordered preparations to be made for the second summit, KCNA reported, in the North's first official comment on the prospective meeting. Kim and Trump's first encounter was a high-profile summit in Singapore in June -- the first ever meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader. Trump and Kim first met last June in Singapore, where they signed a vaguely worded document in which Kim pledged to work toward the "denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" There they signed a vaguely-worded document in which Kim pledged to work towards "the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula". But progress has since stalled with the two sides disagreeing over what that means. Pyongyang is seeking sanctions relief and rejects demands for what it calls its "unilateral" disarmament, while Washington insists that the measures must stay in place until the North gives up its nuclear arsenal. Even so on Saturday, Trump said a location for the summit had been decided, without giving more details. A Vietnamese government source told AFP "logistical preparations" were under way to host the encounter, most likely in the capital Hanoi or the coastal city of Danang. Analysts say a second summit has to make tangible progress on the issue of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons if it is to avoid being dismissed as "reality TV". Mexican journalist Javier Valdez was an AFP stringer and co-founder of the weekly Riodoce de Sinaloa The sons of former drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman killed Mexican journalist Javier Valdez because he insisted on publishing an interview with a drug trafficker, who told of the murder in court Wednesday. Damaso Lopez Nunez, known as "The Lawyer," testified that the slain journalist -- who specialized in drug trafficking reporting -- "disobeyed the threatening orders of my compadre's children and that's why they killed him." The testimony came as part of Guzman's trial in New York, where he faces trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges. Valdez was an AFP stringer and co-founder of the weekly Riodoce de Sinaloa. One of the most prominent chroniclers of the drug war, he was gunned down in May 2017. He was 50 years old. Lopez worked for the ultra-violent Sinaloa cartel, and was convicted last year of trafficking by a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. He had been arrested days before the journalist's murder. According to the US Department of Justice, Lopez was the deputy head of a Mexican maximum security prison in 2001 when he helped Guzman escape. He then joined the cartel as Guzman's lieutenant. He told the jury that another Mexican journalist had mentioned his name in connection with an operation against Guzman's children -- an accusation he said was "totally false." To disprove the information he decided to grant Valdez a telephone interview, which Guzman's children discovered and were against. They threatened Valdez and commanded him not to published it. "But he, complying with his ethics, published it anyway," Lopez said in court. The witnessed denied in cross-examination that he had ordered the murder after the publication of a critical article about his son. He also suggested Guzman was unaware of his sons' involvement in the killing. "The truth is that maybe my compadre didn't know," he said. "But now he knows." Nunez, 52, is hoping a judge will reduce his sentence in exchange for his cooperation in the Chapo trial. Valdez's murder rocked Mexico, which is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. More than 100 reporters have been killed since 2000, with most of those crimes going unpunished. Critics say the murals of Christopher Columbus at the University of Notre Dame celebrate outdated stereotypes of Native Americans while ignoring the devastating consequences of colonialism The University of Notre Dame, one of the oldest and most prestigious US centers of higher learning, will cover murals depicting Christopher Columbus out of concern that the art works depict a skewed history of colonial America. Painted on the walls of the Catholic institution's main building -- a grand structure with a golden dome built in 1879 in the Midwestern state of Indiana -- the 12 murals display various moments in the life and exploration of Columbus. Critics say the images celebrate outdated stereotypes of Native Americans while ignoring the devastating consequences of colonialism. The university's president Rev John Jenkins said in an open letter that the works, painted by Luigi Gregori in the 1880s, were intended to portray Catholic immigrants in a positive light at a time when they faced discrimination in America. However, he acknowledged that in recent years the murals have come to be perceived as "at best blind to the consequences of Columbus's voyage for the indigenous peoples who inhabited this 'new' world and at worst demeaning toward them." While the school attempted to address the problem by providing brochures that put the murals in historic context, Jenkins said that has not been enough. The murals, which were painted directly onto the building's plaster walls and thus cannot be removed, will be preserved but covered. The university plans to create a separate, permanent display of photographs of the murals that will put them in proper historic context. "We wish to preserve artistic works originally intended to celebrate immigrant Catholics who were marginalized at the time in society, but do so in a way that avoids unintentionally marginalizing others," Jenkins said. The school's Native American Student Association praised the move in a Facebook post as a "thoughtful and wise decision." "This is a good step towards acknowledging the full humanity of those Native people who have come before us." The Catholic university was founded in 1842 by Edward Sorin, a French missionary priest, and currently has about 12,000 students. Industry representatives said harm from the trade battle outweighed any benefits to US metal producers Dozens of US industry groups sent a letter to the Trump administration on Wednesday pleading for an end the economic pain caused by steep US tariffs on steel and aluminum. In addition to increased costs for any company importing metal products or components, many other industries are suffering from the retaliation imposed by countries like China and Mexico. "The continued application of metal tariffs means ongoing economic hardship for US companies that depend on imported steel and aluminum," said the letter, signed by four dozen industry groups. And while they applauded the newly-agreed US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, they warned that for "many farmers, ranchers and manufacturers, the damage from the reciprocal trade actions in the steel dispute far outweighs any benefit that may accrue to them from the USMCA." China fired back at the United States with tariffs on key US exports after President Donald Trump imposed the 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum on March 2018. Mexico and Canada retaliated after their initial exemption expired and the metals tariffs began to bite in June of last year. Despite the agreement on a new free trade deal, Trump has not made clear whether the steel and aluminum duties would be removed as part of the USMCA. "We urge you to take all necessary steps to resolve this matter so that zero-tariff North American trade can resume, and we can turn our attention to working with you to gain prompt Congressional approval of the USMCA," the letter stated. The letter was signed by groups representing a large swath of the economy, including the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Egg Farmers and the National Restaurant Association. Rufus Yerxa, head of the 300-company National Foreign Trade Council, told AFP the letter was the first step in a campaign to push for an end to the tariffs as Congress considers approval of the USMCA which is "going to need vigorous support." He said Trump was "picking winners and losers to only favor one industry," while the damage done far outweighed the benefits to the steel industry. Mexican retaliation over the metals tariffs is reportedly costing US pork producers $1.5 billion a year And he warned that for smaller companies or those reliant on exports "this might be a matter of life or death." Jim Monroe at the National Pork Producers Council cited a study showing Mexican retaliation was costing US pork producers $1.5 billion annually, while the impact of China's actions is $1 billion. Actor Alec Baldwin in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York Actor Alec Baldwin on Wednesday pleaded guilty to a harassment charge stemming from a parking spot tussle, and agreed to attend a short-term anger management program. The New York actor -- whose impersonation of Donald Trump on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live earned him an Emmy award -- was released on conditional discharge after the Manhattan court hearing. Baldwin, 60, is due back on March 27 for a compliance update on his anger management class. He was arrested in November after punching a 49-year-old man in the face during a New York parking dispute, police said. The younger man has already parked his vehicle and was attempting to buy a parking ticket prior to the dispute. Baldwin was initially charged with harassment and assault, but following negotiations with the prosecutor pleaded guilty to the lesser harassment charge. The actor, who gave no statement as he left the courthouse, is well-known for his strong personality and hot temper. In 2014, he was detained by New York police for riding his bicycle the wrong way down a street. In late 2013, NBC scrapped his late-night chat show after he allegedly subjected a photographer to a homophobic slur outside his apartment on the day that a Canadian actress convicted of stalking him was jailed. And in 2011, he was thrown off a plane for "extremely rude" behavior after refusing to turn his cell phone off. No caption Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen has postponed testimony in Congress citing threats from the president, Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis said Wednesday. The threats were unspecified, but allegedly came from both the president and his current personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to a statement from Davis. Cohen had been scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on February 7 to testify about his work for Trump, including contacts with Russia during the 2016 election and hush payments he made allegedly at Trump's direction to two former lovers of the president. "Due to ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani, as recently as this weekend, as well as Mr. Cohen's continued cooperation with ongoing investigations, by advice of counsel, Mr. Cohen's appearance will be postponed to a later date," Davis said. "This is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first," he added. Trump and Giuliani have made repeated comments targeting Cohen's father-in-law Fima Shusterman, a businessman in the taxi cab industries in New York and Chicago. Days after Cohen pleaded guilty on November 29 to lying to Congress over his work for Trump, the president attacked him in a tweet in which he also invoked Cohen's wife and her father. On January 18, Trump again mentioned the father-in-law in a tweet, in which he quoted a Fox News commentator Kevin Corke: "'Don't forget, Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud, and as recently as this week, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars....' Lying to reduce his jail time! Watch father-in-law!" Trump wrote. And on Sunday Giuliani said on CNN that Trump was not trying to intimidate Cohen but defending himself, then adding: "Of course it is if the father-in-law is a criminal in the Southern District of New York.... He may have ties to something called organized crime." A booking photo showing Nathan Sutherland, a nurse who allegedly sexually assaulted a woman who gave birth while in a long-term vegetative state A male nurse has been arrested in Arizona on suspicion of assaulting an incapacitated woman who gave birth at a long-term care facility, in a case that has shocked the nation. The 29-year-old victim -- who police said "was not in a position to give consent" -- gave birth late last month to a baby boy, sparking an investigation. The suspect -- identified as Nathan Sutherland, age 36 -- has been charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse, Phoenix police spokesman Tommy Thompson told a news conference. Sutherland's DNA was matched to that of the baby, leading to his arrest, according to police. Authorities said Sutherland is a licensed practical nurse who was responsible for providing care to the victim at the time the sexual assault took place. He had worked at the privately-owned facility -- Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix -- for about seven years. - 'Troubled beyond words' - The unidentified victim, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, has been a patient at the facility for 26 years, local news reports said. Her caregivers have said they were not aware she was pregnant. "This is a facility that you should be safe in and someone wasn't," Mayor Thelda Williams told reporters on Wednesday. The care center issued a statement saying that Sutherland, who last worked at the facility on Sunday, was fired on news of his arrest. It added that he had undergone an extensive background check when he was hired. "Every member of the Hacienda organization is troubled beyond words to think that a licensed practical nurse could be capable of seriously harming a patient," the statement said. "Once again, we offer an apology and send our deepest sympathies to the client and her family, to the community and to our agency partners at every level." Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said she had not encountered a similar case during 30 years in law enforcement. In a statement issued on Tuesday through their attorney, the victim's family sought to clarify her condition, saying that she was not in a coma but had "significant intellectual disabilities as a result of seizures very early in her childhood." "She does not speak but has some ability to move her limbs, head and neck," the statement said. "Their daughter responds to sound and is able to make facial gestures. The important thing is that she is a beloved daughter, albeit with significant intellectual disabilities." The baby, born on December 29, is being cared for by the woman's family and is in good health, Thompson, the police spokesman, said. "We can't always choose how we come into this life, but what we can choose to do as a community is love this child, and that's what we have the opportunity to do," he said. Phoenix police were made aware of the pregnancy the day the child was born, when they received an emergency call about a baby in distress. In light of the woman's condition, they then began to collect DNA samples of male employees at the care facility. Authorities learned on Tuesday that Sutherland's DNA matched the baby's and he was arrested and taken into custody. He made his first court appearance on Wednesday but did not enter a plea and was ordered held on a $500,000 cash-only bail. His next court appearance is set for January 30. According to local news reports, Sutherland was born in Haiti and was adopted along with his sister and brought to the United States in 1969. The Arizona Republic newspaper said Sutherland's wife filed for divorce on December 5, several weeks before the scandal erupted. It said the couple, who married in 2012, have no kids but Sutherland has two underage children from a previous marriage. Pilgrims crowded the historic center of Panama City on the eve of Pope Francis's arrival Pope Francis will on Thursday formally open World Youth Day celebrations which have drawn around 200,000 young people from around the world to Panama where he is expected to defend Central American migrants and human rights. The 82-year-old pontiff flew into Panama on Wednesday at the start of the five-day visit given over to reaching out to young Catholics. The pope will pay a courtesy visit to President Juan Carlos Varela before addressing Central American bishops at the 17th century Saint Francis of Assisi Church. The pope's address is likely to focus heavily on the migration afflicting the region, particularly as fresh caravans of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador make their way north through Mexico to the US border. His speeches and homilies are also expected to touch on poverty, corruption and violence many migrants say they are trying to escape. The pope will later join tens of thousands of young people to formally open the Catholic jamboree at a palm-fringed park overlooking Panama Bay. Even before he arrived in Panama, Francis hit out at what he said was the fear of many people had towards migrants. In response to a reporter's question aboard the papal plane about US President Donald Trump's plans to build a border wall to keep them out, the pope said the fear of migrants itself "is making us crazy." Before starting his trip, the pope had met eight migrants living in Rome. - Cheered on arrival - More than 1,000 pilgrims cheered Francis' arrival at Tocumen airport, waving the starred red, white and blue Panamanian flag and the yellow and white flag of the Vatican. Looking tired, the 82-year-old pontiff acknowledged them with a wave and a smile after slowly descending the steps of his Alitalia plane following a 13-hour flight from Rome. Tens of thousands cheered and waved as the pope then made his way on the 30-kilometer (19 mile) drive to the Papal Nunciature in Panama City, where he spent the night, a crowd of pilgrims holding a vigil behind security barriers outside. The car had to swerve sharply at one point when a young man broke through a barrier and ran towards it, waving a Venezuelan flag. The man was quickly detained by security guards. In crisis-wracked Venezuela, opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido had earlier proclaimed himself president with the support of the United States and several other countries -- including Panama -- setting up a tense standoff with the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Earlier Wednesday, Francis announced he would fulfill a long-held desire to visit Japan in November. - 'Better citizens' - Groups of young pilgrims have been flocking into the small Central American country for days. Pilgrims went to confession at the Youth Park in Panama City on the eve of Pope Francis's arrival "He speaks to us youth in a very simple way, and he challenges us to be better Christians, better Catholics and better citizens in our respective countries," said James Murphy, 23, from the Pacific island state of Tonga. Irving Valiente, a pilgrim from El Salvador, said the meeting with the pope would be "an injection of faith" for people from migrant countries. Pilgrims from around the world gathered in Panama City ahead of Pope Francis's visit Francis will hold two open-air masses in Panama City. Among the other highlights of his five-day visit will be a trip to the Good Samaritan home for young HIV and AIDS patients on Saturday, after the closing mass. He will also visit a youth detention center and hear the confessions of inmates, including one serving time for murder. burs-db/dw Booking photos courtesy of the Greece Police Department, of three of four suspects in an alleged plot to attack a Muslim community; they are (L-R)Vincent Vetromile 19,of Greece, NY, Brian Colaneri, 20, of Gates,NY and Andrew Crysel, 18 of East Rochester,NY. Four young people between the ages of 16 and 20 have been arrested in northern New York State and accused of preparing a "potentially lethal" attack on a Muslim community regularly targeted by extremist sites, police said Wednesday. Police in the small town of Greece, near the Canadian border, recovered three explosive devices and 23 weapons - mostly shotguns - from the homes of arrested youth, according to spokeswoman Jared Rene. Police in New York state on Wednesday identified three young men arrested for allegedly planning a "potentially lethal" attack on a Muslim community regularly targeted by US extremist sites. Brian Colaneri, 20, Andrew Crysel, 18 and Vincent Vetromile, 19 were arrested after police in Greece, New York recovered three explosive devices and 23 weapons from the suspects' homes, according to spokesman Jared Rene. A fourth unidentified suspect, aged 16, was also detained. The group were accused of planning the against a community called Islamberg several hours drive from Greece, Rene said. The community of some 200 people is managed by the organization Muslims of America, which thanked authorities for preventing a "possible massacre of our community." Rene said police were tipped off by a high school student who overheard other students speaking of a "next school shooter." When authorities searched homes they found weapons legally obtained by parents, but uncovered the attack plot. "The kids did the right thing. When they saw something, they said something. It was a collaborative effort, we uncovered what was probably going to be a deadly attack," he said. Charged with possession of explosives, the three young men are expected to appear in court February 5. Rene added they could still face federal charges, including terrorism. Another plot to attack Islamberg was foiled in 2015, with its author, Robert Doggart, sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017. The violence prompted President Emmerson Mnangagwa to cut short a foreign tour which was to have taken him to the World Economic Forum in Davos Harare acknowledged Wednesday there were "lessons to be learnt" from the security forces' crackdown on anti-government protests after allegations of "systematic torture" by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission. The brutal actions of the security forces following last week's protests shattered President Emmerson Mnangagwa's claims to have turned a fresh page after the violently repressive era of Robert Mugabe. In a blunt statement on Tuesday, the government-appointed commission accused the security forces of "systematic torture" and lambasted the authorities for using soldiers to curb civilian disturbances. "It was quite a strong report against the methods that were used by law enforcement agencies, it was a strong report against the demonstrators who took the law into their own hands," presidential spokesman George Charamba told reporters in Harare. The government-appointed Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission lambasted the authorities for using soldiers to curb civilian disturbances It was the first time the government had reacted to the damning report from the government-funded commission created nine years ago. "In every situation of conflict, there are lessons to be drawn," he said, responding to a question about what the government had learned from the crackdown. But he also warned there would be no tolerance for any further unrest. "We will not have the mayhem that we saw last week -- never again," he said. "If you decide to dabble on the wrong side of the law... the law comes back to hit you." - Union boss still in custody - As the aftermath of the protests reverberated through the country, union leader Japhet Moyo, who backed last week's nationwide strike over fuel price hikes, remained in custody after a court rejected his request to be freed. Arrested on Monday at Harare airport, Moyo -- who is secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions -- is being held on charges of subversion and inciting violence. The strike turned into nationwide protests with some rioting and looting He denies the charges against him. "He is facing charges of attempting to overthrow a constitutionally elected government (and) incitement to public violence," his lawyer Alec Muchadehama told AFP at the courthouse in Harare. Last week's protests, which lasted three days, saw people taking to the streets in outrage over a government move to more than double fuel prices, prompting a ruthless crackdown by security forces that claimed up to a dozen lives. - 'If required, heads will roll' - Last week's protests, which lasted three days, saw people taking to the streets in outrage over a government move to more than double fuel prices, prompting a ruthless crackdown by security forces that claimed up to a dozen lives The presidential spokesman did admit that the security forces' brutal response had sullied the country's image. "It's been a damaging week for Zimbabwe," Charamba said. The Human Rights Commission said at least eight people had been killed in the unrest, mostly by gunfire, but rights groups put the toll at 12. Hundreds of people were rounded up during a widespread and violent security crackdown, with civilians dragged from their houses at night. The violence prompted Mnangagwa to cut short a foreign tour which was to have taken him to the World Economic Forum in Davos. After flying home late on Monday, he pledged to investigate the security forces over any misconduct. "If required, heads will roll," he said on Tuesday, while also condemning "wanton violence and cynical destruction" during the protests. Moyo is one of a number of high-profile activists arrested after the strike turned into nationwide protests during which there was also some rioting and looting. Leading Zimbabwean activist Pastor Evan Mawarire is also in custody on charges of subverting the government and inciting violence, apparently after backing the national strike on social media. Moyo's lawyer said the police initially charged him with sending messages on social media urging people to go on strike. But on Wednesday, they amended the charge to accuse him of holding ZCTU meetings with civil society groups and others in which they were "planning to overthrow the government as well as to incite public violence," the lawyer said. Moyo had appealed to the court to be released on grounds of unlawful detention, but his request was denied. He was ordered to return to court next Monday. Tshisekedi, surrounded by his wife, relatives and supporters, shortly after the national election commission declared him winner of the December 30 ballot Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi will be sworn in on Thursday as DR Congo's next president, sources in Kinshasa said, as outgoing President Joseph Kabila called for national unity. In his first speech since the December 30 presidential election, Kabila said he was "calling for a grand coalition of all the progressive forces". "A coalition against the predatory forces that have come together and will always try to join forces to monopolise our natural resources," Kabila said on state channel RTNC. The inauguration will be held at the Palace of the Nation, the seat of the presidency, starting at noon (1100 GMT), aides to Tshisekedi and Kabila said on Wednesday, ending uncertainty about when the ceremony would take place. It will be the first peaceful transition of power in the history of the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo, which gained independence from Belgium in 1960. Tshisekedi, 55, will be taking the helm from Kabila who at only 47 has ruled the vast country for 18 years, succeeding his father Laurent-Desire, who was assassinated in 2001. Tshisekedi was declared winner of the election with 38.5 percent of the vote, while his opposition rival Martin Fayulu was credited with coming a close second with 34.8 percent. But Fayulu says he was the true winner, with 61 percent of the ballot, against 18 percent each for Tshisekedi and Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, Kabila's preferred candidate. Fayulu has angrily characterised the official result as an "electoral coup" cooked up by Kabila and Tshisekedi. But he lost a challenge at the Constitutional Court, and foreign support for his position has waned, mainly to avoid the bloody confrontations that have marred this vast country's history. Kabila congratulated Tshisekedi in his speech on Wednesday, saying he will hand over power to him "without regret or remorse". "He must be able to count on me whenever he wants and that the interest of the country requires." - US hails peaceful transition - No caption The United States on Wednesday recognised Tshisekedi as the next president and hailed Kabila for enabling a historic peaceful transfer of power. It followed signals from the African Union and European Union that they too are ready to work with Tshisekedi, showing no appetite for prolonging the uncertainties in this violence-prone nation. "We are committed to working with the new DRC government. We encourage the government to include a broad representation of Congo's political stakeholders and to address reports of electoral irregularities," US State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said in a statement. While France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Thursday that "doubts" remain about whether Tshisekedi won the election, he stressed that the priority was to preserve peace and calm in the country. DR Congo, which covers an area akin to that of western Europe, lived through two regional wars in 1996-97 and 1998-2003, and its last two presidential elections in 2006 and 2011 were marred by deadly clashes. Tshisekedi is the son of the late veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who died in February 2017, aged 84. One of his first tasks in office will be to choose a prime minister, likely one of the pro-Kabila lawmakers who dominate the 500-seat National Assembly. Felix Tshisekedi Parliamentary elections were also held on December 30 alongside presidential and provincial polls. The Joint Front for Congo (FCC), which supports Kabila, controls 337 seats in the assembly while Fayulu's Lamuka coalition holds 102. The Heading for Change (Cach) coalition, which backs Tshisekedi, holds just 46, according to a provisional UN tally. The presidential inauguration had initially been scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed in order to give more time for preparations, notably invitations to foreign VIPs. Queensland's premier is celebrating Australia Day with a thoughtful awareness of the past while others in the sunshine state are more concerned with racing cockroaches or voicing a protest. Annastacia Palaszczuk was with the Australian Defence Force for flag raising and citizenship ceremonies in Townsville, thinking about the symbolism of the national day. "Australia Day is a time for all Australians - new citizens and old - to come together with respect, mateship and pride," the premier said. "In doing so, we commit to community and harmony and pay our respects to first nations peoples - the traditional owners of this land. "We celebrate our national day with thoughtful awareness of the past." Farther south in Brisbane, protesters were marching to voice concerns about celebrating the nation on the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. Others were more concerned with more competitive traditions such as the racing of anything, including cockroaches and cane toads. The Story Bridge Hotel in Brisbane continued its tradition of cockroach races at its 38th annual street party, with 14 races scuttering off from midday. Cane toads are competing for glory around the state, including at the Caboolture Historical Village north of Brisbane and The Colmslie Hotel in the city's southeast. Some simply packed picnics to share with family and friends at Brisbane's South Bank or other parks. A shattered Stefanos Tsitsipas is lost for words after his Australian Open semi-final elimination at the hands of Rafael Nadal, saying he can't see positives from the straight-sets thrashing. The world No.2 destroyed the 20-year-old 6-2 6-4 6-0 on Thursday night, with the young Greek only competitive during the early stages of the second set. After a promising run to the last four that included a defeat of Roger Federer, the elimination is a humbling experience for Tsitsipas. "I have no idea what I can take from that match. It's not that I was even close to get to something," he said. "I feel very strange. I feel happy with my performance in this tournament, but at the same time I feel disappointed. "It's a very, very weird feeling. Almost felt like just couldn't play better." Tsitsipas said Nadal's serving power shocked him; it was not until the last game of the match, when his hopes were well dashed, that he conjured a break point. "He's not the biggest server on tour, has a pretty average serve. But it's annoying that I didn't get close to break him at all," he said. "He's just very aggressive from the baseline ... he gives you no rhythm. He plays just a different game style than the rest of the players. "He has this, I don't know, talent that no other player has. I've never seen a player have this. He makes you play bad. I would call that a talent." Thursday night was not the first thrashing Nadal has handed the young prodigy. The pair have met twice before - in finals in Barcelona and Toronto last year - with Nadal winning both in straight sets. The Spaniard was complimentary to his beaten opponent after the win, describing him as a grand slam champion in waiting. Tsitsipas, who delighted Melbourne's army of Greek immigrants with his run to the last four, said he plainly had work to do if he is to continue to his rise. "It's not that I don't want it. I really want it badly. But I've got to want it a bit more than I want it at the moment," he said. The faces of Aboriginal leaders past and present will light up the Adelaide parklands over the weekend, as part of an Australia Day art installation. Kumangka, Mukapainga, Tampinga, held in Elder Park until Monday, will honour and thank individuals who have committed to bettering the lives and identities of Aboriginal people in South Australia. Australia Day Council of SA chief executive Jan Chorley said the nightly project aims to bridge understanding and views of Australia Day. "This is a first for our state, a significant installation that infuses our understanding of Elder Park, its history and its people" she said. Australia Day in the city will begin with a morning smoking ceremony at Elder Park to acknowledge Aboriginal people. The park will later in the day host one of the country's largest Australia Day parades, when more than 3500 people from 100 community groups join together to showcase their communities. Following the parade, 40,000 people are expected to watch the Australia Day concert, which will include a flag-raising ceremony, 21-gun salute, flyover and performances by Australian artists. Later, a fireworks display will light up the sky from the banks of the River Torrens to round out celebrations. Ms Chorley said the event line-up will promote unity and belonging for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia. "This is when the city shines, when it reflects on its history, celebrates who were are as nation and joins together in a unifying and reconciled spirit," she said. Away from the city, hundreds are expected to attend the annual Tandanya Survival Day concert and event at Semaphore, with this year's theme "still surviving, still thriving". A forecast high of 29C is also expected to draw crowds to the coastline, prompting police to issue a safety warning to the public. SA Police assistant commissioner Paul Dickson said officers will be working in communities and monitoring celebrations across the state. "That will include officers from the licensing enforcement branch ... foot, bicycle and mobile patrols, and teams from the dog, mounted and water units," he said. Police will also run a four-day traffic operation to focus on road safety and preventing fatalities across the long weekend. Touk Miller says "it'd be rude not to" seek a contract extension on the Gold Coast as the potential captain looks to stabilise the AFL club. The midfielder is off contract at the end of 2019 but says he's in talks to extend and avoid the dramas associated with the off-season departures of former co-captains Tom Lynch and Steven May. "They gave me the opportunity to play AFL and live my dream, I think it'd be rude of me not to pay the respect by giving my loyalty to them as well," the 22-year-old said. A self-proclaimed "pedo hunter" who harassed and exposed alleged online sex predators has been spared jail. Adelaide man Richard Paul Warner, 43, set up a YouTube channel and posted videos of confrontations with men he had lured while posing as an underage boy. Magistrate Paul Foley said on Thursday Warner had been "reckless as to the risks associated", despite his actions having led to the conviction of a sex offender. On that occasion, Warner had posed as a 14-year-old and messaged the man online. It was agreed the pair would meet at the man's house to have sex, but Warner arrived with a video camera and taped the subsequent confrontation. He alerted police and uploaded identification details of the man, including his address, images of his home and car registration details. "What followed was people, having viewed your YouTube channel, damaging the other person's property and behaving offensively including defecating in his letterbox," Mr Foley said. "The court should be seen to discourage conduct such as yours which provokes a vigilante response by others," Warner, a former church minister, was initially charged with assault but brokered a deal and pleaded guilty only to using the internet to harass another person. Outside court, he said it would be "for the public to decide" whether his actions were justified. "Every citizen can be a normal citizen, or they can be a good citizen - the difference is someone who acts on their conscience or by the law," he said. "When the law is wrong, I think the right thing is to do by their conscience. "I believe acting by your conscience is being a good citizen." Mr Foley recorded a conviction but spared Warner jail, instead placing him on a 12-month, $200 good behaviour bond. Schoolgirl killer Sean Christian Price has been denied any chance of walking free from prison before 2053 for the brutal slaying on a Melbourne walking track four years ago. Masa Vukotic was 17 when she was murdered by Price, who is now 34 and will be in his 70s before he's eligible for release. The killer made a rude gesture as three Court of Appeal judges on Friday told him there was little prosect his appeal against his sentence would succeed, or that the minimum 38-year term would be reduced. Price, who represented himself and appeared by video link from prison, said he was to blame for the frenzied attack on the Doncaster teenager, but added he didn't want to plead guilty and now wants to wait until "public anger dies down" to argue he was mentally impaired. He also denied raping a woman in a Christian bookshop the day he handed himself over to police for the murder. That woman was in the courtroom on Thursday. Justice Lex Lasry sentenced him to life in prison, with the prospect of parole only because of his guilty plea. But justices Simon Whelan, Stephen McLeish and Terry Forrest raised questions about a sentence handed down a year later by Justice Meryl Sexton in connection with the bookshop rape. The rape breached a 10-year supervision order after Price, then 19, carried out a series of sexual attacks in suburban Melbourne in 2003, attacking three women on the street and another in front of her children after following her home. Justice Whelan said they were considering the possibility Price was double sentenced for the rape, given Justice Sexton's breach sentence appeared to quote verbatim from the rape sentence. Prosecutor Diana Piekusis SC and Price have been given a week to make formal submissions. If he is found to have been double sentenced, Price could have that four-year-and-nine-month sentence, or the additional three years tacked onto his non-parole period, reduced. He is currently not eligible for parole until he's 72. He claimed he only pleaded guilty because he was bashed and beaten while on lockdown in prison, left with blood clots and a split skull. "I wanted to withdraw my plea, even before we (got) to sentence," he said. "I admit I'm guilty, not of the rape, but of the murder of Masa Vukotic, but in future I want to argue I was mentally impaired." He also suggested Justice Lasry had erred in sentencing him "because maybe the horror of what he seen might have affected him". "I understand what I did was bad but I was mentally ill," Price added. "Later I can appeal when the public anger has died down and they can see I never got a fair trial." A psychiatric report at the time found he was mentally ill and had a personality disorder, but was not mentally impaired. The great Muhammad Ali was an expert at letting his opponent tire himself out before delivering the knockout blow. The "rope-a-dope" strategy relied on absorbing the blows, waiting for an opportunity, and then securing a stunning victory. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not Muhammad Ali. But right now he is absorbing the blows and waiting for a chance. As one Liberal put it this week when talking down the chances of an early election, Morrison is giving himself as much time as possible. "Just waiting for something to happen," they said. It's unclear what that something might be before a May election. The economy is the coalition's great hope, and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg tried to send the conversation in that direction with warnings about the global outlook. The International Monetary Fund has downgraded its economic growth forecast, as banks tighten lending. "As the global storm clouds gather, it's more important than ever that we stay the course on our economic plan," Frydenberg told reporters this week. "A plan that has delivered more jobs, lower taxes, and a budget that will be in surplus after a decade of deficits." It would take something significant to dent the Australian economy so much that voters feel they have to stick with the coalition. Maybe China's mountain of bad debts finally crashes down, or the United States' trade war gets dramatically worse. It feels unlikely, but anything can happen. The coalition can point to great unemployment numbers, a looming budget surplus, and a slowdown in housing prices as their track record for voters. They also point to Labor's tax plan as a potential drag on the economy. But all those things have been in place for a long time and the polls are still bad. John Howard famously turned around the 2001 election on the back of Tampa and the September 11 terror attacks. The first is unlikely to happen in 2019, in part because of boat arrival policies developed in response to the Tampa crisis. And September 11 was an epoch-defining moment. At the moment it's hard for Morrison and the coalition to land huge punches on the Labor opposition. Bill Shorten has been out in the field laying the groundwork for his tax policies for years. Voters know what he stands for and they don't seem scared. If Malcolm Turnbull had not been removed and the polls remained almost dead even, then the coalition would not be waiting for a miracle out of the blue to save the election. But Turnbull is gone, the polls are bad, and all that's left is to swing big haymakers and hope for the best. Parachuting Warren Mundine into the NSW marginal seat of Gilmore is one of those swings, an attempt to outfox Labor and create some attention. Mundine is an indigenous leader and a former Labor national president, who has made a public shift to the right in recent years. But Morrison's decision to kick local Gilmore man Grant Schultz out of the Liberal candidacy and plant Mundine in the marginal seat has caused angst in the party. "I can understand the hurt there, but the reality is that Warren Mundine is the candidate," Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told 2GB radio. "The processes are never clean, never easy in politics, that's the reality." Labor seems confident the party can beat Mundine. "For a long time he was desperate for the Labor Party to give him a seat in parliament. There is a reason we didn't, and I'm sure the voters of Gilmore will discover that," Tanya Plibersek told the ABC. Maybe it's a masterstroke - or maybe it's a big swing that falls foul, and the local party is enraged for no reason. Morrison is giving himself all the time he can for a miracle to arrive or a big swing to land. At this point, taking the body blows and hoping for a knockout punch appears Morrison's best hope. The man at the centre of a siege at a semi-rural home in Perth has been charged with aggravated possession of a firearm, threats to harm or endanger, and possessing a firearm/ammunition without a licence. Police were called to a property on Douglas Road, Martin on Monday morning to assist a locksmith and Sheriff's Office representative when a couple allegedly made threats. The siege ended about five hours later when police fired a non-lethal "beanbag" round at the 65-year-old man, while his 64-year-old wife died later in hospital after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest. A fresh measles alert has been issued in NSW after a baby contracted the disease while travelling through Southeast Asia. The infant, under 12 months old, is recovering in hospital after developing measles following her return to Sydney, NSW Health said on Thursday. The child was too young to receive routine vaccinations prior to visiting several countries in the region. It is the ninth case of measles detected in NSW since Christmas. NSW Health has urged anyone who visited the same locations as the baby - including The Strand Arcade in Sydney's CBD , a pub in The Rocks, the NSW Art Gallery and a number of trains on January 16, as well as several pubs, restaurants and shops in Campbelltown between January 18 and 20 - to watch out for symptoms until February 8. "If you develop symptoms please call ahead to your GP so that you do not wait in the waiting room with other patients," Vicky Sheppeard said in a statement. Symptoms include fever, sore eyes and cough, followed by a red, blotchy rash. Measles is highly contagious and is spread in the air through coughing or sneezing. NSW Health has urged anyone travelling to Southeast Asia - which is experiencing an outbreak of measles - to ensure they are fully vaccinated before heading overseas. Tropfest finalist Leela Varghese was determined to make her film after an Adelaide store cancelled the shoot upon discovering it was a queer love story. "We had a location lined up and they were keen but when they found out it was about a girl who had a crush on another girl they said they couldn't do it and basically shooed me out of the shop," Varghese told AAP. The South Australian filmmaker was tired of seeing stories which used diversity only as a subject, rather than a narrative subtext. "I do have a diverse background but I'm just a normal person and do normal things like have a crush on someone and not know how to ask them out," Varghese said. "That's got nothing to do with the fact that I'm diverse at all." The 27-year-old's short film Crush was chosen out of thousands of entries featuring a candle which was this year's signature item. On Thursday the sixteen finalists in the open division were announced along with another sixteen selected in the junior category. For brother and sister duo Leah Annetta and Reuben Street the biggest challenge making a film together was not the family dynamics, but keeping shots consistent over a long period of time. "No-one could cut their hair for a year," Reuben told AAP. Their entry Fringe Dweller also features first-time filmmaker Leah's daughter Allegra, whose personal hair-anxiety inspired her mother's script. In the junior division eleven-year-old Ivan Farkas is a second-time Tropfest finalist with his stop-motion film Hook, Line And Sinker. Getting up early in the morning to "beat the heat", the Quakers Hill student spent months piecing together one-second frames made up of 24 photographs each. "My last film was a serious one and this is a comedy, so I was really surprised to be a finalist again," Ivan told AAP. After completing all the filming himself in two-hour blocks, he then used software to edit his voice, adding audio over the top. The largest short film festival in the world had its beginnings in an inner-city Sydney cafe in 1993, but will be held for the third time this year in Parramatta Park. And for Tropfest veteran Simon Fowler, having his third film Dad To The Bone make it into the finals is almost as good as it gets. "I already feel like a winner," Simon told AAP. "But I obviously also want to win." The top prize of $10,000 will be awarded by an expert panel on February 9. A man who worked at cinemas across NSW for more than a decade has been accused of racking up a $220,000 bill on a work-issued credit card. It's alleged the 40-year-old accumulated the charges between 2010 and 2017 to create and register three businesses. His employer launched an internal investigation in December 2017 after discovering charges to company accounts before it was raised with police. The man worked at cinemas at Tuggerah Lakes, Lake Macquarie, Glendale and Kotara from 2006 until 2017, when he resigned. He was charged on Tuesday with dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and is due to face Newcastle Local Court on March 14. NSW Police will be able to hand out on-the-spot fines of $400 for drug possession at three musical festivals being held in Sydney over the Australia Day long weekend. Officers from Friday will be able to issue the fines as part of a trial which was recommended by an expert drug panel convened after two deaths at a music festival in September 2018. "We accept that just saying no from our generation may not be penetrating the millennial mindset," Police Minister Troy Grant told reporters on Thursday. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has dismissed a push by a handful of conservative politicians to enshrine in law January 26 as the date of Australia Day. West Australian Liberal Senator Dean Smith wants the national public holiday protected in legislation, in the same way as Anzac Day and the national flag. "I love Australia Day, it's a public holiday, it's a chance to catch up with family and friends," Mr Shorten told reporters in Queensland on Thursday. "But I'm getting a bit over the Australia Day debate. I think the nation is. It's not going to change." Mr Shorten acknowledged there were a few Greens councils who wanted to change the day they administer citizenship ceremonies, out of respect for indigenous people. "The public holiday is not going to change," he said. "I do find it a bit odd that the government sometimes gets so obsessed about what I call these 'straw man' issues. "A straw man issue being something that isn't really going to happen, but they like to have a really good talk about it." Mr Shorten suggested the government prioritise legislation around a national anti-corruption commission, or tighter rules around political donations. "How about they legislate penalty rates on public holidays? That's a more useful development," he said. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, a leading conservative figure in the coalition government, said he had "no problem" with the proposal to protect the date. "Australia Day is a celebration for all of us. There are 16,000 people from about 150 different countries who will become Australian citizens on the 26th," Mr Dutton told Sydney radio station 2GB. "It is a significant date for Australians. It doesn't mean that we need to neglect the indigenous history of our country. We celebrate that. "But Australia Day is a significant national day for our country. People come to our country to flee violence, to have their kids educated, to grow up in a civil society like ours and we shouldn't be afraid to celebrate it." A Queensland truckie claims he eye-balled a hulking 3-metre tall Yowie in broad daylight before it punched his bonnet and melted into the bush. The delivery driver, identified only as Gary, says he was driving in the bushy Gold Coast hinterland on a November morning last year when he rounded a sharp right bend at Witheren and had the experience of his life. He slammed on his brakes after spotting what he thought was a boulder tumbling down a steep slope and onto the road. But then it moved. Gary says he watched as the creature unfurled huge, hairy limbs and stood upright before locking eyes with him through the truck's windscreen. "It wasn't a rock at all," Gary has told Yowie hunter Dean Harrison in an interview shared on social media. "This thing scared the absolute crap out of me." He said the creature was a towering beast, its navel level with the truck's bonnet 6-feet (1.8 metres) off the ground. And he reckons it would have weighed close to 400kg. At first the Yowie - with its small head and over-sized body - seemed somehow shocked or embarrassed as it stood in the full glare of day at 10am on that November morning. But then it got mad. "He slapped, or punched the centre of the bonnet of my truck. It was like I had hit a small car," the truckie said. "He was so tall, he had to reach down to hit the truck. Just before he hit the truck, he grunted. It wasn't a scream or a cry, or a howl but a loud grunt. "It was hairy, it had hair probably two inches long all over its body ... It had a round face, like a chimpanzee." While Gary was still trying to make sense of what he was seeing, the creature turned and vanished into the bush. Gary does not want to be identified, fearing being labelled a "loon". Mr Harrison, the yowie hunter, understands that but he's not bothered by those who doubt the Yowie's existence. He's sure they are out there, having tracked scores of sightings across Australia for the past 20 years. He says he's even been attacked by a Yowie not once, but twice. As far as Yowie sightings go, Gary's is a good one, Mr Harrison says. "This is astounding, he had such a clear view of it. Amazing," he told AAP, adding the truck driver got such a good look at the creature that he was able to draw it. He says his years of tracking work indicate Yowies are most likely to be spotted along the Great Dividing Range, with the Blue Mountains the nation's hotspot for encounters. "People chose not to believe it but that is of no consequence to me - we believe based on the facts we are presented with. People should be vigilant and aware these things do exist." Mr Harrison said park rangers had reported close encounters and strange activity in the bush that they could not explain. (ANSA) - Rome, January 25 - Finance police in Rome on Friday seized assets and real estate properties worth a total of 2.4 million euros from members of the local Casamonica-Guglielmi crime clan. Investigative sources said a probe revealed the assets owned by the two families was not compatible with the income they declared on their tax returns. The assets and eight real estate properties, including parts of a luxury villa in Rome's Anagnina area, were seized from Abramo Di Guglielmi, known as Marcello Casamonica, his sister Giulia and her husband Romolo Cerello, all members of the Casamonica-Guglielmi family. The suspects are allegedly involved in illegal activities including gambling, drug trafficking, armed robberies and thefts and fraud, investigative sources said. Two police officers shot by a big-game hunter in regional NSW almost a week ago have a long period of recovery and rehabilitation ahead, a police charity says. Leading Senior Constable Helen McMurtrie remains in a stable condition at Gold Coast Hospital after she was shot in the throat in the Northern Tablelands town of Glen Innes on Friday. Her partner Sergeant Mark Johnston, who was hit on the side of his face with the same bullet, was discharged on Monday. NSW Police Legacy had by Thursday morning raised almost $35,000 to help the pair's rehabilitation. "The two officers have a long period of recovery and rehabilitation ahead of them," a statement on the charity's Facebook page says. "We thank everybody for the thoughts, prayers, and well wishes that have been directed towards these two brave individuals, as well as the donations that have been made. "Your actions and the support they represent, speak volumes." The officers were shot about 9.50pm on Friday by 74-year-old Eric Newman, who then turned the gun on himself. His wife Lesley Blythe Newman said she was praying for the police who were shot and for their loved ones. Other family members said they couldn't understand why Newman fired on police. Senior police and NSW Police Minister Troy Grant have also praised the efforts of Probationary Constable Samantha Petty, who was uninjured in the incident and helped drag the injured officers to safety. The NSW premier has defended her absence from a meeting between water authorities and regional mayors about the Murray-Darling crisis in Sydney, saying she didn't know it was happening. Gladys Berejiklian and Regional Water Minister Niall Blair have been criticised for not attending or dialling into the gathering at the state government's headquarters on Wednesday. Ms Berejiklian said she only heard about the meeting after it had happened and the attendees had already left. "They didn't tell me they were here," the premier told ABC Sydney on Thursday morning. "I said to them 'You should have told me you were in Sydney, I would have come down and seen you', because no one told me they were here." She also defended the absence of Mr Blair, who initially had hoped to telephone in but ultimately couldn't because he reportedly had other appointments which ran over time. "He'd already advised them he was unable to physically attend the meeting and he did that more than a week ago," she said. Mr Blair on Wednesday said councils along the Barwon-Darling were told from the outset a senior member of his team would attend on his behalf. He noted that he met with councils in Menindee a fortnight ago and was scheduled to attend a conference with them in Bourke in late February. "A very productive meeting was held today with all mayors expressing their viewpoints and practical solutions canvassed, which my office and agencies will explore," the minister said in a statement. Balranald Shire Council's Labor mayor Alan Purtill told reporters after the meeting his town was going to be "very disappointed". "We've got real problems that need to be fixed," he said. Brewarrina mayor Phillip O'Connor said his council had put in a lot of work to convey its message regarding the "mess of our river systems". "It's an absolute joke what our communities have to put up with," he said. "This is a big drought - but it's not the whole fault of the drought. If Sydney Harbour was dried up like our rivers could you imagine the uproar?" Wonder mare Winx has been crowned the world's best racehorse at the Longines International Federation of Horse Racing Association awards in London. The seven-year-old shared the honour with English superstar Cracksman - the pair each holding an official handicap rating of 130 - emulating the feat of Black Caviar who jointly-held the title with French filly Treve in 2013. Winx won seven Group Ones in 2018, including a record fourth Cox Plate, and after finishing second and third respectively behind American star Arrogate for the last two years, finally took out the top gong. Breeders Cup Classic winner Accelerate was third, surprisingly edging out the brilliant two-time Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Enable. The French showpiece was named the world's best race for the third year running. Despite Winx's 29 successive triumphs, the award takes into account the official ratings of the races and the quality of the opposition in elite races over a designated period. Trainer Chris Waller said finishing in the top three once again demonstrated the incredible consistency of a horse that is lauded by many as the greatest to ever come out of Australia. "It's what separates Winx from a lot of great horses," Waller told AAP. "She is doing it for a long time and it's not easy to get to this level and then to sustain it. "To be recognised here three years in a row shows what Winx is; a horse of longevity and a horse that can perform at the highest level." Waller said the pressure of maintaining his charge's winning record has been significant given the expectation whenever she sets foot on the track which is higher than any other horse he's been involved with. "Each times she runs ... there is pressure," Waller said. "Whether it be the first preparation of the year, knowing she has come back well or the sigh of relief when she gets through the last one undefeated, which was the Cox Plate. "Before each race you always question yourself and whether you are making the right decision to keep her racing." Given that weight of expectation, Waller believes there is more to lose than gain by bringing Winx over to the UK for a crack at Royal Ascot in June and confirmed she'll finish out her glorious career on home soil. "We think about it (Ascot) every day," he said. "But the right thing would have been to bring her when she was a five-year-old. "She is seven now, getting towards eight, and the expectation of her fanbase is for her to finish her career in Australia. "For her to go through a change of season twice and then go back and perform over here is very difficult and very taxing. "You then have to ask the question; why would she have to go to England? Why not go to America? To Dubai? To France? Or on a plane to New Zealand? "Who deserves the right to have her when every horse can come to Australia to race her?" "We're just putting the horse first and we have great racing in Australia." The NSW premier is facing calls to block the sale of Sydney's iconic Sirius complex to the same developers who built the problem-plagued Opal Tower. In an open letter to Gladys Berejiklian, local MPs Alex Greenwich and Jamie Parker, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and SaveOurSirius chairman Shaun Carter warned such a move would be a "grave mistake and would provoke distrust in government processes and objectives". The harbourside apartment block - which has been used for social housing for more than 30 years - was put up for sale in 2018 but its fate remains unclear. The group of local politicians wants the state government to retain the "structurally-sound, architecturally iconic building" for social and affordable housing. "We understand the sale of the Sirius building is imminent and there are rumours that the Opal Towers developer Ecove is the government's preferred buyer," they said in the letter, dated January 23. "Such a sale would be a grave mistake and would provoke distrust in government processes and objectives." The Opal Tower in Sydney's Olympic Park was evacuated on Christmas Eve after residents heard cracking sounds in parts of the building. An independent review has since found that although the building is structurally sound, it will require "significant rectification works". An Australian man has been extradited from Serbia to face charges over 1.28 tonnes of cocaine allegedly smuggled into Sydney inside pre-fabricated steel. The 35-year-old man, a resident of the United Arab Emirates, is the third person to be extradited in connection with the alleged importation of more than 2500 blocks of cocaine with a street value of $500 million in April 2017. The man arrived in Sydney from Belgrade on Wednesday night under Australian Federal Police escort and is scheduled to appear before Sydney Central Local Court on Thursday. An alleged drug-driver has been charged after a policeman as his motorbike were hit in Melbourne's CBD. Police say a police member and his motorcycle were hit by the vehicle about 3.30pm, as the driver tried to flee. The driver was arrested a short time later and the male officer was treated for minor injuries. A Dallas man, 20, has been charged with aggravated intentional exposure of police officer to risk by driving, reckless conduct, assault police, manner dangerous, drug-driving and other offences. He faced an out-of-sessions hearing and has been remanded to appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Thursday. He revealed his wife Francesca Abbott was expecting their first child in a joyful Instagram post in October. And Ashley Banjo paid tribute to his wife and unborn daughter as the pair celebrated the impending arrival at a lavish baby shower on Saturday. The Diversity dancer, 30, who wed Francesca in 2015, posted a photo of the happy couple at the glittering bash, as he said 'I love @francescabanjo and our little girl more than words can say.' Bumping along: Ashley Banjo paid tribute to his wife and unborn daughter as the pair celebrated the impending arrival at a lavish baby shower on Saturday Francesca showed off her blooming bump in a metallic silver dress paired with knee high boots as she gazed lovingly at her husband. While Dancing On Ice judge Ashley looked dapper in a plum sweater, slate grey trousers and camel overcoat. The couple posed up in front of white and gold boxes spelling Baby, with a lavish pink and white cake decorated with flowers visible in the background. In further sweet snaps, the pair stood in the middle of two decorated banquet tables, with centre pieces composed of pink rose and tiny butterfly ornaments. Cute couple: The Diversity dancer, 30, who wed Francesca in 2015, posted a photo of the happy couple at the glittering bash, as he said 'I love @francescabanjo and our little girl more than words can say' Elegance: The couple posed up in front of white and gold boxes spelling Baby, with a lavish pink and white cake decorated with flowers visible in the background Family: In further sweet snaps, the pair stood in the middle of two decorated banquet tables, with centre pieces composed of pink rose and tiny butterfly ornaments He wrote with the photos: 'We are going to be parents and our lives are going to change forever I love @francescabanjo and our little girl more than words can say. This baby shower was such an incredible way to celebrate... I cant wait to finally be a dad #babyshower. Earlier this month Ashley discussed the couple's 'tough' journey to conceive their baby girl and his excitement at becoming a father during an interview on Thursday's episode of Lorraine. The star has previously spoken about the couple's 'difficult' journey to become parents. Dad to be: Earlier this month Ashley discussed the couple's 'tough' journey to conceive their baby girl and his excitement at becoming a father during an interview on Thursday's episode of Lorraine Excitement: The Diversity dancer, 30, who wed Francesca in 2015, has previously spoken about the couple's 'difficult' journey to become parents Speaking of his excitement out of 10 at the impending birth, he said: 'There's no number. Honestly, it's already quite surreal for me to think there's a little baby Banjo on the way, little girl.' The Britain's Got Talent champion has reprised his role as a judge on Dancing On Ice this year but said his Diversity pals Perri Kiely and Jordan Banjo were poised to step in should Francesca go into labour. He said: 'I'll have to get Perri in. Perri or Jordan to sit there. On standby!' Speaking of being on the Dancing on Ice panel, he said: 'I'm loving it. Great show, it's a classic.' Happy couple: Speaking of his excitement out of 10 at the impending birth, he said: 'There's no number. Honestly, it's already quite surreal for me to think there's a little baby Banjo on the way, little girl' Anticipation: The Britain's Got Talent champion has reprised his role as a judge on Dancing On Ice this year but said his Diversity pals Perri Kiely and Jordan Banjo were poised to step in should Francesca go into labour And of early favourites for the title, he said: 'I don't think I've ever seen a week one like James Jordan. I can't believe what he did week one Jason [Gardiner] gave him an 8! What does that tell you? 'He's set his bar extremely high! He works so hard, I know he does, so good on him.' The interview comes three months after Ashley showed off his wife's baby bump for the first time in a sweet Instagram post uploaded from Bristol. The dancer just announced the lovebirds were overjoyed to be expecting a baby girl after the pair had a 'difficult journey'. Choreographer Ashley looked ecstatic as he cradled his wife's blossoming baby bump in the first picture revealing pregnant Francesca's maternal curves. 'Time for the tour bus!': The interview comes three months after Ashley showed off his wife's baby bump for the first time in a sweet Instagram post uploaded from Bristol He captioned the post: 'Time for the tour bus with Two and a half Banjo's #babybump #tourlife #family.' In the cute snap, Francesca displayed her baby bump in her figure-hugging khaki green knitted dress. Ashley and Francesca, with the unborn baby in tow, were climbing on board the tour bus from Bristol. The TV host thanked his 312k followers for their support since the announcement that he is expecting a baby girl with his wife following a 'difficult journey'. 'Just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the love for our little one!! We are overwhelmed xx.' Happy news! Just one day ago, Diversity's Ashley has confirmed his wife Francesca is pregnant with the couple's first child, a baby girl The Instagram comes just one day after the dancer confirmed his wife Francesca is pregnant with the couple's first child. The dancer and choreographer took to his Instagram page on Wednesday afternoon to reveal the childhood sweethearts are 'so excited' to be expecting a baby girl after a 'difficult journey'. Alongside a sweet selfie of the couple holding a picture of their ultrasound scan, eh wrote: 'I am so excited to finally share the news that we are having a baby!! Now the time has come to finally say this out loud I have no idea what to say! 'We are overwhelmed': The TV host thanked his 312k followers for their support since the announcement that he is expecting a baby girl with his wife following a 'difficult journey' 'I don't know if words alone can explain how full of joy and happiness we both are. It has been a more difficult journey to this point than most people know but we are now here with one of the most precious gifts in the world... A little girl! 'I have so many strong and incredible women around me, I know she will have great examples to follow. 'Especially this woman right here - my wife and my rock. You are going to be the best mum in the world. 'I'm so excited to see our little one grow up and if by any chance she wanted to be like her daddy and bust a few moves, I've already got the dancing shoes covered! Can't wait to meet you little sweetie.' Parents to be: The dancer and choreographer, 29, took to his Instagram page on Wednesday afternoon to reveal the childhood sweethearts are 'so excited' to be expecting a baby girl Grateful: In the lengthy message, the street dance pro hailed his wife as his 'rock' and said she will be the 'best mum in the world' Set to follow in their footsteps? Ashley also explained he will support his daughter if she wanted to 'bust a few moves' in the future Ashley's brother Jordan also took to Instagram to post a gushing message about the exciting announcement, alongside a snap of the dancer cradling his nephew. The Dancing On Ice presenter penned: 'My big bro is going to be a DAD @ashleybanjogram & @francescabanjo I'm so proud of you guys, you're already the best aunty and uncle to my little Cass (as you can see Ash's huge smile holding his nephew). 'I can't wait to see the banjo family get even bigger! Love you guys, and I know Cass is buzzing to have a beautiful little cousin to play with', he concluded. 'My bro is going to be a DAD!': Ashley's brother Jordan also took to Instagram to post a gushing message about the announcement, alongside a snap of the dancer cradling his nephew New parents: The happy news comes just months after Ashley's brother Jordan welcomed his first baby in May when his girlfriend Naomi Courts give birth to son Cassius Ashley Banjo Ashley and Francesca are childhood sweethearts and have been together for 13 years; they got engaged in 2014 and tied the knot in 2015. Francesca is a member of another dance troupe called Out of the Shadow. The happy news comes just months after Ashley's brother Jordan welcomed his first baby in May when his girlfriend Naomi Courts give birth to son Cassius Ashley Banjo - with his middle name serving as a nod to his big brother. Long-time couple: Ashley and Francesca are childhood sweethearts and have been together for 13 years; they got engaged in 2014 and tied the knot in 2015 Jordan recently told Lorraine Kelly: 'Ashley's a wicked uncle already! 'He's not even three weeks old yet and Ashley's already telling me how he wants him in Diversity so I've got to train him pretty quick.' Ashley shot to fame when his dance troupe, Diversity, won the third series of Britain's Got Talent in 2009. He later became a co-judge on Sky1's Got To Dance, and joined the judging panel of ITV1 celebrity skating show Dancing On Ice in January. He's the younger brother of Hollywood's brightest young stars, Margot Robbie. And Cameron Robbie's famous connection almost led him to become Australia's hottest reality TV star after he was reportedly scouted for the 2019 season of Married At First Sight. According to a report released by The Sun Herald, the 23-year-old MTV presenter was asked to star in the upcoming season, but was 'quick to pass up the offer'. No love lost! Margot Robbie's brother Cameron 'turned down' an offer to star on Married At First Sight 2019 It comes after the hunk is set to makes his runway debut for David Jones Autumn/Winter season launch next month. Cameron will replace acclaimed male model Jordan Barrett in the role, according to Confidential. The social media influencer is set to strut his stuff at the fashion show, which will be held at Tasmania's MONA art gallery. Famous connections: Cameron's famous connection almost led him to become Australia's hottest reality TV stars. Pictured: Cameron and Margot Robbie Model: It comes after the hunk is set to makes his runway debut for David Jones Autumn/Winter season launch next month Cameron, who describes himself as 'an actor first, a model second', will join the ranks of top models Victoria Lee and Jessica Gomes, who have walked for the high-end department store numerous times. 'I'm sure they will give me lots of tips,' he told the publication about working with the two stunners. 'It will be a new experience and I'm preparing as best as I can but also want to just enjoy the new experience and be relaxed,' he added. Move over Barrett! Cameron, who is also an MTV presenter, will be replacing acclaimed model Jordan Barrett (R) after he graced the catwalk as 2018's menswear ambassador And in December, Cameron gushed over his sister's international stardom in an appearance on the Today show. He reminisced about how he went travelling with Margot five years ago, around the time she shot to fame in The Wolf Of Wall Street in 2013. 'So much has changed [in that time] yet nothing has changed,' said Cameron. 'She's still our Margot. Can't be any more proud of her.' Simon Cowell is said to have had a near miss with serious injury at the Britain's Got Talent auditions after he volunteered to let a contestant throw knives at him. The music mogul, 59, described the moment as 'the scariest thing ever' as he risked his life for the daredevil challenge. According to the Daily Star, Simon volunteered to be the target for Belarusian act Andrei Gomonov at the auditions earlier this week. Challenge: Simon Cowell is said to have had a near miss with serious injury at the Britain's Got Talent auditions after he volunteered to let a contestant throw knives at him (pictured in July 2018) Far from being scared the act could go wrong, Simon reportedly told Andrei: 'I really want to know what it feels like to have an axe thrown at me.' The performance was certainly a close call for the head judge as the knives were said to have missed his body 'by inches'. It was so tense that fellow judge Amanda Holden covered her eyes during the stunt. Simon later admitted: 'OK, so that was the scariest thing ever. I now realise how hard it is.' Audition: The music mogul, 59, described the moment as 'the scariest thing ever' as he risked his life for the daredevil challenge (pictured in May 2018) Fellow judge David Walliams jokingly hit out at the performer for not finishing off Simon while he had the chance. MailOnline has contacted a representative for Britain's Got Talent for comment. Simon was recently the target of online trolls over his appearance when he turned out for the Britain's Got Talent auditions earlier this week. Speaking to the publication, he brushed off the jibes he received and insisted he doesn't read things about himself online. He said: 'These are people who sit in dark rooms anonymously because they won't put their real names - which I think is cowardly - writing horrible things about you." Scary: Simon reportedly volunteered to be the target for Belarusian act Andrei Gomonov at the auditions earlier this week (pictured in June 2018) 'I don't go on the message board and I don't Google myself. When you start doing that it becomes negative.' Simon and partner Lauren Silverman spent the festive period soaking up the sun in Barbados with their son Eric, four. The Sun reported that Simon pampered his pet dogs Squiddly, Diddly and Freddie by flying them to the island in a private plane. According to the publication, the X Factor judge also ensure that his pets get their own reclining seats, organic food and mineral water served in porcelain dog bowls. They travel with Simon regularly as he works in both Los Angeles and London, as well as an annual trip to the Caribbean, and on the flight the dogs get their own squeaky toys to play with, and bespoke jum-bones. Khloe Kardashian enjoyed a day at the farmers' market with her girls, True and Penelope. The reality star, 34, pushed her baby girl in a stroller while stocking up on some fresh, healthy food in Calabasas, California on Saturday morning. Nine-month-old True wore a unicorn themed beanie and fluffy white coat as she sat comfortably inside her stroller with a soft blanket laid out upon her lap. Just the girls! Khloe Kardashian enjoyed a day at the farmers' market with her girls, True and Penelope, in Calabasas on Saturday Penelope, six, snacked on a piece of fresh fruit as she walked beside her aunt. The daughter of Kourtney Kardashian wore a salmon pink bomber jacket, a velvet dress, and red cowboy boots for the outing. Meanwhile, Khloe kept it casual wearing a sporty black top, her Good American sweatpants, and a Raiders hat. Khloe happily shared the excursion with her fans on social media that same morning. Doting mother: Khloe pushed her baby daughter True as she took in the fresh air Snack break: Penelope munched on a piece of fresh fruit That's her girl: The star posted several heart-melting videos of the girls enjoying their day out together The star posted several heart-melting videos of the girls enjoying their day out together. Penelope continued to munch on her citrus snack as she listened to a street performer alongside True. Once inside Khloe's car, Penelope pretended to be a chicken as she played with True. Khloe and her boyfriend Tristan Thompson welcomed daughter True on April 12, 2018. And already, the reality star is ready to expand her family. She reportedly wants a second child with Tristan because daughter True 'changed her life,' a source told People magazine. Orange you glad? Penelope continued to munch on her citrus snack as she listened to a street performer alongside True She jetted into Salt Lake City Airport for the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Friday. And Emma Roberts was up bright and early on Saturday for a Q&A with her Paradise Hills co-stars Milla Jovovich, Danielle Macdonald and Eiza Gonzalez at the IMDb Studio at Acura Festival Village. With the temperature barely scraping 32F, all the actresses were warmly dressed for their interview. In touch with her wild side: Emma Roberts wore a faux snakeskin coat over a mustard colored mini dress and red bootees for a Q&A at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Saturday Emma, 29, got in touch with her wild side in a snakeskin print coat that she wore over a mustard-colored mini-dress, plus black opaque tights and flashy red bootees. Milla, 43, followed suit in a heavy fluffy animal print cardigan that she wore with a white T-shirt and skinny jeans. Daniele, 27, donned a black knitted sweater spangled with silver stars and jeans while Eliza, 28, chose a heavy black and red cardigan that she wore over a white frilly shirt with a black bolo tie and black pants. Their fantasy-thriller, Paradise Hills, world premieres in the Next Category for pure, bold story tellers on Saturday. Having a laugh: The 29-year-old blonde obviously enjoyed chatting about her new fantasy drama, Paradise Hill, which premieres at the festival on Saturday Girls talk: Emma with her Paradise Hill co-stars, from left, Mila Jovovich, Danielle Macdonald and Eiza Gonzalez at the IMDb Studio at the Acura Festival Village Having a ball: Mila, 43, center, donned a fluffy animal print cardigan that she wore over a white T-shirt and skinny jeans while Daniele, 27, donned a black sweater with silver stars and jeans First-time Spanish director Alice Waddington's film revolves around a mysterious boarding school for wayward girls. It tells the story of Emma's Uma, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, who is sent to the exclusive sanitarium by a billionaire who wants to marry her. However, he is also mounting a hostile takeover of her fathers company. Star selfie: Mila captured a shot of herself with Eliza, 28, Emma and Daniele at the event Smile and wave: The beautiful blonde was pictured backstage at the Q&A in these Instagrams taken by Milla Proud of her work: Stylist Brit Elkin shared this mirror shot of Emma on Instagram Obviously problematic, Uma begins to plot her escape from the private island where Paradise Hills is located after she meets Amarna, played by Eiza Gonzalez, a fellow patient. But the high-class facility's beautiful facade hides a sinister secret. Other cast include Awkwafina and Jeremy Irvine. 'Me and da babe': Emma also shared this shot of herself sitting on co-star Awkwafina's lap She's got the blues: Emma modeled a lovely blue look later on at the project's official premiere Rolling her own: Emma jetted into Salt Lake City Airport on Friday wearing a Coach shearling jacket Looking cool: The celebrity kept warm in a sheepskin jacket that she wore over her shoulders, a brown fine-knit top, blue skinny jeans and brightly colored sneakers That's an eye-catcher: The celebrity carried a huge fluffy handbag over her arm He jetted into Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah on Friday. And Armie Hammer was happy to sign autographs for fans as he made his way across the concourse ready to be whisked away to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. The actor's new movie, Wounds, was one of the last additions to the festival line-up and is due to world premiere at the event on Saturday. Pen at the ready: A relaxed Armie Hammer was happy to sign autographs after arriving at Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah on Friday The 32-year-old star looked relaxed in a black leather jacket trimmed with corduroy at the collar and cuffs that he wore over a green and brown plaid sweater, blue skinny jeans and red New Balance sneakers. He hung his dark glasses on the collar of his sweater ready to put on when he hit the sunlight. It was a brisk 39F at the airport and a distinctly chilly 34F in Park City where the film world was gathered for the festival, founded by Robert Redford in 1978, that celebrates new work. Happy to sign: The 32-year-old star was there for the Sundance Film Festival in Park City where his movie, Wounds, makes its world preiere in the Midnight section on Saturday Armie stars in Wounds, written and directed by British-Iranian filmaker Babak Anvari, 36, which is due to play in the Midnight Section. The horror-mystery movie centers around the mysterious things that happen to bartender Will, played by Armie, after he picks up a phone left behind at his New Orleans bar. From the United Kingdom, it also stars Dakota Johnson, Zazie Beetz, Karl Glusman, and Brad William Henke. Casual comfort: The actor donned a black leather jacket trimmed with corduroy at the collar and cuffs, a green and brown plaid sweater, blue skinny jeans and red New Balance sneakers Making his get away: The actor appeared to be at the event without his actress wife and cup cake entrepreneur Elizabeth Chambers, 36, or their kids Harper, four, and Ford, two The event location is a popular ski resort, but it appears that Armie's actress wife and cup cake entrepreneur Elizabeth Chambers, 36, opted not to join him for the trip. She likely stayed home in San Antonio, Texas with their two children, daughter Harper, four, and son Ford, two. Sundance kicked off on Thursday and wraps on February 3. Wounds will be released on March 29. They announced their engagement last month. And Petra Ecclestone and her new fiance Sam Palmer enjoyed a date night at Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick concert at the STAPLES Centre in Los Angeles. The Formula One heiress, 30, looked effortlessly chic for the fun evening with her love as she rocked a pair of dark grey ripped skinny jeans. Smitten: Petra Ecclestone and her new fiance Sam Palmer enjoyed a date night at Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick concert at the STAPLES Centre in Los Angeles She teamed the item of clothing with a black top and a grey and black animal print cardigan over the top. Petra accessorised her look with a pair of red snakeskin heeled boots and a collection of silver necklaces. Meanwhile, her fiance Sam cut a casual figure in dark faded jeans, a white t-shirt and a black Saint Laurent hoodie, he finished his look with Adidas trainers. Loved-up: The Formula One heiress, 30, looked effortlessly chic for the fun evening with her love as she rocked a pair of dark grey ripped skinny jeans The Maddox art gallery manager recently posted a sweet tribute to the socialite after exclusively announcing the couple's engagement to MailOnline. He told his followers Petra accepting his proposal was one of his personal highlights of 2018. As the former electrician delighted over the news, Petra's Formula 1 tycoon father, Bernie Ecclestone, 88, seemed less impressed, saying he 'doesn't know what the hurry is' - just 14 months on from his daughter's explosive divorce. Legend: Elton John's is currently touring the world on his Farewell Yellow Brick concert Engagement: The Maddox art gallery manager recently posted a sweet tribute to the socialite after exclusively announcing the couple's engagement to MailOnline Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: 'I told her I dont know what the hurry is I dont understand the reason.' The businessman's reaction stood in stark contrast to Sam's words. The vintage car dealer wrote: 'A personal thank you to everyone that made opening Maddox Gallery Los Angeles possible. 'I hope everyone had as an amazing year as us and that 2019 brings lots of love,health and happiness to all. 'My personal highlights have been opening the gallery in LA with the woman I love and her agreeing to marry me Here is to a fantastic 2019.' Petra and Sam announced their engagement on New Year's Eve after one year of dating, and just 14 months on from her acrimonious divorce from James Stunt, with whom she shares three children. Set to tie the knot: Petra and Sam announced their engagement on New Year's Eve after one year of dating Just two years ago, she offended the nation by declaring 'I don't miss Australia' at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in Sydney. But on Saturday, Iggy Azalea was proudly waving a small Australian flag while on a cruise around Sydney Harbour - on Australia Day. The rapper, 28, took to Instagram to share footage of her trip around across the water on a private boat. 'Happy Australia Day!' Iggy Azalea (pictured) celebrated Australia Day while visiting Sydney on Saturday... after previously declaring she 'didn't miss' her birth nation 'Back in Australia! Happy Australia day!' Iggy said as she panned the camera around the coastline. She included footage of herself chewing on a Frosty Fruit ice block, with a cat Snapchat filter applied to her face. The enthusiastic display of patriotism seems to be an about-face for the controversial rapper. No place like home! The rapper, 28, took to Instagram to share footage of her trip around across the water on a private boat. 'Back in Australia! Happy Australia day!' Iggy said as she panned the camera around the coastline Feeling patriotic: Iggy was proudly waving a small Australian flag while on a cruise around Sydney Harbour - on Australia Day Too cool for school: She included footage of herself chewing on an ice block, with a cat Snapchat filter applied to her face 'I don't know why people get so offended as (Australia) is not my home,' Iggy told the Daily Telegraph in November 2016. 'I don't miss Australia,' she added. Her comments came after she told the Herald Sun: 'I mean, to be honest with you, my home is in America. It's great to come back [to Australia] and visit my grandparents, but there is no home connection.' Iggy, whose real name is Amethyst Amelia Kelly, was born in Sydney before moving to Miami to pursue her rap career at 16. Change of heart? The enthusiastic display of patriotism seems to be an about-face for the controversial rapper. 'I don't miss Australia,' Iggy said in 2016 Ex-pat: Iggy, whose real name is Amethyst Amelia Kelly, was born in Sydney before moving to Miami to pursue her rap career at 16 After living in Florida for several years, Iggy now resides permanently in Los Angeles. In the past, she has been less than complimentary about her home country. In September 2018, Iggy said she wouldn't be touring Down Under because it's too hard to turn a profit there. Responding to a fan on Twitter, she wrote: 'It's a hard one to profit from honestly, it's far, and would have to be part of a bigger group of shows in Asia etc etc.' She's enjoying a well-earned break with her girlfriends in Dubai after a stint presenting on the National Television Awards with beau Jack Fincham on Tuesday. And Dani Dyer took to Instagram on Saturday to share yet another sensational snap from the holiday, in which she was clad in a bikini during the trip. The Love Island winner, 23, showed off her incredible abs as she posed on the poolside in the multicolour two piece which just about provided modesty with it's cutaway design. Living her best life: Dani Dyer took to Instagram on Saturday to share yet another sensational snap of herself clad in a bikini She showed off her golden tan as she smiled for the camera with her hair swept up into a stylish up-do while protecting her eyes from the sun in a pair of Raybans. The glamorous display comes as Dani enjoyed a luxurious dinner at Hakkasan dressed in a flattering playsuit which showed off her toned legs to perfection. She paired the white number with towering nude heels and added a pop of colour with her burgundy handbag. Earlier in the week Dani continued sharing her envy-inducing trip with a bikini-clad snap where she looked sensational as she showcased her toned figure in a tiny hot pink number. Life's a beach: The Love Island winner, 23, has been sharing a string of snaps on social media from her sun filled holiday Stunning: Dani made sure she looked her best as she showed off her tan while posing for selfies She completed her look with a silver necklace, watch and a pair of oversized black sunglasses. The reality star styled her brunette locks into a relaxed sweptback bun positioned at the top of her head as she appeared to go make-up free. The brunette beauty also shared a selfie of herself sunbathing as she posed up a storm in the idyllic holiday location. Flaunt it: Earlier in the week Dani continued sharing her envy-inducing trip with a bikini-clad snap where she looked sensational as she showcased her toned figure Red hot: The brunette beauty also shared a selfie of herself sunbathing as she posed up a storm in the idyllic holiday location. The Love Island star's holiday comes after her famous EastEnders father, Danny Dyer, revealed he wants her and boyfriend Jack to get married despite their short split. Dani announced in December that she had split from Jack, 27, on Instagram, but the two reality stars quickly rekindled their love just hours later. Talking about their relationship, Danny told Heat magazine: 'They're a lovely little couple and I really hope that they'll stay together for years and years and years and eventually get married.' He added: 'Everyone has arguments, I think they've learnt from that mistake.' Jemma Lucy looked radiant as she showcased her blossoming baby bump during an evening out in Manchester. The model, 30, displayed her baby bump in a figure-hugging pale blue pencil skirt and a matching coloured plunging crop top. Jemma completed her look with a pair of clear perspex heels with her bold yellow pedicure on visible display. Glowing: Jemma Lucy looked radiant as she showcased her blossoming baby bump during an evening out in Manchester The Ex on the Beach star styled her blonde highlighted locks into a sleek straightened hairdo, she added a slick of glamorous make-up. Jemma looked every inch the doting mother-to-be as she excitedly cradled her growing baby bump. The reality star's appearance comes after she admitted in a recent interview that she judges herself over her 'sexy photoshoots' and is worried that people will now 'attack' her over the baby news, which she revealed earlier this month. The model, who rose to fame with her party lifestyle on Ex on the Beach and CBB, went on to candidly discuss her pregnancy, she is five months along, revealing it has 'softened' her and that she wants to keep her baby's sex a secret. Mum-to-be: The model, 30, displayed her baby bump in a figure-hugging pale blue pencil skirt and a matching coloured plunging crop top Talking to Closer magazine, she said: 'I do sometimes do sexy shoots and I am worried about being attacked or judged for it now people know I am pregnant. 'If I'm being completely honest, I judge myself a little for what I do and I'd rather not be posing proactively, but it's how I make a living and I have to support myself and the baby. I'm working on other projects too that are completely different and will help support us financially.' Talking about her baby's father, she added: 'The baby's dad is someone who I have known for a while. He's not in the public eye, so it's not my place to name him, and we've always had a private relationship. But he's been supportive and we both just want the best for our baby.' Jemma went on to reveal that for the first three months of her pregnancy she was 'exhausted, very sick and crying at everything', she joked that it has 'softened' her. Candid: The reality star's appearance comes after she admitted in a recent interview that she judges herself over her 'sexy photoshoots' and is worried that people will now 'attack' her However, despite rising to fame as a wild party animal, the reality star added that she gave up partying two years ago and she doesn't drink, choosing the gym and her horse riding instead. Jemma continued that her relationship with her parents, who live in Singapore, has improved since the baby news as they support her despite once disowning her. However, the model admitted that she is scared of giving birth and she wants all the pain relief, while she wants to keep her baby's sex a secret. Jemma's candid interview comes after she announced she is pregnant with her first child, but refused to reveal the identity of the father, last week. Speaking out: Talking to Closer magazine , she said: 'I do sometimes do sexy shoots and I am worried about being attacked or judged for it now people know I am pregnant.' Revealing the news in The Sun, the controversial star said: 'When I found out I was pregnant I was completely in shock', before admitting she debated not going through with the pregnancy before deciding to 'do the right thing'. The hard-partying star confessed she has been struggling with the side effects of her pregnancy while also admitting she is aware doubters will be rife, but she remains defiant in her abilities to care for the child. Prior to her announcement, Jemma was out on the town in November, where she was seen looking svelte despite being three months pregnant at the time. She admits the early stages of pregnancy have been tough, saying: 'Having thought about it for ages, I just thought its the right thing to do to keep it...' Speaking honestly: 'If I'm being completely honest, I judge myself a little for what I do and I'd rather not be posing proactively, but it's how I make a living,' she continued She admitted to the pain, saying: 'It's literally been so difficult for me. Ive had a lot of emotional trauma thorough stress and not having support. I got really ill, I was tired and on my own. It was horrible. It really made me depressed.' Jemma soared to fame on the third season of the MTV dating show in 2016, where she struck up a romance with Kirk Norcross, and has since become a regular fixture on the party scene before returning to EOTB in the explosive fifth season in 2017. The star, real name Jemma Henley, got her first taste of TV fame on Channel 4s Brat Camp in 2005, where she was sent to a US correctional centre following a string of offences including shoplifting atop being expelled from three schools. Big adjustment: Jemma went on to reveal that for the first three months of her pregnancy she was 'exhausted, very sick and crying at everything', she joked that it has 'softened' her Following this she competed on Signed by Katie Price, a reality show hoping to find a protege for the model, before she launched herself into the reality world on EOTB. During her first run in 2015's third season, she enjoyed a dalliance with Kirk, before returning in series five this year - where she was ejected for her 'unreasonable behaviour' after an array of brawls. The inked-up star has gained hers bad girl reputation during her stints on MTV after she frequently became embroiled in furious rows with co-stars. He recently revealed he burst into tears after discovering he had been nominated for his first ever Oscar nomination for comedy drama Can You Ever Forgive Me? And Richard E. Grant appeared in good spirits as he left BBC radio studios on Friday following a day of interviews. The Spice World actor, 61, looked dapper in black trousers and a matching high-neck jumper and waist coat. Happy: Richard E. Grant appeared in good spirits as he left BBC radio studios on Friday following a day of interviews Dressing for the cool January weather, he layered the ensemble with a brown tweed blazer with suede detailing on the neckline. Richard's appearance comes after he revealed on Friday's This Morning he was in a restaurant with his daughter Olivia, 30, when he discovered he had been nominated for his first ever Oscar in his three-decade career. The Spice World actor, 61, shared that the duo received free food and drink after bursting into tears over the accolade. Critical acclaim: The Spice World actor, 61, recently revealed he burst into tears after he was nominated for his first ever Oscar for Can You Ever Forgive Me? (pictured in the film with co-star Melissa McCarthy) Stylish: Richard looked dapper in black trousers and a matching high-neck jumper and waist coat Details: Dressing for the cool January weather, he layered the ensemble with a brown tweed blazer with suede detailing on the neckline He said: 'I was in a restaurant with my daughter who had a live stream on her phone, they announced my name, and we burst into tears. 'Everyone around thought we had received deadly news, it was great news, we had a free lunch and free drinks. It was a win-win!' He added: 'If you're as old as I am, and never had an Oscar award nomination, it arrives this late, it feels great!' Richard was left mortified when the ITV daytime show aired a clip of his role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? because he hates watching himself back. Ecstatic: Richard's appearance comes after he revealed on Friday's This Morning he was in a restaurant with his daughter Olivia, 30, when he discovered his Oscar nomination Tears: He said: 'I was in a restaurant with my daughter who had a live stream on her phone, they announced my name, and we burst into tears.' (pictured together earlier this month) Covering his eyes and ears, show host Eamonn Holmes joked: 'He actually held that pose there, do you not like watching yourself back?' To which Richard admitted: 'Not if I can help it, no, it just feels wrong! I know many actors who feel the same way!' The actor stars alongside Melissa McCarthy in the American biographical film and he revealed that they just clicked on set. He said: 'Never met her, we met on a Friday a year ago for two hours, to talk through the script, to see if there was a comedy element for Melissa weve come to know and love. Win-win!: 'Everyone around thought we had received deadly news, it was great news, we had a free lunch and free drinks. It was a win-win!,' he added 'It felt like lightening in bottle, an instant connect with her,' he joked: 'We're having twins in august!' Richard then revealed the Oscar-nominated film took 26 days to shoot and had a low budget as it was all shot on location in NYC - filming the bars and bookshops. The actor added he only got the script six weeks before shooting and had 24 hours to decide if he wanted the role. Finally: He added: 'If you're as old as I am, and never had an Oscar award nomination, it arrives this late, it feels great!' He said: 'I thought it was so well-written, witty and well-observed. A true story, stranger than fiction. 'It was a quick decision, we were starting shooting in six weeks time, I don't know who died or dropped out [over the role], but I had 24 hours to decide!' Richard is currently filming for Star Wars, with his role and character name being kept top secret. Talking about the 'huge secrecy' surrounding the franchise, he said: 'I can't even tell my wife or daughter the name of my character. We have security, we arrive in plain clothes, we use a cloak to get to the studio as there's drove above. Red-faced: However, Richard was left mortified when they aired a clip of his role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? as he hates watching himself back 'We read the script in a guarded room, the pages you're doing you get on the day, you have to sign in and out for them each day.' Richard's interview comes after he revealed to Zoe Ball on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday that the nomination brought him to tears. The actor said it was a 'surreal' moment when he learned he had been recognised in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance as Jack Hock in the forgery drama. The Swaziland born star said: 'It feels completely surreal; I was sitting with my daughter in a restaurant in Notting Hill Gate just round the corner from where this happened. Impressive: Richard then revealed that the Oscar-nominated film took 26 days to shoot and had a low budget as it was all shot on location in NYC - filming the bars and bookshops 'It was where I lived in this bedsit in 1982 when I first came to England and it was when I got the news, she was watching this live feed on her phone and we had earpieces in, we both just burst into tears and people around us thought we had some terrible news. ' The Withnail and I actor took to his Twitter account to express his joy after receiving the happy news on Tuesday, and shared a video shot in front of the first bedsit he ever lived at in London. He said: 'I'm absolutely overwhelmed, 36 years ago I rented this bedsit here which was one room in Notting Hill Gate which was 30 pounds a week, about 50 dollars, and I cannot believe that 36 years later I'm standing here as nearly a 62-year-old man having an Oscar nomination.' The Jack and Sarah star went on to thank the Academy, as well as co-star Melissa McCarthy and the film's director Marielle Heller. Emotional: Richard's interview comes after he revealed to Zoe Ball on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday that the nomination brought him to tears Richard will go up against Adam Driver for BlacKkKlansman, Mahershala Ali for Green Book, Sam Elliott for A Star Is Born and Sam Rockwell for Vice. His co-star Melissa has been nominated in the Best Actress category while the film has also been given a nod in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Also on the red carpet, Richard discussed the close bond he forged with Melissa as he revealed the pair got on 'extraordinary well' on the movie set. He told MailOnline: 'Its astonishing because we made this film in January last year for 28 days over 6 weeks and for such an intimate story, Melissa and I got along so extraordinarily well. Acclaimed: The Withnail and I actor took to his Twitter account to express his joy after receiving the happy news on Tuesday, and shared a video shot in front of the first bedsit 'It was a true story as well. It was shot in the Julius bar, the oldest gay bar in Manhattan and in the bookshops where they did all these literary scams - you were authentically walking where these people live. 'Youre honouring them in some proper way. It was an amazing experience I loved it.' Can You Ever Forgive Me? sees Melissa step into the stilettos of celebrity biographer Lee Israel who makes her living profiling A-listers in the dramatic thriller film. The writer chronicles the lives of stars including Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estee Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. Yet in a shocking twist, Lee turns her art form into deception when she falls on hard times and her work is no longer able to get published. She has called Australia home ever since marrying the late conversationalist and TV personality Steve Irwin. And Terri Irwin has penned an article for Saturday's issue of Stellar reflecting on becoming a citizen in 2009 and her dedication to protecting its natural wildlife. The 54-year-old, originally from Oregon in the US, wrote: 'For me, being an Australian means loving this incredibly lucky country until my last breath.' 'I promised Steve I would': Terri Irwin reveals she became an Australian citizen to protect local wildlife in honour of her late husband, Steve Irwin's legacy. She wrote: 'For me, being an Australian means loving this incredibly lucky country until my last breath' She added that to her it also means protecting the wide array wildlife for her kids and future generations. 'I promised Steve I would,' Terri wrote, adding that stayed in Australia 'for love'. Although she was devastated with the sudden death of her husband over a decade ago, she said her calling to protect local animals was still the same. First love: Terri wrotem 'My desire to protect our unique wildlife has continued to be as much about who I am as what I do'. Terri and first met Steve in 1991 at what was known then as Crocodile Environmental Park 'My desire to protect our unique wildlife has continued to be as much about who I am as what I do,' she wrote. Terri and first met Steve in 1991 at what was known then as Crocodile Environmental Park. They tied the knot the following year and she immigrated to Australia to work with him, eventually going on to expand Australia Zoo and develop its research centre. Happy family: In 1998 they welcomed their first child Bindi (centre right), followed by Robert (left) in 2003 Honour: Steve's extraordinary life came to a tragic end after a string ray barb struck him in the heart in Batt Reef, Port Douglas, back in 2006. Pictured: Terri, Bindi and Robert at Steve Irwin's posthumous honour on the Hollywood walk of fame In 1998 they welcomed their first child Bindi, followed by Robert in 2003. Steve's extraordinary life came to a tragic end after a string ray barb struck him in the heart in Batt Reef, Port Douglas, back in 2006. Since then Terri and her kids have been working hard to continue his legacy with the family starring on a new show Crikey! It's The Irwins, which airs on Animal Planet. Daniel MacPherson has a very prestigious fan in Prince William. The 38-year-old reveals the Duke of Cambridge admitted he's an avid viewer of long-running soap opera Neighbours, on which Daniel once starred. However, that didn't stop the 36-year-old royal heckling the actor during an event in Sydney. 'His Royal Highness heckled me!' Former Neighbours star Daniel MacPherson (pictured) reveals Prince William mocked his hipster outfit during a performance ...but the Duke of Cambridge did admit he's a fan of the Australian soap The Australian actor tells The Daily Telegraph: 'A couple of years ago Prince William had a state visit to Sydney and I was emceeing at an event he attended. 'He remembered me and before it started said, "I used to watch you on Neighbours."' But things took a turn when William noted the hipster-inspired skinny jeans Daniel was wearing. The City Homicide star explains: 'I got up to emcee, wearing some very tight, black skinny jeans. And His Royal Highness heckled me from the crowd about my skinny jeans!' Pictured: Prince William in 2018 Prestigious fan! Daniel became a household name, and something of a heartthrob, in the late 1990s playing boy-next-door Joel Samuels on Neighbours, and William admits he's a fan of the soap. Daniel is pictured in the 1990s The City Homicide star explains: 'I got up to emcee, wearing some very tight, black skinny jeans. And His Royal Highness heckled me from the crowd about my skinny jeans! Yeah, I got heckled by royalty.' Daniel became a household name, and something of a heartthrob, in the late 1990s playing boy-next-door Joel Samuels on Neighbours. Following four years on the soap, he spent several years in London before returning home to Australia where he became the popular host of Dancing With The Stars. Moving on: The intrepid actor has since decided to relocated to United States, where he says he 'had to start from the very bottom again' But the intrepid actor has since decided to relocated to United States, where he says he 'had to start from the very bottom again'. Last year, Daniel and his actress wife Zoe Ventoura revealed they are planning on starting a family. The A Wrinkle in Time actor told told OK! Magazine, 'It's certainly in the future for us. I can't wait to be a dad!' Coming soon: Last year, Daniel and his actress wife Zoe Ventoura (left) revealed they are planning on starting a family. Pictured in 2018 He made history on Tuesday night after scooping the National Television Award for Best Newcomer. But Emmerdale star James Moore has revealed he was about to quit acting when he landed the role of Ryan Stocks, as he told the Daily Mirror he's been 'living his best life' since scooping the gong. During the candid interview 26-year-old James - who has cerebral palsy - admitted two years ago he almost gave up on his acting dream as he was told there were no roles for him, but has since been branded an 'inspiration' by fans. Delighted: Emmerdale star James Moore has revealed he was about to quit acting when he landed the role of Ryan Stocks He said: 'You have to have belief and confidence in yourself and not rely on the acceptance of others. I'm loving what I am doing. I'm getting great feedback from people, I've won this wonderful award - and I am living my best life.' James went on to reveal he'd dreamed of becoming an actor since a young age and even studied drama at school, but was told repeatedly there would be no parts for him. After giving up on his dream - and studying photography at university - it was an episode of Breaking Bad - which featured Walter White's son played RJ Mitte who also has cerebral palsy - that convinced him to give acting another try. 'I thought ''Oh my God there is hope,'' he added. Candid: The soap star, 26, told the Daily Mirror he was repeatedly told there would be no roles for disabled actors - before landing the role of Ryan Stocks last year Explosive: James' character Ryan immediately took centre stage on the soap, as he was the long-lost son of Charity Dingle WHAT IS CEREBRAL PALSY? Cerebral palsy is the umbrella term for a number of brain conditions that affect movement and coordination. Specifically, it is caused by a problem in the parts of the brain responsible for controlling muscles. The condition can occur if the brain develops abnormally or is damaged before, during or shortly after birth. One in every 400 children in the UK are thought to be born with cerebral palsy, meaning around 1,800 children a year have the condition. There's no cure for cerebral palsy, but some treatments are available to ease symptoms, such as physiotherapy. Life expectancy is usually unaffected, however, the emotional and physical strain can put a great deal of stress on the body which can cause further problems in later life. Advertisement Just two weeks after signing an agent James landed the role of Ryan Stocks on Emmerdale - and immediately took centre stage as the long-lost son of Charity Dingle. The soap star then admitted that he has received some negative comments on social media, but responds to them in good humour by suggesting they should turn on their TV subtitles. He said: 'Mean comments are not going to change that, I think all these things that have happened in my life have built me up to who I am. I'm glad all these things happened.' Thrilled: James won the hearts of viewers when he scooped the National Television Award for Best Newcomer, and was piggy-backed to the stage by his best friend Glenn Passionate: He also said he doesn't listen to any negative comments on social media, instead responding to them with good humour James also paid a touching tribute to co-star and on-screen mum Emma, saying she's been like a mentor to him since he joined the show. The star also melted viewers hearts when he scooped the NTA for Best Newcomer on Tuesday night, and was piggy-backed to the stage by his best friend Glenn. Picking up his prize he said: 'Thank you so much this means the world to us, a year ago I never thought I'd be here. 'And for Emmerdale to take on someone with a disability shows the progression we need in this day and age. This means the world to me.' Thrilled: After his victory, the actor said it 'meant the world to him,' with viewers calling him a 'legend' and an 'inspiration' Viewers took to Twitter to express their joy at James' success, as they called him a 'legend' and an 'inspiration'. One wrote: 'So so proud what a brilliant actor and a very well deserved award. Congratulations James!!!' While another gushed: 'Nobody deserved an NTA more than James Moore. What an inspiration. Legend.' by Melani Manel Perera The army still occupies land in Kepapilavu, a village Mullathivu district. The authorities had promised to return it by today. Tamils ask for southern support. Colombo (AsiaNews) A group of Tamils has been camping out for 700 days in front of a military area in northern Sri Lanka, demanding the return of their land, which was taken over by soldiers during the civil war. Residents complain that the land was supposed to be returned to its legitimate owners by today. Instead the army is still occupying it and for now has not said when it will depart. Locals claim to have been deceived for years by false promises. For Tamils, they are "all empty words". This is why they are protesting, asking for support from southern Sri Lanka and the international community. On Tuesday, a delegation attended a press conference at Colombo's Centre for Society and Religion to highlight their demands. The event was organised by the People's Alliance for Right to Land (PARL). On that occasion, Tamil representatives also met with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe in Parliament. The land they claim is located in the northern and eastern provinces, the regions most devastated by the countrys civil war, which lasted almost 30 years. President Maithripala Sirisena had promised that the land in Kepapilavu, a village in Mullathivu district, would be handed back by 31 December 2018. Later, at meeting with a delegation in early January, some government officials had assured them that the land would be returned by today. Instead the legitimate owners are still camped outside the occupied area. Their hopes had been rekindled in December 2017, when the army returned part of the area. Since then, there is nothing about the other parts. In Colombo, two women talked about what Tamils have had to endure for almost two years, surviving all sorts of hardships, including bad weather like wind, rain, dust, heat. In their plea, S. Adhiyakala and B. Sivabalapushpam insisted that "if our lands are not returned, we will reclaim them". For activist Ruki Fernando, "700 days are endless. It is the longest protest ever carried out by a community in Sri Lanka. People have been living out in the open since 1 March 2017. They have resisted intimidation and harassment by the army, police and intelligence agencies. "They have struggled to survive and yet have continued to send their children to school and take care of the elderly. Last but not east, They have organised protests in Colombo and other parts of the country, as well as met with political and religious leaders, media and representatives of the international community." They've been married for over 11 years. And Giuliana Rancic and husband Bill Rancic still looked loved up after all those years as they were spotted on a romantic dinner date in Los Angeles on Friday. The 44-year-old television host gave a leggy display in a skimpy dress from her own G by Giuliana line at HSN as her entrepreneurial husband, 47, cut a dapper figure in a jacket. Loved up: Giuliana Rancic and husband Bill Rancic still looked loved up after all those years as they were spotted on romantic dinner date in Los Angeles om Friday Daring to impress, the natural stunner swathed her enviable frame in a baby blue dress that boasted a wide black belt. Her trademark platinum tresses were left long and loose as they cascaded over her petite shoulders. Giuliana recently returned to E! News in September for the first time in three years, returning to the news desk after the resignation of Catt Salder. She joined the network as the anchor of E! News in 2005, joined by Ryan Seacrest a year later, and she also co-hosts Fashion Police for the network. Cute couple: The television host gave a leggy display in a skimpy G by Giuliana for HSN dress as her entrepreneurial husband cut a dapper figure in a jacket History: Giuliana and Bill, an entrepreneur who won the first season of The Apprentice, hosted by Donald Trump, were married in November 2007 Rancic announced in July 2015 that she was leaving E! News, while continuing to host Fashion Police. Giuliana and Bill, an entrepreneur who won the first season of The Apprentice, hosted by Donald Trump, were married in November 2007. Two years later, they starred in their own reality series, Giuliana and Bill, which debuted on the Style Network and was later moved over to the E! Network. Impressive: Daring to impress, the natural stunner swathed her enviable frame in a baby blue dress that boasted a wide black belt Hair story: Her trademark platinum tresses were left long and loose as they cascaded over her petite shoulders The show ran for seven seasons between 2009 and 2014. Back in late October, Giuliana appeared in New York to promote her new skin care line, Fountain of Truth Beauty. She was also given a shout-out by Kris Jenner, who promoted her products on Instagram. 'Congratulations to my beautiful friend @giulianarancic for the launch of her new skincare brand @fountainoftruthbeauty!! I'm so proud of you and you are beautiful inside and out!! #fountainoftruthbeauty #family #love,' Jenner said. Fountain of Truth is a clean skincare line made with 'super bio-fermented' botanical ingredients that promises to 'improve texture, tone, dryness, and the appearance of fine lines'. She's as well known for her sartorial accomplishments as she is for her esteemed political career. And Julie Bishop even had some advice for the most powerful woman in fashion, Anna Wintour, during the Vogue editor's trip Down Under. The 62-year-old former Minister for Foreign Affairs clued in the 69-year-old fashionista on Australian designers she should be aware of. Minister of Fashion! Label-loving Julie Bishop (right) schools Vogue editor Anna Wintour (left) on the 'edgy' Australian designers she should wear. Pictured at the Australian Open 'I will tell her that Australian designers are among the most creative in the world,' Julie told the Brisbane Times ahead of Anna's speech at an Australian Open event. She added that Aussie label makers have an 'edgy approach' and are worthy of the fashion editor's attention. In fact, the label-loving politician claims that Australian clothing brands are the best there are. Fancy! 'I will tell her that Australian designers are among the most creative in the world,' Julie told the Brisbane Times ahead of Anna's speech at an Australian Open event. Pictured 2018 Well-suited: She added that Aussie label makers have an 'edgy approach' and are worthy of the fashion editor's attention. Pictured 2017 'They are innovative, highly creative and talented and they can match, in fact best, anyone in the world,' she said. Anna is known for her savvy in all things sartorial and sets trends around the world. However the British journalist admitted that she was, 'not as familiar with Australian designers as I should be' so Julie's advice may be well received. Top shoppers! 'They are innovative, highly creative and talented and they can match, in fact best, anyone in the world,' she said. Pictured 2016 Dressed up! Julie is well known to enjoy a lavish outfit and owns a bevvy swanky accessories including Chanel handbags and Louboutin heels. Pictured 2016 Julie is well known to enjoy a lavish outfit and owns a bevvy swanky accessories, which include a Chanel handbag worth approximately $2,850. She likes her shoes too, having been seen wearing $930 Nicholas Kirkwood heels and a pair of $1,125 wedges from French designer Christian Louboutin. Widely dubbed the 'Minister of Fashion', she drew criticism for donning a $32,000 Rachel Gilbert gown to the Mid-Winter Ball in 2017. The former politician is often seen on the arm of her handsome property developer boyfriend David Panton. Demi Lovato's team presented her with a cake to celebrate six months of sobriety after her apparent overdose last July. Her Funfetti dessert from Susiecakes was accompanied by the message: 'HAPPY 6 MO WE ARE SO F***ING PROUD Of YOU,' as seen on her Insta Stories. The 26-year-old, who has been dating her sober companion Henri Levy, also showed her nearly 71 million Instagram followers her six-month chip. 'SO F***ING PROUD': Demi Lovato's team presented her with a cake to celebrate six months of sobriety after her apparent overdose last July Henri - who among other places attended priciest boarding school on Earth, the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, according to Complex - started the fashion line Enfants Riches Deprimes, which means Depressed Rich Kids. Emergency services arrived at Demi's home late in the morning of July 24 and brought her to the hospital after she suffered a heroin overdose, TMZ alleged. The site's sources claim her overdose occurred at her $8 million Hollywood Hills home, where friends gave her the opiate antidote Narcan. After her arrival at the hospital, a nurse there informed law enforcement that Demi had at some recent juncture taken methamphetamine, The Blast reported. There it is: The 26-year-old, who has been dating her sober companion Henri Levy, also showed her nearly 71 million Instagram followers her six-month chip Recovery process: Emergency services arrived at Demi's home late in the morning of July 24 and brought her to the hospital after she suffered a heroin overdose, TMZ alleged That website's insiders also insisted Demi had not in fact overdosed on heroin. Her representative apprised TMZ that evening: 'Demi is awake and with her family who want to express thanks to everytone for the love, prayers and support.' Added the representative: 'Some of the information being reported is incorrect and they respectfully ask for privacy....' TMZ claimed she partied through the night before she was hospitalized, including at a birthday bash at the bar and restaurant Saddle Ranch for a backup dancer of hers. In a single called Sober, dropped last June, Demi revealed her six-year sobriety had ended and pleaded for her parents' forgiveness. Cleopatra Bernard, the mother of the late rapper XXXTentacion, is trying to retrieve the 2017 Black BMW i8 in which her son was shot dead last year. The vehicle is currently being held by the State Of Florida, but the Assistant Attorney General has filed court papers to have it released to Bernard, according to a TMZ report published Friday. If the request is granted, Bernard will get the car by the time next month is out. Bereaved: Cleopatra Bernard, the mother of the late rapper XXXTentacion, is trying to retrieve the 2017 Black BMW i8 in which her son was shot dead last year This waiting period will allow for a full inspection of the BMW by the legal team of Dedrick Devonshay Williams, who is accused of being one of the shooters. Since the authorities have already processed and taken photos of the vehicle, it can be brought out of storage and given to Bernard, prosecutors argue. XXXTentacion, real name Jahseh Onfroy, was murdered last June at the age of 20 by two men in masks in Miami. He was in the driver's seat of the BMW at the time. His killers used an SUV to impede the path of the BMW, before emerging and shooting XXXTentacion, as well as robbing his car. The vehicle: A BMW i8 is seen here in a publicity shot on the brand's Instagram page; this is not the specific car in which XXXTentacion was killed These details surfaced last June via a sworn affidavit from Broward Sheriff's Office Detective John Curcio, the New York Times reported. Detective Curcio based his description on surveillance footage that also helped get Williams apprehended and charged with first-degree murder. Four suspects have now been arrested in this case - suspected gunmen Trayvon Newsome and Michael Boatwright, as well as Williams and one Robert Allen - according to reports in TMZ. As seen in 2017: XXXTentacion, real name Jahseh Onfroy, was murdered last June at the age of 20 by two men in masks in Miami At the time of his murder, XXXTentacion was awaiting trial on allegations that he had physically abused an ex-girlfriend while she was pregnant - claims he denied. About two months after her son was killed, Bernard paid $3.4 million for a Florida mansion he had helped her select, The Blast reported. His half-sister Ariana Onfroy suggested that Bernard was behind XXXTentacion's death - leading Bernard to sue in November for libel, defamation and slander, asking $15,000, according to a report in The Daily Beast. Brad Pitt was spotted leaving an attorney's office Friday. The 55-year-old actor was seen giving a thumbs up to a man opening the door for him on his way out from the office, where he spent time with ex Angelina Jolie. The Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star reportedly spent three hours in a meeting with Jolie, discussing the custody of their kids Shiloh, Maddox, Pax, Vivienne, Knox, and Zahara. Custody meeting: Brad Pitt was spotted leaving an attorney's office after a three-hour custody meeting with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie on Friday Pitt was spotted wearing a grey short-sleeved shirt over a white long-sleeved shirt, with jeans and grey and white shoes. He was also wearing a grey chapeau and sunglasses, with a bag slung over his shoulder. The iconic actor was also carrying a light jacket as he was spotted leaving the office. Angelina was able to avoid the eye of the camera. Leaving: Pitt was spotted wearing a grey short-sleeved shirt over a white long-sleeved shirt, with jeans and grey and white shoes Pitt and Jolie were together for seven years before announcing their engagement in 2012, and they were married in 2014, before splitting in 2016. Jolie cited irreconcilable differences for the split, and since then the couple has been locked in a custody battle for their kids. The couple reached a custody agreement in late November after more than two years of negotiations. 'Angelina agreed to a deal that gives Brad joint physical and legal custody of the children,' a source told US Weekly in November. Brad's visits with Maddox, 17, Pax, 15, and Zahara, 13, all adopted, and biological children Shiloh, 12, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 10 were said to be monitored as part of the agreement. Pitt has most recently been linked to actress Charlize Theron, who have reportedly been dating for a month. Pitt custody: 'Angelina agreed to a deal that gives Brad joint physical and legal custody of the children,' a source told US Weekly in November Pitt is shaping up to have a big year in 2019, after only having a brief cameo as Vanisher in Deadpool 2 last year. The actor stars in the upcoming sci-fi thriller Ad Astra, hitting theaters May 24, and he also has Once Upon a Time in Hollywood arriving July 26. He is also attached to reprise his role as Gerry Lane in Paramount's World War Z 2, which reunites the actor with director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). DMX reunited with his fiancee Desiree Lindstrom on Friday after being freed from prison, where he was sentenced to a year for tax evasion. Desiree and DMX posed for a photograph that day with their two-year-old son Exodus Simmons, the youngest of the rapper's 15 children. On Friday morning, the 48-year-old - real name Earl Simmons - was released from Gilmer Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia according to TMZ. Together again: DMX reunited with his fiancee Desiree Lindstrom and their son Exodus on Friday after being freed from prison, where he was sentenced to a year for tax evasion The website reports that DMX went out for breakfast with his child and bride-to-be after he left prison Friday morning. Despite completing his sentence the Big Apple based rapper must begin paying off $2.3million in restitution to the American government. He must also start outpatient programs for substance abuse and mental health. His original release date was supposed to be on Sunday but federal policy states that inmates be released early if the date falls on a weekend. Free man: DMX has been released from prison after nearly serving one year for tax evasion, as he is pictured outside of court in July 2017 The X Gon Give It To You rapper will apparently hit the ground running as TMZ reports that he will be releasing a new album and working on movie projects including a possible biopic. This comes nearly 10 months after DMX was was sentenced to a year in jail and three more of supervised release in New York City in connection with tax fraud. The performer had appeared before Federal Judge Jed Rakoff, who told DMX that his offense was 'brazen and blatant' and necessitated a stiff sentence, according to the AP. Prosecutors initially asked he spend five years in custody for the infraction, when factoring in past crimes he's been convicted of. Sentenced: Back in March of 2018, DMX was sentenced to a year in jail and three more of supervised release on Wednesday in New York City in connection with tax fraud. The rap artist is seen at the MTV Music Awards in August 2003 Rakoff permitted a request from DMX's laywer Murray Richman to play the rapper's 1998 song Slippin' in the court, in an attempt to illustrate the many adversities he's faced in his life, beginning from childhood. The song's chorus includes lyrics like: 'Ay yo I'm slippin', I'm fallin', I gots to get up/ Get me back on my feet so I can tear s*** up.' Richman pleaded to the court that it was better if DMX was free, as he'd better be equipped to take care of his 15 kids and repay the $2 million in back taxes he's on the hook for. The New York native, was in custody beginning January 2018 after a failed drug test while out on bond - told the judge that he 'was in a cloud' and not 'following the rules' in the time that paved the path to the tax violation, acknowledging that he's too old to be making these types of mistakes. Contrite: The performer acknowledged that he had made mistakes during his sentencing hearing back in March, he is snapped outside of an NYC court in August of 2017 Rakoff said he felt the Party Up (Up in Here) artist 'is a good man' but 'his own worst enemy.' DMX pleaded guilty to a count of tax evasion in a deal with officials in November 2017, with TMZ reporting that he was looking at a total of 44 years behind bars on 14 counts in the case. In late January of last year, he was placed back in jail after a drug test revealed he'd taken cocaine and oxycodone during a time he was slated to be in a rehab program, the outlet reported. He'd been caught on camera in St. Louis airport drinking, which was another infraction of the terms of his probation, the outlet reported. Kanye West has filed a lawsuit against the recording company that helped launch his career. West, 41, filed two separate lawsuits on Friday, one against Jay-Z's former label Roc-A-Fella Records and another against EMI, claiming he signed an exclusive recording agreement. Roc-A-Fella was founded by Jay-Z, Damon Dash, and Kareem 'Biggs' Burke' in 1995, but in 2004 the three sold their remaining 50% stake of the company to it's parent label, Island Def Jam. A source has told DailyMail.com there is no dispute between Kanye and Jay-Z. Ye files suit: Kanye West has filed two separate lawsuits on Friday, one against Jay-Z's former label Roc-A-Fella Records and another against EMI Founder: Jay-Z co-founded Roc-A-Fella in 1995, but eventually sold his stake in the company In the filing, Kanye is asking for a 'declaration of rights over a dispute' he's having with Roc-A-Fella, along with an undisclosed amount of cash, according to TMZ. The Roc-A-Fella lawsuit was reportedly heavily redacted, but the suit against EMI April Music had more details. The suit alleges that West signed a contract with EMI in 2003, a year before his breakthrough hit album College Dropout. Between 2003 and 2011, West reportedly wrote over 200 songs, either by himself or with other writers, and then gave those rights to EMI. Kanye and Jay-Z: The Roc-A-Fella lawsuit was reportedly heavily redacted, but the suit against EMI April Music had more details While the lawsuit doesn't mention any specific songs, they are said to be among the most influential in his catalog. The EMI lawsuit is also heavily redacted, although it does say there is some sort of dispute between West and EMI. The rapper reportedly wants a judge to declare his rights under the contract, presumably for a substantial sum of money. Dispute: The rapper reportedly wants a judge to declare his rights under the contract, presumably for a substantial sum of money Ye and Jay: Kanye West and Jay-Z take in Yeezy Season 1 during New York Fashion Week in 2015 West has also hired one of the most powerful law firms in the country for this lawsuit, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. While filing these lawsuits on Friday, West was also hit with another lawsuit on Thursday. A manufacturing firm is claiming the rapper owes them over $600K for fabric in the production of his shoes, Yeezys. Toki Sen-I Co claims they made a deal with Yeezy Apparel to manufacture the fleece fabric for the Yeezys. Yeezy ordered 53,500 yards at $10.81 a yard, with the total bill coming to $624K, plus storage fees that the company is also seeking. West has yet to comment on this lawsuit, or the own lawsuits he filed Friday. The Australian model is known for her sartorial prowess. And on Wednesday, Lara Worthington (nee Bingle) cut a typically stylish figure as she browsed luxury stores on Beverly Hill's exclusive Rodeo Drive. Swathing her trim figure in an oversized grey sweater, the mother-of-two, 31, teamed the casual look with dark skinny jeans and black knee-high boots. Scroll down for video Retail therapy! Lara Bingle cut a casual-yet-chic figure as she shopped on Beverly Hills's exclusive Rodeo Drive on Wednesday Opting for a neutral makeup palette, the cosmetics mogul allowed her flawless features to shine as she eyed up designer wears at high-end label, Celine. Keeping her accessories to a minimum, she wore drop pearl earrings and styled her locks in a low bun with a black ribbon. Lara even tried on a pair of designer shades, keen to shield her gaze from the harsh LA rays. Shopping time! Opting for a neutral makeup palette, the cosmetics mogul allowed her flawless features to shine as she eyed up designer wears at high-end label, Celine The glamorous display comes weeks after Lara and actor husband Sam Worthington celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary. Taking to Instagram at the time, she shared a photo of a white fondant cake, which was beautifully decorated with a white and fuchsia floral arrangement bearing the words 'Happy 4th Anniversary'. Lara and Sam tied the knot in an intimate ceremony on December 28, 2014. Under the radar: Keeping her accessories to a minimum, she wore drop pearl earrings and styled her locks in a low bun with a black ribbon Back in 2015, the model revealed details about their intimate nuptials to the Kyle And Jackie O show. 'It was very intimate, we just popped in to Melbourne where Sam's family is from. It was just our families, less than ten people.' 'We wrote the whole celebration, we wrote all our vows. I was pregnant as well,' she added, referring to her firstborn son Rocket, now three years old. They later welcomed their second son Racer, in 2016, who is now two years old. She rose to fame with a viral clip. So it was only right for 15-year-old rapper Bhad Bhabie, AKA Danielle Bregoli, to make her reality debut on Snapchat, which shared the first trailer for their new Snap Originals series Bringing Up Bhabie on Friday. Bhad Babie made her mark in the fall of 2016 during an episode of Dr. Phil, where she responded to audience members laughing at her by saying, 'Cash me ousside,' which lead to her being known as the Cash Me Outside Girl. Since then, she has parlayed that viral fame into a music career, with the opening moments of the video (courtesy of Snapchat and Youtube) teasing her meteoric rise. Growing Bhabie: Bhad Babie takes fans into her life with the first trailer for her new reality series Bringing up Bhabie, debuting February 4 on Snapchat The Boynton Beach, Florida rapper begins the trailer by bluntly stating, 'I'm the bad kid that my mother can't control,' before expounding on her music career. 'I went from sleeping on the floor of a trailer to having a gold record in six months,' she added, with the trailer showing footage of the rapper with her certified gold record, and footage from her tours. She added that now she has, 'two managers, a bodyguard, my mom,' but they all think she's 'their baby,' although she's ready to prove them wrong. On stage: The Boynton Beach, Florida rapper begins the trailer by bluntly stating, 'I'm the bad kid that my mother can't control,' before expounding on her music career Rise to fame: 'I went from sleeping on the floor of a trailer to having a gold record in six months,' she added, with the trailer showing footage of the rapper with her certified gold record, and footage from her tours 'They don't wanna let me grow up, but f**k it, it's time,' Bhabie adds, while quick-cut shots of the rapper on stage is shown. The trailer also shows a bleeped-out fight with her mother, who yells at the rapper for taking, 'two f***ing seconds to go talk on the phone with her?' Bhabie is clearly not fazed, and when her mother adds, 'Karma is a little b***h,' Bregoli responds with, 'I know, are you karma?' Time to grow up: 'They don't wanna let me grow up, but f**k it, it's time,' Bhabie adds, while quick-cut shots of the rapper on stage is shown Prove them wrong: She added that now she has, 'two managers, a bodyguard, my mom,' but they all think she's 'their baby,' although she's ready to prove them wrong There is also footage of an unidentified man (who may be her aforementioned bodyguard) saying that Danielle has, 'never had a father in her life.' Bregoli can be seen happily running up to the man and hugging him, with the man adding that it feels like she's his, 'teenage kid.' The trailer ends with Bregoli's mother saying she gave up everything for her, with the rapper clapping back with, 'What did you give up?' 'Y'all wanna know what really goes on? I'm here to f***ing tell you,' Bhabie adds as the trailer comes to a close. Father figure: There is also footage of an unidentified man (who may be her aforementioned bodyguard?) saying that Danielle has, 'never had a father in her life' Give up: The trailer ends with Bregoli's mother saying she gave up everything for her, with the rapper clapping back with, 'What did you give up?' After the Dr. Phil episode, Bregoli was signed by music manager Adam Kluger, who put out her first single These Heaux in August 2017. The single debuted at #77 on the Billboard 100, which made Bregoli the youngest female rapper ever to debut on the chart. She's also branching out into the fashion world, signing a $900K makeup endorsement deal with CopyCat Beauty. Bringing Up Bhabie debuts February 4 on Snapchat as part of its Snap Originals line of original programming. Branching out: She's also branching out into the fashion world, signing a $900K makeup endorsement deal with CopyCat Beauty She's one of the best dressed beauties in Hollywood. And Michelle Williams proved worthy of the title as she commanded attention in a fantastic ensemble at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday. The 38-year-old blonde beauty paired a simple yet chic black top with a pair of white pants as she was joined by the cast of her new movie After The Wedding including Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, and Abby Quinn. Beauty icon: Michelle Williams, 38, commanded attention in a fantastic ensemble at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday Daring to impress, the Dawson's Creek alum added a bit of flair to her look with a polka dot bandanna and high heeled suede boots. She kept her trademark platinum tresses in a becoming pixie cut allowing a full view of her stunning good looks. Moore looked to be having a bit of fun posing with the group as she rocked a camel colored coat and turtleneck sweater. In the film, Williams plays the manager of an orphan in Calcutta who is lured back to New York City by a media mogul and philanthropist - played by Moore - offering millions of dollars in donations. Gangs all here: She was joined by the cast of her new movie After The Wedding including Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup, and Abby Quinn. Director Bart Freundlich is in back Tresses: She kept her trademark platinum tresses in a becoming pixie cut allowing a full view of her stunning good looks Crudup plays Moore's husband and Quinn plays the daughter who is about to get married. The film was directed by Bart Freundlich - Moore's husband in real life. The movie is a remake of the 2006 Danish film of the same name directed by Susanna Bier. Impressive: Daring to impress, the Dawson's Creek alum added a bit of flair to her look with a polka dot bandanna and high heeled suede boots However, Freundlich swapped the gender of the two leads from male to female for his Sundance opener. 'It fundamentally changed so many things about the film,' he told Deadline. 'So much of the movie is about being a parent. It is different, being a father, and the big surprises in the movie that got enhanced, through changing genders. Arrives in style: Williams sported a chic striped winter coat Her role: In the film, Williams plays the manager of an orphan in Calcutta who is lured back to New York City by a media mogul and philanthropist - played by Moore - offering millions of dollars in donations 'I thought some of those revelations might work against me, but it added layers of complexity.' Moore had been the one to suggest the gender swap originally. 'It was first brought up to me by Julianne, as we were watching the movie. She just said, now thats the role I would want to play in this movie. It was one of the guys.' Acclaimed actress Corneila Frances has been recognised with a posthumous Order of Australia medal, seven months after the TV legend's death. Recognised for her services to the performing arts, the late actress was known for her roles in Home And Away, Prisoner and Sons and Daughters. The Liverpool-born television star died in May last year, aged 77, after a long battle with cancer. Scroll down for video Australia Day honours: Beloved TV legend Cornelia Frances is recognised with an Order of Australia medal just seven months after the Home And Away star lost her battle with cancer Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Corneila's son, Lawrence Eastland, said the family will celebrate the award the way she would have wanted - with a glass of champagne. 'I'm so proud of her and only wish she was here to accept it herself,' he said. Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John and Magda Szubanski are also among the women announced on the 2019 Australia Day honours list. On Saturday, Kylie, 50, and Magda, 57, were also appointed Officers of the Order of Australia (AO) for their work in the performing arts. 'I'm so proud of her': orneila's son, Lawrence Eastland, said the family will celebrate the award in the way she would have wanted - with a glass of champagne Magda was also noted for her work as a campaigner for marriage equality. 'To be acknowledged in this way is absolutely one of the highlights of my life,' Magda said. She joked that people can now called her 'Your Mag-desty'. Singing their praises! Kylie Minogue (pictured), Olivia Newton-John and Magda Szubanski made the Australia Day honours list it was announced on Saturday Top gong! Kylie, 50, and Magda (pictured), 57, were appointed Officers of the Order of Australia (AO) for their work in the performing arts. Magda was also noted for her work as a campaigner for marriage equality Meanwhile, Olivia Newton-John gained the honour for health service through the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre, as well as for her acting and music career. Olivia, 70, told AAP in a statement: 'I am delighted and honoured to receive this very distinguished and special award.' Other women to make the list include children's author Jennifer Rowe (AKA Emily Rodda). She's got a host of accolades under her belt from reality star to author. And Jess Wright took on a new role as she was announced as the face of tanning brand Australian Gold UK on Saturday. The former TOWIE star, 33, showed off her slender figure as she donned a variety of beach outfits to promote the brand, which she says is a must-have for sufferers of psoriasis like herself. Glamorous: Jess Wright wore a series of white swimwear pieces as she was announced as the face of tanning brand Australian Gold UK on Saturday She added: 'I was thrilled to be approached by Australian Gold UK. I love to look sunkissed and healthy, but looking after my skin is more important. With AG there is no compromise as their SPFs are the safest for getting a deep tan. 'I myself suffer from psoriasis, which is irritated by some products. Australian Gold UKs range of tanning, sunless and aftercare products are packed with high quality, natural products, many of which are indigenous to Australia'. The family run business, which has been around since 1987, promises their signature Cocoa Dreams fragrance in products, which Jess says makes her think of holidays. New favourite: The former TOWIE star, 33, showed off her slender figure as she promoted the brand, which she says is a must have for sufferers of psoriasis like herself Must have: She added: 'I was thrilled to be approached by Australian Gold UK. I love to look sunkissed and healthy, but looking after my skin is more important' The brunette beauty looked stunning as she posed in a series of white outfits to promote the range and show off her curvaceous figure to perfection. Jess later slipped into a nude one-piece which highlighted her ample assets and gym-honed figure. Earlier this month the reality star was said to have enjoyed an evening of flirting with Irish actor Jack McEvoy at the star studded Nordoff Robbins Legends of Rugby event. A source told MailOnline: 'Jess was fawning over Jack all night, they were both very flirtatious with each other. 'They were dancing the salsa and even had a cheeky kiss after exchanging numbers outside the after-party before leaving in separate cabs.' Stunning: Jess later slipped into a nude one-piece which highlighted her ample assets and gym-honed figure New romance? Earlier this month Jess was said to have enjoyed an evening of flirting with Irish actor Jack McEvoy at the star studded Nordoff Robbins Legends of Rugby event Blossoming? A source told MailOnline: 'Jess was fawning over Jack all night, they were both very flirtatious with each other' Jess has been single since her five-month relationship with Strictly Come Dancing pro Giovanni Pernice ended last April. The pair then met again in October and Jess was spotted in an explosive feud with Giovanni after the Pride Of Britain Awards. The star was seen screaming at her former flame, in a shocking row which saw her brand him 'full of s**t', before she was heard saying: 'You broke my heart, you lied to me'. In clips, while Giovanni and various others tried to diffuse the row, Jess raged: 'I got in a cab and I never saw you again for six months, you're talking s**t. You used me... Publicity, fame. No-one who loves someone drops them... 'You're jealous of everything. We were together six months, you never cared about me. I want to know why - you left me!' David Koch appeared to take a swipe at former Today show rival Karl Stefanovic while revealing that he too is heading off to a wedding in Mexico. Just months after Karl married Jasmine Yarbrough in Los Cabos, David announced his son Alexander will also have a destination wedding in Mexico later this year. As reported by the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, David, 62, appeared to reference Karl, 44, when saying: 'We're not doing it for Instagram pictures or anything.' 'We're not doing it for Instagram pictures': Sunrise host David Koch (left) appears to take a dig at rival Karl Stefanovic as he announces a family wedding in Mexico ...following the former Today host's lavish Los Cabos nuptials with Jasmine Yarbrough. Pictured with Sam Armytage He added: 'We're doing it because we're going to have a Mexican daughter-in-law, so I keep emphasising that to everyone who asks where they are getting married.' Daily Mail Australia has reached out to David Koch for comment. The comments come after Karl tied with knot with shoe designer Jasmine, 34, in a lavish ceremony in December last year. Extensively documented on social media, the wedding and several related parties, including a reception, recovery party and welcome coattails, lasted for four days. Back to the future! Just months after ex Today show host Karl Stefanovic (right) married Jasmine Yarbrough (left) in Los Cabos, Sunrise's David Koch has announced his son Alexander will also marry in Mexico later this year David, 62, appeared to reference Karl, 44, saying: 'We're not doing it for Instagram pictures or anything'. Karl and Jasmine are pictured on their wedding day A set of photos from the day was also published in Who magazine, and there was much fanfare around the nuptials. The couple wed at a picturesque chapel inside the One&Only Palmilla resort in Los Cabo, Mexico. Karl reportedly set aside $500,000 for the four-day affair. Lavish: Extensively documented on social media, the wedding and several parties, including a reception, recovery party and welcome coattails, lasted for four days The pair also booked two villas at the world-famous resort, one priced at $11,600 per night and another at $15,000 per night. Deborah Knight was this year brought in to replace Karl on the Today show, after he was axed late last year during his honeymoon with Jasmine. It came after ratings for the Today show plummeted and market research would later confirm that female viewers had turned their backs on Karl. Loved up: David, whose Sunrise program has been smashing the new-look Today show in the ratings, has been married to wife Libby (right) for 40 years The plummet followed his high profile divorce from Cassandra Thorburn and marriage to much-younger partner Jasmine. David, whose Sunrise program has been smashing the new-look Today show in the ratings, has been married to wife Libby for 40 years. The couple have four children - Alexander, Samantha, Brianna and Georgina. It's been 12 years since Steve 'The Crocodile Hunter' Irwin died, but the family he left behind has well and truly carried on his legacy. On Friday, his daughter Bindi announced the launch of season two of Crikey! It's The Irwins, which she stars in alongside her mother, Terri, 54, and brother, Robert, 15. Taking to Instagram, the 20-year-old shared a photo from her childhood, where she can be seen holding the hand of her late father while they explore the Australian outback. Scroll down for video 'We are continuing dad's legacy': Bindi Irwin has announced season two of Crikey! Its the Irwins on Animal Planet Announcing the news in the caption, Bindi wrote: 'We are so excited to announce that this year will bring season TWO of Crikey! It's The Irwins with Animal Planet. 'It is such a blessing to share our journey and continue Dad's legacy. I feel like he is walking beside us every day we film this wonderful show.' The first season of Crikey! It's The Irwins gave viewers unprecedented access to the Irwins lives, from feeding crocodiles at their zoo on the Sunshine Coast to their conservation work with wildlife around the globe. For the Irwins, the show isn't just about carrying a legacy, but about raising awareness. Crikey! For the Irwins, the show isn't just about carrying a legacy, but about raising awareness 'The most important role for our family is getting this message out,' Terri said in season one of the show. Bindi agreed, adding: 'It is so important for us to stand up and speak for those who can't speak for themselves. 'Especially with animals like crocodiles, snakes and spiders ... creatures that might not be cuddly and fluffy.' It comes after Steve's widow Terri admitted she's not worried about Robert suffering the same fate as he follows in his father's footsteps. Close family: It comes after Steve's widow Terri, admitted she's not worried about Robert suffering the same fate as he follows in his father's footsteps Steve was tragically killed by a stingray barb in September 2006 while filming a wildlife documentary in Batt Reef, Queensland. Speaking to the The Australian Women's Weekly, Terri said she is 'more worried' about Robert drowning than being injured by a sea creature. Robert is a keen conservationist just like his late father, and is also a talented photographer who documents underwater wildlife. 'I am more worried about him drowning than encountering a shark or a Manta ray in the water,' she told the magazine. While Marie Kondo's decluttering phenomenon sweeps Australia, not everyone is happy about throwing their stuff out. Just ask radio host Chrissie Swan. Speaking on Nova's Fitzy and Wippa radio show on Thursday, Chrissie, 45, spoke of 'deep Kondo regret'. The dark side of decluttering! On Thursday, Chrissie Swan (pictured) talked of 'deep Kondo regret' after a clean-out nearly ended in tears As reported on Nine.com.au on Thursday, Swan recounted how a friend of hers sold some shorts for $5 during a garage sale as they no longer 'sparked joy' for her. Then came the regret. 'My friend chased the new owners of the shorts down the driveway and said, "Oh my god! I'm so sorry I've made a mistake. I'll give you your money back",' said Chrissie. Trash or treasure? While Marie Kondo's decluttering phenomenon sweeps Australia, not everyone is happy about throwing their stuff out. Just ask radio host Chrissie. She is pictured with former Today show host Karl Stefanovic Speaking on Nova's Fitzy and Wippa radio show on Thursday, Chrissie, 45, spoke of 'deep Kondo regret'. Pictured: Marie Kondo 'And the woman said, "Well no, they're mine, they're sparking joy for me now, they're my shorts." My friend said, "I'll give you your 5 bucks back" and she goes, ''Pay me 10 and they're yours." 'So my friend paid $10 for her OWN shorts,' said Chrissie. The mum-of-three also lamented how she had to pay a removal company $200 to take away all the stuff she threw out after her own decluttering exercise. As reported on Nine.com.au on Thursday, Swan recounted how a friend of hers sold some shorts for $5 during a garage sale as they no longer 'sparked joy' for her. Then came the regret. 'My friend chased the new owners of the shorts down the driveway and said, "Oh my god! I'm so sorry I've made a mistake. I'll give you your money back",' said Chrissie She had watched Tidying Up With Marie Kondo when the decluttering bug bit. Marie, 34, has become a global sensation for her tips on organising homes and other living spaces. She was written four books which have sold millions of copies around the world. As a married mum-of-two with an acting career going from strength to strength, Asher Keddie knows a thing or two about being in demand. Having recently finished filming new ABC drama The Cry, which was shot in the UK, the blonde actress has made balancing work and family a fine art. Speaking to Who magazine on Thursday, Asher, 44, revealed how she makes her marriage to artist Vincent Fantauzzo, 40, work, while being mum to kids Luca, 8, and Valentino, 3 - and having a fulfilling career. Scroll down for video 'It's a juggle': Mum-of-two Asher Keddie (pictured) explained how she makes her marriage work despite her globetrotting schedule on Thursday 'It is a juggle, I can't lie about that, but my partner [painter] Vincent Fantauzzo and I just make it work,' she said. She continued: 'We make choices about how things are going to work, project to project, and how we can put the children first and everything else can fall in around that.' The Offspring star said said things 'somehow' managed to fall into place and that she took her family with her to the UK during filming of The Cry. Family ties: Speaking to Who magazine on Thursday, Asher, 44, revealed how she makes her marriage to artist Vincent Fantauzzo (middle), 40, work, while being mum to kids Luca (right), 8, and Valentino (left), 3 The Cry is a four-part drama about the disappearance of a baby from a small coastal town in Australia. Keddie plays Alexandra, the ex-wife of Aussie ex-pat Alistair (Ewen Leslie), who is involved in a custody battle for teen Chloe (Markella Kavenagh). Asher told TVTonight on Tuesday 'the material is confronting'. 'It is a juggle, I can't lie about that, but my partner [painter] Vincent Fantauzzo and I just make it work,' Asher said. 'We make choices about how things are going to work, project to project, and how we can put the children first and everything else can fall in around that.' Pictured from left: Vincent, Asher, Valentino and Luca 'We're looking at themes like the psychology of early motherhood. And the myths. There's stuff that brings up a lot, especially if you are a mother,' she said. 'I had my child three years ago and this is confronting.' The Cry airs at 8.30pm on Sunday February 3 on the ABC. Married At First Sight's Charlene Perera failed to find love on the Channel Nine dating show after being paired with Patrick Miller last year. But despite her failed on-screen 'marriage', Charlene, 34, said she's happier than ever with new boyfriend Marcus Tanti, 34, and it's all thanks to the show. 'Going on was like a public service announcement to Australia to say I'm single and please like me. And he did,' she told 9Honey on Wednesday. 'Going on the show was like a PSA to Australia to say I'm single': Charlene Perera revealed to 9Honey on Wednesday that Married At First Sight helped her find love despite her failed 'marriage' to Patrick Miller (Pictured: Charlene with her boyfriend Marcus Tanti) She added: 'I think it was really nice because he had a bit of an insight into my personality, and I guess he already thought we'd get along and be a good match. He was right.' The pair have been official for four months, and Charlene said if it wasn't for her appearance on national TV, she doesn't think they would have ever crossed paths. 'He contacted me after the show through social channels, and I wasn't really seeing anyone straight after the show, but he contacted me again about six months later,' she said. 'He contacted me after the show through social channels': Charlene told 9Honey Marcus got in touch after he liked what he saw While the pair had been dating since last year, the reality star first went public with her new beau earlier this month. Taking to Instagram to reveal the exciting news, Charlene shared a series of loved-up selfies of the couple as they enjoyed a Sri Lankan getaway. She captioned the shots: 'This country, these people, this food, this guy,' before tagging Marcus in the post. 'I think it was really nice because he had a bit of an insight into my personality': Charlene admitted they might never have crossed paths had he not seen her on MAFS Gazing into the lens, the pair looked like the picture of happiness while struggling to keep their hands off each other. According to his Linkedin profile, Melbourne-raised Marcus is a high-powered real estate executive with property giant, Savills. Charlene has revealed things are getting serious and he's even met her parents. Loved-up! While the pair had been dating since last year, the reality star first went public with her new beau earlier this month (pictured last year on a holiday in Sri Lanka) It comes after Charlene and Patrick, 36, revealed their split in March after being paired together on Nine reality smash hit Married At First Sight. Taking to social media, Charlene announced: 'The end to a truly amazing once in a lifetime experience! '(Patrick), we did so well, what an amazing team we were! Thank you for this incredible ride - looking forward to a lifetime of friendship.' It's finished! It comes after Charlene and Patrick (left), revealed their split in March after being paired together on Nine reality smash hit Married At First Sight Confirming a very amicable split, Patrick responded with a similar gushing post. 'Charlene, my heartfelt wishes for you on your journey for love as we embark on our lives post MAFS... as also the journey for love will also continue in mine.' He concluded: 'One thing I do know is you will always have my back!' Former contestant Clare Verrall has claimed that starring on Married At First Sight 'screwed her career'. And now, another MAFS alum is speaking out about how his appearance on the program negatively affected his working life. In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Australia, Dean Wells, 41, revealed how he was forced to leave a content creation business in the wake of his negative depiction on the show's 2018 season. EXCLUSIVE: 'I had to shut down my business!' Speaking with Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday, Dean Wells told of how his work suffered in the wake of his depiction as a 'misogynist' on last year's Married At First Sight 'I had a business called Frizbee and I had business partners,' Dean explained in the interview on Wednesday. 'When MAFS happened it was tough for me to walk into a business meeting (because) I was being called a misogynist and a sexist and all those sorts of things.' Before he even appeared on the program in February 2018, Dean was seen in promos controversially describing his desire for a wife who would 'obey' him. Controversial appearance: Before he even appeared on the program in February 2018, Dean was seen in promos controversially describing his desire for a wife who would 'obey' him. He is pictured with former 'wife' Tracey Jewel The self-described 'alpha-male' attracted the ire of female viewers, and his reputation took an added hit when he was embroiled in an 'affair' with co-star Davina Rankin. Dean says the show left him unable to attend meetings with potential female clients. 'Imagine showing up at a meeting, especially with a room full of women who hated me, there's no way I could've done it' he explained to Daily Mail Australia. 'I basically had to shut down the business, went my separate ways with the guys from Frizbee and... took most of the year off and rode the wave, good and bad.' Edited: The self-described 'alpha-male' attracted the ire of female viewers during his stint on MAFS Dean says he made some money from endorsements and appearances after his appearance on MAFS, but says 'all in all he would be down' in terms of finances. 'It cost me money to be on the show,' he declared. Now, the star is looking forward, running his own creative company, Arcade Studios. 'It cost me money to be on the show': Dean says there was no financial benefit for starring on the show He also does public appearances and will be making his debut as a 'startender', serving drinks for fans at Darling Harbour's Planar Bar & Dining on Thursday night. Next week, Dean says he'll be tuning in to watch the new season at MAFS, albeit with a healthy dose of skepticism. And while ultimately has no regrets about his appearance on the program, he does have some 'leftover resentment' from the way he was portrayed, and some of the nastier things that were said about him. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Nine for comment. Ajay Rochester, 49, has never been one to shy away from expressing her opinion. And on Thursday, the former Biggest Loser host took another swipe at her I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! camp-mate, Justin Lacko, 28. In an interview with TV WEEK Ajay showed little interest in maintaining a friendship with the male model after leaving the South African jungle, saying she would 'probably only see Justin on Instagram'. 'He spends all day looking in the mirror!' I'm A Celebrity reject Ajay Rochester takes another swipe at Love Island star Justin Lacko after leaving the South African jungle Rise to fame: Male model Justin Lacko (above) appeared on Channel Nine's inaugural season of dating series Love Island Australia last year Ajay denied rumours of a romance between the Love Island star and Gogglebox critic Angie Kent in the jungle, and took the opportunity to make another sly jab in her response. 'His perfect woman is Angelina Jolie and he wants the success, the fame, the money, he wants everything AND she has to be able to put up with him, which is a whole other thing,' she said about Justin. Meanwhile, Ajay only had kind words to share about Angie, describing the blonde as 'very deep, very humble and very caring'. 'I'd probably only see Justin in limited amounts': Ajay showed little interest in maintaining a friendship with the male model after leaving the South African jungle, saying she would 'probably only see Justin on Instagram' 'He's not anything like the kind of person she would go out with': Ajay denied rumours of a romance between the Love Island star and Gogglebox critic Angie Kent(LEFT) in the jungle, and took the opportunity to take another sly jab at Justin in her response Ajay couldn't help but throw in a back-handed compliment about the male model, adding: '[Justin] is not anything like the kind of person she would go out with, you know? She doesn't really have a great deal of time for people who spend all day looking in the mirror.' On Tuesday night, the single mum became the first contestant to leave the reality show filmed in the South African jungle. When asked who she would remain friends with after leaving the show, Ajay admitted she wouldn't keep in touch with everyone - and made it clear Justin wasn't high on the list. 'There's 13 people and I won't keep in touch with all of them but there's a good core group of people that I would,' she explained. 'I won't keep in touch with all of them': Ajay admitted she wouldn't keep in touch with everyone from the reality show - and made it clear Justin wasn't high on the list to remain friendly with The TV star recently took a swipe at Justin during an elimination interview on The Project where she described him as 'dumb as a box of hammers and so beautiful.' 'Justin is really, really, really ridiculously good-looking,' she began, impersonating Ben Stiller's iconic male model character, Zoolander. 'He's lovely, he has a heart of gold, he wouldn't hurt a fly, but I'd say, "Why do you think people keep voting for you?" and he'd say, "Because I'm hot."' I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! continues at 7.30pm on Channel Ten. My Kitchen Rules judge Colin Fassnidge contacted New South Wales police in 2015 after receiving a disturbing Tweet about his two young daughters. Now almost four years on, the fiery celebrity chef has shared more details about the shocking threats made against Lily and Maeve,now nine and seven. Speaking to The Australian Women's Weekly on Thursday, Colin, 45, recalled he was willing to hunt down and kill the Twitter troll for threatening to 'molest' his girls. 'I'm going to kill them!' Speaking to The Australian Women's Weekly on Thursday, Colin, 45, (pictured) has opened up about a Twitter troll who threatened to 'molest' his two young daughters aged four and five (at the time) in 2015 He revealed his frustration at the limitations of the law when he filed a police complaint at the time: 'They told me they couldn't find out who it was.' At the time, the Irish national had fired off a warning to the Twitter troll who threatened to 'molest' his daughters, who were aged four and five at the time. 'I took the cop's name and when he asked why, I said: "Basically, when I find who it is, I'm going to kill them myself and my wife will probably help,"' Colin said. 'Then I'll bury him. And then I'll tell you where he is.' Colin approached authorities in April 2015 in relation to an offer made by an unknown man to babysit Lily and Maeve, but was knocked back. 'I'll bury him': The Irish national also fired off a warning to the Twitter troll who threatened to 'molest' his two young daughters. Colin pictured with his wife, Jane Hyland and their two children 'I had a guy say he would babysit my kids in a roundabout way and I went to the police and asked what they were going to do about it,' Colin recounted in 2015. 'The police officer said "he didn't say he was going to molest them"... and there was nothing he could do.' Unimpressed by their initial response, Colin said it was only after he asked for the name of the officer attending to his case that he got a more substantial response from the police. Colin (left) revealed he contacted New South Wales police after receiving a disturbing Tweet about his two young daughters in 2015. Pictured alongside co-star Pete Evans 'I took [the officer's] name down and said if I find him I am going to harm him and I just want to know who I told so you have a record of it.' Even then, while the matter was investigated, Colin was told the police were unable to pursue it much further. 'Basically you have to find the person and where they are,' he explained at the time. 'Basically you have to find the person and where they are': While the matter was investigated, Colin was told the police were unable to pursue it much further. Colin pictured on MKR The father-of-two went on to denounce the amount of vitriol and abuse spewed out on social media. While hardened to the often negative views expressed about his role on reality series My Kitchen Rules, he urges his contestants not to read comments made online. 'You can slag me off for being the worst cook in the world, my restaurants are s*** and you hate my hair, but leave my kids and the contestants out of it,' he said. Colin has been enjoying quality family time before My Kitchen Rules returns to Channel Seven on January 28. The tenth season of My Kitchen Rules premieres on Channel Seven on January 28 He failed to dance his way into Bachelorette Ali Oetjen's heart last year, and appears to have missed out on an opportunity to appear on its spin-off Bachelor In Paradise. But now Magic Mike wannabe Ivan Krslovic, 29, has revealed he's open to pursuing a summer fling in South Africa. Speaking to OK magazine on Thursday, he hinted at a possible appearance on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! and said he hoped he could woo Gogglebox star Angie Kent as she was 'an attractive woman'. Scroll down for video 'I think she's an attractive woman!' Bachelorette reject Ivan Krslovic hints he's going on Im A Celebrity to woo Angie Kent after failing to secure a spot on Bachelor In Paradise A source also claimed to the publication: 'He's had his eyes on Angie ... He thinks she's really cute!' Ivan's failed attempt at finding love on reality television clearly hasn't deterred him from continuing his pursuit. There are rumours the professional dancer might be headed to the jungle with a plate of avocados in hand - in a tongue-in-cheek reference to his blender faux pas on The Bachelorette. Ivan's arrival could spell trouble for male model Justin Lacko, who is rumoured to also be interested in Angie. Trouble in paradise? Ivan's arrival could spell trouble for Justin Lacko (left) who has also shown an interest in fellow I'm A Celebrity contestant Angie Kent (right) Failing to impress: Ivan rose to fame on The Bachelorette earlier this year after he tried to dance his way into Ali Oetjen's heart (pictured) 'It would rattle Justin for sure,' the source speculated, adding: 'He's been into Angie since day one, so if Ivan has a crack it would cause chaos.' With his devilishly handsome looks and Zoolander-esque personality, Justin is a gift from the reality TV gods. But Ivan has a novel way to win Angie's heart. 'There's talk he'll arrive with a plate of avocados as part of a challenge, so whoever wins the challenge gets his goods,' the source claimed. Ivan was savaged by Bachelorette viewers last year after he attempted to blend unpeeled avocados to make a dessert. The Bachelor's first ever Aboriginal finalist, Brooke Blurton, has weighed in on the Australia Day debate. The 24-year-old youth worker, who is of Indigenous and English descent, told Perth Now on Thursday that changing the date of Australia Day won't fix the underlying social issues affecting the Aboriginal community. 'I am working with vulnerable youth that have been exposed to massive amounts of trauma and abuse,' said Brooke, who placed third in Nick Cummins' season of The Bachelor last year. Scroll down for video 'I don't feel changing the date will fix those issues': Brooke Blurton (pictured) has weighed in on the Australia Day debate - after she became The Bachelor's first Aboriginal finalist 'They're bouncing in and out of foster homes, being abused, being kicked out of school, becoming homeless,' she added. 'Some of these kids have serious mental health issues and I really don't feel that changing the date will fix those things.' Although Brooke is not in favour of changing the date, she acknowledged that it will likely be moved from January 26 in the coming years. January 26 is recognised by many Indigenous people as a day of mourning as it marked the arrival of British colonisers. First-hand experience: The 24-year-old youth worker, who is of Indigenous and English descent, told Perth Now on Thursday that changing the date of Australia Day won't fix the underlying social issues affecting the Aboriginal community Brooke previously spoke about her traumatic childhood on SBS program, Noongar Dandjoo. After overcoming the tragic loss of her mother to suicide at age 11, Brooke spent the rest of her upbringing living in fear of drug-fuelled violence. 'I grew up in a country town in Carnarvon. I spent my childhood there up until I was about 11, when my mum unfortunately passed away - she committed suicide,' she said. 'That was a hard time, living in Carnarvon with my mum and nan, losing mum, and then nan actually passed away a month later.' Troubled childhood: After overcoming the tragic loss of her mother to suicide at age 11, Brooke spent the rest of her upbringing living in fear of drug-fuelled violence. Pictured bottom right in an undated family photo Brooke eventually went to live with her father, but admitted: 'To be honest, he wasn't that supportive. 'Growing up was pretty complicated. [There was] a lot of drug and alcohol violence in my childhood and I had an older sister who suffered from schizophrenia,' she said. Meanwhile, Brooke will return to television later this year as a contestant on Channel 10 dating show Bachelor in Paradise. Ajay Rochester has revealed the real reason she spectacularly fell out with radio host Bianca Dye 15 years ago. The recently evicted I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! contestant finally gave up the details on Thursday morning, during a pre-recorded message aired on KIIS FM's Kyle & Jackie 'O' show. The day before, Ajay had refused to speak about their infamous rift during an interview with Bianca on her Brisbane radio show. However, hours later she had a change of heart, and told Kyle and Jackie O that the two came to blows because Bianca leaked private details about her to the press all those years ago. Scroll down for video 'It was a low blow!' Ajay Rochester finally revealed the REAL reason why she spectacularly fell out with radio host Bianca Dye 15 years ago, during a pre-recorded message aired on KIIS FM's Kyle & Jackie 'O' show on Thursday Not happy: She claimed the two came to blows because Bianca leaked private details about her to the press all those years ago 'We were really, really good friends so I thought,' Ajay said. 'She was in my inner circle and at that time, there were things only in my inner circle that kept getting leaked. And kept turning up in the papers. 'Turned up in Confidential (The Daily Telegraph). Things that really only my three or four close friends would know,' she claimed. Ajay went on to alleged a few of her personal matters, which she claims only Bianca knew about, were leaked to the press. Oh dear: Ajay alleged a few of her personal matters, which she claims only Bianca knew about, turned up in the newspaper (Ajay is pictured on I'm A Celebrity last week) 'When I was in Hawaii shooting Biggest Loser I came off a horse and Bianca called me in the hospital at the time. It was just coincidence. Then it made the papers,' she claimed. 'Then that's what made Michelle Bridges cranky with me. She called me a media w**re,' she said of her long-standing rivalry with the famed personal trainer, 48. Ajay and Michelle have been locked in a bitter feud since they appeared on the weight-loss show together between 2006 and 2009. However, Ajay refused to share details about a final incident with Bianca, which she described as a 'really low blow.' 'I never': Meanwhile, Bianca responded to Ajay's controversial claims on her radio show on Thursday and denied the allegations Meanwhile, Bianca responded to Ajay's controversial claims on her radio show on Thursday. 'I never rang her in the hospital. I don't have any memory of her falling off a horse. I'm sure she did. I'm sure she's not making that up,' she claimed. 'I love the fact that she's somehow blaming me for the feud between her and Michelle Bridges.' Bianca continued to vehemently deny Ajay's sensational allegations, declaring: 'I dont sell out my friends.' Denials: Bianca (pictured) continued to vehemently deny Ajay's sensational claims, sharing: 'I dont sell out my friends' 'I was good friends with Holly Burns, who was running Sydney Confidential at the time - and a lot of the time when things got in the press people would say to me, was that you?' she explained. 'Because I was friends with the woman who ran the page! And it wasn't me...I'm more likely to leak something, on myself. 'But in this instance, it didnt happen. I did not sell her out.' Ajay became the first celebrity contestant to leave the jungle on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! on Tuesday night. I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! continues Thursday at 7:30 on Channel 10 While Kyle Sandilands is famously outspoken, his co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson is typically more reserved when it comes to political matters. However, the 43-year-old radio presenter hinted on Thursday that she disapproves of having Australia Day on January 26. During a discussion about the public holiday on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, she hesitantly admitted she wouldn't be celebrating. Scroll down for video Rare political statement: Jackie 'O' Henderson has said she WON'T be celebrating Australia Day this year. Pictured on December 20, 2015 in Sydney When Kyle asked his colleague if she had anything special planned for Australia Day, Jackie replied: 'No, no... look, not especially... no'. The awkward exchange came moments after Kyle called up his step-sister Debbie, who is of Aboriginal descent, to ask if she and her daughters would be celebrating. 'I won't be, but the girls will be... purely because it's part of their heritage as well,' Debbie replied. Kyle then directed his question towards Jackie, asking her: 'Jackie, are you going to celebrate?' 'I don't have a particular...': During an on-air discussion about the public holiday on Thursday, Jackie (left) hesitantly admitted she wouldn't be celebrating. Pictured right: Kyle Sandilands At that moment, Jackie became more reticent and stumbled over her words. After initially telling listeners she would not be celebrating Australia Day, the mother-of-one appeared to have difficultly explaining why. 'I don't have a particular...,' she began before trailing off. A day to celebrate? Australia Day celebrations have exposed a deep national divide, with some people supporting the tradition while others believe January 26 is a day of mourning. Pictured: A group of men celebrating Australia Day in Sydney last year Sensing Jackie's discomfort at discussing the controversial topic, Kyle interrupted by saying: 'Righto, don't go on a political tirade!' Daily Mail Australia has contacted Kyle and Jackie O for comment. Australia Day celebrations have exposed a deep national divide, with some people supporting the tradition while others believe January 26 is a day of mourning. Protesters have demanded that 'Invasion Day' be moved from January 26, the date when British colonisers first arrived in Australia, as it is offensive to Indigenous people. Former MasterChef Australia star, Sarah Todd, 32, has recalled the horror of helplessly watching her restaurant burn down in India. Earlier this month, the single mother's 250-seater Antares restaurant in Goa was destroyed after a neighbour lit a bonfire, causing $100,000 worth of damage, according to SBS. 'I watched the flames destroy it all. It was scary... It took four years to build up, and just a few minutes to turn to ash,' she told Who magazine on Thursday. 'I've been crying non-stop': Glamorous MasterChef star Sarah Todd recalls the horror of watching her Indian restaurant burn down causing $100,000 worth of damage. Pictured at the Taj Mahal on Wednesday 'I've been crying non-stop. But I try not to do so near the staff; they're looking for me to show leadership at this sad time. 'The fire happened after a neighbours decided to do some burning off. Sparks flew over to our roof and soon there was a huge fire. Thankfully, the restaurant was closed and only a couple of staff were there when it happened.' The restaurant, which employs 70 staff, was featured on My Restaurant in India on SBS. Horror in paradise: The single mum was understandably devastated by the accident. Pictured recently at the venue in Vagator, Goa with her son Phoenix, seven Sarah, who appeared on MasterChef in 2014, has now vowed to rebuild the eatery. The Queensland-native remains focused on her second restaurant, The Wine Rack, which launched last year and is featured on SBS' My Second Restaurant in India. At the time footage of the blaze, which is believed to have been extinguished within an hour, showed extensive damage to the venue. Destruction: At the time, footage of the blaze, which is believed to have been extinguished within an hour, showed extensive damage to the venue 'The flames were seen around 4.30pm and immediately fire tenders were rushed to the spot,' inspector C.L. Patil of Anjuna Police told local news outlets. Taking to Instagram after the incident, Sarah confirmed 'no one was injured'. 'We are saddened by the tragic and unfortunate incident that took place at Antares yesterday,' she wrote. 'We are truly thankful that there were no casualties': In a statement released after the incident, Sarah confirmed no one was injured 'Like family': Sarah is pictured with her Antares employees at a recent staff party Ordeal: She also wrote on Instagram, 'We would like to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for their support. Antares is a family and is very dear to my heart and we will work together to get through this' 'The accidental fire started in a neighboring plot and then quickly spread to the roof of the restaurant. We are truly thankful that no one was injured. 'We would like to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for their support. Antares is a family and is very dear to my heart and we will work together to get through this.' Antares is located in the beachside tourist spot of Vagator, which is regarded as one of the first 'hippie haunts' in Goa. Remember her? Sarah is pictured on MasterChef Australia She's set to appear on the new season of Dancing with the Stars. And on Thursday, Karl Stefanovic's ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn, 47, spoke about her triumphant return to TV after giving up her job as a producer to raise three children. The 47-year-old former journalist told 2Day FM's Grant, Ed & Ash that she 'couldn't say no' to the offer, which prompted host Ed Kavalee to say: 'Revenge is a dish best served in prime time in a hot red number!' Scroll down for video 'Revenge is a dish best served in prime time!' On Thursday, Karl Stefanovic's ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn discussed her triumphant TV comeback on Dancing with the Stars 'I'm telling you, you're not going to say it, but revenge is sweet,' Ed joked, before adding: 'Good luck to you'. Elsewhere in the interview, the comedian suggested that the public were 'team Cass' following her bitter split with Karl, 44. 'There is no team, it's team Cass and Marco,' she replied, referring to her professional partner on Dancing with the Stars. Going for it! Cassandra told 2Day FM's Grant, Ed & Ash that she 'couldn't say no' to the DWTS offer, which prompted host Ed Kavalee to say: 'Revenge is a dish best served in prime time in a hot red number!' Pictured on September 5, 2018 in Sydney Cassandra was also asked whether she is back on the dating scene following her messy divorce. She replied with a laugh: 'The only man in my life at the moment is Marco, as in the dancer. I'm pretty sure there is a little bit of an age gap between us, but I'm having a great time.' After months of rumours, it was confirmed on Thursday that Cassandra had joined the cast of Channel 10's Dancing with the Stars. Asking the tough questions? Elsewhere in the interview, comedian Ed (right) suggested that the public were 'team Cass' following her bitter split with Karl. Pictured with wife Tiffiny Hall The former ABC journalist told the Herald Sun that she decided to sign up after an emotional chat with her late father Max Thorburn. 'It was one of the last conversations I had with my dad before he passed away,' she said. '[He told me], "If you said no you will regret it one day".' Max, who was also a journalist, died in October last year after a battle with cancer. Brisbane radio host Bianca Dye has revealed she had a shocking 'fall out' with former Biggest Loser host Ajay Rochester 15 years ago. The two female media personalities discussed the feud during an interview on Bianca's radio show Brisbanes 97.3 Bianca, Mike & Bob on Wednesday, after Ajay was booted from I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! the night before. During their sit-down, Ajay admitted she spoke about her fight with Bianca several times to her camp mates while in the jungle, but the fiery footage was never aired. Scroll down for video The shocking rant they couldn't air on I'm A Celebrity: Brisbane radio host Bianca Dye, right, revealed she had a shocking 'fall out' with former Biggest Loser host Ajay Rochester, left, 15 years ago on Wednesday 'I'm going to address a tiny elephant in the room... You and I had a fall out and didn't speak 15 years ago,' Bianca said to Ajay during Wednesday's interview, before adding: 'Have you forgiven me?' 'Oh you're lucky they didn't air that story Bianca... because I told it (On I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!). I told it more than once!' Ajay confessed. 'I can't even remember what it was!' Bianca said, before Ajay quipped: 'I bet you don't remember!' Bianca's male co-hosts chimed in and encouraged Ajay to air the true story, but she declined to do so. Unleashed: During their sit-down, Ajay admitted she spoke about her fight with Bianca several times to her camp mates while in the jungle, but the footage was never aired 'No, because here's the thing, Bianca is a hustle girl. She'll hustle and she'll get her jobs and she'll make her contacts,' she said. 'I know what she did and why she did it and I get it. 'To me friendship and loyalty is everything. Hey, I'm here. I had the option to not do the interview... you brought it up. I'm doing it because Bianca, life is too short. 'We're probably different people to who we were 10 years ago. I respect you, I think you're one of the best women in radio. I think you deserve your job and whatever hustle it took to do what you did it's all good.' Bianca continued to maintain she doesn't remember the reason behind the pair's dispute, however she assumed it was about a party or event Ajay hosted. 'I remember you thought I told the guys from the paper about a party': Bianca (pictured) has said she doesn't remember the reason behind the pair's dispute, however she assumed it was about a party or event Ajay hosted 'I remember you thought I told the guys from the paper about a party or something you had. I swear to god I didn't, I will take a lie detector test,' Bianca said. However, Ajay insisted that wasn't the reason the pair fell out, saying: 'no, that's not the story.' After a few seconds of back and forth between Ajay and the River City radio hosts, the Aussie actress refused to tell the story and proceeded to playfully end the conversation by joking the line was 'breaking up.' Soon after, the popular radio personality was heard telling her co-hosts: 'I'm going to be really honest with you. I do not know what she's talking about.' Bianca continued: 'I love Ajay. She's very talented and funny but she's also slightly unhinged. I mean that with love, because so am I!' Booted: Ajay became the first celebrity contestant to leave the jungle on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! on Tuesday night Ajay became the first celebrity contestant to leave the jungle on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! on Tuesday night. She broke down in tears during her exit interview with hosts Dr Chris Brown and Julia Morris. After saying goodbye to her camp mates, Ajay wiped away tears as she said: 'You really do make friends for life'. Ajay's chosen charity during her stint in the jungle was 4 ASD Kids, an organisation that raises money to support children and their families dealing with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Her teenage son Kai has Asperger's syndrome, and she told 10 Daily prior to her elimination that the charity holds a special place in her heart. '[Access to early intervention] can be life-changing,' Ajay said. 'Not just for the kids but for the parents. I'm so strongly for it and I think it's a great charity.' I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! continues Wednesday at 7:30 on Channel 10 Advertisement These are the first images of the suites on board Virgin Voyages' first cruise ship the Scarlet Lady. The ship, due for delivery in Miami in 2020, has 78 suites, with two levels Mega RockStar and RockStar. The renderings show the top suite on board - the Massive Suite and the Gorgeous Suite, which isn't as big but still has 'Mega RockStar' status. Scroll down for video This image is of the top suite on the Scarlet Lady - the Massive Suite - which features a runway table with steps so passengers can clamber on top more easily to dance A step inside the Massive Suite on board the Scarlett Lady reveals a spacious living room with a circular seating area and a stocked bar The Scarlet Lady has 78 suites on board, of which two are Massive suites. Virgin claims these cabins are the places 'legends dream of' Lucky guests on board the Virgin Voyages' first cruise ship, the Scarlet Lady, will also be treated to a private terrace at the front of the ship. The terrace comes with a hot tub and runway-style table Located on the 15th deck of the lavish ship are 78 'RockStar Suites'. Of the 78 RockStar Suites, 15 are given the 'Mega RockStar Suite' status The luxury Lady Scarlet cruise ship also offers a shower with a view, with guests being treated to open-air 'Peek-a-View' showers along their journey The 'Peek-a-View' showers are one of the many perks that come with the Virgin Voyages ship. The company currently has four ships on order Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group said: 'With these glamorous suites, Virgin Voyages is bringing rock and roll to the high seas and spoiling our sailors like the rock stars they are' A sneak peak inside the ship shows more than 20 dining and drinking options. Unlike other traditional cruise ships, the Lady Scarlet will not have buffets on board The Massive Suite, says Virgin Voyages, 'is the place that legends dream of, replete with its own music room, which seconds as an extra bedroom, and is stocked with guitars and an amplifier with a vinyl turntable in the adjacent living room'. There's also a hot tub, vanity area, two wardrobes and a marble-clad bathroom with a peek-a-boo shower area that overlooks the bedroom and has views out to the water. And there's more. The suite, of which there are only two on board, also has 'a lookout point with stargazing loungers and two full length hammocks' and a runway outdoor dining table for six with its own staircase, 'to help sailors make their way on top for dancing'. The Massive Suite has its own music room (pictured), which seconds as an extra bedroom, and is stocked with guitars and an amplifier with a vinyl turntable in the adjacent living room The Scarlet Lady, which will arrive at PortMiami in 2020 for her inaugural sailing season around the Caribbean, features many spacious bedrooms for its guests A step inside one of the bathroom's in the Massive Suite of the luxury ship reveals marble flooring and a large mirror There is also a peek-a-boo shower area that overlooks the bedroom and has views out to the water inside the marble-clad bathroom The Gorgeous Suite, meanwhile, of which there are nine on board, features distinct lounge and bedroom areas plus a luxurious marble bathroom with peek-a-boo shower window. It also has an 'expansive' terrace with a peek-a-view outdoor shower. Virgin Voyages says it is 'bringing rebellious luxe to life at sea' with its RockStar Suites, which have been designed by Tom Dixon's Design Research Studio. 'Virgin has always avoided stuffy formalities and brought a lot of excitement and a bit of rebelliousness to our customer experiences,' said Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group. 'With these glamorous suites, Virgin Voyages is bringing rock and roll to the high seas and spoiling our sailors like the rock stars they are.' The Gorgeous Suite (pictured), of which there are nine on board, features distinct lounge and bedroom areas plus a luxurious marble bathroom with peek-a-boo shower window. It also has an 'expansive' terrace with a peek-a-view outdoor shower Scarlet Lady will arrive at PortMiami in 2020 for her inaugural sailing season around the Caribbean Virgin Voyages currently has four ships on order, due for delivery in 2020 (Scarlet Lady, as previously mentioned), 2021, 2022 and 2023. Scarlet Lady will arrive at PortMiami in 2020 for her inaugural sailing season around the Caribbean. Virgin says she will be 'a sanctuary at sea for the 18-plus traveller'. Passengers will be able to enjoy free fitness classes, free dining, and free filtered water and sodas. Prices are yet to be released. In a bid to avoid difficult speech therapy training, a new trial will see people with a stutter have electrodes strapped to their temples with an electrical current then passing through their heads. The current would be too weak for most people to register, while others would just feel a small jolt. Professor Kate Watkins of the University of Oxford is the trial's lead investigator and says it could potentially be a solution for people whose career choices and earning potential are damaged by stuttering. If the electrical brain stimulation is successful at the clinical stage, it could then be offered by speech therapists. The new trial will see participants have electrodes strapped to their heads which a current then passes through (file photo) Professor Watkins told the Guardian: 'Stuttering can have serious effects on individuals in terms of their choice of career, what they can get out of education, their earning potential and personal life.' Some of the best speech treatments are still gruelling and difficult to complete, leading to this latest proposal. It isn't expected to cure people of their stutter, but researchers hope it will give them better control over it. The stimulation is known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and it increases the firing rate of neurons in certain regions of the brain. Scientists hope that this process could make it easier and quicker for people with a stutter to learn the thought patterns that come with speech. The stimulation could even be used to help people with strokes or those who suffer from depression. Some claim it could also enhance brain activity in healthy people. Professor Kate Watkins of the University of Oxford is the trial's principal investigator and says it could help people deal with the struggles caused by stuttering (file photo) Watkins has been researching the causes of stuttering for more than a decade. The trial itself involves 40 participants who have to speak in time with a metronome, saying one syllable per beat. According to the results, people who stutter usually become completely fluent. Jennifer Chesters, a speech and language researcher at the University of Oxford who is involved in the trial. said: 'The idea is that if you stimulate them while they're fluent, you're reinforcing that fluent speech process. 'And hopefully that will make it more likely for them to use that process in their normal life.' All of the participants are men with moderate to severe stutters. Half are given electrical stimulation for 20 minutes while the rest wear the electrodes without them being switched on as a control. They go through the trial every day for five days before a follow-up three months later. Their speech is tested at each session and before they start the trial. Around one in 20 young children go through a phase of stuttering in the UK, although four in five who do later grow out of it. It affects around one in 100 adults, with men being around four times more likely to stutter than women. More than 80 years after the famed pilot disappeared with her navigator somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, divers claim they may have found part of Emilia Earhart's plane submerged off an island in Papua New Guinea. Divers have been studying wreckage off the coast of Buka Island 100ft below the ocean surface. One a recent dive, a piece of glass that 'shares some consistencies' with landing lights from Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E was recovered. Scroll down for video Buka Island, an island of Papua New Guinea in the Solomon Sea, southwestern Pacific Ocean, where a new theory says Amelia Earhart's plane may have crashed A piece of glass (pictured) that 'shares some consistencies' with landing lights from Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E was recovered on a recent dive in the area 'The Buka Island wreck site was directly on Amelia and Fred's flight path, and it is an area never searched by anybody,' said Bill Snavely of Project Blue Angel, which undertook the dive. He has been studying the site for 13 years, and the 2018 expedition that found the glass gathered measurements and other data to assist in evaluating the crash site. Snavely believes Amelia and Fred flew for approximately 12 hours and turned around due to being low on fuel. 'What we found so far is consistent with the plane she flew,' he claims. 'Amelia's Electra had specific modifications done to it for her specific journey, and the fact some of those unique modifications appear to be verified in the wreckage that's been found, we really do believe its very likely this is the real thing' said Jill Meyers, Blue Angel's public relations manager. Divers examining part of the wreck some believe could be Amelia Earhart's plane 'We want to stress that this apparent aircraft debris field may not end up being that of Amelia Earhart's Electra,' the researchers said. 'However, some uniquely identifying characteristics are consistent, and time, distance and fuel computations match Bill's theory of her flight route. Project members also say a local Pacific Islander who witnessed an airplane crash at the site in 1937 or close to that year was recorded and passed on in the oral history by the natives of the island. 'This crash site may indeed hold the clues to solving one of the greatest mysteries of all time,' the project says. 'Either way, we hope to find out who lost their lives in this crash and give their families closure.' Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were attempting to circumnavigate the globe by plane when they vanished on July 2, 1937. Their remains have never been positively identified, but one research group is convinced that they crash landed on a remote Pacific island Project Blue Angel is planning another expedition to Buka in the Spring that will harness advanced imaging technologies. It is also trying to raise $200,000 on GoFundMe for the project. 'This apparent wreckage site is located directly along the route that Amelia flew, in an area that has never been searched,' say the team behind an upcoming film to publicize the search. HOW DID AMELIA EARHART GET TO BUKA ISLAND? 'The Buka Island wreck site was directly on Amelia and Fred's flight path, and it is an area never searched by anybody,' said Bill Snavely of Project Blue Angel, which undertook the dive. For the past 13 years, Bill Snavely has been studying and researching a reported aircraft wreck site in the near coastal waters of Buka Island near Papua New Guinea. The site is approximately 100ft [35m] below the oceans surface and appears to be an aircraft debris field consistent with the Lockheed Electra 10E in which Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared on July 2, 1937. Bill learned of this site in 2005 from a local corrections officer from Buka. In 2011, the local government officially asked Bill to investigate the site and determine and authenticate the aircraft. The government granted Bills team exclusive rights to dive and investigate this site over the next five years. For the past 13 years, Bill Snavely has been studying and researching a reported aircraft wreck site in the near coastal waters of Buka Island near Papua New Guinea. This apparent wreckage site is located directly along the route that Amelia flew, in an area that has never been searched. Bill appears to be the first to search for Amelias aircraft by starting at the beginning of her flight route from Lae, Papua New Guinea to the west and working his way eastward. Bills theory is that Amelia and Fred flew for approximately 12 hours and turned around due to being low on fuel. Advertisement Last year an exhaustive study has pieced together what could be the details of Amelia Earhart's harrowing last days. In the week after her plane vanished on July 2, 1937, there were 120 reports from around the world claiming to have picked up radio signals and distress calls from Earhart 57 of which were determined to be credible. An effort led by Richard Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, analyzed these final transmissions, painting a haunting image of their increasingly desperate situation over the course of seven days. Challenging one of the widely held theories, which claims her Lockheed Electra crashed and sank in the ocean, the distress calls suggest Earhart and a severely injured Fred Noonan were stranded on a reef, at the mercy of the tides. Researchers analysed 120 reported distress signals from Earhart after she vanished, and found 57 to be credible. They say the signals all point to Gardner Island as the source, because the clarity of the messages received increases the closer to the island the listeners were The comprehensive new study from TIGHAR's Earhart Project picks apart each distress call received in the week after the pilot's disappearance, revealing an hour-by-hour chronology of the events that transpired. These heartbreaking messages were picked up around the world by naval stations actively participating in the search, and casual listeners in their homes. On Friday July 2, hours after her disappearance became known, a station leading the search heard a voice thought to be hears. And, when asked to confirm with a series of dashes, three stations heard the response, and one caught the word 'Earhart.' WHAT ARE THE THEORIES ON AMELIA EARHART'S FINAL DAYS? Theory One: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan crash into the Pacific a few miles short of their intended destination due to visibility and gas problems, and die instantly. Theory Two: Earhart and Noonan crash land on the island of Nikumaroro, where they later die at the hands of coconut crabs, which hunt for food at night and grow up to three-feet long. The name comes from their ability to opened the hardened shells of coconuts. Theory Three: Earhart and Noonan veer drastically off course and crash land near the Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands. They are rescued but soon taken as prisoners of war by the Japanese and sent to a camp in Saipan. Noonan is beheaded and Earhart dies in 1939 from malaria or dysentery. Theory Four: Earhart and Noonan make it to Howland Island as planned and are eaten by cannibals. Theory Five: Earhart was an American spy sent to gather information on the Japanese ahead of World War II. Theory Six: Earhart and Noonan are unable to locate Howland Island, and head toward their 'contingency plan'. After a ten hour journey back toward the location they came from, they crash in the jungle of East New Britain Island, in what is now known as Papua New Guinea. There are several conflicting theories about Earhart's disappearance. The alleged details of Earhart's final flight, and where she is believed to have ended up based on different theories over the years Advertisement In the week after her plane vanished on July 2, 1937, there were 120 reports from around the world claiming to have picked up radio signals and distress calls from Earhart 57 of which were determined to be credible The researchers are working on the theory that Earhart managed to land her Lockheed Electra on a reef which surrounds the islands, where it sat for at least a week (mock-up image) Later that night in the second 'active period' of signalling, a housewife from Amarillo, Texas heard Earhart say she was 'down on an uncharted island - small, uninhabited.' The transmission went on to say the plane was 'part on land, part in water,' and that the navigator Fred Noonan was seriously injured, and needed immediate medical attention. That same night, a woman from Ashland, Kentucky heard Earhart say the plane was 'down in ocean' and 'on or near a little island.' The timing of the distress signals, all of which came at night, coincide with low tide patterns on the reef. Researchers say this is the only time that Earhart would have been able to run the plane's engine without the propeller hitting the water, in order to power her radio She continued: 'Our plane is about out of gas. Water all around. Very dark,' before going on to mention a storm and winds blowing. 'Will have to get out of here,' she said. 'We can't stay here long.' Almost all of signals considered to be credible can be traced back to Gardner Island, where Earhart and Noonan were likely marooned on a reef. But, Gillespie explains in the new paper, transmitting from this spot presented a dilemma. 'The radios relied on the aircraft's batteries, but battery power was needed to start the generator-equipped starboard engine to recharge the batteries,' the researcher writes. 'If the lost fliers ran down the batteries sending distress calls they wouldn't be able to start the engine. 'The only sensible thing to do was to only send radio calls when the engine was running and charging the batteries. But on the reef, the tide comes in and the tide goes out.' According to Gillespie, building off earlier research done with colleague Bob Brandenburg, the signals could only be sent out when the water was below 26 inches, leaving the propeller tip clear. As suspected, Gillespie found that the timing of the distress calls lines up with periods where water on the reef would have been low. Most were sent at night, likely because darkness offered cooler temperatures after long days in the harsh island sun. Each period of active transmission lasted roughly an hour, with a period of silence lasting about an hour and a half in between. This, according to Gillespie, repeated each day until high tide or daylight. Heartbreaking distress calls were picked up around the world by naval stations actively participating in the search, and casual listeners in their homes. Above, Earhart is seen on the wing of her plane before her last flight in 1937 On Saturday July 3, during the sixth active period, a male voice was heard for the first time, suggesting Noonan, though injured, was still alive and 'functioning rationally.' The following day, a 16-year-old boy in Wyoming heard the pilot say the ship was on a reef. And, the station at Howland Island heard a both a man's voice and a woman's, with the message 'tell husband alright.' On only one occasion did the crew send Morse code, as neither were skilled in the technique. A 'poorly keyed' message received by the US Navy Radio Facility in Wailupe, near Honolulu, on July 5 stated: '281 North Howland Call KHAQQ Beyond North Don't Hold With Us Much Longer Above Water Shut Off.' Among the most famous are the snippets heard by 15-year-old, Betty Klenck, in St. Petersburg, Florida, that same day. Using her family's radio, Klenck heard exchanges between Earhart and Noonan that indicated the injured navigator had become irrational. In 1940, bones were discovered on Gardner Island now called Nikumaroro (pictured) 400 miles south of Earhart's planned stopover on Howland Island. An expert on skeletal biology now believes the bones are '99% likely' to be Earhart's The two could be heard calling for help and discussing the rising water with urgency. According to Klenck, Noonan could also be heard yelling, and complaining about his head. In her notes, Klenck wrote that Earheart 'said a few cuss words and sounds like she was having trouble getting water so high the plane was slipping.' The transmission ended shortly after. According to Gillespie, the last active period occurred on Wednesday July 7, from 12:25 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. The researcher's estimates indicate the water level would have reached the cabin and the transmitter by 6 o'clock the following morning. The photo shows how the high tide submerged the reef at Gardner Island In one of the final haunting messages, Thelma Lovelace of St Johns, New Brunswick heard: 'Can you read me? Can you read me? This is Amelia Earhart. This is Amelia Earhart. Please come in.' She went on to give the latitude and longitude, which Lovelace wrote down and later lost. Then, Earhart continued: 'We have taken in water, my navigator is badly hurt. My navigator is badly hurt. We are in need of medical care and must have help; we can't hold on much longer.' After Wednesday July 7, there were no more credible signals, leaving Earhart and Noonan's final moments a mystery. 'At some time between 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 7, when the last Credible Beyond a Reasonable Doubt transmission was sent, and the morning of Friday, July 9, the Electra was washed over the reef into the ocean where it broke up and sank,' Gillespie wrote. 'When three US Navy search planes from the battleship USS Colorado flew over Gardner Island on the morning of Friday, July 9, no aircraft was seen.' A set of bones discovered on Gardner Island in 1940, now known as Nikumaroro, provided what's considered to be among the best evidence of the doomed pilot's final resting place. According to Richard Jantz, an expert on skeletal biology at the University of Tennessee who analyzed the skeleton, the remains are '99% likely' to be hers. Almost bursting out of their uniforms, the two female soldiers pictured on the right are hardly people you would turn to for tips on a healthy lifestyle. But amazingly, one of the soldiers lectures on nutrition and the other cooks for the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers adding to the fury of troops over how top brass have failed to give fat squaddies their marching orders. Both the pictures attracted cruel comments when they became memes on social media. This unflattering picture of a female soldier became a meme online. Both the pictures attracted cruel comments Furious soldiers have spoken to this newspaper after we obtained figures that reveal hardly any of the Armys nearly 9,000 troops diagnosed as obese have been medically discharged. They want the Army to take a tougher approach towards fatties in the ranks who they claim would be useless on the battlefield because they are so out of shape. According to the latest Government statistics, just 63 troops have been booted out for being obese since 2007, while soldiers who are obviously overweight have been given responsibility for encouraging healthy eating. Figures reveal just how overweight troops have to be to get booted out of the Army. Of the ten soldiers dismissed in 2018 for being obese, the heaviest pair weighed 24 and 25 stone respectively Troops complained to The Mail on Sunday after listening to a lecture on nutrition from the Royal Army Medical Corps instructor pictured here who appeared to not be taking her own advice. We have hidden her identity. One soldier said: Her advice was sound on proteins and carbohydrates and when to eat or avoid certain foods, but her message was lost on some people because of her appearance. Its just not right people wearing the uniform when theyre in that condition. You want somebody giving you nutrition lectures who looks super-fit because then the blokes are inspired by that person. UK's Baltic soldiers told: Buy your own snow gear Soldiers being sent on exercises to freezing Estonia have been asked to pay for their own thermal undershirts In an email about woollen base layers, troops from the Kings Royal Hussars were told: The regiment has agreed to subsidise the cost of a base layer by 50 per cent. This is a one-off offer. The base layer is initially 12.50 but only 6.25 to individuals who make the purchase. It is a bargain. Around 900 British personnel are permanently based in the Baltic state, where average February temperatures are -6C. Advertisement But with the Army so under-strength, maybe senior officers cant be that choosy about who they use to teach people about healthy eating. Figures reveal just how overweight troops have to be to get booted out of the Army. Of the ten soldiers dismissed in 2018 for being obese, the heaviest pair weighed 24 and 25 stone respectively. A worrying number of troops are also failing fitness tests, in particular the standard eight-mile speed march while carrying a heavy pack, which must be completed in under two hours. Almost 8,000 soldiers one in ten of the total strength of the Army have failed to beat the clock in the past 12 months. Last night, former infantry commander Colonel Richard Kemp said top brass should be stricter with soldiers who cant keep pace or slim down. It is embarrassing to see troops in such poor physical condition wearing the uniform. They are only retained because of the manpower crisis which the Government has failed to solve, he said. These individuals would be a danger to themselves and others in any sort of fighting situation. 'They are expensive to retain and to do so is a waste of resources. A day with family spent by the pool has turned deadly after a young man died when he fell from a three-storey building. The 21-year-old was celebrating Australia Day by the pool with his family in Putney, in Sydney's north-west, on Saturday night. He attempted to jump into a pool from the balcony, which was about 10 metres high. A day with family spent by the pool has turned deadly after a young man died when he fell from a three-storey building (stock image) As he jumped, he miscalculated the distance and fell onto the pavement below. Emergency services were called to the home on McGowan Street just before 6pm after reports the man was injured. Paramedics treated him at the scene before he was rushed to Royal North Shore Hospital in a critical condition. He later died in hospital. Officers from Ryde Police Area Command are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident but aren't treating it as suspicious. A report is being prepared for the Coroner. Police are pleading with people to take care and be safe as long weekend celebrations continue. Theresa May faces an all-out assault on Tuesday as hundreds of Brexit blocker MPs try to grab control and delay Britains departure from the EU. The Prime Minister is braced for a series of crippling attempts to destroy her wafer-thin grip on the Commons from Labour and Tory Remainers, with Downing Street expecting defeat over its battle to keep a No Deal option. More than a dozen amendments have been tabled for the Brexit update to the Commons that was forced on Mrs May by Tory Remainer Dominic Grieve. Downing Street fears that Speaker John Bercow, pictured, will side with the Brexit blockers by ignoring attempts by Mrs May to use her amendments to unite her party and her DUP allies And Downing Street fears that Speaker John Bercow will side with the Brexit blockers by ignoring attempts by Mrs May to use her own amendments to unite her party and her DUP allies behind changes to her Brussels deal. Mrs May is expected to give ground on Brexiteer demands to return to the EU and demand changes to the Northern Irish backstop, with several backbench amendments tabled. Amendments with Government support would usually be called by the Speaker, but Mr Bercow has repeatedly shown he is prepared to ignore such conventions. One Downing Street insider said they would be pleasantly surprised if Mr Bercow lifted so much as a finger to help, with Mrs May facing the nightmare of being sent back to the Brussels negotiating chamber naked. A separate Government source warned it would be tin hats on should the Speaker fail to call a helpful amendment a move that would trigger major uproar on the Government benches. More than a dozen amendments have been tabled for the Brexit update to the Commons that was forced on Mrs May by Tory Remainer Dominic Grieve, right. A major threat to Brexit has also emerged from Labours Yvette Cooper, left, whose amendment would let Parliament seize control of Brexit if Mrs May does not pass her deal by next month Last night some MPs were even urging an orchestrated Commons walk-out to try to destroy Mr Bercows authority. A major threat to Brexit has also emerged from Labours Yvette Cooper, whose amendment would let Parliament seize control of Brexit if Mrs May does not pass her deal by next month. The former Work and Pensions Secretary, whose husband Ed Balls was Shadow Chancellor, will this week seek to move an amendment that could push Brexit back from March 29 to the end of the year. But analysis by the Change Britain campaign, which is pro-Leave, shows almost 90 per cent of those supporting Ms Coopers attempt to seize power have backed previous attempts to water down or halt Brexit. Mrs May, pictured, is expected to give ground on demands to return to the EU and demand changes to the Northern Irish backstop Thirty-eight of the 103 signatories voted against starting the process to leave the EU, and 43 represent constituencies that voted Leave. Ms Cooper sparked fury both from Labour voters in her Leave-supporting Yorkshire constituency and pro-Brexit MPs over her bid to delay the UKs departure. The plan has sparked fear among Brexiteer MPs because unlike other rebel amendments to block a No Deal Brexit, Ms Coopers motion could lead to the Prime Minister being legally obliged via a cross-party Bill to postpone the departure. Yesterday, Leave-supporting Labour MPs joined with Brexit-backing voters in Ms Coopers constituency to condemn her move. Manchester MP Graham Stringer, who backed Ms Cooper when she ran for the Labour leadership in 2015, urged her to think again. He said: I would ask her to reflect that not only her own constituency but the whole country voted by a clear majority to leave. If we betray Brexit, the Labour vote in our Northern heartlands is likely to go down at the next Election not up. That may not be obvious to our Labour colleagues in metropolitan, Remain-voting London, but its clear as a pikestaff to Northerners like me. Fellow Labour Brexiteer Kate Hoey, MP for Vauxhall, said: Most of the supporters of the Yvette Cooper amendment are MPs who want to stop us ever leaving. Ms Coopers seat of Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford voted massively for Brexit, with more than 69 per cent of voters backing Leave in the referendum. A petition has already been launched locally to get the MP deselected as official Labour candidate at the next Election. One retired worker from the seat, Denis Speight, 76, said I voted for Yvette Cooper but I dont agree with what she is doing now. I see it as a betrayal. Ms Cooper yesterday denied she was out to block Brexit, saying her plans for a cross-party Bill would just allow Parliament to decide if we need more time to avoid a No Deal. Additional reporting: Nigel Bunyan Increasing numbers of young girls in Britain are being subjected to a 'barbaric' practice of having their breasts 'ironed' to stop them growing, it is claimed. As many as 1,000 women and girls in this country are feared to have been forced to undergo the painful and dangerous procedure, which involves having their chests pressed down with a hot stone to delay breast formation. Campaigners, church ministers and medics say it is taking place in UK cities, and that they have seen girls who have suffered serious health problems as a result of having their chests flattened. The ritual is thought to be mainly carried out by mothers and grandmothers from African countries, who believe that stunting the growth of girls' breasts will protect them from male attention. But unlike another harmful cultural practice, female genital mutilation (FGM), which is the subject of a multi-million-pound campaign by Ministers and police forces, there is currently little action being taken to investigate or stop breast-ironing from taking place. Stones like these are heated and are used for breast ironing on girls in a bid to stop them from growing Maria Miller, Conservative MP who chairs the Women and Equalities Select Committee has spoken out over the issue Maria Miller, Conservative MP and chairman of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, said: 'I think public service providers have to have the support to challenge what are abusive and barbaric practices.' Breast-ironing is particularly prevalent in Cameroon but is now feared to take place in Britain among African immigrant families. Community workers in London, Yorkshire, Essex and the West Midlands told the Guardian newspaper that pre-teen girls from the migrant communities of several African countries had been subjected to the practice. One activist claimed she knew of as many as 20 recent cases in Croydon alone, and said: 'It's usually done in the UK, not abroad like FGM.' Anti-FGM campaigner and psychotherapist Leyla Hussein said she had spoken to five women in her North London clinic who were all British citizens and had all undergone breast-ironing. And nurse Jennifer Miraj said she had seen more than 20 confirmed cases, including a ten-year-old girl who had developed an infection from the practice. Female relatives of a pre-pubescent girl will use hot stones to massage her breast tissue in an attempt to stunt its growth, and then repeat the practice as often as once a week. The perpetrators consider it a traditional practice that protects girls from unwanted male attention, sexual harassment and rape. But experts regard it as a form of abuse that could lead to psychological damage as well as physical injuries including infections, the inability to breastfeed, deformities and even breast cancer. Unlike FGM, there is no specific law against breast-ironing in the UK but if cases were reported to the police, they would be treated as child abuse. Inspector Allen Davis of the Metropolitan Police said: 'If I knew it was happening, I would do something about it. People have to recognise these practices for what they are child abuse.' The Government has insisted that it is 'absolutely committed' to stamping out the practice. But activists and social workers claim that little has been done so far. Health Secretary Matt Hancock today ordered web giants to crack down on suicide and self-harm images online or face new laws to stop vulnerable children being bombarded with the horrific material. He said it was appalling how easy it still was to access such harmful content online. But the Minister said it was now time for internet and social media providers to step up and purge this content once and for all. His intervention comes just days after the father of a 14-year-old who killed herself after viewing online images glorifying suicide called on social media firms to clean up their act. Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died in November 2017, even accused Instagram of helping to kill her. His intervention comes just days after the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell (pictured) who killed herself after viewing online images glorifying suicide called on social media firms to clean up their act Father Ian Russell (pictured) said his daughter took her own life after looking at pictures on the social network that glorified suicide In a letter to web giants Facebook (which owns Instagram), Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Apple and Google, father-of-three Mr Hancock spoke of his horror as a parent at Mollys death and signalled he was moved to intervene by Mr Russells remarks. Mr Hancock wrote: Molly was just two years older than my own daughter is now and I feel desperately concerned to ensure young people are protected. The grief Mollys parents feel is something no one should have to experience. Every suicide is a preventable death, including Mollys. And he paid tribute to Mr Russell, writing: I was inspired by the bravery of Mollys father, who spoke out about the role of social media in this tragedy. In a letter to web giants Facebook (which owns Instagram), Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Apple and Google, father-of-three Mr Hancock spoke of his horror as a parent at Mollys death and signalled he was moved to intervene by Mr Russells remarks Noting that suicide was now the leading cause of death for young people under 20, he said: As Health Secretary, I am particularly concerned about content that leads to self-harm and promotes suicide. The Government was developing proposals to address all online harms including suicidal and self-harm content and to work with social media providers, he said. Setting out his aim to make the UK the safest place to be online for everyone, he warned service providers: Let me be clear, we will introduce new legislation where needed. Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly (pictured) died in November 2017, even accused Instagram of helping to kill her Mr Hancock added: Research shows that people who are feeling suicidal use the internet to search for suicide methods. 'Websites provide graphic details and information on how to take your own life. This cannot be right. Where this content breaches the policies of internet and social media providers, it must be removed. Molly Russell died after being sucked into what her father described as a digital club on the photo-sharing site. On it, users shared material focusing on depression, self-harm and suicide. In a statement last week, Instagram said it does not allow content that promotes or glorifies self-harm or suicide and will remove content of this kind. For confidential support, log on to samaritans.org or call the Samaritans on 116123. Catherine Tate became engaged to American screenwriter Jeff Gutheim (together), a divorced father of three, over the New Year She first appeared on Doctor Who as a runaway bride but Catherine Tate has never pledged to tie the knot. Until now, that is. The comedian best known for her catchphrase Am I bovvered? is planning to wed for the first time at the age of 50, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. She became engaged to American screenwriter Jeff Gutheim, a divorced father of three, over the New Year and the pair are planning a summer wedding. The comic was previously in a long-term relationship with stage manager Twig Clark, 45, the father of her 16-year-old daughter. The pair split in 2011 and Ms Tate was then briefly linked to Take That star Jason Orange before starting a relationship with broadcaster Adrian Chiles, which reportedly ended in December 2013. Catherine and Jeff have known each other for years, said a source. Jeff is a screenwriter, so he and Catherine have been working on several writing projects together. Hes a funny, good-looking guy but its been hard for his ex-wife to deal with the fact that he is dating someone so famous. Mr Gutheim, 52, is considerably less well-known than his fiancee. His work includes a 2005 teen comedy called Full Of It, which starred Baywatch actress Carmen Electra, and a 2009 comedy called Knucklehead, starring wrestler Big Show. The romance is believed to have begun after Mr Gutheim split from his British-born wife of 19 years, Tracey. The couple have three children, aged 20, 16 and 14. Ms Tate started a relationship with broadcaster Adrian Chiles in 2011, which reportedly ended in December 2013 (pictured in Los Angeles) Ms Tate moved to America in 2011 when she landed a role in the US version of The Office, but maintains a London home. Catherine is known in the US but shes not the household name there that she is in Britain, said the source. Thats why she and Jeff have been able to keep their relationship under the radar. Its not like they have been hiding. Theyve been quite open about their relationship and have been talking openly about getting married. They are very much in love and blissfully happy. They cant wait to start this next chapter of their lives together. Ms Tate's popular characters include foul-mouthed pensioner Nan and surly teenage Lauren Coope (pictured) The pair are said to be planning to split their time between Hollywood and Britain once they are married. Ms Tate shot to fame with her BBC2 sketch show in 2004, and has gone on to earn a reported 5 million fortune thanks to her gift for both comedy and serious acting. Last night, she finished a sell-out West End run of a stage version of her comedy show featuring popular characters such as foul-mouthed pensioner Nan and surly teenage Lauren Cooper. Ms Tate has also performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the National Theatre, while she famously played Donna Noble opposite David Tennant in Doctor Who. She first appeared in the shows 2006 Christmas special entitled The Runaway Bride before becoming the Doctors regular companion for the fourth series in 2008. She last appeared in the show for a 2010 Christmas edition. She is also the voice of Magica De Spell in Disneys animated series DuckTales. Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar has come under fire from conservatives, after a letter she wrote urging a judge to show 'compassion' when sentencing nine men accused of attempting to joining ISIS, reemerged on social media. Minnesota-born Guled Omar, 22, and eight other young men were facing decades behind bars in 2016 after they were found guilty of conspiring to travel to Syria and fight for the Islamic State, during the peak of the terror group's reign in the Middle-East. In a bid to implement a 'system of compassion' rather than alienation, Omar - who at the time was a state representative for Minnesota - wrote a letter to US District Judge Michael Davis. 'The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion,' she wrote. Ilhan Omar (pictured) came under fire from conservatives this week, after a letter she wrote to a judge asking for more lenient sentences for men convicted of trying to fight for ISIS reemerged on social media 'We must alter our attitude and approach; if we truly want to effect change, we should refocus our efforts on inclusion and rehabilitation.' Omar urged Davis to give the men less severe sentences, fearing harsh punishments would only help to fuel perceptions of marginalization among already disillusioned minorities and potential extremists. 'Incarcerating 20-year-old men for 30 or 40 years is essentially a life sentence,' the letter continued. 'Society will have no expectations of the to-be 50- or 60-year-old released prisoners; it will view them with distrust and revulsion.' In the letter, Omar said 'life-sentences' would only fuel perceptions of marginalization among already disillusioned minorities and potential extremists Omar, who in November became one of the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress, argued that imparting drastic sentences on those who chose violence to combat marginalization shows that 'our justice system misunderstands the guilty.' In the 2016 trial, the Somali-American's point reaffirmed by the man labelled the leader of the prospective ISIS soldiers, Guled Omar, who in a teary statement told the judge: 'I always had energy for justice as a young man, but I lost my way.' But conservatives were retrospectively dissatisfied with Omar's blanket approach to the nine men, as, unlike Guled, not all defendants exhibited remorse. 'I was not going there to pass out medical kits or food. I was going strictly to fight and kill on behalf of the Islamic state,' said Abdirahman Yasin Daud. All the men were given sentences of at least 15 years, with Daud given 30. The letter was addressed to US District Judge Michael Davis (pictured), who was residing over the case of nine Minnesota men who were accused of conspiring to flee the country and fight for the Islamic State Sentiments of her letter were echoed in Guled Omar's (left) sentencing hearing, were he said he had 'lost his way'. Though conservatives are dissatisfied with the blanket approach of the letter, as another defendant, Abdirahman Yasin Daud showed no remorse Omar's letter resurfaced on social media this week during a spate of criticism from Republicans regarding her comments about the 'MAGA' hat-wearing Convington High School students and her claim that President Trump was backing a far-right 'coup in Venezuela'. It's emergence was met with hundreds of calls for Omar to resign. On Tuesday night, Omar came under an avalanche of scrutiny after she tweeted that the Convington students were 'protesting a woman's right to choose & yelled "it's not rape if you enjoy it."' The claim was later found to be inaccurate and Omar deleted the tweet. 'Wow. This is mind-bendingly false,' replied Fox News contributor, Guy Benson. Boris Johnson's girlfriend Carrie Symonds, 30, holds a sign saying 'love' at the anti-whaling demonstration in central London While Boris Johnson is trying to plot his way to No 10, his First Lady was yesterday taking her first steps in public life alongside his father Stanley. Girlfriend Carrie Symonds, a former Tory Party spin doctor, was the centre of media attention when she addressed an anti-whaling protest in London. Ms Symonds, 30, who started dating the married ex-Foreign Secretary, 54, last summer, joined demonstrators opposing Japans plans to resume commercial whaling for the first time in three decades. While Mr Johnson stayed away from the event, his 78-year-old conservationist father was happy to pose with Ms Symonds, who is now an adviser to the financial firm Bloomberg. She told the protesters: There can be no good reason to resume commercial whaling. We human beings are the custodian of this planet. Her comments echo a newspaper column written by Mr Johnson four weeks ago, when he launched a scathing attack on the Japanese government for the brutal harpooning of beautiful, intelligent and endangered mammals. He wrote: Just you try and be harpooned. You see how you like it. It can take hours for whales to die in extreme agony. To skewer such a creature, with a barbed and inaccurate lance, seems almost blasphemously cruel. Stanley Johnson, 78, was happy to pose with Ms Symonds at the protest outside the Japanese Embassy in central London Ms Symonds, pictured at the demonstration, and Boris Johnson started dating last summer The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this month that Mr Johnson had started divorce proceedings and was in a serious relationship with Ms Symonds. Although the couple have been pictured together, they have yet to make a joint public appearance. It emerged in September that Mr Johnson and his wife Marina were planning to split up after 25 years of marriage. Friends say he has been trying to keep his new relationship discreet out of consideration for her. Speaking to the media yesterday, Ms Symonds said: The main reason often given for whaling is that its tradition. 'But I think this is the kind of tradition that should remain in the dustbin of history. She declined to comment on Mr Johnson. Jacob Rees-Mogg is hosting secret Back Boris dinners for Conservative MPs at his London townhouse in preparation for an expected leadership contest this summer, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The powerful Tory Brexiteer has organised a series of discreet wine-fuelled soirees at his 6 million Westminster home in an attempt to boost the former Foreign Secretarys following in the Commons. While Mr Johnson has long been the most popular choice among Tory party members to succeed Theresa May, it falls to Conservative MPs to decide through a series of votes which two candidates go into the final ballot, in which rank-and-file members vote... and his allies fear that he will not make the cut. Jacob Rees-Mogg, pictured outside his home in London, has been hosting secret Back Boris dinners in preparation for an expected leadership contest this summer The jockeying for the leadership has become increasingly unsubtle since Decembers no confidence vote, when 117 Tory MPs failed to back Mrs May. Most of the potential candidates are working on the assumption a contest will be triggered after Brexit, to allow a new leader to be in place by the end of the summer. Among those expected to run are Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss, ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis and, a dark horse candidate, former Chief Whip Mark Harper. The guests invited by Mr Rees-Mogg to the Back Boris dinners have been predominantly, but not exclusively, members of the 2015 and 2017 intake of Tory MPs. Boris Johnson, pictured with Carrie Symonds, is one of the potential candidates expected to run in the next leadership race They listen to Mr Rees-Mogg paying tribute to the virtues of Mr Johnson who then addresses the gatherings. Last night, Mr Rees-Mogg confirmed he was hosting dinners involving Mr Johnson and other Tory MPs at the five-storey, 18th Century mansion he owns just 300 yards from the House of Commons. He said: If there were a contest tomorrow I would back Boris Johnson. But theres no vacancy, so theres no campaign. He also insisted the dinners he is hosting are relatively informal conversations to see where people in the party are. The revelation comes as both Mr Rees-Mogg and Mr Johnson have indicated a weakening in their opposition to Mrs Mays Brexit deal. They have been spooked by cross-party moves, led by former Tory Attorney General Dominic Grieve and Labour MP Yvette Cooper, to delay or soften Brexit. Both men have grown increasingly alarmed that if Mrs Mays deal is blocked they could lose Brexit completely. The North East Somerset MP has told friends: It is time to compromise. Last weeks Mail on Sunday revealed how Mr Rees-Mogg was relaxing his opposition to Mrs Mays deal. He wrote in this newspaper: If I had to choose between no deal and Mrs Mays original accord, I would have no hesitation of opting for a no-deal Brexit but even Mrs Mays deal would be better than not leaving at all. Friends of Mr Johnson have also indicated he would support the Prime Ministers deal if she succeeded in removing the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, which would keep the province tied to Brussels rules. MPs listen to Mr Rees-Mogg paying tribute to the virtues of Mr Johnson, pictured in the House of Commons, who then addresses the gatherings at the London dinner parties Mrs May faces another day of drama on Tuesday, over a series of amendments placed by opponents of Brexit including one by Ms Cooper which would hand Parliament the power to demand a delay to Brexit. Downing Street is hopeful the party will unite around an amendment tabled by Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee. It calls for the Irish backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border, but supports leaving the EU with a deal and would therefore support the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change. But the selection of which amendments are debated and voted on is the gift of Speaker John Bercow, who has so far proved deeply reluctant to help the Government. Such is the backlog of legislation which needs to be cleared before Brexit, No.10 is considering radical extensions to MPs sitting hours. It means they could be in the Chamber from 9am until midnight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and even have to work through the February recess. After Mrs May lost the meaningful vote earlier this month, Mr Rees-Mogg angered No 10 when he celebrated by throwing a Gatsby champagne party in the house for Tory Right-wingers including former Iain Duncan Smith, John Whittingdale and Mr Johnson. The former London Mayor recently seen out with new girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, 30 has struggled to build a supporter network among backbench Tory MPs. One said: He might be one of the few politicians known by his first name but hes never really been a House of Commons man. Hes always been a bit aloof. It means he hasnt got that much of an enthusiastic following on the Tory benches. A Johnson ally hit back, saying: Its not fair to criticise Boris for not being personally well known by colleagues. Hes always been centrestage in a way ordinary backbenchers arent when they first come in. He was London Mayor, then led the Leave campaign and after that was Foreign Secretary. Steve Bray, who howls Stop Brexit at the gates of Parliament, has moved into a 6 million house opposite Jacob Rees-Mogg But watch out chaps, look who's moved in to mansion next door! By Harry Cole, Deputy Political Editor An eccentric Welshman who spends all day howling Stop Brexit at the gates of Parliament has moved into a 6 million house opposite Jacob Rees-Mogg, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Rare coin collector turned political activist Steve Bray, nicknamed Stop Brexit Man, is using thousands of pounds raised from supporters to rent the luxury townhouse on one of the most exclusive streets in Britain. Mr Bray, 48, of Port Talbot, has held a daily vigil dressed in a blue top hat and EU/Union flag cape since 2017, but he shot to notoriety after heckling Mr Rees-Mogg on TV last autumn, branding the Brexiteer a disgrace. Now their political battle is dividing the millionaires row of Cowley Street in the heart of Westminster. He has asked members of the public to provide him with more than 12,000 to fund his lavish pad for two months in the run-up to Britains departure from the EU on March 29. He is also understood to have received a private donation from plumbing magnate Charlie Mullins. Mr Rees-Mogg, who was unaware of his new neighbour, said: Should he wish to borrow a cup of sugar, he would be very welcome. Steve Bray, pictured outside the townhouse he is renting opposite Jacob Rees-Mogg's home, has held a daily vigil dressed in a blue top hat and EU/Union flag cape since 2017 An eccentric Welshman who spends all day howling Stop Brexit at the gates of Parliament has moved into a 6 million house opposite Jacob Rees-Mogg, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Rare coin collector turned political activist Steve Bray, nicknamed Stop Brexit Man, is using thousands of pounds raised from supporters to rent the luxury townhouse on one of the most exclusive streets in Britain. Mr Bray, 48, of Port Talbot, has held a daily vigil dressed in a blue top hat and EU/Union flag cape since 2017, but he shot to notoriety after heckling Mr Rees-Mogg on TV last autumn, branding the Brexiteer a disgrace. Now their political battle is dividing the millionaires row of Cowley Street in the heart of Westminster. He has asked members of the public to provide him with more than 12,000 to fund his lavish pad for two months in the run-up to Britains departure from the EU on March 29. He is also understood to have received a private donation from plumbing magnate Charlie Mullins. Mr Rees-Mogg, who was unaware of his new neighbour, said: Should he wish to borrow a cup of sugar, he would be very welcome. Dakota Theriot, 21, is wanted in Louisiana for the fatal shootings of five people on Saturday morning. The suspect allegedly opened fire on a family of three before gunning down his own parents across two Louisiana neighborhoods outside of Baton Rouge The five people killed after a 21-year-old shot dead his parents and three other people across two Louisiana neighborhoods have been pictured. Police say suspected gunman Dakota Theriot is still at large hours after the shooting spree on Saturday morning. The suspect allegedly opened fire on Billy Ernest, 43, Tanner Ernest, 17, and Summer Ernest, 20, in Livingston Parish before fatally shooting his parents Elizabeth Theriot, 50, and Keith Theriot, 50, at their home in Ascension Parish, east of Baton Rouge, shortly before 9am. A motive in the killings has not been revealed, but authorities believe it was a 'boyfriend [and] girlfriend type of dispute', according to WAFB. 'He lived there with the mom and dad for a little while, but was recently asked to leave with some disagreements,' Ascension Sheriff Bobby Webre said. 'But no idea why he would do anything like this.' 'This is probably one of the worst domestic violence [incidents] Ive seen in quite a while. For a young man to walk into a bedroom and kill his mother and his father, and then kill friends in Livingston that he had a connection with.' Theriot is wanted for at least two counts of first-degree murder, illegal use of a weapon, and home invasion in connection to both shootings. He has yet to be charged in Livingston. Video courtesy WVLA Authorities say Dakota Theriot shot his parents Keith Theriot, 50, and Elizabeth Theriot, 50, at their home in Ascension Parish around 9am Saturday morning Before shooting his parents, Theriot allegedly shot dead Summer Ernest, 20, (above) and two of her family members. Facebook indicates that Theriot and Summer Ernest were friends Summer Ernest's 17-year-old brother Tanner and her father Billy, 43, were shot and killed Facebook indicates that Theriot and Summer Ernest were friends. Ernest even liked a few of Theriot's last posts before the killings. According to the Ernests' neighbor, two of the family's youngest children came to her home on Saturday morning looking for help. 'It's so heartbreaking,' Charlenne Bordelon explained to the Advocate, adding that the children were under the age of eight and in the home at the time of the killings. Authorities describe the suspect as 'armed and dangerous'. They think he may be heading towards Mississippi in a 2004 Dodge Ram pickup truck with license plate number C583809. It is described as being grey on the top and silver on the bottom. Authorities described Theriot as 'armed and dangerous'. His motive in the fatal shootings has not been revealed The mobile home where Theriot allegedly killed his parents is pictured above. A neighbor said he had recently heard a number of arguments at the home Investigators are pictured at the scene of Keith and Elizabeth Theriot's murders Police have said they think the suspect may be heading towards Mississippi in a 2004 Dodge Ram pickup truck with license plate number C583809 (above) Michael Logan, who lives next door to the mobile home where the Theriots were killed, told The Advocate he heard an ambulance Saturday morning and looked outside to see the mayhem as police arrived. Deputies later searched a barn behind his house to see if the gunman was hiding there, Logan said. The neighbor said that he didn't know the Theriot family very well and had only had a couple casual conversations with them when they saw one another outside. Logan also noted that he'd overheard several arguments at the home lately. 'There's been a lot of yelling matches,' usually at night, he said. He said he was shocked to learn of the grisly double-homicide that took place right next door, adding that 'nothing crazy like this' happens in the area. 'Any time you hear of a shooting this close to home, it's never good. It never gives you a good feeling,' he said. Authorities have asked anyone with information regarding shootings or Theriot's whereabouts to call the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office at (225) 686-2241 ext. 1 or Crime Stoppers at (225) 344-7867. President Donald Trump has accused special counsel Robert Mueller of applying a double legal standard in his prosecution of Roger Stone, and also tweeted about building the wall. 'If Roger Stone was indicted for lying to Congress, what about the lying done by Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Lisa Page & lover, Baker and soooo many others?' Trump tweeted on Saturday morning. He was referring to former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director James Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and fired FBI employees Page and Peter Strozk. Trump did not specify what he believes they lied to Congress about. 'What about Hillary to FBI and her 33,000 deleted Emails? What about Lisa & Peter's deleted texts & Wiener's laptop? Much more!' Trump continued, returning to a favorite topic. President Donald Trump has accused special counsel Robert Mueller of applying a double legal standard in his prosecution of Roger Stone Lying to Congress is a very rare charge. Mueller's (right) team, in addition to charging Stone (left) with the unusual crime, also charged Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen with it Lying to Congress is a very rare charge. Mueller's team, in addition to charging Stone with the unusual crime, also charged Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty. 'Almost no one is prosecuted for lying to Congress,' attorney PJ Meitl wrote in a 2006 law review article on the topic, adding, 'in fact, only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress in the last sixty years.' Trump continued on with a series of tweets vowing to build a southern border wall, a day after backing down from his wall funding demand in order to reopen the government. He said that he would continue to press Congressional Democrats over the three weeks of funded government to press them for a deal. '21 days goes very quickly. Negotiations with Democrats will start immediately. Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in,' Trump wrote. 'The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue. We will build the Wall!' He said that a wall would deter migrant caravans. 'We have turned away, at great expense, two major Caravans, but a big one has now formed and is coming,' Trump wrote. 'At least 8000 people! If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldnt even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall!' He also quoted Mark Morgan, the former Border Patrol chief under Barack Obama, who has spoken out strongly in favor of a southern border wall, as saying 'we absolutely need a physical barrier or wall.' Trump said there was no good reason not to support a wall. 'Only fools, or people with a political agenda, dont want a Wall or Steel Barrier to protect our Country from Crime, Drugs and Human Trafficking. It will happen - it always does!' he wrote. The 35-day government shutdown battle left White House staffers feeling deflated as if they had wasted the month, CNN claimed citing unnamed aides and outside advisers. Jerome Marciniak, 59, was arrested on Wednesday after leaning through the car window of a female driver in Florida, and trying to rob her at knife-point A brazen thief who climbed through a woman's window at a drive-thru ATM brandishing a knife has been arrested, Florida police revealed on Thursday. On January 23, Jerome Marciniak, 59, approached the drivers side of a white Toyota Prius that had pulled up next to a Regions Bank ATM in Tampa Bay. Brandishing a four-inch knife, Marciniak approached the victim's car window and allegedly demanded the money that she had just withdrawn, according to police. When she refused, Marciniak leaned into the vehicle and demanded the victim hand over her car as well. He then crawled through the window, over the victim and sat down in the passenger seat. The victim then claims he pulled the keys out from the ignition and began waving the blade around at her. Marciniak (right) approached the victim's car window and allegedly demanded the money that she had just withdrawn When she refused, Marciniak leaned into the vehicle and demanded the victim hand over her car The unnamed woman managed to snatch the keys back from the assailant and attempted to wrestle the knife from his hands. Marcinak reportedly swabbed a $1 bill from the foot-well of the car and fled out the passenger door. The victim suffered deep cuts to her right hand and fingers in the altercation. He then crawled through the window, over the victim and sat down in the passenger seat The attempted burglary took place at the Hillsborough Avenue West Regions Bank ATM in Tampa Bay, Florida He was later arrested by officers without incident near the city center. Marciniak was charged with armed burglary with a deadly weapon, armed burglary of a conveyance with battery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He is currently being held at the Hillsborough County Jail, on a bail bond of $67,500. A doctors wife went on wild spending sprees after the powerful drugs she was prescribed to fight Parkinsons disease turned her into a shopaholic, a court heard. Hazel Kennedys shopping habit became pathological after she was given tablets to deal with a tremor, a judge was told. She also became obsessed by her crafts hobby, making teddy bears and upholstering chairs for up to 48 hours without sleep. She once placed 200 bids on eBay in a single night, the court heard, with the endless stream of delivery vans arriving at her Southampton home a standing joke among her neighbours. Londons High Court was told the retired teacher later discovered she had never had Parkinsons. The drugs triggeres impulse control disorder (ICD) in some patients and led the doctor's wife to go on wild spending sprees Mrs Justice Yip said the drugs she was prescribed triggered uncontrolled spending in the 56-year-old and nearly destroyed her marriage to retired consultant neurologist Dr Philip Kennedy, who suspected Parkinsons when she developed a left arm tremor in 2006. He asked a former colleague, Dr Jonathan Frankel, a specialist in movement disorders, to see his wife privately, but free of charge. He prescribed dopamine agonists, which act on the nervous system, after diagnosing Parkinsons, the court heard. The judge said the drugs were known to trigger behavioural changes including impulse control disorder (ICD) in some patients. Concerns over Mrs Kennedys spending first began to surface when she discovered eBay, said Mrs Justice Yip, adding: She had some orders sent to her mothers home so that her husband would not see how much she was ordering. Hazel Kennedys shopping habit became pathological as a result of the drug. It later emerged she did not have Parkinson's disease Her spending obsession started to surface when she discovered eBay By 2010, Dr Kennedy noticed his wife was spending more time and money on her hobbies. It eventually became pathological, he said, and she began to develop symptoms of psychosis. A specialist Parkinsons nurse wrote to Dr Frankel in 2011, concerned Mrs Kennedy had developed an ICD in the form of compulsive buying. In a ruling last week, the judge said when Dr Frankel saw Mrs Kennedy in October 2011, he should have advised her to reduce her dose or switch medication. Finding Dr Frankel breached his duty of care to Mrs Kennedy, the judge said: A change in medication at this time would have led to her recovering quickly from the ICD. The court heard Mrs Kennedy managed to come off the drugs in 2013 after another doctor confirmed she did not have Parkinsons. Finding in Mrs Kennedys favour, the judge said Dr Frankel had acted in good faith, but he fell below the required standard of care. The ruling means Mrs Kennedy is entitled to compensation for the impact ICD had on her after the 2011 consultation. The judge urged both sides to reach an agreement on the amount of compensation. Elderly former IRA terrorists are being brought out of 'retirement' to exploit tensions in Northern Ireland over Brexit, The Mail on Sunday has learned. Sources say the New IRA, formed in 2012, is planning a 'five to six-week campaign of violence and disruption' across Northern Ireland immediately after March 29, when Britain is due to leave the EU. The Ministry of Defence has put all military bases in the province on red alert. A photograph taken on January 14 at a base next to Belfast International Airport shows a sign warning military personnel they face a 'severe' terror threat level. MI5 has more than 700 officers stationed in Belfast to combat the threat, The Times has reported. The New IRA, already regarded as highly dangerous by police and security services, has been bolstered by veterans offering tactical expertise. Security forces in Northern Ireland have had to deal with two further bomb scares as tensions heightened in the country A warning sign at a military base in Northern Ireland ahead of the explosion in Londonderry put the threat level at severe. They are now on red alert They gave up violence after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian conflict. But the possibility of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic has tempted them back. A republican source said: 'These former fighters may be getting on a bit, but they are all seasoned, experienced men who still have a lot to offer the movement and can train, advise, guide and boost morale.' The New IRA was behind the car bombing a week ago outside a courthouse in Londonderry, an attack aimed at testing new recruits and equipment. Now it is feared that the terror group said by one source to be 'awash with cash and guns' plans to carry out almost daily attacks after March 29. The remains of the car that was earlier hijacked and packed with explosives before being detonated outside the courthouse in Londonderry, Northern Ireland as fears rise the New IRA is plotting a campaign of disruption after Brexit The aftermath of a suspected car bomb is seen in Londonderry in Northern Ireland Forensic officers were called to the scene following the suspected Londonderry bomb attack. Fears are there will be an escalation of violent with the looming Brexit deadline Hundreds of MI5 officers are being stationed in Belfast to combat the new threat This newspaper has been told that security officials are warning internally that fortified structures installed to enforce a hard border would become targets, putting the lives of police and customs officers in danger. A police source said: 'We are expecting the worst and planning for the worst. What we are seeing now, particularly in Londonderry, is that former Provisionals, who supported the Good Friday Agreement, have decided to throw their lot in with the New IRA. 'Our intelligence shows that these are not 'ceasefire soldiers' who joined in the 1990s. These are veteran, experienced Provisional IRA terrorists who were at the front line of the terror campaign in the 1980s. They are experts at manufacturing bombs. They are extremely good at targeting people for murder. They are good at planning operations. 'So these are formidable people we are now having to deal with, both overtly and covertly.' This is the dramatic moment a woman is pulled from the mud by a helicopter rescue team after a dam has collapsed in Brazil leaving at least 40 people dead and more than 300 missing. The footage shows workers haul a woman from the mud as rescuers desperately search for survivors after the collapse of a dam holding back mine waste. The dam, controlled by Vale mining company, broke early Friday afternoon, and houses in Brumandinho, in the state of Minas Gerais, were evacuated. The death toll from the tailings dams rupture on Friday at Vale's Corrego do Feijao iron ore mine in Minas Gerais state is expected to rise sharply, with more than 300 still missing in the country's worst mining disaster since 2015. A woman is pulled from the mud as rescuers search for survivors after the collapse of a dam holding back mine waste Helicopters (pictured) plucked people covered in mud from the disaster area, including a woman with a fractured hip who was among eight injured people taken to hospital, officials said Rescue officials announced the death toll had more than tripled through the day as more and more bodies were pulled from the mud. Helicopters plucked people covered in mud from the disaster area, including a woman with a fractured hip who was among eight injured people taken to hospital, officials said. A statement from the fire brigade issued in Belo Horizonte city said scores of people were trapped in areas by the river of sludge released by the dam failure. According to the fire service and the civil defense corp, residents living in the lower part of the city have been removed from their houses. Aerial view taken after the collapse of a dam which belonged to Brazil's giant mining company Vale, near the town of Brumadinho Firemen looking for people in heavy machinery (L and R) and a locomotive (C) after the collapse A state of emergency has been declared, and an emergency task force along with political leaders from the Minas Gerais government are already at the site of the disaster in Brumadinho. A spokesperson said: 'The government of Minas Gerais has already designated the formation of a strategic crisis office to closely monitor the actions. 'Every state apparatus has been mobilised and moved to the Brumadinho region where the disruption occurred, to closely follow the actions and collaborate in what is necessary. 'We emphasise that, in this first moment, the main concern is to provide all the assistance to the victims.' Aerial footage reveals extent of flooding after Brazil dams collapse, pictured are nearby fields There are fears the disaster, which unleashed a torrent of mud towards the town of Brumadinho, caused a number of deaths President Jair Bolsonaro has already convened an emergency meeting. Alexandre Lucas, national secretary for Civil Defence, said: 'The entire federal government is already mobilised to act in the relief and response to the rupture of the dam in Brumadinho. A National Civil Defence team headed by me is already moving to the region to support state and municipal operations.' Vale is Brazil's largest mining company. Two hours after the accident, Vale stocks fell 10 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. President Jair Bolsonaro sent a tweet saying he lamented the incident and was sending the three cabinet ministers to the area. Vale Mining Company issued a statement lamenting the accident, saying: 'Vale reports that, at the beginning of this afternoon, Dam 1 of Feijao Mine was broken in Brumadinho (MG). 'The company deeply regrets the accident and is making every effort to help and assist those affected. 'There were employees in the administrative area, which was hit by the (mud slide), indicating the possibility, not yet confirmed, of victims. Part of the Vila Ferteco community was also hit. 'Rescue and care of the wounded are being carried out on site by the Fire Department and Civil Defence. There is still no confirmation as to what has caused the accident. President Jair Bolsonaro has already convened an emergency meeting as a result of the collapse Rescue crew work in a tailings dam owned by Brazilian miner Vale SA that burst 'The top priority of the company right now is to provide support and to help preserve and protect the lives of employees and local communities. 'Vale will continue to provide information as soon as it is confirmed.' Vale said there were employees in the administrative buildings of the dam that were covered by the surge of mud and water and there could be casualties in that area. The mud hit parts of the local community Vila Forteco, near the town of Brumadinho, where families were told to evacuate their homes in low-lying areas, authorities said. Brazil's environmental protection agency Ibama said the dam that burst on Friday held 1 million cubic meters of tailings, much less than the 50 million cubic meters in the 2015 disaster. Former environmental minister and presidential candidate Marina Silva said Brazilian authorities and private miners had not learned anything from the 2015 disaster and called it unacceptable. 'Three years after the serious environmental crime in Mariana, with investigations still ongoing and no-one punished, history repeats itself as tragedy in Brumadinho,' she said in a Twitter post. Five men have been arrested on suspicion of cannabis cultivation and are being quizzed by police Five men have been arrested after police seized 500,000 worth of cannabis plants being grown in an empty tower block. Police swooped on Warstone Tower, in Birmingham, after receiving a tip-off from a member of the public on Friday afternoon. Hundreds of cannabis plants and growing equipment were found crammed into 31 rooms between the 15th and 17th floors of the derelict building. Hundreds of cannabis plants and growing equipment were found crammed into 31 rooms between the 15th and 17th floors of the derelict building Secure doors had been fitted, and electricity and water had been diverted to help the growing operation. Five men were arrested on suspicion of cannabis cultivation and are being quizzed by police. Detective Inspector Jim Church, of West Midlands Police CID, said: 'This is a sophisticated, organised crime operation that has clearly been running for some time, but which we've now been able to dismantle. We'll be working throughout the day to establish the full scale of it and make the property safe.' The 20-storey Warstone Tower, which is located next Spaghetti Junction on the M6 near Birmingham, is due to be demolished later this year. Five men have been arrested after police seized 500,000 worth of cannabis plants being grown in an empty tower block Secure doors had been fitted, left, and electricity and water, right, had been diverted to help the growing operation A Florida inmate landed himself jail time after he was caught trying to mail out fraudulent documents from behind bars, in which he pretended to be his own victim asking for the case to be dismissed. Michael Manfredi, 49, pleaded guilty to simulating the legal process and was given a six-year prison sentence in October, following an incident which occurred earlier in the year. The Seminole County Sheriff's Office said that back in May 2018, Manfredi who was being held at John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Stanford, Florida, at the time gave jail mailman Joe Savlan a letter that was addressed to the Orange County Clerk of Courts, Click Orlando reported. Michael Manfredi, 49, pleaded guilty to simulating the legal process and was given a six-year prison sentence in October after being caught trying to mail out fraudulent legal documents Manfredi's plot was foiled by jail mailman Joe Savlan (pictured) who immediately realized that something was fishy about the fraudulent letter that Manfredi was trying to mail out Savlan, who has been inspecting in- and outgoing inmate mail for legal contraband for the past six years, recalled that he immediately cottoned to the fact that something wasn't right about the letter as soon as Manfredi handed over the envelope. 'This fellow was very vocal and engaged me in conversation, which is very polite, very nice but sometimes I take that as a flag that you're trying to distract me,' Savlan said in a Facebook video posted by the sheriff's office. Not only that, but the return address was not the jail's address and Manfredi's name wasn't written on the envelope, according to police. Savlan then told authorities about Manfredi's letter and they launched an investigation, which determined that Manfredi had written a letter to the county clerk, in which he pretended to be the victim in the criminal case against him. Savlan is responsible for checking in- and outgoing inmate mail for legal contraband. He alerted investigators to Manfredi's suspicious letter An example of the handwritten fraudulent legal document that Manfredi had tried to mail Unaware that his letters were being investigated, Manfredi continued to give Savlan more fake letters. Manfredi was eventually charged with trying to simulate the legal process Manfredi gave Savlan a fake letter in this envelope addressed to the county clerk. It was suspicious that neither the jail's return address or Manfredi's name was on the envelope In the handwritten letter, Manfredi, while posing as the victim, was said to have filed fraudulent court motions asking that the criminal case against him be dismissed. Unaware that the investigation was going on, Manfredi apparently gave Savlan more letters, including one in which he tried to get the injunction against him dismissed. The investigation then led to Manfredi being charged with simulating the legal process something that violent criminals, including murderers, in other jurisdictions have successfully managed to do to get early releases from prison. 'This is a prime example of one of the 14,000 members of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office in a less visible position making a direct connection to protecting our citizens and making our community safer,' Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said in the video. It's unclear what charges initially landed Manfredi in jail, but he is being called a 'career criminal.' Hundreds of protesters have warned Theresa May that a hard Irish border risks destroying Northern Ireland's hard-won peace. A mock checkpoint manned by actors dressed as soldiers and customs officers was constructed close to the frontier in Co Down on Saturday. Machine gun-toting soldiers' were camouflaged in green and black and concrete blocks were craned into place across the road as a backdrop for a string of angry speeches by anti-Brexit campaigners from across the island. Demonstrators hold banners on the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland border, near Newry in Northern Ireland, today as they stand in front of a theatrical mock border Actors dressed as soldiers and holding 'machine guns' stand with a protester at the border near Newry If the UK leaves Europe without a deal, the free flow of goods could be disrupted by the creation of a hard frontier on the island, the European Commission has said. Demonstrator Tom Murray, from Co Donegal, said it is Prime Minister Mrs May's responsibility to sort out the issue. He said: 'Ireland will not be made to suffer the folly of the Tory party. We are the ones who will be suffering for the mistakes made in Westminster. 'We will not accept this border, we demand that London sort out the problem that they created.' Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and deputy leader Michelle O'Neill were also spotted at a demonstration near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth, today. Ms McDonald held a large hammer and knocked down a symbolic wall as dozens of people watched. It is more than 20 years since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which largely ended decades of violence. Mr Murray added: 'All the peace and prosperity that we have enjoyed will be destroyed by a hard border. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald (hitting the wall) and deputy leader Michelle O'Neill (wearing red scarf) knock down a symbolic wall that was built as part of an anti-Brexit rally near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth Dozens of people hold banners and watch the demonstration as a string of angry speeches by anti-Brexit campaigners were made in Newry A mock concrete brick wall was also knocked down by demonstrators in Newry. Security towers in the hilly and remote area near the city of Newry were decommissioned in 2003 'Communities could be dragged back into the old days of living in the shadow of someone else's border. We are the people who will suffer the most.' Security towers manned by the British Army in the hilly and remote area near the city of Newry were decommissioned in 2003 as it ended conflict-era operations in Northern Ireland in support of the police. The Irish and British governments have said they want to avoid a hard border after Brexit, and multiple sources have said Britain's withdrawal from the EU should not prompt a return to violence. Some security sources have argued that if customs checks are put in place, police will be required to protect them and that could leave officers at risk from dissident republicans. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has received extra resources for Brexit but have officially envisaged light-touch, community-style policing. Dublin's Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney this week said it would be difficult to avoid installing new infrastructure following a no-deal Brexit. A sign attached to a tractor says the demonstrators want no border in Ireland Actors dressed in military uniform point guns in front of the wall made by demonstrators today Penny Rebecca Pospisil, 47, (pictured) was charged with second-degree murder and abuse of a dead body on Friday for the killing of 55-year-old Anthony Franklin Mitchell A woman is accused of murdering her boyfriend before cutting up his body and stuffing it inside a trailer, according to local Florida authorities. Penny Rebecca Pospisil, 47, was charged with second-degree murder and abuse of a dead body on Friday for the killing of 55-year-old Anthony Franklin Mitchell. The Seminole County Sheriff's Office launched an investigation into the man's death after they found his body at a camper trailer at Wickham Park Campground in Melbourne on December 30. Authorities had been conducting a wellness check on the residence because the lot fee was overdue, Click Orlando reports. The Seminole County Sheriff's Office discovered the man's body on December 30 at the at Wickham Park Campground in Melbourne Mitchell's body was found dismembered and had been in the advance stages of decomposition when investigators discovered the body. It was determined that the woman (pictured) killed the man on August 22 It was then determined that Mitchell and Pospisil had lived together at the Lake Panasoffkee RV Village in Sumter County. The man's family told police that they hadn't heard from Mitchell since August 22 and added that his girlfriend was telling people that he had died. Pospisil had moved to the Melbourne trailer in September, and neighbors often reported that a foul odor emitted from her residence. Police were able to determine that the woman killed the man on August 23 and that she had kept the body while she determined how to best cover her tracks. She is currently being held at the Brevard County Jail. Investigators are still working on a motive. A retired pilot has called for the search for missing flight MH370 to centre around Madagascar over fears it was hijacked. Ex-US Air Force and United Airlines captain Randy Ryan believes the plane was bound in that direction before it crashed into the sea or was landed on dry land. A mammoth search effort ensued but all that has been found of the missing jet, which disappeared on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people on board, was bits of debris. Mr Ryan said he thinks the transponder was deliberately shut down as there was 'zero possibility' it could have been switched off accidentally. The former Boeing pilot told the Daily Star Online said the manoeuvre allowed the alleged culprit to fly the plane off-radar, leaving air traffic controllers wondering what had happened. Retired pilot Randy Ryan believes 'hijacked' MH370 should be centred on around the area of Madagascar Mr Ryan said: 'I think the captain, or co-pilot, does everything normally during the pre-flight. 'They take off and climb and level off. They had properly programmed the flight computer to fly the correct course to their destination. 'Everything seems normal, but one of them maybe both but I doubt it now does in the other pilot and takes control of the plane. 'He makes the turn toward the west. He does this very slowly so nobody in the darkened cabin notices the turn.' He added: 'The plane continues to fly west, maybe even to Madagascar, or maybe, if not all the way there, he turns again and lands it somewhere pre-planned. 'So far what little debris that has been found was all found on the westerly route I am suggesting it was flown. 'Yes, I know it sounds sinister and they did find a part of the wing that was damaged when, or if, it hit the water but remember where it was found (east of Madagascar). 'Again along the route I believe it was flown, and not to the southwest of Australia where they spent so much time searching. 'If anybody still has the money to search for the plane this is where I think they should search.' Indonesian fisherman Rusli Khusmin, 42, recently claimed he and his crew members were eyewitnesses to the disaster and has handed over the co-coordinators to investigators to the spot where he said it crashed into the Sumatra sea. He recorded the information on a GPS device and held up a map to show reporters earlier this month. Rusli Khusmin, 42, a fisherman from Indonesia, shows his GPS navigator which he used to record the co-ordinates of the spot where he believes MH370 went down Malaysia president Dr Jacob George shows the co-ordinates of where the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is believed to have crashed Fishermen claim this is the location the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 ditched into the Malacca Strait near Sumatra, Indonesia Mr Khusmin at a news conference in Subang Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur where MH370 took off, said he remembered seeing a damaged aircraft and thick black smoke. 'I saw the plane moving from left to right like a broken kite,' he said. 'There was no noise, just black smoke as a result of fires before it crashed into the water.' But he failed to explain why it had taken him almost five years to get in touch with the authorities with the information. The Malaysian government halted the investigation after drawing a blank and are still at a loss as to what happened to the airplane. Various theories have abounded with conspiracists linking both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to its disappearance. Recent debris discovered on the African island believed to be 'likely' from the missing jet. Meanwhile, a flaperon understood to be from MH370 was found on Reunion Island back in 2015, around 425 miles east of Madagascar. Jacquita Gonzales, (right) the wife of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 steward Patrick Gomes, and Grace Subathirai Nathan (left), daughter of MH370 passenger Anne Daisy, show pieces of debris (believed to be from flight MH370 before handing over to Malaysia Transport Minister Anthony Loke in Putrajaya last November Bits of debris from the plane have been discovered but the plane itself remains missing after the Malaysian Government halted its investigation following its 2014 investigation Mr Ryan has admitted if investigators are right about the debris it 'pokes a pretty big hole' in his theory that it landed on land. A recent Gendarmerie Air Transport (GAT) probe appears to back his claim that someone on board may have had knowledge of how to hack the plane's communications system. Ghyslain Wattrelos who lost his wife and two children on the Boeing 777-200 said GAT was currently looking into a Malaysian national and aeronautics specialist on board. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) took the view the plane turned west above the South China Sea around 40 minutes into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing thanks to Inmarsat satellite data. Following the probe,investigators said it headed west across the Peninsula Malaysia before turning left again and crashing into the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, after running out of fuel while the transponder was non-operational. The ex-pilot believes the plane initially went left but 'not convinced' it made a second and made clear his view it went to Madagascar instead. In the wake of the suggestion the transponder stopped operating, Mr Ryan said: 'That does not happen, there's a zero possibility that happened by accident.' He continued: 'They knew how to avoid detection. I don't think an amateur could have done it, the only way an amateur could have done anything like this is to get in to the cockpit, kill both pilots, sit down in a seat and hand fly the airplane. 'But it's a complex airplane. The amateur wouldn't know that stuff (switching off the transponder).' Blaine Gibson, the self-styled wreck hunter, firmly believes missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, will be found just as a new private search is about to begin this month in the southern Indian Ocean. An ATSB spokesman said: 'The Australian Transport Safety Bureau's (ATSB) involvement in coordinating the underwater search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 concluded in early 2017, and the Australia Government currently has no involvement in the search for, or the investigation of, the missing aircraft. 'The ATSB has been asked to direct members of the public wishing to provide information that could lead to locating the missing aircraft. 'For the sake of the next-of-kin of those on board the aircraft and for determining a definitive cause of the loss of the aircraft and all on board, the ATSB remains hopeful that the aircraft will be located.' A Boeing spokesman added: 'Should credible new information emerge that results in government authorities resuming the search, Boeing stands ready to provide technical support as requested by the government investigating authorities.' Tension has arisen in the Cabinet again as Justice Secretary David Gauke claimed a no-deal Brexit would be 'pretty disastrous'. The MP also suggested he backed parliament being given a free vote on extending Article 50 when amendments to Theresa May's withdrawal bill are debated in the Commons next Tuesday. His comments came after Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom stressed the need for Cabinet unity on the possibility of a no-deal exit. Justice Secretary David Gauke said he believed a no-deal Brexit would be 'pretty disastrous' When asked if he believed it would be 'pretty disastrous' for the UK to leave the EU without a deal, Mr Gauke told the BBC: 'Yes, I do.' The Justice Minister also said he would need to 'consider his position' if a no-deal policy was adopted when other options were available. He said: 'What I have said repeatedly is if there is a conscious choice "right, that's it, we're going no deal" when there are other options available, that would be something I would find extremely difficult. 'And, given the requirements of collective responsibility, then, obviously, I'd have to consider my position.' The Justice Minister also said he would need to 'consider his position' if a no-deal policy was adopted when other options were available Pressed on whether he backed MPs being given a free vote on extending Article 50 when amendments to the Government's Brexit motion are debated in the Commons next Tuesday, Mr Gauke said: 'I think there is a case for free votes in this area to resolve things. 'We need to see what all the amendments are going to be to see whether Tuesday is a crunch point or not. 'I do think that Parliament is entitled to be involved in this process.' His comments came as Mrs Leadsom signalled that the UK could remain in the EU beyond the scheduled March 29 exit date. The Commons Leader told BBC2's Newsnight: 'We can get the legislation through. 'And in particular I think we do, in spite of everything, have a very strong relationship with our EU friends and neighbours and I'm absolutely certain that if we needed a couple of extra weeks or something, that would be feasible.' Mrs Leadsom said that with 'good will' the necessary legislation could go through parliament on schedule. She said: 'I'm totally aligned to the Prime Minister. I believe that is where collective responsibility should lie. 'So number one, the legal default is we leave the EU on March 29 without a deal unless there is a deal is in place. 'That hasn't changed. That is the Prime Minister's view and that's my view.' Mrs Leadsom's comments came after Chancellor Philip Hammond declined to rule out quitting his post if the UK goes through with a no-deal Brexit. Mr Hammond said a no-deal Brexit would cause 'significant' disruption and damage to the economy, and that it went against what Leave voters had been told before the 2016 referendum. Ireland's Europe minister, Helen McEntee, insisted that a backstop to prevent a hard border was 'absolutely necessary' due to the UK's red lines on leaving the single market and customs union. The backstop would see the UK obeying EU customs rules if no wider trade agreement is settled after a transition period. Ms McEntee told the BBC: 'It is because of those red lines that a backstop is absolutely necessary. 'I think now, for some reason, the onus by the UK has been shifted back on Ireland. That we should compromise. That we are the ones that are trying to be awkward or difficult. Mr Gauke's comments came after Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom stressed the need for Cabinet unity on the possibility of a no-deal exit 'We are protecting a peace process. There is an obligation on the UK to ensure that the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, is protected. 'And any suggestion that they can walk away from that, we simply won't accept that.' Tory MP Andrew Murrison, who has tabled a Commons amendment requiring the backstop to be 'replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border', called for movement from Dublin. He said: 'The crucial thing here is it's not for a period of time - it doesn't allow us to get out after a while - it's potentially forever. And that's the problem. 'And that's why my amendment would seek to put a sunset, as it were, on that part of the agreement.' He added that limiting it to five years could work. He said: 'The Polish foreign minister, very helpfully, suggested five years. That seems not entirely unreasonable to me.' Mr Murrison added: 'Dublin needs to understand that if Brexit goes wrong then the UK will not prosper. But the effects in the Republic are going to probably be even worse. 'So, it is in all of our interests to make sure that what happens is good for us all, including the European Union. 'That means getting this deal over the line.' Grant Amato (pictured), 29, was arrested on Saturday in connection with a triple homicide at a home in Chuluota, Florida A man has been arrested in Florida in connection with the triple homicide of a woman and two men who were found dead at home on Friday. Grant Amato, 29, was apprehended on Saturday morning in an Orange County hotel, having reportedly not been seen since the bodies were discovered. Having previously listed Amato to be 'armed and dangerous', in a news release police said the suspect was taken into custody without incident. The registered nurse had been listed as a person of interest on Friday morning after Seminole County deputies found three people dead with apparent gunshot wounds at a home in Chuluota. Police shared an image of the suspect's white 1996 Honda Accord leaving the area. Authorities have not publicly identified the victims, but they're said to be a woman in her 50s and two men in their 30s. Amato was said to be 'armed and dangerous' by police. They uploaded a photo of his white 1996 Honda Accord in the hope of tracking down the suspect Amato was found in an Orange County hotel after the car was spotted in the parking lot. He was arrested without incident, according to police Several weapons were found at the property, but police say a number of them seemed to be missing. 'It's a tragedy anyway you look at it,' said Sheriff Dennis Lemma. Deputies arrived at the home on Friday morning after an employer of one of the male victims called the authorities after realizing he hadn't shown up for work. The three victims in different parts of the property, with one in the garage, another in the kitchen and the third in a home office. Lemma said there were no signs of forced entry, meaning the murderer was likely known to the victims. 'It looks like this wasn't a random act of violence,' Lemma added. 'It looks like the person responsible for these murders was known to the family, and we're going to do everything we can to get this person in custody very, very soon.' Police found three victims are the property. The haven't been publicly named, but were all said to have suffered fatal gunshot wounds Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma (pictured) described the murders as a 'tragedy' Amato's home address is listed on Sultan Circle, the same area the victim's. Police haven't yet commented whether Amato lived at the property where the murders took place. The suspect was previously arrested in June 2018 on a grand-theft charged at Advent Health Orlando, where he worked as a nurse. He was accused by colleagues of stealing vials of a powerful sedative, Propfol. Authorities were summoned to the hospital on reports of a suicidal person, but after an examination Amato was deemed not to be a threat to himself. According to a police report, Amato admitted to stealing the drugs to administer to patients who weren't 'adequately relaxed' by their prescribed medication. He was not prosecuted for the theft. The investigation into the triple homicide continues. Advertisement Violence erupted in France for the 11th Saturday in a row today as thousands of so-called Yellow Vest protestors demonstrated against President Emmanuel Macron's government. It came two days after the head of state had accused British politicians of 'tearing society apart' by allowing a Brexit referendum in Britain, but today the chants in his own country were for his resignation. The worst early violence was in Paris, and in northern towns including Evreux and Rouen, in Normandy, where tear gas and baton charges were used by police to restore order. Violence erupted in France for the 11th Saturday in a row as thousands of Yellow Vest protestors demonstrated against Macron's government Jerome Rodrigues, one of the leaders of the yellow vest movement, is evacuated after getting injured in the eye during clashes between protesters and riot police 'Yellow vest' anti-government protesters have taken to the streets in France for the 11th consecutive Saturday on January 26 Police officers aim LDB-40 flashball (non-lethal rubber bullet guns) as protesters from the 'Gilets Jaunes' (Yellow Vests) movement take part in the 'Act IX' demonstration Riot police officers clash amid smoke with protesters during an anti-government demonstration Mass crowds took over main roads in the French capital, where there were 20 arrests for violent disorder and acts of vandalism offences by 4pm. Barricades were set up in the Place de la Bastille, a traditional protest square, using material stolen from nearby building sites. Hooded and masked protestors could be seen throwing stones and pieces of wood at police, and fires were lit. Video posted on social media showed fighting between rival groups, and police using assorted chemical sprays on alleged thugs. 'There are at least four known Yellow Vests marches taking place in the city, including unauthorised ones,' said a Paris police spokesman. Protesters stand behind a burning barricade during an anti-government demonstration called by the 'yellow vests' (gilets jaunes) movement in near the Place de la Bastille in Paris Protesters reformed with a displayed tenacity ten days after the opening of the 'great national debate', the French president's bid to prove he will take on board the fierce criticism of 'yellow vest' protesters who have upended his reform agenda Protesters hold a banner during an anti-government demonstration called by the Yellow Vests 'Gilets Jaunes' movement in Marseille, southern France A French police officer apprehends a protester wearing a yellow vest during a demonstration of the 'yellow vests' movement in Marseille, France A yellow vest demonstrator holds up a banner reading 'Yellow vest, World Revolution against Finance', as they set up barricades and light fires in Paris Scattered skirmishes broke out amid mainly peaceful yellow vest marches Saturday in Paris and around France, as the movement kept up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron 'There have also been threats about demonstrations continuing well into Saturday night. The worst violence in currently in Place de la Bastille.' Armoured cars and water canon were all on the streets of Paris, along with some 4000 police and gendarmes, because of the repeat threat of the kind of rioting that has broken out since November 17. This was when the Yellow Vests who are named after their high visibility motoring jackets began mobilising on social media. In previous weeks national monuments including the Arc de Triomphe itself have been vandalised during disturbances. Today's ugly scenes came on the 11th Saturday in a row of violence that now routinely reduces cities and towns to battle zones. Mr Macron has since pledged that any attempt to damage pubic property will be treated with the 'most severe action possible.' Despite a range of concessions by President Macron including scrapping green taxes of diesel and petrol, the Vests continue to call for him to step down. Protestors have been joined by extremists from the far Right and the ultra-Left, as well as anarchists intent on causing as much damage as possible. The Yellow Vests said their protests would continue indefinitely as they campaign for even more concessions. The independent Mr Macron, leader of the Republic On The Move party, won the French presidential election in a landslide in 2017, but he is now dubbed the 'President of the Rich' with polls showing his popularity rating struggling to get above the 30 per cent mark. Police officers form a group during a demonstration by yellow vest protestors in Paris, for the 11th week in a row, on Saturday 26 January Yellow vests 'Gilets Jaunes' anti-government protesters have taken to the streets in France for the 11th consecutive Saturday on January 26 A French riot police officer shoots a tear gas during a Yellow Vest anti-government demonstration Riot police officers clash amid smoke with protesters on the 11th consecutive Saturday of Yellow Vest protests in France A protester wearing a yellow vest holds a flare as he takes part in a demonstration of the 'yellow vests' movement in Marseille, France, January 26 A protester holds a Picardie flag next to a burning barricade during an anti-government demonstration called by the 'yellow vests' (gilets jaunes) movement in near the Place de la Bastille in Paris The Yellow Vest movement kept up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron despite internal divisions and growing worries about protest violence Despite a range of concessions by President Macron including scrapping green taxes of diesel and petrol, the Vests continue to call for him to step down (pictured: A demonstrator kicks away a teargas canister) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on allies to 'pick a side' on Venezuela, and described its President Nicolas Maduro as part of an 'illegitimate mafia state' responsible for the country's economic collapse. Pompeo was addressing the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Saturday, which met at his request after Washington and a string of countries in the region recognized Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido as head of state. Pompeo urging the U.N council to back Guaido and called for free and fair elections as soon as possible, adding that Maduro must step down. 'Now it is time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro and his mayhem,' Pompeo told the council. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (right) and Minister of State for Europe and the Americas Sir Alan Duncan (left) attend the Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela Pompeo (right) wanted the U.N Security council to effectively recognize Guaido as Venezuela's head of state and called on nations to 'pick a side' Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza listens during a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela Which countries are supporting Venezuela's opposition? Supporting 'interim' President Juan Guaido: United States Canada United Kingdom Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Costa Rica Guatemala Honduras Panama Paraguay Peru Kosovo Supporting incumbent President Nicolas Maduro: Russia China Iran Cuba Mexico Turkey Syria Bolivia Uruguay Advertisement With mounting protests over Venezuela's crisis in which more than two million have fled shortages of basic food and medicine, Pompeo asked all nations to 'support Venezuela's democratic transition and interim President Guaidoa's role in it,' he said. Russia tried to stop the meeting but it was voted down with nine of the 15 members agreeing to go forward. Moscow opposes the U.S. efforts and has accused Washington of backing a coup attempt, placing Venezuela at the heart of a growing geopolitical duel. 'Venezuela does not represent a threat to peace and security,' Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council. 'If anything does represent a threat to peace, it is the shameless and aggressive action of the United States and their allies aimed at the ouster of the legitimately elected President of Venezuela,' he said. Russia, China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea blocked a U.S. push for a U.N. Security Council statement expressing full support for Venezuela's National Assembly as the country's 'only democratically elected institution.' Ahead of the public meeting, the United States circulated its draft Security Council statement, which said: 'As conditions in the Republic of Venezuela continue to deteriorate, the Security Council expresses its full support for the National Assembly as Venezuela's only democratically elected institution.' The same four countries also voted against holding the Security Council meeting. Nine countries voted in favor of the meeting, while Ivory Coast and Indonesia abstained. Pompeo denounced Russia and China, saying that they were motivated not by principle but raw financial interest. 'China and Russia are propping up a failed regime in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years,' he said. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo votes at a United Nations Security Council meeting on Venezuela. Pompeo described President Nicolas Maduro as part of an 'illegitimate mafia state' responsible for the country's economic collapse Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza (left) shows the Charter of the United Nations next to Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya at a meeting of the Security Council today. Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza (left) and Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya shake hands at the Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela Guaido (left), who two days ago announced that he assumed executive powers as interim president, asked for further demonstrations until a government could be formed and Maduro (right) had stood down The United Nations Security Council meets about the situation in Venezuela in New York City, January 26, 2019 St Louis Officer Nathaniel Hendren, 29, was charged with manslaughter on Friday The shooting death of a St Louis police officer has been revealed to be the outcome of a twisted game of Russian roulette, according to investigators. Prosecutors on Friday announced charges of manslaughter and armed criminal action against Officer Nathaniel Hendren, 29, in the Thursday death of 24-year-old Katlyn Alix. It was shortly before 1am on Thursday when Alix, who was off duty, met Hendren and his partner, who were both on duty and supposed to be patrolling in a different neighborhood, investigators said. The trio met up at Hendren's home on the 700 block of Dover Street in the Carondelet neighborhood, according to police. Hendren pulled out a revolver, which was not his service weapon, and emptied the cylinder of rounds before replacing a single bullet in the weapon, Sgt. R. Hellmeier wrote in a probable cause statement. St Louis Police Officer Katlyn Alix, 24, was killed in the shooting early on Thursday Family members identified 24-year-old Katlyn Alix, an Army veteran, as the police officer who was shot in the torso while off duty shortly before 1am on Thursday Police tape remains at the scene of a shooting in St. Louis on Thursday. Authorities say a St. Louis police officer was accidentally shot and killed another officer at the home 'He spun the cylinder and pointed it away and pulled the trigger,' Hellmeier wrote. When the gun did not fire on the first trigger pull, Alix took the weapon, pointed it at Hendren, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the affidavit states. Investigators say that Hendren took the gun, pointed it at Alix, and pulled the trigger for a third time. The gun discharged, striking the female officer in the chest. The affidavit says that Hendren's partner, a 29-year-old male, claims that he protested that 'they shouldn't be playing with guns and that they were police officers.' The partner claimed that he was walking out of the room when he heard the gun go off. After Alix was shot, the two male officers sent a message over police radio at 12.56am that an officer needed assistance, and rushed her to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Alix (left and right) served as a military police officer in the Army. It has not been revealed why she was at the home with the other two metro police officers when she was killed Outside of the hospital, surrounded by crime scene tape, a police SUV with a shattered window was seen early Thursday. According to reports, Hendren headbutted the back window of the vehicle after arriving at the hospital, breaking out the window. Initially, the shooting was being investigated as accidental, St Louis Metro Police Chief John Hayden said at a press conference soon after Alix died. In a statement on Friday, Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner said that she would 'hold people accountable who violate Missouri law regardless of their profession, public status, or station in life.' 'Today, much as it saddens my staff and me to file these charges, Katlyn and her family deserve accountability and justice,' Gardner said. Flags fly at half-staff in front of the St. Louis Police Officers Association on Thursday following the shooting death of a police officer Hendren had been on the police force for about a year. He is charged with felony counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, and faces three to 10 years in prison if convicted. In a statement, the St. Louis Police Officers Association said that Alix was also a military veteran. 'We know that the press and the public want to understand what happened. So do we. But for now, we wait; we wonder; and we weep,' the statement said. 'We ask that the media and the public respect the privacy of this young officer's family, friends and co-workers as they mourn.' A St Louis newscaster who faced calls to resign after using a racial slur when pronouncing Martin Luther King's name is to take indefinite leave from anchor duties. KTVI's Kevin Steincross apologized again for the gaffe on Friday and announced he was stepping away from the anchor desk indefinitely. Steincross had been speaking on KTVIs morning news show on January 17 when he said 'Martin Luther C**n Jr.' in reference to an upcoming tribune for the civil rights icon. He apologized on air later that morning and said the pronunciation was a mistake. Station management agreed and did not take additional disciplinary action. KTVI's Kevin Steincross (pictured) announced he was stepping away from the anchor desk indefinitely on Friday after saying 'Martin Luther C**n Jr' during a broadcast on January 17 But now Steincross has announced he will temporarily step aside to 'address the pain' he caused in a video statement which aired on KPLR. He said on Friday: 'Rather than reporting the news, I've been the news and a mistake I've made has been the topic of conversation throughout our region. 'Last week I apologized for speaking, I've since had the opportunity to reflect and to learn, what I should have done then and what I'm doing now is apologize for the pain my mistake caused. I am truly sorry. 'I know my words, especially in the context of Dr King's name and heading into the weekend when we celebrated his birth, inflicted and reopened deep wounds for my friends, my colleagues, and you our viewers. 'I only hope that time and my efforts will show who I am and my heart. I will live the rest of my life knowing how much pain I caused. 'Station management and I have agreed that I need to step away from the anchor desk for now. I will begin working to regain your trust. I know the work I need to do will take time, and I will do everything I can to address the pain I caused.' The St. Louis County NAACP and others demanded that the station fire Steincross, saying that whether or not it was a mistake, it was grounds for termination. Steincross (pictured) apologized on-air hours after making the gaffe, saying he made a mistake and had 'total respect for Dr King' The organization was joined by the Ethical Society of Police, a police membership group that represents primarily black officers, St Louis Post Dispatch reported. In a statement KTVI management again said it was 'deeply sorry for the understandable pain' to viewers and disrespect shown to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It added: 'During the past week, we have met with or spoken to representatives from the NAACP, the Urban League, the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists, and other civic groups in the area about the seriousness with which we approach issues of importance to our community. 'We are committed to the healing process and moving forward together through open dialogue and action. Steincross has been working at KTVI since 1996 in roles as a general assignment reporter, co-anchor and morning newscaster Steincross said he would 'live the rest of my life knowing how much pain I caused' and would work to rebuild trust 'We look forward to continuing these discussions and taking specific action in the days ahead.' St. Louis County NAACP President John Gaskin said Friday that Steincross suspension was a result of the pressure they put on the station and its owners, Tribune Media. 'Had we not called for his termination we genuinely believe that they would not have done anything in the first place,' Gaskin told the St Louis Post Dispatch. 'I think the Tribune needs to do some very in-depth soul searching.' New York meteorologist Jeremy Kappell (left) was fired after he used the term while referring to a Rochester park named after Martin Luther King Jr (right) Steincross has been working at KTVI since 1996 in roles as a general assignment reporter, co-anchor and morning newscaster, according to his biography on Fox2Now.com. The episode marks the latest in a series of broadcasters making the same mispronunciation of King's name, sparking debates as to whether they revealed racism or were genuine mistakes. Last month, New York meteorologist Jeremy Kappell was fired after he gave a weather update in at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Rochester. He claimed that it looked gray at 'Martin Luther C**n King Jr. Park', appearing to stumble over the name. Three days later, News10NBC's general manager announced that Kappell no longer worked for the station. Kappell has apologized and explained himself multiple times , notably during a four-minute video on Facebook in which he speaks to the camera with his wife by his side. 'Unfortunately I spoke a little too fast when I was referencing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he said, 'so fast to the point where I jumbled a couple of words'. He ended the video with a request for viewers to 'please, hold back your judgment'. A mural painted by notorious graffiti artist Banksy has been stolen from the Bataclan theatre. The artwork, which depicted a sad-faced girl, was taken last night, police confirmed. Banksy painted the art on the emergency door of the Parisian concert venue, where 89 people were killed by Islamist extremists in November 2015. A recent artwork by street artist Banksy on a side street to the Bataclan concert hall where a terrorist attack killed 90 people An investigation is underway to track down the artwork, which could be sold for millions. The artwork was first seen last June on a door in the passage of Saint-Pierre Amelot and is believed to pay homage to those who lost their lives during the Eagles of Death Metal concert. A police source is quoted as saying: 'In the night from Friday to Saturday, hooded villains came to steal the work before taking it to a truck.' An alarm was triggered inside the theatre at around 4.25am and police found a screwdriver close to where the painting was snatched. One witness reported seeing a white pick-up truck and three suspicious people nearby. The mayor of Paris' 11th district Francois Vauglin told French media site LCI: 'This silhouette was made by the artist for free, it was an altruistic gesture to pay tribute to the victims of the terrorist attack and their loved ones, and I find it very sad that people have grabbed it without thinking about it all represents.' An investigation is underway to track down the artwork, which could be sold for millions Is this Banksy? Elusive artist may have been caught on camera filming his own 1m artwork being shredded just moments after 'triggering a remote device' Could this be the moment elusive street artist Banksy photographed his own publicity stunt? Shocked bidders and Sotherby's staff watched in horror as that the painting, which sold for 1,042,000 one second was torn to shreds the next. Experts now say that October's stunt may have actually doubled the value of The Girl With Balloon because of the huge interest it generated. A picture posted onto Banksy's Instagram account showed the moment the piece was destroyed by the booby-trapped picture frame. And separate video posted on Twitter shows the stunned reaction of the packed auction house in London last night. As the camera pans around, a curly-haired man in glasses taking a picture from the same position as the Instagram image can be seen. He appears to have taken the picture posted online by the mysterious 'graffiti guerrilla' could have been the the man himself documenting his prank in action. Banksy posted on Instagram a picture of the moment the painting was shredded Robin Gunningham was named as street artist Banksy, which he claimed was untrue He is seen holding his phone and zooming into the painting to get a good shot of the damage. The man is wearing thick glasses, a suit, and has curly hair and if it is the man himself could have just pressed the button to remotely trigger the shredder. A video released by Banksy shows the auction room from several different angles, adding ton speculation he may be a team of people who were all in the room at the time of the sale. A stunned member of auction staff can be seen on the phone to the winning bidder as the painting is destroyed in front of his eyes. Banksy posted the clip on his Instagram but then deleted it. In it, he reveals video of himself building the shredder. He explains: 'A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting in case it was ever put up for auction...' Over the years speculation about the identity of the artist has been rife and many different identities have claimed to 'unmask' the real Banksy. In 2008 Robin Gunningham was said to have been revealed as Banksy when a Mail on Sunday investigation published a pictures supposedly at work, but his representatives denied it was him. Lo ultimo: @banksy destruye si #GWRB Girl With Red Balloon, antes que cayera el mazo en plena subasta en Sotheby's. Subasta iba el 860,000@jaimesancristo pic.twitter.com/a10DlEnLbi Vanessa N. Hernandez (@VanessaVonZed) October 6, 2018 The packed auction house gasped as the Bansky work destroyed itself moments after being sold Banksy's artwork, Girl With Balloon which shredded itself after being sold for more than 1 million at auction He was said to have been filmed spraying graffiti in Melbourne, Australia and Jamaica. Eight years later, scientists said investigation identifying Mr Gunningham as 'the only serious suspect' was correct, when researchers at Queen Mary University of London used 'geographic profiling' to tie him to his work on a pub, playing fields and a house. Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack was touted as the anonymous artist last year when fellow Bristol-based DJ Goldie and friend appeared to name him a personal friend, in an interview. Investigators claimed to have matched up Massive Attacks touring schedule with appearances by art by Banksy. Advertisement There were dozens of police with sniffer dogs, three layers of security, and signs warning that one pill can kill - but still three men are fighting for life in hospital with suspected drug overdoses. Thousands of revellers flocked to the Hardcore Til I Die festival on Saturday to lose themselves in a haze of hardstyle dance music booming from a massive stage at Sydney Olympic Park. Daily Mail Australia attended the festival to see how heightened security in the wake of five deaths at music festivals in six months in NSW alone would affect the party. We spoke to revellers, police, paramedics, concerned parents, and were even approached by a young man who wanted to score drugs. Daily Mail Australia does not suggest anyone pictured in this article did anything illegal, as many festival goers were just out for a good time. Thousands of revellers flocked to the Hardcore Til I Die festival on Saturday to lose themselves in a haze of hardstyle dance music booming from a massive stage at Sydney Olympic Park Revellers seemed in good spirits as they left the venue at midnight after hours of partying on January 26 Australia seemed to be the order of the day for some revellers, who donned hats adorned with the country's flag Three men are fighting for life in hospital with suspected drug overdoses at Hardcore Til I Die - including this 22-year-old man But from boarding the train to Olympic Park it was clear some were undeterred by the string of deaths as passengers openly discussed drugs. Some relaxed in the afternoon sun on benches outside the venue instead of trying to enter the stadium. 'I'm f**ked up!' one person responded when asked how his day was going. Some relaxed in the afternoon sun on benches outside the station, while others were drinking (pictured) in full view of crowds Dozens of police patrolled the line looking for signs of revellers carrying drugs on them before they even got to the doors Glove-wearing officers were seen hauling some revellers aside to to searched An accused MDMA carrier is led away by officers after allegedly being found with drugs on him outside the venue Soon after the first group headed inside, one 18-year-old girl came out crying after she was denied entry. 'I'm not drunk, I only had a couple of drinks. All my friends are inside,' she said. Getting inside was a 45-minute, multi-stage process starting with a long line outside. Revellers gave an almighty cheer when they made it through the door - but there was much still to come. 'It wasn't like this last year, last year you could just walk in and underage kids were jumping fences. There's a lot more cops too. I guess because those people died,' one man waiting in line said. First they waited at several checkpoints, one of which had monitors reading 'police dog operation' and 'look after yourself & each other'. Then the crowd was ushered into the middle of the Sydney Showgrounds dome where more than a dozen police and two sniffer dogs patrolled. Getting inside was a 45-minute, multi-stage process starting with a long line outside (this is only a view from the middle of it) The checking procedure was so long that the lines had to be broken up into chunks as those in front moved up They waited at several checkpoints, one of which had monitors reading ' police dog operation' and 'look after yourself & each other' Then the crowd was ushered into the middle of the Sydney Showgrounds dome where more than a dozen police and two sniffer dogs patrolled Soon after the first group headed inside, one 18-year-old girl came out crying after she was denied entry. 'I'm not drunk, I only had a couple of drinks. All my friends are inside,' she said. Several officers came over to check on her but she yelled at them to leave her alone and stormed off. Police seemed to rely almost entirely on the two hardworking canines, who caught almost all those pulled away for searches At least one person was pulled out of the line every few minutes and frogmarched to a police truck behind a temporary wall After IDs and tickets were checked, all pockets and bags had to be emptied on to a table for inspection Producing a phone and wallet was seemingly enough to be waved through on one occasion Finally, revellers stepped into the sunshine in front of the empty bar and a row of food trucks Attendees were handed these wristbands on arrival that attempted to warn them of the dangers of using drugs inside Police seemed to rely almost entirely on the two hardworking canines, but at least one person was pulled out of the line every few minutes and frogmarched to a police truck behind a temporary wall. A senior officer said seven people were arrested in just the first hour after the doors opened. After IDs and tickets were checked, all pockets and bags had to be emptied, but staff appeared not to put much effort into this step as producing a phone and wallet was enough to be waved through. Finally, revellers stepped into the sunshine in front of the empty bar and a row of food trucks that also sold Chupa Chups for an astonishing $2 each (or six for $10). A screen in middle of dance floor rotated safety messages including 'don't risk your life with drugs' and 'protect your hearing' In the darkened room, revellers wore all kinds of outfits to help them stand out, like this glow in the dark mask One man impressed his friends with glowing gloves which he used to put on a small light show at the back of the dance floor Thousands danced inside the main hall with ear-shattering music blaring, including a remix of I Am Australian in honour of Australia Day Chupa Chups were selling for an astonishing $2 each (or six for $10) along with the usual inflated prices While hundreds milled around outside eating, relaxing, and staring off into space, thousands danced inside the main hall with ear-shattering music blaring. Enthusiastic DJs even played a remix of I Am Australian in recognition of Australia Day, and lasers and light shows lit up the otherwise darkened building. A screen in middle of dance floor rotated safety messages including 'don't risk your life with drugs' and 'protect your hearing'. At the back was the medical area, mostly hidden behind a partition, and the 'Dancewize' crew who looked after revellers who were struggling but not sick enough to need medical attention. One young woman was seen sticking her fingers down her throat to make herself vomit into a water refill trough. One young woman was seen sticking her fingers down her throat to make herself vomit into a water refill trough She spent several minutes throwing up voluntarily, insisting to onlookers that she was fine and not in need of help A group was taken off the dance floor and spoken to police both inside a room and outside in the festival grounds The trio was then escorted from the venue under police guard, tracing a path between revellers who looked on A bag of a size commonly used to store pills or capsules of MDMA is seen on the ground One group of three including a bald, shirtless man with bulging muscles was one of the first to be ushered outside after first being spoken to at length. The price of MDMA is as high as $50 inside the venue - far higher than the $25 to $30 on the street. Daily Mail Australia was approached by a man looking to score drugs, not knowing who he was speaking to, less than an hour after entering the festival. 'Hey do you have any caps? I need to buy some caps,' he said. When told no, he then asked: 'Do you know anyone who does?' Suddenly the consequences became all too real as a 22-year-old man was taken out of the venue on a stretcher and rushed to Westmead Hospital with a suspected drug overdose A witness told Daily Mail Australia of the man's struggle to stay conscious before being rushed away by paramedics The young man was in a critical condition and had to be intubated in the ambulance as he couldn't breathe on his own. Hospital sources said he suffered a cardiac arrest in the ER and was in critical condition Suddenly the consequences became all too real as a 22-year-old man was taken out of the venue on a stretcher and rushed to Westmead Hospital with a suspected drug overdose. A witness told Daily Mail Australia of the man's struggle to stay conscious before being rushed away by paramedics. 'He was sitting there struggling so the medics came over and watched him. He couldn't keep his head up and there was sweat pouring off him,' he said. 'Then he rolled his eyes and just fell sideways and they got the stretcher. Hopefully he doesn't die or we'll all be in trouble.' The young man was in a critical condition and had to be intubated in the ambulance as he couldn't breathe on his own. Hospital sources said he suffered a cardiac arrest in the ER and was in critical condition. These revellers celebrated their enjoyable day and night outside the venue when the event ended at midnight These two women appeared to have had a good time as they happily smiled for the camera at the end of the event Soon after, a man in his 20s was taken to hospital in a serious condition, followed by young men aged 24 and 20 who were late on Saturday fighting for life in Westmead Hospital. Another man in his 20s was luckier, recovering in a serious but stable condition at the same hospital. Outside were two mothers attending an unrelated event in the area who shared their fears for their children who attend music festivals. Gina Morris said her 19-year-old son was at a recent festival and came face-to-face with a drug overdose victim in a bad way. 'He and his friend were at the front [of the mosh pit] and had to lift this young girl who was completely lifeless over the fence to security,' she said. 'When he saw the news that someone died at that festival, he said he hoped it wasn't her.' Several young men were seen attending the Hardcore Till I Die festival in matching Australia Day-themed dresses One man wore a singlet that read 'addicted' as he approached the doors to the festival early in the day Attendees at Hardcore Till I Die were seen dressing appropriately for the Australia Day weekend's sweltering heat Ms Morris said he explained that alcohol was too expensive at music festivals, so revellers turned to MDMA which was much cheaper despite the risks. 'I told him he'd better not be taking pills because if they don't kill him, I will,' she said. Kiralee Mahon said her teenage son is just starting to attend festivals, and heard some people overdosed because they panicked when they saw sniffer dogs and swallowed all their pills at once. 'We were talking about it today, he says he's anti-pills but I'm sure every parents has heard that. You think they're smart enough but you don't know, there's a lot of peer pressure,' she said. 'How we convince them to stop, I don't know. But there needs to be something because five families are broken.' Hundreds of Australian tourists were left stuck in Thailand after their Jetstar flight home was cancelled twice in two days. Some 340 dismayed travellers said the shambles left them 'feeling like Tom Hanks out of The Terminal' as they waited in Bangkok. Jetstar flight JQ30 was supposed to leave the Thai capital for Melbourne at 9.25pm local time on Thursday. Some 340 dismayed travellers said the omnishambles left them 'feeling like Tom Hanks out of The Terminal' as they waited in Bangkok (stock image of the airport) Passengers boarded the plane but, after two hours of waiting, the flight was cancelled because the communication system between the pilot and the crew was broken. They were ferried off the plane and had to wait hours while Jetstar sorted accommodation. The passengers were taken to a hotel but there were not enough rooms for everyone so some had to book their own room then claim back the cash. Twenty-four hours after their flight was due to leave, the passengers turned up at the airport to go home but were faced with a very similar mishap. They waited on the plane for three hours only to be told there was a technical fault with the plane's wing spoiler. Back to the hotels they went for another night in Bangkok before they were eventually able to fly home on Saturday. Customers slammed Jetstar for the shambolic organisation. Andrea Orr told The Age: 'No Jetstar staff have been on the ground with us and no one seems to have any idea what's going on. We feel like lost sheep.' Patrick Ramsden added: 'Some people are feeling like Tom Hanks out of The Terminal. 'If we were not laughing, we'd be crying.' Hundreds of Australian tourists were left stuck in Thailand after their Jetstar flight home was cancelled twice in two days (stock image) The Terminal starring Hanks is about an Eastern European man who becomes stuck in New York's John F. Kennedy Airport terminal when he is denied entry into the United States and at the same time cannot return to his native country because of a military coup. A Jetstar spokesman told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday: 'A flight from Bangkok to Melbourne was delayed due to two separate engineering faults, with a replacement parts required to be flown in from Singapore. 'We appreciate delays are frustrating and apologise to customers for the impact to their journey, however safety is always our first priority. 'All affected customers were provided two nights' accommodation, meal allowances 'for both days, transport to and from hotels, as well as a $100 travel voucher. 'Customers who no longer wished to travel were also offered a cash refund for their entire journey.' Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has called President Donald Trump the 'biggest wimp' in the history of the office following his concession on border funding to re-open the government. Coulter, an immigration hawk and early Trump supporter, reacted with swift fury to Trump's announcement on Friday that he would reopen the government for three weeks without any commitment from Congress to fund a southern border wall. 'Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States,' Coulter wrote on Twitter. Bush, who died in November aged 94, was widely ridiculed in office for going back on his 'read my lips' vow not to raise taxes. Seeming bitter about some in Trump's inner circle, Coulter went on: 'Maybe the solution to the border crisis is not deporting 22 million illegals but one Jared Kushner.' Ann Coulter, seen on Real Time on Friday night, lashed out at Trump for making a deal to reopen the government without securing any funding for a border wall Couler declared that Trump backing down from his wall demand to end the shutdown made him an even bigger 'wimp' than George HW Bush, who famously reneged on a tax promise Many have speculated that Coulter's December column calling Trump 'gutless,' which appeared to prompt him to unfollow her on Twitter, helped spur the President into undertaking the shutdown standoff in the first place. 'Yeah, crazy that I expect the President to keep the promise that he made every day for 18 months,' Coulter scoffed during a Friday appearance on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Coulter went on to downplay her influence on the President, saying that she is merely voicing the concerns of Trump's base. 'I promise you, the country would be run much better if I had a veto over what Donald Trump was doing,' she told Maher. 'It's the base, that's what happened.' Coulter, addressing Maher's liberal audience, made the case that mass immigration is a policy supported by big business to suppress worker's wages. 'You know who wants it? The Koch brothers,' said Coulter, referring to the billionaire political activist family that has indeed supported laxer immigration policy. 'You're being played, to have everyone act like this is some sort of racist thing.' 'Yeah, crazy that I expect the President to keep the promise that he made every day for 18 months,' Coulter scoffed during a Friday appearance on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher Among the hardest core of Trump's base, many had expected the President to push forward with declaring a national emergency in order to build the wall, a proposal he had floated for weeks. Thursday deal to reopen government came as a shock to this group and a potential blow to Trump's reelection chances. Taking to Twitter, Trump defended his move and insisted that an emergency delcaration was still on the table if Democrats in Congress do not cut a deal to fund the border wall before the three-week deadline. 'I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, its off to the races!' Trump wrote on Friday night. He continued to battle base backlash on Saturday morning, writing: '21 days goes very quickly. Negotiations with Democrats will start immediately. Will not be easy to make a deal, both parties very dug in. The case for National Security has been greatly enhanced by what has been happening at the Border & through dialogue. We will build the Wall!' In her interview with Maher on Friday, Coulter said that all of her concerns about Trump would be forgiven if the wall gets built. 'Just keep your promises and I'm right back in your camp,' she said. Otherwise, speculation has circulated that Coulter might mount a primary campaign against Trump. Asked about the possibility by Maher, Coulter joked: 'I'm against women working, so I can't.' Chilling photos show members of the notorious Skaf rapist gang trying to lure two teenage girls at Bondi Beach moments before the Lebanese men were arrested over racially motivated attacks that 'were worse than murder', according to a judge. Mohammed Skaf is seen trying to help lift a girl from the sand and Tayyab Sheik is pictured leaning over the other girl on the right on Sydney's most popular beach in a covert police surveillance. The two unidentified women walked off and were never heard from by police after they resisted the men's attempts to lure them away on October 7, 2000, The Daily Telegraph reported. Mohammed Skaf (left) is seen trying to help lift a girl from the sand while Tayyab Sheik (right) is sean leaning over the other girl The two unidentified women walked off and were never heard of again after they resisted the men's attempts to lure them away on October 7, 2000 Skaf, Sheik and Skaf's brother Bilal were arrested a few hours later after being convicted of a series of hideous gang rapes. Bilal Skaf headed 14 Lebanese Australian youths in the infamous Sydney gang rapes that saw seven women as young as 14 terrorised in 2000. The first victim, 14, was approached and harassed by the group and was forced to watch one of them fondling himself before she broke free at Punchbowl Station on August 4. Two girls, 17 and 18, got into a van with some of the gang members thinking they would smoke cannabis but instead were raped behind a toilet block and bashed in a Greenacre park just six days later. A 16-year-old girl was raped by Bilal Skaf as 12 others laughed and bashed her before she escaped Gosling Park in Greenacre on August 12. In the most horiffic attack, a woman was approached at Bankstown station and subjected to six hours of torture as she was raped 25 times by the 14 gang members before being sprayed with a fire hose and left in the middle of nowhere. Bilal Skaf headed 14 Lebanese Australian youths in the infamous Sydney gang rapes that saw seven women as young as 14 terrorised in 2000 The woman said the attackers called her an 'Aussie pig'. Two women were taken from Beverley Hills train station and were sexually assaulted in a five-hour period at a nearby home in their last attack. Finally, Mohammed Skaf and Tayyab Skeikh met up with other gang members at Bondi Beach on October 7 where they were arrested after police had followed them from Strathfield station. A New Jersey police officer managed to help an unlucky toddler who had managed to get himself stuck inside his toy box. Sergeant Rick Hernandez, with the Fort Lee Police Department, rushed to help young Luca get from inside his activity box. 'Thank you to Sergeant Rick Hernandez for saving this child who was stuck inside of his toy #FortLeePD,' the department said on their social media accounts. Sergeant Rick Hernandez, with the Fort Lee Police Department, rushed to help young Luca get from inside his activity box The boy's mom, Soona Choe, explained to ABC 7 that she had tried to pull the youngster out from his toy. But the mother called 911 when she realized that she couldn't get Luca out. 'I was panicking,' she said. 'I had to get him out. So I had no choice and I didn't have the tools.' The boy's mom, Soona Choe, explained that she had tried to pull the youngster out from his toy. But the mother called 911 when she realized that she couldn't get Luca out. Choe explained that her son was able to climb into the toy because the top was removed at the time Choe explained that her son was able to climb into the toy because the top was removed at the time. 'His knees and legs were underneath the leg on one side and his back was stuck against the other side,' added Sergeant Hernandez. 'So trying to pull him out would have caused injury to either of the legs or back.' The quick thinking officer added that while the mom was calm, the boy's grandmother screamed as he tried to remove Luca from the box. Thousands of Australians protested today, with banners displaying 'No pride in genocide', as a national holiday intended to celebrate the birth of modern Australia continues to divide the country. Australia Day, on January 26, marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet to Sydney Cove, carrying mainly convicts and troops from Britain. But for many indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years, it is 'Invasion Day' - the start of Britain's colonisation of Aboriginal lands and their brutal subjugation. Some demonstrators have called for Australia Day to be abolished, while others want the date of the holiday changed. Among those in the latter camp is Hollywood actor, Chris Hemsworth. The 35-year-old, from Melbourne, took to Instagram to share an impassioned speech on the subject. This is while Chilean-born actress Pia Miller of Home and Away fame also joined in by posting a glorious artwork of the Aboriginal flag. Scroll down for video January 26, marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the 'First Fleet' to Sydney Cove, carrying mainly convicts and troops from Britain. But for many indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years, it is 'Invasion Day' - the start of Britain's colonisation of Aboriginal lands and their brutal subjugation. Above, protesters in Sydney on Saturday The Avengers star made an impassioned plea about his thoughts on Australia Day on Instagram with a picture of him and his child Chilean-born stunner Pia Miller (pictured) of Home and Away fame also joined in by posting a glorious artwork of the Aboriginal flag A Royal Australian Navy helicopter flies the national flag over Sydney Harbour during Australia Day celebrations The Avengers star said it was a day of 'mixed emotions' for many Australians, making direct reference to indigenous people. 'Let's find a date to celebrate this beautiful country that doesn't exclude our indigenous people and doesn't ignore the pain and suffering that has occurred.' He added: 'Australia Day should be a day where we are all united not divided,' adding the controversial #changethedate hashtag. The actor's comments come as councils across the country are axing Australia Day celebrations - to the fury of some residents - while some Green MPs will attend 'Invasion Day' rallies instead. Above, demonstrators in Melbourne this weekend. Australia's 700,000 or so indigenous people track near the bottom of its 25million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator While opinion polls suggest up to half the country supports changing Australia Day, the conservative government is under pressure to legally entrench January 26 as a national holiday. Pictured, protesters in Brisbane on Saturday Byron Bay in New South Wales, Fremantle in Western Australia and Victoria's Darebin, Yarra and Moreland councils are among the first to cancel official events on the day - out of respect for indigenous people who see Australia Day as a time of mourning. 'Celebrating Australia Day on January 26 is offensive,' said Joe Williams, a mental health worker and former professional rugby league player. 'To celebrate an invasion which has seen our people dispossessed, displaced and oppressed for some 230 years, is plain offensive,' he continued. Australia's 700,000 or so indigenous people track near the bottom of its 25million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator. Councils across the country are axing Australia Day celebrations - to the fury of some residents - while some Green MPs will attend 'Invasion Day' rallies instead. Above, one such rally in Sydney today Thousands took to the streets, including these demonstrators in Sydney. Australia Day is usually celebrated with picnics, traditional Aboriginal performances and citizenship ceremonies, where new Australians pledge their commitment to the nation Beachgoers at Bondi pose up in patriotic swimwear on Australia Day. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government, which faces a general election due in May, opposes any change and has moved to shore up support for the holiday While opinion polls suggest up to half the country supports changing Australia Day, the conservative government is under pressure to legally entrench January 26 as a national holiday. 'We should keep January 26 as a special day in our calendar,' said Nick Folkes, a painter from Sydney and founder of the Party for Freedom, an anti-immigration and anti-Muslim far-right group. 'It means respect and acknowledgement of the sacrifices made by explorers, settlers, our convicts,' he added. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government, which faces a general election due in May, opposes any change and has moved to shore up support for the holiday. This month, it ordered local councils to hold induction ceremonies for new citizens on Australia Day and the Australian Citizenship Day holiday on September 17, or have their authorisation revoked. Morrison has also pledged nearly AU$7million (4million) for a replica of explorer James Cook's HMS Endeavour, the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia in 1770. Aussies flocked to Bondi beach over the weekend to cool down, and celebrate, Australia Day Dozens of Australian flags waved in the wind as revellers took to the shallow waters of the beach this weekend. Others temporarily tattooed the iconic blue, white and red flag on their bodies as they went for a dip The replica ship will circumnavigate Australia next year to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's voyage. Opposition leader Bill Shorten has criticised Morrison for spending taxpayers' money on a 'bizarre Captain Cook fetish,' but the prime minister said it will unify Australians. 'I believe it will be a voyage of bringing Australians together,' Morrison said in Cairns this month. 'I'm keen for it to be done very much in that spirit.' Australia Day is often celebrated with picnics, traditional Aboriginal performances and citizenship ceremonies, where new Australians pledge their commitment to the nation. The REAL story behind the white settlement on January 26, 1788 By STEPHEN GIBBS for Daily Mail Australia The First Fleet sailed from England with explicit instructions that upon its arrival in New South Wales the indigenous people were not to be harmed. When it landed at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson on January 26, 1788, no shots were fired and no one was physically hurt. Whether the country was 'invaded' or 'settled' is at the heart of the debate over how and when Australia Day is marked. The 1992 Mabo decision granting native title to indigenous Australians relied on the country having been settled, not invaded, as noted in WA Today. In that decision the High Court rejected the 'terra nullius' doctrine - that the Australian landmass belonged to no one - without overturning the view the continent had been settled, not invaded. Some of the First Fleet vessels under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip sail to Sydney. When it landed at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson on January 26, 1788, no shots were fired and no one was physically hurt In the 230 years following the First Fleet's arrival, terrible injustices against Aborigines took place. All of those atrocities - the massacres, the human rights abuses and discrimination, are part of the debate over whether the nation should change the date of Australia Day. But what really happened on January 26, 1788? The Royal Navy's Captain Arthur Phillip had been empowered under British law by King George III to establish a penal colony in New South Wales. The land he was ordered to settle had been occupied by Aborigines for perhaps 60,000 years but was not legally recognised as a sovereign nation. Eleven ships under his command left Portsmouth in May 1787 with about 1,400 men, women and children on board, bound for Botany Bay. Leading the fleet were two Royal Navy vessels, accompanying three store ships and six convict transports. Captain Arthur Phillip addresses First Fleet settlers upon landing at Sydney Cove. He had been empowered under British law by King George III to establish a penal colony in New South Wales. The land he was ordered to settle had been occupied by Aborigines for perhaps 60,000 years but was not legally recognised as a sovereign nation Among Phillip's instructions upon reaching his destination were that Aborigines' lives and livelihoods be protected and friendly relations with them established. The First Fleet's initial landing was gradual, with ships arriving between January 18 and 20 at Botany Bay, south of Port Jackson, where James Cook had dropped anchor 18 years earlier. According to the NSW Migration Heritage Centre, the local Aboriginal people met the fleet in an 'uneasy stand-off' at what is now called Frenchman's Beach at La Perouse. No violence occurred. Unsatisfied with Botany Bay as a suitable site to establish a colony, on January 21, Phillip led a small party in three boats to explore other options further north. He entered Port Jackson, which he later described in a letter as 'the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security' His party returned to Botany Bay two days later to find another colonial power exploring the coast. On January 24, two French ships from the scientific expedition led by Jean-Francois de La Perouse were seen just outside Botany Bay. The French, who stayed at Botany Bay until March 10, fired upon Aborigines in February. On January 26, the First Fleet headed to Port Jackson, landing at a spot Phillip called Sydney Cove after Lord Sydney, the British Home Secretary. Only Phillip and several officers and marines from the navy vessel Supply initially went ashore, with the rest of those on board watching from the water. The British flag was planted in a short ceremony and formal possession was declared. The other 10 ships of the fleet did not arrive until later in the day. There was no armed conflict with the local Eora people. No one was physically harmed. Phillip's instructions regarding Aborigines were that he would 'conciliate their affections', to 'live in amity and kindness with them.' He was to punish anyone who should 'wantonly destroy them, or give them any unnecessary interruption in the exercise of their several occupations.' Those instructions were standard British orders for the time and initially were largely followed. Writing in the Dictionary of Sydney, historian Grace Karskens said: 'Phillip and the officers were genuinely committed to establishing and maintaining friendly and peaceful relations.' 'The early meetings in Botany Bay and Port Jackson were often marked by friendliness, curiosity, gift-giving and dancing together on the beaches. 'This is so entirely different from earlier violent and murderous encounters between Europeans and Indigenous people. 'It is also very different from the frontier violence that dominated pastoral expansion in Australia well into the 20th century. In that sense it was enlightened and humane.' According to Professor Karskens, the first fatal shooting might not have occurred until September 1789 when a Henry Hacking shot into a group of Aborigines out hunting on the North Shore. As the colony spread in the years to come, so did the violence. More and more land was taken. Massacres did occur. Some Australians say all of those wrongs must be attributed to the First Fleet arriving at Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788. But there was no violent confrontation on that first Australia Day. Advertisement The councils who will not mark Australia Day on THAT date Inner-city Melbourne's Yarra City Council last year became the first in the country to stop holding citizenship ceremonies on January 26. Similarly, the City of Fremantle has held its Australia Day celebrations the day after the rest of the country for the past three years. City of Darebin Mayor Susan Rennie in Melbourne's north told SBS News her council 'will not be marking January 26 by holding any events' for the second year in a row. The Byron Shire Council will hold celebrations on the evening on January 25 with citizenship ceremonies held the following day. While the changes have been lauded by both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, they have sparked backlash in other facets of the community. Online, Perth residents expressed fury and confusion at the councils' desertion from January 26-based celebrations. 'It's all noise being made by loud greens voters and socialists. I can't imagine ever being so fragile I need to use atrocities of yesteryear as a red herring for me to project my insecurities onto happy Australians,' wrote one man. The comments come as it was revealed by The Australian that Green MPs will attend 'Invasion Day' rallies around the country on January 26. The move is part of a bid to pose political pressure toward Bill Shorten and the Labor Party to change their sway of support for Australia Day. Greens' indigenous affairs spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert told the publication that Mr Shorten's opposition to support changing the date was out of step with the majority of Australians. 'He says "Yeah, we know a lot of aboriginal people aren't happy with it", but he still thinks we should be celebrating on that day. He is trying to have it both ways,' she said. This 11-year-old has been dubbed Taiwan's Kurt Cobain after his Ukulele cover of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' went viral. YouTuber Feng E showcases a mesmerizing musical dexterity beyond his years as he rocks out to the classic Nirvana hit - somehow managing to play bass and lead simultaneously on the four-string instrument. Scaling his way up-and-down the fret board, Feng intricately picks each note of the song, adding intermittent head-bangs for good measure. The grunge anthem is a stalwart of any beginner musician's song-book, but Feng breathes new life into the tried and tested tune with his plucky rendition. Feng E, 11, has been playing the ukulele for six years, after being encourage by his father to put down the Lego and pick-up an instrument Amassing nearly 350,000 views online, the Taiwanese pre-teen has been inundated with messages likening him to the Seattle-born rocker, Kurt Cobain. 'Amazing job...I think Kurt Cobain would be proud if he could see this,' wrote one viewer. 'Kurt Cobain reincarnated' suggested another. Feng E has been playing the Ukulele for six-years, beginning at age five after his father warned him he wouldn't play Legos with him anymore until he picked up an instrument. Over the past few years, Feng has transformed himself from a reluctant musician to a ukulele prodigy, which helped book him a performance slot on the Ellen show In 2017, a 10-year-old Feng received a golden buzzer from the judges on Asia's got talent after he wowed them with an original song The cover has been viewed nearly 350,000 times in less than three weeks Since then, covering artists from Michael Jackson to The Cranberries, the young star has transformed himself from a reluctant musician into a musical prodigy. In 2017 he received a golden buzzer for his jaw-dropping performance on Asia's Got Talent. He later appeared on the Ellen show, where he was later given a Ukulele made from Lego. Advertisement The icy blast said to be bringing 'the coldest air in five years' to the US is already being felt as freezing temperatures wreaked havoc on boats in Upstate New York, hinting at the kind of issues that 200million Americans could face as a 'polar vortex' blows through. Rising water levels and ice jams on the Hudson River resulted in six boats breaking free from their moorings near Troy, New York, and floating down the river towards Albany on Friday. The unmanned, runaway boats including the Captain JP Cruise Line, the Rusty Anchor Restaurant Barge and multiple tug boats led to multiple vehicle bridge closures along the river during the morning rush hour, Syracuse.com reported. Scroll down for video. The Captain JP III cruise ship that broke away from its winter moorings in Troy, New York, and floated down river. It stopped after getting wedged against a bridge in Albany on Friday Two Coast Guard ice cutters and two commercial tugboats worked for several hours to free the Captain JP cruise ship and then towed it back to its moorings in Tory A restaurant boat and several tug boats were among the unmanned vessels that got swept from their moorings by rising water levels and ice jams on the Hudson River on Friday The breakaway boats led to temporary closures of the Rensselaer, New York's Dunn Memorial Bridge, Albany's Patroon Island Bridge and Troy's Menands Bridge, among others, during Friday morning's commute. All the bridges were reopened later in the day. As it floated on the Hudson, the four-deck, 300-foot-long Captain JP Cruise Line crashed into the Congress Street Bridge before coming to a stop when it got wedged against the Livingston Avenue Amtrak bridge, police said. Amtrak trains were forced to reduce speeds as they approached the bridge. Two Coast Guard ice-breaking cutters and a pair of commercial tug boats worked throughout the day to dislodge the cruise ship, eventually freeing it at 3.30pm and then towing it back to its starting point in Troy, according to CBS 6 Albany. The Coast Guard said that the other four boats that floated downriver were also tracked and secured by Friday afternoon. The incoming polar vortex is expected to cause temperatures to plummet in some areas to as little as minus 60 degrees below Fahrenheit when windchill is factored in. A beacon off of Chicago's lake front is frozen over Friday after The National Weather Service issued a wind chill warning for counties in northwestern and north central Illinois Frost forms patterns on the window of a St. Joseph, Mich., home on Friday. Bitterly cold temperatures are expected to arrive in Southwest Michigan in the next several days with lows falling below zero Cold weather advisories were in effect Friday from North Dakota to Ohio Extreme cold weather conditions are predicted across the Midwest in the coming week By midweek the wind chills will feel as low as 45 below in Chicago, forecasters have warned The winter storm is predicted to produce snowfall throughout the northeast on Tuesday Forecasters say 'it's going to be the coldest air in five years' as the deep freeze continues As the country gears up for a bitterly cold weekend, forecasters have warned there is worse to come as a replay of the 'polar vortex' that bludgeoned the U.S. in 2014 hits. Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the private Weather Underground, said: 'We're going to be feeling it big time. It's going to be the coldest air in five years.' Forecasters said it could be even colder this time round with wind chills by midweek reaching as much as 45 degrees below Fahrenheit in Chicago. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, forecasters as much as a foot of snow to fall from Sunday to Monday, with temperature lows of minus 20 degrees, which would feel like anywhere from minus 40 to minus 60 degrees with windchill, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Friday's arctic blast, which spread painful cold across the Midwest on Friday, resulted in school closures and the opening of warming centers. Cold weather advisories were in effect Friday from North Dakota to Ohio, with dangerously cold wind chills predicted to dip to as low as 45 below zero in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and to 35 below in parts of northern Illinois and Iowa. Meteorologists said when the polar vortex plunges into the U.S., it will be warmer in parts of the Arctic Greenland, northern Canada and Alaska than in Chicago and Minneapolis. Chicago's lakefront is frozen over Friday. The National Weather Service had a wind chill warning in effect until 12pm Friday for counties in Illinois The westbound lanes of Interstate 90 in North East Township, Pennsylvania, were shut down for almost two hours following a series of crashes just east of the Bort Road overpass on Friday A woman was transported to the hospital after a one-car accident in Millcreek Township, Pennsylvania Friday. Her SUV flipped during white-out conditions and heavy lake-effect snow People visiting the ice house for the fifth annual Dollar Energy Fund Cool Down for Warmth event are visible through the ice blocks on Friday in Pittsburgh Steam rises from Lake Michigan on Friday morning in Milwaukee. An arctic wave has wrapped parts of the Midwest in numbing cold, sending temperatures plunging and prompting officials to close dozens of schools Friday, but forecasters say the worst may be yet to come Corey Blackwell, left, and his dad Kenny pose in below-zero temperatures in Fargo, North Dakota, in Friday Jason Gion, an employee for the city of Fargo, N.D., works in 15-below temperatures Masters said the cold snap is due to the polar vortex, the gigantic circular upper air weather pattern in the Arctic region enveloping the North Pole, splitting into three pieces in late December because of an occasional weather condition called 'sudden stratospheric warming.' One chunk of that trapped cold air went to Siberia, another to Scandinavia, and the third piece is heading through Canada. On Wednesday, it will be over northern Michigan somewhere, he said. It's a system some forecasters have dubbed 'Barney' because computer forecast models show the cold air as chubby purple blobs, said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with the private forecasting company weather.us. The polar vortex rarely plunges as far south as the U.S., maybe every few years or more, Maue said. The last big plunge was Jan. 6, 2014, when Chicago's temperature dipped to minus-16. Schools in Milwaukee western Michigan, eastern Iowa and northern Illinois canceled classes Friday, when the expected high was just 2 Fahrenheit. In northern Michigan, residents of islands in the river connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron were warned to stock up on supplies in case ferry service was cut off. In Chicago, warming centers opened. Kenny Blackwell and his son, Corey, moved from Virginia to North Dakota to help build low-income housing projects. Outside their current project on Friday, they chuckled at a cellphone showing the temperature at minus-10 and said it felt more like Alaska. 'The money here is great but the weather here is so nasty it made my dad's hair freeze,' Corey Blackwell said. 'We had to go out and buy some North Dakota clothes!' Ice fishing guide Bryan Lang acknowledged that extreme cold was part of his job in northern North Dakota, but he said he felt lucky to have taken Friday off work: the morning temperature was negative 21 degrees (negative 29 Celsius) with a wind chill of minus 42 (negative 41 Celsius). 'I'm glad to be in the house drinking coffee,' he laughed. Forecasters warn of a replay of the 'polar vortex' that bludgeoned the US in 2014 When the polar vortex plunges into the US, it will be warmer in parts of the Arctic than in Chicago and Minneapolis Colder than normal temperatures are expected to hit the South as far as the Gulf Coast, too The deep freeze caused organizers of the Winter Carnival in Minnesota to cancel several events, including Thursday night's parade through downtown St. Paul. The low temperatures also forced the cancellation of events in the Fargo Frostival, a celebration of winter activities in North Dakota's largest city. Organizer Charley Johnson joked that the Undie Run will go on Saturday as scheduled, but that long underwear was encouraged. 'We're going to persevere no matter what with most of these events,' Johnson said. 'We know they'll be smart about it. The people will bundle up and not stay outside too long.' The Midwest and Northeast won't be the only parts of the country potentially impacted by the polar vortex, though. The Arctic front is expected to pass through the South, as far down as the Gulf Coast, according to AccuWeather. In Little Rock, Arkansas, temperatures on Monday are expected to peak at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, before plummeting to the low 20s. New Orleans, meanwhile, si expected to see temperatures reach the freezing point for the first time since January 2018. Central Texas through to northern Florida are likely to have temperatures fall below freezing on Tuesday, while Atlanta and Nashville will have temperatures hoover in the teens. Despite daylight hours usually posting warmer temperatures, AccuWeather Meteorologist Rob Richards said that 'many locations across this part of the country will be about 15-20 degrees below average.' Some southern areas are also likely to see rainfall turn into snow as the chill settles in, with snow beginning to accumulate on Tuesday. Advertisement Boris Johnson's ex-Tory aide girlfriend Carrie Symonds was with the former Foreign Secretary's father at an anti-whaling protest in central London today. The 30-year-old was wrapped up warm as she headed out of her million-pound home to attend the Protest Against Japanese Whaling demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy. The former Foreign Minister condemned the practice as 'brutal' and 'barbaric' when it emerged Japan had withdrawn from the International Whaling Commission last month. Ms Symonds was photographed with Mr Johnson's father, Stanley, at the busy protest. Carrie Symonds was photographed with the former Foreign Minister's father, Stanley, at a protest against whaling in central London Ms Symonds, 30, was wrapped up warm as she headed out of her million-pound home in London on Saturday morning The ex-Tory aide was photographed wearing an olive green puffer jacket as she headed to a mass protest against Japan's decision to begin whaling for profit This is the first time the former Tory aide has been pictured with any of Mr Johnson's family - and the photograph of the grinning pair is an indication she has been welcomed with open arms. Ms Symonds was wearing an olive green puffer jacket as she left her house to head to the protest against Japan's decision to begin whaling for profit in July. Accompanied by a friend, the blonde walked towards a silver Prius outside her home. Ms Symonds and Mr Johnson stood with placards outside the Japanese Embassy as they joined protested against whaling Holding signs reading 'Shame Japan' and 'END WHALING', demonstrators chanted with Ms Symonds (left centre and right) outside the embassy in central London She was later photographed holding a Conservation Animal Welfare Foundation sign which read 'END WHALING' outside the Japanese Embassy in central London. Ms Symonds spoke to condemn whale hunts during the demonstration. She said: 'I've heard all sorts of ridiculous reasons in an attempt to try and justify the hunt of whales. 'The top one "it's tradition". The truth is there can be no good reason to resume commercial whaling. Accompanied by a friend, the blonde walked towards a silver Prius outside her London home on Saturday morning Ms Symonds smiled as she closed her front door (left) with her friend in tow as she headed to the event this morning The blonde former Tory aide wore a floral dress, black tights and boots as she headed towards a silver Prius parked nearby Ms Symonds was later photographed holding a Conservation Animal Welfare Foundation sign which read 'END WHALING' outside the Japanese Embassy in central London 'We've all seen pictures of the sea turned red with blood. It's cruel beyond belief'. The ex-Tory aide had tweeted about her involvement in the event earlier in the week. She wrote: 'Tomorrow is the big day: our march against Japanese whaling. Kicks off: 12pm @ Cavendish Square. 'I will be there and speaking too. Do come and join. Let's send a message and show we care.' Ms Symonds and Mr Johnson were spotted together last week for the first time since the former Foreign Secretary announced his marriage had come to an end. The pair had kept a low profile after Mr Johnson and his wife of 25 years, Marina Wheeler, confirmed they were divorcing last September. But behind the scenes, their relationship has apparently been going from strength to strength. Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds were clearly smitten with each other as they strolled together while exchanging loving glances With her blonde hair tousled by the breeze, former Conservative Party official Miss Symonds' smile as she looks into Mr Johnson's eyes suggests a genuine commitment to the twice-married father of four, said body language expert Judi James Mr Johnson who owns a home in Oxfordshire is often spotted by neighbours leaving his partner's South London flat. Ms Symonds bought the property last year for a little over 650,000, with a mortgage. The MP is said to 'adore' his partner and behave like a 'puppy dog' around her, and the pair are reportedly planning to 'come out' as a couple next month. One source told the Sun: 'Obviously they've tried to be discreet about their relationship, so Boris has been spending time in Carrie's flat. Mr Johnson, 54, has been dating former Tory spin doctor Carrie Symonds (pictured left), 30, since the summer. They are seen together right at the Boat Race in 2012 'Neighbours regularly see him shuffling out, woolly hat wedged down over his face, tottering off on his trusty push bike. 'The plan is to "come out" at an official Conservative party function towards the end of next month. Boris adores Carrie, and doesn't want to keep it a secret for much longer.' The source said Ms Symonds even has a photograph of the 54-year-old MP as the screensaver on her phone. It is believed Mr Johnson has been dating the former Tory spin doctor, who is now an adviser to financial firm Bloomberg, since the summer. A baby died of sepsis just hours after his parents spotted a purple rash under his arm while changing his nappy. Arthur Keeling, aged just 14 months, was playing with his twin sisters Martha and Nancy at their home in Silverdale, Staffordshire, when he got a slight temperature and became tired. His parents gave him some Calpol but noticed the rash and called 111, prompting an ambulance to rush the baby to hospital on blue lights. Doctors battled to save Arthur, but he soon took a dramatic turn for the worse and died just hours after the rash was first spotted. Arthur Keeling, 14 months old, died of sepsis just hours after his parents spotted a purple rash under his arm His heartbroken parents Georgia, 22, and Darren, 27, have now paid tribute to their 'perfect little boy'. Darren said: 'They sent an ambulance to us. The paramedics took him to hospital on blue lights. He just wasn't strong enough to pull through. The doctors fought for at least one-and-a-half hours to save him in intensive care.' At Royal Stoke University Hospital, doctors discovered Arthur had sepsis and the infection spread rapidly. He had fluids pumped into him and was put on a machine to help him breathe, with doctors having to revive him several times with CPR. They couldn't save the baby and Arthur died on January 14. He and his family got to say their final goodbyes at The Donna Louise hospice. They are now raising funds for the hospice and have so far collected more than 1,000. Another GoFundMe page has also been set up by Arthur's uncle Dan to help cover the funeral costs. Arthur, who had been a healthy baby up until he developed sepsis, had a happy nature according to his family. His heartbroken parents Georgia, 22, and Darren, 27, have now paid tribute to their 'perfect little boy', pictured with his sisters Martha and Nancy Darren, a customer services worker, said: 'He could brighten up anyone's day. He had a cheeky smile on his face that said it all. We used to call him a little chunky monkey. 'He was too perfect. He would sleep all through the night. He loved his food and was always happy.' Darren and Georgia, 22, are now trying to come to terms with their son's death. Their twin daughters, two-year-old Martha and Nancy, have also been missing their brother. Darren said: 'They know Arthur isn't here and they ask for him. They say ''he's in the sky''. I'm grateful my daughters aren't that age to go through all that emotional knowing.' The family now hope to raise awareness of sepsis so other parents look for tell-tale signs. Symptoms can include a child's skin being abnormally cold to touch, a mottled or bluish appearance, a rash that doesn't fade when pressed, lethargy, vomiting and rapid breathing. Darren will be attending today's Stoke City match against Preston North End today, where he will be wearing a specially designed 'Arthur 1 son' shirt. Stoke fans are planning a round of applause for Arthur in the 14th minute. The timing marks both the day he died and his 14 months of life. Dan Keeling is also involved in the efforts to raise awareness of sepsis in his nephew's memory. Dan, 29, said: 'If I can give you anything to take away from this experience, it's that you simply must follow your gut. 'There was, unfortunately, nothing they could have done to help him.. In the space of five hours, he was gone.' To visit the fundraising page in Arthur's memory, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/for-the-family-and-Donna-louise German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on every German to help fight anti-Semitism ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Her plea comes amid a rising number of violent attacks against Jews across Germany. In her weekly podcast broadcast today Merkel said: 'Today we are seeing a very different kind of anti-Semitism: there's the hatred of Jews by our local people, but also by Muslim migrants.' Following her appearance at Davos earlier this week, Angela Merkel (pictured above) said there is a hatred towards Jew by 'our local people' In recent years, Germany has seen a rising number of often violent attacks against Jews which led the government to appoint a commissioner against anti-Semitism. It's also funding the creation of a national registration office for anti-Semitic hate crimes. Merkel has also called for new ways to keep alive the memory of the millions of people killed by the Nazis. In a video address she said it was everyone's responsibility to ensure 'zero tolerance' of xenophobia and all forms of anti-Semitism. 'People growing up today must know what people were capable of in the past, and we must work proactively to ensure that it is never repeated,' Merkel said. She also called for new forms of remembrance due to the dwindling number of eyewitnesses from the Nazi era, and because of persistent hatred and incitement today. German Chancellor Angela Merkel exits the stag after addressing the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019 Merkel cited the importance of supporting Holocaust memorials and private initiatives such as the 'stumbling stones' project, which installs brass bricks inscribed with the names and key details of people near the homes from which they were deported during the Nazi era. 'I think these forms of remembrance ... are very important and will become more significant in the future,' Merkel said. On Sunday, Germany and many other countries are marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day - 75 years after the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland. Some six million European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Water bills in Sydney are expected to rise when the city's desalination plant is switched on later today. Households could be forced to stomp up an additional $35 every year with the New South Wales government's announcement that the plant, situated at Kurnell, would be back open for business. The facility, worth a staggering $2.3 billion, will be reactivated after water levels in Warragamba dam reached critical point of 60 per cent on Saturday morning. Scroll down for video (File picture) New South Wales households could be forced to stomp up an additional $35 every year in water bills According to WaterNSW, water levels have been dropping at the equivalent of 1 per cent point, every two weeks. It's believed that unless there is a sudden, and unexpected, rainfall the plant switch on will go ahead this weekend. The project, which was initially completed in 2010, will supply 15 per cent of Sydney's water requirements. However, it's thought it could as long as three or four months before drinking water from the plant reaches the Sydney water network. Once the plant is activated it's thought it can take up to three or four months for drinking water to enter the Sydney water network The plant is due to be switched on later today because water levels in the Warragamba dam reached critical point of just 60 per cent The development was originally created to act as a safeguard for the city's water supply, but once activated it can take up to eight months for the plant to be 'fully operational'. 'Under the Metropolitan Water Plan, when dam levels fall below 60 per cent, the Sydney Desalination Plant is switched on to boost supplies,' New South Wales Utilities Minister Don Harwin said. It's thought the yearly increase of water bills for the average household will be between $25 and $35. The project (pictured) was initially completed in 2010, and will supply 15 per cent of Sydney's water requirements But Sydney Water managing director Kevin Young has urged Sydney dwellers to try to be savvier when it comes to their water usage. 'A small saving by each individual can create a significant water saving if the majority of the 5 million Sydneysiders get involved,' Mr Young said, according to The Daily Telegraph. Today's switch on is essentially a recommission of the project, as the plant will take some time to gear back up into full working motion. The plant (pictured) must be operational for a minimum of 14 months, and can take up to eight months to be 'fully operational' When the plant was previously open, from mid-2010 to 2012, it's estimated to have provided 158 billion litres of drinking water. Once the plant is officially up and running it must be operational for a minimum of 14 months. If the water levels continue to dwindle to as little as 50 per cent, design work for stage two of the plant will commence, according to Sydney Water's Metropolitan Water Plan. New South Wales Utilities Minister Don Harwin (pictured) said the plant is switched on to boost supplies when water levels reach critical point Advertisement An angry mob of protesters calling for Australia Day to be abolished appeared to attack a flag-wearing nationalist during ugly clashes in Melbourne on Saturday. The city was fraught as 5,000 indigenous people and their supporters confronted around 100 alt-right nationalists holding a counter demonstration. As tensions came to a head, a protester wearing an Australian flag around his shoulders appeared to be set upon. Footage from the demonstration appeared to show him being dragged across the concrete by several 'Invasion Day' protesters. The man, believed to be part of anti-Islam group The United Patriots Front, was then escorted away from the group by police officers. Crowd of 5,000 demonstrators: Invasion Day protesters gather at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne on Australia Day 2019 Clash: Protesters and counter-protesters have clashed during an 'Invasion Day' rally in Melbourne on Australia Day Melbourne: Australian Aborigines and their supporters stage a protest against Australia Day on Saturday afternoon Police were quick to pounce when a small group of opposing protesters clashed in Melbourne on Saturday He told 7 News Melbourne: 'They got triggered and upset that I was standing on Australian Day holding my flag.' Earlier in the day, protesters draped in Aboriginal flags began what was billed as a 'peaceful protest' by pushing their way through a police line at the head of Bourke Street. From there, they marched towards the Yarra River, chanting: 'Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.' They say it is wrong to celebrate Australia Day on the day the British settlers arrived at land inhabited by indigenous people and want the date changed. A counter-protest mustered fewer than 100 participants who were shrouded in Australian flags at the steps of Federation Square. One man was holding a placard reading: 'To defend my country was once called patriotism now it's called racism.' That same slogan was read at a rally designed to protest African gang crime at St Kilda beach only weeks earlier. At the foot of Federation Square, a pair of protesters clad in the Australian flag clashed with those marching from the northern end of the city, before they were pounced on by the throngs of police. One of the men was dragged to the ground before being frog-marched off by police, another couple also told to move on by police shortly after. The event started with a minute's silence and speeches rallying against Aboriginal deaths in custody, the abolition of public drunkenness laws, calling for an end to children being taken from family care and a spate of aboriginal child suicides. Melbourne: A group of about 5,000 people were actively marching through the street in favour of changing the date of Australia Day Melbourne: One banner at the protest read 'Australia is a crime scene' and another said: 'Respect existence or expect resistance' Melbourne: Thousands marched with a banner reading 'change the date or we still won't celebrate' Australia Day has become a contentious issue as some believe the day enforces a false narrative. The day is held in honour of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships. However, there is a growing number of Australians who believe the day has become a symbol of inequality and institutionalised harm. Protests advocating for changing the date of Australia Day from January 26 have become established in all Australian cities, with growing support for them each year. The director of the British Museum has appeared to rule out returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece. The 2,500 year-old marble sculptures were brought over to Britain in the early 19th century and bought by the Government who passed them on to the British Museum where they remain one of the most prized exhibits. Debate over where the sculptures should be located has raged for decades. Director of the museum Hartwig Fischer said the whole collection should remain together They were taken from the Parthenon temple in Athens from 1801 to 1812, and preserved by the British Museum since then. On 20th of June 2009 the Acropolis Museum was opened to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, but it still doesn't have the Elgin Marbles. In an interview with Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper, British Museum director Hartwig Fischer said: 'The Trustees of the British Museum feel the obligation to preserve the collection in its entirety, so that things that are part of this collection remain part of this collection.' The statues were taken from the top of the Parthenon temple in Athens from 1801 to 1812 The Elgin Parthenon Marbles at The British Museum where they've been since the 18th century The director of the British Museum (Elgin Marbles pictured inside) said he understands Greek frustration on the fact that the pieces of art remain in the UK, despite being taken from Greece Asked if he thinks the Greeks are right to want the Parthenon sculptures back, he told the newspaper: 'I can certainly understand that the Greeks have a special and passionate relationship with this part of their cultural heritage. 'Yes, I understand that there is a desire to see all of the Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.' Asked about Jeremy Corbyn's pledge to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece if he became prime minister, Mr Fischer told Ta Nea: 'I think that this is Mr Corbyn's personal view on the question, that you take note of. 'Obviously, that is not the stance and the view of the Trustees of the Museum.' Mr Fischer was asked if he would accept that Greece is the legal owner of the Parthenon Sculptures, and he replied: 'No, I would not. The objects that are part of the collection of the British Museum are in the fiduciary ownership of the Trustees of the Museum.' The Acropolis Museum was opened to house every artifact found on the historic site The marbles were removed from the ruins of the Parthenon temple in Athens and shipped to England between 1801 and 1805 Lord Charles Bruce said the Elgin Marbles, now on display in the British Museum, were handed by a Turkish sultan to his forebear Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin Many Parthenon sculptures have been housed in the British Museum since 1816 after they were bought by the government from Lord Elgin In a statement, the British Museum said: 'Hartwig Fischer was stating the long-standing position of the British Museum. We believe there is a great public benefit in being able to see these wonderful objects in the context of a world collection. 'The museum lends extensively across the world, and some loans are long-term but not indefinite.' Back in June in an interview with the same Greek daily, Corbyn reiterated his position that the 'Parthenon sculptures belong to Greece'. 'They were made in Greece and have been there for many centuries until Lord Elgin took them,' he said. 'As with everything stolen or removed from a country that was in the possession or colony - including objects looted from other countries in the past - we should also begin constructive talks with the Greek government on the return of the sculptures.' But the Elgin Marbles were actually a gift, according to a descendant of the man who brought them to UK shores. Lord Charles Bruce said the friezes, now on display in the British Museum, were handed by a Turkish sultan to his forebear Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin. In return, the earl gave him a chandelier and the smallpox vaccine. Venezuela's foreign minister has blasted a European ultimatum to hold elections within eight days as 'childlike'. Jorge Arreaza insisted that Nicolas Maduro remained the legitimate president despite pressure from Britain, France, Spain, Germany and the US. 'Europe is giving us eight days? Where do you get that you have the power to establish a deadline or an ultimatum to a sovereign people,' Arreaza told the Security Council. 'It's almost childlike.' Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza refers to a US news article as he tells the UN his country won't hold elections within eight days Jorge Arreaza insisted that Nicolas Maduro remained the legitimate president despite pressure from Britain, France, Spain, Germany and the US 'Nobody is going to give us deadlines or tell us if there are elections or not,' the foreign minister added. 'How is it that you can issue an ultimatum to a sovereign government?' he asked. Hours earlier, Britain, France, Germany and Spain told Maduro that he had eight days to organize elections or they would recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that Guaido is 'the right person to take Venezuela forward'. 'Nobody is going to give us deadlines or tell us if there are elections or not,' Arreaza said The foreign minister holds up the Charter of the United Nations as he rejected mounting pressure from Europe and the US to hold elections 'Time for a new start for the suffering ppl (people) of Venezuela,' Hunt said in a statement later on Saturday. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted Saturday in French and Spanish that 'the Venezuelan people should be able to freely decide their future.' He said France is working with European partners to encourage a 'political process' that would solve Venezuela's leadership crisis. Spain's prime minister made an almost identical announcement earlier today. Pedro Sanchez said that unless Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro called for new elections within eight days Spain will recognize Guaido as the legitimate president of the South American country. 'How is it that you can issue an ultimatum to a sovereign government?' he asked the council 'Spain is giving the government of Nicolas Maduro eight days to convoke free, transparent and democratic elections, and if that does not occur, Spain will recognize Juan Guaido as the president charged with carrying out said elections,' Sanchez said. He added that as leader of Venezuela's National Assembly, Guaido is 'the person who should lead the transition to free elections.' The other 27 members of the European Union should back Spain's position, the Prime Minister said. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivers a speech at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid, saying that unless Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro called for new elections within eight days Spain will recognize Guaido as the legitimate president Macron tweeted Saturday in French and Spanish that 'the Venezuelan people should be able to freely decide their future' and called for elections The German government have also previously called for elections. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted: 'The Venezuelan people are courageously committed to a free future for the country. 'This requires a political process that leads to free and credible elections. The democratically elected National Assembly has a special role to play here.' The United States and a number of Latin American nations have already recognized Guaido amid a mounting political and economic crisis that has led more than two million Venezuelans to flee. Guaido (left), who two days ago announced that he assumed executive powers as interim president, asked for further demonstrations until a government could be formed and Maduro (right) had stood down US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing the Security Council session, urged all nations to 'stand with the forces of freedom' and back Guaido. He did not stay for Arreaza's remarks. Arreaza said Maduro's government still hopes to establish communication and dialogue with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. 'That offer stands,' he told the council. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the eight day ultimatum 'absurd.' Moscow opposes the U.S. efforts and has accused Washington of backing a coup attempt, placing Venezuela at the heart of a growing geopolitical duel. Huge crowds: Opposition supporters carry letters to form the word 'Democracy' at the huge rally in Caracas where Juan Guaido, President of Venezuela's National Assembly, declared himself interim leader Violence in the streets: Demonstrators hurl objects at riot police as tear gas fills the streets of Caracas amid nationwide protests yesterday which have left the country in crisis Crisis: A map showing Venezuela where the political turmoil has erupted in recent days after Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for a second term earlier this month, following a disputed election victory last year U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (right) and Minister of State for Europe and the Americas Sir Alan Duncan (left) attend the Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela 'This is not about foreign intervention in Venezuela,' former U.S. diplomat Elliott Abrams, who Pompeo named on Friday to lead U.S. efforts on Venezuela, told the council. Russia failed in a bid to stop Saturday's Security Council meeting. China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea voted with Moscow to block the meeting, while nine countries voted in favor of the meeting. Ivory Coast and Indonesia abstained. 'We strongly condemn those who are pushing the Venezuelan society to the edge of a bloodbath. The U.S. are painting a picture of a confrontation between the Maduro regime and the people of Venezuela. This picture is far from reality,' Nebenzia told the Security Council. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro holds up his fists during a press conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on Friday, amid a political power struggle with an opposition leader who has declared himself interim president Government supporters hold a life-size image of Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez during a rally. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's protege, says he's willing to engage in talks with the opposition in order to avoid violence in a conflict over who is the legitimate leader of the country Russia, China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea also blocked a U.S. push for a U.N. Security Council statement expressing full support for Venezuela's National Assembly as the country's 'only democratically elected institution.' 'China does not interfere in other countries internal affairs. We hope the country that accuses others can do likewise itself,' said China's U.N. Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu, referring to the United States. The United States has signaled it was ready to step up economic measures to try to drive Maduro from power. Pompeo told reporters on Saturday that he hopes countries 'will ensure that they disconnect their financial systems from the Maduro regime and allow assets that belong to the Venezuelan people to go to the rightful governors of that state.' One student has been killed and two other individuals were injured after a freight train hit a school bus in East Texas, authorities said. The collision took place around 4pm on Friday when the train struck the bus at a crossing and pushed it about 1,000 feet down the tracks in Athens, Texas, located about 70 miles southeast of Dallas. A 13-year-old male middle school student was killed in the crash, Athens Police Chief Buddy Hill said at a news conference on Friday evening. A Union Pacific freight train struck a school bus on Friday afternoon in East Texas, killing a 13-year-old boy and injuring the driver and a nine-year-old girl Authorities are still investigating how the crash occurred. Only the driver and the two students were on board the bus when it was struck, authorities said A nine-year-old girl in elementary school was injured and flown to a Dallas hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition. The bus driver was also injured and taken to a hospital, where he's in stable condition, Hill said. No other students were on the bus, according to the school district. 'My heart is broken for the families,' said Athens school district Superintendent Blake Stiles, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph. 'I really don't have the words to tell you what I am thinking,' he said. 'It is a superintendent's worst nightmare.' Youth pastors sing during a vigil at Athens First United Methodist Church after a train struck a school bus on Friday in Athens, Texas. One student was killed and two others were injured Pastors pray with mourners and community members during a vigil at Athens First United Methodist Church after a train struck a school bus on Friday in Athens, Texas The names of the two students and the bus driver were not immediately released. Authorities were still determining a cause of the collision. Union Pacific, which operates the train, said that cameras mounted on the engine would provide investigators with more information, KLTV-TV reported. The company said it is cooperating with investigators. Hill said there were no wooden gate arms or warning lights at the train crossing where the collision took place. Shortly after the crash, Athens school district released a statement asking for prayers for the families of those affected. On Friday night, Advertisement Hundreds of school children, folk dancers and military battalions marched through New Delhi in a spectacular parade as India celebrated Republic Day. Enormous crowds lined Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard, to watch a display of the country's military power and cultural diversity amid tight security on Saturday. Men, women and children in colorful clothes performed traditional dances and acrobatics on the sun-bathed boulevard, drawing applause from the crowd. A military hardware display of M777 Howitzer artillery guns, T-90 main battle tanks, locally made nuclear-capable missile systems and infantry combat vehicles then paraded past thousands in the capital. The spectacle ended with Indian air force planes whizzing past the saluting base. Millions of Indians watched the 90-minute event from their homes across the country. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade, which celebrates the anniversary of the adoption of India's Constitution in 1950. India had first invited President Donald Trump but U.S. officials declined, citing a scheduling issue. The theme of the parade was the 150th birthday of India's independence leader, Mohandas Gandhi. The Central Reserve Police Force contingent, in royal blue headdresses, march during the Republic Day parade in New Delhi Indian Paramilitary soldiers march past Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard, as thousands of onlookers watch on Saturday An perfectly-presented Indian army contingent march in uniform during the spectacular parade in India's capital today Another Indian army contingent is followed by two marching bands - one dressed in red and gold and another in orange An Indian officer of the all-women Assam Rifles contingent leads for the first time their contingent during the Republic Day parade in New Delhi Indian school children dressed in bright orange robes with matching yellow trousers and headdresses perform during the 70th annual Republic Day parade Indian artists with stunning gold headdresses and brightly-coloured jewelry perform along the tableau of Sikkim state Indian Air Force Jaguars, part of the Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft program, fly past Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard The theme of the parade was the 150th birthday of India's independence leader, Mohandas Gandhi (Pictured, an Indian Army Sikh Contingent) South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade, which celebrates the anniversary of the adoption of India's Constitution in 1950 (pictured, Indian school girls dance in traditional outfits) The parade also featured displays of battle tanks, missile systems and infantry combat vehicles in a show of military prowess Assamese girls in traditional attire perform the Bihu dance during the parade, which featured dozens of groups of dancers and acrobats An Indian Navy contingent were also present at the march, which celebrates the anniversary of the adoption of India's Constitution in 1950 India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured right) greets crowds at the celebration in the country's capital as he arrives The parade also featured a series of colourful tableaus, including one float depicting the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir Young girls in bright pink and blue outfits perform during the celebration, which welcomed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as its chief guest Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured second from left), President Ram Nath Kovind (pictured fourth from left) and President of South Africa Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (pictured third from left) at the event Daredevils from the Indian Army Corps of Signals travel along the crowd-lined Rajpath in an impressive motorcycle formation Hundeds of onlookers watch from the sidelines as a float depicting the Central Public Works Department of India passes by This white and gold tableau, flanked by two men dressed in black, depicts the Indian state of Delhi on Republic Day Indian soldiers of the President's Bodyguard stand guard on their horses during the busy parade day on Saturday morning Indian army K9 Vajra-T tanks were among the military vehicles displayed to thousands of onlookers on the Rajpath in New Delhi An Indian Army musician kicks into the air as his band perform on top of a path of bright orange, yellow and pink petals The glamorous journalist believed to have been in a romantic relationship with Jack Shepherd has gone to ground after it emerged she 'urged the Speedeboat killer to hand himself in'. Amateur model Maiko Tchanturidze, 24, from Georgia, has changed the privacy settings on her Facebook after her identity was revealed. An Instagram account belonging to a woman with her name is also now private. Meanwhile, recently-emerged footage shows Tchanturidze saying she likes to be 'fast and first' with the news and that she enjoys using social media 'to spread information'. She has not spoken about her alleged relationship with Shepherd, or her apparent role in persuading him to surrender to police. In a video made two years ago, the journalist spoke about being fast with the news. The film was made as part of a project supporting young journalists by Deutsche Welle. However, Tchanturidze has so far stayed quiet over her role in Shepherd's fugitive life in Tbilisi where he fled in March, declining to tell her story. Amateur model Maiko Tchanturidze, 24, from Georgia, has made her social media accounts private after her identity was revealed The journalist has not spoken about her alleged relationship with Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd Her Facebook account included glamorous pictures of her visiting various European cities Tchanturidze has also so far stayed quiet over her role in Shepherd's (pictured in court yesterday) fugitive life in Tbilisi where he fled in March A source told today's Daily Mail: 'They have become close in recent months and have made no secret of their relationship. 'Maiko is very supportive of him and feels that he has been treated unfairly by the British legal system. But it got to the point when she felt that he could no longer live as a fugitive and had to hand himself in. She wanted to be with him when he did it, so he had someone to support him.' Her Facebook included glamorous pictures of her in various European cities. The ex-TV journalist, who also worked for a nightclub and an organisation called Europe for Georgia, was at Shepherd's side when he was driven to a Tbilisi police station to hand himself in after ten months on the run. But the one-time fashion blogger told the newspaper: 'I'm not going to talk about it - I'm sorry.' Shepherd, 31, claimed in court yesterday that he cannot return to Britain because of death threats from Charlotte Brown's grieving father. He told a Georgian judge there is 'no evidence' he is guilty of causing her death while showing off on the Thames during their first date in 2015. After he contested Britain's extradition application on human rights grounds, saying he was now 'suicidally depressed' and an alcoholic, he was remanded in custody for three months - but it is likely to be at least nine months until the case is finished. His celebrity lawyer Mariam Kublashvili, who recently starred on Georgia's version of Strictly Come Dancing, said afterwards her fugitive client is 'scared' and blames Charlotte's grief-stricken father Graham, claiming he is an influential civil servant with 'power within the prison system'. Smiling killer Shepherd speaks to his lawyer Mariam Kublashvili who once starred on the Georgian version of Strictly Come Dancing and says her client has 'every right to fight' extradition Miss Kublashvili also revealed Shepherd has been living and working in Tblisi as a web designer after being helped into Georgia via Turkey by a 'contact' ten months ago and said: 'Everyone knows he is not guilty'. She told MailOnline after his court hearing: 'Jack is afraid to come back [to the UK]. The father of the girl is senior in the Government. He's been getting calls from some people saying come to prison, we will show you what will happen. He feels that he will suffer in a prison in the United Kingdom'. When asked about her client's state of mind, she said: 'He is depressed. You can see on his face sometimes it looks like a smile - but it is not a smile. He is deeply nervous. I can see he wants to fight and really he is not guilty. This was an accident'. Jack Shepherd's claim that Graham Brown wielded 'leverage' over the case has already been dismissed as a fabrication by the CPS and there is no evidence he has threatened him. Jack Shepherd's lawyer claimed he had most recently been living in this high-rise Soviet-era block of flats in a popular district of Tbilisi - but residents say they've never seen him before Shepherd also claimed to have spent the past few months living in a high-rise Soviet-era block of flats in a popular district of Tbilisi. The fugitives lawyers said he had been most recently staying in a rented apartment in the middle-class residential area of Saburtalo, but residents of the eight-storey building said they had never seen him. One mother said: There is no way, I know everyone in the block and I would have noticed a foreigner. Another resident said: I spotted him on the TV but dont think he could have lived here. I am always in and out, Im sure I would have seen him. But an elderly woman running a street bakery just outside the building said she was adamant that Shepherd had bought khachapuri, traditional Georgian bread, from her three months ago. Hayley Wareing, 36, from Birmingham, was initially told by the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust that her smear test results were negative A woman is taking legal action against an NHS trust after she had a hysterectomy because doctors misdiagnosed her cancer for 14 months. Hayley Wareing, 36, from Birmingham, had a smear test in 2015 and despite showing tell tale signs of having cervical cancer, she was never diagnosed. She was finally correctly diagnosed when she went to a private consultant for a second opinion more than year after her original test. Eight days later she underwent a full hysterectomy which meant she was left unable to have children. After her surgery she also went through 200 hours of gruelling chemotherapy and five weeks of radiotherapy to stop the cancer spreading. She said: 'I feel like a totally different person since my diagnosis and it has been incredibly difficult trying to come to terms with how my life has been turned upside down. 'Simple things that many people take for granted are now a real struggle. Even walking can be painful. 'I used to enjoy exercise and would go to the gym around six times a week but even moderate exercise now can leave me in agony for days after. 'One of the worst things has been trying to come to terms with the fact that I cannot have any children. 'I was always dreamed of having two children. However in May 2016 she visited A&E at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham after she suffered heavy bleeding for more than a week The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham is part of the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust 'It is difficult not to feel angry at what happened but I want to try and focus on the future. 'I just hope that the Hospital Trust realises the impact its error has had on my life and learns lessons to improve patient care. 'By speaking out I hope other women realise how important it is that they recognise the signs of cervical cancer and seek medical advice at the earliest opportunity.' Ms Wareing had a smear test in October 2015 at her GP surgery. The test was sent to University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust for analysis, and the results coming back as 'negative'. Ms Wareing was invited for a routine follow up test in a further three years. But in May 2016 she visited A&E at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham after she suffered heavy bleeding for more than a week. In November 2016, Ms Wareing once again visited her GP complaining of bleeding after going to the gym. Her GP referred her to a private consultant who raised suspicions and sent her for tests including a biopsy. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in December 2016 and had a hysterectomy eight days later. Ms Wareing had previously travelled the world with her job as a service delivery manager but was forced to quit after her diagnosis. She now works for a bank but continues to suffer back, pelvis and hip pain, as well as fatigue and chronic swelling in her thighs caused by a build-up of fluid from her radiotherapy. The 36-year-old is now in remission and has instructed medical negligence lawyers Irwin Mitchell to investigate her case. Her lawyer Emma Rush said: 'The last couple of years have been extremely upsetting for Hayley as continues to try to come to terms with her diagnosis and the effects of her treatment, sadly including that she will not be able to have children. 'We believe that if Hayley's tests results had been recorded correctly she would have received urgent appropriate treatment, which would have avoided her hysterectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. 'We now call on the Trust to ensure it learns lessons from this case so other women do not have to go through the anger and upset Hayley has had to endure following her diagnosis. 'Cervical cancer is a treatable disease with a good long term prognosis when it is diagnosed early. 'It is important women continue to attend regular smear appointments and be aware of the symptoms, and if needed, seek medical advice at the earliest possible opportunity. University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which was responsible for analysing the original smear test results, admitted that Hayley's smear test was interpreted incorrectly. A hospital spokesperson said: 'The admission has been made by the trust that on this occasion Ms Wareing did not receive the care she could have reasonably expected. 'We are working with Ms Wareing's representatives to achieve an appropriate resolution of the litigation. 'The trust always strives to deliver the safest and most appropriate care to all of our patients and cascades the learnings from cases such as this one.' Wayne Bayley, 66, flew his last flight in January last year due to strict rules that mean UK-registered pilots have to retire before they are 65 A former airline pilot is set to sue aviation regulators for age discrimination over strict EU rules that forced him to retire at 65. Wayne Bayley, 66, retired in January last year due to strict rules that mean UK-registered pilots have to give up work before they are 65 - even if they are medically fit. His lawyers have now applied to the High Court for a judicial review of the Civil Aviation Authority rules. Mr Bayley - the first pilot to fly the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner from the UK to Barbados - is accusing the regulators of discrimination. Former TUI pilot Mr Bayley, from Horsham, Sussex, said: 'I am medically sound and seen as fit to fly. 'To me it is discrimination. I am just as eligible as anyone else and the CAA have not examined the issue. They haven't investigated at all. 'It is entirely arbitrary. I've passed the tests but can't fly based on a discriminatory age limit. 'The CAA say they have no jurisdiction because of the EU regulations. They do but the choose not to exercise it.' Mr Bayley, a grandfather-of-two, said it has been his 'passion' to fly passengers since he was just aged seven, and he got his pilot's licence in 1977. Mr Bayley's lawyers have applied to the High Court for a judicial review of the Civil Aviation Authority rules The majority of his career was as a pilot with TUI - formerly Thompson - where he spent 27 years. He didn't want to retire, but was forced to by strict EU regulations enforced by the CAA. The CAA's rules are based on guidelines set by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the body responsible for civil aviation safety in the EU. Both the CAA and EASA enforce the upper age limit on pilots as recommended by The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency. But each country can either choose to accept or negotiate on its standards. Ten non-EU countries, including Australia and Canada, have no age restrictions for pilots, whose eligibility is based on competency to fly and medical tests. Australian pilots aged over 65 are eligible to fly commercial planes within the country's airspace, and Mr Bayley is campaigning for the CAA to adopt similar plans. Captain Bayley has enlisted lawyers at DMH Stallard, who have served legal papers to the CAA seeking a judicial review of their current position. The father-of-two (pictured with his wife Sandy) claims he's as good a pilot as ever and said he already has a job as a part-time domestic pilot lined up if he's allowed back into the cockpit He argues that the CAA has failed to exercise its statutory obligation to investigate the justification for the policy, thus subjecting him to indirect age discrimination. Mr Bayley said: 'My hope is diminishing with time. The clock is ticking for me and I'm anxious about that. 'I'm certain the rule will be changed, but whether it will be in time for me to benefit is my concern. 'If I'm successful in my campaign I will have left a legacy for other pilots to benefit from. 'It would enrich my life enormously to be allowed to fly again and the demand for domestic pilots is huge. The CAA's rules are based on guidelines set by the European Aviation Safety Agency, the agency responsibility for civil aviation safety in the EU 'The CAA is ignoring the fact there's a shortage of experience pilots and are vacating their duty.' Around 90 pilots are forced to end their careers in the cockpit at the age of 65 each year. Mr Bayley said he already has a job as a part-time domestic pilot lined up to fly a Boeing 737 within UK airspace if he's allowed back in the cockpit. His lawyers have submitted his case to the High Court. The EASA has ordered its own investigation into member state regulations, due in February, and Mr Bayley's case has been postponed until this has been released. Throughout his career, the pilot was put through rigorous medical and competency tests every six months to judge his ability and flying capability. Despite being out of work, he has renewed his certificates and has once again been passed as fit to fly. He said: 'Flying is very challenging and is an occupation that spans many disciplines. I find the technical element interesting and like the objective of managing 300 plus people. 'The scenery is amazing and the opportunity to visit various countries and cultures is always what I wanted to achieve. 'I have loved going to work everyday. It's nice to have a job that doesn't feel like work at all. 'I took the decision about wanting to challenge the rules a year before I retired. 'I am spurred on by the fact that if pilots in ten other countries can continue their flying career then I am being denied this opportunity.' The Civil Aviation Authority said it was unable to comment as the rules were put in place by the European Union. A spokesman said the judicial review was dismissed in October last year and he wasn't aware of any further claims made by Mr Bayley. But the pilot claimed the process had been postponed pending an EASA report. A boy who was just 14 when he was caught running a 200,000 cannabis farm has been jailed for 15 months. The teenager pleaded not guilty to producing the Class B drug cannabis and claimed that he had been people-trafficked from Vietnam and forced to look after 168 plants for two months. However a jury at Teeside Crown Court found the teenager guilty after a two day trial. The 14-year-old boy was found in possession of the drug plants during a raid on a flat on York Road (pictured) Hartlepool, Durham, England, last year Cleveland Police found the young boy with the drug plants during a raid on a flat in Hartlepool, Durham, England, in July last year. He will now be transferred to a detention centre for illegal migrants after serving half his sentence. Prosecutor Christopher Wood told a jury at Teesside Crown Court that the Home Office had not accepted the trafficking story and he was not the subject of modern day slavery. The boy, speaking through an interpreter, said in evidence that his parents had died in separate accidents and that he worked on his uncle's farm in Vietnam looking after the buffalo. He told the court that his uncle sent him to Russia with a passport where he lived in a container before he was moved to France and then transported to the UK in a lorry. Following a two day trial, a jury at Teeside Crown Court found the teenager guilty. He was sentenced to 15 months He claimed that the lorry was stopped by police in Warwickshire and he was arrested before being placed with social services. He said that he was contacted by men who transported him to the flat above a pizza shop on York Road, Hartlepool, and threatened him with violence if he neglected the crop. Mr Wood said that there was no police record of the lorry incident. He said that the boy was asleep in a makeshift bed when Cleveland Police were let into the flat by the landlord at 11.35pm on July 26 last year, where they also found three mobile phones. Nigel Soppitt, defending, said there was no evidence that they had been used and there were no signs of him contacting anyone. Three men are fighting for life in hospital after suspected overdoses at a music festival in western Sydney. Each of the men, aged 20, 22 and 24, were rushed from the Hardcore Till I Die Festival at Sydney Showgrounds in a critical condition. The 22-year-old was earlier seen in difficulty and was attended to by paramedics before he suddenly collapsed at the event. Six other people were also taken to Westmead Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital in instances where drugs were a 'likely factor' according to NSW Health. A man is fighting for life in hospital after a suspected overdose at a music festival in western Sydney A witness told Daily Mail Australia of the man's struggle to stay conscious before being rushed away by paramedics. 'He was sitting there struggling so the medics came over and watched him. He couldn't keep his head up and there was sweat pouring off him,' the festival goer said. 'Then he rolled his eyes and just fell sideways and they got the stretcher. 'Hopefully he doesn't die or we'll all be in trouble.' The 22-year-old man was seen in difficulty and was attended to by paramedics before he suddenly collapsed at the Hardcore Till I Die Festival at Sydney Showgrounds A witness told Daily Mail Australia of the man's struggle to stay conscious before being rushed away by paramedics Another man, aged in his 20s, is in a serious condition after also being rushed to hospital from Hardcore Till I Die, according to NSW Health. At the Electric Gardens Festival in Centennial Park, two men, aged 26 and 38, were rushed to Prince of Wales Hospital in a serious condition along with a woman, 24, who is non-critical. Between the two festivals on Australia Day, a total of fourteen people were taken to hospital. NSW Health confirmed that drugs were a 'likely factor' in ten of the fourteen hospitalisations. As of Sunday morning, all 14 are either in a stable condition or have been discharged from hospital. A Holocaust survivor has shared a poignant photograph of himself with fellow pupils during World War II, as he revealed more than half were killed by the Nazis in just three years. A few years after the photo was taken in May 1942, at least 27 of the 45 pupils from the Jewish school in Prague were wiped out by Hitler's forces. Many of the pupils were sent to concentration camps, killed in mass shootings or from starvation and disease. One of the survivors shared a photograph which showed pupils who had died labelled with a red sticker on the BBC 2 documentary 'The Last Survivors', which airs tomorrow night. A few years after the photo was taken in May 1942, at least 27 of the 45 pupils from the Jewish school in Prague had been killed by the Nazis Many of the pupils were sent to concentration camps, killed in mass shooting or from starvation and disease. Each child on the photograph was numbered by Frank Bright using German records to find out how many had died. Mr Bright, 91, who now lives in Suffolk, said: 'I call the photo "red for dead". It's pretty crude, but it's to the point. 'Since I had the means and the energy to do it, I thought I ought to bring them back into memory, otherwise, like all he rest, they would disappear into oblivion. 'It's a tragic photo. Not only did they die, but they obviously had no descendants, they never really had a life at all. They were all murdered for no particular reason.' Frank Field, 91, was taken to Auschwitz during World War II He said: 'It's tragic. Not only did they die, they had no descendants, they never really had a life at all. He added: 'No 1 is a boy called Pick Haus, he was sent to the ghetto in November 1942. He was sent on from the ghetto to Auschwitz, and he did not survive. And of his transport of 2,038 people, only 144 survived.' Pointing to a girl on the photo, he recalled: 'She had ginger hair as far as I remember, Suzanna Jung. She was sent to Auschwitz in October 1944, did not survive.' Remembering another girl on the photo, he said: 'A very pretty girl, Edita, I think I had a crush on her, but from a distance. She was sent to Auschwitz, did not survive.' Those marked in blue managed to survive the Nazi's reign of terror Mr Bright was taken to Auschwitz with his mother, two weeks after his father was also murdered. Just 16 at the time in 1944, his mother was sent to the gas chamber while he was used for slave labour. The BBC documentary spoke to other survivors of the Holocaust living in Britain, many of whom lost all or most of their families as the Nazis wiped out six million Jews during World War II. Susan Pollack spoke of her journey to death camps with her mother, where Jews were packed into trucks like cattle. She said: 'The trip was six to eight days. Many babies and children died along the way. There was no water to drink, that was in June 1944. 'I just huddled up to my mum. It will be over soon, just keep strong, keep hoping, it will get better - these are the words my mum repeatedly tried to reassure us with. 'None of us Jews who had been transported could realise what was awaiting.' She added: 'I remember arriving very clearly. When the doors opened up and suddenly we had some fresh air, so we were kind of relieved in a way, we had arrived somewhere. 'Then the terror and the aggression hit us immediately, and the shouting, 'get out!', the Germans were waiting. 'There was a Hungarian-speaking victim warning us, quietly, 'dont say youre younger than 15 years old', and I just nodded, not understanding why. 'That was what saved me from being sent to the gas chamber on arrival. Ms Pollack also remembered the loving exchange she had with her mother before she was sent to her death. She said: 'My mother who was worn, fatigued, anguished, she looked much older than her age, she was selected. 'There were no parting words, there was just a hug, and "I love you".' Zigi Shipper, another survivor, said: 'Every morning the train stopped and they used to throw out dead bodies. 'How can a child of 14 hope people should die so hell have more room to sit down. What has become of me? 'Eventually one early morning the train stopped through the slits of the truck I saw the word 'Auschwitz'. I didnt have a clue what it meant.' The Last Survivors will be shown on BBC 2 at 9pm tomorrow A transgender woman who stormed into a 7-Eleven with an axe and tried to 'cut a man's head in half' flew into the fit of rage after being rejected on a Tinder date. Evie Amati, 26, entered the shop in Enmore, Sydney, and launched a sickening assault on two customers in January 2017. CCTV footage showed Amati swinging the axe twice into Benjamin Rimmer's face, knocking him over and causing blood to rush from his head. She then brutally attacked another innocent customer, Sharon Hacker. Amati was seen swinging the axe twice into the face of Mr Rimmer, knocking him to the ground During Amati's trial, a court heard she was on MDA, antidepressants, hormone replacement therapy, cannabis and vodka and was filled with rage after a failed Tinder date shortly before the brutal attack. Amati believed the woman found her unattractive because she was transgender, she told her 'some people deserve to die'. She had sent a message to the woman, Mickila Jahnsen, saying: 'One day I will kill a lot of people and it will be your fault.' Ms Jahnsen said she met Evie Amati via the dating app hours before the attack and had drinks with her and friends before three of them each took a capsule they believed was ecstasy. She said she 'freaked out' when Amati later sent her the Facebook message, in which she also called her a 'psychopath'. Amati also sent a message to one of the women, saying: 'Most people deserve to die, I hate people.' Last week she was sentenced to nine years in jail with a non-parole period of four years and six months at Sydney's Downing Centre District Court. Mr Rimmer (pictured) said he was lucky he moved just before the attack and said Amati 'went there (the convenience store) to kill' and was not remorseful Transgender woman Evie Amati (picture) has been jailed over the attempted murder of Mr Rimmer and Ms Hacker at the Sydney convenience store The only reason Mr Rimmer was not killed was because he moved just before the axe dug into his face, he said this week. 'If I hadn't turned my head at the last minute she would have cut my head in half,' he told news.com.au. Mr Rimmer is now campaigning to get Amati's 'lenient' sentenced increased on appeal. 'She went there to kill. It's only pure luck I'm alive - she's not remorseful. She's calculating,' he said. 'She'll do her time easily and get paroled in mid-2021 - it has played out perfectly.' The Rimmer family has also started a petition to call for justice for Amati's victims. 'A sentence of only nine years with a non-parole period of just four-and-a-half years does not recognise the harm done to the victims or the horrific nature of this crime,' the petition written by his sister Anneke reads. CCTV footage of the viscous attack showed Amati casually walk into the store carrying an axe Amati was captured on CCTV swinging the axe twice onto the face of Mr Rimmer, knocking him to the ground 'Ben will have physical and emotional scars for the rest of his life.' Amati was found guilty of attempted murder in August last year after the NSW District Court rejected her claims she was suffering from mental illness. She told the court just before the attack she heard voices that told her to 'kill and maim' and 'start the rise of hell on earth'. CCTV footage of the viscous attack showed Amati casually walk into the store carrying an axe - before standing next to Mr Rimmer, who was in line behind Ms Hacker. In the video, Amati was seen swinging the axe twice into the face of Mr Rimmer, knocking him to the ground, before attacking Ms Hacker. Blood was seen gushing from Mr Rimmer's head, as he tried to evade Amati before removing his shirt to absorb the blood. Benjamin Rimmer (pictured) was standing in line behind Sharon Hacker at the 7-Eleven store in Enmore, CCTV footage showed, when transgender woman Evie Amati, 26, entered the shop and stood behind him Many believe Sydney's property crash means first-time buyers can step on to the property ladder with ease, but new findings reveal wannabe homeowners now face a whole other hurdle to tackle before they can purchase. House hunters can enjoy viewing houses that were previously unattainable, but before would-be home owners can sign on the dotted line they will have to overcome the other matter of securing a loan. As the increasingly shaky housing market takes one of the steepest property downturns in decades, lenders have started implementing stricter screenings for potential buyers. (File picture) Sydney house hunters now have to overcome the hurdle of securing a loan as banks start implementing stricter screenings This means it's become increasingly harder for first-time buyers to acquire an adequate loan. The screenings come as first-time buyers find themselves under pressure to purchase a home with an affordable price tag, while house prices in Sydney are still slumped. But banks have now made matters even harder by unleashing a much stricter lending criteria - which has already started affecting loan applicants. A report of the Royal Commission into financial services could make loan guidelines even more severe. Experts have warned that the banking commission could recommend a ban on the way that banks' estimated an individual's ability to repay a loan, known as a Household Expenditure Measure. (File picture) Experts have warned that the banking commission could implement a ban on the way that banks' estimated an individual's ability to repay a loan If the prohibition is passed, it's expected to 'further restrict the flow of housing lending' according to leading USB analyst Jonathan Mott, news.com.au reported. This would result in fewer would-be borrowers securing loans, and those that do pass the higher threshold would be entitled to less money than before. First-time buyers are anticipated to be hit the hardest by the new proposition, and could prove to be a serious stumbling block in getting a foot onto the property ladder. 'Availability of finance reduced when the Royal Commission was announced at the end of 2017,' Nerida Conisbee, Chief Economist at realestate.com.au said. 'Since then, we've seen dramatic reductions in the amount people are borrowing,' she added. Ms Conisbee advised anyone looking to purchase a property, since the price plummet, to check with their bank and confirm their borrowing allowance. (File picture) The ban would mean fewer would-be borrowers will be able to secure a loans and those that do pass the threshold would be entitled to less money than before Even if some have a pre-approved document, it's still recommended to check in with lenders once the commission's findings are disclosed. 'First homebuyers are having to jump through more hoops to get finance, particularly around expenses,' she said. 'That's not necessarily a bad thing because you want people to be able to service a loan,' Ms Conisbee added. According to the most recent ABS figures home loan approvals have dropped by almost 1 per cent. House prices in Sydney dropped 9.9 per cent over the year to December. Average property values in Sydney plunged by almost $120,000 after unsustainable sharp rises over the past decade. Domain reported its senior research analyst Nicola Powell said the price fall of 11.4 per cent from the mid-2017 peak was the 'sharpest downturn in more than two decades'. Despite the decline of the housing market, Sydney is still ranked the third most expensive city in the world followed by Melbourne. Millions of cheap, illegal cigarettes containing lethal substances are flooding the UK and undermining efforts to reduce smoking rates, councils have warned. Many of the fake fags contain asbestos, arsenic, rat droppings, mould, dead flies and human excrement. The Local Government Association, which represents 370 councils in England and Wales, has called for bigger fines on those selling illegal cigarettes, which is said to cost the economy 2billion a year in unpaid duty. Illegal cigarettes are undermining efforts to reduce smoking rates, councils say Sniffers dogs have been used by councils to find counterfeit tobacco from the streets, while recent prosecutions resulted from illegal stashes of cigarettes found hidden in walls, shops floors and secret panels. Trading Standards officers have found illegal hauls hidden in toilet cisterns, boxes of sweets, behind extractor and and lighting. Simon Blackburn, chairman of the LGA's Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: 'The sale of cheap, illegal tobacco by rogue traders in shops, private homes and through social media is funding organised criminal gangs and damaging legitimate traders, as well as making it easier for young people to get hooked on smoking, which undermines councils' efforts to help people quit. 'No cigarette is good for you, but fake cigarettes contain even higher levels of cancer-causing toxins than standard cigarettes, so people should think twice about buying them. 'Counterfeit cigarettes also fail to extinguish themselves when left to burn, presenting a real danger to people. 'Bigger fines need to be imposed by the courts to deter the sale of illegal tobacco to help councils' enforcement work against rogue traders, reduce crime in our communities and protect the health of children and young people.' Consumers who are concerned about any tobacco product on sale are encouraged to report the matter to the Citizens Advice Consumer helpline on 08454 04 05 06. Police dog is so good at sniffing out illegal tobacco that smuggling gangs have put a 25,000 bounty on his head A 25,000 bounty has been placed on a sniffer dog's head after nailing a string of criminals who illegally smuggled cigarettes and tobacco into the country. Springer spaniel Scamp is now lying low after the bounty was placed on his head. His incredible sense of smell has proved to be a thorn in the side of criminals, as Scamp has sniffed out 6million-worth of illegal tobacco in just five years. Criminals placed the bounty on Scamp after a string of court cases in Birmingham, Sussex, Newcastle, Northampton and Great Yarmouth. Springer spaniel Scamp is now lying low after the bounty was placed on his head Owner Stuart Phillips, 40, of Llandissilio, Pembrokeshire, said Scamp was a big threat to criminals looking to smuggle goods into the country. Mr Phillips said: 'We had to stop working in one part of the country last year, because there was a 25,000 bounty put on his head. 'It was believed to be linked to an organised crime group and the relevant authorities were informed. 'I've also had death threats, my windscreen has been smashed and my tyres slashed. 'It's understandable really, when you're upsetting some really nasty people.' Mr Phillips, of B.W.Y Canine Ltd, has trained specialist detection dogs to sniff out tobacco, firearms, drugs, explosives, meat and even human remains. He has worked with more than 100 local authorities across Britain and other international clients. Tobacco smuggling has left Scamp and Mr Phillips with a huge workload. He said: 'It is a massive problem in terms of the volume available and the fact that it's so readily available in shops. Scamp was trained to be able to sniff out illegal contraband which had been smuggled into the UK 'It's available on social media, through Facebook, and in Wales we have what are generally called fag houses, people selling from their houses.' Cigarettes are sold at 'pocket money prices' - making them readily available to children. The cigarettes have a dark history as they are often linked to serious organised crime. An experienced sniffer dog like Scamp has been trained to find everything from a single cigarette to a whole pallet's worth. The dog has also been trained to sniff out bank notes and has even uncovered as much as 60,000 in cash. Trading Standards officers are calling for a government taskforce to tackle the problem - warning illicit tobacco sellers target Wales due to a lack of investment in enforcement. A survey by Action on Smoking and Health in 2014 found that around one million illegal cigarettes a day are sold in Wales - the highest in Britain. The head teacher of a state school dubbed the 'socialist Eton' is being paid at least 260,000 a year despite government calls for salary restraint. Colin Hall is thought to be the third best-paid academy head in the country - despite only being responsible for a single school, Holland Park in Kensington. Annual accounts published in trade magazine Schools Week show his salary has doubled in just seven years, and in the last year he got a pay rise of around 10,000. The school earned its nickname because of its history of educating the children of rich socialists, who are wealthy enough to afford a house in the expensive catchment area. Colin Hall is thought to be the third best-paid academy head in the country - despite only being responsible for a single school, Holland Park in Kensington Former pupils include the four children of Tony Benn, the son of former Labour home secretary Roy Jenkins, and Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee. Mr Hall's salary will raise eyebrows because the school was one of a number to receive a government letter last year urging pay restraint. John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'A talented headmaster can really turn a school around, but when taxpayers' money is being spent it's important that a sense of proportion is maintained. 'Like in any profession, it's important that top pay is reserved for those who excel in the job and that failure isn't rewarded.' Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary at the National Education Union, added: 'It's very hard to see how huge salaries can be justified, particularly when considered against head teacher remuneration in similar local authority schools.' According to the accounts, Mr Hall's pay rose from between 245,000 to 250,000 in 2017 to between 260,000 to 265,000 last year - a rise of at least 10,000. His pay works out at around 186 per pupil - way above the 13.75 per-pupil received by Sir Dan Moynihan, the country's highest-paid academy boss, who earned at least 440,000 for running 44 schools last year at the Harris Federation. Holland Park has another three employees on more than 100,000, including accounting officer David Chappell, who was paid between 180,000 and 185,000. The accounts also reveal that Holland Park trust is arguing over who pays the bill for 'significant defects' such as 'loose' stone panels and 'glass breakages' to its 80 million building, which was finished in 2012. The stone facade has not been properly secured, making the heavy panels 'loose and prone to falling off', while flooding has caused 'potential irreparable damage' to the swimming pool. The school (pictured) earned its nickname because of its history of educating the children of rich socialists, who are wealthy enough to afford a house in the expensive catchment area It comes after the Department for Education's Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) wrote to Holland Park and other trusts paying at least one person a salary of over 150,000. It demanded information about the 'process' and 'rationale' for setting salaries at this level, requesting information about the responsibilities staff have. Any academies ignoring the request face being penalised in a new 'financial capability assessment' due to be launched next year or 2020 at the latest. Holland Park, rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted, was one of the first comprehensive schools to be opened in the UK in 1958. Among the former teachers at the school are Christine Blower, who recently stepped down from being the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. Sally Bercow, the wife of the Speaker, is a governor. A spokesman for the DfE said trust salaries should 'reflect the individual responsibility and must be justifiable'. He added: 'We are aware of the building issues at Holland Park and are keeping in touch with the local authority and academy as they work to negotiate a solution. We have received assurances that both parties are fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure the health and safety of pupils and staff.' The school did not respond to a request for comment. A one-year-old girl has died after being hit by a car at a caravan park during Australia Day celebrations. The girl was struck by the car in Lake Conjola on New South Wales' south coast at 3.40pm. Emergency services attended but the girl died at the scene. The girl was struck by the car in Lake Conjola on New South Wales' south coast at 3.40pm The driver, a man aged in his 30s, has been taken to Milton Hospital for mandatory blood and urine testing. Officers from South Coast Police District will prepare a report for the information of the Coroner. Carina Evans, 41, from Henley-on-Thames A British army rifle reservist and mother-of-two has become the first women to ride down the Cresta Run, 90 years after women were excluded from the famous toboggan track. Carina Evans, 41, from Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, hurtled down the track in eastern Switzerland in just 75 seconds. The 1,325 yard-long natural ice track in St Moritz was built in the 1880s and women were initially able to use it freely until the 1929 ban when concerns over the sport causing breast cancer were cited in their expulsion. Women were restricted to the lower 'Junction' run only on 'ladies' day', but some theories suggest that this is only because men were afraid to be shown up by a women's speed. The track remains one of the most revered, there have been five deaths on it - the last as recently as 2017 - and speeds of up to 80mph are common. Carina had been honing her skills for 20 years on the lower Junction, usually frequented by amateurs, but with dreams of the bigger stage. Lt-Col Digby Willoughby, (Carina Evan's father, died February 2007), controller of the Cresta Run in St Moritz. Pictured wearing his famous scarf, boater and leather coat The Cresta Run Only one rider has broken the 50 second barrier from Top: Lord Wrottesley broke James Sunley's record of 16 years' standing (50.09) on 1st February 2015 with a 49.92, and also achieved the fastest speed ever recorded of 82.87 mph. The current record from Junction, held by Magnus Eger, is 40.94 seconds. Beginners start from Junction and attempt to go down in a time of between 65 and 75 seconds for their first few rides. The Shuttlecock The most famous (or notorious) corner of the Run. This long, low, raking, left-hand bank, about half-way down the Run, acts as a safety-valve; if riders are out of control, they risk going out of Shuttlecock into a carefully prepared falling area of snow and straw. Fallers at Shuttlecock automatically become members of the Shuttlecock Club and are entitled to wear a Shuttlecock tie (available from the Shop in the Clubhouse). The average fall:ride ratio is approximately 1:12, although this is higher for Beginners. Source Advertisement To qualify for the full track, she had to complete three runs in under 46 seconds. Mrs Evans, who holds the British women's record over the course's lower section, told The Telegraph: 'It absolutely depended on qualifying, I had to do consistently low times to prove I was a responsible rider. 'It has taken a long time and a lot of determination and planning to get here. This has been a focus for many years. It was one of those days when everything fell into place.' The 41-year-old said the Army were incredibly supportive in her quest. She joined the 7 Rifle reservists last year and came to St Moritz last week with them to begin preparations for the history-making run. Mrs Evans's father, the late Lt Col Digby Willoughby was a record-breaking bobsleigher. He was part of a two-man team that broke the world record in 1961 and was later the president of the St Moritz Toboganning Club for 24 years. It was they who lifted the ban on women using the track last year. At a SMTC meeting last summer, members voted by a two-third majority to allow women to ride the Cresta Run and become members, The Times reported. The famous traditional St Moritz Tobogganing Club & The Cresta Run start hut at the resort A competitor starts from Junction on the Cresta Run in St Moritz in eastern Switzerland. This is the only section women were permitted to start from until the ban was lifted recently Back in the days: Women were banned from racing on the Cresta Run tobogganing track in St. Moritz, eastern Switzerland in 1929. Pictured is a woman on the Cresta Run in about 1904 Mrs Evans travelled back home to her professional polo player husband Nick and two daughters yesterday. She said: 'I'm black and blue all over, but it was worth every bruise.' Cresta Run riders go down the track on an individual toboggan, lying head-first on a special sleigh. A Cresta Run participant falls into the hay set at the infamous Shuttlecock section of the run This photo shows a young man going down the Cresta Run circa 1930, around the time women were banned from racing on the track They race at incredible speeds of between 60mph and 80mph, with the current speed record from the top belonging to Irish skeleton racer Lord Clifton Wrottesley. In 2015, Lord Wrottesley, who came fourth in the Men's Skeleton at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, went down the Cresta Run at a maximum speed of 82.87 mph, clearing the track in 49.92 seconds. Five riders have been killed going down the Cresta Run since 1887, most recently 72-year-old Ralph Hubbard, from Alderney in the Channel Islands, in March 2017. Rider passing Church Leap on the Crest Run. It is a kind of bobsled run but much more dangerous and more difficult to ride A tradie has come forward with claims he has found evidence of the Yowie's existence after a truck driver previously said he was attacked by the mythical animal. The unnamed 53-year-old claimed he saw a hairy creature on Beechmont Road in the Gold Coast hinterland at around 10am last November. The driver, who had nightmares after the encounter, said he was driving around a bend when he saw the 10ft tall beast. Following reports of the truck driver's sighting, a Mudgeeraba local named Andy McKinnon also came forward claiming to have evidence of the Yowie's existence. The unnamed 53-year-old truck driver believes he saw a hairy creature on Beechmont Road in the Gold Coast hinterland at around 10am last November A tradie has come forward with claims that he has found evidence of the Yowie's existence after a truck driver previously said he was attacked by the animal (stock image) Following reports of the truck driver's sighting, a Mudgeeraba local named Andy McKinnon also came forward claiming to have evidence of the Yowie's existence (stock image) Mr McKinnon, who is a scaffolder, told the Gold Coast Bulletin he found huge scratches on the side of a tree last June and said his findings may be connected to the November report. 'I was mountain biking through the forest when I saw the huge markings on the tree,' he said. 'To me it looked like a claw mark, it was off the ground, far higher than a human could reach. 'I saw the stories about the yowie and believe this could be connected, I dont necessarily believe in them but I think there could be things out there until I am proven otherwise. He also said he previously saw large bite marks on a wallaby carcass in the New South Wales coast, looking like it had been bitten 'right through the bone'. However, Yowie Hunter Dean Harrison expressed his doubts over the tree scratches, saying that he has seen Black Cockatoos make similar markings before. Mr Harrison (pictured) has been studying the mythical creatures for 20 years and claims to have had many encounters with the hairy beasts Instead, Mr Harrison advised those looking for the Yowie to watch out for a break in a healthy tree or branch that has been heavily twisted. Mr Harrison has been studying the mythical creatures for 20 years and claims to have had many encounters with the elusive beasts. The Yowie hunter also claims to have been attacked on two occasions by the creature. The existence of the Yowie is yet to be proven. A no-deal Brexit could be similar to the national emergency Iceland faced during the volcanic eruptions in 2010, civil servants have been warned. The Cabinet Office, which issued the warning, is now planning training for thousands of staff across Whitehall to prepare for the possibility the UK could leave without a deal on March 29. The eruptions and ash clouds from Eyjafjallajokull sparked chaos in Iceland and across Europe as flights were ground to a halt, effecting hundreds of thousands of travellers. Ash plume from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull crater during it's eruption, spewing tephra and ashes that drift toward continental Europe on May 15, 2010 One civil servant told the Guardian: 'The level of planning required for no-deal Brexit is the same level as war planning. 'A no-deal Brexit will have the same systemic impact. Iceland gives us hints and clues about what might happen, but Brexit is unlike anything we have ever seen.' The fall-out from Eyjafjallajokull is being used as the closest possible comparison to the disruption Britain could face, although the disruption from Brexit is likely to be much broader, according to the government's private planning assumptions. Civil servants are said to be dismayed at the lack of planning gone into preparing for a no-deal, as preparations and planning for most civil servants began earlier this month. The government insists major planning for no-deal began last year. No-deal planning - codenamed Operation Yellowhammer - has involved hundreds of civil servants being given three-hour introductory briefings on trade, border crossing and regulations. The ash plume from the eruptions spread across Europe, affecting hundreds of thousands of flights The fall-out from Eyjafjallajokull is being used as the closest possible comparison to the disruption Britain could face The government has a list of 'worst-case scenarios' which is being updated. Among those seen by the Guardian include the UK and EU not securing data protection before Brexit; food price increases; inability to restock medicines; private companies 'cashing in' and police forces struggling to deal with protests, among many other situations. Another concern includes national security and the government's Cobra committee, which sits in times of emergency. One source told the Guardian: 'Cobra can only take decisions if it knows what is going on at the local level. 'It needs information that has been properly collected and collated. At the moment we don't have that system in place.' Another said they were 'having meetings for the sake of meetings', adding: 'There has been a lack of energy and a lack of urgency. The preparations for no-deal Brexit feel very unstable.' The Cabinet Office said it was sensible to use comparisons between Iceland's emergency in 2010. A government spokesperson said: 'The government remains committed to delivering an orderly withdrawal from the EU. Our high-level planning assumptions ensure we can responsibly prepare for all scenarios.' UK Priest Who Found His Calling in the Plight of Iraq's Assyrians The heavily damaged Saint John the Baptist Church in Qaraqosh, about 30km east of Mosul, a month after Iraqi forces recaptured it from ISIS in late 2016. ( AFP) After the traumas inflicted by the rise of ISIS, the return of Iraq's Christian communities to villages and towns on the Nineveh plains around Mosul has a special resonance throughout the Catholic Church. For one priest and active supporter of his fellow Catholics in Iraq, the resettlement should represent something joyful but instead the threat these Iraqis faced has not disappeared but only changed form. Father Benedict Kiely left his comfortable posting in the American state of Vermont to work with Iraqi Christians, a community that was 200,000 strong in Mosul and surrounding towns and had been put to flight by the terror group. ISIS has since been vanquished but Fr Kiely on a recent visit experienced the culture of fear that still exists at first hand. One of his friends, Fr Behnam Benoka, a Syrian Catholic priest, recalled to him how a member of an Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militia put a gun to his head after surrounding his church in the town of Bartella. "They feel surrounded in Bartella, the priest has had a gun in his face, there is a large banner of the ayatollahs in the middle of the town and even the Iraqi general in the area seems afraid of these militias," Fr Kiely told The National from his home in England after returning from Iraq. "Unless the Shia militias are removed, it's basically over for Christians in the area. "As Fr Benoka said to me: there's bad and there's worse, which would you rather live in?" As Pope Francis prepares to make a groundbreaking visit to the Arabian Peninsula, the plight of Iraq's Christians is sure to feature at the top of the agenda. At Christmas the Vatican's second-most senior official travelled to Iraq to show solidarity with the community. Cardinal Pietro Parolin visited Baghdad, Erbil and Mosul and tried to draw a line under the troubles of the congregation. "You are a Church of martyrs," Cardinal Parolin said at a Mass. "The blood of your martyrs and the witness of faith given by so many of your brothers and sisters represent a treasure for the Church and a seed of new vitality." Engagement with the Iraqi government over the need to nurture and rebuild Catholic parishes has been of limited benefit so far. Of the 45 churches in metropolitan Mosul, none have been re-opened for daily use. Any acts of worship have been one-offs. Mosul's Christian community that in living memory numbered in the hundreds of thousands is now estimated by Fr Kiely at just 10 families. The streets are still littered with bodies and ghoulish reminders of the battle to drive out ISIS, including clumps of hair among the rubble after the fighters shaved off their beards to flee. Painfully, Fr Kiely recalls that the churches were used as execution grounds during the battle. "I was first inspired back in 2014 when the reports came out that for the first time in almost 2,000 years there was no Mass said in Mosul," he said. Speaking of the situation in Bartella, he said: "Less than half the Christians have returned and the power of the Shia militias is putting even this in peril. It's an army within an army and there are many instances of intimidation." He accuses the PMF, also known as Hashed Al Shaabi, of attempting to engineer a new and permanent demographic change in the area by settling communities of the Shabak minority in the towns and farmland, not in the more marginal hinterlands where they lived before the rise of ISIS. It is the settlers who have assisted the PMF patrols and welcomed the banners proclaiming loyalty to Iranian and Iraqi religious leaders. "The church leadership has been very robust in its concern for the persecuted Christians but it remains very difficult to secure action and support from the Iraqi government in the face of everything that is happening," he said. The Christian community was long in decline, even before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein following the American invasion in 2003. The violence and cycles of terror that followed the collapse of the regime uprooted tens of thousands of Christians in Baghdad, Mosul and elsewhere in the decade before ISIS came on the scene. Fr Kiely welcomes the US assistance on offer to rebuild towns like Qaraqosh, which has a church and a cultural centre newly built, but wants more American diplomatic activity directed at the Iraqi government. "The Iraqi government must be put under pressure to remove the Popular Mobilisation Forces, after all the Americans provide all the money and that means leverage," he said. "The Iraqi government must stand up to the Iranians to get them to pull out of the area." Only in neighbouring Erbil could there be said to be a thriving Iraqi Christian community, which owes much to the charismatic leadership of the Chaldean Christian Archbishop Bashar Warda. The Catholic Church under Archbishop Warda's leadership has established the Nineveh Plains Reconstruction Project to oversee reconstruction, relying on funding from the Vatican's papal foundation, the charity Aid to the Church in Need and groups such as the American grassroots body, the Knights of Columbus. Fr Kiely runs his own small charity, Nasarean.org, which seeks to help Christian returnees establish new livelihoods. He understands that many in the community are looking for refuge elsewhere but also says they need help if they are going to stay in their homeland. "What I say is help those who want to stay to stay, help those who want to leave to leave," he said. "There are no jobs and there is no security. They are more fearful than they were before the defeat of ISIS." By providing micro-finance loans and grants, he has helped with the establishment of bakeries, garages in sewing businesses. As these become established, he also prays that the situation for Iraq's beleaguered Christians will improve. "They're pawns in this fight between the Kurds and the Iraqi government and the Iranians. No one is defending them." MI5 has more than 700 spies stationed in Belfast as part of a huge anti-terror operation amid fears dissident republicans will exploit any return of a hard border in Ireland after Brexit in order to spark fresh conflict. MI5's newest target in Northern Ireland is the so-called New IRA, which consists of about 40 hardliners that detonated a car bomb outside a courthouse in Londonderry on January 19. The group is the most active and dangerous group in the province at present and has already been hit by arrests and searches on both sides of the border. There are 48 of the dissidents in jail, 35 of them being in the Irish Republic and last year the group lost a host of weapons including two AK-47 rifles in a domestic fire. Despite losses the group is seeing opportunities and highlighted that Brexit could be one of them. One former IRA prisoner and chairman of Revolutionary Republican Party Saoradh, Brian Kenna said that the border issue was a reminder that 'Britain still rules the six counties of [Northern] Ireland and this is going to lead to renewed conflict'. MI5's newest target in Northern Ireland is the so-called New IRA, which consists of about 40 hardliners that detonated a car bomb outside a courthouse in Londonderry on January 19 (aftermath pictured above) The Londonderry bomb exploded only 30 minutes after a telephone warning to the Samaritans in the West Midlands as police were still clearing the area The bomb has led to increased security across the city as the dissidents continue to pose a threat Earlier this year Patrick Carty, one of Saoradh's leaders said that Brexit 'has the potential to break up the British state'. 'With the inevitable infrastructure of a hard border imminent, this will drive home to the Irish people the partition of our country and as history teaches us it will inevitably stoke the fires of resistance against British rule in Ireland.' This is while counterterrorism sources say the group is intent on more attacks and may be reckless in its approach. The Londonderry bomb exploded only 30 minutes after a telephone warning to the Samaritans in the West Midlands as police were still clearing the area. The bomb has led to increased security across the city, with many residents fearing a return to the dark days, taking to the streets in a peace rally yesterday, January 25. The dissidents continue to pose a threat and are able to recruit, carry out attacks and raise money through criminal activity, despite the security push by police and intelligence services. Speaking to The Times acting chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Barbara Gray said: 'We have found arms and explosives but they still have the capability to carry out attacks. The threat is nothing like we experienced in the past but these people are intent on violence and they are not going away.' A counterterrorism source added: 'There is a reason MI5 has about 20 per cent of its total strength in Belfast and last weekend was a timely reminder of that reason.' Peaceful protests took place in Londonderry yesterday (pictured above) following the car bomb attack The Londonderry device was crudely made, with gas canisters being the main component. There is also speculation that the detonator could have been Semtex, the powerful plastic explosive favoured by the Provisional IRA. There was a low level of parliamentary activity last year, but despite this, there are concerns that the threat may be resurgent. At present, dissident groups are the main line of inquiry in the investigation into the murder of a suspected drug dealer shot dead in his Porsche outside his daughter's school in Belfast last month. Formed in 2012, the New IRA was a merger of the Real IRA, which carried out the 1998 Omagh bombing, splinter groups and individual republicans unhappy with Sinn Fein's embrace of the political process. The Real IRA carried out the 1998 Omagh bombing (aftermath pictured above) The group is strongest in Londonderry and the northwest of Northern Ireland and there is evidence that it is recruiting disaffected youth in deprived areas. Marisa McGlinchey, author of a new study of dissident republicans, told The Times that the group disliked being called 'new' and regarded itself as staying true to the 'armed struggle' for a united Ireland. Dr McGlinchey added: 'They are keen to locate themselves in the long trajectory of Irish republicanism.' Saoradh, the party closely linked to the New IRA, said the attack marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Irish war of independence and was part of an 'unfinished revolution'. The New IRA is seen as being heavily involved in extortion rackets and punishment attacks. The group is said to adopt an anti-drugs stance in public, but there are questions about its connections with drugs gangs. Michael Barr, shot dead in a drugs feud in Dublin in 2016, was given a paramilitary funeral by the New IRA. According to the PSNI, last year in Northern Ireland there were two security-related deaths, 39 shooting incidents, 17 bombing incidents 50 injured in paramilitary beatings, 17 injured in paramilitary shootings 39 firearms found 3,273 rounds of ammunition found, 148 terror arrests and 15 terror charges. Stately homes in England place a heavy focus on heterosexual families, a National Trust curator has said. The National Trust's public programmes curator, Rachael Lennon, argued that the historic homes offered a great deal of information about marriages, inheritance and the role of families. The senior curator added that the current narrative 'privileges heterosexual lives' and does not provide enough on 'same sex desire'. National Trust curator Rachael Lennon, argued that the historic homes offered a great deal of information about marriages and the role of families but little on 'same sex desire' The senior curator, who organised The National Trust's Prejudice and Pride LGBT exhibitions in 2017, claimed that the history surrounding stately homes gave 'little space' for gender diversity and excluded or misrepresented people belonging to the LGBTQ community. Ms Lennon told The Telegraph: 'In the historic house, there remains an emphasis in the collective imagination on the experiences of 'the family' often resulting in a narrative that privileges heterosexual lives. 'The lives of elites are similarly privileged.' However her comments were rebuked by the director general of the Historic Houses Association Ben Cowell who argued: 'The danger for the Trust is that this is the point at which its adopted curatorial position starts to jar with the realities of history.' The senior curator argued that the homes provided gave 'little space' for gender diversity and excluded or misrepresented people belonging to the LGBTQ community. Pictured: Country house Kingston Lacy near Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England A National Trust spokesman said: 'We work closely with the Historic Houses Association and they raised the issue of primogeniture in their Autumn members magazine, in response to an extract from a scholarly publication we produced. 'We dont favour any particular viewpoint when telling the stories of our places, and try to present more than one perspective. 'It is very normal for organisations like ours to have debates like this, and it is partly the point of our more academic publishing. Such debate informs our future work.' The Queen (pictured at a Sandringham Women's Institute meeting on Thursday) reportedly urged her family to promote compromise Senior royals are set to follow the Queen's example and call for calm on Brexit after the monarch urged people to find 'common ground' in a rare intervention, reports say. The Queen stressed the importance of 'respecting' other views and said Britons should not lose sight of the 'bigger picture' during an event at the Sandringham Women's Institute on Thursday. Buckingham Palace sources have now reportedly revealed the monarch has urged Charles, William and Harry to follow suit and promote compromise, the Sun reported. Speeches and public engagements by the three royals are now allegedly being planned - but it is not yet known when and where they will take place. The Prince of Wales could speak on the subject during his upcoming engagements in Northampton on Monday, January 28. Charles will visit shoe firm Gaziano & Girling in Kettering before calling at the London EV Company's manufacturing plant in Coventry. He will then visit handmade shoe company Tricker's as it celebrates its one hundred and ninetieth year. An investiture ceremony - in which honourees receive their awards - will also take place at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, headed by a senior Royal. Ministers praised the monarch for her 'wise' call for calm amid the bitter national row over Britain leaving the EU. The Queen stressed the importance of 'respecting' other views and said Britons should not lose sight of the 'bigger picture' during an event at the Sandringham Women's Institute on Thursday Harry (pictured with Meghan Markle at the Hive, Wirral Youth Zone in Birkenhead), Charles and William have reportedly been urged to speak out on Brexit, a Buckingham Palace source said Theresa May's spokesman echoed the Queen's plea for Britons to find common ground. Her official spokesman said: 'The Prime Minister's own view is that we should always show great respect for the point of view of others.' Chancellor Philip Hammond said 'we should seek common ground and we should seek a way forward'. As a neutral head of state, the Queen does not often speak publicly on politics - but her words on Thursday appeared to reference the debate surrounding Brexit. In a speech to mark the centenary of the Sandringham Women's Institute, she said: 'Reflecting on a century of change, it is clear that the qualities of the WI endure. 'The continued emphasis on patience, friendship, a strong community focus, and considering the needs of others, are as important today as they were when the group was founded all those years ago. 'As we look for new answers in the modern age, I for one prefer the tried and tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture. Speeches and public engagements are now allegedly being planned for Charles (pictured left at the Dumfries House Health and Wellbeing Centre in Cumnock) and William (pictured right at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos) 'To me, these approaches are timeless, and I commend them to everyone.' The monarch also appeared to address the topic during her Christmas speech. She said: 'Even with the most deeply held differences, treating the other person with respect and as a fellow human being is always a good first step towards greater understanding.' A Palace source told the Sun last night: 'Her Majesty would never try to influence a vote. 'Seeking to raise the tone of public debate, urging cooperation not conflict amongst those with power and influence - that is the job of her and her family. There will be more to come in the weeks and months ahead.' The annual fundraising Black and White Ball will find itself short of many donors Tory donors are refusing to hand over money to the party due to Theresa May's leadership style and the handling of Brexit, it was claimed last night. Several major donors, said to have given millions of pounds over the years, are reportedly reluctant to part with any more while the future of the country, and the party, is in flux. The businessmen do not want to fund another snap general election, or another vote at all while Mrs May is in charge, the Daily Telegraph claims today. Several major donors, said to have given millions of pounds over the years, are reportedly reluctant to hand over any more money to the Tory party The annual fundraising Black and White Ball, set for next month, will find itself short of many high-profile donors, it was claimed, even though potentially crucial access to ministers is auctioned off for hundreds of thousands of pounds. One Conservative source said the party had received no donations since Christmas. Among the organisations said to be withholding money is the Midlands Industrial Council, whose 33 members donated around a fifth 5million of the war chest used to fight the 2017 snap election. David Wall, the council's secretary, told the Telegraph: 'With the level of confusion within Parliament at the moment, the uncertainty over a possible election, a possible change of leader, most donors are reluctant to make donations at this time. 'We all need some clarity on what direction the Conservative party and the Government are going in.' According to one Conservative source, the party had received no donations since Christmas And one unnamed donor, said to have given generously over the years, laid blame for the backlash at a 'small cabal around Theresa May that is completely out of touch with reality'. Donors were annoyed at seeing their cash spent on 'promoting May's deal,' he said, when many opposed the Brexit stance taken. He added: 'People have turned away in disgust. Once May has gone the donations will resume.' According to reports, the party has, in the space of just ten days, sent out two emails to its membership asking for money which a source said was an 'unprecedented' move outside an election campaign. As revealed in the Mail, the party has been told to be on an election footing. Tuesday will see a series of votes on amendments in Parliament in the hope of breaking the Brexit deadlock. Britain's top civil servant told Government departmental heads to be ready in case an election is needed to break the Brexit deadlock. Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill met senior mandarins last week to discuss preparations in case Theresa May decides to go to the country. And ex-party leader William Hague has said the crisis may lead to a snap election. An offensive slur spray painted across a wall outside a state high school has left a local community livid. A hostile statement, aimed at blameless new school starters, was scrawled across the brick wall of Pacific Pines State High School, in the northern suburb of the Gold Coast, on Friday night. The graffiti cautioned children, due to start at the school imminently, to stay away, it read: ''F**k off year 7s - you're not welcome'. Scroll down for video The vile graffiti (pictured) was spray painted across the brick wall of Pacific Pines State High School, in the northern suburb of the Gold Coast Queensland Police was alerted to the graffiti around 7am, with a spokesperson confirming a police investigation is underway. It's not yet known who the vandal behind the unpleasant smear is, but school staff have urged anyone with information on the incident to get in touch. While officers try and uncover the culprit, members of the local community have rallied round to help the school cover up the abusive wording. Around 20 people (pictured) rallied round to help the school remove the awful warning from the wall Around 20 helpers gave up their spare time to assist in repainting the school wall. Following the speedy transformation, which took place earlier today, the school shared images of the freshly painted wall to its official Facebook page. Alongside the images, a statement read: 'Many of you are aware that our beautiful school was vandalised overnight. In a statement issued by the school to Facebook, alongside images of the helpers (pictured), it said it was 'humbled' by all the help from the local community 'Unfortunately, bad things happen sometimes but we are incredibly proud to say that all graffiti has been painted over by some wonderful staff and community members this morning,' it said. It went on to say the school was 'humbled' to have the local community come together to transform the wall in such a short space of time. 'A huge thank you to those individuals who took precious time out of this beautiful day to assist. 'If you have any information regarding the graffiti, please email dbevi0@eq.edu.au. You can be kept anonymous,' the post concluded. Local MP, Meaghan Scanlon, noted that while there will always be delinquents that do wrong, it was lovely to see the community come together to help out. 'There will always be some people in the community who will do the wrong thing,' Ms Scanlon told the Gold Coast Bulletin. 'But, it was really good to see so many people come together. It was actually quite heart warming,' she added. Police were previously called to Pacific Pines State High School in October 2015, after a brawl between rival students erupted in the car park. Advertisement An huge fortress spread over 8,000-square-feet and set on 40 acres of land in the Nevada desert some three hours drive away from Las Vegas could be yours for $950,000. The home, which has been nicknamed, the Hard Luck Castle has four-bedrooms and three bathrooms. The fortress is most unusual with a design that is more akin to a science-fiction film set than a secluded hideaway. Its walls along are 16 inches thick and are built around the home in a perfect circle with a spiral staircase allowing residents to access all four floors. 'It's absolutely amazing,' says listing agent Jake Rasmuson of Bishop Real Estate. 'You have to picture the middle of Nevada...your views are completely uninterrupted. This four-story, 22-room, 8,000-square-foot castle for sale for $900,000 in the Nevada desert is the perfect retreat The property is an enormous, privately owned fortress with 16-inch-thick concrete walls and self-sustained energy systems using solar and wind, and with a 4,000-gallon water storage/rain catchment system The owner has added two enormous, vintage pipe organs which resonate through the halls when played The castle is owned by Randy Johnson, a former builder and craftsman who lived in Southern California and Lake Tahoe The main house is made up from 22 rooms that include a theater, wine cellar and games room. There is even a pipe organ build in the 1920s that blasts notes throughout the home when played according to SFGate. The former owner was a builder from Southern California who decided to settle down in the tiny town of Gold Point in Esmeralda County. Just six people live in was is essentially a ghost town. Naturally the home comes with privacy and very few laws for the private land. It took $3 million and more than a decade for the homeowner to complete his plan - and now he feels that it is time to move on. 'He built it all himself with help from friends ,' says listing agent. He's a guy who can fix or do anything. He's an amazing craftsman, but he's ready to give up the property. Purchase a boat and start a new chapter in his life.' The castle is completely self sustaining and off the grid. Power comes from batteries charged by solar and wind energy to power the home theater and Vegas-style slot machine The main home includes two 1920s pipe organs and comes partially furnished with antiques The pipes of the organ dominate the decor in the home, while the bathroom looks distinctly ordinary Hard Luck Mine Castle is surrounded by nothing but the Nevada desert for miles. The home is located at 6,000 feet atop Gold Mountain 35 miles south of Goldfield, Nevada The Hard Luck Castle was constructed between 2000 and 2012 with engineering that is designed to last 400 to 500 years, according to the property listing The property also comes with a gold mine, which was closed at the end of WWII but is 'still high in gold content' From the outside it is possible to see just how truly remote the property is with nothing in the area for miles around The Hard Luck Castle was constructed between 2000 and 2012 with engineering that is designed to last 400 to 500 years according to the listing. It's made from steel, concrete, cinder block and glass. More than seven tons of rebar and 24,000 bricks were used to build the castle. The property is completely off-the-grid with electricity generated using solar and wind power. Water comes from a 4,000 gallon storage tank that collects rainwater. In front of the Hard Luck Castle, there is a tall, white compass. Each of the presidents names are listed in descending order Although it is miles away from anywhere, interested people can view the home for a $10 fee and receive a guided tour The Hard Luck Mine is a unique property that can provide for an escape, retreat, or remote compound for any individual or group desiring the ultimate in remote privacy and looking to disappear from society The central living space in the Hard Luck Mine Castle is dominated by the enormous pipes of the organ A 600-square-foot workshop is also included on site allowing for the homeowner to get to grips with their DIY skills Also included in the residence is a 600-square-foot workshop complete with tools. There is even a dormant gold mine close by which, according to legend, still contains gold. 'In a lot of ways, it's a 'doomsday prepper' dream home...extremely self-sustaining and secure.' Rasmusson told SFGate that he could see 'an astrologist, an artists, a writer, a musician, a poet, someone who really wants peace and quiet and wants two pipe organs in their home' taking up residence in the future. Round and round: The four-story and 8,000-square-foot home features an awe-inspiring spiral staircase through the center of the building Accepting offers: Johnston continues to list the home for sale on his website, but says he hasn't received many phone calls from interested buyers lately Advertisement Melbourne was fraught with tension on Australia Day as 'change the date' protesters clashed with alt-right nationalists - while Sydney was a picture of serenity with thousands relaxing on the beach. An 'Invasion Day' rally demanding the date of Australia Day be changed brought Melbourne's inner-city to a screeching halt on Saturday afternoon. Thousands of Indigenous Australian sympathisers were greeted by far-right counter-protesters holding a demonstration at the city's iconic Federation Square. Scroll down for video Crowd of 5,000 demonstrators: Invasion Day protesters gather at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne on Australia Day 2019 A tale of two cities: Thousands of Australians packed Sydney's Bondi Beach to beat the heat this Australia Day Clash: Protesters and counter-protesters have clashed during an 'Invasion Day' rally in Melbourne on Australia Day Melbourne: Australian Aborigines and their supporters stage a protest against Australia Day on Saturday afternoon Police were quick to pounce when a small group of opposing protesters clashed in Melbourne on Saturday Sydney: Dozens of Australian flags waved in the wind as revellers took to the shallow waters of the beach to pose for photos (left). Others temporarily tattooed the iconic blue, white and red flag on their bodies as they went for a dip (right) Sydney: While plumes of smoke billow from barbecues in backyards, thousands chose to ditch the snag in bread for sand and a swim Up to 5,000 protesters draped in Aboriginal flags began what was billed as a 'peaceful protest' by pushing their way through a police line at the head of Bourke Street. From there, they marched towards the Yarra River, chanting: 'Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.' They say it is wrong to celebrate Australia Day on the day the British settlers arrived at land inhabited by indigenous people and want the date changed. A counter-protest mustered fewer than 100 participants who were shrouded in Australian flags at the steps of Federation Square. One man was holding a placard reading: 'To defend my country was once called patriotism now it's called racism.' That same slogan was read at a rally designed to protest African gang crime at St Kilda beach only weeks earlier. At the foot of Federation Square, a pair of protesters clad in the Australian flag clashed with those marching from the northern end of the city, before they were pounced on by the throngs of police. One of the men was dragged to the ground before being frog-marched off by police, another couple also told to move on by police shortly after. The event started with a minute's silence and speeches rallying against Aboriginal deaths in custody, the abolition of public drunkenness laws, calling for an end to children being taken from family care and a spate of aboriginal child suicides. Melbourne: A group of about 5,000 people were actively marching through the street in favour of changing the date of Australia Day Melbourne: One banner at the protest read 'Australia is a crime scene' and another said: 'Respect existence or expect resistance' Melbourne: Thousands marched with a banner reading 'change the date or we still won't celebrate' Meanwhile in Sydney, thousands of Australians flocked to Bondi Beach to beat the heat this Australia Day. While plumes of smoke billow from barbecues in backyards, thousands chose to ditch the snag in bread for sand and a swim. Hoping for some refuge from the scorching 33C in the city, hordes of bikini-clad revellers with umbrellas shading them from the sun's harsh rays put lifeguards on edge as they filled the beach. Many beachgoers got into the festivities, donning bikinis with the Australian flag emblazoned on them. Others took it a step further, temporarily tattooing the iconic blue, white and red emblem on their bodies as they went for a dip. Sydney: Some had sought to go for a swim in between meals, while others parked up for a spot of beach cricket A customary Australian tradition, many found a small patch of sand to dig some plastic stumps into for a spell of beach cricket, while many others just took in the rays. Regardless of whether they were at the beach to frolic, tan or play, Bondi's iconic lifeguards were working overtime keeping everyone safe. Australia Day itself has become a contentious issue as some believe the day enforces a false narrative. The day is held in honour of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships. However, there is a growing number of Australians who believe the day has become a symbol of inequality and institutionalised harm. Protests advocating for changing the date of Australia Day from January 26 have become established in all Australian cities, with growing support for them each year. A searing heatwave caused one woman's Australia Day celebrations to come to a halt after she collapsed due to dehydration atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Emergency Services were called to the iconic Sydney landmark just before midday after reports a woman fell ill while doing the Bridge Climb. Paramedics had to climb the length of the arch themselves to reach the patient before she was carried back down. Emergency Services were called to the iconic Sydney landmark just before midday after reports a woman fell ill while doing the Bridge Climb (pictured) Australia Day revellers are being told to host festivities in the morning amidst a huge heatwave She was then rushed to hospital in a stable condition, The Daily Telegraph reported. The day synonymous with beer and barbecuing was endured in blistering heats, as parts of the country surpassed 40C. Paramedics have responded to 20 heat-related reports across New South Wales so far. Health authorities have issued multiple warnings to stay indoors while the sun is out and urge people against overdrinking in the sun. Sydney's temperatures hit 33C with abnormally high humidity, forcing thousands of revellers to the beach. While many took to the outdoorst NSW Health's Richard Broome urged people to stay indoors. 'Perhaps think about having a breakfast BBQ rather than an afternoon BBQ, or even postpone your activities until after it gets dark,' he said. 'We understand people do like to enjoy a beer, but please do it in moderation.' Sydney's temperatures hit 33C with abnormally high humidity, forcing thousands of revellers to the beach Thousands of Sydneysiders flocked to Bondi Beach to escape the blistering 33C in the city Thousands of Sydneysiders flocked to Bondi Beach to escape the blistering 33C in the city. Many beachgoers got into the festivities, donning bikinis with the Australian flag emblazoned on them. Regardless of whether they were at the beach to frolic, tan or play, Bondi's iconic lifeguards were working overtime keeping everyone safe. The city's west felt the heat the worst, with some areas peaking at 43C just after midday. With temperatures soaring (pictured) towards 45C, beaches will be sure to pack with celebrators Heath authorities are warning revellers to seek shade from the sun this searing Australia Day South-western suburbs didn't escape the scorching weather, with Campbelltown and Liverpool reaching a blistering 39C. Sydney's temperature is forecast to stay in the high 20s for the rest of the afternoon, before dipping to an evening low of 23C. With the humidity remaining high and the sun not setting until about 8pm, expect the beaches to remain packed with festive punters until Saturday evening. The Morrison Government has copped another hard blow after two ministers announced plans to walk out of the Senate just one day apart. Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and Human Services Minister Michael Keenan have revealed they will step down from their roles. In his announcement on Saturday, Mr Scullion said that his time in the Senate had been 'the greatest honour' of his life. 'I thank all Territorians for their support over this time. I have been proud to be a member of the Country Liberal Party - the only party that truly represents the real Territory,' he said. 'I am grateful that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have welcomed me in every corner of this continent that I have visited, and worked with me in providing local and national solutions.' In his announcement on Saturday, Nigel Scullion (pictured) said his time in the Senate had been 'the greatest honour' of his life Like Mr Scullion, Michael Keenan (pictured) has cited personal reasons for the seemingly abrupt decision to bow out of politics. Mr Scullion will take his leave from the Nationals after sitting in its upper house. 'The reason I'm leaving is it's time for me to go,' he said at a press conference on Saturday. He brushed aside rumours his decision to move on was a result of Mr Morrison's prime ministership. On Friday night, Mr Keenan said he would not contest the upcoming election. Like Mr Scullion, Mr Keenan has cited personal reasons for the seemingly abrupt decision to bow out of politics. Mr Keenan has been through the political ropes as was elected Member for Stirling in Western Australia, Minister for Justice and Minister for Counter Terrorism during his time in office. 'While it is time for me to retire from politics and pass on the baton to another representative in Stirling, I remain resolutely optimistic about the Coalition Government's prospects at the forthcoming election not just here in Stirling and Western Australia, but across the nation,' he said. 'I thank my wife Georgina and our family who have been there every step of the way for me and with whom I now look forward to spending a lot more of my time.' He noted it was not unusual for several people to make a decision at this time of year not to re-contest. 'People hyperventilate about everything in politics, I've learnt that over 15 years,' he told reporters in Perth on Saturday. 'But I don't think it's particularly striking that there are several ministers deciding after Christmas, and at this time of the year with an election looming, that they can't serve for the next three years.' Prime Minister Scott Morrison said both party members had approached him first to break the news. Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) said both party members had approached him first to break the news Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) has dismissed suggestions the retirements are about anything more than the ministers' personal circumstances 'Let's not forget both of these gentleman have been serving in the Parliament a very long time. 'It's okay to retire,' he said. He has dismissed suggestions the retirements are about anything more than the ministers' personal circumstances. 'We've had members retiring and not standing at the next election from both sides of politics and it means nothing more than that,' he told reporters after a citizenship ceremony in Canberra on Saturday. 'People go away at the time of the break, they reflect on things, they make choices about their future. 'Australians are doing that all round the country at the moment and I don't think these cases are any different.' Mr Morrison said he did not believe losing the ministers would affect the government's chances of re-election and that he was excited to see those who 'come up and refresh behind them'. 'All government's refresh,' he said, noting there were no other resignations before him. The shock announcements from Mr Scullion and Mr Keenan come a week after Industrial Affairs Minister Kelly O'Dwyer (pictured) said she would exit the party The prime minister also sought to hose down reports he had been lobbying NSW MP Craig Laundy to stay in the fold, saying he caught up with him this week after arranging to do so while he was overseas over the break. 'I said let's catch up for brekkie when you get back and that's what we did,' Mr Morrison said. The shock announcements from Mr Scullion and Mr Keenan come a week after Industrial Affairs Minister Kelly O'Dwyer said she would exit the party. Ms O'Dwyer - one of six women in the coalition's 23-person frontbench - said her decision was made for personal reasons and that she wanted to spend more time with her children. 'There will be some who try and use my announcement today to advance their own agendas and I absolutely do not want that,' she told reporters at the time. Senator Scullion, Mr Keenan and Ms O'Dwyer will remain in their ministerial portfolios until the election. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the spate of retirement announcements showed the 'government was barely limping to the end of its term.' 'This is a government where its members have given up and now they're walking out the door,' he told reporters in Melbourne. The trio are the latest of members of the party who have taken their leave, including MP Julia Banks over bullying claims and Nationals MP Andrew Broad in wake of the sugar baby scandal. The trio are the latest of members of the party who have taken their leave, including MP Julia Banks (pictured) and Nationals MP Andrew Broad The male flight attendant who tragically died while working on a trip from Honolulu to New York City has been identified as a 31-year Hawaiian Airlines veteran. Emile Griffith collapsed after suffering an apparent heart attack on Hawaiian Airlines Flight 50 on Thursday evening. The flight had departed from Honolulu just before 4.15pm on Thursday and was carrying 253 passengers and 12 crew members bound for JFK Airport. During the journey Griffith suffered cardiac arrest, leading to an emergency landing in San Francisco around 11pm. Hawaiian Airlines employee Emile Griffith tragically died after suffering a heart attack during Thursday's flight traveling from Honolulu to JFK Airport in New York A tribute for Griffith has been set up in the Hawaiian Airlines in-flight crew lounge at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu Hawaiian Airlines shared this statement following his death praising Griffith as a beloved employee of over 31 years Panicked flight personnel went on the flight speaker to ask if there were any doctors on board to help the fallen Griffith. Passenger Andrea Bartz tweeted from the plane that the crew asked if there were any doctors on board the aircraft. 'It's been a long time since they asked for doctors to come to first class so I hope they're okay,' she wrote. 'So many doctors came forward they had to make a second announcement like "never mind, all set!"' Crew members and doctors on board tried to save Griffith for several hours. 'They were doing CPR pretty much the whole way until we got there,' one passenger told CBS 13. SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel confirmed Griffith experienced a suspected heart attack and that 'qualified medical personnel' attempted CPR. The plane where he died is pictured here after it diverted to San Francisco International Airport Passenger Andrea Bartz tweeted from the plane that the crew asked if there were any doctors on board the aircraft, then revealed that so many people volunteered to help they had to send some back. She also tweeted after the coroner and police came on board Hawaiian Airlines Flight 50 left Honolulu at 4.15pm on Thursday from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and was headed to John F Kennedy Airport, but diverted to SFO after the flight attendant suffered a heart attack over the Pacific Ocean Passengers were not informed about the heart attack and were simply notified that an emergency had taken place. After landed in San Francisco, passengers were held on the runway for nearly two hours waiting for a coroner to arrive on the scene. 'There are cops too, and no one's moving with any urgency and they just had an elderly man with a yamulke come up the front,' Bartz tweeted. 'Did someone die?' The San Mateo County Coroner then arrived on board and declared Griffith was deceased. Passengers were later informed of Griffith's death over the intercom. Hawaiian Airlines assured the passengers they would be fully reimbursed for their new flights All the passengers on the flights were given booked new trips via other airlines as Hawaiian Airlines does not operate from SFO to JFK. 'We are deeply saddened by the loss of Emile Griffith, a member of our flight attendant ohana for over 31 years who passed away while working on our flight between Honolulu and New York last night,' the airline said to DailyMail.com 'We are forever grateful for Emiles colleagues and good Samaritans on board who stayed by his side and provided extensive medical help,' the statement said. 'Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests. Our hearts are with Emiles family, friends and all those fortunate to have known him,' the statement added. Hawaiian Airlines said it has made counseling available for his fellow employees. The aircraft departed from SFO at 5am. Its destination was not disclosed. In light of his death, a tribute has been set up for Griffith in the Hawaiian Airlines in-flight crew lounge at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. Framed pictures of Griffith, lit candles, a notebook with pens for people to leave notes, and flower leis were laid on the makeshift memorial for the beloved flight attendant. Forging Demographic Change in Iraq At the Expense of Assyrians A church in the Assyrian town of Bartella in north Iraq. ( AINA) Goettingen, Germany (AINA) -- In a press release dated January 24th, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Gottingen has called attention to new problems arising for the Assyrians (known also as Chaldeans and Syriacs) in the Nineveh Plain, north and east of the city of Mosul, Iraq. Assyrian "representatives fear a massive demographic change at the expense of their ethnic group," says the release. After the expulsion of the Islamic State (IS) from the Northern Iraqi province of Mosul, "more and more Muslims are settling there," said STP's speaker Kemal Sido. One of the cities impacted by these actions is Bartella, which was liberated from IS in October 2016 with support of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces and Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU). STP is calling on "the Iraqi central government and Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG] to clarify the administrative affiliation of this and other 'disputed' areas in order for their communities to shape their future," and reduce tensions between the ethnic groups. The area is labeled 'disputed' by the KRG, as the KRG, eying Nineveh Plain's oil resources, seeks control of the region. A joint letter (AINA 2018-10-13) signed by the STP and Assyrian Federation in Germany was sent to Nechirvan Barzani, President of the KRG, on October 4th, 2018, urging Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq to respect Assyrian rights and assure political participation in the KRG region and to give pro-active support to Assyrians. According to Aziz Said, President of the Assyrian Federation in Germany, who signed the letter, the "appeal remained unanswered by the KRG." Said expressed concerns in view of the worrying news about land grab on the expense of Assyrians, saying "our Federation is pleased with the STP release, which raises the issue of demographic change at the expense of Assyrians in the Nineveh Plain and demands more participation. The expulsion of the Nineveh Plain's local population by IS in 2014 is seen by some people in hindsight as a welcome act to establish new facts on the ground." The Nineveh Plain has been historically and continuously populated by Assyrian Christians and was one of the regions of Iraq where they could live in relative calm and peace until the IS attack in 2014. Assyrians have long demanded the establishment of a self-governed province in the Nineveh Plain under federal jurisdiction. In January 2014, the Iraqi Council of Ministers authorized the creation of such a province. But because of the onslaught of IS it could not be implemented. According to the Assyrian Policy Institute (AINA 2018-12-27) "nearly fifty percent of its previous Assyrian population has returned since liberation, though post-2014 shifts signal ongoing demographic change in the district. Many local Assyrians fear that the Shabak community is using the post-IS instability to seize a greater claim over cities like Bakhdida and Bartella." The number of ethnic Assyrians that have returned to Bartella is less than 10,000 (from more than 20,000 prior to 2014) while the number of Shabak residents has increased. Last month the API pointed to a letter of Qusay Abbas Mohammed, a Shabak MP, who called for the distribution of public lands in Hamdaniya District in the Nineveh Plain to Shabak families. The letter is signed by additional 58 members of parliament and has caused concerns to the local Assyrian community, who fear that demographic change might be supported by the central government. Currently, NPU's authority to secure the region and its towns "is constrained by Shabak forces (operating primarily in Bartella), which are greater in number and organized under Brigade 30 of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as al-Hashd al-Shabi. Brigade 30 is affiliated with the Shabak Democratic Assembly and operates under the leadership and command of the Badr Organization with the backing of powerful non-local PMU forces,", reports the Assyrian Policy Institute. About 80 percent of the Assyrian population of Bartella belongs to the Syriac Orthodox Church, the remaining 20 percent are Syriac Catholics. They all speak Suret, a modern eastern dialect of Assyrian. In recent years, members of the Shabak minority have settled in the town. The Shabak are mostly Shiite Muslims. Since 2013, a new district with the project name "Sultan City" is emerging in Bartella. 182 residential units are planned. "Only Muslims could afford to buy a very expensive home there, say local Christians who lost their fortunes through the war," says STP. Assyrians "are calling for Christian families to move there, because the buildings would also be built on their land, which, after all, has always belonged to Christians," adds STP's speaker Sido. There are already reports that land registers are forged in order to reject criticism. An apartment in the "Sultan City" costs in average around 75 million Iraqi dinars, equivalent to about 55,000 Euros. The shipment of 200,000 doses of anti-flu drug has been held up. Since last September, US humanitarian workers are not allowed to treat North Korean patients. For Fr Gerard Hammond, "The situation is sad and disappointing. The missionary now has hopes for the second Kim-Trump summit. Seoul (AsiaNews) The meticulous application of sanctions against North Korea is causing delays in inter-Korean humanitarian exchanges. This includes South Koreas plan to send anti-flu medicine Tamiflu across the border. A shipment has been held up for weeks reportedly because of concern that the means of delivery, the cargo trucks, might be subject to sanctions. In December, South Korea announced a plan to ship 200,000 doses of Tamiflu to North Korea, but the delivery (initially scheduled for 11 January) has been put off for unclear reasons. South Koreas Unification Ministry, which said it needed more time to prepare, has not explained what is hindering the delivery. Local media report that Seoul and Washington are discussing how to proceed, even though the vehicles are supposed to return to South Korea after unloading the drugs. "The situation is sad and disappointing," said Fr Gerard Hammond (pictured), regional superior of the Maryknoll missionaries in Korea, speaking to AsiaNews. The 85-year-old priest is a member of the Eugene Bell Foundation (EBF), a Christian NGO that has been involved for years in helping some 2,000 tuberculosis patients in North Korea. "Maryknoll missionaries arrived in Korea in 1923 and our bond with this land is very strong Fr Hammond explained. For the past 20 years, I have travelled to the North more than 50 times. At the moment we feel powerless because these people are so close but we cannot help them." "Since I have a US passport, I still dont know whether I will be able to join the EBF delegation, which will visit North Korea between late April and early May. "Because of last Septembers sanctions, the US State Department has not yet issued a second passport to any US citizen. This seriously affects our work: we can send medicines but we cannot take care of new patients. "Only a small group of workers, not from the United States, can take care of the sick. People with multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) need 18 months and three visits to treat the disease. "Hopefully, after the second summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald J. Trump, the situation may change. Seoul continues to play the role of mediator between the two parties and has shown great overture to the North. Peace, reconciliation and dialogue are essential to create an atmosphere of trust in the Korean peninsula." A Kentucky bishop has issued a personal apology to the teenager at the center of viral clash with Native American man, saying the diocese was 'bullied' and reacted 'prematurely' to the footage. An initial joint statement from the Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School on Saturday had condemned the students for their actions. But in a letter to parents Most Rev. Roger Foys apologized to Covington families and to anyone offended by either statement. Foys says the diocese was 'bullied' and reacted 'prematurely', The Cincinnati Enquirer reports. He wrote: 'We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it. 'I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family, as well as to all CovCath families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal. Nicholas unfortunately has become the face of these allegations based on video based on video clips. 'This is not fair. It is not just. We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way.' Nicholas Sandmann, pictured in the MAGA hat, was widely criticized after an online video appeared to show him mocking and staring down Native American Nathan Phillips, right Most Rev. Roger Foys, left, released a statement Friday apologizing to Covington families, 'especially to Nicholas Sandmann, right, and his family' The school has received national attention in the wake of videos which appeared to show students from the school mocking Native Americans outside the Lincoln Memorial The videotaped encounter last week at the Lincoln Memorial between a group of high school students, some wearing MAGA hats, and Native American marchers went viral and the students were widely criticized. It had appeared to show them mocking a Native American activist. Subsequent videos showed a more complicated three-way confrontation involving a black religious sect as well. Students have received death threats in the wake of the incident, Foys said. A spokeswoman for the diocese had criticized the students' behavior in the immediate aftermath. The statement read: 'We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan. 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, D.C. 'We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church's teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.' Sandmann said he was trying to diffuse tensions when he stood in front of Nathan Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Native American activist Nathan Phillips was the man at the center of the viral video A sign showing support for the students of Covington Catholic Catholic High School Sleepy Eye Lafromboise, right, and his son Eshtakaba, both of the Sioux Nation, sing during a gathering of Native American supporters in front of the Catholic Diocese in Covington, Ky. Guy Jones, left, and a supporter of President Donald Trump named Don join hands during a gathering of Native American supporters in front of the Catholic Diocese of Covington Speaking of the moments before the confrontation, when the Israelites were hurling insults his way, the 16-year-old said: 'I definitely felt threatened. They were a group of adults and I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. 'In hindsight I wish we had just found another spot to wait for our buses but at the time, being positive seemed better than letting them slander us with all of these things.' He added: 'I can't say that I'm sorry for listening to him and standing there. 'As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr Phillips, I'd like to talk to him. 'In hindsight I wish we could've walked away and avoided the whole thing.' An Australian military hero has been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for helping Iraqi forces drive ISIS out of the country, but no one knows who he is. Among hundreds of names on the prestigious list of Australia Day honours sits Colonel M, a military soldier from Sydney's northern beaches. The anonymous man was awarded the highest honour of its kind for 'distinguished command and leadership in warlike operations'. Among hundreds of names on the prestigious list of Australia Day honours sits Colonel M, a military soldier from Sydney's northern beaches (stock image) It was his involvement and critical thinking in Iraqi operations in 2017 that awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross for 2019 (pictured a mosque in Mosul, a year after the city was retaken by the Iraqi forces) According to The Daily Telegraph, Colonel M enlisted in the army when he was just 16 years old. By 20, he was undergoing intense training and completed the highly rigorous and selective Special Air Service (SAS) selection course. 'I was thoroughly determined. I trained for ten months to get ready. I'd pack march and run up and down hills in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and swim across Narrabeen Lake and Pittwater,' Colonel M said. Out of hundreds of people who applied for the selective services, he was one of just 16 to be made successful. In 1998, he'd served in operations in Bougainville and a just a year later in East Timor. Colonel M then worked counter terrorism during the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and following the 9/11 attacks he was part of a crack counter terror unit. Through his determination, he climbed the Defence Force's ranks and served on multiple tours in Afghanisatan and Iraq. However, it was his involvement and critical thinking in Iraqi operations in 2017 that awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross for 2019. An Australian military hero has been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (pictured) for helping Iraqi forces drive ISIS out of the country, but no one knows who he is He travelled to Iraq in May 2017 as the leader and commander of a 'large contingent' of Australian servicement and women. Colonel M assisted Iraqi forces in pushing IS out of their Mosul stronghold, leading to them leaving Iraq completely. 'It turned out being perhaps the most significant urban warfare battle since World War Two,' he said. Colonel M was given the high-pressure responsibility to win the trust of the Iraqis and said he just treated them in the way he would wish to be treated. As the Iraqis knew he only wanted to help, they quickly joined forces and when they weren't fighting together, they enjoyed down time together. They played sport together, ate together and Colonel M even introduced them to Aussie staples like Vegemite and Tim Tams. When Ramadan came to an end, the Australian soldiers set up a huge feast for their Iraqi allies. 'It was things like that that really helped build that rapport and trust,' Colonel M said. While things were pleasant off the battlefield, it didn't stop the fight from being horrific and brutal. Colonel M was given the high-pressure responsibility to win the trust of the Iraqis and said he just treated them in the way he would wish to be treated (pictured remnants of the battles in Mosul) Colonel M said IS often mix chemicals into explosives, use kids as bait and use drones to drop grenades. Unlike the typical 'boots on the ground' operation the Australians were used to, they had to instead help with intelligence, equipment and training for the Iraqis. After months of extreme battle and thousands of people dead, the Iraqis came out victorious. Colonel M went back to Australian life in Sydney's northern beaches, with just his close circle aware of the change he'd caused after choosing to remain anonymous. A 12-year-old girl who gave birth at a home in Western Australia could be charged over the pregnancy - along with the baby's father. Youth Legal Service WA solicitor Sally Dechow said the charges could be brought against the pair as the conception was considered illegal under state law, The West reported. 'Legally they could both be charged, but in practice weve found its usually the boy who is charged. 'You have to look at the welfare of these kids and whether its in the public interest to prosecute children of this age.' A young girl and boy could be charged over a teenage pregnancy, after the 12-year-old mother gave birth without any knowledge she was even pregnant (stock photo) The young girl went into labour at a Perth home, where the baby was delivered, before she was transferred to King Edward Memorial Hospital with her healthy child earlier this month. She told staff she had no idea she was pregnant when she arrived at the Peel Health Campus and has since been discharged. WA Police believe the baby's father is a child of similar age to the mother and was 11 at the the time of the pregnancy. Ms Dechow pointed out even though the pair are both under the age of 16 and were willing participants at the time, the law states they were below the age of consent. She went so far as to say a charge and conviction could land someone on the registered child sex offender list. Police have the ability not to prosecute after considering supervision and support options and if laying charges will be in the public interest. The WA department said they are working with the Department of Communities, Department of Health and the girl's family and said priority would be placed on family support. 'There are complex social issues, which are being managed by all agencies, and the current priority is to ensure appropriate support is provided to the family,' a police spokeswoman said. Australian Medical Association former president Michael Gannon said children having children was a concern. Not speaking about this particular case, he said some young girls tried to hide their pregnancy sometimes out of denial. In other cases, they had no idea they were even pregnant. 'People find it extremely hard to understand how a pregnancy can be concealed but it can happen,' he said. He pointed out children at the age of 12 were still developing physically and a skeleton that wasn't properly formed posed risks in childbirth. The young girl went into labour at a Perth home, where the baby was delivered, before she was transferred to King Edward Memorial Hospital (pictured) with her healthy child earlier this month News of the 12-year-old giving birth sparked a coordinated response from health authorities. There have been 12 registered births to mothers aged 12 since 1980 - the youngest to ever give birth - according to WA Health Department records. In 2017 there were three registered births to girls aged 13 or younger, seven to 14-years-olds, and 21 to 15-year-olds. The young girl has become one the youngest mothers in the state's history. The Department of Communities would not comment on the specific case, but confirmed the case required a joint support effort. 'A coordinated response is required from a range of State Government and external support agencies both in the short and long term in order to make a lasting difference to the wellbeing of all affected parties,' a spokesperson told the Midland Reporter. 'The Department of Communities, the WA Police and Department of Health work together intensively in the best interests of all concerned.' Spokeswoman Jackie Tang said it was being investigated as to whether sexual abuse of the girl led to her pregnancy, of if she was likely to be abused. 'Where necessary, the matter will be referred to the WA Police for further investigation and referrals to appropriate supports are provided,' she said. Thousands of people have gathered in cities across the country to protest Australia Day. 'Invasion day' events were held throughout the day on Saturday, as protesters marched for Aboriginal rights. Australia Day is a contentious issue as some believe the day enforces a false narrative. The day is held in honour of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships. However, there is a growing number of Australians who believe the day has become a symbol of inequality and institutionalised harm. Carrying placard, they chanted: 'Always was, always will be Aboriginal land' 'Invasion day' events were held throughout the day on Saturday, as protesters marched for Aboriginal rights (pictured) Australia Day is a contentious issue as some believe the day enforces a false narrative At least 5,000 people gathered at Victorian parliament, pushing through a police line as they started their march At least 5,000 people gathered at Victorian parliament, pushing through a police line as they started their march. They chanted: 'Always was, always will be Aboriginal land'. The event started with a minute's silence and speeches rallying against Aboriginal deaths in custody, the abolition of public drunkenness laws, calling for an end to children being taken from family care and a spate of aboriginal child suicides. Protesters forced the intersection of Bourke and Spring Streets to shut down as the mass of people made their way to Federation Square. A banner reading 'Abolish Australia Day' hung from London's Westminster Bridge in a show of solidarity with events in Australia (pictured) Protesters forced the intersection of Bourke and Spring Streets to shut down as the mass of people made their way to Federation Square Swarms of aboriginal activists and supporters also filled Sydney's Hyde Park, pushing the message to 'change the date' of Australia Day from January 26. 'We don't need to change the date, we need to change the country,' Greens NSW MP David Shoebridge told the crowd. Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Australians marched through Brisbane supporting the cause too. Protesters forced the intersection of Bourke and Spring Streets to shut down as the mass of people made their way to Federation Square About 30 protesters held the banner off the bridge as throngs of tourists walked by in London (pictured) Mally Currie, a Mununjali man, said the conversations about Australia Day should include the nation's indigenous history. 'As soon as we change the mood and start speaking civil to one another consciously, the better we can move forward,' he said. 'Walk with me, talk with me, hold my hand. 'It's a journey of respect.' London Australia Solidarity Activism Hub spokeswoman Eda Sehyan said they felt it was important as they were in London, in the former heart of empire, to protest Protesters are seen marching through the streets of Sydney A banner reading 'Abolish Australia Day' hung from London's Westminster Bridge in a show of solidarity with events in Australia. About 30 protesters held the banner off the bridge as throngs of tourists walked by. London Australia Solidarity Activism Hub spokeswoman Eda Sehyan said they felt it was important as they were in London, in the former heart of empire, to protest. Pictured are protesters swarming the streets in Melbourne An Oregon man suddenly died while on his regular run at the gym just one day before his retirement - and now his heartbroken widow is suing the fitness club in a stunning $13million lawsuit. Electrical engineer David L. Rutledge, 62, was exercising at a 24 Hour Fitness gym in Portland around 5am on December 21, 2017, the same time he went ran there every day. Rutledge's widow Stacy L. Rutledge claims in the lawsuit filed Wednesday that the gym failed to train the only employee on duty that morning on how to respond to an emergency situation and save her husband's life. The widow of Oregon man David L. Rutledge, 62, who died after collapsing on the treadmill at a 24 Hour Fitness gym on December 21, 2017 is suing the fitness club for $13million Rutledge was working out at a 24 Hour Fitness in Portland (above) at 5am when he collapsed on the treadmill. The sole gym employee there didn't immediately call 911 and didn't know where the automated external defibrillator was, the lawsuit says During Rutledge's workout he suddenly collapsed on the treadmill and a person working out nearby retrieved the sole gym employee Corey Lay, who was in the restroom. However, Lay did not immediately call 911 and didn't know where to find the gym's automated external defibrillator, which saves cardiac arrest victims, the lawsuit says as per the Oregonian. Paramedics who rushed to the scene were unable to save Rutledge. 'Every minute of delay caused Mr. Rutledge a further loss of chance of survival,' the lawsuit says. He died just a day before he was planned to retire from Lattice Semiconductor, where he worked for the past 34 years. Paramedics couldn't revive Rutledge when they arrived to the gym in the Pearl District of Portland (above). The lawsuit alleges that every minute the employee delayed calling police or locating the defibrillator cost the man his life The first page of the complaint filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court above According to Oregon law, gyms with more than 50 visitors or guests a day are required to have defibrillators on hand. Rutledge's obituary says that his death came as a surprise to his family. 'Despite the immediate and compassionate actions of people at the gym, EMTs and many doctors and nurses, Davids heart had beat for the last time,' it said. 'The doctors declared how unusual it was that they could not get Davids heart restarted. Usually they said, they dont lose a man of Davids age with seemingly excellent health,' the obituary added. He is survived by his wife and step daughters. 24 Hour Fitness, a chain in Portland, released a statement to the Oregonian saying: 'We were saddened by the passing of our club member and our thoughts are with the members family. As a matter of policy, 24 Hour Fitness does not comment on pending litigation.' A controversial short film about the murder of toddler James Bulger will be allowed to compete at the Oscars. James' mother, Denise Fergus, had asked for Vincent Lambe's Detainment to be pulled from next month's ceremony after it was nominated in the best live action short category. Mrs Fergus said she was haunted by some of the imagery in the film, especially reenactments of James being led away by the hand by his killers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Denise Fergus, pictured left, has expressed her outrage that a film about her son James Bulger's murder has been nominated for a possible Oscar The movie features the moment Jon Venables, left, and Robert Thompson, right, led James Bulger away from a Liverpool shopping centre and away to his death Despite her pleas, the Academy has confirmed Detainment will remain in contention. In a statement, it said: 'The Academy offers its deepest condolences to Ms Fergus and her family. We are deeply moved and saddened by the loss that they have endured, and we take their concerns very seriously. 'Following long-standing foundational principles established to maintain the integrity of the awards, the Academy does not in any way influence the voting process. 'Detainment was voted on by Academy members. When making their choices, each individual applies their own judgment regarding the films' creative, artistic and technical merits. 'We understand that this will not alleviate the pain experienced by the family; however we hope it clarifies the Academy's neutral role in the voting process.' James Bulger was murdered in 1993 by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables Two-year-old James was led away from a Merseyside shopping centre in 1993 - a moment captured on CCTV - by Venables and Thompson who then tortured and killed him. They were arrested soon after and convicted following a 17-day trial at Preston Crown Court and ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, the normal substitute sentence for life imprisonment when the offender is a juvenile. Trial judge Mr Justice Morland told the pair they had committed a crime of 'unparalleled evil and barbarity'. Detainment follows the events surrounding the murder, and is comprised of re-enactments based on the transcripts from police interviews with Venables and Thompson. Lambe said: 'The public opinion at the moment now is that those two boys were simply evil and anybody who says anything different or gives an alternate reason as to why they did it, or tries to understand why they did it, they get criticised for it. 'I think we have the responsibility to try and make sense of what happened.' The Academy Awards take place in Los Angeles on February 24. Roger Stone once threatened a DOG and called her owner Randy Credico a rat, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment. Trump's longtime confidente, who was arrested on Friday, is said to have told the witness he would 'take that dog away from you' in an angry email exchange. Radio host Credico has a Coton de Tulear named Bianca and it is thought Stone's alleged threats were aimed at the therapy dog. Mueller's indictment shows he wrote to 'Person 2', now believed to be comedian Credico, telling him he should 'do a Frank Pentangeli' in an apparent reference to the movie The Godfather: Part II. In the film Pentangeli is intimidated out of testifying about a mafia boss before the Senate. Roger Stone is said to have once threatened a dog called Bianca, pictured, in emails to her owner Randy Credico saying he would 'take that dog away from you' Randy Credico leaves with his dog Bianca from the U.S. District Court, September 7, 2018 after he was subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before the grand jury Roger Stone, left, a longtime political adviser and friend to President Donald Trump, was arrested Friday. Special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment said he threatened Bianca, right The indictment states: 'On or about April 9, 2018, STONE wrote in an email to Person 2, 'You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds.' 'STONE also said he would 'take that dog away from you,' referring to Person 2's dog. On or about the same day, STONE wrote to Person 2, 'I am so ready. Let's get it on. Prepare to die [expletive].'' Credico had been subpoenaed to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee and he brought Bianca along to the federal court. He said he was threatened by Stone after publicly denying being his connection to WikiLeaks during the campaign, The Washington Post reports. Credico said previously: 'When you start bringing up my dog, you're crossing the line.' Stone, 66, who is said to own two Yorkshire terriers of his own and calls himself a 'dog lover', is facing seven charges including making false statements to Congress and witness tampering but has proclaimed his innocence. He walked out of federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida after appearing in front of a judge, hours after FBI agents raided his home with guns drawn and arrested him on charges including lying to Congress and witness tampering. Stone was sprung from jail on a $250,000 bond and called the InfoWars conspiracy theory radio program to proclaim his innocence. He emerged from the federal court building flashing a V-for victory with both hands raised, Richard Nixon-style. The indictment states: 'STONE also said he would 'take that dog away from you,' referring to Person 2's dog. On or about the same day, STONE wrote to Person 2, 'I am so ready. Let's get it on. Prepare to die [expletive]' Roger Stone leaves the Fort Lauderdale Florida Federal Courthouse Credico had been subpoenaed to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Credico said previously: 'When you start bringing up my dog, you're crossing the line' I will plead not guilty to the charges,' Stone said, shouting over the protests. 'I will defeat them in court. I believe this is a politically motivated investigation.' He added: 'There is no circumstance whatsoever under which I will bear false witness against the president, nor will I make up lies to ease the pressure on myself. I look forward to being fully and completely vindicated.' A few hours later, silver haired Stone, who has a Richard Nixon tattoo, ate pizza and lounged in the sun outside a friend's house. The number of asylum claims from newly-arrived migrants has surged, leaked documents suggest. Last year saw the highest number of asylum claims since 2015, the BBC reported, when 32,733 applications were made. The documents say the numbers have become unacceptably high, [risking] reputational damage to the Home Office and the asylum process. Last year saw the highest number of asylum claims since 2015, when 32,733 applications were made. Pictured are migrants on a boat trying to cross the Channel between France and Britain The BBC report carried footage from over the Channel showing migrants trying to get on to the back of lorries bound for the UK without challenge by police. The Home Office declined to comment on the leak but told the Corporation its performance on asylum was robust and applications had been broadly stable for the past 18 months. The report came as immigration minister Caroline Nokes said more will be done to ensure illegal cross-Channel migrants are returned to France. She gave no figures but said a small number who made the journey at the end of last year had been sent back. Sources revealed that fewer than five were returned to France this week. During a visit to Calais, Mrs Nokes refused to be drawn on how many migrants the Home Office plans to return. The Home Office declined to comment on the leak but said applications had been broadly stable for the past 18 months But she said: Weve already returned a small number and we are going to continue working to make sure that pressure is stepped up. She added the Government would not return people before appropriate checks had been carried out on whether they have relatives in the UK. Mrs Nokes met French interior minister Christophe Castaner at the official opening of a new UK-France Co-ordination and Information Centre. It is designed to help both countries work together in the fight against smugglers and human traffickers. Earlier this week Home Secretary Sajid Javid announced plans to spend more than 6million on new security equipment. The extra funding will be invested in CCTV, night vision goggles and number plate recognition cameras. Additional security cameras will also be installed at French ports and in areas where migrants may try to board boats. Footage will be monitored live. A Kiwi canoe shop owner unknowingly had an extremely rare Tasmanian tiger pelt worth $250,000 sitting in his shop for three decades. John McCosh, who runs Kahutara Canoes and Taxidermy about 80km east of Wellington, had been keeping the distinctive pelt of the now extinct species in a drawer. He and his wife had been looking after the haul as part of a wider collection of stuffed animals. Scroll down for video A Kiwi canoe shop owner unknowingly had an extremely rare Tasmanian tiger pelt (pictured) worth $250,000 sitting in his shop for three decades But it was only when university students from the area visited his store and passed the findings on to their lecturer that news of the extraordinary specimen spread around the world. 'They went back and told their lecturer - people in London were then involved too. It went around the world,' Mr McCosh's wife Karen told Daily Mail Australia. Mrs McCosh, 69, said the pelt's original owners, who had entrusted the rural North Island museum with the collection, were amazed at the scale of their findings. 'They were pretty blown away. They hadn't known what it was,' she said. The pelt was bought for $250,000 by the National Museum of Australia at the end of last year - using a National Cultural Heritage Account contribution of $125,000. The pelt was acquired by an avid fauna collector, Archibald Robertson, in 1923 and was passed down to his only daughter, Janet Withers upon his death in 1970. Enshrined in Australia's zoological history, the last Tasmanian tiger is believed to have died while being held in captivity in Hobart in 1936. Despite their common name - arising from their striped coat - , thylacines are not a form of tiger but in fact marsupials. The pelt was bought for $250,000 by the National Museum of Australia (pictured) at the end of last year - using a National Cultural Heritage Account contribution of $125,000 Head Curator Dr Martha Sear is excited to welcome the extraordinary skin into the National Museum's collection. 'The pelt is considered to be one of the best preserved specimens in existence, and one of the few remaining physical specimens of a species that has become a symbol of extinction,' said Dr Sear. 'The Museum has been lucky to acquire this remarkable specimen to add to the National Historical Collection to represent Australia's environmental impact of species loss.' Gerard Batten is an enigma wrapped in a bright purple blazer and banana yellow tie. He left school with few, if any, academic qualifications (he wont confirm) and believes the EU was planned by the Nazis. But he is also or claims to be on his CV a member of Mensa, the high IQ Society. Intensely proud of his pure Anglo-Saxon bloodline, hes outspoken in his views against immigration. Yet 30 years ago he married and is still married to a Filipina woman whose family cant understand the paradox. Gerard Batten with wife Frances. Yet 30 years ago he married and is still married to a Filipina woman whose family cant understand the paradox He abhors the Koran, though he has admitted to never having studied it closely. And while he is close to Russians who describe themselves as political dissidents against the Moscow government, he is a regular contributor to Vladimir Putins English language propaganda arm, Russia Today. He has also become increasingly irritated with the Mails research into the most basic facts of his personal history, tweeting that we have asked a bunch of ludicrous questions about him. All this would be of little consequence if Mr Batten, 64, was not the leader of a political party which has changed the UKs political landscape, and probably its future: UKIP. His predecessor, Henry Bolton, had been its sixth leader in just 12 months having to step down after his 25-year-old glamour model mistress posted racist tweets about Meghan Markle, and offensive comments about the Grenfell Tower disaster families. His predecessor, Henry Bolton, had been its sixth leader in just 12 months having to step down after his 25-year-old glamour model mistress posted racist tweets about Meghan Markle The manner of Mr Boltons demise seemed to confirm what was already apparent: that the party which won more UK seats in the 2014 European Parliament elections than either the Conservatives or Labour had become an irrelevant joke. Enter the stern, midnight-haired Mr Batten; an MEP and one of UKIPs original founders. Aside from the flamboyant wardrobe he wore to annoy other MEPs in the Strasbourg chamber, there is nothing remotely comic about the course he has set since taking the helm last April. For he is exploiting the chaos currently engulfing British politics. While Putin, who has supported populist groups across the EU, looks on with satisfaction at the chaos engulfing British politics and the fracturing of Europe, the far-Right here believes it can exploit, if not fill, a vacuum. UKIP was founded by Mr Batten and others to bring about Britains exit from the EU. Its core support lay in Middle England and white working-class areas which opposed the EUs open borders that allowed mass immigration. Now Mr Batten has a new and more radical vision for the UKIP of 2019 and beyond. He says it has already attracted thousands of new young members. But it has also frightened off many of the old guard, because the Batten vision involves a key role for a man whos become poster boy for the far-Right and racists across the world. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, is a convicted fraudster and hooligan, as well as being founder and former leader of that boot boy collective the English Defence League (EDL). But recent events have made him a global social media star; a free speech martyr. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, is a convicted fraudster and hooligan, as well as being founder and former leader of that boot boy collective the English Defence League (EDL) This week he was in the headlines once again as the 16- year-old Syrian refugee who was water-boarded in a filmed racist attack in Huddersfield says he will sue Facebook for not stopping Robinson posting accusations he violently attacked three English girls. Mr Batten has been courting Robinson for almost a decade. Now he is in a position to put their bromance to work. Under UKIP rules although they may change no former member of the EDL or the overtly-racist British National Party (BNP) is allowed to join. But last year, Mr Batten took Robinson on as his adviser. Some in UKIP fear Robinson is being groomed to succeed his boss, who has said hell stand down sometime this year. UKIP will then become a new British National Party. Mr Batten has pooh-poohed this, but told the BBC: Im taking [UKIP] in a new direction, which is that I want to make it a mass movement. Mr Batten has been courting Robinson for almost a decade. Now he is in a position to put their bromance to work Both he and Robinson are Islamophobes. Mr Batten has described Islam as a death cult. His interim UKIP manifesto calls for Muslim-only prisons and an abolition of hate crime laws. In 2006, he suggested that all 3.7 million Muslims in the UK should sign a code of good conduct. Tory MP Robert Halfon said this was literally akin to the Nazis saying Jews should wear a yellow star. On his Facebook page on Christmas Eve, Robinson posted the word UKIP and the promise: A revolution is coming. If so, it has humble origins. Mr Batten was born and raised on the Isle of Dogs in East London. The old white, working-class population of the dockland peninsular had long felt they were neglected by government and under threat by Bengali incomers. In 1993, the BNP founded by former members of the neo-Nazi National Front secured its electoral breakthrough there. Mr Batten had left by then. After a brief period working as a bookbinder with his brother Harold who is said to design the UKIP stationery he was a salesman for British Telecom until elected as an MEP for London in 2004. When Nigel Farage became UKIP leader in 2006, he concentrated on European issues, while Mr Batten focused on what he perceived as the Islamic threat. Colleagues say he hated attending the chambers in Strasbourg and Brussels. And he disliked and envied Farage, who was public school-educated and charismatic. Batten was neither. When Nigel Farage became UKIP leader in 2006, he concentrated on European issues, while Mr Batten focused on what he perceived as the Islamic threat What he didnt mind was sharing a platform with racist loons. In 2011 he addressed the far-Right Traditional Britain Group, whose vice president Gregory Lauder-Frost was last year reportedly recorded calling broadcaster Vanessa Feltz, a fat Jewish s**g who lived with a negro. Lauder-Frost also spoke in derogatory terms about Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence, and advocated the deportation of non-white Britons to their natural homelands. At the European Parliament Batten has hosted the far-Right internet troll Carl Benjamin, who once described opponents as acting like a bunch of n******s. In another tweet, Benjamin told a female Labour MP: I wouldnt even rape you. He attended Mr Battens first UKIP conference as leader, and spoke. Another speaker at the conference was Mark Meechan, aka Count Dankula, who is best-known for being prosecuted over a video described in court as anti-Semitic showing his pet dog performing Nazi salutes to commands such as Sieg Heil. But the most contentious Batten recruit to UKIP is Tommy Robinson, whom he made his adviser on prison reform and sex abuse gangs in November. This prompted the resignation from the party of three MEPs, Nigel Farage and an unknown number of other members. One of the MEPs, William Dartmouth, said he left because Mr Batten had introduced outlandish people and extreme Right-wing groups. Robinson was jailed for 13 months for contempt of court in relation to filming people in a grooming case He add: Mr Batten is setting Robinson up to be the leader. Resigning members have been replaced by people who support Mr Robinson and his ilk. [Battens] conduct is an utter disgrace. Robinson was jailed for 13 months for contempt of court in relation to filming people in a grooming case. The sentence was quashed and the case referred to the Attorney General. The case attracted worldwide attention, and Robinson received the support of American TV star Roseanne Barr among others. Mr Batten spoke at a number of events held to support Robinson, who has one million followers on Facebook. But the UKIP leaders fixation with Robinson can be traced back almost a decade. The eureka moment apparently came in February 2011, when the then relatively unknown Robinson was interviewed on BBC2s Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman. Gerard [Batten] watched the interview and was ecstatic, recalls an ex-colleague. He said: What a brilliant young guy. How do we get in touch? Last spring, after leaving court Robinson and Mr Batten were treated to a three-course lunch at the House of Lords by former Ukip leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who told the Mail this week that Mr Batten was a great guy. Lord Pearson added: One of his most extraordinary characteristics is that he believes he lacks charisma. The peer said Robinson had great energy. While Mr Battens relationship with Robinson is unambiguous, there are question marks over his links to other dubious interest groups. Take Putins Russia, for instance. Mr Batten has criticised Russia and accused it of hacking his website. He has also employed as his researcher, a Russian called Pavel Stroilov who arrived in the UK in 2006 seeking political asylum. Mr Stroilov refused to talk to the Mail last week. Mr Batten has known a number of other Russian exiles in the UK, including Alexander Litvinenko who was murdered by suspected Russian agents in 2006. Intriguing links are being examined on the other side of the Atlantic. Investigators in the U.S. are looking at the alleged relationship between Donald Trumps election campaign and Moscow. Investigators in the U.S. are looking at the alleged relationship between Donald Trumps election campaign and Moscow An area they are interested in is Nigel Farages dealings with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whos taken sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, after jumping bail in a case where he was accused of sex attacks in Sweden. Emails from Hillary Clintons campaign, leaked by WikiLeaks, are thought to have been originally hacked by Russian agents in 2006. Mr Farage, who denies any impropriety, was seen visiting the Ecuadorian embassy when Assange was inside. But it was Mr Batten not Mr Farage who originally forged the link between UKIP and Assange. In 2011, Mr Batten and Pavel Stroilov attended one of Assanges extradition hearings and held a small free speech demo outside. Documents show that in February 2011, Mr Batten met Assanges lawyer to explore ways in which he could help the hacker. Mr Batten then spoke up for Assange at the European Parliament and attended Assanges 40th birthday party. He also suggested in a blog post that if Assange failed to block his extradition he should seek asylum. He wrote: I would be delighted to advise Mr Assange on how to go about it. And thats exactly what Assange did the following summer, at great cost to the British taxpayer, who has had to pay for six years of policing of his embassy refuge. Also unclear is Mr Battens relationship with James Goddard, the far-Right activist arrested for allegedly harassing MP Anna Soubry outside Parliament earlier this month. Mr Batten has denied knowing James Goddard and said it was malicious to suggest there was a connection. But there are pictures of the two together. Mr Batten has denied knowing James Goddard and said it was malicious to suggest there was a connection. But there are pictures of the two together All this is a puzzle to Mr Battens in-laws in the Far East. He married his wife, Frances Lina, now 60, after she came to the UK from the Philippines in search of a better life. They have two sons. Speaking to the Mail in the familys hometown of Bambang, Ike Cayaban, Mr Battens brother-in-law said: Im quite surprised about why is he so against immigration, because there could come a time when he could ban people like Filipinos. But there are so many Filipino nurses there who are helping British nurses. The retired librarian added: It is the prerogative of the British government to think of the welfare of their citizens. But to a certain extent they should also help people. No man is an island. And I think that is also true of a country. Mr Cayaban, 68, said the politician had only visited the Philippines once since marrying his sister in 1988. He said that during the visit, around two decades ago, Mr Batten did not discuss his political opinions or views with family members. Frances Lina, who now works in the courts service, moved to the UK after completing a medical technologies course in Manila. She was studying for a business course at the time of her marriage to Mr Batten. Her eldest sibling Florencia, 75, had earlier moved to the UK after training as a teacher in the Philippines. She still lives in London, where she is retired after working as a carer and shop-owner. The siblings younger brother Benjamin also moved to the UK with his Filipina wife to work as a painter and decorator, before returning home several years later. Mr Cayaban said: They wanted to find work there because it was greener pastures and we belonged to a poor family. It was a challenge for them and we had no other choice. He said the siblings, whose parents worked as farmers, belonged to the lower echelon of the [Philippines] society. His puzzlement was echoed by Alan Sked, UKIPs first leader, who has said of Mr Battens negative views on immigrants taking British jobs: I felt like saying: Your wife has been working [here] since she came to Britain. Such a contradiction does not concern Gerard Batten as he busily rallies the far-Right to his flag. For now, the purple-clad enigma marches on. Additional reporting: Mario Ledwith in Bambang, Philippines As the mind starts drifting to thoughts of San Diego or even beaches along the East Coast Tracey Britten, 51, is the UKs oldest mother to give birth to quadruplets. She is pictured with, left to right, George, Grace and twins Fredrica and Francesca However demanding your week has been, spare a thought for Tracey Britten, the UKs oldest mother to give birth to quadruplets. Over the past seven days, Tracey, 51, has fed her babies 224 bottles of formula milk, changed 168 nappies, dressed her offspring 56 times and dished out 28 baths, all on less than three hours sleep a night. While her husband Stephen, 39, mucks in when hes home, he works full-time, so she can perhaps be excused for not having washed her hair for six weeks and only taking the quads outdoors on her own once since they came home from hospital last month. You do have moments late at night when you think: Oh my God, what have I done? admits Tracey, who is alone with the babies for up to 12 hours a day. Its hard graft. But then, quick as a flash, I think: Its only for a few months they will be able to feed themselves soon. I dont regret it. I wouldnt have had them if I didnt want them and it will get easier. Some people may think its selfish to become a mum again at my age, but I dont worry about not being around to see my babies grow up. Im fit and healthy and look after myself, so I fully expect to live long enough to see my grandchildren. I may be the oldest mum at the school gates, but who cares? Most women are leaving it later to have kids nowadays, and people always tell me I look much younger than I am. Tracey and Stephen had IVF treatment in Cyprus and admits she was dumbfounded, when she saw the scan, pictured, asking the sonographer: How am I going to cope with four babies? She does indeed look younger than her years, but one cant help but wonder how she will cope with the challenge once her babies start crawling in four different directions. Her three little girls and a boy were delivered by Caesarean section, 31 weeks into her pregnancy, at Londons University College Hospital on October 26 last year. Tracey and Stephen had travelled overseas for IVF treatment at the Team Miracle Cyprus IVF Centre, in what was a final roll of the dice after ten years of trying for a baby. It was their first attempt at IVF, and cost 7,000. In all, four embryos were implanted into Traceys womb; three survived, one of which split into two, creating identical twin girls. Tracey was already a mother to three grown-up children a daughter and two sons and grandmother to eight, aged between 11 and one, while Stephen, a roofer, has a teenage son. The couples desperate desire to become parents again was, admits Tracey, rooted in the guilt and trauma she felt after having a late abortion, aged 39, because the timing wasnt right for a baby. Tracey, pictured while pregnant with the quads, is also a mother to her three grown-up children and grandmother to eight She deeply regretted the termination, carried out when she was 19 weeks pregnant, and sank into a depression. This was compounded when her beloved mother, Pauline, died unexpectedly six weeks later, due to a blockage in the main artery to her heart. Tracey convinced herself this was karma, a punishment for ending her unborn sons life. Shortly after her 50th birthday, Tracey decided to use the cash her late mother had left in her will to fund IVF treatment in Cyprus, where the clinic implanted four embryos at once, which doctors said would maximise her chances of conceiving a strategy that is not permitted in the UK to prevent risky multiple births. Although Tracey knew it was a possibility, she admits she burst into tears after discovering she was carrying quads at her nine-week scan. Dumbfounded, she asked the sonographer: How am I going to cope with four babies? Two weeks later, Tracey, who has a history of premature labour, developed severe stomach pains. She went to her local hospital, where doctors advised her to reduce the pregnancy by having two of the foetuses injected in the womb to stop their hearts. This, she was told, would increase the remaining two babies chances of survival. But Tracey had bonded with her quads, after seeing them in numerous scans, and could not contemplate saying goodbye to any of them. Her decision to let nature take its course paid off, and the quads George, Grace and twins Fredrica and Francesca are now 12 weeks old. At birth, George was the heaviest at 3lb 10oz, Francesca was 2lb 12oz, Grace 2lb 7oz and Fredrica a tiny 1lb 15oz. When I arrive at the familys three-bedroom bungalow in North London, I fully expect to be greeted by a dishevelled Tracey surrounded by bottles, nappies, baby wipes, vomit-streaked muslin cloths and a cacophony of screaming. However, the place is clean and tidy and the girls are either sleeping or sitting calmly in their bouncy chairs while George still the biggest by far at around a stone in weight is fresh out of the bath. People expect to walk into a madhouse, then comment on how calm it is, says Tracey. I think its because I was calm during pregnancy. I tried not to let anything stress me. and if I did feel stressed I put on some meditation music. Of course, I knew it wouldnt be easy, but I decided to just take each day as it comes. As Tracey puts the kettle on to make us tea (I offer, but she insists!) I notice a long, handwritten list on the kitchen counter detailing all the times each baby has been fed using miniature bottles of prescription-only formula, designed for premature infants. A peek inside the fridge reveals 24 more bottles lined up ready for the day ahead. We had to start writing everything down, because in the early days wed forget which ones had been fed, says Tracey. We kept the hospital name tags on their ankles, too, so we could tell them apart. We couldnt always be sure, especially in the dead of night. Now we can tell whos who at a glance, partly because Fredrica is smaller than Francesca and the other two look different. Tracey has fed her babies 224 bottles of formula milk over the past seven days. Pictured is the mother on This Morning with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield The quads spent six weeks in incubators and there were setbacks, including George catching flu at two weeks and Fredrica struggling to digest her tube-fed formula milk. George also has reflux for which he has been prescribed Gaviscon, which makes him constipated. Still, three of them were allowed home on December 8, two days before Traceys 51st birthday, while Fredrica was finally feeding well enough to join her siblings a week before Christmas, at nearly eight weeks old. They now sleep two to a cot beside their parents double bed. By the time they move into the nursery, at around six months old, Tracey is hoping to buy two twin cots so that they can all fit comfortably into one room. While prematurity and low birth weight are risk factors for numerous conditions, including cerebral palsy, vision problems and hearing loss, the quads appear to be healthy and reaching their milestones. Doctors at the Whittington Hospital in North London will keep an eye on their development, as difficulties are not always obvious so early on. Luckily for their parents, the babies rarely cry all at once except for the evening they had their eight-week injections: They were obviously in pain and cried all night, Tracey recalls. Thankfully, they were fine the following day. Last week, however, Tracey went 24 hours without closing her eyes, because at least one baby was crying for attention throughout that time. I had to keep moving, rocking them and doing jobs, because I knew if I sat still I would nod off, she says. Usually they sleep for about four or five hours in the daytime, and I should really take that opportunity to rest, too, but Ive got so much to do: making up bottles, laundry, cleaning, making the beds and cots. By the time Ive done all that, its feeding and winding time again. Its hard to describe what its like, to be honest. It sometimes feels as though Im having an out-of-body experience and watching someone else do it. Keeping on top of all this would be a huge challenge for any mother, but for a woman in her sixth decade with a touch of arthritis and a bad back it sounds crippling. But while admitting she is utterly exhausted, Tracey claims that, in some ways, she is coping better than she did as a young mum. Obviously, its a lot harder than when I had just one baby at a time, she says. But Im older now and have more patience. I was only 18 when I had my eldest daughter and you think youre missing out on things at that age. Everyone is going out and telling you what a great time theyre having, but Ive done all that now. Still, these days most of her contemporaries are enjoying precious leisure time as their children become self-sufficient, while Tracey will be 68 before her quads come of age. But she appears to have a remarkable ability not to project her thoughts beyond the here and now a quality she believes is at the root of her babies easy-going temperaments. Having raised three good kids, shes not worried about coping with teenagers in her 60s, either. At 39, Stephen is more than a decade younger than his wife and a very capable, hands-on dad who, despite having to be up for work at 5am, is in charge of grocery shopping and cooking dinner. But there was one day recently when Stephen left for work and Tracey realised hed forgotten to buy milk for her tea. The prospect of 12 hours in sole charge of four babies without caffeine was too much to bear, so Tracey decided to wheel them to the local shop. It took her 20 minutes to assemble the pram, then another 20 minutes to get the babies into their warm snow suits and strapped in. The ten-minute walk stretched into half an hour as one passerby after another stopped to look into the pram and ask questions. That was the first and last time Tracey who says the weight of the pram put a strain on her bad back has ventured out with them alone. So when any of the quads has a medical appointment, Stephen, who has a very understanding boss, must take a day off work to drive them there. Tracey cant take all the babies as their special pram will not fit into the familys Ford Galaxy they are looking for a second-hand Mercedes Viano. When anyone refers to him as the proud father, Stephen jovially replies: Exhausted father, more like. My mates at work tease me about how long itll be before I can have a night out with them again. But I dont want to go out, he adds. The idea of getting home after a few drinks and having to do the night shift, or coping with four babies when youve got a hangover is too awful. The tiredness is the hardest thing when you know youve got to be up for work and youve had no sleep. At the moment, all they need is to be fed and cleaned but when they start running around it might be trickier. Although Stephen must keep bringing home the bacon the nappy bill alone comes to nearly 100 a month, that doesnt mean he gets to put his feet up at the end of a working day. Hell say: Im going to have a soak in the bath, and Ill say: Never mind that, be quick and come and see to these bloody kids Ive no time for a soak, says Tracey, laughing throatily. I even shout to hurry up when hes in the loo, and he complains he cant sit on the couch because there are babies on every cushion. Being constantly on the move means Tracey regained her figure in record time, and was able to fit back into her size 12 jeans two weeks after giving birth. She certainly doesnt look like a woman who gave birth to quads less than three months ago. She is also relieved that, despite criticism levelled at her while pregnant she was called selfish for having IVF at 50, resulting in quads whose care is likely to cost the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds public opinion since the birth has been much more supportive. Her one regret is that her babies arent getting the one-to-one attention she was able to give her older children. With one, you can cuddle them all the time, she says. But at the hospital they told me to put them down after each feed so they dont get too used to being held and cry when theyre laid down Ive only got one pair of arms. Instead, if theyre all awake I put cartoons on the TV and face their bouncy chairs towards it. Using television to distract infants may go against normal parenting advice, but its clear that Tracey whos hoping for recognition as Britains oldest mum of quads in the Guinness Book of Records will have little time in the foreseeable future to worry about social conventions. Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to announce he will run for president in 2020, three years after fighting the Democratic primary race against Hillary Clinton, according to reports. Independent senator Sanders, 77, plans to announce his presidential bid imminently, Yahoo News reports. Early polls of the race have shown him as one of the top candidates in the Democratic primary field. And a source told the website: 'What the senator has this time that he didn't have last time is he is the most popular elected official in the country right now. That's light years away from 2016 when very few people knew who he was.' Scroll down for video. Sen. Bernie Sanders is set to announce he will run for president in 2020 three years after fighting Democratic primary race against Hillary Clinton, according to reports Early polls have shown him as one of the top candidates in the Democratic primary field Sanders, right, nearly defeated Hillary Clinton, left, in the 2016 contest for the Democratic nomination and was widely expected to try for the White House again His 2016 campaign was considered a success, even though he fell short to the eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton, left Sanders forcefully denounced President Trump as a 'racist' on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in South Carolina, a crucial presidential primary state. Attending remarks at an NAACP event in the Palmetto State's capitol, Sanders said that 'a president is supposed to do is to bring us together,' yet Trump is 'trying to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by the country that we came from, by our religion.' 'Today we talk about justice and today we talk about racism, and I must tell you it gives me no pleasure to tell you that we now have a President of the United States who is a racist,' the senator asserted. The assault on Trump was the clearest signals to date that Sanders was likely seek the Oval Office again in 2020. Sanders, an independent senator, nearly defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 contest for the Democratic nomination. He was widely expected to try for the White House again, even though this race would pit him against progressive allies like Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. His 2016 campaign was considered a success, even though he fell short to the eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton. Initially, Sanders was considered a longshot, but he did manage to win primaries. Sanders won a large enough chunk of the votes that he gained a following within the Democratic Party, forcing it to adopt a number of his positions. Sen. Bernie Sanders, left, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, right, walk into an event with furloughed federal workers amid the partial government shutdown earlier this month He was forced to apologize to women who were sexually harassed on his 2016 presidential campaign and thanked them 'from the bottom of my heart for speaking out.' The New York Times reported that several women on his 2016 campaign reported episodes of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment, and pay disparity. He said: 'It appears as part of our campaign there were some women who were harassed or mistreated. And I thank them from the bottom of my heart for speaking out. What they experienced was absolutely unacceptable and certainly not what a progressive campaign or any campaign should be about. 'The allegations that I have heard, that you have heard, speak to unacceptable behavior, that must not be tolerated in any campaign or in any workplace in our country. 'To the women in our campaign who were harassed or mistreated, I apologize. Our standards, our procedures, our safeguards were clearly inadequate.' DailyMail.com has contacted Sanders' office for comment. The contention around the renaming of Australia Day has continued, with an indigenous leader saying it is a day to acknowledge the 'atrocities' committed against Aboriginal people. Wiradjuri woman Yvonne Weldon implored attendees at Sydney's harbourside morning ceremony to stand for a moment's silence for the original custodians of the land killed when the First Fleet arrived in 1788. 'On this day 231 years ago it was the beginning of a devastating change in the lives of the first nations of this land,' Ms Weldon told a crowd that included New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian. 'A change that was the start of traumas never experienced before.' Thousands of Australians have attended a demonstration in Sydney's harbourside over the renaming of Australia Day Wiradjuri woman Yvonne Weldon implored the crowd (pictured) to enjoy their 'Survival Day' The conglomerate of protesters and celebrators as Ms Weldon continued, ditching the title of Australia Day to adopt the moniker: 'Survival Day'. 'It is right to stop, reflect and declare the atrocities that have taken place on this land. Not out of a guilt but to listen, learn, share and come together.' The Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council chairperson said indigenous people had practised traditions for centuries but 'there have been many lessons learnt at our expense and our dispossession'. 'They should and must be acknowledged,' she said. 'Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land - we have survived. 'Have a wonderful Survival Day.' A smoke ceremony ensued after the words 'Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land' Supporters of the 'change the date' motion march through the streets of Melbourne This Australia Day marks the 231st anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships into Port Jackson in 1788. Ms Berejiklian said Ms Weldon's welcome contained 'strong words that all of us needed to hear'. The premier said it was appropriate on Australia Day to 'renew our commitment to working to protect, respect and celebrate this beautiful culture'. Governor David Hurley used his address to call for indigenous studies - particularly language - to be taught more widely in schools. 'It's absolutely critical that we continue to progress our first steps in teaching our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in schools and communities,' Mr Hurley said. 'This is eminently achievable and desirable, not just to revitalise a spoken form, but to promote a deeper understanding of culture.' Christine Anu performs 'Kulba Yaday' at the Wugulora Morning Ceremony Koomurri dancers during the Arrival of Fire at the Australia Day Wugulora Morning Ceremony The governor said Australia as a nation was on a historical journey which comprised four stages - acknowledge, apologise, build and reconcile - suggesting that education begin with non-indigenous. After the speeches, the national anthem was sung in both the Eora language and English by Jason Owen standing atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with both the Aboriginal and Australian flags blowing in the wind behind him. The rally in Barangaroo was one of many being held around the country on Australia Day. Nearly 700,000 in cash was stolen from the home of ousted Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, a court heard yesterday. Three suspects including a relative of the former leader are to face trial for theft. According to court papers, Mugabe, 94, had filled a suitcase with nearly $US1million (750,000) and stashed it in the library of his country home in Zvimba, west of the capital, in 2016. Only $78,000 (60,000) was found in the bag on January 6 this year. Nearly 700,000 in cash was stolen from the home of ousted Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe, pictured The three suspects who include Constancia Mugabe, 50, a relative of the president appeared before Chinhoyi magistrates court and were ordered to return on February 7. The alleged thieves are accused of spending the money on cars, houses and farm animals. Mugabes whereabouts have been unconfirmed since November when his successor as president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, said the dictator was in Singapore for medical treatment and was unable to walk. Mugabes 37-year reign was marked by state corruption, economic collapse and brutal repression of dissent. A nurse arrested for the rape of a mentally disabled quadriplegic woman who gave birth after 26 years in a coma has voluntarily surrendered his nursing license, according to Arizona state records. Nathan Sutherland looked after the 29-year-old victim and other patients during the night shift at Hacienda Healthcare in Phoenix. He was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse after DNA evidence linked him to the newborn, according to court records. The 36-year-old surrendered his license hours before the Arizona State Board of Nursing was set to vote on suspending it at a special meeting on Friday afternoon. The news came just as it was revealed that Hacienda Healthcare's former CEO Bill Timmons, who resigned in the wake of the shocking birth last month, has his own history of sexual harassment allegations. Chairman of the Board Tom Pomeroy released a statement Friday saying Timmons faced 'serious consequences' for his actions, but was ultimately allowed to keep his position as CEO. Scroll down for video Nathan Sutherland, the 36-year-old nurse arrested for the rape of a mentally disabled quadriplegic woman who gave birth after 26 years in a coma at a facility in Arizona, voluntarily surrendered his nursing license on Friday, according to state records The news came just as it was revealed that Hacienda Healthcare's former CEO Bill Timmons has his own history of sexual harassment allegations dating back to 2006. Timmons resigned in the wake of the shocking birth last month The statement from Pomeroy read: 'Bill Timmons served as the CEO of Hacienda Healthcare for nearly 30 years. Beginning in 2006 and again in subsequent years, the Hacienda Board of Directors in place at the time was alerted to accusations that several employees felt sexually harassed or treated poorly by Timmons. 'Board members alerted to these allegations took them seriously. To investigate the most serious claims, the Board hired employment law attorneys who specialize in harassment cases. 'Ultimately, the Board reprimanded Timmons and also enforced serious consequences for his conduct. According to Board members in office at the time, corrective action included counseling and more than 30 training sessions in a number of areas. Timmons was also forced to forego financial bonuses and raises. 'Timmons resigned from Hacienda after a tragic incident that has shaken the company and the current Board to its core. There is no excuse for what happened to a resident of Hacienda's Intermediate Care Facility for the Intellectually Disabled, nor have we sought to make excuses. 'Rather, the Board, Hacienda's new CEO and our team is doing everything possible to make certain such an incident never happens again. Pomeroy continued: 'In the wake of Timmons' resignation, people have raised the question of whether he should have been fired years ago. While in hindsight it may appear to be an easy call, it was not that simple in the moment. 'While Timmons attracted controversy and detractors, his years-long advocacy for Hacienda's clients and their families helped fuel the growth of the company and increase its ability to change lives for the better. 'Regardless, no amount of success changes one critical fact: What happened at Hacienda should never have happened - and can never happen again.' Hacienda Healthcare's Chairman of the Board Tom Pomeroy released a statement Friday saying Timmons faced 'serious consequences' for his actions, but was ultimately allowed to keep his position as CEO because he agreed to go to counseling Sutherland was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse after DNA evidence linked him to the baby whose mother has been in a coma since 1993. His defense attorney David Gregan (right) has said there was 'no direct evidence' that Sutherland committed the rape, but did acknowledge the DNA The Phoenix Police Department has appealed for information from the families of other patients amid fears others who were in Sutherland's care at the Hacienda HealthCare may have been victimized by him. On Thursday, those relatives told of their shock after learning that Sutherland - a Christian rapper who was once in a band - was the suspect. 'He was very loving, very compassionate. Or he pretended to be. And I really trusted him,' Angela Gomez, the mother of another patient in the facility, told local outlet 3TV. 'I suspected others, but I was wrong, and he fooled everybody. Never in my wildest dreams would I think that he would be the suspect.' Gomez continued: 'I was in shock. Complete shock because I trusted this man. 'I have even told him: "I'm glad you're working with my son tonight, it gives me a good feeling when I go home."' Relatives of patients who were cared for by Sutherland at Hacienda Healthcare have expressed shock at Sutherland's arrest. Angela Gomez (above), whose 27-year-old son is looked after in the home, said she suspected other nurses but not Sutherland Since Sutherland's arrest, Hacienda sent a letter to the relatives of other patients telling them they were entitled to free STD checks or pregnancy tests. Gomez said her 27-year-old son underwent an STD check and she is waiting for the results. She fears that he may be the 'monster' that her son referred to sometimes when she visited. Police started investigating after the severely disabled woman, who they say was not in a position to give consent, unexpectedly gave birth on December 29. The shock birth prompted authorities to test the DNA of all the men who worked at the care facility. Sutherland, a devout Christian and father-of-four, was forced to submit his DNA sample under court order on Tuesday and the results showed he was a match to the baby. He declined to speak with police and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. He did not enter a plea when he faced court on Wednesday. Defense attorney David Gregan described his client as a family man with young children who has lived in Arizona since 1993. 'There's no direct evidence that Mr Sutherland has committed these acts,' Gregan said. 'I know at this point there's DNA. But he will have a right to his own DNA expert.' Sutherland is a 36-year-old devout Christian who tours local churches in Phoenix with his sister (right) under the band name 'SLEEPLESSSOLJAZ' Sutherland divorced from his wife last Bridgett last year (left). The pair lived with their four-children in their Phoenix home, a neighbor revealed. Bridgett owns a catering company which Sutherland has worked for (seen right) According to court documents, the motion of divorce was ordered on December 28, 24 hours before the birth of the victim's child (pictured: Sutherland sings at Bridgett's birthday in October, 2016) The defense attorney had asked for a lower bond on the grounds that Sutherland didn't have a criminal record. A Maricopa County Superior Court commissioner set a $500,000 cash-only bond. If Sutherland posts bond, he would need to wear an electronic monitoring device. He is charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse. Police said Sutherland had been a licensed practical nurse since 2011 and was directly responsible for caring for the victim at the facility. Investigators believe Sutherland raped the patient sometime between February and April. Officials at the facility said Sutherland went through an 'extensive background check' before he was hired. They said he was terminated 'the moment our leadership team learned of his arrest'. 'Every member of the Hacienda organization is troubled beyond words to think that a licensed practical nurse could be capable of seriously harming a patient,' a statement from the facility said. 'Once again, we offer an apology and send our deepest sympathies to the client and her family, to the community and to our agency partners at every level.' He had worked at Hacienda for eight years. Sutherland (left) is a Haitian orphan who was adopted to the United States when he was a child Sutherland and his wife Bridget divorced last year. The motion was ordered on December 28 - just 24 hours before the victim gave birth. State records show he was first became a clinical nursing assistant in 2005, before becoming an licensed practitioner nurse. The 36-year-old is a Haitian orphan and devout Christian who regularly tours local churches to perform Christian rap songs in the group 'SLEEPLESSOULJAZ' alongside his sister. 'My parent's split up in Haiti and I remember my mom couldn't take care of us, so she took us to an orphanage', Sutherland said in 2011. 'Even though it was an orphanage you were blessed if you had one cup or bowl of rice or something a day.' A former neighbor of the nurse has described him as a 'quiet family man'. Esella Burr said on Wednesday that Sutherland was her neighbor for more than five years until he sold his Phoenix-area home in October. Burr says he shared the home with his wife and four children, and she saw the couple leave for church every Sunday. She says Sutherland would sometimes wave or start a conversation with her and had mentioned that he enjoyed his job as a nurse. Sutherland (right) has worked at Hacienda since 2011. He has been a nurse since 2005, according to state documents The 29-year-old victim has been in long-term care since she was three years old. She gave birth at the facility as staff frantically called 911 for assistance, telling the operator that they had not known the 112-pound patient was pregnant. The baby has since been released from the hospital and the victim's family have said they will take care of the boy. 'We owed this arrest to the victim. We owed this arrest to the newest member of our community - that innocent baby,' Phoenix police Sergeant Tommy Thomson said. 'The baby I am told is doing good. 'We can't always choose how we come into this life, but we can choose as a community how we will love this child - and that's what we need to do.' According to the victim's family, their daughter's condition includes severe brain damage, seizure disorder, and psycho-motor retardation. Initially she was described as being in a coma. 'She does not speak but has some ability to move her limbs, head and neck,' the family's attorney said in a statement. 'The important thing here is that contrary to what's been reported, she is a person, albeit with significant intellectual disabilities. 'She has feelings, likes to be read to, enjoys soft music and is capable of responding to people she is familiar with, especially family. The case has prompted the departure or discipline of key figures at Hacienda HealthCare, including the CEO Bill Timmons. Timmons resigned on December 31 as the provider announced new safety measures, including more than one staff member being present during patient interactions and more scrutiny of visitors. Phoenix police officers are pictured here visiting residents of the home around the time of the holidays in 2014 On Monday, the hospital confirmed that two doctors responsible for overseeing the victim's care would no longer be practicing at the facility. Dr. Nguyen (left) was suspended on January 15. Dr. Gear (right) has resigned, a statement said The provider says one doctor who had cared for the woman resigned and another had been suspended. Dr. Thanh Nguyen has been revealed as the victim's primary care doctor in a suspension letter obtained by CBS News. Issued on January 15 - 10 days after the story first broke - the letter, addressed to Nguyen, states he placed 'one or more' of his patients' heath and welfare 'in danger'. Nguyen has been suspended without pay until a full internal investigation is carried out by the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). The second physician is believed to be Dr Phillip Gear, a veteran pediatrician in Phoenix, who has previously been reprimanded by the Arizona Medical board after the death of an infant under his care. Practicing for more than 30 years, court records show Dr Gear last checked the victim in April 2018 and noted no major changes in her health or condition. Both of the woman's caregivers claimed to be unaware she was pregnant, but the time of Dr Gear's last interaction with the victim would suggest she had been a few weeks pregnant at the time of the examination. This isn't the first time Dr Gear has been involved in an instance of negligence in relation to his care of a patient. In 2001, Dr Gear was reproached by the Arizona Medical Board for failing to perform a rectal exam on a toddler under his care, who later died. The board concluded Gear's actions constituted negligence resulting in the child's death. The three-year-old boy who was miraculously found safe and sound after he went missing for two days in North Carolina says he spent time with a bear while he was lost in the woods. Casey Lynn Hathaway was found healthy and in 'good spirits' on Thursday after he went missing from his great-grandmother's backyard on Tuesday, launching a massive search party in Craven County. The toddler, who is recuperating in hospital, told police and his parents he spent his two days in the woods hanging out with a bear. Found: North Carolina boy Casey Lynn Hathaway, three, says he hung out with a bear during the two days he was missing in the woods. Pictured above after he was found and rescued Casey pictured in his hospital with his rescuer Chocowinity EMS Cpt. Shane Grier who disentangled the child from a thorn bush on Thursday evening and brought him to safety 'Casey is healthy, smiling, and talking. He said he hung out with a bear for two days God sent him a friend to keep him safe,' Casey's aunt Breanna Hathaway posted on Facebook on Thursday evening. Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said that the child also told police he was with a bear in the time he was missing. While he allegedly spent time in the company of a bear, nearly 600 volunteers, FBI, state officials, and divers combed the woods of eastern North Carolina for signs of the missing toddler. Casey raised national alarm was he vanished from the backyard of his great-grandmother's home in Ernul, North Carolina on Tuesday. He was playing with his sister and his cousin and the family called police when the two children returned inside the home without him. His great-grandmother and family members searched the woods behind her home for 45 minutes before she frantically called 911. He was found on Thursday after searchers followed the sounds of his cries and found the child stuck in thorn bushes in Craven County, just a quarter mile from where he was last seen. Authorities found the child after someone reported hearing 'Casey crying for his mother deep in the woods' around 9.30pm, according to WSOC. He was discovered by Chocowinity EMS Cpt. Shane Grier who disentangled the child from the briars he was stuck in and brought him out of the woods. Casey's aunt described how the toddler claimed he hung out with a bear during the two days he was missing in the woods Casey pictured center with his mom Brittany Hathaway (left) and aunt Breanna Hathaway (right) The boy's parents, Brittany and Chris Hathaway (above) said their son was up and talking and had already talked about watching Netflix since he was found Hero rescuer: The boy was found on Thursday evening by EMS Cpt. Shane Grier (above) Casey was very wet, cold and bearing scratches, but otherwise in good condition. Authorities believe he had been moving around during the time he was missing. Casey was rescued by Chocowinity EMS Cpt. Shane Grier (above) He was reunited with his family Thursday. 'The little fella is happy and his parents are very happy as well,' Craven County Sheriff Chip Hughes said. 'When he saw his little sister, had a big smile on his face,' he added during a press briefing Thursday evening. His mother Brittany Hathaway said her son was up and talking and had already talked about watching Netflix. 'We just want to tell everybody that we're very thankful that you took the time out to come search for Casey and prayed for him, and he's good. He is good, he is up and talking. He's already asked to watch Netflix so he's good,' she said. On Friday Casey spent the day in CarolinaEast Medical Center where he was described as 'in good condition'. He spent the day 'eating Cheetos, nuggets, and watching PAW Patrol', according to his family. Three-year-old Casey Hathaway was found by professional search and rescue crews in Craven County in eastern North Carolina on Thursday night after an extensive two day search The sheriff's office launched an extensive search for the little boy that involved multiple law enforcement agencies and also Marines who were trained to operate in difficult conditions Hundreds of locals had volunteered to help search for the boy but they had to be turned away on Thursday due to 'challenging weather conditions' When authorities searched for Casey they were concerned about the extremely cold temperatures that dipped into the freezing low 30s in the evenings. Casey was only wearing a coat and sweatpants when he vanished and was still wearing the coat when he was found, authorities said. When he first went missing, his family feared the worst. 'We lost my two-year-old grandson. He was walking in the woods back there and we can't find him. 3-year-old grandson,' the panicked great-grandmother said in the 911 call audio, which was obtained by DailyMail.com. She told the operator that Casey had been playing with his sister and cousin at the time. 'The other ones come through the house but left him there and he walked off somewhere and we can't find him,' she added. The debate over changing the date of Australia Day has taken a new corner with its phrase now labelled as politically incorrect. Leading advocate for Aboriginal culture, heritage and awareness Kado Muir said the phrase 'Happy Australia Day' was an 'ignorant gesture', news.com.au reported. 'The annual Australia Day debate brings sadness to my heart this issue is extremely divisive and sensitive to all Australians,' Mr Muir said. 'I know White Australia is guilty and fragile. 'I know Black Australia is broken and angry.' Scroll down for video Leading advocate for Aboriginal culture, heritage and awareness Kado Muir (pictured) said the phrase 'Happy Australia Day' was an 'ignorant gesture' Leading Aboriginal campaigner Cheree Toka (pictured) said many people traded in the term 'Australia Day' for 'Survival Day' He called on Australians to rise above the 'base destructive emotions' in the debate and instead shift focus onto the aspects that unite the country. Leading Aboriginal campaigner Cheree Toka said many people traded in the term 'Australia Day' for 'Survival Day'. She said the national day of commemoration on January 26 was a sad day for First Nations people. She said she saw the raising of the Australian flag as the moment Aboriginal history and culture was threatened. The 28-year-old has been pushing for the Aboriginal flag to be flown atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge all year round. As it stands, the flag is flown for 18 days a year, of which one of those days is on Australia Day. Despite the 105,000-strong Change.org petition to raise the flag permanently, Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian has stood firmly against pressure. Thousands of Australians are expected to protest the national holiday as Australia Day celebrations kick off on Saturday. January 26 marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the 'First Fleet' to Sydney Cove, carrying mainly convicts and troops from Britain. For many indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years, it is 'Invasion Day', the start of Britain's colonisation of aboriginal lands and their brutal subjugation. 'Celebrating Australia Day on January 26th is offensive,' said Joe Williams, a mental health worker and former professional rugby league player. The 28-year-old has been pushing for the Aboriginal flag to be flown atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge all year round (pictured, Ms Toka) Thousands of Australians are expected to protest the national holiday as Australia Day celebrations kick off today (supporters at an Invasion Day rally outside Parliament House, Canberra in 2018) 'To celebrate an invasion which has seen our people dispossessed, displaced and oppressed for some 230 years, is plain offensive,' he told Reuters Television. Australia's 700,000 or so indigenous people track near the bottom of its 25 million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator. While opinion polls suggest up to half the country supports changing Australia Day, the conservative government is under pressure to legally entrench Jan. 26 as a national holiday. 'We should keep the 26th of January as a special day in our calendar,' said Nick Folkes, a painter from Sydney. 'It means respect and acknowledgement of the sacrifices made by explorers, settlers, our convicts,' he added. This month it ordered local councils to hold induction ceremonies for new citizens on Australia Day and the Australian Citizenship Day holiday on Sept. 17, or have their authorization revoked (pictured, Invasion Day rally in Melbourne last year) Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government, which faces a general election due in May, opposes any change and has moved to shore up support for the holiday. This month it ordered local councils to hold induction ceremonies for new citizens on Australia Day and the Australian Citizenship Day holiday on Sept. 17, or have their authorization revoked. Morrison has also pledged nearly A$7 million for a replica of explorer James Cook's HMS Endeavour, the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia in 1770. The replica ship will circumnavigate Australia next year to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's voyage. Opposition leader Bill Shorten has criticized Morrison for spending taxpayer's money on a 'bizarre Captain Cook fetish,' but the prime minister said it will unify Australians. 'I believe it will be a voyage of bringing Australians together,' Morrison said in Cairns this month. 'I'm keen for it to be done very much in that spirit.' One of Theresa Mays closest allies has accused rebel Tory MPs of plotting to cut her legs off by trying to rule out a No Deal Brexit. The warning came ahead of next weeks Commons vote when up to 20 Conservative MPs are set to back a move to take No Deal off the table by delaying Brexit for nine months. The Prime Minister believes it would destroy her last chance of persuading the EU to make the concessions needed to get her deal through Parliament. One of Theresa Mays closest allies has accused rebel Tory MPs of plotting to cut her legs off by trying to rule out a No Deal Brexit Downing Street was alarmed after Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and other ministers threatened to join the revolt. A source close to Mrs May said: If MPs rule out No Deal, it will cut the PMs legs off. The comments were echoed yesterday by Chancellor Philip Hammond who told ministers worried about No Deal that this was not a high noon moment. The stark warning came as: Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar warned No Deal would mean soldiers returning to the Northern Irish border; Emmanuel Macron enraged Tory MPs with another extraordinary anti-Brexit rant; Ministers urged Mrs May to support a backbench amendment to ditch the backstop; Mr Hammond refused to rule out quitting if Mrs May chose to pursue No Deal; Whitehall advice given to civil servants compared the repercussions of No Deal to the national emergency faced by Iceland during the volcanic eruptions in 2010; Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom suggested the Brexit date could be extended beyond March 29 if a deal went through so essential legislation could be passed. On Tuesday, MPs will vote on motions suggesting what should happen next on Brexit, after the PMs deal was defeated by 230 votes. If the threat of No Deal is taken away, her leverage would disappear, sources warned. Downing Street was alarmed after Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and other ministers threatened to join the revolt This week saw clear signs that Brexiteer Tories such as Jacob Rees-Mogg could back some version of the deal after all, and Mrs May believes she could still solve the main sticking point in EU talks the Northern Ireland backstop to prevent a hard border with the Irish Republic. The source close to the PM said: We have seen the first signs this week that the EU and Ireland know that they are under pressure over this. If we take No Deal off the table, they can relax again and all the pressure will be on us again. An MP close to Mrs May added: This is the worst time to blink. Mr Hammond called on Tory rebels not to back Tuesdays No Deal Commons ambush led by Labours Yvette Cooper. Several ministers, including Miss Rudd, have threatened to quit if they are not given a free vote. This week saw clear signs that Brexiteer Tories such as Jacob Rees-Mogg could back some version of the deal after all, and Mrs May believes she could still solve the main sticking point in EU talks Mr Hammond said Tuesdays vote was not a high noon moment and argued there were signs, with No Deal a looming possibility, that the EU was prepared to make compromises to help Mrs May win Parliamentary approval for her deal. A source close to him said: He is as determined as anyone to stop No Deal but the way to do that is not to take a vital card from the PMs hand now. Under the Cooper amendment, unless Mrs May wins Parliamentary support for her deal by February 26, Brexit would be delayed by nine months. Critics claim its real aim is to stop Brexit. It is likely to be backed by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour and would carry with the support of enough rebel Tories. One No 10 source said if it passed, the amendment would let the EU off the hook. More than a dozen other amendments have been put forward for debate. Cabinet ministers are urging Mrs May to endorse an amendment ruling out the backstop as a way of uniting the party and the DUP. She could then go to Brussels as early as Wednesday to demand concessions. Asked repeatedly if he would quit over No Deal, Mr Hammond told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: Im not going to speculate because a lot depends on the circumstances, what happens. The family of a blind woman who plunged to her death from a high-rise apartment balcony six years ago say they never believed she committed suicide. Breeana Robinson, 21, fell 11 storeys from boyfriend Dan Shearin's luxury apartment at Southport, on the Gold Coast, in January 2013. Shearin, 45, was arrested on Friday and charged with murder, fraud, and damaging evidence with intent. According to The Gold Coast Bulletin, Ms Robinson's family claim they knew something was wrong when they were told details about her death. Breeana Robinson, 21, fell 11 storeys from boyfriend Dan Shearin's luxury apartment at Southport, on the Gold Coast, in January 2013 (pictured Ms Robinson and Shearin) The family of Ms Robinson, who plunged to her death from a high-rise apartment balcony six years ago never believed she committed suicide Her aunts, Janine Mackney and Sharon Rowe, and cousin Edyn Mackney never believed the 'passionate' young woman killed herself. 'The way she fell just didn't add up, you don't suicide falling backwards,' Ms Mackney said. 'She would never leave us, she would never leave her mum and her brother, no way.' Police were prepared to put the death forward as a suicide, but the family were determined to clear her name and pushed police to look into it further. The former Gold Coast Titans cheerleader's death was subject to a coronial inquest in 2017. The inquest was set to look at the 'specific circumstances surrounding Breeana's death, particularly how she came to fall to her death and whether any recommendations could be made to prevent deaths from occurring in similar circumstances'. Police reopened the case in late 2017 at the coroners request. Shearin, 45, was arrested on Friday and charged with murder, fraud, and damaging evidence with intent Ms Robinson, who was legally blind, was allegedly thrown from the balcony of the H20 Broadwater complex at 10.35pm on January 29, 2013, after returning from cheerleading practice Relatives of Ms Robinson supported the decision to reopen the investigation, and said at the time they 'were anxiously awaiting the outcome'. 'I'm still in disbelief, (the arrest) is bittersweet, it's six years too long. If they had done their job properly we wouldn't have been in this agony for six long years,' Ms Mackney said. The family remained proactive and continuously gave interviews with the media, leading more people to contact with further information. Once it gained momentum, the man who lived underneath the couple came forward and claimed he heard Ms Robinson and Shearin fight and furniture move around the apartment on the night of her death. Shearin appeared in Southport Magistrates Court on Saturday where Ms Robinson's family watched on from the front row. He avoided eye contact as relatives clutched a pink rose and an image of the young cheerleader. Ms Rowe said the family vow to attend every court date throughout the case. Detective Inspector Brendan Smith said Shearin's (pictured) arrest on Friday was the culmination of years of hard work by detectives Ms Robinson, who was legally blind, was allegedly thrown from the balcony of the H20 Broadwater complex (pictured) at 10.35pm on January 29, 2013, after returning from cheerleading practice Ms Robinson's mother, Elaine Robinson, and aunt, Janine Mackney, spoke with A Current Affair following Breeana's death, but say they were paid 'not one cent' Shearin, who now goes by the name Jayden Moorea, had previously spent 10 days after in jail after pleading guilty to harassing Ms Robinson during their relationship. Ms Robinson, who was legally blind, was allegedly thrown from the balcony of the H20 Broadwater complex at 10.35pm on January 29, 2013, after returning from cheerleading practice. Just ten minutes earlier she had received her final text message from Shearin, who she'd been dating for only 38 days. Detective Inspector Brendan Smith said the arrest on Friday was the culmination of years of hard work by detectives. 'The investigative team has left no stone unturned in identifying the circumstances of Breeana's death demonstrating the passage of time is no escape for offenders,' he said. 'Whilst investigations are ongoing, it is hoped Breeana's family get some small comfort in seeing someone been brought to account for her death.' Britain is ranked 16th out of 21 countries for the number of family doctors Portugal has more than three times as many GPs than the UK The UK has fewer GPs per person than Romania, Malta and Estonia. In official statistics, Britain was ranked 16th out of 21 countries for family doctors with just 76 per 100,000 inhabitants. Only Spain, Latvia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Greece fared worse with 75, 72, 68, 64, and 42 GPs respectively. Every day, almost one million people see a GP in England, with more than one in ten patients waiting 21 days or more for an appointment [File photo] Based on the EUs 2016 figures, Portugal had more than three times as many GPs than the UK topping the list with its 253 general practitioners per 100,000 Based on the EUs 2016 figures, Portugal had more than three times as many GPs than the UK topping the list with its 253 general practitioners per 100,000. While international healthcare systems vary widely, experts suggested this is further evidence that primary care in Britain is walking into a crisis. John Kell, of the Patients Association, said Britain always had fewer GPs than other nations but managed to cope better. But he added: We now seem to have reached the point where relatively low numbers of GPs per head are not an efficiency, but a looming crisis. He said the NHSs new 20.5billion strategy, announced this month, must ensure the service has the professionals it needs. More than 1,000 GPs have left the NHS since 2015, blaming unmanageable workloads and increased demands from an ageing population. Many are choosing to go abroad with health bosses admitting that four in ten GPs are quitting the NHS within five years of finishing their training. The number of GPs applying for certificates to work abroad has almost doubled since 2008, with the promise of higher salaries and 40-hour working weeks elsewhere. Based on the EUs 2016 figures, Portugal had more than three times as many GPs than the UK topping the list with its 253 general practitioners per 100,000 [File photo] Many have blamed this for worsening the UKs GP recruitment crisis, alongside those retiring early to avoid hefty taxes when their pension pot exceeds 1million. Every day, almost one million people see a GP in England, with more than one in ten patients waiting 21 days or more for an appointment. Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: We desperately need more GPs right across the UK. A man has been charged after his eight-week-old baby girl was taken to hospital with bleeding on the brain, fractures to her left leg and suspected detached retinas. Detectives from the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad were called to Sydney Children's Hospital at 3pm on Friday following the child's diagnoses. Officers spoke with the baby's father, 26, who was then arrested and taken to Maroubra Police Station. The man, from Sydney's North Shore, was charged with recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm. A man has been charged after his eight-week-old baby girl was taken to hospital (pictured) with bleeding on the brain, fractures to her left leg and suspected detached retinas An Apprehended Domestic Violence Order (ADVO) was taken out against him and he has been placed on strict conditional bail to appear in Waverley Local Court on Thursday. The baby is being treated in hospital, where she's reported to be in a stable condition. The Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad consists of detectives specially trained to investigate matters against children and adults, including sexual assault, serious physical abuse, and extreme cases of neglect. Those with concerns about suspected child abuse or exploitation should call Crime Stoppers. quity release allows over-55s to access the cash tied up in their homes either as a lump sum or regular payments as a 'lifetime mortgage' Older homeowners struggling to downsize are releasing cash from their properties at a rate of 11million a day to fund their retirement, experts say. The stagnant housing market means many retirees have given up on selling their home and have turned to equity release to unlock much-needed money. Figures reveal almost 11million of property wealth was released every day last year to support over-55s with everyday costs and renovations. Figures reveal that 46,397 new equity release plans were agreed last year a rise of 25 per cent on the previous year and double the number in 2015 (22,749), according to industry body the Equity Release Council This amounted to almost 4billion, an increase of nearly a third on 2017. House prices are plateauing and demand from buyers is dwindling, fuelled by political uncertainty. It means that selling a large family home to free up cash for retirement is no longer a straightforward option for many baby boomers. Equity release allows over-55s to access the cash tied up in their homes either as a lump sum or regular, smaller amounts. It is typically done via a lifetime mortgage, a loan secured against the value of the home. Owners do not need to make any monthly payments because the interest is rolled up and added to the total debt. We didn't want to downsize Retired managing director John Smith released 65,000 of equity from his four-bedroom home. Grandfather Mr Smith, 75, and his wife Kathleen, a retired doctors surgery receptionist, had lived in the house since 1978 and did not want to downsize. But their pensions would not cover the cost of replacing their windows or repainting the property. Grandfather Mr Smith, 75, and his wife Kathleen, a retired doctors surgery receptionist, had lived in the house since 1978 and did not want to downsize They had been mortgage-free for a decade and decided to unlock capital from the 360,000 home to enable them to carry out the renovations. Mr Smith, of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, said he weighed up the downsides of equity release, including the fees and interest, and decided it was worth it. He went with equity release provider Key, adding: Needs must, as they say. Advertisement The loan and interest is then repaid when the homeowner dies or goes into long-term care and the property is sold. Figures reveal that 46,397 new equity release plans were agreed last year a rise of 25 per cent on the previous year and double the number in 2015 (22,749), according to industry body the Equity Release Council. Total equity release reached a record 3.94billion last year, up by 29 per cent on 2017. Will Hale, chief executive of Key, the UKs largest equity release adviser, said: Equity release is seeing strong growth and uncertainty in the housing market is one of the reasons. Homeowners who want to downsize to raise money are struggling either because they cant find a buyer or because they cant get the price they need. Younger borrowers can often simply wait it out but older homeowners have other options such as equity release if they need to access the value in their property. Estate agents have an average of 42 properties for sale per branch a record low, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Inquiries from people seeking property fell for a fifth month in succession in December, a survey of RICS surveyors found. House prices are plateauing and demand from buyers is dwindling, fuelled by political uncertainty. It means that selling a large family home to free up cash for retirement is no longer a straightforward option for many baby boomers [File photo] Steve Wilkie, of lifetime mortgage experts Responsible Life, said: It is human nature not to want to accept the value of a key asset like a home has dropped and in a slow housing market thats causing more retirees to find alternative ways of releasing cash. The anecdotal evidence is that by taking out a lifetime mortgage, people feel they are sitting on the fence while the property market rides out a peculiar and unprecedented set of economic challenges. Releasing equity does not mean you cannot move house at a later date. Some plans offer downsizing protection, where you can repay the plan early without penalties if you choose to downsize down the line. House prices in Britain rose by just 2.8 per cent in the year to November. David Ansberry, a former hippie who left a homemade bomb outside the police station in Nederland, Colorado, in October 2016, was sentenced to 27 years in prison on Friday after a judge ruled it was an act of terrorism even though the device never exploded A former hippie who left a homemade bomb outside the police station in a Colorado mountain town has been sentenced to 27 years in prison after a judge ruled it was an act of terrorism even though the device never exploded. David Ansberry pleaded guilty to leaving the device containing the unstable chemical compound HMDT, a peroxide-based compound that has been used by al Qaida terrorists, in a duffel bag outside the station in a strip mall in Nederland on October 11, 2016. The bomb meant as retaliation for the decades-old murder of Ansberry's friend Guy Goughner, who was fatally shot by the town marshal in 1971. Ansberry was spotted on surveillance video when he bought the phones he used for the device and was easily recognizable because he was only 3 feet 6 inches tall and using crutches because of the brittle bone disease he has suffered from since birth. On the eve of his sentencing Friday, Ansberry, now 67 and in a wheelchair, argued that he never meant for the bomb to go off - but the judge didn't buy it. US District Judge Christine Arguello on Friday said the device was not a hoax and dozens could have died had Ansberry been successful in his attempts to detonate it remotely using a cellphone. Scroll down for video Ansberry pleaded guilty last year to planting a duffel bag with the device containing an unstable chemical compound called HMDT outside the station (above) Ansberry was spotted on surveillance video when he bought the phones he used for the device. He was easily recognizable because he stood at only 3 feet 6 inches tall and was using crutches because of the brittle bone disease he has suffered from since birth The 27-year sentence was the minimum that could have been handed down after Arguello sided with prosecutors in treating the crime as terrorism, which dramatically increased the sentencing range. '[Ansberry] is a sophisticated, calculating, and culpable offender who risked killing public servants indiscriminately to indulge his 40-year-old grudge and send a message to police,' prosecutors wrote. The defendant had been linked to a radical hippie group known as STP, or the STP Family, which was reportedly once based in the mountains outside of Boulder and known to be violent. Ansberry's comments before the bomb was left, including in his journal were enough to convince prosecutors and the judge that he'd built the bomb to seek retaliation. Ansberry argued that he was merely trying to draw attention to police shootings generally. In a written statement to the court that mentioned the fatal shootings of students at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970 and the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Ansberry said he designed the device, selected its placement in the strip mall - also home to an alternative outdoor-learning school, a diner and other businesses - and time of detonation to ensure that no one was injured and to only cause limited property damage. He reiterated that message in court and warned against abusing the word terrorist as people had done with the label communist during the Cold War before he was sentenced. He did not apologize for the fear that the device caused in the laid-back town despite its failure. Ansberry's lawyers argued that he should only face up to over two years in prison, about the time he has already served since his arrest. Defense lawyer Abraham Hutt said the bomb did not even damage the cement after the bomb squad fired a high energy slug into it. Government experts earlier testified that the blast tore apart sand bags set up to send energy waves from the explosion upward and shattered the glass jar containing the HMDT, but it failed to ignite a bag full of crushed hexamine camping fuel tablets attached by another wire to the device. The HDMT that apparently degraded and lost its potency, which Arguello said was 'fortuitous'. On the eve of his sentencing Friday, Ansberry, now 67 and in a wheelchair, argued that he never meant for the bomb to go off - but the judge didn't buy it. Local news video shows the wreckage after the device was detonated by a bomb squad Police Detective Darragh O'Nuallain, who grew up amid terrorist attacks in Ireland, was the first to find the bag two hours after the last detonation attempt when he arrived for work. While at first he thought the bag was lost property found along a trail near town, he said he recognized the threat once he looked inside. Fearing for the children who were about to arrive for school, the father thought about putting it in his car and driving it out of town but then worried he might be caught in traffic and hurt others. He was initially treated as a possible suspect and eventually diagnosed with PTSD. He cannot talk about the school next to the police station without becoming emotional. 'We don't deserve to be blown off the face of the earth because he has some political grudge,' he said of local police. A Tennessee teacher who was on the run for weeks with a 15-year-old student is appealing his 20-year prison sentence. An attorney for Tad Cummins filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, a week after Cummins was sentenced in federal court in Nashville for transporting a minor across state lines for sex and obstructing justice. The girl's disappearance in March 2017 set off a national manhunt that ended when she was recovered in California more than five weeks later. Prosecutors had asked for a 30-year sentence. The 52-year-old Cummins argued that was the equivalent of life in prison. He asked for the minimum sentence of 10 years. In splitting the difference, the judge said Cummins committed a 'pretty despicable crime' but also had no criminal record and was unlikely to reoffend. Scroll down for video Teacher Tad Cummins, 52, went on the run for weeks with 15-year-old student, Elizabeth Thomas. He was given 20 year jail last week and has asked for his sentence to be reduced Cummins, 52, pleaded guilty in April of 2018 to obstructing justice and taking a minor across state lines for sex. Prosecutors said Cummins took advantage of a vulnerable girl with a history of abuse and neglect when he cultivated a sexual relationship with her. The teenage victim, Elizabeth Thomas, who is now 17, told authorities she and Cummins had sex 'every day as they traveled from state to state,' over 38 days between March 13 and April 20 of 2017, the Tennessean reported. 'When I started school, you picked me out of the crowd. I was just a kid who wanted to make friends, but you were someone who had a plan,' Thomas said in court during her victim impact statement. Cummins (left) met Thomas (right) when she was a student at Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tennessee. Cummins' wife of 30 years, Jill Cummins, has previously said she came to think of Thomas as her third daughter, and she believed her relationship with her husband was akin to that of a parent and child 'You saw a broken girl who was lonely, scared, and traumatized. You made her feel safe and loved because you saw what she needed and made her believe you would be her 'protector.'' Thomas previously revealed in an interview with ABC's 20/20 that she felt like she had to go with Cummins or he would do something drastic, and that he kept a gun in the car's console during their cross-country drive and she knew she couldn't escape. Cummins' two-decade punishment was handed down last week by US District Judge Aleta Trauger in Nashville, however he has now asked for that sentence to be cut. Thomas' victim impact statement demonstrated how much trauma she's dealt with, following months of grooming and assault at the hands of Cummins. 'You act like you care now and that you're full of all this regret, but where was any of that before?' Thomas asked in court. In a letter to his wife, Jill (left), written from behind bars on July 31, 2017, Cummins (right) wrote: 'I am the one to blame for everything,' while adding that 'the devil was deeply involved' 'Where was any of that when you first had me alone in your classroom closet and violated me over and over again for months? Where was any of that when you spent untold amounts of time and effort into manipulating, pressuring and deceiving me into thinking that you were the only person that cared about me?' Thomas went on: 'All you were was a man who wanted sex, and you manipulated me and used me just for that. 'But the truth is, no matter how much time you have to serve, you will never be able to undo what you did to me. I will have to live with the scars you left on me forever.' Cummins first pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in May of 2017, but changed his plea without entering into a deal with prosecutors 'after case review, consultation, and personal reflection,' federal public defender Dumaka Shabazz wrote in a court filing. In a letter to his wife, Jill, written from behind bars on July 31, 2017, Cummins wrote: 'I am the one to blame for everything,' while adding that 'the devil was deeply involved.' On March 13, Thomas was reported missing on the same day tat Cummins left a note for his wife telling her not to call the police, and saying that he need to leave town to clear his head Cummins met the teen when she was a student at Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tennessee. Thomas told ABC that Cummins and his wife of 30 years took her under their wing after her mother, Kimberly, was charged with child abuse and neglect involving the teen and her sister, Sarah. Jill Cummins has previously said she came to think of Elizabeth as her third daughter, and she believed her relationship with her husband was akin to that of a parent and child. But things took a strange turn one day in the school cafeteria when Elizabeth says Cummins, who was a teacher at her high school, made an unsettling comment to her. 'I was standing there with a few friends and then they said, 'Are you hungry?' And I went, 'I don't have a soul or if I did, I'd be hungry,' or something like that,' Thomas said. 'And then he came to me and he pointed at me and said, 'My soul sees your soul.'' Nevertheless, Thomas says Cummins made her feel like no one else cared for her the way he did. He also prevented her from seeking mental health assistance. 'I was feeling real low, and I was wanting to get on anti-depressants and try to go to a therapist. And he told me no and not to do it 'cause it'd change who I was,' she recalled. Thomas revealed that she and her married mentor began exchanging sexually explicit messages on Instagram, and then one day in class he told her, 'you'd look pretty nice naked,' she said. There were no other students present at the time. She also described the first time Cummins kissed her which, she said, was when she 'realized it was getting too far.' 'He grabbed my face. I was right next to the double doors I had. I was 15. Being home schooled I haven't really had a boyfriend,' she said. 'When that happened, it was kind of like, 'wow.'' It's believed that Cummins had sex with Thomas in the closet of his classroom before being his suspended. Cummins is said to have convinced Thomas to leave with him and destroyed both of their phones so their whereabouts could not be traced as they made their way to a remote cabin near Cecilville, California. Cummins (left) and Thomas (right) are pictured while on the run, captured on surveillance camera footage at a Walmart in 2017 Despite knowing their relationship was taboo, the teenager said she never told anyone because she doesn't like attention. 'I was scared, I don't want to tell my parent that a grown man kissed me and I don't want to tell friends that a grown man kissed me. 'I don't like the spotlight being on me,' she said. Thomas also said she was afraid to make Cummins angry. 'He doesn't take 'no' well,' she said in the interview. The two went on the run after Cummins was suspended from the school on February 6, 2017, after a 12-year-old student reported seeing Cummins kiss the teenager on January 23 of that year. During his suspension, Cummins would force the teen to call and text him at regular intervals, Thomas said. 'And any time that I wouldn't post for a few hours, he would go crazy and say that I was cheating on him and saying if he found out that I was with another boy, he'd kill them,' Thomas said. Thomas also said that she felt like she had to go with Cummins or he would do something drastic, that he kept a gun in the car's console, and she knew she couldn't escape Eventually, Thomas says Cummins told her she had to run away with him, or else he would kill himself or someone else, including her family. Thomas said the teacher had two guns and he would threaten her with them. Feeling trapped, Thomas said she reluctantly agreed to go with Cummins for fear that he would do something drastic if she didn't. On March 13, Thomas was reported missing on the same day that Cummins left a note for his wife telling her not to call the police, and saying that he need to leave town to clear his head. Cummins is said to have convinced Thomas to leave with him and destroyed both of their phones so their whereabouts could not be traced as they made their way to a remote cabin near Cecilville, California. 'As soon as we went to go leave, he set a gun in the middle console, and I knew that I wasn't getting out of the car,' Thomas said. 'He made me throw my phone off a bridge and his phone as well, that way the police couldn't track us.' Thomas likened the ordeal to a kidnapping and described in detail Cummins' controlling behavior, which included keeping her by his side at all times, even when she went to use the bathroom or shower, and telling her what to eat. 'He told me he likes skinny girls,' she said, adding that she often went hungry. In the days after he fled with the teenager, they were seen on surveillance cameras going into a Walmart where they bought hair dye to change Elizabeth's appearance. They also bought cheese cubes, K-Y jelly, women's razors and chocolate. He later bought a two-seater kayak, allegedly for a failed plan to escape to Panama, and an iPad to try to monitor the media coverage of their case, prosecutors said. When they would stay in motels, Thomas says Cummins made her sleep naked next to him and would keep her clothes separately so she could not leave. 'He was really mean and said hurtful things a lot of the time,' she said of Cummins. 'He called me his wife sometimes and said that we were going to get married and I was going to live with him until I died.' Prosecutors noted in filings that Cummins had no plans to end his sexual relationship with the teen before he was caught with her at the cabin (pictured) and arrested on April 20, 2017 Prosecutors noted in filings that Cummins had no plans to end his sexual relationship with the teen before he was caught with her at the cabin and arrested on April 20, 2017. Authorities were alerted to their presence at the cabin by a neighbor who became suspicious when she saw the car being driven by Cummins without a license plate and noticed the very young-looking Thomas inside the vehicle, the Tennessean reported at the time of Cummins' arrest. The two were said to have been at the cabin for one week before Siskiyou County Sheriff's deputies arrested Cummins. 'We are all stoked she was found,' property owner Michael 'Monk' O'Hare, who wasn't on site while Cummins and Thomas stayed there, said at the time. 'We're a pretty tight small-knit community that's hours from the nearest police department. We police our own community with diligence. Neighbors, friends and community members.' In unsuccessfully arguing for the minimum sentence of 10 years, Cummins' legal team noted he had no previous criminal history. His lawyers also said that if Cummins had not left the state with his victim, he would likely have faced a sentence of only 2-4 years in prison. Thomas (right) is now engaged to Skylar Dirla (left), who graduated high school last year. The two began dating in March, and Dirla asked Thomas to marry him in September. This photo of the proposal was obtained by DailyMailTV A civil lawsuit is also pending against Cummins and Maury County Public Schools, brought by Thomas's father. The lawsuit alleges the school district ignored signs Cummins had an inappropriate relationship with Thomas. Thomas is now engaged to Skylar Dirla, who graduated high school last year. The two began dating in March, and Dirla asked Thomas to marry him in September, with photos of the proposal obtained by DailyMailTV. The two fell in love while working together at a seafood restaurant in their hometown of Columbia, Tennessee. The family of a British motorcyclist who died after being hit by a stolen BMW and dragged for 85 metres have broken down in tears over the length of the teenage driver's sentence. Keith Stevens, 33, originally from Scotland but living in Melbourne, was riding home from work when he was hit by the car, which was being driven by a 17-year-old boy. The driver, who has been jailed for at least four years without parole, only paused to dislodge the rider after his teen passengers begged him to. Keith Stevens, 33, (pictured) originally from Scotland but living in Melbourne , was riding home from work when he was hit by the car, which was being driven by a 17-year-old boy Judge Irene Lawson cried and took a moment to compose herself when describing the void left by Mr Stevens' death at the hands of the now 18-year-old, who cannot be named (crash scene pictured) Judge Irene Lawson cried and took a moment to compose herself when describing the void left by Mr Stevens' death at the hands of the now 18-year-old, who cannot be named. She wept as she jailed the young man, while Mr Stevens' partner Amanda Wilson sobbed and a supporter lashed out at the boy as he was taken from court. 'You have senselessly and cruelly deprived a community of a loving father, son, partner, brother, uncle and friend,' Judge Lawson said. The teen's 'inhumane behaviour' must be condemned, she added. Mr Stevens was a sheet metal worker with a young son. Ms Wilson said she was 'devastated' by what she thought was a soft sentence. 'I had prepared myself to be disappointed but not that disappointed,' she said, according to Yahoo 7. She wept as she jailed the young man, while Mr Stevens' partner Amanda Wilson (pictured outside court) sobbed and a supporter lashed out at the boy as he was taken from court Mr Stevens (left and right) was was a sheet metal worker with a young son - and Ms Wilson said she was 'devastated' by what she thought was a soft sentence 'To watch your partner burn and be with him as he burnt to death and he (the convicted teenager) gets four years. 'That's not justice to me.' Ms Wilson said she drank a Japanese beer before the sentence in honour of Mr Stevens, the gentle giant whose cheekiness and infectious personality made everyone love him. Four teenagers have been arrested and charged in connection with the hit and run that left Mr Stevens' bike smashed in the middle of the road (pictured) Despite the catastrophic consequences of the crash, the boy's crime spree didn't end with the collision. He dumped the BMW on the Eastern Freeway and allegedly attempted to break into two nearby homes with his passengers, but were stopped by their owners. At a third, they allegedly broke in and stole keys, a wallet and phone before driving away in the home owner's car, which was later abandoned and ignited, police claim. Despite the catastrophic consequences of the crash (pictured), the boy's crime spree didn't end with the collision with Mr Stevens Judge Lawson said the teen relapsed into drug use and crime at the time of the November 2017 crash, on-selling stolen cars for income. He'd had several jobs including tiling, concreting and tree lopping, but none lasted longer than a few months before he quit or was sacked. He pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing death, robbery and other charges indicated some remorse and she found he had good rehabilitation prospects. Judge Lawson said the offending justified time in adult prison, but would recommend all or part be served in youth detention. He dumped the BMW on the Eastern Freeway and allegedly attempted to break into two nearby homes with his passengers, but were stopped by their owners The final decision will be made by The Adult Parole Board. Mr Stevens' family paid tribute to him in a statement released by police and told how his organs were donated to help save other lives. They said: 'Keith was a loving father, partner and son. We will remain forever devastated by his loss. 'His passing in the most tragic of circumstances has left us all with immense grief and overwhelming sadness. 'Born in Scotland, he called Australia home. His death is being felt by the lives he touched around the world. 'Keith was our gentle giant and he leaves behind shocked friends and family. 'Keith was an organ donor and we know he would be pleased that in these most tragic of circumstances he was able to help improve the quality of others' lives. 'We thank the passers-by who stopped to help and the incredible staff at the Alfred Hospital who kept Keith sedated on life support till we could reach him to say our goodbyes.' Mr Stevens had lived in Australia for 10 years. A Utah mother is warning parents to beware of blind cords after her son nearly choked to death while playing with the seemingly harmless string. Mother-of-three Arika Hernandez shared an emotional post on Facebook describing the close call of finding her son nearly strangled to death when he played with a blind cord as a necklace. 'I have gone back and forth about posting this or not posting this but I believe if this post saves one childs life its worth being vulnerable. Our sweet three-year-old boy is a survivor,' the West Jordan mother wrote on January 11. Utah mother-of-three Arika Hernandez shared a viral post warning parents about blind cords The mother recounted the horror of her son's near death experience where he was nearly choked to death while playing with a blind cord wrapped around his neck On January 7 her three-year-old son played with a blind cord as a necklace and was nearly strangled to death The cord tightened around his throat so tightly it dug into his skin and left a bloody mark 'On January 7th our son climbed up to the top bunk bed and wrapped the blind cords around his neck. He then began to walk down the ladder as the cords tightened he panicked and tried to yell for mom and dad but nothing came out,' she added. Her son desperately tried to wriggle free of the cord's grip but ended up just hurting himself. Panicked, the child jumped from the bed, and his weight made the cord snap, freeing his neck. 'At the last attempt to get free he jumped to come get us and that very jump saved his life! The cord snapped and freed him! We heard a loud thud (his jump) and then his loud scream! This was not just any scream, it is one I have never heard in my life and it will forever be ringing in my ears,' Hernandez wrote. The horrified parents took their son to the hospital where paramedics were 'very concerned and shocked'. The child lost his voice when he tried to scream for help and in a panic tried to scratch the cord off his neck 'We heard a loud thud (his jump) and then his loud scream! This was not just any scream, it is one I have never heard in my life and it will forever be ringing in my ears,' Hernandez said on her viral post After he jumped to free himself from the blind cord, the string snapped, freeing him from the choke-hold The child suffered shocking bloody red marks circling his neck, showing where the cord tightened around his throat and dug deep into his skin. Hernandez said that the blind cords are designed to not break, but because it did her son's life was saved. Now she's urging parents to beware of corded blinds and if possible seek cordless blind alternatives. 'They now sell cordless blinds and they are worth every penny. Even if you cut the cords once the blinds are lifted up it creates a hazard. The cords can not be cut short to make them safer... there are still inner cords and if the cord is pulled so the blinds go all the way up, that pull cord will then be long enough to make a loop & strangle a child,' she warned. 'My heart goes out the families that have lost their loved ones this way I am so sorry for that heart ache and cant imagine the pain you have gone through,' she added. Arika Hernandez pictured above with her husband Danny Hernandez with whom she shares three children Family: Her post warning other parents has gone viral with 59,000 shares The post instantly went viral racking up 59,000 shares. She revealed she never thought this would happen to her child, especially because she had warned her kids to not put anything around their necks. 'This is something I didnt think my kids would do because I am constantly nagging them about not putting things around their neck. Kids will be kids and they explore, my son told me he was making a necklace and thats why it was around his neck,' she said. 'Please help me save the next kid and share this message,' she added. Her cautionary tale isn't the only of its kind. A study from 2017 found that over 300 children under the age of six have been killed by blind cords since 1990 and at least 17,000 children have been injured by them. Due to the staggering numbers of deaths an industry-wide standard was started in December that limited the production of corded blinds to lower the risk of child strangulation, according to Yahoo. A man has been rushed to hospital after he was allegedly stabbed multiple times during a horrific attack. Emergency services were called to Eagle Vale in Sydney's south-west at 10.50pm on Friday after reports of a fight. Paramedics found the 23-year-old man on Cornelian Avenue with serious injuries to his leg, arm and chest as well as minor wounds to his face. Emergency services were called to Eagle Vale in Sydney's south-west at 10.50pm on Friday after reports of an attack Three ambulance crews and a medical team were called to the scene where the 23-year-old was found conscious and breathing. Paramedics treated the young man's injuries, which included a stab to the left side of his chest and an arterial stab to his left bicep. He was rushed to Liverpool hospital in a serious but stable condition and underwent surgery for the main stab wound on his bicep. Officers from Campbelltown Police Area Command arrested a man on nearby Eagle Vale Drive at 11pm. He was taken to Campbelltown Police Station where he assisted police with inquiries overnight. A NSW Police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the man was believed to have been intoxicated. The man, from Eschol Park, has since been charged with reckless grievous bodily harm was refused bail and will appear in Parramatta Local Court on Sunday. The tense moment pranksters taunted officers with a plastic toy gun on a suburban street before police bundled them to the ground has been caught on camera. Footage taken by one of the pranksters, 21, in Southport on the Gold Coast last Saturday evening showed a male and female officer pull their squad car over at an intersection while the man behind the camera walks towards them. 'Let's see how this turns out - it'll be interesting,' the man filming can be heard saying. The tense moment pranksters taunted police with a plastic toy gun on a suburban street before officers bundled them to the ground has been caught on camera The male officer then orders the man to 'get on the f***ing ground'. 'Get on the ground before I pull my firearm out,' the officer shouts while pointing at the pavement. 'We've had reports you have had a firearm, get on the ground.' The camera then pans to the female officer at the side of the road, who urges the man to do what he has been told The camera then pans to the female officer at the side of the road, who urges the man to do what he has been told. After refusing to agree to the officers' demands, the video ends with the man shouting as the male officer tackles him to the ground. Queensland Police said the alleged weapon was a gel blaster. The 21-year-old man has been charged with two counts of common assault, after he allegedly shot at a mother and her daughter, 16, in Johnstone Street in Southport prior to the altercation with police. There were also three other children around at the time, police claim. A police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia the two men were stopped by the officers on Nind Street at 6.20pm after they allegedly followed the family down the road. The 21-year-old man man will appear in Southport Magistrates Court (pictured) on February 15 Two gel blasters were later found at a nearby Johnstone Street address and the man will appear in Southport Magistrates Court on February 15, The Gold Coast Bulletin reports. Gel ball blasters are legal to own in Queensland and South Australia, but not in New South Wales and Victoria. A Queensland man won a court battle in 2017 after border officials intercepted his shipment and it was ruled the pellets they fire are not considered to be ammunition. A searing heatwave could see Australia Day celebrations held indoors as health authorities warn against overdrinking in the searing sun. The day synonymous with beer and barbecuing will be endured in blistering heats, as parts of the country surpass 40C. With the sweat-inducing heat comes a warning from health authorities to hold the festivities early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Australia Day revellers are being told to host festivities in the morning amidst a huge heatwave With temperatures soaring (pictured) towards 45C, beaches will be sure to pack with celebrators Sydney's temperatures will climb toward 33C with abnormally high humidity, forcing thousands of revellers to the beach. While many take to the outdoors on Australia Day, NSW Health's Richard Broome suggests staying out of the sun. 'Perhaps think about having a breakfast BBQ rather than an afternoon BBQ, or even postpone your activities until after it gets dark,' he said. 'We understand people do like to enjoy a beer, but please do it in moderation.' The city's west will feel the heat the worst, with some areas peaking at 43C just after midday. Some areas of western Sydney will see temperatures soar above 43C this Australia Day Beaches have already begun filling with revellers seeking refuge from the searing heats The heat has already made itself felt in the southern parts of the country in recent days, with rolling blackouts capitulating Victoria. More than 145,000 homes were without power on Friday and nearly 1,000 still remain in darkness as of Saturday morning. Some rural Victorians will spend their Australia Day fighting fires, after water-bombing helicopters have worked through the night to fight an out-of-control bushfire burning through the Gippsland region. Melbourne itself will see a high of 25C on Saturday after the mercury approached 40C on Friday. Heath authorities are warning revellers to seek shade from the sun this searing Australia Day Residents in Tasmania have also been battling bushfires after a blaze claimed two homes late on Friday afternoon. Dry air and rampaging winds will see the temperature sit in the low-30s for most of Australia Day with late showers forecast in the state's capital. Perth will reach 32C and Adelaide 27C. The nation's capital will swelter through temperatures approaching 40C. Darwin, meanwhile, will hit 31C with thunderstorms. A Missouri woman who was raped in the same bed where her two-year-old daughter was sleeping says police openly doubted her story when she sought help. It wasn't until eight months later that Taylor Hirth would finally be taken seriously - when DNA evidence linked her attack to two assailants arrested for the abduction and sexual assault of a female sheriff's deputy from Johnson County, Kansas. Hirth, of Independence, Missouri, took the stand during a hearing Thursday in which one of the men, married 26-year-old William Luth, pleaded guilty to raping her at her home in February 2016. '[Luth is] here because I got a rape kit done, and another woman got a rape kit done, and Johnson County detectives took a rape seriously, and forensic scientists did their job,' she said. 'Not because of any fantastic investigative work by the Independence beat cops who clearly received zero training in the best practices of dealing with sexual trauma victims, and who made it abundantly clear that they were pretty sure I was just being dramatic.' She said she felt as though the blame was being placed on her as investigators probed her about her past sexual partners and pored over her social media history and phone contacts. 'They made me feel insane,' Hirth told the court. Scroll down for video Taylor Hirth was raped by two men in the same bed where her two-year-old daughter was sleeping at her home in Independence, Missouri, in February 2016. Speaking at a sentencing hearing for one of her assailants on Thursday, Hirth (above) said that the police investigating her claims had made it 'abundantly clear' that they didn't believe her Eight months after the Missouri attack, suspects William Luth (left) and Brady Newman-Caddell (right) were arrested for the abduction and rape of a female sheriff's deputy in Olathe, Kansas, in October 2016. DNA evidence linked the two men, 26 and 23, to Hirth's rape Hirth spent months believing that the strangers who brutally raped her in her bed next to her toddler would never be brought to justice. No suspects were identified in that attack until Luth and Brady Newman-Caddell, 23, were arrested for assaulting the sheriff's deputy in her car when she arrived at work on October 2016 in Olathe. The 22-year-old victim's name has been withheld. DNA evidence from that case was linked to a rape kit taken after the Missouri attack. Hirth said she became physically ill when she learned her assailant had raped another woman. 'All I could do was throw up, and go to my friends house and cry, my heart broke,' she told the court. 'I owed this woman so much gratitude for being strong enough to endure what they had done, and to have the courage to seek justice. 'Without her, I wouldnt be here facing William Luth today.' The apartment complex where Hirth was brutually raped in her bed by two strangers in February 2016 is shown above. Hirth said that investigators made her feel like she was to blame for the attack by questioning her sexual history and poring over her social media The mother said she has received no apology or acknowledgement from the police since her account was proven true. 'Theyve said nothing to me,' she said. 'At least with him [Luth] I get an admission of guilt, even if I dont get an apology. Proof I was telling the truth. Proof Im not crazy.' DailyMail.com typically does not name victims of sexual assault, but in this case Hirth identified herself and gave a heartfelt statement addressing Luth after his sentencing Thursday. 'I stand here unbroken, you will not break me,' she said, reading off a piece of paper. 'These years fighting for justice have not broken me. The women who come here, standing where I stand now, met by men who like you thought they could to as they wish with our bodies and our lives, these women will not be broken. 'This is what justice looks like. It's cold and it's perfect but it's as real as the bars you'll waste the best years of your life behind.' DailyMail.com typically does not name victims of sexual assault, but in this case Hirth identified herself and gave a heartfelt statement addressing Luth after his sentencing Both Luth and Newman-Caddell pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping the deputy. Luth was sentenced to 41 years in prison in that case and 30 years for the Missouri attack, to be served at the same time. Newman-Caddell was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in the Johnson County case, but the hearing was postponed when he told the judge he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea. The charges against him in the Missouri case are still pending. Luth was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the Missouri rape on Thursday in Independence. He will serve that sentence at the same time as he serves 41 years for raping the deputy Advertisement An icy blast is set to bring 'the coldest air in five years' to the US in the coming days causing temperatures to plummet to MINUS 45F in some parts. As the country gears up for a bitterly cold weekend forecasters have warned there is worse to come as a replay of the 'polar vortex' that bludgeoned the U.S. in 2014 hits. They say it could be even colder this time round with wind chills by midweek as much as 45 below in Chicago. The arctic blast spread painful cold across the Midwest on Friday, closing schools, opening warming centers. Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the private Weather Underground, said: 'We're going to be feeling it big time. It's going to be the coldest air in five years.' Scroll down for video. Chicago's lakefront is frozen over Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. The National Weather Service had a wind chill warning in effect until 12 p.m. Friday for counties in Illinois The westbound lanes of Interstate 90 in North East Township, Pa., were shut down for almost two hours following a series of crashes just east of the Bort Road overpass on Friday One woman was transported to UPMC Hamot following a one-car accident in Millcreek Township, Pa. Friday. The woman's SUV, shown here, overturned during white-out conditions and heavy lake-effect snow People visiting the ice house for the fifth annual Dollar Energy Fund Cool Down for Warmth event are visible through the ice blocks on Friday in Pittsburgh Steam rises from Lake Michigan on Friday morning in Milwaukee. An arctic wave has wrapped parts of the Midwest in numbing cold, sending temperatures plunging and prompting officials to close dozens of schools Friday, but forecasters say the worst may be yet to come View of the Captain JP III cruise ship that broke away from its winter moorings in Troy, N.Y., and floated down river and became wedged against the Livingston Avenue train bridge that spans the Hudson River in Albany, N.Y. on Friday For much of middle America, the leading edge was bad enough. Cold weather advisories were in effect Friday from North Dakota to Ohio, with dangerously cold wind chills that could dip to as low as 45 below zero in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and to 35 below in parts of northern Illinois and Iowa. Meteorologists said when the polar vortex plunges into the U.S., it will be warmer in parts of the Arctic - Greenland, northern Canada and Alaska - than in Chicago and Minneapolis. Masters said the cold snap is due to the polar vortex, the gigantic circular upper air weather pattern in the Arctic region enveloping the North Pole, splitting into three pieces in late December because of an occasional weather condition called 'sudden stratospheric warming.' One chunk of that trapped cold air went to Siberia, another to Scandinavia, and the third piece is heading through Canada. On Wednesday, it will be over northern Michigan somewhere, he said. It's a system some forecasters have dubbed 'Barney' because computer forecast models show the cold air as chubby purple blobs, said Ryan Maue, a meteorologist with the private forecasting company weather.us. The polar vortex rarely plunges as far south as the U.S., maybe every few years or more, Maue said. The last big plunge was Jan. 6, 2014, when Chicago's temperature dipped to minus-16. Schools in Milwaukee western Michigan, eastern Iowa and northern Illinois canceled classes Friday, when the expected high was just 2 Fahrenheit. In northern Michigan, residents of islands in the river connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron were warned to stock up on supplies in case ferry service was cut off. In Chicago, warming centers opened. Forecasters warn of a replay of the 'polar vortex' that bludgeoned the US in 2014 When the polar vortex plunges into the US, it will be warmer in parts of the Arctic than in Chicago and Minneapolis Cold weather advisories were in effect Friday from North Dakota to Ohio By midweek the wind chills will feel as low as 45 below in Chicago, forecasters have warned Forecasters say 'it's going to be the coldest air in five years' as the deep freeze continues Kenny Blackwell and his son, Corey, moved from Virginia to North Dakota to help build low-income housing projects. Outside their current project on Friday, they chuckled at a cellphone showing the temperature at minus-10 and said it felt more like Alaska. 'The money here is great but the weather here is so nasty it made my dad's hair freeze,' Corey Blackwell said. 'We had to go out and buy some North Dakota clothes!' Ice fishing guide Bryan Lang acknowledged that extreme cold was part of his job in northern North Dakota, but he said he felt lucky to have taken Friday off work: the morning temperature was negative 21 degrees (negative 29 Celsius) with a wind chill of minus 42 (negative 41 Celsius). 'I'm glad to be in the house drinking coffee,' he laughed. The deep freeze caused organizers of the Winter Carnival in Minnesota to cancel several events, including Thursday night's parade through downtown St. Paul. The low temperatures also forced the cancellation of events in the Fargo Frostival, a celebration of winter activities in North Dakota's largest city. Organizer Charley Johnson joked that the Undie Run will go on Saturday as scheduled, but that long underwear was encouraged. 'We're going to persevere no matter what with most of these events,' Johnson said. 'We know they'll be smart about it. The people will bundle up and not stay outside too long.' Frost forms patterns on the window of a St. Joseph, Mich., home on Friday. Bitterly cold temperatures are expected to arrive in Southwest Michigan in the next several days with lows falling below zero Corey Blackwell, left, and his dad Kenny pose in below-zero temperatures in Fargo, North Dakota, in Friday Frost forms on the eyelashes and eyebrows of Jim Leithauser, of Cottage Grove, Minn. An arctic wave has wrapped parts of the Midwest in numbing cold, causing organizers of the carnival to cancel several events and prompting officials to close schools in several states Jason Gion, an employee for the city of Fargo, N.D., works in 15-below temperatures As Australia gets ready for its big day, one community is preparing for the largest annual party where everyone is invited. But just which community might come as a surprise to many. Muslims from throughout the country are preparing BBQs and flag raising events where they will be singing the national anthem. Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community will be celebrating the national holiday in true Aussie style. The free BBQ, traditional rituals and speeches by community leaders take place in Victoria, New South Wales, Adelaide, Queensland and Western Australia mosques. 'It is part of our religious responsibility to promote loyalty to our country and service to the people and communities,' said Secretary External Affairs of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Victoria, Soofi Hakim. The Muslim community proudly invite everyone to join them at their mosque to celebrate Australia day with a BBQ Each year 100 non-Muslim guests attend the event all across the country, joining in with Australia day flags, ties and accessories Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Melbourne taking part in the Australia Day march, holding a 'love all, hatred none' banner 'Muslims are criticised for not integrating into the society, in fact the majority of Muslims are well integrated into the Australian society'. Hosting this event since 2010, this annual celebration brings together two diverse cultures at mosques all around the country. Each year 80 to 100 non-Muslim guests attend the event annually. It is part of the #MuslimsForLoyalty campaign promoted by the Ahmadiyya community in which they take part in national events such as Clean Up Australia Day and National Tree Planting Day. As part of the celebrations, community members have the opportunity to tour the local mosques Children from the community sing the national anthem as part of the Australia Day celebrations 'We do this because as Australians we want to do our part in giving back to this land and its people,' Mr Hakim said. 'It reminds us to put aside our own suffering in an effort to alleviate the suffering of fellow citizens'. 'The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is always involved in spreading such humility, love and kindness between all members of the community,' he said. These words which are not typically associated with the Islamic community, are key as they prepare for such a celebration. The Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Melbourne have been hosting this event for the last 9 years Tim Tams, Vegemite and the Hills Hoist are inventions which the world knows are quintessentially Australian. But some things designed by Aussie inventors that have shaped the way we live might come as a surprise. They include the electric drill, the pacemaker, boxed wine and, amazingly, wifi. Many people will not be familiar with Graeme Clark, Thomas Angove and William McArthur but these names have changed lives. So, as it is Australia Day, here is a look at some of the most remarkable Aussie inventions. Wifi You probably cant imagine life without wifi, well if it wasnt for Australian engineer John OSullivan it might not even exist. An un-wired life is not an option for any Australian or in fact anyone worldwide. John OSullivan created what is now considered to be an ordinary part of our lives. He used Stephen Hawking's radiation theory to process data through digital hardware. Whether at work, home or mobile, there isn't a day that goes by without using the internet. Even some fridges, light bulbs and sex-toys use wifi technology. John O'Sullivan (pictured) discovered a way to process data effectively which had never been done before. This led to the invention of wifi Sporf Even though you might not recognise the name, this universal household item also known as a splayds is used by many. William McArthur was inspired to create a spoon, fork and knife all-in-one, to help women balance plates on their laps. William's wife Suzanne successfully sold the product in her cafe in Sydney from 1943, before selling the concept to a tableware manufacturer in 1960. After its invention in 1943, there have been nearly 5 million splayds sold all around the world. They were most popular throughout the 1960s Electric Drill Who would have thought that an Aussie invented the electric drill? Created by Arthur James Arnot and William Blach Brain in Melbourne in 1889, the drill was originally designed for mining purposes. Used to break through rocks, it's design was influenced by the electric motor. However, the modern hand-held drill is now a lot more practical and is an essential for every shed. Not always as practical as it is nowadays the first electric drill was extremely large. Its design was improved by two German brothers in 1961 Pacemaker The most important tool used by surgeons today, this life saving invention was first created by Australian doctor Mark Lidwill. The pacemaker sends electric charges to the heart ensuring it maintains a regular heartbeat. In 1962 the first pacemaker in Australia was implanted into a patient and since then each year at least 17,000 Australians undergo surgery. In 1926, Mark Lidwill used the pacemaker to revive a stillborn baby, by placing a needle into the heart and using a stimulation method Boxed Wine South Australia isn't only famous for the wine but also its invention of boxed wine. Thinking outside the box, Thomas Angove wanted to design a way to preserve the alcohol once a bottle was opened. His solution than came about...keeping wine inside a box. He patented the design in 1965 and this wine revolution continues. In a world governed by traditional standards of beauty, a swimwear company has broken all the rules and launched a competition to find 'Australia's most ordinary rig.' Hundreds of entries from courageous blokes have been whittled down to just ten finalists - all of whom display a rare kind of rugged handsomeness and masculinity. The finalists come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and aren't afraid to flaunt their unique figures in 'budgy smugglers' - slang for men's tight-fitting swimming trunks. Scroll down for video A swimwear company has launched a competition to find 'Australia's most ordinary rig'. Pictured is 26-year-old Meletios Pikos from Brisbane, a frontrunner for the coveted title Hundreds of entries from courageous blokes have been whittled down to just ten finalists Thomas Gilligan Hunt, 19, hails from Canberra and says his hidden talent is nearly being able to touch his nose with his tongue. He also claims to be able to cook an exceptionally bland stew The inaugural competition, hosted by Budgy Smuggler, has attracted entries from 'ordinary' men across the nation and will culminate in a title announcement at Sydney's glitzy Ivy pool club on October 15. 'This bloke we are searching for is exceptional in his ordinariness. This bloke is so ordinary he is extra ordinary,' the event's website explains. 'This bloke is also someone you want to get around and who carries his rig with a good sense of humor and embraces the body he is in.' 'The coveted title will see the winner receive ten pairs of custom smugglers with pictures of themselves across the smugglers and the title of Australia's Most Ordinary Rig.' An 'ordinary rig' is a colloquial phrase used in Australia and refers to an unimpressive or undesirable physique, otherwise known as a 'dad bod'. James Behringer, 19, earned himself a shot at the title with this classic action shot Matthew 'Findlay Mignon' Findlay, 25, from Orange in regional NSW, is also eyeing down the title of Australia's most ordinary rig. His hidden talent is playing the harmonica The event's website explains it is looking for someone 'so ordinary he is extraordinary' Nicolas 'Widey' White, from Sydney's northern beaches, has been tipped as one of the frontrunners for the prestigious competition. Self-described in three words as displaying 'Girth, Wit and Charisma', the bulky boy from Dee Why uploaded a stunning photo of himself posing boldly by the water. Meletios Pikos, 26, from Darwin, earned himself a stab at the title with a daring shot glancing back mid-fence climb while wearing his favourite lime green budgy smugglers. James Van Homrigh, 29, hails from Brisbane and counts 'stamp collecting, bird watching, ostrich racing and scrabble' as some of his favourite hobbies. Contestants will be judged on their potential to have been good at sport 'at some point in their life', ability to 'launch a child from their shoulders in a swimming pool' and social media popularity. Selectors have made it clear that having a six-pack is an automatic disqualification. James Andrew Stewart Lester, 28, snuck his way into the top 10 after proposing to his girlfriend in a floral pair of budgy smugglers The winner will be announced during an event at Sydney's glitzy Ivy pool club on October 15 A violent brawl between a group of students and a man carrying a bat has broken out in a high school car park. Teachers were injured while attempting to stop the fight between students from two schools at the bus pick-up zone outside Pacific Pines State High School, in the Gold Coast. Two boys, one wearing his school uniform, the other shirtless, were caught on camera throwing punches at each other while other students looked on at about 3pm on Tuesday. Two brothers, one a school boy, have been arrested after the fight and police have not ruled out further arrests. Scroll down for video Footage of a violent brawl at a secondary school on the Gold Coast, Queensland, has emerged The 29-year-old brother is charged with one count each of going armed so as to cause fear, possession of a knife in a public place and driving whilst under the influence. The 16-year-old school boy has been released with a caution. Police arrived at the scene after receiving a phone call about a man approaching the school with a bat, reported Nine News. The group however dispersed quickly after the police realised it was a fight between a large number of people. 'Police arrived and found that it was a disturbance between two school groups, at this stage I'm unable to say who and how many,' Acting Senior Sergeant Brad Miller said. Teachers were injured trying to intervene but no one sustained serious injuries. 'One of the young fellows was injured just some facial injuries, QAS [Queensland Ambulance Service] has had a look,' 'Teachers were attempting to intervene, as teachers do, and unfortunately they've worn some wayward blows from the combatants,' said Sergeant Miller. Police arrived to the school after recieving phone calls about a man carrying a weapon believed to be a bat Police have not ruled out any further arrests and are still searching for the man who is believed to have arrived at the school with a weapon The Department of Education have since released a statement saying violence is not tolerated at the Pacific Pines State High School, reported the Gold Coast Bulletin. 'Following an incident that took place after school the principal is working with staff, students and the wider community to promote a safe and supportive school environment,' the statement said. 'The incident has also been referred to the Queensland Police Service, who are investigating.' The 29-year-old is due to appear in Southport Magistrates Court on November 3. The school children involved in the fight are believed to have immediately dispersed upon the arrival of the police What is the answer to the overwhelming numbers of children who are now struggling with mental health problems? Investment in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services? A push to recruit more professionals into child psychology and psychiatry? No, apparently the answer is smartphones. The heart-breaking story in the Mail this week of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old girl who took her own life in November 2017, should surely make us extremely wary of encouraging youngsters to spend more time on their phones In an attempt to cut lengthy waiting times for five to 18-year-olds with mental health problems, the NHS announced this week that it will offer to treat children with depression through a mobile phone app rather than make them wait for face-to-face therapy. This is utter madness. The heart-breaking story in the Mail this week of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old girl who took her own life in November 2017, should surely make us extremely wary of encouraging youngsters to spend more time on their phones. Speaking publicly for the first time about her death, Mollys father Ian highlighted the role that social media played in it. In the drive to cut costs, we are lamentably failing to care for the most vulnerable and needy youngsters of all. The fate of poor, 14-year-old Molly Russell (pictured above in 2009) is a tragic reminder of how dangerous that can be He said he had no doubt the photo-sharing site Instagram where she could see hundreds of thousands of images of people harming themselves and discussing suicide had helped kill my daughter. One account she followed had an image of a blindfolded girl, seemingly with bleeding eyes, hugging a teddy bear. Beneath it was the caption: This world is so cruel, and I dont wanna see it any more. Quite apart from the disturbing nature of the material, the point is that social media isolates users from the outside world, stopping them from talking about their difficulties. Where mental health is concerned, human interaction is vital. We should be encouraging our children to look up from their screens, not down. Report after report warns parents to reduce the amount of time the young spend on their screens. So why on earth do those in charge of the NHS fly in the face of the evidence and think it a good idea to encourage suffering youngsters to spend even more time on their mobile phones? Im no Luddite: Im not afraid of embracing technological solutions to the NHSs problems. But there are times when technology is not the answer. Vital clues as to the possible cause of these youngsters mental health will be missed if the NHS relies on phone apps. Its true that some become depressed for no apparent reason. A child can have a stable, loving home life without tension or undue pressures at school and yet their mind is still stalked by a dark cloud of anxiety. Speaking publicly for the first time about her death, Mollys father Ian highlighted the role that social media played in it But the fact is that, for the majority, this is not the case. Having worked in child mental health, my experience is that their problems are usually the result of external factors beyond their control. Conflict, bereavement, bullying, difficulties with learning all of these can cause depression in youngsters. Mental health difficulties are often a symptom of a problem within a childs family, which is why it is vital that the family situation is assessed at the outset. Sometimes there is a mis-match between a childs emotional and psychological needs and their mother and fathers parenting style. And through no ones fault, the child flounders because those needs are simply not being met. Its incredibly complex and often takes a long time to get to the bottom of whats really going on and how best to help. How can an app be anything but an obstacle and potentially a harmful one when you are trying to grapple with such difficult issues? As for the idea of treating five-year-olds through these smartphone apps, it should be anathema to any sensible practioner. If a child so young is depressed, something is going very wrong in their life and they need urgent and proper assessment. My fear is that these apps will be seized upon by stressed, overworked GPs with just ten minutes to spare per patient. Families who urgently need help are going to be fobbed off. In the drive to cut costs, we are lamentably failing to care for the most vulnerable and needy youngsters of all. The fate of poor, 14-year-old Molly Russell is a tragic reminder of how dangerous that can be. Please don't give to beggars Whenever cold weather bites, its particularly hard to see homeless people huddled under blankets on the streets, and its tempting to give them cash or to buy them food or a hot drink. Please dont do any of these things. Having worked as a doctor with homeless people, I can tell you it does not help them at all. Quite the reverse. If theyre given food or money, they become self-sufficient which means they are less likely to seek help from official bodies such as community centres and soup kitchens where problems and illnesses can be spotted. Giving to beggars on the street isnt really about solving any problems its about making the person doing the giving feel better about themselves [File photo] It means that when they become unwell, they pitch up at desperately over-stretched A&E. This is borne out by figures showing the number of visits to A&E by homeless people has trebled since 2011. Cash donations provide a steady income stream to those with drug and alcohol addiction, while giving them food and hot drinks means beggars can keep more of their own money, which they may then be tempted to spend on drugs and alcohol. The truth is that do-gooders are constantly thwarting the excellent services desperately working to help these people. If you want to help, donate to a charity. The reason people dont do this is because when you donate to a charity, you dont get that same instant lift as when giving to a beggar whos right in front of you. But thats the problem. Giving to beggars on the street isnt really about solving any problems its about making the person doing the giving feel better about themselves. How families can chew over worries Three cheers for Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England. I dont always agree with her killjoy, nannyish ways for instance, advising women each time they reach for a glass of wine to ask themselves: Do I want my glass of wine or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer? But this week she has spoken out in defence of family mealtimes, which is a topic I feel strongly about. Now, too many childrens experience of mealtimes is a takeaway or hastily heated microwave meal eaten while half the family are glued to their phones and the other half to the TV screen often not even in the same room [File photo] It used to be that at least once a day all the family would sit down together to eat. But as families become increasingly fragmented and our lives become more frenetic, family mealtimes have become almost a thing of the past in many homes. I lament this loss because such occasions provide a vital psychological and social function. Family mealtimes are an opportunity to air problems or concerns, to check in with one another, to re-establish bonds. They used to provide an opportunity to spot when youngsters were struggling, not quite themselves or having a tough time. It was a chance to intervene, to nip things in the bud and to mobilise the rest of the family to support them. Now, too many childrens experience of mealtimes is a takeaway or hastily heated microwave meal eaten while half the family are glued to their phones and the other half to the TV screen often not even in the same room. And we wonder why children today have so many problems. Today, were in the wonderful position of being able to eradicate HIV entirely thanks to a combination drug termed PrEP Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. Taken daily, it makes the user effectively immune to HIV. It has been hailed a wonder drug, yet despite it being available on the NHS in Scotland and Wales for high-risk people, it is not freely available in England. It is currently only available for those on a drug trial, meaning that thousands are missing out. Last week, NHS England agreed to consider increasing the number of places on the trial but thats not good enough. PrEP is a triumph of science. Everyone at risk of the virus should have access to it. Dr Max prescribes... Rosehip Extract to ease joint pain A worrying report out this week, Joint Health of the Nation, showed the strong correlation between musculoskeletal health and mental health. Research shows that over 60 per cent of people with osteoarthritis have difficulty walking and that 20 per cent have a depressive illness as a result. My Mum has had dreadful trouble with her osteoarthritis in her knees over the past few years, so I know how miserable this can be. I started her on GOPO Joint Health capsules with rosehip extract, as trials show it can help reduce pain and stiffness. Also, theres some evidence that rosehips anti-inflammatory properties might actually help the cartilage in the joint to regenerate. If osteoarthritis is blighting your life, then it might be worth a try. At least two million people around the world have been exposed to cancer-causing chemicals that tainted blood pressure drugs made in China, the FDA said today. More than one million of those affected are in the US, which heavily relies on China for drug ingredients. Last summer, it emerged scores of widely-prescribed drugs for heart failure and hypertension - including valsartan, losartan and irbesartan - had dangerously high levels of recognized carcinogens NDEA and NDMA, far above the US legal limit. It prompted a global recall that's spanned seven months - and only now, the FDA is releasing details on how it happened and how many were affected. Releasing its findings on Friday, the FDA downplayed the exposure, insisted that - despite finding levels of carcinogens above the legal limit - the risk of developing cancer is not high, comparing it to cancerous byproducts that emerge when you grill meat. However, health policy experts say the situation is much more concerning than regulators are willing to concede - for the millions put at risk and exposing America's lopsided relationship with China. In summer 2018, it emerged valsartan produced in China was contaminated with a carcinogen called NDEA, prompting a global recall. Months later, more drugs are still being recalled FDA inspectors say they now know how cancerous chemicals got into millions of blood pressure drugs, prompting a global recall and desperate shortages. The impurities found in some of the most in-demand medications for heart failure and hypertension are a byproduct that emerge when certain active ingredients are mixed together. If the drugs are made according to the 'recipe', there shouldn't be a risk of this byproduct occurring. The problem, experts say, is that the supplier in Linhai, China, Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Co, may not have been cleaning up after itself, or failing to invest in tools to screen for these contaminants. The FDA insists that it would have been impossible for its inspectors to spot such an issue, since they can't look for a specific byproduct, and they wouldn't know which materials are inadvertently being mixed together. As shortages blight the US, Europe, and even India (which is the second-biggest drug maker after China), it's becoming ominously clear that most of the world relies heavily on China, without having much power to control, inspect or coordinate on quality. 'I think the FDA is losing leverage over China in terms of inspection,' Rosemary Gibson, co-author of China Rx, told DailyMail.com, referring to the months-long ordeal the agency had trying to get visas for its inspectors to enter the country in 2014 and 2015. 'They [China] want to make it hard for the FDA to do its job. Why do we allow that?' But Gibson says that the FDA should not become the scapegoat of this story. We need to look at how China was permitted to hold so much sway over the world's drug supplies, and analyze all the gatekeepers that are able to shift that pendulum. Take the anthrax attacks of 2001: America had to ship in antibiotics from China. If such a crisis happens again, and it coincides with a trade war or political tussle of any means, that could be a significant problem. 'China is ramping up quickly to become the global pharmacy to the world,' Gibson warns. 'I see the centralization of our global supply chain in a single country moving quite quickly and that will increase the risk of shortages. 'If we have a global public health event, you don't want to rely on one country.' Halle Berry's ageless looks have long amazed and mystified her fans, so when the 52-year-old opened up about one of the skincare secrets that helps her to stay looking so youthful, it's no surprise the revelation caused quite a stir online. The 52-year-old delighted her Instagram followers earlier this week when she posted a candid selfie that showed her lounging around in a bikini, while modeling a white face mask - the very mask that Halle says has become one of her 'go-to' products for 'ageless' skin. 'When in doubt, face masks are EVERYTHING,' she wrote in the caption, before giving a shout out to the $98 product on her skin. 'I personally love @olgalorencinskincares ageless mask - what do you guys use??' Ageless beauty: Halle Berry, 52, captivated Instagram followers with a photo in a bikini and face mask, revealing the secret to her flawless skin Awestruck: Fans wrote to Halle messages of admiration like 'So thats how you stay looking beautiful,' and 'Seems to work you never age' While some Instagram users responded to Halle's question by sharing their own face mask recommendations, many more chose to gush over her youthful looks, while expressing their gratitude to her for revealing one of her favorite skincare secrets. 'So this is why you still look young,' one wrote, while another added: 'I'm taking notes.. I need a good face mask. Age is creeping in on me!' Another chimed in: 'Seems to work you never age.' Some users pointed out that Halle's ageless looks are entirely natural, and others clamored to know how she gets her body in such brilliant shape too. 'How are you not looking older. I need to know your health and fitness routines,' one eager fan piped up. According to the brand's founder, Olga, the Ageless Facial proves so popular among her clients because it is so easy to do at home, and because it works on so many skin types. 'Ageless Facial is a no-fuss at-home treatment that is great for all skin types including Halles,' she told DailyMail.com. Skincare made simple: Olga Lorencin's Ageless Facial is a two-step process with a no-rinse peel and a no-rinse hydrating sleep mask Transformation: The treatment is meant to result in an 'exfoliated and sculpted face', as well as enhancing the cheekbones, as seen in this before (top) and after (bottom) shot 'Shes been my client for years and she knows what she likes and she just happens to really like this mask. Its lightweight but super hydrating and creates a dewy, plump, and cushiony feel to your skin. Of course, I love that she loves it.' Halle is no stranger to throwing love to her favorite beauty brand on Instagram. Earlier this month, Olga Lorencin Skincare posted an image of the star on the red carpet of the Golden Globes. 'One of our favorite clients slaying as usual,' the skincare brand wrote, with Halle replying to say: 'Only after a facial by the one and only YOU.' The Ageless Facial in a Box is a two-step overnight treatment that consists of a no-rinse peel and then a no-rinse hydrating sleep mask. This peel is super gentle effortlessly exfoliate, while the face mask step boosts hydration. The process increases cell turnover, reducing the appearance of wrinkles and pores. Skin is left smooth with a brighter complexion. That sounds just like Halle's skin, doesn't it? The Ageless Facial costs $98 and Olga Lorencin recommends using it every two to three days for a "mini boot camp for your skin" before switching to once weekly use. This week has been a nightmare for supporters of Brexit. On Tuesday, Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, announced that it was moving its European headquarters from London to Amsterdam. This followed a similar decision by Panasonic last year. The Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency then claimed that up to 250 other companies with bases in the UK had expressed interest in relocating. The Japanese financial firms Nomura, Sumitomo Mitsui and Daiwa had already announced their intention to move their headquarters from Britain to other European cities. The brutal truth is that this country is in crisis. Theresa Mays withdrawal agreement has stalled Meanwhile, the clock ticks on. Just nine weeks are left before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. The brutal truth is that this country is in crisis. Theresa Mays withdrawal agreement has stalled. The Prime Minister had hoped that it would supply stability. However, the deal which I strongly supported was voted down by a huge Commons majority. Unless something dramatic happens, Britain is now set on a path to leave the EU without a deal with Brussels being agreed. There are those who view this prospect with equanimity; even with pleasure. They include Brexit hardliners in the European Research Group such as self-styled economics expert Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson. There are those who view this prospect with equanimity; even with pleasure. They include Brexit hardliners in the European Research Group such as self-styled economics expert Jacob Rees-Mogg Such people insist that Britain will prosper outside the EU, and the sooner we quit the better. There are others, too, on the far-Left allies of Jeremy Corbyn who want Britain to crash out of the EU. They have very different motives. They welcome what they expect would be economic chaos. This, they hope, would open the way to a Labour government and a socialist Britain. Against these forces stand civil servants and business. They believe that a No Deal Brexit would be a catastrophe, and predict huge queues and shortages in the shops even economic collapse. Im a political not an economics reporter, but these warnings make me nervous. And I note that one of Mr Rees-Moggs investment firms has set up two funds outside Britain in Dublin. They include Brexit hardliners in the European Research Group such as self-styled economics expert Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson Another high-profile advocate of Brexit, the industrialist Sir James Dyson, this week announced that he is to shift his HQ to Singapore. If Brexit goes wrong, Rees-Mogg and Dyson have cleverly taken steps that might shield themselves from the consequences.How very enterprising and patriotic of them! But how should the millions of us who intend to remain in Britain conduct ourselves? In such times of national crisis, people would normally look to the Prime Minister for leadership. But Mrs May has been gravely weakened by a series of epic parliamentary defeats. Her Cabinet is split wide open. Another high-profile advocate of Brexit, the industrialist Sir James Dyson (pictured), this week announced that he is to shift his HQ to Singapore In so far as the Prime Minister has a plan of action, it seems to be to press forward with a version of her Brexit deal defeated by 230 votes in the Commons. Plan B is not in the Downing Street vocabulary. The PMs officials remain convinced that her deal is Britains best and only hope. They are praying for last-minute concessions from the other 27 EU national leaders. Some people believe this is a brave and pragmatic strategy. But others hold that it is unrealistic, obstinate and amounts to a form of denial of political reality. Even those close to the Prime Minister concede that she lives in a cocoon. I set this out as the background to next Tuesdays House of Commons vote on the way forward for Brexit. Two senior backbench MPs, Labours Yvette Cooper and the Tories Nick Boles, have threatened an ultimatum. They have given Mrs May until the end of February to get her deal agreed. If the Prime Minister fails, they will demand that the Government delays Brexit for several months so that an alternative withdrawal deal can be negotiated and ratified. The argument boils down to a straightforward proposition. It is best for everyone to take a breather and sort things out in good order rather than risk a crash-landing. Not surprisingly, Boles and Cooper have come under harsh criticism. Tory opponents say they are undemocratically pulling the rug from under Mrs Mays Brexit negotiations. Two senior backbench MPs, Labours Yvette Cooper (left) and the Tories Nick Boles (right), have threatened an ultimatum But Mrs Mays critics point out that she has had two and a half years to deliver Brexit, yet has failed. So why should we trust her to succeed in the few weeks that remain until March 29? Surely it is safer and wiser to let Parliament take control if she cant get the job done. Others, though, distrust the motives of Cooper and Boles. They believe that their intention is not to clear up the Brexit mess but to stop Brexit altogether. Last night, Boles said this interpretation was unfair. The MP for Grantham the Lincolnshire constituency in which Margaret Thatcher was born and which was one of the most pro-Leave areas in Britain in the 2016 referendum set out his position. He explained that he had campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU but had subsequently been a strong supporter of Mrs Mays withdrawal deal. He added that he was strongly opposed to a second referendum and that if one was ever held, he would campaign for Brexit. However, Boles asserted that his main concern were the risks involved in leaving without a deal. And so, if Mrs May fails to get a majority for her deal in the next few weeks, it would be best to extend for a few months Article 50, which is the clause in the EUs Treaty of Lisbon that sets out how a country can leave the union. This all makes reasonable sense to me, but I accept that the arguments advanced against Boless amendment are also cogent. His opponents say that a delay would only make matters worse for British businesses, with yet more months of uncertainty. We all need to know as soon as possible, they say, exactly where Britain stands in relation to the EU, and that giving an extra nine months or so to keep negotiating would only add to the confusion. And, of course, there are European Parliament elections this summer. Would the British people vote in them? So we are facing a host of seemingly intractable problems. But as one of the most important votes in the modern history of Parliament draws closer, Theresa May needs to convince the British people that she knows what she is doing. Otherwise, MPs will step in and wrest control of Brexit and rightly so. Rees-Moggs antics fail to amuse The Queen never intervenes in politics. That doesnt mean that politicians dont shamefully sometimes try to drag her into the Westminster fray. Jacob Rees-Mogg is the latest, suggesting that Her Majesty should cancel Parliament until Britain leaves the EU. Ahead of the EU referendum in 2016, Michael Gove was accused of betraying a private conversation hed had with the Queen on Privy Council terms and telling a red-top tabloid newspaper that he thought the Queen was critical of European integration. Jacob Rees-Mogg is the latest, suggesting that Her Majesty should cancel Parliament until Britain leaves the EU The biggest culprit of her reign so far has been Tony Blair, who repeatedly tried to shove the Queen into party politics. Im sure this is the reason why Blair has never been offered the Order of the Garter, Britains most ancient award of chivalry. The honour is a personal gift of the Queen and normally given to all former Prime Ministers. Zimbabwe: Britains guilt Harriett Baldwin, the Governments minister for Africa, has condemned the latest outbreak of murderous violence by Zimbabwes security forces against their own people. This is the same woman who disgracefully authorised her officials to give backing to the brutish president Emmerson Mnangagwa in Zimbabwes elections in July last year. It grieves me to say that the misguided policies of the British Government are in part responsible for the horrors that we are now witnessing on the streets of Zimbabwe. Ashland, KY (41101) Today Mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Overcast. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 69F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. The following items are based on information provided by officials in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Ulster County Kingston man gets nine years in prison for heroin possession Ulster County Executive Michael Hein delivers his State of the County address on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, N.Y. Kingston Pike Plan's future focus of survey Owners of properties affected by any changes to the canopies would be able to voice their views to city adlermen You are the owner of this article. The four-deck Capt. JP III cruise ship struck and got wedged under a railroad bridge in Troy, N.Y., on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019, after breaking loose from its moorings on the Hudson River. It was freed Friday afternoon. Michael is the Daily Emerald's Editor-in-Chief. He started at the Emerald as a reporter in 2017 and has held the roles of senior news reporter and associate news editor. He has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Portland Tribune and Eugene Weekly. Follow Michael Tobin Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Dalton, GA (30720) Today Cloudy with periods of light rain. High near 80F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Rainfall may reach one inch. Staff reports The Daily American Carl and Fay Walker hosted members of the Hillcrest Grange on Jan. 2 for a New Years gathering at their home in Summit Township. The evening provided an opportunity to fellowship, share happenings about the Grange family and community, and to participate in an informal business meeting while enjoying specialty food items contributed by each of the homes represented. The hosts have been members of Hillcrest Grange for more than 55 consecutive years. Leon W. Paul, president/Master, and Carl Walker, overseer, identified a 20-year-old photo of a Summit Township farmstead that was displayed by David R. Hay, program director. David Onstead correctly guessed the year 2002 when Hillcrest couples posed with a pitch fork similar to the couple in the well-known American Gothic painting. The program director shared a humorous story, Were Getting There while Dorothy Jane Paul shared A Prayer for the New Year. Virginia Hay, secretary, reported members paying 2019 dues. A thank you was extended to David Onstead for winterizing the organizations hall and to Jeff Brant for taking care of the mowing of the lawn. Hillcrests Feb. 13 program will begin with a 6:30 p.m. dinner meeting at Kings Family Restaurant in Somerset. Members will share winter activities that are meaningful to them or their family. Theme for the evening will be Making the Most of Winters Quiet Time. Kankakee, IL (60901) Today Partly cloudy early followed by scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 88F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Cullman, AL (35055) Today Cloudy with periods of rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 72F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Periods of rain. Low 67F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. Second Lawsuit Filed from Marshall Co. Shooting By West Kentucky Star Staff BENTON, KY - Exactly a year after the shooting at Marshall County High School, the parents of victim Preston Cope filed a lawsuit in Marshall Circuit Court.Documents received by West Kentucky Star indicate Brian and Teresa Cope filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the alleged shooter, Gabriel Parker, his mother, Mary Minyard, and stepfather, Justin Minyard.Parker is accused of opening fire at the school on Jan. 23, 2018, killing Bailey Holt and Preston Cope, and injuring more than a dozen others. He faces two counts of murder and 14 counts of 1st degree assault in the criminal case. His next court appearance is February 1, but a trial has not yet been set.The suit claims Parker used a 9 mm pistol that was left loaded and easily accessible in his home, and that his phone had "images, video and/or written material pertaining to school shootings." The complaint also says Parker's bedroom contained information about weapons and violence, as well as WWII and the Nazi regime.The lawsuit also claims Parker spoke openly about violence and joining the mafia, and made reference to "the kids [he] may hurt" as much as six months before the shooting.The Copes claim Parker was negligent by breaching a "duty of ordinary care" for Preston Cope, his classmates, teachers and others when he opened fire at the school.The suit also accuses the Minyards of negligence because they didn't secure the pistol that was allegedly used in the crime, and because they should have known that "Parker had a propensity for violence based on his reported obsession with guns, violence, and threats made on social media."The plaintiffs in the suit are asking for a jury trial and judgement against the defendants, reimbursement of costs, and for unspecified punitive damages as deemed reasonable by the court.The family of Bailey Holt and three victims who were injured in the shooting filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Parker, his mom and stepdad, and at least 16 others who worked in the school system or as counselors.On the Net: Despite my Italian roots, vengeance doesn't run deep in my veins. But I admit I smiled when Roger Stone's arrest was announced Friday morning. To give some context: On Oct. 7, 2016, WikiLeaks began leaking emails from my personal inbox that had been hacked by Russian intelligence operatives. A few days earlier, Stone - a longtime Republican operative and close confidante of then-candidate Donald Trump - had mysteriously predicted that the organization would reveal damaging information about the Clinton campaign. And weeks before that, he'd even tweeted: "Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta's time in the barrel." Stone's connection with and boasting about WikiLeaks during the campaign has always been fishy. But thanks to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the truth is finally coming out. Friday's indictment alleges that a senior campaign official "was directed" (and by whom?) to contact Stone about the WikiLeaks releases even after it was widely reported that they were a Russian hacking operation. Revenge aside, the accusations against Stone are serious. He faces a seven-count indictment: five counts of false statements, one count of obstruction and one count of witness tampering. The details of the indictment are devastating and, characteristically of Stone, quite colorful. According to the filing, Stone emailed a confederate labeled "Person 2" (identified by the media as radio host Randy Credico) to dissuade him from testifying truthfully about WikiLeaks before the House Intelligence Committee: "You are a rat. A stoolie. You backstab your friends-run your mouth my lawyers are dying Rip you to shreds" and "I am so ready. Let's get it on. Prepare to die [expletive]." Stone instructs Person 2 to do a "Frank Pentangeli" - a character from "The Godfather Part II" who famously lies to congressional investigators - and, my nostalgic favorite, Stone paraphrases a quote from President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate coverup: "Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan." To anyone keeping abreast of the unfolding events in the Mueller investigation, this level of sleaze is not at all surprising. The walls have been closing in for some time. As a key member of Trump's inner circle, Stone and his course of conduct during the campaign and after have exemplified a culture of cronyism and corruption that ignored all ethical standards and rewarded fabrication over the hard truth of reality. It was all obvious during the campaign and from President Donald Trump's first full day in office, when he sent out the hapless Sean Spicer to lie to the media about the size of his inauguration audience, that the president would establish an administration in which lying and intimidation were the default way of doing business. When it comes to lying, Trump is in a league of his own. The Washington Post reported this week that he has made 8,158 false or misleading claims in his first two years in office. Sadly, his culture of deceit was embraced by (or forced upon) the people around him and his apologists on Capitol Hill. Those caught up in the Mueller probe include former national security adviser Michael Flynn, guilty of lying to the FBI; foreign policy campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, guilty of lying to the FBI; lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, guilty of lying to the FBI; deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, guilty of conspiracy and lying to the FBI; former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, guilty of lying to Congress; former campaign manager Paul Manafort, guilty of conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct justice; and, if the facts of his indictment are true, now Stone. Stone denied the allegations Friday. The remaining West Wing staff and the president's family must be looking over their shoulders, wondering if in adopting the Trump style, they have traded a fancy West Wing office for a cell. Stone's well-documented sartorial tastes always favored wide pinstripes, but I wonder whether prison garb will be up to Stone on Style standards. --- Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, served as counselor to President Barack Obama and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. STAMFORD Rather than risk taking his case to trial, a city man who went on an armed robbery and shooting spree in Stamford and Norwalk last year pleaded guilty Wednesday to a dozen felonies and is now facing over 200 years behind bars. Walking into the Stamford courtroom before making his pleas, Tyreik Gantt, 21, of Connecticut Avenue, spotted his mother and with a wide smile mouthed the words, I love you mom. Over the next 20 minutes, Assistant States Attorney Michelle Manning read charge after charge into the court record while Gantt, standing next to his attorney John Thygerson, repeated the word guilty over and over again. Gantts mother, Latricia Read, sitting with her elbows on her knees and hands under her chin in the second row, looked on in shock and disbelief with each new charge and her sons repeated single word response. Gantt ended up copping a dozen open felony pleas to two counts each of armed robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and attempted murder and single charges of arson, larceny and conspiracy to commit murder. As rare as the crime spree Gantt went on with his alleged partner-in-crime, Onaje Smith, of Bridgeport, it is rarer still for a defendant to make open guilty pleas to so many serious felonies without a plea agreement, which would limit his time in prison. Judge Gary White tallied up the sentences and said Gannt risked being sentenced to 206 years behind bars. Reflecting the severity of those crimes, Gantt has thrown himself on the mercy of the court when he returns for sentencing Feb. 27. Gantt also faces a murder charge in Bridgeport for his part in the shooting death of 18-year-old Stamford man, Shane Slinsky, in August 2016. Stamford police at the time said the two had been wreaking holy hell on lower Fairfield County during their crime jag. Before deciding to make the guilty pleas, Gantt had planned to go to a jury trial in early January with Smith, his co-defendant who faces identical charges. Jury selection went forward for Smith, but no jurors were picked Wednesday. We have a very high expectation that (Gantt) will be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of significantly less than the 206 years that he is facing, had he gone to trial and was convicted of all counts, said Thygerson. We engaged in lengthy cost-benefit analysis meetings, and the inherent risk of paying a trial tax if he were to take this case to trial was the issue. Thygerson declined to discuss how Gantts guilty pleas would impact Smith and his trial because he did not want to prejudice either the state or Smiths case. But Smiths attorney, Miles Gerety, said he did not think that Gantts guilty pleas would present any problems for his client. I dont find this particularly harmful to Onaje Smith, Gerety said. Im happy to try the case without Gantt. We were going to be put into an awkward position at trial to have to point blame at the co-defendant and that never looks good. But the evidence against Gantt was pretty overwhelming. I think the state has got it wrong in my case. They are assuming my kid is a villain. We will find out at trial. Manning said Gantt and Smith robbed two Chinese food delivery drivers in Norwalk in January 2017, shooting one in the leg and arm and stealing his car. Minutes after one of those robberies, Gantt was seen on a surveillance camera at a Stamford gas station pumping gasoline into the back seat of the car, which moments later was found engulfed in flames on Oakwood Place in Stamford, the prosecutor said. The two also shot at a rival gang member during a drive-by that same month, Manning said, and both were involved in following a rival 19-year-old man into a West Main convenience store and shooting him in the left temple and abdomen. The man survived. At the end of the hearing on Wednesday, White asked Gantt whether the facts and claims made by the state were correct. Yes, Gantt replied. As he was being led out of the courtroom, Gantt turned his head and nodded and smiled at his mother. Read declined to comment on her sons convictions. jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com SHELTON The mayors office has said it will provide busing information to the school district in a timely manner but giving no details. School officials had been waiting for the mayors bus plan since December. Schools Superintendent Chris Clouet said the school administrations attorney sent a letter, dated Dec. 7, 2018, containing several questions, mirroring those that would be answered by a private bus company, to Mayor Mark Lauretti asking for the plan. The school district asked for the number of employees who would work as terminal managers, safety coordinators, bus monitors, bus drivers, a part-time mechanic and stand-by drivers; assurances the staff would have the required background checks, drug-testing and physical examinations before they went to work, and provide insurance from a Type A rating or higher. Instead, in a letter dated Jan. 18 to Clouet, Lauretti stated that the city of Shelton, consistent with the written settlement of July 2018, will abide by the terms and conditions of that agreement and the city will timely provide all required personnel, equipment, insurance and general assurances required by the bid and the settlement. Board of Education Chair Mark Holden announced during Wednesdays regular board meeting that the letter had been received. Clouet said the Board of Education was simply seeking confirmation of the citys preparations to take over the school transportation services for Shelton public and parochial school students beginning with the 2019-20 school year. The school district is committed to supporting the city in this new endeavor, said Clouet. We want this to work. Clouet said the preliminary school budget numbers which were submitted to the Board of Education earlier this month include no funds allocated for transportation. The line item simply states TBD, to be determined, said Clouet. We will be operating under the same plan that we are operating right now, as we have operated under before, said Lauretti last month. There is nothing confusing about this. Clouet said the board was just asking to see the same information from city that it would receive from any bidder seeking to earn the districts transportation contract. Lauretti had stated last month that, in his view, the settlement agreement between the city and the Board of Education finalized last July gives all the necessary details of the citys plan to take over the transportation duties, at what the mayor described as a significant cost savings. Lauretti said his offices estimates show an annual $1 million cost savings by the city which owns 60 propane school buses taking over the bus routes. We could be wrong, but that will be on me. Ill bear that burden, said Lauretti, adding that Clouet and the Board of Education were not willing to work with the city this past school year, which left cost savings on the table. The district said at the time that the city refused to give it any hard numbers on a bus contract, so went with a public bid and signed a three-year deal with Durham School Services in May 2018. Shortly after the deal was signed, the city protested and moved to assume control of the bus transportation services in order to save money, said Lauretti. No agreement was reached with the school district, and the city filed suit against the Board of Education the settlement of which led to a one-year deal for Durham to bus Sheltons students to class, ending at the close of the 2019-20 school year. According to the settlement, the deal between the city and Board of Education would be for three years with a cost of no more than $3.15 million. The settlement states If the city determines that it is unable to perform the transportation services required by the Board for the 2019-2022 school years, the Board shall put the transportation services out to bid. SHELTON Board games, music videos, coloring books, sticker sheets, financial planning and entrepreneurship training. Some 22 parent volunteers visited Long Hill Elementary School last week to draw connections between the activities as part of JA in a Day Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield Countys take on crafting a lesson plan for the school day. Its a field trip without going anywhere, said school Principal Andrea DAiuto. Parents first gathered in the school media center for a quick pep talk from Meg Melagrano, Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield Countys senior district manager, before fanning out throughout the school. There was one parent for each class from kindergarten through fourth grade. This is such a valuable experience for the students with material that they are not taught on a regular basis, said Melagrano told the parents. These lessons are invaluable, and we couldnt do what we do without you guys. Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County offers volunteer-delivered, kindergarten through 12th-grade programs designed to foster work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy skills and use different learning techniques to inspire students. The skills taught during JA in a Day are not generally taught every day, said DAiuto. This is also a great community event. It is wonderful for the kids to see the volunteers, and I know these kids appreciate the fact parents give back to the school community. Melagrano said Junior Achievement offers two types of programs, JA in a Day and the same program only taught over several weeks. Shelton schools primarily use the one-day method, according to Melagrano, adding that the one-day choice offers a more festive feel for the children. Today, students are getting life lessons not traditionally taught through traditional classroom curriculum. We are making that connection through our volunteers to the real world, said Melagrano. In second grade, volunteers teach students about taxes using doughnuts, while third-graders learn about how a bank works. Fourth-graders focus on entrepreneurship and what it takes to start a business: what resources, natural and human, are needed to be a success. The kids work in groups as a team. They communicate well. In this case, they come up with an idea for a restaurant. They need to come up with the logo, the menu, what to charge for a meal, said Melagrano. Melagrano said the program helps students understand, for example, why mommy and daddy need to work, and why they need a job to buy things such food, clothing and shelter. The volunteers receiving training from Junior Achievement members who spend an hour reviewing curriculum and making sure they feel comfortable going into a classroom for an entire day. DAiuto said she prefers the JA in a Day program because it allows the students to see how the lessons progress each other in one day, rather than broken up over weeks, which could lead to some forgetting the initial ideas. The program also ties into what the kids are learning in classes like science or social studies, said DAiuto. They get that lesson extension and enrichment on something they are already learning. And the volunteer piece is huge, DAiuto said. The kids see all the people parents, business people come in and volunteer. It is teaching the kids something that is very important and can be impactful. STAMFORD After two days of deliberations, a Stamford jury late Friday afternoon convicted a Bridgeport man of two armed robberies in Norwalk, an attempted murder in Stamford and torching a car on Stamfords West Side. After being found guilty of more than a dozen felonies, Onaje Smith, 20, could be sentenced to up to 206 years behind bars when he returns to the Stamford courthouse for sentencing on April 5. Smith is also facing a separate murder charge in the shooting death of Stamford resident Shane Slinsky in Bridgeport in August 2016. The conviction came after a two-week trial prosecuted by Assistant States Attorney Michelle Manning, who put up dozens of witnesses and exhibits to gain the guilty verdicts. She was not at the courthouse Friday and could not be reached for comment. During closing arguments Wednesday, Manning told the jury they had more than enough evidence to convict Smith on all counts. Smiths defense attorney Miles Gerety did not immediately return a call for comment on Saturday. Stamford police Capt. Richard Conklin congratulated Manning for her work on the case. Smith was part of a group of individuals whose violent crimes had a big impact on the region. We want to congratulate Ms. Manning and her investigators on their successful prosecution, Conklin said. We were really happy to apprehend this group because they were on a real tear throughout the region and involved in a lot of violent shootings. A month before the trial began, Smiths co-conspirator in the case, Tyreik Gantt, 21, of Stamford, decided to not go to trial and to instead make open guilty pleas to identical charges in the case. He also faces up to 206 years in prison when he is sentenced in Stamford on Feb. 27. Apparently feeling confident of her evidence in the case, Manning would not offer Smith a plea agreement. Gantts defense attorney John Thygerson said he fully expects his client to receive far less prison time than what Smith will get from Judge John Blawie, who presided over the trial. There is a truism that defendants are charged a premium, at sentencing, for having gone to trial and lost rather than avail themselves of a plea bargain, Thygerson said. These types of cases are never easy for defense counsel. The charges are serious, the crimes sometimes brutal, the evidence graphic and the offers to resolve the cases made by the state involve periods of incarceration young defendants simply cannot get their heads around. Gerety, former lead public defender at the Danbury courthouse, is an experienced trial lawyer, Thygerson said. Clearly, he and his client had lengthy discussions regarding the nature of the evidence the state was prepared to present. And I can only surmise he made an analysis of that evidence and presented it to his client, who ultimately had to make the decision to go to trial or not go to trial, Thygerson said. Smith and Gantt were involved in a large crime spree in 2017, with the Stamford police at the time saying that the two had been wreaking holy hell on lower Fairfield County. At Gantts plea hearing, Manning said the two robbed two Chinese food delivery drivers in Norwalk in January 2017, shooting one in the leg and arm and stealing his car. Minutes after one of those robberies, Gantt was seen on a surveillance camera at a Stamford gas station pumping gasoline into the back seat of the car, which moments later was found engulfed in flames on Oakwood Place in Stamford. The two also shot at a rival gang member during a drive-by that same month, Manning said, and both were involved in following a rival 19-year-old man into a West Main Street convenience store in Stamford and shooting him in the left temple and abdomen. The man survived. Smith is held at Cheshires Manson Youth Institution on $2.685 million court appearance bond as he awaits sentencing. Researchers warn about a new wave of attacks with an information-stealing Trojan called Ursnif that uses PowerShell and fileless execution mechanisms, making it harder to detect. Some of the attacks also deploy the GandCrab ransomware. Ursnif, also known as Dreambot, has been around for some time and initially focused on stealing emails and online banking credentials from browsers. However, the Trojan has modules that extend its functionality and has recently been used to deploy other malware as well. For example, researchers from Carbon Black have observed a spam campaign over the past month that distributes Ursnif, which in turn installs the GandCrab ransomware. "The overall attack leverages several different approaches, which are popular techniques amongst red teamers, espionage focused adversaries and large scale criminal campaigns," the Carbon Black researcher said in a new report. The attack chain starts off with spam emails that carry Word documents containing malicious macro scripts. The macros are obfuscated with junk code but are designed to execute an encoded PowerShell command stored in the Alternate Text field of an object inside the document. Document macros and PowerShell scripts have been extensively abused to install malware on computers over the past few years because attackers like to live off the land and these features are present by default in Windows and Microsoft Office. Ursnif's PowerShell script downloads a payload from a hard-coded command-and-control server and executes it directly in memory. This second payload then downloads another file in raw form from pastebin.com and injects it into the PowerShell process. The final payload is version 5.0.4 of GandCrab, a ransomware program sold on underground markets as a service, where its creators allow other cryber criminals to use it for a cut of the profits. There's already a decryption tool available for some GandCrab variants, but this appears to be a newer version. Security researchers from Cisco Systems' Talos group have also seen and analyzed recent Ursnif campaigns and published a technical report that explains its infection chain in detail. According to them, Ursnif doesn't just load malicious code directly in memory. It also manages to remain persistent across reboots while remaining fileless. It achieves this by storing an encoded PowerShell command inside a registry key and later launching it using the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC). The malware stores the stolen data in packed CAB files and sends it to command-and-control servers using encrypted HTTPS connections, making it difficult for data leak prevention solutions to detect the traffic. Ursnif is a fan of fileless persistence which makes it difficult for traditional anti-virus techniques to filter out the C2 traffic from normal traffic," the Cisco Talos researchers said. "Additionally, Ursnif uses CAB files to compress its data prior to exfiltration, which makes this malware even more challenging to stop." Both Cisco Talos and Carbon Black have included indicators of compromise such as file hashes, URLs and other artifacts, in their respective reports, and Carbon Black also released YARA rules that could help network defenders and incident responders detect such infections. Bristol's Bridal Expo at Schroeder Expo Center Bristol's Bridal Expo is Saturday, January 26 at the Schroeder Expo Center in Paducah.Brides come from as far away as Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri to attend this special event. The event will have everything youll need to plan the wedding of your dreams, and will feature vendors from all over the area. With thousands of dollars in door prizes, and everything to do with weddings, so if you're planning, thinking about, or just hoping to get married, this event is for you.Each year, more than 500 brides from Southern Illinois, western Kentucky and northwest Tennessee have attended Bristols Bridal Expo. Why? Because they bring so many people in the wedding business together, brides feel like they have to be there. It is their goal to put together a show that everyone feels great about.Thousands of dollars in door prizes from exhibitors and from the radio stations will be given away. The largest and best of those prizes are reserved exclusively for the brides who register that day.Join the fun from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on January 26. Click the link below to buy tickets in advance.Presented by Celebrations Events and Tents. Bristol Broadcasting is the parent company of West Kentucky Star.For a list of vendors who will be at the expo and more information, click the link below. For more information call 270-554-TALK (8255).On the Net: To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Please click here to learn how. The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), a business-to-business collaborative which advocates for the commercial adoption of green chemistry, is seeking applications from startup companies to compete in the GC3 Startup Networks 4th Annual Technology Showcase, to be held May 7, 2019 in Cincinnati. During the showcase, startups have the opportunity to pitch their chemicals, materials, products and manufacturing technologies to investors and companies scouting for green chemistry solutions. Sixteen major companiesincluding BASF and Targetwill be seeking sustainable solutions in a host of categories, including adhesives, coating technologies, fabric finishes and plasticizers; as well as ingredients including surfactants and fragrance raw materials for formulated consumer products. Up to 10 semi-finalists will be invited to present their technologies; of these finalists, three will be chosen to pitch their solutions to a panel of investors and technology scouts on the main stage at the CC3 Investors Roundtable on May 8, 2019. More than 200 individuals from 125 member companies and other organizations will attend the roundtable. Interested startups have until Feb. 1, 2019 to apply. The competition will consider chemistry technologies that can improve human and ecological health impacts, enhance energy efficiency, reduce environmental emissions and reduce waste generation, even if the application is not on the list of sustainable chemistry technology needs. Semifinalists will receive a complimentary registration at both the Technology Showcase and Annual Investors Roundtable, as well as a one-year company membership in the GC3 Startup Network. The GC3 Startup Network identifies and supports green chemistry startups through mentoring and related programs, and serves as a resource for brands, retailers, and manufacturers to identify new sustainable solutions for their customers, said Julie Manley, coordinator of the GC3 Startup Network. The GC3 Startup Network Technology Showcase is part of the GC3 Annual Innovators Roundtable hosted, this year by GC3 member Procter & Gamble Fabric Care in Cincinnati, Ohio, May 7-9, 2019. David Langham Horace, 44, passed away June 9, 2021 in Lufkin. Viewing will be held on Friday, June 18, 2021 at Emanuel Funeral Home of Crockett from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Funeral will be held on Saturday, June 19, 2021 at Antioch Baptist Church in Pennington at 12 p.m. with burial to follow in A We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. When I wrote earlier this month about the legislative pathways to Brexit, I was able to draw upon a wealth of expert advice to provide what we hope was a useful guide for those uninitiated in the minutiae of Commons procedure. I felt the need only for a small, qualifying note of caution, namely that John Bercow might choose to rip up the rulebook and throw everything into chaos as he proceeded to do that very afternoon. No such detailed and authoritative counsel was immediately available this time. The constitutional law surrounding prorogation has apparently been a non-issue for such a long time that my usual sources had little further reading to suggest. Moreover, as Mr Speaker has illustrated, theoretically clear constitutional mechanisms are quite capable of being sabotaged if the will is there. This piece will therefore be considerably shorter and, necessarily, more speculative than the above-mentioned one. That said, the answer to the question Could Theresa May prorogue Parliament? appears to be Yes although the Government would need to be very careful. According to this page on the Parliament website, The Queen formally prorogues Parliament on the advice of the Privy Council which in matters of this sort is represented by the Cabinet. Then she dispatches the Royal Commission, comprising five peers from the Privy Council, to the House of Lords to conduct the formal ceremony, and Parliament is prorogued. This idea not only fits the descriptions I have found for how the process works, it also matches best to what happened in Canada in 2008, when the Governor General briefly prorogued the parliament there at the reqest of Stephen Harpers minority Conservative administration. Suffice to say, pursuing such a course of action in the current context would take an extraordinary degree of political will, not least because it would mean abandoning however much of the Governments no-deal preparation legislation had not yet received Royal Assent. More importantly, a prorogued Parliament could not pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill or even the Meaningful Vote. Prorogation only works as a means of delivering a no-deal exit. Ministers would also need to take a very pro-active approach to protecting both the constitution and the Queen from the attacks this move would invite. For example, the mechanisms themselves would doubtless come under attack from the usual constitutional change lobbies, allied to outraged europhile opinion. The move itself would be cast as another constitutional outrage, and whilst the bar for that has been set so low as to be meaningless that wouldnt stop the charge cutting through if the Government did not have a strong, clear justification for its action and a pro-active attitude to selling it to the country. There might also be arcane attempts to actually short-circuit the process of prorogation. One such which hinges on the idea that the Cabinet is not actually able to represent the Privy Council in deciding the question has already been floated as part of the parallel debate about whether or not the Government can effectively withhold Royal Assent from a bill. I think that particular claim is handled well enough in the tweets below it, but ministers would be well advised to have sort of constitutional-law tiger team in place to foresee and forestall such efforts as much as possible. Furthermore, since the Royal Commission includes the leaders of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, the latter of whom especially might not be willing to take part in the usual constitutional theatrics on this occasion, the Government ought to be sure of whether it can refill the ranks of the Lords Commissioner. It would be very unfortunate if the Queen were forced to become the first sovereign since Victoria to deliver the prorogation address in person in such circumstances as this. In summary, then, a short-term prorogation strategy appears to be constitutionally viable. But it seems fantastically unlikely. If the Government does find its position in the Commons untenable, and were prepared to be as aggressive in pursuit of no deal as such a course would require, a general election would almost certainly be its preferred course. Sanders is a refreshing change from the careerists who infest American as well as British politics. Where We Go From Here: Two Years in the Resistance by Bernie Sanders Books by serving politicians in which they purport to describe their beliefs and vision of the future are seldom of any value. The author is in a rush, and imagines that words which elicit applause when spoken at a rally of the faithful can be transferred without further effort to the printed page. Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016 and is contemplating another run in 2020, is as lazy a writer as the rest of them. His book reads at times like a parody: I have said it a million times, but I think it bears repeating. The campaign that I ran for president was never about me. Here is another grave problem with the campaign book as a genre. It is all about me, but the candidate is anxious to demonstrate how ordinary and unassuming and decent he is, so he (or she, though still most often he, for this kind of vanity comes more easily to men than to women) advertises his homespun humility, while also reminding us at frequent intervals that he is morally superior to the other side. Sanders dismisses Donald Trump as the most dishonest and reactionary president in the history of the Republic: a formula which makes one wonder how much American history he knows. But it is true that the really disgraceful presidents are often passed over in silent embarrassment by the historians. And then we are into the campaign rhetoric: Our job, for the sake of our kids and grandchildren, is to bring our people together around a progressive agenda. Are the majority of people in our country deeply concerned about the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that we are experiencing? You bet they are. Do they believe that our campaign finance system is corrupt and enables the rich to buy elections? Overwhelmingly so. Do they want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage and provide pay equity for women? Yes they do. Do they think the very rich and large corporations should pay more in taxes so that all of our kids can have free tuition at public colleges and universities? Yup. Do they believe that the United States should join every other major country and guarantee health care as a right? Yes, again. Do they believe climate change is real? Youve got to be kidding. To dismiss this because of the style would be a mistake. In Britain, Conservatives thought it was sufficient to be contemptuous of Jeremy Corbyn, and failed to foresee that in the 2017 general election he would be rather good at persuading people to vote for a socialist. In the United States, Sanders, who is eight years older than Corbyn, was likewise dismissed as an out-of-date Leftie whose socialism could have no popular appeal. But Sanders was in many ways a more attractive candidate than Hillary Clinton, who inspired even in her most devoted supporters deep misgivings, and who managed to beat him only because she had the Democratic machine behind her. Sanders actually appeared to believe what he was saying, for with eccentric obduracy, or if one prefers admirable independence of mind, he had stuck to it even for long periods when he might with advantage have modified his views. It was obvious to most people that however much Clinton claimed to have the interests of the struggling poor at heart, she had come to feel more at home in the Hamptons. She herself was beaten in 2008 by Barack Obama, a candidate with a better ear, and a more plausible claim to be in touch with the wider public. His campaign book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, is in a different league to Sanders effort. And Obamas memoir, Dreams from My Father, written ten years before he became well-known, so when he still had time to write a proper book, is better still. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama describes a conversation he had over lunch in late September 2001 with a media consultant who was encouraging him to run for office: You realise, dont you, that the political dynamics have changed, he said as he picked at his salad. What do you mean? I asked, knowing full well what he meant. We both looked down at the newspaper beside him. There, on the front page, was Osama bin Laden. Hell of a thing, isnt it? he said, shaking his head. Really bad luck. You cant change your name, of course. Voters are suspicious of that kind of thing. Maybe if you were at the start of your career, you know, you could use a nickname or something. But now His voice trailed off and he shrugged apologetically before signalling the waiter to bring us the check. As it happened, Obama with his strange name possessed the touch of implausibility which Americans sometimes warm to in a presidential candidate. So, in his unbelievably boorish way, did Trump. For either of them to get to the White House was amazing, and in that sense a dream come true. They were outsiders who knew, in quite different ways, how to appeal to anti-Washington sentiment, which is generally the prevailing sentiment in the United States. Clinton, as the wife of a former President and a woman who had come to enjoy the company of the rich, could not run an anti-Establishment campaign, and looked hypocritical when she pretended to do so. Sanders is not open to that charge of hypocrisy. He genuinely believes that billionaires (his favourite target) should pay more tax, the pharmaceutical industry should charge less for essential medicines, assault rifles should not be on sale to the mentally ill, and they in turn should receive proper medical treatment at public expense rather than being incarcerated in Americas shamefully extensive prison system. In this book, one starts to feel that Sanders, though not immune to the charge of senatorial self-importance (he has been one of Vermonts senators since 2007, and was before that in the House of Representatives), is a refreshing change from the careerists who infest American as well as British politics. The new and younger version of Sanders is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. According to Sanders, Progressive ideas are now mainstream in America. Thats what the people want, especially Democrats When there is political excitement in the air, when ordinary people sense hope for the future, they will come out and vote, and Democrats will win. The simple truth is that moderates or centrists do not generate that level of excitement. We shall see. Lord Ashcroft has pointed out that a candidate who makes Democrat activists feel good might drive uncommitted voters back into the arms of Donald Trump. But Trump is enough to give plutocracy a bad name, and Sanders here mounts a fierce attack on the in his view undeserving rich. Once one has adjusted to his manner of speaking, one finds he is lucid and sincere in his account of where America has gone wrong and what a bad deal many hard-working Americans get. His opponents as well as his fans should pay attention. Whips surrender against non-binding Spelman-Dromey motion Ministers have been warned that they will be unable to defeat a cross-party move to rule out a no-deal Brexit in the Commons next week. Senior government sources said they had all but given up trying to stop a crucial amendment to the governments motion being passed on Tuesday. The move, which has the backing of more than 200 MPs, calls for Theresa May to rule out a no-deal Brexit. It is being proposed by the former Conservative cabinet minister Dame Caroline Spelman and Labours Jack Dromey. Whips are understood to be telling Tory opponents of a no-deal Brexit that they would rather they supported this amendment than a rival move by Labours Yvette Cooper that would hand parliament the power to demand an extension of Article 50. Leadsom warns that exit day may be delayed FT Hammond wont rule out quitting if its no deal The Sun Which amendments will Bercow select? The Times Plan to see off no deal hangs in the balance The Guardian Given where opinion is in the House no one really thinks we have a chance of defeating the Spelman amendment, a senior government source said. But we might be able to persuade enough of our people just to vote for that, and vote against Cooper, which is constitutionally far more significant. The Spelman-Dromey motion, while a statement of parliaments will, would not legally bind the government. The Times More: May close to majority for amended deal but EU would need to accept it The Sun Unionists throw the Prime Minister a lifeline Daily Express Varadkar warns army presence might be needed on no deal border Daily Telegraph Small band of DUP members always opposed Brexit News Letter Labour: Corbyn ally dents hopes of the party backing a second referendum The Guardian Exodus from Labour as Corbyn dithers on re-run of 2016 The Times Comment: Why must the Speaker be so toe-curlingly annoying? Juliet Samuel, Daily Telegraph If nothing passes on Thursday, we get super-soft Brexit James Forsyth, The Sun The DUP has fewer options than it seems to think David Shiels, Daily Telegraph >Today: ToryDiary: The Prime Minister could prorogue Parliament, but almost certainly wont >Yesterday: as Europhile bosses attack Fox Europhile business leaders rounded on Liam Fox yesterday, saying that the international trade secretarys credibility was extremely low. Sir Mike Rake, the former chairman of BT and Easyjet, argued that Eurosceptic ministers were verging on criminal irresponsibility by maintaining that leaving the EU without an agreement was a viable option. John Neill, boss of Unipart, which has 6,000 staff and is one of Britains largest manufacturers, said that Dr Fox had eroded his reputation by asserting that delaying Brexit would be worse than no deal. Dr Fox suggested that postponing or cancelling Brexit would be calamitous and accused MPs of seeking to steal the result of the 2016 vote. Mr Neill told Sky News: Liam Foxs credibility is extremely low. No-deal would create the risk of a cascade of failure in the supply chain and could risk the future of the UK car industry. Sources close to Dr Fox questioned the reason for the public attacks. A friend said: The people trying to discredit Liam need to accept that the UK voted to leave the EU in a democratic referendum and the result must be honoured. The minister was confronted by Mr Neill at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. The Times Another gaffe at Graylings department The Sun and Rees-Mogg claims Government invited Queens intervention The Queens intervention on Brexit would only have been made on the advice of Downing Street, a leading Brexiteer claimed yesterday. Jacob Rees-Mogg said it was inconceivable that the monarch would have been expressing her own private views on Brexit when she called for common ground in looking for new answers. However, he backed cabinet ministers and the leader of the opposition in welcoming the Queens intervention, which he described as sensible. Constitutionally, the Queen can only speak on the advice of her ministers and could not have said this without the agreement of the government, he said. This is not the Queens point of view; it is Her Majestys Government speaking. There is not a private view of the Queen. He added: It is sensible for the government to encourage Her Majesty to intervene. It is perhaps a reminder to MPs to respect the constitutional norms and that nobody ever gets exactly what they want in politics. Calmness and goodwill is a better solution than endless rows. Senior royals to join call for unity The Sun Tories praise monarchs Brexit speech The Guardian The Queen made her comments at the centenary of the Sandringham Womens Institute, allowing her to draw a stark contrast between political behaviour today and that of the WI. The Times Comment: Her Majesty was wrong to get involved Matthew Parris, The Times There is common ground, but only if Remainers accept the result Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph Matriarch trying to rein in a dysfunctional family Janice Turner, The Times Editorial: The monarchy ought to be silent The Times Wreckers should listen to the Queen The Sun Andrew Murrison: My amendment offers the best hope for a good Brexit Last weeks huge defeat disguises the principal underlying issue dislike of the so-called Northern Ireland backstop within the Withdrawal Agreement. My amendment means it would expire on 31 December 2021. The date could be flexible, a secondary matter, the important thing is the principle the introduction of a sunset on the backstop. Remember that international treaties of this type invariably allow contracting parties to walk with reasonable notice. This one is highly unusual. Hardly surprisingly, MPs are worried about the Withdrawal Agreement since its backstop potentially indefinitely both binds the UK into the EU customs union and separates Northern Ireland in important respects from Great Britain. Thats worse than the arrangement were in right now which has at least, through Article 50, permitted the UK to leave. The Withdrawal Agreement as drafted would not. The Attorney General argues that the backstop is so uncomfortable for the EU that it will either not invoke it or rescind it as soon as it can. Absolutely, says the EU, and whats more you can trust us not to use it to hold you over a barrel. But why would they not? Daily Telegraph Brexit is about sovereignty, and Parliament must respect that Noel Malcolm, FT Fight over Brexit is now battle to save western democracy Sherelle Jacobs, Daily Telegraph Will of the people was not fixed for all time in Jun 2016 Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian Mays inflexibility is weakening the Union Anand Menon, The Scotsman >Yesterday: Video: WATCH: Francois says he wont submit to bullying by any German and tears up Airbus CEOs letter on live TV CCHQ reportedly struggling to raise funds M ajor Conservative donors are refusing to give money to the party because of disgust at Theresa Mays leadership and her handling of Brexit, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. The businessmen who together have given millions of pounds to the party since Mrs May became Prime Minister do not want to fund a potential snap general election with Mrs May still in post. Several said they were planning to stay away from next months glittering Black and White Ball, one of the partys biggest annual fundraising events, when access to ministers is auctioned to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds. On Tuesday MPs will vote on a series of possible measures to break the Brexit deadlock, with Tory backbenchers and the DUP coalescing around a plan to remove the Northern Ireland backstop from Mrs Mays Brexit deal and replace it with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border. If that fails, a snap election would be one possible option for breaking the Brexit deadlock, but a shortage of donations would make it more difficult to defeat Jeremy Corbyns union-backed Labour party. O Disquiet amongst donors grows FT ne Conservative source said the party had had no donations since Christmas. Among the organisations withholding money is the Midlands Industrial Council, whose 33 members gave 5 million to the Tories ahead of the 2017 election roughly one fifth of Mrs Mays entire war chest. Daily Telegraph More: Curious tale of Johnsons flight with party backer FT >Today: Simon Marcus in Comment: Marxist ideology. Lax courts and Mays legacy. All have helped to create the new era of gang crime. Labour anti-Semitism row erupts in MP spat Labours bitter anti-Semitism row exploded again after a Jewish Labour MP publicly tore into Emily Thornberry for comparing the actions of Israel to Syria and Iran. Joan Ryan, head of the Labour Friends of Israel group, accused the Shadow Foreign Secretary of completely misreading the facts after she sent a letter to Jeremy Hunt demanding we sanction Israel in the same way as Iran and Syria. She said it was beyond belief that the Labour frontbench had chosen to cast Israel as the villain at the same time as staying silent about the war crimes committed by Iran and Russia on behalf of Syrian President Assad. In her letter to the Foreign Secretary on Thursday Ms Thornberry said Israels bombing of Iranian and Syrian targets last week had made the country ever more dangerous But Jewish leaders in the UK have warned that Ms Thornberrys comments suggest Labour opposes Israels right to defend itself and accused her of aiding Irans state-backed anti-Semitism. Ms Ryan, who faces being deselected as a Labour MP after leading criticism of Jeremy Corbyns failure to stamp out anti-Semitism, branded Ms Thornberrys comments absurd. The Sun Labour leaders support for Venezuela attacked Daily Express >Yesterday: Alastair Thompson in Comment: Corbyn an apologist for the tyrant who rules Venezuela by fear. Let a Commons vote put him on the spot. Ministers take NHS into DNA testing and surgeries with an influx of people worried by analyses that will not necessarily be accurate. They also questioned whether the NHS could be trusted to store sensitive data securely after previous scandals, including a doomed plan to share GP records with private companies. The Times Lawyers insist legal system is robust enough to ensure fair trial for Salmond The NHS is to charge healthy people to map their genetic code under controversial plans to amass data on millions of Britons. Ministers are to compete in the fast-growing market for DNA testing by offering to sequence a persons whole genome for an estimated few hundred pounds. The test promises to predict the risk of cancer, dementia and other diseases such as Alzheimers. It is offered free to seriously ill patients but the government intends to open the scheme to paying customers within a year. Each will receive a personalised health report but will have to share their genetic data with researchers in the hope that it will improve understanding of diseases. Some doctors are alarmed about the plans, which they say could overwhelm hospitals Lawyers have said Scotlands legal system will be robust enough to ensure Alex Salmond gets a fair trial. The former First Minister has been charged with a total of 14 offences, including two counts of attempted rape and nine of sexual assault, pledging to defend himself to the utmost and stating that he is innocent of any criminality. No date has been set for the next hearing, but it is expected that a jury trial will take place later this year. Concerns have been raised that Mr Salmonds high-profile political career, including leading the SNP during the 2014 independence referendum, will make it more difficult to find jurors without prior bias. While some countries, including the United States, use the system of voir dire allowing lawyers and the judge to question individual jurors ahead of a trial Scotland does not. Niall McCluskey QC said the question posed of jurors before trials about their ability to sit impartially might have to be explored more rigorously in Salmonds case. But he said there was no reason why the composition of the jury or the amount of pre-trial media coverage would undermine a fair trial. The Scotsman Reversal of fortune for Scotlands independence champion FT Case sparks outbreak of contempt John McLellan, The Scotsman Fast track tax hotline for MPs and civil servants criticised MPs and senior civil servants have a private fast track hotline to the taxman which avoids the long delays faced by the public. An office in Wales staffs four special phone lines to assist politicians and other VIPs with their tax queries. The calls were picked up immediately when tested. It is understood members of the royal family also have access to the line, which is available during working hours Monday to Friday. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said the staff answering these calls require special security clearance, which is why they are separated out from the public helpline. However, the taxman faces heavy criticism for offering a special service for VIPs while ordinary taxpayers can spend up to 30 minutes listening to recorded messages and answering computerised questions while waiting to speak to an HMRC official. J News in Brief: The surprising truth about how voters see public spending Matt Singh, CapX Norway-ish Common Market 2.0 Brexit scheme is a waste of time Ben Kelly, Reaction Macrons fight with Europes populists is backfiring John Keiger, The Spectator Time for courage and a greater sense of the national interest from our leaders Austin Mitchell, Brexit Central The thought police are here Libby T, Harrys Place ames Daley, founder of the consumer campaign group Fairer Finance, said: There is something fundamentally wrong for having such a fast track system in a public body. It would not be acceptable if an NHS hospital had a separate door for the most important people in the community. Most people would understandably be pretty appalled MPs are fast tracked while the rest of us have to wait for 30 minute to get on a call. Daily Telegraph Oakwood - Patsy Jean Davis, 88, of Oakwood, passed away at 12:27 a.m. Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana. Patsy was born on January 15, 1933 in Danville, IL the daughter of James & Gurlie (Sharp) Hardman. She married Hubert Davis on May 15, 1969 at the Lincol The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form As the doors opened, a line of students, faculty and community members flooded into the building, warmed not only by the heating but by the atmosphere in the room. Held from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Jan. 25 at Schwab Auditorium, the 34th-annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Evening Celebration drew a full crowd. The event, which was hosted by the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Committee, sought to enlighten the public about the history of racial inequality and the hurdles that still exist today in America and around the globe. The celebration capped off Penn State's 2019 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week. This year, the commemoration focused on the theme, Where Do We Go From Here: A Tradition of Resistance. Awaly Diallo, the executive director of the Student Committee, delivered the opening remarks for the event, calling on attendees to be aware of the ability they have to do great things. There is so much power in your voice, activism and knowledge, Diallo (junior-sociology and African American studies) said. This is a time for action. The first performer, Rabiyatu Jalloh, recited an original poem which discussed her experience as an African American today. The poem ended with the phrases, We deserve joy, we deserve joy, we deserve joy. The Ida B. Wells and James Baldwin Student Scholarship was awarded to Caroline Pimentel (senior-broadcast journalism) and Keitha Duhaney (senior-psychology). The Ella Baker Faculty and Staff Award was given to Penn State associate professor Errol Henderson, who recently penned a letter to the editor of The Daily Collegian about his experience with racism while working at the university. After the awards were distributed, Kamryn Harris (freshman-musical theatre), Deme Wharton (sophomore-philosophy and African American studies), Desne Wharton (junior-theatre design and technology) and Sean Robinson (senior-music production and technology) performed a ballad together. The three women sang while Robinson played the piano. Described as the moment the crowd had been waiting for, the keynote speakers then arrived on the stage and rallied the crowd before a question and answer session, which was led by Ebony Coletu, assistant professor of English and African American studies. Angela Rye, a CNN political commentator, and Marc Lamont Hill, professor of media, cities and solutions at Temple University, discussed the importance of optimism and activism in the political world. People [today] are no longer waiting for a baton to be passed to them, Rye said. I am eager to be led by the youth. Hill focused on the topics of reading and Malcolm X and how the two shaped his political views. I saw the relationship between our sacrifice and work and a new outcome, Hill said. I personally wont vote for empire. The speakers also commented on the 2020 presidential election and one of the current candidates, Kamala Harris, a Democratic senator from California. Im not fine with you making up things about [Harriss] record, Rye said. [She] has been super supportive and encouraging to me. If it sounds like Im being defensive, I amIm defensive as hell. The 2019 Evening Celebration pins that were distributed at the doors. pic.twitter.com/2YuNJn8YQN Erin Hogge (@erin_hogge) January 26, 2019 Danielle Ibuaka thought the discussion was powerful. [It was] really needed, especially in the time and the area that we live in today, Ibuaka (junior-international politics) said. A lot of people dont discuss these things and they kind of turn a blind eye to it. It was really imperative that we have these conversations and were not scared to do so. The speakers touched on a lot of important topics that inspired the audience, according to Erick Jenkins. [The speakers] gave a very compelling narrative of the perspective of black Americans and people within Palestine, Jenkins (graduate-international affairs) said. It was great to have something like this on campus and to see such a good turnout here. Jenkins also said he hopes to see similar events hosted on campus in the future. I would like to see a lot of diverse people from diverse programming here, Jenkins said. There definitely needs to be more out-of-the-box intellectuals here. Elise Elizondo said the biggest takeaway for her was recognition of her own type of black. I identify as Afro-Cuban but people really take me as black-American, Elizondo (junior-plant sciences) said. The discussion of the different types of black that exist across the world was great. Rye left the audience with words of encouragement. You can change the narrative just by what you open your own mind to, Rye said. If Dr. King can tell us injustice anywhere is [a threat to justice] everywhere, we can engage in dialogue about this. Open your eyespay attention. RELATED Magisterial District Judge Carmine W. Prestia Jr. announced today he will not seek reelection and will retire after completing his fourth term in January 2020. Prestia has held the position since January 1996. He will have served 24 years on the bench when his term is completed. Prestia retired from the State College Police Department after working as a police officer for 25 years to pursue being a judge on the newly established court. Prestia also served as the president of the Special Court Judges Association of Pennsylvania and has been a member of the Alpha Fire Company for 46 years. According to a press release, he looks forward to spending more time with his family during his retirement. This has been one of the most rewarding jobs Ive ever done, Prestia said in the release. I have always tried to be fair and just, remembering that everyone who comes into the court expects justice and compassion. I will miss working with everyone who has touched my career. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) Getty Images Sen. Kamala Harris' history with Wall Street and the banking industry is about to come under scrutiny in a big way as the California Democrat joins what is expected to be large group of candidates seeking to topple President Donald Trump in 2020. Harris, of California, has a history of squaring off with the banking industry. The senator, who is under fire from the left over her track record on criminal justice matters, has also been criticized for not going far enough against Wall Street. With the Democratic base moving further to the left since President Donald Trump's election, the party's 2020 presidential candidates' relationship with big business and Wall Street are being subjected to intense scrutiny. "There is definitely a group of caucus-goers and New Hampshire primary voters that are always going to have an issue when they hear 'Wall Street'," said Gillian Rosenberg Armour, a Democratic political strategist who worked on Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. New York's Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who said earlier this month that she would run for president, has voted for increased regulation of the financial industry, has received criticism from the left for taking money from big money interests and gauging the support of Wall Street financiers. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is considering whether to jump into the 2020 race, has deep, long-held ties to the banking industry. In a crowded Democratic primary field, Harris will be vying for liberal voters against potential candidates who have made cracking down on Wall Street their personal brand. Elizabeth Warren went from a prominent bankruptcy law scholar to creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau before she became a Massachusetts senator. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is considering whether he should run again, proposed breaking up "too-big-to-fail" banks, introducing a bill to do just that in October. "How [Harris] frames her record is really going to be the deciding factor," Armour said. Negotiations with big banks Harris served as district attorney in San Francisco and as California attorney general for six years each before being elected to the Senate in 2016. As attorney general, Harris made waves in 2011 after pulling California out of national negotiations pursuing a monetary settlement from major banks for foreclosed households during the financial crisis. She believed she could do better for her state. In her new book, "The Truths We Hold," the senator recounts a tense phone conversation with J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, persuading him to provide more settlement money. The two yelled at each other "like dogs in a fight," she wrote. A spokesperson from J.P. Morgan declined to comment on the conversation. Harris later reached a $25 billion settlement deal from J.P. Morgan and other banks, much higher than the $2 billion to $4 billion initially on the table. California homeowners received over $18 billion in mortgage relief as a result of the deal, according to a report by the attorney general's office. "This outcome is the result of an insistence that California receive a fair deal commensurate with the harm done here," Harris said in a statement at the time. Harris later backed the California Homeowners Bill of Rights, a package of legislation to protect homeowners during the foreclosure process. The legislation also extended the statute of limitations to prosecute mortgage fraud from 1 to 3 years. In 2017, her first year as a U.S. senator, she introduced a bill alongside fellow Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Dianne Feinstein targeting executives at big banks. The bill, entitled the "Accountability for Wall Street Executives Act," would allow state law enforcement to issue subpoenas when investigating bank fraud. Missed opportunities? Still, liberal critics allege that in many cases, Harris was too restrained when going after the financial industry. People who supported Sanders in the 2016 primary have been especially skeptical of Harris's values. After negotiating the $25 billion settlement deal, Harris also introduced a special task force to prosecute mortgage and foreclosure fraud. However, the team, known as the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, only processed three cases in 10 years, according to a report by the East Bay Express. In 2012, the California Department of Justice found in an investigation that OneWest Bank participated in "widespread misconduct" when foreclosing on homes, recommending that Harris file a civil enforcement action against the bank. However, Harris declined to prosecute OneWest or its then-CEO, Steven Mnuchin, despite the department's recommendation. A spokesman for Mnuchin called the allegations "garbage." The OneWest issue was resurfaced in 2017 when Mnuchin was nominated to serve as Treasury secretary. She was also the only Democratic Senate candidate to receive a donation from Mnuchin during the 2016 elections, according to FEC records. Still, she voted against his confirmation as Treasury secretary. In a 2017 interview with The Hill, Harris pushed back against criticism of her decision. "We went and we followed the facts and the evidence, and it's a decision my office made," she said. "There was no question One West conducted predatory lending, and Senator Harris believes they should be punished," Ian Sams, national press secretary for Harris's campaign, told CNBC in an email. "Unfortunately, the law was squarely on their side and they were shielded from state subpoenas because they're a federal bank." The California Justice Department's memo noted that "the investigation was hampered by our inability to subpoena OneWest," but that would not have prevented Harris from filing a civil enforcement action against the bank if she chose to do so. Shunning corporate PACs while courting Wall Street donors 25 January 2019, Brazil, Brumadinho: People observe the mud masses after the break of a dam at the Feijao iron ore mine. Brazilian rescuers searched into the night on Sunday for hundreds of people missing after a burst mining dam triggered a deadly mudslide, as the death toll rose to 58 people and was expected to keep climbing more than two days after the disaster. Rescuers worked past sunset to search a bus that is thought to have bodies inside and a home where three dead were already discovered, state fire department spokesman Pedro Aihara told reporters. The collapsed dam at Vale's Corrego do Feijao mine buried mining facilities and nearby homes in the town of Brumadinho, killing dozens and leaving the community in shock. "Until the last body is found, the fire department is acting on the possibility there could be people alive," Aihara told reporters. "Obviously, given the nature of the accident, as time passes, this chance will go down." After announcing the latest number of confirmed dead, state civil defense agency spokesman Flavio Godinho told reporters he expected the death toll to continue rising. Just over 300 people were still missing, with the list of those unaccounted for being constantly updated, Godinho said. Most of the missing are presumed dead, officials said. The cause of the dam burst remained unclear. Recent inspections did not indicate any problems, according to the German firm that conducted the inspection. Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of Brumadinho, blasted Vale for being "careless and incompetent," and blamed the mining company for the tragedy and the state of Minas Gerais for poor oversight. He vowed to fine the miner 100 million reais ($26.5 million). Vale Chief Executive Officer Fabio Schvartsman said in a television interview on Sunday the disaster happened even after the company followed experts' safety recommendations. "I'm not a mining technician. I followed the technicians' advice and you see what happened. It didn't work," Schvartsman said. "We are 100 percent within all the standards, and that didn't do it." The CEO promised "to go above and beyond any national or international standards. ... We will create a cushion of safety far superior to what we have today to guarantee this never happens again." Former Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, who is launching a book tour next week, is reportedly giving serious consideration to running for president in 2020 as an independent candidate, The Atlantic reported on Saturday. With the field of contenders to challenge President Donald Trump growing daily, Schultz is set to give an interview on Sunday to 60 Minutes, CBS's flagship news magazine. While the network has teased a snippet of the interview in which Schultz harsly criticizing Trump, the coffee impresario who turned Starbucks into a global brand is weighing the idea of an independent bid, according to The Atlantic. Representatives for Schultz did not immediately return CNBC's request for comment. In response to an inquiry from CNBC, a spokesperson for CBS replied: "Watch 60 Minutes to see the Howard Schultz interview." Speculation has swirled around Schultz's second act after Starbucks for at least two years, and the 60 Minutes interview could be the latest trial balloon floated by his camp. The Atlantic cited Democratic insiders as the most worried about a potential run for the presidency by Schultz, who are reportedly concerned that a third-party bid would siphon off Democratic votes, and ensure a re-election for Trump. The 60 Minutes interview is timed to the release of Schultz's book, "From the Ground Up," which weaves together parts of his personal biography and his vision for the country. CNBC reported in November that the Brooklyn native who's worth at least $3 billion, according to Bloomberg is building an elite communications team ahead of what could be converted into a White House campaign. A key player in Schultz's growing team is Steve Schmidt, a former vice chairman at public relations powerhouse Edelman who managed Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008. In an interview with CNBC last year, Schultz left the door open to a run. The Atlantic's full story can be found on its website. --CNBC's Brian Schultz contributed to this article. Federal air traffic controller union members protest the partial U.S. federal government shutdown in a rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2019. The U.S. economy lost at least $6 billion during the partial shutdown of the federal government due to lost productivity from furloughed workers and economic activity lost to outside business, S&P Global Ratings said on Friday. President Donald Trump agreed on Friday to end the 35-day partial shutdown, the longest in history, without getting the $5.7 billion he had demanded from Congress for a border wall. "Although this shutdown has ended, little agreement on Capitol Hill will likely weigh on business confidence and financial market sentiments," S&P said in a news release. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran will support the Venezuelan government, which is currently facing a political crisis, Sputnik reported. In a phone call with his Venezuelan counterpart Jorge Arreaza on Friday, Zarif said that the Islamic Republic will back the Venezuelan government and people of the country against conspiracies, the IRNA reported. Both ministers discussed ways of countering US actions against Venezuela and other independent governments. They have also discussed proposals from the Mexican and Uruguayan governments to reinforce local dialogue and the use of diplomatic means to settle disputes between the Venezuelan government and the opposition groups. by Padre Peter According to Fr Peter, a priest who belongs to the official community, many fellow clergymen feel "betrayed" by the Vatican, especially after the interim agreement between Beijing and the Holy See on the appointment of bishops. The Patriotic Association (CPCA) is still working to set up a Church that is "independent" (from the Holy See). Its role should be addressed in future talks between Vatican and Chinese delegations. Beijing (AsiaNews) Several priests in the underground community are giving up on their mission because they are in conflict with the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), this according to Father Peter, a priest in the official community who sent a message to AsiaNews, and a friend of underground priests. Fr Peter defends the choice of "conscience" of his friends, noting that they feel "betrayed" by the Vatican, especially after the interim agreement between Beijing and the Holy See on the appointment of bishops. In fact, whilst the agreement amends the CPCA's work at least with respect to episcopal appointments (Pope Francis has said that "the last word belongs to me"), it does not clarify the relationship with this supervisory body of the Chinese Communist Party, whose goal is to build a "self-sufficient" Church, one that is "independent" (from the Holy See). In his 2007 Letter to Chinese Catholics, Benedict XVI had said that the CPCAs status was "incompatible with Catholic doctrine". On several occasions, Pope Francis reiterated that Pope Benedicts Letter "is still valid"; however, he has de facto accepted that bishops and priests may belong to the CPCA as a sort of "lesser evil". In fact, CPCA membership is still a precondition for government recognition. In his letter, Benedict XVI said that recognition by the government can take place "on condition that this does not entail the denial of unrenounceable principles of faith and of ecclesiastical communion", citing precisely "certain bodies that force people involved to adopt attitudes, make gestures and undertake commitments that are contrary to the dictates of their conscience as Catholics (n.7). An example of the CPCAs domination over bishops was the celebration of 60 years of the "independent" Church, in which 48 bishops participated and praised one of the most painful events in the history of the Church in China. In light of the situation, some Vatican insiders believe that the role of the CPCA should be addressed in future talks between the Vatican and China. Meanwhile, the members of underground communities feel "abandoned". Another priest goes home I remember what Cardinal Joseph Zen (Chen Ri Jun) said: if the Holy See and the Chinese government really reach an agreement, allowing illegitimate bishops to lead their dioceses, the priests of the unofficial Church could freely follow their consciences. If unable to proclaim the Gospel, they could go home and work in the fields. I did not expect Card Zens prophecy to come true. Not long ago, a priest from my town phoned me, asking me to go with him to visit another priest, because he had gone home from his mission. During the meeting, after the initial joy of seeing each other again after a long time and sharing our stories, we could not fail to mention the many problems faced by the Chinese Church after the signing of the agreement. During the conversation, we discovered that the reason our fellow priest decided to go home was because he could not accept to become the assistant of a parish priest from the Patriotic Association. The priest went on to explain that "For more than 30 years I have fought against the Patriotic Association, and now they want me to become the assistant priest of a Patriotic Association priest. I can not accept it, I have no choice but to go home." Hearing these words, I felt indescribable pain in my heart. What can we still say about the Holy See? I still respect the conscience of this brother of mine. He has the right and the moral obligation to obey his faith and his conscience. I recently heard from a friend that another priest, who was working in Henan, had gone back home. I know him well. He is a very enthusiastic and very humble young priest, but he too has become a victim of the Sino-Vatican agreement. in addition to the two cases that I mentioned there are others. I fear that throughout China there are many priests living the same situation: they have been faithful and have defended their Catholic faith, but suddenly they have been betrayed by Rome. They cannot violate their conscience, but even more they cannot go against their faith. The important thing is that they dont lose their missionary vocation. If the secular power deprives them of their divine power, if they do not receive any support or comfort from the Church, then they truly are like the crucified, "suffering" Christ. Like Jesus on the Cross, the only thing they can do is cry out in utter powerlessness: "Father, why have you forsaken me?" Wednesday, January 23, 2019 Season 2 of Marvel Studios "The Punisher" is new on Netflix, but many superhero comic book fans already are wondering whether the antihero can survive 2019. Three of the five Marvel-Netflix shows were cancelled by the streaming video giant in 2018, including the highly praised "Daredevil" on November 29. "Jessica Jones" and "The Punisher" are the two remaining series, but there has been speculation they soon will be axed as well. Jon Bernthal, who plays the gruesome vigilante recently told the press that he is at peace with the fate of his show and emphasized that whatever happens, it is out of his control. "When I'm playing the character and I'm doing the job and it's right there in front of me, I do whatever I can to make it as good as I can. But in this business there's so much we can't control," Bernthal told Variety. "Whatever is happening with these shows, these decisions are being made in rooms I'm not invited into and I'm OK with that." "The Punisher" has received mixed reviews and currently has a 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer. "Daredevil" by comparison has a 91 percent Tomatometer score and its final season was ironically considered "the win that Marvel TV needed" by Rolling Stone. Jeremy Conrad, a Twitter influencer and Editor-in-Chief of MCU Cosmic is not getting his hopes up for "The Punisher," believing that the remaining Marvel-Netflix characters will eventually meet their demise and be cancelled like "Daredevil" "Luke Cage" and "Iron Fist." "I think the big pro in not canceling 'Punisher' right now is to combat some of the bad press and fan reaction the past two cancellations have caused. ... Even if the announcement is delayed a bit to avoid negative fan reaction." The second season of "The Punisher" wrapped up production before the recent cancellations. "Daredevil" was canceled roughly a month after its third season debuted on Netflix and after "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage" already had been axed. A petition created by fans to bring "Daredevil" back for a fourth season has more than 200,000 signatures. "Daredevil" actor Charlie Cox responded to the petition last month in an interview with Comicbook.com, expressing not only his disappointment but his anger with the decisions made by Netflix. "I'm feeling the disappointment, I'm feeling the sadness, I'm feeling the anger about it, and I'm trying not to. ... I don't wanna get my hopes up, because obviously, I know that an online petition doesn't necessarily mean anything's gonna happen," Cox said. America's transportation system "was brought right to the edge of the cliff" and a short-term funding measure won't reverse pain caused by the longest government funding gap in U.S. history, Transport Workers Union of America International President John Samuelsen told CNBC Friday. "This is a welcome reprieve," he said on "Closing Bell." But "three weeks is not enough time for this system to recover from the damage that was done to it," he added. About 1,800 TSA screeners across the country, he said, have quit their jobs in the span of the 35-day partial shutdown. The stopgap left nine federal departments, including the U.S. Department of Transportation, unfunded and 800,000 federal workers without paychecks. Samuelsen's organization represents nearly 140,000 workers in the airline, railroad, transit and other industries. "We were spiraling to a point where the threshold over what's safe and not safe was going to quickly be crossed," he said. "And in fact, over the next three weeks, we're not even out of the woods yet." The issue reached a boiling point as flights were temporarily halted at New York's LaGuardia Airport and delayed at other major airports in the eastern part of the country. Many federal employees were required to continue working during the dispute without pay, which left the air traffic control system in a "state of chaos" and TSA workers in a "state of duress" from forced overtime, Samuelsen said. The FAA reported a "slight increase" in sick leave at stations in Jacksonville, Florida, and Washington, D.C., and the TSA also said unscheduled absences have increased. "The two things that shouldn't be introduced into a complex transportation network are fatigue and stress, and that's all that's been introduced," he said. Officials also must worry about government facilities overseas that require maintenance. "FAA inspections have totally ceased and won't begin again in the next three weeks" on those foreign properties, he said. On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump said he would sign a proposal to reopen the government for three weeks as lawmakers negotiate a permanent funding deal. The plan to reopen the government at least until Feb. 15 does not include the $5.7 billion Trump has demanded to construct a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan attends a special address during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, on January 23, 2019 in Davos, eastern Switzerland. Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images DAVOS, SWITZERLAND The star who stole the stage at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which just ended here yesterday, wasn't the stuff of flesh and blood but of data-driven algorithms. US President Donald Trump, China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi, France's Emmanuel Macron and Great Britain's Theresa May were no shows at this gathering of global movers and shakers, occupied with more pressing matters at home. That left hundreds of global business executives with less distraction as they turned their attention to Artificial Intelligence (AI), a term few of them knew even a couple of years ago and a technology they still don't fully comprehend. Yet in one session after another, they shared what they were (or weren't) doing about it and learned how AI would transform their industries, their societies and international relations, perhaps as no technology before it. Not even news late in the week from Venezuela shifted the conversation all that much. It may take weeks to determine whether Nicolas Maduro can hang on to power in Caracas with Russian, Chinese and Cuban backing and against US and widespread Latin American opposition. Yet even that big of a geopolitical story, in a pivotal Latin American country that holds the world's largest oil reserves, couldn't compete with a matter that was already hitting so many Davos delegates so directly, as an all-consuming bottom-line issue for companies. Most troubling for the American business leaders in Davos, who had grown accustomed to being atop the global technological heap, was that they heard time and again how quickly they were falling behind their Chinese peers. Though it is a tech race most Western executives feel is only on its first laps, they heard how President Xi had declared a sort of space race or Manhattan Project around AI that is already delivering measurable results. As a sign of the times, PwC used its annual survey of some 1,400 global CEOs released every year here at Davos to ask business executives whether they thought AI or the Internet would have the greater long-term impact. Some 84 percent of Chinese executives laid their bets on AI, while only 38 percent of their US colleagues agreed. That was reflected as well in how those polled by PwC said they had already deployed AI in their companies. A full 25 percent of Chinese executives reported they had utilized AI broadly compared to just 5 percent of American executives. "It's rare you get that big of a difference between two superpowers," Tim Ryan, US chair of PwC told The Washington Post. "It tells us we (Americans) probably need to make sure we're thinking about it in the right way." China's commanding position He said that although most US companies now have pilot projects using AI, their Chinese comrades are already scaling their initiatives. In my own Davos presentation, "The Geopolitics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution," I stated bluntly that China was on track to take the commanding heights of AI and that the consequences could be historic in nature. Countries that are most innovative and technologically advanced tend to dominate international relations. During the first industrial revolution in 18th and 19th centuries, the steam engine powered the British empire and the shift from agrarian economies. During the second industrial revolution, in the decades before World War I, the United States rose on the back of electricity, mass production and the internal combustion engine. The third industrial revolution, driven digitally by the United States, was one of computers, the Internet, and information technology. President Xi Jinping has told recent, high-level visitors that China suffered the historic consequence of being an also-ran in those three non-Maoist revolutions (my wording, not his). Having learned from history what it takes to be the global leader, he is determined to dominate the Fourth Industrial Revolution, marked by breakthroughs in technologies that include artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, robotics, nanotechnology, bioengineering and quantum computing. To achieve that, he has thrown all his country's energy behind AI research and development, thus also focusing the work of the country's growing ranks of hungry, intensively competitive entrepreneurs and start-ups. By the end of 2017, Chinese venture capital investors had poured enough into AI startups that they made up 48 percent of all AI venture funding globally, surpassing the US for the first time. "When I go to China," said Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman on a panel here, "there's almost an endless stream of people who are showing up developing new companies. The venture business there in AI-oriented companies is really exploding with growth." Consequences and oversight Chris Tobin | DigitalVision | Getty Images New York City's real estate market has been cooling, and a side effect of that is the gradual nudging down of rental prices in hot neighborhoods. In Brooklyn, which for years has seen torrid growth and soaring rents, the average rent has fallen year over year, according to data from Rentcafe. Still, strong demand is keeping prices perched at lofty levels and rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods are slowly transforming areas that were once dominated by working class residents. Constantine Valhouli, co-founder of the real estate analytics firm NeighborhoodX, told CNBC that Brooklyn's status as a housing hot spot remains a safe bet, thanks to robust growth in certain neighborhoods. That growth has been driven by certain factors, including the fact that living near Manhattan no longer means what it used to. As a result, places like Sheepshead Bay, Crown Heights, Downtown Brooklyn and even Coney Island are drawing interest from major developers. "Ten or fifteen years ago, Brooklyn was oriented towards jobs based in Manhattan," Valhouli said. "Today, that is no longer the whole picture, as there are significant employment clusters in Downtown Brooklyn and Sunset Park." In the face of a moderating New York City real estate market, CNBC recently spoke to several real estate professionals about which Brooklyn neighborhoods will stay on the rise. Median prices cited are compiled from NeighborhoodX data. Sunset Park Median rents: 1BR ($1,750), 2BR ($2,250) Median asking price: $1.19M ($735/sq.ft.) Industry City, Brooklyn, NY Shinya Suzuki | Flickr CC A $1 billion redevelopment of Industry City, and demand from people priced out of pricier neighborhoods like nearby Park Slope, is making the working class redoubt of Sunset Park "red hot," according to Domingo Perez Jr. of Warburg Realty. "Employment has grown as well, with over 450 companies adding more than 6,500 jobs," he added. Bay Ridge Median rents: 1BR ($1,700), 2BR ($2,200) Median asking price: $793,000 ($593/sq.ft.) A view of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Staten Island. Davel5957 | iStock | Getty Images Nestled close to the Verrazano Bridge, Bay Ridge homes offer generous elbow room at affordable prices. The neighborhood is a long subway ride from Manhattan, but nearby Industry City's growth could be enough to entice bargain-hunting residents. "The pricing for both rentals and sales is attractive for the borough," said Alex Lavrenov of Warburg Realty. "Some of the bigger draws are things like the parks, the beautiful views, the nightlife and the many amazing restaurants and local business." Gravesend Median rents: 1BR ($1,650), 2BR ($2,150) Median asking price: $975,000 ($596/sq.ft.) Homes in Gravesend, Brooklyn Google Earth According to NeighborhoodX's Valhouli, Gravesend is two neighborhoods in one. The section populated by Sephardic Jewish residents is one of the most expensive in the borough, yet the majority of the housing is inexpensive. "The rents and purchase prices are very attractive and are on the lower end of the of the borough's range," said Warburg's Lavrenov. "It has a unique landscape that can quickly switch from single-family and two-family homes to large high-rises, and large commercial areas." Flatbush Median rents: 1BR ($1,800), 2BR ($2,250) Median asking price: $875,000 ($522/sq.ft.) East Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. Jim Henderson | Wikipedia Flatbush is an attractive neighborhood for buyers and renters. Home to several distinct sections, the architecture ranges from attached row houses and apartment buildings to free-standing Victorian homes. "Some parts are protected by historic districts, while others are more vulnerable to demolition and replacement with higher-density buildings," said Valhouli, adding that Flatbush could stand to have more amenities. "Parts of the neighborhood are decidedly residential, with limited options for cafes, bars, and shopping." East Flatbush Median rents: 1BR ($1,650), 2BR ($2,100) Median asking price: $695,000 ($377/sq.ft.) Change, and quite possibly higher prices, are in the air in both Flatbush and East Flatbush, experts say. According to Lavrenov, "developers have recently had their eye on the Flatbush area" which includes East Flatbush, a predominantly working class neighborhood that's home to Brooklyn College, and countless small businesses owned by Caribbean immigrants. "Many have been buying up medium-sized to large-sized lots that have made way for new condominiums, luxury rental buildings and affordable housing," he told CNBC. Williamsburg Median rents: 1BR ($2,650), 2BR ($2,900) Median asking price: $1.5M ($833/sq.ft.) The Oosten, Williamsburg Brooklyn Source: Relevance International The US House of Representatives joined the US Senate in passing a spending bill on Friday to bring the current partial government shutdown to an end. Trump signed the temporary three-week budget. According to Roll Call, the House and Senate also passed a Homeland Security spending measure that would allow for the establishment of a conference committee to debate funding for border security. "I hope the experience of the last 35 days has taught us that we should never repeat this exercise of shutting down government again," House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer said on the floor as officials voted, Sputnik reports. Donald Trump signed the temporary three-week budget to end the shutdown, the White House said in a statement later. "On Friday, January 25, 2019, the President signed into law: H.J. Res. 28, the 'Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019,' which includes a short-term continuing resolution that provides fiscal year 2019 appropriations through February 15, 2019, for continuing projects and activities of the Federal Government included in the remaining seven appropriations bills. Also included in the enrolled bill are provisions regarding retroactive pay and reimbursement, and extensions of certain authorities," the statement said. Trump is expected to continue talks with the Democrats on the full-fledged budget within next three weeks. CLINTON [mdash] George E. Kunau, Jr. age 78 of Clinton, passed away Thursday, June 10, 2021 at his home. In following George's wishes cremation rites have been accorded. Private services will be held at a later date. Burial will be in St. Mary's Cemetery. Honorary pallbearers will be Mark Ho Beachwood, OH (44122) Today Thunderstorms likely. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High around 75F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Partly cloudy skies after midnight. Low 64F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%. Wherever they are, Theodore Roosevelt and his allies at Ohios 1912 constitutional convention must have smiled Wednesday. Thats when the state Supreme Court refused to yank from Toledos ballot a voter-initiated city charter amendment creating a Lake Erie Bill of Rights. Itll be on the citys Feb. 26 special election ballot. The Ohio Constitution guarantees Ohioans' right to propose (initiate) amendments to city and village charters. If Toledos voters approve the Bill of Rights, it may not next month, maybe not this year, but sooner, not later protect Lake Erie, Ohios greatest single natural resource. Thats good, because the General Assembly, corporate agricultures best friend, wont. Someone might care to remind Ohios House (61-38 Republican) and Senate (24-9 Republican) of a couple things the GOPs Teddy Roosevelt said at the Statehouse in 1912: This country, as Lincoln said, belongs to the people. So do the natural resources which make it rich, TR said. He also said this: I believe in the initiative and the referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative. Woven into the Lake Erie Bill of Rights are both those threads of Theodore Roosevelts thought conservation of natural resources, and voters right to legislate when Ohio legislators go on strike against the public interest. Little wonder Toledo petitioners want to protect Lake Erie someone has to: In 2014, bacteria produced by a bloom of algae in western Lake Erie forced the shutdown of Toledos water system. What creates algal blooms? Heres what the Alliance for the Great Lakes says: Lake Eries algae blooms are caused by runoff pollution. This type of pollution occurs when rainfall washes fertilizer and manure spread on large farm fields into streams that flow into Lake Erie. This fuels a bumper crop of algae each year that can make water toxic to fish, wildlife, and people. Last summer, then-Gov. John Kasich issued an executive order aimed at reducing agricultural runoff in western Ohios Maumee River watershed, the Great Lakes largest watershed. (A study by three University of Toledo researchers, published in 2015, found that the Maumees watershed delivers the biggest sediment and nutrient load to Lake Erie.) Still, the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission, to the cheers of the legislatures GOP leaders, put the kibosh on Kasichs order. (Its called regulatory capture when regulators get cozy with those they regulate. See also: Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.) The proposed Bill of Rights would establish Lake Eries right to exist, flourish and naturally evolve, and the right of Toledo residents to a healthy environment which elevates the rights of the community and its natural environment over powers claimed by certain corporations. If those anti-corporate words dont freeze-dry polluters already cold hearts, these might: No permit, license, privilege, charter, or other authorization issued to a corporation, by any state or federal entity [violating] this law shall be deemed valid within Toledo. Translation: No Statehouse end runs by lobbyists and their Capitol Square pals. The idea that a body of water (or another feature of nature) should have rights like a persons rights might seem odd. But as University of Southern California law professor Christopher D. Stone wrote in a pioneering 1972 journal article, The world of the lawyer is peopled with inanimate rights-holders: trusts, corporations, joint ventures, municipalities [And] ships have long had an independent [legal] life. And as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the high courts 2010 Citizens United decision, The [Supreme] Court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations. Ohios Supreme Court, in refusing this week to knock the Lake Erie Bill of Rights off Toledos ballot, evidently was not swayed by anti-Lake Erie Bill of Rights legal briefs filed by the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation; the Ohio Corn & Wheat Growers Association; the Ohio Dairy Producers Association; the Ohio Pork Council, and the Ohio Soybean Association. True, if Toledos voters approve the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, courthouse falderal will only grow. But at least Lake Eries protection will be on the judiciarys agenda because it sure isnt on the General Assemblys. Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens. To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-999-4689 Have something to say about this topic? Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the Follow option at the top of the comments, and look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. Preliminary data for 2018 drug-overdose deaths in Cuyahoga County and a number of other counties in Ohio appear to confirm a trend first seen more than a year ago: The tidal wave of opiate-related overdose deaths that washed over the state, sweeping more than 700 to their early deaths just in Cuyahoga County in 2017, is abating. But drug deaths remain high and other threats loom, including a trend to different drug cocktails. In Cuyahoga County, according to U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman, that includes a trend toward a lethal mixture of cocaine and fentanyl. Herdman told a meeting of cleveland.com editors and reporters Tuesday that this shift could help explain why Cuyahoga County's 23 percent falloff in drug overdose deaths last year significantly lags steeper drops in other nearby counties, including Lorain, Summit, Trumbull and Lucas. The drug-death numbers are preliminary but Herdman said he expects final numbers to confirm the dramatic reduction. The numbers have policy implications. With the next two-year Ohio budget to be written this spring, new Gov. Mike DeWine and those leading his RecoveryOhio effort should pay particular attention to preserving and expanding initiatives that appear to have helped reduce opioid deaths, while also addressing the rapidly shifting trends in drug use. What's worked in tackling the opioid epidemic in Ohio? The data suggest: a wider availability of recovery resources made possible by Medicaid expansion in Ohio; broadened access to the naloxone antidote; a law enforcement focus on interdicting synthetic opiates like carfentanil and fentanyl; and public-private partnerships that have enabled more hospitalization follow-ups and drug court interventions, creating greater continuity of care. In other words, there's no magic bullet against the opioid crisis, but money, including for wrap-around addiction services, is critical, as are public education, data collection and law enforcement efforts. And there still aren't enough affordable, effective addiction treatment options. In Cuyahoga County, the preliminary total for drug-overdose deaths in 2018 is a still-too-high 560 deaths -- a number that could change as additional drug-death tests come in (Ohio counties still have some time to finalize figures). Also notable in Cuyahoga County was a huge drop-off in carfentanil-related mortality, down 91 percent year-over-year, possibly because of interdiction and prosecution by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Cleveland. Around Ohio, the wide availability of naloxone -- saving from death many who overdose on opiates -- is also credited with reducing mortality rates. And in Dayton, Mayor Nan Whaley, in a recent op-ed for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com, credited the state's Medicaid expansion and the added resources it brought to the opioid fight for playing a big role in the dramatic drop in drug deaths in her city and Montgomery County as a whole. Preliminary data from the Montgomery County Coroner's Office on accidental drug-overdose deaths suggest they were nearly halved last year. That still means thousands continue to die from accidental drug overdoses in Ohio. Efforts to combat this scourge cannot abate. But a change in the trend lines is worth celebrating -- and building upon, so more of our fellow citizens, neighbors and loved ones can beat their addiction devil, or avoid becoming ensnared in the first place. About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization. Have something to say about this topic? * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. * Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the "Follow" option at the top of the comments, & look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com. LIBERTY TOWNSHIP, Ohio Police believe a 15-year-old high school student was high on LSD when he attacked and groped a female teacher, principal and secretary, according to reports. The attacks didnt stop after he was arrested and taken from the school, WFMJ Channel 21 reports. He kicked through the partition of a police cruiser and ended up kicking an officer in the head. After being taken to Mercy Health St. Elizabeth Downtown Hospital, police say he attacked a nurse and tried to strangle her with a stethoscope. He also later told medical workers he was given the drugs by his dog. The teen is charged with vandalism, resisting arrest, gross sexual imposition and assault in connection with the Jan. 16 incident at Liberty High School. According to vindy.com, the schools resource officer heard a teacher in the hallway yelling for help and saying Do not touch me! The officer saw the student run down the hallway and outside into a parking lot but was able to get him to stop. The student reportedly was mumbling incoherently as he was taken to the school office. After being taken to a school medical area, the student is accused of pushing a school secretary against a wall and grabbing her breasts and buttocks. The officer pulled the student off the secretary and tried to handcuff the male, but he broke free and then attacked and groped the school principal, WKBN Channel 27 reports. Staff members helped the officer get the student under control and take him outside to a patrol car, where he reportedly kicked at the windows and eventually kicked down the partition, kicking an officer in the head. The teen told officers and medical workers he had taken LSD, reports say. After being treated, was taken to the Trumbull County Juvenile Justice Center. Liberty Township is located just north of Youngstown. To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comment section. WESTLAKE, Ohio Our brunch and breakfast series continues as we check out Claudettes Cafe & Deli. Heres a look at what to expect: Location + hours: 26485 Center Ridge Road, Westlake, 440-899-1029. It's part of a strip mall so there's plenty of parking. The restaurant sits on the south side of Center Ridge (U.S. 20) and just to the west of Canterbury Road. Hours: 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. seven days. (Early bird specials are 7-11 a.m. Monday-Friday.) Menu or buffet? Menu. About the place: Very open and spacious with about two dozen tables and booths. There's a smidgen of confusion about the name. The sign out front says "Claudette's," but the menu says "7 Candles Cafe & Deli." There was thought of a name change, a server told us, but it's Claudette's. Either way, the food is tasty, the kitchen is open, and everything is under $10. The place was sold last year and is about 20 years old, we're told. About the menu: The menu covers affordable traditional breakfast dishes. Omelets, skillets and rollups include create-your-own options. The Clevelander (corned beef, pastrami and cheese) tempted. There's a banana-split waffle, crepes, stuffed French toast and other choices in addition to egg-based dishes. And more than eight specials were offered. About the drinks: Martinis, mimosas and good coffee. Life is good. Dont miss: The veggie rollup was packed with green peppers, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli and spinach with delicious hash browns on the side. Half of one sufficed for a meal, and we had breakfast the next day with the leftovers. For a sweet and carby start to the day, try the cinnamon swirl French toast. Nice touch: Dave Reinart's photography on the walls, including a compilation of Greater Cleveland landmarks and people as well as a cool mural shot of the Cuyahoga River near Tower City. Have a brunch spot youve wondered about and want us to visit? Email me. Previous eats: Northeast Ohio breakfast-brunch spots weve tried: 1815 Tavern - Aurora 111 Bistro - Medina 35 Brix - Green Adega - Cleveland (downtown) Akron Family Restaurant - Akron Alexandris - Medina Alley Cat - Cleveland (Flats East Bank) Astoria Cafe & Market - Cleveland (Gordon Square) Austins Wood Fire Grille - Brecksville Barrio - Cuyahoga County (multiple locations) Bay Diner - Bay Village Beau's on the River - Cuyahoga Falls Big Al's Diner - Cleveland (East Side) Blue Canyon Kitchen & Tavern - Twinsburg Blue Door Cafe - Cuyahoga Falls Bomba Tacos & Rum - Akron Bonefish Grill Independence Borderline Cafe - Lakewood Brim Kitchen + Brewery - Willoughby Burntwood Tavern - Brecksville Check Please Cafe - Grafton The Cheesecake Factory - Lyndhurst The City Diner - Cleveland City Works - Orange Village Creekside Restaurant & Bar Brecksville Crop Bistro - Cleveland (Ohio City) Deagans Kitchen & Bar - Lakewood The Eye Opener Akron Fahrenheit - Cleveland (Tremont) Fat Cats - Cleveland (Tremont) Fire Food and Drink Cleveland (Shaker Square) First Watch - Fairlawn Flour - Moreland Hills Flury's Cafe - Cuyahoga Falls Flying Fig - Cleveland (Ohio City) Fred's Diner - Akron Fresh Start Diner - Twinsburg Gabe's Family Restaurant Cleveland Galaxy - Wadsworth Gandalf's Pub & Restaurant - Valley City The Girves Brown Derby - Medina Hofbrauhaus - Cleveland (downtown) Inn on Coventry Cleveland Heights Jack Flaps - Cleveland (Ohio City) Jennifer's - Strongsville Kelly's cafe - Brunswick Lamp Post Akron Lucky's Cafe - Cleveland (Tremont) Luna Bakery & Cafe Cleveland Heights Luxe Kitchen & Lounge - Cleveland (Gordon Square) Michael's A.M. - Akron Mike's Place - Kent Mom's Deli & Grille - North Royalton Mustard Seed Market & Cafe - Fairlawn Noble Beast Brewing Co. - Cleveland (downtown) Perk Cup Cafe & Grill Berea Pinstripes Orange Village Prosperity Social Club - Cleveland Punch Bowl Social - Cleveland (Flats East Bank) Rose Italian Kitchen Solon Rosewood Grill Hudson Scratch - Independence Soho Chicken + Whiskey - Cleveland (Ohio City) Southside Diner - Parma Tartine Bistro - Rocky River Toast - Cleveland (Gordon Square) Tony's Family Restaurant - Parma Townhall - Cleveland (Ohio City) Touch Supper Club - Cleveland (Ohio City) Twisted Citrus - Canton Urban Farmer - Cleveland (downtown) Valley Cafe - Akron Village Diner - Orange Wally Waffle - Akron Yours Truly - Mentor CLEVELAND, Ohio Two men have been charged with murder in a March 2017 shootout between gunmen in two moving cars that left two 17-year-old boys dead. A grand jury handed up an indictment Thursday charging Johnqyasze Ramsey-White, 20, and William Rogers III, 23, in the killings of Winston Lancaster and Tyrone McClinton Jr. The pair is also charged in a drive-by shooting the same day at a home on Shale Avenue. Ramsey-White was previously charged in the incidents and has pleaded not guilty. He is set for a Monday arraignment. Rogers is currently imprisoned on charges including aggravated robbery in a separate incident and is set for a Feb. 7 arraignment. Ramsey-White and Rogers are accused of shooting from a car into a home on Shale Avenue near Shaker Boulevard and East 110th Street on March 26, 2017, according to court records. The shootout that ended in Lancasters and McClintons deaths happened about 4:30 p.m. that same day. Cleveland police Chief Calvin Williams said during a news conference that a running gun battle that featured groups in two moving cars firing at one another took place along Kingsman Road. Six spent bullets were found at the intersection of East 75th Street and Kinsman Road, police said. Officers collected more evidence near a damaged car on Charles Carr Avenue, and detectives found a pile of clothing and sneakers near a vacant Jeep on Bell Avenue between East 72nd and East 73rd streets. The shooting happened while Rogers was wanted in connection with a November 2016 robbery of a Subway Restaurant on Memphis Avenue, according to court records. A grand jury indicted him in that case in February 2017, a month before the shootings. He was arrested two weeks after the shootings. Rogers eventually pleaded guilty to charges in the robbery and was sentenced to five years in prison. He is currently housed in the Lorain Correctional Facility in Grafton and is scheduled for release in 2022, records show. Ramsey-White and Rogers were also later charged with stealing a womans Kia Optima the day before the shootings. They were charged in April 2017 and each pleaded guilty to grand theft of a motor vehicle. Ramsey-White was placed on probation and remained free until detectives tied him to the Shale Avenue shooting in August and arrested him. He was then indicted on murder charges related to the deaths of Lancaster and McClinton in November. To comment on this story, please visit Fridays crime and courts comments page. AKRON, Ohio - Akrons first licensed medical marijuana grower will open the doors of its indoor cultivation facility to state and local officials Monday to showcase its operations and its first crop. Executives at AT-CPC of Ohio will meet with U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, Democrat of Youngstown, Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro and Akron Chief of Staff James Hardy. The officials will tour the 43,000-square-foot facility on Home Avenue in North Akron. The facility is a former Akron Water Department building with office space, a plant room, trim area, packaging room and employee break area. The plants to be harvested were planted in September and are about six-feet tall. They are produced in various strains such as Mimosa, Cuyahoga River, branded under the Song Wellness line, named after the companys chief medical officer, Dr. Paul Y. Song. The harvest will be distributed to Ohio dispensaries. AT-CPC is one of 16 Level 1 cultivators selected out of 109 applicants in Ohio to receive a provisional license to grow medical marijuana. Level I cultivators can cultivate in an area up to 25,000-square feet, while Level II cultivators are approved to grow in an area up to 3,000-square feet. The company scored among the top cultivators in the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program, with 161.28 points out of 200. The scores were based on an evaluation of the companies business, security, operations, quality assurance and financial plans. Many companies were disqualified. AT-CPC is one of Ohios eight provisional license holders to receive a certificate of operation awarded once the operation was set up and inspected to ensure all state and local requirements are met. The Department of Commerce has done a good job with getting something new off the ground, said AT-CPC President Adam Thomarios. There are challenges with any new industry, but all in all, the department has done a very good job. Thomarios attributes AT-CPC s high score to the company working to exceed the states expectations, and to the leadership teams expertise. AT-CPC is a subsidiary of Calyx Peak Companies, which operates cannabis-related operations in California, Nevada and now Ohio. Calyx Peak CEO Ed Schmults, who is expected to speak Monday in Akron, oversees the companys operations in Nevada and California, along with Chief Investment Officer Michael Bang, and Song. Calyx Peak manages cultivation, extraction and distribution facilities and has been covered by Forbes magazine. The company partners with medical marijuana industry pioneer Josh Del Rosso, known for Josh D Farms. Thomarios has worked with his familys Akron-based construction company, Thomarios, which has participated in many local projects, including buildings and the stadium at the University of Akron and the Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel project. With his familys company, Thomarios works in compliance with safety regulations for nuclear plant sites, which translated to meeting rigorous regulations for medical marijuana licensing. AT-CPC also was recently awarded a processing license, which positions the company to produce marijuana infused products. Within about six months, the company expects to be producing gummy candies, vapor pens, capsules, patches and lotions. The company employs 30 people, including state-licensed security workers, and will be hiring another 10 people in the next month, Thomarios said. Employees must pass background checks and drug tests. Additional employees will be hired once the equipment is in place to produce infused products. Support local journalism Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by making a contribution. Tieto is a leading Nordic software and services company, employing approximately 15000 experts globally in close to 20 countries. Key market of the company is in Nordics, but it is serving customers in over 90 countries worldwide. The company was named one of 2018s Top 25 Enterprise Global FinTech providers by IDC Financial Insights. Long-term solid commitment to drive innovation, performance and social responsibility got Tieto listed as 2018 Thomson Reuters top 100 Tech Leaderwith altogether 14 European and 3 Nordic companies. We recently spoke to Tietos CIO Markus Suomi and Petteri Uljas, the companys head of cloud and capacity services, about the transformative computing trends shaping their customers businesses, the power of the cloud, and what it means to be VMware Cloud Verified. Weve always grown with our customers. Whenever there was a paradigm shift or a significant technological development, weve been there to apply our deep technical understanding, says Suomi of Tietos dramatic growth since the companys founding 50 years ago. New technologies come frequently. For our customers, the question is always: How do we utilize these advancements to modernize our IT systems most effectively, overcome real-world business problems and deliver a strong return on investment? Tieto provides a wide range of IT services that guide enterprises through their digital transformation offering everything from customer experience consulting to development work and a wide array of managed services. Notably, the companys customers which include leaders in automotive, construction, education, energy, financial services, forestry, government, healthcare, manufacturing, media, mining, retail and others rely on Tieto for solutions that draw on its industry-specific business expertise as much as its IT acumen. Were unusual among IT services companies in that many of our customers come to us for our understanding of their industries, says Uljas. Its one thing to supply technology and IT services to your customers, but much more when you can recommend an entirely new process that empowers them to be more successful. Ultimately, our job is to solve the business challenges our customers face by utilizing technology, not to provide technology services and products. This comprehensive approach often requires Tietos teams to create solutions that combine cutting-edge developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, real-time analytics, 5G networking, the Internet of Things, and other transformative trends with longstanding legacy systems that still get the job done. Simultaneously, the companys teams provide not only the resulting managed services, but also the ancillary support including software development, R&D, DevOps and quality assurance needed to take any project from inception to deployment, measurement, and maintenance. At the core of these efforts is the cloud, which Tieto offers through Tieto OneCloud, a hybrid cloud platform that utilizes VMwares Software Defined Data Center portfolio to deliver the elasticity, performance, and cost savings customers demand. Tieto OneCloud also offers the flexibility for public, private or hybrid cloud deployments that address the unique needs of specific use cases and workloads, data sovereignty requirements, and legislation such as Europes General Data Protection Regulation. In many ways the cloud is the next step in the revolution that VMware and virtualization made possible, adds Suomi. VMwares solutions are at the core of what we do with cloud services and the integration of the different platforms we offer, including the edge computing capabilities we deliver from 290 sites worldwide. VMware addresses our integration needs and makes it easy for us to provision capacity from our data centers and those of our partners, he continues. And because we are Cloud Verified, we have great visibility into upcoming VMware enhancements that we can incorporate into our service offerings in advance. As a result, were able to act on the ability virtualization gives us to provide our customers with new capabilities, while radically simplifying their infrastructure. Click here to learn earn more about Tietos partnership with VMware. Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani met with Spanish Foreign Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska in Madrid. The parties noted the successful cooperation of law enforcement agencies of the two countries and outlined future prospects, the Georgian Foreign Ministry website reports. "The Spanish side was pleased to note examples of successful cooperation with Georgian law enforcement officers in the fight against crime. In this direction, the ministers gave a positive assessment of the activities of the police attaches in Spain and Georgia," the report reads. Almost a third of Texas prison guards quit their jobs last year, as officer turnover rose yet again despite starting salary hikes and hiring bonuses. Correctional officer turnover soared to over 29 percent, and agency-wide turnover checked in at 24.8 percent. Only two large state agencies the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and Texas Juvenile Justice Department saw more of their employees leave. Weve never seen numbers like this, said corrections officer Lance Lowry, a former union president. It is a crisis. At the same time, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is still battling high job vacancy rates, a problem officials have tackled in part by over-staffing a dozen units in desirable locations and then shipping extra officers to understaffed rural prisons for days at a time, according to state records. And, while some units are enjoying an excess of guards, the number of facilities with an officer vacancy rate of more than 25 percent has nearly doubled in the past year. The departures are driven by the same factors that have plagued the prison system for years: low salaries and remote locations, prison experts and officials said. Were more than 3,000 corrections officers short, said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. So what do you do? You raise the pay. But part of it is almost impossible they put the prisons in all the wrong places. While the agency cant move prisons to more populous locals, state officials can ask for more money and they have, pitching across-the-board raises in the legislative funding request state lawmakers will start grappling with next week. Strong economy means better jobs The uptick in departures comes amid a rise in turnover across all state agencies, according to a year-end report from the Texas State Auditors Office. Driven by a strong economy and low unemployment, overall turnover across state government rose to 19.3 percent in Texas, the highest figure seen in at least five years as far back as the offices online data goes. In the prison system, guard turnover has been consistently higher than average, hovering around 25 percent from 2013 to 2015 and dipping to 22.8 in 2016. Then in 2017, turnover rose to 28.2. At that point, Lowry called it a mass exodus, but this year the number went up again, to 29.5 percent. All told, last year the prison system accounted for about 26 percent of the state workforce and 31 percent of departing employees. Even as turnover figures rose, however, officials in recent months highlighted their success in bringing down vacancy figures. And thats true in some places. In November 2017, correctional officer vacancy stood at 14.29 percent. Afterward, that number rose, peaking at 15.22 percent in April, the highest it has been in at least a decade, according to department data. The latest figures, from November 2018, show vacancies back down, to 14.17 percent. Filling the gaps But even as officer vacancy numbers have dipped slightly across the agency, the number of severely understaffed units increased while the most robustly staffed facilities gained more employees. In November 2017, 12 units had less than 75 percent of the targeted staffing levels; in the latest figures from November 2018, that number rose to 22 units. And, while there were no units more than 100 percent staffed at the end of 2017, the latest figures showed 12 units almost all in metropolitan areas were overstaffed. Thus, while facilities like Segovia Unit in Edinburg and Hutchins State Jail in Dallas are more than 110 percent staffed, the Daniel Unit in rural Snyder, with a population 11,000, has a 45 percent officer vacancy. Using those extra guards to bridge the gap, prison officials are now shipping workers from better-staffed units to those lacking officers. We are overstaffing at targeted units to have the ability to provide relief to correctional officers assigned to staff-challenged units, said TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier. This provides short-term help to stabilize staff levels so units can operate as normally and safely as possible. For one work cycle four to five days the agency will drive officers to understaffed units, putting them up in motels or in facility housing so they pick up unfilled shifts. Lowry said the maneuvering does not make financial sense. They have an easier time recruiting in urban areas than rural areas, he said. A lot of times they have to travel to shorter units and work overtime. Then you end up having to pay them overtime for the travel. In the 2018 fiscal year, the department laid out more than $80 million in overtime pay for officers and sergeants. That was almost twice as much as the year before, and more than any other in the past decade, according to information obtained through a state open records request. At the present time, Whitmire said, they dont have another option. Youve got to have corrections officers to run a prison. A vicious cycle A strong economy and a robust oil and gas industry are two of the culprits behind the prison systems entrenched staffing problems, experts and corrections officials say. When there is an economic climate as robust as it is in Texas correctional officer staffing has traditionally been a challenge, said prison spokesman Jeremy Desel. This year is no exception. But theres also more to it than that, according to some experts. Turnover is not a systemwide problem, its unit-by-unit, said Scott Henson, executive director with the criminal justice reform-focused nonprofit Just Liberty. Its that weve got a handful of units where its sort of chronic and as the economy booms, those are not great jobs. Often, data shows, those units are in rural locations and the ongoing staffing problems may simply beget more staffing problems. In the facilities where youve got understaffing, that leads to safety problems and then when its an unsafe environment the staff dont want to be there and it creates a vicious cycle, said Michele Deitch, an attorney and criminal justice consultant who teaches at the University of Texas at Austins LBJ School of Public Affairs. Mark Adcock, a former captain at the Telford Unit in East Texas, concurred. Youre always working short handed, he said. If you have 40 peoples jobs and you only have 30 (people), you still have to do 40 peoples jobs. That, more than anything, drives people away. Short of decreasing the prison population or closing units in remote locations both ideas advocates floated in the past offering better pay may be one of the most immediate solutions to attract more workers. To that end, the agency started with a starting salary increase for new officers effective February 2018. The state also shelled out more than $9 million last fiscal year in $4,000 and $5,000 recruitment bonuses. But when that didnt solve the problem, officials shot for a bigger ask with a $170 million legislative request to increase pay by a few thousand dollars at each step of the pay ladder. The state Senate Finance Committee will start tackling the agencys budget request on Monday. keri.blakinger@chron.com Early voting to fill state Sen. Carol Alvarados former seat in the Texas House ended Friday with just 1,528 ballots recorded, setting up what could be one of Texas lowest-attended special elections of the last few decades. Registered voters in House District 145 now have one more chance to weigh in on their next representative in the Legislatures lower chamber: Election Day is Tuesday, with polls open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The early voting tally is about 2 percent of the registered voters in the district, which runs from the Heights through downtown, along Interstate 45, to parts of Pasadena and South Houston. The special election has drawn eight candidates: Elias De La Garza, Oscar Del Toro, Martha Fierro, Ruben Gonsalez, Clayton Hunt, Christina Morales, Alfred Moreno and Melissa Noriega. Fierro is a Republican and Hunt is a Libertarian, and the other six candidates are Democrats. Most observers expect a Democrat to win the district, which voted 67 percent to 29 percent for Hillary Clinton. With low turnout, though, Fierro could make a runoff between the top two candidates if nobody receives 50 percent of the vote Tuesday. The most prolific fundraiser has been Morales, the CEO of a funeral home in the East End and a city planning commissioner. Through Saturday, she had raised more than $56,000, according to campaign finance reports. She had raised another $9,000 or so by Wednesday, consultant Jaime Mercado said in an email. Noriega, meanwhile, had raised about $25,000 through Saturday and loaned her campaign another $31,750. Morales had outspent her, about $35,000 to $30,000, while Noriega had slightly more cash on hand. Noriega previously served on Houston City Council and briefly held the House District 145 seat while her then-husband and state Rep. Rick Noriega served in Afghanistan. De La Garza, an insurance agent and a candidate for the seat in 2008, had spent $13,000. Fierro, from Jan. 1 to Jan. 19, had raised about $5,000 and had about $1,100 cash on hand. She spent about $9,000 in December, a portion of which came after her unsuccessful bid for Senate District 6. The lowest turnout in a Texas legislative special election since at least 1992 occurred in May 2016, when state Rep. Jarvis Johnson won the House seat vacated by Mayor Sylvester Turner, according to Texas Election Source publisher Jeff Blaylock. That election drew 1,841 voters. jasper.scherer@chron.com twitter.com/jaspscherer The city of Houston could soon settle a lawsuit filed by a well-known attorney and former congressman who alleges his constitutional rights were violated during a 2014 arrest by Houston police. City Council is set to vote Wednesday on a $100,000 settlement in attorney Craig Washingtons case against the city, Harris County and the police officer who ordered the attorneys arrest for allegedly unlawfully carrying a firearm. Washington was booked on Feb. 14, 2014, after walking outside with a shotgun to see who was breaking beer bottles in a parking area of a club near his home, he said. Officers arrived on an unrelated loud noise complaint, and Houston police Sgt. Jose Salazar eventually had Washington arrested on the misdemeanor charge, not because of something Plaintiff had done, but because of who the Plaintiff is, the lawsuit alleges. The Harris County District Attorneys Office declined to accept charges when an officer said that they had a man walking around with a shotgun, which isnt illegal, according to federal court documents. Salazar then personally called the prosecutors office to say that Washington had a gun on a property licensed to sell liquor, and the criminal charge was accepted. A city attorney told an appeals court judge the charge was wrong, and that Salazar incorrectly believed that having any sort of weapon in the parking lot of a licensed premises was illegal, court transcripts show. Washington posted bond, and court records show the charge was dismissed a month later. Washingtons 12-gauge shotgun was returned to him. Washington filed suit against the city of Houston and HPD officer Salazar in February 2016, claiming that he was legally allowed to carry the weapon under the Second Amendment. He said he has a concealed handgun license. The city and county were dismissed as defendants, leaving Salazar as the only remaining defendant, the mayors office said in a statement. The city, the officer and the plaintiff agreed to settle the case for $100,000, subject to city council approval, the statement said. Washington declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements. The settlement would pay Washington and his attorney $100,000 from the citys Property and Casualty Fund. Washington originally sued for $500,000. Washington has faced weapons charges before. He was previously indicted in 2008 on a charge of aggravated assault after allegedly shooting at teens outside of his law office. He agreed to two years of probation on that charge. Hes also been publicly reprimanded twice before for professional misconduct after State Bar officials sided with former clients, in 2014 and 2008, who filed complaints against the lawyer. He was suspended from practice of law in 2015 for alleged professional misconduct. Washington, a Democrat, represented the 18th Congressional District for five years before being ousted by Sheila Jackson Lee in 1994. samantha.ketterer@chron.com Twitter.com/sam_kett Beto O'Rourke, who ran in the 2018 Senate race against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and is a potential 2020 candidate for president, is no stranger to making the national political headlines. Now, the former Democratic congressman, 46, is in the spotlight for a different reason. On Wednesday, Mother Jones magazine published an unearthed 2013 video of O'Rourke performing with his former band, The Sheeps, at the now-closed Moontime Pizza in El Paso. The footage shows O'Rourke singing "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones while wearing a tight onesie and sheep mask. RELATED: Beto O'Rourke won't rule out 2020 presidential run Apparently, disguises were a regular part of the punk rock cover band's shows. "Our persona was that we were a very famous band from New Zealand and we didn't want people to know our true identities that's why we wore masks," Sheeps bassist Ailbhe Cormack told Mother Jones. "I think people followed along with the mystery of it, but they knew who we were." Between 2003 and 2004, Mother Jones reports that The Sheeps played three shows in the El Paso area, including a performance at Moontime Pizza in December 2003. By the time they played their final show in 2004 at T-Lounge, some band members had lost their sheep masks. Video footage by "elephantandseal," posted here, shows members wearing brown paper bags over their heads instead. In addition to The Sheeps, O'Rourke played in two other bands. He was once a member of the punk rock band, Foss, which toured the United States and Canada before breaking up in the '90s, according to the Houston Chronicle. Then, nearly a decade later, after starting a web design company and eyeing a career in politics, O'Rourke not only formed The Sheeps, but also the Fragile Gang rock band, according to Mother Jones. Although O'Rourke stopped performing with Fragile Gang after two of its members, Klahr and Cormack, moved to Los Angeles, the band, still in existence, plays on. O'Rourke acknowledged that a career in music was not in the cards for the El Paso native. "I wasn't that good at it," he said in a 2017 Houston Chronicle article. He also was feeling pressure from his father to take a more serious career path. "He won't say it, but the expectation is: We didn't take out loans for you to go to Columbia and then [play] in a punk band your whole life," reports the Houston Chronicle. RELATED: Beto O'Rourke meets with local bands to jam out in Houston However, O'Rourke has managed to keep his love of music alive. During his 2018 Senate race against Cruz, he performed onstage with Willie Nelson in Austin and met up with local bands in Houston to enjoy some music and raise money for his campaign. What's more, Mother Jones reports, O'Rourke brought a fog machine to his concession speech and filmed himself playing air drums on the steering wheel during road trips. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna and Facebook @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Tomorrow in the morning, due to the repair work, the Vakhushti Bagrationi bridge will be partially closed, the mayor's office of the Georgian capital reported. The decision to restore the bridge was taken in 2015 after a study conducted throughout Tbilisi. In this regard, for five months, the movement of vehicles on the bridge will be carried out unilaterally from Vakhushti Bridge in the direction of Saakadze Square. The city mayors office apologizes to residents and guests of the Georgian capital for the inconvenience caused, Sputnik-Georgia reports. Sailors from Turkey and India who suffered as a result of the fire on the tankers in the Black Sea have already left the territory of Crimea, Kerch mayor's office reports. "All the sailors were discharged from the hospital in Kerch and have already left Crimea," the city administration said, adding that the sailors went to Novorossiysk. An extract of the injured sailors was also confirmed at the Ministry of Health of Crimea. On this Veterans Day, we look back at rare color photos from World War II, that great struggle our forebearers endured to ensure the future of ours and other nations. From the beaches of Normandy to the destroyed city of Hiroshima in Japan, the photos show the hardships of war endured around the world. Armenian President Armen Sargsyan expressed condolences in connection with the passing away of French composer Michel Legrand, the presidential press service reports. Sargsyan noted the role of the musician in strengthening the bilateral cultural ties. Maestro Legrand is one of the legends of world music, an artist who gained fame and admiration. His contribution to the development of modern music, strengthening and expanding the Armenian-French cultural ties is priceless, Sargsyan said. An enormous 8,000-square-foot fortress set on 40 acres of land in Nevada's sagebrush-dotted high desert, a 2.5-hour drive from Las Vegas, is selling for $950,000. The so-called Hard Luck Castle with four-bedrooms and three bathrooms is an extraordinary and admittedly quite odd architectural wonder with a fantastical design you'd expect to find on the set of an apocalyptic science-fiction filmthink "Mad Max." Its concrete walls are 16 inches thick and wrap around the circular structure with a central staircase taking you to all four floors and a solarium encased in glass for stargazing. "It's absolutely amazing," says listing agent Jake Rasmuson of Bishop Real Estate. "You have to picture the middle of Nevada...your views are completely uninterrupted. The main house is comprised of 22 rooms including a wine cellar, a theater and game room, a viewing deck and a fountain room. There are also two working 1920s pipe organs that resonate throughout the halls when played. REAL ESTATE: Unique homes for sale in Beaumont A builder from Southern California, the owner chose the town of Gold Point (pop. 6) in Esmeralda County for his dream home due to its privacy, lack of building codes and few laws on private land. He spent $3 million and 12 years to complete his plan, and now he's ready to move onto his next adventure. "He built it all himself with help from friends ," says listing agent. He's a guy who can fix or do anything. He's an amazing craftsman." He added: "He's ready to give up the property. Purchase a boat and start a new chapter in his life." The property is off-the-grid with self-sustained energy systems using solar and wind and a 4,000 gallon water storage tank has rain catchment. There's a detached 600-square-foot workshop equipped with tools for working on cars and steel fabrication and a remodeled miner's cabin with a new bathroom and kitchen. A productive yet dormant gold mine with a "serviceable" mine shaft is also included. It was shuttered after World War II, but allegedly still contains gold. "In a lot of ways, it's a 'doomsday prepper' dream home...extremely self-sustaining and secure." That said, Rasmusson says he could also see an interested buyer might be "an astrologist, an artists, a writer, a musician, a poet, someone who really wants peace and quiet and wants two pipe organs in their home" because the organs and everything else except the owner's dog and truck are included in the sale. NEW YORK More than a year before Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loera pulled off one of the most notorious prison breaks in history, he got word to his associates how he planned to escape through an unlikely source: his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro. The strategy that Guzman crafted and Coronel passed on was as daring as it was ingenious: Laborers staged near the prison would dig a milelong tunnel into his cell. To pinpoint his exact location, someone would sneak a watch with a GPS transmitter past the guards and into the crime lords hands. Like Guzmans flight from the authorities in 2014 through a secret tunnel hidden under his bathtub, the audacious escape from the Altiplano prison in Almoloya, Mexico, one year later is one of those almost unbelievable tales that have helped transform him into the criminal figure known as El Chapo. And as with other myths surrounding him, this one was told again Wednesday with astonishing new details at his trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The most important revelation emerging from Wednesdays testimony was that Coronel, then 26 years old, was neck deep in planning the Houdini-like escape. The witness who implicated her, Damaso Lopez Nunez, also testified that she had been part of another effort to break her husband out of prison after he had been recaptured (or rather, re-recaptured) the following year. RELATED: El Chapo Trial: The Kingpin's Mistress Tells All In what has become a familiar sight, Coronel was sitting in the courtroom as Lopez, one of El Chapos former lieutenants, calmly told jurors that she had ferried messages from her husband ordering his aides including his own four sons to purchase land near the prison and then obtain a cache of weapons and an armored pickup truck. Lopez never said Coronel had been the one who slipped the watch with GPS past the prisons guards, but did recount that she was one of only two people who regularly visited the kingpin behind bars. It was not the first time that evidence at the trial has suggested that Coronel aided and abetted her husbands myriad crimes. Two weeks ago, prosecutors introduced text messages between the couple showing Coronel handing her cellphone to her father, Ines Coronel Barreras, who then hashed out the details of a major cocaine deal with Guzman. In other messages, Coronel agreed to hide her husbands guns, fearing police were at their door and planned with him to place the deed to their sprawling new mansion in the names of their twin baby daughters. In court Wednesday morning, Coronel declined to comment on the prison break allegations, as did Guzmans lawyers. A spokesman for the U.S. attorneys office in Brooklyn, which has led the prosecution of the kingpin, also declined to comment on whether she had committed any crimes. RELATED: Once-Close Aide Tells of El Chapo's Once-Lush Life Now 29, Coronel lives in Mexico, but has attended the trial nearly every day since it started in November. Most mornings she waves to Guzman, making it clear that she is standing by him. Just before Christmas, in a move that seemed designed to catch the jurys eye, she brought their 7-year-old twin daughters, dressed in matching bows and sweaters, to the trial to see their father. On Tuesday, she took part in a strange sartorial stunt with Guzman. Both dressed in identical garnet velvet smoking jackets in what appeared to be a symbolic snub of the kingpins mistress who, in prison garb, was on the witness stand testifying against him. Despite her constant presence at the trial, Coronel has largely remained inscrutable. She rarely betrays emotion, and even when witnesses have mentioned her by name, she has often done no more than chew her gum and play with her hair. Coronel had no reaction Wednesday, sitting in the courtroom still and silent as Lopez described the details of the prison break that she helped plan. On July 11, 2015, he said, the tunnel diggers reached their destination, breaking through the shower floor of Guzmans cell. Descending into the darkness, Lopez said, the kingpin was met by an accomplice on a motorcycle attached to a pulley system. After they were hauled to safety, Guzman exited the tunnel, hopped aboard an all-terrain vehicle and rode it to an airstrip. There, Lopez said, the kingpin boarded a plane, which flew him to a hideout deep in the Sierra Madre mountains called The Sky. RELATED: Will El Chapo Testify? He May Not Have Much to Lose But in the constant game of cat-and-mouse that is Guzmans life, he was arrested again six months later and immediately sent to a different prison, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Not long after the arrest, Lopez met with Coronel who, he said, informed him that her husband wanted to escape again. His plan was to be transferred back to Altiplano and have another tunnel dug. According to Coronel, Lopez said, to ensure the transfer happened, Guzman paid a $2 million bribe to the chief of Mexicos prison system. All of this sounded so incredible that on cross-examination, one of Guzmans lawyers, A. Eduardo Balarezo, wondered if it really happened. A tunnel? An ATV? A plane that whisked the kingpin to the mountains? Its pretty spectacular, right? Balarezo asked. Lopez was unfazed. It is very real, he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Russia welcomes the plans of the US and North Korea to hold the second summit and continue dialogue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told reporters on Friday after talks with his US colleagues in Washington, TASS reports. "The conversation was constructive, we discussed in details the latest developments," Morgulov said. "Russia welcomes dialogue between the US and North Korea at the working level, as well as information about the second summit," he added. "At the same time, we drew the attention of our US colleagues to the fact that efforts in the bilateral format are important, but problems on the Korean Peninsula are multifaceted, and they concern many parties," the diplomat noted. "We also drew their attention to the importance of expanding UN's role in the work on the Korean Peninsula," Morgulov noted. Retired teachers and school personnel in The Woodlands area have a place to meet with like-minded former professionals to discuss their benefit concerns, a topic especially pertinent to them during the 86th Legislative session. The group SMART, which stands for South Montgomery Area Retired Teachers, has about 80 members who pay the dues. About 20-30 people usually come to their regular monthly meetings, which are considered a local chapter of the Texas Retired Teachers Association, or TRTA. Judith Odell, SMARTs first vice president and a former 30-year science teacher in Aldine Independent School District, said the group advocates for improved retirement benefits and cost-of-living increases as well as health care and insurance provision for all public school and higher education retirees. Their members come from multiple area school districts: Splendora, Magnolia Cleveland ISDs in addition to Conroe ISD, and include teachers, office staff, custodians and cafeteria workers who are often in a financial situation that is less-than-ideal. Im worried about whats going to happen in education because of this, Odell said. According to the TRTA, the average retiree receives about $2,000 a month from their Texas Retirement System pension, minus Social Security income. The last cost of living adjustment was approved six years ago and was only provided to those who retired before Sept. 1, 2004. That may impacts retirees ability to pay for health care premiums and out-of-pocket costs. In the case of someone like me, who has been retired for 15 years, there are never any cost of living increases, Odell said. What you get remains flat, and then insurance keeps going up. TRTAs Executive Director, Tim Lee, shared an update with the group recently of about 15 retiree-related bills that have been filed in the this Texas Legislature session. The larger organization works out of Austin to help relay all of this information back to local chapters. In turn, SMART relays their activities and desires to the Austin-based group. Were not a lobby group, but we try to keep the legislature informed as to whats happening with us, Odell said. Rosemary Zakhour, who was an ESL teacher/librarian for 20 years in Aldine ISD, is SMARTs secretary. One of the things shes focused on is getting the groups members to send letters to their state legislators, telling their story. The most important thing is to write your story and work in numbers, Zakhour said. Everyone has a teacher they know or a teacher in their family. Why isnt the state government in general doing more financially? Both Zakhour and Odell said the group also wants to visit area schools to share their activity with teachers who are close to retirement. Zakhour said that teachers can often get so busy that they may not consider how the states retirement plan is going to affect them. Odell said that it can also be an issue of burnout. Usually most people in retirement dont want any part of it, theyre tired and worn out. But then they lose contact, Odell said. But its good to get into the group itll be there for you when youre ready to get involved. The group doesnt just advocate for their state retirement benefits, though. Its also a volunteer service organization and sometimes even a social club. They groups members have long participated in project where they give out donated books to either school libraries or individual children in need. During their monthly meetings, the group also hosts activities, field trips or luncheons. jane.stueckemann@chron.com Elections are fast approaching for municipalities in Texas. For Shenandoah and Oak Ridge North, this means the potential upheaval of their city councils with council members Ted Fletcher, Byron Bevers and Charlie Bradt in Shenandoah and Oak Ridge North council members Clint McClaren, Dawn Candy and Frances Planchard all up for re-election on May 4. Election rules and deadlines are the same for both general law cities candidate filing opened on Jan. 16 and goes through Feb. 15 by 5 p.m. The new or re-elected council members will hold their positions until May 2021. To be considered eligible for election in Shenandoah, a candidate must be 18 years old, a registered voter in the state of Texas by the time of the election, have lived in Texas for one year prior to the filing deadline and a resident of Shenandoah for at least six months prior to Feb. 15. A candidate hoping to toss their name in the hat in Oak Ridge North must be at least 18 years old at the time of the election, a United States citizen and a registered voter in the state of Texas. They must also have resided in Oak Ridge North for at least one year before the election. To be considered eligible for candidacy, hopefuls must also be up to date with their financial obligations to the city. Early voting in Montgomery County goes from April 22 to April 30. To file as a candidate and for more information on election registration rules, visit the Shenandoah and Oak Ridge North election websites. mrincon@chron.com A powerful tale of inclusion and diversity is making a return to the Inspire Film Festival this year, as the documentary Becoming Bulletproof will be shown two years after its debut in 2017. The film goes behind the scenes with actors who have a wide range of disabilities and who star in a unique Western tale called Bulletproof. The film is one of more than two dozen films, shorts and documentaries scheduled to be shown at the five-day cinematic experience dedicated to entertaining and inspiring audiences with films, speakers and events that celebrate the human spirit. The festival is scheduled for Feb. 14 through Feb. 18 and will be hosted in multiple venues around Waterway Square in The Woodlands. More than 25 feature-length and short films highlighting local and international game changers who inspire the world will be showcased. The theme of the festival this year is game changers with a focus on mentoring, too. Ajani A.J. Murray is one of the actors in both Bulletproof as well as the documentary Becoming Bulletproof which will be shown at the event. Murray, 36, said he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 8 months of age and has been in a wheelchair for his entire life. He will be at the opening of the festival when the film is shown and expects to meet with fans and take part in a discussion about actors with disabilities. Murray said he became involved in the film through an organization called Zeno Mountain Farm, which is a California-based nonprofit organization that produces short films with actors who have varying disabilities, including Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. Bulletproof is a short-length film, featuring actors with disabilities, and the resulting documentary film follows the disabled actors as they made the movie in the California desert showing the challenges, fun, joy and excitement of the cast. I belong to an organization for people with disabilities Zeno Mountain Farm and we get together to make the arts. The mission of the group is to support lifelong friendships, Murray said in a telephone interview with The Woodlands Villager. One of the ways we do that is to get together and make short films. They run many different programs, it has summer programs with theater and film classes. In Bulletproof, Murray portrays the small Western towns mayor, something he said was a fun experience. One of the goals of the organization, he added, is to raise awareness of disabilities and illustrate to the wider public that diversity and inclusiveness expands beyond traditional definitions and also includes people with disabilities. Murray, who lives in Philadelphia, said the film is inspiring for those with disabilities, many who have witnessed recent social movements such as #Metoo as well as various racial and ethnic groups that strive for more diverse actors in mainstream films. Those movements, he added, are important in the current political climate, but he added they often miss the fact that disabled people also strive for inclusion. Inspire Film Festival 2019 The Inspire Film Festival is a five-day cinematic experience dedicated to entertaining and inspiring audiences with films, speakers, and events that celebrate the human spirit. The 2019 film line-up is centered around the theme "Game Changers" and will feature 30 extraordinary feature-length and short films highlighting local and international game changers who inspire the world. All films will be screened multiple times throughout the festival and in different theaters in the walkable areas of The Woodlands - Cinemark at Market Street, Tinseltown The Woodlands and The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion's Event Center. Dates are Feb. 14-18. Learn more and purchase passes at https://www.inspirefilmfest.com/. See More Collapse There has been lots of discussion in recent years about diversity. (Becoming Bulletprood) can act as a conduit for larger conversations (about diversity) and how we can put these ideas into action, Murray said of films with disabled actors. I think (the film) is incredible and amazing. It is long overdue that people with disabilities (are given opportunities). Everybody wants to see themselves reflected on the screen and in culture. Murray said he is thankful that the festival director and founder Jane Minarovic, whom he said was the catalyst for showing the film at the festival again because of the important message it imparts on viewers. Jane thought it would be good to show it again, Murray said of why the film will get a redux at this years festival. I will be there for the festival and (Becoming Bulletproof) is the opening film. Minarovic said that aside from the great message the film has, she wanted to bring the documentary back to the festival because during its first showing, only about 150 people saw it, but also because the movie is one of the best shes ever seen. It is a very good story. I saw it and I could not believe how good it was. After I saw it, I wanted to meet A.J. so bad, Minarovic said of Becoming Bulletproof. Im showing it again because it is one of my favorite movies of all time. Murray said he does not know how long he will be alive, but while he is here his goal is to be a fierce advocate and activist for those with disabilities. As long as I am alive, Im pretty sure up to the end of my life, Im going to be the drum that disability is included in the diversity discussion, Murray said. We want the world to see what we do and show the world what people with disabilities can do. It was a lifelong dream to be an actor. Im just grateful we can still talk about this. Blood spatter pattern expert Celestina Rossi testified in the third and fourth days of the trial of Spring resident Rafael Leos-Trejo, who is accused of murder in the shooting death of his wife Jessica Torres Leos. On late Thursday and Friday, the prosecutions argument that Leos-Trejo, 33, shot Torres Leos, 28, with intent to kill hinged on Montgomery County Sheriffs Office crime scene investigator Rossis testimony. The defense maintains the shooting was accidental. During cross-examination by Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon, Rossi said she reviewed crime scene photos taken at the scene the night of Feb. 16 when Leos-Trejo fatally shot Torres Leos with an AR-15 in the kitchen of their home. Rossi explained the photos show how Leos-Trejo fired at Torres Leos. The position of Torres Leos body was on the kitchen floor indicated to Rossi she was standing up. LEOS-TREJO TRIAL: Emotions fill courtroom during Spring man's murder trial A skull fragment that landed on a table chair across from where Leos-Trejo fired the gun, as well as blood spatter on the seat, was further proof of this, Rossi said. She pointed to the kitchens metallic stove where the single bullet that hit Torres Leos face and exited through the back of her head hit and left an indentation. This, Rossi said, helped her determine Leos-Trejo was standing in front of Torres Leos. Ligon called in assistant district attorneys Adam McClain and Gabrielle Munoz to stand in for Leos-Trejo and Torres Leos, respectively, at a table placed in front of presiding judge Patty Maginnis bench to show how the shooting played out based on Rossis assessment. As Rossi sat at the witness stand, she advised Ligon as to how McClain should be positioned behind the table carrying an unloaded AR-15 just as she had determined Leos-Trejo would have been positioned. The result was McClain aiming the rifle directly at Munoz. Ligon referenced the 911 audio recording where Torres Leos can be heard saying the rifle fired up. LEOS-TREJO TRIAL: Attorney for Spring man on trial for murder argues shooting of wife was accidental Leos-Trejos attorney George Jacobs pushed back on Rossis testimony, proposing Torres Leos was seated at the kitchen table when the bullet struck her, leading to her pulling on a placemat that was found on her body. The investigator refuted this on the grounds it was a hypothetical situation that did not match what she analyzed through directionality of the gunfire, blood spatter and the bone fragment recovered. Hypothetically, I cannot answer, Rossi said, because in my opinion she is not in the chair. Thats why Im asking you hypothetically, Jacobs replied. I am going to disagree with all of your hypotheticals, Rossi said. You are trying to take evidentiary pieces out of the equation to fit a narrative and I am not, that is not my opinion in this court. Jacobs also suggested the dent on the stove may have been produced by someone bumping into it or kitchenware striking it. Rossi refuted such a possibility. Jacobs then turned to the defenses shooting by accident argument, but Rossi would not weigh in. BACK TO THE BEGINNING: Sugar Land man charged with murdering wife in Montgomery County Im not here to testify to intent, Rossi said. Im here to say that gun is not going to fire until that trigger is pulled. Accidental, not accidental? Not my expertise. Also on Friday, the prosecution presented into evidence text conversations of a romantic nature between Leos-Trejo and two women. One is a 19-year-old in Matehuala, Mexico who he appears to have met through social media. The conversation presented to jurors began the day before the shooting and ran through to the night Torres Leos died. Initially flirtatious, Leos-Trejo tells the woman he wants to take her to Cancun and confides he wants to divorce his wife. The conversation grows tense when Leos-Trejo begins to express frustration at the woman for not having picked up a gift he had delivered to her and after he says he has almost drank an entire bottle of alcohol. An hour later, Torres Leos is shot dead. Another day of testimony is expected in the 435th district court. jose.gonzalez@chron.com twitter.com/jrgzztx Moscow will not abandon the INF Treaty and will make efforts to keep the landmark agreement in place even after Washington suspends its membership, Russias Foreign Ministry deputy head, Sergey Ryabkov said, RT reported. Absolutely not, Ryabkov told journalists when answering a question on whether Russia believes the INF Treaty may be given up on. Moscow considers the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which was initially signed by the US and the USSR to denuclearize the European continent, to be well worth preserving regardless of Washingtons actions, he added. Even after the US withdraws from the deal in February we will continue our work, the deputy foreign minister said, adding that Russia will still work to preserve this document and nothing the US does will change its approach to the issue. He also expressed his hope that common sense will prevail eventually. If anyone asks where to sample Houston's best new restaurants, point them in the direction of The Greater Heights. The neighborhood shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to welcoming new dining concepts from every corner of the globe: Indian? Check. Tex-Mex. Yep. Singaporean? Definitely. >>>See the full list of great Heights restaurants, old and new, in the gallery above. If Singaporean is what you're craving, you'll want to know there's been a major chef shuffle in Height's SING, 718 West 18th. The restaurant, fresh off the heels of a favorable review read the full write-up at HoustonChronicle.com from Chronicle food critic Alison Cook, has just lost its operations founder and executive chef: Cuc Lam. Lam. The chef, who was a food writer for the Houston Press, recently announced an abrupt departure from the restaurant. GUIDE: WHERE TO EAT IN MONTROSE AND MIDTOWN Barbecue lovers, good news: You don't have to drive to Brenham for some Truth BBQ. The famous 'cue joint, owned by Houston native Leonard Botello IV is now slinging brisket at 110 South Heights. A locally born small chain just inched its way to the Heights: Dish Society opened its doors at 1050 Yale Street. They offer fresh New American dishes with an expansive brunch menu. Just before this debut, another outpost cropped up in downtown's Finn Hall, 712 Main. Mastrantos, 927 Studewood, is now serving internationally infused dishes in a sleek, modern space. A Venezuelan couple, Xavier and Mari Godoy, left the corporate world to pursue their dream of owning a restaurant. Expect everything from South American dishes, fine pastas and even Middle Eastern flavors. FOR THE FOODIES: Sign up to get tips for new recipes and new restaurants Did you miss the Eliot's Table opening? The space quietly opened in December and is already generating rave reviews from local patrons. Hospitality company Family Meal HTX launched the restaurant at 465 T.C. Jester. They pride themselves on offering dishes made with locally-sourced, fresh ingredients. Which are you looking forward to trying first? NEWS WHEN YOU NEED IT: Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message | Sign up for breaking news alerts delivered to your email here. Former NASA Space Shuttle program astronaut Brewster Shaw recently described what it was like to fly and work in space during a recent visit to the Bendwood School. On Dec. 17, just days before the holiday break, two classrooms of SPIRAL students learned from a top NASA Shuttle pilot and commander. The SPIRAL programs initials represent Spring Branch Improving Reasoning and Accelerating Learning. The special visit was organized in collaboration with Bendwoods Gifted & Talented STEM teacher, Molly Nipper, and the parent of a student who personally knew the former astronaut. Nipper, a passionate space science learner, instructor, presenter and advocate, has invited and hosted a number of NASA engineers at Bendwood in recent years. Last month, the students had the opportunity to hear from a real astronaut. Astronaut Shaw is a veteran of three separate Space Shuttle missions and has logged more than 530 hours of space flight over several years. His first mission was as pilot for the Space Shuttle Columbia, back in 1983, and he was commander for two other Shuttle missions - Atlantis in 1985, and then on Columbia again in 1989. Now a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Shaw also served as a high-ranking NASA manager and he was a Boeing executive. In 2006, he was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, a rare and important lifetime achievement. On Dec. 17, however, Shaw met with students and teachers in a simple Gifted & Talented classroom setting. At Bendwood, he talked about his own space experiences, ranging from food selections and tasting in space (steak was his favorite food), to an astronauts view on how the moon impacts earth through its gravitational pull. To hear about these topics from a real astronaut was really fun, said Nipper. Students asked great questions, and they also gave Shaw the mission patch that they had designed in Nippers class. In return, Shaw gave each student from Nipper and teacher Ashley Kopczynskis classes mission patches from his three space trips. Parents were also invited to attend and hear the astronauts remarks, and several did so. This was a huge event for our students as it is rare to have a former astronaut visit a classroom like the one here at Bendwood School, Nipper said. It was truly an exciting last day before the winter break for these two SPIRAL classes. Among other points of interest, Shaws online career biography includes a life-changing meeting with a college bandmate who held a private pilots license and took Shaw flying with him one day. From that moment on, I wanted to be a pilot, Wikipedia reports Shaw saying. Nippers interest in space science runs deep and passionate, and it may have helped attract the former NASA astronaut to visit SBISD students. I am passionate about space science, she said. I really enjoy teaching it, and engaging my students in authentic and real-world experience. For me, that means making connections with NASA, and with that organizations tremendous workforce and heroic veterans like Shaw. Nipper has attended Johnson Space Centers Space Exploration Educators Conference (SEEC) for the past decade. This February, the conference will celebrate its 25th anniversary. Nipper has presented there for the past three years at SEEC; she is scheduled to do so again this year. Included in the 25th anniversary conference messaging is a special tribute to another teacher, the Space Shuttle Challengers teacher representative, Christa McAuliffe, who died with other crew members in the tragic lift-off disaster. I touch the future. I teach, McAuliffe said. The future of Cy-Fair ISD for years to come is being planned by the Long-Range Planning Committee, which discussed the financial impacts of a proposed future bond program during a meeting on Thursday, Jan. 24. The LRPC consisting of community members, students and staff was formed in November 2018 to identify district needs and formulate a bond program recommendation to present to the CFISD school board on Feb. 4. On Feb. 11, the board of trustees will consider calling a bond election based on the LRPC recommendations. If the school board calls for a referendum, the bond election would be held on May 4, in a joint election with Harris County. Julie Hinaman, community co-chair for the LRPC, said the committee was provided data from the district in order to guide their planning. They did an in-depth facility assessment looking at student population growth, asset management, like which assets were aging out toward the end of their life cycle, and then using that data, they brought that to us so we could use it to come up with recommendations, she said. Voters passed CFISDs last bond in 2014 for $1.2 billion. According to a committee presentation, the district has entered Phase 6 of 2014 bond project implementation, which includes several school renovation projects scheduled for completion between 2020 and 2021. The LRPC is currently planning for the future of CFISD into 2025. Any plans or projected financial impacts remain tentative until projects recieve official approval from the school board. [CFISD is] spreading this investment over five or six years, Hinaman said. If something needs to be replaced in five years, it's helpful to know that now and plan it now rather than waiting for the air condition to go out in a school and then try to fix it, because the cost would be higher. In previous meetings about the 2019 bond proposal, the LRPC discussed recommendations for different areas of CFISD including improvements to transportation, facilities, safety and technology. Transportation The LRPC is considering $88.1 million in possible transportation projects. Among the projects is a nearly $35 million northwest transportation center as the district anticipates the addition of 25 bus routes by 2025. The estimated cost of 25 additional school buses is about $2.7 million, according to district documents. Hinaman said the additional buses are needed to match the growth of the district. We have a very efficient transportation system but as we increase student population we need more buses to get those additional kids to the school, she said. A lot of people don't realize that we cannot use our regular [maintenance and operations] budget to pay for things like facilities and buses and police cars and capital assets. The only way we can have funding for those types of assets is through bond money. The committee may also recommend changing the replacement cycle for school buses from 15 years to 12 years in order to update buses with safety features like three-point seatbelts. The projected cost for a 12-year cycle replacement of 442 district school buses is approximately $48.5 million. Facilities The committee included several proposed projects in their recommendation based on a district facilities assessment, including the construction of a performance arts center by 2020, as well as exhibition center additions by 2023. Building a new instructional support center by 2022 was also among the proposed projects, along with the repurposing of the original ISC facility on Jones Road by 2023. Combined, the proposed projects could cost an estimated $194.2 million. Hinaman said growing the districts facilities with the student population is a key goal for the committee. As the school district grows, so grows the community, she said. Businesses and families move to Cypress-Fairbanks because we have a strong and healthy local school district. Safety The district-wide safety and security improvement projects being considered for inclusion in the LRPCs recommendation so far total approximately $303.5 million. Hinaman said the committee received an assessment of safety needs from an outside firm before deciding how to proceed. Items have been ranked by priority according to LRPC documents and include hardening main front desks, upgrading intrusion detection panels, and adding more lockdown buttons and metal detectors. The plan also includes implementing impact-resistant glass on ground-level glass doors, installing a video intercom and replacing radios and vehicles for the CFISD Police Department. Technology Several new technology initiatives, totaling an estimated $239.1 million, were included among the committees potential recommendations, according to district documents. The overall plan is focused on instructional technology, including higher network speed, wireless displays, high school language labs and lending devices for libraries. Technology is critical to classroom instruction and so we're looking at updating and continuing to invest in technology that supports classroom instruction, Hinaman said. Where a bus has a life cycle of 12 years, technology really has a life cycle of five years. We looked at updating the technology in the classroom every five years and adding more as needed. Hinaman said the committee is taking cost to taxpayers seriously, aiming for the least negative impact possible. Our goal is that it would be minimal and that what we do recommend to the board, and if they do call a bond election, is that it's for items that truly are needed to support the growth in our student population, asset protection and safety and security, she said. chevall.pryce@chron.com H-E-B provides groceries for millions across Texas and now, backdrops for photo shoots. The San Antonio-based chain was the setting for a special announcement by the Mercer family recently. Oil and gas companies in West Texas Permian Basin burned off nearly twice as much natural gas they reported to regulators, according to an analysis of satellite data by an environmental advocacy group. Operators are required to report the amount of flaring, or burning of excess product, to the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that oversees the energy industry. In 2017, companies reported 55 billion cubic feet of flared natural gas. But an analysis performed on satellite data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that 104 billion cubic feet of flared gas may have been flared, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. The Environmental Defense Funds analysis suggests that operators burned away 4.4 percent of all natural gas produced in the Permian that year, valuing the lost gas at $322 million. S&P Global Market Intelligence, a research and data analysis firm, reached similar conclusions of severely under-reported flaring in a report published in October. The S&P Global analysis also used data from NOAA satellite scans, which analysts said are more accurate than reports companies file with regulators. Between 2012 and 2017, the analysis found, oil and gas companies in Texas reported only about half the volumes of gas burned compared to what the satellites showed. Greenhouse gases Burning associated gas, the raw natural gas that is a mixture of methane and other hydrocarbons, emits carbon dioxide and air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. Flaring has been found to be a significant contributor to U.S. greenhouse emissions and pose a significant health risk for local communities and those who work in oil fields. Natural gas is a byproduct of oil production, and in booming West Texas, large volumes are being produced along with record amounts of oil. A lack of pipeline capacity has left energy companies with lots of natural gas with no place to go, according to S&P Global analysts, and provided an incentive to under report flaring to maintain high levels of crude production. Colin Leyden, senior manager of the Environmental Defense Fund who authored the organizations analysis, is skeptical that building more pipelines would prevent companies from under-reporting flaring absent stricter regulations. If its inconvenient theyll just flare it, said Leyden. Theres been a problem since 2014, so what is a reasonable amount of time for the industry to solve this? The Texas Railroad Commission said in a statement that operators are required to follow the agencys regulations. The RRC takes enforcement action against any operator found in violation of our rules or permit conditions, wrote Ramona Nye, an agency spokeswoman. Boots on the ground John Tintera, president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, an industry advocacy organization, said he doubted the accuracy of analyses. Satellite imagery, because its a snapshot in time, may not capture the correct amounts, he said. He also rejected the notion that operators have an economic reason to mislead regulators. Operators have an incentive to accurately report because of the respect they have for regulators and respect for the operation rules have been in place for a long time, Tintera said. The Railroad Commission has inspectors that are better than satellites. They work in every town, and they visit hundreds of wells every week. I would say boots in the field beats satellite imagery. erin.douglas@chron.com Lubys shareholders rejected an activist investor's attempt to wrest control of the restaurant company from the Pappas brothers on Friday, ending a 43-day proxy fight over the Houston chain. Shareholders elected all the company's candidates for its nine-member board at its annual meeting, rejecting four nominees pushed by New York hedge fund Bandera Partners, according to preliminary results issued by the company. Luby's did not release the voting count but said it was a close contest. Bandera said the election had a voter turnout of more than 85 percent. Chief Executive Chris Pappas said in a statement that the company will look to improve its operating results. "With this annual election now completed, our full focus returns to executing our turnaround plan for the business and ensuring that we have our right board composition to oversee our strategy," he said. Jeff Gramm, a Bandera co-founder, said he accepted the preliminary results, which were reviewed by Lubys proxy solicitor and will later be certified by an independent inspector of elections and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Although it is early and we have not seen official results, we believe we won the vast majority of votes from non-affiliated shareholders," he said. "It is clear to me that Luby's shareholders are very frustrated with the company and desperate for change in the boardroom." Fridays election caps a bitter boardroom dispute between two prominent Texas families fighting for control of the iconic but struggling Houston restaurant chain known for its comfort foods, such as the LuAnn Platter. The company operates 82 Luby's Cafeterias and 59 Fuddruckers restaurants. It franchises another 104 Fuddruckers locations nationally. Gramm, the son of former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, was seeking to oust Chris Pappas and his brother Harris Pappas from Lubys board, which they have helmed for nearly two decades. The brothers also own and operate popular Houston restaurants Pappasitos Cantina, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen and Pappas Bar-B-Q. Bandera, which has been a Luby's shareholder for more than a decade, was lobbying fellow investors to replace the Pappas brothers, Chairman Gasper Mir III and board member Frank Markantonis with its own slate of candidates, which included Gramm and his father. Bandera faced an uphill battle to pry control of Luby's from the Pappas brothers, who own 36.8 percent of the company's stock. Bandera has a 9.8 percent stake. Gramm, who flew in from New York to attend the annual meeting, said he did not regret the proxy fight, which tested his close friendship with fellow activist investor and business associate James Pappas, Chris Pappas son. In a prepared statement to Lubys board, Gramm encouraged it to listen to shareholders and wished it success in the coming year. I dont regret my decision to take this vote to Lubys shareholders, Gramm said in an interview. I really do believe that if I hadnt done this, the company wouldnt have committed to bringing some change to the boardroom in the coming year. Luby's last week announced plans to make some changes to its board in a bid to appease Bandera and other shareholders concerned with the company's stock performance. Among the moves, Mir announced he would relinquish his leadership position to another independent board member later this year. The board said it is also looking to replace two incumbent members, several of whom are approaching retirement age, with independent directors. Luby's did not say who would step down but said the changes will take place later this year. David Littwitz, the owner of Houston restaurant brokerage Littwitz Investments, said little has changed as a result of the proxy fight, however. Lubys restaurants are unprofitable, the companys stock is down and the company is still forced to sell off real estate to pay down its debt, he said. Its still a tough situation for the current management to operate, he said. All this has done is give Chris Pappas some breathing room for the moment, but not by much. Ed Wulfe, the chairman of Houston retail brokerage Wulfe & Co. and a Lubys shareholder, said he voted in favor of Lubys slate of candidates. Im very pleased Lubys is staying in the hands of the Pappas, who are proven restaurateurs with years and years of experience, he said. I think in the long term, this is in the best interest of Lubys and shareholders. After rising briefly midday, shares of Luby's fell 13.8 percent Friday to $1.56. The company is set to report fiscal 2019 first quarter earnings Monday. paul.takahashi@chron.com twitter.com/paultakahashi Pope condemns 'senseless and irresponsible' stigmatisation of migrants Pope Francis said on Friday it was "senseless and irresponsible" to stigmatize migrants and see all of them as threats to society, weighing in again on one of the most divisive issues in the United States. Francis, who has made migration a key theme of his trip to Panama, spoke to several hundred thousand young people at a religious service on the waterfront of the country's capital, one of the key events of the Roman Catholic Church's World Youth Day. "We want to be a church that fosters a culture that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates; that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in a senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society," he said. Hours earlier, President Donald Trump agreed under mounting pressure to end a 35-day-old partial U.S. government shutdown but without getting the $5.7 billion he had demanded from Congress for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. At Friday night's event known as a "Via Crucis" (Way of the Cross), Francis spoke of learning "how to welcome and take in all those abandoned, and forced to leave or lose their land, their roots, their families and their work." "How are we to react to Jesus as he suffers, travels, emigrates in the faces of many our friends, or of all those strangers that we have learned to make invisible?" Francis said. It was the latest time the pope has waded into the standoff over funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. He told reporters on the plane from Rome on Wednesday that hostility to immigrants was driven by irrational fear. He and Trump have sparred before on migration, particularly on the border wall. Since mid-October, thousands of Central Americans, mostly from Honduras, have traveled north to the United States through Mexico in caravans, some walking much of the way. Many are seeking asylum, saying they suffer from rampant crime and bleak opportunities in their native countries. On Friday morning, Francis visited a juvenile jail to comfort young people who could not leave to attend the global gathering of Catholic youth, and the pontiff urged society to give offenders everywhere a second chance. "A society grows sick when it is unable to celebrate change in its sons and daughters," he said at a prayer service with about 200 juvenile inmates in the town of Pacora, east of Panama City. Francis, a strong supporter of rehabilitation of inmates and an opponent of life imprisonment, has visited many prisons in Italy and on his overseas trips. He has called for a worldwide ban on the death penalty, and under his watch last year the Catholic Church formally changed its teaching to declare capital punishment inadmissible in any circumstance. One out of every three criminals in Latin America are repeat offenders and the majority commit crimes that are more serious than those for which they were first jailed, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank. Pakistan's top court to decide Asia Bibi's fate as Muslim extremists demand her death Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Pakistan's top court will decide next week whether a challenge against the acquittal of Christian mother Asia Bibi can proceed as radical Islamists continue to call for her execution. Bibis lawyer, Saiful Malook, revealed that on Jan. 29 Pakistans Supreme Court will review a petition launched by Islamists calling for her blasphemy conviction to be overturned, the Pakistani news outlet Dawn reports. If the court rejects the petition, Bibi will finally be free to leave Pakistan. The 47-year-old mother-of-five, who was on death row for eight years, was accused by Muslim farm laborers of having insulted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which is an offense punishable by death in Pakistan. She was convicted despite denying the charges, and in October the Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict. The decision sparked nationwide protests by Muslim hardliners, prompting authorities to take Bibi into hiding. Since her acquittal, she has since been living at a secret location, under guard. Muslim extremists have threatened to kill anyone who supports Bibi, and in efforts to end the violence, authorities struck a deal with protesters. As part of the agreement, the Pakistani government pledged she would remain in the country until the Supreme Court reviews the petition against her acquittal. A three-member bench will hear the review petition, which claims that the Supreme Court's acquittal of Bibi did not meet the standards of jurisprudence as well as Islamic provisions. Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry, the lawyer who filed the petition seeking an appeal, told AFP the court is expected to decide the same day if the appeal is admitted or not. In December, he told the BBC he gets "a lot of peace" from prosecuting alleged blasphemers like Bibi and "will be rewarded for it in the hereafter. "For us the most sacred thing is [Islamic] prophet Muhammad. Everything we do is for him," he said, insisting that no Muslim would ever falsely accuse a non-Muslim of committing blasphemy. Despite her release from prison, Bibi continues to live in fear of being killed and is guarded by security forces who've barred her from even opening a window, an unidentified friend revealed earlier this month. Shes also undergoing treatment for various illnesses she suffered while in prison. Bibis children have been taken to Canada for their safety, and while various western countries have been mentioned as possible destinations that could grant the Christian woman asylum, her fate remains uncertain. Pakistans notorious blasphemy laws prescribe a death sentence for anyone convicted of insulting Islam or the Muhammad. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. While no one convicted of blasphemy has ever been legally executed in Pakistan, at least 70 people have reportedly been killed since 1990 in attacks by lynch mobs. Rights groups say the law is frequently misused, often to settle personal vendettas and property disputes and religious minorities are disproportionately affected by such accusations. Those who call for changes to the countrys blasphemy law also risk death: In 2011, Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab Province who had campaigned for Bibis release and changes in the laws, was shot and killed by his police bodyguard. Two months later, Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister of minorities and the only Christian cabinet minister in the Pakistani government, was also killed after he also calling for changes to the blasphemy law. Pakistan ranks as the fifth worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USAs World Watch List. Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The so-called Reproductive Health Act in New York passed with thunderous applause in the state Senate chamber. I could not believe what I was reading: People actually applauded the slaughtering of children. Was I having a dream . . . a nightmare? Was this real? Why didnt someone do something? Those five words still haunt my thoughts today. Some time ago, I sat speechless as I listened to a man recount his trip to a Holocaust museum with his young daughter. As they walked by photos of the death camps and gas chambers, his daughter silently contemplated the horrors that were unfolding before her eyes. When the tour ended, they drove home without saying a word. The father wondered if she truly understood the significance of the event. Was she too young to view such depravity? Was she too fragile to cope with the truth of the Holocaust? Would it make a negative impact on her life? Would it leave her fearful and wounded? Would she begin to doubt God? His questions were answered nearly two hours later when his daughter finally spoke. She looked at her father and asked, Daddy, why didnt someone do something? Will we hear those same haunting words from our children and grandchildren? Yes! If we fail to contend for what is right, we may see a time in our history when our children will ask, Why didnt someone do something? Sadly, we may not be able to answer. With rapid-fire changes in a culture saturated by political correctness and relativism, we are inclined to ask, Is there any hope for America? If we continue down this slippery slope, there is little hope. Apart from a national spiritual awakening, it will be difficult to turn the Titanic around; the vessel has been struck. But if God brings revivalif we once again set our hearts and minds on Himthere is tremendous hope. Gods call is not to Hollywood, Washington, or the media, but to us. If My people turn back to God He will heal and restore. As the moral and cultural war rages between our shores, the need to be awakened from our spiritual slumber has never been greater. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested (Martin Luther). One problem is silence in the pulpit. The silent pulpit is not Gods pulpit. Did you catch that? The silent pulpit is not Gods pulpit. World Magazine featured an article in their January 25th, 2014 edition entitled Still-silent Shepherds, which motivated me greatly and caused me to begin to speak out even more. For example, tomorrow, on January 24, 2019, Im scheduled to be on Spirited-debate with Lauren Green on Fox News. If all goes well, it should be available at the links below. The topic will center around the moral divide in Americano doubt from gay marriage to abortion. You can also search YouTube under Shane Idleman on Fox News for more clips. Pastors, make no mistake about it, we play an enormous role in shaping the direction of the country. We can no longer remain silent while silent screams go unheard. Deep repentance must take place at the individual and national level; our consciences have been seared. Our job is to preach the totality of Gods Word, including those things that are hard to hear, so that both conviction and comfort take place. Ironically, one characteristic of a false prophet is to avoid controversial topics such as repentance, sin, and judgment. (For those interested, visit WCFAV.org and watch the new series on the book of Jude.) When human life is devalued, atrocities such as the Holocaust, slavery, sex-trafficking, and abortion occur. God help us when we ignore our calling to confront evil. Pastors are to be pillars who support truth and defend the faith. We need more prophets in our pulpits and less puppets (Leonard Ravenhill). We need men and womens filled with the Spirit of God rather than the things of the world. This battle is for the very soul of our nation. Its our choicestand or fall. Today, the truth is often neglected, watered-down, or avoided altogether in the hope of not offending and building an audience. Abortion is rarely mentioned, so repentance is rarely sought and hope is elusive. We want to build a church rather than break a heart, be politically correct rather than biblically correct, coddle and comfort rather than stir and convict. The graphic description of abortion is heart-wrenching and soul-searching and would require a WARNING for the graphic content if I included it. Life is precious. We must fight for it: From the formation of a childs first tiny cell to lifes final breath, all life has dignity and value because each and every one of us is made in the image of God (Focus on the Family). Hope for the Hurting How can we undo the emotional pain that we experience from abortion? First, dont allow past brokenness to cause future pain. We are to forget those things that are behind us and focus on those things ahead (Philippians 3:13). You cant change where youve been, but you can change where youre going. Abortion is not the unpardonable sin. Christ died for every sin, including abortion. Second, realize that there is hope for those who have participated in or who have had an abortion. If this is you, I encourage you to read Psalm 51 often. Gods unfailing love and compassion will see you through. We lean on His strength for the future, not on our failures from the past. John 10:10 says that Jesus came to give us life, freedom, and a relationship with Him. He is our only hopethe only source of true peace. Are you experiencing this peace? If not, that can change if you trust in Him as Lord and Savior, repent, and turn to Him: If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). CLIP: Abortion Hope for the Hurting: Watch the short video, http://vimeo.com/114443592 LIKE us on Facebook for weekly sermon videos and articles: https://www.facebook.com/confusedchurch TWITTER here: https://twitter.com/wcfav?lang=en PODCASTS can be found at ShaneIdleman.com Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Moloch was the false god of the Canaanites who required child sacrifice. Hes got a new altar in New York, hes got worshipers and hes doing business as Autonomy and Choice. On January 22, 2019 the state of New York enacted a law allowing for abortion up to a babys due date. How are we to respond to this new reality? We grieve and mourn and pray and share the Gospel. There are things done upon the earth which so grieve the heart of God that His people do what they can to reflect the depth of it. I now more fully understand the scenes of Gods people tearing their clothes and donning sackcloth and ashes when the darkness of sin became particularly acute. Chosen because it was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade the Governor of the state of New York in a formal ceremony that can only be described as celebratory signed the Reproductive Health Act into law. The law allows for abortion at any time throughout pregnancy. And if a child is born alive, after a botched abortion, the born-live child is no longer protected. It is clear Moloch has worshippers today and to this false god the children of America are being offered up on the altars of autonomy and choice. In videos of the event, Governor Cuomo celebrates the presence of the attorney who argued Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court in 1973. He then confirmed plans to secure the right to abortion by amending the Constitution of the State of New York making clear their intent to lead not only this generation of children to slaughter but to bind the conscience of all future governing bodies in undoing this evil. The Governor of one of the nations most populous states also sent a clear signal that he intends to support advocates of abortion in reproducing New Yorks taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand system to other states in the union. Following the bills passage, Governor Cuomo applauded The Reproductive Health Act is a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values, In the face of a federal government intent on rolling back Roe v. Wade and womens reproductive rights, I promised that we would enact this critical legislation within the first 30 days of the new session and we got it done. I am directing that New Yorks landmarks be lit in pink to celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow. According to the Governors office, the landmarks included One World Trade Centers 408-foot spire, the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany. Consider the words in that order carefully. New Yorks landmarks, by order of the Governor, were lit in pink to celebrate this achievement which he characterized as shining a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow. What has been born in New York is intended to be conceived, gestate and birthed elsewhere. Am I overstating the facts? Does the new law really say abortions can be performed at any time, up to the very due date? The fact-checking website Snopes.com confirms the new law does three things: First, it strips abortion from the states criminal code and places it entirely within the realm of public health law. Second, it expands who can perform the procedure from beyond just physicians to any licensed, certified or authorized health care practitioner for whom abortion is within their scope of practice. Finally, it legalizes abortion after 24 weeks in cases where it would protect a womans health or where a fetus is not viable. State law previously only allowed abortions after 24 weeks if the womans life was in jeopardy. So, just to be clear, abortions in New York no longer have to be performed by a medical doctor but can be performed by anyone for whom abortion is within the scope of their business and those abortions are legal past the former 24 week barrier in cases where it would protect a womans health. What exactly does that mean and who exactly makes that determination? If you look for a legal definition of health youre going to find it categorized as a noun with a range of meanings including conditions of fitness related to the physical body, the mind, relationships, emotions, social wholeness, financial stability, and things as difficult to measure as vigor, vitality, stamina and freedom from ailment, disease or pain. Is it possible for a pregnant woman, late in the pregnancy, to see the soon-to-arrive baby as a threat to any of these? Certainly. Health is a term as expansive as an abortion providers willingness to define it. A woman may, under this new law, decide at any time prior the live birth of her child, to have the childs life terminated if she determines it is in HER best interest to do so. If she comes to view the child as a threat to her health physical, mental, emotional, social, relational, financial, or otherwise then she can request and receive a taxpayer funded abortion in the state of New York today, from someone for whom abortion is a business. Do you remember Moloch/Molech, the Canaanite god who required child sacrifice? Do you recall Gods commands related to this practice? Leviticus 18:21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. Leviticus 20:2-5 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. There are further references in 2 Kings 23;10 and Jeremiah 32:35 to Gods forbidding of the practice of child sacrifice to appease the gods of the day. And who exactly are the gods being appeased through the taxpayer funded, on-demand, abortion at any time for any reason in New York? Those would be the idolatrous gods of Autonomy and Choice. I recall John Stonestreet of the Colson Center commenting that in the current culture, all must be sacrificed for the demon-gods autonomy and choice. New York has now become the valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna the place where some of the kings of Judah sacrificed their children. And God says through the prophet Jeremiah it is therefore, cursed. You can read Jeremiah 7:30-34 and Jeremiah 19:1-15 for more on Gods view of all this. How then are we to respond and what are we to do? We grieve. We tell the truth. We walk by faith. We come alongside crisis pregnancy centers and make sure that pregnant woman know they have real options including adoption and/or substantive support from communities of believers who will become for them a family within the household of God. If we dont make the option of life substantial and real including how they can thrive and not merely survive then more children will be sacrificed on the altar of Choice. I like the testimony of the pro-life Christian businessman who, when asked what hed do if he had a few minutes alone with Governor Cuomo and other New York lawmakers who were celebrating the enactment of the Reproductive Health Law. He said hes share the gospel. Amen. At least 10 people were wounded when protesters attacked a Turkish military camp near Dohuk in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Saturday, burning two tanks and other vehicles, residents and Kurdish officials said, Daily Sabah reports. The crowd was demonstrating over a recent Turkish air raid, a Kurdish official in the region of Dohuk said Turkey's Defense Ministry wrote on Twitter: "An attack has occurred on one of bases located in northern Iraq as a result of provocation by the PKK terrorist organization. There was partial damage to vehicles and equipment during the attack." Without naming the base, the ministry said "necessary precautions are being taken regarding the incident." Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Things are shifting in America before our eyes. The State of New York recently passed a bill legalizing abortion right up to the moment of birth. The name of the bill was the The Reproductive Health Act. It had previously been blocked for years when Republicans controlled the State Senate in New York. Because the Democrats recently took both houses in the New York legislature, it was quickly passed. The Senate passed it 38-24. In the Assembly, it passed by a 92-47 margin. Gov. Cuomo quickly signed it into law Tuesday night. This is an ominous sign concerning the direction of abortion in our country. This bill could play a role in opening the floodgates in the future as inevitably other states begin to follow New Yorks lead. We cannot take the passing of this bill lightly. Some people may argue that the pro-life movement is stronger than ever, however, just days ago an Iowa judge struck down a state law banning a woman from obtaining an abortion once a fetus' heartbeat is detected, saying it violated the state's constitution. There is still a very strong, vocal and bold resistance to the pro-life movement. We must remember that the legalization of gay marriage began with one state which then led to other states adopting similar laws. We have no future guarantee that the same trend will not occur regarding abortion laws in our nation. As Christians, we have an obligation to stand in the gap for the helpless and the most helpless lives are the lives of the unborn. Abortion is not just a societal issue. It is not just a cultural issue. Abortion is a moral issue and all moral issues, at the end of the day, are actually spiritual issues. When we look at abortion purely through a spiritual lens, abortion is satanic worship. There is truly no way around this reality and in the following paragraphs I will explain why this is so. If we as believers are to be in the truth and in the light, we have to acknowledge abortion for what it really is. Abortion is the shedding of innocent blood. The shedding of innocent blood is a clear violation of the fourth commandment which states in Exodus 20:13 You shall not murder. Proverbs 6:17 also says God hates hands that shed innocent blood. The right to life is the most fundamental and valuable right that has been given to any human being by the Creator. This is why from the beginning of human history, the devil has sought to twist peoples hearts and to tempt them to murder. Murder is always inspired by Satan, whether it be in the womb, or outside of the womb. The shedding of innocent blood is a form of satanic worship. It honors Satan. It never honors God. Many pagan cultures throughout history had child sacrifice as part of worship to their gods. They would sacrifice children to idols in the hope that it would bring favor, blessing, and a better life. The modern abortion industry, at its heart, is no different from the child sacrifice rituals of the ancient world and pagan cultures. The only difference is that, in ancient times, they didnt sacrifice the child while he, or she, was still in their mothers womb. In 2004, the Guttmacher Institute anonymously surveyed 1,209 post-abortive women from nine different abortion clinics across the country. Of the women surveyed, 957 provided their main reason for having an abortion. The survey showed that 92.5% gave purely selfish reasons for their decision. That means that 92.5% of the children aborted were sacrificed in the hope that it would result in a better life for the mother. We as believers cannot allow culture and the mainstream media to define abortion in our minds. Abortion, truly, is not an issue of reproductive rights or womens health. An extremely small percentage of abortions are performed to save the life of the mother and actually only one-half of one percent of abortions are done because of rape or incest. The majority of abortions occur because it is the most convenient option for a woman that does not want to deal with the consequences of having a child. The Old Testament deals with this topic of child sacrifice. In Biblical times, one of the gods mentioned throughout the Old Testament was Molech. This was a god of the Canaanites and Ammonites. One of the primary ways that ancient cultures showed worship to this god was to sacrifice children to it. They would place the children in the idols metal hands which had been heated up to the point of being red -hot, or, they would just throw the children into the fire pit below the idol. God judged Israel harshly for participating in this satanic ritual. In Jeremiah 32:35-36, it says that because Israel offered up their sons and daughters to Molech, God would judge them and lead them into captivity and that is exactly what He did. There are other instances where God warned Israel about participating in this practice. It was not a onetime occurrence. Psalm 106 says, They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did. Instead of sacrificing children on an altar to Molech, today, children are sacrificed on the altar to self. Therefore, there truly is no way around calling abortion what it really is. It is satanic worship. Satanic worship involves, in essence, the love of self above all others. This is what abortion is. Abortion is the love of self above the love of the child that has been conceived. It is an abomination in Gods eyes. This struggle against the abortion industry has been, and likely will continue to be, a long-haul in our nation. This struggle does not look like it will end soon. We as believers must stand up against abortion and stand for the lives of the unborn. We must always speak unashamedly concerning the issue while conducting ourselves as lovingly as possible with those on the other side. We cannot back down on this issue. We must stand steadfastly for the lives of the unborn. We cannot afford to be on the wrong side of history concerning this, for abortion is a moral issue. It is a spiritual issue. As believers, we must understand that there is a real spiritual battle for the lives of the unborn, the lives of the mothers aborting them, and for the future of our nation. Our voices matter. Our votes matter. Ultimately, abortion also hurts the mother who aborts her child.Jesus Christ offers grace and forgiveness to whoever comes to Him in humility and repentance, no matter how big the mistake. So, as we stand boldly, uncompromisingly, and with the full conviction of truth and righteousness on our side, let us also stand in grace and love as we minister to those who are considering abortion or have already had one. May we not give up. May we not be discouraged. May we not water down the truth about abortion. And may we one day see an end to abortion in the United States by the grace of God. NY Times says robot marriage becoming mainstream; pastor believes church partly to blame Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The nation's most prominent newspaper is asserting marriage to robots is becoming mainstream, as is what is now called "digisexuality." In a Saturday New York Times article titled "Do you take this robot..." with the subtitle "Today we fall in love through our phones. Maybe your phone itself could be just as satisfying?" the newspaper noted that artificial intelligence-driven sex robots are becoming more mainstream. In an age of sexting and dating apps like Tinder, it is fair to ask whether everyone might be a "closet digisexual," the article said. "The idea that flesh-and-blood humans may actually forge fulfilling emotional, or even sexual, relationships with digital devices is no longer confined to dystopian science fiction movies," the newspaper declared on its Twitter feed. Interviewed in the piece was Neil McArthur, an associate professor who specializes in philosophy and sexuality at the University of Manitoba, who notes that alarmism always precedes every advance in cybersex but such things eventually become normalized. It happened first with porn, then with Internet dating, then with Snapchat sexting. One by one these technologies come along and theres this wave of panic. But as people start to use these technologies, they become part of our lives, he told the newspaper. As the use of artificial intelligence spreads, the lines will be blurred between real sex and cybersex, particularly what constitutes sexual "consent." And those blurred lines "do not have to be a bad thing," The New York Times asserts, and might be inevitable. Featured prominently in the article is Akihiko Kondo, a 35-year-old Japanese man who "married" a female-looking hologram in November. Kondo called his wedding "a triumph of true love after years of feeling ostracized by real-life women for being an anime otaku, or geek" and considers himself a "sexual minority" who faces discrimination. Its simply not right, Kondo said in comments to The Japan Times. Its as if you were trying to talk a gay man into dating a woman, or a lesbian into a relationship with a man. Christopher Benek, a Presbyterian pastor and CEO of a science and tech ministry called CoCreators, believes Kondo's situation illustrates why Christian leaders need to be educated about emerging technological developments. "When dealing with the increasing pace of theological change, people fail to create a consistent and systemic ethic. This usually isnt because of ill intent or malice by the person but it is usually more so the case because they havent had a proper opportunity to explore and discern why they may be experiencing what they are feeling," he explained in a Thursday interview with The Christian Post. "If we are going to presently acknowledge robots' rights as equal to humans, then companies that make sex robots should genuinely be regarded as sex traffickers." When it comes to marriage, Christian pastors are culpable for these types of issues, like Mr. Kondos, taking place in culture, Benek went on to say. "Many pastors largely minimize pre-marital counseling or forgo it altogether using their ecclesiastical status as simply an agent of the state and not as a representative of the love and care of God in Christian community. When I served as a pastor at a church located in a destination location, I knew many pastors that would simply marry tourists to make a few extra bucks." "Personally, I feel like such behavior, done without proper care, doesnt honor the institution of marriage or Christ." The pastor contended that all matter in the cosmos is Gods technology and, as such, "humans are Gods AI," and that ethical considerations surrounding robotics will only grow. "Since we are made in the image of a Creator God, we too will one day be creating autonomous AI that, much like sci-fi cylons, may be virtually indistinguishable from present-day humans. I think what we are experiencing now is our initial exploration into that space. In the future, we will see more and more cyborg humans that will complicate the issue even further," Benek explained. "As such we need to be in careful prayer and discernment to know how to proceed and act ethically in relationship to God, one another and our technological creations." The Times featured another article on robots Saturday, seeking to answer the question "Why do we hurt robots?" with the subtitle "They are like us, but unlike us, and both fearsome and easy to bully." In 2017, Saudi Arabia, infamous for its suppression of women's rights, granted official citizenship to a robot. That same year, while not recognized by authorities, Chinese artificial intelligence engineer Zheng Jiajia made headlines when he married the robot he built in 2016, having given up on finding a human spouse. Speculations have emerged in recent months that by the year 2045, robots will be accorded civil rights protections. Christians-only foster care agency gets waiver from Trump admin. Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment South Carolina's largest foster care agency, which only places children with Christian families, received a waiver from the Trump administration to continue operating as long as it refers non-Christian parents to other agencies. Recently, South Carolina requested an exemption to a federal Health and Human Services Department anti-discrimination rule implemented during the Obama administration for Miracle Hill Ministries, which only places children with Christian households. HHS Administration for Children and Families sent a letter to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster Wednesday granting the request by stating that they believed compelling Miracle Hill to follow the anti-discrimination policy would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Miracle Hills sincere religious exercise would be substantially burdened by application of the religious nondiscrimination requirement, read the letter in part. subjecting Miracle Hill to that requirement, by denying South Carolinas exception request, is not the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling government interest on the part of HHS. The waiver was granted on the condition that Miracle Hill must refer foster parents who do not share their religious beliefs to another entity within the states foster care program. The ACF letter concluded by noting that the granted exception does not relieve the SC Foster Care Program of its obligation to comply with any other requirements. Terry Schilling, executive director at the socially conservative American Principles Project, released a statement on Wednesday celebrating the decision. HHS took an important first step toward reversing that shameful policy by providing the state of South Carolina with an official exception to the regulation, allowing these charities the ability to continue serving poor children who desperately need homes without having to violate key tenets of their faith, said Schilling. We applaud HHS for their effort to protect faith-based foster care providers, and we urge HHS and the Trump administration to continue their efforts to undo this discriminatory regulation in order to preserve the freedom of these providers to continue their important work. Rachel Laser, president and CEO of the socially liberal Americans United for Separation of Church and State, blasted the administrations decision to grant the exception. This is yet another example of the Trump administration using religion to advance a regressive political agenda that harms others, said Laser in a statement released Wednesday. While this waiver is specific to South Carolina, it sets a dangerous nationwide precedent that elevates the beliefs of government-funded programs over the best interests of the children in their care. Was Trump's rise driven by church decline? Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The decline of Christianity in the U.S. helped President Donald Trump secure the Republican nomination, an analysis argues. "The best way to describe Trumps support in the Republican primaries when he was running against the likes of Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich would be: white evangelicals who do not go to church," Timothy Carney wrote Jan. 17 for The American Conservative. Using Voter Study Group data, Carney found that Trump did best among Republican primary voters who seldom or never attend religious services. Carney, opinion editor for The Washington Examiner and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, also writes about this topic in the forthcoming Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse, which will be published Feb. 19. Carney doesn't place the blame on working-class whites who stopped going to church, but sees it as a complicated story of economic decline contributing to church closures. "Economic collapse goes hand in hand with the desiccation of religious institutions," Carney wrote. "When factories or coal mines close, some portion of the population flees. Still others stop going to church .... "Absent strong job prospects, fewer adults form families. When people have fewer weddings and christenings, and fewer kids to educate on right and wrong, they go to church less. Of course then, this becomes a vicious circle: in communities less anchored in church, theres less family formation. A place with fewer families is a place less attractive to employers thus this social and moral collapse is both a consequence and a cause of economic collapse. "The 'economic anxiety' is inextricably tied with the collapse of church and family. The latter is the more dangerous problem." Carney concluded by noting the "bitter irony" of church decline leading to Trump, for those on the secular Left who believe a less religious nation is a better nation. Others have also argued that the rise of Trump is a symptom of the decline of religion in America. In a Dec. 7 column for New York magazine, columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote that the void left by religion is being filled by both Trump and illiberal social justice warriors. We have the cult of Trump on the right, a demigod who, among his worshipers, can do no wrong. And we have the cult of social justice on the left, a religion whose followers show the same zeal as any born-again evangelical. They are filling the void that Christianity once owned, without any of the wisdom and culture and restraint that Christianity once provided, Sullivan said. Others have similarly argued that Trump's strongest support doesn't come from his most religious voters. Carney cited Notre Dame professor Geoffrey Layman, who made this argument in a Washington Post op-ed, "Where is Trumps evangelical base? Not in church," during the 2016 nomination contests. Some reacted to Carney's column by pointing out that even if dispossessed Christians fueled Trump's rise, devout white evangelicals were still responsible for getting him over the finish line. Plus, some of Trump's strongest supporters continue to be evangelical leaders, such as Pastor Robert Jeffress, the Rev. Franklin Graham, and Liberty University President Jerry Fallwell Jr. In response to Carney's argument, Eastern Illinois University political scientist Ryan Burge wrote for Religion in Public that Republican voters who went to church the most often mostly supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. They only represented 20 percent of the sample, however, and every other church attendance category mostly backed Trump. Burge also found that Cruz supporters were the most conservative on Christian Right issues, such as religious freedom, abortion and homosexuality. But beyond those issues, Cruz voters looked similar to Trump voters. In a Tuesday column for Religion & Politics, Janelle Wong, professor of American studies and Asian American studies at the University of Maryland, wrote that evangelical support for Trump is more driven by race than religion. Noting data first reported in her book, Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change (2018), Wong wrote that Trump had higher support from nonevangelical whites than evangelical non-whites, suggesting that white evangelical Trump supporters are more driven by their whiteness than their evangelicalism. Carney and Wong both agree that economics alone doesn't fully explain the source of Trump's strongest supporters. "Its pretty clear at this point that economic disenfranchisement is not the driving force behind white evangelicals conservative politics. Rather, the primary driver in my view is a sense of 'racial embattlement,'" Wong concluded. More evidence for this was in a September 2018 report by Emily Ekins for The Cato Institute (using the same dataset Carney used), which found that nonreligious Trump voters showed more racist attitudes than religious Trump voters. In explaining Trumpism, Carney points to a loss of religious instruction and Wong points to racist sentiments. But these theories can be complementary if racism thrives where religious instruction dwindles. A recent book by political scientists Ruth Melkonian-Hoover and Lyman Kellstedt found that white evangelicals who are theologically conservative and are active in their church are more likely to disagree with Trump on immigration issues, which suggests that a combination of participation and belief, church attendance and instruction can influence political views, and not always in the popularly expected direction. Will Rhode Island follow New York in legalizing abortion up to birth, for any reason? Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment State legislators in Rhode Island have introduced a pair of bills to legalize abortion up to the moment of birth, echoing a new law in New York. Reportedly stoked by fears that the U.S. Supreme Court will soon reverse the landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, rallies for and against the proposed legislation were held in Providence this week. State Representative Edith Ajello of Providence, who introduced the Reproductive Health Care Act earlier this month, said in a statement that she had an illegal abortion in 1965 and did not want to return to that time. I was extraordinarily lucky in those times to have been referred to a real doctor in a coal mining town in Pennsylvania for a safe abortion. Too many women back then were not so lucky, said Ajello. It is clear that Roe is in real danger with the U.S. Supreme Court changes and as this president has promised to strip away our reproductive rights. State Senator Gayle Goldin has introduced a matching bill, with Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo having expressed her support for the legislation on social media. On Tuesday, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the New York state Legislature passed a bill Tuesday making it legal for doctors and other health care professionals, such as midwives and physician assistants, to perform abortions up to birth for any reason. Known as the Reproductive Health Act, passed with a 38-28 vote in the state Senate chamber, the bill codified federal abortion rights guaranteed under Roe v. Wade and removed abortion from the state's criminal code. an abortion May be performed by a licensed, certified, or authorized practitioner within 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient's life or health, read section 2 of New Yorks act. New York's Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law, prompting the Most Rev. Edward B. Scharfenberger, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Albany, to question the elected official's faith. Your advocacy of extreme abortion legislation is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church. Once truth is separated from fiction and people come to realize the impact of the bill, they will be shocked to their core, wrote Bishop Scharfenberger in an open letter to Cuomo. By that time, however, it may be too late to save the countless lives that will be lost or spare countless women lifelong regret. Satanic prayer hotline started as joke receives multiple calls asking for prayer Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A "Satanic prayer" hotline that was set up in Washington state as somewhat of a joke is being inundated with lots of calls. Local intercessors, however, insist it's better to stay focused on what God is doing, not what the devil is doing. In an episode of NPR's "This American Life" radio program, host Ira Glass recounted the activity of The Satanic Missionary Society, where, like Christian prayer hotlines, callers can phone in and leave voicemail messages requesting prayer. The satanic prayer hotline, hosted on a blog, was launched by a man in Olympia, Washington, named Chris Allert, who doesn't believe in God or Satan. Annoyed by Christians who wouldn't stop evangelizing, he began the prayer line out of curiosity to see who would call. He soon found out people were taking prayers to Satan really seriously and wasn't sure what to do with that, Glass explained. Those who call this hotline have the option to have their messages posted on the internet so others can pray to Satan on their behalf. With almost no publicity, voicemail messages soon started arriving, most of which ended with "Hail Satan." "Hello, satanists everywhere. I'm calling to put a hex on the 1230 Club in Olympia, Washington," one message read, "[b]ecause they start blasting the music really early every night." "Please make the 1230 Club go out of business, but make sure everybody that works there goes deaf, like, from playing their music so loud first. Hail Satan," the prayer request continued. Another caller asking for satanic prayer requested help to acquire his first-ever job. Yet another called in to complain that he had been robbed and wanted whoever stole his belongings to suffer for it. A teenage girl called in with a "sticky situation;' she believed she might be pregnant. "And I need you guys to pray against the pregnancy. And if there is a baby inside of me, for Satan to kill it. Because I can't have a baby right now. So I'm turning to Satan, and he is the only answer I have right now. So I'm just overwhelmed. So call me when you get the chance. So thank you so much. Hail Satan, right? OK, thank you. Goodbye," she said in her message. Other callers reportedly call in as a joke, or when they are intoxicated. Patrick Walton, lead pastor at the International House of Prayer NW, headquartered in Federal Way, Washington, is not moved by the satanic prayer hotline, and says the best thing to do is to stay tuned into God, not getting bogged down in fighting the devil. "Our simple answer would be, we pray prayers from the Bible, what we call (and many others) apostolic prayers, or prayers that the apostles prayed. We also pray prayers from the Old Testament as well," he said in an email to The Christian Post on Thursday, when asked how they intercede in light of the overt presence of demonic activity in the region. "We see these prayers are Godward in nature, mainly, if not all positive, and not asking for devils to be overthrown, but that God would change people, by way of changing the atmosphere," he added, Walton stressed that his comments not be taken as an official statement on behalf of the ministry but is generally "in a nutshell" how they see their prayers and intercession working in their environment. "We don't get into rebuking the devil, squirting oil everywhere, and shouting really loudly. We try and pray from the Bible, maintain a culture of devotion to Jesus and the whole of the Bible, and we ask, as Jude did, that the Lord would rebuke Satan," Walton added. "We don't get involved in speaking directly to Satan. We keep our conversation going toward God, and we see this as a biblical pattern." PCUSA pastor lists anti-gay conversion therapy movie 'Boy Erased' in 'top 10 films for believers' to watch Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment The controversial film Boy Erased is one of the 10 movies of 2018 that Christians should watch, according to the Rev. Edward McNulty, pastor of Blue Ball Presbyterian Church in Middletown, Ohio. In a piece published by the denomination's Presbyterian Mission site, McNulty listed Boy Erased, a film based on the memoir of Garrard Conley that portrays Christian sexual orientation conversion therapy in a negative light, at No. 8 on his list. The boy soon learns that the tactics at the center include spiritual bullying and instilling fear into the patients, even turning them against the family member who purportedly caused them to choose the gay lifestyle, McNulty wrote. His mother slowly changes her view of the Bible, her love for her son overcoming her theology. But what about the father back home? This is a good companion film to The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which is about a girl forced into a similar clinic. While McNulty has given Boy Erased a positive review, others, including Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council, have been more critical. In a column published by The Christian Post last year, Sprigg said the movie and the memoir it was based off "represent only one anecdote about sexual orientation change efforts." "The claim that [sexual orientation change efforts therapy] in general has been shown to be ineffective and harmful is not supported by the scientific research," wrote Sprigg. "Boy Erased is not particularly entertaining, and not at all informative for making policy regarding sexual orientation change efforts." Former LGBT-identified persons have also taken issue with the movies portrayal of conversion therapy. "[W]e don't think we've seen all that God offers for people questioning their sexuality. And we don't believe that Hollywood's representation of Christian faith is accurate," explained Ken Williams and Elizabeth Woning, ex-gays with the group Equipped to Love, in an essay last year. We don't have everything figured out, but we do know the craziness of blame and accusation needs to stop. We are resolved to walk humbly together, celebrating Jesus and His love, and pursuing all God has for us. We expect God to do incredible things. Gabriel Pagan, pastor at Love Revolution Church in Columbus, Georgia, who left homosexuality years ago, told The Christian Post in an interview last year that he considered the film divisive and not seeking the heart of both communities equally. [Boy Erased will] cause more of a bad taste in the mouths of both the Christian and LBGT communities because it doesn't bring us to a place of connection. It mentions a wound but no place for reconciliation, Pagan added. McNutty's article also linked to his more in-depth review of the film last November, wherein he gave the R-rated film a four-and-a-half-star rating out of five and said his only criticism of the film was its lack of pro-LGBT Christians. Unchurched viewers might be led to believe that all Christians believe this, the film never suggesting that a great many Christians no longer accept those passages as authoritative, just as they also no longer regard certain other as authoritative passages that support slavery, male domination of women, or pre-scientific views of astronomy and biology, McNulty wrote. Despite the above shortcoming, this is a good film for discussing a major problem the film points out just before the end credits that it is still legal in 36 out of 50 US states to send children to conversion camps, despite the possibility that the often undertrained therapists can inflict psychological damage on its young inmates as happens in the film. No. 1 on McNultys top 10 list was First Reformed, a film about a disillusioned upstate New York pastor who becomes influenced by a violent environmental activist. Other films on the list include the Mr. Rogers documentary Wont You Be My Neighbor? (No. 3), If Beale Street Could Talk (No. 6), On the Basis of Sex (No. 10), and Unbroken: Path to Redemption (No. 9). Though I am no fan of Grahams theology, I am persuaded by this film that Christ can reach out to lost persons and change their lives through a person whose theological views are very different from my own, wrote McNulty regarding the Unbroken film. 'What if every word of the Bible is true?' Author Charles Martin explores Jesus life and ministry Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Author Charles Martin, who's behind the novel-turned-movie The Mountain Between Us, has written a book on Jesus life and ministry through a storytelling perspective. What If It's True?: A Storytellers Journey with Jesus, which will be released on Jan. 29, explores the fundamental question: What if every single word of Scripture is absolutely true and I can trust it?" Martin, who has released 14 books in his career that spans more than 20 years, uses a storytellers imagination to place the reader in some of the most gripping and important scenes of the New Testament from Jesus crucifixion to His miracles. The reasons for why he undertook this endeavor is something he explores not only in one of the first chapters, but throughout the entire book, sharing numerous moments from his own life where he could feel Jesus Words at play. Martin, 41, told The Christian Post in a phone interview that he grew up in a house where my mom and dad loved the Lord. I dont ever remember not knowing Jesus as Lord, he said of his background as a Christian. I have known the Lord a long time. It doesnt mean I have always been obedient, but Ive known Him, he added. The author said that the inspiration to write a book like this, one that immerses the readers in striking detail in the life and ministry of Christ, came to him two novels ago. He explained that for many years in his career, he had simply been moving from one novel to the next, and he was known by everyone for his day job as a writer. Martin told CP that for over 10 years now he has also been leading a Bible study group. Once a week I meet these guys and try to unpack Scripture for them. And so part of my life for the last decade or so has been teacher, somebody who spent a lot of time in the Word, he noted. Two novels ago I am sitting there and I thought Lord, I would really like to put some of these teachings together in a book, if I could just figure out how to do it." He said he wanted to write a book about why he walks with Jesus, because he has seen what the Lord has done through His Word as weve studied it for the past decade, for the past 12 years. He reflected that his past novels have often raised deep and profound questions. When it comes to What If Its True, Martin said that he thinks it answers most, if not all of the questions that have arisen in my fiction. His books have reached millions, with the 2011 romance-disaster novel The Mountain Between Us turned into a movie in 2017, featuring major Hollywood stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet. Martin positioned that the success of the novel has not changed anything about what he writes or how he writes it. Im still writing love stories with a character who is very much broken, he said, with the story arks exploring how do I get this character from broken to not broken? That is my question; that is why I write the fiction that I do. What If It's True begins with what Martin described as the single most important event in the history of mankind, namely Jesus being led through the streets by the Roman soldiers to Calvary, where He is crucified on the cross. The author noted that the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus is the pin upon which everything hinges. He said that it's not correct to say that Jesus was just a good moral teacher. A man like Jesus, who did the things that He did, He is either a nutjob, or He really is the Son of God, he said. The author added that he begins the book with the crucifixion as a means of having a conversation with the readers in front of the cross with Jesus, where we need to be. As for how he was able to put himself in a mindset to describe in vivid detail such major biblical scenes, he said he did it with fear and trembling. Maybe this is why it took so long for this book to come out, because I had to ask the Lord is it OK for me to write these things in this way? he revealed. At the same time, he felt that God gave him the freedom to write it as best I could, given what I could find in the Scriptures. As Martin admits, he didn't write the book as a theological exercise, and has no formal training in theology. Speaking of whether he has concerns about how people will interpret the book, he noted that after 14 novels, he knows that he has no control over how people respond to his work. I didnt really spend a lot of time worrying about how folks would respond to it. I did spend a lot of time wondering OK, I didnt go to seminary, I dont have training in theology. Have I written something that is not true? Is there something in my book that is blasphemous? he said. Martin revealed that before ever giving his work to the editor, he handed it to seven other people who did go to seminary, or have been pastors for decades. And I said, Read this please, and tell me if I'm wrong. Have I written something that's just blatant blasphemy? And they came back with some suggestions about how to say things differently. But nobody came out and said this is flat out wrong, he shared. One particularly powerful scene of Jesus healing a woman who was hemorrhaging, found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Martin relates to an experience years ago in Africa when he met up with doctors while working on a book. The doctors were treating women who had obstetric fistula, a condition caused by prolonged obstructed labor, which leaves women with uncontrolled leakage of blood, urine, and feces. In the biblical story, Jesus not only heals the woman, who believed He could help her even before He did so, but calls her "daughter," something which Martin says is very significant. He said it's an important story because the woman was bleeding through no fault of her own. For us, we all carry wounds, often times that are not our fault. Granted, we are quite good at causing our own troubles. But with regards to her, she somehow represented the wounds that we all carry. All of us are bleeders. Only at the feet of Jesus is that wound made whole. Not only is the physical wound made whole, but deeper ones as well, he observed. When Jesus calls the woman daughter, He not only heals her physically, but also heals her soul, Martin said, because she realizes she is a child of God. Stepping back, Martin reflected on how his audience has changed over the past 20 years. Early on, it was probably mostly Christians. [But] today, I think there are those who are attracted to my fiction but are not necessarily believers. They like my storytelling, he offered. Some nonbelievers even became angry when they realize that Martin is listed as a Christian writer, with the author sharing one such exchange, and the response he had for the individual, in a blog post he wrote last March. The reader says in part, "Problem is, you seem to have a lot of storytelling talent but when you start in with the Xtian crap, you lose most of your more educated, and open minded readers." Martin begins in his reply: "First, can I just say that I'm sorry. It sounds like some Christian somewhere wounded you. Please forgive us. We don't always get it right. Loving people like Jesus is not easy. I fail here often." As he continues later, and as he told CP, he has learned that his novels tend to shake stuff loose in people. They pick at old wounds, because I think thats the way the Lord works. He likes to heal wounds. So in order to heal them, we have to get at them first. I feel that a lot of times, my fiction picks at wounds, and people are upset at me for doing that. [But] my heart behind my fiction is to really show them how there is healing for that, he continued. In my nonfiction it is far more easy to draw that out, I can be far more specific. In my fiction, I have to raise emotions, and try to lead people to recognize those emotions without beating them over the head with it, he said. Going back to What If It's True?, Martin revealed that the reason he didn't write a prayer in the last chapter is because he felt like he has done his job, and led readers to wanting to pray themselves. I feel like I'm the guy who met them at the door or on the streets, I walk all the way across to the throne, and introduce them to Jesus, telling them that He wants to spend time with you. If His word is true, and I believe that it is every word is absolutely true then we ought to live somehow differently, it has to shake stuff loose in us, the author concluded. My hope is that I have encouraged folks, both believers and nonbelievers, and that I have introduced them to Jesus in a way that maybe they havent been introduced before. Meghan Markle excited billions around the world when she and new husband Prince Harry announced theyd be expecting their first child this spring. One of the best parts of pregnancy is the reaction of loved ones when you tell your family youre expecting. However, Meghans father, Thomas Markle, didnt find out exactly the way hed hoped. Meghan and Harry announced their pregnancy to the world in October As soon as Meghan and Harry were engaged, the public began wondering when the couple would have their first child. Meghan and Harry had expressed that they were both excited to start a family, but nobody could be sure how soon after the wedding Meghan would get pregnant. As it turns out, the two didnt wait long. Meghan and Harry announced in October that they were expecting a little one this coming spring. Based on the idea that most couples wait three months to announce, Meghan and Harry likely got pregnant back in July just two months after they tied the knot. Meghan and her father had been on rocky terms since before her wedding Meghan once had a great relationship with her father, Thomas Markle. In the past, she has thanked him for giving her a wonderful upbringing, and Thomas is largely the reason Meghan got into acting in the first place. Thomas was a Hollywood lighting director, and Meghan would often visit him on set after school when she was younger. The two were close despite her parents divorce, but in time, things began to get rocky. Meghan didnt see her father as much and didnt have the best relationship with her half siblings. Then, when Meghan and Harry got engaged, her father got caught talking negatively about her to the press. Thomas Markle found out about the pregnancy while listening to the radio While Meghan and Harry told close family and friends in a more personal way, Thomas was not so lucky. Thomas said in an interview that he was listening to the radio while waiting to cross the border (presumably the United States-Mexico border) when the DJ announced Meghan and Harrys big news. Although it seems harsh, it does make sense that Meghan didnt tell her father personally. After all, he hadnt said great things about her in recent encounters with the media. Plus, he did not attend her wedding due to health complications. Although understandable, it was probably difficult for Meghan to know her father wasnt there. Despite the way he found out, Thomas is still extremely happy for his daughter and her husband Thomas may not have found out about his daughters pregnancy the way he thought he would, but he said hes still incredibly happy for her. He called the news overwhelming and joyful. He said he was filled with love, joy, and happiness for both his daughter and son in law. There has been no word on when Thomas will finally meet his grandchild. Meghans mother, on the other hand, is reportedly flying out to the United Kingdom after the baby arrives to spend some quality time with Meghans new little family. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! OPEC and its allies do not rule out taking further action at their next meeting in April should oil inventories build up in the first quarter, OPECs secretary general said, Financial Tribune reported citing Reuters. Worried by a drop in oil prices and rising supplies, OPEC and non-OPEC countries such as Russia agreed in December to return to production cuts in 2019. The producers meet on April 17-18 to review the pact. OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo, in comments to Reuters, did not rule out more action if industrialized nation stocks continued to rise above the five-year average. We remain focused on the supply-demand balance, Barkindo told Reuters TV at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Our challenge is to maintain supply-demand balance. Meghan Markle is living her best life as a member of the British Royal Family. With a slew of royal patronages and charities on her calendar as well as the upcoming birth of her first child, Markle seems to be the happiest shes ever been. However, with a world uber-obsessed with the Britsh Royal family and all of the mania surrounding the former actress and her husband, Prince Harry the attention is undoubtedly more than a bit overwhelming. Meghan Markle has extensive security, but with the world tracking her every move does the Duchess of Sussex fear for her safety? Does Meghan Markle fear for her safety? Though Markle was used to being in the spotlight as a Hollywood actress on the hit series Suits, her celebrity as a member of the British Royal Family has put her under a microscope. Though she appears calm and collected, The Sun is reporting that Markle does fear for her personal safety. A royal insider revealed, She doesnt feel safe enough to go out on her own without protection. There are certain things shes extremely paranoid about, such as being physically attacked. Harry has fed into this hes hugely protective and doesnt want her to be put at any risk so that understandable worry has made her very uneasy. There is no way shed consider putting her personal safety and that of her unborn child at risk. Meghan Markle and Prince Harrys security concerns Seeing what his own mother, the late Princess Diana, dealt with when it came to the press, as well as her tragic death Prince Harry is particularly vigilant about his wifes security. In fact, the Duke and the Duchess of Sussex just broke the lease on their Cotswolds country home due to security concerns. A source told Closer Weekly, The property is not situated on a heavily guarded estate and is not as heavily protected as it could be. Plus, there is also some worry about the strain that their presence means for the local police force. Both Prince Harry and Markle have seen first hand what a breach of privacy can do to the royal family. The prince had his own nudes leaked; Duchess Kate Middleton was photographed topless while sunbathing in the privacy of her vacation home, and Princess Diana died after being chased through Paris by the paparazzi. Its better to be vigilant now than to be sorry later. Why did Meghan Markles female bodyguard quit? When Prince Harrys head of security, Sergeant Bill Renshaw retired after 30 years of service, Duchess Meghan Markle was determined to get a female bodyguardand she found one. The female officer whose name has not been released by Kensington Palace was seen protecting Markle during a chaotic outing a Fiji market. However, after just six months on the job, the woman resigned leaving the duchess feeling gutted. Daily Mail reported that the woman left her post for personal reasons. A source revealed, It came as quite a shock. Everyone was very sad at the news. As was she. It was clear it was a decision she hadnt taken lightly. However, other royal insiders have said that the duchess desire to act like one of the people makes guarding her particularly difficult. Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook! Meghan Markle, the new Duchess of Sussex, certainly knows how to make a fashion statement! Weve seen her in everything from ripped jeans and a button-down shirt to elegant sparkly dresses, and no matter what she chooses to wear, Meghan always manages to look fantastic! However, the royal family is known for having strict guidelines when it comes to what they are allowed to wear, especially at royal events. Royals in the past have always been seen following all fashion rules, but not Meghan. Is Meghan Markle breaking royal protocol with her modern fashion choices? What are the Royals expected to wear? When it comes to royal attire, the queen has quite a few rules in place. Skirts should hit at just above the knee, nail polish is always to be a neutral color, no wedge heels, pantyhose are required, and many more. While most of the royals follow the dress code each and every time they are seen, however, one of the newest members of the family has been known to put her own twist on the royal style. Meghan Markle, in the time since she married Prince Harry, has been seen wearing several outfits that are more Hollywood than royal, shining in the spotlight and loving every second of it! What does Meghan Markle wear that does not follow guidelines? Fans are used to seeing Meghans sister in law, Kate Middleton in conservative skirts and elegant evening dresses for royal engagements and events. Meghan herself, however, is a bit of a rule breaker, as she has recently been seen in dark nail polish and a one-shoulder black dress that was daring and edgy. Although Meghan looked absolutely beautiful, fans couldnt help but wonder if Queen Elizabeth was in approval of her look. The Duchess also recently stepped out in a tight mini dress that fit snugly over her baby bump. Looks like Meghan is not afraid to put her own take on things when deciding what to wear. How else is Markle breaking the royal fashion rules? Meghans one-shoulder dress wasnt the only bold move she has made in the short time she has been a royal! The Duchess of Sussex was seen on her and Harrys official tour of Australia wearing wedge heels, a known dislike of the queen. Not only that, but she took them off for a walk on the beach, something no royal has ever dared to do. In late August, Meghan also decided to skip the pantyhose, going for bare legs while wearing a black jacket and an exceptionally short skirt. How about Markles hair? Just like at her royal wedding back in May, Meghan likes to wear her hair in casual styles that look effortlessly beautiful! When her long, dark locks are not down in loose waves, she can be seen sporting her signature messy bun, usually with a few loose pieces framing her face. While we have seen Meghans hair occasionally styled in a perfect updo, fans love her slightly tousled, pulled back look that many try to replicate themselves! Does Markle wear hats? One royal rule that Meghan does seem to abide by is wearing a hat to certain engagements, and she definitely wears them well! She was seen wearing a flattering black beret at Westminster Abbey recently for an Armistice Day service, as well as an attractive, wide-brimmed, green hat that she chose for the christening of Prince Louis. She has also been seen in several fascinators over the last few months, a look that certainly agrees with her! It seems that Meghan Markle is making quite the modern royal fashion statement, and she is looking great while doing it! President Trump did the right thing Friday by announcing a deal to reopen the federal government. Thursday, I voted twice to reopen the government. And on Friday, the Senate voted to open the government unanimously. It is now time for Congress to work together to produce a comprehensive bill to secure our border, including physical barriers where appropriate. Thats what we did for the last four presidents by approving in Congress, on a bipartisan basis, 654 miles of physical barrier on the 1,954 mile border. And thats what we should do now working with President Trump. When a president, elected by the people of the United States, has a legitimate objective, we in Congress should bend over backwards to try to meet that objective if we want a result, regardless of whatever you may think of him or her. Nobody wins in a shutdown. This shutdown over the past few weeks demonstrates why it is always wrong for either side to use shutting down the government as a bargaining chip in budget negotiationsit should be as off-limits as chemical weapons are to warfare. Boy Scouts shouldn't get a merit badge for telling the truth, and senators and presidents shouldn't get a merit badge for keeping the government open. That's what we are supposed to do. We began to make progress this week when we did something we know how to dovote. Then, the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, and the Democratic leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, walked back to Senator McConnells office and they began to talk. And here we are less than 24 hours later with a result. I wrote an op-ed earlier this month for the Washington Post where I offered three specific solutions to help address the humanitarian crisis and secure our border: Go smallGive the president the $1.6 billion he asked for in this years budget request, which the bipartisan Senate Appropriations Committee approved. Provide an additional $1 billion to improve border security at ports of entry, which everyone concedes is needed. Go biggerPass the bill that 54 senators voted for last February, which combined a solution for children brought to the United States illegally and $25 billion in appropriated funding for border security over 10 years. Or even better, go really bigBegin the new Congress by creating a legal immigration system that secures our borders and defines legal status for those already here. In 2013, 68 senators including all 54 Democrats voted for such a bill, but the House refused to take it up. That bill included more than $40 billion and many other provisions to secure our borders. The American people elected us to make the government work better for taxpayers, not to shut it down. It is now up to Congress to work together to do our most basic jobfund the governmentand to help President Trump achieve his reasonable goal of securing our southern border. As we open this weeks edition of The Saturday Funnies, we still cannot get over constant harassment by the privacy pirates who besiege our tranquility, using our cell phones for their senseless robo-calls and generating an unceasing amount of spam mail on our computers. Already there are pay sites that promise to shield us from unrestricted cyber piracy, but my main man Cleo has come up with some ways we can handle these unwanted interruptions and grossly unfair business practices. In the first place, let all join in a resolve to never do any type of business with louts such as these who are rude, obtrusive and clearly unwanted. My tact has always been to simply hang up, but the ever-clever Cleo has compiled a list of proven detriments to the unsuspecting low-life who want to ruin your day. Please, you will practice these return lines so that when the time comes, you can easily turn the tables on our telemarketer villains that have gotten out of control. Here are Cleos better replies this week: 1. First, you have to tell me what kind of underwear youre wearing. 2. Im sorry, but Im really busy right now. Give me your home number and I'll call you back later tonight. 3. Wait a minute. Im here robbing the house. Whoa! I think the owners just got home. Can you hold? 4. When someone asks whether a spouse is at home: Yes, but I never allow her/him to talk to strangers. 5. When someone asks how you are: Well, Im having an existential crisis at the moment. But, please, I need to explain it. I was on a public bus 14 years ago when I pulled the bell-cord to get off. I was all about anonymity but the more you can make with a good lawyer the fight is still yours. Has your company been sued a lot because thats where the big case awaits! There ought to be an open season on cold-call telemarketers because their ilk is quickly becoming the most detested industry within the United States. Here some more of this weeks Saturday Funnies MY FRIEND LARRY WRITES WHAT I HAVE QUESTIONED How can a person be arrested for a crime he didn't commit, with/against a person who doesn't exist, and be arrested by someone who deliberately set up and manipulated the whole thing: (Read https://www.chattanoogan.com/2019/1/24/383558/Port-Orchard-Wash.-Man-Arrested-After.aspx ) I'm not sympathetic with the intentions of the idiot who was arrested, but I've never understood the legitimacy of any kind of a police 'sting.' But, then, engineering is an activity that is based almost solely on facts and logic. I live with and deal with facts and logic all day, every day. And some days it seems that all the rest of the world can get along without either facts or logic; they don't even miss them! (This seems especially true where 'government' and 'law enforcement' is involved.) One consolation I have is, eventually all of those self-styled phony-righteous governors and enforcers will have the privilege of facing THE Law-giver and THE Judge. And, sadly (to my way of thinking), we are advised that we shouldn't gloat when we see others getting just what they asked for, just what they deserve. I still like the old-timer who observed that children typically want to see justice done, while adults prefer mercy. There is still a lot of child in this adult! * * * WHY WE OUGHT TO BE PATIENT WAITING ON THE MIXING A visiting Catholic priest was the guest preacher at a mens breakfast in Ohios farm country. He began by asking one of the impressive older farmers in attendance to say grace that morning. After all were standing before their plates, the old farmer began Lord, I hate buttermilk. I cannot abide it. The Priest opened one eye and wondered to himself where this was going. Then the farmer loudly proclaimed, And, Lord, you know that lard repulses me every time I spoon some out of its tub. Now the Priest was worried what would come next, the old man didnt skip a beat when he added, And Lord, you know I dont care a bit in this world about the flour that sits in the big jar next to the stove . At this point, the Priest quietly got up and approached the podium but seconds before the priest could interrupt, the farmer tied it all in a bow. But Lord, we know when you mix those three things and bake em up just right, there aint nothing finer than putting a load of fruit preserves and a dollop of butter on a fresh, hot biscuits and I do love a biscuit. My point being, When things come up in way we dont like, when life gets hard and confusing, we may not understand what you are trying to tell us right away, we just need to relax and wait until youre done with the mixing, and probably something will transpire that will be better that those breakfast biscuits Amen * * * HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT THE NEXT GUY IS THINKING? I WAS THINKING that if 11 million people have Obama-Care, how will 24 million people die if it is repealed? Will an additional 13 million people be randomly shot, poisoned, or spayed? I WAS THINKING If Donald Trump deleted all of his emails, wiped his server with Bleachbit (Like Hillary) and destroyed all of his phones with a hammer, would the Mainstream Media suddenly lose all interest in the story and declare him innocent. (Like Hillary) I WAS THINKING If women do the same job for less money, why do companies hire men to do the same job for more money? I WAS THINKING If you rob a bank in a Sanctuary City, is it illegal or is it just an Undocumented Withdrawal ? I WAS THINKING why each ISIS attack now is a reaction to Trump policies, but all ISIS attacks during Obama's term were due to Climate Change and a plea for jobs???? I WAS THINKING that we should stop calling them all 'Entitlements'. Welfare, Food Stamps, WIC, ad nauseum are not entitlements. They are taxpayer-funded handouts, and shouldn't be called entitlements at all. Social Security and Veterans Benefits are Entitlements because the people receiving them are entitled to them. They were earned and paid for by the recipients. I WAS THINKING that if Muslims want to run away from a Muslim country, does that mean they're Islamophobic? I WAS THINKING that if main-stream liberals don't believe in biological gender and promote transgenders, then why do they march for women's rights? I WAS THINKING How did the Russians get Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC to steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders? How did Russia get Donna Brazile to leak debate questions to Hillary Clinton in advance of the debates? I WAS THINKING why is it that Democrats think Super delegates are fine, but they have a problem with the Electoral College? I WAS THINKING THAT if you don't want the FBI involved in elections, then don't nominate someone who's being investigated by the FBI. I WAS THINKING if Hillary Clintons speeches & screeches cost $250,000 an hour, how come no one shows up to her free ones? I WAS THINKING if Democrats don't want foreigners involved in our elections, why do they think it's all right for illegals to vote? * * * BETTER TO SPEAK TO YOUR NEIGHBORS RATHER THAN TEXT The First Text Hi, George, this is Richard, next door. I've got a confession to make. I've been riddled with guilt for a few months and have been trying to get up the courage to tell you face-to-face. At least I'm telling you in this text, and I can't live with myself a minute longer without your knowing about this. The truth is that, when you're not around, I've been sharing your wife, day & night. In fact, probably much more than you. I haven't been getting it at home recently and I know that's no excuse. The temptation was just too great. I can't live with the guilt & hope you'll accept my sincere apology & forgive me. Please suggest a fee for usage, and I'll pay you. The Neighbor's Response -- George, feeling enraged & betrayed, grabbed his gun, went next door, and shot Richard dead. He returned home, shot his wife, poured himself a stiff drink & sat down on the sofa. George then looked at his phone & discovered a 2nd text message from Richard. The Second Text Message: Hi, George, Richard here again. Sorry about the typo on my last text. I assume you figured it out and noticed that the darned Spell-Check had changed "wi-fi" to "wife." Technology, huh? It'll be the death of us all. Amen. * * * This weeks funny video is here. royexum@aol.com Lee Universitys Department of Language and Literature will offer free English as a Second Language classes to the community through its English Language Center beginning Thursday and continuing through April 11. The ELC will offer five levels of classes for all levels of learners, ranging from beginners who do not know any English to speakers who are advanced in their knowledge of the English language. The class size is small, which allows teachers to tailor lessons to each students learning style and goals. The program is led by Dr. Chris Blake, associate professor of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and linguistics at Lee and director of the ELC. The courses are taught by student instructors who have been professionally trained in the TESOL program. In addition to the classes for adults, English instruction will be available for high school, middle school, and elementary school students. High school students will receive instruction through the ELC youth program, directed by Dr. Betsy Poole, assistant professor of Spanish and linguistics at Lee. For children ages 6-10, childcare will be provided by TESOL-trained students who will lead English lessons and activities suited for the young age group. Our program continues to grow every year, said Dr. Blake. We have seen hundreds of students make amazing progress in their English abilities over the past eight years as they have invested their time in these classes. The English Language Center program is funded, in part, by a grant from the Athens Federal Foundation. Classes will be held Thursday evenings from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Walker Memorial Building, with signs directing students to the building and rooms. For more information about the classes, contact Dr. Blake at cblake@leeuniversity.edu or 614-8223. Senator David Perdue announced his support of the solution to reopen the government and continue border security efforts. He said, This bipartisan solution will reopen the government while border security negotiations continue. There is still a national security crisis at our southern border, and President Trump is right to address it. I applaud the President for his continued forthright efforts to enter into good faith negotiations with House and Senate Democrats. Many Democrats have supported and voted for border security in the past, but throughout this process theyve clearly demonstrated they want to keep immigration as a political issue, and not find a real solution. If Democrats refuse to work with us to tackle this national priority over the next few weeks, President Trump will do what is necessary to protect America. Ultimately, this situation only underscores the dysfunction in Washingtons funding process. These conversations should have been completed last year, not four months into the current fiscal year. Hamilton County Schools surprised three of the best classroom teachers in the district on Friday with the announcement of their selection as a 2019 Teacher of the Year for the school system. The Teachers of the Year are Sara Pratt, a fourth grade teacher at Apison Elementary School, for the elementary grades division; Michele Jones, a fifth grade teacher at Middle Valley Elementary School, for middle grades in the fifth through eighth grade division; and Kristen Robertson, a ninth grade teacher at Signal Mountain Middle/High in the high school division. The announcements were made in the teachers' classrooms this morning. These three exceptional teachers will now advance to the state level in the Teacher of the Year recognition for Tennessee. Sara Pratt is in her fourth year of teaching, and she has spent all of that time at Apison Elementary School teaching fourth-grade. She considers herself as a facilitator of learning instead of someone who just imparts knowledge to the children in her class. In Ms. Pratts classroom, achievement starts with the culture of respect and authentic thinking she shares with her students. Children find that in my class they will struggle with problems, but in that struggle there is growth, said Pratt. We celebrate this struggle and growth process by recognizing when our thinking has evolved as a result of learning. In her classroom, students reenact King Georges taxation using M&Ms, explore kinetic energy through rubber band launches, or sample books in the Reading Cafe when she hosts quarterly book tastings. Students build their knowledge through active participation in class activities. I do not tell children what to think but rather present the material and allow them to explore and grapple with their own intelligent thoughts, Ms. Pratt said. I start with a foundation of knowing my students as individuals and this allows me to design instruction that helps everyone achieve. Michele Jones has taught fifth-grade a Middle Valley Elementary since beginning her teaching career in 2007. She has been a math and literacy teacher since 2016. She previously taught math, science, and social studies. Ms. Jones classroom practices and strategies have varied depending on the subject and group of students in her class, but high levels of growth and excitement for learning are a constant. During my first six years as a science and social studies teacher, I focused my teaching on hands-on experiments and discovery-based learning, Ms. Jones said. When I move to math, I continued to engage my students with discovery-based experiments and quickly realized that the method was also a highly effective strategy in math as well. Love, encouragement, and understanding is imperative in Ms. Jones classroom. In order to grow we first must try and sometimes fail, she added. However, if we learn from our mistake and keep persevering, we can and will overcome whatever obstacle we face. Her work with the community has led to a partnership between Middle Valley Elementary and the North River Rotary Club. The club has introduced the Four-Way Test program to the students at the school. The Four-Way Test encourages students to evaluate what they think, say and do by considering is it the truth, is it fair to all concerned, will it build goodwill and better friendships, and will it be beneficial to all concerned. Kristen Robertson is a ninth grade English teacher at Signal Mountain Middle/High School and has been at the school since 2013. She has also taught eighth-grade language arts and previously taught at Soddy Daisy High. Ms. Robertson serves as a personal project instructor working with 25 students each year to complete their culminating personal project for the International Baccalaureate Middle Years program. Building positive relationships and establishing a classroom environment with high expectations that encourages all students to embrace new challenges and academic risks is important to her. Teachers who form relationships see the most authentic growth and learning because their students know that their teachers believe in them and want to invest in their lives, Ms. Robertson said. She builds relationships by meeting with eighth-grade teachers to discover her new ninth-graders interests in extra-curricular activities and strengths and weaknesses in academic subjects. Ms. Robertson also makes it a priority to attend sporting events and to interact with her students in the community to build relationships and learn more about her students. I use this information to invent fun activities that hook student interests at the beginning of lessons, she added. I have found that going the extra mile on the front end to interact and build trust with my students makes a significant difference in their growth because they feel comfortable with me and want to do their best in my class. Roberson also includes a writing portfolio in her class to help students set goals, organize writing tasks, and chart the strengths and weaknesses of each writing assignment. We discuss their portfolios in terms of how they are improving, what goals they have set, and which academic risks they can take in order to reach the next level of achievement, Ms. Robertson said. Having taught history among other things in my career I continue to be amazed by a lack of knowledge of history. The problem is, of course, ignorance of history causes its repeat, often the bad things. In 2011, the Obama administration canceled a billion dollar Bush-era program called the Secure Border Initiative Network. This was a seven-year long project to integrate a high tech system of radar, sensors and video cameras along an almost 30 mile strip of our southern border. It was labeled a virtual fence and was proposed to eventually span the entire border with Mexico instead of a physical wall as some had proposed. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-MS, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called the plan a grave and expensive disappointment. Now chairman of that committee, Rep. Thompson appearing on PBS Newshour gleefully sang the praises of such a high tech system as an alternative to Trumps wall. Democrats are relying on their constituents blind hatred for Trump along with a preoccupation with social media to distract them from the fact that what they now propose is what they strongly opposed and stopped when a Republican President did it. Maybe the virtual fence was a failure. Maybe it would have eventually cost more than a wall. But how would we know? It was denounced and then cancelled by Democrats only to be resurrected because right now they have nothing original. Democrats say, because its our plan it will work, trust us. And what happens if they enact it and its the expensive failure they said it was in 2011? Would they cancel it again leaving us with nothing? History would tell you that is very likely. Ralph Miller The problem of an objective study of revolutionary events on the outskirts of the Russian Empire, in particular, on the territory of Ukraine, is acute today, especially in light of the political relevance of this topic. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to study this period, since this question is extremely politicized by the Kiev authorities, the analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza, Matey Katkov said today in the National Question program on Vesti.FM. The National Question is a weekly program on Vesti.FM, during which various aspects of national relations in Russia and the CIS countries are discussed. Today, the issue of perpetuating the memory of Simon Petliura in Ukraine was being analyzed. On the one hand, Petliura, of course, is responsible for the Jewish pogroms, this is obvious. But on the other side, the question arises - to what extent the government is responsible for such manifestations, especially in the revolutionary years. Indeed, such actions are often taken underneath. Nevertheless, Petliura is responsible for these events, it is impossible to completely disown them by the confusion of the revolutionary era. It is extremely difficult now to establish the exact number of the pogrom victims, but the figure is about 50 thousand, the expert said. At the same time, he noted that it is very difficult to reveal Petliuras personal views on the Jewish question. "On the one hand, the Jewish pogroms speak for themselves, Petliura is responsible for them as the actual head of state. On the other hand, it is known that in his youth he was sympathetic to the problems of Jews in the Russian Empire - he wrote about this in 1907, in the foreword of Jews play by Chirikov published in Kiev, the historian recalled. According to him, the issue of Petliura and Jewish pogroms is extremely difficult, and modern political speculations make the relevant study more difficult. He also drew attention to the fact that the Ukrainian authorities set up a monument to Petliura not in the context of relations with Jews, but in the context of the Ukrainian national ideology created by him. At the same time, the Jewish question in Petliuras biography is almost completely out of the bracket, and Petliura himself is placed in a trail with Ivan Mazepa and Stepan Bandera. The historical science previously expressed hope for the possibility of a more objective study of the revolutionary events on the outskirts of the Russian Empire, in particular, in Ukraine. It was suggested that a century later the problem would lose its political relevance, which will allow it to be studied in more detail. Alas, we are now seeing a completely different trend, the expert concluded. Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with his Tunisian counterpart Khemaies Jhinaoui on Saturday focusing on the state of affairs in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in the Sahara-Sahel region, in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Lebanon, TASS reports. The agenda also includes the issues of bilateral relations, including trade and economic ties. Tunisia plays an important role in Africa and the Arab world in terms of Russian products purchases, Moscow has noted. "In 2018, trade turnover with that country amounted to $760 mln (against $511 mln in 2017 - TASS)," the Foreign Ministry said in a commentary prior to Lavrovs visit. "Russian exports are mainly represented by primary products, though there has emerged a trend of a rising share of processed products. Tunisian imports are mainly represented by agriculture products," the ministry said. The Russian side has also acknowledged the fact that the work of the intergovernmental commission, which is going to hold another meeting in Tunisia this year, has been quite efficient. Tourism is a special cooperation area between the two countries. In 2018, 600,000 Russians visited Tunisia, an increase of almost 100,000 compared with the previous year. Moscow "welcomes the efforts of Tunisias authorities to ensure proper safety conditions for our citizens," the ministry said, adding that it considers "that issue to be one of top priorities." The Turkish Stream gas pipeline is more dangerous for Ukraine than the Nord Stream 2, because after launching this pipeline, the country will finally lose Russian gas transit, Novoye Vremya magazine writes with a reference to the expert on the energy of the Strategic Advisory Group on Reform Support under the Government of Ukraine, Karel Girman. The Nord Stream 2 cannot deliver gas to the countries of southern Europe, but with the launch of the Turkish Stream Russian gas will be supplied to Italy, France and the Balkan countries, " the expert explained, RIA Novosti reports. The Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) has invited online applications from eligible Indian citizens for recruiting 6 (5 Fresh and 1 Carry Forward) Assistant Directors under A.P. Economics and Statistical Service to be placed across the State of Andhra Pradesh. The online application process towards the same will start from 30 January 2019 and will close on 20 February 2019. CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts Assistant Director Organisation Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) Educational Qualification Post Graduation Degree in Mathematics, Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Applied Statistics, Pure Economics, Economics with Statistics, Applied Economics, Econometrics or Computer Science Experience Freshers can apply Job Location Andhra Pradesh Salary Scale Rs. 37,100/ Rs. 91,450/- Per Month Industry Civil Services Application Start Date January 30, 2019 Application End Date February 20, 2019 Age Criteria And Fees Interested candidates applying for the post of Assistant Director through APPSC Recruitment 2019 must have attained 18 years of age and not have exceeded 42 years as on 01 July 2019, with a relaxation (upper age limit) by 5 years and 10 years for SC/ST/OBC, and PWD candidates, respectively. Candidates are required to deposit a requisite amount of Rs 250/- towards application processing and Rs. 120/- as exam fee. SC, ST, OBC, PWD and Ex-Servicemen candidates are required to deposit Rs. 120/- only towards the examination. All payments must be made through online mode only (Internet Banking/Debit/Credit payment gateways). Also Read: APPSC Recruitment 2019 For 78 Assistant Statistical Officers; Earn Up To INR Rs. 71,510/- Per Month Educational Criteria Interested candidates applying for the post of Assistant Director through APPSC Recruitment 2019 must possess a PG Degree in any one of the Subjects of Mathematics, Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Applied Statistics, Pure Economics, Economics with Statistics, Applied Economics, Econometrics or Computer Science from a recognized Institution/University recognized by the UGC. Selection And Pay Scale The selection of candidates as Assistant Directors under A.P. Economics and Statistical Service through APPSC Recruitment 2019 will be done through a Written Examination (Computer Based Exam) to be held on 3rd and 4th April 2019 followed by an Interview. Candidates selected as Assistant Directors will be paid in the scale of Rs. 37,100/ - Rs. 91,450/- per month. Also Read: AIIMS Bhopal Recruitment 2019 For Professors, Associate Professors & Additional Professors How To Apply Candidates applying for the post of Assistant Director under A.P. Economics and Statistical Service through APPSC Recruitment 2019 must first register online through OTR to apply for the post or can click here to register https://psc.ap.gov.in/(S(osauwx03lrobophlpsfzsync))/UI/RegistrationForms/RegistrationTypes_New.aspx Use the OTR generated ID to Apply online and submit the application. To Apply online click here https://psc.ap.gov.in/(S(gbb5tnuujsycwvmikau5cbtu))/UI/CandidateLoginPages/UserRegistration.aspx?Flag=2 For detailed notification about the recruitment of Assistant Directors under A.P. Economics and Statistical Service through APPSC Recruitment 2019 click here https://psc.ap.gov.in/(S(lgpfyp0rc4bryzldtt5tdygp))/UI/UserManuals/LatestNotifications/04_2019.pdf Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact. Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here. Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing. You are our people. You Care. We Care2. * Username This is the name that will be used to identify you within the system. Choose wisely! * First name * Last name Your real name will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more! * Email Your e-mail address will be used to confirm your account. We won't share it with anyone else. * Password Create a password that only you will remember. If you forget it, you'll be able to recover it using your email address. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia have detained nine persons for drug crime in Tbilisi, InterPressNews reports. Vladimer Bortsvadze, Head of Central Criminal Police Department, said at a briefing on Friday that police have revealed a new scheme of drug distribution through the Internet in Georgia. According to Vladimer Bortsvadze, 5 members of an organized group were detained in Tbilisi and seized drugs prepared for selling. An investigation has been launched under Article 260, Provision 5 and Provision 6 (Sub- provision b) of the Criminal Code of Georgia, involving illegal purchase and storage of drugs in particularly large quantities. The detainees face from 8 to 20 years of imprisonment or a life sentence. An investigation has established that the detainees "drug-shop" groups in the messenger app Telegram and an online drug store on chat platform Matanga. Police seized 100gr of Hashish, psychoactive substance Bio and drug Alpha PVP during the persona search of the detainees. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia detained three other drug traffickers in Ponichala settlement of Tbilisi. All the three detainees face from 8 to 20 years of imprisonment. Police have detained one more person in Tbilisi. 500 pills of narcotic drug Ecstasy and 4 packs of MDMA were seized during the personal search of the detainee. An investigation has been launched under Article 260, Provision 6 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, involving illegal purchase and storage of drugs in particularly large quantities. The detainee faces from 8 to 20 years of imprisonment or a life sentence. news, federal-politics Helen Williams was not the most junior public servant when the tea trolley arrived at a meeting she remembers from the 1970s. Nevertheless, the then-Treasury secretary asked her to "play mother" for the federal officials gathered. The pioneering bureaucrat defied such attitudes to make a rapid ascent as the first woman to lead a Commonwealth department in 1985, aged 39. On Saturday, she will be appointed a companion of the Order of Australia for her contribution to the public service. Ms Williams met resistance on her way to the historic appointment heading the Education Department. Women were thin on the ground and awareness of gender equity was in short supply when she worked at Treasury and the newly-created Department of Finance in the 1970s. It was not unusual for women to be asked at job interviews whether they were likely to get married and have children. Before the then-Finance Department secretary, the late Sir William Cole, appointed her its first female branch leader, a prominent division head said it would happen over his dead body. As Sir William later observed, the man didn't die. Her decision to take six months' maternity leave as Education Department secretary in 1987 drew reaction from both women's groups and the senior bureaucracy. The episode is only three decades removed from last year's milestone for the public service, when departmental secretaries reached a 50:50 gender balance. Ms Williams went on to head the departments of Human Services, Communications, Tourism and Immigration, and the public service commission, before her retirement in 2009. For 17 years she was the only female departmental secretary. The public service today has a 59 per cent female workforce, but most senior levels remain dominated by men. Today, 45 per cent of the top-level senior executive service is made up of women. In 1983 it was 2.3 per cent and there were no female deputy secretaries, facts Ms Williams describes as disconcerting. "Moving forward to the last decade or so, however, things have changed increasingly quickly and it was a real plus when the number of women at secretary level hit parity last year," she said. "Unfortunately that parity isn't yet mirrored at all levels of the service but the fact that it is no longer a matter of comment when women are appointed to senior positions shows an important recognition of their skills and commitment." Ms Williams joined the public service in 1970 looking for something to do for a year and intending a return to England, where she had previously lived for 22 years. "Chance again sent me on a rotation to the Treasury which had immense reach before the separation from Finance in 1976. It gave me the opportunity to work on some complex policy issues and to see them in the cross-government economic context," she said. "I was fascinated and the return to England was firmly off the agenda." The bureaucracy then had typing pools producing typed minutes, calculator results were printed on a roll of paper, and information had to be gleaned from paper files, reports, or library research. "In discussing the need to cope with rapid changes in technology, it's important to remember the substantial changes that the service has already faced in this area," Ms Williams said. "Technology has given us faster and wider access to information and data, as well as the ability to manipulate that data, in a way that simply couldnt have been predicted at that earlier stage." Among the other major changes to the Australian Public Service she witnessed was the growing contestability of advice, both from consultants and contractors, and from much-expanded ministers' offices. She counts education and social services as the areas of her keenest interest, but said every role she had was engaging, in both policy and administration terms. Ms Williams also mentions her work on the Hawke-era New Federalism Initiative of reform to Commonwealth-state relations, a project that didn't reach fruition. "Even though, despite early gains, it didnt eventually achieve what was hoped, I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of working with the states and territories on a range of contentious cross-border program issues." Ms Williams was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia in 1993. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/586c7a13-8353-482f-9ef8-4432ddbde3bd/r0_281_5472_3373_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg comment I strongly recommend that the ACT government consider using a new slogan proclaiming Canberra: the Drone Capital. In considering this one should not just think about the modern aerial drone, but also the traditional meanings of drone: a bee that does not work, talking monotonously, and the general concept of a fairly ineffectual person. The aerial drones have their pluses and minuses, depending partly on ones point of view, as observation platforms, as military weapons and as delivery platforms. Military drones can observe and kill cheaply and remotely, a perceived benefit if theyre on your side. Observation drones can help in many ways, but in the wrong hands can close airports and hinder firefighters. Drones can noisily and intrusively deliver pizzas and other goodies to consumers in competition with less annoying established methods. The drone delivery area is where our ACT government stands out as being an innovative world leader, bravely pushing ahead despite the disapproval of the bulk of its citizens, and this is my main reason for suggesting the new slogan. A secondary reason is that Canberra could be considered to have more than its fair share of human drones, for example some of our politicians. Some fly in to drone on about the needs of our nation without actually providing realistic solutions. Then there are those home-grown politicians who drone on about local politics, often supporting counter-intuitive local policies and priorities. I rest my case for putting the new slogan before the world, perhaps with an initial emphasis on number plates. Neville Exon, Chapman The community consultation in Hall completed in February 2018 identified four alternative sites for the proposed bike track and resolved to refer heritage matters to the Heritage Council for a decision.The Heritage Council ruled against the proposed site in October 2018 and suggested the community explore one of the four alternative sites. Those who still wish that the bike track be constructed in the Aboriginal Protected Zone have been trying to discredit the Heritage Council and besmirch local heritage experts Dr Ken Heffernan and Dr Jan Klaver. Kens integrity remains intact since he removed himself years ago from any decisions of the Heritage Council concerning Hall. Many of us are grateful that we have people of such integrity as Jan and Ken in our community. Robert Yallop, Hall I believe that the ActewAGL offer on electricity and gas is unfair. Their offer is a 20 per cent reduction in usage charges if one has a direct debit and emailed accounts. However, if one continues to require a posted account ActewAGLs offer removes 6 per cent of that reduction. For me that would be about $150 a year and for others it could be much more. I have had direct debit for many years but wish to retain posted paper copies of my accounts. I have a rickety computer and uncertain computer skills which are likely to get worse. $150 is way, way, way above the cost of providing that bill. This is grossly unfair and unreasonable. Philida Sturgiss-Hoy, Downer R Salmond (January 24) raises an issue with the Australian flag. This wisdom from the Chronicles of Dunnyguru is pertinent. Pilgrim: What flag would you prefer, Dunnyguru? D: If flag there must be, I would prefer one of plastic clear. P: Why so? D: If the sky be clear then those that look at the flag would ponder and say This flag reminds me of home when the summer sun scorches the earth, and if the sky be dark with clouds those that gazed upon the flag would ponder and say This flag reminds me of home when the sky promises rain after a long drought. P: But the Cross is so much of our heritage. D: At night you would see the stars. A flag of plastic clear would remind us all, Pilgrim, that we are but one race that live under but one sky and that we should not be divided one against one. Peter Snowdon, Aranda Do ACT government politicians get around with their eyes closed? For months now I have asked the ACT government to cut down the dead pine trees on City Hill. Since I began telling them, more and more trees have died so the top of City Hill is just one mass of dead trees and no doubt will all be dead soon. Doesnt the government know there is a bush fire warning raging at present? The soil on the top of the hill must be getting dryer and dryer. Fortunately, the pencil cypress do not seem to be affected. I wrote to NCA just before Christmas and complained about their negligence in ignoring a huge, dead pine tree next to the Albert Hall leaning over the road with the potential to crush a family car. Another pine nearby had fallen, fortunately not across the road. All this in spite of the fact NCA makes $46,000 a day in parking fees in the Parliamentary Triangle. When our government gets back to work members should go around the ACT, including Haig Park, check the dead and dying trees, do something about it, and heed their own bushfire warnings. Penelope Upward, OConnor According to the ACT governments OUR CBR newsletter (Tuggeranong edition, Jan/Feb 2019), the Tuggeranong Walk-in Centre which is open from 7.30am to 10pm every day is treating more than 60 Tuggeranong residents a day for minor injuries and illness. Superficially, that number sounds good, but the reality is that the centre is woefully underutilised. Lets say that more than 60 is a generous 63. For the 14.5 hours per day the centre is open, thats an average of less than 4.5 patients per hour. If only one nurse is on duty at a time, that could be considered a reasonable throughput, though most GPs would see six patients per hour. If there are two nurses on duty all the time, the average patient throughput is barely more than two patients per hour. And remember the centre treats only minor injuries and illness. I think the ACT government needs to have a good hard look at the utilisation of these walk-in centres. Yes, they take a (very small) load off Canberras emergency department and GPs, but the patient numbers hardly justify the considerable costs of setting up and running these centres. Better marketing is needed. Don Sephton, Greenway Anna Wintour criticises Margaret Courts views on LGBTIQ people and makes my Grandmas curtains fashionable again all in one day. Outstanding. Mark Sproat, Lyons Its time Australians stopped believing in the wonders of our birth as a Penal Colony. Australia was established in a desperate attempt to try and compete with Spanish control of the north Pacific. It was even a Spaniard, Pedro Fernandez De Quiros, who named this country Australia [Austrialia del Espiritu Santo in May, 1606]. The English navy needed a reliable port, safe from Spanish warships, populated by strong men and women who could produce food and repairs for English shipping. Officials in Westminster were opposed to any offloading of prisoners. For one thing, it cost three times as much money to maintain a prisoner in Botany Bay as it did in England. In the end the navy won the day and helped select healthy young prisoners, and as many free settlers as they could persuade to join the adventure, and under the Portuguese-English-captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet, left for Botany Bay. Among the motley lot of Spaniards, French, Indians and what not, almost half the prisoners were Irish rebels. This mix was to cement an ongoing distrust of British overlords. Please let us forget our oddly strung-together Australia Day. Let Australians decide on a suitable day to commemorate whatever they might value from the tiny European addition to our history. Brian Hungerford, Curtin January 26 1788 was one of the more important dates in the history of Australia. It was the day Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove to mark the establishment of the new penal colony, starting profound change across this land. The first convicts arrived on that day, forcibly removed from their land and family, spending time in chains and compelled to supply hard labour. That day was the beginning of modern Australia, which has since greeted millions of immigrants from around the world, who are either looking for a better life or fleeing a terrible life. January 26 is also the day of protest against the arrival of the British, starting with the boycott of Anniversary Day celebrations in 1888, the Day of Morning march in Sydney in 1938, and the large protests at the Bicentenary. These annual Invasion Day or Survival Day protests would lose meaning if the date were moved. Today there are well over 1 million descendants of those 1030 colonists, about five million descendants of the 160,000 convicts [who followed], and about 800,000 Indigenous Australians. January 26 is Australia Day for everyone, regardless of skin colour or heritage, to remember that Australia is a great place to live, to accept mistakes have been made over the past 231 years, and to acknowledge improvements are still required. Stuart Walkley, Lyneham Former premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, was right when he said on radio Australia Day should be on January 1, the date the six states federated into the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Capt Phillips landing at Port Jackson in 1788 is a Sydney event while the Eureka rebellion in Ballarat, as suggested by a caller, is a local provincial incident not a national event. Some talk about republics every year at this time, but we voted on that 20 years ago, and remember the two oldest modern republics, the USA and France, are political basket cases as are many other republics. We have a pointless holiday on 1 January already so lets make it relevant and keep most Australians happy.Still some Australians will not be happy that our peaceful transition to a federation was approved by royal assent of Queen Victoria. Perhaps some would have preferred a bloody revolution like in those two political basket case republics. Adrian Jackson, Melbourne, Vic As a former volunteer at the truly wonderful Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, I rejoice that many more Australians will have the chance to experience the second Endeavour, a copy of the mighty little ship that sailed up Australias east coast, captained by one of the ages best navigators, James Cook. The original Endeavour was the 17th centurys equivalent of a rocket to the moon, taking its captain and crew into unknown waters, uncharted by Europeans (the earlier voyage of the Dutch ship, the Dufken Little Dove, was first to voyage into Australian waters) and reveal a new world. Australians should welcome this opportunity to view the second Endeavour children are particularly fascinated by the crew hammocks slung in lines below the main deck and the fact that toilet breaks were managed hanging over the ships side it was anything but a luxury cruise. So welcome Endeavour 2 the symbol of maritime skill and daring. Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill, Canberra There has been a lot spoken and written in recent days about Warren Mundine, who was recently parachuted by Scott Morrison into the Gilmore electorate as his preferred candidate. Roger Dace (Letters, January 24) wrote Warren Mundine is without doubt a competent person, but a Liberal he isnt. However, Mr Mundine has himself cast serious doubt on Mr Daces description of him. Writing in The Daily Telegraph on January 24, Mr Mundine attacked Green activists for being at war with regional Australia. He argued that Woodside abandoned its James Price Point LNG hub project in 2013 after a relentless activist campaign and decried the effect this had on regional Aboriginal communities. In fact, local Aboriginal people, along with conservationists, saved James Price Point from destruction by pointing out that it was home to numerous historic and priceless artefacts. These include dinosaur tracks, ancient middens, intertidal fish-traps and other sites that are sacred to the local Goolarabooloo people, who regard James Price Point as being their classroom. Mr Mundine also attacked Green activists for the closure in 2011 of Gunns woodchip mill at Triabunna, Tasmania. In fact, Gunns sold the Triabunna mill, and other assets, because of a declining market for the companys products, notably woodchips. These facts clearly show that Mr Mundine is not particularly competent, is certainly anti-conservation (a prominent Liberal trait), and is pro-business also a Liberal principle even if it damages the heritage and interests of his own Aboriginal people. Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin Unstable UK The Brexit debacle continues with no real solutions. Theresa May has taken on the mess left by David Cameron who made the decision to have the referendum. I was in the UK during the campaign and for the day of voting. Very little has been made known of the impact of Nigel Farage and UKIP in influencing many to vote against immigration. The racism vote was huge with posters often quite offensive supporting UKIP. Most of those voting on racist grounds were not aware of the impact leaving the EU would have on business. My daughter is the managing editor of a large publishing company in London. Immigrants who can speak several languages are needed when dealing with European countries and also Africa. The supply chain is vital and being a part of the EU makes this possible. UKIP supporters do not realise foreign workers will do jobs the English will not do or the jobs the English cannot do. No wonder David Cameron left the role of PM in haste leaving behind a very divided and unstable UK. Robyn Lewis, Raglan, NSW Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message eld, not as an attached le. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610. Keep your letter to 250 or fewer words. References to Canberra Times reports should include date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published). /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/ec4bd7b6-14fd-4f01-b3de-d9a6129f8bf1/r0_223_4256_2628_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news Despite scorching heat, as the mercury once again reached 40 degrees, Canberrans flocked to the shores of Lake Burley Griffin to celebrate Australia Day. Heat records have fallen in the ACT for the most number of days in a row above 32 degrees, but it didn't stop Canberra residents from attending the annual Australia Day concert. The event on the Patrick White lawns was headlined by the Rogue Traders, and the fireworks were billed to be showstopping. The temperature reached the forecast maximum of 40.9 degrees just after 4pm. Australia Day attendees didn't start taking up vantage points until late into afternoon to beat the heat. During the hottest part of the day, the mist fans outside the St John's ambulance tent were a popular spot for many. Free sunscreen was being handed out nearby. Northside resident Tara Feeny was one of the early attendees braving the heat, along with her children Amba and Luca. "For most of the day we were staying indoors trying to keep cool and drink lots of water," Ms Feeny said. "We were hoping to get a good spot for the fireworks. "Today is a day to celebrate the country we live in." Ms Feeny was at a vantage point with Terri Ecclestone, who was there with her daughter Jessica. She said after many years of the Australia Day concert and the fireworks display being in separate locations across Canberra, it was good to have them both together. "We've come to the fireworks many times," Ms Ecclestone said. "Myself and my daughter have done the fireworks every year for Australia Day, and it's good to have it with the concert as one big event." While colourful umbrellas were a common sight along the lake in the lead up to the concert to protect punters from the sun, they were soon used for other purposes, with scattered showers coming through, providing a much needed cool change. Holt resident Zara Maxwell-Smith said she was looking forward to see Canberra act Mickey Sulit take to the stage. She said she wanted to see the date of Australia Day change to make it more inclusive for all Australians. "It's about celebrating Australia and the date, for me, I feel a bit uncomfortable celebrating on this day," Ms Maxwell-Smith said. "It's still Invasion Day for many people." Among the other acts performing on the main stage were Los Chavos and Big Boss Groove. The event also featured a fly-over of F/A-18 jets. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/6451784d-74c1-408c-9d1e-b0321ab6756d/r0_255_5000_3080_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news Students in Australian National University housing say they have been left in limbo after an apparent administration oversight saw a gap of up to 13 days between their tenancy agreements. Between 10 and 20 undergraduate and postgraduate students in temporary accommodation across several university halls and colleges were told about two weeks ago that they would have to move out on Friday this week. But their contracts for permanent residency do not commence until early February. "For many people who've been living in temporary accommodation over the summer, most of their leases have gone up to the 25th of January," said Zyl Hovenga-Wauchope, president of ANU Postgraduate and Research Students' Association. "Many of these people have applied for ongoing accommodation but their approvals begin on the 1st, 4th or 6th [of February]. So there's a week or two weeks between when they can get into their accommodation." The issue was likely due to an "oversight" in the university's administration, Mr Hovenga-Wauchope said, with housing not realising that students were coming in directly from other temporary student accommodation. "We don't see it as a big systemic failure but we think there could have been more thought put into [this]," Mr Hovenga-Wauchope said. The postgraduate association, along with ANU Students' Association - which services undergraduates - has been negotiating extended stays for students in their current accommodation, or earlier move-in dates for their permanent accommodation, Mr Hovenga-Wauchope said. Most student housing facilities had been obliging in allowing people extra time, but others cited a lack of space or other constraints. A spokesperson for ANU said the university was not aware of any student who has not been offered bridging accommodation until their ongoing 2019 accommodation is available. They said the university would assist students who need bridging accommodation if they contacted ANU Accommodation Services. UniLodge, which allows students to enter into subletting arrangements over the summer period, refused to comment on whether or not its tenants had been left without accommodation. "[Some housing facilities said] cleaning would need to be done [before students move in], which would take a week. We find that a little bit dubious but I don't think that's happened in a lot of circumstances," Mr Hovenga-Wauchope said. "At least half have managed to find a reasonable arrangement whereby they continue on or come [into new accommodation] early but that's still a significant amount of people [left]. "When we have found an inability to accommodate them weve supported them by providing them with information." The students who were unable to be accommodated were advised by the postgraduate association to stay in the Canberra City YHA, Mr Hovenga-Wauchope said. ANU's spokesperson said some students were waiting to move in to permanent accommodation until February 6, when three new residential halls would be opened. "The University works with all students who may need assistance with bridging arrangements between their summer accommodation and the commencement of their current academic year accommodation," the spokesperson said. "We believe that student experience is enriched by living on campus and one of our goals is to provide accommodation on campus for ANU students who wish to live here. "We are looking forward to having 1200 more students live on our campus in 2019 when we open three new student residential halls on 6 February including Wright Hall, Bruce Hall and the new Fenner Hall which will be in the new Kambri precinct." Semester 1 Orientation Week at ANU begins on Monday, February 18. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/d0d3b3e6-4804-45aa-ab06-e5cca1929f7b/r0_290_5448_3368_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg In Georgia, the government approved a national counter-terrorism strategy. The relevant document was developed by the State Security Service (SSS) together with other competent agencies. The document notes that the citizens of Georgia, who are fighting in Syria and Iraq on the side of the ISIS terrorist group banned in Russia, remain a threat to the state. Security dialogue between Russia and Germany has enormous potential, German Bundestag deputy from the Left Party, Andrej Hunko, said commenting on resumption of negotiations between Russia and Germany in the format of the High Level Working Group on Security Policy (HAGS). The HAGS was established in 2003 to exchange views on current security issues. In 20142017, activities of the working group were suspended by the German side. However, since November of 2018, the working group began to function once again. "Next meetings of the working group are scheduled for spring of 2019 in Berlin, and next plenary meeting at the state secretary level is scheduled for of autumn 2019 in Moscow," the German Foreign Ministry announced, responding to parliamentary inquiry from Andrej Hunko and Hellin Evrim Zommer. I welcome resumption of negotiations with Russia in the format of the High Level Working Group on Security Policy (HAGS). Future meetings in this format in 2019 are already being prepared, potential of security dialogue with Moscow is enormous. German-Russian consultations at the government level are still suspended, and they should also be resumed," Andrej Hunko noted. Become A Subscriber A subscription opens up access to all our online content, including: our interactive E-Edition, a full archive of modern stories, exclusive and expanded online offerings, photo galleries from Caledonian-Record journalists, video reports from our media partners, extensive international, national and regional reporting by the Associated Press, and a wide variety of feature content. We accept many different kinds of announcements. Just click on the button below and submit a form. Submit Special Note on Government Opening: Now that the Government is open, the data releases that were postponed will be released soon. The BEA and Census will probably provide an updated schedule early next week. Some releases on the weekly schedule below will probably be delayed (like Q4 GDP). The key reports scheduled for this week are the January employment report and Q4 GDP. Other key indicators include December Personal Income and Outlays, November Case-Shiller house prices, and January vehicle sales. For manufacturing, the January ISM manufacturing survey, and the Dallas Fed manufacturing survey will be released. The FOMC meets this week, and no change to policy is expected at this meeting. ----- Monday, Jan 28th ----- ----- Tuesday, Jan 29th ----- ----- Wednesday, Jan 30th ----- ----- Thursday, Jan 31st ----- ----- Friday, Feb 1st ----- 8:30 AM ET:for December. This is a composite index of other data.10:30 AM:for January. This is the last of regional manufacturing surveys for January. 9:00 AM ET:for November.This graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted National Index, Composite 10 and Composite 20 indexes through the most recent report (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).The consensus is for a 4.9% year-over-year increase in the Comp 20 index for November.10:00 AM: thefrom the Census Bureau.7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the8:15 AM: Thefor January. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 167,000 payroll jobs added in January, down from 271,000 added in December.8:30 AM:(Advance estimate). The consensus is that real GDP increased 2.6% annualized in Q4, down from 3.4% in Q3.10:00 AM:for December. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in the index.2:00 PM:. No change to policy is expected at this meeting.2:30 PM:holds a press briefing following the FOMC announcement.8:30 AM: Thereport will be released. The consensus is for 217 thousand initial claims, up from 213 thousand the previous week.8:30 AM ET:for December. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.3% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.2%.9:45 AM:for January. The consensus is for a reading of 62.5, down from 65.4 in December. 8:30 AM:for January. The consensus is for 158,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 3.9%.There were 213,000 jobs added in December, and the unemployment rate was at 3.9%.This graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.In December the year-over-year change was 2.638 million jobs. 10:00 AM:for January. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 54.0, down from 54.1 in December.Here is a long term graph of the ISM manufacturing index.The PMI was at 54.1% in December, the employment index was at 56.2%, and the new orders index was at 51.1%.10:00 AM:for December. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in construction spending. All day:for January. The consensus is for light vehicle sales to be 17.2 million SAAR in January, unchanged from 17.2 million in December (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the November sales rate (The BEA hasn't released December sales yet). A Hyundai Motor Co. vehicle is displayed in Beijing during the Energy-Saving and New Energy Vehicles Exhibition on Oct. 18. Photo: VCG * About 1,500 workers at Hyundais three Beijing factories are expected to be idle during the first quarter of this year as the automaker cuts back production * Workers were encouraged to accept buyout packages or face relocation to the automakers two other factories outside Beijing (Beijing) Hyundai Motor Co. is laying off workers at its China joint venture, after the South Korean carmakers sales failed to rebound last year from a sharp drop in 2017 that came during a diplomatic clash between Seoul and Beijing. About 1,500 workers at Hyundais three Beijing factories are expected to be idle during the first quarter of this year as the automaker cuts back production, according to an internal company document viewed by Caixin. The workers were encouraged to accept buyout packages or face relocation to the automakers two other factories outside the capital, several company sources told Caixin, declining to be named as they are not allowed to speak to the media. The internal company document also included several other options, such as transferring operations to Hyundais Chinese joint-venture partner. The layoffs come as sales sputter for the South Korean carmaker, once highly popular in the worlds largest auto market. That weakness comes amid a broader downturn that saw car sales in China drop 2.8% last year, the countrys first annual decline in 28 years. Hyundai has also suffered from a lack of attractive models and from increased competition from Chinese brands. Last year, Hyundais China sales dropped 3.7% to 790,000 vehicles. The companys annual sales peaked at 1.14 million in 2016. But the figure plunged 28% in 2017 as some Chinese consumer boycotted Hyundai and other South Korean brands to show displeasure over Seouls decision to deploy a U.S.-supplied anti-missile system. South Korea said the system offers protection against a North Korea missile attack, but Beijing said the system could be used for spying. Beijing Hyundai Motor Co. Ltd. is a joint venture with Chinese partner BAIC Group, and operates five factories in China, including three in the capital. Its other two one in Cangzhou, Hebei province, and one in Chongqing began production in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The three Beijing factories currently employ more than 6,000 workers, and the other two each more than 2,000, a Beijing Hyundai spokesperson said. But he denied that Hyundai is laying off employees. This is a normal relocating process among workers across factories in China, with an aim to improve their skills, he said, adding the number of affected worker remains limited. A former Beijing Hyundai worker who accepted a buyout told Caixin that one Beijing factory has ceased operations for now, but how long the stoppage will last remains unclear. He added that the factory had operated for only three days over the last 30. For the fourth quarter, Hyundai reported a global net loss of 129.8 billion won ($114.94 million), its first quarterly net loss in eight years, largely due to continuing weakness in the China market. Contact reporter Mo Yelin (yelinmo@caixin.com) A plane belonging to Air India made an emergency landing at the Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport on Saturday at 07:30am, Kazinform reports. As the airport's press service informs, a pilot of Boeing 777 flying en route Delhi-Chicago asked for emergency landing because of ill health of a passenger (woman). "The woman accompanied by two relatives was taken to the Municipal Hospital No.2. She suffers from asthma," a press release reads. 341 passengers and 19 crew members were onboard the aircraft. The plane departed from Astana to Chicago at 12:03pm. Kerala governor P Sathasivam Saturday pitched for a united approach towards rebuilding the state devastated by last year's deadly monsoon floods and cautioned against narrow and violent protests derailing the efforts and lowering the state's image. In his Republic Day address after unfurling the national flag here, he said protests and frequent hartals only disrupt normal life and lower the image of Kerala, in a veiled reference to the recent violent agitations over the entry of women in Sabarimala temple. While praising the central and state governments for taking up various development works, he said the state needed a "sincere political unity" in deciding the areas that deserve priority in rebuilding. "At a time when the economic, social, environmental, cultural, political and even psychological impact of the floods remains difficult to measure, what we need is united action that avoids unnecessary controversies. We also need to ask ourselves how we could afford to allow violent protests and frequent hartals that disrupt normal life and lower the image of our state," the Governor said. He said the state needs a "sincere political unity" in deciding the areas that deserve priority in rebuilding. "We are aware that our rebuilding activities cannot be completed overnight ...that our usual efforts are not enough to meet our targets. "We have to be on guard against the trend to politicise our rebuilding exercise. We cannot allow narrow to affect our priorities," Sathasivam said. Praising the state's youth and the fishermen who along with the police and defence forces took part in the rescue operations during the August deluge, he said the united response of the state during the flood was a role model for the whole country. "From our experience, we are aware that the adversity could also be a strong unifying force as was evident in our people's response to the floods that devastated our state economy. "I am proud that the strong will of our people and our united response to the flood was a model for the whole country," he said. Recalling the united efforts put in by all sections of people and the district administration, expecting nothing in return, at the time of the floods, the Governor said the state even skipped Onam celebrations. He also hailed Centre's various policies at the national level to "promote equality and social justice". "India's economic progress in the recent years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi testifies the success of our policies that followed the matra of 'Reform, perform and transform'," Sathasivam said. Skill India Mission, Ayushman Bharat which "ensures health cover to 50 crore people" were also mentioned by the Governor in his speech. Lavishing praise on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Sathasivam said the state was focusing on building infrastructure which would quicken the pace of development. "Kerala's initiatives in gender budgeting, transgender policy, increased welfare pensions, interventions in health and education have won nation-wide appreciation. As the first state in the country to launch the e-health project, we could suggest e-blue print for India's futuristic digital health system. We could also put in place a monitoring system for organ donation," he said. The governor also said that after introducing over 40,000 smart classrooms in the state schools, Kerala focused its attention on improving the quality of the colleges through regular system for accreditation. Lt Colonel Sanal Kumar led the Republic Day parade which saw the participation of Army, Kerala Police, women commandos of the state police force, Fire, Forest and Excise departments, various wings of NCC cadets among many others. Vijayan, Chief Secretary Tom Jose and other senior government officials were also present. State cabinet ministers also attended the Republic Day functions at various district headquarters. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Venezuela's opposition leader has stepped up his campaign to oust President Nicolas Maduro, rejecting an offer of talks with the socialist leader and calling for a "major demonstration." National Assembly head Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president during massive street rallies, said Friday that he wouldn't attend a "fake dialogue" on a crisis that has left 26 dead this week in clashes between anti-Maduro activists and security forces. After four years of economic pain that has left Venezuelans short of food and medicine and driven more than two million to flee the country -- which sits on the world's largest oil reserves -- the opposition found its voice this month in Guaido after Maduro was sworn in for a second presidential term following controversial elections. International pressure on the Maduro regime to agree to a new vote is also mounting. On Saturday at a UN Security Council meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will urge members to recognize Guaido as interim president, the State Department said. And a European Union diplomat told AFP the bloc wanted "an immediate call for elections in the near future." Mexico had offered to host talks between the rival leaders, and Maduro professed he was ready to go "wherever I have to" in order to meet "that young man."But Guaido, who also has support from several Latin American countries, told supporters in Caracas the public would remain in the streets "until we achieve an end to the usurpation, a transitional government and free elections."He accused Maduro of only offering talks after "repression" failed to achieve its objectives. President Donald Trump's administration has spearheaded the international pressure on Maduro, who accuses Washington of being behind an attempted "coup," by declaring his regime "illegitimate." On Friday, Pompeo announced that Washington was naming Elliot Abrams -- a central figure in president Ronald Reagan's controversial anti-communist campaigns in Central America during the 1980s -- as its new envoy to lead efforts to help Venezuela "in achieving democracy." Washington's support for Guaido led Maduro, who nominally retains support of the Venezuelan military, to close the US embassy and consulates and break diplomatic ties. US diplomats in Venezuela have until Saturday to leave the country, but Washington has refused to fully comply fully with the exit order. Guaido is instead urging the US diplomats to stay and keep the embassy's doors open. Despite the diplomatic sparring, Maduro on Friday said Venezuela will continue to sell oil to the United States, which private consultants say provides the largest source of cash to his country's coffers. "If they buy our oil, we will sell oil," Maduro said. But the US Treasury Department warned that "commercial transactions by the Venezuelan Government, including those involving its state-owned enterprises and international reserves" must be consistent with Washington's recognition of Guaido. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -- whose country is Venezuela's second-largest creditor and a military ally -- denounced US policy on Venezuela as "destructive." Spain pushed the EU to recognize Guaido's claims to the presidency if no new elections are held, while Germany said it may follow suit. France warned Maduro against "any form of repression" of the opposition as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said more than 350 people were arrested this week during the protests. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission late Friday issued a statement warning that Guaido's life and health were in danger given the high political tension in the country. Maduro's re-election last year was boycotted by the opposition and rejected by the US, EU and UN as a sham -- but the military has repeatedly reiterated its loyalty to the socialist leader. Guaido, 35, has galvanized a previously divided opposition and even attempted to attract military support by offering an amnesty to anyone who disavows Maduro. In a Skype interview with Univision late Thursday he went one step further by suggesting Maduro could be offered amnesty if he agrees to step down. But such an option would have to be evaluated, he said, because Maduro is responsible for the deaths of protesters. Guaido continues to seek military support, and has tasked supporters with handing out copies of a draft amnesty law to soldiers. Analysts at the Eurasia Group consultancy noted that while international recognition of Guaido as interim president cemented his position as the main opposition leader, his failure to win over the military meant Maduro's fall "does not appear imminent." Venezuela's political crisis escalated after a group of soldiers rose up against Maduro and sparked a number of protests leading up to Wednesday's rival rallies of pro and anti-Maduro groups. Guaido's proclamation as acting president drew recognition from major regional players including Brazil and Argentina, as well as the United States. Trump has mused about military intervention in Venezuela, saying "all options are on the table," but Russia said that "violates the fundamental norms of international law." Maduro came to power in 2013 as the designated heir to the late and hugely-popular Hugo Chavez. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Top US diplomat Mike Pompeo has tapped Elliot Abrams, a central figure in Ronald Reagan's controversial anti-communist campaigns in Central America, as a new envoy to "restore democracy" in Venezuela. Pompeo announced the appointment of Abrams on Friday, two days after Washington declared head of state Nicolas Maduro to be illegitimate and recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the interim president of crisis-plagued Venezuela. Pompeo said Abrams "will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country". Abrams told reporters in brief remarks: "This crisis in Venezuela is deep and difficult and dangerous and I can't wait to get to work on it." The veteran Republican foreign policy hand took charge of Latin America policy under Reagan, clashing with human rights groups as he channeled generous US support to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In one notorious incident, he initially dismissed the massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians by the Salvadoran army at El Mozote in 1981. Abrams later pleaded guilty to two misdemeanour counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, when the Reagan administration secretly funded the Contra rebels in Nicaragua through arms sales to revolutionary Iran. Abrams later returned as a senior adviser to president George W Bush in charge of human rights and the Middle East. But when Republicans returned to the White House with President Donald Trump's election, Abrams was initially passed over as the new administration shut out critics of the unorthodox new leader. Abrams during the 2016 election had written a piece in The Weekly Standard magazine entitled, "When You Can't Stand Your Candidate," in which he argued that Trump "cannot win and should not be president of the United States". Pompeo, one of Trump's favourite cabinet members, assured that Abrams was on board, saying the new envoy was "eager to advance President Trump's agenda and promote the ideals and interests of the American people". Pompeo said that Abrams would join him Saturday as the secretary of state heads to New York for a special UN Security Council session on Venezuela. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US envoy negotiating with the Taliban hailed "significant progress" Saturday in finding a solution to end Afghanistan's long-running war. "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghan reconciliation, wrote on Twitter. Khalilzad met for an unexpectedly long six days with the Taliban in Qatar. He said he was flying back to Afghanistan to discuss the talks. "We will build on the momentum and resume talks shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out," he tweeted. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and 'everything' must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire." While he did not give further details, floated proposals include a withdrawal by the United States of its troops in return for Taliban guarantees not to shelter foreign extremists -- the initial reason for the US intervention. President Donald Trump has been eager to end America's longest war, which was launched shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Trump has already said he will pull half of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Uttar Pradesh government will build a square in memory of a man who was killed last year during a rally on the Republic Day in the state's Kasganj town. UP Minister of State for Housing and Urban Planning, Vocational Education and Skilled Development Suresh Pasi Saturday issued direction to the district administration in this regard. Twenty-two-year-old Chandan Gupta had died of gunshot wounds following stone-pelting by a mob during a motorcycle rally taken out to celebrate the Republic Day. His killing had led to communal violence in the western UP town. At least three shops, two buses and a car were torched. In a tweet, Pasi said, "After hoisting the tricolour at the Police Lines, visited an exhibition of the police department. Orders have been issued to the district magistrate to build Chandan Chowk in Kasganj." Pasi, the in-charge for the district, said the government is sympathetic towards Chandan's family. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sitharaman has termed it unfortunate that some states have chosen to opt out of the Centre's ambitious scheme for "political expediency". In a post dated January 23, Sitharaman said, "It (Ayushman Bharat) has already achieved a paradigm shift in within 3 months of its launch and has managed to provide succour to the poorest of the poor and the middle class...it is very unfortunate that some states have chosen to opt out of the scheme for reasons of political expediency." She added that once fully implemented, - which is also known as PM-JAY or Pradhanmantri Jan Aarogya Yojana - will become world's largest fully government-financed health protection scheme. On January 10, West Bengal Chief Minister had announced that the state was pulling out of the scheme, accusing the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of "playing dirty politics" under the garb of the health coverage programme. "You(Narendra Modi) are sending letters with your photograph on them to every household in the state, making tall claims to take credit for the scheme. Then why should I bear 40 per cent? The NDA government should take the entire responsibility," she had said. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi has also given a cold shoulder to the scheme. The scheme plans to cover over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families as per the socio-economic caste census (SECC). It provides a cover of up to Rs 5 lakhs per family per year which includes 1,400 pre-defined packages spread over 23 specialities. The expenses incurred is shared between the Centre and the state in 60:40 ratio. "More than 8 lakh beneficiaries have been admitted to empanelled hospitals and claims worth Rs 662 Cr have been settled. Within 100 days of its launch, it has been lauded by organisations like WHO and independent philanthropists like Bill Gates," Sitharaman wrote on Before the launch of Ayushman Bharat, around 62.58 per cent of our population had to pay for their own health and hospitalisation expenses and were not covered by any form of health protection, she said. She pointed out that each year, 4.6 per cent of the population is pushed below the poverty line as people meet their needs spending large proportion of their income and savings, borrowing money or selling their assets. Russia came in as Chinas largest crude oil supplier in December, cementing the top spot for all of 2018 for a third year in a row ahead of rival Saudi Arabia, customs data showed on Friday. As Reuters reports, imports from Russia reached 7.04 million tons, or 1.658 million barrels per day, in December, up 40 percent from 5.03 million tons a year earlier, according to the data from the General Administration of Customs. For the full year, Russian imports rose to 71.49 million tons, or 1.43 million bpd, up 19.7 percent from 59.7 million tons in 2017. Demand for Russian crude was supported by a rise in throughput by Chinas private refiners, who favor Russian grades such as ESPO, while geopolitical uncertainties also forced China to import less from countries such as Iran and Venezuela. Russian oil giant Rosneft has also marketed its ESPO grade more aggressively, signing new long term supply deals with state oil companies such as ChemChina and PetroChina. Saudi Arabia supplied China with 6.97 million tons in December, or 1.64 million bpd, up 48 percent from 4.71 million tons a year earlier. For 2018, OPECs top supplier boosted shipments to China by 8.7 percent to 56.73 million tons, or 1.135 million bpd. That means Russias lead over Saudi Arabia in supplying China almost doubled to 295,000 bpd in 2018 from 150,000 bpd a year earlier. U.S. shipments to China - which have been hit by a trade war between the two nations - came in at zero in December. Imports for 2018 were up 24.8 percent from 2017 at 245,616 bpd. Chinese oil trader Unipec plans to resume U.S. crude shipments to China by March, Reuters reported in December. Venezuelan supplies to China tumbled 24 percent in 2018 to 16.63 million tons, or 332,600 bpd, after the OPEC members production fell to a seven-decade low amid a lack of investment, mismanagement and fleeing workers. Iranian imports were at 2.14 million tons in December, or 503,896 bpd, down 12 percent from a year earlier. Full year Iranian imports dropped to 29.274 million tons, or 585,475 bpd, down 20 percent from 2017 after the United States imposed sanction on Tehran over its disputed nuclear program. China is among the countries that were granted a waiver from sanctions on Iranian oil imports, allowed to buy 360,000 bpd of oil for 180 days until May. President Donald Trump has said he wants immigrants to come to the US legally and through a system based on merit so that they can enjoy safety and liberty, insisting that Americans cannot surrender operational control over the nation's borders to foreign cartels. Trump's remarks came on Friday as he defended his plan for a wall along the US-Mexico border after reaching a deal with congressional leaders Friday to reopen the government for three weeks despite getting no new funding for the structure. "As Commander-in-Chief, my highest priority is the defence of our great country. We cannot surrender operational control over the nation's borders to foreign cartels, traffickers, and smugglers. We want future Americans to come to our country legally and through a system based on merit," Trump told reporters at the White House. Trump said the he needs people to come to the country. "We have great companies moving back into the United States. There are more people working today in the United States than have ever worked in our country," he said. "We need people to come in to help us -- the farms, and with all of these great companies that are moving back. Finally, they're moving back,' he said, adding that he wants them to enjoy the blessings of safety and liberty, and the rule of law. "We cannot protect and deliver these blessings without a strong and secure border," Trump said. Early this month, Trump has said that he wants to bring in changes in the H-1B visa systems so that holders of these visas can stay in the country and accelerate their path to citizenship. H1-B visas are temporary work permits issued to highly-educated immigrants who work in specialised fields, often in technology. These visas are the most sought after by Indian IT professionals. Trump during his presidential campaign had said that every single undocumented immigrant "have to go". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tripura Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki today stressed on the need for cordial relations with the neighbouring Bangladesh for development of transport routes that would benefit the state as well as the entire north eastern region. Addressing the 70th Republic Day function at the Assam Rifles Ground here after unfurling the Tri-colour, Solanki said a new waterway is being set up between Bangladesh and Tripura to make the state a trade hub. The government is setting up a new river port at Sonamura subdivision of Sipahijala district so that ships can carry goods to Bangladesh via Gomati and Meghna rivers. The governor said, "The state government has taken various steps to make Tripura a model state and corruption free state. With all hopes, I believe the future of the state is very bright. We should work together and help each other so the state would develop faster." He said, the biggest IT centre in the entire NE would be set up in the state. Solanki also congratulated the people, NGOs, religious institutions and media for being committed to protect peace and harmony. He said, "Our state is geographically small but it is very rich in terms of natural beauty and resources. The incumbent government has already taken a lot of initiative to develop the state as a major tourist spot." "The new government implemented the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission for the employees of the state. It was a historic decision.... The government reserved 10 per cent seats in home department for women empowerment. Crime against women have also come down. The government is also working very hard to make the state drug free," Solanki said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an embarrassment to Rajauri administration, the tricolour fell off the flag post while being hoisted by the district magistrate during the main Republic Day function Saturday, prompting authorities to order a probe into the episode, officials said. The flag fell on the ground as soon as Rajouri District Magistrate Mohammad Aijaz Asad pulled the string to unfurl it, they said. The officials said the policemen reacted promptly and attached the flag to the post. Taking serious note of the incident, the district magistrate set up a two-member panel to probe into the embarrassing episode, the officials said. Rajouri Additional Deputy Commissioner Sher Singh and Additional Superintendent of Police Liaqat Kalas have been directed to inquire into the matter and submit their report within a week, the officials said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit hosted the Republic Day reception "at home" at the Raj Bhavan here Saturday. Chief Minister K Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal, Madras High Court Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Rahilramani and senior Ministers participated, a Raj Bhavan release said. "It is a privilege and an honour to be addressing all of you on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of our Republic Day," Purohit said in his brief remarks. "On this day, every year we proclaim our commitment to be true and loyal to the Constitution of India which was drafted with great care and concern for the welfare of the people of India", he said. Noting that political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy, he said, "social democracy means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life." The Republic Day is an occasion to pledge "ourselves" to respect these principles of life and develop the nation and its people to the maximum extent, he said. "I extend my heartfelt greetings and best wishes to you and through you to the people of Tail Nadu for a glorious future," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Saturday came down heavily on organisations that boycotted Republic Day celebrations in the state to protest against the citizenship bill, saying they should instead contest elections to get people's mandate. Bandhs and blockades hit daily wage earners the most, Biren said, adding, he has appealed to the organisations multiple times not to resort to such kind of protests. "We are duly elected legislators who have formed a government based on the mandate of the people.... Leaders of those (protesting) bodies should contest elections and get people's mandate in order to participate in the decision-making meetings," Biren said at the Manipur Rifles Parade Ground. At least five organisations, including the United Committee Manipur (UCM), All Manipur United Clubs Organisation (AMUCO) and Committee of Civil Societies Kangleipak (CCSK) jointly boycotted the 70th Republic Day celebrations to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. "Let the teachers, students and others carry out their respective duties," the chief minister said, warning that actions of these outfits would tantamount to running a "parallel administration", which is "unacceptable". In neighbouring Mizoram too, Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan addressed an almost-empty ground due to a statewide boycott call given by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies. On the controversial bill, Biren said the protesters should understand and analyse it first. The state government will not "remain silent if the bill harms the interest of the people," he asserted. Manipur will also urge the Centre to include a provision or a clause within the framework of the rules, so as to enable the consent of the state government before granting citizenship, the chief minister said. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed in Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several outfits in the Northeast have opposed it claiming that it would undermine the rights of the indigenous people of the region. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A two-month-long global painting exhibition 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' (The World is One Family) showcasing paintings by 40 eminent artists from 13 countries began here Saturday. The exhibition at the Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC) in themed on the relationship between contemporary art and enviroment and is curated by Pinakin Patel, KCC Executive Director Richa Agarwal said. "The exhibition highlights how, no matter what is the geography or time period, the inspiration for all artists remains the same," she said. Some of the key participants are - Ganesh Selvaraj (India), Do Ho Suh (South Korea), Tony Delap (USA), Matthias Bitzer (Germany), Camille Henrot (France), Iftikhar Dadi & Elizabeth Dadi (USA), Agarwal said. Inaugurating the exhibition on Friday, British Deputy High Commissioner in Kolkata Bruce Bucknell said "This is a fantastic stage, a perfect platform considering there is great interest, great consciousness about art in Kolkata and Bengal". A two-day international conference is also on from Saturday where leading thinkers, artists, writers, musicians, practitioners, curators and architects from within and outside the country will speak on the soft power of art based on the principle of unity in diversity, Agarwal added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Spain grieved on Saturday after a toddler who fell down a well was found dead in a tragic end to a 13-day rescue operation. Hundreds of engineers, police and miners had been working round-the-clock to reach two-year-old Julen Rosello, who plunged down a narrow, illegal well on January 13 as his parents prepared lunch nearby in Totalan, a southern town near Malaga. The rescue team "found the lifeless body of the little one" in the early hours of Saturday morning, the central government's representative in the southern region of Andalusia, Alfonso Rodriguez Gomez de Celis, wrote on Twitter. "Not another time, no," shouted his father Jose, according to an AFP photographer, after the child's body was found. His parents lost another child, Oliver, aged three, in 2017. The child had cardiac problems. Julen fell 71 metres (232 feet) before hitting a layer of earth, Gomez de Celis later told reporters, adding that an investigation was underway to determine any "potential liabilities" in the two-year-old's death. A post-mortem was carried out on Saturday, the results of which will be communicated to the judge investigating the case. Local daily Malaga Hoy, citing sources, however, said the post-mortem found Julen died on the same day he fell from a "traumatic brain injury". "All of Spain feels the infinite sadness of Julen's family. We have followed closely every step to reach him," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on Twitter. In a tweet, Spain's King Felipe VI extended his "deepest condolences to Julen's whole family". The Civil Guard police force, whose explosives experts helped elite miners to dig a tunnel to reach Julen, expressed sadness that the operation had not had a happy end. "Unfortunately, despite so much effort by so many people, it wasn't possible..." it wrote on its official account. Spain has been gripped by the complex search-and-rescue operation fraught with technical difficulties that caused delay upon delay as Julen's distraught parents and relatives stood by. It was "a colossal mission," Gomez de Celis told reporters on Saturday morning, that involved "moving 85,000 tonnes of earth in a brief space of time... with the obstacle course that the mountain was throwing at us". There had been no sign of life from the boy but rescuers believed they knew where he was inside the well. The only evidence of the boy's presence was some strands of hair that matched his DNA and a bag of sweets he had been holding when he fell into the well. Rescuers were not able to get to Julen via the well he fell down because it was blocked by a layer of earth, sand and stones believed to have been dislodged when he tumbled in. After unsuccessfully trying to suck up the blockage using machines, they decided to dig a vertical shaft parallel to the well and then dig a four-metre tunnel to join both channels. Despite the passage of time, the boy's relatives held out hope that Julen had somehow survived the fall and would be found alive. An investigation into the circumstances of his fall into the unmarked, illegally-dug well -- one of many in Andalusia -- will be carried out by an investigating judge. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Saturday inaugurated the development works in 11 unauthorised colonies in north Delhi's Burari. According to the Delhi government, roads and drains will be constructed in these colonies under the project at a cost of Rs 98.32 crore. Sisodia said work on roads, drains, sewer lines, water pipelines have been carried out in 4,000 streets of Burari in the last four years by the Delhi government. The deputy chief minister also hit out at the BJP and the Congress, accusing it of doing over regularisation of unauthorised colonies. The inauguration event was also attended by Delhi Irrigation and Flood Control Minister Satyendar Jain and local MLA Sanjiv Jha. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sikkim Governor Ganga Prasad on Friday today thanked the security forces and members of their families for providing sustained security to the nation. "Let us all bow to those brave warriors who have sacrificed their lives for the protection of the country," he said after hoisting the national flag at Palzor Stadium on the occasion of the 70th Republic Day. Prasad said due to prevalence of peace, harmony and stability, the roots of democracy have been strengthened in the border state. Given the international boundaries of Sikkim, peace and stability in the state is commendable, he said adding that roots of democracy have been strengthened due to prevalence of peace, harmony and stability in the border state. Sikkim has three international borders - Tibet in the North, Bhutan in the East and Nepal in the West. The governor said the Pawan Kumar Chamling government has given top priority to the development of the grass root level - rural livelihood, road connectivity, electricity, health facilities, drinking water and housing. Prasad hailed the state government's endeavour to make Sikkim an organic state to protect environment as well the health of the people. The governor also patted the state government for its performance in education sector as a result of which Sikkim is going to attained 100 per cent literacy. According to the 2011 Census, the state a literacy of 82.6 per cent. However, in April last year Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling had said the Himalayan state was headed towards achieving 100 per cent literacy. In his message on Republic Day, Chamling said the people of Sikkim have contributed their might in their own special way towards nation building. "Today, Sikkim is one of the most progressive, peaceful and vibrant states of the country as the state government has implemented many first-of-their kinds innovative programmes" that have transformed the socio-economic condition of the state, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A kaleidoscope of rich cultural heritage of states and their journey towards development was on display as colourful parades marked the 70th Republic Day which passed off peacefully amid tight security, though celebrations were marred in some parts of Northeast following a boycott call by outfits against the citizenship bill. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath announced the launch of a scheme to ensure 100 days of employment every year to the youths from the economically weaker sections (EWS) in the urban areas during his address. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel announced waiver of farmers' outstanding irrigation taxes worth Rs 207 crore during his Republic Day address in Raipur. Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu hailed the state's efforts to create a conducive industrial environment, making way for more investments and job opportunities. Kerala governor P Sathasivam pitched for a united approach towards rebuilding the state devastated by last year's deadly monsoon floods and cautioned against narrow politics and violent protests derailing the efforts and lowering the state's image. Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik said the militancy-hit Kashmir valley will once again become "the paradise on earth" as was once described by Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Mobile internet services were suspended across Kashmir as a precautionary measure on the occasion, but mobile phone services functioned as usual. Normal life was affected due to a strike called by separatist groups, which asked people to observe the Republic Day as a "black day". Security was tightened in the Northeast which was rocked by protests against the citizenship bill. Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan addressed an almost-empty ground in Aizawl on the occasion due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation. No member from the general public attended the function, police said, adding only ministers, legislators and top officials were present. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed in Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several outfits in the Northeast have opposed it claiming that it would undermine the rights of the indigenous people of the region. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh came down heavily on organisations that boycotted the celebrations in the state against the bill, saying they should instead contest elections to get people's mandate. He warned that actions of these outfits would tantamount to running a "parallel administration" which is "unacceptable". Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi said there is no place for illegal foreigners and only the indigenous people of the state have the right on its resources. Apprehending that the protests against the bill could affect the celebrations, the Assam Police took rigorous steps to ensure that no one carried black cloth to official functions. Black flags were being shown to the ministers and senior BJP leaders wherever they have been going during the last few weeks in the state as part of protests. In Gujarat, six children and a woman constable riding a stunt motorcycle were injured when the two-wheeler slipped at a state-level Republic Day parade organised in Palanpur. A Madhya Pradesh minister was unable to read out the chief minister's message during a Republic Day function in Gwalior and had to ask the district collector to read it. A video of the incident was widely circulated on social media showing MP Women and Child Development Minister Imarti Devi (43) reading Nath's message in broken Hindi before she asked the collector to read it. Tripura Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki stressed on the need for cordial relations with the neighbouring Bangladesh for development of transport routes that would benefit the state as well as the entire north eastern region. Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan hoisted the tricolour and said the state was poised to spearhead the country's efforts in leveraging technology for development and governance and in enhancing happiness levels of people despite "hostile treatment" by the Centre and a "non-conducive" atmosphere. In Odisha, colourful tableaux displaying the state's rich culture and progress made in different sectors were taken out on the stretch, enthralling the bystanders. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said development, welfare of the poor and empowerment of all sections have become the state's identity. Punjab, Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh Saturday joined the nation in celebrating the 70th Republic Day, amid tight security arrangements. Police, home guards and NCC contingents were among other participants in the parades held in district headquarters in the two states and their joint capital Chandigarh. A slew of flag hoisting ceremonies were held across Uttarakhand on Saturday to mark the 70th Republic Day. A mini-India came alive on the streets of Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow on the occasion as artistes from 11 states along with marching contingents and youngsters participated in the colourful festivities despite the cold weather. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) MPs in Greece have narrowly voted to ratify an agreement with its northern neighbour state Macedonia that will see the latter formally change its name. As Independent reports, in return for rebranding itself the Republic of North Macedonia, the country will now be able to pursue its application to join Nato and the EU without opposition from Athens as relations between the two states return to normal. The deal passed with 153 votes in the 300-member Greek parliament, two more than needed. It had faced heated opposition and cost prime minister Alexis Tsipras his parliamentary majority after a right-wing partner in the governing coalition quit in protest. The vote came after three days of acrimonious parliamentary debate and numerous street protests, some of which turned violent. Scores of protesters who braved torrential rain and driving wind outside parliament chanted traitors as the legislators voted inside. More than 150 people were detained for questioning following confrontations at demonstrations against the deal in Athens and two towns in northern Greece. Most were released without change. Macedonia fulfilled its end of the bargain regarding the motion on 11 January, when all 81 members present for its own parliamentary vote on the question backed the constitutional amendments. The remaining 39 opposition politicians in the 120-seat house stayed away in protest. Greeks, particularly right-wing nationalist politicians, have long argued that only the northern Greek region of Macedonia, site of the ancient kingdom of Macedon, should be entitled to use the name and not the separate Slavic country to its north, which has been officially known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The debate has raged for 27 years and the signing of an initial agreement to consider the change on 12 June 2018 was hailed as an appointment with history by Mr Tsipras and by Macedonia prime minister Zoran Zaev as a chance for the pair to reset relations and become partners and allies. The men also expressed hope their example would inspire other Balkan states to resolve their own post-Cold War regional disputes. Macedonians subsequently voted 91 per cent in favour of making the name-change in a referendum on 30 September, with Mr Zaev saying the vote sent out a crystal-clear message even though only 37 per cent of registered voters turned out at the ballot box. The people made a great choice and said yes to our future. It is time for lawmakers to follow the voice of the people and to provide support, the prime minister said. Local resistance to the measure had been fierce, with many fearing it represents the first attempt by Greece to claim its territory and resent their countrys access to the security of the international community being dictated by a foreign power. Rioting took place on the streets of the Greek city of Thessaloniki prior to the referendum, forcing police to use tear gas to disperse thousands of masked protestors demonstrating as Mr Tsipras arrived in town to make an address on his countrys economic prospects. Macedonia made its first concessionary moves over the issue last January by pledging to rename Skopjes Alexander the Great airport, the name a further annoyance to Greeks concerned about cultural appropriation and claims being made on its heroes of antiquity. A motorway running to the border also named after the famous conqueror has been rechristened Friendship Highway in the same spirit of reconciliation. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's participation as the chief guest at India's Republic Day celebrations on Saturday reaffirms the special relationship between the two countries, a Pravasi Bharatiya Samman awardee has said. Ramaphosa is the second South African president to be invited to the event as the chief guest. Former South African president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade in 1995. Anil Sooklal, who received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman for his lifelong contribution in promoting relations between India and South Africa at the Bharatiya Divas in Varanasi, said the ties between India and South Africa have grown "exponentially since the dawn of democracy under President Nelson Mandela in 1994." He said Ramaphosa's presence at the Republic day "is a clear message that the Indians are serious about South Africa and President Ramaphosa accepting the invitation by India is a message that South Africa treasures this relationship." Sooklal lamented the fact that there was not enough knowledge among the South African public about the level of cooperative work being done by India and South Africa together. "This is unfortunate," he said, adding that occasions like President Ramaphosa's visit should be regarded as a testimony to how important India regards South Africa." Ramaphosa will attend a number of events, including a business summit here. Sooklal was confident that the business summit where more than 200 industry leaders will be addressed by Ramaphosa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will yield good results. "India does not need any convincing, with about 130 major Indian companies having major operations in South Africa, and the Indians are very keen to invest further. This (business) summit will be a very important forum to market South Africa as a great destination for investment. Commenting on being part of the founding of IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) alliance that preceded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Sooklal said IBSA continues to play a very dynamic role between the three countries, despite critics increasingly saying that it has been overshadowed by BRICS. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Punjab, Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh Saturday joined the nation in celebrating the 70th Republic Day, amid tight security arrangements. Police, home guards and NCC contingents were among other participants in the parades held in district headquarters in the two states and their joint capital Chandigarh. School students presented colourful programmes and tableaux exhibited development of the states at the parades at several places in the region. The Republic Day celebrations at most places in the two states were held under tight security arrangements. V P Singh Badnore, the Punjab Governor and administrator of Chandigarh, unfurled the national flag in a state-level function in Hoshiarpur. Haryana Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya unfurled the national flag at Panchkula. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh unfurled the national flag in Patiala, while Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar unfurled the tricolour in Bhiwani, officials said. Various events were held in district headquarters in Punjab and Haryana, including Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Moga, Bathinda, Panchkula, Karnal, Sonepat, Gurdaspur and Rupnagar. Ministers of Punjab and Haryana presided over the celebrations in district headquarters. Security had been stepped up across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh in view of Republic Day programmes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Protestors shut down a border road between Ireland and Northern Ireland on Saturday, erecting a concrete wall with mock-military checkpoints to illustrate the violent unrest a hard Brexit could bring to the fragile region. Locals hauled towering concrete barriers into place and installed a customs hut defended by a watchtower manned by men dressed as armed British troops -- evoking haunting memories of the three decades of bloodshed known as "the Troubles". "It's actually to remind some of our younger generation exactly the way things were 25 years ago," said John McNamee, an activist with group Border Communities against Brexit. "This is what it was about and we certainly don't want it back," he said -- dressed as a customs agent which were once a common sight at the border. During the Troubles the area was militarised as republican and unionist paramilitaries and the British military vied for control. More than 3,600 were killed before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended the conflict and effectively dissolved the border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic. After a rally calling on Westminster to avoid the return of a hard border along the 310 mile (500 kilometer) boundary locals smashed down the mock wall using sledgehammers in a jubilant atmosphere. They also took heavy machinery to the watchtowers as the British troops intervened in a dramatic act of "street theatre", designed to illustrate tensions which could return to the region following a hard-won peace. "We're 60 days out from the reality of Brexit with or without a deal," said Border Communities Against Brexit organiser Tom Murray. "Without a deal there may be the imposition of a border. This is a visual representation of the potential of the worst case scenario," he said. British parliament is currently in deadlock, unable to pass a withdrawal deal that would rule out the need for border checks. If Britain quits the EU without an accord on 29 March, there are concerns infrastructure will be needed to enforce customs and regulations at the new edge of the trading bloc. "It would be fairly tough on our daily life," explained protestor Aaron Crilly -- whose family is split between the two territories. On Friday Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told Bloomberg TV that border may "involve people in uniform" as well as "cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly a police presence, or an army presence to back it up. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Shopian in Kashmir in November, was awarded the Ashoka Chakra by President Ram Nath Kovind on Saturday. The award -- India's highest peacetime gallantry honour -- was received by Wani's wife and mother at the celebrations at Rajpath. Wani is the first Kashmiri to be conferred the Ashoka Chakra. On November 25, 38-year-old Wani, hailing from Cheki Ashmuji in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund in Shopian. Under intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and one foreign terrorist in a daring display of raw courage, Army officials said. In the ensuing gunfight, he was hit multiple times including on his head. He also injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous wounds, they said. According to the citation, Wani single-handedly killed two terrorists during the Shopian operation and injured a third one despite receiving serious injuries. "In an unparalleled saga of sacrifice, Lance Naik Wani prevented escape of the terrorists from the target house and made a huge contribution in neutralisation of six hardcore terrorists, in the process laying down his life upholding the highest tradition of the Indian Army," it said. One of his colleagues, who wished not to be named, said he always volunteered for challenging missions, displaying great courage under adverse conditions and exposing himself to grave danger on numerous occasions in the line of duty. Lance Naik Wani joined the Army's 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2004. Wani was a recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. Wani was from a humble background and used to work for the benefit of the underprivileged sections of society in his locality. Ashoka Chakra is the highest peacetime military decoration for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield. Pope Francis acknowledged Saturday that the Catholic Church was "wounded by sin" in a message addressed to priests and seminarians reeling from sexual abuse scandals and coverups. In a mass that he officiated at the centuries-old Cathedral of Santa Maria La Antigua in Panama City, Francis warned of the "weariness of hope to see a Church wounded by sin that often has not heard so many screams." It was the Argentine pontiff's first reference to the sex abuse scandals rocking the Church since he arrived in Panama on Wednesday for a global gathering of young Catholics. It comes as he prepares to meet senior bishops from around the world in Rome next month to deal with widespread clergy sex abuse of children and young people. His spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said next month's meeting would be a unique chance to provide bishops with "concrete measures" to tackle the "terrible plague." After the mass in the basilica -- home of the first diocese on the American mainland -- the pope and the archbishop of Panama, Cardinal Jose Domingo Ulloa, will host a lunch for 10 young people of different nationalities attending World Youth Day, a tradition at the global gatherings, held every three years. Francis will preside over an evening vigil with an expected crowd of 200,000 pilgrims at the three-kilometer long (two-mile) Metro Park on the outskirts of Panama. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bediunfurled the tricolour here Saturday, marking the jubilant celebrations of the 70th Republic Day. Chief Minister V Narayanasamy and his cabinet colleagues, Deputy Speaker V P Sivakolundhu, Chairman of National Commission for Safai Karamcharis Manhar Valjibhai Zala, DGP S Sundari Nanda, Chief Secretary Ashwani Kumar, officials and freedom fighters were among those who witnessed the celebration. Earlier, Bedi inspected a guard of honour presented by Puducherry police and distributed medals to the police personnel for extraordinary service. She handed over commendation certificates to police officers who had shown outstanding ability in maintaining law and order, crime detection, traffic management and in intelligence collection. The LT Governor took salute at the march past by various contingents of Police, Home Guards, Fire Service personnel, school children and volunteers of Scouts and Guides, NCC and NSS on the occasion. Tableaux presentation by government departments highlighting implementation of schemes and cultural programmes by school children added to the lustre of the celebration. The President's medal for meritorious service was handed to Sub Inspector of Police (Odiansalai division) Narayanasamy. Meanwhile in a message released on the occasion, Bedi said the government was "keen to ensure good governance and a people centric administration through greater transparency and accountability. Noting that the government had made efforts to fulfil the aspirations of the people, she said, "a legitimate partnership between the government and the people alone can contribute for the growth of the country." The Lt Governor called upon the people to continue their support to make Puducherry a 'model state.' Later, Narayanasamy unfurled the tricolour later on the premises of the Legislative Assembly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the people on the country's 70th Republic Day on Saturday. "Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians," he tweeted. Several leaders took to social media to extend their greetings on the occasion. "As we celebrate #RepublicDay2019, let us renew our vow to our country: let us strive to live up to the ideals of justice, liberty and equality as enshrined in the constitution. Let us move towards a stronger, better India. Let us, with fierce pride, say in one voice: JAI HIND!" Union Minister Rajya Vardhan Singh Rathore tweeted. Union Minister Arun Jaitley, who is recuperating after a surgery in a hospital in the US, tweeted, "#RepublicDay2019 greetings to everyone. Happy 70th #RepublicDay2019". Railways Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted, "70 & Growing Strong: As India celebrates its 70th #RepublicDay, let us cherish the memory of the day when we became an Independent Republic, and look ahead with aspiration & zeal towards building a New India." Union Ministers Maneka Gandhi, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar and J P Nadda and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also took to Twitter to extend their greetings. BJP chief Amit Shah unfurled the national flag at the party headquarters in the national capital and took to Twitter to greet people on the occasion. India Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with a grand military parade and exhibition of its history, cultural diversity and strategic weaponry at the Rajpath -- the city's centrepiece boulevard -- in the presence of thousands of spectators including foreign dignitaries and the country's top political and military brass. South African President Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the 90-minute celebrations marking the anniversary of the day when the world's biggest democracy was declared a republic in 1950. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) There is no place for illegal foreigners in and only the indigenous people of the state have the right on its resources, Governor Jagdish Mukhi said Saturday. Hoisting the flag on the occasion of 70th here, Mukhi said the government was working with commitment to have a permanent solution for the illegal infiltration problem in "We are committed to build a new There is no place for any illegal immigrant here. The people of the state have all the rights on its resources and it will always remain like that," he said. The state's entire administrative machinery is working with its capability and dedication to prepare a correct Register of Citizens (NRC) under the directions of the Supreme Court, Mukhi said. "We will take all necessary steps to free Assam from illegal foreigners," he added. Talking about the Assam Accord, the Governor said the Clause 6 was the soul of the pact and political rights of Assam's indigenous people will be protected at any cost. "We are happy that Clause 6 is going to get Constitutional recognition. The has formed a high-powered committee. It will submit its report within six months after examining all aspects," he said. However, five of the nine-member panel have declined from being part of it to protest against the Union government's push to pass the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in parliament. Mukhi further said the has decided to grant Schedule Tribe (ST) status to six communities of Moran, Muttock, Sootea, Tai-Ahom, Koch-Rajbongshi and Tea-Tribes recognising their "decades of struggle". "While taking this decision, we are aware that there will be no adverse impact on the existing scheduled tribes," he added. On the state's law and order situation, Mukhi said some forces inimical to the interest of the country have always tried to cause harm for their own selfish reasons. "They get help from foreign elements, who want to destabilise our country. There will be no mercy shown to them. We are committed in our resolution of a terror-free Assam. We are fully capable to suppress and control such forces," he added. The Governor announced that the state will become open defecation free by October 2, coinciding with the 150th birth anniversary of "For this purpose, special emphasis has been given on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Already, 22,418 villages of 2,411 panchayats in 204 blocks in 28 districts have been declared open defecation free," he said. Mukhi also said the state government was working for a corruption-free administration and as a result of efficiency, financial resources have increased last year with excise, transport and GST registering record income. Pakistani troops Saturday violated ceasefire by targeting forward posts and villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, promoting "strong and effective retaliation" by the Indian army, a defence spokesman said. The unprovoked small arms firing and mortar shelling from across the border started in Mankote area of Mendhar sector around 10:00 AM, the spokesman said. He said Indian army retaliated strongly and effectively to silence the Pakistani guns. A police official said the exchange of fire between the two sides continued till 1230 hours but there was no report of any casualty on the Indian side in the Pakistani firing. Meanwhile, defence sources said there was no traditional exchange of sweets between the two armies at Chakan Da Bagh crossing point along the LoC in Poonch on the occasion of the Republic Day. "No exchange of sweets at Chakan Da Bagh in view of the ongoing tense situation along the LoC, the sources said. Since the beginning of the New Year, Pakistani troops have been regularly violating the ceasefire especially along the LoC in Jammu division. A few incidents of ceasefire violations were also witnessed along the International Border this year. On January 15, Assistant Commandant Vinay Prasad of BSF was killed when he was hit by Pakistani sniper from across the IB, while an Army porter lost his life along the LoC in Rajouri district on January 11 the day when two army personnel including a major were killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack along the LoC in Naushera sector of Rajouri. The year 2018 had witnessed the highest number of 2936 ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops in the last 15 years along the Indo-Pak border. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Pakistani delegation will visit the Chenab river basin in for inspection from January 28 to 31, as mandated under the Indus Treaty, sources said. Pakistan's Indus Commissioner Syed Mohammad Mehar Ali Shah will arrive in along with his two advisers, sources said. "This tour is an obligation imposed on both the countries by the 1960 between and Under the Treaty, both the commissioners are mandated to inspect sites and works on both the sides of Indus basin in a block of five years," a senior official said. Since signing the treaty, a total of 118 such tours on both the sides have been undertaken by the commission. The last tours of the commission in and were held in July 2013 and September 2014 respectively. No tour could be held so far in the current five years block which ends in March 2020. This tour will be followed by a visit of Indian Indus Commissioner to at a mutually convenient date decided between the two commissioners, the official added. This tour was originally scheduled in October 2018 but later postponed because of local bodies and panchayat polls in J&K. Under the Indus Treaty, waters flowing in three of Indus tributaries -- the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi -- have been allotted to India; while the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus waters have been allotted to Pakistan. Informal meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, held on the sidelines of the Davos Economic Forum, confirmed that negotiation process on the Karabakh conflict settlement has noticeably quickened. Experts consider this hour and a half meeting similar to earlier negotiations in Paris between Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which lasted four hours. Current format of meeting suggests that Aliyev and Pashinyan are introducing certain adjustments to their own positions in order to advance negotiation process before the next meeting between Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which will be held next month. It's possible that soon we will witness introduction of modern monitoring system on the contact line, which will be supported by the St. Petersburg agreements, reached after last armed escalation of the conflict in spring 2016. Yerevan takes into account that in order to overcome current economic crisis, it needs to stop occupation of Karabakh. Current leadership of Armenia is trying to balance its position, recognizing that Nagorno-Karabakh remains the most fundamental issue that significantly hurts Yerevan both in foreign and domestic policy. Armenian authorities have to resolve this issue without causing public outrage inside the country. That's why in the near future, republics leadership is going to implement specific measures to prepare population for peace, paying particular attention to mutually beneficial initiatives aimed at improving economic potential of the region, using transit potential of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route in particular. Azerbaijan expects return of part of occupied regions under its control, so unless its territorial integrity will be restored, negotiation process may be delayed once again. Turkey closely monitors current format of negotiation process, supporting Azerbaijan's foreign policy line. Ankara welcomes revitalization of the Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogue, believing that Yerevan is gradually being freed from "romantic illusions" of the former leadership. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavushoglu, commenting on the issue of improving relations with Armenia, said that initiative to resolve existing problems in the Karabakh settlement zone is extremely needed. Without the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, improvement of relations between Turkey and Armenia is impossible. Moreover, while Baku and Yerevan are still preparing their respective nations for peace, Ankara is also getting trying to change its former policy. First Armenian television channel Luys (Light) will begin broadcasting in the country since March. In addition, with support of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Turkey has begun publishing country's first guidebook to Armenia in Turkish. Authors of the brochure call on fellow Turkish citizens to visit Armenia to learn more about neighboring country, avoiding closed border and using routes through the territories of Georgia or Iran. Considering favorable atmosphere of the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations and in the event of their success, Ankara plans to ratify the Zurich documents, signed in October 2009, which involve restoration of bilateral relations with Armenia and opening of borders in the future. If this will happen, a significant change in the entire geopolitical layout of South Caucasus can be expected. Nikol Pashinyan has a chance to achieve unprecedented success in relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, if he will be supported in Yerevan. A significant part of young politicians, political scientists, social activists, who supported and participated in the change of power in Armenia, are now working in the government. As for Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, as an experienced politician, will use techniques of step-by-step diplomacy, bringing situation to the point where Armenia can no longer turn back. South Caucasus needs to overcome long-term conflicts as soon as possible. Tensions in relations between the United States and Iran forces countries of the region to keep situation under control, focusing on resolution of their own security issues. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's lawyer on Saturday filed a petition in the high court here for suspension of his sentence and seeking bail on medical grounds for the incarcerated PML-N leader. Sharif has been incarcerated in the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore after he was sentenced to seven years in jail by an accountability court in the Al-Azizia steel mills case on December 24. Sharif's counsel Khawaja Haris filed the petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), where petitions for suspension of sentence and appeal against conviction have been already filed. The court had set a hearing for February 18 to hear the earlier petition and appeal, but Sharif's legal team wanted to persuade the court for early hearing. Sharif is a heart patent and his health has deteriorated as he needs urgent medical attention in a hospital, according to his daughter A panel of experts appointed by the government to examine the former also recommended that he should be given proper medical attention. Sharif was tried in three corruption case launched in September, 2017. He was first convicted and sentenced for 10 years in July last year in a case related to Avenfield properties in The IHC granted him bail in the case in September. He was convicted in the Al-Azizia case but was acquitted in Flagship investment case in December. The cases were launched on the orders of the which had ousted Sharif as in July, 2017. A Pakistani intruder was shot dead Saturday by Border Security Force personnel along the International Border in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. An intruder was noticed by the BSF personnel manning a border outpost at Check Faqira area around 1 PM and asked to surrender, they said. They said the intruder was gunned down by the jawans near the fence after he ignored repeated warnings to surrender. The body of the deceased is yet to be retrieved, they said adding further details are awaited. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 22-year-old Pakistani intruder, shot at by Border Security Force personnel along the International Border in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir and presumed dead earlier, was shifted to hospital after he was found alive, officials said. Farooq Ahmad, a resident of village Bhollian Da Kothay of Shakargarh in Pakistan, was fired upon by the BSF personnel after he ignored repeated warnings against his bids to cross into this side of the border in Check Faqira area around 1.30 pm, the officials said. He fell motionless on the ground after receiving the gun shot and was presumed dead, they said. The intruder however, was found alive by the BSF personnel, who reached him to retrieve the body, the officials said. The BSF personnel, accordingly, gave the first aid to the injured intruder and rushed him to a government hospital for specialised treatment. The officials said nothing incriminating was recovered from the possession of the intruder, who seemed to be "high on drugs. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) is mulling on a vision document for 2040 that will lay the strategic roadmap for the nation's largest producer for the next two decades. Chairman and Managing Director Shashi Shanker, in his speech after hoisting the national flag at the company headquarters at Dehradun, said the vision document 'Strategic Roadmap 2040' would craft the strategy for the firm as an integrated energy major with a long-term perspective. "The document would reframe the vision and recast the objectives of Perspective Plan 2030," he said. The Perspective Plan 2030 was ONGC's earlier vision document that outlined strategic goals for the growth of the organisation and for the energy security of the nation, a company statement said. "Our portfolio has seen a metamorphic change in the last decade. Today our business portfolio includes E&P, refining, petrochemicals, LNG, pipelines, retail, SEZ Infrastructure, power etc. While these developments open up new vistas and opportunities for the company, they also add layers of complexity to our decision-making and strategic framework," he said. Shanker said is considering many opportunities for sustaining growth and fulfilling its vision of becoming a global energy leader. The exercise also envisages evaluating potential growth areas, both within and outside India, so that is able to prioritise suitable actions well in advance. ? Overall, FY18 was a solid year for ONGC, he said. "Our standalone hydrocarbon production increased year on year; the uptick in gas output was particularly impressive. Crude oil output increased marginally from FY17 levels while gas output increased by over 6 per cent to 23.5 BCM from 22.0 BCM in FY17." Shanker also expressed satisfaction with the performance of the company's subsidiaries. Overseas production recorded another strong year of growth. Oil plus oil equivalent gas output increased to over 14 million tonnes in FY18 against 12.80 million tonnes a year back. Performance of domestic subsidiaries and JVs was also impressive. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) recorded its highest ever throughput of 16.31 million tonnes with a Gross Refinery Margin (GRM) of USD 7.54 per barrel. Eminent writer Gita Mehta, who is Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's elder sister, on Saturday declined to accept the Padma Shri award, saying its timing could be "misconstrued" in an election year. Mehta, 76, will be awarded the Padma Shri in the field of literature and education, the Centre had announced on Friday. "I am deeply honoured that the Government of India should think me worthy of a Padma Shri but with great regret I feel I must decline as there is a general election looming and the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the Government and myself, which I would much regret," Mehta, who is the sibling of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief and daughter of former CM Biju Patnaik, said in a statement from New York. Elections to Lok Sabha as well as the Odisha Assembly are due to be held together this year. Mehta's declining of the Padma award, however, triggered a row in the state with the BJP saying her action was "not appropriate" and the Congress claiming that the whole episode showed the close links between the ruling BJD and the BJP. Prominent among the books authored by Mehta are 'Karma Cola', 'A River Sutra', 'Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India' and 'Eternal Ganesha: From Birth to Rebirth'. The writer, wife of publisher Sonny Mehta, has also produced/directed 14 documentaries. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik side-stepped a question about her refusal to accept the honour but congratulated all those from Odisha who have been chosen for the award. "I congratulate all the Odias who got the Padma award," he told mediapersons here. General Secretary of BJP Odisha unit Prithviraj Harichandan said it is up to an individual whether to accept an award but refusing a national award amounts to disrespect of the President of India. "It is not appropriate to turn down a national award," he said. State Congress working president Pradip Majhi said the move is to save the BJD from embarrassment. "Her (Mehta's) refusal is aimed to prevent the tacit understanding between BJD and BJP from being exposed," he said. Another Congress leader claimed the announcement was made apparently to keep Patnaik in good humour ahead of the elections. Congress President Rahul Gandhi during his visit here on Friday had accused Patnaik of being "remote controlled" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Dismissing the opposition claims, BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb said the refusal to accept the honour is Mehta's personal decision and there should not be unnecessary discussion on the issue. "She (Mehta) should not be unnecessarily dragged into controversy," Deb added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A German company that only months ago inspected a dam that collapsed in Brazil said on Saturday that it found nothing wrong with the structure during the checks. The statement came as hopes were fading that rescuers would find more survivors from at least 300 missing after the dam collapsed at a mine in southeast Brazil, with nine bodies so far recovered. Tuev Sued, a Munich-based company specialising in certifications across the world, said it ran the inspection at the request of Vale, the Brazilian mining giant that owns the mine. "In September 2018 Tuev Sued, commissioned by Vale, carried out an inspection of the dam which, as far as we know at the moment, found no defects," a spokesman told AFP. Tuev Sued was not in a position to give more information while the investigation into the disaster was ongoing, he said, adding however that the company was fully cooperating with the investigation, including by providing "all documentation needed". On Friday, a torrent of mud broke through the dam at the iron-ore mine close to the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerias. The massive, muddy flow from the collapse barrelled towards the nearby town of Brumadinho, population 39,000, but did not hit it directly. Instead, it carved its way across roads, vegetation and farmland, taking down a bridge, and damaging or destroying homes. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) divers Saturday located the body of another miner trapped since December 13 inside the 370-foot-deep coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district, officials said. "The has informed us that another body was found at 3 am and is located at about 280 feet away from the bottom of the main shaft," District Deputy Commissioner F M Dopth told He said the body is decomposed and efforts are on to retrieve it to the top of the mine, using the Navy's remotely operated vehicle (ROV), with the help of the Disaster Response Force. The first body, of Amir Hussain from Assam's Chirang district, spotted in the mine was handed over to the family members Saturday morning. In a joint operation, the and the NDRF pulled Hussain's body out of the mine's shaft on Thursday, after it was first spotted on January 17. On December 13, water from the nearby Lytein River flooded a network of tunnels in the illegal rat-hole coal mine in Lumthari village of East Jaintia Hills, trapping 15 men and prompting a multiple-agency rescue attempt. Nearly 200 rescue personnel from the NDRF, the Indian Navy, Odisha Fire Service and state agencies are involved in the search-and-rescue operation. Efforts to de-water the nearby abandoned mines with the help of high-powered pumps of Coal India Ltd, Kirloskar Brothers Ltd and Odisha Fire Service are still continuing, the officials said. Anxious family members of the trapped miners are camping in the district headquarters and visiting the site frequently for any news of their loved ones, they said. The owner of the mine, Krip Chullet, was arrested from his home on December 14. His accomplices are on the run. The government has released Rs 1 lakh interim relief for the families of the trapped miners. Meanwhile, the is monitoring the rescue mission and the matter is scheduled to come up for hearing again on Monday. Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu's wife and former MLA Navjot Kaur Sidhu has staked claim to the Congress ticket from Chandigarh in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. With Navjot throwing her hat in the ring, the number of contenders for the Congress ticket from the Union Territory has reached three. Former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and ex-Union minister Manish Tewari have also been vying for the ticket from Chandigarh. Presently, BJP MP Kirron Kher represents Chandigarh. Navjot Kaur Sidhu, former MLA from Amritsar (East) and former chief parliamentary secretary, submitted her application to the Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee on Friday. "I am submitting my application for your consideration to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from the constituency of UT Chandigarh. All the record of my work is attached. I hope you will consider my request and give me an opportunity to serve the people of the beautiful city," she wrote to Pradeep Chhabra, president, Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee. "Checking brain drain and getting jobs for youths here will be my agenda (for Chandigarh)," Navjot told PTI Saturday. "I want the children to get good education and also get work here so that they do not have to leave the country," she said. On Bansal and Tewari also vying for the seat, the former MLA said, "It is the party to decide (on giving ticket). If Pawan Bansal gets it, I will be the first person to help him out." Reacting to Navjot applying for the Congress ticket from Chandigarh, Bansal, who had been a four-time MP from the Union Territory, exuded confidence that the party high command would repose faith in him and give him the ticket. "Everybody has the right to apply for a ticket from anywhere. But it is the party high command which finally decides. I am pretty sure that because of my work in Chandigarh, being well versed with the affairs of the city, and the rapport that I have with the people here, the party will certainly repose faith in me and give me the ticket again from here," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 70th Republic Day celebration remained a low-key affair in Nagaland amid a boycott call given by prominent organisations over the controversial Citizenship Bill. The student community and the general public at large abstained from participating in the celebrations, which left the venues empty. Naga student bodies and Yung Aung-led National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) had urged the public to stay away from the Republic Day celebrations. The organisations claimed that the Bill, once passed by the Rajya Sabha, could hurt the interests of Nagaland. Besides, their boycott call was also to express solidarity with other northeastern states who have been protesting against the Bill. Even the presence of government employees was sparse as the seating area marked for 'Administrative Heads of Departments' and 'Heads of Departments' at the main celebrations at Secretariat Plaza here remained vacant. Unfurling the tricolour in the presence of Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, Governor P B Acharya said in order to safeguard the unique cultural traditions and customary practices of Nagas, special constitutional provisions under Article 371(A) were incorporated in the Constitution of India. These special provisions, he said, not only safeguarded the rights of the people of Nagaland, but also gave an opportunity for the people to grow and develop according to their own merit. Acharya said the state government was concerned with the issue of the Citizenship Amendment Bill which was recently passed by the Lok Sabha. "We are of the unequivocal view that the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016 is not applicable to Nagaland and we stand protected under the provisions of Article 371 (A) of Constitution of India and the Inner Line Permit (ILP) mechanism," he said. The Governor appealed to the Centre to hold wider consultations with all northeastern states to ensure that the rights of the indigenous people were fully protected. "We have also decided to refer the Citizenship Amendment Bill to the Standing Committee on Article 371 (A) under the Nagaland Legislative Assembly to examine the issues in its entirety," he added. Maintaining that the top priority of the state government has been the final settlement of the Naga issue, Acharya said the government was committed to play the role of an "active facilitator" in the political negotiations between the Centre and Naga political groups. He said with the concerted efforts of the tribal Hohos and their apex bodies, the church and civil society, different groups have now come together and this seems to be the most opportune time for the Naga political groups to resolve the seven decades old Naga political issue once and for all. Altogether, 10 parade contingents and three bands took part in the Republic Day march past led by Deputy Commandant Denyong as parade commander and Assistant Commandant Lucy Yhome as second in-charge. The celebration was marked by cultural presentations by tribal troupes and exhibition of different activities of the government departments. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government on Saturday announced the launch of a scheme to ensure 100 days of every year to the youths from the economically weaker sections (EWS) in the urban areas. Chief Minister made the announcement during his Republic Day address at Chhindwara. "We are going to implement a new scheme - Yuva Swabhiman Yojana, which would provide temporary and develop skills. Registration for this scheme would begin from February 10," he said. Nath said that 100 days would be provided every year to the EWS youths. "Under this scheme, 100 days of employment would be provided to the youths from economically weaker sections in urban areas. During their employment, youths would be given skills training of their choice, so that they can take benefits of the available job opportunities," he said. The CM said the government has also changed its industrial policy to create opportunities for the state's youths. "We have introduced a clause under the policy for the industries that they would get the state government incentives only if they hire 70 per cent staff from Madhya Pradesh," he said. Nath also announced that the government would constitute a committee of Scheduled Tribe (ST) MPs and MLAs. The work of ST welfare would be conducted on the recommendations of this committee. The implementation of the scheme for opening 'gaushalas' would begin by February-end, he said. Nath also said his government would arrange funds from international agencies for infrastructure development in the state. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on every single citizen to help fight anti-Semitism ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Merkel said Saturday in her weekly podcast: "Today we are seeing a very different kind of anti-Semitism: there's the hatred of Jews by our local people, but also by Muslim migrants." In recent years, Germany has seen a rising number of often violent attacks against Jews which led the government to appoint a commissioner against anti-Semitism. It's also funding the creation of a national registration office for anti-Semitic hate crimes. On Sunday, Germany and many other countries are marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day 75 years after the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland. Some six million European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Rahul Gandhi Saturday met South African president Cyril Ramaphosa here and are learnt to have discussed issues of mutual interest. Ramaphosa, who is in the national capital as the chief guest for the 70th Republic Day celebrations, discussed issues of mutual interest with Gandhi and also with Singh. The South African president, who is also the president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) also invited Gandhi to his country and he accepted. "President Ramaphosa invited Shri Rahul Gandhi to visit South Africa and the invitation was accepted and the details worked by the Foreign Affairs departments of the two parties," said senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, who also also present during the meeting. "President Ramaphosa lauded India's role in the fight against Apartheid. Both, the ANC president and Congress president Rahul Gandhi reaffirmed the commitment to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two fraternal parties," the former Union minister said. Sharma said the two parties have century old historic ties and had a discussion on party-to-party, regional and global issues during the discussions between Ramaphosa and Gandhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man was arrested on Saturday with three grams of heroin in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir, a police official said. Sunil Kumar, a resident of Akhnoor, was was stopped for checking near Banda Bahadur Dharmshala in Katra town as he was roaming around evoking suspicion, he said. The official said three grams of heroin was recovered from his possession. He was immediately arrested and booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Unfurling the tri-colour at the 70th Republic Day celebration in Meghalaya, Governor Tathagata Roy Saturday hailed the state's law and order situation and urged the people to make the most of it to ensure sustained peace and development. In his address to a gathering at the Polo Ground here, Roy said the law and order situation and the overall internal security arrangements have significantly improved in the state. The governor, who addressed the gathering after unfurling the tri-colour and inspecting the parade, urged the people to shun violence and resort to solving problems through meaningful dialogues and engagements as violence is never the way out for any problem. He said the government is laying special emphasis on the safety and security of women and children and the state has issued instructions to expedite investigation into cases relating to the matters. Roy also paid homage to freedom fighters from the state namely, U Tirot Sing (Khasi), U Kiang Nangbah (Jaintia) and Patogan N Sangma (Garo). Speaking about the developmental initiatives in various spheres, Roy underscored that education, health, tourism, agriculture, infrastructure and environment are the priorities. The governor also said that the government is deeply pained by the tragic incident involving 15 miners who were trapped at kaan, East Jaintia Hills and despite the challenging circumstances, the government is continuing with the rescue operation. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma unfurled the National Flag and took salute at Tura in West Garo Hills district. Similarly in other district headquarters, Republic Day celebration was observed. Earlier, the marching contingents comprising the BSF, CRPF, Meghalaya police, Assam Regiment, Mizoram Police (which was part of the state exchange programme), NCC, Bharat Scouts and Guides and Indian Red Cross Society enthralled the public. The Governor's medal for meritorious services, police medal, U Tirot Sing Award, Kiang Nangbah Award, Patogan Sangma Award were also given to various individuals. Tableau display by various government departments depicted the achievements made in various areas. The highlight of the cultural extravaganza was the dance by the Nyishi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra State Commission for Women (MSCW) Friday celebrated 25 years of its foundation. The commission held a meeting at its headquarters at Bandra here to mark its silver jubilee. Representatives of some NGOs and activists were present on the occasion. The MSCW, in association with NGO Snehalaya, launched 'Sakshama', an initiative to extend legal and rehab-related help to women and girls in distress. Snehalaya, founded by Girish Kulkarni, works for the welfare of children, especially girls. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis praised the women's commission on the occasion. "Nice initiative! Maharashtra Women's Commission team led by @VijayaRahatkar tai launch an initiative called 'Sakshama' in association with Snehalay, for complete support to women affected by harassment. My greetings to MSWC on completing Silver Jubilee," he tweeted. Speaking on the occasion, Marathi writer Mangala Godbole said, "Women have changed themselves in sync with the times, but men still are at same place where they were because it suits them." "They are still the flag bearer of patriarchal society. They (men) still keep women away from being the owner of the land)," she added. In her address, MSCW chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar said, "The commission is an extended family of women. Its doors are open for everyone 24x7 as it is committed to serve them." The MSCW was established on January 25, 1993. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra Department has asked schools to air Prime Minister Narendra Modi's interaction 'Parikshe Pe Charcha 2.0' programme live on Tuesday. The programme is scheduled to be aired on DD National, DD and DD India and will also be live-streamed on various websites. A Maharashtra State Council of Educational Research and Training department official told PTI Saturday that its circular clearly stated that it was not mandatory on schools to air the interaction. "We have only informed the schools in accordance with the Centre's guidelines. They are free to either air it or choose not to. When the PM interacts with students, others who have similar queries will get a chance to have them answered," the official said. According to the circular,those schools that hold the screening will have to submit a report, including photos and videos from the event, the same day. Students from classes VI upwards will have to attend the session. The Opposition, however, slammed the circular alleging the BJP-led state government was using schools as a medium for election campaigning. "The BJP knows they have lost ground and will soon no longer be in power. Their desperation is making them use schools as a tool for campaigning now," NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik claimed. Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam said issuing such a circular was highly objectionable, adding that schools should be kept away from political activities. "The Centre and the state government are working over time to campaign for PM Modi. The issuance of this circular is highly objectionable. I urge the state to not pressurise private or government schools. Let children be away from politics," Nirupam said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Magic Mike" is heading towards Broadway and the musical will bow from November 30, producers have announced. The preview of the show, which is being described as a prequel to the film, will begin at Boston's Emerson Colonial Theatre. According to Deadline, the official opening set will open December 15. The Boston engagement will run through January 5, 2020. Film's star Channing Tatum said he is looking forward to the "full-fledged musical prequel" of the 2012 film, directed by Steven Soderbergh. The movie also featured Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer and Joe Manganiello. "I couldn't be more excited about the next chapter in the Magic Mike story. So get ready, Boston," Tatum said. The synopsis of the musical "tells the story of college-student-turned-male-entertainer Mike Lane. Struggling to make ends meet, Mike takes a job dancing at an exclusive night club... and winds up loving every minute of it. But as he scrambles to hide his alter ego from his dad and girlfriend, he finds himself needing to make some difficult choices. Can Mike follow his dreams without losing more than his clothes?" "Magic Mike was made for the Broadway stage. I can't imagine a more creative and fun team of artists to collaborate with to make this show soar," Cullman said. The cast is yet to be locked. As previously announced, Trip Cullman is directing, with an original score by Next to Normal's Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey and book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. It will be choreographed by Camille A Brown. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Artillery gun system the M777 Ultra Light Howitzers, procured from the US, and the K-9 Vajra were displayed for the first time during the 70th Republic Day parade on Rajpath, showcasing India's military prowess. Transport Satellite Terminal (TST), Surface Mine Clearing System (SMCS) and Troop Level Radar were also exhibited as part of the Army's mechanised columns on the ceremonial boulevard. The artillery gun system -- M777 American Ultra Light Howitzers -- recently acquired from the US, and K9 Vajra, a self-propelled artillery gun will be new additions this year, Maj Gen Rajpal Punia, Chief of Staff, HQ Delhi Area, had told reporters on Thursday. Vajra is a symbol of the prime minister's Make in India initiative, Punia said. The Army's procurement of M777 howitzers and K-9 Vajra, in the year gone by, were first major induction of artillery guns since Bofors guns were inducted in the mid 1980s. The M-777 A-2 ultra-light howitzers (ULH), having a maximum range of 30 km, are manufactured by the BAE Systems. Tank T-90, Ballway Machine Pikate, Akash launchers were also showcased in the mechanised columns. India Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with a grand military parade and exhibition of its history, cultural diversity and strategic weaponry at the Rajpath -- the city's centrepiece boulevard -- in the presence of thousands of spectators including foreign dignitaries and the country's top political and military brass. South African President Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the 90-minute celebrations marking the anniversary of the day when the world's biggest democracy was declared a republic in 1950. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dubai-based which is owned by an Indian business tycoon has announced its entry into mainland after a new agreement with a Switzerland-based company to develop a new four-star hotel in the Swiss city of Twenty14 Holdings (T14H), the hospitality investment arm of based International, said on Friday that it has entered into a forward purchase contract with Necron AG for the upcoming IntercityHotel Airport in Rmlang municipality of The company said its new purpose-built, 260-room hotel, set to open in 2020 and will be located close to Rmlang station and offer good transport links, including access to Zurich International Airport in 10 minutes and the city centre in 15 minutes. "We are excited to mark our entry into mainland with our first property in Zurich. It is an important milestone in our group's portfolio as we work towards becoming a billion-dollar investment firm by 2020," said Adeeb Ahamed, Managing Director of T14H. The latest hotel joins a portfolio of USD 750-million worth of luxury property across the UK, the Middle East, and led by T14H, the hospitality investment arm of LuLu Group, headed by Indian-origin businessman Yusaffali MA. In the UK, the group owns the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh, The Caledonian in and has struck a 110-million pounds agreement with property developer Galliard Homes to create a luxurious five-star hotel at 1-5 Great Yard, the former headquarters of Metropolitan Police in London. The new Swiss property will include meeting and event spaces, a restaurant, an indoor fitness centre, and spa area as well as underground and outdoor parking facilities. It will be operated by Deutsche Hospitality (Steigenberger Hotels AG) under a 20-year lease contract and is the first of many development projects planned by Necron AG's in cooperation with Deutsche Hospitality. "This is an exciting hotel development and we are delighted to be working in partnership with both Twenty14 Holdings and Deutsche Hospitality. We very much hope this is the start of a successful long-term partnership with both," said Gerard van Liempt, CEO, Necron AG. The involved said the design of the property will be based on the new Intercity Hotels Matteo Thun design standards, and keeping in mind business travellers and tourists, the property will feature modern guestrooms and public spaces. Thomas Willms, CEO, Deutsche Hospitality, added: "The IntercityHotel Zurich Airport launches our brand in and adds a highly attractive location to the portfolio. "This hotel is symbolic of our growing international presence at strategically important locations and we are delighted to have such a reliable partner as the Twenty14 Holdings on our side." Twenty14 Holdings said the new hotel is its second property to be operated by Deutsche Hospitality. The German hospitality firm currently operates T14H's Steigenberger Hotel Business Bay in The leader of Sri Lanka's main Tamil party has questioned the legitimacy of Mahinda Rajapaksa's position as the leader of the main Opposition in Parliament. The Tamil National Alliance's objection came even as Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has already announced Rajapaksa as Opposition leader. R Sampanthan, the TNA leader and the former leader of the opposition, stressed that Rajapaksa being recognized as the leader of the second largest group in parliament had raised questions. Rajapaksa is a member of President Maithripala Sirisena-led United People's Freedom Alliance (UFPA). Sirisena, who leads the UPFA, is a part of the government, how could his party also sit in Opposition at the same time, he asked. There is a clear case of constitutional conflict over Rajapaksa's appointment as the main Opposition leader. Sampanthan said that his TNA remains the second largest group after Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Front. Sampanthan held the position of the main Opposition leader from 2015 until Rajapaksa was given the job last month. The Tamil leader argued that Rajapaksa, who had obtained membership of his new party after being elected to parliament from a different party was deemed to have lost his parliamentary seat. Sampanthan stresses that he must be restored in his position as the main opposition leader to guarantee the minority rights enshrined in the Sri Lankan Constitution. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court on Saturday sent lawyer Gautam Khaitan, an accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper case, to a two-day ED custody in connection with a fresh case of alleged possession of black money and money laundering. During the court proceedings, ED's special public prosecutors D P Singh and N K Matta maintained that the present case had nothing to do with the alleged AgustaWestland scam. Metropolitan Magistrate Neetu Sharma sent the accused to custody after the Enforcement Directorte (ED) alleged that he was operating and holding a number of foreign accounts illegally and thereby possessing black money and stashing assets. Khaitan's advocate P K Dubey opposed the ED's submissions and accused the agency of forging documents, saying that the present case was related to AgustaWestland case for which Khaitan was already being prosecuted and was out on bail. He said that the case number of the present case is that of the AgustaWestland case. The fresh criminal case under the PMLA was filed by the ED against Khaitan on the basis of a case filed by the Income Tax Department against him under Section 51 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. The ED sought seven days' custody of the accused, claiming it had the knowledge of unidentified assets which value more than Rs 500 crore. Custody is not being sought in relation to account which came across in AgustaWestland. He runs less of a law firm and more of a money laundering. "IT department has given figures which we have to verify. He didn't help in verifying them, the agency said, adding that his custody was required to unearth the conspiracy. This case has nothing to do with AgustaWestland. Custodial interrogation is must to reach the truth, the ED said. The defence counsel opposed the ED plea saying the IT department was already probing the matter. I went out of the country on the directions of the court hearing AgustaWestland case. When I landed in India, I was detained by IT department and later arrested by the ED. If I have made illegalities in AgustaWestland case, can I be arrested in separate case, Dubey said. He added, FirstIT raided my (Khaitan) premises, the moment they left, ED entered the premises and detained me. There was no apprehension that I was fleeing.... Can I be prosecuted by multiple agencies for the same offence? Khaitan was placed under arrest on Friday night by the agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The Income Tax Department had last week carried out searches against Khaitan in this new case filed under the anti-black money law. Khaitan had been arrested by the ED and the CBI a few years ago in connection with their probe in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland case. A charge sheet was also filed against him by the two agencies and he was currently out on bail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal Saturday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his government's crop insurance scheme alleging it has failed to benefit the farming community and charged the NDA with dividing the society on caste lines. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) is aimed at enabling farmers avail insurance cover against crop loss due to natural calamities. "Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Modi promised crop insurance scheme... Now, if a farmer's crop gets destroyed, the insurance firms refuse to give compensation to them saying that it is only applicable if over 70 per cent crop is damaged," Kejriwal said addressing rally for the Jind Assembly bypoll here. The bypoll for the Jind seat is scheduled to be held on January 28 and was necessitated following the death of INLD MLA Hari Chand Middha. Kejriwal claimed that Modi's promises to benefit farmers by way of crop insurance scheme have failed to yield the result and alleged that the prime minister also did not implement the Swaminathan Commission report as was assured by him before the general elections in 2014. "I urge the electorate that if Modi and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar come to seek votes for the BJP, then ask them to get these from insurance firms," the AAP national convener said. "In Haryana, if farmers approach Khattar for compensation of damaged crops, they are told by the chief minister to go to insurance firms," he said. The Delhi chief minister said that his government had been giving a compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre to farmers for loss of crops due to natural calamities. He also accused the BJP of dividing the society on the lines of caste. "The BJP government at the centre and in Haryana has been dividing the society on the basis of caste," Kejriwal alleged, adding that he had never seen the kind of casteism which he being followed during the BJP rule. "Khattar has sought votes in the name of being a Punjabi during the recent mayoral polls in Haryana...now if he seeks votes in the name of caste, I request the other communities not to vote for the BJP as it will be their insult," he said. Kejriwal was addressing a rally in favour of Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) nominee Digvijay Singh Chautala. JJP was constituted after Ajay Singh Chautala, the elder son of INLD supremo and jailed leader Om Prakash Chautala, was expelled from the party for indiscipline. Ajay Singh Chautala's sons - Digvijay and Hisar MP Dushyant too were expelled from the INLD. The power struggle within the Chautala family led to differences between Chautala senior's younger son Abhay Singh and his elder brother Ajay. This is JJP's first election. Throwing his weight behind the JJP, Kejriwal said that people used to make mockery of the AAP when it was floated in Delhi. However, in the 2015 Assembly polls the party got 67 seats as against three by BJP and nil by the Congress, he said Claiming that the AAP has brought "revolution" in education and health sectors in the national capital, the Delhi chief minister alleged that the Congress and the BJP looted the country in turns. "The entire country is looking at the result of the Jind bypoll. If the people of Delhi can change the by bringing the AAP to power, I am sure that the people of Haryana can bring revolution and change the government," Kejriwal said. Asserting that he has high hopes from the young leaders of the JJP, the AAP leader said his party decided to support the JJP as he found its young leaders "selfless". "The JJP came into existence following a family dispute... in today's time everyone is selfish. If a dispute takes place within a family, no one is ready to leave the party and it's symbol," he said referring to Dushyant handing over the INLD to the party's "veterans" (Om Pakash Chautala). "Dushyant and Digvijay took no time in giving their right over the INLD and it's symbol...the day they decided it I realised that they are selfless and respectable people," Kejriwal said. Dushyant and Digvijay, in their turn, heaped praises on Kejriwal and his work while projecting him the next prime minister. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Campaigning for the January 28 bypoll to the Jind assembly constituency, witnessing a high-stake, multi-cornered contest, chiefly among the ruling BJP, opposition INLD, besides the Congress and fledgling JJP, ended Saturday. The campaign period for the multi-cornered contest ended at 5 pm, restricting candidates now only to door-to-door canvassing for seeking votes from about 1.75 lakh voters of the constituency. A total of 21 candidates are in the fray for the polls. A direct fight between the BJP and the opposition INLD initially, the bypoll turned into a high-stake contest after the Congress fielded Jat leader and AICC communication in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, while the Jannayak Janta Party, a breakaway outfit of Chautala family-led INLD, nominated political greenhorn Digvijay Singh Chautala. The by-poll was necessitated following death of INLD legislator Hari Chand Midha last year. Ruling BJP is banking on Middh'a son Krishan Middha, a Punjabi, while INLD has nominated local Jat leader Umedh Singh Redhu, who is also backed by a faction of prominent Kandela Khap (a caste council). The bypoll has brought rare unity among Congress rank as party's top leaders, including former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, state party chief Ashok Tanwar, late CM Bhajan Lal's son Kuldeep Bishnoi, CLP leader Kiran Choudhary and party MP Kumari Selja actively campaigned for Surjewala. For BJP candidate Middha, the campaigners included right from Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar to Cabinet ministers Rambilas Sharma, Capt Abhimanyu and Manish Grover, besides Union minister Choudhary Birendar. The campaigning was dominated by charges and counter-charges with arch rivals BJP, Congress, INLD and JJP eyeing the results as a self-assessment exercise in what has been dubbed by many a "semi-final" ahead of Lok Sabha polls this year. While Surjewala has sought vote promising an all-round progress of Jind, Midha has sought to bank upon the developmental works done by the BJP government in Haryana. During campaigning, Khattar criticised Surjewala claiming he would spent most of his time in Delhi. The chief minister also attacked the JJP blaming it for split in the Chautala family. Political pundits, however, see the poll balance tilting in favour of the BJP owing to to likely division of the dominant Jat community's votes among Surjewala, Redhu and Digvijay. The fledgling JJP got a boost with the AAP announcing its support to it and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addressing a rally Saturday, canvassing for JJP nominee Digvijay Singh Chautala. Kejriwal told electorate that he decided to give support to JJP after he found the two younger members of Chautala family "selfless". The cancellation of INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala's furlough from Tihar jail on a Delhi government directive in the run up to the poll too led to a verbal duel between the warring factions of Chautala family. Om Prakash Chautala hit back at his grandsons Dushyant and Digvijay, accusing them of "back-stabbing" him and "conspiring" with AAP to keep him out of the campaigning. In a bid to garner voters' sympathy, Om Prakash Chautala's wife Sneh Lata released her video footage, saying "if I die tomorrow, the four persons - Ajay, his wife Naina and their sons Dushyant and Digvijay, must not touch my body." Naina, however, shot back asking if anybody has ever heard of someone cursing her own sons and grandsons. Poll pundits say Lok Suraksha Manch candidate Vinod Kumar Arshi too has the potential to play spoilsport in multi-cornered contest. Arshi, a Brahmin leader from Jind is a nominee put up by BJP's rebel MP from Kurukshetra, Raj Kumar Saini who is Manch's patron. Saini has an influence among voters from OBC communities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India's trade with the South East Asian nations is below potential, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore Jawad Ashraf said Saturday, as he underlined the need to give priority to micro, small and medium enterprises to boost exports to these countries. The India High Commission here has organised a five-day long India Week, between January 24 and 27, during which a series of events covering culture, art, cinema, cuisine, philosophical discourses were organised. To support further growth in trade, the High Commission organised "India-Singapore Trade: Sustainability, Strengths and Strategies - Making it Work for Smaller Businesses" with a focus on promoting exports from micro, small and medium enterprises sector, handicrafts and cottage industry, including Khadi products, from India. Also, over 100 MSMEs from India, led by the High Commission, participated in the seminar. "India's trade with ASEAN Region is below potential. It is showing a modest growth and constitute about mere 2.5 per cent of ASEAN's total trade," Ashraf during an event. The Indian High Commission is working on a wide range of trade and cultural promotions with the Association of South East Asian (ASEAN) region, the official said. He said the High Commission attaches priority to supporting the MSME sectors as "this sector accounts for over 45 per cent of India's exports". "They are a huge source of livelihood, employment and empowerment in India. The products are based on local ecology and biodiversity and are sustainable, and they bear the 'unmistakable stamp' of India's culture, traditions and skills," the High Commissioner said. "This was also linked to the celebration of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi with year-long activities and events, given Mahatma Gandhi's strong advocacy and support for these sectors of our economy," Asraf added. He said that the events provided consumers to contextualise the Indian products during the annual Singapore Indian International Expo. "We also have the presence of Indian artisans (this week), who demonstrate how their products are made," said Ashraf, who hoisted the Indian Flag and a reception for 1,200 Indians in Singapore at the Republic Day Celebration on Saturday. The High Commission would like to help grow the Expo and India Week into a major platform for traditional Indian exports not just to Singapore, but also to ASEAN Region, he added. Asharf said that the Indian Government has taken a number of steps to create an enabling environment for exports from MSMEs, including improved logistics, trade facilitation, ease of doing business, lower corporate taxes, major improvements in and relief under the GST regime, concessional finance, quality assurance and certification and market support. He also said noted that the India-Singapore trade lagged behind engagement in other areas, including political, defence, innovation and investment, besides people-to-people and cultural links. To boost trade, India and Singapore have launched a third review of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), the High Commissioner said, adding India is also set to be part of the negotiations of the 16-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which should be concluded this year. This is in addition to the India's Free Trade Agreement with the 10-nation ASEAN Group. Ashraf said he wants to see companies build on these enablers and expand the export-oriented companies' footprint the ASEAN markets, including Singapore as a regional gateway. Highlighting the advantages for India, he said Singapore is a regional gateway with excellent connectivity. It has a conducive business environment, a large and vibrant community, industry bodies like Singapore-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI), the High Commissioner said. Ashraf also launched a book written by eminent Singapore-based journalists having strong experience and knowledge of India. Launching the book on Friday, Ashraf praised the topics covered in the 38 chapters of the "India's Next Leap Forward: Essays on its Socio-Economy". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India on Saturday donated 30 ambulances and six buses to Nepal and extended its support to the country in achieving prosperity. India's gesture came as it marked 70th Republic Day. India's Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri handed over keys of the ambulances and buses to the recipient organisations amidst celebrations in Indian Embassy premises, Katmandu on Saturday. Since 1994, the Government of India has gifted 722 ambulances and 142 buses to various organisations across Nepal to expand access to healthcare and educational services in Nepal. Ambassador Puri also distributed cash to the kins of war veterans from the Gorkha regiment and gifted books to 53 schools and libraries across the country. Puri unfurled the Indian national flag and read out the message delivered by the president of Indian to the nation on the occasion of the Republic Day. "Government of India will extend support to government of Nepal in attaining its goal of 'Samriddha Nepal ra Sukhi Nepali' or 'Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepali'," assured ambassador Puri. The function was attended by more than 2,000 people, including Indian embassy staff, Indian citizens residing in Nepal, Indian business community in Kathmandu, media persons and students. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India Saturday celebrated the 70th with a grand military parade and exhibition of its history, cultural diversity and strategic weaponry at the Rajpath -- the city's centrepiece boulevard -- in presence of thousands of spectators including foreign dignitaries and the country's top political and military brass. South African President Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the 90-minute celebrations marking the anniversary of the day when the world's biggest democracy was declared a republic in 1950. A total of 22 tableaux, 16 from states and union territories and six from central government ministries and departments, were part of the cultural parade overall theme of which was life and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. This year, India is celebrating 150th birth anniversary of the father of the nation. Ramphosa's presence at the celebrations was significant as Gandhi's 21-year stay in South Africa played a pivotal role in moulding him into the apostle of peace. The capital was brought under a massive security cover for the event as it took place days after two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists were arrested. The parade ceremony commenced with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wearing a yellowish orange turban, leading the nation in paying homage to the fallen soldiers by laying a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti under India Gate. An eternal flame burns at the Amar Jawan Jyoti to commemorate the indomitable courage of our armed forces personnel who have made the supreme sacrifice in the service of the country. As per tradition, after unfurling the tri-colour, the anthem was played with a 21 gun salute following which President Ram Nath Kovind took the salute of marching contingents. Alongside Ramphosa, the ceremonial parade was watched by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and the country's top political and military brass. A major highlight of the parade was participation of four Indian Army (INA) veterans -- Parmanand, Lalti Ram, Hira Singh and Bhagmal, all aged over 90 years, for the first time. The other highlights include the display of American howitzers M777, the Main Battle Tank (MBT) T-90 and indigenously developed Akash weapons system. 'Nari Shakti' (women power) was on full display at the Rajpath with an all-woman Assam Rifles contingent creating history by participating for the first time in the parade, which was led by Maj Khushboo Kanwar. Contingents of the Navy, Army Service Corps and a unit of Corps of Signals (transportable satellite terminal) were also led by women officers. The tableau of Maharashtra portrayed the 'Quit India movement' while the tableau of Andaman and Nicobar showcased Mahatma Gandhi's message to the inmates of the cellular jail in Andaman. Jallianwala Bagh was the theme of Punjab tableau, which evoked memories of the watershed moment in the independence struggle. Assam came out with a tableau depicting Mahatma Gandhi's movement in the state and his dream of rebuilding the rural economy by encouraging the growth of cottage industry. Tableau of Gujarat depicted Mahatma Gandhi's historical 'Dandi March', which shook the foundation of the British empire. Karnataka showcased his momentous efforts at the Belagavi Congress session on 26-27 December 1924 while the tableau of Uttarakhand depicted Anashakti ashram. India's cultural diversity was also on full display at the celebrations. Twenty-six children including six girls and 20 boys awardees of Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar for their "exceptional achievement" also graced the occasion. The marching contingents of the Army included the Madras Regiment, the Rajputana Rifles, the Sikh Regiment and the Gorkha Brigade. The naval contingent comprised of 144 young sailors led by Lieutenant Commander Ambika Sudhakarn. It was followed by naval tableau titled, 'Indian Navy - Combat Ready Force for National Security'. The Indian Air Force marching contingent also comprised 144 air warriors. It was followed by the IAF tableau titled 'Indian Air Force Encouraging Indigenisation' showcasing the scaled-down models of the aircraft, radar and missile system which have been indigenously designed and manufactured. The models displayed were Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Low-Level Light Weight Radar (LLLWR), Sukhoi-30MKI and Akash missile system. Para-military and other auxiliary forces also participated in the parade along National Cadet Corps and National Service Scheme. The grand finale of the parade was a spectacular flypast by the IAF. The fly-past commenced with the 'Rudra' formation comprising three advanced light helicopters in 'Vic' formation, followed by the 'Hercules' formation comprising three C-130J Super Hercules aircraft. One C-17 Globemaster flanked by two Su-30 MKI fighter jets also displayed their aerial manoeuvring. Next in line was five Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft, in 'Arrowhead' formation. Following the Jaguars were five MiG-29 upgraded air superiority fighters in 'Arrowhead' formation. The culmination of the parade was a lone Su-30 MKI flying at a speed of 900 km/hr with a 'Vertical Charlie' manoeuvre over the saluting dais. The ceremony culminated with the national anthem and release of balloons. Modi waved to the crowd after the conclusion of the ceremony and were greeted with loud cheers. India celebrated its 70th Republic Day with a grand display of its military might and rich cultural diversity as the ceremonial parade rolled down the majestic Rajpath here in presence of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the chief guest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to the martyrs by laying a wreath at Amar Jawan Jyoti before the start of the parade in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the three service chiefs. Later Modi, wearing his traditional kurta pajama and the trademark Nehru jacket, reached the Rajpath and received and greeted President Ram Nath Kovind and the chief guest. At the unfurling of the tricolour, the band played the national anthem with a 21-gun salute fired in the background. Many senior leaders, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Deve Gowda, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad were among those present at the event. The overall theme for the Republic Day celebrations this year is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and tableaux of many states, themed on the preeminent leader of the Independence movement who championed the idea of non-violence, were lined up during the parade. Officials said Ramaphosa is the second South African president, after Nelson Mandela, to attend the grand event as its chief guest. Four Indian National Army (INA) veterans, aged over 90 years, are taking part in the parade, among the many firsts for the Republic Day event. India's military might was also on display, with the artillery gun system M777 American Ultra Light Howitzers, recently acquired from the US and K9 Vajra, a self-propelled artillery gun, showcased on Rajpath, being new additions this year. 'Nari Shakti' (women power) was on full display on the ceremonial boulevard with an all-woman Assam Rifles contingent creating history this year by participating for the first time in the parade, which was led by Maj Khushboo Kanwar. Contingents of the Navy, Army Service Corps and a unit of Corps of Signals (transportable satellite terminal) were led by women officers too, as the crowd cheered. The parade took place in a cold weather amid a heavy security blanket with thousands of security personnel, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters deployed in view of the event. The march began with showering of flower petals by helicopters led by the parade commander, parade second-in-command and Param Vir Chakra and Ashoka Chakra awardees. The Indian Army's T-90 tank, Ballway Machine Pikate (BMP-II/IIK), Surface Mine Clearing System, 155 mm/52 Calibre Tracked Self-propelled Gun (K-9 Vajra), Transportable Satellite Terminal, Troop Level Radar and Akash Weapon System were also showcased at the parade. The marching contingents of the Sikh Light Infantry, Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry, Gorkha Brigade, Army Service Corps, Army Supply Corps (North), Territorial Army Battalion participated in the parade. The Indian Navy's brass band, marching contingent and tableau, and Air Force's band and marching contingent were also seen. Para-military and other auxiliary forces also participated in the parade along National Cadet Corps and National Service Scheme. The tableaux of Sikkim, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, West Bengal, Tripura, Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Uttarakhand were also displayed. Twenty six children who won the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar also passed through the parade in an open jeep followed by presentations by school children. The motorcycle display followed it which was welcomed by crowds and fly-past was observed after it. Chilly weather conditions failed to dampen the spirits of people who came to watch the parade. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court has issued notice to the Centre on a plea seeking to nominate directors to the Repco Bank according to the provisions of the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act. Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana gave the direction recently while disposing of a writ petition from P Dhanapal, a Sri Lankan repatriate and a member of the Repatriates Co-operative Finance and Development Bank Shareholders' Welfare Association. The judge directed the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare and the Central Registrar of Co-operative Societies, New Delhi, to consider within four weeks a representation dated October 10, 2018 from the association to nominate directors to the Repco Bank according to the provisions of the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act. According to the petitioner, the bank was formed for the welfare of repatriates from various counties like Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka and Vietnam to provide rehabilitation and assistance for their development. It is spread over four southern states -- Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala -- and the Union territory of Puducherry. The management of the bank is run by the board of directors. According to section 48 of the Act, if the equity share capital held by the central or a state government is 51 per cent and above, three persons can be nominated to the board, provided that the number of such nominated persons shall not exceed one-third of the number of the board members. However, the bank had framed its own bye-laws, wherein Clause 30 provided for 15 directors under various categories. At present, there are only six nominated directors, including two from the petitioner association. Hence, the association or the repatriates were unable to participate in the administration, the petitioner submitted. The association had sent a representation in this connection on October 10 last year. As there was no response, it had moved the high court with the present petition. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 70th Republic Day was celebrated across Gujarat with patriotic fervour and gaiety Saturday with Governor O P Kohli unfurling the tricolour at the main state-level function organised at Palanpur in Banaskantha district. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was also present at the function organised at the police parade ground in Palanpur, around 87 kilometres from here. A helicopter of the Indian Air Force hovered in the sky and showered flower petals on the tricolour. Later, Kohli and Rupani inspected the Republic Day's ceremonial parade in an open jeep, where 901-strong uniformed men marched and police troupes presented rifle drill, motorcycle stunts, judo, karate, gymnastics, dog show and equestrian adventures. While performing a motorcycle stunt, a woman police constable lost balance and fell down. Six students were injured after getting hit by the motorcycle. Later, talking to reporters, Rupani extended greetings to the people of the state on the occasion which celebrates the day when the Constitution came into effect. "The Republic Day is being celebrated with the feeling of unity and integrity. People are involved in a large number. I extend my greetings to the 6.5 crore Gujaratis on this day," he said. Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel unfurled the tricolour at a ground in the state capital Gandhinagar. Events marking the day were also organised at state BJP and Congress headquarters in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad, respectively, where party leaders unfurled the tricolour in the presence of supporters. In a unique display of patriotism, a group of youths carried a 182-feet long and 11-feet wide tricolour to the site of the Statue of Unity, the world's tallest effigy of freedom struggle icon Vallabhbhai Patel, at Kevadiya in Narmada district, to mark the Republic Day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Seven persons were Saturday arrested in Dahod in Gujarat for allegedly assaulting, abusing and chopping off the hair of a woman a few days ago, police said. A video of the incident has been in circulation on social media platforms for several days now, following which the police began a probe, an official said Saturday. "The woman, married with two children, from Nani Kharaj village here was assaulted by a group of people, including her relatives, for running away to Ahmedabad reportedly with her lover," a Dahod rural police station official said. "She was brought back to the village where she was beaten up and her hair chopped off. The entire incident was recorded on a mobile phone as well," Inspector B R Patel said. A case was registered under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code as well as section 67 (A) of Information Technology Act, he said. "We have arrested seven accused who were identified from the video. They are Bharat Mavi, Maniben Bhabhor, Shailesh Baria, Rakesh Bhabhor, Dinesh Parmar, Narsinh Mavi and Rajesh Bhabhor," the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two people have been arrested in Dubai while attempting to steal passengers suitcases at Dubai International Airport. Dubai Customs were on the lookout for the thieves following reports of luggage disappearing at the arrival hall, it said in a statement. The arrest was made during the busy Christmas period, a time when the airport is bustling with activity as thousands of passengers travel to and from Dubai for the holidays. Ibrahim Al Kamali, director of passenger operations at Dubai Customs, said: We received reports of disappeared luggage. A team of officers collected all information on the flights and the data covered 20,000 passengers who were reduced to only 10 suspects in record time. Analysing the data led the officers to point the finger to a passenger of Arab nationality and his girlfriend." On December 30, the two suspects arrived at the airport, having flown from an Arab country, and were caught red-handed with stolen suitcases which had their tags removed, the statement said. - TradeArabia News Service Six children and a woman constable riding a stunt motorcycle were Saturday injured when the two-wheeler slipped at a state-level Republic Day parade organised here. The stunt-motorcycle slipped after it lost balance and hit a group of children in the 11-12 age group who were part of the audience, said Banaskantha Superintendent of Police Pradeep Sejul. "Six children minor sustained injuries as also the rider, woman constable Rekha Gohil," Sejul said. The injured were taken to Palanpur civil hospital and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who was attending the function, rushed to the hospital along with state Chief Secretary J N Singh and Director General of Police Shivanand Jha, the SP said. The function was organised at a ground near the city's Rampura chowk. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two airline staff,who facilitated gold smuggling through the airport here, were among five arrested and Rs 55 lakh of gold bars recovered from them by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials. The duo and a passenger from Colombo, who handed over 16 gold bars over to them after arriving here by a Sri Lankan airlines flight Friday night, were nabbed as they exited the airport. Based on the information given by the airline staff, an 'organiser' and another man waiting to receive the gold in a car about 1.3 km away from the airport were arrested while trying to escape, a DRI release said. The five reportedly admitted to their involvement in the smuggling racket in return for lucrative money offered by a financier, the main accused, who is at large, the release said. All the five were later enlarged on bail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goa Governor Mridula Sinha Saturday said the law and order situation in the state remained under control and the crime rate dropped by 8.26 per cent in the last one year. She also said that cases of rape in the state came down by 21 per cent during that period. The governor was addressing Republic Day Parade at Campal Ground in Panaji. BJP patriarch L K Advani was also present on the occasion. "I am happy to inform you all that during the last year, the law and order situation was under control due to which there was no major untoward incident happened in the state. Due to appropriate action and preventive measures, the crime rate has gone down by 8.26 per cent during last one year," she said. "Heinous crimes came down by 15 per cent, while the incidents of rape have decreased by 21 per cent in the last one year," she said. Sinha added that the state police have introduced self-defence as part of the curriculum, which was empowering girls going to schools and colleges. She also said that the government has been encouraging organic farming to ensure that the income of farmers is doubled by 2022. The state has banned fishing by bull trawling and using LED lights, the governor added. She stressed that the government should work towards bringing the school drop-out rate to zero. "The government is committed towards continuous development of educational sector. Emphasis should be given on improving the quality of education, availability of potable water, providing clean toilets and reducing the drop-out rates to zero (nil)," she said. The governor said that the Information Technology Policy, which was introduced in July 2018, aims to provide 10,000 jobs to the youth. Sinha said that the Investment Promotion Board has attracted industrial investment of Rs 1,070 crore through 166 projects creating employment opportunities for 22,586 people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) From being a celebrated ISRO scientist to being branded a 'spy' and finally awarded with the Padma Bhushan, Saturday said he was glad that his work in the Indian space arena was finally recognised. "My name became famous because of 'spying' charges. Now I am glad that my contribution has been recognised by the government," he told PTI over phone. Narayanan (77) was awarded the prestigious Padma award this Republic Day. The former scientist had played a critical role in the development of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and in the initial phase of making cryogenic engines. He, however, was embroiled in an espionage case in 1994. The case pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women. The case was first investigated by police and later handed over to the CBI, which found no espionage as was alleged to have taken place. The case also had its political fallout with a section in the Congress targeting then chief minister late K Karunakaran over the issue, that eventually led to his resignation. Narayanan, the then director of cryogenic project at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was arrested along with ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran and the Indian representative of a Russian space agency, K Chandrasekhar. S K Sharma, a labour contractor and two Maldivian women-- Fousiya Hasan and Rasheeda-- were also arrested. What followed was a long legal battle that ended last year with the Supreme Court clearing all charges against Narayanan and directing the to give Rs 50 lakh compensation to the scientist. The court also ordered a high-level probe into the action of the erring cops which had caused "tremendous harassment" and "immeasurable anguish" to Narayanan. Looking back at the turn of events, the former scientist said they were "a part of life" and was glad that his contribution was finally recognised. Praising the work of Narayanan, former ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair said, "He played a critical role in the development of PSLV, GSLV and is one of the pioneers in the the Liquid Propulsion System (LPS)." Nair said the scientist was subjected to "severe torture" unheard of by the police, but Narayanan's efforts have finally been recognised by the A S Kiran Kumar, who served as the ISRO chairman from 2015-2018, said Narayanan was one of the pioneers in cryogenic engine technology in Algeria's civil protection unit said Saturday five people died after being swept away by flood waters as a cold snap in the Maghreb brought snow to several of the country's regions. "All the victims have been retrieved over the last 48 hours after being swept away by waters in Annaba, El Tarf, Tizi Ouzou and Tipaza," the civil protection body said. Salvage operations took place in more than 17 areas and around 100 people have been rescued in the last 24 hours. A total of 33 roads remain blocked in over 10 regions because of snow, the civil protection unit said, adding "snow clearing operations are progressing". Elsewhere in North Africa, neighbouring Tunisia's interior ministry said on Friday two people were killed by flooding and cold weather, after heavy snowfall. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A farmer was killed after being struck by lightning in Sugaon village in Balrampur district of Uttar Pradesh, a senior official said Saturday. Balesar (65) died after lightning struck him on Friday evening when he was returning home from his field, District Magistrate Krishna Karunesh said. He said compensation will be given to the farmer's family after a report a received in this regard. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An explosion wounded at least one person in central Nairobi on Saturday, a police source said, with the Kenyan capital still on edge nearly two weeks after a jihadist attack that killed 21 people. The wounded person was one of the street-cart vendors who sell their goods in the centre of the city, the source said. "We have one person injured in this incident. From what he is telling us... he had been given a luggage to transport and that is what exploded. We suspect it is an improvised explosive device, that is what we are trying to confirm," one of the police officers at the scene said. An AFP journalist at the scene said the area had been cordoned off by police, who were conducting a search near a metal handcart. Islamist militants carried out an attack and almost 20-hour siege this month of the DusitD2 hotel and office complex in Nairobi involving a suicide bomber and four gunmen who were all killed by security forces. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A military base deep inside Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles, experts and satellite images suggest, evidence of the type of weapons program it has long criticized its archrival Iran for possessing. Further raising the stakes for any such program are comments by Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said last year the kingdom wouldn't hesitate to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads to targets thousands of kilometers away. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Having such a program could further strain relations with the U.S., the kingdom's longtime security partner, at a time when ties already are being tested by the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said heavy investment in missiles often correlates with an interest in nuclear weapons. "I would be a little worried that we're underestimating the Saudis' ambitions here," said Lewis, who has studied the satellite images. The images, first reported by The Washington Post, focus on a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, some 230 kilometers (145 miles) west of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Jane's Defence Weekly first identified the base in 2013, suggesting its two launch pads appear oriented to target Israel and Iran with ballistic missiles the kingdom previously bought from China. The November satellite images show what appear to be structures big enough to build and fuel ballistic missiles. An apparent rocket-engine test stand can be seen in a corner of the base the type on which a rocket is positioned on its side and test-fired in place. Such testing is key for countries attempting to manufacture working missiles, experts say. Michael Elleman, the senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, also reviewed the satellite photos and said they appear to show a ballistic missile program. The question remains where Saudi Arabia gained the technical know-how to build such a facility. Lewis said the Saudi stand closely resembles a design used by China, though it is smaller. Chinese military support to the kingdom would not come as a surprise. The Chinese have increasingly sold armed drones to Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations, even as the U.S. blocks sales of its own to allies over proliferation concerns. Beijing also sold Riyadh variants of its Dongfeng ballistic missiles, the only ones the kingdom was previously believed to have in its arsenal. Asked by The Associated Press on Friday about the base, China's Defense Ministry declined immediately to comment. "I have never heard of such a thing as China helping Saudi Arabia to build a missile base," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Neither Saudi Arabia nor China are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of rockets capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the United States, have long criticized Iran's ballistic missile program, viewing it as a regional threat. Iran, whose nuclear program for now remains limited by its 2015 deal with world powers, insists its atomic program is peaceful. But Western powers have long feared it was pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a civilian program, allegations denied by Tehran. Iran has relied on its ballistic missiles as its own air force is largely made up of pre-1979 fighter jets. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has a fleet of modern F-15s, Typhoons and Tornadoes which raises the question of why the Saudis would choose to develop the missiles. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The "will take further actions" if new elections are not called in in the coming days, EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said on Saturday, as pressure grows on embattled Venezuelan leader Her statement came after the United States, and major South American governments recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting in a challenge to Maduro. "In the absence of an announcement on the organisation of fresh elections with the necessary guarantees over the next days, the EU will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country's leadership," Mogherini said. Spain, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on Saturday also gave Maduro an ultimatum of eight days to call new elections or they would recognise Guaido as The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries after the 28-member bloc struggled to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the Maduro's reelection last year was contested by the opposition and rejected by the US, EU and UN as a sham -- but he has until now retained the loyalty of the South American OPEC nation's powerful military. Guaido, who is chief of the elected National Assembly, proclaimed himself acting of during massive street rallies this week. "The EU reiterates its full support to the National Assembly, which is the democratic legitimate body of Venezuela," the Mogherini statement said. "We reaffirm our deep belief that a peaceful and inclusive democratic solution is the only sustainable way out of the current political impasse." After four years of economic collapse that has left Venezuelans short of and medicine and driven more than two million to flee, Guaido is trying to oust Maduro following elections that saw the socialist leader sworn in for a second term. Eleven people were confirmed dead and nearly 300 missing, many also feared dead, on Saturday after a dam collapsed at a mine in southeast Brazil. The disaster struck Friday at the Vale mine near the city of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais state, spewing out millions of muddy sludge across the facility and down towards farmland alongside the nearby town of Brumaldinho. Dozens of helicopters were being used in the rescue operation Saturday because the released mud engulfed buildings, vehicles and roads with a deep, treacherous layer. "We still have hopes of finding people alive," the head of the state's fire service, Colonel Edgard Estavao, told reporters. The latest count listed 296 people as missing, all of them mine workers listed by Vale. A total 176 survivors have been rescued so far, 23 of whom were hospitalised. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro flew over the devastated zone, but said nothing to reporters when he returned from the flight. Instead, he tweeted that it was "difficult to not be emotional before this scene." All was being done to care for survivors and "determine the facts, to demand justice and prevent new tragedies," he added. The military said it was deploying 1,000 troops, including sniffer dogs, to the affected zone under orders from Bolsonaro. The disaster was the first big emergency faced by Bolsonaro and his government since he took office in early January, and perhaps one of the biggest disasters in Brazil's history. Vale has been shaken by the disaster, the second in three years it has suffered in the same state. Workers at its mine had been lunching in an administrative area Friday when they were suddenly engulfed by millions of tons of muddy trailings -- a waste byproduct of the iron-ore mining operations. The ruptured dam, 42 years old and 86 meters (282 feet) high, had been in the process of being decommissioned, and Vale said it had recently passed structural safety tests. After overflowing a second dam, the vast muddy mass barrelled down toward Brumaldinho, population 39,000, but only glanced along it before spearing its way through vegetation and farmland, smashing houses and swallowing tractors and roads in its way. Vale's CEO Fabio Schvartsman and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema both expressed pessimism, warning the toll could rise. "From now, the odds are minimal (to find more people alive) and it is most likely we will recover only bodies," Zema told reporters late Friday. In Rio, Schvartsman spoke of a "human tragedy." "We're talking about probably a large number of victims -- we don't know how many but we know it will be a high number," he said. Vale shares plummeted on the New York stock exchange Friday, closing eight per cent lower. Brazil's environmental protection agency hit Vale with an initial USD 66.5 million fine over the disaster. Minas Gerais state authorities said they were about to levy another penalty. They have already obtained a court order blocking USD 270 million of Vale funds in bank accounts with a view to using it for victim relief. The mining company, one of the world's biggest, was already involved in a 2015 mine collapse elsewhere in Minas Gerais that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country's worst-ever environmental disaster. Would-be rescue volunteers were urged to stay away because of the slippery, perilous mud. Media were pressed not to use drones to avoid collisions with search and rescue helicopters. Walter Morais, a member of the Red Cross team sent to the disaster zone, told AFP that his relief group "will begin humanitarian actions helping people who were rescued and are homeless." The Brazil office of environmentalist group Greenpeace said the dam break was "a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies." Such incidents "are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired," it added. While the death toll has yet to be fully established in Brazil, the disaster at the mine could well rank among the worst recorded. In 2008, a moving mass of mud and rocks from an illegal iron ore mine slammed into the Chinese town of Taoshi, in northern Shanxi province, killing 262 people. A mine collapse at a gold mine in Merriespruit, South Africa caused 17 deaths in 1994. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido) said it has signed an agreement with Bahrain Technology Companies Society (BTech) to sponsor and support local ICT companies that are taking part in the ninth edition of information and communication technology MEET ICT Conference & the Bahrain International Technology Exhibition (Bitex 2019). These events will be held under the patronage of Transportation and Telecommunications Minister Kamal bin Ahmed at the Gulf Hotel Bahrain from March 19 to 21. Through this agreement, Unido will continue to boost Bahrain leadership in entrepreneurship and innovation of ICT sector, it stated. Head of Unido-Bahrain Dr Hashim Hussain said: "We are pleased to work with emerging technology companies and business leaders of ICT sector to participate in the MEET ICT & Bitex 2019, giving them another chance to showcase their products and innovations, make business connections and empower them to exchange their knowledge and expertise through numerous activities derived by the upcoming events." The Enterprise Development Investment Promotion (EDIP) program and Bahrain Arab Model has been actively involved in the development of Bahraini ICT SMEs from idea generation to commercialization and growth. The program held regularly by UNIDO ITPO Bahrain through its Arab International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Investment (AICEI) has been instrumental in providing a wide range of pre-incubation, incubation, post-incubation and growth opportunities to support Techno-preneurs, it stated. BTech Chairman Ubaydli Ubaydli praised Unido's initiative to partner with the society for the 5th year in a row, to enhance MEET ICT & BITEX success, thus achieving common objectives of both parties. "MEET ICT is where Innovative and Adaptive Digital Transformation happen. It aims to educate and raise awareness for the latest introductions in Technology such as blockChain, cybersecurity, IOT to ensure that our ICT industry is as robust as any other ICT industry in the world, if not better," he noted. "Bahrain has the potential of becoming the ICT hub of the region; and we are determined to work towards achieving that goal through innovation and adaptability to change in Technology," he added. General Manager of WorkSmart for Events Management Ziad Asfour, lauding Unidos partnership to help enhance develop ICT industry, said: "Looking forward to working with all partners and exhibitors to integrate the services and products of IT companies in Bahrain, enabling us to enhance the competitiveness of this sector locally and regionally according to the latest global trends."-TradeArabia News Service The Dutch ambassador to Pakistan is to return to Islamabad next month after receiving a death threat last year, reportedly from Islamists angry over anti-Islam tweets by far-right politician Geert Wilders, Dutch media said Saturday. Ardi Stoios-Braken "will fly back to Islamabad in early February," the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad reported. She was on leave in the Netherlands in late October last year when she received word "that a letter arrived at the embassy from Pakistani authorities." "The letter spoke of a 'specific threat' and was related to the Mohammed cartoon contest which had already been cancelled months before," the paper said. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said in November that Stoios-Braken, a veteran diplomat, faced "threats" in Pakistan, apparently over "blasphemous depictions" by Wilders on Twitter. Wilders in August called off a planned Prophet Mohammed cartoon competition that stirred anger in Pakistan. Pakistan's interior ministry in October wrote a secret memo on plans to "target" the Dutch ambassador by the hardline Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party (TLP), media from both countries reported at the time. The TLP, founded in 2015, led protests in August calling for Pakistan to sever diplomatic relations with the Netherlands over the Wilders cartoon contest. The TLP has denied making any threats. Meanwhile the Netherlands last year granted a temporary stay to a Pakistani lawyer who saved Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy, from death row. The country accorded Saif-ul-Malook the temporary stay after he fled Islamabad when violence erupted following the Pakistani Supreme Court's acquittal of Bibi on the charges. The Pakistani government has since launched a crackdown on the TLP, charging its leaders with sedition and terrorism. But authorities also struck a deal with the protesters to end the violence, forming an agreement which included allowing a final review of the Supreme Court's judgement. Pakistan's Supreme Court will decide next week whether to allow an appeal against Bibi's acquittal, a lawyer involved in the case said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Six hundred Congolese rebels whose conflict killed several thousand people in the restive Kasai region, have ended their war and surrendered their weapons in a sign of support for new President Felix Tshisekedi, local authorities said on Saturday. Tshisekedi was sworn in on Thursday as president of Democratic Republic of Congo, marking the country's first peaceful handover of power after chaotic and bitterly disputed elections. Wearing red bandanas, the militiamen surrendered AK47 rifles, hunting shotguns, machetes, knives, arrows and various amulets to the Kasai-Central provincial authorities, an AFP correspondent said. "These 600 militiamen responded to our appeal for peace. We have a new president and we should all support him. We call on those who are still in the bush to also hand over their weapons," said local governor Denis Kambayi. Authorities estimate around 1,700 militia fighters were operating in the area. Around 50 rebel recruiters from Kasai region surrendered to authorities earlier this month after welcoming Tshisekedi's presidential election win. Several thousand people were killed between 2016 and October 2017 in four provinces during an insurgency by the Kamwina Nsapu (Black Ant) militia, named after a leader killed in a security force operation in August 2016. "We have handed over our weapons because for us the war is over. The people have taken power with the election of Felix Tshisekedi, so for us there is no more justification for war," said Raphael Kabeya, a local militia commander, told AFP. Kamwina Nsapu was a tribal chieftain who opposed the Kinshasa government and his rebels battled government forces and the pro-government Bana Mura militia. Beyond a death toll which UN sources put at some 3,000 -- including two UN experts sent to investigate the conflict -- the rebellion displaced around 1.4 million people. Kabeya called on a rival militia Bana Mura to also surrender their weapons and end fighting as part of a reconciliation. Another militia group also surrendered in neighbouring Tshikapa region, witnesses told AFP. Militia tensions in the central region and fighting in the country's troubled east were among the complications in December's elections to replace President Joseph Kabila that were marred by repeated delays. Tshisekedi on Friday turned the spotlight on human rights in his first day in office after succeeding Kabila who was in power for 18 years. He has vowed to release all political prisoners swiftly and moved to reconcile with other candidates in a sign of hope in a country that has been chronically unstable since its independence from Belgium in 1960. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mahatma Gandhi's 720-day stay in Delhi's Birla House between 1915 and 1948 was on display on the national capital's tableau at the 70th Republic Day parade on Saturday. The tableau highlighted the Mahatma's sojourns in Delhi, the first of which took place in 1915. It showcased Gandhi Smriti, formerly known as Birla House, where the father of the nation spent his last 144 days. The tableau's front part showed Gandhi seated and praying with the symbolic charkha in the background. The side panels represented Gandhi Smriti's World Peace Gong and various visuals from his activities during his stay in Delhi. The middle part of the tableau showed Gandhi holding his daily prayer meeting in the lawns of Birla House which was attended by people from every section of society. His followers were shown walking towards the prayer ground from inside the Birla House. The tableau's rear part showed the serene white expanse and beautiful windows of the Birla House. The Delhi tableau made a comeback at the parade after an year's gap. During the 2013 parade, it portrayed Delhi's diverse culture and inhabitants from different backgrounds and regions and its status as the country's hub for performing and fine arts. For the next three years, the tableau was conspicuous by its absence. However, it made a comeback in 2017 with "Model Government School" theme which portrayed the transformation in state-run schools and the new initiatives taken in the education sector. Last year, the Delhi government could not showcase its tableau because there was a delay by it in sending its proposal to the Centre. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Goa Congress chief Girish Chodankar Saturday claimed his party was in touch with five MLAs of the ruling coalition and would form government in the state after the upcoming assembly bypolls in two seats -- Shiroda and Mandrem. Talking to PTI, he said his party was in touch with five MLAs from the Manohar Parrikar-led coalition, whose support the Congress will take to form government once they pull out of the ruling dispensation. Although dates for the by-election to two assembly seats have not been announced so far, they are likely to be held in the next couple of months. "We have in our mind the five MLAs who would be with us to form the government after the upcoming bypolls," Chodankar said. "In order to form the new government, the Congress would take support of these legislators once they withdraw from the current coalition government," he added. The Congress is currently the principal opposition party in Goa Legislative Assembly with 12 MLAs. Last year too, the opposition party had staked claim to form government in Goa. In May 2018, the party had staked claim citing the example of Karnataka where the largest party BJP was invited to form the government after the Assembly polls threw up a fractured verdict. The Congress had said that it had not been invited to form the government in Goa after the February 2017 Assembly polls despite it emerging as the single largest party. In September again, it had submitted a memorandum to Governor Mridula Sinha, staking claim to form an alternative government. The move had come amid Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's hospitalisation due to his pancreatic ailment. Congress had also moved no confidence motion against Speaker of Legislative Assembly Pramod Sawant which was quashed on technical grounds. The by-elections to Shiroda and Mandrem assembly constituencies have been necessitated after two Congress MLAs -- Subhash Shirodkar (Shiroda) and Dayanand Sopte (Mandrem) -- resigned last year to join the BJP. When asked to name the MLAs who were likely to join hands with the Congress, Chodankar said, "Those people who have trusted us, we can't sell them off. You will come to know who are in touch with us." Chodankar's statement comes against the backdrop of the BJP ally Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) deciding to contest by-election against the official candidates in both the assembly constituencies. MGP leader Sudin Dhavalikar had also showered praises on Congress leader Digambar Kamat while indirectly criticising his ally Goa Forward Party (GFP) during a function in Margao town recently. "What MGP speaks is not in favour of anyone, but they speak the truth," Chodankar said. When asked whether the Congress will go with the MGP to form the next government, he said, "Till they are with the BJP, doors are closed. Once they withdraw the support, we will consider taking them." The Congress leader also appealed to like-minded parties to join hands for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to form a "mahagathbandhan" (grand alliance) in the state. "Whoever feels that the Modi government has to go, I appeal to them that they should come with us. We are ready for 'mahagathbandhan' in Goa," he said. "If people want, we will go for 'mahagathbandhan'. Those who are against the Modi and Parrikar governments and those who feel that the country and Goa are in danger, they should come together," Chodankar said. He expressed confidence that even if the Congress goes solo, it would win both the parliamentary seats in the state. "People's mood is to get Congress candidates elected on both the seats of the Lok Sabha. But despite this we are not arrogant, we are not over-confident," he commented. "We appeal to parties like AAP, which are against the government, to come with us. I have already spoken to a few of their leaders...requested them to be with us," he added. The two Lok Sabha constituencies in Goa are currently represented by the BJP. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Competition is good for science, but bad for scientists, Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan said, asserting that while competition is intrinsic, the system tends to exacerbate it. The eminent structural biologist said there were many other ways of looking at the world and urged scientists not to forget the human, emotional and social side of nature. Ramakrishnan was speaking in a discussion on his new book "Gene Machine and The Culture of Science" at the Jaipur Literature Festival Friday. "Competition is good for science, but bad for scientists. While competition is intrinsic, the system tends to exacerbate it," he said. He also emphasised on India's need to "re-think the funding models" while drawing a comparison with South Korea and Israel. "Change will be a slow process and re-thinking our funding models is necessary... India, for example, only spends 0.7 per cent of its GDP on science, in comparison with countries like South Korea and Israel that spend nearly 3-4 per cent of their GDP," he added. The 67-year-old scientist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A Steitz and Ada Yonath, for his research in the structure and function of the ribosomes in 2009. The President of the Royal Society also touched upon other topics like music and art and on the journey of a scientist as a human being in the discussion with Priyamvada Natarajan, professor of Astronomy at Yale University. Responding to a question on how music impacts ribosomes, Ramakrishnan said, "Music is a little bit of a mystery. There is something deep and fundamental about it that I don't understand, but I am grateful it exists." "Art and music move us in deep and unpredictable ways. We have much to learn from the humanities and the arts," he said. "Much of what I have said may perhaps sound a little utilitarian but science and the pursuit of knowledge are also a thing of beauty. Poets and artists have often reflected on the beauty of the night sky but the images of space from the Hubble Telescope speak for themselves," he said. When a member in the audience asked him a quirky question to name scientists and musicians he would invite to a hypothetical dinner party, Ramakrishnan named Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling, M S Subbalakshmi, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and his son and daughter-in-law, both of whom are professional musicians. Emphasising on the importance of proteins, he said they were not "simply something that build muscles, but are in fact the elixir of life: we see, breathe and remember because of proteins". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : The TDP yet again targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday,this time using Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's purported remarks on CBI, saying the Central government itself was caught in doubt on how to rule. "They themselves are putting a question mark on whether it is the way to run a government," Telugu Desam Parliamentary Party leader Y Satyanarayana Chowdary remarked, referring to the 'investigative adventurism' comment made by Jaitley. Jaitley had Friday targeted the CBI over the Kochhar probe,advising the investigating agency to avoid 'adventurism' and concentrate only on the bull's eye. Jaitley,recuperating after a surgery in a hospital in the U.S., had tweeted that one of the reasons for the "poor" conviction rate in India is that "adventurism and megalomania" overtakes investigators and professionalism takes a back seat. "There is a fundamental difference between investigative adventurism and professional investigation," Jaitley had tweeted. Chanda Kochhar, former CEO of ICICI Bank and her husband Deepak Kochhar were booked Thursday by the CBI for alleged cheating and corruption in clearing six loans worth Rs 1,875 crore to the Videocon group during her tenure Briefing newsmen after a meeting of the TDDP, chaired by party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, Chowdary said they discussed Jaitley's commments on the ongoing CBI probe in the case. "Though in name it is the NDA government, only the BJP is leading the government as owners and destroyed all institutions. It could not run either the government or Parliament in the last five years," he said. One after the other, institutions like the RBI, CBI, ED and the Navaratnas had collapsed, he alleged. Earlier, a TDP release said the TDPP meeting discussed the Union Finance Ministers remarks, with Chandrababu Naidu alleging that the Centre was seeking to 'threaten' political opponents through raids by the CBI and ED. He cited the cases of CBI investigation against former Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Akhilesh Yadav and Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The TDP chief accused the Centre of creating a 'terror atmosphere' in the country by pushing industrialists into losses, bankrupting banks and creating a bad situation which would not enable any development even in the future. "They are pushing the country into a grave financial crisis and making the future dark," he said. Chandrababu also alleged that ONGC was pushed into losses only to benefit Gujarat. "NBCC India was damaged while the Navaratna companies the nations wealth were also being diluted," he added. He asked the TDP MPs to coordinate with other parties in Parliament and protest the BJPs 'misrule'. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A minor has been arrested in Canada and charged with two terrorism-related offenses, police said on Friday after the seizure of a suspected explosive. Superintendent Peter Lambertucci of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters that Canadian investigators received in late December "credible FBI information regarding an attack plot with no specific time, date, or location affixed to it". There was never a threat to public safety, Lambertucci said, but the young suspect "was reported to be involved in the manufacturing of homemade and improvised explosive devices and that was one of the subjects of our investigation". During a search of two Kingston, Ontario homes early Friday officers found a suspected "explosive substance" which was removed and later detonated, Lambertucci said. The minor, whose identity is protected under Canadian law, was charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and counselling a person to deliver, place, discharge or detonate an explosive device with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury. The RCMP also arrested a second suspect, an adult man, on Thursday night in Kingston, mid-way between Toronto and Montreal. He has not been charged and has to be released within 24 hours unless a formal criminal complaint is laid. Canadian media reported that the two suspects knew each other. Public broadcaster CBC named the adult arrested but not charged as 20-year-old Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, and reported that he was of Syrian descent. Alzahabi's parents arrived in Canada as refugees in 2017, after living in Kuwait for nearly a decade. "They tell me they search about him about terrorists. I know my son, he didn't think about that," Alzahabi's father Amin told the CBC. The investigation involved about 300 personnel and various agencies including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Investigators also used a surveillance plane which spent several days over Kingston in January, Lambertucci said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised the police work and said Canada is among the safest nations on the planet. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said "Canada's threat level remains at medium, where it has stood since 2014". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a move that will benefit 15 lakh farmers in Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel Saturday announced to waive their outstanding irrigation taxes worth Rs 207 crore. During his Republic Day address at the Police Parade grounds here, Baghel also called for a permanent solution to improve the economic condition of farmers. The chief minister's announcement comes just over a month after his government decided to waive farmers' short-term agricultural loans worth Rs 6,230 crore and hike the MSP for paddy to Rs 2,500, fulfilling the promises made by the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls. "Sinchai kar (irrigation tax) to the tune of Rs 207 crore pending from around last 15 years as on October, 2018 will be written off. As many as 15 lakh farmers will be benefited from the decision," he said. "Without freeing farmers from the clutches of debts, their condition and that of their villages cannot be improved. Therefore, in the first cabinet meeting, it was decided to waive loans to the tune of Rs 6,230 crore of around 16.65 lakh farmers," he added. "To ensure good returns to 'annadata' (farmers) for their produce, in the first cabinet meeting we fulfilled our promise to procure paddy at Rs 2,500 per quintal," he said. To improve the economic condition of farmers a permanent solution has to be chalked out and a scheme that will yield long-term results should be introduced, he added. An extensive work plan is being prepared for the revival and conservation of village rivulets, conservation of livestock, production of organic manure and horticulture development, he said. "The remuneration of tendu leaves collectors has been increased from Rs 2,500 per sacks to Rs 4,000 per sacks, which will help in empowerment of forest dwellers and tribals," he said. Baghel further said to ensure justice to the families of those killed in tragic Jhiram valley naxal attack in 2013, a strong step has been taken and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted to probe the incident. Similarly, another SIT was set up to probe alleged scam in state civil supply corporation, which operates public distribution system in the state, he added. Briefing about other decisions of his government, Baghel said, lands acquired for a mega steel plant in Lohandiguda area of Batsar a decade ago are being returned to farmers. "To set up a large-scale industry in Lohandiguda of Bastar, land of more than 1,700 farmers was acquired. In ten years, neither the industry was established nor the farmers got back their land. No ideal rehabilitation policy was followed in land acquisition. After coming to power, we decided to return land of over 1,764 hectares in 10 affected villages to ensure justice to tribals. He alleged that freedom of expression was in danger in the state since the last few years. "Freedom of expression is the first condition of democracy and therefore, the state government has started drafting journalists protection law in support of a free press," he said. Over the liquor ban in the state, Baghel said the government was moving ahead with caution on the prohibition. "The state government has created two committees for the purpose, one of them will be an all-party political committee and the other one would be from different sections of the society," he said. A comprehensive campaign will be run to make people aware of the ills of alcohol consumption, he added. On the Naxal menace, Baghel said, "It is our resolution to put an end to the violent activities of anti-constitutional elements in the name of Naxalism." He, however said, steps will be taken in the direction to reach a permanent solution after taking into consideration the views of the tribals, social workes, journalists, security forces and others. Earlier, the CM unfurled the tricolour and received guard of honour from the joint parade of various units of security personnel, National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme, Scout and Guide students at the Parade Ground. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rajya Sabha MP and Delhi University professor Manoj Jha has written to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar urging him to bring an ordinance on reservation roster for teaching positions in higher institutions (HEIs) during the upcoming Budget session. The UGC had announced in March that an individual department should be considered as the base unit to calculate the number of teaching posts to be reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates following an order by the Allahabad High Court in April in 2017. The HRD Ministry had filed a special leave petition against the court order which was rejected by the Supreme Court. It is clear as daylight that this formula (the new formula) is intended to steal the reservation benefits from the SC/ST/OBC teachers, Jha said in the letter written on Saturday. "If recruitments are held using this mischievous new formula it will force out SC/ST/OBC ad-hoc, temporary and contractual teachers currently teaching against these vacancies and replace them with general category teachers," his letter read. This will not only impact the mentoring of the students from these communities but also turn universities and colleges into exclusionary spaces bereft of diversity and shall be tantamount to generational losses to the educational attainments of SC/ST/OBC communities and a great loss to the nation, he said. "It is my fervent request that your government must take immediate and necessary action to bring a bill restoring the 200-point roster taking college or university as a unit for reservation in teaching post during the Budget session of the parliament," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thirty-four people were confirmed dead and nearly 300 missing Saturday, with hopes fading of them being found alive, after a dam collapsed at a mine in southeast Brazil. The disaster struck Friday at the Vale mine near the city of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais state, spewing millions of tons of muddy sludge across the facility and down towards farmland alongside the nearby town of Brumadinho. Dozens of helicopters were used in the rescue operation Saturday because the released mud engulfed buildings, vehicles and roads with a deep, treacherous layer. Rescue officials announced the death toll had more than tripled through the day as more and more bodies were pulled from the mud. By the last count, nearly 300 people were missing, virtually all of them mine workers listed by Vale. Among the more than 170 survivors rescued, 23 were hospitalised with injuries. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro flew over the devastated zone, later tweeting that it was "difficult to not be emotional before this scene". All was being done to care for survivors and "determine the facts, to demand justice and prevent new tragedies", he added. The military said it was deploying 1,000 troops, including sniffer dogs, to the affected zone under orders from the president. The disaster was the first big emergency faced by Bolsonaro and his government since he took office in early January, and perhaps one of the biggest disasters in Brazil's history. Vale has been shaken by the disaster, the second in three years it has suffered in the same state. Workers at its mine had been lunching in an administrative area Friday when they were suddenly engulfed by millions of tons of muddy trailings -- a waste byproduct of the iron-ore mining operations. The ruptured dam, 42-years old and 86 metres high, had been in the process of being decommissioned, and Vale said it had recently passed structural safety tests. After overflowing a second dam, the vast muddy mass barrelled down toward Brumadinho, population 39,000, but only glanced along it before spearing its way through vegetation and farmland, smashing houses and swallowing tractors and roads in its way. Vale's CEO Fabio Schvartsman and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema both expressed pessimism, warning the toll could rise. "From now, the odds are minimal (to find more people alive) and it is most likely we will recover only bodies," Zema told reporters late Friday. In Rio, Schvartsman spoke of a "human tragedy". "We're talking about probably a large number of victims -- we don't know how many but we know it will be a high number," he said. Vale shares plummeted on the New York stock exchange Friday, closing eight per cent lower. Brazil's environmental protection agency hit Vale with an initial USD 66.5 million fine over the disaster. Minas Gerais state authorities said they were about to levy another penalty. They have already obtained a court order blocking USD 270 million of Vale funds in bank accounts with a view to using it for victim relief. The mining company, one of the world's biggest, was involved in a 2015 mine collapse elsewhere in Minas Gerais that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country's worst-ever environmental disaster. Would-be rescue volunteers were urged to stay away because of the slippery, perilous mud. Media were pressed not to use drones to avoid collisions with search and rescue helicopters. "There used to be people here, houses. I'm just floored by this tragedy," Rosilene Aganetti, a 57-year-old resident in one of the affected villages, told AFP, pointing to an expanse of mud. "Several of my friends who were in the Vale cafeteria are missing," she said, holding back sobs. Another woman, Suely de Olivera Costa, desperately trying to find her husband who worked at the mine, accused Vale of "destroying Brumadinho and nobody is doing anything -- what will be the next town?" The Brazil office of environmentalist group Greenpeace said the dam break was "a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies". Such incidents "are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired," it added. While the death toll has yet to be fully established, the disaster at the mine could well rank among the worst recorded in Brazil. In 2008, a moving mass of mud and rocks from an illegal iron ore mine slammed into the Chinese town of Taoshi, in northern Shanxi province, killing 262 people. A mine collapse at a gold mine in Merriespruit, South Africa caused 17 deaths in 1994. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The World Health Organisation (WHO) has appointed Dr Takeshi Kasai as the new regional director for Western Pacific region, and also re-appointed Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh for a second term as the regional director for Southeast Asia region. The WHO Executive Board made these announcements during its 144th session being held in Geneva. Dr Kasai, a Japanese national, has worked for WHO for more than 15 years. As Director of Programme Management for the last 4 years, he served as deputy to the Regional Director. He takes office as Regional Director from February 1. Prior to this, he was instrumental in developing and implementing the Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases and Public Health Emergencies, which guides member states to improve readiness and response in public health emergencies. Dr Kasai also served as the WHO Representative in Vietnam from 2012 to 2014. A physician by training, his career in public health began nearly 30 years ago, when he was assigned to a post on the remote northeast coast of Japan, where he saw first-hand the value of building strong health systems from the ground up. On the apppointment, Dr Kasai said: "I am grateful for the trust placed in me by WHO Member States and deeply honoured to serve as Regional Director for the Western Pacific." He underscored the importance of making WHO even more responsive to countries needs at a time when rapid economic, environmental and social changes are affecting the lives and health of the Regions nearly 1.9 billion people. On her re-election, Dr Singh said it was indeed a privilege to once again be appointed as regional director for WHO South-East Asia Region. Dr Singh, an Indian national, is the first woman regional director of WHO South-East Asia. She assumed office on February 1, 2014. In September last year, she was unanimously nominated by for a second 5-year term. Dr Khetrapal Singh has a long and distinguished career in public health. She has served as a civil servant in India, as Executive Director of Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments at World Health Organizations headquarters, with the World Bank on Monitoring Health Population and Nutrition and for over a decade as Deputy Regional Director of WHO South-East Asia. "The confidence you have reposed in me is humbling, said Dr Khetrapal Singh, whose first term was marked by numerous initiatives and public health achievements. Outlining her vision for the second term, Dr Singh said: "Sustaining the gains, accelerating progress to finish the unfinished agenda and innovating, would be the approach to ensure health and wellbeing of the 1.8 billion people across the region."-TradeArabia News Service MDMK chief Vaiko Saturday said his party would stage a black flag demonstration against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scheduled to visit Madurai tomorrow to lay the foundation for AIIMS facility, for 'ignoring' Tamil Nadu's interests. The party workers will wave black flags at Modi, the MDMK general secretary told reporters here. The demonstration was not against the AIIMS, but Modi and his government, which was neglecting and functioning against the interests of Tamil Nadu, he said. The prime minister is visiting Madurai on Sunday to lay the foundation for All India Institute of Medical Sciences facility in the district. The centre giving permission to projects like neutrino, hydrocarbon, Mullaperiyar and Mekedatu will help develop economy, but lead to the destruction of Tamil Nadu, he claimed. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bihar Governor Lalji Tandon on Saturday asserted that the state government was committed to upholding the rule of law besides having zero tolerance for corruption. Addressing the Republic Day function at the historic Gandhi Maidan here, the governor said organized crime has been brought under control by impartial enforcement of law, and several steps have been taken for strengthening the police force so that it may fulfil its obligations efficiently. It is to the credit of the state government's resolve that an atmosphere of social and communal harmony prevails in Bihar, he said. "The government is also acting in accordance with its policy of zero tolerance for corruption. Action is being taken against corrupt public servants," he added. ".... 4.10 lakh complaints received under the Public Service Grievance Redressal Act of 2015 have been redressed," the governor stated. He also spoke of measures like the 'Lok Samvad' wherein the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues receive suggestions for improving governance from citizens, and the "saat nishchay" (seven resolves) which aim at providing basic amenities to the remotest corners of the state. The function was attended, among others, by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council Haroon Rashid. Before delivering his speech, the Governor inspected a Guard of Honour. Tableaux of various government departments were displayed during the Republic Day parade. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Governor Banwarilal Purohit led the 70th Republic Day celebrations in Tamil Nadu Saturday, hoisting the national flag at Marina here to mark the occasion. Purohit took the salute and led the proceedings, including the parade by Army and Navy contingents. The celebrations were attended by Chief Minister K Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and a host of other people, including state Ministers, MPs, MLAs and government officials. Cultural shows depicting India's diversity were presented by college students and artistes, while the state government showcased its schemes and projects covering various departments by way of floats. The Chief Minister gave away various awards to policemen and private individuals for various achievements. Meanwhile, Republic Day was also celebrated across the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Apprehending that the Citizenship Bill protests could spill over to Republic Day celebrations, the Assam Police Saturday took rigorous steps to ensure that no one carried black cloth to official functions. Massive protests have erupted in the state against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, and black flags are being shown to the ministers and senior BJP leaders wherever they have been going during the last few weeks. At the central function of the 70th Republic Day held at the Veterinary College Playground here, multi-layered security was put in place in view of presence of VVIPs like the governor and the chief minister. Metal detectors were installed at all the entry points and each visitor was frisked. Besides the normal prohibited items, this time the list of banned items had an addition -- black cloth. The personnel from Assam Police also enquired if anyone was carrying black handkerchief. "We have been asked to check if anyone carries any black cloth. They are not allowed to carry any black item inside the ground," an Assam Police constable deputed for security checks at one of the gates told PTI. He pointed to a heap that included handkerchiefs, mufflers, ladies shawls and head bands, seized from the public going inside to attend the function. When contacted, senior police officials declined to comment if there was any official communication on banning black clothes at the R-Day functions. On condition of anonymity, a deputy superintendent of police posted in a district of Lower Assam said there was no official communication from the headquarter, but all precautions were being taken. "Usually, the National Flag is hoisted by ministers or senior government officials across all districts and sub-divisions. If any untoward incident like showing of black flags takes place, it will be a big security lapse. So, we are taking precautions," he added. A series of protests broke out across the state and other parts of North East after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in Silchar on January 4 that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill would be passed as soon as possible in Parliament. Black flags have been waved at Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP Assam President Ranjeet Kumar Dass and other ministers across the state to protest against the Bill. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to Hindus, Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan after six years of residence in India even if they do not possess any document. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The self-exiled lawyer of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian acquitted of blasphemy, has decided to return to the country as the Supreme Court is set to decide on January 29 whether to allow an appeal against her acquittal. Saiful Malook went to the Netherlands last year due to "security concerns" when violence broke out soon after Bibi's acquittal. Talking to The Express Tribune, Malook said he would return to attend the January 29 Supreme Court hearing on the review petition against his client. The paper reported that the lawyer, however, requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to ensure his security in Islamabad. According to sources, Malook has decided to return to Pakistan permanently. Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, who is now in protective custody, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. She challenged the verdict in October 2014 in the Lahore High Court which upheld the death sentence. The apex court's decision to acquit her had sparked three-day-long mass protests led by the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). The protests were called off after the religio-political party reached an agreement with the government, the foremost condition of which was the placement of Bibi's name on the Exit Control List. The government, however, had only agreed to "initiate the legal process" to place her name on the list, while also agreeing that it would not oppose any review petitions being filed against the court judgement. After her release from Multan's women prison on November 7, Bibi was flown to Islamabad onboard a special aircraft. She was then taken to an undisclosed place amid tight security. Authorities have remained tightlipped about her movement and whereabouts for security reasons. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. Her case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) SWAT women commandos, mobile hit teams, snipers are among the varied layers of security under which the capital has been placed for the celebrations. Elaborate measures, including deployment of anti-aircraft guns, were put in place to secure the airspace. Following the arrest of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members, who were planning to carry out terror strikes in the city during the 70th celebrations, Delhi had been placed under high-security cover to avoid any terror strike or untoward incident. The arrested members of the JeM had identified Lajpat Nagar market, Haj Manzil, Turkman Gate, Paharganj, India Gate and the IGL gas pipeline in east Delhi as potential targets, police said. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will be the chief guest at the parade. He will be the second South African president to be invited to the event as the chief guest. Former South African president Nelson Mandela was the chief guest at the in 1995. Multi-layer security arrangements are in place. Around 25,000 police personnel, including traffic officials, have been deployed. CCTV cameras and face-recognition cameras have also been installed at Rajpath, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma said. Mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters have also been deployed to keep a watch on the eight-km-long parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort, besides the nearby localities. Thirty-six women commandos of the Delhi Police's Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit, who were formally inducted in August last year, will also be part of the security arrangements. Parakram vans, that are manned by NSG-trained commandos, had been patrolling strategic locations to ensure that security is not jeopardised. Snipers have been stationed atop high-rise buildings while scores of CCTV cameras are keeping a tight vigil on people's movements on the parade route. Nearly 25,000 security personnel drawn from the Delhi Police and central security forces were deployed in Central Delhi. The police are also using counter-drone technology to thwart any attack or identify any suspicious flying object, a senior police officer said. The traffic police also deployed 3,000 personnel to manage route diversions and ensure a safe and secure passage for the visiting dignitaries. Elaborate traffic arrangements and restrictions were put in place in Delhi for smooth conduct of the between Vijay Chowk and Red Fort Grounds, traffic police officials said Friday. Metro services will be available for commuters at all stations on Republic Day, but there will be no boarding and de-boarding at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations from 5 am till 12 noon. Boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed between 8.45am to 12 noon at Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk metro stations, they said. The parade will start at 9.50am from Vijay Chowk and pass through Rajpath, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar (BSZ) Marg, Netaji Subhash Marg and proceed for the Red Fort. A function will also be held at India Gate at 9 am, the traffic police said. According to a traffic advisory, no vehicle will be allowed on Rajpath, from Vijay Chowk to India Gate, from 6 pm on January 25 till the parade is over. No cross traffic will be allowed on Rajpath from 11.00 pm on January 25 at Rafi Marg, Janpath, Man Singh Road till the parade is over and C'-Hexagon-India Gate will be closed for vehicular movement from 2 am on January 26 till the parade crosses Tilak Marg, it said. On Republic Day, no vehicular movement will be allowed on Tilak Marg, BSZ Marg and Subhash Marg in both directions from 10 am onwards, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Alok Kumar said. Flying of sub-conventional aerial platforms like para- gliders, para motors, hang gliders, UAVs, UASs, microlight aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft, hot air balloons, small size powered aircraft, quadcopters or para jumping from aircraft are prohibited over the jurisdiction of Capital Territory of Delhi from January 9 to February 9, the advisory said. Patrolling in public places has been intensified and checking and frisking at metro stations, railway stations and bus terminals tightened. After a row over his seating arrangement at the last year, Congress president was seen sitting in the front row along with Union minister Nitin Gadkari at the 70th celebrations here. While Gandhi got a front row seat, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad was seen seated in the second row behind Gandhi, unlike last year when both of them were made to sit in the sixth row. Gandhi, who had taken over as the new Congress chief last year from his mother Sonia Gandhi, was designated the sixth row seat during the 2018 celebrations, prompting angry protest from his party which accused the government of setting aside traditions and indulging in "cheap politics". Congress President greets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting, in New Delhi, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019. Former prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Anand Sharma are also seen | Photo: PTI The Congress sources maintained that their party presidents had always been seated in the front row at the celebrations at Rajpath. Gandhi earlier took to Twitter to wish the countrymen on Republic Day. "Best wishes to the countrymen on Republic Day," he said. Senior party leader P Chidambaram also wished the citizens on the occasion. "Happy Republic Day to all. Republic Day marks the birth of the Constitution of India. Celebrating the Constitution is a joy. Saving the Constitution is a duty," he tweeted. Other senior Congress leaders also put out a number of messages on their Twitter accounts, giving best wishes to the countrymen on Republic Day. "Remembering our founding fathers on the 70th Republic Day. It is time to rededicate ourselves to the values of equality, liberty and justice enshrined in our constitution, which make us a great nation. Jai Hind," Anand Sharma said. A class XII student has been arrested from Nizamuddin area here for allegedly supplying arms, officials said Saturday. The accused identified as Kasif (19), alias Nisar, is a resident of Meerut, they added. On January 21, one Sagar alias Lampak (24), a member of Sunder Bhati gang, was arrested for shooting a transgender on January 19 near Barapulla Flyover, officials said. During interrogation, he had disclosed that he had purchased the weapon from one Kasif, a resident of Meerut, police said. When the police conducted raids at the village of the accused in Meerut, they could not find him. "Thereafter, we received information that Kashif had gone to Nizamuddin Bus Terminal in Delhi to supply arms," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal said. Police laid a trap near the bus terminal and at around 10.15 pm Kashif was apprehended, the DCP said. During interrogation, Kashif said one Sadan, a resident of Meerut, had "enticed" him into supply arms. He used to procure pistols for Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 each from Sadan and sell them for around Rs 40,000, officials said, adding one country-made pistol and 18 live cartridges were recovered from his possession. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Claiming that there were 100 per cent chances for hacking Electronic Voting Machines, Chief Minister N Saturday warned that democracy could not be sacrificed to hackers. He demanded that the of India either ensure VVPAT receipts were issued 100 per cent or revert to the old ballot paper system. Addressing a meeting of MPs here, he noted that anybody could misuse technology. "It's easy to misuse technology. It is particularly easy for the one who writes the (software) programme. The is only a referee. It should not enforce a system on which there is no trust," the TDP chief remarked. Stating that people were the main partners in elections, he said enhancing faith in the people was democracy. "Political parties are only raising the people's demand. Many parties are opposed to the EVMs. Even developed countries have not been using EVMs and hence the should not exert pressure on using a system in which there is no faith," Chandrababu added. He asked his party MPs to raise the issue in Parliament and oppose the use of EVMs in the ensuing elections. Meanwhile, the TDP opposed the Centre's reported move to introduce a full Budget for the 2019-20 financial year. Chandrababu asked his MPs to exert pressure on the Centre to make it introduce only a vote-on-account budget. "It's wrong in a democracy for a government, which has a mandate (left) only for two months, to present a budget for the next 10 months as well. That's an undemocratic way. This government is trying to take decisions that a new government ought to take," TDPP leader Y Satyanarayana Chowdary later told reporters. A juvenile was stabbed to death and his friend suffered serious injury when they were attacked by a local youth in a fight over dominance in his locality in central Delhi, a police officer said on Saturday, adding the accused has been arrested. The accused has been identified as Deepak, a class 12 dropout and a resident of Prem Nagar. He was arrested on Friday night from central Delhi. Police said the incident occurred on Friday around 2 p.m in Patel Nagar, when one of the victims identified as Shanu,17, had an altercation with friend of Deepak over supremacy in the area. Shanu later slapped Deepak's friend. "During investigation, it was found that Shanu was earlier apprehended on the charges of murder registered against him in Moti Nagar area and was released last month. He likes to throw his weight around in the area. To show off his dominance, he slapped Deepak's friend a multiple times over a trivial argument," a senior police officer said. "The friend then informed Deepak about the assault. In a bid to take revenge, Deepak found Shanu and his friend, Shivam,16, hanging around. He slapped Shanu and later stabbed him a multiple times after a fight," he said. "When Shivam came to rescue Shanu, he too was attacked by Deepak. He later escaped from the spot. Shanu and Shivam were taken to a nearby hospital where Shanu was declared brought dead. Shivam is undergoing treatment," he added. --IANS sp/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), the leading national entity for international development aid, has financed 129 development projects in the education sector with a total value of Dh2.5 billion ($680 million). Benefiting 14 developing countries, these projects have contributed to achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), said a statement from ADFD. Through building capabilities and imparting knowledge, the education sector plays an integral role in driving growth in key socio-economic sectors. Therefore, the funds steadfast commitment to the sector supports developing countries in achieving their development priorities. An ADFD report, issued to mark International Day of Education that falls on 24 January, reveals that in the last 10 years, the Fund financed the establishment of more than 40 schools in several developing countries to increase education levels and help eradicate illiteracy. It has also provided funds to 35 universities and colleges for building construction and renovation, as well as upgrades of infrastructure, equipment and processes in line with international standards. Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, the director general of ADFD, said: "The financing of development projects in the education sector is a key priority for ADFD. The sector is crucial to developing countries, as it helps qualify future cadres, promote talent growth, drive sustainable development and ensure national self-sufficiency in the long run." "Today, as we mark International Day of Education, it is important to note that since the 1970s, the Fund has taken a keen interest in financing education projects, including the construction of schools, universities, colleges and technical training centres," he noted. "These projects have contributed to building the capacities of millions of people in developing countries, enabling them to live more prosperous and fulfilling lives," he added. Al Suwaidi said: "To help achieve SDG 4, the Abu Dhabi fund is proud to join forces with the international community to provide quality education for all regardless of gender, religion, geographic location or economic status." As part of its efforts to support sustainable development in key socio-economic sectors, ADFD has funded multiple vital education projects, he added.-TradeArabia News Service West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi unfurled the Tricolour and took the ceremonial salute as the state celebrated 70thRepublic Day on Saturday. Amidst stringent security, Tripathi also inspected a guard of honour and raised the national flag with the national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" reverberating across the arterial Indira Gandhi Sarani to signal the start of a colourful march-past. A helicopter hovered above spraying petals, as units from the Army, Navy and Air Force took part in the customary parade displaying sophisticated arms and weapons like the Mechanised Infantry Combat vehicle and the Brahmos Supersonic Cruise missile. Models of the battleship INS Kolkata and the Apache helicopter were also exhibited in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay, ministers, bureaucrats, police officers and members of the diplomatic corps. Several contingents of Kolkata and West Bengal Police, Border Security Force, traffic sergeants, fire brigade and NCC cadets participated in the parade. Students of south Kolkata's South Point High School got all round applause for their smart demeanour. Folk artists from various districts and the Chhau dancers of Purulia brought the rear of the parade. Earlier, in a tweet Banerjee called for cherishing the 'idea of India' for which the freedom fighters had laid down their lives to end colonial rule. "Our people and our great institutions must strive to remain "independent", in the true sense of the word, she said. The national flag was also hoisted at the various government offices across the state to mark the day. --IANS ssp/rs/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi unfurled the tricolour and took the ceremonial salute as the state celebrated the 70th Republic Day on Saturday. Amidst stringent security, Tripathi inspected a guard of honour and unfurled the Indian flag as the national anthem reverberated across the arterial Indira Gandhi Sarani to kickstart a colourful parade. Units from the Army, Navy and Air Force took part in the parade displaying sophisticated weapons in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her ministerial colleagues, Assembly Speaker Biman Bandopadhyay, senior bureaucrats, police officers and members of the diplomatic corps. Several contingents of the Kolkata and West Bengal Police, Border Security Force, traffic sergeants, fire brigade, and NCC Cadets also participated. School students presented brief but highly interesting cultural road shows. Earlier in a tweet, Mamata Banerjee called for cherishing the "idea of India" for which freedom fighters had laid down their lives to end colonial rule. "Our people and our great institutions must strive to remain 'independent"', in the true sense of the word," she said. The national flag was hoisted at various union and state government offices, and political party headquarters to mark the day. --IANS ssp/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said people's "patience" on the issue of Ram temple is "fast running out" and if the Supreme Court is unable to give an early verdict on the dispute, it should "hand it over to us" and it will be resolved within 24 hours. The Chief Minister also claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win more seats in Uttar Pradesh in the coming Lok Sabha elections than it did in 2014. Asked by India TV whether he would resolve the Ayodhya issue through negotiations or by wielding the stick, Adityanath smiled and replied: "First let the court hand over the issue to us. "I will still appeal to the court to dispose of the dispute soon. On September 30, 2010, the Allahabad High Court division bench gave its verdict, not on the issue of division of land but upheld the view that the Babri structure was built by demolishing a Hindu temple or memorial. The Archaeological Survey of India, on the High Court's orders, carried out excavations and in its report admitted that the Babri structure was built by demolishing a Hindu temple or a memorial," he said. "By adding the title dispute unnecessarily, the Ayodhya dispute is being prolonged. We appeal to the Supreme Court to give us justice at the earliest, to the satisfaction of millions of people, so that it can become a symbol of people's faith. But if there is an unnecessary delay, institutions may lose people's trust," he added. The Chief Minister said, "the unnecessary delay ... is causing a crisis so far as people's patience and trust are concerned." "I want to say that the court should give its verdict soon, and if it is unable to do so, it should hand over the issue to us. We will resolve the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute within 24 hours. We won't take 25 hours," he said. Asked why the Centre had not brought an ordinance, Adityanath said the matter was sub judice. "Parliament cannot discuss matters that are sub judice. We are leaving it to the court. Had the court given justice based on the 1994 affidavit filed by the then central government, a good message could have gone to the country. It would have been a nice example. But this unnecessary delay is causing a situation where people's patience is fast running out." He said the question was not of gain or loss in elections but the faith of countrymen. Adityanath said the Congress was at the root of this problem and it did not want it to be solved. "If Ayodhya dispute is resolved, triple talaq ban is implemented, of appeasement in India will end forever." On the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the Chief Minister said that even if they take "the caste-based fight to the lowest levels, it will be a 70-30 fight. Seventy per cent voters are with BJP while the remaining 30 per cent is with the gatbandhan (alliance)". On Priyanka Gandhi's entry in politics, Adityanath said: "Congress has again proved that for them the family is the party. They cannot look beyond the family." On Rahul Gandhi visiting temples, Adityanath said: "This is a victory for our ideology. Rahul has now realised that if he has to live in Hindustan, he will have to show his 'janeu' and 'tilak' in public. To me, Rahul has proved that Nehru was wrong." Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday urged the people to vote judiciously to rid the nation of the "anti-democratic forces" which, he said, "were mercilessly destroying the Constitutional fabric of India". The Chief Minister said that Lok Sabha elections due in a few weeks from now would give people the "chance to save ourselves from these anti-people forces that were ruling the country". "The Constitution, which forms the bedrock of our systems and ideologies, itself has been endangered through brazen violation of its rules by the incumbent BJP-led government at the Centre. The very fibre of our democratic ethos has been stretched to a breaking point," Amarinder told media in Patiala city, 80 km from here, on Saturday after the 70th Republic Day celebrations. "It is up to the people to save themselves and the country from the divisive and destructive policies of the Central government by bringing in the much-needed political change in the system," he said. Earlier, addressing the people at the R-Day event, the Chief Minister vowed to restore Punjab to its Number 1 position in the country. --IANS js/oeb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US Senate has passed a stopgap bill to reopen the government for three weeks, 35 days after the shutdown began. The measure was approved unanimously on Friday and would head for the House of Representatives for approval, reports Xinhua news agency. After both the chambers of Congress sign off on the bill, it will reach the White House for final ratification. The swift passage came after the White House and Democratic party reached a deal to fund the government until February 15, while further discussing funding for a possible border wall. Trump threatened during a speech earlier Friday that if both sides could not strike a wall deal during this period, he might allow the government shutdown again or call for a state of emergency. --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Amrita Rao says she does not feel comfortable in doing love-making scenes on screen. In an interview to IANS, Amrita spoke about her return on big screen after a long time with the film 'Thackeray' and why she does not like to be a part of "love-making" scenes anymore. She said: "As the cinema is changing, on-screen kissing, love-making scenes are becoming part of the narrative. "I am not saying it is wrong, because it is the reflection of how our society has changed and become comfortable with it. But I am uncomfortable performing it on screen. Love-making is so personal to me that if I do it on screen, it is like I am leaving a part of my soul. I cannot do that." According to her, it is not about "right or wrong, it is just about a choice that we all make." Having started her career in 2002 in Bollywood with 'Ab Ke Baras', Amrita later appeared in films like 'Ishq Vishq', 'Main Hoon Na', 'Vivah' and 'Welcome to Sajjanpur'. Her performance and on-screen chemistry with actor Shahid Kapoor in 'Ishq Vishq' and 'Vivah' was highly appreciated. When asked if she would like to act with him again, Amrita said: "Well after 'Vivah', we should have done more films together but I really do not know why it did not happen." "The good thing is that there is still an audience waiting for us to come together and do a film. Like audience, even I am looking forward to such an occasion to happen." Amrita also said that she would like to work with actor Ayushmann Khurrana in because she "enjoys watching him on screen a lot." --IANS aru/sim/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hundreds of Indian expats from across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) celebrated their country's 70th Republic Day at the Consulate General of India (CGI) in Dubai on Saturday. The tri-colour was hoisted by the Consul General of India to Dubai, Vipul, at the CGI as residents and visitors sang patriotic songs and took pictures alongside the Indian flag, the Khaleej Times reported. After the flag-hoisting ceremony, Vipul greeted people gathered at the Consulate and read out Indian President Ram Nath Kovind's speech to the nation. The Consul General also honoured the two war heroes and parents of war martyrs who presided over the ceremony. "We are honoured to have the war heroes and parents of war martyrs in our midst," Vipul said. Children and adults decked in traditional wear were seen waving miniature Indian flags and celebrating the occasion. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu Congresswoman, plans to hold a rally on February 2 in the US state of Hawaii to formally launch her 2020 White House bid, her campaign has announced. Gabbard, who is not of Indian descent but comes from a Hindu family in Hawaii, will use the rally in Oahu to "gather with friends, family, and supporters to share her vision for the future of our nation", her campaign said on Friday. The 37-year-old four-term Democratic congresswoman announced her presidential bid earlier this month during an interview with CNN. She released her first ad on Thursday, highlighting her military service, the Hill newspaper reported. "Tulsi Gabbard has served in the Army National Guard for nearly 15 years, deployed twice to the Middle East and is one of the first female combat veterans ever elected to Congress. She continues to serve as a Major in the Army National Guard," her campaign said in a statement announcing the rally. Gabbard, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, is the only military veteran to declare her candidacy and could be relying on her two tours in the Middle East to differentiate her from many Democratic presidential candidates, including Indian and African-Jamaican descent Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro. The Congresswoman is popular for some progressive policies, though she received flak even within her own party over a 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and past positions opposed to LGBTQ rights. Gabbard issued an apology last week for her past comments and stances on LGBTQ issues, but said she didn't regret meeting the Syrian leader as American leaders must meet foreign leaders "if we are serious about the pursuit of peace and securing our country". At the time, Gabbard drew a comparison between her meeting with Assad to President Donald Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim-Jong un in 2018. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump announced on Friday an agreement to end the partial government shutdown for three weeks, backing down from his defiant stand against allowing a budget without funding for his election promise of a wall along the Mexican border to deter smugglers and illegal immigrants. On the 35th day of the partial shutdown with 800,000 government employees missing their second fortnightly paycheck, Trump folded under intensifying pressure from a strong Democratic Party opposition in Congress. He agreed to temporary funding to keep the government open till February 15 to hammer out a compromise. But he held out the threat of using his emergency powers under the constitution to bypass the legislature if he was not given funding for the border barrier. Speaking at the White House, he also warned that he could shutdown the government again if a deal was not made. While speaking out against the illegal immigration, he reiterated that he was for legal immigration that is needed for the economy with more industries returning to the US for his Make in America programme. He said that he was for reforming the immigration system to make it merit-based, adding, "We need more people coming into the country." The agreement to reopen the government is a big come down for Trump who had threatened to keep the shutdown going for months if not years. He recast the border wall, which had the image in his campaign of a tall concrete structure, into a high-tech-backed barrier with some stretches of a see-through steel fence. The turnabout could be a face-saver if the Democrats give him only high-tech security instead of a conventional barrier. Some Democrats have been working on proposals to provide him added funds in the budget for border security than can be used for high-tech defences but not a wall. In the November mid-term election the House of Representatives fell firmly into the hands of the Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a tough and determined leader, who stood up to Trump. Trump's expectation that the Democrats would fold backfired when he, rather than the Democrats, was widely perceived to be the cause of the shutdown. The first signs of Trump wilting came on Wednesday when he agreed to Pelosi's demand to delay the State of the Union Address after having taunted her for several days. On Thursday, six of his party's senators crossed the floor to vote for a Democratic Party resolution to end the shutdown - although that another Republican Party resolution also failed to get a majority. Last Saturday, he offered temporary reprieve from deportation for some categories of illegal immigrants in exchange for the wall, but it was rejected by the Democrats. The government shutdown crisis came about because Trump stuck firmly to his demand for the $5.7 billion to be included in the budge to build the border wall to deter smugglers and illegal immigrants, while the Democrats opposed it with equal vehemence. As a result the country does not have a budget since December 22 resulting in a shutdown of all but the essential government services. (Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in) --IANS vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tamil Nadu on Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with patriotic fervour as Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurled the tricolour at the Marina Beach here. Purohit took the salute from the armed forces and other security agencies while Chief Minister K. Palaniswami and his ministers and large number of people enjoyed the colourful floats. District Collectors across the state unfurled the national flag and took salute from police contingents. --IANS vj/in (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) DMCC, the worlds flagship free zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise, said it has signed a MoU with Asia House, the London-based centre of expertise on trade, investment and public policy, to bring a series of high-profile trade dialogues to the Middle East. The agreement sees DMCC and Asia House explore future co-operation on key projects and events in the Middle East, remarked Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the executive chairman of DMCC, after signing the deal with Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, the chairman of Asia House. The conference, sponsored by ABP London Royal Albert Dock, will explore the key trends shaping global trade and investment with a particular focus on technology. These include a major conference 'The Future of Trade: The Middle Easts Pivot to Asia which will be held on March 24 at DMCCs Dubai headquarters in Almas Tower, stated the official during a meeting at the Embassy of the UAE in London and in the presence of Sulaiman Hamid Almazroui, UAE Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. "The political and economic partnership between the United Arab Emirates and nations across Asia has never been stronger," he noted. The agreement signed today between DMCC and Asia House reflects this era of prosperity, and the UAE government commends both parties for collaborating to drive trade from Asia through Dubai, the UAE and beyond, said Bin Sulayem. The MoU follows the highly successful New Global Trade Order conference, held in partnership between Asia House and DMCC in Dubai in April 2018, which saw government ministers, WTO officials and leading business figures participate in a high-level dialogue on the shifts in world trade. "DMCC contributes over 10 percent to Dubais overall GDP, and much of this revenue is the result of a successful strategy to attract investment from Asian economies," stated Bin Sulayem. "As the worlds economic gravity continues to shift eastwards, signing this agreement with Asia House is a logical step that will enhance our existing ties with a very important growth market for both DMCC and the UAE as a whole," stated the official. "In times of uncertainty, economic progress requires international partnership, bold decision making and a collective sense of purpose. The upcoming DMCC and Asia House event provides precisely this, and we look forward to March 2019 with great promise," said Bin Sulayem. The memorandum underscores DMCCs role in attracting, facilitating and promoting global trade through Dubai. It also underlines the commitment from Asia House to drive global engagement with the Middle East, he added. Lord Green said: "Given the regions increasing importance to global trade and investment, Asia House is placing a greater focus on the Middle East. We have launched a Middle East Programme to ensure our stakeholders gain access to the most accurate insights and analysis, and we are committed to holding major events in the region." "DMCC, as a leading free zone in the Middle East, represents a key regional partner for us, and we look forward to working with them on our upcoming conference in Dubai in 2019," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Opposition party leaders on Saturday urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami to hold talks with the protesting state government employees and teachers rather than resorting to measures like arrests or appointing new teachers. Recalling the strong measures taken by late Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa against government employees when they struck work years ago, DMK President M.K. Stalin said in a statement that this had resulted in her AIADMK party losing power at the time. Instead, Palaniswami should talk to the members of the Joint Action Committee of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisation and Government Employees Organisation (JACTTO-GEO) who are on strike in support of their various demands. The government decided to crackdown on the protests by arresting the office bearers of the two organisations. Tamil Nadu State CPI Secretary R. Mutharasan said measures like appointment of temporary teachers will not help in resolving the issues. Condemning the arrests of JACTTO-GEO leaders, Mutharasan urged the government to release them and hold talks. --IANS vj/rs/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Spain, France and Germany on Saturday gave an ultimatum to embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, saying that they would recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as President unless he calls a new election within eight days. "Spain gives Nicolas Maduro eight days to call an election and if it doesn't occur, we will recognize Juan Guaido as President," said Sanchez during a press conference here. Sanchez thus became the first of the European Union's 28 heads of government to position himself before the bloc's adoption of a common stance on the ongoing legitimacy crisis in Venezuela, the BBC reported. Guaido, the 35-year-old head of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself Venezuela's acting President on Wednesday, a move that was recognized by several countries, including the US. But Maduro accused US President Donald Trump of mounting a coup and cut off diplomatic ties with Washington in response. He also said that Sanchez was "repeating the script" of Spain's former right-wing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar (1996-2004), who immediately supported the failed coup against then-President Hugo Chavez in 2002. The Spanish Prime Minister's call was soon followed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who reiterated the eight-day ultimatum in a post on Twitter. "The Venezuelan people need to be able to freely decide their future," Macron wrote. "Without announcing elections in 8 days, we could recognize Guaido as "President in charge" of Venezuela to implement said political process. We are working together with our European allies." A spokesperson of the German government issued a similar statement. The UN Security Council was expected to meet on the crisis later in the day. Maduro's opponents claim that he has "usurped" his position by being sworn into the office following a snap presidential election that he won with 67.8 per cent of the vote and the main opposition parties boycotted by calling for active abstention. In response to the crisis, Trump and the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru had announced their recognition of Guaido as Venezuela's interim President. The Chinese, Bolivian, Cuban, Iranian, Turkish and Russian governments, on the other hand, expressed their support for Maduro. Tens of thousands had taken part in anti-Maduro protests, angry at years of economic freefall. On Friday, Maduro said he was ready to talk to his rival, but Guaido rejected "fake dialogue" and said he would consider offering Maduro amnesty. Maduro has so far retained the support of the country's military, but Guaido asked them to "put themselves on the side of the Venezuelan people" and support him instead. He also called for major demonstrations demanding Maduro's resignation to be held next week. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress President Rahul Gandhi will be visiting South Africa on the invitation of President Cyril Ramaphosa who was the chief guest at the 70th Republic Day parade here on Saturday. A Congress delegation led by Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Ramaphosa, also the President of African National Congress (ANC). President Ramaphosa invited Rahul Gandhi to visit South Africa and the invitation was accepted, Congress said. Details are being worked out by the foreign affairs departments of the two parties, the party said. Both the parties share century-old historic ties, and leaders had a discussion on party-to-party, regional and global issues. "President Ramaphosa lauded India's role in the fight against Apartheid. Both, ANC president and Rahul Gandhi reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two fraternal parties," the party said. Ramaphosa arrived in the capital on Friday for a two-day visit. --IANS and/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Once, not too long ago, Manoj Shayamalan was regarded as the voice of the chill kingdom in America. As an Indian, I felt very proud of him when "The Sixth Sense" in 1999 was hailed as a pioneering shiver-giver. It was a courageous spine-chiller which spawned many rip-offs and imitations, some of them sadly emerging from Shyamalan's own tired repertoire. Recent films by Shyamalan have been disturbingly close to duds. One of them, "The Visit", even had a climax apparently ripped-off from Ram Gopal Varma's "Kaun". Though his last film "Split" had a certain amount of thrill value inherent in the actor's multiple-disorder act, I am afraid after watching "Glass", Shyamalan's latest vapid homage to supernaturalism, I have to declare him to be the Ram Gopal Varma of American cinema. Both Shyamalan and Varma continue to obstinately churn out films even though it's way past the bedtime for their career. But who will tell them that the best is over and it's time to hang up the boots? "Glass" is an appallingly shoddy work . The glimmer of hope I had gleaned from the shimmering gore in "Split" is now quite unambiguously dimmed. RIP. "Glass" has three discernibly traumatised heroes who believe they are super-heroes. You know, like Superman, Batman, Avengers and what-have-you. No one believes them. And we can't blame the skeptics for doubting the protagonists' super-hero powers, They have quite clearly seen better days. Just like the director. Three tired delusional men played by actors trying desperately to breathe life into their catatonic characters, and trying to go by the director's jaded convictions - losing battle fought with vivacity, no doubt. Watching the three gifted actors grappling with the slippery plot, I felt I was looking at three kids holding on to the side of a tricky ride in an amusement park - a park that is no longer amusing to anyone. James McAvoy, with his 23 (or is it 24?) personalities, is particularly annoying. He plays the multiple-disordered character with the lipsmacking relish of a newcomer auditioning for a role in a new Ram Gopal Varma flick. Weirdly, McAvoy is given a sympathetic shoulder, played by the very young Anya Taylor-Joy with a tragic grandeur that this film doesn't deserve. She is clearly besotted by McAvoy's multiple circus - and perhaps more entertained by it than we could ever be. SamuelA L. Jackson and Bruce Willis are the other two distraught wannabe superheroes. All three are locked up in a mental institution which has only one doctor, played by Sarah Paulson. Paulson, God bless her tenacity, tries hard to look committed and impassioned. But all I really saw on her face was an anguished helpless. "What the hell am I doing here", Paulson seemed to scream as the three weirdos made good their escape. The audience awaited theirs. The question that came to my mind after watching "Glass" was: Why do filmmakers insist on continuing with their careers long after their creativity has dried up? The tireless Dev Anand continued to churn out films long after his decline into mediocrity. The ludicrous quality of his 'films' in the twilight of his life were the best kept secret in Bollywood. What filmmakers need is a reality check. Somone or some elements willing to tell them off even at the risk of losing their prominence in the once-brilliant artiste's life. If that knock on the knuckle is not provided, we will continue to have Pahlaj Nihalani and Prakash Jha producing "Rangeela Raja" and "Fraud Saiyyan". Critics are also to blame for encouraging mediocrity in erstwhile talented filmmakers. Every time Vishal Bhardwaj comes up with a new abomination, his faithful followers from the critics' clique go "Wah Wah, kya baat hai". When they actually mean is "Oh Oh kya blot hai"! How will Shymalan ever know he is slipping off the wall when no one tells him? (Subhash K Jha can be contacted at jhasubh@gmail.com) --IANS skj/vm/am (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rome, Jan 26 (IANS/AKI) A committee of the Italy's upper house of parliament will consider a request by a special court in Sicily to begin legal action against far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in a migrant standoff case The Senate's electoral affairs and parliamentary immunity committee will on January 30 consider if the Catania Court of Ministers request to put Salvini on trial for kidnapping the 177 migrants who were stranded in the Mediterranean aboard Italian coastguard ship Diciotti from August 15 to 25. If the committee decides in favour of the Catania court, its request will be put to a vote by the 315-member Senate. Salvini on Wednesday stated he was "ready" to stand trial in the case. "Who am I am to refuse to be tried? I am ready," he told the media here. The Minister is accused of kidnapping, abuse of office and flouting sea rescue rules. The standoff came to an end when Italy's Catholic Church, Ireland and Albania agreed to shelter most of the migrants. Salvini, who is also deputy premier, said he did not fear going to jail in the case. He admitted having kidnapped the migrants "protect my country's borders and to keep Italians safe", and said he would so again in future. For the first five days of the August standoff which caused international outrage there were 190 migrants on board the Diciotti, but 13 were then allowed ashore on Lampedusa on medical grounds. When he took office last June, Salvini closed the country's ports to migrant rescue ships, vowed no more migrants would land and pledged to deport half a million illegal immigrants to Italy, where over 700,000 people have arrived since 2014. --IANS/AKI ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to take on Xiaomi's popular "Redmi" series, South Korean giant Samsung is all set to launch two industry-first Galaxy 'M' smartphones, starting from Rs 7,990, on January 28, reliable industry sources said on Saturday. Contrary to some media reports claiming that the price for the new smartphones starts at Rs 8,990, the sources said that the 2GB and 16GB version of Galaxy M10 will be priced at Rs 7,990 and 3GB and 32GB version will cost Rs 8,990. The 3GB and 32GB variant of Galaxy M20 will cost Rs 10,990 (as earlier reported by IANS) and 4GB and 64GB variant of M20 will cost Rs 12,990. Both the smartphones will be available on Amazon.in from March 5. India will be the first country where the new series smartphones will be launched. The 'M' series will also be available on Samsung's online store. "India is the first market for the global launch of 'M' series. It will go to other markets later. The 'M' portfolio which will be made available through online channel is single-mindedly designed and intended for millennials," Asim Warsi, Global Vice President, Samsung India, had told IANS earlier this month. The Galaxy 'M' series smartphones with features like Infinity V display and massive battery power are being manufactured for the millennials at Samsung's facility in Noida -- the world's largest mobile phone factory. Galaxy M20 will house a massive 5,000mAh battery while M10 will house a 3,400mAh battery. "You will see evocative display, massive battery with power management solutions, memory management solutions, fast charging technology -- all in 'M' devices. "In one word, these are powerful devices, made for India keeping the local requirements in mind," Warsi added. --IANS na/mr (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A senior Palestinian official has announced that Russia will host and sponsor an internal Palestinian dialogue in Moscow on reconciliation and ending internal division in mid February. Palestinian ambassador to Russia Abdulhafiz Noufal told the official Voice of Palestine Radio on Saturday that Moscow had sent invitations to ten Palestinian factions, including Islamic Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah Party, reports Xinhua. "The sessions of dialogue will be held in Moscow for ten days in mid February," he said, adding that "leaders of the invited factions will hold dialogue for two days on reconciliations and the obstacles that face accomplishing it." Noufal also said that leaders of the factions will also meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, briefing him what had been achieved during the meetings and what is needed from Russia. "The Russian invitation doesn't contradict with the efforts of Egypt which is the main sponsor of the reconciliation file," he said, adding that the Russian role will be completing the Egyptian role. The Russian invitation expresses Russia's desire to listen to the Palestinian party's different opinions, he said, adding that President Abbas blessed the Russian invitation and expressed hope that there will be soon a Palestinian agreement. It's not the first time that Russia hosts the internal Palestinian dialogue. In last January, leaders of ten Palestinian factions met in Moscow to discuss the Palestinian internal division. The Palestinian factions included Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the People's Party, the Popular Front (PFLP), the Democratic Front (DFLP) and four other minor factions in Palestine liberation Organization (PLO). --IANS vin (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After the surprising state assembly results of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the upcoming interim Budget is quite unlikely to be a traditional vote-on-account. It is a common election-year convention that the Budget presented by the outgoing government is delivered with the intention of securing the parliament's approval for the expenses that are to be incurred until a new government assumes power. However, after the precarious position of the government in the recent elections, the Budget might be more populist in nature. An issue that will gain particular prominence is the persistent problem of farm distress. The problems ailing the agricultural sector are only growing in magnitude as each year passes by and it has become a pressing issue that is affecting a majority of the country's population. However, little has been done to find a long-term solution to the crisis. Instead, it has often been used as a tool to win elections by promising farm loan waivers. Since April 2017, eight states have given farm loan waivers, which have amounted to a staggering total of Rs 1.9 lakh crore (two-thirds the defence budget for 2018-19). Rahul Gandhi has even promised a nation-wide farm loan waiver if the Congress is voted to power in the upcoming general elections. By all means, farm loans waivers are a poor move to address the farming distress effectively. First, it impacts a significantly low segment of agricultural households. As per NABARD data, only 43.5 per cent of households took loans between July 2015 and June 2016. Among these households, 69.7 per cent of them took institutional loans. This implies that, as a percentage of total agricultural households, about 30 per cent (69.7 multiplied by 43.5) of agricultural households took institutional loans. Loan waivers would benefit only this segment of the population leaving 70 per cent of the farming community out of its ambit. Second, moves like farm loan waivers stretch government finances and have an adverse impact on the fiscal health of the economy. India has consistently missed its fiscal targets and can ill-afford to continue to do so. When government funds are diverted to cater to such demands, it leaves little for developmental purposes. Third, loan waivers also have a damning impact on the credit culture of the country. An eventual assurance by the state to waive loans creates a classic problem of a moral hazard where the borrowers have no incentive to meet their commitments. More robust measures are needed to overhaul the crisis-ridden agricultural sector. Any attempt to use minimum support price (MSP) as a means of resolution also prove problematic as it only distorts markets and results in overflowing government stocks that cannot be afforded without incurring excessive losses. Moreover, MSP operations only benefit the large farmers who have marketable surplus - excluding a majority of the agricultural community. Amidst all these instances of economic inefficiency, a few states are trying out innovative ways of reaching the maximum proportion of farm population. The Telangana government, for instance, is attempting income and investment support to farmers through its Rythu Bandhu Scheme (RBS), wherein it transfers Rs 4,000 per acre to every farmer in the state. This is done twice a year to coincide with the two cropping seasons. The cash support helps farmers with their input purchases. The scheme has proven to be more successful than either of the aforementioned practices. It has reached more than 90 percent of the landowners in the state. The Telangana scheme is, however, solely focused on landed farmers while neglecting tenants. The Odisha government has gone a step further with its Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme. Under this, the state has promised to make one-time payments to tenants and agricultural labourers. The only challenge will be to effectively identify the latter two categories as no legal records exist. Nevertheless, such attempts are the best bet to resolve the agricultural crisis in India as they create the least amount of market distortions and are also economically efficient as the scope of leakages and corruption is minimised if the challenge of identification is overcome. An ICRIER-OECD study on Indian agricultural policies released last year estimated the market distortions created due to interventionist and restrictive policies depresses producer prices below international market levels. As a result, the gross farm revenues fall by over 6 per cent per year on an average. Such policies, therefore, implicitly tax the Indian farmer. The Modi government has an opportunity to move away from the status quo in the upcoming Budget by enforcing solutions that can infuse structural transformations of the Indian farmland. Until India reforms its arcane agricultural policies that have been driven by short-termism, the age-old problem of the distressed Indian farmer cannot be resolved. At least now we have actionable policy choices in sight that seem to be working in the Indian context. (Amit Kapoor is chair, Institute for Competitiveness. He can be contacted at amit.kapoor@competitiveness.in and tweets @kautiliya. Chirag Yadav, senior researcher, Institute for Competitiveness, has contributed to the article) --IANS amitk/vm/am (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday expressed his "deep sense of humility and gratitude" to the people of India for being awarded Bharat Ratna, saying that he had received much more from the people than what he had given in return. "It is with a deep sense of humility and gratitude to the people of India that I accept this great honour, the Bharat Ratna, bestowed upon me. I have always said and I repeat that I have got more from the people of our great country than I have given to them," the former President said in a statement. Mukherjee urged the people strengthen their resolve to live up to the ideals of the Constitution. "Our Founding Fathers have guided us this far, let us go farther with greater vigour and spirit to create an India of our dreams. On this Republic Day, let us strengthen our resolve to live up to the ideals of our Constitution," Mukherjee said. "The dynamism of our Constitution exemplified in the ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity sets the tone of our development. We must strive to protect and preserve these foundational ethics," he said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the former President for his contribution to Indian and the growth trajectory. "Pranab Da is an outstanding statesman of our times. He has served the nation selflessly and tirelessly for decades, leaving a strong imprint on the nation's growth trajectory. His wisdom and intellect have few parallels," Modi tweeted. --IANS pk/oeb/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) People in the Sundarbans have started migrating towards cities with increasing vulnerability from climate change and shrinking opportunities for livelihood, experts said on Saturday. The Sundarbans is one of the largest mangrove forest running through parts of India and Bangladesh. "People from Indian part of Sundarbans as well as Bangladesh, have already started migrating towards north but in a smaller number. That is why this migration was not noticed yet. Salinity is causing health problems and because of climate change, bio-diversity and quantum of fish is dropping. Opportunities are going down, conservationist Bittu Sahgal said. Criticising the building of bunds (raised muddy wall along the bank) in Sundarbans, he said they (bunds) keep salt water inside and eventually, it gets mixed up with fresh drinking water causing kidney problems. He said every square millimetre of the Sundarbans has some function, but people are changing the function of the delta. "When you are trying to fight with nature and not understanding that the nature is not going to give you any judgement, it will only give you consequences," Sahgal said at Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet. Sumit Sen, honorary Wildlife Warden of South 24-Parganas district in West Bengal, pointed out that the Indian part of Sundarbans faces a problem of non-availability of adequate fresh water from uplands through rivers. "We have cut off almost all upstream links that used to drain water from uplands to the delta," he said. Sharing his experience at the delta, particularly when the cyclone 'Aila' hit Sundarbans in 2009, conservationist and writer Bikram Grewal said, "...where they (people) have cut mangroves, those parts have gone with people and houses... the forest was untouched because we left it untouched. When we start interfering with nature, the problem starts." --IANS bdc/ssp/rs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Popular Telugu actor and politician Pawan Kalyan on Saturday met Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and his son and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Working President K.T. Rama Rao. The Jana Sena leader talked with KCR and KTR during an At Home hosted by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan at Raj Bhavan on the occasion of Republic Day. The meeting triggered speculation in the political circles in view of the ensuing elections to the Andhra Pradesh assembly and the Lok Sabha. The development is significant in the wake of KCR's plans to play a key role in Andhra Pradesh to damage the prospects of ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) by isolating it. Following landslide victory of TRS in Telangana Assembly elections in December, KCR had declared that he will 'return the gift' to TDP President and Andhra Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. He was referring to Naidu's active campaigning in Telangana, where TDP had an alliance with Congress and two other parties. The meeting took place few days after KTR called on YSR Congress Party President Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy to seek his support for Federal Front proposed by TRS chief as an alternative to BJP and Congress. It was also announced that Chandrashekhar Rao will visit Andhra Pradesh to hold further talks with Reddy in this regard. Pawan Kalyan, who had welcomed KCR's proposal to form the Federal Front, planning to contest at all the Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh elections in alliance with the Left parties. He has already ruled out an alliance with TDP. --IANS ms/rs/vm/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Thespian Soumitra Chatterjee on Saturday said watching master director Satyajit Ray's much-feted film 'Pather Panchali' (1955) changed his perceptions about cinema forever and made him fall in love with the art form. Chatterjee, who had acted in 14 of Ray's films, said he felt "the happiest" when the director announced that he would cast him as the protagonist of his 1959 film 'Apur Sangsar' (The World of Apu), the third film of the revered 'Apu' trilogy. "After coming to Kolkata, there was a time when I became an avid theatre watcher and had certain prejudices about films. But when I saw 'Pather Panchali' in 1955, my views about films changed forever. It made me forget all my prejudices and fall in love with cinema," Chatterjee said at a session in Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet 2019 here. Reminiscing his first interaction with Ray, Chatterjee said the auteur was extremely focused about minute details of the actors he used to cast and gave a lot of importance to their Bengali diction. Chatterjee said he first met Ray when the director was casting for his film 'Aparajito' (1956), the second part of the trilogy, but did not get a chance as the director was looking for someone who would look a little younger to suit the movie. A couple of years later, Chatterjee was on cloud nine when Ray selected him for 'Apur Sangsar'. "When he said I will play 'Apu' in the film, I was taken aback. I felt the pressure of that huge responsibility. But I never felt so happy before. I realised that I have reached the destiny," the veteran actor said. Chatterjee, whose acting career now spans over six decades, said it was good that many of the then Bengali films were based on literary adaptations as it allowed the actors to play characters which are "much closer to life" and reach out to the larger audience. "It is good that we had films based on literary adaptations during our time. The Bengali literature has always been very rich in quality. So it worked like a safety valve for us (the actors) as we were able to play characters which had a semblance of life," he noted. "If our films were based on something completely outlandish, then it would have been difficult to reach out to the larger audience," he said. Hailing Bengali director Tapan Sinha, Chatterjee said: "Sinha had great love for acting. He understood the discipline of acting very well. I have learnt considerably from him". Among other panellists in the session, Bangladeshi filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki said cinema in his country did not have a "proud past" as in the early years the directors blatantly copied the films made in Kolkata and Mumbai, but was confident that the country has a bright future in filmmaking. "We do not have a past. But we most certainly have a bright future in terms of film making in Bangladesh. Now a days, more promising directors are coming up, who are not afraid to come up with what's original and real," he added. --IANS mgr/ssp/rs/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Noted writer Gita Mehta, who is also the elder sister of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, on Saturday declined to accept the award. Mehta said the timing of the award was questionable as the general election was set to take place and the award may cause embarrassment both to the Odisha government and her. "I am deeply honoured that the government of India should think me worthy of a but with great regret I feel I must decline (it) as there is a general election looming and the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the government and myself, which I would much regret," said Mehta in a press statement from New York. Mehta had been selected for the in the 'Foreigners' category for her outstanding contribution to the field of art and literature. Mehta has authored books like 'Karma Cola' (1979), 'Raj' (1989), 'A River Sutra' (1993), 'Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India' (1997) and 'Eternal Ganesha: From Birth to Rebirth' (2006). She has also produced and or directed 14 documentaries. Odisha will face both general and Assembly elections in April-May this year. The BJP and BJD are trying hard to edge out each other in the state. On Friday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who was in Odisha, alleged that was "a junior partner" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During his last three visits to Odisha, though Modi attacked the state government, he did not name Patnaik. In the aftermath of ceasefire violation by Pakistan on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Saturday, the Indian Army cancelled the traditional exchange of sweets between the two armies to mark India's Republic Day. A Defence Ministry source told IANS: "There will be no exchange of sweets between the two armies at Chakan Da Bagh crossing point on LoC in Poonch district." Traditionally, each year on January 26 and August 15, the two armies exchange greetings and sweets on the LoC in Poonch district. --IANS sq/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Film: 'Thackeray', Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Amrita Rao, Directed by Abhijeet Panse, Rating: **(2 stars) Bal Thackeray sorry Balasaheb Thackeray (in the film an unsuspecting character gets slapped by a Shiv Sena cadre for uttering the Demi God's name without the reverential suffix) played the chauvinistic card with a masterminded focus. He knew how to tap the Marathi Manoos' latent pride and also how to harness it into a violent outpouring. Many of his opponents, including the unfortunate Morarji Desai (unfortunate, as he is played by Rajesh Khera) thought of his campaign to cleanse Maharashtra to be almost a ratification of Hitler's Nazism. Think Jews. Think Bihar and UP's 'bhaiyyas' and the South Indian 'Udupi' restaurateurs being chased out of Mumbai by violent 'sainiks'. Think Hitler. Think Trump. If you spot the difference, let me know. The film on Balasaheb certainly does not squander the opportunity to portray the man as infinitely intolerant of migrants. Yes, the Great Man wanted scums out of his state. That he was indeed in favour of ousting migrants from Maharashtra was a well-known fact. But did anyone ever think that his blatant chauvinism and his politics of ethnic cleansing would one day be so unabashedly celebrated on celluloid? Writer-director Abhijeet Panse celebrates Balasaheb's spirit of separateness with a straight forwardness that we immediately recognise as a sign of traditional entitlement which sanctions certain behaviour among males as "normal". Just as it is "normal" for women to fry pakodas (fritters) in the kitchen while men crack sexist jokes in the drawing room, it is "normal" for a national leader to make flagrant speeches about "bajoing the pungi of people in a lungi". (The censor board of course forgot that the Constitution allows freedom of expression only as long as it doesn't hurt the sentiments of any community or individual). For outsiders - and who is not an outsider these days - the normalising of cultural marginalisation may seem like a celebration of a culture of anarchy and despotism. Sanctioning bloodbaths is not something we associate with charismatic national leaders. But here he is, Nawazuddin Siddiqui playing Balasaheb as a man who wanted Maharashtra only for Marathis. Siddiqui plays Balasaheb as impatient intolerant man of many words and even more action. At the start we see him quit his job as a cartoonist to start his own Marathi paper. In Panse's Maharashtra in the 1950s there are migrants everywhere jostling pushing and bullying Marathis on the streets and out of their jobs. Something has to be done and who better equipped to tap into Marathi pride with a hammer? Apparently the inflammatory speeches are all used in the film just as the Great Man made them. Balasaheb had a hypnotic hold over the audience. Nawaz seems to think he has a similar sway . In his last film he recited Saddat Haasan Manto's revolutionary thoughts with a fervent lucidity that gave the actor a sense of ownership over the words. Here the Balasaheb speeches sound deeply ironical coming from an actor has been marginalized on many levels in different stages of his life. Nawaz and the film's director choose to overlook the irony of an ethnic leader saying the nation always comes first to him. "I always say Jai Hind first, and then Jai Maharashtra," Nawazuddin's Balasaheb proudly tells Avantika Akerkar's Indira Gandhi. Mrs G's arched eyebrow at that declaration is truly a chart-topping moment in a film that legitimizes hooliganism and elevates extra-constitutional muscle power to the summits of validation. There are some interesting unknown actors playing Balasaheb's devotees and I just loved the veteran who plays his father and mocks the 'Saheb' in his son's name in a way no one else would dare. Nawazuddin plays the cartoonist-politician-deity with the crafty casualness of an over-confident actor who is rightly arrogant about his skills. The other actors, including poor Amrita Rao as the Great Man's shadowy wife walk by in the gallery of bhakts anointing and celebrating the cult of Thackerayism with a religious fervor. Come to think of it, this could have been a great mythological film if only there was not so much violence and bloodshed. But hey, there is also redemption. After a brutal communal riot we see Balasheb bring a Muslim family to his home. He even allows the man to do his namaaz in his living room. --IANS skj/dc/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after the government announced Padma Bhushan for former ISRO scientist S. Nambi Narayanan, T.P. Senkumar, a former state police chief who was tipped to probe spy charges involving Narayanan, slammed the decision, saying the award came at a time when a Supreme Court committee was looking into the ISRO spy case. "If this is the yardstick for a Padma award, then people like Govinda Chami, Ameerul Islam (both accused in the killing of two women) and Mariam Rasheeda (an accused along with Narayanan in the ISRO spy case), would get a Padma award next year. The government should have waited," said Senkumar. "Narayanan is a below average scientist... ask any ISRO scientist who is still working there about his contributions," said Senkumar. The ISRO spy case surfaced in 1994 when Narayanan along with another top official of ISRO, two Maldivian women and a businessman was arrested on espionage charges. The CBI cleared Narayanan in 1995 and since then he has been fighting a legal battle against Siby Mathews, the then Inspector General of Police who had probed the case, and two other police officers. Last year the Supreme Court directed the Kerala government to give him compensation of Rs 50 lakh for his travails. Senkumar was asked by the then E.K. Nayanar government (1996-2001) to relook into the ISRO spy case, but it failed to materialize as by then, the apex court had cleared Narayanan. Responding to Senkumar's, remarks, Narayanan said that in his petition for compensation, Senkumar was named as one of the parties. "What Senkumar said today is immaterial and irrelevant and does not require to be answered. What he has said is probably because he wants to mislead the Supreme Court. I do not know if he has an agenda. He is speaking foolish things," said Narayanan. Senkumar was removed as the state police chief, the day current Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan assumed office in may 2016. After a long-drawn court battle, the Supreme Court directed that he be reinstated in May 2017. He retired from service in June 2017. Since then political grapevine has it that he might be contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as a candidate of ABDJS, a BJP ally. Joining the issue, state Culture Minister A.K. Balan said Senkumar's remarks were unacceptable. "State BJP chief P.S. Sreedharan Pillai should respond to such statements by Senkumar," said Balan. --IANS sg/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed Republic Day functions at the Assam Rifles ground, where no civilian and lower rank officials were present in view of the boycott called by an apex NGO body to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. The 70th Republic Day celebrations across Mizoram were at low key as the NGO Coordination Committee (NCC) organised demonstrations across the state in protest against the Citizenship Bill. Only Chief Minister Zoramthanga, some of his cabinet colleagues, a few legislators and top officials were present in the main functions of the Republic Day at the Assam Rifles ground. According to the police, in other district headquarters, the Deputy Commissioners hoisted the national flags, but there were no officials and people in these events. The police said placard-carrying protesters demonstrated near the venues where official Republic Day functions were organized. Despite the Chief Minister and Home Minister Lalchamliana's repeated requests, the NCC on late Friday reiterated its previous announcement that it would boycott the Republic Day celebrations "to protest the passing of the Bill in the Lok Sabha". NCC activists demonstrated near the Assam Rifles ground in the state capital where the Governor unfurled the national flag and addressed a very small gathering. "In response to the boycott call, the members of the public did not participate in any Republic Day event in the state. However, there were no reports of any untoward incident," a police officer said on contion of anonymity. Earlier, Chief Minister Zoramthanga threatened to sever ties with the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) if the Centre does not withdraw the Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to migrants from six non-Muslim minority groups from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The ruling Mizo National Front party is a constituent of the BJP-led NEDA. The Mizoram Governor in his address said stringent measures will be in place to protect the state's borders and execute the Mizoram Village Level Citizen Registration. Rajasekharan said the government would endeavour to maintain the unity and brotherhood among all Mizo people living within India and across the world. "Allout efforts would be made for combating the drug menace and alcoholism with support from civil society. Necessary measures would be taken to repeal The Mizoram Liquor (Control & Prohibition) Act, 2014." He said that improving road connectivity was a major challenge for the government. "The government is committed to leave no stone unturned to improve the quality of internal roads and to ensure better road networks and connectivity with neighbouring states." He said that the government would continue to accord priority to develop infrastructure for the development of sports. --IANS sc/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday said stringent measures will be in place to protect the state's borders to execute the Mizoram Village Level Citizen Registration. He said this addressing the 70th Republic Day function in a near empty Assam Rifles ground here due to a state-wide boycott call given by an apex NGO body as part of its protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The general public stayed away from the function. Only Chief Minister Zoramthanga and his cabinet colleagues, MLAs and top officials were present at the event, according to the police. In other district headquarters, the Deputy Commissioners hoisted the national flag but officials and the public kept away. The Governor in his address said that the government would endeavour to maintain the unity and brotherhood of all Mizo people living within India and across the world. "All out efforts would be taken for combating the drug menace and alcoholism with support from civil society. Necessary measures would be taken to repeal The Mizoram Liquor (Control & Prohibition) Act, 2014." Rajasekharan said that improving road connectivity was a major challenge for the government. "The government is committed to leave no stone unturned to improve the quality of internal roads and to ensure better road networks and connectivity with neighbouring states." He said that the government would continue to accord priority to develop infrastructure for the development of sports. --IANS sc/in/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With a staggering 30 per cent of all Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) coming to India received by Maharashtra, the state aims to become the first trillion-dollar economy by 2025, Governor C. V. Rao said in his Republic Day speech here on Saturday. The Governor unfurled the tricolour and took salute at a parade at the Shivaji Park. In his address, Rao said the state has secured $13.5 billion in FDI this year and the government is further committed to improving the Ease of Doing Business here. On the occasion of the 70th Republic Day, Rao paid tributes to the Architect of Indian Constitution B.R. Ambedkar and said that the work of construction a grand memorial in his name in Mumbai is in progress, besides a memorial of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai. He said the government was committed to doubling farm incomes by 2022 and around 4.10 million farmers benefited under the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanman Yojana (CSMSSY). The state has implemented the MAHAVEDH scheme to provide weather-related information to farmers in real-time and launched 'Maha Agritech' to resolve agrarian issues using satellites and drones. Rao highlighted other achievements of the state, including its lead position in implementing 'Pradhan Mantri Crop Insurance Scheme', Restructured Weather Based Fruit Crop Insurance Scheme in which 5.2 million and 100,000 farmers, respectively, have received compensation worth Rs 3,265 crore. Under the state's Jalyukta Shivar Yojana, over 15,000 villages have become water-neutral or not dependent on the monsoon, with more than half a million works creating storage capacity of 24.36 lakh TCMs completed. The state also recently passed the Socially and Educationally Backward Class Reservation Bill which will also help Maratha youths, along with the set up of the Maharashtra International Education Board for rural areas with 13 schools opened as 'Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee International Schools', Rao added. As many as 300,000 homes have been completed under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Rural) and another 1.05 million registered to meet the goal of Affordable Housing for All by 2022. Around 2.27 crore families are covered under the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana including 8.3 million most deprived families. Under the Annuity Model, renewal of 10,500 km roads has been approved and work has begun on 8,000 km, besides upgradation of nearly 30,000 km of rural roads of which 6,000 km has been completed. Disciplined columns of school and college NCC, Scouts and Guides, NSS Brigades, Navy, Coast Guard, CISF, SRPF, Home Guards, BMC Fire Brigade, BMC Armed Force, Mumbai Police, Traffic Police, Women Police, Anti-Riots Police, Railway Police, smartly marched past at the Shivaji Park to the tune of patriotic music. Several state undertakings and government departments presented colourful floats highlighting various achievements in their respective domains. Schools, colleges, housing complexes in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra, district collectorates, government institutions also organised events. --IANS qn/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actress Richa Chadha, who has taken a break from shooting "Section 375" and jetted off to UK to promote "Love Sonia", says it is an important film with an important subject. "I'm so happy to see 'Love Sonia' still traveling the world and find recognition and love all across. It's an important film with an even more important subject. I will be back to Mumbai and resume shooting immediately upon my return," Richa said in a statement. Inspired by real events, "Love Sonia" is a hard-hitting story about Sonia, who risks her life to rescue her sister from a vicious human trafficking network across India, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. The film has an ensemble cast of Manoj Bajpayee, Rajkummar Rao, Anupam Kher, Sai Tamhankar, Adil Hussain, Demi Moore, Mrunal Thakur and Freida Pinto. Before leaving for promoting Tabrez Noorani's directorial in UK, Richa was shooting for "Section 375" in Mumbai. She says she is glad that her team of "Section 375", which also stars Akshaye Khanna, permitted and were accommodating for her. "The shoot commenced in Mumbai a few days ago and this was something I had committed to and had to be part of the UK premiere," she added. --IANS dc/sim/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Arunachal Pradesh Governor Brigadier B.D. Mishra (retd) on Saturday urged the people to work together for the state's development. Addressing the gathering after unfurling the national flag and taking the salute from the marching contingents at the Indira Gandhi Park here, he recalled the sacrifices of the freedom fighters and soldiers who had given up their lives for the nation and urged the people to cooperate in the developmental activities being undertaken. Emphasising on road and air connectivity, the Governor appealed to the people, especially the land holders, to cooperate and willingly offer their land whenever required in public interest. He urged them to think and act in the larger interest, discarding individual benefits and allow the developmental projects to take off without raising any objections. Highlighting the achievement of the state over the last one year, he appreciated the transparency in the recruitment of teachers, hike in their salaries and reintroduction of the State Board Examination for Class 5 and 8, besides the opening of a Sainik School and the move for opening seven Kendriya Vidyalayas. He said the state government has rightly passed the Arunachal Pradesh Staff Selection Board (APSSB) Bill 2018 and added that the 'Sarkar Aapke Dwar' action have been of great benefit to the people. "We have successfully conducted the ATAL (Arunachal Transformational and Aspirational Leaders) Conclave to deliberate on the issues, ranging from urban infrastructure, smart cities fulfilling hopes and aspirations of the youth," he said. He also also spoke about the free LPG connections distributed to 26,818 beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana. The Governor said that one of the major achievements in the health sector last year was commissioning of Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Science (TRIHMS) College. He also highlighted the ambitious Chief Minister's Aarogya Arunachal Yojana (CMAAY) scheme, an universal health insurance scheme, for Rs 5 lakh in convergence with Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY). Pointing out the state's effort to double the farmers' income by 2022, he said that Kiwis grown by the farmers were being exported to New Zealand, Australia and the European countries and oranges to Dubai. He said the nation, in spite of numerous challenges, has emerged stronger and reinforced on the strength of its democratic institutions and values over the last 69 years. A colourful cultural programme, displaying the diversity of Arunachal Pradesh was presented on the occasion to commemorate Republic Day. --IANS ah/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With several Karnataka's districts reeling under drought, the state is providing relief and employment to the drought-hit, Governor Vajubhai Vala said on Saturday. "A large part of the state is facing severe drought. About 100 taluks (sub-districts) during kharif and 156 taluks of rabi seasons in 2018 have been declared drought affected," Vala said in his Republic Day address at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw parade ground here. The priority of the government was to provide drought relief, employment, drinking water supply and other mitigation measures, he said. In a 20-minute R-Day address in Hindi to the gathering, the Governor highlighted the vision and achievements of the state over the past four years since he assumed office in 2014. The state government, which announced crop loan waiver in 2018, has so far released Rs 876 crore as on January 11 towards waiver of loans from 1.1 lakh co-operative banks and 58,000 commercial banks, the Governor said. Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, rural Karnataka was declared open defecation free on November 19, 2018, the Governor said. "The state is aiming to declare all the 279 cities of Karnataka as open defecation free by March." As a home to hundreds of multinationals, IT and manufacturing firms, Karnataka was implementing "Compete with China" scheme to develop industrial clusters across the state, with an aim to create jobs. "Under the state's Industrial Policy 2014-19, approval has been given to 1,958 projects with an investment of Rs 3.49 lakh crore to create employment opportunities to 10.28 lakh people," Vala added. --IANS bha/mag/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka on Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day with pomp and pageantry marking the patriotic fervour across the state. In the state capital, Governor Vajubhai Vala unfurled the tricolour at the Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw parade ground in the city centre. An Army helicopter showered rose petals, welcoming the dignitaries and the public at the venue before the Governor hoisted the national flag. About 5,000 people, including women and children, flocked to the ground to celebrate the event and witness the colourful march past and cultural programmes, including songs and dances on patriotic themes. After the military band rendered the National Anthem on a chilly morning under a partly cloudy sky, Vala inspected the guard of honour by the men and women of the three services and the state police. About 20 contingents of the Army, Navy and Air Force, the state and central police forces, National Cadet Corps (NCC) and Bharat Scouts and Guides participated in the parade and received the salute from the Governor. The contingents were led by parade commander Major Prashanth Thapa and the second-in-command, Major Amit Choudhary. The state's anthem, penned by Padma Vibhushan poet Kuvempu, was also played in Kannada. Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, cabinet ministers, legislators, officials and city Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun attended the event. In a 20-minute Republic Day address in Hindi, the Governor highlighted the vision and achievements of the southern state over the past four years since he assumed office in 2014. "Four years ago, when I delivered my first Republic Day address from the very same dais, I expressed hope that Karnataka would overcome many challenges and be on the path of progress," said Vala. After the military and police bands played patriotic songs, the audience was treated to an hour-long cultural programme. About 2,000 boys and girls from state-run schools and junior colleges in the city enacted patriotic and cultural shows, including one on the 1999 Kargil War (Kargil katha) and "Our India and Bright India" (Namma Bharatha, Bhavya Bharatha). Dog squads of the military and state police were the star attraction, drawing huge applause from the audience. The R-Day fete also included the sport of tent-pegging, a cavalry game involving edged weapons. Hundreds of enthusiastic members of the audience cheered as trained personnel rode the horses in the ground. Mule trick riding and room intervention display by para troops of the Indian Army personnel enthralled the viewers. Songs celebrating the state's farmers (raitha geethe) were sung during the event. The Governor later presented the "Sarvotham Seva" awards to few state government employees for their dedication and service. Through his Republic Day message to the state earlier, the Chief Minister said everyone must work to strengthen the democracy. "Karnataka is the proud state where the concept of democracy was introduced during pre-Independence era itself by Mysore Wodeyars (erstwhile rulers of Mysore). Let us understand, respect and strengthen the value of democracy," Kumaraswamy had said. According to reports from districts across the state, the day was celebrated with gaiety and patriotic fervour after the chief guests hoisted the national flag and impressive parades were held. --IANS bha-fb/mag/mr (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Director Jason Reitmans "Ghostbusters" sequel is scheduled to release on July 10, 2020. The studio, Sony Pictures, made the announcement, 10 days after disclosing that it that Reitman was on board to direct the untitled sequel, reports variety.com. Reitman's father, Ivan, directed the original "Ghostbusters," starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Rick Moranis, and Sigourney Weaver. Murray's character Peter Venkman headed a team of parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City. The 1984 film grossed $242 million in the United States and over $295 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing comedy film of its time. Jason Reitman co-wrote the screenplay with Gil Kenan for the sequel. He plans to shoot the film this summer and has started the casting process for young actors. This installment will not be connected to the 2016 "Ghostbusters" movie, starring Melissa McCarthy. --IANS dc/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rome, Jan 26 (IANS/AKI) A Brexit taskforce meeting of Italian and European Union officials took place at the Prime Minister's office in Rome Friday to discuss preparation of emergency measures should Britain leave the EU in March without a deal. Diplomat Pietro Benassi chaired the meeting, which was attended by a delegation of European Commission experts headed by its deputy secretary-general Celine Gauer, according to a statement from Italian premier Giuseppe Conte's office. The meeting covered safety and rights of citizens, the financial services sector, food and agriculture, preparation of companies and infrastructure (including ports, airports and customs), as well as the transport sector, the internal market, the environment, education, research and judicial co-operation, according to the statement. Italy's economy ministry said Thursday that it had taken the necessary steps to ensure the 'full continuity of the markets' in the case of a no-deal Brexit. The measures will only be adopted, probably via a decree, if Britain effectively crashes out of the EU without a deal, making it a third country on March 30, the ministry said. --IANS/AKI vin/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the rapid urbanisation and growing energy consumption in India, the trend of higher demand for urban housing and energy is here to stay. While urban residential real estate has seen a slight improvement of late and commodity prices have subsided from the highs of 2018, both housing and energy sectors will need renewed attention going forward especially to avoid future market failures. In a recent article for the World Economic Forum titled "Why the world should be watching India's fast-growing cities", author Sangeeta Prasad points out an interesting statistic that "70 per cent of India's built environment for 2030 yet to take shape". The biggest takeaway is that with the rapidly growing urban population, necessary infrastructure such as housing will be in demand. Therefore, it is essential that the residential real estate ecosystem is well equipped to cater to the increased demand. The current scenario of unfinished residential projects and inventory of unsold properties points towards both overall market failure and financial indiscipline on the part of the various players in the market. The slowdown in residential real estate over the last few years has been a dampener to both formalising the real estate sector through more efficient balance sheets and allowing increased access to housing for home buyers. Residential real estate needs a refocus on tax policies that can boost sales and create market-clearing prices. Policies that can help significantly boost sales in residential real estate will have two distinct advantages. Firstly, greater sales help expand the tax kitty even in a lower tax regime, whereby the significant increase in volumes would more than compensate for a lower tax rate. Secondly, the sales of the inventory of residential real estate held by the financial ecosystem will help boost the flow of credit within the economy and increase the investment multiplier. The eventual sale of residential real estate will help clean up the balance sheets of developers, banks, non-banking financial institutions and homebuyers. This credit release from the clearing up of inventories will help boost both private capital formation and consumption, thereby creating new business opportunities in the economy. The distressed residential real estate sector and the impending urban housing demand also presents large institutional investors an opportunity to generate significant returns. Partnering with local operators to access residential real estate at attractive discounts can help the entire ecosystem. Given the relatively low-yield on residential real estate in Indian cities (at 2-3 per cent annually on average), investors need to view the residential segment more as a zero-coupon bond structure, where buying the asset at a relative discount to intrinsic value can eventually create returns when the asset is sold off. While we have seen some of these strategies being implemented, given the scale of the residential real estate sector a lot more can potentially be done. It is crucial to note that tax policies that can set clearing prices for the residential real estate assets and increased interest from institutional investors in the sector go hand in hand. The former is essential to boost the latter. A solution that can address the residential real estate glut will help increase tax collections, relieve the pressure of real estate developers, allow consumers access to housing, provide investment returns and create a regulatory environment more conducive for business. The second area that needs continued attention in India to avoid market failures is progressing towards an independent energy ecosystem. Lower commodity prices must not distract Indian policymakers and the energy ecosystem from the task of continually building energy self-sufficiency. As the composition of energy production changes over the years with renewable energy becoming a more significant part of the energy matrix, long-term energy demand will still be met through a three-pronged approach involving thermal, renewable and natural gas-based energy systems. Lessons from the past suggest that regardless of the energy source, policies must look to avoid market failures, especially by being aware of creating efficient interlinkages in the energy ecosystem. At its core, energy production has an input cost (raw material and initial capital expenditure) that generates energy. The energy needs to be transmitted and distributed at a price as per the agreed contract or market tariff (as per the business model). Market failures generally occur when inefficiencies occur in input costs, production set-up, transmission issues or contract enforcement of payment mechanisms. Regardless of the source of energy, policies must ensure that this value-chain functions smoothly. In summary, avoiding market failures in essential sectors requires consistent policy-making across the supply chain. While creating the requisite infrastructure will take decades, periods of demand pickups and lower volatility lend themselves to assist us to accelerate the much-needed infrastructure creation. (Taponeel Mukherjee heads Development Tracks, an infrastructure advisory firm. The views expressed are personal. The author can be contact him at taponeel.mukherjee@development-tracks.com or @Taponeel on Twitter) --IANS taponeel/vm/am (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the occasion of the 70th Republic Day, Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki on Saturday urged the people to help make Tripura a model state. "The Tripura government has taken a series of steps to make Tripura a model state within the next few years. All sections of the people should support the state government's endeavour," the Governor said after unfurling the national flag at the ceremonial function at the Assam Rifles ground here. He said that to curb corruption and to provide transparent governance, the state government has been utilising various technologies in a large number of schemes, projects and services. Solanki said Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has also undertaken a vigorous mission to make the state a "drug free". "During the past 10 months, 67,000 kg cannabis has been seized in different parts of the state. With the curbing of drug related activities, general crime and violence against women were also reduced to a substantial extent," he said. "To undertake a white revolution in the state, the Chief Minister has already announced to provide 5,000 cows to 10,000 families for their economic empowerment and also to make availability of milk in the state." The Governor also spoke about the state government's plan to implement 10 per cent reservation for women in the police department. Solanki said that to improve connectivity, the Central has launched many express trains linking Tripura. The Agartala airport would be made an internationally standard airport. "Process already initiated to make a new water-ways in between Tripura and Bangladesh to boost trade, tourism and people to people contact between the two countries." --IANS sc/ksk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Google on Saturday dedicated a colourful doodle marking the 70th Republic Day of India. It recreated the celebrations depicting the iconic Republic Day Parade, representing various components of the country's rich heritage, culture and history: environment, architecture, textiles, wildlife, monuments, and farming. Designed by guest artist Reshidev RK, the doodle shows the sprawling Rashtrapati Bhawan in the backdrop of what appears to be a tableaux from various parts of the country. There is the Qutab Minar, a peacock, the national bird, plentiful fields, farms and crop motifs depicting the nation's overall agricultural base. An elephant-like structure rides the peacock tableaux. The doodle aptly depicts the famous parade floats that decorate the cities on the day throughout the nation -- each representing a different component of India's history: environment, architecture, textiles, wildlife, monuments, and farming. January 26 marks the Purna Swaraj Day when the Constitution of India came into force in 1950, though it was adopted in 1949, the Google blog accompanying the doodle said. On January 26, 1930, the Indian National Congress issued a bold resolution declaring complete freedom from the British Raj. From that point, it was only a matter of time before Independence Day, followed by full sovereignty. Celebrations take place all across the nation, with the epicenter in the capital city of Delhi, where a parade runs along Rajpath near the President's residence. The tradition dates back to the morning of January 26, 1950, when thousands gathered to watch a simple yet grand ceremony at the Durbar Hall where the first President Dr Rajendra Prasad was sworn in. Observances last for four days, coming to a conclusion on January 29 with the Beating Retreat ceremony, featuring the bands of the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. --IANS in/ksk (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested lawyer Gautam Khaitan, a co-accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case, in a fresh money laundering case, agency officials said on Saturday. He was produced before a duty magistrate on Saturday, who remnaded him to ED custody till Janaury 28. The arrest comes a week after the Income Tax Department raided Khaitan's offices and various other properties in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). It is learned that the Department has gathered evidence against the lawyer for allegedly receiving kickbacks in other defence deals, besides AgustaWestland, during the UPA tenure. The ED said that the lawyer had been "controlling" the modus operandi and was responsible for routing the money, misusing his connections and clients, including the ones inherited from his father, to launder the money with the use of a variety of accounts in Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore, Tunisia, Switzerland, the UK and India. Agency officials said the accounts included those of his undisclosed shell companies outside of India. An informed source told IANS that the ED has also found a Zambia connection of Khaitan. He is known to be close to Henry Banda, one of the three sons of former President Rupiah Banda, who is accused of abusing his authority as head of state between 2008 and 2011. Dingani Banda received 250,000 euros from IDS Tunisia, a company that laundered money in the AgustaWestland scam, the source added. Khaitan apparently helped set up trust and companies for Henry Banda in Seychelles to buy a property in Kenya. The ED as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named Khaitan in their separate chargesheets in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case. Khaitan was arrested in September 2014 for his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland deal. He got bail in January 2015 and was again arrested along with Sanjeev Tyagi, another accused in the case, on December 9, 2016, by the CBI. He later secured bail. The CBI chargesheet has described Khaitan as the brain behind the AgustaWestland deal. --IANS akk/oeb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested lawyer Gautam Khaitan, a co-accused in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case, in a fresh money laundering case, agency officials said on Saturday. He was produced before a duty magistrate on Saturday, who remanded him in ED custody till January 28. The arrest comes a week after the Income Tax Department raided Khaitan's offices and various other properties in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). The ED told Metropolitan Magistrate Neetu Sharma that it is on the trail of black money of over Rs 500 crore liked to Khaitan and that he is denying knowledge of documents connected to that transaction. "The custody is required to unearth the entire conspiracy," ED told the court. Khaitan's counsel Pramod Kumar Dubey opposed the ED plea saying that the arrest is illegal as the whole case pertains to AgustaWestland and that the accused has been arrested in the case earlier. But ED's prosecutors said the present case had nothing to do with the alleged AgustaWestland matter. "In the offence of money laundering, the knowledge of the transaction and the documents is the material information and it always lies only in the personal knowledge of the accused person. Therefore, there is a ground for granting the accused person the custody," Magistrate Sharma said. The court agreed with ED that if any transaction disclosed a new case, then the offence required a separate investigation. However, it denied the ED plea seeking seven-day custodial interrogation and said that two days are enough for the agency to question Khaitan. It is learnt that the department has gathered evidence against the lawyer for allegedly receiving kickbacks in other defence deals, besides AgustaWestland, during the UPA tenure. The ED said that the lawyer had been "controlling" the modus operandi and was responsible for routing the money, misusing his connections and clients, including the ones inherited from his father, to launder the money through a variety of accounts in Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore, Tunisia, Switzerland, the UK and India. Agency officials said the accounts included those of his undisclosed shell companies outside India. A source told IANS that the ED has also found a Zambia connection of Khaitan. He is known to be close to Henry Banda, one of the three sons of former President Rupiah Banda, who is accused of abusing his authority as head of state between 2008 and 2011. Dingani Banda received 250,000 euros from IDS Tunisia, a company that laundered money in the AgustaWestland scam, the source added. Khaitan apparently helped set up trust and companies for Henry Banda in Seychelles to buy a property in Kenya. The ED as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation has named Khaitan in their separate chargesheets in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case. Khaitan was arrested in September 2014 for his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland deal. He got bail in January 2015 and was again arrested along with Sanjeev Tyagi, another accused in the case, on December 9, 2016, by the CBI. He later secured bail. The CBI chargesheet has described Khaitan as the brain behind the AgustaWestland deal. --IANS akk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who had been in the news for seemingly calling on the BJP's top brass to own responsibility for the losses in the recent Assembly polls, was seen chatting with Congress President Rahul Gandhi during the 70th Republic Day celebrations here on Saturday. Seated in the front row, Gandhi and Gadkari were seen chatting and smiling while watching the grand parade. Incidentally, Gandhi's seating arrangement in previous year's parade had created a controversy after he was allotted a seat in the sixth row. The Congress then had accused the Narendra Modi government of indulging in "cheap politics". A former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President, Gadkari had created a buzz with his remarks saying that the party leadership should own up to the defeat and failures, following the losses in the Assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. While he had claimed of being "misinterpreted" and "misquoted", the remarks were perceived by many to be directed towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. The remarks followed calls for replacing Modi with Gadkari. While prominent Maharashtra farmer leader Kishore Tiwari had written to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) saying Modi must be replaced by Gadkari, veteran BJP leader Sanghpriya Gautam earlier in January demanded Gadkari be made the Deputy Prime Minister. --IANS and/mag/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the 70th Republic Day on Saturday, a slew of celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Karan Johar and Sonam Kapoor took to social media to wish everyone a Happy Republic Day and urge them to make the country even better. Here's what the celebrities tweeted: Amitabh Bachchan: A very happy Republic Day. long live. Salman Khan: 'Bharat' (team) wishes every one a Happy Republic Day. Jai Hind. Karan Johar: She is strong, resilient, relevant and all heart. She is India! Happy Republic Day Sanjay Dutt: Looking at our national flag fly high fills my heart with pride! This Republic Day let's pledge to do our bit to make India a country which the world looks up to. Jai Hind. Riteish Deshmukh: Happy Republic Day. Jai Hind Jai Bharat. Sonam K Ahuja: I wish all my fellow Indians a very Happy Republic Day. It's important that we take today, and every day to realize how lucky we are to live in this great country! Arjun Kapoor: Let's prioritise to be the change we want to see in our country.. Happy Republic Day. Vir Das: Holidays like Republic Day are a pretty good indicator of who serves our country and why we should be grateful to them. Policemen, military, doctors, railways, sanitation and so many more. The people who work on this holiday are who we should dedicate it to. Abhishek Bachchan: Jai Hind. Happy Republic Day to all. Divya Khosla Kumar: Wishing you all a very Happy Republic Day. Proud Indian. Raveena Tandon: Happy Republic Day to all of you! Rejoice in the glory of India and our freedom fighters on this republic day. Vande Mataram. Dia Mirza: "Environmental protection is Patriotism in action". Happy Republic Day India. I Salute all who protect wild India. For they secure our health, secure what cleans our air, gives us water and life itself. Vishal Dadlani: Jai Hind, my friends. Happy Republic Day to every Indian across the world. Read the Preamble to the Constitution Of India, and lets remind ourselves of how great we could be if we made this our personal mission statement too. Vivek Anand Oberoi: We stand in honour of our armed forces and salute their valour for staying at the borders and protecting us against all enemies at all times. Thank you for keeping us all safe. Wish you all a very Happy Republic Day. Jai Hind to the best armed forces in the world. Rannvijay Singha: Jai Hind. --IANS dc/sim/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Gautam Khaitan, a co-accused in the case relating to the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, on charges of money laundering, agency officials said on Saturday. A lawyer by profession, Khaitan, was arrested late on Friday and would be produced before a special court later on Saturday. The arrest comes a week after the Income Tax Department raided Khaitan's offices and various other properties in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). It is learned that the financial probe agency has gathered evidence against the lawyer for allegedly receiving kickbacks in other defence deals, besides AgustaWestland, during the tenure of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. The ED said that the lawyer had been "controlling" the modus operandi and was responsible for routing the money, misusing his connections and clients, including the ones inherited from his father, to launder the money with the use of a variety of accounts in Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore, Tunisia, Switzerland, the UK and India. Agency officials said the accounts included those of his undisclosed shell companies outside India. An informed source told IANS that the ED has also found a Zambia connection of Khaitan. He is known to be close to Henry Banda, one of the three sons of former President Rupiah Banda, who is accused of abusing his authority while head of state between 2008 and 2011. Dingani Banda received 250,000 euros from IDS Tunisia, a company that laundered money in the AgustaWestland scam, the source added. Khaitan apparently helped set up trust and companies for Henry Banda in Seychelles to buy a property in Kenya. The ED as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named Khaitan in their separate charge sheets in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper deal case. Khaitan was earlier arrested in September 2014 for his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland deal. He got bail in January 2015 and re-arrested along with Sanjeev Tyagi, another accused in the case, on December 9, 2016, by the CBI. He later secured bail. The CBI chargesheet has described Khaitan as the brain behind the AgustaWestland deal. --IANS aks-rak/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An African practice of "ironing" a girl's chest with a hot stone to delay breast formation is spreading in the UK to "protect" young girls from unwanted male attention, sexual harassment and rape, the media reported on Saturday. The Guardian reported that community workers in London, Yorkshire, Essex and the West Midlands informed the newspaper about cases in which pre-teen girls from the diaspora of several African countries were subjected to the painful, abusive and futile practice. The UN has described the practice as one of five global under-reported crimes relating to gender-based violence. The perpetrators, usually mothers, consider it a traditional measure which protects girls from unwanted male attention, sexual harassment and rape. Medical experts and victims, however, call it child abuse which could lead to physical and psychological scars, infections, inability to breastfeed, deformities and breast cancer. One community activist told the daily that she was aware of 15-20 recent cases in South London town of Croydon alone. "It's usually done in the UK, not abroad like female genital mutilation (FGM)," she said, describing a practice whereby mothers, aunties or grandmothers use a hot stone to massage across the breast repeatedly in order to "break the tissue" and slow its growth. "Sometimes they do it once a week, or once every two weeks, depending on how it comes back," she added. Margaret Nyuydzewira, head of the diaspora group the Came Women and Girls Development Organisation (Cawogido), said that at least 1,000 women and girls in the UK had been subjected to the intervention. But there has been no systematic study or formal data collection exercise, the daily said. British-Somali anti-FGM campaigner and psychotherapist Leyla Hussein told the Guardian that she spoke to five women in her north London clinic who had been victims of breast-ironing. "They were all British women, all British citizens," Hussein said, adding that one of the women became flat-chested as a result of the practice. Mary Claire, a church minister in Wolverhampton, said she had spoken to four victims in Leeds, originally from west Africa. "You could see the marks," she said. The police said they fielded no allegations about breast-ironing in the UK, but suspected that it was happening. The British government said it was "absolutely committed" to stamping out the practice, but according to activists and social workers, little had been done so far. --IANS soni/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The 70th Republic Day was celebrated across Himachal Pradesh on Saturday despite the winter chill. Governor Acharya Devvrat unfurled the national flag at a ceremonial function at the historic Ridge here. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, his Cabinet ministers and other dignitaries were present. The main attraction was a tableau that depicted visits of Mahatma Gandhi to Shimla. Tribal artistes were among the performing troupes. Cultural programmes were also staged by school children. The Governor took the salute at a parade by contingents of police, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Home Guards, the Army, National Cadet Corps and ex-servicemen. Assembly Speaker Rajeev Bindal presided over the district-level function in Hamirpur town. Chief Justice Surya Kant hoisted the tricolour at the Himachal Pradesh High Court here. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), headquartered in Dharamsala town, also organised a ceremony at the Kashag (Tibetan cabinet) Secretariat. As CTA President Lobsang Sangay was on an official visit to Japan, officiating President Sonam Topgyal Khorlatsang hoisted the Indian flag. --IANS vg/ksk/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) UN body Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will open the final draft of its new methodology report for review next week that will help countries enhance national inventory reports of emissions and removals under the 2015 Paris Agreement, if they agree to use it. The review will be bringing the crucial report one step closer to consideration for adoption by the IPCC in May, it was announced on Friday. The report, '2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories', is an update to the guidelines or methodologies that countries use to estimate their anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases. The refinement of the IPCC's previous guidelines published in 2006 is necessary to provide an updated and sound scientific basis for supporting the preparation and continuous improvement of national greenhouse gas inventories. Among other things, the 2019 Refinement will help countries enhance national inventory reports of emissions and removals. This review will run for eight weeks from January 28 to March 24. IPCC reports go through multiple stages of review to ensure an objective and comprehensive assessment of the latest science. The first draft is reviewed by experts, the second draft by governments and experts, and the final draft by governments only. "Review is an essential part of the IPCC process, to help ensure that the reports are balanced and comprehensive. I invite all governments to contribute to this review," said Kiyoto Tanabe, one of the two Co-Chairs of the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI), which is preparing the report. "We hope as many governments as possible will take part in this review to strengthen the accuracy and completeness of the draft's scientific information and overall balance," said Eduardo Calvo Buendia, the other TFI Co-Chair. In this final review, governments will submit comments on the report's Overview Chapter, which will be considered for adoption section by section at a Session of the IPCC in May in Kyoto in Japan and on the full final draft report, which will be submitted for acceptance at the same session. The aim of the review is to ensure that the Overview Chapter is accurate, well balanced and presents the findings of the underlying report clearly. The IPCC was created in 1988 to deliver comprehensive assessments of the scientific, technical and socio-economic state of knowledge of climate change, its impacts and risks, and response strategies. Its contribution to understanding climate change has been fundamental to creating global agreements on common goals, the latest of which is the Paris Agreement. In the Fifth Assessment Report in 2013-14, the IPCC found that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century. It found that limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a finding reinforced in the special report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius released in October 2018. --IANS vg/vin (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The sudden transfer of a woman IPS officer after she searched the CPI-M district office here to investigate a case came under fire on Saturday from the Congress. Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, a former Home Minister himself, slammed the transfer of Chaitra Teresa John. "Time and again, the government speaks of gender justice. But when a young police officer was doing her job, she was taken to task and shunted out from the post she was holding," he said. "This government instead of protecting the officer is protecting the law breakers... This has to end," he said in a statement. When the Sabarimala pilgrimage season was at its peak last month, John was given additional charge as Deputy Commissioner of Police in the state capital. Reputed to be a fearless officer, John antagonized CPI-M leaders when she pursued a case where youth activists of the CPI-M were involved in an alleged case of stone throwing at a police station here. After learning that those who threw stones could be in the CPI-M district office here, she went there but could not find anyone there. Soon afterwards, she was called by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and stripped of her post. Earlier, John took a strong stand against eight state government employees belonging to a Left union who are now in jail for vandalizing a State Bank of India branch here on January 9 as part of a nationwide strike. --IANS sg/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rescue teams on Saturday found the body of a two-year-old boy who fell into a narrow and deep well almost two weeks ago in Spanish province of Malaga, triggering the most complex rescue operation undertaken in the country. Julen Rosello had been in the countryside with his family near the village of Totalan in Malaga on January 13 when he stumbled into the 110-metre well. Specialist teams worked day and night in a tunnel that had been dug parallel to the borehole which is only 25 centimetre in diameter, the BBC reported. Rescuers were unable to get to the boy via the well he fell down in because it was blocked by a layer of earth, sand and stones believed to have been dislodged when he fell into the shaft, reports say. "At 1.25 a.m., the rescue teams reached the area of the well where they were looking for Julen and they found the lifeless body of the little one," said Alfonso Rodriguez Gomez de Celis, the government representative in the region of Andalusia. The accident happened during a Sunday afternoon excursion in a hilly plantation near Totalan. The well had apparently been left uncovered, although the businessman who had originally had it dug a month earlier insisted that he had sealed it. Rescuers had earlier found hair among debris removed from the well and compared it with DNA samples from the boy's drinking bottle as well as his family, confirming his identity, the report said. This rescue mission was considered the most complex that had been undertaken in Spain, as dozens of machines, drills and excavators removed some 83,000 cubic metres of earth to dig a parallel well to reach the child, according to Efe news. Rosello spent more than 12 days in the cold hole in the middle of the field while more than 300 people participated in the rescue tasks that involved drilling through the rock and soil that kept him trapped. The density of the rocks forced the Civil Guards, specializing in caving and microblasting, to create explosions four times so as to open the way for the miners. Outside the operation area in Totalan, parents, family members and hundreds of neighbours had been eagerly waiting for any news about the rescue operation watched by millions on TV channels throughout the country. After the recovery of the body, reactions began pouring in from across the country including from the Royal House with King Philip VI offering condolences to Rosello's family. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also expressed grief and solidarity with the deceased's family. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Campaigning for the Jind assembly constituency by-election ended on Saturday evening. Voting will take place on Monday (January 28) and the result will be declared on Thursday (January 31). On the last day of the campaigning, all four major political parties held rallies for the one final push with voters before the pollls. Only door-to-door campaigning will be allowed till Sunday evening. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal campaigned for Digvijay Chautala, the candidate of the newly formed Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). Though the seat will have a tenure of around nine months only, the by-election has forced the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the JJP to put in all their resources for a win. The bypoll is likely to have an impact on the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly elections. The Congress has made the contest interesting in Jind by fielding the party's national spokesman, Randeep Surjewala. The seat fell vacant when sitting INLD legislator Hari Chand Middha, who won from here twice, passed away in August last year. The BJP has fielded Middha's son, Krishan Middha as its candidate. The INLD has fielded Umed Singh as its candidate. Out of the 1.7 lakh registered electorate, Jind constituency has a substantial vote of Scheduled Caste and backward classes (around 50 per cent) and Jats (around 25 per cent). The local administration has ordered the closure of liquor shops in Jind district for three days (January 26 to 28). --IANS js/oeb/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP's ally Janata Dal-United (JD-U) on Saturday expressed its opposition to the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, and said a party delegation will visit Assam on January 28 and 29. In a statement, the JD-U said its delegation, led by National General Secretary K.C. Tyagi, will express its support to civil society groups opposing the Bill in Assam and the North-East. The delegation, which will also comprise the party's Vice President Prashant Kishore, North-East in-charge N.S.N. Lotha and General Secretary Afaque Ahmed Khan, will also meet the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to express their solidarity with the opposition to the contentious Bill. Assam and the North-East have been on the boil ever since the controversial Bill was introduced in Parliament earlier this month and passed by the Lok Sabha as it allegedly violates the Assam Accord of 1985 that was signed by the AASU and the Assam and Central governments to detect and deport illegal foreigners from Bangladesh. According to the Accord, only those who came to Assam till March 24, 1971, will be accepted as Indian citizens. The operative part of Clause 5 of the Assam Accord states: "Foreigners who came to Assam on or after March 25, 1971, shall continue to be detected, deleted and expelled in accordance with law. Immediate and practical steps shall be taken to expel such foreigners." This means all illegal migrants irrespective of religion will be detected, deleted from voters list and expelled. According to the Bill, people belonging to the minority communities - Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians - from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, facing religious persecution, will be given citizenship in India. Muslims refugees are not covered in the ambit of the Bill. Under the Citizenship Act 1955, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalisation is that the applicant must have resided in India during the last 12 months and for 11 of the previous 14 years. The new Bill relaxes this 11-year requirement to six years for persons belonging to the same six religions and three countries. According to the new Bill, the cutoff date for people belonging to these religions residing illegally in India is December 31, 2014. This basically impinges into the cutoff date of March 24,1971, under Clause 5 of the Assam Accord, which is not based on any religion. According to Saturday's JD-U statement, the party delegation is visiting Assam in the wake of an AASU delegation meeting Bihar Chief Minister and party National President Nitish Kumar in May last year and apprising him of their apprehensions regarding the Bill. "The party feels that the apprehensions of the Assam civil society groups have a strong basis," the statement said. "Any step which may jeopardise the social peace and communal harmony of Assam and the whole North-East should be taken after serious consideration," it stated. It said if the Bill becomes a law, the indigenous people of Assam will become a minority in their own homeland. "JD-U demands that the government of India must give serious consideration to all the contentious issues with regard to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill and mitigate the concerns of the people of Assam," the statement said. "The party has decided to oppose the Bill in Rajya Sabha even being an ally of the NDA." While the AASU has been leading statewide protests ever since the Bill was proposed in 2016, the AGP pulled out of the ruling BJP-led alliance government in the state earlier this month after the Bill was introduced in Parliament. --IANS ab/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After being reportedly blocked by the Chinese government, access to Microsoft's search engine Bing has been restored by the Chinese telecom providers, the media reported. Bing is the only global search platform that is open for use in China. "We can confirm that Bing was inaccessible in China, but service is now restored," said Microsoft in a statement given to theinquirer.net on Friday. Late on Wednesday, the Microsoft search engine was blocked, reportedly at the behest of the Chinese government for reasons unknown. According to a report in Financial Times on Wednesday, mainland Chinese users wrote on social media that attempts to access Bing's China site -- cn.bing.com -- failed. "Two sources familiar with the government order confirmed that Bing had been blocked. One of the sources said that China Unicom, one of China's major state-owned telecom companies, had confirmed the government had ordered a block on Bing," said the report. In a statement given to The New York Times, Microsoft had said: "We've confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps." The outage led to speculation that China was in the middle of a significant crackdown of potentially dissident sites in a year of significant anniversaries. While neither Microsoft nor Chinese authorities have explained the reason behind the extended outage, GreatFire, a group that tracks what sites are blocked in China, said it is likely not to have been a government dictum after all, the theinquirer.net said. Bing is one of the few Western search engines available behind the Great Firewall, thanks to an agreement to host its servers in China, and therefore be subject to the government's censorship policies which are designed to keep dissent to a minimum. Google Search is already inaccessible in China while Facebook-owned WhatsApp was blocked in 2017. Google had earlier launched a search engine in China in 2006 but pulled the plug in 2010, citing Chinese government efforts to limit free speech and block websites. Google has also shelved its plan to re-enter China through a censored search application code-named "Project Dragonfly", after massive protests. In 2018, Chinese authorities also launched a renewed attack on VPN providers, whose services can be used to circumvent censored sites and services. --IANS rt/mag/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Maintaining their winning streak, a dominant India outclassed New Zealand by 90 runs in the second match of the five-game rubber at the Bay Oval here on Saturday to go 2-0 up in the series. After the Indian openers -- Rohit Sharma (87) and Shikhar Dhawan (66) handed a solid start to the visiting side, chinaman Kuldeep Yadav (4/45) starred with the leather to help India register a thumping win. Chasing a challenging 325 for victory, the hosts suffered another batting collapse as most of their batsmen succumbed before a clinical Indian attack. The Indian bowlers struck at regular intervals, denying the Kiwi batsmen to build any big partnership. Bowling all-rounder Doug Bracewell chipped in valuable 57 runs down the order however, it wasn't enough to help the Kiwis cross the line. Bhuvneshwar Kumar came with an early breakthrough, dismissing Kiwi opener Martin Guptill (15) cheaply before Mohammed Shami packed back hosts' skipper Kane Williamson (20) with New Zealand's scorecard reading 51/2 in the eighth over. With the addition of 33 runs in the Kiwi scorecard, leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal also joined the party, sending back a good looking Colin Munro (31). Just when the hosts touched the three-digit mark, Kedhar Jadav worsened New Zealand's situation after dismissing Ross Taylor (22), who was stumped by Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Tom Latham (34) then tried to rescue his side but became Kuldeep's victim in the 25th over. The chinaman then struck thrice in quick succession, sending back Colin de Grandhomme (3), Henry Nicholls (28) and Ish Sodhi, who failed to open his account, with New Zealand at 166/8. Bracewell restored some respectablity for the hosts, smashing a 46-ball 57 to take New Zealand past the 200-run mark. The all-rounder's firework was decoarted with five boundaries and three hits into the stands. Bhuvneshwar finally applied brakes on Bracewell's innings as the batsman, while trying to clear the fence, handed an easy catch to Dhawan at long-on. Chahal put the final nail in the coffin, dismissing Lockie Ferguson (12) as India registered a thumping 90-run win. Earlier, a brilliant batting display helped India put a challenging 324/4 against the Kiwis. Opener Rohit and Dhawan were the top contributors with individual scores of 87 and 66 respectively. Opting to bat, India were off to a perfect start, thanks to the openers, who forged a crucial 154 runs for the first wicket before Kiwi pacer Trent Boult gave some relief to his side, dismissing Dhawan in the 26th over. Ferguson struck soon, packing back a well-settled Rohit with India's scorecard reading 172/2. Skipper Virat Kohli (43) and Ambati Rayudu (47) were then involved in a 64-run partnership for the third wicket. Boult gave the visitors a major blow as a thick edge off Kohli was caught at fine-led by Sodhi. Rayudu was then joined by Dhoni (48 not out) as the two steadily lifted India near the 300-run mark before the former fell to Ferguson in the 46th over. Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav's (22 not out off 10 balls) fireworks then accelerated the run-rate, taking India to a good total of 324/4 in the allotted 50 overs. For New Zealand, Boult and Ferguson picked two wickets each, conceding 61 and 81 runs respectively. Brief score: India 324/4 (Rohit Sharma 87, Shikhar Dhawan 66; Trent Boult 2/61) beat New Zealand 234 all out (Doug Bracewell 57, Tom Latham 34; Kuldeep Yadav 4/45) by 90 runs. --IANS kk/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Stating that there are 100% chances of hacking EVMs, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday said the of should either go for counting of VVPAT slips or revert to the old ballot paper system. The (TDP) chief asked his party MPs to raise the issue during the Budget session of Parliament, beginning January 31. Addressing the TDP Parliamentary Party here, he said since many political parties raised their doubts about the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the should take note of such complaints. He said the poll body should either ensure counting of 100% slips of VVPAT (Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail) or revert to the ballot paper system. Naidu said like any technology, the EVM could also be misused and it was easy for those writing the software to hack it. He said that since is only a referee, it should not enforce a system in which the political parties have no trust. He asked party MPs to oppose the use of EVMs in the coming during the Parliament session. TDP MP Y. S. Chowdary told reporters that the party would oppose the Centre's move to introduce a full-fledged Budget for 2019-20. "How can a government which has a mandate for just two months present the Budget for the entire financial year?" he asked. Naidu asked TDP MPs to put pressure on the NDA government to present only a vote-on-account budget. US President Donald Trump's long-time informal advisor, Roger Stone, has refused to testify against the President, after being indicted in the Robert Mueller probe related to the 2016 Presidential elections. Stone further mentioned that he would plead not guilty to the charges against him. "After a two-year inquisition, the charges today relate in no way to Russian collusion, WikiLeaks collaboration or any other illegal act in connection with the 2016 campaign," CNN quoted Stone as saying on Friday, after he was released by a US judge on a USD 250,000 bond. "I have made it clear I will not testify against the President. Because I would have to bear false witness against him," Trump's aide further said, after appearing at a federal court here in Fort Lauderdale. He has been indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts - one count of obstruction of official proceedings, one count of witness tampering and five counts of false statements. The indictment comes amid scrutiny about Stone's alleged contact with WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange in the summer of 2016. Trump had come into power after surpassing Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in the Presidential elections held later in 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Secretary of State Micheal Pompeo called on countries to "pick a side" in the Venezuelan political crisis and urged them to support opposition leader Juan Guaido while appealing for free and fair elections to be held in the South American country at the earliest. "Now, it is time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with (Nicolas) Maduro and his mayhem," Al Jazeera quoted Pompeo as saying while addressing the UN Security Council on Saturday. Pompeo's remarks came in the wake of the US and its regional allies recognising Guaido as the President and calling for President Maduro to step down. "We call on all members of the Security Council to support Venezuela's democratic transition and interim President Guaido's role in it," Pompeo added. Meanwhile, Russia has accused the US of planning a coup attempt and opposed Washington's efforts. Earlier, Russia unsuccessfully attempted to stop the emergency meeting of the Security Council called by the US. "Venezuela does not represent a threat to peace and security," said the Russian ambassador to the US, Vassily Nebenzia."If anything does represent a threat to peace, it is the shameless and aggressive action of the United States and their allies aimed at the ouster of the legitimately elected president of Venezuela." China, South Africa, and Equatorial Guinea also blocked a push by the US for a statement by the Security Council expressing support for Venezuela's National Assembly to be recognised as the "only democratically elected institution" in the country. An Al Jazeera report confirmed that the majority of the Security Council supported the US' cause. The meeting was called a day after Guaido, the leader of the National Assembly, pledged to remain on the streets until a transitional government was appointed, while Maduro accused the opposition of plotting a coup. In a press conference, Guaido called on his supporters to hold another mass protest next week, while Maduro stressed on the need for a dialogue. Earlier today, the European Union warned Maduro to call for re-elections within eight days. Upon failing to do so, the EU asserted that Guaido, who announced himself as an interim President on January 23, would be recognised as the new President of the nation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US President Donald Trump has drawn the ire of supporters and Republicans alike after he ended his demand for Congress to fund the proposed wall along the Mexican border. Trump demanded the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, to sanction USD 5.7 billion for the wall in exchange for his signature on a bill funding federal agencies, according to AL Jazeera. The US President's refusal to sign the bill unless the House sanctioned the funds resulted in the 35-day long government shutdown, the longest in history. Among his many critics was anti-immigration pundit Ann Coulter, who called Trump a "wimp". "Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States," Coulter wrote in a tweet. Far-right activists Mike Cernovic and Paul Joseph Watson also chipped in, with the former terming the President a "broken man" and the latter saying that his base was in "complete meltdown". Following the announcement, Trump dismissed his decision as a concession, assuring his supporters that the move was only temporary and the deadlock would resume if Democrats and Republicans do not reach an agreement by February. "I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it's off to the races!" the President tweeted. Meanwhile, Democrats celebrated the end of the shutdown and expressed determination to prevent a repeat in the future. "After inflicting enormous suffering on federal employees and those who depend on government services, the President is finally reopening the government with the same deal that was on the table in December. We need to take action to end "shutdowns" as a tactic, once and for all," Democratic Congressman from California Adam Schiff said in a tweet. On Friday, Trump signed the bill to fund federal agencies until February 15, ending the 35-day government shutdown without securing the border-wall funding. The shutdown had resulted in as many as 8,00,000 federal workers not receiving payment. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani on Saturday hailed late Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, who received India's highest peacetime gallantry honour, Ashoka Chakra, on Saturdy. The family of Wani was a star attraction at this year's Republic Day 'At Home' reception hosted by President Ram Nath Kovind here on Saturday. Wani, who hailed from Kashmir and got martyred in an anti-terror operation in the Valley on November 25, last year, was conferred with Ashok Chakra, just before the start of the Republic Day parade at the historic Rajpath in New Delhi. "Wani, who once raised arms against India, later decided to serve the nation. He fought for the pride of the country as he believed in the idea of India. It is very easy for the people like us to talk about belief while it is absolutely different when someone like Wani is laying his life for that belief," said the Union Minister while interacting with IIM Bangalore students. Irani further said that interesting thing about Wani's journey is that before he joined the Indian Army, he was a part of the terrorist movement. Wani joined Army in 2004 and received Sena Medal in 2007 and 18. On November 25 last year, his unit engaged six heavily-armed terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund in Kashmir, during which he achieved the martyrdom. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Saturday accused BJP of continuing its efforts to poach MLAs and claimed one of his party's legislators was on Thursday offered huge amount of money under the saffron party's 'Operation Kamala'. "Operation Kamala is still on. Even last night they (BJP) offered one of our MLAs, a huge amount of money and asked him where it should be sent. You will be surprised to know the gift amount. Our MLA responded that he did not need any gift and wants to be left alone." "This is how they are still working on poaching," Kumaraswamy said. Former state chief minister and CLP leader Siddaramaiah also accused BJP of attempting to poach legislators. "There is no operation Kamala. They have Benami money which they have earned through corruption. With that corruption money they tried and failed." Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the other hand refuted all such allegations and asserted that legislators are trying to leave the JD(S)-Congress coalition due to internal fight. Yeddyurappa said, "We are not resorting to any operation Kamala. Their MLAs are trying to go away from them because of their internal fights and it is their duty to keep them intact within their party. They should stop giving baseless statements against us. We have 104 MLAs and two 2 independent MLAs and we are concentrating on our work as the Opposition." The Congress, which shares power with JD-S, has 80 MLAs in the 224-member Assembly, including the Speaker. Accordingly, 79 MLAs were expected to attend the CLP meeting held under the supervision of central leaders K C Venugopal and Mallikarjun Kharge. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Minister Imarti Devi fumbled and was unable to read out her speech during a Republic Day celebration programme here, asked the district collector to take over and read it to the audience. "Collector sahab padhenge (Collector will read it for you), " Imarti Devi said after struggling for a few moments to read out her written address, finally handing it over to the district collector Bharat Yadav. When she was asked about the incident, the minister said, "I was sick for the past two days, you can ask the doctor. But it is okay, the collector read it (the speech) properly." Imarti Devi won the legislative election from Dabra constituency of Gwalior on a Congress ticket and was made minister in the cabinet of Chief Minister Kamal Nath. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan troops again violated ceasefire along the line of control in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday, as India celebrated its 70th Republic Day. This comes a day after Pakistani army violated ceasefire at four locations along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of the state on Friday. Since the beginning of the year, Pakistani troops have been on a daily basis targeting the sector which adjoins the international border. Earlier, Jammu and Kashmir Governor S P Malik in his Republic Day speech commended security personnel for effectively neutralising terrorists and protecting the residents in the border areas. "Our security forces carried out effective operations to neutralize the largest ever number of terrorists in a year. We salute the army and police jawans who lost their lives in action," Malik said. He also assured that the government was taking adequate measures to check infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan. "Our neighbouring country continues to support terrorists to disrupt peace and harmony. Repeated attempts to infiltrate terrorists into India, and ceasefire violations have brought hardship to people living near the border. Government is taking required measures," he said. The JK Governor said," We have strengthened the discourse of peace. This is our collective responsibility and can be discharged only with the active cooperation and support of our people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two terrorists have been killed in an encounter with security forces on the outskirts of Srinagar on Saturday morning. The joint operation currently underway is being carried out by 50 Rashtriya Rifles (RR), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Srinagar Police at the encounter site in Konmoh area here . The encounter comes on the day when India is celebrating its 70th Republic Day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In consonance with the spirit of "Digital India" the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on Friday introduced the electronic payment mode for the food items on trains through the use of Point of Sale (POS) machines. Also, the paper bill is generated immediately after the payment is made by the customers as a record of the purchase. "The biggest advantage is that one can pay the bill electronically and the right amount would be generated. It would keep a check on the overcharging and the complaints regarding the same," said an IRCTC official. He informed that about 2000 POS have been deployed in Mail and Express trains and soon rest of the trains would also be covered. "Instructions have been given that in one rake there should be at least 8 machines," he said. An inspection drive will also be launched on all the Mail and Express trains from January 26 to February 15 to ensure the availability and working of POS machines. "This system is indeed very good system as nobody will overcharge the passengers and we have to pay the amount that is generated electronically," said Neha Singh, who was travelling in Kashi Vishwanath Express from Delhi to Varanasi on Friday. "Earlier at some instances they use to charge extra for water bottle saying that Rs 2-3 is extra for cooling. Now such type of things will stop," she said. "These days people usually avoid carrying change, this is very good system as now we can pay by using credit card or debit card," said Raj Pratap Singh, another traveller. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Embassy of India here on Saturday read out the President of India's message and honoured the widows and kins of the deceased soldiers of Indian Armed Forces by announcing cash reward worth 7.26 Crore Nepali Rupees, apart from distributing blankets, to celebrate the occasion of the 70th Republic Day of India. A press statement released by the Embassy of India here stated that Ambassador of India to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri hoisted the national flag and read out the President of India's message on the occasion. The Flag hoisting ceremony was attended by over 1500 Indians and friends of India. The students of the Kendriya Vidyalaya, the Modern Indian School and the Swami Vivekananda Culture Centre, Kathmandu sung patriotic songs followed by a scintillating performance by the Nepal Army Band. On the occasion, the Ambassador honoured two 'Veer Nari', nine widows and three next of kins of deceased soldiers of Indian Armed Forces by distributing their dues worth 7.26 Crore Nepali Rupees and a blanket to each one of them. The Embassy further unveiled the 'Bhu Puu-2018' magazine covering the welfare initiatives of the Government of India for ex-servicemen domiciled in Nepal. On the occasion, the Ambassador presented the keys of 30 ambulances and six buses to various hospitals, non-profit organisations and educational institutions of different districts of Nepal. Since 1994, the Government of India has gifted 722 ambulances and 142 buses to various organizations across Nepal to expand access to health care and educational services in Nepal. The Embassy also announced book grant to 54 educational institutions and libraries across Nepal to promote access to educational material to students in remote areas. Later in the day, the Ambassador hosted a reception at the India House in Kathmandu. Retired Vice President of Nepal Nanda Bahadur Pun graced the occasion as the Chief Guest. To mark the seven decades of India-Nepal diplomatic ties, Pun along with the Ambassador, also released a book titled "India & Nepal- 70 Years of Diplomatic ties" on the event, which was attended by more than 1000 dignitaries, including senior political leaders & public personalities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With South African President Cyril Ramaphosa watching the proceedings, India on Saturday displayed its military might and rich cultural diversity during the dazzling 70th Republic Day parade in the Capital which for the first time saw veteran soldiers of the Indian Army walking down the Rajpath. The Republic Day Parade Ceremony commenced with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the nation in paying homage to soldiers killed in combat by laying a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. The parade commanded by Lieutenant General Asit Mistry, General Officer Commanding, Headquarters Delhi Area, commenced after the unfurling of the flag and a 21-gun salute. The parade commander was the first one to salute the President. The proud winners of the highest gallantry awards Param Vir Chakra and Ashok Chakra followed the parade commander. This year veterans of the Indian Army (INA) who fought valiantly against the imperial forces also took part in the parade, including four veterans Parmanand, Lalti Ram, Hira Singh and Bhagmal, who are aged between 95 to 100 years. The K-9 Vajra and the M777 howitzers took part in the parade for the first time this year. The marching contingents of the Army which followed the armoured columns in the parade included the Madras Regiment, the Rajputana Rifles, the Sikh Regiment, the Gorkha Brigade, the Army Service Corps, and the 102 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Punjab. The marching contingents were followed by the Veterans' Tableau, which marked recognition and respect to the soldiers' selfless service to the nation. The Combined Band of the Sikh Light Infantry, Mahar Regimental Centre and Ladakh Scouts played the martial tune 'Shankhnaad' for the first time in the Parade. The Naval Contingent comprising 144 young sailors and led by Lieutenant Commander Ambika Sudhakarn as Contingent Commander followed the Army columns. It was followed by Naval tableau titled, 'Indian Navy - Combat Ready Force for National Security'. The Air Force Marching Contingent comprising 144 air warriors marched with rifles in 'Bagal shashtra' position while the pistols of the officers were secured in their holsters. It was followed by the Air Force Tableau titled 'Indian Air Force Encouraging Indigenisation' showcasing the scaled-down models of the aircraft, radar and missile system which have been indigenously designed and manufactured. The models displayed were Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Low-Level Light Weight Radar (LLLWR), Sukhoi-30MKI and Akash Missile System. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) displayed its Medium range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) and the Arjun Armoured Recovery and Repair Vehicle (Arjun ARRV). The Fly Past was led by Advanced Light Helicopters Weapon System Integrated (WSI) 'Rudra' and two Advanced Light Helicopters, 'Dhruv' of Army Aviation in 'Diamond' formation. The all-women contingent of Assam Rifles was the first of the Paramilitary and other Auxiliary Civil Forces' columns. It was followed by the Indian Coast Guard, Central Reserve Police Force, Railway Protection Force, Delhi Police, Border Security Force Camel Contingent, National Cadet Corps Boys and Girls Contingent and National Service Scheme Marching Contingent. Twenty-two tableaux, comprising 16 from different states and union territories and six Ministries, Departments and other institutions displayed the life, times and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. The year 2019 marks the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation. The tableau of Sikkim portrayed the state's transformation into a 100 per cent organic farming and the cleanest state of the country in consonance with Mahatma Gandhi's vision and ideal while Maharashtra portrayed Quit India Movement, which was a peoples' movement in which millions of common Indians had participated. The tableau of Andaman & Nicobar showcased the role of Gandhi among the inmates of Cellular Jail in Andaman. Assam came up with a tableau depicting Gandhiji's movement in Assam and his dream of rebuilding the rural economy by encouraging the growth of cottage industry. The tableau of Tripura showcased the egalitarian, inclusive and diverse social and ethnic culture based on the Gandhian principles while the Goan tableau showcased Unity in Diversity. Arunachal Pradesh depicted peace within through a tableau of a clean Monpa village and its peaceful, cultural life which Mahatma Gandhi envisioned. Jallianwala Bagh was the theme of Punjab tableau evoking memories of the watershed moment in the Independence struggle. Tamil Nadu showcased Transformation of Dress Code of Mahatma Gandhi on September 22, 1921 in Madurai after seeing scantily clad peasants and poor people working in the farms and doing other manual work. Tableau of Gujarat depicted Mahatma Gandhi's 'Historical Dandi March', which shook the foundation of the British Empire by scooping a handful of salt in the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat. 'Ray of Hope-Our Composite Culture' was the theme of tableau of Jammu and Kashmir while Karnataka showcased Gandhiji's momentous efforts at the Belagavi Congress session on 26-27 December 1924. The tableau of Uttarakhand depicted Spiritual Anashakti Ashram and Delhi showcased Mahatma Gandhi and his association with the national capital. Uttar Pradesh showcased the commemoration of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. West Bengal tableau highlighted two key aspects in the life of Mahatma Gandhi- his stay at Kolkata during the crucial juncture of India's Independence and his association with Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. Ministry of Power showcased Saubhagya: New India Raushan India while the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation showcased magnificent four-year-old journey of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), the biggest behavioral change campaign in the world. Indian Railways showcased his relationship with Railways in tableau titled 'Mohan to Mahatma' and the Ministry of Agriculture depicted Mahatma Gandhi's economic philosophy called for ending poverty through improved agriculture and small scale rural cottage industries. CPWD (Horticulture) tableau paid floral tributes to the Mahatma and showcased a wide variety of flowers in different hues. Twenty-six children including six girls and 20 boys, Awardees of Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 for their exceptional achievement, also participated in the parade. The awards have been given to children for their merit in the fields of innovation, scholastic, sports, arts, culture, social service, music, bravery or any other field which deserves recognition. Children's Pageant was led by Navy Children School Chankyapuri, Delhi with the performance "Jai Ghosh"- a proclamation of faith and assurance in the principles of the divine soul, Mahatma Gandhi. Children of Government Schools of Bihar Eastern Zone, Cultural Centre, Kolkata danced on the song by reiterating this dream of "Bapu Ka Sapna". Students of Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (RPVV) Kishan Ganj, Delhi and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Paschim Vihar, Delhi paid homage and reverence to Bapu's ideology through scintillating dance performances. Corps of Signals Motor Cycle Team saluted the president with daredevil acts in the Parade under the dynamic leadership of Captain Manpreet Singh, who broke his own world record smartly from a 12.5 feet ladder. The previous record was from an eight-feet ladder. The grand finale of the parade was a spectacular flypast by the IAF which commenced with the 'Rudra' formation comprising three ALH Mk IV WSI helicopters in 'Vic' formation, followed by the 'Hercules' formation comprising three C-130J Super Hercules aircraft in 'Vic' formation. Behind the 'Hercules' formation was the 'Netra' the "Eye in the Sky". Trailing them was the 'Sutlej Formation' which is AN 32 aircraft flying in 'Vic' formation. Behind the 'Netra' formation was the 'Globe' formation, comprising one C-17 Globemaster flanked by two Su-30 MKIs. One of the An-32s was for the first time flying with bio-fuel. Next in line were the Five Jaguar Deep penetration strike aircraft, in 'Arrowhead' formation. Following the Jaguars were five MiG-29 Upgrade Air Superiority Fighters in 'Arrowhead' formation. Three state-of-the-art, SU-30 MKIs of Indian Air Force executed the Trishul manoeuvre. The culmination of the parade was marked by a lone Su-30 MKI flying at a speed of 900 km/hr splitting the sky with a 'Vertical Charlie' manoeuvre over the saluting dais. The ceremony culminated with the national anthem and release of balloons. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Five people have been confirmed dead in a succession of shootings in Louisiana on Saturday (local time), law enforcement authorities confirmed. According to CNN, two shootings took place in Louisiana- in Ascension and Livingston parishes. 21-year-old Dakota Theriot is suspected to have killed his parents, Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 50 years old, in Gonzalez town, Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office stated. He is also suspected to have killed three people in the neighbouring Livingston Parish, where victims Billy, Summer and Tanner Earnest were found dead earlier, Livingston Parish Sheriff's office said. Dakota has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, illegal use of weapons and home invasion. Investigators are currently ascertaining the motive behind the shootings. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Late Lance Naik Nazir Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who got martyred in an anti-terror operation in Kashmir two months back, was on Saturday conferred with the country's highest peace time gallantry award Ashok Chakra. President Ramnath Kovind presented the award to Wani's wife Mahajabeen and his mother during the Republic Day celebrations at the start of the parade down the historic Rajpath here. The award was presented in the presence of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South African President South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is the Chief Guest at this year's Republic Day celebrations. Wani, the first Kashmiri to receive the honour, was chosen for displaying exceptional courage when his unit engaged 6 heavily-armed terrorists on November 25 last year in Hirapur village near Batgund in Kashmir. Hailing from Cheki Ashmuji area of Kulgam district in Kashmir, Wani was once a militant but he gave up the militancy and joined the Territorial Army in 2004 and was later a part of the Rashtriya Rifles. On the fateful day, under intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the district commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit and one foreign terrorist in a very daring display of raw courage. In the gunfight, he was hit multiple times, including in his head but he carried on and injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous injuries. Mahajabeen told ANI on Thursday: "I am proud of my husband for what he has done... I am feeling happy that he has received the award but his loss is irreparable," She recalled that the last time she had a conversation with her husband was a few hours before the operation in which he lost his life. Wani had called her to discuss about the well being of the family and disconnected as he had to go for the operation. About the honour, she said she did not know that such an award existed till officials of Wani's unit came to her village to inform about the government decision. "Now I want to fulfill his dream of educating my children Athar (20) and Shaid (18) and help them become doctor and engineer," Mahajabeen added. Wani was a hero right from the beginning and always served for the peace in his home state of Jammu and Kashmir, said an Army official. His extraordinarily fearless and courageous personage was reflected in him getting the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. The 2018 Sena Medal was given to him for eliminating a terrorist from a very close distance. Ashok Chakra is the highest peacetime gallantry award in the country, followed by the Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, respectively. Four officers and soldiers have received the Kirti Chakra while 12 others have also been awarded the Shaurya Chakra this year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said on Friday that senior Congress leader Anand Sharma has threatened that officers should stop working against corruption which only shows the mentality of the Congress party. Reacting on the CBI raids at former Haryana chief minister BS Hooda's residence, Anand Sharma on Friday issued a veiled warning to government officials by insinuating that those working at the behest of their "political masters" would be held accountable in next government. "Congress leader Anand Sharma has threatened that officers should stop working against corruption which only shows the mentality of Congress party. This shows that Congress wants to save corruption. Whenever they don't get a satisfactory verdict from Supreme Court they say they will impeach Chief justice of India (CJI)" said Sambit Patra. "When they lose an election they hold a press conference in London against EVM and threaten Election Commission from there, saying that EC's credibility has ended. Corruption should be stopped and only a majboot (strong) govt can do this," said Patra. Reacting on the CBI raids at BS Hooda's residence, Sharma said: "Officials must hear this. Governments do not have any permanency. There are few weeks left for the general elections to begin. It is certain that this government is rattled, the Prime Minister is staring at an imminent defeat, that's why these actions." The CBI on Friday carried out raids at the residence of Hooda and other officials, and also lodged a fresh case against the former Haryana Chief Minister in connection with the alleged irregularities in the acquisition of land in Haryana. The investigating agency conducted raids in over 20 places including in Chandigarh, Rohtak, New Delhi, Gurgaon and Mohali with respect to the land acquisition irregularities. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Thursday in his Republic Day address here announced loan waivers of over Rs 200 crore for farmers in Chhattisgarh. "I announce that 'Sinchai Kar' amounting to Rs 207 crore till October 2018 will be waived off, around 15 lakh farmers will benefit from this" Baghel said in his speech after the flag hoisting event here to mark Republic Day. Bhupesh also distributes the land acquisition letter to 50 people of Lohindigura area of Bastar. Early in the month, the state government had issued orders to return to farmers the over 4400 acres of land earlier acquired for the Tata Steel project in the tribal-dominated area. The order, issued by the state's Revenue Department says the land is being returned to its original owners according to provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Acting on his poll promise, Baghel soon after taking office announced a loan waiver scheme worth of Rs 140 million. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least seven people were killed, and around 150 others went missing, after a dam burst at an iron ore mine in southeast Brazil near the city of Belo Horizonte. The dam collapse caused severe flooding in the state of Minas Gerais, according to the local government in the city of Brumadinho. Some 100 stranded people were rescued, local authorities said. Vale, the company managing the iron mine, informed the local government that 427 people had been at the site at the time of the accident; 279 have been rescued and about 150 are missing. However, the total number of the missing could be higher, as local residents may be affected by the incident, too. The dam designed to hold back mining waste collapsed on Friday afternoon in Brumadinho Municipality and caused a mudslide, which destroyed Vale's offices and a residential area, Xinhua reported. Some 100 firefighters and civil rescuers were working at the site. More rescuers were expected to reach the Brumadinho region on Saturday. At a press conference on Friday evening, Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said that the number of victims from the dam collapse was "terrible." He said he was "shaken" by the incident and committed to taking all necessary measures to find out what happened. The fire service in a statement said helicopters were used to rescue "numerous" people trapped by the mud at various spots. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty ground on the occasion of 70th Republic Day, following a statewide protest called against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. The event was attended by ministers, legislators and top officials, as the local public boycotted the function. In the video, protestors were seen carrying placard near the venue. The boycott was called by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies, against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. As per reports, six armed contingents participated in the Republic Day parade and up to 30 contingents traditionally took part in the annual celebration. The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8. It will facilitate citizenship of six identified minority communities namely Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who came to India before 31 December 2014. The proposed amendment in the Bill will make these persecuted migrants eligible to apply for citizenship. Under the proposed amendment, the minimum residency period for citizenship is being reduced from the existing 12 years under the present law to seven years. However, citizenship will be given to them only after due scrutiny and recommendation of district authorities and the state government. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Gautam Khaitan, the lawyer accused in AgustaWestland case, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday and will be shortly produced before a magistrate in Patiala House Court. Last week, the Income Tax Department sleuths raided offices and various other properties in Delhi-NCR belonging to him. The Income Tax Department claims to have gathered evidence against Khaitan for allegedly receiving kickbacks in other defence deals, besides AgustaWestland, during the UPA tenure. On recommendation of the IT department, ED had registered a case against him under the Black Money Act. Last month, the government had managed extradition of alleged middleman Christian Michel from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who is now in the custody of ED which is probing allegations of money laundering. Michel, the alleged middleman in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland chopper deal case, was extradited from the UAE on December 4 last year. On July 18 last year, ED had filed prosecution complaint against 34 accused persons and companies including Giuseppe Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, former directors of Finmeccanica and AgustaWestland, former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi and others in the case of AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter scam. The ED investigation revealed that the kickbacks were paid by AgustaWestland through two different channels. One channel was handled by middleman Christian Michel James and the other channel was handled by Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke. Gerosa and Haschke in collusion with Tyagi brothers (cousins of former IAF chief S.P Tyagi), conspired with Gautam Khaitan of M/s OP Khaitan and Company Auditors & Solicitors based in New Delhi. . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the occasion of 70th Republic Day, the tricolour was hoisted at a Madrasa in Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow on Saturday. The unfurling of the tricolour at the Darul Uloom Firangi Mahal Madrasa was followed by a further celebration of the festival. In Pune, the Bene Israeli community hoisted the Indian flag at its synagogue in Pune. The flag was hoisted at the Succath Shelemo Synagogue. Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurled the tricolour at their respective residences while Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah unfurled the tricolour at the party office in the capital The Indo-Tibetan Border Police celebrated India's 70th Republic Day at 18 thousand feet above the sea in minus 30 degrees. The troops hoisted the national flag. Meanwhile, with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa watching the proceedings, India displayed its military might and rich cultural diversity during the dazzling 70th Republic Day parade in the Capital which for the first time saw veteran soldiers of the Indian National Army walking down the Rajpath. The Republic Day Parade Ceremony commenced with Prime Minister Narendra Modileading the nation in paying homage to soldiers killed in combat by laying a wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate. The grand finale of the parade was a spectacular flypast by the IAF which commenced with the 'Rudra' formation comprising three ALH Mk IV WSI helicopters in 'Vic' formation, followed by the 'Hercules' formation comprising three C-130J Super Hercules aircraft in 'Vic' formation. Behind the 'Hercules' formation was the 'Netra' the "Eye in the Sky". Trailing them was the 'Sutlej Formation' which is AN 32 aircraft flying in 'Vic' formation. Behind the 'Netra' formation was the 'Globe' formation, comprising one C-17 Globemaster flanked by two Su-30 MKIs. One of the An-32s was for the first time flying with bio-fuel. Next in line were the Five Jaguar Deep penetration strike aircraft, in 'Arrowhead' formation. Following the Jaguars were five MiG-29 Upgrade Air Superiority Fighters in 'Arrowhead' formation. Three state-of-the-art, SU-30 MKIs of Indian Air Force executed the Trishul manoeuvre. The culmination of the parade was marked by a lone Su-30 MKI flying at a speed of 900 km/hr splitting the sky with a 'Vertical Charlie' manoeuvre over the saluting dais. The ceremony culminated with the national anthem and release of balloons. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now. Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market. In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender. India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex. Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted. But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted? Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner. If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems. I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now. I want more variation in masturbation I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own. If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end. What is sex toys for Indian? Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation. It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms. They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable. Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner. The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner. It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past. In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping. Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order. In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing. Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome. Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own. But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance. More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around. Sextoy situation in India Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years. In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India. Mumbai Kolkata Bangalore Delhi Chennai Hyderabad These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India. In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well. If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too. If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it. What are Sextoys for beginner? Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms. Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy. I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion. I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy. If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma. Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it. Advantages of using sextoy for Indians There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways. Can have stimulating sex Can develop new sexual zones If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern. However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways. You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation. Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever. There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure. This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it. When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems. It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms). For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles [Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou... Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India. Sextoy for beginner men in India So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners. For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men! The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men Masturbator Cock rings Love Doll Sex Lubricants Toys for the prostate Lets check each one in detail. Masturbator The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products. It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands. Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands. They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.) Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much. Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! ! Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018 Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood. If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ... [For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien... Cock Ring A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis. It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow. It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber. In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection. Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it. Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time. Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function. Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy. You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect. [Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat... Love Doll Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex. There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women. Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price. The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true. You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste. There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice. You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls. If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to... Sex lubricants Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules. It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution. Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse. There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent. Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent. If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here. What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many... Toys for the Prostate Another sextoy for men is prostate toys. The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line. Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men. Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men. What is the prostate? The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm. You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus. By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms. Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.) The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation. Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure. sextoy for beinner women in India The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy. The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy. Vibrator. Dildo Electric Masserger Lets check out what each one is in detail. If you want to check out womens toys, click here. [BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm... Vibrators A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator. Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy. It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy. Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women. For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators. Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex. Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself. This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual. Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men. When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons. Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most... Dildo A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis. It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass. A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it. They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well. It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device. A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo. Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands. For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis. This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one. To learn more about dildo, please click here. What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th... Electric Masserger A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores. It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low. Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels. Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation. It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure. For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm. It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out. If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager? To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here. What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th... How to choose a sextoy for Indian Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one. Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)? Does the size fit you (your partner)? Is the environment able to produce sound without problems? Price range First of all, the choice of size is quite important. Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women. For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage. Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems. Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise. If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level. Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it. Finally, there is the price range. The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest. Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy. Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy? I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance. For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics. If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out. How to buy sextoys in India The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping. For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below. Sextoy is one of them. Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping. SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India. They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry. Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card. To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy. ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal. Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on. Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture. Cautions for Indians using sextoy When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind Keep sex toys clean Watch out for electrical leakage Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone. Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there. It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case. In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness. Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful. If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it. You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly. Summary What did you think? In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India. The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future. As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values. However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health. If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try? Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women. I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it. In cold waters, sharks and fishes slowed metabolism may benefit rivals An African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) on a beach in South Africa. A new study examines why biodiversity among warm-blooded marine predators such as whales, seals and penguins rises in cold, temperate waters. Credit: Adam Wilson A new paper in Science explores a curious trend: why biodiversity among marine mammals and birds generally rises in cold, temperate waters We are living through an era of rapid environmental change and biodiversity loss. Understanding the mechanisms that led to the current spatial distribution of biodiversity is critical to conserving it for future generations. BUFFALO, N.Y. In ecology, the diversity of species generally increases as you move toward the warmer latitudes of the tropics. A new study explores a curious exception to this trend, examining why biodiversity rises in cold, temperate waters among warm-blooded marine predators such as whales, seals and penguins. The research published on Jan. 25 in the journal Science presents a possible explanation for this unusual pattern. We show with data and theory that cold waters slow fishes and sharks metabolism, causing sluggish movement and giving mammals and birds important hunting and competitive advantages, says John Grady, a postdoctoral research associate at the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center and former postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, who led the study. Sharks are easier to avoid and fish are easier to catch when the water is cold. As we conclude in the paper, Overall, warm-bodied predators are favored where prey are slow, stupid and cold, says co-author Adam Wilson, PhD, a biogeographer at the University at Buffalo. Wilson is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. We are living through an era of rapid environmental change and biodiversity loss, Wilson adds. Understanding the mechanisms that led to the current spatial distribution of biodiversity is critical to conserving it for future generations. The study was an international collaboration, with contributors from Michigan State University, Bryn Mawr College, the University of Arizona, the University of New Mexico, the University of Freiburg in Germany, Dalhousie University in Canada, the U.N. Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in the United Kingdom, UB, the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, and Washington University in St. Louis. Bryan, OH (43506) Today Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 65F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC The man suspected of brutally slaughtering three Sheepshead Bay restaurant workers with a hammer will likely face hate-crime charges in addition to the three counts of murder authorities slapped him with, according to a law-enforcement source. The source who requested anonymity due to the ongoing investigation told this newspaper that District Attorney Eric Gonzalez will likely prosecute the alleged murders as hate crimes, hours after locals and pols rallied on Friday to demand 34-year-old Arthur Martunovich face bigotry charges for purportedly killing 50-year-old Tsz Pun, his 34-year-old nephew Fufai Pun, and 60-year-old Thang Ng, with the tool. Lets be clear, this was a racial hate crime, plain and simple, Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan) said at the rally outside the Emmons Avenue eatery at E. 21st Street she co-hosted with Councilman Chaim Deutsch (D-Sheepshead Bay). For that reason, I call upon District Attorney Eric Gonzalez to stand with our community and prosecute these murders as a hate crime. The Councilwoman from the distant isle claimed that Martunovichs alleged killing spree was motivated by racism because he watched a film depicting Asian men abusing women, which convinced the suspect whom a Police Department spokeswoman previously described as emotionally disturbed that he was a savior. He entered the restaurant motivated by a racial stereotype of gender relations in my community, with a goal to massacre, believing himself to be sort of a savior, the attacker bludgeoned these restaurant workers while they were doing their job, Chin said. Gonzalezs spokesman Oren Yaniv could not confirm Chins allegations, however, citing officials ongoing investigation. Martunovich has yet to be arraigned because he is still in a psych ward, according to Yaniv, who said he will undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine if he is fit to stand trial. And if authorities deem Martunovich unfit to immediately go before a court, he will be sent to a mental institution until he is able, Yaniv said. Cops arrested Martunovich, who lives in Manhattan Beach, on Jan. 16, the day after he allegedly assaulted the men with the hammer, immediately killing the younger Pun, with the elder Pun and Ng dying from injuries sustained in the attack on Jan. 24 and Jan. 18 respectively. The incident left locals and the Asian-American community in particular reeling, according to one Bensonhurst resident, who called herself a patron of the restaurant and said she knew one of the victims, but declined to name him. It was really scary because I actually went here a few times when I was young, and it hit close to home for me, said Mina Zheng. And the fact that the grisly incident occurred inside an eatery made it even more devastating, Zheng said, because many Asian-Americans have family or friends who work in the restaurant business. The fact is, because we are Asian, we know what its like having relatives working in a restaurant. Its a very common job in the community, and to see something like that happen in a place where its so unlikely to hear about is really shocking, she said. Zhengs friend, who lives a few blocks away from the site of the alleged triple homicide, said news of the attack sent shock waves through the local community, many of whose Asian residents spread the news immediately via the Chinese messaging app WeChat. I was saddened because all of our parents sent me some WeChat news about it, said Brian Sa, whose parents also used to work at a restaurant. They told me, Hey, the Seaport Buffet just got attacked, and its a couple blocks down from me so they were asking, Are you ok? The news that Gonzalez will likely prosecute the incident as a bigoted crime follows his recent formation of a dedicated Hate Crimes Bureau, which the top prosecutor created following a recent rise in biased attacks among vulnerable communities across the borough. Reach reporter Kevin Duggan at (718) 2602511 or by e-mail at kdugg an@sc hneps media.com . Follow him on Twitter @kduggan16. "Today I speak to the people of Venezuela, and especially to my brothers in the armed forces of the nation, to recognise President Juan Guaido as the only legitimate president," Colonel Jose Luis Silva said in a video recorded at the embassy in Washington, seated at a desk alongside the Venezuelan flag. Hours earlier in the United Nations Security Council, the US urged all nations to support Guaido while Russia accused the Trump administration of attempting "to engineer a coup d'etat" against Maduro - a reflection of the world's deep divisions over the crisis in the embattled Latin American country. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the UN Security Council at a meeting called by the US on Saturday that it's beyond time to back the Venezuelan people as they try to free themselves from what he called Maduro's "illegitimate mafia state" and back Guaido, who has declared himself the country's interim president, arguing that Maduro's re-election was fraudulent. But Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Venezuela doesn't threaten international peace and security and accused "extremist opponents" of Maduro's legitimate government of choosing "maximum confrontation", including the artificial creation of a parallel government. He urged Pompeo to say whether the US will use military force. Pompeo later said: "I am not going to speculate or hypothesise on what the US will do next." In heated back-and-forth exchanges at the meeting, the opposing camp led by Venezuela and Russia, which has invested heavily in Venezuelas oil industry, accused Washington of attempting a coup, and lambasted Europeans demand that elections be called within eight days. What has played out in Venezuela and the world's media between supporters and opponents of the Maduro government played out face-to-face in the chamber of the UN's most powerful body, which has failed to take action on the Venezuelan crisis because of deep divisions, especially among the Security Council's five veto-wielding permanent members. The leaders of two of those council nations - France and Britain - joined Spain and Germany to turn up the pressure on Maduro, saying they would follow the US and others in recognising Guaido unless Venezuela calls new presidential elections within eight days. Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, has demanded that countries 'pick a side' as the power struggle in Venezuela intensifies. Credit:Bloomberg But the opposition to Guaido was reflected in the initial procedural vote on whether the 15-member Security Council should even discuss the crisis in Venezuela, which is not on its official agenda. The US barely survived the vote to go ahead with the meeting, receiving the minimum nine "yes" votes from the council's six Western nations along with Kuwait, Peru and the Dominican Republic. China, South Africa and Equatorial Guinea joined Russia in voting "no" while Indonesia and Ivory Coast abstained. Pompeo went after Russia and China, accusing them of trying "to prop up Maduro while he is in dire straits ... in the hopes of recovering billions of dollars in ill-considered investments and assistance made over the years". Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, demanded to know if the United States intended to use force. Credit:Bloomberg But he saved his sharpest attack for Cuba, saying no country has done more to sustain "the nightmarish condition of the Venezuelan people". He said Cuba has sent "security and intelligence thugs" to sustain Maduro's "illegitimate rule". "Now is the time for every other national to pick a side," Pompeo said. "No more delays, no more games. Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro and his mayhem." China's UN Ambassador Ma Zhaoxu said his government "firmly opposed" the US accusations and doesn't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. "We hope the country that accuses others can do likewise itself," Ma told the council. The council meeting came a day after Guaido vowed to remain on the streets until his country has a transitional government, while Maduro dug in and accused his opponents of orchestrating a coup. Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's President, speaks during a televised press conference in Caracas on Friday. Credit:Bloomberg "They can cut a flower, but they will never keep spring from coming," Guaido told supporters Friday, alluding to a similar phrase from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. In rival press conferences, Guaido urged his followers to stage another mass protest next week, while Maduro pushed his call for dialogue. Each man appeared ready to defend his claim to the presidency no matter the cost, with Guaido telling supporters that if he is arrested they should "stay the course" and peacefully protest. But the standoff could set the scene for more violence and has plunged troubled Venezuela into a new chapter of political turmoil that rights groups say has already left more than two dozen dead as thousands take to the street demanding Maduro step down. Members of the opposition gather to propose amnesty laws for police and military, in Las Mercedes neighbourhood of Caracas, Venezuela, on Saturday. Credit:AP Guaido took a symbolic oath of office Wednesday proclaiming himself the nation's constitutional leader on grounds that Maduro's re-election last year was fraudulent - an allegation supported by the US, the European Union and many other nations. Loading The Trump government announced it was recognising the 35-year-old quickly after his oath, leading Maduro to say that he was breaking all diplomatic ties with the US and expelling US diplomats. Guaido told the Americans to stay. Pompeo told the Security Council on Saturday: "Let me be 100 per cent clear - President Trump and I fully expect that our diplomats will continue to receive protections provided under the Vienna Convention. Do not test the United States on our resolve to protect our people." Guaido's move is the most direct challenge to Maduro's rule despite years of protests at home and international efforts to isolate the regime amid a growing humanitarian crisis fuelled by falling oil prices and government mismanagement. Maduro is accusing the opposition of working with the US to overthrow him. Though over a dozen nations are recognising Guaido as president, Maduro still has the support of the military and powerful, longtime allies such as Russia and China. In the government's dark days following its near-death experience at the 2016 election, Christopher Pyne deployed his trademark flair to declare the Coalition an "election-winning machine". The proclamation fast became something of a joke but those three words perfectly describe the track record of the Liberal Party's most polarising figure: Tony Abbott. A 25-year political veteran, Abbott has fought and won nine elections in his blue-ribbon Sydney seat of Warringah - a byelection in 1994 and general elections in 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016. He fought and won a ballot to become opposition leader in 2009, fought and nearly toppled Julia Gillard at the 2010 election, and was swept into The Lodge in a landslide in 2013. The only election the 61-year-old has ever truly lost was the 2015 leadership spill that ended his prime ministership. Former prime minister Tony Abbott is facing a fight in Warringah but enters the contest ahead. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Underestimate Abbott at your peril. The man knows how to win and enters the 2019 race for Warringah ahead courtesy of what should be an impenetrable 11.1 per cent margin. Every time a young person in crisis was turned away, he said, it put them at higher risk of "disengaging" from services - and that it might only take "one or two other shocks, or a significant change in circumstance", to push them over the edge. The average national wait time for an initial assessment - often by a social worker - is 10 days, then a further 25 days for those who need to see a psychologist or mental health clinician. "That said, Headspace aims to identify at-risk clients who may express suicidal ideation and they will be absolutely prioritised," Mr Trethowan said. A high staff turnover at some centres has resulted in young people having to see multiple clinicians, jeopardising continuity of care. "I've had clients saying to me 'I gave up on Headspace after waiting so long to see someone, then seeing five different people; I got sick of having to keep telling my story'," a bulk-billing psychologist in private practice said. Headspace centres tend to rely on psychologists hired on one-year contracts, leaving them exposed to job insecurity and unreliable incomes. They are generally paid through the Medicare bulk billing system, with the organisation taking between 20 and 30 per cent of their $85 fee. If a client fails to show up, as young people are prone to do, they do not get paid. One former contractor said while she had loved working with young people and supported the ideals of preventative mental health, it had been too difficult to sustain a living in the role. "I can't remember a day when everybody on my caseload turned up on a given day," the psychologist said. The ABS last year revealed suicide deaths had risen by 9 per cent to 3128 in 2017, in the most recent data available, prompting calls for "stark action". The Productivity Commission review into the mental health system is set to examine how the $9 billion a year spent on mental health - including $4.7 billion of federal funding - is allocated. But it will not report back until after the federal election, due in May. Mr Trethowan wants Headspace's problems to be addressed before then, calling on both major parties to commit to a significant funding boost. Health Minister Greg Hunt announced a $47 million funding injection for Headspace's head office earlier this month, on top of $51.8 million to boost centres' funding by 8 per cent over four years - increasing the average Headspace centre's base grant to $909,000 a year - announced in October. The government has also announced $6.4 million to build four new Headspace satellite services in rural areas and $110 million for early intervention in psychosis. But Mr Trethowan said this would not be enough, and that the organisation needed to boost funding for its existing centres by a further $35 million over the next three years. Mr Hickie said it was time to ramp up the political pressure by publishing waiting lists, like the ones that exist for emergency departments and public hospital surgery. "Imagine if a person with a heart problem walked in and was told eight weeks - there would be a royal commission," he said. Patrick McGorry says Headspace needs to be scaled up to meet increased demand. Credit:Eddie Jim Headspace co-founder and former Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry supported the idea of publishing waiting lists, saying "the public has a right to know". Professor McGorry said the fact that the centres had waiting lists for psychological services showed that there was "a huge unmet need", and that the organisation had succeeded in persuading young people to seek help in a stigma-free environment. "It's really positive that the young people are willing to vote with their feet and actually seek help, but it's no good if they have to wait several weeks - because they need it now," he said. Mr Trethowan that while Headspace would consider the proposal to make its waiting lists public, caution must be taken to ensure that young people were not discouraged from seeking help. A spokeswoman for Mr Hunt said the Morrison government was "deeply committed to ensuring young people seeking mental health services such as Headspace are getting the support they need". The minister was involved in ongoing discussions with Headspace and would "consider further proposals", she said. Loading A dozen officers on horseback were at the front of the march, and police with cameras were dotted around the gathering, monitoring the crowd. Among the Abolish Australia Day signs were posters bearing the faces of Aboriginal men and women who have died in police custody. Signatures on a petition to abolish controversial public drunkenness laws spilled across dozens of pages. We are sick of the pain, we are sick of the loss, every single day. We need you every day, said one woman, addressing white Australians in the crowd. Its up to you if you want to come out once a year and protest or if you will work every single day to change what this country is about, she said. A woman carries a sign calling for the abolition of Australia Day while taking part in the Invasion Day march in Melbourne. Credit:Chris Hopkins Tensions rose when it looked for a moment that officers would not allow protesters to bring a truck carrying speakers past the police line. Protesters shouted let us through, some pushing up against the wall of officers, trying to break past. As the crowd began to roar with boos and shouts, police were forced to move back, re-establishing a barricade a block down. Plans by far-right activist and convicted criminal Neil Erikson and supporters of his United Patriots Front to disrupt the official parade by joining in uninvited were thwarted when they were unable to get through barricades placed along Swanston Street. An Invasion Day protester shouts at a far-right nationalist after he refused to move off the Flinders Street steps during the Invasion Day march. Credit:Chris Hopkins Erikson arrived at Federation Square shortly after 11am, draped in an Australian flag, and was joined by just a dozen supporters, who earlier told The Age they were going to join in the parade even though they were not officially part of it. We just want to wave our Australian flags, one United Patriots supporter said. However, after walking up and down Swanson Street looking for an opportunity to slip through the barricades, the group headed back to Federation Square where police spoke to Erikson before the group quickly dispersed. There had earlier been concerns that Eriksons group could potentially clash with Invasion Day marchers and cause ugly scenes similar to those that occurred at a rally organised by Erikson and Blair Cottrell in St Kilda in January to take back the beach from African crime gangs. Police led a far-right nationalist away from Invasion Day protesters at Flinders Street Station. Credit:Chris Hopkins After the march ended, police descended when a fight broke out on the steps of Flinders Street station, where a small group of far-right nationalists stood with an Australian flag under the clocks. Officers gathered as tentions escalated among the men and surrounding protesters. It is believed that one person grabbed another persons flag, and a fight erupted. Several people were dragged down the steps into the crowd and witnesses say a group of men were wrestling on the ground, shoving each other and yelling. A dozen officers quickly broke up the fight and at least one far-right nationalist was marched away, surrounded by police. The marchers yelled no pride in genocide when they saw the disturbance. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Invasion Day dawn service an 'emotional' ceremony A dawn service at Kings Domain preceded the Invasion Day protest and Australia Day festivities. About 600 people started their day at the service, acknowledging and mourning the frontier wars and Aboriginal massacres. The service at Kings Domain where the bodies of 38 Victorian first nations people are buried included speeches, a minute's silence, a smoking and ochre ceremony and the reading out of known massacre sites across the state. Former Northcote state MP Lidia Thorpe addresses those gathered at Parliament House for Melbourne's Invasion Day rally on Saturday. Credit:Chris Hopkins "It was quite an emotional ceremony and there were people from all parts of our society, all nationalities and people were heartfelt in terms of sharing what we call this day and that is a day of mourning," Gunnai-Kurnai and Gunditjmara woman and former Northcote MP Lidia Thorpe said. A dawn service was held because "this country stops for a horse race, it stops for an AFL grand final, it stops for the Queen's birthday and it stops for an Anzac service and we don't have ever a time where this country stands still to reflect on first peoples of this country and the pain and suffering we've endured since colonisation." Ms Thorpe said she hoped the dawn service was a peaceful way to bring Australians together around acknowledging the hurt Australia Day brings for Aboriginal people. A treaty with the first nations is also needed, which consults indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, Ms Thorpe said. Community and cultural groups joined the official Australia Day parade through central Melbourne on Saturday. Credit:Luis Ascui Multicultural Melbourne, in all its colourful glory, was out in force for the official Australia Day parade along Swanston Street. Loading Around 8000 people lined the city street to watch the event, which included a colourful line-up of Victorian cultural groups - from the brightly dressed Victorian Bangladeshi Community Foundation to the Vintage Cycle Club of Victoria - who joined the parade on a diverse range of vintage bicycles, dressed in traditional Victorian-era garb. Reiza Mukhlis from Balwyn arrived early to get a front-row view of the parade with his children. A former Queensland Labor MP is being sued for defamation after allegedly claiming on Facebook that a candidate for Moreton Bay mayor was a Nazi sympathiser. Retiree and candidate for mayoral candidate Eric Shields filed the defamation claim in the Federal Court in January, alleging former Pumicestone MP Rick Williams had defamed him by claiming Mr Shields agreed with Hitlers policies and was a Nazi sympathiser. Former MP Rick Williams has been taken to court over posts he allegedly made on Facebook. Credit:File Mr Williams was contacted for comment. In court documents filed in the Federal Court detailing the claim, Mr Shields says in multiple posts on Facebook Mr Williams said he was responsible for the destruction of the lives of thousands of Australian Youth by hooking them on to alcopops and described Mr Shields as a corrupt thing. MARRIED AT FIRST SIGHT Series return 7.30pm, Nine Let the bed-hopping begin! From humble beginnings as a kooky but kind of genuine "social experiment" (no kookier than some arranged marriages, for instance) Married at First Sight has burgeoned into a televisual phenomenon that makes you wonder what on earth this year's participants can be expecting to get out of it. Apart from notoriety, free food and accommodation for a month, and rampant partner-swapping. Actually, I think I just answered my own question Married at First Sight is a televisual phenomenon. MY KITCHEN RULES Series return 7.30pm, Seven Reality TV is always all about the characters but nowhere is that more true than with My Kitchen Rules. And this year they've outdone themselves, establishing from the get-go the familiar roster of pantomime heroes and villains. Among other highlights we have a dude in an eye patch, a chap with so much Botox he should be on Real Housewives, a couple of young blokes described as "terrorists" but who mostly just seem kind of rude, and of course the essential "everyday Aussies". In February, Texans experienced forced rolling and extended blackouts ordered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas as demand for electricity spiked during a winter storm. On Monday, ERCOT took precaution to avoid blackouts by urging Texans to conserve power through Friday as summer temperatures continue to rise. Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, and ERCOT officials said the outages were unexpected. Are you satisfied with ERCOTs oversight of the states electric grid? You voted: LET THE SUNSHINE IN MA15+, 94 minutes. Australian Centre for the Moving Image, until Tuesday February 12 This recent feature from Claire Denis, consistently the best French filmmaker of the last 25 years, has been described as a romantic-comedy. To be fair, in detailing the life of Isabelle (Juliette Binoche), a divorced Parisian artist, it has moments of wry humour and her primary concern is to find both romantic and sexual satisfaction, but to pin a genre on Denis makes the same mistake as trying to neatly define Isabelle. The filmmaker and her character are equally untethered, enquiring women, not so much concerned with securing a definitive answer as engaging with the possibilities raised by their searches. The difference, perhaps, is that the milieu is without the extremes that have underpinned so many Denis movies. Isabella operates from a position of comparative safety, auditioning and abandoning men in bars and bedrooms pillow talk has never been so tellingly playful in the director's previous films. Binoche's gift for suggesting a life's multitudes, right down to the inexplicable contradictions that are Isabelle's wellspring, is used to marvellous effect by Denis. To the quixotic finale Binoche delivers a virtuoso turn. Juliette Binoche in Let the Sunshine In. SWING KIDS MA15+, 133 minutes. Now screening South Korean cinemas has a welcome habit of launching filmmakers whose populist streak makes them open to innovation and genre-bending, as opposed to their staid Hollywood equivalents who are diligent and uninspiring. It's a distinction readily apparent in writer/director Kang Hyeong-cheol's new feature, a tap-dance musical set in a prisoner of war camp during the Korean War. The soundtrack for the cast's moves includes David Bowie and Benny Goodman, and the tone is equally eclectic: slapstick humour, graceful choreography, dramatic rigour, and personal melodrama all feature. When a black American guard, Jackson (Jared Grimes), who is a former Broadway hoofer, is ordered to put together a tap performance for visiting press, his recruits include North Korean soldier Ro-Ki-soo (K-pop star Do Kyung-soo). Their bond transcends ideology, and that's the overly long film's goal: dance through political divides. Three men have been charged with money laundering after around 900,000 (1m) in cash was found in a van stopped at the Channel Tunnel. The trio were arrested at the Folkestone terminal on Wednesday, Kent Police said. A 21-year-old man is being hunted after his parents were shot dead in their home in Louisiana. Dakota Theriot, 21, has been identified by police as a prime suspect after Keith and Elizabeth Theriot were killed in their trailer in Gonzales on Saturday morning. Dakota Theriot, 21, is being sought by police (Ascension police/AP) Three other people were also shot dead nearby in an incident being linked by police. Theriot remains at large.- Press Association Gunman on the run after five shot dead in Louisiana Earlier: Five people have died after shootings in two areas of Louisiana, authorities said. A suspect has been identified by police, who say he is still at large. The shootings took place in Ascension and Livingston parishes, about 70 miles west of New Orleans. Livingston sheriff Jason Ard confirmed on Facebook that three deaths happened in his parish on Saturday. The victims have not yet been named. Separately on Facebook, the Ascension Parish sheriff's office said two people were shot dead in the city of Gonzalez. The victims were identified as a husband and wife. Their 21-year-old son is being sought by authorities on first-degree murder charges. Authorities believe the shootings in the two parishes are connected, and investigators from both jurisdictions are working together. A military base deep inside Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles, experts and satellite images suggest, evidence of the type of weapons programme it has long criticised its arch-rival Iran for possessing. Saudi's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman raised the stakes for such a programme when he said last year that the kingdom would not hesitate to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads to targets thousands of miles away. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Having such a programme could further strain relations with the US, the kingdom's longtime security partner, at a time when ties already are being tested by the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said heavy investment in missiles often correlates with an interest in nuclear weapons. "I would be a little worried that we're under-estimating the Saudis' ambitions here," said Mr Lewis, who has studied the satellite images. The images, first reported by the Washington Post, focus on a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, some 145 miles (230km) west of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Jane's Defence Weekly first identified the base in 2013, suggesting its two launch pads appear oriented to target Israel and Iran with ballistic missiles the kingdom previously bought from China. The November satellite images show what appear to be structures big enough to build and fuel ballistic missiles. An apparent rocket-engine test stand can be seen in a corner of the base - the type on which a rocket is positioned on its side and test-fired in place. Such testing is key for countries attempting to manufacture working missiles, experts say. Michael Elleman, senior fellow for missile defence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, also reviewed the satellite photos and said they appear to show a ballistic missile programme. The question remains about where Saudi Arabia gained the technical know-how to build such a facility. Mr Lewis said the Saudi stand closely resembles a design used by China, though it is smaller. Chinese military support to the kingdom would not come as a surprise. The Chinese have increasingly sold armed drones to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East nations, even as the US blocks sales of its own to allies over proliferation concerns. Beijing also sold Riyadh variants of its Dongfeng ballistic missiles, the only ones the kingdom was previously believed to have in its arsenal. Asked by the Associated Press on Friday about the base, China's Defence Ministry declined immediately to comment. "I have never heard of such a thing as China helping Saudi Arabia to build a missile base," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Neither Saudi Arabia nor China are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of rockets capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the United States, have long criticised Iran's ballistic missile programme, viewing it as a regional threat. Iran, whose nuclear programme for now remains limited by its 2015 deal with world powers, insists its atomic programme is peaceful. But Western powers have long feared it was pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a civilian programme, allegations denied by Tehran. Iran has relied on its ballistic missiles as its own air force is largely made up of pre-1979 fighter jets. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has a fleet of modern F-15s, Typhoons and Tornadoes - which raises the question of why the Saudis would choose to develop the missiles. Defence expert Mr Elleman said that, while Saudi pilots are skilled, the kingdom still needs American help with logistics. "Today, they rely heavily on direct American support. There is no absolute guarantee that US forces and supporting functions will aid a Saudi attack on Iranian targets," he told AP. "Ballistic missiles are a reasonable hedge against those concerns." Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been targeted by ballistic missiles fired from neighboring Yemen by the Houthi rebels, some of which have reached Riyadh. Researchers, Western nations and UN experts say Iran supplied those missiles to the rebels, something Tehran and the rebels deny. Saudi Arabia is pursuing its own nuclear program,me and Prince Mohammed, the 33-year-old son of King Salman who is next in line for the throne, said it would race for an atomic weapon if Iran were to develop one. "Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible," he told CBS's 60 Minutes in an interview aired last March. A Saudi programme would only complicate efforts by the US and its Western allies to limit Iran's ballistic missile programme, said Stratfor, a private intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas. Stratfor said "should Saudi Arabia move into a test-launch phase, the United States will be pressured to take action with sanctions", as it has done with Iran. Congress has grown increasingly critical of Saudi Arabia since the October 2 assassination of Mr Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, allegedly carried out by members of Prince Mohammed's entourage. The kingdom's years-long war in Yemen also has angered politicians. If the Saudis produce "medium-range systems inherently capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the response will be much more robust, though likely out of public view," Mr Elleman said. "Congress, on the other hand, may lash out, as this will be seen as another affront to the US and regional stability." PA A man has suffered a slash wound to the face after "disgraceful" disorder ahead of an FA Cup match, police said. Crowds clashed in Southwark, south London, before Millwall took on Everton in the FA Cup fourth round. The Metropolitan Police said on Twitter that they believed the fight was between Millwall and Everton fans. Video posted on social media shows police attempt to separate two large groups as punches were thrown. Officers were called to the scene on Hawkstone Road, Southwark, shortly after 4.30pm, and are urging anybody with any information to come forward. Police are investigating after a large group of males, believed to be Millwall and Everton fans, began fighting in the street in #Southwark earlier today. Those with info that could assist police should call 101 ref 5117/26 Jan https://t.co/Xl9a3HzTZM pic.twitter.com/RmEY0JaIze Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) January 26, 2019 Detective Inspector Darren Young said: "The behaviour of those involved in this incident is nothing short of disgraceful and those involved can be certain we will be working to identify them. "We are aware of the video circulating online which has quite rightly elicited shock and disgust. "We are looking at it and urge anyone with information that could assist police to call 101." Naomi Osaka has won the Australian Open women's singles title by beating Petra Kvitova 7-6 (2) 5-7 6-4 in the final in Melbourne. Osaka drew first blood in the Australian Open final by taking the opening set against Petra Kvitova. The 21-year-old, who has now won back-to-back Grand Slam titles following her success in New York, saw two set points come and go in the 12th game of a high-quality contest but came through on a tie-break. Osaka surged into a 5-1 lead and did not look back, going on to take it 7-2. After losing the second set, Osake had to dig deep to see out the win. Kvitova made it five games in a row to start the decider but crucially Osaka dug in to hold serve in the next game and suddenly she was back on top. A backhand that seemed full of all the anger and frustration Osaka was feeling flew past Kvitova to give the fourth seed the break for 2-1 and this time she did not fold. The reminders were everywhere, particularly when Kvitova recovered from 0-40 at 2-4 with some huge serving, but Osaka kept her composure. And when she stepped up to serve for the match for the second time, she buried her demons, taking her fifth match point for a 7-6 (2) 5-7 6-4 victory. Osaka's win moves her up to number one in the world rankings. - Press Association & Digital Desk Latest: Hundreds of protesters have warned Theresa May that a hard border risks destroying Northern Irelands hard-won peace. A mock checkpoint manned by actors dressed as soldiers and customs officers was constructed close to the frontier in Co Down on Saturday. Hundreds of people joined the protest at the border near Carrickcarnan, Co Louth (Brian Lawless/PA) If the UK leaves Europe without a deal, the free flow of goods could be disrupted by the creation of a hard frontier on the island, the European Commission has said. Demonstrator Tom Murray, from Co Donegal, said it is British Prime Minister Mrs Mays responsibility to sort out the issue. He said: Ireland will not be made to suffer the folly of the Tory party. The protest saw actors in military fatigues playing the role of soldiers manning a wall at the border (Brian Lawless/PA) We will not accept this border, we demand that London sort out the problem that they created. It is more than 20 years since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which largely ended decades of violence. Mr Murray added: All the peace and prosperity that we have enjoyed will be destroyed by a hard border. Communities could be dragged back into the old days of living in the shadow of someone elses border. An armed soldier mans a lookout tower in the mocked-up border checkpoint (Brian Lawless/PA) Security towers manned by the British Army in the hilly and remote area near the city of Newry were decommissioned in 2003 as it ended conflict-era operations in Northern Ireland in support of the police. The Irish and British governments have said they want to avoid a hard border after Brexit, and multiple sources have said Britains withdrawal from the EU should not prompt a return to violence. Some security sources have argued that if customs checks are put in place, police will be required to protect them and that could leave officers at risk from dissident republicans. The Police Service of Northern Ireland has received extra resources for Brexit but have officially envisaged light-touch, community-style policing. Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney this week said it would be difficult to avoid installing new infrastructure following a no-deal Brexit.- Press Association A mock tower is erected during a Brexit demonstration on the border near Dundalk. @rtenews pic.twitter.com/eLWeArTc0O Sinead Hussey (@SineadHus) January 26, 2019 Mock wall to be built in protest against a hard border Brexit Update 12.45pm: A demonstration is scheduled to take place at 3pm to highlight fears over the possibility of a hard border following Brexit. The protest is due to occur on the old Dublin road between Dundalk and Newry at Carrickcaron. Protesters will build a wall to demonstrate the impact infrastructure would have on local communities. Sinn Fein have confirmed they will have representatives in attendance. Border Communities Against Brexit's Damian McGinty said comments from the EU Commission on the border this week have increased concern locally: "We're doing this, you see, because ordinary people do not want their community divided and we're expecting a very big crowd. "There's a huge up-swell on social media. "There's loads of people talking about it and people from particularly early this week when the Commission said that there would have to be a hard border, that's when people suddenly realised, 'oh goodness, this is getting real serious here'." A man and woman in their 70s were killed when their car crashed into a bogland near Killyneil Cross in Monaghan. They had been travelling on the R213 near the Monaghan/ Armagh border when the car left the road. Latest: A hardening of the border will be met with a demand for a unity referendum, the Sinn Fein president has told a Brexit conference. More than 1,500 people attended the Beyond Brexit event in Belfast, which examined the future of Northern Ireland and the Republic after the UK leaves the EU. During her speech, Mary Lou McDonald called for the Government to convene a forum in a bid to begin planning for Irish unity. There are no 'little Irelanders' here and we will not tolerate the narrowness of the Brexiteers or policy of isolation imposed by Brexiteers. The event was organised by Irelands Future, a collective of Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland seeking to highlight the potential impact of Brexit on their rights and livelihoods. Other speakers at the Waterfront Hall included SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Education Minister Joe McHugh and deputy leader of Fianna Fail Dara Calleary. Ms McDonald said crashing out of the EU with no deal in place would lead to a hardening of the border. There are no little Irelanders here and we will not tolerate the narrowness of the Brexiteers or policy of isolation imposed by Brexiteers, she said. A crash means a hardening of the border and the loss of rights and continued uncertainty and instability. A hardening of the border is inconceivable and will be met with the demand for a unity referendum. We dont exactly know what will happen over the next few weeks or months. Its not in our hands, its in the hands of a minority Tory Government in London, and that is the crux of the problem. Its irresponsible and arrogant for a Dublin Government to shout down any prospect of a unity referendum. While there were no Unionist politicians speaking at the event, Ms McDonald issued a direct message to the unionist community saying they would have a home in a united Ireland. She added: You will have a place at the table, a place at the centre of political life and not left in the margins of Westminster. The Protestant, loyalist and unionist community are part of the fabric and diversity of our nation and they must be part of the discussion in shaping the new Ireland and be partners in building a new Ireland. Our shared and often troubled history can be reconciled. Regardless of Brexit there will be a unity referendum. Its our job to secure that, to win it and win it well. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood voiced concern about any hardening of the Irish border (Brian Lawless/PA) There are Unionists who are willing to engage and explore new possibilities, he said. Unionism should have nothing to fear in a conversation based on persuasion and consent. My appeal to unionism is this try to convince us of your vision for the future and well try to convince you of ours and then in time let the people decide. He also raised his concerns over the hardening of the border, saying it would be a deliberate violation of the political process by the British Government. There is no getting away from the fact that Brexit has changed everything and will continue to change everything, he added. Mr McHugh, a Donegal TD, told the crowd it is imperative that the peace process is protected. He added: The impact of Brexit will of course be felt across this island in many different ways. We are doing everything we possibly can to prepare for and mitigate those impacts. We believed it was imperative to protect the hard-won progress in repairing and building the three sets of relationships encompassed by the Good Friday Agreement which were all supported and improved by our common EU membership. Education Minister Joe McHugh told the conference that the peace process must be protected after Brexit (Brian Lawless/PA) Referring to last Saturdays New IRA car bomb in Derry, Mr McHugh said it was an appallingly reckless act of terror. Mr Calleary was critical about how Brexit has consumed political systems, adding that issues on both sides of the Irish Sea have been minimised and forgotten about. He said: The issues about health, homelessness, infrastructure, are all relegated. Those are the issues that peoples lives are dependant on, yet the energy of politics, the energy of the civil service, has been consumed by this political process. We cannot ignore issues like climate change, we cannot ignore inequality in our education system, health and housing system. We have to come up with a process that can deal with the issues around rights-based legislation and issues that are blocking the return of the institutions. Meanwhile Niall Murphy, a Belfast solicitor and co-organiser of the event, criticised the DUPs opposition to an Irish language act. He described it as an example of the DUPs sneering contempt for parity of esteem. He added: Our language is an intrinsic part of all of our identity as citizens, yet we endure contemptuous taunts, such as Curry My Yoghurt and Crocodiles, and the cancellation of microscopic bursaries for the Donegal Gaeltacht.- Press Association Ireland's future being discussed at major conference in Belfast Earlier: The future of Ireland is the topic at a major civic nationalist conference taking place in Belfast this afternoon. Over 1,000 people are attending the Beyond Brexit event organised by Ireland's Future. Speakers include the Education Minister Joe McHugh, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, Fianna Fail Deputy Leader Darragh Calleary and SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood. The initiative stems from letters sent to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar over the past 14 months, urging him to 'give voice' to concerns on issues including Brexit and the collapse of Stormont powersharing. Health Minister Simon Harris is facing backlash over the level of uncertainty regarding the CervicalCheck Programme. 6,000 women will receive letters next week asking them to take another smear test as their original one was made unreliable due to being delayed. We need a comprehensive explanation from Minister Simon Harris in relation to the latest Cervical Check revelations. And why he acted against advice. His and the Taoiseachs failure to inform the Dail and the public on a matter of deep public interest only compounds the problem. Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) January 24, 2019 Fianna Fail TD Lisa Chambers said the Health Minister must tack the confusion immediately: "Now, because of the backlog, it's taking in excess of six months to actually get results back to women. "I want the Health Minister to come before the Oireachtas, to come before the Dail, to make a statement as to what exactly happened, what he knew, when he knew it and when this became abundantly clear that there were huge problems with the test back in November, why didn't he inform the Dail back then? "Secondly, we don't have a clinical lead for cervical checks following the resignation of the lead last year and we need to see leadership within the program . "A clinical lead needs to be appointed immediately." Minister of State for European Affairs Helen McEntee has said the UK must live up to its obligations to prevent the return of a hard border and protect the peace process. Ms McEntee told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We absolutely expect that the UK will fulfil its commitment, and will live up to its obligations because Brexit, or no Brexit, the UK Government is a co-guarantor of what is an international peace treaty. "And integral to protecting that peace treaty is ensuring that we never return to any kind of borders that we saw in the past." Ms McEntee insisted a backstop to prevent a hard border was "absolutely necessary", saying: "There seems to be a discussion ongoing at the moment that we will tweak, or we'll amend, or we might take out the Irish backstop. "We are not at the beginning of negotiations. This is not a question as to whether or not we need an Irish backstop. "Brexit happened more than two-and-a-half years ago, negotiations have been ongoing for two years and it is because of the UK's red lines, it is because the UK has said we are leaving the single market, we are leaving the customs union, and for us that makes it more difficult to avoid a border. "It is because of those red lines that a backstop is absolutely necessary." Ms McEntee said: "I think now, for some reason, the onus by the UK has been shifted back on Ireland. That we should compromise. That we are the ones that are trying to be awkward or difficult. "We did not vote for Brexit. We do not believe in it. We absolutely respect that it was a democratic decision, of course we do. "We are protecting a peace process. There is an obligation on the UK to ensure that the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, is protected. "And any suggestion that they can walk away from that, we simply won't accept that." She added: "For us the Good Friday Agreement is much more important than Brexit." PA Vodafone narrowly missed a consensus analyst forecast for third-quarter revenue after competition in southern Europe continued to bite and it cut prices in South Africa, sending its shares down as much as 5%. Service revenue fell 3.9% to 9.79bn in the three months to the end of December, narrowly below the average analyst forecast of 9.82bn in a company-compiled survey. Organic service revenue rose 0.1%. Vodafone is sandwiched between big former monopolies and low-cost challengers in fiercely competitive markets and new CEO Nick Read is under pressure to stop its European business shrinking. In Europe, organic service revenue fell 1.1% but the carrier said there were improving customer and financial trends in Italy, robust retail growth in Germany, reduced churn in Spain, and a consistent performance in the UK. Goldman Sachs analysts noted the improved commercial trajectory in Italy and Spain, but said a rebound to growth was unlikely to happen before next year. Vodafone needs regulators to clear its 8.4bn purchase of Liberty Global assets in central Europe so it can better compete with Deutsche Telekom. It has put its telecom towers into a separate business unit, which would make it easier to share masts with other carriers and cut costs. Its shares have fallen by more than a third over the past 12 months, compared to a 14% drop in the Stoxx 600 Telecommunications index. And RBC analysts led by Wilton Fry say its dividend policy was unsustainable. Lower mobile contract churn across our markets and improved customer trends in Italy and Spain are encouraging, however, these have not yet translated into our financial results, with a similar revenue trend in Europe to the second quarter, Vodafone said. Meanwhile, Vodafone is suspending some equipment purchases from Huawei Technologies in another setback for the Chinese tech giants growth ambitions. Vodafone, one of the worlds largest mobile carriers, will pause buying Huawei equipment for the core of its networks in Europe amid talks with the company and various agencies and governments, the companys chief executive Nick Read said. There is too much noise around the situation and there needs to be more facts, he said. Carriers are becoming wary of expanding their ties to Huawei amid a US-led crackdown. President Donald Trumps administration has been pushing allies to block Huawei from fifth-generation wireless networks, citing fears China could use its equipment for spying, something its executives have denied. Bloomberg Nestle chairman Paul Bulcke says he would not pursue short-term efforts at the expense of long-term success, in the face of scrutiny from shareholder activists who know how to pressure-point you and tease. Hedge fund Third Point, run by shareholder activist Daniel Loeb, took a $3bn (2.63bn) stake in Nestle in 2017, and has said that the maker of KitKat bars and Perrier water could double its earnings per share by 2022 if it splits up its businesses. Impatient with a lack of World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules to cover the explosive growth of e-commerce, 76 countries and regions including the EU, US, and Japan have agreed to start negotiating a set of open and predictable regulations. China, which is locked in a trade war with the US, signalled conditional support for the initiative but said it should also take into account the needs of developing countries, in comments likely to rile Washington. E-commerce, or online trade in goods and services, has become a huge component of the global economy. A WTO report put the total value of e-commerce in 2016 at 24tn, of which nearly 21tn was business-to- business transactions. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, negotiators from the 76 countries and regions agreed to hammer out an agenda for negotiations they hope to kick off this year on setting new e-commerce rules. The current WTO rules dont match the needs of the 21st century. You can tell that from the fact there are no solid rules on e-commerce, Japans trade minister Hiroshige Seko told reporters in Davos. In their joint statement, the members of the coalition said: We will seek to achieve a high-standard outcome that builds on existing WTO agreements and frameworks with the participation of as many WTO members as possible. Chinas WTO ambassador Zhang Xiangchen said the e-commerce declaration could have been better drafted but Beijing was a still willing to co-sponsor it and would play an active role in the exploratory talks. However, Beijings call for full respect [to be] accorded to the reasonable requests of developing members could increase friction with Washington, which says the WTO must stop giving special treatment to countries such as China that call themselves developing. India did not join the initiative. It has previously said that the WTO should finish off the stalled but development-oriented Doha Round of talks before moving into new areas. However, trade experts say the global trade rulebook is rapidly becoming outdated and needs to keep up or become obsolete. A recent study found that 70 regional trade agreements already include provisions or chapters on e-commerce. Last month, the WTOs 164 members failed to consolidate some 25 separate e-commerce proposals at a conference at Buenos Aires, including a call to set up a central e-commerce negotiating forum. Reuters NEW YORK - The Toronto-based researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 25/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In this image from video, a man who identified himself as Michel Lambert, a director at the Paris-based agricultural technology firm CPW-Consulting, reacts during an interview at a restaurant in New York on Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Lambert is one of two undercover operatives who have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance. (AP Photo/Joseph Frederick) NEW YORK - The Toronto-based researchers who reported that Israeli software was used to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle before his gruesome death are being targeted in turn by international undercover operatives, The Associated Press has found. Twice in the past two months, men masquerading as socially conscious investors have lured members of the Citizen Lab internet watchdog group to meetings at luxury hotels to quiz them for hours about their work exposing Israeli surveillance and the details of their personal lives. In both cases, the researchers believe they were secretly recorded. Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert described the stunts as "a new low." "We condemn these sinister, underhanded activities in the strongest possible terms," he said in a statement Friday. "Such a deceitful attack on an academic group like the Citizen Lab is an attack on academic freedom everywhere." Who these operatives are working for remains a riddle, but their tactics recall those of private investigators who assume elaborate false identities to gather intelligence or compromising material on critics of powerful figures in government or business. Citizen Lab, based out of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, has for years played a leading role in exposing state-backed hackers operating in places as far afield as Tibet , Ethiopia and Syria . Lately the group has drawn attention for its repeated exposes of an Israeli surveillance software vendor called the NSO Group, a firm whose wares have been used by governments to target journalists in Mexico , opposition figures in Panama and human rights activists in the Middle East . In October, Citizen Lab reported that an iPhone belonging to one of Khashoggi's confidantes had been infected by the NSO's signature spy software only months before Khashoggi's grisly murder. The friend, Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, would later claim that the hacking had exposed Khashoggi's private criticisms of the Saudi royal family to the Arab kingdom's spies and thus "played a major role" in his death. In a statement, NSO denied having anything to do with the undercover operations targeting Citizen Lab, "either directly or indirectly" and said it had neither hired nor asked anyone to hire private investigators to pursue the Canadian organization. "Any suggestion to the contrary is factually incorrect and nothing more than baseless speculation," NSO said. NSO has long denied that its software was used to target Khashoggi, although it has refused to comment when asked whether it has sold its software to the Saudi government more generally. The first message reached Bahr Abdul Razzak, a Syrian refugee who works as a Citizen Lab researcher, Dec. 6, when a man calling himself Gary Bowman got in touch via LinkedIn. The man described himself as a South African financial technology executive based in Madrid. "I came across your profile and think that the work you've done helping Syrian refugees and your extensive technical background could be a great fit for our new initiative," Bowman wrote. Abdul Razzak said he thought the proposal was a bit odd, but he eventually agreed to meet the man at Toronto's swanky Shangri-La Hotel on the morning of Dec. 18. The conversation got weird very quickly, Abdul Razzak said. Instead of talking about refugees, Abdul Razzak said, Bowman grilled him about his work for Citizen Lab and its investigations into the use of NSO's software. Abdul Razzak said Bowman appeared to be reading off cue cards, asking him if he was earning enough money and throwing out pointed questions about Israel, the war in Syria and Abdul Razzak's religiosity. "Do you pray?" Abdul Razzak recalled Bowman asking. "Why do you write only about NSO?" ''Do you write about it because it's an Israeli company?" ''Do you hate Israel?" Abdul Razzak said he emerged from the meeting feeling shaken. He alerted his Citizen Lab colleagues, who quickly determined that the breakfast get-together had been a ruse. Bowman's supposed Madrid-based company, FlameTech, had no web presence beyond a LinkedIn page, a handful of social media profiles and an entry in the business information platform Crunchbase. A reverse image search revealed that the profile picture of the man listed as FlameTech's chief executive, Mauricio Alonso, was a stock photograph. "My immediate gut feeling was: 'This is a fake,'" said John Scott-Railton, one of Abdul Razzak's colleagues. Scott-Railton flagged the incident to the AP, which confirmed that FlameTech was a digital facade. Searches of the Orbis database of corporate records, which has data on some 300 million global companies, turned up no evidence of a Spanish firm called FlameTech or Flame Tech or any company anywhere in the world matching its description. Similarly, the AP found no record of FlameTech in Madrid's official registry or of a Gary Bowman in the city's telephone listings. An Orbis search for Alonso, the supposed chief executive, also drew a blank. When an AP reporter visited Madrid's Crystal Tower high-rise, where FlameTech claimed to have 250 sq. meters (2,700 sq. feet) of office space, he could find no trace of the firm and calls to the number listed on its website went unanswered. The AP was about to publish a story about the curious company when, on Jan. 9, Scott-Railton received an intriguing message of his own. This time the contact came not from Bowman of FlameTech but from someone who identified himself as Michel Lambert, a director at the Paris-based agricultural technology firm CPW-Consulting. Lambert had done his homework. In his introductory email , he referred to Scott-Railton's early doctoral research on kite aerial photography a mapping technique using kite-mounted cameras and said he was "quite impressed." "We have a few projects and clients coming up that could significantly benefit from implementing Kite Aerial Photography," he said. Like FlameTech, CPW-Consulting was a fiction. Searches of Orbis and the French commercial court registry Infogreffe turned up no trace of the supposedly Paris-based company or indeed of any Paris-based company bearing the acronym CPW. And when the AP visited CPW's alleged office there was no evidence of the company; the address was home to a mainly residential apartment building. Residents and the building's caretaker said they had never heard of the firm. Whoever dreamed up CPW had taken steps to ensure the illusion survived a casual web search, but even those efforts didn't bear much scrutiny. The company had issued a help wanted ad, for example, seeking a digital mapping specialist for their Paris office, but Scott-Railton discovered that the language had been lifted almost word-for-word from an ad from an unrelated company seeking a mapping specialist in London. A blog post touted CPW as a major player in Africa, but an examination of the author's profile suggests the article was the only one the blogger had ever written. When Lambert suggested an in-person meeting in New York during a Jan. 19 phone call , Scott-Railton felt certain that Lambert was trying to set him up. But Scott-Railton agreed to the meeting. He planned to lay a trap of his own. __ Anyone watching Scott-Railton and Lambert laughing over wagyu beef and lobster bisque at the Peninsula Hotel's upscale restaurant on Thursday afternoon might have mistaken the pair for friends. In fact, the lunch was Spy vs. Spy. Scott-Railton had spent the night before trying to secret a homemade camera into his tie, he later told AP, eventually settling for a GoPro action camera and several recording devices hidden about his person. On the table, Lambert had placed a large pen in which Scott-Railton said he spotted a tiny camera lens peeking out from an opening in the top. Lambert didn't seem to be alone. At the beginning of the meal, a man sat behind him, holding up his phone as if to take pictures and then abruptly left the restaurant, having eaten nothing. Later, two or three men materialized at the bar and appeared to be monitoring proceedings. Scott-Railton wasn't alone either. A few tables away, two Associated Press journalists were making small talk as they waited for a signal from Scott-Railton, who had invited the reporters to observe the lunch from nearby and then interview Lambert near the end of the meal. The conversation began with a discussion of kites, gossip about African politicians, and a detour through Scott-Railton's family background. But Lambert, just like Bowman, eventually steered the talk to Citizen Lab and NSO. "Work drama? Tell me, I like drama!" Lambert said at one point, according to Scott-Railton's recording of the conversation. "Is there a big competition between the people inside Citizen Lab?" he asked later. Like Bowman, Lambert appeared to be working off cue cards and occasionally made awkward conversational gambits. At one point he repeated a racist French expression, insisting it wasn't offensive. He also asked Scott-Railton questions about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and whether he grew up with any Jewish friends. At another point he asked whether there might not be a "racist element" to Citizen Lab's interest in Israeli spyware. After dessert arrived, the AP reporters approached Lambert at his table and asked him why his company didn't seem to exist. He seemed to stiffen. "I know what I'm doing," Lambert said, as he put his files and his pen into a bag. Then he stood up, bumped into a chair and walked off, saying "Ciao" and waving his hand, before returning because he had neglected to pay the bill. As he paced around the restaurant waiting for the check, Lambert refused to answer questions who he worked for or why no trace of his firm could be found. "I don't have to give you any explanation," he said. He eventually retreated to a back room and closed the door. Who Lambert and Bowman really are isn't clear. Neither men returned emails, LinkedIn messages or phone calls. And despite their keen focus on NSO the AP has found no evidence of any link to the Israeli spyware merchant, which is adamant that it wasn't involved. The kind of aggressive investigative tactics used by the mystery men who targeted Citizen Lab have come under fire in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal. Black Cube, an Israeli private investigation firm apologized after The New Yorker and other media outlets revealed that the company's operatives had used subterfuge and dirty tricks to help the Hollywood mogul suppress allegations of rape and sexual assault. Scott-Railton and Abdul Razzak said they didn't want to speculate about who was involved. But both said they believed they were being steered toward making controversial comments that could be used to blacken Citizen Lab's reputation. "It could be they wanted me to say, 'Yes, I hate Israel,' or 'Yes, Citizen Lab is against NSO because it's Israeli,'" said Abdul Razzak. Scott-Railton said the elaborate, multinational operation was gratifying, in a way. "People were paid to fly to a city to sit you down to an expensive meal and try to convince you to say bad things about your work, your colleagues and your employer," he said. "That means that your work is important." Lori Hinnant and Nicholas Garriga in Paris, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Joseph Frederick in New York contributed to this report. Online: Emails and a transcript relating to the undercover operatives:https://www.documentcloud.org/search/projectid:42174-Citizen-Lab-Undercover-Op http://raphaelsatter.com OTTAWA - The politician Canada and its allies recognize as Venezuela's real leader stood in a Caracas plaza Friday and exhorted his supporters to "stay the course" if he winds up behind bars. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opposition leader Juan Guaido is surrounded by supporters as he arrives to speak in a public plaza in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. The politician Canada and its allies recognizes as Venezuela's real leader stood in a Caracas plaza Friday and exhorted his supporters to "stay the course" if he winds up behind bars. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Fernando Llano OTTAWA - The politician Canada and its allies recognize as Venezuela's real leader stood in a Caracas plaza Friday and exhorted his supporters to "stay the course" if he winds up behind bars. Juan Guaido's defiant pronouncement against President Nicolas Maduro whom Canada has branded a dictator who stole an election marked the latest dramatic development in Venezuela's political crisis. It followed Guaido's decision two days earlier to declare himself his country's interim leader, two weeks after Maduro's contested inauguration. But emboldening Venezuela's opposition has been a labour of months, The Canadian Press has learned. Canadian diplomats in Caracas, with their Latin American counterparts, worked to get the country's opposition parties to coalesce behind the one person who emerged strong enough to stand against Maduro: 35-year-old Guaido. The turning point came Jan. 4 when the Lima Group the bloc that includes Canada and more than a dozen Latin American countries rejected the legitimacy of Maduro's May 2018 election victory and his looming Jan. 10 inauguration, while recognizing the "legitimately elected" National Assembly, sources say. "They were really looking for international support of some kind, to be able to hold onto a reason as to why they should unite, and push out somebody like Juan Guaido," said one source. The Canadian Press interviewed senior Canadian government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the crisis in Venezuela. They detailed Canada's role in aiding democratic forces to rescue the once oil-rich country from the economic and political spiral that has forced three million Venezuelans from their homes. Canada anticipated this week's developments because its diplomats have been keeping in close contact with Guaido and other opposition figures in Venezuela. "We listen to them. We listen to the diaspora in Canada and elsewhere in the world, and we do what we can," said one source. The quiet Canadian diplomacy was conducted in tandem with Lima Group allies such as Chile, Peru, Colombia and Brazil. It was part of a Canadian diplomatic tradition that included efforts in the 1980s to shield Chilean dissidents fighting the Pinochet dictatorship. And in 2000, foreign-affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy led a multilateral mission to Peru that ousted strongman Alberto Fujimori, said Canada's former ambassador to Venezuela Ben Rowswell. "The tradition here is that Canada believes in the principles of human rights and democracy and takes pragmatic measures on the ground to unblock political situations," said Rowswell. Rowswell said he drew on that tradition while he was in Venezuela, hosting a high-profile award party at the Canadian Embassy to honour a local civil-society leader. The annual gathering sent a message that the world was watching pro-democracy efforts in the face of Maduro's growing authoritarianism. After Rowswell's 2017 departure, the Lima Group was born and Canada began working within that coalition which does not include the United States to further human rights and democracy in the hemisphere. Maduro's May 20, 2018 election victory galvanized the Lima Group's efforts. The group denounced the vote as illegitimate and downgraded diplomatic relations. The diplomats who remained focused on building bridges with a fractured opposition that was as much at odds with itself as it was with Maduro. In a November report, the International Crisis Group documented the divisions and urged the groups to set aside their "personal and political rivalries." The top contenders to lead the opposition were long-time leaders Leopold Lopez and Julio Borges, but there were problems with both. Lopez has been under house arrest since 2014, while Borges is living in exile. Borges put forth Guaido as a contender, said one source. Guaido made a clandestine trip to Washington in mid-December to brief U.S. officials on his strategy for dealing with Maduro's Jan. 10 inauguration. He secretly crossed his country's border with Colombia so Venezuelan immigration officials wouldn't know he'd left and prevent his return. As talks among Venezuelan opposition factions progressed, one source said, they began to set aside their differences. A key realization set in: "This is not about us. This is about the country." The source said the opposition groups deserve full credit for getting to that point. But it helped that Canadian diplomats "could facilitate conversations with people that were out of the country and inside the country" with other foreign diplomats. On Jan. 5, Guaido assumed the presidency of the National Assembly, which the Lima Group regards as "the only remaining democratically elected institution in the country." Four days later, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland telephoned Guaido to "congratulate him on becoming president of the National Assembly and his work on uniting the opposition," said another source. The next day, Maduro was sworn in as president with support of countries such as Cuba, Russia and China; Freeland said "the Maduro regime is now fully entrenched as a dictatorship." On Wednesday, after Guaido declared himself to be the interim president, Venezuelans took to the streets in protests across the country. "It's an important day for Venezuela," Freeland said in Davos, Switzerland. On Friday, Maduro told a news conference he'd be willing to talk to the opposition to settle the question of who leads the country, but he defended his presidency. He also called Guaido's declaration "a desperate act" backed by the U.S. Canadian officials said that while U.S. leaders such as President Donald Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have also denounced Maduro, there has been no direct co-ordination between the Lima Group and Washington. The Prime Minister's Office said Trudeau spoke Saturday with Colombian President Ivan Duque Marquez about the situation. The pair reaffirmed their support of Guaido and committed to continuing "to promote democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in Venezuela" in part through their work with the Lima Group, according to the PMO. As for this week's rallies, the Venezuelans have full ownership of those. "It was completely done by the opposition and their people on the ground in Venezuela," said one official. "We couldn't have helped them get to this point if they weren't willing and really putting their necks out." with files from the Associated Press OTTAWA - Canada's strategy for navigating growing tensions with China was in disarray Saturday after Justin Trudeau fired his ambassador to Beijing. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (874 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Canadian Ambassador to China John McCallum listens to a question following participation at the federal cabinet meeting in Sherbrooke, Que., Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson OTTAWA - Canada's strategy for navigating growing tensions with China was in disarray Saturday after Justin Trudeau fired his ambassador to Beijing. The prime minister's office announced Saturday that ambassador John McCallum had been told to hand in his resignation just hours after he weighed in on a high-stakes extradition case for the second time in less than a week. McCallum was quoted in a Vancouver newspaper as saying it would be "great for Canada" if the United States dropped its extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who was detained in Vancouver last month. He told StarMetro Vancouver on Friday that if the U.S. and China reach an agreement on Meng's case, the deal should include the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians currently detained in China for what many analysts say is revenge for the detention of Meng. "We have to make sure that if the U.S. does such a deal, it also includes the release of our two people. And the U.S. is highly aware of that," McCallum told the Star. That comment followed a statement McCallum issued Thursday, saying he misspoke earlier in the week when he discussed Meng's case with a group of Chinese-language journalists in Toronto, listing several arguments he thought could help her legal fight against extradition. At first, Trudeau stood by his former minister. But McCallum's statements put the Liberal government in a touchy position. Trudeau has spent considerable effort and political capital over the past month telling world leaders that because of Canada's inherent respect for the rule of law, Canadian authorities had no choice but to detain Meng, and that the extradition process was not political. McCallum's dismissal was too little too late for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who had called on Trudeau to fire the ambassador as early as Wednesday, on the grounds that McCallum's remarks raised concerns about the politicization of the Meng case. Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, arrives to brief members of the Foreign Affairs committee regarding China in Ottawa on Friday, Jan. 18, 2019. John McCallum has resigned as ambassador to China at the request of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the wake of comments he made about a Huawei executive detained in Canada. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick "Justin Trudeau should have fired his ambassador the moment he interfered in this case. Instead, he did nothing and allowed more damage to be done. More weakness and more indecision from Trudeau on China," Scheer tweeted Saturday. "It should never have come to this." Paul Evans, a China expert at the University of British Columbia, said this is the "most difficult and emotional moment in Canada-China relations in 30 years" since the Tiananmen Square aftermath. The arrest of Meng may have been the immediate trigger but damage to Canada was almost inevitable because the country was already at the mercy of two much larger global forces: The clash between Chinese president Xi Jinpings growing authoritarianism and U.S. President Donald Trumps aggressive America First agenda. "Were going deeper into the rabbit hole of Canada-China interactions. We are at a moment when we really dont know how deep that hole will get," Evan said in an interview the day before McCallum was fired. Trust and respect have been thrown into question, and there's no more benefit of the doubt between Canada and China, he said. By appointing McCallum to the Beijing post in the cabinet shuffle in 2017 Trudeau appeared to have the right person in place to push Canadas trade agenda with China even further. Already an experienced cabinet minister, his biggest achievement was in the immigration portfolio in delivering on Trudeaus promise to bring tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into Canada. McCallum also had strong personal ties to China. His wife has Chinese ethnicity and his three sons have Chinese spouses, something McCallum was fond of pointing out. He also had a large Chinese constituency in his former federal riding in Markham, Ont. Now that political investment is gone. "In this hypersensitive era, were all hyperventilating. Every twist and turn in this story, every comment just seems to put a little more salt in a wound that is getting deeper and not healing," Evans said. In a brief scrum in Ottawa, Scheer accused the prime minister of damaging not only Canada's international reputation, but its chances of securing the release of Kovrig and Spavor. He said McCallum's initial comments raised the spectre of political interference in the Meng case, and that by failing to act immediately, Trudeau undercut his own assurances that the case would be handled independently by the courts. "This is, I think, part of a bigger problem. And that is Justin Trudeau's approach to diplomacy, where he thought he could conduct image-over-substance foreign affairs. And now Canadians are paying for his mistakes," Scheer said. "Canadians' treatment in China is being affected by this." The PMO declined to comment on exactly what led to the prime minister's change of heart about McCallum's fate. In a news release announcing the ambassador's resignation, Trudeau thanked McCallum for nearly two decades of service. He noted that McCallum served as minister of immigration and refugees between 2015 and 2017, during the height of Canada's effort to resettle Syrian refugees. In the wake of McCallum's resignation, Jim Nickel, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Canada in Beijing, will represent the country in China as charge d'affaires effective immediately, the prime minister said. With files from reporter Mike Blanchfield OTTAWA - The federal agency built to find new ways to pay for new Canadian infrastructure says it is deep in talks on over a dozen projects. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (874 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Minister of International Trade Francois-Philippe Champagne rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, March 1, 2018. A federal agency built to find new ways to finance infrastructure projects says it is in deep talks on over a dozen projects that would only become publicly known when contracts are signed. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang OTTAWA - The federal agency built to find new ways to pay for new Canadian infrastructure says it is deep in talks on over a dozen projects. In the fall, officials with the Canada Infrastructure Bank had more than 120 meetings about more than 60 projects across the country, including some that came unsolicited from the private sector. The bank's mission is to find ways to get private money to pay for public projects that will produce revenue, such as toll roads and transit systems and trade portals. Officials have narrowed their focus to about a dozen possibilities for serious consideration, but details about them will only become public if the agency agrees to back work with loans or equity stakes. The bank's political critics say the bank is acting in secret with billions of public dollars and hasn't gotten much done anyway. The agency says making the projects public before deals are signed could cause financial harm to their public owners and private backers. Infrastructure Bank CEO Pierre Lavallee says there is a negotiation process for any projects under serious consideration that includes the sharing of confidential financial information that can't be made public. "The CIB will be one of many partners involved in a project. Since we are an investor, we will have to respect commercial confidentiality with the other partners, especially the owners or sponsors," Lavallee said. "When decisions are made for CIB to invest in projects, then there will be information shared with the public." The Liberals created the agency in 2017, hoping to use $35 billion in federal funding to pry three to four times that from the private sector to pay for new infrastructure projects that are in the public interest. In practice, that means projects need to meet federal policy objectives, along with those of the jurisdiction housing a particular project. Projects also need to be "bankable," meaning they could attract private dollars and "appropriately transfer revenue risk to the private sector," read part of Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne's briefing binder, obtained by The Canadian Press under the federal access-to-information law. Internal government documents previously obtained by The Canadian Press have suggested the bank could provide a loss buffer to the private sector, and bear some risk to help projects get completed. The briefing binder says the bank planned to develop a "national project pipeline" over the next year. The aim was to "catalyze the market" by listing "projects at various stages," including those the agency "might view as potential investments." "The first version of this project inventory is expected to be operational in the coming months and will develop over time, based on how government partners use the new tool for planning and prioritizing opportunities and challenges that could interest investors," said Ann-Clara Vaillancourt, a spokeswoman for Champagne. Although the body is arm's length from government, it won't be out of reach from political rhetoric in an electoral year. So far, the bank has signed a financing agreement for one project a $1.28-billion loan for an electric rail transit system in Montreal, best known by its acronym R.E.M., which the Liberals identified as an early win for the agency. The loan replaced the same amount of money the Liberals had pledged through traditional funding programs. Conservative infrastructure critic Matt Jeneroux said the agency is costing taxpayers millions of dollars in operational expenses, absent "transparency or accountability regarding infrastructure investments." Jeneroux said the lack of projects from the bank "except for the one that was re-announced" suggests the agency isn't living up to the promise the Liberals made. "At the end of the day, when it comes to infrastructure projects, talk is cheap." NDP infrastructure critic Brigitte Sansoucy said the bank has a "track record of secrecy and inadequate public engagement" that has frustrated municipalities and stakeholders. She questioned whether the agency would work in the public interest, or for private funders. "We need to ensure that infrastructure projects actually meet the Canadian public's infrastructure needs and not the private sector for their revenue-generating potential," Sansoucy said. "We have serious doubts this will happen under the leadership of this government, especially with how they've structured this institution." Both parties said any policy promises they intend to make about the bank will be released in the coming months. Follow @jpress on Twitter. Harold Kuipers may no longer be the owner of Kuipers Family Bakery, but that doesnt mean he hung up his bakers hat. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 26/1/2019 (875 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us Harold Kuipers, the founder and former owner of Kuipers Family Bakery. (Drew May/The Brandon Sun) Harold Kuipers may no longer be the owner of Kuipers Family Bakery, but that doesnt mean he hung up his bakers hat. The longtime owner of the bakery on First Street sold the business to his former lead baker on Jan. 1 and has taken a step back from running the day-to-day operations of one of Brandons last independent bakeries. "I was surprised by how good it feels," Kuipers said. "Im doing the exact same thing I always did but for six hours a day." Hes still working at the bakery he bought 26 years ago, but no longer has to worry about the finances or has the weight of the entire operation on his shoulders. Baking is a profession that runs in the Kuipers familys blood. His father was a baker in Holland before moving to Canada and continued after relocating to Brandon. The whole family worked in the bakery, but Kuipers said he knew from a young age he would be doing it for years to come. "I think just from watching my dad do it, watching the joy, my dad loved it," he said. "Its fast-paced, lots of little jobs going on at once. Im wired and well-suited for the bakery. "A restless individual whos not lazy will do well in the food-service industry." The first bakery he owned was Rolling Pin Bakery in Killarney. Kuipers helped start it with his family but eventually bought out his brothers share of the business, which he said was a great feeling. Harold Kuipers, the founder and former owner of Kuipers Family Bakery. (Drew May/The Brandon Sun) "It was like Yes, its all mine now ... Theres a sense of you get to set the sail and pick the direction. You have control over the quality, the ingredients; you have control." Kuipers owned Rolling Pin Bakery for 14 years, where he learned to cherish food and the process of making it. He said good food is almost spiritual its good for both the body and soul. "Theres something about going to work in the middle of the night or early in the morning and taking a bunch of dry ingredients and producing food; making food is pretty cool when you think about it ... The fact that I produce food isnt lost on me." After Rolling Pin, Kuipers worked at Robin Hood Flour in sales but said it wasnt the right fit for him. He woke up in a hotel room in Montreal one day and decided to quit the job. Instead, he committed to buying a bakery in Brandon. He bought the former Green Acres Bakery and continued the legacy of the small, independent bakery, working almost around the clock to put out fresh products. "I just made sure whatever were making, it should be really, really good and consistent ... Your integrity is questioned, not only on how you act but on the product you attempt to sell, and if the quality is not there, the integrity is not there anymore." Kuipers operated the bakery for more than two and a half decades, showing up at 3:30 a.m. almost every day to start baking bread. He said that while very little changed over the course of his ownership, the new owner, Curtis Fedorowich, has already made his mark on the business by starting a Facebook page. Social media isnt something Kuipers understands, but it has allowed the new owner to quickly put his own stamp on the business. Kuipers said he knew it was time to sell the business and retire when he noticed his attitude started to change about managing the business. "I always said to myself years ago, When you start to think you want to make your business smaller because you're starting to dislike working in a big bakery, thats when you should consider selling." He said he was "getting a little thinner" with his ability to tolerate customer complaints and problems with suppliers. Instead of cutting down on staff or paring down the work, he knew it was time for someone new to take over the bakers hat. While hes still in the store four days a week, Kuipers said it has been an easy transition from owner to employee. He wrote "co-worker" on his hat, so staff could more easily make the adjustment. "Yes, I was the boss here for 26 years, but I am not the boss. Its easy for me to draw the line and go Yeah, (Fedorowich) is in charge." Now that Kuipers is semi-retired, he said he wants people to know theres more to him than just being the citys baker. Its important to him that people know there is more to him than what he did at the bakery. He owns a few hot rods, builds model trains and wants to get back into playing the piano. The plan is to play music in hospitals or retirement homes with his girlfriend, places he can volunteer to perform for free. "I dont want to get paid to play, that takes the fun out of it." Kuipers said one of the things he is most proud of over the last 26 years in Brandon is how big a role the bakery has quietly played in the community. Every year, he cooks the turkeys for the Westman Traditional Christmas Dinner and donates 1,000 packs of buns. He said the business has also played a big role in Brandon Pride Week. "We became a part the community, so I think that for me that was important to recognize that were part of the community. It wasnt about money, it was just about what we can do to make the community better." dmay@brandonsun.com Twitter: @DrewMay_ PR Newswire NETHERLANDS, Jan. 25, 2019 NETHERLANDS, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Europe, Univar B.V., a subsidiary of Univar Inc. (NYSE: UNVR) ("Univar"), a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, said today that Kao Chemicals has appointed Univar as its distributor in Spain and Portugal. The appointment marks an expanded agreement with Kao Chemicals where Univar increases its offering for the home and industrial cleaning, as well as beauty and personal care markets. Kao Chemicals' broad surfactants portfolio includes alkyl ether carboxylates, which are used as mild co-surfactants, emulsifiers and solubilising agents in both personal care and detergent products and are all available under the trade name AKYPO. Other notable products from Kao include a line of glycerin polyoxyethylene esters that are available under the trade names LEVENOL and EMANON. These well-established products are versatile nonionic specialities that can be used in foaming compositions. The product line is completed by alcohol sulphates, amine oxides and ester quats. "Kao is proud to extend our collaboration with Univar, a leading specialty distributor in Europe, Middle East, and Africa," said Jordi Rios, business unit manager, SCA and F&A, Kao Chemicals Europe. "Their logistics capabilities in Iberia coupled with the robust salesforce is the optimal choice for furthering our growth strategy and delivering the best product and service to our customers." "Kao has been a key strategic partner to Univar for over 20 years, so we are excited to further expand our collaboration together," said Nigel Hayes, vice president of the local chemical distribution business in the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Univar. "We are confident that our customers will benefit from the consistent focus we will bring, backed by strong local, technical and commercial execution." With access to a large and prestigious portfolio of home and industrial cleaning, as well as beauty and personal care solutions, Univar offers strong market coverage and industry expertise to supplier partners around the globe. "Surfactants are a key product focus for Univar across our beauty and personal care as well as our household chemical businesses and Kao's broad range is a great addition to strengthen our Iberian portfolio, bringing more innovative solutions to our customers," noted Matthew Ottaway, vice president of focused industries in the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Univar. About Univar Inc.Founded in 1924, Univar (NYSE: UNVR) is a global chemical and ingredient distributor and provider of value-added services, working with leading suppliers worldwide. Supported by a comprehensive team of sales and technical professionals with deep specialty and market expertise, Univar operates hundreds of distribution facilities throughout North America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Univar delivers tailored customer solutions through a broad product and services portfolio sustained by one of the most extensive industry distribution networks in the world. For more information, visit www.univar.com. About Kao Chemicals EuropeKao Chemicals Europe is part of Kao Group, having 3 production sites located in Germany (Emmerich), Spain (Olesa de Montserrat, Mollet and Barbera del Valles) and Mexico (Guadalajara) and the headquarters located in Barbera del Valles. Since 1999, Kao Chemicals Europe works as a holding company, giving support to the sales structure within the 5 different Business Units into which the company is organized. Two of these Business Units have their origin in surfactant technology and deal with products that are addressed to the Consumer & Technical Applications markets. The other three Business Units, Oleochemicals, Fragrance & Aroma Chemicals and Imaging Materials, belong to global activities that are coordinated by Kao Corporation (Japan). For more information, visit www.kaochemicals-eu.com. Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which may be beyond our control. We caution you that the forward-looking information presented in this press release is not a guarantee of future events, and that actual events may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking information contained in this press release. In addition, forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "plan," "seek," "comfortable with," "will," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe" or "continue" or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology. Any forward-looking information presented herein is made only as of the date of this press release, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect changes in assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events, or otherwise. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/univar-to-distribute-for-kao-chemicals-europe-in-spain-and-portugal-300784602.html SOURCE Univar B.V. Canada NewsWire VANCOUVER, Jan. 25, 2019 VANCOUVER, Jan. 25, 2019 /CNW/ - TSX VENTURE COMPANIES GTA RESOURCES AND MINING INC. ("GTA")BULLETIN TYPE: DelistBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at the close of business, Friday, February 8, 2019, the common shares of GTA Resources and Mining Inc. will be delisted from TSX Venture Exchange at the request of the Company. The delisting of the Company's shares was approved by the majority of the minority shareholders. For further information, please refer to the Company's comprehensive news release dated January 21, 2019. ________________________________________ NEX COMPANIES MUST CAPITAL INC. ("MUST")[formerly INTRINSIC4D INC. ("IFD.H")]BULLETIN TYPE: Name Change and ConsolidationBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019NEX Company Pursuant to a special resolution passed by shareholders on January 08, 2019, the Company has consolidated its capital on a (25) old for (1) new basis. The name of the Company has also been changed as follows. Effective at the opening, Tuesday, January 29, 2019, the common shares of Must Capital Inc.will commence trading on NEX on a consolidated basis, and the common shares of Intrinsic4D Inc. will be delisted. The Company is classified as an 'Other Professional, Scientific and Technical Services' company. Post - Consolidation Capitalization: Unlimited shares with no par value of which 4,075,987 shares are issued and outstanding Escrow Nil shares are subject to escrow Transfer Agent: TSX Trust Company Trading Symbol: MUST (New) CUSIP Number: 62818R102 (New) ________________________________________ 19/01/25 - TSX Venture Exchange Bulletins TSX VENTURE COMPANIES A.I.S. RESOURCES LIMITED ("AIS")BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 8.08 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ A.I.S. RESOURCES LIMITED ("AIS")BULLETIN TYPE: Resume TradingBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 10.15 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, shares of the Company resumed trading, an announcement having been made. ________________________________________ BB1 ACQUISITION CORP. ("BBA.P")BULLETIN TYPE: Remain Halted BULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Further to the TSX Venture Exchange('TSXV') Bulletin dated January 21, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company will remain halted pending receipt and review of acceptable documentation regarding the Qualifying Transaction pursuant to Listings Policy 2.4. This regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange, pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ DECADE RESOURCES LTD. ("DEC")BULLETIN TYPE: Property-Asset or Share Disposition AgreementBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange Inc. (the "Exchange") has accepted for filing an option agreement (the "Agreement") between Decade Resources Ltd. ("Decade") and Scottie Resources Corp. ("Scottie") (formerly, Rotation Minerals Ltd.) ("Scottie") dated December 12, 2018. Under the Agreement, Decade has granted an exclusive option (the "Option") to Rotation to acquire a 100% interest in the Bow Claims, situated in the Skeena Mining District in British Columbia (the "Property"). In order to exercise the Option Scottie must pay a total of $1,000,000 to Decade in five equal installments, subject to a 3% net smelter return royalty, as follows: $200,000 within 3 business days upon which both parties receive Exchange final approval of the Agreement; $200,000 on or before the date that is 6 months after execution of the Agreement on December 12, 2018 (the "Execution Date"); $200,000 on or before the date that is 12 months after the Execution Date; $200,000 on or before the date that is 18 months after the Execution Date; and $200,000 on or before the date that is 24 months after the Execution Date. Insider / Pro Group Participation: Edward Kruchkowski is a director of Decade and Scottie. For further information please refer to Decade's news release dated December 12, 2018 which is available under Decade's profile on SEDAR. ________________________________________ ECC VENTURES 2 CORP. ("ETWO.P")BULLETIN TYPE: Remain Halted BULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Further to the TSX Venture Exchange('TSXV') Bulletin dated January 16, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company will remain halted pending receipt and review of acceptable documentation regarding the Qualifying Transaction pursuant to Listings Policy 2.4. This regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange, pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ EUROCONTROL TECHNICS GROUP INC. ("EUO")BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 4.53 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ EUROCONTROL TECHNICS GROUP INC. ("EUO")BULLETIN TYPE: Remain HaltedBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Further to the TSX Venture Exchange('TSXV') Bulletin dated January 24, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company will remain halted pending and review of acceptable documentation regarding the change of business and/or Reverse Take-Over pursuant to Listings Policy 5.2. This regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange, pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ FIDELITY MINERALS CORP. ("FMN")BULLETIN TYPE: Property-Asset or Share Purchase AgreementBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing documentation in relation to an Asset Purchase and Sale Agreement dated December 4, 2018 between the Company and Lida Resources Inc. whereby the Company acquired 100% of Lida Resources Inc.'s 44.5% interest in the Core Las Huaquillas project in Northern Peru. Consideration is 25,000,000 common shares and 12,500,000 warrants upon closing and concession holding fees of US$77,000 in cash at year 1. ________________________________________ FILO MINING CORP. ("FIL")BULLETIN TYPE: Shares for BonusesBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing the Company's proposal to issue up to 540,000 bonus shares to the following insider in consideration of a loan facility in the amount of US$5,000,000. Shares Warrants Zebra Holdings Investments S.a.r.l. 540,000 Nil ________________________________________ GAINEY CAPITAL CORP. ("GNC")BULLETIN TYPE: Property-Asset or Share Purchase AgreementBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing the option agreement dated July 30, 2018 between the Company and its Mexican subsidiary, Minera Buena Fortuna, S.A. de C.V. and First Mining Gold Corp., a private British Columbia company and its Mexican subsidiary, Impulsora de Proyectos Mineros, S.A. de C.V. (the "Optioner") whereby the Company can acquire a 100% interest in two mining claims in Mexico known as the Las Margaritas property, subject to a 1% NSR that is payable to a third party. The Optioner has the right to re-purchase the NSR from the party that sold the property to the Optioner for US$325,000 on or before December 20, 2021. The transaction is not a Non-arm's length transaction and there were no finder's fees. For additional details on the transaction, refer to the Company's news releases dated August 2, 2018 and January 25, 2019. Insider / Pro Group Participation: Nil CASH SHARES WORK EXPENDITURES Year 1 $174,000 $175,000 + $28,000 cash US$250,000 Year 2 $261,000 $250,000 + $40,000 cash US$250,000 Year 3 $232,000 $225,000 + $36,000 cash US$250,000 Year 4 $232,000 $225,000 + $36,000 cash US$250,000 $ Note: The Company has the option to make either the cash payment or share payment (not both) plus the work expenditures. ________________________________________ HAPPY CREEK MINERALS LTD. ("HPY")BULLETIN TYPE: Private Placement-Non-BrokeredBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing documentation with respect to a Non-Brokered Private Placement announced November 27, 2018: Number of Shares: 864,000 flow-through shares Purchase Price: $0.20 per flow-through share Number of Shares: 483,000 non-flow-through shares Purchase Price: $0.15 per non-flow-through share Number of Placees: 15 Placees Insider / Pro Group Participation: Insider=Y / Name ProGroup=P # of Shares David Blann Y 50,000 Michael Cathro Y 25,000 Walter Segsworth Y 250,000 Shaun Chin P 150,000 Li Zhu P 100,000 Aggregate Pro Group Involvement 2 Placees Finder's Fee: $4,396 cash and 18,840 warrants to acquire one common share of the Issuer for a period of two years at an exercise price of $0.30 per share payable to PI Financial Corp. $700 cash and 3,000 warrants to acquire one common share of the Issuer for a period of two years at an exercise price of $0.30 per share payable to Echelon Wealth Partners. $346.50 cash and 1,980 warrants to acquire one common share of the Issuer for a period of two years at an exercise price of $0.30 per share payable to Canaccord Genuity Corp.Financial Corp. ________________________________________ KHIRON LIFE SCIENCES CORP. ("KHRN")BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 12.45 p.m. PST, January 24, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ KHIRON LIFE SCIENCES CORP. ("KHRN")BULLETIN TYPE: Resume TradingBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 6.45 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, shares of the Company resumed trading, an announcement having been made. ________________________________________ KINTAVAR EXPLORATION INC. ("KTR")BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 6.43 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ MANADO GOLD CORP. ("MDO")BULLETIN TYPE: Remain HaltedBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Further to the TSX Venture Exchange('TSXV') Bulletin dated January 15, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company will remain halted pending receipt and review of acceptable documentation regarding the change of business and/or Reverse Take-Over pursuant to Listings Policy 5.2. This regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange, pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ MOBIO TECHNOLOGIES INC. ("MBO")BULLETIN TYPE: Private Placement-Non-BrokeredBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing documentation with respect to a Non-Brokered Private Placement announced Jan 14, 2019: Number of Shares: 10,966,668 shares Purchase Price: $0.075 per share Warrants: 5,483,334 share purchase warrants to purchase 5,483,334 shares Warrant Initial Exercise Price: $0.10 Warrant Term to Expiry: 2 Years Number of Placees: 4 Placees Insider / Pro Group Participation: Insider=Y / Name Pro-Group=P # of Shares Aggregate Pro-Group Involvement [2 Placees] P 200,000 Finder's Fee: PI Financial Corp. $1,125.00 cash; 15,000 warrants Finder Warrant Initial Exercise Price: $0.10 Finder Warrant Term to Expiry: 12 months expiry Note that in certain circumstances the Exchange may later extend the expiry date of the warrants, if they are less than the maximum permitted term. The above information is a summary only. Neither TMX Group Limited nor any of its affiliated companies guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this document. Readers should consult the issuer's continuous disclosure record for complete details of the transaction. ________________________________________ SCOTTIE RESOURCES CORP. ("SCOT")BULLETIN TYPE: Property-Asset or Share Purchase AgreementBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019 TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing an option agreement dated December 12, 2018 (the 'Agreement') between the Company and Decade Resources Ltd. (the 'Optionor'). Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the Company may acquire a 100% interest in the Bow Property in the Skeena Mining District in British Columbia (the 'Property'). By way of consideration, the Company will make staged cash payments totalling $1,000,000 over two years. The Property is subject to a 3% NSR in favour of the Optionor. The transaction is non-arm's length due to a common director between the Company and the Optionor, Edward Kruchkowski. Please refer to the Company's news releases dated December 13, 2018 and January 25, 2019 for further details. ________________________________________ TETHYAN RESOURCES PLC ("TETH")BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 4.51 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ TOMAGOLD CORPORATION ("LOT")BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company Effective at 6.43 a.m. PST, January 25, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ VANADIUMCORP RESOURCE INC. ("VRB")BULLETIN TYPE: Warrant Term ExtensionBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 1 Company TSX Venture Exchange has consented to the extension in the expiry date of the following warrants: Private Placement: # of Warrants: 13,418,699 Original Expiry Date of Warrants: April 8, 2019 New Expiry Date of Warrants: April 8, 2020 Exercise Price of Warrants: $0.10 These warrants were issued pursuant to a private placement which was announced by the Company on March 6, 2017. ________________________________________ VENZEE TECHNOLOGIES INC. ("VENZ")BULLETIN TYPE: Private Placement-Non-BrokeredBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019TSX Venture Tier 2 Company TSX Venture Exchange has accepted for filing documentation with respect to a Non-Brokered Private Placement as announced on December 17, 2018: Number of Shares: 20,032,666 shares Purchase Price: $0.075 per share Warrants: 20,032,666 share purchase warrants to purchase 20,032,666 shares Warrant Exercise Price: $0.15 for a 24 month period, subject to acceleration clause Number of Placees: 59 Placees Insider / Pro Group Participation: Insider=Y / Name ProGroup=P # of Shares Aggregate Pro-Group Involvement (11 Placees) P 3,046,666 Finders' Fees: Finders collectively received $82,693 in cash and 1,102,570 common share purchase warrants at $0.15 till December 28, 2020, subject to acceleration clause The Company issued news releases on December 28, 2018 confirming closing of the private placement. ________________________________________ NEX COMPANIES CONTINENTAL PRECIOUS MINERALS INC. ("CZQ.H") BULLETIN TYPE: HaltBULLETIN DATE: January 25, 2019NEX Company Effective at 1.56 p.m. PST, January 24, 2019, trading in the shares of the Company was halted at the request of the Company, pending news; this regulatory halt is imposed by Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Market Regulator of the Exchange pursuant to the provisions of Section 10.9(1) of the Universal Market Integrity Rules. ________________________________________ SOURCE TSX Venture Exchange PR Newswire ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 26, 2019 ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, American Trucking Associations welcomed 33 professional truck drivers to the final round of the America's Road Team selection process. "The selection process looks at not only the professional merits of these drivers, but also their passion for the industry and how we can work to improve its image," said veteran America's Road Team Captain Steve Fields, professional truck driver for YRC Freight. "As a mentor and longtime Captain, it's my responsibility to make sure my small group of finalists treats this as much a professional experience as a personal one and to use all their skills to highlight their strengths. The finalists entered the last stage of the nomination process in October when the field was narrowed down to this elite group of 33 truck drivers. They will converge on Arlington from every corner of the country, representing every size carrier and route length, and as such serving as a reflection of the diversity offered throughout the trucking industry. The finalists will use their unique experiences and skills to present themselves to a panel of judges, including trucking executives and trade press, and express their knowledge of the industry, their skills in effective communication around safety and transportation, and their overall safe-driving record. This group of finalists represents more than 90.3 million miles of safe-driving, 931 years of professional truck driving experience, and dozens of truck driving awards at the national, state, and local level. They are pastors, first responders, Trucker Buddies and overall role models within their communities. "We have a great group of finalists this year, and it will be a very strong field to select from for this new team," said ATA Senior Advisor and Executive Vice President of Industry Affairs Elisabeth Barna. "They all bring so many strengths and do so much to promote a positive image of safety and the industry as a whole. No matter who is selected, they all will continue to be wonderful ambassadors to the industry." The final round of judging for America's Road Team is scheduled for January 27-29 in Arlington, Virginia. The 2019-2020 America's Road Team will be announced on January 29 during a ceremony on Capitol Hill. To be nominated to serve as an America's Road Team Captain, professional truck drivers must be employed or leased to an ATA member company. Each nominee should have an excellent safety record, and should demonstrate an ability to communicate his or her commitment to safety and passion for the industry. Nominees should also portray a positive image of the professional truck driver in all that they do. Finalists for the 2019-2020 America's Road Team are: Ronald Baird, Hoffman Transportation/G&D Trucking; Thorntown, Ind.William C. Bennett III, UPS Freight; Maytown, Penn.Dale Brenaman, UPS Freight; Stamping Ground, Ky.Sammy Brewster, ABF Freight; Powder Springs, Ga.Jorge Chavez, Jetco Delivery; Houston, TexasTimothy Chelette, Big G Express; Murfreesboro, Tenn.James Clark, Penske Logistics; Otter Lake, Mich.April Coolidge, Walmart Transportation; Mint Hill, N.C.Scott Davis, ABF Freight; Kearney, Mo.Jesse Wayne Dennis, Prime Inc; Springfield, Mo.Ken Duncan, Walmart Transportation; Gorham, MaineDouglas Frombaugh, Fedex Freight; Carlisle, Penn.William Goins, Old Dominion Freight Line; Cloverdale, Ind.Billy Hambrick, Werner Enterprises; Yoder, Wyo.Russell James, YRC Freight; Bonner, Mont.Ronnie Luckadoo, UPS Freight; Forest City, N.C.Gary Martin, Fedex Ground; Galt, Calif.William McNamee, Carbon Express; Christopher, Ill.Dave Peterson, Fedex Ground; Blaine, Minn.Tina Peterson, Fedex Ground; Blaine, Minn.Brian Petrovcic, ABF Freight; McAlisterville, Penn.Robert Preston, Werner Enterprises; Winder, Ga.Jeff Rose, YRC Freight; Creston, OhioRodney Rutledge, Fedex Freight; La Union, N.M.Richard Slack Jr., TWC Inc.; Savannah, Ga.Theldorine Sova, Prime Inc.; Sacramento, Calif.James Starr, Groendyke Transport Inc.; Wichita, Kan.Clarence Taylor, Walmart Transportation; North Chesterfield, Va.Ronald Vandermark, UPS Freight; Delran, N.J.Paul Wahlster, Holland; Rolling Prairie, Ind.Nicolette Weaver, Fedex Freight; New Bloomfield, Penn.Todd Wilemon, ABF Freight; Fulton, Miss.James Gragg Wilson, Fedex Freight; Reno, Nev. The America's Road Team, sponsored by Volvo Trucks, is a national public outreach program led by a small group of professional truck drivers who share superior driving skills, remarkable safety records and a strong desire to spread the word about safety on the highway.www.americasroadteam.com. American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation's freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or on Facebook. Trucking Moves America Forward. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truck-drivers-compete-to-join-team-of-elite-industry-ambassadors-300784561.html SOURCE American Trucking Associations PR Newswire NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2019 NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Juan Monteverde, founder and managing partner at Monteverde & Associates PC, a national securities firm headquartered at the Empire State Building in New York City, is investigating the Board of Directors and Officers of: Monteverde & Associates PC is a national class action securities and consumer litigation law firm that has recovered millions of dollars and is committed to protecting shareholders and consumers from corporate wrongdoing. Monteverde & Associates lawyers have significant experience litigating Mergers & Acquisitions and Securities Class Actions, whereby they protect investors by recovering money and remedying corporate misconduct. Mr. Monteverde, who leads the legal team at the firm, has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in Securities Litigation in 2013, 2017 and 2018, an award given to less than 2.5% of attorneys in a particular field. He has also been selected by Martindale-Hubbell as a 2017 and 2018 Top Rated Lawyer. If you own common stock in the above listed companies and wish to obtain additional information and protect your investments free of charge, please visit our website or contact Juan E. Monteverde, Esq. either via e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone at (212) 971-1341. Contact:Juan E. Monteverde, Esq.MONTEVERDE & ASSOCIATES PCThe Empire State Building350 Fifth Ave. Suite 4405New York, NY 10118United States of [email protected] Tel: (212) 971-1341 Attorney Advertising. (C) 2019 Monteverde & Associates PC. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Monteverde & Associates PC (www.monteverdelaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shareholder-alert-monteverde--associates-pc-launches-an-investigation-of-the-board-of-directors-and-officers-300784775.html SOURCE Monteverde & Associates PC PR Newswire NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq., a partner at the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF"), announces that KSF has commenced an investigation into Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE: FL). On August 18, 2017, the Company revealed negative financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017, including revenue significantly below expectations, attributed in part to lower same-store sales, that it was closing 100 more stores than previously announced, and that weaker sales were expected for the rest of the fiscal year. Thereafter, the Company and certain of its executives were sued in a securities class action lawsuit, charging them with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws, which is ongoing. KSF's investigation is focusing on whether Foot Locker's officers and/or directors breached their fiduciary duties to Foot Locker's shareholders or otherwise violated state or federal laws. If you have information that would assist KSF in its investigation, or have been a long-term holder of Foot Locker shares and would like to discuss your legal rights, you may, without obligation or cost to you, call toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or email KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn ([email protected]), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-fl/ to learn more. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLCLewis Kahn, Managing [email protected] Poydras St., Suite 3200New Orleans, LA 70163 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/foot-locker-investigation-initiated-by-former-louisiana-attorney-general--kahn-swick--foti-llc-investigates-the-officers-and-directors-of-foot-locker-inc---fl-300784609.html SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Reciba en su email: noticias de ultima hora, analisis tecnicos o el cierre de mercado Email no valido Nombre requerido Recibira las informaciones mas relevantes del dia en tiempo real Que informacion desea recibir? Noticias de Ultima hora Boletin Cierre de Mercado Boletin analisis tecnico Boletin Fundsnews Debe seleccionar un tipo de boletin Acepto la Politica de privacidad Debe aceptar la politica de privacidad Responsable EMPRESAS DEL GRUPO WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Finalidad La remision de informacion, novedades y promociones Establecimiento o mantenimiento de Relaciones Comerciales. Legitimacion Consentimiento del interesado. Interes legitimo en el desarrollo de la relacion comercial Destinatario Empresas del Grupo WEB FINANCIAL GROUP Derechos Acceso, rectificacion, supresion, limitacion, oposicion y portabilidad Informacion adicional Politica de Privacidad de nuestra pagina Web + INFORMACION SIGN UP TO GET BLACKLISTED NEWS DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Enter your email address: University of Birmingham and Trinity College Dublin launch new partnership Trinity College Dublin Provost Patrick Prendergast and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Eastwood sign a strategic research and education partnership agreement. The University of Birmingham and Trinity College Dublin today launched a strategic research and education partnership which aims to strengthen European academic links and enhance collaborative research outputs. Experts from each University will work together initially across three shared research strengths: clinical trials and training; biomaterials; and digital textual editing. Further joint areas will be developed as the partnership matures. And as students face uncertainty about study opportunities in Europe post-Brexit, the two universities will create exchange opportunities through a student mobility agreement allowing Birmingham students to spend time studying at Dublin, and vice-versa. Todays partnership agreement was signed at a special ceremony by Trinity College Dublin Provost Dr. Patrick Prendergast and University of Birmingham Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir David Eastwood. Dr. Patrick Prendergast commented: I am delighted to announce Trinity College Dublins collaboration with the University of Birmingham. Advances are made through partnership with others. It is partnerships that have enabled Trinity to enhance its global standing as a place of learning giving equality of opportunity to all with the talent and ambition to succeed. I look forward to working closely with the University of Birmingham over the coming months, to strengthening our research links and building our student exchange programmes at such a critical time for both our countries. Professor Sir David Eastwood commented: Europe continues to be a region of key importance for the University of Birmingham in both research and education. As a major strand in our global engagement strategy, we are building and strengthening partnerships with priority institutions across the EU, and are delighted to agree this key partnership with TCD. We are proud to join Trinity College Dublin in a partnership between two internationally leading universities built on our complementary strengths. We believe our collaboration will produce high-profile research with global impact, as well as excellent opportunities for students in Ireland and the UK as the importance of UK-Irish Higher Education engagement continues to grow." The research foundations of the strategic partnership cover the following areas: Digital Engagement and Editing Partnership (DEEP) Shared expertise in digital editing (Birmingham) and digital humanities (Trinity) will combine to form a research partnership which aims to investigate the ways in which the digital world impacts upon argument, perceptions of authorship and authority structures. Clinical Trials and Training An ambitious portfolio of partnership opportunities, including research workshops, clinical placements for medical students, and, longer-term, joint PhDs and split appointments, will cement long-standing links between our Medical Schools. Complementary Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs) provide the framework for the partnership taking advantage of wider links with respective hospitals in Dublin and Birmingham. Bioengineering Birminghams Institute for Translational Medicine and Trinitys national centre for Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research (AMBER) provide the platform for joint research endeavours and the development of joint post-graduate programmes. The Universities will also collaborate across professional services - developing best practice exchange, initially around online time-tabling and academic year structure, as well as the operational management of university facilities. ENDS For more information, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0) 121 414 8254 or +44 (0)782 783 2312. For out-of-hours enquiries, please call +44 (0) 7789 921 165. Notes for editors Moncks Corner, SC (29461) Today Scattered showers and thunderstorms. High 88F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 72F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. Community Partner Program Now more than ever it is important to help local businesses thrive and keep our community informed. Herald/Review Media is offering a Community Partner Program to assist local businesses by getting their message in front of the largest audience in Cochise County! Click here to fill out form Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, discuss bilateral issues during a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Aug. 20, 2018. Malaysia has cancelled a $20 billion rail project financed by China, a minister said Saturday, citing high interest costs for the governments decision as he offered the clearest statement that one of Beijings largest One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiatives would be scrapped. Kuala Lumpur, Chinas biggest trading partner in Southeast Asia after Vietnam, has pushed back against Chinese dominance in its economy since Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad returned to power after a stunning electoral triumph in May last year, stalling billions of dollars of contracts. We cannot afford, Mohamed Azmin Ali, Malaysias economic affairs minister, told reporters after attending a media event outside the nations capital. The cabinet decided to scrap the project because the cost of development is too high, and we do not have the financial capability at the moment." Azmin was referring to the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), a 688-km (430-mile) railway that would have connected the western and eastern coasts of the Malaysian peninsula. The project was being built with contractor China Communications Construction Company Ltd (CCCC). The decision has been finalized during a Cabinet meeting two days ago," he said. It is better for us to make a decision (now) because the investor would also like to have clarity and we have made a decision." Pushing through with the railway would involve interest payments amounting to half a billion ringgit ($120 million) a year, Azmin said, emphasizing that the project will be terminated without antagonizing one of the nations largest investment benefactors. Kuala Lumpur ran a trade surplus with Beijing last year. It exported palm oil, electronics and liquefied petroleum gas to China, accumulating a trade volume of $92.4 billion that includes imports of machinery and electronic products. The ministers statement came against the backdrop of growing concern about Chinas spreading influence in Southeast Asia, mostly as a result of Beijings multibillion-dollar infrastructure initiative to build roads, railways and ports, a move that has stoked fears of ballooning debt in the region's poor nations. It was not clear if CCCC, the contractor, has been informed of the governments decision. Azmin also did not say how much compensation Malaysia would shell out for terminating the project, explaining that the amount would be determined by the finance ministry. Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said the cancellation would not affect the overall bilateral relations between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. Of course, it would strain relations a bit, but the overall bilateral relations, economic and otherwise, remain fundamentally strong and not to be soured just due to one project, he told BenarNews. But political analyst Awang Azman Awang Pawi said the announcement might slightly impact bilateral ties. It will hurt ties between Malaysia and Chine a bit but it depends on the compensation, he said. If the amount can be agreed, I do not think this will become a major problem. Both countries can work again in the future. Azmins statement appeared to contradict earlier remarks from other cabinet officials, including Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, who had said that the decision on the project was not final, according to the South China Morning Post. But the newspaper quoted two unnamed sources with knowledge on the cabinets decision as saying that Azmin had expressed Malaysias final position: that the existing contract with CCCC would be terminated. The Singapore-based Straits Times newspaper reported that the contract, which was supposed to receive financing from the Export-Import Bank of China, was terminated after Malaysia failed to reduce the project cost by about one half. Mahathir, 93, told reporters on Thursday that he was not sure whether the ECRL contract had been terminated, as he just returned from work visits in the UK and Vienna. I just came back from overseas, he said. Early this month, Chinas envoy to Malaysia Bi Tian said he hoped that negotiations to resume ECRL construction would succeed. He made the statement after Mahathir said the project might proceed but in a smaller scale. The railway project was among the $34 billion worth of infrastructure projects approved by the previous government of Najib Razak, who once hailed it as a game changer for the Muslim-majority nation. According to a report released last year by the U.S.- China Economic and Security Review Commission, the ECRL project is the second-largest One Belt, One Road project. The planned 772-km (482-mile) high-speed railway line connecting Moscow with Kazan city in the Russian Federation would cost slightly higher at $21.4 billion, it said. Najib, who has enthusiastically endorsed Beijing-linked projects, faces 39 criminal charges linked to the troubled state development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, which he established in 2009. The U.S. Justice Department alleges that almost $4.5 billion (18.7 billion ringgit) from the state fund was embezzled and laundered through real estate and other assets. Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion soldiers stand guard during a raid on suspected drug dealers at Mohammadpur Geneva Camp in Dhaka, May 26, 2018. Methamphetamine tablets made in Myanmar that were traditionally smuggled through southeastern Bangladesh are coming across the border from India, Bangladeshi officials told BenarNews. Meanwhile, local law-enforcement authorities confirmed that smuggling rose sharply during the past three years in Coxs Bazar district, where 14 suspected drug dealers, including five Rohingya, were shot dead by police this month. Coxs Bazar, located in the southeastern corner of Bangladesh, borders Myanmar and is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. Despite recent statements from Bangladeshi officials that they had demolished a drug network in the district, evidence suggests that smuggling routes shifted north in response to an anti-drug crackdown in Bangladesh. In October 2018, the government of the South Asian country approved a draft law allowing the death penalty for drug offenses. We have come to know from the field that they [drug smugglers] are now trying to push yaba through the Bangladesh-India international border, said Jamal Uddin Ahmed, director general of the home ministrys department of narcotics control. In its 2018 report, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said Indias anti-narcotics bureau had seized huge quantities of yaba tablets, which contain a mixture of meth and caffeine. The drugs appeared to have originated in Myanmar and were destined for Bangladesh and the seizures occurred between August 2017 and February 2018. Champai district in Indias Mizoram state, which shares a 400-km (250-mile) unfenced border with Myanmar, has emerged as the main transit hub for smuggling yaba from Myanmar, a senior narcotics department official in Guwahati, India, told BenarNews. From there to Agartala in Tripura state and Kolkata to be sent to Bangladesh, said the official who requested anonymity. Many clandestine factories are run by militant groups that supply Myanmar with pseudoephedrine, which is used to make methamphetamine and other derivatives, the official said. At least 53 million yaba pills, mainly from the Teknaf sub-district of Coxs Bazar, which sits next to Myanmars Rakhine state, were recovered in 2018, according to figures from Bangladeshs narcotics department. By comparison, authorities seized almost 41 million yaba in 2017, a significant jump compared to the 29.5 million tablets confiscated in 2016. Of course, yaba smuggling increased, the official told BenarNews. Rohingya links Authorities in and around Coxs Bazar have partly blamed Rohingya refugees for the rise in sales and soaring use of methamphetamines from neighboring Myanmar. Rohingya leaders, on the other hand, said their young people were being pushed into crime because they could not legally work in Bangladesh. From Jan. 4 to 24, at least 14 alleged drug dealers, including five Rohingya, were killed in Coxs Bazar, Prodip Kumar Das, officer-in-charge of Teknaf police station, told BenarNews. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled their homes at the height of a military crackdown in Myanmars Rakhine state in 2017. The United Nations, rights groups and the United States have accused Naypyidaws security forces of committing ethnic cleansing in Rakhine. Rohingya refugees live in squalid, makeshift shelters and have no formal employment opportunities in Coxs Bazar, but were considered carriers of the banned drugs, the source said. Maybe some of their leaders have been involved. But they cannot solely be blamed for increasing yaba smuggling, said Ahmed, Bangladeshs anti-narcotics chief. As they are poor, they can easily be exploited as carriers. At least 37 suspected drug dealers were killed in shooting incidents and internal feuds among suspected drug dealers in Coxs Bazar last year, an official said. The major yaba smugglers have gone into hiding as many of their leaders were killed in gunfight incidents, Das said. So the network has been destroyed. The flow of yaba into Bangladesh came down due to the ongoing anti-narcotics drive. The Rohingya are increasingly getting involved in yaba smuggling, he said, adding that at least 50 Rohingya were arrested during the past two months on charges of possession of yaba tablets. Most of the yaba carriers are the Rohingya. They secretly go to the Myanmar border and bring yaba into Bangladesh, Maj. Sariful Islam Jomaddar, deputy chief of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in Teknaf, told BenarNews. Most of the yaba tablets are produced in clandestine laboratories in the China-Myanmar border of Shan and Cochin states, possibly near to the border of Bangladesh and Myanmar, according to a report from Bangladeshs anti-narcotics department. Narcotics are smuggled from Myanmars Rakhine state through Maungdaw district and Buthidaung township in Rakhine, it said. Coastal areas along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and the Naf River are usual smuggling routes of yaba from Myanmar, the report said. Bangladeshs narcotics crackdown spurred criticisms from rights groups last year after police claimed that more than 200 suspected drug users had been shot dead over seven months beginning in May. The killings prompted fears among rights groups that the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who began her fourth term this month after a landslide election win marred by fraud allegations, was imitating a Philippine-style campaign to wipe out drug addicts. Jhumur Deb in Guwahati, India, contributed to this report. A runway controlled by the Indian military is pictured at Port Blair, in Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands, July 4, 2015. A newly expanded military base commissioned by India in the strategically located Andaman and Nicobar Islands will bolster its defenses in the Indian Ocean, according to officials, while analysts said the installation would also help the country monitor rival Chinese naval ships. The head of the Indian navy traveled to the islands on Thursday to commission the expanded and now independent naval air station, military officials said. It was rechristened the INS Kohassa and is one of three bases operating in the chain of islands, which lie in the northeastern reaches of the Indian Ocean off Southeast Asia and the Malacca Strait. The Naval Air station will complement the Navys role as a net security provider in the strategic Indian Ocean region, Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Now, the airbase will function as an independent unit. With the inauguration of INS Kohassa, Andaman and Nicobar Command will further strengthen its defense capabilities in the region, the government-run All India Radio reported. The base has a 1,000-meter-long (3,280-foot-long) runway for helicopters and Dornier surveillance aircraft. There are plans to extend the runway to 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) in the future to support aircraft and longer-range reconnaissance aircraft, officials said. With the commissioning of the unit, it has become self-contained with proper manpower and infrastructure, Capt. D.K. Sharma, the navys spokesman, told BenarNews on Friday. There now will be more facilities, buildings and officers stationed there. The proximity of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the Malacca Strait makes them very strategic with regard to monitoring of the area and keeping the choke points under surveillance, according to a senior naval officer who spoke to Benar on condition of anonymity. The strait is the main gateway between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It is necessary to deploy ships, submarines and aircraft there if we have to carry out surveillance in important sea lines of communication, the officer said. Admiral Lanba said at a defense conference in New Delhi recently that the Chinese Navy had added 80 warships in the last five years, and was a force which is here to stay. No navy has grown so rapidly in the last 200 years as the Chinese Navy, the admiral said, adding that the Chinese fleet had six to eight warships in the northern Indian Ocean alone. Ashok Kantha, a Delhi-based observer, said India needed to monitor Chinese naval movements in the ocean that bears its name. The PLA Navy is a fact, and it is also a fact that we will see them getting stronger and stronger, Kantha, a senior analyst at the Vivekananda International Foundation, an Indian think-tank, told BenarNews, referring to the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Navy. India has to keep an eye [on this], there are security implications for us, he noted, adding that the Andamans could play an important role. However, Indias maritime agenda is not just linked to China, he said. The Andaman base is a modest facility in the broader picture, but Indias biggest asset is its strategic location in the Indian Ocean. Our geography is our greatest strength, Kantha, Indias former Ambassador to China, said. Each year about 120,000 ships pass through the Indian Ocean and nearly 70,000 of them pass through the Malacca Strait, the Reuters news service reported. The Indian Ocean is vital to world trade because more than 75 percent of the international maritime traffic transits through the region, according to media reports. The underlying thing is the expanding Chinese presence. If we have to really monitor Chinese presence, we need to be adequately equipped in the Andaman Islands, former Indian Navy Commodore Anil Jai Singh told Reuters. Last year, former Indian Navy Chief R.K. Dhowan said that, in formulating its regional strategy, the navy had taken into account the Chinese development of Gwadar, a port in neighboring rival Pakistan, as well as Beijings plans to set up bases in Djibouti China has maritime interests and they have huge amount of trade and oil passing through this region, and it is to protect their interests that they remain deployed here. The Indian Navy monitors all activities of the Chinese navy as well as all other maritime movements, Dhowan said at the time. In 2018, China, Thailand and Malaysia took part in a 10-day naval training exercise in the Malacca Strait, the first time the three nations held drills together. The Chinese Navy has had a permanent presence in the Indian Ocean in the form of an anti-piracy escort force since 2008. Even if India looks at countering China, it cant compete with their acquisitions. Its strength is its location in the Indian Ocean, Kantha, the former envoy to China, said. Crystal DiGregorio-Bassette was a widely known star in the porn industry for over 10 years. Every major porn company knew her name. She was earning $30,000 per month, had several luxury cars and was living in a 10 million dollar mansion in Calfornia. Crystal thought she had it all. Now, Crystal is a born-again believer who works only to serve Jesus Christ. When I was in porn, my life was all about being a sex object, she told Fox News. Now I focus on helping people. Crystal first sparked an interest in Christianity when she encountered God at an alter one Easter Sunday. She had been fighting a toxic and abusive relationship, and asked God to save her from the situation. That moment was a moment of giving every hurt and fear to God. I was bawling my eyes out crying and praying for God to release me from the abusive relationship I was in and all the bad things in my life: it was a full surrender, she told CBN News. After that service, Crystal walked out of the church and never went back to the relationship. From there, she felt that God started changing me from the inside out. Crystal was further inspired by another porn star turned pastor, Brittni De La Mora. She continued learning more about the Bible, and felt when God removed the veil from my eyes, I started looking at the world differently. I noticed how much people were being hurt by the porn industry and I never really thought of it before that. Leaving the porn star lifestyle wasnt an easy task, however. Literally, my last two scenes were the most horrific I had to do. It felt like I was getting raped on the set. I was just sitting there reading the Bible, waiting for my scene, learning more about God, she recalled. Eventually, she reached a point where she could not live that way and decided to leave once and for all. She filmed her last adult film scene at age 31. She had to file for bankruptcy and give up her luxurious items and lifestyle. Her reputation as a porn star followed her into her new life, and several employers turned her down due to her past. Her family was also bullied. In the end, it was all still worth it. I left the money and limelight of that world and Im more peaceful now with the Lord because I dont have to be the sex object, I dont worry about money, I just worry about my soul and becoming a better person every day, she told CBN News. The mother of three now works as a Christian counselor, pastor, and paralegal in New York and attends the Lighthouse Mexico Church of God. She found that her lifestyle actually made others more willing to open up to her, because they knew she wouldnt judge them for their own sins. Anybody feels that they can come to me, and thats what I like about it. They can talk to me openly and not have to worry about me judging them, she told Fox. We all do wrong. Nobodys perfect. It didnt matter if youve been saved your whole life or you walk into my church with full-on tattoos. I accept them for who they are, not attack them. Crystal now works hard to help others in the sex-industry escape and find Jesus. She hopes she can give them encouragement and show through her life that it is possible. My story has given people hope that God can forgive and change us, no matter what your past is. I hope people learn more about the Lord and want to get to know him, she said. Im not perfect. I make mistakes, she added. Im going through a divorce and at times I dont understand why, but I know everything happens for a reason. God will put you through things to make you stronger, you just cant ever give up. You need to leave your past behind. Your rearview mirror in your car is small for a reason and your windshield is much larger because the future is bigger than your past. A convicted former IRA hijacker hid secret dissident terror notes in a perfume box, a court has been told. Handwriting on the notes matched a benefits application made by west Belfast woman Fionnuala Perry, police claimed in an appearance at Belfast Magistrates' Court. Perry, 61, from west Belfast, was charged with two counts of collecting information useful to terrorists between September 2015 and February 2018. Police said the notes were a mixture of plain language and coded words including shortbread and Rice Krispies. The PSNI say they can link Perry, a senior member of the dissident republican party Saoradh, to the notes after comparing them to her handwriting on a Personal Independence Payments (PIP) application form submitted to the government in 2017. The court heard a raid was carried out at her address in the Clonard area of west Belfast in February 2018 which uncovered what they referred to as a security debrief following police recovery of munitions in Ballymurphy in 2015. Cigarette papers and tracing paper were recovered from a perfume box which contained handwritten notes relating to police activity in the area which were never released to the press or public, the court heard. The notes are said to contain a mixture of plain language and code including the phrases Luger, 9mm auto, 9mm 100, Rice Krispies and shortbread. Police say the notes relate to a raid carried out in Ballymurphy in September 2015 in which over half a kilogram of Semtex, two handguns, more than 200 rounds of ammunition and two detonators were recovered. The papers were sent for handwriting analysis months later when the PSNI were provided with a copy of Mrs Perrys 2017 application for PIP. Officers told the court a handwriting expert had compared the two and, in their opinion, there was strong support for a connection between them. In the notes officers also said there was reference to individuals who had been spoken to by officers in relation to the 2015 raid whose details had never publicly been released. The court heard the PSNI were of the opinion the notes formed part of an internal security review carried out by a paramilitary organisation and objected to bail on the grounds Mrs Perry may commit further offences. However, lawyers acting on behalf of Fionnuala Perry, often referred to as Nuala, successfully applied for bail on behalf of their client under stringent bail terms. Granting her bail judge Bernie Kelly said: Mrs Perry this is a fine balancing exercise between these charges and your rights enshrined by legal conventions. I am going to release you under strict conditions. The rules of her bail include not having access to any internet enabled communications device, a night time curfew and a requirement to sign on once a week at Musgrave Police Station. She was also released on her own bail of 500 and a cash surety of 2,000. The Public Prosecution Service immediately lodged an appeal against the granting of bail and Mrs Perry was held in custody as a result pending a hearing at the appeal court. Rapper Nelly is asking a US court to dismiss a British womans lawsuit that alleges he sexually assaulted her after a concert in England. The federal lawsuit was filed in November in St Louis, the rappers hometown. The woman accuses Nelly, whose real name is Cornell Haynes Jr, of assaulting her in a dressing room at The Cliffs Pavillion in Essex in December 2017. Nelly has not been criminally charged and has denied the allegations. The woman is identified only as Jane Doe in the lawsuit. Nellys lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, filed a response to the lawsuit on Thursday, arguing that the woman should not be allowed to remain anonymous and avoid public scrutiny. The woman alleges that she paid to have her photo taken with the 44-year-old rapper after the concert before he took her to a separate room and sexually assaulted her. The womans lawyer, Karen Koehler, said the woman reported the incident to police more than a year ago and she believes the investigation is ongoing. Mr Rosenblum argued that a cloak of anonymity for the accuser invites people with personal vendettas to use the federal court system as a tool to inflict calculated harm against others reputations while protecting themselves from scrutiny that false accusations properly risk and invite. The lawsuit is the second such case filed against the rapper. In September, Nelly settled a lawsuit filed by a woman who alleged he raped her on his tour bus in suburban Seattle. Police in Washington arrested Nelly in October 2017, but prosecutors did not file charges, citing a lack of co-operation by the accuser. Mr Rosenblum said those accusations were fabricated. Thousands of Indians have gathered in the capital to watch a display of the countrys military power, amid tight security during the Republic Day celebrations. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the chief guest at the parade, which celebrates the anniversary of the adoption of Indias Constitution in 1950. India had first invited President Donald Trump but US officials declined, citing a scheduling issue. Schoolchildren, folk dancers, and police and military battalions marched through New Delhis parade route on a cold morning, followed by the military hardware display that included M777 American Ultra Light Howitzers artillery guns, T-90 main battle tanks, locally made nuclear-capable missile systems and infantry combat vehicles. Expand Close Indian army tanks during the parade (Manish Swarup/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Indian army tanks during the parade (Manish Swarup/AP) Men, women and children in colourful dresses performed traditional dances and acrobatics on the sun-bathed boulevard, drawing applause from the spectators. The spectacle ended with Indian air force aircraft whizzing past the saluting base. Millions of Indians watched the 90-minute display on TV. The theme of the parade was the 150th birthday of Indias independence leader, Mahatma Gandhi. Mr Ramaphosa watched with interest and waved at tableaux depicting among other things Gandhis life as he won independence for the country from British colonialists in 1947. Expand Close South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was guest of honour (Manish Swarup/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was guest of honour (Manish Swarup/AP) Gandhis days in South Africa influenced his decision to resist racial segregation and other injustices with nonviolent protests. Similar parades were held in Indian states, including Jammu-Kashmir and Manipur, where separatist militants do not accept Indian rule and called for general strikes. There were no immediate reports of any insurgent violence from these areas. The possibility of an insurgent attack prompted more than 50,000 police and paramilitary soldiers to guard the parade route in the Indian capital. Expand Close The parade concluded with a flypast (Manish Swarup/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The parade concluded with a flypast (Manish Swarup/AP) Four Indian National Army veterans, aged over 90, also took part in the parade, seated on a tableau. They were followers of Subhash Chandra Bose, a Congress Party leader who formed an army to fight British colonial rulers with the help of the Japanese in the 1940s. Flooding triggered by a collapsed dam near Brumadinho in Brazil (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) At least seven people are dead and around 200 are missing after a mining dam collapsed in Brazil. Brazilian mining company Vale SA said the flow reached the community of Vila Ferteco and an administrative office, where employees were present, which indicated the possibility of victims. The company said it did not have further information on deaths or injuries at the dam, located in the town of Brumadinho. Expand Close Around 200 people are estimated to be missing (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Around 200 people are estimated to be missing (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) Parts of the city were evacuated and local firefighters were rescuing people by helicopter and ground vehicles. There were no official reports of deaths, but the state fire department press department told The Associated Press that about 200 people were estimated to be missing. Local television channel TV Record showed a firefighters helicopter hovering inches off the ground as it pulled people covered in mud out of the sludge. Photos showed the rooftops of structures poking above an extensive field of the mud, which also cut off roads. President Jair Bolsonaro sent a tweet saying he lamented the incident and was sending the three cabinet ministers to the area. Expand Close An aerial view after the dam collapsed (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp An aerial view after the dam collapsed (Bruno Correia/Nitro via AP) Another dam administered by Vale and Australian mining company BHP Billiton collapsed in Mariana, Minas Gerais, in 2015, resulting in 19 deaths and displacing hundreds from their homes. It is considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, with 60 million cubic metres of waste flooding rivers and eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The rivers of mining waste are raising fears of widespread contamination. According to Vales website, tailings are mostly made up of sand and are non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from the 2015 disaster contained high levels of toxic heavy metals. The 2015 collapse left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. Vale is Brazils largest mining company. Two hours after the accident, Vale stocks fell 10% on the New York Stock Exchange. An awesome dad has gone viral after he took the time to nurse a dogs favourite toy back to health. Student Michaella Wallace was away at college in Pennsylvania when she received a message from her dad Terry saying he had some sad news: their dog Luckys toy bear had had an accident outside their home. my dogs stuffed animal was left outside and my dad made sure so save him.. pic.twitter.com/ysgViljoxS kay (@oohhhkayyy) January 24, 2019 He might have passed, Terry added in a family chat which Michaella later posted on Twitter. But after Michaellas mum brought the toy, which is known as Luckys baby, inside, things took a turn for the better. I found a slight pulse, Terry wrote. Im doing CPR. Terry then proudly announced he had saved the toys life, and sent Michaella a picture of dogs Lucky and Laci watching over the patient as it recovered. The bear was even fitted with a homemade drip. Michaella explained her dad wanted to do something to cheer her up as she returned to college, hence the messages. With the first week of classes starting my dad wanted to send me a little something for a pick-me-up, she told the Press Association. He didnt just succeed in cheering Michaella though as her tweets went viral, putting a smile on faces all over the world. Those dogs look like worried parents at the hospital waiting for news on their son rudy (@Twerk4Rudy) January 25, 2019 How do I make your dad my primary care doctor? Adasiah Marie (@Curious_Cat97) January 25, 2019 Michaella said the incident was entirely in character for her dad. My dads been doing things to make my mom and I laugh my whole life, she said. He always has gone the extra mile to bring a connection between the three of us. His time he gets to spend with us has always been limited due to his work schedule, so he has always tried to make the best of it. The three family members were sentenced at the Old Bailey (Jonathan Brady/PA) Three members of the same family, including a mother who labelled Ariana Grande the devil, have been jailed for possessing Islamic State (IS) propaganda. At the Old Bailey on Friday, Asma Aweys, 30, her partner Abdulaziz Abu Munye, 27, and her brother Ahmed Aweys, 33, were sentenced to 19 months, 15 months and 25 months imprisonment respectively. Mother-of-two Ms Aweys, from Edmonton in north London, labelled Ariana Grande as the devil in relation to the Manchester bombing in a message recovered by police from her phone. Of the Westminster terror attack, she also said: This was by the decree of Allah. Judge Mark Dennis QC dismissed an argument made by Ms Aweyss defence barrister Rhiannon Crimmins that she was only viewing IS material to try to trace her two brothers who she thought had gone to fight for the organisation in Syria. I think she has been greatly shocked by her arrest.Rhiannon Crimmins He added: The WhatsApp messaging speaks volumes. Mr Dennis also said it was clear that other members of the family harboured similar views. He said: It is apparent that other adults related to the defendants shared similar views and varying degrees of support for the extremist cause. Ms Aweys was also found to have three copies of the English language IS magazine Rumiyah on her phone last April. Articles in the publications offered advice such as how to inflict misery and destruction on the enemies of Allah through methods including vehicle attacks. Tips on the best way to injure people using knives, including which type of blade is most effective, were also contained in the magazines. There was also information about how to make Molotov cocktails and napalm to be used in arson attacks. Ms Crimmins, defence counsel for Ms Aweys, said: I think she has been greatly shocked by her arrest. This has caused her to reflect on her actions, Ms Crimmins said, adding: In particular she feels she has let down her children. Last month Ms Aweys pleaded guilty to collecting three copies of the magazine in November and December 2016 and January 2017. Mr Munye, who lived with Ms Aweys, previously admitted sending a 58-minute IS propaganda video, called Flames Of War 2, to Mr Aweys, of Chadwell Heath in east London. The video contained footage of brutal executions, battle scenes and references to attacks in the West. Osama bin Laden also appeared in the film, as well as images of rockets heading towards the US. Afterwards the pair discussed the footage, with one message reading: Bowling with kafir heads lol. Mr Aweys then forwarded the video to a further three people, including his wife. He said to one recipient: Tell the world. The trio came to police attention after Mr Aweys was arrested over a separate matter and had his electronic devices seized. Ms Aweys was sentenced for two counts of collecting publications useful to a terrorist, Mr Aweys for three counts of disseminating terrorist material and Mr Munye for one count of disseminating terrorist material. Acting Commander Alexis Boon, head of the Mets counter terrorism command, said: Counter terrorism and Flying Squad officers worked together to apprehend three brothers involved in a conspiracy to burgle a jewellers. Afterward, when we saw what was on Ahmed Aweys phone, the investigation quickly escalated into a terrorism probe involving him, his sister and her husband. In their Whatsapp conversations, Ahmed Aweys and Abdulaziz Munye laughed about a sickening video that showed people being brutally executed by terrorists. It is obvious they fully support the murder of innocent people for terrorist purposes, so I am pleased that my officers have ensured they are no longer free to continue peddling this toxic propaganda. Asma Aweys was avidly collecting guides intended to help terrorists kill large groups of people. These guides, if provided to the wrong person, would have given them sufficient advice to be able to carry out an immensely harmful attack. Instead, this material is now out of her hands. A retired police officer who was with Yvonne Fletcher when she was shot and killed policing a protest has offered a reward to help catch the vandal who splashed white paint on her memorial. The memorial in St Jamess Square where she was gunned down at a demonstration against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was one of five statues targeted in a spate of vandalism. Former Metropolitan Police officer John Murray was policing the protest outside the Libyan Peoples Bureau in the square in central London on April 17, 1984, when a gunman opened fire. Mr Murray was standing next to 25-year-old Pc Fletcher when she was shot and promised her as she lay dying that he would find her killer . Expand Close The memorial to murdered police officer Yvonne Fletcher in St Jamess Square is one of five memorials and statues that were vandalised (Met Police/PA Images) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The memorial to murdered police officer Yvonne Fletcher in St Jamess Square is one of five memorials and statues that were vandalised (Met Police/PA Images) The 63-year-old from Chingford said on Friday he is putting up a 100 reward from his pension for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the heinous act of vandalism. Mr Murray said: Its disgraceful, when I saw the photograph I was just gutted. I go there once a year to lay flowers and I have done for the last 34 years. Because I was standing next to her that day and we changed places three or four times I think if we had done it once more it could have been me. Expand Close CCTV images issued by the Metropolitan Police of a person officers wish to trace (Met Police/PA Images) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp CCTV images issued by the Metropolitan Police of a person officers wish to trace (Met Police/PA Images) When I was with her I promised I would find out what happened. I regard it (the memorial) as almost a personal shrine, I made a promise to find out what had happened and every time I go there I repeat those words. No one has been brought to justice in connection with the murder of Pc Fletcher, with a suspect being released from bail in without charge and told the probe against him would not proceed at this time, the Metropolitan Police said in 2017. A decision was made that crucial material cannot be used in court on the grounds of national security. The Met is currently trying to trace the memorial vandal who is believed to have worn ski goggles and a face mask as he splashed white paint on five statues in central London. Expand Close The figures of Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on the Allies sculpture in New Bond Street, London, which has been vandalised with white paint (Kirsty OConnor/PA Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The figures of Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on the Allies sculpture in New Bond Street, London, which has been vandalised with white paint (Kirsty OConnor/PA Images) As well as the Yvonne Fletcher Memorial the vandal targeted the Allies Statue of Second World War prime minister Sir Winston Churchill and his US counterpart Franklin D Roosevelt in New Bond Street. Also targeted were the Canada Memorial in Green Park, the Royal Marines Graspan Memorial on The Mall and Bomber Command Memorial in Londons Green Park. Police believe the suspect first struck at the Bomber Command Memorial before heading along the Mall towards Trafalgar Square, passing Canada House in the direction of St Jamess Square, before ending on Jermyn Street. The force said it received reports of the vandalism on Sunday and Monday and is treating the incidents as linked. Detectives are trawling through CCTV and appealing for information and witnesses. Chancellor Philip Hammond has piled fresh pressure on Theresa May by declining to rule out quitting if the UK went through with a no-deal Brexit. Mr Hammond said "a lot depends on the circumstances" after being repeatedly asked if he could remain in the UK's top financial post if the Prime Minister decided to take the UK out of the European Union without a Withdrawal Agreement. His comments on BBC Radio 4's Today came after he told the programme that a no-deal Brexit would cause "significant" disruption and damage to the economy, and that it went against what Leave voters had been told before the 2016 referendum. Read More Just a day earlier, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd hinted she could resign from the Government in a bid to stop the UK crashing out of the EU without an agreement. A prominent Remain supporter, she said she was going to "wait and see" if Mrs May allows a free vote on a series of amendments to her Brexit "Plan B" next Tuesday. Asked about his future in a no-deal scenario, Mr Hammond told Today: "I'm not going to speculate because a lot depends on the circumstances, what happens. "The responsibility I have is to manage the economy in what is the best interests of the British people. I clearly do not believe that making a choice to leave without a deal would be a responsible thing to do, but I recognise that that is potentially a default that we could find ourselves in, and if we did find ourselves in that position then the responsible thing to do is to use every possible way of mitigating and minimising the impact." Shadow chancellor John McDonnell branded Mr Hammond "gutless" for not explicitly threatening to resign over a no-deal. Separately, the Queen has spoken in favour of individuals seeking "common ground" and "never losing sight of the bigger picture", comments which some have interpreted as a veiled reference to the toxic mood of the public debate around Brexit. Cabinet tensions over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit broke into the open again as the Government floated the idea of delaying the UKs withdrawal from the EU. Justice Secretary David Gauke insisted quitting the bloc without an agreement would be pretty disastrous after Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said ministers should back Theresa Mays stance of leaving the option on the table. Mr Gauke also suggested that he backed MPs being given a free vote on some Brexit issues. Asked if he believed it would be pretty disastrous for the UK to leave the EU without a deal, Mr Gauke told the BBC: Yes, I do. What I have said repeatedly is if there is a conscious choice 'right, that's it, we're going no deal' when there are other options available, that would be something I would find extremely difficultJustice Secretary David Gauke Mr Gauke said he would need to consider his position if a no-deal policy was adopted when other options were available. He said: What I have said repeatedly is if there is a conscious choice right, thats it, were going no deal when there are other options available, that would be something I would find extremely difficult. And, given the requirements of collective responsibility, then, obviously, Id have to consider my position. Pressed on whether he backed MPs being given a free vote on extending Article 50 when amendments to the Governments Brexit motion are debated in the Commons next Tuesday, Mr Gauke said: I think there is a case for free votes in this area to resolve things. As far as Tuesday is concerned we need to see what all the amendments are going to be, to see whether Tuesday is a crunch point or not. I do think that Parliament is entitled to be involved in this process. That we should not be in a position where we, sort of, railroad this through Parliament without Parliament giving its consent. The comments came as Mrs Leadsom signalled that the UK could remain in the EU beyond the scheduled March 29 exit date. Expand Close Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom (Stefan Rousseau/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The Commons Leader told BBC2s Newsnight: We can get the legislation through. And in particular I think we do, in spite of everything, have a very strong relationship with our EU friends and neighbours and Im absolutely certain that if we needed a couple of extra weeks or something, that would be feasible. Mrs Leadsom said that with good will the necessary legislation could go through Parliament on schedule. Stressing the need for Cabinet unity on the possibility of a no-deal exit, Mrs Leadsom said: Im totally aligned to the Prime Minister. I believe that is where collective responsibility should lie. So number one, the legal default is we leave the EU on March 29 without a deal unless there is a deal is in place. That hasnt changed. That is the Prime Ministers view and thats my view. Mrs Leadsoms comments came after Chancellor Philip Hammond declined to rule out quitting his post if the UK goes through with a no-deal Brexit. Expand Close Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Mr Hammond said a no-deal Brexit would cause significant disruption and damage to the economy, and that it went against what Leave voters had been told before the 2016 referendum. Irelands Europe minister, Helen McEntee, insisted that a backstop to prevent a hard border was absolutely necessary due to the UKs red lines on leaving the single market and customs union. The backstop would see the UK obeying EU customs rules if no wider trade agreement is settled after a transition period. Ms McEntee told the BBC: It is because of those red lines that a backstop is absolutely necessary. I think now, for some reason, the onus by the UK has been shifted back on Ireland. That we should compromise. That we are the ones that are trying to be awkward or difficult. We are protecting a peace process. There is an obligation on the UK to ensure that the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement, is protected. And any suggestion that they can walk away from that, we simply wont accept that. Expand Close A defaced road sign welcoming motorists to Northern Ireland on the main motorway border in Co Louth (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A defaced road sign welcoming motorists to Northern Ireland on the main motorway border in Co Louth (Brian Lawless/PA) European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker used a telephone call during the week to tell Mrs May that the price of revisiting the backstop would be altering her red lines in favour of a permanent customs union, according to the Guardian. Mr Juncker said the current terms of the Withdrawal Agreement would be non-negotiable without a shift in Londons position, the newspaper reported a leaked diplomatic note stating. Tory MP Andrew Murrison, who has tabled a Commons amendment requiring the backstop to be replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border, called for movement from Dublin. Referring to the current backstop proposal, he said: The crucial thing here is its not for a period of time it doesnt allow us to get out after a while its potentially forever. And thats the problem. And thats why my amendment would seek to put a sunset, as it were, on that part of the agreement. He added that limiting it to five years could work, stating: The Polish foreign minister, very helpfully, suggested five years. That seems not entirely unreasonable to me. Mr Murrison added: Dublin needs to understand that if Brexit goes wrong then the UK will not prosper. But the effects in the Republic are going to probably be even worse. So, it is in all of our interests to make sure that what happens is good for us all, including the European Union. That means getting this deal over the line. The repercussions of a no-deal scenario could be similar to the national emergency faced by Iceland during the volcanic eruptions in 2010, according to the Cabinet Office, the Guardian reported. The impact on Iceland from the volcanic ash clouds is seen as a useful example by the Cabinet Office of the kind of escalating disruption that could face the UK this spring, according to the newspaper. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported that concern over how the PM is handling Brexit is causing donors to refuse to give money to the Tory party. The Midlands Industrial Council secretary David Wall told the newspaper: With the level of confusion within Parliament at the moment the uncertainty over a possible election, a possible change of leader most donors are reluctant to make donations at this time. We all need some clarity on what direction the Conservative Party and the Government are going in. Connor Murphys sisters Rebecca and Alison are appealing for help to find their brother The family of a Northern Ireland man who has been missing in the Netherlands for almost two weeks say they are "worried sick" and have appealed for him to get in touch. Connor James Murphy (39), originally from Newcastle, Co Down, has been living in Amsterdam for the past three years, where he works as a chef. He was last seen between 1am and 2am on Sunday, January 13 in the Nieuwmarkt area of the city. Mr Murphy had been visiting a friend in the area on Saturday, January 12 and left in the early hours of the following morning, but has not been seen since. His family say they are very concerned and that his disappearance is totally out of character. They are appealing for the public's help in tracking him down. His sisters Rebecca and Alison and brother Matthew travelled to Amsterdam this week to help in the search for him and say the whole family is "worried sick". They have spent the past few days handing out flyers, sticking up posters and contacting various hospitals and homeless shelters, but so far have no leads. Alison Clarke is appealing to her brother to get in contact with any family member or friends. She told the Belfast Telegraph: "Connor moved to Amsterdam a few years ago because he had a job to go to and he liked the lifestyle of such a vibrant city. He has a good circle of friends over here from home too. "We last heard from him on January 11, when he had been in touch with Rebecca about getting his passport sorted to come home for her wedding in a few weeks' time." Mr Murphy is described as 5ft 7in tall with short, shaven ginger-brown hair and green-blue eyes. When last seen, he was wearing blue jeans, a grey hoodie, a multi-coloured cap and was carrying a blue and yellow Puma shoulder bag. Police in Holland have issued a missing person appeal for Mr Murphy and are helping in the search by checking CCTV across the city and conducting searches of the canal. Ms Clarke added: "We have been here for a few days, but to tell you the truth we are no further on. Connor is very well known in the area where he disappeared, so we have been visiting places he would have went regularly to see if people have seen or heard anything. "His friends have been amazing and did a lot of groundwork before we came out to liaise directly with the police. "There was a reported sighting this week, but we can't be sure it is him. We are just taking it day by day and hoping for the best." In a direct appeal to her brother, Ms Clarke said: "Connor, we want you to get in touch to let us know you're okay, because we all love you and we miss you. Everybody is looking for you and we need you home now." The Lucie Blackman Trust, which supports British victims abroad, has also been assisting the Murphy family, along with the British and Irish embassies. The Trust has asked anyone with information about Mr Murphy, which will be treated in the strictest confidence, to contact its central freephone information line on 0800 098 8485 or email ops@lbtrust.org/ Leo Varadkar has been accused of talking nonsense after warning that troops may return to the border if Brexit goes very wrong. The Taoiseach was heavily criticised after he said that in a worst-case scenario, armed customs posts could be back after the UK leaves the EU. He told Bloomberg TV the border at present was totally open, but that if things went badly wrong it would look like 20 years ago. Asked to describe what a hard border would look like if the outcome of Brexit was a worst-case scenario, Mr Varadkar said: It would involve customs posts, it would involve people in uniform and it may involve the need, for example, for cameras, physical infrastructure, possibly a police presence or army presence to back it up. After months of refusals to answer questions on the impact of a no-deal, Mr Varadkars gaffe was viewed as a sign of the panic in the Irish Government at the prospect of a looming hard Brexit. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has moved to deny plans to deploy 600 gardai to the border. But Mr Varadkars interview in Davos confirmed police and troops could be needed for a hard border. An Irish Government spokesman later clarified that Mr Varadkar was not referring to the Irish Defence Forces. The Taoiseach made it clear in the interview that the Government is determined to avoid a no-deal scenario and the consequent risk of a hard border, the spokesman said. He was asked to describe a hard border, and gave a description of what it used to look like, and the risk of what it could look like in the worst-case scenario. He was not referring to Irish personnel and the Irish Government has no plans to deploy infrastructure or personnel at the border. The Taoiseachs comments were criticised by DUP MP Gregory Campbell, who said: This is deeply unhelpful talk. Mr Varadkar knows full well the connotations of such statements and he knows its nonsense. While others focus on trying to move towards a sensible deal, the Irish Prime Minister needs to dial down the rhetoric and focus more on solutions. Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson said the comments only serve to wind things up. Why would he want to raise the prospect of putting Irish troops on the border at such a sensitive point in negotiations? Is it now Dublins position that they will move to put soldiers on the border at Brussels behest? Mr Nicholson asked. It is time for Mr Varadkar to take control of his responsibility in making sure that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have as good a relationship after Brexit as they do now. This is unconstructive talk that evokes memories of the days of Charlie Haughey. Mr Varadkar also claimed that Ireland is being victimised in the Brexit process and said his government would not be giving up on the backstop mechanism for promises that the border issue would be rectified at a later date. Ulster Unionist Brexit spokesman Steve Aiken said it was particularly unstatesmanlike for Mr Varadkar to say that Ireland had been victimised by the Brexit process. He added: It does not seem so long ago that the Taoiseach and Tanaiste were making clear how they had stood up for Ireland`s position and were standing foursquare with the EU. Meanwhile, the comments were condemned as reckless and irresponsible by Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald. They are totally contrary to previous assertions regarding the governments commitment to the backstop, she said. The Taoiseach has consistently ruled out a border poll on Irish unity. Today, he paints a doomsday scenario of a return of soldiers to the border in the event of a no-deal Brexit. If that is the case, then the only way to prevent such a scenario is by affording the Irish people their say in the form of a border poll on Irish unity. The comments also sparked criticism from Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin who said: When the Taoiseach tells an audience in Davos that the army may have to be sent to the border, he is contradicting everything that we have been told about preparations. It is hard to see how this helps our case. The picture became further confused later when a senior Fine Gael politician indicated that Irish troops could be deployed to the border. When asked whether British or Irish troops would have to serve on the border in a worst-case scenario, Senator Neale Richmond told BBC Radio Ulster probably both. The latest row comes as the clock ticks down to the March 29 deadline for the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. Last night Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom suggested that the UK may seek to delay leaving the EU by a couple of weeks in order to get Brexit legislation through Parliament, The prominent Cabinet Brexiteer insisted that it would be feasible to remain in the bloc for a time after the scheduled exit date of March 29. Police are appealing for information following an aggravated burglary in Coleraine A man has been charged after two men aged in their 50s were left in hospital after a serious attack in Holywood outside a bar and in front of a large crowd. The incident occurred outside a bar on Hibernia Street at around 11pm on Friday. Detective Sergeant Lauren Edwards said: Its understood the injured men, who are both believed to be aged in their 50s, were attacked by a single assailant. They have sustained serious head injuries and are currently being treated in hospital." A 54-year-old man was arrested by police at a petrol station shortly after the attack. He has been charged with GBH and is to appear in court on Monday. "We know there was a large crowd in the area at the time and I would like to appeal to those people who were there and who may have witnessed what happened to please get in touch. Detectives can be contacted at Bangor CID by calling 101, quoting reference 1404 25/01/19," the officer added. Children across Northern Ireland are receiving their results. Thousands of primary school children are to receive their transfer test results on Saturday. A total of 16,507 pupils took both the AQE and GL exams last November in order to secure a place at their chosen school. That was up 8% on the 15,319 which took the tests in the previous year. It's estimated around 2,000 children took both the tests. It's the 11th year since the official 11-Plus was scrapped in Northern Ireland and replaced by the private exams. Schools were previously barred from preparing children for the exams however, this was overturned by the DUP Education Minister Peter Weir in 2016. School principals have said the tests put the children under "enormous pressure". On Friday the Belfast Telegraph published a comprehensive list of the results schools accepted for places last year. It also revealed that most grammars were oversubscribed. North Down MP Lady Sylvia Hermon has said she may have to rethink her support for Theresa May on Brexit if the Prime Minister accepts the DUP's call for her to remove the controversial backstop from her proposed UK/EU withdrawal agreement. Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics programme, the independent MP said the Prime Minister did not have the power to remove the backstop from the withdrawal agreement. She said the backstop is there "to protect peace". "We have enjoyed peace for 20 years. The Prime Minister was formerly the Home Secretary. She well knows we cannot afford to have a hard border on the island of Ireland." She called on the DUP and pro-Brexit MPs to be pragmatic, and to compromise on their demands to ditch the backstop. Read More But if Mrs May shifted closer to the DUP/Brexiteer position, the North Down MP felt she would have to reconsider her support for the Government. "I would have to think very long and hard about that," she said. "The fact we've had no Assembly for two years has meant that those who are of nationalist and republican tradition haven't had a forum in which they can voice their concerns. "We have to be careful and sensitive when we are talking about the backstop. "No one wants a hard border." Statues of trade unionist Inez McCormack and SDLP co-founder Paddy Devlin are among the proposals for honouring prominent Belfast citizens which are due for approval at the next meeting of Belfast City Council. There are also plans to honour figures from earlier periods, such as Winifred Carney, who was secretary to James Connolly; Victorian Gaelic language supporter Robert McAdam; social reformer Mary Ann McCracken, and Grace Bannister, the first woman to become Lord Mayor of Belfast. Also mooted is a minority ethnic community window, an anti-slavery installation, and a memorial to those who died during the Luftwaffe's bombing blitz on Belfast in World War II. According to SDLP councillor Tim Attwood, the plans, which have been agreed by all City Hall parties except Sinn Fein, will honour people from traditions historically unrepresented in the Belfast City Hall and its grounds. "There were discussions between political parties which recognised the need for greater inclusivity and addressing areas of under-representation," Mr Attwood said. "A number of individuals were identified who had a clear and long-standing connection to the city. "I believe this agreement has achieved balance with women, socialists, nationalists, republicans and human rights recognised. It is vital that Belfast City Hall and our grounds are open and inclusive to all. "In developing the new exhibition centre in City Hall we were able to represent in a positive way all traditions in Belfast, new and old. The principle to add new narratives, stories and exhibitions which represented the wider nationalist community and new communities, while representing historic unionist memorabilia, has been well received. "Equally, it is important that in the grounds Belfast City Council acknowledge, in a balanced and inclusive way, the role of citizens of Belfast who have positively contributed to the social, political and civic life of Belfast through memorials in the front of City Hall." Alliance's Michael Long also welcomed the proposals. "I am pleased that we have delivered an agreement on these contentious issues which required resolution following an equality impact assessment," he said. "It found that symbols were overwhelmingly male, white, Protestant and unionist. "Today's decision will continue to develop upon the agreement reached on the inside of City Hall and will help better reflect a changing, diverse and more inclusive city." The proposals will now go forward to the full council for ratification on February 4. Police returned to the scene of the Londonderry car bombing one week on from the New IRA attack. The bomb detonated after the hijacked car of a pizza delivery man was left abandoned outside Bishop Street courthouse. Moments before the explosion a group of teenagers had just passed the car and while police were in the process of clearing the area. Over the past week - as the incident made headlines around the world - there has been widespread condemnation of the incident as well as peace rallied held across Northern Ireland. Police staged a reconstruction on Saturday evening in a fresh appeal to the public for information on those behind the attack. Reconstruction of moment car containing bomb was abandoned outside courthouse on Bishops Street one week on from incident. pic.twitter.com/iZgzfgLGni Police Derry City and Strabane (@PSNIDCSDistrict) January 26, 2019 Reconstruction of moment car containing bomb was abandoned outside courthouse on Bishops Street one week on from incident. pic.twitter.com/iZgzfgLGni Police Derry City and Strabane (@PSNIDCSDistrict) January 26, 2019 Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Griffin said: Last Saturday Derry/Londonderry was packed with local families and tourists, socialising and enjoying the best of what the city has to offer when a bomb detonated outside the courthouse. This unbelievably reckless attack left children and adults in fear of their lives and caused widespread disruption to many people in the local area. It is only out of sheer luck nobody was killed or maimed. Tonight at the exact same times that the terrorist parked the car, detonated the bomb and ran away from the scene, we carried out a reconstruction, handed out leaflets and spoke to many people in the area in a bid to jog peoples memories. "There has been widespread condemnation of this attack and this sentiment was echoed by the community when we spoke to them this evening. Young teenagers walked past the bomb right before it detonated ... this clearly demonstrates that these terrorists do not care about the safety of those living in this community. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of the Derry courthouse car bombing. Pic Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. Lorcan Doherty Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th January 2019. Photo by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of last weekend's bombing outside Derry Courthouse. Lorcan Doherty Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th January 2019. Photo by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of last weekend's bombing outside Derry Courthouse. Lorcan Doherty Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th January 2019. Photo by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of last weekend's bombing outside Derry Courthouse. Lorcan Doherty Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th January 2019. Photo by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of last weekend's bombing outside Derry Courthouse. Lorcan Doherty Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th January 2019. Photo by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of last weekend's bombing outside Derry Courthouse. Lorcan Doherty Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 26th January 2019. Photo by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of last weekend's bombing outside Derry Courthouse. Lorcan Doherty / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp PSNI officers carry out a reconstruction of the Derry courthouse car bombing. Pic Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. The investigation is progressing and we have now recovered a suspected handgun in the area of Iona Court, which we believe was in the possession of one of the terrorists. The people responsible for this attack have shown no regard for local people and businesses and today, I would like to make a number of appeals and ask the community for their help." The officer said anyone who was in Quarry Street, Lecky Road, Barrack Street, Bishop Street, Nailors Row and Long Tower Court, last Saturday night between 6pm and 9pm who may have seen either the vehicle or the terrorists, including the man who abandoned the car and ran away from the scene, to contact his officers. Did you see a grey-coloured Ford Fusion, WCZ 2167, which was hijacked in Quarry Street and driven to Bishop Street via Barrack Street?," he added. Did you witness anything unusual or see any other vehicles in the area at that time? Do you have any dashcam footage? Were there any people in the area that you feel may be important to this enquiry? Is there anything else you can tell Police that would help our investigation? I believe the explosion was carried out by the New IRA. We know that a number of young teenagers walked past the bomb right before it detonated and while they were not the intended victims, this clearly demonstrates that these terrorists do not care about the safety of those living in this community. "They dont give a second thought to who they harm or the disruption they cause to local people and businesses. I would also appeal to anyone who has any information about this incident to get in touch with police on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference number 1204 19/1/19. Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime. A 12-year-old victim of sexual assault in Northern Ireland had to travel to England under police escort for an abortion, MPs have been told. An officer seized samples from the procedure as evidence, said Dawn Purvis, former director of the Marie Stopes pregnancy advice service in Belfast. The child could not be treated in Northern Ireland due to strict laws prohibiting the procedure in most circumstances. Ms Purvis said: "The police had to go with her, they attended the surgical procedure to seize the evidence. "That is inhumane treatment of a young child who did not have a passport and had to leave the country." Abortion is a bitterly polarising debate in Northern Ireland. While at Marie Stopes, Ms Purvis said she was subjected to at times vitriolic verbal abuse from those who believe the life of the unborn is sacrosanct. For years, significant numbers of women from Northern Ireland have travelled to Great Britain for terminations. Ms Purvis appeared before the Commons Women and Equalities Committee yesterday during its hearing in Belfast on Northern Ireland's abortion law. She told MPs: "We saw many young women we could not help, from the Roma or Travelling community, victims of domestic violence. "One woman came in with a boot mark on her face where she was constantly battered and raped by her abusive partner over Christmas, and she could not leave Northern Ireland and the law here does not help women." Northern Ireland's chief medical officer, Dr Michael McBride, told the committee that doctors here are not referring women for abortions in Great Britain because the step has not been tested in court. Most obtain terminations by contacting providers directly but GPs can provide signposting advice since the official guidance makes that clear, the parliamentary inquiry was told. Northern Ireland has the strictest abortion laws in the UK. The procedure recently became available on the NHS for women from Northern Ireland in Great Britain and significant numbers have travelled. Abortion on the NHS is free for those from Northern Ireland who travel to other parts of the UK. Dr McBride said: "It is not clear whether health professionals can formally refer into those services and whether it would be lawful to do so." He said medical professionals should be able to fulfil their duty of care without fear that they could break the law. Ms Purvis said there was a grey area around the provision of information by GPs. She added: "There is a fear that if they have a bunch of leaflets on their desk from the Family Planning Agency (FPA) or Marie Stopes that somehow they are breaking the law and that they will be reported for having information there." Ms Purvis said there was a "criminalising attitude" and a failure to produce clear guidance for healthcare professionals, nurses and doctors. "The impact is horrendous." The 1967 Abortion Act was not introduced in Northern Ireland and there is a fierce lobbying war between campaigners for liberalisation and those who believe the life of the unborn is sacrosanct. A pensioner who launched a prolonged and unprovoked attack on his wife of 37 years in their west Belfast home was jailed yesterday. Roy Cairns, who described his behaviour on the night of September 8, 2017 as "monstrous", was handed a three-year sentence that will be divided between 18 months in prison and 18 months on licence. During yesterday's sentencing at Belfast Crown Court it emerged that Cairns' wife (62) had her head banged off a radiator, was trailed by her hair and was repeatedly punched and kicked in their lower Falls home. Neighbours took her to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where she was treated for a 10cm head wound that required staples. Four of her teeth were also damaged in the attack, and she is still undergoing dental treatment. Cairns (66), with an address at Cloona Glen in Dunmurry, hasn't seen his wife since, and has expressed remorse, which the judge considered to be sincere. Crown prosecutor Gareth Purvis told the court the former Northern Ireland Housing Executive employee pleaded guilty to a charge of wounding his wife with intent to cause her grievous bodily harm. The prosecutor said Cairns launched the attack after the couple had spent the evening watching TV and consuming a moderate amount of alcohol. As she went to bring the dog in from the back at around 11pm she was "attacked without any reason or trigger" in the kitchen. The court was told Cairns grabbed his wife by her hair, flung her sideways then started banging her head off a radiator. At this point she felt blood on her scalp, and her husband continued the assault by trailing her around by her hair. Mr Purvis continued: "She tried to escape but the front door was locked. She tried to get up the stairs but he pulled her back then repeatedly punched and kicked her in the hallway." The prosecutor said that at one point she tried to calm her husband down, but he told her he felt she had dictated and ruined his life, and she had no respect for him. When she managed to break free, she ran to a neighbour's house and was taken to hospital. Expand Close Roy Cairns at Belfast Crown Court yesterday Photopress Belfast / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Roy Cairns at Belfast Crown Court yesterday She later told police the attack was "out of the blue" and said the incident has had a significant impact on her. She also expressed concerns about what would happen if she encountered her husband again, and has experienced a lack of confidence and flashbacks. Mr Purvis said that apart from one incident in 2009, there was no history of domestic violence. Regarding the incident in September 2017, Mr Purvis spoke of a disparity between the "slight and short" victim and her husband, who spent time in the Irish Army. He concluded the Crown case by saying: "There are deep issues of unhappiness in his past history, which could provide an explanation for his behaviour. There has been no contact between husband and wife since this event." A defence barrister for Cairns expanded on his client's very troubled background and childhood - including abandonment - which he said may have been a catalyst for what occurred. The barrister also spoke of Cairns' work history, including 32 years of employment with NIHE. And while the barrister spoke of "considerable cracks and difficulties" within the marriage, he said this was an incident of domestic violence that was absent of controlling or manipulative behaviour. Cairns' barrister also revealed the pensioner has been working with a mental health team, that he has not breached a non-molestation order taken out by his wife, and is now living an isolated and ostracised life away from his marital home. Judge David McFarland said the offending was all the more serious as it was a "violation of trust and security in a family setting". The arrest was made after police found quantities of suspected cocaine during searches in Larne on Friday. Police investigating the activities of the UDA in Co Antrim have arrested a 42-year-old man. The arrest was made after officers from the Paramilitary Crime Task Force found quantities of suspected cocaine during searches in Larne on Friday. Detective Inspector Lynne Knox said: "In a planned search, under the Misuse of Drugs Act, officers seized a quantity of suspected cocaine. "We are actively tackling the issue of drugs and I would appeal to the public to speak to us if they have any concerns or information regarding drugs in their communities. "In fact information from the local community leads us to believe that these drugs may have been destined for distribution to children and adults in the area. "I cannot stress enough that people who peddle drugs have no thought for anyone in their community. "I would ask anyone who is aware of any individual involved in the supply of drugs to contact their local police on 101. Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111; which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime." The driver of an HGV which collided with a vehicle, killing one occupant and seriously injuring another, has changed his previous not-guilty pleas after the PPS agreed to lesser charges. The driver of an HGV which collided with a vehicle, killing one occupant and seriously injuring another, has changed his previous not-guilty pleas after the PPS agreed to lesser charges. Patricia Kearney died in the collision on April 27, 2015 at the meeting of the M1 and the A4 Woodlough Road, Dungannon. The mother-of-five from Newtownabbey was travelling with her husband who sustained very serious injuries. William Alexander (50) from Glenside, Comber was originally charged with causing death and grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving. These were denied, but yesterday at Dungannon Crown Court defence counsel asked to have him re-arraigned. Reading from a piece of paper supplied by his solicitor, Alexander replied to the charges: "Not guilty to death by dangerous driving, but guilty to death by careless driving." He made the same reply in respect of grievous bodily harm. Alexander was remanded on continuing bail before sentence on February 20. A hardening of the border in Ireland will be met with a demand for a unity referendum, the Sinn Fein president has told a Brexit conference. More than 1,500 people attended the Beyond Brexit event in Belfast, which examined the future of Northern Ireland and the Republic after the UK leaves the EU. During her speech, Mary Lou McDonald called for the Irish Government to convene a forum in a bid to begin planning for Irish unity. There are no 'little Irelanders' here and we will not tolerate the narrowness of the Brexiteers or policy of isolation imposed by Brexiteers.Mary Lou McDonald The event was organised by Irelands Future, a collective of Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland seeking to highlight the potential impact of Brexit on their rights and livelihoods. Other speakers at the Waterfront Hall included SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, Irelands Education Minister Joe McHugh and deputy leader of Fianna Fail Dara Calleary. Ms McDonald said crashing out of the EU with no deal in place would lead to a hardening of the border. There are no little Irelanders here and we will not tolerate the narrowness of the Brexiteers or policy of isolation imposed by Brexiteers, she said. A crash means a hardening of the border and the loss of rights and continued uncertainty and instability. A hardening of the border is inconceivable and will be met with the demand for a unity referendum. We dont exactly know what will happen over the next few weeks or months. Its not in our hands, its in the hands of a minority Tory Government in London, and that is the crux of the problem. Its irresponsible and arrogant for a Dublin Government to shout down any prospect of a unity referendum. While there were no unionist politicians speaking at the event, Ms McDonald issued a direct message to the unionist community saying they would have a home in a united Ireland. She added: You will have a place at the table, a place at the centre of political life and not left in the margins of Westminster. The Protestant, loyalist and unionist community are part of the fabric and diversity of our nation and they must be part of the discussion in shaping the new Ireland and be partners in building a new Ireland. Our shared and often troubled history can be reconciled. Regardless of Brexit there will be a unity referendum. Its our job to secure that, to win it and win it well. Mr Eastwood, however, said now is not the right time for a border poll. Expand Close SDLP leader Colum Eastwood voiced concern about any hardening of the Irish border (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp SDLP leader Colum Eastwood voiced concern about any hardening of the Irish border (Brian Lawless/PA) There are unionists who are willing to engage and explore new possibilities, he said. Unionism should have nothing to fear in a conversation based on persuasion and consent. My appeal to unionism is this try to convince us of your vision for the future and well try to convince you of ours and then in time let the people decide. He also raised his concerns over the hardening of the border, saying it would be a deliberate violation of the political process by the British Government. There is no getting away from the fact that Brexit has changed everything and will continue to change everything, he added. Mr McHugh, a Donegal TD, told the crowd it is imperative that the peace process is protected. He added: The impact of Brexit will of course be felt across this island in many different ways. We are doing everything we possibly can to prepare for and mitigate those impacts. We believed it was imperative to protect the hard-won progress in repairing and building the three sets of relationships encompassed by the Good Friday Agreement which were all supported and improved by our common EU membership. We have never sought to use the context of Brexit to advance any other political agenda. Expand Close Irish Education Minister Joe McHugh told the conference that the peace process must be protected after Brexit (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Irish Education Minister Joe McHugh told the conference that the peace process must be protected after Brexit (Brian Lawless/PA) Referring to last Saturdays New IRA car bomb in Derry, Mr McHugh said it was an appallingly reckless act of terror. Mr Calleary was critical about how Brexit has consumed political systems, adding that issues on both sides of the Irish Sea have been minimised and forgotten about. He said: The issues about health, homelessness, infrastructure, are all relegated. Those are the issues that peoples lives are dependant on, yet the energy of politics, the energy of the civil service, has been consumed by this political process. We cannot ignore issues like climate change, we cannot ignore inequality in our education system, health and housing system. We have to come up with a process that can deal with the issues around rights-based legislation and issues that are blocking the return of the institutions. Meanwhile Niall Murphy, a Belfast solicitor and co-organiser of the event, criticised the DUPs opposition to an Irish language act. He described it as an example of the DUPs sneering contempt for parity of esteem. He added: Our language is an intrinsic part of all of our identity as citizens, yet we endure contemptuous taunts, such as Curry My Yoghurt and Crocodiles, and the cancellation of microscopic bursaries for the Donegal Gaeltacht. A senior cleric has apologised for allowing television crews to film in church grounds after they were banned by one of his priests. The churchyard in Boho, Co Fermanagh, has seen a sharp rise in visitors after scientists discovered a new strain of bacteria that could help in the fight against drug-resistant bacteria. The new strain was found to inhibit multi-resistant bacteria identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a major threat to human health. According to local belief, the 'miracle soil' from the Sacred Heart Church near Enniskillen can cure infections after it was found to contains a new strain of streptomyces, a micro-organism used to produce antibiotics. Dr Gerry Quinn said his research was inspired by his great-uncle, who believed he could cure jaundice by foraging natural ingredients in the mountains. However, the discovery has caused some controversy. The Impartial Reporter newspaper said a significant increase in visitors to the church grounds to collect some of the soil is causing concern among locals, who are worried that things may be "getting a bit out of hand". Last week the parish priest Fr Cathal Deery refused permission for television crews from the BBC and UTV to film in the churchyard. However, his decision was overruled by Monsignor Joseph McGuinness, administrator of the Diocese of Clogher. He said he did not know permission had been declined, blaming a communication breakdown. Fr Deery declined to comment on the matter when contacted yesterday. However, in a statement, Monsignor McGuinness apologised to the priest and his parishioners, saying he wasn't aware that Fr Deery had initially refused the television crews access to the church grounds. He said: "When I was approached by the BBC for permission to film at Boho, I was unaware that they had previously been in contact with Fr Deery. I was therefore not aware of the response which he had given. "In this particular instance I took the view that, under clearly specified conditions, permission could be given. It was only later that I found out that Fr Cathal took a different view, which was also perfectly justifiable. "Unfortunately there was a failure in communication, and I very much regret the annoyance and upset which this has caused, both to Fr Cathal and clearly also to people in the parish," he added. Ireland's Europe minister dismissed a suggestion the Republic should leave the EU after she was asked - given the her economy's reliance on Britain for exports, revenue and jobs - why it didn't just "throw its lot in" with the UK. Helen McEntee was questioned on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on the current state of affairs on Brexit and on how a hard border could be avoided should the UK crash out of the EU at the end of March without a deal. Veteran host John Humphrys put it to the minister that instead of Dublin saying the UK had to stay within the single market and customs union to avoid a hard border "there has to be an argument" for Ireland to instead leave the EU. It was put to her that the Britain was "massively important" to Ireland in terms of the economy, "it accounts for 50% from the Republic, it's worth about 65billion euros a year and sustains over 400,000 jobs and so on," said Humphries. "There has to be an argument doesn't there, that says instead of Dublin telling this country that we have to stay within the single market etc, within the customs union etc, why doesn't Dublin, why doesn't the Republic of Ireland leave the EU and throw in their lot with this country?" We did not vote for Brexit, we don't believe in it. Ms McEntee responded: "First I need to clarify some statistics. Maybe years ago our exports were at that figure 50% but now they are about 13/14%.... 33% of our market is the other 500m people in the rest of the European Union. "We have spent 45 years working with the UK in developing the EU and a shared future for all of us. We don't want Brexit, we don't want the UK to leave because of that close relationship and partnership and what we are trying to do is to make sure that in that future relationship moving forward that we have that same close relationship. "But obviously if the UK are insisting on leaving the single market and customs union it makes it that more difficult." She added: "We want a deal and we want a withdrawal agreement we want to be able to work with the UK moving forward but to suggest that we should leave... 92% of Irish people last year said they wanted to remain in the EU and in fact since Brexit that figure has got bigger." Read More The minister said in the event of a no deal there was no plans for the reintroduction of a border. "This is not an Irish policy this is not something we have voted on and this is something we have given a commitment to time and time again. "And time and time again the Prime Minister and the UK Government have given a commitment that we must protect the peace process and certainly that seem to be something people didn't think about perhaps when they voted to leave the European Union but also to ensure that they we never return to a border on this island. "So absolutely the UK will fulfill its commitment and live up to its obligations. "Brexit or no Brexit the UK Government is a co-guarantor of what is an international treaty and integral to protecting that peace treaty is ensuring we never return to any kind of borders that we saw in the past. "And all you have to do is open up the papers last weekend where we saw a car bomb going off in Derry. You only have to talk to people who lived through it in the very recent past to understand why it is we are trying to achieve this and why it is we we are trying to avoid going back to any of those scenes from the past." We are protecting a peace process. She said diplomats in Brussels had been clear on ensuring there was no border in Ireland and it was the UK's red lines which had brought about the current position about. She also said she did not accept the backstop was the sole reason for Theresa May's Commons defeat on the withdrawal agreement. She said there were many differences in parliament between the type of Brexit wanted and indeed if the UK should leave the EU. Ms McEntee stressed they never wanted the backstop to come into force but there was yet to be an alternative solution to be put forward from the UK. The backstop would see the UK obeying EU customs rules if no wider trade agreement is settled after a transition period. She told the BBC: "It is because of those red lines that a backstop is absolutely necessary. "I think now, for some reason, the onus by the UK has been shifted back on Ireland. That we should compromise. That we are the ones that are trying to be awkward or difficult." Any suggestion the UK can walk away we just can't accept She continued: "We did not vote for Brexit, we don't believe in it we absolutely respect that it was a democratic decision, we are protecting a peace process and this is not just from an Irish point of view. There is an obligation on the UK to ensure the peace process and Good Friday Agreement is protected. Any suggestion they can walk away we just can't accept." Jonathan Powell - Tony Blair's former chief of staff who played a part in the Good Friday Agreement talks was also asked if there was a possibility of Ireland "leaving Brussells". He said there was "no hope" as the country owed much of its prosperity both before the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and through its recovery to the European Union. Tory MP Andrew Murrison, who has tabled a Commons amendment requiring the backstop to be "replaced with alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border", called for movement from Dublin. Referring to the current backstop proposal, he said: "The crucial thing here is it's not for a period of time - it doesn't allow us to get out after a while - it's potentially forever. And that's the problem. "And that's why my amendment would seek to put a sunset, as it were, on that part of the agreement." He added that limiting it to five years could work, stating: "The Polish foreign minister, very helpfully, suggested five years. That seems not entirely unreasonable to me." Mr Murrison added: "Dublin needs to understand that if Brexit goes wrong then the UK will not prosper. But the effects in the Republic are going to probably be even worse. "So, it is in all of our interests to make sure that what happens is good for us all, including the European Union. "That means getting this deal over the line." Meanwhile, Cabinet tensions over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit broke into the open again as the Government floated the idea of delaying the UK's withdrawal from the EU. Justice Secretary David Gauke insisted quitting the bloc without an agreement would be "pretty disastrous" after Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom said ministers should back Theresa May's stance of leaving the option on the table. Mr Gauke also suggested that he backed MPs being given a free vote on some Brexit issues. As the countdown continues to the scheduled date of Brexit on March 29, here's what's been happening in recent days. What happened this week: Prime Minister Theresa May returned to the Commons with the outline of her Brexit plan B which, to many, sounded rather like plan A. MPs started plotting to table amendments to her "neutral motion" with a myriad of aims. Union leaders including Len McCluskey held talks with the PM in Downing Street, but Jeremy Corbyn still refuses to do so. What happens next: MPs will vote on the amendments and possibly amendments to amendments on Tuesday evening. Read More All eyes will be on Speaker John Bercow, who has the power to decide which get put to a vote and which are thrown into the Commons' waste paper bin. His choices could ultimately decide whether Britain leaves the EU on March 29. Good week for Theresa May: With so many moves afoot by MPs to prevent a no-deal Brexit, including delaying leaving beyond March 29, there are reports that some of the more hardline Brexiteers might be prepared to move closer to something resembling the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement, with not leaving (temporarily or permanently) as the alternative. Bad week for People's Vote supporters: MPs including Labour's Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna, and the Tory Sarah Wollaston, were forced to drop plans for an amendment calling for a second referendum. They blamed a lack of support from the Labour front bench, which has tabled its own, less forthright, amendment. Quote of the week: "Please don't listen to the Brexiteers' madness which asserts that 'because we have huge plants here we will not move and we will always be here'. They are wrong." Airbus chief executive Tom Enders' blunt assessment of the danger a no-deal Brexit poses to manufacturers. Tweet of the week: "Asking our Polish allies to block any attempts by EU to permit extension of Article 50. For everyone concerned imperative we leave at 11pm in March 29th as planned". Tory Party Brexiteer Daniel Kawczynski. Word of the week: Amendment. More than a dozen amendments have been tabled ahead of next Tuesday's key session by MPs from all sides of the Brexit debate, including pro-EU efforts to block a no-deal Brexit, delay Brexit and support a second referendum. Brexiteers then tabled amendments to block these aims. G&T in one hand, dachshund in the other, Steph and Dom Parker quickly proved to be nothing short of TV gold on Channel 4's Gogglebox. Taking to their famous yellow sofa, the Kent B&B owners left viewers in stitches with their in-house banter and witty critiques of the week's biggest and best telly. But now, more than two years since their last appearance on the reality show, the husband-and-wife duo, who have since gone on to host their own radio show, are about to reveal a whole new side to them; a side they've opted to keep out of the limelight - until now. Steph And Dom: Can Cannabis Save Our Son? is a film that charts their battle to help their 18-year-old son, Max, who suffers from severe epilepsy and autism. In recent months, the pair have been given new hope with the increasingly effective use of medical marijuana/CBD being shown to control, or even eliminate, the deadly seizures which blight Max's life. But they - just like thousands of other UK families - are currently being refused this treatment. Simply, it was time to find out more, explains Dom. "We've known about (medicinal cannabis) for about eight to 10 years," says Dom (54). "But what it needs is somebody to go and do a bit of investigation on it, to find out why the Government are so scared." The insightful documentary follows Steph, Dom and their two children, Max and 15-year-old daughter Honor at home and on their travels across the UK and the US to meet other families who have been prescribed cannabis oil. But considering this is the first time the Parkers have publicly documented their son's condition, the decision to make the film wasn't taken lightly. "We thought, 'Well, hang on a moment. That's exposing our private lives, which we've strived very hard to keep private, for our children's sake'," Dom recalls. "So, we thought about it for about 48 hours and we felt, if there was one good thing that could possibly come out of Max's suffering and his disability over all these years, then perhaps this is the reason he was given to us. "If this is Max's legacy, that we have helped pushed this along, and saved one life or improved one life, then all that he's been through, and we've been through, will be worthwhile." Having been diagnosed with "infant spasms" when he was just four months old, Max was initially given daily injections to cure his condition. But his seizures started again when he was four. So severe have his episodes been since, the teen now has a mental age of six; and as Steph explains in the film, his family face the heartbreaking truth that his disability is, indeed, life-threatening. Do the family believe cannabis may be the antidote they've been waiting for? "For us, personally, we don't expect this to be the cure-all, or anything like that for Max," Dom explains. "We think it's too late for him. "I would love to be disappointed on that front, but we're pretty sure the damage to his brain has been done. But we hope it might reduce his seizures." One standout moment in the film is the Parker's meeting with Billy Caldwell, the boy who made headline news after his medicinal cannabis oil was confiscated after his return from Canada, and his mother, Charlotte. "The bit that smacked us about the face was seeing Billy cuddle his mum," he admits. "It's probably all that we're hoping for, for Max, because I know he really doesn't like to be touched. "So, that was the moment." It must be frustrating, then, that cannabis, a potential helper, isn't necessarily within reach. "When you understand living with epilepsy, then you probably start to look at the medication in a slightly different way," states Dom. "And when you realise that your child is taking some severely mind-altering drugs and they're looking to give you an oil which is basically a stinging nettle without the sting in it, you would sit there and go, 'For God's sake, give it to the child'. What difference does it make - even if he does get a bit high? He has no quality of life." How do they keep smiling through the hardships? Humour, Steph suggests. And Dom agrees. "It's an exceedingly good medicine for everything, even if you're not sick," he says. "Max has a great sense of humour, Honor has a great sense of humour and, as a tiny little family of four, we have a lot of laughs together. "And, as I keep saying, 'If the good Lord gives you lemons, make brandy sours.'" Steph And Dom: Can Cannabis Save Our Son?, Channel 4, Monday, 9pm Apparently, it's the phone call that all fashion designers lie in wait for, and, once it comes through, it means a retail red-letter day. This week, it was the turn of Irish brand Dubarry, with Kate Middleton stepping out in one of the firm's 399 jackets, produced by John Hanley tweeds in Nenagh, on her first public engagement of the year. Dubarry, originally a shoe retailer established in Ballinasloe in 1937, has already enjoyed a celebrity endorsement boost from the likes of Geri Horner and Amanda Holden. It's also a brand already loved by the Queen, Princess Anne and Zara Phillips. Yet it's assumed that the 'Kate effect' will provide a huge shot in the arm for the design house. At the time of going to press, the Bracken Heath jacket that she wore had sold out online in all sizes but a size 8. "There has been a notable uplift in our website traffic in the past 24 hours, and indeed significant sales of the Bracken jacket in the immediate aftermath," says Dubarry marketing director Michael Walsh. "This has also seen significant foot flow into our stores in Dublin, London and Cheltenham, enquiring about the Bracken jacket." Irish designers have enjoyed royal connections before with, it must be noted, varying degrees of success. It all started with couturier John Cavanagh, who designed a wedding dress for Katharine Worsley (bride of the Duke Of Kent) in 1961. Two years later, he dressed Princess Alexandra of Kent for her wedding in Westminster Abbey. Paul Costello was roundly regarded as one of Princess Diana's favourite designers in the Nineties, and was a regular caller to her inner sanctum at Kensington Palace. "That was the beginning, one of the biggest things for my career, dressing Princess Diana," he once told the Irish Independent. Following Diana's endorsement, Costelloe went on to work with Zara Tindall and Princess Anne, both of whom are still clients. Philip Treacy has been a blueblood staple for longer than he cares to remember, and the connection with the Royal Family has been, on reflection, a mixed bag of fortunes. He designed no fewer than 20 hats for Harry and Meghan Markle's big day, though back in 2011, he admitted he feared he'd end up with his "head on a spike" for creating Princess Beatrice's 'octopus' hat for Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding. Yet adopting the maxim that there's no such thing as bad publicity, the infamous fashion creation has been part of his journey to the top of his game. Last year, Irish designer Don O'Neill's white ballgown was one of the many designers that Meghan Markle packed for her 16-day tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. The Kerryman, then a relative unknown, noted that creating the gown for the duchess was "beyond my wildest dreams". It's a major coup for any designer on the up, amounting to acres of publicity that could scarcely be bought. But the question needs to be asked, does a royal connection actually amount to an increase in sales, or is it simply good for PR? Consultants Brand Finance certainly seem to think it's the former, and two years ago pitched Middleton's potential worth annually to the British fashion industry at 1bn. Relative newcomer Meghan, says Brand Finance, boosted the British economy by $677m in 2018 alone. Where Kate Middleton's purse-friendly approach (relatively speaking) has apparently aided an ailing high street, animal lover Meghan is said to be doing the same stellar work for sustainable and eco-friendly labels. And what of the next generation of royal style icons? Prince George (aged five) may be king one day, but he is reportedly worth a mere 2.3bn by comparison to three-year-old Charlotte's 3bn. A princess is worth potentially more to the economy because of the fashion she might wear in the future, and Charlotte's birth alone is said to have generated economic benefits of over 100m. "As well as the boost to baby clothing sales that we have seen from Prince George, a princess would be able to set trends throughout her life, which will be great for the people who designed her clothes or those who can make quick knock-off copies," says Brand Finance chief executive David Haigh. The vintage Silver Cross pram that carried Charlotte to her christening at Sandringham in 2015 enjoyed a dramatic upswing in popularity, for instance. Prams With Pizazz, a company that restores them, was "inundated" with calls after the ceremony, according to owner Scott Frew. One designer who has certainly felt the warm glow of the Kate effect is London-based Erdem Moralioglu, who has credited Kate with transforming him from a struggling designer to a fashion powerhouse boasting $15m in annual sales. Similarly, designer Jenny Packham reported a 58% increase in frock sales after Middleton wore her buttercup yellow shift dress after Charlotte's birth. They're healthy numbers, by anyone's standards, but the Kate effect (or the Meghan effect, for that matter) doesn't always inure designers from the slings and arrows of the famously fickle industry. Besides, equating a 'sellout' item with a wild streak of success is something of a misnomer. If, for instance, Kate or Meghan wear a label or item without prior warning to the fashion houses, it means precious little if the designer in question has a humble amount of stock to sell. And this can often be the case. Just ask Orla Kiely, the Kilkenny-born designer whose fashion empire collapsed last year. Kate was a champion of Kiely and was often spotted in her dresses and coats. In one instance, a dress she favoured sold out online within minutes of photos being published. "We don't know in advance (when Kate wears our outfits), so it is a case of 'oh, holy smoke'. It's good for business, absolutely," Kiely said in May 2017. But, evidently, not good enough: The endorsement from one of the world's biggest fashion icons wasn't enough to save the firm. The full story behind the demise of Kiely's fashion empire has yet to surface, although a statement released last year alluded to "various challenges that have faced the company over the past few years, both in the UK and abroad". Proof positive then, that a doff of the cap from even the most fashion-forward and influential princess doesn't always mean that a designer can sit back and rest on their royally recommended laurels. A popular Belfast Cuban restaurant is set to open its second outlet in the city by moving into the premises recently vacated by the failed barbecue chain Bubbacue. The Cuban Sandwich Factory, which runs its flagship operation from Queen's Arcade in the city centre, has said it will expand into the former barbecue chain's south Belfast unit on Botanic Avenue. Bubbacue shocked its staff and customers when it entered liquidation in July 2018 and shut its two outlets in Belfast. It later transpired that the company, owned by John and Karen Blisard, left debts of more than 1m. Read More At one stage, the business had benefited from a 400,000 taxpayer-funded loan to support its growth. Now The Cuban Sandwich Factory has confirmed it will take on the south Belfast premises Bubbacue vacated last year. Upmarket burger restaurant Tribal Burger, which also runs an outlet on Botanic Avenue, has already occupied the former Bubbacue premises in Callender Street in Belfast city centre. The business run by husband and wife team, Paul and Elaine Catterson, invested 180,000 in the new venture in November, creating around 20 jobs. Now Cuban Sandwich Factory will soon join the food offering at the busy south Belfast thoroughfare close Queen's University. Originally a staple among the many food stalls in the bustling St George's Market, Carlos Arguelles' specialised Cuban cuisine became a permanent presence in the city in 2015, when it opened premises at the Fountain Street end of Queen's Arcade. The Victorian-era arcade will soon undergo a 2m facelift after Belfast City Council approved the refurbishment proposals of its owners Lunn's Jewellers, whose flagship store is in the shopping mall. Lunn's said businesses will remain open during the work. The Academy Awards are not winning any prizes at the moment. The Oscars are in trouble. There's not even going to be an MC for the big show on February 24, to replace Kevin Hart, who quit in December after past homophobic tweets resurfaced. No satisfactory host has been found for many years now, let alone a consistent face (back in the day, Bob Hope presented the night for 19 years). The all-important viewing figures are also slumping year by year. In 2014, when Ellen DeGeneres hosted the show, they stood at 43.74 million. Last year, with Jimmy Kimmel in charge, they were down to 26.5 million, an all-time low. There have been a series of public humiliations, including, of course, the whole MeToo shaming, the Oscars being at the heart of Harvey Weinstein's manoeuvres. There was the envelope fumble in 2017 that led to La La Land apparently winning Best Picture before it went to Moonlight, a slip-up that made the whole ceremony ridiculous. There was that botched scheme last year to launch a new category for 'achievement in popular film', an embarrassed response to the success of Black Panther, soon abandoned. Other troubles have proven more persistently damaging. In 2012, the Los Angeles Times conducted an investigation into the demographics of the 5,765 voting academy members, which revealed that they were 94% Caucasian and 77% male, with a median age of 62. Only 14% of the membership were under 50, only 2% black and less than that Latino. In 2015, the #OscarsSoWhite row exploded on Twitter, trending again in 2016, when all 20 actors nominated were white. The academy's response has been to actively recruit more women, people of colour and foreign filmmakers, without, however, getting rid of the old guard. There are now 7,902 voting members, 2,406 more than three years ago, with 1,200 being people of colour. A couple of weeks ago, a punchy article in trade journal The Hollywood Report argued that "there are now effectively two different academies voting for the Oscars". "The old academy is studio and Hollywood-centric; it's predominantly male and white and middle-aged, or older," it said. "The new academy is indie and internationally oriented; it's made up of just as many women as men, with a healthy number of non-Caucasians." Their attitudes conflict most when it comes to Netflix. "The old academy loathes Netflix for disrupting the traditional exhibition business and blurring the line between TV/streaming and theatrical releases. The new academy couldn't care less, so long as someone's financing decent films," The Hollywood Report said. So, which of these two academies will dominate? In the long run, the answer is obvious. And this year looks like a tipping-point. So far, Netflix has, despite its huge budgets, won precious little at the Oscars, taking home only two documentary prizes (including Documentary Short for The White Helmets in 2017). Amazon has done only a little better, having backed Manchester by the Sea and Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman. But Netflix's Roma scored 10 nominations this week, including for Best Picture. That's a game-changer. Dropped from the line-up at the Cannes Film Festival last spring because it did not meet Cannes' strict theatrical release criteria, Roma was snapped up by Venice in the autumn and won the top prize there, the Golden Lion, awarded the previous year to The Shape of Water, which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar. Can Roma do the same? It will be a double first if so, since although foreign-language films have been nominated for overall Best Picture before, none has ever won. So, the fate of Roma looks like the key decision when the prizes are awarded, which is the only part of the process that ultimately matters, the only thing that you have the smallest hope of remembering a few months later. Then this diverse set of nominations will have to be crunched, one way or the other. At this stage, the shortlists are capacious enough to reflect the interests of both the old and the new academies. There are old-fashioned major studio dramas, such as A Star is Born, Green Book, Incredibles 2 and Black Panther, and smaller, artier contenders, like Roma, If Beale Street Could Talk and The Favourite. The Favourite's success - joint top scorer in the nominations - is another sign of how much the academy's tastes are changing. Its director, Yorgos Lanthimos, received just a single screenwriting nomination for his possibly even better film The Lobster, also starring Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman, in 2015. Not all academy members are happy. Last year producer Bill Mechanic (whose credits include Hacksaw Ridge) resigned from the board of governors, criticising the diversity policies and saying "over the past decade we have nominated so many smaller independent films that the Oscars feel like they should be handed out in a tent". Roma, about the director Alfonso Cuaron's childhood in Mexico City in the Seventies - filmed in black and white, with a little or previously entirely unknown cast, speaking Spanish and Mixtec - might seem one of the most improbable films to lead the nominations ever. Yet Roma is quite clearly the best film of the year. Nobody wants to hear this at this point in the awards season, when every impulse is to cheer the cornucopia of delights lined up for us, but this has not been a strong year for film. Hands up, I rated Roma as the only five-star film I saw all year. A Star is Born is a thumper and Lady Gaga nails it, but it's too long and loses its momentum. BlacKkKlans-man is Spike Lee's best film for years, but is too much played for laughs before its serious turn. Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War is not the equal of his Oscar-winning Ida, requiring pre-emptive belief in amour fou. Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk is tender and flowing but pious in a way Moonlight was not. Other films nominated this year are poor, or objectionable. Bohemian Rhapsody may be the highest-grossing musical biography of all time ($802m on a $50m budget), but save for Rami Malek's impersonation of Freddie Mercury, it's an clunker, with a dire script compromised by the producers' decision to fit Mercury's raunchy life into a PG rating. Green Book, a feelgood buddy movie set in the early Sixties, is an extraordinary act of racial patronage and has been severely criticised by the subject's family. Mahershala Ali, who plays the lead, responded: "If I have offended you, I am so, so terribly sorry - I did the best I could with the material I had." Vice, despite Christian Bale's incredible physical transformation and poised performance, is a hectoring, contemptuous and smug piece of moviemaking, berating its villain Dick Cheney relentlessly. That leaves Black Panther, which has earned $1.3bn worldwide and scored a near-perfect 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, having been almost universally applauded by reviewers. Now, it has become the first superhero film to be nominated for Best Picture (Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight having notoriously failed to achieve that in 2008). Black Panther is so important for reasons of identity and inclusiveness that it can only be impertinent to criticise it. It is a cultural milestone, and the academy would have found itself in possibly terminal trouble if it had failed to recognise that. For the academy, like every other form of reception, judgment and establishment in the arts is now itself radically challenged by questions of identity and representation. As for those collapsing audiences and missing comperes, the simplest solution might be for them to sell up to, or at least form partnerships with, investors who can offer better management, bigger audiences, new approaches. Netflix, say - or Amazon. Evening Standard Japan approved Stemirac, a stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries, Nature reports. The trial underlying the treatment's approval was not double-blinded, as Japanese regulations do not require double-blinded studies for approval. The unpublished study comprised 13 people who experienced spinal cord injuries. Approximately 50 million to 200 million mesenchymal stem cells were extracted from the participants' bone marrow and intravenously infused back into patients 40 days after their injuries. Researchers found the patients regained some lost sensation and movement, according to the report. On the basis of this trial, Japan granted Stemirac conditional approval. It can be marketed and sold if researchers collect data from the participants over the next seven years to demonstrate its efficacy. Neurosurgeon Osamu Honmou, MD, PhD, who helped develop the treatment, claimed that after six months, 12 of the 13 patients improved by at least one level on the American Spinal Injury Association impairment scale. However, previous studies in have found that intravenously infused MSCs tend to get stuck in the lungs. NIH stem cell researcher Pamela Robey, PhD, told Nature, "The fact that the cells are trapped in the lungs makes it difficult to see how they can be effective in the spinal cord." According to Jeffery Kocsis, PhD, a neurology researcher who has collaborated with Dr. Honmou, the cells may be of some benefit, but further work is necessary to substantiate the treatment's efficacy. Once the treatment is sold to patients, it will be harder for the research team to gather evidence that it is effective, according to UC San Francisco neurologist Arnold Kriegstein. Paying for treatments can increase the likelihood that a patient will experience a placebo effect. "I do not think it is morally justified to charge patients for an unproven therapy that has risks," Dr. Kriegstein told Nature. The Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, Maine, is temporarily closing its dialysis center to outpatients due to a nursing shortage, CBS-affiliate TV station WGME reports. Stephen Sears, MD, chief of staff at the VA Maine Healthcare System, said three more dialysis nurses are leaving in the next few weeks, "which will leave us two [nurses] short to safely provide the dialysis." The dialysis nurse shortage soon will make it unsafe to treat veterans at the center, Dr. Sears said. "Their safety comes first," Dr. Sears said of the veterans. "And if we can't do something in a way that we want to, and safely, we think it is best to have them cared for outside of the VA at this point in time." The hospital is arranging for patients to continue treatments at a dialysis center in a nearby community for free. Dr. Sears said it will take time to hire six to eight dialysis nurses, but he hopes to reopen the dialysis center to outpatients in two or three months. Children's Hospital and Medical Center filed a response to a lawsuit brought by two former surgeons claiming the Omaha-based hospital retaliated against them for reporting patient safety concerns, WOWT 6 News reports. Pediatric neurosurgeon Mark Puccioni, MD, and plastic surgeon Jason Miller, MD, claimed in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that they were wrongfully suspended days after reporting concerns about a colleague's competence. The surgeons also alleged that CHMC President and CEO Richard Azizkhan, MD, and the surgeon they filed complaints against Adam Conley, MD intentionally tried to destroy their reputations and practices. The surgeons' attorney said in a statement that "Dr. Miller and Dr. Puccioni complained of absolute malpractice that caused the unnecessary death of a child. Children's had a monetary interest in protecting that physician." CHMC said in a statement that its response to the surgeons' lawsuit, filed in court Jan. 23, "offers details to categorically deny the baseless accusations made previously by Drs. Miller and Puccioni." The statement continues: "We appreciate the patience and support shown by our patients, their families, the community and especially our employees as we developed our responses to these allegations. It takes time to respond appropriately and completely in such a situation. "For those familiar with the events in question, the unfounded nature of these allegations was clear from the beginning. However, in litigation, patient confidentiality and personnel matters, there are policies and regulations which must be followed that prevent us from sharing information although we would like that information to be known publicly. "We appreciate you sharing this information with the community to balance the public conversation that has been, up to this point, directed by the plaintiffs' baseless accusations. We hope this information will reassure patients, families and colleagues that our 70-year foundation of high-quality care and safety never faltered." Dr. Azizkhan is also linked to 528 lawsuits in Ohio related to former Cincinnati Children's Hospital spine surgeon Atiq Durrani, MD, who fled the country after pleading not guilty to 46 federal charges. Dr. Azizkhan served as surgeon-in-chief at the Cincinnati hospital until 2015. To access the full report, click here. President Donald Trump agreed Jan. 25 to a short-term deal that will reopen the federal government until Feb. 15. Employees will receive back pay as soon as possible, the president said Nine ways the 35-day shutdown affected healthcare: 1. Medical care 'on hold' for government workers affected by shutdown Although President Trump guaranteed back pay for furloughed workers, many began to delay care, turn to online fundraising and even consider career changes to pay their medical bills as they prepared to miss a second paycheck since the shutdown began Dec. 22. 2. 5 health systems enact billing changes for federal workers To help meet the immediate need for care, the following health systems waived copays and deductibles or offered other forms of financial assistance to accommodate federal workers: Norton Healthcare in Louisville, Ky., CHI Franciscan Health in Tacoma, Wash., Hackensack Meridian Health in Edison, N.J., Beaumont Health in Southfield, Mich., and TriHealth in Cincinnati. Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health also waived copays, deductibles or coinsurance for furloughed government employees. 3. New Jersey health system speeds appointments for furloughed federal workers Cooper University Health Care, based in Camden, N.J., offered furloughed federal workers and their immediate family primary care appointments within 24 hours. 4. New Jersey hospital offers employment opportunities, free meals to furloughed federal employees Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, based in Paramus, N.J., offered government workers temporary employment and free meals. 5. How the shutdown is complicating addiction treatment for some providers Meanwhile, physicians have had difficulty contacting the Drug Enforcement Administration for approval on prescriptions for medication-assisted opioid treatment. 6. Judge pauses appeal of ACA lawsuit ruling amid shutdown Until funding is restored, a lawsuit that will determine the constitutionality of the ACA was put on hold. 7. Government shutdown delays release of long-awaited information blocking rule The partial closure also delayed the long-awaited release of a rule on information blocking, expected from HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. 8. Data.gov offline because of government shutdown The federal government's open data sets on data.gov were unavailable due to lack of funding. 9. Government shutdown threatens drug approvals: 5 things to know About half of the FDA's workforce was affected by the shutdown. With this reduced workforce, it was unable to accept new applications. Read more on the effects the closure had on federal health efforts here. More articles on leadership and management: Are rebrands smart investments? Healthcare leaders weigh in Colorado governor creates office to reduce healthcare costs Texas system laying off 720 employees Officials at the Delaware Department of Insurance said five health insurers and about 650 of their members were affected by a data breach at a third-party administrator in October, Delaware Online reports. BenefitMall experienced a data breach Oct. 11, which officials say compromised some health insurance customers' data at Highmark BCBS, Aetna, Emblem Health, Humana and UnitedHealth. The officials told Delaware Online that Aetna is mailing notification letters to its affected customers, and the other insurers may follow suit. The department's investigation into the incident is ongoing, Delaware Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro told the publication. 3 1 of 3 Beaumont Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Beaumont Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Two people were arrested after they fled from authorities, according to information from the Beaumont Police Department. At approximately 10:50 p.m. Friday night officials were patrolling the 2300 block of Hebert when they witnessed a red Chevy Tahoe commit several vehicle violations. Pastor Scott McKay of Willow Drive Baptist Church spoke to attendees and gave a sermon on the theme of justice, speaks to a crowd about his personal definition of justice. The Associated Press contributed to this report. John Cox can be reached at 661-395-7404. Follow him on Twitter: @TheThirdGraf. Sign up at Bakersfield.com for free newsletters about local business. Joseph Luiz can be reached at 395-7368 or by email at jluiz@bakersfield.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @JLuiz_TBC. Something to Dish? Do you have a tip, question or recommendation on Bakersfield restaurants, trends or food news in general? Email thedish@bakersfield.com, and your input might wind up in a future column. The Californian's Robert Price answers your questions and takes your complaints about our news coverage in this weekly feedback forum. Questions may be edited for space and clarity. To offer your input by phone, call 395-7649 and leave your comments in a voicemail message or email us at soundoff@bakersfield.com. Include your name and phone number; they wont be published. Trend: Erecting a bust in Georgias Akhalkalaki town to Mikhail Avagyan, the executioner of the peaceful Azerbaijani population in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, is an initiative of certain pro-Armenian forces in Georgia, head of the European Diplomats Association NGO Zurab Gventsadze told Trend. A bust to Mikhail Avagyan, a person directly involved in the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and adjacent territories, and in organizing the killings of Azerbaijanis in these territories, was erected in the Georgian settlement of Bugashen of the Akhalkalaki municipality on January 20. Gventsadze said that the Armenian separatist Mikhail Avagyan is the enemy of not only the Azerbaijani, but also the Georgian people, therefore this action is directed against Georgia and Azerbaijan. At the same time, this action committed in Georgia is aimed at breaking up our peoples, he noted. I believe that the mayor of Akhalkalaki is responsible for erecting the bust, because I am sure that the prime minister and the Foreign Ministry of Georgia werent informed about this fact. I think that the Georgian authorities will take appropriate decisions regarding the incident. He added that the bust to the Armenian nationalist erected in Georgia should be dismantled as soon as possible. Our countries are strategic partners, and Azerbaijan is a friendly country, which strongly supports Georgia, providing investment assistance, fuel support, etc. I am sure that attempts by third forces to drive a wedge into fraternal relations between Georgia and Azerbaijan wont succeed, he said. The Armenian separatist Mikhail Avagyan participated in the hostilities in Horadiz, Khojaly and Fizuli towns and was among those who committed genocide in Azerbaijans Khojaly town against hundreds of civilians who were brutally killed by Armenian militants. The ceremony of erecting the bust to Nazi Avagyan was attended by the mayor of Akhalkalaki Yurik Hunanyan, as well as MPs Enzel Mkoyan and Samvel Manukyan, according to Georgian media reports. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Planned Parenthood Ordered to Answer Questions About Illegal Money for Baby Parts Scheme MEDIA ADVISORY, Jan. 25, 2019 / Standard Newswire / -- Four California Planned Parenthood affiliates have been ordered to respond to questions about their profit margin from procuring organs and tissue from aborted babies and selling them to fetal tissue procurement companies. Three years ago, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and several Planned Parenthood affiliates sued CMP, David Daleiden, Sandra Merritt, Albin Rhomberg, and other investigators in federal district court, asserting fifteen claims ranging from racketeering to invasion of privacy. Their lawsuit alleges that the videos showing Planned Parenthood doctors callously discussing the price of baby parts were misleadingly edited to make it appear that Planned Parenthood clinics were violating federal and state laws against profiting from the sale of fetal parts. Planned Parenthood claims it brought the lawsuit to further expose the falsity of the videos and recover millions of dollars in damages for the alleged harm the videos caused to Planned Parenthood by CMPs allegations of criminal activity. However, discovery in the lawsuit revealed that the four Planned Parenthood affiliates most heavily involved in fetal tissue procurement, while receiving monthly payments from fetal tissue marketers, kept no records of their legally allowable costs. The House Select Panel investigating Planned Parenthood's fetal tissue procurement practices determined that , in practice, the costs were nominal to non-existent. In the face of this evidence, Planned Parenthood continued to deny that their revenues exceeded their expenses, but flatly refused to explain the discrepancy. Life Legal Defense Foundation then sought an order from Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu of the Northern District of California, compelling the abortion providers to explain themselves. In response to the motion, Planned Parenthood attorneys argued that "whether any of the four relevant affiliates complied with a technical law about permissible reimbursement" is not relevant to the lawsuit, and that questions about invoices showing that Planned Parenthood affiliates did in fact profit from the sale of fetal body parts have "zero bearing" on the issues in the case. On Thursday, the court granted the Life Legals motion and ordered Planned Parenthood to provide responses by January 31. "Since the day the first CMP video was released, Planned Parenthood has proclaimed its innocence and insisted it was the victim of a 'smear' that it sold baby parts," said Alexandra Snyder, Executive Director of Life Legal Defense Foundation. "We know money went in, baby parts went out, and costs were negligible. We look forward to Planned Parenthood finally have to explain how that didn't violate federal law." About Life Legal Defense Foundation Trend: Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Sukhrob Kholmuradov has met with a delegation led by EU Special Representative for Central Asia Peter Burian. At the meeting, Burian stated that Uzbekistan could become an economic leader of Central Asia, Trend reports via Sputnik Uzbekistan, which cited the State Investment Committee. Burian stated that the EU welcomes the regional policy of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and is ready to support the countrys initiatives, with grants as well. Also, Philippe van Amersfoort, Deputy Head of the Central Asia Division at the European External Relations Service, said the EU is completing the development of a new cooperation strategy with Central Asia, which is planned to be adopted before the end of the first half of 2019. The document will reflect measures to support the changes in Uzbekistan. The meeting participants also discussed expanding access to the EU markets for Uzbek goods by granting the country the GSP+ status. It provides for the duty-free exports to the EU markets of more than 6,000 commodity items. Moreover, the EU supports the plan of Uzbekistan to join the World Trade Organization. Trend: Aflatun Amashov, head of the Azerbaijan-Georgia working group for interparliamentary relations, has appealed to Zviad Dzidziguri, head of the Georgia-Azerbaijan Friendship Group, Trend reports. It is stated in the appeal that the historical relations of the peoples of Georgia and Azerbaijan in the spirit of friendliness and good neighborliness have always drawn attention by their exemplariness. It is rather pleasing that these relations are developing along an ascending line in the modern period, relying on a strategic partnership. From this point of view, great responsibility is placed on the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Georgia, and it is necessary to highlight the work done by the highest legislative bodies of both countries for the deepening of our historical friendship, the appeal reads. As is known, Amashov says, a bust of Mikhail Avagyan, a person directly involved in the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and adjacent territories, and in organizing the killings of Azerbaijanis in these territories, was erected in the Georgian settlement of Bugashen of the Akhalkalaki municipality on January 20. "This has caused a rather negative resonance in the society of our country. We do not want a criminal, whose hands are stained with the blood of the Azerbaijani people, be immortalized as a symbol of heroism. It should be noted that Georgia, like Azerbaijan, suffers from ethnic separatism. Around 20 percent of the territory of Georgia is also under occupation. As a matter of fact, Avagyan distinguished himself by his direct participation in the occupation of the territories of Georgia as well. Actually, he is the enemy of both nations," Amashev points out in his appeal. "In the modern period, both nations are united by common pain and suffering. Therefore, the Azerbaijani state always supports the territorial integrity of Georgia and considers this support to be the main priority of its foreign policy in the region." The appeal calls upon the members of the Azerbaijan-Georgia working group for interparliamentary relations to keep a principled stance against individuals who seek to undermine the values that unite the two peoples and who attempt to sow seeds of discord between the two peoples. "We believe that by your principled stance on the matter the bust of the murderer Mikhail Avagyan in the Georgian village of Bugashen of the Akhalkalaki municipality will be taken down. We are confident that you will take a sensitive approach to this issue," the appeal concludes. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Trend: As many as 50 projects concerning regional, intra-village, rural and inter-village highways in 43 districts will be implemented in Azerbaijan in 2019, Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijan Highway State Agency Saleh Mammadov said at a board meeting dedicated to the results of 2018 and the objectives for 2019, Trend reports. He noted that roads and highways of republican significance will be built, and it is envisaged to purchase new machinery and 270 vehicles. He added that last year 90 projects were completed in 54 districts of Azerbaijan, as well as in Baku and Sumgait. These projects include 10 highways of republican significance, 64 rural roads, 11 inter-village roads in Baku, two highways of citywide importance, two bridges and one tunnel, he said. He stressed that 33 bridges, 29 overpasses and four tunnels were commissioned last year, as well as 221 machinery and vehicles were purchased. Mammadov also touched upon the Alat-Astara-Iranian State Border Highway, adding that certain work is being done to ensure that the 170-kilometer section of the highway becomes a toll road. The construction of the new Baku-Guba-Russian State Border Highway continues, and construction of the 92-km section of the highway started last year, he said. Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an Order allocating additional funding for the construction of Karrar-Baghman-Boyuk Kangarli road in Kurdamir district. Under the presidential order, Azerbaijan Highway State Agency is allocated 8.8 million manats for continuing the construction of the road connecting seven residential areas with a total population of 6,000 people. Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia Peter Cosgrove. "On my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Azerbaijan, I heartily congratulate you and all your people on the occasion of Australia Day. I believe that the further strengthening of friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Australia, and the deepening of our cooperation in the areas of mutual interest will always serve the best interests of our peoples," Ilham Aliyev said in his letter. "On this festive day, it is my pleasure to extend to you my best wishes, and wish the friendly people of Australia peace and prosperity." Trend: Forces that want to turn Azerbaijan into the next Syria and stir up chaos in the country are triggering the radical opposition, Azerbaijani MP Hikmet Babaoglu told Trend. The MP noted that the radical opposition held a rally on January 19, and it became clear that the ideas that they wanted to convey to the masses coincided with what was voiced by them 25 years ago. "The fact of the matter is that there are no reasons in the society that would make the holding of a rally relevant. This leaves two possible reasons for the rally being held by the radical opposition: either the radicals cannot feel the pulse of the public, or the rally is a political order from abroad and based on financial support. Undoubtedly, the second reason is true, because now Azerbaijan is entering a qualitatively new stage in its national development," added Babaoglu. One of the main issues is that the new geostrategic reality formed by Azerbaijan will give a new impetus to the negotiations on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2019, and this was evidenced by what has been happening during the first month of the new year. "Obviously, this causes serious distress among the anti-Azerbaijani centers and the Armenian lobby," the MP added. Babaoglu said that the main goal of those who are against Azerbaijan is to stir up chaos in the country, to turn Azerbaijan into the next Syria, to discredit its international image, and they are also pushing the radical opposition. "The next day, on January 20, the radicals had, after having realized that the rally did not give the desired results, attempted to artificially cause a clash with the police for the purpose of accomplishing this goal, under the pretext of visiting our national and spiritual heritage - the Alley of Martyrs, and wanted to turn it into a political show, with the help of social media. This was aimed at creating an anti-democratic image of Azerbaijan, thereby striking a blow at the country's image in the eyes of the international community, Babaoglu said. The MP added that the Azerbaijani public will never allow for chaos to rise its head in Azerbaijan, turning the country into a polygon of imperialist terror hotspots. By Trend First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has instructed Azerenergy OSJC to provide employment to redundant employees of Militarized Security Unit LLC. On December 13, 2018, a group of redundant employees of the "Militarized Security Unit" LLC appealed to First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva. Mehriban Aliyeva ordered an immediate resolution of the issue on the condition that the redundant employees` labor rights be restored and they be provided with employment. By Trend The tourist flow between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria has significantly increased with the launch of the Baku Sofia Baku flight, Nikolay Yankov, Bulgarian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, told Trend. The number of issued visas for Azerbaijani citizens has increased by at least 40 percent since the opening of the flight, and we believe that this year the positive trend will continue after reopening the regular flights in spring, he said. The ambassador underlined that the goal is to deliver results that are more visible for the citizens of Bulgaria and Azerbaijan. The diplomat went on to say that the establishment of a direct flight between the capitals was a very wise political decision made by the leaders of the countries, which is already bringing very positive results. Now there are more opportunities for closer connection between our peoples and more intense contacts in business, more dynamic economic relations, Yankov stressed. Further, touching upon the simplification of the visa regime between the countries, the ambassador said that Bulgaria does not impose unilateral visa regulations on other countries, but rather follows EU policy in this respect. Our embassy works according to the Agreement between the European Union and Azerbaijan on the facilitation of the issuance of visas [the purpose of the Agreement, which entered into force in September 1, 2014, is to facilitate, on the basis of reciprocity, the issuance of visas for an intended stay of no more than 90 days per period of 180 days to the citizens of the EU and Azerbaijan]. The consular section of the embassy always works to its full capacity to provide fast response to the requirements of the visa applicants and tries to proceed the documents in the shortest possible terms, Yankov emphasized. The opening ceremony of the Baku-Sofia air flight was held in January 16, 2018. An agreement on opening of direct flights between Baku and Sophia was reached during negotiations of Presidents of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Bulgaria Rumen Radev. The capital of Bulgaria is the first city in the EU, where Azerbaijans low-cost airline Buta Airways performs direct flights. Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 26 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Jan. 26, Trend reports. The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. The next important episode in U.S.-China talks will be Politburo member and Vice Premier Liu He's visit to D.C. next week. The big picture: Liu may be bringing an offer of more significant structural concessions but do not expect major breakthroughs next week. The deadline for this round of talks is March 1 and it would be surprising if the Chinese side put its best offer on the table so far from that date. Yes, but: China runs the risks of offering too little again, so the pressure is on Liu and his team to at least show the U.S. side they are sincere, because if Liu leaves D.C. and the word out of the talks is the two sides are still far apart, the markets may get nervous. My thought bubble: Chill out ... this will continue to be a grind, but I still believe Xi is very motivated to make a deal. The trade war is one more risk he does not want right now. After 80 career starts and a resume filled with Grand Circuit stakes appearances, 2015 O'Brien Award winner Wakizashi Hanover finds himself in unfamiliar territory to start the new year. Ironically, those new surroundings could technically be called 'home.' Trot Insider has learned Wakizashi Hanover, who has just turned seven, is enjoying a well-deserved break from the racing wars with his owners in Truro, Nova Scotia. "We've been pretty steady with him since we started with him at two," stated co-owner Bruce Kennedy in discussing the time off for his speedy stakes winner. "After three coming four, in the spring and fall of that year he had two throat operations, and then he developed a bit of a tendon problem up front and he's been sort of racing with that...so we decided to give him a break." Owned by Kennedy -- who is himself on the mend after suffering a heart attack a few months ago -- along with fellow Nova Scotians Percy Bonnell, Wayne Burley and Jennifer Weeks, Wakizashi Hanover (Dragon Again - Western Gesture) wasn't as successful at six as he was in his five-year-old season where he eclipsed six figures in earnings and sailed to a new speed badge of 1:47.3 at The Meadowlands. While still consistently pacing miles in the 1:52 range last month at Dover Downs, Kennedy and the connections felt that now was a good time to give Wakizashi Hanover some fresh Maritime air. "We shipped him home and we have him here at a facility about 30 miles from me," said Kennedy. "It's geared with an equiciser and a little bit of therapeutic equipment." Kennedy was quick to heap praise and give credit those that laid the foundation for the success achieved by Wakizashi Hanover in a career that boasts 20 wins, more than $1.5 million in earnings, and an O'Brien Award as Canada's Three-Year-Old Pacing Colt of the Year in 2015. That process started with Gordon Corey, who broke the colt and developed the colt in North Carolina before recommending Jim & Joann King as a training team to take the colt onward and upward. Shannon Doyle, the voice of racing for The Raceway at Western Fair District presents the OBrien to the connections of Wakizashi Hanover. Left to right: Percy Bonnell, Diane Bonnell, Sheila Kennedy, Bruce Kennedy, Shannon Doyle, Jo Ann Looney King, Jim King, Wyatt Beaver. Shannon Doyle, the voice of racing for The Raceway at Western Fair District presents the OBrien to the connections of Wakizashi Hanover. Left to right: Percy Bonnell, Diane Bonnell, Sheila Kennedy, Bruce Kennedy, Shannon Doyle, Jo Ann Looney King, Jim King, Wyatt Beaver. "Jimmy and Joann have done a great, great job with the horse since day one. You couldn't ask for any more than what we had. The connections and the results, I don't know how it could be better." While the short-term plan for Wakizashi Hanover is clear, Kennedy said the long-term plan is still yet to be determined with the horse having a lot to say about the future. "We agreed to bring him home and sort of play with him for two months...I'm only a quarter of a mile from the racetrack in Truro. We can move him in a multi-stable barn there, start jogging him and see where it takes us. "We're just going to give him lots of time and ease him back, and if he wants to race we'll hear from him again." The Trump administration has asked Israel to publicly support the U.S. push to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and recognize the leader of the opposition, Juan Guaido, as the interim president, Israeli officials told me. Why it matters: Israel has no diplomatic relations with Venezuela. Since Guaido declared himself president and received recognition from the U.S. earlier this week, Israel has kept silent and declined to issue any public statements. Israeli officials told me there are concerns in Jerusalem that if Israel publicly supports the opposition, the Maduro regime would harm the 6000 members of the Jewish community in Venezuela. Details: An Israeli official told me the U.S. message to Israel was conveyed on Thursday by State Department officials to diplomats in the Israeli embassy in Washington. A similar message was conveyed to several U.S. allies that still haven't issued statements of support in the U.S. push against Maduro. The official told me that on Sunday, there will be a special meeting on the Venezuelan crisis at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem in order to draft recommendations for Prime Minister Netanyahu. "Netanyahu will have to decide whether Israel keeps mum or joins its Western allies in support of Guaido," the official said. Go deeper: Venezuela at crossroads as world leaders split on presidential support Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement Saturday that he had asked for and received the resignation of John McCallum, the country's ambassador to China, CBC reports. The big picture: The firing comes at an unusually tense time in China-Canada relations, with the detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou last month sparking what many believe to be retaliatory arrests of Canadian citizens by the Chinese government. Earlier this week, McCallum told reporters that it would be "great for Canada" if the U.S. dropped Meng's extradition request and listed arguments that could be used to bolster her case. McCallum was later forced to walk back the controversial comments. Go deeper: A new age of hostage diplomacy Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that Elliott Abrams, a former Reagan official who pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, will serve as the Trump administration's special envoy to Venezuela. Why it matters: Abrams is a "well-known and somewhat controversial figure in U.S. foreign policy circles" who after being pardoned in 1991 went on to serve in both Bush administrations, according to Politico. He was a critic of President Trump during the 2016 campaign, but nonetheless will join the administration at a pivotal moment in U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Go deeper: The Trump-Maduro staredown There has been a lot of speculation that a big political meeting would happen this week in China, but rather than the Fourth Plenum it could be a meeting of provincial and ministerial-level officials similar to the one held the summer of 2017 before the 18th Party Congress. What's happening: Sure enough, Chinese President Xi Jinping convened a seminar of provincial and ministerial-level officials on preventing and defusing major risks to ensure sustained and healthy economic development and social stability. Per Xinhua... In his speech, Xi analyzed and raised specific requirements on the prevention and defusion of major risks in areas including politics, ideology, economy, science and technology, society, the external environment and Party building. Quick take: Xi is telling the party that it should prepare for heightened risks across every dimension. The seminar lasted 4 days, a duration that is a clear sign of the intensity of concerns. Why it matters: Xi's ability to convene and chair this meeting should be seen a sign of his strength in the party, not weakness. He is laying the groundwork for even more ideological tightening and enhanced social control in the face of the economic issues and the many sensitive anniversaries in 2019. These include the 100th of the May Fourth Movement, the 30th of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and the 70th of the founding of the PRC. The bottom line: The Year of the Pig looks like it may be an especially nasty, brutish year in China. Go deeper: Samantha Hoffman writes in Foreign Policy: "The party leadership uses anxiety to shore up loyalty within the party and to convince Chinese society of its need for the partys protection. Anxiety is a tool. Whether it is real or manufactured, or for the partys internal consumption or the publics, is almost irrelevant. There must always be an enemy to create anxiety." U.S. companies with significant exposure to China have seen their stocks tumble since President Trump's opening salvo in the trade war. But it wasn't really China or the oft-invoked trade tensions that hurt those companies. The big picture: Chipmakers like Skyworks, Qorvo, Qualcomm and Micron, along with Wynn Resorts, top the list of S&P 500 companies that make their biggest share of revenue in China, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs. All of those stocks are deeply in the red since Trump took the first steps toward a full-blown trade war on Jan. 22. Yes, but: An Axios analysis shows shareholders weren't punishing these companies because of their exposure to China. Fourteen of the top 20 companies most exposed to China are semiconductors an industry that suffered during this period, thanks to a sector-wide slowdown. Those stocks fared no worse than an exchange-traded fund tracking the industry, which fell 14%. An Axios analysis shows shareholders weren't punishing these companies because of their exposure to China. Fourteen of the top 20 companies most exposed to China are semiconductors an industry that suffered during this period, thanks to a sector-wide slowdown. Those stocks fared no worse than an exchange-traded fund tracking the industry, which fell 14%. Semiconductors were bound to suffer, regardless of a trade war, thanks to slowing demand for memory chips, rising inventory levels and falling prices, Sebastian Hou, an analyst at CLSA, told CNBC last year. More consumer-focused companies like Nike (which nets 12% of of its revenue from Greater China) saw their stock prices increase, in line with the consumer discretionary sector which outperformed the broader market. Rather than a broad-based China slowdown, data shows individual companies saw largely individual results. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which generates about 30% of its sales in China, jumped almost 60% since last year bucking the downtrend of its semiconductor counterparts. Analysts say the rise is largely due to the possibility that AMD was taking market share from longtime players like Intel. (AMD), which generates about 30% of its sales in China, jumped almost 60% since last year bucking the downtrend of its semiconductor counterparts. Analysts say the rise is largely due to the possibility that AMD was taking market share from longtime players like Intel. Qualcomm's stock suffered after its merger with Broadcom was killed by the Trump administration, showing its "aggressive stance on perceived threats from foreign investors and the growing technological might of China," as Axios reported last year. after its merger with Broadcom was killed by the Trump administration, showing its "aggressive stance on perceived threats from foreign investors and the growing technological might of China," as Axios reported last year. Wynn Resorts significantly underperformed other consumer discretionary stocks. But its shares took a major hit earlier last year after longtime CEO Steve Wynn resigned following sexual misconduct allegations. What they're saying: Count executives at Texas Instruments which gets 44% of its revenue from Greater China among those who say the trade war isn't to blame for their struggles. After the company missed third quarter estimates, CFO Rafael Lizardi said the lackluster results were "mostly driven by a slowdown in semiconductors" and smartphone sales, not a macro-driven event, like trade. (Texas Instruments did better in its most recent quarter.) The bottom line: Companies with big exposure to China can point to a wide range of issues, not necessarily the trade war, for the pain in their stocks. Palmdale, CA (93550) Today Sunny with gusty winds developing this afternoon. Near record high temperatures. High 106F. WSW winds at 10 to 15 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low near 75F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation (MMPC) has officially unveiled the 2019 Strada, following its global reveal in Bangkok, Thailand in November. The new Strada is considered a key model of Mitsubishi Motors in the competitive pickup truck market of the Philippines and the ASEAN region. Sold in 150 countries across the globe, where it is also known as the L200, or Triton. it is primarily assembled in Mitsubishis Laem Chabang facility in Thailand. MMPC is offering the 2019 Strada in six variants: GT 4WD Automatic Transmission (A/T), GLS 4WD Manual Transmission (M/T), GLS 2WD A/T, GLS 2WD M/T, GLX Plus 2WD A/T and the base model GLX Plus 2WD M/T. For its 40th anniversary, the new model has been radically-restyled by Mitsubishi Motors to conform to their new design DNA. The design theme is something Mitsubishi calls Rock Solid and is centered around a new interpretation of the Dynamic Shield grille that can be seen on the Xpander which was launched in 2017. Like the small Xpander MPV, the Strada comes with two pairs of lights; slim headlights up top, and larger lights where the fog lights would be. The overall shape and architecture of the body have been retained, though the Strada now has larger taillights with illumination that more closely resemble the ones on the current generation Montero Sport. The interior also gets a major refresh, as the Strada features a new dashboard, new interior door panels, more premium materials, and new features equipment. Mitsubishi says they added some soft-touch surfaces to enhance the interior feel of the Strada. Much of the outgoing Strada/Triton mechanicals have been retained such as the 4N15 2.4-liter MIVEC turbodiesel engine, though Mitsubishi did include some interesting upgrades such as making some refinements to the chassis and the suspension (for a better ride without sacrificing handling). Mitsubishi also installed larger brakes discs and larger two-piston caliper pistons in front. The rear dampers are larger and contain more oil; for better performance and comfort. For safety, variants of the new Strada/Triton come with features such as Ultrasonic Misacceleration Mitigation System, Blind Spot Warning and Lane Change Assist, as well as Forward Collision Mitigation. Active Stability Traction Control (ASTC), Hill Start Assist (HSA) and Trailer Stability Assist (TSA) are now standard on all variants. The GT 4WD A/T is equipped with Super Select 4-Wheel Drive and the GLS 4WD MT is fitted with Easy Select 4WD which delivers optimum traction and handling characteristics on any given road condition. The New Strada is now available at all Mitsubishi Motors Philippines dealerships and will retail for: 2019 Mitsubishi Strada GT 4WD A/T Php 1,670,000 2019 Mitsubishi Strada GLS 4WD M/T Php 1,445,000 2019 Mitsubishi Strada GLS 2WD A/T Php 1,300,000 2019 Mitsubishi Strada GLS 2WD M/T Php 1,225,000 2019 Mitsubishi Strada GLX Plus 2WD A/T Php 1,240,000 2019 Mitsubishi Strada GLX Plus 2WD M/T Php 1,165,000 *Additional PhP 15,000 for the White Diamond EV As far as we know, April 2019 is the month when the curtains will fall. The New York International Auto Show starts on April 19th, so keep those fingers crossed thats where the Mach E will be introduced. On a different note, sales will kick off in 2020 according to the Strategic Highlights section of the presentation.Infused with Mustang styling but more or less the size of the all-new Escape, the Mach E could share the C2 vehicle architecture with the 2019 Focus. The thing is, other reports refer to a clean-sheet platform that will be used by more than the Mach E. Whatever the outcome, the yet-unnamed crossover promises 300 miles of range.Thats 483 kilometers or more than the Jaguar I-Pace and Tesla Model X, as well as the Audi e-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC 400 4Matic. Like these competitors, the Mach E is expected to use a dual-motor configuration to maximize range and on-road performance.Turning our attention back to the presentation, Ford talks about the all-electric F-150. The detail of interest (and only one available for the time being)? Early work is in progress, which confirms our assumption that the F-150would go official for the fourteenth generation of the F-Series.The thirteenth entered production in 2014, and in 2020, the F-150 Hybrid promises to outperform the Ram 1500 Pentastar V6 eTorque in terms of efficiency. The mild-hybrid system is also available with the HEMI V8, but the gains in efficiency arent exactly impressive.After denying interest in autonomous and electric pickup trucks, General Motors appears to have changed its stance by 180 degrees. Duncan Aldred of GMC declared that General Motors is looking into electrifying the Sierra , thickening the plot even further.On a related note, the Mustang Hybrid is also due in 2020 with an EcoBoost-type engine according to Raj Nair, former president of Ford in North America. Look forward to V8 power and even more low-end torque. Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. Grossly Misogynistic Messages in Bar Stall Spur Backlash Trending News: Bar Slammed For Grossly Misogynistic Messages in Bathroom A cocktail bar in England is getting slammed for having grossly misogynistic messages in the mens bathroom. Caffeine and Cocktails, a bar in a town called Reading about 40 miles west of London, allegedly had rude text etched on its bathroom stalls, including one that said: My girlfriend caught me blow-drying my penis and asked what I was doing. Apparently heating your dinner was not the right answer. Johnathan Benson, 32, criticized the bar and shared photos of the messages in a tweet on January 19. Morning @CandC_Reading - had a fab 1st-time last night: amazing drinks & lovely team, Benson tweeted. I'm all for tongue-in-cheek & a bit of fun, but the messages in the men's loos swing from grossly #misogynistic to shockingly poor "soft lad" jibes. Is that really the customer Ur after? Related: 7 Obsolete 'Manly' Skills and What to Replace Them With Inappropriate Decor Benson told Ladbible he was at the bar with a female friend who noticed messages in the womens stall but those quotes there werent anything to complain about. In fact, Bensons friend wanted to congratulate the bar for its empowering messages in the ladies bathroom, including one that claimed: girls without thigh gaps were just closer to being mermaids. Benson then decided to check out the mens bathroom and found the rude text. "It looks like [the messages were] done in jest, but in this day and age, post-Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement, I don't see why anyone male or female, customer or punter would think it's okay to write those statements, Benson said. "Also, it's a venue that has kids going in there on a Saturday or Sunday with their mum or dad for food and they would see that. With the whole disrespect of women in general and news stories that have come out, this just isn't good at all." The Bars Response Caffeine & Cocktails responded to Bensons tweet, saying the messages were left there by a previous team. A spokesman for the bar, who identified herself as a female manager, told Ladbible she wasnt aware of the messages before Bensons tweet, but theyve since repainted the stalls. We do not wish anyone to feel uncomfortable in an environment where you are meant to relax and have fun, the manager said. "We have taken the comments on board and have in fact painted over the quotes in the pictures as well as others I felt that were in poor taste." You Might Also Dig: Have any questions? Please give us a call at 541-889-5387 Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Owosso, MI (48867) Today Thunderstorms. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 76F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable. Purchase an online subscription to our website for $7.99 a month with automatic renewal. Each online subscription gives you full access to all of our newspaper websites and mobile applications. To cancel you may contact Customer Service @ 256-235-9253 or email JPAYNE@ANNISTONSTAR.COM For a limited time, for NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY a NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION is just $59.99 for the first year. Existing customers do not qualify for the specials! After the first year, well automatically renew your subscription to continue your access at the regular price of $69.99 per year. Please note *Your Subscription will Automatically Renew unless you contact Customer Service To Cancel* Googles project in pursuit of a new operating system called Fuchsia is about to switch into overdrive, with the company picking up Apple exec Bill Stevenson to launch the product. Thats according to a recent post from Mr. Stevenson spotted on LinkedIn. Mr. Stevenson says that he will begin work on Fuchsia OSs launch as early as next month and his efforts will primarily be focused on bringing the universal OS to market. The role Mr. Stevenson will play in the launch of the OS harkens back to his first role with long-time Google competitor Apple, beginning in 2004. The executives role at the time was as a Product Release Engineer working on OS X. Mr. Stevensons duties at Google will likely follow a similar range of tasks to those he was responsible for during his first years at Apple. Through 2008, the exec was responsible for triaging and diagnosing application and framework issues across all applications for OS X and managing relationships with third-party app developers and vendors. He also oversaw coordination to ensure software and hardware compatibility, as well as developing test tools and infrastructure. Advertisement Following that job, Mr. Stevenson worked from 2008 to 2012 as a Senior Engineering Program Manager and then from 2012 through today as a Senior Manager, Mac/Windows Program Management. Those skill sets will undoubtedly come into play in his new venture as well since the jobs pertain to overseeing OS, release, cloud feature, and build management. Bringing it all together The addition of Mr. Stevenson to Googles Fuchsia team will certainly be beneficial to its eventual release but theres still no word on exactly when Fuchsia OS might land or what products it will appear on first. Fuchsia has been in development for some time now and has evolved substantially over its life. Advertisement The shortest explanation for the new OS is that it will be based on a custom-made microkernel called Zircon instead of utilizing Linux. Both Android and Chrome OS are built on top of a Linux kernel, which serves those implementations well but doesnt allow Google as much control as it might like in its drive to unify all connected devices. By building its own microkernel, Google hopes to make Fuchsia a true cross-platform OS. It will run on smartphones, laptops, smart speakers, and other connected home hardware, bringing every part of the IoT and mobile industry under a single roof. It wont necessarily be hardware dependant either and testing has already begun on existing mobile components such as Huawei subsidiary HiSilicons Kirin 970 chipset. Making a complicated process easier Advertisement Android app developers wont need to rewrite all of their code either since those apps are generally thought to be by the new OS based on previous changes to the AOSP source code. That will be taken further with the new UI being made universal too. The Fuchsia OS UI has been heavily influenced by Android as well, being closely related to its Material Design standards according to the most recent leaks. Taken in combination, all of that should make using all manner of connected devices a simplified and easy experience for users since each individual product and service will be exceedingly similar to others. Speculation, leaks, and rumors around the new OS have indicated that it could eventually serve as a replacement for all of Googles operating systems, including for wearables and Chromebooks. Switching over is going to be a monumental task with consideration for the fact that Android owned around 85-percent of the market share in mid-2017, according to an IDC report released at the time. It has mostly maintained that lead in the meantime. Given his long history in managing software and OS releases, bringing Mr. Stevenson on board should make it much easier for Google to accomplish its goals. Andover, MA (01810) Today A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. The Imperial Sun Court of All Florida is hosting their first Charity Ball, Coronation One The Rising of the Sun Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019 at 7 p.m. at Embassy Suites in Fort Lauderdale. In addition to the crowning of Floridas first Sun Emperor and Empress, The Court will also be disbursing almost $20,000 of funds raised for local and state harities. There are over 15 out-of-state courts that will be in attendance, including Queen Mother One of The Americas, Empress Nicole Murry Ramirez and Emperor One of The Americas, Emperor Terry Seidi. Tickets can be purchased online at www.imperialsuncourtfl.org Ferdinand Magellan is remembered in the west as the intrepid Portuguese explorer who led the first voyage to circumnavigate the globe, but for the Philippines he is just another white man who fell to his death attempting to conquer lands that did not belong to him. The real herofor the Filipinosis Lapu-Lapu, the tribal chief who famously vanquished Magellan becoming the first Filipino hero to successfully resist colonization by a foreign power. Magellans conflict with the proud and unyielding chief resulted in his death, which cut short Magellans goals of becoming the first person in the world to circumnavigate the world. Magellans last battle, island of Mactan, 1521. Painting by Gregory Manchess Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain in 1519 leading a Spanish armada of five vessels. He headed south through the Atlantic Ocean to Patagonia, passing through a strait that now bears his name and into a body of water he named the peaceful sea, from which came the modern name Pacific Ocean. On 16 March 1521, Magellan sighted the islands of Philippines becoming the first European to reach the archipelago. Magellan had two agendas1) search for a westward route to the Maluku Islands, also known as Spice Islands, near Indonesia, and 2) claim any islands he could find for the Spanish crown before the Portuguese could make their move, and be rewarded by the Spanish king. This was despite the fact that Magellan himself was Portuguese. Magellans questionable loyalty towards his own country stems from his inability to convince the King of Portugal to fund his expedition, forcing him to turn to Spain. Magellan landed on the island of Homonhon and befriended the chieftains of Limasawa. They then introduced Magellan to Rajah Humabon, the Rajah of Cebu, who was promptly baptized into Catholicism along with his wife and his subjects. Humabon acquired the Christian name Carlos, in honor of King Charles of Spain. His wife took the name Juana, in honor of King Charles' mother. Apparently, Humabon so enjoyed the renaming process that he went around Cebu Island giving each of his people new names. Eventually, many nearby chiefs agreed to convert to Christianityall except one: Lapu-Lapu, who refused to accept the authority of Rajah Humabon and bow down to the King of Spain. Map of the first world circumnavigation of Ferdinand de Magellan and Juan Sebastian Elcano, from 1519 to 1522. Rajah Humabon convinced Magellan to go to war against his rival, Lapu Lapu. Lapu-Lapu, who ruled Mactan Island just across the waters from Cebu, had become a threat to Humabon. Humabon figured if he could get Magellan to defeat Lapu Lapu, he could rule over both Cebu as well as Mactan Island. But Magellan was too arrogant to see Humabons true motives. On the contrary, he tried to impress Humabon by instructing the chief not to intervene in the imminent battle. Magellan believed that he could win the battle unassisted because of his superior weaponsguns and crossbows, against primitive spears and bows the tribal army used. This was despite the fact that Magellan was staggeringly outnumberedonly forty nine men against fifteen hundred, if contemporary account is to be believed. Humabon saw this as an opportunity, and decided to watch the battle from a distance. Perhaps he too believed in the might power of European weapons. Humabon figured that if he took part in the battle and lost, Lapu-Lapu will emerge as the strongest in Cebu, and the rulers will soon shift their support. However, if Magellan alone lost, Humabon can save face and say that he was only a spectator to the event. The battle that followed was unsurprisingly one-sided. Lapu-Lapus men managed to stay beyond the range of Magellans guns and crossbows while showering them with arrows. Firearms were a relatively recent development and loading them took from ten seconds up to a full minute. During this time, the Spanish remained vulnerable as the beach offered little cover. Outnumbered and encumbered by their armor, Magellan's forces were quickly overwhelmed. Many of the warriors specifically attacked Magellan. The Italian scholar Antonio Pigafetta, who traveled with Magellan during his voyage, gives an account of Magellans death: Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... an Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all rushed themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off.. Nothing of Magellan's body survived, Pigafetta continues in his journal. Humabon tried to persuade Lapu-Lapu to return the body but the victorious chief refused. He intended to keep the body as a war trophy. Since his wife and child died in Seville before any member of the expedition could return to Spain, it seemed that every evidence of Ferdinand Magellan's existence had vanished from the earth. Death of Ferdinand Magellan After the death of Magellan, the surviving sailors, under the command of Gonzalo Gomez de Espinoza, resumed their expedition on two ships, abandoning the third because of lack of adequate hands. Disease and shipwreck disrupted Espinoza's voyage and most of the crew died. One of the ships was captured by the Portuguese while the other managed to continue on her journey completing the circumnavigation under the command of Juan Sebastian Elcano. Meanwhile, Lapu-Lapu and Humabon restored friendly relations; Humabon even helped Lapu-Lapu kill several of Magellans men by poisoning their food. Lapu-Lapu later returned to his native land Borneo, and nothing more was heard of him. Today, Lapu-Lapu is retroactively honored as the first Philippine national hero to resist foreign rule, even though the territory of Philippines did not exist at the time. There is a tall, shimmering bronze statue of the tribal chief wielding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other in the center of Mactan Island, and numerous commemorative statues through Philippines. At the Cebu Provincial Capitol, a city bears his name, and a local variety of red grouper fish. Lapu-Lapu also appears on the official seal of the Philippine National Police. Every year in April, the Battle of Mactan between Magellans army and Lapu-Lapus tribe is reenacted during its anniversary. Lapu-Lapus statue in Mactan Island. Photo credit: Shankar S/Flickr Magellans contribution isnt forgotten either. He is recognized for bringing Christianity in the country, and is honored by preserving the large Christian cross which Magellan planted on the beach on his arrival in Cebu. Photo credit: walterericsy / Shutterstock.com Elliott Abrams, a controversial neoconservative figure who was entangled in the Iran-Contra affair, has been named as a Trump administration special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela, which has been rocked by a leadership crisis. Abrams appointment, announced Friday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is something of a surprise President Donald Trump nixed his 2017 bid to be deputy secretary of State after learning that Abrams had criticized him. Regardless of what you think of Abrams, a neocon who has vociferously opposed Trump in the past, and who was turned down for a State department job on just those grounds in the past, his appointment should keep Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's brutal dictator, up at night. The Associated Press's Josh Goodman pointed out the obvious in this tweet: Abrams was one of the architects of the U.S. invasion of Panama to remove Manuel Noriega in 1989. Maduro frequently cites "Operation Just Cause" as the mold the US is following to oust him. US denies it is coup-mongering. https://t.co/NEnOPuJm0l Joshua Goodman (@APjoshgoodman) January 25, 2019 He's also been a dogged defender of the Nicaraguan people's efforts to get rid of communists from their midst, something that the left calls the Iran-Contra scandal, but which in reality was about keeping Castro and his colonizations at bay in the face of a KGB-coopted Congress that denied funds to oppose it. He was a hero on that one, not a 'convicted' person as the left yells. (He got a pardon for a politically motivated prosecution, while his KGB-coopted congressional opponents got away with actual treason.) There's no reason to criticize him on that. The response from prominent freedom-fighting Venezuelans has been quite positive: Maravilloso el nombramiento de Elliott Abrams como Coordinador Especial para la Crisis de VENEZUELA en el gobierno de . Abrams fue mencionado en un momento como posible #2 del Departamento de Estado. Trae experiencia en cantidad a un tema que promete ser importante por anos. https://t.co/l3LaDEslzp Pedro Mario Burelli (@pburelli) January 25, 2019 Abrams has his good and bad points, so it's not useful to just join the rabid left and sound the alarm, as Breitbart, unfortunately, is doing. Yes, he was an architect of the Iraq war, famous for its free-spending ways on American lives, its amazing naivete with crooked charlatans such as Ahmed Chalabi, spouting the right beltway cocktail-party democracy talk about Iraqis just being Jeffersonian democrats all along, and above all, its failure in nation-building, based on its failure to enact free market reforms and personal security measures. To my mind, Abrams was even worse on the matter of Pinochet's Chile, blithely ignoring the late great Jeanne Kirkpatrick's dictum on dictators and double standards to treat the free-market-transforming Chile the same as a typical communist regime. The Chicago Boys, in their memoirs, wrote a lot about how Abrams nearly derailed their transformation of Chile through his sanctions and vetos of development bank loans which came at a time when the country was doing the right things and needed U.S. support. Only someone with no understanding of free markets (and that was visible in Iraq, too) could do something that stupid, and given that Abrams comes from a typical leftist-origin neocon background, free markets are probably still a black box to him. If the Venezuela mission stays limited to getting rid of Maduro and his Russian masters and the U.S. doesn't get into nationbuilding, so what? Another problem is that Abrams is also a true swamp thing who has loudly spoken out against Trump and hasn't the slightest clue as to why Americans voted for him, which would suggest he is out of touch with popular sentiment despite his pretensions to being all in for democracy. He probably still hates Turmp on style grounds alone as most nevertrumps do, wanting all those cocktail party invitations in Georgetown, and might be capable of leaking to the press, deep state-style, to undermine President Trump. One has got to hope that Trump and Pompeo have made an understanding with him ahead of bringing him onboard so that isn't an issue. But Abrams is not without his strengths. The Venezuela crisis is a multi-faceted one and experience here is important. We have something we have never seen before in foreign affairs - a legislative president declaring himself president on valid constitutional grounds, and the U.S. recognizing that over the objections of the sitting dictator. There's the issue of the embassy kickout, which the U.S. is refusing to honor, something that puts our diplomats in considerable danger from Maduro's thugs, which could be a showdown. There's also the issue of finance. Acting President Juan Guaido can make all kinds of calls for sanctions and financial resources which will be denied to the Chavista usurpers who will believe they are entitled to them. Right now an amazing little battle is going on with ownership of Citgo, the Venezuelan government's U.S.-based refiner and marketer of fuel, with Guaido expected to appoint a new board that shareholders and U.S. law will recognize. Imagine Maduro cut off from that money and Guaido in control of it. There are plenty of other issues that will require very deft diplomatic handling. Abrams might just be the right guy for this. He has experience in spades and he's close to Marco Rubio, who's made quite a few excellent calls in the run-up to the current crisis. Abrams is indeed famous for using force and intervention, and that has potential to be good stuff, too, starting with the coming to life of Maduro's worst nightmare. Trump is against Iraq War-style force, so I can't see an actual Marine invasion happening although I don't want to say it won't happen. But just the threat of force is sometimes all it takes, and Abrams embodies that. He will unnerve Maduro. Rest assured, as the left that Maduro listens to screeches, you can bet they will be expecting the very worst of Bush-style interventions. That works to Trump's advantage. If Abrams' strengths are optimally employed, he should ensure that the U.S. and the Venezuelans see a good outcome to the current crisis. Maduro will dislodged, the Monroe Doctrine will be restored with Russians and other overseas players kicked out, and the Venezuelans will be empowered to restore their own democracy. Like some of that Noriega action, Nicolas? Heh. Let's cross our fingers and be cautiously optimistic. Image credit: Miller Center, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0 It should be noted that Islam itself is a fantasy birthed by Muhammad's own delusion. Some Iranians are still nostalgic about the version of Islam they kept close to their hearts during the reign of the shah of Iran a completely fictional Islam! Since the invasion of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, many Iranians found themselves in a state of bewilderment as to what real Islam is. The suffocating rule of Islam casts its death-bearing pall over Iranians. A proud people with an enviable heritage has been systematically purged of its sense of identity. The so-called Islam they knew and cherished vanished overnight, and confusion and uncertainty prevailed. The shock wave of the real Islam on the faithful individuals was so massive in Iran that they came up with another justification that real Islam is not what the mullahs teach and practice. They went even farther as far as to call the highest Shiite religious authorities frauds. If only Iranians could read Arabic, the outcome would have been entirely different. Most Iranians have never read the Quran. Understandably, after 40 years of suffering under the brutal regime of the mullahs, Iranians have become completely fed up with that Islam and all its rituals, and they wish to divorce themselves from it. In fact, many already have, but for the fear of being called murtad and subject to death, they don't come forward and announce it. The events in history have hardened present-day Iranians. They have become pretenders. In my previous article, The Anachronism of Apostasy, I have explained it clearly: Within this overall framework of complete acceptance of Islam as the perfect living charter for the believer, the rules pertaining to apostasy can be better understood. Islam considers an apostate as a person who unilaterally breaks the covenant he has made with his faith. An apostate is condemned as guilty of turning his back on Allah's immutable eternal religion. Anyone who is born to Muslim parents and leaves Islam is stigmatized as murtad fitri (natural apostate) in the sense that he was born genetically Muslim and he had rejected his gift of birth. And anyone who converts to Islam and later leaves it is condemned as murtad milli (a person who has turned his back to the Ummah). Throughout the ages, many great Persian and non-Persian philosophers, writers and men of letters, have tried to reform Islam. Many have lost their lives in the process. Reforming Islam requires discarding sharia and purging the Qur'an itself of a great many Suras that are not only patently false, but totally repugnant to civilized humanity. This line of thought, to sanitize Islam, is explicitly forbidden in the Qur'an. Whether this group of Shiite Muslims accept or do not accept Islam for what it is, the controversy will continue among certain strata of the Iranian population. It is time for Iranians to reconcile with themselves and leave Islam en masse. I recently received a note from an anonymous Iranian, expressing his thoughts regarding this issue: God bless the Islamic Republic, which after 1,400 years of doubt, opened our eyes to the real Islam. The true Islam is what you see the same Islam in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Afghanistan. ... Regrettably, we had closed our eyes to this historical reality. ... Ayatollah Khomeini with his Islamic revolution took the genie out of the bottle and put it on the display. Unfortunately, the liberal media and politicians around the globe, in an effort to appease oil-producing Islamic governments and their own Muslim population, have resorted to deception and lies. They have created laws to punish those who criticize Islam. They claim that real Islam is inherently peaceful and that only a small minority have hijacked the good faith of Muhammad by engaging in acts of intolerance, hatred, and violence. These Western apologists never cite any verses or Suras from the Quran or report the actions and deeds of the prophet Muhammad. They have become Islam enablers. All one should do is to read the history of Islam and find out the truth for himself. If, by some act of God, the instructions of the Qur'an to the faithful are completely dismantled, the condition of the Muslim world will tremendously improve. The dumbest voting bloc in America? Pro-life Christians of all stripes were appalled when earlier this week the New York state legislature made abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy. In stark contrast to their sadness and consternation, however, the government of New York celebrated like never before: at the tip of Manhattan, the top of the Freedom Tower was lit up pink; and about 25 miles up the Hudson River, the brand new Tappan Zee Bridge (officially known as "Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge," that trophy Governor Andrew Cuomo built with taxpayer money to honor his former-governor father) was lit up in a most spectacular way, also in splashy, in-your-face pink. The statement was clear: all women in the state -- nay, all women across America -- should be cheering and celebrating this monumental advancement for women the world over. But why did this so-called great achievement in human rights take so long? Couldn't the state government have struck this blow for women much, much earlier? The answer lies in the fact that, in the election this past fall, enough Republicans were voted out of office to make a solid majority of Democrats who could pass any legislation they dang well pleased. And so they dang well did. Pundit John Zmirak stated in a radio interview recently that if you want to see what this country will look like once the Democrats regain total control in Washington, just watch what happens now in New York state. Can this trend be stopped? In New York, as well as in most every other state, there are certainly enough Catholics and others who identify as Christians who could vote their conscience and say "no" to the legalization and/or celebrated-approval of destructive practices -- and not just abortion. The short list includes gay marriage (so-called); allowing boys who think they are girls the privilege of showering with girls; discriminating against people because they're too "white" (aka, acceptable racism). Today, there are those in office (and those seeking office) who unabashedly champion abortion rights and LGBT rights, the progressive litmus test for all Democrats. However, Republicans can vary in their viewpoints; the braver ones push back firmly against these issues and publicly live out their faith (think Vice President Mike Pence). So, the question is, with such a large percentage of people declaring themselves "Christian" everywhere across America, why have they not risen up and voted against these progressive Democrats who are touting obviously non-Christian values and legislation? Are these Catholics and Christians that dumb? Is their allegiance to the "old" Democrat Party (the one that actually stood for Christian values many decades ago) stronger than their love of the God of the Bible and His holy law? It seems that the only voting bloc that can stop this takeover of America is the Catholic/Christian one. However, I wouldn't hold my breath. My bet is that, come election day in 2020, Catholics and others who call themselves Christian will head in droves to the voting booth to cast their votes once again for the Democrats. I mean, what's their alternative? Apparently, in their minds, how can anyone expect them to vote for those "Evil Republicans"? About 95,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in Texas, and more than half of those have cast ballots in at least one election, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley announced on Friday. Democrats and their press allies are always yelling about voter fraud being a miniscule " actually very rare ," practically non-existent thing, a figment of fevered conservative imaginations. But state election officials in Texas have uncovered a whopping 98,000 illegal voter registrations from non-citizens, with more than half - 58,000 - actually casting ballots. Seems the problem is bigger than was imagined, even -- on the right. The story is being covered by the mainstream press. WFAA, a big Texas radio station, had this : Whitley's office, along with the Texas Department of Public Safety, had been investigating possible voter fraud for the last year, according to a news release. Of the 95,000 non-citizens registered, 58,000 have voted in one or more elections since 1996. The Secretary of State's office found those numbers by collecting current DPS data of people who have applied for a driver's license or state identification card in the last five years with a green card of visa. The investigators then cross-referenced that data with people who are registered to vote. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had this, NBC News had this. Dallas Morning News had this. Which pretty well puts paid to the Democratic 'talking point' about voter fraud being a non-issue. Actually, this finding, from Texas officials very determined to clean up their voter rolls, is a very big issue. Every ballot cast by a foreigner in the election cancels out the vote of an American citizen. When the elections are close, that's quite a disenfranchisement. According to the Star-Telegram, citing a Texas official: Every single instance of illegal voting threatens democracy in our state and deprives individual Texans of their voice, Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a prepared statement. My Election Fraud Unit stands ready to investigate and prosecute crimes against the democratic process when needed. He's right. With elections increasingly close, the prospect of foreigners determining the outcome is a rather amazing sort of imperialism against Americans from abroad. And they are getting away with it, they've been getting away with it for more than two decades, as this study showed. What else can we say about this? It exposes the Democrats and their abnormal obsession with keeping voter rolls unaudited, for the beneficiaries of non-citizens voting. Texas is a red state and red states have no stake in winning illegal votes, which go largely to Democrats. No wonder they yell about these revelations, which they are doing this time, but it's a pretty big tide they're protesting. California, by contrast, is a solid blue one-party state, coinciding with its initiation of vast benefit packages for illegal immigrants. Not surprisingly, the state houses a quarter of the nation's illegal immigrants. And surprise, surprise, it leads the nation in resistence to voter roll audits, claiming illegal immigrants wouldn't dream of voting illegally here after they crossed into the U.S. illegally. California, which had to be sued into cleaning up its voter rolls, and not completely, continues to resist any effort to maintain the integrity of its vote. Well, the Texas audit does signal there's a problem. And since Democrats cannot spin this away, though they are trying to by saying maybe all the non-citizen voters became citizens in the interim, they are mostly likely going to try to ignore this away and say it was done by Republicans. One can only hope it won't work this time, because they've got big plans to make all of the nation's election laws exactly like California's. This is the death of democracy. Venezuela went this route, its failure wasn't just socialism imposed in one swoop, it started with voter fraud. All the more reason to make this report from Texas a major narrative shift in the national conversation. Not all persons here illegally are alike; The wall keeps the worst ones out There are numerous defensive, reflexive, and self-serving empty arguments against building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. One of the most misapplied ones is that most illegal aliens enter the United States through airports, and so the wall wouldnt do any good. First of all, any evidence as to how many Persons Here Illegally (PHIs) there are in the United States, let alone how they got here, is dubious. It is not as if PHIs readily comply with reporting their illegal status to census takers and law enforcement authorities so as to maintain an accurate tally. More importantly, even if the argument were true, that more PHIs enter through airports than caravans, that demonstrates an utter lack of understanding that not all PHIs are alike, and that all other things being equal, the wall would keep out the worst ones. PHIs achieve that illegal status either by entering the United States without authorization, or entering legally and then staying here beyond their allotted time. The big difference between the two groups is that the latter have been vetted whereas the former never were. To illustrate, let us consider the examples of Frank, Juan, and Maria. Franz and Juan are hardened criminals who have escaped prosecution and are on the run. Franz is from a European country and Juan is from Central America. Juan has an advantage over Franz: he trekked on foot and at times hitched rides up the countryside through Mexico and eventually walked across a vulnerable border spot along the U.S. southern border, into the United States. Franz, however, does not have the luxury, or ability, to sail across the Atlantic Ocean on a raft, or fly his own plane overseas. And, surely, he cannot swim across, or fly like a bird. Because of their criminal backgrounds, neither Franz nor Juan have any prayer of attaining a valid visa to enter the United States legally; their only hope is to enter illegally. Juan, based on his geographic advantage, can do so, whereas Franz is out of luck. Then, there is Maria, a Mexican citizen who was awarded admission into an American university and flew into the United States on a student visa and enrolled. After two successful semesters, Maria received the sad news that her parents lost their family business, and would no longer be able to send her tuition money. Worse yet, they were in danger of losing their home and living on the streets. Seeking to help her family, Maria dropped out of school and got a job off the books as a waitress, and she is saving enough money to return to Mexico to help her family. Franz, again, never even attempted to enter the United States, so he is out of the equation. Juan and Maria, though, are both here as PHIs. The difference is that Maria has an exemplary background, which is why she was allowed here in the first place. Her only transgression is that she remained illegally, motivated by the primal need to support her family. She is not likely to hold up a convenience store or join a gang. She is working hard as a waitress. Juan, on the other hand, is immersed in crime. It is his second nature. He wouldnt think twice about hitting an elderly person over the head, perhaps fatally, to steal a wallet or a purse. And if the chance of joining a ruthless criminal gang to make big money is a possibility, hed jump on it in a heartbeat. Granted, in an ideal America, the immigration system would operate so effectively that there wouldnt be a single PHI here. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Comparing the two types of PHIs, then, those who were respectable enough to be allowed to enter legally to begin with, like Maria, and those who, like Juan, had such heinous backgrounds that the only possibly way for them to enter would be to sneak across the border, who wouldnt prefer the Marias of the PHI universe to the Juans? In fairness, it is important to note that sophisticated criminals, including terrorists, might have the infrastructure to circumvent the system and enter the United States legally, hoodwinking our vetting system and wreaking havoc on our nation. And though we have a great, though not foolproof counterterrorism process in place, it would be monumentally absurd to turn away from it because it is not 100% guaranteed. Accordingly, a wall along our Southern border will not keep out every PHI, but the chances are most of our PHIs will be Marias instead of Juans. While too many Marias are still a detriment to our society in terms of logistics, they are not likely to shock our system by committing violent crimes. To ignore the benefits of a wall by arguing that some wrongdoers might be able to outsmart the system would be like wanting to do away with every law enforcement officer in America, because not 100% of crime will be eradicated. It is time for those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) to cut their losses and realize that opposing the wall is a preposterous, illogical, factually devoid, and thereby inevitably losing battle. Constantinos E. Scaros has practiced, taught, and written about immigration law. His latest book is Stop Calling Them Immigrants and is available in print and Kindle formats on amazon.com. He is a contributing writer of Attorneys United for a Secure America. Image credit: Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons // via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0 Now, anti-Semitism is gone mainstream in the Democratic party and the leadership is in a quandary. With so many members elected in 2018 who support the BDS movement and embrace virulent anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan, the party leaves itself wide open to charges it supports hate. It used to be that being accused of anti-Semitism was as bad as being accused of racism. Seeking to take advantage of the Democrat's discomfort, New York Congressman Lee Zeldin has introduced a resolution that condemns anti-Semitism in all its forms. A similar House resolution condemning white supremacy was passed by a nearly unanimous vote a few weeks ago. How would it look if Democrats suddenly got picky about what kind of hate they condemn, and what hate they remain silent about? Washington Free Beacon: "It's up to the Democrats to decide whether or not they are actually going to confront this head on," Zeldin told the Free Beacon. "I'm wiling to work with any Democratic colleague on any idea he or she has to crush anti-Semitism in any form. But I can't do that for them." To that end, Zeldin's measurewhich is expected to be brought for a vote in the coming weeksis shaping up to be a sort of litmus test for the Democratic leadership as it figures out how to deal with a class of freshmen who are open about their distaste for Israel and support causes like the Boycott, Sanction, and Divestment movement, or BDS, which wages economic warfare on the Jewish state. "It's going to require more in the Democratic party, especially at the higher levels of leadership, to not be unspoken about whether or not these new freshman Democrats are speaking for the party or speaking for a policy that represents the future of the party," Zeldin said. "If they're silent it is only going to grow." While Democratic leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and House Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) have been vocal in the past about their opposition to BDS and similar anti-Semitic movements, they are now dealing with a new cast of young Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), all of whom have embraced at one point or another anti-Semitic leaders and their causes. "Their strong support of BDS and so much more really leads to the heightened level of concern that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred is infiltrating not just American politics, but specifically the halls of Congress," Zeldin said. Asked if Democratic leaders are doing enough to combat anti-Semitism in their ranks, Zeldin pointed to the recent appointment of Omar to the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee. "The House Democratic leadership is empowering it," Zeldin said. "When you place that new member from Minnesota on the House Foreign Affairs committee as your first action in response to widespread criticism of many horrible things said and policies supported, that's not minimizing or mitigating the power of that voice. It's elevating it." The key word here is "empowering." Pelosi and Schumer can profess their love of Israel and hatred of anti-Semitism all they want, but their actions speak much louder than their words. Hate is apparently tolerable if your party label starts with a "D." The state of Israel will not rise or fall based on the support - or non-support - of America's Democratic party. But solidarity with the Jewish state in these perilous times is more important than ever. An America united in its support of Israel as it confronts the Iranian threat is essential to Israel's security and the security of our Arab friends in the Middle East. Democratic party leaders know this, but the growing support for BDS among its members and the praise for anti-Semites from others is political dynamite that could haunt the Dems in future elections. The Left Doesn't Hate the US; It Hates Us It may be hard for some to believe, but the Democrats today are interchangeable with the left, because there are no longer any moderate Democrats. And along with their journey away from the middle, the Democrats have become ever more illiberal in how they feel about their political opponents. To disagree with the left has become heresy punishable by excommunication and often preceded by what has become their specialty, hatred accompanied by personal, political, and career destruction. When Barack Obama became president with full control of both houses of Congress, the left was ecstatic. Some were proud of their country for the first time, blissfully unaware that most Americans had always been proud of America. It was clear to Democrats that citizens had finally agreed to give them the opportunity and power to realize their dream of a fair America of equal outcome with an unchecked government elite making all decisions for everybody in a socialist utopia where everyone can have everything they want, and no decisions or policies could ever be wrong and thus ever reviewable. When voters began to realize that Obama wasnt as moderate as he pretended to be to get elected, they began the eight-year trek away from the Democratic utopia. First, Democrats lost the House, then the Senate, and 2016, they lost the presidency. T he left, which had become convinced they would never again be relegated to the minority, were not only surprised, they were outraged. Who were these people to go against the arc of history? This is not who we are they complained. It can be said that Trumps election was the point where the Democrats abandoned the deplorable bastards who stole Hillary Clintons presidency, but it had been coming for a long time. When Barack Obama went on his worldwide apology tour, he wasnt apologizing for America, he was apologizing for Americans. To himself, He was America; and Americans were merely the evil people who refused to accept this higher truth. It wasnt America that cost him the House and the Senate, it was Americans who rejected the truth that his radical transformation of the United States of America was gods plan. Trump wasnt the beginning, he was the last straw. Thats what sanctuary cities, abolish ICE, open borders, DACA, amnesty, and a path to citizenship are all about. These things are not a function of compassion for the poor paperless migrant searching for a better life -- remember, Democrats were anti-illegal immigration when they thought illegals were a boon to business and increased profit. These policies are nothing more than a means by which the left can switch out Americans for people who arent so depraved as to think they have a right to vote against them. The left doesnt stifle, bury, and ridicule conservative opinion in the media, Google searches, college campuses, and the public square because they wont tolerate disagreement, they do it because they know that only they are on the side of all that is right and just and hence, any dissent is evil. And all dissenters are malevolent. Its not a lack of tolerance, the left is tolerant of all good people, but since only evil people wont agree with them, the beastly get what they deserve. This is why its so easy for them to go to extremes to express their hatred for a Kavanaugh or a Covington kid, or lie and cheat to destroy a candidate Trump, or commit crimes to usurp his presidency, or investigate anyone ever involved with the man; these people are villainous, and hatred and extremism in the battle with evil is no vice. This is also why everything Trump does is labeled racist. He wont agree with them and do as he is told; he also refuses to be quiet and accept a beating as all deplorables should. Instead, he tries to implement policies that he believes are good for all us loathsome Americans. This makes everything he does malicious and obviates the need for them to look at what he says or supports on an individual basis -- we are wicked, and he is wicked and therefore, everything he espouses or tries to accomplish is wicked as well. Democrats dont want to destroy America, they want to destroy us, and in particular, Donald Trump. We deserve it for who we are. Right now, they are in the process of replacing execrable Americans with people who they believe will be better for the country, for America. Therefore, they cant ever agree on funding for a wall -- a wall would only make that harder. We should all beware of what they will do with us when replacement is no longer an option. After all, we already know what they are capable of -- they show us every day. The signing in Aachen is highly symbolic. Aachen, a German city bordering Belgium and the Netherlands, was the imperial residence of Charlemagne, and from 936 to 1531 A.D., the place where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned kings of the Germans. One way to understand France and Germany is to know that images of Charlemagne are dancing in their heads. Here is how John Pinkerton put it in the American Conservative: Earlier this week, France and Germany signed an update to the Treaty of Aachen . The gist of this document is that brings the two powerhouses of the European Union closer together in terms of economics, politics, and defense matters. Among other things, this is the genesis of the 'real European army' which French President Emmanuel Macron previously called for and for which German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in full accord with. Here in the U.S., the EU is often seen as some sort of woolly-headed utopian pipe dream. However, the core of the EU has always been something different -- something hard-nosed, not soft-hearted. The EU is ultimately about European greatness, in the spirit of Charles the Great, better known as Charlemagne. And he, of course, was no peacenik. No, Charlemagne was no peacenik. He unified Europe as the Holy Roman Empire by the sword and a sea of blood. For this, he is called the Father of Europe. Who can doubt that Macron will sell his soul to have, Charlemagne-like, united Europe, ruled by an imperial elite like himself according to progressive tastes? The Frenchman may indeed see himself as the new Charlemagne. As for the Franco-German marriage, Pinkerton writes that the French are untainted by German guilt and are thus free to use their political skills -- and German economic might -- to create the European empire of their dreams. "In fact, the French have long seen diplomatie as their special skill. As Macron's predecessor in the French presidency, Francois Hollande, said in 2016, 'Through its diplomacy, France means to be at the center of the world.'" And speaking of diplomacy: Also notable of Tuesday's signing is that the Aachen document prioritizes Germany being eventually accepted as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which it mandates as a priority for French-Germany diplomacy. A better proposition would be for France to share its Security Council seat with Germany... or surrender it to the EU. Why do Macron and Merkel want a European army? Who are they afraid of? Judging by their commercial actions and NATO defense spending, it can't be the Russians. Germany is fine with being dependent on Russia for much of its energy needs and with being dependent on the U.S. for its defense. In addition, the Russians are not a great worry. They are economically anemic, and their demographic profile is so poor that it's a threat to the unity of the Russian Federation itself. China? China is half a world away. And besides, the Americans will deal with them. No, the enemies that Merkel and Macron see are the populists within Europe, the people who chaff under globalism and dogmatic rule from Brussels, the people who love their country and culture. These include not just the 'ingrates' of Eastern Europe like the Hungarians and the Poles but also the unruly Yellow Vest protestors in France and the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany. Those are the ones who any European army under French-German control will be designed to subdue. If you doubt that, look at what was said at the Aachen signing. In typical twisted Gallic logic, Macron said those 'who forget the value of Franco-German reconciliation are making themselves accomplices of the crimes of the past. Those who... spread lies are hurting the same people they are pretending to defend, by seeking to repeat history." Frau Merkel added: "Populism and nationalism are strengthening in all our countries. Seventy-four years -- a single human lifetime -- after the end of the second world war, what seemed self-evident is being questioned once more." So either you're with us and our vision, or you're against us and, incidently, retroactively complicit in starting WW II. Nationalism is the new Nazism, and one needs little justification to suppress Nazis, right? The facts -- and history -- are before us. Pinkerton writes the European elite have been longing for an updated version of the Holy Roman Empire for the past 1,200 years. This is why the city of Aachen has been giving out its prestigious Charlemagne Prize each year since 1950 for exceptional work done in the service of European unification. Not surprisingly, Macron was awarded the prize in 2018 for offering a vision of a new Europe. Merkel got her prize in 2008. Pope Francis got his in 2016. Americans may look at Macron and see an effete pompous ass. He sees himself differently. To his mind, Macron is clothed in regal robes, sitting on a throne with Europe at his feet. Reality is more likely to make Macron out to be like Hans Christian Anderson's emperor in his new suit of clothes. In any event, if not Macron, then someone else in Europe will aspire to be Charlemagne 2.0, and he -- or maybe a she? -- will not let the common folk stand in the way. Charlemagne didn't. As time rolls on, it will be shown that Europeans are willing to move heaven and earth to achieve their empire. Maybe this is why the Poles want to build Fort Trump in their country, to defend them not from Moscow but Brussels. This is bad news for Europe. The last time an attempt was made to construct an empire out of the countries of Europe, World War II resulted. California's New Corporatism Deloittes recent report on diversity in the workplace serves to embolden the State of Californias activism aimed at forcing corporations to increase female presence on corporate boards. Though the constitutionality of Californias overreach has yet to be determined, gone are the good ol days when the most a company had to fear was a hostile takeover. A board facing a hostile takeover sometimes resorted to bargaining with the activist investorm as in a hostage situation. Californias plan to tame the free markets was simply to take hostage their publicly traded corporations with main headquarters in the state. Former Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 826 as the legislature pointed to multiple studies to wage its war on male-dominated boardrooms. However, Deloittes most recent report does not claim-correlation or causality between female representation and an increase in profits. It simply tracks the changes of diversity in Fortune 500 and 100 boards. Another report by McKinsey asserts that diverse companies are more profitable companies, with the disclaimer that correlation does not equal causation (greater gender and ethnic diversity in corporate leadership doesnt automatically translate into more profit). What these organizations want to see is progress, and they are willing to sacrifice science in order to achieve their progressive goal. More studies could be cited, but these studies were laid to rest about three years ago. Alice Eagley, professor of psychology and management at Northwestern University, debunked the claim that more women on boards resilts in greater profits in The Journal of Social Issues. Dr. Eagley calls into question the ability of social activists and constructionists to ethically apply the rigor of scientific research and be honest about the subsequent results. In fact, social constructionists want to make the world a better place through policy, and are often willing to misconstrue research findings to achieve this goal. If one reads through the Deloitte, and especially the McKinsey reports, one will find emotional language laden with strong belief that diversity is the key to greater profits. Furthermore, Eagley denounced findings and assertions that link the presence of female board members to greater corporate profits. Studies that assert such findings are certainly not publishable in academic journals because of the elementary form of their data presentations. Many of these studies do not take into account reverse causation nor omitted variables, which could easily affirm weak links of female board members to corporate profits. Eagley references a study conducted from 1996 to 2003 in which the study did account for omitted variables, resulting in negative results of female leadership to financial performance. Furthermore, Katherine Klein of the Wharton School of Business remarks that there is no credibility of a link between diversity and increased profits. Obviously, the goal is not to prevent more women from becoming members of boards. The goal should be to allow the free market to be as free as possible without the overreach of the state. Unfortunately, the passage of such laws by the Peoples Republic of California does more to insert the states control of corporations and enhance social engineering than it is to increase representation of women on boards and increase the profits of corporations. This is evidenced in several ways. First, progressive government and big corporations historically have a corporatist relationship through manufactured crisis. For example, Upton Sinclairs The Jungle is a historical example of a manufactured crisis calling for greater regulation. When Sinclair unmasked the meat packing industry, the sector already had many of the regulatory standards in place. Teddy Roosevelts progressive administration took the car keys and handed them to the meatpacking industry anyway. The industry then wrote its own regulations, gave those standards to the federal government, and said we will play by the rules we wrote. Teddys administration agreed, since the industry was the expert. The businesses who benefited from greater regulations were the major players in the meatpacking industry. The groups who suffered were smaller mom and pop butchers who could not afford to play by the new rules. The major players, in tandem with the federal government, wrote rules to intentionally crush their competition. Americans should take note of the fact there is little to no complaint from Californias largest publicly traded corporations about the new law. Big corporations can afford the new law and welcome it. The implementation of such a law actually gives big cap businesses a historical competitive advantage over small cap companies and some private companies, because they can afford to implement costly regulations. Consider Apple, which paid Angela Ahrendt $73.4 million in cash and stock in 2015 for her service to the giant. Then consider other organizations that pay as low as $30 thousand for a board retainer. To further illustrate the manufactured crisis, fewer than 100 publicly traded companies headquartered in California have zero women serving on their board out of 761 companies. With one out of seven companies without a female board member, the crisis necessitating a law to fix it is reminiscent of Hillary Clintons manufactured crisis over day care. Only 14 percent of families polled listed day care needs in their top three needs as Hillary put forth her demand for government intervention. With the help of incorrect scientific research methods, as pointed out by Eagley, California has made an ill-informed case for social engineering and corporatism. California as a progressive activist state spent over forty years suing the Boy Scouts of America until the organization folded to progressive values. Membership has fallen by half over the last five years, and Scouts BSA (the new name) is now considering filing for bankruptcy. California also sets the standards for other states, such as the case of being the first state to legalize recreational marijuana use. The point: California activism works. Another challenge is the treatment of women as placeholders on corporate boards. Talented, insightful, and innovative women may find themselves simply present for the corporation to meet its diversity quota. Boards will likely have to dismiss a current board member who is male, or create another board seat. The creation of a board seat may mean that a role is created to simply meet the quota, not meet an actual need by the corporation. Other corporations will simply migrate to other states. The current diaspora from Silicon Valley already sees corporations head for locales like Austin, Detroit, and Huntsville, Alabama. These locations are cheaper, with lower costs of living than San Francisco. Throw a $100K penalty on a small cap corporation and that might serve as the straw that broke the camels back. Finally, IPOs will definitely need to adjust their pitches for venture capital with a plan to have diverse boards before the first VC check is cashed. This planning will be key to ensure that a start-up qualifies to file for an initial public offering as it matures. If California prohibits corporations from filing an IPO based on its board composition, then the state will successfully achieve greater corporatist control of big firms. Big firms, due to their loyalty to California, will now have greater competitive advantage as new entrants to the market will face mounting regulations and obstacles to become publicly traded. The LGBT community is notorious for showing unity in various ways. The Ujima Mens Collective started off the new year by showing unity through a networking social. What better place to have an LGBT networking mixer than at The Stonewall Museum, located in the heart of Wilton Manors on Wilton Drive. The mixer was a chance for creatives and business experts to fellowship together, meet new friends, and connect generations. Our first Ujima Men's Collective networking Social was an amazing opportunity to meet other black LGBTQ entrepreneurs and leaders from South Florida, said Lorenzo Robertson the Ujima Mens Collective Coordinator. It was great to have a space to share to put into practice the Principles of Kwanzaa. To recognize and to support our people. A space to unapologetically Black. During the early stages of the mixer, everyone had the opportunity to speak as they stood in a circle, introduce themselves, share cool facts about their business, and pass out business cards. Although the Ujima Collective is a male initiative, women were also allowed to attend the event. Some of the guests included Eric Runyan, President of the Front Runners of Fort Lauderdale. The organization promotes running, walking, and all-around socializing. Creative Artist and LGBT Advocate Nikki Lopez, who is well known in the Fort Lauderdale art community, was also present. Lopez is the creator of Whats Your Elephant Movement at the 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale. Glenroy James, MBA and insurance agent from New York Life Insurance. James aims to help individuals become millionaires by the time they hit 65, sometimes sooner. Jamie from ATG Print House also made an appearance. Jamie spends her time creating art for her clients through screen printing, embroidery, graphic design, vinyls, and even promotional flyers. Several of the guests that were in attendance spoke about working with each other on future projects and collaborating at various community functions. One guest, Ederick Johnson, who serves as the Minister of Music of the Historical St. John AME Church South Miami and former Coordinator of the KiKi Project at the Pride Center, was there in good spirits as he met new people and caught up with old friends. In this community we lack togetherness and unity, Johnsonsaid. To be in a room with so many influential persons from our community was amazing. I also went to support Lorenzo Robertson who has committed a lifetime to the betterment of our society. For more information on how you can be involved in the next networking session, please contact ujimamen.net. Vietnam places great importance to the people diplomacy and the role of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in its foreign policy, stated Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung at a New Year gathering in Hanoi on January 25 of representatives of the foreign diplomatic corps and NGOs in Vietnam. Dung said that the people diplomacy and NGOs have become an important factor in boosting cooperation and trust among countries and nations, helping make relationships deeper, stable and sustainable. Vietnam has received precious support from the peace-loving community during the resistance wars as well as national re-construction and international integration, he noted, adding that in the current time, international friends and NGOs have still accompanied Vietnam during the poverty reduction and socio-economic development, as well as in implementing the Millennium Development Goals and the current Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We have seen your footprints in most remote areas, together with us, to bring stable life and livelihood to the needy, especially for the most vulnerable groups, ensuring that no one is left behind, he underscored. No single country is able to deal with traditional and non-traditional challenges such as climate change, poverty and epidemics, he said, stressing the need for multi-sectoral cooperation among public, private and non-state sectors, as well as closer coordination at the international level to deal with specific matters. With their experience, resources and partnership network, NGOs can join hands in tackling socio-economic problems in each locality and community in Vietnam, said the Deputy PM. He affirmed Vietnams wish to foster cooperation with international organizations, pledging to create optimal conditions for them to operate in Vietnam for inclusive and sustainable growth, heading to the completion of the SGDs. On the occasion of the upcoming traditional New Year of Vietnam, Deputy PM Dung extended wishes to ambassadors, charge daffaires and representatives from international organizations and NGOs in Vietnam. He also lauded the operational outcomes of the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO) in 2018, making important contributions to common development of the country. On behalf ofdiplomatic corps in Hanoi, Venezuelan Ambassador Jorge Rondon Uzcategui congratulated Vietnam for the countrys achievements in national construction and development. He expressed his wish that Vietnam will sustain its economic growth and gain more successes in its external relations. The diplomat said he hope that the upcoming Year of the Pig will be a year of happiness, harmony, dialogue and common interest. Newhalen, Alaska Before she retired, 62-year-old Funa set aside some money just enough to buy the supplies shed need to pursue her love of sewing. Now, the former school librarian who lives in the remote Alaskan village of Newhalen works under bright spools of thread that hang from the walls of her sewing room. There are rows of scissors, each labelled with her name, drawers of beads and buttons and a small walk-in closet with neat piles of colourful fabric. Finished quilts are folded beneath pictures of her children and grandchildren. 181017102140170 The room, an extension to the house she has lived in since she was a child, was built by her husband. This is my happy place in the wintertime, she says. During the winter months, when temperatures can drop as low as -30 degrees Celsius and the sun only skims the horizon before disappearing again, Funa spends much of her time indoors sewing. She makes kuspuks, a hooded garment with large pockets that Alaska Natives typically wear for formal gatherings such as weddings, school graduation ceremonies and church services, as well as for more everyday tasks. Their practical design makes them ideal for the subsistence lifestyle that is so central to survival in this village of roughly 180 residents. Located at the mouth of Newhalen River, the community is dwarfed by the surrounding mountains. Between it and the neighbouring village of Iliamna, there are just two stores, which sell everything from hardware to bananas. Groceries must be flown in from the city of Anchorage, 320km away, and that is reflected in their prices. So residents get what they can from the land and the lakes. They have the hoods on and you put them on your head and it will keep the mosquitoes from getting your neck and your head. And they have nice big pockets, Funa explains. They are good for when you go out berry picking. Funa is part of a growing cottage industry of Alaskans both Native and non-Native who have begun sewing and selling kuspuks in their communities or online. According to Aaron Leggett, the curator of Alaska History and Culture and the Anchorage Museum, Yupik and Inupiat peoples two subsets of Alaska Natives were the first to sew fabric kuspuks roughly 100 years ago. They used material from flour sacks and wore them as a protective layer over their fur clothing a necessity at the time in Alaskas frigid climate the lighter cloth being easier to clean. Before flour sacks were available, kuspuks were made out of animal gut or skins. Since then, other tribal groups have adopted the kuspuk and they are now popularly worn across the state. Its [become] sort of an overall form of Native identity in the last 20 years, says Leggett. These days, Facebook groups allow designers to exchange ideas and sell their products online, while members of the Alaska State Legislature wear them to work once a week for Kuspuk Friday. The art is increasingly popular in villages like Funas, where generations of women are sewing kuspuks to celebrate their culture and to connect with loved ones. During the long winter months, women gather for sewing nights, sharing tips, their sewing machines steadily drumming on bright swatches of fabric as younger members of their families look on and the snow falls outside. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Professor, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab witness a signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement on establishment for the fourth industrial revolution center in Vietnam. In the meeting with senior leaders, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc introduced Vietnams current economic issues, and he strongly affirmed the government has been developing and building friendly the business environment, often holding dialogues to listen and solve difficulties of businesses and people, creating favorable condition for private businesses and connection between small- medium enterprises with huge and foreign domestic corporations.The participants appreciated Vietnams financial and economic achievements, and hoped that the Vietnamese Prime Minister and Government would continue issuing measures and more drastic actions to stabilize the finance, create a proactive and free environment for investors in Vietnam.On the sidelines of the Davos Conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc met Swiss President Ueli Maurer.Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc affirmed that Vietnam always focuses on strengthening relations with Switzerland; and thanked to the partner for providing US$ 90 million in official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam in the period of 2017-2020.The two sides agreed to closely coordinate and choose appropriate projects to effectively use ODA, and cooperate closely in multilateral forums, especially in the United Nations on basic of the international law, peace, stability and sustainable development in the region and the world.At a private meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc evaluated friendship and comprehensive cooperation relations between Vietnam and the Netherlands especially in the strategic partnership frameworks on climate change adaptation and water management and on sustainable agriculture and food security.The Vietnamese government leader affirmed his country always respects valuable assistance of the partner in the fields of environment, education and agriculture; and hoped that the Netherlands would continue to support Vietnam through new programs, promote the European Union (EU) to early sign and ratify the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), support peacekeeping and stability, freedom, security, maritime and air safeties in the East Sea.At the meeting with Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrej Babis, the Vietnamese PM and the Czech counterpart pleasured at the positive development of bilateral relations; and affirmed that the two nations would try their best to promote signed cooperation agreements between in the fields of economy, trade, culture, education and science, etc.PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc desired the Czech Republic to continue supporting and strengthening comprehensive partnerships and cooperation between Vietnam and EU; to early sign EVFTA to facilitate businesses of both sides in the coming time.Previously, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc respectively had meetings and dialogues on Globalization 4.0 with world economic leaders.Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc received Professor, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab; and witnessed a signing ceremony of the cooperation agreement on establishment of the Center for Industrial 4.0 in Vietnam and building the Letter of Intent on plastic waste initiative.On the same day, Vice Chairman of the European Commission Jyrki Katainen held a talk with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Vietnam - EU relationships.EU is currently the fourth largest trading partner, the second largest export market and great investor of Vietnam; therefore, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc suggested pushing EVFTA to be signed and ratified in the first quarter of 2019 to meet mutual interests of both sides, to create a new motivation for Vietnam-EU relations in economy.PM Phuc also desired the EU to support the country in dealing with illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) exploitation as well as soon lift the yellow card for Vietnam's seafood exports to the EU.Regarding the East Sea issue, the Prime Minister suggested the EU to continue paying attention to maritime security and safety, support the settlement of disputes in the East Sea on basic of the international laws, peaceful measures, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982, etc.On the occasion, the Vietnamese Government leader had meetings with the worlds big companies as Siemens, Qualcomn, Google, Total, Allianz, JBIC, GE, Prudential.On the same day, the Vietnamese high- ranking delegation left Switzerland to come back home and end WEF Davos 2019. BY DO CAO- Translated by Huyen Huong A 20-year-old suspect has been arrested after police say he shot another man during a broad-daylight robbery earlier this week in Birmingham. Birmingham police on Friday announced the arrest of Joshua Young. The incident happened about 3 p.m. Tuesday in the 2700 block of First Avenue South. Witnesses told police the victim ran to a business from the direction of nearby railroad tracks. He was taken to UAB Hospitals Trauma Center with a life-threatening injury. He is expected to recover. The victims car was taken following the shooting. Police have not released additional circumstances surrounding the shooting and the car theft. Investigators were able to identify Young as the suspect. He was taken into custody Wednesday, Sgt. Johnny Williams said Friday. Young is charged with first-degree robbery and attempted murder. He is also charged with first-degree unlawful possession of marijuana, unlawful possession of a controlled substance and certain persons forbidden to possess a firearm. He was transported to the Jefferson County Jail Friday afternoon where he remains held on $160,000 bond. A man shot to death in Birminghams Thomas community earlier this week was killed by a homeowner while he was trying to break into the victims home, police announced on Friday. West precinct officers responded to the 100 block of Thomas Circle about 10 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a person shot. They arrived and found an unresponsive man suffering from a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead on the scene by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service. Birmingham police Sgt. Johnny Williams on Friday said officers learned that the homeowner shot the suspect as he encountered the suspect trying to break into his home. Investigators presented the case information to the Jefferson County District Attorneys Office and it was ruled as a justifiable shooting. Authorities were initially unable to identify the suspect but have since done so. However, coroners officials have not yet located his family. A Huntsville Municipal Court clerk was arrested on a child sex abuse charge, authorities said today. Jim Alexander Clark is being charged with attempted sex abuse, said Huntsville police Lt. Michael Johnson. Clark, 32, was booked into the Madison County jail Thursday and released early Friday morning on $2,500 bail, records show. Johnson said Clarks arrest stems from an incident involving a 5-year-old victim in 2014. Clark was booked at the jail on a charge of child sexual abuse, records show. But Johnson said the investigation is ongoing, and investigators will amend the charge to attempted sexual abuse. Clark, 32, is an office employee in municipal court, said Kelly Schrimsher, a city spokeswoman. Clark wasnt at work Friday. Schrimsher said she couldnt comment on his employment status. Attempts to reach Clark werent immediately successful Friday evening. An Alabama man in his eighties with only 15 percent of his heart functioning was baptized on Thursday with help from nurses and other staff at Huntsville Hospital. Kenneth Conners had to be taken off machines and removed from monitors to allow for the immersion baptism in a portable baptistery. When he emerged, those gathered in his hospital room applauded. Ive never baptized anyone who was this sick and this helpless, said Phillip Hines, minister of Hartselle Church of Christ, according to the Hartselle Enquirer. Ive never seen anybody go to the lengths this hospital did to make this happen. Madison Church of Christ recently obtained a portable baptistery and loaned it for the occasion, Hines said. When he came out of the water, they all started clapping," Hines said. At one point he had seven nurses around his bed. They were taking such good care of him, and he was just as happy as he could be. It was just an amazing experience. Guntersville City Schools will join three other nearby schools closing on Monday because of a flu outbreak. The closure was announced on the school districts Facebook page Saturday. School officials will shut down school on Monday and Tuesday to provide an opportunity for school system facilities to be sanitized. Good afternoon, Please be advised Guntersville City Schools will be closed on Monday, January 28th and Tuesday, January... Posted by Guntersville City Schools on Saturday, January 26, 2019 The school, on Friday, posted a social media note warning parents they were monitoring the flu outbreak. They Facebook post also recommended parents keep children home from school if they have had a fever of 100 degrees or higher within the past 24 hours, or if they had general feelings of muscle aches, fatigue, discomfort, vomiting or coughing. Guntersville is the latest school to announce a flu-related closure. Boaz City Schools will also be closed Monday and Tuesday after more than 10 percent of students were absent from school on Friday, according to school officials. Marshall County Schools will also be closed on Monday and Tuesday. Albertville City Schools, which were closed Friday, will remain closed on Monday. The closures come as much of north and eastern Alabama are reporting what the Alabama Department of Public Health classified this week as significant" influenza activity. Flu levels across the the U.S. are elevated, and schools in at least 12 states -- including Alabama -- are having to shut down. It may be too harsh to say that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned empty-handed from his summit in Moscow this week with President Vladimir Putin. On the plus side, there was much talk about having agreed to increase the already burgeoning economic cooperation. Erdogan, nevertheless, appears not to have gotten much out of this summit with regard to Turkeys expectations in Syria. He had traveled to Moscow to discuss, as his main priority, northern Syria in the wake of President Donald Trumps decision to pull out US forces from the area. Erdogan hoped to not only get a green light for a cross-border Turkish operation east of the Euphrates against the US-backed People's Protection Units (YPG) which Ankara considers a terrorist organization but to also seek support for a Turkish security zone in the region. It was clear from the start, though, that the increasingly volatile situation in Idlib where Turkish forces are also deployed under an agreement between Ankara, Moscow and Tehran would be Putins priority. The idea for a security zone in northern Syria is also now supported by Washington in an effort to prevent the Turkish army from launching an operation in the region. Washington wants to assuage Ankaras security concerns regarding the YPG in this way. Ankara and Washington remain at odds, however, over who should police the security zone if and when it is set up. Ankara says it has to be the Turkish army and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) proxies. Washington wants the US-led international coalition to undertake the task. Ankara is still threatening to carry out this operation against the YPG, even though the United States has ratcheted up its threats against Turkey if it should do so. Trump threatened last week to devastate Turkeys economy if it attacked Washingtons Kurdish allies. The United States, however, is not the only power trying to stymie Turkeys plans in Syria. Ankara also faces opposition from Moscow. The Erdogan-Putin talks did not provide any indication that Moscow would support a Turkish military incursion into northern Syria. Complicating matters further for the Turkish side is the fact that Russia is working to secure an agreement between the Kurds in northern Syria and Damascus, in order to prevent a Turkish operation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this month that these territories should be transferred to Syrian regime control after the United States departs. During his press conference with Erdogan in Moscow earlier this week, Putin also underlined that there was no UN resolution or an invitation from the Syrian government that would enable this security zone to be set up. This region is currently in the hands of the Kurds," Putin said. "Damascus must talk to the representatives of the Kurds. This dialogue will not only contribute to reconciliation in Syria, but also be to the advantage of Syrias neighbors." This is not music to Ankaras ears, because such remarks show that Russia accepts the YPG and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), as representatives of the Kurds in northern Syria. The remarks also indicate that Moscow is seeking to accommodate the Kurds. Given the weakened position of the Syrian Kurds after Trumps decision to pull out of Syria, Russia has a good chance of succeeding in these efforts. A small indication of this was the recent deployment of Syrian forces on the outskirts of Manbij, just west of the Euphrates River, which Turkey wants full control of after US forces leave. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamdi Aksoy expressed Ankaras annoyance over this development last week. He accused the regime of provocations in Manbij, and called for the PYD and YPG to be prevented from inviting the regime into Manbij. It was not clear who he was appealing to, though. Washington clearly does not want Turkish forces in Manbij. As for Russia, it not only expressed approval of the deployment of Syrian forces in Manbij but also sent some of its own forces there. These have even been photographed conducting joint patrols with the YPG. Some prominent pro-government commentators have also started to acknowledge that Ankaras problem in Syria is not just with Washington, but also with Moscow. Hasan Basri Yalcin, from daily Sabah, for example, argued that even if Turkey and the United States are successful in coordinating their plans for northern Syria, Russia may refuse to accept them. There is the possibility, in such an event, of a race between Turkey and Russia in northern Syria. Turkey would do well to prepare itself for this possibility, Yalcin wrote. Mehmet Acet, a commentator for daily Yeni Safak, echoed this view. If Trumps decision to pull out of Syria is implemented, this will leave us facing the need for new negotiations and bargaining between Turkey and Russia, he wrote. Yalcin Akdogan, a former deputy prime minister in Erdogans Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, who also writes a column for Star newspaper, spelled out what Turkey expects from Russia presently. Akdogan indicated that Turkeys main priorities in Syria today are who will control Manbij, how the security zone will be established and who will patrol it. He went on to stress that Russia should act under a shared sense of threat from terrorism, with regard to these developments. Akdogan wrote that this will be as important as the close cooperation between Ankara and Washington over the US pullout of Syria, and the setting up of a security zone." Despite being circumspect in his choice of language, what Akdogan is saying, in effect, is that Moscow should help Turkey gain control of Manbij, and help Turkey fight the YPG without differentiating between who is a terrorist and who isnt. Moscow, however, continues to refuse to list the YPG and PYD as terrorist groups. It is also making it clear even if the pro-government Turkish media prefer mostly to look the other way that it is not on the same page as Ankara on key issues pertaining to Syria. The summit with Erdogan provided Putin with another opportunity to express Moscows disapproval of Turkeys plans for northern Syria. It also enabled him to express Moscows sense of urgency regarding the increasingly volatile situation in Idlib. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear earlier this month that Idlib would be the main agenda item when Putin and Erdogan met. In a separate statement, Lavrov also indicated that the Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra group had taken control of more than 70% of the province. (Al-Nusra is the original name of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.) Putin and Erdogan agreed in September that Turkey was to neutralize HTS in Idlib, in return for which Russia and the regime would not attack the province. The routing of Turkish-supported FSA forces by HTS in Idlib since then has strengthened this groups hold over much of the province. Erdogan promised during his press conference with Putin that Turkey would go after terrorists in Idlib without letting up. Recent statements from Russia, however, reflect impatience with Ankara in this regard. Erdogan has no choice now but to act in Idlib now if he is to save the cease-fire he negotiated with Putin in September. Putins remarks after his talks with Erdogan also showed that he had made headway in getting Ankara to re-establish contacts with Damascus. He said one of the topics they discussed in detail was the 1998 Turkish-Syrian security accord. I am sure that this is the foundation for closing many topics, Putin said. He was referring to the Adana Accord reached between Turkey and Syria in 1998 to cooperate against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was residing in Damascus at the time. Addressing military cadets a day after returning from Moscow, Erdogan said this accord had resulted in the eventual capture of Ocalan, who is currently serving a life sentence in Turkey. After our meeting with Putin we understand much better the need to bring the Adana Accord back on the agenda, and to concentrate on this with determination, Erdogan said. This is a coup for Putin. Getting Ankara to revive the Adana Accord means, in effect, that Ankara and Damascus will establish contact and start officially cooperating again. This is what Moscow has pushed for some time, and what Erdogan has resisted. TUNIS, Tunisia Concerns continue to grow over the fate of a group of around 120 Syrians, Palestinians and Yemenis who have been missing within Algeria since being detained. The group was initially stopped Dec. 26 by Algerian officials in Tamanrasset in southern Algeria, before being ordered to report at the Guezzam border post on the frontier with Niger. According to our latest information, around 20 of the original group are stranded in the desert, 3 kilometers (roughly 2 miles) from the Guezzam border post. The whereabouts of the others is unknown, with observers concerned that they may have fallen victim to a hard-line migrant policy of mass expulsions that has in the past earned the North African country the opprobrium of the international community. On Jan. 3, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) took the unusual step of issuing a public appeal for access to the missing group, stressing its concern over the welfare of these vulnerable individuals. According to the UN refugee agency, several members of the party are already known to them "as registered refugees who have fled conflict and persecution or claim to have attempted to seek international protection in Algeria. UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo told Al-Monitor Jan. 11 that they had received no further information on the fate of the missing individuals. The latest news is that they, [the smaller group of 20] are still near the Algerian borders of Niger, Abdelmoumene Khelil, secretary-general of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, told Al-Monitor, adding that it was possible some may have tried to return to Algeria. Images show Guezzam to be a sprawling and featureless desert expanse in Algerias south, with little to provide shelter or sustenance. While temperatures currently average around 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), without access to food and water any prolonged stay within Algerias desert is likely to prove hazardous. Justifying the governments position, Hacen Kacimi, an Algerian Interior Ministry official, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Jan. 4 that the expulsions had taken place after legal decisions closely linked to national security priorities. No party irrespective of its status can interfere in the execution of a judicial decision." Kacimi, who leads the ministry's migration department, had told AFP the previous day that the group had entered the country illegally and their removal was ordered by a court in September. Explaining the decision Jan. 4 to remove the group to the remote desert border, Kacimi said they had refused to be repatriated by air. According to Khelil, a small number of individuals in the group had made no secret of their links to the Free Syrian Army. However, government concerns over any potential terrorist threat posed by the group had been exaggerated to justify the repressive and safe management of the migratory question, Khelil said, adding that this is for internal policy purposes, rather than out of any legitimate security concerns. Though Algeria has no asylum legislation, it is currently home to a significant number of migrants and refugees. Some 43,000 Syrian refugees are currently thought to be resident within Algeria. In addition, an indeterminate number of Palestinians and Yemenis have sought refuge in Algeria, as well as the longstanding Sahrawi refugee population from the Western Sahara whose disputed numbers are said to range from anywhere between 90,000 and 158,000. Nevertheless, Algiers policy toward asylum-seekers and migrants, typically those entering the country from sub-Saharan Africa, has come in for repeated criticism. Following widespread condemnation by rights groups over its mass expulsions of migrants into the southern desert, the UN was finally forced to publicly rebuke Algeria in May 2018. Nevertheless, conditions for those who have fled to Algeria remain difficult. [Many] of them are from West Africa and end up working on construction sites and elsewhere as day laborers, Eric Goldstein, deputy director of Human Rights Watchs Middle East and North Africa Division, told Al-Monitor. He added, They often have entered illegally or have overstayed visas and live in a situation of vulnerability, including to exploitative bosses. Algeria has repeatedly rounded up African migrants and bussed them en masse to deportation centers in the extreme south, where they are then bussed across the border into Niger. A few have been bussed into Mali. Expelled from Algeria, migrants typically gather in their thousands around transit centers such as those near Niamey in Niger or Gao in Mali, where they wait to be registered by the International Organization for Migration and receive medical care. Though international criticism looks to have somewhat tempered Algiers enthusiasm for mass expulsions, the policy appears to be continuing. In June 2018, an investigation by the Associated Press revealed that over the previous 14 months around 13,000 migrants, including pregnant women and children, had been forced to walk, sometimes at gunpoint, through temperatures of anywhere up to 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) to the border with Niger. Many reported seeing others fall by the wayside during the punishing 15-kilometer (9-mile) trek through the desert. According to ReliefWeb, anywhere between 25,000 and 100,000 undocumented migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, are thought to be residing in Algeria, relying on unskilled work to support themselves and putting additional pressure on jobs and housing. In July 2018, Cabinet Director Ahmed Ouyahia went so far as to say in a statement to Algerian TV channel Ennahar, Those strangers residing illegally [in Algeria] are a source of crime, drugs and several other ills. For now, however, questions over the whereabouts of the missing group are left unanswered. The UNHCR claims that, in the absence of new information, they are continuing to engage with the authorities on any information relating to the group, and to matters related to asylum and protection. In the absence of further information, the ultimate fate of the group may remain forever unknown. Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes is also the land of 1 point of view, it would seem. There is no such thing as vaccine injury, choice or conversation about safety. If you have touched the topic, you are an anti-vaxxer and as such, you will be ridiculed even when you donate your precious time away from your severely autistic child to sit on a board designed to help families cope with the slew of problems associated with the rise in autism. Wayne Rohde has written a carefully researched book on The Vaccine Court that every American should read. He moved to Minnesota from Oklahoma to help his son. His son Nick was the namesake of "Nicki's Law" which in 2008, fought for medical coverage for autism in Oklahoma. Monday (May 19), two newspapers both in predominantly Republican communities published editorials in support of Nicks Law, a measure by Senator Jay Paul Gumm that would require health insurance policies cover diagnosis and treatment for autistic children. Patti Carroll has worked tooth and nail for ALL people with autism in Minnesota and also to protect those not "yet" touched. She was especially involved in helping the immigrant Somali population as they faced autism for the very first time, once here in America. To offend them by writing them off as mere "antivaxxers" is an insult in the extreme. And it's sanctioned. We are the new N word. We are the new R word. I was supposed to speak at an autism school somewhere in the United States in 2 weeks. I was hired as keynote speaker for their annual fund raiser. Some parents at this fine private school caught wind that "KIM ROSSI OH YOU MEAN STAGLIANO THE ANTIVAXXER" is being hired and guess what? They got me FIRED from the job. They cancelled my signed contract. I was really looking forward to meeting a new group and sharing my experiences by using my humor to make them laugh. I'm sorry for Wayne and Patti. They have weathered a storm for being part of this committee from inside the committee and outside too. I know they are strong enough and dedicated enough to look past the shunning and slurs against them. They are autism parents and we are tough as hell. We deflect barbs and names like water off a duck while we fight in the trenches for our kids. We're tired. We're getting older. We are STILL finding news ways to help the aging autism epidemic survive and thrive into adulthood - by serving on committees exactly like this one in Minnesota. Kim From the Daily Beast: Two members of the Minnesota Autism Council are vaccine skeptics, in a state that already has a history of struggling with misinformation about vaccinations and has recently fought one of the worst measles outbreaks in recent memory. The Autism Council was formed last fall by state Sen. Jim Abeler (R) to advise the states legislature on public policy related to autism. Abeler, who believes doctors should tell parents the pluses and minuses of vaccines, appointed anti-vaxxer Wayne Rohde, co-founder of the Vaccine Safety Council of Minnesota, a group that is skeptical of vaccines, and Patti Carroll, who was involved with organizing anti-vaccine outreach in the Minnesota Somali community. Rohde refutes the label of anti-vaxxer. Those who question vaccine safety are quickly marginalized as saying Were anti-vax, Rohde told the Star Tribune. RTHK: Body of Spanish boy recovered from unmarked well Rescuers early on Saturday found the body of a two-year-old boy who fell into a deep well nearly two weeks ago in southern Spain, triggering an unprecedented rescue operation fraught with glitches that had kept the country on tenterhooks. Hundreds of people had been working round-the-clock under the media glare to try to reach Julen Rosello, who plunged down a narrow shaft which is more than 100 metres deep on January 13 while his parents prepared a lunch in Totalan, a southern town near Malaga. "Unfortunately at 1:25 am the rescue team reached the spot where they were looking for Julen and found the lifeless body of the little one," the central government's representative in the southwestern region of Andalusia, Alfonso Rodriguez Gomez de Celis, wrote on Twitter. A hearse arrived at the site shortly after the news broke to take his body to a funeral home. There had been no sign of life from the boy but rescuers believed they knew where he was inside the illegal well. The only evidence of the boy's presence were some strands of hair that matched his DNA and a bag of candy that he had been holding when he fell into the well. The complex search-and-rescue operation had been fraught with complications that caused delay upon delay as Julen's distraught parents and relatives stood by. Despite the passage of time, the boy's relatives held out hope that he had somehow survived the fall and would be found alive. Jose Rosello, Julen's father, told reporters that "we have an angel that will help my son come out alive as soon as possible." Julen's parents lost another child, Oliver, aged three, in 2017. The child had cardiac problems. In a tweet, Spain's King Felipe VI extended his "deepest condolences to Julen's whole family". The well was unmarked at the time of the accident and regional authorities in Andalusia said the necessary permission had not been sought before it was dug. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. On Wednesday, April 13th, I attended an educational forum for professionals put on by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). The title of the forum was Autism in the Somali Community and Vaccine Hesitancy. The stated purpose was: This session will provide the latest information on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by a national childhood development expert and updates on immunization data relevant to Minnesota Somali children. Background: MMR uptake in the Minnesota Somali community has been steadily dropping over the past few years, so MDH has been devising ways to persuade Somalis to give their children the MMR vaccine rather than respecting the Somalis faith, their intelligence, their life experiences, and their personal health choices. The purpose of the forum was innocently framed as simply providing information about autism and vaccine hesitancy, but having attended several MDH informational forums in the past, I knew better. For example, during a small measles outbreak in 2011, MDH held an informational forum where people could learn from the experts. The forum presented very little information about autism, except that they did not know what causes it. But every expert on the panel emphatically stated that autism is NOT caused by vaccines. These experts included a Somali autism mom with no vaccine research experience, a man they referred to as a doctor, but whom has never had a license to practice medicine in the US, and various MDH spokespeople. During the forum, MDH set up a free mobile vaccine clinic (stocked with 600 doses of the MMR vaccine) as if they believed the Somalis would fall for the propaganda and immediately jump in line to roll up their sleeves. There were exactly ZERO takers, by the way. The Somalis who attended felt betrayed by the doctors and health officials they put their trust in. They witnessed the immediate and dramatic health decline of their beautiful children after a round of vaccines. Only then did they do their own research and soon realized that doctors were not providing the facts about serious side effects of vaccines, nor about the complete lack of accountability that exists when vaccine injuries occur. They now know that while the measles may be deadly to malnourished children in third-world countries; it is mostly a benign childhood disease that was killing very few people in the US long before a vaccine for it was developed. To quote one Somali parent: Who cares about the measles? Measles is temporary, but autism is forever. As you can see from their power point, MDH has been working since 2008 to dispel the Somali parents fears of vaccine-induced autism. Since all of their efforts have failed, they are now enlisting the aid of Somali health professionals to help them coerce the Somali parents who have thoughtfully (and legally) chosen to avoid the MMR vaccine. Heres an overview of some of the forum speakers: Maggie Diebel of the MDH gave a brief introduction, during which she stated Engaging with the community is absolutely critical, and went on to say that MDH has hired two more Somali staff to conduct training in the community on autism and vaccine-preventable diseases. She also made the claim that MDH tracks immunization records to ensure people are protected from dangerous diseases. The tactic of using leading terminology (like the term immunization instead of the actual act of vaccination, and claiming diseases are vaccine-preventable) grossly oversimplifies the issue as if to say that vaccinated automatically equals immune or protected from dangerous diseases. Side note: During the aforementioned small measles outbreak in 2011, up to 38% of the people who got the measles had been vaccinated for it, but MDH rarely makes a point of telling people that. Ms. Diebel also said We are obligated to do what we can to improve vaccination rates. What she didnt say: Anything to acknowledge the truth of what Somali parents have been telling the world for years: Their previously healthy children regressed into autism after vaccination. She said nothing about the well-known side effects of vaccines, including brain damage and death, nor that the US government has compensated many families for vaccine injuries resulting in autism. She did not say that MDH is obligated to protect Minnesotans from vaccine injuries, even though vaccine injuries are just as devastating to the health of Minnesotans as any communicable disease. Read the full post here. Updated 6:03 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, 2019 - Action News Now has received several questions about how to get on the list to be able to receive some of the funds pledged to Butte County Friday to support people who are still at the Red Cross shelter in Chico. We asked Butte County Public Information Officer Casey Hatcher to talk about those specific relief efforts. Hatcher said the funs are specifically for people in the shelter to help address barriers they have to take their next step in their recovery plan and leave the shelter. "The American Red Cross and the County are already connected with the people staying in the shelter and are aware of their needs," she explained. Hatcher emphasized that there is no need for people to make contact with Butte County or the Red Cross about this specific funding. There is a link further down on this page you can follow to see what organizations received the Butte Strong funding from the North Valley Community Foundation (NVCF) on Friday. Questions about the services/relief that those agencies provide can be identified by contacting the individual agencies running relief efforts and programs. --- Updated 5:45 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, 2019 - The Butte Strong Fund announced its first round of millions of dollars in grants in the aftermath of the Camp Fire, including funding for housing, business recovery, children, community development, and health and wellness. Part of this announcement includes the donation made Friday by Wells Fargo of $3.25 million dollars for both business and personal recovery efforts. The Butte Strong Fund was developed earlier in January 2019 as a partnership of three fundraising efforts coordinated by the North Valley Community Foundation, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and the Aaron Rodgers NorCal Fire Recovery Fund. Alexa Benson-Valavanis, president and CEO of the North Valley Community Foundation, said, "We are incredibly grateful for the commitment from Wells Fargo to the recovery of this region. Their support of the Butte Strong Fund demonstrates a thoughtful and collaborative approach to making a significant difference in our communities." The Wells Fargo donation is part of the Butte Strong Funds one million dollar commitment to the County of Butte to provide services for families in the Camp Fire emergency shelter at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds in Chico. Its the last emergency shelter operating in the aftermath of the Camp Fire --- CHICO, Calif. - Wells Fargo officials announced Friday that the bank is donating $3.52 million dollars to help Camp Fire survivors. Two million dollars of the relief money will help people find permanent housing and the rest will help with business recovery. The Butte Strong Fund - which is held by the North Valley Community Foundation - will distribute the money. Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said, "$3.25 million! It's huge. It's going to make a big difference." "Wells Fargo has been a big partner with the town since before the fire," Jones said. "They were always the first to donate to whatever effort was going on in town," she added. This is an addition to the $2.8 million dollars Wells Fargo has already given out to help in fire relief efforts in 2018. The Butte Strong Fund also announced they're giving one million dollars to Butte County -- specifically to assist in getting the last remaining Camp Fire evacuees out of the Red Cross Shelter at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds and into permanent homes. For more information on the North Valley Community Foundation Camp Fire Relief Efforts CLICK THIS LINK. SEATTLE, Wash. - (AP) - The Washington state attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the California-based clothing company LuLaRoe contending the business is a pyramid scheme. Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the lawsuit in a prepared statement released Friday, saying thousands of Washington residents have lost money selling clothes for LuLaRoe. LuLaRoe company officials did not immediately respond Saturday to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment. Ferguson says the company tricked consumers into signing up to sell the LuLaRoe products with deceptive claims of high profits and refunds for unsold merchandise. Ferguson says the company misrepresented and failed to honor its refund policies in violation of the state Consumer Protection Act. He says more than 3,500 Washington residents have become "Independent Fashion Consultants" for LuLaRoe since the start of 2014, and fewer than 2,000 are still active with the company. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press) CHICO, Calif. - Chico Police are searching for two men who robbed the Rite Aid Pharmacy on Mangrove Avenue Friday night. It happened at about 7:20 p.m. on Friday. According to investigators, the men leaped over the pharmacy counter and over-powered the employees, assaulting one of them. They reportedly threatened the workers saying they had a gun though no gun was seen. They ordered the workers to give them specific narcotics they then stormed out the emergency exit. Witnesses told police the two ran across Mangrove to the strip mall where they had parked their car and sped away. Chico Police put the word out to neighboring agencies but so far, no arrests. The robbers were described as black men, about 20-years-old. One had long dreadlocks and was wearing jeans. The other was wearing black clothing and a black beanie. Their car was described as a white, mid-sized sedan with license plate 6NHA401. Anyone with information is asked to call Chico Police at (530) 897-4911. CHICO, Calif. - Some Camp Fire survivors will get to go on a shopping spree on Saturday. The event is called the Boutique of Blessings. The idea is to help Camp Fire survivors replace their lost belongings. Customers can shop for new or gently used clothing, kitchenware, bedding, and even decor for their homes. Kelsey McCallister, the founder of Boutique of Blessings, said her project gives her absolutely "the best feeling in the entire world." The giveaway will be open to all Camp Fire survivors Saturday at noon at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Chico. The address is 1450 E. Lassen Ave. Instagram Celebrity Lawyer for the Master P's brother, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2003, has been attempting to score him a new trial after two original witnesses confessed to lying under oath. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - Incarcerated rapper C-Murder has been denied a retrial in his murder case, even though two original witnesses have since recanted their statements. Master P's brother, real name Corey Miller, was handed a life sentence in 2003 after he was found guilty of the 2002 killing of 16-year-old Steve Thomas in a New Orleans, Louisiana nightclub. The conviction for second degree murder was overturned in 2006, only for C-Murder to be convicted again following a second trial in 2009. Last year (2018), Miller's lawyer launched a fresh bid for a new trial after two men who were called as witnesses for the prosecution in the original case confessed to lying under oath after reportedly being pressured by police detectives. However, the request was shut down by Judge Steven Enright of 24th Judicial District Court this week (ends January 25), after declaring the defence failed to present enough of a case for it to be reheard. The judge also dubbed the news of the two witnesses' retracted statements as "highly suspicious", branding it "tantamount to perjury," according to The New Orleans Advocate. Representatives for Miller, who has always maintained his innocence, have yet to comment on the latest developments. Movie Efron plays notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, who rides on a wave of popularity while maintaining his innocence in court. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - The first trailer for "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" is here for viewing pleasure. Starring Zac Efron as the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, the movie chronicles the crimes of Ted, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years. Lily Collins plays Elizabeth, whom Ted pursues when they meet at a bar. Charmed by his charisma, she quickly falls in love with him and seems to lead a happy life with him and their kid, until she notices an article which links Ted to a kidnapping case. When trial begins on his crimes, Ted lays on the charm to mask his sinister streak as he's seen winking to someone unseen while in court. "I'm more popular than Disney world," he confidently tells his ex-wife Carole Ann Boone (Kaya Scodelario), who defends him in front of the press, "The media convicted Ted before he's had his day in court." While the trailer mostly focuses on his trial, there's also a glimpse of Ted hitting his victim and plotting his escape after he's arrested. According to the official synopsis, "Ted is crazy-handsome, smart, charismatic, affectionate. And cautious single mother Liz Kloepfer ultimately cannot resist his charms. For her, Ted is a match made in heaven, and she soon falls head over heels in love with the dashing young man. A picture of domestic bliss, the happy couple seems to have it all figured out ... until, out of nowhere, their perfect life is shattered. Ted is arrested and charged with a series of increasingly grisly murders. Concern soon turns to paranoia-and, as evidence piles up, Liz is forced to consider that the man with whom she shares her life could actually be a psychopath. This is the story of Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers of all time." Joe Berlinger directs the movie from the script written by Michael Werwie. John Malkovich joins the cast as Judge Edward Cowart, who presided over Ted's trial and sentenced him to death, while Jim Parsons plays lead prosecutor Larry Simpson. Also starring in the pic are Haley Joel Osment, Angela Sarafyan, Dylan Baker, Jeffrey Donovan, Terry Kinney and Metallica's frontman James Hetfield (as Officer Bob Hayward). The movie will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 26, but no release date is set just yet. Instagram Celebrity Scott Rosenblum, defense attorney for the 'Hot in Herre' hitmaker, explains that a 'cloak of anonymity' allows those who have personal vendettas to inflict harm against others' reputations. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - Rapper Nelly is asking a Missouri judge to dismiss a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him over an alleged incident in 2017. An unidentified former British fan took the "Hot in Herre" hitmaker to court in his hometown of St. Louis in November (18), accusing him of masturbating in front of her backstage after a show in Essex, England in December, 2017, and then forcing her to perform oral sex on him. The 44-year-old hip-hop star, who was never detained over the accusations, vehemently denied the allegations at the time, and now his attorney is demanding the case be thrown out of court. Defence attorney Scott Rosenblum filed his response to the suit on Thursday, January 24, insisting the woman shouldn't be allowed to pursue legal action while remaining anonymous as it allows her to "avoid public scrutiny". In court papers, Rosenblum argued a "cloak of anonymity" for the accuser enables those with personal vendettas "to use the federal court system as a tool to inflict calculated harm against others' reputations," all while hiding from the media attention "that false accusations properly risk and invite," reports The Associated Press. The woman lodged her lawsuit almost a year after she originally submitted a statement as part of another accuser's civil suit for rape. Monique Greene pursued the legal action after a criminal case against Nelly was dropped in late 2017, and they settled the civil case in September (18). Meanwhile, Nelly, real name Cornell Haynes, Jr., is doing what he can to clear his name in the ongoing criminal probe in Essex, and voluntarily flew to the U.K. last week, ends January 18, to help with the police inquiries. CBS TV Kicking off the episode was host Julie Chen who teased that not everything was what it seemed. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - The mystery has been solved! Fans were left confused after Anthony Scaramucci appeared to leave season 2 of "Celebrity Big Brother" even before the first eviction arrives. And now, the Friday, January 25 episode of the "Big Brother" spin-off offered the answer of the burning question. Kicking off the episode was host Julie Chen who teased that not everything was what it seemed. Not long after that, the Houseguests learned a huge twist through a celebrity news update with ET's Kevin Frazier announcing, "One celebrity is not a real houseguest." Yup, the said houseguest was none other than the Mooch. The former communications director for President Donald Trump later appeared on the television in a suit and with an American flag in the background. "Surprised!" he greeted the Houseguests. "Just like I left my mark in Washington, I'm going to leave my mark on the 'Big Brother' game." The Mooch, who left the show after making his 11-day tenure, later revealed that the "Big Brother" house had one thing that resembled his time in Washington, D.C. "You get judged quickly - before people really know who you are. And you never get a second chance," he shared. Anthony was now up for eviction, but now that he had exited the show prior to the eviction, Head of Household Ryan Lochte needed to nominate a new person for the block. Anthony was also given a thing named "Mooch's Veto" with the three houseguests being forced to compete for it. On Wednesday, January 23, Anthony was spotted in Davos, Switzerland, attending a Skybridge business conference. During the panel, Anthony addressed his exit, adding that he couldn't say the reason he left the show. Saying that his time on the show was "a tremendous amount of fun," the Mooch added, "There's a lot of intellectuals that are like, 'WTF, what's he doing on 'Big Brother'?' But you have to remember, I grew up in a blue-collar family, so you have to remember that America watches these shows. You don't want to unplug yourself totally from America." WENN Music The 'I Love It' rapper reportedly enlists law firm Quinn Emanual Urquhart and Sullivan to rep him in the case. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - Even though Kanye West has repeatedly stated that Jay-Z is his family, it is not the case anymore when money comes into play. Rumor has it, the G.O.O.D. Music founder files lawsuit against his fellow rapper's record label, Roc-A-Fella Records, and EMI Publishing over money he claims he's owed. TMZ first broke the story. According to the publication, Kanye filed two lawsuits on Friday, January 25 against the music companies. Even though the content of the complaint was almost entirely redacted, it was stated Kanye claimed that "he signed an exclusive recording contract agreement with the company and is seeking monies owed from the label" in his suit against Roc-A-Fella Records. Meanwhile, in his lawsuit against EMI Publishing, the "I Love It" rapper claimed that he signed a contract with the label before his debut album "College Dropout" was released in 2003. The contract allegedly stated that he was allowed to produce songs for other artists. By the end of 2011, it was said that Kanye had written over 200 songs and gave the rights to EMI. Kanye additionally claimed to have a dispute with EMI and he had asked a judge to declare his rights back to him, presumably to collect royalties. The "Gold Digger" hitmaker reportedly enlisted law firm Quinn Emanual Urquhart & Sullivan to rep him in the case. Team for Kanye didn't immediately respond to request for comment. The lawsuit apparently wasn't the only suit that Kanye was involved in. It has recently been reported that Japanese fabric company Toki Sen-I Co. has filed a lawsuit against him for more than $600,000, noting that the textile company has yet to receive payment for a large order Kanye made for his Yeezy line. Toki Sen-I Co. reportedly is now seeking $624,000 reimbursement with storage fees, as it is unable to offload the 53,500 yards of textiles. Twelve Media Movie The controversial film, which is vying for Best Live Action Short at the 91st Academy Awards, revolves around the 1993 murder of James Bulger by Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - The director of a controversial new movie about a headline-grabbing British child murder is refusing to withdraw the project from the Oscars. Tragic James Bulger's mother Denise Fergus has asked Irish filmmaker Vincent Lambe to pull "Detainment", which is a contender in the Best Live Action Short category, from contention at the Academy Awards next month (February 2019), but he has refused. "It's like saying we should burn every copy of it," he tells the BBC. "I think it would defeat the purpose of making the film." The short is based on the transcripts of police interviews with Bulger's young killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who tortured and killed the two-year-old after luring him away from a shopping centre in 1993. "Detainment" follows the events surrounding the murder and is comprised of re-enactments based on the transcripts. Defending his controversial film, Lambe adds, "The public opinion at the moment now is that those two boys were simply evil and anybody who says anything different or gives an alternate reason as to why they did it, or tries to understand why they did it, they get criticised for it. I think we have the responsibility to try and make sense of what happened." Fergus and her husband Stuart appeared on TV in Britain on Thursday, January 24 and appealed to the director to withdraw his film from the Oscars. "Vincent was nothing to do (with the case), why does he have a responsibility to make the film? He was 12 years old when it happened," Denise said. "If you go on social media, that's all he's talking about, trying to get himself out there, putting himself forward for the Oscar. "We're actually saying to Vincent Lambe now, because he's put himself forward for the Oscar, withdraw that yourself and remove your film from the public domain." She added, "Seeing the images of actors playing James, it's just horrendous. I just can't get that image out of my head of him being led away." Instagram Celebrity The 'X Gon' Give It to Ya' rapper was released from Gilmer Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia on January 25 morning. Jan 26, 2019 AceShowbiz - Rapper DMX has been released from prison after serving a one-year sentence for tax evasion. The "X Gon' Give It to Ya" star walked free from Gilmer Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia on Friday morning (January 25). DMX will be under supervised release for the next three years and he also has to hand over $2.3 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service. On Thursday, his lawyer, Murray Richman, told Billboard his client has a busy schedule ahead of him, adding, "He's never been hotter than now. People have been seeking him out all over." TMZ sources claim he has received numerous offers for a biopic and he is planning to release a new album later this year. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... WASHINGTON When Chinese police found them in the trunk of a smugglers car, 33 of the trafficked pangolins endangered scaly mammals from southern China were still alive, wrapped in plastic bags soaked with their own urine. But the fate of the creatures whose scales are worth nearly their weight in silver on the black market was not a happy one. Every last pangolin died in government captivity within a few months of the August 2017 seizure. A pioneering environmental nonprofit in Beijing has launched an investigation, called counting pangolins, to figure out what happens to such animals recovered from the illegal wildlife trade. Its findings so far highlight discrepancies between environmental laws and outcomes. China is hardly unique. The number of environmental laws on the books worldwide has increased 38-fold since 1972, according to an exhaustive U.N. Environment report released Thursday. But the political will and capacity to enforce those laws often lags undermining global efforts to curb issues like wildlife trafficking, air pollution and climate change, the report found. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The law doesnt self-execute, said Carl Bruch, a study co-author and director of international programs at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. Each of the 33 pangolins transferred to the care of a government-run wildlife rescue center in Chinas Guangxi province died within three months according to records obtained by the nonprofit China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation and shown to the Associated Press. Whats still unclear is what happened to their bodies. Pangolins are insect-eating, scaly mammals playfully described by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as resembling an artichoke with legs and a tail. Their scales made of keratin, the same material in human finger nails are in high demand for Chinese traditional medicine, to purportedly cure arthritis, promote breast-feeding for mothers, and boost male virility, although there is no scientific backing for these beliefs. The price of pangolin scales in China has risen from $11 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) in the 1990s to $470 in 2014, according to researchers at Beijing Forestry University. Scientists have designated all eight species of pangolins as being at risk of extinction four species in Asia, and four in Africa. More than 1 million pangolins were trafficked between 2004 and 2014 for their scales, meat and blood with China and Vietnam as the largest markets. In the last two decades, the number of pangolins worldwide has dropped by about 90 percent. In 2016, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) adopted a worldwide ban on commercial trade in pangolins, and China later approved that ban. Pangolins are also listed as a protected species in China. While Chinese state-run media have publicized a few high-profile poacher busts, watchdogs say a thriving black market for endangered-animal parts persists. In November 2017, customs officials in Shenzhen seized 13.1 tons (11.9 metric tonnes) of pangolin scales reportedly the largest-ever seizure of scales from Africa according to state media. The penalties offenders face are not always publicized, but in another case involving a smaller shipment of scales, two smugglers received prison sentences of five years, state media said. Its significant that China has adopted laws against trade in many endangered species, but the law itself isnt enough to protect a species from extinction, said Jinfeng Zhou, director of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation. Zhou wants the government to issue public records tracking all living and dead pangolins seized by authorities and to offer evidence that contraband, including pangolin scales, is destroyed before it enters black markets. We are determined to know what happens to the pangolins, said Sophia Zhang, a researcher at the biodiversity group. After reading news reports about the August 2017 poaching bust, she filed information requests to government agencies and traveled to Guangxi to visit the wildlife rescue center. The Guangxi Forestry Department, which manages the wildlife rescue center, declined APs requests for an interview and comment. Chinas state-run news service Xinhua reported in December 2018 that China remains committed to stopping pangolin trafficking, noting there were 209 pangolin smuggling busts from 2007 to 2016. Less official attention has been paid to what happens after these busts. In Guangxi, Zhang saw that pangolins were kept in small cages and fed cat food at the wildlife center, whereas wild pangolins eat termites. She said she had tried to coordinate with Save Vietnams Wildlife, a nonprofit, to bring shipments of termites to feed the pangolins, but the center declined the offer. After the animals died, the center wouldnt reveal what happened to their scaly bodies. But in other instances, the same center has turned over live pangolins to industry groups including a steel factory in Guangdong province and a farm associated with a Chinese traditional medicine center in Jiangxi province. The government released this information on its web site. In response to an information request from Zhang, the Guangxi Forestry Department sent copies of the licenses held by these organizations for handling pangolins. The reason for transferring pangolins remains unclear. We want the wildlife center to provide a full explanation, Zhang said. We know the trade in pangolins is very lucrative. The public should be able to know what happens. The biodiversity nonprofit has filed information requests about trafficked wildlife in nearly 30 Chinese provinces and has attempted to verify what happens to pangolin scales seized by customs officials. Zhang said wildlife rescue centers need better training to properly handle live animals. China has a rather complete set of environmental laws, said Barbara Finamore, the senior strategic director for Asia at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC. But environmental laws are not worth the paper theyre written on unless theres also strong enforcement and oversight. Countries large and small, rich and poor, have passed extensive green legislation since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The world has made incredible progress in adopting environmental laws and environmental impact assessments, in creating environmental ministries and agencies, said Bruch, co-author of the U.N. report. Now comes the hard part. The legal framework is there in an enormous number of countries, said Deborah Seligsohn, a political scientist focusing on environmental policy at Villanova University. But once you have all these laws, you need trained and willing personnel to actually enforce them. You need boots on the ground. Green mandates often go unfunded, said Barney Long, director of species conservation at Global Wildlife Conservation, a nonprofit group in Austin, Texas. Many countries have laws stating the minimum number of park rangers that should be patrolling per square mile in national parks and protected areas. But these arent implemented if sufficient money isnt appropriated. Non-governmental groups like the biodiversity nonprofit in Beijing try to help close the gap between environmental laws and enforcement action. But in many countries, this is dangerous work. In 2017, at least 207 environmental defenders including forest rangers, advocates, journalists, and inspectors were murdered for performing such work, according to Global Witness, a research and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. and London. There are some bright spots, experts say. China is gradually releasing more environmental data to the public, especially on air pollution, even as the government clamps down on other forms of information. And more officials are being held accountable, said Jennifer Turner, director of the Woodrow Wilson Centers China Environment Forum in Washington, D.C. Before local officials were only evaluated on economic performance but now its harder to hide from environmental sins. Follow Christina Larson on Twitter at @larsonchristina Larson reported from China and Washington, D.C. AP researcher Shanshan Wang in Beijing contributed reporting. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Quite a bit of news dropped on Friday, so you may have missed a hedgehog-related alert that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued early that afternoon. Those tiny, prickly, adorable mammals which have jumped in popularity as household pets in recent years may be carrying salmonella germs and spreading them to nearby humans, according to the CDC. CDC and public health officials in several states are investigating a multistate outbreak of Salmonella infections linked to contact with pet hedgehogs, the agencys notice read. As of Friday, the CDC said there had been 11 people in eight states sickened by a strain of Salmonella typhimurium; in 10 of the 11 cases, ill people reported contact with a hedgehog, the agency said. Though one person was hospitalized, no deaths have been reported. Three of the cases were reported in Missouri, two in Minnesota and one each in Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming. Researchers collected samples from hedgehogs in the two Minnesota patients homes and identified the strain of salmonella that was making people sick. Its still unclear if all or some of the pet hedgehogs came from a common supplier, the CDC said. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Symptoms of a salmonella infection include diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps lasting four to seven days. In rare cases, a salmonella infection can lead to death a dire enough risk that the CDC gently suggested certain households might consider a different pet. However, for those who could never part with little Spike, Sonic or S, the agency has recommended avoiding certain direct contact with their hedgehogs: That is, not nuzzling them or propping them up to your face for the perfect Instagram photo. Dont kiss or snuggle hedgehogs, because this can spread Salmonella germs to your face and mouth and make you sick, the CDC warned. Dont let hedgehogs roam freely in areas where food is prepared or stored, such as kitchens. If you do touch a hedgehog or clean its supplies, wash your hands immediately afterward. And dont clean your hedgehogs cage or toys in the same place you prepare human food. This may be a tall order for a new crop of hedgehog owners eager to cuddle with their new pets. Hedgehogs are legal pets in most of the United States but remain banned in California, Georgia, Hawaii, New York City, Pennsylvania and the nations capital, according to the Hedgehog Welfare Society. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... DUBAI, United Arab Emirates A military base deep inside Saudi Arabia appears to be testing and possibly manufacturing ballistic missiles, experts and satellite images suggest, evidence of the type of weapons program it has long criticized its archrival Iran for possessing. Further raising the stakes for any such program are comments by Saudi Arabias powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said last year the kingdom wouldnt hesitate to develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Ballistic missiles can carry nuclear warheads to targets thousands of kilometers (miles) away. Officials in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. Having such a program could further strain relations with the U.S., the kingdoms longtime security partner, at a time when ties already are being tested by the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Saudi-led war in Yemen. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said heavy investment in missiles often correlates with an interest in nuclear weapons. I would be a little worried that were underestimating the Saudis ambitions here, said Lewis, who has studied the satellite images. The images, first reported by The Washington Post, focus on a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, some 230 kilometers (145 miles) west of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Janes Defence Weekly first identified the base in 2013, suggesting its two launch pads appear oriented to target Israel and Iran with ballistic missiles the kingdom previously bought from China. The November satellite images show what appear to be structures big enough to build and fuel ballistic missiles. An apparent rocket-engine test stand can be seen in a corner of the base the type on which a rocket is positioned on its side and test-fired in place. Such testing is key for countries attempting to manufacture working missiles, experts say. Michael Elleman, the senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington, also reviewed the satellite photos and said they appear to show a ballistic missile program. The question remains where Saudi Arabia gained the technical know-how to build such a facility. Lewis said the Saudi stand closely resembles a design used by China, though it is smaller. Chinese military support to the kingdom would not come as a surprise. The Chinese have increasingly sold armed drones to Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations, even as the U.S. blocks sales of its own to allies over proliferation concerns. Beijing also sold Riyadh variants of its Dongfeng ballistic missiles, the only ones the kingdom was previously believed to have in its arsenal. Asked by The Associated Press on Friday about the base, Chinas Defense Ministry declined immediately to comment. I have never heard of such a thing as China helping Saudi Arabia to build a missile base, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Neither Saudi Arabia nor China are members of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreement aimed at limiting the proliferation of rockets capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and the United States, have long criticized Irans ballistic missile program, viewing it as a regional threat. Iran, whose nuclear program for now remains limited by its 2015 deal with world powers, insists its atomic program is peaceful. But Western powers have long feared it was pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a civilian program, allegations denied by Tehran. Iran has relied on its ballistic missiles as its own air force is largely made up of pre-1979 fighter jets. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has a fleet of modern F-15s, Typhoons and Tornadoes which raises the question of why the Saudis would choose to develop the missiles. Elleman, the defense expert, said that while Saudi pilots are skilled, the kingdom still needs American help with logistics. Today, they rely heavily on direct American support. There is no absolute guarantee that U.S. forces and supporting functions will aid a Saudi attack on Iranian targets, Elleman told the AP. Ballistic missiles are a reasonable hedge against those concerns. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been targeted by ballistic missiles fired from neighboring Yemen by the Houthi rebels, some of which have reached Riyadh. Researchers, Western nations and U.N. experts say Iran supplied those missiles to the rebels, something Tehran and the rebels deny. Saudi Arabia is pursuing its own nuclear program, and Prince Mohammed, the 33-year-old son of King Salman who is next in line for the throne, said it would race for an atomic weapon if Iran were to develop one. Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible, Prince Mohammed told CBS 60 Minutes in an interview aired last March. A Saudi program would only complicate efforts by the U.S. and its Western allies to limit Irans ballistic missile program, said STRATFOR, the Austin, Texas-based private intelligence firm. STRATFOR said that should Saudi Arabia move into a test-launch phase, the United States will be pressured to take action with sanctions, as it has done with Iran. Congress has grown increasingly critical of Saudi Arabia since the Oct. 2 assassination of Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, allegedly carried out by members of Prince Mohammeds entourage. The kingdoms yearslong war in Yemen also has angered lawmakers. If the Saudis produce medium-range systems inherently capable of carrying nuclear weapons, the response will be much more robust, though likely out of public view, Elleman said. Congress, on the other hand, may lash out, as this will be seen as another affront to the U.S. and regional stability. ___ Associated Press writer Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE New Mexico lawmakers moved a step closer Saturday to repealing an anti-abortion law that has been on the books for 50 years, but largely unenforceable since the U.S. Supreme Courts landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The state law one of just nine of its kind in the country makes it a crime for an abortion provider to end a womans pregnancy, except in certain circumstances. The proposal, House Bill 51, set off hours of emotional debate in the Capitol, as people on both sides turned out in force to testify sometimes through tears during a committee hearing. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ In the end, the proposal passed 3-2 and must clear just one more committee before reaching the House floor. It was a party-line vote, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. Many of those who testified both for and against shared intensely personal stories about pregnancy, rape and abortion. Janet Williams, president of the Santa Fe chapter of the National Organization for Women, described seeking out an illegal abortion while she was in college before the Roe decision. I dont want any woman to have to go through what I went through, Williams told the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee. I dont think women or doctors should be criminalized for making a health care decision. Opponents, in turn, said the repeal would go too far. New Mexico has too few abortion restrictions as it is, they said, and they raised the prospect of young or abused women being coerced into an abortion without recourse. We are now known as a late-term abortion state, which Im very ashamed of, said Pauline Anaya, an Albuquerque educator and therapist. New Mexicos criminal abortion law, passed in 1969, makes it a felony for an abortion provider to end a womens pregnancy, except in certain circumstances, such as rape, birth defects or grave threats to the womans health. The procedure is also limited to hospitals and must be approved in writing by a hospital board. The legislation passed Saturday would also remove a section of the abortion law that says hospital employees with a moral or religious objection cannot be forced to participate in ending a pregnancy. Supporters of the bill including attorneys who served as expert witnesses said other provisions in state and federal law already ensure no medical provider is forced to participate in an abortion. But opponents said they feared the repeal would weaken safeguards that allow medical providers to follow their conscience. I just have a deep concern that we are taking the only explicit protection we have for individuals, said Rep. Gregg Schmedes, a Tijeras Republican and surgeon. Rep. Elizabeth Thomson, an Albuquerque Democrat and chairwoman of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, responded that the proposal will head next to the Judiciary Committee a panel well qualified, she said, to examine any unintended legal consequences of the bill. Schmedes and fellow Republican Candy Spence Ezzell of Roswell voted against the bill. In favor were Democrats Andrea Romero of Santa Fe, Angelica Rubio of Las Cruces and Thomson. Rep. Joanne Ferrary, a Las Cruces Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said the changing composition of the U.S. Supreme Court amid President Trumps vow to appoint pro-life justices underscores the urgency of repealing the states criminal abortion law and preserving the status quo in New Mexico. It is time to remove this archaic law from New Mexicos books, she said in Saturdays hearing. With the threat of a Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe, we need to pass this bill to protect health care providers and keep abortion safe and legal. In addition to Ferrary, three Albuquerque Democrats are co-sponsoring House Bill 51 Rep. Georgene Louis, Sen. Linda Lopez and Rep. Deborah Armstrong. Democrats hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who took office Jan. 1, has said she supports repealing the states anti-abortion law. State analysts who prepared a report for legislators said all or parts of the New Mexico law have already been found unconstitutional. The repeal would leave untouched the states ban on partial-birth abortion, the analysts said. The Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, says New Mexico doesnt have any of the major abortion restrictions such as waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortions found in some states. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE Another dog, this one an apparent stray, has been injured in a leghold trap, as the state Legislature prepares to take up a bill that would ban trapping on public lands. The injuries suffered by the dog, now at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, were relatively minor, said shelter spokesman Murad Kirdar. He said the dog, dubbed Fibel since he came to the shelter, is doing great but wants a home. A Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office report says deputies were called to an Edgewood area property Jan. 6 after the 90-pound dog with no collar or ID tag was caught in a foot trap. Property owner Joe Henry Pacheco told responding deputies that the trap was for coyotes, but that the dog had also been causing problems at his place. The trap was located outside Pachecos property. The Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians, which participate in the Trap Free New Mexico coalition, issued a news release calling attention to the incident. A WildEarth Guardians spokesman said its the sixth case of a dog being caught in a trap during the current trapping season, which started in November for most species, although coyotes can be trapped year-round in New Mexico. The release quotes the shelter staff as describing Fibel as very sweet. A dog named Roxy choked to death in November when her head got caught in a trap while on walk with her owner on a trail at the federal Bureau of Land Managements Santa Cruz Lake Recreation Area near Espanola. The anti-trap bill at the Legislature is being called Roxys Law. Pacheco, reached by phone Friday, said that because of problems with coyotes he had a trapper put out the trap that caught the dog now named Fibel. The trap was not aimed at the dog, Pacheco said, but that the dog had been coming onto his property and going through trash and also had been aggressive toward his granddaughter and tried to chew Pachecos own dog. Dogs shouldnt be roaming around causing chaos, Pacheco said. He opposes a trapping ban. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Pacheco said he believed the dog was a wolf hybrid and thats one reason he first tried to call for a game warden before calling the sheriffs office. Kirdar, of the animal shelter, said Fibel is not part wolf and is listed as Alaskan Malamute. Kirdar said the dog was cut and bruised and had some tissue tearing around a paw. He also said that the shelter will hold an event on Feb. 10 to teach how to get animals out of traps. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE The family of an Albuquerque man who went missing Dec. 28 in northern New Mexico are now offering a $10,000 reward for information on his whereabouts. Marshall Naranjo, 27, disappeared after he was dropped off by an acquaintance at the Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino in Pojoaque. Hed spent a few days over Christmas with his family in White Rock, near Los Alamos. His brother Fidel Naranjo said Friday that Marshall was supposed to catch a regional transit bus at the casino for a ride to a Santa Fe depot of the Rail Runner Express train and use the train to return home to Albuquerque. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Marshall Naranjo has not been heard from since. The family reported him missing on Dec. 31. Fidel Naranjo said the reward money would be paid for information on where Marshall is, dead or alive, and there is no requirement that the information lead to an arrest or conviction. We just want some closure, he said. The Santa Fe County Sheriffs Office last week released an image from Buffalo Thunder security video showing Marshall Naranjo with another man. The sheriffs office said the casino video shows Naranjo walking and talking with the man throughout the premises. Investigators believe Naranjo left Buffalo Thunder with the man in a dark-colored, four-door sedan. Fidel Naranjo said his brother worked as a handyman maintaining rental property in Albuquerque. The sheriffs office said Marshall is about 6 feet tall and weighs around 185 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He has tattoos on his back, abdomen, right hand and right shoulder. The sheriffs office is asking that anyone with information on the case or who might be able to identify the man shown in the casino video with Marshall Naranjo to call (505) 428-3720. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. New Mexico is nationally ranked in the top half for teachers that have National Board Certification. The state ranked 21st in the country has a total of 1,219 teachers that have gone through the process, according to National Board Certification data. That translates to roughly 6 percent of teachers in the state being Nationally Board Certified, the self-reported numbers show. The national board certifies teachers who undergo a voluntary program to demonstrate professional standards. The teachers demonstrate competency in four areas from how they interact with students to how they design instruction. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The certification process is designed to collect standards-based evidence of accomplished practice, the board website describes. In 2018, 69 teachers in the state became newly certified with 32 of those coming from Albuquerque Public Schools. Some 49 teachers renewed their certifications in 2018, too. The top districts in the state for National Board Certified teachers include APS, Santa Fe Schools, Las Cruces Public Schools and Rio Rancho Public Schools. APS has a total of 623 Nationally Board Certified teachers, according to a news release. In the country, there are over 122,000 teachers in the board certified network. Im thrilled to celebrate our new National Board Certified Teachers. This is a great personal accomplishment, but its more than that this accomplishment is reason to celebrate the impact board-certified teachers have on millions of students nationwide and on the teaching profession at-large, Peggy Brookins, NBCT, president and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, wrote in a statement. School principals and systems leaders from across the country regularly tell me that NBCTs are making a difference in their students learning, strengthening their schools and their communities, she said. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal A hefty education bill won unanimous approval Friday in the Senate Education Committee, after a charter student enrollment cap was stripped out of the bill. Originally, Senate Bill 1 would have limited the states charter school student population to no more than 27,000 for the 2019-20 school year. That would mean fewer than a thousand students statewide would have been allowed to newly enroll. But after clamorous pushback from charter leaders and closed-door discussions among senators, the enrollment cap was amended out of the bill Friday. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ It was the first thing discussed at the committee meeting. The amendment essentially takes off the charter school cap of 27,000 students, said one of the bills sponsors, Sen. Mimi Stewart, an Albuquerque Democrat and chairwoman of the Legislative Education Study Committee. Stewart had originally argued for the enrollment limit, saying charters have received 55 percent of new money put into education during the past nine years. Matt Pahl, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools, told the Journal that the change to the bill improved it but said other components left in the bill would hurt charters. Todays changes were a very positive step forward in creating legislation that helps all students, Pahl said. But there are still provisions that would devastate charter schools, particularly those serving at-risk populations. For instance, he said, Senate Bill 1 would also limit a funding component that gives extra dollars to smaller schools, which he said would affect charters. And the bill would curb funding for adult students who are older than 22 at the start of the school year. Pahl said this also could affect charters, because some schools work with older students to finish high school. Opponents have said this would affect adult learners who dont want a GED diploma and want a high school diploma instead. Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, who is on the committee, said he will introduce a bill to allow the state Public Education Department to issue alternative diplomas to such students. Another amendment to the bill which would replace K-3-plus initiatives with K-5-plus programs included taking out mandatory language for K-5-plus. The K-5 plus programs would include 25 additional instructional days before the school year starts, would keep kids with the same teacher for the extended time and during the school year and set aside professional development time for K-5 plus teachers. What we wanted to do in three years, is if (schools) qualify you must do the program, so, that raised questions and we might not be ready for that, Stewart said about the changes. She said it can be legislatively reassessed down the line if mandatory language needs to be added. In its current form, Senate Bill 1 raises teacher salary tiers, increases the amount of money for at-risk student resources and creates funding sources for extended learning time programs that would add extra instructional days, professional development days and after-school programs to the school year. The bill, which has an estimated impact of between $289.9 million and $423.5 million for the budget year that starts in July, now goes to the Senate Finance Committee. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Raymond DJ Freez Rowe got away with murder for more than two decades. As a popular fixture on the party scene in and around Lancaster, Penn., he was the man to call for music at high school dances, restaurants, clubs and weddings. He was the last person his fans would have suspected in the brutal sexual assault and murder of 25-year-old schoolteacher Christy Mirack. But DJ Freezs luck ran out when his curious half sister sought out genealogy information and uploaded her DNA to start searching the family tree. Her biological information showed similarities to DNA found at the Mirack crime scene and ultimately led cold case detectives to her brother, Raymond. Police followed the DJ to one of his gigs, collected his empty water bottle and used chewing gum, and Rowes DNA told them they had found their killer. Once confronted, Rowe admitted that on the early morning of Dec. 21, 1992, he forced his way into Christys apartment, scattering the armful of Christmas presents she planned to take to school, beat her with a wooden board and raped and strangled her with her own sweater. DNA technology, coupled with a publicly available genealogy service, solved a crime that had shaken that Susquehanna River community for more than 26 years. Earlier this month Rowe was sentenced to life in prison with no parole. Advances in crime fighting DNA science seem to be occurring at warp speed so fast that some are waving red warning flags. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Soon, a police station near you could have whats called the DNA Magic Box that can process a DNA sample in just 90 minutes with a specially trained member of the force at the controls. No more sending out cheek swabs, blood droplets or other crime scene evidence to a far-away specialized lab and then waiting for weeks or months for results. Law enforcement agencies from Texas to Delaware and Pennsylvania to Utah are already using these groundbreaking DNA test devices. In late 2017, President Trump signed into law the Rapid DNA Act which, beginning this year, allows approved Magic Box operators to connect directly to the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). This will revolutionize crime fighting. Not only can officers search their local and state DNA databases for a match to newly collected evidence, they will also be able to search CODIS with its more than 13 million offender profiles submitted from all 50 states and all federal law enforcement agencies. And the final bit of DNA news may turn out to be the most potent crime fighting tool of all, once it is fully developed. Its called phenotyping, and its been around since 2014. Over the years new scientific capabilities have been added to this remarkable forensic science. In short, phenotyping is a way to take certain information from a DNA sample and, literally, create the face of a suspect. Im no scientist, but as I understand it this technique zeros in on DNA data like the donors sex, eye color, hair color and texture, skin pigmentation, ancestry, whether the person has freckles and how many! and even the shape of their face. Then a forensic artist puts it all together into a composite mugshot of sorts. It is important to note that the created face isnt necessarily the actual suspect police are looking for although there have been some remarkably accurate likenesses to the proven guilty party. Rather, the composite face is a prediction about the way the suspect will look, a way for detectives to eliminate those who dont have the same DNA traits. In other words, say phenotyping of a murderers DNA shows he has red hair, blue eyes, lots of freckles and a round face. Police will realize that the brunette man with the long narrow face they have in custody is not the right person. If properly used this technique could result in far fewer wrongful convictions. There are critics of DNA science who warn about breach of privacy issues that arise when samples are taken from innocent people. In many states anyone who is arrested must automatically surrender to a DNA cheek swab. Their biological profile then goes into a database even though it may later be determined that they had nothing to do with a crime. The concern is real, and there should be a way to purge an innocent persons DNA contribution. But, think about this, if a DNA sample sits in a database unmatched to any crime, what is the practical downside? On balance, consider the years of anguish loved ones of murder victims like Christy Mirack suffer as they wait for a conclusion to their case. At Rowes sentencing this month Christys brother, Vince, had but one question. Why? Why are we sitting here today? He didnt get an answer to Why? but, finally, the Mirack family got the answer to Who. With justice done, healing can begin. www.DianeDimond.com; e-mail to Diane@DianeDimond.com. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SAN DIEGO Its no fairy tale to say that the immigration debate could really use more Goldilocks solutions not too hard or too soft, not open borders or a tightly sealed door. We need answers that are just right. Negotiations will often turn on being able to take half a loaf. But President Trumps (last) offer to end the government shutdown with what he billed as a common-sense compromise both parties can embrace (was) more like a crumb. Trump (was) asking for $5.7 billion to build a steel barrier along a sliver of the U.S.-Mexico border, along with billions of dollars more for drug-detection technology, border patrol agents, immigration judges and humanitarian aid for refugees. In exchange, the president offered to re-instate provisional legal status for three years for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented young people who signed up for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Trump ended that program in September 2017, thereby sending recipients spiraling toward an uncertain future that could include forcible removal. Under Trumps latest pitch, these young people couldnt be deported for three years, but theyd have no permanent legal status. They would remain at the whim of a political system that has shown them little regard, and their special dispensation could we taken away with the stroke of a pen. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Thats weak porridge. You would think someone who has wreaked so much havoc on the lives of so many would have more to give by way of a remedy than simply kicking the can down the road past his re-election campaign in 2020. Still, none of this lets Democrats off the hook. Theyve been louses where immigrants are concerned, simultaneously acting tough and compassionate. Its maddening, the con they run. Their quick repudiation of Trumps offer even before the ink was dry tells us they (didnt) think the shutdown (was) costing them politically because Trump (was) catching the blame. It also confirms that Democrats are as duplicitous as ever when it comes to immigration. In fact, they are often part of the problem. Its sad. The modern Democratic Party flips John F. Kennedys famous line on its head: It never asks what it can do for Dreamers, only what holding Dreamers hostage can do for it. Meanwhile, on the cultural right which is populated by racists who worry that America is overrun by Latino immigrants from south of the border critics tore into Trump for allegedly offering lawbreakers a full-blown amnesty with all the trimmings. Ringleader Ann Coulter who considers it her sacred duty to prevent the eradication of white people in a nation that is still run by them has written and said too many racially insensitive things to list here. About the presidents plan, Coulter tweeted, Trumps solution: Lets just amnesty them! Someone needs to bone up on the English language. Amnesties are permanent and unconditional. What Trump proposes is neither. The big flaw in the compromise proposed by the White House (was) that it is tied to the original sin DACA. The Obama administration used that program to trick desperate young people who were dying of thirst to guzzle water that wasnt safe to drink. Its hard to imagine anyone characterizing DACA as a government giveaway when the recipients did most of the giving handing over fingerprints, mugshots and home addresses to law enforcement who can now deport them at will. Dont be distracted. DACA is better off dead, and it deserves no resurrection. The just right solution is obvious: full legal status and green cards for the nearly 700,000 DACA recipients, and mere protective status for the estimated 1.8 million Dreamers who didnt sign up but still shouldnt be deported. No one gets citizenship, unless they jump through the necessary hoops to earn it. Most importantly, we ought to make sure this whole part of the debate stays separate and apart from any horse-trading about Trumps wall, which was always doomed to fail. After all, whether you call it a wall, a fence or a steel barrier, its expensive, poorly defined, likely to disappoint and almost certain not to keep anyone out. Trump must realize all this by now. Surely, the former real estate tycoon knows a troubled asset when he sees one. His proposed big beautiful wall is as troubled as they come. Which is why he desperately needs Democrats to take the project off his hands, by accepting a deal that makes them part owners of whatever monstrosity rises from the ground. E-mail ruben@rubennavarrette.com. (c) 2019, The Washington Post Writers Group. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Qatars Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani skipped the recent Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) annual summit. Despite the Saudi kings personal invitation to the Qatari ruler to attend the meeting and his call for GCC unity, the Saudi and Bahraini foreign ministers indicated that no reconciliation would occur with Qatar until it accepts the 13 demands that the so-called Anti-Terror Quartet (ATQ) had set in July 2017. The demands, which required Qatar to shutter Aljazeera TV and sever relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, were intended to change Qatars status from a sovereign state to a Saudi vassal state. Tamim refused to yield to Muhammed bin Salmans power grab or accept his grandiose architecture of regional hegemony. Qatars recent multi-year LNG contracts with Britain and China indicate that the industrial nations have accepted Qatar as a world leader in liquified natural gas. Now that Tamim has freed himself of OPEC, will he take the next logical step and pull out of the Saudi dominated GCC? MbS well-financed lobbying effort in Washington, London and other capitals has failed to gain traction against Qatar or to accept the legitimacy of the Saudi anti-Qatar belligerency. Western senior policy makers have for the most part seen through MbS dubious machinations against Qatar and its ruler. MbS has also been implicated in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as was recently confirmed by Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ The Saudi decision to isolate Qatar has failed because of several disingenuous accusations against the Qatari ruler. These charges include Qatars perceived anti-Saudi campaign through the Qatari-owned Aljazeera Television; close relations with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood; undermining the GCC; and friendly relations with Iran. These claims were no more than a PR gimmick designed to turn Western leaders, especially President Trump, against Qatar. MbS fundamental intent has always been to effect a regime change in Doha. MbS and his friendly autocrats in Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE have frequently denounced Aljazeeras coverage of Arab political and social issues and called on Qatar to shutter the news network. They loathed the networks advocacy for reform, democracy, anti-corruption and freedom. Qatar was the first Gulf Arab state in the 1990s to start a professional news service dedicated to relatively fair, free and open dialogue. When the United States government tried to undermine Aljazeeras message after 9/11 by establishing Radio Sawa and Al-Hurrah network, public opinion polls reported that Arab youth would tune into Sawa and al-Hurrah for music and then switch back to Aljazeera for news and analysis. Neither the United States nor Saudi Arabia and its allies were able to silence the Qatari-funded network. Having failed to silence the network, MbS foolishly embarked on trying to kill the messenger. This is exactly how he dealt with journalist Jamal Khashoggi he killed him because he failed to silence his message. The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has not been declared a terrorist organization in any Western country, including in the United States. Egypts autocrat Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared the MB a terrorist organization after he toppled its popularly elected president Muhammad Morsi in a military coup July 3, 2013. The Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini regimes followed suit for regional political reasons. For MbS to claim that Qatar supports and funds terrorism is like the pot calling the kettle black. The two other unsubstantiated charges levied by MbS against Qatar to justify his blockade include Qatars undermining the Gulf Cooperation Council and its cozying up to Iran. Neither charge is factual. For years, GCC leaders, including Saudi Arabia, have refused to form a joint defense front and opted to act as individual states. To many of them, the GCC was just Hatchi, which meant just talk. Since ascending to power, MbS has bungled Saudi relations with Gulf neighbors and globally. His reputation in Washington and elsewhere has tarnished. If the royal family is interested in restoring the strategic Saudi-American partnership, will it have the courage to ease MbS out of power and appoint someone else other than his brother as ambassador to Washington? Will the Saudis pursue ways to end the disastrous war in Yemen and work toward rapprochement with Iran for the sake of Gulf and regional stability? Emile Nakhleh is Director, Global and National Security Policy Institute at UNM and a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer at the CIA. A longer version of this article is on LobeLog. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A year and eight months after 25-year-old Matthew Severinghaus was shot to death in the driveway of his foothills home, a jury convicted the man charged with killing him. Yoan Santiesteban, 35, was found guilty of first-degree murder and other charges Friday afternoon after the jury deliberated for three hours. The eight-day trial in 2nd Judicial District Court was presided over by Judge Brett Loveless. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Santiesteban faces life in prison. His sentencing date has not yet been set. This was Santiestebans second trial for a string of three fatal shootings in mid-May 2017. Severinghaus, who was on his way to work the morning of May 26, was the last victim in the spree. Prosecutors say Santiesteban shot Severinghaus and then took his wallet and tried to use his debit card at a bank hours later. He was arrested along with his girlfriend and accomplice, Gloria Chavez, in Santa Rosa after the couple fled Albuquerque. Chavez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder in February and is required to testify against Santiesteban. She faces a six-year sentence. Santiestebans first trial, in June, was for the death of Celina Arrelanes, 27, who was sitting in her boyfriends car when she was shot and killed. Jurors could not reach a verdict in that case and the District Attorneys Office is reviewing it to determine whether to retry it. Severinghaus, who was on his way to work the morning of May 26, was the last victim in the spree. Prosecutors say Santiesteban shot Severinghaus and then took his wallet and tried to use his debit card at a bank hours later. He is scheduled to go to trial in March for the death of Samir Al-Abboudy, 44. Chavez told police in her initial interviews that she and Santiesteban had heard that Al-Abboudy had recently won $22,000 at a casino. She said the couple had gone to the Days Inn to buy meth and Al-Abboudy was shot to death. Michael Patrick, a spokesman for the DA, said the trial for Severinghauss murder was aided by the offices crime strategies unit. This was one of the first murder cases that the DAs office used their own internal cell phone analysis as part of the new crime strategies unit to review evidence that was seized and some evidence that had not yet been seized in the investigation of Yoan Santiesteban, Patrick said. He said the office didnt yet have those resources at the time of the first trial over the summer. Santiestebans attorney could not be reached Friday evening. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... The University of New Mexico track and field team returns to the Albuquerque Convention Center Saturday for the New Mexico Collegiate Invitational. Competing with the Lobos are Washington State, Grand Canyon, Cal State Northridge, Utah, Arizona State, Boise State and New Mexico State. The meet begins at 9:30 a.m. with the womens weight throw as well as the womens and mens high jump. The track portion of the meet begins at noon with the womens 600-meter run. The last event, scheduled at 3:45 p.m., is the womens 4400 relay. UNM heads into the meet following a successful weekend at the Dr. Martin Luther King in which the Lobos won three events, including Mountain West mens field athlete of the week Ryan Chase in the long jump (24 feet, 3 inches). Additionally, Jay Griffin IV set the school record in the 200-meter dash, registering a time of 21.08 seconds (21.15 altitude conversion). He runs the 200 Saturday at 2:35 p.m. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich called on state lawmakers Friday to pass legislation dealing with renewable energy, climate change and early childhood education during their ongoing 60-day legislation. In a 20-minute speech, Heinrich, a Democrat, said the session represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity, due largely to an unprecedented state revenue windfall. He also said state voters sent a clear message during last Novembers election theyre tired of the status quo. You came here to make change, Heinrich told lawmakers. Our kids are counting on us to get this right for their future. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ A former Albuquerque city councilor and U.S. House member, Heinrich defeated two opponents last fall to win election to a second six-year term in the U.S. Senate. He said he plans to introduce federal legislation this year to convert Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos and White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico into national parks. Such recognition would lead to higher visitation rates and possibly more federal spending on upgrades, Heinrich said. On a state level, Heinrich urged lawmakers to approve legislation to create a state outdoor recreation office, reinstate an expired solar energy tax credit and establish new renewable energy standards before adjournment on March 16. Although we have some of the best renewable resources in the nation, we are behind many other states in terms of clean energy targets and investments, Heinrich said. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who took office at the start of the year, has also called on legislators to pass those initiatives. Meanwhile, Heinrich also voiced support for a plan to take money from the states $17 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund for home visiting and other early childhood programs, a proposal that some moderate Democrats in the Legislature have opposed. On the subject of border security, Heinrich told reporters after his Friday speech to lawmakers that federal dollars should be spent wisely, and not on a border wall proposed by President Donald Trump. Most heroin and fentanyl brought into the United States from Mexico is smuggled through ports of entry, Heinrich said, and additional federal dollars should be targeted at technological upgrades at those facilities. By investing in our ports of entry, we would make the entire border safer, he said. Although Trumps decision to end a partial federal government shutdown was not announced until after Heinrichs speech, the senator released a statement later Friday describing the shutdown as unnecessary and saying affected workers should receive any back pay owed to them as quickly as possible. New Mexicos other U.S. senator, fellow Democrat Tom Udall, previously addressed the Legislature on Tuesday. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright 2019 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE A proposal moving through the Senate would bar public agencies in New Mexico from spending money or using other resources to enforce federal immigration laws. The bill to make New Mexico a sanctuary state narrowly cleared its first committee Friday after senators heard emotional testimony about immigrants who fear going to police, even when theyre a crime victim or witness. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ One woman described calling 911, only to have sheriffs deputies arrive with federal immigration agents. Her husband was deported, she told lawmakers, speaking through an interpreter. Senate Bill 196 would prohibit state and local governments, including sheriffs offices, from using their resources to try to detect or detain people they suspect are in the country illegally, or from helping federal agents do so. Sen. Linda Lopez, an Albuquerque Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said the proposal would improve public safety by ensuring that immigrants regardless of their legal status feel comfortable reporting crime and helping local police officers. These are my neighbors, she said. They are community members. Blanca Banuelos, an 18-year-old from Albuquerque, said immigrants have been treated as bargaining chips in national political debates. She herself is an immigrant temporarily protected from deportation because she was brought to the United States as a child, 17 years ago. Our lawmakers must focus on protecting our immigrant community, Banuelos said. Our lives depend on it. No one spoke against the bill. It passed the Senate Public Affairs Committee on a 4-3 party-line vote, with Democrats in support. The bill now heads to the Senate Judiciary Committee, potentially its last stop before the Senate floor. The proposal would restrict the authority of sheriffs and jail administrators to hold federal immigration detainees, though any existing arrangements could continue. New contracts couldnt be entered into. Senate Bill 196 is sponsored by three Democrats Lopez, Sen. Richard Martinez of Espanola and Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero of Albuquerque. Democrats hold majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature and swept every statewide office including governor in last years election. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. This spring, a group of young, aspiring New Mexico coders will train in Rotterdam to be CyberHeroes during a weeklong trip to the Netherlands paid for by the U.S. Embassy there. Rotterdam-based Cyberworkspace, which trains youngsters in ethical hacking to shore up the Netherlands cybersecurity workforce, will host 10 high school students from New Mexico who graduated from Albuquerque-based Cultivating Coders free summer trainings. Three Cultivating Coders leaders and instructors will accompany the group, which includes program graduates from Albuquerque, Espanola and the Navajo Nation. Its the first trip in a new exchange that will bring a group of Netherlands youngsters to New Mexico next year, also on the U.S. Embassys dime, said Cultivating Coders founder and President Charles Ashley III. We want to expose young people to the endless possibilities and opportunities out there in the world, Ashley said. This is a springboard for them. Some of them have never even been outside Albuquerque. During the CyberHeroes training, the visiting coders will take on hacker battles, working on cyber challenges with the local police and with international cybercrime professionals. Theyll learn hands-on cyber skills and study the history of cryptography. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ Sightseeing and touring is part of the program, including a patrol boat adventure in the Rotterdam harbor, Europes largest port. I am beyond enthusiastic about this collaboration, said Cyberworkspace Chairman Anouk Vos in a statement. Ethical hacking skills are extremely important to cope with current security threats. I feel that by bringing our communities together we are starting a trailblazing 21st Century workforce. Ashley and Vos met two years ago in Albuquerque, where Vos attended a workshop sponsored by Global Ties ABQ, the local arm of the U.S. State Departments Global Ties U.S. network. The two discussed ways to collaborate, and the exchange partnership grew from there. To date, Cultivating Coders has graduated 120 middle and high school students from its summer training boot camps. Victoria Lusk vlusk@aberdeennews.com A 1987 Buick Grand National that was initially sold at Lust Chevrolet Buick Mazda in Aberdeen found a new owner Jan. 17 at a Barrett-Jackson collector car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. The car sold for $66,000. It had just 29 miles on it, 5.9 of which were put on by Chuck Mardian, the cars original owner. Even on the Barrett-Jackson stage, the classic car still proudly displayed the Lust Chevrolet sticker on the back. I probably stuck that on there, said Mike Wiltfang, a technician at the dealership. The car came off the trailer brand new the first year Wiltfang worked for Lust. He remembers checking it in, ensuring everything inside, outside and under the hood was where it should be and functioning properly. Mardian ordered the car, but 1987 would be the last year the Grand National was manufactured. Lust received a letter that production had ceased, and it was unknown whether Mardians car would show up. With a stroke of luck, or maybe just by being in the right place at the right time, Mardian was able to find a Grand National in Iowa. He was driving with his wife when he saw not one but two Grand Nationals in the parking lot of a local restaurant. He made a U-turn, marched into the restaurant and asked who owned the two Buicks. Two men asked if he had hit the cars. Hell no, Mardian said. But I do want to know where you got them. Because I want one, too. After he purchased his first Grand National from a dealership in Ames, Iowa, he got a call from Lust to stop on in. When he did, he saw a shiny new Buick Grand National the very one he had ordered. The only question was whether he still wanted it with its sticker price of $18,000. I said, Well, aint no one else in town gonna get it, Mardian said. The car bought in Iowa was the one either he or his wife would drive daily. And because he had that one, there was no need to drive the one from Lust. Instead, he would store it in his garage under a car cover. Even when it had a recall or warranty (issue) or something, hed trailer it (to Lust), Wiltfang said. But he didnt know (the car would be a sought-out classic 32 years later). How would he have known? It wasnt the first car Mardian ever bought. And it wouldnt be the last. But it turned out to be nearly the last with which hed be willing to part. His first ever collector was a 1960 Ford pickup. And then it just went from there, Mardian said. Ive bought and sold some and never touched them myself. Mardian sold the Grand National last summer to a buyer in Connecticut. He didnt disclose the price, but said he got within $2,000 of what he was initially asking. I just decided to get rid of it. And when I did, it only had 21 miles in 30 years, Mardian said. And heres the kicker on that. Lust put on 16 of those miles test-driving it after they got it. I actually only put (5.9) on it myself. He said those were logged driving it down to the Federal Building where he had a photo taken of the Grand National that he made into a poster. Since Mardian sold the car, the odometer has rolled another 8 miles. Wiltfang doesnt remember driving the car, but granted it is typically done. He just assumed Mardian had given strict orders not to drive the Grand National. The two exchanged messages after learning of the Barrett-Jackson sale. Chuck said, Make sure you show Steven Lust that. I gave him first shot at that car years back, Wiltfang said. Lust owns what is now Steven Lust Automotive. The text exchange was just one of many messages Mardian would receive and send in the days following the sale. Its been so much fun yesterday and today, Mardian said Jan. 18, the day after the sale. Its crazy how busy my phone has been. And the fun didnt stop with him. The sale at Barrett-Jackson raised a lot of eyebrows (at Lust), Wiltfang said. BUTTE- Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement identified the man who led police on a high speed chase Friday night as John Isaac Flinn, 29. Flinn is charged with five felony counts of criminal endangerment, possession of drug paraphernalia and obstructing a peace officer. Flinn also has charges out of Anaconda-Deer Lodge for felony possession of dangerous drugs with the intent to distribute and felony theft. Around 8:30 p.m. Friday night a Butte police officer attempted to stop a vehicle he suspected was involved in a prior shooting incident. The officer attempted to stop the suspect's vehicle on North Drive. Officers said the vehicle would not stop and the pursuit continued on various streets at speeds of 50-60 mph. According to police, as Flinn's vehicle was traveling westbound on Galena Street, the vehicle ran a stop sign at the intersection of Montana and Galena Streets. Flinn's vehicle then struck another vehicle that was traveling southbound on Montana Street. Police said Flinn's car then struck a light pole on the southwest corner of Montana and Galena Streets. Flinn then attempted to flee on foot and was captured by police about one block west of the scene. An adult female passenger in Flinn's vehicle was transported by A-1 Ambulance to St. James Healthcare and her condition and injuries are unknown at this time. The four passengers in the second vehicle were not injured in the collision. Montana Highway Patrol is investigating the accident and Northwestern Energy and the Butte Fire Department also responded to the crash. California's redwoods are among the state's greatest treasures. If you're looking to explore the redwood forests of Northern California, you can easily make weekend trips from San Francisco and the Bay Area. Or, if you really want to get away, pack them into a five-stop road trip for backpacking, hiking, swimming, and sleeping beneath the trees. We promise, it's epic. Redwoods Road Trip, Stop 1: Muir Woods National Monument You don't even have to leave the Bay Area to begin your redwood adventure. If you can swing it, start your road trip during on a weekday when there will be fewer crowds. Muir Woods is a perfect trip for families and out-of-town guests with multiple loops and hiking options for groups of all fitness levels. While there are other, less crowded redwood groves in the Bay Area (though, a newish requirement for reservations is helping to limit crowds and preserve the land), Muir Woods National Monument is easily one of the best. It is a beautifully maintained site, with wooden footpaths meandering between towering redwoods that are between 600 and 800 years old. It's home to some true giants, with its tallest trees reaching over 250 feet tall. Find trail maps and lodging. Redwoods Road Trip, Stop 2: Redwoods Camping at West Marin's Samuel P. Taylor State Park Spend the night under redwoods at Samual P. Taylor State Park, where campsites border Lagunitas Creek and offer close access to Devil's Gulch Trail and Barnabe Peak. The campsites are dog-friendly with a maximum occupancy of six people each. There are also six group campsites that can accommodate 10-50 people. These West Marin campsites are often overlooked. It does get busy during the summer, but take the rest of the year to explore this state park. Barnabe Peak is a nine-plus mile hike that has roughly 1,400 feet in elevation gain. The top of Barnabe Peak offers up panoramic views of Marin County. Is nine miles too long? Head to Devil's Gulch for a four-mile out-and-back hike with just about 150 feet of elevation gain. Learn more and reserve your campground. Redwoods Road Trip, Stop 3: Avenue of the Giants, Humboldt Redwoods State Park The Avenue of the Giants is a scenic 31-mile-long highway surrounded by 51,222 acres of giant redwood trees in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park. This road, which runs through many small towns with tons of tourist attractions, offers amazing views of the redwoods. The pull-offs along the road allow easy access to many different hiking trails, and there are many different trails that will lead you to various swimming holes and fishing spots along the Eel River. See more photos and maps. Redwoods Road Trip, Stop 4: Backpacking at Redwood National and State Parks If you want to spend a couple days surrounded by redwoods, this backpacking adventure allows you to explore some of the tallest trees in the world, get amazing starlit views, and potentially run into Sasquatch...he's out there, somewhere. Before heading up, you'll want to check with the rangers station for the best camping opportunities. Off of the main road, there are side streets with access to the beaches. If there are openings, you can pull into one of these areas and camp where the river meets with the ocean. If this isn't feasible, there is plenty camping available along the route to Tall Trees Grove. Plan a four-day backpacking itinerary. Kitty Wenham at The Quarterly Conversation: The beating heart of it all, Du Mauriers estate Menabilly, remains a secret few have been allowed to penetrate. Nestled behind locked gates, a visitor would find it impossible to catch even a glimpse of its infamous facade from the roadside. Nearby is the town of Fowey. Another great love. Once referred to as Du Mauriers salvation, it is the picture of gentle tranquillity. By a twinkling blue estuary lined with quaint white cottages, you can glance at her other famous home Ferryside. The coves are full of families, the beaches always busy. Journey on for forty minutes more, and you might stumble across the infamous Jamaica Inn. Far from an isolated hub of menacing activity and excitement, it now stands on a busy motorway leading out of Cornwall an impersonal, family stop on the way back from a typical summer road trip. I first came to Cornwall searching for Daphne Du Maurier in August 2013, the first of many family trips to the coast. I imagined the high, thrashing waves of the sea, the ruined mansions, the wild landscape untamed, overrunning every bend in the road. Instead, I found Cornwall to be a place of solitude. more here. Talia Lavin in Huffington Post: 2018 was a year overstuffed with culture. Thats just the way it is now, movies and TV and songs and memes and thoughtful features and endless, endless politics scrolling past our weary eyes at the speed of silicon and too-blue light. But in all the chaos theres a moment where my hazy memories of frenetic consumption pause, for a piece of filmmaking that called on me to think hard and to remember. That movie was Spike Lees BlacKkKlansman. Its currently raking in a modest haul of awards, but for me, its going to linger long past the last bottle of popped January 1st champagne, a remarkable slice of light to which Ill return for years to come. Much has been said about the film its ambition, historicity and panache have been amply noted. But Ive elected to discuss it here because I admire it as a piece of artistry and as a salvo launched at the perfect cultural moment. he film is about a pioneering black cop who confronts the Ku Klux Klan, providing the voice of a would-be Klansman on the phone while his Jewish co-worker offers a white body to attend the meetings in person. Any summary would be a bare gesture at the substance of the movie, which deftly conjures up the early 1970s with both winking kitsch and careful verisimilitude. BlacKkKlansman delivers more than any blockbuster ever needs to, filling its slick packaging with layers of complexity that Hollywood rarely allows for. The film addresses the conditional whiteness of Jews in America; the ways in which the presumed fragility of white womanhood can provide a shield for those who would do violence; the vitality of student activism, and the way it forms an irresistible target for those who would silence dissent; and the role of music, rhetoric and film itself in shaping black and white identities. It does all this and so much more, wrapped in a compulsively watchable package. Theres a bravura quality to it, a bracing reminder of the need to combat racism in both its most overt guises Klansmen burning crosses and its subtler incarnations, as when rookie black cop Ron Stallworth faces an array of racist behaviors at his new workplace, from skepticism to outright slurs. 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Seigfried, goi of Thors Oak Kindred in Chicago. In addition to his award-winning website, The Norse Mythology Blog, Karl has written for the BBC, Iceland Magazine, Journal of the Oriental Institute, On Religion, Religion Stylebook, and many other outlets. He holds degrees in literature, music, and religion, and he is the first Asatru practitioner to hold a graduate degree from University of Chicago Divinity School. Our weekend section is always open for submissions. Please submit queries to eric@wildhunt.org. Berkano Hearth Union (BHU) was founded in spring of last year as a community for Heathens and people interested in Heathenry. Based in Georgia, the organization has now grown to nearly 150 members and has a busy calendar of events. BHU is currently a limited liability company and plans to apply for 501(c)(3) status as a religious organization. Curious to find out more about the group, I reached out to leadership and was put in touch with four members who provided in-depth answers to my questions: J. Beofeld (board chairperson and clergy), Casey Griffin (board treasurer and clergy), Emily Richardson (board member), and Jenn (board member). Two chose not to use their full names for this column, citing privacy concerns. The Wild Hunt: The BHU Facebook page description says, We are here to grow, learn, and deepen our shared spirituality, whether it be Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Slavic, Sami, or other flavors of heathenry in nature. Since youve moved out of the Germanic language group with this list, whats your working definition of Heathenry? Where are the boundary lines, if any? Casey Griffin: For the purposes of our group we aim to focus on Northern European pre-Christian spiritual practices. Our groups main focus is Norse Heathenry. Most of our rituals are Norse blots. Most of the gods that we hail are Norse gods. However, we also have practitioners of other spiritual paths that still fall under the umbrella of Northern European pre-Christian practice. Theres pretty good evidence that they all interacted and influenced one another. Look at the similarities between the thunder gods. Hel, even the symbology. An Ukonvasara looks suspiciously like a Mjolnir, and both at least resemble certain representations of Peruns axe. Personally, I feel like the word Heathen is less a focused term and more a word that has been ascribed a specific meaning in modern times. Its etymological predecessor translated to heath dwellers and really just referred to people that dwelled in the heath lands. Later it was made to mean non-Christian, more or less, by Christians of the time. Its equivalent to the word Pagan. To me, it doesnt really convey a focus on any realm of spirituality other than the fact that its from that area of the world. Jenn: Like Casey said, we focus on European pre-Christian spiritual practices. There are ties between Sami practices and what we think of traditionally as Heathenry Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Norse, Slavic so theres a natural geographic and cultural connection. Technically, you might stretch it to Hinduism, due to the distant Proto-Indo-European connection, but then youd be connecting to most other European traditions in the same way. J. Beofeld: Our working definition of Heathenry is more open than merely being about Germanic belief alone. Its about historical interconnectivity and cultural exchanges. For instance, our historical sources show that the Norse peoples were well in contact with the Sami peoples and that there probably had been sharing of beliefs and ideas with their contact. We also know that the Rus impacted the Slavic peoples and there was an exchange of ideas there as well as culture even before the Rus. There was some exchange of ideas with Finnish peoples, as well. We listed these cultures because there was at least some exchange in ideas in ancient times. We did not make a comprehensive list, either. We left out many regional varieties of Heathenry such as Frankish Heathenry, because there is no in-group interest in it at the moment. We did have to cap it off somewhere, though, or all of the Indo-European religions would fall into the mix. We see Heathenry as something that had a Germanic flair or had significant local similarities or exchanges of beliefs and ideas and culture in ancient times with one of the aforementioned cultures. All this said, we are primarily a Norse-oriented group. More of our members are Norse practitioners than any other flavor of Heathenry. I am the only Anglo-Saxon practitioner in the group, but a few others are Anglo-Saxon-curious. There are a few Slavic Heathens in the group. Of our ceremonies, perhaps one a year will be purely Anglo-Saxon (usually Eostre), perhaps one will be purely Slavic, and the rest will be primarily Norse in nature or will feature more than one pantheon in the event if there is some overlap. And you know what? All our members are pretty cool with the occasional overlap and are very willing to support the other branches of Heathenry our number get into by being present for their rituals as they were present for the Norse rituals. TWH: What aspects of your local situation both natural and cultural give Heathenry there a different character than elsewhere? JB: I suppose something that gives our approach to Heathenry a different character is that we do not have a single leader by design. We have a board of nine members that are elected from within our general membership to represent BHU for limited terms. We are not under any illusions of grandeur. None of us is trying to claim a kingship here. Many small groups try to start out with one king or queen or leader or whatever. We are very consciously trying to avoid anything resembling monarchy or a unitary system. We are also avoiding anything resembling oaths of fealty or anything of that sort of behavior. Were all adults here, were all educated and literate, and none of us is trying to secure alliances for mutual military benefit. There is no good reason to revive the ghost of feudalism in the modern world. J: I think one of our great advantages is that we are in a geographically advantageous area. BHU is in a large metro area thats accessible by multiple interstates. We have members that drive as much as two hours to attend events, but the fact that the majority of our members are physically near lets us have a strong core group that can interact often. Emily Richardson: We are a community-led organization built on transparency, consent, and mutual respect and trust. Having a strong supportive community is so important in the Bible Belt. CG: The culture in the south tends more towards tribal behavior than in other parts of the country. Theres definitely a heavy us versus them vibe that influences a lot of Heathens down here that might not be so prevalent in other localities, especially when you factor in the fundamentalist values of a large proportion of the Christian communities around here, how openly they proselytize and how willingly theyll verbally and occasionally physically attack a person that doesnt share the Abrahamic worldview. I think it makes us band together as friends in situations that maybe we wouldnt have normally. Naturally, there are lots of woodlands and mountains not far away, and theres a big emphasis on homesteading and hunting and other activities of that nature. I think that the hunter-warrior aspect of Norse culture is a big draw in that regard and gets more emphasis for good or ill than it might otherwise elsewhere. Then theres the unfortunate history of the area which gives rise to some of the white supremacist Heathen groups that give us as a larger community a bad name. TWH: Does BHU have a specific approach to ritual? JB: Our group is primarily reconstructionist in nature. Our rituals are inspired and informed by an understanding of ritual as it can be sussed out in Norse and Anglo-Saxon sources. When applicable, we have pulled from ritual understandings as were found in Roman and Greek and Slavic sources, etc. We are under no illusions here that were super historically authentic, though, any more so than any other reconstructionist group. Were reconstructing the best way that we can given the sources that we have. J: One aspect that I really enjoy is the diversity of ritual. We have people from multiple traditions, so we may do a ritual to a Norse god or goddess one month, an Anglo-Saxon deity the next month, and a Slavic ritual the month after. My primary tradition is Norse, with a few outliers from other branches of Heathenry, and I love learning about other traditions. CG: We try to make the rituals interesting and engaging for our community while still adhering to a reconstructionist format. TWH: How many individual kindreds belong to BHU? JB: We have not actually made a point of tracking that, so far. Most of our members havent named their hearths but many have over time developed their own unique and individual hearth practices. ER: I consider BHU to be my kindred in the sense that we are allied and connected by our shared love of Heathenry and desire for fellowship. CG: I dont really feel like we have individual kindreds in BHU, honestly, unless you count each family as a separate kindred. We havent really had organized groups that were already practicing together join us, unless you count the original core that initially formed the organization. TWH: In a previous interview, BHU co-founder and clergy Ryan Denison told me that [t]he creation of Berkano Hearth Union was prompted by several Heathens in the local groups coming together to form a union of various hearths that would focus on inclusivity, research, and community. How specifically have you progressed in these three areas since forming BHU? JB: Were doing pretty well with the community aspect part. It makes it easier that were in the same metropolitan area and can meet each other fairly regularly. Were trying to be open and inclusive. We try not to cultivate an environment in which bigotry can grow. New research is not a concerted group-driven task but is more one conducted by individuals on their own. ER: With regards to inclusivity, we do not discriminate against race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, disability, nationality, etc. All are welcome as long as they abide by our community standards of inclusivity. For research, we share general resources among each other in the group, conduct group book study groups, and have breakout groups such as the Heathen academy, a clergy college, and a group that studies the more esoteric side of Heathenry. The community has grown considerably in these first ten months from just a few dozen to nearly 150. Members have the opportunity to participate in the monthly board meetings that shape the direction of the organization. Clergy, board members, and two community liaisons dubbed the Omsbuddies build and maintain relationships with the membership through regular surveys and conversations. TWH: The BHU website lists the following as ways that you seek to accomplish community-building: public blots, monthly moots, veteran support, community support, and community engagement through social media. How many of these are up and running? J: All of the above. We conduct monthly blots and schedule an additional monthly moot. We have a veterans support organization that is just beginning, but they did a lovely job of coordinating a BHU entry in the Disabled American Veterans Run. We try to provide support for community members in need those who are hospitalized, have a new baby, etc. We currently have a main Facebook page and several special interest groups, such as a group for Slavic Heathenry and a group for academic study. ER: I must brag for a moment that Berkano Hearth Union raised $380 for the Disabled American Veterans Run. Our veterans committee coordinator has spearheaded charitable work benefiting veterans, provided a system of support for our veteran members, and drives the initiative to recognize an annual Feast of the Einherjar held on or near Memorial Day for BHU members. JB: All of them, in their own way. We have board members, clergy, officers, and group members who participate in developing these aspects of BHU. The highest priority for us to maintain is our monthly blots. We have been trying to make it a priority to also have monthly moots and other scheduled activities of religious or cultural interest to those in our group. Were primarily a local group so were not actively trying to advertise on social media, but we do try to engage our members regularly. Our veteran support and community support are mostly needs-based at the moment, so we have been trying to keep the priority on what is needed at the current time. ER: Id agree that blots and community engagement are the biggest priorities. Blots are the premier service for a group that thrives on fellowship. Those two initiatives help build the communitys foundation. The rest is icing on the cake. CG: The monthly rituals are definitely our highest priority. They carry the largest draw of attendance and interest. TWH: What are your plans for clergy training? JB: We are in the process of developing the learning program and working through it ourselves, because it would not truly be fair if we grandfathered ourselves into our own system. It will not be official until after we are actually a 501(c)(3) religious organization. At that time the ordained clergy members could legally perform marriages, etc. TWH: Within the BHU community, is there a specific process by which an individual members UPG (unverified person gnosis) becomes VPG (verified personal gnosis) for the group? JB: No, it is our general view that VPG is something which is granted either by being something that can be found to be grounded in the historically accepted lore or through being maintained and confirmed through generations and generations of belief and use. BHU also does not maintain any non-historical, universal dogma for its members. Instead, each hearth freely practices religion as their own hierophany compels them to, but when we come together to practice, we do so in a way that represents our best understanding of the historical sources. In this way we as a group accept that the historical lore supersedes our individual hierophany when we are in group activities. In other words, we believe that no one should push their UPG on anyone else as fact, no matter how firmly they may believe it individually. Instead, we mutually agree that the lore is the foundation we can agree on, and so it forms the core of our group ritual. Individual ritual is an individual matter. ER: We do have a safe space for sharing and discussing UPG. The goal there is to find common shared UPG or SPG (shared personal gnosis), and then the community can help research and verify it per the lore, if possible, as VPG. TWH: The BHU Facebook page says We operate under Declaration 127. Racism, misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia/transphobia, etc., will not be tolerated. Declaration 127 (D127) itself is squarely and solely focused on the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA). Re-reading it now, the language is really clear; its all about breaking off ties with the AFA. The key line is, The AFAs views do not represent our communities. We hereby declare that we do not condone hatred or discrimination carried out in the name of our religion, and will no longer associate with those who do. Do your policies specifically forbid BHU members from associating with AFA members? J: We have a non-discrimination policy in place in BHU, so I doubt that an AFA member would want to agree to our policy and join our organization. JB: Our non-discrimination policy would preclude membership of an individual in any other known bigoted or discriminatory group from being a member. ER: We dont name AFA specifically, but being affiliated with groups like them would raise red flags and we do not see too many of their associates apply for membership. CG: No, theres no specific policy that we have on the books which outlaws association with AFA members. We dont allow AFA members into our group, but its not our responsibility or wish to police our members friends. How would we enforce that, honestly? Keep tabs on everyone? Scrutinize their visible communications on social media? That sounds like some 1984 garbage that would need to witch hunts. TWH: Given that D127 was written in 2016 and only focuses on one organization, do you think its time for Heathens of positive intent to make a larger public statement against racist versions of Asatru and Heathenry? J: Definitely so. We currently are in a time when there is a distinctly unpleasant resurgence of white supremacy in the U.S. I believe all people of goodwill should do what they can to counter racism where it raises its ugly head. Its particularly important for Heathens to do so, because the bad guys so often get conflated in the media with Heathens of good intent and practice. We also feel that it is important to resist other forms of discrimination, such as discrimination against women and members of the LGBTQIA community. JB: Yes. Heathenry, sadly, has a lot of negative history to overcome. Bigots give us a bad name and we must work very hard to ensure we are not lumped in with them. ER: Yes, several members of BHU would love to offer suggestions on making D127 even stronger. CG: Most definitely. I cant express how many times Ive had to explain that, no, I dont wear a Mjolnir pendant because Im a white supremacist. I wear it because I worship the old gods of the Norse people. I suppose it doesnt help that I have tattoos, long hair, and almost exclusively listen to black metal, though. Ha! TWH: In her book American Heathens, sociologist Jennifer Snook writes about the success of the tribal model of Heathenry over the steady, grinding bureaucracy of the national organizations, arguing that Mark Stinsons Lightning Across the Plains last held in 2014 shows a way forward centered on tribalism. Do you consider the BHU to be built on a tribal concept? J: Thats a tricky question, because the word tribal has so many connotations, not all of which are positive. Id say we are a close-knit group that shares common values and a desire to practice Heathenry in a positive, supportive environment. JB: I personally disagree with the terms tribal and tribalism, because they can be used as a cover so easily for negative behavior. We mutually gathered together and opted to create a much more democratic model for our organization. Were also so diverse, it is very difficult to see us all as one tribe. We have new Heathens and old Heathens. We have reconstructionists and non-reconstructionists. We have plain vanilla heathens and syncretic heathens who hold faith with multiple pantheons. We have Heathens in several flavors: Norse, Icelandic, continental-Germanic, Slavic, and Anglo-Saxon. We have Heathens that are also exploring Sami, Finnish, and Baltic Heathenry. If were a tribe, were the most heterogeneous tribe that I have ever heard of. We are totally cool with that, because, on a whole, we have a mutual understanding of what is group and what is individual. CG: No, I dont feel that BHU is built on a tribal concept. I think that, if it was, we as de facto leaders of the organization would have far fewer headaches and fewer members. We built this on a democratic model in order to keep one or two individuals from grabbing the reins and steering it into dangerous cult territory. No konungr, no jarl, no delusions of grandeur, no one person telling the group, This is how its going to be, Bjrn. Its my way or the highway. TWH: What makes joining BHU different from being in a local kindred on one hand and a national organization on the other? J: Were more open to new people than some local kindreds. At the same time, being local, we can be more personal and relational than is possible in a national organization. I like national organizations for their wide network of contacts and for the resources they can provide. JB: We intend ourselves to be a local group. We have members out of state and out of the country, but our main center is located in a few hours radius of each other. Many of us are close enough to meet up with each other a couple of times a month. We just want to build the best local community we can for each other, support each other, and worship together. CG: Were maybe a bit more structured than a local kindred but smaller and less resource-rich than a national organization. We do what we can with what we have, but were damned organized while doing it. TWH: What do you think is the future of American Heathenry? National orgs, local groups, tribalism, or something else entirely? J: I expect to see all of the above. Other religions are successful with a diversity of organizations, so why not Heathenry? JB: I agree with Jenn. There is not one way forward. There are many paths forward. ER: The gods children are waking up all over, and soon their names will be on everyones lips. I see Heathenry growing at all levels. Local tribes, kindreds, unions whatever you want to call them will be very important to the survival of Heathenry, because you cant beat having those face-to-face relationships with fellow like-minded individuals. CG: Maybe more national organizations, but I think many more smaller local groups, tribes, kindreds, what have you. TWH: What do you want BHU to look like ten years from now? J: We would like to have a thriving, diverse, close-knit community with ties to similar Heathen communities. JB: Us, but older. ER: Celebrating the ten-year anniversary of answering this question! But seriously, we have long-term goals of obtaining a property to call home base for our functions. We will be a 501(c)(3) serving the local Heathen community. We will continue to be transparent and community-led. I see us emerging as thought leaders for Heathenry as we craft a working and thriving model through trial and error. CG: Definitely us, but older. Our children. Maybe some of our children will have children. TWH: What else do you want people to know about BHU that I didnt ask? CG: Jenn makes some bomb-ass baklava that she usually brings to Yule. Were a pretty friendly bunch and we love new folks. The views and opinions expressed by our diverse panel of columnists and guest writers represent the many diverging perspectives held within the global Pagan, Heathen and polytheist communities, but do not necessarily reflect the views of The Wild Hunt Inc. or its management. She believes Iowa law is clear that voters have 29 days to return their absentee ballots. The absentee ballot alerts you to the fact that you cant count on a postmark, so you need to get that in a timely fashion, she said. Not only did the 29 disputed ballots not have postmarks, they didnt have whats called an intelligent bar code. Thats a bar code applied by the county auditor to track the ballot through the mail. Only seven of Iowas county auditors use those bar codes none of them in District 55, which includes all or parts of Winneshiek, Fayette and Clayton counties. Republicans insist it is not the same as a bar code the postal service sometimes puts on mail. But based on the postal bar code not a bar code from the auditor the postal service found the 29 disputed ballots were indeed in the mail before the deadline. Thats good enough for House Democrats. Rep. Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, who served on the House committee that heard Koethers challenge, called the process a kangaroo court a total sham. Theyre denying 29 voters their right, Kressig told the crowd. Danielson said he had gone through a recount process himself in 2008 and won by 22 votes. I want to say on record (Iowa Secretary of State) Paul Pate is using my testimony in the Senate debate about the bar code voluntary procedure that we allow county auditors to use, and that was a compromise, Danielson said. He objected to the testimony being used because he argued the postal service could not guarantee the postmark and the postmark requirement should be removed from the law. The law is flawed and needs to be changed completely, he said. Those votes should count. The group was also asked about proposed changes to the Iowa judicial nomination process. Presently, Iowa judges are selected by a merit-based process written into the state Constitution. A nominating commission interviews and considers candidates, then provides a list of recommendations to the governor, who appoints one of the finalists to the bench. Some Republicans have proposed a change in the system to give the governor more power in the process. WATERLOO A Waterloo sex offender who disappeared from probation while serving time for failing to register has been arrested. Black Hawk County Sheriffs deputies arrested Bradley William Ritter, 32, on Tuesday for voluntary absence and a new charge of failure to register. His bond was set at $7,500. Ritter is required to register as a sex offender because of a second-degree sexual abuse adjudication in Benton County for having sexual contact with a girl in 2000 when he was 13. Since then, he has been arrested several times for failure to register, and the latest charge landed him prison until August 2018 when he was moved to the Waterloo Residential Correctional Facility for work release. On Nov. 5, he left for his job at a downtown bar at never returned to the facility. He remained at large until Dec. 19 when he turned himself in to Delaware County authorities, according to court records. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Youve got the fallen Statue of Liberty over here, and the idea was to make it a post-apocalyptic rendition of New York City, Rich Eighme said. There is also a mini Times Square. The robot base is a fighter hovercraft elevated at one end of the course, and the humans have a fortified subway car at the other end for their base. When you attack the base, if you dont attack it enough to shut it down, it will actually fire upon you, Rich Eighme said. There are also mini targets in other areas that players can tag for extra points and an interactive robot figure guarding the path to the machines base. If you dont hit him enough to take him out, he will attack you back, Rich Eighme said. Most laser tag arenas have never done something like this. Rich Eighme said the setting was chosen because the fantasy element is a step back from concerns about real-world gun violence. We were conscious from the standpoint, we have the same concerns about society right now, and we are hoping this is more of an immersion into the theme, and it is very fantasy instead of very realistic, Rich Eighme said. US tech giant Apple has released the first beta of the companys upcoming macOS Mojave 10.14.4 update to the developer community. The new beta release is a follow up of the previous macOS update, which was released to the public a few days ago. That previous update focused more on bug fixes and other improvements. According to the Cupertino-based tech company, the latest update can be downloaded through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences. However, Apple users will need to install first the proper profile from Apples Developer Center before they can download the latest macOS 10.14.4 update. About the latest macOS update Until now, it still not clear about what kind of improvements the new update will bring. But some IT experts believe that the new update will likely introduce important bug fixes that werent previously addressed in the recent macOS 10.14.3 update. The Apple-focused website, Mac Rumors, has managed to get some important details about this new update. The website has learned that the new macOS Mojave 10.14.4 update will introduce Apple News in Canada. It will also include support for automatic dark mode themes in Apples Safari browser. The dark mode features will allow a user to visit a website that's also in dark mode. In addition, the new update is also expected to add some improvements. Apple creates a new film for Chinese New Year The tech giant has released a new Chinese New Year-themed "Shot on iPhone" film, which features a family wrapping up their Chinese New Year celebrations. Created by Jia Zhangke, the newly released film uses iPhone techniques like Depth Control and so-mo. Apple also added two additional behind-the-scenes tutorial style videos on the film, according to The Apple Post. The "Shot on iPhone" film features the ending line: The taste of home will always bring us back. The other uploaded videos use the tagline, Capture the taste of home this Chinese New Year with iPhone, The Apple Post reported. The film, which has been released ahead of the February 5 New Year celebration, was shared with the public to encourage sales of the companys core mobile products, iPhone during the big Chinese holiday celebration. Apple is currently facing increased competition from low-cost smartphone makers, which includes the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo. Last year, the company has decided to drop the price of its iPhone XR and other iPhone products to compete more effectively in the Chinese market. The sudden drop in price will allow Apples channel partners and third-party vendors to acquire iPhones more cheaply and then sell them to their customers. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. Michael Gathy Wins Aussie Millions Event #7: A$2,500 8 Game for A$58,590 January 26 2019 Will Shillibier Michael Gathy has won the A$2,500 8 Game for A$58,590, only one day after fellow Belgian Bart Lybaert took down the Six Max. Gathy saw off a field of 94 players to take home his first Aussie Millions ring. Meanwhile, Oliver Gill would have to settle for second place, but adds another incredible 8 Game result here to his Aussie Millions poker resume. Gill finished fifth in 2013, fourth in 2016, second in 2017 and was the champion of this event in 2015. Aussie Millions Event #7: A$2,500 8 Game Final Table Results: Place Name Country Payout (AUD) Payout (USD) 1 Michael Gathy Belgium $58,590 $42,185 2 Oliver Gill Australia $39,760 $28,627 3 Timothy Marsters Australia $26,155 $18,832 4 David Munday Australia $19,355 $13,936 5 Benny Glaser United Kingdom $14,125 $10,170 6 Sal Ribbera Australia $11,510 $8,287 7 Dale Townsend Australia $9,415 $6,779 Aussie Millions Event #7 Final Day's Action With eight players starting the final day's play, Dean Francis was eliminated in eighth place. Earlier this month he finished tenth in the Pot Limit Omaha event, and he would again miss out on the final table, taking home A$9,415 for his efforts. At this point, Benny Glaser was the chip leader, with Michael Gathy not far behind him. Dale Townsend recorded his first Aussie Millions cash since 2016 finishing in seventh for A$9,415, before start-of-day chip leader Glaser bust in fifth, matching the result he achieved in the 8 Game Event last year. This is his second cash of the festival after finishing ninth in the Six Max. Glaser takes home A$14,125. Finishing in fourth place was David Munday who recorded the biggest cash of his career since 2005. Munday cashed for A$19,355. Gathy Closes it Out Three-handed it was Gathy who led the way with over 1.1 million chips, Timothy Marsters in second place with 425,000 and Gill bringing up the rear with 302,000. However, it was Marsters who would be eliminated in third, mirroring his result in the H.O.R.S.E. event earlier this festival. He cashed for A$26,155 bringing his total cashes for the 2019 Aussie Millions to over A$50,000. Gathy held the chip lead heads-up and kept it until securing victory over Gill. This is the second-biggest Aussie Millions cash of his career after finishing tenth in last year's A$25,000 Challenge. This year's A$25,000 Challenge starts on Friday, with live reporting right here on PokerNews, so make sure to come on back for updates. Zimbabwean activist Evan Mawarire has applied for bail following charges accusing him of trying to subvert the government and inciting public violence with videos posted on social media supporting a ... Prosecutor Mirirai Shumba told the High Court in Harare that the long sentence he faces if convicted would be an inducement for him to flee, according to the AFP news agency. Mawarires lawyer Tonderai Bhatasara argued that there was no propensity or likelihood of him absconding. Judge Tawanda Chitapi told the court he would deliver his verdict on the bail application on Tuesday, AFP reported. Protests in Zimbabwe erupted last week after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a hike in fuel prices, doubling the cost of petrol in a country which has regularly suffered fuel, food and medicine shortages. Angry protesters took to the streets in several towns and cities across the country with widespread looting and rioting. The ensuing crackdown by security forces led to at least 12 people being killed, while more than 1,100 people were arrested including trade unionists and members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party. Mawarire led the #ThisFlag movement in 2016 with demonstrations against then-president Robert Mugabe. He had posted videos on social media wearing a Zimbabwean flag around his neck and criticised the government. He was arrested on subversion charges, but later freed on bail and found not guilty. Zimbabwean activist Evan Mawarire has applied for bail following charges accusing him of trying to subvert the government and inciting public violence with videos posted on social media supporting a ... Prosecutor Mirirai Shumba told the High Court in Harare that the long sentence he faces if convicted would be an inducement for him to flee, according to the AFP news agency. Mawarires lawyer Tonderai Bhatasara argued that there was no propensity or likelihood of him absconding. Judge Tawanda Chitapi told the court he would deliver his verdict on the bail application on Tuesday, AFP reported. Protests in Zimbabwe erupted last week after President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced a hike in fuel prices, doubling the cost of petrol in a country which has regularly suffered fuel, food and medicine shortages. Angry protesters took to the streets in several towns and cities across the country with widespread looting and rioting. The ensuing crackdown by security forces led to at least 12 people being killed, while more than 1,100 people were arrested including trade unionists and members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party. Mawarire led the #ThisFlag movement in 2016 with demonstrations against then-president Robert Mugabe. He had posted videos on social media wearing a Zimbabwean flag around his neck and criticised the government. He was arrested on subversion charges, but later freed on bail and found not guilty. The UK Government has been urged to ensure the rights of people in Northern Ireland are enshrined before Brexit. A university professor has accused the Democratic Unionist Party of running around Europe attempting to self-harm Northern Ireland. Colin Harvey, professor of human rights law at Queens University Belfast School of Law, also called for the British Government to ensure the rights of people living in Northern Ireland are enshrined before the UK leaves the EU. There is a lack of clarity and certainty. We need rights codified and enshrined in law, he said. We do not need warm words about the Common Travel Area. We need it written down and formalised. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. The professor was speaking at the Beyond Brexit event in Belfast which examined what Northern Ireland would look like post-Brexit. He said: We acknowledge the special arrangements in the Withdrawal Agreement and the majority of people here want to see the (backstop) protocol as a medicating factor for the terrible situation we are in. We are beyond the stage of warm words. There are things the British Government can do get on and do it. We are being told that we cannot talk about the Good Friday Agreement mechanism for permanently getting rid of the hard border on this island. We will not be seeking permission from anyone to talk about the unity of our country. Professor Harvey also defended the events organisers for not inviting Unionists to speak at the conference at Belfasts Waterfront Hall. Let me absolutely clear, we apologise to no-one for being here today and having the conversation about the rights of Irish citizens, he said. I make no apology for being with you today. The Beyond Brexit gathering in Belfast is the latest initiative by Irelands Future a collective of Irish citizens living in the region seeking to highlight the potential impact of Brexit on their rights and livelihoods. Political commentator Brian Feeney told the audience that Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland have been left behind by the Irish Government. Story continues Mr Feeney, who was one of a number of panellists speaking at the event, also accused the British Government of being in contravention of the Good Friday Agreement. He explained: Their default position is: if you are living in the North, you are a British citizen and there is nothing you can do about it. They say an international treaty has no constitutional position in Her Majesty Governments law. We hear all these promises (from the Irish government), we are told: You wont be left behind, we are totally committed to this warm words. Thats all we get. Journalist Paul Gosling said that he has been left appalled by people in England who he claimed do not care about the border. The rise of English nationalism is what drove Brexit. It represents a challenge and a threat to democracy, he added. He also said he could not support a border poll at the present time. We have to think and plan. We could have a defeat in the South which could put us back many years, he continued. The prospect of united Ireland is reasonable. By Abdul Qadir Sediqi, Jibran Ahmad and Rupam Jain KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban officials said U.S. negotiators on Saturday agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, potentially ending the United States' longest war. The details of the draft were given to Reuters by Taliban sources at the end of six days of talks with U.S. special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Qatar aimed at ending the war, more than 17 years since American-led forces invaded Afghanistan. It stipulates that troops would leave within 18 months of the agreement being signed. While no joint statement was issued, Khalilzad tweeted later that the talks had made "significant progress" and would resume shortly, adding that he planned to travel to Afghanistan to meet government officials. "Meetings here (in Qatar) were more productive than they have been in the past. We have made significant progress on vital issues," he wrote, adding that numerous issues still needed work. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and everything must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire," he wrote in the tweets. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday wrote on Twitter that he had received "encouraging news" from Khalilzad about the talks. "The U.S. is serious about pursuing peace, preventing #Afghanistan from continuing to be a space for international terrorism & bringing forces home," Pompeo tweeted. He did not give a timetable for the potential withdrawal of U.S. forces. A Taliban statement issued later also noted progress on troop withdrawal and other issues but said more negotiations and internal consultations were required. "The policy of the Islamic Emirate during talks was very clear -- until the issue of withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan is agreed upon, progress in other issues is impossible," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, using another name the group calls itself. Story continues It was not clear whether the draft described by the Taliban sources was acceptable to both sides or when it could be completed and signed. MAIN ENEMY According to the sources, the hard-line Islamic group gave assurances that Afghanistan will not be allowed to be used by al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants to attack the United States and its allies -- a key early demand of Washington. They said the deal included a ceasefire provision but they had yet to confirm a timeline and would only open talks with Afghan representatives once a truce was implemented. Up until now, the Taliban has repeatedly rejected the Afghan government's offer of holding talks, preferring instead to talk directly to the U.S. side, which it regards as its main enemy. "In 18 months, if the foreign forces are withdrawn and ceasefire is implemented, then other aspects of the peace process can be put into action," a Taliban source said, quoting from a portion of the draft. More talks on the draft are expected in February, again in the Qatari capital Doha, the Taliban sources said. They expect their side to be led by new political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the movement's co-founder and a former military commander who was released from prison in Pakistan last year. While they said his appointment had boosted momentum for a deal, it was unclear if he had joined the talks. NEAR-DAILY ATTACKS News of progress on a deal comes as the Taliban continues to stage near-daily attacks against the Western-backed Afghan government and its security forces. Despite the presence of U.S.-led foreign forces training, advising and assisting their Afghan counterparts 17 years after the U.S.-led an invasion to drive them from power, the Taliban controls nearly half of Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said last week that 45,000 members of the country's security forces had been killed since he took office in 2014. The United States has some 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led mission, known as Resolute Support, as well as a U.S. counterterrorism mission directed at groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Despite reports last month that the United States was considering pulling out almost half of its forces, a White House spokesman said U.S. President Donald Trump had not issued orders to withdraw the troops. However, the administration has not denied the reports, which have prompted fears of a fresh refugee crisis. The Taliban sources said other clauses in the draft include an agreement over the exchange and release of prisoners, the removal of an international travel ban on several Taliban leaders by Washington and the prospect of an interim Afghan government after the ceasefire is struck. The suggestion to appoint an interim government in Afghanistan comes as top politicians including Ghani have filed their nominations for the presidential polls in July. Ghani has repeatedly rejected the offer to agree to the formation of an interim government. The Taliban sources also confirmed provisions in the draft that have broader implications for Afghanistan's ties with its neighbors, particularly Pakistan, India and China. They said the deal included provisions that separatist militants from Balochistan, a resource-rich southwestern Pakistani province, will not be allowed to use Afghan soil to target Pakistan. (Additional reporting by David Shepardson and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by Greg Torode; Editing by William Maclean, Helen Popper and Jonathan Oatis) The couple have travelled 41 countries in two years. [Photo: Instagram/@fourhappyfeet] Sangam Bhandari and his wife Shikha Neupane, both 28, travel to a different country most weekends. The pair, who both work full-time and earn around 50K annually, have visited 40 countries in the past two years. While many may puzzle over how the couple manage to maintain this globetrotter lifestyle, Sangam insists its all to do with budgeting and meticulous planning around their work schedules. We fly out after work on Friday, mostly around 6pm and get to our destination for around 8ish, just in time to relax and have dinner, explains Sangam, who lives with his wife in Kent, to Yahoo Style UK. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. We then set two full days to explore that place and then head back to London on Sunday night, and go back to work on Monday. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. As for costs, the pair spend an average of 300 between them on their trips away, which generally take place over a weekend. Their cheapest trip was a weekend in Barcelona, which cost the couple just 100 each. They have also taken long-haul trips to places such as Australia, Thailand and Vietnam and will splash out for these more long-distance trips. Our upcoming trip to Maldives next month probably is going to be the most expensive one. The sea plane alone from Male airport to the hotel is going to cost us around 400 per person for a 30 minute flight, says Sangam. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here to do so. The pair say they budget 1500 for travel each month. Purchasing the flights and booking hotels in advance always saves us the money. We also use credit card with no transaction fees while abroad. Every little thing adds up. This is the full list of countries visited by Sangham and Shikha in two years: 1 Destinations around the UK 2 Andorra 3 Austria 4 Belgium 5 Bulgaria 6 Croatia 7 Cyprus 8 Czech Republic 9 Denmark 10 France 11 Germany 12 Greece 13 Hungary 14 Iceland 15 Italy 16 Liechtenstein 17 Luxembourg 18 Malta 19 Monaco 20 Netherlands 21 Norway 22 Poland 23 Portugal 24 Romania 25 San Marino 26 Slovakia 27 Slovenia 28 Spain 29 Sweden 30 Switzerland 31 Vatican City 32 India Story continues 33 Indonesia 34 Malaysia 35 Nepal 36 Singapore 37 Thailand 38 Vietnam 39 USA 40 Australia Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK. Read more from Yahoo Style UK: Britains best holiday getaways for 2019 The future of flying: From standing seats to a 3.5 hour flight from London to NYC, whats next for airlines? Sun-soaked destinations to curb your winter blues Thousands of demonstrators known as foulards rouges or Red Scarves are to march in Paris on Sunday to call for an end to violence at Yellow Vest protests. Alarmed by images of people being attacked by Yellow Vest protesters during the first weekend of nationwide demonstrations in November, John Christophe Werner decided to take action. On 26 November he took to his computer at his home in Vaucluse, southern France, and set up a Facebook page. Today the Red Scarves of France has over 21,000 followers, most of whom agree that Yellow Vest protests are disrupting daily life. People are tired of the roadblocks. They are bad for business, and children are prevented from getting to school on time, Red Scarves spokesperson Alex Brun tells RFI by telephone from Montpellier in the south of France. Roadblocks have been an integral part of the Yellow Vest, or gilets jaunes, protest strategy. Ten people have been killed since the demonstrations began, most of them in accidents at or near roadblocks. Red Scarves split The Red Scarves movement soon spread geographically and has taken root in Bordeaux, Brittany, Lyon and many more small towns across France. The groups leadership has split. Laurent Soulie has proclaimed himself spokesman of a breakaway group of The Red Scarves, and in early January he rallied supporters on Facebook to sign up for a march in support of President Emmanuel Macron. This provoked the wrath of the Yellow Vests and some within the Red Scarves of France who slammed Soulie for supporting Frances embattled president. The Red Scarves is an apolitical citizen movement, Brun, the spokesperson for the Foulards Rouges explains. Members of Macrons government were quick to applaude Soulies faction of the Red Scarves for organising a march in support of the French Republic. Chief among them was the education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer who on 16 January told parliament: theres a need to show that the national spirit is alive, in reference to the Red Scarves. To go or not to go? As concerns began to grow over possible violent clashes between Red Scarves and Yellow Vests, members of the ruling Republic On the Move party said they would not attend Sundays march. As criticism mounted Soulie backtracked and renamed the march Marche republicaine des liberte or national freedom march. Ten thousand people have signed up, many of whom are expected to march from Place de la Nation to Place de la Bastille in Paris. But founding members of the Red Scarves of France are calling on their followers not to attend. We feel that the Great Debate launched by President Macron is the best way to resolve problems caused by the Yellow Vests, rather than confronting them on the street, Brun says. For the past week since launching the Great Debate President Macron has been zigzagging across France to meet with mayors in an attempt to address the grievances of the Yellow Vests and their sympathisers. Thousands of demonstrators known as foulards rouges or Red Scarves are to march in Paris on Sunday to call for an end to violence at Yellow Vest protests. Alarmed by images of people being attacked by Yellow Vest protesters during the first weekend of nationwide demonstrations in November, John Christophe Werner decided to take action. On 26 November he took to his computer at his home in Vaucluse, southern France, and set up a Facebook page. Today the Red Scarves of France has over 21,000 followers, most of whom agree that Yellow Vest protests are disrupting daily life. People are tired of the roadblocks. They are bad for business, and children are prevented from getting to school on time, Red Scarves spokesperson Alex Brun tells RFI by telephone from Montpellier in the south of France. Roadblocks have been an integral part of the Yellow Vest, or gilets jaunes, protest strategy. Ten people have been killed since the demonstrations began, most of them in accidents at or near roadblocks. Red Scarves split The Red Scarves movement soon spread geographically and has taken root in Bordeaux, Brittany, Lyon and many more small towns across France. The groups leadership has split. Laurent Soulie has proclaimed himself spokesman of a breakaway group of The Red Scarves, and in early January he rallied supporters on Facebook to sign up for a march in support of President Emmanuel Macron. This provoked the wrath of the Yellow Vests and some within the Red Scarves of France who slammed Soulie for supporting Frances embattled president. The Red Scarves is an apolitical citizen movement, Brun, the spokesperson for the Foulards Rouges explains. Members of Macrons government were quick to applaude Soulies faction of the Red Scarves for organising a march in support of the French Republic. Chief among them was the education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer who on 16 January told parliament: theres a need to show that the national spirit is alive, in reference to the Red Scarves. Story continues To go or not to go? As concerns began to grow over possible violent clashes between Red Scarves and Yellow Vests, members of the ruling Republic On the Move party said they would not attend Sundays march. As criticism mounted Soulie backtracked and renamed the march Marche republicaine des liberte or national freedom march. Ten thousand people have signed up, many of whom are expected to march from Place de la Nation to Place de la Bastille in Paris. But founding members of the Red Scarves of France are calling on their followers not to attend. We feel that the Great Debate launched by President Macron is the best way to resolve problems caused by the Yellow Vests, rather than confronting them on the street, Brun says. For the past week since launching the Great Debate President Macron has been zigzagging across France to meet with mayors in an attempt to address the grievances of the Yellow Vests and their sympathisers. PRAGUE (Reuters) - European Union countries should coordinate their approach to cyber security, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Friday after meeting the chairman of Huawei Technologies in Davos, according to news agency CTK. Huawei faces growing scrutiny over its ties with the Chinese government and allegations that Beijing could use its technology for spying. It denies those allegations. Czech state and private institutions are analysing risks after the country's national cyber-security watchdog, NUKIB, warned about potential dangers in using technology from Huawei and another Chinese firm, ZTE. Their products have so far not been banned or excluded from planned upgrades of mobile networks to the next-generation 5G technology in the Czech Republic. "It is necessary to start debate on cyber security on the level of all EU member states, because this is a global issue," CTK quoted Babis as saying after meeting Ken Hu, Huawei's rotating chairman. Babis said security audits of risks have been started based on the December NUKIB warning, which he said critical infrastructure operators must follow under the law. Europe has become a battleground in a struggle between Beijing and Washington that analysts say could determine which of them achieves technological supremacy in the 21st century. Huawei is playing a leading role as the telecoms world gears up for 5G, the next-generation wireless technology that promises to link everything from vehicles to household devices at far faster speeds. But some Western countries, including the United States and Australia, have barred Huawei after U.S. officials said the company is close to the Chinese state and its equipment may contain "back doors" that could open them up to cyber espionage. Germany is considering stricter security requirements for 5G that would exclude Huawei, the newspaper Handelsblatt reported last week. Poland is also set to exclude Huawei from its 5G network in favour of European vendors after a Huawei employee was arrested on suspicion of spying, sources said. In the Czech Republic, Huawei has been publicly backed by President Milos Zeman, who has long promoted close cooperation with China. (Reporting by Jan Lopatka; editing by Michael Kahn, Larry King) FILE PHOTO: Tourists stand atop of the Sydney Harbour Bridge next to flag poles flying the New South Wales state and Australian national flags in Sydney, Australia, November 13, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray By James Redmayne SYDNEY (Reuters) - Thousands of Australians are expected to protest on Saturday as a national holiday intended to celebrate the birth of modern Australia divides the country. Australia Day on Jan. 26 marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the "First Fleet" to Sydney Cove, carrying mainly convicts and troops from Britain. For many indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years, it is "Invasion Day", the start of Britain's colonisation of aboriginal lands and their brutal subjugation. "Celebrating Australia Day on January 26th is offensive," said Joe Williams, a mental health worker and former professional rugby league player. "To celebrate an invasion which has seen our people dispossessed, displaced and oppressed for some 230 years, is plain offensive," he told Reuters Television. Australia's 700,000 or so indigenous people track near the bottom of its 25 million citizens in almost every economic and social indicator. While opinion polls suggest up to half the country supports changing Australia Day, the conservative government is under pressure to legally entrench Jan. 26 as a national holiday. "We should keep the 26th of January as a special day in our calendar," said Nick Folkes, a painter from Sydney and founder of the Party for Freedom, an anti-immigration and anti-Muslim far-right group. "It means respect and acknowledgement of the sacrifices made by explorers, settlers, our convicts," he added. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government, which faces a general election due in May, opposes any change and has moved to shore up support for the holiday. This month it ordered local councils to hold induction ceremonies for new citizens on Australia Day and the Australian Citizenship Day holiday on Sept. 17, or have their authorization revoked. Morrison has also pledged nearly A$7 million ($4.9 million/3.7 million))for a replica of explorer James Cook's HMS Endeavour, the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia in 1770. Story continues The replica ship will circumnavigate Australia next year to mark the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's voyage. Opposition leader Bill Shorten has criticized Morrison for spending taxpayer's money on a "bizarre Captain Cook fetish," but the prime minister said it will unify Australians. "I believe it will be a voyage of bringing Australians together," Morrison said in Cairns this month. "I'm keen for it to be done very much in that spirit." (Reporting by James Redmayne in Sydney; Writing by Colin Packham; Editing by Darren Schuettler) How can I help you? is the default position of the very expedient Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) who becomes the new medical director at Americas oldest public hospital, New Amsterdam. This New York hospital is bustling with staff and patients and breaking at the seams, but Max has an unconventional way of fixing things: he fires the entire cardio surgery department, accusing them of over-billing. It gets him the attention that he means business. Max intends to cut through red tape and hospital administration, insisting Lets help as many as we can before the figure us out. But it also sees him collide with those around him including the sultry chief of oncology, Dr. Helen Sharpe (Frema Agyeman) who seems more interested in appearances on Ellen & Oprah than her job. Then there is his wife, who is due to give birth in 12 weeks, and who sees very little of her workaholic husband. Being a medical drama there are more than a few patient subplots here to keep things moving, including the Liberian teenager who may just have the ebola virus, a mother who is resuscitated after being declared dead and a foster care girl who has been abused at home. The ensemble sees these cases handled by Dr. Lauren Bloom (Janet Montgomery), who is pursuing a reluctant Dr. Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) and psychiatrist Dr. Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine). The series by David Schulner is based on a book Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer and at its best, in the hands of Aussie director Kate Dennis, it manages to juxtapose personal dilemmas with the professional. There is a fleeting reference too to the cruelties of Trumps border policy. Ryan Eggold from The Blacklist amply fits the heroic male lead (and looking a lot like Matthew Fox), but he is so rapid-fire with some of his dialogue youd almost welcome subtitles. Its a pleasure to see Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who) back on screen, while Janet Montgomery will win fans early on. No question this is a crowded genre where the likes of ER and Greys Anatomy stand tall, but New Amsterdam arrives with confidence without overdoing the melodrama that usually accompanies such tales. Worth a look. New Amsterdam airs 9pm Wednesday on Nine. Related Two metric tons of elephant tusks and pangolin scales were seized by customs officers in Hai Phong City in northern Vietnam as they inspected a suspicious container from Africa on Friday. The container arrived at the Tan Vu Lach Huyen Port in Hai Phong on January 18, declared as a shipment of logs originating from Nigeria. The automatic customs clearance system sorted the shipment into the red channel, which requires additional screening using a cargo scanner. The container was transported to a cargo scanning center in Hai Phong, where customs officers found it suspicious and decided to conduct a thorough manual inspection into the content. After removing two layers of logs used as distraction, officers found six wooden crates containing over half a metric ton of elephant tusks and more than 1.5 metric tons of pangolin scales. It was the largest single seizure of smuggled elephant tusks and pangolin scales in Hai Phong in years, according to local authorities. Trading of the animal parts are illegal in Vietnam, which is a signatory of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild (CITES). The crime carries a prison term of up to 12 years according to Vietnamese laws. Elephant tusks and pangolin scales seized by customs officers in Hai Phong City, Vietnam. Photo: Thai Binh / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Two men carrying electrified harpoon guns had attempted to steal a dog by tasering the animal before threatening its owner with their weapon as he tried to intervene, in another shocking case of armed dog theft in Ho Chi Minh City. The incident happened at around 5:00 am on Friday on a residential alley in Thu Duc District, Ho Chi Minh City, according to the 43-year-old dog owner. The owner told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper he had just let his two dogs outside for a morning walk when he heard suspicious revving sounds coming from the front of his house. Looking outside, he saw two men on a motorbike approaching his pets, as the man on the back pointed a harpoon gun at one of the canines and shot it, in an apparent attempt to steal the animal. The owner shouted dog thieves! to alert his neighbors and rushed outside to prevent the men from taking his paralyzed dog, but was held at gunpoint by the armed thief, who threatened to shoot. The thieves got away without taking any dog, and the entire scene was captured by a surveillance camera installed at the site. The tasered dog is recovering but remains in poor health after the attack, according to its owner. Dog theft has been rampant in the neighborhood as another resident living on the same alley also reported that their dog had been stolen on the same morning. A dog thief threatens a house owner with a harpoon gun in this still photo taken from the surveillance footage of a dog theft in Thu Duc District, Ho Chi Minh City on January 25, 2019. Stealing dogs for their meat is a condemned yet prevalent crime in Vietnam, where dog thieves are often on the receiving end of violent beatings, sometimes resulting in death, after being caught by locals. In June 2017, a similar case of shocking dog theft was reported in Ho Chi Minh City, when thieves armed with electrified harpoon guns were caught on CCTV trying to steal three dogs and threatening their owner. An estimated five million dogs are slaughtered for food every year in Vietnam, many of which are stolen family pets or illegally sourced from neighboring countries, according to 2015 statistics by the Asia Canine Protection Association. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Residents living in nearly 40 units at an apartment building in Ho Chi Minh City have been relocated to temporary accommodation after the structure was found tilting due to subsidence. The municipal Department of Transport has recently completed its inspection of Block E of the apartment complex at 518 Vo Van Kiet Street in District 1, concluding that the building has leaned 45 centimeters away from it original position. The Peoples Committee in District 1 had asked competent authorities to urgently relocate affected residents within Wednesday and Thursday to ensure their safety. As of Thursday afternoon, all 38 households were brought to their temporary homes in District 1, District 4, Binh Thanh District, and Binh Chanh District. The announcement came as a shock to us. I had to spent an entire night collecting all of my belongings, said Nguyen Thi Ngoc Huong, a 57-year-old resident. Residents move their belongings to their temporary homes. Photo: Phuoc Tuan / Tuoi Tre Huong runs a small grocery shop at her apartment with an average monthly income of VND10 million (US$430) and is afraid she might not be able to continue the business at a temporary apartment in District 4. The apartment is very spacious but it is not my home. I wont be able to prepare any decoration this Tet, she remarked, referring to the Lunar New Year holiday. Le My Tien, another affected resident who was moved to a different apartment complex in District 4, said she was unsure how to earn a living there. Local authorities said they has been paying all moving cost, adding that the affected residents do not have to pay any rental fee at their temporary homes. They, however, need to pay utility cost. A total of 50 kilograms of rice per person, along with other types of gifts, will also be provided to help the families enjoy this years Tet, which falls on February 5. According to Doan Ngoc Hai, deputy chairman of the districts administration, the block E of the apartment complex will be demolished. We will seek a suitable investor to rebuild it. The process will be funded by the citys budget in case there is no investor, Hai elaborated. Doan Ngoc Hai, deputy chairman of District 1s administration, talks to a resident of the apartment building. Photo: Phuoc Tuan / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Police in south-central Vietnam on Friday booked a driver for meth use after he tested positive with the opioid while he was behind the wheel of a long-haul sleeper bus carrying 40 passengers, as Vietnam elevates crackdown on substance abuse among drivers. The 34-year-old driver was operating a 45-seat sleeper bus on National Highway 1 heading in the Ho Chi Minh City-to-Hanoi direction when he was pulled over by police officers in the south-central province of Binh Thuan for a random drug test. A quick urine test showed the driver had been under the influence of meth, which he confessed to using on the job to stay awake on long trips. A driver holds his urine test after being stopped at a police checkpoint in Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam. Photo: Duc Trong / Tuoi Tre Meth, short for methamphetamine, is a potent central nervous system stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug, which is illegal in Vietnam. Officers booked the driver for drug use violation and had the vehicle towed away. A towed away sleeper bus is kept at a vehicle storage facility in Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam after its driver is booked for drug use violation. Photo: Khoa Nguyen / Tuoi Tre At the time of the incident, the sleeper bus was carrying 40 passengers, who were moved to another bus to continue their trip. On Thursday, another driver also tested positive with meth and heroin while driving a sleeper bus heading for Nghe An Province in north-central Vietnam. Police checkpoints have sprung up on key roads in Vietnam to conduct random drug and breath tests as the nation elevates crackdown on substance abuse among drivers following a series of deadly accidents involving drugged drivers in recent months. A month-long comprehensive inspection aimed at tackling driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and ensuring traffic safety is also being carried out in Ho Chi Minh City. An officer pulls a tractor trailer over at a police checkpoint in Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam. Photo: Duc Trong / Tuoi Tre Drivers of long-haul passenger buses and cargo trucks in Vietnam are known to abuse drugs to stay awake on long shifts. On Monday, a truck slammed into a group of cemetery goers in the northern province of Hai Duong, killing eight. The driver later tested positive for drugs after submitting himself to the police. On January 2, a driver under the influence of heroin and alcohol plowed his tractor trailer into a crowd of motorcyclists waiting at a red light in Long An Province in southern Vietnam, killing four. A police checkpoint is set up on National Highway 1 passing Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam. Photo: Duc Trong / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Here are todays leading news stories: Politics -- Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc left Davos, Switzerland, on Friday afternoon (local time), wrapping up his four-day visit to attend the annual conference of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2019. Society -- A helicopter of Vietnams Ministry of Defense carried a pregnant woman on Sinh Ton (Sin Cowe) Island, one of many islands in the Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago, who was in bad health condition, to the south-central province of Khanh Hoas Cam Ranh Airport for treatment at the provincial hospital on Thursday night. The flight was made one day before another ministrys helicopter carried a military officer suffering traumatic brain injury to emergency treatment at the Military Hospital 175 in Ho Chi Minh City. -- Part of Vietnams Lunar New Year travel rush began at Ho Chi Minh Citys Mien Dong (Eastern) Bus Station on Friday as people started to return homes in the central Vietnamese provinces, which require longer bus commute from the southern metropolis compared to Mekong Delta region-bound trips, to celebrate Tet, which falls early next month. -- Police of the northern Vietnamese city of Hai Phong on Friday detained 13 local people for their alleged involvement in an illegal online gambling ring. Business -- A high-speed passenger ship capable of traveling between Ho Chi Minh Citys Bach Dang Wharf and Con Dao Island off the southern province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau in five hours is planned for official operation in March, satisfying the demand for travel among local residents, as well as promoting sea-route tourism, after a test run on Friday. -- Supermarkets in Vietnam are offering shopping services via mobile applications with many discounts and promotions as a way to catch up with digital shopping trend, bringing convenience to customers and avoiding congestion at the brick-and-mortar outlets. -- Bangkok Airways first direct flight from Thailands capital city landed in Cam Ranh International Airport in Vietnams central province of Khanh Hoa on Friday afternoon. Lifestyle -- Themed activities including a charity fair, painting auction, and craftsman lessons are taking place at the beautifully decorated space of the Book Street (Nguyen Van Binh Street) in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City from January 25 to February 10 to welcome visitors in celebration of Tet. -- A flower festival scheduled to take place at the Half Moon Lake at the Phu My Hung residential area in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City from January 28 to February 4 will boast several kinds of flowers on a seven hectare venue, while offering visitors a number of Vietnams traditional musical arts such as on ca tai tu, Quan ho (Bac Ninh folk love duets), Hue folk singing and vi dam singing. Sports -- Thousands of supporters are expected to welcome Vietnams football team home at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi when the Golden Stars arrive at the airdrome from the UAE at 2:15 pm today, after their amazing run at the 2019 Asian Cup finished following a regrettable-but-proud knockout by Japan in quarterfinals. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! HHen Nie, the first Vietnamese woman to make it to the Top 5 of Miss Universe, jointed volunteers in an event in Hanoi on Friday to make a special gift for children in the remote northern mountainous region on the occasion of Lunar New Year. HHen and the students wrapped 1,000 banh chung (square glutinous rice cake), a delicacy to be eaten during the Lunar New Year (Tet), so needy kids in remote areas will be able to taste the specialty during the holiday that begins next month. Banh chung is the traditional rice cake for Tet in northern Vietnam, whereas people in the central and southern regions prefer banh tet, a glutinous rice cake in a log-like cylindrical shape. Wrapping banh chung is the major event of the charity program Tet chia se, Tet yeu thuong 2019 (Sharing Tet, loving Tet 2019), which is in its fifth edition this year. This years banh chung-wrapping event took place at Trinh Cong Son Walking Street in Hanoi on Friday with the special attendance of HHen Nie and local students. Local students join the banh chung-wrapping event in Hanoi on January 25, 2019. Photo: Nguyen Hien / Tuoi Tre H'Hen Nie was crowned Miss Universe Vietnam in 2017 and made it to the Top 5 finalist at the 2018 Miss Universe, the highest ever finish for a Vietnamese contestant, at the beauty pageant in Thailand last month. I feel very happy today because I have a chance to wrap banh chung for the first time, as people in my hometown only wrap banh tet on this ocassion, said HHen Nie while expressing her joy of attending the event. HHen Nie was born and grown up in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak, where the Tet delicacy is banh tet rather than banh chung. I feel its more special when wrapping banh chung not for me but for children in remote areas, the beauty queen added. With the event also attracting the participation of students in Hanoi, HHen said she is glad that these young people, who have apparently better conditions, could understand and show support to underprivileged children through this meaningful activity. HHen Nie holds a finished banh chung that she wraps at the event in Hanoi on January 25, 2019. Photo: Nguyen Hien / Tuoi Tre After being wrapped with dong leaves, the 1,000 banh chung would be cooked and delivered to children in Moc Chau and Van Ho Districts in the northern province of Son La. Besides the banh chung, several other gifts such as warm clothes, books, notebooks, and school supplies will be handed to the children by H'Hen Nie as a warm, loving gift for Tet, which begins on February 5. Below are some photos of HHen Nie taken during the event: HHen Nie takes a photo with children at the event in Hanoi on January 25, 2019. Photo: Nguyen Hien / Tuoi Tre HHen Nie and local students put their hands in for a cheer at the event in Hanoi on January 25, 2019. Photo: Nguyen Hien / Tuoi Tre HHen Nie takes a photo with children at the event in Hanoi on January 25, 2019. Photo: Nguyen Hien / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! With Tet (Lunar New Year), the biggest holiday in Vietnam, drawing near, students of a vocational training center for the disabled and orphans in Ho Chi Minh City have learned to make lively flowers from clay to earn a livelihood. During Tet, the most important traditional celebration in Vietnam, people in the north will decorate their houses with peach blossoms, whereas those in the south bring home apricot blossoms. Teachers at the center, which has since 2006 been providing vocational training for the disabled and orphans of Ho Chi Minh City, have therefore taught their students how to make these two flowers that are the symbols of Tet from a special material - clay. As there is a high demand for clay flowers for Tet decoration, growing flowers from sticky fine-grained earth allows students of the center to easily find a job after they take the course, according to the center founder Dinh Thi Hoi. Nguyen Thi Bay, 69, is the main instructor of the clay flower class. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre On top of peach and apricot blossoms, students completing the course are able to make other products such as 3D paintings of flowers and flower pots from clay. Student-made products throughout the course are kept at the center and sold to cover the cost of material for other courses, according to 69-year-old Nguyen Thi Bay, an instructor of the center. Students of the clay flower class concentrate on their work to finish the pieces before Tet. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Hoi said students are required to be able to make adequate products to graduate from the course. It is when they are truly able to make a living making clay flowers by themselves, the 74-year-old founder of the center explained. It usually takes students four days to make clay flowers and put them into a painting, and the product can be used for up to two years. The clay flower-making class currently has 19 students, according to Bay, who has been in charge of the class since 2013. Clay flowers are placed in a wooden frame and can last up to two years. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre A student of the class mixes the clay with the green color powder to make the leaves. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Clay is put into a rolling machine. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Petal-shaped mould is used to cut the clay. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Leaf veins are recreated with a mould. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre A petiole is attached to a clay leaf. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Petals of a cherry blossom are adjusted to attain the gracefulness of a real flower before being put together. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre The pistils of a clay-made apricot blossom are carefully done by the artists. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre The pistils of a clay-made apricot blossom are carefully done by the artists. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre One of the students put together parts of a chamomile flower. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Apricot blossoms are left to dry. Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Photo: Tuyet Kieu / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 25 - Brazilian rescuers were searching for some 200 missing people after a tailings dam burst on Friday at an iron ore mine owned by Vale SA, the second major dam disaster involving the company in just over three years. Seven bodies had been recovered by nightfall, said Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of the town of Brumadinho where the dam burst in the mining-heavy state of Minas Gerais. The toll was expected to rise sharply. Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said only one-third of the roughly 300 workers at the site had been accounted for. He said a torrent of sludge tore through the mine's offices, including a cafeteria during lunchtime. Minas Gerais is still recovering from the collapse in November 2015 of a larger dam that killed 19 people in Brazil's worst environmental disaster. That dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP Billiton , buried a village and poured toxic waste into a major river. Schvartsman said the dam that burst on Friday at the Feijao iron mine was being decommissioned and had a capacity of 12 million cubic meters a fraction of the roughly 60 million cubic meters of toxic waste released by the Samarco dam break. "The environmental impact should be much less, but the human tragedy is horrible," he told journalists at Vale's offices in Rio de Janeiro. He said equipment had shown the dam was stable on Jan. 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed. Television footage showed a vast swathe of thick red mud scarring the verdant hills below the mine, cutting through farms and residential areas and leveling everything in its wake. Fire brigade spokesman Lieutenant Pedro Aihara said the torrent of mud stopped just short of the local Paraopeba river, a tributary ofBrazil's longest river, the Sao Francisco. "Our main worry now is to quickly find out where the missing people are," Aihara said on GloboNews cable television channel. Scores of people were trapped in nearby areas flooded by the river of sludge released by the dam failure. Helicopters plucked people covered in mud from the disaster area, including a woman with a fractured hip who was among eight injured people taken to hospital, officials said. The Inhotim Institute, a world-famous outdoor contemporary art museum a few miles from downtown Brumadinho, evacuated visitors and closed its doors out of precaution. Paraoeba complex The Feijao mine is one of four in Vale's Paraoeba complex, which includes two processing plants and produced 26 million tonnes of iron ore in 2017, or about 7 percent of Vale's total output, according to information on the company's website. Feijao alone produced 7.8 million tonnes of ore in 2017. Brazil's recently inaugurated President Jair Bolsonaro dispatched three ministers to survey the disaster area and will visit himself on Saturday, his chief spokesman said. Former environmental minister and presidential candidate Marina Silva said Brazilian authorities and private miners had not learned anything from the 2015 Samarco disaster near the city of Mariana and called it unacceptable. Operations at Samarco remain halted over new licensing, while the companies have worked to pay damages out of court, including an agreement that quashed a 20 billion reais ($5.31 billion) civil lawsuit last year. Federal prosecutors suspended but have still not closed an even larger lawsuit. "Three years after the serious environmental crime in Mariana, with investigations still ongoing and no one punished, history repeats itself as tragedy in Brumadinho," Silva said on Twitter. Iron ore prices are likely to rise in the wake of the disaster as there may be less supply on the market for the short term, said Chris LaFemina, a Jefferies mining industry analyst. That could boost the share price of rivals Rio Tinto Plc and Anglo American Plc, while weighing on Vale, he said. U.S.-listed shares of Vale closed 8 percent lower on Friday. "While we hope the reports of fatalities are inaccurate, we do believe this is a material negative for Vale," LaFemina said. "The full extent of the damage and the potential impact on iron ore markets are not clear." Schvartsman declined to comment on how output would be affected. ($1 = 3.7695 reais) The first nonstop air route between the Vietnamese coastal province of Khanh Hoa, home to the famed resort city of Nha Trang, and the Thai capital of Bangkok launched its inaugural flight on Friday. The Bangkok Airways flight PG993 carrying 122 passengers landed in Cam Ranh International Airport from Bangkok on Friday afternoon, commencing the first-ever service between the two localities. Following Fridays inaugural flight, the Bangkok-based carrier will offer four flights a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, using the 144-seat Airbus A319 aircraft. The nearly two-hour service is expected to promote tourism, economy and social affairs between Vietnam and Thailand. Later on the same day, flight PG994 also departed from Cam Ranh International Airport to Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok for the return leg. Bangkok Airways is the first international airline to open a route between Bangkok and Cam Ranh. The south-central province is the fourth destination of the Thai carrier in Vietnam. Previously, Bangkok Airways began flying between Bangkok and Da Nang in May 2016, before launching the Bangkok-Phu Quoc and Chiang Mai-Hanoi services in October 2017 and March 2018, respectively. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Remittances to Vietnam from overseas Vietnamese, guest workers and people who want to make investments at home have surged ahead of Tet, or the Lunar New Year holiday that begins next month. Revenue from remittance transactions in January at SBR, the remittance unit under Ho Chi Minh City-based lender Sacombank, were 200-300 percent higher than figures in the other months of the year, according to chairman and general director Tran Minh Khoa. Similarly, Dong A Money Transfer, the remittance arm of local lender Dong A Bank, recorded some 140,000 remittance transactions in the first half of this month alone, up 17 percent year-on-year, according to deputy director and sales manager Vu Thanh Trung. As regulations on money transfer at each country vary, the amounts of remittance per transaction are also different, according to Trung. For instance, money sent home by Vietnamese from Asian countries range between US$1,000-2,000 per transaction, while remittances sent from the U.S. can be from $500 to $800 per transaction. Remittances to Vietnam in 2018 were estimated at $18.9 billion, accounting for 6.6 percent of the countrys GDP (gross domestic products), the Vietnam Television reported on December 25. Earlier, statistics by the World Bank showed that Vietnams remittance grew ten percent year on year. The country received $11.88 billion and $13.8 billion of remittances in 2016 and 2017, respectively. The World Bank thus forecast that Vietnam would remain one of the largest recipients of remittances in the world in 2018, with the years remittances estimated at $15.9 billion. According to Khoa, the SBR chairman, while overseas Vietnamese, or Viet Kieu, used to be the main source of remittances, money now also come from guest workers and people who want to invest in production and business in the Southeast Asian country. Remittances from overseas Vietnamese were even decreasing as their relatives in Vietnam were less dependent on this kind of aid, given the countrys increased per capita income, Khoa said. In addition, the generation of overseas Vietnamese that mainly made up of remittance flow to Vietnam is getting older and have fewer relatives who stay in Vietnam. Meanwhile, remittances from Vietnamese guest workers, according to Khoa, are growing strongly because the number of people joining the labor export market increases 10-15 percent annually on average. According to a report by the Department of Overseas Labor Management under the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, there were 142,860 Vietnamese working in other parts of the world in 2018, exceeding the normal figure of 100,000 Vietnamese guest workers per year. Accordingly, Vietnamese workers in Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and the UAE have been the leading sources of remittances to Vietnam. Vietnam has maintained a zero percent interest-rate on deposits in U.S. dollars since 2015, meaning people were no longer able to take profit from savings in the foreign currency. Despite this, remittances in U.S. dollars to Vietnam remain on a positive trend, according to Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the State Bank of Vietnam. By the end of 2018, remittances to Ho Chi Minh City were estimated at $5 billion, according to Minh. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A high-speed passenger ship capable of traveling between Ho Chi Minh City and Con Dao Island off the southern province of Ba Ria - Vung Tau in five hours is slated for official operation in March, the ship operator announced earlier this week. Phu Quy Express high-speed ship by GreenlinesDP, a company specializing in providing fast ferries, had a test run on the routes of Ho Chi Minh City Con Dao, Con Dao the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, and Can Tho Con Dao on Friday, according to general director Tran Song Hai. The double hull ship was manufactured at the Z189 shipyard in the northern city of Hai Phong on international standards of maritime safety equipment, including security cameras installed across the ship, and flat-bed seats divided into private air-conditioned rooms. launched last month, the ship is designed to reach a maximum speed of over 30 knots (55km) per hour and can operate normally during rough seas, withstanding waves of level 7 and 8. The vessel can transport as many as 300 passengers on its 230 flat-bed seats and 70 high-class seats from Ho Chi Minh Citys Bach Dang Wharf to Con Dao Island in just five hours at a speed of 27-30 knots per hour. The Can Tho Con Dao route, on the other hand, will take three to 3.5 hours traveling on Phu Quy Express high-speed ship. Currently, boarding flights to Con Dao from Ho Chi Minh City takes less than an hour but tickets are pricey and often sold out as VASCO, a subsidiary of the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines, is the only airline offering the service. Another option to travel to Con Dao is to take a high-speed boat departing from the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang for 2.5 hours. But Soc Trang is 240 kilometers or a five hours drive from Ho Chi Minh City. In the upcoming weeks, the Phu Quy Express high-speed ship will continue to be put into test runs to check its features, stability, speed, safety and comfort for passengers, according to general director Hai. After that, the ship operator will seek approval for its official operation on the two above-mentioned sea routes by April 30 Phu Quy Express is expected to be the first high-speed ship satisfying the demand for faster travel among local residents, as well as promoting sea-route tourism. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! PHOENIX Arizona is looking into whether it can remove the board of directors of a long-term care facility where a nurse is accused of raping an incapacitated woman who later gave birth, the governor said Friday. In a flurry of tweets, Gov. Doug Ducey called for Hacienda HealthCares board to be fired. My confidence level in that institution and its leadership is zero, and our job now is to ensure that the individuals in their facilities are safe, Ducey wrote on Twitter. His tweets came a day after The Arizona Republic reported that Haciendas former CEO had a history of facing sexual misconduct allegations from employees. They accused CEO Bill Timmons of sexually explicit comments, groping and poor treatment of several female staffers. None of the complaints, some of which date to 2006, involved patients. However, employees said Timmons fostered a culture of abuse. The board said in a statement that it could not confirm the specific complaints cited by the newspaper but that board members at the time took all allegations of sexual misconduct and other mistreatment seriously and outside attorneys investigated. Yes: OHalleran, Kirkpatrick, Grijalva, Gallego, Stanton No: Gosar, Biggs, Schweikert, Lesko GOP measure to pay workers: On Wednesday the House, by a vote of 200-215, defeated a Republican motion that sought to scale back HR 648 (above) so that it would only fund back pay for 800,000 civil servants sidelined by the current government shutdown. A yes vote was to adopt a measure that would also have the effect of continuing the shutdown. Yes: Gosar, Biggs, Schweikert, Lesko No: OHalleran, Kirkpatrick, Grijalva, Gallego, Stanton Homeland Security funding: The House voted 231-180 on Thursday to fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 8 to buy Congress and President Trump time for dealing with his request for $5.7 billion to build a wall on the southwest border. A yes vote was to adopt a measure (HJ Res 31) that omits wall funding. Yes: OHalleran, Kirkpatrick, Grijalva, Gallego, Stanton No: Gosar, Biggs, Schweikert, Lesko SENATE A bicyclist who died from serious injuries sustained in a collision with a vehicle in late December has been identified, Tucson police say. In the Dec. 19 crash, Salvador F. Penuelas, 87, was riding northbound in the bike lane of 6th Avenue, north of Ajo Way, when he suddenly swerved in front of a Hyundai SUV in the curb lane, a police news release said. The driver tried to avoid hitting Penuelas but was unsuccessful. Penuelas was taken with life-threatening injuries to Banner-University Medical Center. He died from those injuries Dec. 28, the news release said. Officials say it's unknown why Penuelas swerved into the roadway. Traffic investigators interviewed the driver who remained at the scene and determined speed nor impairments were factors in the crash. Contact Star reporter Shaq Davis at 573-4218 or sdavis@tucson.com On Twitter: @ShaqDavis1 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Nogales, Sonora, is not in a position to take in more Central American asylum seekers for extended periods as they wait for their U.S. immigration cases to go through the system, advocates and officials said. Neither are other Mexican border communities, they said. I dont think theres any border city that right now has either sufficient resources or the preparation to house these people for an extended period of time, said Jorge Jauregui, city manager of Nogales, Sonora. The mayors directive is to assist those who are coming through or being deported through the city, he said. We have resources and plans to assist in times of an emergency, but we would have to reach out for help to our partners in the state and federal government, he said. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a new policy that would involve sending back to Mexico Central American asylum seekers while their immigration cases are pending. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols, unaccompanied minors and others deemed to belong to vulnerable groups, or who can show they face persecution or torture in Mexico, would be exempt. The seven Colorado River Basin states have come together with a plan to reduce their consumption of river water, but if this whole deal comes falling down, the states will be free to do whatever they want, Glennon said. Thats particularly the case for California, which has agreed to reduce its take from Lake Mead by 350,000 acre-feet equivalent to about three years worth of Tucsons CAP water supply after Mead drops below 1,030 feet, and by lesser amounts at higher elevations. Its made this commitment even though under federal law, California is not due to take any cuts in its river supply until all CAP supplies have been cut. With no plan, California would almost certainly have no cuts, Glennon said. For Pinal County farmers in Arizona, no DCP could be particularly bad, he said. Under the current system of contracts for CAP water, farmers only have access to the water that others dont want, and I dont think there will be any excess water in a shortage, Glennon said. A man killed in an apparent home invasion on Saturday morning in Sahuarita, Ariz., has been identified, police said. Manuel Bojorquez, 59, of Eloy, Ariz., has been identified as the person who died in the 2200 block of East Sahuarita Road, west of South Nogales Highway, said Sgt. M. Falquez, a department spokesman in a news release. A second victim was released from a hospital after receiving treatment. Further details of the shooting and the two victims have not been released. The investigation so far shows, "multiple Spanish-speaking males entered the home with multiple firearms and fired shots," the release said. The gunmen had their faces covered. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call 911 to speak with an on duty officer or 88-CRIME, an anonymous tipster line. "Rep. Stringer may have fulfilled the legal consequences of his actions, but I believe that charges of this nature cast a shadow over the entire Legislature and his ability to be an effective legislator,'' the speaker said Friday in a prepared statement. Bowers also said there are "myriad calls'' for Stringer, a second-term legislator, to resign. Among them are House Democrats, said Rep. Reginald Bolding, D-Laveen. Support for Stringer also is crumbling among Republicans. "I believe at this point it is proper for Rep. Stringer to step down from his position in the House,'' said Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa. "The reputation of our institution must remain intact, and the cumulative and escalating nature of the recent unfortunate events places that in jeopardy.'' Townsend also said she intends to file a complaint with the Ethics Committee on Monday. An aide to Gov. Doug Ducey pointed out that he had called for Stringer to resign last year in the wake of his comments about race and immigration. "The governor has been clear on this,'' said Elizabeth Berry. "Today, he reiterated that call.'' Boyer said hes not concerned that providing a list of chemicals in vaccines might work against what the health department is trying to accomplish. I think we should trust parents, he said. I dont think anybody should be afraid of more information and whats in these vaccines were giving to our children. State health officials would not comment about the legislation. But former Arizona health director Will Humble said he worries it could lead to fewer parents agreeing to vaccinate their children. He said parents already are provided with what the CDC has determined they need to know about the vaccines and the side effects, all in a form that is understandable. Inundating parents with technical information that is not meaningful and potentially confusing wont help, said Humble, who is executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. Rather, he said, it will result in doctors having to spend valuable time explaining the technical information instead of talking to parents about things like keeping their children safe at home and in cars. But Boyer said that, as far as hes concerned, parents are being denied information they need in a timely fashion. Holloway (Alan Bomar Jones) is the philosopher with a spiritual base, and Hambone (a heartbreaking Ahanti Young) is a man who is mentally challenged but cannot forget that the white butcher cheated him out of a ham he was owed. He spends every morning standing outside the butcher shop screaming I want my ham. West (Dennis W. Spears) is the neighborhood undertaker who still mourns the death of his wife, is the envy of everyone else because he has more money than others and carries a touch of arrogance. All the action takes place in Memphis cafe. They wander in and out, place bets with Wolf, sip their coffee and talk about the anguish of the past, the desperation of the present, the hope of the future. Bellamy and this ensemble cast have done many of Wilsons plays together, and theres an ease they have with each other on stage that serves the story well. Wilsons dialogue is staggering it is so good, and to hear his words through these actors is a gift. This may be the best ensemble cast weve seen on ATCs stage since well, since Bellamy directed Wilsons Fences in 2016. Four moose have died in car collisions since last summer within three miles of Ross MacIntyres house near Jackson. It might not sound like much, but in a herd that numbers around 450, individuals matter. On one hand, car collisions with moose arent exactly a surprise. Some of the highest densities of moose in Wyoming pick their way through Jacksons river bottoms and subdivisions, and travel back and forth over Highway 22, the busiest stretch of two-lane road in the state. But what it means is a surprise. Without help, the Jackson area which includes a town called Moose may one day run out of moose. We know that moose in general, in this area, are struggling from things like climate change, warming temperatures, heat stress, increased numbers of predators on the landscape, new diseases coming on the scene and parasites, said Aly Courtemanch, wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in Jackson. Theres a number of those factors, but when you add on vehicle collisions and habitat taken away by human development, were starting to wonder if this moose population living in and among people and homes is sustainable or not. If the West is divided, so are other regions. Almost no Arab leaders showed up to last weekends Arab League meeting in Beirut, relegating the summit to even greater irrelevance than usual. Latin America is now split between leaders like the right-wing Bolsonaro and the new leftist president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The leaders of several smaller countries (all of whom insisted on staying off the record) described the world as adrift and lacking in any collective purpose, with only voices about narrow self-interest and conflict being heard. When the Americans are engaged, we have a sense of direction, one of them said to me. We might disagree on some points, but at least there is a larger conversation, some efforts at cooperation. Now the only energy is negative worries about retreat, trade wars. Thats not a world in which it is easy for us to move forward. We are all stuck. This, then, is the post-American world. Not one marked by Chinese dominance or Asian arrogance. Not an outright anti-American one, but in fact, one in which many yearn for a greater U.S. presence. One in which countries are freelancing, narrowly pursuing their own interests, and hoping that the framework of international order remains reasonably stable. But with no one actively shoring up the international system, the great question remains: In a world without leaders, will that system over time weaken and eventually crumble? Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Post. He is also the host of CNNs Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for The Atlantic. His email address is comments@fareedzakaria.com. Love 1 Funny 4 Wow 3 Sad 1 Angry 0 In Dubois, he admired the jackalope statue in front of a convenience store and even agreed to a photo with it while he wore his black, slightly dangerous-looking cowboy hat. In Jackson, there were the saddle stools in the Cowboy Bar, the lighted elk arches in the park and the Tetons at sunset to admire. I never get tired of driving over Togwatee Pass and catching the first look of those improbably beautiful spires rising straight up from the valley in the distance. The work of an ancient glacier that carved out the valley lying below the biggest vertical drop ski area in the lower 48 states thrills people every day. Its one of the best things about showing friends and family around Wyoming, to drop into the valley under the Tetons. It doesnt hurt to see all the elk, bison and moose along the road. Our Wyoming tour always includes a drive by Crowheart Butte and a retelling of the story of when Chief Washakie and Big Robber decided to stop a war that was decimating their younger generation by fighting to the death on top of the butte winner take all. When Chief Washakie won after an epic several-day fight, he cut out Big Robbers heart and ate it, as a gesture of respect to the big-hearted warrior. It always slightly terrifies our guests to hear that story. Im not even sure why you would write it like that, he added. If the feds wont enter into (a memorandum of understanding) because of the way its drafted, what good does the bill do? The bill, as written, has several issues, Kalen said. The bills language doesnt explicitly say the governor needs a memorandum with the federal government to seize control of federal land only that he or she could if the government were to shut down. Another provision in the bill, Kalen said, that mentions an agreement between the governor and the federal government doesnt actually require them to enter the agreement, only saying that they may do so. When asked if he had any concern if the bill might be unconstitutional or if he had reached out to the states attorney general for their opinion, Scott shrugged it off, saying the intent of the bill was clear: giving Wyoming an option to respond in the case of a federal shutdown. That didnt bother me, Scott said. Were not trying to do anything long-term thats unconstitutional or will do any harm to anything. Were trying to help out the federal government and help out the citizens including our citizens and the tourism industry. I dont see any fundamental problems with the bill. A year after then-Gov. Matt Mead signed a bill creating the framework for a common college transcript, the Wyoming House is busy making the framework a reality. This is the follow-up, the implementation, from the financial side, said Powell Republican Rep. David Northrup, whos sponsoring the bill. Under a bill thats waiting before Northrups House Education Committee, the states seven community colleges and the University of Wyoming would use common course numbering to allow students to easily move between the two-year schools and the four-year university. A statewide longitudinal education data system to share information about education and the workforce would be used by the schools and the state departments of education and workforce services. It would require an electronic course catalog among the schools to ensure a consistent experience for students. There would be similar uniformity for software used for out-of-state transfer students. The bill would set aside $1.55 million to fund the work and provide two employees to the state Community College Commission. Federal workers and the service infrastructure of our nation including the safety of our aviation system should never be used as pawns in a political fight, he wrote. The senators local office was closed Friday afternoon, but Case plans to try again Monday. In addition to his own letter, Case also has a handful of others from his co-workers and their families. Id like to believe that Sen. Enzi will (read them), he said. As the primary provider for his family, the 33-year-old said it was nerve-wracking to miss two paychecks. Although he and his wife cut down on their expenses, Case estimated that they would have needed outside assistance by the end of February to stay afloat. The couple tried to use less electricity and to limit their grocery shopping, but Case said it was difficult to create a financial plan when there was no shutdown end date in sight. How do you budget for that? he asked. The 35-day stalemate, the longest in U.S. history, stemmed from lawmakers impasse over funding for a border wall. Araku (Andhra Pradesh): Experience the exhilaration of flying in a hot air balloon while enjoying the panoramic view of a picturesque valley, stay in luxurious camps, go on nature trails to waterfalls, coffee plantations and strawberry farms. All this and more is set to become a reality in the emerging eco-tourism destination of Araku in Andhra Pradesh. After a successful second Araku Balloon Festival, the organisers are gearing up for a commercial rollout this year. On offer will be "glamping" or glamorous camping with resort-like facilities. Sitting 3,000 feet above sea level in the eastern ghats and about 100 km from the port city of Visakhapatnam, the serene environs of Araku were abuzz last week as balloons of different shapes like 'Happy Chicken', 'Flying Honey Bee', 'Baby Car' and 'Bruno Clown' took to the skies, creating a riot of colours. Organised by Sky Waltz Balloon Safari, a part of events management company E-factor, in association with Andhra Pradesh Tourism, the three-day festival saw participation by 21 ballooning teams from 15 countries, 70 camps, tethers and night glows, paramotoring displays, live music and excursions. "This is a beautiful place to fly," Wout Bakker of Thailand told IANS on board the balloon he was piloting. With 25 years of experience, he has flown balloons around the world, including a seven-hour ride flight Germany to Italy. "This region has good potential. There will be many people to buy a balloon ride here. If you have something special, they will come," said Sukhbir Singh Sekhon of Malaysia's hot air ballooning company Glowing Intuition. The organizers and state officials hope to start the commercial operations in November this year as they believe that Araku can have two ballooning seasons in a year. "Araku will become an attraction for ballooning. People will specifically come here for this. We are not seeing it as casual weekend holiday. We see it as experiential holiday," E-Factor Founder & CEO Samit Garg told IANS. The interesting thing about Araku, according to Garg, is that sitting in a bowl, it has a micro-climate of its own. "Nowhere in the world do balloons take off at 9.30-10 am. Around the world balloon flights usually happen at sunrise and go on for two hours at the most. Thereafter, conditions are be not suitable for ballooning. From that perspective Araku offers a fantastic opportunity." A balloon ride of 45 to 65 minutes costs Rs 14,000. The company charges $280 from foreigners. Talking about the packages on offer, Kaushik Mukherji, principal advisor to the Andhra Pradesh Ministry of Tourism, told IANS that 2,600 online enquiries have been received in the last 40 days. A ride will cost between Rs 30,000 and Rs 79,000 with the stay ranging from one night to three nights. For a couple, a one-night stay, a balloon ride, food and beverages will cost Rs 30,000. According to him potential investors are ready to invest in India's biggest ballooning and glamping product on the east coast. "The revenue model could be profit sharing or fixed sum per month or per year basis," said Kaushik. (Photos from IANS) Mutual respect and good communication are key to create a healthy work environment, a recent study found. Unsurprisingly, salary also plays an important role. According to a recent study jointly conducted by think tank Equilibre and the Ministry of Economy, employees are happiest when they have a healthy relationship with their co-workers. The study also found minor age and gender-based differences. Among 21 to 29-year-olds and the over-50s, the salary remains the main driver of job satisfaction. 30 to 39-year-olds most value intellectual challenges and team spirit. For senior workers over the age of 50, being a part of a team is also key to workplace happiness. For 40 to 49-year-olds, a flexible work schedule is an uncontested happiness booster. Gender-wise, the study concluded that the salary plays a more important role for men. When it comes to workplace happiness, women tend to value intellectual stimulation over pay. Whether or not an employee has children can also affect his or her workplace ethics. Childless employees are often less stressed and unhappy at work. Surprisingly, the study found that parents nevertheless favour intellectual stimulation over flexible work times. For more than 50% of the participants, every boss should exemplify three main characteristics: he or she should communicate efficiently with the team, exude confidence and conviction, and always set a clear direction. The majority of the participants also stated that having one's own office can play a role in creating happiness at work. Luxembourg's confederation of independent trade unions (OGBL) intends to take legal action against the Portuguese state, arguing that its embassy in Luxembourg unfairly fired a housekeeper. The OGBL is set to take on an unusual enemy and "trigger legal action" against the Portuguese state. The union intends to take this drastic step following the allegedly "abusive" dismissal of a female housekeeper. The latter had worked at the Portuguese embassy in Luxembourg since 1993. According to the OGBL, the employee did not have "any written employment contract" and worked for less than the Luxembourgish minimum wage. Her salary had not been indexed since 2010. Even though the OGBL trade union repeatedly contacted the embassy, the Portuguese Foreign Ministry, and the ambassador himself, the situation of the employee was never regularised. In December 2018, the employee received a contract proposal "granting her the status of civil servant of the Portuguese State." In other words, she was never granted a Luxembourgish contract. The OGBL trade union criticised that she was also asked to work up to 44 hours a week and to forfeit numerous social advantages (such as seniority and indexation). "She was also told that, if she refused to sign this contract, she would no longer be an employee of the embassy as of 1 January 2019," OGBL said. The housekeeper did not sign this contract before the given deadline. The embassy consequently denied her access when she attempted to return to work on 2, 3 and 4 January. According to the trade union, the embassy failed to respect Luxembourg's legal contract termination methods. Intending on supporting the housekeeper, the union concluded that the embassy was clearly in violation of Luxembourg's employment laws and that it was therefore a matter of unfair dismissal. Fort Payne, AL (35967) Today Rain likely. Potential for heavy rainfall. High 76F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Rain. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall may reach one inch. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in or create an account to continue reading. SUMMER SPECIAL!!! - Sign up at 20% OFF for Full Access to all of the online content and E-Editions on the www.thewordlink.com website here! (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) In response to citizens' concerns about the rusty-colored water in Denmark, DHEC's information notes, Contaminants can be naturally-occurring or man-made chemicals found in the environment. If these contaminants are present in water at levels greater than these standards, they may cause the water to appear cloudy or rust-colored, or to taste or smell bad even though the water is actually safe to drink. While the discoloration caused by iron and manganese is not a health concern, it is not desirable. Iron and manganese are not routinely monitored in drinking water systems. Iron and manganese may come from source water and/or pipes in a system or building. The information distributed by DHEC to Denmark residents also states, EPA has established guidelines to assist public water systems in managing their drinking water for taste, color and odor. DHEC has made specific recommendations to the City (of Denmark) that have improved the levels of iron and manganese found in the water. The information also addresses the EPAs Lead and Copper Rule in regards to drinking water. Lead and copper can be found in older distribution lines and in plumbing and fixtures inside of homes and businesses. For this reason, the EPA's Lead and Cooper Rule requires that sampling be done inside homes and businesses ... . Stevens also pointed out that everyone in the room wouldve likely been affected by the marijuana that Glenn was allegedly smoking. He noted that Glenns toxicology report showed elevated levels of THC, the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana. Stevens also told the court that it was highly dangerous for a 3-year-old to play with a firearm magazine loaded with 9 mm ammunition and be exposed to marijuana. Stevens told the court that McKennie is also a father of two children. He said that McKennie, is a good person who does have a good heart. He said that McKennie realizes he shouldve made better choices that day and that he takes responsibility for his actions. Just before Dickson sentenced McKennie, two members of Glenns family addressed the judge. Glenns sister Demicotius Summers said his hair was being braided because he, was getting ready to get a second job and get custody of his daughter, who was in foster care. Summers said she currently has custody of Glenns daughter. In northern Michigan, the U.S. Coast Guard warned residents of islands in the river connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron that they could be cut off from ferry service during next week's deep freeze. The guard urged residents to stock up on supplies including food and heating fuel. Ice-breaking operations were working to keep ferry routes open. In Minnesota, Kenny Blumenfeld, a senior climatologist with the Department of Natural Resources' State Climatology Office, said winter cold snaps on average are an annual occurrence in Minnesota, but extreme cold happens once every three to five years. "It's Minnesota. We're supposed to go below zero and spend a lot of time not coming above zero. It's part of our winter," Blumenfeld said. The University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer notes that the temporary icy cold doesn't disprove global warming, despite what some non-scientists may claim. On Friday, the globe as a whole was 1.08 degrees (0.6 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average. "In a warming world you're still going to have unusually hot and unusually cold events happening in a particular part of the world," Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said. "Weather is not going away." ___ AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington and AP reporters David Runk in Detroit, Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee and Nelson Lampe in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 PEORIA -- Once again, Peoria's getting national attention. Just as the 247WallSt.com website singled out Peoria in 2016 as the worst city for African-Americans to live, Governing magazine, a Washington-D.C. based publication that was once part of Congressional Quarterly, focused on Peoria following a six-month investigation of black-white segregation in downstate Illinois. "Our review of federal data found the Peoria metro area had the most segregated schools of any area nationally, regardless of size," noted the report released Thursday. In addition, Governing stated the Peoria area had the sixth-highest level of segregation measured between blacks and whites of any metro area in the country, based upon U.S. Census data. Peoria also had one of the highest black poverty rates in the state, according to the report. "In Peoria, the Illinois River is a 900-foot-wide chasm between poverty and prosperity. On one bank is the city of East Peoria, which is 92 percent white, with big-box retail stores including Costco, Target and a Bass Pro Shop just a stone's throw from the river. On the west bank is the city of Peoria itself, just 57 percent white and becoming less so every year," stated the Governing story. A precursor to robotic surgery was introduced at the hospital in 1995, when the first minimally invasive procedure was performed. At that time, 80 to 90 percent of hysterectomies required traditional open surgeries with large incisions. That type of surgery comes with a higher incidence of infection, greater blood loss and requires six weeks off work. By 2006, 98 percent of hysterectomies done at the hospital were done laparoscopically. Patients had fewer infections, less blood loss and shorter recuperation. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Addition of the first Da Vinci system in 2011 allowed for more complex procedures like those to treat pelvic organ prolapse, as well as better outcomes for patients with more complex medical issues or multiple diseases. The Da Vinci has enabled our patients to go home in one or two days or two and return to work in one to two weeks without many complications, Tsung said. His colleague, Dr. Amanda Mulch, SI Ob-Gyn and Associates and chair of the robotics committee at Memorial, is excited to have the opportunity to offer robotic surgery to patients in Carbondale. Robotics is a highly advanced surgical procedure that takes a highly advanced team, and is only as good as the team, Mulch said. CARBONDALE Robotic surgery is not new to SIH Memorial Hospital of Carbondale, but a new addition to its robotic surgery equipment is. On Friday, Southern Illinois Healthcare announced use of a new Da Vinci Xi Robotic Surgery system during an open house and unveiling of the groups new logo. All the procedures that can be done laparoscopically can be done with this equipment, said Dr. Adrian Martin, a surgeon with SIH Medical Group. Robotic surgery at the hospital was pioneered by Dr. Franics Tsung and other obstetrics and gynecology physicians in 1995. They continued to upgrade their robotic systems in 2011 with the addition of a Da Vinci robotic surgery system, and some of the newest Da Vinci technology with the XI. When new operating rooms were opened in June 2016, Dr. Suven Shankar, surgical oncologist and chairman of surgery at Memorial, said the new rooms would allow physicians to treat more patients and more complex cases. That is exactly what has happened. The new robotic equipment is one more step toward offering more complex procedures in the heart of Southern Illinois. Wall Street Legend Who Picked Bitcoin in 2016 Shares #1 Pick for the 2020s (Ad) Picking the right investment of the decade can transform your life Microsoft in the 80sAmazon in the 90sApple in the 2000sBitcoin in 2016... Any one of these could have made you a millionaire many times over. Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last investment of the decade The answer will surprise you. Since 2016, Teeka Tiwari has trumped the stock market. His investment recommendations have each averaged 281%. Thats 17 times the S&P. And 112 times the average investor, according to JPMorgan! However, one investment Teeka just uncovered could top them all It involves former President Biden, billions of dollars, several large banks, and a super-rich family. As well as a MAJOR potential upgrade to our credit cards. Teeka, who ended up correctly picking the last investment of the decade, is declaring this his top pick for the 2020s. HDFC Bank Limited provides various banking and financial services to individuals and businesses in India, Bahrain, Hong Kong, and Dubai. It operates in Treasury, Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking, Other Banking Business, and Unallocated segments. The company accepts savings, salary, current, and Demat accounts; fixed and recurring deposits; and safe deposit lockers, and rural and pension accounts, as well as offshore accounts and deposits, overdrafts against fixed deposits and salaries, and sweep-in facilities. It also provides personal, home, car, two wheeler, three wheeler, business, educational, gold, rural, and term loans; loans against properties, assets, and securities; loans for professionals; government sponsored programs; and loans on credit card, as well as working capital and commercial/construction equipment finance, term and professional loans, healthcare/medical equipment and commercial vehicle finance, and dealer finance. In addition, the company offers credit, debit, prepaid, and forex cards; payment and collection, export, import, remittance, bank guarantee, letter of credit, trade, hedging, loan syndication, and merchant and cash management services; and insurance and investment products. Further, it provides short term finance, bill discounting, structured finance, export credit, documents collection, Internet and wholesale banking, mobile banking, real time gross settlement, channel financing, vendor financing, reimbursement account, money market, derivatives, employee trusts, cash surplus corporates, tax payment, and bankers to rights/public issue services, as well as financial solutions for supply chain partners and agricultural customers. As of March 31, 2020, it had 5,416 branches and 13,640 automated teller machines in 2,803 cities/towns. HDFC Bank Limited was founded in 1994 and is based in Mumbai, India. Read More 1+ days ago | June 18th | 2021 5:00 AM Nio Stock is Revving Up, But Should You Jump on Board? Its been a wild ride for electric vehicle (EV) stocks, and Nio (NYSE:NIO) has been no exception. At a quick glance, the 13% drop in NIO stock for 2021 doesnt look too bad. However, the stock is down approximately double that since reaching a high of over $60 in February. And without a rally of over 30% over the The Undead Archives I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world. Kathmandu, Nepal: Senior orthopedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC has said that he would continue his hunger strike unless Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli tenders his resignation from the post on the moral ground that he failed to live up his commitment and agreement reached with him. Dr KC is staging his 16th hunger strike, which was started on January 9, demanding incorporation of the nine point agreement in the National Medical Education Bill. As the Bill was endorsed by the federal parliament on Friday without incorporating nine points demand signed with him, he has shifted his demand of resignation of the Prime Minister Oli. As his demand of resignation of the Prime Minister Oli would not be fulfilled so easily, it is likely that continuation of his hunger strike would bring more complications in the country particularly in the medical sector as almost all the doctors and medical professionals including the governmental one had also been lending their support to Dr. KC. The government and Dr KC had signed on the nine point agreement on July 26, in which the government had made a commitment to accommodate Dr KCs demands in the Bill. Following the agreement, Dr KC had also ended his 15th fast-unto-death. However, the key points of the agreement were not incorporated in the Bill, stating that the parliament deserves the right to accept or reject the agreement. Though the government and its allies were against of the demand of Dr. KC from the very beginning, overwhelming support on the demand of Dr. KC and strike of medical professionals had compelled the government to sign in the agreement with Dr. KC. It is likely that such a situation would continue at this time too as not only the oppositions but also the prominent civil society leaders have already been lending support to Dr. KC. WASHINGTON Many of the most interesting and consequential Americans of the 20th century found greatness in politics, military service and diplomacy. Only one took the path of the recently deceased Harris Wofford. After a precocious childhood including extensive global travel and a stint in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Wofford went to India for several months to absorb teachings about nonviolent social change from disciples of Mohandas K. Gandhi. He soon became one of the main conduits of that theory to the American civil rights movement and to Martin Luther King, Jr. Wofford found a place advising then-Sen. John F. Kennedys 1960 campaign. Nearing Election Day, the young activist urged Kennedy to call and comfort Coretta Scott King at a time when her husband was in prison. This gesture helped secure African-American votes that may have tipped a razor-tight election in Kennedys favor. (It is, by the way, the secret dream of every staffer to offer that one bit of wisdom that changes history.) Robert Kennedy called Wofford at that point a White House adviser on racial issues a slight madman. It was this intensity of conviction that Wofford then brought to the civil rights movement, in which he earned one of the proudest American boasts: I marched at Selma. Oregons U.S. senators on Friday introduced a pair of bills targeting foreign consulates that help their citizens escape criminal prosecution in the U.S., a response to revelations that the Saudi Arabian government provided assistance to students who ran afoul of the law and fled before trial. Citing an Oregonian/OregonLive investigation, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden proposed to enact legislation that would require the federal government to investigate such disappearances, prevent them from happening again and punish the Saudi government for its suspected role. Saudi Arabias blatant disrespect for international norms cannot be allowed to stand, Merkley said in a statement. We should all be able to agree that any nation that helps their citizens escape from the law needs to be held fully accountable. The Oregonian/OregonLive has revealed criminal cases involving at least five Saudi nationals who disappeared before they faced trial or completed their jail sentence in Oregon. In four of the cases, the Saudi government stepped in to help, posting large sums of money for bail and possibly underwriting legal fees, according to court records and interviews with prosecutors. Each time when we are at our lowest I read aloud something amazing someone wrote and we rejoice in our eternally beautiful angel and I know in my heart that Kayla has felt all your love, the post continues. ... I can hear her saying, I knew I was fabulous but WOW!!! Micayla Allen, Regina Allens daughter, said her favorite memory of Chapman was riding horses together. In fact, Chapman was such a horse lover that she had given two weeks notice at Holts and was planning to move to Chehalis to take care of horses at a rescue ranch full time, said Debbie Guarino. Guarino co-owns Jacksons Rescue and Horse Ranch, where Chapman has volunteered since June. Guarino told The Daily News Friday she is devastated by Chapmans death. I feel like Ive lost an adopted daughter, she said. You dont find too many people that make that big of a commitment and dedication and have the same passions. Shes only been with us for eight months, and it feels like weve known her for a lifetime. Guarino said Chapman and her husband were going to be able to inherit the house and take over Jacksons to continue the legacy because of her own passion. This was her lifelong dream that was taken away from her Tuesday morning. Nonprofits are reaping the benefits of a local surge of decluttering and organizing, sparked by queen of clean Marie Kondo and her Netflix series, "Tidying up with Marie Kondo." You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Ever since she was a child, Winbak Farm Public Relations and Marketing Director Elizabeth Cheesman has been following her passion. A native of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, Cheesman was exposed to the sport of harness racing by her mother (Barb Lewis). Lewis did it all from a racing perspective. She has been an owner, trainer, driver and breeder. The young Cheesman was poised to follow in her footsteps. After getting her groom license at a young age, Cheesman was gifted by her mother with a horse of her own, a paint named Iza Grand Lady. She went on to show her new horse, along with Iza Jezabel (daughter of Iza Grand Lady) at some local 4H and open shows, where she went on to win awards. She also placed at the Ohio State Fair. In high school, however, Cheesman's potential training and driving career took a bad turn, as she suffered a broken back. It did little, however, to dim the fire she had for the equine industry. She started out in pre-vet in college, but decided to switch majors. While in college, she attended the Clyde Hirt Media Workshop and served as the editor for the school newspaper. She graduated from the University of Findlay (Ohio) with a Bachelor's Degree in Public Relations and Equine Business Management. After a summer grooming job, and even a gig at a plastic parts factory, her dream opportunity was about to become available. "I made a post on Facebook about a job search," Cheesman said. "I was going on interviews for jobs that I just was having a hard time getting excited about." Her post was answered by Winbak Farm's Chris Fout. After submitting her resume, she was offered an interview. "Ironically, I got a call that I was laid-off from the factory while on the trip to Maryland," Cheesman said. When she arrived, the farm was love at first sight. "This part of Maryland is very competitive with Kentucky on the amount of farms and beautiful landscapes. It was love at first sight with the farm after Garrett (Winbak Farm General Manager) took my dad and I on a tour." Cheesman has plenty of duties presently at Winbak Farm. As the Director of Public Relations and Marketing, she is tasked with keeping Winbak in the public spotlight. Her tasks include graphic design, press releases, designing sales materials and updating the farm's website. Cheesman has also developed quite a social media following for Winbak. "We get several compliments on how many people get involved on our media," Cheesman said. "My goal is to use our social media platform to get current fans involved but to also expose harness racing to as many people as possible." Cheesman believes that the positive promotion of harness racing through social media can help show the good sides of racing. She also provides breeding/stallion picks and suggests ideas for what mares should be bred to whom. One of Cheeseman's recent projects has been trying to find gray broodmares with good pedigrees. She also makes appearances at racetracks for trophy presentations. Cheesman is quick to give credit to what she says is a tremendous team at Winbak. "I have to give recognition to Laura Trzonkowski. I am so lucky to have a proofer who is very meticulous in details." Cheesman works closely with Kimberly Zeller, who is the daughter of Winbak Farm owners Joe and JoAnn Thomson. "She is the usual liaison between Joe and myself since he is very busy with his financial company. She is very creative and helps come up with new design ideas." Harness racing has supplied Cheesman with many great memories. She helped the farm find Village Madonna, who's first foal was world champion Travel Playlist. Before she came to Winbak Farm, she groomed Stable Creek Barb, who crossed the line first in an Ohio Sire Stakes final. The filly was named after Cheesman's mom and the win was the biggest race her mother won as a trainer. Currently, Cheesman had a front row seat to two straight second-place Hambletonian finishes that were Winbak graduates, both trained by Julie Miller (Devious Man 2017, Mets Hall 2018). Another Winbak graduate (Courtly Choice) won the Meadowlands Pace and the Little Brown Jug. Now a four-year-old, he will return to the races in 2019. Despite Cheesman's current indoor job, she always tries to find time to visit the horses. "There is a broodmare here named Summersgrandlady and she was born close to when I started at the farm," Cheesman said. The horse is named after Cheesman's riding horse (Iza Grand Lady) who played a big part in Cheesman's formative years in the business. As far as what's down the road for this youthful veteran, she is hoping for more of the same. "I believe my job (at Winbak) is the perfect 'niche' for me and I don't see wanting to leave anytime soon." Eventually, she would like to get more into breeding her own horses. She currently has a broodmare, Stablecreekcruiser, and a two-year-old, Stable Creek Kay, in partnership with her mom. She plans to continue her owner partnership with her mother as long as her mom continues to train. (With files from Post Time With Mike And Mike) Robert Gilpin, R.I.P. - The Washington Post : His greatest book was written in 1981, but the main theory in it is perhaps more trenchant now... A researcher who studies digital culture and online harassment responds to Ken Lius Thoughts and Prayers. At the very end of 2018, a new Louis C.K. set at a New York comedy club was leaked. In the set, he railed against the Parkland survivors, suggested that trans and gender-nonconforming individuals were infantile for expecting others to respect their pronouns, and told a bunch of other unfunny jokes at the expense of marginalized people. C.K. spent about 45 minutes not simply ignoring his past transgressions, but throwing a pity party about how badly hes suffered since his transgressions came to light. Advertisement For a comedian who once pointed to George Carlins incisive critique of those in power as foundational to his own comedy, his transition from liberal, speak truth to power comedian to conservative, anti-PC troll seems perplexing and incongruous. It is also deeply saddening for former fans of C.K. (including me) who had hoped he would be a positive example from the #MeToo movementsomeone who could admit his failings, make amends, and support survivors. But in reality it was entirely predictable. And Ken Lius story Thoughts and Prayers gives us a few clues as to why. Advertisement Advertisement When reading Lius piece, I was reminded again that the terms troll and trolling are maddeningly overused in popular culture. Trolling has come to mean everything from merely derailing a conversation with a purposefully nonsensical or impolite comment to actively harassing women with death and rape threats on Twitter. Its a kind of linguistic shield that creates an easy way for abusers and harassers to dismiss their toxic behavior as just trolling. Advertisement In her excellent book about trolls and online culture, This Is Why We Cant Have Nice Things, Whitney Phillips suggests that trolls are united in their search for lulzor unsympathetic laughterbut their motivations are manifold. (During the 2016 presidential campaign, Phillips wrote a piece for Future Tense about why Donald Trump shouldnt be called a troll.) The RIP troll Heartless in Thoughts and Prayers demonstrates this complexity, suggesting they participated in the harassment campaign for multiple reasons: in part as a response to the frenzied, advertising-driven media spectacle that occurs in the wake of mass shootings, and in part by what they see as a familys insincere and hypocritical attempt to turn public grief into political action. At the same time, by offering the ways in which various family members are affected by the trolling campaign, Liu offers an important proviso. He requires us to take a deeper look at the ways in which trolls themselves might (mis)apply the term as a way of deflecting from the more disturbing consequences of their actions. Advertisement Advertisement Lius story also reminds us that trolling is as much of a cultural problem as a technological one. Trolling culture is supported by and embedded within misogynistic logics. Kate Mannes Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny argues that misogyny is the policing, combative arm of patriarchy. We can see this in Lius story as the trolls twist Haleys image to fit their needs. They create deep fakes (pornographic images using the face of one person superimposed on the body of another) and lob particularly nasty gendered insults toward her mother and sister. Trolls in many cases embody what sociologist Michael Kimmel marks as the kind of aggrieved entitlement that he suggests characterizes a particular class of angry white men, who view the gains of women and minorities as somehow a threat to their own social position. Instead of directing their ire at policies favored by politicians and corporations that have led to more automation, stagnant incomes, and a shrinking middle class, they aim for those they see as the real problem: immigrants, women, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, Muslims, etc. Advertisement Of course, tech companies bear some of this burden as well. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter become what sociologist Jessie Daniels refers to as force multipliers as their algorithmic logics and politics amplify the trolls effort. Individuals are subsumed into chaotic, often leaderless mobs, while trolling victims are singled out and become scapegoats in a system that champions visibility over privacy and accessibility over safety. Advertisement But most trolls get it upside down: While their motivations for trolling might be understandable (and at points even admirable as Lius RIP troll articulateswho isnt frustrated by the clickbait-y media environment in which we live?), their targets are almost always those who occupy marginalized social positions. All of this ultimately leads the troll to have a distorted sense of what punching up vs. punching down looks like. So even though most of us would likely say that trolling behaviors are aberrant, and that we would never engage in them, this kind of inverted worldview allows the troll to see the behavior as justifiable and admirable. And the fact that trolls often frequent spaces like Reddit, 4chan, YouTube, voat.co, etc. makes sense, as it allows this inverted worldview to be perpetually reinforced by others. As Ive argued in my book and elsewhere, spaces like Reddit implicitly trade in casual misogyny, racism, and homophobia/transphobia. Advertisement Its important for us to recognize that trolling is never not political, even if the trolls themselves may not view their behaviors as such. For example, Lius troll suggests that media amplifies grief in ways that are motivated solely by clicks, views, and advertising dollars. This suggests an underlying sense of how the world should work vs. how it actually worksthe core material of politics. So, its easy to see why the troll (and the norming of trolling behaviors as just the price of participating online) has been championed by the so-called alt-right/alt-lite. For example, figures like Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Mike Cernovich harnessed the power of #Gamergate supporters and their facility with the kind of trolling Liu articulates in his story, to build an army of mostly young, mostly white, angry men who became a prime base for Donald Trumps presidential campaign. Advertisement Advertisement That brings us back to the Louis C.K. problemthat is, the tendency for a certain class of liberal white men to retreat into troll territory in the face of movements like #MeToo. Lius story, and the troll figure in particular, offers some deeper explanations for why this shift might occur. It highlights that trolls are embedded in a system that is unequal and unjust, but not necessarily for the reasons they opine. Instead of looking inward and learning from his transgressions, Louis C.K. lashes out at those who have much less power than he does. Much like Lius RIP troll, C.K. has inverted cause and effect. He views the Parkland survivors as undeserving of the media coverage theyve received because somehow they havent earned the right to speak. Advertisement Implicit in this critique is another one: that they are too young, too outspoken, and too idealistic. Instead of engaging with the hard questions of why he violated the women he did and how his actions are embedded in a system of power that continues to shield many perpetrators from consequences for their actions, his deflections suggest a callous disregard for the survivors of his offenses. Such is the logic of Lius RIP troll as well. In offering a bunch of different and often contradictory reasons for mobilizing against this particular family, Lius troll hides behind dubious claims to suggest that its more than just about the lulz. But its really, always about the lulz. And that, perhaps, is the real problem. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Nicolas Maduros government in Venezuela is now under severe threat thanks to a massive popular uprising against his failed economic policies, his re-election in a seemingly rigged campaign, and his restructuring of the governments institutions to make the democratically elected National Assembly powerless while making himself and his cronies into the rulers of a petty dictatorship. The crisis culminated in the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, declaring himself interim president of the country this week, a claim that was quickly recognized by the U.S. and nearly a dozen other countries. Advertisement And yet, despite intense opposition, the question remains, how vulnerable is Maduros regime to being overthrown? To provide guidance in answering this crucial question, we rely on the theoretical research we and others have done into the factors that increase the risks to political survival in autocratic governments and in rigged election regimes. Advertisement Advertisement Why do governments actually fall? Popular uprisings often get credit for bringing down dictators, but mass protests can only cause the overthrow of a regime if members of the incumbents inner circle choose to back the insurgents at their expense. Unarmed civilians cannot overcome guns provided that those holding the guns are willing to fire on protesters. In Tiananmen Square, the generals stayed loyal and the Chinese Communist regime survived. Myanmars Saffron Revolution in 2007 saw tens of thousands protesting throughout the fall, but protest collapsed once the army cracked down. Advertisement When would the army defect? We can learn the answer by reflecting on past experience. The shah of Irans military chose to sit on its hands in 1979 rather than fight off the Khomeini revolution. Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubaraks military decided to sit on the sidelines during the 2011 Arab Spring while the people revolted. Indeed, Egypts military leaders chose to join the newly emergent replacement government and then toppled it shortly thereafter securing their own monopoly on power. Protests can only cause the overthrow of a regime if the dictators inner circle chooses to back the insurgents Many other examples illustrate a similar phenomenon. The members of the incumbents inner circle are loyal as long as they can count on their leader to ensure that they have a steady, continuous, substantial flow of access to wealth and power. But if the incumbents reliability on that front comes into doubt, then the inner circle is better off either backing a mass uprising, hoping to co-opt it later, or launching a coup detat to install themselves in power. This brings us to an important difference between Maduro and the shah or Mubarak. Advertisement Advertisement The shah was widely believed to be dying of cancer when he was overthrown (and, indeed, he did die of cancer about 18 months later). Mubarak, in his 80s at the time, suffered from the ultimate terminal illness, old age. That, coupled with President Barack Obamas decision to reduce U.S. aid to Egypt in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan meant that Mubaraks generals could no longer count on him to deliver the great wealth that bought their loyalty. As it turned out, Mubarak, despite frequent bouts of illness, is still alive, eight years after he was overthrown. Nevertheless, from the perspective of his inner circle, given his age and condition, he was not thought to be a reliable source of future income. Maduro, in contrast, appears perfectly healthy and likely to be a source of enrichment for his generals for years to come. Hence, they have little incentive to back away from him and great incentives to assure that he remains in power as the source of their wealth and influence. Advertisement One might reasonably suppose that severe economic shocks could lessen the loyalty of a leaders inner circle since a severe economic downturn makes the incumbent less able, it would seem, to continue to line the pockets of his cronies. But that is too quick a leap in logic. Successful leaders, by which we mean those who survive in power, minimize what we like to call the winning coalitionthe number of cronies upon whom they depend. Advertisement In a democracy, an economic downturn is a political disaster because a leader cannot compensate the many supporters who experience loss. Over the past decades Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, successfully purged thousands of civil servants and members of the military, undermined democratic institutions and stacked the judiciary. The effective result is that Maduro depends on a far smaller proportion of the Venezuelan population than do democratic leaders. Economic contraction gives him less with which to pay the winning coalition, but contraction in the winning coalition means that far, far fewer supporters need to be paid off. And indeed, the policies that reward these cronies are often the same policies that have collapsed the economy. Advertisement Maduro has certainly done lots to damage the economy, but he is not responsible for the great drop in global oil prices, a constraint that would limit his successor every bit as much as it limits him. So, as long as Maduros regime continues to generate substantial, albeit reduced, oil revenue, he can continue to assure his cronies that they are better off with him than they would be by gambling on a new leader who might toss them out and replace them with his own team of loyalists. That is not true for the people on the street, but their support is not essential to keep Maduro in power. Advertisement As long as Maduro can credibly promise to continue to pay his generals and other essential supporters better than they can expect to get from someone else, they have no reason to betray him. As long as they remain loyal, the odds of his downfall are small. The generals, after all, control the guns and can, in their own self-interest, choose to use the guns to make rebellion against the regime too costly for it to be sustained. That is exactly what the Basij, Irans paramilitary security force, did in Iran on Ayatollah Khameneis behalf when mass protests broke out following Mahmoud Ahmadinejads questionable re-election in 2009. That is what Abdel Fattah el-Sisis regime has done in Egypt following its overthrow of the freely elected government of Mohamed Morsi. Bashing heads is very effective at diminishing the incentives of new rebels to continue to take to the streets, putting their lives at risk. Advertisement Guaido, despite the international recognition, has little real power without the backing of the men with guns. And despite his calls for the military to abandon Maduro and promises of amnesty if they do so, they are sticking with their president. Could anything induce them to abandon him now? The answer resides in money, base though that may be. Russian President Vladimir Putin has lined the pockets of the Venezuelan government to the tune of up to $5 billion. That will pay a lot of generals a lot of money for a long time. Advertisement Advertisement The U.S. government, by recognizing Guaido, has opened the door to channeling aid and other funds to him and his government. Thus far, however, the sum of money being talked about is only around $20 million, a paltry amount as compared with what Putin has already given and is likely to do in the future. The path to a successful coup detat or popular transition to democracy in Venezuela requires more money for military leaders if they abandon Maduro and back Guaido than they can expect if they remain loyal to the current regime. That is a tall order for the Organization of American States and the governments in the Americas, but short of a war that just about no one wants, that is the only viable near-term path to bringing down Venezuelas dictatorship and giving the rebirth of democracy any chance. It was most likely the airports that finally broke the dam. Friday afternoon, as news reports of disrupted flights poured in and the shutdown hit Day 36, Donald Trump finally announced that he would cave completelyif temporarilyon his demands for a border wall. The government will now reopen for three weeks, at the end of which time, he was careful to threaten, he may declare a national emergency if he doesnt get his way. Despite weeks of reporting on how the shutdown was affecting workers, Trump still appears to have no idea about why federal employees matter or why their acute hardship is problematic. Its a fitting coda to what weve witnessed over the past few weeks. There was Donald Trumps buffoonish claim Thursday that federal workers who turned to food banks to feed their families during the shutdown can just work along with shops and banks. He was trying to correct for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who had said that he couldnt fathom how anyone could be unable to negotiate a loan for themselves. Here was Trumps course correction, delivered Thursday night: Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else. And I think what Wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work along. I know banks are working along ofif you have mortgages, the mortgagees, the mortgage the folks collecting the interest and all of those things, they work along. And thats what happens in times like this. They know the people, theyve been dealing with them for years, and they work along. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And we all laughed at the rich president who used to claim repeatedly that we needed a voter ID to go to the supermarket now claiming that the shutdown wasnt a big deal for federal workers who had gone weeks without pay because they could just get friendly loans from that same supermarket, which should really be a food bank, which is where many of them had actually already been forced to turn. Its so tone-deaf its almost funny. But it really isnt funny. Its ominous. Theres more to Trump and Ross bizarre Norman Rockwell parable of friendly greengrocers and your brother-in-law the jolly bank manager than just the cluelessness of old white billionaires who have never had to run a personal errand. Theyre also telling a crappy old story about good old American volunteerism and the beauty of local charity and the gosh-golly spirit of communities caring for their own. If that sounds familiar, its because this story was actually the cornerstone of the Paul Ryan vision for America. Its the story wherein even if you slash government entitlement programs and food programs and health care, what arisesbeatifically and from the rubbleto replace it all is good old-fashioned local and religious charities. In Paul Ryans telling, there was no crisis a good old-fashioned barn raising couldnt cure. And so every time Trump minimized the human suffering of the shutdown, he wasnt just saving himself or belittling government workers. He was also building out a long-running conservative narrative that downplays the need for many crucial government services. Advertisement Theres more to Trump and Ross bizarre Norman Rockwell parable of friendly greengrocers and your brother-in-law the jolly bank manager than just the cluelessness of old white billionaires who have never had to run a personal errand. Thats why Trump was always ever only halfway on board about the difficulty of the shutdown. Its why he retweeted an op-ed from an anonymous writer, claiming to be a senior member of his administration, who trashed federal workers as lazy and disloyal to the White House. The op-ed went so far as to urge that the shutdown continue indefinitely so those workers would leave the government, with the author claiming that 80 percent of federal workers do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value. That is their workday: errands for the sake of errandsadministering, refining, following and collaborating on process. Thats been the drumbeat on Fox News too, with one guest cheering that the shutdown made more Americans aware of how nonessential a lot of these nonessential workers actually are, a way of trashing both government workers and government services at the same time. Advertisement Paul Ryanwho worked for years to promote his view of a society built around his moral vision of elite makers who work and earn good incomes and takers who live on government assistanceargued that private charities should do the bulk of the assistance. Ryan warned, in 2012, that the government safety net would turn into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives. Advertisement Mike Konczal, writing about the need for social insurance programs in the Atlantic in 2014, put it this way: Conservatives tell themselves a story, a fairy tale really, about the past, about the way the world was and can be again under Republican policies. This story is about the way people were able to insure themselves against the risks inherent in modern life. Back before the Great Society, before the New Deal, and even before the Progressive Era, things were better. Before government took on the role of providing social insurance, individuals and private charity did everything needed to insure people against the hardships of life; given the chance, they could do it again. Advertisement Its a story in service of the idea that government servicesfood assistance and housing assistance and services for the poorcan be readily offloaded onto private, especially religious, charities. To hear Secretary Ross and the president discuss the ways in which all of us can have private arrangements with the banker and grocer who live up the corner from Big Bird is to hear that story told again. Sure, it pinched when the TSA couldnt get our planes out on time. But work being done around housing, food insecurity, and womens shelters? They dont think that should be undertaken by government in the first place. Advertisement I dont believe the president and Secretary Ross and Lara Trump are actually as clueless about the ways in which the majority of Americans, including government workers, live paycheck to paycheck as they sound. I think they were just making their best pitch for their optimal world, in which virtuous people are virtuous and charity solves our problems, rather than government. Advertisement Its too easy to say that the enduring lesson of the shutdown is simply that Trump and his plutocrat Cabinet are hilariously clueless about how most of us live. The real story is much more grim: They are also trying to other us against one another, positing government workers as unpatriotic if they decline to work for free, and lazy for being unwilling to put the presidents interests ahead of their own. Theyre making the same bad argument that I wish had stopped when Paul Ryan departed the national stage: that the best source of aid in a crisis lies in the charity of warm and loving communities, not in government services. The shutdown has mercifully ended, at least for the next three weeks. But beware of old mens fairy tales just the same. We could be back here again before we know it. In the middle of the government shutdown, when it became evident that President Donald Trump had dug himself into a hole by insisting so adamantly on money for a border wall, one of his closest allies issued a stark warning. In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News on January 2, Graham said that if Trump gave in to Democrats and agreed to a deal without money for a wall it would probably mark the end of his presidency. Here is the full quote: Advertisement Ill tell you exactly how this is going to end. The President is going to challenge the Democrats to compromise and if they continue to say no, theyre going to pay a price with American people. Most Americans want to do two things, they want to secure our border and they want to be reasonable to people like the DACA population. If he gives in now, thats the end of 2019 in terms of him being an effective President, thats probably the end of his Presidency. Donald Trump has made a promise to the American people, hes going to secure our border. Advertisement Advertisement Graham later went on to make his threat even more dire, saying that it would be the end of us if we give in on this issue as Republicans. Advertisement Unsurprisingly, Graham sang a very different tune Friday afternoon when he talked to Fox News after Trump agreed to a deal that didnt include any money for a border wall. The senator called for negotiations to reach a compromise involving protection for Dreamers and recipients of Temporary Protected Status. And if the two sides cant come together then the president will secure our border through executive action, Graham warned. In the interview, Graham practically pleaded with Democrats to come to the negotiating table: Advertisement Advertisement The following article is a written adaptation of an episode of What Next, Slates new daily news podcast. Listen to What Next via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, Overcast, Google Play, or iHeart. When Sen. Kamala Harris introduces herself, shes known to say the same thing again and again: She talks about being a prosecutor. Its more than just a line on her resume. Its this vibe she has. Last year, when the world saw her grilling thenSupreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, she had this look on her faceeyebrows arched, chin down, lips pursed, like, I know hes lying. And the internet loved it. Advertisement Goddamn, Kamala Harris brings it, man, Trevor Noah, the host of The Daily Show, said during a recap of the hearings. Advertisement Advertisement For Kamala Harris, being a prosecutor means shes tough. It means shes the boss. It can be a cordial way to say, Thank you, next. But what does Kamala Harris history as a prosecutor really mean? I explored that in a recent episode of What Next, Slates new daily news podcast, with someone whos usually on the other side of the courtroom: Lara Bazelon. She used to be a public defender. Now she trains defense attorneys. Bazelon is an associate professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, just a few miles down the road from where Harris got her start at the San Francisco District Attorneys Office. Shes also a contributing writer for Slate and author of the book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction. She also recently penned the op-ed Kamala Harris Was Not a Progressive Prosecutor, in the New York Times. Advertisement Essentially, what Ive devoted my advocacy to is fighting on behalf of people who are poor and have no voice, and quite often those are people of color, she says. Ive never crossed paths with [Harris], but like so many people who do the kind of work that I do in California, Im intimately familiar with her record, because weve lived under her regime. Advertisement Bazelon says that going inside Kamala Harris regime is the only way to get beyond her presidential rhetoric. She has some real questions about how Harris fought crime on behalf of the state of California and whether she did it the right way. In Harris new book, The Truths We Hold, she doesnt just call herself a prosecutor. She calls herself a progressive prosecutor. Bazelon noticed it when she picked up Harris new book. Advertisement When I read that chapter of her book, and she uses that phrase, progressive prosecutor, my mouth kind of fell open, Bazelon says. I asked her why. Because shes not one, Bazelon says. Shes calling herself that, I believe, because its become this very trendy, buzzy word with a lot of positive political connotations attached to it. It signals that you are reform-minded. It signals that you are forward-thinking, and she wants those associations. I asked Bazelon to tell me what a progressive prosecutor looks like. She gave me a few examples, starting with Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. Larry Krasner came in and he said, I was a former federal public defender and a civil rights attorney, and Im here to make change. And he proceeded to fire over 31 old-guard DAs who were putting in place pretty awful policies, in my view, she says. He started instructing his line prosecutors not to prosecute certain low-level felonies. Hes not going to seek the death penalty, which is a big deal in Philadelphia County, where most of the people in the state of Pennsylvania who are on death row come from. Advertisement Advertisement Theres also Wesley Bell, who just took office in St. Louis. He was elected in the wake of Ferguson, Bazelon says. He is very committed to looking into officer-involved shootings. He too fired a lot of the old guard. There are many, many examples of progressive prosecutors, and we are right now at a time when more and more people are running for district attorney and winning on true reform platforms. But Kamala Harris? Shes just not in that group, says Bazelon. Before she was a senator, Kamala Harris got her start as a line prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorneys Office, and then she moved on to the San Francisco District Attorneys office, where she worked under a man named Terence Hallinan. Advertisement [He] was considered to be a reformer, Bazelon says. Then [Harris] made this decision to challenge himto run against himwhich I think he saw, actually, as a real betrayal, because I think he saw her as a protegee. She ran on a platform [with a message like,] This office is in disarray, and the conviction rate is really poor, and we need to step up our game. Advertisement Bazelon continues, He was a former public defender who ran and won as the San Francisco district attorney, and he was considered to be pretty liberal. Now, of course, were talking about San Francisco, so this is a community thats quite different than many, many other communities that elect district attorneys across the United States. But yes, he was someone who came from a defense background. Advertisement While Harris was a prosecutor, Bazelon points out that she didnt always push for progressive policies. For example, she made it so that parents could be prosecuted for a childs school truancy, which critics say hurt families of color. And Bazelon has some concerns about the justice that was administered under Harris watch. She fought to uphold tainted convictions, Bazelon says. Thats from my perspective as someone who ran an innocence project and is an innocence advocate. There are other cases that bothered me as well, including her real inability to respond in an appropriate way, for example, when there was a big crime-lab scandal in San Francisco in 2010. When she was running the DAs office, 600 cases had to be dismissed. Advertisement She continues, It became clear as these cases were being litigated that the higher-ups in her office were well aware of the corruption of the lab technician whose work was at issue and did not turn that information over to the defense as they were required to do. A judge got quite angry and issued a long ruling sternly rebuking Harris, and her response was to challenge that ruling by arguing that the judges husband was a defense attorney who had spoken publicly about the importance of disclosures in these kinds of situations and that therefore the judge was conflicted. Advertisement Advertisement Like President Trump has done with judges in the past, Harris made things personal. Rather than reflecting on what had gone on and what the judge had rightly pointed out to be failures in oversight and worse by her office, instead she took on, I think, a pretty meritless personal attack, Bazelon says. Advertisement This theme of Harris digging in, even when theres evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, can be seen elsewhere in her career too. Take the case of Johnny Baca, who was convicted for murder in state court in the 90s. Basically, the states case turned on the testimony, in large part, of a jailhouse informant, says Bazelon. During the course of the litigation, one of the lead prosecutors in the case actually committed perjury in an effort to secure the conviction, which worked. Then Johnny Baca proceeded to go to federal court to try to get relief, and at that point it was up to Kamala Harris as the attorney general to defend that conviction or, in her discretion as a prosecutor whose mission is to seek justice, to move to vacate that conviction because it was tainted, and she chose the first path. Advertisement Bazelon says that three appellate justices on the 9th Circuit ended up berating the prosecutor whom Harris sent in to defend the conviction. In the end, the judges ordered a retrialsomething Bazelon credits to public pressure. Advertisement [Theres] this other case involving a man named George Gage, where there was a lot of misconduct used to secure his conviction, and actually, quite frankly, I think the evidence of his innocence is more compelling than in Bacas case, but he didnt have a celebrity judgehis video didnt go viral, says Bazelon. I really feel like that may have been the difference, because in both cases the judges made it clear that they expected the line prosecutor to go back and talk to higher-ups in the office and do the right thing, and in one case she did, with Johnny Baca. In the other case, she didnt, with George Gage. Advertisement Bazelon says that George Gage was a 60-year-old electrician with no criminal record. He entered into a marriage with a woman named Wanda, and the marriage went very wrong. Gage had an extramarital affair, and Wanda divorced him and moved away with her daughter, Marian. Years later, Marian brought forward allegations that Gage had sexually abused her when she lived with him as a kid, and because so much time had passed, the only evidence was Marians testimony, says Bazelon. George Gage was indicted and tried, and the jury hung the first time. He was offered a plea deal that would have essentially given him time served, because he had been incarcerated. He said, No, I am not a sexual predatorhe adamantly insisted that he was innocent. Advertisement Advertisement Bazelon continues, There was a second trial. He was convicted. Afterward, the prosecutor, whos now a judge, sought the maximum possible penalty. In response, the court asked for some documentation that it turned out the prosecutor had suppressedreams of material, including medical and psychiatric records that were quite damning of Marian in terms of her truth-telling ability. The most damning to me is a hospital intake form where her own mother wrote on the form, My daughter is a pathological liar and she lives her lies. Under the law, Bazelon says that all of this information should have been disclosed, but it was hidden. The trial judge read the material and reacted so strongly that she wrote an order overturning the conviction, Bazelon says. Ironically, the misconduct of the prosecutor meant that he prevailed on appeal, because the California appellate court said, Well, the jury never considered this evidence, and so, judge, you cant reverse on that basis. Then the case gradually, over time, made its way through various courts and ended up in the 9th Circuit. Advertisement The prosecutors working for Harris defended the conviction. The appellate judge made a signal to Harris office to dismiss the case, but she did not budge, and the conviction was ultimately upheld on a technicality. Today, George Gage is 80 years old. He is partially blind and he is dying, slowly, in a prison in California. Advertisement Im a big proponent of restorative justice, says Bazelon. We are talking about a lot of people whom [Harris] has harmed, not directly, but by using her power to wield legal technicalities to cement injustices or, in some cases, just simply failing to live up to her responsibility to disclose evidence, for example, in the case of the crime-lab scandal in San Francisco. Advertisement But this isnt a binary situation. Harris has also done a great deal of good as a prosecutor. Bazelon points to the Back on Track program, which gives first-time offenders a shot at a second chance. She also rolled out implicit-bias training as attorney general and cleared a backlog of rape cases. So as her presidential campaign kicks off, what should Harris do now to win over skeptics like Bazelon? I think, first of all, she owes those folks an apology, she says. Second of all, I think she owes them some kind of act to help them get justice. I would hope that if George Gage is able, for example, to pull together a petition for clemency or for commutation, that she would do the right thing and support it. I think shes taken some steps in that direction. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bazelon points to the case of Kevin Cooper, who is on death row in California. He was convicted of murdering four people but has always insisted he was innocent. His trial was infected by racism and corruption by the police, says Bazelon. When [Harris] was the AG and Kevin Cooper sought DNA testingadvanced testing to prove his innocenceshe opposed it. Then Nicholas Kristof, the Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times columnist, published an expose of Kevin Coopers case, and it went viral. After Kristofs article was published, Harris reversed position and said that she would support DNA testing, which was ordered by former California Gov. Jerry Brown in late December. I think to convince skeptical folks like me, [Harris] needs to do more and more and more of that, and reckon honestly with her record, says Bazelon. People have come out against Bazelons critiques of Harris and have accused her of participating in a firing squad, but she says she has good reason to take a stand. I am not going to vote for Donald Trump, Bazelon says. I am going to vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is. But right now, we have a chance to carefully vet and find the best possible candidate, and we are blessed with so many people jumping into this race. I dont see any reason at this point not to carefully consider the record of each candidate so that we can make the most informed decision possible. Want more deep analysis? Subscribe to What Next, Slates new daily news podcast, via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, Overcast, Google Play, or iHeart. Conservative right-wing pundit Ann Coulter was once one of Donald Trumps biggest cheerleaders. Now you can put her squarely on the side of disappointed Trump supporters who are having trouble coming to terms with the way they were seemingly lied to by the commander in chief. Bill Maher sarcastically asked Coulter this week how on earth she could have missed the fact that maybe Trump isnt the most truthful of fellows. You voted for him Donald Trumpand now youre finding out hes a lying conman. What was your first clue? Maher asked. Coulter replied: OK, Im a very stupid girl, fine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Maher brought up the tweet Coulter sent out after Trump agreed to temporarily reopen the government without receiving any money for the border wall. Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States, she wrote. Advertisement Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush: As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as President of the United States. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 25, 2019 Coulter did go on to defend Trumps wall proposal, saying that those who oppose the president dont seem to understand why its so popular among Trumps base. It is employers who want to mass migration into the United States that allow them to keep wages low. The Koch brothersthey want it. Rupert Murdoch wants it, my party wants it. Why hasnt Trump been able to get it through for the first two years? Because the Republicans dont want it, she added. Its all of mass immigration, its our legal immigration, its no E-Verify. The wall is a big part of that, and youre being played to have everybody keep acting like this is some racist thing. Advertisement Coulter vehemently pushed back against Mahers suggestion that a wall wont work to keep people out. If you think walls dont work tell it to Netanyahu, she said. Coulter also acknowledged she wonders what happened to Trumps promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, but later seemed to defend him on that point. In Trumps defense he never said they would pre-pay for it he laid this out very clearly, Coulter said. While she is clearly dissatisfied with Trump, she said she could still be wooed back into the fold. Just keep your promise and Im right back in his camp, Coulter said. Even as she isnt happy with the president, Coulter still made it clear she thinks the special counsels investigation is useless. Im telling you how to get Trump. He promised something for 18 months and he lied about it, she said. Thats how you get Trump, its not this Russia nonsense. You are so wasting time. Trump is being the adult in the room. He has stopped talking about invoking a national emergency. He's showing flexibility on the definition of a wall, the number of miles, the amount of money -- and adding immigration sweeteners. To demonstrate his support for immigration, he even held a naturalization ceremony in the Oval Office to personally swear in new citizens from Iraq, Bolivia, Jamaica, the United Kingdom and South Korea, telling them "our whole nation embraces you with open arms and joyful hearts." But it seems Democrats' objective is not to find a way out of the stalemate; it is to humiliate the president. Since Trump heeded Warner's advice, maybe the senator should go to his own leadership and tell them the same thing: The only way this standoff ends is with a win-win solution. Trump is willing to let Democrats claim victory, as long as he can, too. Indeed, he is offering Democrats what should be a tantalizing possibility -- that a small deal on the wall now could pave the way to a big deal on immigration. As Trump said in his speech Saturday, "If we are successful in this effort, we will then have the best chance in a very long time at real, bipartisan immigration reform. And it won't stop here. It will keep going until we do it all." Steyer, the California billionaire Democrat, earlier this month called a press conference in downtown Des Moines to announce he will not run for president and instead focus on his organization, which is drumming up support to impeach President Donald Trump. Of course, Scholten also said he has not ruled out any future campaign. He insisted he is, for the time being, focused on his "Working Hero Iowa" campaign on the income tax credits; but he also said he is leaving the door open. This is not to question Scholtens sincerity about the "Working Hero Iowa" campaign. But with everything like this -- especially in Iowa -- there is a political element. And the campaign could very much help Scholten if he does decide down the road to put his name on the ballot again. Scholten said he will hold "Working Hero Iowa" events all across the state. He described it as similar to a campaign in that hell be working to drum up grassroots support and volunteers to the cause. He wants to raise awareness through these public events and earned media. SIOUX CITY -- The suspect in a Thursday night hotel room fire where a woman was found dead set the fire to cover up for another crime, according to a criminal complaint. Jordan Henry, a 29-year-old Sioux City transient, was allegedly at the Wingate by Wyndham hotel at around 9:24 p.m. Thursday when he intentionally lit a fire in room 102, "in an attempt to cover the evidence of another crime," according to a criminal complaint filed against him Friday. Witnesses identified Henry emerging from the room as smoke came out, and he then fled the hotel. The room was occupied by 40-year-old Elizabeth Bockholt of Hinton, who was found unconscious in the room when police and firefighters arrived shortly thereafter. Attempts to resuscitate her failed and she was pronounced dead at a hospital. Bockholt was a mother of four. Henry was arrested at around 2:43 a.m. Friday morning at the 4900 block of Singing Hills Boulevard, where police had been called for a "suspicious person" in the area. He was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing, possession of drug paraphernalia, first-degree arson and assault. Bond for Henry was set at $50,000. Just like the icing on a cake, when it comes to decor, a room can come to life with the help of fine details. From artwork to accessories, look for fine details to help make individual spaces stand out. DO: Add one or two accessories to a side or coffee table, such as a decorative vase or accent piece. Group accessories as a pair or in a vignette. Three items grouped together can work well. Mix accent pieces with books when styling a bookshelf. Use metallics. Brass remains a hot finish in home decor, especially in accessories. Feel free to also mix brass with silver finishes such as nickel and chrome. Use greenery. Greenery as well as florals, succulents and blooms can help add texture and color. DON'T: Clutter a tabletop or surface. In general following the rule of three works well. Overlook books as decorative items. From coffee table books to small hardbacks placed on shelves, books can be an affordable and colorful decor addition. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday said he had sought and accepted the resignation of Ottawa's ambassador to China, days after the diplomat sparked controversy with criticism of the US extradition request for a top Huawei executive. "Last night I asked for and accepted John McCallum's resignation as Canada's Ambassador to China," Trudeau said in a statement that did not explain why the decision had been taken. McCallum has been making headlines in recent days over comments regarding Meng Wanzhou, Chinese giant Huawei's chief financial officer who was arrested in Vancouver on December 1 and is facing extradition to the United States. Accused of fraud linked to violations of American sanctions on Iran, she is out on bail, but her arrest has sparked an escalating diplomatic crisis between Ottawa and Beijing. McCallum briefed lawmakers Tuesday on the plight of two Canadians detained in China and a third placed on death row in what are widely seen as retaliatory moves by Beijing. After the briefing he told Chinese-language media in Markham, Ontario that he believed the US extradition request was seriously flawed. He cited political comments on the case by US President Donald Trump, the "extraterritorial aspect" of Meng's case and the fact that Canada did not sign on to the Iran sanctions that Washington wants her extradited for. McCallum's remarks were immediately panned by opposition parties and others for seeming to undercut the strict hands-off approach to judicial matters touted by the Canadian government. The following day he issued a statement saying that he "misspoke," and "regrets" that his comments "have created confusion." But on Friday, McCallum told The Vancouver Star that it would be "great for Canada" if the US dropped its extradition request. "From Canada's point of view, if (the US) drops the extradition request, that would be great for Canada," he told the newspaper at a charity function. "We have to make sure that if the US does such a deal, it also includes the release of our two people. And the US is highly aware of that," he said. Trudeau's statement hailed McCallum's almost two decades of public service, which it said he carried out "honorably and with distinction." McCallum previously held a number of cabinet posts, including defense minister, minister of veteran affairs and immigration minister. The statement added that, effective immediately, McCallum's deputy Jim Nickel would represent Canada in Beijing as its charge d'affaires. Spain, France and Germany on Saturday gave embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum, saying they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days. The ultimatum comes as international pressure mounts on the Maduro regime to agree a new vote, with the United States, Canada and major South American players already recognising Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president of Venezuela during massive street rallies this week. After four years of economic pain that has left Venezuelans short of food and medicine and driven more than two million to flee, Guaido is trying to oust Maduro following controversial elections that saw the socialist leader sworn in for a second term. "If within eight days there are no fair, free and transparent elections called in Venezuela, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president" so that he himself can call such polls, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised announcement. French President Emmanuel Macron followed suit in a tweet, saying "the Venezuelan people must be able to freely decide on their future," as did German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz. The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries as the 28-member bloc struggles to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the crisis in Venezuela. - 'Not looking to impose' - Spain had wanted the EU to take a tough line on Maduro by calling for immediate elections, failing which the bloc as a whole would recognise Guaido, the 35-year-old head of Venezuela's National Assembly. But countries like Austria, Greece and Portugal are much more reluctant. In fact Greece's ruling party Syriza has publicly backed Maduro, with party secretary Panos Skourletis voicing "full support and solidarity" to what to he called "the legal president." President Donald Trump's administration has spearheaded the international pressure on Maduro, who accuses Washington of being behind an attempted "coup," by declaring his regime "illegitimate." On Saturday at a UN Security Council meeting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will urge members to recognise Guaido as interim president, the State Department said. Washington's support for Guaido led Maduro to close the US embassy and consulates and break diplomatic ties. US diplomats in Venezuela have until Saturday to leave the country, but Washington has refused to fully comply fully with the exit order. Guaido is instead urging the US diplomats to stay and keep the embassy's doors open. Maduro's reelection last year was contested by the opposition and criticised internationally -- but he has until now retained the loyalty of the powerful military. Spain is closely linked to Venezuela, a former colony, as some 200,000 of its nationals live there. Sanchez insisted Saturday that Spain is "not looking to impose or remove governments in Venezuela, we want democracy and free elections in Venezuela." GBCI will go through mergers and acquisitions in its ecosystem to put together the smart city Singapore-based GBCI Ventures (GBCI) has announced a USD$100 million smart city development fund, which will be directed towards a variation of technologies from artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, big data, IoT, to virtual reality (VR). GBCI aims to cultivate and grow smart cities ecosystem by supporting startups in the early or later stages. GBCI will take an active role to provide these startups with knowledge know-how, access to technology, financial investment, mentorship, and go-to-market support. Also Read: Indonesian tech media rates top female founders, executives based on their beauty, popularity What differentiates this fund, the company claimed, is the formation of mutually beneficial strategic alliances through mergers and acquisitions and the development of a smart metropolis for the future. The fund aims to move beyond the return of investment in technology and finance, by assisting with the engagement of governments, organizations, and businesses that come together to develop smart cities. The dawn of smart city evolution brings economic progress and people are able to enjoy a higher quality of life and better urban services in the ecosystem. This is our vision, especially for companies that can contribute to the development and building of sustainable smart cities for future generations, said Douglas Gan, CEO and Co-founder of GBCI. The concept of smart cities allow citizens to access real infrastructure services like parking, traffic conditions, electricity, and water, all in real time. The future is in developing complete intelligent systems, for example, safety, transport, environmental cleanliness, utilities management, and disaster management, all to operate optimally and efficiently. Also Read: Google, Tencent, JD.com to inject around US$920M investment in Go-Jek GBCI strives to give city dwellers a futuristic and an eco-friendly urban lifestyle using AI as the core framework for building smart cities.GBCI invests in AI, robotics, big data, IoT and VR with the plan to be at the forefront to roll out smart cities, said Lee Changjin, General Partner and Co-founder of GBCI Ventures. The post Singapores GBCI Ventures to develop US$100M worth of Smart City appeared first on e27. Save the Children and other aid agencies on Saturday appealed to Italy to allow minors rescued in the Mediterranean to land, amid the latest diplomatic row over the fate of migrants saved at sea. "These young people have already suffered enough violence and abuse during their journey to Italy and are particularly vulnerable," Raffaela Milano, the director of the Italian arm of Save the Children, said in a statement. She called for an "immediate" response to the call by Catania prosecutors to allow the minors on board the Dutch-flagged rescue ship Sea Watch 3, currently sheltering from bad weather off Sicily, to be disembarked. The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), its children's agency (UNICEF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) also called for an "urgent" solution for the minors and other migrants, saying the situation was "critical". But far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini repeated his refusal to take in the migrants, and claimed the 13 unaccompanied minors were nearly 18 years old and not children. "I will not change my mind. Italy's ports are closed and will remain closed to people traffickers and their accomplices," he said. Salvini has insisted Germany or the Netherlands take responsibility for the 47 mainly sub-Saharan African migrants, who were rescued off Libya by the German NGO Sea Watch a week ago. "If the Netherlands' government is not able to control the ships that sail under its flag, it should take it off them!" he said. Dutch Migration Minister Mark Harbers said his country "was not obligated" to find a solution, telling Italy's Corriere della Sera daily that the Sea Watch 3 had acted "of its own initiative". "It is up to the captain to find a safe port for the 47 migrants he saved," he said, adding that the Dutch government would "not participate in an ad hoc solution". - 'Every minute counts' "For three days we have faced storms, strong winds and heavy rain," a doctor on board told ANSA news agency. The migrants "are wet because there is not enough room under cover. They have no room to rest," she said, adding that many of them had scars from violence inflicted on them in Libya. The mayor of Syracuse, Francesco Italia, has said he would welcome those rescued and some inhabitants in the Sicilian coastal city on Saturday hung white sheets from their balconies, with the message "let them disembark". Dozens of residents gathered for a sit-in on the beach, where the ship could be seen just over a mile out. Sea Watch called for "an end to this odyssey" and cited a 16-year-old Guinean onboard who left home two years ago to find work to support his family after his father died, and who said he was forced in Libya to work at gunpoint for no pay. "They killed one of my friends in front of me. He was killed because one morning he couldn't get up to go to work," he said. Milano warned that "every extra minute spent on the ship... is likely to leave indelible marks that these youngsters will carry with them for the rest of their lives". Migrants rescued by ships have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government began turning them away last summer. Since coming to power last year, Italy has been demanding greater solidarity from reluctant fellow EU states. But EU members have failed to agree on a permanent mechanism to relocate migrants who reach Europe's shores, even though arrivals have dropped sharply since a peak more than three years ago. Denouncing what they call the slaughter of wild boar, Polish animal rights activists are keeping a close watch on hunters and trying to stymie a cull ordered by the government. Polish authorities introduced the hunting plan to stem an outbreak of African swine fever (ASF), which is deadly to wild boar and pigs and was first spotted in the EU member in 2014 when infected boar entered from Belarus. "Stop hunting, come down, you look like a good man," 44-year-old animal rights activist Anna Ruszkiewicz said to a hunter sitting in a hunting tower in the middle of a forest southwest of Warsaw. "Come over to the other side of the barricade, join people like us who are protecting animals instead of killing them," the activist clad in a yellow vest added gently. Ruszkiewicz, who works as a public servant in Warsaw, undertook the hour-long drive from the capital along with around 40 others to block the hunt in the forest next to the village of Wiatrowiec. "We've been walking around. Picking mushrooms. We have the right, no? The forest belongs to everyone," she said. For the dozen or so hunters, it is yet another failed hunt: one by one, they climb down from the towers and leave the forest to put away their rifles and drive away with their dogs. The animal rights activists follow in hot pursuit. For the rest of the day, the hunters will have them on their heels as they visit various spots around the area. "The goal is to stop them from just going over to another forest to hunt," said Anna Michajlow, who is the coordinator of the animal rights operation. - 'Vicious cycle' - On this day the activists come out on top, as not a single wild boar was shot in the area. The previous day only one was killed. "The activists are keeping us from hunting. They blocked us yesterday, last weekend too. And again today they came in a few cars. We aren't able to shoot," said Ryszard Lewandowski, secretary for the Cyranka hunting association based in the central village of Jeziorka. "It's a vicious cycle. The (environment) minister is asking us to hunt wild boar to stop the ASF virus from spreading -- and we can't," he told AFP. "So the virus is heading ever closer to the west and reaching pig farms. If things continue as is, the virus will end up in Germany." According to data from the PZL hunting union, nearly 200,000 wild boar have been killed since early April, or 90 percent of the planned total. But that is not enough for the government, which ordered them to step up their hunting efforts in January. For each boar they kill under the scheme, hunters receive more than 600 zloty (140 euros, $160). Of that amount, 20 percent must go to the hunting association. The agricultural lobby is strong, as Poland is one of the leading producers of pork in the European Union. In June 2018, farmers had a total of 11.8 million swine. Since the virus was detected in Poland in 2014, 43,000 from affected areas have had to be shot dead, according to the country's chief veterinarian. - 'Hunting ethics' - Police officers called to the scene take down the names of the activists. Though peaceful, the atmosphere is tense, with each group making accusations against the other. The activists claim the hunters are "exterminating" a species. The hunters claim the activists are funded by anti-Polish lobbyists. "Who's funding you? Is it in their interest for ASP to spread, and for farmers to have to pay the price?" asks one angry hunter. Boar which are killed are transported to a walk-in freezer where they are gutted and samples are drawn for analysis. Results arrive back a week later. The virus is not dangerous to humans but is a threat to the pork industry. "The situation is worrisome," said Grzegorz Wozniakowski, head of the national laboratory in the eastern city of Pulawy. "The samples collected from 24 boar shot in Grawolin, around 40 kilometres from Warsaw, all came back positive. One hundred percent of those boar were infected, compared to 10 percent in general." The hunters say they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. "If we don't reach the quota of 48 boar set by the (environment) minister, we risk consequences," 42-year-old hunter Marcin Jakubczak said. That quota is in addition to the annual 154 boar set out for their area of nearly 13,000 hectares in the regular hunting plan. "Obviously we don't fire on sows and their little ones. It's against hunting ethics," Jakubczak said. The environment minister had requested to also shoot sows over the course of the year, without honouring the period of protection linked to procreation. The tension led to the resignation of PZL head Piotr Jenoch, who made clear that he was opposed to the demands made on hunters. The United States has delayed its plan to send asylum seekers back to Mexico while their claims are processed, as the Mexican government said Friday it "disagrees" with the policy. US and Mexican officials had said President Donald Trump's controversial "Remain in Mexico" policy would be put into effect Friday at noon with the return of 20 Central Americans at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego, California and the Mexican city of Tijuana. However, no asylum seekers had been sent back by Friday evening, said an AFP correspondent at the border, and Mexican authorities said the program had been delayed. A Mexican immigration official in Tijuana, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the first returns had been pushed back, possibly to Monday or later. "It's not that simple. It's a very delicate migration situation," the source told AFP. "These are migrants who have a court date with a judge (to seek asylum), which means US authorities have accepted that their lives could actually be in danger. If anything happens to them in Mexico, their families could sue the US government for failing to protect them." Earlier, foreign ministry spokesman Roberto Velasco said the Mexican government was not happy with the new policy, but would accept the migrants for "humanitarian" reasons. "The Mexican government disagrees with the unilateral measure implemented by the United States government. However... we reiterate our commitment to migrants and human rights," Velasco told a news conference. Mexico will give returnees humanitarian visas that allow them to stay in the country temporarily while they await their court dates in the US, he said. The US plans to continue presenting 20 people a day at San Ysidro, and eventually extend the policy to other points along the 3,145-kilometer (2,000-mile) border, Velasco said. - Fighting 'catch and release' - Announced last year, the policy is meant to stop what Trump calls "catch and release" -- allowing migrants who cross the border without papers and claim asylum to leave detention and remain in the United States while their cases are processed. The US Department of Homeland Security says it is facing a "humanitarian and security crisis" on the southern border, caused by a broken immigration system "exploited by smugglers, traffickers, and those who have no legal right to remain in the United States." It says at least 80 percent of asylum claims are without merit -- mostly by poor refugees from violence-wracked Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Many of them never show up for their court hearings, department officials say. The system is badly backlogged, with 800,000 asylum requests currently pending. But the "Remain in Mexico" plan -- which Homeland Security has since rebranded the "Migrant Protection Protocols" -- has been sharply criticized by opponents on both sides of the border. Migrants have been tortured, raped and killed in Mexico's often violent border regions, and the new policy violates the right of people whose lives are genuinely at risk to seek asylum in the US, activists say. The new policy "is not only unlawful but could lead to dire and catastrophic consequences for those who are seeking to access the asylum process in the United States, a right which is enshrined in both domestic and international law," Katie Shepherd, a lawyer at the American Immigration Council, told AFP. Authorities in Tijuana said the returnees would initially be housed in a government-run shelter. Mexico will not accept unaccompanied minors, people with health problems or those who have appealed a rejected asylum claim, said Velasco. The policy limbo came as Trump announced a deal to reopen the US government after a record five-week shutdown triggered by his fight with Congress over funding for a border wall, which he says is the only way to stop illegal immigration. The deal with opposition Democrats does not include funding for the wall. Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis on Thursday announced he will run for president this year, saying his election would lead to "more harmony" and less intrigue in the Baltic eurozone state. "I will participate in the (May) election," Skvernelis said in the western town of Rusne. The 48-year-old will almost certainly receive backing from the governing centre-left Farmers and Greens Union next week. President Dalia Grybauskaite is not among the 10 candidates currently in the running as she has served the maximum two terms allowed under the constitution. Skvernelis's challengers include independent economist Gitanas Nauseda and conservative ex-finance minister Ingrida Simonyte, who he described on Thursday as the "heirs" to Grybauskaite. Surveys show that Skvernelis is more popular in rural areas but has little support in the capital Vilnius. All candidates are expected to fall short of the 50 percent of votes needed to get elected in the first round on May 12. If needed, the run-off will take place on May 26, coinciding with European Parliament elections. The Lithuanian president is in charge of foreign policy under the constitution and holds a seat at EU summits. The president also appoints ministers, judges, the military chief and the head of the central bank, but often needs the approval of the parliament or the prime minister. Wary of neighbouring Russia, Lithuania is among only eight NATO countries that spend 2 percent of GDP on defence. Its economy is expected to grow around three percent this year, but the high proportion of people at risk of poverty and high income inequality remain major challenges for the nation of 2.8 million people. Thousands of Australians attended "Invasion Day" rallies across the country on Saturday calling for a rethink of national day celebrations they say are disrespectful to indigenous people. The annual January 26 Australia Day holiday commemorates the arrival of the first British settlers in 1788, but for many Australians it marks the beginning of colonial oppression of Aboriginal people. Several thousand joined the annual march in Melbourne Saturday chanting "Always was, always will be Aboriginal land", and holding placards stating "Australia is a crime scene". Thousands more joined similar demonstrations in major cities around the country, calling for a change of date, or for the day to be abolished altogether. "Why would you want to celebrate this concept called Australia? It is founded on lies, founded on genocide, founded on murder," Melbourne protestor Dominic Guerrera told AFP. "There's nothing to celebrate in that." Divisions have deepened in recent years with increasing calls to change the date. Amid the heightened sensitivities this week Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced government funding of a voyage to mark the 250th anniversary of explorer Captain James Cook's first journey to Australia. Canberra pledged about $6.5 million to a circumnavigation of Australia in a replica of Cook's ship, the Endeavour, which in 1770 brought the British into contact with eastern Australia and foreshadowed the colonisation of the continent. The story of Cook's voyage and his "discovery" of territory declared New South Wales on the east coast has stirred debate in Australia, with Aboriginal people inhabiting the land for more than 60,000 years before the first European explorers arrived. Meanwhile, the uncovering this week in London of the remains of British explorer Matthew Flinders, who is credited as the first to circumnavigate the Australian continent in 1802-1803, has also added to the controversy. An aboriginal aide to Flinders named Bungaree has been largely eclipsed by his British captain, but historians now believe he played a crucial role in success of the voyage. Morrison, who has resisted calls to change the date, said Saturday Australia cannot "walk away" from its past. "Australia is the story of being overcome, to be able to see the better nature of Australians and the values we hold together, all races, all peoples, all cultures, all religions, all languages even," he told reporters. Aboriginal people remain the most disadvantaged Australians, with higher rates of poverty, ill-health and imprisonment than any other community. Australia Day is also celebrated across the county, with picnics, traditional Aboriginal performances and citizenship ceremonies, where more than 16,000 new Australians pledged their commitment to the nation Saturday. Imam-ul-Haq hit a measured century - and delivered a message to his critics - as Pakistan piled up 317 for six in the third one-day international against South Africa on Friday. As Imam completed the single that took him to his fifth century in his 19th one-day international he pointed to his mouth as his lips moved vigorously. He was out almost immediately afterwards for 101, made off 116 balls with eight fours. Asked about his gesture in an interview with SuperSport television after his innings, he laughed and said: "Everybody knows I am the nephew of the chief selector (Inzamam-ul-Haq) and that was a message to all the Pakistan media and all the Pakistan people who criticise me." The left-handed Imam shared partnerships of 132 for the second wicket with Babar Azam (69) and 84 for the third wicket with Mohammad Hafeez (52). Imad Wasim finished the innings with a flourish with an unbeaten 43 off 23 balls, putting on 52 off 31 balls with Shoaib Malik (31) for the fifth wicket. With the five-match series tied at 1-1, South Africa had a poor day in the field, dropping five catches, including lives to all five of the Pakistan top scorers. There were 12 wides in the innings as South Africa needed more than 20 minutes past the allotted time to bowl their 50 overs. Andile Phehlukwayo and Tabraiz Shamsi, the two most successful bowlers when South Africa's won the second match in Durban on Tuesday, conceded a combined 146 runs in 19 overs for the wicket of Imam, caught in the deep off Shamsi. Chinese authorities on Friday ordered the arrest of 19 people for allegedly organising protests by military veterans in two cities last year, state media reported. The 19 people are accused of "gathering crowds to disturb social order" in the eastern cities of Pingdu in October or Zhenjiang in June of last year and "intentional assault", official news agency Xinhua reported, citing prosecutors. The Zhenjiang rally was organised to protest the alleged beating of elderly ex-soldiers demanding better pensions, witnesses told AFP at the time. The demonstrations highlighted the years-long struggle among former soldiers of the world's biggest standing army to get better benefits, posing a headache for the country's Communist leadership. Authorities in China have little tolerance for public dissent but the People's Liberation Army and its veterans are venerated as heroes, and protests continued for days in the city of Zhenjiang before police intervened. The nine suspected organisers of the the Zhenjiang protest allegedly assembled more than 1,000 people in front of the city government illegally and "engaged in violent confrontation with police and security staff," Xinhua said. In Pingdu 10 people were alleged to have organised veteran protests which Xinhua said attacked the police, smashed cars and obstructed government operations. Thousands of army veterans have staged protests in recent years against officials whom they accuse of denying them benefits. China's defence ministry had vowed in 2016 to improve living standards for veterans after thousands had demonstrated outside army offices in Beijing. China has laid off more than a million troops since the 1980s and vowed last year to further cut its two-million strong army. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: By Gram Slattery BRUMADINHO, Brazil (Reuters) - Teams of rescuers were preparing to dig through thick mud on Saturday in a search for survivors of a dam burst at a Brazilian iron ore mine owned by Vale SA that left hundreds missing and halted operations. Firefighters focused their hopes on a bus, a train, mining offices and nearby homes that were buried on Friday when a torrent of mud was unleashed by the dam break at Vale's Corrego do Feijao facility in Minas Gerais state. More than a dozen helicopters flew over the area on Saturday to survey the disaster and aid the rescue teams. The state fire department said in a statement that only 10 bodies had been found so far. In a separate statement, the department reduced the number of missing to roughly 300 people, after 46 were found alive. "Unfortunately, at this point, the chances of finding survivors are minimal. We're likely to just be recovering bodies," Romeu Zema, governor of Minas Gerais, told local media. During a press conference, Zema said the mining complex had all its permits in order and it was unclear what caused the collapse of the dam, which had been inactive for years. The National Mining Agency ordered Vale, the largest producer of iron ore in the world, to halt operations at the Corrego do Feijao mine, located near the town of Brumadinho in mining-focused Minas Gerais, according to a document seen by Reuters. State prosecutors have requested that 5 billion reais ($1.33 billion) in Vale's accounts be frozen to be directed toward efforts to pay for damages, Antonio Sergio Tonet, a prosecutor with the Minas Gerais Justice Department, told reporters, saying he expected more assets to be frozen. Earlier, a state judge ordered Vale to freeze 1 billion reais in its accounts. 'IN THE MUD' The death toll was expected to rise sharply, according to Avimar de Melo Barcelos, the mayor of Brumadinho. Israel has offered to send search equipment that could be used to find victims in up to 10 meters (33 feet) of mud, Zema said. Search dogs were being flown in from Rio de Janeiro to aid in the rescue efforts. Story continues All of those missing are Vale employees or contractors, a police spokesman said. "I know a lot of the affected people: Two sisters-in-law, a cousin, many friends there in the community. They're in the mud," local resident Carlos Jose dos Santos told Reuters. Minas Gerais is still recovering from the 2015 collapse of a larger dam that killed 19 people in Brazil's worst environmental disaster. That dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP Group Ltd, buried a village and poured toxic waste into a major river. New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro visited Minas Gerais and flew over the disaster area Saturday morning. He dispatched three ministers to the area, who addressed reporters after Zema. Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said the dam that burst on Friday was being decommissioned and its capacity was about a fifth of the total waste spilled at Samarco. He said equipment had shown the dam was stable on Jan. 10 and it was too soon to say why it collapsed. The Corrego do Feijao mine is one of four in Vale's Paraoeba complex, which includes two processing plants. The complex produced 26 million tonnes of iron ore in 2017, or about 7 percent of Vale's output, with Corrego do Feijao accounting for 7.8 million tonnes, according to the company's website. Operations at Samarco remain halted over new licensing, while the companies have worked to pay damages out of court, including an agreement that quashed a 20 billion reais ($5.31 billion) civil lawsuit last year. Federal prosecutors suspended but have not closed an even larger lawsuit. ($1 = 3.7695 reais) (Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Marta Nogueira and Marcela Ayers; Writing by Jake Spring; Editing by Brad Haynes and Paul Simao) Fears of a second dam breach at a Brazilian mining complex receded Sunday, enabling a search to resume for the more than 300 people still missing two days after a dam collapse that has killed at least 58 people. Loudspeakers rang out at 5:30 am (0730 GMT) among homes surrounding the Corrego do Feijao mining complex in southeastern Brazil, warning of dangerously high water levels, according to mine owner Vale. Workers at the complex are still reeling after a barrier at the site burst on Friday, spewing millions of tons of treacherous sludge and engulfing buildings, vehicles and roads. Firefighters halted the search for survivors and immediately began evacuating communities near the dike, which contains at least three million cubic meters (800 million gallons) of water. But several hours later, civil defense officials gave the all clear. "There is no more risk of a break," said Lieutenant Colonel Flavio Godinho, a spokesman for the state civil defense agency, explaining that the high water levels had been drained off. "The search has resumed -- by land, by aircraft and with dogs." Dozens of helicopters were set to be deployed because the thick mud was too treacherous for ground rescuers. The latest official toll from the dam breach was 58 dead and 305 missing, according to Godinho. He said rescuers found a bus full of bodies. Vale, the Brazilian mining giant, said people were being allowed to return to their homes. "I had to leave with my family, my children," Jose Maria Silva, 59, told AFP. "We are upset, tense, because leaving our house is not easy. We've been here 15 years, and now we have to leave everything and run away.' Fagner Miranda, 29, added: "several people ran out, desperate... Those with no car fled on foot, with a backpack on their backs and what they could carry." - Shaken by disaster - So far, 192 people have been rescued alive, 23 of whom were hospitalized with injuries, officials said. President Jair Bolsonaro flew over the devastated zone on Saturday, later tweeting that it was "difficult to not be emotional before this scene." All was being done to care for survivors and "determine the facts, to demand justice and prevent new tragedies," he added. The military said it deployed 1,000 soldiers, including sniffer dogs, to the disaster zone. The disaster was the first big emergency faced by Bolsonaro and his government since he took office in early January, and it may be one of the deadliest disasters in Brazil's history. Vale has been shaken by the disaster, the second in three years it has suffered in the same state. Workers at its mine had been at lunch in an administrative area Friday when they were suddenly swamped by millions of tons of muddy trailings -- a waste byproduct of the iron-ore mining operations. The ruptured dam, 42 years old and 282 feet (86 meters) high, had been in the process of being decommissioned. Vale said it had recently passed structural safety tests. - Vale assets frozen - After overflowing a second dam, the muddy mass barreled down toward Brumadinho but only glanced along the town's edge before roaring through vegetation and farmland, smashing houses and swallowing tractors and roads in its path. Brazilian judicial authorities announced they had frozen $3 billion of Vale's assets, saying real estate and vehicles would be seized if the company could not come up with the full amount. The company also has been hit with fines by the federal and state government totaling some $92.5 million. Vale share prices fell Friday more than eight percent on the New York Stock Exchange. The mining company, one of the world's biggest, was involved in a 2015 mine collapse elsewhere in Minas Gerais that claimed 19 lives in what is regarded as the country's worst-ever environmental disaster. "There used to be people here, houses. I'm just floored by this tragedy," Rosilene Aganetti, a 57-year-old resident in one of the affected villages, told AFP, pointing to an expanse of mud. "Several of my friends who were in the Vale cafeteria are missing," she said, holding back sobs. Another woman, Suely de Olivera Costa, was desperately trying to find her husband, who worked at the mine. She angrily accused Vale of "destroying Brumadinho, and nobody is doing anything -- which will be the next town?" The Brazilian branch of environmental group Greenpeace said the dam break was "a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies." Such incidents "are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired," it added. The Ukrainian authorities are observing a surge in allege state-sponsored attacks aimed at disrupting the upcoming presidential election. Ukraine reported a surge in cyber attacks aimed at disrupting the upcoming presidential election, the Government believes that Russian nation-state actors could be responsible for them. The news was reported by Reuters, attackers intensified attacks against the Ukrainian government and political party, according to the experts with the clear intent of disrupting the presidential election scheduled for March. According to Pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko, likely to stand in the elections, declared that Russia will attempt to interfere in the election and has developed a powerful cyber arsenal to do it. This is not just our take. The Russian meddling to influence Ukraines elections is well under way, Petro Poroshenko told foreign diplomats. President opponent is the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, which is also known to be pro-Western. Threat actors are carrying out spear-phishing attacks against election officials, in some cases, they are using stolen credentials purchased on the dark web. Techniques used by attackers are similar to ongoing cyberattacks on Ukrainian energy, transport, and banking industries. Serhiy Demedyuk told Reuters the attackers were using virus-infected greeting cards, shopping invitations, offers for software updates and other malicious phishing material intended to steal passwords and personal information. reported Reuters. Ten weeks before the elections, hackers were also buying personal details of election officials, Demedyuk said, paying in cryptocurrency on the dark web, part of the internet accessible only through certain software and typically used anonymously. Authorities confirmed that hackers did not penetrate national election infrastructure Of course, Russia has denied any involvement in hacking campaigns aimed at Ukraines elections. Russian state structures have never interfered, and are not interfering, in the internal affairs of other countries. said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The cyber police and experts worry that state-sponsored hackers could hit critical infrastructure in energy and banking industries. In 2017, NotPetya attack hit thousands of computers in Ukraine before spreading worldwide, alleged Russia-linked hackers compromised the supply chain of the Ukrainian tax accounting system called MeDoc. Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs Ukraine elections, Russia) Share this... Linkedin Share this: Twitter Print LinkedIn Facebook More Tumblr Pocket Share On Several key WTO member nations Friday expressed their resolve to work towards satisfactory solutions for preserving the credibility of the multilateral body and increase its relevance amid increasing uncertainties at global trade front. Various issues were discussed at the meeting of 32 members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) here on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting. Also Read: Donald Trump accepts deal to temporarily end longest govt shutdown in US history The ministers, who participated in the meeting, emphasised on the urgency of restoring a fully-functioning appellate body, according to a statement issued by the Swiss government. The statement assumes significance as any delay in appointment of members in the appellate body of the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism would hamper its functioning. The US has blocked the appointment of these members. "Ministers welcomed the process recently initiated to address concerns related to WTO's dispute settlement system. In this regard, they underlined the urgency of restoring a fully-functioning Appellate Body," the statement said. Also Read: Bharti Infratel to get Rs 2,900 crore from early exit of telcos, including Vodafone Idea The need to reform the 164-member group and to improve its functioning was widely acknowledged at the meeting. On e-commerce, the statement said many ministers confirmed their intention to start negotiations on the issue. "Some considered that they needed to better understand the issues at stake before taking further steps," it added. Also Read: Republic Day 2019: India gifts 30 ambulances, 6 buses to Nepal Also Read: India adopts cautionary approach to link climate change to security Saudi Arabia is putting itself in a potentially dangerous geopolitical position as it seeks to continue its decades' long relationship with Washington while at the same time forging new ties, mostly based on oil markets cooperation, with Moscow. The latest installment in this Saudi narrative came on Tuesday when Saudi Aramco said at the yearly World Economic Forums in Davos, Switzerland that its looking to acquire natural gas assets in the U.S. and is willing to spend billions of dollars there as it aims to become a global gas player. Saudi Aramco has recently diversified its holdings in many countries by investing in downstream assets, including currently owning the Motiva complex in Texas, the biggest oil refinery in the U.S. Saudi Aramco Amin Nasser told Reuters at the forum that it intends to invest another $10 bn in the Motiva complex. He added, We do have appetite for additional investments in the United States. Aramcos international gas team has been given an open platform to look at gas acquisitions along the whole supply chain. They have been given significant financial firepower in the billions of dollars. Saudi Aramco has already indicated its interest in becoming a global gas and LNG player and one day exporting the fuel, but it has a long way to go put the infrastructure in place before they can come to fruition. Playing both sides However, despite Saudi Arabias close ties to U.S., dating back to the administration of Franklin Roosevelt during World War II and then afterwards when American oil industry know-how, management, best practices, and funds helped develop the Saudi oil industry and propelled it to where it is today, Riyadh has also been forming closer times with one-time adversary Moscow. Related: How Tech Is Decentralizing The Energy Industry The growing ties with Russia were born of oil market necessity. The two sides agreed to put an oil production cut deal in place in 2016 to drain down then oversupplied markets, with a downward trajectory on oil prices that saw Brent crude futures plummet from around $100 per barrel in mid-2014 to breaking below the $30 per barrel price point by early 2016. Thus was born the OPEC+ group of oil producers, led by Russia and Saudi Arabia. Since their first oil cut agreement in 2016, the two countries last year agreed once again to cut output to drain down oil inventories amid fears of a global oil demand slowdown due to the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, and weakness in emerging markets coming at the same time as record high production from the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia - the worlds top three oil producing nations. Related: Americans Are Not Ready For A Recession The Russians and Saudi are now also considering tie-ups in gas, with Saudi Arabia looking to become a major investor in Russias fledgling but forward-thinking LNG sector that Russian President Vladimir Putin claims can one day compete with Qatar, Australia and the U.S. to be the top global LNG export leader. Therein lies the rub. As Riyadh and Moscow continue to boost their oil and gas interdependence both in terms of investment in each others sectors but also in terms of controlling global oil prices, the two sides will also increasingly forge an alliance geopolitically, which includes in the always violate middle-east where the U.S. and Russia are usually at odds, including being on opposite sides in the ongoing Syrian Civil War. While it may be a number of years before it develops, there will come a time when Riyadh will be forced to choose sides between U.S. interests and Moscows growing regional hegemony ambitions and its increased influence in the middle east. At the end of the day, its a decision that no Saudi leader should be looking forward to (one that will likely fall on the shoulder of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman). Its also a decision nonetheless that could dictate both global oil and gas markets and middle eastern regional stability for decades. By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Safehaven.com "Taking that spot and making it a memorial would help change a painful location to a place where we can all remember Mason's hard work and sacrifice of not only Mason, but all of his brothers and sisters in blue," said Jodi Moore, Mason Moore's wife, while testifying in support of the bill. Why the Russian cloak and dagger? Why all the cloak and dagger every time Trump contacts the Ruskies? Why is he always alone with them? Why is it that Russian media informs us of the upcoming meetings? Why were they allowed in the oval office with all those cases of "camera equipment" while no one besides Trump from the USA was allowed in, and did they plant something like a bug or a homing device? Why is Trumps administration easing sanctions on Russians while he shuts down our government? Is Trump trying to make us wonder about his personal loyalties? If this was Obama, Fox News would be rallying the troops for a righteous uprising. I understand that it has and still does behoove us to partner with Russia on some global issues, and NASA uses their help all the time, but this Trump-Russia business has gone embarrassingly way too far. Dave Freytag Rapid City Treat yourself to Journey Museum First of all, the point of putting a price on carbon-producing fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas is to reduce the amount of harmful carbon pollution being emitted into the atmosphere. The majority of Americans understand the cause of climate change and the severe consequences of inaction. Secondly, the carbon tax that Mr. Thomas refers to in Ireland and France is very different from the Carbon Fee and Dividend bills introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate at the end of 2018. These bills, H.R. 7173 and S.3791, both sponsored by Republicans and Democrats, will assess a fee on fossil fuels that starts low and grows over time. The government will not keep any of the fees collected, so the size of the government will not grow. The money from the fee will be allocated equally and directly to all Americans to spend any way they choose. A steadily rising carbon fee will increase fossil fuel energy costs, and the dividend is the key to offsetting these cost increases while transitioning to clean energy. Numerous economic studies, including a 2017 U.S. Treasury report and a study done by the Regional Economic Models, Inc. (REMI) show that between 60 to 70 percent of Americans would be better off financially under a carbon dividends program. Typically, lower-income households use less energy, so theyll be more apt to come out ahead. It all depends on what kind of energy you use, and how much. Weekly volunteer opportunities through the Helpline Center include: Live, Move, Be Farms is embarking on its first project for people with autism & developmental differences in cooperation with Black Hills Works. Current volunteer needs are for setting up tray stands, testing equipment, weeding, planting, local delivery, transplanting and organizing the front office. Must be 18+ to volunteer. Purr n Ruff Rescue is in need of volunteers to assist with fundraising events, take part in dog walks and, in general, help with raising awareness of Purr 'n' Ruff Rescue/Black Hills Rescue Transport's activities in the Rapid City area. Must be 10 to volunteer with an adult or 14+. Rapid City Area Schools seeks help for their student lunch service from 10:55 a.m. to 1:05 p.m. Monday through Friday (but there is flexibility). Must be 18+ to volunteer. Working Against Violence, Inc. is looking for volunteers to supervise children in the play area from 1:30-3 p.m. on Sundays, 4-5:30 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, and 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Must be 12+ with an adult or 14+. For more information, dial 211 or visit helplinecenter.org. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The government will release Rs 1,500 crore to Air India next week as part of equity infusion under the turnaround plan, a senior official said Friday. Parliament has approved Rs 2,345 crore equity infusion into the debt-laden national carrier under the second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants 2018-19. A civil aviation ministry official said the government would release Rs 1,500 crore to the airline next week. This would be out of the Rs 2,345 crore approved supplementary grant. When asked whether the ministry has sought more funds for Air India as part of the upcoming interim Budget, the official replied in the negative. As part of efforts to revive the financial fortunes of the national carrier, the government has decided to transfer debt worth Rs 29,000 crore to Air India Asset Holding Company, a special purpose vehicle. The airline has debt worth around Rs 55,000 crore. Air India is staying afloat on a bailout package extended by the previous UPA regime. The carrier is to receive up to Rs 30,231 crore from the government subject to meeting certain performance thresholds. The 10-year bailout package began from 2012. Also read: RSS urges PM Modi to resist US push to ease e-commerce curbs One man wrote on the Journal's Facebook page that two fires were seen under the car. He said he helped put them out with his hands before a woman brought a small extinguisher and then a first responder brought a larger one. There were multiple eyewitnesses before the fire department arrived, and some claimed there was a fire while others didn't, Bussell wrote in an email. He confirmed that a fire extinguisher had been used before the department arrived. Bussell said it's possible there was a fire but "there are lots and lots of occasions where smoke and steam from fluids (oil, anti-freeze, etc.) coming in contact with hot motor components will be mistaken for the vehicle being on fire. The same holds true for airbag powder." "Some of (the burn-like patterns on the truck) has to do with debris from motor components, some of that has to do with debris from airbags, some of that has to do with just pulverized debris from vehicles, but there was no fire," he said at the press conference. Meanwhile, the I-90 Exit 60 eastbound off-ramp was closed "for an appreciable amount of time" as authorities investigated and cleaned up the scene, he said. The South Dakota Senior Health Information and Insurance Education (SHIINE) program is currently seeking volunteers for all aspects of the program. Volunteer counselors are vital to the success of the program, as they provide opportunities for seniors to discuss their Medicare questions and concerns in person. A Harrold teenager is the winner of this year's Lloyd W. Rypkema Memorial Horse Award. This year's award goes to Haley Husted, a sophomore at Highmore-Harrold High School. Her parents are Chad Husted and Vickie Tibbs-Husted, and her family ranches near Harrold, a small community in Hughes County about 35 miles east of Pierre in central South Dakota. Rypkema, who died in 2010, was a Pennington County rancher and businessman who spent his life raising cattle and horses. Every year, his family awards a registered Quarter Horse foal, with bloodlines from Rypkema's own herds, to a young person involved in agriculture. It's the eighth year the Rypkema and Hunt families have awarded a foal. This year's is a young sorrel stallion named Frost Dancer, a descendant of Rypkema's horse Devil Cat Dancer. For the award, Black Hills-area youth ages 12-18 submit an essay outlining their horsemanship experience, and the support system they would have to care for the horse should they win. However, noted Goehring, predator control through USDA Wildlife Services is "somewhat limited." For that reason, the Coyote Catalog is often a preferred option for ranchers and landowners looking to find a solution to their coyote problems. "This year we have 17 landowners signed up and 359 hunters," said Goehring. "It's nice, especially with calving and lambing season coming on. In some areas there's an increase in coyote activity and this is a concerted effort to manage the population out there." While the program is entirely voluntary by both parties, Goehring said there are some landowners in remote areas of the state who would welcome a few more hunters. It may mean driving a greater distance than some hunters are accustomed to, he said. "But it's a good way for sportsmen and landowners to work together and try to take care of a nuisance," Goehring said. As for coyote numbers, that varies throughout the state. Overall though, coyote numbers in western North Dakota appear to be down somewhat from a year ago while the coyote population in eastern North Dakota, particularly in the Red River Valley, has increased. LINCOLN, Neb. | Nebraska law enforcement officials need to unite behind an effort to track cases of missing Native American women and children, a problem that has gone virtually unnoticed until recently, a state senator said Thursday. Sen. Tom Brewer, of Gordon, presented a proposal to a legislative committee that would require better tracking of such cases. The Legislature's Judiciary Committee heard all-favorable testimony on the bill Thursday from Native American women and other advocates, but took no immediate action. Brewer, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said law enforcement agencies don't always communicate well with tribes or the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. "This failure to communicate between these agencies has left a no-man's land where people can fall through the cracks," Brewer said. "There's not a way to track the numbers and have the accountability that we need." The bill would direct the Nebraska State Patrol to collect data on missing Native American women and organize meetings with law enforcement agencies, tribes and the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs. The patrol would report all of its findings to lawmakers by June 1, 2020. Brewer's original bill focused solely on women, but he said he hopes to expand it to include children. Thumbs Up . to the Quad-City International Airport for stepping up to consider helping federal workers going without pay because of the government shutdown. A couple of weeks ago we praised Transportation Security Administration workers, as well as other federal employees, who were staying on the job, even as some of their colleagues in other parts of the country werent showing up for work. We did not do that to thumb our nose at the workers who called in sick. Frankly, its unconscionable for any employee to be expected to go to work without a guarantee that he or she will be paid for their labors. However, we were especially grateful to local workers who have been willing to sacrifice. Their efforts are vital to air service in this area, which is an important part of our economy. Already, we have been seeing reports that the shutdown has affected air travel across the U.S. Thats why we were happy to see the Rock Island County Metropolitan Airport Authority pass a measure giving Ben Leischner, the airports executive director, the authority to "take any and all actions necessary to facilitate financial assistance" for TSA workers, along with those from the Federal Aviation Administration and Customs and Border Enforcement. Mueller indicted Stone on multiple counts of lying to the House Intelligence Committee and also a count of witness-tampering. "It is a damning indictment that shows Stone tried to obstruct the investigation every step of the way to keep the truth from coming out," remarks former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller. "The question now is are there even bigger secrets he is protecting, and if so, how far is he willing to go to protect them?" Max Bergmann of the Moscow Project points out, "According to Trump himself, campaign staff, and embedded political reporters, the campaign was the Trump show. He was his own strategist and made every decision." He concludes, "It is simply impossible to believe that when it came to the most important campaign decision of all - whether or not to collude with Russia - Trump wasn't involved." The calendar is set. Polling places are mapped. Terms are announced. But with the candidate deadline for Bettendorfs special election to represent the 3rd Ward fast approaching, no one has asked to be the ballot yet, according to the Scott County auditors office. Now, Bettendorf is reminding those interested about important dates and requirements to get the job. Candidates must be at least 18 years old, live in the 3rd Ward and file a nominating petition signed by 25 ward residents with the Scott County auditors office, according to a Friday news release sent by the city. The deadline to file is Feb. 8. The city has also posted a candidate packet containing an affidavit of candidacy on its website, https://www.bettendorf.org. The council seat became vacant in November after the death of longtime Alderwoman Debe LaMar, who had long been ill with cancer. Earlier this month, Bettendorf aldermen unanimously passed a resolution calling for a special election on March 5. They decided against appointing someone, citing time constraints and a preference to give ward residents the chance to choose. Three people and a number of pets escaped two separate fires -- one Thursday, the other Friday -- in Rock Island. At 6:14 a.m. Friday, firefighters were called to 2714 5 Ave., Rock Island Fire Marshal Greg Marty said. There was one person home at the time and she escaped. There were no injuries reported at this fire. Seven cats and a dog also were rescued or escaped the fire. "We believe they have all been found," Marty said. The fire is being blamed on knob-and-tube wiring in an unused part of the attic and the damage was estimated at about $60,000, he said. Firefighters faced several challenges combating the blaze, Marty said. These included fire hydrants that were buried in snow and had to be dug out, one of which malfunctioned, and streets narrowed because parked vehicles had been pushed farther into the roadway because of the snow. The crews surmounted all of them. "It was a very challenging fire, but the guys did a fantastic job," he said. The American Red Cross was assisting one adult because of the fire, Trish Burnett, executive director for the nonprofit's Quad-Cities branch, said. A Rock Island man is facing a robbery charge after he made arrangements to buy a laptop from a person, then allegedly stole it when they met for the exchange, police say. Marcus Lamar Miller, 20, of 2011 16th St., is charged with one count of second-degree robbery. The charge is a Class C felony under Iowa law that carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years. According to the arrest affidavit filed by Davenport Police officer Doug Scroggins, on Jan. 6 a person made arrangements with Miller to sell him a computer for $500. The two met at 1702 Eagles Crest Ave. to make the exchange. Instead, according to Scroggins affidavit, Miller dragged the other man to the ground, assaulted him and took the laptop and fled in a tan Toyota Camry. The victim gave police the name the suspect used in their communication, which was done through Facebook Marketplace. A check of the name in Davenport police records showed that Miller was the owner of a tan Toyota Camry that had been involved in a traffic crash in Davenport. Scroggins said Millers drivers license photo was placed with others in a photo lineup, and the victim identified Miller as the person who assaulted him and stole the computer. Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, a militant-turned-soldier who laid down his life fighting a group of terrorists in Shopian in Kashmir in November, was awarded the Ashoka Chakra by President Ram Nath Kovind Saturday. The award - India's highest peacetime gallantry honour - was received by Wani's wife and mother at the Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath. Wani is the first Kashmiri to be conferred the Ashoka Chakra. On November 25, 38-year-old Wani, hailing from Cheki Ashmuji in Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, lost his life in a counter-terror operation against six terrorists in Hirapur village near Batgund in Shopian. Under intense hail of bullets from the terrorists, he eliminated the 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and one foreign terrorist in a daring display of raw courage, Army officials said. In the ensuing gunfight, he was hit multiple times including on his head. He also injured another terrorist before succumbing to his grievous wounds, they said. According to the citation, Wani single-handedly killed two terrorists during the Shopian operation and injured a third one despite receiving serious injuries. "In an unparalleled saga of sacrifice, Lance Naik Wani prevented escape of the terrorists from the target house and made a huge contribution in neutralisation of six hardcore terrorists, in the process laying down his life upholding the highest tradition of the Indian Army," it said. Delhi: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, awarded the Ashok Chakra. Award was received by his wife and mother #RepublicDay2019pic.twitter.com/3bjYdiwTLp - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 One of his colleagues, who wished not to be named, said he always volunteered for challenging missions, displaying great courage under adverse conditions and exposing himself to grave danger on numerous occasions in the line of duty. Lance Naik Wani joined the Army's 162 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2004. Wani was a recipient of the Sena Medal for gallantry twice in 2007 and 2018. Wani was from a humble background and used to work for the benefit of the underprivileged sections of society in his locality. Ashoka Chakra is the highest peacetime military decoration for valour, courageous action or self-sacrifice away from the battlefield. Also read: Republic Day 2019: PM Modi greets crowd at Rajpath as event comes to an end Mohr said the medical marijuana legislation is "still a good bill ... but I think we need to watch it for a few years to see how it works." Others said Iowa's list of conditions approved for medical marijuana is too limited. Some advocated for raising the THC cap on products. Dispensaries are allowed to sell products with up to 3 percent THC, or the component in marijuana that produces the "high." "I think we're moving toward liberation in terms of marijuana laws," Rep. Monica Kurth, D-Davenport, said. "At the current time, I'm very concerned about medical marijuana and the number of conditions approved ... I am also concerned that it's difficult for people to get the card they need to participate in the medical marijuana program." Kurth, Cournoyer and Rep. Phyllis Thede, D-Bettendorf, said they support raising the THC cap on medical marijuana products. "We really do need to look at the higher THC levels. It doesn't do you very much good if you're taking 30 to 40 pills and barely get the minimum result," Thede said. "And with recreational marijuana, we're going to have to look at California and Colorado, who have done a good job, and look at how they're doing their sales. This could be a boom to Iowa financially." Medicaid This will be my last Letter to the Editor, as I am really tired of reading all of the diatribe written day after day. The left will never accept President Donald Trump and the right will never stop fighting for him, thank God. Let me tell you a few things about the illegal immigrants. I lived and worked in Chicago for almost 30 year. As an RN in surgery and ER in a very bad neighborhood, I witnessed more than I care to remember; the murders and assaults by illegal aliens and others. Once while working at Cook County Hospital, I was assigned to the "lock-down" ward. I asked a patient how he had gotten shot, he said, "while robbing a convenient store." I then asked him how long it took him to buy the gun on the street. His answer, "about 20 minutes." He was an illegal immigrant who had killed the girl behind the counter. Now let me enlighten you on Planned Parenthood. An RN friend of mine worked for them for a short time. She said the abortions they were performing were so horrific she could not stand it and quit. She said, if it was a late term abortion, she witnessed staff making the arms and legs of the dead fetuses dance on the counter. You say Fox News is the fake news, but at least it gives statistics that Nancy Pelosi will not even listen to. In the words of Abraham Lincoln (to honor the soldiers that sacrificed their lives) spoken on Nov. 19, 1963 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: "That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Today I ask these questions: Is that government of the people, by the people, for the people perishing? Or are we victims of two political parties that are like two bullies on the playground? One fighting against the other, with no concern but to make the other say, "Uncle, I give." In Illinois we experienced 793 days without a budget that downgraded our credit rating to a point where business and population are thinking twice about the "Land of Lincoln." Now we are experiencing a federal government shutdown that started Dec. 22, 2018. Government workers are working without pay. The Transportation Safety Administration, working for our safety in the air and our country, has experienced massive absences because of no pay. I ask every reader, "Would you work for free?" This has all got to stop for the people of this country who matter. If you are going to make America great again, start by working together. In God We Trust. Picture Perfect Travel Pic 1315 30th Street Rock Island, IL 61201 309-788-0500 The Scottish American Society And Picture Perfect Travel Invite you to join our custom tour to Scenic Scotland & Military Tattoo August 22 September 1, 2019 Call to attend our INFORMATION NIGHT 6:00 P.M. Thursday, May 2, 2019 Call Dick or Mary for reservations! Pricing is subject to change and is based on aavailability. Check out our web site, pictureperfecttravelqc.com About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile WASHINGTON North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik looked to the future Friday as President Donald Trump and Congress agreed on a bill that would temporarily reopen parts of the federal government after 35 days of shutdown. The bill funds federal agencies through Feb. 15 and does not include money Trump requested to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. This government shutdown was unnecessary and inexcusable, Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, said Friday in a press release. I will continue to be a strong voice with a voting record to back it up to fund our federal agencies. Now, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make a deal to address the need for border security. The shutdown occurred when Trump refused to sign a government funding measure that had passed the Senate unanimously, instead requesting around $5 billion to build a wall on the Mexican border to address what he calls the national security crisis. Congressional Democrats would not agree to Trumps demand, and hundreds of thousands of federal workers worked without pay for over a month. SOUTH GLENS FALLS The woman who made history in South Glens Falls last year when she won a seat on the Village Board is not running for re-election. Christine Elms, a Green Party member who ran for the Village Board two years in a row before succeeding last year, is not running this year. +2 First Green Party candidate to serve on South Glens Falls Village Board SOUTH GLENS FALLS A Green Party member is now a Village Board trustee for the first time in village history. She promised to make a statement but did not. A friend later confirmed she had decided not to run, but offered no details as to why. The election will be Tuesday, March 19, at Village Hall. Elms was the Village Boards first Green Party member and made headlines around the state as a rare victory for the small party. She was also the second woman ever to be elected to the Village Board. Elms had tried to win a seat in a contested race for two spots in 2017, but came in third. Last year, the village held a special election to fill a seat after a resignation. Elms was the only one to go through the effort to get on the ballot, organizing the local Green Party and holding a caucus in a living room. Two other residents tried to run a late write-in campaign, but she won with 62 votes. Republic Day 2019: Happy Republic Day, readers! The country is celebrating its 70th Republic Day today - a day that honours the Constitution of India. Today, over 1.2 billion Indians are celebrating the country's military might across land, seas and air. Several states are also showcasing tableaus depicting their unique heritage. To mark the occasion, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been invited as the Chief Guest for this Republic Day. Greeting the nation on the eve of Republic Day, President Ramnath Kovind on Friday said that the Republic Day "reaffirm our commitment to liberty, fraternity and equality across our society". He added India is at a key juncture, and decisions and actions taken today will shape its future course. Adequate security arrangement has been put in place to ensure no untoward incident happens on the Republic Day. NSG commandos, including women commandos, mobile hit teams, anti-aircraft guns, snipers and sharpshooters have been deployed at strategic points to keep a close watch on the 8-km-long Republic Day parade route from Rajpath to the Red Fort in central Delhi. The Delhi Police's parakram vans are patrolling round-the-clock on all strategic locations to ensure smooth functioning of the Republic Day parade. Follow Republic Day LIVE updates here: 11:49 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds at Republic Day parade in Delhi. #RepublicDay2019 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets crowds at Republic Day parade in Delhi pic.twitter.com/rRl3ZK8jNr - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:31 am: With this the 70th Republic Day celebrations come to an end. 11:30 am: PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi. PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi pic.twitter.com/XSd1B6Lrgw - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:19 am: Thirty-three Dredevils on nine bikes! The pyramid formation has taken everyone by surprise. #republicdayindia : 33 people on 9 motorcycles make a human pyramid, Subedar Major Ramesh A leads this formation. pic.twitter.com/mC50FFdTfb - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:16 am: Yoga on the go! Gravity-defying stunts on bikes are on display by the Daredevils. #republicdayindia : Motorcyclists showcase Yoga display, at Rajpath during Republic Day parade pic.twitter.com/fRWaxXAYtS - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 11:14 am: 26 children including 6 girls and 20 boys have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019. #republicdayindia 26 children including 6 girls and 20 boys have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019 pic.twitter.com/8xxrTEM2OX - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:56 am: Tableau of Karnataka is based on the 39th session of the Indian National Congress held in Belagavi in 1924, which was presided over by Mahatma Gandhi. #republicdayindia Tableau of Karnataka is based on the 39th session of the Indian National Congress held in Belagavi in 1924, which was presided over by Mahatma Gandhi pic.twitter.com/tWsztHczoY - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:54 am: Tableau of Punjab is based on the theme of Jallianwala Bagh massacre. #republicdayindia : Tableau of Punjab is based on the theme of Jallianwala Bagh massacre pic.twitter.com/qGyOkInRGc - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:46 am: Tableaux of Andaman and Nicobar, Maharashtra and Sikkim. #RepublicDay2019 : Tableaux of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra and Sikkim pic.twitter.com/fumDqB7xQl - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:30 am: Nari Shakti! The all-women contingent of Assam Rifles followed by the marching band arrives. 10:25 am: The veteran's tableau: The Veterans tableau-2019, it showcases the theme, 'Veterans: Accelerators in Nation's Growth'. #republicdayindiapic.twitter.com/4vUsUyVzd6 - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:22 am: A look at this year's Padma awardees: The government announced names of 112 persons, who have been selected for Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri in the fields of art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service etc. Among the Padma Vibhushan - the country's second highest civilian award - and Padma Bhushan awardees are President of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh, L&T chairman A M Naik, veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, former CAG V K Shanglu and former union ministers Kariya Munda and S S Dhindsa. The award ceremony will be held in March or April this year. Late actor Kadar Khan, former diplomat S Jaishankar and cricketer Gautam Ghambir were among the prominent personalities named on Friday for conferment of this year's Padma awards. 10:18 am: More visuals of tanks on display. Visuals of the K-9 Vajra-T, a self-propelled howitzer, commanded by Captain Devansh Bhutani #republicdayindiapic.twitter.com/czufPJMQBK - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:15 am: Mine clearing tanks on display. Visuals of the T-90 (Bhishma), the main battle tank of the Indian Army, commanded by Captain Navneet Eric of 45 Cavalry #RepublicDay2019pic.twitter.com/NjGHg2oMDS - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 10:04 am: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani conferred with Ashok Chakra.The late Lance Naik is the first Kashmiri to recieve the honour. Delhi: Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing 6 terrorists in an operation in Kashmir, awarded the Ashok Chakra. Award was received by his wife and mother #RepublicDay2019pic.twitter.com/3bjYdiwTLp - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 9:57 am: President Kovind, accompanied by chief guest, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa arrive at Rajpath. 9:53 am: PM Modi, Defence Minister Sitharaman greet the chiefs of army, navy and air force. 9:50 am: PM Modi's cavalcade, President Kovind's cavalcade on their way to Rajpath. 9:42 am: PM Modi salutes the martyrs at Amar Jawan Jyoti. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. #RepublicDay2019pic.twitter.com/mykhT7oxxP - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 9:34 am: Search giant Google on Saturday dedicated a special doodle to mark India's 70th Republic Day , which captured the country's architectural and cultural legacy as well as its rich bio-diversity. The doodle with a 3D impression depicts the iconic facade of the grand Rashtrapati Bhavan in the backdrop, flanked by trees, reflecting the flora and fauna that resides on its sprawling campus. 9:25 am: UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath present at Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Lucknow. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath present at #RepublicDay2019 celebrations in Lucknow. pic.twitter.com/MTicyDRU1n - ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 26, 2019 9:24 am: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel takes part in the Republic Day 2019 celebrations in Raipur. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel takes part in #RepublicDay2019 celebrations in Raipur. pic.twitter.com/C1i43tVtsT - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 9:22 am: Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurl the Tricolour at their residences. #RepublicDay2019 : Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari unfurl the tricolour at their respective residences in Delhi pic.twitter.com/QitEVFmRMJ - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 8:59 am: Gita Mehta, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's sister, who was been conferred with the Padma Shri award in the field of literature and education, has refused to accept the Padmi Shri. Mehta said, "I am deeply honoured that the Government of India should think me worthy of a Padma Shri but with great regret I feel I must decline as there is a general election looming and the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the Government and myself, which I would much regret." 8: 53 am: This year's Republic Day will see several firsts, including the participation from Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army veterans - all of them aged 90-100 years. The Railways is also showing its state-of-the-art indigenous Train 18, India's fastest train that runs at 180 kmph. Among missiles and artillery systems being showcased at the Republic Day parade include M777 American Ultra Light Howitzers, Main Battle Tax T-90 and indigenous Akash Weapon System. 8:51 am: PM Modi to pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti shortly. Delhi: #RepublicDay2019 parade will begin at Rajpath at 9.50 am, prior to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti pic.twitter.com/ByzZ4nwZTs - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 8:49 am: Odisha Governor at the Bhubaneshwar Republic Day ceremony. Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal present at #RepublicDay2019 celebrations in Bhubaneswar. pic.twitter.com/iFF8PTzkjG - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 8:46 am: BJP Chief Amit Shah unfurls the Tricolour at the party office. BJP President Amit Shah unfurls the tricolour at the party office in Delhi #RepublicDay2019pic.twitter.com/if1YfxwaaG - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 8:15 am: Crowd gathers at Delhi's Rajpath for the parade. Crowds gather for the #RepublicDay2019 parade at Rajpath in Delhi. President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest at the parade today. pic.twitter.com/dZCOKSXTiY - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 8:12 am: Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurls the national flag on Republic Day 2019. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam also present. Chennai: Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurls the national flag on #RepublicDay2019 . Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam also present. pic.twitter.com/zcnZQqhyY1 - ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2019 8:09 am: The police arrested two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members, who were planning to carry out terror strikes in the city during the 70th Republic Day celebrations. The arrested members of the JeM had identified Lajpat Nagar market, Haj Manzil, Turkman Gate, Paharganj, India Gate and the IGL gas pipeline in east Delhi as potential targets, police said. 8:08 am: SWAT women commandos, mobile hit teams, snipers are among the varied layers of security under which the national capital has been placed for the Republic Day celebrations. Elaborate measures, including deployment of anti-aircraft guns, were put in place to secure the airspace. 7:31 am: President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa visited the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial yesterday and took part in the wreath laying ceremony. President @CyrilRamaphosa visits the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial in Delhi, India on the occasion of his State Visit at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The President took part in a wreath laying ceremony as India marks 150 years since the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. pic.twitter.com/nRA25TaYx3 - PresidencyZA (@PresidencyZA) January 25, 2019 7:26 am: Visuals from Rajpath on the eve of January 26. Delhi: Visuals from Rajpath on the eve of #RepublicDay2019pic.twitter.com/sGVYd5VseR - ANI (@ANI) January 25, 2019 7:15 am: The Prime Minister wishes the nation on Republic Day. Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians. # ! - Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 26, 2019 7:13 am: Former President Pranab Mukherjee, the late maestro Bhupen Hazarika and the late social activist Nanaji Deshmukh were conferred the Bharat Ratna on the eve of Republic Day. 7:12 am: More than 3500 students gathered to create large portraits of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev on the eve of Republic Day in Pune. Maharashtra: More than 3500 students gathered to create large portraits of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev on the eve of Republic Day in Pune. pic.twitter.com/RCYPUpcfrj - ANI (@ANI) January 25, 2019 7:11 am: Sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik's sand sculpture for Republic Day. Odisha: Sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik's sand sculpture in Puri, on the occasion of Republic Day. pic.twitter.com/ztUIzhmyK9 - ANI (@ANI) January 25, 2019 7:10 am:Visuals from Lalbagh Republic Day Flower Show in Bengaluru. Bengaluru: #Visuals from Lalbagh Republic Day flower show that started today; marking 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, the flower show houses a recreation of his cottage in Wardha Ashram, Rajghat, models of the three monkeys, glasses made of millets & sculpture of Dandi March pic.twitter.com/BATZmYkQfL - ANI (@ANI) January 25, 2019 7:09 am: Metro service shall remain available at all stations during the Republic Day parade. However, boarding and de-boarding will not be allowed at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan from 5 am till 12 pm, Lok Kalyan Marg (Race Course) and Patel Chowk from 8.45 am to 12 pm, Kumar said. 7:08 am: Movement of buses will be restricted at Park Street/Udyan Marg, Aram Bagh Road (Paharganj), Kamla Market, Delhi Secretariat (IG Stadium), Pragati Maidan (Bhairon Road), Hanuman Mandir (Yamuna Bazar), Mori Gate, Tiz Hazari, Kashmiri Gate ISBT and Sarai Kale Khan ISBT, police said. 7:06 am: From 10 am on January 26, traffic on Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Subhash Marg will not be allowed on both flanks. Cross traffic will only be allowed depending on the movement of the parade, he added. 7:05 am: In order to facilitate smooth passage of the parade, no traffic will be allowed on Rajpath from Vijay Chowk to India Gate from 6 pm on January 25 till the parade is over, the JCP said. Cross traffic on Rajpath from 11 pm on January 25 at Rafi Marg, Janpath, Man Singh Road will not be allowed till the parade is over. 'C'-Hexagon-India Gate will be closed for traffic from 2 am on January 26 till the parade crosses Tilak Marg, Kumar said. 7:02 am: According to an advisory released by the Delhi Police, the Republic Day parade will start at 9.50 am from Vijay Chowk and proceed towards the Red Fort grounds through the Rajpath, India Gate, Tilak Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Netaji Subhash Marg. 7:01 am: The traffic police have deployed 3,000 personnel to manage route diversions and ensure a safe and secure passage for the visiting dignitaries. "Valastro is accused of pushing his girlfriend out of a motel window in the Town of Moreau on Dec. 13, 2018 in an effort to prevent her discovery by New York State parole officers who had arrived to take him into custody on a separate matter, the sheriff reported. "He was allegedly forbidden by court order from being in the womans presence at the time of the incident." GRANVILLE A Syracuse woman was driving south on Route 22 near Granville when her vehicle skidded into the Indian River on Friday evening just before 5 p.m. According to Granville police, Sara Goldfarb, 30, turned off Route 22 onto Mettowee Street and hit a patch of ice, causing her to go off the road and into the river. As wind chills hovered in the single digits, Goldfard remained in the partially submerged vehicle while the river rushed past and over the small dam just ahead. The vehicle landed with the passenger side tilting downward into the river; the drivers side was partially on the river bank. But because it had wedged into a crevice, the vehicle did not continue floating with the current. We got a call that there was a single-motor vehicle accident into the river and that someone was inside the vehicle, said Sgt. Ryan Pedone, Granville Police. When we arrived she was still in the vehicle. Pedone said that Granville Police, Granville Volunteer Fire Department and Granville Rescue Squad assisted in getting Goldfarb out of the vehicle. Goldfarb was not injured and she was the only person in the vehicle, Pedone said. Not familiar with the area, I plugged my home address into the GPS. And off I started. So far so good, A bit slippery, but nothing I haven't handled living in this area. After a short time, the GPS said, "Take a sharp right onto Middle Road." And I kept thinking a sharp right sounds ominous, perhaps a premonition of what was to come. I called my husband to let him know what road I was on and where just in case I lost cell service or I went off the road and no one could see me. At first I was heading up. I could tell there was no traction under my wheels, but as long as I was going up I was OK. As I got closer to the crest of that first hill, now looking like a large mountain, I got that butterfly feeling familiar from roller coaster rides. You know, as the coaster inches closer to the top, the way there are too many butterflies in your stomach and some travel into your throat. My husband was still on the phone and if there was anything good from the experience, I kept cell service on and off during the ordeal. Monday 8:30 am: Conservative Breakfast Meeting (locations vary, email Doug for information) Monday 6:00 pm: Huntington Beach Constitution Class, Bergman Family Chiropractic 18582 Beach BlvdHuntington Beach Tuesday 8:30 am: Bible Study Tuesday 11:00 am: Fallbrook Constitution Class, Emmanuel Baptist Church, 911 E Elder St Fallbrook, CA Tuesday 3:00 pm: Constitution Class Online with Scott McKay, Patriot Streetfighter, www.scottmckay.us Tuesday 6:00 pm: San Juan Capistrano Constitution Class, Bravo's California Fresh31772 Rancho Viejo Road, San Juan Capistrano Wednesday 3:00 pm: Constitution Association Weekly Executive Meeting (all welcome to attend), 412 Murrieta Church, 41831 McAlby Ct., Murrieta, CA Wednesday 5:00 pm: Temecula Valley Constitution Class, 412 Murrieta Church, 41831 McAlby Ct., Murrieta, CA(Note: Location for both meeting and class to change by June 16) Thursday 10:00 am: Beaumont Constitution Class, Marla's Cocina1310 E. 6th Street, Beaumont Thursday 11:30 pm: Post Class Lunch/Meeting with Banning/Beaumont/Cherry Valley Tea Party, Marla's Cocina, 1310 E. 6th Street, Beaumont Thursday 6:00 pm: Carlsbad Constitution Class, Health From Within Family Wellness Center1818 Marron Rd., #103, Carlsbad, CA 92008(zoom available, go to www.1776foreverfree.com for details) Friday 6:00 pm (once per month): Murrieta/Temecula Republican Assembly Meeting, see www.mtra.club for details Saturday 1:00 - 3:00 pm: Constitution Radio, KMET 1490-AM Sunday 5:00 - 7:00 pm: For the Republic, www.patriotssoapbox.com Various times during the weekend: The Show Podcast, www.theshow57401.buzzsprout.com According to the latest edition of Giving USA, charitable giving in the U.S. exceeded $400 billion in 2017, a record. And in each of the four categories covered by the report giving by individuals, by foundations, by bequest, and by corporations the numbers were up, continuing recent trends. As 2019 begins, donors need to start thinking about their giving and the things they can do to ensure it has impact. One thing they can do is identify organizations most likely to deliver and/or create value for their clients. How? Here are a few suggestions: Find organizations whose work aligns with your goals. To ensure your charitable gifts are deployed effectively, head over to a site like Charity Navigator, America's largest independent charity evaluator, for objective ratings designed to help you find charities you can trust. Your research should focus on organizations whose missions align with your own goals and objectives. GuideStar is another good source of information on nonprofits. A little Google goes a long way. A simple Google search not only will point you to an organization's website, it can also reveal information about the organization's reputation. Are there reports out there critical or questioning of its work, its leadership, its finances? Media outlets often report on charities that have violated the trust of their donors, like this report by CNN. Check the metrics. Ask the following when evaluating the donor-worthiness of an organization: Does it rigorously and consistently measure and report its results? Do those results make sense? Do you believe it is being transparent and honest about its results? Charity Navigator describes in detail how to assess a charity's level of transparency. Look for statistics and information like this on the organization's website. Annual reports should be simple to understand and offer some information about the organization's impact. Holding nonprofits accountable for their results is something every donor should do. How transparent is the organization about its finances? U.S.-based charities with tax-exempt status are required by law to file federal tax Form 990. They're also required to have their finances audited. Good nonprofits should make it easy for you to find and access multiple years of their audited financial statements and tax filings. (GuideStar is a great place to start.) If you have trouble finding an organization's 990 online, ask it to send you a copy; the speed with which the request is filled will tell you much about the organization's commitment to transparency. "It is the intact wall of the 1617 church where representative government in English North America was held in 1619," Givens said. "Never been dug, fully intact, right under the concrete. We freaked out. We pulled it up and we were like what is this brick just sitting here?" Then, he answered an ad he saw in the paper Traylor's needed somebody willing to learn to make eyeglass lenses. Feber has been with the business since. Were still just getting started. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images Nearly two years after Special Counsel Robert Mueller launched his investigation, were finally going to see what he turned up. On Thursday, Attorney General William Barr will send Congress the redacted Mueller report between 11 a.m. and noon. In what appears to be an attempt to spin the release, Barr will hold a press conference prior to the reports release at 9:30 a.m., frustrating those who believe the attorney general is acting as Trumps fixer in the Justice Department. The biggest revelation from Barrs four-page summary of the report was that Mueller is not recommending any further indictments. In countless tweets and public statements, Trump has insisted that there was no collusion with Russia, and if Barr is to be believe, Mueller hasnt produced any evidence to the contrary. However, the Mueller probe has already yielded ample evidence of Russias efforts to make sure Trump won the 2016 election, and the connections between Trump associates and Russia plus other crimes that fall under Muellers mandate. As we await a full run down of whats in Muellers very comprehensive report, heres everything we already know. George Papadopoulos, center in a dark tie, at a meeting with Trump during the campaign. Photo: @realdonaldtrump/Instagram George Papadopoulos lied to the FBI about Russian contacts In October 2017, court documents revealed that George Papadopoulos, a foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign, had been arrested as part of the Mueller investigation in July 2017. He pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with the Russians specifically, the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials. The court documents say Papadopoulos claimed he met a London-based professor with extensive ties to Russian government officials (who reports identified as Joseph Mifsud) before joining the Trump campaign. Mifsud actually took an interest in Papadopoulos shortly after he joined the Trump campaign, and during a meeting in April the professor told him about the Russians possessing dirt on then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails, according to prosecutors. The conversation happened weeks before the Democratic National Committee revealed it had been hacked, and about a month after Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was targeted with a phishing attempt. Around the same time, Papadopoulos met a Russian woman that he believed had ties to the Russian government as well. Over several months, Papadopoulos repeatedly tried to use his new associates connections to set up a meeting between top Trump campaign and Russian government officials making it clear that Putin was interested in meeting Trump personally. Sometimes campaign officials ignored or rebuffed Papadopoulos, but at one point a high-level campaign official (believed to be then-campaign manager Paul Manafort) emailed another top official: Lets discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal. In August 2016 another top campaign official (said to be national campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis) urged Papadopoulos to meet with Russians to foster ties with their government, saying, Make the trip, if it is feasible. Papadopoulos repeatedly lied to investigators in January 2017. It cost them the chance to catch Mifsud, the London-based professor, before he fled the U.S. Even after his guilty plea, a prosecutor said, Papadopoulos only made begrudging efforts to cooperate. In September of last year, he was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Paul Manafort. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Paul Manafort and Rick Gates allegedly laundered millions, conspired against U.S. On October 30, 2017, the same day Papadopouloss plea deal was unveiled, the special counsel announced charges against Manafort and his longtime business associate Rick Gates, who was also his deputy on the Trump campaign. The 12-count indictment included charges of conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Prosecutors described an elaborate bank fraud and money laundering scheme linked to Manafort and Gatess work for pro-Russian political parties in Ukraine. They said this went on from 2006 to at least 2016, but the charges were not linked to their work on the Trump campaign. (Conspiracy against the U.S. sounds dramatic but it can mean making false statements about your work with a foreign government.) In February 2018 Mueller filed new charges against Manafort and Gates, accusing them of laundering $30 million, failing to pay U.S. taxes for almost a decade, and using their real-estate holdings to fraudulently secure $20 million in loans. Muellers attempt to turn up the pressure worked on Gates, at least. In February 2018 he agreed to cooperate with the special counsel and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy against the United States and one count of making false statements to FBI agents. Nearly two dozen more serious charges were dropped, and in January 2019, Mueller asked for a delay in Gatess sentencing, citing his ongoing cooperation in several ongoing investigations. Alex van der Zwaan. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images A Dutch lawyer already served time Alex van der Zwaan pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his connection to Gates, and was sentenced to 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine. He is the first person sentenced in the probe and is currently serving his prison sentence at a low-security facility in Pennsylvania. Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about the Russian ambassador On December 1, 2017, former national-security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition period. Court documents reveal that despite what Flynn told agents in January 2017, his talks with Kislyak were part of a coordinated effort by the Trump team to influence foreign policy before the inauguration. The documents say that a very senior member of the transition team (reportedly Jared Kushner) directed Flynn to discuss a United Nations resolution with Kislyak. Flynn admitting to asking Kislyak on December 22, 2016, to delay or defeat a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its settlement policy. The Obama administration opted to abstain and the resolution passed. Flynn also admitted to talking with Kislyak on December 29 to urge Russia not to retaliate when President Obama imposed new sanctions over Russias election meddling. The court documents say he conferred with other top members of the Trump team several times, but its not clear what Trump himself knew. The next day President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would not retaliate against the U.S. for the sanctions. Since Flynn pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the special counsel, his sentencing has been delayed several times. Both sides are set to give a status report on March 13, 2019. Russians engaged in an elaborate scheme to sway the election in Trumps favor On February 16, 2018, Mueller charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies with engaging in propaganda efforts intended to disrupt the 2016 election. While the indictments support the U.S. intelligence agencies conclusion that Russia was working to help Trump, the court documents do not address the hacking of Democrats. Instead, they focus on a Russian social-media push that began in 2014 with the goal of stirring division and shaking peoples faith in the U.S. election system, but eventually shifted to backing Trump. Court documents allege that the Internet Research Firm, a Russian troll farm, set out to conduct information warfare against the U.S. The company had a hundreds of workers and a multimillion-dollar budget, supplied by companies linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a St. Petersburg businessman with ties to Putin. Russians impersonated American citizens on social media and occasionally in person, posing as activists online, buying ads, and organizing rallies. Some of the Russians were in contact with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign, but no Americans were accused of knowingly participating in Russias scheme. Mueller reached a plea deal with Richard Pinedo, a California man who committed identity fraud when he unknowingly sold bank-account numbers created using the stolen identities of U.S. citizens to Russians. None of the Russians are in custody and its unlikely that they will ever be tried. Naming them makes it harder for them to continue their secretive work, or travel abroad. Plus, it theoretically refutes the claim that Russias election meddling was a hoax though of course, Trump cherry-picked from the indictment, falsely claiming that it proved the results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong no collusion! Paul Manafort tried to get in Muellers way One of the charges against Manafort was related to payments hed made to former politicians in Eastern Europe. Manafort allegedly continued lying about the details, at least into February of last year and tried to convince his former PR colleagues to go along with his story, which would amount to a separate crime of witness tampering. One of those colleagues talked to the FBI instead. A few months later, in June 2018, Mueller stacked extra charges onto Manaforts case. At the same time, Mueller revealed the identity of Manaforts longtime partner in Ukraine: Konstantin Kilimnik, an interpreter trained by the Russian Army. He revealed that Manafort and Kilimnik had stayed in touch throughout Trumps campaign. Manafort was in debt to a Russian oligarch he apparently owed at least $10 million and Manaforts emails to Kilimnik in 2016 have made it clear that he wanted to use his role with Trump to trade political favors instead of paying the debt in cash. Kilimnik was the intermediary. Mueller has charged Kilimnik, too, with witness tampering, but the translator is safe in Russia and may never stand trial here. Manafort kept on lying after pleading guilty In September 2018, Manafort admitted to obstructing the investigation and running a conspiracy operation in Ukraine. He promised complete cooperation with Mueller to avoid a trial that was on the brink of starting. But then he kept on lying to the FBI, Mueller announced two months later. What about? We dont know yet, but Mueller said hed explain it all in a memo before Manaforts sentencing which is scheduled for March. The Russians tried to crack Hillary Clintons servers the very day Trump asked them to Remember that invitation Trump gave during a 2016 news conference? Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, the candidate said onstage. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Russia tried to hack her teams emails that very same day, according to documents Mueller filed in July of last year. The announcement came as Mueller indicted 12 officers of Russias military-intelligence agency. He also chronicled many other espionage attempts by them: for instance, he said, they hacked state election boards, stealing information on 500,000 voters from one state alone. The indictment said they funded their work with cryptocurrency. Michael Cohen continued lying after the campaign, too Michael Cohen, Trumps lawyer, lied to Congress in August 2017 about business dealings Trump had with Russia during the campaign. Plans had been in the works for a Trump tower in Moscow, but Cohen claimed the negotiations had been cut off before the Iowa caucuses. They hadnt. In reality, they continued at least until that summer, according to documents that have since come to light and may have continued all the way to the election. In November 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. A week later, Mueller announced that Cohen had turned into an extremely helpful witness and had sat through seven meetings with the special counsels office, some of which were lengthy. Another revelation was that Cohen had kept Trump in the loop about those Russia negotiations all along. Roger Stone allegedly made false statements to Congress Roger Stone, the brazenly amoral strategist who worked on Trumps campaign briefly in 2015, communicated with anonymous Russian hackers and WikiLeaks during the period when they were working on Trumps behalf. This isnt news; the big revelation from Stones indictment on January 25, 2019 was that Stone allegedly lied to the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 about his contact with WikiLeaks. He also tried to interfere with a witness, the radio host Randy Credico, according to the indictment. He was arrested at his home in Fort Lauderdale early Friday morning, while still wearing his pajamas. The indictment also said that someone high up in Trumps campaign was ordered to get in touch with Stone and ask him about what WikiLeaks could offer. It does not, however, lay out a clear narrative or time line of Stones contact with WikiLeaks and the anonymous hackers. This post was originally published on the one-year anniversary of Muellers investigation. It has been updated throughout. At Tuesday's work session, Waters said the city is obligated under its contract with the regional jail to pay for 250 beds at $60.45 each per day a rate that has nearly doubled over the past decade. The city jail itself is under capacity capable of holding 288 people but currently housing 186 and the number of inmates Portsmouth sends to the regional jail has "consistently" gone down over the past eight years, Waters said. He went on to deflect blame from his company, which will pay $1.8 million 60-percent of the proposed settlemet. He said NaphCare medical staff saw Mitchell more than 30 times at the jail before his death and referred him to an area hospital for further evaluation. He said the hospital discharged Mitchell back to the jail on the same day. Clements said she doesn't know what the move will mean in terms of funding for Slover or the public library system, though she noted she will need to hire a business manager to help handle procurement and other tasks Slover will have to do on its own as an independent department. Many years ago, I met with the CEO of the Planning Research Corporation in his office on the top floor of a building on K Street in Washington D.C. From this vantage point, he was able to look out of large picture windows in three directions, including to the west for dozens of miles into Virginia. His office, the foyer leading into it, the receptionist's area prior to that, the hallway leading to that, and the entire floor was notably more quiet than any of the floors under it. Like so many other top executives, he knew the importance of being able to marinate in his own thoughts. Shipyard spokesman Duane Bourne said in an email that the shipyard "will meet the criteria of the 2016 legislation earlier than required. To continue to make these investments, we have asked for the state's support in moving up the start of the grant by two years." Traylor remembered being an 18 year old trying to entertain and calm a boy named Jonathan as he measured him for glasses. When the boy returned later with his mom to try them on, he remembered him shouting Wheres my friend? Wheres Chris? and the smile when he put the glasses on for the first time and said he could see the leaves outside. Up until then, all the boy could see was the blur of a tree, certainly not the bird that might be chirping inside it, he said. Why an organization should transform?, the answer in general relate it to the voracity of global competition and the hipercambiante environment. Improvements and changes to current schemes are not sufficient to deal with a much more complex business reality. Now with more growth and higher profits companies have succeeded based on the talent, knowledge, innovation and a disruption in the way of doing business, creating new needs or new ways to meet the needs. The organizational transformation, has to do with a complete change where one thing turns into another. Marathon Capital insists that this is the case. This definition is very deep and compromising, since we deal not only with an administrative tool, or a method, or even a model, but an entire new system of organization. For even more opinions, read materials from Duncan Crawford. The only current organizational system that has is the pyramidal or functional, created in the industrial era to organize the new way of generating wealth and make company at that time. Learn more about this with Philippe Lavertu. Currently talk about the era of knowledge, where the roots of the value they are in people, in the intangible; beyond the classic land, labour and capital, now the wealth is generated based on the intellectual capital of the organization. To do this, the intelligent enterprise system offers a proposal of system for the world of organizations where the central dynamic is tipped towards the customer instead of the authority; It focuses on the person, instead of the irons, among other inputs and assumptions of such a system. The sense of urgency to adopt this system is detonated by the pursuit of competitiveness, which is only achieved with the contest and approval of the customer. Without it, we can be productive, efficient, quality, more non-competitive. So the organizational structure should be directed to the customer, always looking and naturally the satisfaction of their needs (company mission). Of course, that the structure is composed by people, which run activities that are part of the processes that are available as products or services, by What if we improve people, improve processes and consequently property tangibilizados by which such customers pay. According to a source specializing in item (1), the organizational transformation is like an operation open heart, where there is a double challenge: keep the patient alive and correct the same problem. In the organizations business must be removed in the usual way, while at the same time makes the change to open heart. For this situation, it is important to keep a system that helps you to work in both dimensions, so in the SEI provides coexistence two-dimensional between (focused on the authority) pyramidal structure and operational structure (focused on the client) to be able to cope with the movement towards a knowledge company unless the patient succumbs in the process. He anchored the future success and the same need to transform into customer and team, are formulas which sustains the Intelligent Enterprise System. Touching people in this metamorphosis is due, If we want to be truly and finally useful to achieve the competitiveness of the organization. The use of state power to smear or discredit a legitimate business is not only unfair but also immoral, Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Rome on Friday when asked to comment on the recent problems faced by Huawei Technologies. Considering the obvious political intentions and manipulation behind it, it is even more unacceptable, he said, without naming the Chinese telecom equipment giant. I believe that all countries should be vigilant and resist this unreasonable practice, and such bullying, he told reporters from Chinas state media at the end of a three-day trip to France and Italy, according to an article on the ministrys website. Of course, every country is entitled to protect their right to maintain information security, but they cannot use security as an excuse to damage or even strangle legitimate business operations, he said. Companies are just companies, and the survival and development of companies must ultimately be determined by market competition. What governments have to do is to provide them with a fair, just and transparent business environment. Wangs comments came after Vodafone Group became the latest Western company to boycott Huawei products. The British telecom conglomerate said on Friday it had suspended its purchases of the Chinese firms equipment for the core of its wireless networks. Last month, Germanys Deutsche Telekom AG, Europes largest carrier and a major Huawei customer, said it was re-evaluating its purchasing strategy amid growing security concerns surrounding the firm, while British Telecom said it was removing Huaweis equipment from its existing mobile operations and would not use it in key parts of the next generation 5G network. Huawei is the worlds largest telecom equipment supplier and has been the subject of intense international scrutiny since its chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on December 1, pending extradition to the United States. Story continues The US has sought to persuade its allies, including Japan, Australia and New Zealand, not to use Huawei products in their fifth-generation wireless networks, on the grounds Beijing could use them for spying. The telecom giant has denied any such links to the Chinese government. During his low-key European tour, Wang met French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday before attending a ceremony with his opposite number Jean-Yves Le Drian to mark the 55th anniversary of the two countries establishing diplomatic ties on Thursday. Wang ended his trip on Friday with a meeting in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. This article Huaweis treatment by foreign countries unfair and immoral, Chinas foreign minister says first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2019. Juan Guaido at a pro-opposition rally in Caracas last week. Photo: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg via Getty Images After the latest push to oust President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela is facing crucial questions about its future and the argument over whether President Trump was right to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as the countrys interim president isnt one of them. The people of Venezuela are living through one of the worlds worst humanitarian catastrophes, brought on by a government that no longer enjoys broad public support. A broad swathe of our allies and partners believe Maduro is illegitimate, and quite a few joined the Trump administration Wednesday in recognizing Guaido as the countrys legitimate ruler. However, no one outside Trump allies, and a small group of Venezuelan exiles, supports the idea of a U.S. military intervention. Thus, Americans focus should be on how we can help the people of Venezuela, without allowing opportunists to create an even more terrible crisis. Whatever you think about its leftist ideology, Maduros government has been both repressive and incompetent. The countrys income is steadily contracting, with a lack of access to basic equipment hurting everything from oil companies to hospitals. Hunger is so bad that the average Venezuelan has lost 24 pounds in the past year, and a baby born in Syria has better chances of surviving, according to the head of the Organization of American States. More than three million Venezuelans something like one in every 30 people have fled their country. Maduro is the successor to revolutionary Hugo Chavez, whose rise to power in 1999 enjoyed considerable support among working-class Venezuelans. For years, they saw improvements to their material lives, even as wealthier Venezuelans resented both economic policies and infringements on political freedom. But Chavezs ability to deliver economically slowed, and after his death in 2013 the country has spiraled toward chaos. In recent years, protests have increased and the regime has responded violently, with more than 100 protesters killed last year. Former prisoners and guards allege systematic use of torture. But even after an election in May that the European Union and others deemed illegitimate reinstalled Maduro for another term, observers thought the opposition lacked power to change anything. In recent days thats changed dramatically, with the National Assembly electing Guaido, a young representative from a hard-line opposition party, as its president. Guaido is a fresh face, but he is associated with longtime regime opponents. What seems to be different this time is a degree of popular anger among workers as well as more elite Venezuelans demonstrations and violence have been reported all over the country this week, both before and after Guaido declared himself, as president of the legislature, the legitimate leader of Venezuela on Wednesday. Guaido appears to have chosen this moment to challenge the regime in hopes of sparking widespread internal protest, and inducing some or all of the military to desert the government. But the military was remade by Chavez during his tenure, and remembers the painful aftermath of a 2002 coup it did support, only to reverse itself when it became apparent that society was intensely divided. Meanwhile, Venezuelas neighbors have become increasingly concerned about the crisiss effect on them. More than one million Venezuelans have crossed into neighboring Colombia the equivalent of six million people coming across our Southern border with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Brazil has talked about closing its borders to stem a similar flow. Both governments are now conservative, and see Maduros Venezuela as an ideological opponent. As much as these nations may like to see Maduro gone, they do not want to see U.S. troops ushering him out. It has been an open secret since President Trump took office that Americans claiming to be close to the administration have been discussing the idea of a coup or military intervention with Venezuelan exiles. Last fall, John Bolton, the national security adviser, gave a speech in with he called the regime, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, a troika of tyranny, and said the U.S. was taking direct action against it. Although the speech was largely dismissed in the U.S. as Florida electioneering, the administration seems to be trying to move forward on several of its key points. Many in the region especially among Maduros supporters in Bolivia, Mexico, and farther away, in Moscow firmly believe that Washington is planning a military intervention. Given Boltons rhetoric its not hard to see why. The United States will not tolerate Maduros undermining of democratic institutions and ruthless violence against innocent civilians, he said. The prospect of U.S. involvement divides both Venezuela and the international community. While many countries joined the U.S. in recognizing Guaido, other important players including Mexico and the European Union have not. And Russia and Bolivia promptly denounced the effort as an imperialist U.S. plot. Having made its stance on Guaido clear, the best thing the Trump administration can do now is butt out, and support Venezuelas neighbors and the Organization of American States in trying to help move, at long last, toward a nonviolent transition. There are a number of ways the administration could help suffering Venezuelans that do not involve the military such as extending the temporary protected status that allows Venezuelans to remain in the U.S., and offering more humanitarian assistance to Colombia, Brazil, and other countries that are taking the majority of Venezuelan refugees. The American left tends to denounce everything Trump does, but in this case, rather than arguing about whether Maduro should stay, they should focus on fighting for Venezuelan refugees. Demand that the GOP explain why its immigration proposals would make it nearly impossible for Venezuelans to escape to the U.S. Fight for the migration and refugee assistance that the administration has stripped out of its international affairs budgets. Those are battles that would help real people, and promote stability. Anything else is risks falling into a fight over propaganda that Trump and ironically, Maduro both relish. Colombia Hoy Para nunca olvidar Paginas vistas en total 'Parasite' painted on a statue of Queen, Elizabeth in Kent, England Sin palabras La UE le apunta a la paz Cada vez mas solo Follow by Email Precio del Brent To get the BRENT oil price, please enable Javascript. Dolar USA Vs Euro LULA y su Pueblo Bye Bye Homenaje al genial Quino Fueron ellos Una imagen que resume Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero? Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante) Ladrones al poder Asi mira el perrito a su amo Crazy Clamor popular La nueva inquisicion Bolivia Chile Hoy Eso es todo amigos! Pinerachet No More Trump Adios Macri, hasta nunca La Marioneta se desinfla Asi o mas cinico Almugre Mexico en 1794 Mas arrastrado imposible La pura verdad Solidaridad con Palestina Serie Capitalismo Espejismos de la clase trabajadora Comerciantes o delincuentes Asi es la vida USA HOY La avaricia no tiene limites Chile Hoy Asi son las cosas Mapa Electoral de Venezuela Patagonia argentina? Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad Retrato del franquismo en Espana El Chulo de Madrid Cuando la policia se roba la democracia Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras La purita verdad Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia Mi pobre clase media Como Chavez nadie Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear Programa de la MUD Asi o mas clarito Por que Trump no ataco Corea del Norte? Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio? Una verguenza nacional La luz que nos guia La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz? Feudalismo ayer y hoy Obama, el mentiroso Curiosa coincidencia Un mundo de cerdos No es extrano? La Marioneta Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran MARICORI Y OBAMA Cuantas muertes este ano? 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Por culpa de Chavez Cerveza Polar Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar Translate LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares? Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano... Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos: Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias. Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera. No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje. En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio. Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida. Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella. Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal. Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista. Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen. Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che? Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio. Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora. Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo. Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo. Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania. No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar. Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga. Alguna duda? Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia. OZ1 OZ2 OZ3 OZ4 Homenaje a Jason Galarraga La Victoria de Samotracia Odalisca Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008 La Sierra Nevada de Merida Nuestro precioso Churum Meru Homenaje a Picasso Autoretrato Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola? La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar. Mi profesion? Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos. Sal en la Coca Cola? A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar. De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla: Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido) azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa) Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas Mucha Cafeina Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja. Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos. Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja. En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero). Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma. La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate. Bebidas Light? Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal. Publicado por loretahur En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina: 1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias. 2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina. 3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard. 4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos. 5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla. 6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos. Ahora... sobre la margarina: 1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) . 2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias. 3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno). 4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer. 5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna. 6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo. 7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina. Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas: * No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo). * No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!! No a la guerra, Si a la Paz Misterios de la ciencia... Los costos de la guerra medicos y capitalismo... medicos (2) Quien educa a nuestros hijos? Los Medios... Sin Palabras... Chistes feministas - Cual es el problema, Eva? - Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas. - Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas... - Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti. - Que es un hombre? - Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente. - Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente. - Cual es el truco?. - Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion. - Cual? - Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer. Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos Ellas (2)... Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1 Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije: -Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro. Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria. Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre? -Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa! VENGANZA NUMERO 2 Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris. A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita: - Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!! Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta. La mujer paso quince dias en Francia. El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla. Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es: - Y amor me trajiste mi francesita?? - Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina. VENGANZA NUMERO 3 El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion. - No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo. - Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz. Te quiero confesar algo. - Esta bien, esta bien. Habla! - He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga. - Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!! machismo y cibernetica Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston. -Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?. El simio hace la sena de OK. -Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide. -Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!. .Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos. Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco. Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas Gol !!!! Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso! Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy! India continues to trade with Venezuelaa key crude oil supplier to the Asian nation where oil demand is growing fastdespite the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, Indias Financial Express reports. Venezuelas opposition leader Juan Guaido, the president of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president on Wednesday, and the United States supported him against Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. Administration declared an usurper with no legitimacy to the presidency. Maduro, in turn, severed diplomatic ties with the U.S. on Wednesday and gave U.S. diplomats in Venezuela 72 hours to leave the country. India continues to be one of the main buyers of Venezuelan crude oil, diplomatic sources told the Financial Express. Indian refiners keep buying more than 400,000 bpd of oil from the troubled Latin American country, which is sitting on the worlds largest crude oil resources. In recent months, Venezuela has been the fourth largest supplier of crude oil to India, after Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to Financial Express, India imported crude oil from Venezuela worth US$5.8 billion in the 2017-2018 financial year, while imports between April and October 2018 were valued at US$4.6 billion. Amid the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela, India is staying away from recognizing the Venezuelan opposition leader as president. Related: Energy Transition Will Upend Geopolitics We are closely following the emerging situation in Venezuela. We are of the view that it is for the people of Venezuela to find political solution to resolve their differences through constructive dialogue and discussion without resorting to violence, the official spokesperson of Indias Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on Friday, in response to queries on the situation in Venezuela. We believe democracy, peace and security in Venezuela are of paramount importance for the progress and prosperity of the people of Venezuela. India and Venezuela enjoy close and cordial relations, Indias foreign ministry said. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation with Nicolas Maduro, backing him as the official president of Venezuela. The President of Russia expressed support for the legitimate Venezuelan authorities amid the worsening of the internal political crisis provoked from outside the country. He emphasised that destructive external interference is a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international law, the Kremlin said. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Solar developers and investors may have to brace for solar panel costs to start rising after a 30-percent plunge last year. The period of ultra-cheap solar panels is over, according to the president of one of Chinas largest solar panel manufacturers. The party is definitely over, Eric Luo, president of Chinas GCL System Integration Technology, told Reuters this week, commenting on the super-cheap solar components on the global market. According to the Chinese manager, solar panel prices have already stabilized and are expected to rise by 10-15 percent within two years. Despite the expected higher costs for solar installations, the global solar industry will continue to add generation capacity this year, and China, the U.S., and India will drive the market, analysts say. It was China that triggered the massive drop in solar panel prices last year. China surprised everyone in June 2018 by announcing that it would not issue approvals for any new solar power installations in 2018 and would also cut subsidies. The major shift in Chinese solar policies led to local manufacturers flooding the global solar panel market, creating a glut and pushing prices down. As a result of this, solar panel prices plunged by 30 percent last year. While this jeopardized smaller Chinese manufacturers, the ultra-cheap solar panels created a windfall for solar developers and investors in solar photovoltaic (PV) installations around the world. The market, however, has started to adapt to these disruptions and prices of China-made solar panels are expected to rebound by 10-15 percent over the next year or two, because the Chinese solar manufacturing market is heading to consolidation as small producers suffered the most from Chinas solar policies, Luo told Reuters. Related: Can Mexico Stop Its Oil Production Decline? The solar market globally is set to gradually adapt in 2019 to the industry disruptions last year, which also included the U.S. slapping tariffs on imports of solar panel products. Together with continued declines in solar and wind costs, 2019 could be a brighter year for the U.S. solar and renewable energy markets, analysts and industry professionals say. 2018 was certainly a difficult year for many solar manufacturers, and for developers in China. However, we estimate that global PV installations increased from 99GW in 2017 to approximately 109GW in 2018, as other countries took advantage of the technologys fiercely improved competitiveness, Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at BloombergNEF, said last week. BloombergNEF expects global PV installations this year to rise by 17 percent from 2018, with three key markets driving demandChina, the U.S., and India. Those three markets are expected to account for 52 percent of global installations in 2019, Bloomberg NEFs Pietro Radoia said on Friday. In China, despite the restrictions on new-build solar capacity, developers are still busy and planning to build subsidy-free projects, Radoia noted. China also plans to only approve new solar and wind power capacity if it matches the countrys coal benchmark on price. In the U.S., the tariffs on imported solar cells and modules created uncertainty in the market in early 2018, resulting in quarterly additions of utility-scale solar dropping in Q3 2018 below 1 GW for the first time since 2015, according to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). Related: Saudi Arabias Dangerous Geopolitical Game We did, however, see utility PV procurement outpace installations fourfold in Q3, showing that despite the tariffs causing project delays, there is substantial growth ahead for the U.S. utility PV sector, said Colin Smith, Senior Analyst at Wood Mackenzie. In its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) last week, the EIA forecast that the U.S. will add nearly 5 GW of utility-scale solar PV capacity in 2019 and another 6 GW in 2020. In 2019-2020, the EIA also sees almost 9 GW of small-scale solar PV capacity installed, mostly in the residential sector. The share of renewables excluding hydropower of U.S. electricity generation was 10 percent in 2018 and is forecast to rise to 11 percent this year and to 13 percent next year. In the long run, the renewables share, including hydropower, is set to increase from 18 percent in 2018 to 31 percent in 2050, driven largely by growth in wind and solar generation, the EIAs Annual Energy Outlook 2019 with projections through 2050 showed this week. Renewables grow to become a larger share of U.S. electric generation than nuclear and coal in less than a decade, the EIA reckons. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: On January 21, in Brussels, Russia and Ukraine held ministerial-level talks on the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine (TASS, January 22, 2019). The European Commission is chairing this process, and the ministerial meeting just held in Brussels was the second at this level, the first having been held in July 2018. The Commission is a neutral mediator, impartially seeking to apply the European Unions legislation to the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine to the EU, in the interest of market competition and supply security for Europe. Correspondingly, Ukraine needs the protection of the EUs legislation against the recurrence of Russian depredations in Ukraines natural gas sector, particularly its transit system at this stage. These negotiations are meant to frame some general terms of transit for Russian gas to Europe after December 31, 2019, on which date the existing Russian-Ukrainian contract will expire. That same date is also Gazproms deadline for completion of the bypass pipelines, Nord Stream Two and TurkStream One, which are meant to divert an aggregated 70 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually from the historical Ukrainian transit route into these new maritime pipelines. (The planned TurkStream Two pipeline would divert another 15 bcm annually from the Ukrainian transit route by 2022). The December 31, 2019, double deadline is intended to maximize the pressure on Ukraine to surrender in one way or another: either to lose all transit and the revenue from it, or to accept predatory Russian terms for using Ukrainian pipelines as a residual, backup option. This is how Moscow has framed the discussion until now. However, the situation is beginning to change, and Moscow must adjust its negotiating position accordingly. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on January 17 that it may, after all, be possible to continue the gas transit via Ukraine [to Europe] even after both Nord Streams and TurkStreams are used to their full capacities (Kommersant, January 21). The operative meaning, barely hidden in Putins statement, is: First, Moscow is hedging against likely delays to the completion of Nord Stream Two past the December 31 deadline, thus necessitating a contract for Ukrainian transit to take effect on January 1, 2020, for an as yet uncertain period of time. And second, Moscow is noticing the still-low but growing odds that Nord Stream Two and the overland branches of TurkStream Two might be further delayed, or altered, or blocked altogether, by the European Commissions efforts to bring that project under EU market legislation and by the warnings of sanctions by the United States on companies involved in Nord Stream Two. Related: Gasoline Overproduction Leads To Negative Margins In this evolving situation, the European Commission and Ukrainian Naftohaz are starting to plan ahead for continuing transit of potentially high volumes of Russian gas via Ukraine to Europe from 2020 onward. The Commissions vice president in charge of the Energy Union, Maros Sef?ovi?, who is chairing the Ukrainian-Russian talks, has submitted an ambitious set of proposals at the January 21 Brussels meeting. These terms implicitly take into account the possibility that Nord Stream Two and the overland branches of TurkStream Two could be delayed by construction problems, altered to comply EU law, or blocked through sanctions. The Commissions proposal envisages a transit contract between Gazprom and Naftohaz with the following elements: a) annual gas volumes consistent with those usually delivered through Ukraines transit system, meaning (apparently as an opening gambit) 60 bcm annually on a ship-or-pay basis and a further 30 bcm optionally; b) contract duration of ten plus years (10 years firmly, prolongation optionally) from January 1, 2020 onward; c) compliance with the EUs legislation that is being implemented in Ukraine, including ownership unbundling (of gas supply from gas transportation); d) EU-standard agreements to be signed on inter-connections between the Ukrainian transit system and those of all neighboring countries (Kommersant, Interfax, Naftohaz press release, January 21, 2019; EurActiv, January 22, 2019). One major stated purpose of these terms is to make the Ukrainian gas transit system commercially attractive for major European companies, so as to form a consortium with the unbundled Ukrainian transit system, manage it and invest in its upgrade. Related: Canadian Heavy Crude Producers Find New Ways To Ship Oil The Brussels meeting brought out the conflicting views of the Russian and Ukrainian sides, respectively. The Russians want to simply prolong the existing transit contract, signed in 2009 on Gazproms terms, and expiring at the end of 2019. They insist on ignoring (i.e., rolling back and canceling out) Ukraines ongoing implementation of the EUs gas market legislation. The Ukrainians intend to complete this implementation, and want the transit contract to be signed by Gazprom with the independent transit system operator that is being set up through the unbundling of Naftohaz (Ukrinform, January 18, 22, 2019; Interfax, January 21, 2019; Kommersant, January 22, 2019). Gazproms and Naftohazs top managements, as well as Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak, led the two delegations at the Brussels meeting. The Ukrainian side wants the next meeting at this level to be held in March. The Russian side, however, wants to wait until May or June with the next meeting, in the plainly stated hope that Ukraines presidential election in March would bring to power a more pliable leadership than the incumbent one in Kyiv. By Jamestown.org More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Much has already been written about how Qatar, Australia and even the U.S. are jockeying to lock in global LNG market share. The race for top LNG global producer comes as global markets for the super-cooled fuel morphs from usually distasteful (from the buyers perspective) over-reliance on long-standing 20-year restrictive off-take agreements to a mix of long-term agreements, mid-term deals, short and pure spot deals, while a myriad of players, including trading houses like Trafigura, Vitol, Gunvor and Glencore are changing market fundamentals. These changes will increasingly see the fuel trade more like a real commodity in some ways similar to the worlds top two traded commodities: crude oil and iron ore. These top four LNG trading houses, for their part, traded approximately 27 mt of LNG in 2017- - around nine percent of total LNG sold worldwide, while the amount in 2018 increased as these four heavyweights were joined by even more traders of all sizes. As more countries start to import LNG to offset over-reliance on dirtier burning fossil fuels, including coal and even crude oil, much is at stake for both producers and buyers. For Qatar, until recently unaccustomed to challenges to its top LNG spot, the stakes could be the highest of all players involved. The tiny, gas-rich kingdom already left OPEC (likely under geopolitical pressure) and is now planning to increase its already impressive 77 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) liquefaction capacity to 110 mtpa within five years. For the Qataris, not only is national pride on the line as it seeks to fend off Australia's recent attempts to usurp it from top global LNG producer, but its very survival geopolitically and economically is at stake too. Isolated Qatar, no more Qatar finds itself in an unenviable position, mostly ostracized by its Arab neighbors over allegations of terrorism funding, which Doha denies, and still suffering a boycott instigated in 2017 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. Qatar has little choice but to defend its LNG production and exporting prowess, as well as diversifying and investing in rival LNG producers' LNG sectors, including the U.S. Related: Gasoline Overproduction Leads To Negative Margins Australia, though admittedly dependent on energy exports, mostly LNG and coal, is not as vulnerable as Qatar, while the U.S., which could compete with both Qatar and Australia in terms of liquefaction capacity by the mid to last part of the next decade if more projects are pushed through, has the most diversified economy in the world, including currently being the top crude oil producer with that position likely to remain at least in the mid-term. Qatars FDI pivot Amid all of these developments, Qatar is now courting foreign countries to invest in its gas sector. On Wednesday, a Reuters report, citing industry sources, said that Qatar is preparing to issue a tender for energy firms seeking a stake in its gas expansion project, drawing interest from long-standing partners as well as newcomers Chevron, Norways Equinor and Italys Eni. Plans to expand Qatars LNG facilities, already the largest in the world, by more than a third in the next five years are considered one of the most lucrative investments in the rapidly growing global gas market, the report added. State-run Qatar Petroleum (QP) is also preparing to issue a tender seeking partners to invest in the construction of a fourth LNG train, or production line, that will see its capacity grow to 110 mtpa. Qatars pivot from mostly self-financing its gas sector to offering ownership to foreign firms is also a cleverly orchestrated geopolitical move, considering its still terse tensions with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. Its a hedge that in case relations with the four major Arab countries continue to sour, it has the protection of foreign oil companies vested in its energy sector - a pure energy play with brilliant geopolitical overtones. By Tim Daiss for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne gave Australia hope for the Ashes as well as a 162-run lead after the second night of the first Test against Sri Lanka at the Gabba. With one Test between the Gabba and this years Ashes campaign, Labuschagne hit 81 and Head 84 as they pushed away to 323 in their first innings in reply to Sri Lankas 144. Pat Cummins then landed a massive blow on the final ball before stumps, nicking off Dimuth Karunaratne caught behind for three to leave the tourists 1-17 and still trailing by 162. But it was day for Australias two middle-order batsmen. They fought hard in swinging conditions that offered similar challenges to those likely ahead in England before putting on a 166-run fifth-wicket stand that was the hosts best partnership of the summer. Ive worked on my game extremely hard on that part of my game with the ball moving and both sides of my bat, Head said. Pat Cummins celebrates. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images) Very disappointing to not get a hundred. But its nice to spend time out there when the ball is swinging because its one part of my game over the years thats been tested. Its now starting to show a bit of a reward. Labuschagnes knock was a breakthrough innings for the South African-born Queenslander, who was a controversial selection for Australias last Test of the Indian series at the SCG. He played with patience and control, hitting three boundaries all against spinners as he swept them when full and straight and got on the back foot when there was width. However a triple-figure score, which would have helped his Ashes cause, still eluded him when he pushed one to short mid-on from spinner Dhananjaya de Silva. Head fell for 84 to a ball from Suranga Lakmal that replays showed would have clipped the bails after the South Australian reviewed it. Pat Cummins sunk Sri Lanka. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images) The left-hander offered a chance on 29 when wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella spilled him off Dushmantha Chameeras bowling, but he otherwise played superbly through the offside. Five of his 10 boundaries went between gully and cover, as he pounced on anything wide of the off-stump. Story continues It came after Marcus Harris threw away a shot at a big score of his own, bunting a short ball to point to be out for 44 in the first over of the day. Kurtis Patterson later showed promising signs with a 30 on debut including three cut shots for four off one Chameera over before he fell lbw to Lakmal to one that seamed back. It was one of five wickets for Lakmal, whose 5-75 were the third best figures by a Sri Lankan in Australia. Businessmen from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Libya will meet in Nouakchott by the end of January to look into joint business opportunities and discuss ways of enhancing partnership in various sectors. The event is organized by the Mauritanian National Employers Union (UNPM). It will be attended by members of the Union of Maghreban Employers, namely the General Confederation of Enterprises of Morocco (CGEM), the Tunisian Union of Industry, Commerce & Handicraft (UTICA), the Algerian National Confederation of Employers (CNPA) and the Libyan Employers Council, in addition to the UNPM. This gathering will be an opportunity to foster cooperation between Maghreb employers unions and review investment opportunities in the region, said head of the Mauritanian employers union Zein El Abidine Ould Cheikh Ahmed at a meeting held Thursday in Nouakchott with the ambassadors of Maghreban countries. The meeting focused on investment opportunities in Mauritania, the efforts made to improve the business climate in the Maghreb, ways to explore the untapped business opportunities in the region and the important role of the Maghreb employers unions for the economic and social development of the region. The Union of Maghreban Employers was set in 2006 in Rabat. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Venezuela's foreign minister rejected a European ultimatum Saturday to hold elections within eight days, insisting that Nicolas Maduro remained the legitimate president despite US-led pressure. "Nobody is going to give us deadlines or tell us if there are elections or not," Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza told a special session of the United Nations Security Council. "Europe, putting yourself at the tail of the United States? Not even the United States, but of the Donald Trump government?" he said. "From where do you get the power to issue deadlines or ultimatums to a sovereign people? From where do you come up with such interventionist and, I would even say, childish action?" Hours earlier, Britain, France, Germany and Spain told Maduro that he had eight days to organize elections or they would recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president. The United States, Canada, and a number of Latin American nations have already recognized Guaido amid a mounting political and economic crisis that has led more than two million Venezuelans to flee in recent years. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing the Security Council session, urged all nations to "stand with the forces of freedom" and back Guaido. He did not stay for Arreaza's remarks. Arreaza said that the military, whose leadership remains loyal to Maduro, will never overthrow him. "The National Bolivarian Armed Forces defend this constitution with their lives," he said. The UK has joined together with France, Germany and Spain in a bid to force new elections in Venezuala, where president Nicolas Maduro is clinging on to power. Britain backed the European demand with foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt saying it is now clear that Maduro is not the legitimate leader of the South American country. The UK has already thrown its wieght behind opposition leader Juan Guaido, who Downing Street recognised earlier this week as the leader of the countrys democratically elected assembly. The joint European diplomatic push began on Saturday when Spains prime minister Pedro Sanchez said in statement: The government of Spain gives Nicolas Maduro eight days to call free, transparent and democratic elections. If that doesnt happen, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido as interim president in charge of calling these elections. French President Manuel Macron sent a tweet echoing Sanchezs comments almost simultaneously. He said: Unless elections are announced within eight days, we will be ready to recognise [Mr Guaido] as President in charge of Venezuela in order to trigger a political process. A spokeswoman from the German government tweeted the same message shortly after the comments from Madrid and Paris. Mr Hunt joined the group on social media, writing: After banning opposition candidates, ballot box stuffing and counting irregularities in a deeply flawed election it is clear Nicolas Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Earlier in the week the prime ministers spokesman said: We fully support the democratically-elected national assembly, with Juan Guaido as its president. The United States first declared support for Guaido, with vice president Mike Pence calling Maduro a dictator with no legitimate claim to power. Since then, most Latin American nations and Canada have all said they back the 35-year-old opposition leader. Russia, meanwhile, has vowed to support Maduro and accused the United States of trying to usurp power in Venezuela. More to follow... Chicago (AFP) - A first-of-its kind exhibition opening Saturday at a Chicago museum is challenging long-held views of the Middle Ages, exhibiting African artifacts that place the continent at the center of global trade and culture. The traveling exhibition "Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time" debuts at the Block Museum on the suburban Chicago campus of Northwestern University, before traveling to other North American museums. The exhibit showcases more than 250 items, including many rare and precious artifacts on loan from West African institutions in Mali, Morocco and Nigeria, and traveling for the first time outside of their home countries. The aims is to showcase what scholars have known for some time -- that Africa was part of an interconnected world in the Middle Ages that brought wealth to the continent, and spread cultural and religious practices far and wide. Africa "was definitely an economic engine" during the Middle Ages, said the Block Museum's Kathleen Berzock, who spent seven years curating the exhibit. "The driving idea behind the exhibition is that in the medieval period, Africa, and particularly West Africa, was playing an absolutely critical role in bringing together regions that extended from Europe to North Africa to the Middle East," Berzock said. - Recent discoveries, new history - Organizers said the exhibit was the first time that a US museum had partnered with African counterparts to challenge notions of the continent isolated from the rest of the world during the eighth through sixteenth centuries. On display are artifacts that show evidence of global economic trade in African goods and materials, with emphasis on the role of West African gold. These include rare fragmentary artifacts discovered at Saharan archeological sites, as well as African sculptures made of French copper, European religious artifacts made of African ivory, and other pieces of gold, ceramic, glass and textile. Story continues The objects tell a pre-slavery, pre-colonial narrative largely left out of history books and school classrooms, organizers said. "This history has not been brought to the fore," said Abdulkerim Kadiri, acting Director-General of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, who traveled to the United States for the show opening. "The recent discovery of these art objects has led to this exhibition," Kadiri told AFP. The exhibition next will travel to Toronto's Aga Khan Museum in September, and to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington DC in April of 2020. - 'Center of intellectual excellence' - The idea of medieval Africa as "being the center of intellectual excellence," paid for by world-wide connections and wealth, "is really important for people to understand," said the Smithsonian's African Art museum director Augustus Casely-Hayford. The exhibit comes at a sensitive time in the art world, as important questions are being asked about repatriation of African art taken to Western countries during the colonial era. A study commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron in November 2018 recommended returning African treasures held by French museums -- a radical policy shift that could put pressure on other former colonial powers. King Mohammed VI received on Friday in Rabat visiting Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov who hailed on this occasion the regional and international leadership of the Moroccan sovereign. Talks between the two sides covered several regional and international issues of common interest, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, said a statement issued by the Royal Office. The King reiterated, on this occasion, the invitation extended to President Vladimir Putin, to pay an official visit to Morocco, while the Russian top diplomat conveyed to the Monarch the friendship and greetings of Mr. Putin, added the statement. The Russian foreign minister is paying an official visit to the North African Kingdom within the frame of the strengthening relations between Rabat and Moscow. His meeting with the Moroccan King confirms the deep strategic partnership sealed during the historic royal visit paid to Moscow in March 2016. This exceptional partnership has led to a deep and multidimensional development of relations between the two countries and has opened ambitious prospects for enhancing political dialogue and strengthening economic and sectoral cooperation, stressed the Royal Office statement. The audience granted by King Mohammed VI to Lavrov was also an opportunity to voice satisfaction over the implementation of major joint projects and actions in priority sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, energy, industry and tourism. Washington (AFP) - The US envoy negotiating with the Taliban hailed "significant progress" Saturday in finding a solution to end Afghanistan's long-running war. "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghan reconciliation, wrote on Twitter. Khalilzad met for an unexpectedly long six days with the Taliban in Qatar. He said he was flying back to Afghanistan to discuss the talks. "We will build on the momentum and resume talks shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out," he tweeted. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and 'everything' must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire." While he did not give further details, floated proposals include a withdrawal by the United States of its troops in return for Taliban guarantees not to shelter foreign extremists -- the initial reason for the US intervention. President Donald Trump has been eager to end America's longest war, which was launched shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Trump has already said he will pull half of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan. Bamako (AFP) - Two peacekeepers from Sri Lanka died and six were wounded in central Mali Friday when their vehicle hit a mine, the UN said, urging a swift investigation to "bring the perpetrators to justice". UN chief Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the latest attack, and a separate strike with an improvised explosive device Thursday that killed another peacekeeper, from Burkina Faso. "The Secretary-General recalls that attacks targeting United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law," his office said in a statement issued in New York. The UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) earlier said a logistics vehicle hit a mine near Douentza in the Mopti region, killing two blue helmets and severely wounding several others, who have since been evacuated for treatment. The 14,000-strong UN military and police mission has been deployed in Mali since 2013 to help counter jihadist activity. The casualties come after jihadist gunmen killed 10 Chadian peacekeepers and injured at least 25 others in an attack on a UN camp in Aguelhok, northern Mali on Sunday. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for that attack -- one of the deadliest strikes against the UN mission in the West African country. The UN Security Council in a statement urged the Malian government "to swiftly investigate the attack and bring the perpetrators to justice." It added that "involvement in planning, directing, sponsoring or conducting attacks against MINUSMA peacekeepers constitutes a basis for sanctions designations pursuant to United Nations Security Council resolutions." Mali, one of the world's poorest countries, has struggled to return to stability since extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the north in 2012, prompting French military intervention. The jihadists were routed from key desert towns such as Timbuktu and Gao, but large stretches of the landlocked Sahel state remain out of government control. Story continues A peace deal between the government and armed groups was signed in 2015, but implementation has been slow and attacks have continued in the centre and north. In his last quarterly report on Mali, Guterres highlighted a rise in improvised explosive device attacks. "The number of attacks of this type has increased steadily since January 2018, reaching 192, while there had been only 124 during the same period in 2017," according to the report. By Frank Jack Daniel and Mica Rosenberg MEXICO CITY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government will return the first group of migrants seeking asylum in the United States to the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Friday, U.S. and Mexican officials said, marking the start of a major policy shift by the Trump administration. The policy dubbed the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) and first announced on Dec. 20 will return non-Mexican migrants who cross the U.S. southern border back to wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in U.S. immigration courts. The plan is aimed at curbing the increasing number of families arriving mostly from Central America who say they fear returning to their home countries due to threats of violence. The Trump administration says many of the claims are not valid. The program will apply to arriving migrants who ask for asylum at ports of entry or who are caught crossing illegally and say they are afraid to return home. Children traveling on their own and some migrants from "vulnerable populations" could be excluded on a case-by-case basis, the Department of Homeland Security said in a fact sheet. "The MPP will provide a safer and more orderly process that will discourage individuals from attempting illegal entry and making false claims to stay in the U.S., and allow more resources to be dedicated to individuals who legitimately qualify for asylum," the DHS said. (graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Rhk5VT) Illegal crossings at the southern border have dropped dramatically since highs reached in previous decades, but in recent years more families and unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are migrating to the United States and asylum applications have ballooned. Last year, about 93,000 people sought asylum at the southern border, up 67 percent from 2017, according to U.S. government data. Asylum seekers are typically granted the right to stay in the United States while their cases are decided by a U.S. immigration judge, but a backlog of more than 800,000 cases means the process can take years. Now, the U.S. government says migrants will be turned away with a "notice to appear" in immigration court. They will be able to enter the United States for their hearings but will have to live in Mexico in the interim. If they lose their cases, they will be deported to their home countries. Mexico has said it will not accept anybody facing a credible threat in Mexican territory. But immigration advocates fear Mexican territory is not safe for migrants who are regularly kidnapped by criminal gangs and smugglers, and have raised concerns that applicants will not be able to access proper legal counsel to represent them in U.S. courts. It is unclear how Mexico plans to house what could be thousands of asylum seekers for the lengthy duration of their immigration proceedings. Some Mexican border towns are more violent than the cities the Central Americans left behind. The Trump administration says it is relying on a U.S. law that allows migrants attempting to enter the United States from a contiguous country to be removed to that country. But the policy will likely be challenged in court since claiming asylum is protected under both international and U.S. law. Several of Trump's signature immigration policies, including some attempting to reduce asylum applications, have been halted by U.S. federal courts. Trump argues that the asylum system is abused, calling a process by which many migrants are freed in the United States to await immigration trial "catch and release." Trump is demanding $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the Mexican border, triggering a U.S. partial government shutdown that stretched to its 34th day on Thursday and has left 800,000 federal workers without pay. (Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Peter Cooney and Leslie Adler) Giza (Egypt) (AFP) - Three Vietnamese holidaymakers and an Egyptian tour guide were killed Friday when a roadside bomb blast hit their bus as it travelled close to the Giza pyramids outside Cairo, officials said. A statement by the public prosecutor's office said 11 other tourists from Vietnam and an Egyptian bus driver were wounded when the homemade device exploded. The improvised explosive device was placed near a wall along the Mariyutiya Street in Al-Haram district near the Giza Pyramids, it said. The bus was carrying a total of 16 people including 14 Vietnamese tourists, an Egyptian driver and a tour guide, according to the statement. Armed security personnel quickly deployed to the site and cordoned off the area for inspection. The white tourist bus could be seen with its windows shattered and surrounded by soot-covered debris. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli visited the injured tourists in hospital, where he announced that the tour guide had died from his wounds. Madbouli urged against "amplifying" the incident as he insisted that "no country in the world can guarantee that its 100 percent safe". "It's possible at times that an individual incident takes place here or there," he told journalists. "We have to know that it's possible that it would be repeated in the future." There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. Later, a statement issued by the United States condemning the attack. "We stand with all Egyptians in the fight against terrorism and support the Egyptian government in bringing the perpetrators of this attack to justice," State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said. - Tourism struggling - Egypt's tourism industry has been struggling to recover from terror attacks and domestic instability that has hit the country in recent years. In July 2017, two German tourists were stabbed to death by a suspected jihadist assailant at the Egyptian Red Sea beach resort of Hurgada. Story continues In October 2015, a bomb claimed by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group killed 224 people on board a passenger jet carrying Russian tourists over the Sinai peninsula. That incident dealt a severe blow to Egypt's tourism industry still reeling from the turmoil set off by the 2011 uprising that forced veteran leader Hosni Mubarak from power. Egypt has since been seeking to lure tourists back and spur the lucrative sector by touting new archaeological discoveries and bolstering security around archaeological sites and in airports. Tourism has slowly started picking up. The official statistics agency says tourists arrivals in Egypt in 2017 reached 8.2 million, up from 5.3 million the year before. But that figure was still far short of the record influx in 2010 when over 14 million visitors flocked see the country's sites. Egypt has for years been battling an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai, which surged following the 2013 military ouster of president Mohamed Morsi. Security forces have since February been conducting a major operation focused on the Sinai Peninsula, aimed at wiping out a local IS branch. More than 450 suspected jihadists and around 30 Egyptian soldiers have been killed since the offensive began, the army said in October. The pyramids of Giza are the only surviving structure of the seven wonders of the ancient world and a major tourist draw attracting visitors from across the globe. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he would declare a national emergency if he doesn't eventually reach a deal with Democrats on border security. Trump, who made the comments to reporters during an immigration event at the White House, said earlier on Friday he had reached a deal with lawmakers to reopen the government until Feb. 15 while they work on Trump's demand for funding for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. I think we have a good chance" of reaching an agreement, Trump said. "Well work with the Democrats and negotiate and if we cant do that, then well do a - obviously well do the emergency because thats what it is. Its a national emergency, he said. Declaring an emergency could allow Trump to circumvent Congress and repurpose funds Congress has appropriated for other purposes in order to build a wall. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Eric Beech; Editing by Tim Ahmann and James Dalgleish) WASHINGTON (AP) The counter-puncher caved. President Donald Trump's decision to postpone his State of the Union address under pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised allies, contradicted top aides who had been working on an alternative speech plan and left all of Washington trying to determine whether it signaled new willingness by Trump to make a deal to reopen the government. "Well, it's really her choice," Trump said Thursday, acknowledging Pelosi had the upper hand when it came to scheduling the traditional presidential address to Congress. The speaker had made clear Trump could not deliver his speech from the House unless he waited until the government reopens. So Trump, who is typically loath to show any sign of weakness, made a highly uncharacteristic about-face and one that highlighted the importance the president attaches to the type of symbolism and pageantry associated with a speech from the rostrum of the House. The president concluded that there was no viable alternative that could match the gravitas of the traditional State of the Union address, in which all three branches of government come together under one roof, drawing the president's largest television audience of the year. An alternative speech or rally also would have been a hard sell for television networks, which took heat earlier this month for airing the president's prime-time Oval Office address in which he largely rehashed his case for a southern border wall. "I would have done it in a different location but I think that would be very disrespectful to the State of the Union," Trump said Thursday. "I could have gone to a big auditorium and gotten 25,000 people in one day and you've been there many times. But I think that would be very disrespectful to the State of the Union." Trump went so far as to praise Pelosi's move as "actually reasonable" although he had blasted her position just a day earlier. Story continues The reversal surprised those who have known Trump for years. Throughout his presidency, Trump has reveled in his take-no-prisoners negotiating style from talking tough against North Korea to slapping tariffs on allies. And he has dug in his heels time and time again, refusing to admit errors and insisting that he won't accept a budget deal that doesn't include money for his promised border wall. "Nobody's ever seen him make such a concession in public," said former campaign aide Sam Nunberg. "The only thing I can think of is that he wasn't going to like the optics of not giving it in the House chamber." As late as Wednesday afternoon, officials had been busy discussing contingency locations, including a rally-style event, an Oval Office address, a speech in the Senate chamber and even a visit to a border state. "We always like to have a plan B," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had said Wednesday. But White House officials were caught off guard when Pelosi announced that she would block Trump from speaking until the shutdown ended. Indeed, at least some seemed unaware of rules specifying that both the House and Senate must pass a concurrent resolution formally inviting the president to address a joint session. Late Wednesday, Trump announced by tweet that he would postpone the speech "because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber." "It is a stage that no modern president wants to vacate," said Donald Ritchie, a former Senate historian. "I can understand why the president decided he'll wait for the chamber to reopen so he can go in there." On the Trump-friendly show "Fox and Friends," co-anchor Brian Kilmeade applauded the move. "I really respect the president's decision to keep some type of tradition and semblance of order. So I think it's a great move to do it and it hopefully puts more pressure on all sides to get something done," Kilmeade said. The decision came hours before the Senate voted on and failed to pass dueling bills to end the shutdown. And it raised questions about what comes next in Trump's evolving strategy on the budget fight. On Friday, hundreds of thousands of federal workers will miss another paycheck, and polls have shown a majority of voters blame the president for the mess. Some worried the spat would further sour relations between Trump and Pelosi, who haven't spoken in weeks. But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an informal adviser to the president, argued it could be a positive step. "I assume that it is an effort on his part to signal that he's willing to be reasonable and find a way to get along. And now we'll see whether Pelosi will come back and be reasonable as well," said Gingrich. "By his conceding to her, I think he sets the stage now for her" to do the same. If that's the case, it would be a notable new approach for the president, said Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio. He said that, in Trump's life before politics, he never retreated, choosing instead to deflect, blame others, or simply declare himself a success even when he wasn't, insisting, for instance, that "The Apprentice" show was a hit even when it was lagging in the ratings and framing his bankruptcies as smart legal maneuvers. "The president's decision to delay the State of the Union speech is an unprecedented moment of realism in the life of a man who has always promoted himself as a fantasy figure who always wins at everything," said D'Antonio, the author of "The Truth About Trump." "For him to buckle in the face of a challenge from an opponent, and a woman no less, is truly a historic event." ___ Associated Press writers David Bauder and Kevin Freking contributed to this report. ___ Follow Colvin and Lucey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colvinj and https://twitter.com/catherine_lucey Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump loves to make the pistol gesture when pronouncing his "You're fired" catchphrase. But in the tussle with Democrats over the longest US government shutdown in history, the legendary dealmaker may have shot himself in the foot. So much of the president's brand is linked to the aura of decisiveness he embodied as star of the long-running "Apprentice" television show that it's hard for many to imagine him as anything less than a hardball businessman. However, the shutdown, which Trump finally ended Friday, after 35 days, brought home that the White House is not the same as a real estate magnate's boardroom, let alone a reality TV set. With growing numbers of unpaid federal employees in financial trouble, airports clogging up and even the Secret Service agents guarding the White House missing a second paycheck, Americans were crying out for leadership. Instead, what they got for five weeks from both Trump and his Democratic opponents were playground-level arguments and political drift. Finally Trump, who'd vowed not to "cave," did just that, agreeing to reopen government for three weeks while dropping his demand for immediate funding of a controversial US-Mexico border wall. It was the rarest of things for a man who has often boasted of his ruthlessness and ego: a personal retreat for the greater good. - Siege mentality - The big climbdown capped a rough day. At dawn on Friday, FBI agents arrested former associate Roger Stone in the alleged Trump-Russia collusion probe, boosting the sensation of a White House under siege. Stone is the sixth person with ties to Trump to be charged in special prosecutor Robert Mueller's huge investigation. Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders tried to project coolness, dismissing Stone's arrest as "nothing to do with the president and certainly nothing to do with the White House." Stone's fate -- he faces seven counts including witness tampering, obstruction of justice -- is "not something that affects us in this building," Sanders said. Story continues But a short time later, it became clear that someone in the building wasn't feeling quite so blase: her boss. "Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better," Trump tweeted. - 'Screw you, screw them' - The brash New Yorker has made a career of projecting strength and self-confidence. That especially applies to his negotiating prowess. "My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what Im after," he said in "The Art of the Deal" -- the ghost-written autobiography that did much to create that image of the ultimate American tycoon. So when he refused to fund swaths of the government back in December, Trump thought his show of executive power would force Congress to submit to his request for $5.7 billion in funding for US-Mexico border wall extensions -- a central promise in his surprise 2016 election. However, Trump, a newcomer to politics, apparently hadn't reckoned on having to deal with a lower house of Congress which from January came under control of the Democrats. By contrast, Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, his main antagonist, has decades of experience at shutdown politics and that showed throughout. As Pelosi's own daughter told CNN: "She'll cut your head off and you won't even know you're bleeding." What's next? After losing round one, Trump promises a second round in three weeks, should he still not have got his wall funding. That could mean another government shutdown or invoking emergency powers to get wall funding without congressional approval. The senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, cautioned Trump against further conflict. "Hopefully now the president has learned his lesson," he said. But Trump, possibly stung by headlines that screamed of his retreat, offered a rebuttal, repeating a threat to shut the government again. "This was in no way a concession," Trump tweeted. "It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it's off to the races!" And as Trump says in "Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life," another of the many books under his name: "My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades." FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) The thousands of tourists who travel to a remote Native American reservation deep in the Grand Canyon each year to camp near a series of picturesque, blue-green waterfalls will have to do so without the benefit of professional guides. The Havasupai Tribe has decided not to allow outfitters to escort visitors this year down the long, winding path that leads to its small, roadless reservation and on to its main tourist draw: towering waterfalls that cascade into swimming holes that are warm year-round. Tourists can visit the waterfalls, either by reserving a room at the tribe's only lodge or by snapping up a coveted permit for one of its hundreds of camping spots scattered amid a creek. But starting in February, they'll have to find their own way to the reservation's waterfalls and caves, and carry their own food and gear. Abbie Fink, a spokeswoman for the Havasupai Tribe, said the Tribal Council's decision isn't a reflection on the outfitters. Rather, she said the tribe wanted to manage all tourist traffic itself. "It's not solving a problem. It's returning the enterprise to the control of the tribe," she told The Associated Press. For years, the tribe has set aside spots for tour companies, which often bought permits in bulk. The outfitters paid a licensing fee of several thousand dollars, and some had elaborate setups with gourmet meals, inflatable couches and massage therapists. Most brought just the essentials. Fink couldn't say exactly how much tour guides paid or how many licenses have been issued in the past. She said the Tribal Council would re-evaluate outfitter licenses for 2020. The tribe relies heavily on tourism and estimates that between February and November, it gets 30,000 to 40,000 visitors per year to its reservation deep in a gorge west of Grand Canyon National Park that's accessible only by foot or helicopter, or by riding a horse or mule. The tribe does maintenance in the campground and on the trails in December and January. Story continues The tribe doesn't allow day hikes, so visitors wanting to take in its waterfalls and other sights must reserve overnight trips in the campground or at the sole lodge. Rooms in the lodge, which can be booked only by phone, are sold out for the rest of this year. Reservations for 2020 start June 1. Permits for 2019 camping spots become available online Feb. 1 and are expected to sell out in minutes. People on social media have been strategizing for months about how to boost their chances, including by setting up an account early, recruiting friends and family to try to book a trip and repeatedly refreshing multiple internet browsers. The permits are $100 per person per night Monday through Thursday, and $125 a night Friday through Sunday, slight increases over last year. The tribe grants about 300 camping permits a day, Fink has said. Adam Henry, co-owner of Discovery Treks, books between 100 and 200 people on the Havasupai trip each year but has had to stick to offering trips in other spots of the Grand Canyon. He says that's not always welcome news for tourists intent on venturing to the waterfalls. The hike takes tourists 8 miles (13 kilometers) down a winding trail through desert landscape before they reach the first waterfall. Then comes the village of Supai, where 600 tribal members live year-round. Another 2 miles (3 kilometers) down the trail is the campground with waterfalls on both ends. "The blue-green water is what people want to see," Henry said. "It's certainly a significant bummer for people who aren't going to be able to get out there on their own." Christine Miller, who works with the tour guide company Wildland Trekking, said tourists can find packing lists online and videos on Havasupai to help plan their trip. The advantage to having a tour guide is knowing how to reach the sights off the main trail, including other waterfalls, caves and swimming pools. "There are not really any good maps out there to tell you when to cross, when not to cross" the creek, she said. The tribe temporarily suspended licenses for outfitters in 2016 in part to review the impact that supplies loaded onto pack animals had on the animals and the trail. Fink did not respond to questions about what came out of that review. MADISON - Osmonds Manzer Equipment, and the Aaron and Ryan Zimmerman family of Pierce County were honored as the Agribusiness and Farm Family of the year respectively Thursday during the sixth annual Ag Banquet sponsored by the Norfolk Area and Madison Chambers of Commerce. Davos (Switzerland) (AFP) - The world is facing worrying "fragmentation", UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday, warning that the relationship between the United States, Russia and China was worryingly out of kilter. "The relationship between the three most important powers, Russia, the United States and China, has never been as dysfunctional as it is today," the UN secretary-general told the World Economic Forum in Davos. Guterres said the ongoing shift away from a world dominated previously by two Cold War superpowers was creating "a bit of a chaotic situation". "We no longer live in a bipolar or unipolar world, but we are not yet in a multipolar world," he said. "Power relations (are) becoming unclear," he added, urging countries to work together and support multilateralism. The United States has been locked in a trade war with China and others that has rocked the financial markets and sparked fears of a slowdown in the global economy. And US relations with Moscow have been hit by allegations of Russian meddling in US politics and a stand-off over the fate of a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty. The dysfunction is evident "in the economy, but it is also true in the Security Council," Guterres said, lamenting the recurring "paralysis" of the UN's top body. "We are in a world in which global challenges are more and more fragmented, and the responses are more and more fragmented," he said. "If this is not reversed, it is a recipe for disaster." He acknowledged that many around the world feel disconnected from those in power and from the work of international organisations such as the UN, fuelling nationalism and populism. "We need to demonstrate to all of those who feel that they were left behind that our ideas, our policies, our programmes aim at solving their problems or helping them to solve them," he said. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) A co-founder of the Taliban who was released from prison in Pakistan in October has been appointed head of the group's political office in Qatar as it negotiates with the United States over ending the 17-year-old Afghan war, the Taliban said Friday. Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Taliban military commander, was arrested in Pakistan in 2010. His release is believed to have been arranged by the United States as part of the negotiations, and his presence could reassure battlefield commanders who may fear concessions by the political leadership. Baradar was brought in to "strengthen and properly handle the ongoing negotiations process with the United States." Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. "Multiple changes have also taken place in the military and civilian departments" of the group, "so that the ongoing jihadi process and political efforts can develop positively," he added. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has met with the Taliban on a number of occasions in recent months in the latest bid to end America's longest war. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to topple the Taliban, who were harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The Taliban have staged a comeback in recent years and today hold sway over nearly half the country. Khalilzad has been in Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office, since Monday. The U.S. State Department has neither denied nor confirmed previous meetings with the Taliban, but Khalilzad says he has met with all sides in the conflict. Pakistan has long had influence over the Taliban, and the senior leadership of the group is widely believed to be based there. Mohammad Faisal, a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, said it had "facilitated" the ongoing negotiations in Qatar and that Pakistani officials were attending the latest talks. The Taliban have refused to meet with the Afghan government, which they view as a U.S. puppet. Earlier this week, a Taliban assault on a military base run by the intelligence service killed dozens of people. Story continues Waheed Muzhda , an Afghan political analyst, said Baradar's inclusion is important because "he enjoys the full support of all the Taliban commanders." Both sides have remained tight-lipped about the latest talks. The Taliban's demands include the full withdrawal of NATO forces and the release of prisoners. In return, the Taliban have said they will not allow Afghan territory to be used for attacks on the U.S. or other countries. ___ Ahmed reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Zalmay Khalilzad, US envoy, held his fourth day of talks with Taliban envoys - AP Taliban envoys meeting American officials have reportedly agreed to bar international terror groups from Afghanistan, in a significant concession to Washington's fears the country will again become a terrorist haven. Talks between the adversaries on Thursday reached the end of their fourth day, raising hopes the lengthy session would bring more progress. Taliban sources also said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the militants' former number two who was recently released from custody in Pakistan, would now take direct charge of the negotiations in Doha. Zalmay Khalilzad, Donald Trump's peace envoy to the country, was understood to be pushing for an initial agreement that would pave the way to bring the Afghan government into talks. American negotiators have sought assurances that after any peace deal, jihadist militants such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State group would not be allowed to plot attacks against the West. Osama bin Laden spent much of the 1990s in Afghanistan as a guest of the Taliban and was living on a farm outside Kandahar as al Qaeda hatched plans to bomb US embassies and attack the World Trade Centre. The Taliban have now agreed to the assurances, the Wall Street Journal reported, despite concerns by some militant officials that rank-and-file fighters would view the move as joining forces with Washington against al Qaeda. The Taliban are continuing to inflict heavy casualties on Afghan civilians and troops while talking to America. Credit: Reuters This week's meetings, which had been originally slated for only two days, have also been dominated by Taliban demands for a withdrawal of American forces and a US call for a ceasefire. The militants have publicly called for a complete pull out, but are understood to be open to a phased withdrawal. America wants long term bases in the country however. "When talks take a long time it means the discussion is in a sensitive and important stage, and the participants are getting close to a positive result," Sayed Ehsan Taheri of the Afghan High Peace Council told Reuters. Story continues America has said any eventual peace talks should be Afghan owned and Afghan led but progress has been hampered by the Taliban's refusal to talk to President Ashraf Ghani's Afghan government, dismissing it as a puppet administration of the Americans. We're a long way from a fully fledged peace agreement. This is going to be a long road, said Graeme Smith a consultant for International Crisis Group. Donald Trump's disillusion with America's longest war has given impetus to Washington's efforts to find a political settlement to the 17-year-long conflict. Mr Khalilzad has met the Taliban at least four times in recent months, but the bloodshed has continued unabated. Afghan civilians and security forces are suffering record levels of casualties. An attack on an intelligence training base in Wardak that killed at least 36, and by some reports more than 100, underlined the Taliban military threat. Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on the Taliban, said the overrun of this week's talks represented "unprecedented" progress. "I have never seen anything like this before," he told AFP. "This is the first serious effort. And it has continued since July... they have agreed to disagree and continued to meet. That's why it's unprecedented." Roger Stone is the shiny object. The obstruction charges in his long-anticipated indictment, made public on Friday, are not the matter of consequence for the United States. Nor is the critical thing the indictments implicit confirmation that there was no criminal collusion conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. What matters is this: The indictment is just the latest blatant demonstration that Special Counsel Robert Muellers office, the Department of Justice, and the FBI have known for many months that there was no such conspiracy. And yet, fully aware that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI had assiduously crafted a public narrative that Trump may have been in cahoots with the Russian regime, they have allowed that cloud of suspicion to hover over the presidency over the Trump administrations efforts to govern heedless of the damage to the country. The rationale for the Trump-Russia investigation namely, the notion that the Trump campaign had coordinated in the Kremlins cyber-espionage operation to meddle in the 2016 campaign has been nothing more than a suspicion harbored by political, law-enforcement, and intelligence officials who loathed Donald Trump. That there may be a thousand good reasons to dislike Donald Trump is irrelevant, for we are talking about investigations, not politics. Investigative suspicions must be rooted in fact, not contempt. Not only was the suggestion of a Trump-Russia conspiracy not founded on fact. The officials calling the shots had reason to know that the premise was factually false. In truth, there was no evidence of Trump-campaign complicity in Russian espionage nothing but the Clinton-campaign generated, unverified Steele dossier. The months-in-the-making Stone indictment is just the latest proof of that. Yet investigators were not just content to let the country believe there was a Trump-Russia criminal conspiracy; they affirmatively encouraged the public to believe it was true. Even as they indicted people for providing misleading information and then failing to correct the record, they never themselves corrected the misimpression they had gratuitously created in public statements the statement issued by FBI director James Comey, with Justice Department approval, just two months after Trump took office; and the statement issued by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein two months later, when he reiterated Comeys testimony in appointing Special Counsel Mueller. Story continues Lets assume for arguments sake that the special counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russian intelligence orchestrated the hacking of the Democratic email accounts (i.e., the servers or accounts of the DNC and Clinton-campaign chairman John Podesta). As I have noted on other occasions, I accept the U.S. intelligence agencies finding that Russia is the culprit. But an intelligence finding is just an assessment of probability; it is not courtroom proof. And Muellers indictments of Russian intelligence officers, individuals, and corporate entities are effectively no more than press releases trying to put to rest any questions about Russias culpability. As the prosecutors well know, an indictment is just an allegation; it is evidence of nothing. Given that Vladimir Putin is never going to extradite his operatives to face U.S. criminal charges, Muellers team well knows that their allegations are freebies they are never going to be tested in court. But again, lets give them that one, the foundation of the narrative. As the prosecutors have further developed their allegations, weve learned that Russia obtained the emails through its hackers and somehow got them to WikiLeaks, which then got them into mainstream publications. Muellers indictments of Russian entities strongly suggest that Russia acted alone in its hacking and troll-farm operations: The Kremlin neither needed nor sought help from Trump; its operations actually predated Trumps candidacy; and sometimes it operated against Trump. Moreover, Mueller has never uttered a single sentence in all his charging instruments alleging Trumps complicity in Russias espionage the indicted Russians have no connection to the Trump campaign, and the indicted people in Trumps orbit have no connection to Russias hacking. So now we have the Stone indictment. It alleges no involvement by Stone or the Trump campaign in Russias hacking. The indictments focus, instead, is the WikiLeaks end of the enterprise i.e., not the cyberespionage of a foreign power that gave rise to the investigation, but the dissemination of the stolen emails after the hacking. And what do we learn? That the Trump campaign did not know what WikiLeaks had. That is, in addition to being uninvolved in Russias espionage, the Trump campaign was uninvolved in Julian Assanges acquisition of what Russia stole. The Stone indictment reads like an episode of The Three Stooges. Stone and two associates conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerry Corsi, and left-wing-comedian-turned-radio-host Randy Credico, respectively denominated Person 1 and Person 2 are on a quest to find out what WikiLeaks has on Hillary Clinton and when Assange is going to publicize it. But that does not suit Stone, who has cultivated an image of political dirty trickster and plugged-in soothsayer. In public, then, Stone pretends to know more than he knows and to have an insiders view of Assanges operation; behind the scenes, he scrounges around for clues about what Assange is up to, hoping some insider will tell him. That is, its a clown show. A despicable one, at that. Assange is an inveterate anti-American who has done incalculable damage to U.S. intelligence operations. How interesting that Robert Mueller led the FBI during those debacles and has special incentive to dig into the WikiLeaksKremlin connection. And how interesting that Assange was a heroic figure to the Left, and the bane of the national-security Right, before his apparent distaste for Hillary flipped the script (at least for blind Trump and Clinton partisans). In any event, we have Stone and Corsi racking their brains about how to ferret out what Assange has got, and to understand the timeline in which he might release it hoping against hope that it will kill off the Clinton bid. And we have Credico, Stones radio-host pal, dealing directly with Assange (mainly by interviewing him), then passing information along to Stone while imploring Stone to keep his (Credicos) name out of it. Meanwhile, Stone tells his friends in the Trump campaign that he has heard WikiLeaks may have information that would damage Hillary Clintons campaign. After the hacked DNC emails are published in July 2016, a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton campaign. Was directed? Naturally, youre thinking, was directed by whom? By Trump? Could be . . . Stone says it was not, but who knows? The point, however, is not who did the directing but why it was thought necessary to reach out to Stone. The Trump campaign had to ask Stone because it was in the dark. Plainly, the campaign was not involved in the hacking, so it did not know what the Russians gave Assange. And it had no involvement with WikiLeaks operations, so it turned to Stone, who had held himself out as a knowledgeable source. But Stone, too, was unsure. Mueller alleges: STONE thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by [WikiLeaks] (emphasis added). The prosecutor has to say potential because Stone did not have solid knowledge of Assanges intentions he tried to find out from others (including Credico, who had contact with Assange), but they did not know for sure exactly what Assange had and whether or when he would publish it. Mind you, it is not a crime to know that bad people have damaging information about your political opponent, nor to try to nudge them to publish it at the time most opportune for your political favorite. Here, the Trump campaign did not even know what WikiLeaks had. Its best source was Stone, but, like the campaign, he was pressing sources who might have the information about WikiLeaks that he lacked. No surprise, then, that Mueller does not even allege that Stone was in a criminal conspiracy with WikiLeaks, let alone that Trump conspired with WikiLeaks much less with Putin. Instead, Stone is charged with seven counts of obstructing congressional investigations by giving misleading testimony, withholding and lying about the existence of records responsive to a congressional request, lying about his communications with Credico, and attempting to influence Credico to lie or refuse to testify. These are serious charges, and while Stone may have cards to play on the allegations that he made misrepresentations (more on that another time), the special counsel appears to have daunting evidence that Stone tampered with Credicos testimony a charge that involves Stones cheesy exhortations that Credico ape the stonewalling of both Stone hero Richard Nixon and Frank Pentangeli (the Michael V. Gazzo character who famously develops witness-stand amnesia in Godfather II). Nevertheless, thats secondary as far as the country is concerned. The salient fact is that the evidence-based narrative from which Mueller derives these obstruction charges underscores that the president and his campaign were not complicit in Russias hacking of Democratic accounts. Thats not new news. It is completely consistent with indictments Mueller has been filing for a year. Why does that matter? Well, if I may beat a dead horse, in February 2017, Comey, then the FBIs director, gave this astonishing public testimony at a House Intelligence Committee hearing: I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russias efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Understand: 1. It is standard government practice never to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. 2. This is especially true of counterintelligence investigations, which target foreign powers, not individuals, and which are classified. 3. It violates Justice Department and FBI policy to identify a subject of any investigation if that subject has not been charged with a crime. This is especially true when the subject, whether a person or an entity (like the Trump campaign) is of interest to a counterintelligence investigation again, such investigations are classified, and subjects whose suspected connections to foreign powers are being scrutinized should never be disclosed. 4. It is simply not true that, as a matter of course in a counterintelligence investigation, the Justice Department and FBI do an assessment of whether any prosecutable crimes have been committed. Instead, whenever agents happen to stumble upon evidence of a crime, they always consider whether to prosecute. This is not a routine aspect of counterintelligence investigations; it is an unremarkable fact applicable to all kinds of inquiries even background investigations of applicants for government employment. That is to say: It was wrong to acknowledge the existence of the classified Russia investigation, and it was egregiously wrong not only to name the Trump campaign as a subject but to do so in a manner that suggested criminal prosecution was foreseeable. Any thinking person would have taken Director Comeys disclosure, in disregard of several law-enforcement and intelligence protocols, to signal that the new president could be conspiring with Russia in an espionage scheme, for which he or at least officials in his campaign might very well face criminal charges. It has to have been obvious to investigators for months that this suggestion was misleading. Yet there has been no correction of the record. For month after month, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the special counsel have been content to allow the presidency to be enveloped in a cloud of suspicion that necessarily infects the administrations capacity to govern, to conduct foreign relations, and to deal with Congress. Why? There is no reason why the special counsel could not have issued an interim report clearing the president of suspicion that he was a Russian agent. Doing so would merely have removed the specter of traitorous conspiracy from the White House. It would not have compromised Muellers ability to investigate Russias interference in the election; it would not have undermined Muellers probe of potential obstruction offenses by the president. (And while it is not Muellers job to discourage the presidents puerile witch hunt tweets, if the public had been told that the Justice Department withdrew its highly irregular public statements about Trumps possible criminal complicity in Russias espionage, presidential tirades about the investigation would have ebbed, if not disappeared entirely.) We are not just talking about having our priorities in order i.e., recognizing that the ability of the president to govern takes precedence the prosecutors desire for investigative secrecy. We are talking about common sense and common decency: The Justice Department and the FBI went out of their way to portray Donald Trump as a suspect in what would have been the most abhorrent crime in the nations history. It has been more than two years. Is it too much to ask that the Justice Department withdraw its public suggestion that the president of the United States might be a clandestine agent of Russia? More from National Review St. Louis Police Officer Katlyn Alix, 24, was fatally wounded by a colleague on Thursday by a fellow officer who mishandled a firearm, police said. A St. Louis police officer was charged with manslaughter Friday for allegedly shooting a colleague as the two played Russian Roulette, authorities said. Officer Nathaniel Hendren, 29, shot Officer Katlyn Alix, 24, in his apartment in the citys Carondelet neighborhood early Thursday in the presence of a third officer, police said. Hendren was charged with involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, police said. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Alix was off duty at the time of the shooting, police said. Hendren and his partner were on duty. All three were in Hendren's apartment shortly before 1 a.m. Hendren took all the bullets out of a revolver and then put one back in, police said in a probable cause statement. He spun the cylinder, pointed it away and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. Alix then took the gun, pointed it at Hendren and pulled the trigger without discharging a bullet, police said. Hendrens partner told Hendren and Alix that they shouldnt be playing with guns and that they were police officers, police said in the statement. He felt uncomfortable with them playing with guns and didnt want to have any part of it and started to leave." Hendren took the gun back and pulled the trigger. As [Hendren's partner] left the room but before leaving the apartment, he heard a shot," police said. Alix was struck in the chest. Hendren and his partner used police radio to report an officer in need of aid and rushed Alix to St. Louis University Hospital. She was pronounced dead soon after arriving at the hospital. Police said Thursday that a preliminary investigation indicated that Hendren had mishandled the gun. Police Commissioner John W. Hayden Jr. called it an accidental discharge of the weapon. Related: St. Louis police officer killed by colleague who 'mishandled' gun, authorities say More: Charges: Cops said beating protesters would be 'a blast.' Then they hurt an undercover officer Story continues The gun was recovered at the scene, police said. They have not said whether it was a service weapon, or why Hendren and his partner were at the apartment during their shift. Alix entered the St. Louis Police Academy in June 2016 and was commissioned as a police officer two years ago. She was assigned as a patrol officer in South St. Louis. She is survived by her husband, mother, father and sister. Hendren had been with the department for about a year, police said. His partner, also 29, has been with the St. Police Department for nearly two years. Today, as much as it saddens my staff and me to file these charges, Katlyn and her family deserve accountability and justice, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner said. Follow USA TODAY national correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: St. Louis cop charged in Russian Roulette shooting death of fellow officer, police say NEW YORK (AP) Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor returned to her old stomping grounds in the Bronx on Friday to speak to second-graders and tell them to that if she could accomplish her goals, they could, too. Sotomayor joined a fellow-Bronx native, the actress Kerry Washington, to answer questions from the nearly 200 students who attended the event put on by the Bronx Children's Museum. The children peppered the justice with questions about what motivates her and how she makes important decisions. Their final question was about former President Barack Obama and what it was like to meet him. "He was never nasty. He was never critical of me or complaining. He just showed interest in me," she said, describing her first meeting with Obama when she was being considered as a court nominee. "He's as kind and gentle as the man you see on TV." The students didn't ask her about President Donald Trump. Sotomayor also shared passages from her illustrated children's book, "Turning Pages, My Life Story," which details her childhood in the Bronx. The event was held at Hostos Community College, where Sotomayor's mother studied nursing while Sotomayor was in high school. Sotomayor described to the students what it was like being a Supreme Court justice mostly reading, thinking, and writing and how she approaches decisions on the court. Sotomayor has participated in the annual event for the past 10 years and encourages students to read to be inspired. She said she still finds inspiration one of her favorite books, "Watership Down." SEBRING, Fla. Shock and a deep sense of loss resonated through this tiny community Friday morning, many talking about the eerie sounds of sirens heard two days earlier. For a community that prides itself on its friendliness and willingness to help others in need, the shooting deaths of four employees and a customer at a SunTrust Bank branch Wednesday left many wondering why and struggling to cope with what comes next. As funerals were being planned Friday for the shooting victims, community leaders, clergy and others were realizing just how tough it's going to be to move forward and heal and maybe look to forgive the accused shooter. "There is a high level of people being on guard right now," said the Rev. George Miller of Emanuel United Church of Christ in Sebring. "And I don't think many people are used to that feeling of what it's like to be on guard and anxious." And forgiveness? "Forgiveness takes a long time if we are to honestly forgive someone," Miller said. Healing doesn't come easy Sebring, a city of nearly 11,000, is joining a growing list of Florida communities where a shooting tragedy has forced residents to comprehend a horrific act of violence. Healing, community leaders have found, is arduous and doesn't come easy. More: Nearly 200 attend church vigil for victim of Sebring bank shooting More: Florida bank shooting victims, 4 employees and 1 customer, are all women For example, as the city of Parkland in Broward County nears the one-year anniversary of the killing of 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the mayor there, Christine Hunschofsky, said the community is dedicated to helping others. "In a small, tight-knit community like Sebring, which is like ours in Parkland, it's not just a part of the city that's impacted," Hunschofsky said. "It's all-encompassing. When a tragedy hits a community it's so natural and easy to focus on everything that's wrong that it's very important to also look at what's right." Story continues Hunschofsky had just returned Friday from a U.S. Conference of Mayor's event in Washington, D.C., and met privately with the mayors of Orlando, Pittsburgh and Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss mass shootings in those cities. She sees old wounds in Parkland re-opening with the approach of the Feb. 14 anniversary of the shooting. It's been more than two years since Omar Mateen, 29, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando in June 2016. Police officers killed Mateen at the scene. There are no words of comfort we can provide to the traumatized and grieving families and the entire Sebring community during these dark hours, but we want to let you all know that we stand with you," said Barbara Poma, Pulse owner and executive director of onePULSE Foundation. The Pulse community knows all too well the journey Sebring has begun, she said. "Once again a tragic shooting has taken the lives of innocent people, and we are left wondering how we can end the cycle of violence. It is too much, and we must, as a country, pursue a path that will prevent these tragedies and show we value love over hate. Victims The diner, which boasts the best biscuits-and-gravy in the area, is also next to Highlands Regional Medical Center, where victims were brought after Wednesday's shooting. The sirens from law enforcement rushing along U.S 27 had many customers nervously peering from the diner's window the day of the shooting. The incoming ambulances to the medical center confirmed the worst of what was then circulating on social media. Police said Sebring resident Zephen Xaver, 21, walked into the bank and used a 9mm handgun to shoot and kill five women inside the bank, execution-style. A sixth person, who was in a back room, fled and called police. Four of the victims have been identified: Employees Ana Pinon-Williams, 38; Marisol Lopez, 55, of Lake Placid; Jessica Montague, 31; and customer Cynthia Watson, 65, of Venus. The identity of the fifth victim, who police said is 54, is being withheld at the request of the family. The withholding of victims' names is made possible by a state constitutional amendment expanding victims' rights that Florida voters approved in November. A GoFundMe account has been set up for people to donate to the family of Montague, a GoFundMe representative said. Not first tragedy In his office in a colonial brick building off U.S. 27, Sebring Mayor John Shoop, who also is community president of CenterState Bank, is still struggling to make sense of the tragedy. Years ago, he helped open that SunTrust branch, and he knew the employees there. John C. Shoop, President of CenterState Bank in Sebring, talks about how the community has come together in the days since 5 people were murdered at SunTrust Bank. rMandatory Credit: Craig Bailey/FLORIDA TODAY via USA TODAY NETWORK You live in a small town where everything kind of goes on like its Mayberry," Shoop said, "and when something like this happens, its as if it is happening to you." It's not the area's first brush with tragedy. Hurricane Irma pounded the community in September 2017, destroying numerous homes and businesses. Last May in nearby Lake Placid, a 40-year-old sheriff's deputy was shot and killed after responding to a dispute over a cat. And now this. Jose Sanchez struggled with tears Friday morning talking about Montague, a longtime friend he met nearly 10 years ago when she was a cashier at a Walmart in Avon Park. He remained friends with Montague and her husband as she switched careers and began working at SunTrust. "I was hoping she was not involved," Sanchez said, as word began to spread Wednesday about the shooting. When her death was confirmed, he was heartbroken. "It's heart-wrenching," Sanchez said, holding a framed photo of Montague. "It's just so hard." A candlelight vigil for all the victims is scheduled Sunday Hundreds, if not thousands, are expected to a attend. Healing will come, but it won't be easy Shoop said. "Its starting to settle in that this is reality," he said. "The outside has kind of collapsed upon us." Follow Wayne Price on Twitter: @Fla2dayBiz This article originally appeared on Florida Today: The small town of Sebring, Florida, struggles to make sense of 5 shooting deaths Select Bancorp (SLCT) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.23 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.20 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.14 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of 15%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this bank holding company would post earnings of $0.22 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.27, delivering a surprise of 22.73%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Select Bancorp, which belongs to the Zacks Financial - Savings and Loan industry, posted revenues of $13.14 million for the quarter ended December 2018, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.18%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $10.26 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Select Bancorp shares have lost about 4% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 5.4%. What's Next for Select Bancorp? While Select Bancorp has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Select Bancorp was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.20 on $13.24 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.90 on $55.88 million in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Financial - Savings and Loan is currently in the top 40% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Select Bancorp, Inc. (SLCT) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research WASHINGTON Every criminal case brought against a senior member of the Trump campaign as part of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation has revealed a new attempt to conceal contacts with Russia or intermediaries linked to the Kremlin. Michael Cohen, the longtime personal attorney to President Donald Trump; Michael Flynn, the Trump administration's first national security adviser; Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman; and George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign; all have been implicated in back-channel efforts to establish lines of communication with the United States' primary adversary Russia. In a 24-page indictment revealed Friday against Roger Stone, one of Trumps longtime political advisers, Mueller's prosecutors took their deepest plunge yet into the inner workings of the Trump campaign and its intense interest in the Kremlins effort to undermine Clintons presidential bid with hacked emails laundered through the group the government says became its de facto publishing arm: WikiLeaks. Since launching his investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, Mueller hasnt charged any Americans with plotting to help the Kremlins effort. Instead, his office has indicted a succession of Trump associates now Stone for lying to investigators about their activities, and in the process has sketched an increasingly detailed picture of a series of efforts by the campaign to benefit from hacking by Russian intelligence services that the U.S. government says was meant to help deliver Trump the presidency. Stone's relationship with WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that published troves of documents stolen from Democratic political organizations by a hacking group backed by Russian military intelligence, is at the heart of the Friday court filing in which the self-avowed political "dirty trickster" was charged with lying to investigators, obstruction and witness tampering. Story continues Following a brief court appearance Friday morning, a defiant Stone stood before jeering protesters and cheering supporters claiming that he was "falsely accused" and would "plead not guilty." Stone's remarks came shortly after prosecutors detailed a series of alleged contacts between Trump campaign officials, who were not identified in court documents, and the colorful political adviser who had publicly boasted of his connections with WikiLeaks and its embattled founder, Julian Assange. Some of the exchanges had been known previously, because Stone and his associates had made them public, but their inclusion in Friday's indictment marks the first time prosecutors themselves have offered such detailed information about interactions within Trump's campaign. Assange has been living in exile at the Ecuadoran embassy in London since being granted asylum in 2012, in part to avoid the reach of British authorities and possible prosecution in the United States. Starting in the summer of 2016, as Trump was securing the Republican nomination for president and as the FBI was launching its initial inquiry into Russia's interference campaign, prosecutors alleged Friday that Stone communicated with senior Trump campaign officials about WikiLeaks and the politically-charged material in its possession. In those contacts, according to court documents, the campaign officials referred to information that "would be damaging to the Clinton campaign." Among the most striking of the allegations disclosed Friday, however, was contained in a passage in which prosecutors asserted that after a July 22 release of stolen Clinton-related emails, "a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information (WikiLeaks) had regarding the Clinton campaign." "Stone, thereafter, told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by (WikiLeaks)," prosecutors alleged. Prosecutors did not identify the senior campaign official, nor did the documents elaborate on who may have directed that official to get in touch with Trump's longtime adviser. But the July timeline referenced in the court documents closely tracked a series of related events that month, including an often-cited July 27, 2016 campaign appearance by then-candidate Trump who personally appealed to Russia to unearth Clinton's electronic communications. "Russia, if you are listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said, referring to a tranche of emails linked to an FBI review of Clinton's communications while she served as secretary of State. Mueller's office previously alleged that later that same day, hackers working for Russia's military intelligence service "attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clintons personal office." Mueller's office did not allege that Stone or other campaign aides worked with WikiLeaks to release the stolen records. Instead, they allege that Stone lied to the House Intelligence Committee during its investigation of Russian election interference, and that he tried to conceal emails and other records the committee had requested that related to his efforts to obtain information about WikiLeaks' planned disclosures. Those efforts, according to prosecutors, continued throughout the summer and into the fall and included alleged collaborations with intermediaries including right-wing political commentator Jerome Corsi, identified in court documents as "Person 1," and radio host Randy Credico, identified by prosecutors "Person 2." In an Aug. 2, email, Corsi allegedly informed Stone that Assange "plans 2 more dumps" of emails, including one in October. "Time to let more than (Clinton campaign chief John Podesta) to be exposed as in bed (with) enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC, the message said, referring to Clinton. Stone replied that he expected WikiLeaks to release "a load every week, going forward." That same month, in a text with a London-based supporter involved with the Trump campaign, Stone asks if the person wants to switch to a "secure line" to continue an alleged exchange about WikiLeaks' planned releases. Prosecutors said Stone told the friend that he "spoke to my friend in London last night," a reference to Assange. "The payload is still coming." In all, WikiLeaks released 33 sets of documents totaling 50,000 pages of stolen communications related to the Clinton campaign and Podesta. Following the Oct. 7 release of the first batch of Podesta communications, prosecutors alleged that an associate of an unidentified, high-ranking Trump campaign official sent Stone a text message: "Well done," it said. The Trump official was campaign and administration adviser Steve Bannon, according to copies of the messages previously published by The New York Times. Stone denied any wrongdoing Friday, denying any collaboration with WikiLeaks. Yet the case against Stone, and the allegations that he lied about his alleged entreaties involving WikiLeaks, tracks the underlying false statement charges against other Trump campaign officials regarding their contacts with Russia. Flynn, the former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition promising relief from the sanctions the Obama administration had imposed to retaliate for the hacking. In charging him, Mueller's office revealed new details about the extent to which Flynn had discussed those conversations with other top Trump transition aides. Last month, prosecutors said Cohen, the president's former personal attorney, acknowledged that Trump had continued efforts to build another of his eponymous towers in Moscow. More recently, when Muellers office fought with Manafort about whether he had violated his plea agreement, it was revealed that the former campaign chairman had provided polling data to a Russian associate and lied to the special counsel about it. Trump's lawyers and the president have not strayed from their claims that Mueller has not filed charges involving conspiracy or coordination with Russia. But Democratic lawmakers, conducting their own investigations into Russian interference, seized on the new charges lodged against Stone. "It is clear from this indictment that those contacts happened at least with the full knowledge of, and appear to have been encouraged by, the highest levels of the Trump campaign," said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It remains essential that the special counsel be permitted to finish this work without any political interference. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Md., referred to Mueller's allegations that at least some the campaign's contacts with Stone regarding WikiLeaks were carried out by a campaign official at the direction of another. "The direction came at the same time that Trump was calling for Russias help in obtaining Clintons emails, Schiff said. Legal analysts, meanwhile, suggested Friday that the Stone indictment likely meant that there were more to follow. Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and a former senior counsel with Ken Starrs independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton, said the allegations that a senior Trump official was "directed" to contact Stone only raised more questions of where Mueller's theory of the case will lead. That begs the question who is senior enough to direct a senior campaign official, Rosenzweig said. Does it put Trump in the bag personally? Rosenzweig said. Not quite yet. Carrie Cordero, a former Justice Department official, said the Stone indictment offers a possible explanation for why candidate Trump was appealing to Russia to unearth Clinton emails. "It was so out of the ordinary," Cordero said, referring to Trump's campaign appeal to Russia, because it would indicate that the candidate may have been somehow working in tandem with the activities of a foreign power that does things that are hostile to the United States. The Stone indictment does move us closer to understanding that that question might actually get answered." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Roger Stone indictment: Mueller pushes deeper into Trump campaign; highlights effort to use Russia hacks to derail Clinton bid Updated 12:55pm: Long-time Trump associate Roger Stone was indicted and arrested Friday morning on charges arising from Special Counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Stone was taken into custody in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the special counsels office said in a statement, making him the sixth Trump associate to be charged in connection with the probe. He was charged with once count of obstruction, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering. Muellers team accused Stone of making multiple false statements to the House Intelligence Committee about his connection to WikiLeaks and his communications with the Trump campaign about it. During the 2016 campaign season, WikiLeaks released internal emails and documents stolen from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee by Russian operatives. Stone is also accused of attempting to influence another Mueller witness, Randy Credico, who communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 campaign season. They found no Russian collusion or they would have charged him with it, said Stones attorney, Grant Smith. Roger intends to fight these trumped up baseless charges that have nothing to do with the original intent of the special counsels investigation. Smith insisted that Stone did not have access to any of the stolen materials published by WikiLeaks ahead of their release, and said Stones false statements were not malicious but resulted from gaps in his memory. After the July 22, 2016 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1 [Wikileaks], a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton Campaign, the indictment reads. STONE thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1. Story continues The senior Trump campaign official allegedly instructed to contact Stone is unidentified in the indictment, although it is reported to be former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. The indictment today does not allege Russian collusion by Roger Stone or anyone else. Rather, the indictment focuses on alleged false statements Mr. Stone made to Congress, Trump counsel Jay Sekulow said in a statement. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was also quick to distance the administration from the charges, saying, This has nothing to do with the president, and certainly nothing to do with the White House. President Trump reacted to the news in a tweet, saying Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there? the president added, referring to CNNs exclusive footage of Stones arrest. Stone appeared in federal court in Fort Lauderdale before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lurana Snow on Friday and was released on $250,000 signature bond. He is expected to be arraigned next week in Washington, D.C., at which point his lawyer has indicated he will plead not guilty. More from National Review Today well evaluate Rio Tinto Limited (ASX:RIO) to determine whether it could have potential as an investment idea. In particular, well consider its Return On Capital Employed (ROCE), as that can give us insight into how profitably the company is able to employ capital in its business. Firstly, well go over how we calculate ROCE. Next, well compare it to others in its industry. Last but not least, well look at what impact its current liabilities have on its ROCE. Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it? ROCE measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. All else being equal, a better business will have a higher ROCE. In brief, it is a useful tool, but it is not without drawbacks. Author Edwin Whiting says to be careful when comparing the ROCE of different businesses, since No two businesses are exactly alike. How Do You Calculate Return On Capital Employed? Analysts use this formula to calculate return on capital employed: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets Current Liabilities) Or for Rio Tinto: 0.15 = US$12b (US$90b US$11b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2018.) Therefore, Rio Tinto has an ROCE of 15%. View our latest analysis for Rio Tinto Does Rio Tinto Have A Good ROCE? ROCE can be useful when making comparisons, such as between similar companies. In our analysis, Rio Tintos ROCE is meaningfully higher than the 12% average in the Metals and Mining industry. I think thats good to see, since it implies the company is better than other companies at making the most of its capital. Regardless of where Rio Tinto sits next to its industry, its ROCE in absolute terms appears satisfactory, and this company could be worth a closer look. Our data shows that Rio Tinto currently has an ROCE of 15%, compared to its ROCE of 10% 3 years ago. This makes us think about whether the company has been reinvesting shrewdly. Story continues ASX:RIO Last Perf January 25th 19 When considering ROCE, bear in mind that it reflects the past and does not necessarily predict the future. Companies in cyclical industries can be difficult to understand using ROCE, as returns typically look high during boom times, and low during busts. This is because ROCE only looks at one year, instead of considering returns across a whole cycle. We note Rio Tinto could be considered a cyclical business. Since the future is so important for investors, you should check out our free report on analyst forecasts for Rio Tinto. Do Rio Tintos Current Liabilities Skew Its ROCE? Short term (or current) liabilities, are things like supplier invoices, overdrafts, or tax bills that need to be paid within 12 months. The ROCE equation subtracts current liabilities from capital employed, so a company with a lot of current liabilities appears to have less capital employed, and a higher ROCE than otherwise. To counteract this, we check if a company has high current liabilities, relative to its total assets. Rio Tinto has total assets of US$90b and current liabilities of US$11b. As a result, its current liabilities are equal to approximately 12% of its total assets. Low current liabilities are not boosting the ROCE too much. Our Take On Rio Tintos ROCE This is good to see, and with a sound ROCE, Rio Tinto could be worth a closer look. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a few good candidates. So take a peek at this free list of companies with modest (or no) debt, trading on a P/E below 20. I will like Rio Tinto better if I see some big insider buys. While we wait, check out this free list of growing companies with considerable, recent, insider buying. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Ralph Izzo is on a mission. The CEO of one of the largest utility companies in the country is an outspoken advocate that now is the time to take decisive action on climate change. We want our customers to use less energy. We want the energy they use to be cleaner, says Izzo who heads PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group). Its about climate change and making sure that our increased dependence upon electricity doesnt create harm for the planet. Thats not the sort of message you usually hear from the utility industry. But ever since 2007 when Izzo became CEO of the New Jersey utility, hes been urging other industry leaders to focus on saving energy, not just selling it. He says if New Jersey could reduce its energy consumption by just 2 percent, it would eliminate tons of carbon emissionsthe equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road. With revenues of more than $9 billion, PSEG is ranked on the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies in America. Under Izzos leadership, the utility has closed its coal-burning plants and has been a leading developer of solar energy and wind power. Izzo is passionate when he talks about the climate change crisis. Id like to see us reduce the number of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere, he says. The science is compelling. Its very clear. Its now decades old. Each week there seems to be another report that confirms that the time to act is now. What is the most important action he would like to see? Put a tax on carbon, Izzo says. And then let the market work. He believes the creative entrepreneurship of America will find innovative solutions to fix the climate change crisis. Watch the video above for more from my interview with Izzo. DOHUK, Iraq (Reuters) - One protester was killed and at least 10 others wounded when they stormed a Turkish military camp near Dohuk in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Saturday, burning two tanks and other vehicles, residents and Kurdish officials said. Najib Saeed, the chief health official in the area, said it was not yet clear what caused the death. He said Turkish soldiers had shot at protesters and that the burning of vehicles and equipment had caused several explosions. Turkey said the attack was carried out by members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who disguised themselves among civilians to fuel conflict between Turkish forces and local residents. "We are committed to maintaining our close partnership with the people of Dohuk and doing everything in our power to prevent civilian casualties in the area," Fahrettin Altun, communications director for the Turkish Presidency, told Reuters. Turkey carries out regular air raids near the border against the PKK insurgent group which has bases in northern Iraq and has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. The Kurdish government in Erbil in northern Iraq condemned the storming of the camp, accusing "saboteurs" of instigating the incident, a veiled reference to the PKK, a rival of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) that dominates the Erbil government and has a working relationship with Turkey. Erbil said it had sent its forces to the area to calm the situation. A Kurdish official in the region of Dohuk said the crowd was demonstrating over a recent Turkish air raid that killed four civilians. The official did not want to be named. A second Kurdish official, who also did not give his name, said Turkish troops at the camp in Shiladze, east of Dohuk, had initially shot at the protesters and then left the camp. Kurdish security forces are trying to control the situation, he said. The surprise announcement last month that U.S. forces would withdraw from neighbouring Syria, where they have been directing the fight against Islamic State, raised fears that Turkey would move against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces which it views as terrorists. Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia is an extension of the PKK. Trump has threatened economic ruin for Turkey should it attack the YPG, however. (Reporting by Kawa Dosky and Ari Jalal, and by Ali Sultan in Sulaimaniya; Additional reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul and Orhan Coskun in Ankara; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Edmund Blair and Clelia Oziel) By Philip Pullella PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Saturday the Roman Catholic Church was weary and "wounded by her own sin," in an apparent reference to the global sexual abuse crisis. Francis made the comment in the homily of Mass for priests, nuns, and members of Catholic lay organizations in Panama City's newly renovated cathedral of Santa Maria Antigua, the first in mainland America, which was completed in 1716. The pope, who is in Panama for a global gathering of Catholic youth, has called a summit of the heads of national Catholic churches at the Vatican from Feb. 21-24 to discuss what is now a global sexual abuse crisis. The February meeting offers a chance for him to respond to criticism from victims of abuse that he has stumbled in his handling of the crisis and has not done enough to make bishops accountable.. In his homily, Francis spoke of "The weariness of hope (that) comes from seeing a Church wounded by her own sin" and of a Church "which so often failed to hear all those cries". He used the words "weary," "wearisome" or "weariness" about 20 times in the homily. Brenda Noriega, a youth minister from San Bernardino, California, who was in a delegation that had lunch with the pope, said she brought up the sexual abuse crisis in the United States. "The pope said it is a horrible crime. He reminded us that it is important to accompany the victims, to walk with them, and to be a united Church," she told reporters afterwards. Last year was an "annus horribilis" for the pope, with abuse crises exploding in several countries, particularly Chile and the United States. Following accusations of a cover up of abuse in Chile, all 34 of the country's bishops offered their resignations. Francis has so far accepted seven of them but has also defrocked two Chilean bishops accused of molesting minors. Last August, the Church in the United States was rocked by a damning grand jury report on the sexual abuse of children by priests in Pennsylvania over a 70-year period. Francis has urged predator priests who have sexually abused minors to turn themselves in, and has acknowledged that the Church had made serious errors in the past. Before leaving for Panama, Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said a meeting between the pope and victims of clergy abuse was not on the schedule. On past trips, however, such meetings were announced only after they took place. During the morning Mass, Francis led an elaborate service in which he consecrated the basilica's new altar, donning a white apron over his vestments as he rubbed it down with holy oil and blessed it with incense. Relics of three Latin American saints - Saint Rosa of Lima, Saint Oscar Romero and Saint Martin de Porres - as well as a relic of Saint John Paul II, were installed in the altar. Romero, a champion of the poor, was killed by a right-wing death squad in San Salvador in 1980 and was made a saint by Pope Francis in 2018. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; editing by Diane Craft and Jonathan Oatis) Bitcoin ATM, Shutterstock By CCN.com: Crypto thieves have shown that theft can sometimes be a piece of cake. Taking the phrase get the dough to the next level, a cryptocurrency ATM machine was audaciously jacked from a bakery in California last week. The theft took place at the Belwood Bakery in Brentwood Village, Los Angeles, and is the latest in a string of robbery attempts on the establishment. Cryptocurrency ATM Machine Thieves Are Taking the Biscuit CBS News has reported that thieves have unceremoniously snatched a cryptocurrency ATM machine right off the wall of the Belwood Bakery. The CCTV security video via the news channel shows a masked assailant crashing through the shops glass doors in spectacular fashion with a sledgehammer in hand like a crackhead version of Thor looking for cash for his next fix. Read the full story on CCN.com . By Devika Krishna Kumar NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices edged higher on Friday as political turmoil in Venezuela threatened to tighten crude supply, but concerns over surging U.S. fuel stocks and global economic woes weighed on sentiment. The United States signaled on Thursday it may impose sanctions on Venezuelan exports after recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president this week, prompting President Nicholas Maduro to cut ties with Washington. But the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute and broader gloom over world economic growth put a check on prices. Brent crude oil futures ended the session at $61.64 a barrel, up 55 cents, or 0.9 percent. Brent, however, has shed about 1.7 percent since the start of trade on Monday and is on track to post its first week of losses in four weeks. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled at $53.69 per barrel, up 56 cents, or 1.05 percent. WTI futures fell about 0.2 percent on the week, also posting the first week of declines in four weeks. RBC Europe predicted that U.S. sanctions could nearly double projected output shortfalls from Venezuela. "Venezuelan production will decline by an additional 300,000-500,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, but such punitive measures could expand that outage by several hundred thousand barrels," it said. Still, some analysts said the possibility of immediate sanctions were unlikely. "We view a blockade on Venezuelan imports as low probability and a last resort measure that is likely weeks if not months away should it materialize," Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, said in a note. "The evolving situation in Venezuela appears capable of delaying our expected test of $50 support." OUTPUT SURGE Global oil markets are still well supplied, however, thanks in part to a spike in U.S. output. Record U.S. production would likely offset any short-term disruptions to Venezuelan supply due to possible U.S. sanctions, Britain's Barclays said in a note. The bank cut its 2019 average Brent forecast to $70 a barrel, from $72 previously. U.S. energy firms this week increased the number of oil rigs operating for the first time this year. Drillers added 10 oil rigs in the week to Jan. 25, bringing the total count to 862, General Electric Co's Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday. The output surge has swollen U.S. fuel stocks, and crude inventories rose by 8 million barrels last week, according to official data released on Thursday. Refining profits for gasoline are crashing around the world as consumption stalls amid a huge wave of new supplies, resulting in record inventories in Asia, America and Europe. In the U.S. market, gasoline margins sank to $5.70 per barrel on Thursday, the lowest seasonally since 2009, weighed down by weak demand for the fuel and excess supply. Analysts have predicted a more balanced market due to a production cut pact by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies including Russia, as well as potential export disruptions in Venezuela, Iran and Libya. "While the current state of affairs is price constructive for oil, the market is hesitant when it comes to the global outlook," Harry Tchilinguirian, global head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum. Demand may start to stutter because of a global economic slowdown, which is likely to dent fuel consumption. A trade dispute between the United States and China and tightening financial conditions around the world have hurt manufacturing activity in most economies, including in China, where growth last year was the weakest in nearly 30 years. According to Reuters polls of hundreds of economists worldwide, a synchronized global economic slowdown is underway and would deepen if the U.S.-China trade war escalated. GRAPHIC-U.S. oil production & storage levels - https://tmsnrt.rs/2GVNTmb (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar, Noah Browning; Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein and Koustav Samanta in Singapore and Colin Packham in Sydney; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Sandra Maler) Lagos (AFP) - International pressure mounted on Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday after he suspended the country's top judge just weeks away from elections, prompting claims from opponents and civil society groups of an attempted judicial "coup". The European Union, the United States and Britain expressed concern at the removal of Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen, who as head of the Supreme Court would have ruled on any dispute in the February 16 elections. Onnoghen is accused of failing to declare foreign currency bank accounts, in breach of rules governing public officials. But the timing of the charges and the manner of his removal have caused consternation. Former military ruler Buhari, 76, was accused of overreaching his powers for bypassing parliament, which constitutionally has to sanction such a move. Onnoghen had been on the verge of swearing in judges of election tribunals. His replacement, acting chief justice Ibrahim Muhammad Tanko, conducted the ceremony on Saturday. The European Union Election Observation Mission said it called on "all parties to follow the legal processes provided for in the constitution and to respond calmly to any concerns they may have". The US Embassy in Abuja said it was "deeply concerned" Onnoghen had been replaced "without the support of the legislative branch". The British High Commission in the capital voiced its "serious concern" and said the decision "risks affecting both domestic and international perceptions on the credibility of the forthcoming elections". London and Washington this week threatened consequences for anyone involved in electoral fraud or violence, including the refusal of visas. In a statement late Saturday, the Nigerian presidency said it was determined to ensure free, fair and credible elections but would not allow foreign interference in the nation's affairs. "The federal government welcomes the prevailing keen interest and partnerships for successful elections in, and a peaceful Nigeria," said presidential spokesman Garba Shehu. Story continues "However, we reject any interference or perception management that promotes apprehension,citizens distrust or undermines the transparency and acceptability of the outcomes of our electoral process," he said. "Nigeria reserves the right to be insulated from suggestions and or interference with respect to wholly internal affairs." - 'Attempted coup' - Buhari, of the All Progressives Congress (APC), came to power in 2015 on a pledge to stamp out corruption and is seeking another four-year term. He was out campaigning in southwest Nigeria on Saturday. His main challenger, Atiku Abubakar, 72, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), however, suspended his campaign for 72 hours in protest at Onnoghen's removal. On Friday, he called the move "a brazen act of dictatorship" and "anti-democratic", in a clear reference to Buhari's army past and autocratic rule in the 1980s. Using similar language, the Nigerian Bar Association -- the umbrella body for lawyers -- said Buhari had mounted an "attempted coup against the Nigerian judiciary". The independent Punch newspaper said the move could trigger "an unnecessary constitutional crisis and, perhaps, derail 20 unbroken years of democratic governance". Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 after decades of military government. Buhari has previously been accused of using state security apparatus to target political opponents from the PDP, but being less swift to act against members of his own party. Buhari said he suspended Onnoghen after receiving an order from the Code of Conduct Tribunal hearing the case, despite a Court of Appeal injunction ordering the lower court to suspend proceedings while an application to throw out the charges was heard. The NBA warned the executive arm of government's actions were unconstitutional and "portends a slide into anarchy". The Situation Room group of Nigerian civil society organisations called for the emergency recall of parliament to give a "legislative response". Any return of lawmakers would likely set up another confrontation between the legislature and executive, as Senate leader Bukola Saraki is a prominent Buhari opponent. He was cleared of similar non-declaration of assets charges on appeal at Onnoghen's Supreme Court last year. - Moral authority - Under the Nigerian constitution, the Senate has to approve an application for the removal of the chief justice by a two-thirds majority. Law professor Itse Sagay, who heads a government-appointed advisory body on graft, defended Buhari, who indicated Onnoghen should have recused himself after being charged. The judge had admitted a failure to comply with assets declaration requirements, he said, adding: "The suspension is morally justified and legally justified." Debo Adeniran of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders lobby group also backed the president, saying the suspension would "send a correct signal to other judges to sit up", he said. Lagos (AFP) - Nigerian lawyers have condemned President Muhammadu Buhari's suspension of the country's top judge shortly before the presidential elections as a "coup" against the judiciary and an attack on the constitution. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) -- the umbrella body for lawyers -- added its voice to a growing chorus of protests at Friday's decision to suspend Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen. Onnoghen would have ruled on any dispute in the February 16 presidential and parliamentary elections, but Buhari ordered his suspension pending the outcome of corruption charges that he disputes. Buhari, who came to power in 2015 on a pledge to fight corruption, is seeking a second term in office. The Nigerian Bar Association condemned the president's intervention, accusing Buhari of an 'attempted coup against the Nigerian Judiciary'. In a statement issued Friday, it appealed to the national assembly to intervene to reverse the decision. "The action of the Executive portends a slide into anarchy and complete deconstruction of the Rule of Law and due process," the statement added. "It amounts to an absolute breach of the Constitution and the usurpation of the powers of the Senate and the Nigerian Judicial Council." Buhari, a retired army general who headed a military government in the early 1980's, has been criticised in the past for flouting court orders asking him to release suspects facing graft and criminal charges. But he said he took the decision in compliance with a ruling by the Code of Conduct Tribunal -- a ruling that Onnoghen is challenging. Onnoghen was charged on January 12 for false declaration of assets, after millions of cash in local and foreign currencies were allegedly traced to his accounts. Buhari also accused Onnoghen of frustrating the war against corruption by freeing graft suspects before his court, and replaced him with Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed, his second-in-command. Story continues - 'Morally and legally justified' - Lagos constitutional lawyer Olisa Agbakoba, a former president of the Bar Association, described the suspension of Onnoghen as "the most violent denigration of the Nigerians constitution". The independent Punch newspaper also condemned the suspension in a strongly worded editorial Saturday. "The Presidents singular and misguided action has the tendency to plunge the country into an unnecessary constitutional crisis and, perhaps, derail 20 unbroken years of democratic governance," it wrote. But law professor Itse Sagay, head of a government-appointed advisory body on graft, defended Buhari. Onnoghen had admitted that he did not fully comply with the assets declaration requirements, he argued. "The suspension is morally justified and legally justified. "Morally, he should not be in that office considering what has happened. Legally, the president has powers to remove him," he said. Debo Adeniran of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders lobby group also backed the president. "The judiciary has been a clog in the wheel of the anti-corruption war," he said. "It's on record that judges have been frustrating graft cases by granting frivolous rulings and injunctions," he added. The sanctions against Onnoghen would "send a correct signal to other judges to sit up", he said. "Onnoghen has to step aside pending the outcome of his trial." On Friday, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) halted its presidential campaigns for 72 hours in protest at the suspension. Their presidential candidate -- and Buhari's main challenger -- Atiku Abubakar condemned the move against Onnoghen as a "brazen dictatorial act". A lot is going right for Canopy Growth (NYSE: CGC) lately. The market-share-leading Canadian cannabis company is poised for significant sales growth in 2019 following the opening of Canada's recreational marijuana market last October. And in January, Canopy Growth responded to news that hemp is being removed from the controlled-substances list with plans to leap into the U.S. market via a planned hemp innovation park in New York State. The positive developments haven't been overlooked by investors or industry watchers. Canopy Growth's shares have skyrocketed over 80% in the first few weeks of 2019, including a nearly 10% jump on Friday following word that Piper Jaffray analysts upped their price target for the company. A cannabis leaf on top of $100 bill. Image source: Getty Images. Digging into the details In Canada, it's estimated that marijuana sales approached $6 billion last year. And in the U.S., industry watchers think about $50 billion is spent on marijuana every year. Worldwide, the United Nations says that the marijuana market is valued at roughly $150 billion. With numbers like that, it's little wonder Canadian cannabis companies have captured the attention of investors. Although most of the global market continues to be conducted in the shadows, legal marijuana sales in Canada already total in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year because of its national medical marijuana market, and Deloitte estimates the opening of Canada's recreational market last fall could increase that figure into the billions of dollars this year. In the U.S., where marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, the story is different. Rules regarding listing requirements on Canadian and major U.S. market exchanges prevent companies from doing business in countries where they break federal law, and as a result, Canadian companies have so far avoided the 33 U.S. states that have passed pro-pot laws. Instead, the U.S. market is dominated by smaller companies that are privately owned or trade on the lightly regulated over-the-counter market. The OTC market lacks financial controls similar to the major exchanges, and sporadic trading can lead to wide swings in stock prices, so investors have had few good options available to participate in U.S. marijuana market growth. Story continues That's changing now that the U.S. Farm Bill passed in December. By removing hemp from the controlled list, Washington has provided a pathway for Canadian companies to grow, process, and produce cannabis products derived from hemp in America, including products containing cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive chemical found in cannabis that's associated with medicinal benefits, such as pain relief and seizure reduction. Sizing up the opportunity In response to the shifting legal framework in the U.S., Canopy Growth announced this month that it has obtained a license to process and produce hemp products in New York State. The company plans to invest between $100 million and $150 million in New York to help establish a hemp-focused industrial park where research, development, and manufacturing can take root. The hemp opportunity is significant to Canopy Growth in a few ways. First, the market for CBD products in the U.S. totals in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year, and it could expand significantly from here if companies can create new consumer products, like beverages containing CBD, and distribute them widely. Market expansion opportunities have Brightfield Group, a marijuana research firm, thinking CBD sales could reach $22 billion by 2022, up from roughly $500 million in 2018, according to research conducted by Hemp Business Journal last year. Piper Jaffray thinks tapping into that revenue makes Canopy Growth much more valuable than it was last month. On Friday, it boosted its price target to $60 per share, up from its prior $40 target, and suggested Canopy Growth's hemp strategy may be only the beginning. If a rollback of laws restricting marijuana materializes, then sales of products derived from it could dwarf hemp-based product sales because hemp contains very little of the psychoactive chemical cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Since most marijuana users consumer marijuana because of THC's effect, a change to laws allowing THC-based products would cause far more marijuana sales to shift from the black market than the change in hemp laws will do. Marijuana buds in front of an American flag. Image source: Getty Images. What's next? I suspect we'll see additional large Canadian marijuana companies announce strategies allowing them to come to the U.S., but those competitors could still struggle to keep pace with Canopy Growth. Last year, beer, wine, and spirits maker Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ) acquired 38% of Canopy Growth in exchange for $4 billion. The financial firepower available to Canopy because of that investment gives it a big advantage over other cannabis companies hoping to secure a leading position in America. Constellation has promised to use its experience marketing to help Canopy develop market-winning products. And with Constellation Brands' headquarters in New York, where Canopy Growth's new hemp operations will be, it shouldn't be hard to leverage all that know-how for market share. More From The Motley Fool Todd Campbell has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. His clients may have positions in the companies mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Constellation Brands. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Brumadinho (Brazil) (AFP) - "Adelia's home was there. And there was Nilza's, who sold sugarcane, also swallowed up," Rosilene Aganetti said Saturday, pointing out an expanse of mud engulfing a road and the surrounding land. The devastation was left by a dam collapse at a mine in Brazil's southeast, close to the city of Belo Horizonte on Friday. The mine, owned by one of the world's biggest mining corporations, Vale, bore the brunt of the human loss. But residents nearby -- friends and family of those working at the facility -- were badly shaken as well. "There used to be people here, houses. I'm just floored by this tragedy," Aganetti, 57, told AFP in her village of Alberto Flores. Above, rescue helicopters rattled in the sky, looking for survivors in the 150-meter (164-yard) wide river of darkish mud that lay in contrast with the verdant vegetation beyond. "Several of my friends who were in the Vale cafeteria are missing," Aganetti said, holding back sobs. The dam, holding liquid waste from the iron-ore mine, had ruptured at lunchtime, spewing a mass weighing millions of tons (tonnes) out across the mine, including into the full cafeteria. "I used to live just under the dam. It was there I raised my daughters," said the woman, whose husband spent years working for Vale. Another woman, Suely de Olivera Costa, tried to get to the mine to look for her husband, who was also an employee there. She, like everyone except rescue personnel, was stopped by security guards. - Fury at Vale - "I'm so desperate," she cried. "How can I be calm if he's already dead?" she wailed, brushing off one guard who told her to "calm down." She referred to another devastating dam disaster three years earlier at a mine elsewhere in the region that was jointly operated by Vale. The woman accused the company of "now destroying Brumadinho and nobody is doing anything -- what will be the next town?" Story continues The confirmed death toll from the dam rupture stood at 11 late Saturday. But with nearly 300 people missing, there were fears it would sharply rise. William Guilherme Silva, a 21-year-old rail employee, said he had been unable to locate "six or seven people I know, including some people I'm very close to," childhood friends. He also directed fury at Vale. "That dam stopped being used in 2015, and it remained in maintenance. They did nothing, and it collapsed," he said. In the village, the force of the millions of tons (tonnes) of mineral-laced mine waste released by the dam brought down an electricity pylon, and half-buried a car in a ditch. Nearly 200 inhabitants milled around in silence at the scene previously occupied by homes and now swept through with a vast scar of dark clay. The sky, blue at the start of the day, darkened as the hours went on, adding rain to the complicated rescue operation being carried out. Microsoft's Bing search engine resumed service to Chinese users on Thursday, after a disruption raised fears among social media users that it was the latest foreign website to be blocked by censors. Attempts to access Bing had resulted in an error message for users starting late Wednesday, as the most prominent foreign search engine available in China experienced a temporary blackout. Microsoft's search engine was blocked due to "an accidental technical error", according to Bloomberg, citing two anonymous sources -- rather than a deliberate attempt to restrict Bing, which already complies with local censorship rules. On Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media site, people rejoiced over the return of Microsoft's search engine. "Bing has returned," wrote one user, adding three sobbing emojis. "I am moved!" "Bing seems to have resumed access!" exclaimed another. "Microsoft is great! Microsoft is awesome!" The temporary shutdown of Bing had raised concerns that Microsoft's search engine was the latest victim of online censorship in China, which has ramped up in recent years. In 2018 alone, Beijing shuttered 26,000 "illegal" websites and deleted six million online posts containing vulgar content, the official Xinhua news agency said earlier this month. China's Communist authorities also operate an online censorship apparatus known as the "Great Firewall", which blocks a slew of websites including Facebook, Twitter and several foreign media outlets. The firewall can be circumvented by using a virtual private network (VPN), which can hide a user's IP address. Late Wednesday and earlier on Thursday, Weibo users complained about the lack of access, with some speculating that Bing too had been "walled off". Others aired their dissatisfaction about having to use Baidu, China's largest domestic search service. "Our country is amazing, even the obedient Bing has been walled off, while Baidu flourishes," said another. "Thank you wise party leaders!" Tijuana (Mexico) (AFP) - The United States has delayed its plan to send asylum seekers back to Mexico while their claims are processed, as the Mexican government said Friday it "disagrees" with the policy. US and Mexican officials had said President Donald Trump's controversial "Remain in Mexico" policy would be put into effect Friday at noon with the return of 20 Central Americans at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego, California and the Mexican city of Tijuana. However, no asylum seekers had been sent back by Friday evening, said an AFP correspondent at the border, and Mexican authorities said the program had been delayed. A Mexican immigration official in Tijuana, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the first returns had been pushed back, possibly to Monday or later. "It's not that simple. It's a very delicate migration situation," the source told AFP. "These are migrants who have a court date with a judge (to seek asylum), which means US authorities have accepted that their lives could actually be in danger. If anything happens to them in Mexico, their families could sue the US government for failing to protect them." Earlier, foreign ministry spokesman Roberto Velasco said the Mexican government was not happy with the new policy, but would accept the migrants for "humanitarian" reasons. "The Mexican government disagrees with the unilateral measure implemented by the United States government. However... we reiterate our commitment to migrants and human rights," Velasco told a news conference. Mexico will give returnees humanitarian visas that allow them to stay in the country temporarily while they await their court dates in the US, he said. The US plans to continue presenting 20 people a day at San Ysidro, and eventually extend the policy to other points along the 3,145-kilometer (2,000-mile) border, Velasco said. - Fighting 'catch and release' - Story continues Announced last year, the policy is meant to stop what Trump calls "catch and release" -- allowing migrants who cross the border without papers and claim asylum to leave detention and remain in the United States while their cases are processed. The US Department of Homeland Security says it is facing a "humanitarian and security crisis" on the southern border, caused by a broken immigration system "exploited by smugglers, traffickers, and those who have no legal right to remain in the United States." It says at least 80 percent of asylum claims are without merit -- mostly by poor refugees from violence-wracked Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Many of them never show up for their court hearings, department officials say. The system is badly backlogged, with 800,000 asylum requests currently pending. But the "Remain in Mexico" plan -- which Homeland Security has since rebranded the "Migrant Protection Protocols" -- has been sharply criticized by opponents on both sides of the border. Migrants have been tortured, raped and killed in Mexico's often violent border regions, and the new policy violates the right of people whose lives are genuinely at risk to seek asylum in the US, activists say. The new policy "is not only unlawful but could lead to dire and catastrophic consequences for those who are seeking to access the asylum process in the United States, a right which is enshrined in both domestic and international law," Katie Shepherd, a lawyer at the American Immigration Council, told AFP. Authorities in Tijuana said the returnees would initially be housed in a government-run shelter. Mexico will not accept unaccompanied minors, people with health problems or those who have appealed a rejected asylum claim, said Velasco. The policy limbo came as Trump announced a deal to reopen the US government after a record five-week shutdown triggered by his fight with Congress over funding for a border wall, which he says is the only way to stop illegal immigration. The deal with opposition Democrats does not include funding for the wall. Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images. Once each week, I picked up the list on my desk and called all the phone numbers. Do you have it in? I asked, followed by, Do you know when you expect to? and finally, I should just keep calling? Then, because I am either a sucker or an optimist, I went on a few websites described as vaccine trackers, even though they hadnt actually found me a vaccine in the months since I began looking. I was searching for Shingrix, the vaccine approved 14 months ago to prevent shingles, a potentially painful and debilitating disease that sounds like something from a horror movie a blistering rash caused by dormant chickenpox virus reactivating decades after the original infection. This new vaccine is far more effective than anything that came before. The increased incidence and awareness of the disease, and new guidance that lowers the recommended age for vaccination to 50, has led to a national shortage and this has meant that 50-somethings like me are searching for it with a passion they havent felt since trying to locate a Tickle Me Elmo for their kids decades ago. For the over-50 set, Shingrix can be harder to come by than a ticket to Hamilton or a Paul McCartney concert, an article in WebMD declared late last year, a statement that didnt make me feel either better or in the least bit trendy. I was determined to get the new vaccine because I was haunted by the suffering of an elderly uncle in the grip of shingles about a year ago. The trigger for shingles is unknown, but it appears to be more common in those who are frail, immunocompromised, older and stressed. My uncle was likely all of these near the end of 2017 coincidentally just as the Food and Drug Administration gave GlaxoSmithKline approval for Shingrix when he developed a blistering rash. That was followed by postherpetic neuralgia, which is excruciating nerve pain. The poor man was reduced to wailing so loudly that he was nearly asked to leave his assisted-living home. Story continues Thus began my determined search to protect myself from the same. While the likelihood of shingles increases as you age, it does not only occur in the very old. I deduced it was probably shingles as soon as I felt it, says Dr. Barron Lerner, 58, a primary care physician at New York University Langone Health in Manhattan, who developed the condition this summer. His own first symptom was a distinctive kind of pain, a numbing, aching pain, which in his case was in his back, though shingles can appear anywhere on the body. His pain was followed by the same rash my uncle had distinctive in that it only appears on one side of the body and then by the nerve pain, though in his case it was nothing like the kidney stones Ive had, but it was also worse in that it lasted for weeks. He was prescribed opioids, but says they didnt really work. While there had been a vaccine, called Zostavax, available since 2006, it was only 51 percent effective and only recommended for people over the age of 60. The new vaccine, Shingrix, in contrast, is shown to be more than 90 percent effective and was recommended for starting at age 50. Its side effects in trials were minimal sore arm, muscle aches, a day or two of feeling blah which seemed acceptable against the risk factors of shingles, which include vision loss, hearing problems and encephalitis, depending where in the body the virus emerges. (The vaccine does not include any live virus, so it cannot cause either shingles or chickenpox.) The major downside of Shingrix is that it requires some attention a second follow-up injection two to six months after the first. And it is not cheap about $160 for each of the two doses, though that seemed to be covered by most insurance. At my annual checkup this summer, I asked my internist whether I should get the vaccine. She agreed, but when I suggested, Right now would be good, she said they were not actually giving the shot at her very large multispecialty practice. Were advising patients to try their pharmacy, she said. Which is how I became one of the many who could not find the vaccine. There has been unprecedented demand for SHINGRIX from patients and healthcare professionals and, as a result, demand for the vaccine currently exceeds supply, GlaxoSmithKline said in the fact sheet it gives the press in response to questions. It also notes that 7 million doses have been shipped in the first year, and that rate is expected to increase substantially in the next year or two. Until then, the company says, contact your pharmacy. I did. Of the dozen pharmacies on my list, only one kept a waiting list and promised to call when it was my turn. I added my name in October and have not heard from the pharmacy since. The rest respond to my regular calls with some version of: We dont have any at this time, try back later. From what I have learned from these calls, the vaccine arrives once or twice a month in doses of 10, with no warning and no pattern. Could be any day of the week, and its usually gone within 48 hours, one tech told me. The chains themselves Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid refused to comment on how the doses are doled out. We are advising customers to contact their local pharmacy to verify availability of Shingrix, said one typical response, from Allison Mack, a communications manager at Walgreens corporate office. Were working closely with our distributor and field teams to help meet demand with the supply available. Any further questions about Shingrix availability should be directed to the manufacturer. (Which leads us back to the manufacturers fact sheet above.) Dr. Lerner is also sending patients to the pharmacy. His own experience with shingles, combined with the greater efficacy of the new vaccine, means I am talking about it more with patients, he says. But like my own doctor, We are not giving it here in the office he says. Some of his patients have been persistent, like you have, and they have gotten their two doses, he said. But I get the feeling that most call once or twice and then just give up. And persistence is just one of the ways that ensure that some patients get this new protection against the disease. That became clear this past weekend when I happened to walk into my local Walgreens for something else entirely. As I paid, I asked You dont happen to have Shingrix in stock? Wait here, the counter clerk said. Soon I had filled out the paperwork and was readying to roll up my sleeve when the pharmacist said that my insurer only covered the cost if Shingrix was given in a doctors office. But my doctors office doesnt give it. Next I was on the phone with a nice man at the customer service line on my insurance card. Yes, we hear this a lot, he said. I agree with you, it doesnt make sense, he added, but that is the rule. I paid for the shot. As she jabbed my arm, the pharmacist and I discussed how that Medicare Part D covers the vaccine, but Medicare Part B does not, and Medicaid does only sometimes. Private insurers vary widely, she said, estimating that 75 percent of her customers pay out of pocket. As she applied a bright-red Walgreens bandage, we talked about medical and economic privilege, and of a system designed so that the people who need care the most manage to get it the least. And as I headed to my car, I carried a receipt for the $160 Id paid and a piece of paper with a date exactly two months out. Thats the first day I will be eligible to get the second in the two-shot series which I need to get within four more months. Now that Ive had the first, can I reserve the second somehow, so that I can be sure to have it on time? I had asked when this was explained to me. Sorry, no, shed answered. Youll have to call and check. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Veles (Macedonia) (AFP) - Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev on Saturday paid tribute to the courage of Greek lawmakers after their vote to approve the renaming of his country to settle a decades-old dispute. "We all know very well that it wasn't easy," he told a conference in the city of Veles, a day after the 300-seat Greek parliament narrowly approved the measure. "But it was more than necessary, absolutely necessary, for the two countries and for the two people," he added. But the vote was only ratified by 153 votes in the Greek parliament's 300-seat chamber and recent opinion polls suggest it remains unpopular with most Greek voters. Since 1991, Athens had objected to its neighbour being called Macedonia because Greece has a northern province of the same name. In ancient times it was the cradle of Alexander the Great's empire, a source of intense pride for Greeks. To make the UN-sponsored agreement final, Greece must now ratify a protocol approving Macedonia's membership of the Western military alliance NATO. This is expected to take place next month. "Macedonia will become North Macedonia in about two weeks," a Macedonian foreign ministry official who asked to remain anonymous told AFP Saturday. Athens' ratification of the Prespes accord should also mean that Greece will lift its veto on Macedonia's bid to join the European Union. Zaev, in his speech, paid tribute to his Greek opposite number Alexis Tsipras for pushing through Friday's vote. "I also thank the lawmakers of the two countries, these courageous women and men who decided to unite their votes to the victory of the future," he said. The citizens of both countries would reap the benefits of the agreement -- including those who were opposed to it, he added. Macedonian lawmakers approved the name change on January 11, again by a narrow margin. A total of 81 lawmakers in the 120-seat assembly, in a vote that required a two-thirds majority. Story continues The Prespes accord will come into effect once Greece officially informs its neighbour of the result of Friday's vote. Greece will have to notify NATO of the vote, which will allow the alliance to draw up a membership protocol for Macedonia, said the Macedonian foreign ministry source. Macedonia, for its part, will notify all international institutions of its name change and begin making the necessary changes in its own national institutions. Five people have been killed in shootings in two areas of Louisiana. Police said they have identified a suspect who is still at large and said to be armed and dangerous. Dakota Theriot, 21, is accused of killing his parents and three other people on Saturday in Ascension and Livingston parishes, about 70 miles west of New Orleans. Keith and Elizabeth Theriot, both 51, were killed in their trailer in the city of Gonzalez on Saturday morning, the Ascension Parish sheriffs office said on Facebook. Police arriving at the scene said they were able to interview one of the victims before they died and they named their son as the suspect. Dakota Theriot, 21, was being sought by authorities on first-degree murder charges (Ascension Parish Sheriffs Office/The Advocate via AP) Separately on Facebook, Livingston sheriff Jason Ard confirmed three deaths had happened in his parish. They were identified as Billy Ernest, 43; Summer Ernest, 20; and Tanner Ernest, 17. It is believed Theriot had recently started dating Summer Ernest. Investigators work at the scene of the shooting in Ascension parish in Louisiana (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate via AP) Theriot is being sought on first-degree murder charges. He was last seen driving an allegedly stolen grey and silver 2004 Dodge pickup. It is believed he may be heading to the neighbouring state of Mississippi. Investigators from both jurisdictions are working together to locate Theriot, who remains at large. Rabat (AFP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced Friday the United States' "destructive policy" on Venezuela, after Washington backed the opposition leader over President Nicolas Maduro. "The (US) policy concerning Venezuela, as with many other countries, is destructive in my opinion, " Lavrov said during a press conference in Rabat with Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita after meeting King Mohamed VI. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will press UN Security Council members to recognise Juan Guaido as acting president of Venezuela during an upcoming crisis meeting, the State Department said Friday. The United States has been joined by key players in the Americas in recognising Guaido as interim leader. US President Donald Trump's administration has spearheaded the international pressure on Maduro, who accuses Washington of being behind an attempted "coup". None of the other veto-wielding powers on the Security Council have formally backed Guaido. "This (US) behaviour is unacceptable," Lavrov declared. "It undermines the principles of the UN Charter and the international community's standards," he said, adding Russia will defend its position at the Security Council. Venezuela's descent into a political crisis this week began when a group of soldiers rose up against Maduro which sparked a number of protests leading up to rival rallies opposing or supporting the socialist leader. Guaido then proclaimed himself acting president. Russia is Venezuela's second-highest creditor after China, which has also sided with Maduro. Last month Maduro announced, during a visit to Moscow, $6 billion of Russian investment in Venezuela's key oil and mining sectors. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced support for the Maduro regime "in the context of a domestic political crisis that has been provoked from the outside". burs/del WASHINGTON (AP) The Latest on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort (all times local): 11:20 a.m. A federal judge has scheduled a sealed proceeding to determine whether former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort intentionally lied to investigators. Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Friday she would provide a redacted transcript as soon as possible. The Feb. 4 hearing will be closed. Manafort pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in Washington in September as part of a plea deal. He agreed to cooperate in the special counsel's Russia investigation but prosecutors charge he breached the deal by lying. Manafort's attorneys say he just didn't have a perfect recollection of all the facts. Jackson said she must decide for herself whether Manafort lied in order to properly sentence him. Mueller's prosecutors have said they don't plan to charge Manafort with additional crimes. But they've refused to rule it out entirely. ___ 12:35 a.m. Paul Manafort is making his first court appearance in months as prosecutors and defense lawyers argue over whether the former Trump campaign chairman intentionally lied to investigators. Attorneys with special counsel Robert Mueller's office say Manafort breached his plea deal by repeatedly making false statements after he began cooperating with them in September. Manafort's lawyers say he simply had an inconsistent recollection of facts and events from several years ago. They also say he suffers from depression and anxiety. Manafort had asked to skip Friday's appearance in federal court in Washington. But Judge Amy Berman Jackson denied the request, saying he'd already missed several court dates. Manafort then asked for permission to attend court in a suit rather than his jail uniform. The judge granted the request. BALTIMORE (AP) The founder and main funder of the Newseum, a Washington museum devoted to journalism and the First Amendment, has reached a deal to sell its sleek steel-and-glass building on a prime stretch of real estate in the nation's capital. In a Friday announcement, the Freedom Forum said Johns Hopkins University will buy its museum building on Pennsylvania Avenue between Congress and the White House for $372.5 million. The deal still needs to be approved by regulators and the Newseum will remain open to the public through the end of the year. Jan Neuharth, chairwoman and CEO of the Freedom Forum, the Newseum's creator and primary funder, said the group is committed to continuing the museum's programs. It's not clear what might eventually happen with the Newseum's exhibits after the deal is authorized, but the Freedom Forum says it is looking at "digital outreach, traveling exhibits, and web-based programs in schools around the world, as well as hopefully in a new physical home in the area." Johns Hopkins, a Baltimore-based academic institution known for its medical center and university, intends to use the property as a consolidated center for its Washington-based programs, anchored by its School of Advanced International Studies. "Acquiring this iconic property in the heart of the nation's capital will represent a transformative moment for Johns Hopkins University and place our research and expertise in the midst of national and global decision-making," the university said in a statement. The Freedom Forum's decision to sell the property came at the end of a 16-month strategic review, including an examination of the struggling museum's "unsustainable" operating costs. "This was a difficult decision, but it was the responsible one," Neuwarth said. The Newseum, steps away from the National Mall, opened in 2008 with 15 theaters, 14 major galleries, two TV studios and newspaper front pages updated each day from every state and several countries. A previous incarnation of the Newseum was based in Arlington, Virginia, and closed in 2002. Associated Press Afghanistan's is racing to ramp up supplies of oxygen as a deadly third surge of COVID-19 worsens, a senior health official told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday. The government is installing oxygen supply plants in 10 provinces where up to 65% of those tested in some areas are COVID positive, health ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastigir Nazari said. Afghanistan's 24-hour infection count has also continued its upward climb from 1,500 at the end of May when the health ministry was already calling the surge a crisis, to more than 2,300 this week. We often see insiders buying up shares in companies that perform well over the long term. On the other hand, wed be remiss not to mention that insider sales have been known to precede tough periods for a business. So well take a look at whether insiders have been buying or selling shares in Quanex Building Products Corporation (NYSE:NX). Do Insider Transactions Matter? Most investors know that it is quite permissible for company leaders, such as directors of the board, to buy and sell stock on the market. However, rules govern insider transactions, and certain disclosures are required. We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But equally, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether. For example, a Harvard University study found that insider purchases earn abnormal returns of more than 6% per year. Check out our latest analysis for Quanex Building Products Quanex Building Products Insider Transactions Over The Last Year Lead Director Joseph Rupp made the biggest insider purchase in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$390k worth of shares at a price of US$13.06 each. That implies that an insider found the current (approximate) price enticing. Of course they may have changed their mind. But this suggests they are optimistic. We generally consider it a positive if insiders have been buying on market, even if the share price has increased a bit since then. Joseph Rupp was the only individual insider to buy shares in the last twelve months. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction! NYSE:NX Insider Trading January 26th 19 There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Story continues Insider Ownership Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon its a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Our data indicates that Quanex Building Products insiders own about US$9.0m worth of shares (which is 1.8% of the company). We do generally prefer see higher levels of insider ownership. So What Do The Quanex Building Products Insider Transactions Indicate? Its certainly positive to see the recent insider purchase. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. While the overall levels of insider ownership are below what wed like to see, the history of transactions imply that Quanex Building Products insiders are reasonably well aligned, and optimistic for the future. Of course, the future is what matters most. So if you are interested in Quanex Building Products, you should check out this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. WASHINGTON A day after being indicted, Roger Stone used his Instagram account to mock special counsel Robert Mueller and dub the charges against him a big "nothingburger." "Heres what Mueller has on me #nothingburger," Stone posted on Saturday. The post accompanied a doctored image of Mueller dressed up as a waiter holding an empty bun on a silver platter. Stone is no stranger to controversy and has a way of creating a stir with his candid and sometimes bizarre posts on social media. After being arrested Friday, Stone posted a photo of himself with the words "Who framed Roger Stone," a play off the 1988 movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Stone, a veteran political consultant and longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, was indicted Friday on charges of lying about his role in Russian meddling during the 2016 election designed to benefit Trump's campaign. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. More: Who is Roger Stone? Longtime Republican operative worked on campaigns from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump More: Roger Stone indictment: Mueller pushes deeper into Trump campaign; highlights effort to use Russia hacks to derail Clinton bid The indictment laid out, for the first time, investigators' understanding of efforts by the Trump campaign to learn about the website WikiLeaks plans to release damaging information about Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton; prosecutors say that information was stolen by Russian intelligence seeking to influence the election on Trump's behalf. The allegations revolve around Stone's alleged contacts with WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. He is accused of lying about his contacts with WikiLeaks, including dealings with website founder Julian Assange, as well as interactions with members of the Trump campaign about stolen emails. "During the summer of 2016, STONE spoke to senior Trump Campaign officials about Organization 1 and information it might have had that would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign," the indictment said. "STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1." Story continues Organization 1 is a reference to WikiLeaks. Stone has repeatedly said he is innocent and that Mueller is conducting a vendetta against him and the president. After he was released on bail, Stone spoke outside a federal courthouse in Florida then made appearances on CNN and Fox News to denounce the charges and boast that he would never testify against the president. Contributing: Kevin Johnson, Bart Jansen This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After indictment, Roger Stone mocks Mueller with doctored photo on Instagram For as long as man has had religion, religion has had hypocrites. The Catholic Church is no exception it is, like all churches and all religions, full of sinners. In fact, that is its boast: No sin is too great, no Pharisee too far gone to be saved. The first pope was a man who fled from the Passion and death of his Lord, betraying Jesus three times rather than suffer beside him. One of the Churchs first great saints was a man who spent much of his life zealously persecuting and killing the earliest Christians. Both men repented. Both were martyred for their faith. Andrew Cuomo, their brother in baptism, has yet to find his road to Damascus. The governor of New York is proud to be a Catholic, but, like his father before him, only when it suits his political purposes. Last summer, when Pope Francis announced that the death penalty is never permissible, Cuomo rushed with all undue haste to claim the mantle of his familial creed. The death penalty is morally indefensible and has no place in the 21st century, he opined on Twitter. Today, in solidarity with @pontifex and in honor of my father, I will be advancing legislation to remove the death penalty from State law once and for all. But Cuomo casts aside his supposed Catholic convictions with greater ease than he takes them up. This week, on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, the governor signed into law the ghastly Reproductive Health Act (RHA). The legislation permits abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy when abortion is never medically necessary and when children born prematurely are routinely able to survive outside the womb with careful tending and it creates lenient exceptions essentially sanctioning elective abortion up to the moment of birth. Cuomos dedication to reproductive rights allowed for the extinguishment of more than 82,000 unborn lives in his state in 2016 alone. About 2,000 of those unborn children were killed after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the threshold where advanced neonatal intensive care is just beginning to enable survival. Nearly 6,000 of those unborn children were killed in dilation and evacuation abortions, in which the fetus is, if its lucky, lethally injected before being cut apart and removed piece by piece from his or her mother. Story continues This fallen son looks less like Saul and more like Judas selling the innocent to save his political soul. Not only did Cuomo personally lobby for the RHA for years, but he insists that the bills ample pro-abortion provisions still arent enough. He has promised to campaign for having the right to abortion, including late in pregnancy, written into the state constitution. And lest you consider him a dedicated federalist, recall that he swore to sue the federal government should Roe ever be overturned. But Cuomos passion for abortion rights is still more sinister than that. On the evening that he signed the RHA, the governor announced that the spire of Freedom Tower, the building erected in lower Manhattan where the Twin Towers once stood, would be lit up in pink to celebrate the occasion, a jubilee for the unlimited right to choose death for the defenseless. Just beside Freedom Tower, two pools mark the spot of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Around each of them are inscribed the names of every person murdered that day, and beside the names of eleven of those women the carved stone says, and her unborn child. Beneath Cuomos shrine to abortion on demand, the real story is written: These are human lives. If Cuomo is a bad apple, he surely didnt fall far from the family tree. In a speech at the University of Notre Dame in 1984, Andrews father Mario also governor of New York and a self-professed Catholic pioneered the adage of the post-Roe Catholic Democrat: Though I personally oppose abortion, I cannot use my political position to force that morality on others. This clever yet incoherent formulation allowed a generation of Catholic politicians to abandon the Churchs moral teaching on the total impermissibility of abortion, along with its corresponding basis in science and ethics. With Mario Cuomos blessing, politicians such as Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and New Yorks current governor were freed to profess their Catholic baptism from one side of their mouth while from the other sanctifying a womans right to dispense with her unborn child. It is only under such a twisted view of morality that the younger Cuomo could justify his wholesale defense of convicted murderers and rapists while lighting up his citys monument to cheer for the deaths of the unwanted unborn and it is only out of rank moral hypocrisy that he could justify it under his Catholic creed. Though the Churchs earthly leaders may not be willing to hold Cuomo accountable for his public derelictions, he will, like each of us, be forced to account to his maker for his deeds. Let us pray he first casts aside his thirty pieces of silver. More from National Review The Spring/Summer 2019 Haute Couture catwalks in Paris were awash with various creative beauty looks this week, but when it came to hair, there was one definitive gravity-defying trend. At Chanel, the models took to the runway sporting towering, vertical pompadour hairstyles and bold makeup, in a beauty look the house referred to as "18th century romance meets '80s style icons." The hair was coiffed upwards to stand completely on end, adding several inches to the models' height, and was accessorized with delicate feathered clips or floral adornments. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Meanwhile at Guo Pei, the hair took on a structural life of its own. Models had their locks twisted into vertical and horizontal coils and twists that pointed out in all directions and made for an abstract effect. The designer also went big on hair accessories, dangling elaborate clips and ornaments from the contours of the hairstyles. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Things were, if possible, even more extreme at Franck Sorbier, where the models (who were also dancers) had their hair twisted and pinned into a series of improbable twists and loops that had a joyous, surreal effect. The addition of hairpieces gave the look even more scope and volume, and a sprinkling of glitter at the hairline added to the exuberant vibe. Ottawa's ambassador to China told a Canadian newspaper Friday that it would be "great for Canada" if the US dropped its extradition request for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. The remarks to The Vancouver Star come one day after he walked back comments that the detained Chinese executive has a "strong case" against extradition to the United States. "From Canada's point of view, if (the US) drops the extradition request, that would be great for Canada," ambassador John McCallum told the Star. Meng was arrested on December 1 while changing planes in Vancouver at the request of the United States, which says she committed fraud by lying to bankers about allegedly violating American sanctions on Iran. She has been released on bail, but her arrest has sparked an escalating diplomatic crisis between Ottawa and Beijing. McCallum on Tuesday briefed lawmakers on the plight of two Canadians detained in China and a third placed on death row in what are widely seen as retaliatory moves by Beijing. After the briefing he told Chinese-language media in Markham, Ontario that he believed the US extradition request is seriously flawed. He cited political comments on the case by US President Donald Trump, the "extraterritorial aspect" of Meng's case, and the fact that Canada did not sign on to the Iran sanctions that Washington wants her extradited for. McCallum's remarks were immediately panned by opposition parties and others for seeming to undercut the strict hands-off approach to judicial matters touted by the Canadian government. The following day he issued a statement saying that he "misspoke," and "regrets" that his comments "have created confusion." On Friday, speaking at a charity lunch in downtown Vancouver, McCallum told the Star that if the United States strikes a trade deal with China it should also benefit Canada. "We have to make sure that if the US does such a deal, it also includes the release of our two people. And the US is highly aware of that," he said. Canadian officials did not have any immediate reaction to the comments when contacted by AFP. Meng's extradition hearing is expected to start in February. The process could take months or years. Former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was accused of "crying crocodile tears" over the US government shutdown, during a blistering speech by Colorado senator Michael Bennet. Pointing out that first responders were going without pay, Mr Bennet reminded the Texan politician that he had previously supported a shutdown six years ago, when Colorado was hit with poor weather. When the Senator from Texas shut this government down in 2013 my state was flooded, the Democrat told the US Senate. It was underwater. People were killed! People's houses were destroyed! Their small businesses were ruined forever and because of the Senator from Texas, this government was shut down for politics. Then he surfed to a second place finish in the Iowa caucuses. Directing his ire at Donald Trump, he said: "How ludicrous this is that the government is shut down over a promise the president of the United States couldnt keep." His comments came as the US Senate rejected two bills to end the government shutdown, leaving no end in sight to the record-breaking closure of federal agencies. The Republican legislation garnered 50 votes with 47 against, with 52-44 for the Democratic bill. Both measures needed 60 votes to pass. Meanwhile, 800,000 federal workers who are struggling to cover their bills will miss another payday this week. While the Democratic controlled Congress has repeatedly passed bills to reopen the government, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to bring a bill to the floor for a vote that Mr Trump would veto, even if there were majority support in the chamber. Paris (AFP) - Prolific French composer Michel Legrand, who won three Oscars and five Grammys during a career spanning more than half a century, died aged 86 on Saturday, prompting an outpouring of tributes for his "inexhaustible genius". Legrand's music spanned a wide range of styles and genres. He composed for more than 200 film and TV productions and was associated with over 100 albums. "Since I was a child, my ambition has been to live completely surrounded by music, my dream was to not miss anything, which is why I have never focused on a single musical discipline," he once said. He first won an Academy Award in 1969 for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from Norman Jewison's hit thriller "The Thomas Crown Affair". He followed that with Oscars for his music for "Summer of '42" in 1972 and for "Yentl" in 1984. Legrand, who had been scheduled to stage concerts in Paris in April, died at his home in the French capital early Saturday with his wife, the actress Macha Meril, at his side, his spokesman told AFP. French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the "inexhaustible genius" of Legrand, whose "inimitable tunes" became "the soundtrack of our lives". "He was one of the greatest French musicians and composers and one of the world's most famous creators of film music," Macron said in a statement, passing on his condolence's to Legrand's family. The list of stars who performed Legrand's pieces over the years reads like a who's who of 20th-century music. It includes jazz musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans and singers as varied as Frank Sinatra, Kiri Te Kanawa, Barbra Streisand and Nana Mouskouri. He won five Grammys from 17 nominations, including one for the theme from "Summer of '42". French composer and conductor Vladimir Cosma told AFP that "for me, he is immortal, through his music and his personality". Story continues "He was such an optimistic personality, with a kind of naivety in optimism, he saw everything in rosy colours!" - 'A magical world' - Born on February 24, 1932, into a musical family near Paris, Legrand started out by playing the piano songs he had heard on the radio. His father Raymond Legrand was himself a composer, and although he left the family home when his son was only three he was later to help him launch his career. His mother, of Armenian origin, enrolled him at the Paris Conservatory from age 10. He was to spend seven years there, before graduating with top honours in 1949. "For me, who hated life, when I first came to the Conservatory I crossed the threshold into a magical world where the only question was music," he said. The end of World War II saw jazz take off in a big way in France, and Legrand became hooked after hearing a performance by the American trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. - 'Artistic adventure' - Legrand's first album, "I Love Paris", produced in 1954 by an American label, propelled him to worldwide fame. In the late 1950s and 1960s he worked on what became known as French New Wave cinema, scoring films for directors Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda. Varda said she felt the loss "in her heart", hailing the "artistic adventure" Legrand had with her husband Demy, including "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "The Young Ladies of Rochefort", for both of which Legrand was nominated for Academy Awards. Legrand also wrote the music for the Joseph Losey film "The Go-Between", which won the Golden Palm award at the Cannes festival in 1971. In 1966 he moved to Los Angeles with his family. "It was a real risk to leave France, landing in Hollywood without real commitment," he wrote in his 2013 autobiography, describing this step as "part of Russian roulette". In the 1980s and 1990s Legrand continued performing live with his own jazz trio. He also set up and led a big band which he took on several international tours, accompanying stars such as Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Bjork, and Stephane Grappelli. Streisand said having spent time around the piano with Legrand had been one of the "highlights of my life in music so far". "His contribution to music is immeasurable. He enchanted and warmed the hearts of everyone and his legend and great music will live on," she said on Instagram. Legrand was married three times. With his first wife, Christine Bouchard, he had three children. Paris (AFP) - Thousands of "yellow vest" protesters returned to the streets of France Saturday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron's policies, clashing with police in several cities in a challenge to his bid to quell the movement. Police fired tear gas and water cannon to push back protesters at Place de la Bastille in Paris, one of the regular protest areas, as some demonstrators threw stones from a building site. The local prefecture reported 223 arrests in Paris, while the interior ministry estimated numbers for the 11th week of protests were at 69,000 across France, compared with 84,000 last Saturday. The demonstrations erupted in mid-November over Macron's economic reforms, but have since grown into a wider rallies calling for the resignation of the former investment banker who critics say is out of touch with the economic struggles of ordinary French people. In Paris and other cities, the yellow vest movement had called for the protests to continue into the night. But police quickly dispersed several hundred protesters in the capital's symbolic Republique square, using stun grenades as well as tear gas and water cannon to clear the area, AFP journalists said. Clashes erupted too in Nantes in western France and in the southern city of Montpellier, where a police officer was injured by "a pyrotechnic device", said a statement from the local prefecture. In Paris, the official count was 4,000 demonstrators against 7,000 the previous weekend. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Twitter criticised "rioters disguised as yellow vest protesters" after Saturday's clashes. - 'Keep the pressure on' - The weekend's protests against Macron's tax and social policies came as divisions appeared among the yellow vests -- named after the high-visibility vests they wear -- as to where to take the movement. In a new political development, a 31-year-old nurse named Ingrid Levavasseur said this week she would lead a yellow vest list of candidates for the European elections in May. Story continues An initial survey in the wake of the announcement suggested they would garner a respectable 13 percent of the vote. But not every protester appeared to welcome this development. "There is a hard core that is ready to keep fighting," said 42-year-old Gilbert Claro from the Paris suburbs. But the movement "is not meant to be political", he added. "We have to keep the pressure on in the streets," to get their demands accepted, said Virginie, an activist in her 40s who said she had been involved in the protests from the beginning. She and many other protesters want a citizen-sponsored referendum so ordinary people can have more of a say in government policy. This idea has been consistently rejected by the government, although Macron made some concessions last December in a bid to end the protests. Recent opinion polls suggest that he has regained some of the ground lost during the crisis, as he has presented his case in a series of town hall events around the country. The "great national debate" he initiated in response to the protests has nevertheless been dismissed as a public relations operation by many yellow vest protesters. The debate is a "masquerade", said Mathieu Styrna, a 36-year-old carpenter from northern France in Paris for the protests. His impression, he said, was that the participants had been selected. - Night protests - Outside Paris, several thousand protesters were marching in Bordeaux and Toulouse in the southwest -- two of the cities where support for the movement has been consistently strong. In Bordeaux, police broke up small groups of protesters tossing fireworks and bottles as night fell. In the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, members of the CGT union joined the protests and about a thousand protesters turned out in the eastern city of Lyon. For the first time on Saturday, riot police used controversial defence ball launchers (LBDs) that shoot 40-millimetre (1.6-inch) rubber and foam rounds were equipped with cameras. A French court on Friday refused a bid brought by France's League for Human Rights (LDH) and the CGT to ban the weapons, blamed for serious injuries suffered by some demonstrators. The police authority in Paris announced the introduction of cameras in a move for greater transparency. On Sunday, supporters of the government will stage their first "red scarf" protest to represent what they say is "the silent majority" defending "democracy and its institutions" and denouncing the violence of the yellow vests protests. Two-thirds of people questioned in a IFOP-Journal du Dimanche survey published Sunday said they thought the demonstrations had not succeeded in changing how Macron was governing France. burs-emd-sha-npk-ito-asl/jj/pma/jh/kaf/qan Caracas (AFP) - By declaring himself acting president, Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido sparked a leadership battle with the head of state, Nicolas Maduro. As the power struggle rages, here are details about both men's most powerful allies: - Maduro - THE MILITARY: Maduro's most significant domestic backing comes from the military high command, which has repeatedly affirmed its loyalty to him. It did so again on Thursday, denouncing what it called an attempted "coup d'etat." Of 32 government ministers, nine are from the military and control key portfolios such as defense, interior, agriculture and food, as well as the state oil company PDVSA -- vital in a country that brings in 96 percent of its revenues from crude -- and the intelligence services. Also under military control is a television station, a bank and a vehicle assembly plant. INTERNATIONAL CREDITORS AND ALLIES: China is owed $20 billion dollars by Venezuela and on Thursday said it "opposes interference in Venezuelan affairs by external forces," after Guaido received backing from the United States and other key countries. Russia is Venezuela's second-largest creditor and also supplies military backing: in December it sent two bombers and 100 officers to take part in joint exercises. President Vladimir Putin has called Maduro to offer his "support." Fellow left-wing regimes in countries such as Cuba, Bolivia and Uruguay have announced their continued recognition of Maduro, 56, who can also count Turkey, Iran and North Korea among his allies. JUDICIARY: The Supreme Court is made up of regime loyalists appointed rapidly by the legislature in 2015, when it was still in government hands. The opposition had won elections and was just days away from assuming its majority. The court declared the opposition-controlled National Assembly legislature in contempt in 2016 and has since annulled all its decisions. On Thursday, it reiterated support for Maduro. Story continues Attorney General Tarek William Saab is another government partisan. CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY: During four months of violence in 2017 that left 125 people dead, Maduro called for the creation of a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution. The opposition boycotted elections to name its members, branding it "illegal," meaning it is made up entirely of government stalwarts. It declared itself the government branch with supreme power and took over legislative functions. NATIONAL ELECTORAL COUNCIL: The National Electoral Council (CNE) is headed by Tibisay Lucena, who is openly pro-regime and under whose leadership several opposition parties have been barred. The CNE also declared its backing for Maduro on Thursday. Alongside the Supreme Court, it passed decisions in 2016 to block an opposition-called recall referendum against Maduro. Alleging a lack of guarantees or impartiality, opposition parties have boycotted the last few elections, including in May 2018, when Maduro was reelected to a second term in office. The European Union, the United States and the Organization of American States branded the election a fraud. - Guaido - UNITED STATES: The US, EU and several Latin American countries rejected Maduro's re-election last year. No sooner had Guaido, 35, declared himself acting president on Wednesday than President Donald Trump gave him official US recognition. Regional players including Brazil, Argentina and Colombia followed suit. The EU called for "an immediate political process leading to free and credible elections," but stopped short of recognizing Guaido's claim. But on Friday, both Spain and Germany said they were prepared to acknowledge Guaido if Maduro fails to hold elections soon. Britain described Guaido as "the right person to take Venezuela forward." OAS head Luis Almagro was another to recognize Guaido. NATIONAL ASSEMBLY: The National Assembly, dominated by the opposition, was elected in 2015 after the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition delivered the regime its biggest-ever defeat. Since assuming the legislature's presidency on January 5, Guaido began pressing for a "transitional government" and new elections, while calling on the military to break free of the government in exchange for amnesty. The National Assembly declared Maduro a "usurper," but remains largely impotent due to the Supreme Court's contempt verdict. EXILED JUDICIARY: A parallel Supreme Court named by the opposition majority in the National Assembly but operating in exile praised Guaido's move. Former attorney general Luisa Ortega, who fled Venezuela in August 2017 after she was dismissed by the Constituent Assembly, gave her "support and recognition" to the "new president." EL PASO, Texas A flesh-eating bacteria was found on a migrant taken into custody this week in New Mexico. A man detained with a group of more than 300 immigrants Thursday near Antelope Wells notified an agent while being processed at the Border Patrols Lordsburg Station that he had a growing rash on his leg and needed medical attention, officials said. The man was taken to a hospital for treatment. He was diagnosed by hospital staff with a flesh-eating bacteria. The man will "require additional and more extensive treatment," officials said. The group of 306 migrants, mostly from Central American countries, were taken into custody about 12:15 a.m. Thursday by U.S. Border Patrol agents near the Antelope Wells Port of Entry, officials said. The group was made up of families and unaccompanied children, the Border Patrol said. Some of the children were in need of immediate medical assistance and were taken to local hospitals for treatment. The majority of the group was taken to the Border Patrols Lordsburg Station. The Border Patrol said this is the 26th group of more than 100 migrants taken into custody since the fiscal year began. Antelope Wells is the same location where a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl, Jakelin Caal Maquin, crossed the border with her father and was detained by Border Patrol before the girl died on Dec. 8 at an El Paso hospital. Antelope Wells is about a 90-minute drive to the Lordsburg Border Patrol Station, which covers the western New Mexico region. The Border Patrol has said that smuggling groups transport groups to the border and then tell the migrants to cross and surrender to agents in the desolate desert region. Follow Aaron Martinez on Twitter: @AMartinez31 More: 'Flesh-eating bacteria' case: Meet the man who survived Vibrio vulnificus This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Flesh-eating bacteria found among latest group of migrants at New Mexico border DUBAI (Reuters) - Wheat silos in Yemen's port city of Hodeidah have been damaged by a fire caused by suspected mortar shelling, threatening food supplies for millions of hungry people, the United Nations said. The blaze damaged two silos at the Red Sea Mills grains facility, which holds 51,000 tonnes of World Food Programme (WFP) wheat -- enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month in the war-torn country. "WFP urgently needs to get access ... so we can assess the level of damage and begin transporting the unaffected wheat stocks to areas of Yemen where it is desperately needed," country director Stephen Anderson said in a statement on Friday. The WFP has been unable to access Red Sea Mills on the eastern edges of the city since September due to fighting between the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement that controls Hodeidah and other Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition that are massed on the outskirts. A source in the coalition said the silos were hit by Houthi mortars while a Houthi official told Houthi-run media that the fire was caused by coalition artillery fire. "The world cannot turn a blind eye to these violations, and the coalition will not tolerate them for much longer," the source from the alliance told Reuters on Saturday. The Houthis and the Saudi-backed government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi agreed at U.N.-sponsored talks in December on a ceasefire and troop withdrawal from Hodeidah, the entry point for the bulk of Yemen's commercial and aid imports. The truce has largely held but sporadic clashes intensified on Friday as the United Nations struggled to implement the troop withdrawal, a confidence-building step aimed at paving the way for political talks to end the almost four-year war. Both sides have accused one another of violating the deal. The port used to supply food to Yemen's 30 million people became the focus of fighting last year, raising fears that a full-scale assault could cut off supply lines. "A quarter of a million people are in a catastrophic condition, facing near starvation if assistance doesn't get to them," Lise Grande, U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, said in Friday's statement. "This is the first time we are seeing conditions like this. We need this wheat." Yemen descended into war after pro-democracy unrest forced late former president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. Hadi was elected to a two-year term to head a transitional government but the Houthis drove him from power in late 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene in 2015 to restore his government. The Houthis say their revolution is against corruption. (Reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and Ghaida Ghantous in Dubai; Editing by Helen Popper) Omar Oil Field (Syria) (AFP) - As US-backed forces advanced, 22-year-old Dima Qatran buried one of her twin babies, then picked up the other and fled the Islamic State group's crumbling pocket in eastern Syria. Clutching her remaining 11-month-old daughter, she joined hundreds escaping the last shreds of the extremist group's "caliphate" near the Iraqi border. She fled through the cold desert on foot towards territory held by US-backed fighters, where she boarded a truck to take her to a camp for displaced IS families further north. "I had twins," Qatran told AFP on Friday, tears streaming down her face, at a pit stop along the way. "I buried one, and the second is dying. She has diarrhoea and keeps vomiting. I can't bear it. My daughter died of cold and hunger." The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are fighting to expel the last IS fighters from a few hamlets in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. "We slept in the street for 11 days after my home was bombed" in Baghouz, a village on the front line, she said. Qatran said she arrived in Baghouz with her husband's family a year ago after fleeing the town of Albukamal to the west, which was retaken from IS by Russia-backed regime forces in late 2017. The young mother said all she wanted was to be reunited with her husband who works as a cook in Turkey, and claimed to have no affiliation with IS. "I'm scared of them," she said. - 'Just hunger' - Near the Omar oil field, women and children -- some of whom had faces ravaged by rashes -- descended from the back of a dozen small trucks, caked in dust and visibly exhausted as the SDF allowed a quick break. A mother dashed down from a vehicle, rushing her two children out of sight to relieve their bladders, while others pleaded for food and drink, saying that with the bombardment and siege, they had not eaten for days. Infants screamed while their mothers did their best to soothe them. Story continues For days, hundreds have been fleeing what remains of the so-called "Hajin pocket" east of the Euphrates River, SDF officials said. According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor more than 8,000 people have fled since Monday, including around 1,000 jihadists. Since early December, some 29,000 people have escaped the fighting, the Observatory said. Sara al-Sahar, 32, paced around with her baby trying in vain to pacify him. He's "hungry and sick," said the mother of two. "There's no food over there, just hunger," she said of areas under IS control. "Nothing -- not even nappies." Sahar also insisted she had nothing to do with IS, a claim that AFP could not immediately verify. "We walked for six hours" in the desert before reaching SDF-controlled territory, she said. - 'Is it far?' - Around 750 people reached SDF-held territory from IS-held territory on Friday, Mohammed Suleiman Othman, an official with the Syria Democratic Council said. They included 600 civilians, mostly Iraqis related to IS fighters, he said. But 150 men were detained on suspicion of belonging to IS, after screening near the frontline. Fourteen women and their children of various nationalities including from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Turkey were ferried off to a special centre for questioning. Inside that centre, women sat with their children in a large room. One was changing her baby, with a nappy improvised from fabric and plastic bags. In a corner, 20-year-old Mariam from Ukraine fed her baby before she wiped her face with her hands. "I need to rest before I can remember what happened to me," she said, speaking in classical Arabic, reluctant to answer any questions. Near the Omar oil field, women asked how much longer before they reach the Al-Hol camp in the northeastern province of Hasakeh. "Is it still far? We're so tired," one of them said. Tayyeba, 54, said she escaped with her husband, but the SDF detained him for questioning. "We fled as the frontlines started getting closer," she said, wrinkles visible under her black face veil. Umm Baraa, 20, said: "The streets are full of people who can't find anywhere to sleep. We were running from one neighbourhood to another." She said her husband -- an IS fighter -- died recently in an air strike. "We were all doing so well... If the frontline hadn't got closer, we wouldn't have left at all," she said of life under IS. "Now we don't know what awaits us." President Donald Trump addressed the nation on Friday to announce the end of the government shutdown. In making that announcement, Trump restated several of the reasons he feels the country needs a border wall and improved border security. "After 36 days of spirited debate and dialogue, I have seen and heard from enough Democrats and Republicans that they are willing to put partisanship aside," Trump said during his speech. Here is a look at five things Trump said and the context needed to fully understand the issues he brought up. Trump suggested federal workers supported the shutdown Statement: "I want to thank all of the incredible federal workers and their amazing families who have shown such extraordinary devotion in the face of this recent hardship. You are fantastic people. You are incredible patriots. Many of you have suffered far greater than anyone but your families would know or understand. And not only did you not complain but in many cases, you encouraged me to keep going because you care so much about our country and about its border security." Facts: The American Federation of Government Employees sued the Trump administration shortly after the shutdown began. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been furloughed or are on the job without pay during the shutdown. Our members put their lives on the line to keep our country safe, said J. David Cox Sr., the unions national president. Requiring them to work without pay is nothing short of inhumane. Throughout the entirety of the shutdown, federal employees took to social media to criticize Congress and Trump for the shutdown and ask for an agreement to be reached. On Friday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told his agents that the five-week government shutdown has been "mind-boggling" and "unfair" days after Adm. Karl Schultz, commandant of the Coast Guard, released a video calling the shutdown "unacceptable" for forcing workers to rely on food pantries and donations. Story continues Trump repeated the idea that walls work Statement: "They do work. No matter where you go, they work. Israel built a wall, 99.9 percent successful. Won't be any different for us. They keep criminals out. They save good people from attempting a very dangerous journey from other countries, thousands of miles, because they think they have a glimmer of hope of coming through. With a wall, they don't have that hope. They keep drugs out, and they dramatically increase efficiency by allowing us to patrol far larger areas with far fewer people. It's just common sense. Walls work." Facts: Several instances of migrants going over existing wall structures or under the border came to light during the shutdown that was entirely about building a wall. The most recent incident came this week, when a group of mostly Guatemalan asylum seekers breached the U.S.-Mexico border south of Yuma, Ariz., on Monday night, by using a ladder to scale the border fence. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday released security-camera footage of the incident on Wednesday involving 118 migrants. About 86 percent of them were families traveling together, the agency said. The video was released about a week after the largest single group of migrant families and minors ever recorded in the Yuma area tunneled underneath a border fence and voluntarily turned themselves into U.S. Border Patrol agents. A group of 376 migrants, composed almost overwhelmingly of Guatemalan families and children seeking asylum, breached the U.S.-Mexico border just before noon approximately 4 miles east of the San Luis, Ariz., commercial port of entry. That large group tunneled under the border a couple weeks before Mexican law enforcement officials released a video showing a newly discovered tunnel that was found along the border in the area of Nogales, Ariz. It was the third tunnel found in the past couple of months. Trump talked about women being tied up with their mouths taped shut Statement: "Human traffickers, the victims are women and children, maybe to a lesser extent, believe it or not, children. Women are tied up, they're bound, duct tape put around their faces, around their mouths. In many cases they can't even breathe." Facts: During his speech, Trump delivered a winding tale of women being bound and gagged with duct tape while being ferried across unwalled sections of the border in vehicles. When asked about his story, the Department of Homeland Security declined to provide any examples of that happening, calling into question whether such situations have happened in real life. There are some elements of truth behind the presidents claim. More than two thirds of all Central American migrants have reported being victims of some kind of violence on their journey, and nearly a third of migrant women have reported being sexually assaulted, according to a survey conducted by Doctors Without Borders. Migrants have also reported being kidnapped along the journey as smugglers demand more money from their families or friends. Sometimes migrants are smuggled into the country through ports of entry in the back of tractor trailers, but recent cases dont indicate that any of the migrants were bound and gagged. Instead, the trucks are often lined with sleeping mats, water, and ventilation pipes. But no evidence exists that duct-tape bound women have been smuggled across the border in vehicles. Trump suggested that a wall would help control the amount of drugs coming across the border Statement: "Vast quantities of lethal drugs, including meth, fentanyl, heroin and cocaine are smuggled across our Southern border and into U.S. schools and communities." Facts: The majority of marijuana caught by U.S. officials along the southwest border is caught between ports of entry. But according to Customs and Border Protection data, the vast majority of hard drugs, such as methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl, which are more potent and deadly, are caught at ports of entry. Former CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske told USA Today recently that those numbers accurately reflect successful smuggling runs, since cartels have better odds getting through busy ports of entry than the stretches of border in between patrolled by Border Patrol agents. It's very clear that (drugs) come through the ports, Kerlikowske said. Trump talked about the 'health crisis' on the border Statement: "The sheer volume of illegal immigration has overwhelmed federal authorities and stretched our immigration system beyond the breaking point. Nearly 50 migrants a day are being referred for medical assistance. They're very, very sick, making this a health crisis as well. It's a very big health crisis. People have no idea how big it is unless you're there." Facts: Since a partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22, agents have spent nearly 19,300 hours in hospital visits, according to Customs and Border Protection. Since Dec. 22, Border Patrol has transported 2,224 migrants they've apprehended to local hospitals along the U.S.-Mexico border. That's roughly 5.3 percent of all apprehensions during that time period, according to the agency. Customs and Border Protection said in its statement that the hospitalizations have strained Border Patrol resources, "severely limiting their ability to process the large group or respond to other border security duties." "Thus resulting in increased time in custody, delaying custody transfer coordination, and inhibiting response to other illegal cross-border traffic," they added. However, advocacy groups said the increase in hospitalizations has more to do with the mounting pressure on the Border Patrol after the deaths of Guatemalan children at the border last month. Following their deaths, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials mandated secondary medical checks for children in the government's custody. Contributing: Louie Villalobos and Alan Gomez of USA TODAY; Josh Susong, Daniel Gonzalez, Dan Nowicki, Michael Squires, and Dennis Wagner of the Arizona Republic This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact-check: Five things President Trump said while announcing the shutdown is over Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site. Facebook knowingly allowed children who played games on its platform to rack up big credit card charges, even after staffers warned about the problem and proposed solutions for the practice some employees referred to as "friendly fraud," according to a report from the Center for Investigative Reporting's Reveal. The organization filed to have court documents unsealed and it says those documents, which span 2010 to 2014, also show that Facebook often refused to refund the moneyin some cases, thousands of dollarsthat was earned without parental permission in games such as Angry Birds, Ninja Saga, and PetVille. "This story is shocking, but the details are sadly not surprising to anyone who has been following the industry over the past several years, says Anna Laitin, director of financial policy for the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports. "If this report is accurate, Facebook knew that kids and their parents were being ripped off, but consciously decided to continue the practices anyway and keep as much money as it could. This is just another indication of how Facebook has prioritized growth and revenue over the welfare of its users." The revelations are the latest in a series of scandals to beset the social networking company, which span from Russia's bid to use the platform to influence the 2016 presidential election to allegations that Facebook gave some tech companies special access to user data. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the company has faithfully followed its stated privacy practices since signing a consent decree with the commission in 2011. And, in a letter released on Thursday, nine advocacy groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center urged FTC Chairman Joseph Simons to impose a $2 billion fine on the tech giant and force it to divest its holdings in WhatsApp and Instagram for violations involving "unfair and deceptive trade practices." Story continues The litany of revelations has led some to swear off Facebook (read our article about how you can quit Facebook). Others have opted to stay on Facebook, but update their privacy settings. (Learn how to how to use Facebook privacy settings.) Facebook did not respond to a series of questions sent by Consumer Reports about the latest scandal, but it told Reveal that we routinely examine our own practices, and in 2016 agreed to update our terms and provide dedicated resources for refund requests related to purchases made by minors on Facebook. The Larger Problem For parents, the tactics reportedly used in Facebook's "friendly fraud" strategy may sound familiar. In March 2014, Apple signed a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to pay a minimum of $32.5 million to consumers billed for unauthorized in-app purchases made by children. Three years later, Amazon agreed to pay $70 million in a similar agreement with the commission. Though the digital purchasing process has improved over time, young gamers still are routinely exposed to all sorts of in-game offers. Games such as Fortnite use limited-time offers to drive demand for virtual items, such as costumes (known as skins), equipment, and funny dance moves, for use in play. The items can cost as much as $20 and require so-called V-Buckssold only in $10, $25, $60, and $100 incrementsfor purchase. Other games such as Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive offer loot boxes, virtual treasure chests that function much like a slot machine. They must be purchased or earned through gameplay before the random prize inside is revealed. What You Can Do If you want to contest a charge on Facebook, the company has an online form that you can access via the link on this Help Center page. An easy way to limit your child's spending is to use a pre-paid gift card for your childs in-game purchases. Facebook Gift Cards are available at retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. But you can also use the pre-paid cards supplied by credit card companies at grocery stores and pharmacies. And, finally, smartphones include parental controls that can help you oversee your childrens in-app purchases. Android users with a family account on the Google Play store can require a password or other form of authentication for all in-app purchases. The step-by-step instructions for doing that are available here. Apple users can utilize the parental controls in the companys Screen Time feature. The step-by-step instructions for that are here. More from Consumer Reports: Top pick tires for 2016 Best used cars for $25,000 and less 7 best mattresses for couples Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright 2019, Consumer Reports, Inc. Panama City (AFP) - A long and tender kiss between two women in downtown Panama on Friday was a quiet but symbolic message from the LGBT community to the visiting Pope Francis: "We exist!" Samirah Armengol and her friend Basch Beitia were staging a "kiss-in" with friends in front of landmark Catholic church to draw attention to gay rights during the pope's visit. "They say it's disrespectful that we kiss in front of a church, but I ask them a question: Why is it not disrespectful when heterosexuals do it? Is it that I am an aberration? We exist!" Armengol, 39, told AFP. Around 20 protesters around her shouted "Love is love. Love is love!" many of them kissing outside the huge Del Carmen church, symbolic for Panamanians as a gathering point for protests against 1980s dictator Manuel Noriega. Wrapped in the multicolored flag of the LGBT movement, Levis Calderon said that the protesters were seeking "visibility" because "the eyes of the world are on Panama" during the World Youth Day celebrations. "Together as a community, we are saying: We are here," said Calderon, 21. Wearing a multicolored wig, Hilka Zapata had come to support her friends. "Our call to him (Pope Francis) is that something very different is happening here to what he preaches," said Zapata, a heterosexual, married mother of a teenage girl. "In other words, the church has to try to unify their criteria so that all the members of their congregation behave in the same way as he says they should behave." At the outset of his papacy in 2013, Francis signaled a change from the traditional Vatican hard line towards homosexuals. "Who am I to judge," he famously asked reporters in 2013, saying gay people should not be marginalized by the church. But he also clarified the official church doctrine that homosexual acts were sinful, though homosexual orientation was not. Story continues The LGBT community says the Church still denies them by refusing to embrace same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by same-sex couples, although legislation has moved them closer in Panama. Francis has also sparked controversy with his comments. Last year, he briefly dismissed homosexuality as a "fashion" before the offending document was amended. "I believe that the pope is more convinced of our humanity than his followers, because he has already said so," said Armengol, who describes herself as a former Catholic. Armengol said she had been a victim of discrimination in Panama, being kicked out of shopping centers and restaurants for kissing Basch. Paris (AFP) - The European Union and several of its member governments gave embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum on Saturday, saying they would recognise opposition leader Juan Guaido as president unless he calls elections within eight days. But Venezuela's foreign minister rejected the warnings, saying "nobody is going to give us deadlines or tell us if there are elections or not". The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries as the 28-member bloc struggles to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the crisis in Venezuela. Here is a roundup of European statements after the United States, Canada and major South American governments recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president in a challenge to Maduro. - European Union - The European Union "will take further actions" if new elections are not called in Venezuela in the coming days, EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said. This would include "the issue of recognition of the country's leadership". - Spain - Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, was the first EU leader to issue an ultimatum, saying that "if within eight days there are no fair, free and transparent elections called in Venezuela, Spain will recognise Juan Guaido as Venezuelan president". Spain is closely linked to Venezuela, a former colony, as some 200,000 of its nationals live there. Spain was "not looking to impose or remove governments in Venezuela, we want democracy and free elections in Venezuela", Sanchez said. - Germany and France - Germany and France quickly followed, backing the eight-day ultimatum. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a tweet that "the Venezuelan people must be able to freely decide on their future". Also on Twitter, German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz used nearly identical language, adding "complete security" as a necessary condition for elections. Story continues - Britain - British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that "after banning opposition candidates, ballot box stuffing and counting irregularities in a deeply flawed election, it is clear (president) Nicolas Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela". "@jguaido is the right person to take Venezuela forward," he said in a tweet. "If there are not fresh & fair elections announced within eight days, UK will recognise him as interim president to take forward the political process towards democracy. "Time for a new start for the suffering ppl (people) of Venezuela." - The Netherlands - The Netherlands is closely following developments in Venezuela as several of the Dutch kingdom's Caribbean territories such as Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire are just off the coast of the troubled South American country. "The Venezuelan people must have the right to determine themselves what their future will look like," Foreign Minister Stef Blok said, calling for "free, transparent and democratic elections". - Portugal - Portugal joined its fellow EU members' call, saying that one week was "an appropriate timeframe" for Maduro to announce fresh elections. "In our opinion it is impossible to end the political deadlock and the very serious social crisis in Venezuela without free, transparent and credible elections," said Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva. - Italy - Italy's Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi called for "a rapid return to democratic legitimacy, guaranteed by new free and transparent elections" in Venezuela, although his statement contained no mention of a timeframe. "With heartfelt thoughts for the Venezuelan people and the many with Italian origins, we express our closeness to the families of the victims in the face of the dramatic events taking place," he said. - Austria, Greece - Austria and Greece have been reluctant to join other EU members' initiatives to put pressure on Maduro. Greece's ruling party Syriza has publicly backed him, with party secretary Panos Skourletis voicing "full support and solidarity" to what to he called "the legal president". burs-jh/ach Brussels (AFP) - The European Union "will take further actions" if new elections are not called in Venezuela in the coming days, EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said on Saturday, as international pressure grows on embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Her statement came after the United States, Canada and major South American governments recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido, who proclaimed himself acting president in a challenge to Maduro. "In the absence of an announcement on the organisation of fresh elections with the necessary guarantees over the next days, the EU will take further actions, including on the issue of recognition of the country's leadership," Mogherini said. Spain, France, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom on Saturday also gave Maduro an ultimatum of eight days to call new elections or they would recognise Guaido as president. The coordinated announcements are the most explicit yet from EU countries after the 28-member bloc struggled to draft a joint statement with regards to its position on the crisis in Venezuela. Maduro's reelection last year was contested by the opposition and rejected by the US, EU and UN as a sham -- but he has until now retained the loyalty of the South American OPEC nation's powerful military. Guaido, who is chief of the elected National Assembly, proclaimed himself acting president of Venezuela during massive street rallies this week. "The EU reiterates its full support to the National Assembly, which is the democratic legitimate body of Venezuela," the Mogherini statement said. "We reaffirm our deep belief that a peaceful and inclusive democratic solution is the only sustainable way out of the current political impasse." After four years of economic collapse that has left Venezuelans short of food and medicine and driven more than two million to flee, Guaido is trying to oust Maduro following elections that saw the socialist leader sworn in for a second term. ISTANBUL (AP) Turkey's president warned on Friday that Ankara can go it alone in establishing a safe zone in northeastern Syria if talks with Washington on the issue fail to produce results. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would not "wait forever" to set up the so-called safe zone east of the Euphrates River in Syria. Ankara wants Syrian Kurdish militia to withdraw from there and Erdogan has been seeking logistical and financial assistance from the U.S. in this. Turkey has pushed for the creation of a 32-kilometer (20-mile) zone to serve as a buffer and ensure that the Syrian Kurdish militia The People's Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers to be a terrorist group for its ties to outlawed Kurdish rebels inside Turkey is kept away from the Turkish border after U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria. The details of the planned pullout of some 2,000 American troops remain unclear. The Syrian Kurds have been a key U.S. ally. The YPG is the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which rolled back the Islamic State group from wide parts of Syria with the help of the U.S.-led coalition. Turkey has threatened to launch a new military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish forces while the U.S. has warned it would protect its Kurdish allies and cautioned Turkey against such an operation. In a call earlier this month, Erdogan and President Donald Trump discussed the possibility of the safe zone in an apparent effort to reduce tensions. Turkish and U.S. defense officials have been assessing plans. On Friday, Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar met with Trump's envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, and asked that the U.S. "end its relationship with the terror organization YPG" and ensure the group's withdrawal from Manbij, a key town in northern Syria. Erdogan said Turkey must have control in the safe zone and added: "We are closed to all solution proposals other than this." Story continues Erdogan earlier this week met Russian President Vladimir Putin as Moscow signaled it could be open for discussions about the Turkish push for carving out a safe zone. However, Moscow argued for the Syrian government to take over areas currently controlled by the U.S. and Kurdish forces. Also Friday, the U.S.-led coalition said it is investigating a potential incident involving civilian casualties in areas of fighting with IS in Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zour bordering Iraq. The statement said the incident happened on Jan. 22 and that the coalition "takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously and investigates each incident reported through any means." Syrian state media and opposition activists have reported several airstrikes that they blamed on the U.S.-led coalition, saying scores of people were killed over the past weeks. The DeirEzzor 24, an activist collective, said a U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed several civilians as they were fleeing the eastern village of Baghouz near Iraq's border. The Syrian Democratic Forces later captured the village from IS. ___ Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report. The Trump administration has announced that Elliott Abrams, who was convicted over the Iran-Contra scandal in which the Ronald Reagan administration secretly funded paramilitary groups in Nicaragua, will lead the USs efforts to press for democracy in Venezuela. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the 71-year-old would oversee Washingtons outreach, after Donald Trump declared he would recognise Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, and not elected president Nicolas Maduro, as the nations legitimate ruler. Elliott will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country, Mr Pompeo said, according to Reuters. Mr Pompeo said Mr Abrams would accompany him to the United Nations on Saturday for a Security Council meeting on Venezuela where Washington will push other countries to recognise Mr Guaido as the countrys interim head of state. So far, Canada, Britain Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala and the Organisation of American States, have done so. Russia, China, El Salvador, Mexico and Turkey have said they believe Mr Maduro remains the president. Reuters described Mr Abrams was a neoconservative who has long advocated an activist US role in the world. He last served in government in the George W Bush White House, first as a Middle East expert on the national security council and later as a global democracy strategy adviser. He was assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration and was convicted in 1991 on two misdemeanour counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal. He was later pardoned by President George HW Bush. For many Latin America watchers he will be associated with his denial of a 1982 massacre at El Mozote in El Salvador of hundreds of civilians by the military. Mr Abrams told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths at El Mozote were not credible. Story continues In 1993, after a UN truth commission which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 per cent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its death-squad allies, Mr Abrams said: The administrations record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement. Meanwhile on Friday, the two men both claiming to be president of Venezuela made different appeals for support. At a press conference in Caracas, Mr Guaido urged followers to stage another mass protest next week, according to the Associated Press. They can cut a flower, but they will never keep spring from coming, said Mr Guaido, alluding to a similar phrase from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Mr Maduro spoke in the presidential palace before a room of journalists. This is nothing more than a coup detat, ordered, promoted, financed and supported by the government of the United States, he said. They intend to put a puppet government in Venezuela, destroy the state and take colonial control of the country. The Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman personally got involved in killing his enemies, on one occasion burying alive a member of a rival cartel, a court has been told. Isaias Valdez Rios, a former soldier who was recruited as a bodyguard for the notorious kingpin, said he shot dead two members of the Zetas cartel, who had been brought to him by his guards. After Guzman shot them, he ordered that their bodies be burned. Put them in the bonfire. I dont want any bones to remain, the witness told the New York court, according to the Associated Press. He also told the court that the Sinola cartel boss ordered his men to dig a grave before he shot another victim in a fit of rage. When the gunfire stopped, the wounded man was still gasping for air. Thats how we dropped in the hole and buried him. Guzman is charged with 17 criminal counts, including drug trafficking, conspiring to murder rivals, money laundering and weapons offences. He has pleaded not guilty. During the early- and mid-2000s, he was allegedly a boss of the Sinaloa cartel, the world's largest drug-trafficking operation, according to prosecuors. They say say the enterprise imported tons of cocaine from South America into the US. The 61-year-old has twice escaped from jail, most recently in 2015 when he fled from a maximum security prison in the Mexican city of Almoloya de Juarez, through a long tunnel. He was captured and arrested for a third time in January 2016 and extradited to the US the same month. He is being tried in the federal district court in the New York borough of Brooklyn. The trial, which began in mid-November, is expected to last four months. New York (AFP) - A former hitman for Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman on Thursday offered gruesome testimony in a US court about acts of torture and killings of rivals allegedly committed by the ex-Sinaloa boss. It was the first time that the federal court heard details of executions carried out by El Chapo himself. The jury had heard other witnesses relate killings ordered by the once powerful drug lord. While Guzman is not on trial for murder, federal prosecutors want to depict him as a violent and ruthless man ready to do anything to protect his business. He faces trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges that could see him jailed for life in the United States. The former hitman, Isaias Valdez Rios -- who goes by "Memin" or "Memo" -- told the court that he saw Guzman kill a member of the rival Arellano Felix cartel. The victim had been tortured before he arrived at El Chapo's camp on the plane of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada, who led the Sinaloa organization with Guzman. "He had burns made with an iron on his back, his shirt was stuck to his skin. He had burns made with a car lighter all over his body. His feet were burned," said the 39-year-old Valdez Rios. According to the hitman, who later became Guzman's secretary and pilot, El Chapo became angry when he saw the condition of the man, so he left him locked in a chicken coop for days. The witness said that after two interrogations, Guzman shot the man, uttering his signature kill phrase: "Fuck your mother!" But the kill shot was unsuccessful and the man was still breathing, said Valdez Rios, who worked for seven years in the Mexican army's special forces unit before joining Guzman's organization. "So we put him in a hole and buried him," Valdez Rios told the court, adding that he had seen El Chapo torture and kill two other members of the Zetas drug cartel. First, the kingpin beat them nearly to death with a thick tree branch in a wooded area, he said. Story continues "They were completely like rag dolls -- their bones were totally broken. They could not move. And Mr Joaquin was still hitting them with the branch and his weapon too," he said. Near a bonfire that had been lit, Guzman "put the rifle to the head of one guy, fired" and again used his profane kill phrase, the witness said. "Then he did the same to the other guy." The pair were then thrown into the fire, he told the court. Valdez Rios was arrested in 2014 and has been in a US prison ever since. He is facing a sentence of 10 years to life, but is hoping to see that reduced in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump spent hours Friday working on his shutdown speech but not all of it. During his remarks about reopening the government, without any border wall funding, Trump's teleprompter suddenly stopped rolling and displayed a single directive: [Talk about Human Trafficking] That's when the president proceeded to talk about women being tied up and put in cars by traffickers. It's not that unusual: Trump frequently ad libs portions of his speeches, especially about favored topics like illegal border crossings. Trump's unscripted comments Friday referenced lurid descriptions of people kidnapped by human traffickers and an odd comment on how they can get into the United States by simply making a "left or a right" turn into the United States. President Donald Trump (and a Teleprompter) back in 2016 "Women are tied up, they're bound, duct tape put around their faces, around their mouths," Trump riffed. "In many cases they can't even breathe. They're put in the backs of cars, or vans or trucks." He added: "They don't go through your port of entry. They make a right turn going very quickly. They go into the desert areas, or whatever areas you can look at, and as soon as there is no protection they make a left or a right into the United States of America." Before he became president, Trump was known to mock predecessor Barack Obama for his use of the teleprompter. But now he uses it like other presidents some of the time. More: Trump: We have reached a deal to end government shutdown for three weeks More: Government shutdown carries a high price More: FBI Director Christopher Wray: Government shutdown 'mind-boggling' and 'short-sighted' This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump's teleprompter tells him: '[Talk about Human Trafficking]' Reuters W. James Antle III Security, Americas Its the unknown unknowns that may determine the course of a presidency. Does the Roger Stone Indictment Mean Trump Is in Jeopardy? Roger Stone was arrested at his Florida home early Friday morning, indicted on seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing a congressional investigation in the latest twist in the Trump-Russia saga. He was arraigned this morning in a federal court in Fort Lauderdale. The indictment from Special Counsel Robert Mueller alleges that Stone served as a broker between WikiLeaks and the Trump presidential campaign to disseminate emails that the Russia had purloined from the Democratic National Committee. Stone told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under oath in September 2017 that he had no e-mails, texts, no documents whatsoever. The indictment states, among other things, that this was false. Stone was never officially part of Donald Trumps 2016 campaign, but he has long been an informal political adviser to the president, and he is widely referred to in the media as Trumps long-term confidante. This morning Trump himself tweeted once more to denounce the Mueller investigation and to speculate about why CNN was in place to film the FBIs arrest of Stone at home: Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Who alerted CNN to be there? This follows Michael Cohens postponement of his highly anticipated congressional testimony, citing ongoing threats against his family from President Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Cohen, a former attorney and longtime fixer for Trump, has turned on his erstwhile client in a potentially presidency-altering fashion. Might Stone be next? Stones dramatic arrest and Cohens allegation of witness tampering come less than a week after a BuzzFeed report claimed that the president directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow meetinga story that Muellers office appeared to shoot down in a rare on-the-record denial, while remaining artfully vague about exactly which details were in dispute. Story continues The BuzzFeed episode, Stones indictment and the eventual Trump World pushback against Cohens latest charges highlight two competing theories about the Mueller probe. Muellers office isnt prone to leaking, so we dont know the full extent of what the Trump-Russia special counsel knows. This has invited considerable speculation by those who wish to defend or discredit the president. According to one theory, Mueller is methodically building up to a compelling case that there was Trump-Russia collusion and possibly other illegal acts. We should read little into the fact that Mueller has largely prosecuted people for process crimes or financial transgressions that mostly predate the Trump campaign. The impeachment-inducing bombshell waits just around the corner if only the Resistance remains patient. There are some rational reasons to believe this might be the case. Although the Stone indictments concern his and Randy Credicos testimony before the Devin Nunes-led House Intelligence Committee, it puts the Trump campaign (including an unnamed senior official) a step closer to Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and the theft of Democratic emails at the heart of the Russian electoral influence blitz. There have also been tantalizing tidbits about convicted Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sharing polling data with the Russians, compounding questions about why Manafort took an unpaid senior position with Trump while he was obviously having financial problems and entangled with foreign clients. But why then didnt Mueller charge Manafort with anything collusion-related? Why wasnt anything pertinent to the BuzzFeed bombshell mentioned in the plea agreement with Cohen? Not even Stone was brought in for an underlying offense related to the election. Mueller recommended no jail time for former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos received a fourteen-day jail sentence from which he has already been released. So far, Carter Page hasnt been charged with anything at all. If anybody colluded, it would likely have involved the above characters. This leads to the second theory about Muellers investigation: that while there is much we dont know, we can tell a lot from what weve seen publicly. Muellers indictments up to this point have yet to attempt to make the case that a larger Trump-Russia conspiracy even exists. Indicted Russians were said to have no witting American accomplices; Muellers team has yet to go into a courtroom and try to argue that any of their Trump targets committed any crimes related to Russian interference in the presidential election. Another point often made by those who subscribe to this theory is that if Mueller really had proof of unambiguously impeachment-worthy conductlike ordering Cohen to lie to Congress or threatening his family before he appeared before a House committeehe would be duty-bound to share this with senior lawmakers rather than leave a lawless president in office as the investigation lingers. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy responded to the former accusation by urging Mueller to speed things up, usually a talking point preferred by Republicans who think the whole affair is a witch hunt. This theory makes a great deal of sense, and it is generally the one this writer follows in terms of not getting ahead of what the evidence says on Trump-Russia. But there are a couple of problems with it that make it premature to conclude that all will end well for the president. The first is that charges that could lead to the impeachment of the president of the United States are a big deal and thus must be handled carefully. Mueller may not want to tip his hand where the facts are inconclusive, but that may not mean Trump has been exonerated. Its also now true that Democrats control the house of Congress where articles of impeachment originate and have shown a proclivity to investigate even unconfirmed reports, while there was no guarantee House Republicans would have even acted on Muellers recommendations. This raises the question of whether the Mueller team uncharacteristically disputed BuzzFeeds Cohen story because it was spectacularly wrongor because House Democrats were likely to get ahead of themselves and act prematurely. The entire investigation is now proceeding under a very different set of political circumstances. A bigger problem is the Mueller report itself: the special counsel will be free to allude to things he suspects and for which he may have some evidence but cannot reach the burden of proof required for a criminal conviction. Impeachment itself is a political process, with high crimes and misdemeanors not really defined in the Constitution, meaning that Trump could be imperiled even if his office isnt the only bar to his being indicted. Here it is wise to recall the words of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: [T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknownsthe ones we don't know we dont know. Its the unknown unknowns that may determine the course of a presidency. W. James Antle III is editor of The American Conservative magazine. Image: Reuters Read full article Damascus (AFP) - The Syrian government on Saturday condemned Turkey's military presence in northern Syria as a violation of a 1998 protocol between the two countries. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the Adana Protocol gives his country the right to intervene militarily in the neighbouring country. Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies control part of northern Syria, and Ankara has repeatedly threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters on its southern border. On Saturday, the foreign ministry in Damascus accused Ankara of repeatedly breaching the Adana deal throughout Syria's eight-year war. "Since 2011, the Turkish regime has violated and continues to violate this agreement," a ministry source said, quoted by state news agency SANA. The source accused Turkey of "supporting terrorists", using the regime's usual term for both jihadists and rebels. It said Ankara was breaching the deal through "occupying Syrian territory via terrorist organisations linked to it or directly via Turkish military forces". Rebel backer Turkey has twice led incursions into northern Syria in 2016 and 2018, since when its forces and allied Syrian proxies have controlled a patch of territory on the border. Ankara has repeatedly threatened to march on areas further east, where Kurdish fighters it views as "terrorists" have led the US-backed battle against the Islamic State jihadist group. Washington last month said it would pull all its troops from the war-torn country, leaving the Kurds scrambling to find a new ally in Damascus to avoid a Turkish assault. On Friday, Erdogan said Turkey expected a "security zone" to be created in Syria in a few months. Turkey accuses the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) which have led the fight against IS of being an extension of its outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The Adana deal was signed in 1998 to end a crisis between the neighbours, sparked by the then presence in Syria of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and bases run by the group. Story continues Turkey argues the protocol provides Ankara with the legal ground to intervene in Syria against the PKK and its affiliates, because of the Syrian regime's failure to act against the group. Damascus has regained control of almost two-thirds of the country after significant Russia-backed victories against rebels and jihadists since 2015, and hopes to see all areas of the country revert to its rule. Syria's war has killed 360,000 people and spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers since starting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests. Mexico City (AFP) - The success of "Roma," which garnered 10 Oscar nominations this week, has made a star out of one of the movie's key protagonists: the Mexico City neighborhood that gave it its name. Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, who sumptuously shot it in black and white, the movie is set in the 1970s in the Mexico City neighborhood where he grew up, La Roma -- today a magnet for film-buff tourists seeking the modern-day, full-color version. The neighborhood Cuaron depicts as an upper-middle-class bastion of spacious art-deco houses and fancy chrome-clad cars fell on hard times when it was devastated by a 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people in Mexico City. But its central location and leafy streets helped bring it back, and today it is a hipster paradise of trendy bars, cafes, restaurants and shops. One of those streets in particular has drawn an unprecedented flow of tourists since "Roma" came out, according to residents: Tepeji street, where Cuaron grew up and meticulously recreated his boyhood home for the film. Outside number 22 Tepeji, a newly installed metal plaque informs visitors: "This is where 'Roma' was filmed, 2016-2017." "We loved the movie. It captivated us from the first moment. We decided to come see the house in person," said Esteban Alvarez, 27, a musician from Costa Rica who was making the pilgrimage with his girlfriend. They have joined a stream of tourists and journalists hunting for the locations where the highly autobiographical film was shot -- Tlaxcala street, the busy intersection of Insurgentes and Baja California, the kindergarten where Cuaron went to school. "It was like, 'Oh, look! We saw that place in the movie! Is it really the same one?" Alvarez told AFP. There is even a guidebook for people trying to retrace the film's steps, while Conde Nast Traveler published an article this week to help tourists find "Mexico City Airbnbs that Could Have Been in 'Roma.'" Story continues - Art imitating life - "Roma" is an intimate portrait of the two women who raised Cuaron: his nanny, played by breakout indigenous star Yalitza Aparicio, and his mother, played by actress Marina de Tavira -- both up for Oscars. Die-hard fans will be keen to know that number 22 Tepeji is not in fact the house where Cuaron grew up. His family lived across the street, in number 21. The identical buildings were constructed in the 1930s. But Cuaron's house was remodeled by subsequent owners, so he opted for the one opposite. Cuaron has said that production designer Eugenio Caballero did such a good job recreating his childhood home that his family felt like they were inside the real thing when they visited the set. As visitors gathered outside number 22 one recent afternoon, Paulina Cruz slipped outside number 21 to walk the dog. Cruz is a domestic worker employed by the family that lives in Cuaron's old house. "I'm the nanny for the kids who live here now," she said with a smile. With her dark sunglasses and jeans, she looked little like Cleo, the meek nanny in "Roma." But she said she loved the movie. "I was happy to see them give an important role to the domestic workers," she said. "Just like in the movie, we really do grow very close to the families we work for, especially the children. Spending every day with them, they start to feel like family." Living in the house where Cuaron grew up, she added, "is very cool." - 'A party' - The owner of the house where the film was shot is Gloria Monreal, who said with a grin that turning her home over to the production team for several months was "a party." Far from resenting the stream of tourists outside her front door, she said she was "very happy" to chat with them and pose for pictures. She even invites them to sign a guest book. "I thought it would be nice to have all these lovely people write about what the film meant to them and give it to Alfonso as a gift," said Monreal, who knew Cuaron as a boy. Nearby is Tlaxcala street, where Cuaron attended the Condesa kindergarten as a child. "I have such fond memories of it I want it to be in my movie," the director told teacher Victoria Pantoja, the granddaughter of the school's founder, when he visited. The production team spent more than a month recreating the red facade of the 1970s, the slide and the rest of the playground. Pantoja, 32, hopes Cuaron will visit again. When he came to shoot the movie, the teachers were so star-struck that "nobody remembered to ask for a picture with him," she said with a laugh. Many investors are still learning about the various metrics that can be useful when analysing a stock. This article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE). To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, well use ROE to better understand easyJet plc (LON:EZJ). Over the last twelve months easyJet has recorded a ROE of 11%. One way to conceptualize this, is that for each 1 of shareholders equity it has, the company made 0.11 in profit. View our latest analysis for easyJet How Do I Calculate ROE? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit Shareholders Equity Or for easyJet: 11% = 358 UK3.3b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2018.) Its easy to understand the net profit part of that equation, but shareholders equity requires further explanation. It is all earnings retained by the company, plus any capital paid in by shareholders. Shareholders equity can be calculated by subtracting the total liabilities of the company from the total assets of the company. What Does Return On Equity Mean? ROE measures a companys profitability against the profit it retains, and any outside investments. The return is the profit over the last twelve months. The higher the ROE, the more profit the company is making. So, all else equal, investors should like a high ROE. That means ROE can be used to compare two businesses. Does easyJet Have A Good Return On Equity? By comparing a companys ROE with its industry average, we can get a quick measure of how good it is. Importantly, this is far from a perfect measure, because companies differ significantly within the same industry classification. If you look at the image below, you can see easyJet has a lower ROE than the average (21%) in the Airlines industry classification. LSE:EZJ Last Perf January 26th 19 That certainly isnt ideal. It is better when the ROE is above industry average, but a low one doesnt necessarily mean the business is overpriced. Still, shareholders might want to check if insiders have been selling. Story continues Why You Should Consider Debt When Looking At ROE Most companies need money from somewhere to grow their profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the case of the first and second options, the ROE will reflect this use of cash, for growth. In the latter case, the debt required for growth will boost returns, but will not impact the shareholders equity. That will make the ROE look better than if no debt was used. easyJets Debt And Its 11% ROE Although easyJet does use debt, its debt to equity ratio of 0.30 is still low. The fact that it achieved a fairly good ROE with only modest debt suggests the business might be worth putting on your watchlist. Judicious use of debt to improve returns can certainly be a good thing, although it does elevate risk slightly and reduce future optionality. In Summary Return on equity is a useful indicator of the ability of a business to generate profits and return them to shareholders. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. If two companies have around the same level of debt to equity, and one has a higher ROE, Id generally prefer the one with higher ROE. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. Of course easyJet may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements. The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. Montreal (AFP) - A minor has been arrested in Canada and charged with two terrorism-related offenses, police said on Friday after the seizure of a suspected explosive. Superintendent Peter Lambertucci of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters that Canadian investigators received in late December "credible FBI information regarding an attack plot with no specific time, date, or location affixed to it." There was never a threat to public safety, Lambertucci said, but the young suspect "was reported to be involved in the manufacturing of homemade and improvised explosive devices and that was one of the subjects of our investigation." During a search of two Kingston, Ontario homes early Friday officers found a suspected "explosive substance" which was removed and later detonated, Lambertucci said. The minor, whose identity is protected under Canadian law, was charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and counseling a person to deliver, place, discharge or detonate an explosive device with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury. The RCMP also arrested a second suspect, an adult man, on Thursday night in Kingston, mid-way between Toronto and Montreal. He has not been charged and has to be released within 24 hours unless a formal criminal complaint is laid. Canadian media reported that the two suspects knew each other. Public broadcaster CBC named the adult arrested but not charged as 20-year-old Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, and reported that he was of Syrian descent. Alzahabi's parents arrived in Canada as refugees in 2017, after living in Kuwait for nearly a decade. "They tell me they search about him about terrorists. I know my son, he didn't think about that," Alzahabi's father Amin told the CBC. The investigation involved about 300 personnel and various agencies including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Story continues Investigators also used a surveillance plane which spent several days over Kingston in January, Lambertucci said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised the police work and said Canada is among the safest nations on the planet. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said "Canada's threat level remains at medium, where it has stood since 2014." Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - Any request by Britain to delay its departure from the European Union would be "worth considering", France's European Affairs minister said Saturday. But Nathalie Loiseau also told reporters that a Brexit deal agreed between London and Brussels, which has been rejected by the British parliament, could not be renegotiated. "If a British government, backed by a majority in parliament -- which would constitute real progress -- came up with new ideas about the future of UK-EU relations (...) and asked us for a delay, that would be worth considering," she said. "A delay is no solution, it is a means towards a solution," said Loiseau, who as junior minister reports to Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. "There has to be a new and credible political objective," she told a new conference during a youth rally for President Emmanuel Macron. "That means a British government has to propose a solution that does not reopen the withdrawal agreement," she said. "We agreed on this withdrawal agreement and it cannot be renegotiated." The House of Commons last week rejected the EU withdrawal deal struck by Prime Minister Theresa May with Brussels, leaving Britain without a plan and Brexit day looming on March 29. May has been speaking to her Conservative MPs and her Northern Irish allies to establish what changes might convince them to support the agreement, before restarting talks with Brussels. The MPs are mostly concerned about the so-called backstop, an arrangement that would potentially keep Britain aligned to the EU's trade rules indefinitely as a way to keep open the border with Ireland. Loiseau's remarks came a day after British finance minister Philip Hammond said Friday he believed the EU might compromise over a Brexit deal in a way that would persuade lawmakers in London to support it. Books about the Trump Administration have so far fallen into two broad camps: pro-Trump hagiographies (In Trump We Trust, Let Trump Be Trump, Understanding Trump) and dishy tell-alls (Unhinged, Fire and Fury, Fear). Former White House special assistant Cliff Sims tries something different in his new book, Team of Vipers: a juicy pro-Trump tell-all. As the title indicates, Sims mostly trains his fire on the people around the president. And in a move straight out of a 19th century novel of manners, he includes himself in that rogues gallery as a wide-eyed naif from the countryside who frequently wonders if hes compromising his ideals in the big city. The introduction promises something of a burn book, calling the presidents inner circle a portrait of venality, stubbornness, and selfishness. We leaked. We schemed. We backstabbed. Some of us told ourselves it was all done in the service of a higher calling to protect the President, to deliver for the people. But usually it was for ourselves. The pages that follow mostly deliver on that promise, but not as much as you would think. In some cases, the revenge is a dish thats fairly warmed over. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon is portrayed surprise! as foul-mouthed, rude and unkempt: If he had been wandering around the streets outside Trump Tower, instead of inside it, passersby would have handed him their spare change. Omarosa Manigault, the former Apprentice villain and Trump Administration turncoat, is described shockingly! as a backstabber: Lets just say I did my best to get her what she needed. I figured she was trouble I didnt need. And former White House spokesman Sean Spicer comes in for a heavy beating as you wont believe this! an overworked careerist in an ill-fitting suit. In a retelling of the inauguration crowd size fiasco, Spicer takes most of the blame for spreading what turned out to be alternative facts: Nobody stopped to make certain it was true. Nobody had time. Spicer, in all his manic glory, had worked us all into a frenzy. Story continues For the most part, these and other former staffers who take the brunt of the criticism in Sims book former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former communications directors Mike Dubke and Anthony Scaramucci, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, retired moderate Rep. Charlie Dent, former economic advisor Gary Cohn share a common trait: Theyre already on the outs with Trump. That makes the exceptions stand out. The book takes repeated shots at former campaign head and current White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, portraying her as self-serving, and, basically, a liar. An extended sequence describes her dictating a statement denying that she leaks even as she had texted with no fewer than a half-dozen reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Politico and Bloomberg. (Sims, who was using her computer, writes that he could inadvertently see them because of iMessage syncing.) It became hard to look at her without getting the sense that she was a cartoon villain brought to life, Sims writes. Her agenda which was her survival over all others, including the President became more and more transparent. Once you figured that out, everything about her seemed calculated; every statement, even a seemingly innocuous one, seemed poll tested by a focus group that existed inside her mind. Overall, the book is cleverly packaged. While a rising conservative journalist in Alabama before he joined the Administration, Sims is hardly a household name, and his book would be buried under a stack by the likes of Jeanine Pirro and Corey Lewandowski if it didnt have a little spice. But as a conservative millennial who presumably wants to continue to have a future in the GOP, he cant go full Omarosa, either. For all his talk of a team of vipers, though, Sims has nothing but positive things to say about Hope Hicks, Vice President Mike Pence, Ivanka and Jared Kushner and First Lady Melania Trump and others who remain in the presidents good graces. And while he expresses reservations with Trumps style and some of his decisions, he is generally simpatico with his core agenda and makes an effort to tout him as a genius in politics and branding. That said, his praise is often inadvertently damning. In one chapter, Sims describes an Oval Office meeting in which Ryan tried in vain to bring Trump up to speed on the health care bill, going into too much detail for Trumps short attention span. Trump, bored, eventually got up and walked out of the room, even as Ryan was talking, walked down a hallway and turned on a flat-screen TV in the private dining room, leaving the speaker sitting awkwardly with Sims until the segment was over. The President sat back down. With no explanation, apology or acknowledgement of what had just happened, he resumed the conversation as if he hadnt just walked out of the room to catch up on TV, Sims writes. What a power move. (Italics his.) As it turns out, the legislation that Ryan was discussing one that Republicans had promised for years, a central part of Trumps agenda, a bill that would affect the daily lives of millions of Americans failed. And while Sims rightly casts some of the blame on Republican leaders in Congress, he waves away any responsibility by Trump, who he argues is too much of a visionary to get down into the weeds. That may or may not be true, but in other sections of the book, he describes a Trump who can be very detail-oriented when the topic is one he cares about. A careful student of cable news, Trump critiques which channel has the best on-screen graphics, obsesses over which reporters repeated the daily talking points, knows the camera angles in every room (he prefers the camera to show the right side of his head), shares opinions on the lighting and requires a staffer carry a can of his preferred hairspray (TRESemme Tres Two, extra hold). And when he decides to renovate parts of the West Wing, Trump is suddenly a detail-oriented micromanager, scrolling through decor options with his executive assistant, ensuring the decorations in each room are from the correct time period and even personally requesting a Pennsylvania company make a new batch of a discontinued wallpaper pattern. No item of decor was too small to pass his notice, Sims writes. Trump never shows this same kind of care in hiring his staff, however, and Sims is not the only one to make the case that hes being ill-served by his advisors. Excerpts of another upcoming book by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie show it goes even further in criticizing some of Trumps advisors as riffraff who are greedy, inexperienced and not ready for prime time. This is a fairly useful dodge for Trump supporters looking to explain away the troubled Administration as they consider their 2020 votes: Its not Trump who is the problem, but the people around him. But it was Trump himself who hired those people, something he acknowledged about the job as a candidate in 2015. Im going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people, he said. We want top of the line professionals. If, as Sims argues, Trump got instead a team of vipers, he has only himself to blame. As former Clinton adviser William Galston once noted, every President gets the White House he deserves. A legally blind woman is speaking out against Uber after a driver denied her a ride because she was traveling with a service dog. Mollie Baland has a rare eye condition that doesnt allow her to see things unless they are very close to her, she told Denver news station KMGH. Baland, a student at Regis University in Denver, has a guide dog, Ferris, to help her navigate. When she was getting ready to go to class on Thursday, she decided to hire an Uber driver to make traveling easier. The past few days Ferris and I have had a little trouble with the ice, slipping around, so I was like, Ill just order an Uber today and pay the half-mile to go to campus,' she told the news outlet. But when the driver pulled up and saw Baland with Ferris, she said he refused to let them into the car. The driver rolls his window down, and he says, I cant have a dog in here,' she told KMGH. And I said, Well, technically under Ubers policy you cant deny me because Ferris is my guide dog. If it makes you feel any better, I have a certificate to prove that he is a guide dog. And the driver did not say anything. He just drove away. And when Baland reported the issue to the ride-hailing service, she said she was told that the company would deactivate the drivers account only if it received a second report. Instead, she walked to class in a snowstorm, KMGH reported. According to Ubers website, State and federal law prohibit driver-partners using the Uber Driver App from denying service to riders with service animals because of the service animals, and from otherwise discriminating against riders with service animals. The company policy states that driver-partners who engage in discriminatory conduct in violation of this legal obligation will lose their ability to use the Driver App. However, Baland said this is not how her case was treated. Im very upset with how Uber handled the situation. The guy was only given a warning, she told KMGH. I am resilient. I just dont want this to happen to other people. Uber issued a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle regarding Balands ride issue. Story continues We are deeply upset by this riders experience and have been in touch with both parties and have taken appropriate action. Drivers who use the Uber app agree to accommodate riders with service animals and comply with their independent obligations under accessibility laws. This isnt the first time Uber has fallen under scrutiny for accessibility issues. The company settled a lawsuit with the National Federation of the Blind in 2016 after the organization accused it of discriminating against blind riders. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to take steps to make clear to drivers using Uber that they are obligated to transport any passenger with a service animal, according to its website. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. The Hague (AFP) - The Pakistani lawyer of a Christian woman acquitted of blasphemy Saturday jetted out of the Netherlands to "hopefully assist his client for the last time" in a Pakistani court hearing, a Dutch MP said. Saif-ul-Malook fled to the Netherlands from Pakistan in November last year after violent protests erupted over the Pakistani Supreme Court's decision to overturn the conviction of Asia Bibi, who was on death row. Pakistan's Supreme Court will decide on Tuesday whether to allow an appeal against Bibi's acquittal, lawyers in the case have said. Christian Union party parliamentarian Joel Voordewind tweeted a picture of himself and Malook saying "this afternoon (Saturday) I escorted Asia Bibi's lawyer, Mr Malook to Schiphol airport." "He's going back to Pakistan to hopefully represent Asia for the last time in her case," Voordewind said. The Netherlands last year granted Malook a temporary stay, but Voordewind said Malook will "unfortunately lose his asylum status in the Netherlands." The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim women accused her of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under the colonial-era legislation. Her case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country. If the court refuses to allow the appeal, it will remove the last legal hurdle facing Bibi, who is a prime target in conservative Muslim-majority Pakistan and remains in protective custody. Bibi was on death row for eight years for blasphemy, a hugely sensitive charge. - Ambassador threatened - Meanwhile, the Dutch ambassador to Pakistan is to return to Islamabad next month after receiving a death threat last year, reportedly from Islamists angry over anti-Islam tweets by far-right politician Geert Wilders, Dutch media reported earlier Saturday. Ardi Stoios-Braken "will fly back to Islamabad in early February," the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad said. Story continues She was on leave in the Netherlands in late October last year when she received word "that a letter arrived at the embassy from Pakistani authorities." "The letter spoke of a 'specific threat' and was related to the Mohammed cartoon contest which had already been cancelled months before," the paper said. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said in November that Stoios-Braken, a veteran diplomat, faced "threats" in Pakistan, apparently over "blasphemous depictions" by Wilders on Twitter. Wilders in August called off a planned Prophet Mohammed cartoon competition that stirred anger in Pakistan. Pakistan's interior ministry in October wrote a secret memo on plans to "target" the Dutch ambassador by the hardline Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party (TLP), media from both countries reported at the time. The TLP, founded in 2015, led protests in August calling for Pakistan to sever diplomatic relations with the Netherlands over the Wilders cartoon contest. The TLP has denied making any threats. The Pakistani government however has since launched a crackdown on the TLP, charging its leaders with sedition and terrorism. But authorities also struck a deal with the protesters to end the violence, forming an agreement which included allowing a final review of the Supreme Court's judgement. Groundhog Day is fast approaching, and on February 2, a bunch of us will watch Punxsutawney Phil pop his head out of his hole for a brief moment, and then vanish from the news for 364 days. Two days prior to that, an equally elusive figure will make a scheduled appearance. On January 31, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) new CEO, Larry Culp, will report fourth-quarter 2018 earnings at the troubled conglomerate. While it hasn't been a whole year since we saw him last, Culp has been a bit like Punxsutawney Phil lately: He popped up on CNBC for an interview on November 12, and investors haven't seen or heard from him since. In fact, there's been a deafening silence from GE's C-suite lately, even prior to the traditional pre-earnings "blackout period." Here's why that should worry investors. A row of Edison-style light bulbs with only one lit General Electric, once a top blue-chip stock, has seen massive underperformance lately. What could be next? Image source: Getty Images. Where's Larry? It's not like GE doesn't know how to roll out a new CEO. Immediately after former CEO John Flannery's appointment was announced -- months before he officially took the helm from outgoing CEO Jeff Immelt -- GE arranged an hour-long conference call (billed as a "succession investor meeting") with analysts to introduce him to the world. And although he didn't reveal a lot of noteworthy information in that call -- citing the need for a full strategic review of the company -- he did his best to project a steady hand at the wheel. In subsequent months, Flannery and new CFO Jamie Miller gave numerous strategic and operational updates through conference calls, earnings calls with Q&A sessions, various industry conferences, interviews to news outlets, and even a LinkedIn article about the company's strategy, authored by Flannery. By contrast, Culp has been extraordinarily tight-lipped. He gave no introductory conference call after Flannery's abrupt ousting on October 1, and apparently he wasn't particularly forthcoming to individual analysts, either. Deutsche Bank analyst Nicole Deblase issued a note that read in part, "After speaking with the company, we do not come away with much beyond what we read in this morning's release." Story continues Culp's first conference call was the company's Q3 earnings call on October 30, during which he took no follow-up questions. He did a Q&A with The Wall Street Journal that day, and a lone interview with CNBC two weeks later. And that's it. No presentations, no conference calls, and beyond a couple of sentences here or there in press releases, no other statements that I could find in his more than three months on the job. In the meantime, the stock price has fallen more than 20%. The new guy Quality trumps quantity, so of course the number of interviews a CEO gives doesn't matter as much as the substance of what he says. I'd much rather have a CEO go into great detail on a quarterly earnings call than give weekly addresses that say hardly anything. Unfortunately -- at least, so far -- Culp hasn't said much of substance, particularly any specifics about what investors can expect moving forward. Culp deflects some questions about his plans by using the "new guy" excuse. It's certainly true that he's not been with the company very long. In fact, he's GE's first CEO not to have been promoted from the company's internal ranks. However, he has been on the company's board since April 2018. This gambit was on display in the Q3 2018 earnings call: Andrew Kaplowitz, Citigroup analyst: [W]hen we think about next year, are there any guideposts you would give us at this point as you reviewed the businesses, Larry? Should the Power business in particular be less of a drag on cash in 2019? ... Culp: I hope that you and others will appreciate that when we talk about numbers on a forward-looking basis, we want to do so with conviction and confidence. I don't want to fool you, let alone myself, on thinking 30 days in that I can give you that today. So with respect to the quarter and certainly the outlook for next year, there will be a time and place for that. But make no mistake, we know that the Power business has to perform better and that is what we're going to spend a ton of time on once we get past earnings today. Culp is hardly the only CEO to give non-answers in response to analysts' or interviewers' questions. Certainly Flannery punted several questions in his early days as CEO by asking people to be patient and wait for the results of the strategic review he was conducting. But here's why it's more concerning coming from this CEO, at this company, at this time. Unknown unknowns GE has had an unfortunate history of keeping investors in the dark about key aspects of the company. For example, when GE was selling off its GE Capital businesses in 2015 and 2016, it didn't reveal the sale prices or the value of those businesses. Instead, it invented a completely new metric called "Ending Net Investment" that it used to report on the dispositions. More recently, there have been unpleasant surprises for investors, including unexpected revelations of big financial problems in GE's power division, resulting in a massive writedown, and a big money-losing insurance business that would prevent GE Capital from sending more dividends to the parent company. The Wall Street Journal suggested that some of this was due to "aggressive" accounting maneuvers. Forbes contributor Peter Cohan went a step further, referring to GE's books as "cooked." All of this is to say that General Electric has an existing transparency problem. On one hand, by not saying anything specific about what investors can expect from the company -- beyond the fact that Flannery's "strategic intent," announced in June, still "stands today" -- Culp isn't making the same mistake as Immelt made, of presenting overly rosy projections to investors. But with so many shoes having dropped -- including Culp's surprise October slashing of the dividend to just $0.01 per quarter -- the lack of anything resembling a concrete plan makes investors wonder if there's another gut punch lurking just around the corner. Indeed, Gordon Haskett analyst John Inch made waves on January 23 when he suggested that GE's massive "outsized off-balance sheet liabilities" could have a serious impact on the company. Meanwhile, on the balance sheet, GE is accounting for $37.8 billion of "other" liabilities that could be just about anything...and could be massively understated. Plus there's the nagging question: if Flannery's plan is still in place, why was he ousted as CEO? Known unknowns Lack of transparency at GE has presaged big problems for investors. And the lack of transparency now seems worse than ever. With so many jarring surprises knocking the stock around lately, the biggest concern investors should have is that there's another one coming down the pike that hasn't been revealed, that's going to send the stock even lower. The fact that Culp hasn't presented a clear picture of what he envisions as the path forward for the company makes me worry that either the company doesn't yet have one (which is bad), or that it has one, but knows investors aren't going to like it and is holding off releasing it until the last possible moment (which is worse). Until Culp and his management team can present a clear and realistic plan for the company's future -- and concrete assurances that there are no more surprises lurking -- investors should steer clear of GE. More From The Motley Fool John Bromels owns shares of General Electric. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Home-improvement stores have proven resilient against fierce e-commerce foes. Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Sherwin-Williams (NYSE: SHW) have a wide footprint of stores that put these leading home-improvement brands close in proximity to an equally wide swath of customers. Over the last decade, shares of both companies have soared over 700%, outperforming the S&P 500's return of 217%. An investment in Home Depot or Sherwin-Williams is a bet on growing housing activity over time. For many decades, the number of U.S. households has steadily grown, from 80 million in 1980 to 127 million in 2018. The homeownership rate hit 69% at the peak of the housing bubble in 2005 but steadily declined to 63% through 2016. That slide didn't prevent Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams from delivering monster returns. With the homeownership rate beginning to rebound, both companies have an additional catalyst to boost their operating performance, which could keep the shares marching higher over the next decade. A woman painting a wall with blue paint. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. Home Depot is the world's largest home-improvement retailer, and it's one of the top 30 most valuable brands in the world, according to Brand Finance. Sherwin-Williams is one of the top brands in architectural coatings and paints and has recently begun to expand its presence in the industrial market to drive long-term growth. We'll compare the two companies on financial fortitude, valuation, and competitive advantage to determine which home-improvement brand is the better buy for investors today. Financial fortitude Many investors want to hear about the exciting stuff like growth opportunities and near-term catalysts that could send a stock higher. But knowing how well a company can withstand the inevitable downturns in the economy is just as important. For this, we want to look at each company's cash and debt levels. If they have debt, we want to make sure each company is generating enough profit to handle it. Story continues Here's how Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams compare on key financial metrics: Metric Home Depot Sherwin-Williams Cash $1.764 billion $182 million Debt $25.78 billion $9.672 billion Revenue (TTM) $105.59 billion $17.45 billion Free cash flow (TTM) $10.07 billion $1.811 billion Times interest earned 16.16 5.128 Data source: Y-Charts. TTM = Trailing 12 month. Both Home Depot and Sherwin have more debt than cash on the balance sheet. Also, notice that Home Depot generates about five times as much revenue as Sherwin-Williams. That explains why Home Depot generates more free cash flow and can carry more debt. The one metric that tilts the advantage to Home Depot is the one called "times interest earned." Times interest earned measures how many times a company can pay interest expense out of its annual operating income. Home Depot generates enough earnings before interest and taxes to cover its interest expense 16 times over. That is much better than Sherwin-Williams, which only covers interest expense about five times over. Winner: Home Depot. Valuation and dividends Here's how both companies stack up on a range of popular valuation metrics: Metric Home Depot Sherwin-Williams Trailing P/E ratio 19.34 19.59 Forward P/E ratio 17.22 18.21 PEG (price-to-earnings-growth) ratio 1.30 1.27 Price-to-free cash flow ratio 20.29 20.66 Dividend yield 2.32% 0.88% Payout ratio as a percentage of free cash flow 45.53% 17.81% Data source: Y-Charts and Yahoo! Finance. Notice how close these companies are on the price-to-earnings ratio, as well as the PEG (price-to-earnings-growth) ratio and price-to-free cash flow. Going back to what I mentioned at the beginning, both companies are benefiting from the same trends of growing homeownership over time. Investors know this, so these companies typically trade at about the same valuation. Home Depot pays a higher yield of 2.33%, but that higher yield is a result of Home Depot's higher payout as a percentage of free cash flow. Overall, I think both companies are even, here. Sure, I could split hairs and call Home Depot the winner because it does trade for a slightly lower P/E ratio. But notice that Sherwin-Williams trades for a slightly lower PEG ratio, which adjusts the P/E ratio for expected growth based on the consensus analyst estimate. Winner: Tie. Competitive moat Both Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams have benefited from positive homeownership trends in the past, and those trends should continue well into the future to drive returns for shareholders in both stocks. Residential activity has not reached pre-2008 levels, and existing home sales have been slow lately. These factors have created a tight housing supply situation that has caused home prices to increase in recent years. Instead of selling their homes, homeowners have been content to use their higher home equity to remodel their existing homes. This trend plays into the hands of Home Depot and Sherwin. Home Depot has an extensive distribution network and supplier relationships that underpin a large footprint of 2,286 stores across the U.S., Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Canada, and Mexico. These advantages have delivered solid operating performance, with revenue and free cash flow up 34% and 61%, respectively, over the last five years. On the other side, Sherwin-Williams is one of the leading brands for architectural coatings and paints for professional, consumer, and industrial applications. The company has a reputation for supplying high-quality paint for do-it-yourselfers and contractors. It operates a broad footprint of more than 5,100 company-owned stores and facilities across the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia, and South America. Over the last five years, Sherwin delivered growth in revenue and free cash flow of 68% and 95%, respectively. Sherwin's management has made smart uses of acquisitions to expand the brand's store footprint into new markets, putting a specialty store within a convenient distance of many contractors who rely on high-quality paints for remodeling work. Additionally, Sherwin's 2017 acquisition of Valspar significantly expands the company's reach into several industrial markets, including solutions for original equipment manufacturers, as well as food and beverage packaging. Both Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams are leaders in their respective markets, and I see both companies equally positioned to benefit from the same trends in growing housing activity and home renovations over time. Winner: Tie. Home Depot is the better buy It's close, but Home Depot barely edges out Sherwin-Williams on financial fortitude, which is the deciding factor. Both companies are even on valuation and competitive positioning, but the world's largest home-improvement retailer gets the nod given it can more comfortably handle its debt burden than Sherwin can. More From The Motley Fool John Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has the following options: short February 2019 $185 calls on Home Depot and long January 2020 $110 calls on Home Depot. The Motley Fool recommends Home Depot and Sherwin-Williams. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. WASHINGTONThree years after fighting a surprisingly competitive Democratic primary race against Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, is making another run for the White House. Two sources with direct knowledge of his plans told Yahoo News that Sanders, an independent and self-described democratic socialist, plans to announce his presidential bid imminently. While Sanders has been considering a bid for months, one of the sources said he was emboldened by early polls of the race that have consistently showed him as one of the top candidates in a crowded Democratic primary field. In particular, the source said Sanders was heartened to see numbers indicating he is one of the leading candidates among African American and Latino voters, two groups he was perceived as struggling with in 2016. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, in the Capitol on Jan. 24, 2019. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images) The source also alluded to a spate of recent polls that show Sanders as the most popular politician in the country. They attributed Sanders strength in the polls to the base and name recognition he built with the prior presidential bid. What the senator has this time that he didnt have last time is he is the most popular elected official in the country right now, the source said. Thats light years away from 2016, when very few people knew who he was. A third source said Sanders bid will begin with an exploratory committee. Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. In addition to these two sources, a former Sanders staffer who had not been briefed on the imminent announcement plans nevertheless said many recent signs suggest he is set to pull the trigger on a presidential campaign. Specifically, the former staffer said Sanders has been building out the infrastructure he would need for a White House bid. Hes already talking to staff and there are people hes hiring. Theyre nailing down contracts with vendors. All the movement is there for him to run, the ex-staffer said. Story continues Although Sanders was ultimately defeated by Clinton last time around, his upstart campaign reshaped the Democratic Party. Sanders ran on a progressive platform that included a focus on eliminating income inequality, on campaign finance reform and an ambitious Medicare for All health care proposal. Those principles have become centerpieces for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and several Sanders-backed candidates won elections last year. But Sanders impact on the Democratic Party went beyond his political vision. The primary battle between Sanders and Clinton was contentious, with Sanders allies contending that Clintons campaign was working in conjunction with the Democratic Party establishment to prevent a Sanders victory. These battles cemented divisions in this party that linger on as the 2020 election approaches. After President Trumps victory over Clinton in 2016, Sanders and his allies pressed for reforms to the Democratic National Committee that would make the partys primary process more open and inclusive of what Sanders termed the working people and young people of our country. Amid Sanders push for reform, the DNC assembled a unity commission to recommend changes that included members chosen by both Sanders and Clinton. Ultimately, the DNC made rules changes that included one of the main items on Sanders agenda, curbing the role of unelected superdelegates in choosing the partys presidential nominee. At the same time, the DNC also adopted a rules change that would make it more difficult for independents like Sanders to seek the partys presidential nomination. In spite of this, Sanders allies consider that this new rule does not hurt his chances, because the Vermont Democratic Party passed a resolution last year recognizing him as a full member. A source who discussed Sanders 2020 plans with Yahoo News confirmed that he will be running as a Democrat. Although he will be entering an extremely crowded Democratic field, Sanders is starting from a formidable position. Early polls of the race have consistently showed him to be one of the top candidates, probably due to the base of support he established in 2016. Sanders allies also believe his prior run could give him a head start organizing in key early primary states. Last October, Pete DAlessandro, Sanderss Iowa state coordinator for the 2016 race, told Yahoo News he was confident the senator would be able to build on the grassroots support and infrastructure he established in 2016 if he made another run. This was a movement. It still is a movement, DAlessandro said. LONDON (Reuters) - The killing of Jamal Khashoggi and Yemen's war have hurt Saudi Arabia's reputation, the chairman of BAE Systems told Sky News, adding Britain as a "critical friend" could help Riyadh refocus on the development push it was making before those crises emerged. The death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, sparked global outrage and mushroomed into a crisis for the world's top oil exporter and strategic ally of the West. It also raised questions about Western business activity in the kingdom where BAE, Britain's biggest defense company, and its partners are currently engaged in a multi-billion pound deal to sell Typhoon fighter planes. "Saudi Arabia was a country that was developing very well under new leadership - a sense of liberalization, opening up the country, opening up to opportunities for women. All these things were being very well received," Chairman Roger Carr told Sky News. "Two issues damaged the position of Saudi Arabia in eyes of the world - the Khashoggi affair is one of them and also the war in Yemen." "On Khashoggi, we have seen that politicians have admonished Saudi Arabia. Politicians didn't believe the way that was done and handled was appropriate or acceptable and that's exactly right," he said. "What we want to see, by being a consistent and critical friend, is that Saudi Arabia, needs to return to the pathway it was on and develop in the way it was." Riyadh is pursuing a plan to diversify the Arab world's largest economy away from reliance on crude revenues, in part by attracting increasing amounts of foreign investment. Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, is locked in a nearly four-year-old war that pits Iran-aligned Houthi rebels against the government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the West. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and caused the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. On Yemen, Carr said: "Our involvement with Saudi Arabia is helping us to take them to a point where a war that is, for them, a defensive war is something that they all recognize as something that needs to be brought to a conclusion as soon as possible." (Reporting by Costas Pitas, Editing by William Maclean) It's not often you hear about layoffs at Apple (AAPL). So it came as a surprise Wednesday when CNBC learned that Apple was removing 200 employees from its self-driving car unit . Apple confirmed the staffing change, but reading between the lines of a spokesperson's statement, it sounds like the move is the latest in the company's broader goal to improve its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities as it faces increased competition from rivals Google (GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN). "As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple," the company spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC Wednesday. Self-driving car technology may still be an important initiative at Apple. But reading between the lines, it looks like it's taking a back seat a Apple beefs up its general AI staff. "I think they're making the decision that, at least in the near term, it's better to have these people doing AI in other projects," said Gene Munster, a venture capitalist and analyst at Loup Ventures. Apple's self-driving car project, called Titan internally, started out with the desire to create an Apple-branded electric car, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015. But over the last few years, Apple has scaled back its ambition and lost leaders and other employees in the process. Today, the unit mostly explores the underlying technology that makes self-driving cars possible. CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly called self-driving "the mother of all AI projects." Since Apple started its self-driving division, the consumer AI space has exploded through the rise of digital assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant and devices like Amazon's Echo. Apple's own digital Assistant, Siri, had a head start when it launched on the iPhone 4S back in 2011, but has not kept up with the competition. Story continues To address the shortfall, Apple hired Google's head of AI John Giannandrea away from the search giant in April. Within a few months, Apple had reorganized its entire AI and machine learning teams under Giannandrea, the company announced to TechCrunch. And just last month, Giannandrea was promoted to Apple's executive team as vice president of machine learning and artificial intelligence strategy. Self-driving may still be an important piece to Apple's AI research. The company said in its statement Wednesday: "We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever." But as far as products go, competition in self-driving and electric vehicles has grown dramatically in the last four years. Waymo, Alphabet (GOOGL)'s self-driving car company, recently opened up its self-driving car service to the public in Phoenix, Ariz., and is widely considered to be the leaders in self driving. Legacy car companies like GM (GM) working on self-driving technology. And it's not just Tesla (TSLA) making electric cars. Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and other legacy car companies have all announced electric vehicles. It's hard to imagine how Apple would stand out. "The sense that I had is they're not as far along as I had hoped," Munster said of Apple's decision to remove the 200 employees out of its car division. "But they still have initiative there." Giannandrea's rapid rise at Apple is the biggest signal yet that Apple intends to invest a lot of time, money and talent in improving AI. Plus, according to leaked comments from Cook at a recent company all-hands meeting reported by Bloomberg, Apple plans to continue hiring in AI "at a strong pace" even as it slows down hiring in other divisions. In short, we're seeing Apple eliminate jobs in self-driving and increase the number of people working more broadly on AI. It may already be paying off. Late last year, a study from Munster's company, Loup Ventures , showed Siri vastly improved its ability to correctly answer a series of 800 questions. The Loup study said Siri answered 74.6 percent of the questions correctly, up 22 percentage points from just nine months earlier. By comparison, Google Assistant answered 87.9 percent of the questions correctly. Alexa got 72.5 percent of the questions right. It's not just about getting questions right, though. The messier problem for Apple is training its AI while convincing users that it's keeping their data secure. Google trains its AI systems in part using the massive amounts of public data available on YouTube and the Google search engine. (It's also started using a program that strives to protect users' data.) But Apple has taken a hard stance against unfettered data collection, and promotes its concern over user privacy as a reason to buy its products. In a speech in Brussels last year , Cook called the privacy practices of companies like Google "surveillance," for example. It also put up a giant ad about its privacy stance in in Las Vegas during CES earlier this month. So Apple will have to continue to improve its AI while sticking to its goal of keeping people's personal information private. "I think it's very clear Apple is a believer in AI and most of the products will be very subtle about how AI is used," Munster said. WATCH: Apple CEO Tim Cook writes op-ed calling for tech privacy regulation Black Migrations is the theme for SIUs Black History Month commemoration by Christi Mathis CARBONDALE, Ill. Illinois NAACP State President Teresa Haley will speak and numerous other special events are planned as Southern Illinois University Carbondale celebrates Black History Month in February. Black Migrations is the theme for the commemoration and all events are open to students, faculty, staff and the community at large. The vast majority of the happenings are free. Activities begin Feb. 4 The Black History Month Kickoff event is set for 6-7:30 p.m. on Feb. 4 at the Student Center Auditorium. SIU Chancellor John M. Dunn will offer opening remarks and the event will feature a musical performance by Matt Wilson, an SIU alumnus. Pamela Smoot, history assistant professor, will speak about The Great Migration: Black Churches, Black Women and the National Urban League. In addition, Gentlemen of Vision, comprised of talented St. Louis area high school students, will perform a step show. Refreshments will follow the program. Maya Angelous Down in the Delta screening and discussion Feb. 5 See Down in the Delta, the acclaimed 1998 dramatic film, at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 5 in the University Museum Auditorium, located on the first floor of Faner Hall. Directed by Maya Angelou, the movie stars Alfred Woodard, Al Freeman Jr., Loretta Devin, Wesley Snipes and Esther Rolle, in her final film role. The tale follows a familys migration from the south northward and then back to the south. A silver candelabra, a family heirloom, is symbolic of the generations within the family, as they move and endure, despite the struggles they encounter along the way. A discussion will follow and refreshments will be served. Keynote on Feb. 7 Haley, who also serves as president of the Springfield NAACP, will share her insights about black migration at 5 p.m. on Feb. 7. The keynote will be held in the Student Center Auditorium. Refreshments follow. Personal impacts highlighted It wasnt easy through the years for African Americans to leave their homes and migrate to other parts of the country and search for better opportunities. Tiffany Player, assistant professor in the history degree program, will highlight some of the personal and family stories of those who made tough choices in hopes of finding a better life for themselves and their families. Her presentation, The Great Migration, will be at 5 p.m. Feb. 18 at the John C. Guyon Auditorium at Morris Library. Expo will highlight successful black businesses Success breeds success and thats what the Black Business Expo is all about. Representatives from more than 15 successful black-owned businesses/vendors in the community will be in the Student Centers International Lounge from 5:30 to 10 p.m. on Feb. 27 to meet with students and give them the opportunity to shop with local black businesses. Music and refreshments will be featured as well. Tunneling oppression Whats it like to walk in someone elses shoes? Those attending the Tunnel experience, set for 5-7:45 p.m. nightly Feb. 20-22, will find out as they are immersed in an interactive experience giving them the opportunity to experience for themselves racism and problems that people struggle with each and every day. Participants will go through a series of specially prepared demonstration areas at the Student Centers Old Main Lounge that simulate prejudice, racism and other biases and exclusionary behaviors. Numerous other activities on tap Many other special events are planned throughout February, including a showing of The Green Book, a reality-based comedy/drama about the unlikely friendship that develops between African-American pianist Don Shirley and his tough Bronx driver/bodyguard as they travel the segregated Deep South during a 1960s tour. Guest speakers, diversity discussions and events, workshops, craft activities, a networking and resources fair and much more are planned. Find the complete schedule of events, and additional details, online. Special exhibits across campus A series of special exhibits will also take place at SIU. Briana Mason, a graduate art student, will display her work in the Art Gallery in the second floor of the Student Center throughout the month and a first-floor window case display will focus on black migrations. In addition, the University Museum will showcase the exhibit Reflections of Migrations in February. Two off-campus events planned In addition, in recognition of Black History Month, an SIU faculty member is involved in special exhibits and discussions in neighboring states. State of Triple-Consciousness, a display of the artwork of Najjar Abdul-Musawwir, SIU art and design professor, will be held at the Clemens Fine Arts Center Gallery at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah during the month of February. The opening reception is Feb. 9 from 6 to 8 p.m. and Abdul-Musawwir will speak at 6:30 p.m. His work is also part of a group exhibit at Kansas City Kansas Community College Art Gallery in Kansas City, Kansas. The exhibition, entitled Good Negroes, seeks to remind viewers of the racism and social issues still alive in America today. The exhibit opened in January and runs through Feb. 28. On Feb. 21 there will be a reception from 4-6:30 p.m. with Abdul-Musawwir and the other participating artists speaking at 5:30 p.m. BHM is campus-wide Black History Month is a collaborative, campus-wide celebration. Organized by the Black Resource Center and Student Multicultural Resource Center, its sponsors also include the Black Affairs Council, Black Graduate Student Association, Department of Africana Studies, Office of the Associate Chancellor for Diversity, SIU University Museum, Morris Library, African Student Council, Student Center, Craft Shop, Department of History, National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, Student Programming Council, Carbondale Elementary School District 95, College of Business and its Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Black Togetherness Organization and the School of Art and Design. The Black History Planning Committee is likewise a synergistic effort with numerous student, faculty and staff members. At long last we are in total glee. Trump's Titanic paper, fake so-named "presidency" is finally and slowly slipping under the waves of sewer. November 2020 is coming. A time to replace a corrupt and rotten presidency that should have never been. A reminder to all in turmoil at seeing this current clown-run administration. On the morning of Abraham Lincoln's death, April 15, 1865, the man who would later become our 20th president (and the second to be assassinated), James Garfield, tried to calm the very alarmed and frenzied crowds in the streets, people who were very scared and uncertain, thinking rebels had struck a counterattack to reignite the Civil War. Garfield ran and yelled out several times at the top of his lungs, knowing Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson was at that moment stoned drunk and frozen in mind: "God reigns and the government in Washington still lives." Such as it is now with a very uneasy nation in constant turmoil, upside down and uncertain by an uncivil-run office in the Oval Office. "It's A Small World" is a memorable song that probably millions have heard, thanks to Walt Disney, who has transported so many of us into a magical kingdom where peace, joy and love has no borders. We remember another great gentleman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream of a country where all of us have the equal rights to enjoy the fruits of not just our labor (except for the 800,000 federal employees who are working without pay), but fresh air, clean water and a land unpolluted by toxic chemicals. His message of non-violence galvanized our nation into grass roots movements that practiced non violence to every living being. It truly is a small world that is shrinking (Antarctica) and sadly in our own country, we see the growing divisions in families and communities over what what we believe is essential and leave no room for dialogue. Perhaps the Disney song writers could create another meaningful song to celebrate the Golden Rule. The words are familiar it just needs a melody. CHRISTIANITY: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. JUDAISM: What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. BUDDHISM: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. When President Trump abruptly announced on Dec. 19 that he was pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, he suggested they were already on the way home. We have won against ISIS, the president said, referring to Islamic State. Our boys, our young women, our men theyre all coming back, and theyre coming back now. His now was premature. More than a month later, the 2,000 or so U.S. military personnel remain in eastern Syria and administration policy remains as much a muddle as ever. American diplomats are still haggling with Turkey over the conditions under which U.S. troops will come out, and the Pentagon has announced no timeline for their removal. The holdup isnt merely logistical. Like it or not and the president often sounds as if he doesnt the United States still has significant interests in Syria. Despite Trumps claim, Islamic State appears stubbornly alive, if not well. Its militants have launched two suicide attacks against U.S. troops in the last week, one of which killed four Americans. Iran, which Trump considers a malevolent enemy, has moved thousands of forces into Syria and could try to grab territory abandoned by U.S. troops as it seeks to further its influence. Finish this article for as low as $1 when you purchase a day pass. Just click the sign up button to purchase. If you are already a subscriber, just click log in to continue reading. This myth has especially pernicious effects on policy debates. Just about everyone overestimatesinternational flows, and people who overestimate them by a wider margin worry more about globalization exacerbating inequality, climate change and other problems. Surveys have shown that simply telling people the actual levels of immigration into their countries reduces the proportion who thinkthere are too many immigrants or that immigration is a problem. Moreover, the fact that distance still matters is the main reason Brexit is such a challenge. Geography alone means that Europe will remain Britain's most important market. 3. Myth No. 3: The U.S. is one of the world's most globalized countries. With politicians at both ends of the ideological spectrum railing against free trade, Americans could be forgiven for supposing that the U.S. economy is especially exposed to competition from imports. Most Americans also grew up thinking of the country as "a nation of immigrants," and until last year, that phrase was even part of the mission statement of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Reynolds said Gunnar showed some of these traits. Their dog was extremely aggressive and on edge, the trainer said. Thats why he was sent to me. Gunnar was not left in a crate alone in a hot environment, said Reynolds. It was 70 degrees the day Gunnar died, he noted. Gunnar was always stressed out, said Reynolds, which he believes led to the dog succumbing to heat stress. In June, the Swanks drove the Oakley address where they believed Gunnar had been trained. Denise Swank said she wanted to see where Gunnar spent his last days and collect his belongings. However, once they arrived, the Swanks found there was no such business at that Oakley address. She could not reach Reynolds and had no idea where he was. Concerned, Denise Swank called the Oakley police. Later it became clear that Gunnar had been held at an address in Antioch instead. In June, Antioch animal control officers visited the Antioch address where they found seven dogs. They included a golden retriever named Finley, a bull mastiff named Xena, a Chihuahua named Cookie, a Doberman also named either Gunnar or Gunner and three other dogs named Favor, Zeus and Rambo. Jackson was seriously injured by that crash, Baslee said, and had recently returned to work after taking time off for a back surgery and using much of her savings. The family created a GoFundMe page to crowd-source donations to defray the cost of medical treatment for injuries including a fractured skull, fractures to both legs and arms, broken ribs and vertebrae, a broken collarbone and shoulder, internal injuries and many abrasions, according to the page. Much of her treatment costs will not be covered because of health insurance exclusions and exceeded maximums, Baslee wrote on the site. A bolt was placed in her head to relieve swelling of the cranium, he wrote. The family had received more than $2,200 in donations toward their $10,000 goal as of Friday. Jackson has already had two surgeries since the accident and will need more, though she seems to be improving, Baslee said. She can now open her eyes, which were once swollen shut, and she spoke in a whisper to her roommate on Tuesday night, Baslee said. The first night that Jackson got a chance to speak, she asked her roommate how her dog, Shiloh, was doing, Baslee said. Thousands of people who lost their homes and much of what made up their lives to the Tubbs fire withstood another blow Thursday when they learned that Cal Fire has cleared PG&E of responsibility for the catastrophic blaze. Tubbs fire victims were strongly represented among those suing the utility giant in the wake of the October 2017 firestorm, when at least 18 major fires swept across Northern California, scorching 137 square miles of Sonoma County. All those fires have since been attributed by the state to PG&E power equipment save one the Tubbs, the most devastating and deadly. Investigators have pointed in that case to private electrical equipment on a Calistoga-area property owned by a 91-year-old Riverside woman and looked after by a local caretaker. Many plaintiffs fear the new report puts millions of dollars in potential legal awards out of reach. Even more, they worry PG&E will not be pressed to make the investments necessary to ensure that no such wildfire can result from their utility equipment. 19252019 Mary Hart Law Harrington passed away peacefully in her home on January 4, 2019. Born in Austin, Texas to Robert Adger Law and Elizabeth Mortimer Manigault, she was always a Southern girl at heart. She joined her older siblings at The University of Texas, where their father was a distinguished professor in the English department, and graduated in 1947 with a degree in Microbiology. She was married for 70 years to Reith Pat Harrington and they lived in Napa, Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. She was a mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She was an active community member, an avid outdoor adventurer, an educator and family historian. She is preceded in death by her husband, Pat Harrington, her sisters Elizabeth Law Hazlett and Joanna Law Martin, her brother Thos. H. Law, and her parents. She leaves behind two daughters, Patricia Harrington and Leslie Robinson, four grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, February 23 at 2:00 PM at the Carmichael Presbyterian Church /Gathering Place located at 5645 Marconi Ave. Carmichael, CA. Donations can be made to Keep Tahoe Blue or The Trees Remember. Police must accept there is insecurity ... The upcoming 2019 general elections will help determine how the country is run over the next five years, so it is important that all South Africans vote. Registrations end on the weekend of 26-27 January 2019, but even if you have registered to vote in the past, you may not be registered to vote at your nearest voting station. This will be the case if you have moved since the last elections. Thankfully, the IEC has ensured that it is possible to change your voters roll details online and it only takes five minutes to action. Heres how it works. Create a profile online To change your address online, youll need to create a profile on the IECs portal. First, youll need to navigate to www.elections.org.za/MyIEC/Account/Login Next, click on the create user profile now text. This will take you to a sign up page, where you will need to fill in the appropriate details. You can choose between using a cellphone number or an email as your means of confirmation. Once youve filled in these details, tick the Privacy Policy box, as well as the Captcha box, and then click on the Create Profile button. You will then be taken to a page that asks you to enter your OTP. This will have been sent to you via text message or email, depending on which confirmation option you chose on the previous page. Once youve confirmed your OTP, youll be taken to a password page. The password your create needs to include at least one upper case letter, one number, and one other symbol. Submit this, and you will be taken to a final registration page where you will be asked to check your information. You will also be asked to enter a security question ensuring that if you forget your password, there is way to prove that you are the registered person. Changing your details Once you have submitted this, you will be taken to your details page. This page displays your current voter address, voter registration details, ward councillor, and municipality details. To change your address, click on the Edit/Update Address button. This will take you to a page that allows you to update your address using one of three methods: Search for your address Insert/update your address Use a map to locate your address Once youve submitted this data, you will be redirected to a warning notice that tells you your voting district is going to change. Tick the required box, and then click Accept. A pop-up box will appear, asking if you are sure you want to continue. Click on Yes to submit your new address. You will then receive an official verification document, signed by the IECs Chief Electoral Officer, that confirms the changes made to your address. Your address should update within an hour of submission, and this will automatically change your voting station to the one closest to your residence. You can check these details by logging into www.elections.org.za/MyIEC/Account/Login with the login details you confirmed earlier in the process. Now read: The secret link between general elections and matric results in South Africa Vodacom is facing a continued onslaught from politicians and a lobby group to reach a mutually-agreed settlement in the Please Call Me matter. This follows a statement by Vodacom earlier this month that its CEO had determined the amount of reasonable compensation payable to Kenneth Makate for his Please Call Me idea. Makate responded to Vodacoms statement, saying he has not agreed to anything and that the amount that the CEO has determined is shocking and an insult. Vodacom retorted, explaining that the Constitutional Court order which ordered it to pay Makate does not require him to agree to the amount set by their CEO. Vodacom said it considers the matter closed, and that Makates funds will be transferred as soon as they have his banking details. Backlash from politicians While Vodacom wants to move on from this issue, politicians and a lobby group called the PleaseCallMe Movement have other ideas. Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams told Vodacom to just shut up recently, urging the company to do the right thing, talk to Makate instead of this poor PR stunt. She added that Vodacom should not talk to us until you have reached a settlement with his team. Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said on Twitter that people must stand by Nkosana Please Call Me Makate against this bully called Vodacom. Lesufi added Makate must be protected from Vodacom and that the company must pay him by the end of the month of face the wrath of the nation. The Saturday Star quoted Lesufi as saying that Vodacom should not ignore us and if they havent resolved the issue by 31 January, we are going to use all means possible. We are going to lobby institutions involved with Vodacom. We need to lobby the state and we want to put pressure on Vodacom internationally, he said. Lesufi added that he has been in contact with South African embassies to get contacts that could assist in pressurising Vodacom overseas. Vodacom shutdown threatened The PleaseCallMe Movement, headed by Modise Setoaba, is threatening to shut down Vodacom on 31 January if a settlement has not been reached. The movement, which claims to be against corporate bullying and consumer injustice, said Vodacom owes Makate R70 billion for his idea. Join us as we will be shutting down Vodaworld in pursuit of justice for Nkosana Makate, a recent flyer reads. Another view With so much focus on the battle between Vodacom and Makate, the true inventor of the Please Call Me service is seldom mentioned. Ari Kahn, who previously consulted for MTN, created the Call Me technology in 2000 and said Vodacom has in private acknowledged him as the inventor of the service. The SA Patent office granted the Call Me patent to Kahn and MTN, and recognised Kahn as the inventor on 22 January 2001. As the true Please Call Me inventor, Kahn believes Makate should not get a cent from Vodacom for his invention. Kahn said Makate was not the originator of Please Call Me, adding that the courts never once ruled he invented the service. You cannot invent an idea which is all he proposed, said Kahn. Kahn said Makate has no rights to the Please Call Me service and no rights to compensation as the Kahn/MTN patent constitutes Prior Art. The entire case has been portrayed as the little guy denied his due by the big bully network to garner sympathy and obfuscate the fact that he did not actually invent the service, Kahn said. We work around the state and we often struggle to make projects work because we dont have enough funding tools, said Andrea Davis, executive director of the Missoula-based housing nonprofit Homeword, in an initial hearing for HB 16 Jan. 11. Its really time that Montana has more solutions to meet these needs. Statistics compiled by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, indicate there isnt a single county in Montana where a worker can comfortably afford a market-rate two-bedroom apartment with a full-time job at the minimum wage. Around Lewistown, for example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development pegs the market rate for a 2-bedroom apartment at $771 a month. For a full-time worker at Montanas $8.50-an-hour minimum wage, averaging $1,445 a month, that would require spending more than half their income on rent. Even in Yellowstone County, or Billings, where the low-income housing coalition says the average renter makes $14.01 an hour, or $2,380 a month, a typical $936-a-month two-bedroom would require 39 percent of that average renters income. Thats well above the 30-percent-of-income threshold housing experts generally consider affordable. At 11:10 p.m. Friday, Butte police released the name of a 29-year-old man they arrested after a high-speed chase that ended in a crash at the intersection of Montana and Galena streets. One woman was transported to the hospital with unknown injuries. John Isaac Flinn has been charged with five felony counts of criminal endangerment along with possession of drug paraphernalia and obstructing a peace officer, according to a release from Sheriff Ed Lester. Flinn also has charges out of Anaconda-Deer Lodge County for felony possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute and felony theft, the release stated. According to Lester, a Butte police officer attempted to stop a Chevy Impala on North Drive Friday night. Police had received information that a suspect in the vehicle was involved in a past shooting incident on Second Street where a couple of shots were fired thought not at anyone and which resulted in no injuries, Lester said. Police believed the suspect might have been armed. It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our beloved brother, Brother David Alexander MacIntyre, CFC, known as Bro Mac to his students and friends. He came into this world the first of seven children born to Bennett and Mary Catherine Kay MacIntyre. Raised in Anaconda, he often spoke of how much he loved his childhood there, as it was filled with freedom and adventure. He cherished time spent with both his McCarthy and MacIntyre grandparents. The family moved to Butte in the summer of 1953. David attended Immaculate Conception Elementary School and graduated from Boys Central High School in 1958. He entered the Congregation of Christian Brothers and moved to New Rochelle, New York where he completed his Bachelors Degree at Iona College in 1962. He went on to receive his Masters in English from DePaul University in 1973. David began his teaching career at Brother Rice High School in Chicago, Illinois, where he taught from 1962-1967. From 1967-1980, he taught and later served as Principal of St. Laurence High School in Burbank, Illinois, where he was the youngest principal in the order. In 1980, he moved to Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where he spent 38 years. He taught French and Latin and eventually became an academic advisor. David loved both his vocation and his students. He was entered into the Brother Rice Hall of Fame in 2001 for extraordinary dedication, love, concern, leadership and enthusiasm for Brother Rice High School. This year he celebrated his 60th anniversary as an Irish Christian Brother. Cassie Wick, specialist with the Montana Independent Living Project, said the first Butte Womens Day fashion show drew tears from audience members. Watching someone filled with joy theres nothing more powerful than that, Wick said. In the year that followed, many of the original models came back for a second round of runway walking, and the event drew around 20 girls to the catwalk and 200 attendees. That year was more about sass, Wick said, as the models came even more prepared, replete with hip pops and runway attitude. Reavis and Wick said the event has become so popular that some of the models in the upcoming show, March 6, are coming back for a third year, and men with disabilities have been clamoring to participate too. New to Butte Womens Day this year is the art exhibit. The exhibit is intended to give artists from all walks of life the confidence to do something that for many people can be a scary thing: putting ones creative work on display. The exhibit is open to any artist, regardless of ability or gender. Also new is the addition of kid-friendly activities, in the form of crafts, games and more. As for Reavis, shell be on the sidelines March 6. 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If you choose to engage in such transactions with or without seeking advice from a licensed and qualified financial advisor or entity, then such decision and any consequences flowing therefrom are your sole responsibility. Just read in Friday's Missoulian that Montana U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte and nine other Republican representatives took an excursion down to the southern border on a supposed fact finding trip. In that it is unlikely they drove there, how did these congressmen manage a flight when the president has suggested that congressional public relations junkets were to be discontinued while he has the government partially shut down over that same southern border. Maybe Gianforte took the group on his private jet. One has to admire the representatives collective moxie and courage though, going to such a dangerous spot while Department of Homeland Security personnel were being forced to work without pay. James Wood, Missoula You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 3 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 5 Morsos argument that he didnt need to be licensed to help teens using drugs is similar to what he told a Wyoming court when the program he directed there was being sued for providing treatment to delinquent teens without a license. He argued a license wasn't required because they were treating youth who werent necessarily addicted yet. Morso's partner, Lavigne, is currently fighting a protection order from his former girlfriend of eight years, who seeks to prohibit him from coming within several hundred feet of her or her two children, ages 15 and 11. The two have been involved in back-and-forth protection orders stemming from their April breakup, but the woman says stalking, threats and physical violence permeated their eight-year relationship. PAARPs inspection of Petty Creek Ranch took place before Lavignes legal tangles with his ex-girlfriend so the board would not have known about Lavignes issues unless Petty Creek self-reported. Petty Creek's website lists two licensed clinical social workers and one person with a master's degree in social work, all from the Sunburst Mental Health organization. The PAARP board granted Petty Creek's license with the stipulation the program be inspected within a year. As of Jan. 16, that had not been done. Tiffanie Pierce, charged in a double homicide and dismemberment case, will stand trial in Missoula County if an impartial jury can be seated. Friday, Judge Jim Wheelis denied, at least for the time being, a change of venue request in Missoula County District Court. The defense team argued that many potential jurors in Missoula already had formed negative opinions about the defendant given wide publicity in the case. Pierce was charged in the killings of Jackson Wiles, 24, and Marilyn Pickett, 15, whom police found dismembered and partially dissolved in tubs of chemicals in August 2017. "Frankly, the drama in this case is going to affect a potential panel wherever we go," Wheelis said. The judge agreed jury selection would be difficult, but he requested double the number of potential jurors be called and said he did not believe the task was "insurmountable." The judge and lawyers also discussed issuing a questionnaire that would help streamline selection in the case set for trial in five weeks. But in asking for a suspended sentence, which would not wash off Overmier's record, Missoula Deputy County Attorney Mark Handelman contended that Jordyn Courter's allegations were not isolated. Courter gave the Missoulian permission to use her name in this story. "As cases like these unravel, more and more come out and this is apparent that it's not some one-off where he made a mistake," Handelman said. "There should not be an opportunity for him to remove this from his record after today. It should be an accurate reflection of the crime he committed moving forward." Courter told her story to the Missoulian last year, while multiple former employees described a culture of harassment and discrimination at Wagg'n Indoor Dog Park that led to criminal investigations, Human Rights Bureau complaints two of which ended with voluntary resolution agreements and confidentiality stipulations and Overmier's change-of-plea hearing on the assault charge Friday. Many former employees described Overmier's drinking as a catalyst to his alleged inappropriate behavior at Wagg'n. Two former employees said they carried pepper spray at work. "If we don't see 'em, we track them down. We call them. We email them," Hill said. The teachers also show the students the different possibilities for their career paths and the foundation they rest on. Hill said they share the rich tradition of ceramics with students from historical figures such as Autio and Peter Voulkos and the emergence of newer centers such as the Clay Studio of Missoula and the Red Lodge Clay Center. The faculty point them to graduates from the program with "extremely successful careers," and they lead them to places where they can find their own inspiring artists. "One thing I want them to understand is that this is possible," Hill said. "There is so much said about, 'You're going to be a starving artist.'" On the other hand, he said some students won't leave UM to have big careers as artists. In the studio, though, they will learn to think about how to solve problems as they work with others, he said, and they'll learn from failures. In some cases, they'll learn from surprises. In a brief exchange in the studio, Galloway recalled the time she brought a chicken to class without a cage. That year, the students followed their "live model" bustling around the studio, and their sculptures that semester showed hens on the run. Of course, the TSA and FAA air traffic controllers are still working without pay so we feel for those employees who continue to be dedicated to the safety of the aviation systems, said the airports director Jeff Wadekamper. However, several Helena-area businesses and organizations have pitched in to help ease the blow for these and other federal employees not currently receiving a salary. Mediterranean Grill, Skywest Airlines, the Helena Airport Authority and a local couple have all delivered a number of free meals to affected employees at the airport, Wadekamper said. A local church even raised funds and offered cash donations to all of the TSA employees at the airport, he said, but they declined the money because of federal ethics standards. Helena Food Share is open to anyone who needs it, and Executive Director Bruce Day said several federal employees have already stopped by to pick up groceries. The food bank is located at 1616 Lewis St. and is open from 12:30-6 p.m. on Mondays and 12:30-3:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. The middle of a snowstorm seemed an odd time to inspect a fire truck. But that's when wildland firefighters dont have to worry about putting their gear in harms way. So thats when Richard Grady drove out to the Wye west of Missoula to put Paul Hendrens new support water tender through its paces. Grady has the contract to certify private operators for the U.S. Forest Service Region 1. However, he has no idea when his federal partners will see his results. The federal government shutdown hit 35 days on Friday when its end was announced. That time was typically when hundreds of private businesses throughout the fire-prone West learned what their federal partners expect of them for the coming season. This year, Grady said they're relying on one another to get ready. The shutdown is affecting everyone involved, Grady said. Some people have their agreements with the Forest Service already in place. But the (contract) renewals come out in the next couple months. All the people who want to get in the business are on hold. And theyre investing a lot of money. On Wednesday, Grady poked into every cranny of Hendrens twin-axle Peterbilt truck, checking for safety features. Hendren, of Arlee, plans to get into the wildfire support business this summer. I was drawn to Montana with its high veteran population, its scenery, and there is the mystery element of the culture there, she told reporter Brian DAmbrosio. Mickey is not victimized by her circumstances, and like the teenage girls I met in Anaconda, shes decisive and self-confident, and I admired that in them. The film centers on Mickeys relationship with her father, who controls Mickey in ways Attanasio identified with. I hope to spark conversations about patriarchy in home life and to make women who have been in similar dynamics feel seen, she said. Anaconda turned out to be the perfect spot to film Attanasios movie she was inspired by the town, landscape and people in a way that felt right for the film. Montanans will easily recognize many landmarks of the town. We were able to secure several locations to film at that were specifically written into the script, producer Lizzie Shapiro told the Missoulian in October. Places that capture the spirit of Anaconda, like the fight scene under the neon at Club Moderne, and the dad character works at the Washoe Theater. In her email, Attanasio said its a priority to screen the film at the Washoe Theatre in Anaconda and was working on other screenings in the state. I am also hoping we get to play all over Montana, Attanasio said. Stay tuned. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Staying in? We've got you covered Get the recommendations on what's streaming now, games you'll love, TV news and more with our weekly Home Entertainment newsletter! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Donna Oblongata, a theater artist formerly based in Missoula, is returning with a one-woman show. She'll present "All 100 Fires" at FreeCycles, 732. S. First St. W., on Monday, Jan. 28. The show starts at 8 p.m. Suggested donation is $10-$15, but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. No children are allowed due to mature content. "All 100 Fires" was performed last year at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. According to FringeArts.com, the plot goes something like this: "At a guerrilla base camp, a retired clockmaker weighs who needs to be purged from the ranks. Meanwhile, the turkey trapped in Audubons Birds of America takes flight to escape the page. Eventually, it all burns to the ground." According to her website, Oblongata founded The Missoula Oblongata in 2005, which she describes as "a touring punk rock theater company." The show is directed by Francesca Montanile Lyons and has puppet and production design by Patrick Costello. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Idahos stores might want to stock up on sunblock. The American Association for Nude Recreation is holding its annual convention in Worley, Idaho, at the Sun Meadow Resort from Aug. 12-19. A typical convention brings 200-300 people, according to spokesperson Mary Jane Kolassa. Yes, the AANR is real. And no, it is not a new organization; it has been around for 88 years. According to its website, the AANR has served 213,000 individuals from North America and has more than 230 clubs. There is a Northwest chapter headquartered in Worley consisting of 14 clubs. There are regional conventions as well. If youre curious about what the AANR actually does, here is a summary from a press release sent Wednesday: For 88 years, AANR has been the leading authority in North America on protecting the freedoms and rights of those who participate in wholesome, family-style nude recreation. Members of AANR believe that life is enhanced by the naturalness of social nudity and encourages Nakation vacations as healthy, eco-friendly transformational travel experiences. What does one do at this convention? According to a release, the event will consist of meetings and seminars that embrace the joy of living ... in the most natural way possible: clothes-free. Affected agencies are IESDB, Idaho Department of Correction and Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections, Darcy said. A work group developed an equivalency plan for those agencies three phases of pay raises a couple of years after the career ladder took effect. Were already kind of a couple of years behind, Darcy said. Little recommended funding for the third and final phase of that plan. The plan has allowed compensation to be increased similarly to their public school counterparts, while placing a premium on their specialization in Deaf or Blind Education, according to IESDBs budget request. Little also recommended funding for another speech-language pathologist on ISDBs Gooding campus. Theres currently one speech-language pathologist on campus and one assistant. Since nearly all students on campus require speech therapy, its not enough, Darcy said. Another line item: five new vehicles, which employees use to travel among schools regionally to provide services. The vehicles gain an average of 15,000 miles per year, Darcy said, and several cars have logged more than 120,000 miles and need to be replaced. Many times you might have found the multiple casinos available in the online market but when you are going to... One chunk of that trapped cold air went to Siberia, another to Scandinavia, and the third piece is heading through Canada. On Wednesday, it will be over northern Michigan, he said. The polar vortex rarely plunges as far south as the U.S., with the last big plunge on Jan 6, 2014, when Chicago's temperature dipped to minus-16. But the region first must deal with another snowstorm. The Alberta Clipper storm will begin dumping snow over parts of the Northern Plains on Saturday afternoon, with the system moving east and south across southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois before heading to the East Coast. The Northeast could see disruptive snow Tuesday and Wednesday, and even the South may see accumulating snow. "The potential exists for the storm to drop a swath of 6 inches or more, potentially along the corridor from Fargo, North Dakota, to Minneapolis; Green Bay, Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski said in a news release. There can be a dramatic difference between heavy snowfall and then little to no snow and temperatures climbing above freezing over a span of about 50 to 100 miles. The exact track of the storm will determine which areas are hit by or escape the snowstorm." A Democratic Party exchange of an ardent stripe illustrates the refined and chivalrous character of that party by the courteous manner in which it speaks of those who differ with it in opinion. Thus it characterizes Carl Schurz as an infidel freebooter and carpetbagger, Congressman Kelly as a lying and cowardly cur, Sen. Sumner as a thing who is altogether wanting in the attributes of manhood, Sen. Chandler as the whisky meter of the Michigan Jacobins, Hannibal Hamlin as the negro-elect from Maine, Gen. Butler as a well-known thief, Sen. Morrill as the fellow from Maine who didnt get re-elected, and Sen. Brownlow as a lying, crawling, virulent and remorseless old tapeworm from the bowels of Tennessee. The Electoral College was an unwanted child from the beginning. Born in Philadelphia in mid-August 1787, when most delegates to the Constitutional Convention were eager to escape the heat and humidity and go home, it was the fruit of a compromise between the two warring factions at the convention: those who wished to revise the Articles of Confederation and retain sovereignty in the states, and those who wished to replace the articles by shifting sovereignty to a fully empowered national government. In effect, should the United States remain a confederation or become a nation-sized republic? There was no consensus on an answer to that question, and the Electoral College accurately reflected the impasse. Neither side was happy with the result. James Madison, at this stage of his career an ardent nationalist, left Philadelphia in September believing he had failed. Later canonized as the Father of the Constitution, Madison confided to friends that the document he had just signed was fatally flawed because the principle of state sovereignty survived in two places, the Senate (where small states get the same vote as big states) and the Electoral College (where votes again arent apportioned by population only). Though it began We the people, the Constitution did not really mean those words, Madison said, and for that reason, would not last for long. CHICAGO It seems like every week theres a new Rorschach test that determines what kind of person you are and, therefore, whether youre someones political ally or enemy. The one that most recently emerged to annoy and inflame was a Gillette ad, which debuted its post-#MeToo messaging that we all need to dump the best a man can get for the best a man can be. The 30-second television spot, and its minute-and-a-half longer version, depicted men throwing off the apologist phrase boys will be boys, and it soon set off mens-rights activists, who felt the portrayals were demeaning. The ads message was: Bullying. Harassment. Is this the best a man can get? Its only by challenging ourselves to do more, that we can get closer to our best. Instead of excuses, we need to make a change. What some men intuited, however, was that Gillette was unfairly wagging its finger at their nonexistent boorishness and so-called toxic masculinity. Other men were infuriated that the ad portrayed them as having no self-control and seemed to suggest that attempting to speak to a pretty girl walking down the street amounted to an action that requires a friends intervention. After a series of setbacks that caused months of delays, a small grocery aims to open by the end of the month in Madisons Allied-Dunns Marsh neighborhood, bringing fresh food to an area that has been without a dedicated grocery store for a decade. Renovation work is finished, distributors are lined up and employees are being hired in anticipation of opening, said Mariam Maldonado, who owns Lunas Groceries along with her husband, Joe Maldonado. But the race to the finish line has been bumpy. Windows at the building a former payday loan store at 2010 Red Arrow Trail have been smashed, asbestos was unexpectedly found in the floor, and the historic Aug. 20 rainstorm flooded the store and destroyed two freezers and a bakery case donated by UW Health, she said. We took everything out, and the little bit that we left from before, the water damage made sure that we took that out, Mariam Maldonado said. It made things difficult because we had to do the work twice. She estimates these setbacks have caused about $55,000 in damage. When I said that, I always believed and I still believe that Josh Kaul as the Attorney General will follow the law and will go according to what they put together in the lame-duck session, Evers said. The day after the televised address, Evers changed course, as a spokeswoman said Wednesday that he had not directed Kaul to take any specific course of action. Kauls office then announced Thursday that it would seek approval from the Joint Finance Committee to withdraw from the lawsuit, consistent with the widespread understanding of the newly rewritten law. Speaking Friday, Evers said he always understood and meant to convey that withdrawing from the lawsuit would require finance committee approval. So in my worldview and I know thats not everyones worldview theres nothing inconsistent with what I said and whats actually going to happen, Evers said. Evers public about-face came amid the release of memos penned by Kaul and the Legislatures nonpartisan reference bureau, both saying the governor lacks authority to unilaterally order the state to withdraw from the lawsuit without the finance committees approval. The University of Wisconsin System will use federal money to pay off bank loans taken out by the UW-Oshkosh Foundation, according to agreements released Friday. The UW System paid $6.3 million to banks using federal money designated for administrative costs meaning no state taxpayer money or tuition dollars, according to UW System spokeswoman Heather LaRoi. This money comes from reimbursements for administrative costs already incurred by the UW System related to federal grant activity at UW campuses. At the close of fiscal year 2018, the UW System had about $9.5 million in federal money from this fund that had accrued over the last decade, according to LaRoi. UW-Oshkosh will pay back the UW System $3.825 million in annual installments of $191,250 from January 2020 through July 2038, according to the agreement. The annual payments will be made with money from the Witzel biodigester, which turns organic waste into energy. The UW System Board of Regents assumed ownership of the biodigester along with the UW-Oshkosh Alumni Welcome and Conference Center.The payments related to the bankrupty case stem from a building projects controversy surrounding the universitys foundation, a nonprofit organization primarily funded through private donations and investments to help the university. Please register or log in to keep reading Stay logged in to skip the surveys. WATERTOWN Law enforcement agencies, including the Dodge County Sheriffs Office, were on hand on Thursday while search warrants were conducted at two establishments in the Watertown area. According to a press release issued by Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, the sheriffs office along with Watertown Police Department, town of Emmet/Lebanon Police Department assisted federal law enforcement agencies with the search warrants. The search warrants occurred at Wild Rose Gentlemans Club, 4808, N866 County Road R, and Dew Drop Inn, 1027 N 4th St., Watertown. Schmidt said in the press release that the sheriffs office has no further information at this time as it is an ongoing federal investigation and the sheriffs office is only assisting in the investigation. It is the second time in recent months that a federal warrant was served at a Dodge County strip club. Federal, state and local authorities executed a search warrant at The Hardware Store, 942 Main St., Clyman, on Nov. 2. Officials did not release any information about what was found or the nature of the warrant at the time. The Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage remains on lockdown status after 11 days, and details about why are sparse. Wisconsin Department of Corrections deputy communications director Clare Hendricks confirmed Thursday the prison went into lockdown status Jan. 14 and remains on lockdown because authorities are conducting a routine search for possible contraband that might have been introduced to the facility at any time. Lockdowns at institutions are periodically done in order to conduct a safe and thorough search, Hendricks said. Our staff continue to perform the search of the facility, and as the search progresses, the status of the lockdown will be monitored. Citing safety concerns, Hendricks could not say specifically what sort of illegal smuggled goods authorities are searching for. She also could not specify which prison staff or authorities might be involved in any possible investigations. Hendricks said all of the 840 inmates have received all their meals in their cells during the lockdown, including at least one hot meal per day. She said the staff are conforming to caloric and nutritional standards for all meals. Inmates are able to shower on a routine basis while the lockdown is in effect, Hendricks said. WisOpinion.com Insiders Scott Jensen and Chuck Chvala weigh in on whether Gov. Evers can find common ground with the Legislature in this week's "2 Minute Take." Jensen, a Republican, was a member of the Wisconsin Assembly from 1992-2006, majority leader in 1994-1995, and speaker from 1995-2002. Chvala, a Democrat, is a former Wisconsin Senate majority leader. He was in the Senate from 1985-2003. None other than Joseph Stalin famously intoned that one persons death is a tragedy, but the death of millions is a statistic. At a certain point, very large numbers become incomprehensible. Wisconsins Legislature recently declared it would not accept federal Medicaid dollars, despite new Gov. Tony Evers' expressed desire to do so. And the figures are huge. First, there are the people who will not receive health coverage because Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald are saying "nyet" to Wisconsinites. As a result, 60,000 to 80,000 state residents who are between 100 and 133 percent of the federal poverty line will be denied health care coverage. That's enough people to fill Camp Randall. Then, theres the money, and this is where it gets really weird. The federal subsidy for health care would amount to a whopping $190 million a year for Wisconsin. To paraphrase Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen, "A million here, a million there and pretty soon you are talking about real money." At this point one might ask why on earth would public officials who claim to be fiscal conservatives reject this massive infusion of cash into the Wisconsin economy? Wouldnt this extra money generate additional economic activity? Any first-year economics student would know that, of course, it would! Im sure that I would be penalized for that, she said. She also contended that a liberal bias permeates the university, forcing her and other students to compromise their views to achieve good grades. Students have messaged me and said that they have had to change their opinions just to get an A in a class, she said, so Im certainly not the first person that this has happened to. The post also prompted a letter to Mayer Wednesday from state Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities, in which Murphy said he was appalled by your politically polarized characterization of the Trump presidency. Placing hyper-partisan value judgments on contemporary actions of the president, as an introduction to a course in a syllabus, has a chilling effect on any future class discourse, he wrote. He called the course description a slap in the face to the sort of academic rigor that should be a central focus at an institution such as UW-Madison. Still, the WEF has struggled to shake off the impression that it hosts champagne-swilling executives more interested in their bottom line and power-hungry politicians more interested in polishing their global image than in the state of the world. Brazils new president, Jair Bolsonaro, pledged to work in harmony with the world to cut carbon emissions. The nationalist leader has faced international concern that his country could allow far more aggressive deforestation in the oxygen-rich Amazon. But he provided no details and was asked no probing questions by the WEF organizers about his policies. Several hundred environmentalists and political activists waved green and red flags as they demonstrated their opposition to the WEF and capitalism in Davos snow-and ice-covered streets Thursday. One sign read: Let them eat money. The forums organizers were already on the defensive after a charter-flight company cited estimates that a record number of private jet flights headed to Davos this year. They published a rebuttal, insisting they issue carbon offsets and labeled flying by private jet as the worst way to travel to Davos, which is merely two hours from Zurich by car. Christoph Kohler, who heads a company that tracks the aviation industry, said precise figures on business jet flights from the area werent yet available. Stone was one of Trump's earliest political advisers, encouraging both his presidential runs. He briefly served on Trump's 2016 campaign, but was pushed out amid infighting with then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Stone continued communicating with Trump on occasion and stayed plugged into the circle of advisers both formal and informal who worked with and around Trump. According to the indictment, many of Stone's conversations during the campaign involved WikiLeaks. The indictment lays out in detail Stone's conversations about stolen Democratic emails posted by the group in the weeks before Trump, a Republican, beat Clinton. Mueller's office has said those emails, belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, were hacked by Russian intelligence officers. The document says that by June and July 2016, Stone had told senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating that WikiLeaks had obtained documents that could be damaging to Clinton's campaign. After the July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, the indictment says a senior Trump campaign official "was directed" to contact Stone about additional releases and "what other damaging information" WikiLeaks had "regarding the Clinton campaign." The indictment does not name the official or say who directed the outreach to Stone. Bass vocalist DeAndre Simmons will be the featured performer in the Lompoc Music Association's concert scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 27, at the Valley of the Flowers United Church of Christ. LEXINGTON Lexington Public Schools alumni may recall being called out of class at some point in the school year and heading outside to the mosaic painted trailer the Nebraska Lions Club used to perform health screenings as part of their Mobile Screening Unit. Today they dont need the trailer, but the health screenings of Nebraska students is being carried out more efficiently than ever. The idea to offer mobile health screenings to Nebraska residents was considered by the Nebraska Lions Foundation in 1983. The idea was novel, load up a bus with all the equipment necessary to provide people with information about their health they may not be able to get anywhere else. The inception of the Mobile Screening Unit was in 1987, according to the Nebraska Lions MD 38 website. Originally it was a Bluebird bus converted to the Lions screening needs, then to the 48 foot trailer many former Lexington students may remember. Now all their equipment can be hauled inside a cargo van as the screening technology has gotten smaller and more efficient, according to the Lions website. GOTHENBURG The Gothenburg Improvement Company has announced it is under contract to purchase the former home of the Baldwin Filters manufacturing plant with the intention of attracting another employer to Gothenburg. Those efforts are thanks to a community-wide push to approve an LB 840 economic development program in response to the announcement in October 2017 that the plants operations would be consolidated with the facility in Kearney. "We are excited for the opportunity to purchase this asset for the community of Gothenburg, and we have already begun marketing it to prospective businesses," said Nate Wyatt, President of the Gothenburg Improvement Company ("GIC"). "This is the result of a tireless effort on the part of community leaders to provide a solution to the Baldwin announcement." Blackstone agreed to unlock his phone for Lexington Police officers during questioning. Messages revealed a "serious" relationship, according to court documents. Blackstone said he did not like the minors parents and stayed in contact with the minor via Instagram. He also admitted to having sexual conversations with the minor. He also said he had sexual contact with the minor while in Norton, Kan. Officers spoke with the minor who said Blackstone had grabbed her and kissed her, which was against her wishes but "he did it anyway," according to court documents. Blackstone was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, third degree sexual assault and debauching a minor. He bonded out of jail for $2,000 on Aug. 23, 2018 and pleaded not guilty to all three charges the same day. On Nov. 29, 2018 the charges of third degree sexual assault and debauching a minor were dismissed by prosecutor Kurt McBride. A full investigation into the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor was ordered by Judge Wightman, according to court documents. On Jan. 15, 2018 Blackstone was sentenced to 180 days in jail on the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He was given credit for four days served in jail. He was booked into the Dawson County Jail on Jan. 15. Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki has become the first female artist in the Arab world to be nominated for an Academy Award, or Oscar. Labaki directed the film Capernaum, a film about a Syrian refugee boy and a Kenyan baby who live without parents on the streets of Beirut. It was nominated for best foreign language film. Labaki will be the only female directors to compete for an Oscar this year. She told the Associated Press, I wish there were a lot more women filmmakers this year represented, nominated in the Oscars. But I am sure in a few years we wont be having this problem anymore. Unlike in the West, women filmmakers are industry leaders in Lebanon. Capernaum is Labakis third full-length film. In her home country, the 44-year old mother of two children is a unifying figure among political and religious divisions. Labaki first became famous as a director of music videos for top Arab pop stars. Capernaum received a 15-minute standing ovation at this years Cannes Film Festival. It won the Jury Prize the third-highest award given at Cannes. The United Nations has publicly praised the film. Lebanons Foreign Minister said Capernaum put a Lebanese touch on the international film industry. The Oscar nomination of Capernaum is the second for Lebanon in two years in the foreign film group. It demonstrates the countrys rising star power. Labaki called making the movie a life-changing experience. She said Capernaum helps humanize the real struggles of refugees only briefly talked about in the news. We cant help but acknowledge that there is afear of refugees in general around the world and there are these walls we are building, and this fear that keeps growing, Labaki said. As she observed her small country struggling with a growing number of refugees, Labaki said she felt it was her duty to speak out against governments failing to deal with the crisis. Lebanon has one of the largest populations of Syrian refugees in the Arab world. And their story is very painful, Labaki said. Both main characters in the film are refugees in real life. The Syrian child, Zain, has now found a home in Norway. And the young Kenyan, Yonas, has returned home. Labaki plans to make a documentary film on the lives of both children in the future. Capernaum will compete against four other films for the Oscar, including awards season favorite Roma. Directed by Mexicos Alfonso Cuaron, it earned 10 Oscar nominations, including for best picture. The Academy Awards ceremony is Hollywoods biggest night of the year. It will be held on February 24 in Los Angeles, California. Im Ashley Thompson. Sarah El Deeb reported this story for The Associated Press. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story standing ovation n. an occurrence in which the people at an event stand up and applaud to show enthusiastic approval or appreciation acknowledge v. to say that you accept or do not deny the truth or existence of something character n. a person who appears in a story, book, play, movie or television show documentary n. a movie or television program that tells the facts about actual people and events Saturday, January 26, 2019 In an emotional and highly-divisive vote, the Greek Parliament voted 153-146 to approve its neighbor's name change from FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) to North Macedonia. The measure will now allow North Macedonia to join NATO and the European Union. The Republic of Macedonia had declared independence in 1991 during the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Greece blocked the Republic of Macedonia from joining NATO and the European Union because it objected to the name. Greece feared that the name chosen would eventually lead that country to claim the Greek province of Macedonia as its own. Many Greeks will still reject the name North Macedonia, as seen by the closeness of the parliamentary vote. But the Greek Parliament's approval of the new name will now clear the way for North Macedonia to join both NATO and the European Union. (mew) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/international_law/2019/01/fyrom-becomes-north-macedonia.html HBCU NEWS: Curators Masters Degree in Works NEW ORLEANS (AP) A historically black university in New Orleans has been awarded a grant to develop a new graduate degree for museum and gallery professionals. The Helis Foundation provided the grant to develop a masters degree in curatorial practice and exhibition management at Xavier University of Louisiana, the school said in a news release Thursday. People of color have been underrepresented in the field of curatorial practices and in museum fields in general, said Jessie Schott Haynes, managing director of The Helis Foundation. It has been demonstrated that increasing diversity among curators and preparators will generate new ideas, innovation, and engagement with art and serve audiences in a more authentic way. ADVERTISEMENT The news release says Xavier has an established collections management department and emerging gallery space. The universitys director of African-American and diaspora studies, Dr. Sarah Clunis, and art professor Ron Bechet will lead development of the program. Clunis said the program can also help students in areas including communications, mass communications, business, music, and art because the skills will let them manage business expos, create set designs for theaters and movies, and plan general events. The program will also benefit those enrolled in the humanities as students can enhance their undergraduate degrees in such fields as history, philosophy, and theology with curatorial and exhibition management skills that will qualify them for work in a variety of museum fields, she said. Manheim Borough police DRUG CHARGES MANHEIM: Jared Lannon, 26, of Lebanon Road, was charged with a single count each of possessing a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop along South Hudson Alley on Dec. 19, police said. MANHEIM: Delaney Miller, 26, was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia following a police response to a disturbance Jan. 6, police said. MANHEIM: Daniel Eshleman, 32, of Crescent Drive, was charged with possession of marijuana following a warrant service Jan. 14, police said. MANHEIM: Luis Corea, 37, of Lebanon, was charged with possession of marijuana following a traffic stop Jan. 21, police said. MANHEIM: Jove Heller, 26, was charged with possession of a controlled substance and flight to avoid apprehension. During a warrant service Jan. 6, Heller attempted to escape through a bathroom window, police said. Ephrata police THEFT CHARGES EPHRATA: Michael P. Marshall, 39, of Gap, was charged with theft after stealing a motorcycle from a garage Oct. 24 in the 100 block of Park Avenue, police said. He was arrested Jan. 25, police said. Lancaster police AGGRAVATED ASSAULT LANCASTER: A person reported being stabbed in the shoulder Jan. 18 at McDonalds, 210 W. King St., police said. DUI LANCASTER: Celine M. Graham-Morris, 22, of the 1000 block of Columbia Avenue, was charged Jan. 24 in the first block of North Queen Street, police said. ROBBERY LANCASTER: A male reported he was hit on the head by two males and had his Social Security card taken Jan. 15 in the 400 block of North Market Street, police said. SHOTS FIRED LANCASTER: Two employees of the Boys and Girls Club reported hearing three shots Jan. 23 around 2:45 p.m. from the alley beside the club 116 S. Water St. Two shell casings were found in the alley, police said. THEFT LANCASTER: A silver Subaru Forester was reported stolen Jan. 23 from the 100 block of North Charlotte Street, police said. LANCASTER: Four tires were reported stolen off a car between Jan. 22 and 23 while it was parked at South Duke Auto Repair, 1039 S. Duke St., police said. LANCASTER: A females purse was stolen from her private emergency room Jan. 22 at Lancaster General Hospital, 555 N. Duke St., police said. LANCASTER: A maroon Saturn was stolen Jan. 21 while it was left running to warm up in the 700 block of High Street, police said. LANCASTER: Keys were stolen after being left in a lock of a business in the 700 block of North Duke Street on\!q Jan. 21, police said. LANCASTER: A black-and-silver Smith & Wesson 40 VE handgun was stolen from a locked vehicle Jan. 18 while it was parked on South Ann and King streets, police said. LANCASTER: A vehicle was stolen outside a home in the 1300 block of Union Street on Jan. 18, police said. The owner told police he started the vehicle, left the keys inside and went inside to get a shovel for the sidewalk. LANCASTER: A cellphone was stolen from a female waiting in the Lancaster General Hospital waiting room Jan. 16, police said. LANCASTER: Cash totaling $500 and several medications were stolen from the 100 block of North Charlotte Street between Jan. 2 and 16, police said. LANCASTER: A male reported 9 mm handgun he kept in a lock box in his home in the 500 block of Poplar Street was stolen between Jan. 2 and 16, police said. LANCASTER: A resident of the 600 block of Joseph Street reported he bought a camera through Facebook Marketplace on Dec. 22 from a male in Maryland, paid for the camera but has not received the camera, police said. State police BURGLARY SALISBURY TWP.: Items were reported taken from a home in the 600 block of Narvon Road Jan. 23. Police ask anyone with information to call 717-299-6750. DUI DRUMORE TWP.: Charles Delbert Knowles, 19, of Maryland, was charged with driving under the influence of drugs and possession of marijuana after a traffic stop Jan. 21 in the 100 block of Osceola Drive, police said. After months of uncertainty, the famous split-flap board guiding Amtrak riders in Philadelphia for decades is being dismantled and temporarily moved to a museum in Strasburg. Also known as a Solari board, it will be completely removed this weekend, according to a joint statement by U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle of Philadelphia and Amtraks Vice President for Stations and Facilities David Handera. While the board will indeed be transferred to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, as museum Director Patrick Morrison had hoped, the sign will be there only until it can be reincorporated into the station for everyone to enjoy, Handera said. Temporary boards have already been installed at the Philadelphias 30th Street Station, while a permanent digital replacement is in the works, according to a news release accompanying the statement. Boyle, a Democrat, reached out to Amtrak in December after learning of the removal plans, which included a final home for the board at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. His efforts to save the board and have it remain in Philadelphia garnered attention and placed the Strasburg transfer in doubt. Announcing the removal, Boyle recognized the aging sign did not meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements but added there is tremendous opportunity to achieve these aims (of accessibility) in a manner that also retains the iconic character of the Solari sign of which thousands of passengers have spoken out in support. A change.org petition late last year garnered 2,300 signatures in support of keeping the clattering board at the station. I remain committed to continuing my advocacy with Amtrak to achieve such a resolution. Morrison, the railroad museum director, said Friday that officials were working on logistical means to get the sign to Strasburg, declining to detail any plans for it ahead of its receipt get ahead of its receipt on any further plans. On Thursday, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that his new lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, will facilitate a statewide conversation on legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Pennsylvania by holding a series of town hall-style sessions. But the idea of legalizing marijuana is one that most of Lancaster Countys state legislators oppose, at least at this point. And Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman answered LNPs request for comment with a lengthy statement, which can be read in full at the bottom of this story. Making a dangerous drug legal does not make it any less dangerous," he wrote, saying there are benefits to not being on the cutting edge of legalization and waiting for more data and at least one long-term study of the use of the high-level-THC marijuana sold today. He also wrote that he does not believe people should be in jail for possessing marijuana, and noted that the county has a drug diversion program at the district court level. Former Lancaster County resident Les Stark, executive director of the Keystone Cannabis Coalition, said legalization wont happen in Pennsylvania until it gets some Republican support, and right now hes not aware of any. But, he said, I think when Republican legislators understand that many of their own constituents agree with this, theyre going to come around. Conversations like this are an important part of how democracy is exercised in the United States of America, he said. The legislators In 2016, Pennsylvanias medical marijuana bill passed the House 149 to 46, and the Senate 42 to 7. But most of Lancaster Countys legislators voted against it, with the only yes votes coming from Rep. Mike Sturla, who is the delegations only Democrat, and Reps. Jim Cox and Mark Gillen, whose districts are mostly in Berks County. LNP asked the legislators for comment Friday on legalizing recreational marijuana, and those who responded were mostly in line with their previous votes. Sens. Ryan Aument and Scott Martin issued a joint statement saying they think Senate approval is unlikely, especially considering that some ranking members have already expressed ardent opposition. The senators wrote that they do not support legalization at this time, as we believe that the social, health, and public safety costs associated with such policies outweigh any perceived benefit of legalization. The priorities of the House Republican Caucus do not include legalizing federally prohibited drugs, House Republican Leader Rep. Bryan Cutler wrote. They do include addressing the opioid epidemic and ensuring there is no abuse of the medical marijuana program which is still in its infancy in this state. Sturla said the House Democratic Policy Committee, which he chairs, plans to hold hearings this year on legalizing recreational marijuana, and he considers it essential to learn about what happened in states that have already legalized the drug. Sturla said he thinks the statewide discussion Wolf said Fetterman will facilitate is worth having, and that he generally and cautiously favors legalization. I think we have a whole lot of people who are in the criminal system and incarcerated for nonviolent crimes related to marijuana, he said. Rep. David Zimmerman wrote, I am not in favor of putting more drugs on the streets of Pennsylvania. Rep. Keith Greiner wrote that he expects a spirited debate and is not in favor of legalization, noting that he thinks the focus needs to be on more important issues such as job creation and economic development. Rep. Gillen wrote that he voted in support "of a highly regulated medical marijuana law" but is "loath to advance any legislation that creates additional driving hazards" and "will remain vigilant to analyze all bills that address the legalization of recreational marijuana." The House, he wrote, "is less likely to legalize recreational marijuana and more likely to reduce criminal penalties." Treatment providers Representatives from two treatment providers in Lancaster County also advocated caution. Compass Mark is a nonprofit focused on preventing addiction that has offices in Lancaster and Lebanon counties. Eric S. Kennel is its executive director, and Amy Sechrist is a certified prevention specialist. In joint written comments, they said research shows that increased access to any substance like marijuana equals increased use for both teens and adults, and more people with negative consequences from that use. We need to be clear about our motivations and about our goals as a state, they wrote. Our goals need to shift from rationalizing to planning. If were going to do this, lets use every available bit of data and advice from other states and create policies, procedures and systems to limit the harm and address the associated costs through greater investment in prevention, treatment, and recovery services. They also noted that legalization and decriminalization are two entirely separate issues. Peter Schorr is founder and CEO of treatment provider Retreat at Lancaster County. Its vital to hear from people at a grassroots level to enact meaningful policies that reflect public consensus, he wrote. Schorr said he sees a case to be made for decriminalization from the judicial perspective, but that the jury is still out on the dangers of recreational marijuana use. We dont, he wrote, want to expose our communities to something that could foster more detrimental problems later on. Marijuana ordinances At least two municipalities in the county Lancaster city since September, and Millersville Borough since 2015 have ordinances that give police leeway to treat possession of small amounts of marijuana more leniently than state law does. And Manor Township is considering one. Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace said in an email Friday that she believes the statewide conversation needs to happen. Regardless of the issue, state law pre-empts local ordinance, she wrote, noting that Lancasters ordinance doesnt pertain to legalization. J. Ryan Strohecker, Manor Township manager, wrote that it has had no conversations on legalizing marijuana and that subject is not on our radar screen. Stedman's full statement on legalizing marijuana Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman's full statement on the question of legalizing marijuana: This is an important discussion so it is equally important that we are thoughtful and follow the research, as we did with medical marijuana. Our lens is public safety, but that sometimes merges with public health, as it does here. I supported medical marijuana and agree that the old war on drugs approach to marijuana possession is not the answer. I do not believe people should be in jail for possessing marijuana and we do not prosecute cases that way. Further, we are all about solutions and common sense reforms, but the science is clear that legalization of marijuana is reckless for many reasons to include public health. It is not only gambling, but was worse because we know we will lose and only the large for-profit companies, which will become a new, huge special interest in Harrisburg, will win. The science clearly shows that marijuana carries a host of harmful health problems (and thus costs), to include cognitive, psychosis, physical, and schizophrenia. Making a dangerous drug legal does not make it any less dangerous. Despite what the advocacy community claims, our prisons are not filled with marijuana users. In fact, almost no one goes to jail for it. Further, we created a drug diversion program at the district court level unique to this county. In addition, states which allow recreational marijuana have found that legalization has not ended the black market, but it does increase acceptability and usage - and the corresponding health problems. Messaging and increasing the acceptability of a harmful drug absolutely has to be part of this conversation. Also, there are costs involved in regulating the black market. (California continues to ask for more and more funds.) It is very dangerous when people with no medical background make health decisions without the support of long-term medical studies. Keep in mind the marijuana of today is far more potent than that of years past, and there are no long-term studies of the high-THC-level marijuana out there today. On top of this, crimes have increased in the first states to legalize since 2014. Colorado has seen an 18 percent jump in violent crime and an 8 percent increase in property crimes. In addition, there is no question that legalization has increased traffic fatalities. Legalization consistently creates increased risk of crashes and death. More people will die on our roadways with legalization. The government should exist to protect and legalization would result in the opposite. There are benefits to not being on the cutting edge of legalization and waiting for more data - and at least one long-term study of the use of the high-level-THC marijuana sold today. Marijuana risks are different and not as severe as opioids, but they are no less real and when people say it is a harmless drug they need to look at the actual science and listen to our medical community. This story was updated for clarity at 12:51 p.m. Jan. 26,2019. HARRISBURG Republican leaders in the state House of Representatives on Friday called on a Western Pennsylvania lawmaker to resign following allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman who was incapacitated in late 2015. In a statement, Republican leaders said they recommend state Rep. Brian Ellis, a Republican from Butler County, resign and take care of his family and address the allegations raised against him that are currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the Dauphin County District Attorney. They also suspended Ellis from overseeing the House Consumer Affairs Committee, which he chairs. The decision to call for Ellis resignation stood in sharp contrast to their position Thursday, after The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Caucus first reported that the Dauphin County District Attorneys Office had opened a criminal investigation into the matter. Initially, House GOP leaders, while claiming zero tolerance on sexual assault or harassment, said they would call for Ellis resignation only if he were charged. No charges have been filed in the case. Ellis, 49, has not responded to multiple phone calls, emails, text messages and letters over several days. Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo declined comment. Asked about the Republican leaderships reversal, spokesman Mike Straub said: Weve said zero tolerance, and upon further discussion of the allegations which we the leaders learned much more details through yours, and other, media reports the leaders believe its in the best interest of Rep. Ellis that he resign in order to fully address the allegations. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, also urged Ellis to resign. The allegations against Rep. Ellis are outrageous and unacceptable, Wolf spokesman J.J. Abbott said. The allegation In an interview Friday, Jennifer Storm, head of the states Office of Victim Advocate, said the woman believes she was drugged while she was out at a Harrisburg restaurant in late October 2015 with a friend because she has no memory of what happened to her after she consumed fewer than two alcoholic drinks. Pa. lawmaker under investigation for alleged assault HARRISBURG The Dauphin County District Attorneys Office has opened a criminal investigati She had one-and-a-half drinks, and then lost 12 hours of her life, said Storm, who is working with the woman, a state employee who does not work for Ellis. She was not voluntarily intoxicated in any shape or form. Storm said the woman was not out with Ellis early in the evening at the Harrisburg restaurant where she ordered a drink. After that, she has no memory, but has been told she later ended up at a different bar, where Ellis was also present. The two left the second bar together. The woman has alleged that the lawmaker told her the next morning that the two had had sex. Prior to that evening, she has said, Ellis had pursued her and she had made it clear she did not want to be involved with him. Storm said that the day after the alleged assault, the woman went to the hospital, where she reported to staff that she had no memory of the previous evening and that she believed she had been sexually assaulted. At the hospital, she was examined and treated for a concussion and pain, Storm said. Considering evidence Experts said they believe prosecutors will examine the possibility of date-rape drugs. Steve Turner, a longtime lawyer for Pennsylvania state agencies and a former special federal prosecutor, said without toxicological evidence, a prosecutor would need to build a case with circumstantial evidence, including the victims testimony about her normal alcohol intake, the effect of a few drinks and whether she had ever blacked out before. It would include her last memory and her first memory, Turner said. Essentially, absent other witnesses who might have seen someone tamper with her drink, it comes down to her story versus his, Turner said. Physical evidence such as of date-rape drugs would aid the prosecution, Turner said. Kristen Houser, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, said theres a dearth of data on how often drug-induced rape occurs. Much of it is anecdotal evidence. There are a lot of people who have memory lapses that are not equal to their other drinking experiences, she said. An informal poll posted at LancasterOnline in December asked readers if they were for or against Pennsylvania legalizing recreational marijuana. The results overwhelmingly favored legalization: 1,973 were for it. 365 were against it. 35 needed for information. On Thursday, Gov. Tom Wolf along with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman announced that Fetterman will hold a series of town hall-style sessions in each of the states 67 counties in the coming months on the subject. An LNP reporter headed out to the Green Dragon Farmers Market & Auction in Ephrata and Tanger Outlets and The Shops @ Rockvale in Lancaster on Friday to ask people their thoughts on the issue. I dont think thats what God intended' Several people asked Friday were against legalizing marijuana or somewhat lukewarm to the idea. I dont disagree with it, but I dont think it should be used personally, just medical only, because I still believe its a drug, and Ive grown up to believe it is a drug, Brianna Pace, 18, of Ephrata, said. Loretta Ziegler, of Lebanon, also would not want marijuana legalized. Even though marijuana might be one of the safer drugs, it still impairs you when you are driving, Ziegler, 62, said. So, while you could go either way on that subject, I would still say no. Mike, of New Holland, was strongly against legalizing marijuana. I dont think we do want it legal because I think it is a mind-altering drug, and I dont think thats what God intended, said the 47-year-old, who did not want to share his last name. Justin Knaub, of Harrisburg, was torn on the issue. I believe that the prohibition is something that never should have happened, but in our current society, full legalization might not be exactly whats best, Knaub, 28, said. I believe a lot of restraints would need to be put in, in order for it to be successful. It does no harm Others were more enthusiastic about the idea of marijuana legalization. Linda Doyle, of Shillington, said she favored it. Im doing the CBD oil, and it is working, Doyle, 57, said. I had three back surgeries, I have stenosis of the spine and I have scoliosis. Im in a lot of pain. Mary Neville, 45, of Lancaster, also said she sees benefits to people using marijuana for certain reasons. I can see the benefits of medicinal marijuana, she said, so I can see those benefits extending to people using it for anxiety and even recreationally. John Henderson, of Lancaster, said he didnt see a problem with it. I dont use it, Henderson, 40, said. The majority of the people who use it, or the products related to it, it seems to be helpful, like medical marijuana. Sherry Goold, 58, of Bucks County, said she would like to see measures put in place to ensure only those 18 or older were able to obtain it if it were legalized. I think it makes people happy and calm, not violent or angry like alcohol does, she said. Eddie Thomas, 64, of Lancaster, had a similar opinion, saying, It doesnt lead to anything else but a good nap and a bag full of potato chips. Monica Brosan, of Pittsburgh, said marijuana should be legalized right away. The fact that it is illegal is politics; it has nothing to do with addictive nature or anything else, Brosan, 48, said. Chad Weller, 43, of Pottstown, said he doesnt use marijuana, but Im a botanist, so I study plants, and Ive never quite understood the governments opposition to something that has existed before humans came along. Its a plant. It does no harm; it has no conscience. Editor's Note: This story was originally published July 9, 2018. When Vaughn and Lisa Starr planned their wedding, a simple cake just wouldnt do. Instead, they set up pyramids of chocolate whoopie pies as a fun and delicious way to share their Lancaster County heritage. The Clay Township couple clearly was on to something. By the time the reception was over, there was only one whoopie pie left to take home. Lancaster County loves its whoopie pies, and it doesnt matter if theyre chocolate, red velvet or even boozy. This treat is like grabbing a slice of cake to go. Theyre sweet, come in a lot of flavors and are a Lancaster County tradition. You can even hug a life-sized whoopie pie mascot at Shady Maple Smorgasbord. Jennifer Pfaultz puts it bluntly. What kind of monster doesnt like whoopie pies? asks the Lancaster woman. Even during last weeks heat wave, Vernon and Kathryn Stoltzfoos tended to a steady stream of customers at their business, Miriams Pies, at Roots Country Market in East Hempfield Township south of Manheim. The couple and their children handed out chocolate whoopie pies, red velvet whoopie pies and mini whoopie pies with pink, white and blue icing for the Fourth of July. They make whoopie pies that are soft enough to melt in your mouth, with fluffy icing sandwiched between two cakes. When the couple from Ickesburg, Perry County, took over the family business, they continued making fruit pies, shoofly pies, sweet breads and whoopie pies. Theyre a good grab-and-go snack, Vernon Stoltzfoos says of whoopie pies. Fans call whoopie pies an iconic Pennsylvania Dutch food thats universally beloved. Theyre less messy than a slice of cake and a great combination of moist cake and creamy icing. Bakers throughout the county make whoopie pies; some are large enough to slice and others are tiny enough to pop into your mouth. The perfect whoopie pie is the size of your palm, according to a LancasterOnline poll. More than half of our readers liked palm-sized whoopie pies, followed by mini (around 2 inches). A few readers like them as large as possible. Wackiest flavors Cornbread with crab Fireball (cinnamon cake and Fireball flavored icing) Fruity Pebbles Key lime Inside out (vanilla cake and chocolate icing) Maple bacon Margarita Orange creamsicle Pistachio Strawberry rhubarb cake with white icing Source: LancasterOnline survey The first whoopie pies were chocolate with vanilla filling. That traditional combination reigns in our reader survey, with 20 percent picking the chocolate and vanilla combination as their favorite flavor. Pumpkin whoopie pies are a close second, though there are plenty of fans of chocolate with peanut butter icing. Then there are folks who want their whoopie pies made with carrot cake or red velvet, snickerdoodle or Rumchata, a cinnamon-flavored cream liqueur. That last flavor comes from The Sweet Spot, another stand at Roots. Owner and operator Rochelle Boones grandmother started the family tradition of selling whoopie pies at Eisenbergers Bakery at Lancaster Central Market in the 1950s. Her mother took those recipes to Southern Market Center and then Roots. After Boone took over the business about five years ago, she kept whoopie pies on the menu. They are our best seller. They are the thing that people come for year-round, she says. It doesnt matter if its summer (or) winter; everybody wants a whoopie pie. She expanded from the traditional flavors like chocolate, pumpkin and red velvet, and now sells 16 different flavors. Shes found fans of flavors like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, cookies and cream (chocolate cakes and vanilla-Oreo filling) and tie-dye (a vanilla cookie with psychedelic swirls). Boone has come up with soda-inspired whoopie pies: Mountain Dew, Fanta (orange) and grape. Shed like to make a Cherry Coke whoopie pie, but hasnt found the right cola flavoring yet. Not every flavor works. For example, theres the Sriracha whoopie pie Boone devised a few years ago. She took chocolate and vanilla cookies, added a large S on top in the hot pepper sauce and filled them with salted vanilla icing. I thought they would try it, Boone says. There were a few brave souls. A few years ago, she added boozy whoopie pies made with alcohol, including a cinnamon cake filled with a Rumchata filling and a mudslide, a chocolate cake sandwiched around icing mixed with Baileys Irish Cream and Kahlua. I have a lot of Amish competition. I felt that they would not copy the boozy pies, Boone says. I decided (to make them) as a way to grow the business. We have a food truck that we do on the weekends and we do a lot of wineries, and boozy pies are awesome there. Theres a lot of whoopie pie variety. You can find vegan and gluten-free whoopie pies at Sugar Whipped Bakery in Lititz. Bird-in-Hand Bakery and Good Life Ice Cream on Fruitville Pike have whoopie pies in ice cream flavors. The Whoopie Pie Festival at Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn (which will be held Saturday, Sept. 8) usually has more than 100 different flavors. And Lancaster County Coffee Company has a whoopie pie flavor. At Reiffs Farm Market near Ephrata, next to the produce, are whoopie pies in traditional flavors, plus a few extras, like chocolate filled with mint icing and seasonal versions made with fresh fruit. Erma Reiff, co-owner of the business, is a fan of the chocolate-peanut butter whoopie pies. She also asked the Amish baker at Millport Baked Goods to come up with an Oreo flavor. Reiff says its important to have the goodies delivered daily, so theyre fresh. Another key to a great whoopie pie is the right icing, she says. Millport Baked Goods has supplied Reiff with whoopie pies for nearly 20 years. Not too long ago, Reiff noticed the flavor had changed. She asked and learned one of the ingredients changed as suppliers moved away from trans fat. The baker had tweaked her recipe to accommodate the change in ingredients. The world and its tastes might change, but whoopie pies are as delicious as ever. Where are the best whoopie pies made? 1. At home 2. The Sweet Spot at Roots Country Market 3. Reiff's Farm Market (made by Millport Baked Goods) 4. Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn 5. Bird in Hand Bake Shop 6. Shady Maple Smorgasbord 7. Miriam's Pies at Root's Country Market 8. Sunnyside Bakery 9. Dogwood Farm Market 10. S. Clyde Weaver Source: LancasterOnline survey Whoopie pie events Hershey Farm Restaurant and Inn will hold the 2018 Whoopie Pie Festival, Saturday, Sept. 8, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be more than 100 different flavors plus lots of whoopie pie-themed games. Entry is free and there are also VIP passes for $25. Details: whoopiepiefestival.com. Kitchen Kettle Village's Tailgating Festival on Sept. 14-15 will have a pumpkin whoopie pie filling contest, Sept. 14 at 1:30 p.m. Details: bit.ly/tailgatefestLNP. East Petersburg Days will have a whoopie pie eating contest Sept. 15. In the kids contest, children will try to eat the most mini whoopie pies in five minutes. In the adult contest, contestants will try to eat the most full-sized whoopie pies in five minutes. Or the first person to eat 20 whoopie pies wins. To register, email info@eastpetersburgday.com. LAist only exists with reader support. If you're in a position to give, your donation powers our reporters and keeps us independent. Our reporting is free for everyone, but its not free to make. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe Behold West Hollywood's vision for weed lounges, restaurants and delivery services -- businesses that were granted permission last year by the city to apply for licenses to sling the plant and its extracts in a variety of ways. The architectural renderings released by the city last year are multi-story, modernist structures with light-filled interiors, trendy furniture and slim, transparent people relaxing in a swanky, skunky scene. Some of the spaces appear to take up entire city blocks. "Some of the ideas are pretty amazing," says John Leonard, the city's community and legislative affairs manager. "It has evolved into consumption lounges being part of our tourism industry, like our high-end restaurants." Officials like Leonard hope that the new establishments will put West Hollywood on the map as a leader in the world of leisure cannabis -- but as with many such businesses, there is a lot that still needs to be worked out. West Hollywood is among the first cities in the country to attempt to implement cannabis lounges; San Francisco has seven, and Oakland and Denver each have one. In WeHo, the proposed venues are largely high-end spaces where customers can shop for, buy, and -- in some cases -- consume cannabis products onsite legally. And as with much else in the burgeoning cannabis industry, business owners got creative in crafting their visions. Lauren Fontein is an owner of The Artist Tree, one of the approved applicants, and describes her company's proposal as something of a smoker's mecca. Should all their plans come to fruition, the three-story space would have one lounge for smoking and one for eating, a restaurant, lots of local art on display, and a small performance space where musicians and comedians could give shows. "We were thinking, overall, what do people like to do when they are smoking?" she says. "What experiences go hand-in-hand with cannabis consumption? We were trying to create an environment where it wasn't just a lounge where it's smokey and dingy. You could come if you're not planning to smoke, if you're just coming with friends." Jackie Subeck, the owner of another successful applicant, Door Number Six, paints a picture of a luxury wellness center infused with weed. Her plans include a day spa, a clinic, a cafe and an education center/event space. "Our goal is to [connect with] the community," she says. But as you might imagine, opening cannabis lounges -- which are not specifically regulated by the state -- presents legislative and logistical hurdles. So far, it's evolved like this: West Hollywood officially approved an ordinance to allow these types of cannabis businesses inside city limits in November 2017. The following year, they selected 16 applicants from a pool of more than 120. 36 licenses were handed out (most businesses got more than one license). The types of licenses handed out were adult-use retail, consumption lounge (smoking, vaping, edibles) consumption lounge (edibles only), delivery services, and medical dispensary. The application process -- as well as the winners -- were met with some controversy. The application fee was so high as to be prohibitive for many would-be entrepreneurs, and the city did not make an effort to prioritize applications from convicted cannabis felons. People of color have historically been arrested for cannabis infractions at a much higher rate. Those businesses that did end up with a green light to apply for business licenses in the city, begin scouting locations and start executing their plans had ambitious visions across the board. The Artist Tree, the only business to be granted all five licenses, envisioned a three-story building with a massive sculpture in the middle of a sun-drenched courtyard. Essence WeHo, which was granted retail, delivery and consumption lounge (smoking, vaping, edibles) licenses, presented a store that looked more like a high-end steakhouse than a weed shop. Businesses like this would likely be located throughout West Hollywood. LAist spoke with entrepreneurs who described looking at properties across the Sunset-to-Beverly/Fairfax-to-Doheny area. Still, there's some confusion as to how these businesses will ultimately operate. For one thing, businesses granted licenses for edibles want to operate restaurants - but they cannot cook with cannabis products, per state regulations. Cannabis businesses are also required to shut down at 10 p.m., which presents a logistical and philosophical problem. "I don't think anyone wants to open [a new business] with having to basically start shutting down the kitchen at 9 p.m.," says Kirk Cartozian, a founding member partner at The Antidote, which received an edibles only license. He's optimistic and hopes that The Antidote will open within "a year, at most." Fontein has similar aspirations for The Artist Tree, noting that she and the other owners "would really like to be open and operating by the end of this year." According to West Hollywood official Leonard, whatever comes next will represent a massive change. As he puts it, "No more neon green pot leaves on the front window." LAist only exists with reader support. If you're in a position to give, your donation powers our reporters and keeps us independent. Our reporting is free for everyone, but its not free to make. Start your day with LAist Sign up for the Morning Brief, delivered weekdays. Subscribe By Ryan Fonseca and Meghan McCarty Carino Broken bones, dislocated joints and bleeding in the skull were among the more severe cases documented in a new study looking at electric scooter-related injuries in Southern California. The investigation by UCLA researchers, published Friday by the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined emergency room visits at two hospitals associated with the university -- Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and UCLA Medical Center-Santa Monica. During a year of study, doctors identified 249 people who were admitted for scooter-related injuries. They did this by looking through medical records and identifying any that contained notes with the word "scooter," or that mentioned Bird or Lime -- the top two operators in the market. The study found "helmet use was low and a significant subset of injuries" were documented in patients under 18, which is the legal age required by scooter operators to ride. Researchers also studied scooter riders' habits by observing a pair of "busy intersections" in Sept. 2018 -- one in downtown Santa Monica, the other near UCLA's campus. The vast majority of riders (94 percent) didn't wear helmets, which were required under California law during the period of study, though they no longer are. Nearly 8 percent were riding with a passenger, which is a violation of the vehicles terms of use (and local law). More than a quarter of the observed riders were seen zipping along on the sidewalk, which is also prohibited. Here are a few more key findings: More than 90 percent of those injured were riders About 8 percent were pedestrians -- "11 hit by a scooter, (five) tripped over a parked scooter, and (five) were attempting to lift or carry a scooter not in use" Head injuries were the most common (40 percent), followed by fractures (nearly 32 percent) Only 10 of the 228 injured scooter riders were documented wearing a helmet The most common way injuries happened was falling (80 percent), followed by collision with an object (11 percent). Nearly nine percent were hit by a moving vehicle or object The ages of those injured ranged from 8 to 89 Nearly 11 percent of patients were under 18 Twelve of the injured people were drunk The majority of injured were male (58 percent) More than 55 percent of the ER visits happened during the late afternoon and evening hours, between 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. Researchers said it was likely they'd underestimated the number of scooter injuries, due in part to not counting any hurt riders who went to urgent care or primary care physicians. "Additionally, scooter use and availability rapidly increased toward the end of our study period, evidenced by the fact that most associated injuries occurred during the later months of the study," the doctors wrote. LA's Scooter Wars Sound A Lot Like The Early Days Of Automobiles The researchers say the results suggest the self-enforced regulations of the private companies, such as age limits, may not be sufficient, requiring further regulation and enforcement on the part of government. They also hope to look further at how aspects of the built environment, such as the presence of bike lanes or established speed limits, affect injury crashes. Scooters are prohibited from riding on the sidewalk, but they are also not permitted to ride in the street with car traffic unless the speed limit is lower than 25 miles per hour or there is a bike lane. In a statement, Lime spokeswoman Mary Caroline Pruitt said safety is the company's top priority and pointed to several initiatives they'd launched, including investing more than $3 million in a rider education campaign. "We're also working with local governments around the world to support infrastructure for shared scooters and bikes," she said. "We believe continued government investment in protected bike lanes and paths is critical." Lime also supports the American Medical Association's recommendation to improve helmet design and has given out 250,000 free helmets worldwide, according to Pruitt. Requests for comment from Bird regarding the study and their safety initiatives were not answered, though the company's website does say they deliver free helmets upon request (riders are on the hook for shipping costs). It's not clear from the scope of the research if scooter riders are more prone to injury than other street users, like pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. According to the L.A. Department of Transportation, an average of 30,000 car crashes occur each year in the city, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than a thousand. While people walking and biking are involved in only 14 percent of all car collisions, they account for almost half of the deaths recorded. An evening dress, riding habit and fur coat are among the more elegant pieces that came with the doll, but a replica of the pink suit the first lady was wearing when her husband was shot in Dallas is not among the collection of outfits in the box. The tragedy-touched original suit was donated to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., by Jackie herself shortly after the assassination. The suit, stained with her husbands blood, remained her property, though it has been stored in the National Archives ever since in an acid-free box in a climate-controlled vault. Ownership of the pink suit, which has never been cleaned, passed to Caroline Kennedy when her mother died in 1994. The daughter donated the suit to the people of the United States in 2003, with a stipulation that it cant be publicly displayed until 2103, and then only after the Kennedy family has granted permission. It has yet to be exhibited. The outfits matching pillbox hat was not part of the clothing turned over to the National Archives and has disappeared. This paper doll and other artifacts from the 1960s can be seen in our online database. Since 2016, different municipalities have had different rules when it comes to hooking up to the same sewer system. La Crosse has charged new users outside of the city a connection fee while letting new users in La Crosse hook up for free. La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat called exempting the city from the sewer system connection fee a mistake, and said he supports expanding the fee to all new users. The city uses a pay-as-you-go model for equipment costs, budgeting for replacement of big-ticket items in advance to avoid needing to borrow and pay debt service costs. As a result, users pay for those costs up front through their regular rates. The connection fee, introduced in 2016 after a study prepared by Trilogy Consulting LLC, was designed to require new users to chip in $730 per hook-up for those equipment costs that ratepayers in La Crosse, Onalaska, Campbell, Shelby and Medary have been paying for already. Its become an issue of contention as Onalaska and La Crescent work to create the La Crosse Area Metropolitan Sewerage District, which would take over the sanitary sewer utility for the municipalities who join. Jourdan Vian Reporter Jourdan Vian is a reporter and columnist covering crime and courts for the La Crosse Tribune. She can be reached at 608-791-8218. Follow Jourdan Vian Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Its no secret that Im no fan of Facebook. I hate the way the format encourages snap judgments and scrolling on. I hate the way people dont bother to actually click links and read things before complaining about them. It frustrates me to no end that it remains a consistent way to communicate with people I dont get to see in person very often, and its somehow built itself a monopoly on the communication game while consistently giving me less and less content I actually want to see. This is why I almost never post on there, rarely comment and basically only go to specific pages. Most of all, I hate the way it does nothing to discourage the spread of disinformation, and the way the company sells user information to the highest bidder without any consideration of the ethical implications. Im not alone. According to a survey last year by Reuters, peoples trust in Facebook continues to plummet. TITLE: Snowbound Six AUTHOR: Richard Stern A family of four is excited about their trip from Oklahoma to traveling the mountains of New Mexico to visit friends. Traveling at 10,000 feet in the blizzard of the century they have an accident that changes their plans and lives for ever. What was the accident? What caused it? Unprepared for such a mishap and unprepared for survival in a blizzard would they be found? Would their friends report them as missing people? Do rangers or civil air patrol check these dangerous, high risks and narrow mountain roads when the weather is so bad? Can they survive the obstacles? While the family suffers with personal issues and injuries such as Dads heart attack and Moms broken foot, a plane crash has occurred unknown to them of course. Whose plane? Will there be a search team for that? Who was aboard? Were there any survivors? Fifty feet of service roads become washed out, temps are minus 40, rock slides trap the family in a cave, a bear attack, another 16 inches of snow, and always the thought of death are obstacles and thoughts to deal with. The line separating survival and extinction was a very thin line!! So much adventure and struggles I found the story to be of high interest and hard to put down. Who is attacked by the bear? Will the family be rescued? Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 On Friday and Saturday, Jan. 19 and 20, three Westby High School band students participated in the National Band Association-Wisconsin Chapter All State Band held at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The students who participated were Erik Jorgenson, Cody Russell and Ronald Inglett. The band was comprised of 95 students from around the state of Wisconsin who were nominated by their directors and selected from many applicants. The band also performed the world premier of All State Band conductor and composer Robert Sheldons Glorious Insurrection written in honor of past NBA-Wisconsin Chapter President Dr. Chris Werner. The Cats Pajamas-Vocal Band, a national touring professional a cappella group, will be performing at the Westby Performing Arts Center Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. as part of their 12th annual Music in Schools Tour. Included in this performance will be G-E-Ts Vocal Point and the WHS Acapella Choir This tour brings choral clinics, school assemblies, and evening shows to communities across the nation in an effort to raise money for school music programs. To date, The Cats Pajamas have raised more than $150,000 for music education. Their goal is to inspire students, generate increased excitement and passion for music, and encourage all youth and teens to get involved in the arts. The group teaches and mentors students during the school day, focusing on singing techniques as well as sharing their personal journeys and testimonies about how they have turned their love for music into professional careers. That night, The Cats Pajamas put on a world class show for the entire community, and they donate a portion of those profits directly to the Westby High School Choral music program. Salems work centers on memory, mythology, the natural world and a desire for a still mind. He uses various media and builds images through color relationships and juxtaposition on shapes. He attempts to respond to the histories of found materials and antique papers, marrying them with acrylic or gouache as organically as possible. His creative process allows for chance to alter the course of a piece, so results are never pre-determined. Salem seeks a genuine moment, a fleeting glimpse of something personal or the best possible representation of a formal exploration. His works range from small non-objective collages to larger figurative paintings. The work of Salem Minegar and the works of VIVAs 24 member artists will be featured at VIVAs First Thursday reception on Feb. 7 from 5-7 p.m. and will be on display throughout the month. The gallery is located at 217 S. Main St. in Viroqua. For more information about this and future First Thursday events, contact the gallery at 608-637-6918 or info@vivagallery.net. The gallerys First Thursday reception will be followed by a 7 p.m. dinner next door at Rooted Spoon Kitchen Table. Email rootedspoon@gmail.com or call 608-632-2120 to make reservations. The Rooted Spoon cash bar will be open during the reception. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A crash involving 10 semi trucks closed Interstate 90-94 near Mauston for nearly six hours Wednesday. Two injuries were reported, one of which was serious but non-life-threatening. Poor winter driving conditions played a major role in the crash, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. DOT reported that a Wisconsin State Patrol officer had just taken the westbound exit from Mauston to respond to a crash when he observed two semis behind him. The rear semi, loaded with metal piping, crashed into the back of the lead semi loaded with aluminum bales, and the loads spilled out across the roadway. The crash slowed eastbound traffic significantly and ultimately caused another multi-semi crash. A westbound semi was unable to stop in time for the original crash, swerved across the median and crashed head-on into another semi that was traveling eastbound. Both westbound and eastbound lanes of traffic were completely blocked by spilled cargo, wreckage and jack-knifed semis. No passenger vehicles were involved. An alternate route was established along Hwy. 12 from New Lisbon to Lyndon Station. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. MOUNT PLEASANT A Racine man who was charged in October for stealing more than $200,000 in cash, gold and silver now faces drug charges stemming from a Thursday arrest. Robert Matthew Schuster Jr., 38, of the 1200 block of Erie Street, was being held on $35,135 bail at the Racine County Jail on Friday. He is charged with felony theft of more than $100,000 from an elderly or disabled person, four counts of felony bail jumping, one count of misdemeanor bail jumping, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and felony possession of narcotic drugs. According to the criminal complaints: Schuster, while employed as a maintenance worker, allegedly stole a safe containing more than $200,000 in cash and $5,000 in gold and silver coins from a home in Mount Pleasant on Oct. 7. He also reportedly made purchases from Best Buy and Farm and Fleet totaling over $3,300, and also made a $2,000 child support payment soon after the alleged theft. Then, on Thursday, a Mount Pleasant police officer reported that he pulled Schuster over in Mount Pleasant on a Racine County Sheriffs Office warrant. After making the arrest, the officer said that Schuster admitted to snorting crushed pills, and that there were pills inside his car. RACINE On Wednesday, live ammunition was reportedly found by a third-grade student at Our Lady of Grace Academy, 1425 Grove Ave. In response, the Catholic elementary school issued a message to parents, encouraging them to have open conversations with their children and reminding them to report anything they witness that appears unsafe, to ensure the well-being of everyone at the school. The health and safety of our scholars and staff is the primary responsibility for all schools, and we take pride in our efforts in this area at Our Lady of Grace Academy. As such, we feel it is necessary to notify you of a situation that took place in our building today (Wednesday), Principal Erin ODonnell wrote in an email to parents. On Wednesday afternoon, a third-grade student told a teacher that they had found a single piece of live ammunition in a coat closet, ODonnells email said. The Racine Police Department was then contacted. A subsequent search of all students belongings found that there were no weapons or unsafe items in the school building or on school property, according to the email. Nothing unsafe was found. ODonnell encouraged parents to have conversations with their children about what they saw during the school day. Most legends that endure for years contain a large kernel of truth, he explained. If a story has some legs, it will survive 100 years, and if it survives 100 years, then its probably 85 percent accurate, said Bennett, whose career in commercial diving has included adventures like salvaging wreckages in the Cayman Islands and searching for the sunken schooner Alvin Clark in Green Bay. Bennett has tracked down nuggets of information in public libraries, local historical societies and maritime businesses in towns all along the Lake Michigan coastline. His best lead, he said, turned up in the library of a small town in Michigan. Through his historical detective work, he thinks hes gotten close to nailing down the facts behind the legend. In his presentation, hell talk about the mysterious woman whom he thinks arranged for the gold to be shipped, where it came from, and who was chasing after it. In the spirit of the New Year, Ive been thinking a lot lately about where the University of Nebraska has been and where were headed next. Many of us set resolutions this time of year. Its appropriate, then, that when I think about the students, faculty and staff I have the privilege of serving with every day, a word that comes to mind is resolve. Its a word that captures the spirit of Nebraskans as a whole people Ive come to know as unafraid of a challenge and willing to work together toward a shared vision. At times, we are tested. That has been the case at the University of Nebraska in recent years. Weve been through a period of fiscal stress, confronted with cuts that have impacted lives and the very structure of the organization. Like most universities, we have faced challenges related to enrollment, campus climate and student well-being. Weve had limited resources for priorities that are increasingly urgent and complex: infectious disease, hunger, terrorism, educational access. It would have been easy for our faculty, staff and students to hunker down and wait for challenges to pass. Instead, we put our foot on the accelerator. Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying history will be kind to me as I intend to write it. William Stolley, who wrote one of the earliest histories of Hall County, Nebraska, is sometimes disputed, particularly as to his role in early Grand Island history as compared to that of Fred Hedde, but there is no argument in saying Stolley was one of the areas earliest setters, and his name lives on in Stolley State Park. William Stolley was born in 1831 in Warder, Germany, and at about the age of 26 immigrated to the United States. After landing at New Orleans, he made his way to St. Louis and then to Davenport, Iowa which had a large German population. A. H. Barrows headed the Iowa branch of Chubb Brothers & Barrow, a Washington D.C. and Boston firm which carried on a banking sort of business without actually being a bank. UPS plans to begin using Latch smart access devices in 10 new cities later this year, expanding the technology that allows drivers to enter apartment buildings to make deliveries. UPS started using the Latch devices in New York City and San Francisco last year. The devices can grant UPS drivers access to multi-unit buildings, but not to individual units. UPS said the technology makes it more convenient for residents to get deliveries when they arent home and crucially, it also allows UPS to complete more deliveries on a first attempt to cut costs. Smart access devices enable our drivers to enter buildings without keys and leave packages safely in lobbies or building package rooms, said UPS vice president of global product innovation Jerome Roberts in a written statement. For UPS, this innovation adds efficiency, he added. The company is expanding the use of Latch devices in mid-2019 to Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Miami and Seattle. Buildings that qualify based on factors such as size and location can be registered with Latch, and the devices would need to be installed. Latch technology can also allow residents to enter the building and manage guest access. Kathy Beran of Lincoln was there with her husband, Mike, and their three sons. "I believe that every life is precious, and the babies that don't get to be born don't have a voice," Beran said. "So I want to stand and be a voice for them." Janice Christensen of Norfolk said although this wasn't her first walk, she hadn't been able to attend in recent years. "I believe that a baby is a human when theyre conceived, and I have a strong love for the mothers who are in crisis pregnancies and in need of help," she said. "And I just want them to know that people love them and will support them." The walk was also met with counter-protesters, who stood across the street from the Capitol. "I think it's important to understand a lot of the folks out here at this march think they have a monopoly on morality and passion on this question," said Jackson Meredith of Lincoln, who has organized the counter-protest for about a decade. "But it's important to remember that 50 percent of Nebraskans are pro-choice. We are here representing the half of the state that does believe in reproductive freedom." A 2014 Pew Research Center study found that 50 percent of adult Nebraskans believe abortion should be legal in either all or most cases. Felice and Larry Rose placed a wreath in memory of their son, 1st Lt. Peter J. Rose. He lost his life in a weather-related helicopter accident. Several of those from the military who attended spoke of their remembrances of Rose. In November 1990, two Nebraska Army National Guard air ambulance companies were ordered to the war in the desert. Around 250 Lincoln-based air medical soldiers had less than a week to get themselves, their Huey helicopters with readily identifiable Red Cross X, and their lives together before heading to the Persian Gulf. They were the 24th Medical and the 1267th Medical companies. It was their first major combat deployment since World War II. But the "citizen soldiers" were trained and committed to fulfill the mission to which they had been ordered. Their mission was to air evacuate injured military and civilians within Iraq. Prime Time is offered without cost to families thanks to generous statewide sponsors including the State of Nebraska, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, Carol Gendler and an anonymous foundation. In Lincoln, Prime Time is also supported through funds raised on Give to Lincoln Day. The Arnold Elementary session received additional funding from Duncan Aviation. Humanities Nebraska has offered Prime Time since 2002, reaching more than 15,000 Nebraskans in one or more of the 275 Prime Time series that have been held throughout the state. Seventeen public libraries, 18 elementary schools, one Head Start program and six community centers have hosted Prime Time in communities where student reading scores do not meet Nebraska state standards. Teachers who are interested in recommending families for Prime Time should contact one of the sites listed above and ask to speak with the Prime Time coordinator. For more information about Prime Time in Nebraska, visit HumanitiesNebraska.org and select Prime Time from the programs list. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The near-death experience transformed Gabelhouse though he still continued his adventures and helped him lead a life that came to impact countless individuals. "I think his priorities shifted a little bit after that," Erickson said. "He always lived life at full-tilt." Named after his favorite town in Kenya, Malindi was proud to have what she called, "the ultimate dad." "All of my friends wanted my dad to be their dad," she said. "He took me on lots of adventures. I traveled to Mexico and all over Africa. He taught me how to adventure and always told me, 'You can do anything you want.'" Gabelhouse met the Dalai Lama on multiple occasions and continuously pursued new experiences until he was physically unable to do so. The Mount Kenya incident "haunted him, but it gave him a unique confidence," Erickson said. "What he said to me was, 'Death isn't all that bad.' I think what he thought is that when it was time for him to die it would be like his last adventure." Gabelhouse impacted lives throughout the world, which became perhaps more noticeable than ever after his death, as Malindi received condolences from every corner of the globe. People of Illinois it is time to fight back and demand State Representatives void ALL weapons bills proposed by Governor J. B. Pritzker and his puppets of Chicago. They are attacking mom and pop firearms dealers to shut them down through new imposed taxes and extra measures to document any weapons sales. This is a way to earn new revenues to spend while cutting down firearm sales in the State. We are the only State to require FOID cards with registration and background checks. Now, we learn SB 0107 Assault Weapons bill has been introduced to take away the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. This bill will require all these type weapons to be registered with the state police and how or where one can sell, pass along to heirs these weapons. This bill has defined a definition of what a semi-automatic weapon is, how many ammunition can it hold, and also tries to identify all manufacturers. This bill shoots down the right of citizens to have a weapon of their choosing to protect their families, assets, and property based on the desires of individuals in Chicago and the Democratic autocrats of that party. The people of northern Illinois Do Not control downstate and what law-biding citizens can have under the United States Constitution! People get out and contact all Representatives of Illinois to vote down this left-wing, radical bill that makes citizens criminals while leaving criminals with firearms. This is only the first step towards complete elimination of citizens having weapons to defend against criminals or government takeover. I would like to make a public call for our new House Representative Chris Miller to take action to address our districts concerns regarding climate change. Although it is true that Republican elites continue to deny global warming and oppose government action to address it, it is becoming increasingly clear in polls that everyday Republicans acknowledge global warming and its dangers. Even in our particularly modern day conservative Republican county a recent well-regarded poll suggests a majority of citizens believe that global warming is happening, it is mostly caused by human activities and it is affecting our weather. In fact less than 33 percent of county residents reject such statements. Most importantly it is estimated that just shy of 70 percent of Coles County residents believe that it will adversely affect plants and animals, an especially important concern given the significant role agriculture plays in our local economy. Coles County wants action. The same poll estimates that two thirds of county residents would like to see funding for research into renewable energy resources, regulation of CO2 as a pollutant, tax rebates for energy-efficient vehicles and strict limits on existing coal-fired power plants. Mr. Miller needs to heed local concerns on the environment and reject the do-nothing, know-nothing propaganda from party elites in Washington and Wall Street boardrooms. For 46 years abortion has been legal in the United States. We were told that having legal abortion would lead to a time when every child wouldn't be a wanted child. There would be no "back alley abortions" so abortion deaths would be rare. Have these predictions come true? No. Child abuse is still very real and every successful abortion causes the death of a human life. The promoters of abortion said if these aborted babies would have lived, our jails would be filled and our welfare system would be strained by these persons who would be a drag on society. Despite the abortions, our jails are still full and many still work on the welfare system as their way of life. Why is abortion such a failed way to end the above problems? It is because abortion is against God's will. We as Christians know God's plan to refrain from sex until we are in a loving marriage where the resulting children will be cherished as gifts from God. These children are to be taught by word and example to know and follow God's plan for their children's own lives. As members of Lutherans for Life, we have been accused of "talking the talk, but not walking the walk." These are the ways we plan to "Walk the Walk." Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. 1. Pray to God for this help and guidance. 2. Teach God's plan in our home and from our pulpits. 3. Live by example according to God's Word. 4. Continue to support our Choices Pregnancy Center by volunteering our help and giving money and gifts. 5. Reaching out in love to support persons in need. Edwin and Pat Wetzel, Members of Lutherans for Live, Mattoon Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 PEORIA Federal public defenders for a man accused of kidnapping and killing a University of Illinois scholar from China are asking for more time to prepare their case due to the government shutdown. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports that Brendt Christensen's defense team Friday asked for 30 more days to amend a notice declaring their intent to pursue a mental health defense to avoid the death penalty if Christensen is convicted. They say they've been unable to pay for a psychiatric evaluation of Christensen due to the shutdown. Christensen is charged with abducting and killing Yingying Zhang in Urbana in June 2017. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, saying they believe Christensen also tortured the 26-year-old woman. Her body hasn't been found. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Coles County Council on Aging, in partnership with Senior Education Ministries, will host a Dine With A Doc Program on Friday, Feb. 15 from 11 a.m. 1 p.m. at your LifeSpan Center. Dine with a Doc is a free educational program that welcomes seniors to listen to a doctor present an educational topic and then have a question-and-answer period following the discussion. According to dinewithadoc.com, the program was designed to allow seniors to get out of their homes, fellowship with their peers, extend their financial resources, promote enhanced living, and educate them (from a preventative standpoint) with the goal of improving their quality of life and providing them with the resources and information to make an informed choice about their healthcare. Each month a doctor graciously donates their time in an effort to listen, hear, and answer your medical questions while sharing a meal with you. Various community businesses also participate by donating door prizes or provide a complimentary lunch for you to enjoy, so they can learn about ways they may help you as well. Februarys Dine With A Doc will feature Shane Gosnell, D.P.T, who will speak and answer your questions. Shane Gosnell is a Doctor of Physical Therapy, currently working at Savoy Therapy. He is a graduate of Lake Land College, Eastern Illinois University, and the University of Findlay in Ohio, where he received his D.P.T degree. Dr. Gosnell was born and raised in Illinois and has been a member of the Mattoon community since 1995. He is married and has raised two children in Central Illinois. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} His experience in the field of physical therapy includes 16 years of devotion to patients across a variety of settings, including outpatient care, residential care, and home care. Dr. Gosnell's specialized training includes certification in the LSVT BIG protocol for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease. This protocol is an intensive therapy exercise program designed to assist individuals who are living with Parkinson's Disease. The program focuses on strength, movement, balance, coordination, and function. Treatment targets the production of large amplitude whole body movements. LSVT BIG has been shown to provide improved balance, movement quality, locomotion, and overall quality of life. The next Dine With A Doc will take place Friday, Feb. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at your LifeSpan Center. Reservations are required and can be made by your LifeSpan Center at 217-639-5150. Guests who need transportation may call Dial-A-Ride at 217-639-5196. Guests who need transportation may call Dial-A-Ride at 217-639-5196 or 1-800-500-5505 at least 2 days prior to the event. Dont forget, your LifeSpan Centers new hours are 8:30 a.m. 4:30 p.m.. We will be open on these holidays so bring the kids for a free movie or other activities for all ages. Monday, Feb. 18 Presidents Day Friday, April 19 Good Friday Monday, Oct. 14 Columbus Day We also have a new website, check it out and let us know what you think. Go to lifespancenter.org for the latest information on whats going on at your LifeSpan Center. The LifeSpan Center is located at 11021 E. County Road 800N, Charleston. The telephone number is 217-639-5150. Come join us each weekday at noon for Lunch at LifeSpan. Peace Meals, sponsored by Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, are served Monday through Friday at a suggested donation of $3.50. To register, reserve a lunch or learn more, call 217-345-1800. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Introduction In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people. This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation. (Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.) Thousands of people gathered to watch the Republic Day parade on Saturday, 26 January, in New Delhis Rajpath. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tribute at Amar Jawan Jyoti, ahead of the parade. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is the chief guest for the 70th Republic Day President Ram Nath Kovind addressed the nation on Friday, 25 January, on the eve of the 70th Republic Day Around 25,000 security personnel are stationed across Delhi-NCR to thwart any terror strike or untoward incident. President Ram Nath Kovind to Address The Nation Today President Ram Nath Kovind will address the nation on Friday, 25 January, on the eve of the 70th Republic Day. The address will be broadcast from 7 pm on the entire national network of All India Radio and telecast on all channels of Doordarshan in Hindi followed by the English version, the Rashtrapati Bhavan said. This will be followed by broadcast in regional languages by regional channels of Doordarshan, the channel said in a statement. Unprecedented Security Cover in Delhi for R-day Celebrations The national capital has been wrapped in an unprecedented security blanket with around 25,000 security personnel keeping hawk-eyed vigil to thwart any terror strike or untoward incident during the 70th Republic Day celebrations. Security has been beefed up in the wake of the arrest of two suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) members, who were allegedly planning to carry out terror strikes in the national capital during the Republic Day celebrations. The JeM members had reportedly identified Lajpat Nagar market, Haj Manzil, Turkman gate, Paharganj, India Gate and the IGL gas pipeline in east Delhi as potential targets. Multi-layered security arrangements are in place. Around 25,000 police personnel, including traffic officials, have been deployed. CCTV cameras and face-recognition cameras have also been installed at Rajpath, Madhur Verma, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) said. Ramaphosa Meets PM Modi Story continues South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, 25 January, ahead of the Republic Day celebrations tomorrow. 855 Police Personnel Decorated,149 Get Gallantry Medals A total of 855 police and paramilitary personnel were awarded police medals Friday, including 149 for gallantry in Jammu and Kashmir, Naxal violence affected areas and others, ahead of the Republic Day. The CRPF, the country's largest paramilitary force, was decorated with maximum 44 awards for bravery followed by Odisha Police at 26 medals, Jammu and Kashmir Police 25 medals and Chhattisgarh 14 medals. Three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were also decorated posthumously with the top category President's Police Medal for Gallantry (PPMG). President Kovind Stresses on the Importance of Voting Addressing the nation on the eve of Republic Day, President Ramnath Kovind stressed on the significance of this Independence Day. Ram Nath Kovind Addresses the Nation on The Eve of Republic Day. Posted by The Quint on Friday, January 25, 2019 "This Independence Day is important for us in a special way. On 2 October, well celebrate 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Not only for India, but this anniversary is also an opportunity for entire world to understand,adopt and implement his principles." He also stressed on the importance of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and pointed out that those born in the 21st century will get to vote for the first time. Showing pride in the daughters of the nation, President Kovind said: "Apart from education, art, medicines and sports, our daughters are now creating an identity for themselves in the three Armed Forces as well. In topmost educational institutes, often there are more daughters than sons among medal-winning students." The Indian Army Conducts a "Beating the Reatreat" Ritual The Indian Army conducted a beating the retreat ritual on the Attari-Wagah border, reported ANI. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Security Heightened at Bhopal Junction Security has been heightened at Bhopal Junction railway station on the eve of the Republic Day, reported ANI. Mumbai's CST Railway Terminus Illuminated on the Eve of Republic Day Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, Municipal Corporation Building, and Mantralaya building in Mumbai, Maharashtra, illuminated on the eve of Republic Day. Visuals from Lalbagh Republic Day Flower Show in Bengaluru The Lalbagh Republic Day Flower Show started on Friday, 25 January, in Bengaluru. The show houses a recreation of Mahatma Gandhi's cottage in Wardha Ashram, Rajghat, models of the three monkeys, glasses made of millets & a sculpture of Dandi March. Sudarshan Pattnaik Makes Sand Sculpture on Republic Day Sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik's makes a sand sculpture in Odishas Puri, on the eve of Republic Day. Delhi Traffic Police Issues Advisory to Commuters The Delhi traffic police has issued an advisory to commuters to plan their journeys in advance to avoid delays and avoid the route of Republic Day parade between Vijay Chowk and Red Fort grounds in the national capital, news agency ANI reported. Traffic movement has been closed since 2 am on the C Hexagon - India Gate till the parade crosses Tilak Marg. However, alternate routes have been provided for the North-South and East-West movement of the traffic via the Ring Road. The Delhi traffic police has deployed 3,000 personnel for Republic Day duty. Entry, Exit of Four Delhi Metro Stations Closed Today Entry and exit at some of the metro stations in central Delhi will be closed for few hours in the morning of Republic Day on Saturday as part of security arrangements, officials said. For two stations neighbouring Rajpath, Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan, entry and exit facilities will not be available from 6.00 am to 12.00 pm, a senior DMRC official said. "Entry and exit at Patel Chowk and Lok Kalyan Marg metro stations will be closed from 8.45 am to 12.00 pm," he said. The Central Secretariat station can only be used for interchange facility for passengers, between Line 2 or Yellow Line (HUDA City Centre - Samaypur Badli) and Line 6 or Violet Line (Kashmere Gate-Raja Nahar Singh). Crowds Gather for Republic Day Parade in Delhi Crowds gather for the Republic Day parade at Rajpath in New Delhi. AP Guv Hoists Tricolour in Vijayawada Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan hoists tricolour on Republic Day in Vijayawada. TN Guv Unfurls Tricolour in Chennai Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit unfurls the national flag on Republic Day. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy CM O Panneerselvam were also present. Amit Shah Unfurls Tricolour at BJP HQ BJP President Amit Shah unfurls the tricolour at the party office in Delhi. Odisha Governor at Republic Day Celebrations in Bhubaneswar Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal present at Republic Day celebrations in Bhubaneswar. PM Modi Tweets Wishes on Republic Day Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended his wishes to Indians on Republic Day. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Republic Day Parade to Begin at 9:50 am The Republic Day parade will begin at Rajpath at 9.50 am, prior to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. UP CM Adityanath at Republic Day Celebrations in Lucknow Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath present at Republic Day celebrations in Lucknow. PM Modi Pays Tribute at Amar Jawan Jyoti Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute at the Amar Jawan Jyoti. PM Modi Greets Manmohan Singh Nazir Ahmed Wani Awarded Ashok Chakra President Ram Nath Kovind was awarded the Ashok Chakra to Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani, who lost his life while killing six terrorists in an operation in Kashmir. The award was received by his wife and mother today. Visuals of The K-9 Vajra-T, a Self-propelled Howitzer Visuals of the K-9 Vajra-T, a self-propelled howitzer, commanded by Captain Devansh Bhutani. BSF Exchange Sweets With Bangladeshi Counterpart The BSF exchanged sweets with their Bangladeshi counterparts, at Fulbari, at Indo-Bangladesh border near Siliguri in West Bengal. J&K Guv Satya Pal Malik Unfurls Tricolour in Jammu Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik unfurled the national flag in Jammu. Veterans Tableau at Republic Day Parade The Veterans tableau-2019, showcases the theme 'Veterans: Accelerators in Nation's Growth'. Republic Day Celebrations in Lucknow Madarasa Visuals of the Republic Day celebrations from Darul Uloom Firangi Mahal Madarasa in Lucknow. Tableaux of States in Republic Day Parade Tableaux of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra and Sikkim during the Republic Day parade. Tableau of Punjab Based on Jallianwala Bagh Massacre The tableau of Punjab is based on the theme of Jallianwala Bagh massacre. All Women Contingent Marches for the First Time in Rajpath Karnataka Tableau Based on 39th Session of INC The tableau of Karnataka is based on the 39th session of the Indian National Congress held in Belagavi in 1924, which was presided over by Mahatma Gandhi. Delhi Tableau Showcases Mahatma Gandhi's Association With Birla House The tableau of Delhi showcases Mahatma Gandhis association with Delhi and Birla House, which is now known as Gandhi Smriti. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and his wife were present in Rajpath, to witness the parade. Indo-Tibetan Border Police Celebrate Republic Day The Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel celebrate Republic Day at 18,000 feet and -30 degree celsius in Ladakh. 26 Children Honoured on Republic Day 26 children, including 6 girls and 20 boys, have been honoured with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puruskar 2019. Cong President Rahul Gandhi Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Union Minister & BJP leader Nitin Gadkari at Republic Day parade at Rajpath in Delhi. Jawans Make Human Pyramid During R-Day Parade 33 people on 9 motorcycles make a human pyramid during the Republic Day parade. Subedar Major Ramesh A lead this formation. PM Modi, SA Prez Witness Flypast PM Narendra Modi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa witness flypast at Republic Day parade in Delhi. Asaduddin Owaisi Unfurls Tricolour in Hyderabad AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi unfurls the national flag during the 70th Republic Day celebrations at Madina Circle in Hyderabad. First Woman to Lead an All Men Contingent at Republic Day Parade This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Lieutenant Bhavana Kasturi, the first woman officer of the Indian Army to lead an all-men contingent of the Army Service Corps (ASC) at the 70th Republic Day, told news agency ANI that saluting the President was the most memorable moment of her life. Photos of the woman officer saluting the president made its rounds on the social media and were tweeted widely, with the girl from Hyderabad being lauded for her poise and confidence. She said that the ASC got the chance to march at the parade after 23 years and is hopeful of getting the best marching contingent award this year. . Read more on India by The Quint.RSS & BJPs Nehru-Netaji Cosplay: Irony Dies a Thousand DeathsBudget Expectations 2019: Address Taxes Levied on Angel Funds . Read more on India by The Quint. IceViking strongly condemns physical attacks and harassment directed towards them. They are also often victims of the Islamic idea. This is true when it comes to the cruel and tragic treatment of Muslim women and children when it is in accord with the Koran, the example of Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia, which may be applied regardless of where a Muslim male may find himself in the world, whether in a Muslim or non-Muslim country. However, in no way, shape or form should one judge all Muslim men because of what is in Islamic scripture and what constitutes the Islamic law, Sharia. "Race", ethnicity or basically anything that you are "merely" born with should never be a basis for bigotry and discrimination. Apostates from Islam have been executed for 1400 years in accord with the Koran and the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia. They should be lovingly helped. Furthermore, approximately as many as 11,000,000 Muslims may have been killed by other Muslims since 1948. To quote the website The Religion of Peace (TROP), edited by Glen Roberts: While it may be safe to say that a true Muslim would not intentionally kill another true Muslim ( 4:92-93 ), the Quran places no such value on the life of a Muslim who is not true. Consider verse 9:73 : Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell. The Arabic for strive hard uses the same root as Jihad - and the context in this sura is holy war (see v. 86 and 91). Thus, there are two distinct classes of people that a true Muslim is to target with harshness: disbelievers and hypocrites. A disbeliever obviously refers to a non-Muslim, so a "hypocrite" must be a Muslim of some sort. In fact, hypocrites are those who say they believe, but do not act as they should. In other words, they are "Muslims", but not true Muslims. They will go to hell just as unbelievers do, and so, according to the verse, their lives matter for naught. The same sura says that a hypocrite can be recognized not just by lack of piety (reluctance to follow Sharia), but by fear of death ( 9:56 ), reluctance to fight ( 9:44-45 ) and even friendliness toward non-believers ( 9:67 ). A true Muslim would thus be a pious person who relishes martyrdom, is eager to fight, and shuns non-believers. Even the Quranic passage that warns against killing "believers" ( 4:88-94 ) is more complicated than it first appears. It never says that a true Muslim is incapable of killing another Muslim, just that it should not be done. In fact, it makes exceptions for the unintentional killing of "believers" in war and mandates the killing of "hypocrites." Verse 17:33 says, "Do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause" . The greatest cause of all is that Islam be superior ( 9:33 ), which is exactly what Islamic terrorists say is their goal. Thus believing Muslims are allowed to be collateral damage in the war on unbelievers. There is sadly a phenomena that I`ve noticed in Sweden and elsewhere of people using true facts about Islamic doctrine and history as a cover for all sorts of irrational targeting of Muslims, ranging from xenophobia and racism to verbal abuse and physical attacks. This is strongly condemned by this website and does not in any way serve serious criticism of orthodox Islam and other important work. It`s also important that one tries to express oneself in a civilized way. Words matter. In this bloggers humble opinion the root cause of the problem is the ancient doctrine of orthodox Islam. In simple terms a non-Muslim is a Kafir. " The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life." An exact quote, as stated in the writings of Dr. Bill Warner in the article "Kafir" at http://www.politicalislam.com/kafir . In the perfect Koran (Allah`s direct and literal word as revealed to Mohammed through the angel Jibril), Muslims are told 89 times to emulate Mohammed in all ways (see Koran 33:21 for instance). Mohammed`s example, the Sunna, is found in the Hadith (stories of what Mohammed said and did) and the Sira (biographies of Mohammed). Islamic law, Sharia , is directly derived from these unchanging scriptures. It is based on the Koran`s numerous commands to obey Allah and obey the Messenger, that is Mohammed (see Koran 4:59 for instance). Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam. It is a capital crime for Muslims to deny Sharia in any way. A Muslim is someone who submits to Islam and submitting to Islam means obeying the Sharia of Allah. Sharia law includes pronouncements for both Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs). Islam is a "complete way of life", a "complete code of life", a "complete system of life". Islam is not just a religion but also a comprehensive ideology. Islam is a supremacist ideology. Islam is a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology akin to Communism and Nazism. Islam is a civilization. Islamic law, Sharia, is a manual for a civilization. Islamic law, Sharia, governs every aspect of life. It has a say about every conceivable human act . Non-Muslims are morally and legally inferior in Islam. Women are morally and legally inferior in Islam. The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language and a great book on the topic. Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Koran 9:111). A hadith depicts a Muslim asking Muhammad: "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." Muhammad replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Bukhari 4.52.44) Muhammad himself said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah. (Sahih Muslim 30) Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, science and human lives are all at stake in the fight against the Islamic Jihad. Last week marks two years since President Donald Trump's inauguration. The editorial board reached out Macon County Democratic and GOP party leaders and asked them a simple question: How would you assess the Trump presidency? The view from the left Jen McMillin Macon County Democrats May God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor. Originally from a Franciscan prayer, and quoted by Gov. Pritzker on inauguration day, this is my lesson from the first two years of the Trump presidency. As a recovering Democratic candidate for the Illinois House, and as someone that had refused to believe that all politics are partisan, these words will energize me for the next few years. We have seen the devastation that has been wrought on communities of people in the United States, from those affected by the inaction of our federal government in response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico to the separation of families at the border while seeking asylum to the workers now taking the brunt of the federal shutdown. Weve watched norms broken, a revolving door of professional advisers in the White House, and both founded and unfounded vitriol on both sides. However, I refuse to dwell on the problems of the last few years or even the last few decades. Yes, there is division, rancor and questions. But in the previous two years, we have seen the resurgence of an involved body politic that was unheard of in Illinois even during the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Thousands of people signed up to run for public office, myself included, who never imagined doing so just a few short years ago. In the last two years, I have seen more American flags flying in my community, more people voting in the midterms, and a renewed commitment to American values. OUR VIEW: Defending ourselves against technology That phone in your hand might as well be a giant beacon, calling attention to your location and a lot of items you thought were private. Im sure that my friends on the other side of the aisle will point out positive outcomes from President Trumps administration, such as reducing bureaucracy. But for me, the true wins are calling out the glaring inadequacies of an all-powerful executive branch of government, and the revival of real democracy. President Trump energized a whole generation to talk about what it really means to be American, reminded us that you must stand up for your values if you want them to mean anything and that sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and knock on a few doors. Unfortunately though, sometimes it feels like the pendulum swings too far the other way. As a Democrat, I see fellow progressives shouting down my Republican friends, refusing to take part in a real debate. We see it on television, where Congress, formerly the most deliberative body in the world, now relies on omnibus bills to get things done. We must remember that both parties contributed to the nation that elected Trump president, and that both parties are needed to heal the wounds that have been inflicted. Nowhere more than Macon County is this felt, as we saw a near sweep of Republican wins at the county level. But as I told many on the campaign trail, and as I continue to say both red and blue alike want the same things: a job that pays a living wage for an honest days work, the ability to raise a family in safety, schools that prepare our children for the real world. We simply have different ways of getting there. My goal and the lesson Ive learned from the past two years is that I am foolish enough to believe that I, along with my community, state, and nation, can make a real difference in the world. And that I expect my leaders local and national to believe the same. Jen McMillin was the Democratic candidate for the 101st state House District in the November election, which Republican Dan Caulkins won. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The view from the right Bruce Pillsbury Macon County Republicans Since the historic election of President Donald Trump, our Republican party believes many of his accomplishments to date have gone unreported/under-reported by many media outlets (as well as mistruths told), creating anger and frustration from many American citizens. Igniting an historic economic boom, President Trump has removed many oppressive business regulations. Thus, for the first time in more than a decade, growth is projected to exceed 3 percent over the calendar year; Black, Hispanic and Asian unemployment rates have reached record low; women and youth unemployment is the lowest its been in 50 years and paychecks have risen by 3.3 percent. Nearly 3.9 million Americans are off food stamps and consumer confidence is at an 18-year high. Steel and aluminum producers are reopening due to demand for quality American steel. The Dow has also hit a record high 70 times in 2017 alone, the most ever recorded in one year. When President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law, 60 percent of those cuts went to families. The act nearly doubles the child tax credit to lessen the financial burden of raising a family. Expanding options for quality and affordable healthcare, the President cut Obama's burdensome individual mandate penalty on health insurance, which forced Americans to buy expensive health insurance or pay a fine. The FDA set a new record for generic drug approval in 2017, saving consumers nearly $9 billion and a blueprint was released to drive down prices for American patients, leading multiple major drug companies to announce they will freeze drug prices. President Trump has been committed to defending the right to life and religious liberty. The President proposed the Title X rule to help ensure taxpayers don't fund the abortion industry in violation of the law. The President authorized $6 billion in new funding to fight and bring national public awareness to the danger of opioid addiction. President Trump continues to fight to stop the scourge of illegal drugs at our borders, with a physical barrier and updated technology. Recently, there has been enhanced vetting of individuals entering the U.S. from countries that don't meet security standards. President Trump has respect for law enforcement and our military. He has signed an executive order to more effectively prosecute people who commit crimes against law enforcement officers, attempting to protect American communities from the threat posed by MS13 gang members. He negotiated the return of remains of MIA soldiers from the Korean War, more than a dozen American hostages have been freed from captivity from all over the world and our military has had the largest pay raise in nearly a decade. Also, ISIS has lost virtually all of its territory, more than half of which has been lost under President Trump. Restoring American leadership abroad, President Trump has been very successful in negotiating and renegotiating better trade deals. Action has also been taken to combat Russia's efforts to undermine the sanctity of U.S. elections. President Trump put action to words and moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and had a historic summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, bringing beginnings of peace and de-nuclearization to the Korean peninsula. The President cancelled Obama's anti-coal Clean Power Plan and proposed the Affordable Clean Energy Rule as a replacement. He has gotten more than two dozen U.S. circuit judges confirmed and and delivered two Supreme Court justices who will adhere to the U.S. Constitution. We believe this President has done so much out of his love for America, only to be disrespected and maligned by opposing factions and many news media, all the while donating his salary to various non-profit organizations. Bruce Pillsbury is chairman of the Macon County Republican Central Committee. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 URBANA, Ill. (AP) Don Uchtmann served in the Coast Guard, started law school while in the service and became a professor at the University of Illinois. Lt. Uchtmann, now 72, grew up in Sparta, Illinois, not far from the Mississippi River. But he's mostly a landlubber. In the Coast Guard, "I learned to sail a desk quite well and to respect the seamanship skills of others," he said. Uchtmann values his experience during the Vietnam era, crediting it with building teamwork skills. He flies the flag every day in his front yard. Uchtmann had earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural science at the UI in June 1968. But President Lyndon Johnson had eliminated most graduate school deferments only months before. The future professor had already been accepted at the UI College of Law and for a master's program in economics at the University of Leeds in England. When he realized there was a nearly zero percent chance of attending graduate school in the fall of 1968, "the Coast Guard came to mind and became my preferred choice for fulfilling my military obligation." He applied to Officer Candidate School and was accepted. Officer Candidate School candidates were either college grads or Coast Guard enlisted personnel who had been selected as strong candidates for a commission. Those who successfully completed the school received a commission as ensigns. Uchtmann did temporary duty at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala., for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare Defense School, "the only Coast Guard officer in a class of mostly Navy guys." The skills could turn out to be vital. "During military exercises, for example, I would create maps based on current weather data, showing the probable drift of radiation if Cleveland were hit by a nuclear weapon. Fortunately, such an attack never came," Uchtmann said. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. He was also the range officer for the 9th Coast Guard Small Arms Training Program for two summers. Small arms training was important in his branch of service for reasons dating back to the War of 1812. Under the treaty that ended the war of 1812, the Great Lakes were "demilitarized." "Armaments on naval vessels of both the U.S. and Great Britain (later Canada) with home ports on the Great Lakes would be limited no heavy weapons, only small arms," Uchtmann explained. Uchtmann was a military aide for two years for Coast Guard admirals, successive commanders of the 9th Coast Guard District, with his duties "generally limited to ceremonial occasions." "It was very good experience for someone who might become a career officer in the Coast Guard, but that did not become my path," he said. Uchtmann was able to attend law school at night for two of his three years on active duty. He "worked very hard, 100 percent to the Coast Guard during the week, and nearly 100 percent to study law on nights and weekends." He completed law school at Cleveland State University in 1974, three months early. "Had I continued in the Coast Guard for my career, I probably would have been assigned to a Coast Guard legal office, but that was not my path," he said. That year, he returned to Urbana as a faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Economics, combining his studies of law, economics and agriculture. "Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned from my Coast Guard experience was that life often does not unfold exactly as we have planned, that we need to adapt and make the best of the unexpected circumstances we encounter, that doing one's best in whatever endeavor we find ourselves is probably a wise strategy, that working with good people is a real blessing and that a fair share of luck along the way is very welcome," Uchtmann said. ___ ___ Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPRINGFIELD The Pritzker administration is asking for an extension to appeal the AFSCME contract impasse issue, something that isn't sitting well with the union. Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration said it is asking for a three-month extension to decide whether to appeal a lower court decision that the state and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are at impasse in talks over a new contract. In a court filing Thursday, administration lawyers asked for additional time "to allow the new administration sufficient time to review with legal counsel the issues in the case and related matters and the potential arguments in support of the petition." The lawsuit is a holdover from former Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration which in January 2016 said it had reached impasse with AFSCME in negotiations over a new contract. AFSCME's previous contract expired after June 30, 2015. The Illinois Labor Relations Board agreed with the Rauner administration and AFSCME went to court to fight the impasse declaration. Last fall, the Fourth District Appellate Court vacated the impasse finding, and sent the issue back to the ILRB to either better explain its reasoning or use a different standard to determine if an impasse existed. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. The Rauner administration was considering an appeal to the state Supreme Court and was already granted an extension until Thursday. AFSCME said there is no reason for the Pritzker administration to seek another extension. "We've preparing to file an objection to this motion," spokesman Anders Lindall said in a statement. "There's no need for another extension or further review of the appellate court decision, which found that Bruce Rauner wrongly walked out on negotiations, falsely claiming the parties were at impasse." Pritzker has repeatedly said he wants to resume negotiations with AFSCME on a new contract and spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said that is still the case. "Governor Pritzker's priority is to return to the bargaining table and negotiate a contract with state workers that is fair to both the state's dedicated workforce and fair to taxpayers," Abudayyeh said in a statement. She said a time to resume those negotiations is being worked out with the union. AFSCME said that Pritzker's willingness to resume talks is "all the more reason to drop Rauner's impasse appeal." Abudayyeh would only say "the administration wants time to think through all of the legal issues presented by the appellate court's decision." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR Data is being monitored to figure out whether changing how Decatur emergency crews are dispatched leads to a better use of resources, after a record number of calls last year, some for less urgent medical reasons. "We need more time to collect the data, but it appears to be having an effect right now," said Fire Chief Jeff Abbott, who oversees seven stations citywide. The new system has Central Illinois Regional Dispatch Center operators ranking the seriousness of people calling for help, then sending the number and kind of crews to match the severity. Previously, dispatchers sent available units, regardless of what kind of assistance was needed. That became an issue as Decatur Fire Department calls reached a peak of 11,623 in 2018, marking five straight years of increases. Abbott said high amounts of non-emergency calls ate up time and resources for the department, since both firefighters and ambulance personnel were dispatched at the same time. One of the biggest causes was "lift-assist" calls in which a fallen person needs to be helped up. The new system ranks those kind of calls with phonetic codes such as "alpha," "omega," "bravo," and "echo." "We've maybe reduced our alarms by 100 compared to (January) last year, but we don't know for sure," the fire chief said Wednesday. The dispatch center, at 1078 W. Rotary Way in Decatur, handles dispatching for eight law enforcement and 17 fire agencies, of which Decatur is the largest. "We answer anywhere between 200 or 250 calls a day on a shift," said Brandon Sloan, an emergency communications specialist. "That's about an average workload for us." The priority ranking started this month. Prompts on computer screens guide dispatchers through medical calls using a series of questions to ask callers based on various situations. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Based on the responses, the program will tell the dispatcher what level call it is and if they should dispatch an ambulance, firefighters or both depending on the severity of the medical situation. The lowest level call first responders can receive is an "omega" call, while "echo" calls are among the highest. Desiree Wright, the CIRDC's first shift supervisor, said area dispatchers have always used the determinant codes, and would send both fire and ambulance to a call regardless of the severity. That's where the key difference lies within the new protocols, she said. "(Firefighters) are now getting the determinant codes and they understand what each of those alpha codes mean in helping them better respond to calls or not respond to calls that they necessarily don't need to," Wright said. Jon Thomas, executive director of the CIRDC and the Macon County Emergency Telephone System Board, said adopting the protocol has been "fairly smooth." "During the first few weeks, there's still people adjusting to the process," he said. "I think it'll be beneficial to decreasing the volume of fire responses and keep (firefighters) more available." Responding to every medical call in the city has stretched the fire department thin in the past, Abbott said. Abbott said many of the lift-assist calls came from assisted-living facilities, which could be a result of the city's changing demographics and aging population. Abbott said that responding to lift-assists or similar calls is not the main problem with the department's rising call numbers. It's about figuring out the fastest and most effective ways that firefighters can help. "It's a balancing act between getting (to the scene) as quickly as possible and determining whether we need to go," he said. "... It's a very fine line when you're trying to weed out nuisance calls, but we're always going to err on the side of responding. That's why we're successful." Contact Jaylyn Cook at (217) 421-7980. Follow him on Twitter: @jaylyn_HR Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 1 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Macon County's representatives in Congress had this to say about the deal reached Friday to put a temporary end to the federal government shutdown. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville "Im glad President Trump has agreed to sign a short-term Continuing Resolution so these agencies can re-open and federal workers can be paid. President Trump has put multiple offers on the table and met Democrats more than halfway. Whether or not we end up right back here in three weeks will be entirely up to Speaker Pelosi. I hope she will listen to many in her own party who have urged her to negotiate with the President on border security so we can move on." Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois "Finally, President Trump has ended his disastrous government shutdown. One of the results of this embarrassing, destructive, and unnecessary government shutdown should be a new bipartisan rule which guarantees we will never face this again." Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois "For 35 days, Donald Trump has caused serious damage to our country by holding the paychecks of more than 800,000 federal workers and contractors hostage and disrupting critical government functions. I hope todays announcement, which is similar to the deal Trump rejected in December, means that this ridiculous and unnecessary government shutdown will end immediately." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR It's the 100th day of school, and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build an igloo out of 100 mini-marshmallows, cake frosting, a few Q-Tips and some toothpicks in half an hour. Marissia Weatherford and Jatavion Carey, two of the fifth-graders at Durfee Magnet School charged with the task, figured out that using the toothpicks to shore up the structure's center would give them a base on which to build the dome top. If (the dome) collapses, the toothpicks will catch it and hold it up, Marrisia said. The fifth-grade teachers at Durfee, Heather Herron and Karen Walker, combined their classes for the project as a fun way to mark the 100th day of school on Friday. The idea was to use science, technology, engineering, art and math or STEAM skills. Herron jokingly said that she seriously overestimated the number of bags of marshmallows they'd need. It doesn't say how many are in here, she said, holding one bag. I bought 12 (bags), and we used three. Giving the children marshmallows to eat after the project was complete was going to use up some of them, she said. The competition to see who could build the best igloo was mostly about bragging rights, but successful teams will also get some extra coding time on their iPads next week, which the kids consider a treat in its own right. To set the stage, Herron told the students to imagine they were in the Canadian wilderness with only natural resources. What would they have to work with to survive in the wilderness? After some back-and-forth, students said Ice and snow. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Herron told them that an igloo, with a domed top, would stay at least 32 degrees inside, warmer if they could build a small fire or if there were several people inside to share body heat. To build their igloos, they could only use the materials provided by Herron and Walker, but there were no instructions. Their own ingenuity had to supply design and problem-solving. Skyler Click and Daishon Capers used their bowl of frosting like mortar, sticking the marshmallows to the tray that was provided as a building surface and slowly building up walls and a doorway. When we get to the dome, Skyler said, we can put frosting on the sides of the marshmallows and hope that holds it together. The doorway and the inside of the igloo also had to be of adequate size to accommodate each team's Lego person, and several of the teams built their igloo around the Lego person to make sure it would fit. Hope Hill and Garryon Henderson designed their igloo ahead of time and referred often to the drawing that Hope had made while they worked. Teachers often share ideas and mine the internet looking for inspiration, but Herron said this time, she came up with the idea herself. She and Walker often give students challenges like the igloo as a way to let them practice their STEAM skills. I made it up, she said. We (the two teachers) sometimes do the challenges with them. Class is in: These former Decatur school buildings are still in use. Contact Valerie Wells at (217) 421-7982. Follow her on Twitter: @modgirlreporter Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. I've reached an age where I spend a lot of time just musing. I think about how things turned out, considering all the things, good and bad, particularly that small word "if." That's not unique to me; we all have played that game. If I hadn't gone to the Navy recruiter with a friend; if I had been assigned to a different squadron; if I had gone to school in Missouri, as planned, after my hitch; if ... you get the idea. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied with my life. Regrets, a bundle of them. But we don't get do-overs in real life. The one thing I don't regret is my decision to join the Navy. It took a somewhat shy, very inquisitive, unusually gifted, and sometimes very angry boy and turned him into me. I'm still all those things but the detriments are not considered pluses, leading to a life that I couldn't even dream of those many years ago. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. The first year was all training, boot camp, aviation prep and aviation electronic schools. Once again, I had done well and made my choice of assignment in Florida. Why? No idea. My friend who had shared my first year was assigned to Norfolk. I never saw him again. After a short leave, Turtle (my car) and I were headed south in the days before interstates. I left Decatur at 8 a.m., drove straight through, arriving in Sanford, Fla., at 3 a.m. I had a small encounter with a Kentucky sheriff, who upon seeing my identification card told me to move on a little more slowly. We were doing 25 in a 20 mph zone. It was the only time Turtle was ever accused of speeding. I marveled at the big cities, Nashville, Atlanta, and the beauty of the Smokies; grumbled about the length of Georgia and finally wondered where my new base was. I cleaned up at a gas station and asked directions to the base. Sanford in those days before Disney, civil rights and even Daytona, was a small town with mainly sandy streets, divided by the 17/92 highway into black and white (which I didn't know for some time) and almost totally reliant upon the Navy air station for support. The town had two theaters, one on each side of the highway. A few months after arriving I noticed that one theater had a show I wanted to see. I drove to its area, parked, bought a ticket from a young lady (who gave me a strange look), went in and sat to wait for the show to start. A black gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Sir, may I see you in the lobby?" I had never been called sir by anyone. He very politely explained that this was the black theater. I was welcome to stay but he thought it better for him if I were to leave. I did so. I had seen the drinking fountain and restroom signs when I was stationed in Memphis and on my way down here. It was that way all my time in Sanford, Orlando and many other towns in Florida. I drove down a pine lined road until I suddenly burst into a clearing. This was to be my home, off and on for the next three plus years. No fences, just a Marine guarding the road that I saw winding to the base. He checked my papers, issued me a parking sticker, and told me how to get to my squadron area which was also unfenced with another Marine guarding a gate area where I was issued an identification card to enter that area. I almost laughed, this base was home to several squadrons with nuclear capabilities and this was their security. It took almost another year before the area was fenced with Marine-manned guard towers every 50 feet or so. Joe Trimmer is a Decatur historian. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 DECATUR The Decatur metropolitan area has continued its recent trend of rising unemployment rates, though once again that is paired with an increase in non-farm jobs over the calendar year, according to data released Friday. The unemployment rate for the Decatur metro area was 6.2 percent in December, up from 5.1 percent in December 2017, according to the preliminary data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Illinois Department of Employment Security. That rate is the third-highest in the state, behind only Rockfords 6.3 percent and Danvilles 6.4 percent. State and local officials have previously said the increase in unemployment is not inherently negative, as it means more people are looking for work. In Decatur, the total of non-farm jobs in December was 52,000, an increase of 500 from the previous year. Decembers number was lower than the 52,400 such jobs that were reported in October. The main growth industry was manufacturing, which saw an increase of 500 jobs. An increase of 100 jobs was also reported in education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and construction industries. A decrease of 200 jobs was reported in professional and business services and a 100 drop in retail trade jobs. All other major industry sectors were stable compared to last year. The city of Decatur's unemployment rate for December was 6.9 percent, an increase of 1.3 percent over the calendar year. Please log in to keep reading. {{featured_button_text}} Enjoy unlimited articles at one of our lowest prices ever. There were an estimated 3,100 unemployed people in the labor force in December 2018. The statewide unemployment rate for December was 4.4 percent, a .3 percent decrease from the prior December. Fridays report was the first to be released since Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office on Jan. 14. In a statement, Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes said the administration has already taken steps to support working families and prepare workers to gain employment. Our top priority is getting the states economy back on track and the governor looks forward to continuing to work with business leaders and workers to build a thriving state, Hynes said. Decatur-area business openings and closings Contact Ryan Voyles at (217) 421-7985. Follow him on Twitter: @RVVoyles Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The business news you need With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Since unemployment insurance is available only to people who are working less than their usual hours or not at all, the federal employees who were working without pay during the shutdown did not qualify. That included the 20 Transportation Security Administration agents and 17 Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers based at Helena Regional Airport. Of course, the TSA and FAA air traffic controllers are still working without pay so we feel for those employees who continue to be dedicated to the safety of the aviation systems, the airports director Jeff Wadekamper said earlier this week. However, several Helena-area businesses and organizations pitched in to help ease the burden for these and other federal employees who were not receiving their paychecks. Mediterranean Grill, Skywest Airlines, the Helena Airport Authority and a local couple all delivered a number of free meals to affected employees at the airport, Wadekamper said. A local church even raised funds and offered cash donations to all of the TSA employees at the airport, he said, but they declined the money because of federal ethics standards. Side note: from April 2011--Jan. 21, 2019, searchforjesus.net/how-it-works/ shows that, world-wide, 12,678,104 indicated online decisions for Christ. Adding prayer and God to our criteria Back to Henri and Amelie -- their prayers and the prayers and those who supported them have an ongoing impact and are being answered. Jesus told us the kingdom of God forcefully advances. So, we pray and work for Gods kingdom to come where we are. And, we look to Henri and Amelie as those who remind us of Gods timing in his kingdom. Still, Henri and Amelie are awkward for us. When hard soils resist our systems and even our prayers, we may look for someone to blame -- like Henri and Amelie. Further, we may hunker down with our own standards of good stewardship -- demanding a substantial return on our investment. Behind those policies, there may be a desire to see that we have invested well. Hear our pride? As we see how we are influenced by our own pride -- even by the idolatry of good business practices -- may our awkwardness lead us not to denial but to repentance. Elias is author of the current book The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It, now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com This is part of The Associated Press' ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online. 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On November 26th, 2018, advisor to the American Mideast Coalition for Democracy, Dr. Walid Phares met with a Polish delegation led by Minister Beata Kempa and Ambassador Piotr Wilczek. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss US and European policies that support and protect persecuted Christians and other minorities in the Greater Middle East. During their visit to the United States, the Polish delegation met with several US officials including Ambassador Sam Brownback, United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. Phares, a former advisor to Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Mitt Romney on foreign affairs, shared his assessment of the situation of Christian and minority communities in the region who have been subject to oppression and persecution, including those in Iraq and Syria. He explained that Christians in the Middle East are divided into two communities: those living in geographic enclaves, like the Nineveh Valley in Iraq and Khabur plain in Syria, and those living as minorities within large cities or Muslim-majority areas. Phares suggested, and Minister Kempa agreed, that Western support for these endangered groups of Christians should adapt to their geopolitical realities. Countries providing aid to these communities should work with the national governments to protect the status of minority communities within their cities and villages and enable the groups to protect themselves when they live in geographical areas threatened by terror attacks. The Minister agreed with Phares' assessment and offered her assessment based on her experience working to provide aid to Christians in the Middle East. Minister Kempa committed to muster support in Poland and throughout Europe for the protection of human rights of minority communities in coordination with the United States. Phares stated, "There are minority communities with different geopolitical and legal statuses. While there are certainly challenges faced by most Christian groups in the region, the Christian and Yazidi communities in Iraq and Syria have been the most threatened with mass killing and ethnic cleansing. I am glad that the UN and later the United States designated ISIS' actions as 'genocide' as I have recommended since 2014." He added, "Poland, and other European countries, are instrumental in helping, not only by raising the issue internationally, but also by assisting ground missions alongside the United States to provide direct protection to these persecuted groups." Grand Old Partisan observes the National Association of Manufacturers' 123rd birthday. This day in 1895, five hundred eighty-three factory owners convened at Cincinnati to establish the NAM. These leaders wanted a unified business strategy for improving the economy. Founder of this indispensable organization was Thomas Egan, president of the local chamber of commerce. His company fabricated machines for carpenters and builders. Governor William McKinley keynoted the event, held at Oddfellows Temple: "We want our own markets for our manufactures and agricultural products. We want a foreign market for our surplus products. We want a reciprocity which will give us foreign markets for our surplus products, and in turn that will open our markets to foreigners for those products which they produce and which we do not." NAM policy initiatives at the time also included calls for a Panama Canal and a federal Department of Commerce. Here is a Video Version of this article on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KpQ_a9rbDAg Michael Zak is author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of GOP civil rights achievement. Each day, his grandoldpartisan YouTube channel and Grand Old Partisan blog celebrate more than sixteen decades of Republican heritage. And, see Speech Raves for audience feedback from his presentations in thirty-one states so far. He also wrote the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. Clarence Thomas cited Back to Basics for the Republican Party in a Supreme Court decision. Buy the book at Amazon See www.youtube.com/q?v=IzxKCiXc5Qc for a brief video of a Texas Republican praising Back to Basics for the Republican Party. "This is the most amazing book about politics that I have ever read. The Overview should be required reading for anyone with even a minor interest in government. The remainder is an enthralling history lesson that I will never forget. For years, we have all been misled about the true nature of the GOP. This is the real deal! Read it and be proud!" "Michael Zak wrote the definitive history of the GOP." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is the most significant contribution to the Republican Party in the last twenty years apart from Ronald Reagan." "Back to Basics for the Republican Party is more important to our party now than ever before." and "one of the best books I ever read" smartass666 wrote: Attorneys are questioning 11 potential jurors about their ability to serve on a jury and decide a case fairly. Seven individuals will be selected to serve on the jury. If each potential juror has an equal chance of being selected, what is the probability that Tamara and Inga are chosen for the jury? 2/11 2/7 21/55 4/11 34/55 PhD in Applied Mathematics Love GMAT Quant questions and running. Signature Read More A direct probabilistic approach:First person to be chosen one of the two girls - 2/11Second person to be chosen to be the other girl - 1/10The probability to chose both girls - (2/11)*(1/10) = 1/55.The two girls can be chosen anywhere in the list of the 7 jurors, therefore the final probability is (1/55)*7C2 = (1/55)*(7*6/2) = 21/55.Combinatorial approach:Total number of possibilities to choose the 7 jurors - 11C7 = 11*10*9*8/(2*3*4) = 11*10*3.Number of possibilities to have the two girls among the final 7 jurors - 9C5 = 9*8*7*6/(2*3*4) = 9*2*7 (the two girls must be in, therefore we need to choose 5 more people from the remaining 9).Required probability 9*2*7/(11*10*3) = 21/55.(I prefer not to multiply before I express the final probability as a ratio, I always try to reduce a fraction whenever possible.)Answer C._________________ VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Nations Housing & Infrastructure Council of British Columbia (HIC) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) have signed a co-developed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that commits the parties to collaborative development of a housing and infrastructure authority for First Nations in BC. The MOU was signed by Deputy Minister of Indigenous Services Canada Jean-Francois Tremblay on January 22, 2019 and by Chief Dan George, Chair of HIC on January 24, 2019 in Vancouver at ISCs Joint Gathering in the presence of ISC representatives, Lynda Clairmont, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister and Catherine Lappe, BC Regional Director General. Representatives of the member organizations of BC First Nations Leadership Council also signed the MOU as witnesses. The MOU formalizes the federal mandate and outlines the framework as to how the two parties will work together to ensure collaboration and cooperation in delivering on HICs mandate. The purpose of the MOU is: To establish a collaborative relationship between the Parties that will lead to the development of a First Nation Institution that will be responsible for delivering Housing & Infrastructure Services for First Nations in British Columbia. To gain agreement-in-principle on the essential terms that will allow the Parties to seek respective mandates to negotiate a future Transfer Agreement for the transfer of authorities to the new First Nation Institution. HIC is working to create a First Nations-controlled Housing & Infrastructure Authority (Authority) in British Columbia. Once established, the Authority will assume responsibility for First Nations housing and infrastructure services and associated programs in BC. Creation of an Authority is a step towards Indigenous self-government and the goals of First Nations and federal governments for housing transformation supported by the co-development of a 10-year First Nations housing strategy. It contributes toward the Government of Canadas directive to transfer its delivery of Indigenous services to Indigenous control. It also reinforces the Indigenous view that housing decisions should be in the hands of Indigenous people. Quotes: Signing of the MOU by the two parties marks a significant milestone in HICs path to establish a made-in-British Columbia, First Nations-controlled housing and infrastructure authority. Indigenous Services Canada is an essential partner in the important work HIC is undertaking. Having a formal mandate solidifies the intergovernmental relationship and the extensive work already underway between the parties to ensure collaboration and cooperation in establishing the authority. Chief Dan George, Chair, First Nations Housing & Infrastructure Council of British Columbia Quick Facts: HIC Mandate: As a step in the path towards Indigenous self-government, to manage the process to design and implement a First Nations controlled Housing & Infrastructure Authority (Authority) in British Columbia that will: Assume authority and control for First Nations housing and infrastructure program delivery in British Columbia; and Deliver associated housing and infrastructure services. The Council was formally established in the fall of 2017 in response to a formal mandate from each of the members of the BC First Nations Leadership Council (BC Assembly of First Nations, First Nations Summit and Union of BC Indian Chiefs) to transform housing and infrastructure service delivery in BC by developing a First Nation Institution that will be responsible for infrastructure and housing services. This project was initiated by First Nations and is being led by HIC. Indigenous Services Canada is leading from the Government of Canada. Designing a community-based housing and infrastructure model that meets the needs of First Nations is fundamental to HICs work. Extensive engagement, consultation and collaboration with the BC First Nations housing and infrastructure community and leadership is essential to achieving success. HIC is engaging First Nations, government, associations, agencies, organizations, urban Indigenous and other related service providers plus any others who can contribute towards its mandate. In the first phase of engagement, HIC held outreach sessions with the BC housing community, meetings with housing service providers, urban housing groups, education facilities and financial institutions, and a workshop with highly-experienced housing and infrastructure professionals to develop three housing and infrastructure delivery design concepts. In the second phase of engagement, HIC will be taking delivery model examples back to First Nations in BC and various groups to further refine HICs ideas, the delivery model and associated transfer agreement. For more information, please visit www.fnhic-bc.ca Photos accompanying this announcement are available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b8fa0aee-7691-49d7-bdc9-4bd95f9b4b08 http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9f0bcbbe-8231-4242-8c6a-763327f3607e I just completed an ice-fishing trip that I had really been looking forward to. Kevan Paul and I had been trying to make plans to get out on the lake that he guides on, Clear Lake in North Iowa. In mid-January everything came together. We wanted to headquarter out of my Core Ice shelter, which is a new type of wheel-house thats much lighter than other types of wheel-houses. A friend of ours towed it to our fishing location with his Polaris side-by-side four-wheeler. Most houses are too heavy for that, so you can use the Core Ice in many more situations. It enables anglers to fish while they warm up, then venture out to search for more fish. My friend Gary Sturges, another Clear Lake fishing expert, joined us for our morning on the ice. Heres how it went. Our goal was to catch yellow bass, but the guys said that we might also catch perch, white bass, walleyes, and crappie. We caught all but a walleye. Clear Lake is a very diverse fishery. Yellow bass are a distinctively marked fish and get to about 10 inches in length, sometimes a tad longer. Theyre an invasive, so you can keep as many as you want to clean. Theyre delicious on the table, so most anglers dont mind cleaning a bunch of them. That decision was probably the most significant one in the history of the city in providing the public with a firsthand look at their government in action. Think of some of the major debates and major decisions over the years that the public has had the opportunity to witness. And if they didnt see them on Tuesday night, they had numerous opportunities to see them in the rebroadcasts. The debate two years ago over the proposed Prestage hog processing plant comes to mind. It included many council sessions including two that lasted seven hours. Viewers today can keep up with discussions on the River City Renaissance project. The public has also been able to see the occasional grandstanding by council members and by citizens at the public forum who enjoy their moment in the spotlight. From a personal standpoint, the televised meetings helped vindicate me when some of my reports on what happened at council meetings seemed unbelievable. After all, seeing is believing. With all of this as background, isnt it time to consider televising school board meetings and meetings of the board of supervisors? Steyer, the California billionaire Democrat, earlier this month called a press conference in downtown Des Moines to announce he will not run for president and instead focus on his organization, which is drumming support to impeach President Donald Trump. Of course, Scholten also said he has not ruled out any future campaign. He insisted he is, for the time being, focused on his "Working Hero Iowa" campaign on the income tax credits; but he also said he is leaving the door open. This is not to question Scholtens sincerity about the "Working Hero Iowa" campaign. But with everything like this especially in Iowa there is a political element. And the campaign could very much help Scholten if he does decide down the road to put his name on the ballot again. Scholten said he will hold "Working Hero Iowa" events all across the state. He described it as similar to a campaign, in that hell be working to build grassroots support and volunteers to the cause. He wants to raise awareness through these public events and earned media. This is a National Geographic video of two dung beetles at the Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa doing battling over (and on top of) a poop ball. Admittedly, that is a nice round poop ball. You may recall we previously saw Coyote Peterson narrate a dung beetle turd ball battle, because, I don't know if you were aware of this or not, but this happens all the time. Like right at this very moment there are thousands and thousands of dung beetles duking it out over turds. Kinda crazy to think about, right? Also, did you know there are actually three different types of dung beetles? The ones seen here, rollers, roll poop around and use it as a food source and breeding chamber (I know -- it's almost impossible to not get in the mood just thinking about it). The second, tunnelers, bury poop wherever they find it. And the third group, dwellers, neither roll nor bury, they just live in shit piles. Obviously, I'm a dweller. Keep going for the video, complete with value-add narration. Thanks to hairless, who agrees there's no greater honor in life than defending your shit ball. Colorados wildfires and floods are key components of a new Defense Department report highlighting the impact of climate change on military facilities. While the Trump administration has questioned whether climate change is real, with the president tweeting this month that winter storms debunk the work of a generation of scientists, the Pentagon fears that wildfires, drought and floods could affect military operations. A key example is the fires that started on Fort Carson and spread east into a civilian neighborhood last year. In March 2018 two related wildfires broke out in Colorado during an infantry and helicopter training exercise for an upcoming deployment, the report says. Later determined to be due to live fire training, gusty winds and dry conditions allowed the fire to spread, reaching about 3,300 acres in size, destroying three homes, and causing the evacuation of 250 homes. The report found that Peterson and Schriever Air Force bases and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station are vulnerable to fire because of climate change. The nations underground mountain command post is also vulnerable to floods, the report said. President Donald Trump expressed his doubt about climate change this month as a winter storm lashed the East Coast. Be careful and try staying in your house, Trump wrote on Twitter. Large parts of the country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record-setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldnt be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned global warming right now! But the president is confusing weather with climate, said Andreas Prein, a physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Weather changes quickly, while climate researchers look at trends over decades or centuries, Prein said. Those studies have convinced Prein that its getting hotter quickly. You can see now we have much more frequent warm winters, he said. Those warm winters are shrinking snowpack in the Rockies and leaving the plains with more rain than snow. They also are lengthening the wildfire season, making blazes like the one on Fort Carson far more common. The Pentagon report said all bases in the Pikes Peak region are at risk due to fire. Prein said the climate is also creating more severe rainstorms, causing more flooding in the Rockies. That was on display in 2013, when a storm dropped more than a foot of rain on Cheyenne Mountain in a few hours. The deluge caused a massive mudslide, which closed the primary entrance to the underground complex. The military invested millions in a flood mitigation program for the site, which houses critical military computer systems and is designed to be a bombproof wartime headquarters for the North American Aerospace Defense Command and missile defense troops. The Pentagon said the mountain is still vulnerable to flooding, though. Prein said the heavy rain is tied to climate change because warmer weather allows bigger, wetter clouds to form. For every degree of temperature increase, he said, the capacity of clouds to hold moisture increases by 7 percent. Its a symptom of a changing climate, Prein said. If you look at very heavy rainfall, you see it more frequently, he said. The Pentagons report found that the majority of its 79 most critical bases are at risk in the changing environment. The effects of a changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to Department of Defense missions, operational plans, and installations, the report said. Worries about climate changes effects on the military go far beyond local bases. Global strategic concerns from nations losing water supplies to changing rivalries across melting ice have the Pentagon worried. Oversight of the Arctic falls squarely on the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs, which has kept a wary eye on melting polar ice for more than a decade. The command is responsible for keeping watch on air and sea lanes leading to the continent to prevent attack. Retired Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who led Northern Command from 2007 to 2010, said the problems in the Arctic remain a key concern. A sea lane across the top of North America has opened in a region once locked by ice, Renuart said. As more water is navigable, there is more potential for competition for vital resources fishing, oil and natural gas exploration, and in todays world military intrusion from nations like China and Russia, he said. In recent years, Russia has run massive Arctic exercises to show off its ability to make war in the extreme north. A number of explorations of the new passage by ships from China have been reported, and that nation could benefit greatly from a shorter sea lane to Europe. This has huge implications, Renuart said. The military has pushed for more Coast Guard icebreakers and more ice-capable warships to deal with the new channel and is sending more submarines north. On issues faced by local bases, the military has not sat on its hands. Fort Carson has launched a massive effort of controlled burns this winter to remove dry brush. A similar effort has taken place on Cheyenne Mountain, which also has a new system of channels to redirect water in the worst rainstorms. The Pikes Peak regions bases also have gone green. The regions largest solar power arrays sit on the Air Force Academy and at Fort Carson. Retired Army Col. Bob McLaughlin, who served as Fort Carsons garrison commander from 2009 to 2012, said the work to pursue green power and mitigate fire risks wasnt necessarily focused on climate change. But the Army did want to set an example for the rest of the community on caring for the environment. It was all about being good stewards of the environment and setting the example of what right looks like, he said. Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx The report found that Peterson and Schriever Air Force bases and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station are vulnerable to fire because of climate change. On Sunday mornings, Brady Boyd talks to big crowds from a big stage on the north end of Colorado Springs. Standing there, wearing a sport coat and talking in a clear voice with only a hint of his Louisiana youth, he reveals the will of God or at least Brady Boyds version of it to New Life Church. In Boyds mind, and in the minds of most of his listeners, this is the God who created the world in six days before taking a day to rest, the God who controls our universe, the God who cares about every person sitting in the sprawling auditorium. All over Colorado Springs, church doors open each Sunday morning, and the faithful, and not-so-faithful, wrestle with the will and the word of God. Its so routine. And so weighty. The eternal Creator, majestic and mysterious, is brought straight into 2019. Boyd is not from the school of grandiose preaching. His voice doesnt rumble. He walks the stage, without notes and without a pulpit, and shares his thoughts as if in a relaxed one-way conversation. Preaching is a huge honor, Boyd says from his corner office with a superb view of the Rockies. Its a joy to open the Scriptures and bring truth and hope to people who are hungry for it. Every person who shows up at New Life shows up because of their own good will. They dont have to be here. Were not shaming them to be here. Were just inviting them to come. His listeners could be sleeping or hiking or watching TV or even slinking off somewhere to sin. Its a miracle to me, Boyd says of the big audiences who come to listen. He has a point. Boyd preaches in a city where, according to a 2013 Gallup poll, only 35 percent of residents describe themselves as very religious. This places Colorado Springs in the bottom third of American cities for devotion. While Boyd speaks to thousands, tens of thousands remain at home. Boyd, 52, didnt expect this life. He grew up near the Texas state line in a modest home in Logansport, La., population 1,561. He indulged as a young man in, by his description, years of unfocused and ungodly living. While driving on a lonely stretch of Louisiana highway in August 1988, he dedicated himself to Christ. Hes not one of those preachers who projects a know-it-all aura. Faith, to him, is a wonderful yet fragile gift. Simple, yet complicated. Unfathomable, yet obvious. He struggles each week while preparing his sermon, sitting alone in this office as he contemplates the message he will deliver to thousands. I feel inadequate almost any time I walk on the stage, he says. Preaching keeps us in a humble place. Im very aware of my own brokenness and my own flaws and my own humanity when I walk on the stage, yet knowing that theres grace for me and if I can receive grace I can give it away. Yes, its very humbling. Im telling the greatest story thats ever been written to people who really need it from a guy who had to receive it. I would never preach a sermon that I havent embraced myself. Im never going to stand in front of New Life and preach on a topic that I havent wrestled with in private. I think that keeps me focused. It keeps me humble. It keeps me hungry for God. It keeps me dependent on God. I preach out of a sense of dependency. I realize that if God doesnt bless it, its just a good speech. Boyd marvels at the resilience of the church, founded more than 2,000 years ago. Early followers of Christ were murdered because they refused to bow to authority. Later followers of Christ, in turn, murdered those who refused to bow to religious authority. American church members embraced slavery, saying it was Gods will. Other Christians risked lives to abolish slavery. The story of the church is an epic, lovely, ugly, complex saga of flawed women and men trying, and failing, to imitate a flawless man named Jesus. All the criticisms and messiness the church has survived for 2,000 years, and the church still holds a place in peoples hearts, that has to be the work of a divine inspiration, in my opinion, Boyd says. That has to be the work of God. It has to be the idea of God for the church to exist or it would have fallen by the wayside. Boyd is not talking specifically about New Life and its history, but he could be. Founded by Ted Haggard in 1984, the church enjoyed dazzling growth and built a glorious campus before teetering on the edge of extinction after a sex scandal forced Haggards departure in 2007. When Boyd considered the immensity of his task when offered the challenge of leading and reviving New Life, he almost said no. Today, the sanctuary is filled with members and guests listening to a modest man who struggles, along with them, to understand Gods teachings. About 2 on Sunday afternoons, a weary Boyd returns home after delivering two sermons and heads for bed. When he awakens, he immediately starts thinking about his next sermon. Sundays, he says with a laugh, come around with alarming regularity. We have sometimes mused that the farther you go from Denvers 16th Street Mall, the more you find conservatives and Republicans. Colorados ski counties defy this aphorism, as do a few historically Hispanic counties near the San Luis Valley. Still, in certain ways, there are two Colorados. Twenty of the 26 counties along Colorados borders vote Republican. That includes counties in the states corners: Moffat in the northwest, Sedgwick in the northeast, Baca in the southeast and Montezuma in the southwest. Much of the Front Range increasingly differs from the rest of the state in political party and ideological preferences. Colorado has several divides, and one is party polarization. Which counties are polarized, and which are not? And is political polarization growing in our state as it reportedly is in the rest of the nation? To answer these questions, we used the Statewide Partisan Average, our metric averaging votes for U.S. president, U.S. senator and Colorado governor by the decade. The SPA is expressed as a percentage vote for either the Democratic or Republican parties for the county for the decade. Third parties are not included. We consider a Colorado county polarized if it cast 60 percent or more of its two-party vote for one party or the other. We used El Paso County as our model. It mainly elects Republicans to county offices and the Legislature, and it consistently has an SPA of mid-60s percent Republican. So are Colorado counties polarized? Yes. Of the 64 counties, 39 met our definition of polarized from 2010-19 30 of them Republican, and nine Democratic. Thus, 60 percent of our counties classify as polarized. Keep in mind that this study deals with locations rather than votes cast. The most polarized counties are Washington County on the eastern plains, at 84.1 percent Republican, and Denver County, at 76.9 percent Democratic. Washington County cast only about 2,300 votes for major party candidates in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Denvers two-party vote in that race totaled almost 300,000. Some of our Republican counties are heavily populated, including El Paso, 62.5 percent Republican; Douglas, 61.6 percent Republican; Weld, 60.8 percent Republican, and Mesa, 66.8 percent Republican. By and large, though, polarized Republican counties are in rural areas on the eastern plains and in nonresort sections of the Western Slope, such as Moffat County, at 80.1 percent Republican, and Rio Blanco County, at 83.3 percent Republican. On the Democratic side, Denver is joined by Boulder County at 73.3 percent Democratic and a few ski counties such as Gunnison, 61.2 percent Democratic; Pitkin (home to Aspen), 72.8 percent Democratic; San Miguel (Telluride) at 73.5 percent Democratic; and Summit County (Breckenridge), at 64.6 percent Democratic. All of these figures are based on two-party voting in the decade since 2010. To assess whether polarization has increased, we compared this decade with the 1980s. The results surprised us. The number of polarized counties for both parties has increased. The 1980s saw only 23 polarized Republican counties, compared with 30 today, and only three Democratic counties, compared with nine now. Nonpolarized counties in our study were labeled partisan and scored 53 percent to 59 percent for either political party. Two of the Denver areas most populous counties flipped from partisan Republican to partisan Democratic over the past 30 years. Arapahoe County (Littleton) went from 58.6 percent Republican to 55.2 percent Democratic. And Jefferson County (Golden) tracked 55.5 percent Republican to 53.1 percent Democratic. Also shifting from Republican to Democratic were Gunnison, Ouray and Larimer counties. Only Las Animas County (Trinidad) flipped from Democratic to Republican. So based on county election results from two decades 30 years apart, Colorado is polarized and growing more so. As Denver, Boulder and mountain resort counties become more Democratic, rural areas all over the state become more Republican. Equally Republican (although not polarizing as fast as the rural areas) are populous El Paso, Douglas and Weld counties. This study suggests partisan differences in Colorado are becoming more intense along geographic lines. These politically differing Coloradans likely sit next to each other at Broncos games and ski, hunt and fish near one another in our great outdoors. But both polarizing parts are sending representatives and senators to the state Capitol. No wonder the two parties struggle to get along in the Legislature. Coloradans need to recognize how sharply we are dividing politically and work harder to emphasize common values and aspirations. These divides are not going away. Politics requires we live together and try to craft policies that benefit everyone in the state. Politics is the process that brings people together, regardless of party loyalties, to understand our common needs and find agreements. Shutting down the state government is not an option. And neither is giving up on politics. Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy are political scientists at Colorado College. The 1980s saw only 23 polarized Republican counties, compared with 30 today, and only three Democratic counties, compared with nine now. Update: Jeff Wolin at the Florissant Fossil Beds reached out to The Gazette to inform us that normal operations resumed as of 9 a.m. Sunday. National parks in Colorado and across the country are scrambling to fully reopen after the temporary end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. President Donald Trump on Friday announced an end to the 35-day partial government shutdown, agreeing to fund federal agencies through Feb. 15 while negotiations over border security resume. The deal he reached with congressional leaders contains no new money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border over which Trump shut down a quarter of the federal government. The Interior took to Instagram to share its gratitude: Were back online and honored to continue sharing the beauty and wonder of Americas public lands. As all of the government reopens, we want to thank those respectful and protective of these important places during the shutdown. Many employees worked without pay and members of the public volunteered to keep #publiclands safe and clean, and to ensure theyll continue to be a proud legacy for future generations. Reopening dates for national parks will depend on their staff size and complexity of operations, P. Daniel Smith, the deputy director of the National Park Service, said in a statement. Some parks which have been closed throughout the lapse in appropriations may not reopen immediately, but we will work to open all parks as quickly as possible, Smith said. Rocky Mountain National Park, whose 104th birthday was Saturday, is resuming all normal visitor services and operations, spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said. Park staff are happy to be back at work providing services to park visitors and protecting the parks amazing resources, Patterson said in an email. She expects to have more information on the schedule for its reopening as well as the necessary maintenance and repairs early this week. Rocky Mountain National Park was partially open during the shutdown and started to provide basic services like toilet cleaning, trash disposal, snowplowing and entrance station staffing during the second week of January. No entrance fees were collected, and services were funded with revenue generated by recreation fees. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, which did not respond to requests for comments Saturday, was closed during the shutdown. Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Mesa Verde remained open without visitor services. Their websites did not have information on their plans to reopen on Saturday. During the shutdown, parks across the country were overwhelmed by destruction, including multiple deaths, improper disposal of waste and vandalism, including cutting down protected Joshua trees at the Southern California national park. Many others that remained partially open had overflowing trash cans and toilets, and lost weeks of entrance fees and related revenue. Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for National Parks Conservation Association, stressed the amount of triage rangers will face when they return. For rangers, it will mean returning to our national parks, assessing the terrible damage done to them while they were open with such limited staff, and once again welcoming visitors to the places they all love she said. Now is when the real work begins. The damage done to our parks will be felt for weeks, months or even years. Pierno also urged those in Capitol Hill and the White House to dedicate themselves to finding a permanent funding solution for the sake of federal workers and Americas public lands. We implore lawmakers to use this time to come to a long-term funding agreement and avoid another disaster like this, she said. Federal employees, businesses, communities and national parks deserve better. We listen to local police and fire departments scanner traffic, but sometimes miss crimes, wrecks, fires or other incidents, especially if they happen overnight. If you know of something were not covering yet, please let Managing Editor Jeff Pownall know by emailing him at jpownall@lufkindailynews.com, or submit a news tip online by visiting lufkindailynews.com/tips. DENVER Cameras from news stations across the country packed into the halls of the Weld County Court House on a chilly November day to record the sentencing of a Frederick man convicted of killing his wife, Shanann Watts, and their two young daughters. Onlookers lined up early before the hearing in hopes of getting a seat in the packed courtroom. Thousands joined online discussion groups to debate every minute detail of the case. Three days later a Woodland Park woman, Kelsey Berreth, disappeared. Soon, her photos appeared on national newscasts and in newspapers as reporters closely tracked her disappearance and the later arrest of her fiance on allegations he killed her. But at least 38 other people were killed in Colorado last year in connection to domestic violence, according to a preliminary count by the Denver Metro Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team. Many of those deaths received no such national attention and, in some cases, even little local coverage. Experts and advocates in the field say it's not uncommon for the disappearance and deaths of women such as Berreth and Watts white, young and seemingly well-off to garner disproportionate media focus and public interest compared with others. "Certain lives matter and certain lives don't," said DoraLee Larson, executive director of the Denver Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, which conducts the city's annual fatality review. "That may be crass, but there is some truth to it. It's absolutely a class, race and gender issue." Between 2013 and 2016, a total of 100 Colorado women nearly half of all female homicide victims in the state were killed by a current or former intimate partner, data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation show. National statistics collected by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence show that about a third of all female murder victims in the U.S. are killed by an intimate partner. But the fatality review team includes a much wider range of fatalities stemming from domestic violence, including people killed by their partner, victims who died by suicide to escape abuse, abusers who kill themselves or another in an attempt to hurt their victim, and other bystanders killed in a domestic violence incident. The number of people killed in Colorado in connection to domestic violence hovers around 40 every year and has remained consistent for at least the past five years, aside from a spike in 2016 caused by a rise in homicides in Denver, Larson said. It's difficult to determine trends in the data, Larson said, besides the fact that women are far more likely to be the victims and that guns are often used in the killings. Most victims had never reached out to domestic violence services or told many people if any about the abuse they were facing before they were killed, she said. In 2018, the review team's list includes Berreth and Watts, as well as a woman from Hotchkiss whose boyfriend is charged with strangling her and dumping her body in Utah behind some tree stumps. Five days before Berreth's disappearance was reported, a Denver man was arrested for allegedly killing his girlfriend in their apartment, putting her body in the trunk of his car and driving to Wyoming, where he was taken into custody. Neither of those cases received national attention, and stories in Colorado news media, including The Denver Post, were far more limited than coverage of the deaths of Watts and Berreth. In general, news media and the public have consistently given more attention to domestic violence homicides when the victims or perpetrators are white and come from more affluent backgrounds, said Angela Gover, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Colorado Denver who studies intimate partner violence and public perception. A November 2018 study conducted by the Urban Indian Health Institute analyzed media coverage of cases of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women from urban areas in the U.S., including 12 cases from Denver. Analysts found that only 5 percent of cases received national or international media attention and that only a quarter of cases received any attention at all. Only 8 percent of the 506 cases included in the study were tied to domestic violence, but the study states that institutional racism in the media contributes to a lack of accurate data on the killings and disappearances. "Combined with the inaccessibility of law enforcement data, this lack of reporting leads the general public to have an inaccurate understanding of the issue, and over two-thirds of the cases that happen in urban areas are rendered invisible," the report states. Viewers and news organizations also tend to pay more attention to victims that are seen as faultless, such as young women, children or the elderly, said Michelle Jeanis, a professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who studies crime and media. People often like to pin blame on a victim to make sense of a crime and to feel like such an act couldn't happen to them, she said. But people can't rationalize a crime if a victim is seen as blameless, which creates a sense of fear that compels people to pay attention to the story, she said. "We like to attribute blame in society to an individual," she said. "When we have an ideal victim, it makes it harder to believe those things." Victims of domestic violence should never bear any of the blame for their abuse, said Cindy Southworth, executive vice president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. "It's just so heartbreaking, if someone is killed and is already from a marginalized community, their death basically goes unnoticed," she said. "That victim's life is as valuable as the middle-class neighbor who on paper looks like they have a squeaky clean past." Domestic homicides often rise to national media attention if they take place in an upscale neighborhood because people still believe that people with higher incomes do not experience domestic violence, Southworth said. "That's absolute bunk," she said. "It happens in every community." Along with news reporters, the public also needs to critically think about how they consume the news, she added. "We need to hold ourselves accountable and not skim over the headlines if the victim doesn't remind us of ourselves," Southworth said. In Colorado, domestic violence fatalities have far-reaching consequences for surviving family members and friends, Larson said. Last year, at least seven children in Colorado homes witnessed or were in the home when a killing occurred. "There has to be a real holistic, community, systematic response to this issue or it's never going to stop," she said. Part of the solution is more local review teams analyzing domestic violence fatalities in their communities and using that information in prevention, Larson said. The Denver team is one of three local groups in Colorado that work with the state Colorado Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, which was established in 2017 and published its first report in November. The Denver team collected much of the data for the state report, but staff sizing and funding shortages prevent the team from completing an in-depth analysis of every case in the state, Larson said. "We're really trying to motivate or compel new teams to start pretty much anywhere and everywhere that makes sense in Colorado," Larson said. Colorado Springs, CO (80903) Today Partly cloudy early followed by scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. High around 85F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 62F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} This past year, the drug caseload was so high that Glass has designated one of his attorneys, Emily Beamis, as the offices drug crime prosecutor. Put it this way: theres never been a time in this office that we have had to have one person be our drug attorney, Glass said. We have that many drug cases, that I have to have one attorney that is solely dedicated to filing drug cases. The rise in drug arrests is documented in data collected by the Fremont Police Department. According to data logged in the police departments annual reports, the number of crimes in general increased by about eight percent between 2015 and 2017. Drug crimes increased by 21 percent in that time. Drugs are also often contributing as an underlying cause in other crimes, Glass argued. Even before this past years increase in the district court caseload, the county attorneys office has always had to consider taxpayer costs and the courts busy docket, which could factor into some prosecuting decisions. Jury trials in criminal cases, for instance, are expensive to the county and time consuming, and if an attorney feels that they can achieve a desired sentencing outcome through plea negotiations with the defense, they will pursue it. In counties across eastern Nebraska, the proposed poultry barns have elicited both welcoming and critical responses from residents, and the same has been true in Dodge County. The proposals occasionally put the matrix to the test -- with county officials praising it as a helpful tool and skeptics fearing that it could supplant the opinions of local residents. I think what everybody decided through this statute was that if you had a scientific application here like the matrix, it would take the emotion out of it, said Dodge County Zoning Administrator Jean Andrews. Well it does and it doesnt. That tension was on display at the last Dodge County Board of Supervisors meeting, when after hearing hours of public comment, the board of supervisors denied a proposal for a 10-barn poultry operation in Nickerson. Among concerns about traffic safety, odor and the effect of the barn on property values, some urged board members to look past the proposals matrix score and listen to neighbors concerns. The board ultimately listened, voting 4 to 2 against the proposal -- despite it scoring 114 on the matrix. Dedication of the Habitat for Humanity homes will be held in the spring. The nominating committee of Mary Caffey and Colleen Dilley will search for a vice president and one director for the coming year. The fall luncheon was discussed. Dates for the event and the type of quilt design will be decided at the next meeting. The Altrusa bookmarks are being updated. The committee of Schauer, Jakie Pawling and Karen Rathje discussed the quantity and prices. Brown made a motion to allow the committee to make the final decision. Schauer seconded the motion. Motion carried. Under new business, Jane Peterson made a motion to have two scholarships this year, one for $1,000 and one for $500 to be presented at the Achievement Dinner in April. Pawling seconded the motion. Motion carried. Pawling will also be on the committee for Scholarship and Senior Recognition applications. Letter for the 2021 District Seven Conference was discussed. Fremont at this time does not have the facilities to host such an event. The offer was declined. Schauer has a January birthday. Lou Stover is still the top seller of the streak-free cloths for the club. No further business, the meeting was adjourned. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Milchtein attributes her quick success to the educational relationships she forged with customers. I always wanted the customer to learn the car. I wanted to educate the customer, and I wanted to educate myself. I wanted to understand everything about what I was selling, all information I was providing, she recounted. That way, when people got a repair, they knew it was the repair they needed and that their money was well spent. After beginning the blog in summer 2017, Milchtein bounced back from New York and landed in Milwaukee at the beginning of 2018, this time looking to put down roots. Instead, what she found was a workforce that mistrusted her abilities because of her gender. In New York, people are a little more open-minded, and if you prove yourself, theyre likely to give you a chance. But, when I moved back here, I couldnt find a job, even though I had a boatload of experience, she said. When car people talk to me about cars, its pretty clear I know what I am talking about but I couldnt get an interview. Eventually, she started a new gig under an owner who wouldnt even let her answer the phone. By Roberta Rampton, Matt Spetalnick and Patricia Zengerle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When U.S. national security adviser John Bolton branded Venezuela as part of a hemispheric "troika of tyranny" in a speech in November, the Trump administration was still struggling to decide how far it would go in confronting the country's socialist president, Nicolas Maduro. But what has taken shape in recent days is a sharply more aggressive approach based on President Donald Trump's full-throated backing for opposition leader Juan Guaido and bolstered by a coordinated diplomatic response with many of Venezuela's neighbors, who rapidly followed suit in withdrawing recognition of Maduro's rule. Driving this hardened U.S. stance is the growing assertiveness of more hawkish White House aides led by Bolton, Vice President Mike Pence's deep engagement on the issue, a push by anti-Maduro U.S. lawmakers and the arrival of like-minded rightist presidents in Brazil and Colombia, according to people familiar with the matter. On Wednesday, Venezuelan congress head Guaido declared himself interim president, the boldest challenge in years to Maduro's hold on power. Washington's decision to throw its weight behind Guaido, a virtual unknown in Venezuelan politics until recently, came only after it became convinced that the 35-year-old with a U.S. education was a democratic-minded leader they could trust and work with, U.S. officials said. That was the conclusion drawn from U.S. contacts with Guaido in the days ahead of his declaration, including two phone calls with Pence, officials said, asking to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the situation. In Pence's second call, which according to a White House official was kept under wraps for security reasons, the vice president assured Guaido: "We're praying for you, the U.S. stands with you, your bravery and courage are something we admire." "It was the U.S. position that Guaido had to have the constitutional backing," the official said. The constitutionality of Guaido's move is unclear. Venezuela's constitution says if the presidency is determined to be vacant, new elections should be called in 30 days and that the head of the congress should assume the presidency in the meantime. Maduro, who started a second term on Jan. 10 following a widely-boycotted election last year, has called Guaido's move an attempted coup. While the outcome remains uncertain and the risks are high, Trump's handling of the situation has stood in sharp contrast to his more chaotic approach to some other major foreign policy decisions, such as Iran and Syria. He has mostly stayed on message in public, consulted with his advisers and avoided antagonizing regional allies needed for their support. Senior administration officials, including Pence, Bolton and White House Latin America adviser Mauricio Claver-Carone, made a flurry of calls to Latin American leaders ahead of Guaido's announcement to ensure that many of them would join Trump in recognizing Guaido. Luis Almagro, president of the Organization of American States, Carlos Trujillo, U.S. ambassador to the OAS, and other senior State Department officials also helped secure Latin American diplomatic support, officials said. Questions remain about how the United States and other countries will now deal with the Maduro government's finances and diplomats and how events inside Venezuela will unfold if Maduro continues to show no signs of losing the vital support of Venezuela's military. "The real issue that keeps me up at nights is what do we do if Maduro manages to hold on? What do we do if there is a bloody crackdown?" said Roger Noriega, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere under President George W. Bush. Many people, he said, were wondering whether the administration had more ideas in mind on "how to go forward." TOUGH LINE Trump so far has stopped short of taking the harshest economic measures sanctioning OPEC member Venezuela's vital oil sector but, according to people familiar with the matter, even that is under is under consideration if Maduro cracks down hard on the opposition. U.S. military intervention is widely seen in Washington as an unpalatable and unlikely option. However, Trump has taken an increasingly tough line with Venezuela since he took office in January 2017, imposing an escalating series of targeted sanctions. But there has been growing frustration within the administration that more was needed. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is considered to have played a major role in convincing fellow Republican Trump to ratchet up pressure on Maduro, subtly reminding him of the importance of the Cuban-American vote in presidential swing state Florida. "The president's instincts have always been to do the strongest possible action (against Venezuela) that doesn't undermine the cohesion of this multilateral approach," Rubio told Reuters. Rubio led a delegation of Florida lawmakers to discuss Venezuela with Trump on Tuesday, although an aide said Trump had decided before the meeting to recognize Guaido. Bolton, known for his harsh views on the Latin American left, laid some of the groundwork well before Guaido's emergence. In a November speech in Miami, home to large numbers of immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela, Bolton pledged that the United States would crack down on what he called "the troika of tyranny" in the Western Hemisphere, naming Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Bolton also met Jair Bolsonaro, then Brazil's president-elect, in late November and discussed how the far-right leader could cooperate with the United States to pressure Venezuela. Brazil was one of the first countries to recognize Guaido. The stricter approach to Venezuela has also been pushed by Claver-Carone, named by Bolton as his top Latin American adviser after Bolton took over at the National Security Council last year. Claver-Carone is known as a hardliner on communist Cuba and outspoken critic of former President Barack Obama's rapprochement with Havana. Bolton has also worked with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to form a united front within the administration, needed to overcome resistance from career State Department diplomats. Venezuela has long been a divisive issue in the State Department, with some diplomats pushing for dialogue and others backing deeper sanctions. The departure last year of veteran diplomat Tom Shannon, who favored dialogue with Caracas and was often dispatched for talks with Maduro, helped open the door to those who wanted a heavier-handed approach, according to U.S. officials. One senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was concern among some in the department that by recognizing Guaido the United States would divide the region, especially as Mexico's new leftist government supports Maduro. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Matt Spetalnick and Patricia Zengerle, Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Mary Milliken and Rosalba O'Brien) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to address the UN Security Council on Venezuela after the United States requested an urgent meeting for Saturday (AFP Photo/ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS) United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United States on Thursday called for a UN Security Council meeting on the crisis in Venezuela after it recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the acting president. The US mission to the United Nations said it requested that the council meet in open session at 9 am (1400 GMT) Saturday. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to attend, diplomats said. Pompeo earlier warned Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro, not to use force against demonstrators and called for stronger international support for the self-declared acting president. The United States has won support for the move from about a dozen Latin American countries including Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. France and Britain, which are among the five permanent council members, have also questioned Maduro's legitimacy. Russia and China, however, have thrown their weight behind Maduro. UN diplomats said Russia may try to block the meeting by calling for a procedural vote, arguing that Venezuela is not on the council's agenda. Mexico, Cuba and Bolivia have also pledged support for Maduro. US President Donald Trump recognized Guaido, the speaker of Venezuela's parliament, as acting leader, declaring his National Assembly "the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people". At a special meeting of the Organization of American States in Washington, Pompeo warned Maduro that "the time for debate is done" and called his government "illegitimate". South Africa's Ambassador to the United Nations, Jerry Matjila, told reporters that "we will listen to what Mike Pompeo has to say" but added that it was unlikely that the council could agree on a unified position. South Africa, a non-permanent council member, considers Maduro as the legitimate president. Protesters rally in Caracas in support of Juan Guaido, who the United States says is the legitimate interim president of Venezuela (AFP Photo/Federico PARRA) Washington (AFP) - The United States on Thursday ordered non-emergency embassy staff to leave Venezuela but refused to comply with a full expulsion demanded by Nicolas Maduro, who Washington says is no longer president. The State Department mandated the departure of non-emergency US personnel and their family members "based on our current assessment of the security situation in Venezuela," a department spokesman said. "We have no plans to close the embassy. The United States will maintain diplomatic relations with Venezuela through the government of interim President Guaido, who has invited our mission to remain in Venezuela," he said. Amid deadly political clashes in the crisis-torn country, the State Department also said that US citizens "should strongly consider departing Venezuela." Maduro on Wednesday gave US diplomats 72 hours to leave the country after President Donald Trump, backed by major Latin American nations, said the leftist firebrand was no longer Venezuela's legitimate president. The United States said it was ignoring the order as it had recognized Guaido, the opposition head of the National Assembly, as the interim president. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview Thursday that Maduro -- to whom the military leadership is still loyal -- bore responsibility for the safety of US diplomats. "There's no higher priority for the State Department than to keep all the people in our missions safe and secure. And we've made clear to the Maduro regime that it is our expectation that they will be safe and secure," he told conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham. "What we want to make sure that former president Maduro knows is that he doesn't have the right to make the decision about whether or not we stay there," Pompeo said. State Department officials have not said how many US personnel remain in Venezuela. Maduro has also shuttered US missions in the United States. FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is seen at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna, Austria, December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo By Dmitry Zhdannikov DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - U.S. oil producers sought on Wednesday to soothe OPEC's worries about losing market share, telling the group that investors in the U.S. firms wanted a reduction in growth and higher payouts. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC allies such as Russia have cut output since 2017 to support oil prices, while watching producers in the United States, which is not party to the cuts, drive up production. The United States has overtaken Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world's biggest crude producer. Output is approaching 12 million barrels per day (bpd). OPEC's forecasts and even U.S. government predictions have repeatedly underestimated U.S. output growth. The bosses of U.S. firms Occidental Petroleum and Hess Corp, attending a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that growth of U.S. shale oil output would slow. The session was a rare occasion when U.S. producers and an OPEC representative, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo, sat on the same panel. "I believe not as much money will be pouring into the Permian basin this time. I believe investors will hold companies accountable for returns and a lot of this didn't happen previously," Occidental Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said. Echoing her comments, Hess Corp founder and Chief Executive John Hess said shale production now accounted for about 6 percent of global production. "It will probably go up to 10 percent by mid-decade but then it flattens out," he said. But he added that U.S. resources would start to degrade. "Shale is not the next Saudi Arabia. It is an important short-cycle component," he said. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised OPEC for manipulating prices and demanded several times last year that the group bring them down. He has also praised OPEC, and its de facto leader Saudi Arabia, when prices have fallen. Oil prices surged above $86 a barrel in October, but have since slipped back. On Wednesday, Brent was about $62. Story continues Barkindo said OPEC aimed to balance supply and demand and had helped the United States by rescuing its oil industry from ultra-low oil prices. "The oil industry is under siege globally," Barkindo said, adding that OPEC wanted to talk more regularly to U.S. producers to understand their industry better even if they could not participate in any OPEC-led production cuts. In response, Hess said: "OPEC plays a very important role in stabilising the market and those efforts need to be recognised." Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, which represents industrialised nations, said most forecasts were still underestimating U.S. oil production growth. "There is a huge potential in the U.S.," Birol told Reuters, adding that the United States could raise output by another 10 million bpd in the next decade. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Edmund Blair) U.S. diplomats in Venezuela are caught in the midst of an ongoing power struggle, and with the Trump administration siding with the opposition, their security remains uncertain. The people in the embassy in Caracas are in a very vulnerable situation, a former Trump Administration official told NBC News. Diplomats depend on host governments for their safety. Now theyre no longer safe on the streets or in their homes. Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets earlier this week to force President Nicolas Madurowho much of the international community believes to have rigged the most recent electionout of office. Juan Guaido, the president of Venezuelas National Assembly, led the marches and claimed himself an interim president until free elections could be held. President Donald Trump officially recognized Guaido as the nations leader on Wednesday, further intensifying relations with Maduro. Later that day, Maduro said Venezuela was breaking relations with the U.S. and gave American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. Since the U.S. no longer recognizes Maduros authority, however, the U.S. diplomats remain in Caracas. The United States does not consider former president Nicolas Maduro to have the legal authority to break diplomatic relations with the United States or to declare our diplomats persona non grata, said the U.S. State Department in a statement, CNBC reports. Nonessential staff was ordered to leave the country for security reasons, according to the Los Angeles Times, with many taking their families to the airport to depart Friday. The Venezuelan military continues to side with Maduro, threatening the success of the oppositions attempted coup. If Maduro remains in power, the security of the remaining U.S. diplomats is uncertain. A senior official told NBC News that embassy security has been increased and the U.S. military could stage an operation out of neighboring Colombia if necessary to remove any diplomats in harms way. FILE PHOTO - French fighter jet Rafale made by Dassault performs during the Breitling Airshow in Sion FILE PHOTO - French fighter jet Rafale made by Dassault performs during the Breitling Airshow in Sion, Switzerland September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse By John Miller ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland on Friday received five bids to replace its aging fighter fleet, from European aerospace group Airbus, France's Dassault and Sweden's Saab, as well as Boeing and Lockheed Martin from the United States. Switzerland's stable of Boeing McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C and D Hornets and Northrop F-5 Tigers is scheduled to be retired in the coming years, prompting it to seek new planes as part of its Air2030 program including aircraft and ground-based air defenses worth up to 8 billion Swiss francs ($8.06 billion). It will now consider Airbus's Eurofighter, Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet, Dassault's Rafale, F-35As made by Lockheed-Martin and Saab's Gripen E. "The phase of analysis and testing starts," the Swiss Defence Department said. "From February to March 2019, specialists from (Swiss defense procurement agency) armasuisse and the Swiss Air Force will test the aircraft in simulators" at facilities of the planes' manufacturers. Between April and July, the planes will be in Switzerland for aerial and ground tests, with public viewing opportunities. Assessments will continue through 2020 before a decision is made. Switzerland wants new planes to be delivered by 2025. Armasuisse had asked the planemakers to submit pricing for 30 or 40 planes, including logistics and guided missiles, among other criteria for the bids. Switzerland, which last fought a short war in 1847, has struggled to convince its citizens to back a deal for new planes. In 2014, around 52 percent voted against a 3.5 billion franc government proposal to buy 22 Gripen fighter jets from Saab. (https://reut.rs/2S6tTBS) A renewed vote on the new program is also expected. (Reporting by John Miller in Zurich and Andrea Shalal in Berlin; Editing by Alison Williams) If you don't know Nick Hanauer by name, you know his work: About two decades ago he was the first non-family-member investor in Amazon AMZN . He's referred to himself as part of the .01 percent even richer than the regular old 1 percent. He's also labeled himself a plutocrat , someone who has power because of their wealth. Hanauer is keenly aware that he is on the fortunate side of America's wealth gap ("Truly, my success is the consequence of spectacular luck, of birth, of circumstance and of timing," he said in 2014 TED Talk); a crisis that he says is "the direct result" of a "moral failure." "I am a practitioner of capitalism," Hanauer writes in Oxfam's state of wealth inequality report published Monday. "The most important lesson I have learned from these decades of experience with market capitalism is that morality and justice are the fundamental prerequisites for prosperity and economic growth. "Greed is not good," continues Hanauer, who is a signer of The Giving Pledge, an elite philanthropy circle co-founded by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates . "The problem is that almost every authority figure from economists to politicians to the media tells us otherwise. Our current crisis of inequality is the direct result of this moral failure." In the Oxfam report, " Public Good or Private Wealth? " which was released as some of the biggest names in finance convened in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, Hanauer says the path the world is on will lead to chaos for everyone. "This exclusive, highly unequal society based on extreme wealth for the few may seem sturdy and inevitable right now, but eventually it will collapse," writes Hanauer. "Eventually the pitchforks will come out, and the ensuing chaos will not benefit anyone not wealthy people like me, and not the poorest people who have already been left behind." Story continues Indeed, the inequality Hanauer speaks of is getting worse. The richest 26 people currently own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world, according to the report from charity Oxfam . The collective fortunes of the world's billionaires rose by 12 percent in 2018 or $2.5 billion each day. At the same time, the wealth of the poorest half of the global population fell by 11 percent last year, Oxfam says. To counteract the extreme wealth inequality currently being accelerated by capitalism, the richest must pay "their fair share of tax," which is not happening, according to the report. In recent decades, tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations have been reduced around the world, the report finds. In particular, the Oxfam report calls out the tax laws in the United States. "The recent US tax law is a master class on how to favor massive corporations and the richest citizens," Paul O'Brien, Oxfam America's Vice President for Policy and Campaigns, writes in a statement accompanying the report . "The law rewards US companies that have trillions stashed offshore, encourages US companies to dodge foreign taxes on their foreign profits, and fuels a global race to the bottom that benefits big business and wealthy individuals at the expense of poor people everywhere." To Hanauer, wealthy people and companies paying less taxes whether through tax reform or tactics is a culturally accepted agenda based on flawed thinking. "There can be no moral justification for this behaviour beyond the discredited neoliberal dogma that if everyone maximizes their selfishness, the world will somehow be a better place," Hanauer writes. "It has no economic justification, either. In fact, it is economically self-defeating, as the ordinary people who drive a prosperous economy are instead impoverished in favour of the bank accounts of billionaires." The idea of raising tax rates on the wealthy has gotten a flurry of attention recently. Newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has proposed a 70 percent tax rate on earnings above $10 million. Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer for $265 billion Guggenheim Partners, said in an interview with CNBC that the idea of such a tax is "scary." Billionaire hedge fund guru Ray Dalio said in November that capitalism is not working for the majority of people , but he says there could be unintended consequences to the tax rate suggested by Ocasio-Cortez. "If we're to have a 70 percent marginal tax rate, most individuals affected by it will calculate whether they should instead operate as a corporation in order try to convert ordinary income to capital gains, so I wonder how that will be handled," Dalio told CNBC in Davos . "And I wonder what will be done to influence whether capital will leave the country." Hanauer says taxing the wealthy "fairly" is necessary. "Today's neoliberal orthodoxy teaches us that inclusion and justice are luxuries. That health and education should be left to the mercy of the free market, available only to those who have the money to pay for them. That ever-lower taxation on the richest will only benefit economic growth. But this view is wrong and backward," Hanauer writes in the Oxfam report. "Ultimately it is our humanity, not the absence of it, that is the true source of economic growth and a flourishing civilization. This is not just an imperative for activists and academics but for all of us including every billionaire. It is not a question of whether we can afford to do this. Rather, we cannot afford not to." See also: Ocasio-Cortez's 70% tax plan gets fierce response, but even Warren Buffett says rich should pay more Billionaire Ray Dalio says tax changes like those proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will have 'huge' impact on economy Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio: 'Capitalism basically is not working for the majority of people' Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on Facebook ! More From CNBC MOSCOW, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Leonid Mikhelson, the head of Russia's Novatek said on Friday that liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States as its chief threat, Interfax news agency reported. He said, according to Interfax, that LNG production in the U.S. enjoys cheap financing, while LNG production in Russia has a competitive edge thanks to its low production costs. Qatar is the world's biggest LNG producer. Energy companies are flooding Europe with U.S. natural gas, establishing a foothold in a market dominated by Russia and seen as a key battleground in Washington's efforts to curb Moscow's energy influence. (Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Vladimir Soldatkin, editing by Louise Heavens) (Updates with U.S. confirmation it has requested Security Council meeting on Saturday) By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The United States has requested a public U.N. Security Council meeting on Venezuela on Saturday and U.N. diplomats said they expected U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to address the body. Washington on Wednesday recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president and has called on other countries to do the same. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has responded by cutting diplomatic ties with the United States and ordering the country's diplomats to leave. The United States asked for a meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council "given the increasingly volatile situation in Venezuela and the growing humanitarian crisis in the country which could lead to further regional conflict and instability," according to the U.S. request seen by Reuters. The request faces opposition from Russia. When asked on Thursday if the council should meet on Venezuela, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said: "I don't think so, that's their internal business." Any Security Council member could call for a procedural vote to block the meeting. A minimum of nine votes are needed to win such a vote and China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France cannot wield their vetoes. However, U.N. diplomats said any attempt to stop the Venezuela meeting would be defeated. The Security Council is responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. "As to whether Venezuela threatens peace and security, we'll listen to what Mike Pompeo might have to say," said South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Jerry Matjila. South Africa is currently on the Security Council. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who stepped down in December, was strongly critical of Venezuela at the world body. The Security Council met behind closed doors on Venezuela, at Haley's request, in May 2017 and she then held an informal public council briefing on Venezuela in November 2017, which was boycotted by Russia, China, Egypt and Bolivia. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing by Makini Brice Editing by Alistair Bell) Residents of Northeastern states are struggling with increased electricity costs and an unreliable energy supply as elected officials contemplate expanding natural gas pipelines in the region. Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE: ED), a New York utility provider, announced on January 18 a moratorium on new natural gas customers in Westchester County, beginning on March 15. The reason given by the utility was "new demand for gas is reaching the limits of the current supplies to our service area." Politico reported that New York State's reluctance to construct new natural gas pipelines is preventing adequate supplies from reaching growing economic centers in New York City, Long Island and Yonkers. Con Edison added that existing customers would not lose their supplies of natural gas. "We have learned of Con Edison's temporary moratorium on gas service to new developments, and we are concerned about this occurrence," George Latimer, Westchester County's Executive, announced on Thursday. "We have requested a meeting with Con Edison officials and hope to bring to the table local, state and federal officials to discuss this matter." In neighboring New England, the shortage of natural gas infrastructure is more widespread. "The New England states used to be dependent on coal, oil, nuclear and hydroelectricity," said Dan Kish, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research. "And they've shifted quickly to natural gas for generation, and they've shifted so fast that it's caused huge draws of natural gas into the system [pipelines] without increasing infrastructure." Kish said that the United States is the world's largest producer of natural gas and has among the lowest natural gas prices, especially in regions where natural gas is produced. He blamed the lack of supply in New England on political opposition to the use of fossil fuels. Kish said there are additional supply lines for New England's natural gas demand. He referenced the Everett liquified natural gas terminal in Boston, which currently supplies 20 percent of New England's natural gas. Story continues Still, industry analysts agree that the current pipeline infrastructure is insufficient to meet natural gas demand in New England. Don't miss it. Register today . Don't miss it. Register today. "We do have congested pipelines and obstructed pipelines," said Stephen Leahy, vice president for policy and analysis at the Northeast Gas Association. "We have added incremental projects at different points for gas utility demand. But larger proposed projects have not progressed. There's a lot of opposition to any additional energy infrastructure in the region." Leahy stated that the main opposition to larger pipeline projects originates from environmental concerns. He also said that 15 years previously these same voices were largely in favor of natural gas to replace coal and fuel oil in the region's energy market. A leading environmental voice in opposition to natural gas pipelines in the Northeast is the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). The environmental advocacy group has criticized ISO New England, a regional electric power transmission system operator, for proposing new pipeline infrastructure. "ISO has presented the region's choice in a biased way, with clean energy discounted as speculative or far off and paths relying on pipelines or bailouts or polluting energy as more reliable or certain." said an NRDC press release last March. Leahy concluded that an "overnight" transition to 100 percent renewable energy is not feasible and that natural gas will be relevant for "decades" in New England's energy market. ISO New England reported that natural gas increased as a proportion of New England's source of electricity from 15 percent in 2000 to 48 percent in 2017. Natural gas consumption has reduced the amount of coal and fuel oil used to generate electricity in the region. The Energy Information Administration (EIA), a federal statistics agency with a focus on energy topics, reported that the average price for electricity in the New England region (which includes the six states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) was more than 17 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity. New England's average price for electricity was higher than the 10 cents per kilowatt hour that is the average price of electricity in the United States. Additionally, New England's average price for electricity increased by 0.71 cents per kilowatt hour from 16.67 cents in October 2017 to 17.38 cents in October 2018. Kish also stated that energy prices among regions of the United States are strongly tied to the regulatory climate for the natural gas industry. The EIA found that in New York (one of three states as well as Maryland and Vermont to have statewide fracking bans) the average price of electricity was over 15 cents per kilowatt hour in October 2018, while in Pennsylvania (the nation's second-largest natural gas producer) the average price of electricity was under 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Want more content like this? Click here to Subscribe Permalink See more from Benzinga 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. (Bloomberg) -- Naspers Ltd. will focus on consolidating technologies and harnessing artificial intelligence across its e-commerce business after taking full control of Russias largest classified advertising platform in a $1.1 billion deal. Africas biggest company by market value on Friday said it bought out minority shareholders in Avito BB through its classifieds business OLX Group, increasing exposure to Russias e-commerce market and strengthening its global position in the sector. The plan is to consolidate the different local platforms into a single global one, Chief Executive Officer for Classifieds Martin Scheepbouwer said by phone on Saturday. The key task at hand is to consolidate our technology, he said. We want to share technology, artificial intelligence and data efforts to have solutions work across the business globally. Online Transformation Naspers has transformed itself from a newspaper publisher into a $98 billion media empire by pushing into e-commerce, holding stakes in Russian internet group Mail.Ru Group Ltd. and Chinese social network firm Tencent Holdings Ltd. In the nine months prior to the Avito deal, it spent more than $700 million on acquisitions and investment in the classified sector. Exchanging technology, exchanging people was quite difficult until this deal, Scheepbouwer said. Potentially we could take Avito to other countries, but the key focus is to integrate technology and leverage scale of our classifieds business under the OLX umbrella. In aggregate, Nasperss classifieds business is now profitable, he said. The division is worth as much as $10 billion, excluding the latest Russian deal, according to an analysts report by Barclays Plc. The deal is also a further step in reducing an almost $28 billion gap between its market value and that of the 31 percent stake it holds in Tencent. Naspers last week said it will list pay-TV unit MultiChoice on the Johannesburg stock exchange on Feb. 27, spinning off a business it developed over decades. Story continues Naspers shares have gained 5 percent this year in Johannesburg, valuing the company at $98 billion. Separately listing Avito isnt an option for the time being, Scheepbouwer said. Strategically Avito is very well integrated and a stand-alone IPO looks fairly unattractive. (Udate with Naspers share performance in 8th paragraph.) --With assistance from Ilya Khrennikov. To contact the reporter on this story: Loni Prinsloo in Johannesburg at lprinsloo3@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rebecca Penty at rpenty@bloomberg.net, Hilton Shone, Chris Vellacott For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. By Andrius Sytas VILNIUS, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Lithuania has taken extra measures to prevent money-laundering after bank scandals in Latvia and Estonia which have harmed its reputation, its central bank Governor Vitas Vasiliauskas said. The euro-zone member has so far avoided any major financial scandals of its own but felt it needed to improve its safeguards, Vasiliauskas, who is also a European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council member, said. "Foreigners tend to see the three Baltic states as a single market," he added. The central bank, which is trying to attract financial technology companies, issued several dozen electronic money licences last year to startups including Google's payment arm and Revolut, a British digital-only bank. "We see what happened there (in Latvia and Estonia), and we see the inflows of new players in the financial market. So of course we must react," Vasiliauskas told reporters. The central bank has established new departments for money-laundering prevention and for electronic money supervision at the start of January, and invested in technical measures to identify money-laundering risks, Vasiliauskas said. "We believe that, with the new measures in place, our capabilities at a totally new level," he added. Estonia was rocked by allegations of money laundering last year and authorities arrested 10 former employees of the local branch of Danske Bank in December as part of an international investigation. Latvian lender ABLV Bank was wound up following allegations by U.S. authorities of large-scale money laundering and facilitating a breach of sanctions on North Korea. Latvia's central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics was also charged with corruption, allegations he denies. (Reporting by Andrius Sytas Editing by Alexander Smith) (Bloomberg) -- A 2016 document proposing cost cuts at Alphabet Inc.s Google, including fewer promotions and bonuses, sparked heated debate when it was shared inside the technology company for the first time this week, according to people familiar with the situation. At a companywide townhall meeting on Thursday, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai fielded questions about the proposals, some of which have been implemented, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing internal activities. The ideas were in a 2016 slide deck drafted by the companys human resources department from a brainstorming session. The document, portions of which were read to Bloomberg News, was circulated in recent days by employees via Googles internal communications systems. It detailed proposed changes to employee compensation, benefits and perks. The document also discussed how the proposals could be best presented to employees to minimize frustration, according to one of the people. That caused the most anger among some staff after the document was circulated, said this person. Google declined to comment. While Google pays well and regularly appears near the top of surveys of the best places to work, it, like many companies, deals with compensation questions from employees around the start of each year. But this debate occurred at an exceptionally fractious time for the internet giant. Groups of workers have brought demands to top brass on a range of issues, including a lack of benefits for contract staff and the ethical use of artificial intelligence. Thousands of Google staff staged a walkout last year after a report that the company gave large exit payments to executives accused of sexual harassment. Beginning around 2015, Google started to rein in the companys historically free-wheeling spending. When Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat joined later in 2015, she introduced even more fiscal discipline. Most of the cost cuts that emerged since then have focused on divisions outside the core internet business, such as drones, wearable devices and other "moonshots." The document circulating inside the company suggests the approach has been considered for the main Google division, too. Story continues Perhaps the most significant change in the proposal called for trimming the rate of promotions. Each year, a certain number of employees are up for promotions based on performance and other metrics. The slide deck suggested reducing this by 2 percentage points. The document said this could be rolled out without upsetting staff because workers didnt know what the existing rate was, so wouldnt notice if it declined. The brainstorming deck also proposed reducing wage bumps when workers get promoted. It also suggested changing Googles approach to "spot bonuses," sums that managers can award at any time of year. Managers receive emails reminding them to dispense this money. The slide deck proposed ending the emails, arguing that few people would notice. The proposal also included converting holiday gifts to staff into charitable donations -- something Google did at the end of 2016. At the staff meeting on Thursday, Google confirmed the veracity of the 2016 document, although it was never presented to the companys top management. Pichai said Google doesnt have quotas on promotions and noted that the rate of promotion at the company has stayed relatively constant in recent years, according to another person familiar with the situation. If that proposal had been presented to him, he would have rejected it, the CEO added. Another executive apologized for the memo. Company executives answered questions submitted before the townhall meeting. One worker asked why Pichai was paid hundreds of millions of dollars, while some Google employees struggle to afford to live in Silicon Valley. Pichai said that Google is based in an area with a high cost of living, something the company has little control over. Google organized the townhall weeks ago -- after several employees asked questions about compensation during year-end planning meetings with managers. A recent employee survey showed satisfaction with pay had declined from a year earlier, albeit from high levels. That sparked debate among some workers on Googles internal message boards, and the 2016 slide deck emerged during those discussions. After the meeting, some employees thanked Pichai for candid answers, via the companys internal messaging boards. To contact the reporters on this story: Alistair Barr in San Francisco at abarr18@bloomberg.net;Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2019 Bloomberg L.P. Robots could threaten African jobs. Photo: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images Automation in US factories could increase global migration by wiping out employment opportunities in Africa, according to a development industry expert. Sara Pantuliano, acting executive director of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), told the Davos summit that unemployed Africans would be more likely to leave the continent if local manufacturing jobs dried up in the face of renewed US competition. She highlighted recent ODI research which suggested operating robots in US factories could become cheaper than hiring Kenyan workers by 2033. The cost of creating and using robots is expected to fall in wealthier countries, and could reach a tipping point where it becomes more efficient than using cheap labour in poorer countries. READ MORE: EU leaders insist Europe works despite huge fears for its future Pantuliano said at an event on global migration at the Switzerland summit that some projections showed Africa would have 830 million young people by 2050. In the space of 15 years, operating a robot in the US is going to be cheaper than having labour in Africa in the manufacturing sector. That will increase the pressure on the ability of young people to remain in employment in Africa unless we can help them to prepare for the work of tomorrow. READ MORE: Davos founder warns of battle between robots and humankind UN Population Fund executive director Natalia Kanem said at the same event that the number of African young people migrating abroad had been distorted, as they were proportionately fewer than the numbers from Asia and Latin America. She also called it a fallacy to suggest high population growth was driving climate change. Far-reaching environmental catastrophes are not because of a villager cutting down trees in their backyard, she told global business and political leaders at the annual conference in the Swiss alps. When we look at carbon emissions, the population growth factor is negligible in whats driving climate changes. Story continues We need to become planners, and use population dynamics to understand how to invest in young people so we can in fact reap the demographic dividend. She said it was also crucial to equip migrants to assimilate into other countries, as otherwise cultural clashes can lead to societal disturbances and hostility rather than new arrivals being welcomed. Figures presented by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which runs the Davos event, suggest more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 will occur in Africa. FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo By Aftab Ahmed, Aditya Kalra and Nandita Bose NEW DELHI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States government is concerned about India's revised e-commerce regulations and has told officials in New Delhi the policy will hinder the Indian investment plans of Amazon.com and Walmart Inc, three sources familiar with the talks told Reuters. The tussle marks the latest in a number of U.S. protests over Indian government policies which impact American companies and comes at a time when the two countries are trying to iron out other trade irritants. In 2017, the U.S. lodged a written protest against India's decision to cap medical device prices, which upset American companies. India's e-commerce investment rules, which kick in from Feb. 1, ban companies from selling products via firms in which they have an equity interest and also bar them from making deals with sellers to sell exclusively on their platforms. The policy has dealt a blow to Walmart, which just last year invested $16 billion in buying 77 percent of India's Flipkart, and Amazon, as it would force them to change their business structures in the country and raise their operational costs. "There is a very strong undercurrent as to how this should be made a bilateral issue," said a Washington-based industry source aware of the companies' thinking. "This has gone way beyond being a local (India) tussle." A U.S. government official earlier this month told Indian officials to protect Walmart and Flipkart's investments in the country, an Indian trade ministry official told Reuters. The U.S. government cited "good relations" between the two countries and stressed that American companies should be given concessions in the larger interest of bilateral trade, but India gave a "non-committal" response, the source added. But Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to delay the revised rules or amend them in any meaningful way as he is seeking the support of the tens of millions of small retailers and traders in India ahead of a general election that must be held by May. The small firms see Walmart and Amazon as a threat to their businesses. Story continues An Indian industry source said Walmart, Amazon and lobbying groups were coordinating efforts with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and the local embassy to express their discontent about the policy. The USTR did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, and Indian trade ministry spokeswoman Monideepa Mukherjee, declined to comment. Asked about the Indian policy's implications, Walmart spokesman Greg Hitt said: "We certainly, as you would expect, have engaged the (United States) administration on this issue." He declined to share further details. Amazon India said it was committed to complying with local laws but it needed "adequate time to understand" the policy. GLOBAL VS LOCAL Amazon and Walmart have both made bold bets to tap India's booming e-commerce market, which Morgan Stanley had estimated, before the latest government move would grow 30 percent a year to $200 billion in the 10 years up to 2027. The companies have targeted a growing population of tech-savvy shoppers in India, luring them with deep discounts on everything from dishwashers to smartphones. India's small traders and shopkeepers had for years complained that e-commerce companies were engaging in predatory pricing and hurting the businesses of brick-and-mortar retailers. They alleged that the online retailers used their control over inventory from their affiliates to create an unfair marketplace that allowed them to sell some products at lower prices. Such arrangements would be barred under the new policy. "We are disappointed more than surprised. It makes it harder to plan things," a U.S.-based Walmart source told Reuters. "It is a serious issue. We are doing our best to work with Indian authorities and trying to explain why this is bad for business." The Confederation of All India Traders, which has supported tougher scrutiny of large e-commerce players, said the companies were acting "desperate" by pressurizing the Indian government. "Any deferment or change (in the policy) will adversely affect millions of small businesses," said the group's secretary general, Praveen Khandelwal. POLITICS, DEADLINE RISK Both Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon have requested the government to delay implementation of the policy, but India is unlikely to relent. Indian officials have told Reuters no relief was likely as the policy was seen helping the small trader community, who form a critical voter base for Modi. "The idea is just to win over the trading community ahead of elections and on that point the government will not budge from the deadline," a second Indian trade ministry official said. At stake are big ticket investments. When Walmart bought Flipkart last year, it said the decision underscored its "long-term commitment to India". Amazon has committed to investing $5.5 billion in the country and Modi has in recent years met its founder Jeff Bezos multiple times. In 2017, Bezos said he was "excited to keep investing and growing" in the country. That investment climate has turned sour with sudden policy changes. Prasanto Roy, a New Delhi-based consultant who closely tracks India's technology policy landscape, said the government should provide stable policies to attract investment. "You can't change policies overnight without consultation and tell companies who have invested billions to go fly a kite," Roy said. (Additional reporting by Sanjeev Miglani and Neha Dasgupta in New Delhi and Sankalp Phartiyal in Mumbai; Writing by Aditya Kalra; Edited by Martin Howell) FILE PHOTO: An employee works at the Amazon fulfillment center in the village of Dobroviz, near Prague, Czech Republic, December 20, 2018. REUTERS/David W Cerny/File Photo By Aditya Kalra and Aftab Ahmed NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A Hindu nationalist group close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party has urged him to resist pressure from the United States and not defer new regulations for the e-commerce sector, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The economic wing of the group, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the fountainhead of the ruling party, has written to Modi saying that changing the policy implementation date, under pressure from Washington, will hurt 130 million small Indian entrepreneurs. "There is no need to buckle under these pressures. India must continue to chart the way best for itself and the entrepreneurs," the Swadeshi Jagran Manch said in its letter, which was reviewed by Reuters. The new rules, to be implemented from Feb. 1, will deal a blow to Walmart Inc and Amazon.com's ambitions in the country. They mandate that e-commerce companies will not be allowed to sell products from firms in which they have an equity interest. Reuters reported on Thursday the United States government had told Indian officials the new rules will hinder the investment plans of the two companies. The rules, which will force the companies to change their business structures and raise operational costs, have sparked an extensive lobbying effort from both Amazon and Walmart, which last year invested $16 billion in Indian e-commerce company Flipkart. Both Amazon and Walmart have sought an extension of the Feb. 1 deadline, but government sources have said that was unlikely to happen as Modi needs millions of traders by his side in an upcoming national election due by May. On Friday, the Confederation of All India Traders, which has supported tougher scrutiny of large e-commerce players, said "the entire trading community will vote against the government if they extend the deadline". The e-commerce spat is the latest in a number of disputes over trade and investment relations between India and the United States. Story continues Walmart spokesman Greg Hitt told Reuters this week the company had "engaged the (United States) administration on this issue". The RSS has long advocated self-reliance and opposed the opening up of the Indian economy to foreign players. Small Indian retailers have alleged that e-commerce companies use their control over inventory from their affiliates to create an unfair marketplace that allows them to sell some products at lower prices, which hurts the businesses of brick-and-mortar retailers. Such arrangements would be barred under the new policy. In front-page advertisements in newspapers last week, Walmart-owned Flipkart highlighted how the platform had helped transform local struggling businesses selling badminton racquets and sarees, a traditional dress. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Martin Howell) China is Venezuela's main creditor and Maduro visited the country in September, striking energy and gold mining deals as he sought Beijing's support to help his crisis-hit nation (AFP Photo/Guillermo Arias) China said Thursday it opposed external interference in Venezuelan politics, after the US and major South American countries sided with opposition leader Juan Guaido over President Nicolas Maduro in a power struggle. China is Venezuela's main creditor and Maduro visited the country in September, striking energy and gold mining deals as he sought Beijing's support to help his crisis-hit nation. Maduro now faces trouble at home, where Guaido proclaimed himself acting president on Wednesday amid rival protests in Caracas. "China has consistently pursued the principle of not interfering with other countries' internal politics, and opposes the interference (in) Venezuelan affairs by external forces," said Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a press briefing in Beijing. "We are paying close attention to the current situation in Venezuela and are calling on all parties to remain rational and calm, and to seek a political resolution to Venezuela's problem through peaceful dialogue within Venezuela's constitutional framework," Hua added. Asked whether China recognises Maduro, Hua recalled that Beijing had sent a representatives to his inauguration earlier this month. "We support the efforts made by the Venezuelan government to maintain the countrys sovereignty, independence, and stability," she added. Major regional players Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina all gave their backing to Guaido's self-proclamation as acting president. The European Union called for free elections to restore democracy. After US President Donald Trump recognised Guaido as interim leader, Maduro said he was cutting off diplomatic ties with Washington and gave US diplomats 72 hours to depart. The US State Department responded by saying "former president Maduro" did not have the authority to sever relations. Maduro was re-elected last May in voting boycotted by the majority of the opposition and dismissed as fraudulent by the United States, European Union and Organization of American States (OAS). Story continues The 56-year-old leader was sworn in as president on January 10. Maduro has control of virtually all of Venezuela's political institutions and enjoys the support of the military, but many blame him for the country's economic woes, which have left much of the population living in poverty with shortages of basic foods and medicines. China has extended more than $60 billion in credit to the South American country over the last decade. Venezuela still owes Beijing about $20 billion and has been repaying the debt with oil shipments. TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's ambassador to China said he "misspoke" when he said Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou had a strong case against extradition to the United States, John McCallum said in a statement on Thursday. Speaking to Chinese-language media in a Toronto suburb on Tuesday, McCallum said Meng had "good arguments on her side" in her case. "I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms. Meng have created confusion. I misspoke. These comments do not accurately represent my position on this issue," McCallum's statement said. Meng's arrest in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the behest of the United States enraged China, which has called for the extradition case to be dropped. The United States has until Jan. 30 to formally request her extradition over alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Canada's government has emphasized that it follows the "rule of law" and cautioned against politicizing the case after U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters last month he would intervene if it served U.S. trade or national security interests. In his Tuesday remarks, McCallum said Trump's comments and the fact that Canada had not applied the same sanctions against Iran as the United States made for "strong arguments" Meng could make before a judge. She next appears in court on Feb. 6. Meng has been released on bail and is living in one of her two multi-million Vancouver homes, wearing a GPS ankle bracelet and watched by security guards when she leaves the house. The case has made for tense Canada-China relations. Two Canadians were detained in China following Meng's arrest, and a third was sentenced to death on drug charges. Neither Canada nor China has explicitly tied these actions to Meng's arrest but some former diplomats have suggested this is a "tit-for-tat" issue. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Wednesday that he is focused on getting detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor out of China and recalling McCallum would not help their case. (Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Tom Brown) President Bolsonaro appeared to discard Brazilian military action in Venezuela President Bolsonaro appeared to discard Brazilian military action in Venezuela (AFP Photo/Fabrice COFFRINI) Sao Paulo (AFP) - By siding with the United States in recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president and dismissing Nicolas Maduro as an illegitimate "dictator," Brazilian far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro is making a risky bet, analysts and former diplomats say. Firstly, he is breaking with Brazil's tradition of trying to maintain cordial relations with governments of all stripes. Secondly, he is thrusting Brazil into a showdown that, in the words of Rubens Ricupero, a former Brazilian ambassador to the US speaking to the newspaper O Globo, "could have unpredictable consequences for the region" if not quickly resolved. In a worst-case scenario, Brazil could find itself involved in military action against a neighboring country for the first time in a century and a half. Even if it does not go that far, Bolsonaro has chosen sides in a crisis that could prove intractable. "What has arrived is an impossible situation," Ricupero said. "There is no sort of solution on the horizon. Neither of the sides want dialogue." The terrain ahead has been made all the more complicated by Russia and China -- Venezuela's main creditors -- sticking by Maduro. The UN Security Council, at the United States' request, is to discuss the crisis on Saturday. - 'Crusades' - After the United States, Brazil is probably the most important country to watch in the geopolitically fuelled crisis unfolding in Venezuela. The vast nation, which borders Venezuela, is host to thousands of Venezuelans who have fled economic collapse at home. It is a leading member of the Lima Group, a regional club challenging Maduro's rule, and of the Organization of American States, a Western Hemisphere political forum. It has Latin America's biggest military. But most importantly, as of this month it is governed by Bolsonaro, a former paratrooper ferociously opposed to leftwing ideology at home and abroad who has offered himself up as US President Donald Trump's closest ally in South America. Story continues Celso Amorim, a former Brazilian foreign minister who strengthened South-South diplomatic ties under a past leftist government led by the Workers Party, told AFP: "We are embarking on crusades that have nothing to do with us.... Supporting Guaido is an intervention." The former diplomat, who later held the post of defense minister, said he favored dialogue mediated by an actor such as Mexico to defuse the situation. Mexico, alone among Latin America's biggest powers, has said it still recognizes Maduro as leader. Oliver Stuenkel, a professor in international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, agreed that Brazil had cut itself off from any possibility of dialogue with Maduro's regime. But he noted that Brazil would have been "isolated" in the region if it had not gone along with recognizing Guaido. The Workers Party, now in opposition, said in a statement that Bolsonaro's government was "humiliating" itself by following Trump's foreign policy. Bolsonaro himself, in a television interview Wednesday from the Swiss ski resort of Davos, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, said Brazil was at the "limit of what we can do to restore democracy" in Venezuela, apparently discarding the possibility of Brazilian military action. But the president, who openly admires Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, said: "History has shown that dictatorships don't give up power to the opposition in a peaceful way." - 'All options' open for US - His vice president, retired general Hamilton Mourao, who was military attache in Caracas 2002-2004, stated that "our foreign policy is to not intervene in the domestic affairs of another country." The United States has said it was contemplating "all options" -- implying a military response -- if Guaido or the opposition was forcibly constrained in Venezuela. Stuenkel said Brazil remained "a secondary actor" in what was happening with Venezuela, adding that he saw Washington "forming the debate." Another international relations professor, Matias Spektor, expressed doubts about the wisdom of Brasilia backing Guaido, saying the 35-year-old speaker of Venezuela's opposition-controlled parliament had only a "vague and utopic" program. "He doesn't seem credible enough to form the sort of coalition needed to restore democracy," Spektor wrote in a column in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. By Kirstin Ridley and Lawrence White LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Richard Boath, an ex-Barclays boss on trial on fraud allegations, said the bank would be "basically dead" without a Qatari cash injection in 2008, a prosecutor said on Thursday. The Serious Fraud Office prosecutor told the trial of Barclays' ex-chief executive John Varley and three former senior executives that Qatar had played hardball as the British bank struggled to shore up its balance sheet during the financial crisis. "Without 1 bln (pounds), at the very least, from Q (Qatar) we are basically dead," Boath told his Barclays line manager on May 28, 2008, in a communication read out in Southwark Crown Court by prosecutor Edward Brown on the second day of the case. Former CEO Varley, Roger Jenkins, Tom Kalaris and Boath deny conspiring to commit fraud by false representations when Barclays raised more than 11 billion pounds ($14 billion) from investors in 2008, allowing it to avert a British state bailout. Prosecutors allege the bankers hid from public documents around 322 million pounds in secret fees paid to the Qatari investors as they fought to meet their tough demands. Jenkins, former chairman for the Middle East of the BarCap business, was the "gatekeeper for Qatar", Brown said, adding that when the Gulf state said it might invest at least 1 billion pounds in May 2008, there was initial delight at Barclays. "Made my day. Know we have to get it over the line, but it's a great starting point for the conversation," Varley told Bob Diamond, the American executive who later replaced him as CEO, around May 13, 2008 in communications read out in court. But this was short-lived after Qatar asked first for a fee of 3.75 percent in return for investing - substantially above the 1.5 percent Barclays was offering other investors - before settling on 3.25 percent, the prosecution alleged. Trying to structure this deal proved a headache, Brown added, because all investors had to be offered the same terms. Story continues "GOT US BY THE BALLS" The case hinges in part on whether so-called advisory services agreements were for genuine services to be provided by Qatar or a means for Barclays to pay extra fees it demanded. Transcripts of telephone and email conversations between Barclays executives at the time show the bankers debating the bank's vulnerable condition and the need to get the Qatari investment at all costs, the prosecution alleged. "They've got us by the balls because the price is so low," Boath told a senior colleague, referring to Qatar's tough stance and the bank's low share price. Some of the executives also joked about the possibility of going to jail if the Qatari deal did not play by the rules. "None of us wants to go to jail here," Kalaris said to Boath in a recording of a telephone conversation played to the court. "The food sucks and the sex is worse," Kalaris added. The trial is set to last up to six months. ($1 = 0.7653 pounds) (Reporting by Kirstin Ridley and Lawrence White, editing by Sinead Cruise and Alexander Smith) At the heart of talks: Qatars former Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images Barclays bankers fretted over payments to the then-Prime Minister of Qatar as part of a multibillion pound investment in the bank from the Middle Eastern state, a court heard on Friday. Four former Barclays bankers stand accused of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation. The UKs Serious Fraud Office (SFO) alleges that the executives misled investors by hiding the true amount paid to Qatar in exchange for a multibillion pound investment that saved the bank from a state bailout. The defendants in the case are: John Varley, who was CEO of Barclays between 2004 and 2011; Roger Jenkins, who formerly ran Barclays Capitals investment management business in the Middle East and North Africa; Thomas Kalaris, the former CEO of Barclays wealth and investment management; and Richard Boath, the former head of European financial institutions group at Barclays Capital. It is the first time senior banking executives have faced criminal charges for actions related to the financial crisis. If convicted, the accused could face prison sentences of up to 10 years. Varley and Jenkins each face two counts, and Kalaris and Boath each face one. All four defendants have pleaded not guilty. Qatar is not accused of any wrongdoing. Its a bit dodgy Barclays raised a total of 11.2bn ($14.7bn) in June 2008 and October 2008 to secure the banks balance sheet as the financial crisis erupted. Qatar Holding, part of Qatars sovereign wealth fund, and Challenger, an investment vehicle of former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, invested almost 4bn across the two fundraisings. Edward Brown QC, the lead lawyer for the SFO, said on Friday that Barclays fundraising was certain, or almost certain, to fail without the Qatari money. The SFO alleges that Barclays paid Qatar a commission fee of 3.25% in exchange for their investment, almost double the rate paid to other investors in the investment rounds. Barclays sought to cover this up, and avoid paying higher fees to other investors, by using fake Advisory Services Agreements (ASAs) with the Qatars to pay them the money, the prosecutor alleges. Story continues In the dock: Former global co-head of Barclays Finance Richard Boath arrives at Southwark Crown Court on January 14, 2019 in London, England. Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images Brown played the jury a series of tapes that he said showed concern expressed as to how to deal with Sheikh Hamads investment. In one recording, defendants Richard Boath and Roger Jenkins discussed the possibility of signing a second Advisory Services Agreement with Challenger. Boath raised concerns that this may look improper given Sheik Hamads position as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar at the time. Sheik Hamad is not accused of any wrongdoing, the court heard. Its a bit dodgy, Boath said. It is a bit dodgy. You cant as a prime minister, take these services, Jenkins replied. In a separate call between the two around the same time, Jenkins said, Its like have the President of the United States advisors to JP Morgan; you just cant have it. Brown told the jury, What is clear then isnt it is that in the minds of Mr Jenkins and Mr Boath it has dawned on them both that paying fees to the Prime Minister is, in their words, a bit tricky, a bit dodgy. Im already feeling sick The court was played a recording of Boath, one of the defendants, and two of Barclays in-house lawyers, Matthew Dobson and Judith Shepherd, from June 2008. Dobson and Shepherd are not accused of any wrongdoing. We need to find a way of getting Sheikh Hamad his extra fee, Boath said on the call. Shepherd told Boath that if there was any advisory agreement with Sheik Hamad then itd have to be in exchange for value. Boath said he had an email from the Qataris asking about the extra fees that he had deleted. Richard, you know that these things can be retrieved, Stephenson said. Let me tell you, its not the simple as that. You do need to be careful, Richard they do need to be careful over there. On another call played to the jury, Shepherd told Boath that value must be exchanged for the Sheiks fee in case the advisory agreement was challenged by other investors, the FSA, the UKLA, the Criminal Authority, the Fraud Unit. Im already feeling sick. Theres no need to use all those words to make me feel sicker, Boath said. Defendant: Former Barclays head of investment banking and investment management in the Middle East, Roger Jenkins arrives at Southwark Crown Court on January 14, 2019 in London, England. Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images The jury heard Boath talking about how the Sheiks representatives were unhappy with an early draft of a services agreement that included all the crap about His Royal Highnesss assistants meeting politicians, all this kind of stuff. The Qataris wanted a nice short soft letter, Boath said. He is going to have to give the services in exchange otherwise you are going to end up in front of the Fraud Squad explaining why, Stephenson said. No Ive got a house in Brazil, theres no extradition treaty, Im off, Boath said. Stephenson said, Theres a limit beyond what Im prepared to go. The case continues at Southwark Crown Court and is expected to last up to six months. Read more on the trial of the Barclays four: Though she was only sworn into Congress three weeks ago, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has already received national attention for her recent proposal of a sky-high 70% marginal tax rate on the highest earners in the United States. At first, such a high tax rate may sound like a radical idea, but it's not unprecedented, and many Americans don't fully understand how it would affect them -- if at all. With that in mind, here's a rundown of Ocasio-Cortez's proposal, how it compares to previous tax policies, and what it could mean for your tax bill. The dome of the U.S. Capitol Building with American flag waving in foreground Image source: Getty Images. What AOC is proposing The short version is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is proposing a new 70% tax bracket on income above $10 million. The increased tax on the wealthy would fund what Ocasio-Cortez calls a "Green New Deal," which would combat both climate change and economic inequality. Unsurprisingly, this has attracted lots of attention from both ends of the political spectrum. Some agree with the proposal. Some think it's ludicrous and fear it would derail economic growth. Others think the rich should certainly pay more, but that the addition of a single super-high tax bracket isn't the best solution. And, like most tax proposals put forth by politicians, this one is misunderstood by much of the American public. This would be a marginal tax rate The most common misunderstanding surrounding Ocasio-Cortez's plan is that she is proposing a 70% tax on all income. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here's the one-minute version of how the U.S. income tax system works. We use a system of so-called marginal tax brackets. Under current law, there are seven 2019 tax brackets, with tax rates of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. The exact income thresholds of each tax bracket depend on your filing status, but if you're a married couple filing a joint tax return, here's how it would work in 2019. You would pay the lowest (10%) rate on your first $19,400 of taxable income, regardless of how much you made. Then, you'd pay the 12% rate on income between $19,400 and $78,950, while the other brackets would only apply to even higher portions of your income. The top rate (37%) would only be assessed on income above $612,350. Story continues As an example, a married couple filing jointly with taxable income of $100,000 would fall in the 22% tax bracket for 2019. But they would pay 10% on the first $19,400, 12% on the next $59,550, and 22% on the remaining $21,050. Their total income tax would be $13,717, which is only 13.7% of their taxable income -- a full 8.3 percentage points lower than their marginal tax rate. So, here's what taxpayers need to keep in mind: Even if Ocasio-Cortez's 70% tax bracket were implemented, Americans who earn more than $10 million per year would only pay 70% on income above $10 million. The rest of their income would be taxed at the lower, existing tax brackets. Also bear in mind that this would only apply to taxable income in excess of $10 million. That means if a taxpayer had $12 million in gross income and claimed $2 million in deductions (such as large charitable donations), he or she would not be affected by the new tax bracket. An example of how this would work For the sake of illustrating this, let's consider an example. We'll say that a wealthy married couple has $15 million in taxable income in 2019, and they file a joint tax return. Under the current marginal tax bracket system, this couple would owe federal income tax of $5,488,140, which translates to 36.6% of their taxable income. On the other hand, if their income in excess of $10 million were taxed at a 70% rate instead, their federal tax bill would rise to $7,138,140, which would be 47.6% of their taxable income. So, would it be a tax increase? Absolutely, and a substantial one. Would they pay anything close to 70% of their total income? Nope. A brief history of U.S. tax brackets A 70% marginal tax rate may sound extremely high, and compared to today's tax brackets, it is. However, it wouldn't be unprecedented by any means. As Ocasio-Cortez puts it: You look at our tax rates back in the '60s, and when you have a progressive tax-rate system, your tax rate, let's say, from $0 to $75,000 may be 10% or 15%, etc. But once you get to the tippy tops on your 10 millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60% or 70%. You don't even have to go back quite that far to find high top tax brackets. The top marginal tax rate was 70% as recently as 1981, applying to taxable income greater than $215,400 for married couples ($595,032 in today's dollars). And the tax structure was far more complex in previous eras. In 1978, most taxpayers had 26 different tax brackets that could be applied to their taxable income. Further, 70% isn't even close to the highest marginal tax rate in our history. As recently as 1963, the top marginal tax rate was a staggering 91% on taxable income greater than $400,000 ($3.28 million in today's dollars) for married couples filing jointly. And finally, if you were curious, the highest marginal tax rate in our history was 92%, which was in effect for the top earners in 1952 and 1953. Did higher tax rates translate to more revenue? The short answer: Not really. It's also important to mention that back when the highest tax brackets were 70% or higher, tax avoidance by the rich was a much more widespread practice. In other words, the highest earners went further out of their way to lower their taxable income through loopholes and other mechanisms. There were also far more tax shelters back then for wealthy taxpayers to take advantage of. For example, many high earners would use depreciation of real estate investments to reduce their taxable income to zero -- a practice that isn't allowed today. There were also looser standards for which income qualified for long-term capital gains tax rates, which are much lower than the rates on most sources of income. In practice, very few taxpayers actually paid the highest rates. In a recent opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Peter Schiff pointed out that in 1958, there were six different tax brackets with marginal tax rates of 81% or higher, and they kicked in at income greater than $140,000 (about $1.2 million today) for married couples. According to IRS records, though, just 0.02% of all taxpayers had any income taxed at these higher rates. How would AOC's proposal affect you? Unless you earn over $10 million annually, your tax bill wouldn't be affected by Ocasio-Cortez's proposal at all. And even if you're one of the lucky 0.01% of Americans who earn more than $10 million, your income tax wouldn't jump to 70%; the top rate would only apply to your taxable income beyond $10 million. More From The Motley Fool The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency over U.S.-Mexico border security. A national emergency is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as "a state of emergency resulting from a danger or threat of danger to a nation from foreign or domestic sources and usually declared to be in existence by governmental authority. It should go without saying that a national emergency should represent an actual emergency, something that is serious, unexpected, and perhaps dangerous, requiring immediate action to protect the country. Previous national emergencies have included declarations to block certain transactions with Iran following the taking of American hostages, to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the early 1990s, and following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At least post-Harry Truman, it has been readily understood and agreed that national emergencies should not be declared to circumvent political disputes that a president is losing. But now, we are faced with a president who does not appear to either understand or care about the checks and balances that are fundamental to American democracy and threatens a national emergency to end a dispute that he has not won politically. It defies logic to consider how a situation that has remained largely unchanged for the entirety of the Trump presidency without an emergency being declarednamely that a dwindling number of people illegally enter the United States through the U.S.-Mexico border each year, many of whom are detained for an extended period of timeonly now constitutes an emergency warranting such a declaration. Like the previous weaponization of the filibuster, are national emergencies now to be considered fair use in the presidential political toolbox? We hope not. But these events convince us it is time for Congress to reconsider the powers it has delegated to the executive branch, especially powers available under a national emergency. In addition to any implied powers the president may have under the Constitution in times of national emergency, there are more than 130 separate statutes that grant the president extraordinary powers in case of a national emergency. Under these statutes, which remain dormant until invoked, a president may, inter alia, impose martial law, take control of electronic communications, freeze Americans bank accounts, deploy federal troops unilaterally and within U.S. borders, militarize public health service, dispose of infectious medical waste in the ocean, or take control of an airport. The presidents emergency powers may be accessed under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which merely requires the president to identify a statute under which he is seeking emergency powers, declare a national emergency, which is not defined, and renew the state of emergency annually. Emergency powers are limited under the statute invoked, but the criteria for declaring a national emergency are not. Additionally, although the act provides that Congress can revoke the emergency by voting to do so, that resolution must be presented to the president, who is free to veto it. As such, a national emergency is impossible to remove without the agreement of the president. There are 28 national emergencies currently in effect, the longest of which was declared by President Jimmy Carter and blocks property of the Iranian government from entering the country. The fact that there is little check on the use of emergency powers is worrying, especially if they may become political tools. Even without an emergency, however, Congress appears to have almost completely ceded the power to use military force anywhere in the world. In 2001, just 17 days after 9/11, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001 AUMF), which provides the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. When the 2001 AUMF was passed, it was determined that the 9/11 attacks had been orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, operating out of Afghanistan. The U.S. began military operations against al-Qaida in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, which ultimately led to the death of bin Laden on May 2, 2011, in Pakistan. But from 2001 to 2015, the 2001 AUMF was also used 37 times under both the Bush and Obama presidencies, some for operations whose connection to 9/11 appears dubious at best. The 2001 AUMF was used to justify military action in Iraq, the Philippines, Georgia, Yemen, Djibouti, Somalia, Turkey and Libya and new military operations against ISIS in Iran and Syria. This expansive view of the 2001 AUMF continued in the Trump administration, which saw new deployments in Niger, Chad, Nigeria and Lebanon. The Trump administration also determined it needed no new congressional authority to keep troops in Syria and Iraq, even launching cruise missiles into Syria. This end run around congressional authority has continued for more than 17 years. It is time for Congress to consider its role in our tripartite government and recognize what it has given away. Especially in the case of powers expressly delegated to Congress in Article II, including appropriations and war powers, Congress should be cautious about ceding those powers elsewhere. Unwelcome as this current situation is, it provides Congress with a reason to institute periodic review of presidential actions taken in its lane. We hope that it does so. The Council of Europe has named Britain in a resolution highlighting how sharia law conflicts with universal human rights. A measure adopted by the 47-nation body, which oversees the European Convention on Human Rights, raises concerns about the role of sharia councils in family matters. It also said it was 'greatly concerned' that sharia is applied either officially or unofficially in member states. The Council of Europe has named Britain in a resolution highlighting how sharia law conflicts with universal human rights (file picture) According to The Law Society Gazette , the resolution said that in Britain 'sharia councils attempt to provide a form of alternative dispute resolution, whereby members of the Muslim community, sometimes voluntarily, often under considerable social pressure, accept their religious jurisdiction mainly in marital and Islamic divorce issues, but also in matters relating to inheritance and Islamic commercial contracts.' The resolution, passed at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, also said Muslim couples getting married in the UK should be legally required to civilly register their union before or during the Islamic ceremony. It raised concerns about the role sharia councils play in the areas of family, inheritance and commercial law. 'The assembly is concerned that the rulings of the Sharia councils clearly discriminate against women in divorce and inheritance cases,' it added. In February last year, a government-ordered review of Sharia law concluded that Muslim couples should be legally required to have a civil marriage in addition to an Islamic ceremony. The assembly said it was concerned that the rulings of sharia councils 'clearly discriminate against women in divorce and inheritance cases' (file picture) The measure would mean more women had protection under family law and would face 'less discriminatory practices', the independent assessment said. It would bring Islamic weddings into line with religious Christian and Jewish weddings, the review said. The Government has refused recommendations that would formalise Sharia councils in Muslim communities. The report said banning Sharia councils was not 'viable' because they were fulfilling an important role and called for them to be regulated instead. But ministers have said they will not do anything to formalise a secondary legal system in Britain. The exact number of Sharia councils operating in England and Wales is unknown but estimates vary from 30 to 85. The Council of Europes new resolution welcomed the 2018 recommendations and called on Britain to ensure councils operate within the law 'especially as it relates to the prohibition of discrimination against women, and respect all procedural rights'. According to the Independent, a Home Office spokesperson said of the resolution: ' Sharia law does not form any part of the law in England and Wales. Regardless of religious belief, we are all equal before the law. Where Sharia councils exist, they must abide by the law. 'Laws are in place to protect the rights of women and prevent discrimination, and we will work with the appropriate authorities to ensure these laws are being enforced fully and effectively.' Albania, Azerbaijan and Turkey were also named in in Council of Europe's resolution. These three countries have all endorsed the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam which is a declaration of Human Rights compatible with sharia. The declaration does not contain a right to freedom of religion. According to sharia, a Muslim does not have the right to change his religion or become an atheist. A Japanese maritime patrol plane passes over the starboard side of a South Korean destroyer in international waters south of the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday, in this photo provided by the Ministry of National Defense. Yonhap The Ministry of National Defense called on Japan, Friday, to offer clear evidence that its maritime patrol planes did not conduct threatening low-level flyovers of South Korean warships during the past week. On Thursday, the ministry released five photos of an aircraft to substantiate its assertion that in the latest incident a Japanese P-3 patrol plane buzzed the 4,500-ton destroyer Daejoyeong at an altitude of 60 meters to 70 meters and at a distance of just 540 meters in international waters south of the peninsula the day before According to Japan's Asahi Shimbun, a senior Tokyo official refused to acknowledge the photos, saying his government had "proper" evidence of its own to repudiate Seoul's claim. "If Japan believes that the things we released cannot serve as proof to back up our position, it has to provide evidence to explain why it thinks so," a national defense official responded to reporters. Natural disasters increase as deforestation continues VietNamNet Bridge - More flash floods and landslides have occurred in recent years in northern mountainous provinces, causing hundreds of deaths and destroying many houses. More floods have occurred in recent years According to the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, in 2017-2018, natural disasters caused damages of trillions of dong and hundreds of deaths. A landslide in Phong Tho district in Lai Chau province in August 2018 alone caused 15 casualties. One year before, a flash flood went through Mu Cang Chai town, with 14 people reported dead and missing.Most recently, heavy rains following Typhoon No 4 last August in some northern and central provinces left eight dead and missing. Scientists point out that the environment is being devastated because people have chopped down trees to get timber and cleared forests to make room for hydropower plants.This is why natural disasters have occurred more regularly in Yen Bai, Son La, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Lai Chau and Nghe An, where deforestation is most serious. The loss of watershed forests has led to difficulties in flood prevention. We now have to pay a heavy price for deforestation. It will take tens of years to replace the forests, said Tran Quang Hoai, general director of the General Department of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control. Scientists point out that the environment is being devastated because people have chopped down trees to get timber and cleared forests to make room for hydropower plants.This is why natural disasters have occurred more regularly in Yen Bai, Son La, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Lai Chau and Nghe An, where deforestation is most serious. Exchanging forests for electricity? Vu Trong Hong, former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, stressed that the policy on using forestland to develop hydropower projects in an uncontrolled way has brought disaster. Phan Dinh Nha, deputy head of the Consultancy Institute on Development (CODE), said hydropower plants did not cause the loss of forest, but rather it was the unreasonable management policy which lent a hand to people to deforest, under the cover of hydropower development. In 2012, the National Assembly asked relevant ministries to weed out 400 small hydropower projects from the list of power projects to be developed. However, observers said hydropower projects increased again after a short period of interruption. The local authorities of Lao Cai and Ha Giang provinces approved tens of small hydropower projects. In the central region, three hydropower plants are located in a core ecological area, one in a natural reserves ecological rehabilitation zone. Do Quang Tung, acting director of the Forest Protection Department, noted that flash floods were caused by climate change, while deforestation has led to climate change. Flash floods are getting more serious and aggressive. It is caused by the loss of forests, Tung said. RELATED NEWS Developing small-scale hydropower is a big mistake: experts VN Environment Administration proposes to revive hydropower plants Nam Mai NEW DELHI: On the occasion of India's 70th Republic Day, Indian and Pakistani army exchanged sweets along the Attari-Wagah border. The Border Security Force exchanges the pleasantries with Pakistan Rangers on each other every year on major national festivals and religious festival like Republic Day, Independence Day Diwali and Eid. However, the BSF had in 2018 refused to exchange sweets and greetings with Pakistani Rangers at Attari-Wagah border on the Republic Day due to tension on International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir because of repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistani forces. Meanwhile, Security forces in Khunmoh had launched a cordon and search operation after they got the information about the presence of terrorists in the area. Two terrorists on Saturday were killed in an encounter with security forces in Khunmoh area on the outskirts of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir. Security forces said the search turned into a gun battle after terrorists opened fire on security forces. Mumbai: Actress Shilpa Shetty Kundra says that women don't have to prove themselves to anyone of their capabilities. Shilpa is one of the judges of the show 'Super Dancer Chapter - 3'. This weekend, the show's young contestants, the super gurus and the super judges will be seen celebrating the 70th Republic Day with great enthusiasm. One act highlighted the challenges that women face and how they are considered weak and less than men in every aspect, read a statement. "We women don't need to prove ourselves to anyone of our capabilities. God himself has given us females, the power to carry out his job of bringing new life into this world. He chose us because we are stronger. We should keep doing what we love doing without feeling the need to depend ourselves on others," Shilpa said. Shilpa has a son named Viaan Raj Kundra. Bhubaneswar: Noted writer Gita Mehta, who is also the elder sister of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, on Saturday declined to accept the Padma Shri award. Mehta said the timing of the award was questionable as the general election was set to take place and the award may cause embarrassment both to the Odisha government and her. "I am deeply honoured that the government of India should think me worthy of a Padma Shri but with great regret I feel I must decline (it) as there is a general election looming and the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the government and myself, which I would much regret," said Mehta in a press statement from New York. Mehta had been selected for the Padma Shri in the 'Foreigners' category for her outstanding contribution to the field of art and literature. Mehta has authored books like 'Karma Cola' (1979), 'Raj' (1989), 'A River Sutra' (1993), 'Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India' (1997) and 'Eternal Ganesha: From Birth to Rebirth' (2006). She has also produced and or directed 14 documentaries. Odisha will face both general and Assembly elections in April-May this year. The BJP and BJD are trying hard to edge out each other in the state. On Friday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who was in Odisha, alleged that Naveen Patnaik was "a junior partner" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During his last three visits to Odisha, though Modi attacked the state government, he did not name Patnaik. New Delhi: India celebrated its 70th Republic Day with a grand display of its military might and rich cultural diversity as the ceremonial parade rolled down the majestic Rajpath here in presence of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as the chief guest. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to the martyrs by laying a wreath at Amar Jawan Jyoti before the start of the parade in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the three service chiefs. Later Modi, wearing his traditional kurta pajama and the trademark Nehru jacket, reached the Rajpath and received and greeted President Ram Nath Kovind and the chief guest. President Ram Nath Kovind, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with his wife Tshepo Motsepe, First Lady Savita Kovind, Vice President MVenkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries wave at the crowd as they leave after attending the 70th Republic Day celebrations at Rajpath, in New Delhi, Saturday. Photo: PTI At the unfurling of the tricolour, the band played the national anthem with a 21-gun salute fired in the background. Many senior leaders, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and former prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Deve Gowda, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Ghulam Nabi Azad were among those present at the event. The overall theme for the Republic Day celebrations this year is the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and tableaux of many states, themed on the pre-eminent leader of the Independence movement who championed the idea of non-violence, were lined up during the parade. Officials said Ramaphosa is the second South African president, after Nelson Mandela, to attend the grand event as its chief guest. Four Indian National Army (INA) veterans, aged over 90 years, are taking part in the parade, among the many firsts for the Republic Day event. India's military might was also on display, with the artillery gun system M777 American Ultra Light Howitzers, recently acquired from the US and K9 Vajra, a self-propelled artillery gun, showcased on Rajpath, being new additions this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his tributes to the martyrs by laying a wreath at Amar Jawan Jyoti in the presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the three service chiefs. 'Nari Shakti' (women power) was on full display on the ceremonial boulevard with an all-woman Assam Rifles contingent creating history this year by participating for the first time in the parade, which was led by Maj Khushboo Kanwar. Contingents of the Navy, Army Service Corps and a unit of Corps of Signals (transportable satellite terminal) were led by women officers too, as the crowd cheered. The parade took place in a cold weather amid a heavy security blanket with thousands of security personnel, anti-aircraft guns and sharpshooters deployed in view of the event. The march began with showering of flower petals by helicopters led by the parade commander, parade second-in-command and Param Vir Chakra and Ashoka Chakra awardees. The contingent of the Sikh Regiment march during the 70th Republic Day Parade at Rajpath in New Delhi, Saturday. Photo: PTI The Indian Army's T-90 tank, Ballway Machine Pikate (BMP-II/IIK), Surface Mine Clearing System, 155 mm/52 Calibre Tracked Self-propelled Gun (K-9 Vajra), Transportable Satellite Terminal, Troop Level Radar and Akash Weapon System were also showcased at the parade. The marching contingents of the Sikh Light Infantry, Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry, Gorkha Brigade, Army Service Corps, Army Supply Corps (North), Territorial Army Battalion participated in the parade. The Indian Navy's brass band, marching contingent and tableau, and Air Force's band and marching contingent were also seen. Para-military and other auxiliary forces also participated in the parade along National Cadet Corps and National Service Scheme. The tableaux of Sikkim, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, West Bengal, Tripura, Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Uttarakhand were also displayed. Twenty six children who won the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar also passed through the parade in an open jeep followed by presentations by school children. The motorcycle display followed it which was welcomed by crowds and fly-past was observed after it. Chilly weather conditions failed to dampen the spirits of people who came to watch the parade. Read more: Latest India news Aizawl: Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajasekharan on Saturday addressed an almost-empty ground here on the 70th Republic Day, due to a statewide boycott call given by an umbrella organisation against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. No member from the public attended the function, police said adding that only ministers, legislators and top officials were present. The boycott call was given by the NGO Coordination Committee, an organisation of civil society groups and student bodies. Six armed contingents participated in the Republic Day parade, officials said. Up to 30 contingents traditionally take part in the annual event. In other district headquarters, the deputy commissioners unfurled the tricolour in the absence of senior officials and public, as was the case in sub-divisional and block headquarters. However, the Republic Day celebrations passed off peacefully without any untoward incident, despite the presence of placard-carrying protesters near the venues, police said. In his address, Rajasekharan said stringent measures would be taken to protect state borders, and welfare schemes for the development of people residing in border areas would be given due importance. He said measures would be taken for execution of Mizoram Village-Level Citizen Registration, and emphasised that the state government is committed to preserve and promote the Mizo identity, tradition and values. "This government will endeavour to work for the unity and brotherhood of all Mizo people living within India and across the globe within our constitutional framework," he said. The governor said Mizoram would introduce the Socio-Economic Development Policy (SEDP), a "holistic inclusive development programme aimed at bringing in socio- economic transformation". The SEDP would accelerate growth in all key sectors where the state has tremendous potential, he said. Hinting that prohibition on liquor would be reimposed in the state, he said, "In keeping with our election manifesto, necessary measures will be taken to repeal the Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition and Control) Act, 2014, implemented in the state since January 15, 2015." Rajasekharan added that his government would continue to work towards making Mizoram the "cleanest state in India". Shillong: Navy divers on Saturday located the body of another miner trapped since December 13 inside the 370-foot-deep coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district, officials said. "The Indian Navy has informed us that another body was found at 3 am and is located at about 280 feet away from the bottom of the main shaft," District Deputy Commissioner F M Dopth told PTI. He said the body is decomposed and efforts are on to retrieve it to the top of the mine, using the Navy's remotely operated vehicle (ROV), with the help of the National Disaster Response Force. The first body, of Amir Hussain from Assam's Chirang district, spotted in the mine was handed over to the family members Saturday morning. In a joint operation, the Navy and the NDRF pulled Hussain's body out of the mine's shaft on Thursday, after it was first spotted on January 17. On December 13, water from the nearby Lytein River flooded a network of tunnels in the illegal rat-hole coal mine in Lumthari village of East Jaintia Hills, trapping 15 men and prompting a multiple-agency rescue attempt. Nearly 200 rescue personnel from the NDRF, the Indian Navy, Odisha Fire Service and state agencies are involved in the search-and-rescue operation. Efforts to de-water the nearby abandoned mines with the help of high-powered pumps of Coal India Ltd, Kirloskar Brothers Ltd and Odisha Fire Service are still continuing, the officials said. Anxious family members of the trapped miners are camping in the district headquarters and visiting the site frequently for any news of their loved ones, they said. The owner of the mine, Krip Chullet, was arrested from his home on December 14. His accomplices are on the run. The Meghalaya government has released Rs 1 lakh interim relief for the families of the trapped miners. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is monitoring the rescue mission and the matter is scheduled to come up for hearing again on Monday. Bhubaneswar: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the decision on the entry of his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's into politics was taken some years back. "I read in the media that this was a decision taken over the last 10 days. Actually, the decision was taken some years back," said Gandhi at a town hall meeting here titled 'Reimagining India - Can Odisha show the way?' "I have been having discussions with my sister about her joining politics and her push-back to me was that my children are very young and that I need to spend time looking after them," said Rahul. "Now her children have reached an age where one of them has gone to the university and another is about to go to a university. So, that was the discussion we have been having for a while now," he said. Rahul also spoke about his relationship with Priyanka. "You have to understand my relationship with my sister. We have been through a hell of lot together. Everybody thinks we come from an illustrious family and everything is easy. It's actually not that easy. My father assassinated, my grandmother was assassinated and huge political battles... so we have been through a very hard sort of situation. That has brought us very close together," said the Congress President. Priyanka Gandhi with her family. "Our way of operating is we give each other space. If I say to my sister that I want that space, my sister would tell the space is yours. If my sister says she wants that space, then I would tell that space is your," he said. Replying to a query whether Priyanka would campaign in Odisha, Rahul said they have not decided on that yet. "We will have to see exactly where she will campaign. That is probably something we would decide. We have not decided right now. But her main job as we have discussed is to help revive the Congress party's idea in Uttar Pradesh," said Rahul. Rahul Gandhi slammed the BJP and the ruling BJD in Odisha, saying both follow the 'same Gujarat model' in which there is a 'deal' between the CM candidate and industrialists and governance is later handed over to key bureaucrats. Rahul with Priyanka Gandhi "The BJP model and the BJD model are the same as Gujarat model. It's a very simple deal between the Chief Ministerial candidate and industrialists who fund his campaign. The Chief Minister hands the state over to key bureaucrats who run it," Gandhi said. He said 'we allow our leaders to talk to each other' and added that the Congress was not 'a bureaucratic dictatorship'. "My model is that people know more about their state than I do and I intend to learn from them. When we run a state, we listen to the people. That's not how (Narendra) Modi or Naveen Patnaik think. Has Modi or Patnaik ever had such conversations with you?" Gandhi asked. "Modi thinks he knows about everything. The BJP and BJD don't have a feedback loop and that's the big difference between them and the Congress," he added. Gandhi said the key problems before the country were jobs, farm distress and credit to small businesses and there was a need to rethink the development paradigm. He said China far outpaces India in job creation and that the Modi government had failed to deliver on its various promises, including one on providing employment. Read more: Latest India news Thiruvananthapuram: A woman Deputy commissioner of Police (DCP) was transferred within hours after she conducted a raid at the CPM district committee office here late on Thursday. DCP Chaitra Theresa John had raided the party office following a tip-off that the DYFI workers who pelted stones at the Medical College police station the previous night were hiding there. However, no one could be nabbed in the raid. Chaitra, who had been given temporary charge after DCP R Adithya went on leave, was sent back to the Womens Cell, while Adithya, whose leave was cancelled, was told to report to duty. The Home Department has sought an explanation from the DCP with regard to the raid. The action was initiated as per the directions of the Chief Ministers Office, it was learnt. It was on Wednesday night that a 50-member gang of DYFI workers pelted stones at the Medical College station. A police team, led by the Chaitra, raided the CPM office at Mettukada on Thursday night based on information provided by the City Special Branch that the key accused in the stone-pelting incident was hiding there. Partys local leaders and workers, who were present in the area, attempted to stop the personnel and send them back. However, as the DCP stood firm and told them that she would not return without searching the office, they were forced to back down. The police believe that it was a strategy to distract them and facilitate the DYFI workers escape. Subsequently, the CPM district leadership approached the party higher-ups and the Chief Ministers Office seeking action against Chaitra. The DYFI workers pelted stones at the station after police denied them permission to meet the two CPM activists who were arrested in connection with a case registered under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences act (POCSO). Following the incident, cases were registered against as many as 50 DYFI and CPM functionaries including a senior party leader. There were allegations that the medical college police were helping the accused evade arrest. It was then the Special Branch filed a report stating that the party workers involved in the station attack were hiding in the CPM office in Mettukada. Though some of the low-ranking officers advised Chaitra to reconsider her decision to raid the office, she refused to budge. Against their wishes, some of the personnel attached to the Medical College were also included in the search team. Senior officers suspect that the information regarding the raid might have been leaked to the party leaders from the station itself. With the help of the Cyber Cell, the police have obtained the call detail record (CDR) of the officer who allegedly leaked the details of the police action to the party leaders, sources revealed. Chaitra was given additional charge of DCP when R Adithya was sent on Sabarimala duty. The latter who was supposed to take charge on January 21 had availed a four-day leave after returning from Sabarimala. Read more: Latest Kerala news Thrissur: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday lashed out at the CPI(M)-led government in Kerala and said the Sabarimala issue had shown to the people of the country how the communist government was trying to disrespect the culture of the state. He said the opposition parties could abuse him as much as they wanted but should not mislead farmers. The prime minister said the opposition should not create hurdles in opportunities for the youth. "Sabarimala got the attention of the entire nation. The people of India have seen how the communist government was trying to disrespect the culture of Kerala. Why is the government undermining the culture of the state? Unfortunately, the cultural ethos of Kerala is under attack. It's been done by a party which is governing the state," Modi told a huge gathering at a Yuva Morcha meet here. Modi said his government had made efforts to make all kitchens in the country smoke free. "When we came to power, we made efforts to make all kitchens smoke free. At that time, only 55 per cent of houses had gas connections. But today we have achieved 90 per cent," he said. The prime minister also termed as the 'biggest joke,' the Congress and Left parties talking about democracy. Dubbing the opposition as a "corrupt house", Modi said in the last four years, people in Delhi have made him a "chowkidhar". "As long as I am there in Delhi, I will not allow any kind of corruption and will not allow the nation's unity and integrity to be destroyed," said Modi. "My friends in the opposition are bankrupt when it comes to development of the nation. All they have is hatred against Modi. Their day begins by abusing Modi and ends by again abusing Modi. All I wish to tell them is 'you may abuse me, but please don't mislead the farmers, youth and the poor' and don't destroy the great nation and its progress," said Modi. "The opposition is destroying agencies like the CBI, armed forces, police, CAG and even the Election Commission as all these organisations are wrong for them, while they (Congress) are right. "Recently, the entire nation was amused to watch a press meet on foreign soil which was one that hit badly at the democratic ethos of our country, when the Election Commission came under attack. Seen was a 'top-most leader'. They even undermine our nation on foreign soil," said Modi and added that the Congress party will have to answer for this. "Elections will come and go, but the nation will always be here. The opposition should stop disrespecting institutions," added Modi. Modi reached Kerala for a one-day visit on Sunday. He landed in Kochi around 2pm and proceeded to Rajagiri College ground in Kakkanad. Modi unveiled an integrated Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) refinery expansion complex in Kochi. He laid the foundation stone of the complex, which is a complete 'Make in India' initiative aimed at reducing dependence on imports. This is Modi' second visit to Kerala in a month. He had opened the much-awaited Kollam bypass on National Highway-66 here on January 15. Later addressing a gathering of BJP workers in Kollam, Modi had said the conduct of Kerala's CPI(M)-led LDF government on the Sabarimala issue would go down in the history as one of the "most shameful behaviours by any party and government". The BJP and other right-wing groups have been on a warpath ever since the LDF government decided to implement the Supreme Court verdict that allowed women of all age groups to enter the temple. Modi in TN Earlier in the day, Modi also laid the foundation stone for an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. He also inaugurated the super speciality blocks of Rajaji Medical College (Madurai), Thanjavur Medical College (Thanjavur) and Tirunelveli Medical College (Tirunelveli) as a part of upgradation projects of government medical colleges. Read more: latest Kerala news Thiruvananthapuram: A day after ex-ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan was picked for the prestigious Padma Bhushan award, a war of words broke out with a former state police chief questioning the rationale behind the choice. "What is Nambi Narayanan's contribution to the nation? He took voluntary retirement way back in 1995," former Kerala Police chief TP Senkumar told reporters. "The Supreme Court is yet to completely acquit the former ISRO scientist in the espionage case. There is lot of difference between truth and what is being projected as truth. The case was not properly investigated," he alleged. "Those who picked him for award should explain why he was picked. Now even Govindachamy (convicted in Soumya rape case) and Ameer-ul Islam (accused in Jisha rape-murder case) can be given the honour, he said mockingly. Responding to Senkumar's allegations, Nambi Narayanan said that the former DGP was talking rubbish. "The ISRO case is over. The SC has appointed a panel to find out the erring officials. If Senkumar has data to prove otherwise, he can submit it to the panel," the former scientist said. Nambi Narayanan said he was unaware whether Senkumar had any vested interest in raking up the issue now. The espionage case, which hit the headlines in 1994, pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women. Narayanan had to spend close to two months in jail before the CBI concluded the allegations against him were false. The apex court had on September 14, 2018, ordered a probe into the role of the Kerala Police in the case and awarded Rs 50 lakh as compensation to Narayanan. Read more: latest Kerala news Thiruvananthapuram: Spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi should not have attended the recent meeting organised by the Sabarimala Karma samithi here, Kerala Chief Minister Pinararyi Vijayan said on Saturday. "Amritanandamayi has a lot of followers within and outside Kerala and many of them did not like her attending such an event," Pinarayi said at his weekly interactive programme, "Naam Munnottu". Pinarayi said the Sangh Parivar had tried to mislead Amritanandamayi before as well. "That time, she had shown the boldness not to get trapped in their plans but the recent incident has dented her image," he said. He pointed out that till recently, Amritanandamayi was in favour of women of all age groups entering the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. Amritanandamayi, along with a bunch of sanyasins, had attended the devotees' meet organised by Sabarimala Karma Samiti seeking to protect the customs of the hill shrine of Sabarimala. The meet was the culmination of a series of protests organised by devotees, backed by right wing groups, mainly the Sangh Parivar, challenging the Supreme Court verdict allowing entry of all women to Sabriamala temple. The Supreme Court in its September 28 verdict lifted a ban on women belonging to 10-50 age group entering the shrine. The Pinarayi-led LDF government was adamant that it would implement the verdict while opposition parties, inlcuding the BJP and the Congress, came out against the government, accusing it of trying to subvert the customs of the temple. On the 'Women Wall' organised by the government to counter the Sangh Parivar's protests, Pinarayi said it was a bold effort towards women empowerment. He called for more programmes to take forward the values of the renaissance movements in the state. He said the government will initiate more projects to ensure gender justice. "Various government departments are carrying out several works for women empowerment. The state budget will also reflect this," he said. The budget is slated to be presented on January 31. Kozhikode: The youth brigade in the Indian Union Muslim League, the second largest constituent in the United Democratic Front, is mounting pressure on the party leadership to pitch for a third seat to contest in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. PK Kunhalikkutty (Malappuram) and ET Mohammed Basheer (Ponnani) are the IUML lawmakers from Kerala. The youth brigade's grouse is that the IUML, despite being the second largest constituent in the UDF, had to be contended with two seats for too long. The Congress, which has 22 MLAs, is contesting from 16 seats while with 18 legislators IUML contests only 2 seats, they point out. IUML legislator from Manjeswaram PB Abdu Razak passed away recently and the seat is lying vacant. Many youth wing leaders including Panakkad Mueen Ali Thangal, son of IUML supremo Hyderali Shihab Thangal, have expressed their demand publicly, but senior leaders are yet to respond on the issue. Mueen Ali, also the Youth League's national vice president, had even posted on his Facebook page that there should be an end to the compromise made by the IUML. The leadership should consider the feeling of the party workers and sympathisers rather than compromising on the seat sharing for Lok Sabha polls, Mueen Ali posted on Facebook. This is a genuine demand. Workers have been dreaming about it for long, but the leadership is not considering their demand. This attitude should change. Even if it is a seat with less winning chances like Kasaragod or Palakkad, we should welcome that, he wrote. After IUML leaders failed to acknowledge the demand, Samastha, a prominent Muslim organisation, made known its protest on the issue. Samastha even wrote an editorial on the issue on its mouthpiece 'Suprabhatham' pointing out that Mueen Ali's post was a reflection of the long-pending demand of the party workers. Party workers said the dissent was more from the youngsters, who feel senior leaders were not taking up the issue in the UDF. However, IUML state general secretary KPA Majeed avoided questions on the issue and said allies have the freedom to raise their concerns, but only the most acceptable candidate would be chosen for a seat. Youth League state secretary PK Firos, who called a press meet in Kozhikode on Thursday also avoided a direct reply to queries posed to him on the third seat. If eligibility is considered, Muslim League deserves more than three seats, he said. Dissenting IUML leaders also point out that the CPI, the second largest constituent in the LDF, gets to contest four seats. They contend that the CPI's base is weaker vis-a-vis the IUML in the state. Within IUML, it is only recently that leaders from the state got the chance to contest for LS polls. Earlier, national leaders from outside the state used to contest as IUML candidates. GM Banatwala was elected seven times from Ponnani and Ibrahim Sulaiman Sait, won four times from Manjeri twice from Kozhikode and once from Ponnani. The IUML's assessment is that it has strong pockets of influence in Wayanad LS constituency that includes Bathery, Kalpetta and Mananthavady Assembly constituencies in Wayanad district, Thiruvambady in Kozhikode and Eranad, Nilambur and Wandoor constituencies in Malappuram district. The Wayanad LS seat fall vacant following the demise of M.I.Shanavaz of the Congress last year. It is considered a safe seat for the UDF. Kasaragod: Congress leader V M Sudheeran said that he would not contest the general election this year. The former state chief of the party, however, said that former chief minister Oommen Chandy should contest the election. I have made my mind clear as early as 2009. I have received enough opportunities. We have to give a chance to youngsters and fresh faces yet crucial people should contest elections. It will be good if Oommen Chandy contested, Sudheeran said. KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran has also suggested that Chandy should contest the polls whereas the latter is yet to make up his mind on the matter. He said that the Kerala government had asked for the court order that was favourable to Harrison company and others who had encroached government land. The government failed to argue its case effectively before the Supreme Court even though it was in possession of favourable reports from investigating commissions and an order from the Kerala High Court. The government also failed to legislate or take measures to take over the land, he said. He added that the government was trying to help Harrison. He said that the revenue and law department secretaries had acted as advocates for Harrison. He warned the government not to let the company stake claim to the land it had possessed illegally. Kulamavu: This father-daughter duo from Kulamavu is all set to make the R-Day parade a family affair. Dr Sajeev K Vavachan, NCC Officer of Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kulamavu and his daughter, Evelyn Mary Joseph, a 9th standard student at the same school, will attend the Republic Day Parade in New Delhi on January 26. Both the father and daughter are participating in the Republic Day Parade for the first time. Evelyn got selected as a winner of gold medal in the group and inter group competitions. Seven junior girls were selected from Kerala to attend the Republic Day Parade. Evelyn, who has acted in short films and tele serials, is also acting in a movie titled Uyare. Dr Sajeev has been leading the All India Trekking Camp, which is being conducted at Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kulamavu, for the past eight years. New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resist pressure from the United States and not defer new regulations for the e-commerce sector, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The economic wing of the RSS has written to Modi saying that changing the policy implementation date, under pressure from Washington, will hurt 130 million small Indian entrepreneurs. "There is no need to buckle under these pressures. India must continue to chart the way best for itself and the entrepreneurs," the Swadeshi Jagran Manch said in its letter, which was reviewed by Reuters. The new rules, to be implemented from February 1, will deal a blow to Walmart Inc and Amazon.com's ambitions in the country. They mandate that e-commerce companies will not be allowed to sell products from firms in which they have an equity interest. Reuters reported on Thursday the United States government had told Indian officials the new rules will hinder the investment plans of the two companies. The rules, which will force the companies to change their business structures and raise operational costs, have sparked an extensive lobbying effort from both Amazon and Walmart, which last year invested $16 billion in Indian e-commerce company Flipkart. Both Amazon and Walmart have sought an extension of the February 1 deadline, but government sources have said that was unlikely to happen as Modi needs millions of traders by his side in an upcoming national election due by May. On Friday, the Confederation of All India Traders, which has supported tougher scrutiny of large e-commerce players, said 'the entire trading community will vote against the government if they extend the deadline'. The e-commerce spat is the latest in a number of disputes over trade and investment relations between India and the United States. Walmart spokesman Greg Hitt told Reuters this week the company had 'engaged the (United States) administration on this issue'. The RSS has long advocated self-reliance and opposed the opening up of the Indian economy to foreign players. Small Indian retailers have alleged that e-commerce companies use their control over inventory from their affiliates to create an unfair marketplace that allows them to sell some products at lower prices, which hurts the businesses of brick-and-mortar retailers. Such arrangements would be barred under the new policy. In front-page advertisements in newspapers last week, Walmart-owned Flipkart highlighted how the platform had helped transform local struggling businesses selling badminton racquets and sarees. Read more: Latest Business news KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2019 - 00:08 | All, Japan, Feature An embattled train operator in Hokkaido will allow a railway company based in Tokyo to run a luxury train on its tracks, possibly next year, in a bid to attract wealthy and foreign tourists, according to people familiar with the plan. Hokkaido Railway Co., more widely known as JR Hokkaido, and Tokyu Corp. are in talks about the operation of Tokyu's Royal Express on routes in the northernmost main island of Japan. Lunches produced by noted culinary experts are served onboard the Royal Express during its run between Yokohama and Shimoda on the Izu Peninsula, both near Tokyo, and Tokyu plans to offer a similar service on the planned run in Hokkaido, the sources said. Tokyu offers different packages for the one-way trip between Yokohama and Shimoda, with the most expensive costing 35,000 yen ($322) per passenger. It is rare for a unit of the JR group, which used to be the state-run Japanese National Railway, to allow a non-JR train to run on its tracks, but the cash-strapped company based in Sapporo is in need of the revenue from Tokyu, the sources said. JR Hokkaido also hopes passengers using the luxury train will stay at hotels operated by JR group companies. [Don Design Associates] Assyrian Priest Who Saved Christian Heritage Ordained Mosul Archbishop The new Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Najeeb Michaeel seen during his ordination ceremony at St Paul's Cathedral in the northern Iraqi city on January 25, 2019 saved a trove of religious manuscripts from the Islamic State group. ( AFP) (AFP) -- An Iraqi priest who saved a trove of religious manuscripts from the Islamic State group was ordained on Friday as the new Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul. Najeeb Michaeel, 63, was inaugurated in a ceremony in Mosul's St. Paul Church attended by Catholic leaders from the region and the US, as well as local officials and residents. "Our message to the whole world, and to Mosul's people, is one of coexistence, love, and peace among all of Mosul's different communities and the end of the ideology that Daesh (IS) brought here," Michaeel told AFP. Michaeel entered religious life at 24 and spent years serving at Al-Saa Church (Our Lady of the Hour) in Mosul. There, he managed the preservation of nearly 850 ancient manuscripts in Aramaic, Arabic and other languages, as well as 300-year-old letters and some 50,000 books. In 2007, he transferred the archives to Qaraqosh, once Iraq's largest Christian city, to protect them during an Islamist insurgency which saw thousands of Christians flee Mosul. And when IS -- who was notorious for defacing churches and destroying any artefacts deemed contrary to its neoconservative interpretation of Islam -- swept across Iraq in 2014, Michaeel again took action. As the jihadists charged towards Qaraqosh, the Dominican friar filled his car with rare manuscripts, 16th century books and irreplaceable records and fled east to the relative safety of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. With two other friars from his Dominican order, Michaeel also moved the Oriental Manuscript Digitisation Centre (OMDC), which scans damaged manuscripts recovered from churches and villages across northern Iraq. From the Kurdish capital Arbil, he and a team of Christian and Muslim experts digitally copied thousands of Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian and Nestorian manuscripts. Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul from IS in the summer of 2017, and Michaeel returned to the city months later to attend the first post-IS Christmas mass. He found his church in ruins, with rooms transformed into workshops for bombs and explosive belts and gallows had replaced the church altar. But he insisted there was reason for hope. "I'm optimistic. The last word will be one of peace, not the sword," Michaeel told AFP last year. On Friday, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church called for more international support to Iraq's Christians. "Bishops from outside Iraq are participating in this occasion to support the Christians of Mosul," said Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako. "They are encouraging them to return to their city, rebuild it alongside the other communities and turn a new page based on trust and peaceful coexistence." Taliban representatives and US authorities finalised a proposed deal during the course of six days of negotiations in Qatar that would put an end to the Afghan war, which has raged in the country for 17 years, Trend reported citing Sputnik. According to the source, the agreement highlights that the deal includes guarantees that al-Qaeda* and Daesh* will not be able to use Afghanistan as a base for terrorism. Moreover, the deal urges teh foreign military forces that are present in the central Asian country to withdraw within 18 months, the source added. After the negotiations, US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is expected to inform President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul about the achieved progress. The US embassy in Kabul has not yet confirmed the reports on the draft agreement and the envoy's visit to Afghanistan's capital. A group attacked a military base of Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq on Saturday under "provocation of the PKK," said Turkey's Defense Ministry, Trend reported citing Xinhua. "Partial vehicle and material damage occurred in the attack. Necessary measures are taken regarding the incident," said the ministry on its official Twitter account. Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with his Tunisian counterpart Khemaies Jhinaoui on Saturday focusing on the state of affairs in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in the Sahara-Sahel region, in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Lebanon, Trend reports referring to TASS. The agenda also includes the issues of bilateral relations, including trade and economic ties. Tunisia plays an important role in Africa and the Arab world in terms of Russian products purchases, Moscow has noted. "In 2018, trade turnover with that country amounted to $760 mln (against $511 mln in 2017 - TASS)," the Foreign Ministry said in a commentary prior to Lavrovs visit. "Russian exports are mainly represented by primary products, though there has emerged a trend of a rising share of processed products. Tunisian imports are mainly represented by agriculture products," the ministry said. The Russian side has also acknowledged the fact that the work of the intergovernmental commission, which is going to hold another meeting in Tunisia this year, has been quite efficient. Tourism is a special cooperation area between the two countries. In 2018, 600,000 Russians visited Tunisia, an increase of almost 100,000 compared with the previous year. Moscow "welcomes the efforts of Tunisias authorities to ensure proper safety conditions for our citizens," the ministry said, adding that it considers "that issue to be one of top priorities." Tunisian Ambassador to Russia Mohamed Ali Chihi said earlier in an interview with TASS that the countrys authorities plan to discuss security issues facing the Arab region with Russian Foreign Minister during his visit. "Both sides have usually exchanged views about international and regional issues of common interest particularly in the Arab region: Libya, Syria, the Palestinian cause," the ambassador said. "Tunisian and Russian officials will focus again on these issues and discuss the opportunities for speeding up bilateral cooperation," he added. The issue of regular flights may be added to the agenda as Tunis is interested in establishing regular air service between the two countries. Tunisian partners are also keen to enhance cooperation in such areas as automobile and aeronautic industry, agricultural machinery, technology, education. Russia welcomes the plans of the US and North Korea to hold the second summit and continue dialogue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told reporters on Friday after talks with his US colleagues in Washington, Trend reports referring to TASS. "The conversation was constructive, we discussed in details the latest developments," Morgulov said. "Russia welcomes dialogue between the US and North Korea at the working level, as well as information about the second summit," he added. "At the same time, we drew the attention of our US colleagues to the fact that efforts in the bilateral format are important, but problems on the Korean Peninsula are multifaceted, and they concern many parties," the diplomat noted. "We also drew their attention to the importance of expanding UN's role in the work on the Korean Peninsula," Morgulov noted. China will join a group including the United States and the European Union in negotiating new rules to cover the US$25 trillion e-commerce market, Trend reports referring to South China Morning Post. The EU and 47 other members of the World Trade Organisation have launched the discussions, according to a Friday statement. If successful, a digital trade accord hashed out through the Geneva-based trade body would establish a baseline international regime for 21st century trade and reduce cross-border hurdles to e-commerce. China, which for years has heavily restricted use of the internet inside its borders, had resisted joining the talks until Thursday, raising concerns over the language in the statement advocating a high standard outcome, according to people familiar with the talks who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. In a statement, Chinas ambassador to the World Trade Organisation Zhang Xiangchen said China decided to join the negotiations out of concern over a broader crisis surrounding the WTO, which has been coming under attack from US President Donald Trumps administration. The multilateral trading system is in a deep crisis, he said. Against this backdrop, the launching of e-commerce negotiation will in a significant way help reinvigorate the negotiating function of the WTO, and shore up confidence in the multilateral trading system and economic globalisation, Zhang said. China, which is expected to surpass the US this year as the biggest retail market in the world, adds greater weight to a potential accord. It is likely to register US$5.5 trillion in online sales this year due to the spread of its powerful online companies like Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post, and Baidu. But some in the US fear that China could also seek to water down any eventual outcome, and Beijings decision to join at the end was tinged with reluctance. To be very frank, the current text of the joint statement before us, in our view, could have been better drafted if time allows, Zhang said. Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, said in a statement on Friday that the US was seeking an ambitious, high standard agreement that is enforceable and has the same obligations for all participants. He called the digital economy a powerful force for global economic growth that should be guided by market-based rules and lowered barriers. Cecilia Malmstrom, the EUs top trade negotiator, said the inclusion of China was important because of its scale and role in the global economy. With China on board the negotiations will include WTO members accounting for more than 90 per cent of global trade. But it also served as a sign that the WTO still had life in it. It shows that the WTO is still alive and that we can take on board one of the biggest challenges on global trade e-commerce, Malmstrom said. The new rules will seek to reduce barriers that prevent cross-border sales, ban duties on electronic transmissions, ensure the validity of e-contracts and e-signatures and address forced data localisation requirements, according to Fridays EU statement. Simon Birmingham, the Australian trade minister, said the hope was that some tangible progress could be made in negotiations before a Group of 20 summit in Japan in June and that the negotiations could be wrapped up next year. If anything this is an initiative that started too late because the reality is that e-commerce and digital trade are here, theyre big, and there is an inevitability that the way in which commerce occurs around the world is going to be influenced more heavily by the digital economy, he said. The group is expected to hold their first formal negotiating session in March, and movement toward an agreement has been praised by some retailers, including Amazon. Amazon welcomes progress made this week by the joint statement group towards a global e-commerce agreement, which has the potential to significantly benefit Amazons customers and seller partners by eliminating and preventing barriers to online trade, an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement. Even though Trumps administration did not send a representative to Fridays meeting in Davos, the US has been a key contributor to e-commerce discussions ever since they were first floated at the WTOs 2017 ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires. At least 13 civilians died as a result of an airstrike carried out by the international coalition in Syria's Deir ez-Zor Province, Trend reported citing Sputnik. Syrian media have frequently reported civilian casualties resulting from US-led coalition airstrikes. Previously, the coalition acknowledged that at least 1,114 civilians have been killed in Syria and Iraq as a result of its campaign to defeat Daesh. Syrian authorities have repeatedly called on the United Nations to hold those responsible for civilian deaths accountable and put an end to the US-led coalition's unauthorised presence on Syrian territory. The US-led coalition's activities in Syria are not endorsed by the Syrian government, President Bashar al-Assad nor the United Nations Security Council. The European Commission has added Saudi Arabia to a European Union draft list of countries that pose a threat to the bloc because of lax controls against "terrorism financing" and "money laundering", sources told Reuters news agency, Trend reports referring to Aljazeera. The move comes amid heightened international pressure on Saudi Arabia following the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The EU's list currently consists of 16 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea, and is mostly based on criteria used by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body of wealthy nations meant to combat "money laundering" and "terrorism financing". The list has been updated this week, using new criteria developed by the European Commission since 2017. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries added to the updated list that is still confidential, one unidentified EU source and one unnamed Saudi source were quoted as saying. A second EU official said other countries were likely to be added to the final list but declined to elaborate as the information is still confidential and subject to change. A European Commission spokesman said he had no comment on the content of the list as it had not been finalised yet. Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to the requests for comment. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26 By Matanat Nasibova Trend: Erecting a bust in Georgias Akhalkalaki town to Mikhail Avagyan, the executioner of the peaceful Azerbaijani population in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, is an initiative of certain pro-Armenian forces in Georgia, head of the European Diplomats Association NGO Zurab Gventsadze told Trend. A bust to Mikhail Avagyan, a person directly involved in the occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and adjacent territories, and in organizing the killings of Azerbaijanis in these territories, was erected in the Georgian settlement of Bugashen of the Akhalkalaki municipality on January 20. Gventsadze said that the Armenian separatist Mikhail Avagyan is the enemy of not only the Azerbaijani, but also the Georgian people, therefore this action is directed against Georgia and Azerbaijan. At the same time, this action committed in Georgia is aimed at breaking up our peoples, he noted. I believe that the mayor of Akhalkalaki is responsible for erecting the bust, because I am sure that the prime minister and the Foreign Ministry of Georgia werent informed about this fact. I think that the Georgian authorities will take appropriate decisions regarding the incident. He added that the bust to the Armenian nationalist erected in Georgia should be dismantled as soon as possible. Our countries are strategic partners, and Azerbaijan is a friendly country, which strongly supports Georgia, providing investment assistance, fuel support, etc. I am sure that attempts by third forces to drive a wedge into fraternal relations between Georgia and Azerbaijan wont succeed, he said. The Armenian separatist Mikhail Avagyan participated in the hostilities in Horadiz, Khojaly and Fizuli towns and was among those who committed genocide in Azerbaijans Khojaly town against hundreds of civilians who were brutally killed by Armenian militants. The ceremony of erecting the bust to Nazi Avagyan was attended by the mayor of Akhalkalaki Yurik Hunanyan, as well as MPs Enzel Mkoyan and Samvel Manukyan, according to Georgian media reports. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26 By Elchin Mehdiyev Trend: Forces that want to turn Azerbaijan into the next Syria and stir up chaos in the country are triggering the radical opposition, Azerbaijani MP Hikmet Babaoglu told Trend. The MP noted that the radical opposition held a rally on January 19, and it became clear that the ideas that they wanted to convey to the masses coincided with what was voiced by them 25 years ago. "The fact of the matter is that there are no reasons in the society that would make the holding of a rally relevant. This leaves two possible reasons for the rally being held by the radical opposition: either the radicals cannot feel the pulse of the public, or the rally is a political order from abroad and based on financial support. Undoubtedly, the second reason is true, because now Azerbaijan is entering a qualitatively new stage in its national development," added Babaoglu. One of the main issues is that the new geostrategic reality formed by Azerbaijan will give a new impetus to the negotiations on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2019, and this was evidenced by what has been happening during the first month of the new year. "Obviously, this causes serious distress among the anti-Azerbaijani centers and the Armenian lobby," the MP added. Babaoglu said that the main goal of those who are against Azerbaijan is to stir up chaos in the country, to turn Azerbaijan into the next Syria, to discredit its international image, and they are also pushing the radical opposition. "The next day, on January 20, the radicals had, after having realized that the rally did not give the desired results, attempted to artificially cause a clash with the police for the purpose of accomplishing this goal, under the pretext of visiting our national and spiritual heritage - the Alley of Martyrs, and wanted to turn it into a political show, with the help of social media. This was aimed at creating an anti-democratic image of Azerbaijan, thereby striking a blow at the country's image in the eyes of the international community, Babaoglu said. The MP added that the Azerbaijani public will never allow for chaos to rise its head in Azerbaijan, turning the country into a polygon of imperialist terror hotspots. Baku, Azerbaijan, January 26 Trend: Uzbekistan is planning to adopt a document in the coming months that will allow in a simplified procedure to lease housing to foreigners for 120 days a year, Trend reports via Podrobno.uz. In particular, this document will give the right to owners of residential premises that registered in a special unified electronic system and the right to conclude short-term rental agreements for residential premises for up to 30 days in electronic form without notarization and registration with tax authorities. At the same time, people providing residential premises in the short-term lease for up to 30 days but not more than 120 days a year will be able to provide accommodation services without registering as a business entity. In fact, this will create legal conditions for the use by Uzbeks of large international online platforms for accommodation, search and short-term rental of private housing. "In the initial version of the draft document on housing rental a period of 60 days per year was specified. We chose such term as we had studied international experience before developing our document, especially in Europe there is now a process of reducing these deadlines to 30 days, said Aziz Fayozov the acting head of the State Committee on Tourism Methodology. He emphasizes that many European states are already refusing the widespread use of the Airbnb apartment reservation system since it creates a shortage in the market for the citizens of these countries. "We take into account the interests of our citizens. Tourists naturally pay more as come for a week and leave $200-300. The owner can rent an apartment to several tourists within a month. The price in the rental market will naturally increase with such a scheme", he noted. Fayozov underlines that the document now has the opportunity to rent housing for 120 days a year but its difficult to say how long it will be in the final version of the document as it is in the process of being finalized. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26 Trend: The Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council intends to make maximum use of the existing potential for the development of cooperation between the business circles of the two countries, said Samad Gurbanov, chairman of the Board of the Council, Trend reports with reference to the Economy Ministry. He was speaking at a general meeting of the Council with the participation of representatives of over 100 business structures and organizations operating in the fields of agriculture, industry, construction, transport, economy and oil sector. Opening the meeting, Gurbanov noted the high activity and positive results of the organizations activities last year. The meeting was continued by the discussion of administrative issues. Chairpersons of the commissions on logistics, food products and agriculture, certification and customs procedures - Natig Heydarov, Ismayil Orujov and Namig Tagiyev were elected. Natig Heydarov was also elected deputy chairman of the board. Then, new features of the Councils website www.ards.az were presented. In the final part of the meeting, its participants discussed the plan of measures and projects for the first half of 2019. The Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council was established in 2016. The main goal of the Council is further deepening of ties in the fields of economy and mutual investment between Azerbaijan and Russia, cooperation between businessmen. To this end, the Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council closely cooperates with a similar organization in Russia - the Russian-Azerbaijani Business Council, and systematically holds joint meetings of business councils with the participation of businessmen. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Irans export to Turkmenistan has decreased by 7 percent, Rahmatullah Khormali, commercial attache of Iran to Turkmenistan, told ISNA, Trend reports. Some $305 million worth of products have been exported from Iran to Turkmenistan during the nine months of the current Iranian year (starting from March 21, 2018), with a 6-7 percent decline in export as compared to the same period last year, he said. Turkmenistan is the 13th target market of Iranian goods. China, Russia, Turkey and Iran are among the top exporters to Turkmenistan. The import of products from other countries to Turkmenistan has also decreased, he said. According to Khormali, Turkmenistan has been experiencing a decline in economic growth in recent years. As a result, the country imposes a tighter supervision over import and seeks alternatives to import. Therefore, import to Turkmenistan has seen a 40 percent decrease during the last couple of years. Turkmen officials want investments to be made in the fields of petrol, gas, electricity, agriculture, electronic industry, etc. Iranian producers should come forth with investments in these spheres, he remarked. Moreover, Iran could attract Turkmen investors in joint projects. Mining, textiles, and other products in border provinces could benefit from Turkmen investments. As for the participation of Iranian businessmen in any projects in Turkmenistan, we would advise that Iranian businessmen invest and trade only per contractual agreements, and to sign the contracts in foreign currency, such as the euro, Khormali said. Baku, Azerbaijan, January 26 Trend: The first Uzbek-Afghan business forum dedicated to bilateral cooperation in the production of building materials was held at O'zqurilishmateriallari AJ, Trend reports via UZA. There were the participation of major construction companies of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan at the forum such as Chairman of the Board of O'zqurilishmateriallari AJ Botir Zaripov who noted that mutually beneficial cooperation between the countries plays an important role in the development of the production of building materials and other areas. Partnership relations between our countries in the trade and economic sphere are actively developing. Our government pays special attention to providing the consumer market with modern building materials, meeting existing demand and exporting to neighboring countries, in particular Afghanistan. As a result, it is possible to provide neighboring countries with building materials and increase the export potential of our country he said. A program of measures to develop the construction industry for 2017-2020 was adopted in Uzbekistan. Based on the tasks defined in it, O'zqurilishmateriallari AJ takes comprehensive measures to deeply process local raw materials, increase production and expand the range of competitive building materials. Nowadays, O'zqurilishmateriallari AJs system includes enterprises for the extraction and processing of natural stones, production of cement and binder materials, building glass, ceramic products, other building and decorative materials as well as a specialized design research and exploration institute, geological exploration organizations. Uzbekistan and Afghanistan have a lot in common. Friendly relations and partnership between us are important for the development. Todays business forum serves to an establishment of partnerships between representatives of the business circles of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan as well as further strengthening cooperation in the economy, said Ahmad Navid Barat, First Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Afghanistan. An exhibition of building materials produced in Uzbekistan was organized as part of the event. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26 By Matanat Nasibova Trend: This year, Gilan Gabala Canning Factory LLC will increase export volumes of fruit juices to foreign markets, factory representatives told Trend. Russia is the main importer of the factorys products. "Most of the deliveries to the Russian market consist of pomegranate juice, fruit purees and concentrates are also partially exported. Last year, France became a new export destination. Delivery volumes were not large, but, given the demand from this European country, we intend to increase exports to the French market this year," the source said. The most popular fruit juices outside the country are "Jal" and "Golden Garden". The manufactured products have a Certificate of Conformity issued by the State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan. Equipment of German, Turkish, and Swiss manufacture is used by the enterprise. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.25 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of the former head of the International Bank of Azerbaijan Jahangir Hajiyev, would be brought to justice without a court decision if she would face the same charges in Singapore instead of the UK, Trend reports citing an article published on JDSUPRA. The Singapore Parliament passed the Serious Crimes and Counter-Terrorism (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill on November 19, 2018, creating the new Section 47AA of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (CDSA), reads the article. Reportedly, Section 47AA of the CDSA now makes it an offence for any individual or company to possess or use any property that may be reasonably suspected of wholly or partly being the proceedings of drug dealing or other serious crimes, unless the individual or company can satisfactorily explain the provenance of the property. Individuals or companies convicted of such an offence face heavy fines and imprisonment (for individuals), on top of the seizure and forfeiture of the property in question. What is the difference between Section 47AA and the UK Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) against Zamira Hajiyeva? It appears from a comparison between the two regimes that the Singapore regime is more encompassing, i.e., it applies in wider factual situations to trigger the shift of the burden of proof to the respondent to explain the provenance of the property. Section 47AA is also a criminal provision and will no doubt be utilised by the Singapore enforcement agencies to ensure suspects cooperate on pain of further prosecution. The Singapore enforcement agency need not apply to the Singapore courts for a UWO; it simply has to alert a suspect to the operation of Section 47AA and this alone is likely to compel cooperation, reads the article. The author recalls that in February 2018, the UK National Crime Agency successfully obtained a UWO against Zamira Hajiyeva, to force her to account, among other things, for the purchase of a London property. When Hajiyeva attempted to avoid providing any account by applying to discharge the UWO, the High Court refused the application, holding that the UWO had been correctly made. If Hajiyeva were under investigation in Singapore, Section 47AA would have likely negated the need for a UWO application to the court. Hajiyeva would have been required to account satisfactorily for the receipt of the property in question. If she could not, she would have been charged with an offence. Zamira Hajiyeva became the first person to be served a UWO by the National Crime Agency in 2018. The UWO means she has to explain the origin of her fortune. Hajiyeva was demanded to submit a declaration for a villa worth 25 million, but she could not provide information. As a result, the property was confiscated by a court decision. Later it was revealed at Westminster Magistrates Court in London that Hajiyeva was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police acting on an extradition request from the authorities in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku. Soon after that she was freed on bail. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.26 By Elchin Mehdiyev, Ilhama Isabalayeva Trend: Structural reforms currently underway in Azerbaijan are one of the directions of the concept of deep reforms implemented in the country on the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Ahmadov told reporters Jan.26. Ahmadov pointed out that these reforms are aimed at developing and improving the mechanism of public administration, but structural changes in no way envisage workforce reduction. "The instruction of the First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva on providing employment to redundant employees in one of the structural subdivisions of Azerenergy OJSC shows that the reforms are not aimed at workforce reduction. It is not about reducing workforce, but about even more efficient use of workforce, human capital, increasing the efficiency of certain state structures, and increasing the contribution of those working in these structures to the common cause," he said. The Deputy Prime Minister added that one of the medias responsibilities is to convey to the people and the public the true essence of the instruction given by Mehriban Aliyeva. "First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva openly said that these people should be provided with employment in structures that are renewed and formed as a result of the reforms," he said. Earlier, First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva instructed Azerenergy OSJC to provide employment to redundant employees of Militarized Security Unit LLC. On December 13, 2018, a group of redundant employees of the "Militarized Security Unit" LLC appealed to First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva. Mehriban Aliyeva ordered an immediate resolution of the issue on the condition that the redundant employees` labor rights be restored and they be provided with jobs. A special commission has been created for this purpose, and the issue of providing employment to these citizens in the structural subdivisions of Azerenergy Joint Stock Company in Mingachevir will be resolved as soon as possible, said Azerenergy OSJC. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.26 Trend: The instruction given by First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva to Azerenergy OSJC to provide employment to redundant employees of Militarized Security Unit LLC has been immediately accepted for execution, Trend reports citing Azerenergy OSJC. A special commission has been created for this purpose, and the issue of providing employment to these citizens in the structural subdivisions of the Joint Stock Company in Mingachevir will be resolved as soon as possible, reads a message from Azerenergy OSJC. Earlier, First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva instructed Azerenergy OSJC to provide employment to redundant employees of Militarized Security Unit LLC. On December 13, 2018, a group of redundant employees of the "Militarized Security Unit" LLC appealed to First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva. Mehriban Aliyeva ordered an immediate resolution of the issue on the condition that the redundant employees` labor rights be restored and they be provided with jobs. Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.26 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: The real discontent is in Armenia, not Azerbaijan, according to the letter sent by counselor for the Embassy of Azerbaijan to the US Vugar Gurbanov to The Washington Post in connection with the recently published editorial. An interesting lesson from the recent history of our region is that while Azerbaijan has been a target of persistent and excessive criticism, it was in neighboring Armenia that the real popular discontent was brewing against the militaristic government. Yet, so fixated many pundits remained with Azerbaijan that discontent in Armenia, which led to an abrupt regime change, was conveniently ignored for years by most Western observers, said the letter. As for the case of blogger Mehman Huseynov, Gurbanov wrote that he is not on a hunger strike, as he himself stated and several European officials, who met him very recently, testified to. Nor is there any evidence of other detainees holding a hunger strike, either. Huseynov just personally appealed to President Ilham Aliyev and all criminal proceedings against Huseynov have been ceased, reads the letter. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 26 Trend: Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 26 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Jan. 26, Trend reports. The Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns. Exactly two days after the first anniversary of placing prominent Iranian environmental activists behind bars, Tehran's Prosecutor-General says they will be tried, soon. The state-run Mehr News Agency (MNA) said on Thursday, January 24, that reportedly the trial would be held some time in February/March. Responding to a question concerning the trial, Tehran's Prosecutor-General said that the trial of the environmentalist suspected of spying would "inshallah" take place, soon. The Islamic Republic's judicial authorities had earlier repeated the same promise. The most prominent environmentalist among the detainees, 64-year old Iranian-Canadian sociology professor, Kavous Seyyed-Emami died in prison on February 8, 2018, in Tehran's notorious Evin prison two weeks after his arrest. Authorities claimed he committed suicide but many in Iran and human rights defenders abroad challenged that claim. No independent investigation was allowed. Eight other environmentalists are still in Evin prison under the supervision of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' intelligence organization. At least four of the detainees are charged with espionage against the Islamic Republic, which could be punished by death. While the clock is ticking for the deadline that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has set for Iran to join international conventions combatting money laundering and financial assistance to terrorist organizations, Friday Prayer leaders have barraged President Hassan Rouhani's administration with criticism for insisting on compliance with international requirements. The convention is part of four bills Iran has to officially approve as required by FATF. The legislation would pave the way for Iran to meet the requirements of FATF, in the hope of reducing international pressure on Irans deteriorating economy. The most crucial piece of legislation is related to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crimes (UNTOC). Originally proposed by Rouhani last November, the bills have met with staunch resistance from hard-liners, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who says the conventions have been cooked up by foreign enemies. Without the internationally required legislation, Iran will have a tougher time doing business and banking with the rest of the world. FATF has given Iran until late February to either endorse UNTOC or be added to its blacklist of countries refusing to cooperate in the fight against money laundering and financing terrorism. On January 21, the minister of cooperatives, labor, and social welfare, Mohammad Shariatmadari, confirmed that several ministers had penned a letter to Khamenei requesting his help in speeding up the process. The letter has apparently angered the ultraconservative clerics, who serve as Friday Prayer leaders, or imams, across Iran. Meanwhile, there have been several anti-FATF rallies and assemblies at mosques and Friday Prayer venues, organized by close allies of Khamenei. Mid-ranking cleric and Tehran's interim Friday Prayer leader, Kazem Seddiqi, lambasted Rouhani's ministers for writing the letter on January 25, calling on the influential Expediency Discernment Council to vet the proposed bills "wisely." "We are engaged in an economic war today and, in a war, camouflage and coverup are crucial matters," Seddiqi said in one of his Friday sermons. "Germany has raised questions concerning Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters' operation in the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, and if the bills proposed by the government approved, Iran would be legally bound to respond." Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters is an Iranian engineering firm controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and one of Iran's largest contractors in industrial and development projects. Seddiqi's criticism was aired in tandem with the IRGCs recent attacks on Rouhani and his cabinet. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, implicitly attacked Rouhani on January 25, maintaining that those who obstruct Iran's progress by "making wrong choices" are "a handful of managers who are under Western influence." Earlier, the secretary of the influential EDC and former chief commander of IRGC, Mohsen Rezaei, had also proposed leaving executive affairs to the IRGC and Basij (voluntary militia) members. The Friday Prayer of the city of Karaj, mid-ranking cleric Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini, described the letter as "bitter and embarrassing," adding, "Although I am not aware of the details of the letter, the signatories to it are apparently attempting to push forward their imprudent decision by attracting the supreme leader's endorsement." Previously, there were reports that ministers who wrote to Khamenei threatened to resign if the FATF bills were not approved. While the fate of the bills, known as the "Palermo bills" in Iran, is still in the balance, the conservative allies of Khamenei have joined forces to block their approval by the EDC and the Guardian Council. During Friday Prayer in the city of Qom, opponents of the Palermo bills chanted, "Palermo, a plot cooked up by Pompeo," calling on the EDC to dismiss the bills with "revolutionary resolution." The Patriot political party has nominated Andriy Novak as a candidate for presidency in Ukraine. According to the website of the political force, the 12th extraordinary congress of the Patriot party, headed by former First Deputy of ex-Prosecutor General of Ukraine Mykola Holomsha, was held on January 24. Participants in the meeting decided the party would take part in the presidential election and supported the nomination of economist Andriy Novak as a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine. In 2012-2013, Novak was the chairman of the Ukrainian Party, but then the termination of his membership in this party was announced. Only five candidates for presidency in Ukraine open election funds Voters Committee Only five candidates for the presidency of Ukraine have opened the accounts of election funds as of January 25, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine has reported, with reference to the Central Election Commission (CEC). "Election fund accounts were opened by Ihor Shevchenko (the opening date is January 15), Andriy Sadovy (January 14), Anatoliy Hrytsenko (January 17), Vitaliy Skotsyk (January 21), Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (January 21)," the press service of the committee said. At the same time, the organization notes that as of January 25 the CEC had registered 20 presidential candidates. Biletsky has no intention to participate in presidential elections, will lead National Corps to parliament The leader of the National Corps political party, people's deputy of Ukraine Andriy Biletsky has stated he would not run for president during the presidential elections in Ukraine scheduled for March 31. "Many people expected us to take ten million dollars from a rich uncle, spend them on advertising - TV commercials, boards - get our interest and go home happy ... But this will not happen. I refuse to take part in this farce," Biletsky said, when speaking at a meeting of the National Corps in Kyiv. He added that the saved funds would be used to support the front and the development of Ukrainian youth. "We set an ambitious practical task: we are going to bring our numbers to 50,000 people ... We intend to get and have to get - and set such a task - a powerful faction in the Ukrainian parliament in 2019," the politician added. LOS ANGELES (AP) Being stranded on a remote snow-covered road in the West doesnt always end as well as it did for a couple on a mountain north of Los Angeles. The pair and their two dogs were plucked by helicopter and taken to safety after they ran out of food and water and phoned for help from a camping trip that turned into snowbound two-week test, authorities said Thursday. The man and woman in their mid-30s were in good condition and didnt need to be hospitalized after being airlifted from Alamo Mountain on Wednesday. They were tired, (sun) burned, dirty, but definitely glad to see me, said Los Angeles County Sheriffs Deputy Charles Miranda, a paramedic who was lowered down to assess their condition. Neither had any complaints other than Were tired, were hungry. By the measure of winter ordeals, their experience was mild. In 2006, a San Francisco family of four got stranded on snowy road in Southern Oregon while trying to cut from Interstate 5 to the coast. The mother and two daughters were rescued nine days later, but the father, James Kim, who had walked more than 16 miles in the cold and snow for help was found dead in a creek. Many rural Nevadans employed by federal land management agencies have been missing paychecks during the longest shutdown in history. At least one of them is getting attention from as far away as New York City. The New Yorker website this month ran an article titled What the Shutdown Means for a Federal Worker with Debts to Pay. The piece by Charles Bethea is mostly made up of quotes from an unnamed Forest Service wildlife biologist from Elko County talking about the trouble she is having making ends meet. Im worried about how long my health insurance will last with a prolonged shutdown, she wrote the author in an email. Counting other agencies, there are probably hundreds of furloughed government workers in Elko County, out of about fifty thousand people, she added. The shutdown is impacting our hiring in the summer, that number of federal employees balloons to thousands, because of all the firefighters and seasonals. According to an article in The Nevada Independent, the shutdown left more than 3,000 Nevadans out of work two-thirds of them employed by the Department of Interior. Nationwide, the number of furloughs has been about 800,000. Lets hope they all return to their jobs and get something done before President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi crawl back into their sandbox. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 The list of contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination includes at least 35 individuals who have expressed interest in running a huge field. While one conservative commentator has dismissed them as 20 smurfs, there is considerable talent among them and conviction in their belief that President Trump is eminently beatable in 2020. There is already enormous nostalgia among Democrats for the Obama presidency. Former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, may find success running as an Obama Democrat. Other former Obama Cabinet members are eyeing the race his Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, and H.U.D. Secretary Julian Castro. Eleven sitting Democrats in the U.S. Senate are thinking of a presidential run, among them Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker(D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Socialist Bernie Sanders, 77, the 2016 runner-up, will be plowing the same progressive ground in 2020 along with Elizabeth Warren, 69. But, they will be joined by virtually the entire 2020 Democratic field in a dramatic shift to the left advocating for single payer health care/ Medicare for All, sanctuary states/abolish ICE, $15 national minimum wage, and tuition-free public colleges. 1. Yes. Its important to address the problem before it gets worse. A bond is needed. 2. Yes. Its fine, as long as the bond isnt too large. The city doesnt need more debt. 3. No. A bond issue would just put the problem back on the taxpayers. Not acceptable. 4. No. Certificates of obligation, targeting the worst roads, would be a better choice. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say without knowing the details of what a bond would entail. Vote View Results LAS VEGAS (AP) Federal prosecutors will appeal a judges dismissal of felony conspiracy and weapons charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth White wrote in papers filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the solicitor general has authorized the governments appeal. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro threw out the case against Bundy, his sons, Ammon and Ryan, and independent militia member Ryan Payne a year ago after finding flagrant prosecutorial misconduct. The governments opening brief is expected to be filed by Feb. 6. One of Bundys lawyers, Larry Klayman, said in part: My client Cliven Bundy will win this appeal, as he and his sons previously prevailed. The Bundys and others were charged after a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents who tried to execute a court order to round up Cliven Bundys cattle. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 2 Court documents allege that between Jan. 12 and Jan. 17, Martinez-Guzman collected $538 by selling rings belonging to two victims. The case alleges that, because he is in the country illegally, Martinez-Guzman was prohibited by law from having the 12 guns stolen from a couple found dead Jan. 16 in their south Reno home. Brantingham said she could not say if any of those weapons was used in the slayings. She doesn't anticipate the filing of any additional charges would change plans to try Martinez-Gunman on the existing charges in Carson City. "Our charges will proceed as charged at this point," she said. Furlong said the rifles and shotguns were found buried off a road on the outskirts of town and the .22-caliber handgun was found in a BMW in which Martinez-Guzman was arrested last Saturday. The murder investigation began Jan. 10, when 56-year-old Connie Koontz was found dead in her home in Gardnerville, south of Carson City. Three days later, the body of 74-year-old Sophia Renken was discovered in her home about a mile from Koontz's house. The dead Reno couple were found less than a week later. Gerald David and his wife, Sharon, who were 81 and 80, respectively, were prominent members and officers of the Reno Rodeo Association. One felony charge against Martinez-Guzman alleges he had several belt buckles bearing their names that were valued at up to $3,500. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 4 LINCOLN, Neb. Drug investigators believe a woman running a daycare out of her home was also dealing heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs there, too, a Lincoln police spokeswoman said Thursday. Police searched Stephany Degarmos home at 7146 Stanton St. Wednesday night around 9 p.m. as part of an ongoing drug investigation, Officer Angela Sands said Thursday. Inside the home, they found 17.2 grams, or more than half an ounce, of methamphetamine; 1.7 grams of heroin, alprazolam and hydrocodone pills; along with less than an ounce of marijuana, Sands said. They also found digital scales and an unknown white powder that will be tested at a state lab, she said. Degarmos two children, ages 5 and 1, were in the home during the search and have since been placed in the care of a family member, Sands said. Degarmo, 32, was jailed on suspicion of possession of meth with intent to deliver and possession of heroin with intent to deliver along with two counts of possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor child abuse. A 34-year-old woman who had been at the house was ticketed on suspicion of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. Degarmo didnt have a license from the state to run a daycare there, according to Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services licensing records. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 7 Considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history, it left 250,000 people without drinking water and killed thousands of fish. An estimated 60 million cubic meters of waste flooded rivers and eventually flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. Schartzman said what happened Friday was a human tragedy much larger than the tragedy of Mariana, but probably the environmental damage will be less. There were no official reports of deaths, but the state fire department told The Associated Press that about 200 people were missing. The company said it did not have any further information. President Jair Bolsonaro said he lamented the accident and sent three cabinet ministers to the area. We will take all the possible steps to minimize the suffering of families and victims, Bolsonaro said in a speech, which he posted on Twitter. Bolsonaro, who assumed power Jan. 1, planned to tour the area aby helicopter on Saturday. The far-right leader campaigned on promises to jumpstart Brazils economy, in part by deregulating mining and other industries. Environmental groups and activists said the latest spill underscored a lack of regulation. By the end of 1868, the town was built up to include multiple establishments for churches, schools and various businesses, making Elko a thriving and growing town, Petersen said. Keener described how the rumble of the trains through the downtown corridor would have been felt and heard by patrons in the old Pioneer Hotel Saloon a few decades ago. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} If we were to go back in time to the early 1980s, this building would be vibrating from the train cars rolling by and the sound system would have to be turned up as well to hear me, Keener said. But thanks to Project Lifesaver, which relocated the railroad tracks to along the Humboldt River, Elkos own trajectory was also changed, Keener added. Due to the vision of Project Lifesaver, this enabled Elko to evolve into a modern city, Keener said. Over the years, weve had industries come and go, Keener added, but the railroad is the founding constant that remains along with the steadfastness of Elkoans, Two displays describing Elkos part in the Transcontinental Railroad will be exhibited at the Elko Convention Center throughout the 35th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Nonprofit groups may submit announcements of upcoming events to events@elkodaily.com. On display at the Folklife Center ELKO Exhibitions at the Western Folklife Center this month are Portraits of the Gathering: Faces and Voices of Cowboy Poetry in the Wiegand Gallery and Elko storefronts: a photographic exhibition of individuals who have brought heart and soul to our community through their poetry, story, song and artistry; Ive Got Spurs exhibition of handcrafted pieces from the Western Folklife Centers collection will be displayed alongside other contemporary and historic examples; Elko County Student Art Exhibition in the Pioneer Building Elevator Lobby and the G Three Bar Theater: enjoy the creativity of students throughout Elko County in this photography and mixed media presentation with the theme: Pictures from Poems. Tween Book & Movie Club to meet ELKO Tweens! Books! Movies! All three are coming together at the Elko County Library for the Tween Book & Movie Club on from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Jan. 29. For the January meeting, tweens (ages 10-13) will watch the film Jumanji and then enjoy a lively discussion about the film and the book by Chris Van Allsburg. Snacks will be served. Average wage in Ukraine to reach almost US$378 in 2019 PM Groysman The prime minister said the only guideline in the matter of remuneration is to create conditions under which Ukrainians would return from abroad and work in Ukraine. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine-China trade grows to almost US$9 bln in 11 months of 2018 Ukraine's Minister for Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv had a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Du Wei. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Transshipment privileges in Kolkata from Feb 15 Nepal will receive transshipment privileges and permission to use the electronic cargo tracking system on Nepal-bound cargo at Kolkata port from February 15. The facility is expected to reduce the cost of trading by minimising transportation time and speeding up clearance at the port. Aerial view taken after the collapse of a dam which belonged to Brazil's giant mining company Vale, near the town of Brumadinho in southeastern Brazil. Photo by AFP Rescuers worked overnight into Saturday to locate around 150 people missing after a dam collapse at a mine in southeast Brazil. The local governor said "odds are minimal" they would be found alive. Seven bodies were recovered Friday hours after the disaster, which saw a torrent of mud break through the disused dam at the iron-ore mine close to the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerias. The mine is owned by Vale, a Brazilian mining giant that was involved in a previous 2015 mine collapse in the same state that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country's worst-ever environmental disaster. Vale shares plummeted on the new accident, losing eight percent in New York trading. Romeu Zema, the governor of Minas Gerais, told reporters that, while all was being done to find survivors, "from now, the odds are minimal and it is most likely we will recover only bodies." His regional administration said 427 people had been working at the Vale mine at the time of the dam collapse, and 279 were recovered alive. The others were listed as missing. Bolsonaro to visit The massive, muddy flow from the collapse barreled towards the nearby town of Brumadinho, population 39,000, but did not hit it directly. Instead, it carved its way across roads, vegetation and farmland, taking down a bridge, and damaging or destroying homes. Television images showed people being pulled out of waist-high mud into rescue helicopters, dozens of which were in use by late Friday because of the cut-off land access. Brazil's new government led by President Jair Bolsonaro reacted to its first big emergency since taking office early this month by launching disaster coordination between the defense, mining and environment ministries and authorities in the affected state of Minas Gerais. Bolsonaro and his defense minister were to fly over the zone on Saturday. His environment minister raced to the area late Friday. "Where are our relatives?" wailed Raquel Cristina, one of several people demanding information about their missing kin in the mud-hit area. "My five-year-old nephew is asking me if his dad died. What do I tell him?" asked another, Olivia Rios. Officials said they were working through the night, conscious of the precious hours were ticking away. Around 100 fire fighters were deployed, some using earth-moving machinery to dig down to engulfed dwellings. Would-be rescue volunteers were warned away because of the slippery, perilous piles of mud. Media were urged not to use drones to avoid collisions with the helicopters. 'Human tragedy' Vale's CEO, Fabio Schvartsman, called the incident a "human tragedy" and was resigned to more deaths being confirmed at his company's mine. "We're talking about probably a large number of victims -- we don't know how many but we know it will be a high number," he told a media conference in Rio de Janeiro. Schvartsman, who had his two-year term renewed last month by Vale's board, said it was an "inactive dam" that was in the process of being decommissioned that burst apart "very violently, very suddenly." Its contents -- tailings, or mining byproducts mixed with water -- cascaded into another dam, which overflowed, he said. The disaster recalled trauma from the 2015 dam break near Mariana, in Minas Gerais. That accident released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along hundreds of kilometers (miles). Vale was joint operator of that dam, along with the Anglo-Australian group BHP. The Brazil office of Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, said Fridays dam break was "a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies." It said that the incidents "are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired." Aerial view taken after the collapse of a dam which belonged to Brazil's giant mining company Vale, near the town of Brumadinho in southeastern Brazil Location of Brumadinho in Brazil, when the dam collapsed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was to fly over the disaster zone The torrent of mud covered everything in its path. There are as many varieties in the Mekong Delta as there are noodles in a bowl, all delicious; check out some of the best. Photo by VnExpress/Di Vy Bun ca (fish noodles) This popular dish from An Giang is actually a Cambodian creation. The broth is spiced up with fermented moustached danio fish sauce and mam ruoc (fermented sauce made from acetes, a small variety of shrimp) which give it a rich flavor. Some restaurants add pork bones to sweeten the broth. A little crushed tumeric is also added, giving it a hint of yellow. This fish noodle soup is usually served with a variety of vegetables, including Egyptian riverhemp flower, a specialty of the Mekong Deltas rice paddies, which is placed at the bottom of the bowl. Photo by VnExpress/Tam Linh Bun mam Bun mam is another delta specialty that originated in Cambodia. However, instead of the Khmer prahok sauce (crushed, salted fermented mudfish sauce), bun mam is cooked with sauce made from moustached danio or snakeskin gourami. So the aroma isnt as strong and it is easier to eat. For the dish to be considered good, the broth has to be brown but clear and retain the sweetness of the fish. Usually added to the bowl are seafood such as shrimp and squid, meat and vegetables like shredded water spinach, chopped banana flower, bean sprout, and fish mint. Photo by VnExpress/Tam Linh Bun nuoc leo Bun nuoc leo is often confused with bun mam as both dishes broth are cooked with the same type of fermented fish sauce. However, there are some differences between them. Apart from the fermented fish sauce, people also spice to the broth finger root plants, to neutralize the fishy smell of the sauce and add fragrance, and coconut water, to further sweetening. The most popular version of this dish is those from Soc Trang. A bowl of bun nuoc leo usually has snakehead fish fillets, whole shrimp, roasted pork with vegetables, including shredded water spinach, chopped banana flowers and bean sprouts. Visitors can add chilly or lime juice to taste. Photo by VnExpress/Khanh Hoa Bun goi da Another popular dish from Soc Trang. Its said that this dish was originally a spring roll with the usual ingredients like shrimp, vermicelli, fresh vegetables and herbs and bean sprouts. Then people started to put all these ingredients into a bowl, mix them with dipping sauce and have kept it that way until now. The buttery taste of the pork and the sweet, fresh taste and crunchiness of the shrimp, when combined with the fragrance of fresh herbs and vegetables and sour tamarind sauce, become an exquisite harmony. Photo by VnExpress/Ha Lam Bun ken Bun ken is a common dish at family meals in Kien Giang. It is quite simple. It only requires 3 ingredients: vermicelli, snakehead fish and fresh herbs. The fish, after being cooked, is minced and added to a pan with some lemongrass, chillies and garlic, and stir fried until it is dry and fluffy. Apart from the main ingredients, some fresh herbs, banana flower, cucumber, bean sprout, and shredded papaya are placed on top. One can add extra fish sauce or chilli and lime juice, according to their taste. The price of a bowl of bun ken is around VND20,000 ($0.86) and it is usually sold in the morning for breakfast. Photo by VnExpress/Tam Linh Bun suong The main ingredients in Tra Vinhs bun suong are fresh vermicelli, whole shrimp, thinly cut pork slices, and, the most indispensable item, shrimp sausage. Locals also add bean sprouts, lettuce and shredded cabbage to enhance the taste. Unlike other dishes here, the dipping sauce for bun suong is hoisin sauce with chili. Since it does not contain fermented fish sauce, the flavor is not as strong as that of some others on this list, and so easier to eat. Photo by VnExpress/Ha Lam Bun nham Bun nham is a must-try specialty when visiting Ha Tien town, Kien Giang Province. It is made from fresh vemicelli, shredded green papaya, minced dry shrimp, bean sprout, and cucumber. What gives this dish its unique taste is the dipping sauce of fish sauce mixed with coconut milk. Together they cover the gamut of flavors: salty minced dry shrimp and fish sauce, sweet and buttery cocunut milk, sour green papaya, and fresh bean sprout and cucumber. With a little pungency from chillies, bun nham is complete. Photo acquired by VnExpress Bun bi Since it is a popular breakfast dish, bun bi comes in many variations around the delta. In Ca Mau, the dish is popular thanks to its noodles, which are thicker and more chewy. The noodles are eaten with bi (a combination of shredded pork and pork skin) and pork sausage. The success of the dish lies in the tastiness of the bi, hence the name. The meat chosen must be pork leg, marinated evenly and cooked until it is fragnant. Besides, the bean sprouts, herbs and chopped cucumber have to be fresh. The dish then becomes perfect with a little bit of scallion and oil garnish and crushed roasted peanuts. A bowl of the dishes costs VND15,000 25,000 ($0.64 1.07). Russian woman Prokofeva Elena, 28, is held at a police station in HCMC for running a prostitution ring involving foreign women. Photo courtesy of HCMC Police Saigon police busted a sex work ring involving foreign women on Friday and detained a young Russian identified as the ringleader. Prokofeva Elena, 28, will be investigated for "brokering sex services." HCMC police simultaneously raided hotels in downtown Districts 1 and 3, and discovered four foreign women, two from Ukraine and two from Russia, having sex with Vietnamese customers. The sex workers said they charged clients for VND6 million ($258) per hour, VND10 million for five hours and VND20 million ($862) a day. The deals were brokered by Elena. Elena is said to have told the police that she had been running the prostitution ring for more than a month. She met young foreign women who needed money through social media networks and got them to come to Vietnam for sex work. Preliminary investigations show that she covered all travel expenses for the women and took 50 percent commission from sex services provided. So far, shes estimated to have earned VND150 million in commissions. The city police said theyd had been watching the ring for a while before Fridays crackdown. Around 3,000 people are believed to be working as sex workers in Saigon, according to official data. Under Vietnam's Penal Code, sex workers are given a warning and fined VND100,000-300,000 ($4.26-12.78), while pimps and sex ring organizers can get between six months and five years in jail. Foreign nationals convicted of providing sex services also face deportation. Long lines of cars on Hanoi roads during rush hour are the new norm in the capital as more people ditch motorbikes for the four wheeler. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh The surge in demand for cars before the Lunar New Year means customers have to wait or pay extra to get immediate delivery. With only weeks to go for the Lunar New Year Festival (Tet), which falls on February 5 this year, consumers are rushing to order automobiles leading to a shortage in the market. They either have to wait for a long time for delivery or, for quick delivery, opt for accessories which can cost an extra VND70-150 million ($3,013-6,458). For instance, Hyundai SUV Santa Fe requires an extra VND70-160 million ($3,013-6,887), which is 7-16.1 percent above the minimum listed price, while for the Toyota Fortuner it is VND100-150 million ($4,305-6,457). But most customers will have to wait until March for delivery if they signed the purchase agreement last November or later. The only way to get guaranteed delivery before Tet is to buy from someone who signed earlier, car dealers said, explaining that a dealership only gets around 20 units in each model per month but demand is two to three times that number. The shortage is because of difficulties in importing at the beginning of 2018 as a result of a new regulation tightening imports, Tran Thanh Binh, director of Thanh Binh Automobile Import Export Trading Service Co Ltd, said. The regulation stipulates that traders are only permitted to import if they can provide valid vehicle registration certificates issued by authorities from the countries of origin. Original quality control certificates for each vehicle and letters of authorization regarding recalls of defective vehicles from the manufacturers are also required, along with copies of quality assurance certificates provided by the countries of origin. "This made companies stop ordering from factories in Indonesia and Thailand. The second half of 2018, however, with these difficulties resolved, businesses have started to order again. But, since the factories also produce for many other markets, Vietnam was not able to order enough," he explained. Vietnam imported 6,362 cars, including 4,264 personal cars, 1,820 trucks in the first 15 days of 2019, according to Vietnam Customs. Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com Oh, and if you see me driving my red 2010 Mustang GT convertible, please wave. Hi, I am a retired newspaperman. I wrote 3 books on Trump and the media . I live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 43 years, Lou Ann. I grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather. In the last month, Ive added a new word to my vocabulary kayfabe. What does it mean? Its the theatrical master plan that people involved in pro wrestling engage in when deciding whether Boris the Black or The White Snake will win or lose a match. Yogi Bhajan migrated to the West in 1968 from Northern India, teaching yoga and training teachers about the amazing technology of uncut hair and the turban for mastering our energies. Wearing a head covering activates the ajna chakra, known as the third eye. His teachings about the turban provided an understanding of the physical and spiritual benefits while practicing yoga or doing work which required clear thinking, stating it literally keeps your head together. Wrapping the head forms a circuit through both hemispheres of the brain adjusting the neurological system. The turban contains life energy arising in the body when practicing yoga or meditating, giving the wearer a cranial fine tuning. Our skulls, built with 26 interlocking bones, need to be secured and protected. Our hair regulates the flow of solar energy into the body, so when allowing the hair to grow its optimum length, energy goes downward from our crown to bathe our systems and increase our energy levels. Kundalini energy, life force, is activated in the solar plexus, moving upward while solar energy comes downward from the crown, balancing our bodies energies for total equilibrium (3HO website). Here is a look at government meetings in Linn and Benton counties coming up in the next week or so. Saturday Ward 7 Corvallis Councilor Bill Glassmire will be the government comment corner guest from 10 a.m. to noon at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, 645 NW Monroe Ave. Monday The Albany Community Development Commission meets at noon in the Santiam Room at City Hall, 333 Broadalbin St. SW. The Albany City Council meets in a 4 p.m. work session at the Municipal Courtroom at City Hall. Key agenda items include discussions of long-range planning and fiscal year 2019-20 utility rates. The Albany Planning Commission meets at 5:15 p.m. at the Council Chambers at City Hall. The Philomath Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 980 Applegate St. and will elect officers and review zoning amendments. The Greater Albany Public School Districts board meets at 7 p.m., at the district office, 718 Seventh Ave. SW. The agenda includes an update on the districts superintendent search and a discussion of graduation rates. Tuesday He said that he also appreciates the camaraderie of working with fellow incoming judge Kittson-MaQatish, as they worked together on their campaigns. Judge McHill said the investiture was extra special for him, since he hired both Kittson-MaQatish and new Justice of the Peace Jessica Meyer, at the Morley Thomas Law Firm in Lebanon. Meyer recently succeeded retiring Justice of the Peace Jad Lemhouse. We hired Jessica and were looking for one more person when she suggested Judge Kittson-MaQatish, who was then working with Jon Wittwer in Sweet Home, McHill said. We had lunch and it was clear that she was a person who continuously strives to learn the law and to get better at everything she does. McHill said Kittson-MaQatish more than lived up to his initial impressions. She has an inquisitive mind, a compassion for people and respect for all families, he said. She is eager to learn the law. She is talented and intelligent and there is no doubt that she will be successful in her new career on the bench. McHill added that Kittson-MaQatish also wont be shy about asking questions. Transmission line talks stall over operational modality A Nepal-India energy secretary-level meeting concluded in Pokhara on Thursday without reaching an agreement on the construction and operational modality of the New Butwal Gorakhpur Cross-Border Transmission Line Project. Justices questioned whether revealing the name would risk physical harm to the supplier or only hurt its business. The Texas prison system has argued for years that the identity of an execution drug supplier must be kept secret to avoid endangering the supplier. But as the Texas Supreme Court weighed naming the company in oral arguments Wednesday morning, the justices questioned if the potential threat would be to physical safety or simply to the pharmacy's business interests. It seems almost indisputable ... that disclosure of the identity would result in some threat, remarked Chief Justice Nathan Hecht from the dais. Only what were arguing about is, is it physical or not, or is it limited to economic threat? In 2014, three lawyers who represent death row inmates filed suit to reveal the name of a pharmacy that supplied pentobarbital the sole drug used in Texas executions. They have argued the information was necessary to ensure the drugs were safe at a time when multiple states held "botched" executions with new drug combinations and struggled to find lethal doses. The Texas prison system claims the information should be withheld in order to avoid endangering the supplier. Court precedent allows for withholding public information if its release could cause a substantial threat of physical harm. But the lawyers and the state disagree on how that standard is met. So far, lower courts have sided with releasing the name. Originally, the Texas Supreme Court also declined to hear the appeal from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, indicating that the state soon would be forced to reveal the pharmacy's identity. But the justices changed their minds after the state filed a motion for a rehearing and focused on a broader claim: that naming the pharmacy could cut off the state's supply of drugs and end the death penalty in Texas. The arguments Wednesday, however, focused largely on what a potential threat to the named supplier would be. Justices Eva Guzman and Jimmy Blacklock recused themselves, leaving only six justices on the bench. It is intuitive and straightforward that someone might want to do harm to the individuals who provide the thing the state needs to carry out the death penalty, said Ari Cuenin, an attorney for the Texas Attorney Generals Office, noting the precedent set in a case in which the court allowed details of the governors security team to be kept secret to thwart potential attackers. Hecht followed up by noting that pharmacies identified in the past faced no actual threats of violence. Cuenin said that was because they stopped selling drugs to the prison system after protests. Law enforcement has to assume someone who continued to sell the drugs would see threats escalate. Im still having trouble bridging the gap in your argument, Hecht told the state's lawyer. Youre saying that every one of these suppliers have quit as soon as their identity becomes known, but if they did persist which theyre not going to do there might be a threat of violence. It seems like by arguing there is this irresistible economic force to quit supplying, youre undercutting the threat of any physical violence. Diving deeper into the likelihood of a threat of physical harm, Philip Durst, who argued on behalf of the death row attorneys, talked at length about the bar the state must surpass to keep information secret. It needs to be likely that a substantial threat would follow revealing the pharmacy's identity, not simply a possibility of one, he said. They cant have a vague assertion of risk, he said. Justice Paul Green asked how much more weight should be given to opinions of law enforcement officers, who conduct threat assessments and "know a lot more about this than the judges on this panel. He referred to the threat assessment conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety in 2014 at the request of the prison system, which said that naming a supplier could be dangerous. An underlying question throughout the hearing and this case has been why the lawyers need the name. Cuenin argued that the prison system gave the lawyers information on purity levels of the drugs and when they were last tested all that was withheld was the name of the pharmacy. Durst argued that in light of botched executions and the deaths taking longer, it was necessary to get the information about the pharmacy to get more transparency and ensure the results they were showing were accurate. Durst also brought up a pharmacy recently named by BuzzFeed . The news outlet named Houstons Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy as an execution drug supplier for Texas in November, and Durst pushed to discuss the new revelation in court in a recent letter. After the news coverage, there was a day of protest, described by the Houston Chronicle as peaceful and where the protesters stayed well-behaved, attorney Philip Durst, who represents the death penalty attorneys, wrote. This, of course, both demonstrates that violence will not erupt and that any hoopla has already died down. The court is expected to issue a ruling in the case sometime between late April and the end of June, according to the court clerk. | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE! "One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde A blog about life under, and resisting, a dictatorship The legislation that now moves to the Senate for consideration would name a section of South Lindbergh Boulevard from Interstate 55 to Lin Ferry Drive in her honor. The section of road runs past the cemetery at St. Johns Evangelical United Church of Christ where Brown was laid to rest. Rep. Brown was a tireless advocate in raising awareness of the Human Trafficking epidemic in Missouri. Missouri currently ranks 14th in the nation for most reported human trafficking cases. Nationally, this is $9.5 Billion industry. The Legislature has taken many important steps to combat this in recent years. This past week the General Laws committee began working on a bill that adds additional protections of children from sex trafficking. We must do everything we can to stop this growing epidemic. Members of the House Budget Committee spent time this week questioning the Missouri Department of Revenue about issues that could result in thousands of Missourians receiving a smaller than expected tax refund, or even owing a small amount in taxes to the state. Committee members learned that two issues have led to many Missourians not withholding enough from their paychecks, which has in turn caused state revenues to fall behind and create a more than $500 million budget hole. This week, the Gubernatorial Appointments Committee discussed the proposed appointments to various boards and committees across the state. I would like to congratulate Robert P. Walsh, a constituent of the 3rd Senatorial District, who was appointed to the Missouri State Board of Nursing. I am confident that Mr. Walshs experience and expertise in the nursing field will make him an exceptional addition to the Missouri State Board of Nursing. Committee hearings also began this week, and several Senate bills have already started moving through the legislative process. On Wednesday, Jan. 23, Senate Bill 17 was heard by the Health and Pensions Committee. I filed SB 17 to fix an unintentional consequence from Senate Bill 892 (2018). Senate Bill 892 allowed retired teachers to be employed in certain positions throughout a school district, such as a school bus driver, while still receiving their retirement benefits from the Public School Retirement System of Missouri (PSRS). The language of SB 892 unintentionally excluded retired teachers from receiving their retirement benefits if they were employed at one of our states community colleges. This led to a decline in the number of adjunct professors as many retired teachers had previously filled those positions. It is evident that this was not the intention of SB 892, and I am pleased to file SB 17 which will allow retired teachers to teach at community colleges and still receive their retirement benefits. So anyway, let's get real, shall we? Particularly in view of their long history as fellow con men, Trump didn't need to tell Michael Cohen to lie. All Cohen needed to do was to follow the master's example. Trump's been lying about his dealings with the Russians from the get-go. Virtually every word he's ever said about the infamous Moscow Trump Tower is provably false. It's now come to the point where he's lying about the lying, falsely claiming that everybody has always known about his Russian business interests, and besides, so what? "So what" is that during the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly and indignantly denied any and all business relationships with Russia and Russians. The Washington Post has published a detailed timeline. On Jan. 11, 2017, for example, he tweeted: "Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA -- NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!" In a same-day press conference, he repeated: "I have no dealings with Russia. I have no deals that could happen in Russia because we've stayed away." DEAR ABBY: I have been married for seven years. The last time my husband and I have been out of the house together was last summer. No movies, dinners, festivals, etc. I finally gave up suggesting things to do. My husband says I'm the one who feels the need to go out once a week or take an annual vacation. It hurts knowing he goes out to eat with his buddies on his lunch breaks at work. I have said as much, but we still don't go anywhere on the weekends, and he still goes out to eat with his friends. What do you make of this? -- PRISONER IN OHIO DEAR PRISONER: It appears you married a man who is selfish and self-centered. He has a social life -- his daily lunches with his buddies. Was he always like this? You SHOULD enjoy dinners out and movies, too, but you may have to do those things with friends instead of your homebody spouse. If you have a job and income of your own, do not sit at home feeling deprived. If you don't have a job, it's time to find one. When you do, it will help you feel better about yourself and less isolated. DEAR ABBY: I have been in a relationship with a woman for two years. She has been battling drug addiction during the entire time we have been together. I have made a few serious mistakes, and she blames me for her situation now. Microsoft's Bing search engineis, at the time of writing, not working in China, several reports have confirmed. The news should perhaps come as little surprise it was only a matter of time before the Chinese government also banned Microsoft's service after having banned most, if not all, of Google's products there.Bing is now the latest American service to be banned in the country, according to a report by the Financial Times.Bing Banned In ChinaInternet users in mainland China reportedthat the Chinese Bing website was no longer accessible from within the country. However, at the time of writing, the website remains available to people outside China.Government OrderAccording to sources who spoke anonymously with Financial Times, the state-owned telecom China Unicom has confirmed the order came from the government. It's not yet clear what triggered the ban.Again, this isn't uncommon in China. Major services including Facebook, Instagram, and a host of other services based in the United States have all been banned in the country. Just last September, major video game livestreaming service Twitch was also banned.However, a search engine being banned is notable for a couple of reasons. For starters, Bing was one of very few American services to remain functional in the country, its existence likely because of Microsoft's consistent compliance with China's highly strict and heavily imposed internet policiesNow, it's clear Microsoft acting in good faith just isn't enough for the Chinese government anymore.With Google and Bing absent in the country, Baidu remains China's leading search engine provider, eating up over 70 percent of the entire market. Bing, by contrast, only has 2 percent of the market, and soon possibly none at all.Google Still Has HopeGoogle seems not to have given up on penetrating the Chinese market, however. Just last year it became the center of controversy when it was alleged that the company was planning to roll out a censored variant of Google Search in the country, much to the dismay and furor over many employees of proponents of free speech. Google had pulled out in 2010 in protest of the government's policies on free speech and access to information.It's not clear how this project, apparently codenamed "Dragonfly," is coming along at the moment, but in Congress last month, CEO Sundar Pichai saidits plans for the country are in the exploratory stages. Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years. PHILADELPHIA Philadelphia's top prosecutor will fight a decision that gives former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal a new appeals hearing in a 1981 police slaying. District Attorney Larry Krasner says in a filing Friday that he'll challenge an order that would revive the high-profile case. Abu-Jamal, 64, is serving life without parole after his death sentence was thrown out over flawed jury instructions. However, in December, Philadelphia Judge Leon Tucker granted him a new appeals hearing because of a Supreme Court ruling that said a former Pennsylvania justice who heard the appeal had a potential conflict of interest. The jurist, Ronald Castille, had been the district attorney during Abu-Jamal's initial appeal. Legal scholars in the city have been following closely to see how Krasner would respond, given his focus on criminal justice reform. A longtime critic of the death penalty, he has tangled with the city's police union since taking office last year, especially over pleas that spared two men the death penalty in a 2015 police slaying. LEECHBURG, Pa. Residents say they are upset about plans for an ex-police chiefs plan to move in with his mother following his release from prison. Former Leechburg police chief Mike Diebold was sent to prison for soliciting an undercover agent posing as a 14-year-old girl online. The Tribune-Review reports he plans to move in with his mother after his release Sunday. Mayor Wayne Dobos says there is nothing the borough can legally do to prevent Diebold from moving into his mothers home, which is close to three schools. Only county judges may issue court orders limiting where sexual offenders may or may not reside. Diebold was arrested last January and pleaded guilty to trying to meet with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl. His attorney says Diebold will obey the law. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Last spring the board approved the partial outsourcing of custodial staff as a cost-cutting measure to close a projected deficit in the budget for 2018-19. The goal was to save in pension and health care costs by removing a portion of its custodial staff from the district payroll. When asked if the board had second thoughts, Berk said there is no looking back. What we are trying to do now is to address concern that has been raised, he said. Though five-year cost projections account for incremental wage increases, it would still be cheaper in the long run for the district to outsource its night-shift custodians to ABM, board member Terry Draper said. As with any contract, it is only as good as how we enforce it, Draper said, suggesting administrators implement monthly quality assurance inspections. We are spending good money on a good contractor. We just need to make sure they are doing what we need them to do. The board last week also terminated a staff placement agreement it had with Unique Source of Mechanicsburg. That termination takes effect Feb. 28. Unique Source is a nonprofit contract holder among 70 partner groups and state government, education and private customers seeking products manufactured and services performed by employees with disabilities. HARRISBURG Pennsylvania state House Republicans on Friday stripped a member of his committee chairmanship and recommended he resign over allegations that he had sex with an incapacitated woman against her will. Eight-term Rep. Brian Ellis should step down to take care of his family and address the allegations about an incident in his home near the Capitol in Harrisburg more than three years ago, House GOP leaders said in a statement. Ellis, who represents a Butler County district in western Pennsylvania, has not responded to texts, emails and phone messages seeking comment. He has not been charged. House Republican leaders said they were focused on the institutions integrity, staff safety and the best paths forward for the individual involved the accuser and the accused, as well as their respective families. It would be in the best interest of all involved if Rep. Ellis would resign. A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf called the allegations outrageous and unacceptable and said the governor also thinks Ellis should step down. The womans lawyer, Christine Wechsler, said her client believes she was drugged while having a drink with a friend and has no memory of the ensuing 12 hours. She went to a hospital the next day. A Duncan man accused of being in possession of narcotics pleaded not guilty to charges Friday morning in Platte County District Court before Judge Robert Steinke. Chasin P. Renteria, 35, alongside defense attorney Ryan Stover denied his involvement regarding the states allegation that he was in possession of a Schedule 2 controlled substance, according to court records. In another court filing, the defendant also pleaded not guilty to two counts of distributing an exceptionally hazardous substance within 1,000 feet of a school zone. On Dec. 19, 2018, an officer with the Columbus Police Department was dispatched to the Walmart parking lot on the east side of town in regard to two silver vehicles parked near the cart corral by the grocery exit doors, according to a warrantless arrest affidavit. The reporting party had allegedly seen a pipe being passed between occupants and believed they were smoking marijuana. The officer, court records show, saw a gray Mitsubishi Galant parked near the cart corral being occupied by two men. Approaching the men, the officer reportedly asked what they were doing and they responded by saying they were waiting for another person who was shopping inside of the store. Both men when asked to identify themselves refused, court records show. Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Hefti said shes glad to have another SRO working alongside her again. I am very happy. Its very overwhelming trying to do everything by yourself and trying to serve all the needs of the schools, she said. I think this will make the SRO program more visible. Its not about how many citations we can write, its about being there, being present, being visible. The purpose of the SRO program is to be with the kids, to show the kids they can trust law enforcement and show that we can be a resource for the students and parents as much as the administration. Columbus Public Schools Superintendent Troy Loeffelholz said he's encouraged by CPD adding another school resource officer. That extra officer will help facilitate things that are happening in our community, he said. Loeffelholz praised Hefti for her efforts throughout the years, adding she has already done so much for the district's faculty and students. Officer Hefti has been a great asset. We consider her one of us, he said. Shes in our buildings consistently talking with kids and creating relationships with students. Fellow board member Chad Dyhrkopp, who will take over as chairman in April, shared a similar perspective. He said he was eager to get to work with the boards new hire, praising her background and passion for community. I recognized Jeanne right from the beginning You could tell she was very passionate. She was asking all the right questions and she was invested. She was spending the time to make sure she was a great fit for this on top of us spending the time to make sure she was the right fit for this. It was a great process, he said. Im excited to see the future. Belitz will continue to serve as president on a part-time basis until Schieffer takes the helm, Grennan noted. Grennan said Belitz, who resigned to become chief operating officer of the Nebraska Community Foundation, has been a huge help and asset to the chamber. He added that will continue, noting Belitz has said he desires to stay involved with the organization. Schieffer said she was eager to pick Belitzs brain and get started with her new team at the chamber. She added she just wants to work with the board, chamber staff and community on finding ways to keep helping Columbus grow. Once again, the Wisconsin Legislature will be discussing drunk driving. Rep. Jim Ott of Mequon and Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills, have introduced legislation to make a first drunken driving offense a crime, punishable up to $500 in fines and 30 days in jail. Of course that legislation has gone nowhere in the past and it is unlikely to go anywhere this time around. The sentiment is best expressed by our state Senator Kathy Bernier quoted in the Leader-Telegram: I dont think the first offense should be criminalized. Most people self-correct. The fines are significant, their insurance premiums go up, and they are humiliated. I dont think we need more. Everyone deserves a second chance in life. The philosophy of education and prevention comes from Rep. Rob Summerfield of Bloomer who in the same article said: Overall, drunk driving is going down, I think education (about the dangers of driving drunk) is the best. Is this contradicting where were going, with moving toward rehab? If someone is .081 (blood alcohol level), are they a criminal? To Mr. Summerfield remarks, if someone is .081 are they a criminal? if that is the way the law is written, then the answer is yes. The city of Sun Prairie filed a lawsuit Friday against two communications contractors, an underground utility locating service and a gas utility over the July 10 explosion that killed a firefighter and leveled several buildings in the citys downtown. The lawsuit filed in Dane County Circuit Court, which seeks unspecified damages and costs, alleges that Bear Communications, of Lawrence, Kansas, and VC Tech, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, were negligent in failing to locate a gas service line before undertaking a project to bury fiber-optic cable for Verizon near the intersection of Main and Bristol streets. It also alleges that Bear failed to verify whether VC Tech was licensed to do business in Wisconsin, as it was obliged to do under its city permit. Bear also failed to repay the city for costs and damages it suffered as a result of the explosion, the lawsuit states, as required under street opening permits granted by the city to Bear, which also required that Bear carry liability insurance naming the city as an insured third party. The lawsuit also names as defendants two insurers that provided liability insurance to Bear and WE Energies of Milwaukee. Dead Sea plea If there is hell below,or anywhere upon earth, I told myself, taking cue from Amir Khusrow, Crabb wrote, however, that the agreement, sent to workers by email, gave Lewis the option of having Epic contact him to answer questions, but he failed to choose that option. Crabb also wrote that Lewis could have rejected the terms of the arbitration agreement and looked for another job. While it was suggested, she wrote, that many Epic workers are subject to non-compete agreements, no evidence was submitted that Lewis was subject to such an agreement. Crabb also rejected the suggestion that Epics email to workers about ongoing litigation that prompted the arbitration agreement was misleading, rendering the agreement unconscionable. She added that claims that the agreement mischaracterized the arbitration process when it said arbitration could provide the same remedies as if you were in court did not cause confusion for Lewis about the arbitration process or his rights under the agreement. There was no immediate comment Friday from Epic. Caitlin Madden, one of the lawyers representing Epic workers in the case, said that while they wont continue to challenge the validity of the agreement in court, they will continue to pursue the wage claims of workers in arbitration. Were disappointed that the employees wont have their claims heard in a public forum, she said. John McCallum has been fired as Canada's ambassador to China. "Last night I asked for and accepted John McCallum's resignation as Canada's Ambassador to China," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement Saturday. A spokesperson for the prime minister confirmed Trudeau delivered the news to McCallum himself. The statement didn't offer a reason for the removal, which comes in the middle of a diplomatic crisis with China. It caps off an especially tough week for McCallum after he controversially waded into the extradition request against Meng Wanzhou, an executive with Chinese telecom company Huawei. On Tuesday McCallum, a longtime Liberal, was quoted telling a gathering of Chinese-language journalists in Toronto that he thought she had a strong case to fight extradition to the U.S. and listed several arguments he thought could help her with her case. On Thursday, he said he misspoke with those statements. Then, just the next day, he told a StarMetro Vancouver reporter it would be "great for Canada" if the United States dropped their extradition request against the Huawei executive. He also repeated a comment that if the U.S. and China make a deal on Meng's case, it should include the release of the two Canadian men detained in China. "We have to make sure that if the U.S. does such a deal, it also includes the release of our two people. And the U.S. is highly aware of that," McCallum told the Star Friday. Former ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques said he believes it was the latest round of comments that prompted his firing. "Unfortunately I think the prime minister had no choice but to ask for the resignation of Mr. McCallum," he said. "He should have shown a bit more restraint, in my view." The firing appears to put the government's China policy in disarray just days before the U.S. makes a final decision on extraditing Meng and comes at a time that Canada faces difficulties in its relationships with Russia, India, Saudi Arabia and China. These days its historical ally in the White House is often at odds with Canadian foreign policy. Story continues Weakness on this file: Scheer The decision came too late for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer who had called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fire McCallum earlier in the week, following his first set of comments. At the time Trudeau brushed off the call, saying his government's focus is on getting detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor released from China and recalling McCallum wouldn't achieve that. "This decision should have been made days ago. Instead [Trudeau has] shown weakness on this file and damaged Canada's reputation and our ability to handle this very important issue where Canadians' treatment in China is being affected by this," Scheer told reporters Saturday. The NDP's foreign affairs critic, Helene Laverdiere, said McCallum's inappropriate statements could complicate the file. "This chaos has not helped Canadians abroad and has caused confusion everywhere," she said in a statement. "In addition, we remain concerned about President Trump's statements that he would use this extradition as a bargaining chip in his trade negotiations. We believe that the legal process must follow its course without interference from anyone." For now, Jim Nickel, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Canada in Beijing, will represent Canada in China as charge d'affaires. Saint-Jacques said the search for a new ambassador in Beijing could take months, straining an already fractured relationship. "It really complicates things. In my view, this crisis is the worst we have seen with China since we established diplomatic relations back in 1970," he said. "There is a risk of more turbulence in the months ahead." 'Play it very delicately' Lynette Ong, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, said McCallum was liked in China, making explaining his removal difficult. When McCallum took over the Beijing posting following a 2017 cabinet shuffle, he eagerly pointed out his strong personal connection to China. His wife is ethnically Chinese and he had a large Chinese-Canadian constituency in his former federal riding in Markham, Ont. "I think we need to play it very delicately with the Chinese," Ong said. "Firing someone that they could actually trust, I think we need to do some explanation to the Chinese authorities. We also need to be tough but at the same time assertive to the United States that they really need to jump in here to help us get out of the situation to secure the release of the two Canadians." Watch: China demands release of Huawei CFO In his statement, Trudeau thanked McCallum for his years of service, including his time as immigration and refugees minister. "For almost two decades, John McCallum has served Canadians honourably and with distinction," he wrote. "His work as minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship in bringing in over 39,500 Syrian refugees remains an inspiration to Canadians and an example to the world. I thank him and his family for his service over the past many years." The Liberal party's Quebec MPs were meeting today in Quebec City, but offered no more details. "I wanted to just thank John McCallum for all his work for Canada. [I] had the chance to sit with him for many years in Ottawa," said Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez. By Rodi Said QAMISHLI, Syria (Reuters) - Syrian Kurdish leaders aim to secure a Russian-mediated political deal with President Bashar al-Assad's government regardless of U.S. plans to withdraw from their region, a senior Kurdish official told Reuters. The Kurdish-led administration that runs much of northern Syria presented a road map for an agreement with Assad during recent meetings in Russia and are awaiting Moscow's response, Badran Jia Kurd, who attended, said. If such a deal could be agreed, it would piece back together the two biggest chunks of a country splintered by eight years of war and leave one corner of the northwest in the hands of anti-Assad rebels backed by Turkey. The talks with Russia and new overtures towards Damascus underline a recalibration of Kurdish strategy since President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw U.S. forces whose presence has stabilized the Kurdish-led region. Their immediate priority is to find a way to shield the region from Turkey, which views the Kurdish YPG militia as a national security threat. Turkey has already sent its army into Syria twice to roll back the YPG. But it has held off attacking the large Kurdish-controlled area of the northeast where U.S. forces operate. Trump, who has not set out a withdrawal timetable, said on Wednesday the United States would leave slowly "over a period of time". He also said the United States wanted to protect Kurds, who have been vital to the U.S. campaign against Islamic State. Jia Kurd welcomed the idea of a slow withdrawal but said the United States had not discussed the pullout with its Syrian allies who were caught off guard by Trump's announcement. To fill the expected vacuum, they want Russia to help secure a Syrian army deployment at the northern border. This is part of a wider effort to strike a deal with Damascus they hope will also safeguard their regional autonomy. Jia Kurd said Russia had agreed to mediate. "The final decision is (to reach an) agreement with Damascus, we will work in this direction regardless of the cost, even if the Americans object," Jia Kurd said in the northern Syrian city of Qamishli. "Our view is that (Russia) is trying to open new horizons with Damascus, this is what we sensed from them." BALL IN RUSSIA'S COURT Damascus and the YPG have mostly avoided confrontation during the war. At times, they have even fought common foes. They convened political talks last year in Damascus, but these broke down without progress. Jia Kurd said the need for Damascus to enter serious dialogue was now more pressing. The main aims of the road-map are to protect the border from Turkey, to find a way to integrate the governing structures of northern Syria into the constitution, and to ensure a fair distribution of resources in northern and eastern Syria. "The ball is in the court of Russia and Damascus," Jia Kurd said. "On this basis we can negotiate and start a dialogue." One of the biggest challenges will be reconciling the regional autonomy demands with Assad's goal of exercising authority over the whole country again. The Syrian foreign minister recently said a federal Syria was unacceptable. Jia Kurd said "conservative" elements in Damascus wanted to ignore political changes and to "impose their control and influence" through the kind of agreements forced on areas where anti-Assad rebels had been defeated. "This is rejected by us," he said. The Kurds' bargaining chips include control of dams on the Euphrates River, oil fields and other resources. Jia Kurd said these would be one main element of the dialogue. Analysts however say their bargaining position has been weakened by Trump's announcement, which heightened Kurdish fears of a Turkish offensive. Turkey views the YPG militia as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waved a 34-year insurgency in Turkey. Analysts believe Assad and the YPG could eventually work together against Turkey-backed rebels in northwestern Syria. Jia Kurd said ending the Turkish occupation and defeating the remaining insurgents there required an agreement between Damascus and the Kurdish-led administration: "This will give a big push towards ending the occupation and terrorism in Syria." (Reporting by Rodi Said; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Angus MacSwan) Community leaders are working to calm fears and find ways to prevent an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant backlash in the wake of two arrests related to an alleged terrorist plot in Kingston, Ont. yet the probe already has touched off a political debate over security screening for refugees. Islamic community groups, mental health workers and police officers met earlier today to discuss their concerns about the broader community implications after the RCMP's national security team charged one youth with two terrorism-related offences and arrested an adult male named Hussam Eddin Alzahabi in connection with an alleged plan to detonate explosives at an undisclosed location. Alzahabi, who was released late today, is originally from Syria and came to Canada with his family in 2017 through a private refugee sponsorship program after living in Kuwait for 10 years. Bronek Korczynski, who led the family's sponsorship through Our Lady of Lourdes church, said the community groups that met today will attempt to head off rumours and spread the message that the alleged offences have nothing to do with Islam. More than 20 organizations were invited to the meeting with RCMP and the Kingston Police Service, including refugee support groups and school boards. "This is not about casting aspersions on any faith community, on any identifiable ethnic or racial group. This is about an individual or individuals who have been involved in something that was brought to the attention of police," he told CBC News. Noting the arrests come near the anniversary of a deadly 2017 mass shooting at a Quebec mosque, Korczynski said police promised they would exercise increased vigilance against a potential backlash. Six Muslim men were shot to death by a lone gunman who walked into a Quebec City mosque on Jan. 29, 2017. Mohamed Bayoumi of the Islamic Society of Kingston told CBC there could be an anti-Muslim backlash in the community because of the arrests, and said the group must work to ensure that does not happen Story continues "We have to be very careful not to burden the rest of the community because of the actions, the bad actions, of one of them," he said. "We have to be very careful not to exploit this in order to make a political point." Addressing immigration concerns Korczynski said he also fears the arrests and publicity surrounding the alleged terrorism case could spark unnecessary concerns about immigration. "This certainly doesn't suggest in any way, shape or form that Canadians shouldn't remain open to support newcomers, whether they're immigrants or refugees," he said. The backlash fears come as the political debate over immigration heats up again. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who has accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of maintaining lax control over the border and immigration system, attempted to assign some blame for the developments to the Liberal government. Scheer points finger at Trudeau "It is also clear that Canada's refugee screening process needs to be seriously examined," he said in a statement. "We've recently learned of several examples of dangerous individuals entering the country due in part to lax screening procedures." Scheer pointed to a 2017 audit of the Canada Border Services Agency which found that potential security threats may not have been identified due to lax screening. "This is completely unacceptable and must be immediately remedied," he said. "Conservatives will continue fighting against Justin Trudeau's attempts to weaken Canada's national security laws and implement real policies to ensure that Canada's streets and communities are safe." Last night's arrests came just hours after Trudeau warned Canadians to expect "fearmongering" over immigration in the run-up to the fall election. At a town hall meeting in northern New Brunswick, a young Syrian refugee thanked Trudeau for allowing her family to come to Canada, drawing applause from the crowd. Trudeau said in an era of rising intolerance and misinformation about migrants, Canadians have a responsibility to engage in "a positive and a thoughtful way." Scheer's comments 'extremely unfortunate' Kingston Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen accused Scheer of doing exactly what the PM warned of, and called the Conservative leader's remarks "extremely unfortunate." "Every time there's a loose connection or that he sees a potential loose connection that can create division and fear in communities, he's going to jump on that opportunity," he told CBC. "I think what Canadians have to ask themselves is, 'Is this what we look for in a prime minister? Is this what we look for in a leader?' I'm confident the answer is going to be no." Gerretsen, a former Kingston mayor, declined to comment on a potential backlash in the community because the RCMP had not yet released details on the cases. But he said the community should feel reassured that police acted to intercept a potential security threat. According to a bulletin posted to the website of a Kingston-area Catholic church detailing the journey of the Alzahabi family, the family's sponsorship application was approved in the spring of 2016, but the family was still awaiting its final security and health checks that fall due to the "overwhelming number of applicants." At the time, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was working to bring more than 50,000 Syrian refugees to Canada through government and private sponsorships. Community supports for family According to the bulletin, five committees were working diligently to prepare to welcome the family and had raised more than $30,000 to assist their resettlement. A storage room was rented to hold donated furniture and supplies, and an extensive support binder in Arabic and English was assembled to ensure a smooth transition. The Anglican Diocese of Ontario and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston, which support refugee sponsorship and resettlement programs, issued a statement after learning through the media that one of the individuals arrested was a member of a sponsored family. "As the investigation evolves, we support the work of law enforcement. Our concerns, thoughts and prayers are for the Kingston and surrounding area, the faith communities involved, the family and all those affected by this unfortunate situation," the statement says. By Byron Kaye SYDNEY (Reuters) - Chinese movie actor Gao Yunxiang and a producer pleaded not guilty in an Australian court on Friday to charges of sexual assault, setting the course for a trial later this year, a court official said. Gao and Chinese producer Wang Jing both entered the pleas during a short procedural hearing at the New South Wales state District Court and a judge booked the matter for a six-week trial starting in October, the court spokeswoman told Reuters. The 36-year-old star of Chinese television programs "Goddess of Mercy" and "Legend of Mi Yue" and his producer were charged with aggravated sexual assault and depriving a woman of her liberty, as well as related crimes over an incident at a Sydney hotel in March 2018, according to Australian media. The incident allegedly took place at the Shangri-La hotel after a wrap party for a television series, "Love in Aranya", which the men had been shooting in Sydney, media said. Gao was not available for comment. The complainant's identity has not made public, as Australian law bars media from identifying complainants in sex crimes. Gao's bail continued on Friday. Australian media have said he paid A$3 million ($2.1 million) as bail surety and his bail conditions included wearing an electronic bracelet, a nightly curfew and a ban on going within 100 meters of Sydney Airport. The producer was not given bail, and remained in custody. A pretrial hearing has been set for Sept. 6, with the trial to begin on Oct. 21. ($1=1.4092 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Byron Kaye) NDP Leader Ryan Meili says he was surprised and disappointed to see two Saskatchewan Party cabinet ministers attend recent Yellow vest rallies in Saskatchewan cities. Minister of Highways Lori Carr attended a rally in Estevan, while Minister of Rural and Remote Health Greg Ottenbreit was at a rally in Yorkton. People who attended a recent yellow vest rally in Regina said they were protesting against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the carbon tax and Canada's plan to endorse the United Nations migration pact which outlines objectives for treating global migrants humanely and efficiently. The NDP leader said his issue is with the language used and positions held towards immigrants, and suggestions of violence against the prime minister, expressed by some supporters of the yellow vest movement. "You see the language being used online and in the protests that are very anti-immigrant in general," Meili said. "You see lots of Islamophobia and other types of hate language, along with the frequent use of suggestion that violence should be done to elected officials in the province." He said the presence of cabinet ministers at yellow vest rallies sends the "wrong message" to people who come here as immigrants. "I think this is a moment for [Premier] Scott Moe to come up and make it clear is he a supporter of the yellow vest movement, or is he someone who is going to be bringing a more reasoned and moderate and civilized approach to our political discourse?" Moe and other government members attended a pro-pipeline rally earlier this month in Regina. Cory Coleman/CBC The event, organized by Canada Action and Rally 4 Resources, was held to show support for the country's resource sector, including everything from oil and gas to mining and potash. Organizers requested no one come wearing yellow vests. Government response CBC News made a request to speak with Carr and Ottenbreit and was told the ministers would not be available for interviews on this issue. Story continues The government providing the following statement: "There has been a rising sentiment of frustration and disappointment across Western Canada relating to the harmful policies of the federal government. This sentiment has been spurred on by harmful federal policies like the job-killing federal carbon tax, a lack of pipeline capacity to get Western Canadian oil to market, and out of touch legislation like Bill C-69 that would essentially make future infrastructure projects like pipelines impossible to approve." The government statement went on to say: "Mr. Meili has attended anti-pipeline rallies where there were calls for 'no pipelines' and to 'keep it in the ground.' In contrast, government MLAs, like thousands of other Canadians, have attended rallies advocating for an end to harmful federal policies and to support the Canadian energy industry, its workers and their families. However, our government in no way supports anti-immigration positions that some in the yellow vest groups have put forward." The government statement argued a record of welcoming immigrants to the province under the Saskatchewan Party. "Since 2007, over 108,300 immigrants from over 190 countries have been welcomed to Saskatchewan, many as part of the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP). For the year of 2018, we've been allocated 5,750 nominations which could result in over 15,000 new permanent residents." Protests involving people dressed in yellow vests have taken place in recent weeks in several Canadian cities, following protests in Paris that broke out over a fuel tax increase. The Paris yellow vest protests later morphed into demonstrations against France's high cost of living, income inequality and French President Emmanuel Macron. Yellow vest protests in Canada have focused on a range of issues, including migration and the federal carbon tax. Toronto police have charged a 28-year-old woman for allegedly tainting a co-worker's water bottle with a noxious substance at a downtown department store. Matsa Beliashvili said she likes to drink water from a glass canteen while working at the Hudson's Bay on Yonge Street. The 33-year-old is a business manager at the Estee Lauder counter inside the store. In September of last year, she began noticing that an unusual number of bubbles were forming inside her bottle when she tried to fill it up. Beliashvili considered it odd, but didn't think about it too much. Over the next several months, however, she started to experience bouts of nausea, headaches and skin irritations, she said. In some instances, she had to take days off work because she felt so ill. "It was hell what I went through," she told CBC Toronto on Friday. This month, she started to suspect that perhaps the symptoms were connected to her water bottle, after noticing an odd odour whenever she took a sip. So on Jan. 8, on the advice of a colleague, Beliashvili replaced her water container with a brand new one. Her ailments continued, despite the new purchase. "That's when I knew 100 per cent that something was wrong," Beliashvili said. Based on a hunch about what might have been going on, Beliashvili left her water container out in the open when she went home on Jan. 19. She asked security to review any footage of the counter where she keeps her personal belongings between the time she left and when she returned to work the next day. According to Beliashvili, the video showed her 28-year-old colleague intentionally putting a household cleaning product into her canteen. "They actually caught her in action on camera, spraying Lysol in my water bottle," Beliashvili said. She admitted, however, that security officials did not permit her to view the tape herself. Matsa Beliashvili/Facebook 'I'm just glad it's over' Beliashvili was shocked because she had thought she and her colleague had a "normal relationship" that was both professional and friendly. Story continues "We had to work on a daily basis together, five days a week," Beliashvili said. "It's really hard to believe and it's very heartbreaking. I'm really heartbroken." Security at Hudson's Bay contacted police, who reviewed the footage and arrested the accused on Monday. She has been charged with one count of administering a noxious substance with intent to cause bodily harm and one count of mischief to interfere with property. The accused already appeared in court once, with a second hearing scheduled for Feb. 27. Beliashvili said the experience has been deeply traumatic for her. She's not certain whether she will return to work at the same location. What hurts most, she said, is that her accused co-worker knew Beliashvili is the mother of a young child. "I could never imagine that someone would be full of hate to this extent. It's shocking," Beliashvili said. "Now I'm just glad it's over." Decision to pass medical bill will have dire implications, Mathema says Riding on its two-thirds majority, when the governing Nepal Communist Party passed the controversial Medical Education Bill on Friday disregarding the opposition voice, it also wrecked in its wake eight years of deliberation and Dr Govinda KCs undying struggle to bring reforms in the countrys ailing health sector. Businessman pulling out wooden brick from toppling stack Canada and China have been locked in a diplomatic dispute since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver back in December. Stocks like Canada Goose suffered from the political fallout, and other companies will face long-term consequences if relations do not improve. Canada is facing mounting pressure to bar Huawei from its 5G network. U.S. Democratic Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican Senator Marco Rubio have both warned Canada that failure to bar Huawei from its 5G network would result in a downgrade in intelligence sharing in the Five Eyes alliance. The United States, Australia, and New Zealand have already barred Huawei from their 5G networks. Lu Shaye, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, has warned of repercussions if Canada moves to ban Huawei from its 5G network. Several Canadian telecommunications companies have worked with Huawei-made equipment in the push to establish these networks. A pullback at this stage would be costly, but not catastrophic. Telus (TSX:T)(NYSE:TU) recently voiced its support for the Chinese technology giant. Eros Spadatto, executive vice president of technology at Telus, reportedly told employees in a memo that Huawei was a viable and reliable player and said that Telus partnership was positive, transparent and innovative-centric. Huawei is Telus Number 3 supplier. Telus has not used Huawei equipment in its core network. It has, however, used Huawei radio equipment atop cell towers. This equipment handles calls, texts, videos, and an assortment of other data sent from cellphones before entering the Telus network. Telus has been a vocal advocate of Huaweis tech, especially when it comes to constructing the future 5G network. However, Telus has reiterated that it has not yet issued major tenders to provide equipment for this new network. Telus has said that government action against Huawei would be a lost opportunity considering Huawei has a 12-to-18-month lead on its competitors. Story continues Canada-China tensions have erupted in the midst of crucial trade negotiations between the United States and China. Chinese manufacturing has grown from 10% of global value added in 2005 to 25% in 2015. However, the Chinese state has made a concerted effort to reduce its dependence upon foreign companies for hi-tech products. Beijings Made in 2025 program aims to bolster Chinese competitiveness worldwide in hi-tech industries. The United States and its allies are working to curb Chinese ambitions in the tech sector, and the global campaign against Huawei is part of this campaign. Telus stock took a significant hit following the arrest of Meng Wanzhou but has been on the rebound in January. Shares were up 1.9% in 2019 as of close on January 23. The barring of Huawei would represent a setback for Telus, but the company is locked in on alternative vendors for key equipment. It is worth noting that there is still fierce debate within Canadian ruling circles. The country may opt for a response that mirrors the United Kingdom, which forced Huawei to pass through strict security barriers in order to participate in its 5G network. More reading Fool contributor Ambrose O'Callaghan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fools purpose is to help the world invest, better. Click here now for your free subscription to Take Stock, The Motley Fool Canadas free investing newsletter. Packed with stock ideas and investing advice, it is essential reading for anyone looking to build and grow their wealth in the years ahead. Motley Fool Canada 2019 FILE PHOTO: The logo of Portuguese utility company EDP - Energias de Portugal is seen at the company's offices in Oviedo, Spain, May 14, 2018. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso By Foo Yun Chee, Clara Denina and Kane Wu BRUSSELS/LONDON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - China Three Gorges halted talks with EU regulators about its proposed 9 billion euro (8 billion) takeover of Portugal's EDP-Energia de Portugal over a month ago, two sources close to the matter said, casting doubt on whether the deal will progress. CTG launched a bid to take control of EDP, of which it already owns 23 percent, in May last year, but the transaction has moved at a slow pace. Sources say CTG has yet to complete regulatory filings in Europe and the United States, although Portugal's regulator said there are no signs the Chinese state-owned utility is preparing to abandon the deal. Three sources close to the matter said CTG's interest in lifting its stake in Portugal's biggest company has waned due to a combination of factors including a leadership shake-up at the Chinese state-owned utility, the prospect of tougher EU regulations on foreign investment and higher European electricity tariffs. A CTG spokesman said in a statement that "CTG continues to progress with all regulatory filings, continuing to work with a full suite of advisors in discussions with the regulators in different jurisdictions and in the fulfilment of all the prior conditions for the launching of the voluntary tender offer for EDP." "The current timings and calendar for such approvals is in line with other comparable transactions of this magnitude and complexity," the CTG spokesman's statement said. EDP and the European Commission declined to comment. A European Union proposal in November 2018 on rules for a far-reaching system to coordinate scrutiny of foreign investments into Europe, notably from China, will be voted on by the European Parliament in February or March. Under the plan the European Commission would investigate foreign investments in critical sectors and offer opinions. "That the anti-Chinese sentiment is also growing in Europe is a fact, and I can see how this is discouraging CTG," a banking source said. Story continues The deal also faces hurdles in the United States, given that EDP's renewables arm, EDP Renovaveis SA (EDPR), has around $7 billion of assets in the country, making it subject to regulatory approval there. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which examines deals for national security risks, has stepped up its scrutiny since Donald Trump became president in 2017, with Chinese investment in particular facing closer examination. CTG has tried to sound out bidders for EDPR including Italy's Enel, Spain's Iberdrola to reduce the risk of U.S. objections but talks stopped as the process kept dragging on, sources said. European utilities have been undergoing a wave of consolidation, seeking to create scale partly because of the increasing shift to renewable energy sources that is forcing them to change business models. (Additional reporting by Pamela Barbaglia in London, Muyu Xu in Beijing and Sergio Goncalves in Lisbon, editing by Louise Heavens and Jane Merriman) - T. S. Eliot Thoughts After Lambeth "The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide." Opinion / Columnist The ADF joins the long que and list of human rights organisations, and other organisations and institutions in condemning in the strongest and unapologetic sense the senseless murders and brutalisation of the people of Zimbabwe by their own government. Many countries and the world at large pride themselves in the advancement of human rights and the protection of their citizens. We are appalled by the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe over the last week. The truth of the matter is that the gross human rights violations that have seen many flee to South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi etc have been down played, and will soon be forgotten until another incident happens and the fire burns for a couple of minutes and dies out and yet many forced migrants will remain in hiding and suffering in other countries.The government of Zimbabwe has blamed the people for violent strikes and attributed its heavy handedness to the burning of police vehicles, stealing of police uniforms and guns and looting of shops. Is this not much worrying because one would have thought Zimbabwe which claims to be a constitutional democracy has courts to try people and competent sentences for crimes like arson, theft, public violence and many others? Is it how looters, or public violence is dealt with in the country of Zimbabwe? That people are shot at using live ammunition? That people are dragged out of their houses on suspicion of participating in a strike or mass action and brutalised by the army? That the army patrols the streets and backyards of residential settlements? That the police throws tear gas in people's houses?The government uses the state apparatus to fight its own people, those that voted it into office barely six months ago, today they are being shot at and butchered and their lives equated to police uniforms, police vans and bags of mealie meal and rice? Is this what this world has come to? That the destruction of vehicles warrants the killing of human beings? This was done on the 1st of August 2018 and on the 14th of January 2019 history quickly repeats itself, if history does it so soon, it is no longer history but instead a culture, a daily practice. Is that what Africa is proud of? Instead of leaders condemning these gross evil acts but they call for sanctions to be removed? Did sanctions carry guns and shoot people? This is not naivety assumed on Africans but rather we are being put on a wild goose chase, this is a clear diversion. The leading African leaders sending the world on a wild goose chase and yet their own people are reeling from the effects of this bad governance and the whole continent is profusely bleeding.As the African Diaspora Forum, we are aggrieved by the trivialisation of the loss of human life in the African continent and the lack of commitment by African leaders in preserving human life. To these leaders, human life is necessary collateral damage to show that governments can deal with dissention. It is our understanding that people must according to law protest and show displeasure with their governments if needs be and the reason why in Africa protests often end up with the looting and vandalism is because the people do not feel like they are part of their governments and they see these things as belonging to those in government and as a result when they want the government out, they want it out with everything that represents it. It is a sad fact, but it is the responsibility and the result of the kind of African leadership which desires to be appreciated for constructing roads, giving cheap or subsidised houses and they use these as political tools to campaign for elections. Yet government provides these services, not individual political parties and they use public funds not political party funds but still they will campaign using these tricks as though it was by their own fit or financial muscle. Africans are sold a dummy day in and day out.Politics governs the world, and if the politics is wrong, the economics become wrong, the socio-political environment becomes wrong and the lifestyle of the people follow the politics because human beings are always without fail political animals. Africa needs to review its understanding and presentation of political facts, statements and presentation. It is our firm belief that Pan Africanism advances the theory of a united Africa developing as a unity without leaving any African person or state behind, the spirit of 'ubuntu'. However, the true reflection of the presented Pan Africanism is that of protecting incumbent governments and standing by them even when they blatantly abuse people and find an excuse to excuse the actions of government. The effects of such actions and disposition is the fleeing of people to neighbouring countries and to Europe where thousands die every year in the Mediterranean trying to cross over.Africa's human rights record is appalling, it is below dog standard at all. We often never kill our pets or dogs, but African human rights custodians, the governments will do anything to cover the human rights abuses and hide behind state sovereignty including the irresponsible regional bodies like the AU and SADC and infact they have ring fenced and protected these despotic governments ensuring that they can never be challenged by stating that the people of each country must solve their own problems.How is this possible when the governments have the machinery to rig elections, there is no separation of powers and when people are aggrieved and go to courts, courts are an extension of the same executive that oppresses them and violate their rights. The legislature is made up of the majority party or governing party which can never go against its President who is often the leader of the party meaning indirectly he controls the legislators too? The people of Africa have no recourse, but to flee their countries and die on capsizing boats or the violent death of xenophobic attacks. They flee one tyranny into another worse off situation.The governments have courts and prisons to hold those who offend the law but instead they choose to kill them when they express dissatisfaction despite freedom of expression, the right to demonstrate, right to associate, and those doing so for the government are not held to account because they are clearly executing the mandate given to them by those driving state machinery who are above the law, for the law is meant for everyone else except them. There is rule of law on paper, but because they appoint their lapdogs to the judiciary and the Prosecuting Authorities, the Police and the army, then clearly, they rule with impunity. There is no balancing act or checks and balances. The people are on their own with no means of protection while all the protection is taken by these leaders against a defenceless people.What recourse does the African people have today? This is not about the ICC but about the African people who have no one to rescue them. The Congolese people have a sworn in President today but yesterday over a million people could not vote courtesy to the government's failure to deal with Ebola and the other reasons so given. How do those people feel about their President when the government excluded them from participating in that important vote? Is that election not stolen from them? What is the world saying about that? What is Africa saying about that? Africa is excited about the smooth handover of power? Non-violent handover? When over a million voters were denied the right to exercise their right to vote?Not taking anything away from the transition experience in the DRC from President Kabila to President Felix Tshisekedi, we want to take this opportunity to congratulate him for ascending to the Presidency of the DRC and pray that the country's human rights record will improve and development take place rapidly and those in the diaspora can freely return and access equal opportunities with all others, and but thus state that a country cannot be governed on principles of exclusion and marginalisation.It is our sincere hope that Africa can look in the mirror and be frank with the African modus operandi on its politics, human rights record, and deal with it honestly and truthfully. We extend our condolences to all those who lost their loved ones and our sympathies are with those that are hospitalised and our prayers to those that still have no clue where their missing relatives are. We implore the AU, SADC and South Africa, an economic powerhouse in Africa, to come out in the open and clean and condemn the acts of the government of President Mnangagwa that kills with impunity and does so repeatedly over and over and over again. The principle of quiet diplomacy is not helping the people of Zimbabwe that have been killed since the 80s and to-date and yet no one dares protect them or bring to order the murderous government of ZANU PF, of course because of the 'sovereignty' clause yet South Africa has become an unofficial surrogate country to Zimbabweans.Where is the African dream? It so elusive and courtesy to the custodians of the wealth and natural resources of the African continent, and how does it feel to these leaders, to sell out so bad and watch everyone who looks up to them burst in flames?Dr Vusumuzi SibandaChairperson of the African Diaspora Forum News / National by Mandla Ndlovu My story with Tuku is personal. When I left Zimbabwe two decades ago heading for Germany; for a journey that has since given me Europe as my residence; I traveled with Tuku in the same plane. We got at Oliver Tambo Airport together at 13:30 pm and our connecting SAA flight was 20:00 pm. And herein my ordeal started; South African airport and South African Airways officials didn't seem to understand how an ordinary geezer like me had a genuine Germany visa well tucked in the pages of that famous green passport. So the interrogation ensued - I mean all afternoon. If I say I did not shade a tear, I'd be lying. It was torture worse than waterboarding by any standards, because I saw what looked like the first huddle or an attempt to sabotage my Houdini escape from Zimbabwe whose economic and political problems were only just starting. I was shafted from office to office and even the security guard followed me into the toilet and tried to blackmail me into handing him over a few quid so I could be allowed to go. They all asked me how much I had in my wallet; I showed them a few Zim Dollars and I told them everything else's was my private matter; I was not going to budge. Tuku clutching his guitar in its pouch and he was traveling with his manager the white lady Debbie Metcalfe and Piki; smelt something was wrong. They intervened late afternoon and told those bloody buggers that we were traveling together - and that is how they backed off. At 20:00 pm I got into the ndege still with my heart thumping up until we took off. We traveled all night with Tuku checking on me each time he went for the ndege toilet; we connected our next ndege to Berlin from Frankfurt as a team. For the 12 hours I was a band member now - well, only for that journey of course. We even got close when I told him I was from Musana in Mash Central; he is from Madziva and we both realised we come from the same neighbourhood. So when I was living in Berlin; I used go to Stella Chiweshe's pub where Tuku told me we could meet up and other Zimboz; kwayinzi kuJecha. The pub had proper river sand floor and nights of Mbuya Chiweshe belting mbira music. Okay; maybe time to say zvangu a secrete because wafanaka; Tuku was also "seeing" Stella Chiweshe's daughter Virginia. So my networking in Berlin grew fast and I settled very well and each time Tuku came into Germany we would have good time kuJecha. When I left Berlin for London; I lost Tuku connection because of the hustle and bustle in London; more so in the period of arrival. But in my heart Tuku took part to my Houdini escape. I have thanked Samanyanga the music legend and national icon before; today with time I have found time to offer my personal thanks to a brother and my band leader during my travel. I won't forget your timely intervention at Oliver Tambo Airport. And the good times kuJecha in Berlin. Go well Samanyanga! Till we meet again. The late veteran musician Oliver Mtukudzi is alleged to have been engaged in an adulterous relationship with Mbira maestro Stella Chiwesha's daughter Virginia.This was revealed by journalist Brighton Musonza in his eulogy to the late Tuku as he was affectionately known."Okay; maybe time to say zvangu a secret because wafanaka; Tuku was also "seeing" Stella Chiweshe's daughter Virginia." Musonza revealed.Musonza also spoke about how Tuku assisted him when he was on his way to Germany fleeing the country which was politically and economically collapsing.Read the full tribute below: News / National by Staff reporter THE internet shutdown by government has had an adverse impact on business operations in various sectors of the economy, businessdigest has learnt.Government last week switched off internet connectivity in the face of violent protests, which resulted in at least 12 deaths. The shutdown, according to the government, was necessitated by security concerns. However, the High Court this week overturned the decision, declaring it illegal.Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe chief executive Paul Matamisa told businessdigest that the cost of the internet shutdown on tourism was felt throughfailed bookings and lost marketing opportunities."There is no way we can calculate now the damage that has occurred to the industry due to the lack of internet connectivity," Matamisa said. "The damage will only be reflected in the next few weeks and in the next few months where gaps in revenue will appear because of the lost business."He said the internet shutdown made the task of marketing the country to tourists very difficult which resulted in lost opportunities and the possibility that the country lost potential tourism business to other source markets. Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe president Portifa Mwendera said the internet shutdown hampered medical aid clients' access to health services."What mainly affected us was that the software we use which is linked to medical aid societies stopped functioning due to the internet shutdown," Mwendera said. "This meant that transactions could not go through between pharmacies and medical aid societies."He said this meant patients who use medical aid were turned away or had to fork out money to receive treatment.Mwendera said the shutdown of the internet further burdened the pharmaceutical company, which is reeling from an acute foreign currency shortage.Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Sifelani Jabangwe said the internet shutdown had resulted in the breakdown of communication between suppliers and customers.He said, although they understood the government's reason for the shutdown of the internet, the decision had negatively impacted the transit of various goods.Economist Godfrey Kanyenze said the shutdown was not only costly in quantitative terms, but also had a major bearing psychologically."Loss of internet connectivity meant people could not transact for essentials like purchasing electricity tokens. The loss as a result of this shutdown is not only quantifiable but it also has a psychological cost."Economist John Robertson said the government has shot itself in the foot by shutting down the internet as it will incur huge losses in lost revenue."The decision by the government to shut down the internet has made the shutdown 10 times more effective than it would have done as they had not shut it down. It put us back to the Stone Age," Robertson said.He said the shutdown will have had a huge cost on the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority in lost revenue as their transactions are based on the internet. Marissa Taylor is the Culture and Arts editor at The Kathmandu Post. In addition to her copy-editing duties, Taylor also pursues long-form reporting. Before joining the Post, she worked as a journalist at The Himalayan Times and M&S VMAG. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The late super star musician Oliver Mtukudzi will not be buried at the national shrine Heroes Acre despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa declaring a national hero on Thursday.In a statement on Friday SAPES Trust Director Ibbo Day Joseph Mandaza said, "The good news as we mourn Tuku is that he is to be buried, not at the controversial heroes acre, but at his rural home in Madziva( near Bindura), this Sunday."Zimbabwe on social media spent the half of Thursday posting that the Mtukudzi family must accept the Hero status but must not allow ZANU PF to bury him at the heroes acre because it will give taint the name of Tuku.Mandaza further suggested that Zimbabweans who love Tuku's music may contribute towards a Memorial site which can be developed into a museum."What we need to do as Zimbabweans in particular and as all those who cherish Oliver's legacy, is to fundraise towards the establishment of an Oliver Mutukudzi Memorial Site, in which his remains are interned and a Museum developed." Mandaza suggested.Dr Oliver Mtukudzi becomes Zimbabwe's first musician to be accorded the national hero status. President Mnangagwa announced Dr Mtukudzi's hero status at the superstar's home in Norton while conveying his condolence message.Meanwhile Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation Kirsty Coventry has announced that her ministry is putting together a memorial concert that will celebrate the life of the late music legend. News / National by Simbarashe Sithole Former Minister of state for Mashonaland Central province advocate Martin Dinha has sensationally claimed that the protests which were witnessed in Mvurwi and Guruve were an MDC project funded by United States of America and some Non-Governmental organisations meant to over throw the government.Dinha said the Mnangagwa regime will not allow MDC in trying to call for regime change through sanctions and violent funded protests."The arrested MDC protestors who were denied bail by Bindura and Guruve magistrates respectively should not be treated softly in the province because their party called for sanctions and are pursuing regime change with America and NGOs so we cannot just watch as they cause commotion," Dinha said."The MDC is very violent l am sure you can see with the arrested Members of Parliament who were fueling the protests they are in hot soup, even the Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe also blamed them those wanted by the police are advised to surrender."Apparently, twelve MDC protestors in Mashonaland Central were arrested following the violent protests that rocked the nation last week over fuel price hikes, 11 are from Mvurwi while one is from Guruve, all remanded in custody to tomorrow, 49 more Mvurwi protestors are still at large.However, MDC provincial chairperson for Mash- Central George Gwarada dismissed Dinha's claims saying the arrests area desperate measure by a clueless government."These claims that the protests are funded are malicious besides the protests were not even called by MDC instead it was the (ZCTU) so arresting our supporters for their constitutional right to protest and further more deny them bail is just a desperate measure by a clueless government to solve the economic crises," Gwarada said. Citizen Lab (previously) is a world-renowned research group that specializes in deep, careful investigations into the nexus of state and private surveillance, outing everything from the Chinese spies who took over computers in Tibetan embassies around the world to the bizarre deployments of state-level cyberweapons against Mexicans who campaigned for limits on sugary sodas. Some of Citizen Lab's most prominent and significant work has been their research on the NSO Group, an Israeli cyber-arms dealer that outfits governments and industry with sophisticated spyware used by some of the world's most brutal dictatorships and NSO Group was also implicated in the brutal murder and dismemberment of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Now, Citizen Lab, working with the Associated Press, has revealed that unknown parties hired undercover operatives to approach Citizen Lab employees under false pretenses in order to pump them for information on their NSO Group research and to ask questions like "Why do you write only about NSO?" "Do you write about it because it's an Israeli company?" "Do you hate Israel?" The undercover agents posed as "socially conscious investors" and it's believed that they secretly recorded the conversations they had with Citizen Lab employees. After twigging to the scam, Citizen Lab and the AP planned a sting, letting one of the undercover agents lure a Citizen Lab employee named John Scott-Railton to a meeting where they were set up to make their own recordings. At a signal from Scott-Railton the AP reporters approached the man and asked him why the company he claimed to work for didn't exist. The man said "I know what I'm doing," gathered his things and left, pacing the restaurant while waiting for the check. The AP reporters approached him again and he said "I don't have to give you any explanation," then "retreated to a back room and closed the door." NSO Group denies any involvement with the would-be infiltrators. The conversation began with a discussion of kites, gossip about African politicians, and a detour through Scott-Railton's family background. But Lambert, just like Bowman, eventually steered the talk to Citizen Lab and NSO. "Work drama? Tell me, I like drama!" Lambert said at one point, according to Scott-Railton's recording of the conversation. "Is there a big competition between the people inside Citizen Lab?" he asked later. Like Bowman, Lambert appeared to be working off cue cards and occasionally made awkward conversational gambits. At one point he repeated a racist French expression, insisting it wasn't offensive. He also asked Scott-Railton questions about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and whether he grew up with any Jewish friends. At another point he asked whether there might not be a "racist element" to Citizen Lab's interest in Israeli spyware. After dessert arrived, the AP reporters approached Lambert at his table and asked him why his company didn't seem to exist. He seemed to stiffen. APNewsBreak: Undercover agents target cybersecurity watchdog [Raphael SatterSeattle Times] Truesee's Daily Wonder Saturday, January 26, 2019 Archives Truesee presents the weird, wild, wacky and world news of the day. 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FARGO The next hearing on an appeal filed by attorneys seeking to overturn the conviction and death sentence of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. is set to begin Monday. The evidentiary hearing is estimated to last 10 days as attorneys for Rodriguez argue that the court should set aside his death sentence in the 2003 kidnapping and murder of Dru Sjodin, a 22-year-old University of North Dakota student. Rodriguez was found guilty and sentenced to death following a 2006 trial, where prosecutors told the jury that Sjodin was raped and her throat was slashed at least twice. The defense maintains there is evidence showing Sjodin did not die in the manner alleged by prosecutors and there was no rape. Papers filed by the defense suggest Sjodin likely died of asphyxiation after a struggle and attempted rape in Rodriguezs car. In December, Judge Ralph Erickson denied the prosecutions request to prevent expert witnesses for the defense from providing testimony at the upcoming hearing. Court documents show Rodriguez waived his right to appear either in person or via video conference at the evidentiary hearing that starts Monday. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 "It's getting to be a bigger and bigger issue for pretty much all the farmers and ranchers out there to try to police their land and not know who's on it," said Dwight Keller, president of the Independent Beef Association of North Dakota. Landowners spoke of the potential for confrontations with armed hunters, advocated their property rights and lamented the burdens associated with regularly purchasing and posting signs only to be vandalized or removed. "I spend more money on hunting signs each year than I did on our wedding," said Greg Daws, a Michigan area farmer. Experiences during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests from 2016 and 2017 in Morton County also played into testimony, including landowners' unease during those chaotic months. Mary Graner, a Huff resident living "at the heart of the DAPL situation," told of a woman who entered her family's hay yard with a sage smudge stick, with no consequences from law enforcement due to no posting on an approach. "But this is my hay yard, it's right next to my farmyard," Graner told legislators. "She had a sage stick, on fire, in our hay yard." Opposition to the bill suggested there's a better way to reach an accord between landowners and hunters. This proposal erodes the counties decision-making ability, it will usurp local authority and control and provides legislators with veto power that ultimately would have them dictating this county responsibility, Preskey testified. Klemin emphasized that the bill does not require consent from legislators, but a majority of district party chairmen, making it bipartisan. Rep. Mary Johnson, R-Fargo, questioned what happens if changes are proposed to a polling place in one district and the two party chairmen cant agree. Do you not see the possibility of a quagmire? Johnson asked. The Burleigh County Commission voted 3-2 in 2017 to eliminate about half of its polling sites and operate universal Election Day vote centers, allowing people to vote at the location most convenient to them. Commissioners later rescinded the vote after a legal opinion showed they did not have permission from the city of Bismarck to change precinct boundaries within the city. Bismarck legislators were unanimously opposed to the move and said they werent adequately consulted. If the bill is approved, at least six of the 10 district party chairmen in Bismarck would have to consent to such changes. What's it like to be named Theodore Roosevelt? Ask the 26th president's great-great-grandson. "It's obviously an honor. It's a phenomenal character to be associated with," said Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt V on Wednesday during a visit to Bismarck. "I think he's broadly thought of fondly in this country and around the world, and I'll be the first to say that it's genetic luck. I didn't do anything to get it and to complain about it would be frankly a little foolish," he said. Roosevelt was here earlier this week to advocate for Gov. Doug Burgum's $150 million proposal to build the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library at Medora. He headed back to Palo Alto, Calif., on Wednesday morning after a legislative reception. Roosevelt, 43, grew up in New York and runs an investment firm. He and his wife, Serena, have an 8-year-old son and twin 5-year-old daughters. Last week wasn't his first time in North Dakota or even in winter. "I thought, 'Middle of winter, might be a little cold, a little harsh,' and in reality, as it is today, it was spectacular," Roosevelt said of his first visit in January. "It was unbelievably beautiful." Jai Santoshi Maa In the cinema hall, my mother transformed from an overworked, underappreciated mother and wife to a bawdy, full-bodied woman Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Late Friday night, President Donald Trump signed a bill passed by Congress that officially reopens the federal government for three weeks while lawmakers negotiate border security funding with the president -- ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. "I am very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government," Trump said earlier on Friday, in a surprise development that thrilled hundreds of thousands of federal workers that have been toiling without pay for more than a month. The bill passed by Congress, sources told ABC News, includes no funding for the presidents long-sought border wall. The president said earlier on Friday that while has decided not to declare a national emergency at this time, he has the ability to do so if members of Congress do not work on a deal for border security. "If we don't get a fair deal from Congress, the government either shut down on February 15th again or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the constitution of the United States to address this emergency," Trump said. Later on Friday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that the administration would move forward in three weeks with building a wall. While the president has been slim on the details of the agreement, he did reference a conference committee of House and Senate leaders will act in good faith to reach an agreement on border security. Over the next 21 days, I expect both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith. This is an opportunity for all parties to work together for the benefit of our whole, beautiful and wonderful nation, Trump said. The president and members of his administration have been criticized for their responses to the financial hardships faced by many federal workers missing pay. But on Friday the president specifically thanked federal workers who have endured the shutdown and said he will see to it that they receive back-pay "very quickly or as soon as possible." "I want to thank all of the incredible federal workers and their amazing families who have shown such extraordinary devotion in the face of this recent hardship," Trump said. It's unclear exactly when federal workers could begin to see their back pay, but the White House said workers should expected to be paid in the "coming days." Over 800,000 federal workers were furloughed or worked without pay during the shutdown, forcing some to turn to food banks, charities and even put on fundraisers to make ends meet. "Recognizing the urgency of getting Federal employees paid quickly, the administration is taking steps to ensure that they receive pay as soon as possible. Since specific payroll issues vary by agency, employees can find more information about paycheck details by reaching out to their agency," a senior administration official told ABC News. The president of the National Treasury Employees Union Tony Reardon said checks should go out as soon as possible. Get the checks out now. Federal employees havent been paid in more than a month and mortgage and rent are due next week. They shouldnt have to wait a minute longer, he said. Congress has been trying to come to a deal to reopen the government, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history. After Democrats rejected a proposal to temporarily reopen government with a pro-rated amount of border wall funding Thursday evening, Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters Friday morning that Republican senators were looking to the White House to decide the next move. Bipartisan talks about a possible short-term compromise a three-week stopgap funding bill to reopen the government began late Thursday between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. A Senate Republican leadership aide says the GOP is "very wary" of President Trump, pointing out McConnell has been stung by Trump before. The aide is adamant that the president won't announce a McConnell deal this is a President-Democrats deal. In a press conference on Capitol Hill, Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi thanked federal workers for enduring the 35 day shutdown that appeared to have no end in sight. "We cannot ever hold American workers hostage again," Schumer said. "The American people do not like it when you throw a wrench into the lives of government workers over an unrelated political dispute," Schumer said. "Working people throughout America empathized with the federal workers and were aghast at what the president was doing to them. Hopefully, now the president is learned his lesson." Pelosi, who was able to make the president capitulate on postponing his State of the Union address, said she is "optimistic" that the government will not shut down again after February 15. "I can't assure the public on anything that the president will do, but I do have to say I'm optimistic. I see every challenge or every crisis as an opportunity, an opportunity to do the right thing for the American people and at the same time make people aware of what the decisions are that we have here and hopefully that will make everybody come together in a way that is unifying for our country," Pelosi said. After weeks of political tit-for-tat and a stare off between the president and Pelosi, Schumer said that the president's decision today shows that "no one should ever underestimate the speaker, as Donald Trump has learned." Two sources close to Pelosi say she has not spoken to Trump since he walked out of a meeting in the Situation Room with congressional leaders on January 10. Still, the president expressed optimism that a deal on border security could be reached with Democrats. I think we have a chance, yeah. I think we have a good chance. Well work with the Democrats and negotiate and if we cant do that, then well do a obviously, well do the emergency because thats what it is. Its a national emergency, Trump said. After the measure passed both chambers of Congress, House Whip Steny Hoyer stood on the floor and summed up the protracted saga. "I hope the experience of the last 35 days has taught us that we should never repeat this exercise of shutting down the government ever again." Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. The Nature of Things, an exhibit by Eric Johnson, of Hillsboro, will be on display at Bismarck Art & Galleries Association from Tuesday through Feb. 23. Member artist Beverly Haas' work will be on display in the small gallery. Johnson graduated from North Dakota State University and continued his studies at the University of North Dakotas Master of Fine Arts program. During his time at UND, he began his ongoing series of Cityscapes, inspired by recollections of his first visits to Chicago and New York City. By the time Johnson completed the program in 2001, it was clear that he had found his forte with printmaking. Currently, Johnson is an adjunct instructor at Minnesota State Community and Technical College and Mayville State University. He also continues his involvement with P.E.A.R.S. having recently served as master printer through the program for editions by Canadian painter Ken Dalgarno and artist Star Wallowing Bull. Haas, a product of the North Dakota prairie, received her degree in consumer education and taught consumer education, physical education and art for 21 years. She organized and directed the Dickinson Art for Kids Program for 11 summers. Haas, of Taylor, also was co-founder of the Assumption Abbey Prairie Arts Council. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at Bismarck Art & Galleries Association, 422 E. Front Ave., Bismarck. A gallery chat with the artists will take place at 5:30 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Rule #7 Your Rights Up In Smoke On Dec. 14, ,the RiverStone Heath Board enacted Rule No. 7 which created a 20-foot, no-smoking halo around all buildings open to the public. So how did we get to that point? Lets look back in time. In 2005, the Montana Legislature enacted the Montana Indoor Clean Air Act. The key word being indoor. At that time the Montana Tavern Association struck a bargain with a group of legislators backing passage of the MICAA and threw its support behind the legislation. In return the MTA was given a four-year grace period prior to implementation of the MICAA. Without the MTAs support the MICAA may not have passed. Moving forward to 2017. RiverStones board decided to take on the challenge of secondhand smoke. Since there was no smoking allowed indoors in any publicly accessed building, they decided to go after the smoking public that was obeying the law and smoking outdoors. So what prompted RiverStone to take this course of action? Was there an uptick in heart attacks or lung cancer in Yellowstone County? No. Were there demonstrations in the streets of Billings? No. Was there a rash of public outrage calling for the end to people smoking outdoors? No. Then what? Under President Trump we have seen a sudden resurgence of federalism on the left in American politics as liberal states like California seek to go their own way on issues like the Paris Climate Accord and sanctuary cities. But sometimes these states attempt to set policy within their own borders has a very real negative impact on neighboring states. Currently, in our home state of Montana we will contribute upwards of $6.5 million per year to protect the rivers and waterways, which flow to the west and east of us, from Aquatic Invasive Species. AIS are non-native organisms which occupy and cause harm to our native ecosystems. These invasive organisms cost the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service billions every year. Preventing AIS from polluting our ecosystems is an important part of being a good steward of the environment. Much of our efforts and tax dollars spent in preventing the introduction and spread contributes to the well-being of our neighboring states rivers and waterways. Nevertheless, the states we share those rivers with contribute a fraction of the cost, while at the same time hindering our ability to generate revenue through responsible resource development. Oregon and Washington not only refuse to purchase Montana coal (which is some of the cleanest in the world) but also chose to hinder our ability to ship coal from their ports. My world nearly turned upside down when I was only 30 years old. It was supposed to be a routine doctor visit to remove a mole. A biopsy showed the mole was melanoma the most serious form of skin cancer. In fact, it was stage 2B. Cancer is not a word anyone wants to hear. While melanoma accounts for only 1 percent of skin cancer cases, it causes most of skin cancer deaths. I had two surgeries and a year of chemotherapy to treat the cancer. For now, its gone. What haunts me and the reason Im now a volunteer advocate with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network is knowing the cancer could have been prevented. Research shows that indoor tanning use before the age of 35 increases melanoma risk by 59 percent. The World Health Organization has classified ultraviolet (UV) indoor tanning devices as carcinogenic to humans at a level similar to other carcinogens such as tobacco, benzene and asbestos. Skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S. and rates have been rising for the past 30 years. And Montana has some of the highest melanoma rates in the country! The current increase in melanoma in adults is the result of exposure to UV radiation starting in childhood and young adult years. Therefore, preventing exposure to UV radiation as early as possible in a persons life is critical. Pam said the race will be held in her husbands honor this year. Additionally, the good dog care award and sportsmanship awards will carry Jacks name going forward. Good dog care and being a good sport were always very important to Jack, Pam said. In addition, Pam said the National Forest Service is looking into naming a section of the race trail for Jack. She said a new bridge being built in Lincoln will be named for him too. Earlier this month, the organizing committee was very concerned about the conditions for this year's race since not much snow had hit the area. But race organizers say the Lincoln Valley has received plenty of powder since then, creating prime conditions for the event. The mushers were sad at first when they thought there might be a limited race, Pam said. They want to run these beautiful trails. Pam praised the excellent cooperation between the Forest Service and area logging operations servicing and clearing the trails for the race. The notoriously challenging race will see mushers take on the same route as last year. They will start in the Lincoln Valley before going over Huckleberry Mountain to arrive at the first checkpoint at Whitetail Ranch off the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Kurtz was not among the air traffic controllers calling in. He had spent the prior evening at Billings Logan International Airport keeping flights safe. The airport is Montana's second busiest. Friday was supposed to be his payday, but instead of a deposit for hours worked, he received a notice from the federal government that his wages amounted to $0. His mortgage is late, as are his student loan payments. Tension in his family is high as Kurtz mother worries her son isnt going to make it and his brother is coming up with a plan to help out. Kurtz isnt alone. His plan was to protest in solidarity with employees from the Forest Service and Indian Health Service. There are 7,000 Montanans working for the federal government who have been harmed by the shutdown, 800,000 nationwide. The shutdown started Dec. 21. The federal government had been without an annual budget since October and was running on short-term appropriations. Congress was expected to pass another short-term deal, a continuing resolution to keep the government funded into February, but Trumps wall money was a sticking point. The Senate nearly unanimously passed its short-term bill without Trumps $5.7 billion. Trump took to Twitter saying he wouldnt sign on. The House, controlled by Republicans at the time, tucked the presidents wall money in the proposal it passed. Montana State University Billings announced finalists Friday for the dean of its College of Business. The search committee has narrowed it down to three candidates, Raoul Rezvanian, Priscilla Romkema and Herb Snyder, according to a press release from MSUB. Each candidate will present at an open forum, answering the question What is your vision for the College of Business at MSUB? Theyll get the chance to meet students, faculty and staff during the open forum, which will be held at 4 p.m. Jan. 28, 29 and Feb. 4 at Library room 148 on the MSUB campus. Rezvanian is the Associate Dean of the School of Business at Ithaca College. Rezvanian has a doctorate in philosophy of economics and finance from the Southern Illinois University, a masters degree of Science in Accounting from Roosevelt University, and a bachelors degree from the University of Tehran, Iran. Rezvanian presents Monday, Jan. 28. President of Regional Health Foundation, Romkema was also the dean of the College of Business and Natural Sciences for Black Hills State University. Romkema has a doctorate in education and masters degree in Business Education from the University of Wyoming, and a bachelors degree in instrumental music from Black Hills State University. Romkema presents Tuesday, Jan. 29. Whiskey on ice in a cut glass: Above. photo by Stan Deatherage Click image to expand. People in the U.S. are drinking less alcohol overall, but they are buying more spirits.But what's good news for the N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission isn't necessarily good news for North Carolina consumers, who can't always buy what they want and oftentimes pay more for it.Despite a dip in total alcohol consumption, U.S. drinkers bought more than 230 million nine-liter cases of distilled spirits in 2018 - a 1.9 percent increase on the previous year, according to preliminary data by the IWSR, which on its website refers to itself as the largest database on the beverage alcohol market.Industry website The Spirits Business wrote about the IWSR report last week.Total alcohol volume in the U.S. declined by 0.8 percent last year to 3.345 billion nine-liter cases. Spirits sales were driven up by whiskey, which grew by 4.1 percent, and tequila, which increased 8.5 percent.writes The Spirits Business.North Carolina is one of 17 control states in the U.S., meaning the state has a monopoly on liquor storage, distribution, sales, and enforcement. The IWSR report looked at nationwide trends and doesn't break down consumption according to states, so it's difficult to determine how much beer and wine North Carolinians are drinking.In 2008, as CJ reported last week , the state spirits warehouse took in about 5 million cases of liquor. By 2016, that number had increased to more than 6 million. No state ABC stores closed in 2018, but four new stores opened, bringing the number of ABC stores in North Carolina to about 435. Three counties or municipalities approved the sale of mixed beverages.In the report, the ABC boasts: "The fiscal year 2018 marks the [ABC commission's] third consecutive record setting year for 10-digit sales, where retail sales surged and sales to restaurants and other businesses with mixed beverage permits increased over the prior year. The billion-dollar ABC revenue resulted in an all-time high transfer of money into the General Fund for use by the N.C. General Assembly."Nationwide, Cognac and Armagnac volumes were up by 5.6 percent, and brandy rose by 1.7 percent. The largest percentage gain was witnessed by mezcal, which rose by 32.4 percent from its 2017 sales of 261,000 nine-liter cases.Brandy Rand, IWSR's U.S. president and global chief marketing officer, says: "Spirits and wine showed slight growth in 2018, but those category increases weren't as high as previous years. It's clear that Americans are drinking less overall, which is likely a result of the continued trend toward health and wellness."We've also seen for some time now that consumers aren't necessarily loyal to just one category, which leads to less volume for individual brands. Also, the aging baby boomer population, the largest group of legal drinking age consumers, is contributing to slowed growth, as well." Gov. Roy Cooper (CJ file photo by Kari Travis) Ken Eudy, policy adviser to Gov. Roy Cooper (image from Eudy's Twitter account) Ken Eudy, Gov. Roy Cooper's policy adviser, was the governor's key negotiator with Duke Energy in developing a $57.8 discretionary Atlantic Coast Pipeline fund Duke and its utility partners would pay to Cooper.Duke Energy also was a client of Capstrat, the marketing, advertising, lobbying and public relations firm Eudy co-founded in 1994. Documents released by Cooper's office show Eudy negotiated directly with Duke's chief lobbyist Kathy Hawkins.Ethics disclosure documents Eudy filed suggest he left Capstrat sometime before January 2017, when he joined the Cooper administration. But an annual report filed in April 2017 with the Secretary of State's office listed Eudy as one of Capstrat's four managers.No one in the governor's office has explained to Carolina Journal if Eudy was working with Capstrat after he started working for the governor. Neither Eudy nor Cooper's Chief of Staff Kristi Jones responded to multiple requests to clear up the issue. CJ also hasn't been able to determine what services Capstrat was providing Duke in 2017.A person who knowingly conceals information or files false information on his Statement of Economic Interest may be charged with a felony or misdemeanor.Any relationship Eudy might have had with either Duke Energy or Capstrat after he joined Cooper's administration should have posed ethical concerns for the governor. Records released by the governor's office in late December show Eudy intervened in negotiations with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over the pipeline. In one instance, he demanded a signed agreement between FERC and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources be revoked temporarily because it was concluded without his final approval.News articles and internet postings indicate Duke Energy has been a Capstrat client since at least 2013. CJ hasn't been able to determine when Eudy severed ties to Capstrat or its successor company Ketchum - a New York-based global public relations firm that bought Capstrat from Eudy in 2013. Eudy stayed on as president of Capstrat until 2015, when he left that role and remained the firm's chairman.Duke Energy spokeswoman Tammie McGee couldn't say if Duke remains a Capstrat or Ketchum client.McGee told CJ.Cooper's office announced the $57.8 million discretionary fund immediately after the state Department of Environmental Quality announced it approved a critical water quality permit for the ACP. Both announcements were made Jan. 26, 2018. The Memorandum of Understanding between the governor's office and the four utilities building the pipeline (including Duke) said the money would be used to mitigate environmental impacts of the pipeline; for economic development projects in the affected counties; and for renewable energy projects in the affected counties.CJ was the first news organization to note the unusual arrangement. It was created outside normal legislative budgeting functions. Several legislators said Cooper violated the separation-of-powers doctrine in the state constitution, which says all state spending must be authorized by the General Assembly. (See CJ's series on the ACP at this link .)In February, the legislature voted to redirect the ACP discretionary fund to the school systems in the eight counties crossed by the pipeline. To date, the state has received no money.In December, a legislative committee hired a team of former federal agents to investigate the permit process and the creation of the $57.8 million discretionary fund.High-level state employees, including employees of the governor's office, must file Statements of Economic Interest with the State Ethics Commission. (In December 2016, the General Assembly passed a law combining the Ethics Commission with the State Board of Elections, but after a successful legal challenge by the governor, the General Assembly passed a law in December returning those functions to separate boards effective Feb. 1.)Eudy had a lengthy career in journalism and politics before joining Cooper's administration. After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill in 1975 with a degree in journalism, Eudy worked as a TV reporter and then for The Charlotte Observer as a political reporter. From 1987-89 he served as executive director of the N.C. Democratic Party. In 1994 he co-founded Capstrat. News articles state his clients included Duke Energy, Blue Cross, Lenovo, Quintiles, and UNC Health Care.Eudy's 2017 SEI is dated Jan. 15, 2017. One section requires the individual filing to report sources of income more than $5,000 during the previous year. In that section, Eudy listed only his Capstrat salary. Another section requires a list of financial interests valued at $10,000 or more in publicly or non-publicly owned companies at the end of the previous year. As of Dec. 31, 2016, Eudy listed one company - Waste Zero.On April 12, 2017, Capstrat LLC filed a required annual report with the N.C. Secretary of State. In the section labeled "Company Officials," the report listed Dale A. Adams, Kenneth L. Eudy, Jr. and Craig Gangi as managers, and Deborah V. Reed as chief financial officer. Reed also certified and signed the report.CJ wasn't able to discuss the annual report with Reed. She recently retired from Capstrat and Ketchum. Reed left a voice message with a CJ reporter saying the report was filed by Debbie Brannan of Ketchum's holding company, DAS Global. Brannan hasn't responded to a request to discuss Eudy's tenure at Ketchum.Along with negotiating the MOU for the $57.8 million pipeline fund, Eudy was involved in other ACP issues. Some of these activities came to light in late December, when Cooper's office - responding to records requests from a number of media organizations - released 19,000 pages of documents related to the ACP. WRAL News put the documents into a searchable database.Before FERC would approve the ACP, the state of North Carolina had to devise aThe task wound up with the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which prepared a plan and transmitted a copy to FERC Jan. 12, 2018.Eudy - from the transcript of a February 2018 interview he gave to WRAL - tried to get back the signature page of the plan when he learned Natural and Cultural Resources had submitted the plan to FERC without his knowledge or consent.At 10:38 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, two days after the plan was sent to FERC, Cultural Resources Deputy Secretary Kevin Cherry emailed FERC's Kevin Bowman and David Swearingen:At 10:59, Bowman responded:At 10:59, Cherry wrote to Eudy:At 11:05, Cherry wrote to FERC's Bowman:At 1:35 p.m. Eudy emailed Cooper policy director Jenni Owens:Eudy then appeared to scold DEQ Secretary Michael Regan about another issue. At 1:37 p.m. Eudy to Regan:At 1:42, Eudy wrote Cooper legal counsel William McKinney:Twelve minutes later, Eudy wrote McKinney:Within days, records suggest a change of heart, as Eudy and others decided the agreement with FERC needed to go through.At 12:18 p.m. Jan. 18, Eudy emailed McKinney:Phil is Phillip Feagan, general counsel for DNCR.At 3:10 p.m., Cherry emailed FERC the signature page, consummating the programmatic agreement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Project.On Jan. 13, Charlotte's WBTV released investigative reports showing Eudy, legal counsel McKinney, and Cooper discussed withholding approval of the MOU until Duke Energy reached an agreement with solar company executives on an interpretation of House Bill 589 - Competitive Energy Solutions for North Carolina. Slate: Kavanaugh's " Expansive View of the 2A" Signals a "Constitutional Revolution" By Staff Writer. January 24, 2019 Article Original Naturally, the comedy far-left politics e-magazine Slate has taken interest in the first Second Amendment case SCOTUS has agreed to hear in a decade. The case challenges the city's prohibition on transporting licensed, locked and unloaded handguns outside the city, and the Court's decision could have far-reaching effects, as we discuss further here. Slate's take on this whole affair is eminently quotable comedic gold. Justice Brett Kavanaugh [is] a gun-rights enthusiast who takes a breathtakingly expansive view of the Second Amendment. What constitutes such a "breathtakingly expansive" view? Slate's Jurisprudence columnist Mark Joseph Stern explains: If Americans have a constitutional right to take their guns to and from a firing range of their choice, after all, why shouldn't they be allowed to transport them while traveling elsewhere? If the Constitution safeguards their ability to bring a firearm to and from their second home, why shouldn't it also protect their right to carry a gun while running errands or visiting friends? Notice how he calls the gun range your second home? Maybe those lefties aren't so out of touch, after all. Mind you, this whole line of reasoning refers to transporting a gun unlocked and unloaded, not carrying it on one's person - a distinction Stern repeatedly struggles with throughout his article. As icing on the cake, Stern describes the apocalypse that will befall us if this breathtakingly expansive view of the Second Amendment is honored: Once the Second Amendment is extended beyond the home, public-carry bans generally will be the next to fall. Lower courts, now packed with pro-gun Trump nominees, will swiftly tear down restrictions on concealed and open carry. A central premise of Heller/ and McDonald--that the Second Amendment protects handguns "in the home"--will be cast aside. New York State Rifle will be the first shot in a coming constitutional revolution. Let freedom ring. Excerpts from "The Supreme Court is Preparing to Make Every State's Gun Laws Look Like Texas'" via Slate The original article, from which some quotes were taken, comprises a mix of both seeming cynicism as well as observations towards potential excesses with rulings on Second Amendment matters in the future. There is certainly a possibility of more favorable judgements with Kavanaugh in the court as well as an increase in lower court Trump appointees but time will tell yet whether there will be some real changes for the better. Back to Top Some popular Democrats contend that large concentrations of wealth are, at best, unseemly and, at worst, absolutely immoral. From newly elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to possible presidential candidates, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, proposals to punish the rich through exorbitantly high marginal tax rates of 70 or 80 percent are commonplace. Most recently, Mayor de Blasio argued that while there is plenty of money in New York City, it is in the hands of the wrong people. The clear implication was that those who have accumulated large sums of wealth should not be allowed to keep it and that some form of coercive wealth transfer would be in order, presumably to move that money to de Blasio's chosen "right hands."In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal pushed back on de Blasio's remarks. In doing so, it pointed to the fact that some of wealthiest citizens of New York City - libertarian billionaire David Koch, Home Depot Founder Ken Langone, financier Richard Gilder, and investor Stanley Druckenmiller - have given many hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropic efforts to improve the lives of everyone living in de Blasio's kingdom.The problem with the Wall Street Journal's approach is that it misses a fundamental point and in doing so makes the wrong argument. The moral case for wealth cannot rest on how the wealthy use their money.For socialist-leaning Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, de Blasio, Bernie Sanders and others, high levels of income or wealth and large disparities in wealth distribution cannot be justified at all. From their egalitarian perspective, such disparities are, in and of themselves, immoral. From the Wall Street Journal's perspective, the morality of having large sums of wealth seems to rest on how it is used. The money is in the "right hands" if those who have it give a significant portion of it away for the "greater good." In other words, if these folks were not so generous with what they've earned, well, maybe de Blasio would be right.From a moral perspective, both the democratic socialists and the Wall Street Journal are wrong. It is not about how much one has, relative to others, or how the money is disposed of, but how it is obtained that determines the morality of wealth and income. If a person uses moral means to obtain his or her wealth (regardless of how much wealth that is) it is moral, i.e., in the "right hands." But if the means by which the wealth is obtained are immoral, then so is possession of that wealth, regardless of how it is used.So, the logical question is, if we are not going to use the level of wealth or its use as our standard of morality, but, instead, the means by which the wealth is obtained, then what determines the morality of means? If we are going to proclaim that any level of wealth that is obtained properly is moral, then we have to know what the definition of "proper" is.In a free society, income and wealth that is obtained through voluntary means, that is, without the use of force or fraud, is moral. If a person obtains his or her wealth through non-coercive methods, then no matter how much is earned or how it is used, the income is justified; it is ethical. On the other hand, if the wealth is obtained through force, threats of force, or fraud, i.e., through non-voluntary means, then it is immoral.For example, if a person produces a product or service that is highly valued by others in society and they become wealthy by voluntarily exchanging that product for money that others surrender freely to obtain it, then the wealth generated by that production is morally obtained and justified. This is true regardless of how much it is or how it is used after the fact. On the other hand, if a mob boss amasses a fortune by extorting local businesses and threatening violence against potential competitors, then all of the wealth obtained by these methods is immoral. And the fact that the mobster gave some large sums of money to build a hospital or playground doesn't make that wealth any more moral or even imply that it is in the "right hands." The right hands for that money would be the hands of the people who had it extorted or stolen from them, even if they wouldn't have done any of those "good" things with it.This framework also has policy implications. Wealth that is obtained by businesses or individuals through the coercive methods of the state, even if it was done using legal political processes, should also be viewed as morally suspect. In a free society, a businessperson that becomes wealthy by getting special subsidies from government or by using eminent domain to take property from owners unwilling to sell it or through regulations that keep potential competition out of the market are doing so through the use of immoral means. This is the wealth that we should view as being in the wrong hands. Governments should end existing opportunities for obtaining wealth through immoral methods, illegal or legal, and avoid opening up new opportunities for coercively transferring wealth in the future. At @SpeakerPelosi office asking for a meeting for Angel Families. She was too busy to meet with them. #AngelFamilies #AngelMoms pic.twitter.com/EMacVERuBu Julianne Thompson (@JEThompson) January 15, 2019 American families who have been impacted by crimes committed by illegal aliens storm Nancy Pelosi's office and demand that she "build the wall" pic.twitter.com/MXbOZsxVOH Kambree Kawahine Koa (@KamVTV) January 16, 2019 Families who have been impacted by crimes committed by illegal aliens stormed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office on Tuesday, demanding that the California Democrat "build the wall."Pelosi reportedly refused to meet with the families, who have lost family members to illegal aliens, which comes as Democrats have refused to work with the Trump administration to provide national security funding to secure the southern border.The families gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol Building with Reps. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Women for Trump, and others to "put faces to the statistics of Americans killed or injured due to illegal aliens and the drugs that flow in the U.S. at the southern border."After the gathering, the families went to Pelosi's office where they chanted "build the wall."WATCH:American families who have been impacted by crimes committed by illegal aliens storm Nancy Pelosi's office and demand that she "build the wall"This is the second incident Pelosi has had to deal with this week as right-wing activist Laura Loomer brought a group of alleged illegal aliens to Pelosi's home in California on Monday.Loomer said, adding:Loomer continued.The Daily Wire reported last week on the wall that Pelosi, who believes that walls are "immoral," has surrounding her home in California:According to The Washington Post, the estate was worth around $5 million in 2011, and brought in "at least $5,000 worth of grape sales from the vineyard, according to financial disclosure forms for 2010." (Nancy and Paul Pelosi, by the way, are estimated to be worth somewhere between $58.7 and $72.1 million.)An ad from the pro-Trump group America First Policies this week highlighted Mary Ann Mendoza, whose son Brandon was killed when he was hit by an illegal alien who was driving intoxicated.Mendoza said." Mendoza continued.On Tuesday, Mendoza said while in Washington, D.C., with U.S. lawmakers:to be affected by illegal alien crime, it's when you are going to be affected."The Daily Wire reported on Tuesday. Wake County Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway in August 2018. (CJ photo by Dan Way) Tuesday, Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway rejected Harris' petition to force the State Board of Elections to certify him the winner of the hotly disputed 9th U.S. Congressional District election.In an order he read from the bench, Ridgeway questioned the need for such drastic action by a court when a separate agency - the State Board of Elections - has the legal authority to certify Harris or not.Ridgeway asked.The elections board's structure was ruled unconstitutional in October by a state court, but the General Assembly created a new board which will open for business Jan. 31. That board, Ridgeway said, would have the complete investigatory record, which he doesn't have. The new board would have statutory authority to issue an election certification, and either side would have the right to appeal its decision.he sought, Ridgeway said in his ruling.Harris attorney David Freeman said he still expects the Baptist preacher to be seated. The Harris team may appeal the decision. Harris is under doctor's care for an infection and wasn't in court.Aaron Simpson, spokesman for Democratic runner-up Dan McCready, said the ruling ensures an investigation and evidentiary hearing will continue. At issue is whether Harris won because of alleged election improprieties, or if the process was so tainted a new election should be ordered. McCready was not at the hearing.During arguments, Harris' attorneys said there's a need to certify the candidate quickly. Ninth District constituents are not represented in Washington, the U.S. House of Representatives is making important committee assignments, there is no public evidence enough votes are in dispute to change the election outcome, and there's no elections board to decide the dispute.Harris asked Ridgeway to order the elections board staff, which continues to work, to certify the results showing Harris won by 905 votes.Harris' lawyers contended this case paralleled earlier decisions by judges who forced state agencies to fulfill their duties. Ridgeway rejected arguments the criteria were met.This case is tangled up in the second round of lengthy Cooper v. Berger lawsuits in which Gov. Roy Cooper sued the General Assembly for altering the makeup of the state elections board.A three-judge Superior Court panel ruled in October the state elections board was unconstitutional. It ordered the board disbanded, but granted several stays of the ruling to allow the Nov. 6 election to be held uninterrupted, and for the congressional election investigation to be completed.But the judicial panel surprisingly dissolved the board in December. It reprimanded former board chairman Joshua Malcolm for refusing to meet court deadlines to finish its work.Harris attorney Alex Dale said there is no guarantee a new elections board will move quickly, further delaying a new representative from taking office.Dale also argued that the board never formally protested certifying the election, a requirement to extend deadlines. There were no protests from McCready or any voters, and all county boards of elections in the 9th District certified their results.Ridgeway agreed with McCready attorney Marc Elias, who said the elections board voted twice on Malcolm's motion not to certify the election. Those votes met the legal standard for a protest.Elias said the elections board has sweeping powers to ensure there is no taint, fraud, corruption, or irregularities in an election. It can take its time to get the decision right, even if doing so delays certifying a candidate.Amar Majmundar, senior deputy attorney general representing the elections board, said the investigation may unearth evidence which could lead to federal prosecution. No one is sure who won, he said. While admitting he doesn't know what's in the investigatory record, he said he's confident evidence will show Harris' 905-vote lead is in question.After the hearing Harris attorney David Freeman said Harris will continue to cooperate with the investigation, and didn't oppose the probe continuing alongside his quest for certification.The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives has final say on seating members, and authority to order a new election. Freeman said if a full and fair hearing is held, Harris will be certified."We do know that election fraud took place, we do know that by some accounts it was substantial, and that's worth looking into," McCready spokesman Aaron Simpson said."Election fraud is an attack on our democracy," Simpson said. "If election fraud took place, that's not a Democratic issue. It's not a Republican issue. That is an American issue, and those responsible need to be brought to justice."In a statement after Ridgeway's decision, N.C. GOP Chairman Robin Hayes said he was confident Harris would prevail. "Nothing about today's court hearing changes the fact that Congressman-Elect Dr. Mark Harris won the election. He received more legal votes and no public evidence has shown the outcome is in doubt." Whiskey on ice: Above. photo by Stan Deatherage Click image to expand. In 1908, North Carolina voters passed statewide prohibition in 1908, making North Carolina the first Southern state to institute prohibition. The 18th Amendment didn't usher in Prohibition nationwide until 1919.After the 21st Amendment was ratified (without North Carolina's help) in 1933 to abolish Prohibition, North Carolina sought to maintain tight government control over liquor sales. The Alcohol Beverage Control Act of 1937 was based on the notion that government control would be better than private retailers enticing patrons to consume more and more. Its passage officially ended Prohibition in North Carolina and established North Carolina as a control state (one of just 17 in the nation) - but the only state with local government control of retail sales.The state determines which liquor products from which distilleries may be sold at which prices, owns the central liquor warehouse, and contracts out the management of the warehouse, but local government boards own and operate the only stores where retail sales of liquor are allowed by law. As of this writing, 168 local ABC boards are operating 430 stores across North Carolina.North Carolina may have gotten into controlling liquor out of concern for moral turpitude or the evils of demon rum, but a monopoly gets to charge monopoly prices. This unintended consequence has created tension between the founding rationale for the ABC system and the one they'd like for it to be.Liquor sales are big business for the state of North Carolina, after all. It's another indication of changing preferences here regarding alcohol over the 72 years since the ABC system was established and ABC sales were exclusively for home consumption. The Brown-Bagging Act of 1967 let people bring their own liquor to social venues such as private clubs and restaurants. Liquor-by-the-drink legislation was passed in 1978 after several years of attempts. The "Brunch Bill" of 2017 let localities approve retailers and restaurants selling alcohol beginning at 10 a.m. (brunch) on Sundays instead of after noon (once churches let out).North Carolinians can now get mixed drinks in restaurants, bars, taverns, and other privately run enterprises. Beer and wine are available in grocery stores, convenience marts, specialty shops, restaurants, taverns, bars, etc., and at competitive prices. North Carolina has a growing number of wineries, is seeing a flourishing of craft breweries, and is now enjoying the return of its distillery industry.In 2008, the Program Evaluation Division (PED) of the North Carolina General Assembly issued a report on modernizing the ABC system. Many of its recommendations were aimed at increasing system profits. The report focused on the profitability of local ABC boards and identified reasons why some had low profit margins, while many other boards enjoyed profit margins in excess of 10 percent. Reasons identified included: declining population, too many local boards with too many stores nearby, and the system's origin rooted in control and regulation of alcoholic beverages rather than being able to mandate the boards meet performance and profitability standards.Even though North Carolinians' tastes and preferences were changing, the PED report found the control rationale of the system's origin still held. North Carolina's ABC laws, as written, implied that local boards' "mission is to control the sale of liquor" while "no statue or rule identified revenue generation as a mission for local boards." For their part, the boards tended to rank controlling access to alcohol sales as their top purpose.PED found that the system's least profitable boards (margins of 2 percent or less) resisted the idea of closing stores because they considered they were providing a service to their communities. One board even told PED that "too much emphasis was placed on profitability."The report chided them: "Focusing on providing a service to the community allows unprofitable boards to justify inefficient operations and maintain stores in unprofitable locations."In 2017, the ABC Commission reported a systemwide profit margin of 11.2 percent. That's a very large margin for such a business. In license states, where private enterprises compete, profit margins are a lot tighter. After all, a high profit margin for a business in an area means someone else can open a competing business nearby and also profit.In 2017, the profit margin of private beer, wine, and liquor stores hovered around 2.4 percent. Meanwhile, in North Carolina, only 19 of the 428 government-controlled liquor stores fell below that 2.4 percent profit margin seen in a competitive market.The ABC Commission's preliminary annual report for 2018 boasted of its "3rd consecutive record-setting year for ten-digit sales" and "all-time high transfer of monies into the General Fund." They even credited themselves with "stimulating the state economy," which is nonsense.But with its control rationale so clearly outdated, the ABC system would try to use its government monopoly status to pivot toward government revenue generation. The fact remains the ABC Commission was not set up as an economic development engine, but to control alcohol sales.And private enterprise is still not a suitable role for government. A 60-year-old Omaha man has been accused in a four-count federal indictment of stalking a woman and sending explosives to her in the mail. A grand jury in Nebraska says Aug. 30, Craig Niedbalski sent an incomplete, improvised explosive device to the woman's address with intent to kill, injure or intimidate her and her family and to damage or destroy her home. It was connected by a wire and tape to a mobile phone with a message on the package with a phone number to call "FOR OPENING INSTRUCTIONS." According to the indictment unsealed Friday, in 2003, Niedbalski had sent another package to the woman through the mail, containing what appeared to be a pipe bomb. The document outlined a number of postcards and letters he sent the woman since 1999 containing escalating threats to put antifreeze in her family's drinks, to "take out" her children and to kill her family and frame her. Now, Niedbalski is accused of transporting an explosive, making a threat with an explosive, transporting explosive material without a license and stalking. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 2 Sad 0 Angry 0 Stranded Sea Turtle Dies In Spite of Rescue - N. Oregon Coast, Rockaway Beach Published 01/25/2019 at 6:53 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Rockaway Beach, Oregon) Seaside Aquarium crews were called to help rescue a stranded sea turtle in Rockaway Beach on Thursday morning, but Friday the sad news came the turtle did not make it. (Photos courtesy Tiffany Boothe, Seaside Aquarium). Strandings of these creatures become more regular this time of year on the Oregon coast. At 9 am, we received a call of a sea turtle found at Rockaway Beach, said the aquariums Tiffany Boothe. The turtle is a male Olive Ridley sea turtle that was barely moving due to the cold. Staff at the Seaside Aquarium were able to get it off the beach to begin warming it up. Only two places in the region can deal with the rehabilitation of rescued sea creatures: Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport and Seattle Aquarium. This one was sent to Seattle for help, and Seaside staff were hopeful for its survival and eventual release back into the wild. Then the aquarium found out the news today, the morning after the rescue. Unfortunately, despite everyone's best efforts the sea turtle did not make it, Boothe said. We would like to take the time to thank everyone for their well wishes and a special thanks to both the Seattle Aquarium and the Oregon Coast Aquarium for all of their hard work and efforts in rehabbing sea turtles found on Oregon and Washington beaches. Another thank you to Don Best for his quick reporting of the stranded turtle. The Olive Ridley sea turtle known as Lepidochelys olivacea is named for the green color of its shell, which is heart-shaped. It is one of the smallest species of sea turtle. Experts say ocean conditions are causing these creatures to strand because of currents that trap them in the wrong temperature. The turtles may be following warm water, but those currents are surrounded by cold water. According to Jim Burke of Oregon Coast Aquarium, this puts them in a difficult situation. Once the warm water dissipates, they become hypothermic and go into a hibernation-like state, called brumation, and they can no longer navigate or survive, Burke said. Burke said reptiles can slow their metabolism, which allows a window of time when they can be rescued, rehabilitated and successfully released. Strong south, southwesterly winds drive warm currents further north; sea turtles often follow these warm water currents and when they dissipate the sea turtle finds itself in water that is too cold for them, Boothe said. They get hypothermic and end up on the beach. The quicker these turtles are found and taken off the beach the better their chances are. In the next few weeks, people walking the beaches of the Oregon and Washington coast should keep a look out for these guys. All species of sea turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act. These turtles natural habitat has a temperature of about 70-85 degrees, but these poor critters wound up in water that was less than 50 degrees. Oregon Coast Lodgings in this area - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours Other Olive Ridley rescues from the past, courtesy Seaside Aquarium More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted The second suspect shot by Arizona Department of Public Safety officers Wednesday on West Topeka Avenue died from his wounds late Thursday night, family reported. DPS later released further information on the topic. Preston Oszust, 20, died at 10 p.m. Thursday night in the Flagstaff Medical Center, according to Jennifer Timmons, who said she helped raise Oszust like a mother. Marcus Gishal, 20, was also shot by officers on Wednesday night and was pronounced dead by DPS at the scene. The shooting erupted after the two men fled a traffic stop initiated by DPS officers at a Maverik gas station on the Historic Route 66, DPS reports. Once the two suspects were found, DPS alleges that Gishal shot at officers first, leading to the four officers shooting at the two now-deceased suspects. Timmons said that Oszust and his friend had hard lives, but were not bad people. "They were the sweetest young men you could imagine ever meeting," Timmons said. "They were the kind of people that went out of their way for everyone and lifted everyone up." Timmons said she had taken Oszust into her home when he was 14 years old. Timmons' oldest son asked her to adopt Oszust into their family. This astronomical event has heavy cultural implications as well. In Northern Arizona, there are many traditional elders from various tribes that reside here and practice their culture. A local Navajo woman, who asked to remain unidentified, elaborated on how significant this event is for the Navajo people. She explained that participating in the lunar eclipse depends on how Navajo people were culturally raised, and ranges on a spectrum of people not practicing their heritage to people implementing every tradition. She clarified that the beliefs of the Navajo tribe, just like other tribes, are dense with information and stories. She said that each family has their own version of the traditional stories, but the ultimate message is the same. During the lunar eclipse, the moon is becoming the young maiden, and is returning to their homeland. It initiates the process of creating spiritual equilibrium with all living beings, including plants, animals and people. Its a renewal of life and a chance for rebirth for everyone and everything, she said. The United States National Forest Service has enacted an official closure of parts of the Coconino National Forest to assist with the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project helicopter thinning on Friday. The closure could last into summer and close the Dry Lake Hills area and part of Mount Elden east of the Mount Elden Lookout and west of Schultz Pass Road. While the National Forest Service is still shutdown with a fix expected to open the temporarily government on Monday they sent out the release Friday about the closures. The agency was unable to respond to comments. Paul Summerfelt, city manager for the Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project, said that the helicopter operators hope to be done in three to five months, but also said it could be longer. Summerfelt explained that the hazy schedule is due to the sensitive operation. For example, if the winds get over 20 mph, the logs hanging beneath the helicopter could become dangerous for the pilot and forest below. "Thats one of the reasons that it's so important that people stay clear of that area so that they're not in danger, so that the operator is not (in danger)," Summerfelt said. "There's a lot of things going on." Yet he said the technical challenges to an air mobility solution to this problem revolve around assurances of safety. He asked attendees to imagine an air traffic control system that suddenly instead of having a few thousand things in the air has, say, 10 million things in the air. What are the requirements to make that safe? he asked. We probably wont have a human being talking to a human being in that scenario. But theres going to be some decisions where the consequences are just so dire where we want to have a human being in the loop. He said certifying flight controls managed by artificial intelligence as safe is a very difficult technical problem. Our industry still begins and ends with public safety, said Hyslop. We have a responsibility to get into this. It will be a walk, crawl, run approach. Tuesdays test was just the first little hop into the air. Speaking Wednesday morning on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Boeing Chairman Dennis Muilenburg said the air taxi revolution is happening now and its going to accelerate over the next five years and ramp up even more beyond that. SAN FRANCISCO Falcon Studios Group and NakedSword Originals were honored at the GayVN Awards, Monday, January 21, 2019 with five wins in major categories. The GayVN Awards, held at The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, were attended by models, directors, and executives from Falcon Studios Group and NakedSword Network. Returning for the second consecutive year after a seven-year hiatus, the GayVN Awards were hosted by Shangela and Alec Mapa, and featured musical acts Danity Kane and Brooke Candy. Falcon Studios Exclusive Alam Wernik won the Best Newcomer award for his work in his first year in the industry. The on-location, all sex movie Love & Lust in New Orleans from Falcon Studios garnered wins for director team Tony Dimarco and Chi Chi Larue in the Best Director Non-Feature category. In the ongoing tradition of acting awards won by performers in Falcon Studios Group and NakedSword Original features, Wesley Woods scored the Best Actor GayVN for his performance in Falcons Zack and Jack Make a Porno, bringing fellow nominee for the same project and Falcon Exclusive Woody Fox on stage to share the spotlight. Additionally, Bruce Beckham took home the Best Supporting Actor GayVN trophy for his work in NakedSword Originals The Slutty Professor. The Slutty Professor took home another win for the trio of Ace Era, Tyler Roberts, and Dave Slick with the trophy for Best Three-Way Sex Scene. Tyler Roberts and mr. Pam accepted the awards and provided a touching tribute to the departed Slick in their on-stage comments.. We are very proud of the recognition that weve received from the GayVN Awards, and the entire Falcon Studios Group and NakedSword Originals family would like to thank the GayVNs and all the fans who celebrate us, said Falcon Studios and NakedSword President, Tim Valenti. We have such an amazing pool of talented directors, performers and staff without whom none of this would be possible, and I cant tell them or anyone enough how much I appreciate their dedication and commitment to all of our projects. AUBURN Several people were honored for making their mark on the community at the 20th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Millennium Awards Luncheon in Auburn Friday. Robert Ellison, Deacon Shavonn Lynch, Kasha Fletcher, Brian Muldrow and Deacon Nicholas Valvo were honored at an event hosted by the Auburn/Cayuga branch of the NAACP. Former branch president and Auburn businesswoman and activist Gwen Webber-McLeod was also inducted into the branch's hall of fame. Current branch president Eli Hernandez said each person was being recognized for their "unwavering commitment to our community" and their efforts in pursuing equality for all. "I cherish you, and I adore you," NAACP member Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson said while introducing Webber-McLeod. "You are a mentor to many in this community and serve as a role model in central New York to women who are in leadership positions. I'm telling you, your legacy is built. You are walking in it. Thank you so much for being who you are." The crowd responded with a standing ovation. Webber-McLeod, noting that Overstreet-Wilson's words nearly made her cry, said she was honored to be recognized by the community. Save the Children and other aid agencies on Saturday appealed to Italy to allow minors rescued in the Mediterranean to land, amid the latest diplomatic row over the fate of migrants saved at sea. "These young people have already suffered enough violence and abuse during their journey to Italy and are particularly vulnerable," Raffaela Milano, the director of the Italian arm of Save the Children, said in a statement. She called for an "immediate" response to the call by Catania prosecutors to allow the minors on board the Dutch-flagged rescue ship Sea Watch 3, currently sheltering from bad weather off Sicily, to be disembarked. The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), its children's agency (UNICEF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) also called for an "urgent" solution for the minors and other migrants, saying the situation was "critical". But far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini repeated his refusal to take in the migrants, and claimed the 13 unaccompanied minors were nearly 18 years old and not children. "I will not change my mind. Italy's ports are closed and will remain closed to people traffickers and their accomplices," he said. Salvini has insisted Germany or the Netherlands take responsibility for the 47 mainly sub-Saharan African migrants, who were rescued off Libya by the German NGO Sea Watch a week ago. "If the Netherlands' government is not able to control the ships that sail under its flag, it should take it off them!" he said. Dutch Migration Minister Mark Harbers said his country "was not obligated" to find a solution, telling Italy's Corriere della Sera daily that the Sea Watch 3 had acted "of its own initiative". "It is up to the captain to find a safe port for the 47 migrants he saved," he said, adding that the Dutch government would "not participate in an ad hoc solution". - 'Every minute counts' "For three days we have faced storms, strong winds and heavy rain," a doctor on board told ANSA news agency. The migrants "are wet because there is not enough room under cover. They have no room to rest," she said, adding that many of them had scars from violence inflicted on them in Libya. The mayor of Syracuse, Francesco Italia, has said he would welcome those rescued and some inhabitants in the Sicilian coastal city on Saturday hung white sheets from their balconies, with the message "let them disembark". Dozens of residents gathered for a sit-in on the beach, where the ship could be seen just over a mile out. Sea Watch called for "an end to this odyssey" and cited a 16-year-old Guinean onboard who left home two years ago to find work to support his family after his father died, and who said he was forced in Libya to work at gunpoint for no pay. "They killed one of my friends in front of me. He was killed because one morning he couldn't get up to go to work," he said. Milano warned that "every extra minute spent on the ship... is likely to leave indelible marks that these youngsters will carry with them for the rest of their lives". Migrants rescued by ships have frequently been left in limbo since Italy's anti-immigration government began turning them away last summer. Since coming to power last year, Italy has been demanding greater solidarity from reluctant fellow EU states. But EU members have failed to agree on a permanent mechanism to relocate migrants who reach Europe's shores, even though arrivals have dropped sharply since a peak more than three years ago. Migrants onboard the Dutch-flagged rescue ship Sea Watch 3 watch an Italian coast guard vessel EU members have failed to agree on a permanent mechanism to relocate migrants who reach Europe's shores The 47 mainly sub-Saharan African migrants were rescued off Libya by the German NGO Sea Watch a week ago Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been slammed online for his decision to tighten up the the dress code during Australia Day citizenship ceremonies. Earlier this month the government announced all citizenship ceremonies must be performed on January 26 while recipients were banned from wearing board shorts, thongs and singlets as Morrison urged people to wear formal attire. Yet the decision has been met with considerable disdain online, many slamming the Prime Minister for his un-Australian requirement. Scott Morrisons decision has been met with a wave of criticism. Source: AAP This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Australians are the scruffiest of peoples, it is a core element of our culture as it promotes egalitarianism, one man wrote on Twitter. We are all equal in boardies and thongs, an imposed dress code is un-Australian. Social media users couldnt help but point out the irony of the decision to be rolled out next year. New rules for citizenship ceremonies: It must be on Australia Day but you cant dress as Australians dress, one user pointed out. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. City of Greater Geraldton mayor Shane Van Styn took particular offence to the decision and told the government to bugger off. He revealed he has signed in numerous new Australians in a variety of clothing and believes the now banned items are a quintessential part of being an Aussie. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The idea theyd prevent local governments from naturalising Australians because some bloke wanted to wear boardies and thongs on Australia Day blows my mind, he told Perth Now. He has since started a petition to have the decision overturned. City of Greater Geraldton mayor Shane Van Styn took particular offence to the decision. Source: Change.org Mr Morrison has since defended his decision, saying Australian Day citizenship ceremonies needed to be respected. If youre getting your citizenship on that day, by all means put the boardies and the thongs on after for the barbecue, he told Sunrise. Show the respect for the ceremony and the very serious thing youre engaging in. A Hawaiian Airlines plane had to be diverted after a male flight attendant died of an apparent heart attack onboard, officials said on Friday. The flight from Honolulu to New York City landed in San Francisco Thursday night after a crew member had a suspected heart attack, San Francisco airport spokesman Doug Yakel said. Medical personnel attempted CPR during the flight but suspended those efforts prior to landing. The San Mateo County coroner declared the crew member dead on arrival, Mr Yakel said. Hawaiian Airlines spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said deceased employee Emile Griffith had been with the company for 31 years. A Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu to New York City was diverted to San Francisco after a flight attendant died of an apparent heart attack onboard. Source: Getty, file. Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests, Ms Botticelli said in a statement. The airline has made counselling available for Mr Griffiths colleagues, she said. Flight 50 plane was carrying 253 passengers and 12 crew members when it departed Honolulu on Thursday. The passengers who landed in San Francisco five hours after takeoff were put on other flights, Mr Yakel said. Andrea Bartz, who was on the flight to John F. Kennedy Airport, said on Twitter that the crew made an announcement asking for a doctor to go to first class and help with a medical emergency. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. Stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo7s daily newsletter. Sign up here. As the world prepares to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday, Hungarian Jews find themselves divided in a bitter dispute over the long-delayed opening of a new Holocaust museum in Budapest. The "House of Fates" complex, located on the run-down fringe of the city centre, is fronted by two 15-metre (49-foot) high towers of stacked cattle wagons connected by a giant, floodlit metal bridge in the shape of the Jewish Star of David. The 24-million-euro ($27 million) revamp of the sprawling site, a former railway station where Jews were deported to Nazi German death camps, was largely finished by 2015. But it has remained shuttered ever since, its exhibition space empty save for furniture in dusty bubble wrap, amid wrangles over its concept, suspicions from many Jews of official attempts to whitewash history, and political connections in its development. Some 600,000 Hungarian Jews perished during the Holocaust, most of them deported in the space of a few months in 1944 with the assistance of the Hungarian authorities. Last September the government suddenly announced that it was handing ownership of the museum to EMIH (the United Hungarian Jewish Congregation). The group, affiliated with the international orthodox Chabad movement, was also tasked with finalising the exhibition with a historian, Maria Schmidt, who is close to Hungary's nationalist-conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "A Holocaust museum should grab attention and stir emotion, and provide moral direction, not just information," Slomo Koves, chief rabbi of EMIH, told AFP last week. Koves says the museum -- not likely to open before next year -- will focus on personal stories of young people and aims to draw more than 100,000 high school students annually. "Kids these days are ignorant about the Holocaust, even Jewish kids, they need to be shaken out of their apathy," said Koves, 39, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors. ? 'Not credible' - But the largest and longest-established Jewish organisation Mazsihisz worries that EMIH lacks the necessary expertise and that Schmidt has a reputation for glossing over the Holocaust. "She is not considered by experts as credible, no one knows what the museum's historical message will be," Mazsihisz leader Andras Heisler told AFP. Schmidt's previous concept for the House of Fates covered just the years between 1938 and 1948, omitting rising anti-Semitism and the introduction of the first anti-Jewish law in post-World War I Europe under Hungary's interwar leader Miklos Horthy. Mazsihisz and international academics -- including from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem -- resigned from an advisory board over the distorted concept, leading to the deadlock. Orban's government vehemently insists on its good faith towards the Jewish community, which at around 100,000 is the largest in central Europe. It introduced Holocaust education in schools, has supported another Holocaust museum in Budapest, and the renovation of several synagogues. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also lauded Orban for his proclamation of "zero tolerance" of anti-Semitism. - 'Double game' - But many Jews regard Orban's track record on Jewish issues as chequered. An official memorial erected in 2014 that portrayed Hungary as an innocent victim of Nazi Germany incensed many Holocaust survivors. At a ceremony last week at the Grand Synagogue in Budapest -- Europe's largest -- to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Budapest ghetto in 1945, some in the audience were unimpressed by a speech from a government official. "He talked about Jewish-Christian European culture but outside a synagogue the government only ever speaks about Christian culture," Eva, 85, a Holocaust survivor, told AFP. Still others have accused the government of exploiting anti-Semitic tropes in its ferocious propaganda campaign against George Soros, the US-Hungarian billionaire of Jewish descent, whom Orban accuses of fomenting migration flows to Europe. Last November, on the same day as the government announced funding for an anti-Semitism watchdog to be run by EMIH, a magazine owned by Schmidt depicted Jewish leader Andras Heisler surrounded by swirling banknotes. Orban plays a "double game" with the Jewish community, according to historian and author Krisztian Ungvary. "He is a populist trying to maximise votes, and that leads to sending signals toward the extreme right," Ungvary told AFP. As for the row over the museum, Ungvary says: "It would have been better to improve the existing albeit poorly run and designed Holocaust museum, the city does not need two". Koves insisted to AFP that the House of Fates exhibition is being reworked with international experts involved, and that it will tell the full story of the Holocaust. "Usually it is better to try work with the powers-that-be and make progress rather than protest and get nowhere," he said. The new holocaust museum 'House of Fates' in Budapest has not opened due to wrangles over its concept and depiction of Holocaust history 'House of Fates' Holocaust museum is housed in what was the former 'Jozsefvarosi' railway station in Budapest where Jews were deported to Nazi German death camps Hungarian and international academics, including from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, resigned from an advisory board over the distorted concept for the Budapest site The Jewish community in Hungary is around 100,000, the largest in central Europe. Thousands of "yellow vest" protesters returned to the streets of France Saturday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron's policies, clashing with police in several cities in a challenge to his bid to quell the movement. Police fired tear gas and water cannon to push back protesters at Place de la Bastille in Paris, one of the regular protest areas, as some demonstrators threw stones from a building site. The local prefecture reported 223 arrests in Paris, while the interior ministry estimated numbers for the 11th week of protests were at 69,000 across France, compared with 84,000 last Saturday. The demonstrations erupted in mid-November over Macron's economic reforms, but have since grown into a wider rallies calling for the resignation of the former investment banker who critics say is out of touch with the economic struggles of ordinary French people. In Paris and other cities, the yellow vest movement had called for the protests to continue into the night. But police quickly dispersed several hundred protesters in the capital's symbolic Republique square, using stun grenades as well as tear gas and water cannon to clear the area, AFP journalists said. Clashes erupted too in Nantes in western France and in the southern city of Montpellier, where a police officer was injured by "a pyrotechnic device", said a statement from the local prefecture. In Paris, the official count was 4,000 demonstrators against 7,000 the previous weekend. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Twitter criticised "rioters disguised as yellow vest protesters" after Saturday's clashes. - 'Keep the pressure on' - The weekend's protests against Macron's tax and social policies came as divisions appeared among the yellow vests -- named after the high-visibility vests they wear -- as to where to take the movement. In a new political development, a 31-year-old nurse named Ingrid Levavasseur said this week she would lead a yellow vest list of candidates for the European elections in May. An initial survey in the wake of the announcement suggested they would garner a respectable 13 percent of the vote. But not every protester appeared to welcome this development. "There is a hard core that is ready to keep fighting," said 42-year-old Gilbert Claro from the Paris suburbs. But the movement "is not meant to be political", he added. "We have to keep the pressure on in the streets," to get their demands accepted, said Virginie, an activist in her 40s who said she had been involved in the protests from the beginning. She and many other protesters want a citizen-sponsored referendum so ordinary people can have more of a say in government policy. This idea has been consistently rejected by the government, although Macron made some concessions last December in a bid to end the protests. Recent opinion polls suggest that he has regained some of the ground lost during the crisis, as he has presented his case in a series of town hall events around the country. The "great national debate" he initiated in response to the protests has nevertheless been dismissed as a public relations operation by many yellow vest protesters. The debate is a "masquerade", said Mathieu Styrna, a 36-year-old carpenter from northern France in Paris for the protests. His impression, he said, was that the participants had been selected. - Night protests - Outside Paris, several thousand protesters were marching in Bordeaux and Toulouse in the southwest -- two of the cities where support for the movement has been consistently strong. In Bordeaux, police broke up small groups of protesters tossing fireworks and bottles as night fell. In the Mediterranean port city of Marseille, members of the CGT union joined the protests and about a thousand protesters turned out in the eastern city of Lyon. For the first time on Saturday, riot police used controversial defence ball launchers (LBDs) that shoot 40-millimetre (1.6-inch) rubber and foam rounds were equipped with cameras. A French court on Friday refused a bid brought by France's League for Human Rights (LDH) and the CGT to ban the weapons, blamed for serious injuries suffered by some demonstrators. The police authority in Paris announced the introduction of cameras in a move for greater transparency. On Sunday, supporters of the government will stage their first "red scarf" protest to represent what they say is "the silent majority" defending "democracy and its institutions" and denouncing the violence of the yellow vests protests. Two-thirds of people questioned in a IFOP-Journal du Dimanche survey published Sunday said they thought the demonstrations had not succeeded in changing how Macron was governing France. burs-emd-sha-npk-ito-asl/jj/pma/jh/kaf/qan The interior ministry estimated numbers for the 11th week of protests were at 69,000 across France, compared to 84,000 last Saturday 'Yellow vests = World revolution against finance!' There were clashes during the protests at Place de la Bastille in Paris Jerome Rodrigues, one of the leaders of the yellow vest movement is evacuated after getting injured in the eye during clashes between protesters and riot police on the sideline of Saturday's protests in Paris Outside Paris, several thousand protesters were marching in Bordeaux and Toulouse in the southwest, two of the cities where support for the movement has been consistently strong The yellow vest protest have led to repeated clashes between police and protesters The Syrian government on Saturday condemned Turkey's military presence in northern Syria as a violation of a 1998 protocol between the two countries. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the Adana Protocol gives his country the right to intervene militarily in the neighbouring country. Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies control part of northern Syria, and Ankara has repeatedly threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters on its southern border. On Saturday, the foreign ministry in Damascus accused Ankara of repeatedly breaching the Adana deal throughout Syria's eight-year war. "Since 2011, the Turkish regime has violated and continues to violate this agreement," a ministry source said, quoted by state news agency SANA. The source accused Turkey of "supporting terrorists", using the regime's usual term for both jihadists and rebels. It said Ankara was breaching the deal through "occupying Syrian territory via terrorist organisations linked to it or directly via Turkish military forces". Rebel backer Turkey has twice led incursions into northern Syria in 2016 and 2018, since when its forces and allied Syrian proxies have controlled a patch of territory on the border. Ankara has repeatedly threatened to march on areas further east, where Kurdish fighters it views as "terrorists" have led the US-backed battle against the Islamic State jihadist group. Washington last month said it would pull all its troops from the war-torn country, leaving the Kurds scrambling to find a new ally in Damascus to avoid a Turkish assault. On Friday, Erdogan said Turkey expected a "security zone" to be created in Syria in a few months. Turkey accuses the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) which have led the fight against IS of being an extension of its outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The Adana deal was signed in 1998 to end a crisis between the neighbours, sparked by the then presence in Syria of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and bases run by the group. Turkey argues the protocol provides Ankara with the legal ground to intervene in Syria against the PKK and its affiliates, because of the Syrian regime's failure to act against the group. Damascus has regained control of almost two-thirds of the country after significant Russia-backed victories against rebels and jihadists since 2015, and hopes to see all areas of the country revert to its rule. Syria's war has killed 360,000 people and spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers since starting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests. Turkish-backed Syrian rebels participate in a training exercise using an armoured vehicle provided by the Turkish army near Tal Hajar in Aleppo's province, a few kilometres from areas controlled by a Kurdish-led coalition Woburn, MA (01801) Today Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Happy Australia Day. It may seem like an insignificant greeting uttered over and over again on January 26 but for Indigenous activists it embodies everything thats wrong with Australia Day. Indigenous leaders and activists have spoken out once again as they look to change the way January 26 is celebrated. They were joined by tens of thousands of people who took to city streets across the country to fight the celebration of Australia Day. Prominent figure for Aboriginal culture, heritage and awareness, Kado Muir revealed to News Corp the phrase Happy Australia Day is an ignorant gesture that belittles each of us. The annual Australia Day debate brings sadness to my heart this issue is extremely divisive and sensitive to all Australians, he said. I know White Australia is guilty and fragile. I know Black Australia is broken and angry. There is growing support for Australia to ditch its January 26 celebrations. Source: AAP My contribution to the Australia Day debate is to call for each of us to rise above these base destructive emotions and focus on what unites us. A belligerent us and them debate demeans us all. Melbourne CBD march leads to standstill Melbournes CBD was brought to a standstill as thousands of invasion day protesters marched through the city. January 26 is a day of hurt, not celebration, for Aboriginal people because of the lasting and devastating impacts of colonisation, speakers told the crowd. The rally started with a minutes silence and speeches railing against Aboriginal deaths in custody, a spate of Aboriginal child suicides, calls for the abolition of public drunkenness laws and ending children being taken from family care. Thousands of protestors descended on Melbournes CBD. Source: AAP We lost five young ones in the last couple of weeks to suicide and the world has been silent, Wurundjeri elder Di Kerr told the rally in front of parliament house. People out there from the stolen generations are dying and theyre not being heard. In what was a mostly peaceful protest, the crowd did have to start their march at the top of Bourke Street by pushing through a police line. Story continues As the group started marching, uniformed officers linked arms and formed a line. Let us through, let us through, the crowd shouted, the officers shortly making way for the march. Outside Flinders Street station was brought to a standstill as thousands lined Melbournes streets. Source: AAP The crowd began to swell as it marched down Bourke Street and along Swanston Street, following on from the official Australia Day parade, and stopped for a sit-in outside Flinders Street station. Far-right nationalists had attempted to hold a counter rally at Federation Square, but mustered only a handful of people draped in Australian flags. Two men stood on the steps of Flinders Street Station holding a giant Australian flag and briefly clashed with invasion day protesters. One of the flagged men was dragged to the ground before being frog-marched off by police, with another couple also moved on by police shortly after. The rally followed a dawn service at Kings Domain where the bodies of 38 Victorian first nations people are buried on Saturday morning, attended by about 600 people. It was quite an emotional ceremony and there were people from all parts of our society, all nationalities and people were heartfelt in terms of sharing what we call this day and that is a day of mourning, Gunnai-Kurnai and Gunditjmara woman and former Northcote MP Lidia Thorpe told AAP. Thousands more march through Sydney Thousands more marched in Sydney arguing the term invasion day better describes what happened in 1788 and the suffering that Indigenous Australians have experienced since. Aboriginal people were supported by protesters from all walks of life in Sydneys Hyde Park before the crowd headed to Victoria Park. Many were holding banners demanding change the date and justice now. There were similar scenes in Sydney as protestors made their voice heard. Source: AAP We need to change the country, Greens NSW MP David Shoebridge told the crowd. Im part of the problem. Im a member of that institution of parliament. Controversial changes to NSW child protection laws passed in November converted more than 800 state guardianship orders for indigenous children to open adoptions. Mr Shoebridge said that meant children could be put up for adoption without the consent of their parents or guardians. These laws didnt happen in 1788, they happened down there in parliament in 2018. Gomeroi elder Sue-Ellen Tighe, who leads anti-forced adoption group Grandmothers Against Removals, argued that following the 2008 apology by then-prime minister Kevin Rudd to the stolen generation the forced removal of Indigenous children jumped 400 per cent. The Aboriginal flag on Sydney Harbour on Saturday. Source: AAP We are not our politicians legacies, Ms Tighe said to cheers. Our generations and generations of the past were victims of this. Im here in 2019 again saying our removal rates are above anywhere else in the world. Led by local community elders, the protesters stretched three city blocks on Saturday, as they marched from the CBD to Victoria Park in Camperdown. With AAP President Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of the roughly 2,000 US military personnel currently serving in Syria. There are plans, however, to keep some troops stationed at the al-Tanf garrison, a strategic outpost that plays a critical role in countering hostile Iranian activities, Foreign Policy reported Friday. Not only are there questions about the legality of such a move, there are also concerns about whether or not the president would it. Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been on the rise since Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. The US is pulling its troops out of Syria, but some US forces may be staying behind at a remote outpost as a check on hostile Iranian activity, Foreign Policy reported Friday. "We have won against ISIS," President Donald Trump announced last month. Since then, the Trump administration has said the roughly 2,000 US military personnel fighting the Islamic State in Syria will be pulling out even as uncertainty persists over the timeline. "Our troops are coming out," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month. But, he stressed that "the counter-Iran campaign continues." Apparently, that could mean maintaining a US military presence at the strategic al-Tanf garrison, a position that has blocked Iranian ambitions. While the majority of the US troops in Syria are serving in the northeastern part of the country, there are a few hundred US troops working with local partner forces at the al-Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria. The current plans would see these troops withdrawn last, but the government is considering a plan to keep some US military personnel stationed at this strategic facility, government sources told Foreign Policy. It remains unclear whether doing so is legal, as the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force permits the use of force against non-state militants, not nation states like Iran, no matter how problematic they may be. And then there is the question of whether the president will approve a plan that keeps US troops in Syria. Story continues The Pentagon has kept quiet on the status of al-Tanf, providing only limited information in response to past Business Insider requests. "We are focused on a deliberate, coordinated withdrawal from Syria. For operational security reasons, we are not going to discuss timelines or specific movements," Department of Defence spokesman Cmdr. Sean Robertson told Foreign Policy. The presence of US forces at al-Tanf prevents Iran from establishing a continuous land bridge across Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon, giving it the ability to threaten Israel. "Al-Tanf is a critical element in the effort to prevent Iran from establishing a ground line of communications from Iran through Iraq through Syria to southern Lebanon in support of Lebanese Hezbollah," a former senior US military commander told Foreign Policy. The base lies at the heart of a deconfliction zone with a roughly 34 miles radius. The US military reserves the right to open fire on hostile forces that enter the area without authorization. The base has long been a thorn in the side of not only Iran, but also Russia and the Syrian regime. Read More: A US base in Syria is a huge thorn in Russia and Iran's side - but they can't do much more than complain about it The US military has made a point of keeping adversaries out of the deconfliction zone. When the Russian military threatened to conduct strikes in the zone last September, the US Marines conducted a live-fire exercise in the area, warning the Russians and others to keep out. In early January, US-backed Syrian fighters captured an American citizen on a northern Syria battlefield named Warren Clark, who said he joined the group out of curiosity. His background and loose connection to the terrorist organisation represent the changing, more diverse range of people drawn to foreign terror groups in the post-9/11 era. Since 2013, roughly 65% of US-born ISIS recruits are either African-American or Caucasian, a study by the RAND Corporation found. "The historic stereotype of a Muslim, Arab, immigrant male as the most vulnerable to extremism is not representative of many terrorist recruits today," the report said. The man from Sugar Land, Texas with a passion for travel and teaching children doesn't seem like a stereotypical ISIS recruit. Read more: US-backed forces in Syria just captured a substitute teacher from Texas who had sent his resume to ISIS Warren Christopher Clark, a black, Texas native who sent a cover letter and resume to ISIS as early as 2015, the New York Times revealed, was captured in Syria by US allies. His goal was not to become a militant or fighter, he later told NBC News. He just wanted to teach English. Clark, who was charged Friday for material support to ISIS, may not be the type of person who comes to mind at the mention of ISIS. But a study published by the RAND Corporation, which analysed US-based jihadist terrorism activities in the post-9/11 era, shows that the Texan represents aspects of the new reality of terrorism. "The portrait that emerges from our analysis suggests that the historic stereotype of a Muslim, Arab, immigrant male as the most vulnerable to extremism is not representative of many terrorist recruits today," the report says. The changing face of terrorism That US citizens pose the greatest terrorism-related threat within the US is not a recent development. In 2015, the George Washington University Program on Extremism reported that of 71 people arrested for ISIS-related activities in the US in that year, 58 of them were US-born citizens. Story continues The GWU study for the most part matches a trend reported by RAND, which independently found that as ISIS gained influence in the post-9/11 era, the number of US-born recruits drawn to jihadist terrorism started to grow. Of the 152 US persons with known affiliations with ISIS, RAND found that 106 were citizens born in the US. Comparatively, only 59 of 131 al-Qaeda affiliates were US-born citizens. In another revelation, RAND showed US-based ISIS recruits have become more racially and ethnically diverse as the group gained influence, and are notably more diverse than those with known al-Qaeda affiliations. About 65% of US-born ISIS recruits since 2013 are either African-American/black or Caucasian/white. This is a shift from the group's earlier years, and an even more radical shift from those persons drawn to al-Qaeda. ISIS has a broader appeal Aided by the internet, terror organisations began targeting more vulnerable populations over time, specifically young and socially alienated people who find a sense of belonging in a far-away group. While ISIS has a far more sophisticated understanding and usage of social media, al-Qaeda has shown an ability to tap into the vortex of the internet - RAND reports that the number of "terrorist-related websites exploded from 100 in 1998 ... to approximately 4,300 by 2005." In that year, ISIS was still in its infancy. Read more: 13 intense images of the rise and fall of ISIS, the feared terror group that has re-surged from previous defeats Even so, al-Qaeda's marketing typically appealed to a narrower field of recruits in terms of religion, race, and nationalism. ISIS, on the other hand, appealed to a wider range of people. Heather Williams, the lead author for the RAND study, told Business Insider that Clark represents an increasingly common type of recruit who is not necessarily drawn to violence, but some other component of terrorist organisations. "There were people who fit that before, but they are more frequently fitting that profile now," Williams said. Terrorism may be changing, but experts caution against reliance on stereotypes Clark, the 34-year-old teacher from Texas who was recently captured in Northern Syria, doesn't quite fit into any stereotypical "terrorist" category. Warren Christopher Clark ISIS Clark is a US-born American citizen. According to an interview with NBC News, he did not initially leave the US with intentions of joining ISIS, but sought travel opportunities that ultimately drew him to Turkey, Iraq, and then Syria. He told NBC that he never took up arms for ISIS and was even detained by the terrorist organisation after trying to defect, maintaining that he was drawn to ISIS out of curiosity, not a desire to become a militant. "The take-away is that the ties [people drawn to ISIS] have to the terrorist organisation can be very loose," Williams said. Read more: A Texas school teacher who sent his resume to ISIS was captured in Syria, and he says he has no regrets The RAND report was published in December, nearly a month before Clark's capture. But Williams said his background is a good example of the range of individuals answering ISIS' call. "A great number of the individuals studied were lured to the call of jihad in Muslim lands abroad rather than domestically; whether adventure seekers or inspired by misguided senses of religious duty, they were not necessarily aggrieved with the US homeland," the report states. Still, Williams cautioned against stereotyping a particular profile, especially one based on nationality. "I don't think that's a productive diagnostic tool, and can also lead to bias," she told Business Insider. The Trump administration's travel ban, which targets many Muslim-majority countries, is not necessarily a helpful counterterrorism policy, Williams said, and may even be a distraction. "If [law enforcement agency] perceptions are based on history, there is validity but they should recognise the shift." Restaurateur and chef Jose Andres opened a pop-up restaurant in Washington, DC to distribute free meals to federal workers affected by the record-long partial government shutdown. Members of Congress have volunteered to distribute food at the restaurant, which has given nearly 38,000 meals since the shutdown began. The 800,000 furloughed or unpaid federal workers will miss their second paycheck on Friday. WASHINGTON - Despite heavy rains blanketing the capital on Thursday, a line full of federal workers waiting for a free meal at chef Jose Andres pop-up restaurant still went out the door and down the block. The celebrity restaurateur and chef has served nearly 38,000 meals to federal employees during the record-long partial government shutdown, in which 800,000 workers have been furloughed or forced to work without pay. Those workers will miss their second paycheck this week as the shutdown stretches into day 35. The restaurant is at Andres' own ThinkFoodLab, a test-kitchen and venue for private events. It's been open for nine days so far, and the award-winning chef plans to keep it running until the shutdown ends. The free meals are provided by Andres' non-profit World Central Kitchen, which brings food to disaster zones and impoverished countries. The group served more than 2 million people in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Read more: Here are the most important upcoming dates related to the government shutdown The pop-up, which is in downtown Washington near the White House and various other federal agencies, has been a madhouse of nonstop food and meals being distributed to public servants. Unpaid workers fret as they wait for a hot meal One furloughed employee named Pablo, who works security for the federal courts system in Washington, told INSIDER that like many of his coworkers, he has had to dip into his savings to compensate for the lack of payment during the now 34-day shutdown. Pablo said he was concerned about the heavy workload that will result when the government reopens, as backlogged business finally being addressed could potentially create a chaotic scene. Story continues A volunteer passes out food at Jose Andres' pop-up restaurant in Washington. "It's a sign somebody cares," Pablo said of Andres' restaurant, adding he felt that the rest of the country - as well as lawmakers on Capitol Hill - did not seem to be prioritising the shutdown as a crisis. While scores of federal workers waited in what appeared to be a relatively fast-moving line on Thursday, volunteers passed out snacks and coffee before patrons entered to get full meals, including vegan options. At one point, Vice President Mike Pence's motorcade taking him to the US Capitol for a meeting with Senate Republicans zoomed by the restaurant, prompting groans from and a handful of mobile phone snapshots. Trump administration officials have come under fire for their portrayal of the strain on federal workers The scene at Andres' pop-up is in direct contrast to sentiments from Trump administration officials, who have attempted to downplay the effect missed paychecks have had on the nearly 800,000 federal workers. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross came under fire Thursday for comments about how federal workers have fared during the shutdown. In a CNBC interview, Ross suggested workers just take out loans to pay for necessities because they will receive the back-pay when the shutdown is resolved, even if that would come with interest. He also questioned why federal workers would be going to food banks and places like Andres' restaurant for free meals. "I know they are and I don't understand why because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake - say, borrowing from a bank or a credit union - are in effect federally guaranteed," Ross said. "So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there's no real reason why they shouldn't be able to get a loan against it, and we've seen a number of ads from financial institutions doing that." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted to the comments during a press conference, suggesting that Ross was out of touch with the plight of the federal workers, many of who live paycheck to paycheck, like most Americans. "He doesn't understand why they have to do that. I don't know is this the 'let them eat cake' kind of attitude? Or call you father for money?" Pelosi said. "'This is character building for you. It's all going to end up very well for you as long as you don't get your paychecks.' I don't quite understand why." Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.). Lawmakers drop by to lend a hand at the restaurant The restaurant, which is predominantly staffed by volunteers, many of whom are federal workers or retirees, has been frequented by many different high-profile names looking to lend a hand. Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney stopped by on Wednesday to distribute food to federal workers. On Thursday, more lawmakers showed up, including Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger and freshman New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas. Pappas, who co-owns a restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire that is a popular campaign spot during presidential election cycles, told INSIDER that volunteering in the kitchen felt like "second nature." "It's a well-oiled machine and encouraging to see that there are so many people willing to volunteer," he said. "We're seeing this across the country where people are stepping forward to do the right thing. And it's incumbent on the leaders at the highest levels of government to do the right thing as well." Pappas noted that House Democrats have voted to reopen the government 10 times since taking back the majority amid the partial shutdown earlier this month, though each package has been without the border security funds President Donald Trump and Republicans are demanding. Two more competing bills to end the shutdown failed in the Senate Thursday. Members of Congress, whether volunteering to help federal workers going without a paycheck or returning to their home districts, were advised to be prepared to return to Washington in the event a deal is struck over the weekend, according to the House Majority Leader's office. At the time, I was in my final year of secondary school at Kerevat in East New Britain. There was a general sense of fear and apprehension as computer experts said that, when the date changed to the new millennium, computers with old hardware and programs would not recognise the calendar change and would register the new year not as 2000 but as 1900. Rumours sped around the world that money would be useless, planes would drop from the sky, nuclear warheads would be set off and that the Y2K bug could mark the end of Times. DAGUA - Twenty years ago, in the months leading up to the new millennium, Y2K bug hysteria gripped Papua New Guinea and the world. Since computers were not as common as they are now and we had never heard of the internet, my understanding of what was happening was minimal. But I did learn that Y2K was a number based word meaning Year 2 Kilo, or Year 2000. At that time, terms like anti-virus, hard drive, software, word document, floppy disc, email and other jargon were not part of our language. Even computer classes were not part of the school curriculum back then. Information about the Y2K bug came from newspapers, radio or word of mouth. In our dormitories, theories about the Y2K bug did the rounds, all we understood was that this posed a big problem and a great deal of confusion and panic. The PNG government pulled together its limited resources and got additional funding from Australia to fix the Y2K bug in its computers and it made public statements on how it was progressing in fixing the problem. News headlines of efforts by world governments to fix the Y2K bug appeared in the local media. Developed countries were urging developing countries to be wary. As the clock ticked towards the new millennium, countries were declaring they were Y2K ready. But in PNG, the scaremongering and end-time prophesies went on unabated. People gave up smoking, cut down betel nut trees and filled the churches. A few said the computers would work just fine and the world would not come to an end. On Friday 31 December, 1999, when the clock hands went into the new millennium, a few computer glitches were noted worldwide. The US official timekeeper, the Naval Observatory, reported the date as 19100 on its website and the system for collecting small plane flight information failed in Japan. Australian bus ticket machines failed, seven nuclear reactors in the US had minor glitches, South Korea summoned 170 people to court on 4 January 1900 and United States spy satellites transmitted unreadable data for three days. In the aftermath, some people claimed a lot of money was made by companies exploiting the millennium bug and the scaremongering that came with it. It was argued, that regardless of how much money was spent by governments and businesses, the result was a fuss over nothing. But computer specialist claimed the Y2K bug was real and that it had taken many people a lot of remedial to fix the flaws. They said the money was well spent because worse problems would have arisen if no fixes had been done. Countries like South Korea, which spent little to none to fix the Y2K bug, were mentioned while America spent billions of dollars, yet both countries encountered the same minor problems fixed within hours. The Y2K bug was major or minor, it was a global phenomenon. Computer specialists have since said that there will be another computer glitch similar to Y2K in the year 2038. The Y2038 problem is described as a computer systems fail that will affect how computers process information. I hope this is fixed sooner than later. We do not want another repeat of the excessive cost and scaremongering that came with the Y2K. World War II broke out in 1939 and, as a student at Christian Brothers College in 1941, along with his mates Terry Murray and Ted Fitzgerald, Bottrill joined the air cadets. When they all turned 18 in 1942, his mates joined the RAAF and were killed as air crew gunners in Europe. Those times, which ended in the murder of a district commissioner, unsettled us all. For Bottrill, they would also have offended his sense of propriety about how human relationships should be conducted. Gus Bottrill has died in Perth at the grand age of 94. I knew him only in Rabaul in 1970, when he was a kiap engaged fully in the civil unrest at the time a stocky man of avuncular demeanour and unflappable disposition. It could have gone much further because as a soldier, kiap, court officer and advocate for the rights of indigenous people, he was a man of high values and exceptional dedication to his fellow humans. NOOSA - When Angus Matheson Gus Bottrill was awarded the OAM in September 2008, the citation read for service to the indigenous community, particularly through research and assistance with land title claims. Bottrills parents had refused to give their written consent for him to join the RAAF, so in December 1942 he enlisted in the Army, soon transferring to the Australian Imperial Force to be trained to join the Engineers. During this period he and an Indonesia soldier, Johannes Rentor from the South Moluccas became firm friends. Bottrill learned some Malay and Rentor told him a lot about his island, his work in Dutch Papua as a Catholic catechist and his hopes for self-government for the Moluccas after the war. It was Bottrills introduction to the life of people beyond his own culture. This was soon augmented by his experiences during further training with No 4 Field Survey Company based in Western Australia: I was employed in field work at Galena. While at Galena I saw for the first time an aboriginal camp and it left an indelible and disagreeable impression in my mind. At the end of the railway line was a vermin proof fence and there were a number of lean-tos of corrugated iron and other materials. The fence was the lean-tos support that sheltered several large aboriginal families. WX36764 Sapper AM (Gus) Bottrill in 1944 (RASCA) In 1944, his unit embarked on a US Navy troop transport and proceeded through New Guinea to Morotai in Borneo to prepare maps of the area in preparation for the Australian landings there. "When the war ended in September 1945, volunteers were sought for a Liberation Battalion to be formed to go to Ambon to disarm the numerous Japanese there. Bottrill joined them. We were received by the townspeople as heroes. They invited us to their houses in the daytime to partake of such things as cinnamon tea, fried sweet potato slices sprinkled with palm sugar or fried bananas. "In early 1946, when the Australian troops were withdrawn a crowd of several thousand pushed through the barriers and occupied the wharves and shouted and cried and sang as we pulled away. "We could only say that our business was finished and we were going home. I was very young and impressionable, I guess, but I have never felt so moved by such a spontaneous farewell. Bottrill was then sent as a reinforcement to the Engineers, carrying out post-war road re-construction near Nonga in Rabaul. There in April 1946, he learned of his fathers death, taking three days to get home to Perth. Soon after he was hospitalised with malaria and discharged from the Army in July. He was accepted for a job with the Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration as a patrol officer and attended the 5th Short Course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA), proceeding to PNG soon after New Years Day 1947. Administrator JK Murray invited us all, some 30 or 40 men, mainly ex-servicemen, to drinks at Government House, Port Moresby. The single drink provided was one warm gin squash! He delivered a welcoming address. Part of his speech said we would be judged as successful in our job if Independence was achieved before we reached eligibility for a pension. My career by that measure was a success, as my job ended in 1974 as Independence approached. It was the beginning of a notable peacetime career in which he served with great distinction the indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea and Australia. I hope one of Gus Bottrills other comrades might pick up the stories of his eminent PNG and Australian careers. On 11 January 2019, at the Military Technical Institute (MTI), Minister of Defense Aleksandar Vulin, Chief of the General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Milan Mojsilovic, accompanied by Assistant of the Minister of Defense for Material Resources Nenad Miloradovic PhD, attended the presentation of weapons and military equipment that have been introduced into the operational use of the Serbian Armed Forces in 2018 or are in the final phase of testing. Serbian infantrymen displaying their sniper rifles, light machine gun and assault rifles in front of the new Lazar-3 APC (Picture source: Serbian MoD) "In technical terms, 2018 was perhaps the best year in the recent history of Serbia. 29 different systems were introduced into the Serbian Armed Forces. 50 young engineers were welcomed at the MTI, 45 of the already retired were nevertheless retained, as their knowledge is too valuable to be dismissed at leisure and not used precisely here, at the MTI", the Minister of Defense said.Minister Vulin added that employment of another 75 young engineers is planned for 2019 and that the staffing would be significantly improved; material resources have been provided, so that the MTI will also be able to duly reward the best ones and rise the earnings in accordance with the results of their work. "The Government and the President of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces take special care of the scientific capabilities and things that we are outstanding in. What you have seen here are complex systems that have been long in the making; all of them have been finalized and each of them are of great significance", Minister Vulin emphasized, adding that all the weapons and equipment that are presented today at the MTI are significant for the Serbian Armed Forces. "The Serbian Armed Forces are being intensively equipped and armed, and the Serbian Armed Forces must be and are ready to protect the peace and our way of life, to protect every part of our territory and to protect all Serbs regardless of where they live", Minister Vulin warned. Minister Vulin pointed out that "As a military neutral country that is neither a member of NATO nor of any other military alliance, nor will be, we must stand ready to implement by our own each of the functions and capabilities that are at the disposal of far larger and richer armed forces. We must be capable of responding to every challenge". According to him, "The safest way to do this is when you have institutes such as the MTI and when you possess a defense industry such as the Serbian one, when you are able to satisfy most of your needs from your own production and resort to your own mental capacity. Only what you produce yourself is yours and only the technology that you conquer is your own technology. Anything else, for political or for any other reason, can be denied to you. Thanks to the effort of these people, we can be equipped with the most modern systems, and at the lowest possible prices. All that you see here, we simply would not have had the money for, had we purchased on the world market. Even much richer countries would not be able to afford this if they were supplied exclusively from the market. However, if you invest in your people, in your engineers and in your defense industry, then you can develop and strengthen the armed forces, just as we do and are able to remain at the level of the most developed countries in the world", Minister Vulin emphasized. Chief of the General Staff, General Mojsilovic, congratulated the members of MTI for the results achieved in 2018, on projects and prospects for 2019, adding that all that was presented during the visit inspires optimism. According to him, raising the operational capabilities of the Serbian Armed Forces is necessary in order to be fully capable of responding to all challenges, risks and threats. "I have had the opportunity to see that everything that we introduced into the Serbian Armed Forces gains significance in the segment related to further modernization and upgrading a certain quality in the functional and security sense. What was introduced into the field of weapons and equipment towards the end of 2018 by the Decisions and Conclusions of the Chief Military Expert Council ensures the dynamics of continuity in further building of operational capabilities for certain categories or factors of operational capability in the long-term development plans", General Mojsilovic said. According to Assistant Minister Nenad Miloradovic, "We have a very extensive task: to equip the Serbian Armed Forces to attain the desired capabilities, or to compensate for the shortcomings in a very limited time. Experts from the Serbian Armed Forces, the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense have stipulated 90 different weapon systems for equipping in the med-term. Of this, 76 should be systems that come from domestic development, the product of domestic intelligence and the domestic defense industry" Miloradovic said, adding that the development of each system, especially the complex ones, is a lengthy and complex process, which even for the richer countries may extend to 14, 15 or 20 years for the most complex systems. Second Lieutenant Tamara Sevic, who has been working at the Military Technical Institute in the Electronic Systems Department for two years, expressed satisfaction that she and her colleagues were appointed with this scientific institution following the completion of the Military Academy. "At the very beginning, we had the opportunity to work on very demanding projects and the pleasure of learning from colleagues who already have ample experience and were ready to pass that experience to us, said Lieutenant Sevic, who works on the upgraded Giraffe radar and on the perfected anti-aircraft system Bofors on creation of a new target data receiver intended to digitally receive wireless data on the target from the Giraffe radar and to guide the cannon". During the visit to the Military Technical Institute, more than 40 different types of weapons and military equipment that were introduced in the operational use or are in the final phase of testing could be seen. Among them, the most important ones are definitely the armored combat vehicle Lazar-3, artillery system NORA B-52, modernized Oganj-LRSV, modernized rocket system of the Air Defence KUB-M, radar P-40, field vehicle FAP 2832, remotely controlled unmanned platform "Mali Milos", the Remotely Controlled Combat Station, the Self-Jammer ROSZ 1, the base of the M16 combat armored vehicle, and various missiles, ammunition and igniters. In addition, the development and upgrading of personal equipment kits, as well as a set of protective ballistic equipment M-17, were presented. Serbian mobile radar system (Picture source: Serbian MoD) As Deputy Defence Minister of the Russian Federation General of the Army Dmitry Bulgakov announce, the tanks will be placed at the disposal of the Kantemirov division. According to him, tank crews will start training for the Victory Parade in the near future. Moreover, combat vehicles will participate in historical TV and movie projects. Whenever the train stopped from Vladivostok, it was greeted by orchestras and marching troops. Laos transferred thirty T-34 main battle tanks to Russia. Their arrival in Naro-Fominsk, 80km (50 miles) from the capital, has been greeted by an impressive parade. (Picture source: Russian MoD) "As instructed by the Russian Defence Minister, the Chief of the General Staff ordered to established the T-34 battalion. The battalion will station in Naro-Fominsk, in the 4th Guard Kantemirov division", stated Vladimir Zavadsky, the commander of the division. According to him, the battalion will be ready to perform its tasks from March 1. These thirty T-34 tanks were in fact manufactured in Czechoslovakia during the 1950's. Until recently, they were on active duty in the Laotian military, almost 80 years after first being introduced into the Soviet military in 1940. The T-34/76 (76.2mm gun), later T-34/85 (85mm gun), was the backbone of Soviet armored units in World War II and beyond. Some 57,000 were built before the Wolrd War 2 in Europe officially ended on 7 May 1945. T-34 production continued into the Cold War, with more than 80,000 produced in all. Thousands were exported around the world. "The equipment transferred by Laos is planned to be used during the Victory Parades in various cities of Russia, for updating museum exhibits, as well as for making historical films about the Great Patriotic War," the Russian Defense Ministry said. The T-34s were even blessed by a pope (Picture source: Russian MoD) Affordable housing options are shrinking fast for those in New Braunfels who need it the most. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. The Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge is famous the world over among birders because of the diversity of feathered creatures to be found there. The Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque has put together a pretty cool guided day-trip on Sunday, Jan. 27 from 10am to 9pm , for folks interested in experiencing the refuge. The trip includes an optional van ride to the refuge (space is limited) and, once there, a non-optional bus tour through the wilderness, headed by naturalists who help observers identify the various species of winged wonders. You should bring a sack lunch, but dinner is provided in Socorro as part of the tour fee, which ranges from $68 to $74 . (Alisa Valdes) A journey to see thousands of birds at N.M.s world-famous refuge south of Socorro. Drive there or ride in the museum van. Registration required. Birds of the Bosque del Apache Trip Date: Sunday, January 27 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. (Depart Albuquerque/Return to Albuquerque) Preview talk: Thursday, January 24 6:30 p.m. Trip Leaders: Laurel Ladwig, Birder/Photographer and Tish Morris, Karen Herzenberg and Helen Haskell, Naturalists Join us on a day-long journey and see thousands of birds at New Mexicos own world-famous refuge south of Socorro. Drive there on your own OR come with us in the Museum van (limited van seats! You must let us know when you register). We will stop for a sack lunch (bring your own lunch) and then board a large, Refuge bus for the afternoon. We will identify as many species of birds as we can until dusk. Trip includes dinner in Socorro. Laurel Ladwig will give a Bosque del Apache preview talk for field trip participants on Thursday, January 24 at 6:30 p.m. at the Museum. Laurel Ladwig is a life-long birder and photographer. Tish Morris is a naturalist and retired Museum educator who has led many field trips for the Museum, including annual trips to Bosque del Apache. Karen Herzenberg and Helen Haskell have been birding and guiding trips for years. No experience necessarycome and join the fun! Preregistration is required. Space is limited to 25 participants. Adults only. Go to www.NMnaturalhistory.org for registration. Cost: $75 for the field trip and talk ($67.50 for museum members) (Cost Includes the preview talk, limited seats in the Museum vans, snacks, bus and tour guides at Bosque del Apache, and dinner in Socorro) Questions: Tish Morris email tish.morris11@gmail.com There have always been influencers in society. Many years ago, film stars smoking a particular brand of cigarette would assign a coolness to a product that their fans would copy and purchase. People following what a politician says rather than their strict party policy is not a new thing.Nowadays, Instagram is awash with people promoting brands and events. By reviewing theatre performances and films on this blog, Im often engaging in a small way in the critic corner of this universe of influencing. And while that type of work is well-established and well understood I write critical reviews rather than spouting a sponsored advert or direct marketing (which really require an #ad or #sponsored tag to indicate its not natural ) its not unreasonable to conclude that Im more likely to review a film or show that is previewed for free than one I need to spend my own hard-earned freelance pennies to get into. Feel free to click thelink over on the right of this webpage if you enjoy its content! (Though sometimes I do independently book tickets and pay to see shows and film and this year Im keeping count to see how it balances out.) FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened tells the story of Billy McFarland, an entrepreneur with an exclusive credit card membership scheme behind him, who moved onto his next big project: building an online platform called Fyre that would allow artists to be booked by mere mortals who had the money to contract them to perform, bypassing the need for agents and needing to know the right person to have a conversation in the ear of someone who could secure the bands agreement.In order to promote the under-development platform, the Fyre Festival was dreamt up. An exclusive sunny weekend of music and cuisine on a small Caribbean island. People would pay top dollar to be among the few to experience what others could only dream of attending.And in order to promote the festival, a small planeful of supermodels were flown out to an island in the Bahamas to be filmed partying for a few days. US Rapper Ja Rule helps front the publicity. Promoted with an orange square that clicked through to a glossy bikini-filled video, Fyre Festival took off.Meanwhile a team was assembled to meet the demand and the incredibly short timescale to stand up a new event in a remote location. Over 97 minutes, we see the unflappable and delusional Billy McFarland hustling to pull together an impossible goal. Hes fabulously calm while all around people are querying the viability of his latest dream.People who questioned the viability of providing sanitation for thousands of people without existing infrastructure were swapped out. The first island of paradise feel through and eventually a neglected corner of Great Exuma was secured. Emergency tents left over from a hurricane were repurposed as luxury accommodation for people who thought they were booking more lavish.The nature of the high-volume filming to support the initial influencer marketing and desire to capture behind-the-scenes footage of the festival build-up, along with the fact that so many people did not get paid, means that there was a ready supply of material with which the filmmakers to intercut with the interviews with crew and paying punters.It takes a message from above the heavens open and rain falls on the campsite on the eve of the first festival goers flying into the island for the penny to drop, though it takes another 24 hours for clarity of thought to reach the top of the organisational tree.In October 2018, McFarland was sentenced to six years in federal prison. If the Fyre Festival pyramid had a fraudster at its top, it had hard-working innocent people like the hundreds of Bahaman workers who build the site who were left unpaid. The caterer cries on camera as she explains how she used her life savings to pay her staff. She would continue to live on the island and couldnt run away from her debt like the festival organiser.Ive never been to a music festival the idea of spending any more nights in a tent does not appeal to me though Ive mixed sound for bands at non-music festivals and chaired, facilitated and reported from countless events and conferences. On a tiny scale Ive an appreciation of the chaos of event management and can imagine how it grows exponentially into a teetering tower of malpractice when very novice heads are in sole charge.At that level,is interesting to watch. It casts judgement on the human nature of both the organisers and those who funded it (the people for whom the greatest party could already be imagined in their heads).Its yet another wake-up call to pay less attention to the perfect bodies and perfect lifestyles on Instagram and the right-hand column of thewebsite. While they continue to sell lifestyles that some people can afford, as a population we need to stop aspiring to joining them. We cant all be trustafarians!The documentary is also a powerful reminder that in a world that values influencers, what looks organic online is often organised and orchestrated behind the scenes.And it is an object lesson in why everyone has a responsibility to keep their eyes open, the critical thinking function of their brain active, and to ask questions and refuse to be blindsided, its also a reminder that everything that glitters is not gold. Sometimes its just glitter poured over a turd and filmed in a good light.(Hulu gazumped Netflix and released their own documentary Fyre Fraud about the Fyre Festival fiasco four days before The Greatest Party dropped. While Hulu agreed to pay Bully McFarland for an interview , the producers of the Netflix documentary (Jerry Media and Matte Projects) did not accede to his demands for money.) Snow avalanche in Zakarpattia region AFP Three 28-year-old tourists from Kyiv were hit by the snow avalanche, one died near the Stig Mountain in Rakhiv, Zakarpattia region last evening. The Governor of Zakarpattia Henadii Moskal reported this on Facebook. Before climbing the mountain the boys called to the rescuers and asked, whether the rout was safe enough. The exact answer was: Do not climb the mountain, because funeral is a too big price to pay. Despite this warning all three of them decided to climb anyway. During the descending the first snow avalanche hit them, they were thigh-high under snow, and then the second avalanche hit them, this time the snow covered them fully, - said the Governor. One of the boys managed to get out by himself, then he helped his friend, and both of them found the third one. Unfortunately, the young man suffocated under the snow and died, - Moskal added. He also pointed out that those two boys had to stay in a tent with their friends body for a night, and only next morning they managed to contact an emergency rescue unit. Having left the body of the deceased in the tent, the boys went to the recreation center and halfway they met the rescuers from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. Now the boys are safe, they returned to avalanche place with rescuers to find the body of their friend, - according to the Governor. The Governor of Zakarpattia has also expressed his condolences to the family of the deceased and also implored all the tourists to be as careful as possible during climbing mountains and to listen to the rescuers recommendations. Open source The "Social-Political Platform of Nadiya Savchenko" upheld the candidacy of the non-affiliate MP, as Savchenko herself remains under arrest on suspicion of trying to overthrow the incumbent government. This is reported by the OPORA civil network. It is noted that the decision was made unanimously. The candidates program includes a constitutional change in the political system. The delegates held pomegranates in their hands and chanted Freedom to Nadiya Savchenko, freedom to Ukrainian political prisoners, the report says. This information was confirmed by the sister of Nadiya Savchenko. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin together with Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek and his colleague from the Kingdom of Denmark Anders Samuelsen will visit Mariupol Mariupol front-line in the Donetsk region donpress On Tuesday, January 29, the European diplomats Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek and his colleague from the Kingdom of Denmark Anders Samuelsen are going to visit the Mariupol front-line in the Donetsk region. They will be accompanied by Ukrainian diplomat Pavlo Klimkin. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reports this. The aim of the visit is to get the topical information on security, humanitarian and socio-economic situation in the area, where the United Forces act, due to the Russian military blockade of the Ukrainian seaports in Azov Sea and the continuation of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine. The trip program also includes visiting the checkpoint Hnutove and the water area in the Mariupol Sea Port. Ukraine bans Georgian from staying in country Open source The border guards did not let a man to enter Ukraine due to his criminal activity in Georgia. The press-service of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reports this. Recently this man was deprived of a permanent residence permit in Ukraine. Afterwards, he twice violated the state border of Ukraine on the area of Podilskiy and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskiy border detachments. Administrative charges were brought against him due to these violations. Later it appeared that the foreigner is wanted on the territory of Georgia; he was involved in criminal activity in this country. Consequently, the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskiy district court decided to ban him from staying on the territory of Ukraine. He was deported from the country by force on one of the ferries through the Black Sea Seaport. The Georgian law enforcement detained the offender. Open source In Austria, the court sentenced Monika Unger, the leader of the underground radical organization Staatenbund Osterreich (Austrian Confederation) to 14 years in prison for high treason. This is reported by The Local. The organization involves about 2,600 members. The 'Austrian Confederation' claims the Austrian authorities and its laws to be illegitimate. Unger wanted the Austrian army to overthrow the government; moreover, she called for military assistance from Russia. Ukrainian citizens will be able to stay in Uruguay for the period of no more than 90 days, and it may be renewed for another 90 days over a year, - Ukraine's Foreign Ministry Open source The agreement on the mutual canceling of visa requirements between Ukraine and Uruguay will enter into force on February 15, Foreign Ministry of Ukraine reports. According to the commentary of the authority, the document's provisions foresee that the Ukrainian citizens will be able to stay in Uruguay for the period of no more than 90 days, and it may be renewed for another 90 days over a year. In turn, the citizens of Uruguay can stay in Ukraine for the period of no more than 90 days over the 180-days-long period. The respective arrangement was made in April 2018, when the sides agreed to cancel the visa regime on the mutual basis. 'We make the world closer for Ukrainians, making travels more comfortable. This motto of ours opens new opportunities for our compatriots, and our passports will gain more points in the list of the world's most respected passports,' Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said then. Pavlo Zhebrivsky, former leader of Donetsk regional administration said that would prevent anyone from making such statements publicly Open source The Ukrainian Parliament should introduce criminal reponsibility for denial of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Pavlo Zhebrivsky, the ex-head of Donetsk regional administration said this on air of 112 Ukraine TV channel. 'Israeli Knesset passed the decision on the criminal responsibility for the denial of Holocaust, and I am just as much sure that Ukraine needs to impose criminal responsibility for the denial of Russia's military aggression in 2014', he stated. Zhebrivsky assumed that such step would prevent anyone from making such statements publicly. Earlier, Sergiy Nayev, the Joint Forces Commander, said that Ukraine was ready to Russias possible attack, as Kyiv Post wrote. First of all, they have increased the number of their troops in this area. For instance, they have increased the number of battalion tactical groups from 8 to 12 in the area of my competence on the basis near the Russian-Ukrainian border. They have also increased the number of planes ready to operate from the airfields on their side of the border in Donetsk region, Nayev explained. He noted that the Armed Forces found a special type of satellite connection, which Russian senior officers use. Nayev added that the chance that Russia would attack is now higher, after the Russian aggression in the Kerch Strait. The Joint Forces Commander said that he had specially trained forces, which know how to fight in city conditions, if Russia tries to deploy troops in Mariupol. Yet, the priority is to prevent Russia from doing it. U.S. President Donald Trump signed the interim budget approved by Congress until February 15. This is reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the White House. The draft law provides for short-term renewal of full-fledged funding for the activities of the federal government, in particular, ministries and departments, which are currently without funds. It is assumed that the next three weeks will be used to negotiate a long-term budget. Meanwhile, Donald Trump did not abandon his plans to build a wall on the border with Mexico. "After 21 days, President Donald Trump will begin building the wall, with or without Democrats," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders tweeted. Earlier, Donald Trump proposed to resume the work of the government until February 15 without resolving the issue of allocating $ 5.7 billion to build a wall on the border with Mexico. "I am proud to inform you today that we have reached an agreement on the termination of the "shutdown "and the resumption of the federal government. In the near future I will sign a bill to resume the work of our government for three weeks, until February 15," Trump informed. No new attacks since the beginning of this day were reported Ceasefire regime in Donbas Open source The Russian mercenaries have abided the ceasefire regime in Donbas since the beginning of this day, January 26. No more attacks on the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the firing line were recorded. The head speaker of the Defence Ministry colonel Dmytro Hutsulyak reported this during the short briefing. According to the latest information, no more attacks from the Russian-occupying forces were recorded on the combat line till 11 a.m., - he said. Besides, the speaker also added that the situation in the area of repression and deterrence of armed aggression in Donbas is controlled by the Joint Forces operation. Hutsulyak confirmed that during the past 24 hours the enemy opened fire for 8 times. As a result of hostilities, one Ukrainian soldier died and four more were injured. We express our sincere condolences to the relatives of our deceased hero, as well as to his fighting brothers. Eternal memory!", he said. The wounded soldiers were evacuated to a military mobile hospital; they were provided with the necessary qualified medical assistance. Open source The International Committee of the Red Cross sent over 150 tons of humanitarian aid to the militant-controlled territories of Ukraine in Donbas. The State Border Guard of Ukraine reported that on Saturday. Four vans loaded with humanitarian cargo proceeded across the Novotroitske checkpoint. The transports carried food and medicines from the Internationa Committee of the Red Cross, the Border Guard said. All entry-exit checkpoints in Donbas work as scheduled, the authority reported. It also added that 41.8 thousand people and 4,600 vehicles crossed the checkpoints in both directions. In December 2018, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) asked the Russian Federation to provide the access to the Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia. This item is available in full to subscribers. Attention subscribers We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription. If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site. If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here. Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing. iStock/Bogdan Khmelnytskyi(NEW YORK) -- A Hawaiian Airlines plane from Honolulu to New York was diverted to San Francisco after a flight attendant died on board, the airline announced on Friday. Emile Griffith, who was "a member of our flight attendant ohana' [family] for over 31 years," passed away "while working on our flight between Honolulu and New York last night," the airline's senior vice president of corporate communications, Ann Botticelli, wrote in a statement. "We are forever grateful for Emiles colleagues and good samaritans on board who stayed by his side and provided extensive medical help. Emile both loved and treasured his job at Hawaiian and always shared that with our guests. Our hearts are with Emiles family, friends and all those fortunate to have known him," Botticelli wrote. The New York-bound flight, which had 253 passengers and 12 crewmembers, departed Honolulus Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Thursday afternoon. It was headed to John F. Kennedy International Airport. "The flight diverted to San Francisco International Airport (SFO), where it landed shortly after 11 p.m. local time. We sincerely appreciate our guests patience and understanding while our agents and crew worked with medical personnel upon arrival at SFO," Botticelli added. Hawaiian said all guests were rebooked and will be compensated. The airline also said counseling was available to its employees. Passenger Andrea Bartz, a thriller writer who was traveling to New York, tweeted about the incident. "It's been a long time since they asked for doctors to come to first class so I hope they're okay. First time I've ever had a flight diverted, somehow. Waiting for medics to board now," she wrote. "Btw if youre ever going to have a medical emergency in the air, this is the flight to do it on. So many doctors came forward they had to make a second announcement like never mind, all set!! she continued. It seems as though fliers were left somewhat in the dark as the crew attended to Griffith. "There are cops, too, and no ones moving with any urgency and they just had an elderly man with a yarmulke come up to the front. Did someone die?" Bartz wrote. The San Francisco Medical Examiner's office was not immediately available to provide a cause of death. Representatives for SFO referred ABC News to Hawaiian. The flight attendants' union, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, declined to comment on the frequency of inflight deaths. Were incredibly saddened by the loss of our dear flying partner," the union wrote in an emailed statement to ABC News. "We offer our love and support to the Flight Attendants family and crew. We will do everything we can to support them in this challenging time." Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Veste trista pentru fanii Simonei Halep. Anuntul facut de tenismena Veste trista pentru fanii Simonei Halep. Sportiva din Romania isi amana revenirea pe teren. Tenismena, numarul trei mondial, a anuntat, ca nu va juca in cele din urma la turneul WTA pe iarba de la Bad Homburg din Germania. "Sunt aici la Bad Homburg, este un [citeste mai departe] Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 06:13:25|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close RAMALLAH/GAZA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinians warned on Saturday that the current Israeli escalation of violence against the Palestinians is serving the Israeli parliamentary election that is scheduled in April. The Palestinian Authority (PA) said in an official press statement that "the Israeli crimes and killings in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza are again reiterating that the Israeli government is going ahead with the policy of escalation." The statement held the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully responsible for this escalation "that would lead to dangerous consequences and more tension and would create an uncontrolled dangerous atmosphere." The PA statement called on the international community to ensure protection for the Palestinian people, adding that the people and their leadership will remain with steadfastness and will never give up their stable legitimate rights. The PA statement was made after the Israeli army and the Israeli police killed four Palestinians in the past 24 hours, including one in Gaza, one in Jerusalem and two in the West Bank on Friday and Saturday. Earlier on Saturday, the PA Health Ministry said in a statement that armed Israeli settlers backed by Israeli army forces shot and killed 38-year-old Hamdi el-Na'san and wounded nine others by live ammunition. Residents of the village said that dozens of armed settlers and Israeli soldiers stormed the village of Lemghayar north of the West Bank city of Ramallah and clashed with its residents using live gunfire and tear gas. Saeb Erekat, Secretary General of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, said in an emailed press statement on Saturday evening that he condemned the settlers' attack on the village. "The ongoing terrorism of the settlers, totally backed by the occupation army forces against Palestinian civilians, needs an urgent international protection for the Palestinians and an immediate investigation into these crimes," said Erekat. Hanan Ashrawi, member of the PLO Executive Committee, also said in a press statement that the crimes committed against the Palestinians is an outcome of the growing "Israeli culture of terrorism, extremism and racism." Ashrawi called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bear its political, human and legal responsibility and act on the formation of investigations committees and send international inspectors to ensure protection for the armless Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Palestinian consensus government also condemned what it termed as "the Israeli occupation escalation campaign," saying the escalation is part of the policies of aggression and repression that serves the Israeli election. Yousef al-Mahmoud, spokesman of the government, said that "the incitement and the international silence backed by the United States had encouraged the Israeli occupation to implement its aggressive policies against our people." The PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs also warned in a press statement of the more settlers' organized assaults and attacks backed by the Israeli army against the Palestinian people. It warned of "massacres" that would be committed against the Palestinians. "The failure of the international community to ensure an international protection for the Palestinians had encouraged the settlers and their terrorist organizations to carry on with their assaults on the armless Palestinians," said the statement. Osama al-Qawasmi, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement spokesman in the West Bank, said in a press statement that "what had happened is a filed execution as part of the Israeli election campaign that Israeli leaders are competing on shedding the Palestinian blood." In Gaza, Islamic Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad called on the Palestinians in the West Bank to escalate their confrontations against the Israeli army and the Israeli settlers in response to the Israeli killing of el-Na'san. Meanwhile, Israel Radio reported that the Israeli army began to investigate into the incident in the village north of Ramallah without giving any more details. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, around half a million Israeli settlers live in 120 settlements where 2.7 million Palestinians live. Friction between the Palestinians and the settlers always turn into violence and more tension. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 05:43:17|Editor: ZX Video Player Close Artists of Gansu Dance Troupe perform during a Chinese New Year's show at the Great Guild Hall in Riga, Latvia, Jan. 26, 2019. Artists of Gansu Dance Troupe visited the Latvian capital this weekend to present Chinese New Year's show to audience at the Great Guild Hall in Riga Old Town on Saturday night. (Xinhua/Janis) RIGA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Artists of Gansu Dance Troupe visited the Latvian capital this weekend to present Chinse New Year's show to audience at the Great Guild Hall in Riga Old Town on Saturday night. Opening the concert Happy Chinese New Year, Sun Yinglai, charge d'affaires a.i. of the Chinese embassy in Latvia, invited everybody to join in celebrating the Spring Festival and learn about its traditions and symbolism. Sun stressed the significance of the year 2018 for both China and Latvia, as China marked the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up and Latvia celebrated the centenary of his statehood last year. The diplomat praised the Chinese-Latvian relations, noting that the bilateral ties are at their "highest level ever". The orchestra of the Gansu Dance Troupe, which has toured more than 30 countries and many regions for culture exchange programs, introduced to the Latvian audience Chinese musical traditions by performing Chinese melodies, including Flying Apsaras and the Silk Road, a masterpiece reflecting profound influences of Chinese dance traditions as well as the history of the region. The program included not only Chinese music, but also Latvian folksongs like Bedu Manu Lielu Bedu and The River Daugava. The rendering of The River Daugava by the Chinese artists was met by a standing ovation. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 05:23:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RABAT, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Morocco from Jan. 23-26 was an opportunity to strengthen the political dialogue and economic cooperation between the two countries, said Moroccan experts. Abdellatif Benomar, professor of the Mohammed V University, said that Rabat and Moscow have had constant mutual visits of officials since enjoying favorable relations of strategic partnership. "The only new element is perhaps the issue of Syria," he added. During his trip to Maghreb countries including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, Lavrov has been urging the three nations to support the re-admission of Syria to the Arab League. "This could contribute, with the support of Russia, to a rapprochement between Morocco and Syria. It could also be an opportunity for our country to reconnect with Syria and make a stronger influence in the region," said Benomar. In addition, Lavrov's visit to Morocco has identified opportunities for strengthening exchanges and cooperation between the two countries, said Abdelali Boutayeb, professor at the University of Moulay Ismail. The both sides are satisfied with the implementation of cooperation of several major projects and measures in some of the priority areas such as agriculture, fishery and tourism, said Boutayeb. And the visit of Lavrov has definitely explored more opportunities of collaboration between the two countries, he added. In March 2016, King Mohammed VI of Morocco visited Moscow, signing a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) in the areas of aviation service, extradition, environment and fishery. "A number of deals were signed, particularly in the economic field. The most important was the signing of a free trade agreement, the negotiations on which are still ongoing," said Abdelilah Caidi, professor at the Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University. Trade between Morocco and Russia has grown steadily over the last few years, bringing the total volume to 2.5 billion U.S. dollar in 2016, up from nearly 200 million dollar in 2001, according to official data. In addition to citrus fruits, Morocco exports tomatoes and fishery products to Russia. In 2016, it has become the leading supplier of frozen tomatoes and sardine for Russia. Russia exports petroleum products to Morocco, which constitute 80 percent of its exports to the North African country, followed by crude sulfur, metallurgical products and wheat. In 2016-2017, Morocco imported 785,000 tonnes of soft wheat from Russia, according to official figures. Lavrov met with King Mohammed VI on Friday, during which they hailed the in-depth strategic partnership between the two countries, the king's office said in a statement. They also praised the prospects in recent years for enhancing the political dialogue and strengthening the economic and sectoral cooperation, it added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 03:32:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RAMALLAH, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A senior Palestinian official announced on Saturday that Russia will host and sponsor an internal Palestinian dialogue in Moscow on reconciliation and ending internal division in mid February. Palestinian ambassador to Russia Abdulhafiz Noufal told the official Voice of Palestine Radio that Moscow had sent invitations to ten Palestinian factions, including Islamic Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah Party. "The sessions of dialogue will be held in Moscow for ten days in mid February," he said, adding that "leaders of the invited factions will hold dialogue for two days on reconciliations and the obstacles that face accomplishing it." Noufal also said that leaders of the factions will also meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, briefing him what had been achieved during the meetings and what is needed from Russia. "The Russian invitation doesn't contradict with the efforts of Egypt which is the main sponsor of the reconciliation file," he said, adding that the Russian role will be completing the Egyptian role. The Russian invitation expresses Russia's desire to listen to the Palestinian party's different opinions, he said, adding that President Abbas blessed the Russian invitation and expressed hope that there will be soon a Palestinian agreement. It's not the first time that Russia hosts the internal Palestinian dialogue. In last January, leaders of ten Palestinian factions met in Moscow to discuss the Palestinian internal division. The Palestinian factions included Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the People's Party, the Popular Front (PFLP), the Democratic Front (DFLP) and four other minor factions in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 03:22:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close RAMALLAH, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian Authority (PA) condemned on Saturday the Israeli settlers' attack on a Palestinian village in the West Bank city of Ramallah where one Palestinian was killed and nine others injured. Mayor of the village Faraj al-Na'san told Xinhua that clashes broke out in the village of Lemghayar between the residents of the village and dozens of Israeli settlers backed by Israeli army. The PA Health Ministry said in a press statement that a Palestinian man called Hamdi al-Na'san, 38 years old, was killed and nine others were injured by the gunfire of the armed settlers. Palestinian Authority said in an official statement that "the Israeli crimes of killing in the West Bank, in Jerusalem and in Gaza are showing again that the Israeli government is carrying on with escalation against the Palestinians." The statement held the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for the current wave of tension, adding that "this will lead to dangerous consequences of uncontrolled dangerous atmospheres." The PA called on the international community to ensure protection for the Palestinian people, adding that the Palestinians and their leadership will never make concessions on their stable rights. Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party said in a press statement that "the settlers' attack on the village represents the top organized terror that Israeli practices under an official Israeli government's cover." Islamic Hamas Movement's spokesman in Gaza Abdulatif al-Qanou'a called on the Palestinian people to confront the Israeli army and Israeli settlers in the West Bank. "These attacks on our people are backed by the occupation forces and the Israeli government, which are certainly war crimes," he said. A China-Europe freight train X9081 leaves Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, for Poltava, Ukraine, on Oct. 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Hu Huhu) KIEV, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv said on Friday that his country is willing to boost its cooperation with China in various areas. "China is a strategic partner for Ukraine...We have effective tools for strengthening cooperation in order to significantly deepen partnership in key promising sectors," Kubiv said during a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Ukraine Du Wei. Kubiv stressed that the meeting of the Chinese-Ukrainian Intergovernmental Commission and Ukraine's participation in the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation this year are instruments to further enhance collaboration between the two countries. A grab dredger operates in Ukraine's Black Sea port of Yuzhny, Oct. 12, 2017. The Beijing-based China Harbor Engineering Company is carrying out the dredging, helping Ukraine to transform the Soviet-built port into a modern maritime facility. (Xinhua/Chen Junfeng) According to Ukraine's State Fiscal Service, China-Ukraine trade rose 27.1 percent to 9.77 billion U.S. dollars in 2018. The two countries closely cooperate in such areas as energy, infrastructure and agriculture. China will host the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in April 2019 in Beijing. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 03:02:45|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JERUSALEM, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- One Palestinian was killed and another seriously injured on Saturday during clashes with Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank, according to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Hamdy Na'asan, a 38-year-old Palestinian and father of four, was killed by gunfire during clashes that took place in the area between the Palestinian village of Al Mughayyir, east of the city of Ramallah, and the nearby Adei Ad Jewish outpost, said IDF. A physical confrontation evolved between a number of Palestinians and an Israeli settler, during which the settler was injured without need for medical treatment, IDF added. According to the IDF's statement, shortly thereafter, a conflict erupted between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the area, in which the settlers fired gunshots. IDF and Israeli Border Police forces arrived at the scene and dispersed the "riot." This is the second Palestinian who was killed in confrontations over the weekend in the West Bank. On Friday, a 16-year-old Palestinian was killed by IDF fire near the Palestinian town of Silwad, east of Ramallah. According to the IDF, the boy and two of his friends threw stones at Israeli vehicles. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 02:47:40|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Ma Zhaoxu (C, front), China's permanent representative to the United Nations, addresses a Security Council emgergency meeting on the situation in Venezuela, at the UN headquarters in New York, Jan. 26, 2019. Ma Zhaoxu said Saturday that China opposes foreign interference in Venezuela's affairs while speaking at the United Nations Security Council emergency meeting. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy said Saturday that China opposes foreign interference in Venezuela's affairs while speaking at a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting on the situation in Venezuela. "China always opposes interference in other countries' internal affairs and opposes foreign interference in Venezuela's affairs," said Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations. Noting that "the situation in Venezuela belongs to the domestic affairs of that country," Ma said it "does not constitute a threat to international peace and security and it is not on the agenda of the Security Council." "China is against adding the situation in Venezuela to the agenda of the Security Council," the envoy stressed, adding that the Venezuela's affairs "must be and can only be chosen and decided" by the Venezuelan people themselves. "We call upon all relevant parties to respect the choice of the Venezuelan people," he said. Noting that "maintaining stability and development in Venezuela serves the interests of all relevant parties," Ma said that "we hope all parties can contribute more to Venezuela's stability." "We hope that the international community can jointly create favorable conditions for that," he said. The Chinese ambassador told the Security Council that China has been "following closely the current situation in Venezuela" and calls upon all relevant parties in Venezuela "to stay rational, keep calm, and bear in mind the fundamental interests of the country and its people to seek a political solution to the issues through peaceful dialogue within the framework of the Venezuelan Constitution." "China supports the efforts made by the Venezuelan government to uphold national sovereignty, independence and stability," he said. "China maintains that all countries should abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, especially the norms governing international relations and the principles of international law such as no interference in each other's internal affairs, mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and refrain from threatening to use force," Ma said. UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the meeting. The last time the Security Council convened on a weekend was on April 14, 2018, to discuss the Israel-Palestine issue. Saturday's meeting was requested by the United States and some other countries. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo participated in and briefed the meeting. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 02:07:33|Editor: ZX Video Player Close People perform in a gala show titled "Let's Share the Chinese New Year Together" in Sofia, Bulgaria, Jan. 26, 2019. Some 500 Bulgarians and Chinese attended the gala show to celebrate the upcoming Spring Festival. The event, jointly organized by the China Cultural Center, Confucius Institute in Sofia, and city government departments of Ningbo and Quanzhou, was also dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and Bulgaria. (Xinhua/Zhan Xiaoyi) SOFIA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Some 500 Bulgarians and Chinese on Saturday celebrated the upcoming Spring Festival by attending and applauding the gala show titled "Let's Share the Chinese New Year Together". The event, jointly organized by the China Cultural Center, Confucius Institute in Sofia, and city governmental departments of Ningbo and Quanzhou, was also dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and Bulgaria. During the two-hour long spectacle held in one of the most prestigious hotels in Sofia, artists from China and Bulgaria performed traditional Chinese songs, dances and martial arts. A congratulatory address on behalf of Bulgaria's Vice President Iliyana Yotova, which was read at the beginning of the show, said that for 70 years, Bulgaria and China enjoyed very good diplomatic relations. Culture was the best tool for mutual understanding and rapprochement of the two peoples, Yotova said in the address. "Therefore, let us continue to promote the development of cultural ties between the Bulgarian and Chinese peoples," Yotova said. Yan Jianqun, Chinese charge d'affaires in Sofia, in turn recalled that Bulgaria was the second country in the world to recognize new China in 1949. The Spring Festival was an important symbol of traditional Chinese culture and channel for the understanding and perception of the Chinese culture, Yan said. "I believe that through events like today's, the understanding and emotion between the two peoples will deepen and create a harmonious and wonderful environment for equal cooperation and co-development," Yan said. Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba Group, speaks at a panel discussion over Digital Trust and Transformation during the WEF Annual Meeting at Davos, Jan. 24, 2019. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan) DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting wrapped up Friday here at the snow-covered town of Davos in Switzerland. Participated by hundreds of world leaders from all circles of life, during the four days of packed sessions, a lot of topics have been discussed, from the current global challenges, the future of Europe, the fighting to save the oceans to setting rules for the AI race. However, what impressed the world the most might be these for key words -- cooperation, inclusion, AI and re-skilling. COOPERATION When 3000 global elites gathered again at Davos on Jan. 22-25 for the event, they were told that the theme of this year's meeting is "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution". Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF, explained that since the challenges associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are coinciding with the rapid emergence of the many problems of the global governance, a new era of globalization is needed to be shaped, and that's globalization 4.0. That is, the globalization 4.0 is both outcomes and solutions for many of the big issues of our time -- as being listed by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres -- global politics and geopolitical tensions, the slowdown of global economy, climate changes, immigration and digitalization. In a special address to this year's Davos meeting, Guterres said that in order to achieve a better world, there is no other way to deal with global challenges with global responses, and organized in a multilateral way. "If I had to select one sentence to describe the state of the world, I would say we are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated and the responses are more and more fragmented. And if this is not reversed, it's a recipe for disaster," he noted. "It needs to be a multilateralism in which not only states are part of the system, but in which more and more, the business community, the civil society, the academia, they are all part of the way to analyze problems, to define strategies, to define policies, and then to implement them." Under the background of 4IR, Guterres highlighted the "digital cooperation", saying that "we need to find a minimum of consensus in the world on how to integrate these new technologies in existed human rules". German Chancellor Angela Merkel also presented a full-throated defense of the collaborative development of a new global architecture at this year's Davos meeting. In her special address, the Chancellor said that all our major problems, including the future of artificial intelligence, will require global cooperation and engagement through a collective architecture. "I stand here before you as someone who believes fully in the international order," she said. INCLUSION Obviously, 4IR, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution was one of the core concepts behind all the discussion during this year's Davos meeting. It is creating huge economic opportunities while also raising concerns on the many changes it will bring about. According to the latest figure from this year's WEF meeting, the 4IR is projected to unlock 3.7 trillion U.S. dollars in economic value by 2025, and digital flows now exert a larger impact on GDP growth than merchandise trade, making it easier for companies to globalize with less capital-intensive business models. For IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, one of the major negative effects of 4IR is that it could leave many people feeling disenfranchised and left behind. How can we ensure the full use of the digital globalization but at the same time avoid the negative effects? The answer is "inclusion". "There is always a moment in every industrial revolution where inequality grows. We then have to create a social revolution. Without it the industrial revolution keeps misfiring," Hilary Cottam, Author and Entrepreneur, told the forum. In every industrial revolution, the human beings have a social revolution, she emphasized, and this does not happen by accident. "It happens by design" and the state has a critical role to play in designing that new architecture. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, said at the meeting that according to their study, extreme economic inequality is out of control and at present, 10,000 people will die everyday because they can't access public health. According to her, even with the tech changes, we are now in an economy that is rigged in such a way that a few get better off and many others don't. "We have to get governments to get behind managing the economies better," she said. For Robert E. Moritz, Global Chairman of PwC International, business has a huge role to play in this respect. According to Subramanian Rangan, a Professor of Strategy, since Nordic countries have less inequality and they are the highest adopters of technology, "Technology is not the problem" and how people use technology is the big thing, he said. "We need moral capital to complement this cyber capital. If you are not willing to sacrifice things, there will be no trust," he argued. For Alibaba founder Ma Yun, the reason why some people don't believe in globalization is because "it is not inclusive". So, how can we improve it? His answer is to include much more people to this process. "In the last 20 years, globalization was controlled by 60,000 companies worldwide, imagine if we could expand that to 60 million businesses," Ma said. AI At Davos this winter, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the most popular subject of discussion. According to the latest figure from this year's Davos, AI has been projected to manage one trillion U.S. dollars in assets by 2020 and will transform the world in dramatic ways and will be the fastest growing trend in business under 4IR. Saying AI is ensuring efficient operating systems for merchants, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang described the excitement around AI amusing given that Alibaba has been using this technology for years. Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive Officer of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI), said that the objective should be to use AI to transform for the benefit of all, to ensure AI doesn't remain elitist. Accordign to Jim Hagemann Snabe, Chairman of Siemens, the most important thing is that we should use AI to enhance human capability, but not just to replace them. RE-SKILLING Another most attractive topic is this year's Davos is learning today for tomorrow's jobs, or re-skilling. According to a WEF report released just ahead of this year's annual meeting, a total of 1.4 million U.S. workers might lose their jobs as a result of the 4IR and other structural changes over the next decade. However, the report found, it will be possible to transition 95 percent of at-risk workers into positions that have similar skills and higher wages through re-skilling. Figures released from this year's Davos meeting also showed that some 65 percent of children entering primary school today will graduate into jobs that do not yet exist, implying that a new learning and re-skilling revolution will be necessary to prepare workers and societies for the future coming soon. Even in the educationally-advanced U.S., some panelists at the meeting said, as many as 43 percent of recent college graduates in the United States are underemployed in their first job out of college. Bill Thomas, Global Chairman of KPMG, said that since the pace of change is increasing, the commitment to lifelong learning is going to become a competitive advantage if companies want to attract new generation to join. "Today access to capital is easier than access to skills," said Muriel Penicaud, France's Minister of Labor, who also mentioned her re-skilling proposal which includes giving employees 500 euros (568.5 U.S. dollars) a year to choose their own training program. "Many of our citizens think they are victims of globalization and technology. When you are not in the driving seat, change is always a threat. You need to be in the driving seat, you need to be able to choose your future," she said. According to Julie Gebauer, head of Human Capital and Benefits at Willis Towers Watson, there are a whole set of human skills that are going to be important in the future -- the ability to interact with clients, global skills, the ability to use digital technology, complex problem solving ability and agile thinking. "I don't think computers are going to take that away any time soon," she said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 00:07:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Kurdish demonstrators Saturday broke into a Turkish military base inside the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, protesting against Turkish cross-border airstrikes and artillery shelling. Dozens of protesters stormed a Turkish base in Shiladze in Iraq's northern province of Duhok and set fire to military vehicles inside the Turkish military site, said the Kurdish media net of Rudaw. The turmoil inside the military base resulted in the wounding of at least two Kurdish protesters, it said. The angry demonstrators were protesting the repeated airstrikes and artillery shelling on the Kurdish villages near the Iraqi-Turkish border, Rudaw added. According to the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdish citizens found on Friday bodies of six people, including two Kurdish security members, known as Peshmerga, who were killed by the Turkish bombardment on the Deraluk area in Duhok province. The demonstrators called on the federal and regional Kurdistan governments to intervene to stop the bombing, said the official website of PUK, a major Kurdish party in which the Iraqi President Barham Salih is a leading figure. Turkish forces frequently carry out ground operations, airstrikes and artillery bombardment against the positions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq, especially the Qandil Mountains, the main base of the PKK. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-27 00:02:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close YANGON, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Myanmar-China Friendship Association on Saturday offered scholarships to 88 Myanmar outstanding needy students. "We don't want outstanding students to drop out of school just because they couldn't afford and that is why we started helping them out," U Sein Win Aung, chairman of the association told Xinhua. The program was handed over to the association from Su Xiuyu (Daw Zin Khine) Foundation, a Chinese educational foundation which has been extending scholarships to Myanmar students across the country since 2013. "Such assistance means a lot to me. I really appreciate it," said Ma Su Lin Naing, a fifth year student of the Yangon University of Education, who has been granted scholarship since her first year. Since 2013, it has granted assistance to a total of 538 outstanding needy students from the country's states and regions. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 23:42:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The World Food Programme (WFP) on Saturday appealed to international donors to support its refugee operations Tanzania. "In 2019, WFP is facing a shortfall of 40 million U.S. dollars in its refugee operations in Tanzania," Michael Dunford, the WFP Representative for Tanzania, told Xinhua in an interview. Tanzania currently hosts 285,078 refugees in three camps in northwest Tanzania. This number fluctuates depending on emergencies in neighboring countries and repatriation from the camps. Dunford said donor contributions to WFP Tanzania came in both the form of cash and in-kind commodities. "Cash contributions enable WFP to procure some of the food commodities locally, which helps boost agriculture in the country," said Dunford. Apart from buying directly from Tanzania, said Dunford, WFP also contributed to the Tanzanian economy by using local companies for the handling, storage and transportation of food for refugees. Dunford said WFP food assistance in the camps also includes a supplementary feeding program to provide additional nutrition support to pregnant and lactating women, children under five years old and hospital in-patients. "In addition, hot meals are served to newly arriving refugees at transit and reception centers, and high energy biscuits are provided to those in transit," he added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 23:01:56|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close A Syrian farmer puts harvested olives in a plastic box in a grove in the countryside of Sweida province, Syria, Nov. 13, 2018. The production of olive and olive oil in Syria was affected in 2018 compared with previous years, due to bugs in olive groves, high temperature and violation to the farmlands. In previous years, the average production of olive was estimated at around 1 million tons, while in 2018 the production plunged to around 700,000 tons. DAMASCUS, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The production of olive and olive oil in Syria was affected in 2018 compared with previous years, due to bugs in olive groves, high temperature and violation to the farmlands. Mohammad Habo, director of the Olives Office at the Ministry of Agriculture, told Xinhua that in previous years, the average production of olive was estimated at around 1 million tons, while in 2018 the production plunged to around 700,000 tons. "The olive trees have been affected as any other tree in Syria by the current crisis as a result of the violation to the farmlands which caused a shrinkage in the olive groves," he said. The official said that the Agriculture Ministry will implement plans to fix the olive groves in Syria to restore the production to normal levels, particularly after the Syrian army restored large areas across the country and the battles have largely declined. "The Agriculture Ministry will work to put plans to restore and fix the groves that were sabotaged as a result of the war circumstances in Syria and to secure the demands of seedlings to facilitate the cultivation of these spaces," Habo noted. Despite the reduction in the production, Habo said that local consumption of the olive and olive oil is sufficient, noting that there is a space for exports, whose revenue will be crucial in the development process in Syria. He said in 2018, 27 tons of olive oil were exported to 33 countries. "We are still consuming our production of the olive oil and we export to other counties in relatively good quantities. The Syrian olive oil is considered as one of the famous oils in the world due to its unique characteristics in terms of the flavor, color and smell," he said. He noted that Syria has large olive groves to produce the famous Syrian olive oil, which is ranked the seventh internationally. The space of olive groves in Syria is estimated at around 692,000 hectares with 102 million olive trees, out of which 82 million trees are fruitful, he said, adding that in 2018, "our production was estimated at 700,000 tons of olive and our production of oil was estimated at 120,000 tons." As for the farmers, the bad harvest was also complained about. In Sweida province, Nizar Seihnawi, who has an olive grove in that province, told Xinhua that he felt the difference in 2018 in comparison with previous years. His workers at the olive field were picking and collecting the olives from trees but the amount appeared far from abundant. "The harvest was little as most of the trees were not productive. In 2017, my production of oil was estimated at between 400 and 500 liters, but in 2018 it was a quarter of the previous year's quantity. We hope that in the next years the harvest will be better," Seihnawi said. Last September, the government-run al-Baath newspaper speculated that the harvest of olive would be affected in 2018, saying the bugs and infections that hit the olive trees were "catastrophic." It said the big difference in the temperature between the day and night had contributed to the appearance of bugs that feed off of olive trees and cause olives to fall down ahead of its time. The paper said the available pesticides could not help in killing the bugs, which caused a condition called "olive tuberculosis." In the town of Masyaf in central Syria, which is one of the important places for olive groves, al-Baath said the production of 2017 in that area was estimated at 63,000 tons while in 2018 the production was only half of the normal figure. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 22:41:53|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LUSAKA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- TopStar, a Zambian-Chinese joint venture on pay-TV services, on Saturday announced the expansion of its signal coverage for local TV stations. The firm, a joint venture created by the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation and Chinese StarTimes Group, is the official pubic signal distributor. "We have the widest terrestrial signal coverage that carry over 20 indigenous Zambian TV stations over a network of 64 transmitters across all 10 provinces," Cliff Sichone, the firm's vice-president, said in a release to announce the inclusion of three more local television stations to its satellite dish service. TopStar has contributed greatly to the revolutionization of the television industry in Zambia, said Sichone. He said all the local television stations have also been included on the StarTimes ON App which provides video on demand and live streaming. Currently, the StarTimes ON APP, previously branded as the StarTimes APP, has been downloaded 360,000 times in Zambia, he added. He further said the introduction of Zambian Channels to the StarTimes ON APP is a sign that the Zambian television industry is not being left behind in the digital business market. "TopStar is not only the public distributor, but also runs a subscriber management business that requires constant innovation and customer retention," he said. According to him, the StarTimes ON APP is taking advantage of the growing business opportunities that internet based services provide. StarTimes, a leading digital TV operator in Africa, launched StarTimes ON in 2018 as part of its Over The Top (OTT) business, officially declaring that online video streaming service of the media giant is "ON" in the market. StarTimes provides Terrestrial TV (DTT) and Satellite TV (DTH) services to millions of customers in the African market spanning 30 countries. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 22:41:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close KHARTOUM, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese police said the country did not witness any gatherings on Friday, except for limited illegal ones, official SUNA news agency reported Saturday. "The country did not witness any gatherings on Friday, except for limited illegal gatherings in Khartoum and some other states that were dispersed according to the law," Hashim Abdel-Rahim, Sudanese police spokesman, was quoted as saying. He explained that an uncontrolled group attacked private properties late Friday evening during illegal gatherings at Um Badda locality in Omdurman city, adding that the group exercised looting and burning of vehicles. "Another group looted Al-Hikma Pharmacy on Al-Thawra road in Omdurman, where they assaulted and harmed one of the workers at the pharmacy," he said. He added that the group has smashed the glass barriers of the pharmacy and stolen sums of money and medicines, noting that the authorities are searching for the defendants. Since Dec. 19, various areas in Sudan, including Khartoum, have been witnessing popular protests over the deteriorating economic conditions and price hikes of basic commodities. According to the government statistics, at least 29 people have been killed during the protests. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 22:41:50|Editor: zh Video Player Close ROME, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- China is willing to work with France and Italy and meet each other halfway, enhance strategic communication, and consolidate strategic mutual trust and cooperation, so as to inject new impetus to bilateral ties and positive energy into the international community, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said. Wang made the remarks during a press briefing on Friday night, right before concluding his visits to France and Italy. The top Chinese diplomat termed as "very successful" the 18th consultation of the coordinators for the China-France Strategic Dialogue and the 9th joint meeting of the China-Italy Government Committee. Against the backdrop of ongoing profound adjustment of relations and increased frictions among major powers, Wang said France and Italy, both major members of the European Union and countries with global influence, expressed their stance that they cherish the comprehensive strategic partnerships with China. Wang believed that the China-France and China-Italy comprehensive strategic partnerships had been further enhanced. Wang also told reporters that both France and Italy have clearly welcomed Chinese investment to their countries, promising not to adopt any restrictions on specific enterprises and discriminations against any enterprises. He praised these statements as "not only timely but also necessary", adding that Chinese companies will increasingly turn their eyes to countries that are worth their trust. Wang said he also had deep exchange of views with French and Italian officials on how to deal with various global challenges. The tripartite partners, Wang said, have confirmed that they would firmly uphold the rule-based multilateralism and maintain the contemporary international system with the UN as the core. He said all three countries completely disagreed with unilateralism and egoism, which actually represents the general perspective of the international community. It will be proved that any unilateralism and egoism are unpopular and doomed to be unsustainable, Wang added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 21:56:37|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close BANGKOK, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's former Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt said on Saturday if Pheu Thai (for Thais) Party names him as the top candidate for post-election prime minister, he will accept it. Chadchart is one of the most favorite candidates under the tickets of Pheu Thai Party besides former cabinet member Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan, who has been largely tipped to contest the post of prime minister following the March 24 election. The former transport minister said he would accept it if the party named him as Number One candidate for prime minister, though he aknowledged that he has been relatively little known to the people in the provinces compared to Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan. "The Thai people in the provinces do not seem to know me as much as Khunying Sudarat. But I might be well-known in the Internet," he said. Nevertheless, he said whether the voters will pick Pheu Thai Party in the electoral contests will largely depend on the party's policy platform and teamwork spirit among its rank and file rather than individual candidates. Khunying Sudarat currently acts as the head of the party's team in charge of steering electoral strategies. Pheu Thai Party is expected to name a team of three candidates, referring to Number One, Number Two and Number Three for post-election prime minister. Chadchart, Khunying Sudarat and another Pheu Thai candidate for post-election prime minister will almost certainly vie against Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is being named by Phalang Pracharat (power of people's state) Party as its Number One candidate for prime minister, followed by Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak as Number Two candidate and Industry Minister and party leader Uttama Savanayanan as Number Three candidate. Another major contestant for post-election prime minister includes former Prime Minister and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 21:01:27|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close WELLINGTON, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand will participate in negotiations to establish global e-commerce trade rules at the World Trade Organization (WTO), Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker said on Saturday. The talks will set rules "in an area that was not mature," Parker said in a statement, adding e-commerce is especially important to small businesses as it enables them to participate in cross border trade previously more practical for larger businesses. This is especially important for New Zealand where smaller businesses are the norm, Parker added. New Zealand is one of the 76 members representing more than 90 percent of global trade that have signed to reiterate their support for this WTO initiative. Online shopping is growing rapidly around the world with consumer spending online doubling in the last five years and business-to-business e-commerce trade estimated at 19.9 trillion NZ dollars (13.6 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2015, statistics showed. In 2017, New Zealanders spent more than 3.6 billion NZ dollars buying goods online, up 13 percent compared with the previous year, Parker said. The expansion of e-commerce offers the potential to help businesses overcome the challenges of scale and distance, sell products directly to consumers online and offer more choices for consumers, he said. The minister stressed the need for reliable personal privacy and consumer protections, transparency and openness, while making it easier for businesses and consumers to take advantage of e-commerce. New Zealand businesses are increasingly adapting to e-commerce, especially when it comes to foreign trade. The country's largest live lobster exporter Fiordland Lobster Company Group has started to explore China's online market. The company's General Manager Andrew Harvey said its lobsters will be sold directly through the company's own online connections with Chinese consumers this year. "There's a lot of work to be done understanding what our Chinese customers want from us in this channel, and we're looking forward to it," Harvey told Xinhua. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 20:06:10|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TEHRAN, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif voiced his country's support for the legitimate government of Venezuela, Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday. Iran supports Venezuela's government and nation amid the "U.S. plots," Zarif said in a telephone conversation with his Venezuelan counterpart Jorge Arreaza. The two sides discussed ways to counter the U.S. moves against independent governments, particularly the Venezuelan government, according to the report. Zarif and Arreaza further talked about the ways to strengthen national dialogue and political solutions to the conflicts between the Venezuelan government and the opposition groups. According to the Foreign Ministry's website, Zarif will keep holding talks with the countries that share views with Tehran about the developments in Venezuela. U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Washington had recognized the opposition leader Juan Guaido as the nation's "interim president," after Nicolas Maduro was inaugurated as leader of the Latin American country earlier this month. Trump added that the United States would continue to use economic and diplomatic power to press for "the restoration of Venezuelan democracy." On Thursday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi criticized the United States for "intervention" in Venezuela's internal political affairs. Qasemi said that "Iran supports the Venezuelan government and nation in the face of foreign intervention and any illegitimate and illegal move such as trying to stage a coup" in the Latin American country. "We hope any political difference in Venezuela is solved by the people and government of the country using legal and peaceful means," Qasemi added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 20:06:10|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it is still committed to the Adana pact between Turkey and Syria. The ministry said that its activation requires a halt of terror support by Turkey and restoring the border situation to what it used to be, according to the state news agency SANA. The ministry made the statement on the heels of Turkish remarks about Adana pact, which was signed in 1998 and allows Turkey to enter 5 km depth into the Syrian territory if the Turkish security is to be threatened by a terror threat. The ministry stressed that activating this pact requires restoring the situation on the Syrian-Turkish border to what it used to be ahead of the Syrian war. The ministry charged that the Turkish side is the one who violated the pact when its forces entered Syrian areas and it supported the rebel groups since 2011, when the Syrian crisis began. Talks about the Adana agreement were on the agenda during the meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 23. The Turkish side is apparently trying to find legal justification for the security zone in northeastern Syria, particularly in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is deemed by Turkey as a terror group due to its links with the Turkey-banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 19:51:08|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close Border Security Force (BSF) camel contingent marches through Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard, during the 70th Republic Day parade in New Delhi, India, Jan. 26, 2019. Thousands of Indians have converged on a ceremonial boulevard to watch a parade displaying the country's military power and cultural diversity amid tight security measures during the 70th Republic Day celebrations. (Xinhua/Partha Sarkar) by Peerzada Arshad Hamid NEW DELHI, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government on Saturday celebrated the 70th Republic Day amid tight security measures, officials said. The main function was organized at Rajpath in New Delhi, the national capital. In accordance with the tradition, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind unfurled the Indian national flag, following which the national anthem was played with a 21 gun salute. The president took the salute of parade and flypast. "A grand parade of forces and a majestic flypast by fighter jets of the air force today marked the 70th Republic Day," an official said. "During the parade, the country's military prowess, state-of-the-art defence platforms, and diverse culture were on full display." Twenty-two tableaux from the states and federal government depicted various themes and the life and ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. The overall theme for the Republic Day celebrations this year was the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhi. Gandhi is considered as the father of the Indian nation for being at the forefront of the country's independence movement. During the function, military contingents, police and paramilitary marched past the podium and children showcased colourful cultural performances. Several VIPs and foreign dignitaries attended the event. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the Chief Guest at the parade this year. Ramaphosa was accompanied by first lady Tshepo Motsepe and a high-level delegation, including nine ministers, senior officials and a 50-member business contingent. The parade started from Vijay Chowk and proceeded towards the Red Fort grounds. For the first time, all women marching contingent of the Assam Rifles took part in the parade. Assam Rifles is an oldest paramilitary force active in India's northeast. The Clean India Movement was one of the themes of the tableaux. The movement, locally named as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, was initiated in India in 2014. The program envisages eradication of open defecation which is prevalent in India, building of public toilets and cleaning up public places, among other things related to cleanliness. During the parade, main battle tank of the Indian army, T- 90 Bhishma, infantry combat vehicle ballway machine pikate, K-9 Vajra-T, ultra light howitzer and Akash weapon system were the main draws. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to twitter to greet people on the Republic Day. "Happy Republic Day to all fellow Indians," Modi wrote on twitter. "India's military and security prowess at Rajpath. Ours is a land of peace, which has shown the way when it comes to harmony and brotherhood. At the same time, we are fully prepared to give a strong answer to those elements who disturb the atmosphere of peace and spread violence." Officials said thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed in the city to ensure culmination of function smoothly. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 19:46:06|Editor: ZX Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday sent a message of condolence to his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro over a dam collapse which caused heavy casualties one day earlier. In his message, Xi said that he was shocked at the news of the dam collapse in the state of Minas Gerais, which also resulted in huge property losses. On behalf of the Chinese government and people, Xi offered deep condolences to the victims and families of those missing, and expressed his sincere solace to the Brazilian people. He wished an early recovery to the injured. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 19:01:00|Editor: Xiaoxia Video Player Close BAGHDAD, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least three Islamic State (IS) militants, including a group leader, were killed Saturday in an airstrike in Iraq's eastern province Diyala, a provincial security source said. Acting on intelligence reports, the Iraqi helicopter gunships pounded at dawn an IS hideout at Hawdh al-Waqf area, in the northeast of Diyala's provincial capital Baquba, said Sadiq al-Husseini, head of security committee of the provincial council. Hawdh al-Waqf is an agricultural area that stretches near the town of Abu Saida in northeastern Baquba, about 65 km northeast of Baghdad. Five of the area's 17 villages have been the hotbed of IS militants who holed up in their farms and orchards, Husseini said. The extremist militants have repeatedly carried out attacks against the security forces and civilians, pushing many of the villagers to ask the security forces to save their villages for the presence of the extremist groups, he added. Despite repeated military operations in the Diyala province, remnants of IS militants are still hiding in some rugged areas near the border with Iran, and in the sprawling areas extending from the western part of the province to the Himreen mountain range in north of Baquba. The security situation in Iraq has been dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017. However, groups and individuals of extremist militants melted or regrouped in urban and rugged areas, carrying out attacks against the security forces and civilians. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 18:30:53|Editor: ZX Video Player Close LUSAKA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Zambia and China on Saturday reaffirmed their commitments to promoting cultural cooperation in order to enhance people-to-people understanding. The two countries made the commitment during a cultural performance by the Jilin Art Troupe as part of the celebrations of the Chinese New Year. Richard Musukwa, Zambia's acting Minister of Tourism and Arts, said the southern African nation values the importance of culture in building people-to-people relations and was keen to learn from cultures of other countries like China. Zambia, he said, appreciates the support it has been receiving from China in cultural exchanges which have enhanced the cooperation that has existed between the two countries in the last 55 years. According to him, performances by various Chinese cultural groups were an inspiration not only to the people of Zambia but local artists as well, who should also emulate the Chinese groups and aspire to do better. Li Jie, Chinese Ambassador to Zambia, acknowledged the bilateral relations over the years, adding that cultural cooperation has also played a part in enhancing the ties. He said the cultural cooperation has also resulted in the promotion of the learning of the Chinese language in various schools in Zambia, with 10,000 students currently learning the Chinese language. He further said about 4,000 Zambian students were currently studying in various universities in China. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 18:00:49|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HARARE, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Zimbabwean government said it will investigate allegations of misconduct by security forces following reports that some civilians were abused and raped in the aftermath of recent protests that left several people dead, goods looted and property destroyed. Two cabinet ministers issued separate statements to state media Friday saying that they took the allegations of rape, sexual abuse and assault of civilians by the security forces seriously. Home Affairs Minister Cain Mathema told local newspaper the Herald that police had received one report of alleged abuse so far and more would be investigated. "The Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage wishes to acknowledge reports of alleged rape, sexual abuse and assaults that have been perpetrated by security forces during the recent operation. So far, the police have received one such report from St Mary's, Chitungwiza, and the case is already under investigation," he said. Video footage by an international media organization showed footage of bruised women who alleged they had been raped by members of the security forces. "We take these rape allegations very seriously and investigations will be instituted immediately once complainants file reports with the police," Mathema said. Mathema said he had already communicated with Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga over the matter, and urged all citizens to report any case of misconduct. Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi also said that the alleged cases would be thoroughly investigated. "Those with complaints should report them to the police, and they will be treated impartially and with sensitivity," he said, adding that the media should be responsible for reporting such issues. "We call upon our media not to whip up emotions, but help bring people together as we hold hands one to another rebuilding our country," Ziyambi said. Official reports put the number of people who died during the violent demonstrations at eight, although independent media said that the number is higher. The demonstrations were triggered by fuel price increases announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. However, the government alleges the demonstrations had been pre-planned by the opposition and civil organizations. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 17:50:46|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- With the Year of the Pig in the Chinese lunar calendar fast approaching, a variety show featuring three northern and increasingly interconnected jurisdictions in China was put on in the affluent Californian city of Beverly Hills on Friday. About 500 American audience gathered in a theater in Beverly Hills on Friday for the show titled "Charming Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei" featuring Chinese artists performing folk music, Tai Chi, Peking opera, acrobatic and martial arts. A photo exhibition of the capital Beijing, the municipality of Tianjin and the province of Hebei showcased the festival culture and latest developments in the region. Plans are underway to strengthen connectivity between Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. The show was more than a visual treat for visitors: it also offered information about the cultural and economic aspects of the three jurisdictions, said Chinese Consul General in Los Angeles Zhang Ping. He expressed hope that such event would deepen mutual understanding between the two peoples and serve as a platform for further trade and cultural exchanges. Vice Mayor of Beverly Hills John Mirisch said his city enjoys a great relationship with China. "We welcome the Chinese, and think sharing some of their interesting cultural experiences with American audiences right here in Beverly Hills makes us understand and appreciate each other more." The event is the eighth annual Chinese New Year celebration hosted in the city. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 17:30:41|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close ALGIERS, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), the oldest opposition party in Algeria, is set to boycott the presidential elections slated for April 18, local media reported on Saturday. El Khabar newspaper quoted a statement of the party as saying that the boycott decision was made during the meeting of its National Council held on Friday. The source noted that FFS has announced that it will neither present a candidate nor support a candidate for the upcoming poll. FFS justified its boycott decision by the fact that "conditions of democratic, free and fair election are still not met," urging for "active, massive and peaceful boycott of the election." According to the latest figures of the Interior Ministry, as many as 92 potential candidates have submitted their applications to take part in the election, involving 12 political parties, pending approval. Still, whether President Abdelaziz Bouteflika would run for the fifth term is not decided, while deadline for candidacy submission is set for midnight of March 3. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 17:15:38|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close TEHRAN, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry censured French foreign minister's recent threats to impose sanctions on Iran over Tehran's ballistic missile program. Iran's missiles are for deterrence purposes and non-negotiable, said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi, according to a report by Foreign Ministry on Saturday. "Iran's military capabilities are part of the country's legitimate defense power and a guarantor of Iran's national security, which is based on the doctrine of deterrence," Qasemi said. "Iran has designed its defense capabilities based on a realistic assessment of the existing threats," he said, adding that his country would strengthen such capabilities to the extent it deems necessary. He stressed that Iran's missile capability is not negotiable, and the issue has been brought to the attention of the French side during the ongoing political dialogue between Iran and France. On Friday, the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said that Paris is ready to impose sanctions on Tehran if no progress is made in talks over its ballistic missile program. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 17:15:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (front C) and Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi (front R) attend the ninth joint meeting of the China-Italy Government Committee in Rome, Italy, Jan. 25, 2019. (Xinhua/Cheng Tingting) ROME, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the 9th joint meeting of the China-Italy Government Committee in Rome on Friday, during which he called for further cooperation between both countries. As the respective birthplace of Eastern and Western civilizations, China and Italy have had a tradition of friendly exchanges in the long course of history, Wang said in the joint meeting. The Chinese and Italian peoples, with their profound cultural heritage and confidence are able to cope with the challenges facing the world today and make new contributions to global peace and development. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of China-Italy comprehensive strategic partnership and the China-Italy Government Committee, said Wang, adding that pragmatic cooperations between the two countries has witnessed remarkable achievements, while bilateral relations continue to move to new heights. The two countries have seen bilateral trade grow, an increase in two-way investment and a healthy foundation of fiscal and financial cooperation in the past 15 years, Wang said. Moreover, the Italian blueprint for participating in the Belt and Road Initiative is being realized step by step, helping to open a new chapter in bilateral cooperation, Wang added. Italy has put forward a blueprint for its maritime, land, aviation, aerospace and cultural participation in the massive Chinese infrastructure and investment initiative. Wang said there is unprecedented opportunity in the bilateral relationship, and both sides should implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries. Next year also marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Italy. Wang said both countries should look forward to the future and make the most of their relationship across a variety of fields. The two countries also need to bolster their comprehensive strategic partnership and set a good example to the rest of the world of a harmonious coexistence. Furthermore, China and Italy should provide constructive solutions to common problems facing the international community, he said. Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi, who also attended the meeting, said Italy and China have a long-standing friendship, and both countries have similar views on a number of issues. Cooperation in trade, investment, science and technology, and culture have all steadily advanced and are supported by both peoples. The Italian side is confident in the development of Italy-China relations and is willing to strengthen high-level exchanges with China, forging closer relationships with the Asian country in trade, innovation, culture and other fields, Milanesi added. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 16:50:31|Editor: ZX Video Player Close TUNIS, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- As part of China's New Year celebration, a wonderful show performed by an art group from northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was held in Tunis Friday night. The performance consisted of Mongolian dance, long tune, stringed instrument morin khuur, and unique khoomei singing. "We are very happy to welcome China. It is important for us that culture brings our two countries together through an emotional and sensitive art like this show," said Tunisian Culture Minister Mohamed Zine El-Abidine. The minister praised the performed art for its richness and precision, adding that Tunisian people are open to international traditions. Chinese ambassador to Tunisia Wang Wenbin said this artistic group came to present cultural exchanges with Tunisians, as well as to bring the best wishes, happiness and prosperity of Chinese New Year. "This year, China and Tunisia will jointly celebrate the 55th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties, and various festivities and cultural events will be scheduled," said Wang. The Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival, is the most important traditional festival for people of Chinese origin, featuring family reunions, feasts and performances. This year's festival in the Chinese lunar calendar will begin on Feb. 5. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 16:50:30|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close MANILA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Philippines security forces have arrested three alleged Maute fighters as troops and police renew their offensive against the remnants of a terror group that attacked the southern Philippine city of Marawi nearly two years ago, said a military official on Saturday. Colonel Romeo Brawner of the Philippine Army's 103rd Infantry Brigade said the three suspects were arrested late Friday, a day after troops seized the group's base in southern Lanao del Sur province. Brawner said the troops gained control of the camp after "an intense gunfight" with 24 extremists belonging to the Maute group, is believed to be led by Abu Dhar, he added. The location of the camp is about 50 km from Marawi City. Brawner said the fighting that lasted 10 hours, killed three suspected Maute fighters and wounded three soldiers. Brawner said the military offensive to rid Lanao del Sur province of extremists will continue. The Maute group led the siege on the city of Marawi located in the southern island of Mindanao in May 2017. The Maute group executed the attack in concert with the jihadist terror group Abu Sayyaf. Security forces ultimately cleared the city and eliminated much of the terrorist leadership, including the Maute brothers and Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon. However, the military said that some Maute members that fled Marawi in 2017 are finding their way back into the city. At least 1,200 people, including soldiers and terrorists, were killed in the Marawi siege that also flattened the city's business center. Thousands of its residents were also displaced as a result of the five-month fighting. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 16:10:19|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The three-week funding deal to reopen the U.S. federal government will not provide enough time for the air transportation system to "recover from the damage," the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) said Friday. In a CNBC interview, the TWU International President John Samuelsen said the U.S. transportation system "was brought right to the edge of the cliff" and a stopgap funding measure won't reverse the damage caused by the lengthy government shutdown. The organization represents nearly 140,000 workers in the airline, railroad, transit and other industries. Samuelsen said the lengthy shutdown could also have a long-term impact on the workforce of federal agencies. "Technically skilled workers come to work for the government because they get a steady paycheck," he said, adding that "it would be not surprising if we lose tons of talents" in the future. Some experts also warned that federal employees could be finding new jobs under financial stress, and they might not return to the federal agencies when paychecks resume. The 35-day partial shutdown temporarily ended Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill to fund the government until Feb. 15, leaving more time for debate on his long-demanded U.S.-Mexico border wall. A few hours prior to Trump's announcement, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted flights bound for New York City's LaGuardia Airport, citing staff shortage caused by the shutdown. The FAA said in a statement that there is "a light increase in sick leave" at two facilities. It pointed to staffing issues at Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center for the decision. Other main airports in the region, including Washington Reagan National, Newark Liberty International and Philadelphia International, have also seen delays. "It's upsetting that they're not getting paid that they can't work and LaGuardia is like already one of the busiest airports in the country," Olivia Gassner, whose flight to Chicago was delayed, told Xinhua. "I hope it's a wake up call." Besides low staffing level for air traffic controllers, the absence rate of airport security staff has remained high in recent days, reaching a record 10 percent on Sunday, compared to 3.1 percent a year ago, according to the Transportation Security Administration. The unions that represent the nation's air traffic controllers, pilots and flight attendants issued a warning on Wednesday, saying that they have "a growing concern for the safety and security" of their members, airlines, and the traveling public due to the government shutdown. "In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented," the three unions said in a joint statement. Airport traffic controllers and security screeners are among the 420,000 federal employees who are required to work without pay after the shutdown. They, along with 380,000 furloughed workers, missed their second paycheck on Friday. Trump said he will ensure that they receive pay "very quickly or as soon as possible." Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 15:40:14|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close LUSAKA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Zambian minister on Friday advised the government to work on ensuring fiscal discipline in managing public resources in order to secure a bailout package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Zambian Minister of Finance Margaret Mwanakatwe recently directed officials in her ministry to clean up all the required data sets in preparations for the forthcoming Article IV consultation in which economists from the IMF will assess financial developments and discuss the country's policies by the end of the current fiscal quarter. She further urged the officials to ensure a well-structured engagement strategy with the international lender. But according to the Center for Trade Policy and Development, a local think tank, the elusive IMF bail package is possible only if the government considers fiscal discipline and spend the aid properly. Isaac Mwaipopo, executive director of the think tank said the country needs to design a debt repayment strategy which is specific about the amounts of money to be repaid, adding that implementing such a strategy would also require prudent financial management. "This (repayment strategy) would entail responsible use of resources, hedging against corruption, over-pricing, abuse of office and strengthening the arms of government institutions that were mandated to offer the checks and balances," he said in a release. Mwaipopo added that a deal with the IMF would be a mark of faith in Zambian economy, which would allow the country to benefit from increased foreign direct investment, donor funding and also pave the way for refinancing its Eurobond debts at a lower cost. The think tank hopes the talks around a possible package would be concluded in the course of 2019. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 14:20:00|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Two militants were killed in a fierce gunfight with Indian troops Saturday in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said. The gunfight broke out at village Khunmoh on the outskirts of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "Two militants were killed today in a fierce gunfight with government forces here," a senior police official posted in Srinagar said. "We have recovered two assault rifles from the spot and retrieved their bodies." The Gunfight in the village began after contingents of police, paramilitary and army cordoned off the entire area. "As the searches were going on, the search party was fired upon by the militants, thereby triggering a gunfight," the official said. According to officials, the village was cordoned off following specific intelligence information suggesting the presence of militants. Police officials said the identity of the slain militants was being ascertained. The gunfight broke out ahead of India's Republic Day celebrations in the restive region. Authorities have beefed up security across the region and suspended mobile Internet services. On Friday, a series of grenade attacks were carried out across the region. However, no major damage was reported. Since the beginning of this week, nine militants were killed in three different gunfights across the region. A guerilla war is going on between militants and Indian troopers stationed in the region since 1989. Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 13:59:57|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan.25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. federal government reopened late Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump ratified a bill funding the government for three weeks. In a statement, White House said Trump signed into law the "Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019," which includes funding for federal government through Feb.15. Absent from the bill was funding for a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, a must-have for Trump. The White House and Democrats will continue to negotiate over the border security issue in the next three weeks. The swift ratification of the stopgap bill is widely viewed as a setback for the White House, as building a physical border wall to bolster border security had been a centerpiece of Trump's campaign pledges. The bill also came one day after the U.S. Senate blocked two competing bills, backed by the White House and Democrats respectively, to reopen the government. The deep divide within the Republican party, coupled with a disruption of air traffic to New York City due to understaffed aviation monitor agencies, put increasing pressure for the president to depart from his position. Despite the temporary halt to the ugly political fight that kept the nation on edge, uncertainties still lie ahead as both sides struggle to find common ground. In a speech on Friday afternoon, Trump said he does not seek a "medieval wall" nor a wall that stretches "from sea to shining sea," but a "smart wall" intended for "predetermined high-risk locations." But the Democratic Party has so far shown little interest in a physical barrier. Noting the potential differences, Trump threatened to shut the government down again or call for a state of emergency should talks falter. It is also unclear if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will re-invite Trump to deliver the state of the union address in the House chamber on Jan. 29. Her initial invitation has been scrapped due to the shutdown. Pelosi said she would be open to discussing a further date with Trump after the government reopens. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 13:54:56|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Four people were confirmed dead and 20 others sustained injuries as a blast targeted a volleyball ground in Tala-o-Barfak district of the northern Baghlan province on Friday, district governor Abdul Ahad Barfaki said Saturday. "Hundreds of people were inspecting a volleyball match on Friday evening when a blast rocked the ground, killing four people on the spot and injuring 20 others," Barfaki told Xinhua. All the victims are civilians including children, the official added. Meanwhile, an army spokesman in the northern region, Mohammad Hanif Rezai, said the blast took place in the Taliban-held area on Friday evening, leaving five dead and injuring 11 others, some in critical conditions. Taliban militants haven't commented yet. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 13:39:55|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro attends a press conference on the collapse of a dam, at Planalto Palace, in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, on Jan. 25, 2019. At least seven people were killed, nine injured and at least 150 others are missing after a tailings dam collapsed Friday afternoon in southeastern state of Minas Gerais, the state government said Friday evening. (Xinhua/Ernesto Rodrigues/AGENCIA ESTADO) RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed, nine injured and at least 150 others went missing after a tailings dam owned by mining giant Vale collapsed Friday afternoon in Brazil's southeastern state of Minas Gerais, the state government said Friday evening. The identities of the victims were not disclosed. Some 100 people who were isolated were rescued, local authorities said. According to Vale, out of its 427 workers at the site, about 150 workers are still unaccounted for. However, the total number of the missing could be higher, as local residents may be affected by the incident, too. The dam designed to hold back mining waste collapsed Friday afternoon in Brumadinho Municipality and caused a mudslide, which destroyed Vale's offices and a residential area. Some 100 firefighters and civil rescuers are working at the site. Another 200 are expected to reach the Brumadinho region in the early hours of Saturday. At a press conference on Friday evening, Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said that the number of victims from the dam collapse was "terrible." He said he was "shaken" by the incident and committed to taking all necessary measures to find out what happened. According to him, the dam was inactive and all reports attested that it was safe. "It is important that we state that this is an inactive dam. It was not operational for over three years and was in the process of being decommissioned," he said. A second dam overflowed but did not burst, Vale said. A couple of hours after the collapse, the mud wave reached the nearby areas of Paraopeba River, which runs through the town center of Brumadinho. The town center of Brumadinho has been evacuated by local authorities, since the river often overflows when it rains heavily. State authorities decided to suspend the collection of water from the Paraopeba River as a precaution, though Vale said there is a minimum chance of contamination. Brazil's National Water Agency (ANA) said earlier in a statement that the muddy waste going down the Paraopeba River is expected to reach the dam of the Retiro Baixo hydroelectric power plant, located 220 km from Brumadinho, in two days. The Brazilian government has announced the formation of a crisis committee to deal with the environmental disaster caused by the dam collapse. Minas Gerais state Governor Romeu Zema and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles are already at the site. President Jair Bolsonaro is expected to head to Brumadinho Saturday morning. Bolsonaro said earlier in the day that he will examine the situation to decide on the actions the government will take to minimize the impact of the disaster and provide assistance to those affected. He also said in an interview with local media that "something was being done in a wrong manner through the years." Bolsonaro said that a similar accident in Mariana, which is also in Minas Gerais state, should have served as a warning. In November 2015, a tailings dam collapsed in Mariana, killing 19 people and causing substantial environmental and economic damage. It was considered the worst environmental disaster in the Brazilian history. Schvartsman, who took over as Vale's CEO nearly two years ago, said that there would be no other incident like that in Mariana and that the environmental impact from the Brumadinho case will likely be smaller, as the amount of mud leaked this time was significantly lower. He admitted, though, that the human losses will be much higher, as the region affected this time is more populated. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 13:24:51|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close by Matthew Rusling WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Friday saw the end of the longest-ever U.S. government shutdown. But the issue that started it -- border security -- remains unresolved. On the day, the White House said that U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a bill funding the government for three weeks and put 800,000 federal employees back to work, but without a deal yet with Congress on his desire for 5.7 billion U.S. dollars to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, which means the bargaining on the wall will go on. Trump has for two years promised his supporters a wall to stop the tide of illegal immigration coming from the U.S. southern border. But Democrats said the wall is expensive, sends the wrong message to neighbors, and is unlikely to fix the problem. A month-long impasse followed the Dec. 22 shutdown, whereby Democrats refused to fund the wall and Trump refused to re-open the government, leaving nearly a million federal workers without pay. Political pressure mounted, as polls showed Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown. "Trump was suffering serious political backlash against his instigation of the government shutdown," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua. "Republicans were being blamed much more for the shutdown than Democrats and that led many Senate Republicans to push for a resolution. They needed to limit the political fallout so that it does not torpedo GOP party prospects next year," West said. The White House said Trump signed into law the "Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019," which includes funding for the federal government through Feb. 15. Trump said in a speech on Friday that if an agreement can't be reached by Feb. 15 and the government is shut once again, he would use his presidential authority to deal with what he billed "a national emergency." "As commander-in-chief, my highest priority is the defense of our great country," he said. BORDER SECURITY It remains unknown now how Trump will address border security going forward. Trump reiterated his previous thoughts about the possibility of declaring a "national emergency" -- a legal mechanism that would allow the president to use the military to build the wall. But he added that he didn't want to use that option. Justin Bogie, senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told Xinhua that all indications are that Trump "would declare a national emergency if border security negotiations fail. Trump has fairly broad power to do so, though it would almost certainly be challenged in the court system." West said declaring a national emergency would lead to a court case "that will drag out for months. Trump will go into his re-election campaign not having much construction to show voters, even if he wins that case." Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua Trump has "reserved the right to declare such an emergency, but there will also be pressure from Congress, including Republican members, to avoid setting that precedent regarding the balance of powers." POLITICAL SETBACK Mahaffee said Friday's ending of the shutdown was a "significant setback for President Trump," as Democrats remained united and pressure rose on the White House to reopen government. "The President's approval ratings were falling as the shutdown went on. The public was increasingly concerned about the impact of the shutdown on the economy, small business, and federal workers." "As this goes ahead, there will be a window for some negotiation, but there is not the appetite -- either in Congress or among the American people--for the type of wall that the President and the Trump base desire," Mahaffee said. Writing for CNN, Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, argued that Friday was a major win for House Speaker and Trump nemesis Nancy Pelosi. "Trump leaves the budget battle without getting what he wanted, badly damaged with the electorate, including among some Republican voters, and with the first cracks having emerged among congressional Republicans. This was not how he wanted to head into the (new) year," Zelizer said. Trump's base, many of whom are white, working class males, believe illegal migrants create lower wages and take their jobs, and it remains unknown how Trump's base will receive the president's actions in the lead up to the 2020 elections. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 12:14:39|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A fierce gunfight between militants and Indian troops Saturday broke out in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said. The gunfight erupted at village Khunmoh on the outskirts of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "A gunfight has started between militants and joint contingents of police, paramilitary and army here at Khunmoh village this morning," a senior police official posted in Srinagar told Xinhua. "Two to three militants are believed to be trapped in the area." The exchange of fire was going on until last reports poured in, police said. A police spokesman said the militants were planning to carry out an attack. "The trapped militants had serious plans to carry out an attack," the spokesman said. Since the beginning of this week, nine militants were killed in three different gunfights across the region. A guerilla war is going on between militants and Indian troopers stationed in the region since 1989. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen addresses the opening ceremony of the China-Cambodia Trade and Investment Promotion Forum 2019 in Beijing, capital of China, on Jan. 22, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) PHNOM PENH, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian said here Friday that Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen's visit to China has injected new impetus to the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between the two countries. Hun Sen paid an official visit to Beijing on Jan. 20-23. Ambassador Wang told a press conference that cooperation documents in the fields of people's livelihood, transport and infrastructure were signed during the visit. The Chinese envoy said the trip provided a good opportunity for the leaders to reaffirm their commitment to building a community of shared future between China and Cambodia. "In sum, the visit of Samdech Techo Hun Sen to China had achieved fruitful results for bilateral ties and cooperation," Wang said. He added that through it bilateral cooperation, especially in politics, law enforcement, economy, trade, investment, culture and tourism, would be further strengthened and expanded. Both sides have agreed to designate 2019 as the "China-Cambodia culture and tourism year," the ambassador said. Speaking of two China-backed mega-projects -- the new Siem Reap international airport and the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville expressway, he said the two projects were fruit of the cooperation between China and Cambodia under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and would greatly contribute to the development of economy, trade, investment and tourism in the country when they were completed. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 11:54:36|Editor: Xiang Bo Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. economy was shaved off at least 6 billion U.S. dollars by the record long government shutdown, S&P Global Ratings said Friday. The figure is even higher than the 5.7 billion dollars President Donald Trump has demanded to fund his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, the sticking point leading to the shutdown. S&P Global Ratings' latest estimate is in line with its projection two weeks ago. The 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government has temporarily ended after Trump signed a bill on Friday to allow the government to repoen for the moment. The bill, which funds the government until Feb. 15 and gives the parties more time to work out a deal, had cleared the Senate and the House earlier. The lengthy shutdown, however, is already the most expensive one in U.S. history, said USA Today, which listed shutdown costs including lost productivity from furloughed workers, loss of tax revenue, among others. J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management Chief Executive Mary Callahan Erdoes said Thursday that the shutdown is causing a weekly loss of about 1.5 billion dollars in U.S. gross domestic product. J.P. Morgan economists on Thursday slashed the estimate for the first quarter growth from 2 percent to 1.75 percent due to the shutdown. They expect a rebound after the government reopens. The preliminary reading of the index of consumer sentiment in January plunged to 90.7 from 98.3 in the previous month, the lowest since October 2016, based on results of a survey published last week by University of Michigan. The sharp decline could signal weaker consumer spending and economic growth in the months ahead. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 11:14:32|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close KUNMING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- When He Guiying was a little girl, she used to shut her door to passers-by who didn't speak her ethnic language, just like her parents and other Jinuo villagers would. But now, the 52-year-old tea planter and dancer has traveled to many cities across China to perform her people's traditional "drum dance" and presented it to millions of audience members on TV. Her ethnic group, Jinuo, was the last of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the Chinese government in 1979. Most Jinuo live in He's hometown -- Jinuo Ethnic Township, Jinghong City in southwest China's Yunnan Province. The area boasts a long history of tea cultivating on Jinuo Mountain, once regarded as one of the six great tea mountains as early as the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) with ancient tea trees over 500 years old. However, geographic isolation and poor infrastructure restrained the township's development, overshadowing its past glory and leading to a lack of confidence among local people. In 1978, the average annual income for locals was 106.85 yuan. "People did not even speak to strangers, let alone do business with them," said 44-year-old Bai Lan, head of the township government. Since 2015, guided by local government, Xiaopuxi village in the township first tried to invigorate tea business through improving infrastructure, forming industrial cooperatives and applying modern industrial standards. "We've focused on boosting our value by updating technology and building our own brand, and we found that products of our ancient tea trees sell very well," said Wang Chao, Party chief of the township. Last year, the average income per person reached 11,757 yuan (1,733 U.S. dollars) and the tea industry generated an income of over 43.6 million yuan in 2018 for the township. A total of 574 people in 162 households have shaken off poverty over the past four years. As incomes and livelihoods get better, Wang also witnessed a change in local mentalities. "Jinuo people no longer fear communication with the outside world. Look around and you will find people, even elderly people, being very glad to talk to you. We are now eager to reach out," said Wang, noting that local people are now using the Internet to sell their tea products. Over 200 kilometers away from Jinuo, tea planting also changed the fate of 76-year-old Su Guowen and his ethnic group -- Bulang. "I am a living witness of how electricity, roads and concrete houses have come to our village step by step. It's like traveling through two centuries in one lifetime," said Su, a prestigious senior in Yunnan's Mangjing village, Pu'er City. In 2004, under Su's proposal and support from the local government, the village began to revive its tea cultivating tradition and return farmland into forests. Villagers made every possible effort to protect the environment so the tea trees could maintain the natural taste of their leaves. Mountain roads near tea plantations were paved with stones instead of cement. After more than a decade's development, 10 tea cooperatives in Su's locality established an alliance in 2016 to regulate production practices in the booming industry. Villagers from different ethnic groups are also encouraged to get on board. In 2018, the average annual income for each of the 2,800 plus tea planters in Mangjing reached 11,532 yuan, according to local government. "We are now working on building ecological tea plantations with stricter standards -- from raw material, processing to pricing. It is the key to our future development and poverty alleviation task," Su said. Wang has a similar plan of fighting poverty for villagers in Jinuo with a tea business. But his ambition reaches beyond. "Our short-term goal is to leave no one beneath the poverty line, and our long-term vision is to do business with the whole world and let the world know us," said Wang. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 10:29:27|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A colored child-edition of "Das Kapital" has been honored as one of the 24 best Chinese children's books of 2018. The 150-page book outlines the essence of "Das Kapital," the great work on political economy, and introduces its author Karl Marx, its global influence and its Chinese characteristics. Intended for children aged between eight and 14 years old, the book is adorned with hundreds of hand-painted illustrations. The year 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth. Over the past decades, Marxism has been the foundation of many theories developed by the Chinese communists to guide the nation. Its successful practice in China has inspired generations of Chinese people, and it has even become popular among Chinese youth. The book has received more than 1,700 comments on China's Dangdang e-commerce platform, with many saying that the book "is written in plain language and easy to understand." The award-winning books were selected by the New Reading Research Institute, a non-profit research organization specialized on public reading, and recently received awards from the National Library. Nearly 1,000 children's books published by over 100 publishing houses nationwide participated in the selection. Other awarded books included "Night at the Museum" and "Our Chinese Characters." Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 10:09:25|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BEIJING, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A nationwide database for judgment enforcement, which started operation in 2014, has helped enforce court orders more quickly and protected citizens' interests, according to the Supreme People's Court (SPC). The database has helped freeze 413.6 billion yuan (60.9 billion U.S. dollars) for about 60.38 million enforcement cases and provided 9.84 million searches for additional assets, such as cars or houses, by the end of 2018, said an SPC statement published on its website earlier this week. The database is connected to more than 3,900 banks and 16 other agencies to monitor the properties of those subject to enforcement of court orders, including deposits in bank accounts and online accounts, real estate, vehicles and stocks. Chinese courts have made greater efforts and spent more resources on enforcing their orders more efficiently in a large-scale campaign in the past three years. From 2016 to 2018, the courts took on around 20.42 million cases that requested intervention in enforcing court orders, 94.96 percent of which were closed, implicating funds of about 4.4 trillion yuan, the statement said. About 56.97 percent of court judgments were enforced without further intervention from the courts in 2017, up from 44.76 percent in 2015, showing the deterrence the campaign has made, it said. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 08:29:11|Editor: WX Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Following the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a stopgap bill that would fund the government for the next three weeks, and sent it to the White House for ratification. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 08:19:08|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed, nine injured and at least 150 others are missing after a tailings dam collapsed Friday afternoon in southeastern state of Minas Gerais, the state government said Friday evening. The identities of the victims were not disclosed. Nine people who suffered injuries from the mud were rescued alive, and 100 people who were trapped in the incident were also rescued, according to local authorities. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 07:49:35|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde attends a plenary session in the Congress Hall at the 49th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 25, 2019. Attended by over 60 heads of state or government, 40 international organization heads and 1,700 business leaders, the four-day WEF meeting met its end on Friday. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan) Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 07:18:54|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close The photo taken on Jan. 25, 2019 shows a general view of a UN Security Council meeting on the impacts of climate-related disasters on international peace and security at the UN headquarters in New York. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Security Council on Friday held an open debate to discuss the impact of climate change on peace and security, while calling for action to diminish the effects of global warming. "The risks associated with climate-related disasters do not represent a scenario of some distant future. They are already a reality today for millions of people around the globe," Rosemary DiCarlo, UN's political affairs chief, told the debate. After citing the various ways in which UN political missions, regional or country-based, are already actively seeking ways to address climate-related security risks, DiCarlo insisted on the need to focus on three key areas, including developing stronger analytical capacity with integrated risk assessment frameworks. "Most important, for all of us, is the recognition that deeds must follow words. Major armies and businesses have long recognized the need to prepare for climate-related risks, rightfully perceiving climate change as a threat multiplier," DiCarlo said. "We must act now, with a sense of urgency and a commitment to place people, especially those most marginalized and vulnerable, at the center of our efforts," she stated. Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), also delivered remarks, by phone. An environmentalist by training, Steiner noted that climate change is "not only affecting the atmosphere, but also the biosphere," and that the world is "not keeping up with the challenge." He called on the Security Council to recognize the science and empirical evidence, leverage all possible measures that can slow global warming, and invest in climate adaptation and risk reduction for the millions of people already suffering from the effects of climate change. For the first time in history, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) was invited to brief the members of the Security Council on climate and extreme weather issues. Pavel Kabat, chief scientist at the WMO, brought some clear scientific data to the table Friday to inform the debate. "Climate change has a multitude of security impacts - rolling back the gains in nutrition and access to food; heightening the risk of wildfires and exacerbating air quality challenges; increasing the potential for water conflict; leading to more internal displacement and migration," he said. "It is increasingly regarded as a national security threat." Before the floor was opened to members of the Security Council, a youth representative and a researcher on environmental security, Lindsay Getschel, was also invited to speak. She came to the meeting with three key tasks for the UN body, including adopting a resolution, officially recognizing climate change as a threat to international peace and security. Getschel finished by reminding those present in the hall that many across the world "do not have the luxury to not care about this issue," and called on world leaders to "live up to their words." At least 75 officials from Security Council members and other UN member states participated in the meeting, 13 of whom are at ministerial level. Climate change has gained traction in the Security Council's work over the past two years. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 07:18:53|Editor: WX Video Player Close LIMA, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 people were killed and 30 others injured when a passenger bus fell into a river in central Peru on Friday, Peruvian authorities said. According to the National Emergency Operations Center and the National Institute of Civil Defense of Peru, the bus, with 50 passengers on board, lost control, overturned and fell into the river on a highway in San Rafael District, Ambo Province. The injured people have been sent to local hospitals by rescuers and firefighters. The bus, which belongs to the "Sol Peru" company, covers the route connecting Peruvian capital Lima and Tarapoto, a commercial hub in San Martin Province. Local authorities are investigating the cause of the accident. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 07:13:52|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close CHICAGO, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) soybean futures closed higher on Friday, as traders hoped that planned U.S.-China trade talks next week would bring good outcome. The most active corn contract for March delivery went up 3.25 cents, or 0.86 percent to close at 3.8025 dollars per bushel. March wheat delivery fell 1.5 cents, or 0.29 percent to close at 5.2 dollars per bushel. March soybean delivery was up 9.25 cents, or 1.01 percent to close at 9.2525 dollars per bushel. The Chinese Commerce Ministry said earlier this month that Chinese Vice Premier Liu He would visit the United States on Jan. 30-31 for trade negotiations. China has been the world's top soybean buyer. Any positive development concerning the trade talks between the two sides will boost U.S. soybean prices. CBOT corn futures firmed, following strength in soybeans, while wheat futures drifted lower, pressured by news that a private forecaster had raised its estimate of Russian wheat exports. As for weather forecast for agricultural crop, wind chill warnings and watches are in effect for parts of the U.S. Midwest on Friday stretching from central North Dakota south into northern Missouri and east into Ohio. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 06:53:49|Editor: WX Video Player Close ZAGREB, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The European Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection has adopted a law that would forbid sales of the same products of different quality in the European Union (EU), Croatian Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Biljana Borzan announced here on Friday. "The official position of the European Parliament is that the different product quality in the east and west of the EU must be banned. This is the position to which we have arrived after years of persuasion and explaining," Borzan said at a press conference in Zagreb, Croatian daily Vecernji list reported. "I am delighted with such good results of difficult negotiations. This process has lasted for five years. It is challenging to push a law that nobody wants to happen except you and some of the members from Eastern European countries," Borzan said. The Croatian MEP initiated and financed a survey in Croatia that revealed a significant difference in the quality of apparently same products in Germany and Croatia. In September 2018, Borzan and the director of Croatian Food Agency presented the results relieving that more than half of the tested products on the Croatian market are of lesser quality than in Germany. The results of the survey forced the leading food brand HiPP to withdraw some of its products from the Croatian market. The new measure should mean the end of double quality products on eastern and western European markets. Companies that decided to ignore new ruling could be fined up to four percent of their annual turnover. In a couple of months, the first results of the European product quality survey should be known. "It is possible that the law may be passed before that. This makes the whole issue even more important since first fines are about to be announced," concluded Borzan. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 06:43:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- A UN spokesman said Friday a fire damaged two silos of the Red Sea Mills on the outskirts of Yemen's embattled port city of Hodeidah, and the fire was believed to have been caused by mortar. Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told Xinhua that while there have been a few fires in the crucial site for storage of grain for a population threatened with famine, this last blaze "was believed to have started by a mortar." The office of the Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen called the fire "a blow to millions of hungry people." "The loss of this wheat comes at a terrible time," said Lise Grande, the humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. "More than 20 million Yemenis, nearly 70 percent of the entire population, are hungry," she said. "The situation in Yemen is heart-breaking. A quarter of a million people are in a catastrophic condition, facing near starvation if assistance doesn't get to them," said Grande. "This is the first time we are seeing conditions like this. We need this wheat." The World Food Programme said it currently has 51,000 metric tons of wheat stored at the Red Sea Mills, a quarter of its wheat stock and enough to feed 3.7 million people for a month. However, the UN agency has been unable to access the mills since September 2018 because of fighting in the country's 4-year civil war. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 05:38:35|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close The photo taken on Jan. 25, 2019 shows a helicopter flying over the site of the collapse of a dam in Brumadinho Municipality in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. About 200 people were missing after a tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale collapsed Friday in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, said local fire department. (Xinhua/AGENCIA ESTADO/O Tempo/Moises Silva) RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- About 200 people are missing after a tailings dam owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale collapsed Friday afternoon in southeastern state of Minas Gerais, said the local fire department. The dam collapsed in Brumadinho Municipality and caused a mud wave to flow down the river, destroying administrative areas of Vale and residential areas as well. As the disaster occurred close to lunch hours, many workers are believed to have been inside a refectory area which was completely destroyed by the mud wave. In addition to those missing, four people were rescued from the affected area and taken to nearby hospitals, according to rescuers. Residents told local media that there were no warnings before the mud wave and no sirens which could have given residents some time to flee. Aerial images of the area show that bridges on a railway and a highway were destroyed, which affects the access of more rescue workers to the impacted area. A couple of hours after the collapse, the mud wave reached the Paraopeba River, which runs through the town center of Brumadinho. The town center of Brumadinho has been evacuated by local authorities, since the river often overflows when it rains heavily. The Brazilian government has announced a crisis cabinet to deal with the environmental disaster caused by the collapse of a tailings dam. Through his social networks, President Jair Bolsonaro said the ministers of environment, mines and energy, and regional development were heading to the region. He also said in an interview to a local radio that "something was being done in a wrong manner through the years." Bolsonaro said that the similar accident in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais state, should have worked as a warning. In November 2015, a tailings dam collapsed in Mariana killed 19 people and caused unmeasurable environmental and economic damage. It was considered the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history. According to presidential spokesperson Otavio Rego Barros, Bolsonaro himself may head to Brumadinho on Saturday. However, that remains unconfirmed, as Bolsonaro is scheduled to travel to Sao Paulo this weekend to undergo surgery on Monday to reverse a colostomy he underwent in September after he was stabbed at a campaign event. The aerial photo taken on Sept. 8, 2009 shows an island of Maldives. (Xinhua/Chen Zhanjie) UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- "Climate change is destroying our tiny island country for years," Abdulla Shahid, minister of foreign affairs of the Maldives, on Friday told a United Nations Security Council meeting on climate. Addressing the Security Council's open debate on the impacts of climate-related disasters on international peace and security, Shahid said climate change is "eroding our beaches, killing the coral reefs protecting our islands and contaminating our fresh water with sea water." "We are losing our fish stock. But most importantly, climate change is going to take our home away from us entirely," he warned. At least 75 Security Council and other member states participated in the meeting, 13 of them at ministerial level. Climate change has gained some traction in the Security Council's work over the past two years. The Maldivian foreign minister told the Security Council that on April 17, 2007, when the Security Council held its first-ever debate on the impact of climate change on peace and security, he spoke on this very same matter. He reminded the Security Council on that day that "climate change is not only an everyday fact of life for the Maldivians, but an existential threat." "I reminded the Council that a mean sea-level rise of two meters would suffice to virtually submerge the entire Maldives under water. That would indeed be the death of a nation," he said. "And yet, today, in this Council, 12 years later, I am still repeating the same message," the minister said emotionally. "Prospects for our future are far worse than we ever imagined," he said, noting that "while we are still busy trying to decide which forum of the United Nations must address which aspect of climate change, our lakes are drying up, depriving fresh water to tens of millions of people." "Unseasonal draughts are leaving millions of people homeless. Hunger and displacement are leading to conflicts, and entire nations are sinking under water," he continued. "What is a bigger security threat to us than this?" the minister asked. Noting that he was "encouraged" by the Paris Agreement with the aim to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for it, Shahid said he hopes that the Katowice Rulebook "will help improve our collective ambition to deliver on our pledges and keep global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, 1.5 degree Celsius if possible." "But for the Maldives, waiting and hoping is not enough. We must drastically reverse the current trends in climate change to ensure the future exists for little girls like Aisha and her friends." Aisha is a five-year-old girl whom Shahid met at the Male International Airport as he left for New York. The girl asked him where he was going and Shahid told her that he was traveling to New York to speak at the Security Council about climate change. "We had a little chat and she waved me goodbye with a huge smile on her face, holding onto her mother's hands, as I walked away to board my flight," he recalled. "We need solutions," said Shahid. "The countries that are on the first line of impact, such as the Maldives, cannot afford to wait," he noted. "We cannot wait for climate change to force us to abandon our identity and lose our homes," he said. "We need actions, actions that are consistent with the commitments we have already made. If we don't, we will extinguish the sparkle in the eyes of Aisha and millions of children like her," the minister concluded. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 03:38:04|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close BUDAPEST, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- A three-day Chinese spring festival celebration was inaugurated here on Friday in the framework of the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Hungary. In the spirit of this outstanding anniversary, the Hungarian-Chinese Cultural Association organized the event from Jan. 25 to 27, with the support of the Chinese Embassy in Hungary. The event takes place in the so-called Millennium Park in the heart of Budapest and launched by Chinese ambassador to Hungary Duan Jielong. "Despite the complex international environment, China has remained a supporter of opening up, of multilateralism and of the free trade system," said Duan. The festival celebration presented a huge panda exhibition on the gallery, an intellectual cultural heritage exhibition that included an exhibition of painting and calligraphy, a tea ceremony demonstration and tea tasting, a demonstration of clinical methods of Chinese natural medicine and traditional medicine, as well as health advices. Hungarians eager to travel in China could choose from many tourist destinations, while others could see kung-fu shows, feel and touch traditional Chinese clothes, try them on and take photos in them. Visitors of the festival can taste Chinese delicacies, and get a glimpse of the famous Sugar Painting. In addition to presentations and exhibitions, guests of the festival also have the pleasure of viewing stage productions. "Promoting the culture of the two nations is an important goal for the festival," said Marta Matrai, First Officer of the Hungarian parliament, who also participated in the opening ceremony. "In today's complicated world, friendship between our two nations and our two peoples is an asset that is worth to be cherished and protected," she added. Besides a wide range of artistic productions including dragon and lion dance, traditional Chinese instrumental shows, Beijing opera, folk dance, children's dance, the Hungarian State Post presented its new special stamp featuring the Year of the Pig, in honor of the forthcoming Chinese lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 5 this year. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 02:52:54|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops on the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza City, on Jan. 25, 2019. One Palestinian demonstrator was killed and at least 22 others injured on Friday during clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed on the border area between the eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, medics said. (Xinhua) GAZA, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- One Palestinian demonstrator was killed and at least 22 others injured on Friday during clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed on the border area between the eastern Gaza Strip and Israel, medics said. Ashraf al-Qedra, Gaza's health ministry spokesman, told reporters that Eihab Aabed, 25, was shot dead in his chest by Israeli gunfire in the east of Rafah town in southern Gaza. Among the 22 injured is a local photojournalist and a paramedic, he said, adding that dozens suffered suffocation after inhaling the Israeli tear gas. The Hamas-led highest commission of the Great March of Return called on the Gazans to join the weekly protests in the eastern Gaza Strip close to the fence of the border with Israel, which began in March last year. Eyewitnesses said hundreds of demonstrators approached the border fence, waved Palestinian flags, chanted anti-Israel slogans and threw percussion bombs at the soldiers. Explosions heard in eastern Gaza City were a result of release of the booby-trapped fire balloons, they added. The Israeli media reported that a fire balloon was released from eastern Gaza into southern Israel. Eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers fired intensively tear gas canisters, live gunshots and rubber-coated metal bullets to disperse the demonstrators. No injuries were reported, according to local media reports in Gaza. Security sources in Gaza said an Israeli army tank stationed at the border between the northeastern Gaza Strip and Israel opened fire on Friday afternoon at a military lookout post in the area, with no injuries reported. Tension between Israel and Islamic Hamas movement is growing up after Hamas refused to receive the third installment of the Qatari grant, saying it refuses to trade calm for money and insists on carrying on the the weekly anti-Israel protests. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader, told reporters during the protests in eastern Gaza city that the Qatari grant has been used to pay the salaries of teachers and doctors "and it had never been used in buying weapons as Israel claims." File photo shows President of Zambia Edgar Lungu speaks during a signing ceremony in August 2017 in Lusaka, capital of Zambia, on a framework agreement for the construction of communication towers (phase two) in the southern African country. The agreement involves 808 towers, 1,009 2G, 3G and 4G wireless stations, the setting up of a matched transmission network and user access terminals in unserved and under-served areas in order to improve communication services. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun) LUSAKA, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Zambia is set to complete the construction of hundreds of communication towers across the country ahead of schedule, a senior government official said on Thursday. Brian Mushimba, Minister of Transport and Communication, said 400 communication towers will be constructed this year in addition to over 600 that were erected last year, translating into about 96 percent of having universal coverage of both internet and communication facilities in the southern African nation. He said in a release that the project, which was supposed to have been completed in three years' time, will be completed ahead of schedule as the government was expected to build over 1,000 communication towers at the end of the year out of 1,009 that were expected to be completed in three years. The communication towers were being constructed at a cost of 280 million U.S. dollars with support from China. The Zambian minister said some funds would be sourced from the universal access funds to complete the last mile of the project, adding that the universal coverage of both internet and telephone will enhance communication facilities and meet the needs of citizen. In August 2017, Zambia and China signed a framework agreement for the phase two of the construction of communication towers. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-26 00:17:17|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close by Bedah Mengo NAIROBI, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Every day, Michael Arimi, a resident of Kayole on the east of Nairobi, Kenya, wakes up and heads to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where he works at a cargo handling firm. His work involves sorting out various cargo according to size and destination before they are taken to the plane. After completing his day's work, Arimi usually returns home and from about 6 p.m., he starts his second job - offering motorbike taxi business. "I do the work to about 10 p.m. and retire to prepare for the following day," he said, adding on a good evening he earns up to 1,000 shillings (10 U.S. dollars). His is the life of many Kenyans in low income formal employment who the machines imported mainly from China have offered means to earn extra income as use of the taxis boom in the east African nation. While some of the workers are doing the motorbike taxi jobs, commonly known as boda boda, themselves, others have employed people. Among those doing motorbike taxi jobs as "side hustles" are teachers, police officers, civil servants, watchmen and drivers. "I am an electricity meter reader by day and motorbike taxi operator by night. You cannot survive on salary alone," said Titus Otiato, a resident of Ruai on the outskirts of Nairobi. Otiato noted that he earns some 300 dollars salary, money that cannot sustain him comfortably with his family of three. As many other workers in formal employment, he took a loan of 700 dollars from the company's savings society and bought a motorbike. Ease in access of the loans by the workers in formal employment is among the reasons many are in the trade. This is coupled by decline in prices of the machines following entry of Chinese brands like Boxer, Jingchen and Haojin in the Kenyan market, some that are assembled locally. The brand new bikes go for between 600 and 800 dollars, which is lower than those from other countries like India and Japan, whose prices average 1,000 dollars. In Kenyan villages, teachers and civil servants, are among the top owners of motorbikes, which they rent out to youths, earning at least 4 dollars from each a day. Fred Ajwang, a government employee in Busia, western Kenya, doesn't like to be described as a motorbike tycoon, but he owns eight of them. "I have agreed with the riders that they bring me 3.5 dollars each day and pocket the rest they make which caters for their wages, fuel and minor repairs like punctures. This way, one works hard to make more money," he said on phone. Ajwang started with one bike that he bought using a loan and has been expanding the trade. "I get an average of 240 dollars a day but my target is to hit 500 dollars. It is good business but I will not quit my agricultural job since that is my profession," he said, adding his bikes are Chinese brands. Most Kenyans are taking up the boda boda trade because of less entry restrictions, according to Ernest Manuyo, a business management lecturer at Pioneer Institute in Nairobi. "All you need to get into the business are the machines, which are now affordable and insurance for the owner and a riders' license for those doing the job themselves. One then starts earning. It is not like starting a shop where one needs multiple licences," he said. Chinese motorcycles account for about 50 percent of Kenya's motorbike market, with the machines injecting over 1.3 million dollars daily into the economy, according to Motorcycle Assemblers Association of Kenya, which notes the boda bodas have become an important source of income for thousands. Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-25 22:16:24|Editor: mmm Video Player Close by Marwa Yahya CAIRO, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese-Egyptian cultural cooperation has become significant in achieving mutual understanding and strengthening ties between the two peoples, said Ahmad Bahy el-Deen, deputy chief of the General Egyptian Book Organization. During a seminar dubbed "the Egyptian-Chinese Cooperation in Culture and Publishing Fields," held in the Cairo International Book Fair, Bahy el-Deen hailed the cultural cooperation between the two countries as "a backbone of cooperation in different other fields, especially the economic aspects." Bahy el-Deen, who is also the deputy chief of the fair, said that the Chinese publishers had a "a special and large" presence at the book fair this year. Cairo International Book Fair, which runs between Jan. 23 to Feb. 5, features 1,273 publishers from 35 countries, including 10 from Africa, 16 from Asia and seven from Europe. He said one of the most important elements on this year's fair is the discussions on various publishing and cultural issues, starting with a seminar on Chinese-Egyptian cultural relations. Ma Rong, manager of the Chinese culture company Wisdom Palace, stressed that cultural cooperation is a basic pillar for promoting the Egyptian-Chinese ties. She said China owns great experience in digital publishing and in adapting the books to animation movies, in which fields the Egyptians are interested in working more. "There are lots of internet platforms for selling books in China," Ma added, and that some Chinese writers can write their books at home and upload them onto the websites for readers to read. She also said that the cultural cooperation will make the people of the two countries get closer. Meanwhile, Ahmad al-Saeed, chief of Wisdom Palace in Egypt, illustrated that the two countries pay much attention to various cultural fields. China and its cultural industry have been discussed in a number of seminars, symposiums and events on the fair. The extensive participation of China indicates the strong political ties between the two countries, he said. The venue of the fair that celebrates its golden jubilee this year covers 45,000 square meters, and houses 748 publishers and 525 publishing agents. The fair attracted 170 foreign and Arab guests, 300 poets and 2,500 critics and writers. Some 217,000 visitors have flocked to the fair on the first and second days, state-run Ahram newspaper reported. "China has an inspiring experience that could benefit Egypt in the field of the cultural industries," said Emad al-Azrak, chief of the Chinese Studies Unit at the al-Hewar Center for Political and Media Studies. He believed the concept of culture should be reconsidered from being a mere service sector that constitutes a burden on the state budget to a profitable one that lures income. Azrak added that the two countries could cooperate in fields including papers, ink manufacturing, and digital and electronic marketing. On the sidelines of the seminar, Tang Ying has celebrated the launch of the Arab translated version of her book "Legends of the South." The book tells the story about the popular heritage and literature of the people of South China and the circulated famous legends that were carried from one generation to another. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral in Tallahassee is getting ready to introduce their new interim dean. This Sunday, Archbishop Robert Duncan will take on his new role in the church. He's the first bishop who played a big role in the creation of the Anglican Church in North America. Duncan also led the revision of the of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, the first revision to take place since 1979. He's excited to take on this new role in the community to help carry on the mission of the church. "The mission of the Anglican Church in North America is to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ," said Duncan. "So everything we do, whether its with worship, formation, education, hospitality or our mission to the world outside, what we all seek to do together is be agents of that." St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral on Thomasville Road will hold a service starting at 10:00 a.m. for those who would like to attend to see the instillation of Archbishop Robert Duncan. Renewable energy student lands first industry job while still at university This article is old - Published: Saturday, Jan 26th, 2019 A renewable energy student is celebrating after landing her first job in the industry before even finishing her course. Loide Silva, from Portugal, is currently in her final year at Wrexham Glyndwr University, where she is studying a B Eng in Renewable and Sustainable Engineering. She is now combining her studies with two days a week at Chester-based Horan Power Engineering after impressing the company with her experience. It all started when Andrew, one of our lecturers, sent on an email from Horan Engineering they were looking for students and graduates, she said. I went to careers and checked my CV with them, then sent it off and was asked to come in for an interview. At the interview, Horan asked me about the kind of experiences I have had as a student, so I explained some of the things we have been doing on the course here at Glyndwr. They must have been interested, as the offered me a job as I am a student, its currently for two days a week while I study. The plan is that when I graduate this summer -if I am happy with the role and if they are happy with the work I am doing, then they could look to make my role permanent. The work is very varied at the moment, we are looking at solar farms. I am absolutely loving my new role. Loide believes that the experience that she and other students gain during the Renewable and Sustainable Engineering course helps to stand them in good stead when looking for careers in the industry. She added: The course has been really helpful for example, with the work we are doing at the moment at Horan, you have to send people out to some of the companys sites. In my first year at Glyndwr, we were shown how to carry out risk assessments and that is very useful knowledge to draw on on-site. Other things Ive learnt have been really useful too for instance, a lot of sites for solar farms are in quite remote areas where a postcode alone wont help you find them on a sat nav. Thanks my course, when we get out there, I know how to use precision mapping tools online to make sure we are going to the right place. Because we have used so much relevant software already at university, it is familiar as you encounter it in work. Securing this role has shown me the value of what I have been learning at Glyndwr I am really grateful to everybody, from the careers team to my course tutors. Andrew Sharp, Programme Leader B Eng Electrical and Electronic Engineering and EU Engineering Programme Co-ordinator at Glyndwr, said: I am delighted that Loide is starting to build her career and that shes already finding the value of applying her studies at Glyndwr. Programmes like our B Eng in Renewable and Sustainable Engineering are designed to equip students with the practical knowledge they need to succeed skills that, as Loide is finding, they can draw on in the field in their chosen career. We always try to help guide students towards industry leaders in their field, and I am so pleased that Loide was able to take my initial email and develop it into the first step into her chosen career. Find out more about Glyndwrs B Eng (Hons) Renewable and Sustainable Engineering here. Are you looking for a new challenge in 2019? Adventurous individuals needed for charity trek of a lifetime This article is old - Published: Saturday, Jan 26th, 2019 Are you looking to take part in the challenge of a lifetime this year? A team of trekkers from across Wales will set off to explore Vietnam and raise funds for charity this year and you could join them. Marie Curie, the UKs leading terminal illness charity, is appealing for more adventurous individuals to take on the challenge of a lifetime, by trekking across the Southeast Asian country in autumn. The trek will take place from 24th October to 2nd November 2019, and will raise invaluable funds for Marie Curie in Wales. The charity provides care and support across Wales to people living with a terminal illness, and their families, either in its hospice in Penarth or in peoples homes. Last year, Marie Curie Nurses cared for more than 3,000 patients and their families across Wales, at a cost of more than 8 million a year. There are already more than two dozen people from all over Wales signed up for the trek including Marie Curie Healthcare Assistant, Lisa Overington. Lisa said: I am inspired to go on the trek and raise funds for Marie Curie because I know first-hand what it takes for us to be able to support people who have a terminal illness. This is the biggest challenge Ive ever faced but Im looking forward to it. Im planning lots of events and fundraising over the next 12 months to reach my fundraising target. Donations are already coming in through my Just Giving page which is just great to see and is spurring me on. Ive already started training but Im not looking forward to the creepy crawlies Community Fundraiser Laura Ellis-Bartlett said: Our treks are always very popular, whether its with people looking to take on a new challenge in a beautiful country with stunning landscapes, or those whose family has been cared for at home and want to give something back. We hope the Vietnam trek will be one of the best treks yet offering all those taking part the adventure of a lifetime while raising money for an important local cause. To find out more about the trek, please visit the Marie Curie website or contact Laura on 01745 352910 laura.ellis-bartlett@mariecurie.org.uk. The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday held a meeting to review a report on the work of several organs and some Party regulations. The meeting was held to review a comprehensive report on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee hearing and studying reports from leading Party members' groups of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the State Council, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the Supreme People's Court (SPC), and the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), as well as the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting. The meeting also reviewed the CPC Central Committee's opinions on strengthening the Party's political work, and two regulations on the reporting of major issues and selection of Party and government officials. The leading Party members' groups of the Standing Committee of the NPC, the State Council, the National Committee of the CPPCC, the SPC and the SPP were urged to follow the guidance of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and make effective efforts in all their work. The meeting said the Party's political building was of fundamental importance to the Party as it determined the direction and effectiveness of the Party building. The meeting also called on Party organizations at every level, Party members and officials to closely follow the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core. (Source: Xinhua) Sunrise Children's Services Celebrates 150 Years By West Kentucky Star Staff MT. WASHINGTON - Sunrise Children's Services, a Kentucky foster care and adoption agency, is celebrating 150 years of service this year.Founded June 30, 1869 as the Louisville Baptist Orphan's Home by the Ladies Aid Society of Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, the agency has provided care and hope to children across the Commonwealth.David Lyninger, Associate Director of Communication for Sunrise Children's Services explained that the Orphan's home was started four years after the end of the Civil War, to help the many orphaned children, as a result of the war. It continued for many years in that role, and later expanded to other locations across Kentucky, and was known for a long time as Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children.As the organization expanded throughout the years, the name was changed to Sunrise Children's Services. They provide services for foster care, adoption, residential treatment, and independent living for foster children that have aged out of the system.Special celebrations will take place, beginning June 30th of this year, known as the Dream of Hope Tour. It will begin at Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, and then will be presented at other churches across the state. Locations of the other presentations will be released soon.Lyninger said that today, they basically "take care of orphans of the living", meaning providing services to children whose parents, for whatever reason, can't provide the needed care for them. With headquarters located in Mount Washington, near Louisville, Sunrise Children's Services serves children in all 120 Kentucky counties. Rep. Heath to Host Roundtable Discussion Monday By West Kentucky Star Staff MAYFIELD - Rep. Richard Heath, Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, will be hosting a roundtable discussion at 2 pm on Monday, January 28 at the Graves County Extension Office, 251 West Housman Street in Mayfield.The event is open to the public and will feature a roundtable discussion about agriculture issues and upcoming legislation. Topics may include Hemp and CBD, the H2A worker program, new grain tariffs, and pesticide regulations.If you have a topic that you would like added to the list, please email suggestions to Corey.Elder@lrc.ky.gov. Shawnee Opens Vienna Extension Center By West Kentucky Star Staff The ceremony and the subsequent open house were both held on the campus of Vienna High School with many local and state leaders in attendance along with numerous community members. The opening of the new center means that Shawnee Community College now has a presence in every county within the college district. President of Shawnee Community College Peggy Bradford remarked: This is a monumental occasion which represents Shawnee Community Colleges continued commitment to ensuring equitable education opportunities for all of our district residents. The new center is located within Vienna High School thanks to the diligent effort of Vienna school superintendent Joshua Stafford who worked with Dr. Bradford and the board of trustees at Shawnee community college to make this opportunity a reality for the residents of Johnson County. The New facility is scheduled to begin classes during the Spring 2019 semester, and late start registration is going on now. For more information, please contact the college at 618-634-3200 or visit www.shawneecc.edu. VIENNA - The Grand Opening for Shawnee Community Colleges new Vienna Extension Center was held on Thursday, January 17th. IL State Police Welcomes 2 New Troopers By West Kentucky Star Staff ULLIN - The Illinois State Police District 22 welcomes two new troopers to the district who joined the ranks of the Illinois State Police on December 28, 2018 after CC 128 graduated from the Illinois State Police Academy in Springfield. Commander Captain Alvey welcomed them to the district. The officers have begun their 14 week Field Training Program in the district. They will be working with a Field Training Officer (FTO) implementing the knowledge and skills they learned in the academy.Adrian Meyer-Trooper Meyer is a graduate of Lawrenceville High School, Wabash Valley College, and Vincensses University. Meyer worked 3 years as a police officer for Mount Carmel Police Department prior to joining the ranks of the Illinois State Police.Damon Miers-Trooper Miers is a graduate of Rochester High School. Miers served 11 years in the United States Army where he served as an Infantryman and Recruiter with three deployments to Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom). Miers currently serves as a Staff Sergeant in the Illinois Army National Guard and is assigned to the Illinois Military Academy. PTHS Class of '69 Meets Today to Plan 50th Reunion By WestKyStar Staff PADUCAH - Paducah Tilghman High School Class of 1969 is planning its 50 year reunion. A group led by Jimmy Patterson and Tana (Brown) Foster will meet this afternoon (Sunday, Jan. 27th) at the McCracken County Public Library at 3:30. The group will gather on the second floor in the small meeting room. Anyone interested in being part of making the reunion happen is invited to attend this first planning meeting.The group is looking at the weekend of September 27-28 (during Paducah's BBQ on the River) to get together and celebrate 50 years! If you have questions, call Jimmy at 270-559-7271. If you can't make the meeting but are interested in being part of the planning, call 605-475-4729 and use access code 326992 to be part of the meeting via phone. Johnston was arrested on charges of 15 counts of use of electronic communication to procure a minor for a sex offense and three counts of use of a minor in a sexual performance. PHOTO:McCracken County Jail, courtesy Police: Man Traded Photos with North Dakota Teen By West Kentucky Star Staff PADUCAH - A tip from a police agency 1,200 miles from Paducah led to the arrest of a man who sent sexually explicit photographs to a teen-aged girl.Paducah police detectives received information from authorities in Bismarck, North Dakota about Michael R. Johnston, a Paducah resident who reportedly was exchanging pornographic photographs with a 16-year-old girl from Bismarck.Detectives launched an investigation, and gathered enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for Johnstons home. The search warrant was served Friday, and Johnston was arrested on charges of 15 counts of use of electronic communication to procure a minor for a sex offense and three counts of use of a minor in a sexual performance.Johnston was booked into McCracken County Regional Jail. Religion teacher Chris Haddad, of West Hartford, and students in the Campus Ministry Office hold up their peacemakers. Every student and staff member was given a peacemaker to be held in their pockets during the schools Peacemaker in Your Pocket day. Halls Sophie Garner-MacKinnon has been named the 2020-21 Gatorade Connecticut Softball Player of the Year, according to a release from Gatorade. Garner-MacKinnon is the first Gatorade Connecticut Softball Player of the Year to be chosen from Hall High School. United Nations Universal Postal Union Letter-Writing Competition 2019 The Royal Gibraltar Post Office (RGPO), in association with the Department of Education, launches the 2019 Letter-Writing Competition on behalf of the United Nations (UN) Universal Postal Union (UPU). The competition is open to pupils attending School in Gibraltar and aged up to 15 years on Friday 12 April 2019. The theme for 2019, the 48th contest, is Write a Letter about your Hero. For the examination of previous winning entries, rules and entry forms, please visit the RGPOs website https://www.royalgibraltar.post/letter-writing-competition/ Local prizes will be awarded as follows: 1st Prize: Trophy & 300 2nd Prize: Certificate & 200 3rd Prize: Certificate & 100 Certificates will also be presented to each individual school winner and any other letters meriting a Special Mention by the Judges. The overall winner will represent Gibraltar at international level in the UN UPUs main competition for 2019. There will be gold, silver and bronze medals for the international winners; the gold medal may be presented at UN UPU Headquarters in BERNE, Switzerland, or any other location nominated by the UPU, with the winner and parents invited to attend with all expenses paid. In 2016, Anna Grech from Westside School received a Special Mention Certificate and further prizes from the UN UPU. Copies of the rules and entry forms will also be made available via the schools. Entries must be submitted via the schools no later than midday on Friday 12 April 2019. Measles has returned with fierceness after being eliminated in many countries at the turn of the century. According to the World Health Organization, there has been a 30 percent global increase of this preventable malady in the last 4-5 years as fewer children have been vaccinated for the disorder. In 2018, the United States had the second greatest number of cases confirmed since the infection was eradicated in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Secondly, my experience of hiring farm workers and caregivers for my elderly parents causes me to personally support this project. I found it almost impossible to nd employees living in James City County. Why? They could not afford to live there. Our employees mainly drove in from New Kent, West Point and Gloucester. When I eventually moved my mother to the Williamsburg Landing, the same problem existed. A large percentage of the CNAs and nurses were driving in from Surry County, Newport News and Gloucester. Any plan drawn up by the commission would have to be agreed upon by at least six of the eight legislators and six of the eight citizen members. The plan would then be sent to the General Assembly for an up-or-down vote. The General Assembly would not be able to make any amendments to the plan. My son was talking with one of his friends before class, and his teacher turned to them, and in front of the entire class, told them, It is OK to be gay, just not in my class, Rose said. If this is the kind of toxic environment caused by teachers, I can only imagine that the school as a whole is not a safe space. FBI(FRUITA, Colorado) -- The FBI has arrested a man who allegedly robbed seven banks in six different states in less than a month. According to a tweet from FBI Louisville, 49-year-old Jason Lee Robinson of Pikeville, Kentucky, was arrested Thursday without incident in Fruita, Colorado. Robinson was nicknamed the Traveling Bandit during the search. Robinsons string of robberies began Dec. 28, 2018, at Capital Bank in Aventura, Florida. According to an affidavit, Robinson took approximately $1,900 from the bank after giving the teller a note demanding the money and indicating he had a weapon. Robinson then took the money and note and left the bank, the affidavit said. The FBI said that between Jan. 2 and Jan. 17, Robinson allegedly committed six more robberies at banks in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Illinois and Utah. The FBIs wanted poster for Robinson said he usually gave a note when committing the robberies. According to the affidavit, officials reviewed surveillance video from nearby locations before and after the robbery in Florida, leading investigators to recover a sweatshirt that Robinson had worn. Investigators also spoke with a teller of a different bank Robinson was seen entering before the robbery. Robinson had a country accent, according to the teller, and was told by Robinson that he was from Kentucky. The affidavit said the FBI linked the robberies together after determining the suspect had the same physical appearance and Robinson was seen as a possible match after law enforcement reviewed recent federal prison inmate releases of males similar in description to the robbery suspect. The affidavit also said the suspect in the video surveillance images resembled Robinson based on photographs of him as well as tattoos that were visible on his arms. Robinsons probation officer said images she was shown from a robbery in Illinois on Jan. 14 appeared to look like him but she was not 100 percent sure, according to the affidavit. Robinsons family also described the vehicle he was driving, which the affidavit said matched the getaway vehicle seen in surveillance video, and a woman identifying herself as Robinsons ex-wife called the FBI tip line after seeing the photograph in the FBI news release about him. The affidavit said Robinson had been convicted in 2009 on various charges in the Eastern District of Kentucky. It also said that according to U.S. Bureau of Prison records, Robinson was on supervised release as of November 2018 and was supposed to be restricted from leaving the state of Kentucky. Robinson is currently being held in the Mesa County Detention Facility. He was charged in the criminal complaint with bank robbery for the Dec. 28 robbery. It was unclear if he had a lawyer. The FBI said no one was injured in any of the incidents. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Register for a FREE account to keep reading! Register now for a FREE account to keep reading. No cost and no credit card required! Access up to 5 articles per month when you register, or get unlimited access to all of our content online starting at $1.99 now! Already registered? Click the log in link below Huge consignment of ganja seized in Bihar Patna, Jan 26 (UNI) Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths seized huge consignment of ganja from a truck on National Highway 2 at Sawkala toll plaza under Amas police station area in Gaya district today. Sources said that a DRI team from the state capital seized more than 250 kgs of ganja worth over Rs 37.51 lakh from the vegetable-laden truck bearing registration number of Jharkhand. The consignment was concealed in specially built cavity on the floor of truck. Sources said that the consignment was seized on the basis of clues provided by two peddlers- Parvej Khan (44) and Vijay Shankar Yadav (27), natives of Buxar district, who were arrested from the spot. The consignment was on way to Buxar from Jeypore in Orissa when it was intercepted. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. State oil giant Saudi Aramco said it has signed an agreement with US-based Air Products, a leading industrial gases company in the world, to jointly build the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle fuelling station in the kingdom. The new refuelling station will be located within the grounds of Air Products' technology centre in the Dhahran Techno Valley Science Park. The collaboration between the two companies will combine Air Products technological know-how and experience in the field of hydrogen with Saudi Aramcos industrial experience, facilities and R&D (research and development) capabilities, said a statement from Saudi Aramco. As per the deal, Saudi Aramco and Air Products will establish a pilot fleet of fuel cell vehicles for which high-purity compressed hydrogen will be dispensed at the new fuelling station, it stated. Air Products proprietary SmartFuel hydrogen fuelling technology will be incorporated into the new station to supply the vehicles with compressed hydrogen. The collected data during this pilot phase of the project will provide valuable information for the assessment of future applications of this emerging transport technology in the local environment. The hydrogen refuelling station, the first in the kingdom, is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2019, it added. Hydrogen fuel cells offer an effective means for the electrification of transport while maintaining easy, five-minute refuelling and long driving ranges, remarked Ahmad Al Khowaiter, the chief technology officer of Saudi Aramco. The use of hydrogen derived from oil or gas to power fuel cell electric vehicles represents an exciting opportunity to expand the use of oil in clean transport, he added. Dr Samir Serhan, the executive vice-president at Air Products, said: "We are honoured to work on another venture with Saudi Aramco to establish and develop a sustainable hydrocarbon-based hydrogen supply system for pilot demonstration of a fuel cell vehicle fleet in Saudi Arabia, "It further illustrates our commitment to the kingdoms 2030 vision," he added. Toyota Motor Corporation will supply Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Vehicles for testing in this pilot project. The auto giant has been investing in hydrogen for over 20 years and in 2014 introduced the Mirai, its first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, said the statement. The Mirai is a zero-emission vehicle which runs on compressed hydrogen gas and only emits water. The car is powered through a fuel cell which creates electricity by combining oxygen from air with hydrogen from the fuel tank, it stated. Toyota has long maintained that hydrogen fuel cell technology can offer a sustainable zero emission solution across a broad spectrum of vehicle types, it added.-TradeArabia News Service Titusville High School has relaunched its journalism class, and along with it, its student newspaper. Renamed The Walnut Street Journal, the publication features both a print edition and online blog with articles written by students. Six hundred Congolese rebels whose conflict killed several thousand people in the restive Kasai region, have ended their war and surrendered their weapons in a sign of support for new President Felix Tshisekedi, local authorities said on Saturday. Tshisekedi was sworn in on Thursday as president of Democratic Republic of Congo, marking the country\s first peaceful handover of power after chaotic and bitterly disputed elections. Wearing red bandanas, the militiamen surrendered AK47 rifles, hunting shotguns, machetes, knives, arrows and various amulets to the Kasai-Central provincial authorities, an AFP correspondent said. "These 600 militiamen responded to our appeal for peace. We have a new president and we should all support him. We call on those who are still in the bush to also hand over their weapons," said local governor Denis Kambayi. Authorities estimate around 1,700 militia fighters were operating in the area. Around 50 rebel recruiters from Kasai region surrendered to authorities earlier this month after welcoming Tshisekedi\s presidential election win. Several thousand people were killed between 2016 and October 2017 in four provinces during an insurgency by the Kamwina Nsapu (Black Ant) militia, named after a leader killed in a security force operation in August 2016. "We have handed over our weapons because for us the war is over. The people have taken power with the election of Felix Tshisekedi, so for us there is no more justification for war," said Raphael Kabeya, a local militia commander, told AFP. Kamwina Nsapu was a tribal chieftain who opposed the Kinshasa government and his rebels battled government forces and the pro-government Bana Mura militia. Beyond a death toll which UN sources put at some 3,000 including two UN experts sent to investigate the conflict the rebellion displaced around 1.4 million people. Kabeya called on a rival militia Bana Mura to also surrender their weapons and end fighting as part of a reconciliation. Another militia group also surrendered in neighbouring Tshikapa region, witnesses told AFP. Militia tensions in the central region and fighting in the country\s troubled east were among the complications in December\s elections to replace President Joseph Kabila that were marred by repeated delays. Tshisekedi on Friday turned the spotlight on human rights in his first day in office after succeeding Kabila who was in power for 18 years. He has vowed to release all political prisoners swiftly and moved to reconcile with other candidates in a sign of hope in a country that has been chronically unstable since its independence from Belgium in 1960. SOURCE: AFP The United States and the Taliban said Saturday they had made substantial headway in negotiations to end the 17-year US war in Afghanistan, although sticking points remained. Zalmay Khalilzad, who was named by President Donald Trump\s administration to find a way out of the war, held an unusually long six days of talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar. "Meetings here were more productive than they have been in the past. We made significant progress on vital issues," Khalilzad wrote on Twitter. Khalilzad who headed to Qatar after talks in Afghanistan and its key neighbors said he was returning to Kabul to discuss the negotiations. "We will build on the momentum and resume talks shortly. We have a number of issues left to work out," he tweeted. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and \everything\ must include an intra-Afghan dialogue and comprehensive ceasefire." While he has not given details, floated proposals include a withdrawal by the United States of its troops in return for Taliban guarantees not to shelter foreign extremists the initial reason for the US intervention. Trump has been eager to end America\s longest war, which was launched shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Trump has already said he will pull half of the 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan. Dispute on Kabul\s role Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that while there was "progress" at the meetings, reports of an agreement on a ceasefire and talks with Kabul "are not true." "Since issues are of critical nature and need comprehensive discussions, therefore it was decided that talks about unresolved matters will resume in similar future meetings," he said in a statement. But a senior Taliban commander sounded optimistic after the talks with the Afghan-born Khalilzad, who played key diplomatic roles in former president George W. Bush\s administration. "The US has accepted many of our demands and both sides are very much agreed on major points, but some points are still under discussion," the Taliban commander told AFP on condition of anonymity by phone from Pakistan. "We are moving forward and a lot of progress has been made so far. "Efforts are underway to find some middle ground to solve the remaining disputed issues. The Afghan government is one of them," he added. The Taliban in the past have refused to deal with the internationally recognized government of President Ashraf Ghani. Abdullah Abdullah, the de facto prime minister of Afghanistan, recently voiced frustration that the Taliban was excluding the Kabul government, warning that a peace process "cannot take place by proxy." Heavy toll by Taliban Afghan authorities have put a brave face on the negotiations, noting that Kabul has already taken charge of security. Ghani said Thursday that 45,000 Afghan security forces have died since September 2014 a stunning casualty rate of more than 28 dead per day that analysts say has contributed to low morale. Ghani is running for re-election in July, which could come at the height of the Taliban fighting season unless a ceasefire is reached. The length and apparent breadth of the Taliban talks are unprecedented, signaling that both the United States and the Taliban see a path forward. In a sign of the seriousness, the Taliban appointed a co-founder of the hardline Islamic movement as its Qatar-based negotiator with the United States Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2010 but released in October as the United States stepped up diplomacy. He was considered the number two to Taliban chief Mullah Omar, who died in 2013. Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a US foundation that promotes peace, said that Baradar\s return showed the hubris of war, recalling that he had offered to surrender soon after September 11. "Bush administration refused. They wanted to defeat the Taliban, not negotiate. Now, he\s back to make a deal, and he\s going to get a lot more," Cirincione tweeted. Khalilzad last met with the insurgents last month in the United Arab Emirates, which has jockeyed with Qatar for influence in Afghan diplomatic circles. SOURCE: AFP You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close News VIDEO: Two injured in Thursday's night fire in Abu Dhabi residential building The Operations Room of the Civil Defence was alerted about a fire that erupted in a residential building, and immediately the firefighting teams were dispatched to the scene, where they proceeded to extinguish the fire, which spread to the next building. The Friends of Roan Mountain and some of the top naturalists in the region come together each winter to welcome guests to Roan Mountain for an all-day program celebrating the natural world. The Winter Naturalists' Rally features a series of indoor programs in the morning followed by an afternoon of outdoor hikes. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. THE SHORTHORN Is seeking work study student assistants for our reception desk for summer and fall.Prompt, cheerful, students with professional attitudes are encouraged to apply to answer office phones and greet guests from behind a plexiglass COVID barrier.Preference is given to students available to work some mornings. This in-office job offers flexible hours and plenty of time to study.Apply through Handshake for job #4723423 or call 817-272-3188 for more information. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:08 am Ridgefield is Washington states fasting growing city, with a 65 percent population growth from 2010 to 2017. There are approximately 1,000 new single family lots currently in development in the city and a population of 25,000 residents by 2035 is forecasted. Nowhere is that growth more evident than in Ridgefield schools, where enrollment has increased 39 percent in the last three years and expected to increase 47 percent over the next four years. The City of Ridgefield and the Ridgefield School District have taken fiscally responsible approaches in planning for this growth. The city currently assesses the highest school impact fees on new residential construction in the county and the sixth highest in Washington. The builder of each newly constructed home pays over $7,100 in school impact fees. The school district began a multi-phase process in 2012, with a bond that funded new buildings at both elementary schools and much needed improvements to all schools. The second phase was a 2017 bond that built two new schools at the fifth eighth grade campus, expanded the high school and repurposed the former middle school as the Ridgefield Administrative and Civic Center. The prior bond projects came in on time and under budget, while the districts tax rate remained one of the lowest in Clark County. The next phase is the $77 million bond on the February ballot, which will leverage more than $15 million in additional state funding, which with the addition of school impact fee revenue, will finance an infrastructure improvement project of nearly $100 million. It will: build a new K-4 elementary school to reduce overcrowding; build an additional classroom wing at the high school; secure entry points with new security cameras and locking systems, an unfortunate necessity in modern times; update student access to modern STEM programs; update existing vocational training spaces. Despite all of the benefits that will be received from the passage of the February bond, it will only raise Ridgefield School Districts tax rate by 9 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. For a home valued at $450,000, that amounts to $3.38 a month, less than the cost of a Grande Latte at Starbucks. For most of us, our greatest asset is our home. The location of our homes, specifically in a premier school district, is one of the main factors that affect its value. This small increase in the tax rate is a small investment with big returns on the value of our homes. Ridgefield School District, under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Nathan McCann and with a strong school board and active citizens advisory committee, continues to be an excellent steward of the investments made by the districts taxpayers. In order for the district to continue to provide a premier education to our children at a low cost, please join me in voting, yes in February for Ridgefield schools. Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 5:58 am I wrote the attorney generals office and they told me to contact my legislators. I have written my legislators, but they do not answer. This is true of our Congress: they receive too many letters and cannot reply. It is extremely sad that they can refuse to answer the concerns of the general public. The lobbyists have this advantage. They can pay our representatives in order to gain their attention over the vote of the people. The average person is not given this advantage by our voted representatives. I believe we the people should have the ear of Congress and the power to disallow corporations to gain their favor. Congress and state legislators should not benefit from lobbyists and corporations. When FDR was in office, the president and Congress controlled the country. There were regulations in place that helped control the nation. These balances and controls have been worn away and we now have no protection from large businesses and corporations. The only imperative left is SSI and the powers that be would like to destroy that along with Medicare. America was satisfied and the people felt protected with the FDR administration. We now have no regulations and look at our unstable system. The elderly and low income are at risk with the increased gentrification and displacement of people in our cities and towns. It is now commonplace to have your rent doubled in one year and all for the profit of building conglomerates. We need regulations to protect the people and their families. Does a true democracy put its citizens at risk while the wealthy line their pockets? Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:10 am This federal government shutdown has gone on too long. Businesses, as well as individuals and families, are suffering because of what amounts to a tantrum in the White House, and a failure of a backbone in Congress to stand up to the bully. There are many valid reasons why the White Houses demanded wall is a bad idea. Even the conservative think tank Cato Institute says to build a border wall would be ineffective and wasteful. Nearly half the illegal immigrants come here on legal visas and become overstayers. The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration reports almost all illegal drugs come through legal entry points, hidden in cars and trucks. And then there are the tunnels. When border patrol agents were asked what they recommend, they say overwhelmingly they support technology to curb illegal entry. They want more cameras, more sensors and drone surveillance. Also, building a wall forces the government to take private land, which is just plain wrong. Wouldnt that money be better used to help all those Veterans who fought for their country? Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 6:12 am A riveting night of tax talk Instead of struggling to decide if youd like to spend your hard-earned money going out to eat, or maybe heading down to Battle Ground Cinema to see Aquaman, why not learn what the government plans to do with the portion you gave them? On Wednesday, Jan. 30, Clark County Treasurer Alishia Topper and Assessor Peter Van Nortwick will meet with the public to discuss the 2019 state and local tax rates and changes, specifically how changes in school funding impacts Clark County. The property tax change impacts are school district specific, and we want to ensure transparency to taxpayers, Van Nortwick said in a news release. Im looking forward to helping people plan ahead and answer any questions they might have about the changing tax climate, Topper added. {{tncms-inline content="

2 – 4 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 30, in the Evergreen Room/Tan Complex, at the Evergreen Public Schools Administrative Service Center, 13501 NE 28th St., Vancouver. 

" id="a178f579-5923-41c3-bb17-f47abb76b5d1" style-type="fact" title="If You Go" type="relcontent"}} Unleash your inner art critic If youre looking to fill that blank space on the living room wall, The Society of Washington Artists have announced their Spring Art Show and Sale to run through May 2 to 5. For aspiring artists, online registration for the show begins on Feb. 1 with a Prospectus available for viewing at swavancouver.com. Aurora Gallery will also be hosting an opening reception this Friday for their new photography showcase featuring several photographers work from northwest landscapes to dramatic still lifes. Their event falls in line with the First Friday Art Walk held by Vancouvers Downtown Association so there will be plenty of opportunity to peruse nearby galleries. {{tncms-inline content="

Spring Art Show and Sale: 

May 2t o 5 at Vancouver Water Resource Center Community Room, 4600 SE Columbia Way, Vancouver. 

Aurora Gallery’s Photography Show: 

5 to 9 p.m., Friday, Feb. 1 at Aurora Gallery, 1004 Main St., Vancouver. 

" id="c8955b06-3e04-4524-84ce-6e8a5e8d39c2" style-type="fact" title="If You Go" type="relcontent"}} Nominate a woman, child or educator The voting booths are open and what better way to show your appreciation for that inspirational someone than nominating them for an award? Here are three opportunities to do so. WSU Vancouver is now seeking nominations for their Distinguished Woman of the Year award. Awards will go to three lucky women within the WSU Vancouver Student, WSU Faculty/Staff and WSU/non-WSU-affiliated Community Member categories at the universitys annual Women Distinction Event on March 28. Nominations will be accepted through Feb. 15. The Clark County Youth Commission would like to recognize 300 local youths in areas such as arts, career development, tolerance and stewardship but need help from the community to do so. Nominations are open until 5 p.m., Friday, March 15 and awards will be presented at a ceremony on Sunday, June 9. Barnes & Noble Vancouver is bringing back a fan favorite and are now accepting nominations for their My Favorite Teacher Contest. Students are encouraged to write a short essay on why their teacher is deserving of the award and should be submitted to their website before March 2. {{tncms-inline content="

Distinguished Woman of the Year: studentaffairs.vancouver.wsu.edu/student-involvement/women-distinction-nomination

Nominations accepted through Feb.15.

Youth Achievement Awards: 

clark.wa.gov/community-services/youth-achievement

Nominations accepted through 5 p.m., Friday, March 15.  

My Favorite Teacher Contest: 

bn.com/myfavoriteteacher

Nominations accepted through March 2. 

" id="a4498d04-4b25-42c1-9ab0-0aea4e7ee8df" style-type="bio" title="Submit your vote here" type="relcontent"}} Following a growing public uproar over developers exploiting loopholes to build "supertall" towers, the Department of City Planning on Friday proposed a zoning amendment that seeks to discourage them from using mechanical spaces, also known as voids, to add extra height to buildings. Last week, the Department of Buildings threatened to revoke the permit for developer Extells residential project at 50 West 66th Street, citing both the excessive height of its 160-foot tall mechanical void and safety reasons. Voids, which are essentially empty spaces between several floors, allow residential units above them to sit higher, making them more valuable. Now, city planning officials are seeking to create a rule in certain residential zoning districts that would require voids taller than 25 feet to count toward a developers allowable floor area, thus limiting the number of dwelling units that can be built. The plan would discourage, although not directly outlaw, excessively tall voids. This closes one loophole in certain zoning districts, said Sean Khorsandi, the executive director of Landmark West, one of the Upper West Side groups who mounted the effort against the project. To prevent developers from simply stacking multiple 25 feet voids on top of one another, City Planning is also proposing that buildings that have more than one void within 75 feet of each other would also have to count any height in excess of 25 feet toward the allowable floor area. Finally, mixed-use buildings, which might consist of commercial and residential spaces, would be subject to the same rule should non-residential spaces make up less than 25 percent of the building. George Janes, a planning consultant who was hired by Landmark West to mount a challenge against Extell's project, praised City Planning's response. He said the amendment should directly address contested buildings in the pipeline now. Sara Kamillatos, a preservation associate at Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, a group which lodged a similar zoning protest against 249 East 62nd Street, said she was heartened by City Plannings proposed amendment. She said she hoped that the DOB, which rejected their challenge, would similarly move to revoke the permit of the Upper East Side project. However, asked about that project, a DOB spokesman on Friday said the designs for the two buildings were different, citing the fact that the mechanical void in the Upper East Side project is exposed to the outdoors. "The design for 249 East 62nd Street calls for outdoor space that is open to the air, along with structural outriggers," the DOB spokesperson said in a statement. "This design has previously been used in other buildings around the city, for example at the Citicorp Building at 601 Lexington Avenue. Under the Zoning Resolution, outdoor space is not governed by the same rules as fully enclosed mechanical space, such as what is proposed for 36 West 66th Street." With regards to Extell, the DOB said it had received a letter from Extell "indicating that they intend to resolve the objections raised" by building officials of its mechanical void design. The developer has yet to submit revised plans for 50 West 66th Street, according to the DOB. On Thursday, the NY Times reported that Gary Barnett, the Extell founder credited with reshaping the skyline with supertall luxury towers, intends to sue the city for retroactively applying the new zoning rules to his project. Extell's public relations firm, M18, did not respond to a request for comment. Janes cautioned that it may still be possible for developers to use other non-dwelling spaces to add height. "I wish it would have gone a little further," he said. "It invites other ways to use this. It really only addresses mechanicals." Posted Friday, January 25, 2019 5:45 am Those interested in hearing about Clark Countys biggest operator of off-leash areas for dogs have a chance with the organization head saying getting more volunteers would be a big push for 2019. DOGPAW will host a meeting at the Vancouver Community Library Feb. 5. Group president Eileen Magill Cervantes said the meeting will give an overview of where we are and where were going, including talk of what Vancouver and Clark County are doing in support of the organization as well as the groups finances. Cervantes said the meeting would be an opportunity for a huge push for volunteers. She said that in one week in January she logged more than 80 hours herself in work with the group, something she was happy to do but is not sustainable in the long run. I want to get the board completely filled, Cervantes said, listing specific posts focusing on IT, fundraising, sponsors, events and park operations. Outside of those willing to serve on the board, she noted that other volunteers are needed for anything from typing to fence repair to help reach 2019s goal to have all four of DOGPAW-operated parks sustainable with a balanced budget by the end of the year. Regarding board members and other volunteers, Certanves said she isnt a micromanager, so those looking to volunteer would be free to work on their own ideas but would have support when needed a you do your job, Ill do mine kind of thing, as she phrased it. Cervantes said that question forms have been distributed at parks ahead of the meeting, with most of those that had come in focusing on what was happening with county support. While the city of Vancouver is providing its own funding for the Ike Memorial Park in city limits, there are three parks in unincorporated areas of the county: Dakota, just north of Vancouver; Lucky, near the CASEE complex in Brush Prairie; and Kane, in Hockinson Meadows Park. Cervantes lauded the amazing county staff for their work with DOGPAW on solutions, which she said would have them taking over fencing maintenance, mowing and servicing of waste stations in the park. We still have to put everything in the garbage, Cervantes noted, meaning that volunteers but ideally park patrons would clean up after their dogs. DOGPAW had a board retreat Jan. 26 to discuss finances and those hashed-out numbers werent available by print deadline, though Cervantes said her estimate was the savings from the county pitching in would be to the tune of $18,000 annually. That number was significantly smaller than previous operations estimates closer to $100,000 per year, though she explained that recently through her direction DOGPAW has focused more of its attention on using volunteers as opposed to contracting out labor, having what the anticipated costs of running the group and parks lower moving forward. Through a shift to volunteers, Cervantes said DOGPAW has been able to cut spending by about $1,000 monthly already. Cervantes, who assumed the role of president in October, pointed to her 30 years of experience of public service in Santa Clara, California, which helped her pare down expenses for the group. She also relied on that experience on one side of government when talking with Clark County officials, keeping a positive tone in conversations throughout the process to get things moving. The thing with working with the government, at least in my point of view, is that if you treat them with respect, you get respect back, Cervantes said. In that kind of collaborative attitude, things happen. DOGPAWs parks might also receive more frequent visits by those who can enforce rules and laws. Clark County Animal Protection and Control Program Manager Susan Anderson wrote in an email that as of Jan. 24 that division of county code enforcement had five animal control officers for a full staff. Last year, three officers were dismissed following issues at the county, which wasnt a help for addressing issues at the park. Cervantes was happily anticipating the increased enforcement, explaining that part of DOGPAWs collaboration would be a stronger push on licensing animals. Money from those licenses directly fund animal control operations, the amount of which Anderson did not have readily available as the department focuses on catching up from the short-staffed months last year. Cervantes said that through an increased push in getting people to step up and take part in DOGPAW, the group would be able to be sustainable where in past years that certainty wasnt always there. I have this sense of urgency in me to right this ship and get it going in the right direction, Cervantes remarked. {{tncms-inline content="

DOGPAW public meeting

6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5

Vancouver Community Library Columbia Room

901 C St., Vancouver

" id="e8da02c7-f485-440e-a31b-30faf2b4e300" style-type="fact" title="If You Go" type="relcontent"}} Clearfield, PA (16830) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning. Thunderstorms likely during the afternoon. A few storms may be severe. High 78F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Thunderstorms during the evening will give way to cloudy skies after midnight. Low 64F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. This conversion of clinical settings into communicative and enriching environments is supported by renowned British artists like Anish Kapoor and Julian Opie, who work with these foundations to help imbue the NHS with creativity. Rachael Champion, 'Telephone Room' at Bluebell Lodge. Photo: Damian Griffiths. After a competitive application process, this year sees Hospital Rooms working with six mental health units that were chosen for their dedication to creating an artistic environment for their patients. These projects are supported by Arts Council England, amongst other foundations, who collaborate with artists. The fashion brand Seasalt, for example, commissioned a piece by Anna Barriball for one facility, as well as donating a sum of money from the sales of their popular Sailor Socks. One of the charitys ongoing projects is Bluebell Lodge, an inpatient rehabilitation unit for men aged 18 to 65 years old who suffer from severe mental illness. Six artists, including Rachael Champion and Shaw himself, were commissioned to create unique environments that encourage social interaction and create calm within patients. The murals seek to remove the barrier between patients and the outside world, decreasing their vulnerability and segregation. Art is utilised as a therapeutic device and creativity is seen as a form of escapism. As well as murals by various artists, Antony Gormleys Mind Matters hangs in an interview room, illustrating the inner workings of a mind suffering from mental illness. Antony Gormley, 'Mind Matters', hung at Bluebell Lodge. Image: Hospital Rooms. Hospital Rooms isnt the only charity working to reinvigorate mental health units. The organisation Painting in Hospitals loans works by famous artists such as Bridget Riley, Andy Warhol and Anish Kapoor to various facilities to inspire better health and wellbeing. Their collection of over 3,800 works are displayed in various health and social care organisations that aid in transforming otherwise detached environments into a welcoming space that encourages a calmer state of mind. These charities work with artists to better the lives of people suffering from mental illness, illustrating the healing powers of creativity. Anna Barriball, 'Daylight' at Bluebell Lodge. Image: Hospital Rooms. To find out more about Hospital Rooms upcoming projects, please click here. You can find out more about Painting in Hospitals on their website. Unlimited website access 24/7 Unlimited e-Edition access 24/7 The best local, regional and national news in sports, politics, business and more! With a Digital Only subscription, you'll receive unlimited access to our website and e-edition. Our digital products are available 24/7 and are accessible anywhere, anytime. The Battle of the Barge rages on, despite legal threats from the city and the increasing aggravation of many New Yorkers. After we reported earlier this month on the big floating LED billboard that recently appeared off the coast of Manhattan, city officials sent a letter to Ballyhoo Media, the Miami-based company behind the barges, threatening legal action if they didn't abandon ship. Ballyhoo was given until January 16th to show their compliance with a law prohibiting advertising in local waterwaysliterally the company's business modeland subsequently granted a one week extension, according to the law department. But that deadline has now passed, and Ballyhoo's aggressively bright, 60-foot ad-boat is still making daily voyages around lower Manhattan, blaring high-definition ads for a range products, including beer, private helicopter rides, and television shows about mermaids. "Im still seeing the billboard boats running along the Hudson every dayI literally wake up to them outside my apartment window," Matthew Patrick Menlo, a West Chelsea resident, told Gothamist on Friday. "Is Ballyhoo operating in direct defiance of the letter, or did the company come to some arrangement with the city that hasnt yet been made public?" A spokesperson for the city law department, Nicholas Paolucci, would say only that "lawyers are in discussions." Adam Shapiro, the CEO of Ballyhoo Media, did not respond to Gothamist's inquiries. It's not the first time that the company has found itself in questionable legal waters. After Ballyhoo's first floating billboard began targeting Miami beachgoers two years ago, local officials pledged to ban the company, but found that the relevant city law pertained only to Biscayne Bay. The same does not appear to be true of New York City. In the letter sent to Ballyhoo earlier this month, NYC's Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter noted that several provisions of the NYC Administrative Code prohibit advertising in waterways adjacent to a residential, commercial, or manufacturing district and within view of an arterial highwayincluding the West Side Highway and FDR Drive. The boat's current route begins near the Intrepid, traveling around the southern tip of Manhattan before finishing at Roosevelt Island. Elected officials have also expressed concerns about safety, noting the company could set a dangerous precedent if they're allowed to continue operating. Councilmember Justin Brannan, who represents Bay Ridge, told Gothamist that the barge was "not only ugly, obnoxious and illegal, but dangerous to already distracted drivers." He added that "visual pollution is a real thing and our waterways should be off limits," noting that the law is "pretty clear." And if there was any doubt about the importance of standing up to invasive marketing companies intent on plastering every inch of public space with aggressive advertising, well, here is this: This company wants to display billboards from outer space pic.twitter.com/FMp3CGRWuT BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) January 17, 2019 We'll be keeping an eye on this fight in the coming weeks. If you spot one of these billboards, shoot us an email at tips@gothamist.com. This week's dispiriting news that some Trump administration restrictions on transgender people serving in the military can go forward reinforces the need for strong protections for transgender people on the state level. Stigma and discrimination put trans people at increased risk of contracting HIV. Although HIV in the trans community remains understudied, research strongly suggests that the virus disproportionately affects trans people. In 2015, their rate of new diagnoses was three times the national average. Last week, New York State took a belated but no less welcome step to address that stigma and discrimination. The state legislature finally passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). GENDA prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression and includes offenses regarding gender identity or expression under the New York hate crimes statute. Transgender New Yorkers have had some degree of protection from discrimination before now. In 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued regulations establishing that the state's existing Human Rights Law barred discrimination against transgender people. However, last week's passage of GENDA ensures that those protections are enshrined in state law, and, for the first time, adds gender identity and expression to New York's hate crimes law. What's taken so long for New York to extend basic anti-discrimination protections to its transgender residents? Here's a look back at the major milestones in this two-decades-long civil rights battle. 1998: The friction between the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York State's leading gay rights organization of the time, and trans activists erupts into a full breach when it becomes clear that ESPA won't push for trans rights. "We were gobsmacked. We realized we would have to work around them," says veteran trans activist Melissa Sklarz, who is also the first trans person to hold elected office in New York (as a 1999 judicial delegate from the 66th Assembly District). January 2002: The Democrat-controlled New York State Assembly takes up the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA), which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation -- but not gender identity or expression. ESPA endorses Republican governor George Pataki, after he indicates his support for SONDA. Transgender rights activists, hoping to take advantage of the legislation's momentum, swing into action to persuade legislators to amend SONDA to protect trans people, too. "We worked like crazy," says Sklarz. Their efforts pay off. The Assembly carries the amendment. December 2002: Openly gay, openly HIV-positive State Senator Tom Duane delivers a tear-inducing speech in the State Senate in favor of the amendment to include transgender people in SONDA. Nonetheless, the Republican-led Senate rejects the amendment and passes the bill without transgender protections. Immediately after the defeat, dozens of activists who had "worked like crazy" gather beneath a stairwell in the State Capitol to lick their wounds. Sklarz remembers feeling "extremely defeated" but that one person, Charles King, "was ebullient." King, CEO of the influential New York Citybased HIV/AIDS nonprofit Housing Works, proposes they get right back to work on a new transgender-focused anti-discrimination bill. They agree to call it the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. "We marched out chanting, 'Pass GENDA! Pass GENDA!'" King recalls. 2003: Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, who represents, among other districts, the Manhattan gay enclave of Chelsea, introduces a new transgender rights bill called GENDA into the State Assembly, and Duane introduces it in the State Senate. The same year, Housing Works launches an annual Transgender Lobby Day to push state lawmakers to get on board with the legislation and presses the issue in weekly lobbying visits to Albany. Trans activists become a familiar sight in the State Capitol. August 2004: Former ESPA Executive Director Matt Foreman publicly apologizes for leaving transgender New Yorkers behind in the battle for gay rights. "All I can say is that hindsight is 20/20. I made mistakes in New York," he writes. June 2008: The New York State Assembly passes GENDA for the first time, but the law still has yet to pass out of committee in the State Senate. Kiara St. James, executive director and cofounder of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG), says that even when lobbying for GENDA failed, it paid off. She says, "It gave so many trans folks and folks of color a better understanding of their voice. We would leave at 6 a.m. from New York City to make our 10 a.m. Albany visits. Initially people were scared and hesitant. By end of day, they said, 'When can we come back up?'" February 2009: Duane introduces GENDA into the 2009-2010 session of the State Senate, and in May 2010, the bill advances to the Senate's Judiciary Committee. For the first time in years, Democrats have tenuous control of the chamber. "The clouds opened up for a brief bit," says Sklarz. Disarray among the Democrats shepherding the bill through the committee cripples its chances. "It was devastating," says Sklarz. "It was really our only opportunity ever to get the bill to the floor in the Senate." March 2013: Award-winning actor and transgender activist Laverne Cox joins Housing Works for its annual Transgender Lobby Day and writes an essay about the experience. Sklarz sees a glimmer of hope that the State Senate will consider GENDA because it's not an election year. GENDA passes for the sixth time in the Assembly but once again does not come to the floor of the State Senate. "I'm pathetically optimistic. It's a severe character flaw," Sklarz says. October 2015: Governor Cuomo declares that the state's existing Human Rights Law will be interpreted to include a ban on discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The governor's action means that transgender people in New York State are, at last, protected from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, and other areas. Transgender people remain excluded from the state's hate crimes legislation. "We were thrilled," says St. James, who was adamant about continuing to fight. "We needed more than an executive order from the governor. We needed codified law. No community should settle," she recalls. 2014 to 2016: Sklarz becomes board co-chair of ESPA, which over the years has become active in the push for GENDA. With priorities like marriage equality achieved, however, in 2016, ESPA closes its doors. "ESPA worked mightily to educate their donor base on the importance of trans civil rights. While many were supportive, there were not enough to sustain a statewide organization," says Sklarz. June to September 2018: In reaction to the election of Donald Trump, a progressive tide rises in New York, exemplified by the June Democratic primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In September, six members of the Independent Democratic Conference -- state senators elected as Democrats who regularly serve Republican interests -- go down defeated in primaries. A Democrat-controlled -- and likely pro-GENDA -- State Senate is in view for the first time in nearly a decade. November 2018: Statewide elections definitively deliver the State Senate to Democrats, who now hold 40 seats to Republicans' 23. January 2019: In the first week of the 2019 legislative session, GENDA passes out of both the New York State Assembly and Senate, along with a bill to ban conversion therapy for minors. King says he is "walking on air." According to Sklarz, "Once Democratic senators took over, they got it immediately, or they listened, and they got it." Nonetheless, Sklarz cautions, "It's taken 20 years to pass the law, but that may have been the easy part -- the hard part is changing the culture." St. James agrees that the fight goes on. "It's like, wow! We finally did it. But GENDA is not perfect. We still want to make sure that the language in regard to hate crimes is addressed and not weaponized against people of color." David Thorpe has been a New York-based editor and freelance writer for more than two decades. He writes primarily about gay life, AIDS, and pop culture. His work has appeared in, among other publications, The New York Times_,_ OUT_,_ Time Out New York_,_ New York_,_ POZ_, and_ O, the Oprah Magazine_._ NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC (KSF) and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have until February 8, 2019 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (OTC: NSANY), if they purchased the Companys American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) between December 10, 2013 and November 16, 2018, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. What You May Do If you purchased ADRs of Nissan and would like to discuss your legal rights and your right to recover for your economic loss, you may, without obligation or cost to you, contact KSF Managing Partner Lewis Kahn toll-free at 1-877-515-1850 or via email (lewis.kahn@ksfcounsel.com), or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/otc-nsany/ to learn more. If you wish to serve as a lead plaintiff in this class action, you must petition the Court by February 8, 2019. About the Lawsuit Nissan and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On November 19, 2018, news reports revealed Nissan CEO and Chairman, Carlos Ghosn and former Board member and Senior Vice President, Greg Kelly, had been arrested by Japanese authorities for financial crimes. The Company later disclosed that its internal investigation over the past several months uncovered numerous wrongful acts by both spanning many years, including improperly reporting expenses and personal use of company assets. On this news, the price of Nissans ADRs plummeted. The case is Jackson County Employees Retirement System v. Ghosn, et al., 18-cv-01368. About Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC KSF, whose partners include former Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr., is a law firm focused on securities, antitrust and consumer class actions, along with merger & acquisition and breach of fiduciary litigation against publicly traded companies on behalf of shareholders. The firm has offices in New York, California and Louisiana. To learn more about KSF, you may visit www.ksfcounsel.com . Contact: Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC * Username This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. Choose wisely! Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Thank you for Reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and Purchase a Subscription to continue reading. Letter to the Editor The efforts been renewed to bond for a new school. . Let me state the problem Everybody, including me, wants a new school, nobody wants to ... It could be worse for the Blackcaps they need 325 to beat India at the Bay Oval tonight and level the five-match ODI series after the visitors reached 324 for four in their 50 overs An opening partnership of 154 between star openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohot Sharma in 25 overs had India looking at a huge total after their captain Virat Kohli had won the toss and chosen to bat on an immaculate looking Bay Oval pitch. Indian batting icon Virat Kohli recieved a huge reception when he walked out to replace Shikhar Dhawan But good work from the Blackcaps bowlers, notably Trent Boult and Ish Sodhi, put the brakes on the India scoring to an extent in the latter overs. Sodhi conceded just 43 runs off his 10 overs, though without taking a wicket, which proved a challenging task on a Bay Oval pitch which is built for batting. Ish Sodhi went for just 43 in his 10 overs Boult and Lochie Ferguson took two wickets apiece, conceding 61 and 81 runs respectively off 10 overs. For India Sharma top-scored with 87, while Dhawan made 66, and Kohli, who received a huge reception from the capacity crowd as he walked on at the fall of Dhawan's wicket, reached 43. Sodhi brought the house down with his catch to dismiss Kohli The match is the second in the five-match ODI series against India. The third is at the same venue on Monday. Indian opener Rohit Sharma on his way to his team's top score of 87 VANCOUVER, Washington, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CytoDyn Inc. (OTC.QB: CYDY), a biotechnology company developing a novel humanized CCR5 monoclonal antibody for multiple therapeutic indications, today announced that it will be presenting an update on the companys clinical development programs and objectives for leronlimab (PRO 140) during Noble Capital Markets 15th annual NobleCon Investor Conference on January 28, 2019 at 4:30 p.m. ET. More information regarding the conference can be found at https://www.nobleconference.com/NobleCon15/about.htm NobleCon15 is being held January 28 29, 2019 at the W Fort Lauderdale in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The Conference offers corporate executives a forum to network with the investment community, institutional fund managers, and high-net worth individuals. Nader Pourhassan, Ph.D., President and CEO of CytoDyn and Richard G. Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.P., F.R.A.C.P., Chief Medical Officer, and Vice Chairman of CytoDyn, will present an overview of the companys clinical programs and provide insights into their vision for CytoDyn in 2019, beginning with its first BLA submission of leronlimab (PRO 140) within the first half of 2019. They will also expand on how leronlimabs (PRO 140s) pivotal monotherapy trial could become the first weekly injectable monotherapy for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). In addition, they will comment on non-dilutive licensing opportunities for CytoDyns prognostic test for prostate cancer and provide an overview of the companys first trial for cancer, a Phase 1b/2 Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) trial, including the expected timing of the interim results. The presentation is Monday, January 28 at 4:30 p.m. ET. A live webcast and replay of the presentation at NobleCon15 will be available on the Investors section of the Companys website, http://ir.cytodyn.com/ . The webcast will be available approximately one day after the webcast presentation ends and will be accessible for 90 days. About Leronlimab (PRO 140) Leronlimab (PRO 140) is a humanized IgG4 monoclonal antibody that blocks CCR5, a cellular receptor that plays multiple roles with implications in HIV infection, tumor metastasis, and immune signaling. In the setting of HIV/AIDS, leronlimab belongs to a new class of therapeutics called viral-entry inhibitors; it masks CCR5, thus protecting healthy T cells from viral infection by blocking the predominant HIV (R5) subtype from entering those cells. At the same time, leronlimab does not appear to interfere with the normal function of CCR5 in mediating immune responses. Leronlimab has been the subject of seven clinical trials, each demonstrating efficacy by significantly reducing or controlling HIV viral load in human test subjects. Leronlimab has been designated a fast track product by the FDA. The leronlimab antibody appears to be a powerful antiviral agent leading to potentially fewer side effects and less frequent dosing requirements compared with daily drug therapies currently in use. In the setting of cancer, research has shown that CCR5 plays a central role in tumor invasion and metastasis and that increased CCR5 expression is an indicator of disease status in breast cancer. Moreover, researchers have shown that drugs that block CCR5 can block tumor metastases in laboratory and animal models of aggressive breast and prostate cancer. CytoDyn is conducting additional research with leronlimab in the cancer setting and has initiated a Phase 1b/2 human clinical trial, as recently approved in 2018 by the FDA. The CCR5 receptor also plays a central role in modulating immune cell trafficking to sites of inflammation and it is crucial for the development of acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and other inflammatory conditions. Clinical studies by others have shown that blocking CCR5 using a chemical inhibitor can reduce the clinical impact of acute GvHD without significantly affecting the engraftment of transplanted bone marrow stem cells. CytoDyn is currently conducting a Phase 2 clinical study with leronlimab to further support the concept that the CCR5 receptor on engrafted cells is critical for the development of acute GvHD and that blocking this receptor from recognizing certain immune signaling molecules is a viable approach to mitigating acute GvHD. The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to leronlimab for the prevention of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). About CytoDyn CytoDyn is a biotechnology company developing innovative treatments for multiple therapeutic indications based on leronlimab (PRO 140), a novel humanized monoclonal antibody targeting the CCR5 receptor. CCR5 plays a key role in the ability of HIV to enter and infect healthy T-cells. The CCR5 receptor is also implicated in tumor metastasis and in immune-mediated illnesses such as graft-vs-host disease (GvHD) and NASH. CytoDyn has successfully completed a Phase 3 pivotal trial with leronlimab in combination with standard anti-retroviral therapies in HIV-infected treatment-experienced patients. The Company plans to seek FDA approval for leronlimab in combination therapy and plans to complete the filing of a Biological License Application (BLA) in the first half of 2019 for that indication. CytoDyn is also conducting a Phase 3 investigative trial with leronlimab as a once-weekly monotherapy for HIV-infected patients, and plans to initiate a registration-directed study of leronlimab monotherapy indication, which if successful, could support a label extension. Clinical results to date from multiple trials have shown that leronlimab can significantly reduce viral burden in people infected with HIV with no reported drug-related serious adverse events (SAEs). Moreover, results from a Phase 2b clinical trial demonstrated that leronlimab monotherapy can prevent viral escape in HIV-infected patients, with some patients on leronlimab monotherapy remaining virally suppressed for more than four years. CytoDyn is also conducting a Phase 2 trial to evaluate leronlimab for the prevention of GvHD and initiated a clinical trial with leronlimab in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in 2018. More information is at www.cytodyn.com . Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Words and expressions reflecting optimism, satisfaction or disappointment with current prospects, as well as words such as believes, hopes, intends, estimates, expects, projects, plans, anticipates and variations thereof, or the use of future tense, identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. The Companys forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance, and actual results could vary materially from those contained in or expressed by such statements due to risks and uncertainties including: (i) the sufficiency of the Companys cash position, (ii) the Companys ability to raise additional capital to fund its operations, (iii) the Companys ability to meet its debt obligations, if any, (iv) the Companys ability to enter into partnership or licensing arrangements with third parties, (v) the Companys ability to identify patients to enroll in its clinical trials in a timely fashion, (vi) the Companys ability to achieve approval of a marketable product, (vii) the design, implementation and conduct of the Companys clinical trials, (viii) the results of the Companys clinical trials, including the possibility of unfavorable clinical trial results, (ix) the market for, and marketability of, any product that is approved, (x) the existence or development of vaccines, drugs, or other treatments that are viewed by medical professionals or patients as superior to the Companys products, (xi) regulatory initiatives, compliance with governmental regulations and the regulatory approval process, (xii) general economic and business conditions, (xiii) changes in foreign, political, and social conditions, and (xiv) various other matters, many of which are beyond the Companys control. The Company urges investors to consider specifically the various risk factors identified in its most recent Form 10-K, and any risk factors or cautionary statements included in any subsequent Form 10-Q or Form 8-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, the Company does not undertake any responsibility to update any forward-looking statements to take into account events or circumstances that occur after the date of this press release. Bay of Plenty We are looking for Civil Workers and no, its not all based in Transmission Gulley! Work is available with great hours and... View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nz Weve all heard about the glass ceiling that women must push through to gain senior management roles, but we hear less about those who have taken matters into their own hands and gone it alone. A study of the young women running New Zealands small businesses has revealed them to be ambitious self-starters, with young and dynamic enterprises that theyre eager to grow. One young self-starter lives here in the Bay of Plenty and is thriving with her business Real Rad Food. Hannah Mellsopp, is in her early 20s and has already cracked the wholesale and online market. She says it has been a pretty crazy few years ever since making Real Rad Food an official brand in 2016 and it has only gone up hill from there. Hannah says she hasnt quite defined success within her business yet, but when you look back on how far the business has grown, you could say that it is successful. I guess when I look back on the past year, success to me is where we have come in the past year, like the amount of growth that we have been able to achieve and I guess the main part of that would be the support weve had from our wholesale clients and our online customers. I guess it is success because of the returning customers and our growing stockist list. Real Rad Food started off by having nine stockists and have grown to around 45 in the space of a year. Hannah got the idea of running her own business when she was working part-time in a cafe while studying at university. She got into healthy foods and healthy treats and started to share her creations on social media. Hannah says social media was a big contributing factor in starting her business. She started experimenting and sharing more on social media. People found her Instagram page and wanted to buy what she was making. I finished my degree and decided that I wanted to give what I had going a real go, and that meant me going all in, says Hannah. I was going to local markets, trying to push the wholesale to cafes idea and I think it was great because I had an audience there already before I started, so that meant that starting wasnt as scary. I knew that there was a demand so I sort of tested the market before I entered it. I dont think my business would exist without Instagram or social media. The research, commissioned by Xero, found 86 percent of women got their business off the ground under their own stream, funding it themselves, with the help of family and friends or with no financial support. More than a third have made a personal sacrifice by going without paying themselves at times when cash has been tight. But 69 percent now have their eyes set on growing their profitability in 2019, making this one of their main business goals. Hannah says she has had lots of help from her friends and family over the years. My partner has pretty much been working for me for a year, free of charge. My younger siblings have been rolling the raw balls that we do with me. My older brother is an accountant, and hes helped me. I dont think I would have been able to do it without the support of my friends and family. To check out more about Real Rad Food, visit their website: https://realradfood.co.nz/ Patriotism is the last refuge View(s): Nearly 250 years ago, on April 7, 1775 to be precise, the celebrated man of letters Samuel Johnson made the now famous pronouncement, Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. His intent was not to criticise patriotism which is the quality of being devoted to and vigorously supporting ones own native land but to ridicule those who at that time in his own country of England falsely pretended to be patriotic to distract and silence their opponents. I was musing how relevant Johnsons observation is when considering how modern day politicians in our own country try to utilise lofty ideals like patriotism and religion to distract the peoples attention from their scoundrel-like actions. When the going gets tough for them, these scoundrels try to pull the wool over the eyes of us gullible people by making a show of patriotism and morality, being shown on TV and in newspapers, participating in ceremonies at temples and churches and trying to show us how religious they are. I recall one of my colleagues once cynically saying to me as we observed some politicians participating in such a religious ceremony: Pelak kattiya Pan Sil gaththata, Pan Sil rakinnay nam nae! meaning Some people take the Five Precepts but do not follow the Five Precepts! Just consider all this latest fuss about declaring the Tripitika a National Treasure. A grand ceremony was held with the participation of a couple of thousand members of the Maha Sangha. Temples, Buddhist households and public institutions were asked to hoist the Buddhist flag and organise religious activities in parallel with the national ceremony at Aluvihare. To me it appeared that the President had made good use of the official visit he made last November to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Sri Lanka to learn a trick or two. In a Buddhist temple in Haeinsa in Koreas South Gyeongsang Province, there exists a Korean collection of the Tripitaka carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks. Known as the Goryeo Tripitaka (Tripitaka Koreana) or Palman Daejanggyeong it was created in the 13th century and is the oldest and most comprehensive intact version of the Buddhist canon in Hanja script. In 1962, the then government of South Korea designated the Tripitaka Koreana as a National Treasure of South Korea and in 2007 South Korea succeeded in getting the Tripitika Koraeana inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. So President Sirisena may have picked up a leaf from his South Korean hosts and come up with the idea of doing the same thing here. Most of us in Sri Lanka know that the Tripitika was first written down here at Aluvihare sometime in the first century BCE, having been transmitted orally for about 500 years since the lifetime of the Buddha. Most of us are cognizant and proud of the role played by our nation in recording and preserving these sacred writings over the past two millennia. So while we citizens already know and accept that the Tripitika is a national treasure, what purpose does it serve for the President to officially declare that the Tripitika is a National Treasure? We Sri Lankans simply want the opportunity to get for ourselves and our families adequate food, shelter, clothing and peace in our time. The President, of course, wants good publicity and to create the impression that he is a good Buddhist though some of his actions may not go with the Fourth Precept Musavada veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami. (I undertake the precept of abstaining from false speech). Over the past four years he has betrayed three key persons. Firstly after that famous meal of hoppers in November 2014 he betrayed his leader President Mahinda Rajapakse. Next he betrayed Ven. Sobhita Thera who was one of those instrumental in helping him become President in January 2015. Promising at Ven Sobithas funeral to abolish the Executive Presidency and be just a one term President, he has not only broken the first promise but has also made no secret of the fact that he covets the presidency for a second term. The third example was when he indulged in the unconstitutional actions of sacking the legitimate prime minister and appointting a prime minister who did not have a mandate. Despite announcing a few years ago that he would never appoint Mahinda Prime Minister, he did exactly that last October. Announcing that he would not re-appoint Ranil Prime Minister even if all 225 MPs voted for him, he went on to do exactly that. My readers may like to know an interesting fact about Roh Moo-hyun, the man who was President of South Korea in 2007 when UNESCO listed the Korean Tripitika in the Memory of the World Register. Despite being elected with high expectations in 2001, President Roh lost popularity and suffered the worst approval ratings ever recorded in South Korean political history. He did not contest the presidential election the following year he retired at the end of his first term to run a farm and live as an ordinary citizen in his home town of Bongha Maeul. On the trail of Comrade Shans wife in Chennai By B. Anton Jeyanathan View(s): View(s): A few weeks ago, I wrote about following a foreign lady from Colombo to Palaly Airport. Today I write about another tale on the trail following a Sri Lankan woman from Colombo to Madras (now known as Chennai). It happened at a time when the JVP was attacking police stations and seizing arms and the man who was leading the clandestine group was Rohana Wijeweera, a leftist student closely associated with the Communist Party of the Moscow Wing. While he was studying in the Lumumba University, the Communist Party split into two the Moscow wing and the Peking Wing. If I recollect correctly, Peter Keuneman and others were the frontliners of the Moscow Wing while N. Shanmuganathan (known as Comrade Shan) led the Peking Wing. It was learned Wijeweera spoke in support of the Peking wing and as a result he was expelled from the Lumumba University. He returned to Ceylon and got close to Comrade Shan. Wijeweera became popular and his supporters planned to take control of the Peking wing by ousting Comrade Shan. However, Comrade Shan was a much shrewder leader. Sensing that Wijeweera was planning to oust him, he expelled Wijeweera from the party. It was said that this dismissal made him to organise the revolutionary group known as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Wijeweera, being a powerful speaker, formulated five lectures to indoctrinate largely unemployed and undergraduate youths. He held clandestine classes throughout the country, except in the North and East. One of his five lectures was on how to attack a police station and seize arms. When this was going on, the Intelligence Branch received information that Comrade Shan had imported a weapon and that it was to be cleared by the Customs. We followed this lead and found that one of Comrade Shans representatives had gone to clear the consignment. Once he cleared the consignment he was arrested and it was found that the weapon was an Air Rifle. When questioned, he said it was Comrade Shan who had ordered imported the weapon. Comrade Shan too was questioned but was not taken into custody. Comrade Shan appeared to be flustered because of this detection and for having been questioned by the Police. We found out that since he could not leave the country, he had made arrangements to send his wife to Madras (Chennai) with some confidential message to be passed on to one of his party contacts there. I was asked to be ready to fly with this lady to Madras and trail her movements. I bought my tickets and boarded the same flight. As soon as the plane touched down in Madras, I disembarked before the lady, as I wanted to know where she was heading. When I was approaching the disembarkation section lobby, I saw some people hiding behind pillars and looking in the direction of incoming passengers. I got out of the terminal and waited till Mrs. Shan came out. Outside the airport, there were state transport buses which took passengers to the city. I saw Mrs. Shan getting into one of the buses. I too followed and sat behind her seat. She bought a ticket to the Egmore Railway Station, which was in the heart of the city. She disembarked from the bus and walked up to a hotel which carried a Victorian Monarchs name. As a young Sub-Inspector in the Pettah area in 1962, I had seen a hotel with a similar name. Its owners were of Indian origin and some of the employees were also of Indian origin. I was hoping that I would be lucky if I could trace some of the former employees who were at Pettah. Mrs. Shan went into the hotel and booked a room for herself. I befriended the employees, identifying myself. Some of them had heard my name while they were in the hotel opposite the Fort Railway Station. I managed to get a room next to Mrs. Shans room. When I entered the hotel, I saw some people following Mrs. Shan. When I went up to my room later, I saw a few more people in the quadrangle of the hotel. I later realised they were policemen in civil clothes. Later in the evening Mrs. Shan came out of the room and walked out of the hotel. I kept a distance and found a few of the officers were also following her. Keeping a distance, I followed the movements of Mrs. Shan and the police officers in civvies. Since it was an Open surveillance conducted by the local police, I felt that Mrs. Shan was aware that someone was following her. Having realised that she was being followed, she returned to the hotel. In the meantime, I was able to get acquainted with the hotels telephone operator and the waiters and persuaded them to help me to check on the movements of Mrs. Shan. The telephone operator agreed to connect to my phone all incoming and outgoing calls from her room. In the night she took a call to her husband. With the help of the telephone operator I was able to listen to her conversation. She was complaining bitterly to Comrade Shan that from the time she came to the airport she had been under surveillance and the police officers were following her like sniffer dogs. She told him she was unable to do what she had come to do. Comrade Shan listened to her and instructed her to make a complaint to the Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Chennai of the harassment by the Madras Police. The next day she got out of the hotel and was followed by the police officers, this time openly, leaving her no opportunity to meet anyone on the wayside. In India there are several Inspectors General of Police (IGPs) and Directors General of Police (DGPs). The DGPs handling the law and order subject in all the States are considered powerful officers. On making inquiries I found that the DGP at that time had followed a training course with me in Britain sometime back. Taking this opportunity I went and met him. He recognised me. I explained to him of Mrs. Shans complaint to her husband and that she was advised by him to go the High Commissions office and make a complaint about the Police. He listened to me and in typical Tamil Nadu accent stated, Mr. Jayanaadan, we are conducting an open surveillance. We do not want her to be here. We want her to get back to Ceylon as Prevention is better than cure. It was gathered that the Indian establishment was suspicious about Communist Party Peking Wing supporters visiting India and, specially, Chennai. Anyone who had connections with the Chinese was under constant surveillance and investigation. Thanking him, I went back to the Hotel. The same night Mrs.Shan telephoned her husband Comrade Shan and bitterly complained of the Police personnel on her trail whenever she went out, and that she could not stay any longer in Chennai and that she was taking the next flight to Sri Lanka. I too had to hurriedly book my return ticket and I followed her to Sri Lanka on the same flight. I reported about her activities and what transpired in Madras to my superiors. (The writer is a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police) With novels, you can make your madness speak By Adilah Ismail View(s): View(s): In a January column for the New York Times this year, Mohammed Hanif writes about the perils of doing yoga when your mind goes into overdrive. It starts off about his propensity to make lists of random anxieties while in the savasana (corpse) pose and then seamlessly segues into the corpses he has seen in recent years. Hanif is good at thisthis dark humour-dark truth transition in writing. Its visible in his journalism and spills over into his fiction. The effect it produces on a reader is similar to that fleeting second of audience unease that hangs in the air when someone makes a problematic joke in a public setting. Do you laugh? Do you gasp? Do you walk out in anger? Hanifs latest novel Red Birds is replete with these moments of discomfort.The novel is told by multiple narrators and is set in an unnamed strip of land. We meet Ellie, an American pilot who has crashed into the camp he was meant to bomb.There is Momo, a precocious 15-year-old with a world weariness and war entrepreneurism which belies his age that it is easy to forget he is a boy who has lost his brother. And Mutt, a remarkably articulate, philosopher dog who often acts as a narrative placeholder to deliver a few home truths about humans. Red Birds also takes a few swipes at the aid industry (our camp was the tourist destination for foreign people with good intentions) noting how war has been condensed to carpet-bombing followed by dry rations and craft classes for the refugees. Countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan have grown up with the aid industry and Hanif explains that he wanted to examine how the sector was intrinsically entwined with the constant business of war. I just wanted to explore this idea of how these things are interlinked. Its a bit about myself as well. Because as a reporter, you go to a place where theres a big flood or an earthquake and you spend two days and you get the juicy quotes and the moving scenes and then you write about it, and then you generally forget about it, he explains. I was interested in the notion of how one is complicit but how one can also convince oneselfI dont have anything to do with it, Im the good guy. Mohammed Hanif, who was in Sri Lanka last weekend for the Fairway Galle Literary Festival, has emerged as one of Pakistans foremost literary voices in the past decade. A novelist and journalist who writes in Urdu, English and Punjabi, Hanif hailed from a farming family from Okara, in the Punjab province of Pakistan. I went into the Air Force when I was very young 16 and a half. I hadnt seen much of the world or how the world works. I came from a rural farming background. Having a career wasnt a thing I didnt grow up around people who were professionals or who had jobs. You were on a farm, you grow potatoes and vegetables and thats it. So, when I got into the Air Force, I wanted some kind of freedom from that oppressive rural life. As soon as I got into the Air Force, I realized oh shit, this is much worse. This is the opposite of freedom, remarks Hanif wryly. After serving in the Air Force, his entry into journalism began when he took on assignments for a friend, who was often high on heroin, transcribing and writing out his friends interviews for a TV magazine. He went on to become a fashion journalist writing human interest stories and TV reviews which got him noticed. His subsequent work with Pakistani editor Razia Bhatti provided firmer footing for his writing. Bhatti, founding editor of Newsline, was noted for taking on drug cartels, corruption and political fascism in Pakistan and for wielding a sharp editorial eye in the newsroom. Armed with a draft printed off a dot-matrix printer, she would sit down with scotch tape, a red pen and a pair of scissors and begin old-school analogue editing, cutting off a sentence in one page, inserting it in another and questioning the significance of each paragraph in a 16-page article. She made me realize there is writing and there is good writing, and there is a way to tell a story, says Hanif. While in journalism, there is an awareness of the limits of what you want to say and the boundaries you work with, fiction provides a foil to these constraints. With novels, you can make your madness speak more than your common sense, Hanif pauses. But Im sure they overlap. In one sense, fiction offers a form of world-building and escape from immediate realities. Because as journalists, weve lived through some really horrible times. Weve told depressing and horrible stories and issues. Your career will end, your life will end but there are certain kind of injustices that are there forever, he notes. But its hard to imagine Red Birds as an anodyne to the real world.The book takes a while to build up and descends into a cacophony of first-person narratives featuring more cameos in the final section. The reader is required to negotiate between this muddled Greek chorus while navigating a broken, despondent world; a halfway house between the real and supernatural. Its pithy sentences are characterized by a controlled anger at the business of war, and sadness at the business of life within war. Real life catches up with you, even when youre trying to run away from it, says Hanif. The novel was born out of a seven-year period of gestation during which Hanif went through several intimate losses of very close friends in quick succession within a year. The kind of friends one builds ones life around. He had begun writing by then, but the book was still half-formed. He explains that in a way, the novel acted as an extension of interrupted conversations, Facebook messages, debates, fights and stories that were left mid-air after the deaths of these friends. While the book deals with a chaotic world, the supernatural and the absurdity of war, the eponymous red birds that haunt the novel are a nod to the pain of memory when dealing with loss and grief. And it is this which lingers after you finish the book. As Mutt, the storys animal narrator points out, Red birds are real. The reason we dont see them is because we dont want to. Because if we see them, well remember. Taking a dip under the gaze of a buffalo and elephant! By Alan de Costa View(s): View(s): Sri Lanka is blessed with many National Parks where a great variety of wild animals may be observed sometimes at close quarters, but usually in complete safety. The most popular of these parks is the Yala National Park in the south-east of the island. Away from the usual tourist haunts within this park are beautiful bungalows, many along the major river(Menik, river of gems) that flows through the park. I have spent many happy days over a lifetime in these splendid wilderness areas, but a recent visit nearly ended in calamity We had arrived in the bungalow, which is one of the remoter bungalows on the river, at about 2 p.m. It was terribly hot and we had been driving since 5 a.m., so I felt the need to have a swim. Now this I have done, and in this river, all my life, and I know all the rules. The river was quite dry, with two single rivulets meandering along the bed, with a few deeper pools which promised beautiful, cool, clear water. A quick glance upstream and downstream, all clear; I took off my clothes, and immersed myself in my chosen spot against the far bank, and let the healing waters of the Menik work their magic while I performed my rituals and libations. I had not been there a couple of minutes, when I observed between immersions, a very big bull elephant, now walking towards me on the river bed downstream from where I was. Also it was clear that the elephant had seen me though he was 80 metres or so away. I did not know this elephant, and it would have been silly to risk a confrontation. I was not at all worried, but it was time to go and I stood up still knee deep in water. I smelled him before I saw him, and as I turned to check upstream found myself face to face with a huge buffalo. He must have come down to the river from the bank behind me, and clearly was as surprised as I was. Now, of all the animals in the jungle the buffalo is the most dangerous. They are fast, excitable and unpredictable. But they also have a homicidal streak, and will try to follow, track and intercept people who cross their path. This buffalo ticked all the boxes; he was massive, heavily maned and solitary. His muzzle was at the level of my chest almost within touching distance. He lowered his head, and rapidly adjusted and tensed his haunches, giving me a good view of a fearsome pair of shiny horns. It is amazing what goes through your head at times like this. So, this is how it ends, I thought. What a stupid way to end quite an interesting life. I also thought checkmate; there was no getting out of this one. I also remember being most sad as I was wearing nothing but a Rolex, and this may have resulted in an unkind obituary. The seconds ticked by, and the buffalo looked at me out of one cocked eye, the white of which was painfully visible. I stood stock still, not as strategy but because I could not do anything else. The seconds ticked by. He suddenly stepped back, brought up his head with a fierce shake covering me with spittle and sand, swung around and trotted away and up the bank and out of sight. I had time sufficient to gird my loins with the towel, and as Nelson was supposed to have memorably said, turned to face the lesser of the two weevils. The elephant had halved the distance, and my calculus suggested that if I simply walked across the bed of the river we would have arrived at the same spot at about the same time at the bottom of the bank, an unsuitable arrangement. To turn my back was to invite a pursuit, elephants being fairly predictable. So, trusting that he was a good elephant, I simply walked towards him along the hypotenuse, while getting closer to the bank myself. He immediately stopped, a little uncertain, and pretended to sniff the air with trunk outstretched, and ears wide. I continued toward him quite deliberately, and he took a couple of backward steps. If I was a genuine elephant man, I may have asked him to push off at this point, and he would probably have done so.He continued to retreat, though more slowly, and I had by now got very close to him. I sensed there would be a problem when I changed direction away from him, and I was beginning to wonder what I should do. God is just, but also merciful, and I heard the excited chatter of my friends coming down to bathe accompanied by the tracker. They had just watched a large buffalo crash through the undergrowth and they reached the top of the bank just as I was approaching the bottom, with an exasperated elephant a few metres stage left.As I turned away, the elephant, advanced with a roar, but Chandana the tracker quickly silenced him with a few choice words, and he swung around and went up the bank and out of sight. A good elephant indeed! I reached the bungalow, unzipped the icebox and took out a cold one. The click and hiss of release was a comfort while I pondered the lessons of the previous few minutes. The first was that hubris can be so easily the prelude to nemesis. That existence is not the default option. That threads of circumstance may weave and unweave in complex ways, and the centrality of self is an irrelevance in our journey through the cosmos. The beer went down quickly, and I felt ever so much better. Lit and food with Colonial child Dinah Jefferies By Oshani Alwis View(s): View(s): With the backdrop of exquisite views of the Indian Ocean and the serene lagoon where the Gin Ganga meets the sea, the Villa Republic Galle hosted a Literary Lunch on Friday January 18 with British writer Dinah Jefferies. Overlooking the shady Araliya trees in bloom in the courtyard outside, the dining area manifested the ancient legacy of Southern architecture with capacious verandahs and wooden railings running around. The lunch was simple yet colourful: Sun- dried tomato with cucumber stack and tomato soup were the appetizer options while Asian flavoured modha fish with noodles and poached vegetables, grilled chicken with plain rice and baked aubergines for the main course, followed by Date cake with ice cream for dessert. I was a colonial child born and raised in British Malaya, said Dinah whose books have made the Sunday Times UK best seller lists repeatedly. The country she lived in as a little girl until she was nine years old inspired her first work of fiction The Separation. At the lunch Dinah recalled her session at the FGLF,In Conversation: The Tea Planters Wife. The Fairway Pavilion was completely packed which was something I didnt expect at all. I was so touched to see hundreds of people queuing to get their books autographed, she said. Dinah loves the food and vibrant colours of Sri Lanka where everything is so bright because of the sunshine, friendly people and relaxed atmosphere. She also loved taking quiet walks around the Galle Fort in the evenings. Two of her best known books are set here The Tea Planters Wife in lush tea country overlooking the Castlereigh reservoir and The Sapphire Widow about a gem merchants family in 1930s Ceylon. With all her Asian stories relating to history such as The Silk Merchants Daughter based in colonial Vietnam under the French, Before the Rains based in Rajputana, India and The Missing Sister based in 1930s Burma, Dinah claims, the stories are inspired from research, information gathered from books, memoirs, movies and real stories of people which helped in making realistic representations of places and events. Australian Steve Castley, one of the participants at the event, who has lived in Bali, Indonesia for over 20 years, was on his fifth visit to FGLF. Galle is an intimate, historic and beautiful venue to be at and to have great company and theres always something different every year at the festival. Steve loves to read books by Lankan authors, one of his favourites being Shyam Selvadurai. He is also a fan of Dinahs books. I like the way she does research for her books and how she places her stories in Asia which are really appealing to the readers. Also at Dinahs lunch was Yvonne Balfour from Edinburgh, Scotland, on her first visit here. I find Dinahs books very insightful, she said. Dinahs two new books will be set away from Asia, this time in Italy, she reveals. Aiming for Andes heights By Smriti Daniel Sri Lankas Everest heroes Jayanthi and Johann are pushing their endurance levels to the maximum as they train to take on Mount Aconcagua this February View(s): View(s): High-altitude training at sea level is not for the easily embarrassed. For the past few weeks, daybreak sees Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala and Johann Peries rise and gather their gear before they head to the beach or to a park. Endurance training has them pitting their strength against the high waves or lifting 20-kg weights in each hand while wearing contraptions that stretch over most of their faces, leaving only their eyes peering out at you. No one can resist a double-take. You can hear us breathing so loudly, you turn around and it is like Darth Vader is running up to you, says Johann, laughing. Sri Lankas best-known mountaineers are realising their appetite for adventure hasnt dwindled the two are now taking on the Seven Summit Challenge. Theyve already made a start with Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, have stood on Everest, and now hope to pay a visit to the five remaining continents, starting next week with Aconcagua in Argentinas Mendoza Province. In the end, deciding what the next challenge would be was easy this was the only mountain we could climb in February, when we were both free. The mountain is located in the Andes range and at 22,841ft is said to be visible from the Pacific coast over one hundred miles away. An extinct volcano, Aconcagua is not without its challenges. The weather can be extremely unpredictable, says Jayanthi citing reports of winds that hit 120km per hour ripping tents off the mountainside. Thats when you stay put and try to stay safe. Theyre praying the weather will hold during their 20 days on the mountain. The two will be rotating between camps to help them acclimatize before making a bid for the summit. They have the option of a more leisurely climb, but have instead opted for the technically challenging Polish Glacier route which will take them off the beaten track. Only one mountaineering company offers guides for this option, but Jayanthi and Johann were convinced it was the one they wanted. For the first time, the two will be using dual ice axes for a significant stretch of wall even on Everest, they relied on Jumars which allowed them to ascend on ropes. Now, Aconcagua will force them to master new skills and test their readiness. Its an expensive undertaking, costing each of them roughly Rs. 2.5 million. There is more scrutiny this time around too aside from all the media attention, they have thousands of followers online, and will be posting frequent updates on their Facebook page Seven Summits Challenge Johann & Jayanthi/ Sri Lanka. Sponsors, including Adventure SEALs/Petzl and Wurth, are stepping in to help out, but the pressure to make it to the top can still feel immense. Johann, who experienced technical difficulties and did not summit Everest on his first attempt, knows how bitterly disappointing it can be to fall short of his goal. Why not take the easier route, where a summit attempt is more likely to be successful? If we were to say there is no fear in us, we would be lying, he admits, describing how the first sight of a mountain can intimidate you in an almost visceral way. He adds: But this isnt about ticking off some boxes for us. Instead, Johann is determined to learn from any mistake, and take every precaution he can. Jayanthi agrees. For her, its only worth it if she stretches herself, and grows not just as a mountaineer but as a person. Anything you do, you have to throw yourself into it. You prepare and you plan, and though the world may have a different plan, you just take it and work with it, and you try harder. Thats the point. Listening to them, its easy to forget the two spend most of their time in a city far away from the great mountains. For Jayanthi, this remains the purest kind of escape. With her day job in activism and research focused on womens rights she says it can feel like every step forward is followed by ten steps back. Whereas on the mountain, we are all equal. Nature doesnt discriminate. Johann a successful entrepreneur and hairstylist who runs his own chain of beauty salons is also inspired by the beauty of the natural world, and says he dreams of the mountains year round. I bring back images of what I see out there and use those colours and patterns in my salon. Its amazing to capture that, and its a big part of who I am. A Serengeti experience By Sanjiva Wijesinha View(s): View(s): Spreading over 15,000 square kilometres in the northern part of Tanzania and extending into southern Kenya (where it is referred to as the Masai Mara), the vast plains of the UNESCO World Heritage Serengeti National Park constitute one of the most impressive wildlife reserves in the world. It is an immense expanse of savannah grassland that epitomises all that one would imagine the African wild to be. The views are immensely wide, the biological diversity exceptionally high, and the wild animals absolutely amazing. We made our visit to the Serengeti through Kenya, having flown into Nairobi (NBO)via Abu Dhabi on Etihad and then crossed the land border between Kenya and Tanzania at the frontiertown of Isibanya. This required us to get visas for both countries Kenya and Tanzania. However one can travel directly to Tanzania from Colombo to Dar Es Salaam International Airport (DAR) via Dubai on Emirates or to Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO) via Doha on Qatar Airways. Once in Tanzania, you can get a domestic flight to Arusha, the nearest domestic airport to the Serengeti and either drive from there (the trip takes about four to five hours) or take a small single engine-plane from Arusha to one of the many airstrips in the park. The best way to enjoy the Serengeti is to book a safari with a Tanzanian company through a local travel agent. This will provide you with a vehicle and driver/guide plus pre-booked accommodation which is much easier than trying to organise it yourself. The extra cost is well worth it. The national park is a wonderful place to see plenty of animals and birds in their natural habitat from the impressive African elephant with huge fan shaped ears and massive buffalo with mighty horizontally swung horns to the ungainly wildebeest, graceful zebra, tall giraffe, majestic lion, peaceful hippotamus and the rare rhinoceros. Within the National Park is the 8000 square kilometre Ngorongoro Conservation Area a specially protected area which contains the worlds largest caldera, the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater. This is not really a crater but a natural feature created after a volcano erupted and discharged all its contents, allowing the land around the volcano to collapse inwardly and create a massive bowl-shaped depression known as a Caldera.Over the years flora and fauna have flourished within this caldera and now with food being plentiful the place teems with a rich variety of wildlife such as zebras, wildebeest, warthogs, deer, lions and elephants. All these animals have to do is to spend their time eating, sleeping, reproducing and occasionally being eaten. Another highlight of the Serengeti is the Olduvai Gorge, the place where anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey made their momentous discovery of hominid fossils. The gorge holds the earliest evidence of the existence of human ancestors. Hundreds of fossilised bones and stone tools dating back over a million years have been found here, allowing scientists to draw the conclusion that humans evolved in Africa.While in this area, it is worth visiting the Olduvai Gorge Museum, originally set up by Mary Leakey but today maintained by the Tanzanian government. Recently refurbished, it is well set out and explains much about the history of early man. Plenty of animals, beautiful scenery and breath-taking sunsets at the end of the day all a part of the Serengeti experience. TN trawlers: Govt.s arrest-and-release policy decried View(s): The Government has started releasing Tamil Nadu fishing trawlers caught poaching in Sri Lankan waters between 2013 and last year, with the latest batch of 13 being returned to their owners yesterday. This brings the total number of trawlers returned this year alone to 27. The moves have attracted widespread condemnation from Northern fishermen who are once again observing incursions by Tamil Nadu trawlers carrying out illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Sri Lankan waters. Scores of trawlers were detained by the Navy in recent years. But a majority of them have been released with no fines, making a mockery of the act of sending the Navy out to apprehend them, said Thiyagaraja Waradas, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Colombo. The Tamil Nadu fishermen and their trawlers were taken in by the Navy for violating Sri Lankas law, the international maritime boundary and engaging in illegal and predatory fishing. Mr Waradas said the boats were being released at the behest of the President who disregarded all requests by fishermen to former Fisheries Minister Wijith Vijithamuni Soysa. The legal implications of this are that Sri Lanka sets a precedent for bending its own laws and that it is not good for the sustainable fisheries methods we want to promote, he pointed out. The boats were taken into custody under the Immigrants and Emigrants Act. Under the law, they must come to court but this was not done. They were held in detention. By simply ignoring the law, there is room for manipulation and extra-legal action. What is the point in sending your navy out and arresting them if only to release the vessel with no penalty, he asked. It is a waste of public taxpayers money. Mr Waradas also decried that Tamil Nadu boat owners were permitted by the Sri Lanka Government, facilitated by the Sri Lanka Navy, to come via sea to the North to collect their boats. A team arrived here, he said. They were allowed to come to the country via sea. This was not a friendly visit. They were people accused of illegal fishing in our waters. Sri Lanka Navy has been facilitating for them to take their vessels back. What kind of hypocrisy is that? This is not a good practice, he continued. We protest that Tamil Nadu fishermen should not enter into our waters illegally. Then we allow them to come to Sri Lankan waters and take their boats back. Fishermen are not happy about the decision to release boats. And, politically, there is a dilution of Sri Lankas policy to protect its own territorial waters and of measures taken in the last three years to curtail IUU fishing herethat is, to have regular arrests and prosecution, retain the vessel and release fishermen. Whats the point of arresting if you are just releasing? Mr Waradas asked. What is the guarantee these same vessels will not venture back into Sri Lankan waters again? TORONTO, Jan. 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX: WDO) (Wesdome or the Company) today announces that the Company has filed an independent technical report prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101) supporting the mineral resource estimate for the Kiena Mine Complex in Val dOr, Quebec, reported in the Companys news release dated December 12, 2018. The technical report, titled NI 43-101 Technical Report and Mineral Resource Estimate for the Kiena Mine Complex, Quebec, was prepared by InnovExplo Inc. by Christine Beausoleil, P. Geo, Stephane Faure, P. Geo, and Carl Pelletier, P. Geo, and by Centre Technologique des Residus Industriels, by Guillaume Noel, P.Eng, all of whom are independent of the Company and a "Qualified Person" as defined in NI 43-101. The full report can be found on the Companys website at www.wesdome.com and under the Companys issuer profile at www.sedar.com . HIGHLIGHTS OF INTERIM MINERAL RESOURCES December 12, 2018 A Zone Mineral Resources Only (Kiena Deep) Tonnes Gold Grade (g/t Au)* Gold Ounces Measured --- --- --- Indicated 310,300 9.95 99,300 Total M+I 310,300 9.95 99,300 Inferred 656,100 11.43 241,100 Recently Drilled in-Mine Resources at Kiena Complex since 2016, below crown pillar (A, B, South, VC and S50 Zones) Tonnes Gold Grade (g/t Au)* Gold Ounces Measured 0 0 0 Indicated 1,028,900 6.38 211,100 Total M+I 1,028,900 6.38 211,100 Inferred 968,900 9.23 287,400 Total Kiena Mine Complex Tonnes Gold Grade (g/t Au)* Gold Ounces Measured 63,700 4.06 8,300 Indicated 3,056,500 5.84 574,300 Total M+I 3,120,200 5.81 582,600 Inferred 4,138,500 7.57 1,007,200 Detailed notes in table 4 of this press release. Measured and Indicated Resources are exclusive of inferred. *All grades capped to between 20 90 grams per tonne The technical and geoscientific content has been compiled, reviewed and approved by Bruno Turcotte, P.Geo., (OGQ #453) Senior Project Geologist of the Company and a "Qualified Person" as defined in NI-43-101. Kiena Project Mineral Resource Estimate December 12, 2018 Tonnes Gold Grade (g/t Au) Gold Ounces Within Crown Pillar Measured --- --- --- Indicated 162,800 5.32 27,900 Total M+I 162,800 5.32 27,900 Inferred 1,113,200 6.97 249,600 Below Crown Pillar Measured 63,700 4.06 8,300 Indicated 2,893,700 5.87 546,400 Total M+I 2,957,400 5.83 554,700 Inferred 3,025,300 7.79 757,600 Total Project Measured 63,700 4.06 8,300 Indicated 3,056,500 5.84 574,300 Total M+I 3,120,200 5.81 582,600 Inferred 4,138,500 7.57 1,007,200 Notes: The independent and qualified persons for the mineral resource estimate, as defined by NI 43101, are Christine Beausoleil, P.Geo. and Carl Pelletier, P.Geo. (InnovExplo), and the effective date of the estimate is December 12, 2018. These mineral resources are not mineral reserves as they do not have demonstrated economic viability. The mineral resource estimate follows CIM definitions and guidelines for mineral resources. Results are presented in situ and undiluted and considered to have reasonable prospects for economic extraction. The estimation combined two (2) estimation methods, ordinary kriging in the Kiena Complex and polygonal for other deposits on the property. The Kiena Complex resources encompasses for 13 zones with a minimum true thickness of 3.0 m using the grade of the adjacent material when assayed or a value of zero when not assayed. High-grade capping varies from 20 to 100 g/t Au (when required) was applied to assay grades prior to compositing grade for interpolation using an Ordinary Kriging interpolation method based on 1.0 m composite and block size of 5 m x 5 m x 5 m, with bulk density values of 2.8 (g/cm3). The zone outside the Kiena Complex encompasses for eight (8) zones with a minimum true thickness of 2.5 metre using a polygonal estimation method. The Measured resources grade were estimated using muck samples, chip samples and test holes, extrapolated up to 25 m above and below drifts opened within the mineralized zone. Indicated resources were estimated from drill hole results using the mid distance between drill hole or a maximum of 30 metres. The high-grade capping was fixed at 34.28 g/t Au with a bulk density values of 2.8 (g/cm3). The estimate is reported for potential underground scenario at cut-off grades of 3.0 g/t Au (> 40 dip) and 4.0 g/t Au (< 40 dip, Wesdome Zone). The cut-off grades were calculated using a gold price of US$1,250 per ounce, a CAD:USD exchange rate of 1.3; mining cost $110/t (> 40 dip); $150/t (< 40 dip); processing cost $35/t; G&A $15/t. The cut-off grades should be re-evaluated in light of future prevailing market conditions (metal prices, exchange rate, mining cost, etc.). The number of metric tons was rounded to the nearest hundred and the metal contents are presented in troy ounces (tonne x grade / 31.10348). InnovExplo is not aware of any known environmental, permitting, legal, title-related, taxation, socio-political or marketing issues, or any other relevant issue not reported in this Technical Report that could materially affect the mineral resource estimate. ABOUT WESDOME Wesdome has had over 30 years of continuous gold mining operations in Canada. The Company is 100% Canadian focused with a pipeline of projects in various stages of development. The Companys strategy is to build Canadas next intermediate gold producer, producing 200,000+ ounces from two mines in Ontario and Quebec. The Eagle River Complex in Wawa, Ontario is currently producing gold from two mines, the Eagle River Underground Mine and the Mishi Open pit, from a central mill. Wesdome is actively exploring its brownfields asset, the Kiena Complex in Val dOr, Quebec. The Kiena Complex is a fully permitted former mine with a 930-metre shaft and 2,000 tonne-per-day mill. The Company has further upside at its Moss Lake gold deposit, located 100 kilometres west of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The Company has approximately 134.8 million shares issued and outstanding and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol WDO. For further information, please contact: Duncan Middlemiss or Lindsay Carpenter Dunlop President and CEO VP Investor Relations 416-360-3743 ext. 29 416-360-3743 ext. 25 dmiddlemiss@wesdome.com ldunlop@wesdome.com Michael Michaud 220 Bay St, Suite 1200 VP Exploration Toronto, ON, M5J 2W4 416-360-3743 ext. 22 Toll Free: 1-866-4-WDO-TSX mmichaud@wesdome.com 416-360-3743, Fax: 416-360-7620 Website: www.wesdome.com This news release contains forward-looking information which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the future financial or operating performance of the Company and its projects. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates, or believes or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances, managements estimates or opinions should change, except as required by securities legislation. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. President Maithripala Sirisena will visit Thailand on February 19. He is expected to take along with him a Bo-sapling to be presented to the Thai government. Four days after his return to Colombo following a visit to the Philippines, President Sirisena left last Tuesday for Singapore. He returned yesterday. More than 90 percent of military acquired lands returned to owners in the North View(s): The Sri Lanka Army has released more than 90 percent of military acquired lands in the Northern Province to the original owners under the direction of President Maithripala Sirisena, the Presidential Secretariat said. The Secretariat said that, on January 21, the army delivered documents to release 1201.88 acres, including state and private land, which was previously used by the army. After accepting these documents from Army Commander Lt General Mahesh Senanayake during his visit to Mullaitivu to launch the National Drug Eradication Week, President Sirisena handed them over to the Governor and district secretaries. The lands that were returned last week included 972 acres of state land in Kilinochchi and 120 acres of state land in Mullaitivu, where the Army had been running farms. Similarly, 46.11 acres of state land and 63.77 acres of private land in Jaffna and the Wanni were also released, the Presidential Secretariat disclosed. Lands belonging to the Nachchikuda, Vellankulam and Udayarkattu Army farms were also released. Meanwhile, the release claimed that the army had reported back to the President that they were working towards an amicable solution, in consultation with civilians, regarding the lands occupied by the army in the Keppapilavu area in the Mullaitivu District. Over 87,800 acres of land occupied by the armed forces had been released over the past 10 years, the release further stated. The release also quoted Northern Province Governor Dr Suren Raghavan as stating that the people who wanted these lands released were solely focused on getting these lands back from the military, but had no mechanism for the future of these army-run farms. Dr Raghavan, who only recently took office, has stated that there does not seem to be a prepared mechanism in place prior to demanding the release of the farms. As part of a long-term strategy, the governor has proposed that the farmlands be converted to cooperative societies. I need to look at the legalities in either the short-term or long-term leasing of these farms to the same people who were operating them thus far. Then these workers can continue the farms and their lifestyle, but with some measure of Government supervision and control. That supervision can either be by the Agriculture Ministry of the Northern Province, or some of these workers who are there, the Governor explained. He added that his proposal would be to have the workers work their farmer-owned cooperative farmlands. This way they would not have to be moved elsewhere and their lives would not be disrupted. However, they need to have a reporting mechanism, Dr Raghavan said. Indias 70th Republic Day celebrations in Colombo View(s): The Indian High Commission in Colombo, yesterday celebrated Indias 70th Republic Day at India House in Colombo, with Indian High Commissioner Taranjit Singh Sandu presiding over the event. The address of the President of India, Sri Ram Nath Kovind was read out by Deputy Commissioner Dr Shilpak N. Ambulle. The ceremonial hoisting of the national flag by the High Commissioner was followed by the playing of the national anthem. Thereafter the High Commissioner inspected a guard of honour. In his address, the President of India said the 70th Republic Day celebrations was an occasion to reaffirm commitment to liberty, fraternity and equality across our society and among all our citizens. Above all, it is an occasion to celebrate India and the spirit of being Indian. Every Republic day is precious and every day in the life of our Republic is precious. Yet, this year is a little extra special, as, on October 2 we will mark the 150th birthday of Mahathma Gandhi, who led us and inspired oppressed societies in Asia, Africa and elsewhere, to freedom from colonial rule. Gandhiji remains the moral compass of the Republic. His teachings are still the touchstone to measure our policies and initiatives. His 150th anniversary is not for India alone; it is a joy to be shared with the world. Govt. extends war on Fall Army Worm By Kasun Warkapitiya View(s): View(s): The Government has extended the campaign to eliminate the Fall Army Worm (Sena Dalambuwa), a senior official of the Agriculture Department said. Agriculture Department Director General W M W Weerakoon said they had extended the campaign as they were concerned the worm would turn to paddy crops after destroying the maize. We are deploying field officers to monitor the crop damage and to assess the spread of the worm, he said. He also said that university agriculture faculty students were also visiting farmers to educate them on the issues concerned. The DG said the programme was earlier planned for two weeks, it was now being extended to control the worm which was spreading to other areas and other crops also. He said he would also brief the presidential task force on Friday on the measures being taken to overcome the crisis. Agricultural Minister P Harission said that the government had decided to offer Rs 40,000 per acre of farm land if the land was fully damaged. If the lesser amount was damaged, the government would estimate the compensation accordingly. He said Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had requested him to submit a weekly situation report on the crisis and the compensation being paid. Meanwhile the Minister has urged the farming community not to use powerful pesticides as there were only five suitable pesticides that could eliminate the worm. The minister said powerful pesticides could kill the worm but they could also poison the crops. Therefore he advised the farmers to use the five pesticides recommended by the government. Estate workers daily wage increased by Rs 200, to Rs 700 View(s): Sri Lankas plantation workers have been granted a basic wage of Rs 700, an increase of Rs.200, following discussions held on Friday at the Labour Ministry. The government will support the plantation companies to pay the arrears. The intense round of negotiations were carried out with the participation of Plantations Minister Navin Dissanayake, Labour Minister Ravindra Samaraweera, with CWC Leader A. Thondaman who represents the largest union of estate workers and the Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) represented by the Employers Federation of Ceylon Director General Kanishka Weerasinghe. The parties have agreed to sign a Collective Agreement tomorrow (28). The Unions agreed to reduce their demand from the previous Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 700 as the basic wage. The productivity incentive granted would be Rs. 50 and the workers paid Rs.40 per kg of tea plucked. The norm for workers to pluck is 18 kg, but workers, on average, pluck 22 kg. The government has agreed to release Rs.100 million through the Sri Lanka Tea Board to the RPCs to ensure they would be able to pay the three months arrears. Unions and RPCs have been wrangling for months over a wage hike with the worker representatives demanding Rs.1000 and the plantation companies insisting they could not increase it beyond Rs.600. This is a good agreement, as we could take this sector forward through the workers, and the increase in the wages by Rs.200 is a real achievement, said Minister Dissanayake at the conclusion of the meeting. Plantation companies have been insisting that the dire conditions on the plantations in view of falling tea prices and the large stocks that go unsold due to issues with certain markets, and low yields have caused profits to drop. Iranian sanctions and the Japanese governments insistence of extremely low residue levels in the teas had reduced Ceylon Tea purchases. However, now with glyphosate back on the plantations, the companies would be able to increase their yields and regain the trust of key markets like Japan. Cost of Living Sub-Committee to meet to discuss milk powder crisis View(s): The Cost of Living Sub-Committee will meet on Tuesday to discuss a solution to the milk powder crisis, Industries and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen told the Sunday Times. Due to the depreciation of the Rupee, traders have been forced to reduce the import of milk powder from Australia and New Zealand over the past few weeks. This situation may worsen by next month as some traders have decided to temporarily halt the import of milk powder. At present we import milk powder only to sell it to the wholesalers. We have stopped importing stocks or selling milk powder to the retailers a leading importer said, while adding that this situation is bound to worsen if a feasible solution is not provided. As the buying and selling rate of the rupee to the US dollar hovers at around Rs 180, traders are faced with increasing losses in addition to the Value Added Tax (VAT) of 15 percent that is imposed on the product. Repeated requests made to the Consumer Affairs Authority to increase the controlled price of milk powder have failed to elicit a positive response, the trader lamented. The cost-of living committee chaired by Malik Samarawickrama will meet on Tuesday following the cabinet meeting and discuss a solution to this issue, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Resettlement and Cooperative Development said. Cancer patients hit by delays in appointments By Damith Wickremasekara Crisis in most state hospitals, as tender boards are vetted by presidential committee View(s): View(s): State-run hospitals are facing a crisis due to the delays in appointing chairpersons and directors to state institutions. Hospitals do not have adequate drugs to treat cancer patients and are not sure when the drugs will arrive. The reason: The delay in appointments to tender boards because of the vetting process by the committee appointed by the President. Without formal appointments to tender boards, they remain non-functional. As a result, the purchase of vital drugs for cancer patients has been affected. The delays in completing tender processes have forced medical authorities to defer treatment of cancer patients throughout the country, officials said. The issue is compounded by Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne absence. He is attending the 144th Executive Committee meeting of World Health Organisation in Geneva. He is due back next Wednesday. Senior Health Ministry officials also are attending the meeting. Both the Medical Supplies Division (MSD) of the Health Ministry and the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation (SPC) responsible for supplying the required medicines confirmed that delays in appointing tender boards and the release of payments to suppliers had adversely affected the supplies. The move has forced the countrys main Cancer Hospital, Apeksha in Maharagama to tell patients to come back later for treatment or advise them to by the medicine from private pharmacies. Hundreds of patients have already been turned away so far. SPC Chairman Mohamed Rumy confirmed that supplies had been delayed due to tender procedure problems. The 52-day political crisis delayed calling for tenders by more than a month and subsequently due to the delay in the appointment of directors to state institutions boards have held back the procedures, he said. The appointments of directors to state institutions were held up after the President ordered they would have to go through a vetting process by an official committee. Dr Rumy said he had spoken to Treasury officials about the delay of payments to suppliers so that the SPC could expedite the imports of drugs, but Treasury officials had pointed out that the commitment to pay up foreign loans amounting to US$ one billion had delayed payments. We are well aware that the delay in supplying drugs for cancer hospitals has serious consequences on the patients, he said. MSD Director General Lal Panapitiya told the Sunday Times that the impact of the recent 52-day political crisis was continuing to affect the supply process, for which the SPC was responsible. Patients have been discharged by oncologists advising them to check and return for treatment when supplies are made available. The others have been told, if possible to buy the drugs costing more than Rs. 8,000 a week and call over at the hospital. Apeksha Hospital Director Dr Buddhika Kurukulasuriya told the Sunday Times that the shortage of certain drugs was affecting the functions of the hospital. He said some of the patients needed the medicines to begin the treatment process that could curtail the spread of the cancer while there were others who had begun the treatment and needed to continue it uninterrupted. We get supplies from donors, but those are not sufficient to treat all patients, he said. One of the key drugs used for chemotherapy has been in short supply for more than two months. Meanwhile, the failure to properly constitute the board of director has also affected other state institutions. British court seeks clarification of Lankan Brigadiers DPL status View(s): Britains Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been contacted by the Westminster Magistrates Court seeking clarification of Brigadier Priyanka Fernandos diplomatic status in Britain at the time he made controversial gestures at pro-LTTE demonstrators outside the Sri Lanka High Commission in London last year. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is not a party to these legal proceedings, has been contacted by the Westminster Magistrates Court, seeking clarification of the Brigadiers diplomatic status in the UK at the time of the incident, said a British High Commission spokesman on behalf of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We are providing documentation to assist the court. The UK is committed to upholding the rule of law including the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, he said. The Convention grants diplomatic agents immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of receiving States. This week, the Westminster Magistrates Court issued summons and an arrest warrant against Brigadier Fernando, having found him guilty of three offences under the Public Order Act. The Court ruled that his actions were threatening, caused harassment, and that he intended them to be so. Sri Lanka is insisting that the Brigadier has diplomatic immunity. This was conveyed by Foreign Ministry Secretary Ravinatha Ariyasinghe, during a meeting with British High Commissioner James Dauris at the Ministry this week. The High Commissioner assured Mr Ariyasinghe that Sri Lankas position would be conveyed to the British Government. The British Government had been deeply concerned by the incident involving Sri Lankan Defence Attache last year, the spokesperson said. It made representations to the Sri Lankan Government and the Defence Attache was recalled by his Government soon after. The Brigadier made a throat-slitting gesture at protesters who had gathered in front of the Sri Lankan High Commission in London on February 4. He had just begun his term at the mission. Mr Ariyasinghe requested the British High Commissioner to take necessary action to review the process through which the summons and warrant were issued. He reiterated Sri Lankas position that a diplomat enjoyed immunity from the criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction of the receiving State. He also pointed out that a diplomat was not required to file a response nor a pleading nor appear before courts. As such, Brigadier Fernando is not required to file a response. This was first conveyed to the necessary authorities in October 2018, through Sri Lankas High Commission in London. Meanwhile, reports that Sri Lankas High Commissioner in London Manisha Gunasekera would be summoned if Brigadier Fernando does not present himself are false, diplomatic sources said, adding that, There was absolutely no basis for that to happen. Artificial rain: Climatologist urges Govt. to conduct a trial first By Namini Wijedasa View(s): View(s): A senior climatologist in the committee that studied a proposal to produce artificial rain for hydropower generation has urged the Government to conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis and environmental impact study before taking the project beyond its trial stage. The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) this week signed an agreement to facilitate the rainmaking initiative with technical expertise from the Thai Government. The project is expected to benefit Sri Lanka in periods of drought to avoid buying expensive power from independent power producers, Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake was quoted as saying. But Ranjith Punyawardena, Principal Climatologist of the Department of Agriculture, expressed caution, saying the Government must not go beyond a pilot project before analysing whether the high cost initiative would have the required result of producing sufficient rainfall for hydropower generation. Rainmaking here will involve the use of the chemicals calcium chloride, calcium oxide, sodium chloride and urea. There are three steps. The first is cloud triggering where sodium chloride is sprayed into small clouds or cumulus. Several hours later, there is cloud fattening or the application of calcium chloride and calcium oxide to the clouds. The final stage is cloud attacking where one aircraft sprays sodium chloride from above the cloud while the other sprays urea from the base, both at the same time. This is called a sandwich operation as there are two planes going through the cloud. The exercise will be expensive for Sri Lanka. Thailands Royal Rainmaking Agency has 24 aircraft and hangars dedicated and especially maintained for the purpose of cloud seeding. However, Sri Lanka will use its limited SLAF planes, risking corrosion from long-term exposure to salt. Dr Punyawardena was part of a committee that included representatives of the CEB, the SLAF, the Power and Energy Ministry, the Mahaweli Authority, the Irrigation Department, the Central Environmental Authority, the Met Department and the Department of Agriculture. With 30 years of experience in climate science, he was also doubtful that this exercise would produce the required amount of rainfall. For that reason, he insisted that it must be done as a pilot project, to be up-scaled if successful. Even if the trial succeeds, it must be replicated several times because atmospheric stability changes from time to time depending on the global ocean atmospheric circulation from time to time, Dr Punyawardena said. The initiative will be monitored by the Ministry, the CEB and the committee, said a spokesman for the utility. After some runs were conducted last year, water samples were collected from the ground and found to be affected to a negligible level by scientists, he said. This was still at pre-feasibility stage, he added. If implemented, formal procedures such as an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) may need to be conducted. The amount of chemicals they are going to use in this mission may be insignificant compared to the area they will spray, said Dr Punyawardena. But if we are to keep on spraying regularly, there could be an accumulation of salt in the soil and water bodies. It all depends on how it is practised. There are concerns, too, about how effective the exercise would be in Sri Lankan conditions. Cloud seeding will be done when there is no rain. But at such times, climatologists say, the atmosphere over Sri Lanka is highly stable and it could be futile to apply chemicals to a stable atmosphere as it will not bring on precipitation. Cloud seeding was done with Thai technology even in the early to mid-70s during the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government. It produced some rain, not a significant amount. What is needed, observes said, were proactive approachesnot reactive ones, such as a rainmaking through artificial means. These include conserving the Central highlands, forestation and reforestation and soil conservation. Experts have also called for sound practices to ensure the country puts to good use the rainfall it does receive. Pakistan, with between 300-400mm annual rainfall, is managing its water. However, Sri Lanka gets 800-1,500mm of rainfall per year but does not manage it well enough to maximise use. The committee had agreed that cloud seeding will take place just before the onset of convectional rain. This means, when the land warms up, it heats the air above it, causing the air to expand and rise. As the air rises it cools and condenses. If this process continues, there will be rain. The sun is directly overhead Sri Lanka in March and early April and somewhere in September and October, explained Dr Punyawardena. This is when convectional activity is intense, just before the Yala and Maha rains. That is the time they will try this, to trigger the rainfall. Im not sure how much it will bring down and whether there will be a gain for the amount spent on it. That has to studied. Gayans Follyland bags first place in Edward Lear Poetry Prize By Kaveesha Fernando View(s): View(s): The Edward Lear Prize for Poetry was held for the third time alongside last weeks Fairway Galle Literary Festival. A tribute to poet Edward Lear, the event was hosted by the Owl and the Pussycat hotel a hotel named after one of Lears most famous poems. Three years ago, the owners of the hotel launched the event with the hope of encouraging young Sri Lankan poets and this year the judges were of the opinion that the number and standard of the entries had grown, thus achieving this goal. The four judges have wide and varied backgrounds related to literature. Aftab Jafferjee, a criminal barrister based in London will be publishing his first novel this year, Anthea Peris Flambert has worked in broadcast journalism and as a teacher both in Sri Lanka and abroad and poet and freelance communication specialist Dilhani Thantirimudalige was still a schoolgirl when her poem The world I see was published in the 1991 American Poetry Anthology. London-based media entrepreneur/ investor and blogger Gehan Talwatte completes the panel. Aftab said that the judges were impressed by the quality of the work which made selecting the winner quite difficult and revealed that the final selection won over the poem which was placed second by decimal points. We as the judges thank all of you for giving us the pleasure of going through such wonderful art and poetry, he said. We hope that the prize for poetry that we are offering sponsored by the Owl and the Pussycat Hotel in Thalpe would encourage young poets in Sri Lanka to take their talent forward, stated co-founder of the Owl and the Pussycat hotel Shane Thantirimudalige, adding that he hoped that the winners would use the money to publish a book of poetry. Shane co-founded both the hotel and the prize with Reita Gadikari. The five finalists read their submissions in random order before the winners were announced. First up was A/Level student Gayan Perera with Billy Joy in Follyland a whimsical poem about a boy who visited a strange realm called Follyland and the adventures and lessons he learnt while there. Law student Asma Rizmis poem Night described the beauty and tranquility of a moonlit night on the beach. The third reading was by young professional Sandesh Bartletttitled Colombo Aunties Club a hilarious take on the gossipy middle-aged Lankan aunties. Education professional Hasangee Jayawardane then read her poem A golden eve a lyrical description of the night-time wanderings of animals and Khema Wijeywardane tweaked the famous nursery rhyme in her poem The wheels on the bus to describe bus rides in this country. Gayan Perera won the first prize of Rs. 250, 000 while Khema Wijeywardane was placed second winning Rs. 150, 000 and Sandesh Bartlett, bagged the third prize of Rs. 75, 000 Speaking to the Sunday Times, Gayan explained that he entered the competition after reading a newspaper advertisement. His interest in poetry began, he said, when he was an O/L student studying poetry as part of his English Literature syllabus. He has written only about five poems before this. While he thought he might have a chance of being placed in the top 5, he never expected that he would win the prize, he stated. Sitting for his Advanced Level examination this year, Gayan plans to use the prize money to fund a Bachelors in Information Technology. Write your emotions in the poem, he advises other aspiring young poets. Click to Pray : Pope Francis launches app so followers can join him online View(s): The days when you prayed by putting your hands together appear long gone now even Pope Francis is asking his flock to go online instead. In a sign of the times, the head of the Roman Catholic church recently launched a new app allowing the faithful to pray with him. He presented the Vaticans latest digital platform, known as the Worldwide Network of Prayer with the Pope, during his traditional Sunday address to tens of thousands of people in St Peters Square. The new app, called Click to Pray, will inform the churchs 1.3 billion followers what he is praying for such as world peace or the population of a country hit by a natural disaster. The hope is that Catholics will then join him. Pope Francis, who once said he was a disaster with technology, swiped a tablet to launch the app, turning to the priest who held it for him to ask, Did I do it? before the priest nodded. It has been launched ahead of World Youth Day. A Vatican statement said the app would allow the faithful to accompany the Pope in a mission of compassion Courtesy -Daily Mail AIS students gear up for Rock of Ages By Ruqyyaha Deane View(s): View(s): Set in the beautiful Sunset Strip of L.A. Asian International School (AIS) will take audiences back to the 1980s as they set the stage to perform the jukebox musical Rock of Ages. Bringing back the glam metal bands of the 80s, the story of Sherrie, Drew, Stacee and the Dupree room will be brought to stage on February 8 and 9 at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. The play is directed by Anushka Senanyake, Founder of Theatre Junction and also the name behind productions such as The Last Five Years, Cinderella and Next to Normal to name a few. Joining her with musical direction is Natasha Senanyake who is known for winning the inaugural 2014 Commonwealth Music Competition with her original composition of United We Stand. The choreography for the action-packed show will be undertaken by Umeshi Rajeendra, the Founder and Chief Artistic Director at Mesh Academy of Dance who has worked with artists such as Shen Wei, Jesse Zaritt, Erin Law and Dada Masilo. This will not be the first play that these talented ladies have collaborated on together having worked on Cinderella back in July 2017. Rock of Ages, which is originally based on the book by Chris DArienzo with arrangements and orchestrations by Ethan Popp, will follow a condensed script that is suitable for school audiences due to the mature themes involved in the original storyline. Natasha was behind selecting Rock of Ages and owing to her position as Choir Director at AIS she understood the voices required to pull a play as demanding as this especially in terms of solos. Just in general,the overall energy and the power behind the music, the fact that a lot of people would identify with the songs, I thought that the students would be excited to perform. It was because of the music. Umeshi looked into the individual strengths of students and the 80s style of dance when she prepared the choreography for the play. It was a lot of extensive research on the rock era to reflect the energy of the classic songs performed. I just tap into the individual styles of students through their performance. We use and improvise it to whats best for the piece. We also look into a style that will best suit the space we work with. For a high school type of play, it is highly energetic and it requires all three acting, singing and dancing. It really pushes them to grow because you have to be a triple threat. It gives them a good understanding of what a musical requires from a performance, says Anushka of directing a student cast. Elaborating more on working with children between the ages of 10-17, the team agree that a real challenge they faced has been a time for practice that accommodates the entire cast. However, working with a huge cast of students who each have different personalities and styles does not intimidate the three. They encourage open communication between everyone and trying different teaching methods to suit individual students. We focus a lot on whether they have a proper understanding of each other to work as one unit, as an ensemble. We emphasize on that. We collaborate with the students. Rock of Ages promises to showcase a variety of rock music that many people in the audience will identify with as it touches on a lot of hits. This includes the faster songs and some of the power ballads that rock musicians always look back on such as Dont stop believing, The Final Countdown and Hit me with your best shot to name a few. The team also strives to help students to learn from the play. Including the freedom and the courage to identify themselves the way they want to, their art and talent the way they want to. To pursue their dreams. No matter the obstacles that come their way and to remain true to who they are or what their art is about. Tickets for the show are available at Asian International School and at the Lionel Wendt from February 1. Tickets are priced at Rs.2,500, Rs.2,000, Rs.1,500 and Rs.1,000. Informatics Institute of Technology initiates Colombo Fashion Dialogue View(s): Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT), the pioneer in British higher education in Sri Lanka and the countrys premier IT and Business campus recently entered the fashion sphere with the introduction of Masters in Fashion Business Management. Expanding their horizon, IIT recently initiated an exclusive event; Colombo Fashion Dialogue, which was held recently under the theme of Skills for Success in the Fashion industry of the Future at the Lavender Hall, Bandaranayaka Memorial International Conference Hall, Colombo. The event was graced by leading figures in the fashion industry including Caroline Curtis, Senior Lecturer of University of Westminster, A.F.M Ikram, Managing Director of Emerald and Hasib Omar, Chief Executive Officer of Moose Clothing Company. The event was further adorned by the panel discussion moderated by Saroj Lama Hewa, Director Daiwa Impex. Caroline Curtis, Senior Lecturer University of Westminster discussed about the present fashion and apparel spectrum, its future challenges and the skills required by the next generation to advance and improve the field. She further added Designing and Management are equally important for a brand to excel in the field of fashion. Masters in Fashion Business Management at IIT is a business course, and we have designed it in order to provide the students with the technical skills, knowledge on how to manage a clothing chain, and how to get your products from the producer until it reaches the customer. The exclusivity lies in the soft skills such as communication, understanding and team work skills that are catered through the course. To excel in the apparel field, one must work together, understand the customers, and everyone in the clothing chain. The theoretical and practical knowledge gained at the course can be harnessed to better decision making, problem solving, understanding target market, by doing research and developments by analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. A.F.M. Ikram, Managing Director of Emerald International, discussed his experience in re-launch and startup of Emerald Shirts, and its present ventures which benefitted the crowd. He presented the growth of the venture from the beginning. He further discussed business models and scenarios seen in the local industry. As an experienced professional in the industry, he shared his wisdom on how young students who wish to pursue a career in fashion, should compare similarities and dissimilarities of different scenarios and models to understand fashion in urban and suburban markets. He discussed about different challenges seen in the local market. Hasib Omar, Chief Executive Officer of MooseClothing Company, did an elaborative explanation on the poised growth of apparel industry of Sri Lanka, and its growth over the years as opposed to other consumer products. He further pressed on the importance of research and development covering most of the important spheres of the fashion industry, so as to produce and deliver the best possible products, with enhanced value and features at the most reasonable prices, under a minimum time period and cost. He elaborated how environmentally sustainable, and profitable products are a possibility, with suffice research and development.He shared his high hopes for Sri Lanka to challenge international brands and create a brighter future. The event was further enlivened with the panel discussion moderated by Saroj Lama Hewa, Director Daiwa Impex. As the 3 spokes personals from diverse spheres from the same industry, sat on the panel they presented their diverse views on different heating questions and issues of the field. The fashion or the apparel industry is one of the most fast paced industries which has been going through many different evolutions across the world. Today the industry has joined hands globally to meet different ends. But as time evolves, more complex millennial challenges are placed before them to be solved. Customers are changing, as they demand more transparent business models, and they tend to question the sourcing and sustainability of the products.But asA.F.M. Ikram discussed in the panel discussion, this changing and fading trends are what keeps the industry moving. To meet these challenges and advance forward with sustainable solutions and better choices to the market, the industry requires to invest more on research and development, adapt according to the millennial trends and acknowledge the change. For this, the industry requires skilled professionals. The definition of skilled professionals has drastically changed, and with the introduction of artificial intelligence, it is bound to go a never before witnessed revolution. So as a leading country with poised improvement in the apparel industry, Sri Lanka needs to create a skilled generation to support and advance the Sri Lankan fashion industry to the international arena. On the other hand to reach the poised potential of the Sri Lankan context, we need to strengthen and motivate the entrepreneurship, as the new ideas and ventures are crucial to the industry. IITs Masters in Fashion Business Management is one step of this accoladed academy to bring Sri Lanka closer to that objective. With the partnership, expertise and knowledge of the University of Westminster, IIT is looking forward to a brighter future for the next generation of the Sri Lankan Fashion industry. Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) was established in 1990 as the first private higher education institute that awards reputed British degrees in the field of ICT and Business. IIT is an award-winning campus offering internal postgraduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Westminster, UK and Robert Gordon University, UK. IIT has played a pivotal role in strengthening the IT and Business sectors in Sri Lanka over the years by producing world-class graduates. These graduates have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs and IT/Business professionals in both local and international corporate and government entities. Since its inception, IIT has produced thousands of graduates who have excelled in hundreds of organisations around the globe. Set up an elite unit for drug war View(s): President Maithripala Sirisena made headlines in Manila last week with a single remark when he said the whole world must follow the example of his counterpart in the Philippines on how to tackle the drugs (narcotics) curse in that country through a campaign of neutralisation. Either wittingly, or otherwise, he raised global eyebrows because over 5,000 deaths caused mainly by Government forces in the Philippines have been the subject of concern over the manner many of the extrajudicial killings have taken place. Drug lords, peddlers and addicts are the target. The Philippine President is on record even pledging to promote junior police officers if they shoot their superiors who are hand-in-glove with the drug dealers. Initially, the anti-drugs campaign earned President Rodrigo Duterte the support of the people, but when it became a crusade that went too far with several innocent people caught in the crossfire, that support waned. The drug lords, meanwhile, managed to circumvent the blood-letting and though their business was wounded, it was not dead. The Presidential remarks, not surprisingly did not find traction back home. For one, the President has now acquired a reputation for making bombastic statements in public and either doing exactly the opposite as in the case of appointing his once denounced predecessor in office as his PM, or for another, doing nothing to follow up on his promises. Frequent pledges to combat high-level corruption have not materialised into a single conviction. Nor has the imposition of the death penalty for drug related crimes for which he got Cabinet approval some months back, materialised. There is no doubt that the narcotics business is gathering speed in Sri Lanka. Vigilance and detections at entry points to the country have either been lax, or corrupt, or both. The country has already acquired a reputation as a trans-shipment stage while also having a burgeoning local market from ganja in the North to pot and hard drugs in the South. This week, which has been declared a Drug Awareness Week ironically saw the police bust a network of Americans, Afghans and locals importing about 100 kilos of heroin, the street value of which is in the staggering millions. Police believe the stock was destined for the back-packing tourists at Hikkaduwa and its environs. On December 31 last year, 278 kilos of heroin was recovered involving Bangladesh nationals, including a woman who had 32 kilos in her possession. Police believe foreigners posing as tourists are well entrenched in the distribution game as suspicion on them is low. These new detections are said to be a result of new teams given in charge of gathering information and conducting raids. The narco business involves huge monies. The worldwide illicit drug industry has been valued at US Dollars 360 billion. Narcotics have also found a new revenue avenue through opioids (pain killers), the abuse of which has become a major issue in the US today. A notorious Colombian drug lord of yesteryear, Pablo Escobar was said to have had a personal fortune of USD 30 billion. More than what many nations had in their Treasuries. It has transpired in evidence in the current court case in a US Federal District Court in New York of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the Mexican drug lord, that a one-time Mexican President was on his payroll. His office has denied it. Ministers, judges, journalists, police and customs officers were mere putty in the hands of these drug lords. If you dont play with them, they were simply eliminated. It was the DEA (the US Drug Enforcement Agency) that went after these big-timers when thousands of Americans became addicted to narcotics. Presidents, Ministers and officials around the world, especially in poor countries get dazzled by money dangled before them. They are coaxed into their honey-traps with campaign funding. These mafias can run countries. In Colombia, until Escobar was disposed of, the drug lords ran one-third of the country; the terrorists ran one-third and the Government only the remaining one-third. Official statistics of drug seizures in this country speak for themselves. In 2015, there were 26,458 cases involving 26,539 persons and 46 kilos of heroin. In 2018, it was 40,972 cases involving 40,998 persons and 730 kilos of heroin. Average cannabis detection in the past three years is over 4,500 kilos. Heroin and cannabis are the narcotics of choice, but with the influx of cheap-end tourists, cocaine has now joined the list. Understandably, the people ask what happens to these synthetic drugs once taken into custody, and why there are so few prosecutions of the drug lords. There is no transparency in what happens to the drugs once detected. They must go from the police to the Government Analyst and then to court. There seems to be seepage in transit. On the other hand, our prisons are full of sprats arrested for possessing relatively small quantities of illicit drugs, or peddling them. The sharks are at large. Of the total number of those in Sri Lankas jails, as many as 40 percent of the inmates are those convicted for drug related offences. Given the congestion in prisons, the courts have begun sending offenders for rehabilitation, but Drug Rehabilitation Centres around the country are only six in number and a Sunday Times team that visited the centres at Somawathiya and Welikada found them overcrowded. There is too, the challenge to get addicts from the Western and Southern Provinces, where drug abuse is the highest, to go to these far-off centres for treatment, let alone stay there. New users enter the equation every year and the system is fighting against the odds to keep them away from destructive dependence. International conventions favour education and treatment to prison terms. Some argue that prison can be also be breeding grounds for drug abuse due to the proliferation of the substance within its four walls. The Government estimates that it costs Rs. one million to rehabilitate one addict. There is considerable debate over the imposition of the death penalty. The death penalty is not required as a deterrent if the kingpins of these cartels can serve a life in prison in solitary confinement, and not be allowed to operate from within. It is proven that these drug lords run front companies that launder their money and spread their ill-gotten wealth, especially in the purchase of real estate. This week, the President asked the Singaporean Government for assistance in cracking down on drug trafficking. Need it be a President that must ask for this help? The Government can create a DEA style supra agency with hand-picked personnel akin to how the Special Task Force (STF) was created in the 1980s, to combat this growing menace. The STF is currently helping in the anti-narcotics drive, but a separate, elite unit is required. In Mexico, because the regular law enforcement agencies were so corrupt they had to get the Marines engaged. Paying lip service to fighting drug cartels will just not be enough. Wanted: Lankas three men on the run Former Central Bank Governor, former Ambassador to Russia and former ambassador to the United States in the public dock View(s): View(s): They were once the Three Musketeers of Lanka the Athos, Porthos and Aramis in Alexander Dumass classic novel appointed to high office by the Government and charged with the responsibility of ensuring the advancement of the nations interest both here and abroad; and to prevent abuse of position, corruption and injustice. But historical fiction stops point blank when it comes to this Lankan trio who stand accused of transgressing every cardinal rule in the book. Today they stand in the dock of Lankas courts accused with the crime of using their honoured and influential positions to plunder the nations coffers; and, in the eye of the people placed in the pillory, convicted of the offence of fleeing justice; and, by their continued refusal to return to Lanka to face the music and use the opportunity proffered them by the judiciary to plead their innocence, the only verdict the sovereign court of the people can deliver at this juncture is one of Guilty, as charged. Three Musketeers? Ha! They are nothing more than three common criminals, the scum of Lankas earth, ever to disgrace the hallowed pages of Lankas history, more fit to find their place in Harold Robbins torrid novels. Not as the Three Musketeers that Dumas wrote in his historical masterpiece that glorified honour and chivalry as the highest virtues man can aspire to, but rather the Three Villains of the piece in Lankas present doomed set up that man can stoop to. And who exactly are these villains of the piece who prostituted their positions of power and influence and, exploiting the privileges of office, allegedly made a killing to advance their own fortunes and refuse to return to the country to answer charges as to their complicity in the gangbang of Lanka? First lets drag Arjuna Mahendran, the former Governor of the Central Bank from his Singapore hideaway, to the public dock to hear the charges read out to him. He stands accused of being the mastermind behind the Great Bank Robbery of the Century, done in broad daylight in an apparent show of transparency to meet the Yahapalana demands of his times but soon stood revealed naked in legal glare. When he was appointed to the job not even two weeks of the Yahapalana Government of Sirisena and Wickremesinghe coming to power, his credentials to hold the topmost job as the Governments Banker were impeccable. On January 29, the new Government appointed Arjuna Mahendran as the Governor of the Central Bank to preside over the nations monetary affairs. His main qualifications for the top job were his previous positions as the Head of Investment Strategy Asia at HSBC Private Bank and the CEO of Wealth Management Division at Emirates NBD Bank. His main promoter was none other than the new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. His credentials were impeccable. And not even the Rajapaksa opposition could fault his appointment. As far as the public were concerned, incorruptible, honest-to-goodness Ranil Wickremesinghes strong recommendation was a sterling character certificate that placed Mahendrans moral fibre beyond question. But then the storm broke. Exactly on the 50th day of the 100-day programme designed and dedicated to turn the Rajapaksa tide of corruption, serious doubts were cast whether the Yahapalana promise of good governance was writ on shifting sands; and whether the newly whitewashed pillars of transparency and accountability had been indelibly tarred to blacken the sheen and splendour of the new Yahapalana dawn. Was the promised new edifice to be nothing more than a sand castle on a torrid beach, vulnerable to all the raging waves of vice the previous regime was accused of setting in motion and which ultimately brought about its downfall? On February 24, the Central Bank advertised the sale of Rs. 1 billion in 30-year government bonds at an indicative rate of 9.5 per cent. On February 26, the Finance Minister announced that the Government required an additional Rs 15 billion to fund urgent road construction projects. On February 27, the 30-year bond auction for Rs. 1 billion was opened with 36 offers received up to Rs. 20 billion. The Central Bank Governor was thus able to accept Rs. 10 billion. The problem was this new figure, thousand percent more than the original figure, was accepted not in the 9.5 to 10.6 percent range but at the higher yielding rate of 12.5 percent. The scandal that broke out was that, while the other bidders for the original Rs 1 billion had been accepted at the lower rate of 9.5 percent, Perpetual Treasuries offer for Rs 5 billion at the higher rate of 12.5 percent had been accepted. And Perpetual Treasuries happened to be owned by the son-in-law of the newly appointed Governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran who, to all sense and purpose, was the master of ceremonies conducting the Rs 10 billion bond auction. The question buzzing in the market on Monday, March 2, 2015 when the primary market opened was whether Arjuna Mahendrans son-in-laws company had benefitted from the bond issue through insider information? It was a charge that Mahendren was to deny repeatedly, until a court found otherwise and held that there was a prima facie charge for him to answer? If his legal liability deserved the benefit of doubt, his consequent actions upon being charged with the crime of defrauding the State of over five billion bucks, placed his morality and his conscience on the gallows of guilt to wing before the publics opprobrium. His son-in-law Arjun Aloysius and colleague Palisena were arrested in February 2018 after the CID submitted their B report, which made Arjun Aloysius liable for conspiring to commit the two offences of Criminal Breach of Trust and Criminal Misappropriation with Arjuna Mahendran at the bond auction on February 27, 2015 under Section 113(a), 386, 39 and 391 of the Penal Code and the Section 5(1) of the Public Property Act. Whilst Arjun and his colleague took the rap and were remanded, Arjuns father-in-law had already fled to his adopted Singapore, letting his daughters husband alone to sweat out the heat of Welikada prison walls whilst he himself was safely ensconced in his swash Singapore apartment clicking his heels in cool comfort, rather than spend one single night with his son-in-law and share with him the visitation of Nemesis and the wages of sin. After spending over ten months in remand prison, son-in-law Arjun of Perpetual Treasuries which as the indictment read had engaged in illegal insider dealing by obtaining price-sensitive inside information, which is deemed to be a punishable and prohibited conduct under Section 56 (1) of the Registered Stocks and Securities Ordinance and the Code of Conduct for Primary Dealers by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, was finally set free on bail by the Colombo Chief Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne. The reason the magistrate gave was that since there was no indication of when the chief suspect of the case, former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran, would be apprehended, it was not acceptable for Aloysius and Palisena to be kept in remand any longer. Fair enough. Prima Facie. But is it necessary for Arjuna Mahendran to be apprehended for the trial to proceed against the accused? Merely because Mahendran is a Singapore citizen, why cannot he be tried in absentia? Or is it the legal view that any citizen of another country can commit blue murder here and flee to his country and thus escape Lankan justice? Why cant any person who commits a crime in Lanka be tried in absentia? That brings us to bring, however reluctant he maybe, Udayanga Weeratunga from his long exile to the dock to answer the charges levelled against him. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed his first cousin Udayanga Weeratunga as the ambassador to Russia and Ukraine. He had been evading an arrest warrant issued on October 20, 2016 by a Colombo Magistrate in relation to investigations pertaining to alleged embezzlement of public funds to the tune of US$ 7.833 million with regard to procurement of MiG aircraft and money laundering. Mid last year, his lawyers informed Colombo Fort Magistrates courts that he was willing to appear before the Court to face charges against him in connection with the MiG aircraft deal. He did not turn up but the case against him proceeded nevertheless. Last week on January 15, Attorney-at-law Udara Karunatilleke, representing the Attorney Generals Department, told the Acting Fort Magistrate that, in addition to Udayanga Weeratunga alleged involvement in the MiG deal, his wife, brother-in-law and mother-in-law had received large sums of money from overseas. He told court that of the money received, Rs 72 mn, had been transferred from Colombo to Dubai. The question is if it can be done in Udayangas case why the same cannot be done in Mahendrens case. At the moment the Sri Lankans request to Singapore is simply based on an allegation and thus Singapores unwillingness to return its citizen, the bond scam boss Mahendren to Lanka. But a trial in absentia and if he is convicted of the charges pressed again him, it will, no doubt, strengthen the Governments hand to invite him as guest of the government to spend a vacation at the Welikada jail. The same happened in the case of Namal Rajapaksas alleged 500 million dollar account in a Dubai bank. Considering the strict secrecy maintained by the Middle Easts Switzerland, the judge refused to order the bank to reveal its secrets and stated he would only consider the request to lift the veil of secrecy if the Sri Lankan authorities could show evidence of a conviction in a Lankan court. The third man on the run is another relation of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa who appointed Jaliya Wickramasuriya as Lankan Ambassador to the United States. Wickramasuriya was arrested in late 2016 by the Financial Crimes Investigation Division over misusing state funds during his tenure in Washington. He was arrested for accepting a US$ 245,000 commission while serving as the Sri Lankan Ambassador to the US and for alleged embezzlement of funds to the tune of US$ 322,027.35 during his tenure. He was remanded on the same charges and was later released on bail. Upon his release, Wickramasuriya fled the country and nobody was aware of his whereabouts. The Colombo Fort Magistrate has issued open warrants for his arrest since he failed to appear in the court when the case was taken up for hearing. The case summary against him in the US Federal Court is now in the public domain after the US court unsealed his indictment last month. As per the documents, Wickramasuriya is charged on five counts including fraud by wire, radio or television, laundering of monetary instruments, fraud and misuse of data permits and making false statements in immigration application. He claims diplomatic immunity but he appears to have scored his own goal when in his bid to apply for a Green Card, it is said that he renounced his immunity in the application form he signed. As reported in the Daily Mirror two weeks ago, Jaliya Wickramasuriya submitted to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency a Form I-508, which is a waiver of rights, privileges, exemptions and immunities. In this form, signed and dated by Wickramasuriya on March 25, 2014, he has stated that he had been employed as a Sri Lankan Government official at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Washington D.C. Accordingly, I seek to acquire or retain the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence and hereby waive all rights, privileges, exemptions, and immunities that would otherwise accrue to me under any law or executive order by reason of such occupational status, Wickramasuriya has stated as thus in the Form I-508 submitted to US authorities. On Friday Police Spokesman SP Ruwan Gunasekara said the police have identified 24 major drug smugglers who had left the country and action would be taken to confiscate their assets. If so why is similar action not even contemplated against the top three on the run? Namely, the ex-Governor of the Central Bank and the two former ambassadors to the United States and Russia respectively who, by their refusal to appear before the Lankan Courts and defend their innocence, have established a prima facie acknowledgement of their guilt. Mangalam Suba Mangalam As former president Mahinda Rajapaksas youngest son and the first amongst his offspring to bite the dust wed his bride this Thursday at the family home Medamulana at lakes edge, the SUNDAY PUNCH extends its heartiest congratulations and best wishes to the groom and the bride. The SUNDAY PUNCH does it in recognition of the triumph of love a love born nine years ago and survived the many trials and tribulations that attends all affairs of the heart and emerged glorious at the end to climax in holy matrimony to be continued in a life long journey of marital bliss. The wedding invite read: The union of two souls is the most blissful moment in life Mahinda Rajapaksa & Shiranthi Wickremesinghe Rajapaksa invite you to be part of the auspicious event and join them in celebrating the marriage of their son Rohitha to Tatyana, daughter of Jerome Jayaratne and Deidre de Livera, Poruwa ceremony followed by a lunch reception, Thursday 24th of January at 9 am in the morning, Carlton House Weerakatiya. And what better setting for the lucky chap and his lovely bride to tie the knot than on the family lake at waters edge. And theres more to come. Tomorrow its the turn of the brides parents to do the honours. Their wedding card reads: I have found my love whom my soul loves, Song of Solomon 3:4: Jerome Jayaratne and Deirdre de Livera invite you to witness the marriage of the daughter Tatyana to Rohitha, son of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Shiranthie Wickremesinghe, Monday 28th January 2019, 4.30 in the afternoon, St. Marys Church Bamabalapitiya, followed by a cocktail reception from 5.30 to 8.30 pm. And as Rohitha enjoys his honeymoon night this Sunday, he will no doubt send a twitter to his best mates; For Gods sake, get me to the church on time. You By Don Manu Your smile, your charm, your poise, your grace I see your beauty in every face; Your touch, your taste, your scent pervade And lifts my soul to heavens domain. *** Your thoughts, your wants, your hearts desire With each embrace they fuel my fire; Burnish my hopes and dost inspire My seed to blossom from the mire. *** And in the moonbeams of the night You shine forth through with heavenly light; The starlight in your eyes ignite The stirring in my loins each night. *** And in the furnace of your soul You turn my brazen copper gold; You bring me home out from the cold To feel the warmth of love untold. *** With lustful eyes, with loving heart Will I unwrap your mystic art; Sculpt your soul with exquisite craft, Chisel your splendor in wondrous art. *** In placid seas will I then find A calmer still of love divine; Rejoice in surfeit of bliss until You come and passions cup refill. *** And when at times my soul doth bleed When grandiose hopes lie crush, buried; Your love will balm my wounds and heal, Revive my spirit and fates repeal. *** And in my poetic fancys flight I yearn to sing of your delight; Wrapped in rapture when souls do meet The bliss when hearts as one doth beat. Sri Lankas judicial institution should not be left to a few brave judges to uphold View(s): The ongoing war of words in Parliament over the appointment of judges to the superior courts has an increasingly sinister dimension to it that must not be underestimated. Eerily familiar signs Taken together with the push by some politicians and supportive monks to seek a presidential pardon for General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara who is now serving a jail term for insulting the judiciary, the cumulative impact is highly inimical to the continued functioning of an independent judiciary. The signs are unmistakable and eerily familiar. This is precisely the manner in which judges who acted as the Constitutions guardian were brought to heel in the past. Then too, parliamentary privilege was used to personally attack judges. Little by devastating little, the edifice of an independent judiciary crumbled. Once upon a time, it would have been inconceivable for a judge to express partisan views from a political platform after retirement. But we began to shrug our shoulders and turn away. The repercussions of those years still rebound as this week, a former Chief Justice was noticed for contempt of court by the Supreme Court. Such a development would have been unheard of two decades ago. So those cynics who maintain that the Sri Lankan judiciary has itself been responsible for its own degeneration may be correct but only in part. Even during those turbulent times in the past, brave judges stood up to political pressure and performed their judicial role impeccably, with painful costs to health and reputation. Last year, as judicial officers from the Supreme Court downwards to the Magistrates Court stood firm in face of unprecedented political chaos, pulling the country back from the brink of a constitutional abyss, we have reason to be grateful for that renewed strength. Dangerous undercurrent to the attacks This is why political attacks on judges have resumed and must be resisted in full force. For there is a dangerous undercurrent to the attacks that was absent earlier or perhaps, was not articulated with total political impunity as it is today. Then, the clashes were institutional; the institution of the legislature or the executive against the institution of the judiciary and the competing power dynamics therein. Now there is a distinct crudity to the attacks on the floor of the House, using every weapon to hand (communal, religious, race). This is crossing a line that was not crossed earlier, at least openly. Where will this end? We must surely be glad that Illustrious judges of the Court whose reputations and judgments marked Sri Lanka as a singular example of a Commonwealth country where the law and the Bench was respected despite decades of civil and ethnic conflict, are not alive today to witness this ugliness. Overall, there are two aspects that are equally important. First, we have the hate-mongering indulged in by pointmen of the Rajapaksa faction as seen recently in statements made from the Opposition benches without any credence whatsoever that judges of a Christian persuasion were being favoured over their colleagues in the promotion process. These are crude tactics. But the second aspect of this problem concerns the call by Opposition parliamentarians to disclose the criteria on which promotions and appointments of judicial officers take place. Clearly this is a thinly transparent device to mask its crude tactics but even so, a sensible way of meeting those challenges may be in order. In the face of a sustained campaign from the Opposition benches in this regard, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya defended the process adopted by the Constitutional Council (CC) this week, saying that the seniority of nominees was just one factor that was considered, along with (as reported in the media), the reputations of the nominees and the recommendation of the Chief Justice when promotions of judicial officers were considered. This was in the context of a tussle between President Maithripala Sirisena and the CC in respect of the appointment of the President of the Court of Appeal when the Presidents nominee was rejected by the CC. The Speaker observed that when considering recommendations for appointments or promotions as required by the law, the CC followed the same criteria specified in the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. Disciplinary processes of judges of the superior courts There is little doubt that seniority is only one of several considerations. Sri Lankas history is replete with instances where senior deserving judges have been bypassed for politically compromised choices. However and even so, it is important to note that this matter is linked to a larger question of the disciplinary processes of judges of the superior courts. In any institution, the criteria for promotions takes into account, seniority, performance in the position, inquiries of fraud and corruption or behaviour not befitting the post. This must surely be the same for judges as well. For example, if a judge is found to have misappropriated public funds or taken money from a politician or any other person for that matter or received any inducement (be it a car or the funding of a wedding ceremony of a child), that must lead to impeachment proceedings. But while it is the Judicial Service Commission which looks into the disciplinary processes of judges of the subordinate courts, an impeachment motion in Parliament (with all its attendant political divisions) is the sole and only option where judges of the superior courts are concerned. That must change. Rather than impeachment at each and every point which is rarely resorted to unless for political purposes in Sri Lanka, the process of inquiry into such allegations must be devised in such a way that it is less politicised. Further, transgressions of a lesser variety (as opposed to impeachable grounds) on the part of judicial officers must also be of record, not float around in the realm of speculation, gossip or the frenzied habitats of the social media. Conflicts of interest that are not declared when hearing a case must rank on the top of that list. In that way, no politician can get up on the floor of the House and bellow that so and so should not be disregarded in the process of promotions as the factors militating against such a promotion will be on record. Courageous judges must not face crude political storms This calls for serious and thorough reform proposals on the Sri Lankan judiciary that the Bar may well have usefully got itself engaged in during the past three years without swaying from one side of the political divide to the other. Issuing statements condemning politicians who attack judges using parliamentary privilege is just the bare minimum. Much more is expected from the Bar. The strength of Sri Lankas judicial institution should not rest on the shoulders of a few courageous judges who are then left to face a crude political storm at the whim and fancy of political ruffians. The events of October 2018 may have gone in an entirely different direction if judicial fortitude had not been demonstrated. That is a self-evident warning. Small group allegedly planning violence; Muslim community urged to take measures to ensure national unity and peace UNP faces spectre of damaging revelations by probe commissions, senior leaders see the process as a polls ploy Sirisena pushing hard for presidential election alliance with SLPP, but Rajapaksas group holds key on who the candidate will be Just four days after his return from a state visit to the Philippines, President Maithripala Sirisena took off again, this time to Singapore. The visit to Manila, his Media Division announced after his return to Colombo the previous Saturday (January 19), was to study how the drugs menace was fought in that country. It is common knowledge worldwide that President Rodrigo Duterte spearheads a ferocious campaign against drugs and more than 5,000 have been killed since it was launched. The afterthought was possibly the result of bad publicity over the visit where there were no accompanying media representatives. There was only a group of SLFP parliamentarians for whom it was a virtual free holiday. The Singapore visit, as his Media Division acknowledged, was to take part in the Third Forum of Ministers & Environment Authorities of Asia Pacific. President Sirisena was the only Head of State and Head of Government attending this 40 nation event. He is also the Minister of Environment. The names and designations of a few delegations underscore the low key nature. India Pratap Singh Parihar, Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board; Japan Yasuo Takahashi, Vice Minister for Global Environmental Affairrs; Australia Adam Carlton, Assistant Secretary, Communications and Engagement Branch; North Korea Kim Kyong, Junior Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; China Li Jieqing, Deputy Director General, Department of International Co-operation; the Philippines Jonas Leones, Under Secretary for Policy Planning and International Resources, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Ministry of Ecology and Environment; Indonesia Putera Parthama, Director General for Watershed and Protection Forest Management; Iran Naser Moghaddasi, Deputy Head of the Department of Environment; Laos Sommad Pholsena, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment; the Maldives Hussain Rasheed Hussein, Minister of Environment; Bangladesh Mohamed Shahab Uddin, Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, South Korea Cho Myung Rae, Minister of Environment. Mahendrans extradition This is not the first occasion when Sirisena has taken part in such a low key event. In July last year, he flew to the Italian capital of Rome to take part in the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Committee sponsored meeting of the sixth World Forestry Summit. The event was essentially for bureaucrats. Of course, he cannot still be faulted. Arguably, he has some claim to attend in his capacity as the Minister of Mahaweli Development and Environment though as President of Sri Lanka he is much higher on the ladder in terms of protocol. That elevated position has prevented previous Presidents from taking part in such events. They did not wish to dilute the dignity of the office they held. They had sent ministers, deputies or officials. Yet, included in his delegation were L.K.S.U Dharmakeethi, Director of Mahaweli Development and Environment and Deepa Liyanage, Director, International Relations of the same ministry. There is, however, a more important reason for President Sirisenas visit to Singapore. He carried with him a bulky file on Lakshman Arjuna Mahendran, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) from January 2015 to June 2016. During bilateral talks with Singapores Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last Friday. He was to brief him on Mahendrans role in the CBSL bond scandal and seek his extradition to Sri Lanka. However, both SLFP acting General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera who accompanied the President and the Presidents Office in Colombo told the Sunday Times that the matter was not raised with the Singapore Government. Paradoxically, he has been complaining that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP were preventing Mahendran from being extradited from Singapore to face charges in Sri Lanka in the Central Bank bond scandal. However, the fact that he was going to raise issue at the highest level emerged in Colombo last Wednesday morning, barely hours before Sirisena emplaned for Singapore. He paid a visit to his predecessor and Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa at his Wijerama Residence. According to a source close to the Presidency, Sirisena indicated to Rajapaksa that he was going to raise issue with Singapore leaders over Mahendran being brought to Sri Lanka to face trial. The source declined to provide details saying, We have to see what happens in Singapore. Sirisenas visit to Wijerama Road was to tell Rajapaksa and his family of his inability to attend the wedding of their youngest son Rohitha the next day (Thursday). He congratulated Rohitha and handed in a gift. The wedding turned out to be easily the biggest in Sri Lanka with an estimated guest turnout of more than 5000. Details appear in the Cafe Spectator. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and some of his Cabinet Ministers were present. Basil Rajapaksa, the architect of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), was late for the event and missed the poruwa (an elevated platform) Ceremony. He was an attesting witness at the wedding of Nithya, daughter of Kalutara District parliamentarian Rohitha Abeygunawardena at the Shangri La Hotel in Colombo. He was driven later to Medamulana in Weeraketiya (Hambantota District). Singapore Premier Lee, like his legendary father Lee Kuan Yew, leads a government which strictly adheres to the rule of law and legal norms. Even though they may not have displeased President Sirisena with a snub, they are bound to explain that seeking the repatriation of Mahendran, would have to be in keeping with internationally accepted procedures. Foremost would be the requirement that such a most wanted person should be indicted in a court of law in the country where the offence is committed before extradition is sought. This apart, according to reliable diplomatic sources in Colombo, a perception has already been created in the highest levels of the Singapore government that the Mahendran affaire is a politically driven exercise by President Sirisena against his rivals. Sri Lanka born Mahendran was an economist and banker in Singapore where he is now a citizen. In January 2015, he was appointed Governor of the CBSL, after a heated debate in the Cabinet. Some ministers were not in favour but Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was strongly of the view that he was the best choice for the job. President Sirisena was to later declare in media interviews that he was not in favour but gave into the wishes of Wickremesinghe. He said he did not want to displease the Premier at the time. But when his extension came up, Sirisena put his foot down and refused, and then appointed a Commission of Inquiry to go into the CBSL bond issues. The Colombo Fort Magistrates Court has issued an open warrrant for the arrest of Mahendran after he failed to turn up. Summons delivered to him through a courier service had been returned. Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne noted that there was sufficient material to prove that he is alleged to have committed cognizable offences under the Public Property Act and the Penal Code. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has named then CBSL Governor Mahendran, the benificiary owner of Perpetual Treasuries Ltd., Arjun Aloysius, its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Kasun Palisena and the PTL as suspects in the case. A CID source said the Attorney Generals Department was unable to file indictments against Mahendran until his statement was recorded. President Sirisena however raised issue with Premier Lee over the Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and this generated wide publicity in Colombo. The presidential media unit briefed the local media on this aspect saying Sirisena conveyed his plans to make amendments to the agreement. There was no mention of other matters. Some reports stated that Singapore had pointed out that the FTA was already signed between the two countries, but that it would take note of the Sri Lankan Presidents concerns. President Sirisena also used the Singapore trip to appease the SLPP, with whom he is banking on an electoral alliance and thereafter support to be the joint presidential candidate. Before his departure, Sirisena urged Anuradha Jayaratne, Kandy District MP supporting the SLPP, to join his entourage. The parliamentarian is the son of one time Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne. He had agreed to join but had informed President Sirisena thereafter that he had prior commitments. An SLPP source, however, claimed that his family was opposed to his visit. As a result President Sirisena was accompanied by the SLFPs acting General Dayasiri Jayasekera and former minister S.B. Dissanayake. This was no doubt a reward for them in the form of a free tour. If Jayasekera is now tasked with strengthening the SLFP, Dissanayake had played the role of a broker to enable talks between Sirisena and Rajapaksa. He, however, bungled the exercise. Twice he has been discredited with giving both Sirisena and Rajapaksa dead ropes on getting the required numbers in Parliament to defeat the UNP. UPFA General Secretary Mahinda Amaraweera complained to a colleague that he had not been invited for the visit to the Philippines or to Singapore. Has he been sidelined? He was also a promoter of the alliance with the UNP. Even if President Sirisena eventually did or did not raise the issue of Mahendrans return to Sri Lanka to face charges, timing-wise, it is significant for other reasons. Whilst the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has been handling investigations into the CBSL bond scam, the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) has now joined the fray. It has begun probing another aspect, the use or abuse of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) money for trading in CBSL bonds. Moves to fix UNP before presidential poll There is an interesting twist to this investigation. Originally, in February 2016 it was Charitha Ratwatte, Advisor to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who wanted then Inspector General of Police N.K. Illangakoon to investigate an anonymous complaint about serious irregularities in the use of EPF funds. It was forwarded to the FCID. Now, as the investigations continue, some accountability issues related to the matter, it transpired, fall on the then Central Bank Governor (Mahendran) and the Monetary Board. They took the decision to utilise EPF funds. By extension, it can reflect on the Prime Ministers office under whom the CBSL was then placed. Both had to grant approval. Though somewhat technical, briefly put, the so-called New Way of Robbing EPF Money, as alleged, works as follows: EPF investment manager allegedly teams up with mainly two Primary Dealers (PD) and a bank to carry out this suspected scam. When there is long-term primary bond auctions, the PD will buy these long term bonds from the auctions. They allegedly have a pre-arranged agreement with the EPF investment manager that the EPF will buy these bonds through at least one PD and a bank before it is bought by EPF at a much lower yield than the auction. They wash the bonds through at least one PD and a bank before it is brought by EPF much lower yield than the auction. The anonymous complaint listed specific dates on whch auctions were held and alleged that were pre-arranged transactions involving a PD (Primary Dealer), a Bank and Perpetual Treasuries and the EPF tried to give a geniality to the deal. The FCID, which said it had begun investigations in October last year, has reported findings to the Fort Magistrates Court. The essence of its reported findings was that there had been a loss of Rs 83 million to the EPF as a result of certain officials of the EPF acting allegedly in connivance with two secondary market dealers and a bank investing in Treasury (CBSL) bonds. In another report of its findings in January 2016, the FCID had reported that the purchases in the secondary market on Treasury bonds with a face value of Rs 8,150 million (Rs 8.15 billion) had resulted in a loss of Rs 83 million to the EPF. The investments had been made from January 8, 2016 to January 25, 2016 in the secondary markets through Wealth Trust Treasuries Securities Ltd (Rs 100 million), PAN Asia Bank PLC (Rs 3,350 million or Rs 3.35 billion), Perpetual Treasuries Ltd ( Rs 4,150 million or Rs 4.15 billion) and First Capital Treasuries Ltd Rs 550 million. The FCID has reported that investigations are still under way to determine whether the losses were caused intentionally and whether there was an act of money laundering. In the light of this, and also in view of the fact that these PDs and the Bank involved have not made their own positions clear, the issue at present remains only allegations. The FCID has recorded statements from 19 people including those at the EPF, the Central Bank and the private company. Investigations are also underway to ascertain whether money was illegally obtained. EPF Superintendent Rathgama Acharige Ananda Jayalath and Senior Assistant Director Badugoda Hewa Indika Saman Kumara have already made statements to FCID detectives. Yet, stepped up investigations in this regard, on the bond scandal by the CID and now the use of money from the EPF, by the FCID, are pointedly directed at the previous government albeit the UNP and thus its leadership. That the two agencies are working hard on the bond scandal, just months ahead of a presidential election later this year, comes as a severe blow to the UNP. Matters arising from them could become the talking points at political platforms and dampen voter preference for the UNP. There is a clear pattern in all this to confirm beyond doubt that it is a political witch-hunt against the UNP, declared a senior leader who did not wish to be named. He asked what about all the other investigations. The people will see through this transparent ploy. Added to that is President Sirisenas appointment of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to probe a string of irregularities including bribery, corruption, fraud, criminal breach of trust, abuse or misuse of power among other matters. The five-member Commission is headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Upali Abeyrathne. The period to be probed is from January 15, 2015 to December 31, 2018 the four years when the United National Party (UNP) led United National Front had been in power. There are seven aspects which this commission has been called upon to investigate and report. They are: To call for and receive public complaints, information and other material relating to serious allegations against persons who have held or continue to hold political office, those who have been or continue to be public servants and officers of statutory bodies, regarding acts of corruption, fraud, criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation of property, cheating, and abuse or misuse of power, State resources and privileges allegedly occurred during the period of 15th January, 2015 to 31st December, 2018 and have resulted in serious loss or damages to State assets and State revenue ; To conduct prompt, impartial, comprehensive investigations and inquiries into complaints, information and allegations; To identify persons who have been or are responsible in terms of the law for committing such offences, acts of wrongdoing, and abuse or misuse of power or authority, State resources and privileges; To Identify and collect evidence available with regard to such offences and acts of wrongdoing as referred to in paragrph 1 above, and against persons responsible for having committed offences connected with such incidents and wrongdoing; To Identity which of the acts coming within the ambit of matters referred to, should be forwarded to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption or to the Police or to any other law enforcement authority or statutory body for the conduct of necessary investigations and inquiries with the view to instituting criminal proceedings against persons alleged to have committed the said offences; To transmit to the Attorney General investigational and inquiry material, enabling the Attorney General to consider the institution of criminal proceedings against persons alleged to have committed the said offences and prosecute the accused; To present to me recommendations of the Commission regarding what action if any, should be taken against those held responsible for having committed offences and acts of wrongdoing and recommendations aimed at preventing the occurrence of such offences and acts of wrongdoing in the future; Significant enough, as reported earlier, three months is the deadline placed for the commissions interim report with the final one expected in six months. If one looks at the unpcoming presidential election, even if Sirisena does not choose to exercise constitutional provisions enabling him to conduct polls a year before the end of his term, it appears unlikely. His five-year term would end on January 8, 2019. The Election Commission is constitutionally empowered to make preparations for a presidential poll from October this year by calling for nominations. This is just nine months away. Similarly, it is also empowered to conduct a presidential election on any date between November 8 and December 8, 2019. That way, the winner will be ready for swearing-in on January 9, 2019 or thereafter, as the new President. President Sirisenas recent measures make it unambiguously clear that he has chosen to wage a full frontal political onslaught on his Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his government in the presidential election year 2019. Any startling findings through the commission reports, together with the outcome of ongoing investigations, will be lethal. Seeking early reports means the findings could become weapons in Sirisenas hands for the campaign. In fact, at the highest levels of the UNP, there is some serious concern which they also say is the contributory factor to their less aggressive or even submissive stance. However, the billion dollar question is how Sirisena is going to set about with it. He is now on the edge of a political razor with many an issue clouding his future. Strangely, that appears second priority for him judging by his own actions than the political uncertainty he faces. SLFP-SLPP alliance formation He wants to strengthen his own SLFP where a sizeable number is now wanting to join hands with the Wickremesinghe-led UNF. He has only nine months left. In what seemed a move to contain them, Sirisena named most of the parliamentarians remaining with him as new district organisers. With the exception of Dayasiri Jayasekera, Thilanga Sumathipala, S.B. Dissanayake, most others are in favour of an alliance with the UNF. They have however, not been able to obtain a meeting with the President and want to do so after his return yesterday. If they are not allowed to join the Government as members of the SLFP, the group wants to know whether they could each join as Independents and form an alliance. This will help the UNF enlarge the cabinet in in keeping with provisions of the Constituition calling it a National Government. If it is going to be a total refusal, what would follow is not clear. UNF leader Wickremesinghe declared this week that a National Democratic Front (NDF) would be formed within weeks. He believes that the SLFP group could become its members in the alliance if not from the party even as Independents. If that does not materialise, the NDF will be a mere name change from the present UNF. However, Sirisena has not abandoned hopes of an SLFP-SLPP electoral alliance and is still seeking the prospects of being their joint presidential candidate. There is yet a slim chance and sections of the SLPP leadership confirm this. One of them said yesterday a formal invitation from Sirisena, as leader of the SLFP, for the resumption of SLFP-SLPP talks was now being awaited. Earlier, he spoke to us as the President. We now want him to formally talk to us as SLFP leader, he said. The remarks highlight the upper hand of the SLPP. Such talks are expected to be between Sirisena and Rajapaksa and are to focus on the parametres of an alliance. One is not wrong in saying that Sirisenas SLFP would have to give more to the SLPP than take from it. Mahinda Rajapaksa himself has stated that the winnable canididate will be picked as the (SLPP) presidential candidate. This was in answer to a question raised as to which of his two brohters it would be, Chamal (the elder) or the Gotabaya (the younger). These notwithstanding, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the de facto leader of the SLPP, was strongly critical of legislation that was introduced at Sirisenas insistence to amend the Commissions of Inquriy amendment bill. He complained that some provisions appear directed at him and his family and could be used for a political witch-hunt. The main thrust of the amendments was to provide for findings by Commissions of Inquiry and Presidential Commissions of Inquiry prosecutable in courts. The President earlier accused the UNP of blocking this piece of legislation in Parliament. There were moves by sections of the SLPP not to vote for the amendments. In contrast, others insisted that they should support the bill. However, it was passed unanimously in Parliament. Here again, with the new law coming into effect, sources close to the Presidency said, action would be filed against those named in the findings of the Commission of Inquiry that probed the Central Bank bond scandal. This is besides other commissions of inquiry. Security concerns These developments, no doubt, contribute to perceptions, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, that the country is not yet politically stable. In other words, the situation since the constitutional turmoil in October last year has not changed. That it is a situation not conducive to foreign investment, coupled together with an economic meltdown, contrary to the boastful claims of some ministers, is cause for grave concern. It is in this scenario that some deeply worrying developments are taking place on the national security front. This is at a time when the Police have been placed under the Ministry of Defence and the entire security apparatus in the country is in one hand the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Hemasiri Fernando. He has generated controversy by remarking that war heroes or ranaviruvos are those who have won medals and not others. Those remarks have created some consternation within the tri-forces. There are thousands of soldiers who have died, unsung and unheard without mention and without medals. The Defence Secretary, once a Navy officer, is being accused of hurting those who lost their limbs in the near three-decade-long separatist war and their beloved families. President Sirisena, as Commander-in-Chief could set the record right. This is at a time when there are growing signs that a misguided extremist Muslim group, very small in number, is bent on resorting to religious violence. It must be said unequivocally that as a whole, the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, has abhorred violence and lived side by side with other communties. There have been occasions when unfortunate incidents have occurred, sometimes due to some of their own faults and otherwise. The idea in saying this is to highlight the dangers that portend due to lack of awareness and living in the blind belief that all is well. Only a few Cabinet ministers have been making veiled references to groups which want to create ethnic disharmony and warning the public not to fall prey to them. The silence of the Defence Ministry, which should have formulated an action plan, to educate the people and thus adopt countermeasures is deafening. The actions of small groups in Mawanella have been under the microscope of security authorities for many months now. Several months ago, they uncovered evidence that eleven Muslim families left Sri Lanka to a West Asian (Middle Eastern) country and thereafter to a war zone where Islamic militants are fighting. In the recent past, less than a handful of Ulemas (preachers) have been delivering Friday jumma sermons propagating extremist ideas. It is in this backdrop that the Mawanella Police arrested seven persons for allegedly destroying Buddha and Hindu statues. They made detailed statements about what they have been asked to do including destroy statues and crosses. They also made an important disclosure some bomb making material and other war like items lay in an 80-acre coconut estate at Vanathavillu in the Puttalam District. A team of CID detectives and Police Special Task Force (STF) personnel raided the place and found the items. They took four persons into custody. They are now revealing more details. This is whilst the Mawanella Police conducted another raid on a rented house which the seven suspects had been visiting. A suspects father who had been living there had escaped and was reported to be hiding somewhere in Nawalapitiya. Police asked the owner to open the house. They found a Motorola walkie talkie, a charger, pen drives, laptops, white powder wrapped in red plastic sheet, an air rifle, pellets for them and other items. These detections should come as a warning to Muslims to be conscious of the consequences they will be forced to face for no fault of theirs. To make matters worse, one Muslim politician in Colombo claimed he could produce two moulavis who the Poice were looking for, if there was an assurance. He made the offer to a top police official. There is also another political leader, perhaps not knowing the intensity of the issue using influence to help those involved. However, the investigators are not giving in and are maintaining strict secrecy. This disclosure is not to alarm but to educate. Whether they are aware or not, the Kollupitiya Jumma Mosque management took the laudable step last week of inviting members of all religious faiths to visit the mosque. There, they were entertained with food and questions raised were answered. The idea was to explain that the vast majority of Muslims were not for violence but for co-existence. Like this example, there are many other measures Muslim organisations could take to educate others that it was only a handful who were bent on causing communal chaos. These measurs cannot be carried out only by Muslim politicians, some of whom have only their votes in mind. This is whilst the security authorities continue their investigations. There is no gainsaying that President Sirisena, under whom the Police now remain, should take the initiative to ensure there is no bad fallout. Of course, for Sirisena, the problems are mounting to unmanageable proportions. The more that happens, the more he will turn to the SLPP for a prop. For the UNP, however, the spectre of damaging revealations of its four-year rule is both haunting and worrisome. Like the wounded, both seem to be moving in crutches. President on the warpath View(s): That is a brave thing to do. President Sirisena has declared war on a worm. At least this time, he has interpreted the constitution correctly. Or maybe one of his legal maestros who told him he has the constitutional power to dissolve parliament anytime he pleased was able to read a simple constitutional provision without tripping over his own feet. Yes, the previous time was a real mess with the entire seven-member Supreme Court bench telling the president and his Socratic advisers not to play games with the countrys Holy Grail and slapping them back into their respective corners. But this time he seems to have got it right. No wonder he was looking like Wellington after the Battle of Waterloo as he stepped on native soil after giving Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte a clean bill for extrajudicial eliminations. As head of state, not to mention defence minister and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he has the sole power to declare war against an enemy of the state or defend it against intruders. I may be wrong, of course, but that is what I was told by a presidents counsel of sorts, whose legal expertise has more to do with traffic offences than constitutional conundrums. That is not a bad job anyway seeing the number of fatalities in accidents and bad drivers on our roads. If the lawyers are anything like our drivers ,who seem to get stuck at railway crossings and face oncoming trains when they have a whole road to travel on, then it is time that some of them returned to Law College to learn a little more of the law. But never waste time on trying to sort out legal convolutions when more important issues confront the nation. Take this worm or caterpillar or whatever it is by the name of Sena. Who named it Sena, why and when, does not seem to interest many people. In fact, I am not particularly interested in it either, what with the consequences of Brexit or not to think of. Why worry about a little worm when there are bigger animals, particularly two-legged ones that are doing more damage to the nation by robbing, wrecking and ruining this country even from sedentary positions than the widely travelled Sena. Now there are various theories of how the worm or caterpillar got to Sri Lanka. Some say it came from the United States and that arch enemy of everybody who doesnt play a trump in support of the beleaguered man in the White House because Sri Lanka is playing footsie with the Chinese. As everybody knows Trump will not even touch a noodle with a chopstick and has been looking for an opportunity to teach Sri Lankas chopsuey- lovers a lesson or two. Hence the worm with the acronym FAW has been catapulted over the island by US drones. Within a couple of months they have begun destroying our maize fields and banana plantations, so we are told. Believe me there are even more devious concoctions in circulation that seem to have come from the fertile imagination of a Wimal Weerawansa rather than a Frederick Forsyth. Ever since there were leaks from cabinet about planned assassinations and the hand of RAW, the more conspiratorial and machinatious each new version has turned out to be. So now the hand of RAW is seen in FAW all because President Sirisena was opposed to India being given the development of the East Terminal at the Colombo port. Or so the story goes. Also doing the rounds is yet another juicy story. It appears that a foreign spy agencys special agents, especially trained in biological warfare, attached some caterpillar eggs to President Sirisenas clothing and baggage when he was having a gay time at the UN in New York telling the world about his yahapalana government that was soon to implode. To me, it seemed a rather poor imitation of the plot carried out by Vladimir Putins intelligence chaps that tried to get rid of a Russian defector living in the UK but ended up by killing an innocent Briton who picked up what she thought was a dropped bag. Some say President Sirisenas animosity towards the worm is because the name given to the worm is half of his own name. Maybe he thinks that this is the work of some UNP geek with a poor sense of humour. Imagine if some stranger spotting a worm on a leafy branch yells out menna Sena. One news report said that President Sirisena had declared war on the Fall Army Worm, as some call it, and instructed his officials to launch a national programme to eradicate the threat. His media division also reported that he had instructed the officials to jointly implement a programme to spray pesticides with the assistance of the public as well as the private sector. Now that is a worthy thought. The public, I am certain, will join such a venture with much enthusiasm and alacrity if the pesticide spraying will start at Diyawanna Oya by the House that Bawa built where such an exercise will surely be most effective. If pesticides are expected to work against pests what better place than where pests are gathered in substantial numbers- much larger numbers than Sri Lanka ever required. The public need not be invited. They will turn up with their kaththa, porowa and manne and bottles of chilli powder dissolved in water along with their buth parsal ready to do a productive days work getting rid of the unwanted, which some describe as a national pestilence. Even before he would declare war against Sena whose senadipathi is still to be found, President Sirisena opened a second front. Hardly had he and his SLFP foot soldiers taken along for a free ride landed in the Philippines than he declared for the whole world to hear that his Manila counterpart President Rodrigo Duterte had deployed a task force to wipe out everybody who could spell narcotics. Applauding Dutertes drug war, Sirisena said the Manila Mans extrajudicial doings were an example to the entire world and he, Sirisena, would take a lesson from the Philippines and hang a few chaps spending their time in prison with nothing to do. After all, Sirisena was used to leading from the front, though the front was somewhere in Nandikadal when the president says he conducted the war in those difficult days. As Sirisena told the story, in the last two weeks of the war he was acting defence minister. The political and military leaders had retreated beyond our shores or something. So he stepped in to take charge. With that experience, President Sirisena is well equipped to fight on two fronts. But then one must not forget the tactical mistake that Hitler made in opening a front against Russia. It turned out to be a strategic error as military historians record. The Russians cleverly retreated allowing the German troops to advance deeper into Russia. When winter came and what a winter it was the Germans found themselves in a logistical bind. Their supply lines became increasingly vulnerable isolating the German frontline divisions. President Sirisena might consider himself something of a military expert after overseeing for two weeks of the 25 years or more war. He might well eliminate Sena and hang some convicted drug dealers. Even if he succeeds in liquidating Sena the worm, can he worm himself out of the political morass he finds himself in as he plans for his second coming? All sins are forgiven View(s): Gnanasara hamuduruwaney, I thought of writing to you when I heard that you are likely to be pardoned and released by Aiyo Sirisena next week, when the country celebrates its next Independence Day. You must be relieved, hamuduruwaney to hear that you can wear the saffron robe again, instead of the prison jumper. You must be feeling like you have won a lottery because your sentence was to run for 6 years but you are now walking away scot-free after just over 6 months. Of course, even during those 6 months you did what most VIPs in prison do: say you are sick and spend your time in a hospital. For someone who claims to be a hamuduruwo, you have an impressive track record. First you were sentenced to 6 months of rigorous imprisonment for threatening the wife of a journalist in court. Now, that did not deter you, nor did you show any signs of remorse for that offence, did you? You then went on to abuse the judges who sentenced you for that, attracting a contempt of court charge. You were found guilty of that too. You then appealed to the highest courts in the land, all of which rejected your appeals, saying that the dignity and honour of the judiciary had to be upheld. This must have come as a surprise to you because during Mahinda maamas time you were used to walking around making racially inflammatory statements that even led to rioting in Beruwala and Aluthgama that left several people dead, hundreds injured and many properties damaged. Still, you suffered no consequences. Not only did the then authorities look the other way, they hailed you as a hero who championed the cause of the majority community at the expense of other communities. So, the verdicts that suddenly sent you to jail must have come as quite a shock to you. All this happened during Aiyo Sirisenas reign. At that time, Aiyo Sirisena was content to play by the rules and let the judiciary do its work. However, at some point, he decided that he was elected not to implement yahapaalanaya but only maithri paalanaya. That is when he lost his marbles. So, when Aiyo Sirisena began acting strangely, ignoring the Constitution and ruling the country by issuing gazette notifications at midnight, sacking Prime Ministers and appointing new ones, people went to the courts seeking redress because that was the only option left to them to put things right. The courts did what was right, telling Aiyo Sirisena that although he was the boss, there were things he couldnt do. He couldnt hire and fire Prime Ministers and he couldnt dissolve Parliament just because he wanted to. Thereafter, Aiyo Sirisena must have thought he should teach the courts a lesson. Remember, when the Court of Appeal suspended Mahinda maama, Aiyo Sirisena couldnt hide his anger. He said that the monk of a village temple had done what the mahanayaka monks should do. Well, now it seems as if the abiththaya (student monk) has done what the mahanayakas should do! That is why you are such a lucky man, Gnanasara hamuduruwaney. Aiyo Sirisena wants to show the courts who the real boss is. So, even though all the courts in the land from the lowest to the highest found you guilty on many counts, by trying to release you, he is telling them to go fly a kite! Then, Aiyo Sirisena tells the Philippines President that his way of killing drug dealers is exemplary and that he wants to do so in Paradise too. Why he wants to enforce the law to the hilt on some issues and yet release convicts like you doesnt make sense, but Aiyo Sirisena never made sense, did he? If he was really looking for someone to pardon, he could have pardoned poor Lalith. That chap is suffering in jail only because he was Mahinda maamas secretary, but then, releasing Lalith wont make Aiyo Sirisena a hero in the eyes of all those who follow you and claim to be patriots, would it? I was surprised to see the chap in charge of Buddha Sasana, old Jayawickrema, also endorsing the appeal to release you. I thought that he, and the party he represents, stood for what is right, but they too seem to be looking at winning votes instead. Or, is it that the chilli powder has affected his thinking? Anyway, you are in lucks way. It appears as if you will be released to a great heros welcome and hailed as the saviour of the majority race. Then, you will be free to roam the streets of paradise and spread your doctrine of hatred once again. What can we say, except theruwan saranai to our nation! Yours truly, Punchi Putha PS: We are told that this hurry to pardon you comes because the Mahanayaka priests have appealed to Aiyo Sirisena to release you. Just imagine, all the murderers, rapists and drug dealers must be now making a beeline to the Mahanayaka priests to get their names on the list and Duminda may be next! State machinery runs without cog wheels View(s): Sri Lankas state-run institutions and statutory boards coming under 12 ministries are functioning without heads or board of directors including Chairmen/Chairpersons due to the delay in ratifying the names proposed by relevant ministers to the President. A Presidential Committee headed by senior presidential advisor W. J. S. Karunaratne has been entrusted with the task of considering qualifications and making recommendations for the appointment of Chairmen and Boards of Directors of State Owned Enterprises (SOE) proposed by the ministers. All heads of state institutions were deemed to have vacated their posts owing to the October 26 political crisis. This committee was appointed with the intention of halting the practice of appointing unqualified and unsuitable persons with high political connections as heads of SOEs in the past. After the clearance given by the committee, President Maithripala Sirisena has to ratify the names and appoint suitable persons. Heads of several state institutions coming under 12 ministries including the Fisheries Department, NARA, the Employees Trust Fund Board, the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, the Land Reclamation and Development Corporation are still to be appointed by the President, a senior government official disclosed. However some of the previously appointed heads of institutions are continuing the day to day functions till the appointment of the board of directors and chairpersons, he said. Without a chairman and board of directors there would be no room for implementation of any public policy or a directive issued by the President, high level government sources said adding that under the present circumstances no one can prevent a breakdown in SOEs. Meanwhile the appointment of a new committee is another violation of the standard procedure; a legal expert said pointing out that the minister is considered the appointing authority of heads of state institutions coming under each ministry in accordance with the Constitution. Even the Establishment Code provides for the channels of communication of government policy from the cabinet of ministers, to the secretaries and through them to the heads of department. Issuing a circular to all ministry secretaries, Presidents Secretary Udaya Seneviratne informed that all appointments should be first cleared from his office. Sri Lanka diversifies exports into fast-growing Commonwealth economies By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s): Sri Lanka is set to diversify exports into fast-growing economies in the Commonwealth amidst dwindling demand in major export markets, Ministry of Industry and Commerce sources said. There are 53 Commonwealth member states including the UK, with a combined population of 2.4 billion. The Commonwealth Secretariat has identified 40 new products and 15 new markets with 116 product-market combinations for Sri Lankan exporters with a view of assisting the country diversify its products and markets for exports. It has already offered technical assistance for Sri Lankas export diversification and trade negotiations for a potential market access of US$2 billion in the new areas that have been identified. Export trends are changing from merchandise to service sectors, a senior official of the Commerce Ministry said adding that service sector exporters would overtake merchandise exporters within a couple of years. Local exporters of BPO services, ICT and logistic sectors are expanding into fast growing economies, he pointed out. Sri Lankas merchandise and service exports in 2018 are estimated to reach $17 billion, up 15 per cent from a year earlier and the target for this year will be $20 billion, Export Development Board statistics showed. Around 27 per cent of Sri Lankas annual global trade in goods is with the Commonwealth while 40 per cent of the countrys global trade in services is confined to the Commonwealth. The countrys share of intra-Commonwealth imports is around 3 per cent. The Commerce Ministry official noted that commodities like tea, coffee, rubber, spices, metals, and minerals will continue to dominate intra-Commonwealth trade for the future. Trade in traditional services like tourism, banking, and insurance will also be strengthened under this initiative. He expressed the belief that these forms of trade will gradually expand after Brexit due to historic specialisation and demand conditions, a common legal framework of the common law, UK accounting practices and the widespread use of English as a common business language. He pointed out that measures will be taken to promote trade in modern IT services, as the new front line in intra-Commonwealth trade. Sri Lanka has the capability in providing new services such as electronic commerce, information technology services, professional services, creative industries, green services, and services linked to global value chains, he added. The Commonwealth Secretariat has also identified 30 new markets for existing exports. These new market opportunities include non Commonwealth countries like Turkey, Mexico, Vietnam, Bermuda, Chile and Sweden. The export potential of the island nation should be focused on new areas such as crabs to China, copper wire to India, perfumes and eau de toilettes to Singapore, knit fabrics to Thailand, track suits and swimwear, knitted or crocheted to Italy, Slovakia and Poland, the Secretariat has suggested. Sri Lanka has obtained the membership of India-Commonwealth SME Association which will provide a sustainable platform to Sri Lankan firms to connect with Indian counterparts as well as other businesses in Commonwealth countries. This will help Sri Lanka to diversify its exports and link into those involved in the production of goods and services the global value chains of countries like India and UK, Ministry of Industry and Commerce sources said. SEC charges individual for not showing up for inquiry View(s): In a rare move, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged an employee of a stockbroking firm for failing to show up for an inquiry. The SEC had summoned the said individual to record a statement pertaining to a stock market offence. He had evaded coming over to the SEC for a long period. The SEC then on Friday charged him at the Fort Magistrate Court, after which he had agreed to cooperate with the regulator. Thereafter the charge was withdrawn. Vajira Wijegunawardane, Director General SEC said last November at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Financial Regulators Training Initiative (FRTI) forum that SECs aim ultimately is to put in place a regulatory framework within which swift and decisive action is the norm of the day and which serves as a credible deterrent to unscrupulous actors in the market. Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) has also begun to stop mollycoddling offenders. The CSE suspended four companies for not submitting theirannual reports for the year ended 31st March 2018 and were suspended. (DEC) Outward Bound Sri Lanka endorsed View(s): Sri Lankas Outward Bound Trust was issued a Certificate of Endorsement by Outward Bound International (OBI), on meeting the Licensing Requirements of Outward Bound International, valid until December 2020. This happened at the recently concluded OBI World Conference, held at Muscat, in the Sultanate of Oman, from January 14 to 17. This follows the bi-annual, International Safety review conducted by Safety Auditors sent by Outward Bound International to Sri Lanka, to review Outward Bound Sri Lankas safety processes and procedures. The Outward Bound Trust of Sri Lanka (OBTSL), founded in 1988, is the only licensed, and legally authorised provider of Outward Bound training programmes in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Business Development Centre (SLBDC), founded in 1984, a Private Public Partnership, provides technical support to the OBTSL for conducting training programmes. Member of the Board of Directors of the Outward Bound Trust Sri Lanka, Charitha Ratwatte, represented the Outward Bound Trust at the Oman Conference, on the invitation of Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said, Patron of Outward Bound, and Oman, the OBTSL said in a media release. LAUGFS Gas initiating big plans for this year By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s): LAUGFS Gas PLC is looking forward to operating its spanking new Hambantota Terminal while gearing to go public with three of its companies, and commissioning a hydro and two solar plants this year. The company has established a LPG storage complex with a capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes in Hambantota Port at a cost of US$80 million and was expecting the first consignment of gas last December. The company is moving towards building an integrated regional LPG Terminal for LPG importing, re-exporting and supply to retailers in the Indian Ocean Rim. We have just commissioned Hambantota Terminal (a little later than was expected) and the revenue it will generate will have a significant impact on the expected export target in this country, W.H.K. Wegapitiya, Chairman, LAUGFS Gas PLC told the Business Times in an interview. Mr. Wegapitiya anticipates that Hambantota Terminal will generate $1 billion and it will be a new export sector. LAUGFS Gas (Bangladesh) Ltd having entered Bangladesh in 2001 is a major LPG distributor in Bangladesh, importing and distributing over 50,000 metric tonnes (MT) of LPG every year. Already with LPG down-streaming in Bangladesh, LAUGFS Gas will be using Hambantota to become the preferred supplier of LPG to that country, Mr. Wegapitiya noted. When LAUGFS Gas started it had 26 per cent market share in Bangladesh. Mr. Wegapitiya said noting that while it changes every day, now it must be below 50 per cent. Spreading wings The company also plans to venture to Myanmar and Kenya in East Africa to supply LPG. We will be supplying to Myanmar within the next two months. Mombasa in Kenya is a gateway to other landlocked East African countries. We are exploring venturing to Mombasa as well. Initially we want to supply in bulk, Mr. Wegapitiya noted adding that it will happen after the call for commercial operations of the Hambantota Terminal. Hambantota port has dedicated two jetties for oil, gas and petroleum business. LAUGFS storage facility is located 3 km from the jetty connected by a pipeline. LAUGFS Hambantota facility can receive and store refrigerated propane and butane separately or in mixed form, via very large gas carriers and pressurised vessels. The company expects to extend the capacity to 45,000 MT. The company currently operates three LNG carrying ships and expects to increase the numbers to 10 in the short-term both owned and chartered. LAUGFS Gas will be setting up a 2 megawatt (MW) Hydro power plant at Ginigathhena this year. They already have a 3MW Hydro plant. Mr. Wegapitiya said that this year a 2 MW solar power plant at Ambilipitiya and a 10 MW plant at Hambantota will be commissioned In addition to the 20 MW solar plant they have. This year three LAUGFS companies will go public. Mr. Wegapitiya said that LAUGFS Leisure, LAUGFS Power and LAUGFS Eco Sri will be listing on the Colombo Stock Exchange this year.We are now in the process of listing all three companies and awaiting regulatory approval. This will be happening soon, Mr. Wegapitiya added. He noted that going public stemmed from the structural change they did last year aiming at a long-term strategy. We realised that attracting investments to the company was difficult with unrelated businesses under the same fold. So we separated leisure, power and eco by giving equal or mirrored shares to the shareholders. Mr. Wegapitiya explained that last the company made heavy investments in shipping which entailed buying ships in Bangladesh. We will enjoy the real benefits of all this in the coming years. Meanwhile the appreciation of the US dollar, increase of LPG prices in the world market and the inability to gain the desired price revisions has dented their bottom line. The company is badly affected by the currency depreciation that started last year. We are a totally import dependent industry. We usually get 30 days credit. So with the currency depreciation when we bought it was one price and when we paid in 30 days it was a completely different price. There was a major currency loss that we suffered, Mr. Wegapitiya explained. LAUGFS Gas will be discussing with the Consumer Affairs Authority and the other authorities to implement a formula for gas similar to the petroleum formula. There was a formula but it was not implemented. We are requesting to reactivate this formula. Hopefully it will happen after the discussions, Mr. Wegapitiya said. Japan firm eyes Pulmoddai rare earth mineral deposit By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s): With the aim of adding value to Sri Lanka mineral exports, a leading Japanese conglomerate headed by a billionaire businessman has finalised a deal with local authorities to soon take over strategic mineral production, especially ilmenite at the Pulmoddai deposit. Lanka Mineral Sands Ltd (LMSL) will be restructured under a public private partnership with this Japanese company, informed official sources said. Cabinet approval is being sought for this purpose as this state owned entity is currently running at a loss and the Treasury has to share the burden of the monthly salary bills of employees. LMSL has already mined a massive stock of mineral sands over the past 50 years along the beach from Pulmoddai-Kokilai exhausting mineral sands and therefore the company is not making much money at present, a senior official of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce said. The market value of a kilogram of Titanium (processed from ilmenite) is in the region of US$1.6 million (Rs.256 million). However the employees of the company are up in arms against this attempt to divest the mineral resources at Pulmodai as they are public assets and also strategic Rare Earth Elements (REE), generating foreign exchange income for the country. Disregarding these protests, an agreement has been reached by the top level authority of the country to award the Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract to the Japanese company through an unsolicited bid, LMSL employees alleged. This deal was a major outcome of President Maithripala Sirisenas March 2018 visit to Japan where he wooed proactive investment by Japanese companies into Sri Lanka. A Presidential envoy who visited Japan several times has negotiated the deal to hand over a fraction of the Pulmodai deposit. This Japanese conglomerate will be stepping in for value added mineral production such as making Titanium dioxide used to produce Titanium from ilmenite, the valuable metal of the present and future, a source closely connected to the deal said. The LMSL sells its main mineral products such as Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, Hi Ti ilmenite, etc through the international competitive bidding procedure; he said adding that the Japanese firm has agreed to transform the local company into a profit-making entity. The present production is now limited to 90,000 tons of ilmenite, 9,000 tons of Rutile and 5,500 tons of Zircon annually. LMSL is not in a position to enter into value added production such as making Titanium dioxide, the valuable metal of the present and future as it has no financial and human resources as well as necessary expertise, the source disclosed. According to the cabinet memorandum the only option is to enter into a joint venture with local or foreign investors to produce value added mineral products. LMSL currently exports mineral sand to Russia, Japan, US and the UK. However the employees noted that modification and upgrading of the present plant in Pulmoddai has been completed, and the company is contributing large sums of money to the national coffers but it cannot carry out its functions with maximum productivity due to lack of human resources and other facilities. Minerals and deposits are found along the eastern coastal belt from Mullaitivu to Pulmoddai and from there to Kotuwakambi. This is one of the most treasured natural resources of Sri Lanka. Encouraging social enterprises in Sri Lanka By Quintus Perera View(s): View(s): While social enterprises are becoming an economic and social force in the world, they are considered as alternative ways of generating wealth, creating employment promoting economic development, tackling poverty and social exclusion among others. In measuring the social entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka, the Social Enterprise Sri Lanka (SESL) in partnership with the British Council conducted a research study to assess the depth of penetration and success in Sri Lanka. Earlier, a conference was held and the report was discussed. Last week a media briefing was held at the Renuka City Hotel by SESL to announce the second International Conference on Social Enterprise and Social Finance to be held on January 28-29 at the Waters Edge Hotel, Battaramulla to release the second survey report and discuss the issues. Last year the research report was launched, discussed at the first conference and two best success stories were revealed. One such enterprise Peoples Organisation for Development of Imports and Exports (PODIE) was featured in the Business Times (BT) on July 15, 2018 under the caption Social enterprise making its mark in Sri Lanka. Dr. Lalith Welamedege, Managing Director SESL giving details of this years conference said that Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Governor, Central Bank would be heading the panel under the theme Think Social, Produce Social and Buy Social. During the media briefing several successful social enterprises local and foreign were highlighted. One was about a newly married man from Coimbatore, India. In that country 300 million women are unable to afford sanitary towels and at least one in five girls drop out from schools due to menstruation. One day this man Muruga noticed his wife hiding something in her back. Suspicious, the man followed her to find that she was hiding a rugged cloth with blood stains here and there on the cloth. When he asked what it was. The woman had said it was none of his business and slapped his face in anger. She was practising unhygienic methods to manage her period . With that experience he thought he could try to help these 300 million women and decided to make his own sanitary pads. He bought cotton web rolls cut them into triangular pieces. He made two towels in two days that were identical to that available in the market. He tested it on his wife but she said it was very bad and she continued her ragged cloth. He then turned to some female medical students to test but they were too shy to use them. He tried over again, experimented researched and was ridiculed as a pervert. This was too much for his wife and she left him. Ultimately he decided to test the pads on himself. He made an artificial uterus in a small rubber bladder, filled animal blood in it. It was tied with an elastic band and he walked and cycled. There were short comings like stench smells and blood stains on his clothes. Yet he persisted and now there are 877 brands making his pads using 1,300 machines in 27 Indian states. Seven countries also import his machines. The revolution was remarkable and he was portrayed on television and featured in magazines on the progress of his venture. This led to a reunion with his wife. Changes to the SunCommercial's back end processing means the e-edition is getting a facelift. The biggest change is the e-edition, by default, is now presented in Text view. This morning, at the crack of dawn, 29 FBI agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles, with their lights flashing, when they could simply have contacted my attorneys and I would have been more than willing to surrender voluntarily," Stone said at the courthouse. It looks like this wasnt a random act of violence. It looks like the person responsible for these murders was known to the family, and were going to do everything we can to get this person in custody very, very soon, Lemma said. We are deeply saddened by the loss of Emile Griffith, a member of our flight attendant ohana for over 31 years who passed away while working on our flight between Honolulu and New York last night. We are forever grateful for Emiles colleagues and good Samaritans on board who stayed by his side and provided extensive medical help, Ann Botticelli, senior vice president of corporate communications at Hawaiian Airlines said in a statement. Pospisil then dismembered his body inside the trailer and took "significant steps" to cover up the crime and the decomposing remains she left behind, according to the sheriff's office. Then on Friday, Sumter County detectives worked with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office to conduct surveillance on the home they believed was Pospisil's. When she walked out of her home, deputies arrested her. "She radiated brighter than the sun. She was full of love, positivity, joy, and hope. Always had a smile on her face, and never said no," the post said. "She never let you down, and truly was an inspiration to us all." Ashtabula, OH (44004) Today Cloudy skies this morning followed by scattered showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon. High 79F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Scattered thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 62F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%. Milton, PA (17847) Today Mixed clouds and sun with scattered thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. High 86F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Showers early, then partly cloudy overnight. Low 61F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%. English25/01/2019 SDA INITIATIVE - AN INSULT TO DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL LAW BANJALUKA, January 25 /SRNA/ - The president of the Republika Srpska Academy of Science and Arts, Rajko Kuzmanovic, has told SRNA that the SDA initiative to dispute the name of Republika Srpska before the BiH Constitutional Court is an insult to domestic and international law. Kuzmanovic, who is an international law expert, has said that the BiH Constitution is an integral part of the Dayton Agreement, which is an international treaty. Therefore, the BiH Constitutional Court probably does not have jurisdiction to discuss this issue, since then it should assess the constitutionality of a constitutional provision, which is impossible. The Constitutional Court usually assesses general acts of lower rank, which those who intend to file a motion either do not know or do not want to know. It would be good for them to read the BiH Constitution several more times, Kuzmanovic has said. He has said that it is very detrimental, disturbing and dangerous to act this way, and that the response of Serbian politicians to the SDA announcement and a new provocation against Srpska by the Bosniak radical establishment in BiH was absolutely correct. Everyone said they are against and this is the best answer to those who are raising a number of issues which can harm not only Srpska and BiH, but the region as well. I expect their conscience to wake up and that there wont be drastic measures by any of the sides, Kuzmanovic has said. He believes that international political factors see that that which the Sarajevo political establishment is doing is not right and that politicians should return to normal issues in BiH, that is, to economic, educational, every days issues. /end/sg Philartphace/iStock(NEW YORK) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning on Friday that 11 people across the country have been infected with an illness transmitted by pet hedgehogs. The bacterial infection, caused by a certain strain of Salmonella, was found in samples collected from hedgehogs in some of the infected peoples homes. Ten of the 11 infected people confirmed recent contact with hedgehogs, and one person is now hospitalized because of the illness. More than half of the cases were in children under the age of 12. There isnt any common supplier of hedgehogs that links the 11 cases, according to the CDC, which is investigating the matter. As the investigation into the outbreak continues, the CDC warns that hedgehog feces can transmit the illness no matter how healthy and adorable a hedgehog appears. The states affected by the outbreak are Texas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado. Although the current outbreak has been linked to hedgehogs, any small reptile or amphibian, including turtles, snakes and frogs, can transmit this illness. The CDC recommends people with weakened immune systems such as those who have sickle cell disease not keep these particular animals as pets since they are more prone to contracting severe Salmonella infections. Symptoms of the infection include fever, diarrhea and stomach pain starting 12 to 72 hours after contact. Most peoples Salmonella infections resolve on their own after four to seven days, but in rare cases, the infection can be deadly. The CDC advises people to keep small pets away from areas where meals are being prepared and to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after any contact or care. Copyright 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. RTHK: Pope defends migrants, marginalised in Panama Pope Francis railed against the marginalisation of convicts and others who society has deemed "sinners", and staunchly defended migrants as he joined hundreds of thousands of young Catholics in Panama. In a swipe at US President Donald Trump's plans to build a border wall against Central American migrants, the pope told hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims that it was "senseless" to condemn every immigrant "as a threat to society". The Argentine pontiff was speaking at the end of a solemn ceremony commemorating Christ's Crucifixion, which drew the largest crowd of pilgrims of his five-day visit. The organisers said the Way of the Cross ceremony drew 400,000 pilgrims to hear the pope at a park in Panama City. The World Youth Day committee say 110,000 people had officially registered for the six-day event, which ends on Sunday. The Vatican faced questions on Friday over why the pope, who addressed hundreds of Central American bishops the day before, had not taken the opportunity to speak out against the scourge of clergy sex abuse afflicting the Church. His spokesman Alessandro Gisotti said that it was never far from Francis' mind because the Church was under "incredible pressure." But it was "not necessary" the pope should raise the issue at every gathering of bishops or of young people, he said. Gisotti said next month's meeting of leading bishops in Rome would be a unique chance to provide them with "concrete measures" to tackle the "terrible plague." In his evening homily, Francis returned to his theme of defending migrants during this visit to Central America, the hub for migrant caravans heading north through Mexico to the US border. The Church wanted to foster a culture "that welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates, that does not stigmatize, much less indulge in a senseless and irresponsible condemnation of every immigrant as a threat to society." The pope has previously spoken out against the "fears and suspicions" of migrants during his trip. In the crowd was 23-year-old Honduran student Wiston Medina. "Many of my friends have lost their jobs and gone to the United States. Everyone in Honduras has family in the US, they left looking for a better future." In a wide-ranging speech at the end of the evening ceremony, the pope also made a plea for the environment that had been "trampled underfoot by disregard and a fury of consumption beyond all reason." (AFP) This story has been published on: 2019-01-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Abdul Alim a petrecut mai putin de o saptamana care lucreaza in interiorul micii de carbune de 370 de picioare inainte de a decide ca a avut destule. Pitra a fost prea periculoasa, riscul de inundare prea mare, echipamentul de siguranta inexistent. Cand un sef ia adus si alti muncitori intr-o piata intr-o seara pentru a cumpara bunuri, ALIM ia spus ca a vrut sa caute o centura. El si un alt Miner au intrat in multime si au fugit, care traiesc o plimbare si calatoresc la 12 ore inapoi acasa in satele lor din nord-estul Indiei. Three days later came news of what Alim had feared: The mine had collapsed and filled with water, trapping 15 workers. Six weeks after the Dec. 13 collapse, Indian navy divers and rescue workers have found the remains of two bodies deep in the mine shaft but are still searching for the others. Anguished family members presume all the men are dead. Advertisement The disaster in Meghalaya a rugged state rich in minerals, whose benefits have eluded the vast majority of its people has prompted a new reckoning over rat hole mines, named for the suffocatingly narrow tunnels that miners plow into the hillsides to extract coal. Indian National Disaster Response Force personnel gather around a crane during rescue operations to help 15 men trapped by flooding in an illegal coal mine in Ksan village in northeastern India. (AFP/Getty Images) The risky method has been used in Meghalaya for decades, even after an Indian environmental court in 2014 ordered a halt to all coal extraction in the state after the deaths of 15 men in another rat hole mine. Though it is illegal, mining in Meghalaya has continued under the sanction of influential politicians many of whom are mine owners and because of a nearly endless supply of laborers willing to brave the dark channels to dig out a material that remains Indias most important energy source. I thought something like this would happen, Alim, 28, said in the dirt courtyard of a neighbors house in Magurmari, a gray farming village along a river in western Meghalaya, where chickens and barefoot toddlers roam the sole dirt road. Nowhere has been hit as hard by the collapse as this hamlet of fewer than 1,500 people: Of the 15 missing miners, five hail from Magurmari. They had been recruited by a sardar, or manager, who promised handsome salaries for working in the rat holes. Alim had expected about $700 for a months work at the mine at Ksan in the Jaintia Hills, 40 miles southeast of the state capital, Shillong. The others were as scared as me, Alim said, but they didnt dare to leave because of pressure from the manager, and because they needed the money. Advertisement Abdul Alim, 28, fled an illegal coal mine in Ksan, in northeastern India, days before the mine collapsed Dec. 13, 2018, trapping 15 men inside. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) The lions share of the states mining wealth accrues to a small, politically connected elite what Indias National Green Tribunal in its 2014 ruling referred to as coal mafias. The Meghalaya government has said it stood to lose nearly $100 million in annual revenue because of the ban, and even after the latest mine collapse has argued for the moratorium to be lifted. This month, the states top official, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, said that while the environment and safety of miners must be given priority, he didnt see a mining ban as a solution right now. Chiar si ca India se angajeaza pe unele dintre cele mai mari proiecte de energie solara din lume, carbunele furnizeaza inca 57% din nevoile energetice ale economiei sale cu crestere rapida. Advertisement The fossil fuel found in northeastern India accounts for only about 1% of the countrys total coal production, and is too sulfurous and generates too much carbon to be burned in power plants. It is mainly used to power paper mills, cement factories and other small enterprises across a region that lacks major industries and has long been economically and politically distant from New Delhi. Coal is one of the only major business opportunities in Meghalaya, said Om Prakash Singh, an environmental studies professor at North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong. Its not going to make any difference in the economy of the country, but it is very lucrative for some local people. Along the rutted, two-lane highways surrounding Meghalayas mining regions, giant mounds of freshly dug coal are piled up in windswept fields and at weigh stations. In November, when Singh joined a panel of court-appointed experts to survey the states compliance with the mining ban, officials insisted against all logic that the coal visible from the roads had been mined before 2014, and was therefore legal to transport and sell. Two weeks ago, Indias Supreme Court ordered a one-month freeze on transporting coal in the state. Advertisement Freshly mined coal is seen out of the window of a car traveling in Indias Meghalaya state, where mining has continued despite a 2014 court order. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Unlike in other parts of India, where coal is extracted from large, open-cast mines that denude entire landscapes, the coal in Meghalaya lies in thin bands running beneath low, rocky hills. Miners must descend vertical shafts hundreds of feet deep with the aid of bamboo ladders or cranes, then use pickaxes to burrow horizontally into the earth to reach coal seams that often measure only a few feet across. They crawl into the rat holes barely wider than the distance between a mans shoulders in teams of two, the second miner loading the coal onto a small wooden cart. Cranes usually hoist the dark lumps to the surface in conical baskets; other times, the miners carry the coal out on their backs. To negotiate the tight passageways, local bosses recruited migrants and underage labor from as far away as Nepal. At the start of this decade, one advocacy group estimated that 70,000 children were working in the mines. Advertisement That practice has all but ended, activists said, but miners in Meghalaya still use little science and even less safety equipment. Alim, who has worked in several mines, said he had never been trained nor given so much as a flashlight to navigate the dank, slippery tunnels filled with stale, toxic air. When accidents happen, the mine owners dont bother much, Singh said. They can find laborers from anywhere. Abdul Karim Sheik said he was 17 when he started working in the mines a decade ago alongside his older brother. At age 21, he was picking his way through a rat hole when a chunk of rock loosened from above and crushed his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed and dependent on a wheelchair. Abdul Karim Sheik was paralyzed in an accident in a rat hole mine in northeastern Indias Meghalaya state. His younger brother, Abdul Kalam Sheik, is among 15 men missing in a flooded mine in the village of Ksan. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement In November, a recruiter arrived in the village and offered his brother, 32-year-old Abdul Kalam Sheik, a job at the mine in Ksan. His wife was pregnant with their second child, and with their father weakening because of age, there was no one else in the family to earn a living. Abdul Karim Sheik said he urged him not to go, but he insisted, saying he could support us. The older brother and Alim were among about 20 miners who arrived at Ksan in early December. Alim recalled his alarm when he noticed that abandoned mines nearby had filled with water an indication that earlier rat holes had collapsed. Activists say that because of unchecked mining and runoff, sulfur from the coal has seeped into rivers and streams. Last year, a report by Agnes Kharshiing, head of the Shillong-based Civil Society Womens Organization, found high levels of water pollution and deforestation in the Jaintia Hills, home to most of the states coal. Advertisement In November, Kharshiing and her colleague Anita Sangma who is no relation to the chief minister were photographing illegal mining in the hills when they came under attack from about two dozen mine owners and bosses. The mob struck Kharshiing with stones and sticks, leaving her unconscious and bleeding heavily from the scalp. Were going to finish her, Sangma recalled some of the assailants saying. The women recognized one of the men as Nidamon Chullet, a leader of the National Peoples Party, which governs the state in alliance with Prime Minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party. Kharshiing would spend a month in the hospital before being released. The attack was particularly shocking in Meghalaya, a predominantly matrilineal society that teaches respect for women. Activist Agnes Kharshiing was assaulted by a mob in November 2018 and badly injured for attempting to expose illegal mining activities in Indias Meghalaya state. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement It was not just an attack against me, but a signal to others, she said as she lay in bed recovering, her torso wrapped in a brace. She has not remained silent: Last week, she and fellow activists released another report that named several prominent politicians who allegedly owned or were otherwise connected to illegal mines, including four ministers in Sangmas government. Police arrested six people in the attack against her, including the mine owner. On Christmas Day, Chullet surrendered to authorities. The National Green Tribunal this month ordered the state to pay a $14-million fine for failing to curb illegal mining. State officials said they would challenge the ruling even as two men died in a separate mine tragedy in the first week of January. Advertisement The families of the men missing at Ksan blame state officials for what happened. After the collapse Dec. 13, it took nearly two weeks for high-powered pumps to arrive to speed up the removal of water from the chasm. According to Indian news reports, the delay was partly due to officials going on vacation over Christmas in the majority Christian state. The state has promised each miners family interim compensation of about $1,420, but no money has arrived in Magurmari. Clutching a photo of Abdul Kalam Sheik, his father, Bodiot Jamal, said he hoped his sons body would be brought home so he could be buried in the Muslim tradition. For a few days we hoped he had survived, he said. But now we dont have any faith. Advertisement shashank.bengali@latimes.com Shashank Bengali covers Southeast Asia for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @SBengali General Electric Company operates as a high-tech industrial company worldwide. The company's Power segment offers heavy-duty and aeroderivative gas turbines for utilities, independent power producers, and industrial applications; maintenance, service, and upgrade solutions to plant assets and their operational lifecycle; steam power technology for fossil and nuclear applications, including boilers, generators, steam turbines, and air quality control systems; and advanced reactor technologies solutions comprising reactors, fuels, and support services for boiling water reactors. This segment also applies the science and systems of power conversion to provide motors, generators, automation, and control equipment; and drives for energy intensive industries, such as marine, oil and gas, mining, rail, metals, test systems, and water. Its Renewable Energy segment provides various solutions for its customers through combining onshore and offshore wind, blades, hydro, storage, solar, and grid solutions, as well as hybrid renewables and digital services offerings. The company's Aviation segment designs and produces commercial and military aircraft engines, integrated engine components, electric power, and mechanical aircraft systems; and provides aftermarket services. Its Healthcare segment develops, manufactures, markets, and services magnetic resonance, computed tomography, molecular imaging, x-ray and high-frequency soundwave systems, clinical monitoring and acute care systems, enterprise digital, artificial intelligence applications, consulting and command center, and complementary software and services; and researches, manufactures, and markets imaging agents. The company's Capital segment offers aviation leasing and financing, and working capital services; financial solutions and underwriting capabilities; and insurance and reinsurance for life and health risks, as well as annuity products. The company was founded in 1878 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Read More Duke Energy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Electric Utilities and Infrastructure, Gas Utilities and Infrastructure, and Commercial Renewables. The Electric Utilities and Infrastructure segment generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electricity in the Carolinas, Florida, and the Midwest; and uses coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, oil, renewable sources, and nuclear fuel to generate electricity. It also engages in the wholesale of electricity to municipalities, electric cooperative utilities, and load-serving entities. This segment serves approximately 7.9 million retail electric customers in 6 states in the Southeast and Midwest regions of the United States covering a service territory of approximately 91,000 square miles; and owns approximately 50,807 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity. The Gas Utilities and Infrastructure segment distributes natural gas to residential, commercial, industrial, and power generation natural gas customers; and owns, operates, and invests in pipeline transmission and natural gas storage facilities. It has approximately 1.6 million customers, including 1.1 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, as well as 541,000 customers in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky. The Commercial Renewables segment acquires, owns, develops, builds, and operates wind and solar renewable generation projects, including nonregulated renewable energy and energy storage services to utilities, electric cooperatives, municipalities, and commercial and industrial customers. It has 21 wind, 150 solar, and 2 battery storage facilities, as well as 11 fuel cell locations with a capacity of 2,282 MW across 19 states. The company was formerly known as Duke Energy Holding Corp. and changed its name to Duke Energy Corporation in April 2005. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Read More Power, Energy and Business Promotion Minister Ravi Karunanayaka has instructed ministry officials to restrict to the minimum the controversial spot purchases of electricity, a spokesman said. El a spus in conformitate cu ministrul, o noua politica nationala de putere si energie va fi introdusa pana in luna martie a acestui an. De asemenea, el a instruit oficialii sa extinda proiectele de energie solara pe baza acestora fiind ecologice, la preturi accesibile si o sursa de energie curata disponibila pentru generarea de energie. Ministrul a emis aceste instructiuni la o reuniune detinuta cu membrii Asociatiei si oficialilor de producatori de energie solara la scara mica si oficiali ai Autoritatii Energiei Durale Sri Lanka (SLSEA). Purtatorul de cuvant a declarat ca oficialii au fost rugati sa asigure sursa de alimentare neintrerupta in jurul anului la cel mai mic tarif posibil. El a spus ca ministrul a subliniat ca Sri Lanka nu a reusit sa puna in aplicare un singur proiect de putere in ultimii trei ani si ca atare ar afecta grav alimentarea cu energie in anii urmatori. El si-a exprimat, de asemenea, ingrijorarea cu privire la reactia negativa la achizitiile la fata locului de catre opozitie, publicul, mass-media si oficialii cu privire la suspiciunea ca achizitiile de putere la fata locului beneficiaza pe cineva. Ministrul a cerut producatorilor de energie solara la scara mica sa-i trimita un raport care sa-si prezinte nemultumirile. Intre timp, a fost semnat un memorandum de intelegere (MOU) intre consiliul de electricitate din Ceylon (CEB) si Fortele Aeriene Sri Lanka pentru a lansa un proiect de ploaie artificiala. In cadrul MOU, Fortele Aeriene va oferi un suport logistic, cum ar fi avioanele si know-how-ul tehnic de catre Thailanda la CEB pentru a activa ploaia artificiala in Sri Lanka. (Sandun A Jayasekera) (Sandun A Jayasekera) In calitate de supervizori din San Francisco considera ca punerea unui impozit pe proprietate vacanta la buletinul de vot, Oakland se lupta cu realitatea implementarii unuia. Alegatorii din Oakland in luna noiembrie au aprobat o taxa care se aplica oricarei proprietati private in oras - inclusiv loturi rezidentiale, comerciale si goale - care nu este "in uz" pentru mai mult de 50 de zile intr-un an calendaristic incepand cu 2019. Taxa anuala este 6.000 de dolari pe parcela pentru majoritatea proprietatilor, indiferent de dimensiune sau valoare. Impozitul pentru unitatile condo sau duplex sau spatiul comercial al parterului este de 3.000 USD pe an. Exista 10 scutiri posibile. The tax will be added to annual property tax bills starting with the one that goes out next year. It will continue for 20 years. Oaklands City Council put Measure W on the ballot, saying it would raise $10 million annually, which can only be used for homeless services, affordable housing, programs to fight blight and illegal dumping, administer the tax and defend any possible lawsuits. Measure W passed with 70 percent of the vote. Among the many issues now facing the city: defining in use, identifying vacant properties, clarifying the 10 exemptions, developing software to administer the program and forming a commission on homelessness to recommend how the revenue should be spent. The City Council could, by ordinance, restrict the tax to certain zones within the city, but has not done so. In December, the citys Finance Department sent a letter to owners of 25,000 non-owner-occupied properties warning them about the tax should their property be deemed vacant. The letter set off alarm bells for some owners. I thought it was only on vacant homes, not vacant property, said James Liu, who lives in Fremont and owns five steep lots on Ascot Drive in the Oakland hills. Liu bought the adjacent parcels in 2012 and 2013, thinking naively, he admits that he could develop them, despite their 50 percent slope. But architects and engineers told him it wouldnt be possible. He put them on the market twice, with no takers. Meanwhile hes paying $3,000 per year in property taxes on each lot, plus another $3,000 per year to have them cleared of debris. He said the the additional $6,000 per parcel tax is not just about money. Its about fairness. Its not something I realized could happen in America. The measure exempts owners who can demonstrate that exceptional specific circumstances prevent the use or development of the property. But most owners wont know if they qualify for this or any exemption until the Finance Department writes rules implementing the measure and the City Council adopts them. Another provision that merits clarification says, for parcels with multiple units, whether residential or non-residential, the parcel is not vacant if any unit on it is not vacant. A condominium, duplex, or town house unit under separate ownership is treated as a separate parcel The Finance Department will probably bring an implementing ordinance to the City Council in April, but it could take a number of meetings before its adopted, said Karen Boyd, a spokeswoman for the city. Vacancy-tax exemptions These are 10 exemptions to Oakland's new vacant-property tax, as described in Measure W. The Finance Department will clarify them in an implementing ordinance, which must be approved by the City Council. (1) Owner is "very low income," as defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city wouldn't define it. But HUD's website says that the income limit in Oakland is $40,700 per year for a one-person household and goes up with family size. (2) Owner is 65 or older and "low income," as defined by HUD. That limit is $62,750 for one person. (3) Owner of any age receives Supplemental Security Income for a disability or Social Security Disability Insurance benefits and has income that does not exceed 250 percent of the 2012 federal poverty guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That limit is $11,170 for one person and goes up with family size. (4) The tax would create a "financial hardship due to specific factual circumstances." (5) The property is vacant because of a "demonstrable hardship that is unrelated to the owner's personal finances." (6) The property is under active construction. (7) The owner has an active building permit application being processed by the city. (8) The owner has a "substantially complete application for planning approval" under review. (9) The owner can prove that "exceptional specific circumstances prevent the use or development of the property." (10) The owner is or is controlled by a nonprofit organization. See More Collapse In its letter to property owners, the Finance Department said it would be difficult to answer questions until the ordinance is adopted. It strongly urged them, in a bold and underlined comment, to not make any inquiries regarding this letter or the tax at this time. It did give them an email address, VacantPropertyTaxInquiry@oaklandca.gov, but said it could take up to 30 days to get their questions answered. The citys finance director, Katano Kasaine, urged the council in a May letter to delay implementation for one year, citing the aggressive timetable required for the implementation of the tax. The City Council could delay implementation, but theres no sign it plans to. The Finance Department estimated it would cost $425,000 per year to administer the tax, plus a one-time startup cost of at least $100,000. Boyd said the city has received a legal challenge to the tax but provided no details. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf supports the tax, her spokesman Justin Berton said in an email. Its a novel idea that will generate new resources to address some of Oaklands biggest challenges, such as homelessness, Berton said. It also taxes people who are failing to utilize their property during a housing shortage, which damages overall community vitality. Nobody is sure how many vacant properties there are and how many will get an exemption. Using data from the county assessor, Hayley Raetz, a researcher at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, estimated that there are about 4,000 undeveloped, privately owned lots in Oakland. Most are small lots in residential neighborhoods. If approved by Oakland voters, the tax could act as a deterrent for speculation, and encourage owners of vacant parcels to sell or develop their land, ideally unlocking sites for housing, Raetz wrote in a report. She did not look at lots with homes or businesses on them, because theres no methodical way to determine whether theyre vacant. Looking just at an estimated 4,000 vacant lots, the Finance Department said that the tax could bring in $6 million to $10.5 million a year, depending on how many got exemptions. Building a home or apartment building on raw land is not easy or cheap, and some vacant lots are in areas prone to landslides and wildfires. Interactive Vaccine Tracker: Latest developments Detailed information about the coronavirus vaccines as it becomes available. Oakland real estate agent Mel Copland owns one of several empty lots on Oakwood Court in the Montclair neighborhood. The infrastructure is so expensive, to bring, solar, gas and water to the property, plus a private road, he said, adding that the value of that land has dropped 50 percent since the last recession. Whats going to happen, people are not going to pay the tax, and you are going to have a lot of defaulted lots. Dragos Badeamic, a structural engineer and contractor who lives outside Sacramento, owns three vacant properties on Woodrow Avenue in Oakland., I was planning to build some houses there, but for family reasons, I could not do that, he said. Hes paying about $1,900 per year in property tax on each of the three lots; the vacancy tax would be nearly three times that per lot. Badeamic grew up in Romania, where the communists imprisoned his grandfather and seized the familys property, forcing them to flee the country. He said the tax reminds him of what went on in the early days of the communist regime there. I never thought I was going to see this here, in the bastion of capitalism, he said. SPUR, a Bay Area urban planning think tank, said in its voter guide that it supports the idea of a vacant parcel tax, as a way to help move vacant land into active use and eliminate blight, but it opposed Measure W because it would be very difficult to implement fairly. The definition of what constitutes vacancy is very broad, it said, and the exemptions are also very broadly defined, such as a demonstrable hardship that is not financial. It also said a flat tax may disproportionately affect small property owners. Evelyn Sinclair, who owns a vacant lot next to her home in the Oakland hills near Redwood Regional Park, said she objects to the tax because we shouldnt be balancing somebodys project for helping homeless people and urban blight on a tiny minority of people in the city. Candice Elder, director of the East Oakland Collective, a Millennial-focused nonprofit, said that once everything gets ironed out, (the tax) has the potential to help address some of the issues in homelessness and the housing crisis. She said it wont overcome all of the obstacles, but its one component of the solution. She hopes the tax will spur landowners with a challenging piece of property, or low-income owners who cant afford to develop, to work with the city or with nonprofit agencies to reimagine the use of the land. James Vann, co-founder of the Homeless Advocacy Working Group, which campaigned for Measure W, said the tax will probably deplete itself as vacant lots, homes and buildings are put to use. Meanwhile in San Francisco, Supervisor Aaron Peskin said in a news conference Wednesday that he wants the Board of Supervisors to put a vacancy tax on the November ballot. The $250-per-day tax would apply to some commercial and multifamily residential properties that are intentionally kept vacant for more than six months of the year. Peskin has been talking about a vacancy tax since 2017 but hasnt introduced any legislation. Before crafting a tax, San Francisco might want to consider the challenges facing Oakland. Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender Kazakhstan has just launched operation of the largest solar power station in Central Asia, in the central Karaganda Province, the heart of coal country. Authorities in Kazakhstan have pledged to "go green," the theme of EXPO-2017 in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, and the solar plant near the town of Saran that started operation on January 24 is a first step toward that goal. The 307,664 photovoltaic panels cover an area of more than 160 hectares and have the capacity to generate some 100 megawatts (MW) of power, providing some 145 million kilowatt hours annually. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) provided a loan of nearly $53 million, and the Green Climate Fund extended a loan of some $22 million toward the project's estimated cost of around $130 million. Germany's Solarnet partnered with SES Saran, the latter being described as "a special purpose company incorporated in Kazakhstan and owned by the German-based group Joachim Holding." The 100 MW of power the Saran plant will supply is not much. The EBRD noted the new solar plant would "contribute to achieving the Kazakh government goal of non-hydro renewable energy accounting for 3 percent of all power generation by 2020." Kazakhstan has huge oil reserves and is the world's leading producer of uranium, but at least 75 percent of Kazakhstan's power needs continue to be filled by coal. It is a resource that Kazakhstan has in abundance -- some 37.5 billion tons. But this dependence on coal is taking its toll on the environment. Last year in Temirtau, some 40 kilometers north of Saran, black snow fell on the ground, alarming locals and sparking calls for the government to take measures to find another source of generating energy. According to the EBRD, the Saran plant will "help reduce CO2 emissions by 93,500 tons per year." On its own, that won't bring white snow back to Temirtau soon, but it is a start. The EBRD is helping to finance construction of another 100 MW solar power plant in Kazakhstan's southern Zhambyl Province. The operators of the Saran plant say the solar panels can withstand snow and rain and will operate for some 40 years. Even in adverse weather conditions, the plant can still deliver some 10-15 MW. That is not to say there are no drawbacks to the Saran plant. RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq, reported the cost of electricity generated by the plant would be 36.41 tenges ($1=377 tenges), which is 2- to 2.5-times higher than the average rate. The Saran plant was due to start operation in November 2018 but this needed to be rescheduled several times. Kazakhstan has vowed that by 2050, the country will generate half of its electricity needs through renewable resources. The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL There is a bit of a solar energy showdown shaping up in Van Zandt County as a group of nearly 1,000 residents fight a proposed solar farm. Houston-based Pattern Development touts the renewable energy and jobs the project would create, but the Save Van Zandt County initiative insists the project is not suitable for their community. David Dunagan said he first found out about the project when talking to the owner of the land adjacent to his property. The gentleman that owns the land next to me, who leased out to them, kind of casually over the fence one day said Hey. Youre never going to have to worry about someone building a house next to you. I leased my land out to a company who is going to put a few solar panels up, Dunagan said. He started talking to elected officials and looking at government filings and records to learn the scope of the project and was shocked. According to Pattern Development the project will be approximately 750 acres and approximately 400,000 solar panels. Those numbers make Dunagan uneasy, but his concerns start with the actual construction. Its going to be difficult for us just to live on this property with that going on around us, he said. There is the noise of the ca-chunking and ca-chunking of them driving these pylons. The Save Van Zandt group are fearful of the future environmentally and economically. It scares us to death, Dunagan said. What its going to do to us environmentally, but then long term. What happens 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road. He fears his property value will plummet, but also has concerns about issues specific to his area. Less than two years ago, we had five tornadoes blow through here, and tornadoes are kind of common around here as is hail, Dunagan said. When the [panels] go up, if they get damaged, or a tornado starts ripping them out of the ground and were all targets for it. Pattern insists there are no environmental issues. Prior to project construction and operations of the facility, all personnel will receive Environmental Awareness Training to make them aware of any potential environmental issues that might arise during the construction and operation of the facility, material released Pattern said. Project construction will avoid streams and forested wetlands and therefore avoid impacts to aquatic species. In addition, the project will maintain the top soil of the existing pastures to the maximum extent. NBC 5 also asked Pattern representatives about community concerns surrounding weather issues in the county. Solar panels are secured to posts that are buried in the ground. The panels are designed to withstand the climate around where it is constructed, representative Matt Dallas said. Pattern Development will actively manage this project during operations. Read the full Frequently Asked Questions document from Pattern addressing community concerns here. DV.load("https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5695658-Solar-in-Van-Zandt-County-FAQ-Pages-2.js", { responsive: true, container: "#DV-viewer-5695658-Solar-in-Van-Zandt-County-FAQ-Pages-2" }); Solar in Van Zandt County FAQ Pages (2) (PDF) Pattern reminds that project will generate enough clean energy to power more than 27,000 homes, pump $22 million into area schools and create 250 construction jobs. Members of the citizen action group are still not convinced. Im scared that we are going to have to start over. Im angry, Dunagan said. We are going to fight and fight and fight. Dunagan said there is now a scheduled meeting with state lawmakers to discuss possible legislation in their fight. Louth Contemporary Music Society (LCMS) has been nominated for another major award with the announcement is on the longlist for a Classical:NEXT Innovation Award. The longlist for the award, which will be presented in Rotterdam in May, contains 37 nominees selected by members of an international nominating committee, which includes music journalists from 26 countries. Eamonn Quinn, the director of LCMS, was presented with the Belmont Prize Ceremony from the Forberg-Schneider-Stiftung last year. News of the nomination comes as LCMS revealed the programme for their 2019 festival. This year, to coincide with the solstice, their annual festival of new music is called Stations of the Sun. It takes place on the weekend of June 21 and 21, with a programme which follows the solar cycle in a sequence of five concerts. The midsummer sun will bring some of the most exciting composers an Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, making her first visit to Ireland d outstanding musicians from around the globe to Dundalk. The path begins and ends with music by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, making her first visit to Ireland. Internationally esteemed for her sonic imagination and expressive power, Saariaho works with contemporary digital means and ancient scales to create dreamlike music, loaded with a strong feeling for nature and with primal human emotion. In Dundalk, vocal and instrumental pieces from throughout her career will be performed by musicians including Aliisa Neige Barriere, Meta 4 String Quartet, Jakob Kullberg, Camilla Hoitenga and Raphaele Kennedy with whom she collaborates closely. The programme for Stations of the Sun also features a new work by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, who, at the age of 92, has recently been acclaimed worldwide for his first opera, setting Samuel Beckett's Endgame. There will also be a performance of Kurtag's Bach-inspired HiPartita for solo violin, given by the musician for whom it was written: the extraordinary Hiromi Kikuchi. Music by three diverse composers will follow in the atmospheric and resonant space of the old Dundalk Gaol. Linda Caitlin Smith's new work comes out of North American minimalism, carrying a care for detail that is uniquely hers and intensely telling. Peter Garland, coming from something of the same background but going very much his own way, arrives with a new piece for string quartet and tenor voice. Pascale Criton uses special tunings to explore very small intervals in music that is mesmerizing. Also to be heard for the first time in Ireland are the sonorous voices of the Moscow Russian Patriarchate Choir, in new pieces and venerable chants. The Moscow Russian Patriarchate Choir, with conductor Anatoly Grindenko, led the way in the rediscovery of Orthodox church music in the late years of the Soviet regime. At this time - when the music was far from approved by the government - the choir spent years decoding ancient manuscripts and giving the first performances of works that had lain in obscurity for centuries. Tickets available from https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/stations-of-the-sun-21-22-june-2019-tickets-53509632752 The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors on Tuesday postponed a public hearing for a proposed solar power facility. The original meeting was set for Feb. 5, but the applicant, Sustainable Power Group, asked for a delay. The supervisors did not set a new date for the public hearing, but plan to set one during their regular Feb. 12 meeting. During Tuesday's supervisors meeting, Planning Director Wanda Parrish said officials with Sustainable Power Group, also called sPower, did not say why they wanted the delay. It was assumed the company is seeking more time to contend with the long list of conditions set by the countys Planning Commission. The commission this month denied two of three special permits the Utah-based company applied for to construct the 500 megawatt facility in rural western Spotsylvania on land zoned for agricultural use. The company wants to install about 1.8 million solar panels on three swaths of timber property totaling 6,300 acres. The site is bordered, in places, by homes, including the Fawn Lake neighborhood. Residents have formed groups and come out in force against the project. The Fort Myers Beach Library family is mourning the loss of their beloved director, Dr. Leroy Hommerding. Dr. Hommerding was fatally stabbed by a vagrant shortly after opening the library doors to welcome people who were waiting to attend the librarys book sale. Dr. Hommerding was hired as the library director in 2000. During his tenure, he oversaw the building of our state of the art library. He made certain the design included the most current environmentally sound building practices. The librarys heating and cooling system is fueled by solar power. Rainwater is used in the plumbing system. Much of the architectural design includes subtle references to the beach environment. For example, there are waves on the ceiling and canoe bookshelves. The childrens area has a tree and ceiling tiles with whimsical toy representations. Dr. Hommerding understood that many of our patrons are on vacation when they visit our town. He made sure that our collection included reading and audio video materials that would appeal to visitors. Recognizing that our town includes many retirees, he included in our collection the largest selection of large print books in the state. Our director also wanted people to view the library as fun, educational and welcoming. He collected unique bookends for the library shelves. Usually the bookends tied in with the books on that particular shelf. He put flowers and beach related items on display on top of the bookshelves. Puzzles for patrons and visitors to piece together are always out on a large table on the second floor. Our monthly event calendar includes daily classes, weekly movies and monthly book discussions. Dr. Hommerding wrote a weekly column for two of our island newspapers informing readers of library events and new library acquisitions. He also served on the Board of the Friends of the Library and was instrumental in growing its membership. Dr. Hommerding was also very active in our community. He was Treasurer of the Estero Island Historic Society. Most recently, he successfully submitted a grant to the Florida Humanities Council. The Historic Society was awarded enough money to fund a speakers series for the community. He was an enthusiastic and regular volunteer at the Kiwaniss Thrift store. In the past, he served on the Board of Directors for the Mound House. Dr. Hommerding is survived by seven brothers and sisters. They are Joyce (Ken) Bertram, Roger (Terri) Hommerding, Janet (Mark) Eisenschenk, Doris Hommerding, Linda (Mark) Donnay, Vernon (Cathy) Hommerding, Laura (Leonard) Nordmann, twenty-two nieces and nephews and his colleague and friend, Cletus Poser. He was predeceased by his parents, Ervin and Lonie Hommerding. A memorial service is planned for Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 1 PM in the Library garage. Memorials may be made to the Fort Myers Beach Library. Press Trust of India Scientists say they have discovered what may be the Earth's oldest rock in a lunar sample returned from the Moon by the Apollo 14 astronauts. An international team associated with Center for Lunar Science and Exploration (CLSE) in the US found evidence that the rock was launched from Earth by a large impacting asteroid or comet. This impact jettisoned material through Earth's primitive atmosphere, into space, where it collided with the surface of the Moon which was three times closer to Earth than it is now about four billion years ago, researchers said. The rock was subsequently mixed with other lunar surface materials into one sample, according to the study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The team developed techniques for locating impactor fragments in the lunar regolith, which prompted CLSE Principal Investigator David A Kring to challenge them to locate a piece of Earth on the Moon. The researchers found a two-gramme fragment of rock composed of quartz, feldspar, and zircon, all commonly found on Earth and highly unusual on the Moon. Chemical analysis of the rock fragment shows it crystallised in a terrestrial-like oxidised system, at terrestrial temperatures, rather than in the reducing and higher temperature conditions characteristic of the Moon. "It is an extraordinary find that helps paint a better picture of early Earth and the bombardment that modified our planet during the dawn of life," said Kring, a Universities Space Research Association (USRA) scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). It is possible that the sample is not of terrestrial origin, but instead crystallised on the Moon, however, that would require conditions never before inferred from lunar samples, researchers said. It would require the sample to have formed at tremendous depths, in the lunar mantle, where very different rock compositions are anticipated, they said. The simplest interpretation is that the sample came from Earth, according to researchers. The rock crystallised about 20 kilometres beneath Earth's surface 4.0 to 4.1 billion years ago. It was then excavated by one or more large impact events and launched into lunar space. Previous work by the team showed that impacting asteroids at that time were producing craters thousands of kilometres in diameter on Earth, sufficiently large to bring material from those depths to the surface, researchers said. Once the sample reached the lunar surface, it was affected by several other impact events, one of which partially melted it 3.9 billion years ago, and which probably buried it beneath the surface. The sample is, therefore, a relic of an intense period of bombardment that shaped the solar system during the first billion years. After that period, the Moon was affected by smaller and less frequent impact events. I only buy one kind of stock. 37 of these cash cows are in my portfolio right now... and for every dollar invested in them they are sending us 69 cents in dividends. That's an effective yield of 69% a year-every year. All without leverage, options, or gimmicks. Sempra Energy operates as an energy-services holding company in the United States and internationally. The company's San Diego Gas & Electric Company segment generates, transmits, and distributes electricity; and supplies natural gas. It offers electric services to approximately 3.7 million population and natural gas services to approximately 3.4 million population that covers 4,100 square miles. Its Southern California Gas Company segment owns and operates a natural gas distribution, transmission, and storage system that supplies natural gas to a population of approximately 22 million covering an area of 24,000 square miles. The company's Sempra Texas Utilities segment is involved in the regulated transmission and distribution of electricity serving 3.7 million homes and businesses, and operation of 139,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. Its transmission system includes 18,127 circuit miles of transmission lines, 336 transmission stations, and 806 distribution substations; distribution system comprises 121,129 miles of overhead and underground lines; and 63 miles of electric transmission lines. Its Sempra Mexico segment develops, owns, operates, or holds interests in natural gas, electric, liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG), ethane, and liquid fuels infrastructure; and purchases LNG, and purchases and sells natural gas. This segment operates natural-gas-fired, and wind and solar power generation facilities. Its assets/facilities consist of 1,850 miles of natural gas transmission pipelines, 15 compressor stations, and 139 miles of ethane pipelines; and 2,729 miles of natural gas distribution pipelines. The company's Sempra LNG segment develops and builds natural gas liquefaction export facilities; holds an interest in a facility for the export of LNG; owns and operates natural gas pipelines; and buys, sells, and transports natural gas. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. Read More BEIJING (AP) - Chinese tech giant Huawei announced plans Wednesday for a next-generation smartphone that will use its own technology instead of U.S. components, maneuvering to gain a competitive edge and sidestep complaints it is a security risk. The leading supplier of network switching gear for phone companies, Huawei Technologies Ltd. is spending heavily to develop its own chips, an area where the U.S. dominates. That can reduce Huawei's multibillion-dollar annual components bill and help insulate it against possible supply disruptions when U.S.-Chinese relations are strained. The handset, billed by Huawei as the first foldable fifth-generation smartphone, will be unveiled next month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry's biggest annual event, said Richard Yu, CEO of the company's consumer unit. The phone is based on Huawei's own Kirin 980 chipset and Balong 5000 modem. The company says the Kirin 980, released in August, performs on a par with Qualcomm Inc.'s widely used Snapdragon 845. Sales of Huawei smartphones and other consumer products rose more than 50 percent last year over 2017, showing "no influence" from Western security warnings, Yu told reporters. He said the consumer unit's sales topped $52 billion, or more than half of the $100 billion in annual revenue the company has forecast. Huawei has yet to release 2018 results for the whole company. "In this complicated political environment, we still maintain strong growth," Yu said. Fruits' cups with a mini flags are displayed on a refreshment corner as Huawei unveils it 5G chipsets in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Chinese companies are trying to develop technology to better compete with Western suppliers in telecoms, solar power, electric cars, biotechnology and other fields. The ruling Communist Party's plans for state-led development of such industries, along with robotics and artificial intelligence, helped trigger a trade war with President Donald Trump. Both sides have raised tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of each other's goods in the dispute over American complaints Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology. Washington also says Chinese technology plans violate Beijing's market-opening obligations. Huawei surpassed Apple as the No. 2 global smartphone brand behind Samsung in mid-2018. It uses Qualcomm in its high-end fourth-generation smartphones and earlier Kirin versions in lower-end models. The company, based in the southern city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong, also has developed chips for servers and mobile devices. Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Ltd. already make their own chips. Qualcomm has far more smartphone chip technology but Huawei is catching up, said Xi Wang of IDC. "Generally speaking, Huawei's chips are equal to Qualcomm chips in performance," Wang said. "Not only at the mid-level but at the high end, Huawei can compete with Qualcomm." Huawei, founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, has rejected accusations it is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or modifies its equipment to allow eavesdropping. Its U.S. market evaporated after a congressional panel labeled Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE Corp. security risks in 2012 and told phone companies to avoid dealing with them. ZTE was nearly driven into bankruptcy last year after the Washington cut off access to U.S. technology over its exports to Iran and North Korea. President Donald Trump restored access after ZTE paid a $1 billion fine and agreed to replace its executive team and install U.S.-chosen compliance officers. Australia, Japan and some other governments also have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology. The company has stepped up efforts to mollify security fears after its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada on Dec. 1 on U.S. charges she lied to banks about trade with Iran. Huawei's founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, is Meng's father. In a rare public appearance, he told foreign reporters in a 2-hour interview on Jan. 15 that he would reject requests from Chinese authorities for confidential information about its customers. Yu said that despite "political noise" in some countries, Huawei sales outside the United States haven't suffered due to security concerns. The company says it serves 45 of the 50 biggest global phone companies and has signed contracts with 30 carriers to test 5G technology. "Worldwide, all the carriers love us," said Yu. Yu repeated Ren's assurances that Huawei has never received an official request for confidential information about customers. "At Huawei, we never do these kinds of things," he said. "We always protect our customer." Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, unveils the 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group speaks as he unveils the 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, speaks as he unveils the 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Huawei 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset is displayed after the presentation event in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Huawei 5G modem Balong 5000 chipset is displayed after the presentation event in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Ryan Ding, chief of Huawei's carrier business group, holds a Tiangang 5G base station chipset, speaks during a product presentation in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2019. Chinese tech giant Huawei announced plans to release a next-generation smartphone based on its own technology instead of U.S. components, stepping up efforts to compete with global industry leaders. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Advertisement An huge fortress spread over 8,000-square-feet and set on 40 acres of land in the Nevada desert some three hours drive away from Las Vegas could be yours for $950,000. The home, which has been nicknamed, the Hard Luck Castle has four-bedrooms and three bathrooms. The fortress is most unusual with a design that is more akin to a science-fiction film set than a secluded hideaway. Its walls along are 16 inches thick and are built around the home in a perfect circle with a spiral staircase allowing residents to access all four floors. 'It's absolutely amazing,' says listing agent Jake Rasmuson of Bishop Real Estate. 'You have to picture the middle of Nevada...your views are completely uninterrupted. This four-story, 22-room, 8,000-square-foot castle for sale for $900,000 in the Nevada desert is the perfect retreat The property is an enormous, privately owned fortress with 16-inch-thick concrete walls and self-sustained energy systems using solar and wind, and with a 4,000-gallon water storage/rain catchment system The owner has added two enormous, vintage pipe organs which resonate through the halls when played The castle is owned by Randy Johnson, a former builder and craftsman who lived in Southern California and Lake Tahoe The main house is made up from 22 rooms that include a theater, wine cellar and games room. There is even a pipe organ build in the 1920s that blasts notes throughout the home when played according to SFGate. The former owner was a builder from Southern California who decided to settle down in the tiny town of Gold Point in Esmeralda County. Just six people live in was is essentially a ghost town. Naturally the home comes with privacy and very few laws for the private land. It took $3 million and more than a decade for the homeowner to complete his plan - and now he feels that it is time to move on. 'He built it all himself with help from friends ,' says listing agent. He's a guy who can fix or do anything. He's an amazing craftsman, but he's ready to give up the property. Purchase a boat and start a new chapter in his life.' The castle is completely self sustaining and off the grid. Power comes from batteries charged by solar and wind energy to power the home theater and Vegas-style slot machine The main home includes two 1920s pipe organs and comes partially furnished with antiques The pipes of the organ dominate the decor in the home, while the bathroom looks distinctly ordinary Hard Luck Mine Castle is surrounded by nothing but the Nevada desert for miles. The home is located at 6,000 feet atop Gold Mountain 35 miles south of Goldfield, Nevada The Hard Luck Castle was constructed between 2000 and 2012 with engineering that is designed to last 400 to 500 years, according to the property listing The property also comes with a gold mine, which was closed at the end of WWII but is 'still high in gold content' From the outside it is possible to see just how truly remote the property is with nothing in the area for miles around The Hard Luck Castle was constructed between 2000 and 2012 with engineering that is designed to last 400 to 500 years according to the listing. It's made from steel, concrete, cinder block and glass. More than seven tons of rebar and 24,000 bricks were used to build the castle. The property is completely off-the-grid with electricity generated using solar and wind power. Water comes from a 4,000 gallon storage tank that collects rainwater. In front of the Hard Luck Castle, there is a tall, white compass. Each of the presidents names are listed in descending order Although it is miles away from anywhere, interested people can view the home for a $10 fee and receive a guided tour The Hard Luck Mine is a unique property that can provide for an escape, retreat, or remote compound for any individual or group desiring the ultimate in remote privacy and looking to disappear from society The central living space in the Hard Luck Mine Castle is dominated by the enormous pipes of the organ A 600-square-foot workshop is also included on site allowing for the homeowner to get to grips with their DIY skills Also included in the residence is a 600-square-foot workshop complete with tools. There is even a dormant gold mine close by which, according to legend, still contains gold. 'In a lot of ways, it's a 'doomsday prepper' dream home...extremely self-sustaining and secure.' Rasmusson told SFGate that he could see 'an astrologist, an artists, a writer, a musician, a poet, someone who really wants peace and quiet and wants two pipe organs in their home' taking up residence in the future. Round and round: The four-story and 8,000-square-foot home features an awe-inspiring spiral staircase through the center of the building Accepting offers: Johnston continues to list the home for sale on his website, but says he hasn't received many phone calls from interested buyers lately An enormous 8,000-square-foot fortress set on 40 acres of land in Nevada's sagebrush-dotted high desert, a 2.5-hour drive from Las Vegas, is selling for $950,000. The so-called Hard Luck Castle with four-bedrooms and three bathrooms is an extraordinary and admittedly quite odd architectural wonder with a fantastical design you'd expect to find on the set of an apocalyptic science-fiction filmthink "Mad Max." Its concrete walls are 16 inches thick and wrap around the circular structure with a central staircase taking you to all four floors and a solarium encased in glass for stargazing. "It's absolutely amazing," says listing agent Jake Rasmuson of Bishop Real Estate. "You have to picture the middle of Nevada...your views are completely uninterrupted. The main house is comprised of 22 rooms including a wine cellar, a theater and game room, a viewing deck and a fountain room. There are also two working 1920s pipe organs that resonate throughout the halls when played. REAL ESTATE: Unique homes for sale in Beaumont A builder from Southern California, the owner chose the town of Gold Point (pop. 6) in Esmeralda County for his dream home due to its privacy, lack of building codes and few laws on private land. He spent $3 million and 12 years to complete his plan, and now he's ready to move onto his next adventure. "He built it all himself with help from friends ," says listing agent. He's a guy who can fix or do anything. He's an amazing craftsman." He added: "He's ready to give up the property. Purchase a boat and start a new chapter in his life." The property is off-the-grid with self-sustained energy systems using solar and wind and a 4,000 gallon water storage tank has rain catchment. There's a detached 600-square-foot workshop equipped with tools for working on cars and steel fabrication and a remodeled miner's cabin with a new bathroom and kitchen. A productive yet dormant gold mine with a "serviceable" mine shaft is also included. It was shuttered after World War II, but allegedly still contains gold. "In a lot of ways, it's a 'doomsday prepper' dream home...extremely self-sustaining and secure." That said, Rasmusson says he could also see an interested buyer might be "an astrologist, an artists, a writer, a musician, a poet, someone who really wants peace and quiet and wants two pipe organs in their home" because the organs and everything else except the owner's dog and truck are included in the sale. .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich called on state lawmakers Friday to pass legislation dealing with renewable energy, climate change and early childhood education during their ongoing 60-day legislation. In a 20-minute speech, Heinrich, a Democrat, said the session represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity, due largely to an unprecedented state revenue windfall. He also said state voters sent a clear message during last Novembers election theyre tired of the status quo. You came here to make change, Heinrich told lawmakers. Our kids are counting on us to get this right for their future. ADVERTISEMENTSkip ................................................................ A former Albuquerque city councilor and U.S. House member, Heinrich defeated two opponents last fall to win election to a second six-year term in the U.S. Senate. He said he plans to introduce federal legislation this year to convert Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos and White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico into national parks. Such recognition would lead to higher visitation rates and possibly more federal spending on upgrades, Heinrich said. On a state level, Heinrich urged lawmakers to approve legislation to create a state outdoor recreation office, reinstate an expired solar energy tax credit and establish new renewable energy standards before adjournment on March 16. Although we have some of the best renewable resources in the nation, we are behind many other states in terms of clean energy targets and investments, Heinrich said. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who took office at the start of the year, has also called on legislators to pass those initiatives. Meanwhile, Heinrich also voiced support for a plan to take money from the states $17 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund for home visiting and other early childhood programs, a proposal that some moderate Democrats in the Legislature have opposed. On the subject of border security, Heinrich told reporters after his Friday speech to lawmakers that federal dollars should be spent wisely, and not on a border wall proposed by President Donald Trump. Most heroin and fentanyl brought into the United States from Mexico is smuggled through ports of entry, Heinrich said, and additional federal dollars should be targeted at technological upgrades at those facilities. By investing in our ports of entry, we would make the entire border safer, he said. Although Trumps decision to end a partial federal government shutdown was not announced until after Heinrichs speech, the senator released a statement later Friday describing the shutdown as unnecessary and saying affected workers should receive any back pay owed to them as quickly as possible. New Mexicos other U.S. senator, fellow Democrat Tom Udall, previously addressed the Legislature on Tuesday. Solar developers and investors may have to brace for solar panel costs to start rising after a 30-percent plunge last year. The period of ultra-cheap solar panels is over, according to the president of one of Chinas largest solar panel manufacturers. The party is definitely over, Eric Luo, president of Chinas GCL System Integration Technology, told Reuters this week, commenting on the super-cheap solar components on the global market. According to the Chinese manager, solar panel prices have already stabilized and are expected to rise by 10-15 percent within two years. Despite the expected higher costs for solar installations, the global solar industry will continue to add generation capacity this year, and China, the U.S., and India will drive the market, analysts say. It was China that triggered the massive drop in solar panel prices last year. China surprised everyone in June 2018 by announcing that it would not issue approvals for any new solar power installations in 2018 and would also cut subsidies. The major shift in Chinese solar policies led to local manufacturers flooding the global solar panel market, creating a glut and pushing prices down. As a result of this, solar panel prices plunged by 30 percent last year. While this jeopardized smaller Chinese manufacturers, the ultra-cheap solar panels created a windfall for solar developers and investors in solar photovoltaic (PV) installations around the world. The market, however, has started to adapt to these disruptions and prices of China-made solar panels are expected to rebound by 10-15 percent over the next year or two, because the Chinese solar manufacturing market is heading to consolidation as small producers suffered the most from Chinas solar policies, Luo told Reuters. Related: Can Mexico Stop Its Oil Production Decline? The solar market globally is set to gradually adapt in 2019 to the industry disruptions last year, which also included the U.S. slapping tariffs on imports of solar panel products. Together with continued declines in solar and wind costs, 2019 could be a brighter year for the U.S. solar and renewable energy markets, analysts and industry professionals say. 2018 was certainly a difficult year for many solar manufacturers, and for developers in China. However, we estimate that global PV installations increased from 99GW in 2017 to approximately 109GW in 2018, as other countries took advantage of the technologys fiercely improved competitiveness, Jenny Chase, head of solar analysis at BloombergNEF, said last week. BloombergNEF expects global PV installations this year to rise by 17 percent from 2018, with three key markets driving demandChina, the U.S., and India. Those three markets are expected to account for 52 percent of global installations in 2019, Bloomberg NEFs Pietro Radoia said on Friday. In China, despite the restrictions on new-build solar capacity, developers are still busy and planning to build subsidy-free projects, Radoia noted. China also plans to only approve new solar and wind power capacity if it matches the countrys coal benchmark on price. In the U.S., the tariffs on imported solar cells and modules created uncertainty in the market in early 2018, resulting in quarterly additions of utility-scale solar dropping in Q3 2018 below 1 GW for the first time since 2015, according to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). Related: Saudi Arabias Dangerous Geopolitical Game We did, however, see utility PV procurement outpace installations fourfold in Q3, showing that despite the tariffs causing project delays, there is substantial growth ahead for the U.S. utility PV sector, said Colin Smith, Senior Analyst at Wood Mackenzie. In its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) last week, the EIA forecast that the U.S. will add nearly 5 GW of utility-scale solar PV capacity in 2019 and another 6 GW in 2020. In 2019-2020, the EIA also sees almost 9 GW of small-scale solar PV capacity installed, mostly in the residential sector. The share of renewables excluding hydropower of U.S. electricity generation was 10 percent in 2018 and is forecast to rise to 11 percent this year and to 13 percent next year. In the long run, the renewables share, including hydropower, is set to increase from 18 percent in 2018 to 31 percent in 2050, driven largely by growth in wind and solar generation, the EIAs Annual Energy Outlook 2019 with projections through 2050 showed this week. Renewables grow to become a larger share of U.S. electric generation than nuclear and coal in less than a decade, the EIA reckons. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Ralph Izzo is on a mission. The CEO of one of the largest utility companies in the country is an outspoken advocate that now is the time to take decisive action on climate change. We want our customers to use less energy. We want the energy they use to be cleaner, says Izzo who heads PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group). Its about climate change and making sure that our increased dependence upon electricity doesnt create harm for the planet. Thats not the sort of message you usually hear from the utility industry. But ever since 2007 when Izzo became CEO of the New Jersey utility, hes been urging other industry leaders to focus on saving energy, not just selling it. He says if New Jersey could reduce its energy consumption by just 2 percent, it would eliminate tons of carbon emissionsthe equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road. With revenues of more than $9 billion, PSEG is ranked on the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies in America. Under Izzos leadership, the utility has closed its coal-burning plants and has been a leading developer of solar energy and wind power. Izzo is passionate when he talks about the climate change crisis. Id like to see us reduce the number of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere, he says. The science is compelling. Its very clear. Its now decades old. Each week there seems to be another report that confirms that the time to act is now. What is the most important action he would like to see? Put a tax on carbon, Izzo says. And then let the market work. He believes the creative entrepreneurship of America will find innovative solutions to fix the climate change crisis. Watch the video above for more from my interview with Izzo. Colorados wildfires and floods are key components of a new Defense Department report highlighting the impact of climate change on military facilities. While the Trump administration has questioned whether climate change is real, with the president tweeting this month that winter storms debunk the work of a generation of scientists, the Pentagon fears that wildfires, drought and floods could affect military operations. A key example is the fires that started on Fort Carson and spread east into a civilian neighborhood last year. In March 2018 two related wildfires broke out in Colorado during an infantry and helicopter training exercise for an upcoming deployment, the report says. Later determined to be due to live fire training, gusty winds and dry conditions allowed the fire to spread, reaching about 3,300 acres in size, destroying three homes, and causing the evacuation of 250 homes. The report found that Peterson and Schriever Air Force bases and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station are vulnerable to fire because of climate change. The nations underground mountain command post is also vulnerable to floods, the report said. President Donald Trump expressed his doubt about climate change this month as a winter storm lashed the East Coast. Be careful and try staying in your house, Trump wrote on Twitter. Large parts of the country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record-setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldnt be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned global warming right now! But the president is confusing weather with climate, said Andreas Prein, a physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Weather changes quickly, while climate researchers look at trends over decades or centuries, Prein said. Those studies have convinced Prein that its getting hotter quickly. You can see now we have much more frequent warm winters, he said. Those warm winters are shrinking snowpack in the Rockies and leaving the plains with more rain than snow. They also are lengthening the wildfire season, making blazes like the one on Fort Carson far more common. The Pentagon report said all bases in the Pikes Peak region are at risk due to fire. Prein said the climate is also creating more severe rainstorms, causing more flooding in the Rockies. That was on display in 2013, when a storm dropped more than a foot of rain on Cheyenne Mountain in a few hours. The deluge caused a massive mudslide, which closed the primary entrance to the underground complex. The military invested millions in a flood mitigation program for the site, which houses critical military computer systems and is designed to be a bombproof wartime headquarters for the North American Aerospace Defense Command and missile defense troops. The Pentagon said the mountain is still vulnerable to flooding, though. Prein said the heavy rain is tied to climate change because warmer weather allows bigger, wetter clouds to form. For every degree of temperature increase, he said, the capacity of clouds to hold moisture increases by 7 percent. Its a symptom of a changing climate, Prein said. If you look at very heavy rainfall, you see it more frequently, he said. The Pentagons report found that the majority of its 79 most critical bases are at risk in the changing environment. The effects of a changing climate are a national security issue with potential impacts to Department of Defense missions, operational plans, and installations, the report said. Worries about climate changes effects on the military go far beyond local bases. Global strategic concerns from nations losing water supplies to changing rivalries across melting ice have the Pentagon worried. Oversight of the Arctic falls squarely on the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs, which has kept a wary eye on melting polar ice for more than a decade. The command is responsible for keeping watch on air and sea lanes leading to the continent to prevent attack. Retired Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, who led Northern Command from 2007 to 2010, said the problems in the Arctic remain a key concern. A sea lane across the top of North America has opened in a region once locked by ice, Renuart said. As more water is navigable, there is more potential for competition for vital resources fishing, oil and natural gas exploration, and in todays world military intrusion from nations like China and Russia, he said. In recent years, Russia has run massive Arctic exercises to show off its ability to make war in the extreme north. A number of explorations of the new passage by ships from China have been reported, and that nation could benefit greatly from a shorter sea lane to Europe. This has huge implications, Renuart said. The military has pushed for more Coast Guard icebreakers and more ice-capable warships to deal with the new channel and is sending more submarines north. On issues faced by local bases, the military has not sat on its hands. Fort Carson has launched a massive effort of controlled burns this winter to remove dry brush. A similar effort has taken place on Cheyenne Mountain, which also has a new system of channels to redirect water in the worst rainstorms. The Pikes Peak regions bases also have gone green. The regions largest solar power arrays sit on the Air Force Academy and at Fort Carson. Retired Army Col. Bob McLaughlin, who served as Fort Carsons garrison commander from 2009 to 2012, said the work to pursue green power and mitigate fire risks wasnt necessarily focused on climate change. But the Army did want to set an example for the rest of the community on caring for the environment. It was all about being good stewards of the environment and setting the example of what right looks like, he said. Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx The report found that Peterson and Schriever Air Force bases and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station are vulnerable to fire because of climate change. Yogi Bhajan migrated to the West in 1968 from Northern India, teaching yoga and training teachers about the amazing technology of uncut hair and the turban for mastering our energies. Wearing a head covering activates the ajna chakra, known as the third eye. His teachings about the turban provided an understanding of the physical and spiritual benefits while practicing yoga or doing work which required clear thinking, stating it literally keeps your head together. Wrapping the head forms a circuit through both hemispheres of the brain adjusting the neurological system. The turban contains life energy arising in the body when practicing yoga or meditating, giving the wearer a cranial fine tuning. Our skulls, built with 26 interlocking bones, need to be secured and protected. Our hair regulates the flow of solar energy into the body, so when allowing the hair to grow its optimum length, energy goes downward from our crown to bathe our systems and increase our energy levels. Kundalini energy, life force, is activated in the solar plexus, moving upward while solar energy comes downward from the crown, balancing our bodies energies for total equilibrium (3HO website). Gov. Roy Cooper (CJ file photo by Kari Travis) Ken Eudy, policy adviser to Gov. Roy Cooper (image from Eudy's Twitter account) Ken Eudy, Gov. Roy Cooper's policy adviser, was the governor's key negotiator with Duke Energy in developing a $57.8 discretionary Atlantic Coast Pipeline fund Duke and its utility partners would pay to Cooper.Duke Energy also was a client of Capstrat, the marketing, advertising, lobbying and public relations firm Eudy co-founded in 1994. Documents released by Cooper's office show Eudy negotiated directly with Duke's chief lobbyist Kathy Hawkins.Ethics disclosure documents Eudy filed suggest he left Capstrat sometime before January 2017, when he joined the Cooper administration. But an annual report filed in April 2017 with the Secretary of State's office listed Eudy as one of Capstrat's four managers.No one in the governor's office has explained to Carolina Journal if Eudy was working with Capstrat after he started working for the governor. Neither Eudy nor Cooper's Chief of Staff Kristi Jones responded to multiple requests to clear up the issue. CJ also hasn't been able to determine what services Capstrat was providing Duke in 2017.A person who knowingly conceals information or files false information on his Statement of Economic Interest may be charged with a felony or misdemeanor.Any relationship Eudy might have had with either Duke Energy or Capstrat after he joined Cooper's administration should have posed ethical concerns for the governor. Records released by the governor's office in late December show Eudy intervened in negotiations with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over the pipeline. In one instance, he demanded a signed agreement between FERC and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources be revoked temporarily because it was concluded without his final approval.News articles and internet postings indicate Duke Energy has been a Capstrat client since at least 2013. CJ hasn't been able to determine when Eudy severed ties to Capstrat or its successor company Ketchum - a New York-based global public relations firm that bought Capstrat from Eudy in 2013. Eudy stayed on as president of Capstrat until 2015, when he left that role and remained the firm's chairman.Duke Energy spokeswoman Tammie McGee couldn't say if Duke remains a Capstrat or Ketchum client.McGee told CJ.Cooper's office announced the $57.8 million discretionary fund immediately after the state Department of Environmental Quality announced it approved a critical water quality permit for the ACP. Both announcements were made Jan. 26, 2018. The Memorandum of Understanding between the governor's office and the four utilities building the pipeline (including Duke) said the money would be used to mitigate environmental impacts of the pipeline; for economic development projects in the affected counties; and for renewable energy projects in the affected counties.CJ was the first news organization to note the unusual arrangement. It was created outside normal legislative budgeting functions. Several legislators said Cooper violated the separation-of-powers doctrine in the state constitution, which says all state spending must be authorized by the General Assembly. (See CJ's series on the ACP at this link .)In February, the legislature voted to redirect the ACP discretionary fund to the school systems in the eight counties crossed by the pipeline. To date, the state has received no money.In December, a legislative committee hired a team of former federal agents to investigate the permit process and the creation of the $57.8 million discretionary fund.High-level state employees, including employees of the governor's office, must file Statements of Economic Interest with the State Ethics Commission. (In December 2016, the General Assembly passed a law combining the Ethics Commission with the State Board of Elections, but after a successful legal challenge by the governor, the General Assembly passed a law in December returning those functions to separate boards effective Feb. 1.)Eudy had a lengthy career in journalism and politics before joining Cooper's administration. After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill in 1975 with a degree in journalism, Eudy worked as a TV reporter and then for The Charlotte Observer as a political reporter. From 1987-89 he served as executive director of the N.C. Democratic Party. In 1994 he co-founded Capstrat. News articles state his clients included Duke Energy, Blue Cross, Lenovo, Quintiles, and UNC Health Care.Eudy's 2017 SEI is dated Jan. 15, 2017. One section requires the individual filing to report sources of income more than $5,000 during the previous year. In that section, Eudy listed only his Capstrat salary. Another section requires a list of financial interests valued at $10,000 or more in publicly or non-publicly owned companies at the end of the previous year. As of Dec. 31, 2016, Eudy listed one company - Waste Zero.On April 12, 2017, Capstrat LLC filed a required annual report with the N.C. Secretary of State. In the section labeled "Company Officials," the report listed Dale A. Adams, Kenneth L. Eudy, Jr. and Craig Gangi as managers, and Deborah V. Reed as chief financial officer. Reed also certified and signed the report.CJ wasn't able to discuss the annual report with Reed. She recently retired from Capstrat and Ketchum. Reed left a voice message with a CJ reporter saying the report was filed by Debbie Brannan of Ketchum's holding company, DAS Global. Brannan hasn't responded to a request to discuss Eudy's tenure at Ketchum.Along with negotiating the MOU for the $57.8 million pipeline fund, Eudy was involved in other ACP issues. Some of these activities came to light in late December, when Cooper's office - responding to records requests from a number of media organizations - released 19,000 pages of documents related to the ACP. WRAL News put the documents into a searchable database.Before FERC would approve the ACP, the state of North Carolina had to devise aThe task wound up with the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which prepared a plan and transmitted a copy to FERC Jan. 12, 2018.Eudy - from the transcript of a February 2018 interview he gave to WRAL - tried to get back the signature page of the plan when he learned Natural and Cultural Resources had submitted the plan to FERC without his knowledge or consent.At 10:38 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, two days after the plan was sent to FERC, Cultural Resources Deputy Secretary Kevin Cherry emailed FERC's Kevin Bowman and David Swearingen:At 10:59, Bowman responded:At 10:59, Cherry wrote to Eudy:At 11:05, Cherry wrote to FERC's Bowman:At 1:35 p.m. Eudy emailed Cooper policy director Jenni Owens:Eudy then appeared to scold DEQ Secretary Michael Regan about another issue. At 1:37 p.m. Eudy to Regan:At 1:42, Eudy wrote Cooper legal counsel William McKinney:Twelve minutes later, Eudy wrote McKinney:Within days, records suggest a change of heart, as Eudy and others decided the agreement with FERC needed to go through.At 12:18 p.m. Jan. 18, Eudy emailed McKinney:Phil is Phillip Feagan, general counsel for DNCR.At 3:10 p.m., Cherry emailed FERC the signature page, consummating the programmatic agreement for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Project.On Jan. 13, Charlotte's WBTV released investigative reports showing Eudy, legal counsel McKinney, and Cooper discussed withholding approval of the MOU until Duke Energy reached an agreement with solar company executives on an interpretation of House Bill 589 - Competitive Energy Solutions for North Carolina. Renewable energy student lands first industry job while still at university This article is old - Published: Saturday, Jan 26th, 2019 A renewable energy student is celebrating after landing her first job in the industry before even finishing her course. Loide Silva, from Portugal, is currently in her final year at Wrexham Glyndwr University, where she is studying a B Eng in Renewable and Sustainable Engineering. She is now combining her studies with two days a week at Chester-based Horan Power Engineering after impressing the company with her experience. It all started when Andrew, one of our lecturers, sent on an email from Horan Engineering they were looking for students and graduates, she said. I went to careers and checked my CV with them, then sent it off and was asked to come in for an interview. At the interview, Horan asked me about the kind of experiences I have had as a student, so I explained some of the things we have been doing on the course here at Glyndwr. They must have been interested, as the offered me a job as I am a student, its currently for two days a week while I study. The plan is that when I graduate this summer -if I am happy with the role and if they are happy with the work I am doing, then they could look to make my role permanent. The work is very varied at the moment, we are looking at solar farms. I am absolutely loving my new role. Loide believes that the experience that she and other students gain during the Renewable and Sustainable Engineering course helps to stand them in good stead when looking for careers in the industry. She added: The course has been really helpful for example, with the work we are doing at the moment at Horan, you have to send people out to some of the companys sites. In my first year at Glyndwr, we were shown how to carry out risk assessments and that is very useful knowledge to draw on on-site. Other things Ive learnt have been really useful too for instance, a lot of sites for solar farms are in quite remote areas where a postcode alone wont help you find them on a sat nav. Thanks my course, when we get out there, I know how to use precision mapping tools online to make sure we are going to the right place. Because we have used so much relevant software already at university, it is familiar as you encounter it in work. Securing this role has shown me the value of what I have been learning at Glyndwr I am really grateful to everybody, from the careers team to my course tutors. Andrew Sharp, Programme Leader B Eng Electrical and Electronic Engineering and EU Engineering Programme Co-ordinator at Glyndwr, said: I am delighted that Loide is starting to build her career and that shes already finding the value of applying her studies at Glyndwr. Programmes like our B Eng in Renewable and Sustainable Engineering are designed to equip students with the practical knowledge they need to succeed skills that, as Loide is finding, they can draw on in the field in their chosen career. We always try to help guide students towards industry leaders in their field, and I am so pleased that Loide was able to take my initial email and develop it into the first step into her chosen career. Find out more about Glyndwrs B Eng (Hons) Renewable and Sustainable Engineering here. LAUGFS Gas initiating big plans for this year By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s): LAUGFS Gas PLC is looking forward to operating its spanking new Hambantota Terminal while gearing to go public with three of its companies, and commissioning a hydro and two solar plants this year. The company has established a LPG storage complex with a capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes in Hambantota Port at a cost of US$80 million and was expecting the first consignment of gas last December. The company is moving towards building an integrated regional LPG Terminal for LPG importing, re-exporting and supply to retailers in the Indian Ocean Rim. We have just commissioned Hambantota Terminal (a little later than was expected) and the revenue it will generate will have a significant impact on the expected export target in this country, W.H.K. Wegapitiya, Chairman, LAUGFS Gas PLC told the Business Times in an interview. Mr. Wegapitiya anticipates that Hambantota Terminal will generate $1 billion and it will be a new export sector. LAUGFS Gas (Bangladesh) Ltd having entered Bangladesh in 2001 is a major LPG distributor in Bangladesh, importing and distributing over 50,000 metric tonnes (MT) of LPG every year. Already with LPG down-streaming in Bangladesh, LAUGFS Gas will be using Hambantota to become the preferred supplier of LPG to that country, Mr. Wegapitiya noted. When LAUGFS Gas started it had 26 per cent market share in Bangladesh. Mr. Wegapitiya said noting that while it changes every day, now it must be below 50 per cent. Spreading wings The company also plans to venture to Myanmar and Kenya in East Africa to supply LPG. We will be supplying to Myanmar within the next two months. Mombasa in Kenya is a gateway to other landlocked East African countries. We are exploring venturing to Mombasa as well. Initially we want to supply in bulk, Mr. Wegapitiya noted adding that it will happen after the call for commercial operations of the Hambantota Terminal. Hambantota port has dedicated two jetties for oil, gas and petroleum business. LAUGFS storage facility is located 3 km from the jetty connected by a pipeline. LAUGFS Hambantota facility can receive and store refrigerated propane and butane separately or in mixed form, via very large gas carriers and pressurised vessels. The company expects to extend the capacity to 45,000 MT. The company currently operates three LNG carrying ships and expects to increase the numbers to 10 in the short-term both owned and chartered. LAUGFS Gas will be setting up a 2 megawatt (MW) Hydro power plant at Ginigathhena this year. They already have a 3MW Hydro plant. Mr. Wegapitiya said that this year a 2 MW solar power plant at Ambilipitiya and a 10 MW plant at Hambantota will be commissioned In addition to the 20 MW solar plant they have. This year three LAUGFS companies will go public. Mr. Wegapitiya said that LAUGFS Leisure, LAUGFS Power and LAUGFS Eco Sri will be listing on the Colombo Stock Exchange this year.We are now in the process of listing all three companies and awaiting regulatory approval. This will be happening soon, Mr. Wegapitiya added. He noted that going public stemmed from the structural change they did last year aiming at a long-term strategy. We realised that attracting investments to the company was difficult with unrelated businesses under the same fold. So we separated leisure, power and eco by giving equal or mirrored shares to the shareholders. Mr. Wegapitiya explained that last the company made heavy investments in shipping which entailed buying ships in Bangladesh. We will enjoy the real benefits of all this in the coming years. Meanwhile the appreciation of the US dollar, increase of LPG prices in the world market and the inability to gain the desired price revisions has dented their bottom line. The company is badly affected by the currency depreciation that started last year. We are a totally import dependent industry. We usually get 30 days credit. So with the currency depreciation when we bought it was one price and when we paid in 30 days it was a completely different price. There was a major currency loss that we suffered, Mr. Wegapitiya explained. LAUGFS Gas will be discussing with the Consumer Affairs Authority and the other authorities to implement a formula for gas similar to the petroleum formula. There was a formula but it was not implemented. We are requesting to reactivate this formula. Hopefully it will happen after the discussions, Mr. Wegapitiya said.